After a moment, she continued, "Will the sleep help?"

"A little, and only for a while. Deep sleep seems to help the blood reproduce more quickly. She'll wake up feeling a little stronger, but I don't know how long it'll last."

"You seem to know a lot about this. How many times has it happened?"

He shook his head, lips tightening. He didn't want to answer her question, but he had to. She hadn't put a compulsion on him, but it was more than rude for him to disregard her questions.

In fact, it was grounds for her to dispose of him. She owned him. He couldn't remember ever having resented it more than he did at this moment, except perhaps during the first few days after she'd made him. Not that long ago, yet an eternity. "I'm not exactly sure. Six, maybe."

"Do you know why?"

"I have no idea." He leaned his head back, pushing his hands through his hair. He hadn't tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together, hadn't really wanted to. Perhaps he was afraid of what he might find.

Vivian was still looking at him. She had stilled in her chair, sitting so quietly her presence barely affected even the air in the room. "Why did you do it? You seemed to be getting on fairly well from what I saw. I thought you liked her."

"I was hungry," he snapped, then crossed his arms hard over his chest, staring blankly at the keyboard on the desk in front of him. "I don't know. Once the idea occurred to me, I couldn't make it go away. Finally I couldn't stop it. I just . . .

took her."

"Compulsion? How could that be? You did well with my training. I thought you'd reached a point where you could always choose your victims."

"It felt like compulsion." 70 "Was it that way with the others?"

He nodded. Behind his glum silence, he was remembering.

Leading Dina to the restroom, through the hallways of Vivian's house, which could confuse the best of mortals and a good many vampires. He'd shown her the way, and suddenly it was as if the whole world existed inside her heartbeat. He'd heard the rushing of her blood, as if he could hear even the valves in her veins tapping open and closed, the soft squish of cells in single file rows moving through the tiniest capillaries. And he'd had no choice but to take her. He barely remembered doing it-just remembered her screams and the thick, sweet taste of her blood rushing into his throat.

He came back to himself, to the sullen self-anger that had overtaken him. Vivian was still looking at him. Her scrutiny disconcerted him. Sometimes it seemed she could look too far inside.

"Do you know what causes the compulsion?"

"No," he answered simply. He didn't want to elaborate, didn't have to unless asked specifically.

She nodded and pressed him no farther. "You've done enough for tonight," she said. "Go back to your room. It's nearly dawn."

He negotiated the strange short-but-not-short hallway that led from Vivian's office to the room where Dina slept. The house existed half on the human plane, half on the plane only vampires could navigate. It made for confusing and uncomfortable pa.s.sage, particularly for the humans who occasionally entered.

She lay sleeping quietly, her face too pale, the wound on her throat too dark, with bruising spreading down from it. The punctures looked brutal, too much for her delicacy. Shamed he had caused it, Nicholas pulled his eyes away. She was all right for now, as all right as she could be. He left. In his own room, he stripped to his shorts and stretched out on his bed.

Not his bed, though, not really, not his room. Vivian's. He remained hers until he could prove he deserved not to be. The bondage irked him more and more as time pa.s.sed. It had been three years since she'd made him. He deserved a chance to be 71 something other than her thrall.

The approach of dawn pulled at him, drawing him into weariness deeper than sleep, something closer to coma, or death.

As the sun rose, he sank into darkness.

Dina woke some time later, not sure how long she'd been asleep, and for a moment not sure where she was. Then she turned her head and saw the ivory wallpaper with its twining rosebuds and remembered. Nick's friend's house.

She felt better. The pervasive pain that had greeted her on her last waking had faded, along with the dragging weakness.

Carefully, she sat up. Her neck still ached, but her leg- She hadn't noticed that before. How could she have missed it? That pain was gone. A fluke, she thought, a cruel trick of her body.

She eased her legs over the side of the bed, inched forward until her feet touched the floor. Vague dizziness made her head spin, combining with the pain in her neck. She closed her eyes until the vertigo receded, then gingerly stood.

Her legs held. She still felt weak, but not as sick as she had yesterday, or even as sick as she had felt intermittently over the past five years. With growing confidence in her ability to move without falling over, she walked toward the corner, to the chest of drawers there and the mirror above it.

Her face was pale, smudged gray under the eyes. And on her throat, just below the line of her jaw, she saw the source of the dragging ache.

A dark bruise lay below her jaw, nearly black, then purple, then dribbling red and greenish yellow down to her collarbone before disappearing behind the lace-edged neck of her white nightgown. At the darkest part of the bruise were two dark circular marks, covered with rough, black scabs.

Gingerly, she touched the marks. A stabbing pain shot deep into her throat, seeming to arrow straight to her heart. Gasping, she jerked her hand away. A strange wound, she thought. If she didn't know better, she'd think she'd been bitten by a vampire- Get your hands off me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

The thought flashed through her on a wave of fear, and she 72 took an involuntary step back from the mirror. But the phantom voice faded quickly, with no apparent substance behind it. Where had it come from? Was it a memory, a dream, or something else? She couldn't remember what had happened once she and Nick had crossed the threshold of the strange, big house.

She'd been dressed like a vampire, though. Maybe somebody had gotten carried away.

A small sound behind her sent her spinning toward the door.

