I was just getting the urge to shuffle cards in response to this new brain teaser when darkness fell. A strange sound from Vayl's room made me jump to my feet. It was half gulp, half gasp, what you might expect to hear from a swimmer who's finally surfaced after staying under far too long.

  I was through his door before the sound stopped, Grief cocked in my hand.

  Vayl stood in front of his tent-covered bed, staring at me as if I'd sprouted antennae. He was naked.

  "Whoa!" I covered my eyes and spun around. Redundant, I know, but that two-second view of his magnificent pale bod had activated my conservative Midwestern values, chief among those the belief that you don't ogle naked men who don't already belong to you. "I'm so sorry! I just heard this noise and it sounded like you were in danger, so I came to save you." Dumbass. I should've known it was the sound of power, of magic, bringing Vayl back to a life he couldn't bear to leave. I'd been close when he'd come awake before, but never close enough to hear such a sound.

  "I'm outta here," I said, moving toward the door.

  "No, stay."

  Uh… He laughed softly, a purely male sound that recognized how much I appreciated his form and loved that I was embarrassed he knew.

  "Do not worry, I am dressed."

  I peeked over my shoulder. "Well that hardly counts," I said, my heart fluttering like a marker flag as I watched him. He'd covered his bottom half with a white towel, but most of his muscular thigh showed as he went to the room fridge and opened the door. As he leaned over I winced to see scars criss-crossing his broad shoulders and back. When he stood I noticed a chain swung from his neck. On it he wore a gold ring.

  He'd pulled a plastic bag full of blood from the fridge. As he tore it open and poured the contents into a glass, I thought I should maybe be grossed out. But I wasn't. Vayl did what he needed to survive, and he managed that without treading the path walked by the majority of vampires on earth. I had to respect that.

  "Tell me what you did today," Vayl said as he went to the dresser.

  "O-kay." I started at the end and worked my way backwards, watching him pull a pair of faded jeans and a dark red button-down shirt out of a dresser drawer. As I gave my report I learned that my boss also wore black silk boxers. The knowledge left me a little breathless and a lot perturbed. What I felt was wrong on so many levels you could package it into an entire training video called What NOT to Do While on the Job.

  Vayl went into the bathroom and I finished my review as he showered. Just like any guy, he was getting ready for work. But Vayl was not any guy, far from it. And therein lay my dilemma. I could only deny reality for so long, and then only if Vayl cooperated. It didn't look like he intended to for much longer. Whatever had made us work so well as a team from the start had changed, had grown. I guess I'd known that, at some level, something had been stirring between us for awhile. But hey, I'm so good at denying reality I could give lessons. I just had no idea how you tell an immortal creature whose powers routinely cause abject cringing and/or death that you want him, but he's not what you need. My guess—very carefully.

  I fell silent, and since he seemed to have nothing to say either, I left him to finish his shower. I'd curled up on one of the couches in the conversation area I'd created when he came out of his room. Apparently the new furniture arrangement was less conducive to talk than I'd anticipated, because speech suddenly failed me.

  Unless he'd switched to camouflage mode, Vayl rarely entered a room without everyone feeling his presence. His personality could be like mist, drifting gently into your lungs until every breath sent him sliding through your veins. Or, like a violent change in air pressure, it could reach out and slam you against a wall. At the moment, looking at him through eyes that I hoped hadn't glazed over, I wouldn't have noticed if a ninja had dropped through the ceiling and started breaking chairs.

  He moved with the total body awareness of a professional athlete, and now that I knew what that body looked like, I could not take my eyes off it. If a scientist gave a lecture on the Alpha male, she'd definitely throw in a few slides of Vayl. But until last night, until he'd looked at me like I'd sashayed right out of his deepest, darkest fantasy, I hadn't thought about where our relationship might lead us, or how exciting that trip could be. What a helluva time for my hormones to kick into overdrive.

  "Vayl, I… we…" I caught his eyes and stopped speaking. They were the gray-blue of storm-swept waves, snapping dangerously over lips compressed so tightly I could see the outline of fangs beneath them. "What's wrong?" I asked, some instinct making me touch the gun now resting in my shoulder holster.

