He groaned. “Did I really give myself away that badly?”

“No, everyone was lusting after the sight of blood. I don’t suppose they’re all vampires.”

“No. Humans have their own ideas of amusement.”

“You didn’t find it amusing. It made you hungry.”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you just drink Suzy’s blood?”

“You believe I could but didn’t?”

“I don’t know what to believe. If you could do such a thing-if you have to do such things-why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t have her permission.”

“Permission? Is that supposed to be funny? You took information from her, you said-I presume with this power of yours. I assume she didn’t give permission for that.”

“What I took from her was not for myself, but for the benefit of humanity. What I refused was for myself alone.”

“You never used to be so selfless-or concerned about honor.”

“That’s true. The young have so little power, they don’t have to agonize over its proper use.”

Slowly, she said, “I believe you. It adds up. I’ve been trying to watch you, but I can’t keep up with you. Nobody can go as long without sleep as you do. But why steal information from Brink’s? To sell it? Professors don’t make much. It takes lots of untraceable money to create false identities.”

“But anyone in the market for Brink’s secrets couldn’t be trusted to use them for the benefit of humankind.”

“Why would that stop you?”

He caught her hands and hissed, “I don’t use any power, human or otherwise, in such ways! I simply do not!”

Stunned, she let her hands lie between his.

Against his will, his head lowered and his lips sought hers.

Barely making contact, he hesitated, feeling her flesh tremble as his body pressed against hers, revealing his state more clearly than words ever could. But he held back.

When she was sure he wasn’t going to force her, she relaxed, and he felt the divine power of her. He didn’t know which need was more urgent, the growing heat in his groin or the thirst that burned in every cell.

He felt the waves of arousal that beat through her, surging between them, possessing them both, and he knew he had another power over her. Now she wouldn’t say no.

He scooped her into his arms and buried his face in her damp hair. “Before I died, when we were engaged,” he said, “I never felt like this. It was easy then to wait until our wedding night.” He had never felt true arousal until after his wakening, when it became tangled up with the thirst. Luren didn’t reach sexual maturity until after First Death.

“When you died. I cried myself to sleep each night because we’d waited. I’d rather have been alone and pregnant than alone and a virgin. The next time I didn’t wait.”

“Did you ever marry? You aren’t married now, are you?”

“Divorced. The one I did trap into marrying me-well, I hated myself more than he ended up hating me. If you’ve learned not to use your power, then I’ve learned recreational sex doesn’t do much for me. This time, Titus, I have to be sure! Especially with what you say, I have to be sure!”

He started to move back, but she clung to him. “It feels so good, Titus. How could it be wrong?”

“Yes.” He schooled himself to patience, wanting her to have what she needed from him.

But she felt his tension. “Is it that you want to. bite my neck?”

He thrust back from her, holding her shoulders at arms length, embarrassed enough by that truth to laugh it off as another myth. But he owed her more. He shrugged. “Any vein will do. But I no longer drink from humans. I told you.”

“Your canine teeth aren’t very long.”

He laughed. “No, but incisors do break skin, only not too neatly. We use surgical tools so the wound heals fast.” He took a deep breath, struggling to quell his urgency. “But all I’m asking now is what any man would want. I’m human, too, remember? I’m asking you to go to bed with me. Nothing. kinky. Just what we’ve always wanted with each other.” Just that. Maybe it will be enough-for now.

“Is it especially good with. vampires? Or is that a myth, too?”

“I’ll make it like nothing you’ve ever known.”

“Like you did with Suzy?”

“No! That was illusion. I won’t need any illusion with you.” But he knew that his hunger sharpened the experience for his bedmates, even when he used no Influence. “I promise, everything between us will be real.”

“I keep believing you-and I keep going back to my room wondering if I’ve gone mad. I haven’t got a shred of real evidence to prove what you’ve made me believe.”

“Tell me what evidence you want-it’ll be yours.”

She put her hands on his cheeks, fingering the roughness of his beard. He waited, but when she didn’t name her proof, he pleaded shamelessly, “But in the meantime. ?” He pressed his lips to her palm and let them describe his offer.

She listened to his silent message, eyes closed, but when he worked up to the inside of her wrist, she sensed his hunger rising. She jerked free, staring at her hand. “What if you’re really a vampire? And what if you’re as evil as legend says and if I let you-then I-I’ll become-”

“Is that what you’ve been brooding about?”

“If you really were such a horror, you’d compel me to believe you, so the more I believe you, the more I doubt.”

“Actually, that’s wise-” -with Abbot around.

“Are you telling me you are evil?” She wrenched away, trapping her arms over her chest. “How melodramatic.”

“No, not evil. But you’ve got to prove it yourself.” Even wasn’t evil, just scared of the power of his cattle. “Will you tell me what you took from the Brink’s woman?”

“No. It’s bad enough that one non-Brink’s person has it. No one else will ever get it from me.”

“That’s not proof. That’s not evidence.”

“I know. Nothing I can do or say is evidence. You must define for yourself the proof that you would accept. It might be best if you can get it without my knowing.”

She scrambled to her feet, stared down at him, then yanked herself around and made for the opening in the divider. Over her shoulder, she warned, “Don’t follow me this time.”

He felt that if he did, she would surrender. But he also knew what he hadn’t understood that time he’d paced outside her door and had almost gone in to seduce her. The next day her doubts would return and spoil everything forever.

He dragged himself back to his room and to a very miserable night. Nothing helped. Unable to sleep, he carefully recorded the codes he’d memorized then tried three times to use them, but he kept keying mistakes.

In the morning, he pulled himself together and went to the lab hoping work would banish his mental conversations with Inea. When he had assigned everyone to a task for the shift, he barricaded himself in his office and patched his calculator into his desk terminal, invoking one of Abbot’s handy programs. It caused Security programs to forget that certain files had been accessed. He hadn’t dared to use it before because it had been known to fail on other Brink’s systems used by banks. But this time he had Brink’s own codes, so he went after the records of those heading clandestine departments.

He sweated through every pause, afraid the old program, which had allowed his kind to create identities, was finally obsolete. The Project’s systems had to be superior to banking systems, for banks had to show a profit while the government didn’t. So government could spend absurdly on security. Langton’s codes had been changed, or if he’d gotten one wrong and he couldn’t answer a challenge on the first try. he refused to think about that.

At last he found a compilation of hobbies and prior professions of those working in Biomed and Cognitive Sciences.

Someone had gone to great lengths to assemble scientists who seemed ideal to perform one sort of task, but were in fact better suited for something else entirely. The two key figures turned out to be Mirelle and Mihelich, with Gold a close third because of his Sandia connections and his work on low-grav bio-cybernetic laboratory instruments.