She’d gone to sleep with wet hair, much to his annoyance, but now it curled softly around her face. The fact that she slept so soundly in his presence gave him a little hope for himself. She trusted him to protect her from the monsters. From himself.

Let Carrie haunt me, he thought bitterly. If her memory reminded him of his shameful past, he would bear it. Shame seemed integral to humanity, and if it made him more human, so much the better.

With a shock, he realized he intended to stay this way. Perhaps he hadn’t thought of it before. Perhaps he’d only felt removal from his former species, and just this moment had learned of his intent to distance himself permanently. More likely he’d known, somewhere in the most distant, inaccessible reaches of his soul, since the moment he’d drawn human breath.

Mouse stirred. He went to her side, easing onto the narrow bed as she lifted her head and peered at him with sleepy eyes.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

He straightened the bedclothes to cover both of them and pulled her close. “No.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Are you lying?”

“No, little Mouse. I’m not lying.”

In fact, when he closed his eyes, Cyrus drifted into the first dreamless sleep he’d encountered in seven hundred years.

When I woke, my head throbbed. The room was dim, thanks in part to the metal shutters, the other part to the dial-controlled recessed lighting. Two bags of blood rested in a well-stocked ice bucket on the nightstand.

Evan was gone.

I sat up, wincing at the soreness in my skull. There was a slender vial nestled in the ice bucket between the two bags, and a note attached. I had to squint to read it.

The doctor caught Evan with this. I’d keep a close eye on it, if you weren’t looking to be a sire.

March

I snatched up the vial, my face flaming with anger. How close had I been to having yet another open channel in my head? I glared down at my arm. He’d put a Band-Aid over the bend of my elbow. I didn’t need it, and anyone who’d done any research—such as reading The Sanguinarius, the most well-known and widely respected book in the vampire community—would have known that. It might be the med school in me, but I think anyone who’s about to make a life-changing choice about their physiology ought to know at least the basics of what they’re getting into.