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Leadem, Christopher

"The Mantooth"

Her scheme, if such a
name can be given to walking wide-eyed into a trap, was to sleep with
him at a time and place where Kalus would either witness it directly, or
hear of it straight away. She meant only to raise the horrible specter
of betrayal before him, to hurt him as he had done to her. Beyond that
she saw nothing, knew nothing, though some half thought out rationale
told her than then, perhaps, she could forgive him.
She wanted, in short, to summon the demon of Vengeance---to do her
bidding, then be gone. But Hell, if it has a master, is no woman's
slave, and once raised, follows its own path of wanton destruction. And
it found in William a willing conspirator, and favorite target of
seduction: a man who no longer cared.
Kalus had spoken of a benevolent current to which, along with his own
free will, he would entrust his life. But there is also a malevolent,
just as real, and Sylviana was being carried along by it without
resistance, and without awareness.
As William plotted, and Kalus burned.






Chapter 46

But life, and the myriad realities around them, did not cease because
two lovers had been driven apart, or because another lived in the
darkened world of near death. And their interaction, however tragic and
to whatever end, was hardly its only concern.


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