"I don't . . . actually drink coffee," he said, sounding a little thrown by her behavior. "Caffeine makes me jittery ."

"That's not where we're going."

To his credit, he didn't protest, but let her haul him along behind her out the front door and into the night.

Perhaps no one else in the city would get the novelty of a psychic musician and the most powerful vampire in Texas sitting together in an ice cream parlor, but Miranda's creeping sense of the absurd had plenty to take in tonight.

Amy's Ice Cream was the foremost chain of its kind in Austin, staffed by the young and hip-smaller versions of Kat, for the most part, and teenage boys with floppy hair and sleeve tattoos. It was decorated with cartoon cows and piped punk and metal over the loudspeakers, a study in contrasts that was typical of their fair city.

It was the only ice cream chain open past midnight, and also the only one in town that had a rotating selection of alcoholic flavors as well as the standard, mashed up with your choice of toppings from chocolate-covered Gummi Bears to granola.

Miranda took the waffle cone full of Mexican vanilla and fresh raspberries that she'd asked for, and licked the dripping edges off while David paid. She found an empty table and grabbed a handful of napkins before sitting down.

It always surprised her how many people craved ice cream when the weather was cold. Amy's was never without a crowd even in the nastiest part of winter, and here at the leading edge of spring with a northern front about to hit, there were still half a dozen people occupying the tables in the middle of a Friday night.

David sat down across from her, resplendent in his black leather with his Signet glowing from his throat, holding a polka-dotted cup full of chocolate ice cream smothered in caramel praline sauce and hot fudge.

With sprinkles.

"I guess you're not worried about diabetes."

He ignored her and took a bite; the look on his face, one of unexpected bliss, made her forget how cold it was.

"I can't believe you've lived here fifteen years and never been to Amy's," she said.

"God, neither can I."

She smothered a giggle; she'd never heard him talk with his mouth full before. It made her think of the night she'd seen him sleeping-he probably would have been mortified at the idea of being adorable, but there were moments that he was almost human, and rather than lessening his allure, they intensified it.

They ate without talking for a while, but this time the silence was companionable, not strained. She pretended not to notice how his eyes lingered on her when she licked a stray dribble of ice cream from her cone, and he paid no heed to the way she kept catching herself staring at his mouth.

Finally, he couldn't seem to stand it anymore. "So this Drew . . ."

She nearly inhaled her ice cream, recognizing the tone as one she'd never thought she would hear from him of all people. "Are you jealous?"

He met her eyes. "Insanely."

Now it was her turn to blush. She suddenly found her napkin intensely fascinating. "It's not what you think," she said. "Kat was trying to fix us up, but I didn't want that. When you got here, he'd just tried to . . . push the issue."

Outrage bloomed in his eyes, and there was a hard edge in his voice. "Are you sure you don't want me to kill him for you?"

"I can take care of myself," she replied with a little flare of anger of her own. "I'm not your damsel in distress, David."

He stared down into his ice cream. "I am aware of that."

"Tell me why you're here. After all this time, why now?"

David sat back and folded his hands in that molecular-level noble way he had, choosing his words with care. "Last night we destroyed the insurgents' base."

She nearly dropped her ice cream. "That house fire. That was you?"

"Yes. I tracked them over the citywide sensor network, and we killed them."

"God . . . you mean it's over?"

He shook his head. "I don't know if it will ever be over, Miranda. There are still more of them out there in hiding. We've found a few, but evidence suggests we got two thirds of the total membership in the raid. Their leadership is gone, but they may still regroup and start again, this time even more aggressively out of the desire for revenge. There may also be other factions outside Austin waiting to be called in."

"What you're saying is that I'm going to be in danger for the rest of my life."

"Probably."

She shrugged and bit off one side of her ice cream cone. "So?"

He stared at her in open disbelief. "Aren't you at least a little concerned for your own safety?"

She looked around the room, gesturing at the other people eating their ice cream in peace. "Look at all of them," she said quietly. "They're in as much danger as I am, but they don't even know it. They don't even know what's sitting right next to them. Worry about them, David. I do. I see all these people living their lives, and I wonder which of them is next. But I don't worry about me, not anymore. I'm strong and I can fight for my life. I know what's out there. And I've lived in fear-I spent months jumping at shadows and crying myself to sleep. I'm not doing that again. Let them come and kill me-no, let them try. I think they'll be surprised how hard it is."

He was still staring, but now with wonder, and something like pride.

"Maybe you have the time to spend your life afraid," she concluded. "I don't."

