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ultimate command of Nikolai, the eldest.
    At first, she’d remained in Conrad’s room because she’d been hopeful about him seeing her. Now she stayed because she was intrigued by the crazed vampire.
    His history was like an incomplete puzzle, and with each piece of it she received, the whole grew more riveting. He’d been highborn, but ultimately had used his military experience and his vampiric strength to become an assassin. He’d planned to kill his own brothers in retaliation for some deed she hadn’t yet learned.
    He’d been alone and friendless for centuries.
    His past was so different from hers—with all the dancing and laughter and letting the good times roll—they were poles apart.
    Yet with each revelation came more questions. He was obviously a powerful man, so what could have broken his mind like this? And how could he remain in bed day after day? Did vampires have no bodily functions?
    Each night they’d brought a thermos from the new refrigerator to Conrad, and Néomi was fairly certain she knew what was in it. But exactly where did they get it? And since Conrad was refusing to drink the contents, how long would it be before he starved?
    She’d watched him sleeping for more hours than she could count—why had he never once grown hard as men unwittingly did in sleep?
    When dusk approached, and the brothers returned downstairs, Conrad’s eyes flashed open instantly.
    She crossed to the door, floating in it, so that half of her remained outside the room, and half was inside. Still she could barely hear them downstairs. But she could see Conrad’s reaction and realized that he could hear them, even with the heavy door closed.
    “After seeing him in this condition,” Sebastian said, “I’m beginning to understand why none of the Fallen have ever come back from bloodlust.”
    “No one before has had the tools we do,” Nikolai answered. “We’ve agreed to spend a month trying to rehabilitate him. If he shows no signs of improvement, then we’ll do what must be done.”
    Conrad’s listening to them. Intently. She wondered what he must be thinking.
    “That was before I saw him, Nikolai. Maybe we need to... to put him out of his misery.” Is he in misery?
    Conrad’s jaw clenched, and his expression grew deadly. Yet then his brows drew together as if he was considering the possibility right at that moment. When he frowned and closed his eyes, she felt a twist in her chest.
    The vampire is in misery. And he’s sane enough to know it.

    Misery? What the fuck do they know of it? He shakes his head as if to jar loose the thought.
    He easily hears them downstairs as Murdoch explains what he’s learned about the Fallen, vampires who kill by drinking blood. “Loud sounds other than their own yells enrage them. Quick movements do as well—they react to them as if they’re threats, no matter how benign. Being taken unaware would send one into a fury. Any sense of their own physical vulnerability triggers rage.”
    “Why don’t you just explain what doesn’t enrage them?” Sebastian asks.
    There is little that doesn’t, he thinks, just as Murdoch says, “That would be a short explanation.”
    He blocks them out, his musings turning to the mysterious entity again.
    The being can be one of three things. He thinks. An echo from a fractured memory, a hallucination, or a ghost. He has nearly three hundred years of experience with the first two possibilities—and none with the latter. The first pair are figments of his twisted mind. The ghost would be unimagined.
    Can’t determine what’s real or what’s illusion. For the last week the being has returned to his room. He’s begun seeing her again, though not as much as that first night. Only a faint, glowing outline now. But he can scent her presence. Even now, he’s awash in the smell of roses.
    Whenever she comes to him, so do flashes of his lucidity. He doesn’t understand the connection, just knows he’s beginning to crave the focus of his