No, he wasn't going to let her endanger herself again. He just wasn't. Ultimately, he didn't care what the cost would be.

Adam unlocked his jaw long enough to speak. "Can you both leave now?"

"Sure," answered Thomas. "Doc Oliver says she should be waking up soon. She'll probably want to see you first anyway."

Adam followed the two men out and closed the door behind them. He still felt raw, hostile, from watching Claire undergo the spell. And the stupid thing had failed! The elium still dwelt within her.

The room was much like any other guest room at the Coven. The first room was a small living room, complete with an entertainment center and a hotel-sized refrigerator. Off that room a short hallway led to a bathroom and one or more bedrooms. Some people, like himself, lived at the Coven full-time. They had full apartments, complete with kitchens. Claire's guest room wasn't far from his place.

He slipped back down the semidarkened hallway, shedding clothes as he went. Once in her room, he slid into bed bedside her and pulled her close, inhaling that odd foreign flower scent her hair always held. No amount of shampooing seemed to make it fade. He suspected it was something found on Eudae, yet it seemed like a natural part of her.

Her body was warm and soft, her breathing deep. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend she wasn't unconscious from a backfired spell, but that she merely slept. If he concentrated just a bit harder, he could imagine away the demons, the elium… Rue. He could forget about all the things that lay between them, all the things that separated them.

But he couldn't forget about Eliza.

Adam's eyes snapped open as her face flashed on the back of his lids. On the night Eliza had been killed, he'd felt a bit like he did now—raw, frayed emotion leaving a bitter taste on the back of his tongue, anger at himself over his inability to keep her safe. Grief.

If he parsed out all the threads of feeling forming the tight ball in the center of his stomach, he was sure he'd find love tangled up in there—unwanted, unwelcome, uncontrollable—love for Claire.

He couldn't be sure when the first stirrings of it had begun to affect him. It had been like sickness. He'd been exposed to the germ of it unknowingly and days later the fever of it had hit him.

Even though he knew it was irrational, it still felt like the worst kind of cheating. Admitting he had these emotions for Claire meant he was betraying the seven-year-long vigil he'd been keeping for Eliza.

Gods help him, there was nothing he could do about it. He was being swept away in the currents, too tired to fight any longer.