“Later . . .” His lips twisted. “I began to understand why my father had been willing to make that deal. I had understood intellectually from the first, of course, but the reality was . . . somewhat different.”

“You still feel like this, don’t you?” I asked, in shock. “What I’m feeling now—all the time?”

“Not all the time, no. It was almost constant for more than a decade—”

“A decade?” He shot me a glance, and for some reason, it was amused. Because clearly, the man was insane. “How—”

“I am ashamed to say that I became rather addicted to a number of substances during that time, in an attempt to . . . to survive, I suppose you would say. It didn’t help much, nothing did, but the struggle became easier over time, as the demon part of me became weaker. And I obtained an outlet for my energies in hunting down those who had done as I had—only on purpose.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I watched the sand turn mauve and crimson and honey as the night slowly retreated before the sun. And thought about what it would be like to have a part of yourself literally starving to death and yet unable to die. And to know that if you gave in, even once, to the constant, gnawing hunger, you would forever forfeit your freedom.

“Your father is a son of a bitch,” I said, with feeling.

“I wouldn’t argue the point,” he said drily. “However, from his perspective, he feels cheated. He spent a considerable amount of time over the centuries trying and failing to have a physical child. And when he finally managed it, against all the odds, the result was not . . . quite what he’d expected.”

“Too damned bad! A lot of parents have children who aren’t exactly what they thought they would be. But they learn to love them anyway.”

“Most parents aren’t demon lords. And love was never the issue.”

“It should have been.”

“For someone who deals in it, or its physical manifestation, as much as my father, he knows astonishingly little about it.”

Pritkin was quiet for a few moments, and I knew I should probably drop it. But he opened up so rarely, I fully expected tomorrow to come and the lid to be clamped down again, tight. If I didn’t ask now, I might never have a chance. And it wasn’t like the guy was shy. If he didn’t want to talk, he’d tell me. Probably pretty bluntly.

“Is that why you’re a health nut now?” I asked. “To make up for those early days?”

“No, it was more an attempt to compensate slightly for the power loss I had sustained when I stopped feeding.”

“What power loss?”

“As I told you, I had never merged with other demons, never tried to enhance what I was born with, as it would have merely made me more useful to my father. And him that much less likely to let me go. But much of my strength had nonetheless always come from . . . my other half, if you like. And once it was incapacitated, I had to find other ways to compensate.”

“Like the potions.”

He nodded. “I was never greatly interested in them before. But they became a way of balancing the power loss. And I find making them to be . . . calming. Some of the more deadly require utter concentration, and I discovered that when I was focused on something so completely, it helped to curb the hunger. Do you not agree?”

I didn’t know what he meant for a second, until I realized—the flashback was gone. My breathing was normal, my heart rate steady, my hands still sweaty, but only as a leftover. I relaxed back against the seat with a sigh.

“Thank you.” It was heartfelt.

“One learns coping mechanisms over time—”

“Or one goes insane?”

“Some would say I already am.”

“They’d be wrong.”

We slid to a stop at a crossroads, and Pritkin turned slightly in his seat to look at me. “And how would you know?”

We were close enough that I could see his long, sandy eyelashes, almost close enough to count the whiskers of the end-of-day beard shading his jaw. He hadn’t had a chance to torture his hair yet, and it was looking soft and oddly flat, and was blowing slightly in the breeze coming across the windshield. It made him look younger somehow, gentler, sweeter....

I mentally rolled my eyes at myself. Yeah, sure.

Pritkin was annoying, stubborn, secretive, impatient and rude. He had the tact of a Parris Island drill sergeant and the charm of a barbed-wire fence. He regularly made me want to slap him and other people want to shoot him, and that was without even trying. I’d probably yelled at him more than anybody else in my entire life, and I’d known him less than two months.

And yet he was also loyal and honest and brave and weirdly kind. Most of the time, I didn’t understand him at all. But I knew one thing.

“I grew up with some genuinely crazy men,” I told him harshly. “You’re not one.”

“Then what am I?”

I pushed a strand of wildly waving hair out of his eyes. It just wouldn’t behave for shit, would it? Kind of reminded me of the man.

