"This," he said in a low voice, "is what you've been waiting for your whole life. This is the stuff that's going to change your world. Make you who you were born to be."

I was rendered speechless, but not from his melodramatic prologue. It was the crystals. This close to them, I…well, felt them. They had an aura, almost the same way an immortal has a signature. Only this wasn't exactly a pleasant aura. The crystals felt strange to me. They sent little Shockwaves into the air. They made my skin crawl.

And weirdest of all, I'd felt them before. Once with Doug, once with the band.

I hoped Alec would interpret my frown as cute confusion. "What is that?"

A sly smile spread over his face. "A magic potion, Georgina."

I smiled back, not having to feign puzzlement. "I don't believe in magic."

"Oh, you will after this." He pressed the bag into my palm, and I squelched a sharp cry. I didn't like touching the crystals. "Go grab something to drink and put them in it. Mix it all up and then drink—preferably as fast as you can. You'll get the effects sooner."

"What'll they do?"

"Something good. Something you'll like." He ran his hand through the strands of my hair. "Man, I can't wait to see how you react to them."

How I reacted? I didn't like the sound of that. Maybe I wasn't getting the same thing as Doug after all. Maybe I was getting the date-rape drug. Of course, with as inviting as I was trying to be, he had to realize those kinds of extremes weren't necessary. I pushed the unease out of my head. "What do I owe you for these?"

The smoke in my voice clearly told him how I'd like him to extract payment.

"Nothing. It's a gift."

"Nothing?" I trailed my hand across his leg. Believe me, I really didn't want to sleep with this guy, but I wanted to stay in his good graces to figure out what the hell this stuff was. And yeah, okay, I sort of wanted to see him suffer from the energy loss. "Are you sure?"

I slid my body closer to his, gently pushing him back on the bed. His eyes widened as I lay down next to him, brushing my lips over his neck. Turning his face toward mine, I moved my lips closer to his, lightly kissing the area just by his mouth.

"Are you really sure?" I asked, voice lower.

His breathing grew heavy, and he stroked my side, tracing the shape of my hip and moving down to my bare leg. Looking half-terrified, he moistened his lips in anticipation. My tongue snaked up to them, dancing around their edges before gently probing inside. He stifled a moan and then pushed me aside.

"No…I…no. No." He sat up, shaking. "Not yet."

I sat up as well, moving in one fluid and graceful motion. Tossing my hair over one shoulder, I gave him a languid smile. "Come on, I want to."

"I can't…but maybe, well maybe later we can work something out."

Both longing and reluctance showed in his expression, which I found relieving. Nice to know my charms were still working and he wasn't all business after all. Maybe this was just a first-one's-free type of deal, and he'd be more thorough in his demands later. Fine by me. It wasn't the end of the world if I didn't sleep with him, and hopefully we wouldn't even need the second batch.

"Here." Having seized control of himself, Alec held out his beer to me.

"Huh?"

"Go ahead and try them. You can mix them in this."

I looked down at the sparkling red granules. They almost had a light of their own. That weird sensation pulsed out at me, grating my immortal senses. No way was I going to ingest the contents of this bag. I shook my head.

"I can't right now. I've got to go to another party. I promised a friend. I'll try them later, okay?"

He didn't look happy about that. "I wanted you to try it now."

"What's wrong with later?"

"Nothing I guess…just, look, don't let anyone else know, okay? I don't have a lot of this stuff. If word gets out, everyone'll want some. Right now I'm only letting special people try it."

"Am I special?" I teased.

Alec gave me a long, searching look, blatantly studying my face and the way the silk fit me. Again, the appreciation and attraction shone in his eyes, but he held himself back from my smile of invitation. "Very special."

I managed to extract myself from the party shortly thereafter but not before Alec had warned me again to keep the crystals to myself. He also urged me to let him know how I liked them.

"The second dose is even better," he promised.

Finally escaping, I breathed a sigh of relief, alone in the cool night air. As I walked to my car, I shoved the crystals into my purse, still creeped out by how they felt. They were supernatural; that much was obvious. I knew I had to get them to someone who could identify them. That, however, would have to wait a little longer since I was already past when I'd said I'd call Seth. Happily, I discovered I could no longer sense the packet once it was encased in the fabric. That was something, at least.

"Where are you at?" I asked Seth when he answered his cell phone.

"Terry and Andrea's. You want to come over?"

Spending the evening with his family sounded refreshingly ordinary after the sleaze and debauchery of Alec and that party. In fact, compared to everything else weird in my life at the moment, it sounded downright wonderful.

Identical blonde faces greeted me at the door when I arrived, both sets of lips forming a perfect 'o' when they saw me.

A moment later, Brandy appeared behind her little twin sisters. "Oh, Georgina, that dress is so pretty."

She pushed Morgan and McKenna out of the way, both still starstruck. I stepped inside the Mortensen home and found complete chaos. Sheets of clear plastic lay everywhere. Masking tape covered the wall trim. Most of the furniture had been pushed out of the living room, shoved into a pile in the hallway beyond. Those items remaining were wrapped in thick cocoons of more plastic sheeting. Paint buckets, trays, and brushes littered most of the free space, and everything— the people included—was splattered with yellow paint.

"Georgina!" squealed eight-year old Kendall, tearing toward me. Her mother, walking into the room, leapt out and tackled her daughter.

"Don't touch her!" Andrea exclaimed, tumbling to the ground. "Not in that dress."

I laughed, wanting to sweep up each one of the girls in an enormous hug, the dress be damned.

"Seth," chastised Terry, standing on top of a ladder, "why didn't you tell her this was a war zone?" The Mortensen Brothers always entertained me. Despite being younger, Terry always seemed exasperated by Seth's scattered behavior and often had to prod him into reality.

Seth sat cross-legged on the floor with Kayla, youngest of the Mortensen daughters, on his lap. Like everyone else, he had paint all over him—including his Writers Do It at Their Desks shirt. Looking as serene as a Buddhist monk, he flashed me one of his distracted smiles. "Because it's always a war zone over here. "

"Well, get her out of here and take her somewhere nice," Terry said. "No need to drag her down into this."

This immediately triggered cries of outrage from the girls.

"I don't mind staying," I told them. "I'd like to help."

Andrea rose from her tackle, one arm still around Kendall. "We're going to have to cover you up then. Come on, let's see if I've got anything that'll fit."

She released Kendall. The little girl took a step toward me but didn't touch anything. "You look like one of the ladies in the Victoria's Secret catalog."

"My favorite reading material," I told her solemnly.

"Daddy's too."

Her mother groaned and led me to her bedroom, forcing us to squeeze through the furniture packed hallway. Being in Terry and Andrea's bedroom was a lot different than being in Dana's. It was messier for one thing, with an unmade bed and piles of laundry on the floor. The color scheme and decorating were a lot less coordinated too, suggesting it had all been pieced together over the years, not preplanned with a designer's cold eye. Pictures of the girls at various ages covered the walls and dressers, and free surfaces held odd pieces of jewelry, books, and change. And yet, despite that clutter, the whole room felt filled with love, like the people who occupied it were happy and cared about each other. It made the place warm and cozy, not sterile and sharp as Dana's had been. It made me feel good to be in here, jealous that I had nothing like it with another person, and almost intrusive to be in such an intimate setting. It was like eavesdropping.