I probably should have told Ben I planned on going to Stefan's house that night. However, he would have wanted to come along. I needed an honest conversation with Stefan, though, and Ben's presence would prevent that.

I left work on time and changed clothes, purposefully selecting apparel that was both not sexy and comfortable. Stefan would be attracted to me even if I wore burlap but I wasn't going to encourage him. If it had Ben I was about to see, I would have just stripped naked and wrapped myself in a sheet. It would save time.

Full dark settled onto the land in thick shadows when I stopped outside Stefan's home. Above, heavy clouds blocked the stars. The forecasters called for snow. I could smell it on the sharp, cold air as I trudged up the front walk.

Stefan lived in a prosperous-looking neighborhood, in a brick two-story that looked as if it could feature in a Hallmark movie. Trust Stefan to purchase a family friendly home. Unlike other vampires, he saw his menagerie as something approaching family. I pressed the doorbell.

After a few moments, an older teen answered the door. "Can I help you?" She eyed me warily.

"Is Stefan home?" I asked.

"Who are you?"

"Judith."

The girl's upper lip curled. "You're the bitch."

I stepped close and let my façade drop slightly, allowing some of my inner monster peek through. "Take care, child. I may just decide to eat you."

She blanched and the heavy stink of fear rolled off her. I pushed past her into the house.

"Stefan?" I called. "I will go through this house until I find you. And I am in the mood for a hunt."

It was true. Ever since I left the office, a restlessness settled into my bones. I wasn't quite sure of the cause, yet.

A door upstairs opened and closed. Soft, socked footsteps pattered down the hall. Stefan appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked hollow-eyed and closed off. My stomach twisted. I had done that to him.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I got your message," he said, hoarsely.

"Do you forgive me?"

He didn't answer and pain lanced through me.

"I did you wrong," I admitted. "What recompense can I give?"

"There is no recompense great enough. You were with me but you left with him."

"I wasn't with you, Stefan. I agreed to go dancing. We danced. That was all that was going to happen."

Suddenly, he was standing in front of me. I hadn't even seen him move, something he would have had to work at to do. He grabbed me by the arms. "Didn't what we have mean anything to you?"

"Did it mean anything?" I shoved him hard enough to send him into the banister with a satisfying crack. "It meant everything to me, you bastard! But you were the one who left! I had to convince myself that you never really loved me just so I could let you go."

He flinched and dropped his eyes. "I did love you."

"Well, you had a hell of a way of showing it." From my purse, I drew out the box containing the bracelet. "Friday night, I acted on my instincts and I hurt you. For that, I am deeply sorry." I set the box on a nearby table. "I half-expected you to challenge Ben to a fight."

Stefan chuckled. "Like I did with that duke?"

"Oh, you mean the potbellied one I had no intention of even touching?"

"He made a move on you."

"And you gutted him in the street for it. I still remember how his bowels smelled when they ruptured."

"I stank of his blood. I made love to you while covered in it."

"It was the night you first told me you loved me."

"And you reciprocated."

"I would have kept reciprocating until the end of time. But you left. And I can't risk you leaving again."

"You've told Ben the truth, then?"

"Not yet."

Stefan raised a brow. "I wonder what his reaction will be once he's learned you're lying to him."

"I haven't lied to him."

"By omission, then."

That hit a little too close to home. My hands clenched into fists. "Good night, Stefan."

"Good night, Judith."

I turned on my heel and left that house before I said something we would both regret.

#

Ben tapped his foot as he waited. It was probably not a good time to call. Warren was probably sitting down to supper with his boy toy. But, what he needed to ask couldn't wait.

"Yes, Ben?" Warren asked, his Texan drawl rolling over the line.

"Don't laugh. I need advice."

Kyle, in the background, said, "That better not be werewolf business. We're having a quiet dinner tonight."

Warren, ignoring his partner, asked, "This wouldn't have to do with a certain phone call I heard you received at Adam's house yesterday?"

"How much of the pack knows about that?"

"All of them. Francis even worked up a rough translation that he's been passing around. I have a copy of it if you want me to read it to you. You can tell me how right he is."

