Chapter Twenty-seven

I DIDN'T SO much raise the ardeur, as simply stop fighting it. My control of it had grown to the point where I had to give it permission to feed. I had to unleash it. Maybe if the beasts inside me hadn't risen at nearly the same time, I wouldn't have thought of the ardeur as something on a leash. Something on a chain, yeah, a chain with a leather collar at the end of it. Yeah, something leather and metal studded, and tight.

I'd thought they had too many guards in the room, until I got close to Donovan Reece. Then part of me thought sex, and three or four other parts of me wondered what the flesh under all that skin would feel like between my teeth. Donovan had requested that the other men turn their backs and give us what privacy they could. They'd done it. Some had done it with a look that said it was silly, but they'd done it. Then Donovan took his clothes off. He stripped like a pale, white dream. The ardeur had made certain that his body was ready for me. He lay against the front of his body like something carved of ivory and blushed with the first pink of sunrise. He was as pale as a vampire, but he was dawn, he was sunlight on water, he was moonlight on wings. I heard the sound of birds calling in the night. I'd never known swans had a voice, almost like geese, but... no. No, not geese, swans.

Donovan's voice came strained. "You've undone my control of my power. Something about the ardeur has stripped me bare of more than my clothes."

I found I could still talk, above the feel of a night's sky and moonlight, though it was like seeing double, as if the vision in my head threatened to be more real than the man beside me. "My version of the ardeur gives you what you want most, sometimes." I leaned in beside his cheek and whispered into that perfect curve of ear. "What do you want most, Donovan Reece?"

He turned to me, and his eyes were a dull gray. "Not to be king." He rolled us over so that he was suddenly looking down at me. His body was still pressed to the front of mine, not inside, but the sensation of him hard and firm trapped between our bodies made me cry out. He leaned over me, pressing that weight against me. He wrapped his arms around me, which put my face into his chest. I'd have trouble breathing with him on top. But he seemed to realize it and raised his upper body enough to curl around me, until his face was next to mine. "Can you give me what I most want, Anita?"

"I don't know," I whispered.

"Try."

"It may not work the way you think it will." I tried to think past the ardeur, past the feel of his body against mine, tried to think past the warm scent of his skin. The ardeur had a mind of its own, and a funny way of granting desires. I didn't trust what would happen if that was what he truly wanted.

"Give me what I want, Anita." He raised his upper body above me.

"I can't control the ardeur that well, Donovan."

He raised himself so that his upper body was in a half push-up, which pushed his lower body harder against mine. I whimpered for him.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

I had to open my eyes to answer him. "Not hurt, no."

Something in my voice, in my unfocused gaze, made him smile. "No, not hurt," he said, smiling down at me. His eyes were bluer than I'd ever seen them, as if something about this moment had chased the gray from his eyes.

I realized that his request to not be king had made me tone back the ardeur. It scared me, because the ardeur was a power unto itself. It did things, decided things, that I didn't understand. If Jean-Claude had been able, I would have asked him. Of course, I had people I could ask.

It was just going to be awkward to ask. One of the other reasons that Requiem and London were in the room was that they had more centuries of experience with the ardeur than I did. As victims, true, but still they knew it in ways I'd only begun to glimpse.

I put a hand on Donovan's chest, to push him away, to give me breathing space. We were in a hurry, but we weren't in such a hurry, were we? I mean, if he were dead, he wouldn't be king. Sometimes the ardeur was a very literal thing. But I'd forgotten that the white hairs on his chest weren't hair, but feathers. The moment my palm touched the silk of the feathers and the heat of his chest, I forgot what I was going to ask. My hands found his body, and he was hot to the touch, as if his temperature had spiked.

"Your skin, it's hot."

"I told you, you took my control away." He leaned in as he said it, keeping his shoulders up, but lowering his head for a kiss. I could feel his heart thudding against the palm of my hand. I could feel it in a way that I hadn't been able to feel since the ardeur was new to me. I felt his heart like it was something holdable, as if I could reach into his chest and cup it, caress it. I was suddenly very aware of all the blood rushing through his body. I could hear it, feel it, like warm ribbons running just under his skin. I could smell it, hot, metallic, sweet. I had closed my eyes so I wouldn't see his face, watch him kiss me, but it wasn't the human part of me that was the problem. Closing my eyes didn't take away the feel, the weight, the scent of his skin, and of what lay so close under all that flesh.

