"Don't make plans this Friday," he said as we stopped at yet another light.

I stifled a huge smile, but inside I was singing. He remembered! "Why?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

He smiled, and I lost my battle to remain unmoved. "I'm taking you out for your birthday," he said. "I've got reservations for the Carew Tower restaurant."

"Get out!" I exclaimed, my eyes darting to the top of the building in question. "I've never been up there to eat." I squirmed, gaze going distant as I started to plan. "I don't know what to wear."

"Something that comes off easy?" he suggested.

A horn blew behind us, and, not looking, Kisten accelerated.

"All I've got is stuff with lots of snaps and buckles," I teased.

He went to say something, but his phone rang. I frowned when he reached to take it. I never took calls when we were together. Not that I got that many to begin with. But I wasn't trying to run Cincy's underworld for my boss either.

"Snaps and buckles?" he said as he flipped open the top. "That might work, too." Smile fading, he said into his phone. "This is Felps."

I settled back, feeling good just thinking about it.

"Hey, Ivy. What's up?" Kisten said, and I straightened. Then, remembering my phone, I pulled it out and looked. Crap, I'd missed four calls. But I didn't recognize the number.

"Right beside me," Kisten said, glancing at me, and a flicker of concern rose. "Sure," he added, then handed the phone to me.

Oh, God, now what? Feeling like I'd heard a shoe fall, I said, "Is it Jenks?"

"No," Ivy's irate voice said, and I relaxed. "It's your Were."

"David?" I stammered, and Kisten pulled into the driving school's parking lot.

"He's been trying to reach you," Ivy said, her tone both bothered and concerned. "He says—are you ready for this?—he says he's killing women and he doesn't remember. Look, will you call him? He's called here twice in the last three minutes."

I wanted to laugh but couldn't. The Were murder the I.S. was covering up. The demon tearing my living room apart for the focus. Shit.

"Okay," I said softly. "Thanks. 'Bye."

"Rachel?"

Her voice had changed. I was upset, and she knew it. I took a breath, trying to find a glimmer of calm. "Yes?"

I could tell by her hesitation that she wasn't fooled, but she knew that whatever it was, I wasn't running scared. Yet. "Watch yourself," she said tightly. "Call me if you need me."

My tension eased. It was good to have friends. "Thanks. I will."

I hung up, glanced at Kisten's expressive eyes waiting for an explanation, then jumped when my phone, sitting in my lap, vibrated. Taking a breath, I picked it up and looked at the number. It was David's. I recognized it now.

"You going to take that?" Kisten asked, his hands on the wheel though we were parked.

In the next spot over, I watched a girl slam the door to her mother's minivan. Ponytail bobbing and mouth going nonstop, she chatted as she headed to class with a friend. They disappeared past the glass doors, and the woman behind the wheel wiped at her eye and watched through her rearview mirror. Kisten leaned forward to get into my line of sight. The phone vibrated again, and a sour smile lifted the corners of my mouth as I flipped the phone open.

Somehow I didn't think I was going to make my class.

Eight

David's hand trembled almost imperceptibly as he accepted the glass of cold tap water. He held it to his forehead for a moment as he gathered his calm, then sipped it and set it on the solid ash coffee table before us. "Thank you," the small man said, then put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.

I patted his shoulder and eased farther from him on his couch. Kisten was standing next to the TV, back to us as he looked over David's collection of Civil War sabers in a lighted, locked cabinet. The faint scent of Were tickled my nose, not unpleasant at all.

David was a wreck, and I alternated my attention between the shaken man dressed in his suit for the office and his tidy, clearly bachelor town house. It was the usual two stories, the entire complex about five to ten years old. The carpet probably hadn't ever been replaced, and I wondered if David rented or owned.

We were in the living room. To one side past the landscaped buffer was the parking lot. To the other through the kitchen and dining area was a large common courtyard, the other apartments far enough away that it granted a measure of privacy by pure distance. The walls were thick, hence the silence, and the classy wallpaper done in browns and tans said he had decorated it himself. Owned, I decided, remembering that as a field adjustor for Were Insurance he was paid very well for getting the true story from reluctant policy owners trying to hide the reason their Christmas tree had spontaneously combusted and took out their living room.

Though his apartment was a calm spot of peace, the Were himself looked ragged. David was a loner, having the personal power and charisma of an alpha without the responsibilities. Technically speaking, I was his pack, a mutually beneficial agreement on paper that helped prevent David from being fired and gave me the opportunity to get my insurance at a devastatingly cheap rate. That was the extent of our relationship, but I knew he used me to keep Were women from insinuating themselves into his life.

My gaze landed on the fat little black book beside his phone. Apparently that didn't slow him down when it came to dating. Dang, he needed a rubber band to keep the thing shut.

"Better?" I said, and David looked up. His beautifully deep brown eyes were wide with a slow fear, looking wrong on him. He had a wonderfully trim body made for running, disguised under the comfortable suit. Clearly he had been on his way to the office when whatever threw him into such a tizzy happened, and it worried me that something could shake him like this. David was the most stable person I knew.

His shoes under the coffee table shone, and he was clean-shaven, not even a hint of black stubble marring his sun-darkened, somewhat rough skin. I'd seen him in a floor-length duster and dilapidated hat once while he had been stalking me, and he had looked like Van Helsing; his luscious black hair was long and wavy, and his thick eyebrows made a nice statement. He had about the same amount of confidence of the fictional character, too, but right now it was tempered with worry and distraction.

"No," he said, his low voice penetrating. "I think I'm killing my girlfriends."

Kisten turned, and I held up a hand to forestall the vampire from saying anything stupid. David was nothing if not levelheaded, and as an insurance adjustor he was quick, savvy, and hard to surprise. If he thought he was killing his girlfriends, then there was a reason for it.

"I'm listening," I said from beside him, and David took a slow breath, forcing himself to sit upright, if still on the edge of the couch.

"I was trying to find a date for this weekend," he started, glancing at Kisten.

"For the full moon?" Kisten interrupted, earning both my and David's annoyance.

"The full moon isn't until Monday," the Were said. "And I'm not a college Werejockey high on bane crashing your bar. I have as much control over myself on a full moon as you do."

Obviously it was a sore spot, and Kisten raised a placating hand. "Sorry."

The tension in the room eased, and David's haunted eyes went to his address book by the phone. "Serena called me last night, asking me if I had the flu." He looked up at me, then away. "Which I thought strange since it's summer, but then I called Kally to see if she was free, and she asked me the same thing."

Kisten chuckled. "You dated two women in one weekend?"