Jealousy

threatening.”

I didn’t want to point out that he’d avoided the question. Again. My teeth tingled, especially my upper canines.

They’re fangs, Dru. Call them what they are.

“What happened?” It seemed like I couldn’t make my voice work like usual. The pretty-much-healed fang marks on my wrist twinged once, and I rubbed them against my blood-sodden jeans. The whole room was drenched with the coppery smell, taunting the bloodhunger.

He stiffened. “I was disobedient. Are you done?”

I nodded, realized he couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Um. Thanks. Christophe—”

He rounded on me, eyes blazing, crossed the distance between us with two quick steps. I was suddenly nose-to-nose with him, so close the heat coming off him in waves caressed my cheeks like sunlight on already burned skin.

“I told you to stay there. There was cover there, and Leontus would have made sure you were safe.” The words were raw, like they were sandpaper-scraping his throat to get out. “I could have lost you.”

My mouth was dry. I said the first thing that came into my head, and it was a harsh husky whisper just like his. “Chris . . . I’m not her.”

I meant, I’m not my mother. He looked startled just for a second, but his eyes never wavered. They were direct and unblinking, and how could I ever have thought they were cold? Because now they were blowtorch-blue. Eyes like that could burn wherever they touched you, and my heart crawled up and lodged in my throat.

“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. She never caused me this agony.”

What could I say to that? The way he was looking at me was making my head feel funny. Was making all of me feel funny, and not just in that oh God I just almost died way.

Christophe leaned in. His mouth was mere centimeters from mine. “She never made me think I would die of heart failure. She never, never made me fear for her this way.”

I swallowed audibly. My throat clicked. If I leaned back to get away from him, I might just topple over on the operating table.

But I didn’t want to lean away. “Christophe . . .” His name died on my lips. All of me was suddenly exquisitely sensitive, all my hairs standing up, and I was halfway to forgetting that I was covered in sweat and dried blood.

His lips touched mine. I almost flinched, the shock was so intense. Then lightning hit me.

I mean, I’ve gotten carried away a couple times, usually with moderately cute city boys when I knew I wasn’t going to be around for more than a week or two. This was nothing like sloppy open-mouth puppy kisses in the library stacks, or a stolen half-hour of necking in the secluded part every playground has for games. His tongue slid in, and it wasn’t like he was trying to stuff my mouth with it. It was like he was inviting me.

It wasn’t like Graves, either, the comfort and the safety. This was . . .

Tingles ran through all of me, not just my teeth. I forgot the usual things that go through your head when this happens—things like Oh God did I brush my teeth enough or I wish he wouldn’t breathe like that or Someone might be coming. I forgot about being scared I might do it wrong.

I forgot about everything except the heat and light running through me. One of his fangs brushed mine, a jolt scorched through us both, and I sank into him for a long long moment before breaking away to get in a breath and discovering that, yeah, there was an outside world and it was hard and cold and bright and smelled like blood and metal and pain.

Christophe kissed my cheek. He murmured something I didn’t quite hear. Every inch of me ran with multicolored electricity.

Wow.

“Never,” he said softly in my ear. His breath touched my skin, and I had the sudden desire to squirm just because I had to move, and my clothes were hot and confining. “Do you understand?”

“Um,” was my totally profound response.

He reached up, his hands cupping my face, and leaned into me, bumping my knees aside. Stared down at me, and his expression wasn’t the hungry-wolf look he’d worn while staring at my mother. It was something else.

Just what I didn’t know. It was just . . . something else. Something more vulnerable. Like he was afraid at any second I’d flinch back or tell him not to, or something.

I couldn’t stand to see him look that way. So I closed my eyes and tipped my chin up a little, and he kissed me again. It wasn’t the same this time.

No, this time it was better. And again I forgot about everything else, including Graves. For a few seconds I was just me again.

And it was great.

Then the real world came crashing back in. I stiffened, and he drew back. He still held my face gently, his skin very warm against mine, and I found out I was touching his ribs, running my palms up and down like I was playing with Gran’s washboard.

I pulled my hands away. “Um,” I said again. “Christophe.”

“Dru.” Slightly amused. I kept forgetting how well his face worked together.

“I think . . .” I couldn’t even say what I was thinking. Except Wow. And more wow, and a side helping of um.

Yeah. Embarrassing. And Graves . . .

Graves had left me behind. There it was. He’d left me, and Christophe had come back. Was that how it was?

“You’re right,” he said, as if I’d said something profound. “There are still things to do. And we should clean up. Both of us.”

I nodded. He leaned in again, and I was a little disappointed when he only kissed my cheek, a chaste pressure of lips.

“Do you trust me now?” he asked, and I could only nod. And wonder why he asked me that, of all things.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

After you have a bad case of stomach flu or something, when you’ve thrown up everything you’ve ever even thought of eating, there comes a point when you actually feel pretty good. It’s usually after you finish a long session of heaving, when you flush, wipe your mouth, maybe brush your teeth gingerly for the tenth time, and find out you can walk. Shakily, like a newborn colt.

The world looks clearer and sharper, and you think you might have the flu beat—but the trembling in your arms and legs tells you you’re lying to yourself.

That was how I felt. Bruised and shaky, but pretty good, at least for a little while. I figured if I could get to a bed before the exhaustion hit, I’d be doing pretty good.

But first, I had to see Augustine.

He was in a private room in the infirmary’s calm cloister, but this one was different than the one Ash had been strapped down in, or even the one they’d been trying to save me in. His was on an outer wall, a bed and a window, and it looked like a high-end hospital suite. It was even done in peach and cream, and for a second I was so lightheaded I was afraid I would fall down right there and then.

Because it still smelled like a hospital. Like disinfectant, medicine, pain. And grief. The touch throbbed inside my aching head like a sore tooth.

Augie’s apartment in Brooklyn was pretty neat and clean, considering a single guy lived there. I made it shipshape in the month I spent there.