“You’ll be okay,” he said softly, pulling her closer.

She turned to him, and their lips met.

At first Rex felt serenity in the warmth of their kiss, her new calmness and self-control flowing into him. But then Melissa allowed her composure to slip, and it was like their first time. Everything inside her crashed out in a torrent: the enduring wounds of all those years alone, memories of the constant hammering of other minds, the old fear of being touched. She let it well up and spill over, pouring into him. Rex was overwhelmed for a moment, but then he felt his damaged surety rallying, responding to her need. He twisted in the car seat to take her shoulders, and the kiss built, his strength becoming hers, until he felt Melissa’s mastery of herself return.

She sighed as they separated. “I say again, Rex: fully human.”

Rex leaned back into his seat, smiling. The heavy dread that he had felt since waking and realizing that it was a school day—and a Monday at that—had lifted from him at last.

Melissa’s fingers played across his cheek, and she grinned. “You taste electric now, like you do after a jolt of coffee.”

“Hmm. Maybe kissing is sort of like nature’s coffee.”

“Actually, Rex, coffee is nature’s coffee. It is a plant, you know.”

“Ah, right. Good point, Cowgirl.”

He looked at the gymnasium door. A pep rally couldn’t be that bad, could it? Better than the hated first-period math class it would replace, and he could use the time to cram for his upcoming English test. One thing about carrying ancient memories of an elder species around in your head, it could royally screw up your interpretation of Catcher in the Rye.

Rex checked his backpack. No English book. “Listen, I have to go by my locker. Save me a seat?”

“Back row?”

“Of course.” He snorted. “I haven’t changed that much.”

She nodded slowly, then her eyes narrowed. “Should I come with you?”

“Don’t worry about me.” Rex ran his tongue across his teeth. They never felt as sharp as he expected them to, the canines never as long as they should be. Phantom limbs itched sometimes at night, as if parts of his body were missing.

But Rex took a deep breath and forced those thoughts from his mind. He couldn’t complain about every discomfort. He’d been granted something that any seer would die for: a chance to learn more about the darklings than the lore could ever teach, to understand them from the inside. Maybe his kidnapping and transformation had been a gift in disguise.

As long as his human half stayed in control…

“It’s okay, Cowgirl,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”

The hallway was as unpleasantly bright as always, sunlight spilling through the doors, the fluorescents buzzing overhead in a constant drone.

Rex squinted in the light, reminding himself to buy sunglasses. That was one advantage since the change: his vision was much sharper. Rex didn’t even need his eyeglasses at school anymore. A strange kind of Focus clung to everything here: the marks of human passage and invention, a million prey trails piled on top of one another, making everything crystal clear and somehow…appetizing.