He kissed me. He kissed me for the very first time, and I didn't care. I moved away from those soft lips, and kissed my way along the line of his jaw. Kissed my way onto his neck. He seemed to take it as an invitation, because the hard length of him pushed between my legs. I opened for him, but put my hand on the back of his neck, holding his neck close to my kisses. His hair was the softest I'd ever touched, but it meant almost nothing to me. I could smell what I wanted, smell it like candy just under his skin.

He pulled against my hand. His voice was strained as he said, "Anita, I need a better angle."

I kept my hand pressed into his neck, brushed by that soft hair, held him where a few kisses more would put me where I wanted to be. I felt him now, pushing against my opening, but not quite there. Normally, that distracted me from other things, but not tonight. Almost without thinking I moved my hips, my legs, angled my body for him. He entered me, and that did distract me. It made my eyes fly open wide, made me cry out and writhe underneath him. But I never let go of the back of his neck. I pressed my face in tight against his, as I raised my hips off the bed, my legs in the air so he could push himself in and out of me. I cried out under the strength of his body.

"Let me rise, Anita. Let me look at you."

"No," I whispered, "not yet."

He pushed against my hand at his neck again. I put my other hand on his back. I held him in place and kissed over the pulse in his neck. It jumped and beat against my lips like something alive. Like a trapped bird in a cage of flesh. I would set it free. I would let it pour into my mouth, and... There was a moment of sanity, a heartbeat of, no, then Jean-Claude's power breathed through me, his hunger, both his hungers, and there was no more doubt. There was only the press of Donovan's pulse against my mouth, his body thrusting inside mine, my hips rising to meet him, and my mouth on his neck.

I bit him and tried to be gentle, but gentle wasn't what I wanted, wasn't how I felt. The sensation of his flesh in my mouth, caught between my teeth, as I bit slowly down, harder, and harder, felt so good. But what I wanted to do was bite more, take more of his flesh into my mouth, into me. The fluttering heat of his pulse like a frightened butterfly beat against the roof of my mouth. It was like a caress, urging me on, begging me to free that dancing bit of life.

Donovan lifted me up off the bed, his arms locked around me as he went to his knees. The movement startled me, made me ease back from the biting.

His voice was shaky. "Too much teeth, Anita."

He knelt on the narrow bed, his arms wrapped around me, his body no longer inside me. My legs were wrapped around his waist. I must have done it automatically when he moved. He'd stopped making love to get me to stop trying to eat him.

His neck had a perfect impression of my teeth like a purplish-red bruise in the white perfection of his flesh. Blood traced down his shoulder and back where my nails had gone into that smooth skin. I could have said so many things, but the one thing I said was the one that amazed me most. "You broke the ardeur's hold."

"I may not be a predator, Anita, but I'm still a king; that means I have to give myself to you. You can't just take it."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's all right, I'm not angry. Just don't tear my throat out, or carve my back up, okay?"

"I'm not sure she can help it," Micah said. I looked out from the man in my arms to find not just Micah but all the men crowded around the bed. Remus seemed to be arguing with Requiem and London. Too low to hear, but body language said it all. I met Micah's eyes and asked for help with a look. I'd thought of Donovan as just meat, just food. The sex hadn't been enough to distract me from blood, and meat.

Donovan asked, "What can I do to keep myself safe?"

Requiem came to the bed, his black cloak tight around him. "If you are strong enough to sit up with her as you did, then you are strong enough to hold her down."

"We can't guarantee your safety, Reece," Remus said.

Donovan looked at the guard. He shifted his grip from my waist to lower, but there was no wavering, as if he could have held me forever. It answered whether the swanmanes were stronger than normal humans; they were. "I know you cannot guarantee my safety."

"She could tear your throat out before we could move," Remus said.

"If it gets that out of hand, we interfere," Micah said.