Ben groaned and rubbed his face with his free hand.

"You're bringing her to the pack Christmas party, I hope."

Judith, his sex-kitten-slash-red-haired-goddess, in a house full of werewolves? There would be blood. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"She's yours, Ben." Warren's voice was gentle. "No one else would touch her."

He grunted. Warren was right but Ben's gut was not entirely convinced.

"What did you need advice about?"

"Her birthday is coming up and I don't know what to buy for her. And is it bad that she wants space right after we started fu, er, seeing each other?"

"For the first part, I can't help you. You know her better than I do. Just don't buy negligee. Not for the first gift, anyway. For the second part…" Ben heard Warren's clothes rustle as he shrugged. "Maybe things are just moving too fast for her. Not necessarily a bad thing if she's already eyeing the exits. Mercy did that plenty of times with Adam. He let her have her space and it all ended well."

"It almost didn't." He still remembered how the strain of that stirred up trouble in the pack. Mercy had been declared mate but hadn't filled the hole, mostly out of ignorance. Adam tried to take up the slack, which left him struggling to control his wolf. And if the Alpha couldn't control his wolf, the lesser wolves struggled as well. It was a fucking mess.

"But you're not the Alpha of a pack," Warren pointed out. "You can afford the time to coax the filly into the stable."

"I'm not making her my mate. It's a little early for me to say what we are." I just don't want to lose her so quickly.

Warren grunted as if he heard those unspoken words. Ben fiddled with a piece of junk mail on the counter. Restlessness consumed him ever since he left work and he wasn't entirely sure why. It was probably because of Judith wanting space.

"A shawl," Warren said.

"What?"

"For her birthday. It's not expensive like jewelry and whenever she wears it, she'll think of you."

"I like that. Thanks."

"Anytime."

Ben disconnected and started making supper. He decided on lasagna. It made a lot and was easy. As a werewolf, he consumed a ton of food.

A familiar car pulled up as he slid the dish into the oven. He was already halfway to the door by the time the doorbell rang.

Judith, in grubby jeans and a thick blue sweater that was a size too big, stood on his front porch with heartbreak riding the air around her. Pain reflected in her eyes. He gathered her into his arms and held her for a long time.

"You spoke to Stefan," he said. Ben smelled the vampire in her hair. "He hurt you." That last bit came out in a growl.

"We hurt each other," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Is everything between you all right?"

Judith laughed. It sounded bitter and broken. "Nothing has been all right between us for a while. I think we got used to pretending it was."

He rubbed her back. "What do you want me to do, pet?"

She drew back. "Take me inside. Feed me some supper because I'm starving. And then I'd like to forget about ex-lovers and focus on my current one."

"I thought you wanted to put the brake on."

"We can do that tomorrow. But tonight…" Her voice caught and unshed tears glimmered in her eyes. "Tonight, I need you. I need us—I need whatever this is between us."

The restlessness that had been plaguing him all evening settled. Ben kissed her.

#

Ben stood in front of his mother. She turned the pages of her fashion magazine.

"Benjamin, your father wants you. He's in the study."

In the weird logic of dreams, he was already walking down the steps to the study. His perfect mother couldn't know what awaited him. What he couldn't fight against because it was his father.

And if I can't fight, was it really rape?

The familiar pressure built in his chest as he descended the steps. Sheer panic and dread turned his gut inside out.

Judith met him at the bottom of the stairs. She wore the cream dress from work. She knelt in front of him. "You're not going to see your father, today or any day. He can't hurt you anymore." She held out her hand. "Come with me, Ben."

He took her hand. Instead of turning down the hall to the study, she drew him to a door that hadn't been there before. Judith opened it and bright light washed over them.

#

Looking over my shoulder, I watched Ben smile softly in his sleep.

When was the last time I entered someone's dreams? Usually, it took several blood exchanges before I could do that. I hadn't fed from Ben. Feeding certainly wasn't something I could do accidentally or in my sleep. He did not bear my mark.

So…how?

I reached out with my mind, searching for a bond of any kind. However, there was nothing. Just myself in my head and no magic between us.

