Books by Maggie Shayne

About the Author

Forever Dad (1996)

Annie's Hero (1997)

Sinful (2000)

-- Leather and Lace

Midnight Pleasures (2003)

-- Under Her Spell

Five Degrees of Romance

--1 Dead Man's Woman

Eternally Yours

--6 The Power of Love

Wings in the Night Series

--1 Twilight Phantasies (1993)

--2 Twilight Memories (1994)

--3 Twilight Illusions (1994)

--4 Beyond Twilight (1995)

--5 Born in Twilight (1997)

--6 Twilight Hunger (2002)

--7 Two By Twilight (2003)

-- Twilight Vows

-- Run from the Twilight

--9 Edge of Twilight (2004)

Witches

--1 Eternity (1998)

--2 Infinity (1999)

--3 Destiny (2001)

Other Books by Maggie Shayne

About the Author

Maggie Shayne is a best-selling author whom Romantic Times magazine calls 'brilliantly inventive." Maggie has won numerous awards including a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. A three-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA Award, Maggie also writes mainstream contemporary fantasy.

In her spare time Maggie enjoys collecting gemstones, reading tarot cards, hanging out on the Genie computer network and spending time outdoors. She lives in a rural town in central New York State with her husband. Rick, five beautiful daughters and a bulldog named Wrinkles.

Forever Dad (1996)

Silhouette Intimate Moments #694

Chapter 1

Everyone is looking for it, Palamaro. I'm telling you, someone is go' rag to find it. Soon. " D.C. Wayne shook his head," pulled off his Ben Franklin specs and massaged the bridge of his nose with two fingers, looking every last one of his sixty-plus years.

"And you're not embellishing just to get me out of retirement? Not even a little?"

D.C. shot him a glare that would've nuked a small city. "You know better."

"I'm not so sure I do." Torch Palamaro dug a cigarette out of the crumpled pack in his shirt pocket and stuck it, unlit, between his lips while he thought it over. D.C. had argued long and loud when Torch had announced his retirement almost a year ago. The man had done everything but handsprings trying to convince Torch to stay on.

The I-CAT's bureau chief hadn't, though. Doug Stem had been glad to see Torch go. Hell, he'd have fired him personally if he'd had a single solid cause. All Stem had ever had, though, were suspicions.

 And a healthy lust for Torch's dead wife.

"This job used to be your lifeline, Torch."

"Used to be my life, period. To the exclusion of everything else." He took the cigarette from his lips, rolled it between two fingers.

"And even then, I screwed up."

D.C. shook his head.

"Don't start with that crap. You were a good husband, a good father to your kids."

 "So good I got them blown to bits."

D.C. fell silent.

"So good Doug Stern suspected I'd set the bomb myself."

Torch took a breath, swallowing the old rage. Stern's suspicions had infuriated him. And Torch hadn't exactly been cleared. But Stern had never been able to gather any real evidence against him. Still, Palamaro had found it impossible to continue working under the man.

Glancing down at his clenched hand, Torch opened his fingers one by one.

The cigarette was reduced to bits of white paper and brown tobacco flecks. Kind of like his life. Refuse and litter. No meaning.

Not anymore.

"What happened to Marcy and the twins wasn't y~ fault," D.C. said softly, his gruff voice gentling in a way it rarely did.

"And just so you know, Stern isn't involvexi in this."

"How the hell can he not be involved? He's in charge of everything I-CAT does."

"Not this. Look, I can't say more. Just trust me. Someone a lot higher up than Stern wants you in on this. We need this thing found and brought in, Torch. I think you might be the only man who can do it."

Torch sighed, shook his head.

"I swore I'd never take on another mission. Not after I dropped the ball last time."

"Torch, you saved hundreds of lives. All those people would have died--God knows, no one else had a clue what the target was." Do you remember how desperate we were? Do you remember the chaos around here when that bomb threat was phoned in? "

Torch remembered. He remembered everything. Too well. Especially at night, in his dreams. Oh, he remembered it all then.

D.C. rocked back in his chair.

"It was a mess. We. had agency men and feds and every bomb squad in the city on standby. But no one knew the target. We only knew the damn caller meant business."

Yeah. Because he'd given his name. Or the name he went by, at least.

Scorpion. The most successful terrorist in the world. Harder to catch than smoke. With the morals of his namesake. The bastard had no particular cause. He hired out to the h'~best bidder, doing their dirty work for a price. He was respons~le for more deaths than Torch could count, but there were only three that mattered to him. Three that he even bothered counting. Marcy, Josh and Jason. His wife. His sons.

The twins had only been four years old.

Word had it, the man who called himself Scorpion had never been thwarted. At least, not until this last time.

"We played that tape over and over," D.C. said.

"Everyone and his brother analyzed it, Torch. But no one figured it out.

"What once stood tallest will be brought to min." Wasn't that how he put it?

Tucked that one-liner in-among all his anti-American rhetoric so everyone else thought he was talking about the U. S. A. itself. You were the one who picked up on it. " You made the connection. The EmpLre State Building was evacuated and the bomb squads found enough to bring down a city block."

Torch listened. He could have tuned D.C. out, could have got up and left. But it wasn't as if he didn't go over this in his mind, day and night. Refusing to listen to D.C. wouldn't kill the memory.

Nothing would.

He'd been so damned pleased with himself. The only man ever to throw a wrench into one of Scorpion's attempts. He should have known there would be a price. He should have known.

"You couldn't have guessed the bastard would retaliate, Torch. No one could. It was totally against his MO to carry out an attack based on a personal vendetta. He'd never done anything unless he was, be' rag paid."

Somehow, the bastard had learned the name of the man responsible for stopping his little fireworks display from going off. Somehow, he'd tracked him down, when doing so should have been impossible. Scorpin had learned where Torch lived and planted another bomb.

The malicious son of a bitch had detonated it by remote control.

From somewhere close by, where he could watch. Torch hadn't know that then, of course. He'd only known that he was home, after one hell of a day's work. He'd only known that Marcy stood in the doorway, smiling at him when he pulled in the driveway, and that he couldn't wait to get to her. He'd carry that image of her with him. for the rest of his life.

Loving him, trusting him. Depending on him.

He'd gotten out of his car and taken a single step toward the house when it exploded. The white flash had blinded him, the impact had sent him flying, the heat had seared the skin of his face, singed his hair, scorched the suit he'd been wearing. Melted the wiper blades and the rubber bumper guard on his car and bubbled the paint. Intense heat.

Killing heat. There hadn't been a spot of snow left within fifty yards of the house, though there had been a fresh three inches the night before. And he'd struggled to his feet in the middle of the street where he'd landed hard on his back. He'd tried to go to them.

Even knowing they couldn't be alive. Even knowing there was no chance, he'd tried to go in. Maybe he'd just wanted to die with them.

Maybe that had been it.

His nearest neighbor had stopped him. Actually his nearest neighbor's respectable right hook to the jaw had stopped him. Nothing else could have.

"... you couldn't have known, Torch," D.C. was saying. "And a year is too long to let this thing eat your guts away. Damn, you keep it up there'll be nothing left."

It hadn't been a year. Not yet. There were still a couple of months to go.

Torch stopped staring at the shapeless wad of paper and tobacco in his hand and brushed it all into the unobtrusive gray wastebasket beside D.C.'s cluttered desk.

"When I want to discuss my mental state, I'll go to a shrink, D.C." He'd had enough. He couldn't think about it anymore. Not. now, not in front of his old friend.

"Just stick to the subject, okay? This'case you want me to take on, this mad scientist's missing formula~ you say 'everyone' is after it. Be more specific." ~ Rising from his chair, which resembled a BareaLounger on casters, D.C. paced in a small circle. Torch didn't want to upset the man any more than was necessary. No sense taxing the pacemaker that had given D.C. his nickname. He was pretty riled already. Hell, he had reason to be. He'd been passed Over for that promotion again last week. And now, word had it, he was being "urged" toward early retirement. Hell, the man might be slacking off lately, but he didn't deserve this.

He'd been good, in his prime. And he'd given everything he had to give.

The International Crises Aversion Team--I-CAT--had been his life. D.C. had supported the team from the spark of an idea' to a full-blown operation that the LIN would be hard-pressed to do without. When negotiations, sanctions and overt UN intervention failed, the men of I-CAT entered the picture, individually or in force And the problem was quietly solved.

Torch sat still, observing D.C. : the pallor of his face and the two high spots of color on his cheeks. The light in his eyes. Hell, his gnarled hands were shaking. This must be something major.

"So, who's after this formula, D.C.?"

D.C. stopped pacing and fixed Torch with a steady gaze. "You know I can't be specific until and unless I know you're taking the case."

 Torch watched D.C. "s eyes but saw no hints.

"Shall I tick off terrorist groups on my fingers then? Just nod if I get warm, okay?"

"Pick one. I told you everyone. I meant everyone. And, dam reit Torch, the only safe place for something this powerful is in the hands of the UN. No, I take that back. Even that isn't safe. I want it destroyed. I want every trace of it eliminated. I want the damn thing never to have been disTorch nodded, absently flicking stray bits of brown tobacco from his palm, not particularly curious.

"Okay, so it's important. Vital, even. I don't think you'd be this stressed out if it wasn't. On to the next question. Why me?"

D.C. walked around the desk to stand right in front of hh chair.

"Because you can do it. There aren't many men around who have the skills, the ability, let alone the guts."

"Not many, but a few. So again, why me? And don't tell me it's because you're worried about me, D.C. I know you too well to think you'd let personal concerns influence a decision th/s sensitive. I'm an explosives expert, not a chemist."

D.C. shook hh head.

"Of the few who m/ght pull th/s off, Torch, you're the only one I t t."

He averted his eyes. "And there's another reason."

Torch lifted his brows and waited.

D.C. chewed the inside of his cheek, as if trying to deride on the right words. Finally he sighed.

"There are powers out there who'd pay anything they had to get this formula. Do you understand that? The man who finds it could name his price."

Torch lifted his brows.

"Think I could get a yacht outta this deal?"

D. C. scowled.

"It's no joking matter, Palamaro."

"Who's joking? The houseboat's nice, but it's getting cramped." Yeah, real cramped, just me and the accusing eyes of my wife and kids, and the nightmares. Taj Mahal would be too cramped for all of us.

Maggie-Shayne The old fists clenched. Palamaro saw them and cut to the chase.

"All right. Okay, I'll get serious. How much does the job pay?"

"One million dollars on delivery of the formula. Once we verify it, s genuine, that is."

"And if I can't deliver it?"

"We'll reimburse your expenses."

"Thoughtful of you."

D.C. closed his eyes.

"You'll be offered ten times that if you find it, Palamaro. You'll have to prepare yourself for that."

Palamaro nodded and thought it over.

"I hope. your powers of deduction aren't as rusty as they seem to be right now, Torch. Did you hear what I just said? A man could name his price " I heard. " Torch closed his eyes. He didn't want to take the job, even ~though the knowledge that he wouldn't have to work with Doug Stem made it more enticing. He didn't want to do much of anything, except kill time until he could get off the damned planeL He didn't have the heart for it anymore. NOt for living. Certainly not for working.

"A man could name his price," he repeated mechanically. "Terrorist groups, and a few Third World despots, too, I imagine, will be willing to pay ... to pay..." Torch's eyes opened. His head came up slowly, and he met D.C. "s troubled gaze. And what he saw there lita fire in Torch's soul. One he hadn't felt in the past year. He put the question into a single word.

"Scorpion?"

"CIA has a tip that he's in the U.S." after something big. I'd lay odds this is it. "

Torch swore long and low. ' "You're the only one ever to outwit that bastard, Toxch. That's why I want you on this case. And I'm not going to beg," D.C. told him.

Torch held D.C. "s stare, but he wasn't seeing it. He was seeing the two faces that haunted him, day and night. Twin angels, with twin sets of dimples and twin sets of blue eyes and twin heads of dark satin curls. His heart. His s0ul, All gone in a blinding white flash.

Torch's guilt was compounded by the fact that he hadn't loved their mother. At least, not in the passionate, can't-live-without-you definition of the word. They'd been best friends. And they'd both been lonely. One night a little too much liquor and a little too much mutual comforting had led to something more. And a couple of months later Torch had found himself married. A father, before he knew it.

He hadn't minded. Marcy had been his best friend, They'd been making it work.

He cleared his throat. He wanted the bastard who'd killed her. And if Scorpion and Torch were both after the same thing, Torch would be bound to run into him, sooner or later. He'd beat him at his own bloody game.

And this time, he'd kill him.

He lifted his gaze to D.C. "s and nodded just once.

"What have you got so far?"

D,C. sighed and for the first time, sank into his chair looking a little more relaxed. Torch watched him for a long moment, waiting.

D.C. lifted the black briefcase he'd been carrying all morning. He set it on the desk, right in the middle of a mishmash of papers and file folders and note-pads. D.C. "s office always looked as if one of Torch's bombs had recently detonated there. He punched a code into the panel on one side and snapped the case open. His eyes seemed tired now, or maybe that was just the relief of having shifted the burden. The old coot ought to take them up on the early retirement they were offering.

But he was too stubborn.

Torch took the four-inch-thick stack of papers and folders that emerged from that briefcase, and he prepared himself for a crash Course. He hoped to God he still had the stuff for this. He'd be calling on skills he hadn't used in almost a year.

On top was an eight-by-ten color photo of an elderly man with snowy hair and coal chips for eyes.

Maggie $hayne "Alexander Holt," D.C. intoned. He was all business now.

"Until six months ago he was a research scientist in the employ of Uncle Sam.

Was working on Gulf War Syndrome, trying to find out what our boys were exposed to over there that's making so many of them sick. " D.C. cleared his throat.

"That's classified, by the way. According to the government, they were exposed to nada and their symptoms have nothing to do with their tours of duty."

"Hurray for the red, white and blue," Torch muttered. He flipped the photo over, then sucked in a breath. The next photo looked as if it ought to be autographed and sent to some drooling fan. Except for the white lab coat, the woman looked like a starlet or a model. Tall, slender. Perfectly straight jet hair that gleamed all the way to her hips, pulled back and 'held with a barrette. Huge brown eyes and full lips. But she looked at the camera as if half-afraid of it. As if she resented its invasion of her privacy, her life. She seemed almost to be drawing herself back from it, and her eyes were wary.

"Who is she?" His voice was a whisper, and even as he asked the question, he was thinking that eyes like those belonged on a wild thing, something untouched by the poison of society. A doe, hidden away in a virgin forest, never seen by man.

He blinked and gave his head a shake. Where the hell was all the fairy-tale crap coming from?

"Holt's daughter, Alexandra," D.C. supplied.

"She's an M.D. She works at a clinic for low-income types, sees lots of AIDS patients. Her father raked in decent money working for the government. She works for peanuts, sometimes for nothing. At least, she did until six months ago."

Torch nodded, listening, absorbing the information. "It's ironic, really. Here she is trying to help people survive the plague of the twentieth century, while dear o' Dad's busy developing a new and improved version."

"They don't get along?"

 "That's the kicker. Sources say she worships the ground he walks on."

Torch felt his eyes narrow as he studied the photo. He searched the bottomless, velvet brown eyes for answers and found none. The only things he could detect in those eyes were wariness and hurt. A dull pain that had been there so long she didn't remember being without it.

He recognized' that look. He saw it every morning in the mirror.

For just a second he wondered what had put the pain in such a beautiful pair of eyes. It didn't belong there.

"Six months-ago, out of the blue, Alexander Holt turned in his resignation. His daughter gave notice at the clinic, and the two of them vanished without a trace.~ Since his work Was semitive, his disappearance set off plenty of alarm bells. When the research lab discovered every one of Alexander Holt's files missing, and all his work erased from the computer he used, every diskette gone, they got suspicious and started going over his work for a clue. The man is known for being brilliant, a freaking genius. But he wasn't so smart he didn't leave a clue behind. Seems the modern-day answer to Einstein was a little bit absentminded."

"A walking stereotype?"

"Nah," D.C. said.

"He isn't your likable, nutty professor, the way Jerry, Lewis was in the movie. The guy's cold as ice, from what we've learned. They say he refused to attend his daughter's graduation from medical school. One of his former colleagues told us he called her degree worthless because she hadn't attended an Ivy League university."

Torch flinched, glancing again at the brown eyes, thinking maybe he had an inkling now about where all that pain was coming from.

"Anyway, his few flaws paid off, because a page from one of his notebooks was found under his desk." D.C. nodded toward the stack Torch held.

Torch set the photo of Alexandra Holt aside, though he didn't want to.

For some reason, studying those brown eyes had become addictive.

He tore his gaze away and stared in stead at a photocopy of a sheet of ordinary notebook paper, and a few lines of the worst handwriting he'd ever seen in his life. He squinted, trying to make it out.

"... highly contagious during the incubation period, but noncommunicable after that, and so far, always fatal. Released, this synthetic virus could very well annihilate the population of a small country in a matter of weeks. And with the formula I've developed, anyone with access to a laboratory could produce the virus in quantity."

Torch felt a little sick to his stomach as he laid the paper on the desk.

"See that notation on t~e bottom?"

Torch glanced down at the row of letters, numbers and symbols, then up at D.C. again.

"Looks like it's written in some kind of code."

"We thought so, too. Ran it by the boys in Cryptography."

"And?"

"And they say it might be a coincidence... but apply the right key, and it reads "Sting of death, from desert sands." " Torch nodded.

"Scorpion."

"Right. And the chances of that being coincidental are slim to none.

So we have to assume Scorpion knows about Alexander Holt's little discovery. "

"And we both know he's either on someone's payroll already, or planning to auction it off to the highest bidder," Torch added.

"Scares the crap outta me, too," D.C. said.

"That's why you have to get it first."

Torch swallowed hard, then he nodded. Alexander Holt might have run, but there would be no place he could hide. That modern-day Dr.

Frankenstein better hope to-God Torch found him before Scorpion did.

The bastard would make Mary Shelley's mob scene look like a walk in the park.

But it would be the last thing Scorpion ever did. Because even though finding the formula for this virus was probably the most important mission Torch had ever under taken, he was making it priority number two. His foremost objective here was vengeance. He was going to find that bastard, and when he did, Scorpion was going to pay for murdering the three most important people in Toreh's life. He was going to pay with everything in him.

Chapter 2

The wind outside moaned a little louder than before. It wasn't like Alexandra to be afraid of the wind. Then again, it wasn't like her to he this desperately lonely. . Father had been gone for five months now. And she should he used to the loneliness. She told herself that she hadn't really been any less alone when he was alive than she was right now. He'd barely spoken to her, and never talked.

But she'd loved him. Adoredhim, really. He'd been all she'd had.

Except, of course, for Max. His furry body pressed against her shin as she stood staring out the window into the night. The darkness was different here. Star-spangled and natural. Alive and real. Nothing like night had been in the city. The night here spoke in whispers, but at least it spoke. That was more than her beloved father had done.

The fact that her father had never shown any signs of loving her back didn't bother her, though, she reminded herself. She was good at reminding herself of it. She'd had a lot of practice. Father had been a genius, a special, one-of a-kind man. Brilliant. It wasn't his fault his mind was too busy seeking solutions to the world's problems to allow time for emotional nonsense like love.

At least, that's what he'd been too busy with for most of her life.

Those last few weeks. she'd begun to wonder whether he'd had any mind left at all. It was as if he'd gone completely insane all in the space of twenty-four hours.

She'd never forget her shock when he'd walked into her shoebox apmha~ent--he hadn't bothered visiting since she'd moved in--and announced that he was leaving his job and going into isolation. She'd almost choked.

"You can come along with me, Alexandra, if you want to. And if you don't, that's fine, too. Just know that once I leave this city, you'll never see me or hear from me again. No one will."

She'd blinked in utter shock.

"Dad, what are you talking about Why am you" -- "Don't ask foolish questions," he'd snapped. And she remembered searching his eyes, wondering if he was in the middle of a stroke or something.

"I can't answer them anyway. You know my work is sensitive."

Sensitive. As in classified. But as far as she knew, he'd been doing nothing more than researching Gulf War Syndrome. And yes, that was supposed to be classified, but he hadn't seemed concerned about that when he'd told her . months ago, over dinner, when she'd been all but begging him to make some effort at dialogue. He'd talked about his work, of course. For Alexander Holt, there was nothing else.

"Are you coming, or not?"

She'd been worried about him, thinking maybe he needed to cheek into a,hospital for some tests. And half-convinced she'd be able to talk some sense into him before they spent more than a night or two away.

One thing was for sure, she wasn't going to let him go off on his own.

It had seemed to Alexandra that for the first time in her entire life, her father needed her. She'd waited so long to feel that she was more than just an inconvenience and a constant source of disappointment in this great man's life. She wouldn't have wished it to happen like this, of course, but the fact remained, he needed her.

She wouldn't let him down. Not this time.

"Well, of course I'm coming with you," she'd told him. "Then pack."

"What? Now?"

"Right now," he'd barked.

"Call those do-gooders you work with and tell them you need a leave. But don't say why or where you're going."

"Where am I going?" She'd been getting more and more afraid for her father, more and more certain he was in the grips of some sudden onset of senility or a blood clot in the brain.

"Dad, maybe you ought to see a doctor."

"You are a doctor. You've got your two-bit degree from your two-bit school to prove it, don't you?"

She remembered those harsh words, the pain they'd caused. It truly had devastated him when she'd been turned down by eve~j Ivy League school on his list. But her grades just hadn't been good enough.

She'd swallowed the sting his words inflicted and cleared her throat.

"Maybe you'd better tell me why you feel you have to go into hiding?"

"Someone migh come after me, Alexandra. And that's all I can say."

He'd refused to tell her more. Caught up in her cone eva for her father, Alexandra had accompanied him to this massive tumor on the face of 'the Adirondacks. Aunt Sophie's Gothic mansion fit into the wilderness of this place like a square peg in a round hole. But here they'd come and here they'd remained. Father had made some veiled comment that no one was likely to trace them there, since it had been left to Mother before she'd married him, and the deed was still filed under Mother's maiden name.

Alexandra hadn't severed all ties, though. She hadn't cleaned out her bank accounts the way her father had ordered her to do. And she hadn't canceled her credit cards,"

 though she had tucked them away in the back of her wallet, promising herself she wouldn't use them until he was himself again. She imagined he would have badgered her into canceling them eventually, but the fact was. He'd died. He'd died in his sleep one night, just three weeks after they'd arrived here. And Alexandra had been surprised to find that he'd made a will and left it with an attorney in the one-horse town of Pine Lake, at the base of this mountain. He'd had the will drawn up the day after they'd arrived here. Almost as if he'd known. But he couldn't have known. Other than his ibited no symptoms whatsoever.

Alexandra had suggested an autopsy . but both her father's lawyer and the county coroner had objected to the idea so vehemently that she'd backed down. The letter with her father's will stated that he detested the idea of his body being autopsied, and with the lack of any real symptoms, Alexandra had been hesitant to go against his wishes. The coroner's report stated "natural causes" had killed her father. And despite her nagging misgivings, she'd concurred. It was, she'd decided, what her father would have wanted. He'd made that clear.

Again. almost as if he'd known. But he would have told her if he'd known, wouldn't he?

No. Probably not. Her father never told her much of anything. Except for his constant reminders of what a huge disappointment she was to him.

One disappointment after another. All beginning the day her mother had died giving birth to her.

She'd thought, in the end, that maybe by coming out here with him, caring for him through whatever crisis, real or imagined, he was having, she would finally earn his respect. But there hadn't been time.

After he'd died, after she'd carried out the instructions in his will to the letter, having his body cremated and the ashes sealed in a vault at the cemete~, she'd stayed here in these mountains.

 Despite his attitude toward her, her father had left her a wealthy woman. Mainly, Alexandra assumed, because he had no one else to name as his heir. So there'd been no need to go back. To face daily failures, to feel inadequate, to wish she could be more than she was.

There was simply no need. She'd been feeling the effects of burnout even before she'd left the city. So much death. so much hopelessness facing her every day. She'd been handling it all well enough, until her recent physical exam. The results had been one more blow to her self-esteem. A staggering one.

She liked it here. Isolated and alone. No expectations to fulfill, no demands to be met--or to fall short of meeting.

The house tended to creak in response to the wind outside. It was as if the wind moaned a question and then the house creaked an answer.

What were they saying to each other? she wondered. What secrets were they sharing?

But that Was just her imagination working overtime again. Too much time out here alone, she supposed. Gave her mind too much time to think.

Gave her heart too much time to regret that she'd never been able to live up to the greatness of her father. And to mourn the fact that she'd never known a mother's love . and she'd never know a chlld's.

She paced away from the window, letting the sheer silvery curtain fall back into place, bending to stroke Max's head. There was nothing out there. Nothing. Just tree. covered mountains and lakes and a speck-on-the-map town a few miles away where old men still sat around a checkerboard in the general store, chewing and spitting.

She ought to try to go back to sleep, she supposed. She turned toward the' curving staircase and started up it.

Then she stopped dead in her tracks and listened to what sounded absurdly lilce an upstairs window scraping open.

A heartbeat later, the doorbell chimed, and her stomach turned queasy.

Licking her lips, she tried to decide which to investigate first. She turned toward the door, wondering who could be way up here in the middle of nowhere, so late at night. She never had visitors.

A hunter who'd gotten lost, she told herself. Or maybe one of the locals needed something. Still, the hairs on her nape stood erect, and her sweat-dampened hand on the doorknob trembled a little as she turned it and pulled the door open.

The door opened slowly, without so much as a "who is it?" first. And Torch found himself face-to-face with the woman whose photo he'd studied, memorized.

She was tall, slender. Her long, jet hair hung loosely, all the way to the waist of the sensible white flannel nightgown she wore. Her feet were long and narrow, and bare right now, beneath the hem.

He'd saved her eyes for last deliberately, knowing they would be a letdown. There was no way they could be as arresting in their mystery as they'd been in that photo. He looked up . and saw that they were.

No. More arresting. Stunning. V~lde and dark brown, filled with questions and a nameless fear. The wariness he'd seen in the photo still haunted her big eyes. She reminded him of a wild deer backed into a corner. And beyond the skittish fear, he saw the pain. More intense, more real, more clearly branded in the brown velvet than he could have imagined.

Her skin looked softer, smoother, up close than it had in the photo.

And when her scent reached him, he flinched at its sub fie allure.

He forcefully tore his gaze from her, reminding himself of his mission, and looked past her, scanning the dim interior of the house and seeing no one else. Still, he hadn't liked the looks of that black van parked at the end of the dirt path that passed for a road.

He'd only managed to track the Holts down today. Today, Alexandra Holt had made a mistake. She'd used her credit card. first time since she and her father had disappeared over six months ago, according to the company. She'd bought some supplies at a general store in the nearby town. According to the clerk, she usually paid in cash but had apparently left her billfold at home. She'd reluctantly used the plastic rather than make another trip. ~ Torch had been to that general store, but when he'd asked the old proprietor where he could find Alexandra Holt, the man had replied, "Looks like Ms. Holt is in for some company tonight, then. You're the second one to stop and ask for directions up there."

Scorpion's resources would be the same as Torch's. He'd know enough to keep tabs on those credit cards. And he had enough people on his payroll to help him pull it off.

"Is there something I can do for you?" she asked. Torch blinked again.

Her voice was like smoke, dark and deep and soft. She didn't look like a doctor. She looked like an angel. A frightened angel.

She stared up at him, waiting, and he had to jerk his gaze forcefully away from those eyes. Damn, they ought to be certified as lethal weapons, "I'm looking for Prof. ess~r Alexander Holt."

There was a quick widening of her doe eyes. A jolt in the tall, flannel-ensconced body. But she recovered' fast and tilted her head to one side. 'Never heard of him. Sorry. "

He narrowed his gaze at the reaction he'd seen in her when he'd said the name. Fear. No. doubt about that. A new fear. of him, He had to remind him. lf that the. angelic look of the woman, the innocent brown eyes, were only the surface. A diversion, though an effective one.

She knew all about her father's formula. She must, or she wouldn't be up here in the middle of nowhere with him.

"You'll find" ' he said slowly, "that it's not a real good idea to lie to me... Alexandra."

She blinked rapidly, drew in a shallow breath.

"Who are you? How do you know... ?" She glanced over her shoulder again. Third time she'd done that. Was the professor standing behind her, coaching her? Or someone else? She cleared her throat.

"My father isn't here," she said at last, as one hand gripped the door, pushing it shut.

"Sorry, honI'm not buying it." He moved her aside without much effort and shouldered his way into the house. Then he blinked again, and did a double take. The place was dark, lit only by candlelight, and the candles were sc~nted. The aroma and the flickering shadows made him think of slow, soul-stirring sex. There was a fire crackling from the huge marble fireplace on one wall. A big plush rug in front of it added to the pictures swirling in his mind. Her legs, under that nightgown, were long. Endless, he imagined. Slender, in keeping with the do image.

He blinked, erasing the erotic thoughts ~ from his mind. What was she, some kind of witch or something? Were thos candles laced with a mind-altering drug? Or maybe an aphrodisiac?

Or maybe, he admitted silently, his libido was just picking a lousy time to come back to life after its long slumber. He didn't think that was ve~ likely, but he supposed it was as likely as drugged candles.

He focused once more on the task at hand and continued scanning the house, from a more objective point of view. The one thing he didn't see was the professor.

"So, where is he?" As he said it, he took a deliberate step toward her.

She shook her head rapidly, backing away from him, brown eyes wider than ever.

"I'm--I'm calling the police. And then I'm going to turn my dogs loose, and" -- "You're not calling anyone, because there's no phone up here.

And I can tell you that I'll be a lot easier to deal with than whoever comes through that door next." When he said it, her eyes jerked toward the darkened archway and the base of a broad, curving staircase beyond it, but came right back to him.

"Someone's upstairs, hmm? Who, Alexandra? Your father?"

Maggie $hayne She shook her head but averted her eyes. She was breathing too fast.

Not from agitation. Something else. Her chest rose and fell harder, faster than it should have, and each time it did, her small, unbound breasts pressed themselves to the fabric that covered them, making perfect outlines in the cloth.

A sound came from upstairs then and her eyes told him it shouldn't have.

When had he seen a face express every thought the way this one did?

Something wasn't right in this house.

He yanked the gqn from his waistband automatically. When she saw it, her gasping got worse. She pressed her hands to her chest, whirling and running right out of the front room through the huge, dark archway before he could stop her. He hadn't expected it, and something, instinct maybe, made him hesitate before going after her.

He saw where the broad staircase began, saw her stop at the base of it, snatching a bottle of some sort from a stand there, bringing it to her lips as she fought to breathe, and then sucking loud bursts of medicine from the thing.

She bowed her head, apparently exhausted, apparently waiting for relief to come. Asthma? he wondered. She stepped around the staircase, just out of his line of vision. And the second she was out of his sight, he heard her scream.

It was a pathetic, frightened wail, punctuated by harsh gasps. Torch ducked to one side of the doorway, peering around it, straining his eyes.

She stepped into sight again; a white angel appearing in the darkened room, whimpering in fear, but it had little effect on the brute who held a gun barrel so tight against her temple that it was likely biting into her skin. His arm crushed her breasts and held her back tight to his chest.

A low growl came from Toreh's right, and he jerked his gaze around, only to see a black cat the size of a mountain lion arching its back and hissing. Then it scrambled away, disappearing under the sofa.

 Torch cussed mentally, bringing his attention back where it belonged.

Alexandra Holt's eyes were rounder than ever. The guy who held her so cruelly was dressed all in black, almost invisible in the darkened room, and h apparently wasn't aware of Torch's presence. Experience and caution had caused Torch to park his heap. a little farther down the dirt track than that van so they wouldn't have seen that, either.

And he had no doubt it was "they" and not just "he." Because this wasn't Scorpion. This man was too short, his build too slight. This was one of Scorpion's henchmen, and while their boss worked alone, his thugs worked in bunches.

Torch sidled his way to the front door and slipped through it, unseen, into the night.

Alexandra clung to her inhaler. Her attack was easing now, thanks to the spurt of medicine she'd inhaled before he'd grabbed her, but she had no doubt this kind of fear would instigate a relapse before tong Damn her asthma! She might have managed to get away if she hadn't been weak and dizzy from the attack. Father had always called it a weakness, always told her it would keep her from amounting to anything. And it had. The frequent illnesses and hospitalizations had made her miss too much school. Her grades had fallen, and kept her from getting into what Father considered a good uni~versity. Now the damned condition might just help get her killed by madmen in her own home.

She was afraid, so afraid she felt sick and dizzy. She had no idea what was going on, why these people were treating her this way. The man's grip was too tight on her, crushing her chest. The gun barrel pressed painfully against her skin. Her eyes scanned the room for Max. Her poor eat would be terrified by all this disruption. He was probably hiding, likely scared half to death.

"Where is your father?" the madman rasped into her ear. His voice carried a cadence she couldn't place. When she didn't answer instantly, the gun barrel drove harder into the side of her head, breaking the skin, and she cried out. "Where is he!"

"I don't" -- "Is he here, in this house?"

"I don't know what you're" -- The barrel embedded deeper. She felt white-hot pain, and warm blood trickling down the side of her face.

"No!" She screamed the word.

"Not here!"

The pressure eased a little. Maybe now he'd leave, go search for her father somewhere else. What did he want with him? Why was this happening?

Someone might be after me, Alexandra.

No. Her father had been delusional, sick, when he'd said-The man shoved her through the archway, into the front room, to the door. She tripped over Max, and he let out a howl before Streaking out of- the room to hide. She stumbled on the rag, but couldn't fall down. The madman's grip on her was too tight for that.

"You will take us to him, then," he said.

She'd never been so afraid in her life. And she wondered for an instant if these men meant to kill her. And where was the other one?

Was he with this brute, or did he have his own reasons for bursting into her house in the middle of the night?

"I know who you are, Alexandra Holt," the man with the gun whispered into her ear, and his strange, exotic accent made his words seem even more fghtening.

"You will take us to your father or we will kill you.

A very simple choice, really. When we have him, we will let you go. "

"But my father isn't" -- The gun pressed harder.

"No talk. You will take us to him."

She bit her lips to stop them from shaking. She had a feeling that no matter what she said, this animal would kill her anyway. And she couldn't have spoken a coherent phrase even if she'd wanted to.

Could Father have been sane all along? Was this what he'd been running away from, hiding from? Had he been telling the truth when he'd told her that someone might try to follow him?

He pulled her backward, through the front door.

"You'll come with me, pretty one. And you will take us to. him. If not, we have men waiting in line for the chance to interrogate you. Each believes his methods will be the most effective in making you talk.

There have been wagers laid on who will succeed." He stopped just outside the door, turning again, staring down the gravel driveway into the darkness beyond.

"It won't be pleasant for you, I'm afraid. But great fun for the men."

Alexandra stared into the darkness, but there was no help for her there.

Pine boughs sighed in time with the wind that whispered through their needles. Early winter's chill laced the air, and it tasted like snow.

It seemed like such an ordinary night. How~could any of this be happening to her?

He backed down the st~ps and turned to wave, and she ~ saw the van parked at the roadside, black, sharp-nosed menace, like a shark waiting there to devour her. Even the windows were tinted.

The van crept into the driveway. The man shoved Alexandra forward, and the van stopped. A second later, its side door slid opened.

She caught her breath as she saw another man, crumpled on the van's floor, dressed entirely in black just like the one who held her. Then a foot nudged the body, and it rolled out onto the gravel.

The man holding her pushed her to the ground, shouting a curse and lifting his gun toward the van's dark interior. He got one shot off before the other man--the first one she'd encountered tonight--leapt on him, knocked him to the ground and with a single punch, put him out for the count.

Panting, he turned to Alexandra. She pulled herself up off the ground, gasping, pressing the inhaler to her mouth and sucking in blasts of medicine. Her eyes never leaving his, she back away a step, then two.

The bastard who'd rung the doorbell and shouldered his way inside. Damn him. He'd 'saved her from the two men in black, but for what purpose?

He bent down to take the gun from the other man, and when he straightened, she saw the blood on his shirt.

It didn't matter that he'd been hurt, she told herself. He was no better than the other two and she was getting the hell out of here.

She turned to run.

"Don't make me hurt you, Alexandra."

The words were low, and she could hear the pain that laced each' one.

It was enough to make her pause and look back. Only to see him pointing the gun at her.

"You're either going to have to deal with me, or more like these two.

Believe me, they won't be long in arriving."

She shook her head, shock seeping like ice water through her veins.

She lifted her hands to press them to either side of her head, biting her lips to keep them from trembling. She was dizzy with fear.

"Dammit, get a grip. Tell me where your father is or he'll end up dead... or worse."

He was bleeding. The gleaming scarlet stain on the front of his shirt grew and spread. His left arm hung useless at his side while his right one gestured with the gun as be spoke.

She took another step backward.

"I don't know what any of this is about. Just get out of here and leave me alone!"

 Hysteria grabbed her, but she fought it. Her car was in the garage.

If she could only get to her car. One of the men on the ground moaned, and she went rigid and still.

"Snap out of it, Alexandra! Your life is in danger, or haven't you figured that out yet? You don't really want me to drive off and leave you to these two, do you?"

His long, dark hair was wild, and his eyes seemed as untamed. His arm must be hurting. His unshaven jaw was rigid, suggesting grated te~th behind those thinned lips, and she could see the corded muscles in his neck standing out. Oh, yes, he was in pain. A lot of it. He came closer, lifted the wounded arm, gripped her shoulder in a hand that dripped blood.

"Damvnit, where is your father?"

She blinked, tearing her eyes from his to look down at one of the forms on the ground--the one that groaned again and moved a little.

Then she focused on those intense eyes. In the moonlight she saw them, pain-glazed but piercing all the same.

"My father is dead," she whispered, because she couldn't seem to speak louder. Fear made her throat swell nearly shut.

"Dead?" He almost shouted the word. She only nodded.

The man swore fluently.

"All right. Okay, we'll have to search the house." His hand finally fell away from her, but she felt the sticky warmth it left behind.

"Get me some rope, so I can keep these two from kicking the hell out of me. And make it fast. We have a few hours at most."

Alexandra blinked, not moving. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. My God, what did this man want? What did it have to do with her father? Why did he want to search her house?

Of all the questions swirling in her mind, she only voiced one.

"A few hours until what? "

"Until some friends of these guys show up, or maybe some other guys who'll be just as nasty. The rope, Alexandra."

"My God... my God, what is this all about?"

He scowled at her until his dark brows touched. She shook herself and turned toward the little shed beside the house. The one that held all Father's gardening tools. He used to love to putter in a flower bed during the tiny fragments of time when he wasn't working. Spent more tune digging in the tiny patch of brown dirt than he did talking to her.

Alexandra hated gardens.

She went into the shed and found some rope.

Chapter 3

The two thugs were bound, gagged and struggling in the living room of Alexandra Holt's Gothic monstrosity of a house. Torch had blown out most of the candles. Didn't want their thrashing to start a fire.

He'd turned on flights instead, half-surprised they even had lights this far up in the middle of nowhere.

She didn't like the lights. Her face told him so without her lips speaking a word. She squinted and shielded her eyes from them. It was as if she'd rather scamper off into the woods, into the dark, away from him and every ugly human being ever to draw a breath. To live out there, with her own kind. The wary woodland creatures.

Stupid to keep thinking of her that way, but it was just such a fitting image. She seemed like something rarely seen by mortal eyes.

Something that only came out of hiding when she was certain no one was near. Always afraid of being hurt. Or something.

She was definitely afraid of something.

 The thugs most of all, at the moment, anyway. She wouldn't walk by them even though they were tied up. She followed Torch through the house, questioning him once or twice in a voice soft with fear, but still deep and smoky. But when he passed the terrorists, she hung back.

He stopped at the bottom of the staircase, stating up at the seemingly endless hall above, the countless doors lining it.

"Damn.

You couldn't have lived in a quaint little cottage, could you? "

His shoulder raged and nagged for attention. It was only a matter of time before more guy sing-black showed up. And here he was with a search grid the size of Arkansas.

"You won't get away with this," she was telling him like some-heroine in a murder mystery. Only she had the balance wrong.

There ought to be more defiance, less fear in her voice.

"Someone will be coming along any minute now, and you" -- "Someone will be coming along all right, but they won't be much help."

She stood just inside the archway, and though she'd been speaking to him, her eyes were glued to the two wriggling black bundles hog-tied on the floor. Her skin looked like chalk, and her lower lip trembled.

Her fear was palpable, and something softened inside Torch's granite heart. The feeling shook him right. to the core, so he looked away from her. But not fast enough.

Her wide brown eyes stayed right there in his mind's eye. He couldn't make them leave. Damn. There was something about her that made him want to touch her. Stroke her hair and her face, run his palms real slow down her back and up again and over her shoulders, and tell her it was going to be okay.

He cleared his throat, the friction of it scattering the images forming in his mind.

"Look, I don't have time to search the whole place," '~ he told her, and it was an effort to sound as cold and hard as he wanted to.

"So I'm gonna have to trust you. Where are your father's notes?"

 She blinked, and her gaze finally tore free of the thugs and met his.

"Notes?"

"The project he was working on just before he resigned, Alexandra.

The formula he developed. Where is it? "

Her eyes narrowed. She was either completely unaware of the mess her father had created, or a very good actress.

Torch hadn't decided which.

"I don't know."

Torch pushed a hand through his hair, rolled his eyes, swore--none of which helped the situation. When he looked at her again, she was staring at the floor near his feel He glanced down, saw the bloodstain on the carpet, saw fresh drops raining down from his arm to add to the mess.

"You're going to bleed to death." She said it matter-of factly as if she could care less.

She had a point. Torch stuffed the thug's gun into his waistband and used his good arm to tear his shirt open. Then he shrugged out of it, balled it up and dropped it.

She emitted a soft, gasp that drew his eyes back to her face. And then she amazed him. Because she straightened her back and she: lifted her chin. Sending one last, fear-filled glance toward the men on the floor, she bit her lip, fixed her gaze on the pulsing wound in his shoulder, and she came to him. She walked right past those two, though she was shaking visibly as she did. She took his good arm in her hand.

Firm grip, but cool. Fear tended to lower one's body temperature. She drew him up the curving staircase and through one of those countless doors, flicking a light-switch as they entered. Her hand never relaxed on his forearm as she drew him into the plush, gleaming bathroom and gently nudged him onto a dainty chair he wasn't sure would hold him. He found himself sitting at a vanity, with an oval mirror at its back. And when he glanced at his own reflection, he figured it was little wonder she was afraid of him. Shirtless, bloody, his eyes as dark blue and merciless as the depths of the ocean, betraying no hint of feeling. His hair was too long, no longer the regulation above-the-ears cut he used to wear. He'd let it grow out during his brief attempt at retirement, and hadn't bothered cutting it again for this job. It was a dark tangle that hung to his shoulders.

He heard water running and turned to see her coming toward him with a clean, wet cloth. She reached out and he leaned backward, away from her.

She frowned, meeting his gaze.

"You'll have to hold still."

He couldn't believe it. He'd had a moment of inexplicable fear when she'd reached for him. Him, Torch Palamaro, afraid of. a fragile-looking, not to mention beautiful, woman. Why?

He could have analyzed' it, but he didn't. Fact was, he simply didn't want her touching him.

Rather than admit that, though, he held still. Alexandra, with a surprisingly gentle, if trembling, touch, cleaned the gunshot wound on the front his shoulder. Then she leaned closer, hen cling over him to clean the e~it wound on his back.

And he inhaled the good, clean, woman scent of her. Her breasts were too close to his face. So close he could see their outline right through the white flannel, and he could tell she wore nothing beneath it.

Not a moment too soon she turned away, rummaging in a medicine cabinet and coming back to him with gauze and tape, and some ointment in a tube.

"Why are you doing this?"

She stopped two feet from him, her hands full, and she blinked twice, as if asking herself the same question. Then she shook her head, shrugged.

"I'm a doctor. It's... what I do." She smeared ointment on a gauze pad, used another to dab the new blood away.

"Or may he I just don't want you dropping dead before you tell me what this is all about."

He didn't like her caring for him wound. And he knew why. He tried not to think of Marcy, but he thought of her anyway, and those thoughts brought searing pain with them. Marcy, small and soft and fair. She used to touch him this way, her hands gentle. They might not have been in love, but they'd been lovers. He couldn't remember it, not the way he should. But he knew it had happened. Often. She'd squeeze scented o'tl onto her fingers and rub it all over his back at the end of a stressful day.

Marcy. Gone now. Barely enough left of her to btmj. Nothing at all left of his sons. Their markers stood over empty graves. All because he'd failed.

And him, here, studying the shape of some other woman's breasts. He closed his eyes as the pain intensified.

Alexandra pulled her hand away.

"Did I hurt you?" "No." His voice came out like tree bark.

"Are you going to tell me? What this is about, I mean?"

She was nearly finial led She'd get away from him in a minute, and he'd snap out of this morbid guilt-fest.

When she did, he looked up.

"You mean to say you really don't know?"

She shook her head, her gaze pinned to his, too brown and too innocent.

"Then why did you quit your job in the city and move out here with him?"

She shrugged.

"Father was determined, and I ... I couldn't very well let him come out here by himself. He was old, and..." She sighed.

"His mind wasn't just right. He thought people were out to get him ...." She glanced through the open door, toward the stairs, and shuddered a little.

"Yeah, well, your old man wasn't as crazy as you thought he was."

She blinked at him, as if reaching the same conclusion. Then she turned to the basin, on the pretense of washing her hands. But he was too astute not to notice that she 'only turned on the cold tap, or that she held her wrists turned up to the flow to counteract the shock.

"What was it my father was working on? What are all you people after?"

He didn't like her lumping him in with all the others, and almost said so. But he stopped himself. He didn't give a damn what she thought of him.

 "I'm not at liberty to give you details. Suffice it to say that he created a formula that could be used as a weapon, and as a weapon it would be more devastating than the A-bomb."

She shut the water off, dabbed her hands with a towel and lifted her face to the mirror in front of her, meeting his gaze there.

"My father wouldn't be involved in anything like that."

"Your father was involved in something just like that. When he realized what he had, he must have finally understood what the repercussions could be. He took all his notes, erased his files from' the computer and vanished from the face of the earth, for all intents and purposes.

Problem was, he was sloppy. He left a page from a notebook. The formula wasn't on it, but there were enough hints to make it clear what he had.

The information obviously leaked. Now every two-bit despot and terrorist leader in the world is itching to get his hands on him and his formula."

Clutching the towel in her hands, she turned to face him. "And which two-bit despot or terrorist leader sent you?"

He blinked. Her voice was a little stronger now, and her eyes had gone cold.

"That's classified."

"Then so is anything I might know."

He rose slowly from the chair," recognizing a standoff when he saw one.

He hadn't expected it. Not from a woman as easily frightened as this one was. Seemed there was a little toughness in there after all.

Buried . deeply buried. But there. The path to her steel lay in her old man. Say something bad about the sainted Alexander Holt, and find his daughter's anger.

But he couldn't tell her what she wanted to know. Hell, the very fact that I-CAT existed was top~ecret. And it had to stay that way.

"I can't tell you."

"Then you might as well leave."

He smiled just a little, knowing he had her beat.

"And what do you plan to do with those two downstairs, Alexandra or the backup crew who are probably on their way right now?"

"Nothing. I'm leaving, too. If I didn't learn another thing from my father, I learned how to hide."

Now that was more in keeping with his image of her. To scurry away into the woods. To burrow into a den somewhere in the forest with the other timid, wild things.

"But I found you," he told her.

"They found you.

They'll find you again. "

"And I'll run again."

"That's no way to live."

"That's my problem, isn't it?"

She was tougher than she looked. Still shaking, shocked right to the core by what he'd accused her father of having done, scm~xl half out of her mind, but tough. She wouldn't tell him. The determination was right there in her fright He battled a grudging admiration for her.

"All right," he said slowly.

"I'll tell you this much. The people I work for want that formula, but not to use as a weapon. They want it so they can make sure every trace of it, and the research that led up to it, is destroyed."

She stepped closer, her eyes narrowing, staring so deeply into his eyes that he felt their touch on his soul. She was trying to see inside him, he realized, trying to see if he was lying to her. She licked her lips, a quick, nervous dart of her pink tongue.

"How do I know I can believe you?"

"You don't."

She stood there a moment, deep in thought. Finally she shook her head.

"It's all a mistake. My father was a genius and a great man. He wouldn't have done this."

"He did it."

"No." She blinked, and he saw tears threatening to spill over.

"I don't believe it. He'd have told me " She let her voice trail off, uncertainty clouding her eyes.

"Would he?"

Maggie Shayne Her chin came up, and her gaze met his.

"He couldn't have done what you say he did."

"Okay.

I say he did it, and you say he didn't. There's only one way to prove which of us is right. "

She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth.

"I... I have to think" -- "There's no time to think, Alexandra. I'm not lying when I tell you more men like those two downstairs will be showing up soon. And they'll do everything they said they'd do to you... and then some."

Her eyes opened and she faced him. He thought maybe she'd come. to a decision.

"If I tell you ... where to find the papers ... will you leave me alone?"

He was not going to leave her alone. She'd end up dead if he did.

"Sure," he lied.

She swallowed hard, nodding slightly.

"After ... after my father died, I was go' rag through his things and.

and there was a receipt. He'd paid for a safe-deposit box in a New York bank. If there is anything to be found, that's where it will be."

"I want the name of the bank, hon. And then I want the key."

She frowned, as if searching her mind again. Then she turned and left the room. Torch was on her heels. He followed her down the hall, into a bedroom that had to be hers. The rumpled bed attested to a sleepless night. That beast of a cat peered out from underneath it.

When she yanked open a dresser drawer,-he half expected her to pull out a file containing all her father's secrets, and he allowed himself a sigh of relief. It was cut off when she only took out a pair of jeans and bent to step into them, tugging them on under the nightgown, snapping them around her narrow waist. Giving him a brief glimpse of supple skin and the dark well of her navel. Making him feel something he had no business feeling.

"What the hell are you doing?"

 "Getting dressed. I'm going to give you the key and then I'm leaving.

All right? " She didn't wait for an answer. She dug through the dresser again, emerging this time with a sweatshirt. Turning her back, she tugged the nightgown over her head.

Torch stood motionless, staring at the length of her bare arms, the curve of her spine, the soft, smooth roundness of her shoulders. And for just an instant, he battled an overwhelming urge to run his hands over her silken skin. To turn her around and look at her breasts and her waist and. He averted his eyes, gave his head a shake, tried to focus on something else besides her. The fireplace on one wall, not burning.

The neat stack of kindling and wood on the grate, ready for the touch of a match. The brass log holder, filled with fragrant, seasoned cherry wood.

"You'll leave me alone? You promise? if there's anything to he found, it will be in that box. And whatever you do find, it's only going to prove you're wrong about him."

He looked at her again. The sweatshirt was in place, concealing her lovely flesh from his gaze. Thank God for small favors.

"Give me the name of the bank, and give me the key, Alexandra. You're not in a position to" -- He went silent at the sound of tires crunching gravel, "Damn, ~,re here. We're out of time." He saw her fear return, chasing all that false bravado right back into whatever closet she kept it in when she wasn't using it. ,"I lied about leaving you alone. You're coming with me, you understand? If you want to survive this, don't argue about it. Now get the damned key and let's get out of here."

She looked so crestfallen it would have been laughable if the situation hadn't been so deadly. Turning, she dumped a jewelry box onto. her dresser, pawing through a small mountain of trinkets. He saw the key as she snatched it up, and before he'd even extended his hand for it, she'd tucked it into her jeans pocket.

 The car stopped.

"Oh, God," she whispered. But she never stopped moving. She swooped down on a pair of sneakers that had been hiding under the bed, stuffed her feet into them. She was shaking again.

Breathing hard. She snatched the inhaler from the dresser where she'd dropped it, clutched it in a white-knuckled grip.

"Is there a back door?" Torch whispered harshly. "We'd have to go back downstairs."

He lunged for the window, shoving it open as she watched, baffled.

"What are you doing?"

Torch stuck his head out the window.

"No fire escape? Nothing?"

She only shook her head, her face draining of color When the front 'door opened audibly below. Then she blinked. "Just rope ladders in the bedrooms. Father insisted on it." She turned to the closet and hauled a flimsy-looking rope ladder from an upper shelf.

Torch took the bundle from her, anchoring the two end hooks on the window ledge and letting the rest fall free.

"Come on," he whispered harshly.

"Hurry. Get out there."

"I don't want to leave my cat!"

"You'll leave him on angel wings with a harp in your hands if you don't get yQur butt in gear!"

She sent a desperate glance toward the bed, where the cat had been only seconds ago, but the beast had gone into hiding: She shook her head, taring a't the open window, then at him.

"I ... I can't" -- "You damned well better. Move it!"

Torch heard heavy footfalls on the stairs. Alexandra bit her lip and, her entire body shaking, she stared at the' flimsy rope. Torch took her shoulders in his hands, gave her a shake.

"You don't have a choice, Alexandra."

Her eyes cleared a little and she nodded. Then, awkwardly, she climbed through the window, slowly making her way down the ladder.

 It wasn't Alexandra Holt climbing down that rope ladder in the middle of the night while brutal killers invaded her home. It just simply wasn't. Alexandra knew that her reaction would have been very different. She'd have been hiding under the bed, with Max, shivering in fear.

But something had happened to her up there, something she hadn't been aware could happen. She'd suddenly stepped out of herself, standing aside, quiet and trembling with fear, just watching events unfold like watching a scary movie. And something else had taken over.

Something stronger and braver than timid Alexandra could ever be. She didn't recognize that thing. It was like an alien presence, summoned to life by a strong pair of hands gripping her shoulders, and by intense blue eyes boring into hers. He'd roused some new, unfamiliar part of her to life. She didn't know how, but she was grateful.

Enough so that she almost felt guilty for lying to him about the safe-deposit box.

For just a few seconds; Alexandra had found courage she'd never known she possessed, and she managed to hang on to it until her feet were on the solid ground once more.

She stood, trembling on the ground below her bedroom window, watching the man descend. She heard the others, inside, and she felt no further hint of that brave alien. Only stark terror.

He jumped when he was still ten feet from the ground, rolled to his feet and gripped her arm. But she couldn't move when he tugged her.

Fear had rooted her feet to the ground.

"Come on, Alex! Don't freeze up on me now!" He made a harsh whisper seem like a barked order, and it shook her enough to make her move.

He'd called her Alex. No one had ever called her that before. It seemed different than Alexandra. Better. He pulled her into the pine forest beyond her back lawn and never slowed his pace.

He seemed to know where he was going. That gave her a little confidence. Becoming lost in the Adirondacks was not an appealing prospect. Usually she knew this section of forest like the back of her hand, but in this state of mind, God only knows where she'd end up.

Still, getting lost in the forest was a far more appealing prospect than falling into the hands of those men back at the house.

He veered westward, cutting a diagonal path through the forest that would bring them to the only road that led up here. She had to struggle to keep the pace he set. Briskly cold, pine-scented night air rushed in and out of her burning lungs. She kept looking back over her shoulder as they ran, expecting to see an army of men in black giving chase. None in sight. Not yet, anyway. They'd have to know where to look for them, though. The rope ladder was still hanging in the window.

Maybes Max would find it and use it to escape. Or maybe he'd stay hidden until those men left. The poor thing. She hadn't intended to leave him behind. " She'd intended to send this man off on a wild-goose chase and then gather up her eat and disappear herself.

Right after she went through her father's papers and found proof of his innocence. Now she'd have to wait until she could get away from this crazy man who clung to her hand with his strong, warm one and pulled her through the pitch-dark forest at a dead run.

Finally he stopped at the edge of the woods near the winding dirt road.

He wasn't even winded, though~Alexan- dm panted more loudly than she would have liked. She sank to the ground and its cushion of pine needles, watching him stare out at the road. And she automatically pulled her inhaler from her pocket and took a dose.

He tilted his head, listening. He seemed even to sniff the air.

Then he turned to her and jerked his head. She rose, though she wanted to stay right were she was. Taking her arm, he led her out onto the road. A car sat a few yards away, and that was where he drew her.

Alertness marked his every movement, and his feet on the road made barely a sound. He stopped beside the car, slipping a penlight from a pocket.

Then he was on his belly, shining the light underneath. What in the name of. ?

He got up, checked the car's interior and opened the driver's door.

"Get in ."

She hesitated.

"But" -- "Get in, Alex. The keys are in the switch. Don't start the engine.

Not yet. Count to one hundred, slowly, beginning when I leave. Then start it. I'll be back before you can count to a hundred a second time.

If I'm not, get the hell out of here. "

"You're leaving? For what? Where are you" -- "No time. Just do as I say, okay?"

"I don't think I can" -- "You'll be fine. Just do whatl ell you."

She clamped her lower lip between her teeth and nodded, sliding into the car. He opened the back door, snatching out a small satchel. Then he closed both doors without making a sound. He turned and ran into the woods.

Her sweaty hands slid back and forth over the steering wheel as she counted.

"One, two, three... how in the name of God did I end up in the middle of this iusani~? Six, seven, eight, nine... I can't possibly sit still all the way to a hundred!

"Where/s he? Twelve, thirteen... I've never b~n so scared in my life...

fifteen..."

She-did it. Somehow, she sat there, imagining she saw dark shapes moving just beyond the tree line, only to discover they were branches swaying in the wind, hearing sounds that turned out to be her own body brushing against the plush seat of his car. His car. A sports car with what appeared to be fangs where the grill should be. Jet black, inside and out. Expensive. It smelled new.

"Ninety-nine, one hundred. There. Made it that far."

She closed her eyes, prayed her pursuers were all hard-of-hearing, checked to be sure it was in neutral and turned the key. / The beast of a car came to life and sat purring like a contented lion. She started counting again and adjusted the mirror so she could see behind her. She checked the emergency brake. It was on. When she got to fifty, she depressed the clutch and slid the stick shift into first.

But when the passenger door was yanked open and he dove in, she was so startled her foot slipped off the clutch and the car stalled.

He swore.

"Come on, Alex! Go!"

She twisted the key again, released the brake and managed to take off this time.

"Are they following us?"

She looked up at the mirror.

"Shift! We're in a hurry here, the object is to go fast!" She shifted, negotiated a curve, picked up speed and shifted again.

Behind her she could only see a cloud of brown dust. Ahead, only darkness. She reached for the headlight switch. He covered' her hand.

"Not yet. No lights."

"I can't drive in the dark!" She shifted again, but fourth gear was all she dared on this road. She'd get them both killed if she tried to go any faster.

"Are they" -- "Yeah, they're coming."

Her foot pressed harder on the accelerator.

"This is insane. I'm running for my life in the middle of the night with a total stranger.

I can't drive this car! I've never driven a car like this in my life! "

"You're doing fine."

"God, I don't even know your name!"

"Palamaro," he said.

She glanced at him briefly, not daring to take her eyes from the barely visibly road ahead for more than an instant. He was turned in his seat, staring behind them, and he held something in his hand that she couldn't identify. Not a gun.

"Palamaro?" she repeated stupidly.

"Torch Palamaro," he said.

 "Torch?" She swung the wheel and the car veered wildly. She'd almost missed that corner.

"That's not your real name, is it?"

"Nickname." He was a man of few words, it seemed. She frowned, aga~ glancing his way.

"Why Torch?"

His answer was a slow grin, and he lifted the thing he held, pointing it behind them.

An explosion rocked the very ground beneath them. The car vibrated with it. The night glowed for a moment, and Alexandra jammed the brake and th clutch at the same time, skidding the vehicle to a stop in a cloud of dust.

She looked behind them, saw what had been the van, minus several important parts, the hoodbe/ng the most obvious. It burned like a motorized torch, ~pourin' g black aoke skyward as several men emerged like rats from a burning ship.

They scurried, then regrouped and ran forward, and she heard a rat-a-tat sound she couldn't place at f'u~t.

Then the back window exploded, and she screamed. The man who called himself Torch--for obvious rea-sous--gripped her waist in his large hands and pulled her onto his lap. Before she could yell again, he was sliding out from beneath her, into the driver's seat. In what seemed like a heartbeat they were flying, and one of his hands rose to the back of her head to push it toward her lap. "Stay down, Alex."

Alex stayed down.

Chapter 4

Torch didn't know where that brief flash of courage she'd displayed back at the house had come from, but it was long gone now. She sat huddled in the passenger seat with her knees drawn to her cheat and that long hair of hers hiding her face. And he was pretty sure she was crying.

Shaking ~ a leaf, too.

When they finally hit a road with what passed for blacktop, he slowed down a little. Not much, just enough to avoid drawing undue attention.

He turned the heat on full blast, but it still didn't make up for the wintry air cgming through the shattered back window. She must be cold, as well as terrified. Not to mention sick. He didn't know much about her gasping fits, but he didn't imagine being scared out of one's wits and then exposed to frigid air was exactly good for them. He wished she'd say something, but he didn't expect her to.

He found himself wanting to draw her out of the shell she'd crawled into, but he wasn't sure why.

"Are you sick?"

She shook her head, said nothing.

 "Is it asthma?" He didn't know why the hell he'd asked that. He didn't want to know anything about Alexandra Holt, except where her father had hidden his formula. He didn't care about her.

"I've had it since I was three."

"Is it bad?"

"Chronic. Not as bad now as it used to be though." She lifted her head a little, so her hair fell back and revealed her face. She closed her eyes.

"Used to drive my father crazy, having to take time off from work running me to doctors and hospitals."

Torch looked down at the way her long, elegant hands clasped each other more tightly as she spoke. Her father sounded like a real prince.

"What brings it on?"

She shrugged, opening her eyes again, even looking at him for a second.

"I haven't had an attack since I found my father, in his bed " She gave her head a nearly imperceptible shake.

And Torch found himself envisioning her, alone in that mausoleum of a house, slipping into her father's bedroom to cheek on him, worded maybe, about the man she adored, according to the background cheek on her. He could see it all so clearly, those wide, expectant brown eyes, growing even wider when she called to her father and got no answer. Wider still when she shook his shoulders and still heard no response. And finally filling with tears when she the~alized that her father, was dead.

Damn, why did his brain insist on conjuring so much baloney?

"When I was younger, it would act up at the first sign of pollen or cat hair or smoke. Now I guess it's mostly stress induced. Even Max's long hair doesn':t bother it."

That was better. She was talking. When she talked he could. focus on the words, the inflections in her tone. He could try to hear more than she was saying, maybe pick up on a clue. When she went silent, it was far too easy to start searching her eyes and imagine he could read every emotion in them.

Way too easy.

Stress induced, she'd said. Well, then, it was no wonder she'd had an attack. She'd certainly had some stress in the past few hours. But it couldn't be helped, could it? He had to get the formula, and he had to kill Scorpion. Alexandra and her asthma be damned.

"So where is this safe-deposit box located, Alexandra?" "New York."

He nodded.

"You told me that." She took a few steadying breaths. He thought she might be searching for some more of the tiny reserve of strength she kept hidden So well, way down at the end of some twisting cavern. inside her. He kind of thought she'd stumbled onto it by accident when he~d caught a glimpse of it before. Maybe she didn't even know the way back to that place.

She bit her lip, seemingly forcing words now.

"This is over as far as I'm concerned. You can just let me go now.

Okay?" She lifted her head, staring at him from huge brown eyes that were still frightened and now red rimmed to boot.

"I don't think so?" The words slipped out before he'd given them any thought at all. Why riot Iet her go?

"You don't need me. I'll tell you the name of the bank and give you the key, but only if you swear: to let me go.," He stared at her, searched her face probed those expressive eyes until he was in danger of being sucked into them as if they were made of quicksand. She was up to something. Damned if she wasn't. He could read her like a book. "Seems to me you'd want to go with me, Alex.

Seems like you'd want to see what I find in that box for yourself, especially since you're so sure it'll prove your old man innocent. "

"I know it will."

"So how do you know I can be trusted to report what's really in there?

How do you know I won't lie and ruin his impeccable name no matter what I find?"

 Her eyes widened and she bit her lip.

"I'm... not cut out for this."

"No, I don't suppose you are." He sighed hard, knowing it was an understatement. She was fragile and frightened and he was about to drag her with him into the hubs of hell. But he had no choice.

"Look, Alex, the truth is that if I let you go those guys are gonna track you down. It won't matter where you gofer how well you think you can hide. Sooner or later, they'll find you, and they'll try to force you to tell them what they want to know. They won't believe you don't know anything. And even if you didO manage to convince them of that, they'd be obliged to kill you anyway. And by the time they decided to do it, you'd be grateful for death."

She shook her head.

"No one is that brutal."

"Don't tell me that, Alex. I know exactly how brutal they are.

Believe me. "

"You've dealt with them before?"

Her eyes took on a new look, a curious, probing one, and they picked his brain. He clamped his jaw, averting his face. He didn't want her digging into his soul, because with eyes like those, she'd have to be capable of seeing right into its blackest, bottomless pit. Right to the heart of his grief. She'd look into the empty place where his soul was SUl posed to be. But his soul was gone. It had died with his little boys.

"You're not gonna be safe until I boss. Then I'll let you go. Until then, i He glanced her way.

"Now, how about handing over that key?"

She shook her head.

He sent her his meanest glare, but it was ineffective since she refused to look him in the eye.

"How about the name of the bank?"

"I'll tell you when we get to New York."

"You care to explain your reasons?"

 She shook her head from side to side.

"It's not as if it matters anyway. There's not going to be anything there." "Huh?"

Her white teeth worried her lower lip for a moment.

"I've already told you, my father couldn't have done this." She drew a shaky breath.

"And... and if he did stumble onto some potentially deadly weapon, then he did it by accident. He wouldn't have done something like that deliberately."

"I don't really care if it was deliberate or not, Alex. Your father created a monster. When he had it, he took it and ran."

" " Maybe he wished he hadn;t found whatever it was. You said he deleted his files, took all his notes. "

"So?"

"So, if this thing ever existed, he probably destroyed it himself."

"That's where you're wrong, Alexandra."

She tilted her head, staring at him, and her eyes pierced his skin again, tears slowly drying on her lashes.

"I know my father."

"And I know his type."

She was silent for a long moment while Torch waited. "You don't know anything about him at all," she said softly.

"Alex,/his formula of your father's--good or bad--was probably the most significant discovery of his career in science. Do you really think he'd have had the heart to destroy it?" She blinked at him, apparently unable to look away.

"I don't. I think he'd squirrel it away somewhere, and maybe he had the best of intentions. Maybe he never intended for another soul to see it or even know about it. But I really doubt he destroyed it. His vanity, his oversize ego, wouldn't let him destroy it."

Her knees lowered until her feet rested on the floor. She tipped her head back, resting it on the seat behind her. "You're wrong about him."

But her voice lacked conviction.

 ~ "Sure I am. And you're so loyal to him because... what, he was the world's greatest dad?"

She-flinched in real pain. Intense pain that brought tears to her eyes.

Torch wished he hadn't' spoken. He'd obviously touched a raw spot. He rolled his eyes, wishing he couldn't so easily tell when his words hurt her, wishing he could be callous to her pain.

"Look, you could be wrong, and we can't take a chance like that. I have to be sure. This is too important, Alex. Those guys back there would do anything, pay anything to get their hands on this."

She turned toward him, eyes narrow.

"And I'm supposed to trust that you won't get it yourself--on the off chance there is actually anything to get--and sell to the highest bidder?"

"What?"

She closed her eyes, sighed long and hard.

"If I'm stuck with a man I barely know, I'm going to hold on to the key.

For all I know, you might murder me once I give it to you and tell you what you want to know."

"You're kidding, fight?"

"I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm not going to let my father s memory be tarnished like this. For once m my life, I'm go' rag to do something fight, something he would have expected of me."

Torch had the feeling she was speaking' more to herself than to him.

He frowned at her, wondering where that last remark was coming from.

No way, Palamaro, you don't want to go tit ere Leave it alone. You don't give a damn about her, remember?

"You're liable to regret it," he told her, wisely heeding the advice his practical side was feeding him. Damn, he didn't want her with him. He didn't want her anywhere near him. She was dangerous. But he didn't see that he had a choice in the matter.

"I'd regret it more if I let him down again. I'd regret that for the rest of my life."

 Something close to admiration welled up in his throat. -He'd never seen anyone as scared as she'd been back there. Scared as she was, though, She was still able to stand up to him on behalf of this idiot father of hers. Her loyalty might be misplaced, but 'it was sure as hell solid.

"You mighrneed a refill on that medicine of yours before this is over."

He gunned the gas and the car shot forward.

He came out of the motel office with one key dangling from his good hand, and Alexandra couldn't take her eyes off him as he crossed the parking lot toward the car. He'd donned a leather jacket that had been lying in the back seat, so he wouldn't attract notice by walking in shirt leas with a bandage job on his shoulder. But she imagined he'd attracted just as many eyes this way. Striding purposefully toward her with the black jacket hanging open and his unclothed chest beneath it, she figured he looked like some women's fondest fantasy.

Not hers, though. To her, he looked scary. Too big and too hard. A little bit too virile. She'd prefer a less muscular man, one who was all brain and little brawn. She'd prefer a man with short, tame hair.

Not the long, wild waves that suggested rebellion and seemed untamable.

A man who was shy and sensitive, and who didn't keep his feelings to himself. The way this one did.

When she looked into his eyes, she could plainly see them roiling with.

something.

He looked tough, she mused. Like someone you wouldn't want to cross. or even look at wrong. She could never be attracted to a man as ominous and unapproachable as he was. One who seemed to exude subliminal, erotic messages along with his masculine scent.

He got into the car and drove it around behind the motel, parking it between a camper and a pickup truck to conceal its presence, He seemed to think of everything, this guy. He might he muscular, but he was smart, too. Who was he?

 Who did he work for? What kind of man did this stuff for a living?

It didn't matter, she told herself, wishing she could he-lieve it and stop wondering. She wouldn't be with him long enough to find out.

She didn't trust him. And she didn't want him getting a dose look at that key until she was ready to run. Because if he did, he might realize that it wasn't a safe-deposit box key at all. And she wasn't going to tell him the name of the bank, either, because then all he'd have to do would he to place a phone call, and he'd know her father no longer had a safe~eposit box there. Hadn't had one since right after he'd died.

Rather than trust Torch Palamaro with the truth, she was going to slip away from him at the first opportunity. She had to see for herself what her father's notes had to say. That way she could be sure the truth came out. This was the last chance she was ever going to have to make her father proud of her, to repay him for all the disappointments in the past.

Double-cross' rag Torch Palamaro, though, was going to he the most frightening thing she'd ever done. She could just ima~/ine what his wroth would be like. She shivered a little.

"Our room awaits," he announced as he got out.

She stopped shivering and stared, wide-eyed.

"What do you mean, our room?" Opening her door, she jumped out after him.

He didn't stop walking. Just paused in front of a door, inserted the key and opened it with a flourish.

"Let's just say I don't trust you any more than you trust me, Alex. And I wouldn't he a bit surprised if you were planning to take that key and go to that bank by yourself. In which. case you'd get killed, the bad guys would get the formula, and I'd lose my chance to do my job and collect my money ... and it's too much money to risk losing like that."

So he was only in this for the money. She might have guessed as much.

Well, he had one thing right, she was leaving. But she didn't care if it was with or without th key, .

and she wouldn't be going anywhere near New York. Doing so would he easier, though, if they had separate rooms.

"I'm not sleeping with you." She blurted the sentence before fully composing it in her mind.

"I mean, I'm not" -- "Twin beds, Alex. I think I can manage to stay in mine if you can manage to stay in yours. Okay?"

No, it's not okay. "

"Well, if you're afraid you won't be able to stay in yours, that's okay, too. I mean, I'm as red-blooded as the next guy" -- He broke off when her hand came flying up. She froze just before her palm connected with his face, and she stared at her hand, blinking in shock. My God, she'd almost slapped him. That wasn't like her. It wasn't anything-like her.

What was happening to her?

And what 'in the world was the matter with him? He hadn't flinched, hadn't drawn back, hadn't tried to stop her. And now, he just shook his head, clucking his tongue. -"Chicken."

"What?"

"Nothing. Listen, I'm the guy with the money, and I xcnted one room.

I'm not renting another one. Should have grabbed your purse while you were making that daring escape, lady. "

He held the door open, waved her inside, and-she went, too shocked by what she'd nearly done to argue with him anymore. He came in behind her, closed the door and locked it. Then he tossed the key onto the bed, followed by his jacket, and then his body, back first.

"I could use a nap."

"Something to eat would he nice."

"Nag, nag, nag."

She stared at him, then quickly looked away. It was oddly disturbing looking at his naked chest when he was stretching sinuously, rumpling the covers with his body.

"Well? Come on, I said nag. What are you waiting for?"

 She closed her eyes, shook her head. She didn't understand the man at all.

"I do not nag."

"No? Shame. It's a great stress reliever. For now, though, I'll do it for you. You're hungry. You'd like a shower and a change of clothes and then and only then will you feel able to sleep. Am I close?"

Tilting her head, she nodded.

"All right, then." He lunged to his feet and headed out of the room without another word. She watched his broad back and the tight curve of his denim-encased backside when he left, and then she swallowed hard, trying to relieve the dryness in her throat. But it didn't help.

When he came back he slung a duffel bag onto the. unoccupied bed she'd decided must be hers.

"There you go. Knock yourself out."

"You have food in there?"

"A veritable banquet. K rations. And help yourself to the clothes ."

He was on the bed again, but he lifted his head to look her up and down.

"They'll he big, but I imagine you look good in a feed bag."

She blinked, stunned. Had he just complimented her? Too late to tell, his eyes had closed again. And even as she stared at him, he seemed to fall asleep. The muscled wall of chest rose and fell slowly, expanding incredibly and then collapsing. The room was utterly s'dent except for the deep soughs of the air filling him again and again, escaping over and over. It hypnotized her.

She shook herself, muttering under her breath that she was a thousand kinds of idiot, and carefully loosened the drawstring on the duffel.

She tried not to hear the mesmerizing music he was making as she dug through the bag. It wasn't easy.

The thing was crammed full. Seemed he had everything but the kitchen sink in here. And it occurred to her that she might learn a little something about the mysterious man who called himself Torch, if she looked through what must be his worldly possessions.

 "K rations are in that zippered pouch on the front. And there ought to be a T-shirt right on top."

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice. He'd scared her half to death. She fished out a T-shirt as he'd instructed and left the bag where it was, to head into the little bathroom. And she locked the door before she showered.

But locked away from him in the bathroom, her curiosity about him grew to unreasonable proportions. Did he, perhaps, not want her looking through the duffel bag too thoroughly? And if not, why not?

What did he have to hide?

Again she told herself it didn't matter. She had an agenda of her own to keep. Probably the most important one of her life. She didn't dress in the big black T-shirt she'd taken with her. Instead, she put her elotlx back on. And then she era eked the door.

He was snoring now, very softly. All right then. ~-This would probably be the best opportunity she'd ever get. She tiptoed out of the bathroom, pans'mg only long enough to snatch her sneakers off the floor.

Torch never moved, just kept snoring, sleeping. His eyelashes seemed thicker and darker now than when he was. awake Or was it just the way they contrasted against his cheeks?

Didn't matter.

She stopped at the door, grabbed the knob.

"Going out for a little stroll, Alex?"

She froze, closing her eyes.

"I was... just checking the lock."

"You need your shoes for that?"

She tossed' the shoes to 'the floor, shook her head in self-disgust.

Palamaro sat up in bed, smiling smugly at her.

"Don't try that again, Alex. I'm the lightest sleeper you'll ever meet."

She only stared at him. His blue eyes were amused, not angry. And they had a disturbing habit of dipping as he looked at her. So he didn't just look at her face but at her entire body, head to toe, over and over again. Almost as if he couldn't resist doing so. Or maybe he was just trying to shake her, keep her off balance.

"Get some sleep," he told her.

"You're gonna need it." "I couldn't' sleep if I wanted to."

"Suit yourself." He swung out of the bed.

"Meanwhile you can help me with a little problem I just recently discovered."

He dug into the duffel, tugging out a fresh pair of jeans and tossing them onto her bed. She watched his every move, though she told herself repeatedly to look away. Her eyes refused to obey. They seemed terribly interested in the way the muscles in his back and shoulders flexed and relaxed and rippled beneath his taut skin. And the way his dark hair fell over his neck, just touching his shoulders. It looked.

~. incredibly. soft.

There was strength in this man. And she sensed it went deeper than just the physical aspects.

"What problem?" She wished he'd locate a shirt and put it on.

He turned toward her, the duffel dangling from his right arm Its weight made his b'gx~s stand out, and for a second her gaze was riveted to that arm, tracing the corded bulge beneath the taut skin.

She jerked her gaze elsewhere and ended up staring at his belly.

Hard. Tight. She felt hers tighten in response. What was wrong with her? Hadn't she ever seen a well-developed male before?

Not really, she admitted silently. Not up close. Not alone in a room with no one but him and his damned unclothed, hair-sprinkled chest and his scent.

"The problem of how the hell I'm supposed to leave you alone long enough to take a shower."

A lump rose in her throat. She couldn't seem to swallow it.

"The minute I turn on the water, you'll be out of here like a scared rabbit, won't you, Alex?"

 She shook her head, speaking past the lump, since it wouldn't dislodge. The result was a squeaky, raspy-sounding voice.

"I'll stay," she told him.

"I don't believe you. But listen up,. Alex. If you try to leave, I'll come after you, and if I have to chase you down in that parking lot buck naked and dripping wet, I'll do it. Don't think I won't."

His words evoked images she'd rather not see. She only nodded and croaked, "I'll stay?"

' "You'd better." He was back to digging through the duffel again. He bent over it, drew out another black T-shirt. As he did, a photograph fluttered to the floor and he went utterly still It landed face up and as he stared down at it, his face altered. The tough-guy glaze vanished, evaporal~xl like dew under a blazing sun. And what remained was a pain so stark and o intense that she almost gasped in surprise.

Since he didn't move, she did, stepping forward and dropping to her haunches. The photo's corners curled slightly inward, and it looked old.

He must have carried it for a long time. It was of a beau~,-petite blond woman and two little boys. Twins, apparently. And their dark hair and blue eyes looked enough like Palamaro's to make her wonder if they might be his children. Or maybe his nephews or something, She frowned and turned her gaze to the. man who seemed to have turned to, stone as his blue oyes remained riveted to the photo on the floor. She tried to picture him with a family, a wife and two little boys. But it wasn't easy. He just didn't seem the type.

She reached for the photo, then jerked backward when he swooped down and snatched it up with the speed of a striking rattler.

She caught his gaze only briefly, and it amazed her. He was hurting.

A vulnerable, aching mortal man battling unseen demons. Intense pain blazed from his eyes. Sorrow, remorse and more. It was in the way his shoulders bowed just slightly, the lowering of his chin, the softening of his jaw.

Then he turned away, tucking the photo into one of the duffel's side pockets.

"Whoare they?" She asked the question before she could think better of it.

He said nothing. Only straightened, lowering the bag to the bed, keeping his back to her. Something compelled her then. And she should have known it would. She was the consummate nurturer, after all. It was why she'd gone into medicine. She liked caring for people, had this insane urge to feel needed. Because she wasn't, she supposed. No one had ever needed her. Not really. Well, except for Max. She missed that lazy cat. He was another reason she couldn't stay away for very long.

She'd tried to care for her father, but he'd never allowed it. She'd gone so far as to follow him, leaving her job and her life and her home, just to care for him in what she'd thought was severe senility or worse.

When she saw someone in pain or in trouble, the urge to heal them overcame her. She'd been that way as long as she could remember. It was stupid, she supposed, for someone to long to be needed as desperately as she did, but it was there, nonetheless.

Someday someone would need her, and she'd he theirs for life. Until then, she'd just have to live with her compulsion to heal and sympathize and comfort.

When she was younger, she used to dream of growing up and having children. Sweet, beautiful children who'd love her unconditionally.

Who would need her as no one ever had. But that dream had shattered just recently. with her recent physical. A few unexplained eramps An ultrasound; And the discovery that her ovaries were withered and not function' rag A birth defect, more than likely, the gynecologist had told her.

She'd never have children.

Sweet, beautiful children like those two in the photo.

 Her hand rose, slowly, softly, and she watched it, almost surprised at the movement. Then she settled it on his hard, broad shoulder, and she felt him stiffen at her touch.

He drew a deep breath that shuddered its way into his chest; But he didn't speak to her. He didn't even turn to face her. He simply walked into the bathroom, his steps fast and sure. Alexandra's hand lingered in the air for a moment. She shouldn't have asked about the photo. He'd made that clear, hadn't he?

She stared at him in the bathroom. He hadn't bothered to close the door. But he turned toward her, and every trace of emotion was hidden behind the hard features that became handsome only when he slept.

Because then the granite went out of his face. The facade of hardness fell away.

His hands went to the button of his jeans.

"You might want to turn around, Alex. I'm gonna leave the door open, just in case you decide to try and leave."

His fingers freed the button, lowered the zipper. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband.

"Or you can watch. It's all the same to me."

He shoved the jeans down. She managed to convince herself to spin around as he did it, and she heard his deep chuckle, heard the material rasping over his thighs. Then she heard the water running.

The sound of it changed when he stepped into the spray.

Alex chancecl a quick glance over her shoulder and was rewarded with an unobstructed view of his wide back, dim-pied buttocks and rock-solid, hair-smattered thighs. He stood in the tub, shower curtain wide open.

Water pummeled him. Steam kose from his tanned skin, and again' she couldn't look away.

Until he turned, sending hera wink.

"You're not as bashful as I thought, are you, Alex?"

She was gaping, she realized. She clamped her jaw and hurried to the bed, deciding it might be time to get some sleep after all. But she didn't deep. Because when she closed her eyes, it was only to see a naked, wet man grinning at her.

 And it was only to realize, with a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach and a foreign ache in her loins, that she was attracted to Torch Palamaro. Powerfully attracted. To the man who seemed determined to ruin her father's good God help her.

Chapter 5

The bandages came loose in the shower and the wound hurt like hell.

Those were. the least of his worries, but he supposed he'd have to take care of ~.

Alexandra Holt was too ightful and too damned softhearted for her own good, or for his peace of mind. She'd seen the photo, and she'd seen the pain he never revealed to anyone. His most private hell. She had no damned right to see it! It belonged to him and him alone. He had no desire to share his grief or his guilt. Especially not with her. She'd invaded his most private place when she'd put her hand on his shoulder.

.

She'd only been trying to comfort him. He knew that. But he didn't want her damned comfort, When she'd almost touched the photo of Marcy and the boys. It was wrong to let her touch it. Touch them. She had' nothing to do with them. They were a separate part of his life, safe from invasion by outsiders.

Especially her. The first woman to stir a healthy lust in him since their death. It was wrong. He had to keep her away from that sacred memory, that sacred pain. He and "Marcy had had something. Not love. But friendship. And trust. They'd created something precious together. Jsh and Jason.

He bit his lip against the swelling in his throat and the burning in his eyes. They'd been his world. And Marcy had been a big part of that world.

He remembered the phone call, the last time he'd ever heard the voice of the woman who'd given him twin sons.

"Try to get home early," she'd said, happiness in her voice.

"Before it gets too dark. Josh finally figured out how to ride his two-wheeler and he's ding to show off for you."

"I'll be there. Just one last report to file. I'd have been home before now, if D.C. hadn't calhxl in sick."

She'd laughed.

"Sick, huh? I think he was playing hooky. The boys and I ran into him at the mall today. He was talking to some man with--oh, hey, I'd better go. Someone's at the door. I'll tell you about it later."

"Give the boys a kiss for me," he'd {old her.

"If I can get them to come inside long enough," she'd replied, and hung up. And that was it That was all. And apparently she had got tea Josh and Jason to come inside, because they'd died with her in that damned explosion.

And the pain was his. It was his alone. This job, this mission he was on was for them. He'd avenge their deaths. He'd get it right, this time. And he wasn't sure why, but he felt' certain Alexandra Holt posed a threat to that. Somehow, she'd try to keep him from exacting vengeance. It made no sense, but the knowledge was there, stamped indelibly on his mind. He couldn't let her do that. Could not allow this woman to come between him and his goal.

He. stepped out of the bathroom, wearing his shorts and nothing else.

Let her be shocked. Let her throw a prissy little fit and he could despise her for being pretentious and phony.

But she didn't. She lay on the bed, curled on her side with her back to him. All that glossy hair covering her shoulder, a few curling tendrils reaching out. over the pillow as if in search of something to twist around.

It damned well wouldn't be him.

She didn't turn, didn't even move. He figured she must be sleeping.

He dug the first-aid kit out of the duffel aad taped up his shoulder, though doing so one-handed was awkward and nearly impossible. But he managed. When she didn't stir to offer help, he was sure she was sleeping. She was too softhearted to let him struggle without jumping in like Mary Sunlight to help him. Even if she'd decided to hate his guts, which he dearly hoped she had.

He ate. But the whole time, the image of her, lying there in the bed wearing his T-shirt now, with her hair spread around l~r like black satin, haunted his mind. She hadn't eaten. Nora bite. And she should have, because she was going to need her energy at its peak for the trip ahead. Either she was too fussy to settle for the rations, or she didn't have any appetite. Probably the latter.

He ought to wake her and make her eat.

He didn't.

And when he'd cleaned his guns and loaded them and run out of things to do, be sat there on his own bed and stared at her.

Why did he have to end up with a woman who could make a saint have impure thoughts? Why couldn't this job have provided only the usual risks, bullets flying over his head, that kind of thing? Why her?

Palamaro hadn't been with a woman since Marcy had died. And, frankly, he hadn't wanted to. That part of his soul had died with his family.

He hadn't been aroused since the night when his life had gone up in smoke, and that was fine with him. He'd planaed to just throw himself body and soul into the job, and hope to God the bad guys would win one of these times. Let them blow him away and put an end to this joke that passed for a life.

But work hadn't made him forget. And with Doug Stern always watching his every move, x~ever quite believing Torch innocent in the bombing that had killed his family but unable to backup his suspicions, work had become impossible.

Hell, he couldn't even blame Stern. The bastard had been half in love with Marcy when she and Torch had had to get married. If he hadn't gotten her pregnant, she probably would have ended up married to Stern.

And maybe she'd still be alive Though he never said it out loud, Stern was a constant reminder of that fact. So Torch had chosen retirement. A life of ~lling time, waiting to waste away. But that hadn't worked out, either.

He'd entered stage three now, he supposed. He was living for vengeance.

That was all he can about; There was no room for sympathy or even lust for Alexandra Holt. No room at all.

So what was it about her that had him feeling ,. desire? The longer he looked at her, the more he felt it. All he' done was sit on his bed and look at her, and he was hard. Just like that, after almost a year without a sign of life down there. And it se~med to him that all these months of absti, hence were screaming to end. Right now, right here.

With her.

Made no sense whatsoever. And he had no intention of heeding their cries. If he could dodge bullets and battle terrorists, he could certainly resist a little uprising of his libido. He Wasn't going to be unfaithful to Marcy's memory. Beyond that, he most certainly wasn't going to let himself care about Alexandra Holt. Not in the least.

Because it would interfere with the job he'd come here to do.

It would distract him, and it would mess up his objectivity, dull his instincts. He knew the drill. She was one of the targets of this investigation, and an operative didn t screw around with a target.

Besides, he'd pretty much given up on caring about people at all. It hurt too much to lose them. Torch knew damned well he wasn't up for dealing with any more pain. '~ So he sat there arguing with his body's demands, until an hour before dawn. That was when she muttered something in her sleep and rolled over, bending one long leg slightly, causing the T-shirt to bunch up around her waist. And he saw the little white cotton parities she wore, and he wanted to go over there and slide them off her.

He was undeniably aroused, and disgusted with himself for it. Fresh air might help. He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and headed out the door, paced in the parking lot, stared up at the fading night sky.

But it gave him no answers and did little to erase this sudden hunger for a woman he barely knew.

It was only when he heard the soft purr of a vehicle and turned to see the sleek black minivan moving slowly through the lot that he forgot all about his aching need.

Torch ducked into the. shadows, pressing his back to the motel's brick wall and moving sideways until he could see the van again.

There had been two vans at Alexandra's house. He'd blown one to hell, but not the other. And to believe this was just some family looking for a good parking spot was a fool's errand. It was Scorpion, or more of his henchmen. It had to be, and they were cruising the lot looking for Torch and Alexandra Holt.

How the hell had they followed him here? Had they seen his car? Did they know what to look for?

Didn't matter. He'd left two alive back there, two who could describe him and Alex to a fault. All they'd have to do would be to question the desk clerk.

But how the hell had they found them here?

The van came to a stop out front, and one of them headed toward the office.

Torch duck rid back into the room, closed the door quietly and flicked off the lights. He ran to the bed where Alexandra lay sleeping, her face illuminated only by the flickering orange glow of the damaged neon vacancy sign outside. He leaned over her, gripped her shoulders.

"Alex, wake up!"

 Her eyes flew open. Sleepy and wide and brown. She stared up at him, and he knew what she was thinking. He knew, read it on her face as easily as boldface type. She thought his reasons for coming to her bed were anything but what they were.

She shook her head slowly, side to side.

"I ... I don't even know your real name," she blurted.

Not "get your filthy hands off me, you beast." Not "make another move and I'll scream this place down around your ears." Just that she didn't know his name. Was he supposed to take that to mean that not knowing his name was her only objection to a little game of one-on-one?

He swallowed hard, told himself this wasn't the time or place for those kinds of questions.

"We have to leave. They're here."

He saw the fear, the panic in her eyes. She lunged out of the bed and was yanking on her jeans, stuffing her feet into her sneakers even before he added, "Hurry. They're in the office now, they won't hear us leave."

"How did they find us?"

"Damned if I know:' Torch tore his gaze away from her, scanning the room to be sure they left nothing behind. As he checked the bathroom, he tried to figure it out, talking it through as he did.

"You said you found out about the safe-deposit box when you were going through your father's papers, after he died. Are those papers still in the house?"

She groaned, closed her eyes.

"Right in his hedroom God, why didn't I think of it before?"

"I didn't think of it, either." But he should have. Dam-reit, hadn't he learned anything? Not anticipating crap like this had gotten his family murdered in their own home. So what did it take to get through to him?

"What is it? What's wrong?"

He shook himself, met her gaze. She was staring at him, and she' was scared half out of her mind.

"Nothing. Just that they knew where we were going, knew we were in a hurry, took the only sensible route, and started checking Maggie $hayne motels. Child's play for these guys. My mistake. I'm supposed to know better."

Her brown eyes probed his, narrowing, searching. It was as if she knew his words had some double meaning, as if she were trying, even now, to see the source of his consuming pain. The way she looked at him made him shiver, and he was damned if he knew why. He averted his eyes, slung the duffel over his shoulder and took her arm. He held his gun at the ready in his right hand and opened the door.

"I can't do this. I can't go out there." She whispered the words, but Palamaro either didn't hear or didn't want to. He tugged her through the door and outside into the night. She moved on legs as stiff as boards, which she figured was just as well. If her knees bent 'at all, they'd probably dissolve.

She tried to look around, tried to search the area for threats, men in black, men with guns. It seemed at lb-st that they were everywhere, but it was only that the parking lot was alive with moving shadows. It took one panicked moment for her to realiTc the cause--headlights passing on the highway out front, casting their glow slowly as they moved, making the shadows come to life. There could he twenty men in black lurking out here, and they'd he invisible.

Torch Palamaro stood still just beyond the door, and she thought he was testing the air. The nfotel room behind them was dark. He'd flicked off the lights before dragging her out here. He'd left the door wide.

In case they had to retreat? But if they went back in there, they'd he trapped, wouldn't they?

From somewhere on the highway, rock music came faintly, then louder, then faded again. Motors purred and sputtered and roared. She could hear the tinny voices and canned laughter of a TV sitcom coming from one of the rooms nearby. And there was a throaty gurgle of rushing water from beneath the grate just under her feet. Nothing else. Utter silence. But that didn't mean they were alone.

 Palamaro leaned close to her.

"Give me the key. But don't make it obvious."

She stared at him, but he didn't meet her eyes. His were Wide, alert, moving back and forth as he scanned the parking lot's dancing shadows.

"I ... I don't understand what you want me to" -- "Now, dam it His whisper was all but silent, and still managed to be harsh, demanding.

He'd given an order. Alexandra prayed she was doing the right thing and reached toward the back pocket of her jeans.

He faced her, moving so suddenly she jumped in surprise. One arm snagged her waist, jerking her against him hard and fast. And tight.

So tight she could barely breathe. His mouth covered hers, and he stole what little remained of her breath, taking it into his own body, sucking the very life from her, it seemed. He pressed her back to the wall, nudging her mouth open, thrusting his tongue inside, dip-p'mgand tasting and taking without ~i~ion or hesitation. His hand slid down over her back, and her eyes fell closed even as she relied his remained open. And he still clasped that black gun in his other hand.

Her wooden legs dissolved, and she had no choice but to put her, arms around his neck. She'd sink to the ground if she didn't. His mouth on hers was warm, wet, hungry as it invaded and devoured. When his hand clasped her but-toeks, squeezed her there, held her hips to his as they g~fi~d against her, she felt her insides turn to molten lava.

She ti ted her head to accept his tongue's thrusts as her mind spun into madness. Conscious thought receded. Feeling took over.

Sensation. The blood in her veins became fire, and every limb trembled.

She opened her mouth to his with a soft groan of surrender.

She slid her fingers into his long dark hair and kissed him back and even moved her hips against him. He was commanding responses from her very soul as he kissed her. The way his hand moved, kneaded, slid. Into her l~ack pocket, and then out again, with the key.

 He could have slapped her and shocked her less.

He straightened away from her, the key now in his fist. His eyes just.

as alert and sharp as before. His breathing perfectly normal.

While she clung to the wall behind her to keep from falling to her knees, and fought to catch her breath, he went about his business, seemingly unaffected. Her heart hammered. She was cold and she shook with it. He turned, scanning the lot again, unmoved by the chaos he'd just brought crashing down on her.

"Now walk very casually to the car, Alex. Open the passenger door and get in."

She swallowed hard, lifting her chin. He was a bastard. He deserved to be horsewhipped for what he'd just done. But she'd be damned if she'd let him see how much he'd shaken her. She took a step toward the car, then two. -He kept pace on the driver's side.

She reached the door. Bent to it, put her hand onit.

"Not leaving so soon, are you, Palamaro? The party is oaly begi~'nning."

The voice sent cold chills up Alexandra's spine. Itwas too high-pitched, too shrill. She froze, moving only her eyes to find the source of that fingernails-on-a-chalkboard tone. The shockingly pale man stood right behind Palamaro, a gun pressed tight to the base of Toreh's neck. Torch's gaze met hers over the top of the car. There was rage in his eyes. But she sensed it wasn't directed at her. He said a single word, and it dripped with hatred.

"Scorpion."

The man behind him yanked the duffel from Torch's back and slammed it down onto the pavement.

"Your gun, my friend. Drop it."

Torch did. Alexandra heard the clatter of metal against pavement. She tried not to sink into a well of panic, tried telling herself it was all right. There were other guns in that duffel Torch had slung over his shoulder. Lo~s of other guns.

 The man behind Torch lifted his gaze, and when it met Alexandra's she shuddered in revulsion. Cold eyes. Colorless in the darkness, only igniting with neon fire when the sign flicked and buzzed. But evil, unspeakably evil. She felt its touch when he looked at her. The neon illuminated the scar across his cheek, making it seem fresh. Goose bumps rose on her arms, and she felt a crackle of static race over her nape. His perfectly white hair and glowing red eyes. "Put those lovely arms up high, Ms. Holt, and walk around the car to stand beside your paramour, will you?"

She opened her mouth to tell him she couldn't. She couldn't move. Her feet were frozen to the ground where she stood. But no words came out.

Seemed she was scared speechless as well as motionless. Her gaze jerked back to Torch's, and he sent her a nearly imperceptible nod.

And somehow, she managed to raise her hands above her head and put one foot in front of the other until she stood beside Torch, facing the car, with that monster behind them.

"Turn around," the monster squeaked; His voice made her teeth hurt.

Torch turned to face him. Alexandra stood still, t~mbling. Until Torch's hands touched her should e rs, urging her to turn as Well: The monster smiled. His eyes were pale, pink flashing red when the sign flickered its light on them. His skin was ashen. Shorter than Palamaro, though not by much, he was skinny. His long, narrow face ended in a pointed chin. He seemed to Alexandra to be evil personified.

"Good to see you again, Palamaro. I barely trusted my instincts when my men described the agent who'd run off with Ms. Holt and left them bound like calves at one of your American rodeos on her living room floor. I almost convinced myself it was only wishful thinking. But its you."

"You shouldn't be so glad about that," Torch said softly. "Oh, but anyone else wouldn't even have been a challenge the monster went on.

"I enjoy a worthy opponent, Paiamaro. Makes the game so much more interest ng.

"This is no game, Scorpion."

 "Of course it is. Shall I tell you the rules?" He laughed softly, toying with the action of the gun as he pressed its barrel to Torch's forehead. Alexandra gasped aloud.

"You have something I want," he said.

"The key to Alexander Holt's safe-deposit box. Give it to me, and I'll consider killing you quickly. Otherw.ise..." He smiled again, a slow, meaningful smile that froze Alexandra's heart.

"It will be slow and extremely painful."

"What makes you think we have the key?" Torch said, and his voice was low, level, dangerous.

The man shook his head.

"Lies will only earn your lady friend more pain, Palamaro."

Torch stared;-never once blinking.

"You think I'd keep the key with me? You forgeti Scorpion, I've dealt with you before."

"And you underestimated me then, too, as I recall. I did think it would take longer for you to take a lover, thought. Is your dead wife a faded memory already?"

She felt Palamaro stiffen beside her, and instantly thought of the woman in the photo. His wife? Dead? What about the boys? Had they been his sons, then? And where were they now?

"No matter," the monster went on.

"I'm going to kill this one, too.

Wil/you forget her as quickly? " His gun moved down over Torch's face, his chin, his neck, finally stopping when it pressed to the center of his chest. The man called Scorpion reached out with his free hand, ran it slowly over Alexandra's hair. She cringed backward, pressed tight to the car, averted her face, but he still reached her. :" I won it kill her fast like I did your wife, though. I believe I'll take my time with this one. Shall I make you watch, Palamaro, when I take her? Would you enjoy that? "

Her stomach heaved and her lungs began to spasm. Alexandra whirled, dropping to her knees and retching on the asphalt.

"A weak stomach, Ms. Holt? Such a pity."

 She knelt there until she was spent, and when, she finally stopped heaving, she knew she couldn't stand up again if her life depended on it. She collapsed against the duffel, sobs wrenching her body.

Scorpion shook his head disdainfully at her, before returning his attention to Torch.

"You might at least have chosen one who might be of help, Palamaro. I never thought weak women were your type." He sent her a last glance, then dismissed her with a shrug.

"Ah well, no matter. Where is the key?"

"Not here," Torch said ealmly, levelly.

Alexandra felt her bronchial tubes clenching tighter, and she gasped for air. Not now, she prayed. Not now! Her damned asthma might get them both killed. She pawed the spilled contents of the duffel in search of her inhaler, sucking in breaths that couldn't sustain her.

She felt dizzy al- "Where, Palamaro? My patience is running thin."

Torch only shook his head.

"I can't believe you're here alone," he said.

"I thought you never ventured out from under your rock without a half-dozen henchmen at your beck and call."

"For you I don't need help. This is personal now, isn't it, Palamaro?

Just you and I. "

Alexandra didn't find the inhaler on the ground, so she put her hand into the bag itself, still searching, still panting, growing more desperate. for air with every insufficient gasp. She dosed her fist around something cold and metal-lie. Not the inhaler. A gun.

She blinked in stark disbelief. She couldn't do this. She couldn't possibly do this. She gasped and choked, fighting for air, doubling over. And as she did, and her long hair concealed what her hands were doing, she slowly pulled the weapon out of the bag, turned it so the grip was in her palm, closed her fingers around it.

"This is getting tedious," Scorpion whined in his high-pitched, irritating voice.

"I'm going to have to insist your lady join me back in the room here. I have methods for extracting information, you know. It won't be pleasant."

Alexandra didn't know if the gun was loaded. She didn't know anyting about guns, except that one was supposed to pull 'the hammer back before firing. Only this one didn't seem to have a hammer. And if she waited much longer, she'd pass out from lack of oxygen. Her breaths were shallow, noisy, wheezing, rapid.

"It's a shame. A waste of a good man, but I'm afraid I'll have to kill you right away, Palamaro. You understand. I don't need you to lead me to the formula when I have Ms. Holt. And she'll be much more pleasant corn pan" -- She lifted the barrel and squeezed the trigger.

Palamaro's first thought when the shot exploded in his ears, was that Scorpion had shot him. It took only an instant to realize that wasn't the cfise. Scorpion swore aloud and swung his gun down toward Alexandra. But Torch brought his clasped fists down on Scorpion's gun h~/nd, and the weapon dropped to the ground. The man never missed a beat. He 'lunged away, running for all he was worth, heading for the black van at the other end 'of the parking lot. And Torch itched with everything in him to go after him. To kill him. To make him pay. The haunting images of Marcy and Josh and Jason, smiling at him from that photograph he carried everywhere he went, drove Torch to do it. He reached down to Alexandra; yanking the Ruger from her cold, trembling hands.

He made the mistake of glancing at her as he did it, though, and then he paused. The red haze of hatred faded a little, enough so he could see her hunched on the cold pavement, choking for air. Her eyes were wide and glazed in the neon glow, swimming with tears that had left red streaks on her face.

He heard the van door slide open. Damn. No doubt Scorpion had other weapons in there. He bent down, caught sight of the inhaler and grabbed it, lifting it to her lips, fitting it between them. She didn't move.

"Take it." Still no response.

"I said take it, Alex!" Finally her hands closed over his. Damn, she was cold. He stuck the gun into his jeans, bent to grip her under the arms and hauled her to her feet. He wanted to take the supplies, too, but they were scattered and there was no time to gather them all. He settled for grabbing the half-filled duffel as he opened the car door.

"Get in, Alex. Quick?

She blinked twice, staring at the ground, still gasp' rag for breath, though she'd finally shot a blast of medicine into her lungs. All at once she crouched and snatched something up, before finally scrambling across the seat and huddling in the passenger side.

Torch dove behind the wheel. The van had started toward them. He jammed the car into gear, spun the tires as he took off. He sped into traffic, cutting just ahead of an eighteen-wheeler and getting a blast of air horns for his trouble. All the while, one hand was elbow deep in the duffel bag. And he finally found what he wanted, a little cock-taft for his pal, Scorpion. He anchored the bottle between his thighs, worked a lighter from his jeans pocket, flicked the flame to life and touched it to' the cloth. He didn't even open his window.

Just chucked the Molotov right out the back, through the missing windshield.

The explosion mused cars to skid sideways behind him; effectively blocking Scorpion's pursuit. Changing lanes, passing everythifig ahead of him, he managed to leave th{ minivan and the small fire in the distance. But chaos was far behind him, he didn't let up on his S, ~~,. He: was taking no more chances with Scorpion. He couldn t afford to make another mistake.

Some miles later, only beginning to allow himself to feel confident of their escape, he glanced over at Alexandra. She sat utterly still, her pupils dilated. Her breathing had eased, He saw the inhaler on her lap.

And then he blinked. The photo lay there beside it. Marcy and Josh and Jason, smiling from the curling picture. All he had left of them, really.

A horn blew, and Torch jerked his attention back to the highway and swerved into his own lane. She'd grabbed the picture off the ground before they'd left. He gave his head a slight shake. Why?

He looked at her again, keep' rag one eye on his driving this time. She was shaken, may he in shock. White as a sheet. "Alex? You okay?" ~ Her answer was a vague nod. She licked her lips. "Did... did-I hurt him?"

 "Scorpion?"

The question surprised him. He supposed it shouldn't have, though.

She was a doctor. In the business of healing people, not putting bullets into them, "You missed by a mile, Alex But you got our butts out of one tight spot, anyway. That was quick thinking."

She tilted, her head, frowned a little, finally looking at him. Her expression seemed a little confused.

"You did good back there," he clarified.

She closed her eyes, lowered her head.

"I got sick on the ground and almost passed out."

"Yeah, but you kept your head and used your wits. Not too many women I know could have done that."

She shook her head.

"It was an accident. I was looking for my inhaler, and I found the gun by mistake?"

Torch frowned, wondering why she was so. determined not to take any credit.

"Did you fire it by mistake, too?" "No."

"I rest my case."

She said nothing for a long time. When she did, her voice was almost normal.

"What happens now?"

Torch shook his head slowly.

"They know where the box is ." ' "But they don't have the key."

"Neither do we... not anymore."

He saw her frown. She sat a little straighter, her eyes beginning to clear. Good. If thinking about the task at hand would erase the fear from her eyes, all the better. He'd never seen anyone so afraid.

But she hadn't frozen. The woman had steel she wasn't even aware of.

"I dropped the key through that grate in the parking lot," he told her.

She frowned harder, giving her head a slight shake. "Why? Why throw it away after you... went to so much trouble to take it from me?"

His head jerked around. He couldn't tell if that was pain or anger in her eyes. She was still showing mostly fear, and it camouflaged everything else.

"I suppose I ought to apologize for, uh, for that.

I. knew Scorpion was watching. I could feel him, and I didn't want him to see me take the key fxom you. It. was the first thing that popped into my head. "~ Yeah, righLiActually, kissing Alexandra like that had been teasing his brain since he'd first laid eyes on her. But he'd never imagined her response would be pure, mind-blowing desire. Hell, he hadn't imagined what her response would be. But not that. When she'd turned to liquid fire in his arms, he'd almost forgotten all about Scorpion.

When she'd moaned in a deep, throaty voice, and opened her mouth for him, and raked his hair with 'her fingers. Damn He'd known she'd be a distraction. "Don't ever do that to me again," she said voice shaking.

"Yeah, I could tell you really hated it."

Her eyes widened and she stared at him, wounded right to the quick, he thought.

"All right, I won't lay a hand on you. Feel better?"

She looked away, eyes straight ahead.

"Why did throw the key away?"

"As a precaution. Not that it matters now.

knows where that box is. I don't imagine not having will stop him from getting his hands on the contents. even if it did, we couldn'. t just show up at the bank. He'd t there, waiting. He'd take us the second we stepped out of the building. "

"Then... then it's over? We've lost?"

He glanced sideways at her, sent her a wink.

"Not by a long shot. I'm good at what I do. One of the best, and even though it's risky, I still think Ican reach that box without ~ getting my head blown off."

She flinched when he said that.

"It's just gonna require some creativity. Now, I think it's about time you gave me the specifics on that bank. I don't like that bastard Scorpion knowing more about this than I do."

He looked at her, and he knew the second he saw her face that there was more. Someth/ng she hadn't told him. Cmilt clouded her brown eyes, and she gnawed her lower lip. "Well?"

She cleared her throat.

"I can't let you risk getting shot when."

 " oo " There is no safe-deposit box in New York. "

He blinked,. swinging his head around, gaping.

"What the hell do you mean?" "I lied."

Chapter 6

Torch swore until he ran out of breath. Then he inhaled and started over, jerking the wheel without signaling and pulling the car off onto the first exit ramp they came to.

"How can there not be a safe-deposit box, Alex? Scorpion saw the papers saying there is one. That's what led him to us."

She chewed her lip, keeping her eyes. lowered "There was one once.

Just like Isaid, in New York. And I ally did find out about it after Father died, and Scorpion probably saw the same papers I did. But. "

She let her words trail off.

"If you stop now I'll wring your pretty neck, Alex. But what?"

She lifted her chin, her wide brown eyes meeting his head-on. "I could see no sense in keeping a safe-deposit New York when I wasn't even sure I'd ever be there again."

The question that sprang to the tip of his tongue was But he bit it back. It didn't matter to him what her were. He didn't give a damn why a talented young doctor would want to hide herself away in the mountains alone and never emerge into the daylight again. It didn't matter. All that mattered was finding this damned formula before Scorpion did. And then killing the bastard.

So why was it so hard to keep from asking the question? "Lovely," he said instead, braking for a light at the end of the ramp, then turning right, having no idea where the hell he was going, just driving.

"Go on. And tell me the truth this time."

She looked at him with wary eyes. Half afraid of him. Half something else, something he hadn't quite put his finger on yet. He would, though. She was too easy to read for it to take very long.

"We're on the same side, Alex."

"No, we're not. Our goals are completely different. This is important to me, Palamaro. My father is dead. In my whole life I never did anything but let him' down and I'm not going to do it again this time. I have to clear his name. I owe him."

The questions were burning in Torch's mind again. Questions that had nothing to do with this case. Questions about her. Just what had convinced her she'd been such a big disappointment to her old man ?

What horrible letdowns had he suffered at her tender hands? The woman's perceptions were definitely skewed.

Again he clenched his fists, forcibly resisting the urge to ask, to delve into her psyche, to search for the source of all that pain and wariness in her eyes. He took the next left. "So what did you do with the box?"

"I sent the key and the number to Father's lawyer in Pine Lake. I asked him to have the contents of the box sent to him there. I just wasn't up to going through any more of Father's things at the time.

Jim stored them for me, said they'd be there whenever I was ready. As far as I know, they still are. "

Torch pulled the car to a stop on the shulder.

"You're telling me that this safe-deposit box in New York City isn't even. your father's anymore? That none of his stuff is in it?

That it was up there in Pine Lake all along? "

She nodded.

Torch rolled his eyes and blew a sigh through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to throttle her.

"And the key you gave me?"

"Just an old PO box key."

He swore some more.

"So I was supposed to trot all the way to New York on this wild-goose chase you set up, and then what? While I sat around trying to figure it out, you were going to try to give me the slip, right? You were going to head back up to your precious mountain retreat and grab your father's not on your way."

She swallowed hard, audibly, and nodded again.

"And then what, Alex?"

"Then I'd know... I'd have proof that my father didn't develop this weapon you keep talking about."

"Oh, yeah?"

"And I'd have sent everything to you, to clear my fathTorch drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"And what if you'd found just. the opposite? Hmm? Would you have let me know about that, too? Or would you have tried to cover it up, the way he did?"

"My father is innocent!"

"Yeah, and I'm Santa Claus."

"I don't understand why you're so angry!"

He turned toward her, gripped her shoulders in his hands, and stared right into her eyes. 'Dammit, Alex, you just aren't getting it, are you? This plan of yours could have worked! You could have pulled this off, and if you had, I'd have been completely stumped. Pine Lake would be the last place I'd look for you. And dam reit you'd have probably ended up dead! "

She shook her head slowly, her eyes probing his, confusion clouding their liquid brown depths.

 "Dead, Alex. Cold and stiff in the ground. No more talking or laughing or flashing those big brown eyes. Nothing.

One minute you're going about your business and the next. it's just all over. It's all freaking over " His hands had tightened on her shoulders. A little too much maybe.

"Over," he said, his voice lowering, growing harsher and rougher than it should.

"All over... for you anyway. Not for me. There would be one more innocent life on my shoulders, and let me tell you something, Alex, one more is more than I can take."

Her eyes slowly came into focus through the haze of gd~f that had been clouding his vision. Her eyes, so damned intense they could see things no normal eyes could See. He knew it. He had the feeling she was reading his scarred soul just then as easily as reading a book.

He gave his head a shake and he released her. But he knew it wasn't soon enough. She'd managed to shak him right out of his coldness, right out of ~ mannequin state, and she'd copped yet another peek at the hell that lived inside him. She'd seen way too much.

He looked away, relaxing his hands, knowing his fingers had been digging into her flesh. He steadied his breathing, f but he could feel her eyes on him. And when he glanced back at her he saw the way they darted rapidly over his face, the way she lifted her hand, as if to press it to his cheek, only to stop in midair, maybe because of the look in his eyes'.

"You're in agony, aren't you." It wasn't a question, the way she said it. More like an observation. One that made hi heart bleed. Torch didn't want her sympathy. He could handle just about anything but that.

He shook his head from side to side.

"You're changing the subject We were talking about you" -- "No. I don't think we were."

When traffic cleared, he pulled a U-turn and headed back the way they'd come.

"She was beautiful, your wife."

 He only nodded, trying to focus on driving, trying to work out his next step in his mind. Revenge. Justice. The blood and pain and death that he'd inflict on Scorpion. Those ought to be foremost in his mind right now. Ugliness, blackness, violence.

"Tell me about her," Alex said softly, and her voice was hypnotic. a whisper of music, a soothing melody that pierced the darkness and somehow penetrated the stone of his heart.

"What was her name?"

"Marcy." He said it automatically, without stopping to think about it first. Then he bit his lip, knowing he shouldn't have answered. He didn't talk about Marcy and the boys. Not to anyone.

She was silent for a moment, and Torch thought maybe she'd decided to grant him a reprieve.

"And what about the boys?"

You don't talk about the boys to anyone. You don't 'talk about the boys to anyone. You don't talk-His thoughts were interrupted by his own raspy words. "Josh and" -- his voice broke, and he cleared his throat "--and Jason." Why was he talking to her? What was compelling him to answer her gentle questions? Why didn't he just tell her to shut up and mind her own damned business?

"They look like twins in the picture."

"They.. were."

"No .... " Her hand rose to her-lips, and moisture filled her eyes.

Then she touched him. There was no stopping her this time. Her hands covered his whilx~-knuckled ones on the steering wheel, warming them through.

Torch's foot hit the brake without his permission. The car jerked to a stop in the middle of a narrow road, and the pickup behind him blasted its horn before going around. Torch barely noticed. G-fief blinded him, and the lump in his throat had swelled to encompass his entire chest. It was suffocating him, choking him. His hands on the wheel '  clenched tighter and he closed his eyes, shook his head.

"I can't do this."

"Yes, you can," she whispered, just as if she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"It's all right. Come here."

And he did. Damn him, but he did. He turned toward her and let the fragile and frightened little thing pull him into her arms. She cradled his head on her shoulder, massaging his scalp with one hand, rubbing his back with the other. And it felt good, dammit. It felt good. So good that he put his arms around her waist and he squeezed her closer. So' good that he didn't pull away when she turned her head and pressed her soft lips to his cheek. He felt the moisture, the warmth between his face and hers, and he wasn't sure whose tears dampened his skin, it didn't matter. He was sinking in a stagnant sea of guilt and remorse and pain. And she was suddenly here, just when he'd been about to drown. Buoyant and light. The sensation washed over him like a cleansing, fragrant wave of revelation.

Somewhereinside, avoice whispered, "Cling to her and save yourself, Palamaro. She's your only hope."

And for one, insane moment, he' did. He turned his face' to her and slid his mouth over the satiny skin of her cheek and her jaw, and finally covered her lips. He felt them tremble and then part in timid invitation. And it was an invitation he couldn't turn down. He took and tasted and drank from her mouth, alunging his tongue inside again and again, stroking and petting her, holding her. She was sweetness and light, innocence and fire, and he'd been without those things for so damned long they were drugging to him. Addictive.

All:he wanted was more of her, more of her, more of her, more of her.

Because to let her go would be to return to the blackness of reality.

It was her whispery sigh that snapped him back to sanity. And as he returned to himself, he knew what he'd done. He'd encouraged her fantasy that there might be a hint of feeling between them. He'd set a deadly fire in an innocent, one he had every intention of putting out.

He couldn't go on with this. It wouldn't be fair to use her that way, to let her think things that were utterly impossible. He shouldn't do anything that might make her believe she cared for him. Because he had nothing inside to give her in return.

Grating his teeth, he straightened away from her. He was ashamed of using her this way, and embarrassed by the emotions that had swamped him like a tidal wave just now. His cheeks were still wet.

So were hers. And her eyes, round and glistening as if coated in liquid diamonds. Her swollen lips remained parted, and he wanted them again when he looked at them. He wanted them in ways she wouldn't even dream of So he looked away.

He was supposed to be tough here, strong. He was supposed to be in charge, protecting her from Scorpion and his thugs. Not turning to her for comfort like one of her bleeding young patients. Not punishing her by letting his pain become passion and by spending all of it on her. She didn't deserve that. What the hell was wrong with him? How did she manage to dig so deeply into his soul with those eyes of hers, extracting his most painful secrets with no more than a word, a look?

"Sorry," he muttered, blinking his eyes clear and driving again.

"There's nothing to" -- "It won't happen again."

"Maybe it should," she whispered.

"Maybe you need someone right now, to" -- "I don't discuss my family with strangers, Alex, and I certainly don't have sex with a stranger for comfort." With anyone, for that matter. But she needn't know that.

"I am human, though, so I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your distance."

He didn't have to look at her to know his barb had stuck. He knew she winced, could see the pain in her eyes without even turning his head.

Too bad. She was one of those females who thought she could heal the world with her soft touch and her smile and a little TLC with her incredible body. And her eyes, don't forget those. Well, she was wrong. And he damned well didn't want her poking around an old wound just to prove it.

He was stuck with her for a few days, at most. Long enough to find the missing formula and send Scorpion to hell. That was it. The sooner she got that through her head, the better.

"I didn't offer you sex for comfort," she told him in a wounded voice.

"You could have fooled me."

She was silent for a long time while he drove. He was, too, though his mind was working overtime. It took some effort to put his grief and the faces of his dead children back into the deep well of pain that used to be his heart. Sortiething about being with Alex seemed to drive those ghosts to the surface more often than ever before. But he had to keep them locked away. He couldn't think of them now.

And' he couldn't think about how remembering them didn't hurt so much when Alex held him in her soft arms.

It took still more effort to bring his thoughts back 'on track. A plan was what he needed.

"Where are we going?" she asked him at last.

"Where do you think?"

She gave him a look that made him feel like a demon for trying to hurt her. Deliberately trying to hurt her. Shooting thorns right into her skin, his automatic defense mechanism, apparently designed specifically for her, would keep her from getting too close to his private hell ever again. He couldn't help it. It was necessary.

"We're going back to Pine Lake," he told her.

"But we have a few stops to make first."

His sons. Those two adorable little boys in the photo, who looked so much like him. Taken from him without warning or reason. God, it was no wonder he was so nasty. The man was in more pain than any human being ought to bear in a lifetime.

And his came all at once.

But -he'd let her hold him, even if it had been only for an instant.

He'd turned to her with that grief, turned to her as if for salvation.

In his eyes she'd seen something she'd never seen before.

Adesperation, a ple he couldn't or wouldn't or didn't know how to. voice Help me, Alexandra.

Maybe he wasn't even aware of it, but Torch Palamaro was going to bleed to death from the arrows in his heart if he didn't pull them out and start 'to heal.

He'd released a tiny bit of his grief in her arms. It wasn't a great leap of the imagination to guess he hadn't done so often, Perhaps not at all. The rage and turmoil bottled up inside him were visible in his' eyes. That swirling, riotous emotitn she hadn't been able to place before. The man was going to explode like one of his bombs if he didn't do something.

And it was none of her business, was. it? She barely knew him, and what she did know of him made him her enemy. Why, t~, was she so compelled, so drawn to him? Why this urge to hold him until his grief was spent? Oh, she knew she was always drawn to the wounded.

The more serious the wounds, the more she wanted to help. Came of that need to be needed, she supposed. And the knowledge she'd never have children to nurture, So she naturally longed to nurture others.

But it shouldn't extend to this man. Common sense ought to have some say in the matter, and common sense certainly decreed she keep a safe distance from a man with. , cactus skin, A man who lashed out just to keep her away. A man who'd told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't want her help.

His wounds' were too deep, too dangerous. The darkness inside him was devouring him, maybe already had. she got too close it would snare her, pull her in, destroy her the way it had destroyed him. She knew it would. She felt the warnings prickling upend down her nerve endings dancing over her skin. Stay away, they whispered. Stay away.

If she had any sense at all, she'd heed those warnings. But she never had been as smart as her father, had she? And maybe she just wasn't, bright enough to listen to the voice of conlI~on sense.

She'd- try,P she vowed in silence. She'd try to keep a cool distance.

She'd stop asking about things, she'd stop caring about his pain. He was nothing to her, why should she care? She'd force herself not to reach out to him again. She could do that. It wasn't such an impossible task.

Was it?

They rode in silence through the small town they'd discovered nearby, pulling in at . a used car dealership where Torch went inside. alone.

His jaw had been like granite as he'd left the car, never so much as looking at her.

-The man was as cold as a stone and twice as hard.

The 'man was in pain.

But that was nothing to her, right?

His hardness, the hunk of rock that passed for a heart in that broad chest of his, was a little easier to understand now, though, He must have been a different man, before they'd died. She tried to picture him happy, content, affectionate.

But it was a terrible stretch of the imagination.

"Mrs. Jones?"

There was a tap on her window and Alexandra jumped, then turned to see the smiling face of the salesman staring in at her. She cranked the window down.

"Mrs. Jones, come take a look. Can't have your husband making a purchase this important without your input now, can we?"

Mrs. Jones? Her husband?

Frowning, she opened the door and got out, allowing the man to lead her around the lot to where Torch was just stepping out of a motor home the size of a tank. He met her confused gaze and smiled . actually smiled at her. The perfect image of the devoted husband. He crossed to where she stood, draped an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, honey, what do you think?" He waved his free hand toward the house on wheels.

His arm felt warm and comfortingly heavy on her shoulders. She had to forcibly resist the urge to lean into his embrace, to tilt her head sideways until it r~sted on his shoulder, to slide her own arm around his waist and give it a squeeze and tell him that he was going to be all right.

The man does not want to be comforted, she reminded herself.

"I... uh... I'm not sure what to think."

"It has everything. Perfect for our trip to Yellowstone. Go on inside, take a look."

She blinked at him. He'd converted himself into the image of the American sightseer, evincing images of campgrounds and hot dogs and cold sodas. It was incredible.

Without a word she stepped into the camper, but she wasn't really looking at it. She just sank into a padded seat and tried again to figure him out.

Had he gone camping with his wife and sons? Was this what he'd been like then, before tragedy had turned his heart to stone?

He'd kis~sed her desperately, hungrily, in the ear. Even though he was insisting she keep her distance now, he'd turned to her then.

So maybe the solid stone heart of Torch Palamaro had a small chink in it. And maybe he wasn't quite as uninterested in her as he pretended to be. Maybe he needed her. Maybe he sensed, too, that she was the only one who could help him. And maybe that feeling frightened him and that was why he was being so cold toward her.

And maybe she was allowing her fondest dream--that of someone truly needing her--to interfere with rational thought.

The very idea of being Torch Palamaro's savior was so appealing that it was difficult to dismiss. It was also fidic- ulous. Imagine someone as strong and sure of himself as Torch needing a little nobody like Alexandra Holt. It was absurd.

She had no idea how long she'd sat there, staring into space, when he poked his head in. But he was back to cold distance now. 'Drive the car. Follow me. " HIS eyes were sapphire chips. His words fell like icy rain, chilling her right to the bone.

She only nodded. He started to pull back, but she stopped him.

"Come in for a second. Close the door."

Frowning, he did. She glanced out the window, saw the salesman heading into the office with a wad of bills in his hands. ~ Turning to face Torch, she tilted her head. "Why.~.?" Lord, this was hard. But she had to know. She'd drive herself crazy wondering if she didn't get a definitive answer soon. She cleared her throat.

"Why did you kiss me the way you did?"

He closed his eyes as if completely out of patience with her.

"I told you why. I'm human, Alex."

She shook her head and remained silent, waiting.

"And I haven't had any in a while, if you get my drift." -She looked at his mouth, and as she did, she remembered the kiss. The thrust of his tongue against hers, the press of his hands against the small of her back, and the curve of her buttocks.

"And that's all?" she asked, her voice very soft. Very unlike her own.

"Because it really seemed as if there were: :. aspects of that kiss that went beyond just... that."

"That's all, Alexandra. Don't even think there was anything more. I don't have anything more."

He turned and stepped out of the camper before she could respond.

He'd slapped her, without lifting a hand.

Alexandra sat very still, blinking in shock, because the slap hadn't connected. He'd been lying through his teeth. It showed in his eyes.

Was written all over his face. When she'd asked her question, he'd actually been afraid--of her. t--just for an instant. And now, she figured she was doomed. She didn't want to think that Torch Palamaro was a man in such intense pain that it was eating him alive from the inside out. And she certainly didn't want to think that she could help him. Could reach the heart he'd buried beneath a layer of solid stone. Could heal wounds too horrible even to look at.

She didn't want to think this man might. need her, as no one in her life had ever needed her.

But she was thinking it anyway.

He wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for, but he'd know it when he saw it. Torch drove the oversize camper, keeping one eye in the extended side mirrors on the car that followed. Alexandra. She was nothing but one giant thorn in his side. First lying to him about the safe-deposit box, then digging around in things that were none of her business.

And then holding him in her arms and making herself seem to him like the very essence of heaven and salvation and peace.

Dammit.

He didn't want to think about Alexandra right now, because every time he did, his mind went back to what had happened between them in the car.

The way the emotional floodgates had parted, just for a second, and the way they'd kissed. The way she'd felt in his arms. The way she'd tasted.

It had been the same the first time, back at the motel. At the time, it h~d seemed like a simple, quick method of getting that phony key out of her pocket, all without letting Scorpion see what he was doing He'd known the bastard was there, watching. He'd felt him.

That sixth sense had paled to transparency, though, the second he'd pulled Alexandra's trembling body up against his. And he knew he'd taken it way further than he'd needed to just to get the key. And dammit to hell, she apparently knew it, too.

It hadn't been necessary to kiss her so deeply or for so long, or to hold her so tight to him that he could feel every curve of her body It wasn't necessary to dip his tongue into the sweet warmth of her mouth, to taste her. He could even now taste her when he thought about it.

He still wasn't sure why the hell he'd done all that. And he was equally confused about his actions in the car. He was way too susceptible to Alexandra Holt. And maybe that was because it had been a long time, and he was only human, as he'd told her. His libido responding to her musk. Hell, she was a beautiful woman. He wasn't exactly made of stone. So maybe he'd given in to a natural, long-denied desire, for a few crazy moments.

He told himself that was it. The one and only reason for his weakness against the allure of her. But deep inside there was a little voice whispering that he was wrong. A voice his wary mifid refused to. let him hear.

Torch swore and glanced into the rearview mirror again. She was still there, still following. He didn't want to want her. But he did. And even though it meant nothing, even though he knew it was no more than chemistry, a physical attraction, a bodily need he'd denied too long crying out for attention, it still hurt.

He didn't want to want her. He didn't want to ever want another woman again. And he didn't deserve to have one. Not after the way his negligence had cost him the first.

Marcy, Josh and Jason. He ragged the photo from his shirt pocket and studied their faces. And he tried to remember them as more than just this one-dimensional image on paper. He tried to remember them animated, moving, laughing. The sounds of their voices, their facial expressions. But as always happened when he tried to bring up the memories, a solid wall slammed down inside his mind, blocking them.

He didn't deserve the happy memories, he supposed. It was his fault they were dead, and he'd lost even the past they'd shared. His image of his family seemed to be sealed m one tiny moment. The way they looked at him from this one-dimensional photograph.

 They were the reason he was involved with Alexandra Holt fight now.

They were all 'that mattered. Their murders would be avenged, and soon.

And Torch knew that even killing Scorpion wasn't going to end his pain or in any way lessen his culpability. But it had to -be done. He owed his family that much. Maybe then he'd be able to remember them the way he wanted to. Happy, laughing, talking. maybe then his conscience would allow the good times back into his mind, his heart.

He blinked the rage away, shoved the photo back into his cl ' He was glad Alex had retrieved it for him. He it. Needed to look at it, just to remind him what' he was doing here. What was important. A glance at the photo-would he enough to dampen any desire thru' tried to flare in him for Alexandra Holt. He wouldn't let himself get dis-meted. Not now. Not when he was so close.

-With his focus back, he rededicated himself to the task at hand.

That being finding a place to hide his car. And as if his decision had been approved by whatever gods lived in this hellish world, a farm came into view, with an old, decrepit barn, standing gray and hunched like an old man, beg idea shiny new building.

Torch pulled into the barnyard, killed the engine and stepped out of the RV. Alex pulled fight in behind him and shut the ear off. But she didn't get out. She stared at him, her hands clutching the steering wheel a little too tightly. And her eyes held his captive for a long moment before he managed to look away.

"Something I can do for you folks?"

Torch swung his head around, plastering the old, pracriced expression on his face. The one that said, "I'm !,u, st a normal, well-adjusted, happy family man on vacation. The one that didn't look as if it belonged on the face of a soulless mannequin.

"Sure can," he told the farmer, a fiftyish man in faded jeans and aromatic, green rubber boots.

"I'm looking for a place to store my car for a couple of weeks. Had a little accident, and I don't want to interrupt our vacation to wait for repairs. God knows if I leave it at a garage it'll cost me a fortune."

