She was, without a doubt, the most impossible person I had ever known. She had all the worst traits of both a human and a witch.

I got up from the bed to give her space and used the opportunity to look outside.

It took a little craning of my neck to get a glimpse of the street, but all looked calm. It was well after one o’clock, and I still heard voices coming outside the corner store, where a small crowd had been gathered when we left the taxi.

“It’s sick,” she announced.

“What is?” I didn’t turn around.

“Wanting to believe somebody drugged me earlier tonight. It was preferable to what I saw out there in the alley being the truth.”

I nodded. “It’s not difficult to understand. We don’t want to accept the truth when it’s a truth that’s been presented as a lie for so long.”

“Of course, she wasn’t human,” Janna murmured to herself. “She didn’t even get hurt when she hit the dumpster. I wondered why she bounced back like that.”

“Exactly.” I took a quick look out of the corner of my eye.

She was utterly drained, paler than usual, eyes as wide as saucers with dark rings where tears had ruined her makeup.

I wondered in the back of my mind if I could’ve been more sensitive when announcing her parentage, but she was a strong girl, and I didn’t have the time to coddle her. Or the patience.

“Where is my mother? My real mother?”

“I don’t know exactly where she lives. I never met her before yesterday, when she sent me to you.”

“And she’s a witch, huh?”

“A very important one. Normally, I would’ve been assigned to protect her, not you. I’m sure there’s another Nightwarden guarding her now.”

Normally, if she had imprinted on me there couldn’t be a second imprinting, but it was clear the High Council had loosened their rules for her sake.

“A Nightwarden? Is that what you’re called?”

“Yes. We don’t exist alongside other vampires, like the ones you’ve been spending time with.” I turned from the window and cast a disparaging look her way. “What were you thinking?”

She drew her knees to her chest with a shrug. “I told you. I draw them. They’re interesting. Beautiful. I thought it was a fetish. That’s all. Strange, creepy, but innocent.”

“There’s nothing innocent about them.”

“Tell me something else I don’t know,” she groaned, miserable. “It all makes sense now. I didn’t want to believe it. God, it all sounds so impossible. Like there’s a whole other world out there I know nothing about.”

“That’s because there is,” I agreed. “Our worlds coexist, but they’re very different. And it’s better that they intersect as little as possible.”

“Why did they let me in there, then, if vampires and humans aren’t supposed to intersect?”

“That’s different. Would the wolf refuse the sheep, when the sheep is ignorant enough to step into their den?”

She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe you’re putting it like that.”

“How would you describe it? Humans offer themselves up like dinner to them. All because they find them fascinating, special, different.” I sneered. “Beautiful.”

“Watch it,” she warned.

“Your instincts should’ve been stronger,” I snapped back. “Or, what’s probably closer to the truth, you should’ve listened to them instead of insisting they were wrong. Because I find it hard to believe that you never felt there was something off about that club. You talked yourself out of it, just like you spent so much energy trying to talk yourself out of what you saw clearly in that alley. You watched me kill that vampire. You knew she was trying to put you under her thrall. But you still fought it, told yourself you were drugged. That insistence on denying fact almost got you killed tonight.”

“Stop. Just stop, all right?” She looked away, toward the pathetic excuse for a kitchen. “I don’t need you to rub my nose in it. Maybe you should try putting yourself in my shoes for a second. Give empathy a shot. You wouldn’t be so mean.”

“It’s difficult for me to empathize with a willfully ignorant creature.”

“Yeah, well, give it a shot. Vampire.”

“My name is Vale.”

“I don’t care.”

“It doesn’t matter.” And that was the truth.

She didn’t have to like me or care what my name was, and vice versa. I was there to do a job. My eyes traveled the length of her body, assessing.

“You’re dirty. You should clean up and try to get some rest. It’s been a trying night.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” She sat up and unlaced her boots, then pulled them off and dropped them on the floor. They fell with a resounding thud. “Just because you’re here doesn’t mean you have the right to mess up my schedule.”

“I wasn’t aware you had a schedule I was interfering with.”

“I hope I remember everything clearly.” She turned her back before sliding her dress over her head, then bending at the waist to remove her stockings.

