Are you criminals? Why doesn't anyone in authority know about this?"

Kyn never trusted humans with knowledge of their existence and their nature. Neither did the Brethren. Yet this girl had somehow stumbled into the middle of their war and released the helpless prisoners of it. He would not repay her with silence.

"Those who imprisoned me are fanatics," he said. "They believe my kind are evil and demonic, and must be destroyed. They torture us for information about others like us."

She drew back. "Are you? An evil demon, I mean?"

"Some think that we were cursed because we are evil creatures, but I believe it was something else. Something in our time that we do not yet understand." Her silence made him add, "We have lived for many centuries. We depend on humans for blood as vampires do, but we do not harm them. We try to live in peace with you."

"So you don't have to kill someone to survive?"

"No."

"I thought so. I mean, none of the others tried to kill me. Not that I exactly waited around for them to have a go." Her voice changed, became softer. "I'm glad."

Gabriel bent his head, breathing in the delicious scent of her skin. He wanted to rub his hot face against her, feel the tender resilience of her flesh caressing him. He also knew he had no right to touch her, and that if he did the long denial of his captivity might very well end with her death and his enthrallment.

Command her before you are no longer able to send her away. "If you are steady enough to ride your motorcycle, Nicola, you must leave me now."

"Leave you? Here?"

The only protection she had against him was his own restraint. Others like him would not care... yet she implied that she had quickly left the others that she had released before him. She had not been bespelled; he could smell no trace of his kind on her skin-but any Kyn might have used l'attrait to command her to forget them.

"It is best." His questions would have to go unanswered. "I have been locked away and starved for a very long time. I do not trust myself."

"I'm tougher than I look, and I've been tapped before this." Her hand curled over his shoulder, gently guiding him down to her. "Go ahead. Just leave me a pint or two, okay?"

She was offering him blood. Freely, agreeably, as if a gift between friends. It humbled him. That his kind had used such generosity outraged him. "Not from you."

She pushed his hair back, tucking it behind his ear. "You know, you're the most polite vampire I've ever set free. Definitely the best-looking." Her thumb whispered across his bottom lip, so fast and light Gabriel thought he imagined it. "But your fangs are still out. You're wobbly. Take the blood."

She would not be so willing unless she was fully succ.u.mbing to his scent. "You have given enough." He could not evade her touch or push it away. He had dreamed of holding her too many times to resist. "Please move away from me now."

"I'm not afraid." She inched closer to him, brushing her body against his. "It doesn't upset me. I know you need blood to heal."

She fit her hand to the back of his neck while she used the other to outline one of the scars on his chest. "I can't believe what they did to you. If I could find the one who did it, I'd kick his a.s.s from here to next Tuesday."

"There were many. You would break your foot." Now she was seducing him with the enchantment of her voice, her presence, her compa.s.sion. He could not keep his hands from her. Was it possible in his current state to become enthralled? He needed to focus on something else. "How did you come to find this place, and me?"

"A painting, local superst.i.tion, and a few other things." She turned on her side to face him. "Do you know anything about the Golden Madonna? Did the holy freaks talk about her?"

"No. I have never heard of such a thing." She had mentioned her photography. "Is this Madonna an icon?"

"No. Just something that used to belong to my family. It was stolen, and I'd like to find it again." She sounded a little disappointed. "How long have they had you down there?"

"Can you tell me the date?"

She touched the watch on her wrist. "September fourteenth."

That long. Time had escaped him; he had thought it only July. "Six months."

She drew in a quick breath, swore, and then just as suddenly stopped. "Hey." She sat up. "Why are your eyes glowing like that?"

Gabriel turned his head. "I am happy to be free."

"Not that kind of glow. Like fire, if it were green. Very spooky. Wait." She hunted in her pocket and pulled out something that she held in front of his face. "Here, look."

He caught her wrist out of reflex. "I believe you, Nicola."

"Can't you see when your eyes light up like this?"

"No matter what they do, I cannot see anything." He closed his useless eyes. "They blinded me."

Nick forgot the pounding at the back of her head that felt as if Father Claudio were still whacking her. She dropped the little square mirror that she always kept in her pocket. She forgot that the man sitting beside her was a starved, scarred vampire. She forgot the world as she got on her knees and turned his face toward her.

The strange green glow radiating from his eyes had disguised the fact that they didn't move, but remained still in a fixed stare. Gabriel was blind.

"The holy freaks did this? Deliberately?" She didn't wait for an answer. "What about the tattoos? Did they do that, too? To mark you or something?"

