do with a vampire who didn’t want to hurt him.

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It should have been over, but Fallon still had Jesse, and a stake

of his own, and although he should have been making his escape,

he was moving forward . . . to the edge of the stage, where he grabbed Jesse’s limp body and stood with her clasped against his chest.

“Myrnin!” Even without the microphone, his shout was loud

enough to be easily heard over the crowd. “You need to live in the

same hell you left me to rot in— and that means you will rot

alone.” He raised the stake.

Myrnin was too far away. Too far away to save her.

But Claire wasn’t.

She fired the Taser into Fallon’s back.

He convulsed, slumped, and fell with a heavy thud, still shaking.

Myrnin arrived just a second later, traveling at blurred vampire

speed, and vaulted up onto the stage to gather Jesse in his arms.

“Dear lady, dear lady, what’s he done to you . . .” He took her wrist and nipped at it, drawing just a little blood, which he licked. It

must have told him what he needed to know. “He’s given her a

sleeping drug. It’ll pass soon. She’s all right. Claire, she’s all right.”

He looked up, and there were tears in his eyes as he smiled at her.

She smiled back. Her heart was breaking a little bit, because

she felt something changing in Myrnin, and she knew that she

would no longer be the center of his gravity. He’d always be there

for her, and he’d always be her friend, but there was something in

the way he held Jesse, stroked her hair, whispered to her in a way

that Claire couldn’t ever see him doing with her.

Shane’s warm weight settled in behind her, and his arms went

around her. He’d passed the shotgun over to Eve, who was holding

it on the Daylighter guards. Beyond him, Amelie had finally risen to her feet. She looked at the vampires still standing in the sun— a sign of their loyalty to her, Claire thought— and raised the microphone.

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Rachel Caine

“Get under cover, friends,” she told them. “Thank you. Today

you’ve shown me, and all of Morganville, what we truly can be. It

will always be a struggle for us, but we can learn, and we will. Go.”

As soon as they started moving, heading for the shadows on

the porches of the buildings, Amelie turned to Oliver, who was

still lying on the ground, shaking. She knelt gracefully next to him and took his hand.

“I’m here,” she said. It was what she’d said to Morley, but where

that had been compassion, this was something far stronger.

“Fool,” he managed to whisper. “Never trust a human’s good

intentions.”

“Perhaps we’ll both learn to do better,” she said, and bent to