"Carrie," I answered without hesitation.

"The cards suggested I had a surprise coming. I had no idea it would be so...exciting." He pushed his pelvis against my backside, his cock stiff and straining through the robe. His fingertips brushed the back of my hand, and he laced his fingers with mine.

A dizzying buzz forced my eyes closed, and I was overwhelmed with the unpleasant sensation of rushing rapidly forward. I forced my eyes open, and my vision swam. When it cleared, the room was gone. Instead, I saw the E.R., and my own panicked expression. I was inside Cyrus's mangled body as he lay on the gurney. I saw myself staring in abject horror at the patient before me.

I jerked my hand from his and found myself in my own body, in the present time.

"My very own angel of mercy." I felt his tongue, surprisingly hot, against my neck. "You tasted so good."

Suddenly, my memory of the demon who'd carved me up broke through. The claws that had ripped my flesh. The sadistic eyes staring down as I'd cowered, terrified and unable to defend myself. I broke free. "Get away from me!"

Though he looked much different than he had in vampire form, all I could see was his resemblance to John Doe. He folded his arms across his chest as he regarded me. "Oh, you have fire in you. I'll have so much fun with that."

From his perversely satisfied tone, I gathered it wasn't good, clean, car-bingo-type fun he spoke of. "I'm not interested. And speaking of fire, burning down my apartment isn't exactly the way to a girl's heart."

"No," he agreed with a frown, closing the distance between us. "I find the more effective route is directly through the rib cage."

"What do you want?" I demanded.

Looping his arms around my waist, he drew me closer. "You came to me, Carrie. It seems you are the one who desires something."

He nuzzled my neck, rubbing his lips across the scar there. I closed my eyes, too willing to give in to the sensations coursing through my veins. "I want answers."

"Yet you haven't asked any questions." His teeth grazed my skin. "But you don't really want to talk."

"Yes, I do," I insisted, trying to pull away from him.

He held me fast. "Your body tells me something entirely different. You want me. I can smell it on you."

I ground my teeth. "It's the blood tie. If you were any other guy, I'd have slapped you by now."

"If you were any other woman, you'd be dead by now." Despite his menacing words, he let me go. "I slept quite late this evening and I haven't had my breakfast. Would you care to join me?"

"Will you answer my questions?"

"That depends on what you ask. But yes, Carrie. I will give you the answers you've so bravely sought." He held out his hand for me, and I bit my lip, considering his offer. Was this a trick? A trap? But he couldn't have known I was coming. He hadn't even known who I was when he'd first seen me. There would have been no time to plan anything devious. At worst, I'd spend an uncomfortable meal trying to fight the effects of the blood tie. At best, I'd get a better understanding of what had happened to me.

I slipped my hand into his and let him lead me to another room.The dining room was large and windowless. It was even more ostentatious than the ballroom, if that were possible. Dark wood paneling covered the walls, and the only light came from candles held in ornate silver sconces.

Cyrus pulled out a chair from the long dining table and motioned for me to sit. Then he sat at my right, at the head of the table.

The table was long enough for twenty people, but it was only set for two. Crystal wineglasses took the place of plates. The largest covered platter I had ever seen dominated the center of the table. I wondered who he'd planned on sharing his meal with before I arrived.

"Dahlia." Cyrus replied to my thought as he gracefully smoothed a napkin over his lap. A dainty crystal bell lay by his left hand, and he rang it. It unnerved me that he could read my private thoughts so easily.

A distinguished-looking black butler entered, followed by two of the guards. The butler reached for the shining silver dome over the platter and hesitated at the sight of me. One of the guards made a noise. The butler glared at them and whisked away the cover.

"Your breakfast, sir," he said, a look of distaste on his age-lined features.

The nude body of a young woman lay on the platter. She was obviously dead. Her blank eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling, one hand propped limply on her breast. Her other arm stretched high above her head, mimicking the curve of the platter. Someone had thought to garnish her with rose petals. The woman was displayed beautifully before us like a Renaissance goddess. I was horrified by my reaction. This woman was dead, her remains exploited for aesthetic purposes.

To please the man sitting beside me.

The terror I should have felt from his presence fought to the surface, then was quickly drowned once again by the blood tie.

