Ivy and I had been home a week, and we were all still in emotional limbo. Three seconds after Ivy and I walked in the door, Kisten looked at my dental floss stitches, breathed deeply, and knew what had happened. In an instant, Ivy had gone from happy-to-be-home to depressed. Her face full of an aching emptiness, she’d dropped her bags and took off on her bike to get it “checked over.”

Just as well. Kisten and I had a long, painful discussion where he both sorrowed after and admired my new scars. It felt good to confess to someone that Ivy had scared the crap out of me, and even better when he agreed that in time she might forget her own fear and try to find a blood balance with me.

Since then he’d been his usual self. Almost. There was a sly hesitancy in his touch now, as if he was holding himself to a limit of action to see if I would change it. The unhappy result was the mix of danger and security that I loved in him was gone. Not wanting to interfere in anything Ivy and I might find, he had put me in charge of moving our relationship forward.

I didn’t like being in charge. I liked the heart-pounding rush of being lured into making decisions that might turn bad on me. Realizing as much was depressing. It seemed that Ivy and Jenks were right that not only was I an adrenaline junkie, but I needed a sensation of danger to get turned on.

Thinking about it now, my mood thoroughly soured, I crouched beside my desk, arm extended to try to get the stupid cat to like me. Her neck stretched out and she sniffed my fingers, but wouldn’t bump her head under my hand as she would Ivy’s. Giving up, I stood and headed for the back of the church, following the sound of Kisten’s masculine rumble. I took a breath to call out and tell them I was there, but my feet stilled when I realized they were talking about me.

“Well, you did bite her,” Kisten said, his voice both lightly accusing and coaxing.

“I bit her,” Ivy admitted, her voice a whisper.

“And you didn’t bind her,” he prompted.

“No.” I heard the creak of her chair as she repositioned herself, guilt making her shift.

“She wants to know what comes next,” Kisten said with a rude laugh. “Hell, I want to know myself.”

“Nothing,” Ivy said shortly. “It’s not going to happen again.”

I licked my lips, thinking I should back out of the hallway and come in making more noise, but I couldn’t move, staring at the worn wood by the archway to the living room.

Kisten sighed. “That’s not fair. You strung her along until she called your bluff, and now you won’t go forward, and she can’t go back. Look at her,” he said, and I imagined him gesturing at nothing. “She wants to find a blood balance. God, Ivy, isn’t that what you wanted?”