"Interfere how?" Remus asked.

"Grab her, help Donovan hold her down."

"The ardeur will spread to anyone who touches her," Remus said.

Micah nodded. "I know."

Remus shook his head, a little too rapidly. "I can't do my job then. I can't keep Reece safe."

"Because you won't risk the ardeur spreading to you." Micah made it a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Remus said.

"Then leave," London said.

"We need a senior guard in here," Remus said. "Who do I send in my place? Bobby Lee is still in South America. Claudia, no. Who replaces me?" He sounded tormented, torn between duty and what? Duty and fear? Duty and the ardeur?

"We are out of time for niceties, Anita," Requiem said. "I speak for the vampires. If the lesser among us are to be saved, it must be now." There wasn't a poetic allusion in the statement. Things were bad when Requiem stopped quoting poetry.

It was almost as if his words brought the ardeur crashing back. One moment I was almost neutral in Donovan's arms, the next I was kissing him as if I'd crawl into his mouth. My nails just seemed to automatically dig into his back again. The feel of his flesh parting under my nails made me cry out in pleasure, and him in pain. I tried to tone down what I wanted to do to him. I tried not to bite at his mouth but only kiss, but the effort had me making small frustrated noises against his lips.

He pressed us back to the bed, his weight suddenly pinning me down. My legs were still wrapped around his waist so his body was already pushing against my opening. I fought to concentrate on the sex instead of flesh and blood. But the sex was tangled up with the feel of my nails in his back, my mouth at his lips. I wanted that hard press of flesh to shove its way inside me, but almost more I wanted to bite his lips and draw blood. I wanted blood more than sex. I was feeding for Jean-Claude, but the ardeur wasn't his first hunger.

I licked Donovan's lower lip, drew it into my mouth, so full, so rich, so... I bit down on his lip, hard and sharp. Blood, sweet, metallic, warm blood filled my mouth, and the world vanished in a dance of light flashes and pleasure. It wasn't sex, or orgasm, but it was as if that sip of blood ate the world in a red wash of pleasure. I'd had the world go red from anger, but never from sheer joy. It was as if every piece of my body filled with warmth and happiness all at once. It was orgasmic and not, but whatever it was, it was amazing.

I was left gasping and almost limp underneath Donovan. It was as if I'd lost time, because he had my wrists pinned, his body trying for the right angle to enter me. I blinked up at him as if I didn't remember how I got there. His chin was covered in bright, crimson blood; his lower lip was shredded. Had I done that?

Then he found his angle and was pushing his way into my body. I gazed down the length of our bodies to watch him plunge himself into me. The sight of it made me cry out and raise my hips to meet his thrust. His eyes fluttered shut, and he gasped, "You take all my control away."

"Fuck me, Donovan," I whispered.

He looked down at me, with blood spilling down his face, but his eyes filled with that look that a man gets. That look that says, Mine, sex, more, less than that. His eyes were bluer than I'd ever seen them as he began to shove himself in and out of my body. He found his rhythm, quick, fast, over and over. I watched all that pale, hard length plunge in and out of me. I felt the warmth begin to build. I whispered, "Soon."

"Your eyes," he whispered, "your eyes like blue flame."

I might have asked what he meant by that, but one last thrust and the orgasm hit me. I screamed and struggled underneath him. He fought to hold my hands down, fought to pin my lower body, fought to keep me where he had me, as his body thrust inside me in one last powerful movement that brought me screaming again, or maybe I hadn't stopped screaming from the first time. The ardeur fed, fed on his body plunged inside mine, fed on the strength of his hands on my wrists, fed on the heat of him, and then I felt the swans. The three women I knew in St. Louis were in a small bedroom. They stared up at me as if I were something they could see, something that had come to get them. Then other faces, more startled eyes; some cried out, some slumped on their couches, fell from chairs, others writhed on their beds. I fed, we fed, the ardeur fed. Dozens of faces, of bodies, and I felt Jean-Claude wake, felt it like a jolt through my belly and groin.

