Two days ago, his sharp tone would have intimidated her. But trapped together in this cinder block hell as they were, the days stretched like weeks, and by now she was accustomed to his moods. “You were screaming. People don’t scream if there isn’t something wrong.”

He went to the wall and leaned his head against it, his forearm over his eyes. The desert heat that had penetrated the basement in the day had escaped into the chilly night, leaving the surface cold against his skin.

“It was just a dream,” he said, more to reassure himself than to explain it to her. “I have a history of nightmares.”

There was a pause before she answered. “That’s terrible.”

“It’s to be expected, when you’ve lived a life like mine.” He straightened, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I’ll be fine in a while. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

A more refined person would accept his apology and let the matter rest, but Cyrus would never accuse Mouse of being refined. She swung her legs, bare under the hem of the T-shirt, over the edge of the bed, her arms braced against the mattress. A slash of brown hair covered one of her eyes. “What was it about?”

“I couldn’t tell you, in good conscience.” But a voice in his head mocked him. You protect her from your deviant nature now?

“It was just a dream. Telling me about it won’t hurt me.” Her clearheaded logic was apt to drive him mad.

He sat beside her, not close enough that she could touch him. The last thing he needed or wanted was her pity. “When I became a vampire, my father cut out my heart.”

She gasped at his words, from his casual phrasing of the horror, no doubt. But she had asked, so he continued to oblige her. “I don’t know how it comes to pass, but after turning, vampires grow a second heart. The first heart, the human one, is the heart to drive the stake through. So my father cut it out of me.”

“So you couldn’t be killed?” Her innocence was charming.

“So I couldn’t betray him. He kept my heart for seven centuries.” The familiar, sickening guilt crept over Cyrus. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply to regain his composure, but all he got was the scent of soap from Mouse’s freshly washed skin.

“But you don’t have to worry about that now. You’re human again,” she said, the declaration like a prayer from her lips.

His gaze wandered to the toes on her dainty feet, which rested on the cold, tile floor.

“For the time being.” He didn’t know why he would say such a thing, when he knew it would bother her. Perhaps he wasn’t as changed as he’d imagined in the past few days.