RPOV (11:32 am)

I sat down reluctantly beside Adrian and gave Dr. Phil a dark look. His lips curved slightly under his bushy gray mustache, like he found it funny. I turned up the glare in response. The amused smile remained. Great. I could scare a Strigoi with that glare, but a human shrink? Of course not. I edged away from Adrian, who was slumped in his chair with a dark face. I sighed.

Stage lights switched on, blindingly bright, but I knew the cameras weren't on yet. Dr. Phil didn't know what had happened.

"Tell me about your situation," he said, leaning forward.

I inclined my head toward Adrian. "I cheated."

He arched a brow. "That's it?"

"No," said Adrian, "but…" He struggled for words a moment. "She…well, from the start she was in love with someone else."

"My, um, teacher," I explained. "There was a seven-year age gap."

Dr. Phil turned to me. "Why don't you tell this part?"

I nodded. "Well, like I said…I was seventeen and he was 24. He was, um, mentoring me, so we were in close contact a lot. Then there was a…an incident…" My mind raced. I couldn't bring up the lust charm—how to humanize this? "We were…drunk"—Adrian struggled to repress a laugh—"I, uh, went to his room—we were in a boarding school—and…" I coughed. "We came…close. Really close. To, you know. But we, um…snapped out of it?" The lie came smoother now—or rather, the heavily edited truth. "We broke apart because I realized my best friend was in danger. We called the police…"

"Did anything happen to her?"

"No." I scowled. "She's the one who called and arranged this. She's very much alive and well."

He smiled slightly, the way Abe often did. "So you aren't suffering from PTSD. Go on?"

I bit my lip. The PTSD thing was a sore subject.

He noticed it. "What is it?"

"Um…" I shifted. "Some would say I am, or I was."

He raised a brow again. Damn it! Even a fucking human could do that, but I couldn't? What the hell?

"I saw my friend killed," I explained. "And I killed his murderers."

"Yeah, and she started seeing his ghost after that," said Adrian unhelpfully.

I stared at him. Son of a bitch. "He saved your ass!"

"And how did he save my ass, exactly?"

"Because he alerted me and Dimitri when the school was under attack, you idiot! He was our early warning!"

"Wait a minute," Dr. Phil interrupted. "Your school was under attack?"

I shifted uncomfortably again. "Yeah. By, uh…" Damn it. "Um…"

"You can't remember?"

"By a gang," Adrian interjected. "They gathered a bunch of followers and attacked her school. I was hanging around there when it happened."

Dr. Phil watched me. "And your ghost alerted you and Dimitri to this? Who is Dimitri?"

"The guy I love," I said. "And yes, Mason's ghost told me about it." I folded my arms defensively. "So clearly he's real, or I'm stunningly clairvoyant. I'm leaning toward the first one. Oh, and he showed me the place where the gang was hiding out. Correctly. More proof."

He shook his head. "We'll deal with that later. Anything else?"

"Uh, yeah. We had sex right before the attack. Dimitri and I."

"Oh. Okay. Why did you start dating Adrian?"

I hesitated. "Because…um…" I stumbled through an editing attempt. "Right after the attack, Dimitri was sucked into the gang. He started changing…so I broke up with him."

"All right. And afterward?"

It was then I noticed Adrian forcing back hysterical laughter…probably at the image of Dimitri in a gang. "Shut up," I hissed.

Dr. Phil gave him a calculating stare. "Why the laughter?"

Adrian shot me a panicked look. I crossed my arms. The message was pretty clear: you got yourself into this and you can get your own ass out. He glared. "Just…a random memory," Adrian said uncertainly. "The Moroi queen—" His jaw slammed shut and his eyes grew huge. It would have been comical if not for the fact that he'd just let slip one of the biggest secrets in the world. It took second only to the secret of how Tiger Woods had kept his mistresses hidden away so long.

"That's what the leader of the gang called herself," I covered quickly. "She's…a little overconfident."

He raised a brow again. "Really? Because I seem to recall the term "Moroi" from Russian/Romanian mythology, referring to a living vampire."

I opened my mouth to say that was where the gang got its name, then abruptly shut up. Why would the supposed gang take its name from the kind vampires? And how would gang thugs have a clue about Russian/Romanian mythology anyway?

Dr. Phil gave me a hard look. "Show me your teeth."

I flashed a full, charming smile. "If I've suddenly sprouted fangs, feel free to inform me."

He gave Adrian a sharp glance. With the same flippant attitude he always wore, he flashed the good doctor a brilliant white smile that belonged on a Crest commercial…aside from the fangs, that is.

People gasped. Assistants reared back. Only Dr. Phil remained unflinching. "Jessica," he called.

A young, pretty blonde stepped cautiously forward. "Yes?"

Dr. Phil looked back toward Adrian. "Prove yourself."

Adrian nodded, leaned forward, and pulled the girl toward him. Her hazel eyes grew impossibly wide as his fangs neared her neck. She screamed. He bit down hard, white fangs glittering red. Her scream dropped off into a moan, then faded into a happy sigh. Her eyes grew dazed.

The entire room watched, transfixed, holding their breath in both horror and amazement, as Adrian's mouth moved against her neck. I couldn't believe he was doing this. The Moroi world had enough shit to deal with without mixing in a bunch of trigger-happy humans. I didn't particularly want to get shot again, and I really didn't want to get taken down by a human.

Adrian finished, pulling away and wiping blood from his lips. He pushed the girl gently toward me. He'd apparently been hungry, because she was white and completely out of it. The amount he'd taken danced along the danger threshold. Her makeup did nothing to hide the pallor underneath. I let her sit on the floor with her back against my chair and met Dr. Phil's eyes. "Okay, you got your demonstration. You realize we have to keep this secret."

His gaze was steady. Still watching me, he inclined his head slightly to the side, offstage. I followed the tilt of his head to my right. I swept the huge room—and, to my horror, met a blinking red light atop a camera.

"Fuck!"

His lips quirked. "Why don't you tell us the real story?"

Ohhhh…shit. That's all I have to say.