Vertigo hit again, and she grabbed at the edge of the chest of drawers to steady herself. Nick came in, closing the door gently behind him.

"How are you?"

She stared at him as the fear washed through her again.

Then she swallowed hard. It was only Nick. She liked Nick.

"Better," she said. "What time is it?"

"Just past dusk." He stepped toward her, took her arm.

"Can I help?"

She shook her head. "I'm not ready to go back to bed yet."

Instead she eased her way to the chair next to the bed and sat, accepting his a.s.sistance.

He sat on the bed and studied her. "You look better. Not so pale."

She wondered how pale she'd been before, if she wasn't as pale now. And it suddenly occurred to her that she'd slept again for an undetermined amount of time, and she still wasn't hungry.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked.

She wasn't hungry. She was thirsty, a little, but not so much that it was unbearable. She could only think of one thing she wanted.

"I want to go home."

His lips parted, and for a moment she was sure he was going to refuse her. Then he nodded once, sharply. "I think that can be arranged."

"I don't think it's a good idea."

Dina, sitting at the kitchen table, could barely hear the hissed whispers from the next room. She c.o.c.ked her head, trying to 73 make the words come to her more clearly.

"We can't keep her here forever." This was Nick. His voice carried a little better. When Vivian spoke, it was all Dina could do to tease words from the whispering.

". . . can. We should. She can't remember . . . What happens . . . truth?"

Nick glanced in her direction and Dina looked quickly away, concentrating on the gla.s.s they'd given her and what remained of the drink inside it.

"She should be home," Nick finally said, sounding defeated.

Vivian also looked in Dina's direction. "Maybe," she said, and something else, then, "Sorry."

Nick shoved a hand through his dark hair and came back into the kitchen, Vivian right behind him. They both sat at the table. Vivian looked at Dina's half-empty gla.s.s.

"How is it?"

Dina turned the gla.s.s, making its contents swirl. The drink was colorless and nearly tasteless, but too thick for water. "It's okay, I guess. I think it's upsetting my stomach."

"You shouldn't drink anymore, then," Nick said.

"What is it, anyway?"

Nick glanced at Vivian, who smiled and said, "It's a protein drink."

Dina frowned and pushed the gla.s.s aside. She felt strange, as if her body didn't really want her to eat or drink anything at all, particularly not a mysteriously transparent protein drink.

"When can we go?"

"In a few minutes," Nick said. His answer surprised her.

Dina had expected him to tell her they couldn't leave at all.

"Take your cell phone," Vivian said. "I might need to get in touch with you."

"Why?" Nick didn't sound happy with the request.

Vivian frowned and shook her head. "Something's brewing.

I'm not sure what, but if something does happen, I'll want you here right away."

"Brewing? What's brewing?" The words came sharp, too much like a demand.

Vivian lifted an eyebrow and gave him a dark look. "I don't 74 know, and I don't appreciate your tone. Just be ready. In case."

She hesitated. "The Senior put a Call out for Julian for a reason.

I don't know what it is, but I have a feeling it's important."

The conversation made no sense to Dina. The only thing she understood was that Vivian had some sort of superiority over Nick, and that she intimidated Dina. There was something about the woman, with her glossy black hair and perfect eyebrows, and the way her regard could shrivel. Dina also understood that both Nick and Vivian knew something she didn't.

Something important.

She decided to let it go for now. "I don't have anything to wear. I really don't want to go home in this nightgown."

"I'll get you some clothes," said Vivian, and departed, her footsteps barely audible.

"She makes me nervous," she confided to Nick.

"She makes everybody nervous." He smiled, reached out to touch Dina's cheek. "You're feeling better?"

"Yes." She looked at the mysterious drink, then at Nick.

Once she'd thought his wide face open, easy to read. Now it was different. Now it seemed to hide things. "What happened to me?"

"You were attacked by someone at the party." His voice was gentle. "They got a little carried away with the vampire theme. You lost some blood."

"Why didn't you take me to the hospital?"

"It didn't seem serious enough." There. He was definitely hiding something. She could tell from some subtle change in his face, or maybe his eyes. Something that had been open before had closed.

"I find that hard to believe, given the way I felt when I woke up."

"Maybe it was more serious than we thought."

"Maybe I should go to the hospital now." She made a challenge out of it, though she wasn't sure why. She had the feeling neither Nick nor Vivian wanted her examined by professionals.

But his response was placid. "Do you feel like you need to?" 75 "No," she conceded. "I feel like I need to go home."

"Then let's get ready."

Vivian had put jeans and a soft cotton shirt on the bed in the room where Dina had slept. Nick waited outside while she dressed. She still didn't understand why he had to follow her everywhere. She didn't let him follow her into the room, though.

The jeans were a little big, the shirt purple and just the right size. She liked purple, especially this dark, rich, plum version.

Carefully, she adjusted her bra, checking it in the mirror, then b.u.t.toned up the shirt. Some of the color had returned to her face, but the deep bruising looked worse, more invasive. The pain had faded, though. And the rest of her body, though still weak, felt better than it had in a long time. She should have been happy, she supposed, but instead it struck her as creepy.

Something very strange had happened for her to feel as good as she did.

She should ask Nick. Or maybe not. Maybe she didn't want to know. 76

THREE.