Thirty
The corridor lights are too bright.
I've walked this hallway a hundred times. The fluorescents never bothered me before. Tonight they land behind my eyes like something physical, and I press the heel of my hand against my temple and keep moving.
Maximus walks beside me. His hand finds my lower back as we leave the conference room. The map is still lit on the screen behind us. The witness list. The cover story. Julian signed off an hour ago, but all of it is still ticking forward without us.
"You should feed," he says.
"Later."
"You should feed now."
"I'll feed when I stop smelling like a parking lot in Piedmont."
His hand stays where it is.
The compound is running. Operational. But the corridors are too quiet for a building with this many people in it. Marcellus passed us in the south corridor without speaking, his strideunchanged, his jaw locked. Ethan hasn't left his terminal. The cleaning crew is working the main hall. Somebody mopped. Somebody always mops.
I reach our quarters. The door closes behind us.
I stand in the middle of the room with my boots still on, my shoulders aching, and a metallic taste at the back of my throat that won't clear. My skin carries heat I can't account for. I press my palms against my thighs and breathe through it.
Not now. Whatever this is, not now.
It passes. It always passes.
Maximus is at the window. He hasn't moved to undress. His back is to me, and the set of his shoulders carries the night's full weight.
He turns.
"I spoke to Elena."
I wait.
"I've been tracking changes in your biology." Measured. Something that's been sitting in him for a while. "Your temperature has been climbing. The nausea after the Veil crossing. How your body burns through exhaustion differently than any vampire I've known." He pauses. "Tonight you came off the east bank winded, and you don't get winded."
He's been watching me. He's been cataloging it.
"I asked Elena to run a full panel when you're ready. Whatever Konstantin's modifications are doing, I want her looking at it."
"You've been keeping track."
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Since Thessivane."
I look at him across the room.
That's so completely him it hurts.
"I'll go to Elena tonight," I say.
"Thank you."
I cross to him. His arms come around me. I press my face into his chest.
