CHAPTER THIRTEEN

While staring at Ryu's ceiling, I flexed my hand, trying to work the stiffness out of my fingers and wrap my head around the fact that I'd been stabbed last night. And not Ryu's euphemistic stabbing, but stabbed. For real. With a knife.

In fact, there had been no euphemistic stabbing. Halfway to Ryu's, I'd gone a bit shocky and blue. Two big healings in as many weeks had sapped me physically. While Caleb's magic orchestrated everything, it was my own body's energies and tissues being eaten up.

Plus, I had seen a knife sticking through my hand, never a pleasant experience. So when he got me home, Ryu sat me in his wet room, under hot water, till I'd stopped with the shivering and the blue-face routine. Then he'd made me drink lots of fluids, and he put me to bed with a large dose of valium. I'd slept like a baby.

I was out for about fourteen hours, and when I woke up—for the first time—Ryu was doing his death sleep next to me. Except for the fangs and the little sips of blood, there was nothing “vampirish” about my vampire. Human stories had gotten most things wrong. But while he wasn't a dead man, he did sleep so hard that I could understand why the legends claimed his kind must be corpses.

So I got up, ate every last thing I could find in Ryu's apartment, and drank an entire liter of orange juice, while avoiding thinking about how I'd been stabbed. Then I crawled back in bed to sleep some more. I was really going to need a swim soon, but nap first.

When I woke up the second time, it was evening and the bed was mine alone. I heard Ryu talking to someone, and after a moment I realized it must have been the Peapod guy delivering the groceries we'd ordered yesterday. I could eat only so much restaurant and takeout food, no matter how good it was. Knowing I should join the land of the living, I eventually got up, went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, and tried to muster the will to shower. I finally just gave up and went back again to lie in Ryu's massive bed, stare at the ceiling, and finally address the fact that I'd been stabbed.

After he put away the groceries, Ryu joined me. He pulled off his T-shirt and his black lounging pants before sliding between the sheets. I held out my arms and he pulled me close.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said after a few seconds.

“You're sure? You sound not so fine.”

“I am fine, really. It's just weird to think about.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, kissing my cheek. “It is.”

“Thanks for not making fun of me.” If I'd been in his shoes, I totally would have taken a moment to point and laugh by now.

“Baby, you tried to save my life. Yeah, you got yourself stabbed for no reason, but do you realize how it feels to know you did that for me?”

I blinked in the darkness. It had all happened so fast; I can't even remember what I was thinking when I did it. Was I thinking I loved Ryu and had to rescue him? Or was it just reflex? Would my father have moved that fast for any child, or just for his daughter?

Shut up, you, the libido butted in, silencing my thoughts. He still owes us nookie.

As usual, my libido won and my only answer to Ryu's unspoken questions was my mouth on his.

We made love slowly and gently. I didn't want him to know my hand was still aching. Anything athletic was out of the question, but it was not what either of us wanted, anyway.

Then we showered and he left to go investigate another of the two leads, besides poor Tally Bender, that we'd gotten from Silver. The old doctor had known where we could find Pat Hampton, who'd been the medical coordinator brought in by the new sponsor for all of Conleth's “testing.” Hampton had led a double life: married with kids in one and gay as a bird in the other. Which had saved his life, although his family hadn't been so lucky. While he was holed up in hiding with his secret lover, his wife and young sons were burned in their beds by Conleth. But Silver had told us where to go, and Ryu had coordinated a team to retrieve Hampton while I'd slept the previous evening.

Ryu kissed me good-bye, promised to be back in a few hours, made me promise not to open the door to anybody but him or his deputies, and left me to my own devices. I was still exhausted, and getting stabbed had put the kibosh on my investigative gusto.

The first thing I did was call home. My dad was fine, but worried about me. He was also wondering why he could never remember the midget nurse's name. I told him I loved him and I'd be back soon, which was true, hopefully. Then I called the bookstore. They were about to close, and Tracy was being super cagey and had gotten off the phone pretty quickly. I could have sworn I heard Miss Carol yelling at someone in the background.

Oh gods. Is Miss Carol covering for me at work?

