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  He had been irritable, amused, patient and insightful. He had listened to what she said, and he had been respectful of her input and wishes. It was getting more and more difficult to think of him merely as a blood-sucking fiend.

  She was still afraid of him. She never quite forgot what history had said that he had done, and what he himself had admitted to doing. He had a powerful presence, and that wasn’t simply from the weight of his intelligence. He carried a gravitas that went far beyond the illusion of youth in his face. His eyes were old.

  Tonight she almost . . . liked him.

  Then she thought about what it might be like to be bitten, and her whole body tightened in revulsion. It was like trying to imagine letting a snake bite her. Or a spider. Vampyres were like spiders with human faces.

  She felt too hollow to wait until breakfast to eat, so she stopped by the kitchen, where Diego and Angelica were fixing sandwiches. They nodded to her when she appeared, seemingly friendly enough, but as she rummaged through the refrigerator, she noticed that they had stopped talking.

  Her mouth tightened. She was tired of the invisible barrier that separated her from the others. Instead of heating up some leftovers from the evening meal, which had been her original intent, she changed her mind, grabbed a banana from the bowl of fruit on the counter and headed up the stairs to her room.

  Tiredness dragged at her body. According to Xavier, her days were going to get even longer. It was time to go to bed.

  She didn’t even bother to turn on the bedroom light. She could see well enough by the light of the moon. It took her less than a minute to eat the banana. It might not have been the starchy lasagna that she’d been craving, but it filled the gnawing hole in her stomach.

  Brushing her teeth, she stripped off her clothes and let them fall to the floor, then reached in her closet for a soft T-shirt that she yanked over her head. Then she took a moment to run some fresh water into a water glass that she set on the nightstand by her bed.

  Xavier’s strong, rich voice filled her head.

  Tess.

  She froze in the middle of pulling her covers down. What the fuck?

  Come to your window.

  Panic bolted through her. They had just finished talking. She had met her duty as an attendant and given blood, damn it. What could he possibly want from her now?

  When nothing else happened, her muscles unlocked and she started to think again. If he wanted to, he could have forced himself into any room in this house, but he hadn’t. He could be standing in the middle of her bedroom, but he wasn’t.

  The panic eased up enough to allow for curiosity to bloom. She walked to the window and looked out.

  He stood on the lawn just underneath her window, a graceful, solitary figure with such immense poise, just gazing at him did something to her.

  Her heart rate picked up speed, and she wasn’t at all sure it had anything to do with fear. His white shirt gleamed in the night, accentuating his lean male form.

  He raised something to her. It was the goblet Raoul had used to put her blood in.

  Are you sure you want to give this to me?

  She put a hand to the glass as she stared at him. He hadn’t just drunk it?

  He understood. He wasn’t just putting up with her phobia. He knew how difficult it was for her, and he respected it. Suddenly she knew that if she told him no, he wouldn’t touch the contents in the goblet.

  Those weren’t the actions of a ravening monster. Those were the actions of a considerate man.

  She relaxed slightly and told him, Yes.

  It was impossible to really see his gaze, but still, she knew he watched her as he lifted the goblet to his lips and drank. She imagined his lips touching the goblet’s cool rim, and it was almost as though he had touched his lips to her wrist again.

  And it was all right. The respect and restraint he showed her made it all right.

  When he finished, he bowed his head to her, turned and walked back to the house. She didn’t leave the window until he disappeared from her sight. Then she climbed into bed and settled down to sleep with a sigh.

  That night, her nightmare about Malphas returned.

  • • •

  When she opened her eyes at dawn, a few minutes before her alarm went off, she thought, Raoul was right. Xavier was right.

  I have to change the conversations in my head.

  I have to do more than just confront my fear. I have to conquer it.

  Each training session, she had gritted her teeth and determined to get through it. Now, for the first time, she considered Raoul as an opponent. While he might be too formidable for her to take down (yet?), he had given her an accessible goal.

  She lay in bed thinking until her alarm chimed. Then, instead of going directly to her morning run, she went in search of Diego, who sat on the patio facing the ocean while he drank coffee. As she joined him, he nodded to her.

  “No morning run today?” he asked.

  It was peaceful on the patio; she would have to remember that and come out here to enjoy it more often. This early in the morning, the air was chilly, and she zipped up her hoodie.

  “I have something else I need to do,” she said. “And I need your help in order to do it.”

  “Oh yeah?” The glance he gave her contained marginal interest.

  “I need you to get me into the weapons locker.” The weapons locker was a room off the garage that was locked with an electronic code. She wasn’t sure who all knew the code, but she did know two things—Diego had access to the locker, and she didn’t.

  “I don’t know, chica.” His expression had turned wary as he sipped his coffee. “I would need to hear a pretty good reason to do something like that.”

  “I need a small gun and some duct tape,” she told him. The muscles in her thighs started to shiver from the cold. Much to her surprise, her body knew she was supposed to be running, and she felt twitchy and full of energy. “A nine-millimeter would do. I’m not asking for any bullets, I just want the gun. I’m going to use it as a prop. It’s for my morning training session with Raoul.”

