“I never used to be. I don’t think.”

She was also pretty and pale, and had to be dog tired. He’d worked her, all of them, damned hard that afternoon, and Cian had put them through the wringer tonight.

Sure she’d bitched a little, King thought now. But not nearly as much as he’d expected. And when it came down to it, Hoyt was right. She’d been the only one who’d known the answer to what the hell they were doing here.

“That stuff Hoyt was talking about, what you said, it makes a lot of sense. We don’t straighten up, we’re easy pickings.” He popped the cap off the beer, swallowed half the bottle in one long gulp. “So I will if you will.”

She looked at the enormous hand he held out, then placed hers in it. “I think Cian’s lucky to have someone who’ll fight for him. Who’d care enough to.”

“He’d do the same for me. We go back.”

“That kind of friendship usually takes time to form, to solidify. We’re not going to have that kind of time.”

“Guess we’d better take some shortcuts then. We cool now?”

“I’d say we’re cool now.”

He polished off the beer, then dumped the empty bottle in a can under the sink. “Heading up. You ought to do the same. Get some sleep.”

“I will.”

But when he left her alone, she was bruised and tired and restless, so Glenna sat alone in the kitchen with her glass of wine and the lights on full to beat back the dark. She didn’t know the time and wondered if it mattered any longer.

They were all becoming vampires—sleeping through most of the day, working through most of the night.

She fingered the cross around her neck as she continued to write her list. And she felt the press of the night against her shoulder blades like cold hands.

She missed the city, she decided. No shame in admitting it. She missed the sounds of it, the colors, the constant thrum of traffic that was a heartbeat. She yearned for its complexity and simplicity. Life was just life there. And if there was death, if there was cruelty and violence, it was all so utterly human.

The image of the vampire on the subway flashed into her mind.

Or she’d once had the comfort of believing it was human.

Still, she wanted to get up in the morning and wander down to the deli for fresh bagels. She wanted to set her easel in the slash of morning light and paint, and have her strongest concern be how she was going to pay her Visa bill.

All of her life the magic had been in her, and she’d thought she’d valued and respected it. But it had been nothing to this, to know that it was in her for this reason, for this purpose.

That it could very well be the death of her.

She picked up her wine, then jolted when she saw Hoyt standing in the doorway.

“Not a good idea to go creeping around in the dark, considering the situation.”

“I wasn’t sure I should disturb you.”

“Might as well. Just having my own private pity party. It’ll pass,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a little homesick. Small potatoes compared to how you must feel.”

“I stand in the room I shared with Cian when we were boys and feel too much, and not enough.”

She rose, got a second glass, poured wine. “Have a seat.” She sat down again, set the wine on the table. “I have a brother,” she told him. “He’s a doctor, just starting. He has a whiff of magic, and he uses it to heal. He’s a good doctor, a good man. He loves me, I know, but he doesn’t understand me very well. It’s hard not to be understood.”

How could it be, he wondered, that there had never been a woman in his life other than family he could speak to about anything that truly mattered. And now, with Glenna, he knew he could, and would, talk with her of anything. And everything.

“It troubles me, the loss of him, of what we were to each other.”

“Of course it does.”

“His memories of me—Cian’s—are faded and old while mine are fresh and strong.” Hoyt lifted his glass. “Yes, it’s difficult not to be understood.”

“What I am, what’s in me, I used to feel smug about it. Like it was a shiny prize I held in my hands, just for me. Oh, I was careful with it, grateful for it, but still smug. I don’t think I ever will be again.”

“With what we touched tonight, I’m doubting either of us could be smug again.”

“Still, my family, my brother, didn’t understand—not fully—that smugness or that prize. And they won’t understand—not fully—the price I’m paying for it now. They can’t.”

She reached out, laid a hand over Hoyt’s. “He can’t. So, while our circumstances may be different, I understand the loss you’re talking about. You look terrible,” she said more lightly. “I can help ease that bruising a little more.”

“You’re tired. It can wait.”

“You didn’t deserve it.”

“I let it take control. I let it fly out of me.”

“No, it flew away from us. Who can say if it wasn’t meant to.” She’d bundled her hair up to train, to work, and now pulled out the pins so it fell, messily, just short of her shoulders.

“Look, we learned, didn’t we? We’re stronger together than either of us could have anticipated. What we’re responsible for now is learning how to control it, channel it. And believe me, the rest of them will have more respect now, too.”

He smiled a little. “That sounds a bit smug.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

He drank some wine and realized he was comfortable for the first time in hours. Just sitting in the bright kitchen with night trapped outside the glass, with Glenna to talk with.

Her scent was there, just on the edges of his senses. That earthy, female scent. Her eyes, so clear and green, showed some light bruising of fatigue on the delicate skin beneath them.

He nodded toward the paper. “Another spell?”

“No, something more pedestrian. Lists. I need more supplies. Herbs and so forth. And Moira and Larkin need clothes. Then we need to work out some basic household rules. So far it’s been up to me and King for the most part. The cooking, that is. A household doesn’t run itself, and even when you’re preparing for war, you need food and clean towels.”

“There are so many machines to do the work.” He glanced around the kitchen. “It should be simple enough.”