Focus blurring, I tried to pull the bedspread over me, my fingers as strong as string, accomplishing nothing. Jenks started at the movement, realizing I was upright and watching. His angular, beautifully savage face lost its emotion. “You seduced her,” he said, and I dropped my eyes, shamed. All I had wanted was to understand. How could so much go wrong from wanting to understand?

Her cheek pressed against the carpet, Ivy made a helpless bark of laugher. “She seduced me,” she said, and I wavered from the pain and blood loss, knowing it was the truth. “I left, but she called me back. I would have left even then, but she said she wanted this for her. Not for me, but for her. I told you if she ever admitted that, I wouldn’t walk away. I didn’t lie to you!”

My breathing had quickened, giving me a feeling of disjoined airiness. I was hyperventilating. Jax was flitting over me, trying to dust my bite but only making me squint to see through the sparkles. At least I think the sparkles were from him. God I hurt. I was going to either die or throw up.

Jenks pricked Ivy’s sweater with his knife and she jerked. “If you’re lying to me—”

Ivy’s shoulders lost all their tension, and she surrendered visibly. “I thought I was better,” she said, guilt slamming into me at the pain in her voice. “I worked so hard, Jenks. I thought I’d finally—She didn’t want…she couldn’t handle the sex, so I tried to separate it from the blood. I wanted something of her. And she was able to give me the blood. I—I lost control of the hunger again. Damn it, I almost killed her.”

His eyes on me, Jenks let go of her arm. It hit the floor with a thump. Ivy slowly pulled it into a more comfortable position. “You didn’t separate the sex from the blood, you took the love from it,” Jenks said, and I wavered, my pulse hammering. What had I asked her to do? “You take that away, and all that’s left is the hunger.”

My breath came in short splurges as I fought to remain upright. Did everyone know more about vampires than me? Jenks was a pixy, and he knew more about vampires than I did.

“I tried,” Ivy whispered. “She doesn’t want me to touch her that way.” She took a shuddering breath, broken.

Jenks flicked a glance at me, seeing my cold face and realizing that she was telling the truth. Slowly he slid off her, and Ivy pulled herself upright, knees to her forehead, arms wrapped about her shins. She took a gasping breath and held it.

“Rachel didn’t think it was wrong, did she?” Jenks pressed.

“She said she was sorry for waiting so long,” Ivy whispered as if she didn’t believe it. “But she saw the hunger, Jenks. She saw it raw, and I hurt her with it. She’s not going to want anything to do with me—knowing that.”