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"and then the spirit is bound to the item you picked to be the keeper, and voil¨¤! Instant way to transport theet around themselves"

I eyed the small blob of yarn on Allie&039;s pallow to it, a little shimmer that warned it was not all that it seemed "That is very handy, I admit Butaround That is, they can get in a car with "

Allie nodded and tweaked the satin eiderdown on the bed "Christian er roo cozy Especially since you and Kristoff have been separated for so long"

"You&039;re going to have to forgive me, but I&039;m curious-why did you believe that we&039;re innocent when everyone else didn&039;t?"

Before Allie could say anything, the door to a corner closet was flung open as a small child burst out, a towel tied around his neck in the fors bared as he yelled, "I aive Josef He likes springing out at people," Allie said with a ling noises that I i "He and Esme watched one of the old Dracula rows up"

"Wise up, childwen of the night!" the boy shouted as he cli off with a triuhed "That was my first response, too Christian was less amused, but you kno the Dark Ones are-they may look modern and sound modern, but they are far too medieval for words sometimes You should hear him rant when I let Joe watch BuffyYou are innocent, aren&039;t you?"

"Of the charges laid at my doorstep? Yes," I said, soe of subject

Josef cli on it until his ht so" She herded the boy back into the closet, telling hi is in there"

"Van Helsing!" Josef&039;s face lit up as he struggled with the knot on the towel

Allie patiently untied it, tossing the towel on the chair as the boy disappeared into the closet, pulling the door closed after hi I can&039;t say I blah they had the va in it, but that happens a lot Where e?"

"Um Kristoff and I are innocent?" Exhaustion swept over ht" She consideredthose odd eyes scrutinizing h I had to admit that I liked Allie There was a sense of down-to-earth straightforwardness to her that I found refreshing "I knohat it&039;s like to have life out of your control, and I don&039;t like being uilty, you wouldn&039;t be quite so angry, if you knohat I mean"

I nodded "It just irritates me that everyone can suddenly think the worst of me after what happened I saved Kristoff&039;s life!"

She toyed with a small vase on the bureau for a moment "Well, you have to remember that it&039;s not just a matter of whether or not they like you I think Christian does He spoke quite well of you when he came ho a little face

"He&039;s he&039;s a bit scarred yet He went through some hard times and only recently found his Beloved But he&039;s Christian&039;s oldest friend, and he is actually a very nice et to know him He&039;s just a bit suspicious of people at first Given his history, it&039;s understandable"

"Do we really shed "So they say, but I think it&039;s a et used to it, and he doesn&039;t think of it any I s in perfu"

"Kristoff certainly didn&039;t look like he found you offensive," she said, a teasing note in her voice

I looked down atto discuss the issue of a relationship with Kristoff

"I&039; far et personal"

"It&039;s all right," I lied "It&039;s just that"

"You still have sos to work out"

"Yes"

"Who doesn&039;t?" She smiled "You should have seen Christian and ain "How did you find each other? I&039;m kind of amazed that they ever find a Beloved at all, since there&039;s only one for each vampire"

"Well, there is and there isn&039;t," she said with a little laugh "You&039;d have to ask a wo to confuse you, so we&039;llnaked and covered in blood from a hundred cuts all over his body It was theever"

I stared in horror at her

She laughed again "We had a rocky start Christian was deter to do with hiain "That&039;s not quite the proble in pain at the

"I&039;rief These guys ant as sin, but you have to ad to be said for the fact that out of all the women in the world, you&039;re the only one for hie of subject was called for "Do you think there&039;s any chance that if I worked on Christian, he&039;d let Mattias and Kristjana go?"

"Well" She slid me an odd look "Christian is the head of the Moravian Council That position has a lot of responsibility with it"

She waited athat wasn&039;t at all clear

"I&039;m afraid that I don&039;t see what one has to do with the other," I adht for a moment "He doesn&039;t break rules He can&039;t, not in his position And what you&039;re asking for would mean he&039;d have to do just that So no, I don&039;t think there&039;s anything you can do that will get him to release Kristjana and Mattias"

There was an odd emphasis on the word "release" that I didn&039;t quite understand My brain chased around a hundred different thoughts, all of the with the sao, I was going to be damned to Zoryahood for the rest of my life

"I think you and Kristoff will be co around the room "I&039;m sure you&039;ll have hi a hundred tiht of Kristoff being held prisoner, starved so callously "He does look better, but I doubt if he&039;s back to full strength"

"Probably not" Allie paused a moment "Despite what you may think, he wasn&039;t mistreated any more than the two reapers were Kristoff was offered blood-he just refused to take it We didn&039;t try to starve him, Pia You have to understand that for a Dark One to be separated from his Beloved for a short while is bearable It&039;s not comfortable in the least, not for either person, but it&039;s bearable But to go two ine the pain Kristoffdeprived of you And I&039;rand old tihter to lessen the resemblance between ed to eat just fine during our separation"

"That&039;s not quite what I one fortruly horrible, but a low-grade headache that persists no ht of the headaches I&039;d been prone to during the last few one to bothto have raines "I&039;ve had headaches a lot lately," I admitted

"But worse than that is a sense of" She hesitated, her hands esture "Oh, I don&039;t know quite how to describe it It&039;s a sense of being incos just don&039;t seeht, if you knohat Ifor the first tione "It&039;s as if you were hollow inside"

"Hollow, that&039;s it exactly And if you&039;re concerned about your other husband&039;s well-being, you&039;re welcome to talk to him He&039;s confined to a room on the second floor We don&039;t let him leave unattended-there are wards on the door-but we do take hiet a bit of fresh air He&039;s not oes for the other reaper, as well"

"A ward?" I asked "What exactly is that?"

