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“I feel fine,” she said at last.

“Have you fed?” I asked.

“Can you not tell?” she asked, giving me a very direct blue gaze.

“You always look a little ethereal to me, so no. I can’t tell with you.”

She gave a small smile. “Quite a compliment that the Executioner cannot tell whether I’ve fed.”

“Do you feel the thirst?” Jean-Claude asked.

She thought about that for a second, making the pretty little face. “No. I could feed, but I do not have to.”

I felt a stab of triumph from Jean-Claude. Triumph, and right on its heels, fear. Then he closed the leak in his shields tight.

“Why afraid? Why triumphant? Why both?” I asked.

“Jean-Claude fed the ardeur well and truly last night, and it is sustaining me. That is very impressive,” Elinore said.

“Yeah, I get that, but…” I tried to think how to form the question. “Why are you both so pleased?”

“If we wished to travel as a group in countries where we are illegal, only one of us would need to feed. It would mean Jean-Claude could take quite a large group of his own vampires into another territory without leaving much evidence behind. Certainly we could hide from the human authorities.”

“But we’re not going to invade anyone’s territory.”

“No,” Jean-Claude said, “but it is always good to have options, ma petite.”

“Where’s your sweetie? Your knight?”

“He did not wake with me,” and there was just a hint of sadness to that.

“So are you the only one who gained—” There was a knock on the door.

“Yes, Remus,” Jean-Claude called.

Remus opened the door and closed it behind him. “Requiem is out here.”

“Requiem,” Elinore said, “interesting.”

“Send him in, Remus,” Jean-Claude said.

He held Jean-Claude’s gaze for a moment, then looked down, and did his talking to the side of the face. “All right, but if anyone else shows up early like this, I will have to insist that you let two of the guards inside the room. So whatever secret shit you’re discussing, discuss fast.”

“You really think there’s going to be that many more vamps waking up this early?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think there will be.”

“We will discuss whether guards come back inside when someone else comes to my door,” Jean-Claude said. “Let Requiem pass, Remus.”

Remus’s face struggled; he didn’t like it. “I am caught between masters here. Claudia says don’t leave you guys alone. You say I can’t stay. We need a chain of command here.”

“Too many generals,” I said.

He gave me a quick, direct glance. “Yes.”

“I am sorry, Remus,” Jean-Claude said, “but Elinore’s arrival has changed things.”

“Fine, but Requiem is the last, or I’m calling Claudia and telling her I can’t guard you, because you won’t let me.”

“As you see fit, Remus.”

He gave another angry look around the room, then opened the door. A moment later Requiem glided through the door. He had his black, hooded cloak close around his body, so that the only thing that showed was the spill of his Vandyke beard framing the curve of his lips.

“How badly are you hurt, mon ami?” Jean-Claude asked.

Requiem shrugged back the hood without using his hands, the way you’d flip long hair behind your back. The hood slid down and the right side of his face was a mass of deep-purple bruises. One of his eyes was almost swollen shut, just a glimpse of that startling bright blue that had made Belle Morte try to buy Requiem from his original master. Belle had wanted to have a matching set of blue-eyed men. Asher’s were the palest blue; Jean-Claude’s the darkest; Requiem’s the brightest. His master had refused, and they had fled France.

His long, straight hair, so dark it mingled with the black cloak, made his pale skin all the paler, and helped the bruises stand out like purple ink on his face.

“Wow,” I said, “how much blood are you using to heal that?”

He looked at me then, and the look on his face said, clearly, I’d said something smart. “Much.”

“How fares the rest?” Jean-Claude asked.

Requiem spread the cloak wide with a gesture of both arms, so that it was like a curtain spilled dramatically around his body. His upper body shone like white flame against the