“You aren’t as honest with yourself as you think,” she continued calmly, her dark eyes locking on his own. “You don’t want any of this to be so, but even knowing it is, you can’t get around how you feel. Is that so bad? If you want me, I’m still yours. I still want you, John. I still love you. Think about what you’re doing. If you give me up, you become the thing you fought so hard to escape being. You become a Knight of the Word again. You give up everything you’ve found this past year with me. You go back to being solitary and lonely and rootless. You become like the homeless you’ve spent so much time trying to help.”

She rose, a smooth, lazy motion, and he tensed in response, remembering how strong she was, what she was capable of doing. But she didn’t try to approach him. “With me, you have everything that’s made you happy these past twelve months. I can be all the things I’ve been to you from the beginning. Are you worried you might see me another way? Don’t be. You never will. I’ll be for you just what you want. I’ve made you happy. You can’t pretend I haven’t.”

He smiled at her, suddenly sad beyond anything he had ever known. “You’re right,” he acknowledged softly, and all the rage seemed to dissipate. “You have made me happy. But none of it was real, was it, Stef? It was all a sham. I don’t think I want to go back to that.”

“Do you think other people live any differently than we do?” she pressed. She took a step away from the couch, then another, moving out of the circle of lamplight, edging into the shadows beyond. Ross watched, saying nothing. “Everyone keeps secrets. No one reveals everything. Even to a lover.” He winced at the words, but she didn’t seem to notice. She brushed back her hair, seemingly distracted by something behind him. He kept his eyes on her. “We can do the same,” she said. “You won’t ever find anyone else who feels about you the way I do.”

The irony of that last statement must have escaped her entirely, he thought. “How you feel about me is rooted mostly in the ways you hope to use me, Stef.”

He was moving with her now, a step and then two, a slow circling dance, a positioning for advantage.

“You can make your own choices about everything, John,” she said. “I won’t interfere. Just let me do the same. That’s all I require.”

His laugh was brittle. “Is that all it would take to make you happy, Stef? For me to ignore what you are? For me to let you go on feeding on humans? For me to pretend I don’t care that you won’t ever stop trying to turn the Word’s magic to uses it was never intended for?” She was shaking her head violently in denial. “Just forget about the past? Forget about Boot and Audrey and Ariel and Ray Hapgood and several dozen homeless people? Forget about everything that’s gone before? Would that do the trick?”