Legs crossed at the knees, she uncapped it and twisted until a column of opaque gel rose. “Close your eyes and look up.”

My lips parted. “I can put it on.”

A puff of annoyance came from her. “If you put on too much or get it too close to your eye, you can damage your vision before it wears off.”

I told myself I was being stupid. She looked okay; she wouldn’t have come back in if she wasn’t. Ivy wanted to do something for me, and if she couldn’t give me a hug without her blood lust tainting it, then by God I would let her put that gunk under my eye. “Okay,” I said, resettling myself and looking up. You need the thrill of danger flitted through my mind, and I quashed it.

Ivy shifted closer, and I felt a light touch under my right eye. “Close your eyes,” she said softly, her breath stirring a curl.

My pulse quickened, but I did, and my other senses kicked in stronger. The gel smelled like clean laundry, and I stifled a shudder when a cold sensation moved under my eye. “You, ah, don’t use this a lot, do you?” I asked, starting when her finger touched my nose.

“Kisten uses it when he works,” she said shortly. She sounded fine—distracted and calm. “I don’t. I think it’s cheating.”

“Oh.” I seemed to be saying that a lot today. The cot shifted when she moved back and away from me. I lowered my head and blinked several times, the vapors leaving a stinging sensation that I couldn’t imagine was making my eyes any less red.

“It’s working,” she said with a small, contented smile, answering my question before I asked it. “I thought it would on witches, but I wasn’t sure.” She motioned me to look at the ceiling again so she could finish, and I lifted my chin and closed my eyes.

“Thank you,” I said softly, my thoughts becoming more conflicted and confused. Ivy had said vampires only bothered to get to know people as powerful as themselves. It sounded lonely. And dangerous. And it made perfect sense. She was looking for that mix of danger and trustworthiness. Was that why she put up with my crap? She was looking to find that in me?

A ribbon of angst pulled through me, and I held my breath so Ivy wouldn’t sense it in my exhalation. That I needed danger to feel passion was ridiculous. It wasn’t true. But what if she was right?

Ivy had once said that sharing blood was a way to show deep affection, loyalty, and friendship. I felt that way about her, but what she wanted from me was so far from what I understood that I was afraid. She wanted to share with me something so complex and intangible that the shallow emotional vocabulary of human and witch didn’t have the words or cultural background to define it. She was waiting for me to figure it out. And I lumped it all with sex because I didn’t understand.