Then Redgrave said, “I made you choose which one to turn into a vampire. I never said what would happen to the other one.” He grabbed Jane by the neck and twisted it the way someone would wring a chicken. Bones snapped. The light in her eyes went out. Constantia stepped back as Jane fell to the floor, dead.

Balthazar stared at her. He should have been outraged or nauseated, or at least overcome with grief, but it was as if he could feel nothing else—like any capacity for normal emotion had finally been drained from him. For the last time, he gazed at the girl he had loved. Jane’s hair was dark against the hay.

“Waste of a good meal, if you ask me,” Constantia said.

“Go ahead,” Redgrave replied. “It’s still fresh.”

Balthazar came to with a start. More shocking than finding himself back in the here and now was the realization that he lay in Skye’s bed—with her in his arms.

She still dozed, and unlike him she was fully clothed—thank God he hadn’t totally lost control—but he could make out the small puncture wounds on her throat. The marks were healing fast, the way vampire bites always did, but the mere sight sickened him.

Then he heard a woman’s voice in the hallway: “Skye, honey, are you awake?”

Skye stirred, smiled drowsily at him, and called back, “Sort of. What’s up, Mom?”

Balthazar started to scuttle from the bed, but Skye kept him in place.

She whispered, “She only talks through the door. If she hears somebody in here, though—all bets are off.”

The better part of valor was obviously staying in bed with Skye. Though in every other way it felt dangerously unwise.

“Can you order in some groceries for us, be around for the delivery tomorrow? We’re running out of oatmeal again. You know what to get.”

“Sure thing,” Skye replied. Apparently this was the only sort of conversation daughter and parents ever had anymore. Her pale blue eyes looked up at Balthazar with nothing but trust, and for a moment—lying na**d next to her, feeling her warmth, seeing the dark fall of her hair against the pillow—he saw everything he could have with her. Everything he wanted.

But the bite on her neck, and the memories he’d just relived, made it clear that none of it could ever be.

“We brought back some of that fudge you like,” Mrs. Tierney called from the hallway, over the hiss of a hairspray can. “You’ll find it on the kitchen counter.”

“Thank you!” Skye sighed, then whispered, “Sometimes there are presents. It makes them feel better about not being here.”

Balthazar couldn’t reply. He remained far too aware of—many things he didn’t need to be aware of at all at this moment. Like how long it had been since he’d been in bed with a girl.

“Have a good day, honey!” called a man, who must have been Mr. Tierney.

“You too!” Skye said. As footsteps pounded down the stairs, she rolled to face Balthazar, so that they were only a few inches apart. Just after the front door slammed, she murmured, “Feeling better?”

“Yes.” He started to throw off the covers, remembered again that he was nude, and looked around the room. “Ah, you should probably bring me my clothes.”

Skye shrugged. The smile playing on her lips was exactly the kind that could drive him wild if he let it, which he wouldn’t. “I’ve already seen everything. So don’t be bashful on my account.”

Fine. Balthazar got out of bed, grabbed his pants, and started getting dressed. He could see that Skye looked hurt—she’d been happy only moments before, and Balthazar knew he was being unforgivably cold to someone who had just saved him. “Thanks for yesterday,” he said, hating the clipped, tight words. “We have to get to school.”

“I know, but—Balthazar—I thought we—”

“Let’s get one thing clear. Nothing happened between us last night, and nothing’s going to happen.” Balthazar found his shirt hanging on a doorknob; the fabric was still damp. “I know I’ve let things get—confused, between us, but that’s my mistake.”

Skye sat upright, bracing her hands behind her. “Excuse me? Confused?”

He had to be even more brutal. He had to do more than slam the door; he had to nail it shut. “I don’t love you. You should be glad I don’t. The only woman I ever truly loved died because of it.”

That made her go pale, but she didn’t drop it. “When you drank this time—what did you see? What’s done this to you?”

“I remembered the last moments of my life, and the first hour of being a vampire.” Balthazar’s damp coat felt like ice, but he shrugged it on anyway. “I remembered murdering my little sister. I killed her myself. Drank her dry.” There. Now Skye would know what a monster he really was.

Skye’s jaw dropped, but after a moment, she said, “So, you hate yourself so much that you’re punishing me for it.”

“Don’t pretend like you understand me.”

“I understand enough.” She rose from the bed, then winced—the onslaught of heightened senses that followed a vampire bite were no doubt hitting her now. “You used to be a vampire like Redgrave and the others. You did some terrible things. Then you started leading a good life but still treated yourself like a bad person.”

“When you’re dead, you don’t get to leave your past behind.”

“Guess what? Nobody does!”