Hot Blooded

believe, as
opposed to just what they see."
    Mariann wrinkled her nose.
    "It requires that I bite her first," Bastien added, wanting to be clear. "A
blood-bond helps cement my power." She opened her mouth, then shut it when he
laid a hand along her jaw. "There's something else you should know. Your friend
is pregnant. From the looks of her aura, the father is the boy with the tattoo."
    "Pregnant." Mariann's voice was so breathy even he had trouble hearing her
response. "And you can see that? Wow." She rubbed her arms as if they were cold.
"She'll want to have it. She's crazy about Eric, and she loves kids. But she'll
need her job more than ever. She has no other experience. If I can't keep the
bakery going, I don't know what else she can do."
    "Emile and I could hire the boyfriend as our handyman. Make sure he gets a
good, steady paycheck."
    "That's very kind, but not as good as Heather being able to support herself.
Frankly, I can't imagine her swinging a hammer."
    Bastien smiled, wondering if she realized how modern such sentiments were to
him.
    Mariann looked up, her brows drawn together above her nose. "Would biting
Heather hurt the baby?"
    "Not physically. After a brief period of weakness, being bitten strengthens
the human immune system. The baby would benefit as well. Chances are good,
though, that the child would be born with a predisposition to my influence.
Among our kind, in part because of my age, I'm a skillful shaper of minds. The
question is, do you trust me not to abuse my power?"
    He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep her from seeing them shake. Though
he hadn't tried to read her, her doubts—about him, about men in general—were
obvious.
    She stared at him, her gaze as sharp as a knife. That was one trait she'd
kept from her human days.
    "Heather is yours," he said, "just as Emile is mine. I wouldn't do this
without your approval."
    "Mine to protect, you mean."
    "Yes." She paced away from him and stopped, head bent, arms crossed, the toe
of her silly blue sneaker tapping the grass. "You've never thralled me," she
said without turning around.
    "I wanted to win your love, not compel it."
    She sighed and faced him again. "I want that, too. I want Heather to interact
with me just as she would have before, even if she sees me as human. I don't
want her free will diminished in any way. If you can promise it won't be, my
answer is yes."
    He released his breath gustily. "I can promise. I'm very, very good at what I
do."
    She laughed, though he hadn't meant to be funny. "Modest, too."
    He discovered her gift then, the particular
upyr
talent that
expressed itself most strongly in her. She came to him with a swiftness that was
little more than a blur, a movement that to humans would have seemed
instantaneous. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she rose on tiptoe to kiss
his cheek.
    "I trust you to keep your word," she said, "which is more than I'd say about
most of the world."
    He pulled her to him and held her tight, thinking she'd never know what a
gift she'd just given him.
    Â 
    HE had tears in his eyes when he pulled back. Mariann could hardly believe
it. Apparently, her approval meant a good deal.
    "Do you want to come in with me?" he asked.
    She shook her head. "I said I trust you. Plus"—she rubbed one finger across
her lips—"I, uh, don't think I'm up for watching you enjoy it. If my experience
with a cold glass of the stuff is anything to go by, it's pretty much impossible
to take blood without pleasure. But don't worry. I'm not the kind of girlfriend
who freaks out over every smile. I'm a mature modern woman. You go do your
thing."
    Amusement had been playing around his lips. Now it broke into a grin. "
'Girlfriend,' " he repeated. "I can live with that. But don't
you
worry." He leaned close enough to whisper in her ear. "I fully expect, even
hope, that you shall come to be possessive."
    His shift to teasing rattled her. She could only watch as he stepped jauntily
into her bakery. Remaining outside while he went in might have been her most
surreal experience yet.
    "Mature," she said to the swinging O'Faolain's sign. "I am entirely grown
up."
    She let five minutes pass, then ten, before her curiosity drove her in. The
front room was clean and quiet, the floor recently swept. In spite of being left
to her own devices, Heather had managed to stock the displays. Mariann saw an
awful lot of cookie bars, but they seemed to have