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He tried to take my hand, and I wouldn’t let him. “Let me help you.”

“Define help.” Suspicious, who me?

He smiled, and it was almost condescending. The smile men get around girls when they’re doing something sort of cute and girlish. The smile alone pissed me off. “What is your problem?” I asked.

“You,” he said softly. “You know I would never hurt you, don’t you?”

I looked into his cornflower-blue eyes and nodded. “Never on purpose,” I said.

“Then trust me now. Let me help you call the power.”

“How?” I asked.

He took my hand in both of his, and this time I let him. He drew my hand to Nathaniel. He rested my fingertips on Nathaniel’s forehead. His skin was cool. Just the touch of his skin, and you knew he wasn’t well.

“Pet him,” Stephen said.

I looked at him, shaking my head. I drew my hand back. “I don’t think so.”

Nathaniel started to say something, but Stephen put his fingers across his mouth. “No, Nathaniel.” It was almost like he knew what the other man was going to say. But he couldn’t know, not for sure, could he? I might have believed it if Nathaniel was pack, but he wasn’t.

“Close your eyes,” Stephen said.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“We don’t have time for this,” Kevin said.

“He’s right,” Teddy said. “I understand your natural reluctance, but the police are going to knock on the door eventually.”

If Nathaniel couldn’t leave with us, that meant leaving people behind to guard him, which put people in danger again. If we were all somewhere together, at least we wouldn’t be endangering innocent policemen, though most cops would wince at being called innocent.

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Fine, what’s your idea?”

“Close your eyes,” Stephen said.

I frowned at him. He looked patient, long-suffering even, and I closed my eyes. He took my hand in his, and it wasn’t until he began to gently open my fist that I realized I’d clenched up. He started to massage my hand.

I said, “Stop that.”

“Then loosen up,” he said. “It won’t hurt.”

“I’m not afraid it will hurt,” I said.

He moved around to stand in back of me, so close the hem of his gown brushed my legs. “But you’re still afraid.” His voice had dropped almost to a whisper. “Can you use that fear to call power?”

My pulse was hammering in my throat, and I was afraid, but it wasn’t the right kind of fear. The fear that overwhelms you in the midst of an emergency can call power almost without effort. This was the kind of fear that keeps you from jumping out of perfectly good airplanes even though you’d decided to do it. Not an unhealthy fear, but it would hold you back.

“No,” I said.

“Then let go of the fear,” he said. He touched my arms gently and sat me on the edge of the bed.

Nathaniel made a small protesting sound, as if it had hurt.

I opened my eyes and Stephen said, “Close them.” It was the closest thing to an order I’d ever heard him give. I closed them.

He took my hands and laid the tips of my fingers on either side of Nathaniel’s face. “The skin just over the temples is so soft.” He drew my fingers in a soft feathery line down Nathaniel’s face, fingers gliding on either side, as if I were blind and trying to memorize his features.

He slid my hands into Nathaniel’s hair. It was silken, unbelievably soft. His hair had the texture of satin. I balled my hands into that soft warmth, lowered my face towards his hair and smelled it. There was a faint medicinal smell. I buried my face in the satin brush of his hair and found his scent under it all. He smelled like vanilla, and under that was the scent of wood and field and fur. He wasn’t pack, but the scent was similar. He smelled like home. Something clicked deep inside me, like a switch being thrown.

I opened my eyes and knew what to do, how to do it, wanted to do it. Like a distant thought, I realized that Stephen’s hands had fallen away long ago.

I stared down into Nathaniel’s lilac eyes and bent towards that amazing gaze. I touched his lips with mine, a chaste kiss, and that one soft brush brought the power in a