"It's a good surprise. Always a good surprise. Your blood is distinct, but there is nothing objectionable about it." His eyes wandered over my shoulders and collarbone. I sank a little lower in the water and his hand followed, landing lightly on my shoulder. "May I touch you?"

"Aren't you supposed to ask that before the touching?" I asked without heat. The bites burned, deep beneath the skin, as if they were poisonous instead of me. The tears started again, pooling in the corners of my eyes before they leaked out.

"We looked each night for you," he said. "All night."

"Did you call the police?" I murmured.

"They wouldn't have-"

"Hey, whatever happened to that bodyguard? Real serious guy. Not so good at guarding the body?"

"He was glamoured. Came around hours later in a movie theater."

"Oh, yeah? What'd he see?"

"Sydney, we need to talk about this."

"You can stay here and make sure I don't fall asleep and drown, but that's all."

"Nothing has changed. Whatever you need, I'll give to you. I'll make or steal it if I have to. But you need to talk to me."

"No," I whispered, so quietly that I could barely hear myself. My ears were ringing, and I was on the verge of rocking back and forth.

His eyes were dark, almost as if he were human. But he wasn't, and hadn't been for a long time. When Bronson gave him the good-bye present of a thorough beating, he'd acted like it was nothing. Did he even remember what it was to be paralyzed with fear, to know that you were weaker than every single person around you?

"Nothing has changed between us." He spoke with quiet determination, as if that would make it so.

He was wrong. Something had changed. I just couldn't remember what it was.

Chapter Sixteen.

I braced myself before opening the door to our room, the one Mickey and I had shared. The one we were sharing still. It looked the same. With everything that had happened, the door should have led to the other side of the world, or another planet. Nope. The bright textiles and vivid pictures remained. The only differences were all the half-packed suitcases that looked like they'd been opened with small sticks of dynamite.

Mickey sat across the small table from Thurston. He was slouched while she was on her knees in her chair, leaning forward to point something out in a travel book. They were close enough to kiss, but too wrapped up in the book to notice.

"Hey." I closed the door, checking twice that I'd locked it.

"Where have you been?" Thurston inquired.

"At the pool, obviously." Mickey flicked a finger at Thurston, then scrunched her nose at me. "You're all pink."

"A little of this sun goes a long way."

"There are some pastries left." She gestured toward a room service tray. If she'd eaten anything off of it, it wasn't much. "The tea might have gone cold."

"I'm not hungry." A little dizzy, but the sun had been strong. I'd woken with a start, sore and confused, to find myself alone with the imprint of Malcolm on top of the covers beside me. A tray of first-aid supplies had been left on the coffee table, but no note. I'd covered the bite marks, and used the rounded bandage scissors to saw off what remained of my extensions. Then I'd spent a quarter of an hour facing down the door before convincing myself that opening it wouldn't result in pain.

The protection of daylight had been the obvious next step, and it had been disappointing not to find Malcolm waiting inside, at the stop of the staircase. He also hadn't been in his room when I returned. It had felt indefinably queer to walk the halls of the hotel unescorted.

"You look good," I ventured.

"I'm okay. Better, anyway." Mickey straightened her shirt when she stood, pulling the cuffs of the long sleeves down into her fists. Below it, she wore loose sweatpants. Her outfit was nothing like the fun ensembles that had made her so happy to combine before. Her hair was down and the bandage on her neck had been changed from white to a peachy "flesh tone", but it still stood out against her tawny skin. I turned a little as she walked toward me, unable to face her head-on.

"I was so worried about you," she said, tears gleaming in her large, dark eyes. "I couldn't remember where you were, but I knew that I'd left you behind."

"You had to." I held her gently when she launched herself against me. I couldn't console her by telling her it hadn't been that bad. She'd been enthralled, so she remembered enough. "You had to."

"You're probably thirsty." Mickey grabbed a bottle of water and poured a gla.s.s for me, then tapped the plastic bottle against it. "That first day back, Laura set up an IV drip under a little umbrella so that I didn't have to leave the sun. They've been taking good care of me."

Thurston made a grumpy noise and Mickey winked at me.

"Somebody did not approve of me being out there alone."

"Somebody might have been thinking of your ongoing safety," Thurston said.

"Well, if somebody learned to make smoothies like the bartender up there, then maybe I'd have come inside." She flashed him a grin.

It was a relief, seeing her recovering her spark, but I didn't like her being here. If something else were to happen, she shouldn't be anywhere near it, and something else was coming. Something... My brows drew down as a buzz sounded in my ears.

Mickey poured me another gla.s.s of water.

"Salud. You must stay hydrated." She drained the bottle, then bounced it between her hands. "Have you figured out when we're leaving? Not that I'm in a hurry, but it would be nice to move on."

