Alex waved toward a gurney. "Have a seat." She sucked in a breath when Jayr removed the man's jacket, "Jesus Christ." She glared at Rainer. "You let it heal like this? Why didn't you get help when it happened?"

"I was tied up," he told her.

Alex went to work, with Jayr assisting. An hour later, she finished wrapping Rain's arm and tucked it in a sling.

"That should do the trick, but keep the arm out of commission for at least a week," she told him. "Come find me in a couple of days so we can do a follow-up. Or I'll find you."

"You cannot miss me." He grinned at her. "You have but to look for the most stylish fellow in the Realm."

"Break that arm again," she warned, "and next time I'll put your butt in a sling."

Rainer left, but Jayr stayed behind to help Alex tidy up. "I thank you, my lady. Rain is very dear to us."Alex nodded. "Then why did someone do that to him? Don't bother repeating his story about slipping and falling. He'd have to fall down sixty flights of stairs to sustain that many breaks, and they wouldn't all be on the same arm. Someone tortured that man."

"I am of the same opinion." Jayr grimaced. "But he will not tell me who did it."

"Look for a real sadist." Alex went back into the refrigerated room to retrieve some plasma. "There are labels here from a dozen different hospitals and blood donation centers. You in big with the AMA?"

"Blood donated by humans to their hospitals and collection centers is tested before it is entered into inventory and used for patients," Jayr said as she joined her. "If the blood is found to be diseased, it is removed and destroyed as a biohazard."

"Which is why this stash of yours is really bugging me," Alex said. "Getting people to voluntarily donate blood is like asking them to pull out their own teeth. There's enough blood here to supply a major surgical hospital for a couple of months."

"I must disagree on that point, my lady." Jayr nodded toward the shelves. "All of the blood we store has been discarded. It was tested and found to be diseased and unusable."

"By anyone but Kyn," Alex said slowly, "because we're immune to human diseases."

"Yes. Our supply comes from three different hazardous-waste collection companies that serve most of the medical facilities in Florida and several surrounding states. They deliver the blood to another company, one we own, which is contracted to incinerate it. Instead the company delivers the blood here." Jayr tried to look modest. "We also take a share of the disposal fee."

"Good-bye, biohazard. Hello, breakfast." Alex picked up one of the bags. A second label on the back indicated that it had been found to be contaminated with hepatitis B. "Recycling bad blood. I'd never have thought of it. It's brilliant."

"I like to think that we help humans in a small way by doing so." Jayr leaned against the doorway. "This cache, combined with the millions of human visitors who come to vacation here each year, keeps us well supplied."

Alex frowned. "You have all this and still hit up the living?"

"We hunt," she corrected, "because as plentiful as the bagged blood is, it provides only nourishment. Humans provide warmth and life."

"And lots of sex."

Jayr shrugged.

"Don't look so innocent. You drug them with l'attrait, which makes Rohypnol look like a vitamin pill, and then you can have your orgasm and eat it, too. Pardon me if I don't shake my pompoms." Miffed all over again, Alex came out of the refrigerated room and slammed the door. "I assume that you're like the rest of them, and are okay with this?"

"Blood banks came into existence only in the last century." Jayr didn't seem offended. "To survive we must have blood from humans."

"Sex, on the other hand, is optional," Alex pointed out. "You don't have to give me the speech about how few girl vampires there are, and how the guys all renounced their vows of celibacy long ago. I've heard it a million times." She thought of all the large, muscular men she'd seen around Byrne. "Bet you never have to beg for a date, though."

Jayr looked pained. "I do not... date... humans."

Alex thought of the rows of warriors who had stood around Byrne. "I guess with the way the guys around here look, it would be slumming."

"Nor the men of the Realm."

"You're kidding. Are you blind?" Alex demanded. "Or gay?"

"Neither." The seneschal looked uneasy. "I am celibate."

"Oh, so you're insane." Alex laughed as she rigged the bag she'd brought out for transfusion. "You're a better woman than I am, Jayr. If I lived here and were single, I'd make sex my personal hobby."

