A Perfect Blood

numb as someone else moved me around. Saying nothing, Trent smoothly pushed me through the downstairs labs until we were rising up to the first floors through a different elevator than we’d come down in. The humming, chill silence of the basement labs was replaced by the warmth of neutral carpet and soft conversation as he wove me through the front offices, skillfully evading or redirecting comments or requests from curious employees.
    Almost without notice, the noise muted, then vanished. The warmth of the sun spilled in over my feet, and still I sat, doing nothing as the chair halted. I felt Trent slip around from behind me as he took a tray from someone coming in, then his beautiful voice rising and falling reassuringly as he ushered whoever it was out and shut the door with a soft and certain thump.
    Then there was silence. Slowly the wonderful scent of coffee slipped into me.
    My breath went in and out, and I looked up to see that we were in Trent’s office. The fake sun was coming in the huge video screen showing this year’s foals standing to take in the last of the warming rays, but it felt warm on my feet and looked real enough to me. Trent was sitting behind his desk, his feet up on his daily planner, his fingers steepled as he watched me, a curious tilt to his head, his fair hair almost in his eyes. Between us on a wooden tray was a pot of what had to be coffee and two empty cups with the Kalamack logo ghosted in silver.
    “Are you okay? You kind of spaced out.” He put his feet on the floor and leaned over the desk, an excitement I’d never seen before sparking in his eyes, making them almost . . . mischievous? “I’ve never said that before. Spaced out. But that’s exactly what you did.”
    Still feeling numb, I looked at the carafe of coffee, then my silver bracelet, the Möbius strip with Latin etched into it wrapped around me, shining in the sun. “Did I?”
    My voice trailed off as he got to his feet and came around to the front of the desk, his motions still having a quick edge. “You started to go into shock. I thought my office would be better than a roomful of helpful Ceri.” He hesitated. “Unless you want her in on this, too?”
    Having her here would be like asking someone else to take my bullet. No. I was done with that, and I shook my head as he poured two cups and offered me the first. It wasn’t the shock of injury, but the realization that the bracelet was going to come off, that everything was going to change. I was going to be a demon for real, the power, the responsibility . . . If people were going to die from my decisions, it would no longer be because I was too afraid to act. But to kill someone . . . I didn’t know if I could do that. I desperately didn’t want to be that person.
    The sound of the coffee chattering into the second cup was loud as I brought mine to my lips, my hands shaking. The mug was warm in my fingers, and the coffee slipped into me, both bitter and rich, shocking me awake. “Thank you,” I said softly as he sat back on the edge of his desk with his own cup.
    He inclined his head slightly, looking as fabulous as ever, more appealing than before because I had no idea what he was going to do, what he was capable of.
    “Don’t do that,” I said, my gaze going everywhere but to him.
    “Do what?” He sipped from his mug, one long leg draping to the floor, the other pulled up slightly.
    “Sit on your desk and look sexy.”
    Trent hesitated. Clearing his throat, he slipped from the desk, fidgeting as he looked at his chair, behind his desk. It was obvious he didn’t want to sit there, and looking somewhat sheepish, he used his foot to shift one of the leather chairs in front of his desk so that it faced me more fully. “I’ve never sat in one of my own chairs before,” he said as he eased back into it, slowly, as if testing it out. His eyes roved over his desk, taking it in from a new point of view. He might not have any idea what it meant to me—that he wasn’t behind his desk and in a position of power—but then again, he probably did.
    More nervous yet, I held my coffee with two hands and sipped, afraid of what was coming.
    “You’re ready?” Trent said, and I flicked a glance at him.
    Crap, he looked even sexier now, more relaxed, more accessible—more off-limits. I swallowed my coffee and rested the cup against me, warming my middle. “Yes.” My voice didn’t even quaver, but I was a wreck inside. Al was going to take