Author: Kalayna Price

Hopefully Gil has enough room to join us. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she popped into the bedroom where stars-knew-who was watching.

Nathanial leaned against the wall as I turned the sink on full blast. Then I moved to the tub, turning it on as well. The roar of water made the small space even more uncomfortable, but it created a nice blanket of sound.

“Gildamina,” I whispered. Nothing happened.

“What are you doing?” Nathanial asked.

I waved him into silence. It worked before. It had pissed her off. But it had worked.

I said her name again. Then I repeated it a third time.

Magic crackled in the air and Gil appeared, standing in the tub basin. Well, good thing she always wore rain-boots.

“You better have a really import—” she started.

I threw my hands over her mouth, smothering the words.

“Keep your voice down,” I whispered, looking around as if I could spot the unseen ears that might be listening.

Gils eyes widened, anger flushing her cheeks. “I told you not to use my name!”

I cringed. “I know. I know. Sorry, okay? I didn’t have a choice. Listen, I don’t have time for the long version of what’s going on. It involves vampires kidnapping us, but the important thing is that we’re in Demur.”

The anger fell from her face, and Gil’s eyes widened as she looked around. “Demur? That’s where the—”

“Yeah. I need you to find Bobby. Set up a meeting place for tomorrow night, but don’t tell me where, and whatever you do, don’t show up unless I call. Okay?”

Someone knocked on the French doors. Of all the mooncursed timing. Of course, there was a good chance the knock had nothing to do with timing and everything to do with Nathanial and I being out of sight. Or with Gil’s yelling.

Nathanial pressed a finger over his lips in the classic sign for silence before slipping out of the bathroom wordlessly. Gil and I just stared at each other as we listened through the door. I didn’t recognize the male voice that asked Nathanial where I was.

Dammit. Now what?

A knock sounded on the bathroom door, and I made a shooing motion at Gil. Her brows knit together but she disappeared.

Nathanial stood on the other side of the door, a small stack of folded clothes in his hands. Right, the Collector had told Aphrodite to send some up. Whoever had delivered the clothing was now gone. I grabbed the stack from Nathanial and retreated back into the bathroom.

My first assessment that the stack contained clothes had been a little over optimistic. Aphrodite had sent me a thin, cream-colored slip trimmed in lace, and a gold satin robe.

Gee, I’ll match the bed. The robe had a small pocket, and I moved Avin’s silver ring to it so the damn thing didn’t magically jump to my finger again. Wearing my new finery, I turned the water off and dropped my coat and shirt over the tub ledge. I let myself out of the bathroom, ignoring Nathanial’s intense scrutiny. Another knock sounded on the bedroom door.

“The Mistress said you needed a snack before dawn,” a man in his mid-twenties said as he let himself into the bedroom. He wore only a pair of tight jeans, leaving his wellmuscled chest bare. Like the other human men who served Aphrodite, he had a rich, unseasonable tan, but the slightly orange tint indicated his came from a bottle.

Oh hell. A snack. He meant him.

I wasn’t desperate for blood, but I couldn’t hold out forever. At the same time, since I was still a shifter deepdown, each human I bit might have the possibility of being tagged and then shifting when the gate to Firth opened. I couldn’t leave a trail of city-shifters and rogues in my wake.

Not only would it earn me a fast death sentence when the judge discovered I’d created more predators, but it would be wrong.

I could drink from Nathanial, he’d already been exposed to both my fangs and claws. When the gate to Firth opened, he might shift, but that damage had already been done. It couldn’t be helped. But no more humans. The chance I might tag more humans was too great to risk.

I opened my mouth to tell the man to leave, but he reached out a hand and rubbed his thumb along my bottom lip. His excited heartbeat filled my ears, pressed against my skin. My fangs slid out. I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop it. He leaned in, his mouth inches from mine.

One moment the man’s ragged breath tumbled over my lips, and the next, the air in front of me was empty. I blinked, snapping out of the blood daze as the man spun, and judging by the lack of grace, not fully of his own volition.

Nathanial stood only a foot from him, his arms crossed over his chest. “Your services will not be required.”

“But the mistress said—”

Nathanial flicked a hand through the air. “You misunderstood her command. You are not required.”

The man shoved his hands in his pockets. “I was told to—”

“Leave,” Nathanial said. “Or I will remove you.”

The man opened his mouth like he was going to protest.

