on the bench and snatched them up. He turned to Ethan, crouching, small, but deadly.

Ethan stood his ground calmly. “Come on boy, I dare you. One move and I’ll have the perfect excuse to tear you to pieces.”

“Kurt, please, he’ll kill you. I’ve seen him do it.” A world of pain passed through Kurt’s eyes as he withdrew. The shears clattered to the ground.

“Get out, before I change my mind,” Ethan said, in a cold, low voice.

Kurt left the terrace by the steps, as dignified as one can muster at five-foot six. I wanted so much to follow and apologize for Ethan’s obscene treatment in my own special way.

Ethan turned to me. “That is why I can’t stomach Brovik’s presence.”

“He’s just a boy, Ethan.”

Ethan scowled, grabbing my arm hard. “How do you know so much about him?”

“Philip told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“For heaven’s sake Ethan, grow up. I’m not a baby. I know the score.”

He pulled back on my hair forcing me to look into his eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

“Let me go! You’re no better than Dirk.”

He put his hands around my throat. Boy, did I fear those smooth, manicured paws. I’d seen what they were capable of. How far could he be pushed before I bore the brunt of his rage? I closed my eyes, repulsed yet powerless to resist as his hands slipped down my body. Christ, I was jelly in his hands. He led me to a dark, terrifying place where my body and soul weren’t mine.

As Ethan’s vampiric centennial drew closer, oh how he brooded, deep black silences a truckload of wisecracks couldn’t penetrate. Looking into the mirror late in April of sixty-three, the thirteenth anniversary of my own immortal birth, I wondered at the woman reflected there. The world grew older, but the mirror reflected skin as childishly unblemished at thirty-three as it was at twenty, breasts that didn’t weigh down with the advance of age or soften in childbirth and a body as firm and smooth as the night my lord took me as his.

What was the thing Ethan placed about my neck? Another collar of slavery, cool and heavy, it caught the light. Deep brown smoke and amber fire burned in spite of its coolness.

“Topazes. To match your eyes.”

I touched my fingertips to the sparkle. “It looks much too expensive.”

He was pleased. “Seventeenth century Venetian, brilliant as the day they were set. You grow more so with each passing night.”

Palaver, more beautiful palaver and I didn’t trust it. “I never change.” I grasped the hand caressing my throat. “Don’t you find this dull?”

“You’re a kaleidoscope shifting into a fascinating new configuration with each turn and bend of light.”

“You’re in for a disappointment somewhere along the line.”

He bent to kiss my throat. “I have another surprise at the dock.”

Moored to our pier was the most beautiful little sailboat. “She’s yours. What will you name her?”

“Allegra, after Byron’s daughter.”

He looked at me oddly. “Why would you identify with that poor soul?”

The bay was smooth, the boat barely affected by the tide. The spring night was mild and the sea smelled of salt and iodine, female scent. I lay back on the deck trying to imagine how Ophelia felt when she drowned herself and watching the sky while Ethan watched me. I wasn’t the starry-eyed child he found and transformed. I was a grown woman all-too aware of his demons and mine. The exterior relationship was smooth as the waters of the bay. My lord, cool as always, a vision in cashmere sweater and light wool trousers, black hair falling onto his ice blue eyes. Nothing seemed amiss but tremors rumbled, old Neptune waking up, threatening to capsize us.

I closed my eyes. “Ethan, something is troubling you. Spit it out.”

He reclined next to me, fingers tangling in the waves of my hair spread out on the chair. “When I first saw you onstage my world changed.”

My eyes opened on him. “I’m not that girl anymore. Don’t be hoodwinked by an illusion you’ve created.”

He wrapped his arms about his knees. “Brovik sent a message through Gaius.”

I sat up, surprised that he uttered the name of his maker voluntarily. His eyes veiled as he spoke. “He sends felicitations on the anniversary of your birth. This year is the centennial of my own birth in the blood, come December. Our presence is expected. I can’t put him off any longer.”

My power to veil myself had become highly developed, but inside of me a battle