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  Winter jumped forward to catch the guard before he hit the linoleum too hard. “Damn it, I told you before, no violence unless necessary!” She reached for the guard’s wrist, intending to soothe him, just as she had the others. She couldn’t send him to sleep until she had sent Sebastian away on a pretext.

  “A gun at your back doesn’t make it necessary?” Sebastian replied. His tone was at once amazed and offended.

  “No, it doesn’t,” she snapped, stepping around the guard to face him. “Damn it, how many times do we have to do this, Sebastian? You take care of your stuff. I take care of mine. I was handling it. I don’t need you to rescue me, take care of me, or watch out for me. It just trips me up and makes you dangerous. It screws up the job. Is that clear?”

  His face hardened. “Clear as crystal,” he said flatly. He gaze flickered past her.

  Eleven months later, dozens of recalls later, Winter still could not put together in her mind a visual sequence of what Sebastian did next. Only logic supplied her with what he must have actually done.

  He must have seen the guard she had failed to put to sleep stir behind her and reach for the broken off broomstick. The guard picked up the jagged, pointed end and reared up behind Winter, who was stupidly facing Sebastian. The guard aimed the sharp end of the broomstick at her back.

  Sebastian grabbed Winter’s shoulders and spun her out of the way, using a strength and speed she had never seen before. He moved so fast, in fact, that she couldn’t follow the movement with her naked eye.

  He pulled her around, out of the way of the up-thrusting spike of the broomstick, which put him in front of it.

  The sharp, broken-off end punched through his ribs and into the right ventricle of his heart. Sebastian gasped, his eyes widening.

  The point of the stake pushed up against the front of his ribcage and Winter could feel the grinding of the point against his bones.

  Through his grip on her shoulders Winter measured instant shock circle through him. Shock…and something else. For the first time in the nearly two years since Sebastian had strolled into her life she went inside his body.

  She ripped her way in without thought, without care. She just wanted to stop the pain.

  But there was none. His body was disintegrating like that of someone long dead.

  “No!” Terrified, Winter threw herself into holding him together. To fixing it. She poured herself into reversing the damage.

  And it hurt. She screamed.

  “What are you doing?” Sebastian cried, his grip tightening.

  Winter grasped at him, not sure who was holding who up. Like the guard, they both sank slowly to the floor. She couldn’t speak. Her focus, both mental and visual, was on the black, nameless processes inside him and bringing his body back to normal.

  Her vision was clouded over, so she felt her way around Sebastian’s body to where the stake protruded, gripped it and drew it out slowly, repairing tissues and organs as it withdrew.

  “Winter…” he breathed. “What are you?”

  “Shhh…” There was such deadness in his body. Such damage. It wasn’t just the stake. She fixed the damage the stake had caused, then encompassed the rest. It was like trying to hug a black cloud. It eluded her at first. There was nothing to grip. Then she simply stepped inside it and…inhaled.

  The agony tore through her like burning. She thought she screamed.

  “Winter, what are you doing?” Sebastian was shaking her.

  “Healing you…” she whispered. Or perhaps she just mouthed the words.

  She inhaled and struggled and fought. She would not give up. Not Sebastian.

  And then it was done. The cloud was gone. Sebastian’s heart beat normally. His systems were correct, proper, normal. Sweet and clean.

  But Winter knew something was very wrong with her. There was no euphoria this time. She blinked, trying to bring her vision together and look at Sebastian.

  He was staring at her. So was the guard.

  She lay half-way across Sebastian’s chest, her hand on his neck.

  “Your eyes,” Sebastian breathed.

  “They’re fine now,” she said.

  “They changed,” Sebastian told her flatly.

  “Bring the guard here. I need to touch him,” she said urgently.

  The guard started to scramble to his feet, but Sebastian snatched out his hand, grabbing the guard’s ankle and dragging him back within Winter’s reach. The guard kicked and struggled until Winter circled his ankle with her fingers. She sent him to sleep. It took effort to do it and made her feel sick. But he went limp and began to snore.

