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“I already did,” she said and she was calm as could be.

He punched the wall near her face and I started to shake.

“Get away from her,” I told him in a voice I didn’t recognize. The beast-call was a heartbeat away from taking over.

She wasn’t bored anymore. She was frantic, pushing him aside to reach me. She grabbed my hands and looked deep into my eyes. “Fight it, Dom. Don’t let it take over. You’re stronger than that.”

It was working. Having her close was enough. At some point Tom left, she forced him out, and I was sitting at her desk and she was hovering near me.

“Are you back? Are you under control?” she asked me.

She was holding my face in her hands, and all I could see were her pale ocean eyes. I was caught in their waves wholly, more than happy to drown.

All I could feel was her presence, close and caring and all-consuming.

“Is he gone for good?” I finally asked.

She sighed, shaking her head at me, and let go of my face.

She tried to step away, but I pulled her between my legs and hugged her to me, her standing, me sitting, and lay my head against her soft chest.

She sighed again, stroking a reluctant hand over my hair. “Look, I don’t need you to protect me from a guy like Tom. I know that you’re capable, but you can’t and you don’t need to. I’ve got him handled with both hands tied behind my back. Trust me. I’m only in danger of being annoyed by him. And if there’s ever something I can’t protect myself from I want you to run the other way. Fast.”

“That’s not how this is going to work,” I said, hugging her tighter. “I’d never leave you behind to fight by yourself.”

She tried to push away but there wasn’t much strength in it. “You need to be more pragmatic than that. Survival at all costs. Look out for yourself first. No use in both of us going down.”

I finally pulled back to look up into her eyes. “That’s not how this is going to work. You go down, I go down. We go down together. I’d never leave you.”

She looked bewildered and agitated. But there was something else there. She didn’t want me to see it, but I could feel it. And it felt like the smallest spark of pleasure. She was at least flattered by my devotion to her. It was a start. “You’re too young to understand this,” she said, “but life doesn’t work like that. Eventually everyone has to leave.”

“Do you know some things are written in the stars?” I stood, towering over her, and now it was me backing her against the wall, though I didn’t touch her, just held her with my eyes. They were my mother’s eyes, and they were said to have mysterious powers. “And some druids are able to read it. If a love is strong enough it paints a pattern in the cosmos that cannot be denied. Such is fate. Did you know that?”

She shook her head at me, white blond hair just the length of her perfect jaw, falling over one eye as she did so. I brushed it back behind her ear, taking the opportunity to step closer as I did so. She was very tall for a woman, but I was much taller now. She had to look up at me, and I had to tilt my head down. I smiled at her, and she wrinkled up her nose at me, trying to glare, trying to be stern with me, but I knew her heart wasn’t in it.

“You have to be the most incorrigible sixteen-year-old on the planet.”

I smiled wider. “Almost seventeen.”

I came back propped against the wall, the elevator door open and dinging at me. The Grove had just disappeared and sort of spit me out. A new trick for it, at least for me.

I studied myself in the mirror on the way down. My clothing was dark enough that the blood just looked like slightly damp spots on my shirt. I looked normal enough after I wiped the blood off my skin, my bite wounds healed.

I needed to tell Dom. And I promised myself I would. After we got Lynn back. Probably.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE BLOODY KIND

I was slipping into my dress, hair and makeup already done, when Dom arrived at his suite to escort me. He was good to go in his usual impeccable suit and tie.

I showed him my back, and he fastened the delicate buttons at my neck in a few neat motions.

I turned back around and he studied the dress like he wasn’t sure if he loved it or hated it. It was sparkly gold, just the tone to set off my skin, and made up of a series of straps that more or less covered the essentials. It had a halter that rigged my breasts up high, showing a few inches of teasing under-boob instead of the usual cleavage. From the ribs down it was a series of thick bands of material that played peekaboo with my skin and ended well above my knees.

I turned around so he could see the back at his leisure. It was tight enough that all the straps weren’t in danger of shifting and uncovering anything important. Revealing but overall pretty comfortable.

Unlike the shoes. Those were spiked torture devices—Loubi Kates in vamp, mirrored red. I hadn’t been able to resist them with carte blanche store credit at my disposal. Just another form of treasure hoarding.