"Should I be?"

He turned his head against her palm, his lips touching her skin, then parting. Fangs p.r.i.c.ked against her skin.

She shuddered, but held still, the warm breath and the cold fangs branded on the curve of her palm. After a moment, he kissed her again, then turned his head back and closed his eyes, 35 his face nestled against her hand.

"No," he said.

She stepped closer to him then, letting her hand slide from his face to his chest, feeling the lines of his body under his shirt.

Human, she thought. No reason to think otherwise except for the slight difference in his skin temperature, and even that was barely discernible.

She felt drawn to him suddenly, aware of her pulse against his face, in the tips of her fingers where they touched him.

Something drew her in, wanting her to be closer than she was.

A memory surfaced-the dream, the p.r.i.c.k of fangs against her throat. Had it been a dream the first time? Was it only a memory of a story, or a movie?

"Have you seen me before?" she said suddenly, impulsively.

"Did you ever come to me, a long time ago?"

His forehead creased into a frown, dark brows drawing together over the dark, vaguely Asian eyes. "No..." He drew the word out, paused, then said it again with more certainty.

"No. I would have remembered you."

"I wonder who it was then," Lorelei murmured. Because she was nearly certain now it hadn't been a dream.

"Who what was?" he said, then his eyes fell closed and he sagged, pulled himself up again. "Time to sleep."

She led him to her bedroom and watched as he stretched out on the bed, then fell into a deep, daylight sleep in her room where sunlight slanted in through the partly open window.

He woke just before dusk. He could tell by the quality of the light in the room. Lorelei had drawn the curtain, but it still slanted in-dusty gray light that two centuries ago would have turned him to ashes.

Lorelei. Suddenly he realized she was there, nestled against him, her warmth a small miracle curled against his body. Long, slow breaths told him she slept. Her sleep told him she trusted.

How could she? How could she abandon herself to sleep, knowing what he was? Knowing he was likely to wake hungry.

He was hungry. But the hunger had lost its edge, its uncontrollable eagerness. Carefully, trying not to disturb Lorelei, 36 he found a cigarette on the nightstand and lit it, breathing its spicy clove-smoke, feeling it do its work.

She shifted against him, turning to rest her face against his chest. Her breath warmed him, her body soft and warm as he cupped her closer with his arm. He took a long breath of the cigarette and set it aside, then turned to fold his arms around her.

She lifted her head, looking up at him with a bleary smile.

"Good evening," she said. "You didn't sleep very long."

"I didn't need it." That surprised him, as did the lack of urgency to his waking hunger. Perhaps the vampire blood still lingered in his system, unlike human blood which died so quickly and needed to be replaced. And the changes continued within him, a subtle, constant hum in his blood.

"So is it time to go yet?"

He looked at her, studying the deep sapphire of her eyes, then gently brushed black hair back from her pale face.

"No," he said, and bent toward her, seeking the softness of her mouth.

Her face rose to his without hesitation. He took his time, exploring her mouth, letting his fingers trace the lines of her cheekbones and chin. It had been a long time since he'd wanted a woman like this. Her response surprised him, made him hope for more as her mouth answered his with gentle enthusiasm and rising pa.s.sion.

He couldn't press the issue, though, couldn't even ask. He could only hold her, take what she offered as a gift, hope she might offer more.

It was hard, though, to hold back, when her hands and her mouth told him there was little reason to, when her movement against him brought a compulsion different from hunger but nearly as powerful. He tasted her mouth, the heat and the mortality of it, the pulsing life. He felt her body, the curves and softness, the heat as his hands found their way under her shirt.

She melted into him, her hand sliding down his body. When her fingers cupped between his legs, he jumped.

His eyes met hers in surprise, hers shining with mischief as her hand continued to explore. 37 "I didn't know-" she started, but broke off, biting her lip in sudden embarra.s.sment as her cream-pale skin flushed pink.

"Didn't know what?"

"If you could."

He smiled, thinking of all the vampire stories that had gotten it wrong. Her clever hands aroused him in ways that made his eyes water.

"I can," he said, "and I will if you don't stop that."

She smiled, wicked. "Good."

