"You're worried."

" Oui. "

"You asked me how I felt, why?"

"The ardeur comes with a price, as all the hungers do, but they have their rewards, as well. I do not speak of the pleasure, but of the strengths that they give us. In effect, by stealing away your ardeur , I weakened you tonight. If I hadn't feared contacting you mind-to-mind, I would have asked your permission first, or warned you."

"I didn't feel weak." Then I thought about it. "I'm really bugged by the vampires I killed tonight. I mean, more than normal. I'm sort of shaky, and wondering if I'm the good guy after all."

"Such self-doubt is not like you."

"I do have some self-doubt," I said.

"But not too much, you could not be who you are if you doubted too much."

"Are you saying that I draw some of my bravery, or my coldness, from the ardeur ?"

"I am saying that the ardeur may feed that part of you that keeps you safe in your own mind, your own heart."

I shook my head. "This is too complicated for me, Jean-Claude. Just let me have it back, and we'll see if I feel any better."

"I would rather you be alone with Micah when that happens. We have very carefully left him untouched while we sought to feed, so that you might feed on him yourself."

I didn't feel the least bit sexy. I just wanted a quick shower and to sleep. "I'm too tired for sex, Jean-Claude. Too tired for much of anything."

"As I feared, I took too much, or the ardeur has become attached to your own natural drives."

"What are you talking about?"

"Long before the ardeur found you, ma petite , I found that you were seldom too tired for sex."

I thought about blushing, but found that even that seemed like too much effort. "What do you want me to do?" What little excitement had crept back into my voice had vanished. Nothing seemed quite real, as if I was already asleep. Asleep on my feet.

"If you intend to clean up..."

"I've got other people's blood in my hair, so yeah."

"Fine, go to the bathroom then, but take Micah with you. Hang up the phone, go to the bathroom, take Micah with you, and sometime before you have filled the bathtub with water, I will give back to you that which is yours."

"Nathaniel is filling the tub now. Micah said you warned us not to use the shower. Something about glass."

"The return may be more violent than I would like, ma petite. I would feel better if you and Micah were not surrounded by glass walls."

"Do you know this is going to be bad, or are you just worried?"

"Let us say, that I have not lived so long, or courted you successfully, without thinking worst-case scenarios."

" Courting, is that what you call it nowadays?"

"I am hanging up now, ma petite. I suggest you do as I have bid." He hung up.

I put the receiver back in its cradle and started walking out of the kitchen. Micah was standing by the table, watching with careful kitty-cat eyes. I understood now how much he held back behind that careful face. But tonight I didn't pry. I had enough horrors of my own without borrowing. "You know about what Jean-Claude's been doing with the ardeur ?" I asked.

"Yes, Jean-Claude had me keep an eye on Nathaniel, so that if he started to get weak, I could call for help."

I shook my head. "I endangered him, all of you." I felt numb again, even the self-recrimination felt like just words. Later, when there was more of me, I'd feel bad, but right now, I'd felt about as bad as I was able. There just wasn't enough of me left to worry about it.

"Anita." Micah was in front of me and I hadn't seen him move. "Anita, are you alright?"

I shook my head. The answer was no, but out loud I said, "I want to be cleaned up before the ardeur comes back. I want to get this shit off of me." I started for the bathroom. Micah trailed after me.

Nathaniel was bending over the bath tub, his pony tail trailing around his naked upper body. He'd stripped down to silk boxers.

The sight of him like that should have moved me, but it didn't. Cold, I felt so cold inside.

He gave me worried eyes as he moved toward me. "What can I do to help?"

I flung myself on him hard enough he staggered. He held me against the warmth of his body. He held me tight and hard, responding to my desperation. I wanted to bury myself in his flesh, wrap him up around me, but I couldn't. I'd endangered him, risked his life, by simply not paying attention to the ardeur. If Jean-Claude had not helped out...

I tried to push the thought away, but Jonah Cooper's body flashed in my head. His body on the ground, my foot on his shoulder and grass showing through his chest. "You feel the draw of them, I know you do," he'd said.

I was on my knees and only Nathaniel's hands had kept me from hurting myself on the edge of the tub. "Anita..."

I pulled away from Nathaniel and reached for Micah. He took my hand and said, "Go, Nathaniel, go, before the ardeur comes."

"I don't think..." he started to say.

I screamed, "Go, please go! God, go!"

I didn't see Nathaniel go, or stay, because Jean-Claude dropped his shielding. I don't know what I'd expected. He'd made it sound like he borrowed my favorite coat, or book, and now he'd give it back, but a coat doesn't want to come back to you, a book doesn't care who reads it. He didn't hand it back to me, his shields dropped, and it roared home like a train that he had fought to hold back, to keep still, but it had strained against his hold. It had hungered to come home. It was like being caught on the tracks at night, and the first hint you have that disaster is here, is a bright light, and the tracks vibrating under your feet, then the world becomes noise, light, as if thunder and lightning could be forged into metal, and it's all coming straight through you, and you can't get off the tracks. You can't run. You can't hide, because your body is the tracks, and the train is a piece of yourself that wants to come home.