FIFTY-ONE

The Love of a Lifetime

Without even realizing it, the small hotel room in Cairo had become a home, a haven for her and Jack, Schuyler thought. She made coffee for them every morning with the little machine, and they shared breakfast together on the small desk. She would miss this place; just another thing that she would keep in that memory file of her life with Jack.

Their last night together they had loved each other wordlessly, letting their bodies say what they could not bear to speak out loud; and even then she had tried to pretend that it was not the last time. That it was another ordinary night, just one of many to live for. But as they fell asleep in each other’s arms, neither moved away for a moment, as if they were each trying to memorize every curve and surface of the other.

The next morning there was no putting it off any longer.

Jack was determined and would not be swayed. Something had changed in him since they’d met Catherine. There was a new resolve in him, and she did not want to add to his burden.

She had been wrong about her illness, she realized now. She’d led herself to believe it was something wonderful and hopeful, because she did not want to think of what it meant otherwise.

That she was dying. It had all been doomed from the beginning, just as Lawrence had warned her. There was never a happily ever after for them, that was all too clear.

She helped him into his jacket and buttoned the top button. Her fingers were shaking.

Jack clasped her hands in his and held them to his lips to kiss her fingers. “Trust me to return to you,” he said.

“I will wait forever,” she promised. “However long it takes.” But Schuyler knew that whatever the outcome of the day, even if Mimi was destroyed and Jack lived, there would be no victory. Jack would never be the same after killing his twin. Mimi was a part of Jack, and killing her would kill a part of him as well. “Catherine could not help us?” She had placed so much hope that the gatekeeper would know how to free them from their bond.

Jack shook his head. “Whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, know that there is a reason for it.”

“What are you going to do?” Schuyler asked, feeling a different kind of fear. Jack had never spoken like this before.

“I cannot say without putting you in even more danger,”

he said, and his face was so heartbreakingly sad that Schuyler threw herself upon him to embrace him even more tightly.

“You are so important in this war,” he told her. “You must survive to lead us. With the gates failing, there is no darker time in our history. But you are Gabrielle’s daughter, and I believe that you will bring the vampires to redemption. my life is immaterial.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for loving you, I’m so sorry,”

she said, and the tears began to flow freely, soaking his jacket.

“But it was such a wonderful dream, my love,” she whispered.

“Such a wonderful dream.”

“I am not sorry for a moment,” Jack said fiercely. “It was worth every moment, every second that we were together. I would not change it for an immortal lifetime.”

They kissed one last time.

Then Jack Force left for the Sahara to meet his fate.