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sense. She wasn't even sure why. He
    just seemed lost somehow.
    Oh, yeah, Mr. Badass temper was lost . . .
    Right. She was losing it. "Have you heard from
    Gloria?" she asked Jesse, trying to distract
    herself.
    He shook his head. "Not even a groan. I'm
    thinking the Daimons ate her."
    Simone hated the very thought. No one deserved
    such a fate. "I hope not. She seemed really nice."
    "I hear you." Jesse floated back toward the
    curtains.
    Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
    "Come in," Simone called.
    Carson entered the room carrying a small
    handsaw.
    Simone took a step back, curious about his
    intentions. "What are you doing?"
    He indicated her bracelet with the tip of the
    saw. "I was wondering if this might work to get
    that bracelet off."
    She smiled in relief. For a second, she was
    afraid he was going to make good on his threat to
    silence her. "You are my favorite person on the
    planet right now. Yes, please try it."
    Carson laughed as he moved to take her wrist
    into his hand. He paused a minute to examine the
    bracelet. "It looks like regular gold."
    "Aphrodite said it was Atlantean. Something
    made by the gods."
    67
    He drew his breath in sharply. "Oh . . ." He
    pulled back.
    "Is that bad?"
    "Maybe. I don't know enough about them to even
    guess what trying to cut this off might do to you.
    For all I know, I could end the world."
    She pulled her arm out of his grasp. "Please
    don't. There was a cliffhanger ending on Dexter
    last week and I have to see how it ends."
    Her words seemed to surprise him. "You watch
    that?"
    "Religiously. As an ME I'm morbidly fascinated
    by it."
    "Given my job and life, that's a show I avoid
    as much as the Animal Planet network." He backed
    away from her. "I'll leave you two alone again."
    He'd barely stepped through the door before she
    heard the rumble of a deep voice behind her.
    "Where am I?"
    "Wow," Jesse said from the bed. "The dead has
    risen . . . again."
    Ignoring Jesse, she went to Xypher's side. His
    blue eyes were rimmed with red and bloodshot. His
    skin still had a grayish cast to it and by his
    shallow breathing she could tell he was in a lot
    of pain. "You're at Sanctuary."
    He drew a deep breath, then grimaced.
    "I smell Were-Hunter."
    "Were-Hunter?"
    He shifted slightly under the blanket before he
    spoke again. "Lycanthrope."
    "Oh." It actually made sense to her. Dark-
    Hunters hunted the Daimon vampires. Dream-Hunters
    hunted dreams and . . . well, it made her wonder
    what a Were-Hunter would hunt.
    Yeah. She forced her thoughts away from that.
    "I think a Were-Hunter may have helped carry you
    in here."
    68
    Xypher tried to sit up, then hissed.
    "Careful," she said, rushing toward him. She
    put her hands on his chest, then pulled back as an
    electrical shock went through her. She didn't know
    why, but touching his chest was extremely
    disconcerting, and it made her breathless. "You
    took a nasty stab straight through your body and
    Carson said we couldn't give you anything for the
    pain."
    A tic worked in his jaw as he lay back on the
    bed and pulled the cloth from his forehead. He
    stared at it as if it were an alien form wanting
    to suck his brains out.
    "You were feverish" she explained.
    His scowl deepened. "You did this?"
    She couldn't understand his ire. It was as if
    her kindness truly ticked him off. "I thought I
    was doing something nice for you. Sorry."
    "Why would you do something nice for me?"
    "Because you were hurt and bleeding."
    Still there was no reprieve in that cold,
    penetrating stare. "What do you care about that?"
    "I went to medical school to help people. It's
    why I do what I do." "Why?"
    Never in her life had she met someone who had
    this much trouble accepting help. Dear Lord, what
    had they done to the poor man that something as
    simple as putting a cloth on his feverish brow
    made him this suspicious? "I'm sensing here that
    you have a problem with my being nice to you."
    "Yeah," he said. "I do. People aren't nice.
    Especially not to me."