I blinked at him, stunned that he was willing to admit he was wrong. "Really? You admit you were wrong?"

He tugged me down until my lips rested upon his. "Yes, I do."

"Have you ever had to apologize to anyone before?"

His lips feathered across mine. "Never."

A now familiar warmth started deep within me as his hands got into the action. "It didn't hurt too much, did it?"

"Terribly. I need comforting."

"Men. Such babies," I said as I pushed him onto his back and kissed the objection right out of his mind. "You really brought my stuff here? Esme's bobble, too?"

Christian groaned and slapped a hand over my mouth, but too late, as I saw to my horror.

"Oh, my gracious heavens! You're both naked! In bed! Together! I shouldn't be seeing this, should I? Don't look, Mr. Woogums; it isn't at all fit for you to see."

I stared in horror over Christian's biceps at Esme as she stood in bewildered delight next to Christian, her hand held over the cat's eyes. Dark as it was, I could see her examining Christian from head to toes.

"Oh, my dear, how very fortunate you are. How very fortunate indeed!"

The dream came on me just as the dawn lightened the gray, sodden skies over London. Once again I was in a house, my footsteps echoing before me as I walked down long, empty corridors, aware that I wasn't alone. This time I knew it was Christian who needed my help.

I stepped through an archway to a solid steel door, the lock enhanced by a heavy bolt. I ignored the lock and pushed open the door, entering the room to find myself with a group of people, staring at the figure of a man lying still and silent on a hard metal table. It was Christian lying on the table, his eyes empty and soulless as Eduardo drained the blood from his body.

"She will not come for you," said a small, dark-haired man standing at Christian's feet. "She will not save you, not now, not ever. She is lost to you. If I cannot have her, I will have you."

"You must choose," Eduardo said to me. I shook my head, refusing to make the decision.

Christian turned his head until his eyes met mine. A sob of protest caught in my throat as I tried to push forward, tried to stop Eduardo, tried to refute the second man. I would come for him; I would save him.

"You will trust me," Christian ordered, his eyes full of sorrow and pain; then he held his arm out to the second man, who bent over his wrist, baring fangs that sank cruel and deep into Christian's flesh.

My scream echoed throughout Christian's high-ceilinged bedroom, not in the least bit muffled by the curtains that he had drawn around the bed. I lay frozen in the bed, disoriented by it, by the room, and the strangeness of a warm body lying spooned protectively behind me.

Christian's hand slid up from my hip to tighten around my belly. "Allegra? Were you dreaming?"

My heart was beating wildly, the foul taste of the nightmare still filling my mouth. Suddenly feeling as if I were suffocating, I pushed at his arm until he released me, then sat up on the edge of the bed and pushed the curtain aside, breathing deeply as I hunched over, trying to catch my breath and tell myself that not every dream I'd had turned out to come true.

"Allegra?"

Only ninety or so percent actually came to pass the way I'd dreamed them.

"What is wrong?"

"I'm okay," I mumbled, not wanting him to see me like this. I had suffered nightmares and occasionally night terrors ever since I'd started training as a Summoner. It was the main reason that I didn't sleep nights—the nightmares were less likely to come if I slept after the sun was up.

"You are not. You are shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, and I can hear your heart beating madly from here." His warm hand touched my back. "It was a dream?"

I nodded, hugging my knees to my chest.

"I take it that it was not a dream in which you relived our recent agreeable activities?"

I shook my head.

The sheets rustled as he scooted over until he was sitting next to me. He slid his arm around me, but I pushed away from him, sliding a few feet down the bed. "No, please, don't touch me."

His pain lanced through my mind at the words. Even sickened as I was by the nightmare, I felt it necessary to reassure him, but I couldn't face those knowing eyes. I turned my head until I saw his knees, and addressed them. "It's not you; it's me. I always feel… tainted after one of these dreams. I don't want you to touch me until the feeling is gone."

"Do you have such dreams frequently?"

I didn't want to talk about the dream. I didn't want to think about it; I wanted to wipe from my memory the sight of Christian's face as he gave up his life to save me. I wanted to forget him, forget the dream, just go back to being who and what I was before I ever came to this horrible country.

Liar, I scolded myself.

I dropped my chin to my knees and squeezed my eyes shut tight, not wanting Christian to see me cry. He'd want to comfort me and if he comforted me I wasn't sure I would ever find my way back to my solitary life without him.

Why do you want to live alone when you can have Christian? my mind asked me.

I told it to get stuffed.

The dream was a warning. My dreams often are; they show me what will happen if I don't take steps to direct fate to a more pleasant path. I had no idea who the second Dark One was, nor why Christian ordered me to trust him when he was clearly sacrificing himself for me… A sob caught in my throat as the memory of Christian offering his wrist replayed itself in my head. I scrubbed at my eyes and rocked silently as inside me a battle raged. The need to be with him, to take his darkness and fill him with something else warred with the knowledge that in order to save him, I would have to sacrifice everything I held dear.

Without saying a word, Christian rose from the bed and went into the en suite bathroom. I'd been in there earlier and goggled at the marble bathtub, the gold fixtures, the hand textured walls. It was a bathroom that could inspire anyone, but it was rather odd that Christian should have the urge to go in there right at the exact moment I was having a meltdown. I sniffled into my knees.

"Come, I have drawn you a bath," he said a few minutes later. I peeked up at him through damp strands of hair. "I thought you might enjoy it."

A bath suddenly sounded heavenly, only… I hugged my knees even tighter.

He turned around and walked to a huge wardrobe, pulling out a Chinese red silk robe. I accepted it, sliding it on quickly as I headed for the bathroom. Christian might have a body that made him think nothing of parading around nude—and heaven only knew I certainly enjoyed his parade—but I did not care to be seen marching about in my birthday suit.

I paused at the door and looked back at where he stood. "Thank you."

He accepted my thanks with a slight nod.

It took me a long time to scrub the aftereffects of the nightmare off my skin, but when I emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of jasmine-scented steam, I had come to several decisions. The first was that I would ignore the fact that Christian had used a capital B—I could tell by the inflection he used that it was a capital—when calling me his Beloved. I was sure that slip of the tongue was due more to the fact that we seemed to be very compatible when it came to a physical relationship than to any notion that I might be the sole person who could salvage his soul. We were good together, I argued to myself, but not that good.

My second decision was that I was going to have to ignore Christian's previous request that I not see Guarda alone. He'd told me earlier that he didn't think it was safe for me to meet with her by myself, and bemused as I was by the fact that I was at that moment draped over his chest, I hadn't objected to his request that I wait until he'd risen for the night before keeping my appointment with her. That was predream, however. Postdream, I knew what would happen should Guarda and Eduardo ever find out just who Christian was—and I would move heaven and earth to see to it that did not happen.