  “No bullets, eh?” He mulled the idea over, black eyebrows raised. “What do you need the duct tape for?”

  “Staging.”

  A grin began to spread across his broad, handsome features. “Okay, chica, I’ll bite. I’ve got some duct tape in the garage. But if I do this for you, I get to see what goes down.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t even know if it’s going to work. Just make sure you’re in the gym during my training session, and you’ll see it.”

  They walked together to the garage, and Diego keyed in the code for the weapons locker, selected a nine-millimeter and checked it himself to make sure it was unloaded before he handed it to her. She tucked it into the pocket of her hoodie and followed him into the clean, spacious garage.

  A few of the attendants, like Angelica and Peter, didn’t own a vehicle, but those who did parked their cars in the lot at the side of the main house. The garage building was reserved for Xavier’s four vehicles—a gray Jaguar, a silver Mercedes, a black Lexus SUV and an Audi TT. She shook her head as she looked at them. “They’re gorgeous.”

  Diego looked at the cars too. “Yeah, they’re nice, but some of the really wealthy patrons have fleets of thirty or more, filled with cars like Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis. Xavier keeps a modest house by comparison.”

  She remembered Xavier saying something similar and muttered, “It’s more than luxurious enough for me.”

  He threw her a lopsided grin. “Eh, you don’t know any better. You haven’t seen those other estates yet.”

  He sounded like he might be envious, but she wasn’t sure of what. If he were envious of anything, she would have thought it would be of the small fortune in horsepower they were contemplating, but instead he sounded almost disparaging of X
avier’s lifestyle. He couldn’t be envious of the other Vampyre households, could he?

  “And you’ve seen them?”

  “Sure, when I’ve been attending Xavier at some function or other. I’m not always stuck here, babysitting cars and cleaning pools.”

  The tinge of envy in his voice had been replaced with restlessness or dissatisfaction. Maybe even a little resentment?

  Finally, she had encountered something in this place that was less than idyllic. But instead of being reassured at finding a dose of reality, she found it jarring, and she studied him thoughtfully.

  The estate had a cloistered atmosphere. While everybody got time off in rotation, they had to make an effort to actually leave, but she had found that she liked the peace and quiet. She enjoyed the surrounding forest and the ocean, and so far, cable TV and access to the Internet had met all of her modest needs. For the first time, though, she realized that others might not be as content with the lifestyle.

  Diego walked over to the neat metal shelves set against one wall and rummaged through a few drawers, as he said, “Xavier has a six-bedroom house. Chica, that’s almost like living in a double-wide compared to some places I’ve seen. But hey, we each get our own room, so that’s saying something, right?”

  He located a roll of duct tape and handed it to her. As she took it, she gave him a level look. “They’re nice rooms. We ate grass-fed prime rib last night. I have a thousand dollar Visa card from last month that I can use for fun money, if I want.”

  He seemed to realize that he had begun to sound churlish, because he backtracked with a quick smile. “Yeah, of course. It’s all good. I’m just saying, you might think this is fancy, but it’s not as fancy as it can get.”

  “I hear you.” Eager to back out of a conversation that was going nowhere fast, she hefted the roll of duct tape at him as she backed up a few steps. “Thanks for helping out.”

  “No problem.” He gave her an easy smile. “Can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned.”

  Now that she had gotten what she needed, she dismissed Diego from her thoughts and focused on her next steps. Hurrying to the gym, she was pleased to find it empty, and she studied the various angles and possibilities from the mat where she and Raoul usually worked. Everything had to be planned perfectly. She couldn’t afford even a moment’s hesitation, and even then, it might not work.

  Once she had everything arranged to her liking, she jogged slowly back to the attendants’ house, showered and made it downstairs in time for breakfast.

  Afterward, she met Raoul in the gym as usual. Others were already there. Scott jumped rope, sweat trickling down the side of his face. Aaron and Brian sparred with each other. Diego had positioned himself over at the selection of free weights, pumping iron without appearing to look once in her direction.

  As they walked to their usual mat, Raoul said, “I noticed you didn’t open the gates for your morning run.”

  If she’d ever had any doubt whether or not Raoul was keeping an eye on her through the discreet security cameras that dotted the property, his words banished it.

  She shrugged. “I pulled a hamstring and thought it would be better to take the time to stretch this morning.”

  Aside from one quick, keen glance, he didn’t make any further comment. He didn’t have to; they both knew that if Xavier were periodically taking blood from her vein, she would have healed from any hamstring injury overnight.

  Instead, he gestured to the mat, and they took their accustomed places. Adrenaline spiked her senses as she readied herself, bringing her weight to the balls of her feet, but her adrenaline spiked every morning just before Raoul started to pummel her, and besides, as enhanced as he was, she didn’t think he had a Vampyre’s sensitivity to pick up on anything unusual.

  He paused, studying the placement of her feet. “Are you sure you don’t need to do any more stretching first?”

