Kyan gave up trying to speak to her in English. "I do not know what that means."

"It means, Dude, you are gorgeous." She looked over him again and fanned herself with her hand. "Jet Li and Keanu Reeves all wrapped up in one great big yummy package."

People of mixed blood were considered inferior in China, and Kyan didn't care to be compared by this American to film stars. Still, the blend of East and West in her open, smiling face was somewhat intriguing, even if the Caucasian curves on her petite Asian frame were a bit too generous.

"Like what you see?" she asked, pulling back her shoulders. "Or are you like all these other guys and just want some worms?"

"I am not fishing." He inspected the shack. It looked like the sort of thing a refugee constructed out of scrap salvaged from trash heaps. It also smelled like it. "Your family, they own this… ?" He gestured at the shack.

She shook her head. "My parents live up north with my little brother. I just work here part-time on weekends to make some spending money." She sighed. "It's spring break, so I'll be here for an entire week. I need the money, but it's beyond boring."

Her complaints sounded childish. He had watched young women work themselves into unconsciousness on some of the collective farms in China. "You should get another job."

"But then I wouldn't have met you." She opened and closed her eyelids rapidly. "Maybe you could stop by later, when I get off work. We could go get a drink in town or something."

Her American accent made her Chinese sound very odd, but he could understand her perfectly. He might be able to use her. "Why are you here and not with your family?"

"School." She lifted her textbook up to show him the cover, revealing that it was a volume on economics. "I'm a junior at Stadlin University. It's about five miles that way." She pointed west.

Kyan didn't care for the way she spoke to him. She was too forward, too disrespectful. She gave out information too willingly. Her smile was too easy. And her breasts were definitely too large.

"Okay, so you obviously don't want to get a drink. The only other thing I've got are these." She lifted up a plastic container filled with a writhing pink mass. "The guys say the fish have been biting pretty good out in the basin. We rent poles and tackle, too."

"No, thank you." He would have to read her, and for that he would have to touch her. "What is your name?"

"Melanie Wallace." She pushed back her shoulders again. "My friends call me Mel. What's your name?"

"I am Li Kyan." He held his hand through the open window.

The girl took it awkwardly, as if she were not accustomed to such polite contact. "Are you, like, always this stiff with people, or is it just your first day in the U.S.?"

Kyan could not take anything from the faint sheen perspiration on her skin; she happened to be one of the small percentage of people whom he could not read. Not that the thoughts of a student would be of particular interest to him. She spoke both English and Chinese, however, and she was American-born. She would be able to speak for him and explain things to him.

"I need a translator," he said, holding on to her hand. "Will you come with me on my boat today?"

"I make six-fifty an hour just sitting here in this sweat-box." She eyed the container of worms. "Can you pay me seven?"

He released her hand and took some of the bills from the roll in his pocket, handing them to her.

"Yikes." Her eyes widened, but then she shook her head and opened the side door to the shack, coming out onto the pier with him. "Here." She handed most of the bills back to him. At his blank look, she added. "You just handed me a thousand dollars, dude. I'd have to work for you, like, forever to earn that." She fluttered her eyelids again. "Unless you want me to do something else with my mouth."

Kyan inspected her, hiding his distaste. She was perhaps a foot shorter than him, and dressed in a thin white shirt stamped with the name of her university. The short pink pants she wore were skintight and reached only her knees. On her feet were thongs showing off toenails with yellow and pink flowers painted on them. Small rhinestones flashed at the center of each flower. Her breasts bobbed unrestrained under the shirt, and the shadows of her nipples showed clearly through it.

If they had been in China, she would have been arrested. He told her that.

"Really?" she said, deliberately striking a provocative pose. "Do you think I'd get a cute Chinese cop to frisk me? Would they strip-search me?"

"It is not funny." Neither was the fact that he would have an image of his own hands stripping the clothes from her rudely healthy American body for the rest of the day.

"Come on, dude, I'm just kidding." Her breasts shook with her laughter. "How can such a cute guy like you be so uptight?"

"My name is Kyan, not 'dood'," he told her. "You are coming with me?"