Challenging me? Or proving she didn’t care whether or not I stayed? I wasn’t strong enough to keep my eyes from her round, firm backside under the little scrap of fabric that I guessed passed for undergarments. She was smooth, like she’d been carved from marble. She pulled a thin, baggy shirt over her head which just barely reached her upper thighs.

My eyes snapped away from her body when she turned back to me.

“What is it you plan to do?” I asked despite the abundance of saliva in my mouth.

She made it water just like the promise of blood did.

“I have to draw what I saw tonight. I want to draw her, on the dance floor.”

“You what?” I laughed for the first time in as long as I could remember.

“What? That’s the reason I go to the club in the first place. I told you.” She went to the pad on the easel, twisting her braid up on top of her head as she did and using a band to secure it. “I sketch what I see there. I have a collection of work going up at a local gallery soon, and this is part of a follow-up series.”

“You’re serious?”

Curiosity got the better of me, and I went to the supply-covered table. There was a stack of rough sketches there. Shadowy figures, tall and imposing. Secretive—no, furtive was a better word. She had captured that. Leaning against the bar, dancing together, huddled in corners. Half-hidden by darkness. There was a feeling of dread, of intrigue. Yes, even of beauty. A dangerous beauty.

I could believe the creatures she drew had many secrets, many dark desires. I could almost see why they fascinated her the way they did.

“What do you think?” I looked up to find her working rapidly, arm moving back and forth as she did a quick sketch with a worn-down pencil.

“I think I understand why you chose them as your subjects,” I admitted. “I think you have talent.”

“Thanks so much,” she smirked. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear it in her voice.

“And you sell your work?”

“Of course.”

“This is not the impression your birth mother has of you. I feel like you should know that.”

“What impression does she have?”

“She thinks you’re drawn to the danger. That you’re one of the humans who wants to be part of their world—the vampires, the witches.”

“Ah. I see. She doesn’t understand me any better than Miriam.”

“Miriam?”

“My adoptive mother. Miriam Reed.” She chuckled, still working. “God. I can’t believe what a relief it is to know she’s not really my mother.”

So there was no love there, or very little. I could just imagine what a willful, stubborn child she must have been.

“She is, however. She raised you.”

“And I’m sure she would’ve done things differently if she had the chance. Don’t worry. I’m not upset. I’ll pay her back everything I can and be done with it.”

“You really don’t care?”

“I really don’t.” She looked back over her shoulder. “You think that’s wrong? That I’m a bad person?”

“No. I suppose I’m surprised, is all. But I don’t know how what your youth was like.”

“I’m sure you could imagine if you put your mind to it.” She took a step back, tilting her head from side to side as she studied what she’d sketched.

I could see it coming together and, frankly, I was impressed. After just a few minutes, she had already created the shape of two figures locked together in an intimate dance.

“She’s never missed a chance to tell me I’m not good enough. Not a good enough daughter, student, representative of the family. Not even a good enough artist. You’ve freed me.”

“Oh. I’m glad for you, I suppose.”

She chuckled and went back to work. “Talk to me, please.”

“About what? Shouldn’t you be focusing on your work?”

“No—if we hang around in silence, I’ll go crazy. My brain needs things to distract it, or this will all sink in at once, and I’ll lose my mind.” There was an edge of desperation to her voice, too.

“All right.” I sat on a small chair against the wall, in front of the easel, stretching my legs out in front of me and crossing them at the ankles.

I folded my arms over my chest.

I told her about the Nightwardens, how we came to be. The original attack back in the homeland and the curse which doomed us to a thousand years of service. The witches we served.

“What’s that like? Knowing you have to do whatever they tell you?” she murmured.

I couldn’t see her with the sketch pad between us, unless she leaned over slightly.

She did that then, and I saw plain curiosity in the way she raised her eyebrows.

“We’re not puppets, if that’s what you think.”

“I wouldn’t have used that word—but, I mean, here you are. You didn’t have a choice, did you?”

I bit back a snarl. Just because she was right didn’t mean I had to like it. “I didn’t have a choice. You make a good point.”

“Not to rub it in or anything.”

“I’m sure.”

She sighed. “I was only asking.”