He took control of the energy and I might have tried to stop, but it was too late to stop. We fed on the swans, we fed on them all. So much power, so much life. We ate them down while they stumbled in mid-step, while they slid down walls, and none of them fought us. They just gave it up. An army of prey, an army of food; a glorious rush of power.

Richard woke; I felt his eyes flash open, felt him begin to choke and fight the tube in his throat. Jean-Claude drew me back from him, enough so I did not choke with him. I saw the white coats pile around Richard as he began to struggle.

Then it was night and moonlight and wings, strong wings beating against so much air. The ardeur hit those wings like an arrow through his heart. One pulse beat it was feathers and wings, the next pulse it was a man falling to earth. The ardeur took his power, drank down that pale body, that dark hair, the mix of pleasure and terror as he plummeted. Richard's power burst over me, through me, in a rush of heat and electricity. He reached out to the falling man, and simply thought - Change. He called the man's beast, called that energy and covered the flesh in feathers, turned the arms to wings in time for him to turn and skim over the treetops. I felt leaves brush our feet as wings beat frantically to gain height. But frantic didn't quite cover all that smooth, muscled power. When all we could feel was wind and space, we left him, and I had a moment of staring into Richard's face, a moment to see his chest covered in healing scars. Then I was back in the narrow bed with Donovan on top of me, his body poised above me, spine bowed, hands gripping my wrists as if I were the last solid thing in the world. His eyes were closed; blood dripped from his mouth onto my skin like red flowers exploding on my body.

I breathed his name. "Donovan."

He opened his eyes and they were solid black and no longer human. He threw his head back and screamed. The sound was high and piteous. The sound froze my heart in my throat. I had time to think, I've hurt him, and then that pale, perfect body began to thrust into me all over again, as if we hadn't just made love. But before he'd been gentle, careful. There was nothing gentle this time. He plunged into me as hard and fast as he could. He brought me screaming, writhing, underneath him. His hands bruised my wrists, held me in place as his rhythm became frantic, his breathing ragged, and feathers flowed around his body like a nimbus of white light. I had a second to think, Angel, and then all I could see was feathers, brushing me, covering me like a blanket. He cried out again and his body thrust into mine. He brought me one last time, covered in feathers, blinded by them, breathing them in. His hands vanished and I could move my hands, but all I could touch were feathers and bones too delicate to be human. Huge wings beat the air above me, and I could finally see a long graceful neck, the head, the beak. I was trapped at the center of a storm of wingbeats and feathers, as he fought for lift. I covered my face with my arms, because a swan can break the arm of a grown man with one blow. Then he was off, almost hovering, but the ceiling was too low. He crashed to the floor.

I was left buffeted, breathless, heart hammering in my chest. A single feather longer than my hand lay across my stomach. I managed to prop myself up, the feather fluttering down between my legs to land beside the condom that lay discarded on the bed. It had been the only clothes he'd been wearing.

Jean-Claude's voice eased through me. "Je t'aime, ma petite, je t'aime."

"I love you, too," I whispered.

Then dawn came, and I felt him die. Felt that wonderful person I loved go away. I heard the sound of a body hitting the ground. Requiem was a heap of black cloak. One of the guards had managed to catch London and was lowering him to the ground a little more gently. The vampires were dead for the day, all of them. We had hours of daylight to find the Harlequin and kill them. I'm not sure that's what Jean-Claude and the other vampires would have wanted, but the vampires were down for the count until nightfall. It was daylight, and the humans were in charge. Thanks to Jean-Claude I was the top human in our city. Thanks to Richard's self-loathing, the guards would listen to me instead of him. All right, except for the wolves. The wolves were his, but that was okay, I needed professionals, not gifted amateurs. I needed Edward and his backup. At that moment I would have welcomed any backup he thought could handle the job.

Chapter Twenty-eight

I WAS WRONG. I didn't want to welcome Edward's backup. One of them I wanted to send back to his mommy. The other I wanted to put a bullet in his brain, or heart. He was human, so either would do the job.

At least I was dressed for the fight. I never fight as well naked. I would so not have been comfy naked in front of Edward, let alone in front of his "backup." "What the fuck were you thinking?" I shouted at him. Yeah, it was one of those kinds of fights.

