Maya looked back at the answering machine. She should return her mother’s calls; she would be worried, and so would Barbara, the colleague she’d worked with for the last four years.

She lifted the receiver and punched in the numbers. Before the call connected, Gabriel’s hand pressed the off button on the phone. “What the hell?” she yelled, already on the edge.

“Who are you calling?”

She would have told him, but the controlling tone in his pissed her off and spread uneasiness in her stomach. “None of your damn business. What am I, your prisoner?”

With a shocked look, he released his grip on the phone. “No. Of course not. Go ahead.” He paused. “But be careful what you tell your friends and your family.”

Maya let her shoulders drop. He was right. She had no idea what she was going to tell her mother; she’d just dialed without thinking what to say. Her gaze trailed to the photo of her parents on the sideboard. There was her father, his arm draped over his wife’s shoulders, the two of them laughing at each other. She remembered when she’d taken the picture of them. It had been on the day of her graduation from medical school. Mom had put her golden hair up in an attractive bun, and Dad’s short, light-brown hair was wet, as were his clothes.

“He told me he would jump into the pool with all his clothes on if I passed with a four-point-O,” she said to nobody in particular. “I couldn’t pass up the chance.” When she looked up and away from the photo, she caught Gabriel looking at her, a soft smile around his lips.

“Call your parents. Tell them you’re fine, but you’re working extra shifts because a doctor is sick and you have to cover for him,” he advised. “We’ll figure out a more detailed and believable story later.”

She nodded and swallowed back her tears. “It’s too late. They’ll be asleep. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Gabriel agreed. And then, as if he knew what she was thinking, he added, “You will see your parents again. I promise you. I’ll arrange it for you.”

She gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

“And now, can you look around and let us know if anything is missing or if there’s anything that’s not yours and might belong to him?”

Maya shuddered at the thought that the person who’d attacked her had been in her apartment. How close had she been to him? Had she kissed him, let him touch her? Or even slept with him? It wouldn’t surprise her—unfortunately. She’d always had a varied sex life and most of her relationships hadn’t lasted long.

She’d never been satisfied, not emotionally and never sexually. No man had ever been able to give her what she needed. Maybe it would have been easier if she’d been able to tell a man what she actually wanted and needed. But she’d never been able to voice her desires. All she knew was that they were dark, too dark for her own mind to put words to them. Whenever she’d had sex with somebody, she’d always wanted to feel more. Yet she didn’t know what this more entailed.

Maya pushed the thoughts aside and went through her belongings, painstakingly going through drawer after drawer, shelf after shelf. Nothing seemed to be missing.

“Are you picking up anything?” she heard Yvette ask Gabriel.

“Nothing. He was careful.” Gabriel’s voice was even.

“Yes, odd. Do you think he knew we’d come here?”

“Definitely. It looks like he’s been here to clean up after himself.”

Maya stared out the window into the dark and shivered. She didn’t want to stay here. The knowledge that he could enter whenever it pleased him, made her feel unsafe. “I’ll pack a few of my things,” she announced.

“Yvette, help her,” Gabriel ordered. “We’re done here.”

In the bedroom, Maya threw a few clothes into a bag, then went into the bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet over the sink and reached for her contraceptive pills.

“You won’t need those,” Yvette said behind her.

She hadn’t noticed that Yvette had followed her, and the mirror didn’t reflect either of them.

“How would you know? I’m not giving up sex just because I’m a vampire.”

“Nobody is expecting you to. But you won’t need those pills. Vampire females are sterile.”

Sterile. The word hung in the air.

Maya gripped the sink for support. All these years she’d taken precautions against getting pregnant. All these years she’d been afraid of her contraceptives failing, a condom breaking, or any other stupid accident. And now, when she was told she no longer had to worry about that, she had to realize that she wanted to be a mother one day? How cruel could life be?