  “Fuck…” Sebastian breathed.

  Winter took a few breaths, then reached into the guard’s brain and wiped his recent memories. It took the last of her dwindling reserved.

  Black sickness swamped her, making her giddy. She tried to quell the nausea, but it wouldn’t go away. “Something’s wrong,” she muttered.

  “No kidding,” Sebastian replied, staring at the peacefully snoring guard.

  “I can’t fix myself,” she gasped, clutching at her head. The darkness was looming larger within her, demanding and sucking at her. Pulsing. Blooming.

  Sebastian cupped her face. His gaze was steady. “What do you need, Winter? It’s yours. Just name it.” So strong. So dependable.

  She bit back the first truthful, harmful words that bubbled to her lips. Instead she settled for the practical. “Get me home, Sebastian.”

  Then she surrendered to the blackness.

  Chapter Three

  NATHANIAL STARED UP through the big basement windows at the noon-day sun, which at Montana latitudes, was low overhead. He had been standing that way for a full ten minutes since she had finished relating how Sebastian and she had completed the Sumitomo job.

  Now he turned back to face Winter again. “You didn’t take anything out of the vault,” he said.

  Winter blinked. Of all the startling facts she had handed over, Nathanial chose to focus on the booty they had hauled or not hauled out of the bank?

  “Why do you care what we took with us?” she asked.

  “Verification,” he replied. “I was told the Sumitomo job was a raging success. You just told me another version that doesn’t seem to…match.”

  “You don’t trust me. I’m wounded,” she said dryly. “What do you think happened? I did Sebastian in, drained him and now live off what’s left of his blood?”

  Nathanial smiled. “Your blood fever was real enough. You wouldn’t limit your blood supply by killing the source. But there is a discrepancy here. You didn’t take anything from the vault.”

  “No,” Winter said flatly. “And the contract I took had a confidentiality clause, so let’s drop the subject.”

  Nathanial’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t take anything. You put something in there.” He smiled. “The data centre. That’s why Sebastian went in. He’s the computer expert. Something…a trojan or a phishing module, or even a piece of hardware sitting unobtrusively on a server, sending data to the right people. That’s why the contract specified no one must suspect that a break-in happened. That’s why Slavomir passed up the two million dollar pay off—because he couldn’t figure out a way to do it. But you could, because you simply wiped the guards’ memories.”

  “And Sebastian re-looped the security recordings so that nothing showed there, either,” Winter added. She stood up. “I’m hungry. Do you mind if I eat?”

  “Not at all. Do you mind if I follow you into your kitchen and keep talking?”

  She sighed. “I suppose.”

  He laughed. “You will not put me aside with so simple a human habit as eating, Winter. I’ve been watching humans eat for hundreds of years. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

  “Sebastian said it did,” Winter told him as she climbed the stairs to the main floor.

  He followed her, his steps quieter than hers, but didn’t speak until they were both in her big country kitchen with its copper pots hanging over
head and gleaming black granite counters. The wood blinds that ran the width of kitchen were all thrown open to the morning sun and the mountain view.

  Nathanial was frowning. “The facts that Sebastian has chosen to give you about me seem to be all negatives.”

  “Yes,” Winter agreed, pulling out a Kaiser roll, ham, cheese and fixings for a hearty sandwich. She looked up when Nathanial remind silent. “You’re not going to ask why?”

  His smile was sour. “I’m not a stupid man.”

  Winter felt a spurt of guilt spear her. She had been willing to believe everything Sebastian had warned her about Nathanial, without waiting to see for herself if it was true. Had Sebastian manipulated her, instead of Nathanial as Sebastian had tried to warn her Nathanial might do?

  She bit her lip, hesitating. Then she decided to err on the side of truth. Just this once. “He still loves you, you know. He would not be so bitter if he did not.”

  Nathanial’s clear eyed gaze was direct and unwavering. “And thus I search him out when he patently has no wish to see me. I am…concerned.”

