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Well. Since I fed on him the night I came back from the dead, and my husband mind-raped him. Oh, and since he forced Jessica to choose between him and me. If we're, you know, going to get down to specifics.

"Nicholas J. Berry!" Jessica gasped. "What is the matter with you?"Advertisement

"With me? You should have seen this psycho bitch in action."

"That is enough," she snarled, hands on scrawny hips. "When are you going to get it through your head that Betsy isn't the cause of all your problems?"

I was frantically trying to signal to Jessica, making a slashing motion across my throat, the universal gesture for shush! Although it made me sad, I felt Nick's rage was a perfectly appropriate reaction to the evening's festivities. I appreciated Jessica sticking up for me-she always stuck up for me-but she didn't have all the facts.

He had been attacked. Again. Violated by vampires . . . again. I was amazed he hadn't gone fetal in the hedges.

"How many times do I have to say it," Jessica was saying. "How many times do you have to see it? She's a good guy!"

"No, Jess, it's okay, he-"

"She drinks blood, because she's dead," he said, spitting on the floor-spitting blood, I might add, and I was ashamed, because my fangs were out again. I didn't dare speak anymore; I didn't want him to know I wanted to drink and drink and drink. "She's a killer, and you know it."

"I love her, she's the sister I never got, and you know that."

"Ah, perhaps we could, ah, step into another room and discuss, ah, the new terms for surrender," Tina said, because even the Fiends looked uncomfortable to be witnessing the lovers' quarrel.

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"Or maybe you could talk about this later, when everybody's calmed down," I tried.

"Don't make me choose," Jessica warned, ignoring us. For her, the only person in the room was Nick.

"I'm not making you choose. I'm choosing. We're done." He wiped his face again, and we all pretended not to notice how his hand shook and how he couldn't look at her.

"That's right," Jessica replied coolly. "We are."

And just like that-it was over. They were over. We could all practically hear the snap. pqdm.com