The moment Alec's orgasm claimed him was the moment the truly reprehensible part of my mind pointed out two things that it felt were important - the first was that I had just had mind-blowingly fabulous sex with a murderous vampire, and the second was that I'd just had mind-blowingly fabulous sex with a murderous vampire . . . right out in the middle of the Akasha. That last point was driven home when in the distance I heard a scream of anger.

Alec pulled back, his breath as rough as mine, the sense of shared fulfillment fading as we stared at each other.

"Good lord. I had sex with you. Right here. Where anyone could have seen us." The taste of him lingered in my mouth, a sweet taste, one I doubted I'd ever get enough of.

Stop it! I yelled at my little devil. Stop pointing things out like that! For god's sake, look what you made me do - I had sex with a vampire!

"You don't have to say the word "vampire" like it's revolting. We prefer 'Dark One,' anyway," he said, withdrawing from me with an audibly wet noise that had me wincing in embarrassment.

"Sorry," I murmured. "I was a little bit . . . enthusiastic."

To my utter surprise - and inner delight - he grinned as he tucked himself away. "You weren't the only one who was enthusiastic, querida."

I bent to retrieve my underwear and jeans, not able to look him in the eye after my wholly irresponsible and completely uncharacteristic behavior, still a little weirded out by his choosing querida as a term of endearment.

It was clear he didn't understand that I was the woman who had been killed, hadn't put together the pieces of the puzzle I'd so disjointedly spilled. And although god knew I was physically attracted to him, the last thing I wanted was to be in Jacintha's position - bound to him forever.

Why not? the devil inside me asked before I hushed it up, worried Alec might overhear it. You're here. You're lonely. He's in pain. You could comfort him. He'd be grateful for that. He might even come to love you.

I closed my eyes against the pain that thought brought with it. I didn't want to be merely a convenience - I wanted a man who would choose me because of who I was, not because of some connection that was lost several hundred years before, and certainly not because of one random act of sex.

Oh, dear god, that was the single most erotic, most fulfilling experience of my life. But as the endorphins faded, the thought returned to me that I had had sex with a vampire. Jas would never let me live that down if she ever heard of it.

"Who is Jas?"

"Jacintha. My sister. And stop reading my mind."

"Stop projecting into my mind if you don't want me to read your thoughts. Jacintha, eh? The one who is a . . ." I felt the brush of his mind against mine for a moment. "A Beloved? Interesting. I do not know this Avery Scott, but I do not get to Britain much."

"I object to you just marching into my head whenever you like," I told him, my hands on my hips now that I was decent again. "I don't think it's polite at all."

"That fact that I've marked you isn't right, either, but that doesn't seem to concern you." He frowned at me. "Just who are you?"

"I've told you three times now!"

"Yes, I know your name, and I know that you're mortal, and that you hum when you orgasm, but who are you? Why are you here, and why did you revive me?"

"I felt sorry for you, more fool me," I said, pushing past him to glare at the gently rolling landscape of rocks, dirt, and more rocks. "I hum? Really?"

"Yes."

"How mortifying." It was, too. I had no idea I was a hummer.

He shrugged. "I don't see why you'd feel that way. I think it's charming."

I stared over my shoulder at him. "You're . . . you're a strange man."

"That's been said before. Is that why you came on to me, because you felt sorry for me?"

"I did not come on to you! You were the one thinking all sorts of smutty thoughts about me!"

"You thought them about me, too."

"Only because you put them in my mind! Besides, you manhandled me!"

He raised one glossy black eyebrow, looking me over from crown to toes. "If I had manhandled you, love, you wouldn't be standing right now. I will admit to responsibility for a certain amount of what just happened, but I don't make a habit of engaging in sexual acts with women I've just met."

There was an odd sort of mental twitch, as if his words weren't quite the truth. I tried to peer into his mind to see just what it was he was shielding from me, but I lacked the ability to just go marching into his head as he did mine.

"Well, thank you so much for making me sound like a great big ho!" I slapped his arm. "For your information, I have never, ever had sex with a man who I knew less than six weeks. Minimum! So you can just stuff that in your 'I'm so incredibly sexy, women can't keep their paws off me' pipe and smoke it!"

He tipped his head to the side, a lock of his hair swinging over his brow. "Can you keep your hands off me?"

"Of course I can!" I pushed the lock of his hair back, my fingers trailing down his jaw. Just the touch of his stubble on my fingers restarted fires deep within me. "Look, we had sex, OK? It's no big deal. I admit that it's totally against my character to do that, and that I can't wholly blame you for what happened, but the bottom line is that it's never going to happen again. I don't like you. I don't like men who are prettier than me. And I especially don't like bloodsuckers!"