"These?" He touched the hard places on his skin. "These are places where they burned me."

Burn scars? Up close, the curious marks looked something like fern leaves. "Why are they green? Are they infected? Is that why you're running a fever?"

"No. I am not ill, and I have caused trouble enough for you." He stood. "All that matters is that I am free. I thank you for everything you have done, Nicola."

She didn't have to dump him, Nick thought as she got to her feet. He was more than happy to pat her on the head and send her on her way. It would have been fine with her-she'd left the others to cope on their own-but the others hadn't been blind.

Maybe he didn't want her sympathy, but there was no way she was ditching him, not blind and lost. The holy freaks would just scoop him up with a b.u.t.terfly net.

"I want to know more about you and the other vampires." At least that much was true. "You owe me, right? So you can fill me in."

"We are not important." He pulled her close, resting his cheek against the top of her head. His scent, like Christmas morning, comforted her as much as his embrace. "Do not mistake my meaning. You saved my life, and I am grateful. But you must forget about me, and this place, and what you know about my kind. Go back to your home. Avoid us. Forget us. Be happy, Nicola."

"That's a very sweet, brave farewell speech, your lordship, but I'm not going anywhere." How could such a brave man- vampire-be so stupid? "Think about it. You want me to leave you here, in the middle of the forest, where that crazy old man could find you and do worse? Besides, you're hurt and maybe sick."

"I will heal." A muscle in his jaw tightened.

"Not from blindness, you won't." She pulled away, backing out of his arms. "Are you mental? Jesus, I didn't bust you out of there so that you could get caught again."

His scent changed, growing deeper and almost smoky, like an evergreen log tossed in a fireplace. "I am dangerous to you."

"To yourself, maybe. Let me worry about me." She pulled away from him and went to the stream to splash her hot face with water. The moonlight showed her dark stains on one side of her T-shirt. "Is this my blood?" She saw smears on his face and neck and absently touched the side of her throat, but felt no wounds. "Did you bite me somewhere while I was out?"

"No. I only took Claudio." He came to the water and began splashing his face and chest with it, washing away more blood.

Nick felt no sympathy for the old man, but she was responsible for what had happened to him. "Did you kill him? The old guy?"

Gabriel shook his head.

He was shutting her out. She hadn't expected him to talk much-like she'd ever hung around to have a conversation with a vampire-but there was something different about him. He had the same n.o.ble, rather snotty manner of speaking, but he didn't scare her the way the others had. Sure, he had a scary stillness about him that made him seem as if he were partly disconnected from what was happening, but the guy had been locked up and tortured. He had a right.

That he wanted to wash muted the last of her doubts. If he had meant to try to drain her dry, he'd have gone after her first and cleaned up later."Here." She pulled off her T-shirt, soaked it, and handed it to him. He handled it gingerly. "It's my shirt. I forgot to pack a washcloth."

"Thank you."

She finished washing up as best she could and sat on the bank to watch him. He didn't act prissy but scrubbed at himself slowly and thoroughly. The grime and dirt on his skin washed away, but the moonlight made his burn scars appear almost black. When he tried to reach his back, he staggered a little, but he didn't ask for help.

He wouldn't. She'd bet good money that he'd been alone too long to ask for anything. Pride is all you can rely on.

"Let me." She went to him, took the shirt, and nudged him around. The fiery tinge to his scent had vanished, but the cool water didn't seem to affect the heat of his skin. The scars felt cooler, but were hard, almost scaly. Two huge, healed gouges just below his shoulder blades caught her attention. There were others, not as deep, farther down at his waist. "Do you know that you've got some pits in your back the size of my fist?"

"They hung me from hooks for several weeks." He said it with no emotion in his voice. "When they tried to take me down, they found that my flesh healed, so they had to tear them free."

"a.s.sholes." Nick's throat tightened as she gently washed the acc.u.mulated grime out of the deep depressions. "You're a lot braver than I am."

"I am..." His shoulders tensed. "You need not do this."

She didn't want to do it, not when every wipe revealed more green burns and healed-over gouges. How could he have survived such things?

He's a vampire. They survive anything.

He reached for the cloth, but Nick b.u.mped his hand away. "Nope. You can't see how dirty you are. I can. Soap would be a huge help, but I didn't exactly plan on you and me taking a bath." She stepped around to see his front, and he promptly moved away from her. Pity and compa.s.sion made her eyes sting. "Gabriel, if I wanted to hurt you, I'd have done it in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"Pain comes in many forms."