"The men look to me for leadership, not relief. I cannot be a seneschal and a leman." She checked her watch. "My master will be waking soon. My lady-"

"Please. After last night, no one is going to call me a lady. Make it Alex, or Dr. Keller."

"Dr. Keller." Jayr seemed anxious now. "I have already taken advantage of your kindness, and I must go, but tomorrow would you be willing to examine one more Kyn?"

"Sure, who?"

"Me."

"Why did you not come to the hall last night?" Farlae asked as Viviana finished tidying the workroom. "You missed quite a show between Locksley and this Nottingham of Florence."

Viviana had gone to the assembly with Harlech, but had slipped out as soon as Nottingham had arrived.

"I felt weary," she lied. "You have been using us like deck slaves."

"Aye, I have." Farlae's black eye seemed to pierce through her head. "Yet here you are, hard at work with the sun still in the sky."

She gathered the cording for the lord's new bed curtains and sat down well away from the window to work on it. "The work will not do itself."

"Vivi."

"Don't." She did not look up. "I have never asked why you and Rain always go to town on the same night, or come back smelling of each other, have I?"

"If you think to shame me into abandoning my regard for you," the wardrobe keeper advised her, "you will have to work harder than that. Everyone knows about me and Rain. We've been together since the British invaded for the last time."

"Forgive me." She put down the cording and rubbed her irritated eyes. "There is much I have done in my life, before I came here, that I regret. I was reminded of that last night. That is all."

"No, it is not," he said, giving her a wry smile, "but very well. You know where my ears and my shoulder are." He picked up a stack of newly hemmed table coverings and left.

Sewing had always been a mindless, soothing occupation for Viviana, but today the familiar play of needle and fabric gave her little relief from her thoughts. Her mind had become a snarled nest of fear and anger, bound tightly with despair.Now that he is come, all will be revealed.

She had not wished to keep this secret. Indeed, she had tried to confide in Harlech a thousand times, but the right moment had never presented itself. No, to be brutally honest, she had made excuses so as to keep her husband in ignorance. Harlech would never expose her, but she had feared that the truth would drive him away from her. Surely after all that had happened, after all that she had lost, she deserved some happiness?

The answer to that came from behind her, in a voice that seemed too lovely to belong to a man. "How delightful it is to see a woman at such gentle work."

The hot, heavy scent of aniseed closed around her like a black wool cloak.

She bundled up the satin cord, tangling some of the shining strands she had been wrapping as she went to put the pile into her work basket.

"Ana." A black-gloved hand stopped her, trapping her fingers between the cord and the soft leather. "Are you not happy to see me?"

She faced him. "What would you know of happiness?"

"Not the welcome I expected, but it will do." He straightened. "It is astonishing how well you look. Your pretty face is the same as it was the day that my mother gave you to me."

"I am no longer an ignorant child desperate to feed my family. The family your mother let starve." She lifted her left hand, showing him the plain gold band that Harlech had placed on it. "I have protection now."

"My seneschal told me that you had taken a husband. Interesting news, I thought, considering your past... and mine." He walked around her, inspecting her as he might a horse. "I feared that time would somehow ravage your beauty, but you truly are as you ever were: a flame among ashes."

"The past is dead, and I belong to another." She felt his hand tug at her headrail, and she grabbed it, outraged. "You will not trifle with me. Not if you wish to continue this obscene charade."

"Why, Ana, was that a threat? You have grown up." He smiled. "I confess, I was shocked that you ran from the room as soon as you laid eyes on me. I expected the charade to end then and there, for you have been made an honest woman, You did tell this husband about me, did you not?" He bent close. "Oh, my. You kept your secrets from him. What a pity."

"Harlech did not know me until after the jardin wars were over. We have never discussed what happened to us before we met.

It was not important." She refused to cower. "What do you want?"

"Power. Pleasure. Many things." He took a tendril of her hair that had escaped her headrail and tickled the side of her jaw with its ends. "We have so much to talk about, you and I. You will come to my chamber tonight, after your husband retires." His other glove traced the arc of her breast. "I look forward to how we will become reacquainted."

"No."

