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I was dreaming. Something about being lost in an abandoned house, searching for kittens. The kittens were crying, and there were snakes in the dark, eating the kittens. You didn’t have to be Freud to interpret this one. The moment I thought that clearly, that it was a dream and what it meant, the dream melted away and left me awake in the dark. I woke staring upwards, sheets spilled down my body so that I was nearly nude in the blackness.

I could feel my body pulsing. It was like I’d been running a race in my sleep. There was sweat under my breasts. Something was wrong.

I pulled the sheet up over me as I sat up, even though I wasn’t cold. As a child I’d thought that the monsters in the closet and under the bed couldn’t get me if I was covered. After waking from a nightmare I still reached for the sheet, no matter how hot it was. Of course, I was in a basement with air-conditioning. It wasn’t hot. So why did my body feel almost fevered?

I reached under the pillow and got the Firestar out. I felt better with it gripped in my hand. If I’d just been spooked by a dream, I was going to feel silly.

I sat in the dark and strained to hear anything before I hit the lights. If there was someone out in the hall, they’d see the light under the door. If they were trying to ambush me, I didn’t want them to see the light. Not yet.

I felt something coming down the hallway towards me. A roil of energy, heat, that played over my body like a hand. It was like a storm was rushing towards me, with that prickling brush of lightning growing like weight in the room. I clicked the safety off on the Firestar, and suddenly knew who it was. It was Richard. Richard striding towards me. Richard coming like an angry storm.

I clicked the safety back on but didn’t put up the gun. He was mad. I could feel it. I’d seen him toss a solid oak four poster king-size bed around like it was nothing when he was angry. I’d keep the gun, just in case. I didn’t like keeping it, but the moral dilemma didn’t bother me enough to put it away. I hit the lights. I sat blinking in the sudden brightness, a hard knot forming in my stomach. I did not want to see him. I hadn’t known what to say to him since the night I’d first slept with Jean-Claude. The night I’d run from Richard, run from what he was on the night of the full moon. Run from the sight of his beast.

I padded barefoot to the chair and gathered my clothes up. I was struggling into the strapless bra, gun beside me on the bed, when I smelled his aftershave. I felt the air move under the door and knew it was his body disrupting the currents of air. His aftershave wasn’t that strong. I shouldn’t have smelled it. I knew suddenly as if it had been whispered in my ear that Richard could smell me through the door, that he knew I’d worn Oscar de la Renta perfume for Jean-Claude.

I felt his fingertips press to either side of the door in a small push-up motion, felt him draw a breath and scent my body deep into him.

What the hell was going on? We’d been bound for two months, and I’d never felt anything like this, not with Richard, and not with Jean-Claude.

Richard’s voice, achingly familiar: “Anita, I need to talk to you.” The anger was in his voice; in his body, rage. He was like thunder pressed against the door.

“I’m getting dressed,” I said.

I heard him pace in front of the door. “I know. I can feel you in there. What’s happening to us?”

That was a loaded question if ever I’d heard one. I wondering if he could feel my hands as I’d felt his a moment ago. “We haven’t been this close at dawn since we were bound. Jean-Claude isn’t here to act as a buffer.” I hoped that was it. The only alternative I could think of was that the council had done something to our marks. I didn’t think that was it, though. But we wouldn’t know for sure until we could ask Jean-Claude. Damn.

Richard tried the door handle. “What’s taking so long?”

“I’m almost done,” I said. I slipped the dress on. It was actually the easiest piece of clothing to get into. The shoes were not comfortable