Edward's face was blank, empty, peaceful. It was one of the faces he killed with when he wasn't enjoying the kill. "Olaf is good backup for this, Anita. He's got the skills we need: a covert spook, any weapon you care to name, hand-to-hand, and better with explosives than I am."

"He's also a fucking serial killer, whose victims of choice are petite brunette women." I slapped my upper chest. "Sound like anyone you know?"

He let out a breath; if it had been anyone else I would have said he sighed. "He's a good match for this job, Anita, I swear that he is, but he wasn't my choice, not exactly."

I stopped pacing and came to stand in front of him. I'd kicked everyone out except Micah when he handed me the overnight bag full of clothes and weapons. I loved a man who knew how to pack for me. When I'd stepped out into the hallway and seen Olaf and Peter, I'd gone back in the room, kicked Micah out, too, and invited Edward in.

"What does that mean, he wasn't your choice, exactly? You just said his skills match this job."

"They do, but do you really think I'd have brought him within a hundred miles of you, Anita? Olaf likes you, likes you in a way I've never seen him like a woman. He has whores and he has victims, but whatever he feels for you is different."

"Are you saying he loves me?"

"Olaf doesn't love anybody, but he feels something for you."

"He wants me to play serial killer with him, Edward."

Edward nodded. "The last time he saw you, you and he killed a vampire together. You decapitated it, and he cut out its heart."

"How do you know what we did? You were in the hospital trying not to die."

"I heard about it later from the local cops. They were creeped by the way you butchered the vampire. Said you were both real good at cutting up the body."

"I'm a legal vampire executioner, Edward. It's what I do."

He nodded again. "And Olaf has been a special-ops assassin for most of his adult life."

"I don't hold his day job against him, Edward; it's his damn hobby that I don't like."

"Hobby? You call the fact that he's a serial killer his hobby?"

I shrugged. "I think that's how he sees it."

He smiled. "I think you may be right."

"Don't you smile at me. Don't you fucking smile at me. You hinted that you didn't want to bring him on this job, so why did you?"

His face sobered. "He wanted to come to St. Louis to see you" - he put air quotes around the see - "on his own. I told him if he came near you I'd kill him. He believed me, but he said that if I ever got called to back you up again, I had to include him. If I didn't, he'd come on his own, and take his chances with me later."

"Later? Later, after what?"

Edward gave me a look out of those blue eyes that were some of the coldest I ever looked into. "So he's here to what, kill me?"

"He doesn't kill women, Anita. He butchers them."

I shuddered, because I'd seen Olaf at a serial-killer crime scene. Not his own work. He'd been helping Edward and me track down a different killer. But the victim had been just a pile of meat. It had been one of the worst things I'd ever seen done to a human being. Olaf had looked up from that pile of carnage, and the look in his face had been sexual. As if what lay on that table was the biggest turn-on he'd ever had. He'd looked at me, and he'd been thinking sex, yeah, but he'd been thinking sex not just without my clothes, but as if he wondered what I'd look like without my skin. Most humans didn't scare me anymore, but Olaf scared me.

Edward said, "Anita, you look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'd rather see a ghost than him."

He smiled again. "Rather see a ghost; I keep forgetting that you're not just a pretty face."

I frowned at him. "You're smiling. This fight isn't even close to over."

"I had to invite Olaf to play, Anita. This way I have his word that he'll behave himself."

"Define behave himself."

"No serial killing on your turf, period."

"So I'm off the menu, too?"

"He wants to help you slaughter your victim of choice, vampires. He'll even help you kill men, he said."

I shivered, rubbing my arms, squeezing tight so the gun in its shoulder holster dug into my breast a little. I liked the discomfort. I wasn't helpless. It was just that Olaf was six feet plus of trained muscle. I was stronger and faster than a normal human thanks to Jean-Claude's vampire marks, but I still knew enough about physical potential to know that Olaf was a very dangerous man. He was crazy and trained to kill; that seemed an unfair advantage to me.

"You think he would have come on his own by now, if you hadn't given him your word?" I asked.

