"I should tell you what happened to Jamys," Marcel said as he climbed down from the exam table. "We were kept in the same room for a time. They only took him away the night before Lucan came."

Who is Lucan? "It's okay, Marcel. Jamys can tell me about it himself."

"No, Dr. Keller, he cannot." The big man took the boy's hand from Heather, who was looking very pale and somewhat shaky.

"Hang on, you two. Heather, sit down." Alex steered the nurse to the exam table and checked her pulse. It was rapid and thready. "Look at me." The nurse was having trouble focusing. Alex caught a faint trace of a flowery scent and felt her jaw lock. "What happened to you?"

"He said it was nice. One for the road." Heather smiled, and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped over.

Alex did a quick check and found her blood pressure bordering on nonexistent. Dull fury rose inside her as she considered the only possible reason for it. "Shit."

Marcel came over and touched the nurse's pale throat, then found the wound on her wrist. "Four punctures, all fresh. She will need blood, and soon."

"Oh, you think?" Alex went over to the door, stuck her head out, and shouted for Phillipe. When he appeared, she dragged him into the room and showed him the nurse. "My nurse, minus a few pints." She poked him in the chest with her finger. "I thought Nurse Heather was safe here. I thought we played nice and didn't kill humans anymore."

"We… do not."

"Well, someone treated her like a Big Gulp." And if it was Cyprien, Alex would personally kick his ass from here to the Mississippi. "It wasn't you, was it?" When the seneschal shook his head, she glared at Marcel and Jamys. "Or you?"

"We would not," Marcel assured her. "It is not polite to do so in the house of the master of the jardin."

"What does that mean?" Alex demanded. "I have to look for a rude vampire?"

Phillipe lifted Heather into his arms. "I will care for her."

"Do you know her blood type? Can you give her a transfusion?" He blinked at her. "I thought not. Put her back down and get Cyprien up here right now. Marcel, I'll have to talk to Jamys later."

"Doctor, you cannot," Marcel told her, and showed her why.

Chapter Sixteen

Michael could not understand how Heather had been used twice by one of the Kyn. "Heather was brought to nurse Thierry. She only had one time, with Phillipe, when she first came here."

"Wrong. She was tapped twice today." Alex checked the bag of whole blood hanging from the pole beside Heather's bed. The nurse was still pale but had fallen asleep. "Whoever it was also had sex with her. There's semen all over her panties."

"What?"

"You heard me." She walked out of the room.

Michael rubbed a hand over his face. "Who could have done this?"

"Not one of us." Phillipe came to look down at Heather. "The jardin follow your laws. They would not use any human under your roof for sex without permission, and they would never take blood twice in one day. To do either would be…"

A deadly insult as well as a risk of rapture and thrall. Michael went over and carefully sniffed the wound site. The scent of jasmine was unmistakable. "Lucan."

Phillipe used the handheld radio he carried to alert the staff and have the men search the house. "If he is still here, we will find him." He glanced at the ceiling. "Alexandra was very angry."

"She believes that you or I did this." No wonder she had walked out on him. "Stay with Heather. Don't leave her alone until the house has been completely checked."

Michael went upstairs, retrieved a canister and two glasses, and then let himself into Alexandra's room. It was empty, but he heard the sound of the shower, and sat down to wait.

She didn't look at him when she emerged from the bath. She had wrapped herself in a large, dark green towel, and her wet hair streamed in dripping curls over her shoulders.

"Get out," she told him as she went to the closet. She didn't touch the clothes he'd provided for her but took out the suit she'd been wearing before her shower.

He saw the towel gape and expose a smooth stretch of thigh. Instantly he wanted to run his hand over it, feel the firmness. He remembered how the insides of her thighs felt, against his hips. "I know you're upset with me."

"Oh, I'm way past upset. I'm cruising right around fully homicidal." Alex marched back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Michael filled the glasses while she dressed and tried not to think about her thighs.

"Why are you still here?" Alex demanded when she emerged, fully dressed. Her gaze fell on the glasses. "I told you, I don't drink blood."

"It will calm you." He waited a minute, then sighed and set the glasses aside. "Very well, I apologize again. I did not mean to offend you. We must talk, Alexandra."