  Vayl descended into the pit and dropped onto the couch I'd positioned on a diagonal with mine. For a minute he just sat there with his elbows on his knees, staring off into space.

  "Vayl?"

  "Something is wrong with my blood supply."

  "What do you mean?"

  Vayl jumped up and started pacing. "The blood I brought to sustain me. It is tainted." I felt the familiar bewilderment that used to fog my brain when my math teacher handed me a word problem. How was I supposed to know which train would reach Dallas first?

  "How could you tell?" I asked.

  Vayl grabbed one of the decorative pillows off the couch and began picking at one corner of it. I'd never seen him so shaken, and it was starting to scare me.

  "Look, Vayl, just tell me what you know."

  Vayl sat down again, avoiding my gaze, watching his fingers worry at the pillow instead. "When I went to get a drink I realized something was wrong. That is, once the blood had warmed, I could smell something in it that should not have been there. Something my nose tells me will make me ill."

  "Did you check all the bags?"

  "Yes. They are all tainted."

  "Did you keep some? We should get it tested."

  "Yes."

  This is bad, bad, bad—"Vayl, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

  "Of course. After last night how could I think otherwise? But polluted blood would not kill me, it would only make me sick."

  "Sick, like out of commission? Sick as in vulnerable?"

  "Very possibly."

  "Then maybe this is just a prelude to another attack." I waited for Vayl to agree, but he just shrugged. The pillow in his hands began to come apart. I was beginning to identify with it, big-time. Okay, Jaz, keep it together. You are a trained pro. Eventually you will find the ass that needs kicking and that's exactly what you'll do. As long as you keep it together.

  "So let's figure out who's doing this," I said, more to myself than Vayl. "I don't think it could've been Pete. He was too ready to agree with our suggestions."

  "That still leaves several highly trusted suspects." He shook his head. "We have been betrayed." He sounded like he'd already had some bitter experience in that area. "Worse, we have already established that Assan and Aidyn prefer to be led, which means our betrayer is also, most likely, the architect of their entire project."

  "We have a very nasty problem, Vayl."

  "Two, actually."

  "Yeah?"

  Vayl sank back down onto the couch, looking bleak as a cancer patient. "Not only is someone trying to kill me, but now I have to find a supply of fresh blood."

  I knew that as we sat there staring at each other we were sharing the same thoughts. Neither of us wanted to say them out loud, but it had to be done. I started.

  "So, what are our options?"

  "Limited." Vayl drew in a deep breath, clasped his hands together convulsively. I'd never seen him so agitated. "I cannot hunt. I… made a vow." He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. "I know that must sound stupid and old-fashioned to you—"

  "Not at all. Of course hunting is out. We're the good guys."

  Vayl's lips twitched.

  "Okay," I amended, "we're walking that thin line between good and bad, but we're not kidnapping kids or blowing up federal buildings so I say, if we're erring, it's on the side of good."

  "Which is why we cannot raid a blood bank or anything similar to that."

  "I agree." Weren't we just two reasonable people? It's what we spooks do when the alternative is blind panic. "So what can you do?"

  "Find a willing donor. Vampires tend to attract them. I know of two in the area I might approach."

  Whoa, buddy. Where did you go when I wasn't looking? "You've… made some contacts? Recently?"

  If Vayl had any blood in him, he would've blushed. He avoided meeting my eyes, and he started to fidget like I'd just caught him slipping a frog into the teacher's desk. "I, well, yes." He straightened up and looked me in the eye, realizing, maybe, that he didn't have to answer to anyone, me the least. "I cannot discuss it right now." His look softened. Did I really seem that hurt? "I will tell you later, when we have time."

  "You want to save it for the plane ride back?"

  He nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Yes. I will tell you everything you want to know then."