What was more troubling was the information I had learned. Ben's father molested him as a child, on a regular basis. It made my skin crawl. There were such predators in the vampire world. They were protected by their power or their seethe. There were no laws to keep them from preying on children for sex or blood or both.

When I could, I killed those sons of bitches. Father discovered my hobby, though, and ordered me to stop. At the time, he had the ability to make such an order stick and I was forced to stand on the sidelines.

If Ben knew that I knew of his past—I wasn't sure how that conversation would go. First of all, it would mean explaining what I was. Secondly, Ben struck me as the character who wouldn't want his mind violated because it was too much like bodily violation. Thirdly, he probably wouldn't believe me if I told him it had been an accident.

So, he couldn't know. But if Ben's father still lived, he better hope he never met me on a dark street. I would have no problem feeding the ground his heart's blood. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more a trip to England sounded like a good idea.

I snuggled up against Ben. He muttered and rolled, pinning me onto the bed. I ran my fingers down his back and then raked my nails a little harder on the return trip. He moaned, shifting until he rested between my legs.

Half-asleep, he made slow love to me. I bit my lip and tried not to make much noise. I didn't want to break the dreamlike quality of the encounter. Though I loved rough-and-tumble sex, I liked it when Ben was sweet. He got such a vulnerable look on his face, like he was pouring his heart out onto me.

At the moment, though, his face was buried in my neck. I had to imagine.

Ben shifted his face so that his mouth was next to my ear. "Goddess," he muttered. "My goddess. My beautiful girl. My girl. Mine."

He continued, repeating the same phrases over and over like a prayer. I made a small sound as I approached orgasm and he tightened his hold on me.

"Mine," he choked out as he climaxed. I arched against him, reaching my own ecstasy at the same time.

He fell back into full sleep still inside me and I drifted after him.

#

The rest of the week passed with us taking turns at each other's houses. I emptied out a drawer in my bedroom so he could put his clothes there. The idea, apparently, of us putting the brake on things had gone out of the window when I came to him after seeing Stefan.

On Friday morning, Ben dropped a kiss on my forehead. "See you at work," he said.

"Mm-hmm." I went back to applying my makeup as I sat at my vanity table. I listened to him walk through the house, happy in how he moved through it with ease even though we'd been together a mere week.

He opened the front door but hesitated. His feet tread heavily as he returned to the bedroom. "You have a delivery."

"What?" I looked up.

Ben held a long box, the kind used in some flower deliveries. He held it to his nose and sniffed.

"What is it?" I asked. "Does it, I don't know, smell like Stefan?" If it had, I would have picked up on it. However, I was supposed to be human and a human would ask that question.

"No. It smells human. I just can't place it. And it also smells like roses."

I took it from him. Now that I held it, I could pick up the subtle scents of a human. I didn't recognize the person. Slowly, as if an adder was going to leap out, I lifted the lid. The box contained three deep red roses.

I emptied the box onto the bed. "No card," I said, peeling the tissue paper back.

"One of Stefan's people could have brought it," Ben said.

"You recognize a scent?"

"No, but I haven't met all of his people, sheep, whatever. Who else would send you flowers?" He raised a brow. "Unless there's another ex-lover in the area?"

I snorted. "No. They have to be from him." I shoved the roses back into the box. "Feel free to toss those in the trash on your way out."

"That's my girl," he said. "We won't keep these nasty damn flowers. They might have cooties."

I laughed.

Ever since Monday night, he'd taken to calling me his girl, like he did when he made love to me in his half-waking state.

"Off with you," I said. "I need to finish getting ready." I smacked him on the ass.

He saluted me with the box and left. As I finished applying lipstick, I wondered if I needed to have another talk with Stefan. It made sense if he wasn't so eager to give up. In fact, it would be strange if he did.

No, the delivery was meant to provoke a response. Contacting him about it was probably what he wanted. I did wonder how the delivery person managed to drop them off without waking Ben or me. Maybe it was in the darkest hours of the night, when sleep was heaviest.

But a bad feeling remained in the pit of my stomach for the rest of the day.