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"Yeah"

Well, shit Her experience with sex seemed so vanilla now "I was fourteen"

He slipped his hand down, trailed a finger over the skin of her hip that peeked through the blanket

"That’s young for a human"

"Yeah, well, I was a wild child Myho in foster care with people who couldn’t control me I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and I did it with lance at hie, merely watched her curiously "It kinda hurt Was over in about three seconds Earth didn’t ht after that, ot custody of ot about boys"

"Then what?"

It went against her nature to talk about this stuff, but his touch soothed her, coaxed her, lulled her into a place that felt foreignbut soh all her defenses and left marks on her that couldn’t be seen but were there nevertheless Why he would waste his tiutter only because Ky had rescued her from the life of a rodent, was beyond her, but for now, she wouldn’t question his motives

"My mom was killed," she said quietly "I went to yet another foster hoht, my foster dad ca her hip stilled, and a low-level ruht I took off Later, he was found dead, and a warrant was issued for my arrest"

"I’lad you killed the bastard"

"I didn’t He was beat up, but alive when I left him I think one of the other kids he ed, and his hand went back to stroking her

"What did you do after that?"

"I lived on the streets I did what I had to in order to survive It wasn’t pretty"

Silence stretched between them Maybe she shouldn’t have told hiusted Yeah, a deers closed around her ankle, and she found herself lying on the floor again, his heavy thigh pinning hers down, his chest covering hers "Is that what you’re doing now?" heher cheek "Are you doing what you have to in order to survive? Are you fking me because you need a roof over your head?"

Tay’s first instinct was to get angry But she was suddenly too tired to fight any with hiet protection orhad changed between theive her

"Please don’t make me answer that"

He drew her close, and for a ave often It was certainly soet often Co she’d really never had She couldn’t reed her It wasn’t that her uilt between them, one her mother had constructed out of the sha Tayla, a wall Tay hadn’t been able to topple noher hter fantasy Tayla had dreamed of The one where they were best friends Where they could bake together and laugh at chick flicks while curled up on the couch on Saturday nights

Yeah, her fantasies had been la up herher crack pipe from the cops

Anxious to escape theher think about them, she pushed away from Eidolonand froze as the floor lit up beneath them

"What is that?" She sat up, found that they were inside a pentagrahts

Eidolon’s expression went stony, completely flat and emotionless "Make yourself comfortable for a while I’ve been su a human"

Seventeen

Eidolon had never liked vampires Not after what they’d done to Wraith Not after what they’d reportedly done to their father when Eidolon was just two years old

The thread of prejudice had woven itself deep into the fabric of his soul, but his upbringing had given hiic to realize that not every vampire was the sa staff members were vampires, and he’d enjoyed all of the fe but contempt for any member of the Vampire Council Woret even one of them under his scalpel

Outside the hospital, of course

They’d suh his personal portal, as they always did, though they probably hadn’t expected him to respond so quickly This was the first time he’d seen the summons when it came, and he’d taken only a few minutes to shower and don a robe Tayla had asked questions, but he’d avoided the her only to help herself to whatever she wanted in the kitchen and make herself comfortable

Now he stood in the Vahty asses planted in gilded, thronelike chairs arranged in a seht him here Red and black tapers burned in copper candelabra, adding to thevamps loved, it was drama Hollywood had invented the Gothic vampire melodrama, and the vamps had adopted it as fashion

Eidolon really, really did not like vampires

Come forward

The mental compulsion came from the Key, a silver-haired vampire named Komir Eidolon resisted the command, willed his feet to remain where they were He was here to answer for a crioing to obey as if it were

"My respect for your work only goes so far, incubus," Komir said, and Eidolon smiled

"My medical work, orWraith would have said, which seeiven that Eidolon was here to pay for Wraith’s transgressions

"Both," a feht said, her voice an appreciative husky o even huskier just before clax

"Silence, Victoria," Koestured to one of the two burly enforcers flanking Eidolon

"Escort him to the platform"

The platform that was stained with the blood of countless others, that would soon be stained with Eidolon’s Again

"Hold," he said "One of yours was recently taken by Ghouls What do you know of them?"

Komir’s eyes narrowed "Why do you care?"