"It&039;s basically a ical symbol that&039;s drawn in the air or on an ites like locks The ward allows people to pass through the door to enter the roo the door to the closet "Co There&039;s a va to"

"Vaed from the closet with an old-fashioned wooden shoe forit about as if it were a crossbow "Shoot the vales Go shoot Daddy"

The boy ran out of the roo at the door "If you need anything, just give me a holler"

"I will," I said, still distracted by the idea that I could be so affected by the loss of Kristoff Just in time I remembered the question I had wanted to ask "Oh, can I do the keeper thing with any spirit?"

"So long as they&039;re not bound to sohosts sound like the grounded kind The kind I summon are unbound"

"Unbound? I&039;m not sure I understand"

"Well, yours can make themselves seen and heard, and can interact with our reality There are other spirits out there who have to be Summoned to that state Those are the ones I deal with"

"How do they get that way?" I asked, thinking of the ghosts who&039;d been waiting for ed "All we know is that there are several types of spirits Some bound, some unbound, some present who refuse to be Summoned Still others, like Esme, refuse to be Released"

"Sent on, youfondly of Ulfur and his ghostly horse "He would have gone on to Ostri, but he stayed to help me"

"Bind him to a keeper and take hi he wants to go, that is Keepers are a great way to let them travel and keep them safe Not to mention out of your hair for those times when you want a little privacy"

I srin, and was about to thank her when Christian appeared in the doorway He held his son on one hip, the s frolare he gave his ould have scared ra, would it be asking too e my son to stakeVan Helsing That&039;s what Van Helsing does And I didn&039;t tell hi her boy on the head "Besides, I thought he was going to shoot you with his pretend crossbow What a clever little boy you are to make a stake out of the shoe form"

Christian&039;s expression turned into one of sheer martyrdom as he plucked the metal skewer out of his belly "That&039;s it I a your Buffy DVDs Kristoff, if you ever have children, I would advise you to ban any and all DVDs fros I have to say to Josef, and I believe they will benefit you, as well"

Kristoff, who had been standing behind him, watched with a horrified expression as Christian tossed the stake onto a hall table before taking his wife&039;s hand Allie winked atKristoff and me alone

"Pia, are you back?" The door oppositeof perfumed bath salts "That was you I heard I see you found Kristoff Hello again I don&039;t know if you reda and her boyfriend, Raymond, kindly offered to come with me to Vienna," I explained

Kristoff da exaed in a little eyebrow se a quick shower, but he wanted to go out and see the sights I assu the tourist thing?"

I glanced at Kristoff He didn&039;t look even remotely as horrible as when I first saw hiaunt, and er in him that had yet to be fully appeased "I think a rain check will be best"

"Gotcha How did the ed up a so I&039;ll tell you about it to to hold you to that Nice to see you again, Kristoff"

Magda withdrew into her room with a pointed look at me that warned she would, indeed, expect full disclosure

I looked at Kristoff Kristoff looked at me

"Aard?" he asked

"Well yes Kind of"

"If you would prefer I do not share a roo hi him into the rooether before If you&039;re worried I&039; to demand sex from you-"

"Christ, woman, is that all you think about?" Kristoff exploded suddenly, one hand running through his lovely brown curls

"Sex?" I asked,at his mistaken belief I started to protest, but he cutdown on my shoulders as I tried to back away "Why do you persist in deluding yourself that I don&039;t desire you?"

My jaw dropped for a moment before I snapped back, "Why? Maybe the fact that you ran away fro to do with it"

"I explained that," he said gri in his eyes that immediately made all sorts of hidden parts of me sit up and take notice "You said you wanted Alec I was si you what you wanted"

"What I wanted?" I bit back the screa instead, "Putting my wishes aside for a moment, why on earth would you think that Alec and I had a future? You kneas your Beloved, not his"

He releasedto cli to be so close to him The sense and scent and nearness of hi a huge war to decide whether I was going to yell at him or jump his bones

"We were Joined, but hadn&039;t, for lack of a better word, consuht not have been able to feed off you, but if you had set your ether, you could have a life with him with relative co without me, could you?"

His eyes flickered to the"Probably not But a Beloved can survive the loss of a Dark One Even if I died, you and Alec could have had a future"

I was silent for aaround in e that such a noble gesture wasdesire to be with -lost love

Tears burned my eyes for awith the blankets and pillows on the bed "Well, what&039;s done is done," I said, ever the pragmatist I wanted badly to tell him exactly how I felt, but I had already told him I didn&039;t want Alec, and he had responded as I kneould-a polite refusal to address the issue of any feelings between us beyond those of mere physical compatibility

"Yes, it&039;s done" There was a thread of soible in his voice I felt hih that the heat froht, I have been reize for such an oversight Having a soul again certainly wasn&039;t anything I ever thought would happen"

"Again?" I asked, curiosityme turn around to face him "You had one before?"

His face s to recognize s "There are two types of Dark Ones: those born to an unredeemed father, and those ere made"

"And you were one of the latter?"

"Yes" He walked over to the closet that Josef had been hiding in and pulled off his shirt, neatly hanging it on an eer "I was human once"

"I had no idea So, you and Andreas and your cousin were all human, but were all turned into va lance "Andreas and I share the same mother, but we have different fathers His father is a Dark One"

"Is? He&039;s still around?"

A rueful smile quirked his lips "Dark Ones don&039;t die easily Usually it requires an act of carnage Yes, his father is still living In Bavaria, I believe Andreas does not speak of him much-they are not very close"

"And your o," he said, turning away as he unbuckled his belt

I spent athe lovely muscles of his back before his pants dropped to the floor I stared at hiht of all that sculpted, delectable flesh