  Maybe. I wanted to know an awful lot after all. But I wasn't completely ignorant, at least about vampires in general. Not so long ago I'd been considered something of an expert. Which was why I'd been so good at killing them, why I'd headed my own team. I did know that the act of taking blood from a human donor, willing or not, involved all of a vampire's senses. Like giraffes leaning down for a drink of river water, vampires were at their most vulnerable when taking blood. Both loyal and captive vamps had described it as 'heady,' 'intoxicating,' and yeah, 'better than sex.'

  Whoever had sent the bad blood must know what I knew, that by creating a need for a human donor they'd also produced an ideal situation for assassination. Thing was, I couldn't see me standing guard outside some locked door while God knows what went down inside. For all we knew these willing donors of Vayl's were part of the master plan too. That was logical me speaking. Stupid, stubborn, bizarre me couldn't stand the thought of Vayl sharing that sort of intimacy with another person. I guess I was a flake after all. Didn't need him, no. But wanted him bad enough I was about to do the unthinkable. It should've been more of a consolation to know Pete would've approved.

  I stood and began to pace. "Vayl, Pete outlined my job pretty clearly to me. My highest priority is to protect you when you're vulnerable."

  "During a takeout—"

  "No. Always."

  Vayl stood, blocking my path, making me stop and look at him. "I know where you are going with this. I will not. I cannot—"

  "Why not?"

  Vayl looked at me a long time, his jaw clenching and unclenching as if the words he was about to say needed to be chewed first, ground under his molars until the sharp edges wore away.

  "Jasmine…" he stopped, thought a minute, tried again. "I do not know what it would do to us. You would be stepping onto a path that could lead you to vampirism."

  "Not if you don't drain me. Not if I don't drink your blood."

  "You are right. But because you are a Sensitive you could, you probably would change." I must've looked puzzled because he kept trying to explain. "The kind of—joining—you are suggesting is not one-way."

  "So, what are you saying, that there's magic in your backwash?"

  The tightness around Vayl's eyes eased a little, and a dimple appeared in his right cheek. "You could say that."

  "What might happen to me?"

  Vayl sank back onto his couch and I sat beside him. "I have never done such a thing with a Sensitive, so it is impossible to predict." He took my right hand between both of his, lacing our fingers together, rubbing my empty ring finger with his thumb as he stared at the memories he'd projected onto the wall.

  "Could you make it so I can fly?" I asked.

  That got his attention. "What?"

  I felt a little self-conscious, but figured the time to guard my ego had long passed. "I've always wanted to fly," I confided, "like Superman, only without the ridiculous costume."

  "It is not…"

  "Or how about superhuman strength so when I throw people they sail clear across the room?"

  I suddenly understood what the word 'flummoxed' meant. I'd never really known before this moment, when Vayl's eyes went all round and confused, and the only thing he could say that sounded remotely like English was, "Wa." It didn't last long. Vayl snapped back to himself and grabbed me by the shoulders.

  "This is serious!" His eyes bored into mine, twin obsidian pebbles that looked ready to bury me under a great big avalanche. It ticked me off. Here I was, offering the guy his life, basically, and all he could do was threaten me with metaphorical boulders! "You have no idea, Jasmine. The two of us will mix at a very basic level. I cannot predict the outcome. You cannot know the risk!"

  I grabbed the lapels of his jacket, considered shaking him 'til his teeth rattled, thought better of it. "Vayl! Calm down before I slap you! Damn, but you're grouchy when you're hungry!"

  That got him. His hands dropped from my shoulders. He dug the heel of his palm into the furrows between his eyes. "You are insane, you know that?"

  Ouch. "I'm just being practical. I knew someday I might have to bare my throat to you. Pete and I discussed that very possibility. As for danger and risk-taking, that's what Pete pays me to do. And you and I both know he intends to get his money's worth."

  "Jasmine, I cannot—"

  "Why not!"

  "Because you are not food!"

  I stared at him for a minute, then I started to grin. I couldn't help it. "Vayl," I tried to keep my face straight, "I'm not asking you to eat me."

  Vayl's jaw dropped and I burst into peals of laughter. Eventually I heard him chuckling along with me and I knew we'd be okay. When I had my warped sense of humor back under control I said, "It's just a temporary solution. Until we can figure out something better. Okay?"

