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He guided my hand just above his arm, and the eyelids fluttered under my touch. I jumped every time one of them blinked, but the eyelids moving against my skin in a line of butterfly kisses weren’t as scary. The lids felt full, as if there was an eye behind them, and there wasn’t. I’d seen that.

“What’s inside them?” I asked.

“Everything,” he said. Which told me nothing. “Explore them, Anita.” He pressed one of my fingertips to the edge of an eye. Then he urged me to put the finger inside the eye.

I pushed my finger into that empty seeming eye, and there was a resistance like pushing against something thin and fleshy, then my finger was through and I could touch what was inside. Warm, a warmth that flowed through my hand, up my arm, and spread like a blanket over my body. I felt safe, warm. I stared up at him and wondered why I hadn’t seen it before? He was so handsome, so kind, so . . . My finger was cold, so cold that it hurt. It had that stinging pain that you get just before you lose all feeling in the limb, and frostbite settles in and spills over your body, and you fall into that last gentle sleep, never to wake.

I jerked my hand back, and blinked awake, with a gasp.

“What is wrong?’ he asked, and leaned over me, touching my face.

I jerked away from him, cradling my hand against my chest, staring up at him, afraid. “You’re cold inside.”

He took a step back from me, and the surprise showed on his face. “You should feel safe, warm.” He leaned over me, trying to get me to gaze into his blue-green eyes.

I shook my head. Feeling was coming back into my finger in a stinging rush, the way circulation comes back after frostbite. The throbbing ache helped me think, helped me avoid his gaze. “I’m not safe,” I said, “and I’m not warm.” I looked away from him, which put me gazing at the skin-clad guy. But truthfully even that was better than staring at the “god.” Itzpapalotl’s touch was helping me, but it had limits. If I fell into his eyes, wherever they might be, they’d just kill me, and I might go willingly, eagerly into that last dark.

“You are making this difficult, Anita.”

I kept my gaze on the far wall. “Sorry that I’m ruining your night.”

He stroked the curve of my face. I flinched as if he’d hurt me. I’d thought what I was trying to delay was my death. Now I realized that I was trying to delay falling into his power. They’d kill me after that, but I’d be gone before the knife fell. Had Paulina gone like that, willingly, eager to please the “god?” I hoped so, for her sake. For mine, I wasn’t so sure.

“I want you to believe that your death will be for a great purpose.”

“Sorry, not buying swampland today.”

I could almost feel his puzzlement like a play of energy along my skin. I’d felt anger, lust, fear dance along my skin from vampires and wereanimals, but I’d never felt puzzlement before. I hadn’t felt his emotions before I touched that damned eye. He was sucking me down a piece at a time.

He grabbed my hand.

“No.” I said it through gritted teeth. He could break my fingers this time, but I wasn’t just opening up and touching him again. I couldn’t just cooperate with him anymore, not even to buy time. I had to start fighting him now, or there’d be nothing left of me. I’d had vampires roll my mind before, but I’d never felt anything like him. Once he got a really good hold on my mind, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I’d come back. There are a lot of ways to die. Being killed is only one of the more obvious ones. If he rolled my mind and there was nothing left of who I was, then I was dead or would wish I was.

I flexed my arm, hugging it to my chest, straining my muscles to keep it there. He lifted the wrist and my whole upper body with it, but I held the arm, fingers closed into a fist.

“Do not make me hurt you, Anita.”

“I’m not making you do anything. Whatever you do, it’s your choice to do it, not mine.”

He laid me back down, gently. “I could crush your hand.” It sounded like a threat, but his voice was still gentle.

“I won’t touch you again, not like that, not voluntarily.”

“But lay your hand