Jason got me inside the Jeep, leaning his shoulder into me, so he could fasten the seat belt. The jacket was across my face now, and strangely it felt claustrophobic.

"Close your eyes," he said.

I was already doing what he'd asked, but I didn't say anything. The jacket moved away, and the sun was bright against my closed eyelids. I felt the sunglasses slip over my eyes, and I opened them cautiously. Better.

There was a line of detectives and uniforms in front of the Jeep, keeping the pack of reporters back, so we could make our getaway. Every camera they had was pointed our way. God knew what the captions would read once they were done with it.

Jason gunned the engine and backed up with a screech of tires. He was a ways down the street before I could chatter out, "you'll get a ticket."

"I've called Micah. He's waiting. You and Nathaniel can share the bathtub."

I managed to get out, "What?"

"I don't know exactly what's wrong, Anita, but you're acting like a shape-shifter that's been badly hurt. Like your body's trying to heal some deep wound. You need heat, and the touch of your group."

"I," teeth chattering so hard I couldn't finish, "haven't..." I stopped trying for a sentence and settled for, "Not hurt."

"I know that you're not hurt that badly. But even if it was the vampire bite, you'd be warm to the touch, hot, cooking to heal yourself. You shouldn't feel cold."

My ears started ringing. It sounded like someone was hitting a chime over and over. The ringing drowned out Jason's voice, the sound of the engine, and finally everything. I passed out for the second time in less than two hours. This was not turning out to be one of my better days.

22

I was floating in water, warm, warm water. Arms held me in place, a man's body brushed against mine in the water. I opened my eyes to the flickering light of candles. Was I back at the Circus of the Damned? Two things happened to let me know exactly where I was: pale tile gleamed on the edge of the bathtub, and the arms around my shoulders tightened, drew me closer. The moment the back of my body settled firmly against the front of his, I knew it was Micah.

I knew the curve of his shoulder, the way my body seemed to slide into every line and hollow of his body. His tanned arms were delicate for a man's, but as he snuggled me against him, muscles moved under his skin. I knew how much strength there was in his slender body. He was like me, a lot more than met the eye.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, voice so close to my ear that a whisper seemed loud.

My voice came distant and hollow the way I'd been feeling all day. "Better."

"At least you're warmer," he said. "Jason said you were sick, dizzy. Has that passed?"

I thought about it, trying to feel my body, and not just the comforting warmth and closeness. "Yeah, I do feel better. What the hell was wrong with me?"

He turned me in his arms, so that he held me across him, and we could look at each other. He smiled down at me. The tan that he'd come with had started to fade a little, but he was still dark, and that darkness framed his most startling feature. His eyes were kitty-cat eyes. I'd originally thought they were yellow green, but they were yellow, or green, or any combination of either, depending on his mood, the light, the color of shirt he wore.

His pupils had spread like black pools, and the thin line of color that chased round them was a pale true green. Human eyes weren't really green, not really. Grayish green, maybe, but a true clear green, rarely. But Micah's eyes were.

Those eyes sat in a face that was beautiful in the way a woman's face was beautiful. Delicate. There was a line to the jaw, a chin that was male, but gently so. His mouth was wide, with the bottom lip thicker than his upper, giving him a permanent pout.

I wanted to feel his lips on mine, feel the brush of his skin under my hands. He affected me as he'd affected me almost from the first moment I saw him-like he was a missing piece of myself that I had to bring as close to my body as I could, as if we'd meld together someday.

He didn't argue as I brought him down for the kiss. He didn't tell me that I was hurt and needed to rest. He just leaned in and pressed his mouth against mine.

Kissing him was like breathing, automatic, something your body did so that it wouldn't die. There was no thought to wanting to touch Micah, no waffling indecision like with every other man in my life. He was my Nimir-Raj, and from the moment we had been together it had been deeper than marriage, more permanent than anything words or paper could bind.

My arms slid over his back, his shoulders, the slick wetness of his skin, and our beasts rose. His energy was like a hot breath along my skin, shimmering everywhere we touched. My beast rose up through the depths of my body, and I felt Micah's beast echoing mine. They moved in our two separate bodies like two swimming shapes, up and up, each racing the other with only our skin to keep them apart. Then it was as if the skin was not enough to contain them, and our beasts swam through each of us. It bowed my back, brought Micah's voice in something near a scream. Our beasts writhed between our bodies, the energies intertwined more than our bodies ever could. They wove and danced like some invisible rope, knotting, tying, gliding in and out of us, until I raked my nails down Micah's body, and he set teeth into my shoulder.

I don't know if it was the pain, the pleasure, the beasts, or all of it together, but suddenly I could think again. Suddenly, I knew why I'd been sick all day.

I felt that long metaphysical cord that bound me to Jean-Claude, saw him in his bed at the Circus of the Damned with Asher still beside him. There was a shadow sitting on Jean-Claude's bare chest, a dark shape. The longer I looked at it, the more solid it became, until it turned a misshapen face to me, snarling, and showed me eyes burning with dark honey flame.

I looked at the hungry shadow of Belle Morte's power that had been trying to leech "life" from Jean-Claude all day. But the Master Vampire's fail-safe systems had kicked in-his human servant, and probably his animal to call. Richard had refused to help us directly, but he was probably paying the price for it today.

The thing hissed at me again, like some great demonic cat, and I decided to treat it like one. I threw my beast down the long line of metaphysical cord. What I hadn't planned for was that Micah's beast would follow mine, that when we attacked it would be together, ripping the thing to smoky tatters. It fled through the wall.

I wondered where it had gotten to, and the thought was enough. I saw it in the guest room we'd prepared for Musette. The shadow sat on her chest for a second, then seemed to melt into her body. There was a moment when that swimming thing moved underneath the vampire's dead skin, then all was quiet.

Angelito's voice, "Mistress are you there?"

Then I was back in the warm water, and Micah's arms. "What was that?" he asked, voice soft, strangled.

"The shadowy thing was a piece of Belle Morte's power that she gave to Musette."

"It was like it was trying to feed on Jean-Claude, but it couldn't."

"I'm his human servant, Micah. I think when Musette tried to steal Jean-Claude's strength, the attack deflected to me. She's been sucking on me all day."

"Did Jean-Claude do that on purpose?" he asked.

"No, he's truly dead to the world. It's just the way the system is set up. If she could have sucked Jean-Claude dry, then she could have taken the energy of all of his vamps, everyone that had a blood tie to him."

"Instead she's been feeding off of you."

"Yeah, and probably Richard. I bet he called in sick to school today."