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“Leslie is not your ex,” Nova said slowly and clearly.

Ryker hadn’t gotten a vote when the five of them unanimously banned Jacqueline’s name from friend get-togethers. All five had expressed various degrees of concern or alarm toward Jacqueline when he’d first brought her along to a gathering.

“She just seems like a mean girl. I don’t know how else to say it, but I’m afraid she’s too mean for you, honey.”

“I don’t trust her, man. Something’s wrong with y’all, between y’all.”

“It doesn’t feel right when she’s around. I think you should be careful.”

“Are you sure you’re happy with her? Does she make you feel safe and happy?”

Claire had been the strongest Jacqueline denouncer of them all.“That woman is a shark, Ryker. She’s going to hurt you.”

“I know Leslie isn’t Jacqueline,” he said, breaking their rule and earning hisses around the room. “But…”

“But your brain and your body forgot,” Mackey said with all the confidence of a professional psychologist. “So we’re reminding you.” He gestured to Ryker’s phone sitting face-down on the desk. “Call your girlfriend. Now.”

“I can’t.”

Philippa slipped from the room and came back in seconds with a blood bag. She tore the seal and held it out. “Ryker, sip on this. I think you need it.”

He knew the theory, of course: after a physical injury or emotional shock, a small amount of blood could fortify a vampire in pain. He wasn’t in pain; he was tough. Yet his hand reached out and took the bag, and he took a small sip. His headache receded almost to nothing. His mind cleared, and hesaw the absurdity of ignoring his friends, standing them up, telling them to leave when his distress must be obvious. He’d never leave one of them alone in his condition.

He sipped again, and his twisting chest loosened, just a little.

“Sorry,” he said. “I…I can’t believe y’all piled into Mackey’s SUV for this.”

“Of course we did, you idiot,” Claire said.

“Sorry for the glare,” he said to the twins, and they nodded. Apology accepted, no grudges among friends. Not these friends anyway.

“Now,” Mackey said flatly, “for the love of logic, will you please call your girlfriend.”

Ryker pushed to his feet and scooped up his phone. Five pairs of jewel-tone eyes watched his every move.

“Okay, listen,” Ryker said. “I’m going to call her. Thanks to all y’all. But I need privacy for this. Go back to your drinks and wait for me. I’ll come after I talk to her.”

“Will you, though?” Claire said.

“It’s a promise. However this goes, I’ll meet you there.”

He waited until Mackey’s vehicle was no longer in scent or sound range, and then he tapped his phone screen to send a video call. But…wait. Stop for a minute. Think through everything Leslie hadactuallysaid, not what he had heard through his panic.

She couldn’t give up her mountains for him. Of course not. No one who loved her would ask her to.

She couldn’t become someone else for him. Of course not. No one who loved her…

And there it was. He finally saw what had happened between him and Jacqueline. Unlike Leslie, Jacqueline had wanted to be his everything, insisted on it, and claimed he should be hers too. For a while he had done his best to oblige her. He had tried to empty himself for her, tried to become who she said she wantedat any cost to his health, his sense of self. When his hollow insides ached and when the whole of him wasn’t enough to fill the bottomless hole inside her, he had blamed himself. When she’d told him he wasn’t enough, he had believed her.

And when Leslie had told him she couldn’t be the emptying one, he had heard Jacqueline’s voice instead of Leslie’s. No matter what was actually said, he heard that he wasn’t enough, wasn’t worth keeping around.

Everything between him and Jacqueline had been wrong. Leslie was right: becoming someone else to makeanyonehappy was wrong. Sure, he would fail in the long run, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that he’d be throwing himself away. He would never want Leslie to throw herself away for him, so he must never do it for her.

“Okay,” he said to his quiet study, his file folders and his big mahogany desk and his bookcase. “Okay.”

He sent a video call to his girlfriend. Not ex. Girlfriend. Fixing this wouldn’t cost his entire self, wouldn’t cost him a thing. Time to fix it.

Fifteen