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The outside likes you, he wrote, then showed her.

“I wish I had come here sooner.” She looked over the roses that were growing around the terrace. As her hand crept onto her neck, he had a feeling that she wanted to touch them, but her bridle of reserve was returning.

He cleared his throat so she would glance over. You can pick one if you like, he wrote.

“I . . . I believe I would.”

She approached the roses like they were deer that might spook, her hands by her sides, her bare feet slow over the slate. She went right for the pale lavender ones, bypassing the bolder red and yellow buds.

He was writing, Be careful of thorns, when she reached forward, yelped, and yanked back her hand. A drop of blood formed on the tip of her finger, the dim glow of the night making it look black on her white skin.

Before he knew what he was doing, John leaned down and put his mouth to work. He sucked quick and licked quicker, stunned by what he was doing as well as how delicious it was.

In the back of his mind, he realized he needed to feed.

Shit.

As he straightened, she stared at him wide-eyed and frozen. Double shit.

I’m sorry, he scribbled. I didn’t want it to get on your robe.

Liar. He’d wanted to know what she tasted like.

“I . . .”

Pick your rose, just be careful of the thorns.

She nodded and gave it another shot, partially, he suspected, because she wanted to get her flower and partially to fill the awkward silence he’d created.

The rose she chose was a perfect specimen, just on the verge of blooming, a silver-purple spear with the potential of being the size of a grapefruit.

“Thank you,” she said. He was about to you’re-welcome her when he realized she was talking to the mother plant, not him.

Cormia turned to him. “The other flowers were in glass houses with water.”

Let’s go get you a vase, he wrote. That’s what they’re called here.

She nodded and started for the French doors that led into the billiards room. Just as she stepped through, she looked back outside. Her eyes held on to the garden as if it were a lover she would never see again.

We can do more of this sometime, he wrote on his pad. If you’d like?

Her quick nod was a relief, considering what he’d just done. “I would like that.”

Maybe we could watch a movie, too. Upstairs in the theater.

“Theater?”

He shut the doors behind them. It’s a room that’s specially made for watching stuff.

“Can we see the movie now?”

The strong tone to her voice made him recalibrate his impression of her a little. The soft-spoken reserve might just be training, he decided, and not personality.

I have to go out. But we could tomorrow night?

“Good. We will do that after First Meal.”

Okay, the meekness was definitely not personality. Which made him wonder how she handled the whole Chosen thing. I have class, but we could do it after that?

“Yes. And I should like to learn more about everything here.” Her smile lit up the billiards room sure as a roaring fire, and as she pivoted around on one foot he thought of those pretty pop-up ballerinas in jewelry boxes.

Well, I’m up for teaching you, he wrote.

She came to a stop, her loosened hair swinging. “Thank you, John Matthew. You shall be a fine teacher.”

As she looked up at him, he saw her colors more than her face or her body: that red in her cheeks and lips, the lavender of the flower in her hand, the brilliant pale green of her eyes, the buttercup yellow of her hair.

For no good reason, he thought of Xhex. Xhex was a thunderstorm, made up of hues of black and iron gray, power leashed but no less lethal for its control. Cormia was a sunny day cast in a rainbow of brightness, warmth realized.

He put his hand over his heart and bowed to her, then left. As he started up for his room, he wondered whether he liked the storm or the sunshine better.

Then realized neither was his for the taking, so what did it matter.

Standing in the alley with his nine pressed into the liver of a Brother, Mr. D was barn-cat alert. He would have much rather put the business end of his weapon to the vampire’s temple, but that would have