"They'll rob you' blind all right." The man stuck his hands into the pockets of his Carhart coat, rocking back on his heels.

Torch nodded.

"I was hoping you might be willing to let me store it in your barn. Like I said, just for a couple of weeks. I could pay you. Say, a hundred dollars? In advance."

The farmer nodded, considering.

"Suppose you take off and don't show up for six months, friend? I'm gonna be tearing that old barn down, soon as winter's over."

"If for any reason I'm not back in time, you can sell it. Or junk it.

It's up to you. Paperwork's in the glove compartment i" The man's eyes widened.

"You trust me not to sell it the second you're outta sight?"

"You have an honest face?" Torch took a hundred dolo lars in twenties from his wallet.

"So what do you say?"

The man nodded and took the money. But he didn't pocket it. Only looked at it, narrow eyed.

"The car's not stolen, is it?"

"No. I promise, this is legit. I can show you' the registration in my name and" -- The man held up his hands.

"All fight, I'll take your word. You don't look much like a car thief, and I s'pose I've yet to see one Off on a camping tfi." p with his wife. I'll open the barn door for you. Drive it fight in. "

"Thanks." Torch went back to the car where Alex still sat behind' the wheel. He didn't look into her eyes, aside from one quick glance. He didn't like looking into her eyes. There were things going on in her mind that he'd rather not try to figure out just yet, and her emotions were too plainly visible in her face. Especially in her eyes. She was still stinging over his anger with her, and over his harsh words to keep her at bay. She was still wary of him. Not quite trusting him, not quite sure of him. She still didn't believe the truth about her saintly father.

And she was still thinking about that kiss. Analyzing it. Trying to read more into it than there had been. Knowing there was more to it than what he'd admitted to her. He liked that least of all.

He opened the door. She stared up at him, those huge brown eyes of hers compelling him, almost daring him to meet their steady gaze. He looked everywhere but St her. "We're gonna leave the car here for a while. In the barn, out of sight. We'll take the camper from here."

She hadn't moved. Just sat there, staring, pulling his eyes to hers with some kind of invisible magnet.

"Because Scorpioifs seen the car."

"But'whya camper? Why not a picknp truck or a station wagon or a compact? WhY that huge RV?"

"Why all the questions?" he countered.

"Look, I do this kind of thing for a living. I know my job, okay?"

He made the cardinal mistake of looking into her eyes as he snapped at her, and there was no mistaking the way she flinched at his tone.

She looked away too quickly.

Torch cleared his throat.

"The last thing Scorpion would find suspicious is a vehicle like this.

And having a place to sleep might come in handy. No more ambushes at motel parking lots. We can't exactly take up residence at your house in the woods again, Alex.

Hell, Scorpion probably men posted there in case we come back. "

lef~"I don't think Scorpion would have any reason to do that." She thinned her lips, tilted her head, still not looking at him.

"But what do I know? You're the expert on all this stuff. I suppose I should have been able to figure all of that out for myself. Sometimes I'm not very smart. Slow on the uptake, Father used to say. But I didn't mean to question your judgment."

 Torch blinked. He didn't know what he'd expected to hear from her but not that.

"You're a doctor, for crying out loud."

She got out of the car, snatching her inhaler off the dash as she did.

"Yeah, well, you don't have to be a genius to be a doctor." She headed toward the RV, got in without ever looking back at him.

Chapter 7

Alexandra waited in the RV. In the passenger seat. Torch drove the car into the barn, helped clos the. door and after another brief word with the farmer, he came to join her. He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. And without even looking at her, he said, "You know, Alex, I'm one of the best there is at what I do."

It didn't sound like idle bragging. Sounded more like he had a point to make, and this was the opening argument. She looked at his profile.

Strong. And attractive, if not exactly handsome. It drew on something inside her. Some instinct that made her fingers itch to trace him cheekbone and the square line of his jaw. It made her palms ache to run over the dark shadow of stubble growing there. She resisted the urge and instead remembered his actions back at her house with those two armed thugs.

"I believe that," she said softly.

"You outwitted me, though," he said.

"I'm not happy about it, but you did. And I already told you, your plan wasn't half-bad. Pine Lake is probably the last place I'd have gone looking for you. If you'd managed to ditch me, you just might have pulled this off."

She frowned, sending him a sideways glance.

"You think?"

He nodded.

"Yeah.-And I'll tell you something else, I don't get outwitted very often."

"No?"

"Almost never."

"Hmm."

He. glanced sideways at her as he drove.

"What?"

She shrugged.

"I just wondered why you suddenly felt compelled to tell me how tough it is to outwit you."

"Because you seem, somewhere along to line, to have picked up the notion that you'~e ... slow on the uptake, isn't that how Daddy Dearest put it?" He made a disgusted sound deep in his throat.

"But you're not."

"I didn't say I was stupid, Palamaro. Just that I'm no genius."

"So who the hell is?"

"My father was."

He nodded slowly, as if he were beginning to understand something he probably never truly would. Ever.

"Must have been tough, trying to live up to the standard of a geaius."

She shrugged. 'My father only wanted me to succeed. " " And did you? "

She said nothing, only bit her lip.

"You graduated with honors and a degree in medicine. Most people would call that success."

She closed her eyes, tried to tune him out.

"But I guess it just wasn't up to your father's lofty standards, was it, Alex?"

"You don't know anything about this."

"Sure I do. I did my research."

She shook her head again, doing her best to ignore him. For some reason, she didn't like the idea of Torch Palamaro studying her background, reading about the many failures in her life.

 "Your father isn't here anymore, Alex. But I am. And you've already proven that you can match wits with me, and that's saying something."

"So?"

"So I can't have you working with me if you keep questioning your judgment. We're liable to end up in situations where a second's hesitation could be the difference between life and death. Don't stop to second-guess yourself. If you're in a pinch and you see an out, take it."

She stared at him, listening, hearing, not really sure she believed him.

"I don't know if I could do that. I've spent my whole life second-guessing myself."

"You can do it. You did, back at the motel when you pulled hat gun out of the duffel and took a potshot at Scorpion."

She tilted her head.

"I ... I guess I did, didn't I?" "Damn straight, you did."

Her lips curved at the corners, almost on their own. For a second she smiled, and felt her back straighten just a little more than usual and her chin come up a fraction. She had used her wits back there.

And she'd probably saved Torch's life, as well as her own.

Father wouldn't have been proud if he'd seen her actions. No, he'd have called her foolish for risking her life by pulling a gun on an armed criminal. He'd have called her weak for the asthma attack that had ovetwheimed her in the middle of all of it. He'd have called her simpleminded for having wound up in this situation in the first place.

But he wasn't here, and he wasn't saying any of those things. Torch Palamaro was here. And he was some kind of expert in these matters.

And according to Him, she'd been dam near brilliant.

Deep inside, part of Alexandra cringed at the imagined condemnation from her father. But another part, a very small part, swelled a bit in pride at what she'd done.

Maye she was a LITTLE stronger, a little smarter, than she'd realized.

Maybe her father just hadn't seen it in her, "You seem surprised."

"Hmm?" She jerked her attention back to the man beside her, frowning.

"You seem surprised," Torch repeated.

"Did your old man do such a number on your self-esteem that you're actually surprised you did something right?"

Alex felt her smile die, felt her jaw go rigid.

"If you don'f want me talking to you about your family, Torch, how about returning the favor? Your opinions about my father are way off base, so please keep them to yourself."

"Sure. I can do that."

Only, he didn't really want to keep his opinions to him' self. And he knew that was a mistake, because none of it mattered to him. He could care less whether her father had messed up her head.

But he knew. That Was the problem. He'd done the research, he'd read all the reports, and according to everyone who knew him, Alexander Holt had treated his daughter like a poor relation. No matter what she'd ever accomplished, the man had never seemed to find it sufficient. He'd criticized her often enough in public that it was on the record. And if he'd done it that often publicly, he must have really ripped her down in private.

The bastard should have been horsewhipped.

If Torch had harbored any doubts about Holt's parenting skills, they'd been erased just now. There'd been a decided glow about Alexandra when Torch had told her she'd outsmarted him. He couldn't help but notice it, though he'd been deliberately trying not to look at her too much or too closely. She'd seemed pleased, delighted. For crying out loud, she'd apparently had so little praise in her life that a few words of it could change her entire mood. Her father must have been one hell of a sweethearL Genius. Right. If he was so smart, why didn't he know what he was doing to his kid?

 And why had Torch ruined it all by saying what he thought of the old idiot? He'd taken away her pleasure with a single sentence. He ought to remind himself often not to say anything against the father she still worshiped.

He couldn't help but wonder what it was going to do to her to learn the truth about the man. She was too damned sensitive, too vulnerable. It was going to tear her world apart.

The thought of that made his throat go a little dry, even as he told himself it was nothing to him. At least then she'd have something on her mind besides trying to offer comfort to a man who was far beyond its reach. And maybe she'd stop trying to analyze that kiss, too.

Torch drove north until noon, and when he stopped to get them a bite to eat he didn't use one of the restaurants right off the exit ramp, but instead, drove into the nearest town and meandered around until he found a. diner that probably catered more to locals than passers-through.

For some reason, he'd stopped being furious with the woman beside him for her lies. He couldn't really blame her, could he? Hell, he'd probably have done the same thing in her situation. So his anger had died. somewhere around the same time he'd seen the glow come into her eyes. How could he be mad at her for outsmarting him when she was apparently so damned proud of it?

He didn't like not being angry with her, though. Because anger was a good buffer. And he needed one between her and him. He needed one badly.

"Hungry?" he asked as he found a parking space big enough for the beast he was. driving "Starving."

"Come on, then. But let's get something to go."

She nodded and slid out the door. The clouds overhead were ominous.

She looked around as she headed for the diner, then stopped, pointing.

"There's a department store across the street. Maybe we ought to pick up some things before we leave."

Good idea."

In the diner, Torch was uneasy. Too many eyes on them, eyes that could describe them later, should Scorpion stop by asking questions.

But he figured the chances of the bastard checking every diner in every town were slim. And since he'd expect them to continue south, they were even slimmer.

No one in the place seemed to be paying undue attention to them. He breathed a little easier and headed up to the counter. Alexandra was already there, ordering a club sandwich and a soda to-go in a soft, deep voice that made a person really listen when she spoke. Torch stepped up beside her.

"You two together?"

He blinked at the waitress's question'. It seemed to take Alexandra by surprise, as well. She looked up at him, and he met eyes filled with uncertainty. He had to tear his gaze away before he got lost in hers.

He gave the waitress a curt nod.

"Yeah. I'll have the same."

She was still looking at him. He felt the satin touch of her eyes as the waitress punched keys on an old-fashioned cash register that chucked and clicked and pinged. Still touching his face, those brown eyes, as he took the wallet from his pocket and handed over a ten-spot and waited for the change. Why did she find it necessary to look at him like that?

There was a country song wafting from a radio behind the counter. And another waitress was busy tacking strands of green garland to the edges of the counter, reminding him of the approaching holiday season. Someone had sprayed the place with a pine-scented air freshener. A memory slipped into his mind. He heard young boys' high-pitched laughter, and the crinkling and tearing of gift wrap.

The memory was brief but vivid, real. And it took him by surprise, because he'd been denied any real memories for almost a year.

The bell over the entrance jangled, and he glanced behind him, watching his back as he always did. And then he felt a hot blade slip right into his chest and twist slowly, tearing his insides to shreds.

The little boy was no more than five. All dark curls, baby blue eyes and dimples as he grinned up at his father. And as the pair moved inside, talking and laughing, finding a table, Torch felt the black emptiness in his soul reaching up to claim him. To draw him into the depths of loneliness, despair, endless grief. He closed his eyes to blot out the image of the child who looked so much like one of his own.

They should have been outside playing. Dammit, why the hell hadn't Josh and Jason been outside? They never came in until Marcy called them for dinner.

"Never. Why this one night, had they come in earlier?

He felt a warm, firm hand on his shoulder. He swung his head around.

Alexandra's eyes were wider and browner than ever, and they were damp as they probed and questioned him.

He gave his head a slight shake and simply walked out. The door swung closed on the child's laughter, and Torch blinked in the crisp November air, wishing it were. colder wishing it could slap his face and snap him out of this grief. But it wasn't and it didn't. Nothing ever had.

Maybe nothing ever would.

Alexandra stared after him. Part of her wanted to go to him, try to help him through the haze of pain he was obviously battling. But another part knew he wanted to be left alone. She stopped herself from intruding, with an effort. "Miss?"

She turned back to the counter, to see the woman on the other side holding out a handful of change. Alex took it.

"Is there a rest room I can use while I'm waiting for the sand-withes?"

The woman nodded, pointing toward the back of the building. Alex tried to put Torch's heartache out of her mind and walked into the ladies' room. She took her time, washed her face and finger-combed her hair, and stared at her reflection in the mirror, telling herself she'd never hold a candle to the blond woman in Torch's picture. Some twenty minutes later, when she pushed the door open to head back out, she glanced up to see a man dressed all in black, leaning on the counter where she'd been standing. And for just a second, she stiffened. It was that color that did it. Everything black,. right to the ski cap on his head. He had everything the thugs at her house had, except the mask.

She shook her head, chiding herself for an overactive imagination.

And then she saw the waitress hand a photo back to him, and saw her lips form the words "rest room" and her head tilt toward where Alex now stood. And, as if in slow motion, she saw the man's heading toward her.

She ducked back inside and closed the door, turning the lock, panting.

She gasped as she felt her bronchial tubes spasm, automatically press' rag a hand to her chest.

"Not now," she whispered.

"NOt now, the inhaler is in the RV." She leaned over the sink, cranking the tap and splashing handfuls of cold water on her face. What should she do?

Was she imagining things? She didn't think so. And Torch had told her to trust her instincts. She certainly wasn't going to march back out there and pick up their food when the man might very well be one of those working for Scorpion.

She scanned the rest room. There was one squat window, on the back wall, too high to reach from the floor. Alex looked around for something to stand on, and settled on the trash can. It only took a second to remove the rounded top and flip the can upside down. She silently apologized for the mess she'd made as she climbed up. The window locked from the inside, and she turned the clasp to the unlocked position, mentally crossed her fingers and shoved at it. It opened easily, and Alex thanked her lucky stars. She climbed up on the ledge, peering outside first. She saw no one, but there was no way to be sure.

Well, she couldn't just sit there waiting for the jerk to get sick of being patient and come in after her.

 She slipped over the edge, turned and lowered herself until she dangled a few feet above the ground. Then she let go and landed with an ungraceful tumble. She looked around, hoping she hadn't been seen as she got to her feet and brushed the dust from her jeans. Carefully she made her way back to where the RV was parked out front, keeping the vehicle between her and the diner.

Torch was there, and Alex thought she'd never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life. He stood in the tiny kitchen area, unloading a bag of groceries into the cupboards. Or pretending to.

Actually, he was waiting. For her, she realized. He was fully expecting her to try to comfort him again, the way she'd done before.

And he was dreading it. The expression he wore stated clearly that she was to ask no questions, offer no solace and keep her hands thoroughly to herself.

Well, he'd get his wish this time. She drew a couple of steadying breaths to calm her quivering lungs, and. went right to the front, sat down in the driver's seat and started the motor. Then she put the thing in gear and pulled slowly out of the parking lot.

A second later, Torch was standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder, but only to steady himself, she was sure. "What's going on?"

"One of them ... back there, in the diner. I saw..." She bit her lip.

Her words were coming out in 'bits and pieces, and she was starting to breathe too fast again. " She hadn't realized she was this shaken up.

"Easy," he said, and his hand squeezed her shoulder. She closed her eyes because it felt so good to have that strong grip there.

"Drive nice and slow, Alex. Take your time. No one's gonna look twice at a camper, unless it's caxeening through town, taking curves on two wheels."

She eased up on the accelerator, nodding, fighting to steady her breathing. Safe now, she kept telling herself. She was safe now.

“You need this?" Torch held her inhaler in one hand. She hadn't even seen him reach for it.

"I don't think so."

He returned it to the glove compartment.

"Now tell me what happened."

"I went to the rest room. When I started to come out there was a man at the counter, dressed all in black. He was showing a photo to the waitress, and the waitress pointed toward the rest room. I was the only one in there." "And?"

"I ducked back inside and locked the door and climbed out the window."

She looked up at him to gauge his reaction to' that and was surprised to see him smile a little.

"Good girl. The guy's probably still sitting there waiting for you to come out."

"Do you think it was" -- "No, Alex. To be honest, I doubt it was one of Scorpion's henchmen.

They'd have to be bloodhounds to track us to that diner. "

She breathed a relieved sigh, felt her muscles relax a little. "I overreacted, didn't I?"

He shook his head.

"Hell, no, you didn't overreact. You. did exactly what I told you to do--followed your instincts. We can't be too careful, Alex."

"I didn't get our sandwiches."

"We'll get some more sandwiches, Alex."

She bit her lower lip, turned to look at him again.

"I'm scared."

"" Ishouldn't have left you alone in there. "

"It's all right," she said quickly.

 "I"

"It's not all right." He drew a breath, let it out slowly and finally moved up to sit opposite her in the passenger seat. "It's been ten months," he said softly.

"I ought to be handling things better by now."

Alexandra blinked in. surprise He'd brought the subject up. Not her.

"It... can't be easy."

 Torch was staring straight ahead, deep in thought. Alex had to make an effort to keep her eyes on the road.

"After... after it happened, and Scorpion got away clean, I resigned. I couldn't focus on the job anymore."

"But you came back to it," she prompted when his words faded to silence.

"Yeah. The minute I found out Scorpion was involved. I thought I could handle it, after so much time. But I'm not doing too great so far, am I?" He looked toward her, met her eyes, gave her a sad smile.

"Turn left at this light, we need to get back on the highway up ahead."

She did as he said, waiting for him to continue, but her own mind was filling with new thoughts, new fears. One, in particular, that wrapped an icy hand around her heart and chilled it through and through.

"Torch?"

"You said you only came out of retirement to take this case when you realized Scorpion was involved. Will you tell me why?"

He laughed, but it wasn't really a laugh: More like a short burst of air being forced from his lungs.

"He murdered my family, Alex. I want him to pay."

The icy hand clenched tighter. She battled a shiver. "You're going to catch him and turn him over to the proper authorities," she said sol fly "You're going to see him go to trial and be convicted, and spend the rest of his life in prison. Right?"

She had a feeling she knew the answer already, but she -had to hear it.

Torch didn't oblige, though. He didn't give her any answer at all. Not with his voice, at least. But in his eyes . in his eyes there was something blacker than the pain that filled his heart.

"Right here," he said.

"That's the on ramp. See it?" She nodded and flicked on the signal light.

Chapter 8

They arrived in the town of Pine Lake just after dark. If she hadn't known this place so well, she might have let Torch drive right through.

Because "town" was really a misnomer. In. truth, Pine Lake was just a bend in the rutted gravel road that had a few more houses in closer proximity than other places along the same route. The general store was the focal point. The thing was the size of a barn and carried everything from food for humans to grain for livestock.

In the front, an ancient red gas pump leaned tiredly to one side.

Torch pulled the RV off the narrow road but left it running.

"So now what?" She was uneasy, and she knew it came through in her voice, but she'd never been very good at disguising her feelings. She just wasn't sure why she felt as much dread as she did.

"We go talk to your lawyer friend and get our hands, on those papers of your father's."

 She nodded. He hadn't said another word about the family he'd lost, and she hadn't asked. She wanted to. She wanted to know how it was that he felt responsible for their deaths, and she wanted to know what he planned to do to Scorpion. Or maybe she just wanted something to focus on besides what might lie ahead.

But he'd made it dear he didn't want to discuss his family. So she forced herself not to bring them up again. She bit her lip, cleared her throat, left with no choice but to look at the present and the very near future.

"There's not going to be anything there," she whispered, but it was like a wish. Like a prayer, and she was pretty sure Torch knew it.

She didn't want to look at him. Didn't want him to see the doubt that must show in her eyes right now. So she stared up at the ghostly gray clouds skittering over the moon, their color just a shade paler than the dark sky, their shapes as ominous as specters.

"It's going to snow." ' "Probably."

"We ought to go up to the house."

"No."

"If it snows, we might not be able to."

"Snow melts, Alexandra."

She bit her lip to. keep from arguing. Max hadn't been fed today.

He'd be climbing the walls by now. if he' was able. Those men they'd left behind at her house might have done something to him.

The thought made her have to blink away tears. The 'one that followed was worse. That she was worrying about her pet because she didn't want to think about what had been in that safe-deposit box, or why her father had kept it even after breaking every other tie he'd had in the city, What secrets were about to be revealed?

"Where does the lawyer live?"

He has a one-track mind, doesn't he?

"Just drive through town. It's a big house at the north edge, on the tight. I'll tell you when we get there." Why was she having all these doubts now? Her father was innocent. She'd known that all along.

There would be nothing but proof of that at Jim's office, which was no more than a converted spare room in his house's huge basement.

Torch put the rig back in gear and pulled onto the road again. In a few minutes, they were turning into the driveway of James McManus, attorney-at-law. And a light snow had begun falling into the twin beams of their headlights.

Torch walked beside her to the. door She didn't think he could tell how terrified she was of this moment. How frightened she was of what they would find. If her father had been working on something. something he shouldn't have, that would explain his actions at the end. So would nility or stroke, she assured herself. So would a lot of things. He couldn't possibly have done what Torch had accused him of doing.

She didn't realize she'd frozen on the top step until Torch's arm slid around her shoulders, squeezed just a little. "It isn't gonna matter what's there, Alex. It can't hurt your father now."

She lifted her chin, turning to look Torch in the eye.

"It can hurt me, though."

"You can handle it." His hand cupped her chin, and his eyes plumbed hers as if he truly cared what she was feeling right now.

"You're tougher than you think, Alexandra Holt."

She thought that if she were so tough, she wouldn't be trembling. She wouldn't be staring at his eyes, and noticing that they were stating at her lips, and wondering and wishing and. Her thoughts ground to a halt when a dog started barking from the next place over. The noise drew her gaze, and she saw curtains part, a face peering out at them. The neighbor's dog kept up his barking, which in turn made her wonder where the McManus's dog was, and why he wasn't barking right now. She turned, stating first at the door, and then at the rest of the house, noticing for the first time the darkened windows, and the way the cold wind riffled the pages of three newspapers lying on the porch.

"Torch, I don't think anyone's here."

He followed her gaze, then left her standing there, while he ran down the steps and over to the garage, to peer through the glass.

"No car inside. Dammit."

Alex poked the doorbell with her forefinger, let up and poked again.

But even when she' gave up and started knocking instead, there was no response.

She didn't feel relieved. She'd worked up enough strength, she thought, to get her through this. The anticlimactic ending of this day only left her tense and jittery, and with the beginnings of a headache throbbing to life behind her eyes.

"Three newspapers," Torch muttered, coming back to the porch.

"Looks like they might be gone for a while."

 "They never go away for very long."

"It's almost Thanksgiving."

Alex bit her lip.

"That's right, it is. I forgot about that." Torch frowned at her, and she shrugged.

"It's been a while since I've celebrated any holidays," she said by way of explanation.

His lips thinned. He was going to say something nasty about her father, she thought, but he bit it back. Instead, he just said, "Me, too."

That admission made Alex's eyes sting. We can cheek down at the tore.

Someone will know when they're expected back. "

"Or we can break in and get what we need tonight."

"No!" She was so shocked at his suggestion that her jaw fell and her eyes widened.

"We can't go around breaking into people's homes."

He shrugged.

"Maybe you can't" -- "Torch, please. Let's wait." She glanced again at the house next door, pointed at the face still peeking through the window.

"Besides, we'll be seen. let's at least wait until later, when the neighbors are in bed."

 He sighed--in disgust at her reluctance, she was sure--but finally nodded "Okay, all right, but it has to be tonight. We don't have time for finesse, Alex?"

"know."

He turned and headed back to the RV. And then they were driving again, through snow that fell thicker with every passing second.

Torch was looking for a hidden spot to park for the night, and Alexandra was worrying about her cat. So she directed him to an old fire road cut into the forest. And he followed her instructions but looked less happy about it the farther they drove. The snowfall had already coated the narrow dirt road, but not enough to make driving hazardous. Not yet, anyway.

"This seems like it sits awfully close to where your house is, Alex.

Are you playing games with me? "

"No games," she told him as he chose a spot off the fire road, in a LITTLE copse of pines, and drove carefully onto it. "The house is nearby. If you follow the fire road for a half mile, and then veer off to the right, and cut through the pines, you'll end up in my father's precious flower bed."

Torch frowned and shut the motor off, then the lights. "You say that as if you're not overly fond of flowers."

"He spent' more time digging in that dirt than he did with me," she blurted before thinking better of it. "But he was a saint, all the same, right?"

She lowered her head.

"I loved him."

"But he didn't love you back, did he, Alex?"

A single tear fell. It dropped from her cheek to splash onto the back of Torch'. s hand, just as he reached out to cup her face. His thumb ran over her cheekbone, and he lifted her head to stare into her eyes.

"You should have been disappointed in him, Alexandra, not the other way around. You need to open your eyes and see that one of these days. He didn't deserve a daughter like you."

 No, Alex thought. He'd deserved a much better one. Aloud, she said, "I thought I asked you not to talk about my father."

"I was talking about you."

She shook her head slowly, taking her gaze from his.

"I want to go home," she whispered. '-"I want to go up to the house."

And for the first time, she realized why. It wasn't Max. It was. that the place had become a haven in her mind. She'd run away from her entire life.

She'd been hiding there. And she wanted to hide again.

"We can't. Not yet. Do me a favor and be patient, okay?"

She'd try. But, God, she craved space. Room, lots of it, between Torch and her. It was killing her to be this close to him and pretend nothing had happened between them. Which was exactly what he expected, even silently demanded, that she do. She needed space. time alone, to come to grips with the very real possibility that her loyalty to her father had been sorely misplaced. She'd always known he wasn't a very nice person. Not a very honorable person.

Maybe she'd only loved him so much because she'd had no one else to love.

"Okay?" Torch repeated.

"Yeah. Okay." She turned in the seat, looking back into the living quarters of the RV, squinting in the darkness.

"So what do we do for light and heat?"

"Propane," Torch said.

"The dealer threw in a full tank. I just have to go outside and hook it up." He tilted his head. "Loan me my jacket and I'll do it fight now."

She'd been wearing his black leather for lack of anything else.

Chivalrous of him, and unexpected, but nice. She liked wearing his coat. It smelled of leather and of him, and it was almost as nice as being held in his arms.

She shrugged out of the coat and handed it to him. Torch put it on and went into the back, bending to ~ boards and emerging with a flashlight and an oversize pipe wrench.

"Where did you get that?"

"Pipe wrench came with the camper. I picked the flashlight up at that department store while you were playing hide-and-seek with the goon in the diner. I grabbed some extra clothes, too. In the drawer under the bunk. Some sweatshirts and heavy socks and an extra pair of jeans for each of us."

"That's good. Tell me there's a three-pound flannel nightgown in there, too."

"What do I look like, an idiot?" He tugged up the zipper of his jacket, flipped up the collar and opened the door while Alex was still feeling the rush of heat in her cheeks, and the surge of warmth his last comment had instigated. He paused in the doorway, swearing soffiy. "what is it?" she asked him.

He turned to send her a narrow-eyed stare.

"It's really coming down out there. The road must be damned near impassable by now."

"Oh."

"No way in hell we'll get back to the lawyer's house tonight."

"It's just as well," she said.

"Maybe by the time the roads are cleared, the McManuses will be back."

 "And maybe you planned it that way?"

She only shrugged.

"Maybe I dido" ~ He sighed, shook his head. '"Tomorrow, Alex. The second the roads are cleared. And I don't care if I have to break in with the whole ~lamn town watching." With that he walked out the door, closing it behind him.

So this was it, at least for tonight. And they were together in even closer quarters than they'd been in the motel. How was she ever going to sleep? Even in bunk beds, she'd be far too close to him. Far, far too close.

Torch came back inside and stood in the doorway brushing snow from his shoulders. She went to him automatically, her hands dusting the white stuff from his chest and his upper arms. She reached for his dark hair, ruffling it with her fingers to shake the snow away. And then she stopped. His hair was soft and damp, and her fingers were buried' in it. She stood very close to him, too close, maybe, and when she looked up, he was staring right down into her eyes.

He laid his hands gently over hers, still buried in his hair, and he lifted them away. Alex blinked, turning abruptly. "Do we have matches?"

"Top drawer," he said, and she thought his voice was the slightest bit hoarse.

Of course it was, he'd just been out in the cold.

She found the matches.

"Better get the pilots lit. Shine the light, will you?"

He did, and Alex lit the p'dots of the little gas lamps on the walls, and then turned the knobs. In seconds the lamps glowed, washing the camper in liquid gold. It did erotic things to a man's skin, that amber light. It did even more disturbing things to his eyes. She lit the pilot on the small two-burner range next, then handed the matches to Torch. "You can do the heat. I haven't got a clue."

He uodded, took them from her and fiddled around in the little closet next to the cubby-size bathroom. The place was toasty a few minutes after he emerged.

Torch shrugged off his coat and sat down at the table. So now what?

Alex wondered. She poked around in the cupboards to see what he'd bought by way of food, finally set-fling on a can of beef stew and some instant hot cocoa. She located a can opener, some bottled water and a pair of small pots. Seemed Torch had thought of everything.

"You, urn, you don't have to go back there with me tomorrow," she said at last, unsure whether she'd be treading on forbidden ground to broach the subject that had been on her mind since they'd left Jim's house.

"I'll go alone; get the papers and bring them back here."

 "Sure you will. " Or maybe you'll decide to take off for parts unknown with them. "

She met his eyes, shaking her head slowly as she sank into the seat across from him.

"I won't do that."

"You'd do just about anything to protect your father's good name, Alex.

Don't kid yourself."

"If I tell you I won't, then I won't."

"Even if those papers prove your old man did exactly what I told you he did?"

She held his gaze with hers and nodded.

"Yes, even. then." She wanted to add that she knew that wasn't going to be the ease, but her doubts were too strong. And growing all the time.

"I'll swear on his memory, if it'll make you feel better."

He held her gaze for a long moment, searching it, finally nodding.

"I almost believe you would. But I'll go with you, anyway, Alex."

"You... you might not want to."

He sighed long and low, letting his chin fall to his chest. "I saw the bicycles in the garage, Alex. I know they have kids."

She got to her feet, turning to stir the stew but watching his face, wondering if speaking about this would hurt him more or help him.

"Their grandchildren stay with them quite often. Especially during the holidays. I hadn't thought of it before, but chances are if they do get back tomorrow, they'll have the boys with them." She licked her lips, cleared her throat.

"You:don't have to put yourself through that, Torch."

"Don't."

"I saw your face at that diner. I saw what looking at that little boy did to you. I'd have to be blind not to see it."

 "Don't,"

he repeated.

"Going there tomorrow will only hurt you more," she whispered. And she was thinking of more than just the children. She was thinking of the little things scattered all over the place that would remind Torch of his lost sons.

 Toys and books and games and small clothes. There would be evidence of the children everywhere.

He lifted his chin, met her eyes without blinking.

"Nothing could hurt me more, Alex. Pain is something I've learned to live with."

"But" -- "And it's my pain, not yours. It has nothing to do with you, do you understand that?"

She blinked, searching his eyes, wanting with everything in her to reach out and touch him, take him in her arms and make it all right for him.

"I want you to leave it alone." He got up, reaching past her to snap the burner off.

"You're burning the stew."

' Torch. " ' He froze her with a single glance.

"Just leave it alone, Alex.

Please. "

She swallowed hard, bit her tongue against the flood of words that wanted to escape. Words of compounds rt that would do little good anyway. She grated her teeth, closed' her eyes. "I don't suppose you thought to buy plastic flatware, did you?"

When Alex opened her eyes again she saw his shoulders sag in relief, heard the breath escape him in a long sigh. "Yeah. As a matter of fact, I did." He reached past her again, scraping open another drawer to reveal the white spoons, forks and knives.

"Paper plates, too. No bowls though. Guess we make do."

"I guess so."

She left it alone. And Torch was grateful, because it was harder with her. He still hadn't figured out why that was, but when Alexandra started poking at his wounds, he couldn't stop himself from cooperating, answering her questions, telling her about his secret pain. And he didn't like that power she seemed to have over him. To make him talk about it, to invade his privacy.

, .

 He didn't discuss his family with anyone. They were sacred, and that was that.

He looked at Alex when she wasn't looking at him--which wasn't often--and he tried to figure out what it was about her that made him forget his own rules. But there were no answers in her soft brown eyes, or in the way she managed to shovel beef stew into her mouth as if she were half-starved, still looking delicate and graceful and feminine.

Didn't make a damn bit of sense.

And then her eyes caught him in the act of staring. Only they were wide, startled. She swallowed hard and said, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shh!" She held up a hand, tilted her head to one side. "Torch listened, and in a second he heard it, too. The distinct sound of footfalls in the wet snow. His muscles tensed, and before he was aware of moving, his ghn was in his hand. Alex didn't move any more than he did. Only enough to reach carefully to her left and crank the little window very slightly open.~And -the sounds came more clearly then.

Closer. A few steps, then silence, then a few more steps.

Someone was creeping up on them.

Torch looked into her eyes. Big mistake. She was terrified, and it made a lump come into his throat. Made his stomach clench.

"Don't be afraid, Alex," he whispered, though his thoughts should have been on other things. Like surviving a sneak attack, not comforting a scared woman. "I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you. Promise."

Stupid fool, making promises he knew damned well he might not be able to keep. And she wasn't much better, because she actually looked as if those words eased her mind.

As if she believed him, trusted him to protect her.

Sure, just like Marcy and the boys did once.

He closed his eyes to blot out thoughts like that. This was no place for them. Slowly he got up, reaching to douse the lights so he wouldn't be perfectly silhouetted when he opened the door.

"Put on my jacket, Alex, just in case you have to run."

He heard the leather rubbing over her as she complied. Then she was beside him, near the door.

"I'll step out first," he told her.

"You come out behind me, but as soon as your feet hit the ground, slip around behind the camper. I'm pretty sure there's only one of them.

If anything happens to me, run down toward town. Okay? "

"No."

He froze with his hand on the doorknob, turned to study the shape of her face in the shadows.

"I'm not going anywhere if you get hurt. You might... need me."

Those two words, need me, came out' on a trembling breath. Unsteady As if they were terribly important, somehow.

Oh, great, something more about Alexandra for his mind to insist on analyzing while he knew he ought to be planning this mission. Just what he needed.

"If I tell you to run, you'd damn well better run, " he told her. He thought she nodded, but wasn't sure. The footfalls drew nearer, got louder.

Torch flung the door open and lunged through it, landing in the snow in a deep crouch, gun leveled at where the sounds had come from. And at that moment, the clouds skittered away from the full moon, giving him a clear glimpse of the intruder as it whirled and leapt away. A white-tailed deer with antlers that resembled a coat rack.

He was still trying to unclench his muscles when Alex's laughter tinkled through the crisp air like the clearest bell.

He turned, battling a sheepish grin of his own.

"Oh, so you think that's funny, do you?"

She stood in front of the camper, nodding hard, still laughing.

"Of course not," she managed to say between chortles.

"I'm just overcome with gratitude that you saved me from that killer buck." She laughed some more.

 Torch stuffed the gun into the waistband of his jeans, to free his hands. Then he scooped up a snowball and let her have it. Splat! Dead center of her forehead.

Her laughter came to an abrupt stop about the time his began in earnest.

"Why you..."

She squatted to arm herself for retaliation, but he ran before she could launch the first volley. He got pegged twice in the back as he ducked behind the camper. Then he leapt out again and got her in the chest.

She fired three at him, rapidly, one after the other, and he took one in the face before he had a chance to weave out of the line of fire.

f Time to change tactics. When Josh and Jason used to ambush him with snowballs this little trick had never failed. He let her hit him with one, then fell down onto his back, and lay very still, not moving.

Sure enough, she tiptoed closer.

"Torch?"

And still closer.

"Come on, Torch, I didn't hurt you, did I?"

-And closer yet. She crouched down, her hands moving to touch his face, and he sprang the-trap. Grabbed her shoulders and flipped her onto her back in the snow while she yelped in surprise. He straddled her to hold her still, and drizzled a little white stuff on her face while she wriggled beneath him.

And then he stopped and sat very still. My God, he'd remembered the boys. He'd remembered the snowball fights. He'd done it without struggling in vain, searching his mind for the memory. And he'd done it . ever so briefly. without a flash of blinding pain. He'd been laughing. Laughing out loud. He hadn't done that since he'd lost them.

He stared down at the woman beneath him. Her cheeks cherry red in the moonlight, her eyes sparkling, her hair spread over the snow, damp with it.

 She smiled softly.

"All right, I surrender. You win. You're a superior warrior, I admit it."

He got off her, took her hands and helped her to her feet. He didn't know what to say, what to think. Part of him knew he ought to feel badly for remembering his sons with-outpain. How could he? How could he play and laugh when his little boys were dead because of him?

But there was another part. a long-starved, craving, hungry part that sighed in blessed relief. A sandy, barren place in his soul absorbed what had just happened the way the desert absorbs the blessed rain. And a single blade of new grass struggled to burst forth.

That sensation, though, was one he didn't deserve. So he ignored it.

"I didn't know you had a frivolous, silly bone in your body, Torch Palamaro," she said, brushing snow-away from her clothes, then starting on his.

"I..." He couldn't answer her. He was still too overwhelmed.

"I'm glad you do," she said.

"I never had anyone to be silly with. I didn't even know I had it in me."

He shook his head, forcing himself to take his eyes off her. She looked like a kid, her hair tousled and snowy, her face aglow, her eyes shining with emotion.

Damn, damn, damn, he didn't like what he was feeling. "Come on, let's go inside."

Torch followed her, reminding himself over and over why he was here.

He had to kill Scorpion. He had to avenge the murders of his wife and children. He didn't deserve happiness, because it was his fault they were-dead, and even killing that murderer wasn't going to change that.

Nothing would. His family was dead and Torch was alive. That was so wrong, so very wrong that the gods must have gone off duty on that blackest of days. Fate must have taken a vacation, because it just wasn't the natural order of things. It was out of whack. The whole freaking universe was screwed up.

 And he wasn't going to forget that it should have been him blown into so many bits there hadn't been enough left to bury. Those markers, standing over empty graves, should have his name cut into their stone faces. It should have been him, not them.

"Are you sure we can't go back to the house?" ' It was the fifth time she'd asked him the question as she tossed restlessly on the top bunk.

Above him. He answered her mechanically, his mind on other things.

"We can't go to your house, Alex. It wouldn't be safe."

"You can't be sure of that. Why would they leave anyone behind there, when they have every reason to believe we're heading to New York? It doesn't make sense."

He sighed low. She was right. There was very little chance Scorpion had bothered leaving men at the house, or near it, on su~ei[lance duty.

Very little chance. But a chance, all the same. A chance he couldn't take. It would only take them being sighted up here once to bring Scorpion right back to their doorstep. And Torch didn't want the bastard here.

Not yet, anyway. He'd discovered that he'd prefer to have this formula safely on its way to D.C. first. Moreover, he admitted, he'd like-it if he could get Alexandra Holt out of. the line of fire before it came down to the final confrontation. He didn't want her to see him kill or be killed. She was too damned softhearted to take it.

"Torch?"

"Hmm?"

"I hate calling you that. Torch. What kind of a name is that, anyway?

When are you going to tell me your given name? "

"Don't hold your breath." She could get it out if him, if she applied herself. He figured there wasn't much he could keep from her if she wanted to know badly enough. Things had a way of just slipping out when she was around. She ought to work for the CIA.

 "Do you really think there are men watching my house?" She leaned over the edge of the bed so she could see him on the bunk below her.

Her hair hung straight down toward the floor and her eyes glimmered in the lamplight like virgin silk.

"And tell me the truth, will you?"

"You look like a troll, upside down."

"A troll?" Her brows drew together.

"Don't tell me you've never seen one. They're these little dolls with hair that Stands straight up. My kids used to collect..." He stopped in mid-sentence, his jaw slack. It had happened again. For just a second, he'd seen the boys in his mind's eye. Sitting in the middle of the living room floor with their troll collection spread out around them, moving the figures around, 'giving them comical voices.

He'd remembered. Without effort his mind had given him a memory, and no black wall had come slamming down to cut it off before it was even complete. No tidal wave of guilt had come surging in to Sweep it away from his grasp.

Twice now in one night. Why? Why now? What did it mean?

She was staring at him. Hanging upside down with her troll hair so long he could have reached out and touched it. She was seeing the emotions cross his face, he knew she was.

' "Oh," she said softly. Then louder.

"Oh, those trolls. The ones with the neon-colored hair, right? A little patient of mine brought one with her to the clinic ionce. Ugly little bugger. I'm not taking that comment as a compliment, Pa-lamaro."

Her eyes said more. They touched his soul, those hu brown eyes. They moved over his face and it seemed to Torch as if they smoothed some invisible balm over his deepest wounds. He could see the warmth in them. He could feel the healing power of their touch.

She spoke volumes with her eyes. And he heard her. "But this troll talk is off the subject," she said.

"I suppose it is." His voice came out slow, lazy. He had to shake himself before he could remember what they'd been talking about initially. When it came back to him, he blinked, breaking the grip of her gaze, breaking the spell she'd been putting him under.

"Alex, why are you so determined to go back to the house, anyway?"

"Why are you so determined not to let me?"

"Because it's risky."

"The risk has to be minimal, Torch. At least admit that much. There's very little chance Scorpion left anyone there, and you know it."

He chewed his lip and nodded. You're fight, there's very little chance.

But that's still a chance and it's a chance I'm not willing to take. "

"We could at least look, couldn't we? I mean, if we head over there at night, sneak a look at the house from the woods, we could see for ourselves if there's anyone around."

He propped himself Up on one elbow.

"This is about that cat of yours isn't it?"

Her face was turning red. She nodded upside down. "Your blood's rushing to your head, Alex: And if you think I'm gonna risk everything for a cat, it must be interfering with your ability to reason."

She pulled her head up, but a second later her legs hung over the side.

Bare feet and smooth calves. And then she hopped to the floor, pacing.

"He has to be fed, or he'll die." "He'll catch a mouse." . "

"I don't have mice."

"A bird, then'."

"But he was shut in! He can't get out to hunt, Torch. He needs me."

She paced to the little stove and set a kettle of water on the burner, then. rummaged in the cupboards. "Alex, it's just a cat."

She located the box of hot cocoa mix he'd bought, opened a packet and poured it into a disposable cup. Her back was to him. She wore a T-shirt and, as far as he could tell, nothing else. ~ She looked toward him, tried for a smile, but it was crooked and endearingly sad.

"You want a cup?"

 "He'll be okay for another day or so, Alex. A cat the size of that one can certainly last forty-eight hours without food."

She nodded.

"Maybe."

"We'll get your father's papers from Jim McManus tomorrow. We'll get that formula into the right hands. After that it won't matter."

Her brows bunched together.

"There is no formula," she said, her voice a little stiffer, colder than before. But it sounded to Torch as if she were mainly saying it to convince herself. She tore open a second envelope, dumped it into a second cup, then poured the hot water.

"And even there was, what difference will it make? Scorpion will still come after us if we're seen up here, won't he? How would he know we'd already put this imaginary formula somewhere beyond his reach?"

"He won't know. And yes, he'll still come after us." She stirred the cocoa, carried a cup in each hand and sat down on the edge of his bed.

He sat up, taking his from her hand, touching her fingers as he did so, wishing he hadn't.

"But I'll make sure you--and your damn cat--are someplace safe, by then.

When Scorpion gets here, there's only going to be one person waiting for him."

She held her cup between her hands, her doe eyes probing him.

"You're going to kill him, aren't you?"

He said nothing. Didn't nod, didn't answer. Just averted his gaze and sipL~xl from his cup.

"What if he kills you, instead?"

"He already did that." Damn, there he went again, blurting things that were none of her business. He took another drink, set the cup on the floor.

"He killed your family," she whispered.

"But not you. You're still alive."

"My body is; Alex. That's all, though. There's nothing left inside."

"There is." She put her cup on the floor, not having taken a single sip of the liquid it held. He shook his head in nial, but she caught his face between her palms, held it still, staring so deeply he felt her touch his soul.

"There is, Torch.

I see it, right there in your eyes. "

"No .... " "You don't want to be alive anymore, because it hurts. You wish it had been you. But it wasn't, Torch. It wasn't. It was them, and they're gone, and it's horrible and unfair. But they wouldn't want you to stay dead inside. They'd want you to go on. Do your grieving, and miss them and love them always. But go on."

His hands rose, closing over hers on his face. He moved them away slowly, and he shook with emotion. He held both her hands between his.

"I can't do that," he whispered roughly.

"You can, if you just" -- "You don't understand, dammit!" HIS words exploded from his chest, vibrating through the small camper, making Alexandra jerk in surprise. He released her hands, clasped her shoulders hard, his fingers sinking into her flesh. "It's my fault they died! I screwed up. I underestimated that bastard, and he killed them.

He killed Marcy and he killed my little boys because of me." He released her suddenly, shoving her away from him as he did. The force of it sent her tumbling off the bed, to the floor. But he'd~had no choice, because he'd been damn close to pulling her closer, to clinging to her and embracing the healing light she wielded with her brown eyes.

She scrambled to her feet again, but he didn't want her coming back to him. Not now. If she touched him again, he'd do something utterly stupid. He turned onto his side, facing the wall.

Alex sat down on the bed again, and her hands caressed his shoulders.

"It wasn't your fault, Torch."

"It was."

Her fingers wove through his hair.

"Why?"

He closed his eyes. He did not talk about this. Not to anyone. He never had. And he wasn't about to begin now.

 And even as he assured himself of those things, the entire ugly story was taking shape in his mind, readying itself to be told. To be shared. With her.

He rolled onto his back, looked up into her brown eyes. With one hand, he reached out to tuck a lock of satin hair behind her ear.

"There was a bomb threat phoned in. That's how it started," he began.

Chapter 9

He'd told her the entire story, and Alexandra had tried not to cry at the pain in his voice, but she hadn't been able to help herself. And he hadn't turned away or pushed her away again.

He talked for a long time. It was as if the floodgates had broken, as if once he started he had to tell all of it, right to the end. He told her about his last conversation with his wife, and how D.C. " the man Torch called his best friend, had stood by him afterward. D.C. had never doubted him, even when some higher-ranking fellow named Stem had suspected Torch of being involved in the murder of his own family.

She we red her head onto his pillow, and she put her arms around him, and she held him while he talked. She stroked his hair and his back and his shoulders, and she listened.

"How could he possibly have suspected yo" she whispered, holding him a little tighter.

 "The obvious reasons. It was a bomb, Alex. They're my specialty."

"But your own family..."

He stroked her hair. She lay in the crook of his arm, with her head on his chest and her arm anchored around his waist.

"Stern knew Marcy and I only married because of the boys."

Alex frowned.

"You didn't love her?"

"I did," he said quickly.

"Just not the way..." His words trailed off, and he tried again.

"We were friends, good friends. Things got out of hand once, when we were both feeling lonely, and Mamy got pregnant. So we married."

"But it was working out," Alex guessed.

"Yeah. Kids have a way of... of bringing people closer.

It's hard to explain it . but you'll know what I mean someday, Alex, when you have children of your own. "

That hurt. It hurt beyond belief, but she swallowed the pain, fought it into submission. Talking would do Torch a world of good. She wasn't about to change the subject.

"How did this Stern know about how things were between you and your wife?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"He was half in love with Marcy himself. Hell, I often thought she might have fallen for him, in time, if ... if things had been different."

Alex didn't know about that. She couldn't imagine any woman falling for another man if Torch were the competition.

"She never said so, though. Never did a thing to make me think that."

His voice was sleepy now. Long pauses came between his words.

"She was too kind to risk hurt!,ng me... and she was loyal." His hand stilled on her hair. A lot like you," he whispered.

The last pause drew out. In a few minutes, she realized he'd fallen asleep. Exhausted maybe, from the sudden release of such long pent-up emotions. A soul-deep sleep, she could tell. His chest expanded, lifting her head with his deep inhales, and fell smoothly as he exhaled.

She sat up, staring down at his relaxed face.

"The only person to blame for what happened is Scorpion," she whispered.

"You did your job. You did what you were supposed to do." She ran her fingers through his hair.

"Torch, they're at peace. They've returned to meld with whatever force you believe created them. You're the only one in hell. Can't you see that?"

His eyes were still closed, his breathing deep and even. He slept as if comatose, and she knew it was his body's response to the emotional stress of sharing his past--the past that had almost destroyed him--with her.

Alexandra thought he'd probably never released any of the rage he'd been feeling over the murders of his family.

Perhaps he'd never talked about it before.

But he had now. And she was glad.

Alexandra slipped silently away from him, pausing to pull the covers over his still body. She ached for what he was going through, but she also knew that his past was coloring his judgment of the present.

There was no danger in going to the house. There were no men hiding there, waiting for her return. Not when Scorpion believed she and Torch were in New York tight now. Even Torch had admitted the chances of such a thing were slim. But he was being overly. cautious, And it would be foolish of her to think that was out of concern for her. It was fear of failure making him so careful. He was afraid another death would be added to his list of imaginary sins. He was afraid of what that would do to his soul and maybe even to his mind.

But there was no danger. He wouldn't believe that unless she proved it to him, so she would. She needed to go back there, and her reasons went beyond. her desire to be sure Max was all right. Torch wouldn't.

understand them. She wasn't certain she understood them herself, yet.

But she had to go back. There were some things she needed to think through and she couldn't do that here, with Torch and his pain so close, so reachable.

Things about herself. and her relationship with her father. Things she hadn't wanted' to delve into before, because they were too painful. But it was time, she realized. It was past time. And for some reason, it would be easier to analyze and dissect these things back there at the house where they'd spent the last days of his l{fe together.

She closed her eyes and turned away from Torch, silently apologizing for what she was about to do. But she wouldn't be gone long enough for him to wake up and perhaps worry. She'd just do what she'd suggested earlier--get close enough to the house to take a look around and assure herself no one was there. And in the morning, she'd tell him what she'd done, and what she'd found, and he'd stop being so stubborn about going there.

Making barely a sound, she picked up her clothes. She pulled on a pair of the heavy socks he'd purchased, and then donned one of the sweatshirts. She finished off with his leather jacket, and she took the flashlight, too. On tiptoe, she slipped into the front of the RV and then out the passenger door, rather than the one in the back, where he might hear.

And then she stepped away from the camper, stretching her arms out.

to her sides and inhaling deeply of the clean night air. Snow fell softly but thickly, dusting her face and hair. And it was colder than it had been earlier. Quite a lot colder. It wouldn't be a problem, though. She could find the house blindfolded.

She took a step, then stopped, blinking at the unfamiliar surge of feeling that last thought had evoked. She felt'. capable. She felt sure of herself and. and strong. She couldn't remember feeling that Way before. But she didn't have to spend much time analyzing it or trying to figure out where it was coming from. She knew. The time she'd spent with Torch was changing her.

 She looked back at the camper, remembering the way he'd looked lying there, hsleep and drained and even a little vulnerable. Yes, he was changing her. In more ways than one.

She only hoped she didn't end up regretting it.

Torch 'dreamed of his children. Jason and Josh were playing in a square patch of grass, their faces bathed in golden sunlight. He heard their laughter, saw the sparkle in their eyes as they ran and tumbled and rolled in the lush grass. He saw himself, too, running and rolling right along with them, and then he remembered. He'd been teaching them football in the backyard. The summer before. He stopped thinking and just looked, watched the scene unfold in his mind's eye and devoured every second of it. It had been so long since he'd been able to see them like this, alive and happy. So long since he'd been capable of bringing up a single memory. But now, it was like being there again. So real. The redness of theft plump cheeks, and the way the wind ruffled their curls. The comic' size of a regulation football when clutched in the small hands of a four-year-old.

"Josh, Jason, time to come in."

Torch turned at the sound of Marcy's voice. She stood at the back door, smiling as the boys ran toward her. They begged to stay out just a little longer. It was such a familiar scene, one that had played out a thousand times in real life. But it didn't have the feel of a memory anymore.

Smiling, Marcy granted the boys an extra half hour in the backyard.

They raced back to their game, and automatically Torch started toward the back door. He had to talk to Marcy. There was something. "You called them inside," he said.

"They asked for more time."

"Yeah." Torch smiled.

"They always ask for more tune." "And I always give it to them."

He started up the back steps. Marcy caught his gaze and shook her head.

"No. You need to wake up now." "

 He frowned, saying nothing, just staring, confused.

"It was my time, not yours," she said softly.

"And it's not Alexandra's time yet, either. She needs you. They need you."

He tried to argue, but when he opened his mouth the words that came out had no form, no substance.

"It was my time, not yours," she repeated.

"Accept it, and go on."

And then it was as if the lights went out. Utter blackness descended, engulfing everything. He couldn't see Marcy anymore, or the house, or the yard. He couldn't hear the voices of his sons. There was only darkness, and the unearthly howl of the wind.

It took a full minute for Torch to realize that his eyes were opened.

He was awake, in a pitch-black camper. It had been a dream, for God's sake. A dream.

He sat up in bed, pushing his hands through his hair, gnawing his lower lip a little, just to be sure he was really awake. Seemed he was. And his first instinct was to call to Alexandra. To hear her voice answering him would be reassuring. It would confirm everything was all right. Just as it should be.

She needs you.

He gave his head a shake, trying to rid himself of the haunting memory of that dream. It had been so real. He cleared his throat and very softly, not wanting fo wake her, he said, "Alex? You awake?" He waited, remembering with a flush of embarrassment the way he'd poured his heart out to her earlier. The way she'd held him as he had told her everything. Every single thing he'd vowed not to talk about with another living soul. And how she'd listened, and seemed to understand every word. And how sharing it with her had made him feel like maybe he could survive this hell after all.

There was no answer. Okay, so she was asleep. He shouldn't feel such an intense need to fiear her voice, anyway. It was ridiculous.

 She needs you. t Torch rolled his eyes at his own apparent mental instability. But he decided there was little use fighting it. He got out of bed, reached for the gas lamp nearest him and turned the knob.

The flame came to life, reaching its yellow fingers into the corners, chasing shadows away.

Torch turned toward the bunks, standing now. He'd just look at her, assure himself that she was okay, and maybe he'd be able to get some sleep.

Only, she wasn't there. The bunk was empty. The sight of it was like a blow between the eyes, so much so that he took an involuntary step backward at its impact.

He swore, and cheeked the bathroom, and swore some more as he poked his head into the cab, finding both as empty as her bed had been. And her shoes and jeans were gone, and so was his jacket and the flashlight.

"Damreit straight to hell, she's gone to that house," he yelled at the walls, the ceding. Okay, okay, calm down. So, she'd sneaked OUt while he slept. So she'd deliberately, blatantly done actly what he'd told her not to do. So what? It didn't mean the world was going to end. He gathered his clothes, picked up his gun. She'd been right from the beginning. There was barely a snow bali chance in hell that Scorpion had left men behind to watch the place. She'd be all right.

She'd be just. He squinted through the windshield, frowning. And then he reached past the steering wheel and down to the side to pull on the headlights.

But even their blazing white glow couldn't penetrate the blizzard blanketing the night. He couldn't see a yard in front of the RV. Not a yard. Sometime while he'd been sleeping, a brutal wind had kicked up, and the result was a blinding snowstorm. And Alexandra was out there somewhere. A chill of foreboding slipped up his spine, and again he heard his dead wife's meaning-laden whisper. She needs you.

He swore. It couldn'~t have been this bad when she'd left. Couldn't have been, or she wouldn't have gone. Alexandra was too smart for that. This was the Adirondack forest, for God's sake. She wouldn't have gone out there alone in a storm like this. He could only pray she'd reached the house safely, before the blizzard had unleashed its fury. He could only hope there had been no one there waiting for her when she had.

He pulled on every sweatshirt that remained, wrapped a pale blue blanket around his shoulders in lieu of a coat and snatched up his duffel bag.

Hunching forward, he headed out into slashing white chaos.

She made it halfway, she figured, before the snow began flying horizontally instead of ve~cally, driven by an ever-strengthening, frigid wind. She lost her bearings. It was ridiculous. Stupid, to get lost in a place she knew so well. All she had to do was follow the fire road," for God's sake. Problem was, she could no longer see the fire road, and the flashlight she gripped was a joke against the power of the sudden storm. When she'd left the camper, it had been cold, yes, but not like this. Now there was this bitter, harsh wind that turned wet snowflakes into razors. There was no light, no darkness. Just snow.

She couldn't make out the shapes of the trees she moved among, until she was nearly inhaling their bark. There was nothing to guide her. The wind moaning eerily through the boughs overhead seemed to Alexandra like the voice of her father.

"Condemning. Scornful.

Her nose and cheeks burned, razed by the blizzard's claws . It hurt to inhale the frigid air, and her lungs screamed with every breath. Yet she breathed ever faster as panic crept into her veins. The cold and the fear tried to send her bronchial tubes into spasm, but Alex fought it. She forced herself calm. She ordered her body not to betray her now. She'd left the inhaler at the camper.

Her hands were wet and slowly going numb, and her feet had long since mutated into solid ice chunks. She couldn't ~ feel them anymore when she stepped on them, so she lurched along, trying to find her way.

But there was no more sign of the path, and she wasn't sure whether she'd have known it even if she'd somehow stumbled onto it again. She only knew she wasn't on the path now. Somehow she'd veered into the forest. That was obvious by the trees that loomed into her vision with every few steps. Panic crept in again, chilling her even more deeply than the cold wind. But she fought it. There had to be a way to get through this.

She squinted in the snow, trying to see something, anything that would give her a clue, but to no avail. She decided at last to backtrack.

She'd either find her way back to the fire trail, or perhaps all the way to the camper if she just followed her own tracks. Turning in place, she bent low, searching for the footprints she'd left in the snow. She had to bend almost double, hold the light only inches above the ground in order to see them. Loose snow swirled and whipped around her lower legs Like the ghostly mist in a horror movie. Only more deadly. She finally found a shallow indentation in the snow that marked the place where she'd stepped. Then another.

Slowly 'she started back.

She was shivering now. Shaking so hard her teeth rattled and her muscles burned and the light jerked and danced in crazy patterns. She pulled her hands up into the sleeves of Torch's jacket and wrapped her arms around herself, bowing into the wind that screamed in her ears as she forced herself to keep moving and tried to. keep the flashlight's beam focused on the tracks in the snow.

But in only a few yards, the footprints she'd made when she'd come out here vanished. The blizzard had already filled them in. And now just what on earth was she going to do?

Keep moving. Just keep moving, Alexandra, or you'll die out here.

She tried to obey the voice of reason, did for a while. Until it became impossible. Because the asthma came on full force, shutting her bronchial tubes down. She gasped, forcefully sucking minuscule breaths of freezing air into her lungs, but she knew it wasn't enough to sustain her. It was like trying to suck air through plastic. She felt as if she were suffocating. Felt as if, nothing, she was suffocating, But she fought, used every ounce of strength-in her body to try to inhale. The effort cost her, and the reward was a dismal squeak.

Dizziness came as she'd known it would. She groped for a support, her hand sweeping through the falling snow, finding nothing to grasp. And then the snowy ground reached up to surround her face. Its cold was an icy slap, an injection of awareness. She managed to pull herself up again. But her rally didn't last. She staggered forward a few more st~s only to collapse against the skin-scraping bark of a massive pine.

Her stinging face pressed to the trunk, and she tasted its fragrance with every desperate, insufficient gasp.

Torch knew which way she would havi gone. He-left the headlights on, which helped a LITTLE. God knows their beam was a good deal more powerful than that of the pathetic flashlight she was depending on.

As soon as he stepped out of the camper, the cold bit right through every layer of clothing he wore. Damn. It was frigid, killing cold, with this wind behind it. She wouldn't last long in cold like this.

No one would.

He thought about her lungs, the frequent asthma attacks and the way they were instigated by fear. She'd be afraid right now, if she was out in this storm. If she was lost, she'd be terrified. He felt sick to his itomach thinking about how afraid she'd be.

"Ducking into the camper, he checked the glove compartment and found her inhaler there.

His heart sank. She didn't have it with her. What would she do if she had an attack out there, and no inhaler on hand?

Torch snapped himself out of his panic by mentally insisting she'd made it to the house. She was inside right now, and she was warm arid dry and safe. He envisioned her wrapped in a blanket, warming her feet by one of those fireplaces that littered the place. Only the ever-growing knot in the pit of his stomach kept insisting that wasn't the scene he was going to find.

He managed to stay on the fire road. He was soaking wet and shivering before he'd reached what he judged was the halfway point, but the extreme cold only drove him on. Maybe he even picked up his pace, calling her name now as he went. And it seemed to Torch that the storm abated a little. That the wind eased and the snowfall slowed as he moved on. Or maybe he was just going numb and his senses were dulled.

But no. He'd made it.

Torch stopped and stared off into the gloom at his right. There was a glow, very pale,~ but there. It was like trying to~- see a streetlight through heavy fog, as he squinted and started toward it The light led him off the fire trail, into the forest, but it remained visible, even grew clearer as he went. And then the trees he'd been hiking through came to an end. And he was seeing AI exandra's house beyond the veil of the storm, the outdoor light glowing like a beacon, and he run toward it.

Thank God! If the light was on, she must be. Halfway across the driveway, he paused, studying that outdoor light now that it was more visible. A huge halogen globe, very much: like the streetlights he'd likened it to. The kind of light that came on automatically at dark.

All by itself, with no help at all. .

He put his observational skills into gear and felt his heart sink into his feet. There wasn't a single light glowing from inside the house.

Only this automatic outdoor one.

He wanted to run up the front steps, slam the 'door open and yell her name. But he didn't. A lifetime of caution wasn't overcome that easily.

He drew the gun and moved slowly, his feet making furrows in the snow, Then dents when he walked up the three concrete steps. He stood be fore the dark wood door with its fan-shaped, snow-en-crusted panes of glass, and he listened.

The house was silent. Not a sound or a movement from within. He didn't think Alex was there, and the idea that she wasn't almost put him on his knees. They actually began to buckle. It was a sensation Torch Palamaro had only expefieneed once in his life.

He steadied himself, trying to focus on positive thoughts, trying to weigh his options. Fortunately, it didn't look as if anyone else was there, either. He tucked the gun under his arm and rubbed his hands together to warm them. - It didn't help much. Neither did blowing on them.

He turned to look behind him, just once. Just to be sure. No vehicles.

No tire tracks. No footprints. Then again, if there had been any, they'd have been filled in by now.

He tried the brass doorknob and found it unlocked. Then he pulled the gun out again with his right hand, held its barrel steady as he opened the door with his left.

In the bit of light that spilled in from outside, he saw the far wall.

The dark, empty fireplace, without so much as a glowing ember to attest to recent use. No one waited in ambush inside. As Torch made his way from room to room, upstairs and down, he found no sign that anyone had been here today. The place had been searched but not trashed. Scorpion's men had been methodical, careful. They hadn't charged through, emptying drawers and turning over chairs the way one saw on television shows.

You'd never find anything if you searched a house that way. Scorpion knew that. He'd taught his men well. An untrained eye might not even have known they'd been there.

But other than the signs of a painstaking search, there was not a hint of human presence. And the fact that the place was colder than a tomb was the clincher. If Scorpion's men had stayed, they'd have lit a fire in at least one of the hearths that littered the place. The power wasn't out, so Torch figured a blown fuse must be to blame for the furnace not working. If anyone had been here, they'd have needed heat.

 So Alex had been right and he'd been overly cautious. No one was here.

Including her.

He replaced the gun and turned on some of the lights. The more light the better. He didn't care who else might see them right now. These were for Alex, in case he couldn't find her, to guide her in.

But he would find her. He had to.

He strode toward the front door. Something snared his leg with a low growl, and he damned near shot it. The cat released him when he whirled, and it crouched, 'hissing at him. Accusing green eyes blazed up at him from a furry black face.

"Not now, beast." He turned back to the door and headed out. He kept thinking of Alex, lying in the snow, dying. He kept picturing himself discovering her lifeless body out here, and it was tearing his insides apart. Dammit, she hadn't done a thing to deserve any of this. She'd been dragged into a situation beyond her control, and now she might die because of it.

No. No, she damn well wouldn't die, because Torch wouldn't let her.

He was going to do it fight this time. He wasn't going to lose another person he cared about. Not again.

Torch swallowed hard, realizing that he'd just admitted he cared for Alexandra Holt. Hell, he hadn't wanted to. But the woman made it impossible to keep a distance. She'd wormed her way under his skin, and yes, he'd let himself care. Combine that with the madness she stirred in his loins, and the woman was more deadly an enemy than Scorpion on his best day.

Didn't matter, though. Alex was out here, somewhere. He wasn't going to quit until he found her.

Alex had found the fire road again by mere chance, for what good it did her. She hadn't realized it at first, but the tree she clung to was right at the road's edge. She could see that now that the storm was easing a little. Or maybe it was just taking a break between rounds.

Finding the road, though, was no help whatsoever. Not now. She panted hdplessly, barely clinging to conscious-heSS. The strain of forcing air into her lungs was exhausting her. Her legs were stumps, numb to the knees, and she could barely stand, let alone walk. Her clothes were soaked now, her jeans frozen to her legs, her shoes caked in several layers of snow and ice. She leaned against the tree, wishing it could emit body heat, hugging herself and shaking violently, and she knew she couldn't go on. Once again her foolislmess had gotten her into trouble.

Maybe it would do her in this time.

Her legs gave out and she sank into the snow at the tree's base. God help her, she didn't think she was going to survive this.

Her father wouldn't have been surprised.

Chapter 10

He thought she was dead when he found her. He'd been meandering into the woods along either side of the road, checking out every snow-covered clump of deadfall that even remotely resembled a body.

And then he'd glimpsed a pinprick of faint light on the ground in the distance. He'd raced toward it. The flashlight lay half-covered in snow, right beside Alexandra. And she was utterly still, cold as a stone. A thin layer of snow coated her face and clothes. His heart did things he hadn't thought it was still capable of doing. Like breaking, for instance. He hadn't believed anything could break what had become a hunk of lifeless granite, but the sight of her shattered it to dust.

He fell to his knees beside her, choking on the words he tried to shout at her, brushing the snow and frozen hair away from her face and eyelashes.

"Alex! Dammit, Alex, talk to me! Come on!"

Her answer was a low moan, but the sound of it shot adrenaline directly into his veins.

"You're alive!" He pulled her limp body against him. Her arms and head hung like a mg doll's, but he held her all the same.

"You're alive, Alex. And dammit, you're going to stay that way." He had to release her just long enough to wrestle the inhaler from his jeans pocket. He held it to her lips, squeezed two sharp bursts of medicine into her mouth, hoping she'd managed to inhale some of it. Then he tucked it back into his pocket again to free his hands.

It was closer to the house than hack to the camper. Torch was all too aware that just because Scorpion's men hadn't been there didn't mean they weren't watching the place from somewhere else. Or checking in on occasion. But he had no choice at the moment. Her life was in the balance, and Torch was already responsible for more deaths than he'd ever atone for. He wasn't going to add Alexandra's to the list.

He took the blanket from around his shoulders and wrapped her in it.

Then he lifted her into his arms and began trudging back the way he'd come. She didn't move again, didn't make another sound. But he couldn't stop to cheek her, didn't dare stop to cheek her, terrified beyond reason that he'd find her heart had stopped.

She wasn't gasping. He told himself her muscles would relax when she was unconscious and that her breathing would ease, but he had no idea if it was true. Seemed to him she ought to be in the midst of an asthma attack at a time like this: Why the hell couldn't he hear her breathing?

He looked down at her as he walked into the light outside the house, at her pale skin, the frozen lashes resting on her cheeks. The stillness of her. She looked like an icy angel, a frozen princess under an evil spell.

Why did it hurt this much?

He shouldered the door open, kicking it shut behind him, and headed straight up the stairs to her bedroom. Damn, it was cold in here. A little warmer than outside, though. At least here there was no wind.

He lowered her to the bed, and only then did he dare to lay his head against her breast, to listen. When the soft, slightly wheezy sound of her breathing reached him, he closed his eyes tight.

"Thank God. Still alive," he whispered.

He tucked the blanket more tightly around her, knowing she might not stay that way long if he didn't act fast. -But damn him for a fool, he didn't know what to do first.

He straightened away from Alex, looking around the room, and the hearth in the corner seemed to whisper an answer to him. A fire laid ready, just as it had when they'd left the house. A stack of wood standing neatly to one side. It only took a second to find the matches on the mantel and to light the fire in the fireplace. Torch closed the bedroom door, to keep the heat inside. Then turned, frowning. as he realized the window had been closed. And the rope ladder. He had no idea what Scorpion's men had done with it. He hoped to God they didn't end up trapped here with no way out.

But that worry had to take a back seat for now. For now, his only concern was Alex. The room would be warm in a while. He returned to the bed, pulling the snow-damp blanket away from her. Her clothes were wet, frozen. They were doing her no good whatsoever. He needed to warm her, and he needed to do it fast. Kneeling on the bed, he gently removed the leather coat, then the sweatshirt she wore beneath it.

She didn't move as he worked, didn't make a sound, just lay there limp.

Lifeless. His throat tried to close off, and his eyes burned inexplicably.

The zipper of her jeans was caked with snow and ice, but he finally managed to undo them. He knelt beside the bed, wrenching the snow-coated shoes from her feet, peeling the socks and then the jeans away. Her skin was cold, clammy 'to the touch. He hoped to God he'd found her in time. He tugged back the covers and bent to pick her up, to settle her' beneath them, but realized his shirts were soaking wet and icy cold. He tugged them over his head, tossing them to the floor before bending over her again. He picked her up, naked and limp and cold in his arms, against his chest. He wanted to cradle her there, to hold her aRd rock her and speak to her until he drew some kind of response. But he couldn't, not yet. He tucked her into the bed, under the covers, then quickly searched the room, taking every blanket he found and spreading them over her.

Now what?

He turned in a slow circle. Frostbite, he realized, was a danger. Her hands and her feet. Still shirtless, he ran into the adjoining bathroom. The room where he'd sat on that tiny vanity stool while she'd tended his bleeding shoulder. He snatched several thick towels from tile shelf and returned to the fire He added more logs and then held two of the towels as close to the flames as he dared, warming them. When they were heated through, he went to the foot of the bed, lifted the covers and wrapped a towel around each of her icy feet. He repeated the process with two more towels, wrapping her hands this time.

At last, he heeled off his now-thawed shoes, shirnmied out of his jeans and stood naked before the fireplace to take the chill out of his own body. And then he slipped beneath the covers with Alexandra.

She was so cold after the heat of the fire. He flinched and sucked air through his teeth as he pulled her chilled body into his arms and held her tight against his own warm skin.

Gently he cradled her, willing his body's heat to move into hers, to warm her, to bring her back to him.

"Come on, Alex," he whispered, a harsh desperation in his voice making it seem like that of a stranger to his own ears.

"Come on, wake up. You're gonna be okay. Do you hear me? You're gonna be okay."

God, if only he could be sure of that.

She could breathe again.

It was the first sensation to filter into her awareness. She wasn't struggling and gasping anymore. She was breathing easily, though her lungs ached as if she'd run a marathon.

 And she was warm, deliciously warm and wrapped in a wonderful contrast of hardness and softness. She inhaled nasally, and her eyes opened at the familiar, subtle scent. Torch.

He was behind her and beneath her and surrounding her. His body enveloped hers in its warmth. And she closed. her eyes, wondering if this was a dream, or some fantasy-based afterlife. Oh, but it felt too good to analyze. His arms, holding her, warming her. His chest, pressed to her back. His hair-rough thigh, resting atop her legs. HIS warm breath heating her nape.

She sighed deeply, hoping to stay just like this for several more hours.

He was naked. And. and so was she.

Alexandra came mole thoroughly awake. Had some thing happened between them? Had her waking fantasy come true and had she somehow managed to forget?

The last thing she remembered was clinging to a pine tree's rough trunk, gasping for air and shivering with cold and teetering on the brink of unconsciousness.

Torch must have 'found her. He must have found her and brought her. She blinked at the bank of windows with their somber blue drapes and rope fie backs She sniffed the air, scenting wood smoke and man.

He'd brought her home. She was in her own bed. And she was all right.

She was warm and dry and safe.

Torch Palamaro had saved her life tonight.

She rolled onto her back, better to see him in the dim light of predawn and post storm And he stirred. His eyes flicked open, blinked a couple times, then darted rapidly over her face.

"Alex... ?"

"I'm okay:" His eyes continued their search, filled 'with something like disbelief. One hand came up under the covers, to cup her cheek, run through her hair, trace the curve of her neck, as his head moved very slightly from side to side.

 "I'm okay," she repeated, knowing he wasn't as sure of it as she was.

He dosed his eyes, his arms snaking around her, pulling her tight to him.

"Thank God," he said, and sighed.

"I was afraid .... " He stopped then. His hands had been sliding down over her back to pull her dose, and they'd paused now, cupping her buttocks. As if Torch suddenly realized what he was doing. His hips were pressed to hers, and she felt the unmistakable swelling, hardening of him against her. She lifted her chin, meeting his eyes, knowing he was going to draw away from her at any second, just by the hint of panic she saw in those sapphire depths.

But she saw desire, too. And she knew she didn't want him to pull away.

She didn't have to move much at all in order to press her mouth to his.

He shuddered. His entire body trembled, but he didn't turn away. His lips parted when she nudged them. He lay very still, allowing her to kiss him. To tast his mouth on her own. He didn't move when her hands kneaded his shoulders, or when her fingers threaded into his hair; he only grew harder.

It was an instinct as old as woman that made her hips arch against him.

And it was then he came alive.

As if electrocuted, he jerked: And then he held her. He rolled her onto her back and urged her lips wider, his tongue digging deep. She felt his body grow hotter, heard the rasping of his breaths. And she knew, without being told, that it had been a long tune for him.

Longer for her, though. Far longer for her.

A shiver of fear raced through her. He moved his hands between them, to cup her breasts, to capture her nipples and roll them and gently pull at them. And then his mouth left hers, to explore elsewhere, and he suckled her as if he were starving. His hips worked all the while.

And when him mouth took over tormenting her breasts, his hands moved downward, pressing her thighs apart, and cupping her.

She stiffened, a little afraid of what was happening.

He bit her nipple, and she gasped in surprise and exquisite pain and pleasure, which rolled over her in hot waves that drowned most of her fears.

He lifted his head very slightly, his fevered eyes probing hers.

"I'll stop," he rasped.

"If you want me to stop, I'll" -- "No."

She saw the fire in his eyes blaze brighter before he lowered his head again. Then his mouth worked downward. He sucked the skin of her belly, licked at her abdomen, dipped his tongue into her navel.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and the sounds coming from her throat were foreign, not natural. Animal, guttural sounds.

His head moved lower and she clamped her thighs together, but Torch's hands slid between them and forced them open. Wide open. And then he was bending to her, and his thumbs were opening her, and his mouth was descending and. She screamed aloud when he touched her with his mouth.

The sensation was too wild for containment. He covered her with his mouth, with his lips, and he sucked at her. And then his tongue was stabbing into her as if he couldn't get enough of her taste. Alexandra writhed against his mouth in helpless anguish, 'straining toward a fulfillment she'd never known.

His teeth scraped and his tongue ravaged, and then her mind exploded.

She melted and he moaned as if she were feeding him something he'd craved his entire life.

Slowly he moved up over her body, his mouth blazing a path over her torso, pausing to torment her breasts, burning over her throat and her chin. His hands held her thighs even wider, and he slid his hardness into her. Deeper, slowly and steadily deeper. He wasn't going to stop, not for any thing. She opened her mouth, only to feel it filled with his hot, salty tongue. His hands crept beneath her hips, and he held her tight to him, forcing her utter acceptance of his thrusts, his powerful, merciless forays into the very depths of her. He slammed into her, again and again as his mouth worked hers, and his hands squeezed and held her, and she liked it. She wanted it.

And then he exploded inside her. She felt the pulse of his orgasm, felt the way he shuddered, and the sensation drove her to the brink again, as well. Her hands clutched his buttocks, drawing him deep inside her as she climaxed, her body milking his until he trembled the way she did.

And then he collapsed on top of her. But he didn't withdraw. He simply rolled onto his back, taking her with him, and he started all over again.

What the hell have you done, you freaking idiot[ Torch looked at her, lying there with the cold morning sun bathing her naked shoulders, painting the soft smile she wore even in her sleep.

He'd had sex with her. He'd been wanting it for days, and damn it straight to hell, so had she. So he'd done it.

She wouldn't call it that, though, would she? No. She was female, and as such she'd claim that he had made love to her, which he hadn't.

That's the way she'd see it though. One look at that soft smile was all it took to know it. She'd think it had been some kind of fate thing.

Slle'd think he'd been so worried about her, so relieved to see her awake and alive and well that he hadn't been able to fight his hidden feelings any more.

But she'd be wrong. Because he had no hidden feelings for her. He was incapable of those kinds of feelings. His heart had been blown to microscopic bits ten months ago, and Humpty-Dumpty stood a better chance of heal Lug than that tattered organ.

She stirred a little, snuggling closer to him, one arm snaking around his waist. Thick black lashes whispering open, huge dark eyes gazing up at him. The image of the timid woodland creature was back.

Only this time it wasn't wary. It was trusting and content.

He was the animal here. He'd used her like a toy, and now he had to make that clear to her. He had to wipe that damned smile off her face before. Before what, Palamaro? Before it gets to you? Hmm?

Torch closed his eyes tightly, refusing to hear the voice from within.

Yeah, you're right. You're nowhere near ready for this sort of thing .

What do you mean, "what sort of thing?" That sort of thing, fool. t The Sort of thing that's just about spilling from her eyes. Get the.

hell away from her before it gets on you~t His throat went dry, and he heard someone whisper, "I'm not ready for this sort of thing."

"I-ham?"

The'way she asked it made "hmm?" Sound erotic. And it wasn't until she asked it that he realized he'd spoken aloud.

"Nothing."

She bent her head to kiss his chest. Torch slid to the far side of the bed. And finally her dazzled expression cleared a little. A tiny frown appeared between her brows. And she looked at him, waiting, and he knew that she knew what was coming.

"Is something wrong?" she asked him slowly, those probing eyes like pins, pricking him everywhere they landed.

"No. It's just..." He shook his head, looked around the room, for a metaphoric hiding place.

"I need to throw some more wood on the fire."

"No, you don't." Sl~e sat up, leaning her back against the headboard and tugging the covers up with her.

"I get the feeling you have something to say, and I think your first three words are going to he 'about last night."

" Torch sat on the edge of the bed, looking with regret at the soggy ball Of denim on the floor. What the hell was he supposed to wear? He spotted his shorts, damp but drier than the jeans. And within reach, to boot.

"I don't know what you mean, Alex. Last night was just sex. What's there to talk about?" This as he got to his feet and pulled the chilly shorts on, letting the waistband snap into place. Wincing at the icy material on his skin, he tried not to walk funny when he went to the fireplace. He hunkered down, cold material finding new flesh to chill, and made a huge production out of poking the coals and arranging more wood atop them.

"Just sex," she repeated softly.

"Yeah." Coward, keeping your back to her while you deliver the blow.

~"Yeah, Alex, just sex. You wanted it, I wanted it. We're both adults.

It didn't mean anything."

She was silent. He was afraid to look at her. Afraid he'd see tears in those doe like eyes, and afraid of what that would feel like. He hadn't meant to hurt her. Better she understand things now, though, than to let her go on hoping. Better she suffer and ct~j for a few hours, than to-The impact of an unidentified projectile against the back of his head cut his thoughts in half.

"Owl" Torch turned, rubbing his head with one hand, holding up the other when he saw another book coming at him. Hardcover, too. She could have-thrown a paperback.

The second volley ricocheted off his hand to land on the floor. He eyed the lead crystal lamp on the. bedside stand and tried to judge the distance to the door. She didn't reach for it, though. She just sat there, glaring at him as if she'd like to see him beheaded. She didn't say one word. And he didn't ask.

"I... uh... I guess I'll go cheek on the furnace." Nothing. Only furrowed brows and blazing eyes as he backed out of the room, into the freezing hallway in nothing but a pair of damp boxers.

He shivered but figured he deserved' to suffer a little. Damn, but her reaction had him confused.

 Alexandra blinked at the books lying on the floor with their pages folded beneath them like broken wings. She'd thrown them at him. Her 'frown deepened and she tilted her head to one side. Why?

A short time ago, she knew she would have reacted quite differently.

She'd have been hurt, yes. But she'd probably have accepted his rejection. She might even have considered it inevitable.

Not now, though. Without thinking it through, she'd reacted with an anger unlike anything she'd ever experienced in her life. A moment ago she'd been mad enough to seriously hurt Torch Palamaro. Because he~d taken advantage. He'd used her, and dan unit she wasn't going to put up with that.

Now wasn't that an odd notion? Almost as if she were starting to believe she deserved better. Almost as if she thought she deserved. to he loved.

She blinked down her surprise, and turned the idea over and over in her mind. Her outlook had changed a great deal in the few days she'd spent with Torch, hadn't it?

A pathetic wail from beyond the bedroom door, accompanied by scratching sounds, interrupted her thoughts. Alex got up, snatching a bathrobe from the back of a chair and shrugging into it before opening the door.

Max leapt into her arms. He nudged her chin with his big head and emitted a purr like a race car, punctuated intermittently by soft pleas for food.

"I know. You've been neglected, haven't you? All right, come on."

Without using her hands, she stepped into slippers and headed downstairs. Max brushed his head over the collar of her robe and against her cheek. She ran her hand over his black fur and he arched to her touch, complaining loudly if she dared to stop stroking him for a second.

She was stepping softly, almost on tiptoe, as she descended the stairs.

She realized as she crossed the living room that she was sneaking through her own house, just because she didn't want to run into Torch again.

Why?

Damn him for making her feel this way. She was bubbling over with the things she wanted to say to him. The problem was, she wasn't sure what those things were. If she opened her mouth right now, she had no idea what sorts of emotional declarations might come out. She was furious with him for the way he'd treated her. And that was such a foreign kind of feeling, she wasn't comfortable expressing it. Not yet. Not until she'd analyzed it a little more, figured out why she felt that way, and what it meant.

The raw intensity of her emotions frightened her. She'd wait until she was calmer, clearer, before she tried to voice them.

She shivered as she scraped eat food from a can into Max's dish. She turned on the faucet to give him some water, but nothing came out.

"The pipes are frozen."

She stiffened at the gruff sound of Torch's voice, but didn't turn to face him. Instead she shrugged and opened the refrigerator, pouring a little milk into Max's dish.

"Are you all right?"

She set the bowl of milk into the microwave, closed the door, hit the buttons.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

He didn't reply. The microwave hummed as thirty seconds ticked by on the digital panel and the timer beeped. She tested the m'dk with her forefinger before setting it on the floor. Max dove into it, tail straight in the air.

"You spoil that eat."

"I love him," she said. She finally turned around, out of excuses to keep her back to him. Then she blinked. Torch wore a pair of her father's trousers, olive drab, with grass stains on the knees. A memory jabbed her heart. Father, kneeling in that stupid little flower bed out front. No more than three feet by two feet. A small strip that had obsessed him, toward the end. Always digging.

 Torch plucked at the front of the sweater he wore.

"My clothes are still wet. I hope it's okay that I borrowed some of your father's."

"They fit you." She blinked again, looking him up and down, almost laughing at the bitter irony.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised, should I? You have so much in common."

She saw his frown, saw his lips part as if to ask her to explain that remarlt, or to deny it But he seemed to think better of it. He clamped his jaw shut.

"I probably should have said something before, but the furnace has been broken since October. I've been meaning to get it fixed, but" -- She tilted her head, and in a moment realized the ancient o'd burner in the basement was running. She lifted her brows in surprise.

"The gun was clogged," he told her, as if she'd know exactly what he meant.

"It just needed cleaning out."

She nodded.

"That's good. When the house warms up, the pipes will thaw on their own."

"Not that it matters," Torch said slowly.

"We're not staying."

"Maybe you, re not," Alexandra replied.

"But I am."

"Alex, just because no one is here now doesn't mean they aren't watching the place. They might cheek in from time to time."

She shrugged.

"I'm staying. I ... need to be here, right now."

Torch frowned until his brows touched. "why the hell do you need to be here?"

"I don't know yet." She looked at the way her hands were clasped together, wringing each other, and made them stop, bringing them deliberately down to her sides.

"I just feel I have to be here. And nothing you can say is going to make me leave. If you want to go so badly, go by your selL " You know damned well I'm not going to leave you here alone! "

"Why not, Torch? Why the hell not?"

"Because you could end up dead."

She lifted her brows,~searching his face.

"That would be a real strong argument, Torch, if you could only name one person who'd give a damn." She strode past him, heading for the stairway, wanting only to go back up to her warm bedroom and put on her heaviest sweater. She was halfway up the stairs when his voice came from the bottom, stopping her.

"Mason "Torch' Palamaro," he said, and his voice was very low, very soft, "would give a damn."

A chill ran up her spine, and she closed her eyes as all the air left her lungs. She had to fight to breathe again.

"I wasn't trying to force you to say that," she whispered, knowing that was exactly what she'd been trying to do, consciously or not.

"I know."

She turned slowly, met his eyes, saw the turmoil in them. This wasn't easy for him. He was hurting so much. It was palpable, his pain. He was almost writhing with it, and she wanted to ease it for him. She offered him a smile that felt weak, and lifted her brows.

"Mason, huh?

His lips turned up a little at the corners, and the confusion in his eyes cleared.

"Yeah. And that's the last time I want to hear you say it."

"All right ... Mason." She turned around and continued up the stairs.

Torch followed, making angry noises. Ig-noting him, she went back into the bedroom, rubbing her arms and hurrying to stand close to the fireplace He came in behind her, but she noticed his hesitation in the doorway.

God, he really was scared to death of her, wasn't he?

After a moment's apparent indecision he came inside and closed the door.

 "You, uh... you can bring the cat, if you want," he said, coming to stand beside her. Not too close beside her. Not even close enough.

She realized with a little surprise that she wanted to be dose to him, close enough to feel his body heat and hear the pounding of his heart.

She wanted to be wrapped up in his "Bring the cat where?"

"To the camper." He glanced down at her with a wary frown.

"I told you, I'm not going hack to the camper."

He swore a long stf'earn, turn' rag in a slow circle, ruffling his hair with one hand.

"I thought we settled this."

"We didn't settle a thing. I said I was staying here and I meant it ."

"And what about Scorpion's thugs?"

"What about them? Torch, they'll find us just as quickly if we leave.

There's no way we can get out of here without leaving clear tracks in that new snow out there, unless you sprouted wings overnight. "; He opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. Frowned, shook his head, opened his mouth. Closed it again. Finally he lifted his hands, palms up.

"Okay. all right. We'll stay."

Alexandra felt her brows shoot upward in surprise. She tilted her head, questioning him without a word.

"When you're right, Alexandra, you're right. We're staying."

She smiled fully. She'd half expected him to spout some obvious, simple solution to the problem of tracks, one that had eluded her. It was nice to be right once in a while, she decided.

And he smiled, too, as if he knew every. thought that went through her mind~ So she held his gaze, and she thought about the way it felt when he kissed her, when he touched her. His smile faded, and his gaze dipped lower, skimming over her neck and down the front of her robe.

 "It's cold," he said.

"Why don't you get dressed while I try to find something for breakfast."

She nodded, but he was gone so quickly she wasn't certain he ever saw it.

Chapter 11

He wanted, It had been a very long time ~'nice he'd wanted like ~thi~.

Every time-she looked at him with those big brown eyes, he had to battle an urge to pull her into his arms. He wanted to hold her very close, very gently, and rock her and warm her, and whisper soft words into her ears. He wanted to kiss her. At the oddest moments, for no apparent reason,-he kept. wanting to cover her moist, warm lips with his. He was craving her taste. He'd never experienced feelings this intense.

Not ever. And he' didn want to experience them now.

Damreit, I'm not ready.

A voice from within laughed at him, and he cringed. Hell, there was no use dwelling on all of this now, anyway. There was one thing in his future, and only one thing. The capture and murder of Scorpion.

Torch had nothing to lose, and he wouldn't be able to pull this thing off if that were no longer the case. Nothing to lose meant nothing he wouldn't do. Nothing he wouldn't give up. Nothing he wouldn't risk in order to get the bastard. It was Torch's mission in life, his one chance to make up for letting his family down. For getting them killed.

He might end up in prison because of it, but that was a price he was willing to pay. He might end up dying in the effort to bring Scorpion down. That, too, was a risk worth taking.

Already his determination was compromised, and it ate at his guts to know it. He was not, he admitted, willing to risk Alexandra's life to get Scorpion. Which was why he had to get that formula and get her the hell out of here before Scorpion showed up.

By late afternoon the house was warm and the water was running again.

From the looks of the robin's-egg sky and blinding sunlight, he figured the main roads were probably cleared by now. If the lawyer had been coming home today, he'd have been able to get through.

He sat on a m-colored settee with scrolled hardwood arms and legs, near the window, sipping coffee. Alexandra came in and sat beside him, and his arm moved. He caught himself in the nick of time. He'd damn near slipped ~ arm around her shoulders and drawn her close, His body seemed to function on automatic pilot when she got near him. It had all these impulses that just came without consulting his brain for permission.

Damn, he'd never been so out of control before.

"I don't thing I thanked you for coming after: me last night," she said, Her eyes. Damn how they got to him. She should have been just fine out there in the forest last night. She looked so much as if she belonged there.

"I can't imagine how you managed to carry me all the way back here.., with your shoulder, I mean."

His shoulder. Funny, how he hadn't given it a second thought last night. It ached now, and common sense said it must have been hurting then. But he'd been too focused on Alex to notice.

"So... anyway... thanks. You saved my life."

 "You can thank me by promising not to leave me like that again." He blinked twice. The words hadn't come out the way he'd intended.

"I mean" -- "I promise."

Intense, those eyes. Damn, she was reading more into this whole thing than there was.

"It's about time I head out," he managed to say, thinking it high time they changed the subject.

"Maybe Mc-Marius is home by now. I'll take you to the camper, get you settled in there, before I go on into town."

"You're going alone?" ~ He nodded.

"After last night--after you almost froze to death in the woods last night, I mean--I-don't think hiking down this mountain is exactly what you ought to be doing."

"James won't give you my things if I'm not there." She sipped her own coffee, and a tendril of steam rose in front of her face.

"Besides, we don't have to walk."

"I know you have a car in the garage," he told her.

"I saw it out there the first night. But even if Scorpion's thugs did nit do something to disable it before they broke in that first time, we couldn't drive through all that snow."

She smiled mysteriously.

"We don't have to walk."

"What are we gonna do, Alex? I still haven't sprouted wings, and I don't see any sled dogs nearby."

She laughed and Torch went silent, just listening. He loved to hear her laugh. Her voice was like smoke when she spoke, but it became a drugging smoke 'when she laughed. Entrancing. Mesmerizing. The fragrant smoke of enchanted incense. Her eyes added to the magic by lighting when she smiled. He liked that. And he liked the way her eyeteeth were slightly crooked, and the way the dimple in her left cheek seemed to wink at him, and. i'm not ready for this sort of thing.

Right.

She lowered her head, and a long lock of black satin hair fell across her cheek. His hand rose up to' push it away and tuck it behind her ear. The feat was accomplished before he remembered to tell his hand not to do that. She looked up again, still smiling.

"There's a snowmobile in the shed. And we have gasoline stored out there, as well. We won't need to walk into town." ' "Oh." It was all he could think of to say.

"So can I go with you?"

He was nodding before he could stop himself. And the next thing he knew, Alex was in the hall closet, pulling out heavy coats and mittens and a couple of plaid woolen scarfs. "Helmets are .in the shed, with the machine," she told him.

Tomh nodded. He had a small bag of his own packed and waiting near the door. Things he'd need if it turned out the McManuses hadn't returned from their trip yet, some picked from what was left of the equipment in the duffel. Other stuff scavenged from around the house. He ought to be thinking about how he would handle that eventuality, because there was no question Alexandra would argue.

She'd changed; Right before his eyes in a matter of a ouple of days, she'd changed There was something. that core of strength he'd sensed in her from the start, maybe. It wasn't so deeply buried anymore, She didn't have to fight so hard to find it now.

"Seemed brushes with death agreed with the lady.

He had to give his head a shake when he realized he was standing still, staring at her, with what had. to be a silly smile on his face.

It was no wonder she'd stayed here. Alexandra looked up at the last traces of red-orange sun blazing from the horizon, under a cloudless, multihued sky, as the machine beneath her sped over the snow. Pines with white puffs painting their boughs. Rolling, pristine white hills.

It was beautiful here. Before, she'd seen it as a refuge. A place where she could hide from life and its frequent disappoint merits.

Only tonight was she beginning to see the beauty around her.

Maybe because of the company.

She tightened her arms around Torch's waist, figuring she might as well take advantage of the current excuse to hold him. He was so tense, so tightly strung. More so now than he had been before they'd made love.

She hoped that w:is because he couldn't deal with his feelings, and not because he simply didn't have any for her. But she wasn't' a all certain that was the case. And she had no idea how to act toward him now.

He seemed to want to pretend last night had never happened. She couldn't forget it even if she tried. She wasn't sure, but she thought she might be falling in love with Torch Palamaro. Mason, she added silently, with a little smile. But the smile died. It was just like her to give her love to men who couldn't give any of their own in return. First her father. Now Torch. What was the matter with her?

Torch maneuvered the snowmobile through the forest, and then over the fire trail. It was dark when they finally emerged on the side of the main road that led into Pine Lake. As be drove, fine white powder rose in an arch behind them, and ice-cold air chilled her right through the heavy coat she wore. At least her face was protected behind the helmet's visor.

In the distance, a huge white circle stood out amid the snowy trees.

The lake itself, almost completely frozen. Then the town loomed into view ahead. The first house they came to was James McManus's. And there wasn't a sign of anyone there.

Alexandra's heart fell when Torch pulled in anyway, driving the snowmobile around to the back before killing the engine. He tugged off his helmet. Alex dismounted the machine and removed her own.

"I don't think they're back yet."

 Forever, Dad "I think you're right," he told her. He swung a leg over the machine and got to his feet, snatching the little canvas bag from under the seat as he did.

"As usual."

Torch started for the house, and Alex hurried to keep up. "What are you going to do?" .

"Something you're going to have a fit-about." He stopped at the back entrance, opened the storm door and tried the next one.

"Locked."

Opening the bag he'd brought along, Torch pulled out two long, pointy objects that looked like implements of torture, and inserted them into the keyhole.

"Torch!" Her whisper was loud and insistent.

"You can't break in."

He glanced over his shoulder at her, eyebrows dancing up and down.

"I just did. " With a twist of his hand, he opened the door. And he stepped inside without a sign of morse. His form was swallowed by the darkness. There was a soft click, and then the glow of his flashlight.

"Come on, Alex. We don't have all night."

She hesitated in the doorway, gnawing her lower lip. A "snap" broke the silence of the. night like a gunshot, and she spun around.

Squinting, she scanned the backyard from one side to the other. The rising moon's light made everything clear, right up to the tree line.

She couldn't see a thing beyond those first few trees. Standing motionless, she listened, waited. Goose bumps rose on her flesh when she saw something move. Her breath whooshed out of her when she realized it was a pine bough swaying in the wind. But what was that noise?

"Probably just an animal. A deer or something," she assured herself, remembering the deer she and Torch had seen before. And their snowball fight. And she. felt warm and safe again.

Squaring her shoulders in resolve, she stepped inside and closed the door.

"Here." Torch pressed the flashlight into her hands. "Lead me to McManus's office."

 "It's in the basement." She bit her lip.

"There's a separate entrance. I should have told you" -- "I saw it already. Thi.s was the easiest lock. Lead on." Alexandra made her way through the McManuses' kitchen, feeling like a thief in the night, which was exactly what she was at the moment, come to think of it. She searched her memory banks. She'd only been to the office twice, but both times Mrs. McManus had insisted she come into the kitchen for coffee or tea. And the basement door, as she recalled, was right. "Here," she said, and pushed it open. She took a step downward, only to gasp in surprise when Torch's arm snagged her waist.

"Easy," he whispered.

"I just don't want you to fall:" She closed her eyes, resisting the impulse to lean back against him, or to tip her head sideways so she could press her ear to those lips whispering so close to it. Instead, she drew a deep breath and moved on. More slowly now, though. And instead of worrying about being guilty of breaking and entering, she was wondering why he'd be so concerned about her falling if he didn't care about her. And wondering if he felt the same chills and tingles of awareness that she did whenever he' touched her.

She reached the bottom. He let go of her. Her 'disapPointed sigh was involuntary, and he couldn't have missed it. He was still too close.

She turned left at the base of the stairs, moving the flashlight's beam around until it landed on the offi door.

' "That's'it, Torch."

Torch went to it, tried the knob.

"Shine the light on this lock, Alex."

She did. This time he didn't bother with the tools. A simple credit card maneuver that even she was familiar 'with, and this door surrendered as the first one had. It swung slowly inward, into darkness even more inky than that filling the rest of the house. And then she remembered why.

 "There are no windows in here, Torch. You can turn the light on."

He did, filling the square. oak-paneled office in light. "That will help." Torch turned slowly, scanning the desk's many coffee stains and uneven stacks of envelopes and scattered notes on scraps of paper. He shook his head and turned to the filing cabinet.

"Hey, what do you know?" He pulled a drawer open.

"Unlocked. Let's see, Hollister, Holstein... ah, there we are. Holt, Alexander." The file folder slid from the drawer with an ominous hiss.

Alex stiffened, wondering if its contents would shatter everything she'd ever believed about her father. Or vhadicate him, as she'd been insisting all along they would.

Torch set the folder on the desk and, to her surprise, stepp away.

She looked up and met him steady gaze.

"Go ahead," he told her, "He'was your father.-You'have every right to look first."

NOdding, she pulled out the chair and sat down. Then, hands trembling, she flipped open the folder. Her father's will sat on top.

Beneath that, the letter he'd left behind scribing the funeral arrangements he preferred. The cremarion. Odd that he'd never mentioned that to her. She never would have guessed he'd prefer that to burial. She flipped more pages, found more papers and finally came to a copy of the one she'd signed, giving James permission to retrieve the contents of the safe-deposit box for her. There was a note on the bottom, It said simply, "Safe."

She read the word aloud, lifting her head slowly, turning it until she met Torch's eager stare.

He frowned.

"Safe?"

She nodded, lifting the paper to him, showing him the notation. Torch turned slowly around the room, scanning the walls, stopping when his gaze fell on a tacky painting of dogs playing poker on the wall to the left. He went to it, lifted it down, revealing the small wall safe the painting had been concealing.

 "Oh." If the single word conveyed a wealth of disappointment, it was no wonder. Alexandra had been hoping to find the truth once and for all tonight.

"I guess we're out of luck."

"Sweetheart," he said, and there was a gleam in his eyes. "You're forgetting how I got my nickname."

Alex felt her eyes widen as she leapt to her feet.

"You can't" -- "I won't hurt anything but the safe, and we'll reimburse them for.

that. "

She shook her head, "Come on; Alex. What's more important? An international time bomb, or the chance we might mess up some lawyer's office?"

"It's just not..." She'd been turning in a circle out of sheer frustration as she spoke,. and then she stopped.

"Look! The light on the answering machine is blinking." "So?"

"Well, if we listen to the messages, we-might find out they're on their way home right now. We might find out they'll be here later tonight or early tomorrow. And if that's the case, we don't really need to do this." She turned to face him, lifting her hands.

"Do we?"

He aced. His chin fell to his chest. But he came forward, reached past her, and pressed the playback button.

mep.

"James, this is Scotty Mitchell. Five-fiv~fivesixeightnine-oh Call me when you get in., mep.

"Wendy, here. Don't forget the bake sale at church, a week from Sunday.

You'll be back in time, right? Talk to you soon."

Beep, Torch glanced at Alex and shook his head to indicate his opinion of what this effort would produce. But he froze, and the color drained from his face as the next message began to play.

~ /u "Hi, Grandma! Hi, Grandpa!" said the child's voice, bubbling with excitement.

"Mommy says we're coming to visit you for Thanksgivin'!"

"Ah, God..." Torch gripped the edge of the desk as if he'd sink to the floor without it.

The LITTLE voice went on, but Alex hit the button to stop it. Then she turned to him, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes searching his tormented face.

"I'm sorry. Are you all right?"

His face was misted in a grimace of agony, eyes closed tightly, lips thin and pale.

"I will be," he whispered.

"Just as soon as I kill that murdering bastard:' She tool a step closer, heating pain beyond the anger in his voice, wanting to hold him, to comfort him. But Torch spun away from her, snatching up the bag he'd brought along and taking it with him to the spot in front of the safe.

He yanked a chair over there, dumping the bag's contents onto it, and then he was playing with something that looked like clay.

His entire countenance was meant to warn her away. She couldn't reach him in that place where his pain sent him. So she didn't even try.

Minutes ticked by, and he was pressing his clay stuff to the safe, sticking little probes into it. He unrolled wire from a spool as he stepped backward through the room. He backed right out the door, motioned for her to come with him. Then he closed the door, with the wire running underneath it, and finally cut the wire from his spool.

Taking a small, electronic-looking device from his pack, Torch attached the wires to it, then held it in one hand. He used his other hand to push her behind him. Then he moved a knob or a button on the device, and there was a firecracker-size pop in the office. It made her jump, but that was all. For a bomb, it hadn't seemed too terrible.

"Stay here."

She did. When he opened the door, she smelled the heat, saw the faint tendrils of smoke. Torch went back inside the office, and a few minutes later, the light went off, and he emerged with a thick man ilia envelope and the flashlight. He shone the beam on the handwriting across the front of the envelope.

"Holt."

"This is it," she said, and her mouth went dry.

"Maybe." Torch. tucked the envelope inside his coat, reached to grip her hand and started up the stairs.

He was silent all the way back. Silent and angry. And she didn't have a clue what she could do to help him.

He didn't just want, anymore. He needed. Damnfit, when she touched him, she reached past the pain. Through it. Her very presence soothed the ache. Just looking at her eased the torture he'. d lived with day and night for the past year. And he was getting used to that; He'd almost grabbed her when he'd heard that little boy's voice On the machine. He'd almost wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. Like she was some kind of refuge. Like she could make it all right. I Jke if he only held on to her tightly enough, he'd find salvation. Redemption. . Hope It was so damned ridiculous it was almost laughable. Only Torch wasn't laughing. There was no room in his life for anything like this. No room for her. Only vengeance.

Alexandra Holt would take up too much space. She'd shove vengeance right out of his soul and fill it with her own brand of goodness instead, if he let her. He knew she would.

He couldn't let that happen. He had to resist with everything in him, and he had to get away from her.

One more night, he vowed.

"Because tonight he'd find the truth and tonight he'd make arrangements to get Alexandra to safety. Far away from him, Then he'd deal with Scorpion.

That voice, the precious voice on the tape had reminded him why he was here, what his job was. Thank God for that voice.

The house was warm when they returned. He found he was beginning to like the place. Somehow, she'd taken a cold, Gothic monstrosity of a house and made it cozy. Cheerful. Even comforting. The marble fireplace was trimmed in darkly stained woodwork. But the wallpaper was classic Alex. Soft green swirls of vines and leaves on an ivory background. A forest within a forest.

She could scamper into that wallpaper and be right at home.

The sofa was an overstuffed teddy bear of brown velour that hugged you when you sat on it. Eggshell-colored drapes, to match the settee, pale green carpeting, light-colored hardwood end tables and rocking chairs with quilted cushions.

He stood there, looking through the parted drapes at the picturesque view of the moonlit night. And he thought that it was too bad, it was really too bad he had to keep his priorities in line. He might enjoy s~ding more time here.

And who the hell was he kidding? It had nothing to do with the house or the setting or that damned decor. It had everything to do with Alex.

The envelope was clasped in his hands. He tore. it open and pulled a leather-bound book from within. And when he looked closer, he saw that it was a diary. There was nothing else.

Well, maybe the formula was in the diary. He wouldn't give up hope just yet. He opened the cover, then paused, feeling her gaze on him as surely as he would feel her touch. He turned away from the window to face her.

Alex stood across the room, near the fire. Her wide brown eyes filled with more fear than he'd ever seen in them.

He licked his lips and closed the cover.

"A diary is pretty personal.

Maybe you ought to read it first. " He held it out to her.

She came forward, slowly, her legs none too steady. She extended a hand that trembled as it closed on the supple leather. The way she looked at that diary in her hands, he thought she half expected it to grow teeth and bite her arm off.

 She dragged her eyes upward, away from the dreaded book, to his face.

"I will. Not... just yet though."

"Alexre" "Please. I need some time. I need to ... to have..." "We don't have time," he told her. Her brown eyes pleaded with him, and he felt his granite heart rapidly turning to mush.

"I've been through more in the past few days than I've had to deal with in a lifetime, Torch. I need a little normalcy to bolster me. I can't just wade into that diary without something." He shook his head, but she went right on. "A hot bath," she whispered.

"A decent meal. A glass of wine. That's all I'm asking for. Surely we have time for that."

Knowing full well they' didn't, knowing full well Scorpion could come bursting through the front door with a machine gun and blow him in half any second now, Torch fell into those velvety brown eyes and said, "Sure we do. Go ahead, Alex. Get your normalcy 'fix. The book will wait."

Chapter 12

But that wasn't good enough for her, was it? Oh, no. Not for Alexandra Holt, the nurturer. The woman who steadfastly defended a father who'd treated her like dirt, and was now soothing the damned soul of a man beyond redemption.

It wasn't enough for her to have her-precious normalcy. She had to inflict it on him, as. well And dammit, it was hard enough being near her when people were shooting at them. This bull was almost impossible.

He was afraid she had a repeat of last night on-her mind. But when she came down from her hour-long soak in the tub wearing sweats and a ponytail, he derided that theory might be off the mark. She'd suggested he take a bath, as well, but he'd settled for a quick shower. And when he'd rejoined her there was a fire snapping in the living room hearth.

He knew it before he got to the foot of the stairs. He smelled the burning logs, heard the snapping and hissing of the resin.

And he smelled something else, too. Something spicy and Italian that made him himt his pace. But he slowed it again when he saw the dancing candlelight in the living room. Half a dozen blue tapers chased lively shadows up and down the walls.

He lifted his chin, swallowed hard. He didn't want to go to bed with her again. Much as he'd denied it all day lonl~, that first time had damn near shattered his sanity, It had been too intense. Too hot. Too frantic. And just too damned good.

He hadn't stopped thinking about the way it had felt to hold her in his arms since. At least, not until he'd heard that voice on the McManuses' answering machine. That voice jerking him back to reality the way a pail of ice water would have done.

How could he have forgotten so easily in Alexandra's arnls?

It was wrong. And he wouldn't let it happen again. He had to keep his focus, keep his anger, his hatred, alive and burning: He had to.

- She came in from the kitchen with a wineglass full of pale pink liquid in each hand: "Thought you could use a little relaxation, too." She handed him one.

He took it, sipped it.

"Dinner's almost ready. Pasta marinara."

"You waxing' domestic on me, Alex?" His words came out sounding sarcastic and cold. She flinched and her lips thinned. But that wasn't enough for the bastard inside him, "Look, I don't know what you're expecting this to lead to,. but it's not gonna happen, I told you, last night didn't mean a damned thing."

The stricken look in her eyes faded fast. It was replaced by a look of fury. She snatched the wineglass out of his hand and, with a flick of her wrist, applied its contents to his face.

"It's my house, If I feel like cooking I'll cook. If you don't like it, you can always leave." ' Even as the last words left her mouth, she was spinning on her heel, leaving him there with wine dripping from his chin and burning his eyes. Maybe he was being just a little bit vain to think that seduction was what she had on her mind. But what the hell was he supposed to think?

He played with that idea for a while. Twenty minutes later she was back, a steaming plate of food in her hand, her wineglass brimming and the bottle tucked under her arm. There was more wine in her glass than there had been fore. So she must be on her second. Or third.

She put the plate on the coffee table and sank onto the sofa, curling her legs under her body, sipping deeply from the glass.

"Don't hit the wine too hard, A~ex. We have to stay sharp."

"You stay sharp," she snapped.

"And if you want to eat, do it in the kitchen. I know it's a shock, Torch, but I don't want your company right now."

He rose to the bait, though he should have known better. With a meaningful glance at the firelight and candles, he said, "You could have fooled me."

"Contrary to your conceited assumptions, Palamaro, the fire and the candles are for my benefit, not yours. They relax me when it feels like things are falling ap" -- She licked her lips, cleared her throat.

"If that brain of yours knew how to function, you might recall I had a fire and candles burning that first night you showed up to rain chaos down on my entire life."

She-had a point. There had been candles glowing that. night. And she hadn't been seducing anyone then. He drew a breath, thinking maybe he had been wrong.

"I'm sorry if I jumped to the wrong" -- "I don't think there's anything wrong with me. I really don't." She drained the wine, reached for the bottle, refilled her glass.

"Who said there was anything wrong with you?" He frowned, worried.

She was going to get plastered if she kept it up. Her gaze seemed fixated on the dancing firelight, so he took the bottle and set it on the floor beside the sofa, out of her sight.

 "Is there?"

He swallowed hard. She hadn't touched her food.

"No, Alex, there's nothing wrong with you."

She met his eyes. She wasn't drunk. If she was, he wouldn't be able to see the hurt in them.

"You lie," she said.

"There are lots of things wrong with me. The asthma, for starters. And then there's~he fact that I can never have children. I don't suppose your background checks on me turned up that little tidbit, did they?"

Torch flinched when she said it.

"You can't believe that would matter to me."

"Matters to me," she told him and he could tell by the painin her eyes that it did. It mattered very much.

She shook her head, heaved a long sigh.

"This isn't working. I can't relax and pretend things are fine. My brain just isn't buying it."

She closed her eyes.

"Hand me 'that stupid book, and then please leave me alone while I read it."

He pursed his lips and. finally nodded. He was only just beginning to realize how much she' dreaded reading her father's diary. Maybe she sensed something. Maybe. -. somewhere decp inside her, it was something she'd known for a long time but hadn't acknowledged. Now she'd he forced to see the truth, ready or not.

He should have been a little more understanding about this.

"Okay." He took the book from the mantel, carried it to the sofa, set it down he side her. She didn't even look at it. "Are you sure you'll be okay alone?"

"I've always been okay alone, Torch."

It wasn't what she wanted to say. What she wanted to say was that he was the biggest fool she'd ever seen in her life. That if he'd just let go of his anger, he'd realize there was more to live for than revenge.

She'd thought she might be able to get him to do that tonight. She'd foolishly thought with a few comfort items like candlelight and food and wine, he might relax enough to open up his eyes and see her, and maybe :.

maybe let her into his heart. She only wanted to help him, couldn't the idiot see that?

No. He could only see that she wanted him, which, okay, she did. But he wanted her, too. Physically at least. He was too damn bent on vengeance to let her get close to him emotionally. Or maybe it wasn't the vengeance keep' rag him at a distance. Maybe he just didn't think she was good enough for that kind of closeness. Maybe he saw her as lacking in some way, just as Father always had.

Father.

She glanced down at -the book beside her, swallowed the cold fear in her throat and opened it to the first page. She reached over the arm of the sofa, unerringly closing her han don the bottle Torch thought he had hidden. Ref'ding her glass once more,- she began reading. "

"She'd said to leave her alone. He didn't.-Not really. He' left for a few minutes, long enough to eat a plateful of food and pour a glass of milk, though he was dying to sample that wine internally. And when he-finished, he went very quietly into the big foyer, where the stairs landed He sat down on the bottom step, his milk in his hands, and he watched her.

She read. Her hands trembled a little, then a little more. Blinking as if dazed, she laid the book down, staring straight ahead. What she was seeing, though, wasn't in the living room with her. It was in her mind.

And whaler it was, it wasn't pleasant. Not with those tears springing into her eyes. Not with her lower lip quivering that way.

Grating her teeth, squeezing her eyes tight, drawing three deep breaths, she seemed to gird herself. Then she looked at the pages again, and she read some more. It was killing him not to go in there. At first, his eagerness had been based on his hope there would be references to the formula in the diary. But that concern had faded. now to the dimness of a pinprick of light from a distant galaxy.

Now all he wanted to know was what that book could hold that would hurt Alexandra like this. Because it was hurting her. Pain etched itself 'more deeply into her face with every page she turned. Torch knew pain.

He knew it too well not to see it cutting her heart to ribbons right now. And he wanted to go to her.

It was an hour before she stopped reading. She looked shell-shocked when she closed the cover, laid her father's diary on the table and got to her feet. Her knees wobbled, but he was there before she could fall.

He grabbed her shoulders, and the warmth of her skin sank right into his palms. He wanted to hold her. Lord, how he wanted to hold her.

"Let go."

Two words. A harsh whisper wrapped in hurt and anger. He didn't let go. He pulled her to his chest and slid his arms around her. He stroked her hair, wishing he could snap the band that held it captive.

"What is it, Alex? What did the bastard write that hurt you this bad?"

With a strength that surprised him, she pulled free. He didn't try to hold her when she did. Her eyes were tear glazed and distant when they met his.

"You don't care. Why are you asking when you know you don't care?"

Torch gave his head a shake. She bent over the coffee table, and when she straightened, she held the diary out to him.

"Here. Take it. It's what you came for. It's why you stayed. Take it and read it. Maybe your precious answers are in there..I don't know. I couldn't... didn't finish it."

"Alex" -- She pressed the book into his hands and turned away, the ponytail snapping with the motion. Torch threw the diary onto the floor.

"I don't give a damn about the book right now, Alex. " He touched her shoulder, and she stopped walking away from him but didn't turn around.

"Come on, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong, maybe I can help."

 "I don't need your kind of help, Torch. Just..." She drew a breath, tears shuddering on its surface like dew on. a windblown leaf.

"Just leave me alone."

She run away, out of the room and up the stairs. He heard the bedroom door slam, and that was all.

"Damn."

His gaze was drawn downward, to the diary on the floor. He could go upstairs after her, but he had a feeling she wouldn't tell him a thing.

Or, he could leave her alone as she'd asked and read the book for himself.

He squatted on his haunches and picked it up.

Alexandra lay facedown on the bed, crying, heartbroken.

He'd never lOved her. Her father had never. No. Not her father. He hadn't even been her father.

The words he'd printed in his poisonous ink, about her mother, were etched indelibly in Alexandra's mind.

"I couldn't stand the woman. Marrying her was the biggest mistake of my life. AndI should have known all along the brat she carried wasn't mine.

When she died shortly after giving b'n'th I was hoping the child would die along with her. It didn't. And its mother held on long enough to name her after me. No doubt she hoped the irony would get to me every time I spoke that name. "

"All those yea~," Alex whispered, and she slowly sat up.

She brushed the hot tears with the back of one hand and was surprised when no fresh ones fell to singe her face.

"All those years, bending over backwards to please hhn. But it didn't matter what I did, what I was or what I became. None of it mattered."

She felt her eyes dry, felt the salt on her skin.

"None of it mattered," she said again, and finally it was heginn'mg to sink in. Her eyes were opening. She was understanding. It hadn't been that she wasn't good enough: It had never been' that. She could have been crowned queen of the world and he still wouldn't have loved her.

She could have won the Nobel prize for medicine, and he still would have despised her.

She shook her head, frowning.

"It wasn't me. It wasn't me, it was him." Pushing both hands through her hair, she sat, stunned, on the edge of the bed. It wasn't a revelation, though. Not really. It was merely confirmation of something she'd been feeling for a very long time. But she~'d been unable to acknowledge it. Because if it were true, then it would mean her father was no good and selfish and cruel. Truly unworthy of her love, just as Torch had said, and not the other way around. But he was the only one she had to love So rather than face the truth, he'd seen her entire life through the warped glass of a lie. Like seeing her reflection in a fun house mirror. She'd let herself feel inadequate, unintelligent, not worthy of the great man's love, when deep down, she'd known better. None of those things were his reason for resenting her, even despising her.

Those reasons didn't exist.

Alex sniffed and yanked open the drawer-in the night' stand. Her photo album lay there, and she took it out now. Opened the cover.

There she was five years old, getting on the school bus for the first time. The mother of the little boy next door had taken the picture, certainly not her own father. Alex happened to be in the shot because they got on the bus together. And the woman had sent her son in with a copy for her a week later.

She'd been terrified to get on that big yellow bus. Her father had called her a coward.

"But I wasn't," she whispered, remembering now more vividly than she ever had before.

"That boy. Jimmy ... he was just as scared as I was.

But his mother came to the bus with him. She hugged him hard, and promised she'd be waiting right there in the same spot when he came home that afternoon. "

The pain in her heart softened then and began to change form, to alter into something else. She flipped the page.

 There was the shy little girl in the second-grade production of The I~ftzard of Oz. Only she'd had no proud parent in the audience. Her father had said he might-he willing to take the afternoon off if she'd gotten the lead role, but he certainly wasn't missing work to see her play an extra.

"I thought if I could only be hetter... just he hetter, he'd love me." ' The pain became an ember, and as she flipped more pages, relived other disappointments, other times when he'd made her feel worthless, the emher glowed hotter and brighter. And she found that she was capable of feeling anger toward a man for whom she'd never allowed herself to feel anything but love. More than love. Sheer adoration.

Idolatrous hero worship. She'd ached to win his affection. But he'd never once given it.

"Damn you," she whispered, when She flipped a page and found a photo of him, accepting some award. She stood up, tearing the cellophane away, peeling the photo from the hook, holding it at arm's length in a white-knuckled grip, and she said it again, louder this time.

"Damn you! How could you do that to a child who adored you? How?"

Rage welled higher, flooding her soul and spilling out of her. It had built there all her life, but it had been denied. No more. No more.

"It wasn't me, you selfish bastard! Do you hear me? It was never me.

It was you! You're the one who wasn't good enough. You didn't deserve the love I lavished on you: And you were wrong to throw it away! You were stupid to throw it away! And so is that idiot downstairs! "

Crumpling the photograph into a tiny wad, she drew a shuddering breath and she felt strong. She felt free of a terrible burden she'd carried too long. ~ "I am good enough," she told the wad in her hands.

"I always was. You were too filled with hatred to see it. And Torch ...Torch is too filled with guilt, and this damned quest for vengeance of his. I love him. I love him a hundred times more than I ever loved you!" She fell to her knees in front of the hearth, her chin falling to her chest, her eyes filling again, blurring the crushed photograph she still held.

"But he can't return that feeling any more than you could, can he, Father? No. No, of course he can't. And I'll tell you something,~ Father, I'm through.

I'm not go' rag to waste any more of my heart on men too stupid to know how much they're throwing away when they deeqde I'm not worthy of their love. I am worthy, dam reit And one of these days, I'll find someone who's worthy of me. "

She opened her clenched hands and tossed the photograph into the fire.

Red flames licked at it, devoured it, turned it into a charred ball of ash, which she thought resembled her father's black soul.

"I will," she whispered.

"I swear to God, I will."

She stiffened, not turning at the sound of Torch's hoarse voice coming from the hedroom doorway. How long had he been there? How much had he heard?

It didn't matter, did it? She'd made a decision. She thought may he she was beginning to know herself as she truly was for the Very first time.

She got to her feet, choosing to ignore the intrusion. Crossing the bedroom, she opened the closet and located a cardboard box in the back.

Bending to it, she flipped it over, emptying its contents onto the floor and tossing the box onto the bed. Then she crossed the room again, her steps fast and sure. Her hands closed on the photo album, and she slung it into the box.

Torch came inside. She felt him ~:oming to her, and then his hands rose, as if to close on her shoulders. But they paused in midair, hovering, uncertain. And finally he lowered them to his sides again as she returned to the night-stand.

It was the framed portrait of her father she snatched up this time.

She threw it at the box as if she were trying to pulverize it. The satisfying sound of breaking glass came to her with the impact.

 "I know you're angry," he said.

"You have every right to She tipped her jewelry box upside down, shaking the contents onto the dresser, shoving the piles around. The class ring. He'd complained about the cost but finally shelled out the money for it in lieu of a birthday present. It felt hard and cold in her palm, and then it sailed through the air like a missile, the box its target.

"Will you stop? Will you just talk to me for a minute? Please?"

The painting. The damned painting on the wall just ou~o side her room.

A dull gray abstract thing she'd always de, tested. She lunged into the hall, yanking it from the wall so hard she cracked the frame.

"He said I'd like it if I were smart~r. He said I simply didn't understand complex geometric design,-that it was beyond the scope of my inl~lligence." She carried it. with her into the. bedroom and, holding it by its sides, she lifted it,~ then brought it crasliing down on a bedpost. The post tore through the canvas. She ripped it free and threw it into the box.

Torch grabbed her arm.

"Stop this. Alex, we have to She stood still, panting with her rage.

She couldn't look at him, she couldn't... His fingers touched her face, lifted her chin, and she met his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Alex. I don't know what else to say."

She wanted to fold herself into his arms, just melt against his strong chest, and let him rock her, hold her. She wanted that so much!

But she stood still, unblinking.

"Did you find what you wanted in the diary?"

He shook his head. Searched her face.

She was tired. Drained. Slowly her taut muscles unclenched, and she managed to stop grating her teeth and calm her breathing.

 "Tell me, what other bombshells you found in that damned book," she said, the words falling from her lips without inflection or emotion.

Torch cleared his throat.

"He developed the formula deliberately, Alex. It wassail prearranged He made a deal with a terrorist to develop a chemical weapon capable of wiping out entire nations in short order, and that's exactly what he did. It's all in the diary."

"Chemical weapon?"

"A synthetic virus. He was paid a great deal of money for it."

Alex closed her eyes, nodding slowly.

"He always complained he was unappreciated. Worthless bastard wasn:t even capable of loyalty to his own country, was he? Or even to mankind."

"No."

Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes again, faced Torch's blue ones, wished she didn't see so much concern for her in their depths.

"What else?"

Torch cleared his throat.

"He collected half the money up front and was supposed to get the rest on delivery of the formula. But it seems he got cold feet."

"Oh?"

"He accidentally exposed himself, Alex. Once he realized he was dying, he seemed to find a modicum of conscience. Either that, or he wanted time to try to develop a cure. Whatever his reasons, he decided to back out on the deal. He knew the man he was involved with wouldn't take that lying down, so he decided to drop out of sight."

Torch searched her face.

"For what it's worth, he waited until the incubation period had ended to contact you. He knew he was no longer contagious by then."

"The man was a saint," she whispered.

"The man was a fool."

"So are you." She held his gaze for a long moment. He didn't argue.

In fact, he lowered his eyes as if in silent concession.

 Forever Dad She swallowed hard, looked away from him.

"I'm a doctor. Why didn't I see symptoms of this virus befc/~e it killed him?"

"You couldn't have, Alex. The symptoms were subtle, and he only recognized th~a-a himself because of the research he'd been doing.

Foi'geffulness was one, which explains why we found that notebook page in his lab. The rest he could have hidden easily enough.

Fatigue. Night sweats. And sutlden death. "

True, Alex realized. All true.

"Did the diary say what he did with his notes?"

Torch shook his head.

She sighed long and low.

"That's it, then."

He looked up, met her eyes, brows raised in question. "You wasted your time coming up here and dragging me into this whole thing," she said, and she fought to keep her voice level, to sound rational and calm.

"And I really think it's time we ended it, don't you?"

"I can'tleave, Alex. You know that."

She shrugged.

"Then I will You can have the phc to yourself, Torch Tear up the floorboards looking for the formula. Knock yourself out.

I don't want. anything more to do with it. " She picked up the box she'd been filling, and started for the door.

"Alex, you can't just leave! Alex!"

He follovnxl her, but she did her best to pretend he wasn't there as she descended the stairs. She carried the box through the foyer and to the front door, then balanced one side of it on her hip while she got the door open. She didn't hesitate. She tepped outside into the frigid air, and snow reached past her shoes to chill her ankles.

Torch was right behind her~, yelling questions all the way," but she ignored him. This was between her and her father. The icy wind stinging her cheeks felt good. It cleared her head, numbed her heart a little to the hurt he'd inflicted so deeply for so long. She trudged through the snow, across the lawn, to the tiny rectangle that had been his garden. And there she tipped the box upside down, spilling its contents there on the snow.

"There you go, Father. You always preferred the company of this stupid patch of dirt to mine. You should have been buried right here.

It would have suited you, wouldn't it? No time for a daughter who loved you. No. But plenty oi time for all that puttering. Out here all the time, digging. Always digging: That was all you ever. "

Alexandra let the cardboard box fall from her hands, and she went still and silent, blinking down at the snow around her feet. And just like that, she knew. She simply, clearly knew.

Without lifting her head or turning to face Torch, she said, "Get me a shovel."

Chapter 13

He ought to be excited, knowing be' was so. close But instead, as he aimed the fiashlight's beam inside the shed, looking for the shovel, he was thinking about Alex. Trying to understand every emotion that she'd experienced in the past few hours. As if getting inside her head--inside her heart--had suddenly become more important than finding the formula. More important than getting Scorpion. More important than anything.

Ridiculous. He knew that. But still his mind worked the puzzle of Alexandra almost to the exclusion of anything else. She'd gone from devastation to rage, to something else 'in a matter of minutes. He still hadn't identified the final emotion. The one she'd reached as she'd stormed out into the snow. Acceptance maybe. And a determination to leave all of this behind her. To start fresh somewhere, without the emotional baggage she'd been lugging around all her life. If only it were that easy.

Hell, when he'd heard her upstairs, ranting at her dead father, he'd had no choice but to go to her. He'd wanted to t help her, to comfort her somehow. The way she'd managed to comfort him. He blinked in shock at the thought but slowly realized it was true. She had comforted him.

She'd found a way, despiteshis determination not to let her. She'd reached right through his pain and she'd held his frozen heart in her gentle hands, warming it.

Thawing it. She'd even begun to heal some of the fractures he'd thought went far too deep to mend.

He'd never known anyone who felt things as deeply. as Alexandra did.

To cry so easily for a pain that wasn't even her own . the way she'd cried when he'd told her about his family. And he'd never known anyone with a more soothing way about her. Every time she touched him, even if it was only with her eyes--no, especially when it was with her eyes--it felt as if she were coating his deepest wounds in a magical balm made of nothing more than her own essence.

She deserved better than what her father had given her. And in spite of himself, Torch knew she deserved better than what he'd given her.

Upstairs, when she'd been rag' rag at her dead father, she'd blurted out that she loved him. H/re. Torch Palamaro, a man so broken and battered that there was nothing left but a shell. Or was there?

He was beginning to think 'there might be, because he didn't feel like a shell of a man anymore. He felt as if maybe there was some spark of life left inside him. Something that had been comatose for the past year. Not quite as dead as he'd thought. He felt as if it had taken Alexandra*s magic to stir it awake.

He located the tools, picked them up and pocketed the flashlight.

Closing the door behind him, he walked back from the shed, a pick and a shovel anchored over his shoulder. Hell of a time to be thinking this way, Palamaro. Hell of a time. Because if you dig up what you think you're going to, it's all over. Time to get her as far away from you as possible. Time to stash the formula somewhere safe and lay in wait for Scorpion. Time to exact the punishment he so richly deserves.

No. There aren't going to be any fairy-tale endings. Not here. Not now. Not for you, Palamaro. Never for you.

He dropped the pick and shovel onto the ground, half-hoping she was wrong about this, just to prolong his time with her. And he knew that was a foolish thought. But he also knew it was an honest one.

Mayb the fkst honest one he'd had in quite a while.

"Come inside," she said, and her low, husky voic was n~rly lost on the night wind.

"We n~l coats, and gloves. Some more lights..."

"Yeah." He didn't want to stand around knee-deep in snow, digging in the frozen ground He wanted to wrap her in his arms and carry her up those stairs and make her forget the pain she was feeling right now.

The pain her father had caused. The pain he himself had added to.

Buthe knew that was impossible. He had a job todo. He owed a debt to his sons. He couldn't let them down.

She huddled deeper in her down-filled parka, wondering how on earth Torch could stand to work with no coat at all. He'd started out with one, but had shrugged it off as his body heated with the effort of breaking the frigid ground. He wore a sweater, awool blend, pale brown like a deer's coat. One of her father's. He bent to his work, in the knee-deep hole he'd chipped from the frozen earth. Lumpy brown chunks of frosty ground lay scattered around him like cobblestones.

He'd put an ugly brown scar in the snow's flawless face.

And then he stopped, staring downward, not 'blinking. "I think I found something."

He turned slowly to face her, and the red-orange glow of the kerosene lamps painted his face, made its sweat sheen glimmer.