In that instant Nick knew precisely what he was thinking and feeling. Afraid to be touched, wanting to be touched. Hating hunger as much as the fear. What they'd done had changed him inside, damaged him in places where the scars didn't show. Imagining what he'd gone through plowed into her, a fast, hard fist to the belly.

The moonlight softened, adding new shadows to Gabriel's face, and suddenly Nick knew why he had seemed so familiar. She'd seen him a hundred times. She'd drawn his profile on napkins in cafes and in the sand with a stick of driftwood and in fine, indelible lines of love in the hidden places of her heart.

My Green Man. My dream man.

"I won't hurt you," she said, a little shaken to be standing face-to-face with what had been until ten seconds ago a figment of her imagination. "I swear I'm not like them."

"You are human."

He might be ent.i.tled to some bitterness, but she wasn't taking this snide s.h.i.t from him. Even if he was her fantasy forest lover.

"I'm the human who cut you loose, vampire."

"My name is Gabriel, not vampire." He bent to splash his face again before he straightened and turned to her. The water streamed down his chest, winding through the maze of dark green scars. "Each moment that you are with me puts your life at risk. That is what I know. You must leave me here. Now."

He didn't sound angry. All the emotion had vanished from his voice. They were good at that, giving orders, not feeling anything.

Nick knew that, and still she didn't care. "Okay, Gabriel. Before I go, would you tell me one thing?"

"If I can."

"Why have I been dreaming about you for months?" She waited for him to answer. When he didn't, her face burned. "Right."

Now he thought she was crazy. "Never mind."

He took her arm and turned her around. "What about your dreams?"

The scent of lightning-struck evergreen burned Nick's nose. "Well, for one thing, I keep meeting you in them. You're different in them; all green, like you were a jade statue. You also had pine needles for hair, and you weren't this thin. But it was you. Your face, your hair, everything is the same."

"It is night. You cannot see me properly."

"I can see you fine." She rested a hand on his chest-she couldn't seem to stop touching him-and b.u.mped his right hip with her left. "It sounds stupid; okay, I know that. I've never seen you in real life, and yet here you are, glowing green eyes, green scars, and you smell like a Christmas tree. Dream man come true."

"Coincidence." He gestured around them. "We are in a forest of conifers. I may resemble other men you have met in the past."

Again with the n.o.ble act.

"I know about the great smells you guys all have, but I haven't exactly run into that many green-eyed, green-scarred vampires."

She took a step back to check him out from head to toe. "Actually, so far, you're it."

He began to reach for her, and then turned it into a dismissive gesture. "Whatever your dreams have been, they do not make you responsible for me, Nicola."

"Sometimes dreams are just reality turned inside out." she murmured. "I know you can't see me, but did you ever dream about a girl you'd never met? About five-seven, on the thin side, black leather jacket?"

"I do not dream." His scent grew thick. "Go. Now."

"You need to work on lying-you suck at it. And what would you do if I really did leave you here?" She watched him frown.

"You don't know anyone. You probably don't even know where you are."

"St. Valereye. A village east of Bordeaux."

"Okay, so you know," she conceded. "But how are you going to get anywhere? You're blind, half-naked, and barefoot. You planning to Braille your way through the forest?"

He lifted his face toward the moon he couldn't see. "The forest is my home."

"What are you, Bambi?" She felt like breaking her promise not to hurt him. "There are no people around here for miles. No one to tap when you get thirsty. Your strength will run out before you get to the next working farm. I know drinking from animals doesn't work."

"You know too much," he told her, his voice toneless. "I can take care of myself.""Yes, you've been doing a bang-up job of that so far, from what I've seen." So much for her dream man wanting her. This was beyond pathetic. "I might as well take you back and brick you in again; you'd live longer."

"Nicola." At last some anguish came through with the low, lyrical way that he said her name. "Don't regret saving me."

She didn't. He was everything she wished she could be: brave, n.o.ble, honest. What would he think of her when he discovered what she did?

He never has to know.

"I'm not abandoning you," she said, wrapping her hand around his fist. Slowly he opened his fingers and entwined them with hers. She raised their hands until her wrist brushed his mouth. "Go on. n.o.body's coming to look for us; we're okay here for a while. Take what you need."

"I cannot. I will not."

"You won't kill me. I'm your only way out of here." Although it bruised her heart, she made her voice stern. "You have to do it, Gabriel. I need you stronger. I can't carry you, and I'm not dragging you. Take the blood."