I spoke to Cody, who readily agreed to attend in his capacity as an officer of the law. He was still pissed off about what had happened with Heather Simkus.

I talked to Stefan, too.

Well, actually, it was Stefan who contacted me, calling to suggest that he evaluate my progress in the art of conjuring and raising a mental shield. “Cooper tells me you think I was holding back on you,” he said to me.

“No,” I said. “I know you were holding back. But I’ve been getting better.”

He laughed. “Come to my apartment. We’ll spar. This time I won’t hold back . . . as much.”

Frankly, I was grateful for the offer. I was in a foul mood and sparring with Stefan might help take the edge off it.

True to his word, he came at me harder this time. I’d become accustomed to the wild, surging attack of Cooper’s beast. By contrast, Stefan’s approach was deadly and disciplined. He wielded his hunger like a sword, battering straight at my mental shield, then sidestepping deftly to come at me from a different angle. We circled each other in his living room. I held dauda-dagr in my right hand, and the sunlight sparkling on the river beyond his window gleamed along the edges and runes of its blade. I let it fill me, pouring light and anger into my shield, letting it blaze. Stefan’s pale blue eyes were like sun-shot ice, his pupils waxing and waning as his desire warred with his discipline.

There was a part of me that wanted him to lose control, that wanted to fall into him, to spill my anger into that cool, deep well of stillness within him. And another, darker part that wanted to explore what lay beyond that stillness, to unleash the full extent of the emotions I tried so hard to keep in check, to allow Stefan to unleash the full extent of the ravenous hunger he kept under ironclad control.

Since that was a dangerous, possibly cataclysmic idea, we kept sparring, rotating around each other like a pair of binary stars until Stefan called a halt.

This time, he closed his eyes and took a moment to collect himself. I was exhausted and there was sweat trickling down the back of my neck, but I felt good. Not only that, I realized that although I’d sheathed dauda-dagr, I hadn’t dropped my shield altogether when Stefan stopped pressing me; it had already become instinctive to keep a faint spark kindled in my thoughts.

Stefan opened his eyes and smiled at me. “Well done. You have been practicing.”

“Yep.”

As before, he went into the kitchen to pour a couple of glasses of water. I wandered over to the display case with his father’s ceremonial shield, gazing at the dark-haired knight kneeling before his queen, wondering about the story behind it. Stefan returned to hand me a glass of water without comment.