I pulled into my parking space and raced up the stairs, only to stop short in surprise. Josh was sitting on my second-floor stoop, his baseball cap pulled low. He stood at the sight of me, his eyes feral and glinting in the early morning sunlight.

"Where have you been?" His intense gaze ran over me, as if checking me over and reassuring himself. "I've texted you for the last several hours and you haven't responded. Is everything okay?"

Even Josh's concern couldn't harsh my buzz. I quickly unlocked my front door and sauntered inside. "I was on a date with an amazing vampire, and everything is great."

He followed me in, frowning. "Amazing . . . vampire?"

"Andre, remember? He was on the list."

"He was a 'maybe,' Marie. I'm not sure that I like him as your pick. There's something about him that's untrustworthy."

I waved his concerns away, shutting the door. "Andre's one of the better ones. He's good-looking, friendly, polite, and he wants to see me again!" I punctuated the last with a giddy little hop and grinned at him. "Isn't that awesome?"

He stared at me as if fascinated.

I stilled, giving him a blank look. "What? What is it?"

"You." The awed expression remained on his face. "I think that's the first time I've ever seen you smile, Marie."

I grinned up at him. I hadn't had a lot to smile about lately, but right now? The world had potential, and I was thrilled to be in it.

Josh's hand went to my waist and he stepped forward. He kept staring down at me, and my smile began to slide away, my pulse quickening. Was something wrong? But then he tilted his head toward me, slowly, his eyes going hazy with desire, and I realized he was going to kiss me. Those lips that I'd been fantasizing about for days moved closer to mine.

I should have turned him away. Should have thrown on the brakes and stepped out of his grasp. There was Andre, the vampire with potential, to think about. My future of living a full, healthy undead life.

But Josh was here, in my arms, his strong arms wrapped around my waist, his gorgeous face tilted close to mine. He looked completely and utterly delicious, and so ready to kiss me.

I tilted my face to his.

"You sure you want me to kiss you, Marie?" Josh said softly, his mouth so close that I felt his lips whisper over my own, a merciless tease.

"If I didn't, you'd be sitting on the front step right now," I told him, looking up into his eyes. They were still gleaming like a cat's, and it was even more noticeable now that we were inside my dark apartment. I was fascinated by the way they reflected the light.

"Good," he said, the sound half a growl. Then his mouth descended on mine.

I whimpered at the fierce possessiveness of his kiss. This wasn't the coaxing tease that he'd given me before. This was a brand of ownership, and I was totally unprepared for the intensity of it. His mouth swooped over mine, hard, hot, his tongue sliding into my mouth in a slow rhythm that left no doubt in my mind what he intended.

Josh was kissing the hell out of me, and it wasn't because he was excited for me that I'd found a vampire. He was kissing the hell out of me because he wanted to claim me for his own.

Surely not.

But then he was kissing me harder, dazing me with the intensity-and deliciousness-of his kiss. He sucked at my lower lip and bit it in a sensual invitation. "You're so beautiful," he told me softly, and his hand stroked up my back, pulling me tight against him.

I moaned at the feel of that big, warm body against mine. My hands went around his neck, my face tilting up for another kiss. Why stop now?

He seemed happy to oblige, but this time it was a light, teasing kiss intended to coax my mouth open and leave me wanting.

"You're mine," he whispered against my mouth just before he stroked his tongue into my mouth again.

My internal brakes squealed to a halt.

Chapter Nine.

I shoved at his chest. "Excuse me?"

Josh didn't respond, and I pushed his jaw away when he leaned in to nibble on my neck. "Joshua Russell!"

He finally leaned back. "What?"

"I am not yours."

A devastating, confident grin spread over his face. "Then quit kissing me back, Marie." When he leaned in to kiss me again, I averted my face. He drew back, looking puzzled. "Why is it not okay for me to kiss you?"

"Because you're declaring ownership like some sort of Neanderthal. I'm not yours. I am mine. If you still want that one-night stand you keep mentioning, I'm totally game for that. Just not anything else."

He stared at me as if I'd grown another head.

"What?" I asked. "You're the big ladies' man. You said yourself that you don't date more than once. Can't I do the same?"

Josh's eyes were flashing cat in that way that told me he was completely irritated. "So you want a one-night stand?"

