With a heavy sigh, Mira dropped her hands back to her sides and I released my hold on her. Around the room, vampires and humans were entangled, locked in an embrace that was shifting from blood to sex. Peter lay in Emma’s arms, considerably paler but still conscious. The fledgling was running her fingers through his hair while David trailed kisses up her neck to her ear.

David looked up at Mira suddenly. I shall come when summoned.

I jerked a half step backward at the invasive new voice. David locked surprised eyes on me then quickly looked away. He had not meant for me to hear that, only Mira. My connection with Mira was still strong and their thoughts were a low murmur in my mind. This was not something I wanted the others to know.

With a slight nod, Mira turned and walked back up the stairs. My heavy footsteps trudging behind her rumbled like thunder over the soft moans and sighs rising up from the basement occupants. I paused on the front porch and rolled my shoulders, welcoming the touch of the cold night air against my flushed cheeks.

Rational thought slammed through my mind once again, causing my hands to start shaking. What had I done? Mira was a vampire. She was my enemy, always would be. She and all of her kind were evil, and yet I had just wrapped my body around hers and wanted to bury myself so deeply within her that we could never be parted. I could blame the bori within me that made me susceptible to the bloodlust driving all of the nightwalkers in that basement, but if I was honest with myself, it was more than that. I was drawn to Mira. Her smile, her laugh, her irreverent sense of humor, and her compassion for those weaker than herself all sucked me in, so that I felt as if I were sinking in quicksand. I was fighting a battle with myself to continue hating her, and tonight proved only one thing to me: I was losing.

“Why did you bring me here?” I demanded, still standing on the edge of the porch.

Mira continued to walk to the car, throwing a little smirk over her shoulder at me. She pulled the remote out of her pocket and the lights blinked once as the doors unlocked.

“Tell me why!” I commanded, hating the slight tremble in my voice.

She finally paused a couple feet from the car and turned to fully face me. So I could see a flash of fang pressing against her lower lip. “I need you to understand us,” she replied. “And I need you to better understand yourself and your tie to my people. You’re one of us.”

“I am not a vampire,” I said, descending the first couple steps.

“No, but you’re closer to us than you are to being human.” The wind picked up and pulled a strand of hair across her face, forcing her to thread it behind her ear. “The only way you will stop hunting us is if you understand that you are one of us. We’re not the enemy.”

“You’re evil,” I stubbornly said, but even that statement lacked its usual venom. I had had it beaten into my brain for centuries, but standing wrapped in the warm emotions of lust, passion, and even for some, love, I struggled with that belief. It was starting to crumble before my eyes.

“No more than the rest of mankind,” she said with a shrug. “We were all human once. Becoming a nightwalker didn’t change our souls.”

“Just your instincts,” I snapped.

To that, Mira simply shrugged as she turned back toward the car. “Come along, hunter,” she said. “We don’t have time to tarry here.” With her hand on the door, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me, a playful grin spreading across her face. “Besides, my restraint is fading.”

Quickly descending the last of the creaking porch stairs, I jumped into the passenger seat, sinking into the soft leather. This battle would not be won or lost tonight. I needed to think more.

I glanced at the clock as Mira started the car. It wasn’t yet 9 P.M. I stared at it, my mind unable to comprehend what I was seeing. We had been in there for only thirty minutes. I would have guessed hours had drifted by in mind-numbing bliss.

We were in the car for several minutes before my hard voice finally shattered the silence. “What was that?”

“First Communion.”

“I’ve been around when vampires feed. I’ve never felt anything like that.”

“What you felt is what we feel every time we feed. A nightwalker can control whether his or her victim or other nightwalkers can feel it. A fledgling cannot. The first time you feed, it’s always the best. It’s a rush of power and pleasure like nothing you’ve ever known. For the first time, you’re connected to every living thing on the planet.” Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality, caressing my mind. “It’s why First Communion is so important. It’s our chance to relive that one moment. And for some, it’s a chance to remake that memory with someone important. Depending on the maker, First Communion doesn’t always go well for a fledgling. Emma was very lucky.”

“So now it has turned into an orgy.”

“Yeah.” Mira sighed. “You want to go back?”

I remained silent, watching out my window as we pulled back onto the expressway headed south toward downtown Savannah. Images and sensations were still strong in my mind and I was struggling to reconcile them. I had wanted Mira like nothing I had ever known before. Had she put those thoughts in my head? Were they the result of the feeding vampires? I had desired Mira before, but I had never touched her. She was a vampire; I was supposed to kill her, not want to have sex with her.

As the city rose up before us and we descended into the valley, I pushed those concerns away: but a new, grim thought dawned on me. “It looked like every vampire in the city was there.”

Mira’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and the car accelerated, gliding past ninety miles per hour. Her chin dipped to her chest, causing her hair to fall like a curtain along the side of her face, hiding her expression. “Almost.”

Almost. Tristan, her precious ward and one of her few family members, had been missing from the gathering.

On Bay Street, Mira pulled into an open parking spot just a few blocks from Bull Street and City Hall while I called James to tell him where to meet us. As she shut off the car, Mira reached down and pulled a lever that popped the trunk. I slid out of the car at the same time as she and walked to the back of the vehicle. Knowing Mira had an old-fashioned distaste for guns, I expected to see a variety of knives, daggers, and swords gleaming in the light from the overhead streetlamp. Yet, when Mira opened the black leather bag hidden in the back of the trunk, all I saw were clothes.

I threw her a puzzled look then reached down and lifted up a pile of clothes only to find more clothes. The nightwalker smiled as she lightly smacked my hand away then returned to tucking in her shirt into her jeans.

“We can’t all walk around looking like hired thugs for the Mafia,” Mira teased. Rolling up her sleeves, Mira pulled a pair of wrist sheaths out of one pocket of the bag and strapped them on before pulling her sleeves back down. She also snapped a knife sheath to her belt, placing it down the back of her pants at her spine. All of her knives were small and lightweight, good for throwing or close fighting. With her clothes resettled, she pulled on a black suit jacket, but left it unbuttoned.

“A person will more willingly believe a thought you put in their head if it matches what they see,” Mira explained. “And right now, I want them to believe we’re detectives for the local police.”

While Mira’s clothes probably cost more than what most detectives made in a month, she did have a more professional air about her than usual. I, on the other hand, was dressed in my usual black cotton pants and turtleneck with worn black boots.

James appeared as she was shutting the trunk of her car, his cheeks flushed as he was slightly winded from the jog over from the nearby hotel. “Everything go okay?” he inquired as he brushed some hair out of his eyes.