Alex swallowed the lump in her throat. It wasn't fear of what she'd learn about her father this time. She'd already been dealt that blow. And it had staggered her and hurt her and taken her breath away.

But she'd survived it. Her heart was sinking now. for a far different reason.

They both knew that once the formula was found, their time together would end. It hadn't been spoken, but it was there, real and black and devastating. To her, at least.

She lifted her chin deliberately. "let's see what it is.," He held her gaze for a long moment, and there was something there in the sapphire depths of his eyes, some fire in them that went beyond the lamplight they reflected. Then he dropped to his knees in the frozen dirt. Holding the shovel at the junction of metal and wood, using it like a whisk broom, he scraped the rest of the dirt away. When he tossed the shovel aside, he worked with his bare hands, digging down along the square outline's edges with his fingers. Alex picked up the flaShlight they'd discarded in favor of the lamps, and aimed its beam down into the hole.

Torch grated his l~eth as he worked the box free. Yes, it was a box .

made of metal, she saw as he finally pulled it up.

He stared at the box while she stared at him.

"This is it," he said, his words so soft they were all but lost in the slight breeze that ruffled his sable hair.

"It has to be. What else would he bury out here?"

Her throat burned.

"There's a padlock," Torch nodded.

"That's easy to fix."

"You're not going to blow it up, are you?"

It should have been funny. He should have laughed and then she should have joined him. But instead he only looked into her eyes as his lips twisted in a sad little smile. She wanted to cry.

He set the box down on battered brown earth, reaching for the shovel again. Then he jammed the shovel's head down on the padlock. once, twice, again. And when he stopped, the lock had sprung free.

And again, he surprised her by seeming more eager to see what was going on in her eyes than what was inside that box.

 He paused, searched her face.

"You want to go inside for this?"

Inside? Yes, she wanted to go inside. And she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him not to open that Pandora's box. Not yet, at least. She wasn't ready to say goodbye.

"No," she heard herself tell him, and oddly enough, her voice gave no indication of her turmoil.

"Let's do it right here."

Torch nodded. He worked the misshapen padlock's hasp until it came free. He opened the box. And he pulled out a simple spiral notebook.

The kind you could pick up at any drugstore for ninety-nine cents.

The kind kids used to take notes'in science class. It didn't look as if it were capable of destroying the world.

Torch dropped the box and stepped out of the hole onto the level, snowy ground nearer the lamps. He flipped open the cover. Without conscious volition, Alex moved closer to him. Her fiashlight's beam illuminated the white pages, and her eyes scanned line after line of numbers and symbols. Some of which she understood, and others she'd never seen before.

She knew enough, though, to realize that this was a chemical formula.

Any scientist worth his salt could create the virus that had killed her father, with no more than this notebook, the proper ingredients and a lab in which to work. A recipe for death, right there, in Torch's callused hands. Somewhere deep inside her, the newfound anger toward her father blazed to life all over again. To think she'd spent her life feeling unworthy of him! To think of the times she'd tried to please him, and of his constant disapproval! Damn him for his oversize ego and his unending criticism. Damn him!

"Well. Seems I've arrived just in time for the festivities."

She gasped, whirling at the familiar, whiny voice. Her surprise at seeing the monster standing there in the snow paralyzed her for an instant. It didn't dampen her anger. It only made her forget about it for the moment.

Scorpion stood not two feet away from them, a gun leveled on Torch.

"I'll take that journal, Palamaro."

"The hell you will." Torch's low, level tone did nothing to disguise the fury beneath it.

Scorpion shook his head, smiling, chilling her with the evil that seemed to glow from his pink eyes whenever he looked at her.

"You have two choices. I shoot you, and take the journal. Or you give me the journal" -- his grin broadened "--and then I shoot you."

Alex must have moved, though she wasn't aware of it, becau Scorpion's alien eyes jerked toward her all of a sudden.

"As for you, pretty lady, you just stand perfectly still. You.surprised me last time, but I won't mak that mistake again. You're obviously not quite as brainless as your father thought."

She said a word she'd never uttered in her life as a blinding, white-hot rage exploded in her brain. And her foot slammed down hard on the shovel, sending its handle upward, right between Scorpion's legs. The impact was fast and brutal and he fell to the ground howling.

Only it wasn't just an agonized howl. He was howling . a name, a command, even as Torch slammed the notebook into Alex's chest and leapt on Scorpion.

Lights blazed in the distance as some tank-size four-by-four bounced toward them. Its path vaguely followed that of the dirt road, crushing the snow that covered it. Its spotlight swung left and right, finally stopping when its beam illuminated the tangle on the ground where the two men struggled for the gun.

Alex acted without forethought, making a mad dash for the snowmobile they'd left parked near the front steps. And if she had given it any forethought, she might not have done it, because the second she stepped away from their boss, the men in the mutant pickup began shooting at her. Puffs of snow appeared in front of her feet where the bullets hit.

She He paused, searched her face.

"You want to go inside for this?"

Inside? Yes, she wanted to go inside. And she wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him not to open that Pandora's box. Not yet, at least. She wasn't ready to say goodbye.

"No," she heard herself tell him, and oddly enough, her voice gave no indication of her turmoil.

"Let's do it right here."

Torch nodded. He worked the misshapen padlock's hasp until it came free. He opened the box. And he pulled out a simple spiral notebook.

The kind you could pick up at any drugstore for ninety-nine cents.

The kind kids used to take notes in science class. It didn't look as if it were capable of destroying the world.

Torch dropped the box and stepped out of the hole onto the level, snowy ground nearer the lamps. He flipped open the cover. Without conscious volition, Alex moved closer to him. Her fiashlight's beam illuminated the white pages, and her eyes scanned line after line of numbers and symbols. Some of which she understood, and others she'd never seen before.

She knew enough, though, to realize that this was a chemical formula.

Any scientist worth his salt could create the virus that had killed her father, with no more than this notebook, the proper ingredients and a lab in which to work. A recipe for death, right there, in Toreh's callused hands. Somewhere deep inside her, the newfound anger toward her father blazed to life all over again. To think she'd spent her life feeling unworthy of him! To think of the times she'd tried to please him, and of his constant disapproval! Damn him for his oversize ego and his unending criticism. Damn him!

"Well. Seems I've arrived just in time for the festivities."

She gasped, whirling at the familiar, whiny voice. Her surprise at seeing the monster standing there in the snow paralyzed her for an instant. It didn't dampen her anger. It only made her forget about it for the moment.

Scorpion stood not two feet away from them, a gun leveled on Torch.

"I'll take that journal, Palamaro."

"The hell you will." Torch's low, level tone did nothing to disguise the fury beneath 'it.

Scorpion shook his head, smiling, chilling her with the evil that seemed to glow from his pink eyes whenever he looked at her.

"You have two choices. I shoot you, and take the journal. Or you give me the journal" -- his grin broadened "--and then I shoot you."

Alex must have moved, though she wasn't aware of it, because Scorpion's alien eyes jerked toward her all of a sudden.

"As for you, pretty lady, you just stand perfectly still. You.snrprised me last time, but I won't make that mi.~-take again. You're obviously not quite as brainless as your father thought."

She said a word she'd never uttered in her life as a blinding, white-hot rage exploded in her brain. And her foot slammed down hard on the shovel, sending its handle upward, right between Scorpion's legs. The impact was fast and brutal and he fell to the ground howling.

Only it wasn't just an agonized howl. He was howling. a name, a command, even as Torch slammed the notebook into Alex's chest and leapt on Scorpion.

Lights blazed in the distance as some tank-size four-by-four bounced toward them. Its path vaguely followed that of the dirt road, crushing the snow that covered it. Its spotlight swung left and right, finally stopping when its beam illuminated the tangle on the ground where the two men struggled for the gun.

Alex acted without forethought, making a mad dash for the snowmobile they'd left parked near the front steps. And if she had given it any forethought, she might not have done it, because the second she stepped away from their boss, the men in the mutant pickup began shooting at her. Puffs of snow appeared in front of her feet where the bullets hit.

She stuffed the journal inside her coat as she raced onward. Tires spun in snow as the approaching vehicle. sought traction, then lurched, then spun, then lurched, making its way ever closer.

She swung onto the snowmobile, almost shouting in triumph when it started on the first try. Gunning it, she shot easily over the snow.

And when she reached the spot where Torch and Scorpion still wrestled for the gun, she jerked the handlebars and hit the brake, skidding around sideways. She screamed his name.

And she wasn't even sure he heard her. Then he landed a blow to Scorpion's chin, and Scorpion's head snapped backward. Instead of proceeding with the main event, Torch shoved himself to his feet, gave one leap and landed squarely behind her on the seat. One of his arms wrapped around her waist, and his body bowed over hers, pushing her forward and down so she couldn't even see through the windshield.

Then his other hand closed over hers on the throtfie, and they shot off into the forest with bullets zing' rag after them.

He was frozen half to death by the time they reached the town. Not that it mattered, in the overall scheme of things, that he was shivering and his t~eth were chattering. That was nothing compared to what would happen if those idiots in the four-by-four caught up to them.

Fortunately, by the time they got that oversize beast turned around and back down the mountain, he and Alex would be long gone.

He and Alex. He'd thought they'd be going their separate ways. That he'd remain behind to await Scorpion. But the bastard had shown up early and ruined his plans. And Torch found himself ridiculously glad.

He pulled the machine around behind the general store and killed the engine. And only then did it occur to him to ask.

"Alex, where's the journal?"

She patted the front of her coat.

"Right here. Don't worry."

 As she said it, she turned to look at him over her shoulder, and he had to battle the urge to kiss her. And then he asked himself why he had to battle it, and he kissed her anyway.

It was brief. His lips caught hers, drew on them for a moment. He wanted more, but. He cleared his throat.

"There's a car out front."

"And we're going to steal it," she said, sounding less than pleased but sort of resigned.

Borrow it. Come on. " He got off the sled, took her hand and together they ran around the building. Torch glanced in through the driver's side window, and smiled when he saw the keys dangling from the switch.

"Palamaro catches a break," he muttered, like some sportscaster calling a game. He nodded to Alex and she went to the other side.

When he jerked his door open, she did the same. They landed simultaneously in the front seat, and when the two doors slammed there was only one bang. By the time the old man who owned the station wagon was on the porch shaking his fist, they were rounding the first bend in the road, out of sight.

And as they got' farther away and safety seemed almost within reach, Torch knew he wanted Io say something or do something to let Alex know.

know . something, But what?

That he wanted her to stick around, maybe. Yeah, that he wanted her to stick with him a little longer. Long enough so he could figure out just what this. :. this something was going to turn out to be.

He opened him mouth to try to vocalize that, and he'd already said her name before he realized how utterly stupid it would sound.

He realized something else, too. This wasn't over. And he had no business even thinking about involving Alex in his future--if, indeed, that was where this train of thought was leading--until he knew he had one. The formula wasn't delivered yet. Beyond that, Scorpion was still breathing. Until Torch killed the bastard, there was no reason to think about anything else. Because he might very well die trying. And that wouldn't be fair to Alex.

She was looking at him, waiting for him to finish what he'd started to say. Those big dark eyes of hers drawing the heart right out of his body and into her own. She made love to his soul when she looked at him like that. How did she do that?

Torch cleared his throat.

"You were fantastic back there. Saved our butts once again."

"I was mad. Too mad to be scared, I guess."

"You were smart. And yeah, mad as well. Too mad to take time' to question your own judgment. You trusted your instincts. You ever notice how every time you do that, your instincts turn out to be right on target?"

She smiled at him, and Iris heart stopped. 'Yeah. I have, actually. "

He held her gaze, searching her eyes and seeing something in them he hadn't seen more than a hint of before. Pride. Self-confidence.

Awareness of her own strength.

It was with a little regret that he jerked his attention back to the road ahead. He liked seeing thos things in her beautiful eyes. It made them even prettier. Nodding slowly, he said, "It's about time."

Chapter 14

A hotel room. Cold, impersonal and steriIe. It wash where he'd wahted to bring her. Everything in him, eve cell in his body, it seemed, jo'med together in an insistel chorus of whispers, urging him to take her home. Home, the houseboat 'bobbing serenely in the bay. To keep h there, safe from everything in the world outside. FroJ Scorpion and his thugs. Even from Torch's own persistel demons. The ones that drove him. Were still driving him.

Hell, that idea had been taking shape in his mind' f hours now. He wanted to take her into his home, into h life . and he wanted to ask her to stay. For a while, at leasl He wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure he could ever be whole human being again, but that he'd like it if she'd stic around and help him try to find out.

Maybe it wouldn't be fair of him to ask it of her. H didn't think he'd be able to get past the loss of his sons. Nc ever. There was a huge part of him that had died with them He didn't think he'd ever get that part of him back. Bu there was another part of him, a vital part, that was beginning to heal, and he knew that it was because of her.

Selfishly, perhaps, he wanted that healing to goon. He wanted to keep her close to him, he wanted to try. to try to love her.

For a very brief moment in time, a moment that spanned from somewhere during their flight to Washington, D.C. " to the present one, he'd seen the possibility of a future for him. A future that included Alexandra. It had hovered in the distance like a glimmering beacon of light at the end of a black, lifeless tunnel. For that 'one, fragile moment, he'd even thought he might be able to put aside his burning need to murder Scorpion.

But it had been only that. A brief moment in time. A split second when the possibility of moving past the pain and into a new stage of life--with Alexandra--had seemed logical, natural. Even attainable.

And then the moment had passed. Right here in this hotel room. It was shattered' by three short, simple words coming through a telephone line.

"Scorpion is here."

Torch's grip on the receiver tightened painfully. His gaze followed Aleaandra as she sat in front of a mirror and ran a brush through her long, satiny hair.

"Did you hear what I said, Torch? He's here, in Washington. He must have followed you."

"I hear you, D.C." Torch's voice was strained, and he tried clearing his throat. His ridiculous ideas about trying to make a future for himself and Alex dissolved like sugar in hot coffee.

"I can only assume his pr~ence means you have the formula," D.C. said.

"He wouldn't be following you otherwise.

Am I right? "

"I have it."

There was a relieved sigh.

"What about the Drs. Holt? We need to take them into custody, and it"

-- "No?" At the force he put into the single word, Alex turned from the mirror to stare at him. Those probing, innocent eyes, searching his face. He shifted in his chair t couldn't break the hold her eyes had on his.

"The fathe dead," Torch explained, more calmly.

"And the daugh had no knowledge of his crimes."

D.C. was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, seemed he chose his words carefully.

"Torch... we'll t your findings into account, and they'll' carry a lot of weig But she has to be brought in. There has to be an investi tion into her involvement, before" -- "No investigation, D.C. I want it clear, right now. ] charges against Alexandra Holt. Give me your word, a friend, or I won't bother bringing in the damned formula all."

'Don't be ridiculous," D.C. said quickly.

"If you do turn it in, you don't get your money."

"You can take that money and" -- "All right!" He could hear the gulp as D.C. swallow hard, then the long, slow breath he drew.

"All right, Tore Okay. You say she's innocent, she's innocent."

"She is."

Alexandra laid her brush on the dresser and stood up. $~ came to him while D.C. was still speaking, and the sight ~ her slow approach made him lose his hearing' for am, ment. D.C. "s voice faded to nothingness as she ran one pa over the side of his face and mouthed the words " that you," her eyes brimming.

Torch closed his eyes at the pain her touch evoked. Ar even then, couldn't stop himself from turning until his lil touched her palm, kissing her there, slowly.

"Her smile was tremulous, maybe uncertain. She went in the bathroom and closed the door.

"if she's that important to you, you're not going t want to risk it," D. C. was saying.

"So I still want her i custody."

Torch shook himself.

"Risk what?"

"Try listening this time, Torch, this is vital."

 Torch nodded, granted and wished D.C. would get to the point.

"Scorpion is here. He obviously -knows you still have the formula, obviously knows you haven't given it to us yet. He'll try to get to you before you have the chance to turn it in. And that means tonight, Torch. We need to take some precautions. If we don't, you and the woman might both end up dead, and that formula in the worst possible hands."

It was true. If Scorpion was here, then he must be planning another attempt. And he'd kill them outright this time. He wouldn't risk being bested again.

"I can bring it in right now," Torch suggested.

"No. Scorpion knows enough to watch the building. He might try to take you before you get inside. I have a better idea."

"Shoot;" Torch said.

"I'll come to you. He'll be watching for you to arrive, not for me to leave. So it shouldn't be hard to slip out of here unnoticed. You can turn over the formula, and then you and the woman come in with me. We stick you in a safe house with armed guards" -- "Protective custody."

Torch grimaced at the thought. "Just until we manage to let Scorpion know it's too late. That the formula has been destroyed. We'll try to pick him up before he skips the country again, but this way, even if he gets past us, he'll still have no reason to bother you or the woman again. You'll be safe."

Torch shook his head.

"You know what I'm gonna say." D.C. only sighed.

"You of all people, D.C." should know exactly what my answer to' your plan will be. You know me better than anyone alive. " D.C. started to speak, but Torch went on.

"I'm not coming in."

"Torch" -- "Come to me like you said, and be damn sure you're not followed. I'll give you the formula, and then you take Alexandra to that safe house, and you guard her with your life, D.C. This woman" --

he cleared his throat "--she means something to me."

"Yeah, well, she won't if you're dead, Palamaro."

 "

" We do this my way or no way," Torch told him, keeping his voice level.

"All right. Okay. Go on, what else?"

"That's it. Take her. somewhere safe. Put that damned formula down the nearest toilet once you verify it's the real thing. But don't let it slip that you have it. I want Scorpion to think he still has a chance."

"But, Torch, he'll still come after you if oh. I get it. That's what you want, isn't it? He'll come after you tonight, arid you'll" "Better than letting him' get away again, don't you think?"

D.C. sighed, but didn't argue.

"You'll need to tell me where you are, Torch."

"Yeah." Torch looked toward the bathroom door, where he could hear the shower running, and he thought of how furious Alex was going to be with him for this. She wouldn't go willingly. He knew she wouldn't.

"Give me a couple of hours, okay?"

"Sure, Torch. Whatever you want. I owe you for this one."

Torch gave him the address and hung up the phone. A few minutes ago, he'd been wondering if he could convince Alexandra to stay with him.

Now, he was trying to think of a way to make her willingly leave.

Only one way came to mind.

He seemed so pensive tonight.

She wanted to know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but she wouldn't ask. If he had something to say to her, something to tell her, he'd have to do it on his own. She was through offering her heart on a platter only to have it handed back to her, bleeding. She couldn't go through it again.

 He'd ordered an extravagant dinner, with candlelight and expensive wine. And for a moment, she thought maybe he was trying to tell her something. Maybe he was ready for their relationship to take. a new turn, to move onward. A bubble of joy rose up inside her. and then she looked at him. Really looked at him, probing deep into his eyes.

And he didn't have the look of a man about to declare his feelings.

More like . he'd lost another loved one. Or was about to.

His face was expressionless, but in his eyes she could see turmoil.

His shoulders weren't square and firm, but slumped a bit. As if he were utterly tired of carrying this burden, fighting this fight. As if he couldn't take much more. She wanted to see Torch smile again, to hear him laugh, the way he had when they'd had the snowball fight outside the camper. She wanted to see his eyes alight with passion the way they had been when he'd made such exquisite love to her in the house.

But he barely spoke, and when he did it was in monosyllables or grunts.

Distracted? Deep in thought? Worried about something? What was wrong with him?

It was only when they'd finished eating, and she'd reached the end of her patience, when he reached across the table, his hand covering hers, his eyes lowering--almost guiltily--that she'd known. This was it. He was getting ready to say goodbye.

"Don't." She pulled her hand away, a flutter of panic taking flight in her breast. Not now. Not yet. Torch's eyes rose to meet hers, and she saw so much feeling in them. So much emotion. How Could he pretend not to care when it was so visible in his eyes?

"You're going to say it's over, aren't you?"

He closed his eyes, nodded.

"And what if I say I don't want it to be?"

"I don't want it to be either, Alex." He met her gaze again, held it, and she almost thought there were the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

"I'd like you to stay. right here with me.

Live with me. Make love to me every night. I'd like that a lot. "

"But?"

His jaw clenched. He averted his eyes, and his next words came as if he were forcing them out; "But I don't love you. I never will. And I think you've come too far to settle for that. Haven't you, Alex?"

She shoved away from the table, shot out of the chair. His straightforward rejection didn't even try to ease the blow. It was almost deliberately cruel.

"Damn you, Mason Palamaro!"

He bit his lip but didn't face her.

"I don't deserve this. You know I don't."

"I know."

"Then tell me why, Torch. Why?"

She heard the way her voice had grown softer, squeezing through a smaller space as her throat closed off. She saw the regret in his eyes.

Another. layer of brutal pain on top of the one that had been there before. And the anger went out of her, leaving her weak and shaken. She sank into the chair again, out of strength. The fight gone. Only hearfich~e and confusion remained. He didn't want to do this to her. So why was he?

Torch came around the table and she felt his hands close on her shoulders. She didn't resist as he pulled her close to him. Her face pressed to his hard belly. His hands tangled in her hair.

"It's me, baby, no you. Don't ever think it was you," he whispered.

She swallowed hard, trying not ~ cry, as she pushed away from him.

She stood again, her legs wobbling, and she meant to turn away, to put some distance between them, but he kissed her. He kissed her and her insides melted down. And her mind whirled. He kissed her with his mouth and with his teeth and with his tongue, and the way he held her to him made her think he never wanted to let go. She knew he'd meant what he'd said. That he'd like her to stay.

His lips were still touching hers when he whispered, "I want to make love to you, Alex."

She shook her head, finally managing to take that single step that took her away from him. The air felt cold without his arms to warm it.

"I can't."

"No, Torch. It's over. As much as I want to give in ... I just can't do that to myself again. I've... I've spent my whole life loving a man who couldfi't love me back. I'm finished with that. I deserve...

more."

The look that flashed in his eyes could have been one of pride, only that would have made no sense. There was pain there as well. She saw it very clearly.

"You could love me, Torch. I know you 'could, if you'd only let yourself. But you, won will you?" ' "I "He couldn't look her in the eyes for more than a second.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice tortured and coarse.

She drew a breath, stiffened her spine.

"I'm not going to beg."

Closing her eyes, searching inside. for strength, she forc~l herself to end this torment, to say the final words, to break free.

"I'd like to leave tonight.!"

He lowered his head in acceptance when what she wanted the idiot to do was beg her to stay.

"That's probably for the best."

So this was it. It was over.

This might be over. But not my life, My life. is just beginning, really.

She nodded in agreement with the small voice--the new voice--that came from deep inside, She was free of a father who'd done nothing but try to bring her down. Free of the self-image she'd dragged through life like a ball and chain. She'd finally found the woman she truly was, beneath all the self-doubt and insecurity, and she liked that woman. Dr. Alexandra Holt. Smart, strong and capable of getting through anything.

"Even this," she whispered, and cleared her throat when Torch only frowned at her.

"I'll go to New York, for now. Back to the clinic where I used to work, before all this madness... for a while anyway.

I need to practice medicine again. I didn't realize how much I've missed it. "

His head came up.

"I'll book a flight out for you. Tomorrow."

She shook her head.

"I told you, I.want to leave night."

He drew a breath, pinned her with his. gaze.

"You are leaving tonighl~, But not for New York." While she tried to make sense of his words, Torch went to the telephone stand, scribbled something on a sheet of paper and ripped it from the pad that sat there.

"Take this."

She did. A telephone number.

Alex frowned. '~I don't"-- " Keep it with you, Alex. If anything goes wrong"-- His words were cut off by a knock on the door.

Torch stared at her a moment onger,~ and she saw the anguish in his eyes. Then he turned away. She was surprised to see him pull the gun from his waistband before he went to the door. Standing to one side, he asked, "Who is it?" "D.C.," a voice answered. .

Torch nodded and opened the door. The man who entered was a head shorter than Torch, and about fifty pounds heavier. His hair stuck up straight in a snowy brush cut, and his eyes were pale, piercing blue.

Like small, pale ice chips, peering at her from behind rectangular bifocals. The color of his eyes matched the suit he wore.

His first act, after closing the door behind him, was to clasp Torch's hand in both of his.

"You look good, Torch. I knew coming back to work would agree with you."

Torch shook his hand, then glanced toward Alexandra. She'd been trying to surreptitiously knuckle her eyes dry, trying to bounce back from Torch's cruel rejection.

 "Alexandra Holt, this is D.C. Wayne," Torch said, lowering his hand to his side.

"We work together."

She nodded, muttering some inane greeting, absently stuffing the slip of paper into her jeans pocket, and searching Torch's face. Something was going on here. He wasn't surprised at D.C. "s arrival.

"The formula?"

Torch nodded, and turned to take the spiral notebook from where he'd tucked it under the mattre when they'd first arrived. Alex couldn't help sucking a breath through her teeth when he handed it over.

And Torch must have heard it, or sensed her concerns, because he turned to her, faced her squarely and put both hands on her shoulders.

"I trust thi.q man implicitly, Alex."

"Like I trusted my father?" She didn't know what made her blurt the words. They jumped from her tongue before she could think about them.

She looked up at D.C. standing beh/nd Torch.

"I'm sorry. No offense."

He nodded, sm~ing gently at her, looking for all the world like someone's. kindly grandfather. Comforting. Understanding. "

"It's all right, Ms. Holt. I know this is difficult. Believe me, you'll he as safe as if you were in your own. mother's arms."

She blinked at the reference to a mother she'd never known, then frowned as the rest of his words sank in. "What do you mean?" Her gaze flicked back to Torch. "What's going on?"

"I want you to go with him, Alex; He'll take you to a secure place for the night. By tomorrow it should be perfectly safe for you to go on to "New York or wherever you want, but" -- She pulled from his grasp, shaking her head.

"This doesn't make any sense. It's over, Torch. You gave the notebook to D.C. I don't under" -- "Scorpion has no way of knowing that."

She blinked.

"You don't want him to know it. You think he's going to come after you tonight, don't you, Torch? And you want me out of the way."

Torch said nothing, but he broke eye contact, looking down at the floor.

She blinked back tears and went to stand face-to-face with D.C.

"If you're truly his friend, you won't let him do this. He's not going to arrest Scorpion, he's going to kill him. Or die trying. You can't let him" -- "Now, calm down, Ms. Holt," D.C. intoned, and his big voice was confident and deep and soothing.

"Torch isn't gonna do anything foolish. I'm not gonna let him lay in wait all by himself. He'll have backup and plenty of it."

She turned to face Torch, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

"Don't do thi.q."

D.C. kept right on talking, as if unaware of the emotional undercurrents snapping on the air between Torch and her.

"If he has to worry about keeping you safe, though, he might screw up.

Let his guard down. Believe me, Ms. Holt, he'll be far better off tonight if he knows you're somewhere safe, out of harm's way."

' "Torch..."

Torch lifted his head.

"Go with him. Please, Alex, for God's sake, don't make this any harder than it is."

She shook her head.

"No. I'm not" -- D.C. Wayhe's hand closed on her arm gently but firmly. "I'm sorry, Ms. Holt. Try to understand, Scorpion is an international terrorist.

He's responsible for countless murders, bombings, kidnappings . the list goes on and on. We can't risk his escaping again, no matter what we have to do to prevent it. "

She tugged her arm away, annoyed at his interference in what was a private matter between her and Torch.

"I said I'm not going."

"I have the authority to arrest you, Ms. Holt."

Her gaze flew to Torch's.

"I'm sorry, Alex. It's for your own protection."

  She looked at Torch in stark disbelief, and the pain in his eyes almost brought her to her knees.

"It's a choice, Torch. You know that, don't you? It's a choice between a chan at living again, with me... and your vendetta against Scorpion."

He lowered his head.

"This is something I have to do, Alex ." ' So he knew. He understood.

And he was choosing hatred over love.

"Do you know how good it would have been between us?" she whispered.

"Do you have any. idea what ~ you're throwing away?"

"Yeah." His voice was so choked it was barely audible. ~ "Yeah, I do."

"I was falling in love with you."

He licked his lips. Goodbye, Alex. " His words stung like the lash of a whip. Tears surged into her eyes, and she bit her lip to stop it from trembling." She didn't have any idea how to fight this, or what she could do to change Torch's mind. So she finally nodded, but she held his gaze, and without uttering another word, she begged him not to go through with this madness.

D.C. patted her shoulder in an almost fatherly gesture and gently led her out the door. She held Torch's gaze all the way down the hall, as he stood in the doorway, apparently unable to look away. D:C. stepped into the elevator, and Alex went with him. And when the doors slid closed, she felt as if they'd sliced her heart in half. The most vital part stayed. behind. With Torch.

Chapter 15

The elevator doors closed, and that was good, because it stopped him from seeing the pain in her eyes.

He stepped back into the hotel room, and he closed the door. He felt a quake moving up through his body, until he vibrated with the effort of trying to hold it inside. And then he gave up.

His fist hit the table so hard the plates jumped from the surface, and pain flashed through the wound in his shoulder. He tipped his head backward, a grimace pulling at his facial muscles until they hurt, and he battled the inexplicable acidic burn behind his eyes. He swore at the top of his lungs, berating the ceiling and the walls.

And the reason he was punching inanimate objects and sweating a blue streak was because the only alternative would have been to sink to the floor and cry like a baby.

It had nearly killed him to lie to her that way! Torn him apart to have to hurt her, to break her heart in order to keep her alive.

He. "d known it would be hard. He hadn't realized just how hard, though. He hadn't realized that seeing the pain he'd inflicted, shimmering in those doe eyes, would make him hate himself. He hadn't expected her to tell him she had been falling in love with him.

"Had been" being the operative phrase. He'd ruined it. Because she was right. But . it should be different, shouldn't it? Once she realized he was only sending her away for her own safety. Maybe. maybe if he survived this, he could find her again, explain to her that he hadn't meant the things he'd said. That he'd hurt her because it was the only way he could be sure she'd go with D.C. Maybe she'd forgive him and understand . Do you have any idea what you're throwing away ? Torch closed his eyes and sank slowly into a chair as her words came back to him in that smoky voice, made huskier by pain. Who the hell was he kidding?

He knew it wouldn't matter if he explained himself. Alex knew it, too.

She'd been so right. He'd made a choice tonight. He;d chosen to hold on to his need for vengeance rather than let it go and embrace the salvation she offered him. He could have handed that formula over to D. C. " taken Alex and left. They could have gone someplace together...

started over.

But no. He'd chosen to stay here and await his longtime enemy. He'd chosen a man. he hated over a woman he. What?

He didn't know, Maybe now he'd never find out.

He must be a complete fool.

He showered, dressed, rebandaged his throbbing shoulder, and cleaned and loaded his weapons while he waited. He knew the drill. By now Alexandra was installed someplace safe, and D.C. had twenty men stationed in and around the hotel. Torch knew they'd get Scorpion the second the man showed his face. But he'd get a shot at the bastard before this night was over. ' He tried to picture Scorpion's cold eyes ins his mind, but instead, he saw Alexandra's. Wide and brown and hurt.

 Those eyes that healed a man just by looking at him. Those beautiful, sexy, mesmerizing eyes.

He had put tears in them. Torch laid the gun down on the dresser, closed his eyes, tried to erase the longing for her that grew stronger with every breath, every second.

Was this what the rest of his life would be like? Was killing Scorpion worth this?

No.

The answer came to him as clearly and precisely as if it had been spoken aloud. No. It was that simple. Scorpion would be apprehended if he showed up here tonight. It wouldn't matter if Torch was here or not.

What mattered. what really mattered right now, was Alex.

He'd made a choice tonight. The wrong choice.

God, he'd thrown away his last chance at redemption. He'd thrown away a woman unlike any other he'd ever known. Or ever would. Alexandra Holt had been falling in love with him. And he'd chased her away.

The sheer magnitude of his own foolishness hit him with the force of a tidal wave. What was he,-an idiot? Was he insane?

But it wasn't over yet. It couldn't be over. Maybe there was still time to make things right.

Torch tucked his favorite gun into his waistband before pulling on his leather jacket. Then he paused to inhale, and he smelled Alexandra's scent clinging to the leather. The longing stabbed deeper. He quickened his pace as he left the room, almost ran through the hall to the elevator and then rode it down to the lobby. It occurred to him, as he crossed the marbled floor to the front entrance, that the I-CAT team, who must be here, were doing an excellent job of concealing their presence. And then he hailed a cab and left them to do their job without him. They'd see him leaving.

They'd get the idea. They were skilled enough to he able to handle a simple ambush on their own.

 As the hotel faded in the distance behind him, Torch felt a peculiar lightness. A stupid grin kept tugging at his lips. He'd made the right decision.

Then tension knotted his Stomach as he wondered whether Alex would forgive him for not making it sooner.

Ah, well, he'd soon find out. The cab dropped him off outside the downtown office building that housed the ~ cret I-CAT headquarters.

He paid the driver and headed inside, only to run smack into Doug Stero, who was hurrying out.

"Danre, why don't you watch where you're" -- Stero met Torch's eyes and stopped in mid-sentence.

"Palamaro. What the hell are you doing here?"

Torch sighed.

"I know, I'm supposed to be at the hotel waiting for Scorpion, but I've got to see Alex."

Stern blinked.

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"D.C. didn't tell you?" At Stern's blank stare, Torch went on.

"I knew he didn't let you know I was going after the formula, Stern, but I assumed he'd have brought you in on things now that he has it. "

Every drop of color left Doug Stero's face.

"Tell me you're not talking about the Holt case."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. Look, Stero, I know you still hold me responsible for Marcy's death. I don't blame you. Hell, I wouldn't have done this for D.C. at all, if the chance to get Scorpion hadn't been a part of it. But it's over. I got the damned formula. I did my part. Now I've changed my mind about the protective custody for Alexandra. I want her back."

"Protective custody? For Alexandra ... Alexandra Holt?" Torch nodded.

"I think I finally understand why you hate my guts so much, Stem. If you felt at enth for Marcy the way I feel for Alex... it's a wonder you didn't put a bullet between my eyes a long time ago."

 Stem gaped, then drew a breath.

"I did worse than that to you."

"What?"

He shook his head.

"Look, Palamaro, you're telling me you went after Holt's formula at D.C." s request. You turned it over to him, and then you let him take the Holt woman into custody? "

"Yeah. For her own protection. I was planning..~" Torch swallowed hard.

"I was planning to murder Scorpion tonight."

Stem took a few staggering steps forward, sinking into one of the half circle of chairs, backed by a like-shaped bank of windows in the building's main lobby. Then he lowered his head into his hands.

A lead ball began forming in the pit of Torch's stomach. "Stern, what the hell is going on?"

Stero lifted his head.

"D.C. Wayne doesn't work for us anymore.

Torch, for a year now, I've suspected him of selling information.

I've been watching him but haven't been able to get anything solid on him. Not yet anyway. "

Torch's throat was rapidly going dry.

"Selling information... to whom?"

"Scorpion."

The word hit Torch like a blow to the solar plexus. So much so that he felt himself flinch, felt the air rush out of him.

"I thought..." Stero~went on.

"I thought you were working with him.

Dammit, you two were best friends even before you joined the I-CAT.

He's the one who recruited you. So when it looked like he was involved in the bombing that killed Marcy, I assumed you were in on it, too.

Especially since the device was so well made. and so much like Scorpion's work. Only you and D.C. knew his methods that well.

And only you had the skill to duplicate them. " Torch swore, but Stern kept talking.

"I figured Marcy knew something, stumbled onto some information she shouldn't have..."

Stern trailed off, shaking his head.

But Torch wasn't hearing him anymore. He was replaying that last conversation he'd ever had with his wife. It caught like a scratched LP, skipping back to the same phrase over and over again. We ran into D.C. today. We ran into D.C. today. We ran into D.C. today.

"No!"

Torch closed his eyes at the sound of it, gave it a mental kick to make it play out and die away. And then he heard the rest. ,t the mall. He was talking to some guy with. oh, hey, I have to go.

Someone's at the door. I'll tell you all about it tonight.

Only she hadn't. Instead, she'd been killed fight before his eyes.

Killed because Scorpion had planted one of his trademark devices in the house. When he shouldn't even have known where the house was.

When he shouldn't have known anything about Torch's family.

So how had he known?

He was talking to some guy with. With what, Marcy? Torch wondered.

With pink eyes and shocking white hair?

Torch grated his teeth.

"It was D.C. Good God, it was D.C. all along.

Marcy saw him that day, she and the boys ran into him at the mall.

They said he was with someone. With Scorpion, probably. Scorpion and D.C. " and they both knew Marcy and the boys had seen them. They both knew all it would take was one mention of the odd-looking man, for me to put it together." . " His head fell until his chin touched his chest.

"They killed my kids. Those bastards killed..."

Torch's head came up fast, and before he knew what he was doing, he had Stern by the front of his shirt, lifting him right up out of the chair.

"Those bastards have Alexandra!"

 Stern pulled himself free, smoothing his shirt.

"They also have a virus capable of wiping out entire nations, Palamaro.

We'll get them."

Torch was reeling, his mind spinning out of control. A sheen of moisture coated his face and his neck, and he felt himself beginning to shake "I made her go with him, Ste~n. Damreit, she didn't want to.

I..."

Torch couldn't go on. All he could see was the hurt in Alexandra's brown eyes. He'd handed her over to a killer.

"We'll have every resource at our disposal on this within ten minutes,"

Stern said.

"We'll get them this time. We'll get that form uh and we'll get the Holt woman." Stern turned toward the revolving doors that led to the street, and the shocked and slightly guilty expression faded from his countenance. He squared his shoulders, once again looking every inch the man in charge.

"Park yourself somewhere. I'll get in Wuch as soon as we know anything."

"The hell I will."

Stern paused in his rush for the door, facing Torch once more.

"I want in on this, Stern. And after what you believed of me, you owe me that much."

Stem lowered his gaze from Torch's, conceding more easily than Torch had ever seen him do. His back bowed a little, and he shifted his feet. He looked like a man carrying one hell of a burden. A man filled with regret and again, guilt. More guilt than he ought to, if all he'd done was misjudge Torch. More, even, than seemed appropriate for having suspected a man of murdering his own children. What the hell was going on with him?

Stern cleared his throat, nodding hard.

"I owe you a hell of a lot more than that, Palamaro."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Stern shook his head.

"I'd like to be alive to close this case," he said, and there was no lightness in his tone to indicate he was kidding or being sarcastic.

"So I'll explain it Forever," Dad to you later. " He closed his eyes briefly.

"Dammit, Torch, I'm sorry."

The remorse was incredible. Practically oozing from Stern's pores.

"I don't have a clue what the hell you're" -- "Come on," Stern said, not letting Torch finish.

"I've had a man tailing D.C. for days. I knew he was up to something the second he resigned. We'll call him from my ear, see if we can catch up to the bastard."

Raining. Great. A perfect match for a perfect mood. Snowing up north, no doubt. Raining here. She thought about commuter flights and ice-coated wings, and wondered if it would stop raining by the time. she was free. to catch a plane to New York. And then she shook her head, knowing it didn't matter. She wasn't going anywhere. Not until she saw Torch again.

She supposed she was a fool for wan ling to. Especially after he'd made his feelings--or lack of them--so perfectly clear to her. But she couldn't just walk away without knowing what happened to him tonight.

She had to know that he was okay. And beyond that, she needed to know that the formula her father had developed wouldn't be responsible for countless deaths.

And she had to, maybe, look/ into Torchis eyes just once and see that it was really over. Because she hadn't seen that in those blue eyes tonight. Not at all.

D.C. hadn't said a word since they'd gotten into the car. They'd driven away from the bustling streets and into rural areas, Virginia perhaps. And she was beginning to wonder just how far away this safe house of his was.

The car continued steadily onward, wipers slapping water from the glass, headlights piercing the gloom. And then he pulled to a stop in front of what looked like a warehouse. Only. it seemed abandoned.

 "What is this place?" she asked, squinting through the windshield, trying to make sense of what she saw. Broken windows, bowing walls.

"Why are you stopping here?"

D.C. didn't turn to face her. Very softly he said, "I'm sorry." ' Then the door at her back was yanked open from outside, and she whirled at the unexpected blast of cold, wind-driven raindrops.

The interior lights came on when the door opened, and they were enough to illuminate the pink eyes and colorless hair of the albino she'd thought she'd only see again in a nightmare.

Cringing backward, she screamed, lashed out with her feet. His reaction was to simply lean into the car, absorbing her kicks as if he were a sponge. His large chws sank into her shoulders and he drew her toward him. Closer and closer as she struggled and howled. Right out into the frigid, icy rain that pelted her face and soaked her hair. Right up against his chest, with his arms pinioning hers to her sides. She writhed and kicked, but he was oblivious.

"Come on, Wayne, I don't have all day. The hypodermic is in my back pocket. Take it and inject her so we can move on with The words terrified her, and she struggled all the more as she heard D.C. hurrying out his side, slamming his door, his footsteps slapping the wet ground as he came around the car.

"No," she cried.

"No, you can't" -- And then the fine, sharp tip of a hypodermic pierced the flesh of her buttocks. She stiffened, fighting. But the rain grew louder and louder until it enveloped her. And at last she went limp, unable to do anything more than listen. So groggy.

Scorpion rearranged her, hefting her up and over his shoulder, and she felt the cold rain soaking her back but couldn't move to avoid it.

 He opened the car door, tossed her down onto the front seat again.

"She won't give you any trouble now," he said, and his shrill voice made her teeth hurt.

"You, Asbahd, drive the car around to the back, and right inside, before it's seen. Tie her up. But don't kill her. I might need her later.

Mr. Wayne and I have some business to conduct in the office." She felt weight on the seat beside her and then the car was moving again.

"I'm sorry, Chief Stern," the young I-CAT recruit moaned, lowering his chin and shaking his blond head.

"It was as if he knew he was being followed."

"If he knew, then you got too close!"

"He never saw me." The young man pride was showing now. His eyes flashed and he met Stern's gaze head-on. "There's no way in hell. But he knew, all the same. And he took evasive action to lose me. No one could've done better, not even you, Chief Stern."

Stern waved a dismissive hand in the air, while Torch paced a path up and down the roadside in the pouring rain, wishing the icy wetness could shake the sick feeling from the pit of his stomach. But it didn't. It couldn't. Nothing could.

This was where the kid had lost D. Ci Well away from the city, on a country road that branched off in four directions. He could be anywhere.

"He had the woman with him?" Torch asked the kid yet again, stopping his pacing long enough. to await an answer. "You're sure of that?"

"Yes. There was a woman with him. She had long dark hair. That's about all I could tell in the dark."

"But she was alive?"

The kid nodded.

"I could see her moving her head and then. Yeah. I'm sure she was alive."

 Alive and terrified, he thought in silence. Alive and in the hands of brutal killers, because of him. Dammit, he'd get her out or die trying.

Aloud, he only cleared his throat and nodded toward Stern. Get on the horn and get us a map of this area. And where the hell is that chopper you asked for? "" Stem ans~vered, but Torch was almost beyond hearing.

He had no idea where D.C. had taken Alex. But he knew she'd be turned over to Scorpion along with the formula. Unless he could get to her first.

"Use your brain, Alex," he whispered.

"Be smart. Help me, for God's sake."

The thug of Scorpion's choosing didn't obey his orders to the letter.

He did drive the car around and then inside the frighteningly dilapidated building, She knew that by the sudden, more complete darkness, and the cessation of the raindrops pelting the roof. Then he simply got out. In the brief flash of the cat's lights, she saw the dashboard and the steering wheel. And D.C. "s cellular phone. Hope leapt to life in her breast.

The door slammed and the darkness returned. Even the sounds of the rain died away as the thug closed a large, creaking door. She heard his footsteps approach, then pass and fade in the distance.

He hadn't tied her Up or even taken her out of the car. He'd taken the keys, but that didn't matter. She sat up slowly, dizziness whirling in her fogged head. And she found the number Torch had given her, in the pocket of her jeans. And then she fumbled some more, her hands groping for the door handle, missing, groping some more. She found it and shoved it open, and the light came on. Then she snatched up the cellular phone, and with dulled wits and achingly slow movements, she punched in the numbers. Carefully she closed the door again, praying the light hadn't been seen as she listened to the seemingly endless ringing on the other end.

Stern snatched up the car phone and barked at it. Then his face went lax, and his gaze snapped to Torch's.

"How the hell... ? No. Go ahead, patch it through." He covered the mouthpiece. 'Dispatch has a call from Alexandra Holt. Wait, I'll put it on the speaker. " He hit a button.

Torch's heart cracked into bits when he heard her slurred voice, so soft, fear filled and obviously impaired.

"Torch? Puh-puh-leease... I nnneed to ssspeak to" -- "Alex, it's me.

Are you all right? "

She sighed, long and low.

"Talk to me, Alex!" Torch all but shouted at the speaker.

"Shhh. They'll hear you. T-Torch they... they drugged me."

"I know, baby. Can you tell me anything? Anything about where you are?"

Silence.

"We... we crossed some tracks."

Torch frowned.

"Railroad tracks?"

"Umm-hmm. An' we passed... water." More air than substance, her voice.

She wasn't saying the words, but breathing them. Sighing them.

"Now I'm in ... it's old... and... and dark."

He could hear the tears in her voice.

"I'm coming for you, baby, I swear to God, I'm coming for you. Hang on, you hear me?"

She didn't answer. Only sniffed, and he could sense her nodding at the phone.

"Now what kind of place are you in? Tell me everything you can."

"Abandoned," she said after a moment.

"A facfa -factory o-or a warehouse. Something like that." She drew a breath.

"It isn't your fault," she said, her words coming faster, more desperately than before.

"Torch..." f anything happens . take care of Max. " He heard her gasp.

"They're coming. I" -- "Alex, don't hang up!"

"But" -- "Listen to me." He prayed she would.

"Alex, . you're smart and you're strong and you can get through this.

You hear me? Use your head, Alex. Stay alive. I'm coming for you.

I..." He stopped speaking when the click of the cutoff told him she'd hung up.

Or someone had done it for her.

She hadn't wanted to hang up the phone. It was like cutting off her last connection with Torch. The sound of his voice gave her hope. And there was anguish in ~ tone . too much anguish for a man who was supposed to be incapable of caring. He did care, dammit. The jerk was just too dense to realize it. She hoped to God she could live long enough to prove it to him.

And there was another reason she hadn't wanted to hang up. Somewhere in her fogged mind she'd thought if she just laid the phone down, without breaking the connection, Torch would have been able to trace the call and find her. She wasn't even sure that was possible with a cellular phone. Probably not, but it was worth a try. But then she'd seen the way the little md light on the phone glowed, illuminating the entire front seat. It only went out when she depressed the cutoff button, which she did just before the driver's door was yanked open again.

She slumped against the eat, lying very still. And then a pair of hands caught her under the arms and dragged her out of the car.

"I have just the place for you, pretty one," a deep, heavily accented voice told her.

Her back thudded from the car to the floor, then scraped over rough, cold concrete as the man dragged her. She heard voices. The man lowered her to the floor for a moment and turned away to open a door, from the sounds of the creaking hinges.

Only the location was wrong.

"... pay me now," D.C. was saying.

"I kept my end of the bargain. You have the formula."

"Yes, I do." It was Scorpion's voice.

"But not your loyalty, hmm?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come, Mr. Wayne. Do you really think I don't know what you've been up to? That you've been negotiating with' certain factions, trying to get yourself a higher bid on the formula?" Scorpion made a little clucking sound with his tongue.

"You're a fool, Wayne. I know everything you do."

"B-but I didn't go through with it" -- "You might have, though, if I hadn't arrived here and monitored your every move. You've put me to a lot of trouble, you know. All the expense and effort of trying to take the formula from Palamaro before he turned it over to you, just in case you developed the gall to go ahead with your plot to betray me."

"None of that matters, now," D.C. all but shouted, his voice trembling.

"I got the formula for you. You have it in your hands fight now."

"Indeed," Scorpion said slowly, calmly.

"And as a bonus, I have a hostage, to ease my passage out of the country. You've outdone yourself. So your reward will be that much greater."

"It will?"

"Yes," Scorpion hissed.

"I'll kill you quickly."

"Sco--No.t" The single gunshot exploded, echoing endlessly through the hollow building, and Alex jerked in reaction, then forced herself to be still. She'd be next unless she was very careful.

She heard Scorpion speaking, as if to himself.

"You sold out your best friend for a price, Mr. Wayne. You gave me the information I needed to kill his family, for money, and to cover your own hide. I knew all along you would turn on me as well."

Alex cringed, trying not to envision the bulky D.C. " lying on the concrete, bleeding, dying, as Scorpion stood over him, watching with those terrible pink eyes.

And then Scorpion's words sank in, and she understood that Torch had been betrayed by his best friend. A man he trusted. But there was no time to think about that now. Her thug was back to tugging at her again. She went limp, then utterly stiff when he shoved her through an opening in the floor. The shock of suddenly falling through space sent every bit of air from her lungs. She couldn't have screamed if she'd wanted to. And by the time she managed to draw in another breath, her back was slamming into the bottom hard enough to force it out again. And then her head snapped backward, hitting the concrete, as well. Pain was a blinding white light before her eyes. And that was all.

Chapter 16

She lifted her head slowly, blinked past the dizziness and focused on the ache. Her fingers gingerly probed at the back of her head, only to find the cut and pull away from it as she What was she going to do? How could she help end this madness?

She tried to focus on her surroundings, but there wasn't much to see.

She was lying on her back, on a cold cement floor, in total darkness.

Dankness. She heard an choing trickle of water from somewhere, a scratching sound from somewhere else.

She drew a breath and swallowed hard. She didn't like this. Forcing herself up into a sitting position, she closed h~r eyes against the new waves of dizziness washing over the beaches of her mind, carrying things like balance and depth perception away in their brutal undertow.

Okay, just take your time. Get your bearings.

Right. She had to stay calm and stay sharp. She was thinking clearly now. Before, in the hotel room, she'd been one hundred percent emotional, reeling from Torch's rejection. And after that, when she'd realized what was happening, she'd been overcome with shock and fear.

Now she had to use her brain.

She'd gotten to know Torch Palamaro very well in the past f~ew days.

Probably better than she'd ever known anyone in her life. And she knew that Torch would not give up until he got her out of here . or died trying. That was what she was afraid of. That he'd get himself killed trying to rescue her. Damreit, she couldn't let that happen.

She had to do everything she could to save herself before he did something stupid.

Rising, a little unsteadily at first,~she moved forward until she felt a cool, rough wall against her palm. She turned to the right and moved forward, holding her other hand in front of her face. She encountered cobwebs, and then a drip, coming from above. And finally, another wall.

- She turned the corner, and her shins banged against what felt like a wooden crate, nearly tripping her: She got her balance after a moment and continued in the same way, and when she finished, she knew the shape of her prison. It was a square. No windows. No doors. No stairs or steps or any possible way out, other than the way she'd come in. She'd completed the full Circuit thrce times before she made herself believe that, and then she felt her bronchial tubes spasm with fear. She started to pant' and gasp.

No, dammir! She wasn't going to succumb this way! She sank to the floor, calming herself with mental reassurances, forcing herself to focus on her breathing, willing her heart rate to slow down. If she could control the fear, she could control the attack. She knew she could.

And eventually she did.

And then something furry brushed against her leg, and the attack hit her full force.

 He waited until Stern was busy with the new arrivals. All of them gathered together while Stern organized a search grid, charting it on a map. At the same time, Stern manned a walkie-talkie, giving instructions to the pilot of the chopper that hovered above them.

Torch knew I-CAT's standard operating procedures too well. The formula for this virus was--to I-CAT's way of thinking--a much higher priority than the life of one woman. They'd figure out the locale--and soon.

Stern had heard Alex's caR. The railroad tracks, the water, an abandoned warehouse or factory. It wouldn't take I-CAT long to determine exactly where Scorpion was hiding. And when they did, they'd sun ply storm the place. Alex would be lucky to survive the first volley of bullets they exchanged with Scorpion and his thugs.

Torch was determined to get her out before that could happen. So he wail~t until they were all too busy to notice, and then he muttered that he had to sit down for a few minutes, to try to pull himself together.

He got a guilt-ridden, sympathetic glance from Stern.

"Go ahead, Torch." Torch. Not Palamaro. Torch. "You'v~e been through utter hell this past year."

Torch heard the unspoken completion of Stern's sympathetic words. And I'm about to put you through more by getting your girlfriend blown away.

$o go ahead, rest. You'll need your strength.

But Stern didn't say that. He just looked guilty as hell, and Torch wondered if his plans were the reason, and then decided they couldn't be. He'd been acting guilty before he'd had a chance to devise the plan. Torch sighed, shaking his head. Stern's change in attitude was something he'd worry about later.

He turned and headed through the crowd of I-CAT men, earning several friendly slaps on the shoulder as he went, behind them all. He picked up his pace neared Stern's car. Then he got inside, closed the door, took a quick look to be sure no one was paying any undue attention to him. Most of them were looking at Stern. Like Patton speaking to his troops, Torch thought. He crouched a little lower in the seat as he reached for the cellular phone. And then he dialed the number for D.C.'s car phone, and he let it ring for vhat seemed like an hour, before someone--probably one of Scorpion's flunkies--snatched it up.

"Tell your boss Torch Palamaro wants to make a deal. Tell him to come to the phone. Now."

The man muttered, but Torch heard footsteps. And a few seconds later the grating voice he recognized came on the line.

"Palamaro?"

"It's me," he confirmed.

"Is she still alive?"

"She is. Is this call being monitored by fifty I-CAT troops?"

"No, I slipped away for a moment. It's like you said before, Scorpin.

This is personal. Between you and me."

"That it is." Scorpion chuckled.

"So you want to make a deal, eh?"

"She's, expendable," Torch said softly.

"I'm being straight with you, Scorpion. I-CAT doesn't give a damn if you kill her or not. All they care about is the, formula. They'll probably just call in an air.

strike on that warehouse~' of yours and call it a day. "

Torch heard the harsh intake of Scorpion's breath. Good. He'd bought the bluff.

"But if you had me as a hostage," Torch hurried on to say, "a decorated member of the team, one of-their own,-it would make a difference. You might he able to bargain for safe passage out of the country. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"You're offering to join her as a hostage, Palamaro?"

 "No. I'm offering a trade. Me for her."

"Does it matter to you that I will use you to make good my escape, and then kill you anyway?"

 "Not in the least," Torch whispered.

"Not as long as you let Alexandra live. She's not part of this, Scorpion." "Touching."

Torch held his breath while Scorpion breathed slowly and evenly into the mouthpiece. Finally the bastard spoke. "Done. Take a car and drive south for five miles, Palamaro. I'll have men waiting there to...

provide you an es ort."

His relief was palpable. His body bowed with it.

"If I see the slightest sign you're not alone, I wffi... hurt her, Palamaro. You'll hear her screams in your sleep for the rest of your life, I promise you."

I'll be alone," Torch said quickly. " if you touch her, Scorpion, I'll kill you. I swear I will. "

Torch hung up the phone/ He get Alexandra out of this. No matter what it took. Even if it meant let ling Scorpion walk away.

He stopped, his eyes widening as he realized what he'd just vowed.

That he'd let Scorpion go--when he'd thought there was nothing more important to him than exacting his vengeance--in order to save Alexandra's life.

And he'd thought he was incapable of loving her? "Idiot," he whispered.

Then he started working out what he'd say when he asked the inexplicably guilt ridden Stem if he could borrow a car to go somewhere. Torch would have to look as if he were beside himself, half out of his mind with worry. He'd have to convince Stem that he was going to break if he didn't get. away from all this for a few minutes. or grab a stiff drink somewhere. He had to make it beliew able.

He closed his eyes and realized it wouldn't be hard.

He had four weapons. Two were his own. He liberated the other two, complete with ammo, from the glove compartment of Stern's car. The Ruger was in a shoulder holster, Scorpion's men would find that.

There was revolver--the infamous Saturday night special--in a pancake holster at the small of his back. The belt in his jeans fit right over the gun's bulge. But if they were careful, they'd probably find that, too. He doubted they'd spot the little derringer he anchored just above his ankle, though. Or the bowie knife on the other leg. His boots covered them.

He dig covered something interesting in Stern's glove compartment. A small silver-trimmed crystal flask. Opening it, he sniffed. Whiskey.

Okay. He'd take that along, as well.

The asthma attack eased, but not for some time. And it had taken a lot of the strength out of her. It had almost come on all over again when she'd heard the thug tell his boss that Palamaro was on the phone. And she'd heard Scorpion take the portable phone from the man, and heard his end of that entire conversation. She knew what was happening. Torch was coming in, alone. He was going to try to trade his life for hers.

She'd wring his neck when she saw him.

Her writhing in the throes of the asthma had landed her on her back in the middle of the cold floor again, as she'd struggled for air and clawed at her chest. It had been a bad episode. She'd almost passed out with no medicine on hand to ease her breathing. She'd torn her shirt to ribbons as she'd clutched herself in panic.

Now, though, from this position, she could see the tiny pinstripes of light above her.

And then she heard Scorpion again.

"Send one of the men to meet him.

Be certain he is alone. Search him for weapons and bring him to me. I want the pleasure of killing him myself. "

"And the woman?" the other asked.

"I keep her. A trophy of my triumph over my most worthy enemy. How do the Americans say it? To the victor, go the spoils? The woman... I keep the woman."

 Alex blinked back her revulsion and stared up at the wooden hatch she'd been dropped through. It was not nearly as distant as it had seemed when she'd been falling through darkness. The light came down between the boards and touched her face. And she knew it was a way out.

The only way out. She couldn't just sit down here in the dark and wait for Torch to walk into a death trap. Not as long as there was a breath left in her body to prevent it.

She calmed her breathing through sheer force of will, and sought out the wooden crate she'd found earlier, then dragged it to the center of the room. She stood on it, reaching up to the hatch door and push' rag testing.

To her surprise, it gave. No locks? What was this?

She shoved it harder, and light streamed in, making her blink like a mole. And she heard their voices again, though not as close. She wasn't up high enough to climb out, just enough to see over the edge.

Not daring to lift the door more than an inch or two, she peered out.

She saw two pairs of 'booted feet, moving through a square doorway big enough to drive a truck through, and into another part of the building.

She shifted her gaze and saw no one else. Only gray cinder block walls, and a dull, cracking cement floor.

She had to lower the hatch and get down, trying again after turning-the crate on its end to make it higher. This time, her head and sl~oulders emerged from the pit when she pushed the door open.

The voices were more distant now. Too far away to understand. She could no longer see them. Good. She looked around, saw no one and wriggled out. Then she lowered the door carefully and ran, crouching, to the nearest wa~. Pressing. her back against it, she listened.

The only sounds were the beating of her own heart and squeaky wheeze each time she exhaled.

Slow it down, she thought in silence. Easy breaths.

out. Slow. That's it. That's better.

Her heart rate slowed as if in obedience. The eased. She lifted her head and looked at the huge portion the building around her. She'd already seen the gray cinder block walls. They reached up high. Over her head, steel grid like structures supported the roof. Here and there, long fluorescent tube lights gave the place a dull, artificial glow. Some flickered, obviously worn-out. The result was eerie and surreal.

Her gaze earn down again, locking in on the normal-size doorway in one wall. Was that the "office" she'd heard Scorpion mention? With a quick glance to her left and right, she tiptoed across the spiderweb of cracks in the cement floor, gripped the doorknob, pressed her ear to the metallic door. No sounds came from inside. She twisted her hand, and the knob turned.

Her heart in her throat, she pulled the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind her. Pitch-dark in here. Her foot hit something that gave with the connection. Startled, she reached behind her for the door again, pushing it open.

The dim light spilled in, and she wished it hadn't. D.C. Wayne lay on the floor, a neat round hole in the center of his forehead. Dark red streams had painted a bloody headband across his brow. And the whites of his opened eyes gleamed in the light. For just an instant she'd sworn he was staring right at her.

All of that in a fragment of a moment, and she was turning to lunge back out the door. Then she heard that squeal of a voice and footsteps. They were coming back. She jerked her head around and spotted another door on the opposite side of the office.

Her decision was made. She pulled the door closed silently and moved forward, forced to feel for D.C. "s body so she could step over it rather than trip and give herself away.

The steps came closer. She lifted her hands, palms out, and found the opposite wall. Moving sideways, she felt the door, located the knob, turned it.

Nothing. The door was locked.

 Her heart sank to her feet when she heard the approaching steps stop just outside the door through which she'd entered. Scorpion was talking about dumping the body. Desperately she closed both hands around the little round doorknob. and then she felt the protmsion from its center, poking her palm. The lock. on the inside? Deftly she turned the small locking device and cranked the knob again. It turned this time. She slipped through, having no idea where she'd emerge, having no time to think about it. She could hear the other door opening as she stepped out. At the last moment, she flicked the lock again and pushed the door dosed behind her.

She'd emerged into what must he the other, gargantuan section of the building. The same ckering, insufficient light came from above, and she saw men, three of them, standing in a huddle about a yard in front of D. C. Wayhe'S black car. A big slab of a door hung from rollers just he-hind the car. None of the men looked her way, but they would. She stood in the open, the door to the small office at her back, and the wide room in front of her. I. ess than fifty feet of space stood between her and those thugs. She swung her gaze to the left and spotted a stack of boxes. Moving slowly, praying for invisibility, she went to it, ducked down behind it. No one shouted at her. No one seemed to notice.

She ducked there for some time. Behind her, a ladder was mounted to the cement wall, and she wondered briefly why. Then she forgot all about it, when she heard Scorpionls voice. She peered out, saw him rejoining the others. "Well?"

"He's on his way, Scorpion. And he's said a voice she didn't recognize.

' "You're sure?"

"Yes. Positive. Asbahd is with him.

following. As you said, Palamaro had no ing his own people. "

 "It's going to be a shame to kill him," Scorpion mused. "It's been a challenge, dealing with him."

"They will arrive at any moment," the first man said.

"Good. Get into your positions, just in case. But remember, the kill is mine."

Alex almost cried out. She had to bite her lip.

"Now? Scorpion, I thought you would Use him as a hostage... to insure our escape."

"You question my judgment." The man fell silent, and Alex saw the flash of fear in his black eyes. Scorpion drew a breath and went on.

"I will not keep him alive.

He's too dangerous. Better to kill him now. The others will have no way of knowing he's already dead. We'll negotiate as if he were alive.

"

"Very wise, Scorpion," one man said, and the others muttered in agreement.

"Go now," he ordered.

"Into position."

Alex crept out of her boxes and peered around a corner. There was a catwalk, lined with erates, and she saw two men scramble up there, one on each side. She looked around her, at the ladder on the wall just to her left. That's where it went. Up there, to the catwalk.

Torch was walking into a trap. She'd be damned if she'd sit here and watch as they killed the man she loved.

Moving silently, she gripped the ladder and made her way up.

A car rolled to a stop outside. The engine died. Alex bit her lip and moved faster. She got to the top, pulled herself onto the catwalk. It stretched just above the I beams that held the light fixtures, so it was dark here. She could see the shape of the man who'd taken position farther along the narrow platform. He crouched, staring down toward the doorway, a rifle cradled in his arms. If he turned around, he'd see her. She held her breath and began crawling forward.

 Closer. Closer. She lay on her belly, sliding along inch by inch.

The man was within reach now. She held her breath. Someone below pushed the noisy door open. The man tensed, lifting his gun. And Alex pushed him.

He emitted a soft, surprised cry as he fell, and when he hit the floor, she barely heard the sound of his impact. The door continued creaking and groaning for a few more seconds. No one turned to look her way. No one saw the broken body lying below, in the shadows near the right wall.

She looked at the open doorway.

Torch stood there, dripping wet, his hands raised above his head.

Alex receded into the shadows, back the way she'd come. And then she turned at a fight angle and crept over the narrow section of metal that spanned the room from side to side. There was another assassin stationed on the opposite catwalk, and she had to try to remove him from the equation, as well.

Torch caught a glimpse of the catwalks on either side of h;ma. Dark up there. Probably snipers waiting.

"Hello, Palamaro," Scorpion said.

Two down here, besides Scorpion. The one who'd driven him was outside, probably standing sentry in the pouring rain. He wouldn't hear much out there. The one who'd opened the door stood behind Torch, with a gun pointed at his back And Scorpion stood in front of him. How many up above? he wondered.

Aloud, he said, "Where is she?"

"Within 'reach," Scorpion said, grinning.

"But if you shoot me and search the premises, you won't find her."

Torch was bleeding inside, damned distracted by the incredible need to see her, to hear her voice, to know she was still alive. And Scorpion knew it, the bastard. He'd drag this out all night. Unless he'd already. No. He couldn't think that way. They'd found the three when "d searched He was un derarmed. Down to the knife in his boot, and that little whiskey flask, which he'd modified the contents of a bit.

Emptied the whiskey. Filled it with gasoline syphoned from Stern's car.

"There's not much time, Scorpion," he said, aiming a pointed glance behind him for good measure.

"The team will be all over this place any minute. You need to move fast. I~t Alexandra walk out of here and make your ef~al~. Use me as a shield. It will work."

Scorpion's white eyebrows rose. Fortunately for Torch, the chopper,-or a chopp~. --chose that moment to pass over the warehouse, reinforcing Torch's words. A good thing. He was half convinced Scorpion had planned to just shoot him on sight and try to bluff his way out of the U. S. Now, it seemed, he was thinking twice.

"No time to kill me and hide my body, is there Scorpion? And if they find it ... or my blood ... they'll know I'm dead and your escape plan ends. Come on. Let Alexandra go and let's get on with this."

Scorpion's pale tongue darted out to moisten flesh-toned lips.

"I'll keep you both with me." He lifted an automatic.

There was a guttural cry from h'w,~h above and to the right, then a crash. Scorpion jerked his head in that direction, eyes widening.

Torch jumped in surprise, too. Had one of his snipers fallen?

The man behind Torch moved off in that direction at a nod from Scorpion, to investigate. Great. Only one gun on him now. Scorpion's gaze was back on him, too. He wasn't even looking off to the fight.

Torch was though, and what he saw made his blood freeze.

Alex's unmistakable form slipping silently down the ladder from the catwalk. The thug who'd gone to investigate had his rifle at the ready, but he was looking down, at the fallen man. All he had to do was tip his head up, see her, and she'd be dead. One shot. All over.

All Scorpion had to do now was shift his gaze, and he'd see her, as well. In plain sight now, as she moved lower, into the full glow of the overhead lights.

And then it happened. The man on the floor looked up. A split second was all she had left. Torch knew damned well the second he moved, Scorpion would shoot him. He knew it, but he moved anyway. In an instant he'd crouched, snatched the knife from his boot and whipped it end over end even as Scorpion's gunshot deafened him.

It felt as if a truck had hit him squarely in the chest. He flew backward at the impact, landing on his back, hard. But he had the pleasure of seeing the blade hit home and the man who'd lifted his rifle drop it with a shuddering cry. So fast. It had happened so fast. Where was Alex? Scorpion stepped toward him slowly, holding the gun steady and smiling. But Torch didn't' give a damn. He searched the ladder.

She wasn't there. Oh. She was on the floor, ripping the rifle from the dead man's grasp, pulling the butt to her shoulder, pointing it at Scorpion. But she' sobbed Torch's name, and Scorpion whirled, his handgun trained on her now.

"You bastard!" she shrieked.

"You shot hi/n, you son of " Put the gun down, Alexandra. " Scorpion's voice was like butter.

Smooth. Coaxing.

"I don't want to have to shoot you, too."

He was going to shoot her anyway. Torch could see the blood lust in his eyes. He was furious at her for screwing up his well-laid plans, and he was going to kill her. He was only playing with her now. The way a cat toys with a mouse before killing it. The damned rifle's safety was on.

She couldn't kill Scorpion if she wanted to.

She shook her head fast, tears flowing from her eyes now, her breaths coming faster and faster.

Torch was having trouble breathing, himself. He reached into his pocket for the flask, and the little lighter he'd copped. He waited until her wheezing gasps were good and loud, and flicked the lighter, still inside his pocket. His fingers were in the damned flame, but he managed to touch the cloth he'd left sticking out of the top of the flask.

"Calm down now, Alexandra," Scorpion said, moving closer to her. Not too close, though. Not yet.

Torch pulled the flask from the pocket and used all his strength to hurl it. If exploded right at Scorpion's feet, and flames shot up his pant legs. He screamed, a high-pitched, keening wail, as the fire licked at his long coat, leapt to the sleeves, heated the metallic weapon in his hands. He dropped the gun and began running, beating at himself with his hands. His howl was unearthly.

"Torch!"

Alexandra. She was on her knees beside Torch, even before Scorpion fell into a writhing, and then twitching, and then utterly still mound of charred flesh and flames on the floor. She was ripping Torch's shirt open, sobbing her heart out, and her tears were warm and wet on his face.

"Not now, not after all this," she sobbed.

"Dammit, Torch, be all right .... " He tore his gaze from what was left of Scorpion and stared into Alex's eyes.

"Alex... baby..."

"Help is coming, Torch. Just relax. Don't try to talk." She opened the straps of the vest he'd been wearing. Damn thing had done little good against a large caliber bullet at such close range. She peeled the vest away, sobbing. He was bleeding heavily. He could feel the warm stickiness coating his chest and his sides and his belly. Her hands worked feverishly, but he didn't know what she was doing. It didn't matter what she was doing, really. Not anymore. Scorpion had shot him in the chest at point-blank range. He was dying.

And it wouldn't be so bad, really. Hell, maybe, if what the faithful of the world believed was true, he'd get to see the boys again. Josh.

Jason. God, it would be so good to hold those two angels in his arms again. To hear them call him Daddy.

But not yet. Soon, but not yet. He had to tell Alex. he couldn't leave her believing the erap he'd spouted in the hotel.

"Alex," he began again.

"I said not to talk," she snapped, but she was still crying. Had she told him that? He didn't remember.

"Save your strength."

"I want to talk," he told her with surprising force. Then he sucked air through his teeth, because the words had caused him pain. When he spoke again, he kept it quieter, softer.

"I want to tell you... that I love you, Alex."

Her hands stilled on his chest. She shook herself and began working on him again.

"Oh, sure. Now that you're all 'shot to hell, now you love me."

He tried to smile but wasn't sure of the results, Alex shrugged her coat off and covered him with it. She dragged a metal box over and propped his feet on it. He heard sirens.

"I loved you all along. All that crap... in the hotel... I didn't mean it."

"Just trying to get rid of me, huh?"

"I thought... killing him was more... important," he managed to say, and his words were beginning to sound the way they did when he'd had too much to drink.

"But I was wrong. I changed my mind, Alex. I was coming to tell you..."

She'went still again, staring down into his eyes.

"You were?"

He tried to nod but felt oddly paralyzed. His entire body numb.

"Yeah," he whispered.

He liked it when she ran her hands over his face. And he liked it better when she bent to kiss his lips. Hers were parted and wet and salty with her tears.

The sirens got louder. Men came running, guns drawn.

 When her lips rose away from his, he made himself go on. "I love you, Alex. But don't ... ah ... don't be too sad. You deserve more.

You deserve... you deserve a whole man."

 "You are a whole man, Torch."

"No. You know I'm not." He drew a breath. Shaky, shallow. He didn't think he was going to draw too many more.

"Don't you dare give up on me," she screamed.

"Dam-reit, Torch, don't you dare!"

"Maybe," he whispered, "it's better... this way." "No!"

His q~es closed. He was fading fast. He couldn't even feel the pain now. He could still hear, though. He could herff Alex's smoky voiee s~reaming for the paramedics, shouting orders And he could he~r them s~unbling to obey. And then there was sore cone ~ erouching beside him, and she said, "Who are you? What are you do' rag "Name's $ttwn," he said. And then Torch felt the ba~k of Stern's hand connect with the side of his face, and he realized he could feel pain again.

"Stop!" Alex yelled.

But Torch managed to open his eyes.

"I told you to leave me the hell alone, Stem."

"And I told you there was something you needed to know, Palamaro.

Listen and listen good. , There was nothing this man had to say that Torch wan led to hear. Not now. Nothing mattered now. He let his eyes fall closed again. Stern hit him once more, and this time he felt his skin split.

Torch's eyes popped open again, but it was an effort. He saw Alex gripping Stern's hand to keep him from doing it again.

Then he saw Stern staring down at him, moving his lips. "Your sons are alive, Palamaro."

Torch's eyes opened wider. Alex uttered a soft gasp.

 "You hear me?" Stern told him.

"They're not dead. They were not killed in that explosion. They weren't even in the house when it happened. So if you're thinking of going off to la-la-land just to be with them, you'd better think again."

"I don't know what you're doing," Alex said, "but" -- "Relax, lady. I know what I'm doing." He loomed over Torch.

"I started to tell you before, Palamaro. You were a suspect. So was D.C." but I didn, t have enough proof to fire him or charge him. I knew about Marcy's call to you that day. I knew she and the boys had seen something they shouldn't have. I knew that if it leaked the boys were still alive, whoever had tried to kill them would try again, and I was half convinced it was you. So I put them into protective custody. "

Torch lifted a hand, and the motion cost him more effort than he'd thought he had left in him. He closed it on the front of Stern's shirt.

If you're lying to me. "

' I'm not. "

"You... kept me from my sons... when.. ?"

"I know. Look, it kept them alive, didn't it? If Scorpion or D.C. had found out, they'd have tried again. Look, it was only because I"

Torch's hand went limp and fell to the floor. His eyes closed again.

He fought to cling to consciousness. to life. and he heard Alexandra's voice, tear roughened. "He's unconscious Get out of the way so lean tal~ care of him. We have to get him to the hospital, dammit. I can, tlose him. Not now."

Those were the last words he heard. He felt himself slipping and grated his teeth, vowing to hang on until he learned the truth.

Chapter 17

She paced the waiting room nonstop, questioning everyone who happened by. She wasn't licensed to practice in Maryland and probably was shaking too badly to be of much help anyway. She knew that Torch would get excellent care here.

Torch was in surgery. The bullet had lost momentum because of the vest he'd been wearing, but because it had been fired at such close range, it had passed through the protective shell. It had broken a rib on the way in, and that had deflected its path enough so that it missed the heart.

But he'd lost a lot of blood, and it was touch and go all the way in.

She still wasn't sure if he'd make it.

Footsteps made her turn, and then she glared at the man called Stern. He stopped in front of her.

"How's Torch doing?"

"You're a bastard," she said very softly, very calmly. Stem smiled.

"Yeah; but you can call me Doug."

 ~ "How could you let a man spend all those months believing his own children to be dead? My God, do you know what kind of hell he went through?"

Doug Stem had enough grace to look guilt ridden.

"I know. All I can say is that it was better to let Torch suffer than to put those kids at risk again. At least, that was the way I saw it."

He sighed.

"I cared. a great deal for their mother. I did what I did for her. "

She shook her head, turning away from the man.

"And for the kids, too. It might end up costing my job when it comes out, Ms. Holt. I risked that, because protecting them meant that much to me. And I still feel I did the right thing. I was wrong about Torch, I know that now. But if D.C. and Scorpion had known the boys were alive, they'd have tried again and again."

She closed her eyes. Who was she to judge this man? Maybe he really had been afraid for the boys. Maybe . he'd even had reason to be.

She met his eyes, saw sincere regret there.

"I guess" -- The surgeon came in and she forgot all about Stern and his explanations as she saw him approaching, over Stern's shoulder. She held her breath, waiting.

"He's in recovery," the man said, smiling.

"He's going to be just fine. I'll tell you, though, I've never seen anyone come in here in as bad a shape as he was, and still pull through.

lie has one hell of a lot of fight in him."

Alexandra went limp, not fighting when Stern caught her around the waist and eased her into a chair. She smiled through a flood of hot tears.

The doctor smiled back.

"You'll be able to see him in a few hours. I'll have a nurse come for you."

She nodded, thanked him and turned back to Stern, wiping at her tears with the back of one hand.

"Where are they?"

"Who?" he asked.

"Oh. Them." He took her elbow, helped her to her feet, and then led her down the hall to a waiting area set aside for children. Two dark-haired, blue-eyed boys sat in the middle of the-floor. One pushed a toy truck and made motor noises. The other sat very quietly, turning the pages of a children's book.

Alexandra felt her eyes burn. They looked so much like their father.

Younger, more innocent, but they had his blue eyes and his dark, silken hair. Where his fell in waves, theirs kinked and curled.

"They knew their father was hurt in the. explosions" Doug Stern said softly, leaning close so that his words were for her ears alone.

"They understand that. They were both hurt, too. They were in the backyard playing when it happened. I was first on the scene. I found them and arranged for the secrecy. As far as they know, Torch has been recovering all this time. My father's been caring for them as if they were his own."

One of the boys--the one with the truck--looked up at her.

She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Dimples dotting his face.

"Hello," she said, feeling nervous for some reason.

"Are you Josh or Jason?"

"Jason,:'~ he said fmnly.

"Are you gonna take us to see our daddy now?"

"Is.he all better yet?,"

"Almost:' " -I m "Me, too," said the other one. Josh was quieter, more shy. He'd backed up a few steps while his brother had spoken to Alex.

Now he stopped his retreat, staring up at her. "I missed him so much."

"He's missed you, too," she told them.

"You wouldn't believe how much. He would have been with you all this time, if he could have.

You know that, don't you? "

Josh only nodded.

 Jason frowned, searching her face with eyes as piercing as his father's.

"Have you been cryin'?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Yeah. I've been pretty worried about your daddy myself.

But that was before I knew he was all better," she added quickly when she saw a worried frown taking shape between small eyebrows.

The frown eased. Jason puffed his chest up a bit.

"You don't have to worry about our dad. He's very strong, you know."

"She knows that, fellas. This lady's a doctor. If it hadn't been for her, your old dad might not have been better even now." Stern seemed to be trying very hard to earn brownie points.

"Really?" Josh studied her for a long moment, than moved up to his brother, leaned close to whisper something into his ear.

Jason nodded and resumed his role as spokes-twin.

"If you want, you can wait here with us Then you won't be so scared."

She knew, as she looked at the hopeful cxpressious in their eyes, that they wanted her to stay with them.

Stern was whispefing very close to her car.

"It's been a long time since they've had a woman's comfort, you know. I think it's something they could use fight now."

She nodded, smiling and bat tUng fresh tears. Two sets of blue eyes and deep dimples had melted her heart line but-tcr. They were their father's sons, all right.

"That's nice of you," she told them, moving into the room to sit down.

"I'Ll feela lot better if I can wait with you guys."

Jason was quick to take the seat on he left. Josh crept fol~vard a little slower. Shyly he stopped before reaching her. He bit his lip, bending to pick up the book he'd been looking at when she'd come in.

He held it out to her, eyes uncertain, a little wary. When she took it and opened it, he climbed into her lap.

 And as Alexandra felt the small body resting in her arms, her heart swelled until she thought it would burst. She began reading and Jason, beside her, leaned his head against her shoulder.

The first thing Torch was aware of, when he opened his eyes, wasn't a physical sensation. It was a sens of elation. And for a second he wasn't even sure why he felt it, or what had happened to the shroud of grief that usually greeted him when he opened his eyes.

Slowly he became aware of the dryness of his throat, and the pain in his chest. He blinked, bringing the hospital room into focus . And then it came back to him. Everything that had happened. And that odd fhntasy-dream he'd had right at the end. His sense of elation vanished.

It had seemed so real. God, how much of what he remembered was sheer fantasy, then? Was Alexandra really all right? He tried to pull himself up, despite the pain. And he put all his strength into it when he shouted her name.

He sat up too fast and had to clutch the mattress to keep from going over the side when pain and dizziness hit him. And then the door was flying open, and he saw her shoving her way past an obstinate nurse to get to him.

She stopped near the bed, breathless, her wide brown eyes probing his.

And then she came still closer, sighing in relief. Her hands slipped around his head and she drew it forward, pressed it to her belly, ran her fingers through his hair and whispered his name.

"Thank God," she whispered. "Thank God, you're all right. You're really all right."

Torch wrapped his arms around her waist, clung to her.

"I'm sorry," he told her.

"For what I said at the hotel." "I know."

"I only wanted you out of harm's way, Alex. I only wanted you safe. I swear it  "I know, Torch."

"I love you." He pulled away from her, just enough so he could look up into her eyes.

"I love you, Alex. Give me a chance to prove it to you."

Her hands came to his shoulders, and she cased him back onto his pillows. She leaned over him, pressed her lips to his mouth and whispered, "I love you, too, you idiot. And you don't have to explain. You told me all of this back in that warehouse when you thought you Were dying.

You got yourself shot trying to protect me.

There's nothing to prove. "

He sighed his relief. And then he clung to her. He needed to. Because the details of that dream were coming back to him now. A dream in which someone had told him the impossible, and he'd believed it because he'd wanted to so very badly. And he'd fought to stay alive because of it.

It hurt to w. ~ up to reality after such a wonderful dream. Even with Alexandra's healing love, he didn't think this pain would ever leave.

She eased away from him.

"There are some people waiting to see you."

He closed his eyes. They burned.

"I don't want to see anyone but you, Alex."

She frowned down at him.

"Torch..." And then she must have seen the moisture in his eyes, because she paused, staring at him. One hand came up to cup his cheek, and she plumbed his eyes, his soul.

"Don't you remember what Doug Stern said to you in that warehouse?"

Torch's heart skidded to an utter halt.

"I ... I dreamed that he told me..." He grated his teeth, shook his head.

She smiled gently, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Oh, my love. It wasn't a dream." She stepped backward, reached behind her for the door, pushed it open. And then she turned her head and waved her hand at someone outside.

And a miracle happened.

 Josh and Jason bounded through that door and right up onto the bed.

They threw themselves at him, hugged his neck, laughing and talking at the same time, so loudly and excitedly he couldn't make out a word either of them was saying. For a moment he just sat there, stunned, looking down at the angels clinging to him, staring from one to the other, gaping.

And then he wrapped his arms around them both, and he thought his sutures were going to rip apart from the force of their hugs, but he didn't care. It was the sweetest pain in the world.

He felt them. Their soft, warm skin, and their silken dark hair. He looked into their blue eyes and saw their twin smiles. Jason had lost a front tooth!

Alive! His sons were alive! It hadn't been a dream . "My boys... oh, God, my boys..."

"We missed you, Daddy!"

"I'm so glad you're better now so we can he with you again!"

"I love you, Daddy."

"Don't laave us ever again, okay?"

He was crying. Torch Palamaro's stony heart melted in~o a puddle of sheer joy, and tears burned fiery paths down his cheeks.

"I love you, too, both of you. And you better believe I'm never gonna leave you again. Not ever."

The hugs gentled, but neither child seemed willing to step out of his arms. And it was a good thing, because he didn't think he could let go of them if he' tried Alex moved to the foot of the bed and cranked it up until he could remain sitting and still lean back against the mattress. The boys settled down a bit, curling up on either side of him, and he held them close.

But his gaze was on her. On Alex. On the tears of joy she was shedding for him. For them.

She moved toward the door.

"You guys spend some time. Catch up. I'll cheek back in later."

 "Don't go, Alex."

She met his gaze, and he saw so much love in her eyes that he wondered at it.

"You want to be alone" -- "No, we don't," said Josh.

"We want you to stay, Alex," Jason said.

Torch held her gaze, tried to send her messages with his eyes.

"You can't go," he said softly.

"Look at us." He glanced from one head of dark curls to the other.

"We need you."

Her smile was tremulous. But she nodded her acceptance and came to join them. She sat on the foot of the bed, curling her legs under her.

"Then I'll stay."

"For always?" Torch asked her, then he paused, suddenly uncertain.

"I know it's a lot to ask. "

She smiled at him, looking at the boys as if she were looking at her very own miracle.

"How do you two feel about cats?"

Annie's Hero (1997)

AVON BOOKS NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

AVON BOOKS

A division of

The Hearst Corporation

1350 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10019

Copyright © 1997 by Margaret Benson

Inside cover author photo by Karen Bergamo

Published by arrangement with the author

Visit our website at http://AvonBooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-93169

ISBN: 0-380-78747-4

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address The Fallon Literary Agency, 15 East 26th Street, #1609, New York, New York 10010.

First Avon Books Printing: October 1997

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

Printed in the U.S.A.

WCD 10 987654321

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

Dedicated to my very own hero, Rick,

and to His fellow Knights of the Highway,

wherever they may be

Part One

The Journey Begins

The Dying of the Light

Annie had no idea when she woke that morning that the world as she knew it was about to end. When Richard wrapped his arms around her in bed and kissed her until he elicited a sleepy response, when he whispered in her ear that he loved her, his stubbly face grazing her cheek, she had no idea that these moments together might be their last.

Richard rolled away and started to get up, and that was when Annie felt the first stirrings of nausea. She sat up, slid her hands over his arms, and planted her lips on the birthmark right between his shoulder blades. “You can’t just kiss a girl like that and then go off to work and leave her all alone, you know.”

“Have to.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, and she saw the dark embers flaring in his deep blue eyes. Then he shifted his gaze to the clock on the bedside stand, and his lips thinned. “Have to,” he repeated, but more firmly this time.

“Sorry, Annie. Much as I regret it, we both knew the honeymoon couldn’t last forever.”

“It was great while it did last, though.” She kissed his neck and let him get up. Then she curled her legs under her on the bed and watched him moving, naked and glorious and wonderful, around the bedroom. He took jeans out of the dresser, giving her a perfect view of his tanned backside and reviving pleasant memories of the last two weeks. “I’m glad we spent it at Mystic Lake. Aren’t you?”

“I enjoyed every minute of it.” This he delivered with an over-the-shoulder glance and wiggling eyebrows. Golden blond eyebrows that perfectly matched the hair framing his face. He took the rest of his clothes with him and strolled into the bathroom.

Annie jumped out of bed, snatched her robe off the chair beside it, and followed him. “You sure about that? I know you wanted to travel.”

He twisted the shower knobs and tested the water with his hands. He had terrific hands, her Richard.

“What better place to celebrate our marriage, Annie, than the place where we met? Hmm? You were right about that. I admit it.”

She smiled, and when he stepped into the shower and closed the curtain, she hopped onto the counter beside the sink and waited for him. She wasn’t eager to let him out of her sight just yet.

She had been right about Mystic Lake, though. She’d been just a little girl when her parents had learned that the parcel of state land in the hills bordering their own property, including the lake, was going to be put up for auction. They’d been determined to buy it, but couldn’t swing it on their own. When they’d run into Richard’s parents exploring the same property with the same intentions and the same limitations, a partnership had been born. Together they’d bought the lake and the surrounding forests.

No one wanted to see the natural beauty of Mystic Lake spoiled, but practicality had reared its ugly head. In the end, they’d compromised, putting up rental cottages along the easily accessible southern and western shores, and preserving the natural beauty of the harder-to-reach north and east shores of the lake. The only thing on that side was one gloriously rustic log cabin. And the only people to set foot there were Richard’s and Annie’s families.

Annie had met Richard there when they were small children. He’d teased her mercilessly because she’d been insisting she’d spotted a fairy in the woods. She sometimes thought she’d fallen in love with him right then, at the tender age of four.

Her stomach ache got a little worse while she waited for him to finish his shower, and continued as he dressed. She was nearly green when she stood by the door and kissed him good-bye.

He was just straightening away from her when the thunder rumbled in the distance, and she clung to him a little tighter. “It’s going to storm, Richard. Maybe you shouldn’t go.”

“Honey, I’ve driven a truck in the rain before. You forget, you’re talking to an expert.” He gave her a wink and bent to kiss her again. “You’re the one who ought to stay home today. You don’t look so good.”

His concern was genuine, she knew. No one had ever loved her the way Richard did. Her parents loved her, but not like this. Richard’s love was all-consuming. It exceeded every emotion. It enveloped her and hugged her in its warm embrace, even when he was away. And she loved him just as much. Sometimes it amazed her, the strength of the bond between them. But it was so much a part of her, and had been for so very long—all their lives, really—that she couldn’t imagine not feeling this way.

The nausea rose in waves through her belly, and a curious and inexplicable chill rippled up her spine.

“Are you okay?” he asked, bending closer and laying his broad, warm palm across her forehead.

“Fine.” She forced a bright smile for him, closed her hand around his, and pulled it lower to press it to her lips instead of her head. God, how she loved this man.

He nodded but was still frowning at her. “I’ll call and check in on you later. And I should be home early. You take it easy today, okay?” She nodded. “I love you, honey,” he told her.

“I love you back,” she told him. She stood in the doorway until he was out of sight, and then she ran into the bathroom without a moment to spare.

Annie called in sick that day. All queasy and dizzy and weak, she was sure she must be coming down with that bug that had been plaguing her students. It got worse, even as the storm did. Thunder rolled incessantly. Flashes of lightning were the only relief from a murky gray sky. The wind raged and rain came in torrents.

The storm went on all day, but her symptoms disappeared by noon. By then the day was pretty much shot, and Principal Hayes had already called in a sub, so there would have been little sense in going to school.

Besides, she was tired, really wrung out. She decided to pamper herself just a bit this afternoon so that when her energy returned, she’d have time to plan something special for dinner. Buy some wine. Maybe light those vanilla-scented taper candles in the crystal holders. Put some music on, soft and low. She’d greet Richard at the door in something sexy and pay him back for the lingering kiss he’d given her that morning.

Smiling, she imagined the expression on his face when he came home to her planned seduction. She sank onto the sofa with a cup of herbal tea, kicked off her shoes, and tuned in to Oprah. She planned to relax for just a few minutes before she got busy. Today’s theme, life after death, had always fascinated Annie, and she was forever interested in hearing a new or different take on the subject.

She sipped her tea and was only mildly irritated when the words “Special Report” flashed across the bottom of the screen, and a newsman replaced her favorite talk-show hostess.

And then he seemed to look her right in the eyes, and everything changed. The strange part was that she felt the blackness creeping over her soul before he even opened his mouth. The tea sloshed over the sides of the cup, and she realized it was because her hand was shaking. She stared at the man on the screen as his lips parted in exaggerated slow motion, and some small voice inside warned her to turn the set off. Now. Hurry. Thumb the remote before he says it.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t move or even blink.

“There was a powerful explosion just off Eighty-One North, when a tractor-trailer, reportedly carrying over eight thousand gallons of gasoline, plunged through the guard rails and down a one-hundred-foot embankment. Details are sketchy, but one eyewitness claims a school bus had skidded out of control and was sliding into the path of the truck. The driver, apparently in a deliberate act to avoid hitting the bus, veered sharply to the right and through the rails. No injuries reported among the forty-five elementary school students on board the bus. The truck driver is assumed dead, though his body has not been recovered, and experts claim it may never be retrieved due to the extreme heat generated by the blast and the burning gasoline. The driver’s name is being withheld pending notification of his family.”

Annie didn’t need the notification. She knew. It was as if some dark moon had eclipsed her heart, blocking out every bit of light. She knew.

She sank slowly to her knees on the floor and waited there in a state of borderline sanity. She couldn’t speak or move or cry. Couldn’t think. She only stared at the telephone, hating it with everything in her. And then the phone rang.

Came the Hero

Richard had a split second to make a decision. His brakes were useless. He tried anyway, and his wheels locked up, but the truck with its deadly cargo kept moving, all eighteen tires hydroplaning, riding the water-covered surface of the bridge the way a hockey player rides the ice. The yellow bus skidded sideways and came sliding toward him. He couldn’t stop in time. The bus was out of control and showed no signs of slowing. There was nowhere to go. Beyond the rails on the sides of the bridge was nothing but a hundred feet of rain-slashed sky, ending abruptly with the narrow, shallow river and its rocky banks below.

So much went through his mind in that slow-motion instant he was given to make the choice. He thought of his mother, and he thought of Annie. Annie. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave her.

Then he saw them. The kids. Wide, innocent, terror-filled eyes beyond the rain-spattered side windows of the bus. Beautiful babies sliding toward the nose of his semi. And when they collided and his truck split that bus in two, those who weren’t killed instantly would probably die when the gas he was hauling flared up.

Richard looked at the rails to his right, the misty storm beyond. “Hell, I’m dead either way,” he muttered, and he released the brakes, caught a gear, jerked the wheel, and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

As the truck smashed through the guard rails and sailed out into the sky, Richard thought it hung there for just an instant. Just that brief moment while its momentum altered from forward to downward. He turned his head to glance back and saw the bus sliding, right past where he would have hit it and on to the relative safety of the barren stretch of road beyond.

And then the descent began and he braced himself and whispered, “I’m sorry, Annie. Damn, I hope you know how much I love you.” He closed his eyes when the ground came rushing up toward his windshield.

He felt no impact. No explosion. No pain. Only darkness. Timeless night.

When Richard opened his eyes again, he had no idea how long he’d been in that darkness. He blinked several times to clear his vision because this wasn’t right, what he was seeing. The rain was gone, and he was sitting, not in the air seat of his crumpled rig but on a spongy patch of moss. Around him were trees and plants. Birds were singing. The sun blazed down from an electric-blue sky.

Richard gave his head a shake. He must be dead. Or comatose or hallucinating. He was sitting in a forest. Where was the truck? The bridge? The river? Where was the damned storm? Hell, what about all those little kids on the bus?

“The children are fine, Richard. Oh, a little shaken and perhaps bumped and bruised a bit. But they’ll be all right. Thanks to you.”

Richard swung his head around at a deep, ancient-sounding voice that was like dark water chuckling over stones, and met a pair of eyes that might have belonged to time itself. Instinctively, he rose, though he was amazed that he was able.

The man smiled gently and came forward. He looked like… like some medieval sage come to life. Hose and pointed boots of thin, soft leather. A tunic of red, with a rampant lion on its front in gleaming gold. Delicate-looking chain mail encased his arms beneath the tunic, as if he wore a shirt of the stuff underneath. And a sword was belted around his waist.

Richard released a breath and whispered, “What’s happening to me? Who… who are you?”

The old man’s painfully pale cornflower eyes met his. His was the craggy face of a granite mountain. His hair, snowy white, hung over his shoulders. And before Richard’s eyes, his garments changed as if by magic. He now wore a dark-colored suit beneath a long gray coat. The sword, Richard suspected, remained at his side.

“I have many names, Richard. Some call me Sir George, the slayer of dragons. Others knew me as Perseus, destroyer of Medusa. Still others—“

Richard held up a hand; then his eyes fell closed and he lowered his head. “Am I… am I dead?”

“I plucked you from the truck before you could experience physical death.”

Meeting the old man’s eyes again, Richard set his jaw. “So I’m not dead?”

“You’re supposed to be. I was a bit eager to bring you over.”

Richard’s brows rose. “Over?” He looked around, but the forest that surrounded him seemed perfectly normal. Certainly not heavenlike. “I don’t want to be here,” he said, facing the man again, his voice firm. “I want to go back to my wife.”

The old man nodded slowly. “Yes, you love Annie very much, don’t you? I’ll admit, I’ve rarely seen any mortal love as powerful. Never that I can recall, in fact.”

“We belong together,” Richard whispered. “We’ve always known that.” Tears tried to blind him as the thought that he might be dead and that this might be some form of afterlife assailed him. Would he ever see Annie again? His knees threatened to buckle.

The man placed a gnarled hand on Richard’s shoulder, easing him lower until he sat on that mossy stump once more.

“I’ll ask you again,” Richard muttered, “who are you?”

“I am a servant of the Light,” the old man said. “I’m older than you could comprehend, my friend. The eldest White Knight in the army. First Knight of Goodness, in fact.” The hand on Richard’s shoulder tightened. “And I need you to join us.”

Richard gave his head a shake, barely reacting to the man’s odd words. He felt dazed, as if none of this were real. “I don’t want to be in anyone’s army,” he said. “I just want to go home to Annie.”

“Yes, well, that can be easily resolved.”

He did react this time, sending the man a steady gaze. “Nothing could change how I feel for her. Nothing.”

The ancient eyes narrowed a bit. The old man drew a breath. “I’ve watched you all your life, Richard. I know when a mortal man has the makings of a Hero. A White Knight. And from the time you were very young, I’ve sensed you could be one of my finest. Perhaps the best knight ever to wield the golden sword.”

Richard shook his head. “I’m no hero.”

“You gave your life to save those children just now.”

Shrugging, Richard looked up at him, emptiness filling his heart. “I can’t go back to her, can I?”

“How much do you truly love your Annie, Richard?”

He lifted his chin. “I’d die for her.”

The old man nodded, expelling his breath in a knowing sigh. “That, my friend, is precisely what you have done.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She’s going to need help, Richard. She’ll need defending against a power so evil that even my army is challenged by the prospect of defeating it. And I’ve seen enough of men and of knights and of valor to know that no knight in my service can help her. In fact, I know of only one man with enough love, courage, and strength of will to save your Annie. And that man, Richard, is you.“

Richard frowned, shaking his head slowly. “Then you have to send me back.”

“No, Richard. I have to keep you here. For only from this realm, only as a White Knight, can you save Annie. Not as her mortal husband. Richard, if you love her as you say you do—”

“I do,” Richard said. “I don’t understand any of this, but I’d do anything for her. I swear it.”

“Even give her up?”

Richard, feeling the slow crushing sensation in his chest, lowered his head, battling the tears that choked him, and whispered, “if… there’s no other way.”

The man placed his gnarled hand on top of Richard’s head this time. “Kneel, then, valiant one.”

Richard knelt, head still bowed.

“The sorrow will go now. It will go along with every remnant of the life before. Only your soul will remain. The memories, the mortal life—all of those things are going now. Drifting away from your mind like sand before a strong wind. You begin again, here, like a slate that has been wiped clean. Prepared to learn the ways of the White Knights.”

There was a black mist swirling in his mind.

He felt light-headed, and then suddenly empty. Just empty. He felt tears on his cheeks, and the heartache, the emptiness inside him, remained, but he couldn’t remember what put it there. Why he’d been crying. Why he still felt like crying.

“Arise, Ren, White Knight of the Light.”

Ren. Yes. He was Ren, a White Knight. He knew that. Odd—for a moment he hadn’t been able to remember his own name. But it was there now, firmly implanted in his mind where it belonged.

He rose slowly, felt an odd weight pulling at him, and blinked down to see the gleaming white-gold hilt protruding from a sheath at his side. His hand trembling, he touched the cool metal guard, closed his fingers around the handle, and drew the weapon slowly. It fit his hand as if made for him, and seemed to warm to his touch as he turned the blade, watching it gleam. And for a moment he struggled to remember the old man’s name, because he felt strongly that he should, and yet it had fled his mind like everything else.

“Are you ready, Ren, to swear your vows to me? And to do so knowing that to break those vows would mean facing the second death?” the ancient one asked.

A trill of foreboding tiptoed through Ren’s heart, and a feeling that he should be mourning some terrible loss. But another sense raced through him, too. One telling him that he had to do as this man asked. That it was vital somehow. That something more important than life itself depended upon it. “I’m ready,” he whispered.

He still held the sword. Initially its weight had seemed alien, its hilt strange to him. But now it felt as if he’d held this gleaming weapon all his life, and he knew he could wield it as if it were an extension of his own arm. Lowering his head, Ren laid the sword across his heart and repeated his vows of service in a voice that shook every once in a while with a sorrow that he could not name.

The Embrace of Darkness

The memorial service was attended by the parents of every child on that bus. Annie didn’t know them. They were not from her own district, these children who owed their lives to her dead husband. All the teachers from that district showed up, as well as everyone from her own little school. And there were dignitaries in droves. The governor came. And the press. Richard had become a celebrity. The entire nation was calling him a hero. His photo had been on the cover of Newsweek. He’d been the lead story on all the network news shows.

Annie stood beside an empty coffin and hated all of it. It was because of his death that they were all here. She didn’t want a damn hero, she wanted her husband. Alive and beside her, holding her.

Her mother and father, Georgette and Ira, with their laughable names—known by their friends as the Gershwins instead of the Schroeders—stayed close to her while the others ran the show. They were worried about her. They watched her, waiting for her to fall apart. And beautiful, broken Maria sat limply in a chair near the bier. Richard’s mother wasn’t the same since his death. She would probably never be the same again. She’d gone into total denial, and Annie didn’t think she was going to come out of it. And it struck her as odd that the strongest woman she’d ever known should suddenly seem so fragile. Maria had lost her vision years ago and handled it. Then she lost her husband and dealt with it. Now she’d lost her only son, and all she could do was deny it. “He isn’t really gone,” she’d been muttering since the accident. “It’s some kind of mistake. Richard isn’t dead.”

A group of elementary school students sang a song they’d rehearsed for the occasion. The governor said a few words. Then the preacher took the podium, his voice level and sad. Annie didn’t hear any of them. She didn’t want to hear them. She was glad when, in her mind everything got quiet, aside from the comforting buzzing sound in her head.

“Annie?” her mom whispered to her, squeezing her hand. “Hon?”

Her mother’s voice drew her away from that comforting buzz she’d been homing in on, drawing closer, pulling up around her like a big, dark blanket. Irritated, Annie looked up and blinked at the brightness. Had it been this bright before?

People were starting to parade past her, each one saying something they thought was comforting, or leaning down to kiss her cheek. Annie hadn’t even noticed them. Now that she did, an odd sort of panic fluttered to life in her chest. They were leaving. Stopping to offer condolences and hugs, and then leaving. As if it were over.

It couldn’t be over.

Maria’s soft hand patted hers. “It’s all right, child. Our Richard isn’t gone. He’s coming back, you know.”

Annie looked at the coffin. A ridiculous symbol. Richard wasn’t in there. There hadn’t been anything left of him. And once this day ended, there wouldn’t even be that.

She turned toward the door, saw people heading toward it and cried “No! No, wait. It isn’t over. It… it isn’t over. It… can’t… be… over—”

Stunned silence. Eyes, wide with worry, turning on her, all of them on her. And Annie felt nothing but a gaping hole in her chest where her heart should be. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, glancing at her mother. “I can’t… I can’t do this.”

“Annie?”

Annie closed her eyes.

“She’s fainted!” someone yelled.

“Get a doctor!”

But she didn’t want a doctor. She wanted this darkness, and the soothing buzz that was growing louder now, but not loud enough. Not yet. She could still hear past it. Here, in the darkness, she could find solace. If only she’d never have to open her eyes again. If only she could stop hearing them all as well as seeing them. If only she could sink a little deeper into the darkness.

“It was the stress.” The doctor’s soft monotone floated through Annie’s head. “She’s been through a lot, Mrs. Schroeder.”

“She fainted over an hour ago. She should be awake by now,” Georgette insisted.

“Her body is just giving her mind a break from the pain,” the doctor explained. “It got to be too much, and so she just shut down. She’ll come around as soon as she’s able to deal with all of this again.”

“And what if she doesn’t?” Georgette asked. “What if she just decides she can’t deal with it? What then?”

The doctor sighed softly. “Mrs. Schroeder, the chances of that are very slim.”

“But it’s not impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” the doctor conceded.

“But in all my years of practice, I’ve never seen it happen.”

“You’ve never seen anyone as much in love as Annie and Richard were,” Georgette whispered. Annie could hear the tears in her mother’s voice.

“Don’t think the worst, Mrs. Schroeder. There’s no indication this is anything more than a stress-induced fainting spell, and until there is, there’s no reason to borrow trouble. Frankly, in Annie’s condition, it’s a wonder she didn’t have a spell like this much sooner.”

“My daughter’s condition is just fine, Dr. Grossman. Physically as well as mentally.”

Her mother’s voice dared the doctor to suggest her daughter was anything less than perfect. But Annie wasn’t perfect. She was aching inside, and nothing could make it stop. Even in the darkness where she’d briefly retreated, there had been pain. And the thought had occurred to her that maybe she could sink a little deeper. But there was something inside her that wouldn’t let her do that. A kernel of awareness that hadn’t even made its way to her conscious mind just yet.

“She’s coming around, Doctor,” a soft voice said.

Someone leaned over Annie. She sensed them there. Ignored the presence. Damn, she wished she didn’t have to wake up.

The presence receded, and the voice came again. “I didn’t mean to imply there was anything wrong with your daughter’s health, Mrs. Schroeder, physically or emotionally. However, you should be aware that depression is a risk here. I’ll get you some pamphlets. You’ll need to watch her for a while.”

“She’ll be fine,” Annie heard her mother insist, as if she could will it to be the truth. “If I can just get her to snap out of this, she’ll be just fine.” But Annie wondered how she’d ever be fine again. Without Richard. Without love.

“Yes, well, I hope so. At any rate,” the doctor went on, “the condition I was referring to before was her pregnancy.”

Annie felt a jolt zap her from head to toe.

“Her… my daughter is… she’s pregnant?”

“Oh, my,” Annie’s father muttered. “My poor girl. Lord, all alone and expecting a baby!”

“Annie?” The bed moved. Damn, her mother was going to order her to wake up now. Annie knew she’d have to face reality soon, but not yet. It was difficult to remain in the blackness of oblivion, though, when Mom was on the edge of the bed, stroking her face and giving orders.

Annie tried anyway. She’d been having the sweetest dream. Someone had just told her she was going to have a baby, and she’d been planning how she’d tell Richard, envisioning the rapturous expression on his face.

“You listen to me, young lady. Enough is enough. I’m not standing for any more of this, do you hear me?”

Sorry, mother, Annie thought. Sorry to put you through all this worry. But I don’t want to wake up yet. It hurts too much.

“It was one thing when it was just you. But there’s more at stake now, Annie.” Hands clasped Annie’s shoulders, firm hands that gripped and even shook her. “You have to wake up now, Annie,” her mother all but shouted in her face.

“Really, Mrs. Schroeder, I don’t think—”

“You’re pregnant,” her mother said. “Are you listening to me, Annie Nelson? You are carrying Richard’s baby, and I’m not going to let you lie around feeling sorry for yourself when my grandchild needs you.”

Annie’s descent into darkness slowed. What was this her mother was saying? But… it had only been a part of her dream. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t—

“Richard would want you to be here for his baby, Annie. He’d expect you to be strong and take care of it and love it and tell his son or daughter about him one day. He’d never let you down the way you’re letting him down now. Dammit, daughter, you wake up and take care of your baby! Do you hear me, Annie? Do you?“

Then the doctor’s hands were there, prying her mother’s away. “Enough, Mrs. Schroeder. This isn’t doing anyone any good. She probably can’t even hear you. She’s exhausted, emotionally as well as physically. She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

But Annie had heard her. And she heard the soft sobbing and the shuffling footsteps as her mother moved away from the bed. Annie turned her vision inward, feeling inside herself, wondering if there was any truth to what her mother had just told her. There was a stirring of warmth from deep in her abdomen. A sensation that something… that something made of pure love was there, alive and growing inside her. She felt it.

She moved her hands to her belly to touch that warmth, that life. Struggling, fighting, she reached for consciousness, strained toward the surface, pushing aside the murky depths where the pain was so much less. She didn’t want to go back to the real world. Because the closer she got to lucidity, the closer she got to the hurt. The loss. The knowledge that Richard was gone. It was blinding, that pain. But she reached for it, all the same.

And somehow she managed to open her eyes.

Her vision was blurry, but she made out the two shapes moving away from her, toward the door. And she tried to speak, but what came out sounded more like a hoarse bark than the words she’d intended.

Her mother’s back went rigid. Slowly Georgette turned around. Her eyes met Annie’s, and her trembling hands rose to her cheeks. “Honey?” she whispered. “Annie, sweetheart?”

Annie cleared her throat, tried again. “Is… it true?” The pain was closing in on her again. The heartbreak. Losing Richard. The weight of it crushed her. She began to tremble beneath the force of the pain. God, if what her mother said had been a delusion or…

“Yes, baby. Yes, it’s true.” Her mother was back at the bedside instantly, running her hands through Annie’s hair, stroking her cheeks while the doctor simply stood where he was, staring at the two of them with his mouth slightly agape. “They ran tests when they brought you in, just to be sure you were okay, you know? And, honey, you’re pregnant.”

Annie felt her lips pull into a grimace of agony. She felt tears burning in her eyes. She couldn’t just fade away into darkness, could she? No. Not now. Oh, but it would have been so much easier if she could. “It hurts, Mom. God, it hurts so much.”

“You’re strong, Annie. You’ve always been so… so incredibly strong.”

“That was… before…”

“No. You just have to find it again. You have to be strong; you know that, right? For Richard. And for your baby.”

Oh, yes, she knew it. She just didn’t know if she had it in her. Nothing could hurt this much and not kill her, could it?

Between Two Worlds

Ren battled until battle became second nature. The art of wielding a broadsword against forces darker than midnight had become as much a part of who he was as the color of his hair or his eyes. More so, on occasion. And other things faded as the desire to fight for the cause of goodness grew stronger. Mortality was left behind and with it, mortal things. Emotions, aside from zeal for his cause and fury in battle, all but vanished. Physical sensations, such as hunger or desire or sensitivity to heat and to cold, faded as well. He ate when he sensed his body needed sustenance. Drank when his throat felt dry. But taking pleasure in the taste of food didn’t exist for Ren. Eating was done of necessity, and for no other reason. Sexual desire had been forgotten, shelved in a dark corner of his mind where it lay dormant. He had no use for such cravings. He lived to fight. Pain he felt at the blow of an enemy’s sword. Pleasure, when he won the day. And beside them, an inexplicable sorrow that ate at his soul. It had no place there, Ren knew. It made no sense and did nothing to help him or the army of good, and so served no purpose. But ridding himself of it seemed impossible.

He’d gone wherever Sir George had sent him. Back in time, centuries back. Or forward to times he might never have dreamed of. Or anyplace in between. Sometimes a battle would take years, other times only hours, but always he’d return to learn that very little time had truly passed while he’d been away. It boggled the mind, really.

He’d never understood it, until once when Sir George, who had become many things to him—father, comrade, commander, teacher, and friend—had asked, “How long have you been a White Knight, Ren?”

The question had thrown him. And in silence he’d begun adding up the years he’d spent fighting for goodness in this time or that until the numbers had muddled in his mind. He shrugged and whispered, “I’ve no way of knowing, Sir George. Centuries?”

Sir George had smiled. “But time doesn’t pass for you when you’re out of it, Ren. For you, the time passes only when you’re here, resting between assignments.”

“But I spend so little time here.”

Sir George nodded. “True. Because you’re the best, as I always knew you would be, Ren. Of all of my knights, you’re the only one ever to defeat Blackheart.”

Ren sat down in the wooded paradise that was the place for resting between missions. A time that is not a time in a place that is not a place, was Sir George’s answer when Ren had asked about the location. He pondered what his friend had told him about the opponent he’d encountered so often, one of those dark heroes who fought for the army of evil.

“Blackheart seems to show up often when I’m sent to right the mortal world’s wrongs or prevent those wrongs from occurring,” he observed.

“And astute fellow that you are, you’re thinking there’s a reason for that,” Sir George said, studying Ren’s face.

Ren simply nodded. “You told me once that there is a reason for everything, and I’ve found it to be very dose to the truth.”

“Close to the truth?” Sir George’s white brows lifted, one slightly higher than the other.

“So far,” Ren said softly, “I’ve found no reason for this endless sorrow I feel in my heart,” he whispered, and automatically cast his eyes toward the ground. “You say I have become your finest knight. I rarely lose a skirmish. My skills are honed to precision, and yet…“

“And yet?”

Ren closed his eyes and brought his fisted hand to his chest. “I ache inside.”

Sir George cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for that.” He got up from his seat and paced a bit. “Perhaps you’re not ready for this after all.”

The whisper of a doubt about Ren’s abilities brought his head up fast. “Ready for what?”

Sir George shrugged. “No doubt, Ren, you’ve guessed that these centuries of skipping through time to do battle with the dark forces have been more than simple missions for the cause of good. That they’ve also been a form of training for you.”

Ren tilted his head to the side. “Training?”

“I’ve sent you back to any mission where Blackheart was likely to be involved. He is, you see, the Darkness’s finest warrior.”

“And you wished to see which of us was the better?” Ren shook his head in disgust. “I guess it was time wasted, then. He defeated me as often as I did him.”

“True, Ren. But you are the only White Knight ever to defeat him at all.”

Ren frowned and searched Sir George’s face.

“It’s true. I suspected you would be equal to Blackheart, and you are. And now it’s time for you to accomplish the mission you were brought here for, Ren. A mission of dire importance to all of humanity. If you think you’re ready to take it on.“

“I am,” Ren said with confidence.

“Good,” said Sir George. “That’s very good.”

“To what time will I be going?” Ren asked, eager to be busy again. Because only when he was busy could he ignore the nameless pain that ate constantly at his soul.

“To the time from whence you were taken, Ren. Or nearly there. It will be eight months later. That’s truly the length of time you’ve been away.”

“Eight months?”

Sir George nodded.

“But it seems like ages. Aeons, at least.”

“You have no memory of that other life, Ren. And that is for the best. Because you must return to my service when this battle ends. It’s of utmost importance you remember that. You swore a vow—”

“I haven’t forgotten my vows, Sir George. How could you doubt that?”

Sir George sighed and nodded. “Just remember, your mortal life ended before your immortal one began. If you give up this one, all that remains is the second death—the permanent one.”

“I know.”

Sir George studied Ren for a while. “All right, then. You know. Now, because this is the time that was once your own, Ren, I will use my powers to cast a glamour over you— a cloak of disguise. No mortals must recognize this man they believe to be dead.“

“I’ll be…” Ren swallowed hard as something seemed to squeeze tight in his throat. “I’ll be among people I knew in the other life?”

Sir George shook his head from side to side and said, “Of course not!” a bit more loudly than was necessary. Then he cleared his throat. “This is just a precaution, just to cover the very slim possibility that someone who knew you might glimpse you in passing. That’s all.”

Ren nodded, seeing clearly the wisdom in that. Then he knelt and waited while Sir George moved his hands around and about Ren’s face. After a few moments of this, George told him to rise, and Ren did. Immediately he drew his gleaming white-gold broadsword from its sheath, lifting the blade before him to stare down at his reflection in its face.

“Sir George, I don’t look any different! Look,” he said, and opened his hands before his own face. “My hair is just as blond, my eyes just as blue as they were before!”

Sir George smiled. “The cloak of magic, Ren, cannot hide a man from himself. You know yourself far too well to be fooled by a mere disguise. So naturally, when you look at your own reflection, you see right through the magic.“

Ren tilted his head, rubbing his chin. “Suppose someone in the mortal world knew the man I was just that well?” he asked.

“No one can know a man as he knows himself, Ren. To anyone who looks on you—why, even to my eyes—you are a man of your own size and shape, but with dark hair and ebon eyes. Your lips are a bit thinner than before, and your nose a bit more Roman in shape. Your brows and lashes are darker as well. No, I daresay even someone who knew you well would not recognize you now.”

Ren ran his fingers over his face in response to Sir George’s words, but nothing felt any different to him. “And you’re certain it will work?”

“Certain,” the old man said. “Now, come. It’s time for you to go.”

“You haven’t told me my mission yet.”

“Ah, yes. The mission,” Sir George said softly, taking Ren by the arm. “It involves a young woman named Annie, and the child she is about to bear.”

A strange tingling sensation spread up Ren’s nape, tickling into his scalp. “The woman is in danger?”

“The child is,” Sir George said. “And Ren, this is a child of great importance. It will grow to become one of the greatest leaders the free world will ever know. It will pave the way to world peace, stomping out ignorance, poverty, bigotry, and war. This child will change the world, Ren.”

“And so the forces of darkness will try to kill it,” he said, and his heart clenched with fear for the innocent baby.

“You know the rules as well as I,” Sir George said, his voice low, grim. “They cannot take a mortal life. If they could, they’d have simply murdered the mother and been done with it.”

“Annie,” Richard said.

Sir George looked at him, one brow crooked. “Yes. The child, however, is another matter. Once it is born, it will be safe from the dark assassins. But you can bet the forces of evil will do everything in their power to see that the child dies before it is born. It’s fair game to them, right up until it draws its first breath.”

“Hard to believe even those bastards would sink so low,” Ren whispered.

“You’re the only hope that child has, Ren.”

Sir George told him. “Will you accept this challenge?”

Ren met the old man’s eyes with a feeling of determination filling him like none he’d ever known before. “I’ll do more than accept the challenge, Sir George. I’ll succeed.”

Part Two

The Tale Continues…

Chapter One

Rain pummeled the windows and stampeded over the roof. Annie hated nights like this. Hated them.

She scooted across the braided rug to sit a little closer to the framed photograph of her husband. If he’d been there, she’d have been scooting closer to him, instead of a cold photo in a silver frame. But he wasn’t. And this was the best she could do. Poor substitute. She took the eight-page instruction manual with her, settled down closer to Richard’s face, and glanced at the pages. “Easy to assemble, my eye,” she muttered, holding up various-sized bolts, trying to match one to the figure on the page that read “actual size.” None of them matched. Ugh.

She ought to be grading test papers. She ought to be preparing tomorrow’s lessons. Or maybe thinking about the new girl, Sara Dawson, and maybe planning some way to draw her out of her shell.

She shivered a little as she thought of Sara, with her straight sable hair and her huge dark eyes. That strange birthmark on her neck. A burgundy-hued crescent moon that looked more like a tattoo than a random bit of pigment. What a strange girl she was. So pensive and so intense. Her expression seemed knowing, wise beyond her years, as if she saw things no one else did. She stood out among the other sophomores at Otselic Valley High, and that had to be tough to deal with at sixteen.

Annie liked the girl, though, and wanted to help her adjust. So she felt guilty about not reading her essay right away.

But the incessant rain wouldn’t let her concentrate on anything that involved too much brainpower. She got distracted every time the wind howled around the eaves, moaning like some disembodied spirit. Every time that damned tree limb outside brushed its soggy branches against the window upstairs. Or every time a gust sent twigs and debris clattering down on the roof.

Lightning flashed. A split second later a clap of thunder split her composure as surely as a gunshot fired next to her ear would have, and she stiffened, dropping the bolts to the floor.

God, she couldn’t even concentrate on putting the crib together. Richard would have had it done in twenty minutes flat. And nothing as mundane as a thunderstorm would have distracted him.

Never used to distract her either, though. Until that day. Annie looked at his photo again, reaching out to caress his face with her fingertip. “Honey, I wish you were here.” Tears formed in her eyes, and she rapidly blinked them away. It had been eight months. It shouldn’t hurt this badly after eight months, should it?

She shook her head slowly, knowing full well it would hurt just this badly after eight years. Maybe even after eighty. But it didn’t matter how much she hurt. She couldn’t give in to it. She wouldn’t. Not now. She tried to draw strength from the familiar shape of Richard’s face in the photo, the boyish grin he’d saved just for her. But it wasn’t easy. The blond hair he’d inherited from his father contrasted madly with his bronzed skin, a gift of heredity from his Spanish mother.

Annie had thought she might lose her mind when he’d died. But she hadn’t. She couldn’t. Richard would have expected more of her. He used to say she had a special strength down deep inside. Annie always thought he was the only one who could see it there. But maybe he’d been right after all. She’d survived losing him with her grip on reality still intact. She didn’t think she’d ever go through anything worse. Maybe she was stronger than she thought.

Not so Richard’s mother. Sweet Maria with her leathery skin and beautiful, sightless Spanish eyes. She was still delusional, and there didn’t seem to be anything anyone could do to help her.

It would have been so much easier on her if Richard’s body had been found. But with the force of the explosion, the intense flames, and the river so nearby…

There’d been nothing left to find. It was as if Richard had never been.

No, Annie thought, running her hands over her swollen middle. It wasn’t like that at all. He had been, right here, real and warm and incredible. And she held the proof of that in her womb. Richard’s baby. Their child. And maybe this child was part of the strength she was beginning to discover inside her. She had to be strong, take the pain, deal with it, and go on living. Because of the baby. A baby that must have been conceived at Mystic Lake, on their honeymoon, when life was perfect.

She’d forced herself back into the present, back into a convincing mimicry of life. Back into teaching. She walked around wearing a persona she’d created for her sake as well as her child’s, but it was as shallow as the make believe grave where Richard’s headstone rested and his body did not. It was as fake as the old adage that time heals all wounds. It was a daily game of pretending that everything was just fine, that she was adjusting to life without Richard. And she was getting very, very good at it.

But she’d never stop hurting. She’d never stop missing her husband, much less stop loving him. And nights like this were the hardest of all.

Nights like this, when she used to curl into his strong arms and feel safe and cherished and protected. And oh-so-loved.

Annie’s little secret was that she existed in the grip of a black depression, one she hid deep inside herself. But storms brought back the anger, the rage. The stupid storm that day had been to blame for Richard’s death. The wicked rain had made the damned roads wet, and that’s why that godforsaken bus had skidded into the path of his truck.

Richard had loved kids. No way in hell would he have hit a busload of them. No way. He’d adored kids. He’d wanted kids. Now he was going to have one, but he wouldn’t be here to see it.

Thunder cracked and she grated her teeth. These were the times when she realized how hard it was to stand tall on her own. It was exhausting being strong, keeping her chin high and her spine straight. Showing up in her classroom every day with a smile so sweet it turned her stomach and pretending everything was fine. Knowing that if she wavered in the least, everyone in this small town would be wondering about her, fussing over her, worrying and checking in and poking around in her own private pain. Whispering that maybe poor little Annie Nelson was slipping the way she did at that memorial service. Wondering how she’d ever manage to raise a child all by herself. So she faked it. But she was getting tired.

It would be awfully nice to lean on someone else once in a while.

Thunder exploded, louder this time, rattling the old house, vibrating through the windows, and jarring her out of her self-analysis. This was the way it was, and it wasn’t going to change. There would be no one else to lean on. There’d been one man in her life. Just one, and there’d never be another. Richard had been one of a kind. Special. A hero. Annie had always known that, but in the end, the whole country had known it as well. And Annie vowed to make sure Richard’s child knew what kind of man his or her father had been.

Annie dabbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands and gripped the arm of the couch to pull herself, belly first, up off the floor. The crib was a lost cause. Tonight, at least. She pressed a hand to the small of her back, rubbed tiny circles there with her fingertips, and decided to go to bed. There was no use staying up when she wasn’t getting a thing accomplished anyway.

She started for the stairs, but lightning flashed again, and there was a distinct pop! that seemed to come from very near. The lights flashed brighter and died, leaving Annie in absolute darkness.

Damn. Was it just her place, or was the power out all over the neighborhood? The thought of braving the cellar stairs alone in the dark in order to check the breaker box gave her the creeps, so she almost hoped for the latter.

Carefully she made her way to the nearest window, feeling her way and taking her time. She didn’t want to risk tripping over something and hurting the baby. She pushed the curtains apart and tried to see if any lights shone from her neighbors’ houses. Through the deluge, though, no lights glimmered. It was difficult to see even the houses through the rain. They were only dim outlines, utterly dark. The power must be out all over.

A brilliant streak illuminated the night for just an instant, and Annie caught her breath.

Frowning, she peered through the rain-streaked glass, but it was too dark. For a second she could have sworn she’d seen a man standing in the rain at the roadside, looking toward her house. Maybe even looking right at her.

But that was impossible.

A little chill raced up the back of her neck, and she told herself to stop imagining things and go to bed. But instead she waited, gaze glued to the spot where she’d seen him. There’d been something about him… his stance, or… She shook herself and stared harder, straining her eyes. Sooner or later the sky would light up again, and then she could be sure. The idea of some stranger standing in a rainstorm staring at her house gave her a serious case of the shakes, even though she was sure she’d imagined it. She must have. Who’d stand outside on a night like this?

Suddenly she was acutely aware of her solitude. Utterly alone in the house. No one else there, or even within screaming distance. Were the phones working? If she saw him again, should she call the police? Could she?

One hand reached down to check the lock on the front door. It was fastened. Good. The other hand slid protectively to her swollen abdomen.

She pressed closer to the glass in the front door, squinting in the darkness, searching for that dark silhouette in the night. Lightning flashed again and the man was on the other side of the glass, his face inches from hers. Annie jumped away from the window when the blinding glow illuminated him standing there on her porch, with only a thin pane of glass between them, staring right at her from huge, haunted eyes. His rain-plastered hair and wet face were perfectly visible this time.

Richard!

The last thing Annie heard was her own anguished scream.

Ren saw her face go white with fear, saw her green eyes widen as she took a faltering step backward, her screams shattering the night. And then he saw her go limp—and crumple to the floor.

The child!

Without hesitation, Ren forced the door open and lunged into the house. He fell to his knees beside the small woman, water running from his clothes to make puddles on the floor and dripping from his brow to hers.

One of his hands touched her belly, fear clutching at his heart as he realized the child he’d been sent here to protect could very well have been harmed when she’d fallen. And if it had, he’d have only himself to blame for startling the woman.

His chilled palm flattened upon the woman’s belly. And a vigorous kick came from within, thudding against his hand. An odd sensation spread through Ren, like melted butter filling his veins, and he smiled.

Then he shifted his gaze upward, over the woman’s face once again, and caught his breath. She was… she was beautiful. Tiny and delicate. And the sight of her sent the strangest sensations through him. Disturbing feelings. Distracting ones. He blinked and gave his head a stern shake. Best to focus on the task at hand.

Moving carefully, he gathered the woman into his arms and carried her to the sofa. She was light, considering the burden she carried. Very warm in his arms, and that warmth seemed to seep through his cold, damp clothing to permeate his skin, heating him and taking the night’s chill away. Her warmth was more than physical. It was a warmth of the soul flowing into him. He felt… odd. As if he’d entered a cozy place where he fully belonged, after wandering in an endless blizzard. As if he’d found a snapping hearth fire awaiting him with its welcoming light and heat.

For a moment he didn’t want to put the woman down.

Ren swallowed hard, once again shaking himself free of the unfamiliar sensations, and lowered her to the sofa. Then he grabbed the blanket lying nearby and spread it carefully over her. He scanned her face once more. Very strange how much he liked looking at her. How it felt. It wasn’t physical desire. Couldn’t be that. Such urges didn’t exist in White Knights. They were erased along with their mortal memories.

Ren tucked the blanket around her and straightened, but before he could take his hand away, hers closed around it.

And he felt sorrow. A sorrow so familiar to him it was frightening. That same ache that had been with him, inexplicably, for as long as he could remember. The one he couldn’t explain. It intensified at the desperation he felt in her touch. The way she clung. The force of her grip, and the way her hand trembled slightly.

His gaze shot from their clasped hands to her face. And from beneath her tightly closed eyes, he saw the sparkle of a tear as it rolled free.

“Richard,” she murmured, her lips barely parting but shaking so delicately he wanted to touch them, smooth them with his fingers until they steadied again. Her pain was vivid, so real that he could see it like a dark aura ringing her very soul.

Richard?

Ren blinked because the sound of that name on her shuddering breath sent a shiver through the core of his brain. Like a blinding light, but it was brief. A flash or a feeling too brilliant to bear, and then gone.

He shook with the effect of it and wondered why. What could it mean? Who was this Richard she cried for? And as her hand went limp again, he pulled his free, slowly backing away from her and yet unable to drag his gaze from her face.

And then there was a sound. Footsteps on the front porch, and Ren’s hand reached automatically for the sword concealed beneath the folds of his dark coat. But then there was a voice, a man’s voice, calling her name. Her man, perhaps? George had said the woman was alone and without protection, that her husband was dead. But maybe she’d found someone, this Richard whose name she whispered with such longing.

The idea shouldn’t be so disturbing. The doorknob rattled and the concerned voice called out again. Ren was out of place here. And it would do his cause no good to b#e discovered standing over the unconscious woman in the dead of night by her lover. He might end up having to kill the man.

And that thought shouldn’t be so pleasing.

Ren turned and moved quickly through the house, unerringly heading into the kitchen and out the back door without even taking the time to get his bearings or find his way. He retreated into the rainstorm, shaken to the marrow.

Her screams, he told himself, were all that was making him shiver like this. Her bloodcurdling shrieks, splitting through the storm’s fury and stabbing straight into his heart. Or the way she’d fallen. The danger to the child he’d been sent here to protect.

But no. No, it was more than that and he knew it. There was something gnawing at him. The same something that had been niggling in his brain every once in a while for so long he couldn’t even remember its cause. It was an odd feeling, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch, and it came to life at seemingly random moments. He’d felt it often, as if he were craving something, something he needed as much as he needed air to breathe and water to drink. Something he couldn’t identify. And it always left him feeling empty and incredibly alone.

The feeling seemed to occur with a new and surprising frequency since he’d arrived in this small town. Like when he crossed the little bridge and looked down into the shallow, fast-running waters passing beneath it. Or when he caught a whiff of the corn being cut in a nearby field. Most of all, when he stood outside that old house on the corner.

The feeling had taken on a new, powerful intensity just now, when he’d looked on that woman’s delicate face, and even more when he’d held her in his arms. And try as he might, he couldn’t identify it. Maybe it was the impact of those eyes of hers, staring out into the rain at him. So big and filled with so much emotion, it was nearly spilling from them. So green that when lightning flashed, they seemed to glow.