  “I’m sure,” she told him. She brought her hands up.

  “Very well,” he said. “On your guard, if you please.”

  It was how he started every torture session. As soon as she heard the words, she whirled and sprinted toward the punching bag in another corner of the room.

  What would he do? Would he chase her? He was so much faster—she would only get a split second from surprise. She lunged as hard and as fast as she could.

  Then she heard him, coming after her. Dimly, she was aware of the others, talking and exclaiming.

  Three more steps. Two.

  His fingers brushed the back of her neck. She twisted away from the touch, dove, rolled and grabbed for the gun that she had duct-taped to the bottom of the punching bag.

  Bracing her shoulders against the floor, she brought the gun up just as Raoul reached for her again.

  He reared back, his gaze flaring.

  She sighted down the gun, aimed at his heart and said, “Bang, bang. You’re dead.”

  Silence fell over the gym. Raoul didn’t move. His astonished expression settled into something calmer and much more deadly. “How did you get that?”

  She tilted the nose of the barrel away from him and opened up her hand, loosening her grip on the gun. “It’s not loaded.”

  Relaxing, he took it from her and checked the cartridge, then checked the chamber. “That didn’t answer my question. You don’t have the passcode to the weapons locker.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Diego. He shook his head at her, grinning. She rolled to her feet. “Trade secret. Did I surprise you?”

  Raoul gave her a speaking look, eyebrows raised. “What do you think?”

  She knew he remembered their talk from the day before as well as she did. Training was all well and good, but in real life there weren’t any rules to a fight. You either won or you didn’t. This time, she had cheated, but she had also won.

  She smiled. “I think I just changed the conversation.”

  Nothing changed about the rest of her day, and yet everything had. At lunch, most of the guys gave her broad grins, and Marc gave her a friendly wink.

  As she helped to clear away the dishes, Angelica said to her, “Don’t let it go to your head. You got lucky. You still have a lot to learn.”

  “I know,” she told the older woman. “I’m working on it.”

  Angelica’s only reply was a sniff, but her attitude toward Tess seemed to relax a bit too, and Tess thought she might have gotten a step closer to becoming part of the group.

  Part of the family, really. The thought made her pause, but it was true. All the attendants really were like a family. They spent their energies working for the common good.

  Maybe she had taken only one step out of many, but . . . It felt good. She liked it here. She liked these people.

  For the first time since she had arrived, she considered what it might be like to stay long-term and plan for a future here. When she left Las Vegas and Malphas’s employ, all she could think about was getting away and trying to find a bolt-hole in which to hide. Long-term plans hadn’t factored into her thinking.

  What if she did choose to stay?

  She couldn’t train full-time for the rest of her life, nor would she want to. Eventually she would have to take on other tasks, but maybe Xavier or Raoul could give her meaningful, interesting work. As she had worked to get through school, she had been so ambitious. When she had graduated, she knew Malphas was dangerous even as she took a job working in one of his casinos.

  But making money had been her biggest priority. She had been so determined she would never again be as poor as she had been growing up.

  She told herself she was being worldly, working for a pariah Djinn. She wanted to be able to afford nice things, to have a fashionable wardrobe and a fat 401(k), to go on vacations to Hawaii and Europe, and retire by the time she was fifty. Now, when she looked back, she could see how foolish and shortsighted
she had been.

  Here, she might have a place and people to belong to. It was good to be able to go down the path to the beach and walk along the shore, and at night the estate was peaceful, surrounded as it was by forest and wreathed in fresh ocean air. Once she thought she might miss the bright lights of Las Vegas, but she didn’t. She liked the quiet and the seclusion of the forest that surrounded the estate.

  She might have been a fool once, but she didn’t think she was being one twice. She knew there would be much more involved in her position as she finished her training. She had to complete her pact with Xavier, and one of the simplest yet hardest obstacles for her to overcome would be to walk calmly into a room filled with Vampyres.

  Also, training so hard, not only in hand to hand but with weapons, might be to cover unlikely eventualities, but those eventualities did occur. Some day shit would get real, and some kind of confrontation would happen. But even that thought didn’t deter her. It was good to feel empowered, and to know that because of the work she did now, she might one day have an active hand in shaping critical events.

  As the day wore on and evening approached, her good mood dissipated, and she grew more and more nervous.

  Honestly, she didn’t know how to feel about Xavier after the previous night. She only knew that just because something had changed, maybe even something important, it didn’t take away her discomfort at being around him.

  But discomfort wasn’t the same as the kind of outright panic she had been in when she had first met him. Discomfort was an entirely different animal. She had already taken an important stride forward.

  After supper, when it came time for her evening lessons, she walked into the main house to the formal dining area, where she found Xavier standing at one of the windows, looking out over the lawn.

  Reflexively, her gaze flew to the outside scene framed by the tall window. The last of the daylight covered the foliage and emerald lawn in a transparent mantle of heavy gold, but the angle of the sunlight came nowhere near the window where he stood.