Hell broke loose much more quietly than Lily would have expected. A whisper of sound behind her, the hiss of a sharply indrawn breath from Miri. Lily lifted her eyes to Miri’s face and watched absolute horror and fear dawn there, whipped around to see what had happened.

Behind her, the elegant blonde had disappeared. In her place was a nightmare creature of leathery gray skin and enormous wings, glowing red eyes and ill-proportioned fangs—incongruously dressed in Vivienne’s green top and jeans, still with that luxurious fall of platinum hair.

Gabriel shoved her behind him. The storm-warning in the air around them finally bore fruit, as an actual crackle of electricity snapped between mother and son.

“Stop it!” Lily cried, frantically buttoning up her shirt. “I was trying to help!”

Miri shushed her frantically, and Gabriel snarled at her over his shoulder: “Be quiet.”

“How has this come to be?” The voice that came from the hideous maw where Vivienne’s mouth had been was raspy but still recognizably hers. “What have you done, to enter into a covenant with this … this nothing?”

Lily literally trembled in her shoes; she felt a tremor pass through her entire body, and wondered idly if she might pass out. Steeling herself, acutely grateful Gabriel had interposed himself between them, she poked her head up over his shoulder for a second to glare at the monster—at Vivienne. “We didn’t do anything—it just happened!”

Okay, the glare didn’t really work, and her voice was shaking, but even though neither Gabriel nor Vivienne answered her, the tension in the air backed off slightly. Lily couldn’t explain how she felt it but she did, almost a literal easing of the barometric pressure.

“What does she mean?” Vivienne asked. Her voice was smoother, and when Lily went back up on tiptoes to look over Gabriel’s shoulder again, Vivienne’s skin was regaining its human tone, her wings—which had reached nearly to the ceiling—were shrinking before Lily’s eyes.

Behind her, Lily felt Miri shuddering all over, heard her whispering what could only be prayers.

Gabriel, tension evident in every fiber of him, said only, “I’m not going to explain anything until you calm down, sit down, and be quiet.”

Vivienne’s features were shifting, eyes returning to human shape and size, fangs receding. It was the most astonishing thing Lily had ever seen, and utterly unlike any monster transformation she’d seen in the movies. Everything was happening at once, and quickly; she barely had time to notice some part of Vivienne was looking slightly less demon-like before it was fully human again.

Within moments, she appeared as she had when she’d entered the room—a well-proportioned, attractive woman maybe ten years Lily’s senior, with looks to die for and a body to match.

Miri gasped behind Lily. “That’s the woman from 30 Luxe,” she said. “The one you said didn’t pay for all those shoes?”

Lily nodded. It was, and she remembered the way the saleswoman at the store had looked, as though she’d been hypnotized. No surprise there, given what Vivienne was.

“Is she … What is she?” Miri said, quietly.

Apparently, quiet was a relative term when dealing with the nonhuman, because it was Vivienne who answered.

“It’s not bad enough you have to drag this ignorant human into this, but now we’ve got her little friend to educate as well?” she said. “Shall we just take out an ad, then, in the Times? Or a billboard perhaps?”

“Oh, stop it,” Gabriel snapped. “As if you’re not indiscreet twenty times before brunch every day.” He reached behind him and found Lily’s hand, pulled her to stand beside him.

Lily noticed he still kept himself between his mother and Miri, though, and her heart swelled a little at that.

Vivienne sighed, now completely back in her human form, and leaned against the desk again, crossing her legs at the ankle and her arms across her chest. “Explain yourself. I’m calm, as you … requested.”

They all knew it had not been a request, but a command, and Lily wondered if—and how—that insult would be repaid, but for now she was just grateful the air in the room had returned to normal, that there seemed to be some sort of truce.

“Lily and I became intimate recently,” Gabriel said, and Lily was pleased he spoke so delicately, and doubly pleased he ignored the nasty little grimace that flickered across Vivienne’s face. “Afterward, that mark—the binding mark—just appeared on her back.”

“Just appeared?” Vivienne repeated, her tone making it clear she didn’t believe it. “You’re telling me one of the most powerful of our ritual bonds simply happened with no action from either of you?”

“I’m telling you what I know, and what is,” he answered. “I’ve no reason to lie, and every reason to want to understand what’s going on.”

Vivienne looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “I would know if you were lying,” she said. “What you are describing isn’t possible, according to my knowledge. The words of the ritual can vary, certainly, but the intent has to be there, and there has to be a pledging of self and a total acceptance of the other, in all his—or her—inhumanity.”

Lily thought back, running over the conversation she and Gabriel had had before he’d taken her to bed—before, to be completely accurate, he’d left her alone to choose him.

To … accept him? In all his inhumanity.

She felt suddenly short of breath, a little light-headed.

“Vivienne?” she said, and hated how her voice sounded high, a little out of control. “What are the customary ritual words?”

Vivienne looked at her haughtily. “Well, as I said, they can vary. Those who would bind themselves to such a creature as myself or my son, they are often theatrical, dramatic. The few times I’ve presided over a ceremony of binding, the participants have written their own ritual words.”

“But they all say basically the same thing, at the heart of them—isn’t that what you’re telling us?” Lily asked.

“I suppose, yes. There are words of acceptance, always, that’s very important,” Vivienne said. “I see you for what you are, and I enter into this covenant in full understanding of our differences, that sort of thing.”

She really did sound like the lawyer Gabriel had compared her to.

Lily swallowed, looked up at Gabriel. He looked back at her, his eyes soft, and she knew he was remembering that moment when she had knocked on his bedroom door, when she accepted him, knowing what he was.

“You told me once,” she said to him, slowly, “that with this kind of thing—with covenants, or contracts, or whatever we’re calling them—there was no signing in blood, none of that Hollywood silliness.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Intent matters.” She rounded on Vivienne. “That’s what you said.”

“Yes, I said intent is a component, though there’s more to it than that,” Vivienne said, but while her voice was still angry she sounded less sure of herself than Lily wanted. “There has to be a pledging. There’s an acceptance. There are … there should be words, damn it.”

“I’ve seen you do ritual magic without speaking,” Gabriel said.

“That’s different,” Vivienne said. “There are specifics here. Acceptance, fidelity, the desire for full union. You don’t just get accidentally bound because you want to push one another’s sex buttons.”

“How is it different?” he demanded. “If Lily came to me, accepted me as I am, which she did—”

“I didn’t maybe say the fidelity part out loud,” Lily said, “but I don’t sleep around. I would have been thinking it.”

“If she felt those things, isn’t that the same?”

“I’ve seduced many a human, and not once has this happened,” Vivienne snapped.

“I know,” Gabriel said, and he sounded unbearably sad. “But I bet none of them were like Lily.” And he stroked a hand down her arm, set her nerves to shivering and her skin to gooseflesh, and twined their fingers together.

Vivienne said nothing for a moment, then strode over to them. Gabriel shifted slightly, protectively, in front of Lily, but Vivienne dismissed it scornfully. “I’m not interested in her,” she said. “Turn around. Lift your shirt.”