Despite all the harm he'd already done to me, it seemed absurd that he would ever hurt me again. I caught myself yearning to touch him, desperate for the security of a physical connection, and I squashed the feeling down.

He's a monster. A murderer. You're smarter than this.

"Thank you, Clarence, that will be all," Cyrus said with a polite nod.

The butler and guards departed. Cyrus stood and reached for my glass. He lifted the dead girl's arm and flicked his razor-sharp fingernails across her wrist. Dark red blood poured from the wound. She hadn't been deceased for long.

The calm, matter-of-fact manner in which he handled the corpse made it seem perfectly normal to be dining off a dead body. I stopped reminding myself to be horrified-what good would it do me?-and concentrated on the questions I wanted answers to.

He filled his glass next and lifted it to his nose, savoring the scent. I ignored my glass, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Now, what were we talking about?" he asked after he sat again.

"You mentioned Dahlia. Were you reading my mind?"

He drank deeply from his glass, then dabbed his lips with his napkin. "Of course. You wondered who I had planned on dining with since the table was set for two. Dahlia sometimes likes to consume human blood, and I indulge her."

"Is she a vampire?" It was a silly question. I knew I would have recognized his blood in the taste of hers.

As I expected, he shook his head. "No. Dahlia is very sweet, one of my favorite pets, actually. But I'd never make her one of us.

She's not...special? I suppose that is the word for it."

"And I was special?" I felt a surprising sympathy for the girl. She thought I'd taken her place when there had actually been nothing to take. But that's not what concerned me most. "Can you read my mind all the time?" "If I want to." He smiled. "And to answer your first question, yes, you're special."

"But I was an accident," I said as I fixed him with a piercing stare. "I remember that night, or at least, most of it. You never fed me your blood. It got into me when I stabbed you, but you didn't mean for it to happen."

Sighing heavily, he leaned back in his chair. He studied me for a long moment before speaking again. "You have my blood, Carrie.

Even if I didn't intend to share it with you, it still flows through your veins. It makes you precious to me."

I glared at him. "You attacked me and left me for dead. I wasn't so precious to you then."

He raised his hand to stop me. "Please, excuse me. These damned eyes, they dry out so quickly."

He lifted a small knife and plunged it into his borrowed eye. The organ fell to the table with a soft, squishy sound and flattened. A gruesome image of the dead morgue attendant flashed through my mind.

Cyrus leaned over the face of the dead girl and carved out one of her eyes. When he'd inserted his replacement, he freed the second eye from the corpse and dropped it into his glass. It sank to the bottom like an olive in a martini.

"I had two perfectly good eyes before I returned to this city. Fresh ones are hard to come by, and they wear out before you've gotten much use from them."

My physician's curiosity took over then, distracting me from our earlier line of conversation. "How does it work?"

"I don't know." He blinked a few times, as though he'd just put in new contact lenses. A thin line of blood ran like a tear down his cheek. "I'm assuming it has something to do with the regenerative humors in human blood."

"There's no such thing as humors. Does it work with other body parts? Limbs?" I scooted forward in my chair. "What about teeth?"

"How do I know? Carrie, I understand your thirst for knowledge, but there are questions even the blasted Sanguinarius can't answer." He sipped from his glass. The eye inside rolled around to stare at me.

I was going to barf.

Cyrus either didn't notice or didn't care. "I'll have the servants prepare your room, but I fear it won't be ready before dawn. You can stay with me today. I'm sure we can find some engaging activity to fill the boring daylight hours."

"Whoa, whoa." I waved my hands in front of me as though I were signaling a plane. "I'm not staying."

Not that I wasn't tempted. The blood tie was an incredible aphrodisiac, despite the fact I'd just watched him pick over a dead body as if it were a rotisserie chicken. But I had only come here in need of information, not an unfathomably dirty one-night stand.

Cyrus's expression darkened. "I thought you said your apartment burned down. Surely you need a place to stay."

"I have other options. Did you do it so I'd have no place else to go?"

"I didn't do it at all. If Dahlia harmed your property, then I'm sorry. The drama of fire seems to hold some fascination for her. I can't undo what she's done. All I can offer you is a place to stay. And a few amusements." He reached across the table to stroke my hand.

