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“Neither do I, not anymore.”

“That loss of control issue again, isn’t it?”

“You know, I really don’t want to psychoanalyze myself right now.”

“Fine,” she raised her hands as if to show she was unarmed, “but the next time you start getting claustrophobic, and you need some air, get some air, okay?”

“It was that obvious?” I asked.

“If I say yes, you won’t like it, because you hate for anyone to be able to read you. If I say no, I’d be lying, and you hate that, too.”

“I’m just impossible to get along with, aren’t I?”

“Not impossible, but not exactly easy either.” She gave a small laugh to soften it, and said, “Do you feel up to going back inside?”

I took another deep breath and nodded. “Sure.”

She nodded, too. “Good, be careful when you move the drapes. Don’t want to flash too much of this beautiful sun onto Damian.”

I nodded and felt the good air leaving me. Before I stepped back through the sliding glass doors, I was wondering, what was I going to do with him? I couldn’t keep touching him all day. Could I? I was willing to do it up to a point, but all day would drive me mad. Especially if it was not just today, but every day. I suddenly saw an endless stream of days with Damian permanently attached to me. It was claustrophobic.

I half expected him to leech onto me when I came through the door, but he didn’t. I stood there in the sudden dimness of the curtained kitchen, letting my eyes adjust. My eyes automatically turned to where Richard had been, but I forced myself to look for Fredo first. He’d moved closer like a good bodyguard, leaning against the small two-seater table in the breakfast nook. The white roses that Jean-Claude sent every week framed Fredo’s darkness. His fingers were tracing the edges of his jacket again. I’d never seen Fredo use his knives, but something told me that he’d get to his blades faster than I’d get to my gun, not to mention my knife. The back sheath was really an emergency backup, not a main weapon. If I’d wanted a blade as a main weapon, I’d have put on the wrist sheaths.

I eased into the room away from Fredo, not because he meant me harm, but simply on principle. I wasn’t at my best, and he was the only professional bad guy in the room, so I treated him with the caution he deserved. Besides, I had to redeem my earlier stupidity somehow, and the days when I would have picked a fight just to reassure myself I was still tough were long ago and far away. Being a girl, that phase had been shorter anyway. We are much more practical creatures than men, as a general rule.

Richard was still at the table. Clair was beside him now. She had a hand on his good shoulder, her small hand very pale against the darkness of his skin. She was watching me. Her eyes were blue, a dark sort of gray blue, but blue nonetheless.

Micah stood at the side of the island closest to the table. He seemed tense, but it was a flicker of his eyes that helped me find Damian and Nathaniel.

The vampire had wedged himself into the corner between the cabinets and the sink. He was holding his knees tight to his chest, his face resting on them, so that he could hide his eyes. He’d managed to hide almost all of himself in the blue velvet dressing gown and the fall of his own hair. Nathaniel was beside him on the floor. He was touching Damian’s hands, but that was all.

Nathaniel looked up at me, and there was something in his violet eyes, pain, helplessness, something. I wasn’t mad anymore, and I didn’t feel claustrophobic as I crossed the kitchen to them. I knelt on the other side of Damian and looked a question at Nathaniel. “I thought my touch might help him until you got back inside.”

I nodded. It sounded logical.

“He didn’t want me to touch him much.” He wasn’t hurt when he said it, it was just a fact.

I touched Damian’s bowed head. His hand suddenly wrapped around my wrist. The movement had been too fast to see, which didn’t happen often to me with vamps, and shouldn’t have happened with this one. The speed of it, and the