“How would you like it? What would that be like for you?”

“I would hate it, of course.”

“Why bother asking, then?”

“I hit a sore spot, didn’t I?”

I shifted on the chair, glaring at the wall. “I wasn’t aware this was an interrogation. I thought we were talking so you wouldn’t lose your mind.”

“Shut up and stay still.”

I looked over at her. “Excuse me?”

“Damn it.” She threw her hands into the air. “I told you to stay still, so you turned your fucking head.”

“Again with the language.” I stood, suspicion growing as I walked around the easel.

Sure enough, there I was, captured on paper.

“When did you start doing this?”

“Not long after you started talking. You didn’t even notice me tearing off the old page and starting a new one. You were really into your story, and… I don’t know… you were interesting.” She stepped back, hands on her hips, tilting her head from side to side as she had before. “I think it’s a good start.”

Was that how she saw me? That imposing creature, dwarfing the chair it sat on? Was that really how I looked? The heavy brow casting the eyes in shadow, the brooding expression. Faint stubble on my cheeks, setting off the line of my jaw.

I rubbed my face as I studied her work.

“See? I think I did a nice job here.” She traced the straight nose, the way my lips pursed when I was thinking. “You were very deep in thought.”

“I was.”

She had exaggerated my body a little, but not by much. I recognized the broad shoulders and muscled arms, long legs lean with muscle.

There was an air of insolence about that figure, and loneliness. Sitting against an empty wall.

“I hope I didn’t insult you.” She stretched her arms over her head, bringing the hem of her shirt up dangerously high.

I averted my eyes, but not in time to miss the curve of her hips and the place where her thighs met. I had never met a woman so carefree and comfortable with her body.

There was no hint of her trying to attract me, which only made her more attractive.

I wanted to see what else was under that shirt.

“Not in the least.”

It was safer to look out the window and away from her as she worked tightness out of her muscles.

The little bit of sky visible over the top of the neighboring building was beginning to lighten.

She had worked for hours.

“It’s going to be hot today,” she predicted. “Miserably hot.”

She was right. I could feel it, even if it didn’t affect me the way it did her. She flipped on a fan and propped it in the open window, which at least stirred the air around.

“If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be wearing this.” She stood with her back to me, in front of the fan, letting the air run up the shirt and blow it out around her.

“Don’t let me stop you from being comfortable,” I offered, looking her up and down again.

“That’s all right. I’ll live.” She looked over her shoulder, eyeing me up. “You think about things like that?”

“What do you think? You were there when this happened.” I tapped my fingers on that first drawing of the couple in the club. How close they’d been to each other, the raw animal lust in every line of their bodies. “We feel things just the way you do.”

“That’s unfortunate for you.”

“Why? Am I so disgusting that you can’t imagine me doing something like this?” The man looked like he was skewering the girl right there in the middle of a throng of dancers.

Janna had barely indicated the presence of others in the club around them, but they were there. Maybe watching, the way Janna had been.

A flush crept over her skin. “No. You already described your life as being pretty sparse. It sounds lonely. And it would suck to get all horny or whatever and not have anybody to do anything about it with.” She pulled the sketch away and placed it inside a folio which she snapped shut. Her skin was still flushed when she turned back toward the window and the fan.

“I have to feed,” I announced. “You might not want to watch.”

“Feed?” Her face was a blank mask of fear when she looked over her shoulder. “You mean, on me?”

“Would that be a problem?”

“Of course!”

“I’m not going to feed on you,” I assured her.

I shouldn’t have taunted her like that. She had been through so much. But the temptation to soften that sarcastic edge of hers was too great.

“I have a store of blood with me. Provided by your birth mother.”

She turned her face toward the window. The rising sun’s first rays played over her delicate features, so much like Isobel’s. Her chest rose and fell in time with her deep breaths.

“Well. That’s… creepy. That’s very creepy for me to hear. I don’t know what to think about that.”

“I’m sure it is. But you don’t need to worry about hurting my feelings. I don’t care either way.”

She winced but didn’t reply.

“I’ll take a shower and give you some privacy.” Her eyes were low, focused on the floor, as she hurried past me.

The bathroom door closed a little louder than it needed to.