"I know what you mean. It'll be a little longer." It wasn't time to go yet. At her distressed look, I hurried to add, "A few days is all, I'm sure. Don't worry. Disneyland will still be there."

There was a knock on the door and Mickey and I both froze, her hands coming together in front of her chest while I dropped halfway into a crouch.

"It is Petr," Thurston said, crossing the room. He put himself between us and the door, giving us time to pull ourselves together.

Petr was dressed up, in a navy sport coat over beige slacks and other clothes picked straight out of the boring section of a really expensive store.

"Miss Kildare."

"We're done with the aliases?"

He nodded. "There's no need. Your ident.i.ty is no longer contained. The Master would like to see you. Now."

Contained. The cat was out of the bag and she was a mess. I finished my water and set the gla.s.s down. At least this time I didn't have to get dressed up for Bronson.

"Then let's not keep him waiting."

Petr gave a surprised smile and fell into step beside me.

"How many people did Abel bring with him?" I asked after the door had closed behind us.

"Thirty."

Thirty vampires he could have set on me instead of the two he'd handpicked. I shuddered. "And how many are in Bronson's party?"

"The Master's people are busy," he said, leading me into the stairwell. "He's traveling with only a small crew, though some of his subjects were here on holiday."

We paused to allow two vampire couples to pa.s.s, all slinky limbed and quiet on their feet.

"He's not concerned that Abel has so many?" I asked. Petr smirked. Ah. "I take it thirty wouldn't be a problem for him."

"I would not dispute such an a.s.sertion." Petr produced a key and opened the door at the end of the hallways. I followed him past two guards who barely gave me a second glance. Human equaled weak, therefore I was beneath their notice. That, I now comprehended in full.

Seated in a large chair, chin on his left hand, a teacup in his other, Bronson appeared relaxed. Your standard a.s.s-kicking vampire at leisure. I'd never seen him look anything other than all business. He wore a muted gold b.u.t.ton-up shirt that looked like it had been painted on. The tendons of his neck were p.r.o.nounced, as were the muscles of his arms and shoulders. h.e.l.l, I could practically make out a six-pack when he faced me. Usually it was the force of his eyes that had me looking elsewhere. This time it was all of him.

The room was like the one Malcolm had brought me to the night before, dark blues and crisp greens. It was larger, though, and colder even with a fire burning in a deep fireplace.

"Sydney," Bronson said, smiling so widely that his eyes arched, catlike. "I am pleased to see you. Take refreshment, please." He gestured toward a white-clothed room service cart tucked into the corner. Apparently, I needed to eat on top of stay hydrated. I wasn't hungry, but the "please" was a command.

I snagged a few pieces of fruit and a miniature bagel piled with smoked salmon and capers. Bronson gestured to the chair beside his, then handed me a gla.s.s flute as soon as I sat. His hand wrapped around mine and a surge of energy made me want to hold it. A glamour, influence placed without a single spoken word. G.o.d, how strong was he?

The Master leaned down to pour the champagne himself, and his bulk-both physical and that vampire other-made me shrink against the back of the chair. Maybe he didn't have that skill like Malcolm, or maybe he wasn't bothering to hold back, but I felt like, if I reached out, power would physically ripple over my hand.

"I am pleased you could join me." Bronson dropped the bottle onto the stone hearth, making me jump. He didn't seem to notice as it tipped over and spewed its frothy contents. He sat, crossing his hands over his flat stomach, and stared at the flames. I held very still, my fingers tight around the plate and gla.s.s stem, then jerked again when the spilled champagne crossed onto the hot part of the fireplace and hissed.

"Lucille loved champagne," he said, his smile gone. I glanced over my shoulder. The guards had disappeared, leaving me alone with an old, powerful vampire behaving oddly.

It took a couple of tries to form words. "I can come back later if you're not in the mood for company."

Bronson rotated his head toward me and blinked. His eyes were pure white. Curiously, that didn't scare me. Maybe Abel had scorched all the fear out of me and I hadn't yet restocked it. Or maybe it was because, for all the power pouring out of Bronson, the emotion emanating from him wasn't hostility or hunger. All I felt was fatigue, a weariness so heavy that it made me ache. If that's what immortality felt like on a bad day, maybe being a feeble mortal wasn't so bad.

"You will come back," Bronson said, facing the fire again. "To Alaska. It has changed, but you have not."

Funny, I felt a lot different.

"I come here to look my enemies in the eye while we threaten each other. It's an old game, tiresome, like listening to provincial complaints in my territories. But occasionally something surprises me." His hand latched on to my wrist, and I jerked. The plate and gla.s.s went flying. "Your loyalty to me is exceptional. To see it displayed before so many, when Chev asked where your allegiances lie, did my heart good. But then, I have long suspected you could make me proud. What did you find at Goya?"