She went back into the shack, shoved her books in a large tote bag, and came out, kicking the door shut behind her. Her fetching smile made dimples in her cheeks. "Let's go."

* * *

Chapter 11

"Richard Gere was right," Alexandra murmured as Valentin Jaus's driver skillfully drove the jardin limousine through the complicated mesh of downtown traffic. "If I'm going to die, let it be on Chicago concrete."

Being back in the city tore at Alex. She had accepted that she could never go back to the life she'd had as a human reconstructive surgeon, not until she found the cure for the Kyn pathogen. Assuming that there was one to be found. As her recent tests with heat indicated, the pathogen responsible for their mutation might be indestructible.

Then there was the small problem of giving up the incredible benefits of being Darkyn. She'd had them only a few years, but already she'd grown accustomed to being able to heal quickly and having the strength of ten men. Even her talent, the ability to read the murderous thoughts of both humans and Kyn, often came in handy.

Michael's long, sensitive fingers entwined with hers. "Do you still miss it?"

"Why should I? I was only born here, and grew up in this city, and met all of my friends here, and opened my first practice not five blocks from this spot." She sat back as they passed the hospital from which Michael Cyprien's men had abducted her. "What's to miss?"

John stared out the window. "We weren't born here."

"What?" Alex surged upright. "It says so right on my birth certificate—"

"We didn't have birth certificates. The church filed for the ones the state issued for us." Contempt colored his voice as he added. "They put that we were born in Chicago so it would be easier for the Kellers to adopt us."

Alex couldn't quite believe that he had never informed her of this stunning fact. "Then mind telling me where we were born?"

"I don't know," John admitted. "I was only a few years old when we came here."

"When our parents brought us here?"

Her brother's expression turned to stone. "Alexandra, I don't want to talk about this now."

"You never want to talk about it." And he wouldn't say another word on the subject; Alex knew that much from past experience. "I'm a big girl now, John, if you haven't noticed. I can handle whatever it is you've been keeping from me all these years."

John didn't reply.

"Just like the good old days."

"Alexandra." Michael said. "Your brother is tired. Leave him alone."

"Sure." Why was Cyprien defending John?

She brooded in silence until they drove past the dignified front entrance of the Shaw Museum.

"Have you heard from Thierry and Jema lately?" she asked Michael.

"I have been trying to persuade Thierry to take up suzerainty of the Carolina territories," he said. "He and Jema have bought a home there, so he may be coming around. They are staying with Locksley as they finalize the arrangements on the property."

Alex thought of the last time she had seen Jaus, standing alone in the moonlight. "Did anyone bother to warn Val that they were there before he left to go see Grandpa's sword?"

Now Michael tried to give her the stone face. "I'm certain that Locksley is aware of the tension between Valentin and Thierry."

"Oh, no." Alex groaned. "Please tell me you didn't set this up."

"I may have suggested to Locksley that it is time for Valentin and Thierry to reconcile their differences." He shrugged.

"So Robin's playing vampire peacemaker. Great." She thumped her head back against the seat.

"My suzerain are quite capable of sorting out their differences," he said. "Why does this upset you?"

"Hasn't Val been through enough?" Alex demanded. "He infected Jema, and he fought for her, and he lost her. To Thierry. Who, in the process of fighting over her, permanently disabled him. Do you have to rub his nose in it like this?"

"This is not merely about Jema, chérie. I need my lords paramount united. Personal resentments must be set aside for the greater good of our kind." He gave her a pointed look. "As we both witnessed during the tournament at the Realm, these old grudges can lead to disaster."

"The old grudges?" Incredulous, she stared at him. "Michael, in Kyn time, this whole thing with Jema happened, like, ten minutes ago. Val has been a mess ever since. You really think he's going to kiss and make up with Thierry for the good of the team? The guy stole his girl. The guy cut off his arm."

"Which you repaired."

"Which I sewed back on," she corrected. "Val can't use it. He's a walking slot machine minus the cherries. Every time he tries to reach for something, or clap his hands, or do the wave, he's reminded of that duel, and losing Jema. I'm surprised the guy hasn't completely cracked up by now."