snapped open.

“Here,” she said, putting it to his mouth.

He bit down greedily, as though starved, red liquid spilling down both sides of his chin. Eleisha kept expecting to feel guilt or nausea but didn’t. Edward left the room.

He came back a moment later with her black gown. “Get dressed. It’s our turn.”

“For what?”

“To hunt.”

“Couldn’t you have brought something back for us?”

“Oh, capital idea. Just waltz them past the desk clerk and dump their bodies out the window, I suppose?”

“Whose bodies?”

As those two words escaped her lips, Edward started in surprise. Some form of realization flickered in his eyes. “Get dressed, Eleisha,” he ordered. “And do something with your hair.”

Twenty minutes later, they were walking down a Southampton street, her hand inside his arm, striking the sharp image of a wealthy couple. But something felt wrong. She sensed it in his silence, in an intimate tension so thick she had to hold on to him to keep from running.

“Where are we going?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer.

An enormous number of strangers passed them. How could so many people live in one place? How could there possibly be enough food and water? And they were all dressed in such various forms. Edward sported a tailored brown suit tonight. Similarly dressed gentlemen tipped their hats to him, and factory workers in rags moved out of his way.

“It’s so crowded,” she said.

“Wait till you see Manhattan.” Her companion finally spoke. “There are sixty-four thousand Irish immigrants alone.”

“Sixty-four thousand?”

“That’s why I live there. No one is ever missed.”

She pulled her hand away. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Because I don’t know what else to do.” He ran a hand across his face and suddenly motioned to an alley. “In here.”

Pushing her up against a brick wall with his chest, his face moved closer until she could see tiny swollen blood vessels behind green irises.

“Can you read, Eleisha?”

“Let go of me.”

“Can you read?”

“A little.”

His grip reminded her vaguely of Julian’s strength—only Edward moved more like a tree, flexible and solid at the same time. Unable to disengage him physically, she fingered the fabric of his jacket and dropped her gaze.

“You’re hurting me,” she murmured.

His hands jerked back as though she were on fire; a mask of fear flickered across his face. “Don’t you ever try using that on me again!” he spat. “I’ll drop you in the East River.”

Her actions had been instinctive, without thought. “What did I do?”

Stomping his feet on the ground while walking in a small circle to regain control of himself, he muttered, “Should’ve thrown myself in the river when that clipper ship hit dock.”

“Why did you bring me out here?” she asked.

“To hunt! You really don’t understand, do you? I’ve never seen any vampire who could seep power like you before she’d even made a kill. God knows what you’ll be like in a few months.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How can you be so dense? Don’t you have the slightest clue? We are dead, Eleisha. And we aren’t dead. We’ll never get any older, but have to draw life from those we kill. I fed you from my own arm. Where do you think that blood came from? A cat?”

She stared at him. “You killed someone?”

“I’ve been killing for the past twenty-six years,” he hissed softly. “That’s what we are. It’s what we do. And I can’t believe that I’m actually standing here, explaining this to you.”

“I won’t murder other people.”

“Then you’ll starve. Life force from animals won’t give you enough energy. After a while, you’ll grow too weak to move at all and live forever in a state of frozen, emaciated agony. No one will take care of Lord William, and the same thing will happen to him. Isn’t that a pretty scene?”

For the first time in her life, Eleisha experienced hatred, not for Julian who had done this to her, but for Edward who told the truth. Rational or not, she hated him for forcing the reality of existence on her and for leaving her no control and no way out.

“Follow me,” he whispered. “Don’t ask questions, and just follow me.”

With no other choice, she walked behind him out of the alley and into a small pub. The smoke and human smells and crush of bodies caught her senses. Wooden tables, pints of beer, men playing cards, brightly dressed women in tight corsets . . .

What a different place. So busy and unaware of itself. Everyone so intent on individual activities.

Then she noticed Edward’s face. All traces of stress and