Permission was all he needed. She writhed like a fury under him while he touched, tasted, owned every part of her. The tumescence that had surprised her jutted between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her thighs, and finally deep inside her while she moaned into his mouth. He rolled his face away, nestled his mouth against her throat- Only then did he realize what he'd done. What he'd started he couldn't finish, not without the shedding of blood. Lorelei wouldn't have known this when she encouraged him. Welcomed him. Invited him in without complete knowledge of what her invitation meant.

Fangs p.r.i.c.ked his lip. He forced himself to stillness and backed away from her, out of her. Unlike the bloodl.u.s.t, this was something he could control through force of will. Her hands clutched at his shoulders.

"No. Don't leave me."

Laying a hand against the side of her face, he made her look at him.

"I have to," he said, and her eyes widened as she saw his fangs.

The fear-if it had been fear at all-lasted only a moment.

Her hand caught his and brought it back to her, pressing his fingers against the damp warmth he'd just forced his body to leave.

"Can you?"

He studied her face, gauged his body's reaction. His own arousal was what drove him to blood, not hers. Smiling a small, fang-p.r.i.c.ked smile at her brazen but rather obvious solution, he pressed his fingers deep into her heat. 38 She was hot around him, then tight and shuddering as her whole body shook beneath him and he kissed her deep with his fangs p.r.i.c.king her lip. She moaned against him, then went limp and melted again into him, her body seeking his. A surge of body-l.u.s.t took him, changing too quickly to bloodl.u.s.t. He sat up, pushing away from her to light another cigarette. For a moment he was afraid to look at her, but when he did, she answered his regard with more amus.e.m.e.nt than annoyance.

"Having a cigarette after s.e.x takes on a whole new meaning with you."

He smiled as the smoke settled into him, easing the need.

His arousal had quieted in spite of the lack of fulfillment and he was content now to lie next to her in the growing dark, feeling her warmth and the way her heartbeat seemed to make the air tremble. As he settled back against the pillows, she found a place for her head against his shoulder.

"Where were you born?"

The question surprised him. He smoked a minute or two before he answered. She said nothing, barely moved, seeming content to wait.

"An island in the Pacific. I tried to go back a few years ago to find it, but I couldn't. I'm not even sure it's there anymore.

It's been nearly eight hundred years-the sea could have taken it."

"What was it called?"

"We just called it Home."

Full dark had fallen, a vague shadow of moonlight barely weaving its way past the curtain. They should go, Julian thought, but he lay still, enjoying the weight of her head against his shoulder, the smell of his odd cigarettes and the vague musk left over from Lorelei's climax. She moved again, turning a little toward him and laying her hand against his chest.

"Tell me," she said.

So he wove pictures in the dark, of the bright, warm sun, palm trees, the brown, naked children and the women with their naked, loose, brown b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They ate coconuts and roasted lizards on spits over fire pits. They danced sometimes, and sang, and when they danced, the pounding of drums seemed to fill 39 the whole world.

"Paradise," Lorelei breathed, and Julian nodded. It had been-except for the Blood G.o.ds.

He'd been sixteen when the G.o.ds had chosen him. For six years, he'd trained in the Temple, not understanding what waited, knowing only that he'd been Chosen, and it was an honor.

Then, when he had understood, it had been too late.

"The Blood G.o.ds were vampires." Lorelei's voice breathed wonderment.

"All the G.o.ds who have ever asked for human blood have been." He'd come to the end of his cigarette. He flicked off the ashes and forced himself to sit up. Before he broke the spell, he touched Lorelei's hair, let its silk sift between his fingers.

"We have to go," he said then, shattering the spell they'd woven with s.e.x and with his story.

"Then let's go," said Lorelei, and hopped out of bed. 40

FIVE.

They headed east. Lorelei wasn't surprised. Somehow it didn't surprise her, either, when the streets became darker and more unfamiliar than any New York City street she'd ever seen.

They'd gone past the bad neighborhoods, deeper than drug lords' territory. They'd gone far enough, in fact, that they should have been in the East River. Here, the hookers were thin and pale with fang marks and slashes from razor blades on their arms and throats. Other back alleys carried the smell of urine and garbage-here, the backdrop was the coppery smell of fresh blood.

