Blood Pact

that make you feel better?"

    "No. Although it might have if they'd let me use real nails.”

    A facetious comment spoken with complete and utter sincerity. Even from across the room Henry could feel pulsing waves of anger radiating off of her. He wished now that he hadn't asked, that he'd ignored her mood and never been subjected to Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci's all-too-accurate analysis of Vicki's inability to commit. But now that he'd heard it, he couldn't let it rest. Vicki would continue to think about what Celluci had said, had obviously been thinking of little else since Celluci had slammed out of her apartment, and, now that her nose had been rubbed in it, would in time see it for the truth. At which point she would have to choose.

    He wouldn't lose her. If that meant taking the day as well as the night, his love gave him a right equal to Celluci's to assert a claim.

    You raised the stakes, mortal, he told the other man silently. Remember that.

    He stood and crossed the carpet to stand at her side, glorying for a moment in her heartbeat, savoring her heat, her scent, her life.

    "He was right," he said at last.

    "About what?" The words were forced out through clenched teeth. No need to ask which he was meant.

    "We can't, any of us, go on the way we have.”

    "Why not?" The final consonant carried the weight of a potential explosion.

    "Because, like Mike Celluci, I want to be the most important person in your life.”

    She snorted. "And what about what I want?”

    He could see the muscles working beneath the velvet surface of her skin, tensing around her eyes and the corners of her mouth and so he chose his next words with care. "I think that's what we're trying to discover.“

    “And what if I decide I want him?”

    Her tone held a bitter, mocking edge. Henry couldn't help but respond.

    "Could you give me up?”

    The power in his voice pulled her around to face him. He heard her swallow hard as she met his gaze, heard her heartbeat quicken, saw her pupils dilate, tasted the change in her scent on the air. Then he released her.

    Vicki jerked back, furious at Henry, furious at herself. "Don't ever do that again!" she panted, fighting to get enough air into her lungs. "I give nobody power over my life. Not you. Not him. Nobody!" Barely in control of her movements, she whirled and stomped across the living room. "I am out of here." She snatched her coat and bag up off the end of the couch, "And you can just play Prince of fucking Darkness with somebody else.”

    He hadn't moved from the window. He knew he could call her back, so he had no need to make the attempt. "Where are you going?”

    "I'm going for a long walk in the sleaziest neighborhood I can find in the hope that some dickweed will try something stupid and I can break his fucking arms! Don't follow me!”

    Even a security door can be slammed if enough force is applied.

    "Vicki? It's your mother. Didn't Mike Celluci give you my message? Well, never mind, dear, I'm sure he has a lot on his mind.
    While I'm thinking of it though, I did wonder why he was in your apartment while you were out. Have you two been getting more serious? Call me when you get a chance. There's something I have to tell you.”

    Vicki sighed and rubbed at her temples as the answering machine rewound. It was ten after twelve and she was just not up to a heart-to-heart with her mother, not after the day she'd had. "Have you two been getting more serious?" Jesus H. Christ.

    First Celluci.

    Then Henry.

    The powers-that-be had really decided to mess up her life.

    "Whatever happened to men who just want to get laid on a regular basis?” she muttered, flicking off the light and making her way to the bedroom.

    The pitcher of draft she'd downed in the gay bar on Church Street, the one place in the city safe from testosterone cases, churned uneasily in her stomach. All she wanted to do was go to sleep. Alone.

    She'd call her mother in the morning.

    The night had been filled with dreams, or more specifically, dream, the same images occurring over and over. People kept coming into her apartment and she couldn't get them to leave. The new staircase to the third floor bisected her kitchen and a steady stream of real estate agents moved up it, dragging potential tenants. The back of her closet opened into Maple Leaf Gardens and the post-hockey crowds decided to leave through her bedroom. First she tried the voice of reason. Then she yelled. Then she physically