Or maybe it was the sensation of that tiny hand closing around his and holding on so tight. As if she was dinging to him with everything in her. As if she didn’t want him to leave.

Ren shook himself. He had things to see to. He needed to get warm and dry. He could take sick as easily as any other man, and though it wouldn’t kill him, carrying out this mission while weak and battling illness would be foolish.

He took shelter in a barn a few hundred yards down the road. The smell of hay and cattle permeated the place, instigating a return of that itchy sensation in his mind. He stripped down to his shorts and hung his wet coat and his dampened black jeans and shirt on a nail in the wall, hoping they’d dry a bit by morning. The hay scratched at his thighs, but it was warm and dry, and that outweighed any discomfort. His sword lay, as always, close to his side, within quick and easy reach.

Ren was worried. He hadn’t failed in a mission yet. Not in all this time. But he had a feeling his abilities were going to be more severely tested than ever before. And a mission that had at first seemed simple was becoming more complicated with every passing moment.

Especially since he’d seen her, looked into her eyes. Hell, a Hero—especially one as well trained as Ren—felt very few emotions, and even fewer baser urges. A Hero possessed an innate sense of goodness and fair play. Loyalty to the point of death. Courage, even fearlessness.

He was not, however, supposed to feel the urge to gather a frightened woman into his arms, and to hold her there until her fears melted away. He’d never felt anything like that before.

And yet he suspected that maybe he had.

“Annie? Come, now, Annie, do wake up.” The deep voice with its almost charming but unidentifiable accent reached into the depths of her mind to bring her back to consciousness. Then she remembered what she’d seen, and her eyes flew wide open.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary here now, no ghostly image of her husband staring back at her. The lights had come back on. She scanned the room, half expecting—for just an instant—to see Richard standing in a corner, dripping wet, with that achingly sad look in his eyes.

Instead she saw the enigmatic dark-haired man who’d recently moved into Octagon House, a short walk from her own. He had a whipcord build, not overly muscular but far from skinny, and his impeccably groomed hair, with a few silver streaks, framed his face, clashing with the jet-black mustache. He was striking. Even more arresting when you heard him speak in that dulcet, almost hypnotic voice with its mysterious accent. And when you factored in the intense black eyes, well, the man seemed more likely a sorcerer than a retired psychiatrist.

She’d noticed all of that about him when he’d first stopped by to introduce himself, and she noticed it all over again now. Dr. Bartholomew Cassius was a charmer.

“Ah, that’s better,” he said, offering a relieved smile. “How are you feeling, Annie?”

She tried to smile back at him. She was lying on the sofa, head resting on its arm. An afghan kept her snug and warm, and Bartholomew sat beside her like a worried lover. His hand touched her forehead in search of a fever.

“I’m fine. Really, I…” Richard’s face reappeared in her mind. She closed her eyes, but still it lingered there. She could not have possibly seen him outside last night.

“I got worried when the lights went out,” Bartholomew explained. “I had flashlights and candles within easy reach, but I was concerned for you. Could just picture you tripping over something in the darkness and lying injured all night. I tried to call. There was no answer, so of course I had to check in.”

She frowned, studying his narrow face and those winged brows that couldn’t seem to decide whether to be black or silver. They had strips of both. “You came out in that storm just to check on me?”

He seemed a bit sheepish as he looked away. “Of course I did, Annie. Any good neighbor would have done the same.” His eyes said what he thought of those who lived in the houses on either side of hers, much closer than he was, none of whom had braved the storm to check on her safety.

She wasn’t so sure about his point of view. Probably the closer neighbors just stayed away because they knew her better than he did. Knew she guarded her independence with vigor. In fact, she detested anyone giving her special treatment just because she was: (a) a woman, (b) a pregnant woman, (c) a pregnant woman on her own, or, worst of all, (d) a pregnant woman on her own who needed constant looking after because of the recent death of her husband. But she let it slide. Bartholomew seemed to her like a decent man with good intentions.

“Is that what happened, then? You tripped in the darkness?”

She frowned and shook her head. “I’m not sure exactly what happened. Where was I when you—”

“Lying here on the sofa,” he said. “But I couldn’t wake you up. I’d have called an ambulance if the phone lines hadn’t been knocked out.”

She felt a prickle of unease and searched his fathomless eyes. “Bartholomew, how did you get in?”

As always, there wasn’t a flicker in the black depths.

“The door was open, Annie. That’s what worried me.”

“But I thought I checked the lock, just before…” She bit her lip. She’d also thought she’d seen Richard standing on her front porch, dripping wet. Just went to show what kinds of games the subconscious mind was capable of playing. She’d probably tripped, as Bartholomew suggested. Maybe hit her head. She’d come to the sofa to lie down, and she had probably dreamed all the rest.

Funny, though. She didn’t feel any bumps on her head now.

She glanced toward the front door, shuddering at the memory of seeing her husband there last night. The storm seemed to have passed, leaving only darkness and a light rain in its wake.

“Bartholomew, when you arrived here…”

“Yes?”

She drew a deep breath. “Did you see anyone else? Outside, I mean?”

Bartholomew’s black eyes glittered and narrowed. “No, Annie. Why? Did you?”

His voice had altered just a little, taken on the tone of a psychiatrist speaking to a troubled patient. He could just as well have been saying, “No, Annie, I didn’t see any pinstriped elephants dancing in your driveway. Did you?”

She knew that tone. She’d talked to a handful of therapists in the days and weeks following Richard’s funeral, mostly at her mother’s insistence. They were concerned about her mental state. About depression. About a hundred other things. Of course they’d pronounced her perfectly sane, though that hadn’t stopped the local tongues from wagging. Simply seeing a therapist was enough to generate gossip in a small town like Otselic. Even the school board had voiced concern over her “emotional state.” As if grieving were somehow abnormal. As if fragile Annie Nelson couldn’t possibly withstand such a blow without sustaining mortal damage.

She bit her lip and sighed. She’d resented those therapists back then for their concern, and it hadn’t been warranted. Now she was projecting that feeling onto Bartholomew, just because he was a psychiatrist like them.

She thought about simply telling him what she’d thought she’d seen last night. Just for an instant she thought maybe she needed to tell someone. But then she shook herself and reasoned the whole incident away. She had been thinking about Richard all evening. And the damned storm had been stirring up memories. It was no wonder she’d conjured his image in her imagination. That’s all it was. All it could possibly have been.

“No,” she answered at last. “No, I guess I didn’t see anyone either.”

Bartholomew smiled at her. Perfect white teeth. “Would you like me to stay, Annie? I’d be glad to sit up with you until morning.”

His concern was touching. But her natural aversion to appearing weak or dependent came to life just enough to make it a bit irritating as well. “No, Bartholomew. But it’s kind of you to offer.” At least she thought it was kindness. It was hard to be sure. She saw no hint of lascivious intent in his jet eyes. Then again, it was tough to detect anything in those eyes. They were as emotionless as marbles. So if he was coining on to her, she was blind to it.

She glanced down at her belly and almost laughed out loud that the notion he might be interested had even occurred to her.

He nodded. “Well, then, can I get you anything before I go? Tea? Warm milk, perhaps?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

His eyes seemed to probe hers, and for a moment she was certain he’d question her further about what had happened tonight. But he didn’t. Instead, he reached for his jacket, which was slung over the back of the sofa, and as he pulled it on, he dipped a hand into a pocket. He withdrew a small velvet box and pressed it into her hand.

“What—”

“I’d like you to have it. It’s just a token, really.”

Frowning, and growing more uneasy with the situation by the second, she opened the box. It held a necklace, a silver chain with an odd-looking stone suspended from it. About two inches long and tubular, as thin as a piece of straw, and translucent if you looked at it right.

She turned the stone in her hand, studying it.

“It’s pink tourmaline,” Bartholomew explained. “And it’s said to bring friendship. Since I’d like nothing more than to be your friend, Annie, I’d like you to wear it.”

She gave her head a little shake. “Bartholomew, I barely know you. I’m not sure—”

“You’ve made me feel welcome here. That means a lot to an old man alone in a strange place.”

“You’re not an old man,” she blurted.

He smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that.” And there was something in his eyes. Interest? In her?

“For now, Annie, let this gift be my way of saying thanks.”

“There’s no need to thank me.”

“Let me put it on you,” he urged. “Just to see how it looks.”

Reluctantly she nodded. She sat up enough so Bartholomew could fasten the chain at her nape. The cool stone rested on her chest, just below the collarbone. It felt good there, and she couldn’t help but smile.

“It looks lovely on you, Annie. Won’t you keep it? Just to humor a lonely man? A man who…” He lowered his eyes. “A man who has grown quite fond of you in a remarkably short time.”

She caught her breath, searched his face. He was an attractive man. Dignified and easy to talk to. So easy, in fact, that she suddenly felt she could tell him anything, trust him implicitly. But she wouldn’t lead him on. “It’s far too soon for me to think about—”

“I only want us to be friends, Annie,” he said softly. “For now.”

“Friends is all we can be,” she told him. “I loved Richard more than…” Her voice trailed off.

“I know,” he said. “But everyone needs a friend, don’t they, Annie? Someone to talk to? To confide in?”

Sniffling, she nodded. “It would be nice,” she said, “to have a friend.” She fingered the tourmaline. “Thank you, Bartholomew.”

“You’re more than welcome, sweet Annie.”

He rose to leave, pulling his coat more tightly around his shoulders. “Sleep well, Annie. And remember that if you need anything, I’m only a phone call away.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

She sat still for a long time after he’d left, but sleep was not a possibility. She wasn’t disturbed about Bartholomew’s interest. She’d been honest with him from the start, and she thought he’d got the message. It was Richard who kept her awake. That face, so sad and confused, rainwater dripping from his brow as he stared at her.

She most certainly had not seen Richard on her porch. And she most certainly was not suffering from any kind of mental crisis. If losing him hadn’t driven her to the loony bin, nothing could. So this hadn’t been a delusion, but simply an illusion. A dream. She’d been through the loss of the only man she’d ever love. She’d dealt with it. And just because she was living under the constant, unending strain of pretending to be getting over it, when deep down inside the pain was just as fresh and raw as ever, was no reason she should start hallucinating. She had to pretend. Her concerned friends and neighbors, not to mention her parents, would have hounded her constantly if they knew the pain she still felt with every breath she drew, the gnawing ache inside her that never seemed to die.

God, it had been months before everyone in this little town had stopped staring at her with curious, concerned eyes. As if they’d all been expecting her to suddenly turn into a babbling lunatic before their eyes, without advance warning. She’d had to fight to get her job back. And she couldn’t even blame the school board for their hesitance, since it was based largely on their fear. Who wanted a crazy woman teaching tenth-grade English? She’d seen a therapist, for heaven’s sake.

No, all that had happened tonight had been a bit of overactive imagination. It wouldn’t do to overreact to this. Not at all. Just looking around her, she knew that she was fine. She looked around her old house to find everything in it just the same. The water spot on the living-room ceiling was still there. Richard had repaired the roof, so it no longer leaked, but he’d never got around to painting the ceiling. She’d have to do that. And the curving mahogany banister still gleamed. She and Richard had sanded off the old varnish and replaced it with several fresh coats. They’d done most of the woodwork in the house together. Except for that upstairs bathroom. She’d have to do that alone. Yes, everything seemed solid and real and just as it had been before. Nothing was distorted or hazy. None of the furniture was talking to her. She didn’t see eyes peering at her from the light fixtures.

She was fine.

The telephone shrilled, and she jumped to her feet so suddenly, she thought she’d pulled an abdominal muscle. Grating her teeth against a stream of cuss words, she frowned. Who’d be calling her at four in the morning?

Richard?

“Oh, for God’s sake, stop it!” She yelled at herself, but instead of her words sounding like a reprimand, she felt more like she was whistling past a graveyard. She snatched up the phone.

“Annie-girl?”

Annie-girl. It was Maria, Richard’s beautiful, blind mother, who’d given her that nickname when she’d been little more than a baby. No one else had ever called her Annie-girl… except Richard. Annie had always loved the way it sounded, flowing from Maria’s lips with a slight Spanish accent. Almost as much as she’d loved hearing Richard say it. Now, though, it sent a shiver up her spine.

“Maria, what in the world are you doing up so late? Are you sick? Is everything all right?”

“It’s Richard,” the soft, melodic voice told her. “He’s near, Annie. I feel him. He’s… he’s coming back. He’s coming back to us!”

Chapter Two

“Heard you had a spell last night.”

Annie frowned hard at Harry Hayes, Otselic Valley High’s principal, and blinked away her surprise. He stood in the doorway of her classroom, leaning against the jamb, arms crossed over his barrel chest, trying for all the world to look as if it were a casual question. But she saw the real concern in his eyes. It was enough to make her forget to smile at the way the tilt of his head was just enough to make his bald spot reflect the gleam of the overhead lights.

She closed her textbook without slamming it and managed to keep her voice level. “Where on earth did you hear that?”

“The new guy—what’s-his-name—in Octagon House.”

“Bartholomew Cassius,” she filled in, banking the anger trying to surge through her. Bartholomew had likely meant well. He’d never deliberately do anything to hurt her.

Now, why in the world am I so sure of that?

“He was worried,” Harry went on. “Said I ought to keep an eye on you.”

Eyes were already on her. Annie felt them as strongly as a physical touch, and when she turned, it was to see Sara Dawson sitting alone in the back row, staring at her. She hadn’t noticed her there before. Sara must have stayed behind when the others left at the sound of the bell. And now that Annie saw her, she was eager to get rid of Harry so she could talk to her. Something about the girl touched her, but Annie couldn’t put her finger on just what it was. For a second she stopped listening to Harry and just looked at Sara.

Her beautiful pale skin was in stark contrast with the dark birthmark on her neck, and even with her solemn dark eyes that met Annie’s and seemed to say that they knew.

Knew what, Annie wondered, frowning.

“So, are you okay?”

She snapped her attention back to Harry, feeling a little guilty for ignoring him. Since Richard had died, he’d been sweet to the point of being sickening. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t appreciate so much concern for her well-being. That she sensed hidden motives behind every seemingly kind gesture. To someone as sensitive as she’d become this past year, his concern felt more like an invasion of privacy.

“Fine,” she told him. “I’m fine.”

With a look that said he doubted it, one that had her wondering just what else Bartholomew had told him, Harry shrugged. “You’re sure? Dr. Cassius seemed to think—”

“Look, it was a dizzy spell. I blacked out for a few minutes. That’s all. Probably low blood sugar or something.” She bit her lip and told herself not to sound so defensive. It wouldn’t do to give Harry cause to start worrying about her ability to handle her job.

“So it was purely physical?” he asked, confirming her worst fears.

“Of course it was, Harry. Look, my obstetrician and I have everything under control.” She forced a smile. “You worry too much,” she told him, trying for a lighter tone.

“Only because I care.” He returned her smile. “You know we’re all like family here, Annie. So if you need anything…”

“I know,” she said.

He nodded, still looking doubtful, then turned and left the classroom. Annie watched him go, wondering how she was going to manage to reassure Harry and restore her own job security.

Sara rose and came to the desk, drawing Annie’s gaze and her thoughts away from the retreating school principal. She didn’t have any books with her. Had she left them behind, then? In the desk?

Annie marveled at the grace of her approach. Her long, slender limbs ought to be awkward, but instead she moved like a dancer. There wasn’t another girl like her, Annie thought vaguely. Not one with such ethereal beauty or such grace. She’d only been coming to class for a few days, and she always sat alone, in the back.

She stopped in front of the desk and looked at Annie with those big dark eyes. They reminded Annie of Maria’s eyes. So huge and so black. But Maria’s saw nothing and Sara’s seemed to see everything. Even invisible things.

What an odd thought.

Her voice as soft as a breeze, Sara said, “You have dark circles under your eyes.”

“Do I?” Annie reached up as if to wipe them away.

Sara nodded, searching Annie’s face. “When Lyle Stromwell dropped his book a few minutes ago, you jumped out of your skin.”

“It startled me.” Annie drew a breath and tried to see this girl as what she was, a child, not an all-knowing oracle. “Is there something I can do for you, Sara?”

She nodded precisely twice and held Annie’s eyes with her own. “Trust yourself. It’s important, Annie.”

That was it. Then she just turned and left. Annie rubbed her temples with her forefingers and told herself she really ought to start her maternity leave soon. This was getting to be too much. Nothing she couldn’t handle, though, she reminded herself. She was tough. She’d survived hell, she could certainly survive one bad night and a strange young girl who spoke cryptic words that suggested she might just know Annie’s deepest secrets.

Funny about Sara Dawson. The way she never said a word or raised her hand in class. The way the other students ignored her as if she wasn’t even there. Annie had given her a couple of days to get settled in, but soon she’d have to call on her to answer questions or contribute to classroom discussions, try to get her to open up a little. The girl had never spoken a word aloud, except when she and Annie were alone together.

That’s good. Think about Sara instead of your own problems. Distract yourself.

She shoveled a stack of papers into her soft-sided briefcase, locked the desk drawer, flicked off the lights, and headed out of the building.

Sunshine greeted her, and the warm wind carried the scent of dying autumn leaves. She schooled her facial expression to reflect that of a young mother-to-be, out for a walk on a beautiful afternoon, and headed down the street, waving at the students she met along the way. Smiling her false little smile until her face felt frozen.

Bartholomew had been talking to people about what had happened last night. Even if he meant well, he ought to know better. A retired psychiatrist ought to understand a little bit about confidentiality and discretion. Thank God she hadn’t told him more.

At any rate, no one who glanced her way today would see a sign of trouble in her face. Even if it killed her, she would keep smiling.

She turned left onto Mariposa Road and sashayed over the Otselic River’s minuscule bridge as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She had to wait for a tractor to pass before she crossed the road by the little two-pump gas station and headed into the South Otselic Store. She had no doubt she could sustain the mask a bit longer. She’d had lots of practice.

She’d been too sick to eat that morning. Not morning sickness. That had passed by the fourth month. This was something else. Something deeper and, she suspected, more emotional than physical. Seeing Richard last night… or rather, imagining she’d seen him, had brought her pain back to its screaming, burning pinnacle.

But she had to eat, for the baby’s sake. And school lunch had been meatloaf, a nightmare in itself. So she’d skipped it, and now she was queasy and dizzy, and it was probably as much from going hungry all day as from the recurring memory of her husband standing in the rain.

Leslie grinned at her from the other side of the counter. “How’s that little one doing today, Annie?”

“Sleeping,” she replied. “This kid never starts kicking like a mule until around midnight. Then, look out.”

Leslie laughed at that “What can I get for you?”

“I’m starved.” Good touch, she thought. Everyone always thinks a good appetite equals good health. No one worries about you when you’re hungry. “Could you make me a turkey sub with the works?”

“Glad to. Just be a minute.”

Leslie went to work. When her back was turned, Annie let her aching facial muscles relax and wondered what she looked like. Empty? Heartbroken?

She gave herself a mental shake and wandered to the back to examine the videos. It might be a good idea to keep herself distracted tonight. She was already dreading the thought of another night alone, missing Richard. Maybe dreaming up his image again.

She’d already seen most of the movies on the rack, but there were one or two new ones. While she was examining them,-the bell over the door jangled. Annie glanced up and saw the back of a tall, broad-shouldered man. He was facing the counter, but she would have known him anywhere, and her entire body went stiff. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even breathe.

His golden hair was longer than before. Wilder looking. His arms were bulging with more muscle, and his shoulders seemed broader beneath the long black coat he wore. But there was no doubt in her mind that she was looking at her husband.

Impossible! He’s dead!

But he wasn’t dead. He was right there. And Leslie was looking right at him and showing no signs of distress. She’d known Richard! Why didn’t she recognize him?

Or maybe the better question was, was she even seeing what Annie was seeing? Or was this some kind of illusion?

She edged toward the far wall, ducking into an aisle and along it to the door. He couldn’t see her from beyond the shelves. She kept low and hurried. She had to get a better look at him. But for some reason she couldn’t explain, she was almost afraid of having him look back. Of meeting his eyes. Of feeling that old connection…

The aisle ended, leaving a brief open area between her and the counter and the exit. She’d step out there for a closer look. Only for a moment. His back would still be to her, but maybe she’d see enough to convince her this was just a man who resembled Richard. Drawing a breath, she stepped forward—and came up short against a chest that was harder, broader than she remembered. And yet the same. So incredibly the same.

His hands clasped her shoulders to steady her, and she looked up, blinked her eyes, and looked again. Her world was spinning away. She was staring into her husband’s eyes.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you all right?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She could only gape and blink again. God, he was looking at her as if he didn’t know her! But his hands were so warm and so familiar. And they squeezed her shoulders, exerting gentle pressure.

She started to shake. She wanted to run away. She wanted him to bend closer and kiss her mouth the way he used to. She wanted Leslie to shout his name and ask where the hell he’d been. She wanted to die. She wanted to live.

His eyes widened then, and he sucked in a sharp breath, his gaze falling briefly to her lips. And then his hands fell away, and he turned and walked out the door abruptly, as if something had frightened him as much as the sight of him had frightened her.

And why the hell did Leslie calmly watch him walk out of here with a diet cola in his hand? Why wasn’t she screaming her head off? Did she sell Coke to dead men every day? Good God!

As he walked out the door, he turned and glanced over his shoulder. Right at Annie. His eyes met hers for only an instant. He frowned, maybe at whatever he saw on her face, and he was gone.

Annie’s legs finally came back under her control. She forced herself to the counter and braced both hands on it to keep from falling flat on the floor. The shaking intensified until it encompassed her entire body. The world was spinning away into madness, and no one seemed to notice. No one but her.

“Here’s your sub—Annie? God, you’re white as a sheet? Are you okay?”

Annie blinked at her friend, wondering what on earth was wrong with the woman. Leslie had known Richard.

“That man…” It was all she could get out before her teeth started chattering. She clamped them together and envisioned herself clamping down on her self-control as well. She was not going to lose it like this. Not here. Not now. Leslie would be dialing nine-one-one if she kept it up. And there was no reason for it. There was a perfectly logical explanation for all of this. More calmly, she said, “That man. Do you know him?”

“The one who was just here, you mean? The ebony-haired, black-eyed pagan god you tried to mow down? Gee, Annie, is he what’s got you looking so queasy?” She seemed relieved. “Can’t say I blame you. He’s something, isn’t he?”

“His hair was… it was blond.”

Leslie frowned, worry creeping back into her eyes and her voice. “No, Annie, it was dark. Really dark. He’s new in town, I guess. I’ve only seen him a couple of times.”

Annie shook her head. “Leslie, his eyes are blue.” Then she cleared her throat. “I mean, they looked blue to me.”

“Jet-black, hon. Must’a been a trick of the light or something.” She tilted her head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Annie was barely aware of muttering the word.

Leslie held up the wrapped sub, and Annie stared at it for a long moment before she remembered that she’d ordered it. She met her friend’s eyes again and saw the speculation taking solid form there. The worry. The pity. The oh-my-God-I-think-she’s-losing-it look.

Annie got control. Tenuous, at best, but control all the same. She forced her face to obey her commands. Forced a normal look to replace the stunned expression she had to have been wearing. Finally the worry in Leslie’s eyes eased.

“Trick of the light,” she said quickly, and even managed a self-deprecating shake of the head for good measure. “Right, that must’ve been it. Thanks for the sub.” Too many words would not be a good idea. Too many words and she’d be blurting something stupid. She took the sub, paid for it, and wandered out the door. And for the first time since Richard’s death, Annie wondered if maybe she was losing her mind.

She was disturbed when she got home. Her hands shook uncontrollably, and she tossed the sandwich into the garbage without a second’s regret. She was sick. Her head throbbed, her stomach clenched and unclenched as if a fist were brutally massaging it. God, what was happening to her?

She paced, wondering what to do. Should she call a psychiatrist?

No, because she’d have to make an appointment, and who knew how far away it would be? Besides, she was not delusional. She was the sanest person she knew.

So maybe this was physical. Maybe something was going on with her body that was making her see things. Distorting her vision or her perceptions or something. She went to the telephone stand to look up the number for her obstetrician, but the telephone book wasn’t where she’d left it.

He’d looked so real! So real and alive and wonderful that for the briefest instant she’d been tempted to fling herself into his arms and sob her heart out.

It would feel so good to have Richard’s arms around her again. Just once more, to have him hold her and…

And she had seen him—clearly. There’d been no trick of the sun, nothing distorting her vision. How could she plainly see Richard’s golden blond waves on a dark-haired man? How?

Oh, God, she was frightened.

No phone book in sight. She turned in a slow circle, scanning the room, and the shaking that emanated from her core intensified.

Forget the damn book. She’d just call Information and get the number.

She pressed a hand to her chest as if that would calm her racing heart, and she felt the pendant lying against her skin.

Bartholomew! Yes, she should call Bartholomew. He could help her. He was close by, and she could trust him.

Trust him, when he blabs your business all over town?

But he meant well, she told herself. And she ignored her better judgment, deciding to call him. But in her state, she couldn’t remember his number either. She could get that from Information, though. She reached into her pocket for a pen and instead found a folded slip of paper she didn’t remember putting there.

And suddenly she went very still. As her hand closed around it, a soft, soothing warmth spread into her palm, up her arm, all through her body. She withdrew the paper, staring at it. It was almost pulsing with an unseen energy. She unfolded it, but her hands shook so badly, she couldn’t read it even when she held it in front of her nose.

Annie licked her parched lips and smoothed the paper onto the gleaming hardwood telephone stand with sweat-slick hands. Why was she feeling this sense of importance about the note? Why was she bothering to read it at a moment of such intense crisis? She was supposed to be calling Information, getting a number, asking for help…

“It’s all right,” the note said in an spiky scrawl. And it was as if someone were holding her hand, squeezing it, whispering the reassuring words right into her ear. It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Really, it is. I promise. And for some reason, Annie believed the voice.

She opened her eyes and read the rest of the note. “It’s all right, Annie. You’re all right. Believe that, with everything in you. Soon you’ll understand.” It was signed S.D.

Sara Dawson?

Annie shook her head. Sara hadn’t given her any note. How… ?

The trembling was beginning to ease. She had no idea why, or how, but it did. She forced her breathing to slow and regulate, and her stomach stopped churning.

A blanket of warmth and comfort settled around her shoulders. What had happened? What had changed?

Annie blinked rapidly and looked from the paper to her hands holding it. Steady now. Her pounding heart had gentled. Her pulse no longer throbbed in her temples. The dizziness, probably brought on by spiraling blood pressure, was easing.

What the hell?

The words of a child—words that had nothing to do with what was going on in Annie’s mind—had calmed her as surely as a shot of Valium. Why, for God’s sake? And what did the note mean? Sara couldn’t have known of Annie’s troubles. So why say “It’s all right,” as if offering comfort? And what did she mean by “Soon you’ll understand”? Understand what? Not these hallucinations she seemed to be having. Sara had no way of knowing about them.

Did she?

Annie couldn’t help picturing the quiet girl with her strange, soulful eyes. No. No, of course she couldn’t know. She was a young girl, not a psychic.

Still, for some unidentifiable reason, a frantic call to her doctor or to her retired psychiatrist neighbor regarding strange and troubling symptoms no longer seemed nearly as important as having a serious discussion with young Sara Dawson.

Chapter Three

Annie couldn’t explain the sense of calm and well-being that descended over her. She was curious, of course, about Sara. Disturbed that the girl seemed to know so much about Annie’s personal life. But not upset for some reason—as she probably should be.

Later. She’d be upset later. First… she’d just talk to the girl. Find out who’d been telling tales. It was obvious Sara meant well, even if she had been listening to gossip a bit more than she should.

Annie picked up the phone, and the number she dialed was one she knew too well to have to look up. She only prayed Mrs. Watkins would still be in the office at this hour. Chances of it were pretty good. The woman spent more time at the school than at home. Nothing went on there that she didn’t know about Hell, they barely needed a computer system with her around.

When her crisp-apple tone came through the line, Annie almost breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you’re still there. This is Annie Nelson, Mrs. Watkins. Could you do me a favor and pull the file on one of my students? I need her home address and phone number.”

Mrs. Watkins, as usual, was only too happy to be of help. “Which student, dear?”

“The new girl in English Ten. Sara Dawson. That’s D-A-W—”

“Ms. Nelson… Annie… there’s no new girl in that class.”

Annie bit back her impatience and tried again. “Of course there is. She just started a couple of days ago. I don’t know, maybe she’s not on the computer yet, but her name is—”

“There is no Sara Dawson registered in this school, Annie. And there hasn’t been a transfer since Bobby McArthur last May.” Her voice softened to the tone of a worried mother. “Now, honey, you know me. I’d know if there was.”

She would know if there was. So why didn’t she? There was a long pause as Annie blinked at the receiver.

“Dear, are you all right? You want me to send someone over there? What’s—”

Annie glanced up, her eyes drawn by some force beyond her control. And she saw him. Richard, lumbering down the road in that old familiar gait, making a beeline for her front door.

He looked so good.

She wanted to run to him… and she wanted to run away. She longed for him. She was terrified of him. Was he her husband or a stranger? A lover or a ghost? Reality or madness? She didn’t scream. She held the phone in an iron grip. “I’m fine, Mrs. Watkins. Thank you.” And she replaced the receiver.

She got to her feet, turned the lock on the front door, and watched as he came closer. He looked toward her, but she didn’t think he could see her through the sheer curtain. It was dim inside, but still bright out there.

“I love you, Richard,” she whispered. “But please go away. Go away and leave me alone.”

Then she turned and walked through the dining room and the kitchen to the back door. And as soon as she was outside, she ran.

She couldn’t look out again and see him standing on the porch, staring back at her. Not now, not after all this. She needed help, someone she could talk to about this, so she could figure out what was going on, why she kept seeing Richard’s face on some other man. Some stranger. And there was only one place she could go to get it.

Octagon House. Bartholomew Cassius. He could help her. And he would; she knew he would. She cut through the backyard and around behind the house next door. Then she raced to the road and crossed it, heading onto Mariposa. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Richard, his back to her, mounting her front steps now, ringing her doorbell. If he turned around…

She ran faster, not even slowing her pace when she’d passed the gas station and was beyond his range of vision. She pressed on, and her legs cramped, and her lungs burned. Hot tears squeezed out of her eyes from the exertion as well as the trauma. She was pushing herself too hard, but she couldn’t stop. With every stride she felt sure the devil himself was on her heels, chasing her, gaining on her.

She turned the corner onto Gladding Street and picked up the pace again, jogging past the school. Her lungs were screaming now. Fire burned up the backs of her calves, and her heart thundered. She stopped at the foot of the steep incline and stared up the road just ahead of her.

Octagon House was up there. It sat like a squat emperor on a hillside throne, its dark window-eyes gazing haughtily down at her, reminding her for just a second of Bartholomew’s eyes. Just as glassy and emotionless. A ripple went up her spine, momentarily chasing her panic into a quiet corner. Something cold touched her nape, and a warning prickle crept along her arms.

Don’t go up there.

She shook herself free of the ominous feelings. It wasn’t difficult. She only had to picture the man she’d seen standing, dripping wet, on her porch, staring in the window at her. She only had to picture herself screaming as she looked out at the face of her dead husband.

Desperation tugged her onward. Of their own volition, her fingers found and caressed the pink tourmaline suspended around her neck. It warmed at her touch. And as she drew closer, she knew she was doing the right thing. Something in the house seemed to draw her, call to her, and the unreasonable fears faded as this new sense of purpose took over. A sense that not only did she want to go there, she must go. It was too potent to resist.

“Ms. Nelson,” someone called. “You all right? You look a little…”

She shook her head, waving a hand to silence the encroacher. Her eyes never wavered from their focus on the house. The feelings of confusion lost ground with every step she took. The sounds of her own inner fears seemed to come from a distance as the lure of Octagon House grew stronger. Once or twice she tried to shake the eerie sensation like a dog shaking water from its fur, but it clung.

Her pace slowed. One step at a time, she moved up the hill. And the farther she went, the more trancelike her state became. She could barely feel the pavement beneath her feet now. And her eyes picked out the flat, tar-coated octagonal roof in the distance and fixed themselves on it, on the way the blackness shimmered in the early autumn heat.

She barely registered the cries at first. Terrified screams gradually penetrated, and then the rumble of tires on rough pavement, moving at high speed, and the blast of a horn.

The screaming had form. Words. And it took a second for their meaning and the urgency in their tone to penetrate her fogged mind.

“Look out! I can’t stop! Get out of the way!”

She was jolted out of her spell. And as if released, her gaze sprang away from the heat shimmers emanating from the black roof and widened at the danger right in front of her. The car swerved crazily, barreling down the steep incline, its nose seemingly aimed right at her midsection.

She made a move as if to lunge out of the way, knowing already that it was too late. There wasn’t even time to scream.

And then something hit her, but it wasn’t the car. Just as big from the feel of it, though.

Like a torpedo launched from the opposite side of the road, a body flew into her, taking her with it into the ditch at her left. Somehow the projectile she’d boarded turned as it flew, landing hard on the ground beneath her, cushioning her fall. She felt the heat of the car as it careened past, heard the impact of it hitting something farther along the road, then the long, lonely sound of the horn.

There were voices, shouts. Feet pounding over pavement. Annie shook herself, automatically encircling her belly with both arms, her first thought for the baby. But there were arms already there. Big, strong arms, that held her gently from behind and beneath her. And there was a hard body stretching the length of her back, and a breathless whisper, close to her ear.

“Are you hurt?”

She didn’t turn. She couldn’t, the way he held her. “I… no.”

“And the baby? It’s all right, you’re sure?” As he spoke, one of his palms flattened against her abdomen. Right on cue, the baby kicked, hard and furiously. And there was soft laughter in her ears, bathing her neck.

Laughter so familiar she choked on a sudden rush of tears. Oh, God, it still hurt so much to hear that laugh. It would be so good, so damned good if he really were Richard.

This delusion—or whatever it was—was looking better all the time. Maybe she ought to stop fighting it. God, if these arms around her could only be his. That breath in her ear…

A sob broke from her chest. She couldn’t stop it. Another followed, and then another. Tears flash-flooded her face. She cried so hard, she shook with it. Because it seemed very much as if her husband were holding her to him right now.

Gently, still protecting her bulging middle, he moved her off him. Annie covered her face with her hands, embarrassed and shaken. Terrified to look up and see Richard’s face on a stranger. Terrified that she wouldn’t.

She sat on the ground, legs folded to one side, face hidden, and fought to control her tears.

Strong hands grasped her shoulders, kneaded them. “What is it? You’re hurt after all, aren’t you?”

“No,” she managed between sobs. She knuckled the tears from her eyes and drew a shaky breath, head bowed.

He eased her to her feet, still holding her, treating her as gently as if she were made of porcelain.

“I’m all right now,” she assured him. “Really.” She told herself it was true. She was all right. She could get through this just fine.

There was no more running away. It was time to face this thing. Time to see the truth. She blinked several times and tested her vision by counting her own fingers. Then, drawing a deep breath, she lifted her head and blinked the tear haze from her eyes. She would look at him. She would see that he wasn’t Richard. She’d see the dark-haired stranger, maybe, or someone she knew, but not Richard. She turned her head and looked at him.

Her jaw fell, and she blinked faster.

“Oh my God.” She didn’t run from him this time. She couldn’t. He was too real. And she had to be sure…

With shaking hands, she touched his face. It didn’t alter or vanish as she half expected it would. It was real. It felt real and familiar and wonderful. Her fingers dived into his golden hair, felt its texture. And the tears flooded her eyes, blurring her vision, and she pressed her lips to that beloved face again and again, muttering his name and a hundred other things, until the words and the kisses tangled in one another and tripped in their haste to reach him. She felt his body tremble, felt his arms close gently around her, saw his eyes flash as they met hers. And then she just nestled herself against him, let him hold her, buried her face in the fabric of his shirt. He even swelled

like Richard. She’d be content to stay wrapped in these strong arms forever.

The way he felt when she pressed those tear-soaked, salty kisses to his face was beyond his understanding. Something rushed through him. Something more than the adrenaline surge he felt in the heat of disputes or battles, or the satisfaction he felt when a mission was complete. It was like… joy. Only stronger. Wilder. More fierce and intense and urgent than that. And his arms went around her without his consent, though if he’d given the act any thought, he wouldn’t have resisted. He wanted to hold the small, beautiful, tortured woman. He’d wanted to hold her for some time now. To take away her anguish. To absorb it into himself if necessary—anything to ease her pain.

As soon as he closed his arms around her, she relaxed against him and his heart leaped in reaction to the way she felt there. Boneless. Shivering. Clinging to him as if she’d sink to the ground without his support. And the thought came to him that perhaps she was hurt after all. Automatically he scooped her up, surprised again at how light she felt. And he carried her easily, even while battling the eerie sense that he’d done so before. And no, not on that rainy night when he’d first seen her, but even before then. There was something so very familiar about the way her head rested against his shoulder, the touch of her hair on his neck, and the scent of that hair. There was something familiar about wanting to protect her. To take away her pain. Her soft breaths on his skin tickled a memory to life, but it was buried too deeply to identify.

She didn’t speak to him. Just pressed her face into the crook of his neck and dampened his skin with her tears. He made his way back down the narrow road, past the school building. That was where he’d imagined she was going when he’d realized that she had left the house. And when he’d caught up to her, seen her apparent rush, he’d thought something urgent there must need her attention.

But the urgency in her step had eased at the base of this hill, and she’d gone on slowly, almost mechanically. Why had she wandered farther? What had drawn her into a brush with death?

He glanced over his shoulder at the steeply rising road behind him, but saw no one. And he dismissed his curiosity in favor of more immediate matters as he approached the wrecked car, its nose embracing a telephone pole. A woman babbled all but incoherently to the emergency people on the scene. Luckily for everyone involved, the volunteer fire department was practically within shouting distance.

The woman driver looked unharmed. Thankfully the paramedics could devote their attention to the one in his arms. The delicate beauty who called herself Annie, and who’d somehow become precious to him. At the touch of her hands, he’d been enchanted. It was like magic. Protecting her, seeing her safe at any cost, had suddenly taken as on as much importance to him as protecting the child she carried. But protecting the child was his mission. He wasn’t supposed to care for the mother.

She stirred in his arms, and as he lowered his gaze to her face, he saw her wide emerald eyes staring up at him as if she were seeing a miracle. Tears filled those huge round gems to brimming and spilled over. Slowly, like glycerin, they slid down her cheeks.

He stopped walking, shocked into immobility by the sight of those tears and the look in her eyes. They bathed him with emotions, those green eyes. They caught him and held him, and he couldn’t move in the force of their grasp. There was a power emanating from those eyes. Something stronger than Sir George’s magic, more binding than his own vows. It gripped him by the heart and held tight, shaking him right to the core.

A young woman ran toward him. Even as she barked questions, though, he couldn’t free his gaze from Annie’s. She seemed to be searching him, inside as well as out, and her face registered nothing less than sheer adoration. Her lips kept parting as if she wanted to speak, then closing again, her words aborted. She shook her head several times as if to clear it. Blinked, rubbed her eyes, and stared some more.

“Annie! Annie, listen to me,” the other woman snapped, her voice loud and firm but calm as she vied for Annie’s attention. “Are you in any pain? Were you hit? Annie?”

The woman with the short blond hair kept after her until Annie broke eye contact with him and turned her head. Her voice a harsh whisper, she rasped, “Rebecca, look. Look at him.”

“Rebecca” frowned, shot him a cursory glance, and focused on Annie once more.

“Yeah, I see him. So what?” She inclined her head toward a gurney, and Ren bent to lower Annie onto it.

“It’s Richard,” Annie croaked, her gaze darting back and forth between him and Rebecca. “Don’t you recognize him? It’s him.”

The woman gave her head a shake, glanced at him once more, and then, slowly, her entire countenance altered. She looked frightened as her sharp eyes met Annie’s. And her voice changed. Became softer, as if she were speaking to a child.

“Take it easy, Annie. Come on, look again. This guy doesn’t look anything like Richard.” She knelt beside the gurney, as if to see better, moving Annie’s hair out of the way, probing her scalp. “Did you hit your head? Is that it?”

“The car didn’t hit her,” Ren explained, hoping to help in some way. “And when I knocked her out of the way, she landed on top of me. I don’t think she hit her head.”

“It is him!” Annie sat up on the gurney while Rebecca tried to urge her to lie back down. “Tell her, Richard. Tell her it’s you!” Her eyes were wild, and he worried that maybe she was suffering some kind emotional trauma—perhaps from the shock of this near miss. The other rescue workers had stopped what they were doing now, and turned to stare at her, pity and a sad sort of unsurprised concern etched on their faces. And when Ren looked beyond them, he saw others. A crowd of them, adults and teenagers alike, gathering on the school’s front lawn. Craning their necks. Whispering. Several were shaking their heads sadly. “Poor Annie,” someone whispered.

“She’s only confused,” Ren attempted. “My name is—”

“Nelson,” Annie said, her voice louder now, more insistent. “Richard Nelson. And I’m not confused.” With a strength that surprised him, she shoved off the restraining hands and got to her feet. “What’s the matter with you people? Don’t you think I know my own husband?”

“Husband?” he echoed, jolted.

But before he could say more, Annie was in-his arms again. Clinging to his neck, shaking violently. Sobs racked her small frame, and tears dampened his shirt. She kept saying that name over and over again, and the sound of it brought a burning to his own eyes, a tightness to the center of his chest that couldn’t be explained.

His arms went around her, and he wanted nothing more in the world than to protect her from any more pain. She stiffened when the one called Rebecca jabbed a needle into her arm. And then she slowly went limp.

“Don’t leave me again,” she whispered, just before her eyes closed. “God, Richard, I need you so much…”

He held her tighter to keep her from falling. Richard, he thought. The name felt odd. Not new. Not unfamiliar or strange. More like an old favorite shoe that hadn’t been worn in a long time—so long, it no longer fit. And he wondered if he’d ever been this man she called Richard. Maybe a lifetime ago. A lifetime he’d since forgotten. And if that were the case, then Sir George had lied to him.

He’d never have believed that possible.

“It’s a very mild sedative,” Rebecca explained when he searched her face. “She needs to calm down or she’ll send herself into an early labor.”

Ren nodded, easing Annie onto the gurney again. She seemed so tiny, so in need of protection. And he couldn’t help but wonder how any of what he was beginning to suspect could be true. It seemed impossible to believe that he—or any man—could forget a woman like her.

As Rebecca hovered over Annie, Ren stepped aside. His gaze shot once more to the hill behind them and then slid to the smashed car. A man was wriggling out from beneath it.

“Brake fluid all leaked out, Mrs. Pike. There’s a hole in the line. Lucky you didn’t get yourself killed.”

Ren frowned and his gaze was drawn up the hill once more. A man stood there, on the roadside in front of the odd-shaped house. Tall and slender, he stared down at them, and Ren could feel the touch of those black eyes even from here. Their gazes met, and the thin man smiled very slowly.

Chapter Four

Warmth. Calm. Peace.

As Annie slowly came out of sedation, she felt as if she were enveloped in a huge, fluffy cloud of well-being. And as her mind cleared, she focused on that feeling, trying to seek out its source.

It radiated through her every cell, but as she concentrated, she realized where it began. A trail of comfort led down her arm to the warm pressure surrounding her hand. And another path to the source of this feeling of peace seemed anchored at her forehead, where a soft hand was stroking her hair in a gentle rhythm. And more of the serenity was found in the soft clarity of a strong young voice—a girl’s voice— singing a lilting song that sounded like a lullaby.

Annie opened her eyes, then closed them and opened them again. Sara Dawson sat in a chair beside the bed. The girl held Annie’s hand and stroked her face. She stopped singing, bent close, and pressed a soft kiss to Annie’s cheek. Her smile was gentle; her eyes, knowing and serene. Always so serene, those beautiful eyes of hers.

“You’re awake.”

Annie nodded. “I guess so.” She looked past the girl, taking in the whitewashed walls, smelling the sterile, all-too-familiar scent of hospital antiseptic. For a second, panic seeped into her veins like ice water, and her hands pressed to her belly.

“It’s Community Memorial,” Sara said. “And you’re fine. The baby, too.” She didn’t say those things the way most people would, as if they were well wishes or positive thoughts. She said them with authority. “I thought you’d feel better knowing.”

Annie narrowed her eyes, studying the smooth young face, searching for answers. More and more it seemed to her that this was no ordinary girl. “Sara, what on earth are you doing here?”

“I thought you might need me.” She squeezed Annie’s hand before letting it go. “You’re upset. You read my note, didn’t you?”

Annie nodded. “But I didn’t understand what it meant. Sara, you know nothing about what I’m going through right now. You couldn’t.”

“But I do.”

Again Annie fell silent. She finally cleared her throat and forced herself to speak. “Tell me, then. What do you know about me or… or Richard?”

Sara tilted her head. “I know you’re not insane. You’re the sanest person you know. That’s what you’re always saying, isn’t it?”

Annie gaped. The girl was so new in town. How could Sara know Annie had been driven very close to the point of questioning her own sanity?

But wait. Sara wasn’t registered in school. And Annie had never seen her speak in front of anyone but her. She remembered how she’d thought the other day that her students ignored Sara, as if she wasn’t there.

What if they weren’t ignoring her? What if she really wasn’t there? What if she’s some kind of… of... what? Guardian angel?

Ridiculous!

“You have to trust yourself, Annie. Trust your mind, your senses. Believe what you see with your own eyes.”

“If you knew what I’d been seeing lately, you wouldn’t say that.” Annie let her head sink deeper into the pillows. “Who are you, really, Sara?” And she eyed the girl’s haunting eyes. “What are you?”

Sara only smiled. “What I’m not is more important,” she said. “And I am not a figment of your imagination. Look at things, Annie. Analyze them, but don’t doubt they exist. There are more things in the world than you know. More things than anyone knows.“

Annie sat up a little, frowning. “What do you mean by that?”

“You must stop questioning yourself. That’s the first thing. You can’t win this battle unless you find the strength inside you, Annie. It’s true, what Richard was always telling you. You are a strong woman. That’s part of the reason you were chosen—”

“Chosen?” Annie shook her head rapidly, then paused, eyes widening. “How could you know Richard used to say that?”

“Find the strength inside you, Annie. Find the woman you were before Richard went away. She’s still there. I know it. Your baby needs that old Annie, not this frightened, uncertain woman you’re becoming. You—”

“Who are you?” Annie frowned at the lovely girl and shook her head in confusion. “God, Sara, who are you, really?”

Sara bit her lip, rising from the chair with a quick glance toward the door. “I need a glass of water.”

And without another word, the girl walked into the small bathroom attached to the hospital room. She pushed the door a little but didn’t close it all the way, and then Annie heard the water running.

God, what was this all about? Who was Sara? Annie knew, deep in her gut, that she wasn’t just an ordinary girl playing head games with a teacher. Sara wasn’t cruel. She was kind—good, through and through. Annie felt it in her touch, saw it in her eyes. The girl truly seemed to want to help.

And she had helped. Oddly enough, the only times Annie had felt relaxed and calm lately had been when Sara was nearby. She felt closer to the girl than she should, given their brief acquaintance.

The water was still running, the door still stood partly opened, yet Sara hadn’t come out.

Annie slipped from the bed and got to her feet. She had to grip the back of a chair for support when a wave of dizziness washed over her, aftereffect of whatever drug they’d given her. She fought it and won. Then she started toward the bathroom.

Someone else was coming in. She heard the door from the hall open, heard two solid steps.

“Annie?”

She knew that voice. But she couldn’t turn around and face him. Not yet. She stepped up to the bathroom door and pushed it open.

The faucet spewed clear frothy water into the basin. A mirror over the sink showed Annie the reflection of a small room. A small, empty room. Sara wasn’t there.

Annie shook her head slowly, sinking to her knees, forgetting for a moment to hold on to the wall for support. “My God, it’s true,” she whispered. “She’s not… not real. Or…”

Strong hands clasped her shoulders, drawing her backward until she leaned against jean-clad legs. “It’s all right, Annie. I promise you, it’s going to be all right.”

His hands ran down her arms, then clasped her waist and lifted her gently, easily to her feet. “Come on, we can’t have the doctors seeing you like this.”

She bit her lip and turned slowly. The big hands on her waist loosened to let her turn, but never let go. They still rested there when she faced him.

“Who are you?” One trembling hand lifted to touch the face she still dreamed about every single night. “My God, are you real? Are you a ghost?”

“I’m real. I’m here to help you, Annie.”

“Help me do what? Go completely insane?” Her words came out as whispers as her fingers touched a lock of his hair, rubbing its silken texture between them. “Is it you, Richard?”

The man closed his eyes as if her words caused him immeasurable pain. “I’m not your husband. My name is Ren.”

“Ren,” she repeated. “Richard Elliot Nelson. A man who could be my husband’s twin, whose name is an acronym of his initials. Am I supposed to believe this?”

“You must believe it.”

She had to force her hands to her sides, to stop from touching him, feeling his hair, as if to assure herself he was really here. “They never found the body,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Were you hurt, Richard? Did you lose your memory and wander away? Is that it?”

With his two large hands he cupped her head, holding her gently but still making her look right into those eyes. “Listen to me. Your husband is dead. I’m not him. My name is Ren, and I’m here to help you.”

She shook her head slowly, closed her eyes. “I didn’t need any help. I was doing just fine on my own… until you showed up.”

“You are perfectly sane,” he told her. “Everything you’re experiencing now has an explanation, Annie. That’s the first thing you have to accept.”

Annie tried to swallow the lump in her throat and, failing, went ahead and spoke around it. The result was a voice that sounded as if it were being filtered through gravel. “Of course I’m sane,” she whispered. “I’m… the sanest person I know.” He nodded, apparently approving of the statement. Annie couldn’t take her eyes off him. If she was sane, then he was a liar. He was Richard. She was standing here looking at him, and his denying it was so ridiculous, it was almost laughable. “I guess it’s the rest of the town that’s gone crazy,” she went on. “When Leslie saw you, and Rebecca, they said your hair was dark. They said you—”

“I know. Annie, it’s best not dwell on that right now. These doctors in this place, they need to see that you are fine. If you keep insisting I’m your dead husband, they’ll have you committed to an institution. I won’t be able to protect you there.”

Her eyes flew wider. “Protect me?”

Voices came from just beyond the door. The handle turned. “I told them I’m your husband’s cousin,” he said quickly. “Annie, it’s important you listen to me. You must tell them the same. For the sake of your baby.”

“My baby?”

He smoothed one hand down over her hair. “Trust me, Annie.”

The door opened and a doctor entered. She wore round bifocals with tortoiseshell frames, and her hair was carrot orange.

Annie looked at the woman, then at the man who claimed he wasn’t her husband. Then she turned slowly, walked to the window, braced her hands on the ledge, and stared, unseeingly, outside.

“How are you feeling, Annie?”

“Fine.” She wasn’t, though. Trust me, he’d told her. How could she trust him?

How could she not?

“I’m Dr. Maxwell, staff psychiatrist.”

Surprise, surprise. They sent me a shrink. Well, who’d have guessed?

“You’re fine, physically, Annie,” the woman went on. “I just have a few questions I’d like to ask you before we let you go home. It’s routine, you understand. You were a little disoriented right after the accident. Which might be perfectly normal. But I have to be sure, given…”

“Given all the stress I’ve been under,” Annie filled in. “Fragile-looking females like me aren’t supposed to be able to handle so much stress, after all. Especially pregnant ones.”

She turned away from the window and looked at Ren standing there, still wearing his long coat. He smiled. It was a familiar smile, one that crushed her heart to dust. She didn’t know what the hell was going on. She didn’t know if he was her husband’s twin, if he was lying, or if he simply didn’t know who he was. She only knew she had to find out.

Dr. Maxwell nodded. “I’m afraid that’s entirely true,” she said. “Thank goodness we fragile females surprise them sometimes. We’re tougher than we look, aren’t we Annie?“

“Tougher than they can even imagine,” Annie said.

The doctor nodded, seeming reassured. “You certainly look better than when they brought you in.”

Annie shrugged.

Dr. Maxwell pulled off her glasses, using them to point at Ren… or Richard, or whoever he was. “Annie, do you know this man?”

He met Annie’s gaze, giving her an almost imperceptible nod.

“Yes,” she said. She concealed her turmoil beneath a cloak of calm. It wasn’t as hard as she’d thought. After all, she’d been doing it for quite some time, now, hadn’t she? Hiding her grief. Pretending she was getting over losing him just the way people said she should. She cleared her throat. “This is my husband’s cousin, Ren. I… I didn’t recognize him at first. It’s been a long time.”

Dr. Maxwell nodded, sliding the glasses onto her nose, lifting the top sheet from the clipboard she carried. “Would you describe him to me?”

Annie blinked. Great, a trick question. She looked at him again, stared right at his long, golden blond hair, and took a shot in the dark, based on Leslie’s words at the store. “He’s been called an ebony-haired, black-eyed pagan god.”

Dr. Maxwell lifted her head and her eyebrows at the same time. She smiled when her gaze met Annie’s, and she looked a whole lot less serious than before. “Colorful, but accurate. So do you still think he looks like your late husband?”

Annie closed her eyes. Lie. Lie through your teeth if that’s what it takes to get out of here. She cleared her throat. “It’s more in the bone structure than the coloring.”

“Annie always was the only one who could see the resemblance between us,” the ghost, or whatever he was, added. And he sent Annie a warm, approving look.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re all right, Annie. You can go home just as soon as we get your release forms together.” Dr. Maxwell tucked her clipboard to her side and slipped her glasses into her pocket as she strolled out of the room.

Annie stared at the man, fighting with everything in her to trust what she was seeing, not to begin questioning herself, her judgment, her own senses. It was difficult when everyone else seemed to be seeing some totally different person. “Your hair is not black,” she whispered.

“No. No, it’s not.”

She nearly sighed in relief that he had confirmed it. “Then how… why… ?”

“It’s better not to ask.”

“I’m asking anyway.”

“There are things I can’t tell you.” He closed his eyes, lifting a hand to touch her shoulder. “Let me take you home, Annie. And I’ll explain as much as I can.”

He wouldn’t, though. She knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t explain what was inexplicable.

Ren couldn’t explain it to her because he didn’t understand it himself. He took her home. She said she was tired and didn’t want to talk to him anymore tonight, and he could see she was on the brink of exhaustion.

He walked her through the big house, and a flash of familiarity rushed through him in nearly every room. As he ran his hands along the hardwood banister, he saw, for just an instant, an image of his hands rubbing it with rough-textured sandpaper. His own hands applying new varnish to restore the gleam to the smooth wood. And beside them, a smaller pair of hands. Hands that looked like Annie’s. He held her arm as he took her up the stairs, and unerringly he found her bedroom.

She was exhausted. Too exhausted to protest his presence with any vigor. “You shouldn’t be here” was about the extent of it.

“I’ll go. As soon as you fall asleep.”

They’d given him a small paper packet of pills for her, and they’d seen to it she’d taken one before leaving the hospital. Sedatives, they’d told him. Mild but effective. They must be effective, or she’d be arguing about his presence more than she was, he decided. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she was as glad to have him here as she’d seemed at first. She slid into the bed, burrowed under the covers he tugged up over her, and looked him in the eye. “I want you to leave.”

“I will,” he lied.

From the bed she stared at him through sleepy eyes. “No, I don’t,” she whispered. “Not if you’re my Richard. I don’t ever want you to leave again.”

And that was all. She fell into an unnatural sleep. Emotional exhaustion, Ren guessed, was even more to blame than those small white pills. He’d given her a terrible shock and a lot to deal with tonight.

Ren took off his sword and laid it in a corner, then covered it with his coat. He sat down on the small stool that rested near the dressing table. And he stared into the oval mirror, seeing his true self. How could she see him? Why wasn’t she fooled by his disguise the way everyone else was?

He looked again at his reflection, only not the one in the mirror this time. This one smiled back at him from a photograph framed in pewter. His hair was shorter, and he wore a tux. In his arms he held the most beautiful creature ever to draw breath. Annie, glowing with happiness, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Her small body swathed in white satin, pearls, and lace.

The dress she wore in the photo was a bridal gown, and the groom holding her close was… Ren.

Good God, it was true, then. He had been her Richard.

He turned slowly to gaze at the heartbroken woman who lay in the bed, crying softly now and then, even in her sleep. Annie… she’d been his wife. Was it possible? Could any man have loved a woman like this one and then forgotten her?

But it had to be true. And she must know him well—as well as he knew himself. Too well to be fooled by the Cloak of Disguise.

And he couldn’t tell her. Because if she knew the truth, it would only be harder in the end, when he had to leave her again. As he must, according to his vows.

But would she see through his lies as easily as she saw through the disguise?

And why, as he heard her soft sobs, saw the tears glittering on her cheeks, did he feel his own eyes begin to burn?

He was still there.

Annie blinked him into focus. He’d drawn the padded stool from the vanity up beside the bed and fallen asleep there, his head pillowed near her feet. Sun streamed through the window, its amber rays igniting his golden hair. He’d removed the long, dark-colored coat he wore, and it hung in a corner, and she briefly wondered what he’d hung it on. But what mattered was him, not his coat. Why was he still here?

She’d told him to go. He had said he would leave as soon as she fell asleep. She had wanted him to go… hadn’t she? God, if she had, then why was she feeling such overwhelming joy to see him here now? No, she knew damned well she hadn’t wanted to wake up and find him gone again.

I’m not your husband, Annie.

His words floated back to her, bringing a pang of sadness so intense, her eyes welled with tears. He said he wasn’t Richard. But how could he not be?

He lay there, looking in sleep so much like her husband that it was impossible to believe he could be anyone else. So much so that any second now, she fully expected him to open his eyes—Richard always woke within a few minutes after she did—and send her that lazy, sleepy smile she’d missed for all these long months.

But he wouldn’t, would he? Because he wasn’t Richard. Why was that so clear to everyone who saw him—everyone but her?

He stirred and his eyes opened, focused unerringly on hers. And then he smiled, and her heart melted into a trembling puddle in her chest.

She hurt. Looking at him brought all the pain she’d been fighting right back to the surface. How dare he do this to her? How dare he walk into her life and plunge a hot blade into her heart by telling her he wasn’t Richard?

She sat up in bed. He lifted himself away from her mattress, his smile dying at the look on her face.

“What are you doing here? You told me you would go.”

“I’m sorry. I was only trying to ease your mind so you could rest. I lied to you, Annie. I can’t go.”

“You can’t stay.”

He rose, pushed a hand through his hair in frustration, but still kept those familiar blue eyes pinned to hers. “Annie, I know this is painful for you. If there were any other way—”

“If you can’t be him,” she whispered, “then please, for the love of God, get out of my house. Get out of my life. Can’t you see what you’re doing to me?”

She’d meant to shout at him, but the words sounded more like a desperate plea.

“I was sent here to protect you, Annie. I can’t leave. Not yet. I have to stay right here, in this house.”

She was stunned. She stared, just shaking her head.

“It’s important, Annie.”

“No. Nothing is this important. I can’t have you here; I can’t look at you, see you standing there claiming you aren’t Richard and looking too much like him to be anyone else. Nothing is important enough to go through this.”

“Not even your child?”

Annie lunged out of the bed and stood facing him. “What about my child?”

He lowered his gaze, regret for what he’d said written all over his face. “I can’t—”

She gripped the front of his shirt in fists that shook almost violently. “Damn you, Ren, or whoever the hell you are, if there’s something going on that involves my baby, you’d better tell me and tell me now, or I’ll make you wish you’d stayed wherever you came from.“

He stood still, utterly still, just staring down at her. Then his hand rose, and slowly stroked her hair. “There it is,” he said softly. “You’ve found it at last, haven’t you, Annie? You’ve got so much strength inside you, you know that? I can see it in your eyes.”

She bit her lip. Richard had said something so similar to her, how many times?

“Hold on to that strength, that anger,” he said. “You’re going to need all of it for the battles we’ll soon have to face.”

Annie closed her eyes. God, it felt good when he touched her. She wanted so much to believe this was Richard, here, speaking to her so gently. And with every word he said, every expression that crossed his face, she was more convinced.

She grated her teeth and faced him again. “What are you saying? Is my baby in some kind of danger?”

He nodded grimly. He clasped her hands in his, removing them from his shirt, lowering them, flattening her palms to her swollen belly, covering them with his own.

“Who are you?” She lifted her gaze to his, staring deeply into his eyes. “Tell me the truth.”

His sigh was deep and coarse. “I come from another realm, Annie. One most people don’t even know exists.“ He was quiet, pensive for a very long moment. Then he drew a deep breath, seeming to choose his words carefully. ”I’ve broken rules already by telling you as much as I have. Suffice it to say, Annie, that there are forces out there, good and evil so powerful, you couldn’t begin to imagine them. There are those who wish to keep this child from being born. And there are those like me, who’d die to protect it.“

“Why?”

“I can’t say any more. I’m sorry.”

It was madness, what he was telling her. Utter madness. But his words, his voice, rang so true.

“I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m not asking you to do anything at all, except let me stay. Let me protect you until your child is born.”

Let him stay? She’d cut off a limb to keep him with her now. He had to be Richard. And she’d find a way to prove it, make him admit it, or make him remember if he’d somehow forgotten all they’d been to each other. She frowned, lifting her gaze to his and replaying his words in her mind. Until your child is born. A lump came into her throat as she whispered, “And what then?”

Ren cleared his throat. “Then… I go back.” Annie closed her eyes and silently vowed that he wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to lose him. Not again.

Chapter Five

He’d done it. He’d convinced Annie of the lie he’d told her. That he wasn’t her husband, had never been her husband. Maybe. She seemed to have accepted it, for now. Or perhaps she made herself accept it only because it was less painful that way. Or perhaps she was lying, pretending to believe him when in truth she knew better.

For some reason that latter theory seemed the most valid. And it disturbed him. He couldn’t be what he’d been to her. Not now. Not emotionally, not physically. Desire was a thing that didn’t exist for him. And his love belonged to the cause of good. Not to another living soul.

For whatever reason, Annie appeared to believe him. She called him Ren. Still looked at him with wonder in her eyes, but addressed him as a stranger. And she accepted his staying with her… for now, she’d said.

He’d never felt so awkward before. So clumsy and large and likely to say or do the wrong thing and put the pain back in her eyes. He was a Hero, for God’s sake! Why would he feel this way?

But as he walked her to school that morning, the sense of deja vu was so strong, it dizzied him. The urge to hold her small hand tightly in his large one, or worse yet, to cradle her in the crook of his arm, was all but overwhelming.

He couldn’t stop himself from watching her as she walked along beside him. The way the wind caressed her fiery hair amazed him. And the sun glinting from her jeweled eyes. And the silken texture of her skin.

He couldn’t remember ever being this entranced by the way a woman looked. He tore his gaze away, tried to watch where he was going instead. She seemed stiff, tense as she walked with him, but the second his head was turned, he felt her looking at him. Her gaze roamed over his face like a living thing. And it was warm, enticing.

He turned toward her. She looked away.

She was still hurting; Ren couldn’t deny that. Still trying to reconcile the man who’d forced his way into her life with the man she’d loved and lost. He hoped she could go on believing what he’d told her, that they were two separate men. But he was afraid she wouldn’t.

She’d seen through his disguise so easily, it stood to reason she’d see through his lies as well. But her face, her eyes, revealed nothing. Except an excruciating blend of pain and pleasure.

The scent of autumn hung heavy in the chilled air and made the day seem so crisp, one could take a bite of it. But above that scent, he was all too aware of hers. The soap she used, the shampoo, the skin lotions, and her own womanly musk combined to intrigue him and made it impossible not to lean slightly closer just to inhale the fragrance again. How could such a subtle scent play such havoc with his mind? It seemed so enticingly familiar. It tickled at the back of his awareness, nudging some hidden memory and drawing away before he could place it. Over and over again, like the ocean’s waves teasing the sandy shore. Retreating. Teasing again.

He looked down at her, and she promptly shifted her gaze elsewhere. He noticed for the first time that she had a tiny parade of pale freckles marching across the bridge of her nose.

Seventeen of them. Don’t you remember, you counted them once?

Ren frowned at the voice within but stared harder at the freckles—until she turned and scowled at him.

“What are you looking at? Do I have food smudged on my face or something?”

“No. And how could you? You didn’t eat this morning.”

“I did so.”

“One slice of unbuttered toast and a minuscule glass of milk are not a meal.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll understand if I say my stomach isn’t quite calm this morning.” ‘

He blinked and lowered his eyes, ashamed to be the reason for her lack of appetite. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I took my vitamins.”

That eased his mind a little.

“Do you walk to school every day?” he asked her. “Even in the winter?”

“It’s good exercise.” She looked at him a little oddly, as if awaiting his reply.

“In snowstorms?” he asked her. “In below-zero weather?”

As her lips curved upward at the corners, she averted her face. “Gets the blood circulating.”

“You’re crazy,” he told her.

“That’s what Richard always said. Every time we had this discussion. Must have been a dozen times or more.” And she looked at him, and there was a sparkle in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

He said no more, since they were arriving at the school building. He cupped her elbow in his hand as they started up the steps. At the contact, she stopped walking, closed her eyes, and drew a shaky breath. But she didn’t take her arm away. She seemed to gather strength from his touch as she stiffened her spine. She drew a deep breath, opened her eyes, and began moving again.

As they entered the building, she spoke in a low voice. “I’ve told you how odd this is going to look, you coming to school with me this way.”

“And I’ve told you that I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Mrs. Nelson?”

They both stopped walking when the dark-haired woman approached. Annie frowned at her. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Wright. Tammy’s mother,” the woman explained. And Annie nodded as if she’d finally placed her. The woman reached her hand out to clasp Annie’s shoulder, and her face seemed perfect for someone attending a funeral. “How are you?” she asked, and the words were laden with meaning.

“I’m… I’m fine.” If Annie seemed confused, Ren was right with her.

“That’s good,” Mrs. Wright said, offering a weak smile. “That’s very good. You just remember, when the burdens get to be too much for you, let the Lord carry part of the load. I know He’s always been there for me.“

“Thanks. I’ll… uh… I'll remember that.”

“We weren’t meant to bear our grief alone, Annie. That’s what He’s there for.” She patted Annie’s shoulder once more, gave her a brighter smile, and moved away.

Annie stared after her for a second, the skin between her brows forming an accordion. Then she gave her head a shake and turned toward a classroom. But she stopped in the doorway. Her pretty mouth fell open, and her eyes widened in surprise, only to narrow, seconds later, in what looked like fury. And it was aimed at the little round fellow sitting behind the desk.

“Excuse me.” She seemed to grow a few inches taller as she strode into the classroom and addressed the man who was arranging photographs in a horseshoe pattern. “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked him.

He glanced up, brows raised. “I don’t think so. But I’ll let you know if I need anything. New schools are always an adjustment.” He gave her a smile, then glanced past her to meet Ren’s gaze, and his smile died.

“Then maybe you can do something for me,” Annie went on.

“Sure, just ask.”

“Well, for starters you can tell me who you are, and why you’re sitting at my desk.” She had not returned his smile, Ren guessed.

“I… that is, I’m… Oh, my. This is embarrassing. I’m—”

“He’s Marvin Kestler, Annie.”

Annie whirled, and Ren turned to see the man who’d spoken, standing in the doorway.

“Harry, what the hell is going on here?”

Harry came the rest of the way inside, passing Ren as if he wasn’t even there, and approaching Annie. He put a hand on her outer arm, giving her a sappy smile that was obviously forced. Ren stiffened, sensing the man was about to insert a blade between Annie’s ribs.

“Annie…” Harry sighed deeply, and his hand on Annie’s shoulder stroked a small circle. “Are you all right?”

“Why the hell does everyone keep asking me that?”

He let his hand fall to his side at the anger in her voice. “Because we care. Look, I heard about what happened yesterday. And—”

“How, exactly, did you hear about it?”

“Come on, Annie, it happened a few yards from the school. Half the town witnessed it. Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about it?”

She set her jaw and crossed her arms over her chest, just above her swollen belly. “It was an accident, Harry. A near miss. I wasn’t hurt. You can see by looking at me that I’m fine now.“

“Physically,” he blurted, then bit his lip and averted his eyes. “Look, you’ve been under an incredible strain. Everyone knows it, and believe me, we’ve been in awe of the way you’ve carried on in spite of it all. But Annie, you could only take so much. And we understand. We do. We just want you well again. That’s all.”

“We?”

“We’ve discussed this and we agree it’s time you started your maternity leave.”

“Who do you mean when you say ‘we’?”

He shifted his weight from one foot to another. “Dr. Cassius and me, mostly.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “And the Board of Education, of course.”

Ren saw the way Annie flinched in surprise. “Bartholomew?” Her voice held a hint of hurt, maybe a touch of betrayal. Ren felt a stab of something very similar to jealousy then, but of course, it couldn’t have been that. Knights didn’t feel such things.

“He’s terribly worried about you, Annie. And so am I. In fact, he wants to help you. Look, we know how hard this past year has been on you. And now with the baby so close, and—”

She jerked her arm away from his touch. “There is nothing wrong with me, dammit. I can still do my job.”

“Maybe I ought to leave,” Kestler stammered. He elbowed past them and hurried out the door, but Annie didn’t seem to notice.

Harry sent Ren a meaningful glance, as if suggesting he ought to leave as well. Ren gave his head a slight shake.

Annie didn’t see or else just didn’t acknowledge the exchange. Ren saw how much color her cheeks had. He saw the gleam of unshed tears in her eyes. He stood closer to her side, then stiffened in shock when he felt her small hand slip inside his. Her fingers twined and squeezed, and he returned the pressure so automatically that his own action startled him nearly as much as hers had. She’d taken his hand when she’d needed his strength. And she’d done it before, hadn’t she? He knew it. Something about the anger, the flash of life in her eyes right now triggered the knowledge in his mind. How he’d love to see it again.

“Harry, you could have spoken to me about this. This is one hell of a way to let me find out I’ve been replaced.”

“Not replaced, Annie. This is only temporary. And I tried to call you about it last night but the phones—”

“My fault,” Ren interrupted. They both glanced at him as if they’d forgotten his presence. Annie seemed to suddenly realize that she clutched his hand, and she made a move as if to remove hers from his clasp, so he held it tighter. “I’m sorry, Annie. I took the phones off the hook last night. I wanted you to rest.”

This drew a deep frown from Harry. “This guy is staying with you?”

Annie closed her eyes. “Is the board going to dictate my personal life now, as well as my career?”

“Annie’s husband was my cousin,” Ren cut in, not wanting her to let her anger destroy her position at the school. “Naturally, I want to be with her now, since he can’t be here himself.” He felt her hand tremble a bit when he said it. God, could the loss of one man still hurt her that much?

Her eyes opened and she faced Harry. “You don’t have to explain anything to him, Ren. It’s not his business. What is his business is running this school, and so I guess I have no choice but to honor his decision.” She licked her lips. “But I don’t have to like it.

“Annie—”

“Too late to apologize, Harry. I’ll just go now. I hope I’m right in assuming my job will still be here after my maternity leave is over and I’m ready to come back to work.”

He licked his lips. Ren felt a warning prickle dance up his nape, and he saw Annie’s anger surging to the surface again.

“Say it,” she told him. “Will my job be here, or won’t it? You said this leave was temporary. Was that the truth or a bald-faced lie?”

“The truth.” He shook his head. “But this… isn’t about the pregnancy, and we both know it. Look, take all the time you need. Have the baby, get your strength back. But most importantly, Annie, get well.”

“Too vague, Harry. I want specifics.”

He shook his head. “All right. Fine, you want specifics, here they are. You need to get some therapy. See someone. The school board isn’t going to risk you having some sort of breakdown in the middle of a class, so unless you get help, you’re unemployed. Now, Dr. Cassius has said he’d be more than willing to—”

Annie swore, using a phrase Ren wouldn’t have believed was in her vocabulary.

“I’m sorry, Annie. But you’re slipping. We’ve all seen the signs. Passing out during that storm the other night and saying you’d seen someone outside your house. And then your behavior in the store the other day. And what happened yesterday, the way you ran through town and right into the path of Hetty Pike’s car. The way you freaked out afterward. Not recognizing your husband’s cousin. Thinking he was Richard…“ Harry blinked, and Ren thought for a second he detected a hint of moisture in the man’s eyes. ”Dammit, Annie, I know how much you loved him. Hell, the whole town knew. You two were joined at the hip for as long as anyone can remember, even when you were just kids. Honey, I know how hard it’s been, but it’s over now. He’s gone. You have to get yourself together and move on. You need some help, Annie. It’s understandable—“

“My job hinges on it. That’s it, basically?”

With a heavy sigh, he nodded. “The board held an emergency meeting last night, Annie. We all care about you, but the welfare of the students has to come first. We want you to get help.”

“And I shouldn’t bother showing up here again without a note from a shrink saying I won’t go berserk and start offing my students, right Harry? God, I don’t believe this.”

Releasing Ren’s hand she turned and stormed out of the room, out of the building, right into the rush of bodies coming in. Ren was after her instantly, but he could barely keep her in his sight with all the students surrounding her. He dived into the crowd of them, shouldering his way through, battling visions of her swollen, delicate body being trampled beneath all those Reebok-clad feet.

When he finally found her, she stood frozen near a huge yellow bus. She was staring off into the distance, across the newly mown grass that surrounded the brick building. Just staring. And he wondered about Harry Hayes. He wondered if the man truly cared about Annie, as he seemed to. Or if he was, perhaps, working for the side of evil. Using her own feelings against her, working to systematically destroy her and thereby gain access to her child.

He knew there was a dark knight stalking her—Blackheart, if this mission was as important to humanity as Sir George had claimed. The dark side would send their fiercest warrior. But Ren had no way of knowing who the man might be or what form he might have taken to accomplish his evil mission. Like Ren, he’d likely come into this realm in disguise. So could he be posing as Annie’s Harry Hayes?

“Annie?”

She blinked and brushed the tears away from her eyes. “I shouldn’t be mad enough to strangle Harry,” she said softly.

“Probably not.”

“He really does care about me. He just doesn’t understand.”

“How could he?”

“And he has to look out for the kids. I mean, I wouldn’t respect him if he didn’t.”

“Of course,” Ren said.

She knuckled her cheeks dry, shook her head. “But it still infuriates me.” She took a deep breath, held it a few seconds, let it out slowly. When she lifted her head and looked off in the distance, her face cleared a little.

“Feel better?”

She nodded but didn’t look at him. Instead she lifted a tentative hand and waved. And in a second, she smiled very slightly.

“She’s an unusual girl. So beautiful and… and odd.”

“Who is?” Ren asked.

Annie pointed. “Sara. Right there, by the maple tree.” She looked at Ren as he sought, and didn’t find the girl she was pointing out. There was no one by the maple tree. “I’ve been trying to figure out why she’s here, where she came from. But I suppose I should just accept her presence and quit questioning it. She’s so supportive and kind of soothing to me. I like her.”

Ren squinted, shaded his eyes, stared into the distance. But there was no one in sight. He looked down at Annie and frowned in confusion. A cold chill slid up his spine, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders before he thought better of it. “Come on, Annie. Let’s go-“ She nodded, waved once more toward the girl only she could see, and leaned into his embrace as they walked.

And Ren felt a blade slowly slicing off a paper-thin portion of his heart.

She stopped walking, stepped away from him, and looked up into his face. “You didn’t see her, did you?”

Ren set his jaw, met her crystalline green eyes, and knew he couldn’t lie to her. He shook his head.

She bit her lower lip. “And now you’re wondering if maybe Harry’s right. If I’m slipping just a little bit.”

“Annie, I never said that.”

“You know me better than to think that way,” she told him. “I didn’t lose it when you died; I’m certainly not going to crack up now that you’ve come back.”

He studied her face. Calm, rational. Loving. “I’m not Richard,” he said.

“Right. I keep forgetting.” She reached down, plucked a bright yellow buttercup from the ground, and held it under his nose.

Ren frowned down at her, completely at a loss. And then he sneezed.

“Richard was allergic to buttercups,” Annie said, tossing the little blossom to the ground. “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it, Ren?”

“Don’t, Annie. Stop trying to see him in me. It will only cause you more pain.”

She shook her head, held up a hand to cut him off when he would have said more, and started walking again. She walked briskly. He wanted to tell her to slow down, to take it easy, but he was afraid to say anything just now. Afraid of making her more suspicious, more unhappy, than she was already.

She left the road, crossed through a grassy lot that served as a town park, and only stopped when she reached the edge of the river that bubbled and tumbled along. Sitting down in the grass, she stretched her legs out in front of her.

The place was familiar to Ren. For some reason he knew that the blackberry patch was off to the right on the far bank even before he looked up and saw it there. And the way the willow tree seemed to bend over the water, like an old man trying to get a sip—he’d seen it before.

Annie leaned back on her hands. “Sit beside me, Ren.”

He did, very close beside her. And he tried not to look at her. He told himself to study the water instead. But it didn’t stop the rush he felt coming in his mind. Something had happened here. He saw, in blindingly rapid flashes, a checkered tablecloth spread on the grass, a bottle of wine, Annie’s bare feet dangling in the water…

She sighed. “You have no idea what he meant to me,” she told him. “If you did, you wouldn’t keep telling me to stop trying to convince myself you are my Richard, come back to me. Because you’d know how impossible it is for me to give up.”

Ren closed his eyes, but still the flashes came. He saw the two of them, him and Annie, splashing each other with the river water, laughing out loud. But they were younger. Teenagers, perhaps.

“The closest thing I can liken it to is losing a limb,” she went on. “Only it’s worse. Almost as if I were sawed in half. He was part of me, you know. And when he left it was as if that part of me, the very best part of me, left with him.”

He saw them fall to the ground together and saw himself catching her in his arms, kissing her until their laughter died and an innocent, timid passion replaced it. He saw his own hands, trembling as they fumbled with her clothes, removing them piece by piece…

“I forget when I sleep, you know,” she said. Her voice was softer now than before. “I forget he’s gone, sometimes, in my dreams. So mat every morning when I wake it’s like losing him all over again. The experts told me it would get easier with time, but it only got worse. Hell, how could it not?

“Annie, you have to get past this.”

“Don’t.” She shook her head at him, blinking the tears from her eyes. “Don’t tell me to get over it. We didn’t love like other people love. What we had… it was bigger. It was deeper. It was like a living thing, the love we had.” She closed her eyes. “How could you forget that?”

He wanted to take her pain away. He wanted it more than he wanted to draw another breath. But he couldn’t tell her that memories were assaulting him even now. That maybe he hadn’t forgotten. That perhaps she was right, and their love had been as powerful as she claimed—more powerful than Sir George’s magic. So powerful, he’d been mourning its loss as much as she had, though he’d never known what exactly he’d been longing for.

This was the first place he’d made love to her. Ren knew it as surely as he knew that the man she was crying for was sitting beside her now. It was killing him not to tell her. But if she was in this much pain now, what would she feel when the time came for him to leave her again? God, it might destroy her utterly.

He lifted a hand to brush the tears from her eyes. “You can’t surrender to your grief, Annie. And you know the reason as well as I do.” He glanced down at her swollen belly, and she lowered her chin. “Your baby needs you.” Our baby needs you.

“Our baby,” she told him. And those two words were like blades sinking into his heart. She squeezed her eyes tight and nodded. “You’re right. I know that. My grief, my need to get to the truth, can wait. Our baby’s safety comes first. But I’m not going to give up, Ren.” Her eyes opened, meeting his. “I can’t.”

“And you can’t afford to be distracted by your wishful thinking either. This battle is going to take all your concentration, Annie. All your will.”

She nodded, seemingly accepting that, and Ren felt he’d been given a reprieve. He had to convince her he wasn’t her husband. But it looked as if it would be difficult. Perhaps impossible.

“Tell me this,” she asked him. “Why do these… dark forces… want to hurt my baby?”

He wasn’t supposed to tell. It would be breaking one more of Sir George’s rules. Well, he’d already bent them. And he continued to bend them because he cared more about this fragile, strong, stubborn woman with every breath he drew. That was certainly a breach. A serious one. But dammit, he couldn’t lie to her more than he already had.

He took her hand in both of his. “Annie, your child is going to become a great leader. One who will bring about sweeping changes, good changes. Ends to war and disease and famine. Annie, this baby is special. Vital.“

She blinked and ran her hands over her belly. “My baby?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head slowly in wonder. Then she smiled. “Naturally. How could Richard’s child be any less?” She picked up a rock, tossed it, and watched it plop into the water. “Trust the universe to pick the perfect father for such an important little one.”

“But do you trust me?” Like her, he picked up a rock and flung it with a twist of his wrist. It skimmed the water’s surface, hopping four, five, six times before sinking out of sight. He hadn’t realized he could do that.

She hadn’t answered him. He turned to see her staring, wide-eyed, at the ripples his stone had left in the water.

“Annie?”

She blinked, shook herself, and finally looked at him. That wonder was in her eyes again. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I trust you.”

He became lost in those jewel-green eyes of hers for long moments. And then he blinked because he saw the way they softened, the yielding, the longing that blossomed in their glittering depths. And he knew what she wanted.

Her body seemed to sway toward him just a little, but he caught her shoulders and held her steady, keeping a bit of space between them. As his fingertips sank into the flesh of her shoulders, an urge to pull her closer rose up inside him. Inexplicable, but nearly irresistible. And he felt, like a shadow from the past, a distant memory. One so sensory and so vivid, it was as if it were happening again at this very moment. He felt the touch of her skin against his. The gentle friction, the heat. The taste of her came to life on his tongue, the feel of her mouth opening to his, the sensation of invading that damp satin paradise, of possessing it.

The sensations made him dizzy. His heart hammered against his chest, and he fought to keep his breathing regular. Trying to act perfectly normal was a difficult thing when he could almost feel his mind absorbing the memory and trying to reproduce it. How could he hope to hide his memories from her, to disguise the growing feelings in him? Especially when he couldn’t for the life of him look away from the plea in her crystalline eyes. Especially when he was suddenly yearning to taste her lips. To feel, for the first time in what seemed like centuries, the stirrings of physical desire.

Dammit, he wanted to feel again!

It was Annie who looked away.

And Ren was left feeling as if he’d been on the verge of something wonderful, only to have it pulled just beyond his reach. And that gnawing emptiness, that ache that had haunted him for as long as he could remember, came back to him full force. And for the first time, Ren thought he knew what it was he’d been longing for so much. What it was he’d been missing.

It was Annie.

Annie, the woman who had been his wife. The love they must have shared. God, he’d been grieving for her as much as she still was for him. Only he’d been unable to identify the source of his intense sorrow.

But he’d felt it all the same. Even with his memory of her erased, his feelings for her— perhaps his love for her—had remained locked in his heart. And now that he understood that, he wanted more.

She got to her feet, and when she struggled, he was quick to grab her shoulders again, to help her. But she pulled away from his grasp, cleared her throat, straightened her hair, though there was no need. And then she averted her face, and he wondered if there were tears burning in her eyes, ones she didn’t want him to see. He kept his gaze averted, too, as they walked together back to the house she’d once shared with the man she’d loved. And he felt once again like an invader in a sacred place. Even though he knew, more than he’d known before, that he wasn’t.

Chapter Six

“Mother, no. No, I’m fine,” Annie said into the telephone receiver, hoping to ease the worry in her mother’s tone. “I promise, you’d know if I wasn’t.”

“How can you say that?” Georgette asked. “Darling, you’ve been in the hospital, and you never even called us! You were nearly run down by a car, and now I learn you’ve got some stranger living with you! What on earth is going on?”

“It’s reassuring to know the town rumor mill is still in working order,” she muttered.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Annie. I’m concerned. Now, about this stranger—”

“He’s not a stranger.” Far from it, Annie thought. I’m pretty sure he’s my dead husband. She could just imagine her mother’s reaction if she blurted that tidbit out.

“Well, he’s not Richard’s cousin, as you and he are claiming, that’s for sure! Maria says—”

“You told Maria about this? Mom, how could you?”

“She’s your mother-in-law. She has a right to know. And she says there is no such person as this Ren fellow you claim is Richard’s long-lost cousin. So if he’s told you he is, he’s a con man. And if you aren’t being misled, then you’re deliberately lying.”

“Oh, for heaven’s—”

“We’re coming over there. And we want some answers, young lady. I’m not going to have my grandchild raised in such an… an unstable environment. Some drifter under the roof! It’s…”

She went on, but Annie rolled her eyes, shook her head, and tuned her mother out. She marveled that the small-town grapevine had reached her mother’s neck of the woods so fast. Georgette and Ira lived three hours north, at the base of the forest-coated hillside that was Mystic Lake’s home. Her horses usually kept her busy enough to leave Annie alone, but not this time.

Annie closed her eyes as her mother’s voice rang on and on. Then she felt a warm, big hand close over hers, and the receiver was gently taken away. She glanced up when Ren spoke.

“Georgette? Hello, this is Ren, the man who’s staying with your daughter.”

Annie groaned inwardly.

“Of course. I’m looking forward to it. But I’m not sure it’s such a good time for Annie. She’s exhausted, and the whole idea of my staying with her was to ease the burden. She needs her rest.”

She groaned out loud this time. Ren only smiled at her.

“Yes, I know Aunt Maria gets confused that way. She doesn’t remember me, I’m afraid. I haven’t seen her since I was a little boy. But it’s probably for the best. When we were small, she used to get Richard and me confused. It was right after she’d lost her eyesight, you see. And our voices were similar, so…”

Annie blinked in surprise. There were few people on the planet for whom her mother cared more deeply than Maria Nelson. She’d taken to Richard’s mother like a sister, and she’d do anything to keep from hurting her.

“Exactly, Georgette. That’s a good idea. I’m sure that would be the best way to handle it. Questioning her about me will only dredge up painful memories. She’s suffered so much already.” He paused. “You’re a kind woman. Okay, then. Good-bye for now.”

He hung up and turned to look at Annie. And his smug expression was so familiar, it hurt. “She’s reassured. She’s not coming over… yet. And you’re off the hook.”

At that moment there was little doubt in Annie’s mind that he was Richard. Richard, who’d always been able to sweet-talk his meddlesome, well-intentioned mother-in-law no matter what the circumstances. Exactly the way Ren had done, just now.

Dammit, she had to be nuts! But she also had to know more about him. He’d claimed he was not her husband, he’d told her he didn’t know her, but she found herself wanting to prove him a liar. She wanted to be right about this. Wanted it so badly that maybe she was imagining the signs she kept seeing. Like the way he skipped the stone on the water that morning. Just as Richard used to do. He’d tried teaching her the trick of it when they were kids, one summer day on Mystic Lake. And even then, there’d been… something special between them. Something neither of them recognized or understood, but both of them felt. Some tie that bound their souls together even before physical attraction had entered into their thought processes.

It was the same something she felt stirring between her and Ren right now. She’d realized it when he’d looked into her eyes, when he’d almost kissed her.

It was too much to believe in, too much to hope for. But all day it had been niggling at her brain. And as she pondered the idea, the pain that had been with her for so very long seemed to ease a little bit. The depression that had made her feel her legs were made of lead and her mind was stuffed with wet cotton balls began to dissipate. And instead, her brain filled with ideas and plots and plans of how she could test him to prove or disprove her theory.

How the hell had he known Maria was blind?

The rest of the day passed quickly. The first one she remembered spending without battling constant depression and pain. She smiled more often than she had in eight long months, and she cooked a real dinner instead of grabbing a sandwich.

She found him in the nursery. He’d taken all the various crib parts up there and was sitting on the floor with them spread around him. It brought a lump to her throat to see him working so calmly in the very place where she would have expected to see her husband. And she hesitated in the doorway.

He looked up, met her gaze, and glanced down at the partially assembled mess in front of him. “I should have asked first. Do you mind?”

Her knees trembled. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t. “No. No, I don’t mind at all.”

He smiled, and as his eyes traveled over her face his smile became a grin that took her breath away. “You have sauce on your chin.”

Her stomach clenched into a knot. She ran the pad of her thumb over her chin, remembering the way Richard would kiss such spatters off her face and claim he was only tasting dinner.

“I made lasagna,” she managed. It had always been Richard’s favorite. “Do you like it?”

It seemed he had to think about his answer. He tilted his head to one side, frowning. “I think so. It’s… it’s hard to remember.”

“Why?” She watched him carefully as she awaited his reply. “Has it been such a long time?”

He nodded, that sad, haunted expression darkening his eyes. “Longer than you know. But it’s more than that.” His eyes narrowed as he searched for words. “I’m not like other men, Annie.”

“You never were,” she said softly.

He frowned at her, but apparently decided to let it slide. “White Knights don’t… feel things the way mortal men do.”

And it was Annie’s turn to frown. “Don’t they?”

“Carnal urges aren’t a part of our makeup. Hungers and cravings—”

“And desire?”

His eyes met hers, darkened slightly just before he averted them. “We eat because it keeps us strong. But I can’t remember the last time I actually took pleasure in a meal.”

There was more he wanted to say. Maybe that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken pleasure with a woman either. But he clamped his jaw and erased the look in his eyes. An act of will, a deliberate covering up of his feelings. She’d done it herself often enough to recognize it when she saw it. What was he trying to hide? Ren rose and brushed his hands together. “It certainly smells wonderful,” he said.

She stepped closer to him. “You used to say my lasagna was the next best thing to sex.”

His face reddened a bit. “Not me. Your husband. I keep telling you—”

“Right.” She smiled a little. “You’re not him. Funny how I can’t seem to get that through my head.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Richard was in ecstasy when he ate my lasagna. It’s just dripping with peppers and onions, imported cheeses, fresh spinach.” She sniffed the air. Saw him pretending not to do the same. “I make this garlic bread with it and serve it hot, so the butter just melts into it. Richard always loved to mop up the extra sauce with a slice of hot garlic bread.“

“It sounds… very nice.”

“It’s ready and waiting.” She stepped aside to let him pass. He searched her face, wary of her, suspecting a trick, no doubt. But then he gave his head a shake and left the room.

Annie followed him down the stairs. He paused only long enough to wash his hands, and when he came to the dining room, he sat at Richard’s usual spot at the table. She didn’t have to tell him, hadn’t given him a clue to go by, hadn’t so much as set a place for him yet. Just motioned for him to sit, and waited while he did.

She tried not to take that as yet another sign that he was lying when he said he wasn’t Richard. She had to be objective. She had to be sure.

She put the food on and watched him again. Left-handed, just like her Richard. Everything… everything…

The way he chewed, the amount of salt he sprinkled on his food, the frequent, overlong chugs of the milk they had with dinner. And he could deny it until hell froze over, but she knew damned well he was enjoying every bite.

He broke off a piece of garlic bread and swiped it through the sauce on his plate. Then he froze, blinking down at the bread in his hand as if surprised to see it there. He lifted his gaze, met her eyes.

She tried not to look smug. “Care for some more?” she asked.

He shook his head no, and dropped the bread on his plate. He looked confused. Maybe even a little bit scared.

Annie tried to tell herself not to get her hopes up too high, but her mind wasn’t listening. With every breath he drew, she was more convinced this man was her husband. And that might be dangerous. The practical part of her—the tiny part that clung stubbornly to the idea that believing that would be surrendering to an impossible fantasy—insisted that it was dangerous. Very dangerous. But the rest of her was relishing this time with him. Needing it, thriving on it, drawing strength and warmth and even life from it. She hadn’t felt this alive in a very long time.

“I’ll get the dishes,” he told her, rising from his chair and reaching for her empty plate.

“No, that’s—”

“Rest,” he said softly. “You look exhausted, Annie.”

It was more emotional exhaustion than physical. Annie knew that, but she nodded anyway. She stretched out on the sofa with her feet up, rubbed the small of her aching back, closed her eyes, and listened to the comforting clink of dishes and the gentle splashing of water coming from the kitchen.

Sometime during the night, she thought she heard footsteps. Her first thought was of Ren… Richard—the two blurred together in her mind. But then she stiffened a little. The steps were slow, calculated, creeping. As if the walker didn’t want to be heard.

Sit up. Open your eyes. Call Ren.

The tourmaline pendant that rested on her chest seemed to vibrate and grow warm. It was nothing. It was only Ren, and if he was being quiet, it was simply because he didn’t want to wake her. Absently she lifted a hand to stroke the pulsing stone at her throat. Soft sleep spread its velvet cloak over her and she embraced it, burrowing deeper into its arms. She dreamed Ren was Richard. She dreamed he came to her and took her in his arms and swore never to leave her again. Never. No matter what. She was so happy, so very happy.

She didn’t want to wake because there was a part of her that knew this heaven was only a dream. To wake meant to lose him again. So she hugged sleep tighter and held her husband in her dreams.

She needed the rest. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb her. Besides, if he woke her, he’d have to face the growing knowledge in her eyes yet again.

He’d relished the meal she’d prepared. The flavors had come alive on his tongue as none ever had before—or none that he could remember. The spices. The gooey cheeses. The sauce. It had been so good, he’d nearly wept.

God, what was happening to him? Something inside him, some dormant part of him, seemed to be reawakening. Sensory memories were returning and becoming more than just memories. They were coming alive. In him. A White Knight! It was unheard of. And unacceptable.

And looking at Annie only made the sensations he had no business feeling all the stronger. So he wouldn’t move her to her own bed or wake her. He’d let her rest on the sofa where she’d fallen fast asleep.

He checked the locks and turned off the lights, and then he went to her, to tuck a blanket around her. As his hands smoothed the cover over her shoulders, she stirred, smiled a little in her sleep. Ren went still. Her dark lashes rested on her satin cheeks. Her hair spread out over the small throw pillows like a cloud. He battled an urge to bury his face in that fragrant mass of silk. Curiosity assailed him. Could he take as much pleasure in the scent of her hair as he had in the meal? Would it really damn him beyond redemption to find out? He bent closer, nuzzling locks of her hair with his face, inhaling that succulent fragrance that was hers alone. And a pleasure that was almost painful swirled in his mind. He didn’t know why this was happening, but it was.

His chest brushed hers as he leaned over her, and a jolt of liquid heat shot through him, so potent and shocking, it nearly knocked him to his knees.

This was unwise, what he was doing. He could lose his very life for it. He straightened away from the sleeping angel, forced his gaze away from her, and went upstairs to finish assembling the crib. Anything to distract him from the thoughts plaguing his mind.

But as it turned out, it took a good deal more to make him stop thinking about her, stop feeling for her.

He’d never intended to fall asleep in the nursery, on the undersize crib mattress he’d been using for a seat. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to doze at all, when he shook himself awake later. It was totally unlike him to doze unintentionally.

But when the sharp and acrid scent reached him, he knew with a surge of alarm exactly what had lulled him into unconsciousness.

There was an odor in the house. The odor of natural gas.

“Annie!”

Ren leaped to his feet, snatching up his sword and belting it around him with his heart pounding. He raced into the hall, down the curving stairs. In complete darkness he made his way to the bottom, not daring to so much as touch a light switch. Gas filled the room, the air so dense with it that he nearly collapsed before he reached Annie. And Ren knew that a single spark could send the entire place up in flames. So no lights. No telephone. No time to do anything other than scoop her into his arms and get out.

Air. God, he was dizzy! Disoriented! Weak.

He stumbled to the sofa where she lay, and gathered her into his arms. Pulling her close, he hugged her to his chest and spoke to her, but she didn’t respond. As he turned toward the door, his knees gave out. He fell to the floor, still holding Annie, and knelt there clinging to her, blinking in the darkness, searching for the door. His eyes burned. He couldn’t breathe. He finally got to his feet, only to fall again.

Damn. He’d drop her, hurt her or the baby if he kept this up. To hell with standing. He remained on his knees and made his way to the door. By the grace of God, he found it, but his fingers fumbled awkwardly with the lock. Finally it sprang free, and he got the door open. It was all he could do to throw himself, still clinging to Annie, through the opening.

They spilled together onto the porch, and he cushioned her with his own body. Ren gasped, inhaling great gulps of fresh night air. His head cleared slightly, slowly, and he breathed deeper, fighting for strength. He had to help her, had to see to it that she and the baby were all right. He got to his feet and scooped her up again, staggering down the steps and away from the house and its noxious gas, not to mention the looming danger of an explosion. And when he’d gone what his fogged mind judged was a safe distance, he gently laid her down in the dewy grass and knelt beside her, bending over her, feeling his heart shatter in fear for her.

She was pale, her face standing out against the night’s darkness like the face of a ghost. He caught her fragile shoulders, shook her gently, then harder. No response. “Dammit, Annie, be all right!” He wasn’t supposed to feel this way. But knowing it did nothing to quell it. He cared for this woman in a way he was only beginning to understand.

There was nothing. She wasn’t breathing. The child’s life hung in the balance. Ren bent closer, covering Annie’s mouth with his own and forcing precious oxygen into her lungs to feed her—and her child. His child. Over and over he blew life into her body. And he heard his own heart pounding in fear all the while.

She coughed, pushing him away to gasp on her own. She choked and drew deep, shaky, noisy breaths that had an edge of desperation to them.

“Annie,” he whispered, stroking her hair away from her face, holding her as she dragged in gulps of air. “Sweet Annie, are you all right?” He rubbed her hands and her arms vigorously, as if he could rub the life back into her. God, she was cold. He stroked her face and her eyes opened. She met his gaze, blinking, and then lifted her arms weakly to encircle his neck. Ren gathered her to him, held her hard, and rocked her slowly.

“What… ?” She drew another ragged breath, her body all but limp against his as she struggled to speak.

“Gas,” he told her. “The house was filled with it.” He held her away from him just a little, enough so he could search her face. The way her head wobbled made it obvious she could barely hold it up.

“Listen to me,” he said as her eyes fell closed again. He shook her gently until they opened once more, unfocused and dazed.

“Did you hear anyone in the house, Annie? Did you see anything?”

She blinked vaguely.

“I have to know.” Ren shook her a little more.

She smiled a little crookedly at him. “Don’t leave me, Richard. Not ever again, okay?”

“Annie, come on. Sit up. Breathe. Deeper, come on.“

She inhaled as he instructed. Exhaled. Dropped her head down upon his shoulder. “I love you so much, Richard,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes as the pain took a large hunk of his heart this time. Soon there would be nothing left of it. “I know,” he told her, his voice coarse and barely audible. “I know. Come on, breathe some more. Rest here. I have to go to one of the neighbors. I have to call an ambulance…”

“No. Don’t leave me.” She clung to his neck with renewed strength.

Ren sighed and stroked her hair. “I’m not leaving you. I promise, I’m just going to get help. You need help, Annie.”

She shook her head, lifted it. “Tell me you love me.”

“Annie—”

“You still do, don’t you?” Tears threatened, filling her green eyes to brimming. “Don’t you?”

Ren swallowed hard. It was the gas. She was muddled, disoriented, only semiconscious, he told himself. She’d pass out again within a minute or two and probably remember none of this when she awoke. “Of course I do,” he said to comfort her. He’d have said anything then if it would help her.

“Then say it,” she demanded. No. Not demanded. It was more like a plea. “Say you love me.”

He shook his head slowly, not knowing what to do. “I… I love you, Annie.” And as he spoke the words, he knew he’d said them a thousand times before. It was as if one of the countless veils between Ren and his past had been removed. The words were warm and real and familiar. And… they even felt… true.

“Again,” she whispered.

“I love you.” He ached inside. For her. For himself. For what they must have had, what they’d lost.

Annie leaned up and pressed her lips to his.

God! It was heaven and hell all at once. To know what kissing her must have been like for him once. To know it could never be that way again because he was incapable of experiencing passion. He kissed her. Because he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to know just a hint of what he’d left behind.

Dammit, it was unfair and cruel and probably the most unknightly thing he’d ever done, kissing her when she was in this condition. But he did it anyway. And he wasn’t supposed to feel anything. He wasn’t prepared to feel anything.

But he did.

A shivering heat uncoiled in his belly as his lips moved over hers. Her tender mouth parted, and instinctively he took it, gently but greedily, because her taste made him hunger in a way he’d never hungered before. In a way he was supposed to be incapable of. So he gave in to it, telling himself it would just be this once. He fed from her sweetness, and she seemed to offer more. And Ren was flooded with sensations as his mouth mated with hers.

It was only when her lips slackened and her body went rag-doll limp against his that he stopped. Her arms around his neck loosened, and she dropped her head to his shoulder once more.

Desire pooled in his groin like lava, and his body responded in a purely mortal way. God, he wanted her. He wanted her more than he’d wanted anything in his life, that he could recall. Swollen middle and all.

He eased her to the ground, untwisted her arms from around his neck, and got to his feet.

“Don’t call an ambulance. She’s fine.”

Ren nearly jumped a foot in the air as the soft, gentle voice addressed him. The girl sat on the ground beside Annie, holding her hand. But she hadn’t been there a second ago…

“The baby, too,” she went on. “She didn’t inhale enough gas to do any real damage. You don’t have to leave her. You don’t have to make that call.”

Ren shook himself. “Of course I have to. I can’t be sure—”

“I can.”

He narrowed his eyes on the girl. Lovely, to say the least. The most stunning young woman he could remember having met. So much wisdom in those eyes of hers, and a strange crescent-shaped birthmark on her neck. There was love shining from her eyes. For Annie?

“I’m sorry, Sara,” he said, watching for her reaction. “It is Sara, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“I thought so. But I can’t take your word for it. For all I know you might be the one…” He bit his lip, realizing he’d been about to say too much.

“The one who’s out to keep the baby from being born?” The girl grinned at him. “If you only knew how funny that is. But look at me, Ren. Do I look like a Dark Knight to you?”

She didn’t, but that was beside the point.

They were tricksters, the dark ones. And he’d already known the enemy would likely be in disguise.

“Touch me, then.” She offered her hand. “Go on. You know what happens when a White Knight holds the hand of a dark one. Do it.”

“It’s forbidden for a White Knight to take the hand of a dark one,” he told her. But something in her eyes made him lift his hand all the same. Ren closed his hand around her much smaller one, half expecting a lightning bolt to knock him to his knees. But it didn’t. Instead he felt a comforting warmth moving from her palm to his and back again. Something softer and sweeter than anything he’d ever felt before.

She squeezed his hand before taking hers away, and then averted her eyes, blinking rapidly, almost as if tears were threatening.

“Who are you?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. Rules. You understand.”

“Rules,” he repeated. But he was puzzled. If she wasn’t a Dark Knight, then who was she? And what did she know about the other realm? How could she know about White Knights and dark—or about him?

“I know what I have to know for now, Ren. Soon I won’t know any of it. I won’t remember ever having known. And I know you understand that as well. But for now I just do. Accept it. And accept that just as I know these other things, I know that Annie and the baby are fine and healthy. Out of danger for the moment, thanks to you.“ She took Ren’s hand in her own, placed both on Annie’s abdomen, and closed her eyes.

Ren felt the child Annie carried twist and perhaps stretch, as if waking from a deep nap. The image of that made him smile, and he glanced up at the young girl. But she was gone. Odd, that he still felt her holding his hand as if she remained. Very odd.

“Wake up, now, Annie-girl. Come on. Open your eyes.”

She heard his voice as if from a great distance, deep but quiet. Strong, but barely an echo. As if he were far away. And that thought sent a chill through her body. She didn’t want him to be far away. Not ever again.

“Richard,” she whispered. “Don’t go. Don’t go, Richard…”

“Ren,” he said softly, and his voice was closer now, clearer, but for some reason it had gone hoarse. “It’s Ren. Remember?”

She blinked until she was able to focus. Not an easy task, with the way everything seemed to be weaving in and out of its natural shape.

Her head pounded like a heavy-metal drummer, and she seemed to be lying in a pile of fragrant hay with her head and shoulders cushioned by Ren’s lap. When she stared straight up, it was to see his worried face looking down at her. He smiled a little and picked a bit of hay from her hair.

She didn’t sit up. Sitting up, she sensed, would make her head hurt more. And she was tired, so incredibly tired. “What’s going on?” she asked him.

His smile faded. “You don’t remember?”

The intensity in his eyes burned through her, and she knew then that something was terribly wrong. Closing her eyes, searching for the memory of what had happened last night, how they’d ended up sleeping on a haystack, only resulted in making her head ache more.

“Something happened last night, obviously,” she told him. “Something that must have driven us from the house, into this—” She looked around. “Barn?” Frowning, she met his eyes again, her head still cradled in his lap. “Why did we sleep in someone’s barn?” Then, slowly, a memory did come. But not of last night. It was from a long time ago, and it made Annie smile despite the throbbing in her head.

Ren’s face turned curious. “What?”

“I was just remembering… the last time we fell asleep in a pile of hay.”

He looked away. “Annie, don’t—”

“My parents were away. We had the whole place to ourselves, but we couldn’t even wait long enough to get to the house that night. We’d barely finished tending the horses when you scooped me up and carried me off to the hayloft.”

He shook his head in denial.

“That hay was so scratchy,” she said. “And I thought we’d never get the hayseed out of our hair. Of course, we didn’t notice any of that until morning.” She reached up to touch his face, drawing his gaze back to hers with the action. “You made love to me all night long in the hay, Richard. Don’t you remember?”

“It wasn’t me.”

She sighed in disappointment. But at the same time, she felt a slight tensing of his body, and the place where her head rested on his lap seemed to be coming to life.

“I thought you time-traveling-hero types couldn’t feel desire,” she teased.

His face reddened a little, and he eased her out of his lap and got to his feet. “We don’t.”

“But you do.”

“Annie,” he said slowly, firmly. “You fell asleep on the sofa last night. Do you remember that?“

She sat up, massaged her forehead, and thought back. And then she nodded. She did remember. It was right after dinner, right after she’d watched this man who claimed to be a stranger sit in Richard’s chair and wolf down a plateful of Richard’s favorite food in exactly the way Richard would have.

“Yes, I remember. I must have been more tired than I thought.” Again she shook her head in bewilderment, gazing at the rough wooden beams and hay and rusting stanchions in disbelief. “I don’t even remember leaving the house. What did you do, scoop me up and carry me off to the nearest haystack for old times’ sake?”

His dark blue eyes narrowed as he faced her again. “This is important, Annie.”

Sighing, she finally shrugged. “So tell me what happened after I fell asleep.”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “So I left you where you were. Try to remember, Annie. It’s important. Did you wake up at all after I went upstairs?”

She frowned even harder at the seriousness of his tone. “No. I don’t think so.” He watched her so intently, as if willing her to remember something. “Richard—”

“It’s Ren, dammit.” He bit his lip, lowering his head. “Sorry. Annie, my job here is to protect you and the baby. You’re not making it easy.”

“If you think I’m going to make lying to me easy for you, Ren, you’re sadly mistaken. I want the truth.” She searched his face and saw his frustration. “But for now I’ll settle for knowing what happened last night, and why my head feels as if it’s going to explode.”

A frown of concern appeared on his brow, and he moved closer, kneeling in front of her, his big hands framing her face while his fingers gently massaged her temples. “I didn’t realize you were in pain,” he said. “Are you all right?”

She closed her eyes and let herself relish his touch. She’d be all right if he’d just keep touching her forever; she knew she would. Richard used to massage away her headaches, just like this. Why wouldn’t he admit who he was? Could it be that he truly didn’t remember?

“The forces I’m here to protect you against made a move against you last night,” he said, and his hands fell to his sides.

Her eyes flew open. “How?”

His face was grim. “The pilot lights on the range in your kitchen were blown out, and the gas turned on. By the time I realized what was happening, you were unconscious.” He lowered his head. “I never should have left you alone.”

“But you were only upstairs, and…” Annie sucked in a sharp breath, looking down at her belly. “The baby?”

“The baby is all right.”

He said it as if he had no doubt, and for some reason Annie believed him. But she was stunned by what he’d just told her. Stunned and terrified. “I can’t believe someone… someone tried to kill me last night. In my own home. I just—”

“Not kill you,” he told her. “It isn’t allowed.”

Her mounting panic skidded to a stop, and she tilted her head to one side. “Come again?”

Ren paced away from her. “They can’t deliberately murder a mortal being,” he said as matter-of-factly as a driving instructor explaining the rules of the road. “They’re trying to make you miscarry with this gas ploy, same as they were with that car racing down the hill toward you. The impact probably wouldn’t have killed you, but—”

She shook her head. “If they can’t kill a mortal, then how can they try to kill my child? I don’t understand.”

He nodded patiently. “Birth is the crossing over, Annie. From the unseen, magical realm to this one. Until he or she is born, the child is fair game.“

She lowered herself to the hay-strewn floor, stunned. “So last night was an attempt to murder my baby?”

Ren sighed hard and came to her side. He bent over her and cupped her face in his big hands. “I’m not going to let that happen, Annie. I swear it to you.”

She couldn’t get over the impact of it. Someone had come to her home last night, while she slept, and made an attempt on the life of her unborn child. Good God! The very thought of it…

“Annie, try not to dwell on this. I’m here to protect you and I will; I promise you that. I told you you’d need all your strength for this battle. It’s time to call on that strength now.”

“I can’t.” She blinked away the nightmarish thoughts and fears racing through her mind and stared up at him. “How can I?”

He stroked her face, her hair. “I do have some good news for you, believe it or not. I saw the girl last night. The one you call Sara.”

She gave her head a shake. “You saw Sara?” Why did she feel such a twist in her heart at the mention of the girl’s name? Why was she suddenly longing to see Sara again?

“Yes. She spoke to me. She’s not of this world, Annie.”

Annie blinked up at him. “You mean she’s like you? Part of this realm you come from?”

“No. I’m not sure where she comes from. But I sense she’s here to help you, just as I am. I think she can be trusted.”

“I’ve always trusted her. From the first time I saw her,” Annie whispered.

Ren nodded and looked away. “Maybe if I’d come disguised as a young girl, you’d have more trust in me,” he said.

“I’d have more trust in you, Ren, if you’d stop lying to me.”

“I haven’t lied,” he told her. “Not the way you think.”

She stared into his eyes for a long moment, the headache slowly easing now, the fog in her mind lessening a bit. And she said, “You kissed me last night.” Then she frowned. “Or did I dream it, the way I’ve dreamed it so many times?”

He seemed startled, even pained. “You’d stopped breathing. I resuscitated you.”

Her smile felt bitter. “Oh.” She lowered her head. “That’s all it was, then?”

“All it can be,” he said softly.

She got to her feet, turning her back to him so she faced the open barn door and the pink predawn sky.

“I almost wish I were the man you knew,” Ren whispered from behind her, and he came closer. “I wonder if he knew how lucky he was to inspire this kind of fervent devotion in a woman like you.”

Tears burning her eyes, Annie turned to face him. He was very close. And she was afraid. Sorely afraid that all the clues, all her instincts were wrong, and that he really wasn’t Richard after all.

“I miss him so much,” she said, but her throat had tightened up, so the words were hoarse.

“I know.”

“Would you hold me, Ren? If you’d hold me…” A sob tore at her breast, breaking her voice. “I could pretend.”

His arms closed tight around her, drawing her against him. Annie pressed her face to his shirt, and she held him hard and thought of Richard’s arms. The way they’d always felt around her. Just like these felt now. Strong and safe, and so familiar. Ren’s shape, the feel of his skin, his scent. Every breath he expelled whispered Richard’s name to her. Every facial expression, every word he spoke. Every time he touched her. Maybe… maybe she wanted it to be real so desperately that she was imagining the myriad similarities. But there was so much.

He spread his palms over the small of her back and rubbed small circles there, where she caught herself rubbing so often.

She tilted her head up and looked into his liquid blue eyes, eyes she’d looked into so many times in her dreams. It was killing her, not knowing for sure… wishing… wanting…

Wake up, now, Annie-girl.

Annie’s thoughts ground to a sudden halt as his words to her earlier came rushing back. Annie-girl. He’d called her Annie-girl. Besides Maria, no one in her entire life had ever called her that, no one but Richard.

She bit her lip, tried to rationalize. She’d been asleep. She might have dreamed the words. She might have subconsciously twisted something else into the endearment she hadn’t heard in so long.

But, God in heaven, she didn’t think so. She’d heard it. And all the other rationalizations she’d been making fled into the darkest corners of her mind. He might skip stones like Richard, and share a fondness for over salted lasagna, and he might have the same smile, the same voice, use the same figures of speech. But no one else would call her Annie-girl. No one but Richard. Not in a million years.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to think straight. I don’t know how any of this can be. I just have to accept that it is, and go from there. Like Sara said. Trust myself. Believe what my instincts are telling me and go with it.

“Annie? Are you all right?”

She couldn’t stop staring at him. That face. Those eyes. She knew her Richard better than anyone ever had or ever would. And she knew. She knew. How could she ever have doubted?

What should she do now?

She didn’t know. Only one thing was for certain. Whatever she did, she would not risk losing him again. She’d battle an army with nothing but a squirt gun before she’d let him go. Fate had torn her husband away from her once, but some quirk of that lady had somehow sent him back. This time she’d have a hell of a fight on her hands.

As Ren searched her face, Annie felt something cracking and peeling away inside her— the shell she’d grown around the woman she’d been. And she felt just a little bit of the old Annie’s strength and stubbornness leaking out through those cracks and seeping into her. It was like breathing for the first time in eight months. Like a sliver of light after endless time enveloped in darkness. And she embraced it, clung to it, and prayed she’d never lose it again.

She had to confront Ren… Richard… and force him to tell the truth—if he even knew what the truth was. She had to have proof he couldn’t deny.

The solution came to her like a whisper of a song dancing on the dawn’s breeze and tickling its way across her ears to make itself heard.

The birthmark. Richard’s birthmark, right between his shoulder blades. If it’s there, then that’s all the proof I need.

Annie swallowed hard, nodded once, and felt better than she had in eight long months. “Ren, do you think the house is safe by now? I really want to go home.”

Chapter Seven

Ren—Richard—had opened every window and door in every room, shut off the gas, and set up fans to clear the air in the house. He’d done all of it while Annie had gone upstairs to wash the hayseed from her hair and put on clean clothes. There was still a slight odor stinging her nostrils, but she was confident the danger had passed. He never would have let her come inside if it hadn’t.

Now he was upstairs, taking his turn in the shower. And she was alone, with the opportunity she’d been waiting for all morning. Bolstered by the firm belief that she had every right to know the truth—more right than he had to keep it from her—Annie slipped up the stairs, quiet as a mouse. Her hands trembled a little. She supposed there was still a kernel of doubt in her mind. A tiny question. She might be wrong. He might truly be the stranger he claimed to be. But it was only nerves making her doubt what she knew in her heart to be true. It was her husband she was about to spy on. And she’d seen Richard’s beautiful body too many times to let herself be embarrassed by it now. No matter what he claimed.

She moved slowly down the hall and paused outside the bathroom door. She could hear the water running from within, could envision him standing beneath the spray. She touched the doorknob, turned it. Not locked. Why would he lock it? It wasn’t as if he expected her to do… what she was about to do.

Slowly she pushed the door open, holding her breath, half expecting the hinges to creak and announce her presence. They didn’t.

Inside, she could see him beyond the frosted glass of the shower doors, the hazy silhouette of his body. Her throat went dry and she swallowed hard, waiting until he turned his face to the spray, leaving his back to her.

She wouldn’t get another opportunity like this one. Bracing herself, she moved forward and tugged the sliding door open. And just before he whirled on her, she saw it. The small brown mark right between his shoulder blades hadn’t changed in the least.

“My God,” she muttered. “I knew… I thought I knew, but now…”

“What are you doing here, Annie?”

She met his eyes, wide and alarmed. But she could only stare up at him, shaking her head, working her jaw. It was true. There was no longer any doubt.

Sighing heavily, he cranked off the faucets and reached for a towel. Knotting it around his hips, he stepped out of the shower, gripped her shoulders, and searched her face. “Annie, what is this about?”

She looked over his shoulder, toward the mirror just behind him, saw the birthmark as clearly as she could see her husband standing in front of her, and said, “I used to tease you about your birthmark, Richard. I used to tell you it looked like a doughnut with a bite taken out of it, and say you must have been a cop in a previous life.”

Frowning, he glanced behind him, following the cue of her eyes, and he could see his back in the mirror.

“Are you forgetting your lines, Ren? Should I help? You’re going to tell me it’s a coincidence. That it doesn’t prove anything.”

He faced her slowly. And he wasn’t looking as if it were a coincidence. He was looking as if his deepest secret had just been broadcast on network television. His blue eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them. He shook his head, blowing air through clenched teeth.

“It’s true, isn’t it, Richard? It’s really you.” So much hope—more than hope, certainty—

surged in her heart that the organ strained to contain it all.

He looked at her for a long moment and finally looked away.

“For the love of God, Richard, don’t lie to me again. Not now.”

He closed his eyes slowly, expelling a deep sigh. “Yes. It’s true. I was your husband.”

She blinked in shock. Tough to believe she’d heard him right. She’d been fully expecting him to shoot down every bit of evidence she’d found. He’d been denying it for so long. She should be angry—but she couldn’t. It made no difference to her now.

She moved toward him, not feeling her feet touch the floor. Her hands rose as if on their own, and she touched his face, pressed her palms to his cheeks, and cupped his chin. She felt a tear roll down her cheek as she searched his eyes, and she knew the desperation she felt must show clearly in them.

“Richard…”

“No.” He caught her hands in his own, stopping them. “I said I was him. But I’m not the same man now, Annie. I don’t… I don’t remember.”

“I don’t care.” The words came out as a whisper. And she knew it was crazy. She had him back, memory or not. She had him back! Her fingers inched upward, threaded into his hair. She clutched his head and drew it downward until his mouth pressed to hers. And she knew he wanted to resist her, to pull away, but he didn’t.

“Annie,” he muttered against her lips. And then he kissed her, his stiff back and shoulders bowing over her, his hard arms gathering her to him as his lips nuzzled hers. His eyes fell closed just before Annie’s did, and she heard his coarse sigh of surrender. His mouth covered hers, captured it, drew on her lips as if in search of some forbidden nectar. His tongue slid inside to stroke the fires until they burned through her every cell. He tasted so good. So wonderfully familiar. And she knew it was all true. Because he’d confirmed it. He was Richard. He was her husband, and he was back in her arms where he belonged. No power on heaven or earth would take him from her again. She felt fierce and strong, determined and equal to any challenge. She wouldn’t let him go. No matter what. Not ever again.

And then he straightened, and she saw both blazing desire and unbearable pain in his blue eyes. And he spoke the words she’d refused even to consider.

“I’m not the man you knew,” he told her gently. “Not anymore. I can never be him again.”

“You’re already becoming him again,” she whispered.

“Even if that were true, it wouldn’t matter. I can’t stay.”

She shook her head in denial, but even as she did, she knew he fully believed what he was saying to her. It was in his eyes, in his voice—deep, trembling, and so, so sad. It couldn’t be true. She refused to accept it. It would kill her this time. It would. There was no way she could survive losing him again.

“No,” she whispered. “I won’t let it happen.”

“There’s nothing you can do to prevent it, Annie. Nothing I can do either. It’s the way this works.” His voice was so sure.

She’d find a way. She would. She just wasn’t certain how… yet.

“How long?” she whispered, not ready to argue over it. Not yet. Not while the chances were so good that it was an argument she’d lose. She couldn’t bear to have him prove her wrong.

He closed his eyes and turned away from her. “I don’t know. Until the child is born, I imagine.”

She choked back a sob. “I won’t pretend to understand any of this. I couldn’t possibly. But I…” She what? She didn’t know. She couldn’t tell him she loved him because she didn’t really know him. Not anymore. But, God, it felt as if she did.

“Richard—”

“Please, Annie.”

She sighed but nodded. “Ren, explain this to me. What happened to you? How did all of this… ? I want to understand.”

“I’m not supposed to tell.”

“You owe me this.” She touched his face with trembling fingertips. “If you can’t be my Richard, at least tell me why.”

Sighing heavily, he nodded. “You’re right. I’ve put you through hell. I owe you an explanation.”

“Thank you.”

He met her eyes and swallowed hard. She saw the swell of his Adam’s apple. “Gan I get dressed first?”

She looked up quickly and saw a hint of humor in his eyes. It was Richard’s. He was Richard, deep down. But she supposed she’d have to prove that to him before he’d believe it, or admit it. “If you have to.” But she let her hand linger on the broad expanse of his chest for just a moment. “I’ll make some coffee.”

He nodded but said nothing as she turned and left the room.

An hour later she sat in the living room, across from him, trying to digest all the things he’d told her. He’d told the truth when he said his memory of his mortal life had been erased, along with visceral feelings and desires. She sensed his honesty. She’d always been able to tell when Richard was fibbing. So she knew he was being open with her, finally.

But she thought perhaps he wasn’t fully aware of the other things she could sense. That his memory, and his feelings, hadn’t been destroyed but buried. And that she could find them and bring them back to the surface again. She knew she could.

And she would.

“I came here believing this to be just another mission. My job was to protect an unborn child. I didn’t… I didn’t know who I’d been…”

He stopped and she got the feeling he couldn’t go on.

“But why did this… this Sir George, whoever he is, send you? He must have known.”

He shook his head, but Annie thought about what she knew of her husband, and she knew the answer. “It’s because you’re the best, isn’t it? My baby is so important that he’d send you, in spite of all the complications, simply because you’re the best.”

Ren shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. You weren’t supposed to be able to recognize me. Sir George’s magic was supposed to conceal my identity from everyone but myself.“

“And that’s why no one else recognizes you,” she said, nodding. Finally understanding. “But nothing could fool me. You could have come to me with a bag over your head, and I’d still have known you.”

“I’m just beginning to realize that.”

“You haven’t changed as much as you think you have, you know.” She thought she detected moisture in his eyes. Maybe she’d given him enough to think about—for now. And maybe she’d know how to make him remember, make him love her again, after she’d taken some time to digest all of this.

She sipped the coffee. And for Ren’s sake, changed the subject. “Will this Dark Knight try again tonight, do you think?”

Ren tilted his head, studied her face. “He might. I won’t lie to you, Annie. But I’m not going to let anything happen to your baby. I swear it.”

“Don’t call it that.” She said abruptly, a knee-jerk reaction to his words.

He frowned and leaned forward in his chair. Annie sat in a rocker across from him and saw his confusion. “What?”

“My baby. Don’t call it my baby, Richard. It’s your baby, too.”

He paused, blinking. Then he looked away. “You have to stop thinking of that, Annie. I’m not Richard. Richard wouldn’t have known how to protect you in these circumstances. I do.“

Very calmly, she spoke her heart. “If you’re not Richard, then who are you? How can you be my husband and not be? How can you be the man I lost and this… this being you’ve become? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

She wasn’t crying, hadn’t raised her voice. She just sat there, questioning him in a voice gone soft and steady.

“I’m Ren, a White Knight. A Hero. Nothing about me is the same as it was in my mortal lifetime. I couldn’t drive a truck now if you put me in one. But I know how to fight. I know the ways of magic, and the secrets that lie beyond this realm. I’ve seen the forgotten past as well as the distant future. Wonders you’d never dream of. Things Richard would never have believed in.”

“You’ve only been away from me for eight months. Eight months.” A little breath escaped in a rush as she shook her head. “How could you forget what we had in eight—”

“Time moves differently on the other side. And I’m constantly moving through it. For me, Annie, it’s been years. Centuries.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. She shook her head, unsatisfied with his answer.

“Annie, when I… when I crossed over, the man I was before vanished.”

“No.” She rose from the rocker and moved toward him. She couldn’t keep her feelings to herself. Somehow she had to make him know what she knew. “Your memory of him might have vanished, Richard, but the man is still there. I’ve seen him.” She dropped to her knees in front of him, took his hands in hers. “They could take away your memories, Richard, but not your soul. Not your heart.” She lifted her eyes to his, and she could see the old Richard there, so clearly, longing to get out. To take over. To come back to her. “And not what we had together. No force in the universe could take that away. It’s still there. Sometimes I see just a flicker of it shining in your eyes.”

He lowered his head, perhaps unable to face her just then. “No.”

“You’re lying. To me and to yourself. Or maybe you just don’t realize it yet, darling. But I’m here.” She laid a palm over the pounding in his chest. “Right here, in your heart. I am there always. I carved a place for myself inside you when we were only children, and you did the same to me. And there’s nothing in the world that could take you out of my heart, and nothing you or anyone else can do to get me out of yours.”

Ren closed his eyes. She was quiet, studying his face. “If you let yourself believe what you’re saying, Annie, you’ll only be more hurt in the end. When I leave.”

“Is that why you won’t admit that it’s true? To spare me the hurt of losing you again?”

“I won’t admit it because it’s not true. I’m not Richard. I don’t even remember having been him. I can’t be what you want me to be, Annie.”

“And you don’t feel anything for me now,” she whispered.

He lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”

Annie sniffed, then ran one hand over his hair. “I always could tell when you were lying, darling.”

He went stiff and lifted his chin. There were tears in his eyes. He did feel something for her. “I saw a damp spot in the nursery ceiling,” he said, and she sensed he was grasping at straws. “I need to go up on the roof and take a look.”

“You need to be alone, to figure things out. It’s okay. I understand.”

He shook his head and got to his feet. “Just yell if you need me.”

“I need you, Richard. Don’t doubt that for a minute.”

Closing his eyes at her words, he finally turned and left her alone.

Fury! Damn undiluted fury was what Ren felt! The gods were having a hell of a laugh at his expense right now, weren’t they? Sir George, out there somewhere watching him twist and writhe in agony! Was it so amusing? And what the hell had he done to earn this kind of torment?

He adored the woman! And it wasn’t a new feeling, something that had developed since he’d returned. Although there was that as well. But what he felt—the emotion that choked him until he could barely speak—was old. And deep and real and raw. It was eternal. The fact that he couldn’t remember it didn’t stop him from feeling its resurgence. And the fact that the physical desire he must have once burned with for Annie was now little more than a dim echo did nothing to ease the longing for her in his heart. He wanted what they’d once had, craved the memories of their life together. He’d been robbed of all of that.

God, they must have been so happy. How could any man be less with a woman like her loving him as much as she obviously had? It wasn’t fair, dammit! Why did he have to die young? Why the hell should she have to go through life alone, give birth alone, survive as a single mother to his child…

His child! And he wanted it. He wanted to be there for it and hold it and nurture it. He longed in his heart to be free of the vows he’d sworn. And he couldn’t have fought the feeling, even if he’d wanted to.

He knew the rules. He was probably damned now. If he kept it up and he died this time around, even Sir George’s magic wouldn’t be able to bring him back. And he was beginning to wonder if that would be a bad thing. Because to go on living eternally, knowing he had a wife and a child out there struggling by on their own without him, would be pure hell. Damn fate and its tricks. Damn the world and everyone in it. Everyone but her. Everyone but his beautiful, sweet Annie. And their baby.

Ren sat on the roof pretending to inspect a nonexistent leak, and cursed the stars, the heavens, the gods. And still felt no relief.

“Bartholomew, it’s good to see you.” Annie stepped aside and let him enter. Bartholomew looked around, as if expecting someone else to appear, before taking a seat on the sofa.

“You don’t look well, Annie. You’re pale. What’s wrong?”

Annie tried to smile, but the dim remainder of her headache made it difficult. The knowledge that she’d found Richard again, only to have to face the possibility of losing him once more, made it all but impossible. “Nothing. I’m fine, really.”

He shook his head, his eyes inscrutable. It was the twist of one corner of his mouth that told her he knew she was lying.

“No, you’re not. Darling, I know something happened here. I came by early this morning, just to check in, and found the doors and windows all open. Fans mounted in several of them, running full blast. And the entire place just reeked of natural gas. Now, Annie, if you’re not going to tell me, then please, for God’s sake, tell someone.”

Her smile faltered. She blinked fast and remembered Ren’s warning not to talk to anyone about him. He’d said the Dark Knight might be in disguise, that there was no way to know who could be trusted.

But this was Bartholomew! She knew Bartholomew would never betray her. Still, she had promised.

“It was nothing. Just a gas leak. I had to leave the house until it aired out.”

“A gas leak?” Bartholomew looked skeptical.

“Yes.” She shifted in her seat and avoided his eyes. “Can I get you some coffee, or—”

“So it’s been fixed, then?”

“Well, of course, or we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“Funny. I didn’t see any repair trucks. No one from the gas company. How did it get fixed, Annie?”

She jerked in surprise. “Well, I… that is…”

“Annie.” He shook his head, leaned close to her, touched her arm. She felt the warmth of the pendant he’d given her, and felt guilty for lying to him. “Tell the truth. You turned on the gas yourself, didn’t you?”

“What?” She gaped at him for a moment. “No, of course not!”

He shook his head, bending closer to clasp her shoulders, his black, lifeless eyes nearly blazing. “I thought we were friends, Annie. I thought you trusted me.”

“I do. But honestly, Bartholomew, that’s such a ridiculous idea. I’d never—”

“Annie, you’re not well. I’m an expert; I know the signs. And if you tell me you haven’t been questioning your own sanity lately, then you’re lying. I know. Don’t you see that?” She lowered her head, but he caught her chin in one hand and forced her to meet his gaze. “You have, haven’t you? Or perhaps you haven’t, but you know deep down that perhaps you should be.”