  When he sighed and his shoulders dropped out of defensive mode, I knew I'd won. "Then I will not wait any longer. You must take this," he said. He pulled the chain he wore out from under his shirt. Off came the ring and away went my smile. I knew from the look on Vayl's face this was serious times ten.

  He held the ring out to me and I stared at it as it sat in his palm. Intricately woven golden knots formed the band, and in the center of each knot glittered a superb little ruby. The exquisite craftsmanship made the ring resemble a magical artifact, like a token of love left at the bottom of the Lake of Dreams by some broken-hearted nymph.

  "Oh, wow." I touched it as if it was crafted of spun glass.

  "You like it then?" Vayl took it and slipped it onto my finger. Though it sat on my right hand, the feeling still spooked me, as if we'd just agreed to some sort of unmarriage.

  "It's gorgeous," I said, holding my arm out to see it better. I dropped my hand to my lap as a thought occurred to me. "I can't keep it."

  "What?"

  "It's too much, Vayl. Too expensive. Too beautiful. Too personal. Plus Pete would kill me. Remember what he said about not accepting gifts?"

  "From clients, not from each other. Jasmine—" frustration furrowed his eyebrows, edged his tone, "why do you always have to make everything so difficult?"

  My first instinct was to argue, but I had no basis. Vayl had made this wonderful gesture. Did I really have to spit in his hand? "It's just, I don't understand why you would give this to me when, you're right, I have been a pain in the ass lately."

  "Because it is more than a gift." Vayl brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. An old fashioned token which should never have gone extinct. "You wear a ring made by my father's father on the day I was born. It is called Cirilai—which means 'guardian.' My mother, as she lay dying from the difficulty of my birth, had a vision of my death. She knew it would be violent. She knew it would endanger my soul. Cirilai contains all the ancient powers my family could muster to protect me. As long as it exists, I may lose my life, but I cannot lose my soul."

  Holy crap in a shipwreck, I'd heard fables about such artifacts. To actually have one wrapped around my finger though? Well, to be honest it made me feel kind of nauseous. "Why in the world would you give something so precious to me?"

  If I'd known him for years, maybe I could have read the answer in those amber eyes. He must've spent a minute trying to tell me things with them that words could never express. But too much of the unknown still stood between us to allow a translation. That's what I told myself. Maybe I was just too scared to let myself understand. Finally he said, "I gave you Cirilai because the ring will protect you as well. And because I sensed in you the same power that is invested in the ring. The two of you belong together—with me."

  At the risk of sounding like a two-year-old, I repeated myself. "But, why?"

  Thank goodness that, unlike mine, Vayl's patience isn't tied to a lit fuse. His hands tightened on mine. "You and Cirilai remind me that, while I am no longer human, I am also no better than human."

  "Is that all? We keep you humble?"

  "Think of what happens to people who possess such powers as mine when they decide their ideas, agendas, race is superior to all others."

  "Napoleon," I whispered. "Hitler. Hussein."

  Vayl nodded solemnly. "In guarding my soul, you protect the world. And that is why I need you as my partner. My avhar."

  Grateful to be sitting now that my knees felt like wet spaghetti, I looked down at our clasped hands until I could speak without sounding like a reality-show confessor. Jerry, I swore never to love again until I met someone who could earn every ounce of respect and affection in my body with a single gesture. Ick. It would never work anyway. Reasons? God, I could make a ceiling-to-floor list. But mainly, because I didn't want it to. Did I? No. No. No. No. No. So. Back to the task at hand: making sure my vamp, er, boss didn't run off for some high-risk blood-letting with his willing donor. I took a deep breath. Made myself focus. "Are you telling me this now because I need to know, or because you're putting off the inevitable?"

  "Maybe both," he said, shaking his head. "You, me, the ring—we each possess a power that is potent all on its own. Combining the three, well, if the bomb squad knew what we were planning they would probably stick us in a lead-lined bunker."