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her own solution, as so many lower-class women often did. Unfortunately, there were no machines or sanitizing in those days. An abortion was a dangerous, often deadly, business.

"Oh God," I said again. I had never lost the need to appeal to my creator, despite my theoretical renouncement.

I clutched her hand, not knowing what to do. A half-dressed Etienne appeared in the crowd. I looked up at him desperately.

"You have to go get a doctor. Please."

Whatever injured pride he harbored over my rejection, he couldn't refuse me in that moment. I saw him make motions to leave, but Bastien grabbed his arm. "No, it doesn't matter." To me he said: "She's gone, Fleur ."

I looked at Dominique's young face. Her skin was pale, eyes blank and glazed over as they stared at nothing. I knew I should close them, but suddenly I didn't want to touch her. I dropped her hand, slowly backing up, staring in horror.

It was by no means the first time I'd seen a dead body, but something struck me about it then I'd never really considered with such shocking clarity. One moment she was here, the next she wasn't. Oh, the difference one heartbeat could make.

The stink of mortality hung in the air, painting the awful truth about humans. How short their lives were. And fragile. They were like paper dolls among us, turning to ash in the blink of an eye. How many had I seen come and go in over a millennium? How many had I seen pass from infancy to a gray-haired death? The stink of mortality. It threatened to overwhelm the room. How could no one else sense it? I hated it...and I feared it. Feeling suffocated, I backed up further.

Both Bastien and Etienne reached for me in some fumbling attempt at comfort, but I wanted none of it. Dominique, barely out of childhood, had just bled her life away in front of me. What fragile things humans were. I had to get out of there before I became sick. I turned from those who would console me and ran away.

"What fragile things humans are," I murmured to Doug.

The feeling that welled up within me now as I sat beside him was not sorrow or despair. It was anger. White-hot anger. Humans were fragile, but some of them were still in my care. And whether that was foolish or not on my part, I could not shirk my duty. Doug was one of my humans. And someone had nearly cut his time short.

I stood up, gave his hand a last squeeze, and strode out of the room. From the shocked glances Corey, Min, and Wyatt gave me, I must have looked terrifying. I hit the pause button on my righteous fury when I noticed something. "Where's Seth?"

"He said he had to go," said Corey. "He left you this."

He handed me a scrap of paper with Seth's scrawled writing.

Thetis, I'll talk to you later.

I stared at it, suddenly feeling nothing. I went numb. My mind would not allow me to focus on Seth just then. I crumpled the paper up, said good-bye to the band, and left the hospital. When I reached the lobby, I took out my cell phone and dialed.

"Alec? This is Georgina."

"Hey, Georgina!" I heard the anxious note in his voice. Almost desperate.

"You were right," I began, hoping I sounded anxious too. "You were right. I need more. Now. Tonight. Can you do it?"

"Yes," he said. There was palpable relief in his voice. "Absolutely I can do it."

We set up a meeting spot immediately. It couldn't be too soon for me. I'd been on an emotional roller coaster in the last twenty-four hours, and I was about to take it out on Alec. I couldn't wait. The fact that he seemed so eager for it was icing on the cake.

"Oh, hey, Georgina?" he asked, just before we disconnected.

"Yeah?"

His voice sounded strange; I couldn't decipher the emotion. "You have no idea how glad I am you called."

CHAPTER 19

The dealer's house sat away from the road, just like all sinister houses should, I suppose. My biased perceptions aside, there was actually little else about the house that was all that creepy. It was big and expensive-looking, spreading out lazily on beautifully manicured lawns, visible to me even at night. In a region where yards were at a premium, that much land signified a great deal of money. Unlike Bastien's place, this house had no similarly well-to-do neighbors. This house was in