I thought of Jenks’s warning and had a doubt, then remembered Kisten telling me of her past and felt a stab of fear. But the memory of her heavy sobs as she lay crumpled on the pavement filled me, the despair in her eyes when Jenks said she ruined everything she cared about. No, he had said she ruined everything she loved. And seeing that same despair hiding in her fierce words, determination filled me. I couldn’t let her believe that.

“You said I needed to trust the right people,” I said softly. Heart pounding, I hesitated. “I trust you.”

Ivy threw her hands in the air in exasperation and turned to face me. “God, Rachel, I could have killed you! As in dead! You know what that means? Dead? I do!”

My own ire flared, and I sat up. “Yeah? Well…I can be a little more savvy,” I said belligerently. “I can take some responsibility for keeping things under control, be a little more aware of what’s going on and not let you lose yourself…like that. We’ll do better next time.”

“There isn’t going to be a next time.” Stoic and unmoving, Ivy sat deathly still. The streetlight glinted on her short hair, and she stared at the shadowy pavement, intermittently lit from yellow bulbs. Abruptly she turned to look at me. “You say you want to find a blood balance, but you just refused to take more Brimstone. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, witch. You want the blood ecstasy? You need the Brimstone to stay alive.”

She thought this was about the ecstasy? Insulted she thought me that shallow, my lips pressed together. “This isn’t about you being Ms. Good Feeling and filling me with that…that euphoria,” I said angrily. “I can get that from any vamp on the riverfront. This is about me being your friend!”

Emotion poured over her face. “You made it very clear you don’t want to be that kind of a friend!” she said loudly. “And if you aren’t, then there’s no way I can do this! I tried to fix myself, but I can’t. The only way I can keep from killing people now is if I shackle the hunger with love, damn it! And you don’t want me to touch you that way!”

I’d never seen her show her feelings like this, but I wasn’t going to back down—even though she was starting to scare me. “Oh, get off it, Ivy,” I said, sliding a few inches from her. “It’s obvious from yesterday that you can share blood without sleeping with someone.” She gaped at me, and I flushed. “Okay, I admit it—it didn’t turn out all that well, but God! It kind of surprised both of us. We just need to go slow. You don’t have to have sex to find a feeling of closeness and understanding. Lord knows I feel that way about you. Use that to shackle your hunger.” My face flushed hot in the cool night air. “Isn’t that what love is?”