She went back to her ice cream, letting him take in what she'd said in stunned silence for a minute. "I guess I've changed," she observed between bites.

Now he smiled. "No," he said. "I always knew this was who you are. Now you know it, too. And now you know why I refused to give up on you."

"Thank you," she replied with a smile.

Another ice-cream-filled moment passed, and then he noted casually, "You look like you've been working out."

"I have been. You look like you haven't been sleeping."

"I haven't been."

She took the last bite of her ice cream and wiped her mouth, then reached over and squeezed his hand lightly. "I'm sorry it's been so hard," she said. "How many Elite did you lose altogether?"

"Seven total. Eight, counting Helen. And forty-five humans. There was even . . ." He set down his spoon, pushing the cup away, saying, "There was a little boy. He and his mother were killed together. There were at least three other children as well, but I never saw their faces. This one . . ."

She held on to his fingers more tightly. "He reminded you of your son."

"Yes. Not physically, really, just that innocence. They lose it so young, even without monsters in the night coming to rip their throats out. There's no reason for it. We don't have to end lives to survive, let alone the little ones. Despite what I am, I've never understood destruction for its own sake."

She knew, hearing him speak, that he hadn't told anyone what he was telling her. "But you stopped them," she said. "At least for now. And if they know what's good for them, they'll leave town and not look back."

He smiled with sad irony. "They never know what's good for them." He toyed with the spoon again, letting the mostly melted ice cream drip from it into the cup. "I failed them, Miranda. Fifty-three people died under my watch."

"There could have been so many more," she told him, trying to reassure him with both her words and her energy. "Not even a Prime can be everywhere at once. There's only one of you to watch over all of us. Not even you can be perfect."

He sighed. She had heard that sigh before. "I think I'm finished," he said. "Do you want a bite before I throw the rest away?"

"Sure," she said.

She started to reach for the spoon, but he lifted it first and held it out with a small mouthful captured in its bowl. She leaned forward and opened her mouth, lips closing around the spoon, but she barely tasted the ice cream; all she could feel were his eyes, and something in them made her shiver inside, a dark liquid heat spreading from her belly all the way down to her toes.

"Let's go," he said softly.

They walked back to her apartment close enough to touch, but not touching; Miranda tried not to let that make her insane. It felt so good just to talk to him again; she put that moment of heat between them out of her mind and fell into the rhythm of conversation.

He asked about her music and listened attentively as she recounted the crippling anxiety of her first few performances and how she had learned to use her gift to enhance, but not violate, the audience's experience. She could gather up surface emotions and shift them little by little. It had taken a lot of practice.

They talked about the new Elite trials and Faith's frustration with the new recruits, who weren't nearly good enough to truly replace the dead. Miranda told him that Faith came to see her every week or two, and he didn't seem surprised.

He told her more about the sensor network and the raid on the insurgents' headquarters.

"Wait . . . you have one of them staying at the Haven?"

He nodded, and she had the sense that it was a subject he'd defended a hundred times already, most likely to Faith. "She's under lock and key. As soon as she's well enough to survive, I'm going to find out what she knows and then release her."

Miranda smiled at that. "You do like to take in strays, don't you?"

They stopped at a traffic light just as a blast of icy wind made its way down from the sky to the street, and she shivered a little in her coat, wishing she'd worn something heavier.

David reached over and took her hand. "Here," he said.

She felt a surge of warmth travel from his body to hers, the way he had done the night he had found her in the alley, but this time it wasn't just energy. When the WALK sign lit up and they crossed the road, he didn't let go of her hand, and she didn't pull away.

"It isn't the same," he told her, returning to the subject. "I don't trust this woman. All we know about her is that Ariana hated her. That's not a ringing endorsement. So far she's done nothing but feed and sleep."

"Please be careful," she admonished.

"Don't worry, Miranda. Not every woman I meet completely blinds me."

"Oh?"

"No," he replied, looking up at the night sky. "Only the green-eyed ones with voices like honey and rain."

She let the words run through her, leaving an almost silly delight in their wake, but then frowned, trying to understand what she was feeling. Were they really flirting? His sudden openness unnerved her, although he had been the one to kiss her, and he had just taken her hand. She didn't know how to react. For months she had wanted to see him, and now he was here, touching her, and she knew that if she invited him in, she could have much more than that. Suddenly what had been so obvious no longer made sense to her heart.

They had reached her apartment by now, and she was digging with trembling fingers for her keys, feeling the beginnings of helpless confused tears in her eyes. She thought of how she had turned to stone when Drew kissed her, and how for months the thought of a man's hands on her skin sent her running for the Xanax. How on earth could David be the exception to that fear? Just because he wasn't human?

