"Will Mr. Dante be along shortly? There is a young lady waiting to speak with him," she said as we started up the stairs.

I stopped on the first stair. "Oh, really? What sort of a young lady?"

"It's a good thing you're not denying your fate any longer," Roxy called from the top of the stairs. " 'Cause that's the most jealous 'What sort of a young lady^I I've ever heard."

"Christian has been"—torn from my side… held prisoner… forced to endure who knows how many torments—"detained. Is this something I can help with?"

Mrs. Turner looked doubtful. "The young lady said Mr. Dante had asked her to repair some damage done to a floor in the wine cellar."

The Guardian! I'd forgotten all about her. Drat, what a time for her to come and put a cork in the conduit to hell.

"If it will make you feel better, I'll have a talk with her."

Mrs. Turner didn't look as if she'd feel a whole lot better, but I guess she figured I was the lesser of two evils, because she nodded and bustled off to dust something. I limped as quickly as I could up the stairs.

"This is all I need, a Guardian hanging around just when I need to focus on saving Christian."

"You don't know that anything happened to Christian," Raphael pointed out as he carried Sebastian into Christian's bedroom.

I trailed behind, wringing my hands and wishing I could scream and yell out my frustration and worry. "Oh, sure, he's in a house filled with ghost and vampire hunters, not to mention at least one demon and a triumvirate capable of destroying any of us without breaking a sweat, and I have nothing to worry about? Cow cookies! Christian sacrificed himself for Sebastian; I just know he did. And now he's in trouble and I have to go save him. So if you don't mind setting Sebastian down on the bed, I'll get him tucked in and then be on my way to rescue the man I love." I headed for the door as the last word left my lips.

"What about him? You can't just leave him like this. Even I can tell he's not going to last much longer," Raphael said as he set Sebastian down. The Dark One lay limp and exhausted on the bed, too weak to move.

I stopped at the doorway. Blast. I knew he was going to call me on that. "He needs blood."

Roxy and Raphael looked at Sebastian doubtfully. I waved my hand toward him. "It's obvious; I can feel his hunger from here. One of you is going to have to allow him to feed."

"Feed?" Roxy yelped. "You mean… feed?'

I tsked. "It's just a little blood. Think of it as a donation to a worthy cause. Look, I don't have time to stand around explaining it to you. I have Christian to go save."

"And just how do you plan to do that?" Raphael asked as Roxy stared at Sebastian in horror. The latter moved in feeble protest under her gaze. "You barely made it out of there on your own; how do you expect to find Christian and free him—that's assuming he isn't staying there of his own free choice?"

I was across the room and in front of Raphael even before I could draw breath. "Christian is strong. He would never yield to the triumvirate. Never!"

"Not them," Sebastian whispered, his voice a frail reed of sound. I glanced down at him, the tatters of his shirt making it possible to see his ribs clearly outlined beneath the tautly stretched skin of his chest. His breathing was labored and slow, much slower than it should be. His sunken, hopeless eyes begged me for a release to his nightmare. I was torn between the need to rush out and save Christian, and helping the friend I knew meant a lot to him.

I stood next to the bed, hesitating, knowing that if I didn't do something, Sebastian would slip away. He needed help, and I couldn't turn to either Roxy or Raphael for that help. They simply did not understand.

I hope you're all right, Christian. I hope you understand that I have to do this first.

Sebastian moaned a wordless protest as I sat on the bed next to him.

"You need blood," I told him quietly, rolling up my sleeve. Roxy moved away from the bed, giving us room as I offered my wrist.

Sebastian closed his eyes, his lips thinned into a tight line.

"Come on," I said, shaking my wrist beneath his nose. "I'm offering this to you of my own free will. Please take it. Christian would want you to."

His breath hissed through his teeth.

"I want you to."

He turned his face away from my wrist.

I squished his lips apart and shoved the delicate flesh of my inner wrist up against his teeth. "For God's sake, I've never had to beg anyone to drink my blood. Now will you just take it!"

His hands fluttered against the bed. "Not you," he mumbled against my wrist. "Beloved."

"Oh, for heaven's sake…"

"What's wrong?" Roxy asked as I straightened up.

"He won't feed off me. I think it's something to do with the fact that I'm Christian's Beloved."

"Glad to know you've finally seen the light," Roxy said, then tapped her chin as she thought. "You know, I think he's right. You haven't Joined with Christian, have you?"

I shook my head.

She continued chin tapping. "That makes sense. Once a Beloved is claimed, you go into kind of a holding zone, a limbo as far as other Dark Ones are concerned. You're not Joined, so you're not a Moravian, and yet you're not quite human because you've completed all but a few steps of Joining."

"There's just the last one remaining," I admitted. "Wait a minute—what do you mean I'm not quite human?"

"According to what Christian wrote in one of his books—you really need to read them; you're sadly ignorant of even the most basic Dark One lore, and that's bound to be a handicap when you're married to one—your blood is actually like poison to any other Dark Ones."

I gaped at her. "Of all the ridiculous things I've ever heard! My blood is not poisonous!"

"Not to Christian, no, but just you dribble a bit on poor Sebastian's lips and he'll be stiffer than a three-day-dead dog."

We all looked at Sebastian. He lay so still, so lifeless he almost looked as if he were already dead. I couldn't leave him like that, I just couldn't. Not only would Christian not want his friend to suffer; I couldn't allow it. Not when there was a way to help him.

"Now what will you do?" Raphael asked. I turned toward him and smiled.

He was out even before he saw the punch coming.

"What do you think you're doing?" Roxy gasped as Raphael hit the floor. She looked from his massive body to my small fist. "And more important, how did you do it?"

I grabbed one of his arms and nodded toward the other one. "Come on, help me—he won't be out for long. I used a spell to add some wallop to my punch, but it doesn't last long. I'm not very good at casting spells."

Roxy grunted as we heaved Raphael's torso up onto the bed, his head lolling next to Sebastian's thigh. I rolled up his sleeve and dragged his arm up over his head. "Dinner's served," I told Sebastian.

He looked from the wrist in front of his mouth down to the unconscious man lying half-on, half-off the bed.

"You don't have any other choice," I told him. "I realize you feel weird about dining off of someone who helped save you, but I won't force Roxy, and you turned me down. It's Raphael or nothing."

Sebastian nodded, his reluctance evident even as his lips parted.

"Raphael is going to be so pissed at you," Roxy said, her eyes wide as she watched Sebastian's fangs sink into Raphael's wrist. "I mean, majorly pissed. We're talking world-class pissed here."

"Tell him he has to take a number," I said, pulling the rag doll keeper from beneath my sweater and setting it carefully on the floor. "There are a lot of other people who were angry with me first. I might as well do this while Sebastian is filling up."

"Do what? What's that doll?"

I explained about the ghost Guarda had Summoned as I chalked out a circle.