“I—” The words died in her mouth before she could speak them and she just stared at me. Because of course I was right. I’d seen it, and she knew that.

“Doesn’t matter whether it was my fault or not, whether I was in my right mind or just a sick bastard who got off on it,” I said. “I’m a vampire, Eve. And this is what we do. We take people’s blood. Sometimes they offer it up, and that’s nice, that’s really convenient, but sometimes we just take what we want. The fact that it’s instinct doesn’t excuse it. It all comes out the same in the end: with you getting hurt, maybe killed, even though I love you. Just like they tried to tell us from the beginning. We’re a tragedy waiting to happen.”

“No!” She lunged forward and tried to put her arms around my neck, but I’m a vampire; grabbing me isn’t that easy when I don’t want to be grabbed. I moved back just enough and before she could register the fact that I’d done it, I was holding her forearms in my hands. Tightly. She flinched and I felt it shiver all the way through her body, but she didn’t try to pull away. “Michael, no, don’t do this. I just need time, that’s all. It just happened last night. Give me a little space to deal with it and I’ll be …”

“Fine?” I let my eyes go slowly red. I let my fangs come down. “Really. You’re going to be fine with me, like this.”

Now she did pull back. Hard. And I didn’t let her go. Her strength was nothing compared to mine, not here, where I had leverage. “You’re trying to scare me, and it’s not going to work!”

I let go of one of her arms and used a fingernail to cut the scarf away from her neck. The spots of blood on the pale square of bandage made something in me growl, deep inside, and even though I loathed that beast I also knew I couldn’t keep it caged up forever. That was why Morganville had hunting licenses, and allowed vampires to hunt on a carefully regulated basis. The beast was why Amelie allowed some measure of violence in Morganville—because without it, we turned toxic. As I’d turned toxic on Eve.

“Stop,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound so strong now. “Damn it, you jackass, stop it!”

“Isn’t that what you told me last night?” I asked her, and I shook her, hard. “Isn’t it? Did I stop, Eve? Did I?”

She twisted free and slapped me across the face. It didn’t hurt, but the explosion of sudden warmth on my skin from hers made me blink. I let go of her other arm. She rocked back and then, all of a sudden, something stabbed me. Not in the heart, but off to the side, and the sensation of it sliding in was cold and horrible and yet also burning.