My mind raced, unsure what to do to get away. Different tactic. "When are you going to explain your partial transformation to me?"

His grip never loosened. "Maybe when you tell the Elders you're the Lustrata."

I wasn't going to tell them and he knew it; that meant he didn't intend to tell me. Angered, my struggling redoubled. It hadn't occurred to me that he might have taken the hit, even if I'd landed it harder, and used my closeness to restrain me. Impressing him had been my goal, but all I'd managed to do was make myself look weak. I couldn't break free. Still, I kept wrestling against his grip. I wasn't giving up.

My frustration multiplied and I ripped his long-sleeved thermal tee—accidentally—in the process.

"Breathe normally," he said.

"I am!" But I hadn't been. More like grunting, growling, and snorting.

He released me and stepped back to give me room. "No… you're panting."

I was so embarrassed and mad at myself. I'd insisted I could fight and now looked like a wet fool. My unfriendly expression—or the wet shirt—won me a leering smile even as I took the ready stance. But Johnny didn't.

He said, "Breathing is the way to control everything else."

I broke my stance. "What?"

"Clap your hands for me."

My hands went to my hips. "Do a dance and earn it first."

"I'm serious, just one clap."

I clapped.

"That was your somatic nervous system. The conscious part of your nervous system. Brain says, 'do this, and the body does." He suddenly threw a fist at me, but pulled up far short. "Did you blink?"

"Of course."

"That was your autonomic nervous system. The automatic part. Now blink because you want to."

I blinked.

"Blinking and breathing are on both sides, autonomic and somatic. You blink naturally without thinking about it hundreds of times a day. But if your eye feels dry or itchy, you can consciously take over and blink away." He paced to my left, turned, and began crossing to the right.

"Now, your autonomic nervous system has two branches, sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic side is responsible for fear responses. Fight or flight. It gets your lungs more open, your heart pumping. But rest and repose is the parasympathetic system, and after a round of the sympathetic side dealing with a high intensity situation, the parasympathetic side can kick in with an aftereffect that makes you not only tired, but you may even get all distant and aloof."

"Okay, I had expected to be tired after all our exertions." I made it sound dirty.

"Right." He swallowed hard enough that I heard it. "But that's physically tired. This is another level. This is your nervous system, not just muscles, and you have the power to limit this reaction—to a point." He paused. "Breathing is something you have the ability to consciously control. And by doing what is called 'tactical breathing' you can exact some control over the nervous system's response. Three to five deep breaths—"

"I do that in my meditation. Cleansing breaths. Slowly in, deep." I filled my lungs, knowing that doing so would put even more impressive curves under my clinging wet shirt. "And then slowly out."

"You know, I think I'll watch you practice that deep breathing just a little more."

I said nothing, just breathed deep for him.

"Then you're already conditioned to do this, just apply them—I mean it—apply it in a new way. If your sympathetic system is making you scared or angry, those breaths will lower your heart rate. You will be calmer, and your ability to proceed with greater clarity will increase. Afterward the parasympathetic side effect will be lessened because you didn't lose control and let the sympathetic side completely take over."

I wondered if there was some correlation between the way a vampire's stain worked and the functioning of the nervous system.

Johnny checked the ripped shoulder of his shirt. I stole a glance at the front of his sweatpants. Either he must've been wearing tight undies or my wet shirt wasn't having an effect.

"In the field, the other night I freaked out and my legs got heavy. I couldn't run anymore. How am I supposed to keep that from happening when I have to breathe hard to run?"

"You crossed your personal line and couldn't stay in the zone." At my quizzical look, he explained, "Your heart rate went too high for your body to actively maintain that level. It's like your heart just isn't as effective and the oxygen isn't getting where it needs to go. This happens to everyone, though at differing points. Once you max that line, you're going to fall apart. With exposure to such situations in training—and this is what we are going to do—you can teach yourself to react better, to stay in the zone, and to maintain cognitive control." He removed the torn thermal tee and tossed it aside as he assumed a ready stance and motioned me onward. "Again."

We circled. My eyes went to the Celtic armband tattoos. Just above his navel, amid the dark hair, was a seven-pointed star, a fairy star. Above that, stretching across his pectorals, was a pair of wings sprouting from a circle on his sternum. In the circle was a five pointed star, a pentacle. Beneath the circle, tail feathers balanced the wing images. They were beautiful, but it was his naked chest, and not the tattoos, that awakened my desire.

Johnny leapt at me. I retreated, dodging blow after blow, finally ducking under one to go into a cartwheel across the garage. Taking up the rake leaning against the wall, I went at him with the handle horizontal like a staff. The rake end was aluminum, lightweight, but the fanlike shape created drag. I swatted with the handle end from the left, flipped it, and swatted with it from the right; faked a switch back to the left and cracked him in the shoulder with it.

"Ow!"

"Sorry," I said.

He turned and sprinted across the garage. I went after him, but he spun back with a shovel in his hands, blocking my strike with its thicker shaft. It was heavier than my rake, with metal on both ends, but being a waere he handled it with no problem and the more substantial shaft cracked my rake handle.

Johnny used this against me and backed me across the garage one step at a time, pushing the shovel's shank against my cracked rake handle. My rake was going to snap at any second. I kind of wanted it to, so we could be done with this, so I could put my hands on his body and—

Suddenly, the rake broke. The world slowed but my mind was still fast.

I pulled the two rake ends apart and struck at him, backing him up two paces before I sidestepped and shoved both the pieces into the D-shaped handle of the shovel. Using the broken rake pieces like handlebars, I swung myself low and past him. My momentum and the sudden weight on the shovel made his grip weaken. As I stood I pulled my broken handles with me, forcing the shovel in his grip to twist, then all of it clanged to the floor.

Johnny turned to face me and time became normal again.

"Time slowed down," I said, hands making the time-out gesture.

"That's good, it's normal. Your brain goes into survival mode. It screens out anything not directly pertinent to surviving. Things slow down. Sometimes the sounds are so loud you can't function. And sometimes your hearing fades until you can't hear the sirens or the shots being fired all around you. Sometimes you're the one firing the shots. You can't hear them, you can't feel the recoil, but you can hear the jingling of the shell casings falling on the cement at your feet." He seemed far away. "And then your ears don't ring afterward and you wonder if it was real at all."

"Johnny?"

He blinked. "Yeah?"

"Is that a memory?"

"I don't know." His hands ran over his dark waves of hair and he turned away. He sounded angry as he whispered, "Why can't I remember?" Everything about him—his posture, his tone—was so male. His skin glistened with sweat and his muscles were hard and ripped.