Lorelei knew she should have turned around blocks ago, when the worst thing lurking behind a Dumpster was a crack dealer or a strung-out junkie. But that inexplicable trust in Julian kept her trailing after him. The same trust that had drawn her into his bed.

Maybe trust was the wrong word, though. Attraction wasn't the right word, either. She felt like she'd known him much longer than a day and a half. Sometimes she felt like she belonged to him. Or at least with him.

They turned another corner. The darkness here was cloying, damp. Lorelei suddenly realized they were descending-that they had been for some time.

"Where are we, anyway?"

His eyes flashed toward her in the semidarkness, his mouth curved into a half-smile. "Deep within the vampire city. More under the human city than of it. Can't you feel the terror? The pervasive sense of doom and death?"

She made a face. "Save the poetry, Julie."

His eyes narrowed. "Don't call me Julie."

The expression should have frightened her, but he didn't quell the humor in it well enough. She smiled weakly back, disturbed by the sense of comfortable intimacy their exchanged had produced.

He stopped at a crossroads. For a moment, Lorelei thought 41 he might have forgotten his path, then he bent his head and she saw the flare of orange as he lit a cigarette.

"Are you okay?" she asked. If the blood l.u.s.t had returned, he might need to eat, and as far as she knew, he hadn't packed any raw meat for the trip. And the last thing she needed was for him to drop dead, leaving her stranded in the middle of vampire country.

He took a long drag, released a spice-fragrant exhale.

"Precautionary, mostly." He picked a road. "This way." But when he finished that cigarette, he lit another.

They'd entered what appeared to be a deeper part of town, following long stretches of dark, deserted alley. The silence weighed as heavily as the darkness, within it the soft drip of water from the ceiling, up above where the sky should have been.

"This is one of the deepest levels," Julian said. He c.o.c.ked his head. "We're close, now. I can feel him-"

A dark body vaulted from the darkness, slammed into Julian and brought him to the ground. A knife came down in a silver flash, severing Julian's throat- The wound closed immediately, so fast the blade was nearly trapped in the healing flesh. Julian grabbed the other vampire's head, one hand on each side. His fingers tightened with a sharp, sickening crack, then his fangs flashed, and he buried his face in the vampire's throat.

Lorelei stood by, breath heaving, horrified, fascinated. The damp dark clawed against her skin, the silence broken now by the wet sound of Julian's feeding. Why did this not repulse her?

she wondered. Instead, she had a sudden image of him bent over her, fangs sunk in her own throat. An ultimate intimacy as her life flooded into his body. The step he'd refused to take last night. At the time, she'd been touched, grateful. Now she felt cheated.

Suddenly Julian staggered, breaking the spell. Lorelei rushed to him as he rolled away from his victim, curled into a tight ball of pain on the wet ground.

"Julian!" Lorelei couldn't coax her voice above a whisper.

"Are you all right?" 42 "No," he managed. "No, G.o.d, it hurts-"

He'd never experienced such pain. It clawed through him as the vampire's blood coursed through his body, turning every vein, every capillary to searing pain. What was it doing to him?

His body stiffened uncontrollably, then went so flaccid he couldn't move. There was no control, no sense of his own body. Only the pain. Even Lorelei's voice hurt when it reached his ears.

Then he heard more than just her voice. He heard her heartbeat, the beats of her arteries, her capillaries, the movement of the valves in her veins, the traveling of her blood. He'd never been so aware of a mortal's blood without hungering-hearing it, feeling it, without needing it.

She was there, right next to him, half on top of him, her breath and her voice against his ear. His hands closed on her arms, holding her tight against him. Her breath flooded over his face. Alive. Hot. He wanted her-but he didn't want her blood.

Then he saw the fear in her eyes.

"I won't," he said. "Just hold still and let me listen to you."

Her tension fell away as he held her, and his pain melted as the blood he'd fed on mixed with the blood already filling his veins. Her heartbeat shook his chest, and slowly his own heartbeat shifted until they sounded in perfect unison. Not just the beat of their two hearts, but the beat of every blood vessel, moving in exact synchrony.