The bruise made his hands clench.

"I'm okay." She tried to sit up.

"Be still." Michael put an arm around her for support. "What happened?"

"I finished." She looked around, her eyes dazed. "I was cleaning up. He was unconscious. Then I was sailing through the air and crashing into things. He was over me and then… bam, lights out." She grimaced. "Is he okay?"

"Thierry escaped. He's gone."

"Shit." She pressed a hand to her head. "He must have been playing possum. There was no time to react. He came at me like the wrath of God."

Her insistence on walking this line between human and Darkyn was, in part, responsible for Thierry's escape. Had she been Kyn, she would have been strong enough to hold him off, long enough for Michael and his men to get downstairs.

Michael looked up at Phillipe. "Take the men and find him. Arm yourselves, and do what is necessary."

His seneschal nodded and left.

"Wait a minute." Alex used his shoulders to balance as she struggled to her feet. "What do you mean, necessary?"

"Thierry killed two of my men before he fled." He thought of how close Alexandra had come to death. "Nothing will stop him."

She shook her head. "He's just confused."

"He's mad. He will only leave bodies in his wake." When she started to walk upstairs, he caught her arm. "You cannot go after him. You are hurt."

"I'm fine. I didn't just spend three weeks putting him back together so your goons could take him apart." She gave him an impatient look. "I'll find him, and talk to him, and calm him down."

He shook his head. "He's too dangerous."

"I can handle him." She took her tranquilizer gun and began loading it.

His temper exploded, and he went after her. "You do not decide what happens here." When she aimed the gun at his chest, he slapped it out of her hand.

She gaped at him. "What are you, jealous?"

"You're still human enough to die, you idiot woman," he roared.

"Of course I am." Alex blinked. "What has that got to do with it?"

"Everything." He pulled back his sleeve and bared his wrist.

"Let's talk about this." She recoiled. "Cyprien, you're not thinking clearly. No. No."

"The time to think about it and talk about it is over. I know you have been starving yourself. You must face what you are, Alexandra, and you will never do that until you feed." He grabbed her by the back of the neck, held her in place, and pressed his wrist to her lips. "You will take my blood, Alex."

Because of the grip he had on her, Alex couldn't turn her head. "No."

"Bite me."

Alex's mouth was pressed tightly to Cyprien's wrist. She could feel the heavy rush of the blood in his veins against her lips. Saliva pooled in her mouth, and her fangs emerged, full and aching with emptiness. Still, somehow, she kept her jaw clamped shut.

"With you, it must always be the hard way." Cyprien dragged her over to the empty exam table and threw her on top of it. Alex was too weak to fight him and the restraints he strapped over her arms and legs.

"You know how many ways I can hurt you?" she snapped.

"Too many." He put his wrist to his mouth, bit into it with his own fangs, and then pressed it against her lips again. "Now, drink."

A little of his blood seeped into her mouth. From all the hype, it was supposed to be like drinking ambrosia. Only it wasn't. It was blood, and it tasted like blood.

So much for the Anne Rice bullshit. The taste made it a little easier to keep her mouth shut.

"Femme têtue." He took his wrist away, put it to his mouth, and sucked.

Alex wiped the back of her hand across her lips. "I won't do it. Do you—"

Cyprien sprawled on top of her. He held her head with one hand and pinched her nose shut with the other. Alex's eyes went wide a fraction of a second before he clamped his mouth over hers.

Blood flowed from his mouth into hers. Alex choked, but he kept her from taking in any air by keeping her nostrils pinched shut. It wasn't kissing like last night, though. He was doing it to get his blood down her throat. Alex strained at the straps holding her down, but she couldn't get an arm free. She tried to spit the blood out, but being flat on her back and unable to breathe made it impossible. Cyprien stayed on top of her, keeping his mouth sealed over hers, his glacier blue eyes staring directly down into hers.

Flesh to my flesh, blood to my blood.

Why she stopped fighting, Alex would never know. She simply did. She swallowed the blood from Cyprien's mouth, and when that was gone, she let her head fall back against the table. No euphoria this time; she shuddered as she felt his blood slam into her desiccated stomach like a hot fist. She didn't taste blood in her mouth anymore; she only felt it spreading through her, like the warmth he had given her last night. Better than the warmth.

Way better.