  “Concerned?” Winter just stared at him.

  He blew out a breath. “Worried, Winter. Does that satisfy you?”

  She nodded and bit into her sandwich, suddenly ravenous.

  “At least sit down while you eat,” Nathanial pleaded. “It is uncivilized, standing so.”

  She grinned at him. “I was lucky to eat at all when I was a teenager, let alone at a table.” But she put the sandwich on a plate and carried it over to the table and sat down, anyway.

  Nathanial surprised her by sitting opposite her at the table. He threaded his fingers together again.

  “You made Sebastian human again,” he said.

  She swallowed her mouthful, taking her time. Nathanial just watched her.

  When she could put off speaking no longer, she said carefully, “He has spoken to you at least once since Singapore. He didn’t tell you that himself?”

  “As you might expect, communications between Sebastian and I have been somewhat strained for the last few years. We deal with necessary subjects only and that is all. A matter like that he would not deal with on the phone. I believe he was going to tell me about it when we met this week. He hinted that there was something large he wanted to talk about.” He unlinked his fingers and threaded them again. It was an impatient movement. “You remade him. You took away his vampirism. Returned him to his human state.”

  She put down her sandwich. “He never told me he was a vampire.” Suddenly her rage was there. Huge and towering. She pushed back her chair and shot to her feet. “Two fucking years, Nathanial! Two whole damn years and he never said a word! Not one! We were virtually joined at the hip, working jobs almost two a week at times. Through some of the tightest places, the toughest spots, the hairiest scrapes. And he didn’t say anything.” She thumped her hip with her fist. “Damn him!”

  “Some say we’re already damned,” Nathanial replied coolly, sitting back in his chair. “So you’re too late to send him to Hell.”

  She hissed impatiently. “Of course I made him human,” she shot back, answering his earlier question. “I didn’t know what was wrong with him! He had a bloody great stake in his heart and he was dying. So I dived in and fixed everything. How was I to know that the dark stuff, the dead part of him…that it was supposed to be like that? He didn’t tell me!”

  Nathanial leaned forward. “And in the two years you and Sebastian worked together did you ever tell Sebastian you can control other people’s biologies just by touching them, Winter? That your miracle serum is a fake? That you cover up your talent with razzamatazz and misdirection, just like a good con man does?”

  Winter’s anger chilled. She stared at Nathanial. Then, with a sigh, she slid back onto her chair. “Sebastian found out in Singapore. And I told you, just now.”

  “So that would be ‘no’.” Nathanial spread his hands flat on the table. “If you’ve never told a soul, not even Sebastian, why did you tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned. “Sebastian warned me you could be like this.”

  A tiny line appeared between his brows. “Like what?”

  She bit her lip. “Squeeze information out of people they desperately don’t want to let go of.”

  The line between his brow deepened. “He exaggerates. I had a small natural ability to charm people that I honed over the years and apply now and again when I need to. But I haven’t attempted to draw anything from you since I stepped inside that edifice of yours and found you there.”

  Winter gave a small, dry laugh. “Of course you haven’t.”

  Nathanial smiled. “I could if I wanted too, of course. Especially now I have you keyed. As a rule, though, I don’t do that with people unless it’s for a job.”

  “Right,” she said flatly. She believed that like she believed in the Tooth Fairy.

  Nathanial didn’t move. “You don’t believe me. Sebastian will have indoctrinated you, of course. Perhaps that will work in my favor for a moment.”

  She stared at him. “You’ve lost me,” she confessed. “What are you talking about?”

  He studied her. “A demonstration. I will show you how I go about drawing something out of you if I was really interested in taking information from you against your will, just to prove that I am not working my wiles against you right now. Would that relax you and let down your guard?”

  “Doesn’t telling me what you’re about to do work against you? If I know what you’re going to do, I can see it coming and be prepared.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you know or not,” Nathanial said indifferently. “I have you registered now. I know your vulnerabilities and weaknesses.”

