His nerves rang with the shock of her beauty. Her eyes leaped out of her face, burning through him in accusation. She saw Mirelle flirting! He started toward her. Since blood had been drawn, the level of noise among the spectators had redoubled. They surged in, making it nearly impossible for Titus to move.

Inea watched him struggle toward her, and he thought he saw a trace of sympathy on her face. Then she shook her head at him, turned and fled into the women’s locker room.

A moment later, with a yell and a resounding smack of open arms hitting the mat, the contest was over. Two women, also Brink’s officers, escorted Langton toward the women’s locker room. People surged forward to congratulate her and compliment her on her moves. As she worked her way past Titus, he shook himself out of his daze and stepped forward, catching her elbow. Exerting Influence, he said, “Meet me here when you’re dressed. We have something personal to discuss. Besides, I give great back rubs.”

Exhausted from the match, she took the impression readily. She aimed a dazzling smile at him and replied as if he were an old friend, “I won’t be long.”

It was that simple. He could have her tonight, all night, if he wanted. A part of him was tempted. The cut over her eye had bled profusely, and he came away with her blood on his fingers. He couldn’t resist raising it to his mouth and sucking until his own skin threatened to break.

There were several ways out of the women’s locker room, and he was fairly sure Inea would not use this exit. Yet if she came out first, he’d follow her-make her listen-and never mind Suzy Langton and the Brink’s security codes. It occurred to him that he’d lost the cold objectivity Connie had insisted was his only protection during this mission.

Langton emerged first, her cut sealed, and a fresh red wraparound highlighting her trim figure. Her black hair was confined by a white band, and her soft-soled Suchoffs were also white. Summoning himself to the business at hand, Titus stepped forward. “Remember me?”

As he escorted her through a hedgerow into a deserted area where comfortable lounges surrounded a dance floor, he shamelessly Influenced her into a dream world. Nobody would bother them here until the next dance class. He gathered her down onto a lounge in such a way that anyone blundering into the area would assume they wanted privacy.

His lips close to her ear, his Influence clouding her mind so she knew nothing of what she said, only what she felt, he coaxed the information he needed out of her. Brink’s conditioning was fierce. He needed all his skill to create an exquisite pitch of arousal, sufficient to mask his purpose.

To do all this and shield them from interruptions was almost more than he could handle, for half his energy went into fighting his own self-disgust.

Once, his lips strayed to the sealed cut, the odor of blood sending him into delirium, and he wanted to make her illusionary experience real. It would be so much better for both of them if he participated in her ecstasy.

At the very last moment, as his teeth were nibbling at the bandage, he turned his face aside. Even starvation doesn’t give me the right to take what I want.

When he had all the codes, even those she didn’t consciously remember, he gave her supreme release and the peaceful oblivion of sleep, a tender gift, an offering to he knew not what. How could anything make up for what he’d done?

Gently, he wiped all trace of his identity from her memory.

He left no Mark to ward off Abbot, hoping that if his father took her, he would believe Titus had only fed and would look no deeper. He, himself, could hardly believe he could have bestowed such an experience on a human woman and still feel as hungry and as achingly unfinished as he did. Yet the thought of the ration awaiting him at home filled him with revulsion.

Refusing to look at Langton again, he rearranged his clothing, schooled his features, and crossed the dance floor to an opening in the hedge. Never again. I’m never going to do this again.

As he approached the opening, senses raw, he felt Inea. She crouched behind the hedge, watching him cross the floor. Then she broke and ran, the hedge tossing in her wake.

What she thought she’d seen-what he’d been projecting for anyone passing by to see-was a man and woman hastily coupling with embarrassing intensity.

He broke into a shambling lunar run. “Inea, wait!”

Inea ran from him as if he were truly evil.

It would be so easy to stop her with Influence. Titus skidded to a halt in the midst of a weight lifting class and summoned the revulsion he’d felt as he’d forced each of the codes out of Suzy Langton. I won’t be addicted to Influence.

“Hey, Mister, anything wrong?” called the instructor, a muscular young woman who had oiled her black skin until she looked like an ebony statue. Abner Gold stood behind her.

Titus noticed an odd intensity in her gaze, but brushed it aside. “Oh. just forgot something.” He pushed on.

As he emerged from an arch in the vine that shielded the weight lifting area, he found Inea poised on the balls of her feet, eyeing him. They were near the entrance to the gym. The rowing team he’d seen working out was gone, and their area was dimmed. Titus cast about for any trace of Abbot. He found nothing, but one of his string could be watching.

Titus moved into the rowing area, and called, “Inea, you didn’t see what you thought you saw. Not here and not in the cafeteria. We really need to talk. Come sit?”

He settled cross-legged on the floor beside one of the rowing machines, leaning against its side, waiting. He had almost given up hope, when she drifted through the gate.

As she entered the area, he erected a shield around them to divert the interest of passersby. “Let me explain my-apparent– behavior. Please, Inea, please listen.”

“I can’t imagine what you could say after what I saw.”

“Remember the bat?”

She glanced sharply at him. “So?”

“I can make people see anything. In the refectory, you thought I’d eaten a meal. Here you thought I’d taken a woman. I did neither.”

“How do I know? You could say anything.”

This was why he’d promised himself never to Influence her. “Think,” he pleaded. “People must believe I eat, so I must create that impression even if it means using the defensive gift of my kind.”

Titus watched as she digested that, and recoiled. “You lied to me. You drank blood from that woman. Is she dead?”

He sprang to his feet. “God, no!”

But she was out and around the divider, racing back to the dance floor. He caught up to her at the dance floor’s hedge, grabbed her by the shoulders and held her. “Listen to me!” he whispered fiercely. “I haven’t lied to you. I will never lie to you. The cut on Suzy’s face nearly drove me out of my mind, but I didn’t take anything from her-except the information I need to do my job. She’ll never remember me. You’ve no cause to be horrified-or even jealous.”

She relaxed. “All right, then let me go look.”

“She’ll be waking up soon.”

“I’ll be quiet.”

He let her go. She crept through the hedge. Titus thought he could feel Suzy stirring. Perhaps she had, for a moment later, Inea reappeared. “Well, she’s not dead anyway. I guess I shouldn’t leap to conclusions.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and led her back to the rowing area, this time guiding her all the way in and sitting her down beside him. “Do you still doubt me?”

“I don’t know. When I saw you eating in the cafeteria I thought you’d tricked me, but I couldn’t imagine why unless you really had killed someone and had him buried in your place.”

“Why didn’t you go to the authorities right then?”

“I-I wasn’t sure. Then I saw your expression when Suzy’s blood spattered all over the mat.”