Bite Club Page 0,36

it earlier, but he wanted me to extend a personal invitation to you to join his exclusive sparring group. But you can't tell anyone, whether you decide to join or not. It's more fun that way. Our secret, you see."

"Fun," I echoed. "Are you in it?"

"Only as a spectator," she said, and smiled again, a slow, wicked stretch of those wet, full lips. "I'm a lover, not a fighter, Shane. Although I'm quite sure you're both."

I felt hot all over, and, yeah, again, I'm a guy--don't judge. I love Claire, I do, but this was a dream. And besides, Claire had just ditched me to run off on her own when I needed her.

I tried to think about Claire, but the perfume in the air was so strong, so sweet, and I could almost feel how good it would be to sink into this dream, let it take me away.......

"I think it's time for me to go," Dream Girl said, and I felt a cool brush of lips on my cheek. It made me shiver all over. She laughed, low in her throat. "Do think about my proposition, sweet boy. I'll talk to you soon."

"When?"

"When you come to the new group," she whispered, and put her fingertips against my lips. "Quiet now. Someone's here."

Best dreamever.

Right up until the door flew open.

Inside the room, Shane said, "When?" and Claire just couldn't stand it, not at all.

She threw open the door so forcefully it banged into the wall and almost hit her on the backswing.

There was a blur of motion, too fast for her eyes to track, and a flutter of curtains at the window, and when she blinked, Shane was sitting alone on his bed, headphones on, looking dazed. He picked up the remote, flipping channels on the TV, moving like a sleepwalker.

"Shane?"

He looked up at her, face bathed in that pale blue light, and for a second, he didn't look anything like the Shane she knew.

Then he looked straight at the screen again as he shoved his headphones back.

"Hey. I thought you were sleeping," he said. "Then I checked again, and you were gone."

All her righteous indignation fell into confusion. She'd been going to accusehim , not the other way around...but now, she wasn't sure anymore what she'd actually seen. A blur. It could have been the flickering TV light combined with the wind blowing the curtains on the window. And the voices...the voices could have been the TV, too.

But she, on the other hand, had undeniably sneaked away, in the middle of the night, without telling him.

"There was a ladder under your window," he continued. "And unless you were planning to do late-night house painting, I don't know why you'd be out there climbing on a ladder. Front door's perfectly good if you want to leave, far as I know."

"I had to...It was--" This was ridiculous. She hadn't come in here tobe confronted. "Who was in here with you? I heard her talking to you."

Shane raised his eyebrows and looked back at the TV, where a woman was lying around in skimpy lingerie, talking on the phone and winking at the camera. Some kind of phone sex ad. "You mean her? She's been on five times an hour. Sometimes they even run the ads back-to-back."

"No, I mean--" Whatdid she mean? How had this gone so wrong, so fast? "I mean, there was a girl in here. A vampire." It had to be a vampire, to move so fast.

Shane shook his head. "You're kidding, right? You know how I feel about them. And I'm not a fang-banger."

"You said you'd stop saying that." Because of Eve, of course. And Michael.

"Yeah, well, nobody here but us breathers. Or is that something I can't say, either?"

She was losing the thread of all this. It was all slipping away, like a dream at dawn. "Shane, Isaw her. I thought--"

"Yeah," he said. "I thought the same thing when you were gone without saying a word to me. Just be straight with me, okay? Was it Myrnin?"

She was speechless, absolutely speechless. For one thing, she couldn't lie about it--ithad been Myrnin who'd shown up in her room in the middle of the night. And shehad run off with him. And now, inexplicably, she felt guilty about it, too. She could feel a traitorous burn in her cheeks, but the words just wouldn't come to save her.

Shane's face went still and cold. "Yeah. That's what I thought."

"Shane, I--"

"Morganville's changing you," he said. "You used to be scared