re you sure you'll be okay?" Bliss looked around the dirty hotel room. She'd never been inside. Dylan had always insisted they meet in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel. The hotel itself had seen better days. It was dilapidated and falling apart, one of the old New York landmarks with a literary and scandalous past. The Chelsea was where a heroin-mad Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed Nancy Spungen, where Dylan Thomas died an alcoholic. It was also the place that inspired Bob Dylan's "Sara" ("Stayin' up for days at the Chelsea Hotel...") and where Allen Ginsberg penned some of his poems.

She walked around the room, peering out at the rainy street through the blinds. The first night he had returned to her, she'd been shocked and happy to see him. She'd never truly believed he was gone, but it was still mind-blowing to find out he was alive.

That night she'd begged him to stay nearby, but he had insisted on this hotel. He felt safer downtown he said, and had shuddered at the thought of spending another night in one of those five-star plush hotel suites the Conclave had trapped him in while he was being investigated for Aggie Carondolet's death.

The night he'd returned, she'd wanted to be close to him, to feel his body next to hers. She'd felt a closer kinship to him knowing he was like her, a vampire, than a mere Red Blood she could suck dry. Before he'd left, they'd had...not quite a relationship, but more than a flirtation. They'd been about to start something...She still remembered the taste of his skin, the feel of his hands underneath her shirt.

But Dylan hadn't shown any interest in picking up where they'd left off. While he'd never rejected her outright, she still felt rebuffed romantically. That first night, she had tried to put her arms around him, and he'd hugged her impatiently, quickly letting go as if touching her repulsed him. He'd demanded they go seek Schuyler and confront her, and Bliss had spent hours talking him out of his plan. They had argued, and she had marched him to this hotel, where he had been holed up since...

In this dirty, smelly suite. Didn't they have housekeeping? Why was this allowed? Newspapers stacked waist-high, empty cans littered about, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.

"Sorry for the mess."

She took a seat on the corner of a plaid sofa that was covered with the remains of the Sunday Times. She suddenly felt so tired. She'd been waiting for him to come back, dreaming about it for so long - and now he was here, but it was nothing at all like she'd imagined. Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. He had tried to hurt Schuyler; he had tried to hurt her.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Dylan spoke. "Bliss, I don't know what came over me back there. You know I would never...never ..."

Bliss nodded curtly. She wanted to believe him, but the strength of his force of will on her mind still throbbed. He had done this to her, cut her with a knife - a mental one, but that did not diminish the sharpness of its blade.

Dylan sat next to her on the couch and pulled her to him. What was he doing? Now he wanted to kiss her? Now he wanted them to be together? When he'd done nothing but make her believe he didn't want that?

She had to agree with Schuyler and Oliver. Dylan was dangerous. He had changed. Was he corrupted? Was he turning into a Silver Blood? He'd taken Aggie, hadn't he? After their meeting at the Odeon they had placed Dylan in the back of a taxi, and Bliss had had a quick, whispered conference with Sky and Ollie.

"He can't be alone."

"I'll stay with him," she'd promised them.

"Be careful. He's not the same."

"He's not sane."

"I know," Bliss admitted.

"What are we going to do?"

"We'll figure it out. We always do." That was Oliver. Always optimistic.

And now here she was, in this dirty, smelly room, with the boy she'd once loved so much her heart had ached for months after his disappearance.

Dylan peeled off his jacket. It was a nylon one, a light beige windbreaker, the kind they sold at warehouse stores where you could buy tires in the same aisle as your underwear. She dimly remembered stuffing a bloody leather jacket in the trash. Whatever happened to that? Incinerated.

She stiffened as his hand grazed her arm lightly.

"What are you doing?" she asked, wanting to be angry but feeling a rushing, queasy excitement instead. He was so different from the Red Blood boys she'd had. Mimi was right - there was something about being with your own kind that got the blood flowing in a different way.

He nuzzled her cheek. "Bliss..." The way he said her name, so softly, so intimately, his breath warm in her ear.

"Stay with me," he said. Before she could even halfheartedly protest, he had deftly maneuvered it so they were lying on the couch, her knees underneath his, his thighs pressing against hers, his hands entwined in her hair, and she was running her hands all over his chest - he'd gotten scrawny, but there was a hardness to his muscles that hadn't been there before - then his tongue was in her mouth...and it was so sweet...She could feel the tears behind her eyes slipping down her cheek, and he was kissing those away too...God, she had missed him...He had hurt her, but maybe you only hurt the ones you love?

He fumbled for the hem of her shirt, and she helped him lift it up; he buried his face in the hollow beneath her neck, and then suddenly he jumped away, as if burned.

"You still have that thing," he said, leaning as far back as he could, pressed up against the other end of the couch, away from her. "Palma Diabolos ..." He was speaking in a language she could not understand.

"What?" she asked, still dizzy from his kisses. Still feeling drunk with his scent. She looked at where he was pointing.

The necklace. Lucifer's Bane. The emerald hung in a chain over her heart. Somehow she had never returned it to her father's safe. Somehow she had gotten into the habit of wearing it everywhere.

It comforted her to know it was there. When she touched it, she felt...better. Safe. More like herself.

Dylan looked stricken. "I can't kiss you with that thing around your neck."

"What?" Bliss pulled her shirt back over her head.

He continued to look as if he'd been poisoned. "You've been wearing that all along. So that's why I couldn't ... I knew there was a reason." Then he was babbling again. In a different language. This time it sounded Chinese.

Bliss put her shirt back on. He was incredible. She'd been a total idiot. Okay, so maybe she'd promised Schuyler and Oliver she'd keep an eye on him, but it wasn't like he was a danger anymore. He knew Schuyler wasn't a Silver Blood. Plus, he was old enough to take care of himself.

She certainly wasn't going to stay here one second longer. She was humiliated. She had no idea how he really felt about her. He ran hot and cold. One minute he was ripping her clothes off, and the next minute he was cringing away from her as if her body were the most disgusting thing he'd ever seen. She was tired of this game.

"You're leaving?" Dylan asked as she gathered her things and headed toward the door.

"For now."

He gazed at her sadly. "I miss you when you're gone."

Bliss nodded as if he'd just told her something innocuous about the weather. Dylan could take his hangdog eyes and his sexy voice somewhere else. She just wanted to be alone.