August 18, 1896

She was suffocating.  Rochelle’s hand went to her throat then fluttered weakly to her side.  Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t even produce enough saliva to ease the burning thirst, and she would have wept if there had been an ounce of moisture left in her body.  Was it night or day?  She couldn’t tell, not when they’d so carefully applied a thick layer of mortar before fitting each brick snuggly into place.  There hadn’t been so much as a pin sized hole for light to seep through.

Even knowing no sound could possibly be heard beyond the airtight room they’d entombed her in, Rochelle had screamed until her voice was so hoarse and raw it had come out as nothing more than a rasping whisper by the time she’d given up.  They’d finally broken her, but what did it matter?  He wasn’t coming.  She knew that now, just as she knew her last breath was only moments away. 

Rochelle’s heart ached, but not for herself.  It ached for the man who would be utterly crushed when he was told she’d deserted him.  He wouldn’t believe their lies at first of course, he was much too certain of her love for that.  But as time passed and she didn’t return to his waiting arms, would he give credence to their false accusations?  She prayed he wouldn’t, prayed that he would be as strong in his belief of her devotion to him as she was to his.

Her eyelids closed as her labored breath came less frequently and the weariness of fighting for air took its toll.  Rochelle allowed herself to slip sideways along the rough wall until she lay with her cheek pressed against floor, the stone slab only slightly colder than her own body temperature.  The only warmth she felt at all was in her shoulder where the bullet had lodged but even that was beginning to fade.

She would sleep now, Rochelle decided.  She would sleep and she would dream of a time when nothing else mattered but the love that shone from his eyes for her, only her.  In his arms she’d been safe from the world, secure in the knowledge they were destined to be together forever.  Even as death slipped its icy fingers around her throat and began to squeeze, she wasn’t afraid.  Because her love knew no bounds, and because she could already see Nicolo’s handsome face and the wicked grin he always wore just before he seduced her back into his bed. 

One brief kiss from his sensuous lips was all it had ever taken to ignite a fire in her soul.  And his hands…so strong and yet so incredibly gentle as they stroked her intimately, the warmth of them searing her skin and giving rise to an inner heat that was as volatile as a live volcano.  It was always so good with Nicolo, so good. 

Rochelle smiled, breeching the gap between life and death as she slipped into his dreams and gave herself to him one last time.