“Oatmeal,” I grunted around the twisting in my guts. “It’s faster to get into me.”

Grégoire made a small motion to someone out of sight and Bruiser slid his arm around me, supporting me—okay, half carrying me—out of the gym and to the hallway. Grégoire fell in beside me and his scent wrapped around me, a near synesthesia I sometimes found when Beast was very close to the front of me—a pale green, the honey gold of spring flowers, a scent I’d always thought was luscious. The vamp smiled, not that slow smile they do when they’re trying to charm, the one that transforms their faces into angelic beauty, but an uncertain one, which made him seem almost human. He took my arm, above the elbow, as if I was about to fall. And with the floor moving up and down like waves, and around like the water in a toilet bowl, maybe I was.

The four of us made it into the elevator before I threw up, all over the elevator floor, at least ninety percent of the water I’d guzzled. Grégoire stepped back quickly to protect his shoes, which were a wine-colored patent leather. If I hadn’t been tossing my cookies, I’d have giggled. Eli was still in the hallway, out of the line of fire. Bruiser didn’t react at all except to give me a clean hanky to wipe my mouth. “Sorry about your shoes,” I croaked.

“They’re just shoes, Jane,” Bruiser replied. And the spare phrase made something turn over inside me. Just shoes. Not important. As if I was more important than the shoes.

The others stepped inside, onto a clean patch of floor, and the doors closed, leaving me in a tiny little cage that reeked of vamp scent, human scent, the heated warmth of Bruiser’s sweat, which was no longer human but wasn’t vamp either, and my own stink, both on my clothes and on the floor. Grégoire, holding something lacy to his nose, palmed the display with his other hand and activated the button panel on the elevator. It lurched gently into motion as Eli offered me another bottle of water. “Try it slow this time.”

“Hindsight,” I said, sounding more human. I sipped the water and looked up at the lights on the display. And I dropped the water, jerking my weapons out of Eli’s arms. Once again he didn’t question, just followed my lead.

“Jane?” Bruiser asked, warning in his voice. Beside him Grégoire vamped out at the sight of the guns and blades.

“We’re going down. Way down,” I said. I’d been so sick I hadn’t noticed.

Grégoire hissed. Placed his hand over the biometric handprint reader and pressed a button. The elevator came to an abrupt stop, so fast I lost my precarious balance—still not back to normal. But Bruiser’s arm tightened around me, and I let myself lean against him. Just a little. And then the lights in the elevator flickered, browned down to a dull glow, and went out, leaving us in the darkness. I think I growled, just enough of Beast left in me to manage that with a human throat.

The lightless interval didn’t last long. Maybe five seconds. But it was enough time to make me see monsters in the dark. Which made me titter with a laugh because I was a monster. And I was in an elevator, stuck between floors, with another monster, one all vamped out and smelling of something sweet and flowery. And watery vomit. My life was so weird.

The lights came back on. Grégoire stood with his back to a corner, pupils black in bloody orbs, fangs snapped down, holding blades in both hands, talons extended. A monster. He hissed, his eyes on me. It was as if Grégoire had never been human.

“Grégoire. My friend,” Bruiser added softly. “We are well. There is no need of battle. Jane, Eli, please put away the weapons.”

“There’s—” A dark room with something in it. A monster. Another monster. Right. Not saying that. I thumbed the safety back on and gave the gun to Eli. “There’s one in the chamber.” I remembered chambering a round when I grabbed the gun, but I wasn’t sure how because I’d still held the open bottle of water. The elevator quivered, dropped an inch, and then started up again. Grégoire’s eyes bled back to human so fast I would have missed it if I’d blinked.

No one spoke until the doors opened on the main floor, at which point I pushed away from Bruiser, standing on my own two feet in my own vomit. Ick. But I needed to clear something up. To Grégoire, I asked, “You know about the dark room at the bottom of the elevator shaft?”

“There is no such room,” Grégoire said stiffly. He sheathed his blades, yanked on the lace cuffs sticking out of the sleeves of his velvet coat—wine colored to match his shoes—and stalked off the elevator. Liar, liar, pants on fire, I thought. His liar pants were velvet too, which made me smile, though from the expression on Eli’s face, it was more a grimace. And I had to wonder when Grégoire had found time to change out of his fighting leathers.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “right.” I stood as straight as I could with the clamped fist in my gut and thought over the last few minutes. To Eli I said, “I want every camera angle from the workout room downloaded, all the footage from the doorway where that dragon thing came into the room and back up to any surface opening or any subbasement opening. I want to know how it got in. Get Alex on it, and secure the footage. I don’t want it appearing on YouTube.” I meant footage of me changing but he seemed to know that too. He was Mr. Mind Reader tonight.

Eli nodded and pulled his cell to call Alex. To Bruiser, I said, “Food? And someone to clean the elevator?” My gut clenched again and I doubled over.

“I’ll send housecleaning,” Bruiser said, scooping me up in his arms like some oversized fairy-tale princess. He carried me to the green room just off the foyer, and dropped me on the couch, the door still open behind us for the guest cart I could hear squeaking down the hallway. The cart was stocked with guest goody bags for just such occasions—though usually for a vamp in need of a good sunscreen or a casket to sleep in. Not that I’d ever insult a sane vamp by suggesting aloud that he might really sleep in one. That was an old wives’ tale and a terrible offense to suggest.

In short order I had brushed my teeth in the tiny unisex restroom and was drinking milk and eating oatmeal, or what passed for oatmeal in vamp central. It was instant, not stone ground, and had been cooked in such a way that the starch was activated. The oats had turned into a mushy gruel. It was topped with cinnamon and butter and brown sugar. Gag. Not the way I cooked oatmeal. I’d have to have a word with the cook, a thought that made me laugh like a madwoman deep inside, but not close to the surface where anyone could see or hear. I ate the vile stuff anyway, for the calories I’d used half shifting and fighting and then half shifting again. And I drank the milk, which was full fat and ice-cold and delicious.