Is that so? His mind was filled with arrogance as he pulled me up against him, his mouth like fire on mine.

I put both hands on his chest and shoved him back, slapping him before I realized what I'd done.

"Oh!" I stared at him in horror, one hand over my mouth, the other reaching out to touch his cheek. "I'm so sorry! I've never hit anyone before. Did I hurt you?"

Ire flashed in his gorgeous eyes for a few seconds before it faded to amusement. "Unfortunately, I have been struck many times. No, you didn't hurt me, although I do not like to be slapped. Please refrain from doing so again."

"I'm sorry," I repeated, appalled at my behavior. "Really, I seem to be all discombobulated today. I think it's because of this whole weirdness of being in the Akasha."

"What did you do to end up here?" he asked, frowning again.

Even frowning, he was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen.

He smiled.

"Stop that!"

"You're projecting."

"I am not! I never project! And what did you mean, you marked me?"

He sighed. "Why won't you ever answer a question I ask?"

"Probably because I don't want to. Did you leave some sort of Dracula mark on my neck? I don't remember Avery doing that, although he sure gave Jas a whole lot of hickeys that she just thought were funny." I tried to look at my own neck, failing as I knew I would. "What sort of mark is it? Am I going to have to wear a scarf forever to keep the Van Helsings of the world from staking me so I won't become a female vamp?"

He rolled his eyes, and just walked away.

I stared after him for a minute, not believing what I was seeing.

"Where are you going?" I finally called once I realized he was really leaving.

Away.

"Away where?"

Does it matter?

"Yes, it matters! You can't just walk away! I gave you blood!"

Thank you for the blood. Good-bye.

I stared at his receding figure, stunned. He was going to leave me? Just leave me? After I'd given him blood and had the most erotic experience of my life, he was just going to leave?

"Hey!" I bellowed. "Alec? You're leaving me?"

He stopped, and I knew, just knew, he was sighing.

I apologized for taking more blood than I should. I didn't berate you for reviving me. I made you hum. What more do you want from me?

I bit back my pride and ran after him, trying to follow the same path he took around the rocks. "Well . . . geez, I don't know. I just think that you kind of owe me, you know?"

He turned, his expression dark with anger. "For bringing me back to awareness that I am doubly damned? " He made a low, sweeping bow, his mind filled with bitterness. "Thank you for tormenting me as no one else has done."

"I didn't mean to . . . you didn't want to be woken up?"

"No."

"Why not?"

He gestured around us. "If you had the opportunity of slipping into unawareness of this torment, would you not choose to do so?"

"No. I'd choose to leave."

The look he gave me was filled with scorn. "There is no way out."

"Of course there is. If there's a way in, there's a way out. Am I going to be a female vampire now because of your mark?"

He just stared at me for a couple of seconds, then took me by the wrist and pulled me after him as he headed to what I thought was the north. "If your sister is a Beloved, you must know that it doesn't work like that. The marking I referred to is the mental connection we have. It is one of the seven steps of Joining, which is wholly impossible given that my Beloved died six hundred years ago, but understandable given the amount of blood you gave me."

"Well, I don't know about this marking business," I said, carefully locking away the thought that reincarnation might very well mean his Beloved was alive and kicking, and damned close to jumping his bones again despite her desperate attempt to stay away from him, "but as for the other, I don't know that much about you guys. Jas went off to live with Avery, and . . . well, I'm not very comfortable around him. Or his brothers. Plus there's the fact that Jas has been trying to fix me up with Avery's youngest brother, Daniel, and I - "

The word Alec snarled wasn't at all polite, nor was the face he turned on me as he gripped me with both hands. But what was most intriguing was the hot spurt of jealousy that I could feel rip through him.

He was jealous? Of me? Why did that delight me so much?

I am not jealous.

No? So the thought of me having sex with Daniel does nothing - Alec!

His tongue was there in my mouth again, his thigh shoved between mine, his fingers working my zipper down again. Mine! he snarled into my head.

Oh, I am so not yours!

You are. You gave yourself to me.

We had sex, Alec. That's all. Get over yourself. Oh, holy mother, do that again first, though. Hooyeah!

Another shout from the distance, somewhat louder, brought sanity back to us. Alec removed his hand from my underwear, his eyes burning with passion as he rezipped my jeans.

"That 'mine!' crap? It's so not happening. I don't like possessive men," I told him.

"At this moment, love, I don't particularly care what you like," he snapped, grabbing me by the hand and hauling me after him.