"He does. I don't know why but they don't want attention drawn to themselves. I noticed I was safe whenever I was around humans." She paused, remembering the diner. "Well, mostly."

"That's good. We'll take any advantage we've got at this point."

At the bottom of the stairs, he guided her into a corner and carefully opened the door. Apparently, he found the other side Atrika-free because he sheathed his weapon. He threw her the bag draped over his shoulder. "In there you'll find a change of clothes and a wig. Go on and change."

Breathing hard more of pure fear than physical exertion, she doffed her pajama top immediately.

"Oh, fuck," Adam breathed. He turned around.

She wasn't wearing any undergarment beneath.

Oops.

Claire finished dressing, remembering belatedly that Earth customs were different than Eudae customs. Her mother had explained that to her before she'd died. "I apologize, but now is not the time for modesty." She threw her hospital clothing into a corner, having shed all of it but the soft slippers.

Adam turned back around, a grin spread across his mouth. "Did I say I minded?"

Claire's cheeks warmed and she crammed the blond wig over her head. It covered her long, curly dark hair.

She could have forgotten to dress every day on Eudae, walked around naked all the time, and the Ytrayi daaeman would never have given her more than a cursory glance. It wasn't that they didn't view her in a sexual way, it was more that they respected her female status in such a formal, regimented way that they would never allow their libidos to get out of control. They would never note their arousal or comment on her beauty out loud. She'd been totally safe from them.

It was important to remember that aeamon males were different. They would view her in a way the Ytrayi didn't—as a sexual possibility—and did not, by all accounts, have the same restraint and discipline an Ytrayi had.

That was something to get used to. Something important to remember.

He grabbed her hand and opened the door a crack again. "Okay, come on. We have to get out of this building. Hell's breaking loose." Adam pulled her along behind him as he slipped out into the corridor beyond the door.

Two policemen bustled down the hallway past them toward the elevators, hands on their service revolvers.

"Thomas said to go out the Emergency Room exit if we got split up." Adam steered her down a corridor past people in wheelchairs and on gurneys who were accompanied by nurses and doctors.

They made their way through the emergency room waiting area. Claire got an eyeful: there was a woman with a bloody leg, a flushed, tired-looking child, and a man holding his stomach among the waiting throng. Adam guided her out a pair of automatic sliding doors and into the blessedly fresh air.

A shiny silver vehicle pulled in front of them, tires squealing. The dark earth witch, Theo, he was called, sat in the front seat. Thomas drove.