"We've had a thousand years." Wasn't that what she'd said--they'd already lived too long? That she wants them, truly wants them, to live longer, at the expense of her own life, registers somewhere, somehow in his brain.

"Please..." It's not a word he uses often, and the tears in his eyes aren't ones he ever lets be seen. "We can all leave together..."

He can force her, he knows, make her have to swallow his blood, but he can't do that--there's too much memory of betrayal in the gesture. Still, he cradles her close and offers it again, something desperate in his gaze. "Mother..."