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hurting me in a haze of bloodlust. Ivy dealt with fear by ignoring its existence and avoiding its origin, but her self-imposed denial was just about killing her even as it gave her strength.
    If my roommates/business partners could be believed, finding thrills was what I organized both my daily life and my sex life around. Jenks called me an adrenaline junkie, but if I was making money at it and remembered my limits, where was the harm? And I knew to the depths of my soul that Ivy didn’t fall under that “looking for a thrill” umbrella. Yes, the rush had been incredible, but it was the self-worth I had given her that told me it hadn’t been a mistake, not the blood ecstasy she had instilled.
    For an instant, Ivy had seen herself as I did: strong, capable, able to love someone fully and be loved in return. By giving her my blood, I had told her that yes, she was worth sacrificing for, that I liked her for who she was, and that her needs weren’t wrong. Needs were needs. It was us who labeled them right or wrong. I wanted her to feel that way all the time.
    But God help me, it had been a rush.
    As if she had heard my thought, Ivy turned from Jenks. “Stop it,” she said, and I flushed. She couldn’t read my mind, but she might as well have. A vamp’s sense of smell was tuned to pheromones. She could read my mood as easily as I could smell the sharp scent of rose hips coming from my untouched tea. Crap, Ceri really expected me to drink this?
    Jenks’s wings reddened, clearly not liking the shift in topic from how to spend our pooled business money to how to keep our teeth to ourselves, and Ivy gestured with a long, slim hand to include me in their argument.“It’s not that I don’t want to spend the money,” she said, both soothing and assertive. “But why do it if a demon will take it down again?”
    I snorted, turning to the phone book and shifting a page. “Newt isn’t just a demon. Ceri says she’s one of the oldest, most powerful demons in the ever-after. And she’s stark raving nuts,” I muttered, turning a page to another listing. “Ceri doesn’t think she’ll be back.”
    Ivy crossed her arms to look slinky and svelte. “So why bother resanctifying at all?”
    Jenks snickered. “Yeah, Rache. Why bother? I mean, this could be good. Ivy could invite her mom over for a housewarming. We’ve been here a year, and the woman is dying to come over. Well, at least she would be if she were still alive.”
    Worried, I looked up from the phone book. Alarm sifted over Ivy. For a moment it was so quiet I could hear the clock above the sink, and then Ivy jerked, her speed edging into that eerie vamp quickness she took pains to hide. “Give me the phone,” she said, snatching it.
    The black plastic slipped from my lap, and Ivy drew the heavy book off the table. Retreating to her end of the table with quick steps, she set the directory on her knees and pulled a legal pad from a stack. While Jenks laughed, she sketched a graph with columns headed by phone number, availability, cost, and religious affiliation. Confident we’d be on holy ground before the week was out, I stifled my ire that she had taken over.
    Jenks was smiling when he flitted from the windowsill, gold sparkles landing in my teacup before he settled beside it. “Thanks,” I said, knowing Ivy would hear me even if I whispered. “I don’t think I’m going to sleep again until we’re resanctified—and I like sleeping.”
    Head bobbing in an exaggerated motion, he nodded. “Why don’t you just put the church in a circle?” he questioned. “Nothing can get through that.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be secure unless we removed all the electricity and gas lines coming in,” I explained, not wanting to tell him that Newt could apparently get through any circle with enough reason. “You want to live