Blood Debt

snarled.
    "No, I didn't." The implication of Henry's tone suggested that he'd achieved exactly the effect he'd intended. "Where's Vicki?"
    Glancing over Henry's shoulder and then disregarding Tony's silent warning from the kitchen, Celluci drawled, "She's gone hunting."
    "Hunting." It was an emotionless repetition that nevertheless held a wealth of meaning. "You knew it was going to happen when you asked her to come out here."
    "Yes." With his fingers laced tightly together lest he lose control of his reaction and put his fist through the glass, Henry walked over to the window and stared down at the lights of Granville Island. "I knew it was going to happen."
    "But that doesn't mean you have to like it."
    "You needn't sound so superior, Detective."
    "Superior? Me?"
    In the kitchen, Tony winced. He wondered if surviving a number of years as a cop created a personal belief in invulnerability or if that belief was necessary before starting the job. Whichever it was, Detective Sergeant Michael Celluci seemed to be having one heck of a good time flirting with death.
    "I told her that you deliberately provoked her attack." Not as relaxed as he appeared, Celluci watched the muscles across Henry's back tense and untense beneath the raw silk jacket. If it came to it, he knew he couldn't survive an all-out attack. Or even a half-strength attack for that matter—proven the last time he and Henry had tangled.
    "If you're attempting to divert my attention from Vicki to you, Detective, the sacrifice is unnecessary. If we are to lay this specter, we have no choice but to work together. It seems I must allow the possibility that we can overcome our territorial natures."
    "Big of you."
    "God damn it, Vicki!" Celluci catapulted off his chair so fast he lost his balance and slammed down on his knees, denim-covered bone cracking against the polished hardwood floor. "Do you have to sneak up on people like that?" He heaved himself onto his feet. "First him, now you?"
    Her hands on the back of the chair he'd so recently vacated, Vicki forced herself to smile down at him, forced herself to take her eyes off Henry Fitzroy. "Maybe you ought to cut back on the caffeine."

    "Maybe you lot ought to whistle when you come into a room," he snarled.
    You lot.
    Her and Henry.
    Impossible now to ignore the heated connection between them. He was standing by the window, his face expressionless, eyes shadowed.
    She couldn't tell what he was thinking, nor was she entirely certain she wanted to know. His heart beat slower than the mortals they fed from; hers matched it. His blood sang not an invitation but a warning; hers echoed it. His scent lifted the hair on the back of her neck.
    "So…" If only to prove that she could, she kept the challenge out of her voice and, if the words weren't exactly neutral, at least the tone was purely human. "I hear you owe me an apology."
    "Yes." He inclined his head. "But I've spent over four-and-a-half centuries believing vampires are incapable of sharing a territory, Vicki.
    Don't expect me to change my mind overnight."
    Her tone grew distinctly sarcastic. "Apologies usually begin with
    'I'm sorry.''
    "I'm sorry. You were right. I was wrong. I didn't give us a fair chance. I will this time."
    "Because you have to."
    He shrugged. "Granted."
    "You try that Prince of Darkness bullshit on me again, Henry, and I'm out of here."
    "So you've said in the past." All at once he smiled, and she saw not competition but one of two men she'd learned to love in spite of herself. "You haven't changed, you know, not beyond the obvious—you continue to be so definitely you. After I surrendered the day, I became an entirely different person."
    Celluci, still standing between them, measuring gaze flicking constantly back and forth, snorted. "Yeah. Right. You were a royal bastard before, you were a royal bastard after—with all the baggage that carries. Since you were barely seventeen when it happened, I'd say if you changed, you grew up, and that change comes to everyone."
    Henry opened his mouth and then closed it again, the protest dying behind his teeth. Even Vicki looked slightly stunned.
    Pleased with the effect, Celluci moved out into the room until he formed the third point of the triangle and said, "Now that's settled, we have a few other problems to deal with. The first, where's Vicki spending the day? Not in your bed…"
    "I assume you're implying, not in my bed with me. That isn't actually possible."
    "You bet your ass it