  She shivered. “So whether I put up a fight or not, you can get past my resistance and open me up? Jesus…” She licked her lips. “Well, your arrogance is top notch, even if you aren’t.”

  “I’ve never failed a contract,” Nathanial said.

  Winter swallowed. Her heart was beginning to race, so she evened it out and slowed it down, flooding her system with endorphins. She calmed, relaxed. Then she smiled at Nathanial. “I’ve never lost a contract, either,” she told him.

  Nathanial’s smile equaled hers. “Is that a challenge?” He rose to his feet in a light, sinuous movement.

  “Yes. I mean no,” Winter said quickly. Her pulse jumped. “Sit down,” she snapped, smoothing out her pulse again.

  He sat, keep his gaze on her face. He smiled. “Your gaze keeps turning inwards. Are you using your talent on yourself, Winter? Calming yourself, perhaps?”

  She drew in a long, slow breath. “None of your business.”

  He inclined his head. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.” The long fingers threaded together. “Your eyes…do you know how exactly they match Sebastian’s?”

  Winter couldn’t keep looking at him. She found herself studying the wood grain of the tabletop.

  “The same changeable green. The same astonishing light and beauty,” Nathanial continued, as if she were still looking at him. He paused. “It isn’t a coincidence, is it?”

  She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. It killed her to simply shake her head.

  “When you healed the staking and made him human…your eyes changed then, didn’t they?” Nathanial said softly. “You took on part of him. His eyes, a need for his blood.”

  Winter poured calming chemicals into her system, struggling for peace. Nathanial was stirring hard memories and panic in her. The stew of biological waste she was producing as a result was making her almost sick in reaction.

  His hand curled under her arm, lifting her from the chair and Winter gasped. She had been so focused on her internal systems, she hadn’t noticed Nathanial move to her side. He tugged her gently to her feet. “Shhh…” he said as she opened her mouth to protest. “I just want to look at your eyes in the better light.” He led her closer to the windows with their glowing polished wood blinds and turned her so the light fell
upon her face.

  At five foot nine, she was tall for a woman, but Nathanial was much taller. He tilted her chin up so he could study her eyes and she tried not to look away.

  He brought a hand up to her temple and his fingertips ran through a lock from roots to ends, all two feet of it. “Glorious red. And not from a salon. Sebastian did tell me you were a brunette. More of your talent, Winter?”

  She nodded fractionally. “The black didn’t…well it didn’t go with my eyes anymore. And I wanted to…” She drew in a breath.

  “You had changed profoundly on the inside, so you marked the change on the outside,” Nathanial said.

  She licked her lips. That was it exactly. “The old me was gone,” she said.

  But Nathanial was still stroking her hair, his gaze on her face. Abruptly, she was aware of just how close he was standing to her. There was barely a hand span of space between them.

  She wanted to step back, but almost like he read her mind, his other hand slid over the back of her hip, holding her there.

  “I never could resist eyes like yours,” Nathanial said softly.

  A ripple passed through her. It seemed to switch on all her nerves, making her body hypersensitive. “What the hell—”

  He touched a finger to her lips and it stopped her protest as completely as if he had clapped a hand over her mouth. She sucked in a breath and it shuddered on the way down.

  “Stop analyzing yourself, Winter,” Nathanial told her. His voice seemed to reverberate in her mind. “Stop looking inside you. Just feel instead, like a normal human.”

  She shook her head.

  He leaned closer to her, his lips almost brushing her cheekbone. “You’ve been responding to me since you saw me. But you’ve been denying it. Ignoring the signals. All because Sebastian has convinced you I’m such an evil man.”

  “You’re not a man,” Winter breathed.

  His lips brushed over her skin. “I am man enough I can bring a scream to your lips, sweat to your brow and have you trembling in my arms, begging for a release in a voice you will not recognize as your own. Do you doubt that, Winter?” His hand on her hip moved in a restless little movement against her ass, stroking her through her jeans.