I eyed him warily. He was off, way off, and that was a big deal for a vampire with enough power that even Chev's saturation was dulled by his presence. In fact, I'd barely sensed her all day, not until I'd crossed into his rooms. She must have allocated her energy, creating some kind of super-duper protections around his quarters. Or around him. Did suckers ever go supernova?

I hadn't been thinking about him when I'd cracked Abel's hold. I didn't even remember him until later. It was anger, a small, clean burst of rage at seeing Mickey all twisted up, that had done it. And if I was so favored by the Master, why hadn't he come looking for me? Why hadn't he incinerated Abel for f.u.c.king with me?

"You're having trouble remembering," Bronson said, and it wasn't a question. My chin began to tremble and I frowned to hide it, then gasped when power buffeted me.

"A gift," he said, his hand a frigid vise around my wrist. I exhaled and could see my breath. If that was his version of a present, I never wanted to be on his Christmas list.

"It's not Goya," I said, teeth chattering. But my focus was better. "Not the company, I mean. It was one guy there, this lab chemist. He freelances for vampires in an underground scene, and figured out what Radia does. Only the initial aspects. He didn't test far enough to know what it does later."

Bronson let go of me, unlocking his fingers one at a time, and when I gathered the courage to look at him again, his face was smooth. That was the master I knew and preferred. I pulled my arms close, rubbing the place where he'd touched me.

"We know it isn't the corporation," he said. "The serum has a unique delivery method. The scientists tell me it's something about plant enzymes that makes it especially effective. But, unaltered, it does nothing to vampires."

"So...it wasn't a mistake?" Thinking of the conversation with Kevin in that cell hurt, but it came to me intact. I'd known he was holding back, but I hadn't thought he was outright lying to me. "He didn't stumble upon the side effect, he created it on purpose? What changes it? Another Goya product?"

"The catalyst predates your industrial era. Have you heard of leeching?"

My industrial era. I wasn't the one who'd been around for the invention of freaking steam power.

"Sure, sucking the bad humors out of people. Not widely practiced these days, if I had to guess."

"Correct. There was a time when it was thought to cure all. Since then, other so-called cures have come and gone, some human and some vampire. Both our kinds quest to change their natures." He leaned forward and steepled his fingers. "Centuries ago, the trend was to drink from pregnant human women. The theory was that the mother's blood was strengthened during the gestation of the child and that, by drinking from conception to birth, our bodies would integrate the life-sustaining strength with our power of regeneration."

"So, what, you kept stables of pregnant women around, feeding off of them?" I couldn't keep the disgust out of my tone.

Bronson's smile was slow and unpleasant. "Nothing so sinister, Sydney. Trends among our kinds often develop alongside one another. Often in contrast, but sometimes a.n.a.logously. The popularity of bloodletting happily coincided with an era of trust and freedom for my kind. In this case, it was believed that the venom in our bites would render unborn children immune to vampire glamour."

"Could have been a fair trade, except the venom myth was debunked," I said. I did not like where this talk was going.

"That was much later. Even we believed the physical bite transferred something, that it was not only a matter of will. You have felt, have you not, the thrall of the bite? Would you believe yourself capable of making another person fall into such rapture from such a simple touch? No. Even the most egotistical among us believes there is something more at work."

Bites equaled pain, that I knew. But I also knew that they seemed to do so only for me. Mickey wouldn't have been starry-eyed and sighing if she'd felt what I had. I dug my hands into the arms of the chair.

"I don't much see the appeal myself."

"You wouldn't, of course." Bronson watched me, and it was my turn to stare at the fire. "Puer Morsus. That's what the offspring were called. There was no immunity. They grew up and were no different from any other human children. Until a sect altered the ritual. Instead of merely taking blood, they exchanged it, to amplify the process."

I hooked my heels over the end of the chair and fiddled with the laces of my boots. "And those kids, they were different?"

"Much. Among other unusual behaviors, those children demonstrated resistance to our influence."

If he hadn't had my undivided attention before, he did now. "What does that mean, Puer Morsus?"

"Loosely, Children of the Fang."

I raised my head. The fire was crackling, but it didn't warm Bronson's features any more than it would have warmed those of a marble statue.

"Never heard of it." My mother had been a back-alley feeder and one of her clients had taken pity on her when she'd gotten really sick while pregnant with me. A few drops here and there to guarantee his favorite donor was available. It wasn't supposed to have done anything to me.

"Few have. Fewer yet have experienced them. The chief of my hive took a Morsus as a feeder. He said that her companionship calmed him and gave him strength. He bid us all taste her. The flavor was...indescribable."

"Poisonous," I ventured, my mind spinning.

"No." He brushed a finger against his lower lip, back and forth until I had to look away. "But not something one soon forgets."

I was sitting in the lush room surrounded by fire and broken dishes, having a conversation with a master vampire, and it was the topic that was the most surreal.

"When did you know what I am?" I swallowed hard. "Am I wearing a sign that only vampires can read?"