She fought the irrational and unexpected surge of doubt that swept into her mind out of the blue. And there was a sense, a sense that the doubts weren’t coming from inside her but from… outside. From somewhere else.

The pendant throbbed on her skin. Absently she stroked it and battled her own uncertainty. “Actually, Bartholomew, I probably did question myself once or twice, but now—”

“But now you’re convinced there’s nothing wrong. Is that right?”

She felt her brows draw together. “How did you—”

“It’s typical, Annie. Darling Annie, I only want to help you; don’t you know that? When you convince yourself that the delusions are real, that you were perfectly sane all the time, then the illness is winning. It’s one of the worst possible symptoms. Don’t give in to it! For God’s sake, Annie, you have a baby to think about!”

“But I…” She shook her head, looking at the room around her for support. She closed her eyes then and heard Sara’s voice telling her to trust herself, believe what she knew to be true. Ren was real! She knew he was, and he was Richard, and…

The necklace heated, burning her fingertips, making her realize somehow just how crazy all of this would sound if she should try to tell someone about it. You see, I wasn’t crazy. My husband just came back from the dead, is all. He needed to protect our child from unseen demons out to destroy it, and when it’s all over, he’ll go back to some other realm, and I’ll be alone again.

Bartholomew’s arms slid around her shoulders. He held her to his chest and patted her back as she tried to understand why she should suddenly doubt herself this way. “There, now. It’s not too late, I promise you, Annie. We can still pull you back. You can still be well enough to be a mother to your child. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Y-yes. But I—”

“Just come with me now. Come with me. We’ll go to a hospital, and I promise I’ll see to it that you get better. I’ll take care of you, Annie.” He was touching the necklace now, stroking it slowly as he spoke to her. “You can trust me. You know that, don’t you, Annie?”

Go with him? But that would mean being away from Richard…

“Come on, Annie. We’ll go right now. We’ll get you the help you—”

“No!” She jerked away from his embrace and stood bolt upright. The chain around her neck snapped, and the pink tourmaline clattered to the floor. Her self-doubt seemed to desert her along with the stone. She was herself again, and she was certain of her own mind. Bartholomew was wrong, and she refused to let him interfere in this. “No,” she repeated more calmly. “Bartholomew, I do cherish your friendship, and I can think of few people I trust more than I do you, but I sorely resent your coming here and implying that I’m having some kind of breakdown. I’m fine. Perfect. Better than I’ve ever been, and you’re overstepping the bounds of friendship as well as your profession by talking to me like this.”

She felt better. And maybe Bartholomew would say that was another symptom, but she knew it was because there was nothing wrong with her.

Bartholomew practically sagged in disappointment. “Denial,” he said sadly. “Well, all right, Annie. All right, it has to be your decision.” He crouched down, picked up the stone, straightened. “But know that I’ll be here for you. If you ever want to talk about this, tell me what’s been going on with you. I’ll be here. You call me, night or day, if you decide to accept the help you so obviously need. Understand?”

She nodded. “I’m sure you mean well, but I’m fine. Thank you for your concern, Bartholomew.”

“Here.” He held the stone out to her.

She lifted a hand to take it from him, but something stopped her. A voice flitting through her mind, one a lot like Sara’s, telling her no, don’t touch that stone. So she lowered her hand, frowning, not understanding. And she heard herself say, “I think you’d better keep it.”

Ren watched Annie closely enough to know she was safe, but he avoided being too close to her. He couldn’t listen to her telling him about what they’d had. Not now. It was tearing him up.

Always he’d felt this gnawing, aching emptiness inside him. But he’d never been able to understand what was supposed to live there.

That emptiness was gone now. She’d filled it in a way he’d never imagined possible. But along with her, there was pain. The pain of knowing what he felt for her now was only a shadow of what he must have had with her once. And the pain of knowing he had to leave her again. There was no way around it. Over and over he played the oath he’d sworn in his mind. And the final words rang in his ears. Should I break my vow to you, should I fail to obey, my fate will be death—the second death, from which there is no resurrection.

God, how could life be so cruel?

Through the night he tried to find a solution, a way to end his time with her without breaking her heart. But he saw none. And he knew he was allowing that matter to distract him from the more important issue: protecting her from the villain until the child was born.

Annie was asleep now in her bed, the bed they’d once shared. But Ren was uneasy. More and more he felt the presence. Dark, menacing. A mental surveillance, a spiritual spy. One he could neither see nor fight, at the moment, but there all the same. Watching, waiting for an opportunity.

Nervous, he went upstairs and slipped into Annie’s bedroom, feeling instinctively he shouldn’t be far from her side tonight. And the second his gaze fell on her, lying in the rumpled bed, her hair spread over the pillows, a sheet clutched in her hand, he felt the tug of a distant memory.

He’d entered this room on their wedding night, to find her waiting there. The white negligee she’d worn was like gossamer, and her cheeks were stained pink. Those huge green eyes stared into his, waiting. He’d taken her hand in his, drawn her to her feet, and the sight of her had taken his breath away. He remembered the way her hands had trembled as they’d gone to the straps of the gown, and the contrast of her shiny red nails with her peach-toned skin. He recalled the way she’d lowered her eyes as she pushed the straps down and let the satiny fabric fall into a pristine pool at her feet. It hadn’t been their first time—but their first time as man and wife. And he’d found it endearing that she’d be nervous. And he remembered, very distinctly, that he’d battled tears at the time. Awed by the fact that this wonderful woman had chosen him. Determined to give her the love she deserved for the rest of her life.

He felt that emotion welling in his heart again, right now, as he looked down at her sleeping there. And it remained, even after the brief memory had faded away.

Then he tilted his head. Her belly had moved. There, it moved again! Poked from inside by a tiny fist or maybe a little foot.

His baby, she’d told him. His child. Ren’s own flesh and blood, and hers, growing there inside her.

Quietly he moved forward and eased himself onto the edge of the bed. She didn’t wake. He moved his palms over her taut, expanded middle, only stopping when he felt the baby move directly beneath them. A minuscule fist— he was certain that’s what it was—seemed to reach toward him, stretching her skin oddly, pressing right against his hand. Ren felt a hot tear slide over his cheek, and he lowered his head, pressing his lips to that tiny, thrusting hand. “My baby,” he whispered.

Would he ever know the child? Ever hold it in his arms? Or would he be summoned back to the other realm the instant it drew breath? He turned his head and rested his cheek against her warm skin, only the thin nightgown and Annie’s flesh separating him from his child. Knowing this might be as close as he’d ever get.

She waited until he fell asleep there. Then she stroked his hair and silently cried herself back to sleep.

Hours later, in the darkest time before dawn, she woke. Ren had retreated to his chair beside the bed, where he sat sleeping. But something was wrong. She felt it, right in the center of her being. There was no sound, nothing she could identify. Just a cold sensation. A chilling… presence?

She slipped out of bed, rubbing her arms, then froze where she stood. The curtains billowed before an open window. Goose bumps raced up her nape.

“Ren?”

He came awake at once and sat up straight.

“Ren, did you open the window?”

She knew by his expression that he hadn’t, even before he told her so. She moved toward the window, and in the pale moonlight, she saw him. A dark form standing on the lawn below. Unidentifiable but menacing. He stared up at her, his face swathed in shadow.

Annie screamed.

Ren had her in his arms before the sound died, cradling her to his chest, stroking her hair. He looked out the window, too. “Where, Annie? Where did you see him?”

She turned, shocked that the form no longer stood there. “Right below us.” She pointed to the spot.

Ren urged her toward the bed. “Wait here.”

“No! Don’t leave me!”

“I have to get to him, Annie. It’s the only way I can stop him. Wait here. Lock the door.” He pressed her onto the bed, whirled to close and lock the window, then snatched a sword from where it was leaning against the wall, covered by that long coat he always wore.

A sword. Good God.

Annie choked back her sobs, but she managed to get to the bedroom door and lock it. Then she crawled onto the foot of the bed, scurried up to the head, and huddled there. She couldn’t stop shaking, even when she tugged the blankets up and clasped them just beneath her chin. Minutes ticked by, like slow-moving clouds on a still day.

God, where was Ren? What was taking so long?

She stiffened at a sound, a slight rattle, that came from the bathroom. Her gaze flew to the closed door and riveted itself there. Part of her wanted to scream, to run out of the bedroom. Another part feared running right into the arms of some unspeakable evil. She was imagining things. She was…

Oh, God! The knob was turning. The bathroom door was opening.

Chapter Eight

Ren was chasing shadows when he heard her scream. He’d sworn he’d seen something dark slipping around the garage. Then behind the house, then among some trees out back. If he’d been as alert as he should have been, he’d have realized that he was being led farther and farther away from her. But by the time he realized it, it was too late. And he knew, dammit, just by the cunning nature of the trick, that the enemy he’d face this night was none other than Blackheart, the dark knight he’d battled so often and defeated only part of the time.

He whirled at the heart-wrenching shrieks and realized that at least three hundred yards now stood between him and the house. From here he could see the bedroom window. He could see her silhouette beyond the curtain, hands crossed protectively over her protruding belly—the haven of his child—as she backed away from some unseen demon, screaming again, ripping the night as well as Ren’s heart with her cries.

Damn! He sprinted, sword in hand, pouring every ounce of his strength into each stride— and slammed into an invisible blockade, one he knew was constructed of pure black evil.

It was like being hit by a truck. The impact sent him backward, and he hit the ground hard. He shook himself. The blow had been significant, but he forced himself to his feet, grinding his teeth against the pain, blinking to clear his vision.

He’d encountered Blackheart’s invisible barriers before. And he knew he couldn’t break through this unseen wall on his own. He needed magic. If Sir George would still grant it. That would be the major question, wouldn’t it? Ren had been cursing his vows of service, cursing Sir George himself. Longing to leave his duties and remain here, hungering for Annie in his heart of hearts. Had he gone too far?

He had to try. He dropped to his knees, lowered his head, and began chanting the words, calling down the strength of the Light. The power didn’t originate with Sir George. Ren knew that. It only came by way of him. Its source was Goodness itself. And Ren was relieved and more than a little bit surprised when he felt it reaching him. Filling him with the power he needed to break through. Transforming him from the semblance of mortal man and raining down on him a new countenance—that of the White Knight he had become. And Annie screamed again.

He had no face! The figure wore a black robe, and the oversize, monk-style hood covered a black void.

Annie scrambled from the bed when the bathroom door was flung wide, and the creature stood there like the shadow of death. Her spine went so stiff with fear, she thought it would snap, and an uncontrollable shudder racked her. Her heart thundered as the dark, menacing thing moved toward her, and she lunged for the door. But this creature moved faster. It put itself into her path, and she nearly collided with it. She saw its cloaked arms rising as if to enfold her, and heard the movements of the fabric. She jerked to a halt just in time and backed away. Her breathing was ragged and harsh, her throat bone dry as she looked for a way out, a means of escape. But it advanced on her slowly, and there was nowhere to go. The backs of her legs bumped into the bed behind her. The monster crowded closer, and she felt an unnatural chill in the air, smelled the stench of pure evil. And she knew that was what this thing was made of.

Fear clenched her insides, and she felt sick with revulsion.

“Get away! God, who are you? What are you? Why can’t you just leave me alone!”

She clambered backward over the bed. A cold, clammy hand grasped her wrist, powerful fingers digging deep into her flesh as he twisted her arm. She screamed again, in pain this time. And again when its other hand rose and she saw the hypodermic it clasped. The thing lowered the needle toward her arm.

The baby! This creature was trying to kill her baby!

She strained to pull free of his grip as she stared in sick horror at that needle’s deadly tip hovering a hair’s breadth from her arm. With her free hand, Annie groped blindly. She touched the lamp, clutched at it desperately, and brought it down on her dark attacker’s faceless head. Its grip faltered and she scrambled off the far side of the bed, nearly falling, but caught herself, and just as it lunged for her again, she reached the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her, threw the lock, and prayed Ren would come in time. But what if he didn’t?

She whirled, knowing she had to protect her child at any cost. The window! It stood open, and she realized that must be how the fiendish creature had gotten inside. But it was small. Maybe too small?

She clambered up onto the counter beside the sink, knocking everything that stood there to the floor in her haste. She knew it was coming after her. She had to hurry.

It was difficult to focus. The ritual required concentration, and it wasn’t easy to block out her screams. But he did it. And as he was slowly filled with the Light that was the source of his strength, he felt the transformation take place.

It took seconds, precious seconds that seemed to Ren like hours, but he knew when it was complete. Rising to his feet, Ren lifted the gleaming white-gold broadsword, now pulsing with power in his hands, toward the force field, and with a single swipe, cut through it. And then he was racing toward the house.

Something powerful slammed into the bathroom door. Annie swung her legs over the edge of the window. It slammed again, and this time the door rattled in its hinges and then cracked down the center. Annie tried to work herself through the small opening. But her belly was too round to fit. There was no room!

The monster outside hit the door again, and the noise was nerve shattering, deafening, terrifying. God, what could she do? How could she fight this thing? Not jammed halfway through a window. She’d face it. Dammit, this was her child she was fighting for.

She pulled herself back inside, got to her feet, and faced the door, pressing her back into the far corner. Whatever it was, it was strong. She cried Ren’s name when the thing hit the door again. This time the door caved in, and the evil black being seemed to grin at her, though she had no idea how she knew that. Somehow it made its amusement known. It was deriving some perverse pleasure from her terror. It loved this, loved fear. It thrived on torturing the innocent. It was going to enjoy hurting her, taking her child from her, watching her grief destroy her. And it let her know all those things without uttering a single word.

She wrapped her arms around her belly. “Get away!”

“At last,” it hissed.

She pressed her back tight to the wall, would have gone right through it if such a thing were possible.

“I win,” it whispered.

“Not just yet, Blackheart.”

She nearly sank to the floor in relief when she heard Ren’s voice come from behind the dark-robed creature. But then her eyes widened once more when the monster turned away and stepped aside, giving her an unobstructed view of Ren standing in the bedroom.

He was nearly blinding in his brilliance. Golden clothing. Tight-fitting pants hugged his calves. It wasn’t a natural color, that gold. It was the color of purity, of goodness. And it gleamed. A white-gold breastplate rested protectively over his chest. And the sword he brandished was of the same glimmering metal. His eyes shone in a way she’d never seen. Almost feverishly they glowed, and it seemed to Annie there was even a faint light emanating from them—illuminated sapphires sparkling with rage and smelling battle.

“So, we meet again,” the evil thing rasped.

“So we do, Blackheart. But you have me at a disadvantage. You’ve seen my human form. I have yet to see yours.”

“At a disadvantage is where I want you, White Knight.”

Ren nodded. “So now I know why I was chosen for this mission. I’m the only one who’s ever defeated you.”

“Ah, but you forget. The honor is mutual, Ren. I, too, am the only one ever to defeat you. Quite soundly on occasion. But nothing like I’m going to do this time.”

“No, not this time,” Ren said softly. He looked past the thing, met Annie’s eyes, and held them with his own. “This time it’s my very heart you’re after.”

“And this time, I shall have it.” The black thing lifted a hand, and the air around him shimmered the way heat waves sometimes do over pavement. The shimmers darkened, and the waves took form. A black sword solidified in his hand, and as the shimmery darkness moved down his body, his robe altered, morphing like something out of a science fiction movie, until it became black armor. His breastplate, his helmet, complete with visor, were all black. His face, as before, was invisible.

He sidestepped back into the bedroom, and as the two began to circle one another, Annie trembled in fear. They brandished those swords as if they meant to use them. And for the first time she noticed that Ren’s weapon was honed to a razor’s edge. As was his opponent’s. What if Ren was hurt? Killed? The Richard she’d known and loved could no more hold his own in a sword fight than she could.

Oh, God. Frantically Annie searched for something she could use to help her husband. Where were the damned shears when she needed them?

She heard a crash, and her wide gaze found the two of them again just in time to see Ren’s sword flash toward the black one, leaving a glittering comet’s tail in its wake. Shimmering sparks showed the path that blade had just taken, like a child’s sparkler on the Fourth of July. She blinked.

The dark one ducked and rolled, avoiding the blow but nearly mowing Annie down in the process. He came to a stop just before crashing into her feet, and she hopped backward into the bathroom to avoid him.

A powerful hand gripped her arm from behind and tugged her out of harm’s way. Gnarled fingers, oversize knuckles were all she saw. “What in the name of Goodness are you doing here?”

The voice was old. Ancient. Pure and powerful. She lifted her head to see a man who matched it, with powder blue eyes and wild snowy hair. His neat beard ran along his jaw-line and covered his chin, coming to a sharp, white point. The whiskers on his upper lip curved downward, merging with the beard. When she could tear her eyes from this stunning ancient man, it was to examine the ordinary clothes he wore, so at odds with his appearance. A suit, with a dark coat much like the one Ren wore. No doubt it hid a sword belted at his hip.

“Well?” he demanded.

“I…” She shook her head, then whirled at the sound of steel on steel. The blows they landed were enough to kill normal men. The swords flashed again and again, collided over and over, sending showers of fiery sparks into the air at each and every impact. The solid oak chair beside her bed took a mighty blow meant for Ren, and split in two. If that blade had hit Ren instead…

He’d have been killed! She lunged forward, but the old man clasped her shoulders. “Leave my knight to his own powers, woman!”

She turned her head and looked him right in the eyes. “He’s not your knight. He’s my husband!”

The old man’s shock didn’t faze her. She didn’t care that he reacted as if she’d slapped him, catching his breath, eyes widening. She only turned to watch the battle again, waiting for a chance to help Ren.

The old man put an arm around her shoulders, but his cold touch chilled her to the bone.

“I am sorry for you,” he said, and she thought he meant it. “But he is my knight, and so he must remain. He swore a vow.”

“He swore a vow to me before he ever knew you.” Still she kept her gaze glued to Ren. He dodged a blow that would have taken off his head, and countered with a swipe of the fiery golden sword that should have broken his opponent’s shoulder. He wielded the sword with the skill of an expert. A warrior. It was almost beautiful, as if the entire battle had been choreographed. Every blow aimed at him was deflected or dodged with dancelike grace. And for the first time, Annie realized Ren truly was different from the man she remembered. He’d changed, more than she’d wanted to admit.

“That was in another lifetime,” the old man said. “One that ended. You should not even be here, witnessing this battle. It simply isn’t done.” He sounded as if he expected her to see his logic, shrug her shoulders, and concede. She couldn’t get past the combatants and out of this house even if she wanted to. Which was beside the point, because she didn’t want to. Not if it meant leaving Ren behind.

Instead of wasting her breath explaining all of that, she glared at the strong elderly being. “I won’t let you take him from me again,” she told him, dropping each word with an icy strength she hadn’t even known she’d possessed. “Don’t you doubt that.”

She’d already returned her attention to the battle when he gasped. “Do you know to whom you speak, lady?”

She sent him a brief glance. “I think I do. But it doesn’t matter. You could be the devil himself, or almighty God, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to me. I’d fight either of them to the death for him. I won’t lose him again.“

A clash, and then a louder one, sent a wave of fear over her, and her gaze flew back to the battle just as the Dark Knight’s blade struck home. Its black tip sank behind Ren’s breastplate, and he gasped.

The black knight drew the sword away with a vicious wrenching twist, and its tip was coated in blood. The moonlight streaming through the window made the scarlet liquid shine as Ren fell to his knees. Annie leaped forward, screaming his name.

She heard the most evil laughter she’d ever heard in her life, and a voice of pure blackness poured into her mind, hurting her head. Its volume was deafening and seemed to echo endlessly, to come from everywhere all at once, and from nowhere at all.

“Give the child to me, woman. And I’ll return your man to you.”

She felt the old man’s hands close on her shoulders.

“Come with me now,” the dark thing urged. He lifted a gauntlet-clad hand toward her. “Take my hand. Surrender to me and I’ll let him live.”

“Go to hell!” she screamed.

The laughter came again, so loud she pressed her hands to her ears and squeezed her eyes shut to block it out. On and on it rang until she fell to her knees.

“Leave her!” The old man’s voice was stronger, and the laughter vanished.

She managed to open her eyes again and saw the concern in the white-haired man’s granite face, but she cared only for Ren. Her husband. Her Richard. She scanned the floor where he’d fallen, but he was on his feet again, and lunging toward the demon with murder in his eyes.

The black one whirled before Ren could strike him down, and then the two battled on and on, the sounds of the battle deafening as the two fought so rapidly, it became difficult to watch them. A mirror shattered; the items on her dresser crashed to the floor.

Annie pressed closer, straining to hold back her horrified tears. Ren’s blade trailed fire and struck the dark one’s neck, just below the edge of the helmet. The Black Knight wailed, a roar that echoed endlessly, and fell to his knees.

But Ren dropped as well, lowering his sword and glancing up into her eyes. He pressed one hand to his side, and she saw the blood oozing from between his fingers. God!

Suddenly the dark one shimmered and vanished.

“Draw,” the old man muttered. “They’ll meet yet again.” Then his aged hand closed on Annie’s. “I cannot let him stay,” he told her gently.

She met his pale eyes and whispered, “And I can’t let him go.”

Then the mysterious man dissolved into a multicolored mist that evaporated before her eyes. Annie blinked in confusion but quickly dismissed it and turned, terrified of what she would see.

Ren was lying in the center of the room, on the floor, in his jeans and T-shirt. And the side of the shirt was crimson. His bloodied sword lay at his side, staining the carpet.

Failure tasted like gall, and Ren’s mouth filled with its bitter flavor even as conscious thought began to recede. Worse than the red-hot pain in his side, worse than the weakness flooding him. Failure. He hadn’t defeated his enemy. He hadn’t saved Annie. He’d failed her, and his child as well. He’d failed them both.

Annie’s hands ran over him like silk, her palms tracing his face, sliding down his neck to his shoulders. Her very touch chased the pain into a corner. Down over his chest, lower to his abdomen, and he knew she’d touched him this way before. But her sighs then hadn’t been the distressed ones she uttered now.

Yes, just like this, he thought, at her warm touch on his belly as she pushed his shirt up and away. Then she gasped and drew those satin, healing hands away, and he missed their touch the instant it was gone.

Poor Annie. She was afraid for him. Afraid of losing him. But she would eventually. Either to Sir George or to death.

He forced his eyes open, searched for her, and found her, bending over him again. Her auburn brows bunched together over those sparkling, damp green eyes. There were crinkles of worry on the freckled bridge of her nose. She pressed a wad of fabric to his wounded side. He heard water trickle. Felt her breath on his skin as she bent close to him. And for a time he wasn’t fully aware of what she was doing. Only of her touch, her closeness. She smelled good.

“There. That’s the best I can do, for now.” Again her palm skimmed his cheek. “Be okay, hon. You have to be okay. I can’t lose you again.”

He tried to summon the strength to speak, but already she backed away, slid her arms around him, and tried to tug him off the floor.

“No.” He’d meant it to be a firm command, but it came out as a weak protest. He shook his head and managed to lift a hand to her belly. “The baby…”

She reached for him again, but he shook his head, the look in his eyes, he hoped, more forceful than the tone of his voice. He reached upward for the bed’s edge, gripped it, and mustering every ounce of strength in him, he pulled himself up. He’d be damned before he’d allow her to injure herself trying to help him.

Despite his orders, she did help him. And the instant he collapsed into the bed, she was beside him again, checking and rechecking the wounds in his side, where Blackheart’s blade had slipped behind the front edge of his breastplate.

“You need a doctor,” she told him.

He only shook his head and closed his eyes. “Rest…”

“Will you die, Ren? Is it possible?”

He barely heard her. He was slipping into slumber, but she gripped his shoulders and shook him awake.

“I have to know. I don’t understand how any of this works. Tell me, Ren, please, or I’ll drive myself nuts worrying.”

Blinking sleepily, Ren nodded. “I can… die. But only if… I break my vows.”

She stared at him, pain in her eyes, but nodded slowly. “I see.” But she didn’t really. He knew she didn’t.

Then, to Ren’s surprise, she lay down beside him. Snuggling close, her head pillowed by his shoulder, she tugged the covers over them both and wrapped her arms around him.

“Annie—”

“Don’t you dare say this isn’t a good idea.” She threaded her fingers into his hair and stroked him slowly, hypnotically. “And even if you do, I’m not moving.”

Her warm breath bathed his neck. Her cheek touched his chest. He lifted a hand to touch her hair, then lifted the other, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close to him. And it felt as if he’d found heaven, peace, life, joy. God, he didn’t want to leave her. Not ever. And that very thought might condemn him to death. If this injury was mortal, Sir George might not pull him through it. Once the vows were broken, the immortality was lost.

She pressed her lips to his throat. And Ren’s child kicked him in the ribs. He smiled as he fell asleep.

“Richard...”

She kissed his eyelids one at a time until he woke and rolled toward her with a playful growl. Then prying one eye open, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand.

“You’re a brat, Annie-girl. It’s only four-thirty. I don’t have to get out of bed for an hour.”

Her smile was slow and filled with meaning. Her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “I know.”

And she traced a little pattern over his chest with her fingertips, then retraced it with her lips.

Ren’s eyes opened wide, and the dream he’d been dreaming vanished. Only it didn’t, really. Because in the dream he’d been lying in the same bed, beside his beautiful Annie. Even now she nestled closer, smiling in her sleep, her tousled hair hiding half her face. She spread her hands against his chest and kneaded his skin before settling down again. Ren groaned inwardly and closed his eyes.

God, he wanted her. He hadn’t believed it was possible for him to ever feel desire for a woman again. But it must be, because it was what he felt.

And he couldn’t let it happen. If he made love with her, it would be the final betrayal of his promise to Sir George. And it would only be harder on Annie in the end, because either way, he’d have to leave her. And if he revealed to her that he did remember, that bits and pieces of their past had been floating through his mind, it would only hurt her more to see him go. Better she believe he’d forgotten. Better he convince her that he was an entirely different man now. If only she could detest him. If only…

She opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. “How are you feeling?”

Miserable, he thought. “Better. You have a healing touch, Annie.”

Her eyes changed, grew smoky, sexy. She lifted a hand toward him. Touched his face. And her desire radiated from her skin and her eyes and bathed him in warmth. He had to close his eyes against it.

Ren rolled away from her and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. He pretended he couldn’t sense the wave of pain that surged through her. The sting of his rejection. But he did sense it. And he felt like a bullet in the gun of a paid assassin. Moreover, he felt like a liar. He hadn’t wanted to turn away from that look in her eyes.

He cleared his throat. “We should get an early start, Annie.”

“An early start at what?”

God, her voice was soft, injured. He didn’t— couldn’t—turn to face her. “I think it would be best for us to leave here for a while. It will slow him down, give us a bit of an edge, and we need every advantage right now.”

“Leave the house?”

“The house, the town. We’ll make it difficult for Blackheart to find us. He’ll track us down eventually, but it will take time. And all we need is time, really. Just enough time for the baby to be born. Then you’ll both be safe. How long now until you’re due?”

He heard her sigh before she answered. “A month. Four weeks. To the day.”

“I’m sorry, Annie. If I’d defeated him in battle last night, this would have ended. I let you down.”

The mattress moved and she sat up. Her arms slipped around his chest from behind, and her face rested between his shoulder blades. “You didn’t let me down! God, you were hurt! I’d rather fight the bastard myself than to have to see that happen again.”

Ren stiffened at her gentle embrace. In truth, it hurt him more than the blade in his side had. But to move away from her was more than he could do. “You shouldn’t have seen it this time.” He shook his head and searched his mind. “I don’t understand what’s happening, Annie. When the time of confrontation comes, the Hero and his adversary are supposed to be cloaked, concealed from mortal eyes. No one from this side is supposed to witness it. As far as I know, no one ever has.”

“Well, I have, Ren.” She sat up straight again and let her arms fall away. He could feel her eyes on him, though. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

He rose and forced a distant expression on his face, the expression of a cold stranger, before he turned toward her. “It was a fluke. That’s all. Don’t read more into it, Annie.”

She flinched as if he’d struck her, but kept her chin high, her spine rigid. “A fluke? Come on, you don’t believe that. It happened because I’m supposed to be with you and you’re supposed to be with me. We’re a part of each other, can’t you see that? We’re only whole together. They’re not going to separate us again. I’m not going to let them.”

Ren wished to God she wouldn’t think that way. “Annie, you’re fooling yourself. It isn’t going to happen. It can’t.”

She was so quiet, so hurt. He knew it. Damn, why did she have to go through all of this?

“So explain it to me,” she said at last. And he knew she was making an effort to sound normal. As if she weren’t cut and bleeding right now. As if he hadn’t hurt her again with his cruel words. True, but cruel. “This… this Blackheart. You know him.”

He nodded. “He’s the strongest knight in the Dark Army. We’ve battled before, but not often.”

“And did you beat him then?”

“Not always.” He saw the hint of fear that crept into her eyes. It wounded him. “That’s why I want you in hiding,” he explained. “I can’t be sure of winning the final battle. And he’s here, watching you.” She frowned and tilted her head. “He could be anyone, Annie.

When knights come to this side they’re cloaked. I have no way of knowing what form Blackheart has taken this time.“

She shook her head slowly. “I still don’t understand. How can you win the battle if neither of you can die?”

“A mortal wound. A temporary death. If I’ve been true to my vows, Sir George will bring me back. If I’ve broken them, he can’t. It’s said Blackheart’s lord will do the same, though I wouldn’t trust that one’s word.”

“My God.”

He looked at her, smiled crookedly, saw the flare of recognition in her eyes, and quickly erased the grin from his lips. “It will be all right, Annie.”

She nodded and got to her feet. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be all right again,” she said, and he sensed the words came from her heart as much as from her lips. “I’ll take a shower, and then we can pack.”

The bathroom showed the stress of having contained pure evil last night. Or perhaps just the stress of holding one panic-stricken mother-to-be. The shower curtain was torn. Had she done that? The medicine cabinet’s door hung from one hinge, and the contents were scattered in the sink and on the floor. Razors, aspirin, her vitamins. Wonderful. Her prenatal vitamins lay on the back of the sink, the cover off, spilled everywhere. And she was sure she hadn’t done that. She sighed and shook her head. Why did that seem like such a big deal? She scooped the little capsules back into their brown bottle, keeping one in the palm of her hand. She popped the vitamin into her mouth, turned on the cold water, and reached for the glass on the edge of the sink.

The glass slid sideways before she touched it. It did a little suicide leap to the floor and exploded into a zillion shards. Damn!

“Annie?” Ren popped his head through the door.

She spit the pill into her palm and dropped it in the wastebasket, grimacing at the bitter taste it left in her mouth. She didn’t remember them tasting so awful. Then again, she didn’t usually hold them in her mouth so long. “I’m okay. Just a little accident.” She could not swallow a pill dry, not one that tasted like that. Instead she screwed the cap on the bottle and made a mental note to take her vitamin later.

Ren met her gaze, scanned her body, frowned at the broken glass on the floor, and nodded. “Be careful,” he said. “Don’t cut yourself.” And he said it as if he really cared. Then he ducked back out.

Her life was turned upside down, she thought. But then she realized that at least it wasn’t depressing anymore. She turned to adjust the water temperature in the shower. Oh, she was scared to death of this threat that loomed in the shadows. And she was dreading the day when Richard… Ren… would try to leave her again. But she felt… different. Alive again. He was here, with her. She’d stopped mourning his loss. She could reach out and touch him, and he’d be there, real and strong and warm. She could talk to him and he’d answer her. Not just in her dreams but in his own strong voice. They had a goal, and they were working together to reach it, working together to thwart this unseen enemy and protect their child, just the way they’d worked together to create it.

Annie couldn’t believe that this all hadn’t happened for some reason. Why had he been sent back here to her? She’d heard him talk about other knights. Why not one of them? Okay, he was the only one who’d ever defeated this Blackheart creep. But she had a feeling there was more to it than just that. Because why else would she have been able to see him as he truly was when everyone else saw only the mask? And why was she the only one to witness that frightening battle? God, couldn’t Ren see that it meant something? It had to.

But what did it mean? Maybe Annie was translating it all wrong, putting only the significance she wanted in place. She wanted it to mean that they were destined to be together, that no force on heaven or earth could tear them apart, that he was fated to come back to her and to stay, to be a father to their baby and—

Maybe he didn’t want to stay. Maybe that was it.

Annie blinked in shock at this new, frightening thought. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but now that it did… He’d told her he was incapable of feeling things like desire. She looked down at her swollen, misshapen body and closed her eyes. God, had she really been about to offer herself to him in bed this morning? Had she really thought she could rekindle his passion for her like this? She groaned and closed her eyes. No wonder he’d turned away so quickly. He must have known what she’d been thinking… wanting.

As she shed her robe and stepped into the shower, Annie wondered if there was a man in the world who’d rather live a mundane life with a wife and child than to be some kind of superknight traveling the cosmos with his magic sword to fight evil forces for the cause of good.

She didn’t know. But she did know that if there was one man who would choose his wife and child over unending adventure, it would be Richard. And she could make him want her again. She had to. Because if she lost him again…

But he said there was no way around it. That he had to go back. And the old man had told her the same thing.

While she showered, she heard Ren come into the bathroom and pick up the pieces of the glass she’d broken. She wished the pieces of her broken heart could be swept up so easily.

Chapter Nine

Ren drove, and as he did, he remembered. Not everything. Not his entire life before or their entire life together. But certain feelings crept up on him. There was a feeling to belonging somewhere, belonging with someone. And he’d had that feeling once. He’d stopped being just Richard and had become Annie’s partner. People, friends, the entire community had begun seeing them as a team, a pair, a couple. Even before he’d married her. Long before then. It must have begun when they’d been little more than children.

When one was hurting, the other hurt. When one was happy, the other was happy. When one was sad…

She was sad now. And he felt it. It had been so long since he’d experienced this sharing of emotions. So long since another person’s feelings had mattered so much to him. But hers did.

“It’s going to be all right, Annie.” Stupid thing to tell her. He had no idea if it would or not. He had no idea if she could handle his leaving when this was over. But he thought she could. She was strong. Annie had always been so incredibly strong. He wanted to pound his fist on the steering wheel in frustration, but he restrained himself. For her sake. And he knew, only too well, that there would be time enough for the rage later. Endless time, without her.

“It will,” she told him. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Ren blinked and glanced sideways at her. There was something different in her voice, in her demeanor, as if she was hiding behind something false. What was the matter with her? Her voice wasn’t her own. A new one that didn’t belong to her rang out in its place, holding no emotion, no tenderness the way it usually did. He studied her for a moment and saw a porcelain mask on her face. Expressionless, she stared straight ahead as if she was very deep in thought and maybe not liking what she was thinking.

“Annie?”

She only shook her head in a way that told him more plainly than words not to pursue the question he’d been about to ask. He frowned and decided to ask it anyway. But she was faster.

“Where are we going?”

He sighed, frustrated that she’d changed the subject, and determined to bring it up again later. But he could see something had upset her, so much so that she was hiding it from him. So he decided it would be best to put it off—for now.

“I studied a map last night. There is a place a few hours north of here. Secluded and safe. A lake in a forest. We can rent a cabin there.”

She blinked but didn’t look at him. Before his eyes, the color slowly drained from her face. “Mystic Lake?”

Ren cocked his head to one side. “How did you know?”

“Hell, Ren, it’s obvious you’re here to torture me. No better place to do it, is there?”

“I don’t under—”

“Damn you for this. And damn you more for not knowing what that place is, what it means. God, Ren, how can you possibly not know?”

He shook his head. Keeping up with her changing moods was like running an obstacle course. Now she was angry, her fury snapping like an electrified wire, threatening to burn him. He knew he was hurting her again, tearing her heart out, but for the life of him, he didn’t know why.

“Ren, your mother and my parents are the owners. They rent out the cabins on the lower side of the lake, the ones you can drive to. But the one on the north side is for family only. It’s utterly secluded. Dammit, Ren, it’s where we met when we were little kids. It’s where we snuck off into the woods to neck when we were teenagers. It’s where we spent our honeymoon. Two weeks of uninterrupted conjugal bliss in a rustic, enchanted cabin smack in the middle of a magical paradise.“

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t for a while. At least the mask had faded. Her pain was clearly visible now. The way her lower lip quivered, the way she caught it between her teeth and bit down hard to stop it. The moisture in her eyes, shimmering deeper no matter how often those thick velvet lashes swept it away.

“It’s the place where our baby was conceived,” she said softly.

“Annie, I didn’t know—”

“Of course not. It’s just another coincidence, right, Ren?”

She didn’t really believe that. Maybe the name had stirred some long-dead memory of their happiest times together. Maybe he’d chosen it because of some subconscious longing to go back. Maybe. But he couldn’t tell her that, could he? If she knew he was remembering her—remembering the two of them, together—it would only be harder on her in the end.

“We’ll go somewhere else instead. I’m sorry, Annie. I honestly didn’t know. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Then why did you leave me?” She clapped a hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes tight as soon as she blurted out the question.

He couldn’t do it. Ren simply couldn’t bear to sit there beside her and see her in so much pain. He pulled the car to the roadside and faced her, clasping her shoulders when she would have turned away.

“Listen to me.”

She shook her head, averting her face even as the tears flooded over it.

“Listen,” he repeated, holding her there. Then, as a sob tore through her chest, he broke. His will, his strength, they dissolved at that heartbroken sound, and he put his arms around her and drew her to him. Her eyes fluttered open and met his. He saw the emeralds swimming beneath her tears, and wanted nothing more than to take her pain away.

Her eyes widened, her lips parted to question him. But before a word could escape, he covered them with his own. And the taste of her mouth was all he remembered and more. Sweetness and life-giving nectar. His anguish died as Ren sank into a well of feeling. He could drown in these sensations and not mind. His hands moved into her hair, fingers stroking and twining, holding her head captive for his seeking mouth. He tasted her, delved into her with a questing tongue to find even more drugged honey. His mind seemed to melt away, and passion took its place in his brain. He loved her. He wanted her. Annie. His woman. His wife.

She clung to him for all too brief a time, and then she stiffened and pulled away.

“I don’t… understand,” she whispered, and the confusion in her eyes matched what he was feeling.

He straightened, the taste of her still on his mouth, her scent, her touch. He was more than a bit dazed as he searched her beautiful face, her eyes, so tormented and confused… and maybe a little frightened. Of him?

Ren blinked away the ecstasy-induced haze and tried to understand what she must be feeling. “I don’t either.”

“If it’s pity, if that’s what this was, then—”

“I don’t know what this was,” he told her. “But I promise you, Annie, it wasn’t that.”

She drew her legs up underneath her and leaned back against the seat, still studying his face. He wished to God he knew what she was thinking.

“Maybe… maybe going to the cabin is a good idea after all,” she said very softly. Then she nodded decisively. “Yes. I want to go there. My mother’s been bugging me to go there ever since…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. “It used to be my haven. Maybe it’s time I went back. Maybe if I’m there, I’ll be able to figure things out.”

He looked at her there for a long moment, even lifted a hand to touch her. But he lowered it slowly. He didn’t want to hurt her again. He never should have kissed her that way because he was sorely afraid he’d given her false hope. It wouldn’t happen again. He wouldn’t let it.

He pulled the car back onto the road and drove. But his mind was on anything but the task at hand. Instead it was busy searching, seeking, striving to find an answer to all of this, a way to avoid hurting her. He knew one thing, and one thing only. He didn’t want to leave her again. And there went another one of his vows, blown to bits. He was losing ground fast with Sir George. If he wasn’t careful, this mission could very well end up being his last.

Maria sat in the overstuffed chair on the glass-enclosed porch, basking in the sunlight. It made golden stripes on her bronzed, wrinkled skin and in her still-dark hair. If Annie had known Maria was visiting her parents that day, she’d never have stopped by. She’d have just hiked up to the cabin without even letting them know.

Too late now, though.

“Annie, honey, I know I’ve been after you to take a vacation at the cabin,” Georgette continued, her wheedling already becoming tiresome. “But, baby, not now. Not so close to your time.”

“My time is a month away. Mom, I need to do this. Please, stop nagging.”

“Your mother is only concerned about you,” Ira added, ever Georgette’s staunch defender.

“I know that, Dad. Look, it’s only for a little while.”

“Well, it’s simply out of the question. That’s all there is to it. You know the only way up there is on foot or on horseback, and you must know that pregnant women can’t do things like that!”

“Mom…”

“I think she ought to go.” The voice was laced with a Spanish accent, and all eyes turned to Maria.

Ren hadn’t taken his eyes off the older woman since they’d arrived, and Annie had been wondering if he remembered her, felt any recognition at all. He hadn’t said a word, probably for fear she’d recognize his voice and go into shock. Now he tilted his golden blond head and studied her. Annie, in turn, studied them both. There was no obvious similarity between mother and son. Ren was the image of his blond, blue-eyed father, who’d died long ago. But if you looked closely, you could see the likeness. It was in the bone structure of the face. The proud shape of the chin. The exotic tilt of Ren’s sapphire eyes was the same as that of Maria’s sightless black ones. Their smiles were alike, too.

“Why on earth do you think that, Maria?” Georgette patted her hand as she asked the question.

“Richard wants her to.” Maria closed her eyes and nodded her head in serene certainty. “He’s coming back to us, you know. Of course you know. I already told you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Maria. You told us.” Georgette blinked her eyes dry and bent to kiss the leathery cheek. “We love you, sweetie. We know how much you miss him.”

“He’s near,” Maria said softly. “Very dose to us, right now. I feel him.” She smiled dreamily, tilting her face toward the sunlight. “Everything will be fine once Richard gets back. You go up there to the cabin, Annie. You wait for him there. He’ll know where to find you. It was your special place.”

The four others in the sun-drenched room went silent, and worried searching looks passed from Annie’s parents to her, and back again.

Maria rocked in her chair, her smile appearing, sad and wistful. “I remember how the two of you would scamper in the woods and play in the water when you were little babies,” she said, her voice a lilting song. “Oh, I knew my Richard had met his match in you, Annie, even then.”

Georgette smiled. “I knew it, too. Remember how you’d follow him everywhere he went, Annie? My goodness, I’d never have believed—” She bit her lip, meeting Annie’s damp eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“It’s okay, Mom. I remember it, too.”

Her mother sighed, nodding gently. “I still think you ought to at least check with your doctor first,” Georgette said. “If he says it’s safe, I’ll stop arguing. Maybe some time on the lake is just what you need after all.”

“Of course it’s what she needs,” Maria said. “He’s near, I tell you.”

Annie blinked away her shock at Maria’s perceptions. If she became as close to her own child as Maria had been to her son, Annie thought she’d be eternally grateful. To be so connected that she could feel his presence… It was uncanny.

Silently she walked over to where Maria sat in the chair. She knelt in front of her, wrapped her arms around her mother-in-law’s fragile frame, and hugged her tight. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. If Ren truly did have to go back when this was all over, it might be better if Maria never knew about any of it, although Annie had a feeling the woman already knew. In fact, she’d known all along. Ever since the accident, she’d insisted her son wasn’t really dead.

Sweet Maria. Annie thought maybe Maria would recognize Richard just as she had, if she had her sight. It was almost a blessing she couldn’t see him there, only to have to lose him all over again. She’d never survive that.

Annie wasn’t sure she was going to survive it herself.

Ren had almost gone to the old woman, too, when he saw Annie hug her. He wanted to. And it took every ounce of his will to resist. He couldn’t because he had a feeling she’d know exactly who he was if he did. So he kept his distance, just watching her from across the room and wishing he could embrace her. Wished he could say to her, “It’s all right, Mother. I’m right here. I’m here with you.”

But he couldn’t do that either. He wondered, and not for the first time, if he’d realized what an incredibly lucky man he’d been in his mortal life. How many men were loved as deeply and thoroughly as Richard—as he— had been?

Annie went inside to make her phone call. He’d started to go with her, but she’d told him she wanted privacy for the conversation. He gave it to her, though he couldn’t help but wonder why.

He’d damned near changed his mind about the entire notion when he’d realized they would have to reach the cabin by horseback. Though Annie had said she could walk it, Ren felt hiking was out of the question. Horseback riding didn’t seem like a viable alternative. But when Annie came back outside she nodded.

“The doctor says it’s okay, but not to go faster than a brisk walk.”

He was still having second thoughts, though, even as he helped Annie’s father transfer the meager things they’d packed into saddlebags.

The two men stood in front of a small stable, a pair of fine Appaloosas patiently grazing nearby.

“Georgette and I stocked the place last month,” Ira told him. “We were hoping Annie would spend a weekend up there with the two of us before the baby came. Course, we knew we’d have a fight on our hands.” He shrugged, and there was sadness in his eyes.

“She’s refused to go up there since Richard died. Can’t say as I blame her. He was a good man, Richard was.”

Ren nodded and continued packing the saddlebags. He felt Ira studying him whenever he wasn’t looking. Typical father, wondering what this stranger’s intentions were toward his daughter. Ren wished he could reassure him. But he was helpless to do so.

“I realize you’re concerned about her,” he said, knowing full well it wasn’t nearly enough. “I am, too. I only want her safe and happy.”

“She hasn’t been happy in a long time, young man. Sometimes…” Ira shook his head and looked away.

“Go on, please.”

He sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever be happy again.”

Ren nodded. He would have liked to tell the man not to worry, that he’d see to Annie’s happiness if it killed him. But it was a promise he’d never be able to keep. Hell, if anything, he was only going to make her more miserable than she’d already been.

Ira turned away and fastened the saddlebag on the back of the horse he’d chosen for Ren. Ren had taken it upon himself to prepare Annie’s mount, a gentle dapple mare. He knew horses, and he was taking no chances on loose cinches or spirited mounts.

“All set?” Ira asked him.

Ren nodded. “Shall we go get Annie, then?”

Ira inclined his head, and the two men walked toward the house. Inside, on the window-lined porch, Ren waited while Ira went on into the house where Annie and her mother were chatting. He would have gone, too, but the sight of the frail woman, sleeping now, in the chair by the window struck him into silent, motionless wonder.

There was an odd lump in his throat when he looked at her. She was his mother. She’d given birth to him, raised him, loved him, and mourned him. And somehow she knew he was near.

Quietly he moved close to her, bent low, and pressed his lips to her cheek.

She patted his face with a wrinkled hand, and a soft smile touched her like a ray of sunlight before she settled into sleep once more.

“I hope your doctor was sure about this, Annie. We can still change our minds, go somewhere else. It’s not too late.”

Ren made the suggestion as they stood beside the horses, beneath the golden sun. But by then Annie had begun to look forward to the trip. She could use some time to regroup, and the rustic woodsy setting at Mystic Lake might help her get calm and centered. She wasn’t changing her mind now, and she wondered for a moment why Ren was having second thoughts.

Probably he was just realizing he’d be all alone with her up there. Really isolated, and what if she told him she wanted him then? Was that what he was afraid of? As if he couldn’t fight her off.

She sincerely hoped he wouldn’t try. It was going to be tough to work up the nerve to seduce her husband, to make him want her again. Especially when he’d made it clear he couldn’t work up enough interest to want her back. At least she’d thought so when he’d bounded out of bed in such a hurry this morning, injured side and all.

But then he’d kissed her in the car.

Oh, hell, the man was confusing. He hadn’t said he didn’t desire her. He’d said he couldn’t. And she’d give an awful lot to know for sure whether that was something that could be overcome.

He was frowning, coming to stand nearer her, his palms sliding protectively over her belly. Damn him and his conflicting signals. He’d drive her nuts. .

“Annie, I didn’t realize we’d be so completely cut off. I wanted seclusion but not total isolation. What it something happens?“

“Ren, there’s a CB radio at the cabin,” Ira told him. He stroked the Appaloosa stallion’s sleek neck. “You’ll be able to contact us at any time. And don’t you hesitate to do it if you have to. That’s our little girl you’re taking up there.”

“We could have her in a hospital within thirty minutes of your call, Ren,” Georgette informed him. “Guarantee it. By chopper if necessary. There’s a clearing just big enough to land one.”

“See?” Annie told him. “No problem.”

Ren shook his head, jaw set. “The horses are still a problem. Your mother was probably right about that. I don’t think you ought to be riding just now, Annie.”

Annie gaped in amazement. She’d never heard him say her mother was right about anything in her life! She almost said so, but that would have seemed odd to her parents. As far as they were concerned, she hadn’t known Ren all that long.

Only all our lives, she thought sadly.

“Well, you’re wrong. I’m not going to gallop, and the doctor says I can do anything I would normally do, as long as I’m careful. Horses are fine, at a nice, gentle walk. And you don’t have a medical degree, so stop arguing about it.”

Ken frowned. “Doctors have been known to be wrong.”

“So have you, a time or two.” She bit her lip and looked away. She’d also asked the doctor about sex. She felt incredibly self-conscious about that now. Ridiculous of her to be thinking about sex in her condition, even if the doctor had assured her that it would be perfectly all right. Same terms as the horse. Slow and gentle.

“You didn’t tell him where we were going, did you, Annie?”

She snapped herself alert and shook her head. “No, of course not. I’m not stupid. I just asked if it would hurt me to ride a horse for a short distance.”

Ren nodded but still looked uncomfortable. “And you’re sure he said it would be all right?”

“Yes, Ren.” But he was still looking skeptical, and she read his thoughts as easily as if they were written in ink across his forehead. Suppose her doctor was this Blackheart character, and suppose he told her it was okay only because he knew it wasn’t?

“I’ve known Dr. Finnes for years, Ren. And besides, all my prenatal care books say basically the same thing.”

At last his furrowed brow cleared, and he nodded. No more excuses, Annie thought.

Soon he'd be stuck with her, alone in that cabin. Poor guy must be terrified of what would happen then. She almost smiled. Then she nearly laughed at the irony of it. Eight months pregnant and thinking like a seductress. It was almost absurd.

Ren took Annie in his arms and lifted her right off her feet. He gently planted her in the saddle, still looking worried, and bent to adjust the stirrups for her.

She wanted to protest, and realized she was a little bit angry with him for no reasonable cause. Except that he didn’t want her anymore. Didn’t love her anymore. Didn’t even remember their lives together. But she shouldn’t be angry. None of those things were his fault.

“I like the other horse,” she said with a frown.

“This one is the gentler of the two.”

“Oh, and how do you know that?” Since when was he an expert on horses, anyway?

“It’s in the eyes,” he told her. “And the other one’s eyes are filled with mischief.” He mounted his ghost-colored stallion, moved it up beside her mare, and took her reins in his hands. With a click of his tongue, they moved off onto the trail that twisted through the trees.

Ren held tightly to the reins of the horse beside his, largely ignoring his own. He guided his mount with a squeeze of his thighs and a nudge of one heel or the other, or of a knee. And the horse responded as if by instinct, slowly picking his way along the trail, taking his time.

Annie’s mount, too, seemed to know what Ren wanted from her. The mare snorted her impatience but kept to the plodding pace Ren had set. Annie, on the other hand, was anything but calm. She seemed excited and eager to pick up the pace. Every time he quelled her mare’s tendency to go faster, she shot him a playful glare.

“Watch yourself,” he warned, pointing out a low-hanging pine bough on her side of the trail.

She didn’t duck. Instead she shoved the needled bough aside impatiently. “Give me the reins, Ren. I have ridden before, you know.”

“Not very…” He bit his lip before he could finish the thought. He’d been about to say “not very well.” Because the sight of her sitting so rigidly on that mare had given him another flash of memory. Of her falling from a similar horse, landing irreverently on her backside, and being furious with him for laughing.

He hadn’t laughed at first, he recalled. At first his heart had tripped to a stop, and he’d raced toward her, terrified she might be hurt.

But she’d been fine. Just angry. And he’d laughed at her expression and made her angrier. It was all he could do not to laugh now at the memory.

“Not very what?” There was a speculative gleam in her eyes.

“Not very relevant,” he told her quickly. Maybe too quickly, judging by her frown. “Whether you’ve ridden before or not, it’s not the same as now. Your center of gravity is different, and you have to be a hundred times more careful. That’s all.”

Her green eyes narrowed. She studied him until he almost squirmed in the saddle, and when he dared return her gaze, she tossed her fiery hair in a way that sent heat sizzling right to his toes. What man had ever believed a pregnant woman was not sexy? Not him. Not looking at her. She was regal and beautiful and strong and fragile all at the same time. She was desirable enough to make even a White Knight hunger for her.

He smiled at her. It was good to see her this way, haughty and confident. Much more like the woman he’d known so long ago. Maybe it was this change in her that was urging more and more memories to the surface of his mind. She was more like the woman he’d dreamed about last night. The depressed, haunted, teary female he’d found on his return hadn’t been Annie. Not really. She’d been just a shell of her. Hollowed out, empty inside. This was Annie, filled with righteous indignation over his coddling.

God, but it was good to see her coming back to life. But would that life leave her when he did? Would she sink again into depression and despair? It wounded him to think that might be possible, but he was too realistic to discount it. She’d have the child: someone to love, to share her life with. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe the baby would keep her alive.

“There’s a fork in the trail up ahead, as I recall,” she told him. “Go left. Last time, we took the wrong way, and ended up…”

Ren’s head came up, but hers lowered. He saw the blush creeping into her cheeks, and the way she tried to hide it. He didn’t need to ask her to finish the sentence. He could guess what they’d ended up doing, if not where. It amazed him how many of the random memories he’d been discovering were of her. Of touching her, kissing her. Seems he’d had an obsession with making love to his wife, once upon a time. Not that it surprised him. He was rapidly reacquainting himself with the feeling. Even more so now, watching her sitting atop that mare so proudly and confidently. Watching the play of the sunlight that filtered down through the branches as it splashed random patches of color on her hair, her face. Watching the way she turned her head slightly in the direction of every bird’s lusty song and seemed to absorb the music.

He nudged the horse left and kept hold of Annie’s reins despite her objections. They rode in silence, until they came to a deep gully, its steep sides raw, unstable dirt and stone, its bottom far below. Ren halted the horses at the bridge that spanned the gaping chasm. He questioned its safety with no more than a look, a raised eyebrow.

“It’s safe,” Annie told him. “My father wouldn’t have let me come up here unless it was.”

“Are you sure? Annie, that’s quite a drop. If it should give—”

“It won’t.”

Ren frowned at her, then glanced at the bridge again. “Stay here. I’ll go over first, just to be sure. If it holds the two of us”—he patted his mount’s neck—“then it will certainly hold you and the mare.”

“Will you quit playing knight to my damsel in distress? I’m tougher than I look, you know.”

“Old habits,” he said. “Hard to break, you know.”

“I wish.”

He frowned at her, half afraid he understood that remark. She continued to protest, but he went ahead anyway. He refused to take unnecessary chances with his wife and his child.

God, when had he begun thinking of them in those terms? Ren sighed as he crossed the bridge, wondering just how thoroughly his feelings had already damned him.

Chapter Ten

The cabin was just the way she remembered it, the dark, ancient-looking logs standing solid and strong. It was like a symbol of continuity—one thing that would never change in an ever-changing world. The full front porch seemed to Annie like an open-armed welcome. She wanted to run to it. She wanted to fling her arms around the cabin, hold it like a lost friend, and cry with it because they couldn’t go back to those good old times. But instead she just sat astride a dusty Appaloosa mare and stared at it and tried not to cry. She hadn’t been back here since Richard had died. She hadn’t been able to face their haven without him. She’d vowed long ago never to come back here again because she’d sensed the painful memories would be too much.

Maybe they would be.

The windows met her eyes, and they understood. The surrounding pines whispered their sympathies along with their welcome, and the breeze that was their voice caressed her face and carried their scent. They knew as well. Everything had changed all around them, but here, they seemed to tell her, here everything was the same. It would be all right… here.

She smelled the water, heard it lapping at the dock. And she wanted to see it first, before anything else. She gripped the pommel, swung her leg up in front of her, and then slid down to the ground.

“Annie!”

“What?” She looked up fast at his exclamation.

Ren shook his head and sighed his frustration at her. “Be more careful, okay?”

He’d softened his tone. It was an effort, she could tell. Hell, did he think she was too helpless even to get down off the horse on her own? She ignored him and loosened her pack from the mare. As she did, Ren climbed down and did the same. She was only mildly irritated when he took both packs, his and hers, in one hand and led his horse up to the cabin with the other. She was left with little recourse but to follow.

Ren tossed the packs onto the porch and turned to look around. He spotted the fenced clearing and the small but sturdy shed at its center. Then he faced her again. “I’ll take care of the horses. Why don’t you go on inside and rest for a few minutes?”

She sighed through her teeth and snatched the mare’s reins away from him. “For God’s sake, Ren, I’m pregnant, not comatose. Gimme a break.” Then she stomped off toward the corral, leading the mare at her side. She only glimpsed Ren’s puzzled expression briefly before she put him firmly behind her. She led the mare through the open gate, loosened the cinch, and tugged off the saddle.

And he was right behind her, impatiently taking the saddle from her hands.

She sighed and looked up at him. “You haven’t changed a bit, you know that?” Then she bit her lip and averted her eyes because he had seemed startled by her words. “I mean, I’m not an invalid. I wasn’t before, and I’m not now. Pregnant or otherwise.”

“Did I say you were?”

He was all wide-eyed innocence, and she felt a prick of conscience at being so impatient with him. He’d always tended to coddle her. It wasn’t the patronizing attitude that was irritating her. Being treated as helpless drove her wild, and always had, but not when it had come from Richard. His tender care had always gone hand in hand with his incredible love for her, and she’d cherished it. So it wasn’t the care that was bothering her. It was that the love no longer came with it. And that he kept doing tiny little things to make her want that love back so much, she ached with it. The way he looked at her. The way he touched her. The way his voice went soft when he spoke to her, so much like it had before.

She had to look at the ground because there was a bit of that sparkle in his eyes right now. The one he used to get just before he’d sweep her up into his arms and carry her off to bed— or to the nearest possible alternative. She relaxed her grip on the saddle and tried to still the flutter of awareness in her belly.

“There’s a place for the saddles in the shed,” she said, wondering if she sounded as nervous as she felt. “And some brushes to rub the horses down.”

“I’ll get them.”

He walked away, a saddle over each shoulder. She checked to be sure he’d closed the gate. He had, of course. Then she took the bridles from the horses and gave the mare a pat on the nose. Ren returned and patiently began brushing the stallion. He hadn’t bothered bringing a brush for her. So she stood there watching him.

“When did you learn so much about horses? You used to avoid them like the plague.”

He glanced up at her, smiling. “Had to learn,“ he said. ”Sometimes I’m sent to eras where they’re the only mode of transportation.“

“That must be something.” She shook her head and sighed. “Sounds like every man’s fantasy.”

“Not even close,” he muttered. And the way he said it…

Annie licked her lips and her stomach flip-flopped.

“You groom like a pro.”

He smiled, his hands running slowly over the animal’s sweat-dampened coat. And in a few minutes she was mesmerized by watching them. “You always did have great hands,” she muttered. And by then she was running hot and cold remembering the kind of magic they’d once worked on her.

As if aware of her every thought, he stopped rubbing, straightened, and turned toward her. His gaze met hers, and she felt a current run between them. For a second she felt stripped bare, as if he could see everything going on inside her mind, and her heart, and even into the depths of her soul.

The feeling shook her to the bone, and she tore her gaze free. Was she imagining the flare of desire in his eyes? Or could it be real?

Before she could decide, he banked it and turned back to the horse as if escaping. With a sigh of frustration, Annie snatched up the blankets and bridles, and took them into the shed.

It was cool in there. Cool and dim and smelling of the hay that was stored overhead. Annie hung the bridles up, leaned back against a rough wood wall, and closed her eyes. This wasn’t good. Initially she’d felt only emotions. Pain when she’d first seen him and he’d claimed he wasn’t Richard. Then joy at learning he really was, and more pain that she’d lose him again.

Now, though, something else was slowly overwhelming her. And she supposed it was only natural that it would. She really should have expected it. She and Richard had always had an explosive passion for one another. Why would she think it would be any different now? She’d never stopped wanting him, craving his touch in the night. That hadn’t changed.

It should have, of course. It was entirely different now. She wanted him more every time she looked at him. Unfortunately he didn’t feel the same way.

Or did he?

Annie cleared her throat and straightened away from the wall. She’d better get back out there or he’d be wondering if she’d tripped and fallen.

When she emerged into the sunlight again, he was already working on the mare. It seemed she wasn’t needed, so she went right past him, out through the gate and toward the back of the cabin.

“Where are you going?” He released the mare, and she trotted a few steps before finding a succulent patch of clover on which to nibble.

Annie didn’t alter her pace. “Just out back,” she called over her shoulder. “I want to see the lake.” And then she was out of his field of vision. Heading over the well-worn path that wound its way through thin, scraggly grass, down a wildflower-dotted slope. At the bottom the lake spread out, still and shimmery as fine blue crystal in the sunlight.

Annie stopped for a second on the shore and just looked at the water. Placid, calm, soothing. God, she’d needed this. She just wanted to absorb the feeling of peace into her troubled soul. The sun glinted off the water’s surface, twinkling playfully on her face. She smiled at the light and hurried out onto the dock that reached into the water like a broad, curious finger. Still stained dark brown like the cabin. Still in good shape. Solid. Unchanging. She took off her shoes, rolled up the legs of her pants, and sat on the edge, dangling her feet in the water. Cool, wet, energizing.

Last time they’d been here, she’d put on a skimpy bikini and Richard hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. And then she’d taken it off, and he…

Annie sighed and frowned down at the stretchy material sewn into the front of the pants she wore. Nothing sexy about them. Nothing she could do about it. God, why couldn’t he have come back when she was in her normal shape? She’d have made him remember then. She’d have made him realize that he didn’t want to go chasing dragons with his armor and his magic sword. She’d have made him want her again.

Hell, she was going to make him want her again anyway. Because if she could restore those feelings in him, then maybe she could restore his memory, too. And if Richard remembered, he’d never want to leave her again. He’d fight with everything in him to stay. She knew he would.

He’d never seen anything more alluring in his life than Annie the way she was right at that moment. Sitting on the dock, leaning back on her hands, bare feet toying with the water. Her long auburn curls spilled crazily over her shoulders, halfway down her back. And when the slightest breeze stirred, her hair came alive, moving, dancing in the wind. Reveling in it the way Annie was reveling in the sunshine. And the sun seemed to be reveling in Annie, making her hair gleam, her eyes sparkle. Glittering on her skin, kissing it the way Ren wished he dared.

He stood there, undecided, halfway between the cabin and the lake. He’d been intending to go down there with her. He’d even started that way, wanting only to get closer to her. Maybe touch her.

But as he stood there watching her, he realized that wouldn’t be such a good idea. Not just now. No, he was in no condition to be near her. He was feeling too much—more than he could hide, maybe. He watched her for a moment, longing for her with everything in him. It was probably the only vow he hadn’t already broken, the one about not making love to a mortal woman. And he was getting perilously close to breaking even that one. Damning himself.

But God, if he had to leave her, he might as well be dead anyway. Maybe it would be worth the price. His life for a night in her arms. Yes. Yes, it would be worth the price he’d have to pay, he decided. And then he closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

Yes, it would be worth what it might cost him—but not worth what it would cost Annie. It would be a hundred times harder to watch him leave her again if she had a clue as to how he felt about her. It would have to be.

Grating his teeth against the regret that swamped him, Ren turned and walked to the cabin.

Maybe she just wanted to be alone. Maybe she needed some solitude to get her thoughts together. Maybe that was why she didn’t come inside for so long.

Ren had entered the cabin alone, noting the layout with approval. The bedroom on the first floor was a blessing. He couldn’t see Annie climbing the ladder to the one up in the loft. Too dangerous.

He set their bags down on the floor just inside the door, beneath the tent-shaped rain slicker that hung from a peg, and moved through to inspect the premises. The first-floor bedroom was through an open door to the left; the loft, right above it. The main room sported old, overstuffed, comfortable furniture and a huge fireplace on the facing wall. The kitchen was off to the left. Propane powered the range, he guessed, having spotted the tanks outside. But there was a refrigerator, and lights. He marveled at the effort and expense it must have taken to get power up here. And he admired Annie’s parents, and his mother, for having the sensitivity to use buried cable instead of stringing wire on poles and ruining the natural beauty of this place.

There was magic here. Ren could feel it all around him.

He glanced out a window. She was still there, on the dock. Hadn’t moved. God, she was beautiful.

Ren shook his head and made himself busy. There was plenty to do, and she’d be safe as long as he could see her. He’d distract himself. Figure out how to operate the CB radio on the little table. Unpack their belongings. Get their beds ready. Make sure there were locks on every door. Although mere locks, he thought with a shiver, would do little to keep Black-heart from getting inside.

He glanced out at Annie again. She was running both hands backward through that mass of auburn curls, lifting them from her shoulders, tilting her face up to the sun.

Yes, he’d get their beds ready. And his would be up in the loft. As far from hers as he could get. He’d sleep in the shed with the horses if not for the threat to Annie and the baby. But he had to remain close enough to protect her.

God help him have the strength to stay in the loft all night.

Hours later, he’d distracted himself all he was going to. And she still hadn’t come inside. He would have given a limb to know what he’d done to make her this angry with him. If, indeed, it was anger that was keeping her out there. Maybe it was hurt or sadness or shyness or…

Whatever it was, it was time she come inside. And if he had his way, it was time she stop being so damned stubborn and tell him what he’d done.

Ren strode down the slope to the dock, ready to insist on a full disclosure. “You can’t stay out here all night you know,” he informed her as he approached. “Now, Annie, I know something’s eating at you, so why don’t you just…” He frowned when he reached her, then crouched down beside her. “Annie?”

Her still, relaxed face didn’t flinch. Her eyes didn’t open. Like a careless mermaid sunning herself, she’d fallen asleep on the dock. Ren smiled to himself and reached out to push a lock of silken hair from her cheek. He’d imagined her out here fuming over some imagined slight all evening. But he thought she’d taken it a bit too far when the full moon had risen over the glistening water, and she still hadn’t returned. Instead, she’d simply gone to sleep.

She didn’t stir, exhausted, no doubt, from the turmoil of the past few days, the episode last night, the trip up here. God, he was pretty worn out, and he was a trained warrior. Maybe bringing her here had been a good idea after all. If she felt relaxed enough to go to sleep here by the water, she must be drawing some comfort from the place.

Ren looked around at the wide star-dotted sky and the tranquil water. How could she not take comfort here, in a place like this? It was little wonder they’d fallen in love when they’d met here, so long ago. And it was no wonder that love was powerful enough to survive, even now.

He bent over her and scooped her into his arms, lifting her easily. She must weigh very little in her normal state, as light as she was now. He knew her body. He’d felt her, touched her intimately in his dreams and tangled memories. What a strain on her small frame it must be to carry the baby inside her. How tired she must be by now of bearing the extra load.

Her head lolled against his shoulder as he started back toward the house. She stirred a little, only enough to slip her arms around his neck, though, and then she was out again. Ren couldn’t stop himself from bending down and rubbing his cheek over the top of her head. Her soft, fragrant hair on his skin made him suck air through his teeth. Bad idea, that impulse. But he did it again.

He opened the cabin door with his foot and took her inside. He carried her into the bedroom and lowered her very carefully to the bed. Then he stood there, staring at her, longing for her.

He ought to wake her up. She should eat something. But she seemed so tired, and she was sleeping so soundly, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Besides, if she got hungry, she’d wake on her own, wouldn’t she? Right now she obviously needed the rest. He brought a towel out of the small bathroom and dried her wet feet. She’d fallen asleep with them still dangling in the water, and the bottoms of her toes had wrinkled like pink raisins.

He grinned at the image.

Then he sat on the bed’s edge and began to unbutton the blouse she wore. But when it spilled open, his hands stilled and his smile slowly died. Her breasts swelled like luscious fruits, ripe to bursting. Her bra hooked in the front and barely contained her. She hadn’t been like this before. His dim memories had painted a false picture. Or maybe she’d changed.

Of course she’d changed. She carried his child.

Hands trembling for no reason he cared to identify, Ren lifted them to the front of the bra and released its clasp. Then he pulled it open, freeing her, and feasting his hungry eyes on her.

He told himself he’d done it only because the thing had looked so uncomfortable. And that now he would pull the covers over her and let her rest.

But he didn’t move. He only stared. If ever there was the perfect vision of woman in all her glory, he was seeing it now. He couldn’t force his gaze away from her. He wanted to hold her swelling breasts in his hands, to feel the weight of them pressing into his palms. He wanted to stroke her dark nipples and see them stiffen in response. He ached to touch her, to kiss her.

Her gasp and sudden movement took him by surprise. She jerked the blankets to her chin and rolled away from him. “Ren, what are you doing!”

“I…” He blinked, searched for words. “I was just… making you comfortable. So you could sleep. I wasn’t…”

She lifted the covers, peeked underneath, then lowered them and closed her eyes.

“Annie, it’s all right. I… we were married once. Don’t be embarrassed.”

She shook her head, but her eyes didn’t open. “How did you get me up here from the lake, Ren? A wheelbarrow?”

His jaw dropped. He expected her to laugh and look at him with a twinkle in her eye, but she didn’t. “I carried you.”

“Did you check yourself for damage? Could be a hernia lurking—”

“Stop it, Annie,” he said softly. “You’re no burden, even now with the baby.”

She turned her face into the pillows, a deep muffled groan escaping her. When she spoke, her words were not only garbled but muffled as well.

He touched her shoulder, then rubbed it, helpless to think of anything to ease her apparent embarrassment. He still wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong.

“Annie, come on. Don’t cry. I was only trying… I mean, I didn’t mean anything. I wasn’t—”

“You think I don’t know that?” She lifted her head to ask that question. Then she dropped back onto the pillows again. “Ugh.”

Ren gave his head a shake. He’d thought himself equal to anything. A warrior, skilled in many forms of battle, including the kind where minds warred rather than bodies. He’d considered himself a champion at outwitting or outfighting any enemy, anywhere. But he was out of his league with her.

Aloud he searched for logic.

“It’s a difficult time for you, Annie,” he said softly. “Coming back here. The memories must be hard to deal with. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe we ought to go back.”

“I love it here, you big dummy.” But there was a threat of tears in her voice.

Of course she loved it here, he thought. Wasn’t it obvious the way she was getting ready to cry her heart out?

“The pregnancy is probably getting to you, then. Is that it, Annie?” Of course it was. Hadn’t he just been thinking how tough this whole thing must be on her physically? Hell, the emotional strain must be just as bad. “I’ve heard that the final weeks are always the hardest on the mother. Is that it, Annie? Are you worn out and tired of carrying the burden?”

She rolled to her back again, sitting up and tugging her blouse together. “Our baby is no burden, Ren. I’m not the one having a problem with it. Gosh, I know what I look like without this baby stretching me all out of proportion.”

He lifted his hands, feeling all but helpless. “Well, so do I. I don’t understand what’s—”

“You do?”

All of the sudden moisture evaporated from her eyes. She sat up straighter, brushing her damp cheeks dry, blinking her eyes clear, sweeping her hair away from her face, and staring at him as if she could see his very soul.

“How, Ren? If you don’t remember anything about our past together, then how do you know?”

“I…” Oh, great. He’d just about blown it. Think fast, he told himself. “The pictures!” Oops, he shouldn’t have yelled it out like that. Dead giveaway. “The pictures in your house, Annie, the ones of our… your wedding. I’ve seen them, and… and Annie, you’re beautiful in them.”

Her eyes narrowed, and he knew he’d dropped the ball.

“Not to say that you aren’t beautiful now. You are. Even more so.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “You know that, Annie. It’s not the first time I’ve told you.”

She grimaced at him as if he’d just told her she had a wart on the end of her nose. “You’re not going to say I’m glowing, are you? I often think that’s a polite mispronunciation of ”growing.“”

He allowed himself a cautious, tentative smile. So the problem was simply that she didn’t feel very attractive right now. Unless he’d guessed wrong yet again. And she didn’t want him or anyone looking at her. Why? Because she was afraid they’d confirm her suspicions? God, how little she knew.

“No, Annie. I’m not going to say you’re glowing, but only because I’m afraid you’ll hit me if I do.“

“Hmm, maybe you remember more than you’re admitting.” And now she smiled back at him.

“I’ll just say that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on. I believe if da Vinci were here right now, he’d beg to paint your portrait. And it would outshine the Mona Lisa as his greatest masterpiece.” He studied her reaction, seeing the skepticism in her eyes, then seeing it fade a little. Ren wondered then if there was anything in the world more beautiful to a man than a woman who carried his child. He doubted it. “You’re beautiful,” he said again to cement it in her mind. He didn’t want her to doubt it.

She shifted her eyes a little. “Yeah, well, so are forest fires, but that doesn’t make you want one.”

He frowned, tilting his head to one side. Want one? Ren suddenly had the distinct sensation of a light being turned on in a dark room.

“Forget I said that,” she rushed on. “Look, I’m sorry I fell apart on you. Let’s chalk it up to out-of-whack hormones and forget about it, okay?” She slid out of the bed on the opposite side and rubbed the small of her back. “Where’s our stuff?”

Ren shook himself, blinking away the flash of understanding that had nearly blinded him. “I unpacked for you. Everything’s in the dresser.”

She nodded, not looking him directly in the eye, and went to take a nightgown from the oak dresser beside the bed, still holding her blouse together with one hand. Then she frowned and sent him a glance. “This is the only dresser in the place, you know. You can put your stuff in here, too, if you want.”

“I took mine up to the loft.”

She actually winced, and he wanted to snatch his words back the second they were uttered. Idiot!

“Oh.” She blinked against the pain that showed so clearly in her eyes, and finally turned away in her effort to hide it from him. “I… thought you’d be using the couch. You knew it was a hideaway bed, didn’t you? Stupid question. Of course you knew. I told you on the way up. Well, take the loft, then.” She spoke rapidly, too rapidly, as if blurting things as they popped into her mind just to fill the silence. “Hell, Ren, if you get to feeling too crowded, try the damned shed. I’m sure the horses would welcome the company.”

“Annie—”

She slammed the bathroom door behind her, cutting off his explanation. And what the hell was he going to say, anyway? He’d actually thought about sleeping in the shed. But not for the reasons she apparently imagined.

When had this change in Annie’s attitude toward him begun? This morning, he realized slowly. In bed this morning, when she’d turned to him with desire shining from her gemstone eyes, and he’d turned away. He’d known his rejection had stung her then. But he hadn’t guessed at the interpretations she’d put on it.

He’d never known anyone as volatile. In deep mourning for her husband one day, furious with him the following dawn, feeling rejected and unattractive by nightfall. She was like the wind, unpredictable and impossible to hold. And God, how he wanted to hold her.

And what she was thinking right now was making her more tense and unsettled than ever. Because what she was thinking, Ren decided, was that he didn’t want her. And it didn’t matter that he’d explained that he couldn’t feel desire. She thought she should be able to get past that, to make him feel again. And she had. But he’d denied it, and she believed it was because of the child she carried. His child. God, didn’t she know that made him want her even more?

So he was left in a no-win situation. If he could show her how very wrong she was, it would ease her pain. He knew that. But if he let her go on thinking the way she was, it would be easier for her to let him go in the end. She was angry with him, likely thought him a shallow fool to reject her because of a belly swollen with his seed. His own flesh. His baby. If it were true, she’d be right. But it wasn’t true, and she was more wrong than she could possibly realize.

So what was he going to do?

He heard the shower running as he turned to pace the room. She’d take her time in the shower. That was another thing he knew about her. And he wondered if he knew it because of his experiences with her the last few days or because of the past they shared.

And did it matter? Probably not.

He shook his head. Impossible situation. Impossible decision. Tell her he was half out of his mind with wanting her, overflowing with feelings for her, and break her heart to bits when he had to leave? Or let her go on thinking him a shallow, vain idiot? Let her go on hurting over his rejection now, just to ease her pain later?

Damn, he didn’t know what the hell to do.

Instead he tried to focus on ways to make Annie feel better for the“ moment. Her back ached. That much was obvious. And she was tired of carrying the extra weight, whether she admitted to it or not. He could only imagine what other aches she might have. And she wasn’t looking well. Dark circles under her eyes, paler-than-normal skin.

She’d be damp and cold when she came out of the shower. Autumn’s chill was beginning to work its way into the cabin. Okay. He could see to her comfort, if nothing else.

He turned down the bed for her. Dug a fluffy comforter out of the cedar trunk at the bed’s foot, and laid it atop the blankets that were already there. He plumped her pillows. Then he turned off the light and lit the kerosene lamp beside her bed. Softer, more calming. The bed looked inviting with that amber glow spilling onto the white sheets.

He sternly told himself it was supposed to look inviting to her, not him. Then he moved out of the bedroom because telling himself the facts didn’t alter the way he felt when he pictured her lying there, her hair spread on the pillows, her skin painted by the lamplight.

Ren laid a fire in the fireplace, touched a match to the kindling, and watched the flames curl up to lick at the logs. Resin hissed and snapped. Warmth spread from the grate into the room, chasing the chill away, and the fragrance of burning wood tinged the air with something cozy and nostalgic.

Then, remembering she hadn’t eaten, he checked the cabin’s stores. Ira had said he’d stocked the place with supplies. The man hadn’t been lying. The refrigerator was barren, but myriad packages filled the small freezer, and still more were stacked in every cupboard. He settled on a can of “home-style” chicken vegetable soup with seasoned croutons, and a mason jar filled with peaches so bright yellow, they almost glowed. Mentally he ticked off food groups. Dairy. He was lacking dairy. Probably the most important thing for her right now.

He dived into the cupboards again and found some canned puddings—made with real milk, the label said—and he opened one for her, stuck a spoon in it, and felt a little better.

Then he stopped what he was doing and smiled to himself, and if he’d had a mirror handy, he figured he’d have seen a pretty goofy-looking grin. But it felt good taking care of her like this. She deserved it. He’d missed the chance to coddle her, treat her like the most delicate bit of china, the most precious diamond. This was a time when most men really began to appreciate what they had in their wives. Watching her blossom and expand as the child inside her did. Feeling an awed joy over the incredible gift she was about to give him. Wishing to take some of the stress and the discomfort onto himself.

He’d missed so much.

His smile only died when he thought about how much more he’d miss in the future. His baby’s first words, first steps, first day of school. His wife’s joy and wonder in every achievement. The warmth of a tiny hand, enfolded within his own.

A hot blade slid silently through his heart, and Ren’s hands trembled a little as he stirred the soup. Not now, he ordered himself, and for once his mind obeyed. He wouldn’t dwell on the future. Instead he’d attempt to make up for some of what he’d missed.

And later he’d worry about the pain that was in all likelihood going to be with him for as long as he lived. Later, in that vast, dark future that loomed ahead of him, when he’d have to live without her. A fiery hell would hold more appeal.

Chapter Eleven

By the time she came out of the bathroom, dressed in a big dorm shirt, her damp hair trailing down over her shoulders and leaving wet spots in the general vicinity of her breasts—not a good area on which to focus, he decided—Ren had a place set for her in front of the fireplace. She started to head past him, straight for the little kitchen, but did a double take and came to a halt. “What’s all this?” “I thought you might be hungry.” She blinked, and her eyes seemed wary, as if she was wondering what he could be up to. But she dismissed whatever she’d been thinking and took the seat he pointed out, a big, friendly rocker with plump, quilted cushions lining it. She eyed the soup, the glass of milk he’d created when he’d found a box of powdered mix in the cupboard, the chocolate pudding, the small bowl of peaches. “I don’t think I can hold all that.”

“Why not? You feeling queasy?”

“No, but—”

“Then eat. Come on, Annie; it’s good for the baby. You know that.”

“I know.” She went for the pudding first, pulling the spoon out of the can to lick it clean, making Ren’s stomach knot with intense longing as he watched her. “Not bad,” she said.

“You shouldn’t worry about your weight right now, Annie. You’ll take it off again in no time, once the baby’s born.”

She washed the pudding down with a sip of the milk and grimaced, setting the glass aside. “Won’t matter then, anyway. You’ll be…” She met his eyes briefly and looked away.

Gone, he finished in his mind. He’d be gone, and she couldn’t get that out of her thoughts. Maybe that was adding to her impatience with him.

“I’m not worrying about my weight,” she put in, probably just to fill the awkward silence. “I eat plenty. I wouldn’t let anything as petty as vanity interfere with the baby’s health.”

“I know that. And besides, you have your vitamins.”

“Yeah.”

Tension. That’s what it was. Thick and electric, it seemed to hover like an invisible wall between them. He couldn’t think of a single way to break through it.

She finished half the pudding, licked the chocolate from her lips, and reached for the soup. Ren reached for his own, having forgotten it was there. Watching her eat chocolate pudding could, he figured, make a man forget just about anything. And for a while they ate, but Ren sensed it was more for something to do than because either of them actually felt hungry.

“You’re really uncomfortable here with me, aren’t you, Ren?”

She’d finished the soup. The bowl of peaches went untouched. Ren wasn’t certain how to answer her question.

“Why do you say that?”

She shrugged and shook her head. “Just a feeling I get.”

“You and your feelings.”

She glanced at him sharply. He realized he’d slipped. He wasn’t supposed to know how often she relied on her gut feelings to guide her. He wasn’t supposed to know a lot of things about her. But more and more was coming back to him now.

“I just meant you shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I’m enjoying this time with you, Annie.”

“Are you?”

Her eyes were searching, questioning. “I am. My only regret is that it can’t last longer.“

She lowered her head, and he knew she still hadn’t given up on her crazy notion that he could find a way to stay. It wouldn’t help her at all to know he wanted that as badly as she did.

The fire snapped and hissed, and she focused on the dancing flames. “We should make the most of what little time we do have,” she said, her voice very soft.

“I thought that’s what we were doing.”

Closing her eyes slowly, she released a long sigh. “Not even close.”

“Annie…”

Shaking her head, she got out of her chair, belly first, hands braced on the arms for support. “I’m going to bed now. Thanks for the meal. I’ll do breakfast, okay?”

“Sure.”

Then she was gone, and Ren sat alone, the emptiness inside him gnawing right to the bone. He’d never in his life been as lonely as he was at that very moment.

And just how the hell was she supposed to sleep? Now he was saying she was beautiful, plying her with pudding by firelight, acting as if… as if he cared about her, and maybe a little more than that. She’d caught the man undressing her, staring at her body as if he liked what he saw, for crying out loud. And yet he ignored her blatant hints as if she were speaking a foreign language. What the hell was going on with him?

When she thought he might desire her in spite of his claim that he was unable to, he turned away. When she treated him like a casual stranger, he seemed hurt. She’d seen an undeniable flash of regret in his eyes when she’d left him alone in the living room. Had he wanted her to stay? To invite him to come with her? Or was she imagining the things she kept seeing in his eyes? What in God’s name did the man want?

Annie tossed uncomfortably on the bed for hours and never came a bit closer to knowing the answer. She knew what she wanted. But that was little help. She wanted him. She wanted to make love to him. No, she wanted him to make love to her. The way he used to, so that it was more man just sex, more than passion. She wanted to feel his love surrounding her and cradling her and warming her the way she used to feel it.

God, she missed that. The sense his love-making had always conveyed—that there was no one in the world for him but her. That nothing could ever come between them. That she meant everything to him. The feeling of being cherished, treasured. The certainty that he loved her above everything else in the universe that used to envelope her entire being as she fell asleep in his arms.

She wanted him back: that’s what she wanted. She wanted him to remember, to be her husband again, to be Richard.

Maybe it simply wasn’t going to happen. And maybe, she decided after hours of hopeless analysis, she wasn’t going to sleep. She flung the covers aside and tiptoed to the door, peering through it.

The fire’s lonely glow spilled into the rustic room, painting the dark wood with an orange wash. Wasted with no one there to enjoy it. The dishes had been cleared away. Ren was nowhere in sight. Up in the loft, she imagined. Probably figured she was too round and awkward to manage the ladder. Probably figured he was safe from her up there. And he was probably sleeping quite soundly without her.

It wasn’t fair, she thought. She hadn’t slept soundly without him in eight long months. His memory kept her awake and haunted her dreams. And now he was here, in the flesh, and still managing to haunt her.

But not for long. He’d leave her alone again sometime soon. And she didn’t think she could bear it.

She needed air, space. She had to think this through, find a way to come to grips with it.

God, she didn’t want her baby raised by a woman in constant mourning. What kind of life would that be? How would her child manage to grow into this great world leader if all Annie ever showed it was grief and sorrow?

She padded barefoot through the living room and slipped out the front door. The night air sighed its fresh breath into her lungs. It tasted of earth and pure water and pine needles. It was good. Somewhere a night bird crooned a lullaby that went on and on, the same three notes over and over. Continuity. She clung to the bird’s song, loving the predictable pattern of it, wishing she could find more predictable patterns in her life. She breathed deeply and stepped off the porch, slowly making her way around back, toward the water. Stars glittered like diamonds on the lake, and a streak of silvery moonlight magically bisected the calm surface.

Annie sat on the edge of the dock and let her bare feet dangle in the pure water. Maria used to tell stories about this lake. She used to claim it was somehow special. Pure, she called it. One of the few lakes left in the modern world that was still exactly as it had been on the day it was formed. Unsullied by man and his toxins.

Annie sighed. Ren would be gone soon, unless she found a way to make him stay. Of course, before that would work, she had to make him want to stay.

“I just don’t know how to deal with him,” she muttered to herself and to the lake. “I don’t know how to… how to relate to him. As a friend or a stranger or a…” She broke off, but the words whispered through her mind anyway. Or as a lover.

She waved her feet back and forth, feeling the brisk, chilly water rushing over them, invigorating her. She’d never had trouble relating to Richard before. But now everything was so different.

Or was it? Maybe she’d been looking at this all wrong. Richard had been away. She’d missed him terribly, and now he was back. Why did that mean anything had to be different? Annie sighed. “Because he’s changed, that’s why.”

Closing her eyes, Annie envisioned Ren… Richard in her mind. But there’s so much about him that’s the same. Everything, really. His personality hasn’t altered. He likes the same foods and uses the same expressions. He’s just as kind, just as wonderful. He’s the same.

Except for the armor and the magic, and of course, his memory and the fact that he no longer wanted her. He was a warrior now… but maybe the same man inside.

And what about her? Had she changed as well? Maybe she had. God knew she was no longer the carefree, happy woman she’d been before. Now she was wary, a little bit unsure of herself, and hurting. Always hurting.

She searched herself for the woman she used to be, the girl she’d been before that. When she looked around this place, her haven, she realized she’d still enjoy climbing the trees and exploring the forests and skinny-dipping in the chill water. That part of her, the happy part, was still there, inside her. It was only being stifled by the pain of losing him. Maybe she could find a way to bring it out again.

Most important of all, her heart hadn’t changed. She still loved him as much as she ever had. Maybe even more, now that she’d seen how empty her life could be without him.

She tilted her head, considering this. If neither of them had truly changed inside, where it counted, why not treat him exactly the way she would if he’d never left?

The wind picked up. It hummed in harmony through the highest branches of the nearby trees, sighed down to the lower ones, and whispered in the needles. Annie looked up at the starry sky. She smelled the pine sap, pungent and good.

“This place,” she whispered, “is magic. Anything is possible here.”

Annie didn’t look down. She kept her gaze skyward, let the peaceful night filter into her, relaxing everything it touched. It reached deep, this place, and shook the woman she’d been before, rousing her from a long slumber. Annie felt her old self waking, a bit groggy and a little unsure, but awake, at long last. And as she woke, she wondered why she’d wasted so very much time grieving. The old Annie wouldn’t have. She’d have been relishing every minute she had with the man she loved. So what if he rejected her? At least she had to try. God, if she could only show him a fraction of what they’d had together, he’d never want to leave her.

She got to her feet, turning toward the cabin, but hesitated, a bit of her newfound courage deserting her. What she needed was a plan. And to formulate a plan, she needed a clear, sharp mind and just a little bit more time. Her gaze was drawn to the lake again. It lay as still as a dark mirror, its serenity beckoning her. And the girl Annie had once been smiled.

“Annie…”

She wasn’t there. Her bed lay empty, rumpled. Her shoes and her jacket were right where she’d left them. Where the hell was she?

Ren couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep! Not now, not when Blackheart stalked his wife and his child like a madman. Besides, Ren thought as he frantically searched the entire cabin, he’d been wide awake for hours, chasing sleep until he’d given up ever catching it. He’d been unable to close his eyes, knowing she was lying alone in a big bed just below him. Three times he’d got up and gone to the ladder with every intention of slipping into her room. He’d slide into her bed and pull her into his arms and hold her. Tell her how much he wanted her. Oh, he couldn’t make love to her, not the way he’d like to. He had no idea whether intercourse would be safe at this late stage of pregnancy. But there was more than one way to make love to a woman, and Ren had all but writhed in his lonely bed as the alternatives had twisted through his mind. A mind that was supposed to be incapable of stirring up such fantasies.

But each time he’d started to go to her, he’d stopped himself. He no longer cared that he’d be sentencing himself to death for breaking his final vow to Sir George. He no longer cared that his existence as a White Knight would end with the completion of his current mission. He wanted her. And he cursed whatever powers had decided it could be wrong for a man to want his own wife.

What stopped him from going to her, though, wasn’t the consequence he’d face. It was the one she’d face. She’d be devastated when he left her, even though he’d be truly dying this time instead of returning to his service as a White Knight. It would hurt her just the same, maybe more, this way. He couldn’t do that to her.

Ren put those thoughts from his mind now as he failed to find Annie in the cabin. She’d gone outside. God, why? Didn’t she know that Blackheart could be lurking there, waiting? Didn’t she realize the danger?

Shoeless, wearing only his jeans, and those unfastened, Ren raced out onto the porch, around the cabin, and down the grassy incline to the lake.

And then he stopped and caught his breath.

She was in the water, the wedge-shaped portion that had been transformed into quicksilver by the moonlight. She swam, her slender arms beaded with droplets as they moved. Then she stopped and floated, and her hair spread into the illuminated water around her, and Ren thought of mermaids and sirens.

She saw him, but she didn’t smile. She only held his gaze steadily and paddled toward the dock where he stood. At the end of it, she stopped. She clasped the dock to keep herself afloat, her chin just level with the wood. And he could see the slim column of her throat, and the water beading on her shoulders, and the mounds of her breasts just above the water line.

He lost the power of speech.

“I wanted to swim,” she said softly, as if that explained everything.

Ren cleared his throat. “I… I was worried. You shouldn’t go out alone, Annie. Blackheart could be—”

“I don’t want to hear about Blackheart. I just want to swim.”

There was something in her eyes, something potent and brazen and deliberate. He tried to ignore it but knew he was losing the battle.

“How do you know it’s safe? For the baby, I mean?”

Her lips curved upward slightly at the corners. “I asked the doctor when I called him from my mother’s. I asked the doctor about everything I could think of, Ren. Everything I thought I might even remotely consider doing up here.”

He almost choked. He blinked, thinking the expression in her eyes might be a trick of the moonlight, but it remained the same. Seductive, inviting.

“I… I think you ought to come back to the house, Annie.”

“Well, I think you ought to come swimming with me, Ren. The way we used to do.” She released the dock, turned, and pushed off, paddling away. Ren glimpsed the perfect white curve of her buttocks as she did, just for an instant. When she surfaced again a few yards away, she slapped her hands against the water, sending a light shower onto his chest. “So, you coming in, or what?”

She was smiling, impish in her delight. He couldn’t help but smile back. God, the many moods of Annie never ceased to amaze. But this was one he liked, one he’d longed to see. She was happy. And if it took swimming naked in the moonlight to see that she remained that way, then he’d spend the rest of his time right there in the water with her.

He was lost then, and he knew it. It was too late to think about the consequences. Ren watched her for another full minute before he reached for his jeans and began to lower the zipper. He took them off and Annie stopped her playing. She came into the shallow water, just up to her shoulders, and she stood very still, her gaze burning over him. He stood in the moonlight, feeling those eyes on him, wondering if she’d turn away. Wondering if he wanted her to.

She didn’t. She feasted on him all the while he undressed, until he stood naked on the shore, and Annie stared, not saying a word.

And when he stepped into the water, even its sudden chill didn’t diminish the effect that longing in her eyes had on his body. He swam out to her, emerging right in front of her. And still she stood in silence.

He ought not to do what he was about to do, but Ren knew painfully well that the time for changing his mind was long past. He drew her into his arms, letting his hands slip around her wet body, running his palms damply over her back. And he kissed her. He pressed her mouth open and took it the way he’d been wanting to for so long, and he tasted everything he remembered in its velvet depths.

Annie shuddered in his arms.

“Do you know how much I want you, Annie? How I’ve longed for this? My God, it’s been killing me.” His words came in deepening gasps against her mouth, her face, her throat.

“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t know. I thought you couldn’t—”

“So did I,” he told her. “You made me feel again.”

“It took you long enough to tell me.”

“Somehow I can’t believe you ever doubted it.”

“I doubted,” she said. “But I hoped…”

He ran his hands down her back, over her perfect hips; he closed his fingers on her buttocks and kneaded her. Then he lifted her, his hands slipping through the water, down the backs of her thighs, spreading them until they wrapped around his waist, above his hips. She leaned back in the water, floating, clinging to his shoulders. Ren bent over her, capturing a full, ripe breast in his mouth, nuzzling it until its nipple stood erect and throbbing, and then licking it mercilessly. He braced one hand in the center of her back to hold her to his mouth. The other, he brought around, between them, and downward, his fingers dipping into the wetness between her legs.

God, though it would kill him to restrain himself, he would. But if it was the last thing he lived to do, he’d see her in ecstasy. He’d see the way her face twisted in sweet agony with the pleasures he’d bestow. She’d never forget him.

His fingers dipped lower, parted, touched. She gasped and her eyes flew wide open. And he watched her. Dipping his head to torture her breasts with his mouth, he kept glancing up to watch the expressions flit over her face. When his fingers probed inside her, her eyes closed and her lips parted. And when he withdrew them slowly only to insert them again, deeper, and pulled back and thrust again, faster, faster each time, she set her jaw, clenched her teeth. Not enough. Not yet.

She opened her eyes, curious, when he pulled his fingers away, but they widened and she bit her lip when he pinched the pulsing nub at the center of her between his thumb and forefinger. When he rolled it there, increasing the pressure, squeezing, harder, rolling again, her mouth opened wide and she cried out. With his free fingers, he entered her slick, trembling passage again, working her as before. His teeth closed on her nipple pinching with gentle force.

She broke into a scream that was the sweetest music. She shook like a willow in a windstorm and convulsed around his fingers and fought to breathe.

And then she relaxed all at once. Lying back in the water, only his hand at the small of her back and her legs locked around him keeping her afloat. He groaned softly, looking down at her breasts, nipples still pebble hard, peeking out of the dark, cold water. Then he met her eyes and saw her gentle smile.

“You don’t think you’re going to get away with that, do you?” A teasing gleam lit her eyes.

“What—”

But she clasped his shoulders, loosened the hold her legs had on him just a little, and lowered herself. Her wet center slid down over his rigid core, and Ren closed his eyes in sweet ecstasy. Grating his teeth, he rasped, “But what about, ah… what about the baby?” He was damned close to losing the power to think, let alone speak.

“Same rules as the horses, Ren,” she whispered. “Slow and easy.” She lowered herself further, took more of him. “Actually, that's what I called about in the first place. I didn’t give a damn about the horses or the swimming. Just…” She took him to the hilt, closing her eyes and tilting her head back. “Just this.”

Her hands at his nape, she lifted herself to kiss him, and Ren gave up. There was no resisting her. Siren. Lake fairy. Enchantress. No, he heard himself whisper. None of those. Just Annie. Just my wife.

He began to move with her, so carefully and slowly that his need doubled in his loins. It burned in him, and he trembled a little, and then more, as he forced the gentle pace to continue. His hands at her buttocks, he lifted her, lowered her. Again and again, and the silken sheath of Annie caressed him and pulled away. Encompassed him and released him. And slowly, agonizingly, his mind spiraled upward, his body reached for the heavens. And because of the slowness, he savored it when it finally came, washing over him as completely as the waves. Flooding him, and going on and on and on. He heard her cry his name, felt her climax joining his, becoming a part of his.

He held her tight, closed his eyes, and with everything in him wished he would never have to leave her again.

Chapter Twelve

When she woke in the morning, they were inside, bundled together in the big bed beneath a mound of covers. Vaguely she remembered the trip. Laughing, kissing, stumbling naked and wet and leaving dollops of water through the cabin on their way to the bed. She remembered the goose bumps from the chilly air, and the other ones Ren gave her. And she knew she loved him as much now as before. More than before. And she always would, even if he did have to leave her in the end.

Annie bit her lip at the pain that swelled inside her at that thought. She knew what life would be without him. A dark, empty, barren place. A place she’d been stranded in for the last eight months. One to which she had no desire to return. But she would. And maybe this time she’d be a little more able to deal with the loneliness, the ache in her heart. Or maybe this time it would destroy her. She thought she was stronger now than she’d been before. Coming here with him had given her a new layer of steel. Maybe because she’d discovered the woman she’d once been and had found a way to draw on her strength. Or maybe it was her child, so close to being born now, making her strong again. Or maybe it was having her husband back with her for this precious time. Whatever it was, she had to find a way to hold on to it.

But would it last? Would it see her through the dark times to come?

God, she hoped so. Otherwise she’d sink into depression and despair once more, perhaps this time never to emerge into sunlight again. And she was finding she liked the sunlight, liked living without the blackness of despair weighing her down. She’d never realized how precious true happiness was when she’d had it. Now that it had reappeared, she cherished it all the more.

A tiny foot thumped her from within, and she automatically put her hand on the spot, smiling down at it. “I know, I know. I can’t let that happen, can I?” She closed her eyes, found and clung to that strength within. “All right, then, little one. I won’t. I’ll be strong for you, no matter what happens. No more drowning in sorrow. Not for you and me.” It was a whisper. A secret promise between her and her child. One she vowed to keep, somehow, some way.

But not now. Right now she had no desire to waste precious time feeling sad about the future or wondering how she’d manage to bear living without him again. God knew she’d have enough time to miss him later. If Ren still insisted on leaving her again. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe now he’d understand… and want to stay. And if he decided he wanted to stay with her after all, she’d find a way to make that happen. She’d fight to the end for him. And she had a feeling that was exactly what she was going to have to do if she hoped to win this battle.

She sat up and just looked at him, sleeping so close to her. With a secret smile she whispered her thanks to the universe for this time with him. She’d cherish it always, no matter what else might happen.

Ren stirred. He always did within a few minutes of her waking. Always had. She waited, watched. The sheet only clung to his hips and a portion of his thighs. His broad, tanned shoulders and toned back enticed her, made her fingers itch to touch him. His golden hair caressed his shoulders, and as she devoured it with her eyes, Annie decided she liked it this way. Long and untamed. She’d ask him to keep it this way—if he stayed.

He said he couldn’t stay. Not wouldn’t but couldn’t. He said that breaking his oath to this Sir George character was punishable by death.

Annie blocked out the voice in her mind that warned her against getting her hopes up. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t! She wouldn’t let it be! She’d find the strength to fight the forces that would take him from her again, and this time she would win.

Ren opened his sleepy blue eyes and sent her the lazy, crooked smile she adored. A little knot formed in her stomach at the sight of it. Just the way it always had. How could things be so much the same and yet so very different? So very strange and distorted?

“Hi, beautiful.” His hand rose to cup the back of her head. He pulled her down to him and thoroughly kissed her mouth. “Breakfast ready?”

She shook her head. “Afraid not.” She should ask him what would happen if he tried to stay. They should talk this through, make a plan. They should plot and strategize until they knew how to beat this thing.

Not now, though.

Part of her knew it was cowardice to put it off. She was afraid to hear him tell her it was impossible for him to remain here. She didn’t want to know that. Until she knew that, she could hold on to hope. She could convince herself that there must be a way. There had to be a way. As long as there was a shred of hope, she could bask in his closeness, relish his nearness, revel in his love the way she’d always done.

“I do vaguely remember offering to fix it, though,” she put in, shaking her hair with her I fingers in hopes of shaking the disturbing, depressing thoughts from her mind. “I’ll get busy right away.” She sent him a wink. “I have an inkling you’re very hungry this morning. You were rather… busy last night.”

She saw the flare of desire in his blue eyes as she moved to get up, and she wasn’t surprised when he caught her arm and kept her still.

He sat up on his elbow, gazed at her, pushed the hair off her face, and cupped her cheek. “You’re an incredible woman, Annie. And you’re gorgeous in the morning.” He kissed her once again, this time drawing her back down into the bed and holding her against him. “Sorry, Annie-girl, but I can’t let you get up just yet.”

Annie knew she was in heaven. And she didn’t want to ruin it by talking about his eventually leaving her again. There would be plenty of time to discuss that later. Not now, not here in their special place.

“French toast,” he whispered against her lips, making the words sound erotic. “With maple syrup. I’ll make you a plateful of it too delicious to resist.”

“I thought I was responsible for cooking breakfast.” She spoke around his kisses.

He nuzzled her neck, nibbled it. “I lied. I’m cooking. Later. Quite a little bit later, actually. But I don’t want you lifting a finger, Annie. I want to pamper you while—”

She kissed his mouth to keep him from finishing the sentence. She didn’t want to think about the future. It hurt too much.

An hour later, after some delicious experiments in lovemaking, Annie found herself relaxing in the little rowboat, amid a decadent nest of cushions and pillows pilfered from the cabin. They moved quickly through the still waters, beneath an orange ball of a sun as big as the world. Mists rose from the surface of the lake as if the water were steaming hot. Long, twisting tendrils of pale gray, reaching upward, ghosts trying to get to heaven. They danced in slow motion, changing shape again and again until the little boat pierced their cloud of illusion, and the ghostly curtains parted to let them pass.

The cool breeze that touched her face smelled of pine and fresh, sweet water. As it gained force, the mists dissipated a bit more. And Annie was glad. She didn’t like the creepy feeling the fogginess stirred in her. That sensation was chased away even more thoroughly when first a few and then a thousand morning birds lifted their voices in a raucous opera that seemed designed to welcome the sun.

Ren stopped rowing when he judged them to be in a suitable spot. He pulled in the oars, took a covered dish from the basket he’d brought along, and set it in her lap.

Annie took off the lid and eyed the steaming stack. “Oh, this smells heavenly.”

“Powdered milk, powdered eggs, and God knows how long that loaf of bread has been in the freezer,” he informed her. “But the spices might make it edible.”

She dug in while Ren poured coffee from a thermos. “Here,” he said, handing her a cup. “Decaf. It’s better for the baby.”

She smiled and took the warm mug. True to his word, Ren was pampering her. He’d flexed his culinary muscle while she’d showered and dressed this morning, refusing to let her lift a finger to help.

“French toast was always your specialty,” she told him as she leaned over to inhale the luscious scent.

“No wonder it came so easily. So I was a great cook, was I?”

She grinned at him. “It was your specialty because it was the one and only dish you could prepare with any kind of success.“

He looked sheepish. “So you were stuck doing all the cooking for us? That hardly seems fair.”

“Oh no. You cooked.” She grimaced. “Or you tried to.”

“It was that bad?”

“I always smiled and told you it was wonderful.”

“And I’d see right through you and call for pizza,” he said.

Annie went still, her smile dying. “Ren… ?” He closed his eyes, biting his lip as if he wanted to take back his words. But she knew. “You remember,” she whispered.

He looked into her eyes. “Only bits and pieces. Things… come back to me at odd moments. I just… I just thought it would be easier on you if you didn’t know.”

She reached out to stroke his hair. “Like you thought it would be easier on me if I didn’t know you still wanted me,” she said softly.

He only nodded. “I held out as long as I could.” Then his eyes glittered as they probed hers, and his hand covered hers in his hair. “I should have known better, though. I didn’t stand a chance.” He smiled at her—devilishly handsome, that smile. And it chased away the sadness the thought of his leaving her had evoked. “Eat your French toast,” he told her. “It’s good for you. Besides, I want you to keep your strength up.” And he winked.

She smiled at him. It was the first time they’d talked about their life together. And suddenly it felt as if he’d never left her. Annie sipped her coffee and ate some more of the food. “God knows -there’s little nutritional value to French toast,” she told him, “but it tastes heavenly.” She slapped her forehead as that thought prompted another. “Oh, great. I forgot my vitamins this morning, Ren. Remind me when we get—”

He pulled the little bottle out of the picnic basket with a flourish. “I thought of everything.”

“I guess you did.” She took the pills from him, twisted off the cap, then paused in mid-motion, her head coming up, eyes scanning the fog-shrouded waters in the distance.

The wind had changed. It came more briskly than before, rippling the water, making the rowboat turn and bounce harder in time with the waves.

Frowning, she glanced at Ren, a question in her eyes. Something seemed… odd. It had grown so quiet all at once, except for the wind. The fish had stopped jumping, and the birds no longer chirped their boisterous chorus from the surrounding forest. Ren’s brows bent to touch one another. He, too, seemed concerned.

“Well, that’s odd. It was so placid up until a second ago.” She shook one of her vitamins into her hand.

Before her eyes the fluffy white clouds dotting the pale sky picked up their pace, first skittering, then stampeding. The sky had the look of some experiment in time-lapse photography. Wind whipped her hair, snapped the hem of her blouse. Waves swelled from water that had been still as glass only moments before. The rowboat rose suddenly, as if in the grip of a huge hand, then sank rapidly, dropped into the deep trough the wave left in its wake. Again and again they were tossed and shaken. The pill bottle flew from Annie’s hand as she gripped the sides of the rowboat. She reached for it, only to see it land in the bottom of the boat, its contents spilling helter-skelter.

“Hold on, Annie!” Ren’s hand pressed hers back onto the boat’s side. “Just hold on!”

He was yelling at her, she realized, because she wouldn’t have heard him otherwise. The wind howled and moaned now, and the water was churning in response. She did as she was told, gripping the sides for dear life as the sudden windstorm whipped and twisted around them. Ren fought the storm, struggling to row the boat toward shore. The waves grew angrier, greedier. They rose right up over the sides now, slapping him, soaking him. One hit Annie full in the face, so hard it nearly knocked her backward. She held on tighter. She could barely see for the wet hair plastered to her face, but she didn’t dare let go even long enough to push it away. She only shook her head hard and bunked the lake water out of her eyes. Vaguely she noted that their picnic basket had been swept overboard. Their dishes, their Thermos. She just caught a glimpse of her pill bottle before it was sucked under by the hungry waves.

Whatever it was, it was over fast. The sudden windstorm’s fury passed over them. She could see it move away, see the trees bowing with it as it swept through them. The lake calmed, gentled, until the little boat settled down into its embrace once again. The sun seemed to shine more brightly than before, and the clouds fled from its golden rays as if burned by them.

Ren’s gaze met Annie’s, and she saw the perplexity it held. He was puzzled. Warily she eased her grip on the sides, swiped the dripping stragglers from her face, looked down at her soaking-wet clothes, and shook her head. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t like it.”

He bent to the oars, his powerful arms rippling with effort. The boat skimmed the blue surface, and in a few moments they were at the dock and Ren was jumping up onto it, tying the little craft securely at the far end. Then he reached for her, and the frown lines she saw marring his beautiful face worried her. Something was wrong. She felt it down deep in her bones.

“Ren, what is it?”

He took her hand, drew her to her feet, and steadied her as she stepped up onto the solid wooden dock. “I don’t know. That windstorm, it worries me. It just didn’t seem…” He shook his head.

“Didn’t seem what?”

“Natural.” With his arm tightening around her shoulders to draw her close to him, he tipped his head skyward as if searching for something.

She fought the shudder that raced up her spine and glanced down at her tightly clenched fist. Slowly she opened her hand to see the green-blue capsule beginning to disintegrate in her palm. “Well, at least I didn’t lose all of my vitamins.” As an attempt at levity, it was weak. Still, she popped the bitter-tasting pill into her mouth before any more of it could dissolve, and hurried into the cabin for a drink to wash it down.

Blackheart saw her swallow the drug and smiled slowly. At last he’d made some headway.

Odd how that windstorm had come from nowhere, dumping the poisoned pills into the lake. Not Ren’s magic. Couldn’t be—the man didn’t have that kind of power. Sir George’s, perhaps? But if the good George had known about the pills, he’d simply have told Ren, wouldn’t he? And the White Knight certainly wouldn’t have given them to her, encouraged her to take them, had he known the clever way Blackheart had switched them that night in her house. The way he’d replaced them with new ones, specially designed just for her. Besides, Blackheart was fairly certain that Sir George’s magic could no more influence that sort of reaction in the lake than Ren’s could have. There was something else at work here. Something that worried Blackheart only briefly.

Then again, it might have been mere coincidence. Whatever. It no longer mattered overly much. Annie had taken the drug. A single capsule, yes, but one was enough. He’d made them very potent. He only wished he’d thought of this ploy sooner, for he had to wonder if it was even too late for premature labor to kill the child. Blackheart knew the baby’s chances for survival would be far lower this way, but he would have preferred a sure bet. Still, he figured his odds for success were fairly good. Born here, no one to help it, no medical facilities nearby, the baby would have few advantages.

That was the key, he realized. To keep them here. Alone. Completely cut off from outside assistance.

Blackheart rubbed his hands together in delicious anticipation. He would doubly relish his victory this time, because this time it was going to hurt. His adversary was really going to hurt.

Ren followed Annie inside, his every instinct urging him to pick her up and carry her. Only knowing how strongly she’d object to the suggestion that she might need that kind of help kept him from giving it. It did not, however, keep him from acting once they were inside and she’d sipped her glass of water. He headed into the bathroom for towels and, on the way back through the bedroom, snatched the comforter from the bed.

“Get the wet clothes off, Annie. It’s freezing in here. The last thing you need is to catch cold at this late date.”

She set her water glass down and rubbed her arms. “You’re right. It is chilly. I think I’m wet clear to the bone.“ She peeled the soaked blouse over her head.

Ren rubbed her down with a towel, ignoring the signals his body sent him and focusing instead on getting her warm and dry before she was thoroughly chilled. He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and eased her onto the sofa.

“Pants, too, Annie,” he warned. “I want you warm and dry. Double pneumonia wouldn’t do you or the baby any good.”

Annie saluted as if he were her commanding officer giving orders, but she did it with a smile. One he couldn’t return. He was worried, first and foremost about her and the child she carried. But there was something else bothering him, too, something he couldn’t quite identify.

Poor Annie. She’d been tossed like a leaf in that little boat, soaked to the skin, shaken, scared half to death, no doubt. He turned to the fireplace and knelt, carefully arranging some kindling and a small pair of logs atop the nearly dead embers from last night’s fire. Bending low, he blew gently until flames licked to life.

Satisfied with that, he hurried to the kitchen to set a kettle on the burner, then back to the bedroom again for some dry, warm clothing for Annie.

Then he was with her again, kneeling in front of her, rubbing her hair with a towel. She smiled at him from within the voluminous folds of the comforter. She seemed fine, calm. Ren was the only one feeling the touch of panic’s flame licking at his tinder-dry nerves. But why?

She wriggled under the blanket, and a second later her shoes plunked to the floorboards. Her socks joined them, and finally her pants. She sank back onto the sofa and closed her eyes.

“Are you all right, Annie? You didn’t get hurt out there, did you?” He studied her, wondering why she wasn’t filled with questions, worries, the way he was. She seemed fine, though.

“No, Ren, I’m okay. I promise. I’d tell you if I wasn’t. Stop clucking around me like a mother hen.” He heard the kettle whistling. Her brows shot up. “What’s that?”

“Hot cocoa. I thought it might help chase the chill away.”

She smiled again, that sexy smile reserved only for him. He knew that, though he wasn’t sure how. Another bit of knowledge from his life before, he supposed. She’d never bestow that particular look on anyone else. Not even if he was forced to leave her forever this time.

“Well,” she said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “I guess you can continue clucking, at least until I get a mugful of that cocoa. But that’s all I’ll tolerate, you understand?”

He couldn’t help smiling back, despite his sense of foreboding.

“And, Ren, I’m not going to touch that cocoa until you get into some dry clothes yourself,” she gently admonished. “You could get sick, too, you know.”

She shook her finger at him. He caught it, drew it to his lips, and saw passion spark in her eyes. Then he left her, returning a few moments later with a mug of steaming hot cocoa in each hand and dry clothes covering his chilled skin. His sword was once again belted at his side. He handed a cup to her. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

“You’re spoiling me.”

“That’s my privilege.”

She sat up, sipped, then leaned back again, cupping the warm mug between her palms. Ren sat beside her. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because as soon as you’ve had a minute to recover from that ordeal, I want you to get dressed. I think we ought to leave.”

The look in her eyes was one of utter surprise and terrible disappointment. “But we just got here! Ren, I like it here. I haven’t felt this happy and content since…“

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. And God, it killed him to take away the first peace she’d found in such a long time. But Ren couldn’t let himself be swayed by nostalgia or romance. “Annie, something just feels… wrong. It didn’t before, but now I sense…” His voice trailed off as the dark threat he felt loomed even nearer.

Like a wolf scenting the air, he lifted his face to the changing light pouring in through the window. But he couldn’t identify the threat. He only knew it was there. Waiting. Drawing closer even as he sat there. The brilliant yellow sunlight began taking on a darker hue and painted the room in odd sepia tones. His every instinct pricked with awareness of the danger closing in—danger to Annie and their child.

Apparently oblivious to it, Annie parted the blanket she wore. “Come in here with me. You’re shivering.”

He looked at her, saw her there beneath the covers. Her breasts full and swelling, her graceful neck and slender, strong arms. Her legs, so shapely he wanted to trace them with his lips. And her delicate torso struggling to contain and nurture his child.

“Annie…”

“Please,” she said. “Just for a minute or two.”

Sighing, he slid closer and let her fold the blanket around him. She snuggled into the crook of his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. “You worry too much, you know that, Ren?”

Her lips feathered his neck as she spoke, and he nearly forgot what it was he’d been so worried about.

Then thunder rumbled, a deep growl of it, rolling ever nearer. Frowning, he pulled free of her gentle embrace and rose, hurrying to the door. He opened it, searching the sky, and his heart tripped to a stop.

It began as small black spot in the middle of the sky, but rapidly, in the space of a heartbeat, the unnatural dark cloud spiraled outward, growing, expanding, blotting out the sun.

Oh God, he thought in anguish. The final confrontation. It was at hand. Just after he’d broken his last remaining vows. First he’d made love to Annie, and then he’d declared in his soul that he wanted to be free of his vows. He’d longed with everything in him to remain here with her. And he’d prefer death to living on without her.

His days as a White Knight were numbered. Perhaps even over, right now. He couldn’t believe Sir George would take his powers away so soon, especially not with the importance of this mission. His child—Ren’s chest swelled with pride when he thought of it—his child, and Annie’s, must be born. It must be, for the hope of the entire world rested in the still oblivious baby. No, he couldn’t believe Sir George would allow his own anger—or even his precious rules—to interfere with the birth of such a vital leader. And even if he did, Ren would find a way to protect Annie and the child. Somehow, he’d find a way.

Deep inside him, though, Ren knew that even if Sir George’s wrath might be put off, it could not be avoided. He certainly wouldn’t allow Ren to stay in his service. Not now. And there was only one alternative.

Death.

As if in response to Ren’s morbid train of thought, the sun seemed to extinguish itself. Those black clouds must have finally obliterated its light, plunging the cabin into swift and unexpected darkness. The change drew Annie’s attention, too. She came up behind him as he stood there, her hands going to his shoulders to rub him gently. When he turned to face her, he didn’t need light to know that there was real worry clouding her emerald eyes. Ren put his arm around her shoulders as the clouds roiled angrily and the wind answered their summons, springing to life with bitter breath.

Ill wind, Ren thought. Something evil, something dark.

He held Annie tight and drew her inside, closing the door on the evil without. He drew her to the sofa, felt for the clothing he’d brought out earlier, pressed it into her hands. “Get dressed, Annie. Quickly.”

It was black as night in the cabin now. He moved away from her only long enough to flick on every light.

“What’s happening, Ren?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know exactly what was happening. He couldn’t tell her anything to ease her mind. He only knew it was bad. “Hurry.”

He heard her hasty movements as she pulled on the pants and the oversize knit sweater he’d brought for her. He glanced at her and saw Annie tug big socks up over the legs of the pants and reach for the white running shoes that lay near the door. As she put them on, Ren reached for the CB radio, turned on the power, and lifted the microphone.

A roar of thunder rang louder than an erupting volcano, splitting his nerves. It was accompanied by a blinding explosion of white heat so close that the hairs on Ren’s nape bristled in reaction, so potent that the microphone sizzled in his grip, burning his palm, and he dropped it to the floor, jumping back.

The lights flickered and died just as Annie yelped and came to him, grabbing his arm. He smelled the burning of shorted wiring, the acrid melting of its plastic coat. “You dressed?” he whispered.

“Yeah. What should we do?”

He squeezed her closer. “That lightning took out the radio. He’s up to something, Annie. I can feel it. And the last place I want you to be is out here.” He cursed himself inwardly for acting on what had seemed a good idea at the time. “I never should have brought you here in the first place.”

“Yes, you should.” Her palm slid up one side of his face, turning it, pulling it downward. She stood on tiptoe to press her lips to his, and kissed him softly, sweetly. So sweetly, his arms crept around her and his senses spun for a moment. “No matter what happens, Ren, I won’t regret the time we spent here. Not ever, I swear it to you, darling.”

He closed his eyes as pain lanced his heart. “I might. If anything happens to you or the baby…” He fought past the lump that formed in his throat. “Come on. We’re getting back to civilization. We need to be closer to help, just in case…”

“In this?”

He nodded. Already he heard the rain pummeling the roof. Heard the thunder’s vicious battle cry. Heard the wind escalate to hurricane proportions. He felt his way to the front door, gripping her hand and drawing her with him. He felt for the rain slicker that still hung there, determined to protect Annie in every way he could. He detested the very thought of taking her out into the violence of the storm. But he sensed there was little choice. Black-heart obviously wanted them here. So there was no doubt they had to get out.

Ren shook the slicker hard, then put it over her head. “Pull the hood up.”

She obeyed, then took his hand once more. Holding to her tightly, Ren ducked out the door and moved quickly to the small corral. Rain poured down in torrents, and his clothes were soaked through by the time he’d opened the gate and made it to the small shed. The horses huddled inside, skittish and wide-eyed.

Speaking softly, Ren approached them. He coaxed and soothed with his words, stroking their muzzles. Annie was counting on him. This was going to be Blackheart’s strongest attempt so far, and Ren couldn’t let his lady down. His last battle would be, ironically, the most important one he’d ever waged. And he’d win it, dammit, or die trying.

Carefully he readied the horses for travel.

When he finished, he reached for the door. But Annie’s hand stilled his in midair. She gripped it, and he felt the way she trembled.

“It’s him, isn’t it? This storm and… and the power going out. It’s him. He’s out there… somewhere… isn’t he?”

Ren swallowed the lump in his throat. The fear in her voice stabbed through him, but not for his life would he lie to her. She’d be far better off knowing what they faced. She’d be more prepared for the nightmare that might await them.

“Yes, Annie. I’m afraid he probably is.”

“He’s going to… he’s come to try to kill our baby. Just like before, with the gas. Only this time we’re all alone up here. Out of touch, and—”

“I won’t let him succeed.”

“God, Ren, I’m so afraid!” She flung herself into his arms, her face buried against his chest, sobs racking her small frame.

Ren held her. His hands found their way up under the rain slicker so he could rub her back, stroke her shoulders. “Annie, Annie, it’s all right. I promise you, it’s going to be all right. I won’t let anything happen to you or to our baby. I’ll protect you both with my life; I swear it to you.”

Her trembling hand curled into a fist that thudded impotently against his shoulder where before she’d clung to him. “Dammit, Ren, I know you will. That’s what I’m so afraid of.”

He held her harder, unable, unwilling to tell her that he, too, was afraid. Afraid of losing her when he’d only just found her again. Afraid that this might be the last time he’d have the chance to hold her in his arms this way. For this battle, Ren had no doubt, was going to be the end of him, one way or another. Win or lose.

He only hoped Annie, remarkable, wonderful Annie, would be strong enough to go on without him. To raise his child, their child, to be the leader this world so desperately needed. To love it enough to make up for his not being there to do the same.

Chapter Thirteen

Annie bowed over the patient mare, clinging to a handful of her wet mane and clamping her jaw tight. Even through the rain slicker, she felt the cold. It had come suddenly, the drastic drop in temperature seemingly accompanying the furious storm. The wind was brutal, and Annie realized now that the sudden windstorm she’d experienced on the lake had been mild in comparison. It had tossed and shaken her, soaked and chilled her, but she’d never felt as if she’d been in any real danger.

This, on the other hand, was cruel. The sheets of rain stung her face, making mere droplets into razors. The vicious wind turned gentle fragrant pine boughs into lashing whips. The rain slashed so violently that she couldn’t see the trail they followed. The cold was so intense that even the horse shivered and shook its head in protest with every few steps it took.

Or maybe the mare simply sensed the evil presence as clearly as Annie did.

And it was dark. Such thick, murky darkness that it was like a living thing. She felt as if it were pushing out the air around her, replacing it with its putrid presence. The darkness wasn’t night. Not this time. According to the clock it should be broad daylight here now. No, this darkness was made of evil.

And then Annie felt something, and a new terror swept through her. Her trembling intensified. She was wet and cold, but the shaking came more from fear than from the chill that had settled into her bones. Brilliant, blinding terror clutched Annie’s soul. And its source wasn’t the one Ren might guess. It wasn’t the storm that so frightened her. It wasn’t Ren’s certainty that his nemesis was about to make a move against them. It wasn’t just the isolation and the darkness and the feeling that they were utterly alone here to face this powerful enemy without any hope of assistance.

No.

Her fear was based solely on the sudden cramping pain that banded her lower torso like an iron girdle. It crushed around her abdomen and lower back, drawing ever tighter, chasing the breath from her body, taking her so fiercely, she couldn’t even cry out in response, couldn’t even utter a single word.

Instead she bent lower over the mare’s back, one arm hugging her middle instinctively beneath the tent like poncho. With her other hand, she grasped the slippery wet pommel. For once she was glad Ren held the reins. She closed her eyes tightly and focused on the warmth and the scent rising from her mount’s wet coat. She closed her ears to the high-pitched keen of the wind as it ravaged the pines overhead, violating their purity with its filth. She even avoided inhaling that bad air when it swept down and up again, filling the hood she wore like a balloon and sending it backward, exposing her head to the rain.

Unnatural rain! Impure! Polluted!

The thoughts racing through her mind were insane, but she jerked the hood up again, feeling contaminated by the water in her hair.

She clenched her teeth as the pain intensified, and dropped her chin to her chest, keeping her face hidden within the folds of the yellow hood. If Ren should look her way at the moment a flash of lightning split the black sky, she didn’t want him seeing her face contorted in agony. No sense alarming him. Not yet. There was nothing he could do. It was a mere thirty-minute ride down off the mountain and to her parents’ ranch. There would be help for her there.

She envisioned her parents’ cozy home to distract herself from the pain. A warm, dry place to lie down. Her mother’s efficient bustling and the I-told-you-so tone in her voice. Her father’s solid presence. He hadn’t changed in years, and she realized now that his constant presence in her life was as important to her as that of this place. Her father had always been there when she’d needed him. Always. He’d be there when she arrived. He’d be strong and stoic and calm.

And Ren would be there with her as well. She visualized him stroking her brow, kissing her face, easing her mind as she gave birth to his child. Ren’s soothing voice would make the pain easier to bear. His touch, his pride in her, would get her through anything.

Sweet Maria would be there, too, holding her hand and telling old, familiar stories.

A telephone. An ambulance. Paramedics on the way to take her to a nice safe hospital. Reassuring thoughts. Surely all of those things and more were only a few minutes away. All she had to do was sit on the gentle mare and hold on. Even in this storm the horse could find her way down to the ranch. It would be just a few more minutes. Labor lasted far longer than that. In a few more minutes, she’d get help.

Unless the phones are out. What if the phones

are out and we still can’t call an ambulance or get any help? What then?

She chided herself. The phones would not be out. And even if they were, Annie assured herself that Maria could probably do a better job delivering a child than most obstetricians with twenty-twenty vision. She’d know what to do. Maria would know.

When she got to the house, Maria would probably comfort her while calmly explaining that this was just a false alarm. It wasn’t true labor. It couldn’t be. It was too early. She had a month to go.

The giant fist that had been squeezing Annie’s middle relaxed just slightly, and she lifted her head. Immediately the wind whipped her hood back and rain slashed at her face. She drew her first full breath in what felt like a long time, and she blinked the hot moisture from her eyes, grateful for the darkness that shielded her tearstained face from Ren’s watchful gaze.

But before the first wave of pain had fully receded, a second, even stronger one slammed into her, the force and unexpectedness of it pushing a strangled cry from her throat. She felt the horses come to an abrupt halt, sensed the way Ren’s head snapped around toward her. Felt his eyes piercing through the darkness.

“Annie, what is it?”

She tried to answer and found it impossible. Her jaw seemed to have locked itself into a painfully tight clench. Her teeth grated and she could barely draw a breath, let alone answer his urgent question.

“Annie?”

She heard the creak of wet leather, then his feet as they slapped the muddied ground. She wanted to straighten, to look at him, to reassure him. But for the life of her she couldn’t unbend. If anything, her body wanted to fold itself in half, only her protruding belly made that impossible.

His hand covered hers on the pommel, and before she understood his intent, he was mounted behind her. Bending close to her, his face pressed to the wet yellow vinyl of the hood, he spoke to her, and she heard the concern in his deep voice. “Annie, tell me. What’s the matter?” As he spoke, his arms came around her waist, slipping beneath the poncho. His strong hands opened and his palms flattened against her belly.

The pain clutched tighter, and she felt her abdominal muscles contract so hard and fast and brutally that it seemed she was being torn apart. She screamed. Her cry echoed into the storm, joining its ghostly wail and finally becoming lost in it. Annie’s spine felt as if it would snap in two. The pain didn’t ease. She stopped screaming only because she’d run out of breath and she couldn’t draw another.

Ren swore loud and long. “God, not now! Not here!”

His protests, she knew, were directed at fate, not at Annie. And then he kicked the mare’s sides and the horse moved ahead at a brisk walk. As they passed the stallion, Ren leaned over and caught his reins, leading him along beside them.

“Lean back against me, Annie. Try to relax. We’ll be at the house soon. Your mother will be there. I’ll get help for you. You’ll be all right; I swear it. And so will the baby.”

She answered him quickly when the tide of pain began to recede, knowing too well how soon she’d be flooded again. “Ren, this isn’t right. It’s…” She paused, panting, dizzy from lack of oxygen, barely able to find the strength to speak as loudly as she must in order to make herself heard above the storm. “It’s too intense. Too sudden. It can’t be—”

The next contraction cut her off midsentence, attacking with no buildup, no warning. Just a sudden, wrenching pain that had no mercy. And as she clutched herself, she tilted sideways in the saddle, only realizing how close she came to tumbling from the horse when Ren pulled her upright again and held her to him.

“My God.” It seemed to be all he could say.

He held her, rubbing her belly with his soothing hand, kissing her face as they moved onward—until the mare blew angrily and stomped her forefoot, coming to a stop and refusing to take another step.

Ren went very still, not saying another word. Annie felt the tension in his firm body double, and she knew something was happening.

She didn’t ask what was wrong. She couldn’t. She managed to pry her eyes open, and she blinked away enough moisture to see the giant pine lying at a cockeyed angle down across the bridge. Or rather, what was left of the bridge. Even in this unrelieved darkness, she could see that there wasn’t a hell of a lot.

It was too dark to eye the steep incline of the washed-out hollow the bridge had spanned, but Annie didn’t need to see it. She’d practically grown up here. Without the bridge, that gully would have been difficult to cross under any circumstances. Especially for her, in this condition. Now, with all this rain, its raw banks would be mud-slicked and treacherous.

“We can’t go on,” Ren said. “I’m sorry, Annie. Is there a way around?”

She bit her lip, lifted her gaze to his, shook her head. “T-too… far,” she croaked.

“We’ll have to go back.”

The horse obeyed Ren’s hands, turning in the path to face the way they’d come. But it didn’t move forward. And before Annie could start to wonder why, she heard her answer.

“Well, White Knight. We meet again. And fate seems to be working against you this time.”

Annie’s head snapped up fast, and she saw the villainous bastard there. Blackheart, still anonymous within the folds of his black-hooded garment. He sat astride one of Satan’s own stallions, a beast as black and menacing as its rider. It pranced and pawed at the muddy ground.

“Ah, the lady’s still conscious. Well, what a little trouper she must be.”

“Go back to hell where you came from,” Annie shouted. The force of her pain gave the words strength and venom.