“Pritkin,” I said simply. It sort of summed up the whole, crazy package.

His lips twitched. “Do you know, no one else calls me that?”

“What about the guys in the Corps?”

“They usually call me by my given name if they know me, or by my rank if they do not.”

I thought about that. For some reason, it made me happy. “Good.”

He shook his head, refusing to let the smile out. I don’t know why. Like it might damage something.

“Where do you want to go?”

I sighed. “Back to the suite.”

“Are you sure? We can make other arrangements, and there’s the fact that . . .”

“That what?”

“That Jonas won’t like it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

He did smile slightly then, and put the car in gear. “Now you sound like a Pythia.”

Chapter Thirty-one

I guess I fell asleep in the car, because I didn’t remember getting back. Or getting into pink-striped shorty pj’s. Or falling headfirst into bed. But I must have. Because I woke up tangled in my own sheets, the pillow half over my head and sunlight leaking in through a crack in the drapes.

I rolled over, feeling groggy and thickheaded and gritty-eyed and yucky. It was so much like yesterday that, for a minute, I thought it had all been a dream. But even my dreams weren’t that bizarre. And then I tried to move, and immediately knew it had been real enough.

Because I got the charley horse from hell in my left calf.

I didn’t shriek—it wasn’t that loud. But to a vampire’s ears, it must have been loud enough, because the bedroom door burst open and Marco rushed in, gun in hand and face pretty damn scary. He looked around wildly, I suppose for something to shoot, and when he didn’t find anything, he grabbed me.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

I stared up at him, still half-asleep and disoriented from the pain, and didn’t say anything.

“Cassie!”

“Charley horse,” I finally managed to gasp, only it didn’t seem to do any good. Because he just stared at me, uncomprehending, as the room quickly filled up with vamps.

And then he blinked. “Did you say charley horse?”

I nodded tearfully.

Marco said something profane and shoved his gun into the small of his back. “Get outta here,” he told the others, who melted away into the shadows, looking absurdly grateful.

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. It felt like my entire body had whiplash. I was beginning to understand why Fred had said he hated lasso spells. Of course, the one that had made me feel like shit had also saved my life, but that wasn’t all that comforting at the moment.

I held up my left leg, which was cramped so badly I couldn’t even straighten it out. Marco’s big hand smoothed gently over the muscle, and then he applied a little pressure. I gasped in pain and then in wonder, as the muscle suddenly released. It still hurt like a bitch, a dull throbbing that mirrored the racing of my heart. But at least I could breathe.

“You know, I’ve lived a long time,” he told me, massaging the calf more firmly now. “And I met a lot of people. But I ain’t never met a woman made me want to beat her to death as often as you.”

“Sorry,” I choked out, and tried to pull away, but his hand held me firm.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Marco said. “Not until we have a little chat.”

But he didn’t chat; he didn’t talk at all. He just continued the long, soothing strokes with those big fingers, so clumsy-looking but so deft in movement. And after a few moments, I felt my body slowly relax. “You’re good at that.”

“Had a lot of practice.”

“Really? Where?” I asked, less because I wanted to know than to postpone the bitching-out I was about to get. Usually, I held my own pretty well, even with the vamps. But right now, it didn’t feel like I had anything left.

Marco shot me a look that said he knew damned well what I was doing, but then he shrugged. “The lanista I worked for had me ready the men for combat. They fought better if they were loose, or so he thought.”

“Lanista?”

“Guy who owned a bunch of gladiators.”

“I thought you were in the army.”

A bushy black eyebrow rose, but he didn’t ask. “I was. Worked and scraped my way up to centurion, just in time to see the empire crumble around me. I was almost dead after a battle, when some men dug me out of the blood and the muck and carried me off. Turns out they worked for a vampire with an entrepreneurial streak, and he liked ex-army.”

He added a little extra pressure, and I moaned, but not because it hurt. That leg felt better now, although it just highlighted how sore the rest of me was. It was like I hadn’t been able to concentrate on all my other aches and pains until the big one got taken care of. And now they were all clamoring for help.