[Okay.]

He sighs. [Thanks.]

[You're welcome. I don't suppose you know why he's so interested in popping up in your life on a regular basis?]

[Because he likes me?]

[Or something.]

[Really, that's why. He likes me and he's Rayne and this is how Rayne likes people.]

[Why does he like people in this way?]

[I'm supposed to know?]

[Well, I'm not planning to ask him.]

[He'd lie, anyway.]

[Among the reasons I'm not planning to ask him. I mean, I could tell if he was lying, but that doesn't tell me what the truth is.]

[Does there have to be something more to it than 'because he's Rayne and that's how he works'?]

[That doesn't tell me what the - moving parts are.]

[Mm?]

[Well, impulses to do things are made of stuff, even if they're mostly just smaller impulses. I don't expect humans to have a 'like people by intermittent stalking' basic indivisible drive. Vampires maybe, the Aurum kind.]

[Intermittent stalking isn't exactly how he likes people. But, I don't know, intermittent stalking is not a surprise coming from him. He just - he doesn't like very many people. I might be the only one, actually. I've never seen him get like this about anybody else.]

[Also vampiric. Have you ever seen him eat solid food?]

[A mated vampire wouldn't leave you alone for stretches as long as he does anyway, I guess.]

[Right, definitely never let him visit Aurum.]

[He's already on the definite-no-list for when Jan'es back.]

[Good. I'm all right with the intermittent stalking but I don't want it getting any less intermittent.]

[The real danger if he turned and came out all over Fated, Eternal at you would not be that he'd stalk you more, it would be that he'd bite you and you'd be all symmetrical.]

[That would be hell. I don't ever, ever want to be Fated Eternal with anybody, least of all Rayne.]

[Yeah, it does not universally appeal. Golden likes it, but nobell else signed up.]