I rolled my eyes. "That's a lovely sentiment, but there's this organization who'll want to kill me if I stay here with you."

"The Movement?" His rich laughter filled the dining room. "They'd like to cage us all and let us die." "You don't think much of them," I said.

"No. I don't. I've longed for a companion for years, but because of the restrictions in place by the damned Movement, I have been unable to retain any of the fledglings I've sired."

So he didn't know about his pet and her penchant for offing the competition. I couldn't believe he would be so dense, but if he was really lonely, perhaps he purposely overlooked her transgressions. Maybe a murderous companion was better than none at all.

Cyrus stood and moved behind me, placing his long fingers on my shoulders. "Fate has put us in a unique situation. Why not come to an arrangement that will be beneficial for both of us? You become the companion I've been seeking, and I'll teach you to use the full extent of your power, power the Movement would deny you."

"What kind of power?"

He smiled like a used-car salesman. "The power to rule, of course. The power over life and death and the strength to wield it to your advantage."

A pang of longing washed over me. I'd loved the seemingly God-like powers I'd believed I'd held as a doctor. But that illusion had been ripped apart the night Cyrus had destroyed my perceptions of death and accidentally set me apart from both.

"I thought I had that before. I ended up bleeding to death in the morgue," I said, shaking my head. "Why should I believe you? I don't know you that well. You might just kill me again."

"I might," he said finally. "I'm not generally regarded as someone to be trusted."

I looked over the rapidly purpling body on the table. "No kidding?"

He knelt at my side. "Search your heart, Carrie. I have faith you'll make the right choice."

Some choice. I could live only if I pledged my allegiance to the Movement, or I could live to be Cyrus's little wifey. Either way, I was a slave. A prisoner. A prostitute.

"I've made my decision. Us meeting, that was an accident. I'm not fated to be your companion, or whatever the heck you're looking for."

"Tell me, Doctor, do you follow many of your patients to the morgue?" he asked with a knowing smile. "You followed me. You wanted me."

"You were dead. That's not my bag. Sorry."

He reached out his hands again, but I dodged them.

"If that's what you believe, I can't change your mind," he said, gesturing to the door.

I stood and headed for it, but Cyrus called after me.

"Dahlia is useful. She's only alive because she amuses me. Not because I love her. And she doesn't love me." His voice was quiet and sad.

"I'm sorry if you're unhappy." And I was. I could feel his desperation, his hurt, his anger. But I could also feel the cool edge of manipulation. He was confident I would cave in.

He continued, and his sorrow sounded genuine. "I only want to protect you." "I don't need protection, Cyrus. I need time to think." I walked away. "If I go through that door, will the guards stop me?"

Cyrus shook his head. "Will you return?"

I thought of Nathan and his undying loyalty to the Movement. Would I ever become so indoctrinated to their rhetoric? Was I even susceptible to such brainwashing? "I don't know. Maybe."

His sorrow instantly changed to anger. "I'm your sire, Carrie. You belong to me."

So this was the true nature of his game. He would coerce me into staying.

"I don't belong to anyone." The words gave me courage as I spoke them. "I don't belong to my job, I don't belong to a man, I don't belong to the Movement, and I sure as hell don't belong to you. I have five days left to make a decision. If I choose to return to you, I will. But I'm not stupid, Cyrus. You didn't make me on purpose. You didn't make me out of love. You meant to kill me in the morgue. I was an accident. And I don't owe you anything."

I walked out the door and didn't look back.

Seven

June 23, 1924

Cyrus's word was good. No guards accosted me as I left the house.

My head swam with a tremendous mix of emotions. The rage came from Cyrus. I could still hear his screams of fury and the crash of things breaking inside the house as I crossed the lawn.

My sadness weighed heavy on me as my feet hit the sidewalk. I didn't know what I'd expected to find in Cyrus. A mentor? A friend? An ally against the shadowy threat of the Movement, which demanded I live for them or not live at all?

What I'd found was another dead end. Cyrus would rule me as surely as the Movement would, and that wasn't something I could accept. My whole life, I'd been ruled by one thing or another. First, my father, who'd been so busy planning my future career, I'd wondered how he'd found time for his own.

"You're my job, Carrie. It's my duty to see you do well in life."