"Yes." He wasn't smiling when he said that last. He was as serious as I'd ever seen him. "I would never have invited him to that last case in New Mexico if I'd thought I would be needing your help. Please, believe that the last thing I wanted was for him to meet you. I knew it would be a disaster. I just didn't expect you to... charm him. I didn't know there was a woman on the planet that could have made him feel anything close to..." - he searched for a word - "he wants to help you hunt and slaughter these vampires."

"I don't want him here, Edward."

"I know, but this was the best compromise I could make with him, Anita. Actually I hoped he'd be out of the country, so far away that the fireworks would be over before he could get back to the United States. He took a job with a government agency to help train up some of their new antiterrorist infiltration groups. He took a job that he's qualified for - he speaks more Middle Eastern languages than I do - but it wasn't a job that let him exercise his urges."

"You mean he's not been allowed to kill anyone."

He nodded.

"Why would he take a job that didn't let him slaughter people?"

"Because he knew if he went out of the country, he'd never make it back in time to be in St. Louis when you needed me."

I stared at Edward. "Are you saying that Olaf took a job that he didn't want so he'd be closer to me?"

"That is exactly what I'm saying. This last year and some change is probably the longest he's ever gone without killing someone. If you'd asked me, I'd have said he couldn't go this long without killing someone."

"How do you know he didn't?"

"He's got a deal with our government. He doesn't play serial killer on American soil. They look the other way, as long as he abides by that."

I hugged myself tight again. "I didn't ask Olaf to be a good boy, Edward."

"I know you didn't."

"Why does the fact that he's behaved himself on the off chance that he can come play with me scare me?"

"Because you're smart."

"Explain to me why it makes my skin run cold that he's gone to this much effort for me?"

"He is crazy, Anita. Which means that you never know what will trigger him with a woman. He likes you as much as I've ever seen him like a woman. But he has high standards for women."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that when he saw you almost two years ago you weren't sleeping around. Now you are. I'm a little worried that that will change his opinion of you."

"He kills whores," I said, my voice flat.

"I did not call you a whore."

"You said I sleep around."

"You have half a dozen regular lovers, and you just had sex with a new one. Give me another way to say it."

I thought about it, then shook my head and almost smiled. "A full dance card. Oh, hell, Edward. Fine, I'm sleeping with a lot of men." Which brought me to another thought. "God, Peter was in the hallway while Donovan and I were in here..." I felt myself blush and couldn't stop it.

"I figured you for a screamer."

I gave him a very unfriendly look.

"Sorry, but Peter was embarrassed. What else do you want me to say?"

"Say why you brought him. Say why the hell would you involve him in this dangerous mess?"

"Short version, because we've only got a few hours to find these bastards."

"I agree we've got a ticking clock, but you have to explain Peter being here. I can't just let him go hunting vampires with us, Edward. He's sixteen years old, for God's sake."

"It was the phone call when you talked to him. He knew you were in trouble. Short version, he wanted to return the favor. You rescued him, he wanted to help rescue you."

"I don't need rescuing. I need people to help me kill other people. I don't want Peter to get better at killing people. I watched him kill the woman who raped him. I watched him blow her face to red sauce." I shook my head and started pacing the room again. "How could you do this to him, Edward?"

"If I had left him home he just would have followed me. He knew where I was going. This way I can keep an eye on him."

"No, you can't. We can't do this job and babysit at the same time. They almost killed all three of us: Richard, Jean-Claude, and me. We're kind of hard to kill, Edward. These guys are good, dangerous good. Do you really want Peter's first real job to be against something this scary?"

"No," Edward said, "but he was coming. I had the choice of bringing him with me, or letting him find his own way."

"He's sixteen, Edward. You're his father. You say no, and you make it stick."

"I'm not married to his mother yet, Anita. I'm not his official step-anything."

"He sees you as his dad."

"Not when he doesn't want to."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I don't have the authority that a real dad would have over him sometimes. It means that I'll always wonder if he'd been mine from the beginning if he'd be different, or if we'd have ended up here anyway."

