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“Which means what?”
“Which means it didn’t count,” I snapped, and then wished I hadn’t, because it hurt. I stifled a groan and put my elbows on the counter, supporting my throbbing head.
“And who decided this?”
“We did.”
“And which part of ‘we’ came up with the get-out-ofjail-free card?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Yeah,” Billy said. “That’s what I thought.”
I took the washcloth off so I could glare at him. “I don’t recall appointing you my conscience!”
“You don’t need a conscience. You need some goddamn common sense! You used to have some, remember? You’re the one who told me what those things are like—”
“Mircea isn’t a thing.”
“Oh, so he’s not a monster all of a sudden? He got upgraded? I guess I must have missed the memo!”
I turned and walked out of the bathroom. Billy’s faintly glowing backside was sticking out of the wall above the dresser, framed in the mirror like a bizarre trophy. But all things considered, I liked it better than the other half right now. Get him wound up and he could go for hours, and I was so not up for it tonight. Or this morning. Or whenever the hell it was. The room was dark, but there were blackout shades under all the drapes in the suite, so that didn’t mean much.
“Okay, ‘monster’ is out,” Billy said, getting himself sorted. “So what are we calling him now? Sugar Tits? Baby Cakes? Angel Boy?”
I got a sudden image of a very naked Mircea, fire-warm skin backlit by flames, the same ones that had formed a vague halo around his head. He wasn’t an angel, I knew that. But regardless of what Billy thought, he wasn’t the devil, either. And it had been only one night, and he’d sworn it wouldn’t make a difference—
“Why are you here, anyway?” I demanded, going on the offensive, because my defense kind of sucked right now. “I fed you before I left.”
“Yeah, and that’s all I care about! You were supposed to be back hours ago!”
“Well, I would have been, but . . . there was a delay.”
“A delay that left hickeys all over your neck and made you walk funny?”
“I’m not in jail, you know,” I snapped. “I can come and go whenever I—” I stopped. “What hickeys?”
He pointed silently at my neck. I pushed the old-fashioned collar of the coat aside and leaned closer to the mirror. And saw—
“Son of a bitch!”
“You didn’t notice?” Billy demanded.
I winced. “No. And keep your voice down.”
“Why? No one can hear me but you.”
I rested my forehead on the cool top of the dresser. “That’s kind of the point.”
He snorted. “And to top it off, you’re hungover!”
“It was the wine. It always does this to me.”
“Then why’d you drink it?”
“Because after the night I’d had, I thought I deserved it,” I muttered.
Billy sighed, and a moment later I felt a ghostly chill on the back of my neck. It felt good. “What went wrong this time?”
