Sitting on the steps, my back to the cross, I hugged my knees close to my chest, trying to keep warm as I stared at the lights that stretched like a twinkling carpet far in the distance.

Within a few minutes, the warm scent of sandalwood mingled with the fresh aromas of the night. He handed me my dress without comment. Once I'd put it on, he placed a leather jacket across my shoulders and sat on the step beside me, a shadow whose heat I could feel even though we weren't touching.

"I've booked a table in the restaurant, if you wish something to eat," he said, after a moment.

"I might." I slipped my arms inside the jacket and zipped it up. It smelled of leather and man, and stirred me in a hundred different ways. Which was scary, because I really couldn't afford to fall for this vampire any more than I already had.

"And have you fallen for me, Riley Jensen?"

I glanced at him sharply. "Two days ago you said you could only catch my thoughts when I was in pain or during passion. So how come you're reading them now?"

His gaze, when it met mine, was flat and uncompromising. "We've shared blood, remember. I did warn you that makes me more attuned to unguarded thoughts."

I looked away. "Then I must remember to guard my thoughts at all times."

"Perhaps you should, if you don't want me reading them."

"You could be a gentleman, and not intrude."

"I could. But given the fact our talks so far have gotten interrupted for various reasons, intruding on your thoughts is my only way of getting information."

He obviously hadn't read too much, then, or he probably wouldn't be sitting there so calmly. I chewed my lip, watching the twinkling carpet of lights, trying not to think of anything in particular.

Yet a decision had to be made. Here. Tonight. Because if I went back to Jack, he'd make it for me. Though, considering he wanted me as a guardian, I doubt he'd want me pregnant.

"Tell me what causes you such anguish," Quinn demanded softly.

I briefly contemplated the wisdom of not telling him, but in the end, he had the right to know. It did involve him—us—in some respects.

"You're not going to like it," I hedged.

He reached out, his hand twining in mine, wrapping my fingers in heat and courage. "Tell me."

So I did. About what the doctor had said. About Misha. About the decision I'd come up here to make.

He was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was as emotionless as ever. Yet his dark eyes held echoes of pain as his gaze met mine.

"Rhoan told you about Eryn, didn't he?"

Eryn was the wolf Quinn had been engaged to six months before I'd met him. A wolf who had used a drug to snare and keep him. A wolf who had confirmed his opinion that all wolves were whores.

"Rhoan hasn't said anything about Eryn." I studied him for a moment. "How does she fit in with the decision I have to make?"

"She doesn't. But I thought she might have been the reason you were unwilling to really talk about us continuing our relationship."

"And why would you think that?"

He looked away. I touched his arm lightly, feeling the tension in his muscles, tasting the anger that still lingered in his mind.

"We weren't just engaged," he said eventually. "We swore our love to the moon."

My heart just about plummeted to my ankles. Of all the things I'd been expecting to hear, that certainly hadn't been one of them. "What? But that means… "

"I would not be free to fuck anyone." His gaze met mine, dark depths smoldering. "But I am free to be with whom I wish, because the ceremony that should have bound us as one didn't work."

"Because both parties have to be in love to perform that ceremony. Eryn obviously never was."

"In truth, neither was I. It was the drug, not real emotion."

"Yes." I paused. There was more. There had to be more. "But I'm gathering that is the least of her crimes?"

He looked away. "At the time, I did believe the ceremony had locked us together for life and prevented either of us from taking other partners. I discovered her lie the hard way."

Oh dear… "You found her with another wolf?"

He nodded. "And she was pregnant to him."

"Shit." No wonder he hated the werewolf lifestyle so much.

He nodded. "Hence my suspicion that Eryn might have had something to do with your reluctance to get involved with me again."

"Well, she doesn't. But like her, I want a kid, whether now or later. And that makes getting involved with someone who can never offer me that a difficult choice."

Especially when they didn't like being one of many.

A smile briefly lifted the grim set of his lips. "And here I was thinking you were playing games, making me pay for walking away."

"I won't deny that was there as well."

He nodded again. "So, what do you intend to do?"

"I honestly don't know."

"And Misha?"

"I was always intending to fuck Misha. I need the answers he can give me."

"So you plan to become a whore for the Directorate?"

I ripped my fingers from his and stood. "Damn you to hell." I crossed my arms and stomped down the steps. "That's such a human way of viewing the situation. Besides, it's not that simple."

"It is that simple. Rhoan willingly sleeps with enemies to gather news. Isn't that what you'd be doing with Misha?"

"It's just sex." I blew out a frustrated breath. Quinn's views were never likely to change, no matter what I said. "And we don't know that Misha is an enemy yet."

"We don't know that he's a friend, either."

"True. But he may be the only fertile wolf I currently know."

"Then you believe he was telling the truth about that?"

"It would be easy enough to check." I walked to the black metal fence that stopped visitors getting too close to the edge of the mountain. The wind was fiercer away from the cross, chilling my wet legs and feet.

"Sounds to me like your decision has been made."

I closed my eyes. "It might have been, except for the fact that it was ARC 1-23 that kick-started my fertility."

"Meaning?" Though he was still sitting on the steps, his soft words cut through the rush of the wind as clearly as if he was standing beside me.

"Meaning, ARC1-23 can have deadly side effects on us half-breeds. They won't know for at least another few months what, if any, effect it will have on me."

And if they couldn't predict what effects the ARC1-23 would have on me just yet, then how could they predict what effect it might have on any child I conceived? If the drug could totally mutate my system, then what the hell could it do to a child growing in my womb?

That was the problem. That was the choice I faced.

Did I have the right to endanger my child in such a manner? Did I have the right to bring a life into this world who might not even live to see their first birthday?

Deep in my heart, I knew the answer was no.

But that would mean blowing the only chance I had of having a child myself. Oh, there were other options—freezing eggs, finding a surrogate, but it just wasn't the same. Wasn't what I'd dreamed of all these years.

I closed my eyes and took a shuddery breath. God, fate was a bitch sometimes.

Arms touched me, turned me around. I sunk into the warmth of his embrace, enjoying the momentary peace it offered.

"If there's one thing I've learned over the years"—his breath stirred warmth past my ear—"it's that nature often has its own way of sorting out right from wrong."

"Nature has very little to do with what is happening to me now. If nature had its way, I would still be infertile."

"Then perhaps there lies the answer to your problems."

I pulled back a little, and met his dark gaze. "There could be more than a little self-interest in that statement."