"Sure." My heart thudded at the very thought of spending the night with Josh. No strings attached. Just him and me, in bed together, doing lovely, dirty things to each other. "I'm fine with that."

"And then you're going to turn right back around and go out with that vampire again, right?"

When he put it that way . . . "Right."

"And you think I'm not going to have a problem with this?"

I put my hands on my hips. "Why not? You're a serial dater. I'm surprised you don't have ten women lined up in the wings, just waiting for you to crook your finger and they'll come running. You just snap your fingers and panties go flying."

"I haven't dated anyone in weeks, Marie. Not since I started helping you out. Does that tell you anything?"

I forced myself not to play through the possibilities. "All it tells me is that you're going through a dry spell."

He hissed, and to my shock, it sounded just like . . . a cat. I watched his eyes go completely feral, his nostrils flaring. His eyes glinted with the low light and I gasped, realizing that they were changing to were-cougar eyes. Josh was losing his grip on his humanity. His hands went to my shoulders, and I felt his claws prick against my shirt, digging into the fabric just enough to let me know that they were there.

He smiled, and I watched his canines elongate. "Is this what turns you on, then, Marie? You want to see some crazy supernatural shit in bed? I don't understand this fetish, but if that's what it takes to make you look at me, I'll give you what you need."

He thought I was a freak with a vampire fetish? That . . . hurt. I gave him my iciest look. "Get your hands off me."

He flung himself away, pacing into my living room. His movements were quick, jerky, as if he was working hard to control himself. He wouldn't look at me.

I felt . . . awkward. Unhappy. I was losing his friendship, which wasn't what I wanted. Not at all. How was I supposed to fix this situation? How could I? Why had I let him get close in the first place? "I'm sorry, Josh. You just don't understand."

He laughed, but there was no amusement in his voice. "I don't understand? I've been hitting on you for weeks, Marie. I know it's hard to get it through your thick skull, but I like you. I like your personality. I think you're beautiful. I live for one of those rare smiles. I love it when you chop people down to size with that tongue of yours. I don't even mind when it's me. Every time you speak French, I get instantly hard. And all you want are . . . vampires?"

He turned around, and I saw frustration in his face. "So tell me, Marie. What does a vampire have that I don't? Because I'm seriously interested, but it seems that all you're looking for is a cheap thrill. Is it that they have bigger fangs? Is it the undead thing? What?"

I said nothing.

He swore. "I'm sorry-I'm done here. I can't win this one, and you won't talk to me, so have a nice life, Marie Bellavance. I'm sure you'll find just the right vampire, since only a vampire will do."

He opened the door.

Panic flared in my chest. He was going to walk away. Forever. If he left now, it was for keeps. "Josh-I'm dying."

He slowly turned. He stared at me. After a long, tense moment, he said, "What did you just say?"

I felt naked, laid open in a way that I was unused to. Josh was the first one I'd shared this with. "I'm . . . dying." To my horror, my voice broke a little on the last word. "I probably have six months to a year before . . . the end."

Which wouldn't be pretty. And I'd be a mess long before then, completely out of my mind and unable to function.

He quietly shut the door and leaned against it, staring at me as if unable to grasp what I was telling him. "I . . . Marie, I didn't know."

"Well, of course you didn't," I told him, forcing my tone to be light and wry, as if my world hadn't been falling apart right then. "I haven't told anyone except you."

"Is it cancer?"

I wish. The thought came immediately, and I began to laugh hysterically, because the thought was absurd. God, that was fucked-up.

"No," I said. "It's not cancer. It's something called fatal familial insomnia."

"I don't know what that is."

"It's very rare. My mother had it. Died from it ten years ago. I inherited the gene. It's not supposed to kick in until I'm forty or so, but it hit early."

He shook his head, moving closer, and reached out toward me. "Marie-"

I moved away before he could touch me, hugging my arms to my chest, feeling sick. Admitting it to another person meant that it existed. It meant really, really acknowledging it. I was flat-out panicking, and I felt the absurd urge to cry.

He followed me as I walked away. "Do you . . . do you want to talk about it?"

Another hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. "No, I don't want to talk about it. I just . . . " I sighed, staring at my blank walls. I suddenly felt exhausted. "I want to take a freaking nap."

"Fatal . . . insomnia," Josh repeated. "And that means you can't sleep?"

