Doc’s eyes flicked open, warm green-gold in the dim lighting. ‘I told you about calling me—’

‘Hush now. Unless you’d rather sleep alone?’ Fi dug her nails in a little more, dragging them over his body with purpose. His mouth stayed open, but the words stopped, replaced by the low undercurrent of a motor running. He shook his head like a drunken man. Drunk on pleasure.

‘I thought so.’ She laughed softly. Dead or alive, she’d never felt this way about a man before. Made her want to hold on to life more than ever.

Chapter Seventeen

Mal waited to speak until Doc and Fi had left and shut the door behind them. His eyes stung with the need for sleep, his shoulder burned from the puncture wound, and humiliation shredded his gut. He’d lost control. Weakling. Let the voices best him. Obey us. For a creature who’d once been so feared, he was now as helpless as a child. Impotent. Doc had done what was necessary. Too bad that bolt hadn’t found his heart. Things would be so much easier that way. ‘You see now why I can’t help you.’

‘No.’ Thinly veiled anger lowered Chrysabelle’s voice.

‘I almost killed you.’

‘And I you. But neither of us did.’ She sighed. ‘Besides, that wasn’t really you.’

‘It was me.’ He turned, tired of her eyes watching the wound on his back not heal. ‘I can’t control the curse when it takes over.’

‘You could stop it from taking over.’

‘No, I can’t.’ Powerless, powerless, powerless. He wanted to be alone, not to stand here and explain himself to a woman-child who knew nothing but privilege and pampering. Unless that was a disguise to mask who she really was. She had fought well. Surprised him. But there was time for figuring that out tomorrow. ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘If you fed properly—’

‘Enough.’ The word came out in an angry rumble, and she had the good sense to flinch. Then her good sense disappeared.

She walked toward him, her face a mask of determination. Foolish woman. She opened her mouth, but he held his palms up, forcing her to stop. ‘Go home. To your aunt’s. Wherever. Just leave.’

‘You own my—’

‘I don’t give a damn about your blood rights. I don’t want them. Or you.’ He spun and walked toward the door and away from the lie he’d just told. He could be in bed in minutes, asleep seconds after that. To sleep, perchance to nightmare …

Again, she started after him. Desperation and self-loathing wafted off her, souring her alluring scent. Of course. When had a comarré ever chased an anathema? It must be torture for her to need the help of someone so far beneath her. ‘They’ll kill us both, my aunt and me. Do you want that on your head?’

‘As long as you don’t come back to haunt me, I’m okay with it.’ She’d definitely end up dead if she stayed here. Yes, yes, yes.

‘You don’t mean that.’

He kept walking.

‘You said you’d help me if I proved my fight training to you.’

‘I lied. You should understand that.’

Anger must have cleared her mind of all reasonable thought, because she charged after him, tackling him and taking them both to the ground. ‘You need me, you stupid man. Don’t you see that?’

He pushed her off and rolled on top of her, pinning her to the floor. Kill her, drain her. ‘I don’t need anyone.’ Except maybe Doc. And occasionally Fi. Not that Mal would admit that on point of death.

‘Help me, and I’ll give you blood.’

‘By blood rights, it’s mine anyway, isn’t it?’ Take, take it all.

Her mouth bent into a frown, her hair splayed out around her head like rays of light. ‘I don’t want to be around you any more than you want to be around me, but as much as I’d like to get on with my vampire-free life, I can’t until I’m cleared of this murder. And you, unfortunately, are my best chance of that. My means to an end.’ She turned her face away, exposing her neck. ‘Take the blood in payment if it makes you feel better.’

‘It wouldn’t.’ He leaned down, erasing the space between them. The voices thrashed at the sweetness of her perfume. ‘I don’t want your blood. Not ever. Understand? The only thing I need is to get these voices out of my head.’ He jumped up, earning himself a stab of pain from his wounded shoulder, and stalked off.

Of course, she followed.

He needed air. And space. Anything to separate himself from the blood scent filling the gym. With a speed she couldn’t duplicate, he raced to the nearest deck that overlooked the sea. Right after making this ship his home, he’d discovered that even the somewhat polluted mix of night air and salt tang helped subdue the voices.

‘You can’t lose me that easily.’ Her chest rose and fell with the effort of chasing him. Good. She needed to know she was not his equal. He stared out at the black water. If she expected him to hold up his end of the conversation, she was going to be heartily disappointed.

She wasn’t quiet long. ‘What if I said I might know a way to break your curse? You know, it’s kind of pretty out here.’

He whipped around. ‘How? Break it how?’

She gazed toward the sea. Past the wharf and the now-dark tenements beyond it, expensive lights pocked the curve of shoreline where the homes of wealthy mortals sat like temples of excess. The crescent moon’s reflection shattered on the dark, rippling water, and its weak light outlined the corpses of the other abandoned ships. Pretty was not a word he’d use to describe this landscape.