And yet he’d proven as useless as all the rest. He’d suggested that I learn meditation to improve my karma. And that I get the hell out of his territory before he ripped my head off and ruined his. He hadn’t offered any advice on how to solve my problem.

I stared at the dust bunnies under my bed and wondered if this was how it ended. If this was why I’d never met any really old dhampirs. If maybe we self-destructed, assuming we didn’t manage to check out early, like some kind of metaphysical time bomb.

I didn’t know. I’d always just assumed that I would follow the vampire example and go on living until I pissed off the wrong person. But maybe not. Because I was half human, too. And human aging had all kinds of issues attached to it, didn’t it?

Like mental illnesses that got worse over time, for example.

Fear clawed at my belly, as all the elements of my worst nightmares rolled together into one. The sense of powerlessness I hated, of not being able to control what I did, who I hurt. The dread of becoming like the things I hunted, of seeing the horror on people’s faces as I destroyed everything they loved, needlessly, uselessly. The terror of descending into a cage of my own mind, shouting, begging to be let out, while something else took control.

And forced me to watch.

I shuddered hard and sat up, wrapping my arms around myself. I wanted to shove the thoughts away, but I couldn’t afford it. Not now. Not when I didn’t know what had caused this.

And not when it had happened twice now.

The first time had been during a fight six weeks ago. I’d been hit with a stunner designed to take out a platoon of war mages, which should have taken me out, too. But my alter ego is stronger and I guess it had decided that taking a nap right then might not be a great idea, since we probably wouldn’t have woken up.

My dhampir nature had been in control for only a few seconds, but that had been enough to allow us to fight through the spell. And to freak me the hell out. But then, seeing myself in full-on Hulk mode wasn’t anything like the strangest thing that happened that day. And afterward, I’d managed to shrug it off, putting it down to extreme stress, or luck, or desperation.

That theory had been reinforced when weeks passed and it hadn’t happened again. I’d filed it away as a one-off, just another weird thing in a life not entirely devoid of the bizarre. Only apparently not. Apparently my control had had less to do with a stable psyche and more to do with other things. Like Claire coming back.

Or like my new favorite beverage.

I could see it now, due to my never having understood the point of a bed skirt. The bottle was thick blue glass, bumpy and bubbly and almost opaque, like the kind that puddles at the bottom of stained-glass windows. It had rolled next to one of the foot posts at some point, leaving a little trail in the dust. I reached underneath and pulled it out, and some liquid sloshed against the side.

It didn’t look like much, clear as vodka without the tint provided by the bottle. And it tasted like even less, just vaguely of the flowers and herbs it was made from—if flowers and herbs were in the habit of tasting you back. And drinking you down. And standing you on your head because fey fauna might be scary, but I honestly thought fey flora gave it a run for its money.

But while the wine had a kick like an enraged hippo, it was also the only thing I’d found that helped to control my fits. Or no, that wasn’t exactly right. It didn’t help. Help was what human hooch, Mary Jane, and living with a powerful null had done for me. Help was giving me fewer episodes, or helping them to be shorter, or giving me more time to get away from innocent people who didn’t need to meet Hurricane Dory whenever I felt one coming on.

Fey wine didn’t do that. Fey wine turned them off, stopped them cold, shut them down. It was the magic elixir I’d been searching for most of my life, and it had seemed like a dream come true when I first discovered it earlier this summer.

Until I’d started to notice a few things.

Like how it let vamps spy on my thoughts. Or how it eroded my edge in combat, almost getting me killed a few times. Or how I was fast growing dependent on the stuff. I’d cut way back after seeing how, even after Claire returned and I didn’t really need it anymore, I’d still wanted it.

Like, really, really wanted it.

Like right now, in fact.

I pulled the stopper out of the bottle, which wasn’t cork because the stuff ate right through it, and slammed back a couple shots’ worth. I can chug straight whiskey and not bat an eye, but a swallow of this stuff was enough to have me tearing up, to leave me gasping. But I hit it again right after, anyway.

And it was good. Not the taste, but the feeling it spread down my torso, through my limbs, throughout my body was just a huge relief. Not because it took away the pain—it didn’t—but because it ensured that, at least for a little while, I wasn’t going to be inflicting some on anyone else.