"That was not a request." He jerked off her hair covering, seized her hair in his fist, and used it to drag her up against him. "You will come to me, Ana, and you will do exactly as I say. Otherwise, your husband will have to be made aware of many things."

His hand closed cruel and tight over her breast. "I think I will start with from where you come."

Viviana drew her dagger and pressed it against his ribs. "If you wish me to keep my silence, you stay away from me and mine."

"Or what?" The tip of her blade pierced his tunic and pricked his flesh, but he didn't flinch. "You will expose me? You cannot do that, my love. Not if you wish to go on living. Old memories being what they are."She knew that if she gave in to his demands, he would take everything from her anyway. "Test me and find out, my lord."

He put his mouth on her cheek, cupped her hand with his, and pushed it against his body, inhaling deeply as the tip of the copper cut through his side. "There, the angle is better. One thrust and you will have my heart. You did covet it once, I think."

He held her in place as she jerked. "Don't be timid, Ana," he whispered, his cool breath caressing her ear. "You've held my fate in your hands before this. You've always done the right thing."

Her hand went numb, and distantly she heard her dagger clatter on the stone floor.

Nottingham lowered his head, kissing her stiff lips before he smiled against them and stepped back. "Tonight, in my chambers."

He replaced her headrail and arranged the veils around her face. "Wear your hair down for me."

Viviana closed her eyes, and kept them shut until she heard the latch fall. She looked at the cording, which during the struggle had fallen to the floor. Her hands had torn and shredded it beyond repair.

Chapter 11.

Jayr rose early and met Alexandra Keller in the infirmary the next afternoon for her examination. The doctor watched without comment as Jayr lowered the blinds and secured the door.

Jayr faced her. "What should I do first, my lady?"

"Stop calling me 'my lady.'" Alexandra smiled. "It's Alex. So, why am I giving you a physical? Something bothering you?"

"My body is not as it should be."

The doctor nodded. "Right. When did you begin identifying as a male?"

Jayr gave her a perplexed look. "I do not know what you mean. I am a female. I cannot identify as anything else."

"Oops. Language blip. Sorry." Alex thought for a minute. "Let me take a stab at this. You don't look very female. You want to know why, and if I can do anything to... make you look more feminine?"

"Yes." Jayr felt relieved. "Exactly." Her gaze skittered to Alex's medical case. "I have never been examined by a modem physician."

"It's much nicer now," Alexandra promised. "We don't cut open veins to let the bad blood drip out or dose you with cow urine.

And there is absolutely, positively no application of poultices made with manure on any part of your body. I do charge a fee, though."

Jayr frowned. "You wish me to pay you?"

"I'm working up a database of hematological profiles on the Darkyn," Alexandra said. "My fee for the physical will be a couple of vials of your blood."

That seemed reasonable to Jayr. "Why are you creating this database?"

"Once I have enough samples, I can start working toward a cure for us," the doctor told her. "With a lot of work and luck, I think I may be able to reverse the condition that caused and sustains the Kyn mutation."

"Indeed." The possibility of becoming human again intrigued Jayr, although she doubted most Kyn would feel the same. "If I were turned back to human, would I begin aging?"

"I won't know until I actually find a cure, but since all humans except Cher age, that's pretty much a given." Alex picked up a blank chart. "Why don't you sit down, and I'll start asking you some terribly personal questions?"

Jayr gingerly lowered herself into the chair Alex indicated.

"We'll kick off things with the family history first," the doctor said. "Where and when were you born?"

"I was born in Scotland sometime during the year of our Lord twelve ninety-seven," Jayr said. "My parents abandoned me in a church when I was but an infant. My benefactor sent me from there to a convent in London."

"Your benefactor?"

"A local squire or lord, I presume. He paid for the sisters to take me in and educate me. I was never told his name." She felt wistful. "I tried once to find out, but there were no records."

Alex began writing on the top page of the chart. "So much for family medical history."

"I do have this." Jayr removed the worn gold ring from her hand and held it out. "It was left with me."

Alexandra turned it over and held it up to the light to look at the inside. "J... A... Y... ryan."

"It is a betrothal ring," Jayr told her. "The sisters used the first four letters to name me."