"Miranda," he said, gently taking the keys from her, "Talk to me."

She shook her head and pushed past him into the apartment, stripping off her coat and aiming it blindly at the hook. It missed and puddled on the floor.

David picked it up and hung it, along with his own, and watched her sit down on the couch, his worry palpable in the room. He clearly thought he had done something wrong.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she blurted.

"All right," he acknowledged, and came to sit beside her, leaving enough distance between them that she didn't feel cornered. "Go on."

That was one thing she loved about him-he listened to her. He didn't try to push his own feelings and experiences on her the way so many people did. He wasn't simply waiting for his turn to talk.

"You found my note," she said. "You must have."

"I did." He smiled. "That's why I'm here. I promised you I would come."

"But it isn't safe. It will never be safe. Weren't you the one who didn't want to put me in jeopardy? What is this, then? What are you trying to do to me?" She hated the entreaty in her voice, but she couldn't help it. "Don't you understand how this feels? Seeing you like this, hearing your voice, eating ice cream with you like we're a normal couple-it feels like the one thing that's been missing all these months. I could live my life without you, yes. But I don't want to. Are you here just to show me what I can't have?"

"I wouldn't do that," he insisted. "I would never hurt you. I just . . . I had to see you. It had been so long . . . and you . . . Miranda, you have haunted my thoughts every night since you left. I can't even open the door to your room without my heart breaking all over again. I told myself over and over that it was better just to make a clean break, but I don't think that's possible with us." He took both of her hands and held her eyes, and she felt his words all the way through her, body and soul, the emotion shaking her inside. "I'm here because I don't know what else to do. I don't know what's going to happen or where to go from here. I just know . . ."

She held her breath, waiting, her eyes so deeply locked in his that she could hear every thought through his shields and her own. She waited . . . she wanted . . .

He took a deep breath. "I am in love with you, Miranda Grey. I've fallen so far into you that I can't even see the stars anymore, but it doesn't matter-you're all the light I need."

She was crying, she could feel it, but she didn't try to stop it. "Cheesy," she said with a weak laugh.

He smiled back, lifting one hand and tracing her lower lip with his fingers. "You didn't give me time to practice," he said. "Let me try again: 'I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.' "

Miranda felt a strange rising of something in her heart, something she almost didn't recognize at first, until she realized it was joy. Her voice unsteady but the emotion clear, she quoted back, " 'Peace! I will stop your mouth.' "

Her hands slid up his forearms, and she leaned in and put her lips to his. As he returned the kiss she felt his hands against her face, thumbs brushing her tears away. She moved into his arms, her lips parting, mouth seeking mouth with half-fearful desire. His hands spanned her waist and lifted her into his lap.

Miranda fell into the kiss, drowning herself in it and grateful to drown, the taste of him almost too much to bear. His skin was cool at first but heated the more she touched, and before long her fingers were seeking his buttons, trying to find their way in and remove another barrier that stood between them.

He lifted his mouth from hers and began to trail kisses along her jaw, up to her ear, the softness of his breath sending tremors all the way down to her toes. His hands moved up beneath the hem of her sweater, skimming the inside edge of her jeans until they found bare skin.

"Wait," she whispered.

He drew back immediately, his pupils dilated hugely in the lamplight.

"I'm sorry," he said a little breathlessly. "You're not ready."

"It's not that." She pulled away and stood, grateful that her knees didn't give out. "It will be morning in a few hours. The bedroom windows are blocked out. It will be safe for you in there."

He looked at her, the vulnerability in his eyes making her ache. "Are you asking me to stay?"

"Yes."

He rose gracefully and turned away from her, and for a moment she thought she'd stepped over a line, but he merely spoke into his com. "Harlan . . . I won't be returning to the Haven tonight. I'll call for you at dusk."

"Yes, Sire."

Then David lifted his eyes to hers again, and, smiling, he reached for her hand.

She took it and, switching off the lights as she walked, led him into the bedroom.

He had her in his arms again before they even crossed the doorway, and she turned in his embrace, kissing him again, this time hard. His tongue snaked into her mouth, and he wove one hand into her hair to hold her against him while she worked impatiently at his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders with hands gone clumsy with urgency.

Something wild had seized them both, and neither had any intention of fighting it. Her nails dug into his upper arms so hard that she heard him growl low in his throat, and he maneuvered her back toward the bed, stripping off her sweater and the T-shirt and bra under it, barely breaking the kiss.