SATURDAY, 4:57 P.M.

SARAH WATCHED NIKOLAS sweep the room with his black eyes. He narrated his thinking and his conclusions as he did so.

“There are people here who have no idea what we are, and others who come here specifically to meet us. The first trick is to figure out which is which.” His expression as he sized up the individuals in the crowd was serene, not predatory, despite his purpose. “There are a few obvious signs. The girl in the turtleneck sweater is probably not seeking one of us. Same for the Goth boy in the corner with the spiked dog collar. Most mortals who come here seeking each other look around. They examine other people, send flirtatious smiles, buy each other drinks. Some of them come here just for the atmosphere, in which case they are usually either attentive to the music or have brought something that clearly tells other humans they are not here to be picked up.”

He nodded to individuals as he spoke, drawing Sarah’s attention to the courtship rituals going on around her, as well as the obvious not interested signals some individuals were sending out.

Nikolas offered little further instruction. He focused on a young woman who was sitting in a corner booth, sipping a coffee and doodling in a notepad in front of her. Every now and then she looked around her, but she didn’t seem to focus on anyone or anything.

When Nikolas first approached, her expression was wary, which was unusual. Nikolas was handsome enough to turn heads in most situations. However, as he moved closer and she got a better look at him, it was as if she relaxed. She smiled a little shyly, and Sarah heard the human’s heart begin to beat faster.

Nikolas slid into the booth next to the girl as she moved aside to let him in. He ran fingers through her hair, and without any pressure from him she tilted her head to the side, baring her throat. There had been no words exchanged between them. As Nikolas had said, this girl already knew what she was seeking, and what Nikolas was seeking.

Sarah looked around, concerned. Wasn’t anyone else seeing this?

But no one else was looking. No one cared. Sarah had seen it a hundred times at the parties she had crashed; one human bled, and the rest were completely blind to it.

As she turned away she found a young man, no more than a year or two older than her, watching her. The instant Sarah looked toward him, he dropped his gaze. Then, when he realized she was still looking at him, he raised his eyes again. He stood but then hesitated, as if not certain whether to approach her.

He was attractive in a clean but scruffy way, with hair that was a little long—not as if it was intentionally styled that way, but as if he hadn’t had time for a haircut lately—and skin that would probably have benefited from spending more time in the sun. His eyes were a warm brown, questioning as he looked at her.

He looked like he was someone’s son or brother, the kind of person she used to try to save when she went out hunting. She wondered what he did when he wasn’t here hoping someone would come to use him. Was he in school? Did he have a job? Did he have dreams, beyond the wish that sometimes an immortal would have him bare his throat and drink?

She couldn’t see him as prey, as food. She simply couldn’t. She knew she needed to feed; she had resolved herself to that truth, and it wasn’t that she was refusing now, but she didn’t know how to see this obviously willing young man as a source of sustenance instead of as a human being.

She approached him, trying to fake more confidence than she felt. He smiled as she appeared to make up her mind, and then he seemed confused when she sat across from him instead of next to him as Nikolas had done with his chosen prey.

“Hello,” he said while she struggled for words. His tone was partially polite, partially friendly and more than a little questioning. He searched her gaze … no, her eyes. With her transformation, her Vida-blue eyes had changed to black. He was confirming what she was.

“Hello,” she replied. And though she kicked herself for it, she added, “What’s your name?”

“Jake,” he answered. “Jake Frose. I saw you come in with Nikolas.” He left all the associated questions unasked.

She looked at Nikolas, who was just pulling away from the young woman he had chosen—or had she chosen him? It was hard to tell, especially considering that Jake had surely picked Sarah out before she noticed him. Nikolas said a few words to the girl and then flagged down a waitress for her before coming to Sarah’s side.

“Jake.” He greeted the young man with a smile. “You aren’t performing tonight, are you?”

Jake’s face immediately took on a glow when Nikolas recognized him and addressed him by name. “Not tonight,” he answered.

Nikolas explained for Sarah. “Jake performs here a couple nights a month. He’s a student at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and one of the local artists that Kendra sponsors. He has a singing voice that can break your heart.”

Jake ducked his head modestly but did not deny the praise.

Nikolas continued with his usual assertive honesty. “Jake, my friend Sarah is very new to our world, and she had a less than glowing impression of what that world is like until recently.”

Jake’s eyes widened with surprise, and he blurted out, “You’re the hunter?” He immediately blushed and said, “I’m sorry. I’ve heard of you. Most of us have heard of you.”

Probably not in flattering ways, Sarah thought, given her recent occupation. Yet he was being nice to her. She didn’t understand. Was he that desperate?

He seemed to have grasped her concerns. He said to Sarah, “Kendra made it clear to me when I first met her that I don’t owe anything to anyone. She pays a lot of my bills, but she asks for music in return and nothing else. Anything else I give, it’s because I choose it, because I want to.”

“Why?” Sarah finally managed to ask.

So many of the bleeders she had met didn’t care if they lived or died, just as long as they could bleed. They gave up everything else, betrayed other humans to the vampires, sacrificed their dignities and their souls for the feeling that came when there were fangs in their throats.

Was Jake one of those?

Jake shrugged. “Why not?” he asked. “It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t injure me. I don’t donate on performance days, but other times, I don’t mind. Look …” He stood up, hesitated just a moment and then sat by Sarah’s side. “I’m offering,” he said. “I know you won’t hurt me. Nikolas won’t let you, even if your self-control isn’t perfect yet.”

He sat close to her, as if he would kiss her. He reached out to touch her cheek and then closed his eyes, turning his head to the side to bare the long line of his throat.