I pushed forward, suddenly desperate to show him what it meant to not sleep. To have someone else get it. I opened my closet door. Hundreds of boxes were crammed in there, neatly stacked on shelves that I'd built to hold them all. "I do puzzles when I can't sleep. I've done every single one of these," I told him. "Some, even twice."

He said nothing, simply looked at the puzzles, then back to me.

"And here," I said, racing across the apartment to my small bathroom. I went to the counter and threw open the medicine cabinet. I grabbed boxes of over-the-counter sleep aids, prescription bottles, and shoved them all at him. "I tried taking all of these. None of them work. Nothing works. I close my eyes, but I can't sleep. Maybe ten minutes, if I'm lucky, but after that, nothing. My brain can't shut off, and I'm so tired that I could just collapse. Except when I collapse, I still can't sleep."

He remained silent, his eyes dark as he watched me.

"Do you know what it's like?" My hands clenched into fists as my frustration and helplessness built inside me. I wanted to scream, but I forced my voice to be calm. "Imagine being hungry all the time, yet you can't eat. You just can't. For no good reason at all. I go through that every single fucking night. And it's going to kill me.

"There are four stages of the disease. When I was eighteen, my mother stopped sleeping. Then she started getting panic attacks, kind of like I'm having right now," I said, feeling my pulse flutter wildly in my chest.

"Marie-"

"I need to get all of this out while I can." I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm a little. "It starts with the inability to sleep. Next you have panic attacks. Then paranoia. Then, you start to hallucinate. The insomnia continues to get worse, and toward the end you become completely out of your mind from the lack of sleep. And then you die. It's horrible, Josh. Absolutely horrible. My mother . . . she was beautiful. French-Canadian. Long, dark, curly hair and the happiest smile. I miss her every day," I said softly.

"What about a doctor?"

I shook my head. "They can't help. I've tried pills of every kind. I've tried therapy. Hypnosis. I've seen specialists. They all want to run tests on me, and if they discover the cause, then the experimental treatments will begin. I'll spend the next six months being monitored and drugged and poked and prodded, and none of it will do a bit of good, because no one knows how to fix it. I'm better off spending those six months actually doing something about my disease."

"And this is why you want a vampire," he said quietly.

I nodded. "I thought of it a few weeks ago. That I could get someone to turn me. Sara said that diseases skate right off shifters. And vampires, well, they're already undead. I have all these resources in the agency, right? So why not use them?"

He reached for my hands and tugged them into his own. "Why not a shifter, then? I can change you."

"No, you can't," I said quietly. "You're Beau's brother. He's trying to hold the Alliance together with the force of his will alone. Everyone's freaking out over that tiger clan incident. They exiled that tiger couple, and exile is permanent. For a shifter, I imagine it's close to death. You're so close to your family-I won't have you living in exile just to turn me. Not when there's a perfectly good vampire around-they don't have to follow all of the Alliance rules."

"But vampires don't turn just whoever they want and then walk away. There's commitment involved."

"I know. I just have to take that chance. Maybe I'll be lucky and find a nice vampire to spend eternity with."

Josh gave me a flat, emotionless look. "So I'm off the table because I can't turn you. But I'm perfectly fine for a one-night stand?"

I bit my lip. "I shouldn't want to sleep with you, but I do."

"Damn, Marie," he said, yanking his cap off and raking his hand through his hair. "I don't know what to say."

I twisted my fingers. "I know it's complicated."

He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah, I'll say. Call me crazy, but it doesn't sit quite right with me to sleep with you and then turn you over to the next vampire in the hopes that he's the one for you."

It didn't sound right to me, either, but I didn't know what else to do. "You said yourself that you weren't big on commitment. I'm the ultimate in noncommitment relationships."

"That is not a selling point."

"You could always wait until I'm turned," I said softly. "Maybe we could always give . . . you and me . . . a try after I'm turned."

He shook his head. "Marie, if a vampire turns you, he's going to want you to be his blood partner. That's a mate for life. It's taken very seriously. If you get turned, you're off-limits. Jesus," he swore. "This is a hell of a plan."

So I could have hot Josh and an early tombstone, or I could have a cold vampire and eternity. "I'm not changing my mind," I said quietly. "Not when I'm this close to getting someone to turn me."

Not when I was hallucinating at least once a day now. My disease was accelerating at a rapid pace.