Alex turned her head and saw the wound on his wrist had already healed over. Her fangs ached. She wanted to sink them into him and have more. More and more and more…

"Master, it is Tremayne. He will be here in twenty minutes."

Éliane's voice calling to him from the top of the stairs worked better than a bucket of iced holy water. Cyprien rolled off her and reluctantly released the straps. It took Alex a few seconds to climb off the table, and by the time she did a faint red mist had descended over everything.

Son of a bitch. He did it to me again.

Alex didn't waste time with words. She threw her fist and hit Cyprien in the chest. Drinking the blood he'd forced down her throat put a little extra power behind the punch, and he went flying across the room, where he crashed into a storage cabinet. Glass shattered; liquid splashed. He was back on his feet in a blink, wiping the fresh blood that trickled from his mouth.

He didn't yell; he didn't try to hit Alex back. He held out his long, slim artist's hand. "Come here, Alexandra."

Oh, shit. This is the part Anne Rice got right.

She wanted to. She might be a blood-dependent fanged mutant, but she still had needs, and Cyprien could stroke every one of them until they sat up and begged.

She could do things his way. Take his hand, follow his orders, kiss his amazing ass for the rest of forever. He'd love it, and he'd make sure she loved it. And somewhere along the way, Alex was pretty sure she'd lose what was left of her soul.

"I'm going after him," Alex told him. She retrieved her tranquilizer gun. "If you try and stop me again, I'll shoot you first."

"Don't get close to him," was all he said.

"Too fucking late." With the taste of Cyprien's blood still hot in her mouth, Alex stalked past the startled secretary, and strode out into the night.

Michael had no time to prepare his household for the high lord's visit. He merely stationed extra guards around the property and inside the mansion, and sent Heather and the other nurse to a nearby Kyn home.

Éliane refused to leave.

"Phillipe has not returned," she told Michael as she set out a tray of blood-wine canisters and gleaming crystal goblets. "The high lord will expect you to be properly attended, if not by your seneschal, then by your tresora."

"He does not come to inspect us." Michael hoped not, anyway. A glance down confirmed that his clothes were filthy and torn, with his own blood staining one shirt cuff. There was no time to change. "Éliane, most humans do not survive meeting Tremayne."

"I am not most humans." She gave him a sunny smile and carried a vase of wilting flowers from the room.

Tremayne arrived five minutes later, cloaked and masked, accompanied by ten of his personal guard. They came into the mansion like a dark tide, swelling and eddying around the high lord, weapons ready, eyes sweeping the path ahead, around, and behind.

Michael took his position at the end of the entry foyer and bowed. "Welcome to La Fontaine, my lord."

"Good evening, Cyprien." Tremayne's masked head moved, and something gleamed in the narrow slits that served as eyeholes. "What a charming little place you have. I think this is the first time I have seen it."

"I believe it is." Michael turned slightly as Éliane came to stand beside him. "My tresora, Éliane Selvais."

"You honor us with your presence, High Lord." Éliane executed a flawless curtsy.

Tremayne came forward and put one of his gloved, distorted hands under Éliane's chin. "I've always admired your taste in women, Michael. It mirrors my own." He lowered his hand. "We will dispense with the usual formalities and speak privately. Now."

Michael escorted Tremayne to his formal drawing room, where the high lord's personal guard stationed themselves outside. Cyprien dismissed Éliane and closed the door, leaving the two of them alone.

"I am very disappointed in you, Michael:" Tremayne helped himself to a goblet of blood-wine, but left his mask and cloak in place. "You have come into possession of something that I have desired, most fervently, for six hundred years. Yet you whisper not a word of it to me."

Michael feigned ignorance. "I do not know of what you speak, my lord."

"I speak of Alexandra Keller. You attacked her, you made her drink your blood—repeatedly—and she yet lives, and walks as a human." Tremayne's voice grew soft. "Where is Alexandra now, Michael?"

"Thierry Durand escaped. She is out with my people, looking for him."

"She operates on Kyn, and now she protects them. Fascinating woman." The high lord wandered around the room, inspecting the decor. "I am told she has not yet risen from a human death. Is this truth?"

"It is."

"Then she is priceless." He tapped a gloved finger against the lower part of his mask. "Now, what are we to call such a unique creature?"

My love. "I cannot say, my lord."