had never thought that he would feel that way about anybody. And

he wondered if she felt the-same way about him. Sometimes he

didn’t think she did.

It always seemed to him as if she was holding something back. It

was nothing he could put his finger on, but it was there, just the

same. It made him feel foolish and a little guilty, but there was no

avoiding it. It was nothing that she said or did, but somehow he

always felt that even in bed, Modred came between them. He

wondered, and he hated himself for it, if she ever thought of

Modred when they made love.

He could not complete with Modred. Modred was everything he

wasn’t. Modred was mature, sophisticated, handsome. Modred was

self-assured and confident, with the build of an Adonis and a

powerful, magnetic personality. And Modred was dangerous. A

killer. And though he knew that Kira was deeply disturbed by that,

he also knew that she was perversely fascinated by it. She was

drawn to him in spite of herself. She had always been a danger

junkie. It was one of the things that had made her a successful cat

burglar. She got off on risk, on taking chances. And there was

nothing risky about himself, Wyrdrune thought. He was safe and

eminently predictable.

He had no doubt that Kira loved him. He was the one she shared

her bed with, not Modred. Modred seemed completely oblivious of

her feelings toward him. It seemed incredible that he could be

unaware of how she felt about him. The way she sometimes looked

at him, the subtle clues in her manner and tone of voice and body

language, it was all there, plain as day. How could he fail to see it?

Maybe he simply chose not to notice.

Wyrdrune sighed and got out of bed. He looked down at Kira. She

was lying on her side, her legs slightly bent, her hands tucked

beneath her cheek. She looked so vulnerable lying there, like a

beautiful child-woman. She always tried to cultivate a toughness, a

streetwise, aggressive manner that was part of her survival

instincts, born of years of fending for herself. She always tried to

look tough, dress tough, act tough, but at night he saw her as she

really was. His gaze lingered on the graceful curves of her back and

buttocks, on her long, exquisitely shaped legs, on the delicate arch