"He's out there in the hallway, armed. He's carrying more than one gun, and at least one knife. He's carrying them like he's done it before. What the hell have you been teaching him, Edward?"

"What any father teaches his son."

"Which is?"

"What he knows."

I just stared at him, knowing my face held a soft, growing horror. "Edward, you can't make him into a little you."

"He was scared all the time, Anita, after the attack. His therapist thought that martial arts training, training him to take care of himself, would help. It did. He stopped having the nightmares after a while."

"Training him to take care of himself is different from what's standing out in that hallway. There's a loss of innocence in his eyes. A... oh, hell, I don't know what is missing, or what's there that shouldn't be, but I know it when I see it."

"It's the look that you have in your eyes, Anita. It's the look that I have in mine."

"He is not like us," I said.

"He's killed twice."

"He killed the wereanimal that killed his father and would have slaughtered them all. He killed the woman who raped him."

"It's pretty to think that it matters why you take a life. I guess it does, but what the taking of a life does to you inside doesn't care why you did it. You either can kill and sleep nights, or you can't. Peter isn't bothered by the killing, Anita. He's bothered by what the bitch did to him. He's bothered by the fact that he couldn't protect his sister."

"No one sexually abused Becca," I said.

"No, thank God, but her hand is still stiff sometimes. She has to do hand-strengthening exercises. The hand works, but it's not a hundred percent."

"And the man who tortured her is dead," I said.

Edward gave me those cold blue eyes. "You killed him for me."

"You were a little busy," I said.

"Yeah, dying."

"You didn't die," I said.

"I came as close as I've ever come. But I knew you'd save the kids. I knew that you would see it right."

"Edward, don't do this to me."

"Don't do what?" he asked.

"Don't make me part of taking Peter's childhood away from him."

"He's not a child, Anita."

"He's not a grown-up either," I said.

"And how do you grow up if no one shows you how?"

"Edward, we're going up against some of the most dangerous vampires that you and I have ever faced. Peter can't be that good yet. He can't be up to that skill level, no matter how much you've taught him. If you want to get him killed, fine, he's your kid, but I will not be a part of it. I will not help you get him killed in some macho bullshit initiation thing. I won't do it. Do you understand me? I won't allow it. Maybe you can't send him home, but I can."

"How?" he asked.

"What do you mean, how? I tell him to go the fuck home before he gets himself killed."

"He won't go."

"I can demonstrate that he's out of his depth, Edward."

"Don't humiliate him, Anita, please."

It was the please that got me. "You'd rather he die than get humiliated?"

Edward swallowed hard enough that I heard it. He turned away so I couldn't see his face. Not a good sign. "When I was sixteen, I'd rather have died than have a woman I loved humiliate me. He's sixteen and male, don't do that to him."

"Wait, what did you say?"

"I said, he's sixteen and male, don't humiliate him."

I went to him, walked around so that he had to meet my eyes. "Not that part."

Edward looked at me, and there was real anguish in his eyes. "Jesus, Edward, what is it?"

"His therapist says that an event like what happened to him just as his sexuality was awakening can be a defining event."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means that his view of sex and violence is all mixed up together."

"Okay, what does that mean, exactly?"

"It means he's had two girlfriends in the last year. The first one was perfect. She was quiet, respectful, pretty. They were sweet together."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Her parents called one night and asked what kind of monster our son was, that he'd hurt their daughter."

"Hurt her how?"

"The usual. She was a virgin and they didn't do enough foreplay."

"It happens," I said.

"But the girl claimed that when she told him it hurt, he didn't stop."

"Sounds like buyer's remorse to me, Edward."

"I thought so, too, until the second girl. She was rough trade, Anita. As bad as the first girl had been good. She slept around, and everyone knew it. She broke up with Peter, said he was a freak. This girl was a freak, Anita. She was all leather and spikes and piercings, and it wasn't just for show. She said he hurt her."

"What did Peter say?"

"He said he didn't do anything she didn't ask him to do."

"What does that mean?"

"I wish I knew."

"He won't tell you?" I asked.

"No," Edward said.

"Why not?"

"I think it's rough sex. I think he's embarrassed to talk about it, or what they did was bad enough that he thinks I will think he's a freak, too. He doesn't want me to think that."

