“It was there last night.” The chip fell from her hands. “Right before it showed up today, it felt like everyone suddenly became unreadable. Just like those employees felt last night.”

Greyson nodded. “Doesn’t surprise me. I wouldn’t have seen him if he hadn’t been so absorbed in watching Maleficarum that he forgot to keep himself hidden. At least so I assume. I doubt he was deliberately unmasking himself.”

“Maybe he was.” Nick seemed to have regained his composure. “Maybe he was picking a fight. Taunting us.”

“Anything’s possible. I guess we—”

“Grey?” Carter appeared at the bedroom door; he’d been in there doing some work or whatever it was he did. Megan was never quite clear on the details, but she knew he was always available and always busy, just as Greyson had been for his boss Templeton Black.

Greyson had overthrown Templeton—protecting her, not to mention furthering his own interests—and had him sent to a Vergadering prison, where Templeton had died just before Christmas. An apparent suicide; they’d never discovered exactly how he’d done it, but he’d left a note.

Greyson was already up, walking across the room. “I’ll be right back.”

The others sat there, with Nick and Tera exchanging cautious looks and Roc cheerfully snacking. “So,” he said, after swallowing another enormous mouthful. “Do you think whoever it is who hates Megan had to pay a lot of money to have her killed?”

Three hours later Megan was sick of TV. Sick of the suite. Sick of the Bellreive.

It wasn’t that she was having a bad time. Once Tera and Nick had decided to bury the hatchet—figuratively—they’d actually gotten along okay, and if conversation occasionally suffered an abrupt pause when one of them, usually Nick, bit their tongue, it flowed easily enough the rest of the time.

But she was sick of this. Sick of Roc’s gentle snores on the couch beside her. Sick of Malleus’s ceaseless wanderings through the rooms, checking all the closets on every pass. “Lord Dante said make sure you’re safe, m’lady, and I’ll keep you safe, you c’n Adam ’n’ Eve that.”

“I do,” she said, for what felt like the dozenth time and probably was. “You know I do. But you’re getting on my nerves.”

Malleus looked wounded. “You oughter have more care for yerself, you ought. Think what it might do to Lord Dante if something ’appened to you. Me an’ Lif an’ Spud, we fink you take too many risks, an’ it’s time you quit and settle down. No offense, m’lady, but Lord Dante needs—”

Nick leaped up. “What’s that, out the window?”

“What?” Malleus hurled himself across the room with the kind of speed that constantly surprised Megan; one didn’t expect to see a tank move that fast, but the brothers all did when they wanted to.

She caught Nick’s eye and smiled her thanks. Was it her imagination, or did his return smile look rather uneasy?

Well, so what if it did? There was plenty to be uneasy about. Attacks on her life and angels and the whole witch-demon thing and whatever it was Nick was carrying around with him.

“Nuffink ’ere,” Malleus called over his shoulder. “I’ll stay, though, an’ keep watch for a few minutes to make sure.”

“Thanks, Malleus.”

Someone knocked at the door, and Malleus once again zipped over before the knocks resolved themselves into the complex little passcode the brothers had devised. For a second Megan’s heart jumped in her chest, hoping it was Greyson back from whatever business had called him away, but he wouldn’t have knocked, and it wasn’t him. It was Carter returning just ahead of him.

He settled himself on the couch beside Nick. “You guys having fun?”

Megan rolled her eyes. “An absolute blast. I wish someone was trying to kill me every day.”

“Thanks a lot,” Tera said. “Here I’m sitting watching dumb TV instead of shopping, just to keep you company. The least you could do is appreciate it.”

“If you guys are talking about shopping, I’m going into the bedroom.” Nick smiled, but Megan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was bothering him.

She couldn’t ask, though. Not then, in front of everyone. So instead she just smiled. “We’re going to talk about shoes for the next hour, Nick. Escape while you can.”

“If you put it that way.”

They all watched him go. That day he wore black jeans and a black T-shirt; Tera raised her eyebrows when he closed the bedroom door behind him. “He’s kind of a touchy asshole, but he’s awfully sexy.”

“Tell me about it,” Carter said.

Megan blinked; she had the horrifying suspicion her mouth had fallen open. It didn’t matter, not one damn bit; it was simply the fact that she’d known him for months now, and it had never even—it made her ashamed of herself. Why should she assume he was straight? What was the matter with her?

He caught her look. “You didn’t know?”

“I—no. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to—”

“Of course I’m gay.” He looked at her as if she had just grown an extra head. “Grey isn’t stupid.”

“Well, no, but I don’t—”

“Maybe we oughter check and see if Lord Dante’s coming back now.” Malleus rushed across the room again; watching him was like watching a very large black tennis ball in play. “I’ll just get th’ door open ’ere—”

“I won’t be having any children,” Carter explained. “At least not the kind I’d need to have. Right? You know this. So I can’t possibly overthrow him. Once he has a son, it won’t matter so much, and he’ll be more secure, but with how vulnerable he is already because you’re human, he really needs to get moving—”

“That’s enough, Carter.” Greyson stood in the doorway. Icy cold energy danced over Megan’s skin; his anger, the only emotion she could always feel from demons, translating as a frigid blast.

For a second she just sat there, totally confused. Why would he be so angry just because Carter was telling her something about demon tradition or culture or whatever? Lots of people grew up with cultural traditions; the whole “sons” thing was a bit sexist but wasn’t such a big deal, really. Demons were pretty paternalistic—not to mention sexist, judgmental, egotistical, superficial, and a whole host of other social evils—so how this was—

Then it hit her, with the force of a semi slamming into her head-on. He was vulnerable because she was human. He was vulnerable because he didn’t have sons to take over once he was gone, to strengthen his position. She remembered he’d mentioned it to her, all those months ago: “Half the Meegra was ready to overthrow Temp and put me in his place anyway—he never had any sons to take over.”

He was vulnerable because they couldn’t have children together. She was human. He wasn’t. It was physically impossible for them to—unless she did the ritual. The one he’d tried to talk her into just the night before, without ever once mentioning how important it might be for their future. Not his, not hers, theirs. The future that apparently didn’t matter to him anywhere near as much as it mattered to her.

All of this went through her mind in just a few seconds, a series of feelings like the images she got when reading people rather than coherent thoughts. Greyson must have seen them in her eyes or on her face; his went blank, the careful mask he presented to hide his emotions.

“Fuck.” The word was so quiet she wasn’t sure she’d actually heard it; for a dizzy moment she wondered if she’d somehow at this late date developed the ability to communicate telepathically.

Greyson closed the door very slowly behind him and stood perfectly still with his head bowed for a long moment. “Tera, Carter, Malleus, would you mind leaving us please? I think Megan would like to talk to me alone.”