Nikolas set his hands on Sarah’s shoulders and said, too quietly for Jake to hear, “You’ve had that Vida control clamped down so tightly, you’re not even letting yourself acknowledge him with your senses.”

I don’t want to do this! she thought, glaring at Nikolas with a spike of frustration. How long before had she almost ripped out her cousin’s throat? Nikolas gave her an even look in return, waiting, trusting she would pull herself together.

She drew a deep breath and focused on Jake. She was trying to steady herself, but instead the inhalation brought to her the scent of his skin and the blood beneath. She had to drop her control inch by painful inch, consciously acknowledging the senses she had learned as a hunter to respond to or ignore as survival made necessary.

As if he sensed the right moment, Jake pulled her forward. The rhythm of his heart and blood and breath made a symphony, and she let herself drown in it.

That was his metaphor, not her own, she realized as her fangs pierced his flesh ever so gently. The embrace was intimate as his thoughts wrapped around hers, sharing what he felt: peace, joy, music. His entire world was music, rising and falling in people’s voices, in the tremble of lights and colors. He heard music even in silence and was constantly composing it from the sounds of the world. And his greatest art came from this sensation of oneness and sharing and being with eternity.

She felt Nikolas’s hands on her shoulders squeeze a warning, but she didn’t need it. Instincts compelled her to draw back before she went too far, and she knew she would never risk harming this beautiful, perfect instrument.

She let him go, and he leaned back in his chair, dazed but unharmed.

Sarah blinked and realized there were tears in her eyes.

“Now you know why Kendra chose him,” Nikolas said.

Sarah nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered to the artist before her.

His eyes fluttered open just long enough to focus on her. “Come back and see a show sometime,” he said.

“I will,” she answered, and she meant it.

Once again, Nikolas waved to one of the passing waitresses. He gestured to Jake, and the woman nodded in return.

“They’ll take care of him,” Nikolas said. “We should move on.”

Sarah nodded again, mutely, and followed as Nikolas led her away. She felt like she was still sorting through the crescendo of thoughts she had encountered. Was this how Kristopher experienced the world? If so, she could understand why he had thought that even with the Rights of Kin hanging over her head, she would want to see a show or visit a museum.

“Don’t fight it,” Nikolas advised. “When they’re willing, and unafraid, they share so much of themselves with us. Let it stay with you awhile.”

“When you talked about Kristopher going to live with Nissa, and about your trying to learn to hunt without killing, you acted like it was hard to survive that way,” Sarah said, speaking carefully, hoping not to offend him but desperate for the answer. “Even before you pulled me away, I was going to stop. It seemed like it would have been a tragedy to harm him.”

“If you feed regularly,” Nikolas replied, equally exactingly, “on willing donors who have a firm sense of self, you will rarely be tempted to harm them. Over time, the instinct will arise, and it will take either death or stronger blood to sate your hunger. If you are careful from the start, there are options that do not involve death, but fledglings taught to kill early have fewer choices.”

He was standing tensely, but he had not looked away, as if he knew she needed these answers. The encounter with Jake had made her reevaluate everything she had ever thought about the humans who willingly shared their lifeblood with vampires, and everything she had ever thought about the creatures who accepted that gift, but she still needed to know: what would she become, and was it something she could abide?

Nikolas continued, “I believe the shape of the power itself changes from the moment of the first hunt. There are those among us who say fledglings should kill the first time they feed, and that those who do not permanently limit their power. Perhaps it is true. What I have seen in the past century, and heard from others of my kind, is that those who kill in their first nights among us are driven more often to kill in the nights after.”

“You didn’t think it would be good to tell me this before I fed?” Sarah asked.

Nikolas shrugged, in no way defensive. “Knowing wouldn’t have changed your decision, and you would have trusted me less tonight if you suspected I might have had any motive to encourage you to kill. I will answer questions you have, but I have no reason to volunteer information that will do nothing but make you uncomfortable.”

“What about Kristopher?” Why hadn’t he told her this, when he knew how afraid she was of turning into a killer?

“In my brother’s defense, these are only thoughts I started having after he left, when I began to wonder why it was so easy for Nissa to survive without killing, and why Kristopher was able to survive with her, but it seemed impossible for me to do the same. Kristopher probably never had reason to give it any thought.”

Sarah nodded slowly. Trying to rally her courage, she said, “I think … there may be a few things your brother hasn’t had a chance to give much thought.”

She remembered his reaction to her sharing his memories of Christine. It hadn’t been feelings of love that had washed over him right then, but obligation.

She had seen the way these brothers lived, the bonds they surrounded themselves with and the way women reacted to them in general. She had accepted that Kristopher had probably flirted with hundreds or thousands of pretty girls in his lifetime, without any thought of “forever.” The only thing that made her different was that she had ended up dead when he hadn’t intended it.

Nikolas looked like he was about to remark on the subject when another voice interrupted them, saying, “Hey there, stranger.”

The problem with hunting in Manhattan, Sarah realized suddenly, was that she used to hunt in Manhattan … or if not on the island, at least near it. Even if it had occured to her earlier, with almost twenty million people in the New York metropolitan area, Sarah would have been comfortable with the likelihood of not running into anyone she knew. Unfortunately, luck had not been working in her favor lately.

Now the familiar voice, with its cautiously friendly tone, caught her off guard. Habit told her to smile and return the greeting warmly. After all, she and the hunter who hailed her at that moment had always been close.

She turned to face the witch, with no idea what she would do next.