“Is his hunter with the Cajun?”

“Not tonight.”

Having finished off the drumstick, Naasir crunched the bone in a way that made Illium and Dmitri both wince. “One day,” Illium said, “you’re going to get a bone shard stuck in your gullet.”

Naasir shrugged and tore off the other leg. “Let’s play chess.”

“Last time we played chess,” Illium replied dryly, “you threw the pieces out a Refuge window and down into the gorge.”

“I’m better at it now.” Naasir growled, but it wasn’t anger, simply an emphasis on his words. “Caliane is trying to civilize me.”

Having accepted the piece of meat Naasir held out, like a lion sharing with his pride, Illium said, “How is that progressing?”

Naasir gave some meat to Aodhan, too. He never did that with Dmitri because, in his mind, Dmitri was another predator who would be insulted by the offer. Dmitri wondered if Illium and Aodhan realized Naasir saw them as younger cubs who had to be fed by the top predator. He was the same with Venom. Not Jason or Galen, though. Jason, like Dmitri, had been an adult while Naasir was a child. Galen wasn’t that much older than Naasir in angelic terms, but the two had never known one another as children.

“I told Caliane that trying to civilize me is like trying to civilize a jungle cat,” Naasir said with a shrug. “We pretend to like people until we get hungry and want fresh meat.” A glance around, a glint in his eye. “I honestly do like you all. I haven’t thought about eating you for at least two centuries.”

Aodhan looked at the vampire. “I am relieved,” he said in a tone as serious as Naasir’s.

“Really, Sparkle?” Naasir moved out of the way with quicksilver speed before Aodhan’s very well-aimed bishop would’ve hit him dead smack in the center of his forehead, the vampire’s laughter as wild and gleeful as when he’d been a boy who’d managed to startle Dmitri by grabbing on to his leg under the desk.

Dmitri was rescuing the bishop when Janvier appeared in the doorway. Naasir hauled him into a back-slapping hug, the younger vampire returning the embrace as enthusiastically. When they drew apart, Naasir took a sniff of Janvier. “You smell of our hunter. Where is she?”

“Resting.” Janvier’s smile faded. “I have some bad news.”

13

Ashwini knew she should stay home, sleep, but her body wasn’t hurting, while her heart was in agony. After giving Janvier the holster she’d had made for him, she waited until he’d driven off before she left her apartment building again, having arranged to borrow a car from her doorman’s cousin as she’d done a couple of times before. She figured the money might as well go to a young couple raising a family as to a rental place.

“Thanks,” she said when the stocky blond handed over the keys. “I was planning to jump on the subway to your place, but Nic told me you were already on your way.”

“I needed the drive and it wasn’t like I was asleep.” Yawning, the twentysomething male stretched, bones popping one after another. “Anyway, I better get back home before my wife decides to divorce me for leaving her alone with the baby.” A good-natured laugh. “The lungs on her come from her ma, no doubt about it.”

Ashwini frowned when he turned to head to the nearest subway station. “Hop in with me,” she said. “I’ll drop you off on my way out.”

He scratched his head. “You sure? You paid for it fair and square—more than fair.”

“It won’t take me out of my way,” she lied. “The company would be nice.”

“In that case, I won’t say no.”

He was good company. Easygoing and besotted with his wife and baby both. Listening to him patter on about the two of them distracted her for the time it took to drive him back to his apartment building. Once there, she saw him stop in front of the stoop to wave up at the silhouette of a woman in a third-story window, her arms rocking a baby.

Ashwini sat there for another minute and she didn’t even know why until she saw the silhouette change, mother and child joined by a masculine form, stocky and with arms that went around them both. Wrenching her eyes away from a scene that would never be a part of her own life, she drove off.

It was stupid to do this, she knew that. Once she was outside Manhattan, the drive would take eighty minutes or more there, the same back, and she planned to wake early to attend the autopsy. But a night without sleep wouldn’t kill her, and her gut pulsed with the remorseless tug she felt only during the worst episodes, when neither medication nor therapy would fight the monsters. Oddly, Ashwini’s voice, reading from a piece of classic literature, had proven the best panacea when things began to go downhill . . . as was happening more and more frequently.

She reached her destination just under an hour and a half later, was welcomed by a familiar nurse, his red hair combed in a simple style. All the senior staff knew Ashwini had permission to visit at any time.

Carl’s face made it clear her instincts hadn’t let her down. “How bad?” she asked.

“Most severe end of the scale.”

“Did anyone unauthorized go into the room?”

Shaking his head, Carl said, “I double-checked. The episodes are simply getting worse, Ash.”

It was a fact she’d admitted to herself three months back. “Have you told Arvi?” Unlike her, he refused to face the truth even a blind man could see.