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acceded to this absurd notion of a walk through Central Park purely out of my high regard for you and respect for your wishes. Also my fear that you’d change your mind about joining my friends and myself for a drink if I didn’t.”
    “You weren’t afraid of that.” Michael grinned.
    “That’s true. It sounds good, though, doesn’t it? It makes me appear unselfish and noble. Willing to suffer for those I cherish.”
    “Only if I believed it.”
    Spencer sighed. “Then what am I doing out here? Really, Michael, if this is your idea of a good time, we might be less compatible than I hoped. Talking of ‘hoped,’ did you see your mask, by the way? Was it as exceptional as you’d anticipated?”
    Michael didn’t speak immediately. With a small smile, he said, “It’s beautiful.”
    “Hmm. Beautiful. I detect a note of disappointment, however. Are you—” He stopped as Michael grabbed hold of his arm. “What?”
    “Shh.” Michael stood still. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. He turned his head slowly left, then right, and loosened his grip. “Go,” he said.
    “What are you—”
    “Leave. Go home. I’ll come soon.”
    Spencer didn’t move and didn’t answer. His own Noantri hearing, acute as it was, detected no sound beyond the howling wind and the hiss of the city’s unceasing traffic. Nor did he scent anything unusual riding the rushing air. But he felt something: a current on his skin, a dark voltage new to him but charged, unmistakably, with danger.
    A roar blasted the night. A blur of movement: Spencer spun, but not in time. Something smashed into him, knocked him painfully to the ground. Something alive, he knew, because, while he lay on his back, breath knocked out, he saw it bound up and after Michael, who was racing away into the darkness under the trees.

8
    M ichael Bonnard took off along the darkest route he could find. He sprinted up and over a small hill, loped down the far slope in great long strides. Icy wind whistled around him. He had to lead Edward away from Spencer.
    This was Edward, no doubt. It astounded Michael to find him in the city—Edward hated the concrete streets, the crowds, the cars, the steel—but he was here and he was raging. On the bitter air Michael could smell Edward’s scent, sense his heat, feel his fury. A fury so great, an anger so overpowering, that Edward had Shifted.
    Disaster. For Edward it was always, always anger that triggered the Shift. Michael could use anger, but other states also: panic once, as a child; another time, the exhilaration of first love. It was harder for him, though, no matter what. His flash point was higher. For Michael the Shift had to be intentioned, a matter of determined will.
    Plunging into a tangle of shrubs, he tore at his clothes, trying to free himself, trying at the same time to summon that overwhelming, cresting sensation that would be his own trigger. Anger. Fear. Shock. Whatever he could use. Michael didn’t know why Edward had come here, what powerful need had driven him so far from home to a place he detested: but right now, Michael knew with certainty, Edward was burning for a kill and he was hunting.

9
    S pencer gathered himself, drew a deep breath, used it to mutter an oath, and raced after Michael.
    At the time of his Change, Spencer George had been a landed aristocrat with an estate in Sussex. He could ride a horse, wield a sword, shoot accurately with a flintlock pistol, and creditably execute every dance in Ebreo da Pesaro’s
De Practica
. Once he’d become Noantri, his grace, strength, and stamina all increased. He was grateful for, and delighted in, that fact in the bedroom; but outside that sanctum, with the exceptions of shooting, swordplay, riding, and dancing, physical exertion had for five hundred years remained on Spencer’s list of ways he would rather not spend his time.
    Comparable to going to church.
    But Michael was in trouble. Spencer ground his teeth as his pounding footfalls up a