"Why, did you run out of nurses to hypnotize and assault?"

No one would dare speak to him with such scathing sarcasm, nor had anyone. Not in seven centuries. He did not know how to respond to it. "I did not do this to Heather, and neither did Phillipe."

She went over to the window and kept her back to him. "How many people have you killed over the years, Cyprien?"

The abrupt shift in subject caught him off guard. "I never counted."

"No, I guess the master wouldn't." She made a contemptuous sound. "What about the Durands? You figure, four vampires, they've probably wiped out the equivalent of a small city by now, right?"

"We don't kill humans anymore." Did she think him completely devoid of emotion? He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "We did not hurt Heather. We would not. I promise you this."

She turned around and looked up at him. "I was human. You hurt me. You tried to kill me."

"Yes, I did." In that moment, Michael would have sold his soul to take back what he had done to her. "But I did not touch Heather."

She seemed to relax then, and even bent forward a little until her forehead rested against his shoulder. She always fought him so valiantly that to see her like this was like taking an arrow through his side. Alexandra, when will you trust me, and permit me to trust you?

"Will you give her four million dollars?"

He touched her hair, stroking his hand over the back of her head. "If you want me to, I will."

"You can make people forget things, Cyprien, but you can't buy forgiveness."

"I know." He hated the truth of that, and didn't say anything for a long time. "If it were in my power to take back what happened to Heather, or make you human again, Alexandra, I would. Please believe that. But I cannot."

She gave him a wry look. "So the master isn't all-powerful. Good to know."

Michael didn't make the mistake of lowering his guard. As much as he wished he could trust her, and bring her fully into his world, there was still much more to settle.

"I did not intend to impose myself on your life again"—that was a flat lie—"but it is for the Durands. They are your people, your Kyn, and they need you desperately now." As he did, Michael realized. She had created a space in his carefully planned world for herself, and he was beginning to see that no one and nothing else would fill it.

"I made my peace with this, you know?" She toyed with a button on his shirt. "I made up my mind; I wouldn't practice medicine anymore. I figured if I stuck to needle transfusions and did some research, tried to figure out what this thing is, that would be enough. If things got unbearable, I could even end it."

He took in a sharp breath. Hearing her speak so casually of suicide wounded him deeply, for he was responsible for driving her to such bleak thoughts. At the same time, it made him furious. She was his blood, his sygkenis, and he would not let her go.

Michael almost told her that, until he felt her shuddering against him. No, he would not shake her or shout at her. Not when she was weeping in his arms.

"Now you bring me here and show me these people and say, 'Hey, Alex, be a doctor again, but this time, fix the monsters.' " Sun-gilded tears spilled down her cheeks. "Only the monsters look like people."

He pressed her head against his chest, so that her cheek covered his heart. "We are not monsters, chérie. We could be, if things do not change for us, but we don't have to be. We have learned to dwell among humans. We don't kill for what we need from them."

"Someone used Heather and nearly killed her. You're the master, so you can punish whoever did it, right?"

He thought of Lucan's mocking smile. "When I find him, I will see to it that he never does it again."

"What about these fanatics who tortured the Durands?"

She still knew so little about the Brethren. "We have fought them since the first Kyn rose." Michael lifted her chin and brushed the damp hair back from her face. "I will tell you about them, and us, tonight."

"Do you know what they did to Jamys?" He shook his head. "They crushed all of his fingers, and whipped his back down to the bone. But that wasn't enough." She swallowed. "They tore out that boy's tongue, Cyprien. They took a pair of tongs—like they were pulling a damn nail out of a tire—and ripped it out whole." She used the heel of her hand against her eyes. "I don't like priests, but they couldn't do this, not even if they gave up everything they once believed in."

"They are not holy men, Alexandra."

"What did you do to them? Did you kill a bunch of their friends? Burn down one of their churches?" she demanded. "What is this curse you keep talking about? Is that why they do it?"

"The Darkyn—all of us—died as humans, and then rose again to live immortal lives. Very few things can hurt us, and hardly anything can kill us. God cursed us for our sins, and condemned us to walk the earth as demons, feeding off the blood of the living."