“Not just yet, fair lady. When I go, I’ll be taking your handsome knight with me. He’s broken his vows, you know. Taking physical pleasure with a mortal woman.” He shook his head slowly. “Penalty for that is death. But he knew that. Didn’t you, Ren?”

“No,” Annie whispered as her blood slowly drained to her feet. A new pain overshadowed even that of her unnatural labor for an instant:

the knowledge that by seducing her husband, she could have sentenced him to death. By trying so hard to hold on to him, she may have lost him.

“Oh, yes,” Blackheart all but hissed.

“Don’t listen to him, Annie.” Ren held her, spoke close to her ear.

“A crying shame, really, that it’s against the rules for me to kill you, too, dear Annie. You’d probably rather I did, wouldn’t you? Are you really going to want to live once I’ve taken your knight and your child?”

“Don’t answer him! If you consent, he’ll be free to murder you. Don’t—”

“You aren’t going to kill either of them, you filthy bastard!” Annie put all of her remaining strength into that proud declaration.

Blackheart’s laughter was dark and menacing. And in it Annie heard the gloat of certain victory. Then the pain hit her again, and she heard nothing at all. She bent over and tried to breathe.

“Why, lady, you seem to be in a bit of distress,” Blackheart mocked. “Whatever could be wrong? Ren, attentive Hero that you are, you haven’t been neglecting her, have you? And of course you’ve made certain she’s been taking her vitamins, those modern wonders of this day and age. Haven’t you?”

Annie’s eyes flashed wider, but she couldn’t look at him. Oh, God, the vitamins. It all came back to her now. The way she’d questioned her own mind when they seemed to become so bitter-tasting overnight. He’d switched them, given her some powerful labor-inducing chemical. He’d drugged her!

Then why hadn’t she had the baby before this? Oh, but as her mind fought for clarity, she knew the answer. She hadn’t taken a pill before this. That morning at home, as she’d tried to do so, the glass had seemingly leaped off the sink of its own accord. And this morning when she’d tried, a wind-driven wave had swept the whole bottle right out of the tiny boat.

Almost as if the lake itself and the sky above it had been trying to protect her. If such a thing were possible. God, she’d thought herself so clever, managing to save one small capsule from the lake’s greedy hands. She should have known better.

The lake is pure.

For some reason, Maria’s tales about Mystic Lake came back to haunt Annie. Someone— something—had been trying to keep her from taking those pills. Maria used to say the lake had a magic all its own.

Annie shivered as she thought maybe it was true.

Whatever it was, she prayed the benevolent force would return and help her just once more. She needed it now, more than ever.

“Dammit, Blackheart, this goes beyond even your code of conduct!” Ren searched the storm-tossed forests in every direction, seeking help, finding none. Knowing he wouldn’t, even during the battle. Having broken his vows, he could hope for no support from the powers of goodness. And there would likely be no assistance or guidance from Sir George. Ren suspected he was on his own this time.

He knew he had to fight the bastard, but he detested leaving Annie alone in this condition. Her pain tore at Ren’s heart.

Blackheart stopped laughing and eyed Annie. “She’ll probably pass out soon from the force of the pain. There’s only so much a woman can take, you know. The baby will be forced partway, but with her unable to push…” Blackheart shrugged. “Poor thing will likely suffocate.”

Annie shuddered violently in his arms, and Ren tasted bile. “This woman,” he stated, “is stronger than you can imagine. And she won’t faint from the pain, Blackheart. But you might, before I’m through with you.” Ren wanted nothing more at that moment than to see the forest floor run red with Blackheart’s lifeblood.

The bastard only grinned, a white smile glowing from within the folds of the black hood he wore for anonymity. He seemed oblivious to the slashing rain, the driving wind, the banshee like scream of it whistling through the needled boughs.

And still he wore that hood, Ren noted. To keep Ren from recognizing his human form in case he failed this time and needed to try yet again. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as confident as he seemed after all.

“I’ll destroy you for this,” Ren said in a voice that shook with rage.

“Nothing besides absolute purity can destroy me, Ren. You know that. And you’re far from pure. Especially now, having broken every vow you’ve taken.”

“Then I’ll hurt you—enough that you’ll wish for the second death. Enough to make you beg for it, Blackheart.”

“Threats bore me, Ren of the White Knights. If you think you can hurt me, then by all means let’s dispense with the discussion and get on with it.”

Ren shook his head. Annie’s pains must have eased for a moment, since she leaned back against him, panting. Stroking her hair, Ren prayed she’d be strong enough to survive this.

“No,” he said to Blackheart. “I won’t fight you here.”

“No?”

“No. We take her back to the cabin. I’ll have her inside, warm and dry. Only then will we finish this between us.”

Blackheart smiled, shaking his head. “That would give her child a slightly better chance of survival, Ren. Why on earth would I agree to it? Besides, the way I see it is that I am here, astride this horse, blocking your path. You could get around me, I suppose. But then you’d have to outrun me. Now, can you really see your lady withstanding a good hard gallop?” Blackheart leaned forward and added, “And if I get close enough to drive my blade into your spineless back, Ren, believe me, I will delight in doing so.”

Ren felt his lips thin and his fists clench so tightly, his hands shook.

“And if the lady should fall, perhaps get her big belly trampled under thundering hooves, then that wouldn’t be my fault, would it?”

“Damn you, Blackheart.”

“I’m already damned, Ren. But the way you’ve been acting lately, I believe you might be, too.”

“How the hell would you know what way I’ve been acting?”

“I’ve been watching. I, too, have access to magic, Ren. But you knew that.”

“Black magic,” Ren clarified. ”The devil’s own brand.“

“It gets the job done. Are you ready, then? This fascinating discussion will soon put me to sleep in the saddle.”

Ren looked around, at least wanting a sheltered spot for Annie to lie down. He spotted a copse of huge pines, their boughs so dense and interwoven that they formed a canopy, and the ground beneath them appeared dry. He slid from the horse, pulling Annie into his arms, kissing her gently, hating the way she trembled in fear, the clamminess of her skin, the pain he knew she suffered.

“I’ll be all right, Ren. Don’t…” She grunted against the pain, and forced herself to go on. “Don’t think of me. Don’t be distracted. You have to beat him, Ren. You can’t die, the way he said you would. You can’t—” she broke off.

“Annie?”

She grated her teeth, drew a breath, and forced herself to speak. “Is it true, what he said? That you broke your vows by making love to me?”

He didn’t want to answer her, but she deserved nothing less than the truth. He nodded, the hairs on his nape prickling with the knowledge that Blackheart grew tired of waiting.

“So, if he kills you… if Blackheart kills you, Sir George might not—”

“Blackheart isn’t going to kill me, Annie.”

“But…” Her words were choked off by a strangled cry. Tears rolled silently down her face, and despite the darkness, he saw her expression, saw the paleness of her skin and the way she grimaced in agony.

God, the pain she must be in. “I’d take it on myself if I could,” he whispered, his words for her alone, not for the evil Blackheart to hear. “I love you. I want you to know that, in case… I just want you to know. I love you, Annie.” He bent to kiss her again, long and lingeringly, memorizing the shape and texture of her mouth, its flavor, its heat. He’d take her memory with him, he vowed. Even into death, if that was indeed where he was bound.

He ought to tell her to go deep into the forest and hide. Because if Blackheart defeated Ren, Annie would be at his mercy. And if he could, the cold-blooded bastard would kill the child before it was born. But Ren knew Annie couldn’t do it. She couldn’t walk, let alone run and hide. It was up to him to protect her.

He turned to carry her toward the sheltering trees and sensed Blackheart’s approach.

“That’s right,” he called without so much as glancing behind him. “Come on, attack while my back is turned and my arms filled. God knows you’re too much a coward to fight me fairly. Maybe this way you’ll stand a chance of beating me, Blackheart. But it’s the only way. I think you already know that, though, don’t you?“

The Dark Knight went still. Ren could feel Blackheart’s hatred, but he no longer sensed imminent attack. He lowered Annie to the blessedly dry forest floor, wishing he had blankets to cover her. She rolled onto her side, clutching her middle, panting, sweating, shuddering. Completely at the mercy of the pain the bastard Blackheart had caused in her.

Ren couldn’t turn away from her at a time like this. God help him, but he couldn’t. Let Blackheart attack from behind if he would.

“Go.”

The soft young voice was somehow gentle and commanding at the same time. Ren looked up to see Sara, mounted on a pure white stallion whose mane hung halfway to the ground, curly and pristine. The horse pawed, blew. As if it could sense the rot of evil standing so nearby.

“I’ll take care of her,” Sara told him. She urged her mount into the shelter of the trees and pushed back the white hood that had covered her. Her raven hair was dry and her eyes bright, even in the darkness, as she swung off the horse and hurried to lead it up beside Ren.

She pressed the reins into his hands.

“Take him,” she said softly. “Neither of the others is trained in battle. This one knows what is expected. He’s very good.”

“How—”

“It’s better not to ask, Ren. There’s not time enough to explain anyway. Not now.”

Ren knew she was right, but he marveled when she glanced back to the trail where he’d left the Appaloosa pair and both horses came to her at no more than a crook of her finger.

Trusting them not to wander, it seemed, Sara crouched beside Annie.

Still, Ren hesitated.

“Go on,” Sara said. “You have to, Ren; it’s what you came here for. It’s your destiny to fight him. You know that. Now go. I’ll stay with her for as long as I can, I promise you. I’ll take her to the lake. She’ll be safe there.”

Ren frowned, puzzled.

“I was conceived there,” Sara said, sending a loving look down at Annie. “It’s a special place with a magic all its own, Ren. She’ll be safe.”

As Sara took Annie’s hands, Annie sent Ren a loving look and gave him a nod. “Go, darling. But come back to me. Whatever you do, Ren, you come back to me!”

Ren turned to face what awaited him.

“Sara…”

“Shh. You have to save your strength now, Annie. It won’t be much longer.”

Annie was so glad to see the girl, so comforted by her presence. But Sara’s words and the certainty in her voice were startling. “But… there’s still a month...”

“No, Annie. This is it. Today’s the day. Can you walk? Stand, even?”

Annie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Sara chewed her lip as if worried. But Annie barely noticed. She struggled to push herself into a sitting position, despite the bolts of pain snapping through her with every movement. She braced her back against the stringy, sticky trunk of the pine and managed to raise herself. She scanned the trail, looking for Ren. And as she squinted through the darkness and rain, the storm suddenly began to dissipate.

The pouring rain stopped all at once, just as if someone had turned off a spigot. The rip? ping, brutal wind died to an impatient sigh, and then utter stillness. The roiling black clouds didn’t so much blow away as dissolve, and within minutes the entire forest was bathed in golden sunlight. Like magic.

And she could see them there, on the trail. Ren mounted on Sara’s white horse, Black-heart still sitting on the evil black one with the red eyes that made Annie wonder if it was truly a dragon in disguise. Or perhaps one of the devil’s own demons.

They faced each other, Ren and his enemy, but neither moved. Not yet.

Annie looked skyward once more, then sought Sara’s unfailing wisdom. “What—?”

“Blackheart needs all his power to fight Ren. He couldn’t keep the storm going. It saps his strength.”

Annie frowned, beginning to wonder if her life would ever be normal again. If she’d ever have a conversation that didn’t include magic and fantasy. Only it wasn’t fantasy, was it? It was real.

And deadly.

Another pain came. She hadn’t been expecting it, and didn’t bite her lip in time to prevent herself crying out. She knew Ren’s head snapped toward her. She cursed herself inwardly for distracting him with her weakness. God, if he was killed just because he’d been looking toward her…

For a time, while her body twisted and clenched in on itself, her vision was red-hazed and unfocused. She braced her back against the fragrant trunk and pressed her feet flat in the pine-needle carpet. And though the pain threatened to tear her into pieces, she didn’t close her eyes. She forcibly kept them open, and she forcibly made them follow the terrible scene being played out before her. She had to remain alert, had to know what was happening. She couldn’t take her eyes off Ren for a moment.

And she wouldn’t pass out from pain and let her baby die, as Blackheart had grimly predicted. She’d be as strong as Ren had claimed she was. She’d do this, no matter the pain, for her child.

As Ren sat astride the white horse facing Blackheart on his hellish demon, he slowly drew his sword and lifted it skyward. The very air around him began to glisten and shimmer, and for an instant it was as if the two men became liquid, then thinned to a gas. Only colors remained. Their shapes disintegrated before taking solid form again. Only this time Ren was in his white-gold armor, and his horse pranced and nickered. The horse wore white armor, too, and a mask over its face, and a shield of sorts strapped to its broad chest. On the back of that magnificent beast, Ren looked like an avenging angel, ready to unleash the wrath of God on an unrepentant sinner.

But Blackheart looked his part, too, covered in his dark raiment. Helmet, visor, sword, and shield. His mount snorted and pawed at the ground like an infuriated bull about to charge.

Annie struggled against the pain, wanting to see everything that happened, afraid for Ren as she’d never been afraid in her life. He’d broken his vows. By sleeping with her and perhaps, she imagined, by slowly becoming Richard again. Becoming the man he supposedly no longer knew.

Oh, God, what if Sir George was as angry as Annie feared he’d be? What if Ren was killed and that ancient knight refused to bring him back? Or what if he couldn’t bring Ren back, whether he wanted to or not? What then? Annie knew only that she couldn’t bear to lose him twice in one lifetime.

But Sir George would take Ren from her, even if death didn’t. She’d been warned, hadn’t she? The old man had told her so himself.

She panted against the pain, let her own moans come freely now, no longer having the strength to hold them in. And she kept her eyes open despite the ever growing urge to close them tight. She watched as the men kicked their horses into action. They leaned low, both drawing their swords and brandishing them dangerously. Madly. They surged forward and met. The swords clashed, ringing clearly through the forest and sending brilliant showers of sparks into the sky. She heard the ring of steel on steel and the pounding of those tireless hooves again and again, almost feeling each impact herself.

Then Blackheart was thrown from the saddle when Ren caught him full in the breastplate with a swipe of his sword.

By the time Blackheart hit the ground, Ren was leaping from his horse. He ran forward and stood over his enemy, the tip of his sword at Blackheart’s throat. But the dark knight lashed out with his feet and Ren tripped, falling facedown as Blackheart surged to his feet.

“At last,” he crowed.

He plunged his blade downward and Annie screamed. But Ren rolled to the side, avoiding what would surely have been a deadly strike. Ren sent a worried glance in Annie’s direction, and their eyes met as she shouted her warning. Too late, for Blackheart’s sword found flesh, drew blood. And Annie suspected he’d struck Ren’s old wound, reopening it. The bastard.

Ren never stopped moving, even when the sword cut him. He rolled to his feet, panting, and lifted his sword once more.

“This isn’t looking good, Annie,” Sara whispered. “And I’m not going to be able to stay with you much longer.”

Annie was shaking her head, eyes fixed on Ren, tears flowing freely. Between her own pain and his, she paid little attention to the girl.

“Annie, listen. Look at me. Now, Annie!”

Annie looked. She focused on Sara’s beautiful dark eyes and then on that crescent-moon birthmark on the girl’s pale-skinned neck.

“You have to get to the lake,” Sara told her. “Do you understand? In case Ren can’t beat him—”

“He has to, Sara!”

“I know. I know, but Annie…” She bent, pulled Annie’s arm around her shoulders, and urged her to her feet. “Come on. I’ll have to leave soon, but not until I get you to the lake. Can you make it to the horse?”

“I can’t! I can’t just leave him!”

“He’ll fight better if you do. He’s so busy checking to be sure you’re still all right that he isn’t focusing on the battle. Honestly, Annie, you’d be doing him a favor. Come on.”

She had a point. “But Sara, what if he’s hurt again? What if he needs me?”

“You couldn’t help him in your condition anyway. You’re in labor, Annie!” Sara sighed in frustration when Annie turned once more to watch the raging battle. “Annie, listen to me. Your baby needs you right now, do you hear? You have to get to the lake if you want to save your baby. It’s up to you, Annie.”

Her words, so earnest, so intense, caught Annie’s attention at last. She looked into Sara’s eyes and knew the girl wasn’t lying or exaggerating. Sara had shown the depth of her wisdom again and again. Now was no time to doubt her.

“All right,” Annie whispered. “If you’re sure, Sara. I'll… I’ll try.”

“I am. Now, come on. Lift one foot; put it in the stirrup.”

She obeyed as Sara steadied her. The pain was intense, but she tried. And it was difficult when every instinct in her was telling her to turn her head, view the battle, check on Ren each time she heard the metal impact sing out. Find some way to help him.

She summoned all her strength and pulled herself up into the saddle, Sara pushing for all she was worth. Then the girl jumped up behind Annie and took the reins. She clicked her tongue and the horse was off, obeying her instantly and giving the combatants a wide berth before regaining the trail.

Annie moaned in agony. Sara was showing no mercy. She kicked the horse into a gallop, and each fall of the horse’s hooves sent jarring blasts of additional agony through Annie’s trembling body.

Sara kept one arm around Annie, her strength surprising in one so young. “I’m sorry, Annie,“ she said close to her ear, ”but we’re running out of time.“

On and on they flew, back along the trail that led to the cabin. The impacts rattled Annie’s teeth, and she shuddered to think what this mad race must be doing to the baby.

She was about to protest when she heard the other hoofbeats, and looked back.

Dark as death itself, the black horseman rode after them, no longer in armor but in that hooded monk’s robe, his face concealed. And in one hand he held that deadly black sword. Something thick and red was dripping from the blade.

“No!” Annie screamed, craning her neck, eyes straining. She shook her head in frantic denial, searching the trail for a sign of Ren and not finding one.

Blackheart’s armor was gone. Did that mean the battle was over? Was Ren lying back there in the mud? Dead? Dying? She cried his name, her voice ringing straight to the heavens, she thought, and echoing endlessly in the forest. But there was no answer.

And then the pain clamped so hard, she thought she’d be torn in half. The pressure between her legs was so intense, she screamed again and again as she felt the rush of the fluids her body released.

“That’s it,” Sara said, and her voice sounded uncertain. Frightened and sad. It was the first time Annie had heard it sound that way. “I can’t stay with you any longer. My time is up.” Sara was pressing the reins into Annie’s hand. “The lake, Annie. Get to the lake.”

Annie nodded. “Yes, I know. The cabin is there, and I can—”

“Not the cabin! The lake!” Sara cried as if it was the most important thing in the world. “Don’t let me down, Annie. I need you.”

At that moment she seemed more like a frightened young girl than an oracle of wisdom. She took her hands away from Annie’s, leaving the reins there. Then she leaned forward and brushed a feather-light kiss over Annie’s cheek.

Annie felt the cramps increasing, changing, felt the pressure, wanted to push the pain away. She restrained the urge. Not yet. She couldn’t give birth on the back of a horse!

“I can’t stay with you any longer, Annie. I have to leave. But I’ll be back. If you just get to the lake, Annie, I promise you, I’ll be back.”

The horse was still galloping, and Annie could see the lake now, glimmering like a precious sapphire in the sunlight. Glittering like Ren’s eyes. She could see the cabin, too.

“You can’t leave,” she whispered. “We’re almost there. See? Sara?”

“I’ll be with you again,” the girl whispered, even as her shape thinned, becoming transparent. “Soon. Be strong for me.”

Annie turned her head to beg Sara not to leave her.

Before her eyes, Sara vanished like a wisp of smoke caught by the wind. What was the girl? An angel? A spirit sent to help her through her time of need? But if that was the case, why had she left just when Annie needed her most? Annie’s tears came faster, harder than before. She was alone now. Utterly alone, except for the madman pursuing her, intent on murdering the child whose head was beginning to stretch her body, even now.

Chapter Fourteen

Ren didn’t think he’d have regained consciousness at all if he hadn’t heard Annie screaming his name. It was her voice, choked with pain and grief and fear, echoing through the forest and reaching him somehow. It shouldn’t have. She was too far away for him to hear her—he knew it as well as he knew he’d heard her all the same. Though he’d been unconscious, her cries had reached him. As if by magic. And it was those cries that gave him the strength to fight his way back to consciousness.

When he had, the pain that seared every part of his body nearly made him wish he’d remained oblivious. He was coated in blood from a dozen or more wounds. Apparently Blackheart had used him for a pincushion. Simply defeating him hadn’t been enough.

But he wasn’t defeated yet, was he? No. Not as long as he drew a breath. He’d never give up trying to save his wife and his baby from the touch of evil.

He forced himself to his feet, not bothering to take stock. There was no time. Instead, he discovered his wounds as he staggered toward the magnificent white horse. He knew there was a sizable gash in his neck. The bastard’s blade must have missed the jugular or he’d have bled out already. He felt the hot sting of the cut and the sticky warmth of the blood that coated his neck and shoulder, and soaked his shirt.

The armor was gone. It would have vanished as soon as Blackheart turned away. But his sword remained, devoid of magic now, but there all the same, lying bloodstained in the mud. Ren bent to close his hand around its wet, sticky hilt, then rose again, though it cost him, and slid the blade into its sheath.

He leaned against the horse for an instant, gathered his strength, and reached up to pull himself into the saddle. His grip slid from the pommel, and that’s when he discovered another wound, this one in his forearm. The cut went to the bone, he was certain, leaving his hand and fingers blood-slicked and numb. Tough to grip the pommel that way.

Using his good hand more than his bad, he managed to drag himself up into the saddle, but when he did, he felt a hot pull in his side and then wet heat as blood pulsed anew from that reopened wound. Of course, the flow from all of his injuries increased as he moved, but he didn’t care about that. His wife was about to give birth to his child. And without his protection, the bastard who’d cut him would do the same to his baby before it had the chance to draw its first breath.

Ren would die trying to prevent that. He’d fight Blackheart to the very last breath of life in him. And beyond, he vowed.

He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and clung to the pommel with his all but useless bloody hand. He drew his sword again with the good one. When he caught up to Black-heart, he’d be ready. He’d reach Annie in time. He would, though he sensed it would be the last act he ever committed.

Annie slapped the horse’s backside with the reins, steering it right up to the cabin door before hauling it to a stop.

The black horse was thundering toward her as she slid to the ground. God, the baby was coming. Right here, right now! But she knew that if she stopped running, if she lay down to give birth to her child, the animal behind her would kill it before it ever opened its eyes. God, what could she do?

She staggered forward, instinctively going toward the cabin. But Sara’s words floated into her mind like a healing breeze. The lake, Sara had told her. Go to the lake.

God, but why the lake?

She shook her head, unable to see any sense in the girl’s advice. But then, Sara’s words had proved true often enough to make Annie loath to doubt her this time. And something inside was telling her to trust the girl. Sara wouldn’t steer her wrong. Sending a frantic glance over her shoulder, she hobbled around the cabin and started down the grassy slope to the gentle shore. She saw the dock, the rowboat bobbing serenely at the far end. Maybe Sara’s idea wasn’t so bad after all. If she could make it to the boat and manage to row out far enough, Blackheart wouldn’t be able to follow. Would he?

She stumbled over the grassy hill with her baby fighting to emerge into the world, its mother fighting to hold it back. Her face contorted in agony. She ran, but knew she was clumsy and awkward, as likely to trip and roll into the water as to reach the dock upright. Running wasn’t easy when one was in the process of giving birth. She poured everything she had into reaching the dock before that dark-robed beast could overtake her.

The Dark Knight pursued her. She heard the pounding feet of his horse as he came after her, down the hillside, gaining on her. God, she couldn’t outrun a horse! Her feet touched the wood of the dock. The rowboat at the far end seemed a hundred miles away. And yet, so close. Even as she hurled herself toward it, she heard the clatter of hooves on the wood.

And she whirled defensively, only to feel that wet, black muzzle pressed to her face. The horse’s breath was fetid; its flesh, hot. She tried to turn away, but the horse stepped forward, simultaneously lifting its big head. The beast butted her chin so hard, she was lifted off her feet and hurled backward.

She fell flat to the dock, her back hitting the wood so hard that it made her dizzy. Every trace of air burst from her lungs at the force of the impact. For a time she didn’t think she’d be able to inhale again. And when she was finally able to speak, she heard herself sobbing hysterically, begging, her words incoherent pleas for mercy to a man she knew had none to give.

The baby was coming.

Blackheart got off the horse and grinned down at her. He placed the tip of his sword at her throat, so she didn’t dare to move.

“Now,” he said softly, “we end this.” He pushed the black hood away from his face, and Annie was shocked to see Bartholomew Cassius standing there, staring down at her with murder in his eyes.

“Bartholomew?”

God, Ren had been right in telling her to trust no one. She’d thought Bartholomew was her friend. She’d trusted him. But he’d been an agent of evil all along. Plotting the murder of her firstborn while pretending to be her friend. The beast!

“You can have other babies, Annie. But this one is just too important to my master. You understand, don’t you? I can’t let it see life.”

He frowned, his gaze riveted to the spot where his sword pressed into her throat, instead of on her face. “But I can’t kill you. It’s not allowed. Hmm.” Then he brightened. “Ah, I have it. You lie still like a good girl, all right?”

And, still grinning, still holding the sword to her neck, he gripped the demonic horse’s bridle and drew it forward.

“He’s well trained, my horse. He’ll take care of this little matter for me.” He frowned again. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt.” And he snapped his fingers.

The black horse’s eyes dilated wildly, and it reared up on its hind legs, forelegs pumping in the air, right above her swollen belly.

“Tell me, Annie,” Blackheart said softly as the horse danced on its hind legs, its deadly forelegs flailing in the air and poised above her, “have you ever seen a stallion dance?”

She scrambled backward but knew it was useless. She wasn’t fast enough. Those deadly hooves were going to crush her baby, and her along with it. She rolled to her side, shielding her belly with both arms.

And that’s when she saw Ren, his face smeared with a dark mingling of blood and sweat and dirt—mostly blood, she feared. He emerged from the water just beyond the dock, on the grassy shore. His face contorting with the effort, he sprang up and forward, hurling himself beneath the legs of that mad beast. And with what had to be all of his strength, he pushed her right off into the water on the other side. He shoved her so hard, she cleared the edges of the dock and splashed into the water, and just before she did, she saw him landing in the spot she’d left behind, rolling defensively onto his back. Lifting his arms to shield himself. Then she felt herself swallowed up, the chilly lake water closing over her head as she sank.

The pains in her abdomen were constant now, and the baby was determined to be born. And still her thoughts were of Ren. What was happening to him right now? Had the horse trampled him?

She struggled to the surface. When her head broke through, she inhaled deeply, swept the hair from her eyes, and swung her head around, trying to get her bearings and find Ren. When she did, she nearly vomited. He lay on the dock, curled into an unmoving ball as those horrible hooves trampled down on his motionless, armorless body, over and over again.

“No!” She screamed the words at the top of her voice. “I’m here. Here, dammit! Leave him alone! I’m the one you want!”

As if by magic, the horse stopped with its feet pawing the air. Blackheart cocked his head toward her. “It’s not you I want, sweet Annie. It’s them. Both of them. Your child and its father. The enmity between Ren and me goes back a long way, you see.”

“You don’t have time for both,” she said as she grimaced, praying she was doing the right thing, “because by the time you finish with him, the baby will be here.” As she spoke, she edged along the dock, ever closer to the row-boat at the end. She had no plan and little hope. She only knew she had to lure him away from her husband or he’d be dead. If he wasn’t already. He still wasn’t moving. His body was twisted and broken and bleeding.

“Kind of you to let me know, Annie. All right, then. I’ll kill the child first, since you insist.”

He flicked his forefinger, and the horse came down one last time, hooves punishing Ren’s tortured body still further. Annie stopped edging. She lunged and swam for the boat.

Smiling wickedly, Blackheart walked toward it, leaving his suddenly calm horse to wander off the wooden platform in favor of the grassy bank.

She swallowed water when the sharp pains stabbed harder, and the baby pressed nearer, stretching her, tearing her. She grated her teeth and groped. There. She had the side of the boat in her hands. Now to pull herself up into it. She was weak with grief, mindless with pain. But she managed to grip the sides of the tiny rowboat and hauled herself up…

… only to see Blackheart standing in the boat, smiling at her. “Join me, Annie?” He had one fisted hand anchored on his hip, and his weapon in the other. He twisted his sword this way and that, studying its bloodied tip, and she knew he was thinking of ways to use it on her child.

It was the smile that did it, the suggestion that he’d very much enjoy what he was about to do to her baby. That, and the sight of Ren’s bruised, blood-coated body lying so still in the bright sunlight on that dock. Rage took over, blotting out everything else.

There was a sound, a deep-throated growl, like that of a killer wolf closing in on its prey. Only it was no wolf. The sound came from Annie. Her adrenaline surged and she levered herself up, putting all her weight on the side of the boat, tipping it up so high and so fast that Blackheart tumbled right over her head and into the lake.

There was a splash, a gurgle, and then, when his head broke the surface close beside her, a terrible blood-chilling scream. He tipped his chin heavenward, his mouth working, eyes rolling as he wailed like a banshee. His arms flailed frantically, and the veins stood out in his neck as if they would surely burst.

“Pure! The water’s pure! It burns! Lucifer help me; it burns! It…”

The skin of his face collapsed on itself like melting plastic, dripping, then running down in rivulets away from eyes that turned to black smoldering bits of soot. like a Popsicle in the sun, he shrank at high speed, until there was simply nothing left. Only a hissing sound and a black mist rising from the surface of the water in the spot where he’d been.

Maria had been right so long ago. And so had Sara, Annie realized. The lake was pure and contained a magic all its own. And for the second time, that magic had saved her.

And then the baby’s head pressed through, and there was no time to marvel. She was giving birth.

Chapter Fifteen

Ren moved his eyes. They seemed the only part of him he was able to move at all, and even they didn’t seem to be operating at full power. His vision was blurred. His reactions slowed to a crawl. He had to think about changing his focus for long moments before his brain seemed to get the message to his muscles, before his eyes would actually move. So it took him a long time to find what he sought. Annie.

She’d pulled herself halfway out of the water and lay panting on the edge of the dock. With everything in him, he wanted to reach out to her, touch her, help her. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t make a sound, lift a finger. Couldn’t touch her or hold her or help her.

Ren knew he was dying. There was little doubt. And he knew that Sir George had no intention of pulling him from the jaws of death. Not this time. He’d broken his vows. He’d fallen in love with the woman all over again. He’d thought of nothing but her since he’d come here, and he’d been longing with every fiber of his being to find a way to stay with her. He’d put her first in his mind, his heart, his soul. Ahead of goodness, ahead of service, ahead of his word. And if given the chance, he knew he’d do the same all over again. Nothing worse than an unrepentant sinner.

Sir George wouldn’t forgive that kind of disloyalty, even if he could. As he so often said, rules were rules. So Ren would die. Even now he felt himself fading.

God, please let Annie be all right. Please. And the baby. Let the baby survive!

She seemed to gather her strength as she lay there. Then she pulled herself more fully onto the dock. Moving as if every effort caused pain, she lay on her back, bare-legged. Her soaking-wet sweater reached to her thighs. She struggled free of her panties, gasping, panting, but with such a look of determination on her face that he marveled at it. So strong, his Annie. She braced her feet on the wet wood and bent her knees. Her face contorted as she groaned low and harshly.

And Ren saw the miracle happen before his eyes. His child, small and slick and misshapen, emerged from Annie’s womb. From the haven of her body into the reality of the world it came. The savior of humanity. The greatest leader this nation would ever know. The one who would change the course of history.

A tiny, wrinkled baby girl.

Ren blinked. Yes. A girl.

The child lay still between Annie’s legs. Unmoving. And Ren’s chest filled with icy dread.

But Annie was too determined for that. She sat up a little, gripped the baby, and brought it up to lie upon her belly. Annie cleared the little mouth, smacked the tiny soles of miniature feet.

The sound was like the congested bleat of a newborn lamb—weak, tremulous, but getting stronger all the time—punctuated by strong gasps between each wail.

Annie’s arms closed around the child. “You’re all right,” Annie whispered. “We did it, baby… sweetheart… you’re really all right.” She stroked the child, her very touch seeming to impart strength. “But Ren,” Annie whispered, turning her head toward him. Her eyes found his. When she saw that they were open, she sighed her relief and smiled at him. “It’s a girl, Ren. A little girl. Our daughter.”

He tried to smile, unsure whether his facial muscles were responding. He couldn’t feel much of anything now. Numbness settled like a shroud. He tried to part his lips, to tell her he loved her. But his voice seemed soundless.

And then he realized that the baby’s cries had faded, too. And Annie’s lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear her words.

This was it, then. He was at the threshold of death. He’d been here before, but this time Ren knew of nothing that would stop him from passing over.

His eyesight blurred, and he blinked it clear again. Just a little longer, he prayed. Just a moment of joy with his wife and his daughter. Just one. He saw Annie crying, saw her hand holding his, but felt as if it were no longer attached. Only vaguely did he sense the barriers between the realms thinning. That shimmer that came into everything, even the air itself, while the invisible barriers between the worlds dissolved as if to let someone pass through. Was he about to be taken back to the other side, then? About to face Sir George and the results of his own disloyalty? Or was Sir George coming to him, perhaps to say goodbye?

And then he saw the little mark on the baby’s neck, and he was stunned, even in the throes of death.

He looked at Annie. She hadn’t noticed. She didn’t understand. He had to tell her. Ren tried to summon the will to utter just a few more words before he left her forever.

“Ren…”

Annie turned to face him, reaching toward him with one arm while cradling her baby with the other. She could feel him slipping away, leaving her again. And she wanted to touch him, cling to him. She couldn’t let him go. She wouldn’t.

“Ren, don’t! Don’t leave us, darling. We need you, your daughter and I. Please, Ren, don’t go!” Bracing her shoulder blades and flattening her feet, she inched closer to him, carefully holding the baby on her stomach. She reached out a hand, touched his face.

His still eyes parted, but only slightly. “Annie?”

Rolling a little toward him, Annie brought his hand closer and laid it over the child. “Your daughter, Ren.”

He could see her, and he understood. Annie knew because his eyes had regained a tiny hint of their old sparkle when his hand touched the baby. It was the first sign of life she’d seen in them. Was there a chance? There had to be.

“My daughter,” he whispered. He strained, the muscles in his corded neck standing out, the vein in his temple pulsing. Annie wasn’t certain what he was trying to do. Then she saw. One of his arms had been dangling over the edge of the dock, his hand in the water.

The pure water, she recalled now. Sara had known about it. Sara had known, somehow, that Blackheart couldn’t bear the touch of purity.

Ren strained to lift his hand, palm cupped full of the crystalline water. Slowly, agonizingly, he brought it closer and drizzled it over the wriggling baby’s head, pouring it on her neck. The baby closed her eyes tight, scrunching her face up comically.

“My… daughter,” Ren intoned, his voice holding only a modicum of its former vigor. “She is… Sara, Annie. Sara Dawn Nelson.”

Annie frowned at his words. She knew Ren was fond of Sara, even though he’d met her only once. But fond enough to name his daughter after her?

There was something in his eyes. He didn’t speak, only sent her a silent message. Annie looked down at the baby again, noting the pink skin on her face and neck, rinsed clean by the lake water Ren had drizzled there. She caught her breath. The birthmark was there, a perfect berry-colored crescent moon, high on the left side of the baby’s neck. Just below her ear.

Sara Dawson… Sara Dawn… Nelson?

J was conceived here.

Yes, Sara had said that, hadn’t she? And this baby had been conceived here as well.

“My God, could it be… ?”

She stared in wonder down at her daughter’s face, the deep dark eyes and thick ebony swirls of hair. The serious expression. She wasn’t crying. Just staring, taking in the faces of her parents as if she were filled with questions she couldn’t yet ask.

“Sara?” Annie whispered.

“Yes, Annie,” said a deep, gravelly voice. “It’s her. I don’t know how, but she saved you. And herself. She couldn’t save Ren, though.”

Annie’s gaze snapped upward, and she saw Sir George, standing over her, staring down at Ren with the saddest expression on his face. His old eyes were dull, his lips downturned. He even seemed pale.

Half afraid to look, Annie turned to see Ren, so still, barely alive. It was obvious. She could almost see the life draining from him as he lay there. His eyes remained open, but the light in them faded rapidly, until they resembled worn denim more than the sapphires they’d once been.

His lips moved, but his voice was little more than a whisper. “I… love you… Annie. S-Sara… my Sara…” His fingertips flexed as if he wanted to reach out to touch Annie and the baby. But that was all he managed to move. His eyes fell closed.

“No!” Annie shook her head frantically. “Sir George, you can’t let this happen! You can’t!”

The old man bowed his head, and she swore his back stooped, as if bearing a great burden. “I’m sorry, Annie. I love him, too, you know. But he broke his vows. There’s nothing I can do now. Believe me, I would if I could. He was my most beloved knight...”

“You don’t love him,” Annie said, getting up to her knees, clutching her newborn daughter in her arms. “If you did, you wouldn’t let him die! You couldn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “But there’s nothing I can do. He already died, you see.” Sir George’s voice was glum. Low. Toneless. “This is painful enough for me without your accusations, lady, though I understand your pain. Believe me, if I could save him, I would.”

“He can’t die,” Annie whispered.

Sir George came forward, and she thought she saw a gleam of unshed tears in his eyes. He bent over Annie, touched the baby’s face, and spoke in a voice as soft as the deep wind on a winter night. The baby gurgled and sang in reply. Impossible. She was only a few seconds old.

“Yes, you did well. You did well, little one. I don’t know how, but you did. You’re a special girl, you know. And I’m so glad my knight… your father… managed to save you. Despite the rest. I knew he would.“

He looked at Annie again. “She has magic in her, this child of yours,” he explained. “A will to live, stronger than anything I knew could exist. Somehow, she sent her spirit ahead of her, sent it to help you and Ren get through this.”

Annie shook her head in wonder and bent to press a kiss to the top of her daughter’s silky head.

Sir George touched the baby again, and little Sara shimmered like a heat wave. When the shimmers cleared, Sara was clean, and the cord that had attached her to her mother had vanished. The baby lay snugly wrapped in a downy blanket of purest white. When Annie gave her head a shake, she realized that she, too, was clean. And dry. And clothed in a white dressing gown that felt like silk.

“My God…”

“I only wish I could do more for the two of you,” the old man whispered. “And more for Ren. My finest knight.”

“But he isn’t your knight, is he, Sir George?” Annie said. “Not anymore. He broke those vows he swore to you, and that means he can’t be your knight any longer.”

Sir George nodded slowly. “Alas, it’s true. If he were still my knight, I’d be using my heavenly magic to heal him.“ Sir George looked at Ren and closed his eyes. ”I’m powerless to help him now.“ The man sounded ashamed of his impotence.

“So now he’s just an ordinary man again,” Annie said softly, leaning closer to her husband, brushing a hand over his forehead.

“An ordinary man who is dying,” Sir George said softly. “He was killed eight months ago, Annie. When he gave his life to save a busload of children because he couldn’t do otherwise.”

“Please,” Annie cried, tears flooding her eyes. “Please, there has to be a way. Think, Sir George, there must be something...“ Then she lowered her head as a sob tore from her chest. Her vision blurred, and her arms trembled with the weight of her daughter.

Immediately a cradle appeared beside her. Some antique work of art, all intricate carvings and obscure symbols. Sir George took Sara from Annie’s arms and tucked the baby into the bed as gently as if he were handling a china doll. Then he turned to stare sadly down at Ren again.

“His mortal life ended. His mortal body died, Annie. I wish it were different, but—”

“No.” Annie turned her head sharply, meeting George’s eyes. “No, wait. His body… We never found his body. Sir George, why didn’t we find him if he was truly killed back then?“ George blinked slowly. His brows lifted, and his eyes widened. ”You’re right,“ he said. ”By almighty God, you’re right, Annie. I broke my own rules back then. I couldn’t wait to bring my most favored mortal into service as my first and most worthy knight.“ He licked his lips, a gleam of excitement lighting his eyes. ”So I used my magic to pull him from the truck before it exploded on the banks of that river. His body was never found, his family never given the comfort of burying him… because… because, Annie, he never actually died.“

Though he spoke quickly, even while kneeling to move his gnarled hands over Ren’s broken body, Annie found herself running out of patience with the man. But those ancient eyes met hers, and they were filled with hope—a hope that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

With the baby safely in the cradle, Annie turned her attention back to Ren. She crept closer to him, to cling to his hand as if she could keep him with her by holding on tightly enough.

“Don’t leave me, darling,” she whispered. “Please, Ren, hold on.”

“He’s an ordinary mortal man,” Sir George was saying. “A man who never died in the first place, and so there’s nothing stopping him from resuming his life with his beautiful wife and extraordinary daughter. Nothing stopping him,“ Sir George said softly, ”except for mortal wounds that are even now drawing his life from his body. And I can’t help him, Annie. The power to heal… it isn’t mine to bestow.“

Annie looked up, tears filling her eyes. “Maybe you don’t need to bestow it,” she whispered. “Maybe… the lake…” She bit her lip, glancing out over the clear blue water. “His mother always said there was magic in this water. That it was pure.”

“Of course,” Sir George muttered. “Of course! There are times when the magic of Mother Earth is what’s needed. And this, perhaps, is one of those times.” He shook his head. “I can’t be sure it will work, Annie. Earth’s magic only works for those most deserving. But it’s the only chance he has.”

He straightened then, and held his hands out over Ren’s body. Annie felt her husband’s all but lifeless form begin to vibrate, and she sat up, gasping.

Sir George knelt beside Ren, touched him, and began to push him toward the dock’s edge… but then he stopped and closed his eyes. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I haven’t the strength to risk it.”

Annie stared down at the pallor of Ren’s face. “I have,” she said. And before she could change her mind, she pushed Ren’s lifeless body with all her might. He rolled into the water with a splash and immediately sank beneath the deep blue surface.

And then nothing.

The lake stilled as if nothing had happened, as if a hero did not lie in its cold embrace. Annie stared into the depths, hands over trembling lips. “What if I was wrong?” she whispered. “Oh, God! I have to go in after him!” But Sir George’s old fingers caught her gently by the wrist and held her utterly motionless.

“Wait, sweet Annie. If the lake’s magic can heal him, it will be but a moment. And if it can’t… if it can’t, then this lake will be his grave.”

Annie shook her head. “But… but…”

Sir George stared into the water where Ren had vanished. Annie sobbed, hunched on hands and knees, staring down at the ripples on the surface. Aching, dying inside with every second that passed. It was too long. Too long. He’d drown!

There was an explosion of water then, droplets surging upward and soaking Annie’s face as Ren emerged. His head broke the surface first, chin down, and then he straightened, flinging it upward. Water flew from his golden hair, and Annie cried harder as she heard him draw a deep, gasping breath.

He stood there beside the dock and slowly opened his eyes. Bare-chested, water lapping low around his hips, he met her gaze. “Annie?”

“Ren?” His name was little more than an exhalation. She couldn’t take many more surprises. But God, this was a good one. “Oh, God, Ren!”

He looked down at his flawless skin as if expecting to see the wounds and blood that had covered him only moments ago. Then he gazed back at Annie again and shook his head, lifting his hands palm up as if in wonder.

“It worked,” Sir George said in a relieved sigh. Then he laughed aloud. “By heavens, it worked!”

As Ren stared at him, blinking in shock, Sir George stopped laughing. He bent slowly to pick Ren’s sword up from where it lay on the dock. Then he straightened again. “Your wife’s wisdom, or perhaps the strength of her love, seems to be stronger than even my magic, Ren. You’re no longer a knight in my service. You’re free of your vows to me. Free to live out your days as a mortal man.” He lowered his head. “I’ll miss you, Ren. But perhaps you’ll return to me one day.” George glanced at the sword. “I’ll keep this for you until then.”

Ren opened his mouth, a question in his eyes, but before he could speak, Sir George shimmered and then vanished, taking Ren’s sword with him.

Ren blinked at the spot where Sir George had been, shaking himself. “I don’t… I don’t understand any of this,” he said, and he pulled himself up out of the water and onto the dock. He pressed his palms to his temples, closed his eyes. “I’m no longer a White Knight. But I’m not dead either. And…”

“It’s the lake,” she whispered. “It’s magic, Ren.”

He nodded, met her eyes. “Just like Mother always used to say back when…” His eyes widened, and he gave his head a shake, then just stared at her. “My God, Annie, I remember. I remember everything! It’s as if I’d never been gone!”

Annie slowly shook her head and tried to stifle the tears, without success. She had Ren’s hands in hers. She was drawing him closer to her. He was helping her to her feet, pulling her near. She felt those strong arms come around her, felt her head cradled against his solid chest.

“It’s going to be all right now, Annie. I know it is.”

“Yes.” She nodded, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. “I have you back, Ren, and I’m never letting you go again! Not ever!”

His hands cupped her face, tipping it up, and he kissed her, hard and long and deep and endlessly. Then Sara cried, and they parted a little guiltily.

“Your daughter wants her daddy,” Annie whispered.

Ren turned. A robe like the one Annie wore, only bigger, lay over the foot of the cradle. More of Sir George’s magic, she guessed. One last gift from a man who hadn’t lied when he’d claimed to love her husband as she did. She picked the robe up and handed it to her husband. He put it on. Then he bent and scooped little Sara up into his arms.

“An important little lady,” he said softly. “Hard to believe such a mite of a thing will change the world someday.” He lowered his head, kissing the tiny face. “I’ll cherish and protect you always, little Sara.” He lifted his gaze to Annie’s. “And your mommy, too.”

He pressed the baby into Annie’s arms, then scooped her up into his. “Come on, my ladies. You both need rest and a nice warm fire and some major coddling. Mommy’s been through hell today.” He dropped a tender kiss on Annie’s forehead. “Are you okay?”

“I hurt like you wouldn’t believe, I’m exhausted, and I…“ She smiled up at him. ”And I feel better than I ever have in my life. I have you back. I really have you back.“

“Damn right, you do.”

“Oh, Ren, your mother is going to be so happy. But, God, how are we going to explain this?”

He shrugged, carrying her up the steps, crossing the porch. “You told me once that my body—God, it feels odd to say that—was never found. We’ll have to say I was thrown clear and that I’ve been in a hospital somewhere, slowly recovering. And naturally, the second I was able to remember who I was, I made my way right back to my wonderful, beautiful, sexy wife.” He kissed her once more.

“Now that Sir George and his magic are gone…”

“I suspect everyone will see me just the way you do,” he confirmed.

Annie sighed in relief.

He opened the cabin door and carried her inside. But before putting her down, he strode right to the back and looked out the window. Annie followed his gaze out to the gentle waters of Mystic Lake.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Ren squeezed her.

“I love you, Ren,” she told him.

“I love you, too,” he said, and his voice was a bit coarse. “Just one thing, Annie.”

“What?” She looked up, worried at his serious tone, only to see a hint of the old mischief in his eyes.

“Call me Richard.”

Richard eased his wife, baby daughter in her arms, down from the gentle mare’s dappled back, and carried them up to the glass-enclosed porch of his in-laws’ home. Before he was halfway there, Georgette and Ira were gaping at him from the doorway, blinking in disbelief, both at the man they saw, a man they’d believed to be dead, and at the baby, safe and healthy in their daughter’s arms.

“R-Richard?”

“It can’t be…”

He only smiled at them and kept to his path. They stepped aside to let him through, and he carried Annie inside, straight through to the bedroom, knowing exactly where it was. He regretted that he didn’t see his mother, Maria, in her rocker on the porch as he passed. But maybe it would be better to see her later, break it to her gently.

When he pushed open the bedroom door, however, it was to see her sitting in a chair beside the turned-down bed, looking toward the open door as if expecting him.

“Richard?” she asked.

“Yes, Mother,” he said very gently, and his throat tightened so much he couldn’t say more. He stepped inside to ease Annie and the baby into the bed, then turned. “It’s me.”

Her fragile arms encircled his neck when he knelt before her. “I knew you’d come back to us,” she said, and her voice was choked and coarse. “I knew.”

He held the frail woman close, kissed her tear-dampened cheeks, and thought he was the luckiest man alive.

“I don’t understand,” Annie’s mother, Georgette, said, bustling into the room. “How is this possible?”

“I was thrown clear when the truck went through the rails,” Richard explained. “But I was still badly injured. Wandered off in shock and wound up in a hospital with no memory of who I was or what had happened.” He turned to Annie. “But that’s over now. Isn’t it, Annie?”

“It’s all over,” she said. “And he’s never getting away from me again.”

“But where’s Ren?” Ira asked.

Richard met Annie’s sparkling eyes, and they exchanged a secret smile. “He had to leave. Look, you two,” Richard told them, “it’s a long story, and we’ll have all the time in the world later. Right now, why don’t you come and meet your new granddaughter?“

Georgette beamed, hugged Richard’s neck, squashing Maria between them, then turned to gather Sara into her arms and fuss over the baby while Ira stepped up to the telephone to call for an ambulance. Eventually Georgette brought the baby to Maria and gently gave her over to the older woman’s trembling hands.

“Hello, little one,” Maria cooed. She cuddled the baby close. Georgette stood nearby, so Richard stepped away from them to sit on the edge of the bed and pull his wife, whose eyes were still brimming, into his arms.

“I love you, Annie-girl. I never thought I could love you more than I did, but being without you… well, it just showed me I could.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know. We’re so lucky, Richard. To have been given a second chance—and a daughter like Sara in the bar-gain.”

Richard wrapped his arms around her, his precious Annie, the woman who’d refused to let him go. “Thank you, my love,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

Epilogue

It was that magical time between light and darkness. That twilight time when each breeze is a brush stroke that paints the sky a shade darker, when fireflies begin flitting like miniature animated stars, and when fairies are said to scamper through the forest.

The little girl dipped her toes into the edge of the crystalline water, touching the liquid moonlight, rippling its perfection. Then she raced away, ebony pigtails flying, four-year-old giggles ringing through the air. Her parents lounged in the new swing on the back lawn, their watchful eyes always on their daughter. She reached them, crawled up into her daddy’s lap, breathless, still grinning. And though her smile was beautiful, they both saw the depth in her dark eyes. The underlying seriousness. She was called a genius by the experts who’d tested her. But to her parents, she was more than that. She was their little girl. She was their most miraculous blessing. The fruit of their boundless, limitless love.

Richard stroked the length of one silken pigtail lovingly. “What’s making my girl giggle so much?”

“I love it here, Daddy.”

Tiny, chubby arms clung tight to his neck, and he bent to kiss her cherubic cheek. Then she squirmed from his lap to Annie’s, which was not a long trip since their thighs were pressed together. “I don’t want to go home in the morning. Can we stay a little longer, Mommy?”

“Well…”

“Please?” Sara batted dark lashes at her mother, and Annie found it just as hard to say no to her as it had always been.

“We’ll see,” she said, knowing already she would probably give in. Sara didn’t enjoy crowds of other children overly much. Instead, she seemed to prefer the solitude of Mystic Lake.

“Okay.” Sara jumped down, satisfied with that answer for now.

“Hey, slow down a minute,” Richard said, stopping the imp in midflight by catching her tiny hand in his. And for a moment he paused, remembering a time when he’d wondered if he’d ever hold this little hand nestled in his larger one this way. He blinked a few times and cleared his throat.

Annie smiled, knowing exactly the kind of wonder he was feeling. It hit at odd moments. The awe. The gratitude. The overwhelming joy. She’d felt them often.

“What is it, Daddy?” There was an edge of impatience to Sara’s voice. Just a hint.

Richard gave himself a slight shake. “I… just want to know where you’re going in such a hurry.”

Sara looked up at him, bit her lower lip, and dug the toe of one sneaker into the lush grass.

“You what?”

She drew a breath and lifted her dimpled chin. “I just want to play near the water. It’s… different… from other water.”

Richard lifted his brows. “How is it different?”

“You’ll think it’s silly,” she said.

“I won’t, Sara. I promise. You can tell me.”

She looked up at him, dark eyes searching, probing his, and then warming with the love and trust she felt for her father. Her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, she said, “I think it’s magic.”

Those dark eyes watched her father’s face, awaiting his reaction. Richard didn’t laugh, or even grin.

His eyes intent, he glanced around. “Really? What makes you think so?”

Assured he believed her, Sara grew more excited. She seemed to consider her answer, her small brows bunching up as she thought about it. “I guess it’s just a feeling I have,” she said slowly.

“Sounds just like the feelings your mommy always had about this place,” he told her, glancing at Annie.

“Mommy thinks so, too?” Sara breathed.

“Sure I do,” Annie said. “You’ll have to ask Gramma Maria to tell you all the stories she told me when I was little, Sara. She knows everything about this lake, you know.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. “And I can tell you a story or two about it myself.”

“Wow,” Sara whispered, eyes round and wide with wonder.

“C’mon,” Richard said, and he held that tiny hand a little tighter. “Let’s go together.”

Sara smiled from ear to ear. And ran off at his side, beaming adoringly at her father as he walked beside her, down to the shore.

Annie watched them go. She stared out toward the water’s edge and dashed a tear from her eyes as she whispered a silent thank-you to Sir George, to the lake, to the universe itself.

The wind hissed through the pines, and she almost thought she heard an ancient voice ringing like a deep bell, breathing a gentle “You’re welcome.”

Sinful (2000)

-- Leather and Lace --

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

SINFUL

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the authors

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove edition / January 2000

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Inc.

"Leather and Lace" copyright © 2000 by Margaret Benson.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN: 0-515-12725-6

A JOVE BOOK® Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

JOVE and the "J" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Chapter One

“Granted, Kayla, I do need the money. But there is no way I’d do that for it.”

“No?”

Hands firmly planted on her hips, Martha Jane Biswell shook her head. “No.”

“It pays one thousand dollars. Cash. In your hand, the second you finish.”

Martha Jane’s mouth was already opening to refuse by the time her roommate’s words registered. She snapped it closed so fast she nearly bit her tongue. “Don’t be ridiculous, Kayla. I know you don’t have that kind of money, and I couldn’t take it from you even if you did. I’ve got almost as much invested in this business as you do, you know. I want to see it succeed.”

“Hey, you’re the one who helped me set the budget. One thousand is what we set aside to pay the model. It’s already earmarked for that. And besides, if this doesn’t work ... well, we’re finished. It’s all or nothing.”

Martha Jane shook her head. “You’re modeling, and you aren’t taking any money for it.”

Kayla tossed her head. “Okay, what if I do? Say we split it. Five hundred each. Cash.”

Biting her lip and battling a desperate need and a heavy-duty guilt trip, Martha Jane waited for a sign to tell her what to do.

“And you could have it in your hands tonight,” Kayla went on. “Before you even put your old-maid clothes back on, if you want.”

Lowering her head, pacing the apartment they shared, Martha Jane eyed the headless mannequins and the scandalous scraps they wore. Silken teddies. Lacy bustiers. Leather panties. Each piece of lingerie had one thing in common with all the others—a tag that read “Leather and Lace Designs.”

Martha Jane’s roommate and best friend, Kayla, was Leather and Lace. She’d been working her tail off to design this line of lingerie. She was a creative genius. But she’d needed help on the organizational end of things, and that was where Martha Jane had come in. She’d devoted countless hours and long nights and weekends to the cause. In return, Kayla gave her a one-third ownership of this roomful of lingerie. It could become more, someday— maybe—if they could sell the line.

Tonight was their big chance—maybe their only chance—to get this company off the ground. To make Kayla’s dream come true.

“You know I’d do anything for Leather and Lace, Kayla,” Martha Jane began. “But having me parade around in this stuff isn’t going to sell it, and I think you know that. Can’t we find a real model?”

“Are you kidding me? This is the biggest lingerie show of the season, Martha Jane. They’re all booked solid. I hired one girl, because you said she was all we could afford, and now she has the flu.”

“Everyone in the city has the flu,” Martha Jane protested.

“You don’t,” Kayla shot back.

Martha Jane bit her lower lip, opened her mouth, closed it again.

Kayla jumped on the silence like a wolf on a rabbit. “Look, I’ll be there with you. We’ll parade down the runway wearing next to nothing together.” She turned Martha Jane around, positioning her in front of the mirror. “Besides,” she said, “you’ve been dying to play dress-up in some of these things.”

“I have not.”

“Have so. I watch your eyes, girl. I can see what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, don’t be—”

“You’re a knockout, you know. You just hide it.”

“I’m as plain as a brown paper bag.”

“Bull.” Kayla pulled the pins out of Martha Jane’s hair and shook it loose, letting it spill around her shoulders. “Your hair is incredible. Oh, what I could do with a little mousse and a blow-dryer.”

“It’s brown. It’s plain, straight, and brown, and you couldn’t do anything with it even if you had a whole moose.”

Kayle scowled at the bad pun. “It’s not plain or brown. It’s mink,” Kayla said. Then, reaching up, she took off Martha Jane’s glasses. “And your eyes are so blue they make the sky jealous.”

“But pretty much sightless without my glasses,” Martha Jane said.

“Lucky for you the runway is straight and free of obstacles.”

“I’m too short to be a model.”

“You’re petite. That’s sexy.”

“And not nearly skinny enough.”

“What, are you kidding me? You got curves, girl!”

“And I’m not exactly... perky.” Martha Jane looked down at her chest.

“My Dream Bra will take care of that, sweets. That little number is going to be the most talked-about miracle of the twenty-first century! Every woman in the country will want to own a dozen.”

Martha Jane sighed. “I just don’t know ...”

“Look, hon, you’ve been out of work for almost a month, thanks to Mister Wonderful. They’re gonna repossess your car if you don’t make a payment pretty soon, and the rent’s already late. You have to do something.”

Licking her lips, Martha Jane glanced again at the revealing wardrobe she’d be required to wear. To model. In front of strangers. “And you’re sure no one from Gable Brothers will be there?”

“Look, I saw the guest list. I swear, no one from Gable Brothers Department Stores was on it. This thing is exclusive, invitation only.”

Martha Jane frowned at her friend. “I can’t believe they weren’t invited. They’re one of the biggest chains in the state.”

Kayla shrugged. “Even if someone from Gable Brothers did come, it wouldn’t be good ol‘ Clark.”

“Richard,” Martha Jane said. “My boss’s name is Richard, and you know it.”

“Hmmph. Couldn’t tell it from the way you go on about him.” Kayla tipped her head back and fluttered her eyelashes. Then she grinned. “But back to the point. If the Gables did send someone to the show, it would be their lingerie buyer. And she’s a female, and besides that, you’ve never even met her.” Then Kayla reached out to run her fingertips over the red satin that barely covered a mannequin. “But to tell you the truth, I’d give my right arm to see Richard Gable eating his heart out in the crowd when you took to the runway wearing something like this. The jerk. Firing the best secretary he ever had just so he could hire his latest bimbo of the month.”

Martha Jane sighed heavily. She had been devastated when Richard—Mr. Gable—had told her he had to let her go. It had hurt all the more when she’d seen her replacement, a twenty-year-old big-haired blonde with vacant eyes and a D-cup, gravity-resistant chest. The truth was, Martha Jane had been secretly falling head over heels for her boss since her first day on the job. But he would never give a girl like her a second glance. She was smart, efficient, and cool. She didn’t bounce or wiggle or giggle, and she supposed it was just as well she was out of there. She’d never had such a foolish, self-destructive urge in her life as when she’d first set eyes on Richard Gable. And she hoped she never would again.

He was something, though. Those dark, smoky eyes, that smile. No wonder women were practically falling at his feet. “He wasn’t completely heartless about the whole thing,” she said softly, automatically defending her former boss, though she knew she shouldn’t. “He did offer me another position in the company.”

“And thank goodness you had enough self-respect to tell him where to stick that offer,” Kayla snapped.

It wasn’t so much self-respect, Martha Jane thought, as it was wounded pride. Wounded ... everything. She’d been deeply hurt by Richard’s treatment of her. Too hurt to be practical. And now she was suffering for it. She should have taken the offer. Sure, maybe she’d have had to see him fawning over his new secretary every day, but at least she would be able to pay her bills.

Sighing again, she tried not to acknowledge the slight stinging sensation behind her eyes.

“I promise you, no one you know will be at this lingerie show,“ Kayla was saying. ”And the total amount of time you’re going to spend on the runway will amount to only minutes when you add it up. It’s so simple, Martha Jane. You walk to the end, turn, and walk back. Change your clothes backstage and do it again. You won’t even be out there long enough to work up a decent blush!”

“If I could be sure of that, then maybe I’d consider it,” Martha Jane finally said.

“Wait! I have an idea!” Kayla dashed off into the bedroom, and emerged a second later with a scrap of black leather that looked like ... like a mask. Oh, God, it was a mask. She quickly wrapped it around Martha Jane’s face, the black silk ties going beneath her hair and then knotting in the back. The two almond-shaped eyeholes fit right over her eyes.

“My God,” she whispered, squinting into the mirror. “I look like somebody’s bondage fetish come to life.”

“I’ve been working on a few different mask designs just to set off the clothes. Come on, now, give it a chance,” Kayla cajoled. “When you put these things on, Martha Jane, you’re gonna feel like a different woman. Like a ... like a love goddess. And with the mask ... well, that just makes the illusion complete.” She fluffed Martha Jane’s hair. “You can keep the mask on all night— No, no, wait! I have some others, in different colors, one with a feather. We can pair them up, a mask to go with each outfit!”

“I... I couldn’t...”

“Oh, come on, Martha Jane, you have to! Honey, when I get through with you, there’ll be no way anyone could possibly recognize you! You won’t recognize yourself.” She tilted her head. “In fact, it’ll be good for you. You’ll be surprised how freeing it can be to be totally unrecognizable. You might learn a little something you didn’t know about yourself.” She shrugged. “Either way, to my way of thinking, this means there’s not one single reason left why you should turn up your nose at a quick five hundred bucks.”

There was a knock on the apartment door and a shout from the hall beyond. “Martha Jane! Come quick!”

Recognizing the voice of Mrs. Crump from upstairs, Martha Jane tugged free of Kayla, pulled off the silly mask, and yanked the door open.

“Someone appears to be stealing your car, dear!” Mrs. Crump said.

“What?” Whirling, Martha Jane raced to the window, grabbing her glasses on the way. She put them on fast and looked at the street below. Sure enough, a white tow truck with BERNIE”S REPO SERVICE painted on the side in fat 1970s-style lettering was backing up to her car.

Something tickled her hand. She looked down to see five crisp hundred-dollar bills sliding into her palm. “Tell you what,” Kayla said, closing Martha Jane’s hand around the wad of money and her own hand around Martha Jane’s. ‘Take your share of the pay in advance. Go down there and pay Bernie so he’ll leave your car alone.“

Licking her lips and feeling backed into a corner, Martha Jane closed her eyes, and nodded. “Deal.”

Richard Gable looked across the desk at his brother and shook his head. “No way in hell, bro. It’s Valentine’s Day weekend. I have two dates with two gorgeous models. Both at the same time, of course, thanks to the secretarial skills of our niece, Babs the airhead. But frankly, despite the effort it’s going to take, I plan to find some way to make the most of each of them.”

Michael Gable crooked an eyebrow in the disapproving way that only an older brother could manage. “Since when does your secretary’s job include managing your social calendar?”

Richard shrugged. “Martha Jane never had a problem with it. Hell, my life ran like clockwork when she was around. Now I’ve got Babs and I’m swimming in chaos.”

Michael gave him a “serves you right” sort of look. “Luckily, the women you date make our Babs look like a female Einstein, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to lie your way out of the situation.”

“Exactly,” Richard said with a grin, not bothering to defend his women to his brother. He knew what they were and what they were not. He wasn’t in denial about any of that.

“But now, you see, you don’t have to lie your way out of it,” Michael said quickly. “You have a legitimate excuse to cancel both dates, Richard. You have to haul your big brother’s butt out of the fire.”

“Being happily married, you may not remember it, Mike, but Valentine’s Day sex is usually the best sex of the year.”

“Oh, I remember it, all right. I’m living it, most of the time. When you find the right woman, every day is Valentine’s Day.” Michael grinned and gazed at some distant spot in space. Hell, he’d only been married six months, Richard thought. The guy was practically still on his honeymoon. But Michael’s dreamy expression turned serious as he spoke again. “Problem is, I won’t be getting anything except divorce papers for Valentine’s Day this year if I attend the lingerie show as planned.”

Richard sighed, shook his head. “How the hell did Cindy find out you were going, anyway? It’s not like you went home and told her about it.” His brother averted his eyes. “Is it?” Richard asked.

“What, you thought I was going to lie to her?” Michael seemed stunned by the very thought.

“Jesus, Michael, you didn’t go to your wife and tell her that you had to attend a lingerie show on Valentine’s Day, did you?”

Michael avoided his brother’s gaze. “Of course not. Well. . . not exactly. I, um, I asked her.”

“You asked her,” Richard repeated, his tone flat.

“I thought she’d understand. I mean, with Hannah Mandrake sick with this damn flu bug, someone has to take her place at the show. Do you realize how important it is? She practically had to jump through hoops to get the ticket. She runs the lingerie department almost single-handedly, and she’s doing a fabulous job for us, Richard. So it’s fairly obvious that one of us has to stand in for her at this thing. It’s important to her, to her department, and to Gable Brothers.” He shrugged. “I just thought Cindy would understand. It’s business.”

“Right,” Richard said. “You thought Cindy would agree to let you go watch a gaggle of gorgeous models parade around in their underwear for you on Valentine’s Day while she stayed home watching videos, alone.”

Michael sighed. “I guess it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. But Richard, one of us has to go. And, hey, come on. These are the kind of women you like best here. Models. Underwear models, for heaven’s sake. I can’t believe you’re not wrestling me to the floor to get that ticket away from me.”

Richard lowered his head. Oh, yeah, they were his type of women all right. Tall, leggy, lean, gorgeous, vain, and well informed on the latest hot colors, fabrics, vacation spots, and advances in laser surgery, even if they couldn’t name the capitals of their own states. Frankly, since he’d been forced to let the best secretary he’d ever had go so he could give his bubbleheaded niece a job, he’d had his fill of that kind of woman. Babs was that kind of woman. She ought to be modeling underwear.

He wanted his efficient, myopic, conservative Miss Bis-well back.

“Uncle Riiii-charrd,” came the singsong voice that could set his teeth on edge in a single note.

Richard reached across his desk and pushed the button on the intercom. “You’re supposed to call me ‘Mr. Gable’ at work, Babs.”

A high-pitched titter came back. “Sorry. I thought I’d tell you that you just had a message from Fate.”

“I did?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Richard looked across the office at his brother, who was biting his lip to keep from grinning. “Babs, um, do you think perhaps it might have been ... Kate?”

There was a long silence. “Well, I guess it might have been.”

“Well, now, let’s see. Did she call to tell you my reason for living, Babs, or did she just want to say hello?”

He could almost see his sister’s youngest child searching her empty head for the answer. “She wanted to know if you were planning anything special for Valentine’s Day.”

His throat went dry. It was Kate. Would have been better, though, if it had been Fate, calling to say he was going to hell in a handbasket. “And what did you tell her?” he forced himself to ask.

Her voice came back, brighter than ever. “Same thing I told Heidi and Fawn,” she chirped. “That you’d be at the Valentine’s Day Ball at the Westcott Room at eight o’clock sharp.”

She sounded as if she thought she deserved a raise and a promotion for being so efficient. Ending the intercom connection, Richard gave Michael a desperate look. “Make that three dates.”

“And one perfect excuse.” Michael held up the ticket. “Or do you want them all showing up at the ball at eight and meeting each other?”

Running a hand through his hair, Richard sighed his surrender and depressed the button again. “Babs?”

“Oh!” she squeaked. “You scared me! What?”

He closed his eyes. It was probably not a good idea to have Babs call Heidi and Fawn and Kate with his regrets. “Never mind, hon. I’ll take care of it myself.” He walked over to his brother, took the ticket. “This is going to cost me a small fortune in flowers, candy, and apologies,” he told Michael.

“Don’t bother with the candy, Richard. They’re models, remember?”

It was, Richard thought, a good point.

Chapter Two

“I cannot believe I am doing this.”

“Oh, be quiet and suck in!” Kayla slid the zipper up as Martha Jane held her breath. “There!” she said, stepping back. “What do you think?”

Models were running back and forth in various states of undress, all of them at least six inches taller than Martha Jane was, even though she had donned stiletto heels in an effort to appear taller. She felt as insignificant among them as a crow among swans as she lifted her head to the full-length-and-then-some mirror.

Then she widened her eyes. She didn’t look insignificant or crowlike at all. Her first thought was that she really ought to put on her glasses, but she knew full well she could see up close without them. It was distances that gave her trouble. Kayla had worked wonders on her hair, making it seem fuller and wilder and glossier all at once simply by her clever use of hairbrush and blow-dryer. It was a big, fluffy, sexy, mink-colored mane now, rather than the straight, lifeless tresses she usually kept captive in a tight bun. “Wow,” Martha Jane whispered.

“I told you. You look incredible.”

“I look ... like someone else.” Martha Jane eyed herself. Her body was hugged tightly by white leather. The high-cut leg openings and white open-toed spike-heeled shoes made her short legs seem longer, and the white stockings she wore were topped with wide bands of elasticized lace. But the amazing thing was the way the scrap of leather managed to make her waist look so small. And ... other things look... gravity-proof.

“I have cleavage,” she said, staring at the gentle swells as if they were foreign objects that had suddenly landed on her home planet.

“There’s Dream Bra technology built into every piece I create,” Kayla announced proudly. She stood beside Martha Jane, wearing a short red baby doll that was almost as transparent as glass. Underneath it were a red-sequined Dream Bra and matching thong panties. Her stockings were red, as were her shoes, and she wore a little headband with a pair of plastic devil horns.

“Here, get the gloves on.” Kayla handed her a pair of long white gloves, then pulled on her own red ones.

Sighing, incredibly uncertain, and feeling a flutter of panic in her chest, Martha Jane put the gloves on and lowered her mask. It was white, like the rest of the outfit, with tipped-up corners accented in white feathers. It was supposed to allude to the wings of an angel. Right now, Martha Jane thought, she felt more like a chicken.

The music Kayla had chosen—Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible”—came crashing over the loudspeaker, and the sultry voice of the female emcee drifted in, announcing the first-ever showing from a new designer. Kayla grabbed Martha Jane by the arm. “Come on! This is it!” She left Martha Jane in the curtained area just off stage left, then raced around to the other side, her heels clicking all the way.

Martha Jane looked across the stage and saw the fuzzy red outline of Kayla waiting on the other side. This meant everything to her friend. Everything. It meant a great deal to Martha Jane as well. It was important. She could do this.

“I give you,” the emcee said, “Kayla Hart’s brand-new line of fantasy lingerie, Leather and Lace!”

The music boomed louder. Martha Jane held Kayla’s gaze—or rather, tried to focus on where that gaze would be—and counted off. On three she took a deep breath and stepped forward. She concentrated on remembering everything Kayla had told her about walking onto that runway. Left foot, right foot, legs crossing in front of each other with every carefully placed step. Back straight, chin up. Eyes wide and not squinting in the bright lights. Lips slightly turned up in a mysterious almost-smile, but not a full-blown one. Keep them slightly parted, and moist. Move the hips with every step.

She made it to the center of the stage, where she and Kayla stopped at the same moment, just the way they’d planned it. A soft swell of applause started, then grew. Kayla caught Martha Jane’s eye, and Martha Jane took the signal and began her solitary trek forward along the long, narrow runway, between the lights that lined its sides, heels clicking. Cameras flashed, but the lights were too bright to allow her to see any faces in the crowd—not that she could have seen them anyway without her glasses. She tried to focus on what the emcee read from the card Kayla had provided. Something about the butter-soft leather of the “Angel” ensemble. Something about the built-in Dream Bra.

Martha Jane stopped at the end of the runway, one foot in front of the other, pivoted, pivoted again, turned around fully as the applause suddenly swelled, and made her way back. She kept going, right off the stage as Kayla started down the runway in her “Devil” costume.

Once backstage, Martha Jane felt her knees go weak and her stomach clench up a little bit, but beyond that, there was no paralyzing reaction. No horrible sense of shame. In fact, she felt... good. Those people had cheered for her. She lifted her gaze, looked into the mirror. A stranger looked back at her. An utterly feminine, utterly desirable, sexy female looked back at her. The kind of woman who could bring a man like Richard Gable to his knees. The kind of woman she’d always secretly wished she could be.

“Damn!” she whispered. “Kayla was right—I do feel different.”

But there was no time to give the feeling the substantial amount of thought and analysis it needed. She had two more outfits to model, the most outrageous one saved for last. She swallowed her shyness, her inhibitions, and found it far easier to do than she had expected. She rapidly yanked off her angel getup and pulled on a black-velvet bodysuit with cat ears and a detachable tail. She had to change her gloves and mask as well, and pull on the tall, shiny, spike-heeled thigh-high boots. But she did it in time. She was ready to walk out there again by the time Kayla got back.

Oddly, she didn’t have to force herself this time. Instinct told her that if this crowd had liked the first getup she’d worn, they were going to like this one even better. She almost smiled when she stepped out onto the stage. And she didn’t have to remind herself to move slowly, to take her time, so Kayla would have enough time to get changed. She walked slowly, a little slinkiness in her step to keep to the feline motif. At center stage, just as planned, she paused, turned to one side, then the other. The applause came louder and louder. She really was doing this, and apparently the crowd was believing the lie—that she was this she-cat she was pretending to be. Amazing.

She walked slowly along the runway. At the end, she reached behind her, just as she and Kayla had rehearsed. She removed the detachable “tail” and ran it slowly through her fingers, then snapped it hard on the stage to demonstrate how it doubled as a playful velvet whip. It made a satisfying crack and the audience gasped, then burst into wild applause as Martha Jane wound the tail up, turned, and moved slowly back. They were going wild, shouting for more. A wolf whistle pierced the din, and she almost burst out laughing.

A wolf whistle, aimed at plain Martha Jane Biswell. Imagine that!

One more outfit to go, she thought. Just one more. She’d thought it the worst one of them all, at first. Now she thought maybe it was going to be the best. Certainly it was the most shocking. The most taboo. The most... sinful.

She stepped backstage, passing Kayla on the way.

“Is that a smile?” Kayla whispered as she passed. “I knew it! You’re a closet sex kitten, Biswell! I knew it all along!”

Martha Jane stuck out her tongue and picked up the pace, slipping quickly into the final outfit. It was made almost entirely of leather straps with silver buckles. They crisscrossed her entire torso. There was actually no more of her showing than there would have been had she been wearing a bikini—but it seemed like more. A lot more. Still, black leather cupped her breasts and bottom and covered her where she needed covering, held in place by the straps that ran from top to bottom, crisscrossed her middle, encircled her shoulders, and wove their way down her back.

That wasn’t the part of the outfit that made it seem so outrageous, though. The mask that went with this one was made to look just like a blindfold, except that, of course, she could see through it. And the little satin-covered bracelets she wore on both wrists had tiny chains hanging from them, which could be linked together. When Kayla came prancing off stage, she paused long enough to hook the chains behind Martha Jane’s back.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

Kayla’s eyes were gleaming and she was smiling ear to ear. Martha Jane swallowed hard and nodded. “How do you think it’s going?”

“Oh, they’re loving it! And this will be the clincher! Remember, walk tall, head tipped slightly back, chest out, shoulders back. Okay?”

“I remember. I can’t walk any other way in this state, anyway.”

“Great! Go!”

The music throbbed, and Martha Jane stepped out onto the stage. The crowd went dead silent. Not a sound came. Not a breath, she thought. Swallowing hard, she moved to the center, and the tapping of her spike heels seemed louder than anything she’d ever heard before. She paused at center stage, turned left, and right, then started along the runway. She’d lost them, she thought, wishing she could hurry. But that wasn’t an option. She was afraid to walk fast, because if she lost her balance, she would fall on her face. In fact, she was probably walking slower than she had before.

At any rate, she made it to the very end of the runway, and stopped.

Slowly, the clapping began. Bit by bit. Louder, and then louder still. And then it was thunderous, deafening. Martha Jane was startled, but mostly relieved. Then, as the applause went on and on, that other feeling returned to overwhelm everything else. She felt... sexual. She felt desirable and physical and feminine. Earthy. Female. Powerful. They were applauding for Kayla’s designs, yes—but she was the one making them look this good. She’d never believed herself capable of it. Of being ... sexy.

Smiling, almost giddy with this newfound sense of her-self as a woman, she pivoted and headed back. She almost wished Richard Gable could see her this way!

Kayla passed her on the way out, wearing regular clothes again—if you could call them regular. She was gorgeous, and as the emcee introduced her as the designer of this bold new line, she paused and gripped Martha Jane’s shoulder. “Omigod,” she whispered. “Martha Jane ... look.”

Martha Jane’s back was to the crowd, as she’d been leaving the stage, but she turned now and squinted toward the audience. When the stage lights dimmed, she could see them—not clearly, but enough. They were getting up, one by one, rising to their feet. A standing ovation for Kayla’s line. They loved it! They loved Kayla and they loved Martha Jane. Kayla’s dream was coming true. And she was gripping Martha Jane’s arm so tightly that Martha Jane had no choice but to step onto the runway once more, as Kayla received her glory.

Halfway out, Kayla stopped and released her grip on Martha Jane’s hand to blow a kiss to the crowd, and Martha Jane pivoted, intending to make a quick escape. But she pivoted too fast, and her damned hands were still hooked together behind her back. She wobbled, teetered, flapped her elbows in a useless effort to regain her balance. In that instant she thanked her stars that the spotlight and all eyes were on Kayla, who had continued on to the end of the runway alone—and then Martha Jane went over the side.

There was a thud as her back hit the floor, fortunately only a few feet below her. It knocked the wind out of her, and she couldn’t even speak for a heartbeat. Shaking off the impact, Martha Jane managed to work her arms down the backs of her legs, and push her feet through them so they were linked in front of her, rather than behind her. She sat up, and though, clumsy without the use of her hands, she got as far as her knees before she realized there was a man standing in front of her. His hands were on her shoulders, as if he were going to try to help her up, but he had frozen in the middle of it. And no wonder, with her nose about an inch from his zipper. A zipper that seemed to be ... swelling, she thought, blinking.

She swallowed her embarrassment, ignored the little devil voice inside her that wanted to laugh and shout at this new feminine power, and forced herself to tip her head back and look him in the eye.

Richard Gable stared down at her, too close to be a mistake or a product of her bad eyesight, and he said, “I think I dreamed something like this last night.”

She closed her eyes, mortified that he should see her like this.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he whispered “You were the hottest model up there all night. Believe me, I know. What’s your name, anyway? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

She blinked, frowned ... and realized she was still wearing the mask. He didn’t recognize her! The mortification vanished. Something else replaced it. A kind of triumph. He’d said she was the hottest model up there. That was good, right? Her. His efficient little ex-secretary. Miss Biswell, hotter than any of the bimbos he’d preferred over her for so long. Hotter than any of the women he’d fallen all over himself trying to get into bed while ignoring the woman right under his nose who was halfway in love with him.

“My name?”

He nodded, smiling.

“It’s, uh, Valentine. Yes—it’s Valentine,” she lied, trying to keep her voice very soft and slightly deeper than normal so he wouldn’t recognize it. The result was a sultry-sounding purr.

“Yeah? Well, you’re the nicest Valentine I ever got.” His smile deepened. “I’m Richard. Nice to meet you.” His hands were still on her shoulders, his crotch still an inch from her face. “I, um, I hate to offer, but can I help you up?”

She looked up, and some demon woman she didn’t even recognize said, “If you insist,” and sent him a devilish half smile.

He looked as if she’d zapped him with a stun gun. “Damn, woman,” he said, sounding a little breathless. “You’re deadly, aren’t you?” He gripped her outer arms and helped her to her feet, a motion that brought her body very close to his. He remained there, close to her, not speaking.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“No, thank you.”

A bit of her bravado fled as she felt other eyes on her, but Richard seemed to sense it instantly, because he took off his jacket, and draped it around her shoulders.

Still, people were staring. Men were staring. Men who were not Richard, and the looks in their eyes were... predatory. She didn’t like it. It was fine for him to look at her like that, with that sexual gleam in his eye—God, she’d dreamed of him looking at her like that. But not them. Not strangers.

“Anything else I can do for you?” Richard was asking.

“Yes,” she said, answering in such a rush that she didn’t even think first. “Get me out of here.”

He stared at her, his eyes going just a little wider, then gleaming with sexual appreciation. His lips parted in a smile so hot it was indecent, and he said, “Whatever you say, lady.” He took her arm, started forward.

Her foot went right out from under her and she almost fell, but he caught her. “Ow ... oh!”

“What is it?”

“These shoes. I think I broke a heel when I fell,” she said.

He smiled again. “Well, I can remedy that easily enough.” And before she knew what was happening he scooped her up into his arms and strode through the crowd with her. The next thing she knew, she was being settled into the passenger seat of a low-slung black sports car, and he was climbing into the driver’s seat beside her.

He started the engine, turned to face her. “Your place or mine?” he asked, his voice deep and full of innuendo.

She licked her lips, blinked rapidly, told herself to get the hell out of this car and do it fast.

The stranger who’d taken over her body whispered, “Yours.”

He smiled at her, melting her, and the car lurched forward.

“There’s ...just one thing,” she began. He glanced down at her, waiting. “The mask ... stays on.”

Again he smiled. “Now I’m sure I dreamed this last night.”

She felt herself blush hot and had to avert her eyes.

“I’ll tell you what, Valentine. You can keep the mask on, on one condition.”

“And what’s the condition?” she asked.

He reached down, caught her wrist in his hand, and ran his thumb over the satiny bracelets with their linked chains. “Consider keeping the cuffs on, too?” He grinned, winked at her, and stomped harder on the gas pedal.

Chapter Three

Martha Jane didn’t know what it was. The two or three drinks she’d had to bolster herself for the show? Her longtime feelings for her boss, combined with the way he’d constantly ignored her as a woman while mooning over brainless twit after brainless twit? The triumph she felt now, that he was finally seeing her the way she’d dreamed of? Or something else?

She only knew that it was Valentine’s Day, and she was wearing a mask and taking this chance. She was going to make her most secret fantasy come true. She was going to have wild sex with Richard Gable.

He carried her into his house, which was a stunning creation of adobe and knotty pine. Inside, she caught only fleeting, out-of-focus glimpses of a wide foyer with cathedral ceilings, a forest-green and oak living room with a fireplace, and then he was carrying her up an open metal-work staircase and through a door at the top.

His bedroom.

He set her on her feet and stood facing her. He stared down at her for a long moment, and then, finally, he lowered his head and he kissed her. His hands slid the jacket off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, and then he stood a little straighter, just looking at her.

She’d never felt more exposed. More vulnerable. And yet... she felt powerful too. Because she could see what looking at her was doing to him. He looked as if his dreams were all coming true.

“I... I didn’t mean what I said before,” he told her. “About those, er, bracelet things. You can take them off if you want.”

She stared up at him. If she didn’t know him so well, she’d be terrified right now. But she did know him. He would never hurt her. She was perfectly safe with him. “I, um, don’t have a key.”

He closed his eyes. “Then I guess you’re... at my mercy.”

She lifted her head as heat shot through her, met his eyes head on, and knew this was perfect. She didn’t have to worry about knowing how—about performing. He’d have to do it all. She didn’t even need to feel guilty about it. Or overcome her shyness. Or anything at all. “I guess I am,” she whispered.

He smiled a devilish smile and moved her backward, until her back was touching the coolness of a wall. Reaching down, he hooked a finger around the chain between her wrists and slowly lifted it until her hands were above her head. She looked up, saw the little clothes hook on the wall above her, watched him drape the chain over it.

“Oh... my...”

He paused, waiting, watching her. Giving her time, she knew—but she said no more. He smiled again. Reaching out with both hands, he touched her breasts, running his fingers over them again and again. Then he shook his head. “This leather is sexy, but, uh, too thick. I think it’s going to have to go.” He slid his palms around behind her as she tried to control her trembling. His hands lifted her hair, slid along her spine, locating the first of the buckles. Slowly, he unfastened it, and then the next, and the next. She shivered when his fingers trailed over the base of her spine.

“You’re shaking,” he whispered.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” He kept his hands where they were, fingers tickling her spine. Leaning in, he kissed her neck and her shoulders, and her cheeks. She was breathless and filled with turmoil. He straightened again, and the leather bodice hung loose about to fall down in front. She wanted to clap her hands to it to hold it in place, but she couldn’t. Then it did fall, and he just stood there, staring at her.

She stood there, staring back.

He reached out, gripped the leather, pulled it slowly down. His hands slid over her skin as he did so. Her waist. Her hips. Down her thighs. He let it go, let it fall to the floor around her ankles. Stepping out of the leather, she kicked it aside.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

God, she’d never felt so exposed. Her hands were itching to cross in front of her body, to cover herself, but she couldn’t.

He trailed the backs of his hands over her breasts again, knuckles brushing her nipples. She closed her eyes. Turning his hands, he stroked with his fingers. Then he drew thumb and forefingers together... a gentle pinch. A soft sound was wrung from her. His smile widened. He pinched again. “Like that?” he asked.

Breathless, she nodded.

“Good.” One more pinch, then without warning his hands fell away, and his head swooped down. He caught a breast in his hungry mouth and suckled her hard, scraping with his teeth, flicking with his tongue, biting and nipping. And now his hand was slipping down her belly, diving between her legs. Fingers spread her, opened her, touched her.

He nipped harder at her breast and drove his fingers inside her.

She cried out, moving against his hand, arching against his mouth.

Then suddenly he moved away from her. Stepping back, he stared at her as she opened her eyes. She watched as he slowly unfastened his belt, his zipper. Erotic as some pagan fertility god, he undressed. And she couldn’t take her eyes off him as he did. He was big, and dark, and hard. Then he came back to her. Without a word, he slid his hands down her back and cupped her buttocks, squeezed her thighs. Then he lifted her legs, until she wrapped them around his waist, and he plunged himself inside her.

“Richard,” she whispered. It was so good. He filled her, stretched her. And when he took his hands away, her weight lowered her further, so that he sank even more deeply into her. Nothing supported her now but the flimsy chain slung round the hook above her head, and the man inside her. It was the most erotic thing in the world. He bent to nurse at her breasts again as he began to move, driving himself inside her harder and harder until her body was pressed to the wall with every thrust. She panted and moaned as he pushed her closer and closer to climax. She couldn’t believe the power of it, couldn’t believe the tightening, tensing, coiling sensations going on inside her.

And just as she hovered at the very brink, he lifted his head. “Open your eyes,” he whispered. “I want to watch you.”

She opened her eyes. He kept driving into her, harder, deeper, faster, and his hands came to her breasts, and his eyes never left hers. “Come for me,” he whispered, as he closed his fingers on her nipples. Then he pinched harder. “Now.”

She screamed aloud as wave upon wave of feeling washed over her, shaking her to the core. By the time she came to herself again, Richard had slipped her little chain off its hook, fumbled with it until he got it to come apart, and was carrying her with him to the bed.

Hours later, Richard lay sated and utterly relaxed, with the woman snuggled close in his arms, when it occurred to him that she hadn’t said anything for several moments ... not since she last screamed his name, in fact. He thought she might be sleeping.

He wasn’t too certain how he felt about that. His one-night stands didn’t usually stay overnight. Then again, this had been ... different. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but there was no denying that it had been just that. Different. Intense, yes. Incredible, yes. He thought, though, that the main difference was the woman.

She wasn’t putting on a show. She truly had been a bit shy—at first. Trying to hide it behind her mask and her bold lingerie, but still, it had been obvious in those initial tremulous kisses. In her trembling, and the way she would avert her gaze now and then, or the way her cheeks kept coloring hotly when he looked at her. When her hands had been free to touch him, those touches had been almost hesitant. And her responses had been an odd combination of delight and—and surprise. As if every sensation were new to her somehow.

The difference was even more obvious in the way she’d curled up beside him afterward, the way she nestled still in the crook of his arm, so content and relaxed that she might be sleeping. His kind of women were usually in the shower within minutes of lovemaking and on their way home shortly thereafter.

This one was in no hurry. He wasn’t even certain she was awake.

“I... don’t know about you,” he said, keeping his voice low, trailing a finger over her cheek. “But I’m starving.”

“I could eat an entire side of beef,” she murmured.

He felt his face split in a smile. His first thought was that she was no more an ordinary model than she was an ordinary woman. “I thought you might be sleeping.”

She sat up a little, staring down at him in the darkness from behind her mysterious mask. “Not sleeping. Just... basking.” A shy smile tugged at her lips, and she turned her face away a bit. If he could see in the dark, he thought he’d see her blushing. “It was ... wonderful, Richard.”

“It was pretty wonderful for me, too.”

“Really?” She seemed surprised, and maybe relieved, too.

“What, it wasn’t obvious?”

Again, she looked away. “I guess I just wanted to be sure.”

He nodded, once again getting the feeling she wasn’t exactly experienced at these sorts of games. “What do you want to eat, Valentine? You name it, I’ll get it. Serve it to you in bed.” His words surprised him.

“I told you, a side of beef.”

He laughed softly. “You’re not like any other model I’ve ever met,” he said.

“That’s because I’m not a model,” she said in her soft, raspy voice.

A little alarm bell went off in Richard’s head. “You’re not?”

“Well, I was tonight. But for the first and last time.” She smiled at him, making his stomach flip over. “Even though I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.”

Richard cleared his throat. “What... do you do? For a living, I mean?”

She quickly looked away. “I’ve been helping a friend get a new business off the ground. Creatively, she’s a genius, but she has no head for books or budgets or organization.”

Richard’s throat went dry. She was not what he had thought she was—not at all. “You do that full time, then?”

“For the moment, yes.”

“And this modeling gig was what, a walk on the wild side?”

She laughed huskily. A deep, rich sound that stroked his nerve endings like brushed velvet. “A favor for a friend. Her model got sick at the last minute.”

“I see.”

She drew a breath, sighed, looked at him with something soft and intense in her eyes. “I argued hard against the whole thing. But now I’m very glad I let her talk me into it.”

“Oh.”

She tilted her head then, her eyes narrowing when they saw his expression. No doubt—it was one of impending panic.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice going a bit harder. “I’m ruining it for you, aren’t I? I should have said I was an aspiring actress, and added a breathless little giggle for good measure.”

Richard frowned. Her tone had changed, and he hadn’t expected to see such sharpness in those eyes. “What are you talking about?”

She shrugged. “That’s the kind of woman you usually date, isn’t it? They’re safe.”

“Safe?” He sat up, leaned back against the headboard. This was fascinating. Chilling, too. This woman seemed to know more about him than he’d realized. And from the look in her eyes a moment ago—she might not know a one-night stand when she saw one.

“Convenient,” she said. “No demands, no expectations.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry, Richard. Smart women can have casual sex, too.”

He tilted his head to one side. “But it’s a first for you, isn’t it, Valentine?”

She shrugged and looked away.

“How do you know so much about me?” he asked. He saw her tongue dart out to moisten her lips. She looked around the room as if in search of a change of subject, and her gaze fell on the tripod in the corner.

“I don’t know much about you at all,” she answered then. “I didn’t know you were an artist, for example.” She nodded toward the blank canvas on the tripod.

“I’m no artist. I used to draw some, but—”

“Used to?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t worked on anything in months.” Because he hadn’t felt sufficient passion for anything in months to want to capture it in charcoal.

Until tonight.

And that made him even more uncomfortable. So he changed the subject. “Just who are you really, Valentine?”

She sat up quickly, putting her feet on the floor and her back to him, clutching the sheet to her chest. “I really should go ...”

“No, don’t.” He said it too quickly, yes. He knew that. He usually couldn’t wait for his dates to leave, usually found talking to them as boring as mud. But not this time. This woman was different. Totally different from the others. And in spite of his self-imposed set of rules, he found himself really wanting her to stay. To talk, of all things! “Don’t go. If it makes you so uncomfortable, I won’t ask again.”

She wasn’t relaxing, though. Not yet.

“Besides, I haven’t fixed us that side of beef yet.” He ran the back of his fingers slowly down her spine. She arched in response, and calmed visibly. He saw her lips curve in a slight smile.

“What do you mean, us?” she teased softly. “You don’t expect me to share, do you?”

He laughed again, so relieved he was damn near giddy with it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been out with a woman who’d made him laugh. “Wait here. I’ll be back in no time.” He got up, reached for a robe, and pulled it on. Then he looked back at her for a long moment. “You intrigue me, Valentine,” he heard himself say.

She shook her head. “It’s not me,” she said, and he thought there was a touch of sadness in her voice. “It’s just the mask.”

“No. No, it’s you.”

He turned and headed to the kitchen. As he sliced hunks of leftover roast beef sent home with him by his nurturing sister-in-law, he wondered about his mysterious Valentine. She was disguising her voice, never raising it above that deep whispering tone that told him nothing. She was hiding her face, behind that silly mask—and her personality behind the rest of the costume she wore tonight. Even when that costume was nothing more than her delectable skin. She was a shy woman, normally. A woman who must think he would know her if he saw her face or heard her true voice. A woman he must have known at some point in his life—that much was obvious by how well she seemed to know his dating habits. Several times he’d looked at her and caught a glimpse of the truth. But it had been just out of reach, too far away to grab hold of. Nevertheless, there was something very dear, very familiar about this woman.

He heaped a platter with roast beef sandwiches on kaiser rolls, surrounded them with some healthy raw veggies, cheese, pickles, and a bag of potato chips. Then he grabbed a couple of cans of soda and carried the mess of it back into the bedroom.

But when he got there, she was gone. The only thing on his pillow, where her incredible mass of silken hair had been, was a note.

He set the tray down, and picked the note up, feeling like Prince Charming picking up a lone glass slipper.

It really was just the mask, Richard. The woman behind it isn’t the least bit interesting to you. Believe me, I know this to be true. You’ve told me yourself... without saying a word. Remember this night for what it was: a Valentine from a secret admirer—and a dream come true for a lonely woman. I’ll never forget it.

Love, Valentine

He blinked down at the signature, the handwriting. It was a scrawl he knew, too familiar to be forgotten.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, holding the note against his chest as his heart turned over and his blood rushed to his feet. “Miss Biswell!”

Chapter Four

“Where in the name of sin have you been?” Kayla had come off the sofa as if she’d been shot out of a cannon the second Martha Jane stepped through the apartment door. “I’ve been worried sick! I called everywhere. Even the police, but they said you had to be gone for forty-eight hours before they could—” She stopped, her eyes widening as Martha Jane shrugged off the too big jacket she’d borrowed from Richard’s place. “Omigod, you’re still wearing... Martha Jane, what happened to you last night?”

Martha Jane sighed. She wondered if she looked as shell-shocked as she felt. “I’m not sure. Maybe it was temporary insanity. Or maybe I’m coming down with multiple-personality disorder or something.”

“Huh?” Kayla forced the puzzled expression off her face, gripped Martha Jane’s shoulders, and dragged her into the nearby bathroom. “Come on, you’re a mess. Your makeup is all over your face. Have you been crying? You have, haven’t you? God, girl, your hair looks like you just came off a night of wild ...” She paused there, blinking, leaning closer and peering into Martha Jane’s eyes. “No. No way. You didn’t...”

Martha Jane merely shrugged and looked away.

“You didn’t!” Kayla stood there frozen, then shook herself and turned away to start the shower and adjust the water temperature before facing Martha Jane again. “So who was he? You were onstage with me and then you were gone. I went backstage to wait for you, but you never came.” Hands on her hips, she stared at Martha Jane accusingly. “You left with some man, didn’t you? You walked out of that place, wearing that getup—with some stranger! Are you out of your freaking—”

“No,” Martha Jane denied softly. “No, Kayla, not with a stranger. With Richard Gable.” Her voice sounded a little dreamy, and when she looked into the mirror she saw that her eyes were rather vacant.

“Richard Gable?” Kayla was behind her now, unbuckling her, stripping the outfit off her the way a big sister would do. She guided Martha Jane into the shower and slid the door closed, and the entire time she never stopped talking. “Richard Gable? As in your ex-boss? The guy who fired you so he could hire some bimbo? The guy you’ve been secretly in love with for almost a year?”

Martha Jane yanked the sliding door open. “I am not secretly in love with him!” She slammed it shut again.

“No, you’re not, ‘cause it’s sure as hell no secret now!”

“Yes, actually, it is.” Martha Jane sighed and turned her face up to the warm, soothing spray. “Kayla, it was ... it was so ... so exciting!”

“But... but... he ... you ...”

Martha Jane yanked the stall door open again. “He never knew it was me! It was the mask. And I don’t know, I felt... freer somehow. Like I could do anything, be anyone I wanted to be—just like you said.”

“Yeah?” Kayla tilted her head to one side. “So who were you?”

Martha Jane felt her cheeks heat, and she pressed her hands to them as a trill of laughter escaped her lips.

“My God, you giggled. I’ve never heard you giggle in my life. What did that man do to you?”

“Just about everything, I think.” Martha Jane slid the doors closed again and ducked her head beneath the rush of water. “It was the most incredible night of my life,” she said, water running down her face. She washed her hair and soaped her body, then stood there clean and refreshed, just letting the hot water rush over her.

Suddenly there was an urgent pounding on the apartment door. Martha Jane just continued basking in the afterglow, relaxing in the shower spray. So much to think about. She wondered about this new part of herself—a part she’d never in her wildest dreams expected to find. Kayla sighed and left the bathroom. Martha Jane heard voices, but she didn’t let them intrude. She conditioned her hair and rinsed it under the spray. But then the voices got louder and broke into her lovely state of being.

Cranking the water off, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a big terry robe.

“How did you even find out where I live?” Kayla asked in an overly loud voice, sounding slightly nervous. It was as if she were deliberately speaking at high volume. Martha Jane reached for the bathroom doorknob as Kayla went on. “I mean ... I wasn’t expecting company, Mr. Gable.”

“Omigod,” Martha Jane whispered. She jerked her hand away from the doorknob as if it had burned her. “He’s here!”

“Um ... your address was on your business cards,” Richard said, sounding a bit confused at Kayla’s behavior. “Everyone who attended the show got one. Surely you knew that?”

“Well... well, of course I did. But I thought anyone who wanted to order from me would... would call, not drop by unannounced.” Then she paused. “Wait a minute— is that why you’re here? Do you want to... order my line?”

Curious, Martha Jane gripped the doorknob again, turned it, and opened the door just a crack to peer through.

“Well, why else would I be here?” Richard asked.

Martha Jane gasped, pressing a hand to her mouth to cover the sound. In the next room, Kayla looked stunned.

“I expected to find an office, not an apartment,” Richard was saying. “I am truly sorry if this is an inconvenience, but if you want to be in business, you really shouldn’t greet the customers with open hostility.”

Martha Jane closed her eyes. That one had to hurt, even though Richard had said it in his charming, teasing tone. Kayla huffed, gaped, and started over. “We’re ... in the process of... relocating our ... er ... headquarters,” she said.

Martha Jane could almost see Richard’s reluctant smile. “Just starting out, huh? Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about. By the end of the day, you’ll have more orders than you can handle. Including a hefty one from Gable Brothers.”

“I... will?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, I...” Kayla clasped her hands together. Probably to keep from high-fiving him, Martha Jane thought. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much!“

“No need to thank me. It’s business. Your clothes are going to make my stores a lot of money. But, uh, that’s not the entire reason I’m here.”

It’s not? Martha Jane thought.

“It’s not?” Kayla asked.

“No. I, um, I’m trying to track down the, uh, the model you used last night. And I thought—”

“Oh, well, um, you know that’s strictly against policy. I mean, no designer in the biz would—well, you know that, Mr. Gable. You’ve worked in this business long enough to know we absolutely have to protect our models’ privacy.”

“Well, sure, but she wasn’t a model. Not really.”

Martha Jane gripped the doorknob so hard her knuckles turned white.

“I paid her to walk down a runway wearing my clothes,” Kayla said, her voice dry. “Or do you have some other definition of what constitutes professional modeling?”

“Look, I need to speak to her. It’s important.”

“Well, I’m just not sure I...”

Martha Jane opened the door and stepped out. “Mr. Gable?” she asked, feigning surprise. “I thought that was your voice I heard. How are you?”

He looked at her in surprise—or she thought it was surprise. But then again, there was something utterly false about it. As if he’d been expecting her to pop in long before she had. But then he smiled broadly. “Martha Jane! I didn’t know you lived here! You two are ... roommates, then?”

Martha Jane nodded.

“How are you?” Richard asked. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you at the office.”

Kayla snorted and turned her head.

“Oh, I’m sure Buffy is doing a fine job,” Martha Jane managed.

“Uh ... it’s Babbette. And no, she’s not half the secretary you were.” He shook his head. “If I’d had any choice in the matter, you’d still be there. But, you know that.”

“Bimbette has that much control over you, does she?” Kayla drawled.

Richard grinned, shaking his head, either not hearing the not-too-subtle slam in Kayla’s tone or pretending not to. “It’s Babbette, and she has me wrapped around her little finger, I’m afraid.” Martha Jane almost winced. God, he might as well poke her with sharp sticks. “But remember my offer, Martha Jane. I can move you into any department you want, and give you a pay raise to boot. Just say the word.”

She opened her mouth.

Kayla spoke first. “Oh, you’ll just have to fill those slots with more like Boobette,” she said brightly.

“Babbette,” Richard corrected.

“Whatever.” Kayla waved a hand dismissively. “Martha Jane is working with me now. In fact, she’s my second in command. She’s way too good to be any man’s secretary. Especially a man who’d replace her with some little—”

“Kayla.” Martha Jane said it firmly but not loudly. “Richard is our first paying customer. I’m sure he’s not here to discuss his secretary with us.”

Kayla fell silent, and even looked a little apologetic.

Richard looked right into Martha Jane’s eyes and said, “I had no idea you were a part of this clothing line.” Then he held out a hand. “Well, then, let me be the first to say congratulations, Martha Jane.”

“But we haven’t even—”

“I imagine your venture—Leather and Lace, isn’t it?” Kayla nodded fast when he glanced her way, then he went on, “It’s going to be as big as Victoria’s Secret. I’d bet money on it, and believe me, I know about these things.”

Martha Jane looked past him at Kayla, whose eyes got wider.

“Now, back to the subject at hand. This model...”

“I’m sorry,” Kayla began.

“I can get a message to her,” Martha Jane interrupted quickly.

“You can?”

She nodded.

“You know her, then?”

“Yes. But I can’t tell you anything about her. I mean, I’d have to ask her first, and... so why don’t you just give me the message and I’ll pass it along?”

He shook his head slowly. “Is there anything you can’t do, Martha Jane?”

She shrugged and tried not to blush with pleasure. “I don’t suppose I’d be very good at modeling lingerie,” she said. Meanwhile, she ignored Kayla, who was staring at her over Richard’s shoulder as if she’d grown horns.

Instead of saying anything more, she went to the telephone stand and picked up the pad of paper and pen that lay there. “Here you go, Mr. Gable,” she said. “Just jot down what you want to say, and I’ll see that she gets it.”

He smiled brilliantly and took the pad from her. His fingers brushed hers, and for just a second his eyes, sparkling with some unnamed intensity, met hers and held them. She had to look away. He was probably just thinking of his masked lover. Martha Jane Biswell was the farthest thing from his mind. Finally he began writing. He wrote for a long time, paused, licked his lips, and wrote some more. Then he tore the sheet off, folded it, and handed it to Martha Jane. “Now, this is for her eyes only. Okay?”

“You can trust me, Mr. Gable.”

“I know I can,” he murmured. “Martha Jane, in all the time you worked for me, didn’t I ever once tell you to call me Richard?”

Lifting her head, she met his gaze. Still intense, still probing. His eyes this morning seemed to be examining her, over and over again, as if he’d never seen her before. “No,” she answered him honestly. “You never did.”

“I was an idiot, then.” He closed his hand over hers, around the note. “Thank you, Martha Jane. This means a lot to me.” Then he leaned closer and pressed his lips to her cheek. It was, she thought, the most intimate cheek kiss she’d ever had. Long, and tender. Then he turned to Kayla. “And again, congratulations on your success. The buyers from Gable Brothers will be calling you later on today to officially place that order.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gable.”

He nodded, smiling, then turned and left the apartment, but as they pushed the door closed, he put a hand out, holding it open. “Your morning paper is here,” he said, bending to pick it up and hand it in to them. “I’ve already seen mine. You might want to check out the fashion section.”

Then he nodded good-bye and pulled the door closed behind him.

Kayla’s wide eyes met Martha Jane’s. “Fashion section?” Kayla whispered. Her hands were shaking as she pushed the newspaper at Martha. “You do it! I can’t!” Martha Jane took the newspaper, knelt on the floor, and began flipping through it.

She didn’t have to look far. A full-color photo of Kayla and Martha Jane, wearing their angel and devil numbers, side by side, center stage, covered the front page. Above it was the banner headline NEWCOMBER KAYLA HART, LINGERIE’S HOTTEST NEW STAR!

The two women, squealing with laughter, hugged each other and danced in circles.

Just outside the door, Richard went still as he heard the sound of his mystery lady’s laughter. He waited, listening, unable to move away.

“But why did you go and tell him I was working with you?” He heard Martha Jane ask.

“Because you were about to take him up on the job offer! I could see it in your eyes, Martha Jane. And you’re too good for a man who’d fire you just to give one of his floozies a job. Way too good.”

Martha Jane lowered her voice. “He’s not as bad as all that.”

“Oh, no? He’s bad enough that he doesn’t even look at you as a woman. My God, he stood right here and didn’t even know you were the same one he spent the night with. The same one he’s driving himself crazy trying to find now. He’s shallow, Martha Jane. He’s a Neanderthal who’s convinced himself that a decent, intelligent woman can’t be sexy and that a sexy woman can’t be decent or intelligent. Besides, you don’t need to take his job offer now. If what this fashion editor says turns out to be even close to the truth, we’re both gonna end up millionaires, honey. Men like Richard Gable will be looking at you in a whole new way—and you won’t have to fall at their feet in your underwear to get them to do it, either.”

Martha Jane sighed loudly. “I don’t really want any other man looking at me that way. But the rest sounds great.”

Richard stepped away from the door slowly, feeling more confused than he ever had in his life. More rotten and selfish and shallow, too. Kayla had him nailed. “She’s right,” he whispered. “I’ve been the world’s biggest, blindest fool. But damned if I know how to make it up to her. Or if I should even try.” He shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets, and walked back down the hall. If he let Martha Jane know how special he thought she was, she might get the wrong idea. She might think he was serious about this thing, that he wanted—he swallowed hard—a relationship.

Hell, maybe it was better to pretend he didn’t know her identity. But one thing was certain. He had to see her again. He had to.

Chapter Five

While Kayla took her turn in the shower, Martha Jane slipped into her bedroom, closed the door, put on her glasses, and took Richard’s note from her pocket.

Valentine,

I have to see you again. I’ve never met anyone like you before, and I want to know you. I’m not talking about sharing secrets here, or even unmasking you. But... you fascinate me. And I want to see you again. No more than that. Meet me tonight, at midnight, at the fountain in the park. I’ll be there. I’ll wait for you.

Richard

Martha Jane stared at the note, striving to read more into it than what was there. What did it mean? Why would he want to meet her outdoors, in the middle of February? She couldn’t very well show up in a negligee there. What did he want from her? She swallowed hard, trying with everything in her not to believe she meant any more to him than any of his other one-night stands. She knew her ex-boss. She’d seen him go through women like selections on a dessert tray. A different flavor every time. She was no more to him than a new flavor. If she let herself think she was, she’d be in for a broken heart.

Besides, the note made it pretty clear. It was one more round of sex he wanted. Nothing more. At least he hadn’t written “bring the handcuffs.”

Kayla was right. He really was a bastard. Martha Jane swallowed hard. She loved the bastard. Had for months now.

The telephone shrilled, breaking into her thoughts. Absently, she reached for it. “Hello?”

“Um, yes, I was trying to reach Leather and Lace?”

Oh, hell! That didn’t sound very professional, did it? What was she thinking? “I’m sorry, you must have dialed the wrong number,” she lied.

“Oh. Sorry to bother you.” Click.

Two seconds later the telephone rang again. She took a deep breath, let it ring twice more, then picked it up and put on her best secretary voice. Crisp and efficient. “Leather and Lace, please hold.”

She covered the mouthpiece with her hand, counted slowly to ten, then came back. “I’m sorry for the delay,” she said. “How may I direct your call?”

“This is Boudoir Boutique,” the female voice replied. “And I’m calling to order your line of lingerie.”

“One moment, please.”

She reached for something to write on, smiling ear to ear. But as she was in the middle of jotting down the boutique’s list, the Call Waiting beeped and she had to put the first caller on hold. It was another chain, placing another order. And Gable Brothers hadn’t even called yet.

Martha Jane bit her lip, kept her cool, and took down the information.

Kayla came out of the bathroom wrapped in a big robe, and Martha Jane put down the phone. “The newspaper and Richard were right,” she exclaimed. “We’ve got to get in gear, Kayla. We need office space, and a secretary, and another computer, just for starters. Then we need to go through the offers from manufacturers, find the best bid, and get this line into mass production.”

Kayla was frowning, shaking her head. Not getting it.

“Kayla, hon, we just got orders from two chains, for almost a thousand items, and Gable’s hasn’t even called yet, and—”

The phone shrilled again.

“Leather and Lace, may I help you?” Martha Jane said. “I’m sorry, can you say that again? Twenty-five sets of the entire collection? Oh, for each store? And how many stores would that be, Mr.—” She bit her lip. “A hundred and one, you say?”

Kayla smacked her palm on her forehead. “I’m not ready for this!” she exclaimed as Martha Jane jotted the order on the back of an overdue electric bill.

“Well, you’d better get ready, kid. ‘Cause we’re in business. Listen, can you man the phones?”

“I guess so, but I—”

“Good. I’m going to get us some help. See you in an hour.”

Martha Jane ran back into her room, shaking off the remnants of that other woman she’d briefly become. It wasn’t difficult. She tossed on a sensible suit, pinned up her hair, and looked in the mirror to see the logical, dependable Miss Biswell looking back at her. Even if she did seem to have a new sparkle in her eyes. Sending herself a secret smile, Martha Jane headed out of the apartment at a brisk pace.

Richard sat in his office, a cup of coffee in his still-shaking hand, and told his brother about his date—minus the more personal details—with the mystery lady who turned out to be his own efficient, prim, and proper Miss Biswell.

Michael sat in a chair across from him, and all he did was shrug. “So what part of this surprises you, Richard? That Martha Jane is a knockout? That she is an actual woman? You’re telling me you never noticed it before?”

“Oh, come on, Michael! She wears blazers and—and tweed. And those big glasses. And her hair is always—”

“So she doesn’t go around the office in a thong and a bustier,” Michael said. “It might surprise you to learn this, little brother, but most women don’t.”

“I just never...”

“Bothered to give her a second glance,” Michael said, shaking his head. “I just wish I’d realized she was nursing a crush on you, Richard.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why do you think? Must have been like a slap in the face when you told her you were letting her go so we could hire our niece.”

Richard sighed. “She doesn’t even realize Babs is our niece. I think she believes she’s one of my ... you know.”

“Oh, hell. No wonder she threw your job offer back in your face.”

Richard lowered his head. “All this time, she was a few yards away from me, day in and day out. And I never got to know her at all. I mean, there’s so much more to the woman than meets the eye.”

“What, just because she’s fun in bed?”

Richard’s head came up sharply, and he fixed his brother with a stern glare. “Don’t even— That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it. She’s ... she’s funny. And sexy. And smart. She’s an entrepreneur, for crying out loud. And all this time I thought she was just...”

“Just a secretary,” Michael finished for him. “So does this mean you’re considering ... an actual relationship?”

Richard frowned at him. “A second date,” he said. “Just a second date. I haven’t entirely lost my mind.”

The buzzer on Richard’s desk sounded and he heard a familiar titter that set his teeth on edge. “Oh, Riiii-charrd .. .” Babs sang out over the intercom.

He sighed heavily. “What is it, Babs?”

“There’s a lady here to see you,” she said. Then she whispered, “And she’s kinda cute, but not very friendly.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Well, of course she does, silly!” Babs giggled again.

Richard clenched his teeth. But then another voice came, one so familiar his heart ached with missing its soothing sound on the other end of an intercom. “Richard, it’s Martha Jane, and it’s important.”

He looked up and met his brother’s eyes, his own widening. “You know nothing, you understand? She still thinks I don’t know it was her last night, and I want to keep it that way.”

“Why, for the love of God?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. “Damned if I know. Because I can’t think of anything else to do at the moment.”

Michael rolled his eyes, and Richard went to the office door, opened it, and saw Martha Jane standing there, looking at Babs with blatant disapproval. He felt lower than pond slime. “Martha Jane,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. I see you’ve met Babs.”

“Yes.”

“She’s uh ... our niece.”

Martha Jane looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Of course she is.”

“Hi, Martha Jane,” Michael said, coming out of the office. Then he looked at his brother, and Richard tried to send him a plea for help without saying anything out loud.

Michael sighed and glanced at his niece. “Babs, are you and your mom still coming to our place for dinner on Sunday? Cindy’s been planning all week.”

Babs smiled from ear to ear. “Sure are, Uncle Mike. We still having that special roasted chicken Aunt Cindy makes?”

“Absolutely.” He sent a wink at Martha Jane. “My sister’s been trying to get that secret recipe out of my wife for months. Maybe she’ll succeed this time.” Then he sauntered away, and Richard sent a silent thank-you after him.

Martha Jane was blinking, looking from Babs to Richard again and again. “You mean ... she really is your niece?”

Richard bit his lip to keep from saying anything rude in front of Babs. Instead he took Martha Jane’s elbow and led her into his office, closing the door before he spoke. “Martha Jane, I had no choice but to give her the job. No one else in the company would have put up with her. And with Michael’s secretary six months from retirement, we couldn’t very well—”

She held up a hand. “It’s okay. I... understand.”

“It’s not okay. It wasn’t fair, and believe me I’ve been suffering for it every minute of every day since you’ve been gone.”

He watched her battle a smile. The smile finally won. “I know. I heard her on the intercom.” The smile grew into the soft, sultry laugh he’d become enchanted with last night. “I was thinking it served you right.”

He nodded, studying her. Those eyes, dark and mysterious. The makeup had only enhanced what was already there. And the mask had just made her eyes even more noticeable. But when he looked into them now, he saw that she was the same woman ... the same beautiful, sexy woman he’d spent the night with. It was all there. He’d just never looked deeply enough to see it.

He wanted her so much it hurt!

“I came here to ask for your help, Richard. Kayla’s getting swamped with orders already this morning, and we just—well, we weren’t ready for it.”

He nodded at a chair, and she sat down. He didn’t. He hovered close by, not wanting to move too far from her. Why hadn’t he noticed before how gracefully she moved? She crossed her legs, nylons whispering as her thighs brushed each other. Richard’s blood was running hot, and he had to clear his throat before he could speak again. “So what can I do?”

“Well, we need to get some office space set up, put in a computer, get some phone lines turned on... not to mention see the bank, get our line of credit raised, and write a big fat check to a manufacturer so they can start sewing. The problem is, we need someone at the apartment manning the phones while we do all that.”

“And?”

“And we don’t have time to interview secretaries. I was hoping we could borrow one of yours.”

He looked at her and smiled.

She looked right back, her head tilting up to do it, and he could see that she read him loud and clear. “No. Not Babbette.”

“Well, it was worth a try,” he said, grinning back at her.

And then her smile died and she was frowning at him. “What’s going on with you today, Richard?”

He blinked down at her. “What?”

“You’re ... different. Almost... playful.”

He drew a breath, then took the time to walk back to his desk while formulating a response to that. She was right, he realized. At work, he was usually brusque and businesslike. Not relaxed and teasing, as he was with her today. But then again, she was usually stiff and tense with him. She was different today, too.

He took his seat, folded his hands on his desk. “You seem a bit more relaxed today yourself,” he told her.

She smiled, and her cheeks got pinker as she averted her eyes. “Well, I’m no longer your employee. I suppose that makes a difference.”

“Was I that tough to work for?”

She shrugged. “Obviously your new secretary agrees with you. She’s certainly improved your mood.”

“She’s driving me insane,” he blurted. “The only thing improving my mood is what happened to me last night.” He clamped his mouth closed.

Too late. Martha Jane had popped out of her chair so fast you’d have thought he’d electrocuted her. “That’s really none of my—”

“This one was ... different.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. Maybe just to see how she’d react. But then, it didn’t matter, because he couldn’t tell how she was reacting. She just went very still, her face frozen and expressionless.

“How was she ... different?”

He watched her standing there in front of her chair, looking ready to run. “She had a brain, for starters. She ... made me laugh. I talked to her, you know what I mean? I don’t usually talk to the women I date. But this one, this one made me want to talk to her.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“What did she look like, this ... this woman?” She had turned now, paced softly over to the windows and pretended great interest in the traffic below.

“She was beautiful. But not in the way the others have been. She wasn’t tall or reed-thin. In fact, she must have been similar to you, physically speaking.”

She didn’t reply to that.

“I never saw her face fully, you know. She ... she wore a mask.”

“How mysterious,” Martha Jane whispered. “I suppose that’s why you’re really so intrigued, Richard. Not because of the woman, but because of the mystery she presents.”

“Funny, she suggested the same thing. But no. No, I don’t think that’s it at all.” He walked over to where Martha Jane stood in her tweed skirt and white blouse and color-coordinated blazer. Her hair was in a neat bun, and her eyes hid behind big tortoiseshell glasses. He stood very close behind her, and felt her body stiffen, and heat.

“Suppose she wore that mask because she has some horrible scar on her face? Or is missing an eye or something?” Her voice trembled as she spoke.

“I thought of that. And you know what? It didn’t matter. In fact, this morning when I woke up and thought back on the night, it hit me that for the first time in my life, what a woman looked like didn’t matter in the least to me.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute, Richard. And I don’t think you do either.”

“Don’t I?”

She turned to face him. “Oh, no. Tell me, what was this mystery woman wearing besides a mask? Something revealing? Something that told you she was the sex-kitten, one-night-stand type of girl you always go for? Would you have noticed her at all if she’d been wearing something else? Something like ... oh, say, like this?” She spread her hands, palms up, down the front of her, indicating her outfit.

“If I hadn’t, it would have been my mistake. My loss.”

She held his gaze, her eyes probing. “So how special is she?” she asked flat out. “Special enough to make you want to give up all the others and take her home to the family? Hmm? Or just special enough that you’d like a replay of last night?”

He swallowed hard, feeling as if she’d driven a dagger through his heart to the hilt. “I just want to see her again,” he muttered.

“And what makes you think she wants to see you again?”

He looked up fast, meeting her eyes. “Doesn’t she?” he asked, startled at the very thought.

Martha Jane looked away quickly. “I don’t know. I haven’t... spoken to her yet. And I... I think we got a bit off the subject here.“

“I guess we did.” He took a step away from her, just to put some distance between them. She had him off balance. Confused. Uncertain. And that wasn’t good. He didn’t like it one bit. He could see that it wasn’t going to be easy to convince his prim Miss Biswell to see him again. No. Not when she seemed to think there was something wrong with a casual relationship like the one he had in mind. Sex wasn’t going to be the answer to this, either—never mind how unbelievably great it was. He gave his head a shake, having no clue what to do. Best to get back to the subject at hand, give himself time to think, to regroup.

“You wanted to borrow a secretary—but not Babs,” he said. “Who did you have in mind?”

“Mrs. Nye,” she said, seeming relieved to be back on safer ground.

“Done.” He said it without giving it a second thought.

Her brows went up. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” He racked his brain for something to say, because she looked toward the door, and he knew she was thinking about leaving, and he really didn’t want her to do that. Not unless he went with her.

What the hell was wrong with him?

“I’ll need a few minutes,” he heard himself saying. “Then I’ll bring her over to your place myself.”

Martha Jane blinked, licked her lips. And Richard wondered why he’d never noticed how full and sensual those lips were, until last night. Hell, they were even just the tiniest bit swollen this morning. He could still taste them.

“You don’t need to do all that,” she said.

“But I want to. In fact, I’m taking the rest of the day off and spending it with you and Kayla. I’m an old hand at business matters. I can be a lot of help to you two.”

“But, um, I mean—that’s just not... What will your brother do without his partner or his secretary?”

“Oh, never fear. He can have my secretary for the day.” Richard wiggled his eyebrows, relaxing again now that she seemed to be the one off balance. “Babs to the rescue.”

Martha Jane’s smile appeared like sunshine on a cloudy day, and her eyes sparkled up at him. Damn, so much for his ability to relax a little. Surely she was more beautiful this morning than she’d ever been before. She couldn’t possibly have been this incredible before.

But she had been. She always had been. He’d been stepping over a diamond to pick up bits of glass, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Chapter Six

Martha Jane was feeling as if she’d stepped out of the ordinary world into some parallel dimension, where nothing was as it should be. By the time she got back to the apartment, Kayla had promoted herself from bathrobe and towel to a sexy red suit and from scribbling on the backs of old bills to keying them in on her laptop computer. She was typing in orders slowly, still not up to speed on the software she’d bought for “someday.”

Martha Jane had barely had time to explain what was going on, when Richard arrived with Mrs. Nye in tow. The older woman knew the program backward and forward, she assured Kayla, and she sent the three of them on their way.

The first stop they made was the bank. And that was where Martha Jane finally realized that her life was never going to be the same again. Because they didn’t get stuck in a hard chair in the lobby, only to be led later to one of the cubicles out there. No. They were taken straight through the doors in the back and into a real office, where a fat man who smelled like cigars smiled at them as if they were his best friends.

He listened to their plans but didn’t make any notes. And when they left his office, they had an unlimited line of credit.

Unlimited.

Kayla was smiling all over, and Martha Jane couldn’t quite absorb it. She blinked in the sunlight outside the bank, and still couldn’t digest it all.

“I have a suggestion, if you want to hear it,” Richard said.

“Shoot! You suggest to your heart’s content,” Kayla said. “I’m too excited even to think straight.”

“Well, the top floor of my building is vacant. We’ve been planning to lease it to local businesses, but the remodeling just wrapped up last week, so no one’s even seen it yet. I’ll tell you, there are some great suites up there.”

Martha Jane shook her head and said automatically, “Richard, we can’t afford...” But she let the words die as she met Kayla’s eyes. “Can we?”

Richard smiled at her in a very un-ex-boss-like manner. “Yeah, you can,” he said. “Ladies, the orders you’ve taken this morning alone are ... well, here. Just off the top of my head”—he yanked a calculator out of his jacket pocket and began punching in numbers, muttering as he went— “let’s see, you’ve got orders for about, what, four thousand pieces?” Click, click, click. “I can make an educated guess what it will cost to produce them, and I know what you’re charging for them—it was on the program from the show.” Click, click click. Then he turned the little screen to face them. “Here’s your profit for this morning’s orders. Roughly.”

Kayla looked at it, then looked again.

“So—do you think you can afford office space?”

Kayla looked at Martha Jane. Martha Jane looked at Kayla. They both smiled.

For the rest of the morning, Richard helped them get their offices set up on the top floor of the Gable Brothers Building. Martha Jane, despite her lengthy list of things to do, found herself pausing often just to watch him. He was like a different man. Or maybe she was just seeing him as he really was for the first time. Before, he’d been her boss, her dream, a fantasy beyond her reach. Now, he was just... a man.

He’d taken off his jacket and his tie. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and she couldn’t help staring at his forearms at every opportunity. Strong. Tanned. Dusted with hair. Flexing when he lugged office furniture right along with the deliverymen. She watched him when he crouched behind desks, hooking up computer cables, too. Because she knew the shape and feel of his backside, his thighs, and she couldn’t help remembering.

He was amazing.

It wasn’t fair, Martha Jane thought, that he should turn out to be even more wonderful than she’d thought. She was eating her heart out. Oh, sure, he’d said all those sweet things about his mystery date. But he hadn’t known she was plain old Martha Jane.

“So, this desk is for your office, right?”

Richard’s voice was soft and close to her ear, and it startled her so much that she jumped. He just smiled and laid a calming hand on her shoulder. “Sorry. You must have been a million miles away.”

“I—yes, I was thinking.”

“About what?”

His eyes ... they were so dark and deep, so knowing as they probed hers. Oh, but that was ridiculous. He couldn’t know. She’d die if she thought he knew!

“Why did you stop drawing?” she asked.

He tilted his head to one side, those dark eyes on hers like a touch. “Now, how did you know I ever did any drawing?”

“I... I guess ... I must have heard someone mention it around the office. Your brother, maybe.” She spoke fast, wishing she could grab the words from the air and shove them back into her mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

But he only shrugged. “I don’t know why I stopped. But it’s funny you should ask me now that I’ve started again.”

She blinked twice. “You have?”

“Maybe I just hadn’t come across anything worth drawing in a while.”

They stood in what would be the reception area of the office suite. The door behind them led to the hall and the rest of the building. The one on the left wall led to what would be Kayla’s office, and the one on the back wall to her studio, where Kayla was already ensconced and having the time of her life. The double doorway on the right led to the office that would be Martha Jane’s. That was the one Richard had been referring to, and the one he was heading into even now.

“Oh, this is going to be great,” he said. He stood beside the open doorway until she came in, and then he closed it. “Look at the view.”

The entire outer wall was windows, floor to ceiling. “Oh!” she breathed. “My goodness. It’s like sitting on a mountaintop throne, with the whole city at my feet,” she said. “I’m never going to want curtains in here, or blinds, or anything like that.”

Richard smiled at her. “In that case, you’re going to want your desk—” He pointed. “Over here, I think, is best.” As he spoke he walked to the spot. “You can’t really have your back to the door, and if you have the windows behind you, then the glare on the computer screen will make it invisible most of the day. So, here.”

“It’s perfect.”

He smiled, walked back into the reception area, and easily pushed the padding-wrapped desk through the double doors and across the carpet into the proper spot. Then he sat on the floor and began snipping the packing tape and padding away from the sides. With a sigh, Martha Jane began to do the same with the foam and tape covering her chair.

“So what else are you going to put in here?” he asked her.

“I can’t believe you’d really want to know,” she said.

“Well, believe it. The way you decorate your office says a lot about who you are.”

“You think so?”

“Sure.”

Martha Jane looked at him quizzically. “Then what does your choice of office decor say about you?” she asked. “You’ve got all these extreme-type photographs, blown up and framed on every wall. The hang glider, the rock climber, the windsurfer...”

“All the things I wanted to do before I got too old,” he explained.

She lifted her brows in surprise. “And did you?”

“What is that, some crack about my age?” He grinned at her, and she shook her head. “Yes, I’ve done them all. Often enough that they bored me. Everything’s seemed to bore me for a while now.” Then he looked at her. “Well, until lately.”

She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “What about that birdcage you have hanging in the corner with the stuffed parrot inside?”

“That? Oh, that’s there to remind me never to let myself be caged.”

“Like your brother?”

Richard nodded slowly. “That was the idea I had when I put the bird up, yes.”

She averted her gaze. She was right—he would never change.

“So, you didn’t tell me—what are you going to put in your office?”

She looked around the room, thought about her life. “I want a print behind the desk, there. I saw one last week that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. A woman with three faces, each one representing some different part of her personality.”

“I’ve seen that piece,” he said. “So you’ll put it here to remind people that there’s more to you than what they see?”

She shook her head slowly. ‘To remind myself. I’ve been living a one-dimensional life for a long time. I didn’t even know there was more to me, until— Anyway, I don’t want to forget again.“

He muttered something that sounded like, “I don’t plan to let you.”

She turned quickly, frowning at him. “What?”

“I said, uh, what would you like me to get you? As an office-warming present.”

She shrugged. “You don’t have to get me anything at all.”

“Well, of course I do,” he said, as if it bore no argument. “What else do you have in mind?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lots of plants, I suppose. Maybe an aquarium. And by the windows I want a giant rock.”

“A rock?”

“Mm-hmm. A pretty one. I saw one in a shop once, amethyst spikes all over one side of it. All pointy and sparkly purple. It would catch the sun in these windows and shine like a diamond.”

“And why would you want a rock in your office? Does that have some significance too?”

She nodded. ‘To remind me that what I want in life is security and stability. Permanence. The occasional walk on the wild side is one thing, but I wouldn’t want to lose sight of what I really want.“

“Walk on the wild side?” he asked. He looked surprised... but the expression seemed contrived somehow. As if he were teasing her. “I never would have guessed.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I should borrow some of your extreme prints,” she said with a smile. “There are a lot of things I’ve never done that I intend to try. Rock climbing, hang gliding...” She could have sworn he shuddered.

“Those things are dangerous, Martha Jane. Besides, I thought you said you wanted stability and permanence.”

“But I don’t have them yet,” she said, smiling a little bit, thinking again about the night they’d shared. “So why shouldn’t I go for the thrills in the meantime?” Then she frowned. “Besides, who’s to say a person can’t have both?”

