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I held the gold bowl in my left hand, knife in the right. I walked back to them. “Hold the bowl for me, one hand apiece.”

“Why?” Richard asked.

“Because I said so.”

He looked like he wanted to argue. I laid the flat of the blade against his lips. “If you question everything I say, it spoils my concentration.” I took the knife away from his mouth.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, voice soft, almost harsh.

I nodded. “Fine.” I held my wrist over the empty bowl and drew the knife down the skin in one sharp movement. Blood welled out of the cut, falling in thick drops, splashing down the sides and bottom of the gleaming gold bowl. Yes, it did hurt.

“Your turn, Richard.” I kept my wrist over the bowl; no need to waste the blood.

“What do I do?”

“Put your wrist over the bowl.”

He hesitated, then did what I asked. He put his arm over the bowl, hand balled into a fist. I turned his hand over to expose the underside of his arm. I steadied his hand with my still bleeding hand. The bowl wavered where his free hand was still holding it with Jean-Claude.

I looked up at his face. “Why does this bother you more than Jean-Claude tasting you?”

He swallowed. “A lot of things don’t bother me when I’m thinking about sex.”

“Spoken like someone with only one X chromosome,” I said. I drew the knife down his skin in one firm bite, while he was still looking at my face. The only thing that kept him from pulling away was my hold on him.

He didn’t struggle after that initial surprise. He watched his blood splash into the bowl, mingling with mine. The bottom of the bowl was hidden from sight, covered in warm blood. I released his hand and he held his bleeding wrist over the bowl.

“Jean-Claude?” I said.

He held his own slender wrist out to me without being asked. I steadied his wrist as I had Richard’s. I met his dark blue eyes but there was no fear there, nothing but perhaps a mild curiosity. I cut his wrist and the blood welled crimson against his white skin.

His blood splashed into the bowl. It was all red. Human, lycanthrope, and vampire. You couldn’t tell who was who by just looking. We all bleed red.

There still wasn’t enough blood to walk a circle of power around the sixty or so zombies. There was no way short of a true sacrifice to get that much blood. But what I had in my hands was a very potent magic cocktail. Dominic thought it would be enough. I hoped so.

A sound brought my attention away from the blood, and the growing warmth of power.

Stephen and Jason were crouched near us, one in human form, one wolf, with nearly identical looks in their eyes: hunger.

I looked past them to Cassandra. She was standing her ground, but her hands were balled into fists, and a sheen of sweat gleamed on her upper lip. The look on her face was near panic.

Dominic stood smiling and unaffected. He was the only other human in the room.

Jason growled at us, but it wasn’t a real growl. There was a rhythm to the noise. He was trying to talk.

Stephen moistened his lips. “Jason wants to know if we can lick the bowl?”

I looked at Jean-Claude and Richard. The looks on their faces were enough. “Am I the only one in this room not lusting after the blood?”

“Except for Dominic, I fear so, ma petite.”

“Do what you have to do, Anita, but do it quick. It’s full moon, and fresh blood is fresh blood,” Richard said.

The two other vamps I’d raised shuffled towards me. Their eyes still empty of personality, like well-made dolls.

“Did you call them?” Richard asked.

“No,” I said.

“The blood called them,” Dominic said.

The vampires came into the room. They didn’t look at me this time. They looked at the blood, and the moment they saw it, something flared in them. I felt it. Hunger. No one was home, but the need was still there.

Damian’s green eyes stared at the bowl with the same hunger. His handsome face thinned down to something beastial and primitive.

I licked my lips and said, “Stop.” They did, but they stared at the freshly spilled blood, never raising their eyes to me. If I hadn’t