I met his dark, dark blue eyes. There had been a time not so long ago that I couldn't have met his gaze without falling into it and being lost. Now I could meet his eyes, but in some ways, I was just as lost. I raised up on tiptoe, putting my face close to his.

"I should have killed you a long time ago."

"You have had your chances, Ma petite . You keep saving me."

"My mistake," I said.

He laughed, and the sound slid down my body like fur against naked skin. I shuddered in his arms.

"Stop that," I said.

He kissed me lightly, a brush of lips, so I couldn't feel the fangs. "You would miss me if I were gone, Ma petite . Admit it."

I drew away from him. His hands slid down my arms, over my hands, until I drew my fingertips across his hands. "I've got to go."

"So you said."

"Just get out, Jean-Claude, no more games."

His face sobered instantly as if a hand had wiped it clean. "No more games, Ma petite . Go to your other lover." It was his turn to raise a hand and say, "I know you are not truly lovers. I know you are resisting both of us. Brave, Ma petite ." A flash of something, maybe anger, crossed his face and was gone like a ripple lost in dark water.

"Tomorrow night you will be with me and it will be Richard's turn to sit at home and wonder." He shook his head. "Even for you I would not have done what Sabin has done. Even for your love, there are things I would not do." He stared at me suddenly fierce, anger flaring through his eyes, his face. "But what I do is enough."

"Don't go all self-righteous on me," I said. "If you hadn't interfered, Richard and I would be engaged, maybe more, by now."

"And what? You would be living behind a white picket fence with two point whatever children. I think you lie to yourself more than to me, Anita."

It was always a bad sign when he used my real name. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Ma petite , that you are as likely to thrive in domestic bliss as I am." With that, he glided to the door and left. He closed the door quietly but firmly behind him.

Domestic bliss? Who me? My life was a cross between a preternatural soap opera and an action adventure movie. Sort of As the Casket Turns meets Rambo. White picket fences didn't fit. Jean-Claude was right about that.

I had the entire weekend off. It was the first time in months. I'd been looking forward to this evening all week. But truthfully, it wasn't Jean-Claude's nearly perfect face that was haunting me. I kept flashing on Sabin's face. Eternal life, eternal pain, eternal ugliness. Nice afterlife.