Richard stood there looking at her as if she’d just confessed to selling government secrets to China. Finally, he shook his head. ‘Tell you what. If you really want to try any extreme sports, you just say so. I’ll take you myself. At least that way I can make sure you don’t break your pretty neck.“

She looked at him and tilted her head to one side. One hand flew to her neck automatically, fingers trailing over her pulse point

“What’s wrong?” he asked, an almost smile tugging at his lips, his eyes, once again, holding that gleam that could give her chills. “Haven’t I ever told you that you have a pretty neck before, Martha Jane?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“You do, you know.”

Was he... flirting with her? With plain Martha Jane Biswell? No. This was all in her head. He’d awakened some primal, sex-craving part of her last night, and that was where all these false impressions were coming from. She was being ridiculous. She had known what last night was before it even began. An adventure, like one of his extreme sports. Dangerous, and thrilling, and very, very brief. A one-night stand. Over and done. It meant nothing to him. She meant nothing to him, not as Valentine and certainly not as Martha Jane Biswell. He wouldn’t give his former secretary a second glance.

And it would really, really be a huge mistake to see him again tonight. A huge mistake.

Oh, but dammit, how she wanted to. Stability and permanence were fine. But she didn’t have them yet. She’d only been teasing him but now she wondered—what would be so wrong about taking just one more thrill ride?

Chapter Seven

He didn’t think she was going to show up. He almost hoped she wouldn’t. Because she’d scared him today with all her talk of stability and permanence. He knew what she meant. One man, one woman, and one whopper of a commitment. He knew himself too well to think he could be happy with that kind of an arrangement. So it was probably just as well that she wasn’t coming tonight. Better not get too used to her.

Then again—when he’d offered to escort her on those ... thrill rides, as she called them ... he’d meant it. The things that had become boring to him had taken on a new allure when he thought of doing them with her. And maybe that was what she’d meant about stability and excitement. About being able to have both.

No. No, he knew what he wanted and what he didn’t want, and it would be best for both of them if he made that clear to her before she got any crazy ideas in her head.

He paced away from the park bench. The fountain was behind him, making so much noise with its incessant splashing that he wouldn’t be able to hear her coming if she wore bells on her ankles. Not that she was going to show up, anyway.

“Hello, Richard.”

He spun around so fast he almost tipped over.

She kept her voice low, all rough and soft at once, like velvet on tender skin. He knew she did that just so he wouldn’t recognize her. But it turned him on nevertheless. Now that he knew her intimately, Martha Jane Biswell always turned him on. Even in her tweed business suits. Even in the full-length houndstooth-check coat and woolen hat she was bundled in now. Even with her shoulders hunched against the cold and her hands stuffed into her pockets.

He narrowed his eyes on her. It was dark, but... oh, God, she was wearing a mask again. A different one this time. Kind of a horn-rimmed number, in black something—velvet, maybe. Another of Kayla’s kinky creations, he thought, aching. So she still wasn’t ready to let him know who she was. Well, fine. Maybe it was better if he kept up the pretense, just a little longer.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he whispered.

“I didn’t want to come,” she told him. “But I couldn’t seem to help myself.”

He nodded. “We should talk.” He put a hand on her shoulder, walked her back toward the bench, nodded at her to sit down, and she did. He could see her breath, and his own. It was damn cold out here tonight.

She just sat there, waiting.

“I like you,” he finally blurted.

She took one hand out of her pocket. A black glove covered it. Her fingertip touched his lapel, trailed slowly down it. “I like you, too.”

“Last night was ... it was incredible. I never...”

“Me neither,” she whispered.

He closed his hand over hers. Then he stared hard into her eyes. “You aren’t... all that experienced at this sort of thing.”

“So? I thought men liked a bit of innocence in a woman.”

“I just want to make sure you know where we stand. I feel bad that we didn’t talk about any of this the first time.”

She shrugged. “I don’t. In fact, I was hoping the second time could be ... similar.”

He looked at her, stared at her, and couldn’t believe this was the same woman who’d been discussing office decor with him earlier today. But she was the same. “No,” he said. “Look, we’re not going to go any further with this until we talk it through. Now I know you probably want different things in life than I do, and so it’s only fair that you know up front—”

“I do want different things in life,” she said. “But I don’t want them from you, Richard. You don’t need to worry about that.” She smiled at him slowly.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you’re not exactly the kind of boy a girl would bring home to her mother.”

“I’m not?”

“Oh, no. But don’t take it too hard, Richard. You have your . . . talents.”

He stood there, staring, not getting it. What the hell was she doing? Using his own words against him like that?

“I— Look, maybe tonight wasn’t such a good idea,” he said suddenly. Why not, his mind wanted to know. This was the way he liked it. Wasn’t it? One-nighters. No commitment. No expectations.

“Really?” she asked in that sexy whisper. “Well, I can go home, then. If... you’re sure that’s what you want.” She got to her feet, and as she did, she let her coat fall open.

He almost fell off the bench onto the ground. She was wearing another of those sinful creations—a tiny scrap of black. He didn’t see detail. Just those legs, encased in dark stockings. Those breasts, swelling over the top of the thing.

She smiled softly at him, pulled the coat around her, and tied the sash. “Good-bye, Richard,” she said, and she turned and started to walk away.

He lunged after her, caught her shoulders in his hands, and spun her around. “Don’t go.” His own voice was hoarse, choked.

“Why not?”

He stared down at her, but no words came. He just couldn’t think of a damned thing to say—or to do—except ...

He tugged her against him and covered her mouth with his. And she parted for him, opened to him, arched against him. Hot. The inside of her mouth, her breath, her cheeks. All of her. He scooped her right up off her feet just the way he had before and carried her to the car with his mouth still clamped to hers. And then somehow he managed to open a door and tumble into the vehicle with her. Backseat. Door still open. He didn’t give a damn. He landed on top of her, her back across the seat, her legs sticking out the open door, spread, and cradling him in between.

He pushed hard against her, arching his hips. She pushed back, and then she said, “No.”

She said it softly, firmly. It hit his brain like ice water. “What?”

“I said no. Not here. Not like this.”

He frowned, not quite understanding the woman. What was she trying to do, drive him insane? She pressed against his chest until he sat up, getting slowly off her. “Drive, Richard. Take me to your house.”

“Jesus, it’s too damn far.”

She shrugged. “Then pick someplace closer.”

He smiled down at her, liking this bossy new mood. Okay, so maybe she thought he needed a lesson. Whatever.

He was going to have her, tonight, soon, wrapped around him hot and tight, and that was really the only thing he could think about right now. He got up and clambered over the front seat, got the car started. He adjusted the mirror so he could see her. Watch her. She sat up and closed the door as he pulled away. She stared back at him in that mirror, never looking away.

He had to look away, of course. He had to watch the traffic or kill them both. But he watched her too. She’d let the coat fall open again... just for his viewing pleasure, he was sure.

God, she was hot.

He pulled into the parking garage of the Gable Brothers Building, got out of the car, and yanked open her door. He took her wrist and tugged her out.

“Your office?” she said, sounding scandalized.

He almost quipped, “Or yours,” but stopped himself just in time. She still didn’t know he knew her. And he had a feeling that was the only reason she felt free enough to play these sexy little games with him. “Yes, baby. My office.” He held her hand and ran for the nearest elevator, took it straight up to the ninth floor, and ran almost all the way to his office. He could barely hold his hand still enough to get the key in the lock.

Then he flung the door open, jerked her through it, slammed it closed, and reached for her.

She took a step backward, smiling slowly. “Sit down,” she told him.

He was shaking all over, burning and sweating and shivering. He went to the. nearest chair, and he sat.

Sweet, innocent little Martha Jane opened the coat and let it fall to the floor. Hell, it was the cat suit. That’s what she had on tonight. She reached behind her, snapped off the whiplike tail, and came toward him, sliding it around his neck. She straddled his lap and used the tail to pull his head to her for a kiss. She opened her mouth. She used her tongue.

He damn near exploded.

When she sat back again, she reached down to undo the snaps that held the little suit together between her legs. Then she unfastened his jeans, and freed him, and then she sat down again. And this time, when she did, she took him inside her. Fully, deeply.

Holding him close, she moved over him. She took her time, moving slow, and he was content to hold on and enjoy the ride. She was the best he’d ever had. The best he ever would have.

He kissed her mouth when he exploded inside her.

She screamed his name, tightened around him, convulsed and shuddered, and gripped and finally, slowly, she relaxed. Then she lifted her head lazily, looked him in the eye, and said, “I’m sorry, Richard, but I can’t see you anymore.”

“What?” He searched her face, panic bubbling up in his chest.

“It’s like you said—we want different things out of life. And if I spend all this time with a ... well, a casual fling, then I’ll never find what I do want.”

“How ... how do you know I’m not what you want?” he asked, amazed he’d even said the words.

She smiled. “I know I’m not what you want. That’s enough.”

“But what if you are?”

She pressed her lips together, swallowed hard. “You don’t even know me.”

“No? Well let me take a stab at it, hmm?”

She shrugged as if she could care less.

“I know you were fairly inexperienced until the other night with me. I know you’ve never done anything like this before in your life. And I know you wouldn’t have the guts to let go like this now, if you couldn’t hide behind that mask.” He studied her. “Am I close?”

She lowered her eyes. “Without the mask, you wouldn’t even know me. And if you did, you wouldn’t give me a second glance.”

She got to her feet, reached for her coat, pulled it on. “This was the last time. I’m the furthest thing from what you want or need. So—”

“So you’re saying good-bye.”

“I’m afraid so.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, and told himself not to do anything rash. He needed to think. He needed to approach this thing just right. He didn’t want to let her go—but she wouldn’t be gone. Not really. “I’ll find you, you know,” he said.

She shook her head.

“I will. Don’t be surprised if you find out that... that I’m not the man you think I am.”

“Of course you are.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he told her. “Maybe I’m not even the man I think I am.”

Chapter Eight

“This is—I don’t—I’m stunned.”

Martha Jane stood in the reception area, staring through the open door into her office. She and Kayla had come in early Monday morning, eager to get things up and running. Martha Jane had been secretly glad, thinking there would be less chance of running into Richard this way.

He’d said he wanted to see her again. But it wasn’t her he wanted. It was his sex kitten. His fantasy lover. And part of what he liked about her was that she expected nothing from him.

Well, she had let him know that nothing wasn’t quite enough. And she imagined he probably thought he’d had a narrow escape once he’d had time to give it any thought at all.

It had been a mistake to see him again Saturday night, just as she had known it would be. She might have convinced herself that one more night of passion with Richard would be anything less than shattering to her, but she knew better. Had known better all along. It only made her ache more for him than she already had. And as for that mean streak that had driven her to strike back just a little bit— to show him two could play the “let’s-not-get-serious” game—well, that had blown up in her face, hadn’t it? Because she still wanted him. She’d barely slept all weekend, and she’d done some crying too, which was totally unlike her.

Even more unlike her, she’d been thinking maybe she could stand to keep seeing him, knowing he would never commit to more than a sexual relationship. Maybe it would be worth it.

She’d been kidding herself, though. It would kill her, and she knew it. She was in love with the man.

At any rate, there had been a surprise waiting for her in her office this morning. She stood in the open doorway, blinking at the huge hunk of amethyst sitting near the bank of windows on the far side of the room. The early-morning sun slanted in on the concave stone, and its crystals glittered as if they were artificially lit from within. Or filled with captive fireflies.

“I can’t believe this.”

Martha Jane walked closer to the stone. It was waist-high shaped like half an egg split lengthwise and standing on end. The inside of it was a crystal cave of sparkling amethyst. The outside was rough and gray.

“That thing is big enough to crawl inside,” Kayla observed from the doorway. “But where did it come from?”

She didn’t need to, but Martha Jane bent to pick up the folded sheet of notepaper that lay within the amethyst cluster. “It’s beautiful, and it’s exciting—and it’s solid. No wonder you liked it so much. It’s just like you.” The note was signed with an elaborate “R.”

“Well?” Kayla asked.

Licking her lips, Martha Jane said, “It’s from Richard.” Then, seeing the gleam in her best friend’s eyes, she rushed on. “But it doesn’t mean anything.”

“If it doesn’t mean anything, then there will be one just like it in my office. But I’m guessing there isn’t.” Kayla bounded across the room, snatched the note from Martha Jane’s hand, and read it. “Well, well, well! Isn’t that interesting?”

“He’s just repeating something I said to him yesterday.”

“Sure, and I’m a natural blonde. Honey, are you sure he doesn’t know it was you behind that mask?”

Martha Jane’s head came up. “Of course I’m sure. God, I couldn’t look him in the eye if I wasn’t!”

“Sure you could! You’ve obviously got the man tied up in knots, hon. You don’t have a thing to feel self-conscious about.”

Martha Jane shrugged. “Anyway, it’s over. I told him Saturday night—”

“Told who what, Saturday night?” Richard called from behind a huge box in the doorway. Only the bottoms of his legs and the top of his head were visible.

“What in the world? Here, let me help you with that.” Martha Jane rushed forward, grabbed the other end of the box, and together she and Richard lowered it to the floor. Then, straightening, she looked at him, the big box between them. “What are you doing here, Richard?”

“Errands.” He smiled at her, looking less like himself than he ever had. He had circles under his eyes and whiskers shadowing his cheeks. His shirt was wrinkled and looked as if he’d been wearing it all night. “A ton of errands, actually. This was just the most recent one.” He patted the box. “I was hoping to get it all set up before you arrived, but... well, it’s been a busy weekend.”

“It looks it.” She wanted to go to him, smooth his tousled hair, and run her palm over his stubbly cheeks. “Are you all right, Richard?”

His grin was lopsided. “Better than I’ve ever been. You know, I haven’t slept in...” He glanced at his watch. “Shoot, I don’t even remember anymore.”

“Why not?” She was growing more concerned by the minute. What was wrong with him?

“Did you like the rock?” he asked, smiling.

She looked at Kayla, who shrugged and shook her head.

“I love it, Richard. It’s incredible and stunning and so generous, but I... Richard?”

He was bent over now, opening the flaps of the cardboard box and pulling stuff out of it. Long, slender tubing, and a plastic scuba diver, a miniature oyster shell, some plastic seaweed.

“What is all that?” Kayla squeaked.

“It’s an aquarium,” Richard said. “A big one, with all the trimmings. Top of the line. And I’ve got a whole boxful of filters and pumps and various other paraphernalia. It’s still in the trunk of my car, but—”

“Richard, you’re not making any sense here. What is this all about?”

He looked up, met Martha Jane’s eyes, and his narrowed as they slid down her, making her feel as if he could see right through her sensible suit. “Kayla,” he said, without looking away. “Would you excuse us for a second?”

“Whooo-boy,” Kayla said, “I’m outta here. In fact, um, I’m going out to breakfast. I’ll be back in ... an hour?”

“Make it two,” Richard said, and his eyes were dark, intense.

Martha Jane shivered when Kayla left and closed the door. He looked dangerous this way. Tired, running on no sleep. Unshaven. His shirt wrinkled. “Richard, what is this all about?”

He shrugged. “You’re so good, you know that?”

“What do you mean?” She took a step backward.

He took a step forward. “I mean, you’ve had me jumping through hoops, you’ve driven me insane, and you stand here pretending to be ... innocent. But the jig is up, Valentine. No more games. No more masks.”

Blinking rapidly, she whispered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?”

She shook her head.

“Prove it, then.”

Her throat went dry. “H-how?”

“Take off the suit, Miss Biswell.”

“What?”

Smiling, he came closer. She backed away until she hit the desk, and still he came on, until his chest was an inch from hers. “Take it off, Martha Jane. I’m curious to know what you’re wearing underneath.”

He lifted a hand to her jacket, undid the button, and slid it down her shoulders. She would have resisted had she been capable of it. Instead she froze, because he bent so clcse that his warm breath fanned her mouth and made her go limp.

Her hands braced on the desk behind her, her blazer pooled around her wrists, she could only stand there as Richard unbuttoned her blouse, one button at a time. “A prim, proper woman like the one you pretend to be would have something boring under here,” he murmured. “But you’re not all that prim and proper, are you, Miss Biswell?”

The blouse unbuttoned, he smiled and pushed it open, staring at the lacy black camisole. “See that?”

“Richard, I—”

“Shhh. I know, you see? I know you didn’t mean what you said. You still want me. Don’t you?”

Holding his gaze, helpless, she nodded.

“So, let’s see what you have on for me today, hmm? What about underneath the skirt? What delicious little fantasy do you have for me down there, Valentine? Hmm?”

She couldn’t speak. Without her mask, her boldness was gone.

It didn’t matter. He closed his hands on her waist, lifted her until she perched on the edge of the desk, and then dropped to his knees. Before she knew what he was doing, he was lifting her skirt, poking his head right up inside it. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “No panties at all. You read my mind.” His hands shoved her thighs apart, and then he kissed her. She shivered, and threw her head back. He just shoved the skirt up higher and licked at her until she was biting her lip to keep from screaming out loud.

When he finally got to his feet again, it was only to ease her back onto the desk and climb on top of her. He pressed himself inside her, slid his hands underneath to grasp her buttocks and hold her to him as he rode her hard. She clung to him, too swept up in passion to worry about not having her mask anymore. And when her nails dug into his shoulders, and they both climaxed at once, she whispered, “I love you, Richard,” in a voice gone hoarse with ecstasy.

He held her for a long time. Then slowly, he got off her and gently righted her clothes. “I haven’t slept all weekend. I—you made me crazy, Martha Jane.”

Maybe, she thought, he hadn’t heard that final stupid declaration. If he had, he would be running for the hills by now. “How long have you known?”

He smiled at her, a lopsided, boyish grin. God, he was too damned good-looking to be going around unshaven and sleepy-eyed. It was killing her! “Did I ever tell you?” he asked. “That I always wanted an aquarium?” He finished buttoning her blouse, but left it untucked. The jacket, he tossed aside. Then he took her hand, drew her to her feet, and knelt down to smooth her skirt, sliding both his palms down over her hips, her thighs, until it was just so.

Breathless, she said, “No, I guess you never did.”

“I even bought all the stuff, but I never took the time to set it up or actually start collecting fish.” He shrugged, got to his feet, looked into her eyes again. “I think maybe I liked the idea of having one, but I was a little bit shy of all the work involved. Major commitment, keeping fish, you know.“ He shook his head slowly. ”You know how funny that is? It’s like some kind of microcosmic mirror of what’s wrong with me.“

“What?”

“Never mind. Suffice it to say, I figured since you wanted an aquarium too, we could make it a ... joint project.”

“You did, did you?”

“Yeah. Oh, don’t worry. I promise to do my share of the work. I mean, that’s sort of the point.”

“It is?”

He nodded. Then, studying her face, he sighed. “Look, I haven’t lost my mind or had a breakdown, I swear. I’m running on adrenaline and caffeine here. And I’m a little bit worked up.” He slipped his arms around her waist, bent closer to press his lips to the line of her jaw. She wanted to touch him. Hold him. Tell him that whatever had him so worked up, it was going to be okay.

Instead she just nodded slowly. “I don’t think you’re insane or having a breakdown,” she told him.

He nodded at the boxful of fish stuff. “Once we get it set up, maybe we can go shopping for some fish. You know ... together.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You want to take me fish shopping?”

He nodded, his eyes serious. “Among other things.”

She was starting to feel a hint of panic in her chest. He mustn’t go saying things to make her believe he might want her for more than just sex. He mustn’t. She couldn’t stand the disappointment if he did.

“What. . . other things?”

Richard seemed genuinely ... nervous. Rubbing his chin, he walked away from her as if thinking very deeply about his answer. She looked around the office, at the rock, the fish stuff. “Why are you doing all this, Richard?”

He whirled, and came back to her, gripped her shoulders gently. “Because I’m a changed man. Saturday night I learned how it felt to be treated like a piece of meat. How it felt to be told that I was only good for a one-night stand, to be left longing for more from a relationship than I was allowed to want. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it a bit, Martha Jane.”

“I’m ... sorry. I didn’t realize it would upset you this much. I was only trying to show you—”

“How I’d been making you feel. Right, Martha Jane?”

She turned away from him and walked toward the windows. As she did, she saw something she hadn’t noticed before. On the far left wall was a charcoal drawing, framed and hanging in the perfect spot. Only—it was different from the one she’d admired. Same idea, but a whole different style. A different artist. Then it hit her, and her eyes widened.

“Do you like it?” Richard asked, coming up behind her. His hands slid upward, over her shoulders, closing on them, warm and strong.

She stared at the drawing. It was a woman with three faces. And she looked like—she looked like—like her. Like Martha Jane. The face shown in right profile wore a mask and her hair was big and fluffy. The one shown in left profile had her hair in a tight bun and wore large glasses. But the one facing front was the most striking, because she was so simply drawn. Hair loose, yes, but hanging gently, not “done.” She stood there, looking out from the wall, her eyes soft but large, and deep, and filled with love. She held out one hand, as if reaching for someone.

“It’s been a long time since I made an attempt at anything artistic,” he said. “But I couldn’t resist.”

“You ...you did this?”

“Do you hate it?”

“My God, Richard, you made me ... beautiful.”

“You are beautiful,” he said. “You’re beautiful—even when you cover your face with a mask.”

She closed her eyes.

“I knew it was you that first night,” he said softly, his lips near her ear.

“You didn’t!”

“Oh, yes, I did. And now, I think it’s time for you to face me without any masks to hide behind. You said you loved me, Martha Jane. Did you mean it?”

“I—” She turned away, knowing that it had been the worst possible thing to say to a man like Richard. The surest way to make him bolt.

He gently turned her around to face him. “You didn’t think I was going to let you turn my world upside down and then just walk away, did you?”

“Richard—Richard, I didn’t mean—”

He smiled at her. “I hope you did. Because I am in love with you, Martha Jane. Valentine.” He slid his arms around her waist and held her close, so her body was pressed to his. “My brother told me once that every day is Valentine’s Day when you find the right woman. I didn’t believe him then. But I do now.”

“You do?”

“It’s been running through my mind all weekend. I couldn’t stop it, not by trying to forget you, not by drawing you. I didn’t think I wanted ... this. But it’s the only thing I want. I just don’t know why it took me so long to realize that I’ve been head over heels for my prim little Miss Biswell for months but was too damned dense to admit it. That’s why I’ve been so depressed and moody and bored since you left, Martha Jane. I was missing you.”

“You were?” She blinked up at him, then shook her head, terrified that this was all a mistake. An infatuation. He would change his mind in a week or a month and leave her devastated. “Richard, you’re tired and confused and—”

“You going to make me beg? Fine, I’ll beg.” He dropped to his knees. She closed her eyes, and he took her hand, sat back a little, looked up at her. “I can be what you want,” he said softly. “Solid, stable ... I swear to God I can.”

“I don’t know if I can be what you want,” she whispered.

“Martha Jane, you already are. You have been all along. You’re what I was looking for in all those other women and not finding.”

“I am?”

He nodded, then smiled slightly. “It’s not entirely my fault, you know. You were hiding yourself from me awfully well.”

She lowered her eyelids. “I didn’t think I stood a chance beside the bombshells waiting in line for you.”

“There won’t be any more bombshells, sweetie. You nuked me for all the rest. I only want you.”

Finally, she met his eyes, held them. “Do you mean that, Richard? Because I couldn’t take being just one of your flings.”

“Then don’t be,” he said. “Be ... be my wife instead.”

She smiled very slowly. “Richard ... ?”

But he was already pulling the ring from his pocket, slipping it on her finger, pressing his lips there to seal his promise. “I mean it,” he told her. “I want you to marry me. I want to love you every night, whether you’re wearing a negligee or flannel pajamas. I mean it. I honestly mean it, Martha Jane.”

Blinking back her tears, Martha Jane sank to her knees and into Richard’s waiting arms. “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve loved you all along.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, Richard,” she said. “Yes.”

He sighed as if he’d been holding his breath, clasped her tight to him, and rose to his feet, picking her right up off hers. “I love you, Martha Jane!” he shouted. “You really are the best Valentine I ever got.”

Midnight Pleasures (2003)

-- Under Her Spell --

Dedicated with love to all the members of RavenMyst Circle, Inc.

REDE OF THE WICCAE

by Lady Gwynne Thompson as given by her grandmother, Adrianna Porter

(Being Known as The Counsel of the Wise Ones)

1. Bide the Wiccan laws ye must in perfect love and perfect trust.

2. Live and let live--fairly take and fairly give.

3. Cast the Circle thrice about to keep all evil spirits out.

4. To bind the spell every time, let the spell be spake in rhyme.

5. Soft of eye and light of touch--speak little, listen much.

6. Deosil go by the waxing Moon--sing and dance the Wiccan rune.

7. Widdershins go when the Moon doth wane, and the Werewolf howls by the dread Wolfsbane.

8. When the Lady's moon is new, kiss the hand to her times two.

9. When the Moon rides at her peak, then your heart's desire seek.

10. Heed the Northwind's mighty gale--lock the door and drop the sail.

11. When the wind comes from the South, love will kiss thee on the mouth.

12. When the wind blows from the East, expect the new and set the feast.

13. When the West wind blows o'er thee, departed spirits restless be.

14. Nine woods in the Cauldron go--burn them quick and burn them slow.

15. Elder be ye Lady's tree--burn it not or cursed ye'll be.

16. When the Wheel begins to turn--let the Beltane fires burn.

17. When the Wheel has turned a Yule, light the Log and let Pan rule.

18. Heed ye flower, bush and tree--by the Lady blessed be.

19. Where the rippling waters go, cast a stone an truth ye'll know.

20. When ye have need, hearken not to other's greed.

21. With the fool no season spend or be counted as his friend.

22. Merry meet an merry part--bright the cheeks and warm the heart.

23. Mind the Threefold Law ye should--three times bad and three times good.

24. When misfortune is enow, wear the blue star on thy brow.

25. True in love ever be unless thy lover's false to thee.

26. Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill--an it harm none, do what ye will.

CHAPTER 1

The gorgeous brunette clenched her hands into fists at her sides, her torn blouse gaping just enough to reveal the swell of her artificially enhanced cleavage as her chest heaved in anger.

"You'll never get the best of me, you black-hearted Warlock!"

The Warlock, whose shirt had been conveniently ripped off during the struggle with the Enchantress, stood facing her, his clenched, just slightly unshaven jaw and black eyes flashing defiance. "Oh, but I already have," he said in a sexy growl.

"What are you waiting for? Vanquish him!" shouted the blonde, an innocent bystander whose bosom was also enhanced, exposed and heaving.

The Witch marched forward, clutching an ancient-looking book, which she had opened to a faded parchment page. Tossing her hair and lifting her chin, she read aloud in a rather tedious monotone, " 'By your own power of dark and fear, Warlock, you are out of here!'"

The Warlock flung his arms over his face and staggered backward, through the breakaway front door. His exit would be much more impressive once they added in the special effects, Melissa supposed. There would probably be flashes of fire, whirlwinds of smoke, and a thundering roar. She'd been watching this show for a while now. There were always flashes of fire, whirlwinds of smoke, and thundering roars.

The director yelled, "Cut!" and the others in the room broke into spontaneous applause.

Melissa pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "That was awful. It was horrible. My Goddess, where are you people getting this stuff?"

"From the writers," a deep voice said.

She turned and looked at the guy who, she thought vaguely, should have been playing the sexy "warlock." His eyes were as black as coal and she felt them when they touched her. They made her shiver, those eyes. She tried to look elsewhere, to notice his careless hair, a little too long, completely unstyled, or his clothes--the way the black polo shirt strained against the push of his chest or the way the jeans hugged his thighs. But no, she couldn't focus on anything but those eyes.

"Are you new on the set?" he asked.

"Um, not yet." She swallowed hard, wet her lips, told herself to work harder on forming coherent sentences, and finally thrust out a hand. "I'm Melissa St. Cloud. I have an appointment with Alexander Quinn."

He lifted his brows. "Tell me it's about the tech consultant position."

"It's about the tech consultant position."

He smiled, a slow, knowing smile. His eyes seemed unable to let go of hers.

She tipped her head to one side, wondering who the hell he was. A stand-in for the dark warlock? The actors were already heading their separate ways; the two starlets didn't speak so much as a civil word as they split. But then, never breaking eye contact, the gorgeous man yelled, "Everyone, get back here. I want you to hear this!"

Muttering, they gathered around. He nodded at Melissa. "Now, tell us what was wrong with that scene."

The brunette shot her daggers. "Who is this person?"

"Just be quiet and listen, Rita," he said in that deep, authoritative voice that rubbed all Melissa's nerve endings until they quivered. God, she'd never been so turned on by a man in her life. There was something about him. He looked at her, touched her with his eyes. She shivered with awareness. "Go on. What was wrong with the scene?"

She swallowed the dryness in her throat. "Well... that's just not how it works. Reading a line from a book, no matter how old and dusty it might be, is not how one casts a spell. And a warlock is not a male Witch."

The actresses exchanged looks of disbelief; then they turned on the man, waiting. "Alex, just what the hell is going on here?" the blonde asked.

Alex? So he was Alexander Quinn, the creator-slash-executive producer? Why hadn't he said so?

"This is Melissa St. Cloud," he told them. "She's our new technical consultant."

"On what?" the brunette asked.

"On Witchcraft."

All eyes turned toward Melissa. She felt herself shrinking a little. The actresses were both a good six inches taller than she was and built of little more than skin, bone, and breast implants.

"You're an expert on Witchcraft!" the brunette asked. "Isn't that kind of like being an expert on, oh, I don't know, the Tooth Fairy?"

The others laughed. Alex just watched Melissa, as if waiting to see how she would handle herself.

Melissa closed her eyes, got in touch with her inner bitch, and stood a little straighter. "I've been involved in the Pagan community and the study of Witchcraft for fifteen years," she told them. "I'm a High Priestess, a licensed minister, and I hold a Ph.D. in religious studies. I teach Alternative Religions classes at UCLA one semester a year, and I've consulted on seven books on the subject. Any more questions?"

The actresses rolled their eyes, sighed, studied their nails. They did not, however, speak up again.

"Ladies," Alex said, "the network has been inundated with mail complaining that we are getting it wrong. It seems there are a lot of people out there these days who take this kind of stuff rather seriously. In today's market, the viewers are more savvy than ever before. If we want to suspend their disbelief, we have to be as accurate as possible."

"Do you hear what you're saying?" asked the blonde. "How can you be accurate about something that doesn't exist?'

Melissa sent her a swift glance. "Oh, it exists."

"Oh, please. Fine, it exists. And you're a real-live modern-day Witch. So why don't you prove it? Levitate one of us or make something disappear." She crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up even higher. "Well? Go on, we're all waiting."

Melissa turned to Alex. "That," she said, "is precisely the kind of misinformation that's messing up your show." Then she glanced back at the girl. "But somehow, I don't think explaining all of this to a bunch of actors is going to get us anywhere. After all, they only recite the lines the writers give them and follow the director's orders." She returned her attention to Alex, dismissing the actresses without another word. "We should probably schedule a sit-down meeting with the writing team."

He smiled very slowly, his eyes warming. "You want it, you've got it." He nodded to the others, a signal that they could leave; then he took her arm.

When his hand closed around her elbow, she shivered with an inexplicable tingle of pure sensation. My God, she had it bad. And the guy was her new boss.

Not a good situation.

He led her to a small room on the set, created by freestanding partitions with a door in them--no ceiling. Inside was a desk strewn with piles and piles of paper, a coffeemaker, and a chair. He nodded to the chair. "Sit."

She sat.

He perched on the edge of the desk, close to her. Really close. "Those credentials you were reciting in there--they all legit?"

She blinked her eyes. "You didn't already know? It was all in my résumé--I sent it in with the job application."

"Oh. Right."

"You did read it, didn't you?"

He looked away. "I got a pile of résumés. Looked them over, but after a while they all blend together. I had my secretary set up a bunch of interviews, of which you are the first."

"But... you hired me."

"Yeah." Again he couldn't seem to break eye contact, though he did at length. He reached for a piece of paper and a pen. "Jot down your name, address, Social. I'll get you on the payroll this afternoon."

She jotted while he watched her every move. When she finished, he took the sheet, looked at it, then at her.

"Anything else?" she asked.

He licked his lips. "Yeah." He got up from the desk, stood next to her, and bent low to pull open several drawers. His forearm brushed her thigh and she closed her eyes and wondered if an attraction this potent could possibly be for real or if she'd accidentally eaten a dose of Spanish Fly with her morning granola. This close, she could smell him--the soap he used, no cologne. He wasn't a cologne kind of man. And she could feel him--his body heat.

He finally straightened with a six-inch-thick stack of pages, which he handed to her. "This is the story arc for the season, along with the breakdowns for each episode. You're going to need to get familiar with it. Fast."

She took the heavy stack, rose slowly to her feet.

"I'll be in touch later, to let you know when we've scheduled your meeting with the writing team. You have any questions?"

She had a thousand, but right now she just wanted to get out of there. She couldn't think straight this close to the man. So she just shook her head from side to side.

"Good. Go on home, then. Read. I'll see you later."

She turned and left the studio. And it wasn't until she was in her VW Bug and heading home that she realized she had actually landed the job of her dreams. Smiling widely, she thanked the Goddess and kept on driving.

*  *  *  *  *

Alex figured his mind settled back into working order when she got about fifty yards away from him. He sank into his chair. It was still warm from her body. "What the hell was that?"

He didn't get an answer. He didn't believe in magic. And it was a good thing, or he'd have thought the woman had cast some kind of a spell on him. And yet, he had no doubt he'd chosen the right person for the job. The show--his creation--was in trouble. The ratings were dropping, the actresses were feuding, the sponsors were fading, and the right-wing zealot groups were boycotting the sponsors. He was no Hollywood insider, but he was sure as hell swimming with the sharks now.

The charm he wore around his neck burned against his skin. A deep whisper echoed in his mind.

Perfect. It'll all be perfect. You have the Midas touch, you know.

He frowned, looking around the office. But he saw no one there. It must have been a snippet of dialogue from one of the nearby soundstages. Sounded excellent. Creepy, with an otherworldly hollowness to it. They must be working on a horror flick or something.

He leaned back in his chair and turned on the radio to drown out the noise, and then he tried again to figure out what it was about the woman that had hit him so powerfully.

CHAPTER 2

Melissa drove to the beach house, an hour away. She had rented it for the summer, with the option to buy if things worked out for her here. And it looked as if they were about to work out Big-Time.

A little voice whispered misgivings--it wasn't like her to experience such intense feelings for a man she'd just met. It was more than unlike her; it was unprecedented. And she had the niggling feeling there was something more going on with Alex than was apparent--something hidden beneath the surface. Something... unnatural.

Her body's reactions to him puzzled her--simultaneous chills and heat, fire and ice, assaulted her at once. She was curious, wary, and attracted.

And she knew better than to feel any of those things. The man was her employer! She had to get her head straight. She had to get to the beach.

She loved the sea, the shore. The East Coast had always beckoned her, touched something deep inside her, and been her home.

The Pacific had a different energy to it. A darker, older feel. As well it should. The sun set here. It rose in the east. The two seas were opposites and yet they were reflections of the same cosmic whole, the great pouring sea of death and rebirth.

She left her VW Bug in the driveway and hurried into the house she was quickly coming to love, peeling off her clothes on the way through. Then she stepped into the shower to rinse away the day's stress and the distinct weight of negative energy she felt clinging to her. She scrubbed it away, along with her makeup, her hair spray, and the frustration of coming face-to-face with the stereotypes that drove her nuts; let all of that baggage swirl down the drain.

When she stepped out again she felt measurably lighter. She pulled on a loose-fitting cotton kaftan of soothing turquoise, and nothing else. Then she padded barefoot through the small house and out the sliding doors in back. There was a natural stone shelf there, almost like a homegrown patio, and at its edge, steps led down to a tiny section of private beach. The beach house was modest. It was the beach that made the place valuable--far more than she could have afforded for much longer, had it not been for this new job.

The strip of beach was secluded, with the house at its back, groups of towering boulders flanking it, and the sea creating its fourth border. That sandy enclave had become her haven, her refuge, and her temple.

Here she could work magic. And she had no need for special effects.

*  *  *  *  *

Alex looked at the address he'd copied down, then up at the beach house. The numbers matched. He had the right place.

He was fascinated by the woman, the Witch. Mesmerized, maybe. He couldn't get her off his mind after she left, and though he'd fought the demanding urge for a while--a token fight, really--he'd ended up giving in and driving out here. He didn't feel as if he had much choice in the matter. And it wasn't just due to the insane events of the past few weeks of his life, either. There was something about her that lured him, pulled him, like gravity.

She lived on the beach. It seemed fitting. He thought of legends of sirens luring sailors to their doom and wondered if this was the same sort of pull those sailors felt.

He climbed the shallow landscaped steps to the front door and knocked. Then he waited, but there was no answer. A car was in the driveway, but no one seemed to be in the house.

And then the wind picked up and he heard it: a woman's voice, lifted in an enchanting, mesmerizing, haunting song and coming from the beach around back. He followed the sound, picking up the words as he went around the beach house.

"Come, Mother Ocean; come, Lady Night; come, Warrior Woman; come, bring your might."

He found the steps in the back and stared down at the woman on the beach below. And that thing, that powerful attraction he'd felt before, washed over him again like an ocean wave washing over the shore. For a moment, he couldn't breathe. He could only stand there, looking on, wondering what it was about her that sent his head spinning and tied his stomach in knots.

She stood in the sand, arms raised high above her head, a flowing blue dress dancing around her legs in the ocean breeze. There was a small fire crackling in front of her, its light melding with the orange glow of the sun, as it set over the ocean, to paint her body and hair in brushstrokes of bronze and yellow and red.

"Come, Moonlight Maiden; come, Graveyard Crone; come, Dark Enchantress, Goddess of the Foam."

Her voice seemed to grow hypnotic, more mystical with every verse she sang. As the sun sank over the sea and darkness gathered like a blanket, surrounding the firelight and the woman in its center, he noticed for the first time other tiny lights--candles, planted in the sand. Four of them, one just ahead of her, toward the sea, one to either side of her, and one behind her. And there was something on the sand in between them, leading from one dancing candle to the next in a gentle arc so that a circle was formed. As he was drawn ever closer, he squinted. Seashells. The circle was made of seashells.

"Come to thy priestess; come, fierce and strong; come, live within me; come, we are one!"

The words wound themselves around his mind. The final three kept echoing in an ever-fading whisper, and he found himself unsure whether it was real or some trick of the night. His knees bent, without his permission, and he sank into the sand, watching her in silence. The sun breathed its last and vanished beneath the waves at the same moment he sank down.

Slowly, she lowered her arms. Her hair danced in the wind that was suddenly more powerful than before. She stood for a long time, facing the sea, meditating or pondering in silence. Sometimes, he thought he saw her lips moving, as if she were speaking to someone. Time ticked by, but he didn't make a sound. He couldn't bring himself to interrupt, wasn't even certain he would be able to if he tried. What she was doing seemed... sacred. And he got the feeling he was witnessing one of the mysteries he had come here hoping to solve. So he watched as she moved around the circle, wafting incense smoke, tossing something--a guttering stone, he thought--into the sea. Finally, she straightened and rifted her arms again.

"Thank you, my lady. Merry meet and merry part. With me always, in my heart. Hail and farewell."

He could see something leave her body, perhaps just tension or tautness. Or maybe something more. The glow of the firelight seemed to dim just a little, but that could have been his imagination. She walked forward then, to one of the four candles, held her arms out wide, and slowly drew them together, as if closing a pair of curtains. She said something too softly for him to hear as she snuffed the flame, stood still for a moment, then repeated the action at the next candle, and then the next, and the last. Then she walked around the circle of seashells with her palm flat toward the sand, and finally she moved out into the foamy water that washed gently up onto the shore, knelt there, and pressed her palms into the wet sand. A wave rolled in, washing up to her elbows, soaking the dress where she knelt. Yet she remained until it seemed she had finished whatever it was she was doing. Rising, she brushed the sand away from her hands and her dress, turned, and looked him straight in the eye.

"Thank you for not interrupting."

He blinked, surprised. "You knew I was here the whole time," he said, and it wasn't really a question. He had a feeling this woman was as aware of him as he was of her.

She smiled. The firelight on her face did something to her eyes. She'd been beautiful to him when he'd seen her at the studio today. Beautiful, though it made no sense. It wasn't on the surface, certainly not when she'd stood flanked by two of the most glamorous beauties in the business, wearing a rather conservative skirt and blazer, her hair in a bun, her face lightly made up. His sense of her beauty had been based on something inside her, something not seen.

Now, it was more. Now, like this, she was stunning. Inside and out.

"You can come out by the fire, if you like. I've already taken up the circle." As she spoke, she walked back toward the fire. "Grab those two folding chairs and bring them along, will you?"

He glanced to his left, saw two beach chairs sitting there. He picked them up and carried them with him across the sand to where she waited, setting them near the fire.

She sat down, and he did the same. He couldn't seem to stop looking at her, trying to nail what it was that drew him. There was something wildly attractive about her. Forbidden and natural. Her eyebrows were fuller than most women wore them these days, and her hair--God, her hair was everywhere. Untamed, long and wavy, its color a lustrous honey-tinted brown that glowed bronze in the firelight. Her feet were bare, coated in damp sand. Her breasts were heavy and unbound underneath the loose, flowing dress she wore. He liked that best of all. The weight of them. He wanted to touch, to feel.

"I'm surprised to see you here," she said. Was she nervous? She should be. He didn't know what the hell this was, but it made him nervous, too.

"I told you I'd see you later. I always say what I mean." He reached up, impulsively, to brush a bit of sand from her cheek. But the moment his fingers touched her skin, she stiffened and pulled back, her brows drawing together in a frown.

"I'm sorry." He drew his hand away, held it in midair.

She only blinked, looking him over. "It's not you--it's... Stand up a second, Alex."

He was puzzled, but he rose. She did, too, going closer to the fire and bending to pick up a large shell with some dried leaves inside. She took a flaming stick from the fire and touched it to the leaves. They blazed a little. She blew gently until the flames died, and smoke billowed. Then she moved toward him, knelt in front of him, and blew the smoke at his legs and feet.

Alex closed his eyes in a mingling chaos of anguish and desire. God, she was killing him.

She moved behind him, still blowing. Then higher, her breaths pushing smoke toward his thighs and buttocks. She came around to the front of him again, blowing gently at his groin.

"Jesus," he muttered, and his hands twitched, wanting to bury themselves in her hair. He fought the urge and hoped she didn't notice how hard he was getting, but hell, he was only human, and there was an earthy wild woman kneeling in front of him blowing on his crotch.

She stood, still moving around him, still blowing gently, wafting smoke over his belly and chest, his back and sides, his arms and shoulders, his neck, face, and head.

When she finished, she blew a little smoke at his chair and the area where he'd been sitting. "Better?" she asked.

He looked down at himself, frowning. When he managed to look past the fact that he was more turned on than he'd been in a decade, he realized he felt... different. As if he'd just stepped out of the shower. And the dull ache that had been knotting his lower back all day was gone. "Yeah," he said. "I do feel better."

"You should. You were practically reeking with negative energy."

"Yeah?" He sniffed his shirtsleeve. "And now I'm reeking of... ?"

"Sage." She smiled at him, sitting down in her chair, nodding for him to do the same. "Who have you been hanging around with lately, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Well, I'd hate to think all that darkness in your aura was coming from you. It couldn't, or I wouldn't be so--" She bit her lip, stopped herself. "You must be picking it up somewhere else."

"You wouldn't be so... ?" He searched her eyes and wondered which one of them was going to be the first to admit that they were each sitting here thinking about ripping the other's clothes off.

She averted her gaze. "Nothing. I just... nothing."

He licked his lips. No, he wouldn't bring it up. Not just yet, he decided. "Could it be the actresses?"

"They're nasty, self-centered, and vain, but I don't think they're malicious. This feels... dark."

He shrugged, averting his eyes, ignoring the warning bells going off in his mind. He'd been feeling the same way himself for weeks now. As if there was some dark shadow clinging to him like a parasite. He was tired, moody, didn't feel well. He kept thinking it might be the house. But damn, he didn't want it to be the house.

Time to change the subject. "So what were you doing when I arrived? Magic?"

"Not really."

It was not the specific answer he would have liked. "Listen, you have the job. This isn't a test. But I want to know more."

"About what I was doing when you arrived?"

He held her eyes. "For starters." She just looked at him, waiting, as if she knew he wasn't being honest.

"All right," he admitted. "What I really want is the truth. What really goes on?"

Her brows rose. He decided he liked them. You couldn't tell what a woman was thinking when her eyebrows had been reduced to a pair of plucked, waxed, colored, and extremely thin arches. Hers were expressive. Now they were expressing--what? Surprise?

"What really goes on?" she repeated.

"Not the kinds of things you would normally reveal to an outsider. I want the truth. I want to know what it's really like. Ritual magic. Covens. Spells. Curses. All of it."

She lowered her eyes. "I'm not sure you have the stomach for it, Alex."

His stomach knotted up when her lips formed his name and her voice spoke it. He tried to shake off the feeling. What he was asking her was important. More important than she could know. "I have the stomach for anything you can dish out."

She tipped her head to one side, meeting his eyes once again. Hers glittered with something close to anger. "Are you sure? We're talking about some pretty heavy stuff here. Bloodletting. Ritual orgies. Animal sacrifice. The Scourge."

He held her eyes, his own unflinching. "I can handle it."

She pursed her lips and turned her head away. "We don't do any of that stuff, Alex. My God, where do you get those ideas? This is a spiritual belief system, not a cult." Lowering her head, she shook it slowly. "You created the show--are you telling me you didn't do any research at all?"

"Of course I did. I just--lately I've learned some things that contradict what I thought I knew."

"From whom?"

He shook his head. He wasn't going there, not with her.

"Tell you what," she said. "I'll loan you a book or two, so you can read up on the subject. And then we'll talk some more. All right?"

She's lying.

He frowned, ignoring that whisper in his mind. "You're going to give me one of those light, fluffy, 'harm none' books, aren't you?"

"Harm none is one of the core values of the Craft, Alex."

"So you all keep telling me."

"We all?" she asked. Then she frowned. "You sound as if you've been doing some digging on your own."

He nodded, getting to his feet, frustrated and angry. Even more angry that he didn't want to leave this spot, this woman. He wanted to stay. For her, not the information he sought. "I really hoped you'd be different. Willing to tell me the truth," he said. "I'm disappointed that you're only giving me the same party line as the rest of the so-called Witches in town."

"So-called?" She got up as well. "Maybe if you told me just what it is you're looking for?"

He sighed, shaking his head. "Look, Melissa, not every character in this show is a do-gooder. I mean, we need opposing forces. Villains. The polar opposite of good Witches who play around with white light and moonbeams."

She stood very still, pinning him to the spot with her eyes. "Alex, don't mess with the dark stuff. You don't want that kind of energy clinging to you, trust me on this." Then she frowned. "You've already been messing with it, haven't you? That's where all that negative energy came from."

He held her gaze. Eyes like black velvet, deep and dark and potent. "Don't be so dramatic. It's not as if any of this is for real."

She closed her eyes as if praying for patience. "It's for real." Her words emerged as a whisper, one that sent shivers of reaction creeping up his spine, into his nape, tingling along his scalp. But not so much as when she opened her eyes again and they locked onto his, held them.

Something moved between them. Some energy he couldn't have put a name to even if he'd tried. It tagged him, bodily, so much so that he swayed forward. He gripped her upper arms, and she tipped her face up. And then he lowered his head to kiss her.

She turned her face away, so his mouth only grazed her cheek.

"I don't... I can't..." She drew a breath. "Go, please," she whispered.

God, the woman pulled him in like gravity. What the hell was that? Since when did he hire a woman he knew nothing about and proceed to make a move on her?

He turned and hurried back up the stone steps, around the little beach house, and to his car. He would get his answers, just apparently not from her.

He drove back to the gloomy mansion that belonged to him, pulled into the driveway, and sat there for a long moment, just staring up at the huge granite stones of the place, thinking about the events of the past several weeks, as if thinking about them, analyzing them, would cause them to make sense. They didn't. They hadn't then, and they wouldn't now.

And now there was one more inexplicable event unfolding in his life. An attraction to a woman he'd just met that felt like the most powerful force in the entire universe. God, maybe he needed therapy.

CHAPTER 3

Mists rose from the river far below, engulfing the suspension bridge and the couple who stood upon it. Melissa stared through the rising mists at the man, who bore a striking resemblance to Alexander Quinn, except that he wore black ritual robes and an inverted pentacle of solid gold with diamonds winking at each of its five points. The woman stood near the railing, her back to the man, her flowing white dress dancing in the mist-laden breeze like a living thing. Her wild golden hair was damp with the kiss of the moist air. Melissa couldn't see her face, but she knew the woman was weeping.

The man spoke, though his lips never moved. Go on. Do it. Do it, now! He pulled something from his pocket, a small white-robed doll with hair like the woman's. Do it! He shoved the doll toward the railing.

The woman climbed over it.

"No," Melissa whispered. "No, wait."

But neither of them could hear her. It was as if she weren't really there.

The man moved closer to the rail, held the doll out over the water. As he did, a pair of hands, strong astral hands, attached to nothing and no one, appeared behind the woman, hovering above her shoulders.

The woman turned, as if suddenly aware of the presence, and Melissa gasped as she saw her face. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

Do it! the man commanded, and then he flung the doll over the rail.

The hands closed on the woman and pushed her.

She fell silently, her white dress wafting behind her. Like an angel cast from heaven, she spiraled downward. The water opened where she plunged into it, then closed around her, swallowing her down.

Melissa screamed.

The sound of her own voice shocked her awake, and she found herself sitting bolt upright in her own bed. Her skin was damp with sweat, her heart pounding, as she looked around the room. But it was real. She was there, in the beach house, and the rest had just been a dream.

"No," she said softly. "Not a dream. Something else--a prophecy, or a memory, or something--it was too vivid to be just a dream."

She glanced at her nightstand. The clock read 2:00 a.m. A soft, steady beep emanated from somewhere in the living room, startling her for just a second, before she recognized the familiar sound of her answering machine. Somehow, she'd been too deep in the vision to have heard the telephone ringing. Sighing, she got out of the bed, padded into the living room, hit the playback button, and then shivered at the sound of Alexander Quinn's deep voice.

"We're meeting with the writers in the morning, Melissa. Ten A.M., my office." The machine beeped once more to signal the end of the message and then went silent.

Pushing a hand through her hair, she wondered if she should just quit now and have it over with. She wandered through the living room, toward the table in the back where she'd dropped the script he'd given her the day before. As she did, she looked up, through the glass doors.

And she saw something on the beach--a shape, with long golden hair and a flowing white gown.

Her heart tripped and she lunged forward, hands pressing to the glass, eyes straining. What the hell... ?

There was nothing there. Maybe it had just been a reflection, a trick of the moonlight on the water, or a stray light on her glass doors. But she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she'd just seen the woman from her dream, standing in the sacred space of Melissa's own circle.

She checked her locks, just in case. Then she picked up the manuscript and took it with her, back to her bed, where she felt safe.

She wanted to do this job right--and for more reasons than just the money. She'd made a promise to her Goddess that if she could land this job, she would do it justice, set the record straight on prime-time network television. For her Craft, for her fellow Witches, for all those who'd died due to ignorance in the past.

She couldn't quit. Maybe all of this was some kind of a test.

It was not easy, forcing Alex and that troubling dream from her mind. Something was going on with him--with the two of them, maybe. She felt it in her gut, and she never ignored her intuition. It was usually dead-on. She was as afraid of him as she was drawn to him. She knew he felt that attraction, too. The air between them practically sparked with it when he was close to her.

What was the dream then? A warning? Was Alex to become her lover or her killer? Or both? Or was the dream just a manifestation of her own fears of failure and of this sudden, potent desire?

She couldn't dismiss him or the questions from her mind, only push them to the back long enough for her to do her work. She spent the rest of the night with her copy of the season's story arc, a stack of episode-by-episode breakdowns, and a red pen, which ran out of ink, so she had to finish in blue.

She wasn't exactly fresh when she finished at 7:45 A.M. She spent a half hour doing yoga, fifteen minutes in the shower, and just had time for her morning ritual before she had to begin the transformation into working-girl Melissa. The change involved taming her wild hair into a nice neat bun, corralling her breasts within the confines of a bra, putting on panties and nylons and a nice, civilized-looking outfit that included an ivory-colored silklike sleeveless blouse, a matching skirt, and a pair of pumps with two-inch heels. She flat-out refused to wear heels higher than that.

Then she drove her beloved lime-green Bug into the city, into the traffic, whispering prayers of protection to keep from being hit by the frantic driving tactics common to LA.

She made it to the meeting at one minute before ten. The others were already there, seated in comfortable overstuffed chairs and minisofas in a room that looked more like a living room than an office. The head writer, Merl Kinney, was there, gray hair, white at the temples, three-hundred-dollar suit, way too thin for a man his age and way too tan as well. Only one of his underlings had shown up, a young, pale woman with blond curls. The two were sleeping together. Melissa wasn't sure if it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to her, but as far as she was concerned they might as well have been wearing a sign. The director, Karl Stone, was there. But one presence dominated the room. Alex.

He was as potent to her senses as a shot of adrenaline. Dark hair, killer smile, and those piercing black eyes that seemed always to be focused on her. He

wore tight-fitting jeans, a tank-style undershirt, and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, unbuttoned. All black. As her gaze slid over him, it froze on his chest.

He wore a pendant that rested there. An inverted pentacle with diamondlike stones winking at its five points.

Melissa's blood went cold. It was the same as the one from her dream.

She dragged her gaze from it, up to his eyes, and then got stuck there, captured. If he saw the fear in her eyes, he didn't show it. He smiled as if he knew something she didn't, then rose from his chair until she sat in one of her own.

Karl Stone said, "What do you want, Mel, coffee? Tea? A soft drink?"

She tried not to grimace at his calling her Mel. "Nothing, thanks, I'm fine." She opened her briefcase, pulled out the story arc and breakdowns, and stacked them on the coffee table in front of her.

Merl Kinney leaned forward, brows drawing together at the red markings on the

top page. Without asking, he drew the stacks toward him, flipping through the top several pages. "My goodness," he said. "Had I known I was in need of a ghostwriter, I'd have hired one myself."

The room went dead silent. She could hear the soft ticking of someone's wristwatch, it was so quiet.

Drawing a breath, Melissa called up her courage. "These are only suggestions. I wouldn't dream of changing your words, Mr. Kinney. I only tried to highlight the places where I found... technical inaccuracies. The notes in the margins are suggested corrections."

He lifted his gaze from the script pages, locking it with hers. "I've won an Oscar and three Emmys, Miss St. Cloud."

"I've worked magic, Mr. Kinney."

Their gazes held.

Alex broke the silence. "Merl, Melissa was hired to tell us where we were getting it wrong, as far as the Witchcraft stuff goes. All she's done here is exactly what I hired her to do." He drew the manuscript toward him, began flipping through. "Keep in mind, we are free to take her suggestions or leave them--"

"If you leave them, I'm going to have to quit," she said, addressing Alex now.

He blinked at her as if she'd suddenly levitated or sprouted a wart on the end of her nose. "I don't follow..."

"I'd prefer not to have the entire Pagan community think of me as a traitor, much less an uninformed poser, Alex. I don't want to deal with the mail I'd get, much less the E-mail." Turning her gaze to the head writer's again, she went on. "And I don't mean to tell you what to write, or how to write. Only what's accurate. And Alex is right: you can take it or leave it."

Kinney frowned and leaned back in his chair. But the tense, offended body language remained. "Why don't you nutshell some of these... inaccuracies for me?"

She nodded, licking her lips, wishing she could snatch the script back from Alex as a reference, but he was engrossed. And she found it easier to concentrate when his eyes were not on her, so she decided to let it be. God, she so wanted to keep this job. But she might very well be fired or forced to walk on her first full day.

"Just as a for-instance," she began, choosing her words carefully, "the spells. When a Witch casts a spell, there's a lot more to it than just reading a couple of lines from a book. The words aren't magic. The Witch is."

"So... how would you go about casting a spell?" Alex asked, lifting his gaze from the manuscript, pinning her with it. It burned. There was something in his eyes both attractive and intense. It shook her right to the core. And those damned stones in his necklace winked in the light, adding to her discomfort.

"First I'd determine the goal, then do a divination to determine whether I should even proceed. If I got the okay, then I'd calculate the best possible timing for the spell. Best day of the week, moon phase, other astrological correspondences, best time of day, and so on. I'd determine what herbs or scents, crystals or colors should be used, picking ones whose energies and vibrational frequencies mesh with the goal. I'd compose the words of the spell, and they would be very important, everything from the rhyme scheme to the number of syllables per stanza would have meaning. I'd decide how I wanted to raise energy. Then I'd do yet another reading to ensure every precaution had been taken."

Kinney raised his eyebrows. "It sounds like we're going to need longer episodes. This might end up being a Costner-length feature every single week."

"Even if you just refer to the preparation involved, it would help," Melissa said. "A throwaway line or two would be enough. Just acknowledge there's more to it than simply opening the book and reading the lines."

He nodded. "Doable, I suppose. But boring. This is entertainment, Mel. Not a documentary."

"I understand that. And naturally there will be times when your characters have an emergency situation and have to act instantly."

"What about the actual spell-casting part?" Alex asked. "I mean, all the rest is prep work, correct?"

He was on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, eyes glued to hers, except when they veered south every little while, to slide over her body, down her legs like a caress. She could feel his eyes when they touched her that way.

"Yes. When the time is right, I would create sacred space and cast a ritual circle. I'd invoke the forces and entities I had chosen to meld their powers with mine. Part of the spell casting would involve raising energy by dancing or chanting, drumming or rattling, clapping or whispering, or any number of other methods. When the energy reaches its peak, the Witch releases it from the circle, sending it off to do its job. Then she gives thanks and releases any forces or entities she has invoked. Finally, she takes up the circle."

"So instead of a thirty-second scene it's a half-hour scene," Kinny said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Sounds like a riveting scene to me," Karl Stone said. It was the first comment from the director. "Can you imagine the special effects we could put in there? Tell me, Melissa, is this magic circle visible to the naked eye?"

"Not usually. But most experienced Witches know it's there. It wouldn't be outrageous to show it, as if the Enchantress were seeing it with her inner vision."

"And the... forces and, uh, entities she invokes?"

"Those, too. But they would always be positive in nature, so I wouldn't make them too scary-looking."

"Because our Witches only practice white magic, right?" he asked, clearly intrigued.

Alex rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair.

"That's not exactly true," Melissa said. "True white magic is magic designed to put the Witch more in touch with the divine, more in tune with spirit. Magic designed to help yourself or others is more accurately referred to as gray magic. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not pure, either. That's why you do the divination first, to be sure it's wise to proceed. Magic designed to cause harm to yourself or anyone else is black, and to be honest, there are times when it's called for."

"I thought the rule was 'Harm none,'" Alex said. He was watching her. She swore her blood was heating while her skin sprouted goose bumps.

"Some would say allowing evil to flourish unchecked is doing harm," she told him. "So some don't feel restricted from using magic to stop evil, or protect the innocent, or see to it that a criminal is caught. Some Witches wouldn't use it even then. Others insist on doing no more than turning the evildoer's own energy back to its source, so he ends up destroying himself. That would be the most likely course of action for your characters when they were attacked by surprise, with no time to prepare--just flinging up a reflective barrier that bounces the energy back to its source. Personally, I've never subscribed to the belief that we are given the power of the gods to wield and then expected to be victims or passive witnesses to wrongdoing."

The director was rubbing his hands together, the wheels behind his eyes turning. "This is good stuff. We can use this. We're talking about true moral conflicts here. Real soul-searching." He scribbled a note, then glanced her way. "What else have you got?"

"Oh, please," Kinney said, clearly exasperated. "Are we producing a prime-time drama here, or is this going to be a Wicca One-oh-one class?"

"Kinney, you're the head writer, not the creator," Alex said. His tone, normally firm, had gone softer, and somehow that was more intimidating. "Karl and I came up with the idea; this is our baby. Our vision. If you want to stay on as head writer, I suggest you pay attention." Then, turning to Melissa, he smiled. "Please, go on."

She went on. The meeting stretched into two hours as she did her best to give the team a crash course on magic and Witchcraft. By the time she finished, she was energized, bubbling over with enthusiasm. They were actually listening to her!

Kinney alone remained hostile, though he kept it to himself throughout the rest of the meeting. Alex seemed interested, attentive, intense--but he still exuded a sense of frustration she couldn't quite understand.

When the meeting ended, a secretary came in with a list of messages for Alex even before everyone had filed out. Melissa had hoped for a private word with him, but he was clearly too busy just now. So she headed to her Bug with a new spring in her step. She was going to keep her job and her promise. They were taking her suggestions seriously.

Maybe the dream wouldn't come back again now that she'd gained a little confidence that she could actually do this job. Maybe it was only nerves after all. If she could just keep her feelings for Alex under control, she might actually get through this.

She was unlocking the car door, trying not to dance for joy, when Alex's voice came from behind her.

"You really do know your stuff, Melissa. You blew everyone away in there."

His voice sent shivers of awareness up her spine. He moved closer, standing right behind her, invading her aura. His warmth on her back made her close her eyes briefly. Then she straightened and turned to face him, resting her back against the car door. "Thank you." Her gaze lowered to the pentacle on his neck. "I wanted to ask you... about the pent'."

"You like it?"

"Yeah, but why are you wearing it inverted?"

He lifted a hand to finger the five-pointed star, enclosed within a circle, with its topmost point aimed downward. "It came that way. Besides, as I told you, I need to get inside the heads of the villains this season. Isn't this the way a dark magician would wear it?"

She shrugged. "Actually, in the Craft it's the symbol of the Second Degree--the descent into the shadow-self. But it's rarely used that way in the States anymore, because of its negative connotations. I think the Satanists have adopted it as their symbol, but I didn't see any Satanists cast as villains in the breakdowns."

"Wouldn't a dark magician be the same thing as a Satanist?"

"Not at all. A dark magician would be anyone who practiced magic designed to cause harm to others, or to manipulate the free will of other people for his own interests or gain. Some Satanists might be dark magicians, but I'd bet most of them aren't."

He nodded. "I think I like the symbol, even if it's not wholly accurate. In fact, I was thinking of using it as a prop on the show. It will certainly give the viewers the right cue at the right time. They see this, and they think, 'Evil.' "

"And that's a lie you intend to perpetrate even further?" She shrugged, disappointed in him, then stared at the pent', battling a shiver. "It's really a magnificent piece," she whispered. "Where did you find it?"

"It was my father's."

She lifted her head, a frown knitting itself between her brows.

"So where would one go to find an authentic dark magician?" he asked. "I have some books, but--"

Her hand shot out to clasp his upper arm. "Who are you, Alex? What are you playing with here?"

His eyes seemed to darken, to intensify, and her hand tingled where she touched him. "That's what I'm trying to find out," he told her. He shook her arm off and turned to walk away.

She went after him, grabbing his arm and turning him around again. "Don't dabble in the dark side, Alex. It will pull you in like quicksand. It will destroy you."

"You think so?" He shook his head. "Look over there, you see that car?"

She did. The sleek Mercedes SL 500 convertible was silver and gleaming in the sunlight.

"And there's my house. A mansion. And money. So much money I can have anything I want."

"And you got all you have through black magic?"

He seemed to go still, confusion etching his face for just a moment. "I didn't used to think so. Now... I'm not so sure."

She had no idea what he was talking about. Impulsively she touched his shoulder. "You can have anything you want anyway. You don't need black magic to get it. The universe is surging with abundance; all we need to do is claim it."

He smiled slowly. "Is that why you're driving a VW Bug?"

She tilted her head, studying him. "I love my car. Besides, it's good on gas, and better for the environment. I try to live in harmony with nature, Alex, and nature provides everything I need."

"But not everything you want."

"You don't understand. You have to get past the mentality of a child in a toy store. When you grow spiritually, Alex, your wants and desires start to meld with the will of spirit. And when that happens, things just fall into place. I adore that little car. I smile every time I look at it. I love my little beach house. And I'm starting to love this job--or I was."

"Well, I love my mansion, and I love my Mercedes, and I love the idea that I can have anything I want." He looked at her, her eyes, her lips. "Anyone I want."

She lifted her brows. "You think so, do you?"

"I think so." He moved closer still, closing the tiny gap between them, and his arms slid around her waist. He bent over her and covered her mouth with his. God, he knew how to kiss. His lips and tongue were talented, and he tasted good, and she was female enough to enjoy every second of it. She didn't fight him, didn't struggle. She didn't want to. Instead, she returned the kiss, but gentler, slowing the movement of her mouth beneath his, soothing him with her hands as they moved on his back and shoulders, visualizing cool blue water melding with the red-hot fire she sensed burning through him.

He responded, as she had known he would. His arms around her relaxed a little, so he held her close, but not crushingly. His mouth explored, now, rather than invading. His kiss warmed, gentled, and she felt a shudder rise up as if from somewhere deep within him, and an answering one rose within her.

When he lifted his head away, he blinked twice, and his eyes searched hers. He took a step backward, away from her, licked his lips, and then lowered his gaze. "That was... I was being an ass."

"Yeah, I noticed," she said.

"It's been a rough month. I'm going through some things." He turned away slowly, raking his hair with one hand.

"We all go through things, Alex. But just for the record, that kiss just now didn't happen because of any magic, black or otherwise. Or because of your money or your car. It happened because I wanted it to happen. So don't beat yourself up too much over it, okay?"

She turned back to her car while he was still standing there, in a state of--she didn't know what. Confusion, remorse? She got behind the wheel, started up the Bug. He spun around as if he hadn't realized she'd even moved, even took a few steps toward her as she drove away. Then he stood there watching her go, still looking slightly dazed.

Melissa held her hand out over the passenger seat, opened her fist, and let the gold pentacle drop onto the upholstery. Her palm still pulsed with the energy the piece held. Powerful energy, but dark. She could not wait to get home and wash her hands. She would just do a little cleansing work on Alex's jewelry tonight. He could have it back tomorrow.

It was completely against her principles to do this sort of thing--messing around with his pent' without his permission. Much less stealing from her brand-new boss. But something deep inside was telling her to do it, that she had to do it. That he needed her help. And she never ignored her intuitions.

CHAPTER 4

She left, and he watched her go, cussing himself for acting like an idiot and wondering what homy little demon had possessed him, just now. But no, he couldn't blame his actions on anyone but himself. He was getting cocky. Starting to buy into the bullshit his father's diaries were trying so hard to sell. No matter how ridiculous Alex told himself it was, he was falling into it. He felt himself falling into it.

Maybe he just wanted it to be true. Maybe he'd just wanted an identity so badly for so long that he was embracing his newfound heritage with a little more zeal than common sense. And maybe he ought to have listened to his first instinct and stayed the hell away from the secluded old mansion where his father had lived and died.

The thought of parting with the place, though, sent a pang through his chest. It and its musty contents were all he had of his father. All he would ever have.

Besides the genes. The blood. The power.

Part of him rolled his eyes at the latter notion. Another part of him considered hurling a lightning bolt at something, just to see.

Until recently the practical part, the skeptic, had been stronger. Lately the two seemed evenly matched, and he felt constantly torn by the struggle.

He sighed and went to his car. Everyone had gone their separate ways, but they were due to meet at the studios the next day to refilm today's scene. Karl and Merl were supposed to brainstorm changes to the script, though the actual implementation would be done by Merl's writing team, who would fax the new scripts to the actors tonight. Later Karl would head to the studio to talk special effects. Alex would have to approve all of it before they shot tomorrow, but none of it would be ready for hours yet. He had the afternoon free.

So did Melissa.

He could go out there, he thought with a stirring of hunger. But another thought, one that didn't feel like one of his own, overpowered the impulse. Don't chase her. Let her come to you. She will, you know. If all the things you father wrote in those diaries are true, she will--simply because you want her to. Wait and see.

He rolled his eyes at the ridiculous notion even as he wondered what a good shrink would make of the voices in his head that never sounded quite like his own inner monologue. Then he got in the Mercedes and drove to the house he couldn't quite think of as home.

*  *  *  *  *

Melissa used the afternoon to bury Alex's pentacle in the sand, in a spot too high for the tide to reach it, though well outside her sacred space. She called on the energies of Earth and Sea to cleanse it of its negative vibes, sprinkled rosemary, angelica, rue, and sage into the hole with it, and sank a tall stick into the sand beside it to mark the spot.

Then she washed her hands repeatedly, first in the sea, then with soap and water in her bathroom sink, and finally with Moon Water that had been blessed and charged with lunar energy.

After that, she got on the phone with Alex's secretary and got his address from the woman. He was famous enough that Melissa expected his secretary would be extremely careful about letting the information out. It surprised her when the secretary gave her the address without even a token protest. Strange.

So it was done. She'd buried the pilfered pent' to cleanse it, and she'd gotten the address without effort. Now all she had to do was work up the nerve to go over there and tell him what she'd done... and maybe why she'd felt compelled to do it.

But what was she supposed to say? Was she going to lecture him about what he'd been reading, who he'd been talking to? Grill him about who the hell this father of his was that he'd gone around with a half-pound of diamond-studded gold hanging from his neck? It was none of her business. She barely knew Alex, and she was certainly in no position to preach to him. He was wealthy, powerful, successful, and respected. How dare she presume to know what was good for him?

Even if she did.

She wasn't certain whether she should go over there or not, and she wasn't going to be able to come to a reasonable decision in this state. She needed to get centered.

A long hot soak in a scented bath helped. She added sandalwood and myrrh oils to the water. Very grounding. She dressed in her comfort clothes--a gray fleece warm-up suit and thickly cushioned white socks. She tied her hair in a loose ponytail and then phoned her favorite take-out place and ordered a bowl of seafood chowder. Thick and creamy. Rich and piping hot.

After she'd eaten, she went to the quietest room in the house. It had been intended as a second bedroom, but since she only needed one, it had become her temple room. Beaded curtains hung in the doorway. Goddess statues stood on pedestals, and there were shelves lined with books upon books. A small table, her working altar, stood in the center of the room.

She lit her candles, fired up her censer, then went to the west, sat on the floor on a soft cushion, and let her body relax. She focused on her breaths, rushing in and out, like waves on the sea, and she felt her mind slow and quiet. Absence of thought, stillness of the mind, that was true meditation, and it was that peace she sought.

When one didn't consciously search for an answer, that was when the answer was free to come on its own. At least that theory had proven true for her, time and time again. So she emptied her mind and sat in silence, floating in a peaceful void, without expectations or demands.

The darkness beyond her eyes began to fill with shapes and colors. The silence came alive, very slowly, with whispers and sounds.

Gradually, the shapes and colors took on more solid form.

Alex was there. No. The man from her dream, the one who looked like Alex, only dressed in dark robes and wearing that pent'. He had blood on his hands. He stood, facing toward her but not looking at her.

Melissa, where are you? I need you.

She frowned, certain that voice was not Alex's. And yet the face, the eyes, of the apparition were so like his--

She shivered and realized the entire room had gone icy cold. She opened her eyes to end the vision and saw her own breath cloud in front of her face.

Melissa's alpha state faded so fast she felt as if she had literally fallen from the sky, landing solidly in her body with a jarring thud. She was still sitting on the floor, in her temple room. She rubbed her arms against the chill.

"He's in trouble," a woman's voice whispered. "Help him, my sister."

Melissa jerked her head around, searching for the owner of that soft voice. But there was nothing, no one. Rising slowly, she inspected everything in the room for some clue. The spiral of incense smoke wasn't doing anything unusual. The candles' flames were steady and strong.

Except for the one in the west. It was flickering rapidly. And now that she was looking that way, she noticed the incense smoke was sort of flowing inward from that direction as well.

"I should have cast a goddamn circle," she muttered, because it was clear something had come in. She hadn't imagined the woman's voice or the man in the vision. She'd been a Witch too long to doubt her own senses, even the ones most people didn't believe in. She walked to the cabinet, took out a bundle of sage, changed her mind, and reached instead for the tightly sealed jar of asafetida, devil's dung. Removing a piece, keeping her face averted, she touched it to the candle's flame. The herb blazed up, and she blew it out, then walked counterclockwise around the room, smudging it with the rancid-smelling smoke.

"Spirits, depart!" She didn't whisper or chant or intone. This was a time for a clear, firm tone, one of command. "Depart through the gate you entered. This is my home and you have not been invited here. Depart, and go your way. Go, I say!"

The only sign that anything had happened was that the incense smoke swirled in a funny little eddy for a moment and then flowed steadily in the opposite direction, outward, toward the west. Melissa went to the western quarter and used the smoldering weed to draw a banishing pentagram in the air with its foul smoke. Then she doused the devil's dung, and using her hands she mimicked closing the veil, pulling it tight. She sealed the gateway with an equal-armed cross.

"So mote it be," she muttered. Then was still for a moment, waiting, sensing. But the chill was gone, as was that sense of someone else in the room.

Sighing, she extinguished her candles and her censer. Then she opened the window, to let the disgusting smell out. She left the ritual room through the tinkling beaded curtain and wondered what sort of visitation she'd just had.

She'd seen Alex. Or a man who looked like Alex--a man with blood on his hands. But what did it mean? Whether actual or symbolic, it would mean the same thing. Alex--or whoever the apparition was--was somehow responsible for causing harm, perhaps even death. She remembered the dream she'd had the night before--the woman she'd seen pushed from a bridge. Had that other voice been hers? Or was she some version of Melissa herself?

She shouldn't meddle in Alex's life any more than she already had--especially without his consent or knowledge.

There were forces moving in his life that were beyond her depth. Things she knew she would be better off not touching.

Yet her instincts were telling her to go to him.

And she never ignored her instincts.

She took her car keys from the hook and picked up the slip of paper with Alex's address on it before she headed out the front door.

CHAPTER 5

Melissa pulled her VW Bug to a stop on the dark, narrow unpaved road and just sat there, staring at the house.

It was a monster. That was the word that whispered through her mind. It squatted there in the darkness, a red-rock monster, glaring at her from rectangular window-eyes. The grounds around the place hadn't been tended in a very long time. Gnarly trees and twisting vines, weeds and brush, grew in a tangled mess that was as good as a moat. All except for the narrow path that led to the massive wooden front door.

A light rain fell. She could easily imagine it was always raining on this place. She could almost see the black cloud over it, and she decided to leave her car on the road, rather than pulling it into the barely discernible tire tracks that passed for a driveway. She backed up a bit, then pulled forward, parking the car on the opposite shoulder. It was far enough off the road so no one would hit it as they passed, though she doubted she would encounter another vehicle on this stretch of cow path even if she stood here for a week.

Getting out of the car, she left it unlocked. For some reason, she didn't want to do anything that would delay her getting back in. She pocketed her keys and crossed the gravel road, stepping through the iron gate that stood hanging open, slightly crooked, shiny with wetness. As soon as she set foot on the path, a full body shudder racked her to a stop. Closing her eyes, clenching her fists, she sought calm.

She felt the Earth power rising up through her feet, softly glowing green. She felt the Sky power rinsing over her in the rain, a pulsing vibrant gold. The energies met in her center, swirling and growing until they filled her to bursting. She felt the power tingling in her fingers, burning in her toes. And then it grew still bigger, until it suffused her aura, surrounding her in a sphere of white light.

Better, she thought. Lifting her chin, she continued walking the path, less fearful now, more confident. She walked up the two stone steps, stood on the top one, and rapped the brass knocker that was clasped in the teeth of a gargoyle.

The rain came down a little harder. She didn't mind it in the least. Maybe it was rinsing away some of the negativity that clung to this place like a smog cloud over a large city. When there was no response to her summons, she knocked again. She glanced toward the side of the house, spotted the shiny reflection of Alex's Mercedes gleaming there in the rain. He was home.

She rapped again.

Eventually, footsteps approached and locks turned and the large door groaned open.

Alex stood on the other side, black jeans sinfully tight, black T-shirt showing every powerful muscle in his torso. He looked irritated, then surprised when he saw who stood on his stoop.

"Melissa?"

"Hello, Alex. We need to talk. Do you mind if I come in?"

He licked his lips as if nervous but stepped aside to let her in. Melissa stepped into the foyer and felt as if she'd stepped into a pool of pure blackness. It enveloped her, and she hugged her arms and shivered. She looked around the place, disliking it more and more. It was dim, unnaturally cool, cavernous, and hollow. And there were others there, though she couldn't see them. She could feel them, their eyes watching her.

"This way," Alex said. "We'll be more comfortable in the sitting room."

She followed him, but her infallible instincts were telling her not to. They were telling her to turn around and run. She ignored them, and she knew better. Her stomach felt queasy.

She and Alex crossed through a huge living room with a domed ceiling and a few pieces of furniture that looked antique. Almost Gothic. But they didn't stop there. Alex led her into a smaller room off the right side, where more contemporary furniture, overstuffed brown velour, and a glass-topped coffee table formed a horseshoe pattern around a marble fireplace. There was a fire in the hearth, and she welcomed the warmth, taking the chair nearest it.

Alex sat on the sofa. "What did you want to talk about?" he asked her.

She had been studying the flames, and she jumped when he spoke. "Is anyone else here?"

He shook his head. "No, we're alone. Why?"

She heard whispers, unintelligible but unmistakable. He didn't act as if he heard a thing. "I... I just had the feeling someone else was here."

"There's a housekeeper who keeps a room here but rarely uses it. Elizabeth was my father's nurse before he died, and she stayed on, keeping the place up until it could be sold. I couldn't see putting her out, so I kept her on. But she's off tonight."

Melissa nodded slowly. "This was your father's house."

He nodded.

"And he's passed the veil."

"Yeah."

She looked around the room. "I think he's still here." Her voice had dropped to a near whisper.

Alex glanced at her sharply, then smiled. "I like to think so."

She studied his face. "What kind of man was he, your father?"

"His name was Victor Moring. I don't know what he was like. I never met him."

She frowned, waiting for him to continue, but he didn't. She licked her lips and followed her instincts. She reached across to where his hand rested on the arm of the sofa and closed hers around it. "Tell me," she whispered.

He narrowed his eyes on her. "Why?"

"I don't know. I just... I have the feeling it's important."

He hesitated a moment, staring at her hand on his. Finally, he sighed and gave a slight nod. "I was raised in an orphanage," he said, and he said it so matter-of-factly that she knew this was of deep importance to him. He was trying too hard to make it seem otherwise. "St. Luke's, in Boston. The nuns there didn't know who my parents were. I was left by a young woman one night, when I was barely a week old, with just a tiny wooden box that contained a note from my mother and a hunk of quartz. She told them my name was Quinn, but I'm certain that was a lie. When I was ten, and started asking questions about my family, the sisters gave the box to me and told me what little they knew, which was just what I've told you."

She blinked rapidly, tried to calm her suddenly racing heartbeat. "Can I see it?"

"What? The box?"

She nodded.

He blinked slowly, studying her face as if trying to read her. "Did you take my pent', when I kissed you earlier, Melissa?"

She looked down, feeling guilty as hell. "Yes. It's safe, I promise. I shouldn't have taken it, I just--"

"I want it back."

She nodded. "It's at my place. I never intended to keep it, just to cleanse it and bless it for you." He lifted his brows. "It's a Witch thing. We do it with all our important ritual tools." She attempted a smile that was probably weak. "It was... my gift to you."

His lips thinned, but he nodded and got to his feet. "Next time, ask first, okay?"

"I should have this time," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't."

"You're right, you should have." He turned for the door. "Stay here."

She nodded, even though he couldn't see her, and he left the room. His footsteps soon vanished in the depths of the house. Melissa got up, pacing the room, brimming with nervous energy and tingling with apprehension. There was something in this house--something dark. She kept feeling as if someone was standing right at her back, only to spin around and see no one.

Finally, Alex returned. She was standing close to the fire by then, soaking up its heat, staring into its flames. She turned when he came into the room; then her breath hitched in her throat. For just an instant, she'd seen that other face, superimposed over his. The face of the man in her dream, who was like Alex but not Alex.

Then it faded.

"What's wrong? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"I... nothing." She looked at the small wooden box he held. "Is that it?"

"Yeah." He held it out, and she took it from him, returned to her seat in the chair, and gently opened the lid.

A folded scrap of time-yellowed paper rested inside. She looked to Alex for permission, and when he nodded, she picked it up and noticed the glittering quartz crystal that rested underneath it. Unfolding the sheet carefully, Melissa read the note.

My dearest Alex,

Leaving you with the sisters is the hardest thing I have ever done. But my love for you is so strong that I know it is my only choice. I fear my life in this world will soon end--for the evil that pursues me draws closer every day. The best I can do for you is to put you as far from its reach as I can, in a place where I know you'll be safe. The only thing I ask of you, my son, is that you never attempt to find the man who fathered you--for I tell you from my heart, he is evil, and he will destroy you. Know that I will always be with you, watching over you, protecting you, and loving you.

Always,

Your mother, Jennifer

As she read the note, Melissa swore she could hear the words, spoken in a gentle, loving voice--the same voice she'd heard earlier tonight in her temple room. Blinking back tears, she refolded the note and set it in the box. As she did, her fingertips caressed the crystal and she felt a surge of warmth suffusing her hand and arm.

Her chest felt tight, her heart full, as she closed the lid.

Then she frowned, holding the box in her hands. "There was something else?"

Alex seemed startled. "Yes. How did you know?"

She only shrugged.

"Three months ago, I somehow left my bedroom window open--not here, I was living closer to LA then. It stormed that day, and a gust must have swept through. When I got home, the bedroom was wet, and things were scattered everywhere. The box had been blown off its shelf, to the floor. When it hit, a little compartment in the bottom popped open. There was a card inside."

"Your father's?" she asked.

He nodded. "By then, I'd been trying to trace my roots for years. I'd managed to learn his last name, Moring, but nothing else. The address was for this house, and when I came here, there was a real-estate sign on the lawn. Elizabeth was still here. She told me my father had passed only a few months prior. But all of his things were still here as well. And the place was for sale."

"So you bought it."

"Of course I bought it." He sighed, shaking his head. "To think I'd been in LA for so long and he was so close all that time. But I only found him after he'd died. Elizabeth said he always knew I'd come back someday. She said he'd have wanted me to have the house." He searched the depths of the fire; for what, she couldn't have said. "I thought, by being here, going through his things, I could finally get to know my father."

"And have you?"

He snapped his gaze to hers. "I don't know. He... he left diaries--but the entries are always addressed 'Dear Alex,' as if he was writing them to me, knowing I'd find them and read them someday. And they're full of..." He stopped there, as if afraid he would reveal too much. "He was either the most powerful sorcerer I could have imagined, or he was completely insane."

She nodded slowly. "And that's why you've had all the questions about the dark side of magic."

He started to nod, but stopped halfway. "Not that I think what he practiced was black magic. Just that it--it doesn't quite mesh with the fluffy white lighter stuff you find in all the books meant for public consumption."

She drew a breath, lifted her chin. "Would you be willing to let me see them?"

His head came up fast, and again, the face of that "other" seemed to hover over his own. "No!" The word blasted from his lips in a voice like thunder, and it hit her with a force that was palpable. A force she felt might have physically harmed her, had she not taken the time to shield herself before entering this place. The air in the room turned to ice, even as she shot to her feet and backed toward the door.

Alex blinked twice, frowning as if confused. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout."

She held up a hand, shook her head, tried to form words to excuse herself, but gave up. Instead she simply turned and ran. She didn't look back until she was in her car, heading away from that place.

And when she did, she saw Alex, standing in the middle of the narrow road, staring after her.

*  *  *  *  *

Alex was shaking all over, couldn't seem to stop it. Hell. What in God's name had just happened to him? And how was he going to explain it to Melissa when he didn't understand it himself?

He was sweating, he realized as he ran a palm across his forehead. A cold sweat. More dampness gathered on his skin from the soft, mistlike rain that fell, and he shivered. He walked back into the house.

It's just as well. She's a Witch, and she'll ruin everything. Stay away from her from now on.

Alex frowned at the foreign voice in his mind. It wasn't his own. It wasn't his inner self expressing nervousness over the sheer power of what he felt for Melissa. Everything in him was screaming just the opposite.

"I don't want to stay away from her," he whispered. "I think... I think I need her." He sighed, lowering his head. It was true. He sensed it right to his soul. He needed her. He didn't know why or how or exactly what it was he needed from her.

The truth was, he was burning to tell her everything--everything that had happened to turn his life upside down. He had been, ever since he'd first set eyes on her. In that moment when he'd opened the door to find her standing there, it felt as if he'd been lost in the desert and finally caught sight of water. Cool, clear, life-giving water. Something inside her seemed to speak to something inside him. And just being near her felt... soothing. Healing. When she had walked into this godforsaken tomb of a house, he swore he could almost feel a fresh, cool breeze rushing in, blasting away the cobwebs and dust and darkness.

Absently he rubbed his hand where hers had closed around it. He wanted to touch her again.

No!

Mustering his will--and God, it was an effort--he ignored the voice in his head and walked back outside, pulling his car keys out of his pocket as he did. He had to go after her.

This wasn't over.

CHAPTER 6

He found her sitting on the natural stone patio behind her beach house. There was a lawn swing there, made of bamboo. She sat in it, swinging gently, and she didn't look the least surprised to see him there.

"I didn't mean to scare you away."

She offered a small, if somewhat uncertain, smile. "It's not you that scares me." Drawing a breath as if drawing up courage, she patted the empty spot beside her.

He moved forward, sat down beside her. "I don't know what happened. I'm sorry."

She studied his face for a long moment. "Is it gone now? Whatever it was that came over you?"

He nodded. "I'd never hurt you, Melissa."

"I know."

She leaned back in the swing, seemingly relaxing a little. Maybe those all-seeing eyes of hers told her that he was no threat. Maybe she was just more confident on her home turf. Whatever, he was irrationally glad that his outburst back at the house hadn't made her decide to have no more to do with him.

The sea breeze rinsed over him, and it reminded him of what he felt emanating from Melissa. The woman was like the ocean: deep and full of mystery and power. Cool and soothing. Mystical. And emanating a fragrant, refreshing energy the way a tree emanates oxygen, sustaining and strengthening the life force of everyone within her orbit.

He sat there watching the waves as they rolled in, breaking into curls of white froth, hissing as they ran out of steam and retreated into the depths again.

"I won't ask you any more questions if you don't want me to," she said. "And if you just came for the pent', I'll take you to it."

It was some sort of a test, he thought. She didn't dare ask him any more questions without feeling him out first. And she wasn't sure what he was doing here.

"I didn't come for the pent'. I came... I don't know why I came."

She let her eyes close, lashes resting on her cheeks.

"Do you believe in luck, or coincidence, Melissa?"

"I think you make your own luck," she said, not opening her eyes. "And I don't think there's any such thing as coincidence. Synchronicity isn't random. Why?"

He leaned back, too, trying to adopt a more relaxed pose. She looked so comfortable, so at ease. He couldn't bring himself to close his eyes, though. He couldn't look at her with his eyes closed, and he found himself compelled to look at her.

"I've always been very successful. As far back as I can remember, everything I've tried to accomplish has worked out. Grades, scholarships. My career has been one lucky break after another, one amazing success after another. Opportunities seem to line up to knock on my door."

She nodded. "You work hard at what you do. I've only worked for you for two days, and I already know that. And you're good. You have a natural talent for visual storytelling. It's a gift. Probably what you were always meant to do."

"Maybe. Or maybe it was something else."

Time ticked by, silence stretching out between them, as the gentle rush of the waves over the sand whispered like a lullaby. Finally, she said, "What else could it have been, Alex?"

It was a gentle nudge, and it made him aware that he had fallen silent before completing his thought. He credited her with having distracted him. Her and the ocean.

"According to my father's diaries, it's genetic. I inherited the ability to wield his power. Anything I want, I only have to think of it to have it come to me. He wrote that it was his gift to me, but that it would fade in time, unless I learned to appreciate it and to control it."

He pushed with his feet and long legs, moving the swing gently back and forth in perfect time with the waves, and he looked at her. Her huge brown eyes were open now, plumbing the depths of his soul. He could drown in them.

"Did he say... how he expected you to do this?"

He nodded. "There's... a ritual."

Melissa sat up a little. "What kind of ritual?"

"I haven't seen it yet, but it's supposed to transfer his power to me. So that I'm not using his, but making it my own. Elizabeth knows how it goes. I

guess she worked with my father a lot when he was alive. She's supposed to assist when the time comes, and I'm not supposed to know too much about it in advance."

Melissa seemed about to say something but then stopped herself.

"I thought the entire idea was ridiculous at first. But the more time I spend in that house--I don't know. It's as if it makes more sense all the time."

She nodded. "I felt him there, Alex. Your father. I think his spirit is still in that house."

He nodded slowly. "He's trapped there, according to Elizabeth. He won't be free until I undergo this--this rite. He can't rest in peace. I know it sounds crazy, but God, I feel him there, too. Then again, he died of brain cancer. All of this might just be the crazy ramblings of a man whose mind had deteriorated to the point of madness."

"Or maybe it's a little bit of both," she told him.

He nodded. "I've thought of that, too."

"What about the pentacle?" she asked.

"It was his. He'd left it with Elizabeth with instructions to give it to me when I came--he seemed to know I would in time."

"Maybe he did. But Alex, do you really believe that you have everything you do because of him, and not because of your own hard work and talent?"

He thought for a long moment about that. "My father... he was extremely wealthy. Looking over the things he writes about his life, it seems that he was a lot like me. Everything he tried turned out to be successful. His diaries claim that he used magic to make it that way--that he used that same magic to ensure my life would be that way, as well." He drew a deep breath, sighed. "That's why I wanted you to teach me about magic. So that--on the off chance it is true and this ritual does grant me some kind of... power... I will know how to use it."

She jumped to her feet. "God, Alex, you don't intend to go through with this!"

He frowned. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Alex, everything in me tells me it's black magic, and that your father has been practicing it all his adult life--he would have to have in order to be as powerful as he claims to be. Do you have any idea the kind of negativity that must be clinging to his spirit by now? Can't you feel the darkness in that house of his? You don't want to open yourself up and invite all that darkness to jump from his lingering spirit into you. My God, it would be like--like walking unvaccinated through a smallpox ward."

Alex shook his head slowly. "I don't think he was evil," he said. "I really don't."

She stared down at him, her eyes intense. "What about the note? What about your mother's warnings?"

He had thought of that. Over and over he had thought of that, wondered about it.

"Alex, when you work magic or do anything else that causes harm to others, or takes things that were rightly meant for others, that harm brands you. It marks your soul. And the more harm you do, the bigger the mark. That mark becomes a beacon for negative energy. So the harm you do comes back. It's impossible for it not to."

He sighed, lowering his head and running his hand over the nape of his neck. "Dammit, Melissa, I think you're making too much out of all of this. You don't know he did harm to anyone. There's no proof of that."

"No?"

He shook his head.

"What about your mother? What about the harm he did to her?"

His head came up slowly. He reached out a hand, but she backstepped just enough to avoid his touch. "We don't know he did her any harm at all."

"How did your mother die, Alex?"

He shook his head hard, instant, absolute denial. "Come on, Melissa. Don't you think you're giving in to melodrama here?"

"You don't know, do you?"

"No. I don't know. The diaries only say that she took their newborn son and left." He met her eyes. "Seems to me that she was the one who did harm to him."

"Maybe." She didn't look as if she believed it, though. "I think you should find out for sure."

He threw his hands in the air. "Why the hell did I think I could talk to you about any of this? Jesus, Melissa, I thought you would understand. I thought you would give me some practical advice, not accuse a dead man--one I spent my whole life searching for--of everything from black magic to murder."

"You want practical advice?" she asked him. And even though his voice had been rising, hers remained steady, deep, and firm. "Here it is: Get away from everything to do with that man. Get as far away as you can. Have a cleansing ritual performed on you. Get the stink of his negativity off you. Give away everything he gave you. Or share his fate."

"His fate? He died a billionaire who could have anything he wanted."

"He died an old man, without a family, without his wife or his son. He died alone, horribly. And if he got his wealth the way I think he did, his next lifetime isn't likely to be much better. That is his fate. The fate he created for himself. The fate he wants to pass on to you from beyond the grave."

Alex sighed heavily and turned away from her.

"You're not listening, are you? You're not hearing a word I say."

"I have to go. Before I do, I want my pent' back."

"Fine." She started off down the steps that led to the beach below but didn't step into the circle area.

Sacred space, he figured. She wouldn't take his father's filth into her precious white-lighter circle. She walked along the beach a little ways, off toward the left. He saw a branch standing there, one end driven deep into the sand. That was where she stopped, and then, using the branch as a digging tool, she unearthed the pentacle.

He stood there, watching. When it was uncovered, she knelt in the sand, reached her hand toward it, but didn't touch it. The moonlight bathed her face, and the sea wind played in her hair.

She shook her head. "It's still bad," she said. "I can feel it from here. You should leave it for three nights, Alex. Even then, I'm not sure--"

He reached down, not for the pent' but for her. He couldn't stand this, couldn't stand not touching her when he wanted to so very badly. His hand closed on her upper arm, and he pulled her to her feet.

"Alex?"

He pulled her closer, gently, giving her all the time in the world to resist. But she didn't. He closed his arms around her, and he kissed her. The water washed up over their feet and the moon beamed down on them and he kissed her. He thought, vaguely, that it was magical.

When he could break contact and speak again, he cradled her head to his chest, buried his hand in her wild hair. "Why am I so drawn to you? Are you messing with my head, working your own brand of magic on me?"

"I wouldn't use magic to make you feel anything for me. It would be unethical. But I have to tell you, Alex, I've been wondering the same thing about you."

"No. I wouldn't know how."

"Then what is this?" she asked him, whispering.

"I don't know."

She drew a breath, sighed.

"I've searched for him for twenty years, Melissa. I can't just deny him what was his dying wish. Please don't ask me to."

Closing her eyes slowly, she laced her fingers through his, hands at their sides. "It's a mistake, Alex. At least... at least think about this some more. And promise to let me know your decision before you go ahead with it."

"That much I can do."

She nodded. "You need cleansing, and shielding. You need wards. God, the thought of you going back into that house..."

"I'll be fine."

She stepped back, glancing down at the pent' in the sand. "Your pent'--"

"Leave it. Three nights, like you said."

She smiled, though it was shaky. "Good. Good, it can't hurt."

He held her gaze for a long moment. "Don't give up on me, Melissa. Things are--things are so messed up right now. But for some reason, at this moment, I don't want anything in the world quite as badly as I want... as I want you."

He tipped her chin up with his hand, kissed her again, and buried the pentacle in the sand with his feet.

"I should go," he whispered. "Because if I don't, I'm not going to."

She kissed him again, then pushed him away. Reaching down, she picked up the branch and thrust it into the ground to mark the spot where the pent' lay buried.

They turned, and he put his arm around her shoulders, held her close beside him, and they walked back toward the little beach house. But instead of veering left, toward the house, they veered right, toward her special place on the beach.

He let her lead him, unsure why she was taking him there. At least, he was until she stopped and turned to face him. Slowly, she tugged her fleece shirt upward, over her head, and dropped it into the sand beside her.

Alex caught his breath, his throat going dry.

She heeled off her shoes and socks, then slid the soft gray fleece down over her hips and stepped out of the pants. She stood there, naked in the moonlight. And more than ever before, she seemed like some mystical creature. The spirit of the sea itself, bathed in moonlight.

"My God, you're beautiful," he whispered.

He drew her close, his hands sliding over her warm, smooth skin, and he kissed her again. Her body felt good, pressed against his. He helped her undress him as they kissed, and they fell to their knees in the sand. She lay down, pulling him with her, opening to him, welcoming him.

When he slid inside her, his body trembled, shook, and he thought he heard thunder, but whether it was in the distant sky or only within him he couldn't be sure. He held her, she wrapped herself around him, and they moved in time with the waves washing up over the sand. And he felt it--the power building, surrounding them, heat and passion and something more. It grew higher, stronger, until it was unbearable. And then it seemed to break loose at the moment when she cried out his name and he poured his very soul, it seemed, into her. For a moment it seemed the very air around them glowed.

For a long time, they lay there, just holding each other. Alex didn't know what had just happened between them. It hadn't been just sex. It hadn't even been just lovemaking. It had been something else, something more powerful than he'd ever felt before. And he knew, somewhere down deep, that it was something he would never feel again--not with anyone but Melissa.

CHAPTER 7

Melissa didn't sleep that night after Alex, somewhat reluctantly, went home. He had work to do tonight, he said. And deep down, she knew she needed time to digest what had just happened.

She'd never attempted sex magic before. But passion, especially the kind of passion between her and Alex, generated incredible power. And even while she'd lost her focus to the ecstasy, she'd felt the power continue building within and around the two of them, surrounding them both in protection, empowering them.

She hadn't felt drained when it was over. She'd felt energized, and she sensed he had, as well. She prayed that sense was true and not just wishful thinking on her part.

Deep into the night, she sat in the darkened living room, in a chair drawn up to face the sliding glass doors that looked out over the beach and the sea. The ocean was angry tonight. Restless and moody. It swelled and receded, swirled and spat froth at the waning, lopsided moon.

Something's coming, her instincts whispered in her mind. Something bad.

Melissa couldn't quite bring herself to go outside, to explore the darkness and the mood of the sky and sea. Like a child, she hid in the safety of the house, wishing for daylight, and even though she knew she would never sleep, she hugged herself all the way to her bedroom to crawl beneath the covers.

As she pulled back the blankets something thudded gently to the carpeted floor behind her. The sound made her jump at first, but as soon as she spun around and saw what it was, she relaxed. The red velvet pouch full of rune-stones. The nail from which the pouch usually hung was bent low. Maybe the weight of the stones had slowly proven too much for it...

... or maybe the stones were trying to tell her something.

Frowning, she gathered the pouch in her palms, kneading it gently, feeling and hearing the gentle click-clack of the stones as they moved against one another inside. She loosened the drawstring, dipped inside, and closed her hand. Two cool stones rested within her fist when she drew it out again. She opened her palm and stared down at them.

Raido, action and movement. Kennaz, understanding and knowledge.

She got the message. She could not huddle in her bed, hiding and waiting for the bad thing to come, thinking she'd done all she could to prepare. She had to take action, figure out what she--what they both were up against, and then proceed accordingly.

Knowledge; she needed information.

Sighing, she wrapped herself in a warm, plush robe--the next best thing to huddling in her bed--and returned to the living room to turn on her computer. Connecting to the Internet, she typed the name of Alex's father, Victor Moring, into the search box and let the machine do the rest. Alex hadn't done the research he should have done. Partly, she sensed, because he didn't want to know the truth. Maybe deep down he knew what he would find wouldn't be good.

If so, he'd been right.

There were several news articles mentioning Moring's young wife, Jennifer, who'd gone missing along with her brand-new infant son, thirty years ago. The missing-persons report had been filed, not by Jennifer Simone-Moring's husband, as one might expect, but by her mother.

There was a photo of the missing woman, and Melissa sat there, rubbing her chilled arms as she waited for it to load. Line by line, the image filled in, top to bottom, the face coming clear.

Melissa jerked back from the computer, sucking in a breath. "My Goddess," she whispered. "She looks like me." The woman stared back at her, a warning in her eyes.

A sudden chill raced up Melissa's spine, and she swung her head, searching the rooms around her, suddenly feeling as if someone was watching her, someone close.

She saw no one, though, and forced herself to return her attention to the computer screen, to click on the link to the next article about the missing woman. That one talked about the police suspecting that Victor may have been involved in her disappearance and the investigation that revealed that both the man and his young wife had ties to what the police called the occult. No details on what they meant by that were offered.

But Melissa thought she might have an inkling. Alex's mother, she sensed, had been a Witch.

The next article said that the body of a young woman had been found in a New York river and that she had later been identified as Jennifer Simone Moring. The whereabouts of her infant son were still unknown, but authorities feared the worst. Her death had been ruled a suicide.

Melissa recalled the dream vision she'd had of the young woman, standing on a suspension bridge. In the dream, she hadn't gone over the rail of her own will. She'd had help--astral help perhaps, since the hands that had seemed to push her hadn't been connected to the man in the dream. So maybe it hadn't been a flesh-and-blood human there with her. But maybe, just maybe, she'd died at the will of a powerful magician.

Something moved outside. Melissa caught it from the corner of her eye, jumped to her feet, and spun to face the sliding glass doors and the darkness beyond them. Her heart pounded and her lungs clutched every breath.

A filmy gray shape moved silently along the beach, near where Alex's pent' was buried. Whatever it was, it was dark and malicious. Melissa gasped, and her hand flashed upward, inscribing a banishing pentacle in the air with her finger and projecting its image toward the intruder. "Evil thing, be gone!" she hissed into the night. "Be gone, I say!"

She ran into her temple room and took the tiny bottle of her most powerful Moon Water, charged during a lunar eclipse, then ran to the back doors. It chilled her to stand so close, with nothing but a thin sheet of glass between her and the blackness of the night beyond, and that shape, that being, whoever or whatever it had been, gone now from her sight. She whispered an invocation to Hecate and her hounds and wet her forefinger with the Moon Water. Then she drew the banishing pent' on the glass. "By the moon and by the tide, nothing evil comes inside."

Melissa rushed through the house, repeating the process, drawing the five-pointed stars at every window and door. She turned on every light and double-checked every lock while she was at it. When she'd covered them all, she stood in the center of the living room, focused her energies, and connected them by sending a streak of astral blue flame from one mark to the next. When the blue flame boundary was complete, she focused on widening it, deepening it, expanding it beyond the walls and ceiling and floors, until her home was enclosed within a protective bubble of astral blue light. She stomped a foot to seal the energy.

Finally, she looked at the clock and vowed she would wait until dawn before she picked up the telephone and dialed Alex's number. She would not draw him back here now, when something that felt so menacing lurked just outside. She huddled in her robe in front of her computer, gaze jumping from one door or window to another with every breeze and every sound. It was going to be a long night.

*  *  *  *  *

The housekeeper wore a gray hooded cloak, which had been intended to be seen by the Witch and to scare the hell out of her. She hoped the message had been received. She peered into her employer's bedroom, saw the young man thrashing in his bed, moaning the word "no" over and over. Alex was sweating, his face beaded with it. He'd flung off the covers, and he was naked from the waist up. His father, no doubt, was providing another nightmare to keep Alex off balance, unsure of himself, vulnerable.

She moved slowly forward, obeying the voice she heard inside her mind, the voice of the man she had loved.

"I followed him earlier, just as you instructed," she whispered, though no one was in the room. "The Witch lives in a beach house, had the pentacle buried in the sand." She held the pentacle, letting it dangle and spin from its chain.

Did she see you? the voice in her mind asked.

Elizabeth nodded. "I made sure of it."

Excellent. Go now, put the pentacle on my son where it belongs.

Elizabeth did exactly as she was told. She always did exactly what he told her. She leaned over Alex, fixing the chain around his neck. It was a direct link to his father's energy. It had to remain with Alex, to prepare him and link his father to him. Otherwise, the rite would never work. She straightened again and watched Alex struggling in his sleep. "Do you want to release him from the dream now that it's done?"

No. Let it eat him alive. Let it do its work. We have to burn her out of his life or she'll ruin everything, just as my darling young wife tried to do.

The woman nodded, realizing this nightmare must be about the Witch. She disliked the woman--disliked her intensely. She reminded Elizabeth of Victor's dead wife, Jennifer. How she had suffered watching the man devote himself to that woman, relegating Elizabeth to the role of housekeeper and mistress. But it was power he sought. Jennifer had it. It would combine with Victor's own in their offspring, creating for Victor an even more powerful form than he'd had the last time around.

"I can't wait," Elizabeth whispered, her gaze sliding over Alex's chest. "He's got a beautiful body, Victor. It's going to look so good on you."

*  *  *  *  *

The telephone beside Alex's bed was ringing. He rolled to one side, opened his eyes, and felt anger surging in him, though he wasn't even sure why. He reached out and yanked up the phone.

"What?"

"Alex? Alex, it's Melissa. I need to talk with you. Something happened last night."

He felt his jaw harden, his eyes narrow, and he remembered now the source of his anger. Melissa--playing him for a fool. Seducing him in order to take everything he had, only to toss him aside when she'd finished; turning him against his father so that he would have no powers with which to fight her; and all the while sleeping with every man she had to in order to get what she wanted.

"Alex, are you there?"

"I'm here. Jesus, do you know what time it is?" He glanced at his clock as he asked the question.

"Five A.M I haven't been to sleep yet," she told him. "Are you all right, Alex? You sound... strange."

"Fine." He sat up, struggling to shake away the remnants of sleep. "What do you want?"

"Someone was here last night," she told him. "Down on the beach. I saw them. God, Alex, I was so scared."

He came more fully awake. Her voice, the fear in it, got to him. And slowly, as his brain cleared and the cobwebs faded, he realized that all that other stuff had been a dream. Just a dream. God, it had seemed so real.

But it wasn't real. He knew Melissa. She was not the kind of woman who would use sex as a weapon. Sex with her was--was more like a balm. A healing, tranquil balm to his troubled soul.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She sighed; in relief, he thought. "Yes. Just frightened."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know. I... when it got light out, I went out there. There were footprints in the sand. And the... the pent'. It's gone."

He couldn't have explained why his hand rose to touch his chest, but it did, and he knew he would feel the cool gold weight there even before his palm found it. "Jesus."

"Alex, you have to get out of there. Your father--he's more dangerous than you think."

He closed his eyes slowly. "Look, I'm going to do what you said--check into things, look at some sources besides my father's own words. But I didn't have a chance to yet--"

"I did. I think he may have killed your mother."

"You can't know that."

"Look, there was a whole series of thirty-year-old news articles about him. His pregnant young wife, Jennifer Simone Moring, your mother, disappeared, and he didn't even report her missing. Jennifer's mother--your grandmother--called the police after being unable to reach her for several days."

There was a lead ball forming in Alex's stomach. "And then?"

"The investigation turned up what the police called 'occult connections' surrounding both your parents. That set off all kinds of alarm bells. Your father's house was searched, he was kept under surveillance for weeks. But they never found anything concrete. The investigation was closed when they found your mother's body in a New York river. A witness claimed to have seen her jump from a bridge. Her death was ruled a suicide, and the case was closed. Your father was under surveillance, a continent away, at the time of her death, so he was in the clear."

Alex sighed slowly, nodded. "The orphanage was in Boston. She must have taken me there, then started back, and killed herself along the way."

"She took you there, then she started back, probably trying to get as far from you as she could before he managed to track her down. To protect you from him, Alex."

He shook his head slowly. "You must be one helluva Witch, to be able to read the mind of a dead woman." He said it gently, not sarcastically. He didn't want to hurt her, but she was reaching here. "My mother said in her note she wasn't long for the world. She must have been planning to take her own life when she wrote it."

"She said the evil that was pursuing her was getting closer. I think that evil was your father. Alex, she didn't want you anywhere near him. So he used some kind of powerful black magic to push her off that bridge. I know it, I feel it in my gut."

There was a shout from the hallway in a voice he recognized. Alex said, "Hold on a second, something's up." Then he went to the door, opened it. "Elizabeth? Is that you?"

"Alex, hurry. I need your help!"

He frowned, worried, and brought the phone back to his ear. "It's Elizabeth; something's wrong. I have to go."

"Alex, don't!"

He clicked the off button, tossed the phone toward the bed, and went down the stairs.

CHAPTER 8

"Alex? Alex, don't go!"

There was no reply, just dead air. God, what was happening over there? She could only go by her instincts--and her instincts told her it was bad.

Melissa got to her feet, raced into her temple room, snatching a sack-type shoulder bag from a hook on the way past. Inside, she yanked open the cabinet, pawing through the herbs. Sage. Bindweed. Nightshade. She even tossed in her jar of devil's dung. Rosemary, yes. Angelica. She turned to her jewelry box, tugging out and donning every protective, magically charged amulet she had. Amber and jet necklace, onyx ring, agate pendant.

Hurry, she told herself. There can't be much time.

You can't face him alone.

Melissa froze in place, her hands halfway into the drawer where she kept her semiprecious stones, as the gentle whisper pervaded her mind.

Blinking, she lifted her head, found herself facing her mirror, which hung in the west. There was an image there, a face beside hers, almost like a photo that had been doubly exposed. The face was so similar to her own that at first she thought she was seeing double. But it wasn't exactly like her own. And it was of no substance. And then she realized she was face-to-face with Alex's mother.

"J-Jennifer?" she whispered.

Get help. You must get help. You can't fight him alone.

Melissa spun around, shivers racing up her spine, because she swore she felt the breath of that voice on her ear, but there was no one there. "Get help?" she cried to the empty room. "Where the hell am I supposed to get help? It's not like I have a coven."

There was no answer. Melissa swallowed hard, tried to stop her heart from pounding. She quickly grabbed some crystals, quartz, more agate, turquoise. Then she hurried into the living room, feeling in her soul that she was running low on time.

Get help! This time the voice shouted, and it was accompanied by a burst of wind. Pages of the news articles she'd printed out from the Internet blew from the stack beside the computer, drifting to the floor.

The bag she carried fell from Melissa's numb hand, thunking when it hit, the jars of herbs and the crystals clattering against one another. Melissa tried to stop shaking as she moved forward, then bent to pick up the fallen sheet of paper that had landed faceup on top of the rest.

It was one of the news articles she'd printed out--the one that said Jennifer's mother was the person who had reported her missing.

The words stood out on the page, their type seeming darker, bolder than the rest, though she knew it wasn't really: "Marinda Simone of Gardendale..."

Swallowing hard, Melissa turned toward her telephone. She had no doubt she had just received a clear communication from a spirit. She knew by the way the fine mist of hairs on her forearms stood upright, as if in response to static electricity. She knew by the hollow feeling in her chest and the funny skips in her heartbeat. She knew this was for real.

She picked up the phone, dialed the operator, asked if there was a listing for Marinda Simone in the small development of Gardendale, California, asked for the number and the address. She waited a beat, then nearly fainted when the computerized voice began reciting the number and the street address.

Melissa jotted it down with hands that shook, thought about calling, but decided to drive over there instead. Not only was it on the way to Alex's gloomy mausoleum, but... she needed time. She needed time to figure out just what the hell she was going to say to the woman when she got there. The twenty minutes it would take to get there were not nearly enough.

The house was a small white Cape Cod, with slate blue shutters and trim, a picket fence, and an herb garden with rosemary growing at the gate. Wind chimes

hung from the front porch. A broomstick stood, bristles up, to one side of the front door, and a tiny clear glass Christmas ornament, with what looked like herbs inside it, dangled from a red ribbon directly over her head when Melissa stood at the front door.

She rang the bell, wondering if she was reading the signs correctly.

The door opened. A woman stood there, smiling, mildly curious. She had long once-black hair, now streaked with silver, and deep blue eyes. Aside from the crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes and the silver in her hair, the woman showed little sign of her age, though Melissa guessed she had to be well over sixty. And she was beautiful. But then the older woman's smile died and she stared as if stunned at Melissa's face. "My Goddess," she whispered.

"I, um--I'm sorry to bother you. Are you Marinda Simone?"

The woman managed to wipe the stunned expression away. "Yes. I'm--I'm sorry for my reaction, it's just that you look so much like... like my daughter." She blinked again, gave her head a shake. "Who are you?"

Melissa licked her lips. "My name is Melissa St. Cloud. I'm a friend of--of your grandson."

The woman's eyes widened. "Alex? You--you know Alex?"

"Yes."

Tears rose in those blue eyes. "I think you'd better come inside, dear."

"There's no time, Ms. Simone. He's in trouble."

The woman's eyes narrowed; her jaw clenched. "Is it his father? Is it Victor?"

"Yes."

Without a word, the woman clasped Melissa's hand and pulled her inside. Marinda left the door wide open, dragging Melissa at a trot through a cozy, neat-as-a-pin house and into what Melissa assumed was a bedroom.

Only it wasn't. Melissa was left to stand by the small table in the room's center, where a black cast-iron cauldron stood on a heat-resistant ceramic square. She scanned the room, the paintings of goddesses on the walls, the sculptures of them in every corner, the unlit candles everywhere. The place smelled powerfully of sandalwood and dragon's blood, and the windowsills were lined with huge blocks of amethyst and onyx and quartz.

There was a trunk on the floor in the back of the room, and the woman had opened it. She drew out a knife, unwrapping it from its black silk bindings. It had a very long double-edged blade and black handle with symbols burned into it.

"You're a Witch," Melissa said.

"As was my daughter," the woman replied, closing the trunk, turning to face Melissa, eyeing her jewelry. "As are you."

Melissa nodded. "We have to hurry."

With a nod, Marinda kept pace as Melissa rushed through the house and out to the car. Melissa dived behind the wheel. As she drove, the woman said, "Victor Moring is dead. Tell me it wasn't a mistake or a hoax when I read that in the papers."

"It wasn't. He is dead. But before he went, he planned some kind of ritual, to pass his powers on to Alex. Alex bought the house--he's living there now. Victor's old housekeeper, Elizabeth, is somehow in charge of seeing to it that the ritual happens, and I'm afraid she'll trick Alex into going through with it, somehow, even though I've warned him not to."

Marinda lowered her head and shook it. "No, it's not his power he wants to pass. I know what he wants. That's why I promised my daughter I would never try to find Alex. Because Victor would find him through me if I did, and because his intent is so foul."

She shot Melissa a look. "He'd been experimenting, researching, planning for this for his entire life. I don't believe it could even work, but I'm damned if I'm going to stand still and let him try."

"Try... try what?"

"Soul transferral," Marinda said. "He's going to try to move his own soul into Alex's body, so that he can return to the world of the living in Alex's place."

Melissa shook her head hard. "It won't work. It can't work."

"I've seen too much in my lifetime to put my faith in something being impossible. But even if it is, it won't matter. Jennifer learned what he was up to, and it frightened her so much that she ran away with little Alex to keep him safe. Victor's theory is that the first soul has to vacate the body at the moment his own tries to enter. In order for the spell to work, he has to bring Alex to the brink of death, then push him over." She closed her eyes. "He's going to murder his son, Melissa."

CHAPTER 9

Alex followed Elizabeth's voice but didn't find her on the ground floor as he'd expected. He did hear her, though. Footsteps from--the stairway to the basement?

"Elizabeth?"

He headed down, the basement stairs, worrying about what he might find. Was Elizabeth hurt, sick?

"Elizabeth, are you there?"

"Down here, Alex. Hurry, now, there's not much time!"

Alex picked up the pace, heading into the basement, wondering what on earth was wrong with the woman. If she was hurt, why the hell was she heading into the basement?

He wished he'd had time to dress in more than the pajama bottoms he was wearing. He'd never been in the basement of this old house. Elizabeth had told him there was nothing down there but the furnace and, now that he thought about it, seemed to have actively discouraged him from poking around below. He didn't relish the idea of traipsing through the cellar shirtless and barefoot. The concrete floor, while cool under his feet, seemed clean enough, and no spiderwebs stuck to his chest as he followed the sounds of Elizabeth's footsteps, and occasionally her voice, through the basement. The lights, what few there were, were low-wattage bulbs suspended from the ceiling and covered in red glass globes that were held in place by metal frames. Odd choice for a basement. But then again, his father had been an odd man.

The basement was huge, with cinder-block sides and a concrete floor. There were a furnace, a water heater, a fuel tank, and some boxes, all the things one would expect to find in a basement. There was also a wooden door, arched at the top, painted red, and standing open, that didn't seem to belong. But it was that door through which Elizabeth had gone. Beyond it, there was only darkness. Her voice floated back as if from the bowels of hell: "Come, Alex. Hurry now."

He stepped inside, wondering when she would find the light switch and flip it on. Then he heard the door close behind him, heard a lock turn. His stomach clenched tight.

"We don't want to be interrupted," Elizabeth said. A match flared, the sudden orange light licking at her face, making her seem demonic in the darkness. But she smiled and touched the flame to a candle on the floor, and then another, and another, moving around the room, spreading the light until he could finally see. He was standing within a circle of black candles. Shapes and symbols were painted on the floor, and in the center was a stone slab that looked like a bier, waist-high, rectangular, shaped as if to support a coffin.

He lifted his gaze toward Elizabeth. "What the hell is going on?"

She met his steady look with a smile. "Hush, now, and listen. It's time. It's time for your father to pass his gift on to you."

Alex gave his head a shake. "It's his gift, Elizabeth. Not mine. I'm not even certain I want it."

She went still, just staring at Alex's face. Then she seemed to shake herself. "You'd deny your father's dying request? Would you, Alex, after all he's done for you?"

Alex said nothing, just pushed a hand through his hair, trying to find a way to explain.

"Never mind," Elizabeth said softly. "Never mind then. It's your decision, after all." She dabbed tears from her eyes. "At least... join me in a drink to your father's memory. After that, we'll go back upstairs. I won't bother you about any of this again."

She nodded toward the slab.

Alex looked at it. "Let's go upstairs now. We can toast my father's memory up there."

"Oh." She seemed disappointed. "I... I thought you'd want to see this place, though I admit I was saving it for this special day. Now, it doesn't matter. This was your father's sacred room, Alex. He loved this room more than any other in the house."

"Really?"

She nodded. "I'll get the lights, in a second," she said, "so you can take a look around." She came toward him, carrying a tray with two ornate goblets on it. "Just sit, for a second. Take your drink. Then we'll go upstairs."

Alex pushed himself up onto the table, his legs hanging over the side, facing Elizabeth. He had to admit, he was curious about this room. "Thank you for understanding."

She lifted a goblet and handed it to Alex and took the other for herself, lowering the tray to the floor.

'To Victor Moring," Elizabeth said, lifting her glass. "May he find his ultimate joy. And to his son, may his body retain its power, its health, and its youthfulness for a long, long time to come." She tapped her goblet to Alex's, men drank.

Alex took a sip as well. The liquid was honey-sweet, with the sting of hard alcohol and the slightly thick texture of a liqueur. Alex swallowed, then lifted his own goblet in salute. "To my father," he said softly. "May his mistakes be forgiven, and his soul be at peace."

Again Alex drank, deeply this time. "This is very good," he said. "What is it?"

"Your father's special blend," Elizabeth told him. "He called it ambrosia."

"Nectar of the gods, huh?" Alex drained the glass, set it beside him on the slab.

She smiled, nodded, and turned to walk away, muttering, "Now where is that light switch?" She wandered into the shadows beyond the candlelight.

Alex waited. "Elizabeth, did you work for my father before I was born?"

From the darkness she answered, "Yes. I've been with your family for a very long time."

"I'd really... I'd like to know more about my mother."

"Your mother?" she asked. "What do you want to know about her?"

Alex blinked. Had Elizabeth's voice turned suddenly harsher than it had been before? No matter. He had to force himself to go ahead with his questions. "How did she die?"

"How do you think?"

Dizziness hit Alex like a wave hitting the sand. It made him think of the sacred place on the beach behind Melissa's house as he swayed and bobbed with the tide.

"Are you all right, Alex?"

"Yeah, I--" He pressed a hand to his forehead, got his upper body to stop wobbling. "I don't know what that was. That ambrosia must be stronger than it tastes."

"It is. A lot stronger. Lie down, Alex. It'll pass."

Alex lay down, obeying without resistance. He kept thinking he should be alarmed, he should be getting the hell out of this eerie basement. He kept wondering why it was taking Elizabeth so long to find the light switch. But his brain was too numb to act on any of it. His bare back pressed to the cold stone slab. He drew his legs up, stretching them out on the slab as well.

"Better?"

"Yes. But you didn't answer my question. About my mother."

"She committed suicide, Alex. Jumped off a bridge. You see, she had taken you from your father. His own newborn child. She ran away with Victor's son and heir. And then she just gave you away, like a stray cat she no longer wanted. Just gave you away, hoping Victor would never find you. You, his own guarantee of immortality. I suppose she couldn't live with the guilt of having betrayed her husband so horribly."

Alex shook his head from side to side, but the act made his head spin so badly that he had to close his eyes. "That doesn't make sense."

"Well, she knew why Victor wanted a son. Needed a son. Victor knew he would die relatively young, you see. He'd foreseen his own demise, dreamed of it. He knew exactly when it would come. Fortunately, he also knew your mother's plans. He found her precious little wooden box with her note to you inside it, and he substituted it with a box of his own, an identical one, with a hidden compartment. Then he spoke an incantation over it, ensuring you would find it in time to come to him before he died." Alex heard the woman sigh deeply. "But the cancer in his brain took an unforeseen turn--or maybe it had help from one of your mother's allies. At any rate, he passed just before his work came to fruition and brought you back to him." Her words seemed to echo, as if coming from within a deep well.

"If he knew her plans, why didn't he just... stop her from leaving?"

Elizabeth laughed. "To be honest, he had no intention of raising her brat on his own. Why should he, when he knew he wouldn't need you until much later? He let the nuns keep you. He knew you would come to him when his time drew near."

Frowning hard, Alex let those words sink in, tried to make sense of them. He turned his head slowly, opened his eyes. But the candles on the floor around him seemed to be revolving, and he couldn't blink Elizabeth into focus.

"He... he didn't want me?"

"Didn't need you. Not then."

Footsteps came closer. Elizabeth was back within his range of vision now but different. She'd donned a dark hooded robe that hid her face in shadows. She came to Alex's side, even as he tried to sit up and found his body completely unwilling to cooperate. She leaned over him, and chains rattled. Real fear crept into his blood, chilling it, when he realized she was locking manacles around his wrists and then his ankles.

She vanished again, and when she returned this time, she was holding a dagger. She muttered words in some language he didn't understand and drew the blade across his chest.

Pain sprang up in a fiery trail that followed the knife point. His back arched, lips pulling away from his teeth, arms jerking against the restraints. He cried out, but he couldn't escape. Whatever she'd given him made him weak, dizzy and confused, but it did nothing to dull the pain.

Again and again she lifted the blade, turned it, and drew another line, as if inscribing a message in his flesh. He could feel the warm blood flowing over his ribs, pooling at his sides.

"Are you insane? Jesus!"

She wiped the blade across Alex's thigh, turned, and left him. He managed to turn his head. "What the hell are you doing to me?"

"I'm sorry, Alex. But your father needs your body. He'd planned to take it before he passed, but he was a powerful magician. He's still a powerful magician. He can make it work, even from beyond. Sadly, you can't both fit in there at the same time, so I'm afraid you're going to have to leave."

He wasn't sure what the hell she meant--and when he tried to figure it out, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. But he had to know. "You're going to kill me."

The woman shrugged. "Technically, no." Even as she said it, Elizabeth was wheeling what looked like a defibrillation unit up beside Alex's stone bed. "The minute your heart stops, you'll leave your body. Your father has already left his. But he has trained and practiced with this type of thing his entire life. He is in complete control. He will enter your body. You will go on to the afterlife. And then, I'll restart your heart. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you'll still be alive."

Alex shook his head weakly. "You're insane. It won't work. It will never work."

"Nonsense, Alex." A sharp stabbing pain at his wrist made Alex jerk his arm against the chains, but he couldn't pull clear of the pain. Elizabeth had returned, and she was leaning over him now, adjusting the intravenous line she'd just stuck into his wrist. The tube that led from his wrist hung down, and he lifted his head to see what was on the other end.

Nothing. The tube ended abruptly at an open end that dangled over an empty pail.

He slid his gaze up to his wrist, saw his own blood filling the tube, up to the point where the former nurse had it clamped. "Whenever you're ready, Victor," she said, to no one in the room.

And inexplicably, Alex heard a man's voice whisper, "Begin."

She removed the clamp. To Alex's horror, a stream of blood began flowing through the tiny tube, into the pail on the floor.

CHAPTER 10

Melissa pulled her car into the driveway of the ancient-looking house. Storm clouds had gathered overhead, almost as if conspiring to block morning from coming to this desolate place. As she and Marinda walked to the front door, thunder rumbled in the distance. But to Melissa, it didn't sound like thunder at all but more like the menacing growl of some cosmic cur, warning them away.

She hesitated. Marinda closed a hand on her arm. "There's no such thing as a deity of absolute evil," she whispered, her voice close to Melissa's ear. "There's only energy. Victor has mastered his ability to tap into it, but the choice to use it for evil was all his. He was just a man, Melissa. Only a mortal man."

Melissa nodded.

"Center yourself, Witchling. We can tap into the same source, the same energy, and direct it against him. His spirit is working against nature. Nature's on our side."

Nodding, Melissa closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, curled her toes inside her shoes as she let the mighty force of the planet, the Mother, flow up and into her. She tipped her head back and opened her eyes, letting the endless energy of the Sky, the Father, pour down into her. She even tapped the power of the storm, and knew, when the wind whipped harder against her face and the lightning flashed, that it was real.

The power of the universe was real, and she was a part of it and a conduit for it.

Lowering her head, she stared at the house. "I'm ready."

The two of them marched side by side up the front stairs, to the door. Melissa was surprised to find it unlocked. She opened it and stepped inside. But she saw no one. The house was silent and brooding, and it felt abandoned.

"Victor's temple room is in the basement," Marinda said.

"How do you know?"

"My daughter lived here, for a time. She told me many things. This way, come on."

She led the way through the massive house, and Melissa followed, struggling to hold on to her connection with the Source of all power. They came to a door, which hung open, went through it and down a steep, long set of stairs into the bowels of the place. It was eerily lit with red-globed bulbs, and the energy that filled it was toxic. Melissa felt it around her, prickling her skin and raising goose bumps on her arms. Marinda never hesitated. She walked through the basement and up to a large door, carved all from one slab of wood. She tried the knob, careful not to make a sound as she twisted.

"Locked," she said.

"Wait." Melissa dug in her bag, pulled out a long, heavy hairpin. "I expected the place to be locked. I'll try to get it open." Marinda moved aside just slightly, and Melissa inserted the pin into the keyhole, twisting, feeling, willing the lock to open.

Marinda pulled something from her pocket, a dry brown flower on a tall, nearly leafless stem. "Maybe this will help." She held the blossom against the lock.

Immediately Melissa felt the tumblers turn against her hairpin and knew the lock had opened. Whether due to her own efforts or the other woman's weed, she couldn't be sure.

Marinda whispered, "Chicory cut with blade of gold, midnight or midday at the height of Sol, clears the pathway to your goal, against it no man's locks will hold." She shrugged. "Hold on to the stem, dear. Folklore claims it grants invisibility as well."

Melissa dropped her hairpin back into her bag and closed a hand around the bottom of the stem the other woman held. "Hell, it can't hurt."

Melissa turned the knob and pushed the door open. The scene laid out within the circle of dancing black candles in the room she entered shocked her right to the core. Alex was on a stone table, chains on his arms and legs, his chest covered in blood that ran in rivulets down his sides. A tube in his arm ran with more blood that was collecting in a pail on the floor.

"Alex, my God!" She let go of the weed and ran to his side, yanking the needle from his wrist and closing her hand over the wound, to halt the blood flow.

"So you've arrived," a woman said.

Melissa jerked her head up sharply, so focused on Alex that she hadn't even noticed the woman standing in the circle. She wore a hooded robe that shadowed her face, and stood between the table on which Alex lay and a machine of some kind.

"You broke the circle," she whispered. "But it's not going to matter." The woman lifted a dagger and came slowly toward Melissa. "Back away from him. Now."

Melissa looked down, and her stomach convulsed when she saw the amount of Alex's blood in the pail. She clenched his wrist tighter, refusing to let go. "You can't kill us all."

The woman looked up, surprised, and only then did she seem to notice that Melissa hadn't come alone. Marinda stepped out of the shadows, into the light cast by the dancing flames of the candles.

"You," Elizabeth said, her voice louder than before.

"That's right, Elizabeth." Then she looked around the room. "Do you hear that, Victor? I'm not going to let you murder my grandson the way you did his mother. What kind of spell did you use to make her jump off that bridge?"

Elizabeth smiled slowly. "Oh, it was nothing so complicated for a man of Victor's power, Witch. A mind control spell, some posthypnotic suggestion, and it was done."

She moved toward Melissa again. Melissa flung up a hand, projecting all the energy she could muster. "Halt, damn you!"

Again the woman stopped.

Melissa focused on Alex then. "Mother Earth, goddess strong, stop this blood by witches' song. Mother Earth, goddess strong, stop this blood by Witches' song. Mother Earth..."

Marinda joined in the chant, coming closer, standing right at her side, placing her hand over Melissa's. Melissa felt the wound tingling against her palm.

"Stop it! Dammit, stop right now!" Elizabeth cried. She raced forward again, swinging her blade at Melissa.

Marinda yanked Melissa aside, pulling her hand from Alex's wrist as she did. The blade hissed by, doing no damage. And as Melissa stumbled, regained her balance, and glanced back at the wrist, she saw no further bleeding. Either the charm had worked or Alex was already dead.

Elizabeth stood crouched, blade aloft, ready to attack. But there was something beside her. Some dark, shapeless form that pulsed with evil.