He took a good look at Nathanial and his jaw snapped closed.

Slumping, he dragged his feet out of the room. The door closed behind him before I turned to Nathanial.

“Thanks.” I think.

He didn’t acknowledge my statement. He didn’t even look at me. I stepped closer and realized he was breathing. He rarely breathed. But not only was he breathing, he was breathing fast.

“Nathanial?”

“While we are here, take the blood you need from me. Only me.” His words were so quiet, I barely heard them. He lifted his hand, but his fingers stopped short of touching me.

He turned away.

I frowned as he meandered to the other side of the room.

He moved too calmly for me to accuse him of running away, but he was. Very slowly, but he was running. Isn’t that supposed to be my job?

I followed, but not close, giving him space. Giving us both space. While he might be a safe blood source, biting him was definitely not without risk. Not for my emotional health, at least, and I didn’t like the possessiveness in his voice when he said I should drink only from him.

He stopped to inspect a large painting of a nude woman riding an open shell over sea foam. A woman who looked an awful lot like the Master of Demur.

I gaped at the painting. “I’ve heard the name Aphrodite before. Isn’t she some beauty goddess from—”

“Ancient Greece.” Nathanial nodded. “Our hostess is not old enough to be the inspiration for those myths, though she was clearly the model for this. A Botticelli, I believe.”

“How can you tell?”

“Look at the resemblance.”

“No, I mean that she isn’t old enough to have inspired the original myths?”

Nathanial frowned at me. “Kita, when you meet a new vampire, what do you notice first?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. First I have to notice them at all. I still haven’t figured out a good ‘tell’ for identifying vampires.” Shifters typically had unusual hair or eye colorations they shared with their beast, even in human form, but unless I was hyper-aware and could see that vampire flesh lacked pores, vamps looked indistinguishable from humans to me. “I guess the only consistent similarity I’ve noticed is that vampires don’t register as food.” Though admittedly, neither did mages or shifters—unless I was starving or they were bleeding.

I surfaced from my introspection and realized Nathanial was staring at me. What did I say? I returned his frown. “Is there something I should notice?”

“When you are near another vampire, you do not sense the weight and depth of their power? You cannot guess their age?”

I meant to shake my head, but the muscles in my neck locked. Nathanial already knew I couldn’t feel his emotions the way he could feel mine. I hadn’t yet told him I couldn’t track him through our bond. And now, here was something else I was supposed to be able to do, but couldn’t. Not only have I lost my cat, but I’m a broken vampire.

That thought caught like a barb in my chest. I’d been a pathetic excuse for a shifter, being a six-pound cat surrounded by lions and tigers. I hadn’t chosen to become a vampire, but why should I have expected to be anything better than pathetic?

I don’t know what Nathanial saw on my face, or maybe he used the emotional barometer part of our bond I was too head-blind to access, but he closed the distance between us.

His arms slid around my waist, warm and sheltering. His lips brushed my forehead.

I closed my eyes, letting his heat surround me, his spicy scent envelope me, and for a moment, I almost felt like I belonged. Almost. Then the moment passed and turned awkward as I stood there. Nathanial’s arms became heavy against my satin robe. I shrugged away.

“You should feed and go to bed,” he whispered.

Feed, as in from him. I shook my head, but when I opened my mouth, a yawn broke free. Nathanial ignored my protest.

He walked over and let down the canopy curtains around the bed—I was right, they were so translucent they might as well have been see-through. I still hadn’t moved by the time he finished. He frowned. Then, walking back over, he took my hand and tugged me toward the bed.

I stumbled over my own feet as I nodded off between blinks. Okay, so he was right—I could barely hold my own eyes open.

Nathanial sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me down beside him. “Drink,” he whispered, holding up his wrist.

Dawn was too close and I was too tired to fight. He clutched me tighter to his side as my fangs pierced his flesh.

His fingers slid along my hip, and the skin over my stomach tightened. My mind fell into his, but the approaching dawn made my own thoughts too slow, too muddled, to follow his memories. Contented warmth spread through me, and I pulled back, sealing the wound.

Nathanial guided me down to the mattress. The lace pillowcase my face landed on felt rough and scratchy, but the down pillow it covered was blissfully soft.

“Sleep,” he whispered as his fingers combed through my hair, and I fell asleep in a strange house, filled with strange vampires, yet feeling warm and safe for the first time in years.