I prayed that I still had a job and that Tracy wasn't going to kill me, as I slipped on undies and one of Ryu's dress shirts. Then I went downstairs to prepare dinner, rooting happily through the refrigerator, then the cupboards, humming to myself as I surveyed my spoils. Before executing my culinary genius, I first poked at Ryu's iPod, set in his state-of-the-art sound dock thingie, until I found the Killers and put them on shuffle. I was officially obsessed with the Killers, not least because of the lead singer's slightly-spastic-yet-strangely-sexy dance moves. I did a little dancing of my own, until my tummy grumbled a hungry protest. I gave one last shimmy before I started pulling out ingredients. I was going to make puy lentils, Provençal style, with two beautiful filet mignon steaks, cooked very rare. Also on the menu was a green salad, heavy on the spinach, with this super-garlicky dressing I'd gotten from a Barefoot Contessa cookbook. Itwas a family favorite and went well with the spinach. Lots of iron was required when one was dating a vampire.

Favoring my sore hand, I slowly chopped onion, leeks, and carrot, and then did a fine dice on the celery. After unwrapping Ryu's Le Creuset pot, I gave it a quick wash and set it on the stove to melt a little butter with olive oil. When it was just starting to bubble, I added the vegetables and then turned down the heat to let them soften. I washed the fresh herbs I was using in my bouquet garni, tying them into a little bundle using a string of sliced leek. I then started finely dicing the garlic, a few cloves for the lentils and a few cloves for the dressing, which got an additional mashing. It was lucky the garlic thing was untrue about vampires, because no garlic would have been a deal breaker. If Ryu couldn't live with garlic, there's no way I could live with him.

When I finished chopping the garlic, I set the knife down to stir the veggies. I was just pulling the lentils and a package of chicken stock out of the cupboard when there was a loud knock at the door.

I froze, then stood like that for about thirty seconds before the knock was repeated.

I figured it had to be one of Ryu's deputies, or Stefan's people wouldn't have let whomever it was through to the door. But just in case Conleth had killed my guards and was standing outside bearing chocolates and death, I scraped the last of the garlic off Ryu's massive Santuko knife and took it with me.

I'll show that halfling a “knoife,” I thought as I stood on my tippy-toes to peer out of Ryu's peephole. All I could see was warped man chest. So I made like a granny and called out, “Who is it?” in a tremulous voice.

“Jane?” came the growling response. I knew only one talking dog-man who growled like that.

“Anyan?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Jane.” He sounded pissed.

As I started in on the locks, my suspicions were confirmed. Before I'd even finished with the dead bolt, I heard his rough voice again.

“Shit, I should have known you'd be here.”

“Nice to see you, too,” I replied as the door finally swung open.

Anyan, in human form, responded by glowering at me, so I glowered right back. Or at least I tried to. But his iron-gray gaze was too intense, and I broke, focusing on his frown instead.

“Catch Conleth?” I asked, grasping at conversational straws.

“No,” he said. “Fucker's quick. Are you going to let me in?”

I moved aside so he could squeeze past. As he did so, I finally broke down and ogled.

He was just as big as I remembered, maybe even larger with clothes. My eyes swept up his big black boots, up his worn jeans, and over a thick leather motorcycle jacket. There was a saddlebag thing over one broad shoulder, and he held a helmet in his hand. I smiled at the sight; I'd always wondered how he got around. He couldn't run everywhere, could he?

When my eyes finally met his again, he was still frowning. I also noticed that his longish hair was suffering a bad case of helmet head.

“I didn't know you'd be here,” he said, “or I would have changed.”

I was about to tell him that he certainly didn't have to dress up for me, when I realized he didn't mean his clothes. Anyan meant his shape. I was about to ask him why he always came to me as a dog, when he saw the knife.

“Expecting someone?” he asked, nodding toward the gleaming Santuko.

“Oh, I'm feeling vengeful. Got stabbed yesterday.”

His eyes nearly bulged out of his head, and his frown deepened so much that, with his big nose twitching at me and his hair flattened, he looked like Sam the Eagle from the Muppets.