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. Sometimes silence is the best you can do. Then I thought of something worth saying. "Liking rough sex doesn't make you a freak."

He looked at me.

"It doesn't," I said, and I felt myself begin to blush.

"It's not my thing, Anita. It just doesn't move me."

"Everyone has things that do it for them, Edward."

"Rough does it for you?"

"Sometimes."

"When a kid is abused, they can react a lot of different ways; two of the choices are that they identify with the abuser and become abusers, or they embrace the role of victim. He didn't embrace the role of victim, Anita."

"What are you saying, Edward?"

"I don't know yet. But his therapist says that he's also identified with his savior, you. He has another option besides just victim or abuser; he has you."

"What does that mean, he has me?"

"You saved him, Anita. You took off the ropes, the blindfold. He'd just had the first sex of his life, and he looks up and sees you."

"He was raped," I said.

"It's still sex. Everyone likes to pretend that it's not, but it is. It may be about dominance, and pain, but it's still sex. I'd take it away, make it so it never happened, but I can't. Donna can't. His therapist can't. Peter can't."

My eyes were burning. Damn it, I would not cry. But I remembered a fourteen-year-old boy who I'd had to watch be abused on camera. They'd done it so I'd do what they wanted. Done it to prove that if I failed them, I wouldn't be the one who suffered. I had failed Peter. I had saved him, but not in time. I had got him out, but not before.

"I can't save him, Anita."

"We already saved him, as much as we can, Edward."

"No, you saved him."

I realized in that one statement that Edward blamed himself, too. We'd both failed him, then. "You were saving Becca at the time."

"Yes, but what that bitch did to Peter is still happening. It's still inside him, in his eyes. I can't fix it." His hands clenched into fists. "I can't fix it."

I touched his arm. He flinched but didn't pull away. "You don't fix shit like this, Edward, not outside television sitcoms. In real life you don't fix this. You can make it better, you can heal, but it doesn't just go away. Real life doesn't fix that easy."

"I'm his father, or all the father he has. If I don't fix it, who can?"

"No one," I said. I shook my head. "Sometimes you just accept your losses and move on. Peter's scarred, but he's not broken beyond repair. I've talked to him on the phone, I've looked in his eyes. I see the person he's becoming, and it's a strong person, a good person."

"Good." He laughed and it was a harsh sound. "I can only teach him what I am, and I'm not good."

"Honorable then," I said.

He thought about that, then nodded. "Honorable. I'll take that, I guess."

"Strong and honorable is not a bad legacy, Edward."

He looked at me. "Legacy, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I shouldn't have brought Peter."

"No, you shouldn't have."

"His skills aren't a good match for this job," he said.

"No," I said, "they aren't."

"You can't send him home, Anita."

"You'd really rather see him dead than humiliated?"

"If you humiliate him, it will destroy him, Anita. It will destroy that part of him that wants to save people and not hurt them. If he gives up that part of himself, I'm afraid that all that will be left is a predator in training."

"Why do I feel like you're leaving out stuff?"

"Because this is the short version, remember?"

I nodded, then shook my head. "Jesus, Edward, if this is the short version, I'm not sure my nerves can take the long one."

"We'll keep Peter in the background, as much as we can. I've got more backup on the way, but I'm not sure they'll get here in time." He glanced at his watch. "We're running out of time."

"Let's do this."

"With Peter and Olaf?" He made it a question.

"He's your kid, and Olaf is good in a fight. If Olaf gets out of hand, we kill him."

Edward nodded. "My thought, exactly."

I wanted to let it go, God knew I did, but I couldn't. I was a girl and I couldn't let it go. "Did you say that Peter was in love with me?"

"I wondered if you'd heard that."

"I understand why he has a crush on me, I guess. I saved him. You hero-worship someone who saves you."

"It may be a crush, or hero worship, but remember, Anita, that it's the strongest emotion he's ever had for a woman. It may not be love, but if you've never felt anything stronger, how do you tell the difference?"

The answer was, you don't. I just didn't like that answer, not one little bit.