I shoved the stopper back in, dragged myself up and went to the closet. My clothes had been returned by whoever had retrieved them after the cataclysm. Meaning that half had been carefully folded and hung back up (Claire) and half were piled in a colorful wad on the floor (the fey). I shoved the wad aside, popped the door over my weapons stash and dumped most of what I had on hand into the big duffel I used for missions. Then I stuffed some clothes on top, stuck the wine bottle in the side, grabbed a jacket on my way across the bedroom and flung open the door.

And almost ran into the angry person standing on the other side.

Chapter Nineteen

“Going somewhere?” Claire asked grimly.

“Damned right!” I tried to push past her, and got slammed into the wall for my trouble.

“I don’t think so.”

I stared at her over the thin, paisley-covered arm that had me pinned, because Claire didn’t do a lot of slamming. Of course, she didn’t usually glare daggers at me, either, so today was obviously about new experiences. Too bad I didn’t have time for them.

I threw off her hold and took a step toward the stairs.

And promptly ended up making the acquaintance of Mr. Wall again.

My eyes narrowed; hers narrowed back. I dropped the duffel, which had ended up in between us, giving me room to slip under her grasp. And that worked great—for about a second. Which was how long it took for a scale-covered gauntlet to grab my shoulder and for the slamming to recommence, this time with a little more gusto.

“That’s cheating,” I told my still mostly human-looking roommate.

Claire scowled at me, or possibly at the remains of the sleeve on her once nice wrap dress, which hadn’t been designed to accommodate a dragon’s forearm. “And what you were trying to do wasn’t?”

“I was trying to get out of here—”

“Yes, I got that!”

“You know it’s necessary,” I said, struggling—uselessly, because when one of the dragon-kind puts you somewhere, you stay there.

“Like hell it is! You have a crazed vampire after you—”

“Not anymore.” Probably.

“—and a bunch of smugglers or whoever kidnapped you all of two days ago! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“I’m trying to do what you should have last night!” I snapped, starting to get angry.

“And what was that?”

“Throw me out! Instead you leave me here, inside the damned wards, where I might easily have—”

“Done what? Hurt me?” She looked incredulous.

“You aren’t the only one here!”

“I think your boyfriend can take care of himself,” she said drily.

“He isn’t my—that’s not who I meant!”

“As can the guards.”

“Damn it, Claire. You know who I mean!”

“No, I really—” I saw when it hit, when her eyes widened. As if it had literally not occurred to her despite my all but spelling it out last night.

“You’re sane when you transform,” I gritted out. “I’m not. And since I can’t guarantee I won’t attack someone who can’t defend themselves, I’m out of—”

I cut off because something had just zipped by us, moving so fast it was merely a blur of color.

I started to ask what the hell, but before I could get the words out, the blur had knocked a mirror off the wall, caught it a couple inches off the floor, put it back where it belonged, zipped the rest of the way down the hall and finally resolved itself into a small man with a smaller mustache. He was of medium height and slender, with dark eyes, slicked-back black hair, and a sharp dark outfit. It made him look like the maître d’ at one of the kind of restaurants that don’t take reservations, because if you’re not important enough for them to recognize you, you aren’t getting in anyway.

It looked a little incongruous next to the overflowing laundry hamper he had tucked under one arm.

“Who—” I tried again.

“The other reason I have a headache,” Claire muttered, as the maître d’ hoisted the basket of laundry—meticulously folded sheets and towels, by the look of it—and rapid-fired them into a linen closet, like a veteran poker player dealing cards.

If I’d tried that, they’d have ended up in a crumpled mess, and probably piled in the bottom of the closet. In his case, they obediently formed themselves into perfectly square piles with military precision, allowing him to kick the door shut with one mirror-bright patent leather shoe, zip back down the hall, tuck something into Claire’s apron pocket, and disappear down the stairs.

The whole thing had taken maybe ten seconds.

“That…was a vampire,” I said stupidly.

Claire sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“What did he give you?” I asked, because she’d fished it out.

She opened her palm to show me a little packet of pills. “It’s like they know what I need before I need it.”

“Not unless you’re going to dry-swallow. You don’t have any—” I stopped because I’d blinked. And now she was holding a glass of water.