“Dude, this, all of it…” I waved both of my hands in the air. “It’s super-sized weird.”

“It’s also real.”

“How do I know that?”

“You trust me.”

My voice pitched higher. “How do I do that?”

“What would you never do?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

“What would you never do?”

I took another step back, fairly shouting, “I’m not going to tell you that!”

Then, suddenly, I started barking like a dog.

I got three barks out before I heard his voice in my head saying, Stop.

I stopped, lifted my hands, and clamped them over my mouth, retreating three more steps.

“That’s what it feels like,” he said carefully, moving slowly my way. “I had to do it once, just this once, so you’d know how it felt and you’d know what’s happening right now isn’t that.”

I took my hands away from my mouth and said, “But I didn’t feel anything.”

I started barking like a dog again, two barks this time before his voice was again in my head, telling me to stop.

“Again?” he asked.

Was he sadistic?

“No!” I shouted.

Then barked.

Then stopped.

“Do you feel it, Lilah?”

I hit bed, stopped moving, and lifted my hand his way. “Stay away from me.”

“Pay attention, close attention, to everything,” he ordered.

“Please stay away from me,” I whispered.

Then I barked.

And stopped.

But I heard it then. Felt it. His voice in my head, whispering what to do, and the barely perceptible frisson it sent along the back of my neck, both of these beginning and ending in less than a heartbeat.

He stopped two feet in front of me and spoke quietly. “The women I fed from, they know me, they remember me, they remember what we do together. They remember everything except me feeding. I free them from that block when it happens so they’ll want it, ask for it, get into it, but I put that block back up when I’m done with them. When I was younger, I did shit all the time, stupid shit, and I’ll admit, sometimes mean shit. But I learned from that. It can bite you in the ass and it isn’t nearly as satisfying as you’d think it’d be, even if they deserve it.”

He took a step closer.

I leaned back over the bed.

He stopped moving but kept at me.