It was a perfectly reasonable question. And Sam didn't miss the fact that Jude stayed right where he was. She wasn't sure why, of course. But she was weirdly grateful, all the same.

That helped. Not that what she was about to say would ever, ever be easy.

"No," she said. "Not contagious."

She turned to look up at him. And the Beast came out like it had never gone.

Kindred weren't like the vampires on TV. Her eyes didn't turn back. No veins rose on the surface of her skin. No bumps or lumps or mumps. Sam was exactly the same as before, give or take two pinpricks slipping from beneath her upper lip. But there was a change in her all the same. The air of a predator emerging.

No doubt, she was a monster again.