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might be very nice if they ever looked, you know, friendly, but overall I’d have to say—”
    “Listen, little girl. You’re the one who knocked on my door without an appointment. I happen to be in a bad mood, in case you hadn’t noticed. Either get out now or tell me what you came here for and then get out. It’s your choice.”
    Kit bit her lip. She’d had the last twenty-four hours to figure out how she was going to start this conversation, but she hadn’t decided on an approach.
    “I need a favor,” she blurted out.
    He stared at her. “You need a favor ,” he repeated finally, his voice echoing with sarcastic disbelief. “I’m already counting the seconds until you leave, and I’m looking forward to never seeing you again. Why would I want to do you a favor?”
    Good question, Kit thought wryly.
    “I know the truth about you,” she said, trying to sound menacing. Might as well at least make it clear she wasn’t here to sell girl scout cookies.
    “Well, now.” There was an icy edge to his voice that made Kit shiver in spite of herself. “What exactly is it that you… know about me?”
    Time to lay her cards on the table. Some of them, anyway.
    She folded her arms and did her best to look cool and confident, the way she imagined Peter would look in a situation like this.
    “I know what you are, Luke Cadris. I know what happened to you in Carmarthen in 1604.”
    Was it just her imagination, or was the fire dying a little?
    “I know why a supply of animal blood is delivered here every week by local butchers…even though you still have a taste for something richer. You pass as human, but you’re not. You’re a creature out of myth and legend and nightmare…”
    She felt a draft of cold air that raised goose bumps on her skin. Her eyes were fixed on Luke’s, but his were unfathomable, unblinking, and he stood as still as if he were made of stone.
    Kit moved slowly forward, to the place where Luke stood looking at her. When less than a foot separated them she reached out a hand and laid it flat on his chest.
    “No heartbeat,” she said.
    Still he didn’t move. When she spoke again it was only one word.
    “Vampire.”

Chapter Three
    So she knew the truth about him. Well, that in itself wouldn’t make the earth shake. The truth wasn’t really a threat to him, not here—not when he’d been playing nice for so long.
    No, the truth alone wasn’t a threat. But there was something else about this child…
    He supposed that technically she wasn’t a child—at least by human standards—but she couldn’t be much more than twenty or twenty-one. Young. And yet there was something there, something Luke could sense in the air between them, like electricity.
    He frowned.
    “You’re Fae,” he said abruptly. “That’s how you know about me.”
    The girl took her hand from his chest and backed away a few steps.
    “Yes and no,” she answered cautiously. “I’m an eighth-blood Fae, but I’m not a warrior or a spellcaster. I don’t have any special abilities. My brother was the one who was called as a warrior. He’s the reason I’m here. The favor I was talking about.”
    “Your people will have told you I’m no threat to the human race. I haven’t taken a life in over a hundred years. So you’re not here to kill me.”
    “No. Like I said, I came to ask for your help.”
    She was more human than Fae. She’d gotten past the porter and the defenses around the University, so she couldn’t be a direct threat, but still…she had to be the woman behind Merton’s “intimations”. Luke closed his eyes briefly, the better to use his other senses.
    Danger? Yes, there was danger here. He could sense that much, even though he was far from being a psychic adept like Merton. What he couldn’t sense was the scope of it, or for whom it was greatest. It might be that the girl herself was in danger.
    Power? Yes, in spite of the girl’s insistence that she had no special abilities. Perhaps they were