backed out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. The noise level abruptly dropped, thank God. The boss’s office was soundproofed. But the drumbeat was pulsing in my head, and I swore I could feel it through my feet even if I couldn’t hear it any longer.

“Please let me offer you a drink,” Michael said, smiling at both of us. Rudy decided to smile, too. His teeth were very sharp; in fact, they were pointed. Okay, half-human at most. I was suddenly and deeply frightened. The last time I’d seen teeth like that, they’d bitten bits out of me.

“You’ve never met anyone like Rudy?” Michael asked. He was looking directly at me.

I’m good at schooling my face. Telepaths learn that lesson early in life, or they don’t survive, is my guess. How had he known?

“I sense your pulse speeding up,” Michael said charmingly, and I knew I didn’t like him at all. “Rudy is a rarity, aren’t you, my darling one?”

Rudy smiled again. It was just as bad the second time.

“Half human and half what?” Pam said. “Elf, I suppose. The teeth are a giveaway.”

“I’ve seen teeth like that before,” I said, “on fairies who’d filed them to look that way.”

“Mine are natural,” said Rudy. His voice was surprisingly deep and smooth. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Some blood, please,” Pam said. She loosened her coat and leaned back in the chair.

“Nothing for me, thank you.” I didn’t want to drink anything Rudy had touched. I hoped the human-elf hybrid would leave the room to get Pam’s drink, but instead he turned and bent down to a little refrigerator to extricate a bottle of Royalty Blended, a premium drink that mixed synthetic blood with a large dash of the real blood of certified royalty. He popped the top off the bottle and put it in a microwave sitting atop a low filing cabinet. There were odds and ends on top of the microwave: a bottle opener, a corkscrew, a few straws in paper wrappers, a small paring knife, a folded towel. Quite the home away from home.

“So, you come from Eric? How is the North man?” Michael asked. “We were together in St. Petersburg at one time.”

“Eric is flourishing under our new ruler. He wishes you well. He’s heard good things about your club,” Pam said, which was outrageous flattery and almost certainly untrue. Unless there was a lot below the surface, this was a sleazy little club catering to sleazy little people.

The microwave dinged. Rudy, who’d been fiddling with the items on top of the microwave, took the drink out, putting one of his thumbs over the open top of the bottle so he could shake it gently. Not the most hygienic way of doing the job, but since vampires almost never get ill, that wouldn’t make any difference to Pam. He came around the desk to hand the bottle to her, and she accepted it with a nod of her head.

Michael picked up his own bottle and raised it. “To our mutual venture,” he said, and they both drank.

“Are you truly interested in having a further discussion with our new masters?” she asked. She took another sip, a longer one.

“I am considering it,” Michael said slowly, his accent even heavier. “I am tired of Russell, though we share a liking of men.” Russell liked men as fish like water. I’d been in his mansion, and it was full of guys who ranked from cute to cuter. “However, unlike Russell, I also like women, and women like me.” Michael gave us an unmistakable leer.

This woman didn’t like him. I glanced at Pam, who also enjoyed sex with either gender, to see her reaction. To my dismay, her cheeks were red—really red. I was so used to her milky pallor I found the effect shocking.

She looked down at the bottle in her hand. “This was poisoned,” she said slowly, almost slurring her words. “What did you put in it, elf?”

Rudy’s smile became even more disagreeable. He held his hand up so we could see the cut in his thumb. He’d put his own blood into the Royalty Blended. The human blood had disguised the taste.

“Pam, what’s this going to do to you?” I asked, as if the men weren’t there.

“Elf blood isn’t intoxicating like fairy blood, but . . . it’s like taking a huge tranquilizer or having lots of alcohol.” Her speech was even slower.

“Why have you done this?” I asked Michael. “Don’t you know what