"He's here," Marinda whispered, leaning close. "Open the Western Gate, Melissa. We have to send Victor back through, it's the only way to end this."

Melissa nodded, but she didn't want to leave Marinda's side with this mad knife-wielding woman so close by.

"Go!"

Melissa went. Elizabeth moved to come for her, but Marinda was ready. She snatched the bag from Melissa's shoulder and swung it, catching the other woman upside the head and knocking her to her knees. The dagger clattered to the floor as Elizabeth scrambled to her feet, and then the two women were locked in a struggle, hitting, punching, clawing each other. Melissa knew Marinda had a blade of her own, but she would never use it. Not to do violence.

Melissa located the western point, partly by instinct and partly by the symbols inscribed on the floor in red paint and the large bowl of water that stood at the circle's edge. She stood with her back to the life-and-death struggle, to Alex, and it took all her willpower to do that. Every part of her practical, mortal mind was telling her to turn, to fight, to drag Alex out of here. But the Witch in her, that impractical, intuitive part, knew this was far bigger than a physical battle, and told her to do what had to be done.

She focused, centered, envisioned the great pouring sea, the womb of the Earth mother, the place of transformation, the gateway between the worlds. When she saw it so clearly that she could feel the spray and hear the crashing waves, she pushed her arms straight out in front of her, then slowly opened them wide, parting the mystical waters.

"Guardians of the Western Gate, open the portals wide! Beloved ancestors, come, come, come to us now! Come to gather the soul that awaits its rest. Come to gather the wounded heart of this lonely spirit, whose time on this plane has passed!"

She paused, waiting. She could still hear movement behind her, the grunts of pain, the impacts of hands on flesh. And another voice, a dark voice, Victor's voice, moaning, "No. No, God, no!"

"Sisters of the Moerae, Weavers of the Web of Fate, come! Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, come!" Melissa cried, her voice gaining strength and volume. "Bring with you the Keres! The hounds of the Underworld! Two men lie at your feet. Two souls hover between the worlds. You alone know which is meant to pass at this time and which is destined to live on in the mortal realm. Come, Sisters! Weave the thread of life into the web of your grand design. Come!"

Melissa paused only long enough to draw a ragged breath, then went on, not even thinking about her words. They came from somewhere deep within her. "Hecate! Lady of the Crossroads!" Melissa was shouting now, and her voice filled the room and reverberated from the walls. "Come, triple goddess! Claim the soul that is your own and spare the innocent from further harm!"

Melissa was jarred from her state of intense focus by a blast of wind and a crashing sound. The pot of water that had been sitting at the western edge of the circle lay on its side, its contents flowing over the floor. She hadn't touched it; she was sure no one else had, either. It was a moment before she realized the water was flowing toward the center of the circle, and she turned to see it racing toward the table where Alex lay, the dark shape hovering closely over him.

Above the water there was a blur of white. Or was it a trick of her eyes and the candles?

Elizabeth broke away from where she was locked in physical combat with Marinda and ran to Alex's side. Her feet slapped down into the stream of water, and it splashed up and into that dark form.

And at that very instant, the dark form vanished.

Marinda looked up from the floor, her face cut and bleeding in places and bearing angry red handprints in others. Her hair was a wild tangle. Elizabeth was babbling now, weeping, shaking Alex's body as if trying to wake him. "Victor? Are you there? Did you make it?"

Melissa hurried to help Marinda to her feet. "It's over, now, Elizabeth," she whispered. "It's done. Victor's gone."

"No!" the nurse cried. "I only have to wake him in his new body."

Melissa snapped her head around. The woman had grabbed the defibrillator machine's paddles and hit its power buttons.

"He has to be all right! He has to." She leaned over Alex, even as Melissa lunged forward. "Come back to me, Victor!" Elizabeth cried, lowering the paddles.

"No! Wait!" Melissa hit Elizabeth hard, knocking her away from Alex just as she hit the buttons. Elizabeth stumbled, the paddles turning and touching her own body. A charge of electricity surged from the paddles into the woman who held them and who was standing with her feet in a puddle of water. She spasmed there for an instant, like a marionette on quivering strings, and then collapsed to the floor, dropping the paddles.

Melissa hurried to her side, bent over her, checked her pulse. There was nothing. Her hair was smoking. So was the machine. Melissa lifted her gaze to Marinda, automatically seeking the older woman's wisdom.

Marinda shook her head. "The Fates wanted her. They took her. Let her go." Then she looked past Melissa and smiled. "And my grandson is awake."

Melissa ran to Alex, lifting his head, running her hands through his hair, kissing his face. "You're all right. Oh, God, you're all right."

He tried to embrace her, only to find his arms couldn't reach, because of the chains. "Melissa, Elizabeth was... she tried to--"

"I know. It's all right now. It's over." She leaned in, pressed her lips to his, felt the life in him, strong and steady.

"Close the gate, young Priestess," Marinda said, coming to join her at Alex's side. "You've done well today."

Alex was struggling to sit up. His grandmother helped him, freeing him from the manacles and whispering to him to wait, to be still for just a moment. Then he sat there in silence, watching as Melissa turned slowly away, facing west. She pictured that sea again, saw herself on its shore, opened her arms wide.

Then she paused, because she saw... something. That woman, that same woman she'd seen before. Jennifer, standing on the shore. Melissa turned quickly to see if the others saw her, too. From their stunned expressions she knew they did.

"Jennifer?" Marinda whispered.

Alex said, "What... who... what am I seeing?"

"That's my daughter, Alex," Marinda said gently. "Your mother."

"My mother?"

The apparition seemed to smile. Melissa heard, not out loud but in her mind, Jennifer's voice. Her message.

Thank you, Melissa. Thank you for saving my son. Thank you, dear Mother, for helping her.

The rest seemed to be addressed to Alex: Don't worry about Victor, my darling child. This is a place of healing and transformation, not punishment. Now, for the three of you, I have only one request. Love one another, as I love you all.

 And then she faded, growing smaller and vanishing altogether.

Tears flooding her eyes, Melissa opened her arms again. "Thank you, Jennifer, for bringing us together, for giving your own life to save that of your son. We love you and we will forever honor your memory." The tears spilled over. "Thank you, Hecate, goddess of the crossroads. Thank you, Sisters of Fate, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos. Hail and farewell."

"Hail and farewell," Marinda echoed.

"Good-bye, Mother," Alex whispered.

Melissa drew her arms down and together, closing the veil between the worlds.

 Then she turned and went to Alex.

He was pale, none too steady, as she and Marinda helped him down from the table. "Alex, this is Marinda Simone. She's your grandmother."

He smiled weakly at the older woman. "Hello, Grandmother."

"Hello, Alex." She leaned close, kissed his cheek. Then she sighed, all business. "There's no reason to open up your father's private life and all his mistakes to public scrutiny. I'll ground the circle energy. Then we'll clean up down here and move the body upstairs. We can throw a hair dryer into the bathtub with poor Elizabeth. The world can believe her death was accidental electrocution. It's close enough to the truth."

"But what about Alex?" Melissa asked. "He needs a hospital."

"No." Alex touched her face with his palm. "Look at the pail. I can't be more than a couple of pints low. The cuts on my chest are shallow. I'll be fine."

She stared at him and she imagined her heart was in her eyes, but she didn't care. "Are you really all right?"

He leaned closer, kissed her mouth, and probably tasted the salt of her tears, she thought, as she clung to him. When he lifted his head, he said, "I'm all right. From now on, everything is going to be all right."

*  *  *  *  *

Alex let Melissa pull his arm around her shoulders, but he refused to lean on her as she led him through the darkness of the great below, up the stairs, and into the great above. The sun was streaming through the windows now, and the house seemed almost... cheerful.

He sat in a chair and allowed Melissa to wash the blood from his chest and his sides, while his grandmother was in the kitchen, brewing what she called a healing tea.

"What did that insane woman cut into my chest?" he asked Melissa as she ran the cloth over the shallow wounds. It stung, but he didn't care.

"Victor's name, in Theban script." She applied salve she'd found in the medicine cabinet, then wrapped his chest in soft gauze and taped it in place. "He thought he could steal your body, basically make himself live again."

"I know. Elizabeth said as much while she was carving me up." Melissa had a clean shirt in her hands, taken from Alex's room upstairs, but she paused now, staring at him with her huge, beautiful eyes. "Do you think that it's possible

this thing could have worked?" she asked.

"I don't know. I just... I don't know. I think he's been--haunting me sort of. Maybe preparing for this. I've felt him in my head more than once--but not anymore." He shook his head.

"I suppose just about anything is possible," she said.

He reached out, took the shirt from her, and set it aside. Then he took her hands in his. "What about forgiving me, for being such a stubborn idiot about all of this and nearly getting you killed? Do you think that's possible?"

Her eyes seemed to search his--and he felt to his core they were doing exactly that. Searching for some reassurance that he hadn't absorbed his father's twisted values and negativity.

Licking his lips, knowing what he had to do, he got to his feet. "You sit. I want to tell you some things I figured out while I was lying down there being drained into a mop bucket."

She did as he said, but she never took those potent, all-seeing eyes from his. God, he loved her. He'd loved her from the second he'd set eyes on her, he thought. She sat in the overstuffed chair, but only after pulling another one closer, so he could sit facing her.

She knew he was still weak and dizzy. She seemed to know more about him than he did, most of the time. She had from the start.

He sat in the chair facing hers and took her hands in his. "I realized down there, when I was pretty sure I was going to die, that you were right. He's built up a lot of negativity, or bad karma, or whatever you want to call it. I figure, since I lived through all of this, I have the opportunity to make things right. Take that negative energy and redirect it into something positive."

"Really? How are you going to do that, Alex?"

"For starters, I'm going to sell this house and everything in it and give the money to St. Luke's School for Boys."

She smiled a little. He liked that, knew he was on the right track.

"Do you think you have to do that for me, Alex? Because you don't, you know. I've been falling in love with you since the first time you said my name. That's not going to change."

He smiled fully. "You think I haven't figured that out already? Hell, woman, you came charging in here unarmed and laid your life on the line for me. I kind of guessed that might mean you cared."

"Not overconfident or anything, are you?" she asked, her tone teasing.

"Not even close." He got to his feet, tugged her to hers. "Melissa, you are--you're good. You're so good that I feel like I want to be better. I want to be the kind of man who's worthy of loving a woman like you." He slid his arms around her waist, pulled her close to him.

"You already are, Alex," she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder. "I promise, you already are."

EPILOGUE

"Shhhh!" Melissa hissed. "It's starting!"

She sat in the arms of her husband, in front of the television in the living room of their beach house. There were people all around them. Bowls of popcorn, open pizza boxes, and lots of icy soft drinks covered every surface. The director was there, along with the two beautiful starlets and the new head writer, a woman who was a practicing Witch herself. Marinda was there as well, beaming with approval at her grandson and his wife and hinting about the greatgrandchildren she hoped wouldn't be too far away.

The season finale of The Enchantress began with the Witch as a guest at an authentic Wiccan wedding, with the bride and groom being played by none other than the creative consultant and the show's producer/creator.

The ceremony was built around Melissa and Alex's actual wedding, held in a grove of oaks, the guests forming a circle around them. Every flower and color and gift had a special spiritual significance, and the officiating minister was a Wiccan High Priestess by the name of Marinda Simone.

Of course, in the script the ceremony was interrupted by some ill-intentioned demon and the Enchantress was forced to vanquish him, but at least she didn't accomplish that by a deadpan recitation of a rhyming couplet from a book. Thanks to the new writing team, the poor, overworked Witch was forced to do research, determine the best astrological timing, find and gather appropriate herbs, stones, and candles, call on the Divine, and channel her power from the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit. Also thanks to the new writing team, the show's ratings had climbed through the roof. Every episode dropped a tiny bit of Witchlore or ancient wisdom, all wrapped up in a damn good story, and the viewers couldn't get enough.

When the credits rolled and everyone inside was celebrating, high-fiving each other, cracking a few beers, Alex took Melissa's hand and tugged her with him, through the sliding doors, and down onto their special place on the beach.

"I need you with me for this," he told her. Then he pulled something from his pocket: the gold pentacle that had belonged to his father.

"Alex?" She searched his eyes. "Honey, I thought we were going to keep that put away?"

He nodded. "We were. But I don't think keeping it in a locked box in the back of the closet is really good enough. Not even after all the cleansing you've done on it. I think... I think it's time to let it go."

"But it's the only thing you have left of your father."

He shook his head. "No. I've only just begun to realize all the other things he left me. Because of him, I found you. And Grams. And my mother. My family. I have all of that. I don't need a hunk of metal. Besides, I think it makes a great offering of thanks."

She smiled. "And just what are you giving thanks for?"

"Everything I just mentioned. Plus the success the show is enjoying. And most of all, for the little one that's going to be coming into our lives pretty soon."

She frowned. "Honey, I'm not--"

"Yes, you are. Have been, since that first night on the beach."

"How do you know?"

He smiled down at her. "My mother told me, in a dream last night. It will be a little girl, and we'll name her Jennifer." He pulled her close and kissed her. Then he turned to face the sea and hurled the pendant as hard as he could.

It splashed into the water, just as the sun went down. Melissa closed her eyes and whispered, "So mote it be."

Five Degrees of Romance

--1 Dead Man's Woman --

Chapter One

(This is the opening paragraph the editors gave to all five authors:)

Charlotte winced as an inebriated party-goer stepped on her foot, but she kept moving determinedly toward the doors that led to the balcony. The Duncans would be delighted with their party; it was clearly the event of the season, and their daughter had been successfully launched into society.

Unfortunately, the noise, the heat, and the crowd combined with Charlotte's pounding headache to make her want to escape for a breath of fresh air. Reaching the balcony doors, she opened them to find two people engaged in a passionate kiss.

"I'm sorry." The words escaped her mouth before she realized it would have been better to make an exit without being noticed. The couple jumped apart.

Charlotte felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at her fiancé. "John! I thought you were dead!"

* * *

The lead crystal glass of non-alcoholic champagne, with which she'd been about to toast the New Year, fell from her numb fingers when she saw him. It dropped right over the balcony railing without a sound. "I thought you were dead," Charlotte whispered again.

He turned slightly, dragging his hungry gaze from the woman in his arms, the woman he'd been kissing, to stare at Charlotte. She heard the glass shatter on the sidewalk far below. His eyes were so familiar — the parenthetic frown lines right between the brows — that it caused her to ache down deep in her belly.

"Pardon me?" he said. "Do I know you?"

Blinking, she realized what that frown was trying to tell her. "Johnny, it's me. It's Charlotte."

"I thought you told me your name was Michael," the blonde in his arms snapped.

"It is." His arms fell away from the far more attractive woman, and he stepped closer to Charlotte, narrowing his eyes on her. "I'm sorry," he told her. "You must have me mixed up with someone else. My name is Michael Drummond."

Why was he doing this? Pretending not to know her, calling himself by some other name.

She took a step backward as he moved closer, shaking her head in disbelief as she stepped from the shadows of the balcony into the pool of light that spilled from the party going on inside.

When she did, he froze, his gaze skimming down her body. She saw him flinch, saw the way his eyes widened only slightly, before he painted his face again with that blank disinterested stare.

"Oh, this is just great!" the blonde said, because she could see her clearly for the first time now as well. She downed her champagne in one gulp and stomped between them and through the French doors back inside to the party.

Johnny stood there staring, facing her.

"I haven't seen you since May first. The day we were supposed to get married," Charlotte said. She hated her voice for shaking the way it was. "I suppose that's long enough that you might forget a woman who obviously meant so little to you. But how did you manage to forget your own name?"

He stared at her, and she could see the battle going on inside him. He parted his lips as if to say something, but then closed them again, his sharp eyes looking past her as another couple stepped out onto the balcony. "I'm sorry," he said, speaking very softly now, clearly not wanting the conversation to be overheard. "You're mistaken. I don't know you. I've never met you before in my life."

She had to close her eyes to keep the tears from spilling over. But she managed to nod her head. "Fine. If that's the way you want to do this."

She started to turn away, but his hand closed on her shoulder. "Charlotte..."

She went still at his touch. God when he touched her it all came back, the passion, the love. She'd loved him with everything in her. "I thought I would die when you did," she said, and though the words emerged as if wrenched from the very depths of her, she managed to keep her voice low. "I lay on your grave and cried until someone came and carried me away. I don't even remember who... But what do you care? You don't know me."

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I'm not who you think I am." He took his hand away.

"No. You're not even close to the man I thought you were, are you?" Stiffening her spine, lifting her chin, she walked to the French doors.

"Are you going to be all right?"

She paused with her hand on the door. "That's really not your concern anymore, is it?"

Then she stepped back into the party. Someone started the countdown to the New Year. By they time they got to seven, she had her coat in her hand and was heading out the door, into the hallway, and poking the elevator button. The doors opened instantly. No lines, no waiting. But why would there be? No one else would be coming or going at midnight on New Year's Eve. Everyone was with the person they loved, sharing that special moment, that special kiss, beginning the New Year wrapped up in each other's arms.

Just the way she had thought she would be starting this New Year. With her husband in her arms, kissing as they welcomed the future together.

She couldn't hold the emotions in check any longer. As she ran through the lobby and into the street outside, the dam burst. Tears flooded so thickly she couldn't see where she was going as she stumbled along the sidewalk. Her body shook with the force of the storm going on inside her, and her mind raced with questions. Who had really been in Johnny's car when it went off the road and burst into flames that beautiful spring day? And what the hell was this all about, anyway? Some kind of insurance scam? Was he a con artist, a criminal?

Had he realized that she'd been at the church, wearing her wedding gown when the police had come to tell her that he'd been killed on the way to the wedding? Had that been a part of his plan?

She sobbed so hard she hurt. The pain wrenched through her, from down low in her back, around to her middle, tightening like a steel band. She stopped her flight, grasping her belly with both hands, sucking in a harsh breath.

Oh, God. It wasn't...it couldn't be...not now....

"Excuse me, Ma'am?"

Charlotte jerked her head up at the sound of male voice and found herself staring into the eyes of a stranger, and into the barrel of a gun.

"You need to come with me," he said. He nodded toward a car that had pulled up to the curb beside her. It was long, sleek, and black, running almost soundlessly, and its rear door was standing open. "Get into the car, Ma'am."

"Look, take my wallet," she said, fumbling in her coat pocket for the billfold she'd brought with her. "There's cash, some credit cards. And here, my watch."

"Just get into the car."

Looking up at him again, she dropped the wallet back into her pocket and tried to weigh her options. She could get into the car and hope for a better chance, or she could make a run for it now and hope he was a lousy shot.

The question was, just how fast could a nine-month-pregnant woman, who might have just felt her first contraction, run?

Chapter Two

As it turned out, she didn't need to decide. There were two dull thuds, and it seemed as if the man's buttons exploded. Tiny little poofs of fabric. He dropped the gun he'd been pointing at her, a shocked expression on his face as he sank to the sidewalk. Then of course, she saw the blood.

There were squealing tires and roaring motors, and a crash that scared her half to death as a small red car smashed into the back of the long black one, pushing it forward several yards. The red car's passenger door opened, and Johnny yelled. "Get in. Fast!"

She got in, and he was speeding away before she even got the door closed again.

"Did they hurt you?" he asked.

She closed her eyes, only wanting to blot out the sound of his voice and the insane way he was driving until her mind could wrap itself around all that was happening. Leaning her head back against the soft seat, she grabbed the seat belt with her other hand, pulled it around her. But as she fastened it, her hand brushed hot metal and her eyes flew open.

The gun lay on the seat between them. The extension affixed to its end was one she recognized only from watching old Bond films. A silencer.

"You just killed a man," she whispered.

"I didn't have a choice." He adjusted the mirror, looking into it almost as often as he looked at the road ahead of them.

"Are they following?"

"They were." He kept driving, though he did slow down to a more reasonable speed. They came to large, open parking lot, and he pulled in, shut the car off, snatched up the handgun, and got out. "Come on, come with me."

She undid her seat belt and got out too, following a dead man to another car, a dark blue sedan, and she stood near the passenger side door. He pulled out another set of keys, pushed a button to unlock the doors. "Get in."

"No."

He stood on the driver's side, looking over the top of the car at her. "What do you mean, no? They're looking for us, Charlotte, they'll catch up any time now. We need to move."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on, and why you're pretending not to know me." She blinked. "And why you were kissing that blonde at the party."

He licked his lips, glancing back down the road. "There will be time to talk about all of that later. Just get in the car and let me get us somewhere safe, before —"

"Tell me your name. You're real name, Johnny."

"My name is Michael Drummond," he told her. "And unless you get into this car right now, very bad men with very large guns are going to show up and start shooting at you."

She turned her back to him. "I don't care."

"Oh, you don't care," he repeated. "What about your baby, Charlotte? Do you care about your baby?"

Charlotte spun around to face him. "Yes, I do. Do you?"

Their eyes locked over the hood of the car. He said, "It's not...it's been..."

"Eight months, Johnny. It's been eight months to the day. And yes, it is yours."

Tires squealed in the distance. "Charlotte for the love of God, get into the car."

Battling tears yet again, she got into the car. So did he, dropping the handgun on the seat again, where it would be within easy reach. He drove quietly and carefully out the opposite side of the parking lot, and onto an all but deserted street. Charlotte watched behind them, but she didn't think they were being followed. Johnny drove to the highway, taking side roads and a convoluted route to get there. Once they blended in with the other traffic, though, he seemed to relax a little.

He glanced at her, looking her over. "What are you doing here, anyway?" he asked at length.

She shrugged. "I had to get away. I just couldn't stay in Chicago anymore. So many bad things happened there. First you being killed the way you were. And then Daddy — he was arrested on some insane charge that he was involved with horrible crimes. Laundering money for drug lords, the D.A. said." She squeezed her eyes shut tight. "It was all a mistake. I know it would have been all right if he just could have held on. But his heart gave out before he even made bail." She shook her head slowly. "I had no one else. With Daddy gone, and the rumors that lived on after him, I just saw no sense in my staying there."

Lowering her head very slowly, she sighed. "If I knew the son of a bitch who was responsible for putting my father through all that, I honestly don't know if I could keep myself from doing them harm. Physical harm." Then finally, she looked up. "What about you, Johnny? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead."

He pursed his lips, glanced her way. "I'm the son of a bitch who put your father through all that," he said. "My name is Michael Drummond. I work undercover for the US Government's Federal Drug Task Force. And your father's arrest was the result of a year-long investigation in which I played the role of Jonathon Stone, got close to him, and gathered evidence against him."

Charlotte felt as if he'd just stuck a hot blade straight into her chest. "And one of the ways you got close to him...was by getting close to me?"

He lowered his head.

"You used me? It was all just an act? Everything you said to me, everything we said to each other? It was just a game to you?" She stared at him in disbelief. "My God, you made me fall in love with you. You asked me to marry you — all just so you could destroy my father?"

He couldn't seem to hold her eyes. "I didn't mean for things between us to get — as far as they did. Your father was pushing for the marriage, and I ran out of reasons to put him off. He was beginning to suspect —"

"So you decided it was necessary to rip my heart out and crush it in your hands, all to keep your cover intact. Hell, Johnny, that makes perfect sense."

"Michael. My name is Michael. And I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," she whispered as she closed her hand around the gun, lifted it between them, and pointed it at him. It was hard to see through all the tears, but she didn't suppose that would matter at such close range, anyway.

Chapter Three

"Stop the car, Michael," she said, and to his ears it sounded as if his name, his real name, tasted bad on her lips.

"I don't blame you for being angry," he began.

"Angry? Angry?" She laughed, a short, harsh sound that made his belly tighten with guilt. He could hear the pain in her laugh. "I'm not angry, Michael. What I'm feeling right now is ice-cold hatred. I hate you. I hate you."

"I don't blame you for that, either. It's good that you hate me. Better for you that way. But you're not going to shoot me, Charlotte. You're not the kind of woman who could kill a man."

"Maybe I didn't used to be." She sniffed. "Then again, maybe you never really knew me as well as you thought you did. God knows it's possible."

He shook his head. "I was coming back for you."

"Liar. Stop the car."

He kept driving. "I know it sounds like a lie. Something any man would say to a woman holding a gun to his head, but it's the truth. It killed me to leave you the way I did, Charlotte. But I had to."

"Why?"

"Because your father was on to me right at the end. He told the drug lord he was working for that I was a cop, and a hit was put out on me. If I hadn't "died" on my way to the wedding, Charlotte, I'd have been killed shortly afterward. Your father had it all worked out with Carl Magenta ."

She lifted her brows. It made him hurt to see her beautiful face so ravaged by emotion. The tears had burned red paths into her cheeks and her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. "Uncle Carl?" she asked. "A drug lord?"

"Yeah. And unlike your father, he lived to go to trial."

"Where he was acquitted of all charges."

"A hung jury is not an acquittal. There's already an investigation into jury tampering underway. Those jurors were threatened, Charlotte. Their lives and their spouses and their kids were threatened. That's the only reason "Uncle Carl" is still on the streets."

"Carl Magenta wouldn't hurt a fly," Charlotte whispered.

"And those men who are chasing us right now — just who do you think they work for? Hmm?"

While he let that sink in, he gave her a bit more to think about. "You were safe, so long as you believed me dead. Carl assumed you'd been taken in just as he and your father had. But then you came here, to the same city where his spies had already tracked me. You showed up at the same party, were probably even seen talking to me there, and so they have to assume you know. That you were in on the whole plan with me, all along."

She blinked slowly. "You're saying Carl wants me dead? Me, his precious, pregnant, honorary niece?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. I left the way I did, without telling you a thing about any of this, because it was the only way to keep you safe, short of killing the bastard in cold blood. An option I might have taken by now, if I could get close enough to the son of a bitch. And just so you know, the blonde at the party was one of Carl's associates. I was hoping to get to him through her."

"So the blonde meant nothing to you, and you only broke my heart to save my life," she whispered. "Doesn't that sound noble?"

"Yeah, it does. Which is why I feel compelled to ask why you're still pointing that gun at me."

"Because I don't believe a word of it. Now stop the car."

"I'll stop the car when we get where we're going. If you still want to shoot me, you can do it there, okay?"

She blinked, then suddenly closed her eyes and clenched her jaw.

"Charlotte?" The car swerved as he spent too much time looking at her and not enough looking at the road. "Charlotte, what is it?"

"Nothing!" She barked the word, keeping the gun on him, though her hand shook badly.

Finally, she opened her eyes again, lowered the gun to her lap, but kept it clasped tightly in her hands. "How much farther?"

"Half an hour," he said. "It'll be safe there. I promise. I know this has all been a terrible shock to you, Charlotte. I know you don't want to believe anything bad about your father, and I don't blame you. If you give me time, I can show you proof that everything I've said is true."

"That's not possible."

"Of course it's possible. We have all kinds of evidence."

"Really? How do you document that you weren't just using me all along, Michael? What physical evidence do you have that will convince me that every time we made love, you meant one thing you whispered to me? That you ever cared about me in the least? You told me you'd love me until you died, Michael." She searched his face with eyes so probing they felt like blades. "You're still alive."

He drove in silence for a while, saying nothing at all. He didn't know what he could say that would sound any more genuine to her. She was right; he had used her. Lied to her. Made promises he knew he would probably never be able to keep.

But he'd wanted to keep them.

She leaned back against the headrest, closed her eyes, and after a few more miles slipped by, he thought she might have fallen asleep. It was good for her to rest. She'd been through so much tonight, God, so much in the past year. Losing him, her father, and then...

He glanced down at her belly. She was pregnant, carrying his child. He didn't think she had it in her to lie about something like that. His baby. Due any time now, by the looks of things. The thought of his child being born to a woman who hated him was not a pleasant one.

And yet, unless he could fix things, put Carl Magenta away for good, it wouldn't matter who bore the child. It wouldn't be safe. None of them would be safe, ever.

He turned at last onto the spiraling dirt road that lead up the small mountain to the cabin that was his only haven. It was where he hid out in between cases. It was where he retreated when he was being hunted like a dog and needed a few days off. It was the only place he felt truly safe, and it was a place he had never shared with another living soul.

And it was miles and miles from civilization. No phone. No electricity. A hand pump for water, a cold spring for refrigeration, a fireplace for heat, and an outhouse for a bathroom. It was his sanctuary.

He hadn't been back up here in six months. It was where he'd come to lick his wounds after leaving Charlotte. Where he had come to try to forget her.

It hadn't worked.

He shut the car off and glanced at her. She was sleeping so soundly he would have felt mean to wake her, still clutching the damn gun. As if she might really use it on him. He knew better. He got out quietly, and left her there to rest. He unlocked the cabin and went inside. His flashlight was hanging from a hook just inside the door, as always, and he used it to find his way around until he got a few lanterns burning.

He was kneeling in front of the fireplace, touching a match to the kindling there, when he heard her footsteps crossing the porch. The door creaked open, and he rose, and turned to see her standing there.

"We'll be safe here," he said.

"Speak for yourself, Michael. I think I'm in labor."

Chapter Four

"Labor?" Michael had faced down gangs of armed criminals and felt less fear than what jolted through him at that single word. "Are you sure?"

Charlotte walked forward, one hand at the small of her back, the other carrying the gun he had left in the car with her. "No. I'm not at all sure. I've had three...pains, or contractions, or something in the past —" she glanced at her watch "— hour and a half. It might be nothing."

"Or it might be labor."

She nodded, lowering herself onto the sofa near the crackling fire. Its light painted her face and her hair, and though she was puffy and red-eyed from crying, she was every bit as beautiful as he remembered. More, maybe. Pregnancy agreed with her. He saw her tuck the gun behind the cushion, and decided to let her keep it if it made her feel more secure.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Depends. How far to the nearest hospital?"

"An hour."

She nodded. "And how risky do you think it is for us to go back out tonight?"

He shook his head slowly. "No way to tell for sure. They wouldn't be looking at hospitals, at any rate. It's not like they know you're this close."

"Actually," she said, making a sheepish face, "they might. I was having the first pain when that guy with the gun came up to me. The ones in the car could have seen it."

He went to the kitchen, pumped water from the hand pump, letting most of it run right down the drain, until it ran sparkling clear. Then he rinsed a small teapot, filled it, and brought it to the fireplace. He hung it on a hinged hook, then pushed the hook into the hearth so the pot hung over the flames.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "You just tell me if you feel you need to go to the hospital or not. If you have to go, I'll make sure it's safe. That's my job."

She nodded. "I'd like to rest awhile, give it some time. It could be false labor. I've had it once already."

"Okay." He nodded, watching her.

"I'm not expecting anything from you, you know. I mean, you always used protection. This baby isn't your fault. I won't hold you responsible."

He lowered his head. "Do you really think that's what I want? To be let off the hook?"

"Isn't it?"

"No, Charlotte." He sighed. "Hell, I don't know how to fix this. I don't know how to make you believe that I —" He broke off there. The fire popped and hissed in the darkness. He leaned over her, slid his arms around her, and gathered her close to him. Then he kissed her, the way he'd been dreaming of kissing her every single day since he'd broken her heart.

She let him. She even kissed him back.

When he lifted his head again, her eyes were sparkling. And she whispered, "Was that real, Michael, or just one more part of the beautiful lie you made me believe all those months ago?"

He stared into her eyes, saw her tears, felt his own throat burn and tighten. "I'm going outside," he said at length. "I need to turn on the gas to the kitchen stove, and split up some more firewood. I'll be within earshot, okay?"

"All right."

* * *

Charlotte let him go, let the door close behind him, and she tried to erase the feelings his kiss had stirred to life inside her. God, she wanted to believe him. She wanted it so much.

She had thought she needed to rest, but now she felt restless, agitated, nervous. Pent up energy sizzled inside her, and she got up off the sofa, picked up a lantern, and wandered the small cabin, taking in every part of it. But even while she explored, her mind was on Michael. What if she let him convince her that he still harbored feelings for her? What if she just gave over to the maddening temptation to believe his lies? What was the worst that could happen?

Maybe he was still working the case, her mind warned. Maybe he was going to try to prove that she had been involved in her father's crimes as well. What would happen to her baby if he managed to make a case against her?

Would he do such a thing? Once she would have said absolutely not. But once she had thought she knew him. Now, she wasn't sure of anything anymore.

He was alive. God, that was one thing she hadn't even fully processed yet. He was alive. She sank down onto softness, and lowered her head and wept with joy that the man she had loved and lost was alive. She had dreamed of this very thing, night after long lonely night. Even if he had lied to her, used her, betrayed her, she still couldn't help but cherish the fact that he was alive.

When her tears stopped, she lifted her head and looked around the room into which she had wandered. A bedroom with a soft four-poster double bed, made of pine logs, and an old-fashioned quilt. There was a window in one side, and beside the bed, a bedside stand with a framed photograph, glinting in the lamplight, and a spiral notebook in front of it.

Blinking, she set the lamp down near the photo and saw that it was a picture of her. With trembling hands, she reached for the notebook and flipped it open. A pen marked the place where the last person to write in it had left off, and she recognized Michael's scrawl across the page.

"It's been two months since I left her, and I can't get her out of my mind. She loved me. I know she did. It must be killing her to think I'm dead. God knows it would kill me if I thought she was. But that's just it — she will be if I go back. If I tell her any of this, it could get her killed. I have to nail Magenta. And then I can go back for her. I can tell her the truth and hope to God she can forgive me for the hell I've put her through. If she won't — no. I can't think about that. I'll fix this; I swear to God I will. I'll find some way to make it right again. And I'll spend every minute in hell until then. I love her. I ache for her. It hurts to breathe knowing I can't be with her. It hurts to breathe."

Hearing his footsteps crossing the threshold, she turned toward him, tears spilling over, ready to tell him that it was okay again. That she believed him. That she loved him.

But it wasn't Michael standing in the doorway.

"What's the matter, baby?" he asked. "Haven't you got a warm welcome for your Uncle Carl?"

Chapter Five

"Carl...how did you find me here?"

He smiled. "I've been having you followed ever since you left Chicago, honey. I knew that cop of yours would come to you sooner or later. He was nuts about you. Anyone could see it."

She sniffed, lifted her head. "So you used me to get to him?"

"More or less. We were having trouble keeping track of him. He's a slippery one. Watching you was much easier."

A painful contraction gripped her, and she clenched her teeth, doubling over, and holding her belly. "Oh, God..."

"It's all right, hon. It won't hurt much longer," Carl said.

Panting, sobbing, she lifted her head when the pain eased. "I thought you loved me, Uncle Carl."

"I am a businessman," he said, as if it were a full blown explanation.

"Can I at least sit down? By the fire? I'm chilled to the bone."

He grunted, but stepped out of the doorway, keeping his gun on her as she passed. He followed her into the living room. Charlotte sat on the sofa, pulling the blanket from the back of it over her shoulders, leaning back, putting her legs up. She dug beneath the cushion with one hand, her motions covered by the blanket, searching for the gun she'd tucked there earlier.

"That's right, get comfy. It'll make this easier."

"You're really going to shoot me?" she asked, her voice trembling.

The door opened, and Michael stepped in with an armload of firewood, which he dropped to the floor as soon as he saw what was happening. His eyes met Charlotte's, then shot to Carl.

"Listen, I know what you think, but she doesn't know anything. Nothing, Carl. It's all me, okay?"

"Of course it is."

"So let's you and I go somewhere and work this out between us, hmm?" He was coming closer, his hands raised. "You do what you have to do, but leave her out of it."

"I'm sorry, Michael, but I have no choice."

"For the love of God, Carl, she's pregnant."

"I really don't care. I never liked kids anyway."

He lifted his gun toward Michael. Charlotte aimed hers through the blanket and squeezed the trigger. But it wouldn't move. Nothing happened.

"Hey, Carl, uh, you don't have the safety on, do you? I mean, I'd just as soon not have to go through this more than once."

Carl glanced at the gun, his finger sliding over the small catch above the trigger. Charlotte mimicked the move, finding the same catch on her own gun, and pushing it forward.

"I've been doing this awhile, Michael," Carl said. "No, the safety wasn't on."

"That's funny," Charlotte said. "Mine was." She squeezed the trigger just as Carl turned to gape at her. The shot exploded, and he flew backward as if he'd been hit in the chest with a sledge hammer. He landed on the floor, and he didn't move again.

Michael rushed to kick the gun away from him, then bent over him for a moment. Charlotte didn't watch. She couldn't — the pain was back and it was intense this time.

"He's dead," Michael said. He moved to the sofa, sat on its edge, and pulled her into his arms. "It's over. My God, it's finally over."

She hugged him back. "Is it?"

Sitting back he looked at her. "Only the bad parts, Charlotte. I promise you that. There won't be any more pain, no more hurting for you."

"Actually, I think you're mistaken there."

He searched her face. "Honey...?"

"It's labor. I'm sure now. We should probably head to the nearest hospital, okay?"

He nodded, getting to his feet, scooping her up and carrying her out of the cabin, and down to the car.

* * *

He was with her throughout the labor, the delivery, and finally, that moment of moments, when her tiny, perfect baby daughter was placed in her arms.

Charlotte couldn't take her eyes off her child — at least not until she saw the look of utter rapture in Michael's wet eyes. And then she couldn't decide which was more beautiful.

He looked at her, then kissed her tenderly. "I don't know how, Charlotte, but I swear, I'm going to find a way to convince you how much I love you. If it takes me the rest of my life, I will."

She smiled, tears brimming in her eyes. "You already have," she told him.

His brows went up, eyes widening a little. "I have? But...when, how?"

"I found your journal. I read what you wrote there after you left me."

He seemed blank for a moment, then realization dawned. "I hadn't been back to the cabin since then. I didn't even remember..."

She slid the baby into his arms. He stared adoringly at the child, then at her. "I guess our daughter gets to come to the wedding this time, hmm?"

"Just as long as the father shows up," Charlotte whispered.

"I'll love you till I die, Charlotte. And as you pointed out, I'm still alive."

He kissed her again, and she knew that this time, there was nothing that could keep them apart.

The End

Eternally Yours

--6 The Power of Love --

Chapter One

"Are you sure this is the right place to be doing this?" Rory asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"What better place," Celeste said softly, "than Solange's grave?" She shivered a little, though it was far from cold tonight. It was the atmosphere. The tall ornate crypts, a city of the dead, rising all around them. The swirling mists writhing on the ground. The thick black clouds blotting out even the moon and stars.

"I don't like it here," Eve put in, looking around the cemetery with fear in her brown eyes. "It feels…dark. Evil."

"Don't be ridiculous. The ancestral home is a stone's throw from here. Solange is here," Celeste began, but she let her voice trail off. It felt ridiculous to lecture her cousins when she was every bit as uncomfortable herself.

"You could at least do something about the atmosphere, couldn't you, Rory?" Skye asked.

Rory closed her eyes and the others went silent, watching her. In a moment, the ghostly wind that had been moaning and whispering around the crypts and statues faded and died. The dark clouds blotting out the face of the moon broke apart, sailed away like black ghost-ships on a midnight sea. And the full moon gleamed bright and silvery, bathing the crypts in light and shadow.

No doubts for Rory. She cast, and she conjured, and the results were visible, palpable. Rain fell or snow or hail. No questioning her perceptions. No wondering if the voices were only in her head. And no question in her beloved Luke's eyes either. No room for doubt. Eve's power was like that, too. When she moved something with her mind, there was no questioning whether it had really happened. It simply did.

"Hell, I'm not sure that's any better," Skye said. She was looking now at the statue near the Deveaux family crypt. Life-size, lifelike in every way, it was made to look only more real by the moonlight. "God, who put that awful thing here?"

"I'm more concerned as to why," Celeste whispered, eyeing the chiseled, harsh and somehow handsome face, the flowing robes, the hands forever gripping something that had long since crumbled away.

"It's almost as if it's real," Skye said softly. "I keep thinking I can hear its thoughts."

Eve shivered and rubbed her arms. "Yeah? What's it thinking?"

"I don't know. I can only make out whispers."

"Might not be the statue at all," Celeste said. "Might be the whispers of the dead. This place is humming with them. Maybe you're starting to channel them, like I do."

"That's not what it feels like," Skye said. "But then again, how the hell would I be sure?" She met Celeste's eyes.

Celeste understood. Her power and Skye's were the most alike. Skye heard the thoughts of the living. Celeste heard the voices of the dead. Tough to prove either of them. Though she'd never heard Skye speak of her lover doubting her abilities. As far as Celeste knew, Nic was a true believer.

"Can we just get this over with?" Rory asked. Clouds came creeping back over the face of the moon, and she waved an impatient hand and sent them skittering away. "I can't hold the weather off all night." She looked as if she could, with the moonlight setting her burnished red curls alight like a nimbus of power.

"So what do we do?" Eve asked.

"Hold on, I'll ask." Celeste closed her eyes. "Solange? Great-Grandmother, are you there?"

I'm here, child. But you already know what to do. Trust your instincts. They're the instincts of a witch, and will never steer you wrong. It's important you do this.

Nodding, Celeste looked at the others. "Form a circle," she told them. It was the first thing a witch did in most situations. So it ought to work now.

The four cousins formed a loose circle, right in front of the Deveaux family crypt.

"Solange can see us, she says," Celeste said, passing along the impressions she

was receiving from her great-grandmother. "But she can't come to us. She isn't

free yet. She's trapped…in the house."

As she said it, all four of them turned to look in the direction of the house. It was beyond Lafayette Cemetery's stone wall, a few blocks away.

"She says it does her heart good to see the wonder of her family, of her bloodline. It made it worthwhile, the sacrifice she made for us."

Beautiful, all of you, and strong. And you have each found love, Solange went on. But it is with you, Celeste, that I feel the strongest bond. I can speak to you, Celeste. It means so much that you can hear me. And beyond that, of all of you, you are the one who looks so like I did in life. It warms me to see you strong and proud in your caramel skin and raven hair.

"You've been so lonely, Grandmother. For so long. I know how you must ache for your Jonathon, but it will be over soon," Celeste promised.

I would make the same choices again, Celeste. I did the right thing.

"Now what?" Eve whispered. She pushed a hand through her short, dark brown hair, a nervous gesture.

Take out the stones.

"Take out your pieces of the stone," Celeste said. She lifted her head, looked around the circle at each of her cousins in turn. Rory reached into a backpack, took out a hunk of stone, dropped the pack onto the ground. Skye had an expensive-looking handbag, large and brown with a gold clasp. She took her piece from that, then set the bag aside, her eyes only on the stone. Sable-haired Eve carried her stone in a leather satchel with a drawstring top. She took it out and tossed the satchel amid the crypts and pottery. Celeste took her own stone from the silk bag she'd taken to carrying belted around her waist. She held it in a two-handed grip, out in front of her, and the others copied her stance.

Put them on the ground, Solange whispered.

Celeste nodded. "Put them on the ground."

As she said it, she knelt down and, reverently, she laid her piece upon the well worn, oft-tread ground. The others did likewise, kneeling, lowering the pieces of stone to the ground, reluctantly letting go of them, and finally straightening again.

And Celeste spoke the words her grandmother gave to her.

"The stone was split, the curse was spoken. The stone is healed, the curse is broken. So mote it be."

"So mote it be," the other three repeated in one voice.

On the ground, the stones began to vibrate, to tremble. As the four women watched in wonder and awe, they moved. Slowly, tentatively at first, then with more vigor. Some of the pieces turned, rotating themselves into the correct position. Then, in one sudden burst of frantic motion, the four pieces slammed together in the very center of the circle the women had formed. Light burst from them, a blinding orange-yellow glow that brightened to pure white at the seams — sparks flew as the pieces melded.

And then the light died and the Stone of Power lay there in the very center of the circle, whole, not even a crack to show where it had once been broken.

Celeste felt something, a rush that made her jerk her gaze in the direction of the house. "Solange is free!" she shouted. She felt the woman waft into the cemetery to join her descendants with a warm, rose-scented breeze.

And then she appeared there. Translucent, wispy, like a veiled, smoky reflection of Celeste's own face, above an old-fashioned dress with a high lace collar.

"Solange," the others whispered.

They could see her, too!

But Celeste's joy was short-lived, for she saw the look on her great-grandmother's ghostly face, saw the fear in her eyes and felt the bolt of panic that shot through the other woman's heart as she looked beyond her descendants.

Celeste followed her gaze and she saw it, too. The statue, looming behind her cousins seemed to be…coming to life.

Chapter Two

Something spattered on the ground, like stones being dropped by handfuls, and the three cousins turned, all of them, only to freeze in horror when they saw what Celeste and Solange had already seen.

The statue, the frightening, horrible statue, was…moving. The arms, hands, seemed to flex slightly, and stone crumbled and fell away.

"My God, look at the eyes!" Skye said.

They all did, seeing that those eyes were no longer the eyes of a stone statue, but the eyes of a man. A living, angry man.

"Girls! You must flee!" Solange shouted.

But even then, the statue was shaking off more of the stone, protesting in a deep growl as he struggled to get free. "I don't understand, Solange. We broke the curse. We set you free. What's happening now?"

"Yes, Celeste. You broke the curse. You've freed me. But in so doing, you've also freed him."

"Who is he?" Rory asked, staring from the ghostly apparition of her great-grandmother to the crumbling statue.

"Darien," Skye replied. "I can read his thoughts loud and clear now. He's the wizard from the legend. And he intends to kill every one of us and take the stone."

"Over my dead body," Eve whispered. She waved a hand at the statue, and it went flying off its pedestal, smashing onto the ground in a cloud of dust.

Seconds later, though, the man himself, Darien, rose from that pile of broken rock, an evil smile on his face as he brushed plaster and dust from his robes. "Thank you, Eve. It would have taken me another twenty minutes on my own." He looked at the Stone of Power, lying there on the ground among them. "I'll just take my stone and be on my way."

"The hell you will!" Eve crooked a finger, and the Stone hurled itself toward her. She caught it, staggering backward and grunting at the impact, the weight of it. Her knees buckled, but her cousins surrounded her, helping her support its weight.

"The house," Skye shouted. "Get it into the house!"

They moved as one, Eve hurling tree limbs and rocks at the wizard every time he started to pursue them. Darien's limbs were stiff — probably from years of disuse. Celeste hoped his powers were as weakened.

"He's gaining on us," Skye said without looking back.

"Let's see him get through this," Rory shouted with a look at the skies.

Black clouds blotted out the moon, and a bolt of lightning shot down, blasting the earth in front of the wizard's feet.

"Righteous dead, arise and come to our aid!" Celeste shouted.

And immediately mists rose, swirling and writhing from the ground, from the crypts. They twisted and swirled, and the wizard stopped, stunned by what he saw. His gaze turned first one way and then another as the shapes surrounded him, moaning and shrieking, blocking his escape.

The women ran the rest of the way and managed to get the Stone into the house. They set it on the first table they came to, a coffee table, where Solange's tools were laid out as if awaiting her return. Eve turned and flung a hand toward the door, closing it behind them, turning the locks without touching them. Then she turned to face the others.

"So now what?" she asked.

"I don't know," Skye said. "I only know he was thinking he couldn't let us get the Stone into the house. So I figured it was our best bet."

Solange stood near the table, her hands hovering over her tools, the look on her face full of longing. Celeste felt her thoughts. She was itching to pick them up, to hold them again, to wield their power, but she was afraid to try. Afraid of the disappointment she would feel when her hands moved right through them. She turned, to face the women, her progeny, choosing instead to answer their questions.

"You were right, Skye," Solange said. "I've been imprisoned within this house for many years. And I may be noncorporeal, but I'm not without power. I've cast a circle around this place every night since I left the world of the living. A circle of protection, reinforced, its power magnified, night after endless night. Nothing evil can enter this place. He can't touch the Stone here."

"Then that's it? We've done it? Mission accomplished?" Rory asked. "It can't be. It's too easy."

"I'm afraid you're right, Aurora. Oh, we're safe enough, so long as we stay here."

Celeste nodded her understanding. "Don't you see, Rory? We meant to free Solange from her prison. Instead, we've just joined her here."

Rory blinked, looking outside. "We can't leave?"

"Not without the risk he'll attack us," Eve said.

Skye shook her head slowly. "I don't think he'll wait around or leave it up to us to decide when or whether to leave the protection of this place. He'll try to find a way to force us out. So we'd better figure out how to face him and win, when he does."

Celeste looked at Solange, as she eyed her tools again. "I hope you don't mind us using them. Eve brought them — they'd been in storage at her place in California for a long time."

"Of course I don't mind. I just wish…" She let her voice trail off and, tentatively, reached a hand down to close it around her beloved athame. But her hand passed right through the double-edged dagger.

Celeste bit her lip, feeling the acute sadness that passed through Solange's heart. She moved around the coffee table to sit upon the sofa in front of it. "Use me, Solange."

Solange looked at her. So did the others.

"Are you sure?" Solange asked.

"I am. Come, use your tools. You have the power, more than any of us. Maybe you can tell us what to do next, how to fight him. How to win."

Nodding slowly, Solange moved to where Celeste sat, and turning, she sat as well, as if she were going to sit upon Celeste's lap, only she didn't. She took up residence in the seat of her great-granddaughter's soul — in the core of her body.

She opened Celeste's eyes. Celeste could feel everything, was aware of everything, but not in control. She felt like a puppet, with someone else at the strings. Her hands closed around the athame and caressed it. Then they moved to light the fresh incense in the censer and the candles as well.

Her lips moved, but it wasn't her voice that spoke, and bade the others bring fresh water for the chalice. She mingled water and salt in the cauldron, and lowered the blade of her dagger inside, and a burst of pure energy blasted from the union of force and form, dagger and bowl, male and female. A sphere of electric blue light expanded to encompass the entire house. Never had Celeste felt such power from any magic she had created. And yet she did, now, with Solange at the helm.

Finally, she lowered the blade to the table and bent her head over the scrying mirror.

"Mothers of my mothers," Solange's voice said. "Grandmothers of my grandmothers, tell me what I must know."

The mirror seemed to cloud over, and all the women leaned closer to see what it was their great-grandmother was seeing through Celeste's eyes.

Chapter Three

"It's gone on too long," Eve whispered.

Celeste heard it all, but couldn't reply.

"She's right," Rory said. "She's been leaning over that mirror, whispering for hours, and we have no idea if it's doing any good. Meanwhile, he's still lurking around out there, doing God knows what."

"No, he's not."

Both the other women turned to stare at Skye.

"He's not out there anymore," she said. "I don't feel him. He's gone."

"Where?" Rory asked.

"I don't know. He's…beyond my range, I guess."

Eve sighed, and moved to the sofa where Solange sat in Celeste's body. She put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, Celeste, we need you back here now. Solange, let her go, okay? This isn't doing anyone any good."

The eyes that looked up at Eve were not Celeste's. But Celeste felt them smile. "Yes, you're right," Solange said. And then suddenly, Celeste's body went limp as something solid was stripped from it. She sagged on the sofa, stunned, weakened.

"Celeste? Honey, are you all right?"

Her cousins' hands were on her, shaking her, helping her. She sat up straight, blinking her eyes into focus, and noting that Solange sat beside her on the sofa. Was she more transparent than before? Thinner, somehow?

"Celeste?" Eve leaned close, shaking her gently. "You okay?"

Celeste met her cousin's worried eyes, then smiled. "Not really. How about you call me a paramedic?"

Eve returned her smile. "Nice try, but your paramedic isn't here for a reason. We all decided the men would be safer away from all this."

"I know. But if he could have seen what just happened…" A hint of sadness washed through her, but she reminded herself that she had more important things to worry about here than her own validation.

Celeste turned to Solange. "What did you learn?"

Solange looked at her, then at each of them in turn. "My time here will soon be over. At sunrise, I will be reunited with my Jonathon, and together we will have to move on, into the afterlife."

The girls exchanged glances, each more worried than the one before. "But Solange, we need you here. We need you to help us defeat Darien," Celeste whispered.

"You have me. I live, in each of you. Celeste, my power to speak to the dead lives in you. But don't use it only to speak to the dead, or channel their words. Use it to call on the ancestors of the Deveaux line and to channel their power. The magical force of every witch in our ancestry is yours to wield, if you but ask."

She blinked in shock, stunned that this could be true.

"Eve," Solange went on. "My power to convert energy into physical force exists in you. But don't just use it to move objects. Use it as the force it is. A force field of protection, a blast of invisible might, a beam of light in the darkness. Don't limit yourself to moving objects. A witch who wields magic can change anything in the physical realm — its shape, density, visibility, anything."

"My God, can that be true?" Eve asked softly.

Solange turned then to Skye. "Skye, like me, you can read the minds of your enemies and of strangers, yes. But has it occurred to you that not only can you read the thoughts of your cousins, you can send your thoughts to them, as well? You didn't know this, I know, and it is a skill, but I have every confidence you can do it. Because of your power, the four of you can communicate without making a sound. You can call for help, send out warnings, communicate with anyone at any distance. Do you understand?"

Skye nodded slowly, her eyes expressing awe.

"And you, Rory, your power is not limited to weather alone. That's just the first visible manifestation you've noticed. It is my power, alive in you, and the one I first learned to master. It is the power to command the elements — earth, air, fire and water. You can use it for more than just rain and wind. You can use it to create, to destroy.

You need only realize there is nothing in the universe that is not made up of those four basic elements, and engendered with life by the fifth — that of spirit. You can create at will. Make a mountain by calling on earth, a sword by conjuring ore and fire. You can do anything."

She stood and moved into the center of the room. "Between you, you have all the powers that I had. Like the pieces of the Stone, you four need to come together, to realize you are limited only by your own minds, to work as one, in order to defeat Darien, and to save the love in your lives."

Celeste blinked. "But we've…already done that, Grandmother. We've found love, each of us."

"I know," Solange said, lowering her eyes. "Unfortunately, so does he." She looked toward the window. "And that's what he will use to force you to come out of the protection of this house. The men you love."

"He's gone after the men?"

Solange nodded. "Where did you leave them?"

"At a hotel in the French Quarter," Celeste said. She looked at her cousins, and as one they said, "The Biltmore."

"We have to go! God, if he hurts Ben…" Celeste's heart froze over at the thought of Ben facing the biggest evil she had ever seen. "If he hurts Ben, he's going to wish he'd stayed made of stone."

Chapter Four

"You're not ready," Solange said. "You have no plan."

"We can't wait, Solange." Celeste reached out as if to take her ancestor's hand, even though the touch was one that could never be. "The men we love are in danger. There's no time for thinking, for planning. Only for action."

"Does Darien have any weakness, Solange? Any flaw we can make use of?" Eve asked.

Solange lowered her eyes. "His craving for power. And…his love for me."

The four cousins went silent, and stared at their forebear with their eyes wide. "He…loved you?"

Solange nodded. "As much as he was capable of loving anyone," she said. "But to him, love meant possession. Ownership. Control." She looked at each of them. "That's not what love is. But you know that. That's why you're rushing out of here without preparation. Perhaps — love can be enough. I didn't believe it was. But if I had…"

"Can't you come with us, Solange?" Eve asked.

She shook her head. "Without one of us here to maintain the circle's energy, he might find a way to break through and take the Stone."

Can someone find me a dress?" Celeste asked. "One like the one Solange is wearing?"

The cousins exchanged glances, as Celeste began to wind up her hair.

* * *

The cousins joined hands, met each other's eyes, then looked at Solange. "We won't let you down," Rory promised.

"See to it you don't."

"Just keep that stone safe until we get back."

She nodded. "Until dawn."

"We'll make it back on time."

Solange moved to the table where the Stone of Power sat surrounded by her tools, and leaned over the scrying mirror. "I'll watch you from here, and stay in contact through Celeste." She looked up at the four of them, standing hand in hand. "You can do this. I know you can."

With a nod, they headed out.

* * *

The Biltmore was empty. A crowd stood on the street, surrounding the aged building while flames leaped from every window and licked at its outer walls. Fire trucks surrounded the entire place, and the four cousins joined the crowd of onlookers. Celeste had put on a long coat, to cover the long dress she wore. She'd glimpsed herself in the mirror, and had been so startled by her own appearance she'd nearly cried out. She was the image of her great-grandmother's portrait.

Skye closed her eyes. "The men are inside the hotel. All of them, and him — he's there, too."

"We have to get inside."

Celeste heard Solange whispering to her. "She says to shrink into ourselves, to become one with the things around us. She says we can create an illusion of invisibility."

"Right," Rory said. "We're just going to turn invisible. Even if we could do that, how the hell could we walk through fire unharmed?"

Celeste recited the words Solange spoke into her mind. "We can't burn. We're ice." Then she repeated the phrase, over and over.

One by one the others joined in. Celeste focused on Rory, on tapping into her power, joining her in mastery of the elements, becoming ice, becoming transparent.

As they chanted together, a heaviness settled over them, a state of relaxed, limitless potential. She saw her cousins' eyes change, felt their breathing change, was certain they were all breathing as one, in fact, and that their hearts beat in a single powerful rhythm.

They focused, they drew in, they quieted their minds and tried to become the things they saw. Rory moved her arms and drew a shield of smoke around them, further blocking them from notice as they moved past the firefighters. She waved another hand and the wall of fire parted to allow them through. And they did it — they moved right past the police and firefighters and through the doors into the hotel lobby, and there was no hint there of flames or smoke. Inside the hotel things looked as normal as ever.

"What the hell is this?" Eve asked.

Skye said, "He's keeping the fire on the outside. It's to keep everyone out. He won't let it inside to destroy anything until he's ready."

"Where are they?" Celeste asked.

Again, Skye focused. "Third floor — ballroom."

Yes. Do come up. We've all been waiting.

"Hell, he knows we're here," Rory said.

Skye shot her a look. "You heard that?"

Rory's eyes widened. "God, Solange was right. We can tap into each other's powers."

Celeste led the way, and they trooped up the stairs. She could feel the fear shivering along her spine, and more than that, she could feel it in her cousins, as real and clearly as she felt her own. But she felt their determination, too, their love for their men.

And then she felt Ben, heard his thoughts through Skye's mind. He was wishing to God she would stay away, that she wouldn't charge in here, believing herself some kind of witch who could save the day. This guy had real power, and Celeste could get hurt, or killed.

She saw the look Skye sent her, but didn't acknowledge it, didn't indicate whether she had heard the thoughts. She saw Skye's surprise at knowing Ben didn't fully believe in Celeste's capabilities. It didn't matter, she told herself. She loved him, and she knew he loved her.

Then they were there, in front of the ballroom's arching, double doors. With a wave of her fist, Eve flung them open.

The scene that opened out before them was gut-wrenching. Tables were overturned, chairs broken and scattered like matchsticks. Shards of glass lay everywhere, and the crystal chandelier was demolished on the floor. A man lay pinned underneath the weighty mass, struggling to lift it off him. And Rory's cry of "Luke!" told them all who he was. Skye's focus was on Nic, who lay crumpled in a corner, blood trickling from his nose and mouth, unconscious, and Ben was bending over him, trying to help. Travis lay still and motionless near a wall. Outside the windows, flames raged and smoke billowed. But none made its way inside.

It was surreal.

Rory said, "Eve, get the chandelier!" Then she waved her own hand even as Rory turned toward the fallen crystal, and it hurled itself across the room, smashing into a wall.

In the center of all the destruction, Darien stood. And it was Celeste who walked up to him. "Let them go. Your business is with me, Darien."

He looked at her, his eyes widening. Across the room, Ben turned to look at her, too, and his face was etched in a frown.

"Solange?"

"Darien, all this is unnecessary. Please, it's between you and me. We can settle it — together."

"You don't love me," Darien whispered, not moving a single step closer. He didn't back up either, though, as Celeste moved closer. "You never did. It was always him."

"I've had a long time to think about that," she said softly.

Darien narrowed his eyes. "You're trying to trick me."

"I —" She reached for him.

"It's too late!" He whirled and sent her sailing across the room with a blast of magic. Her back slammed into the wall and she sank to the floor, hurting everywhere.

"Celeste!" Ben shouted her name and raced toward her, cradling her gently, stroking her hair from her face.

She blinked up at him. "It's all right. I'm…all right."

"Celeste," the wizard mocked. "I should have known. It's amazing how much you look like Solange."

She struggled to her feet, Ben helping her. "I don't just look like Solange. I am Solange. We all are."

Darien frowned.

Then she heard Skye's voice in her mind. He's going to blast you!

And even as Darien hurled a bolt of power at her, Eve flung her own arm, and a polished silver tray sailed upright and hovered, weightless, in front of Celeste. The bolt hit it and bounced right back on Darien, who smashed into the wall behind him.

"You're weakened, Darien," Celeste said, striding forward. She waved a hand, testing out Eve's telekinesis, and the tray was flung aside to land on the floor with a clatter. She heard Ben wonder what the hell he was seeing here, through Skye's ESP.

"It doesn't matter. Even weak I'm more powerful than four novice witches."

"But we're not four," she replied.

"We're one." They said it all together, and Celeste thought Solange's voice was with them.

"They say this hotel is haunted," Celeste said.

"They say every hotel in the French Quarter is haunted," Darien replied. "So what?"

"Let's see if they were telling the truth about this one." She lifted her arms. "Spirits of the dead! Rise up and lend your aid to the cause of good! We, the descendants of Solange Deveaux, call on you to rise up!"

The others came closer, raised their hands and pressed their palms to Celeste's and to each other's. Eve looked at the floor. "Open, floor, and floors below, open earth and realms below, open portals to the Underworld!"

A great gaping black hole opened in the floor, one that seemed bottomless.

"Holy mother," Ben whispered.

"You got that right," Celeste said. Then she looked at Rory. "The dead say they need form, substance to help them take shape."

Rory nodded. "Fogs, mists, rise and swirl! Elements of water and air, give shape to the spirits!" she cried.

And then it happened — from the hole, shapes emerged, forms, ghosts, rising and swirling.

Rising to his feet, brushing himself off, Darien shook his head and smiled. "Nice parlor trick, my girls, but what can a few ghosts do to harm me?"

"Depends on the ghosts," Celeste said. Then raised her voice, and it sounded more powerful even to her own ears, than it ever had before. "Ancestors, mothers of my mothers, grandmothers of my grandmothers," she intoned. "Every witch that came before us, I call on you now to come to the aid of your children! Lend us your power!"

Eve flung up a hand, and the roof split and cracked. Rory called up the wind, and it blew completely away and the entire room filled with wraiths, women, ancestors. Witches!

"My God, there are so many of them!" Skye cried. "Do you see them? Do you?"

Chapter Five

Power flooded into the four women. They all felt it and, suddenly, felt each other in a way they never had. Celeste sensed, saw, heard, smelled, experienced and…knew, everything that the others did. It wasn't like losing her individuality but more like gaining a missing part of herself. And each of her cousins' powers, and of her ancestors' powers, became her powers. And hers became theirs. They were one force, one being.

And Celeste saw Ben looking at her, his face wild with wonder. So she glanced down at herself and saw that she was…glowing.

He started forward, instinctively wanting to defend her. But she spoke to him with her mind. It's all right. We're all right. Take care of the others, Ben. Don't let them die.

His eyes widened, but he nodded his acceptance. He quickly moved to the center of the room, grabbed Luke under the arms and hauled him away from the action, out of the line of fire.

Around the four women were countless others. Shapes in the mist, ancestors, witches all. Celeste felt them, heard them, whispering spells and incantations, lending their own brand of magic and power to that of their descendants.

And then she felt something else. Darien, gathering his strength, knowing that without the Stone, they couldn't hope to defeat him.

"We need the Stone," Celeste whispered as Darien lifted his hands to aim a killing blast at the witches. "Solange…"

"Solange!" they all said in unison.

Before they could finish the summons, Solange appeared there right in front of them, the Stone in her ghostly hands, above her head, like a trophy. Darien's bolt hit it, and bounded back on him.

"Stop attacking us, Darien," Solange whispered. "You'll only succeed in destroying yourself."

"We're one now," Celeste said, though her voice sounded like a chorus of voices. Stronger than any power could be alone."

"Damn you, Solange," Darien screamed. "If I can't have you, no one will!"

He hurled another bolt at her, and this time, every witch in the room swooped around her, each of them touching the Stone of Power with her essence, if not her actual hand. The Stone glowed with the power they channeled into it, and this time when the wizard's bolt hit, it was absorbed. It glowed from within the Stone for an instant, then reemerged magnified, gleaming white lightning. It hit Darien full in the chest, and he shimmered for only a moment, then disintegrated into a million sparkling bits of light and color.

For a moment there was only silence. Then Solange said, "Go into the light, Darien. Into the arms of the spirit, and heal, and learn, and renew. I forgive you."

The sparkles vanished, rising into a beam of light that shone down through the missing roof of the hotel.

It seemed a weight and a darkness left the room as he did. And suddenly, the roof was intact again, the ballroom restored to order, as if nothing had ever happened, and the fire outside was gone. Ben was helping the other men to their feet. They all looked stunned, shocked, but physically, all right. And they kept their distance, in reverence or respect or maybe fear of all the ghosts surrounding the women.

Solange looked at her four offspring with pride and love shining from her eyes. "Release the spirits you raised, girls. People will be coming soon, and you'll have far too much explaining to do if they find you surrounded by ghosts."

The women joined hands again, closed their eyes. Celeste whispered, "Thank you dear ones for your presence, your magic and your aid. Go in peace and with our love. Hail and farewell."

"Hail and farewell," the others repeated.

With teary smiles and beaming eyes, the spirits fled into the void, whispering their love, their blessings, their goodbyes. Then the four cousins waved their hands over the hole in the floor, the portal to the Underworld, and closed it again. Solange knelt and drew symbols in the air over it to keep it that way.

Then she rose and turned toward the window. "It will be dawn soon." She smiled at them. "I want to be at the house when he comes. Will you come with me? Oh, my Jonathon simply has to see what our love has done for the world."

"Of course we'll come with you, Solange." Celeste looked at the men, who stood in awe at the far side of the room. "If…you'll come with us," she added.

She knew her cousins were worried, as she was, that tonight's events would send the men screaming to the far ends of the earth. But they didn't. They crossed the room, instead, each gathering his witch into his arms.

As he held her close to him, Ben whispered to Celeste, "Ask me again if I believe in magic."

"But you made me promise to stop asking you."

He shook his head. "I was an idiot. I'm sorry I doubted you, honey. I'll never doubt you again. Not about anything, magic or otherwise."

"It didn't matter to me, you know. All that mattered was that you loved me."

Ben stared down at her in wonder. "That was never a question, Celeste. And never will be."

He kissed her, then closed his hand around hers, and led her from the hotel ballroom.

* * *

They sat in pairs, in the library on the second floor, where the portraits of the Deveaux ancestors lined the walls. And right on schedule, as the sun rose up, Jonathon appeared, seemed to step out of his own portrait and onto the carpeted floor. He looked around at the couples gathered there, then his gaze found Solange, and it never flickered again.

"Oh, my love," he cried. "How I treasure these fleeting glimpses of you. I love you still, Solange. Can you hear me? I love you!"

Solange smiled, tears filling her eyes as she moved forward. "Not fleeting, my love. Not fleeting anymore." She went to him even as he gaped in wonder, and then overwhelming joy.

He opened his arms, and Solange went into them, two ghostly forms embracing as if they would never part.

"Our great-granddaughters broke the curse," Solange told him, though her voice was broken by tears. "And they set Darien free from the evil that held him for so long."

"I hope he finds the peace he never found in life," he said softly. Turning, he smiled at each of the girls. "Thank you, Granddaughters. You'll never know what this means to us."

Hugging Ben closer, Celeste said, "I think maybe we do."

"Maybe you do, at that." Jonathon eyed the men. "These are special women. Cherish them for what they are. Don't try to change them."

"Never," Travis said, his eyes locked on Eve.

"They wouldn't be the women we fell in love with if we did," Luke said, caressing Rory's cheek.

"And we'll never stop cherishing them," Nic put in, a hand resting protectively on Skye's shoulder.

Jonathon nodded, seemingly satisfied with their answers. He glanced at Ben. "And you, son?"

"Celeste taught me to believe in magic," he said, turning to gaze into her eyes. "It's a gift I can never repay, but I'll spend my life trying."

Jonathon smiled. "Good, then." Then he faced his bride again. "So long I've been without you, my love," he whispered, shaking his head.

"But now we have eternity together, Jonathon," Solange whispered. "Always together."

Turning, they moved toward the window and vanished in a flash of light.

For a long moment the others were silent, staring at the spot near the window, choking back tears.

Finally, one of the men cleared his throat, and Eve said, "What do we do with the Stone? We never asked her."

Celeste faced her. "We need to put it back in the cave where it was safe for hundreds of years. And we need to perform rituals and magic daily, to ensure it stays protected this time."

"With four of us on the case, the magic will be stronger than ever," Rory said. "Especially now that we know we can make use of all the magic that ever existed in our line."

"And of each other's," Eve added with a smile.

"Still, better safe than sorry," Ben said.

They all turned to look at him. He shrugged. "I'm just saying, maybe we ought to get started on restocking our supply of Deveaux women. You know, we'll need plenty of daughters to keep that rock safe in the future."

"And if we end up with a few sons along the way, it'll be an added bonus," Nic said.

"I'm all for that plan," Travis put in.

"Me, too," Luke said.

Ben leaned down and kissed Celeste gently. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm in," she told him, and turned into his waiting arms.

The End

Wings in the Night Series

--1 Twilight Phantasies (1993)--

PROLOGUE

Desires and Adorations,

Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations

Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;

And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,

Came in slow pomp.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

March 20, 1793

The stub of a tallow candle balanced on a ledge of cold stone, its flame casting odd, lively shadows. The smell of burning tallow wasn't a pleasant one, but far more pleasant than the other aromas hanging heavily all around him. Damp, musty air. Thick green fungus growing over roughhewn stone walls. Rat droppings. Filthy human bodies. Until tonight, Eric had been careful to conserve the tallow, well aware he'd be allowed no more. Tonight there was no need. At dawn he'd face the guillotine.

Eric closed his eyes against the dancing shadows that seemed to mock him, and drew his knees closer to his chest. At the far end of the cell a man coughed in awful spasms. Closer, someone moaned and turned in his sleep. Only Eric sat awake this night. The others would face death, as well, but not tomorrow. He wondered again whether his father had suffered this way in the hours before his appointed time. He wondered whether his mother and younger sister, Jaqueline, had made it across the Channel to safety. He'd held the bloodthirsty peasants off as long as he'd been able. If the women were safe he'd consider it well worth the sacrifice of his own pathetic life. He'd never been quite like other people, anyway. Always considered odd. In his own estimation he would not be greatly missed. His thirty five years had been spent, for the most part, alone.

His stomach convulsed and he bent lower, suppressing a groan. Neither food nor drink had passed his lips in three days. The swill they provided here would kill him more quickly than starvation. Perhaps he'd die before they could behead him. The thought of depriving the bastards of their barbaric entertainment brought a painful upward curve to his parched lips.

The cell door opened with a great groan, but Eric did not look up. He'd learned better than to draw attention to himself when the guards came looking for a bit of sport. But it wasn't a familiar voice he heard, and it was far too civilized to belong to one of those illiterate pigs.

"Leave us! I'll call when I've finished here." The tone held authority that commanded obedience. The door closed with a bang, and still Eric didn't move.

Footsteps came nearer and stopped. "Come, Marquand, I haven't all night."

He tried to swallow, but felt only dry sand in his throat. He lifted his face slowly. The man before him smiled, absently stroking the elaborately knotted silk cravat at his throat. The candlelight made his black hair gleam like a raven's wing, but his eyes glowed even darker. "Who are you?" Eric managed. Speaking hurt his throat after so many days without uttering a word, or downing a drop.

"I am Roland. I've come to help you, Eric. Get to your feet. There isn't much time."

"Monsieur, if this is a prank—"

"I assure you, it is no prank." He reached to grasp Eric's upper arm, and with a tug that seemed to cost him minimal effort at best, he jerked Eric to his feet.

"You—you don't even know me. Why would a stranger wish to help me now? 'Twould be a risk to your own freedom. Besides, there is naught to be done. My sentence is passed. I die on the morrow. Keep your head, friend. Leave here now."

The man called Roland listened to Eric's hoarse speech, then nodded slowly. "Yes, you are a worthy one, aren't you? Speak to me no more, lad. I can see it pains you. You'd do better to listen. I do know you. I've known you from the time you drew your first breath."

Eric gasped and took a step away from the man. A sense of familiarity niggled at his brain. He fumbled for the candle without taking his eyes from Roland, and when he gripped it, he held it up. "What you say is quite impossible, monsieur. Surely you have mistaken me for someone else." He blinked in the flickering light, still unable to place the man in his memory.

Roland sighed as if in frustration, and blocked the candlelight from his face with one hand. "Get that thing out of my face, man. I tell you I know you. I tell you I've come to help and yet you argue. Can it be you are eager to have your head in a basket?" Eric moved the candle away, and Roland lowered the hand and faced him again. "In your fourth year you fell into the Channel. Nearly drowned, Eric. Have you no memory of the man who pulled you, dripping, from the cold water? The eve of your tenth birthday celebration you were nearly flattened by a runaway carriage. Do you not recall the man who yanked you from the path of those hooves?"

The truth of the man's words hit Eric like a blow, and he flinched. The face so white it appeared chalked, the eyes so black one couldn't see where the iris ended and the pupil began—it was the face of the man who'd been there at both those times, he realized, though he wished to deny it. Something about the man struck him afraid.

"You mustn't fear me, Eric Marquand. I am your friend. You must believe that."

The dark gaze bored into Eric as the man spoke in a tone that was oddly hypnotic. Eric felt himself relax. "I believe, and I am grateful. But a friend is of little use to me now. I know not even the number of hours left me. Is it full dark yet?"

"It is, lad, else I could not be here. But time is short, dawn comes soon. It took longer than I anticipated to bribe the guards to allow me this visit. If you want to live, you must trust me and do as I say without question." He paused, arching his brows and awaiting a response.

Eric only nodded, unable to think for the confusion in his brain.

"Good, then," Roland said. "Now, remove the cravat."

Eric worked at the ragged, dirty linen with leaden fingers. "Tell me what you plan, monsieur."

"I plan to see to it that you do not die," he said simply, as if it were already done.

"I fear no one can prevent tomorrow's fate." Eric finally loosed the knot and slid the cravat from his neck.

"You will not die, Eric. Tomorrow, or any other day. Come here."

Eric's feet seemed to become one with the floor. He couldn't have stepped forward had he wanted to. His eyes widened and he felt his throat tighten.

"I know your fear, man, but think! Am I more fearsome than the guillotine!" He shouted it, and Eric stiffened and looked around him, but not one body stirred.

"Why—why don't they wake?" Roland came forward then, gripping his shoulders. "I don't understand. Why don't they wake?" Eric asked again.

The guard pounded on the door. "Time's up!"

"Five minutes more!" Roland's voice boomed, nearly, Eric thought, rattling the walls. "I'll make it worth your while, man! Now go!"

Eric heard the guard grumble, and then his footsteps shuffle away from the door as he called, "Two minutes, then. No more."

"Blast it, lad. It has to be done. Forgive me for not finding a way to make it less frightening!" With those words Roland pulled Eric to him with unnatural strength. He pressed Eric's head back with the flat of one hand, and even as Eric struggled to free himself Roland's teeth sank into his throat.

When he opened his mouth to release a scream of unbridled horror, something wet sealed his lips. It sickened him when he understood that it was a wrist, gashed open and pulsing blood. Roland forced the severed vein to him and Eric had no choice but to swallow the vile fluid that filled his mouth.

Vile? No. But warm and salty. With the first swallow came the shocking realization that he wanted more. What was happening to him? Had he lost his sanity? Yes! He must have, for here he was, allowing another man's blood to assuage his painful hunger, his endless thirst. He didn't even cower when the word rushed through his brain like a chilling breeze. Vampire. Fear filled his heart even as Roland's blood filled his body. He felt himself weakening, sinking into a dark abyss from which he wanted no escape. It was a far better death than the one the dawn would bring. The blood drugged him, and Roland stepped away.

Eric couldn't stand upright. He felt emptied of everything in him, and he sank to the floor. He didn't feel the impact. His head floated somewhere above him and his skin pricked with a million invisible needles. "Wh-what have you d-done to me?" He had to force the words out, and they slurred together as if he were drunk. He couldn't feel his tongue anymore.

"Sleep, my son. When next you wake you will be free of this cell. I promise you that. Sleep."

Eric fought to keep his eyes from closing, but they did. Vaguely he felt cold hands replacing his soiled cravat. Then he heard Roland pound on the door and call for the guard.

"He'll not live long enough for his execution, I fear." Roland's voice seemed to come from far away.

"The hell, you say! He was fine "

"Look for yourself, man. See how he lies there? Dead before the dawn, I'll wager. I'll send a coach for the body. See to it, will you?"

"For a price, sir."

"Here, then. And there will be more to follow, if you do it precisely as I say."

"Well, now, if he dies, like you say, I'll see he gets in your coach. But if not, I'll be here to see he keeps his other appointment. Either way he ends up the same. In the ground, eh, mister?" Harsh laughter filled the cell and the door slammed.

CHAPTER ONE

In the dream she was running. From something, toward something. Someone. She plunged through dense forest woven with vines and brambles that clawed at her legs, snared her, pulled her back. Swirls of smoky mist writhed, serpent like, around her calves. She couldn't even see where her feet touched the ground. All the while she kept calling for him, but, as always, when she woke she couldn't remember his name.

Jet hair stuck to her face, glued there by tears and perspiration. Her lungs swelled like those of a marathon runner after a race. She dragged in breath after ragged breath. Her heart felt ready to explode. Her head spun in ever tightening circles and she had to close her eyes tightly against the horrible dizziness. She sat up quickly, pushing the damp hair from her forehead, and glanced at the clock beside the bed and then at the fading light beyond the window.

She needn't have done so. The dream assaulted her at the same time each day, just one part of her increasingly irregular sleep patterns. Nighttime insomnia, daytime lethargy and vivid nightmares that were always the same had become a predictable part of her existence. She'd made a habit of rushing to her room for a nap the second she got home from work, knowing it would be the only sleep she was likely to get. She'd sleep like the dead until just before dusk, only to be wakened by that frightening, lingering dream.

The effects slowly faded, and Tamara got to her feet, pulled on her satin robe and padded to the adjoining bathroom, leaving tracks in the deep, silvery pile of the carpet. She twisted the knob on the oversize tub and sprinkled a handful of bath oil beads into the rising water. As the stream of water bubbled and spurted she heard an urgent knock, and she went to the door.

Daniel's silver brows bunched together over pale blue, concern-filled eyes. "Tam? Are you all right?"

She closed her eyes slowly and sighed. She must have cried out again. It was bad enough to be certain her own sanity was slipping steadily out of her grasp, but to worry the man who'd been like a father to her for the past twenty years was too much. "Of course, I'm fine. Why?"

"I... thought I heard you call." His eyes narrowed to study her face. She hoped the circles beneath her eyes didn't show. "Are you sure you're "

"Fine. I'm fine. I stubbed my toe on the bedpost, that's all."

Still he looked doubtful. "You look tired."

"I was about to take a nice hot bath and then I'm down for the night." She smiled to ease his worry, but it turned to a frown when she noted the coat over his arm. "You're going out? Daniel, it's been snowing all day. The roads "

"I'm not driving. Tam. Curtis is coming to pick me up."

She felt her spine stiffen. Her breath escaped her in a rush. "You're going to spy on that man again, aren't you? Honestly, Daniel, this obsession you have—"

"Spying! It's surveillance. And don't call it obsession, Tamara. It's pure scientific study. You should understand that."

Her brows rose. "It's folklore, that's what it is. And if you keep dogging the poor man's every step he's going to end up dragging you into court. Daniel, you've followed him for months. You have yet to come up with a shred of evidence that he's—"

"Daniel." Curt's voice cut her off, and in a moment he'd hurried up the stairs to join Daniel outside her bedroom door. " Are you ready?"

"And you!" Tamara rushed on as if he'd been privy to the entire conversation. "I can't believe you're encouraging this witch-hunt. For God's sake, the three of us spend every day in a high-tech, brass-and-glass-filled office building in White Plains. We're living in the nineties, guys. By ram, Connecticut, not fifteenth-century Transylvania!"

Curt stared at her for a moment. Then he tilted his head to one side and opened his arms. She sighed and allowed his embrace. "Still not sleeping nights?" His voice came smoothly, softly.

She shook her head against the damp fabric of his coat.

"I'm worried about leaving her alone," Daniel said, as if she were not there.

"I have experiments to finish in the basement lab," Curt offered. "I could hang around here, if you want to do the surveillance alone."

"I don't need a baby-sitter," she snapped.

Daniel ignored her. "I think that's a good idea," he said. He leaned over to plant a dry peck on her cheek. "I'll be back around dawn."

She pulled from Curt's arms and shook her head in frustration. "Daniel and I know what we're doing. Tam," Curt told her, his tone placating. "We've been in this business a lot longer than you have. DPI has reams on Marquand. It's not legend."

"I want to see the files." She sniffed and met his gaze.

His lips tightened at the corners. "Your security clearance isn't high enough."

It was the answer she'd expected, the same one she got every time she asked to see the data that the Division of Paranormal Investigations had on the alleged vampire, Marquand. She lowered her head and turned from him. His hand on her shoulder stopped her. "Tamara, don't be angry. It's for your own—"

"I know. For my own good. My tub is going to run over." She stepped away from him and closed the door. Curtis would sequester himself in the basement lab and not give her a second thought, she was sure of it. He didn't worry about her the way Daniel did. He did seem to feel he had the right to boss her around more than usual lately. She shrugged, vowing not to worry anymore about Curt's proprietary attitude toward her. She stopped the water in the bathtub and stared down into it for long moments. No hot bath was going to help her sleep. She'd tried everything from warm milk to double doses of a prescription sleep aid she'd pressured her doctor into giving her. Nothing worked. Why go through the motions?

With a frustrated sigh she padded to the French doors. On a whim, she flung them open and stepped out onto the balcony. A purple-black sky, lightening to silvery blue in the west, dropped snowflakes in chaotic choreography. The sun had set fully while she'd been arguing with her insane guardian and his stubborn cohort. She stared, entranced by the simple grace of the dancing snow. All at once she felt she had to be a part of it. Why waste all this nervous energy lying in bed, staring up at the underside of the white canopy? Especially when she knew sleep wouldn't come for hours. Maybe she could exhaust herself into oblivion. How long had it been since she'd been able to put aside her gnawing worry and enjoy some simple pleasure?

She hurried back inside, eager now that the decision was made. She yanked on tight black leggings and a bulky knit sweater, two pairs of socks and furry pink earmuffs. She grabbed her coat and her skates from the closet, dropped them into her duffel bag, shoved her purse in beside them and opened her bedroom door.

For a moment she just listened. The hollow dinosaur of a house was silent. She tiptoed through the hall and down the stairs. She paused at the front door just long enough to stuff her feet into her boots, and then she slipped silently through it.

Crisp air stung her cheeks and her breath made little steam clouds in the tailing snow. Twenty minutes of walking and snow-dance watching brought her to the outskirts of Byram. Childish delight warmed her when her destination came into view.

The rink sparkled from its nest amid the town park's shrubbery and carefully pruned elms. Meandering, snow dusted sidewalks, wrought-iron benches with redwood slatted seats, and trash cans painted a festive green made a wreath around the ice. Tamara hastened to the nearest bench to change into her skates.

* * * * *

When he woke, Eric felt as if his head were stuffed with wet cotton. He'd swung his legs to the floor, landing with unusual clumsiness. He hadn't needed a window to sense the pale blush that still hung in the western sky. It hadn't been the coming of night that had wakened him. Hadn't been that for weeks. Always her cries echoed in his head until he could no longer rest. Fear and confusion were palpable in her wrenching pleas. He felt her need like a barbed hook, snagged through his heart and pulling him. Yet he hesitated. Some preternatural instinct warned him not to act hastily. No sense of imminent danger laced her nightly summons. No physical weakness or life-threatening accident seemed to be the cause. What, then?

That she was able to summon him at all was incredible. No human could summon a vampire. That anything other than mortal danger could rouse him from his deathlike slumber astounded him. He longed to go to her, to ask the questions that burned in his mind. Yet he hesitated. Long ago he'd left this place, vowing to stay clear of the girl for her own sake. He'd hoped the incredible psychic link between them would fade with time and distance. Apparently it had not.

He relaxed for an hour in the comfort of his lair. With the final setting of the sun came the familiar rush of energy. His senses sharpened to the deadly keenness of a freshly whetted blade. His body tingled with a million needles of sensation.

He dressed, then released the multitude of locks on the heavy door. He moved in silence through the pitch-black hall and pushed against a heavy slab of stone at the end. It swung inward easily, without a creak of protest, and he stepped through the opening into what appeared to be an ordinary basement. The door, from this side, looked like a well-stocked wine rack. He pushed it gently closed again and mounted the stairway that led to the main house.

He had to see her. He'd known it for some time, and avoided the knowledge. Her pull was too strong to resist. When her sweet, tormented voice came to him in the velvet folds of his rest, he felt her anguish. He had to know what troubled her so. He moved into the parlor, to the tall window, and parted the drape.

The DPI van sat across from the front gate, as it had every night for two months now. Another reason he needed to exercise caution. The division had begun with a group of pious imbeciles, intent on the destruction of any and everything they did not understand, over a century ago. Rumor had it they were now under the auspices of the CIA, making them a threat not to be taken lightly. They occupied an entire office building in White Plains, according to Eric's information. It was said they had operatives in place all over the United States, and even in Europe. The one outside seemed to have made Eric his personal obsession. As if the front gate were the only way out, he parked there at dark every night and remained until dawn. He was as bothersome to Eric as a noisy fly.

He shrugged into a dark-colored overcoat and left through the French doors off the living room, facing opposite the front gate. He crossed the back lawn, stretching from the house to the sheer, rocky cliff above Long Island Sound. He went to the tall iron fence that completely surrounded his property, and vaulted it without much effort. He moved through the trees, gaining the road several yards behind the intense man who thought he was watching so well.

He walked only a short distance before he stopped, cleared his mind and closed his eyes. He opened himself to the cacophony of sensations that were usually denied access. He winced inwardly at the bombardment. Voices of every tone, inflection and decibel level echoed in his mind. Emotions from terrible fear to delirious joy swept through him. Physical sensations, both pleasure and pain, twisted within him, and he braced himself against the mental assault. He couldn't target an individual's mind any other way, unless that person was deliberately sending him a message—the way she'd been doing.

Gradually he gained mastery over the barrage. He sifted it, searching for her voice, her thoughts. In moments he felt her, and he turned in the direction he knew her to be.

He nearly choked when he drew near the ice rink and caught sight of her. She twirled in the center of the rink, bathed in moonglow, her face turned up as if in supplication—as if she were in love with the night. She stopped, extended her arms with the grace of a ballerina and skated slowly, then faster, carving a figure eight into the ice. She turned then, glided backward over the ice, then turned again, crossing skate over skate, slowing her pace gradually.

Eric felt an odd burning in his throat as he watched her. It had been twenty years since he'd left the innocent, raven-haired child's hospital bed after saving her life. How vividly he recalled that night—the way she'd opened her eyes and clutched his hand. She'd called him by name, and asked him not to go. Called him by name, even though she'd never seen him before that night! It was then he'd realized the strength of the bond between them, and made the decision to leave.

Did she remember? Would she recognize him, if she saw him again? Of course, he had no intention of allowing that. He only wanted to look at her, to scan her mind and learn what caused her nightly anguish.

She skated to a bench near the edge of the ice, pulled off the earmuffs she wore and tossed them down. She shook her head and her hair flew wildly, like a black satin cloak of curls. She shrugged off the jacket and dropped it on the bench. She seemed unconcerned that it slid over the side to land in the snow. She drew a breath, turned and skated off.

Eric opened his mind and locked in on hers, honed his every sense to her. It took only seconds, and once again he marveled at the strength of the mental link between them. He heard her thoughts as clearly as she did.

What he heard was music—the music she imagined as she swooped and swirled around the ice. It faded slightly, and she spoke inwardly to herself. Axel, Tam, old girl. A little more speed. . . now!

He caught his breath when she leapt from the ice to spin one and a half times. She landed almost perfectly, with one leg extended behind her, then wobbled and went down hard. Eric almost rushed out to her. Some nearly unheard instinct whispered a warning and he stopped himself. Slowly he realized she was laughing, and the sound was like crystal water bubbling over stones.

She stood, rubbed her backside and skated away as his gaze followed her. She looped around the far end of the rink. That's when Eric spotted the van, parked in the darkness just across the street. Daniel St Claire!

He quickly corrected himself. It couldn't be St Claire. He'd have heard the man's arrival. He would have had to arrive after Eric himself. He looked more closely at the white van, noticing minute differences—that scratch along the side, the tires. It wasn't St Claire's vehicle, but it was DPI. Someone was watching—not him, but Tamara.

He would have moved nearer, pierced the dark interior with his eyes and identified the watcher, but his foot caught on something and he glanced down. A bag. Her bag. He looked toward Tamara again. She was completely engrossed in her skating. Apparently the one watching her was, as well. Eric bent, snatched up the bag and melted into the shadows. Besides her boots the only thing inside was a small handbag. Supple kid leather beneath his fingers. He took it out.

An invasion of her privacy, yes. He knew it. If the same people were watching her as were watching him, though, he had to know why. If St Claire had somehow learned of his connection to the girl, this could be some elaborate trap. He removed each item from the bag, methodically examining each one before replacing it. Inside the small billfold he found a plastic DPI keycard with Tamara's name emblazoned so boldly across the front that it hurt his eyes.

"No," he whispered. His gaze moved back to her as he mindlessly dropped the card into the bag, the bag into the duffel, and tossed the lot back toward the place where he'd found it. His heart convulsed as he watched her. So beautiful, so delicate, with diamond like droplets glistening as if they'd been magically woven into that mane of hair while she twirled beneath the full moon. Could she be his Judas? A betrayer in the guise of an angel?

He attuned his mind to hers with every ounce of power he possessed, but the only sensations he found there were joy and exuberance. All he heard was the music, playing ever more loudly in her mind. Overture to The Impresario. She skated in perfect harmony with the urgent piece, until the music stopped all at once.

She skidded to a halt and stood poised on the ice, head cocked slightly, as if she'd heard a sound she couldn't identify. She turned very slowly, making a full circle as her gaze swept the rink. She stopped moving when she faced him, though he knew she couldn't possibly see him there, dressed in black, swathed in shadow. Still, she frowned and skated toward him.

My God, could the connection between them be so strong that she actually sensed his presence? Had she felt him probing her mind? He turned and would have left but for the quickened strokes of her blades over the ice, and the scrape as she skidded to a stop so close to him he felt the spray of ice fragments her skates threw at his legs. He felt the heat emanating from her exertion-warmed body. She'd seen him now. Her gaze burned a path over his back and for the life of him he couldn't walk away from her. Foolish it might have been, but Eric turned and faced her.

She stared for a long moment, her expression puzzled. Her cheeks glowed with warmth and life. The tip of her nose was red. Small white puffs escaped her parted lips and lower, a pulse throbbed at her throat. Even when he forced his gaze away from the tiny beat he felt it pound through him the way Beethoven must have felt the physical impact of his music. He found himself unable to look away from her eyes. They held his captive, as if she possessed the same power of command he did. He felt lost in huge, bottomless orbs, so black they appeared to have no pupils. My God, he thought. She already looks like one of us.

She frowned, and shook her head as if trying to shake the snowflakes from her hair. "I'm sorry. I thought you were. . ." The explanation died on her lips, but Eric knew. She thought he was someone she knew, someone she was close to. He was.

"Someone else," he finished for her. "Happens all the time. I have one of those faces." He scanned her mind, seeking signs of recognition on her part. There was no memory there, only a powerful longing—a craving she hadn't yet identified. "Good night." He nodded once and forced himself to turn from her.

Even as he took the first step he heard her unspoken plea as if she'd shouted it. Please, don't go!

He faced her again, unable to do otherwise. His practical mind kept reminding him of the DPI card in her bag. His heart wanted her cradled in his arms. She'd truly grown into a beauty. A glimpse of her would be enough to take away the breath of any man. The glint of unshed tears in her eyes shocked him.

"I'm sure I know you," she said. Her voice trembled when she spoke. "Tell me who you are."

Her need tore at him, and he sensed no lie or evil intent. Yet if she worked for DPI she could only mean him harm. He sensed the attention of the man in the van. He must wonder why she lingered here.

"You must be mistaken." It tore at his soul to utter the lie. "I'm certain we've never met." Again he turned, but this time she came toward him, one hand reaching out to him. She stumbled, and only Eric's preternatural speed enabled him to whirl in time. He caught her as she plunged forward. His arms encircled her slender frame and he pulled her to his chest.

He couldn't make himself let go. He held her to him and she didn't resist. Her face lay upon his chest, above his pounding heart. Her scent enslaved him. When her arms came to his shoulders, as if to steady herself, only to slide around his neck, he felt he'd die a thousand deaths before he'd let her go.

She lifted her head, tipped it back and gazed into his eyes. "I do know you, don't I?"

CHAPTER TWO

Tamara tried to blink away the drugged daze into which she seemed to have slipped. She stood so close to this stranger that every part of her body pressed against his from her thighs to her chest. Her arms encircled his corded neck. His iron ones clasped tight around her waist. She'd tipped her head back to look into his eyes, and she felt as if she were trapped in them.

He's so familiar!

They shone, those eyes, like perfectly round bits of jet amid sooty sable lashes. His dark brows, just as sooty and thick, made a slash above each eye, and she had the oddest certainty that he would cock one when puzzled or amused in a way that would make her heart stop.

But I don't know him.

His full lips parted, as if he'd say something, then closed once more. How soft his lips! How smooth, and how wonderful when he smiled. Oh, how she'd missed his smile.

What am I saying? I've never met this man before in my life.

His chest was a broad and solid wall beneath hers. She felt his heart thudding powerfully inside it. His shoulders were so wide they invited a weary head to drop upon them. His hair gleamed in the moonlight, as black as her own, but without the riotous curls. It fell instead in long, satin waves over his shoulders, when it wasn't tied back with the small velvet ribbon in what he called a queue. She fingered the ribbon at his nape, having known it was there before she'd touched it. She felt an irrational urge to tug it free and run her fingers through his glorious hair—to pull great masses of it to her face and rub them over her cheeks.

She felt her brows draw together, and she forced her lips to part. "Who are you?"

"You don't know?" His voice sent another surge of recognition coursing through her.

"I. . . feel as if I do, but. . ." She frowned harder and shook her head in frustration. Her gaze fell to his lips again and she forced it away. The sensation that bubbled in her felt like joyous relief. She felt as if some great void in her heart had suddenly been filled simply by seeing this familiar man. The words that swirled and eddied in her mind, and which she only barely restrained herself from blurting, were absurd. Thank God you've come back. . . I've missed you so. . . please, don't leave me again. . . I'll die if you leave me again. . .

She felt tears filling her eyes, and she wanted to turn away so he wouldn't see them. The pain in his flickered and then vanished, so she wondered if she'd truly seen it there. He stared so intensely, and the peculiar feeling that he somehow saw inside her mind hit her with ridiculous certainty.

She wanted to turn and run away. She wanted him to hold her forever. I'm losing my mind.

"No, sweet. You are perfectly sane, never doubt that." His voice caressed her.

She drew a breath. She hadn't spoken the thought aloud, had she? He'd. . . my God, he'd read her mind.

Impossible! He couldn't have. She stared at his sensual mouth again, licked her lips. Had he read her mind? I want you to kiss me, she thought, deliberately.

A silent voice whispered a reply inside her brain—his voice. A test? I couldn't think of a more pleasant one.

She watched, mesmerized, as his head came down. His mouth relaxed over hers, and she allowed her lips to part at his gentle nudging. At the instant his moist, warm tongue slipped into her mouth to stroke hers, a jolt went through her. Not a sudden rush of physical desire. No, this felt like an actual electric current, hammering from the point of contact, through her body to exit through the soles of her feet. It rocked her and left her weak.

His hands moved up, over her back. His fingertips danced along her nape and higher, until he'd buried them in her hair. With his hands at the back of her head he pressed her nearer, tilting her to the angle that best fit him, and preventing her pulling away as his tongue stroked deeper, kindling fires in her belly.

Finally his lips slid away from hers, and she thought the kiss had ended. Instead it only changed form. He trailed his moist lips along the line of her jaw. He nicked his tongue over the sensitized skin just below her ear. He moved his lips caressingly to her throat, and her head fell back on its own. Her hands cupped his head, and pressed him closer. Her eyes fluttered closed and she felt so lightheaded she was sure she must be about to faint.

He sucked the tender skin between his teeth. She felt sharp incisors skim the soft flesh as he suckled her there like a babe at its mother's breast. She felt him shudder, heard him groan as if tortured. He lifted his head from her, and his hands straightened hers so he could gaze into her eyes. For an instant there seemed to be light in them—an unnatural glow shining from somewhere beyond the ebony.

His voice, when he spoke, sounded rough and shaky. It was no longer the soothing honey that had coated her ears earlier. "What is it you want of me? And take care not to ask too much, Tamara. I fear I can refuse you nothing."

She frowned. "I don't want" — She sucked air through her teeth, stepping out of his arms. "How do you know my name?"

Slowly the spell faded. She breathed deeply, evenly. What had she done? Since when did she go around kissing strangers in the middle of the night?

"The same way you know mine," he said, his voice g regaining some of its former strength and tone.

"I don't know yours! And how could you why did you..." She shook her head angrily and couldn't finish the sentence. After all, she'd kissed him as much as he'd kissed , her.

"Come, Tamara, we both know you summoned me here, so stop this pretense. I only want to know what troubles I you."

"Summoned you I most certainly did not summon you. How could I? I don't even know you!"

One brow shot upward. Tamara's hand flew to her mouth because she'd pictured him with just such an expression. She had no time to consider it, though, since his next odd question came so quickly. "And do you know him?"

He glanced toward the street and she followed his gaze, catching her breath when she saw Curt's DPI van parked there. She knew it was his by the rust spot just beneath the side mirror on the driver's door. She could barely believe he had the audacity to spy on her. On an indignant sigh she whispered, "He followed me. Why, that heavy-handed son of a—"

"Very good, although I suspect his reason for being posted there is known to you full well. This was a trap, was it not? Lure me here, and then your attentive friend over there—"

"Lure you here? Why on earth would I lure you here, and how, for God's sake? I told you I've never seen you before."

"You call to me nightly, Tamara. You've begged me to come to you until you've nearly driven me insane."

"I don't think it would be a long trip. I told you, I haven't called you. I don't even know your name."

Again his gaze searched her face and she felt her mind being searched. He sighed, frowning until his brows met. "Suppose you tell me why you think that gent would follow you, then?"

"Knowing Curt, he probably thinks it's for my own good. God knows he tosses that phrase around enough lately." Her anger softened a bit, as she thought it through more thoroughly. "He might be a little worried about me. I know Daniel is. my guardian, that is. Frankly, I'm worried myself. I don't sleep at night anymore—not ever. The only time I feel even slightly like sleeping is during the day. In fact, I've fallen asleep at my desk twice now. I take to my bed the second I get home and sleep like a rock, but only until dusk. Just at nightfall I have terrible nightmares and usually cry out loud enough to convince them both I'm losing my mind, and then I'm up and restless all night lo"— She broke off, realizing she was blurting her life story to a perfect stranger.

"Please don't stop," he said at once. He seemed keenly interested in hearing more. "Tell me about these nightmares." He must've seen her wariness. He reached out to her, touched her cheek with the tips of his long, narrow fingers. "I only want to help you. I mean you no harm."

She shook her head. "You'll only agree with me that I'm slipping around the bend." He frowned. "Cracking up," she explained. She pointed one finger at her ear and made little circles. "Wacko."

"You most certainly are not... wacko, as you put it." His hand slipped around to the back of her head and he drew her nearer. She didn't resist. She hadn't felt so perfectly at peace in months as she felt in his arms. He held her gently against him, as if she were a small child, and one hand stroked her hair. "Tell me, Tamara."

She sighed, unable to resist the smooth allure of his voice, or of his touch, though she knew it made no sense. "It's dark, and there is a jungle of sorts, and a lot of fog and mist covering the ground so I can't see my feet. I trip a lot as I run. I don't know if I'm running toward something or away from something. I know I'm looking for someone, and in the dream I know that person can help me find my way. But I call and call and he doesn't answer."

He stopped stroking her hair all at once, and she thought he tensed. "To whom do you call?"

"I think that might be what's driving me crazy. I can never remember. I wake as breathless and exhausted as if I really had been running through that forest, sometimes halfway through shouting his name—but I just can't remember."

His breath escaped in a rush. "Tamara, how does the dream make you feel?"

She stepped away from him and studied his face. "Are you a psychologist?"

"No."

"Then I shouldn't be telling you any of this." She tried to pull her gaze from his familiar face. "Because I really don't know you."

She stiffened as her name was shouted from across the ice. "Tammy!"

She grimaced. "I hate when he calls me that." She searched the eyes of her stranger again, and again she felt as if she'd just had a long-awaited reunion with someone she adored. "Are you real, or a part of my insanity?" No, don't tell me, she thought suddenly. I don't want to know. "I'd better go before Curt worries himself into a stroke."

"Does he have the right to worry?"

She paused, frowning. "If you mean is he my husband, the answer is no. We're close, but not in a romantic way. He's more like a. bossy older brother."

She turned and skated away across the ice toward Curt, but she felt his gaze on her back all the way there. She tried to glance over her shoulder to see if he was still there, but she caught no sight of him. Then she approached Curt and slowed her pace. He'd been hurrying across the ice, toward her.

He gripped her upper arm hard, and marched her off the edge of the ice. On the snowy ground she stumbled on her skates, but he continued propelling her at the same pace until they reached the nearest bench, and then he shoved her down onto the seat.

"Who the hell was that man?"

She shrugged, relieved that Curtis had seen him, too. "Just a stranger I met."

"I want his name!"

She frowned at the authority and anger in his voice. Curt had always been bossy but this was going too far. "We didn't get around to exchanging names, and what business is it of yours, anyway?"

"You're telling me you don't know who that was?" She nodded. "The hell you don't," he exploded. He gripped her shoulders, pulled her to her feet and held her hard. He glared at her and would have frightened her if she hadn't known him so well. "What did you think you were doing sneaking out alone at night like that? Well?"

"Skating! Ouch." His fingers bit into her shoulders. "I was only skating. Curt. You know I can't sleep. I thought some exercise " "Bull. You came out here to meet him, didn't you?"

"Who? That nice man I was talking to? For God's sake, Curtis, I "

"Talking to? That's a nice name for it. I saw you, Tammy. You were in his arms."

Anger flared. "I don't care if I had sex with the man in the middle of the rink, Curtis Rogers. I'm a grown woman and what I do is my business. You followed me here! I don't care how worried Daniel gets, I will not put up with you spying on me, and I won't defend my actions to you. Who do you think you are?"

His grip tightened and he shook her once then again. "The truth, Tammy. Dammit, you'll tell me the truth!" He shook her until her head wobbled on her shoulders. "You know who he was, don't you? You came here to meet him, didn't you? Didn't you!"

"L-let me go.-Curt-tis you're-rr... hurt-ting..."

Her vision had blurred from the shaking and the fear that she didn't know Curt as well as she thought she did but not so much that she couldn't see the dark form silhouetted beyond Curtis. She knew who stood there. She'd felt his presence. . . maybe even before she'd seen him. She felt something else, too. His blinding anger.

"Take your hands off her," the stranger growled, his voice quivering with barely contained rage.

Curt went rigid. His hands fell to his sides and his eyes widened. Tamara took a step back, her hand moving to massage one tender, bruised shoulder. The heat of the stranger's gaze on her made her look up. Those black eyes had followed the movement of her hand and his anger heated still more.

But how can I know that?

Curtis turned to face him, and took a step backward. . . away from the man's imposing form. Well, at least she now knew he was real. She couldn't take her gaze from him, nor he from her, it seemed. Her lips throbbed with the memory of his moving over them. She felt as if he knew it. She should say something, she thought vaguely. Sensible or not, she knew the man was about to throttle Curtis.

Before she could think of a suitable deterrent, though, Curtis croaked, "M-Marquand!" She'd never heard his voice sound the way it did.

Tamara felt the shock like a physical blow. Her gaze shot back to the stranger's face again. He regarded Curtis now. A small, humorless smile appeared on his lips, and he nodded to Curt. A sudden move caught her eye, and she glimpsed Curt thrusting a hand inside his jacket, as the bad guys did on television when reaching for a hidden gun. She stiffened in panic, but relaxed when he pulled out only a small gold crucifix, which he held toward Marquand straight-armed, in a white-knuckled grip.

For a moment the stranger didn't move. He stared fixedly at the golden symbol as if frozen. She watched him intently, shivering as her fingers involuntarily touched the spot on her throat, and she recalled the feel of those skimming incisors. Could he truly be a vampire?

The smile returned, sarcastic and bitter. He even chuckled, a sound like distant thunder rumbling from deep in his chest. He reached out to pluck the cross from Curt's hand, and he turned it several times, inspecting it closely. "Impressive," he said, and handed it back. Curt let it fall to the ground and Tamara sighed in relief, but only briefly.

She understood now what the little encounter between her and Marquand had been all about. She resented it. "You're really Marquand?"

He sketched an exaggerated bow in her direction.

She couldn't hold his gaze, embarrassed at her earlier responses to what, for him, had been only a game. "I can appreciate why you're so angry with my guardian. After all, he's been hounding you to death. However, it might interest you to know that I had no part in it. I've argued on your behalf until I'm hoarse with it. I won't bother to do so anymore. I truly appreciate that you chose not to haul Daniel into court, but I would not suggest you attempt to use me to deliver your messages in future."

She saw his brow cock up again, and she caught her breath. "Your guardian? You said so once before, but I—" His eyes widened. "St. Claire?"

"As if you weren't aware of it before your little performance over there." She shook her head, her fingers once again trailing over the tender spot on her throat. "I might even be able to see the humor in it, if I wasn't already on the brink of" — She broke off and shook her head as her eyes filled, and her airways seemed suddenly blocked. "Tamara, that isn't what I—"

She stopped him by shaking her head violently. "I'll see he gets your message. He may be an ass, Marquand, but I love him dearly. I don't want him to bear the brunt of a lawsuit."

She turned on her heel. "Tamara, wait! What happened to your parents? How did he—Tamara!" She ignored him, mounting the ice and speeding to the opposite side, where she'd left her duffel bag. She stumbled over the snow to snatch it up, and sat hard on the nearest bench, bending to unlace her skates. Her fingers shook. She could barely see for the tears clouding her vision.

Why was she reacting so strongly to the man's insensitive ploy? Why did she feel such an acute sense of betrayal?

Because I'm losing my mind, that's why.

Anger made her look up. She felt it as if it were a palpable thing. She yanked one skate off, stomped her foot into a boot and unlaced the other without looking. Her gaze was on Marquand, who had Curtis by the lapels now, and was shaking him the way Curt had shaken her a few moments ago. When he stopped he released Curt, shoving him away in the same motion. Curt landed on his backside in the snow. Marquand's back was all she could see, but she heard his words clearly, though not with her ears. If I ever see you lay hands on her again, Rogers, you will pay for it with your life. Do I make myself sufficiently clear?

Sufficiently clear to me, Tamara thought. Curt seemed to be in no danger of being murdered at the moment. She put her skates in her bag and slipped away while they were still arguing.

* * * * *

Pain like a skewer running the length of his breastbone, Eric stroked the pink fur of the earmuffs she'd abandoned in her rush to get away from him. She'd left her coat, too. He carried it slung over one arm as he followed the two. Rogers had caught up to Tamara only a few minutes after she'd left. He kept pace with her angry strides, talking constantly in his efforts to end her anger.

"I'm sorry, Tammy. I swear to you, I didn't mean to hurt you. Can't you understand I was scared half out of my mind when I saw you in his arms? My God, don't you know what could've happened?"

He scanned the bastard's mind with his own, and found no indication that Tamara was in danger from him. He did the same after they'd entered Daniel St Claire's gloomy Victorian mansion, unwilling to leave her in their hands until he could be certain. And even then he couldn't leave.

How the hell had St Claire managed to become her guardian? When Eric had left her all those years ago she'd had two adoring parents who'd nearly lost their minds when they'd thought they might lose her. He could still see them—the small Miranda, a frail-looking woman with mouse brown hair and pretty green eyes brimming with love whenever she glanced at her adorable child. She'd been in hysterics that night at the hospital. Eric had seen her clutching the doctor's white coat, shaking her head fast at what he was telling her as tears poured unchecked over her face. Her husband's quiet devastation had been even more painful to witness. Kenneth had seemed deflated, sinking into a chair as if he'd never rise again, his blond hair falling over one eye.

What in hell had happened to them? He sank to a rotted, snow-dusted stump outside the mansion, his head in his hands. "I never should have left her," he whispered into the night. "My God, I never should have left her."

He remained there in anguish until the sky began to pale in the east. She now thought he'd only used her to make a point to St Claire. She obviously had no conscious memory of him, nor knowledge of the connection between them. She called to him while in the throes of her subconscious mind—in a dream. She couldn't even recall his name.

* * * * *

She paused outside Daniel's office door to brace herself, her hand on the knob. Last night she'd avoided further confrontation with Curt by pleading exhaustion, a lie he'd believed since he knew how little sleep she'd been getting. This morning she'd deliberately remained in her room, feigning sleep when Daniel called from the doorway. She'd known he wouldn't wake her if he thought she was finally sleeping. She'd waited until he left for DPI headquarters in White Plains, then had got herself ready and driven in late, in her battered VW Bug. Her day had been packed solid with the trivial work they gave her there. Her measly security clearance wasn't high enough to allow her to work on anything important. Except for Jamey Bryant. He was important—to her, at least. He was only a class three clairvoyant in DPI's book, but he was class one in hers. Besides, she loved the kid.

She sighed, smiling as she thought of him, then stiffened her spine for the coming encounter. She gripped the knob more tightly, then paused as Curt's voice came through the wood.

"Look at her! I'm telling you, something is happening and you're a fool if you don't see it."

"She's confused," Daniel said, sounding pained. "I admit, the proximity is having an unexpected effect on her, but she can't be blamed for that. She has no idea what's happening to her."

"You think. I think she ought to be under constant observation."

She grew angry fast, and threw the door open. "Do you have any idea how tired I am of being talked about like one of your cases?"

Both men looked up, startled. They exchanged uneasy glances and Daniel came out of his chair so fast it scraped over the tiled floor. "Now, Tam, what makes you think we were discussing you? Actually, we were talking about a case. One we obviously disagree about."

She smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Oh, really? Which case?"

"Sorry, Tammy," Curt snapped. "Your security clearance isn't high enough."

"When has it ever been high enough?"

"Tam, please." Daniel came toward her, folded her in a gentle embrace and kissed her cheek. He stood back and searched her face. "Are you all right?"

"Why on earth wouldn't I be?" His concern softened her somewhat, but she was still sick and tired of his coddling.

"Curt told me you met Marquand last night." He shook his head. "I want you to tell me everything that happened. Everything he said to you, did to you. Did. . ." Daniel paled right before her eyes. "Did he touch you?"

"Had her crushed against him like he'd never let go," Curt exploded. "I told you, Daniel—"

"I'd like to hear her tell me." His pale blue eyes sought hers again. They dropped to the collar of her turquoise turtleneck, under the baggy white pullover sweater. She thought he would collapse.

Curtis seemed to notice her choice of attire at the same instant, and he caught his breath. "Tammy, my God, did he—"

"He most certainly did not! Do you two have any idea how insane you both sound?"

"Show me," Daniel said softly.

She shook her head and expelled a rush of air. "All right, but first I want to explain something. Marquand seems to be very well aware of what you two think he is. This meeting at the rink last night, I think, was his way of sending you a message, and the message is lay off. I don't think he was kidding." She hooked her first two fingers beneath the neck of the shirt and pulled it down to show them the blue and-violet bruise he'd left on her neck.

Daniel gasped. "Look closely, you two. There are no fang marks, just a... well, let's be frank about it, a hickey. I let a perfect stranger give me a hickey, which should illustrate to you both just how much stress I've been under lately. Between this sleep disorder and your over protectiveness, I feel like I'm in a pressure cooker." Daniel was leaning closer, breathing down her neck as he inspected the bruise.

He satisfied himself and put a hand on her shoulder. "Did he hurt you, sweetheart?"

She couldn't stop the little smile that question evoked, even though she erased it immediately. "Hurt her?" Curtis slapped one hand on the surface of the desk. "She was loving every minute of it." He glared at her. "Don't you realize what could've happened out there?"

"Of course I do, Curtis. He could've ripped my jugular open and sucked all my blood out and left me dying there on the ice with two holes in my throat!"

"If I hadn't scared him off," Curt began.

"Keep your story straight. Curt. It was he who scared you off. You were shaking me until my teeth rattled, if you remember correctly. If he hadn't come to my defense I might have come into work wearing a neck brace today."

Curt clamped his jaw shut under Daniel's withering gaze. Daniel shifted his glance to Tamara again. "He came to your defense, you say?" She nodded. "Hmm."

"And," Tamara went on, almost as an afterthought, "he took the crucifix right out of Curt's hand. It did not even burn a brand in his palm, or whatever it's supposed to do. Doesn't that prove anything?"

"Yeah." Curt wore a sulking-child look on his face. "Proves vampires are not affected by religious symbols."

Tamara rolled her eyes, then heard Daniel mutter, "Interesting." She felt as if she, even with her strange symptoms, was the only sane person in the room.

"I know you think we're overreacting to this. Tam," Daniel told her. "But I don't want you leaving the house after dark anymore."

She bristled. "I will go where I want, when I want. I am twenty-six years old, Daniel, and if this nonsense doesn't stop, then I'm..." She paused long enough to get his full attention before she blurted, "Moving out."

"Tam, you wouldn't—"

"Not unless you force me, Daniel. And if I find either you or Curt following me again, I'll consider myself forced." She felt a lump in her throat at the pained look on Daniel's face. She made her tone gentler when she said, " I'm going home now. Good night."

CHAPTER THREE

Her mental cries woke him earlier tonight than last. Eric stood less than erect and squeezed his eyes shut tight, as if doing so might clear his mind. Rising before sunset produced an effect in him not unlike what humans feel after a night of heavy drinking. Bracing one hand upon the smooth mahogany, his fingertips brushing the satin lining within, he focused on Tamara. He wanted only to comfort her. If he could ease the torment of her subconscious mind, though she might not be fully aware of it, she'd feel better. She might even be more able to sleep. He couldn't be sure, though. Her situation was unique, after all.

He focused on her mind, still hearing her whispered pleas. Where are you, Eric? Why won't you come to me? I'm lost. I need you.

He swallowed once, and concentrated every ounce of his power into a single invisible beam of thought, shooting through time and space, directed at her. I am here, Tamara.

I can't see you!

The immediate response shocked him. He hadn't been certain he could make her aware of his thoughts. Again he focused. I am near. I will come to you soon, love. Now you must rest. You needn't call to me in your dreams anymore. I have heard—I will come.

He awaited a response, but felt none. The emotions that reached him, though, were tense, uncertain. He wanted to ease her mind, but he'd done all he could for the moment. The sun far above, though unseen by him, was not unfelt. It sapped his strength. He took a moment to be certain of his balance and crossed slowly to the hearth, bending to rekindle the sparks of this morning's fire. That done, he used a long wooden match to ignite the three oil lamps posted around the room. With fragrant cherry logs emitting aromatic warmth, and the golden lamplight, the Oriental rugs over the concrete floor and the paintings he'd hung, the place seemed a bit less like a tomb in the bowels of the earth. He sat himself carefully in the oversize antique oak rocking chair, and allowed his muscles to relax. His head fell heavily back against the cushion, and he reached, without looking, for the remote control on the pedestal table beside him. He thumbed a button. His heavy lids fell closed as music surrounded him.

A smile touched his lips as the bittersweet notes brought a memory. He'd seen young Amadeus perform in Paris. 1775, had it been? So many years. He'd been enthralled-an ordinary boy of seventeen, awestruck by the gift of another, only two years older. The sublime feeling had remained with him for days after that performance, he recalled. He'd talked about it until his poor mother's ears were sore. He'd had Jaqueline on the brink of declaring she'd fallen in love with a man she'd never met, and she'd teased and cajoled until he'd managed to get her a seat at his side for the next night's performance. His sister had failed to see what caused him to be so impressed. "He is good," she'd declared, fanning herself in the hot, crowded hall. "But I've seen better." He smiled at the memory. She hadn't been referring to the young man's talents, but to his appearance. He'd caught her peering over her fan's lacy edge at a skinny dandy she considered "better."

He sighed. He'd thought it tragic that a man of such genius had died at thirty-five. Lately he'd wondered if it was so tragic, after all. Eric, too, had died at thirty-five, but in a far different manner. His was a living death. All things considered, he hadn't convinced himself that Mozart had suffered the less desirable fate. Of the two of them, Mozart must be the most serene. He couldn't possibly be the most alone. There were times when he wished the guillotine had got to him before Roland had.

Such maudlin thoughts on such a delightfully snowy night? I don't recall you were all that eager to meet the blade, at the time.

Roland! Eric's head snapped up, buzzing with energy now that the sun had set. He rose and hurriedly released the locks, to run through the hall and take the stairs two at a time. He yanked the front door open just as his dearest friend mounted the front steps. The two embraced violently, and Eric drew Roland inside.

Roland paused in the center of the room, cocking his head and listening to Mozart's music. "What's this? Not a recording, surely! It sounds as if the orchestra were right here, in this very room!"

Eric shook his head, having forgotten that the last time he'd seen Roland he hadn't yet installed the state-of-the-art stereo system, with speakers in every room. "Come, I'll show you." He drew his friend toward the equipment, stacked near the far wall, and withdrew a CD from its case. Roland turned the disc in his hand, watching the light dance in vivid rainbows of green, blue and yellow.

"They had no such inventions where I have been." He returned the disc to its case, and replaced it on the shelf.

"Where have you been, you recluse? It's been twenty years." Roland had not aged a day. He still had the swarthy good looks he'd had as a thirty-two year old mortal and the build of an athlete.

"Ahh, paradise. A tiny island in the South Pacific, Eric. No meddling humans to contend with. Just simple villagers who accept what they see instead of feeling the need to explain it. I tell you, Eric, it's a haven for our kind. The palms, the sweet smell of the night—"

"How did you live?" Eric knew he sounded doubtful. He'd always despised the loneliness of this existence. Roland embraced it. "Don't tell me you've taken to tapping the veins of innocent natives."

Roland's brows drew together. "You know better. The animals there keep me in good stead. The wild boar are particularly—"

"Pigs' blood!" Eric shouted. "I think the sun must have penetrated your coffin! Pigs' blood! Ach!"

"Wild boars, not pigs."

"Great difference, I'll wager." Eric urged Roland toward the velvet-covered antique settee. "Sit. I'll get refreshment to restore your senses."

Roland watched suspiciously as Eric moved behind the bar, to the small built-in refrigerator. "What have you, a half dozen freshly killed virgins stored in that thing?"

Eric threw back his head and laughed, realizing just how long it had been since he'd done so. He withdrew a plastic bag from the refrigerator, and rummaged beneath the bar for glasses. When he handed the drink to Roland, he felt himself thoroughly perused.

"Is it the girl's nightly cries that trouble you so?"

Eric blinked. "You've heard her, too?"

"I hear her cries when I look inside your mind, Eric. They are what brought me to you. Tell me what this is about."

Eric sighed, and took a seat in a claw-footed, brocade cushioned chair near the fireplace. Few coals glowed in this hearth. He really ought to kindle it. Should some nosy human manage to scale the gate and breach the security systems, they might well notice that smoke spiraled from the chimney, but no fire warmed the grate.

Reading his thoughts, Roland set his glass aside. "I'll do that. You simply talk."

Eric sighed again. Where to begin? "I came to know of a child, right after you left last time. A beautiful girl, with raven curls and cherub's cheeks and eyes like glossy bits of coal."

"One of the Chosen?" Roland sat forward.

"Yes. She was one of those rare humans with a slight psychic connection to the un dead, although, like most, she was completely unaware of it. I've found that there are ways of detecting the Chosen, aside from our natural awareness of them, you know."

Roland looked around from where he'd hunkered before the hearth. "Really?"

Eric nodded. "All those humans who can be transformed, those we call Chosen, share a common ancestor. Prince Vlad the Impaler." He glanced sharply at Roland. "Was he the first?"

Roland shook his head. "I know your love of science, Eric, but some. things are better left alone. Go on with your story."

Eric felt a ripple of exasperation at Roland's tightlipped stance on the subject. He swallowed his irritation and continued. "They also share a rare blood antigen. We all had it, as humans. It's known as Belladonna. Only those with both these unlikely traits can become vampires. They are the Chosen."

"Doesn't seem like an earth-shattering discovery to me, Eric. We've always been able to sense the Chosen ones, instinctively."

"But other humans haven't. Some of them have now discovered the same things I have. DPI knows about it. They can pinpoint Chosen humans, and then watch them, and wait for one of us to approach. I believe that is precisely what has happened with Tamara."

"Perhaps you need to back up a bit, old friend," Roland said gently.

Eric pushed one hand through his black hair, lifting it from his shoulders and clenching a fist in the tangles. "I couldn't stay away from her, Roland. God help me, I tried, but I couldn't. Something in her tugged at me. I used to look in on her as she slept. You should've seen her then. Sooty lashes on her rosy cheeks, lips like a small pink bow." He looked up, feeling absurdly defensive. " I never meant her harm, you know. How could I? I adored the child."

Roland frowned. "This should not trouble you. It happens all the time, this unseen bond between our kind and the Chosen. Many was the night I peered in upon you as a boy. Rarely to find you asleep, though. Usually, you were awake and teasing your poor sister."

Eric absorbed that information with dawning understanding. "You never told me. I'd thought you only came to me when I was in danger."

"I'm sorry we haven't discussed this matter before, Eric. It simply never came up. You only saw me those times you were in danger. There was little time for discretion when a coach was about to flatten you, or when I pulled you spluttering from the Channel."

"Then you felt the same connection to me that I felt for her?"

"I felt a connection, yes. An urge to protect. I can't say it's the same because I haven't experienced what you felt for the child. But, Eric, many young ones over the centuries have had a vampire as a guardian and never even known it. After all, we don't go to them to harm, or transform, or even make contact. Only to watch over, and protect."

Eric's shoulders slumped forward, so great was his relief. He shook his head once and resumed his story. "I woke one night to sense her spirit fading. She was slipping away so steadily I was barely able to get to her in time." The same pain he'd felt then swept over him now, and his voice went lower. "I found her in hospital, her tiny face whiter than the sheets tucked around her. Her lips... they were blue. I overheard a doctor telling her parents that she'd lost too much blood to survive, and that her type was so rare no donors had been located. He told them to prepare themselves. She was dying, Roland."

Roland swore softly.

"So you see my dilemma. A child I'd come to love lay dying, and I knew I alone had the power to save her."

"You didn't transform her! Not a small child, Eric. She'd be better dead than to exist as we must. Her young mind could never grasp—"

"I didn't transform her. I probably couldn't if I'd tried. She hadn't enough blood left to mingle with mine. I saw another option, though. I simply opened my vein and—"

"She drank from you?"

Eric closed his eyes. "As if she were dying of thirst. I suppose, in a manner, she was. Her vitality began to return at once. I was ecstatic."

"You had right to be." Roland grinned now. "You saved the child. I've never heard of anything like this happening before, Eric, but apparently, it worked." He paused, regarding Eric intensely. "It did work, did it not? The child lives?"

Eric nodded. "Before I left her bedside, Roland, she opened her eyes and looked at me, and I swear to you, I felt her probing my mind. When I turned to go she gripped my hand in her doll-sized one and she whispered my name. "Eric," she said. "Don't go just yet. Don't leave me."

"My God." Roland sank back onto the settee, blinking as if he were thunderstruck. "Did you stay?"

"I couldn't refuse her. I stayed the night at her bedside, though I had to hide on the window ledge every time someone entered the room. When they discovered the improvement in her, the place was a madhouse for a time. But they soon saw that she would be fine, and decided to let the poor child rest."

"And then?"

Eric smiled softly. "I held her on my lap. She stayed awake, though she needed to rest, and insisted I invent story upon story to tell her. She made me sing to her, Roland. I'd never sung to anyone in my existence. Yet the whole time she was inside my mind, reading my every thought. I couldn't believe the strength of the connection between us. It was stronger even than the one between you and me."

Roland nodded. "Our blood only mixed. Yours was nearly pure in her small body. It's no wonder... What happened?"

"Toward dawn she fell asleep, and I left her. I felt it would only confuse the sweet child to have contact with one of us. I took myself as far away as I could, severed all contact with her. I refused even to think of seeing her again, until now. I thought the mental bond would weaken with time and distance. But it hasn't. I've only been back in the western hemisphere a few months, and she calls to me every night. Something happened to her parents after I'd left her, Roland. I don't know what, but she ended up in the custody of Daniel St. Claire."

"He's DPI!" Roland shot to his feet, stunned.

"So is she," Eric muttered, dropping his forehead into his hand.

"You cannot go to her, Eric. You mustn't trust her, it could be your end."

"I don't trust her. As for going to her...! have no choice about that."

* * * * *

Even while Tamara was arguing with Daniel and Curtis, he'd been on her mind. All day she had been unable to get that mysterious stranger—who didn't seem a stranger at all—out of her thoughts. She'd only managed to cram him far to the back, to allow herself to concentrate on her work. Now that she was home, in the secure haven of her room, and now that she'd wakened from her after-work nap, she felt refreshed, energized and free to turn last night's adventure over in her mind.

She paused and frowned. Since when did she wake refreshed? She usually woke trembling, breathless and afraid. Why was tonight different? She glanced out at the snow spotted sky, and realized it was fully dark. She normally woke from her nightmare just at dusk. She struggled to remember. It seemed to her she had had the dream—or she'd begun to. She remembered the forest and the mists, the brambles and darkness. She remembered calling that elusive name.

And hearing an answer. Yes. From very far away she'd heard an answer; a calm, deep voice, full of comfort and strength, had promised to come to her. He'd told her to rest. She'd felt uncertain, until the music came. Soft strains she thought to be Mozart—something from Elvira Madigan—soothed her taut nerves.

She allowed a small smile. Maybe she was getting past this thing, whatever it was. The smile died when she wondered if that was true, or whether she was only exchanging one problem for another. The man from the ice rink filled her mind again. Marquand—the one Daniel insisted was a vampire. He'd kissed her and, much as she hated to admit it, she'd responded to that kiss with every cell in her body.

She rose slowly from her bed and tightened the single sash that held the red satin robe around her. She leaned over her dressing table and examined the bruised skin of her neck in the mirror. Her fingers touched the spot. She recalled the odd, swooning sensation she'd experienced when he'd sucked the skin between his teeth, and wondered at it.

Lack of sleep, and too much stress.

But he knew my name. . . .

Simple enough to answer that one. He'd done a little research on the man who'd been harassing him. Daniel was her legal guardian. It was a matter of public record.

Then why did he seem so surprised when I told him that?

Good acting. He must have known. He just assumed I'd be the easiest, most effective way to get his point across.

She frowned at her reflection, not liking the look of disappointment she saw there. She tried to erase it. "He only wanted to scare Daniel into laying off, so he followed me to the rink for that little performance. Imagine him going so far as to actually..."

She pressed her palm to the mark on her throat, and turned from the mirror. She'd failed to convince herself that was all there had been to it. So many things about the man defied explanation. Why did he seem so familiar to her? How had he made her feel as if he were reading her thoughts? What about the way she'd seemed to hear what he said, when he hadn't even spoken? And what about this. . . this longing.

Blood flooded her cheeks and a fist poked into her stomach. Desire. She recognized the feeling for what it was. Foolish though it was, Tamara was lusting after a man she didn't know—a man she felt as if she'd known forever. She had to admit, at least to herself, that the man they called Marquand stirred reactions in her as no other man ever had.

As she stood she slowly became aware of a peculiar light-headedness stealing over her. Not dizziness, but rather a floating sensation, though her bare feet still connected her to the floor. A warm whirlwind stirred around her ankles, twisting up her legs, swishing the hem of the robe so the satin brushed over her calves.

She blinked slowly, pressing her palm to her forehead, waiting for the feeling to pass. The French doors blew open all at once, as if from a great gust, and the wind that surged through felt warm, heady. It smelled faintly of bay rum.

Impossible. It's twenty degrees out there.

Yet it lingered; the warmth and the scent. She felt a pull—a mental magnet she was powerless to resist. She faced the heated blast, even as it picked up force. The scarlet satin sailed behind her. It twisted around her legs like a twining serpent.

Like the mist in my dream.

Her hair billowed around her face. The robe's sash snapped against her thighs. She moved toward the doors even as she told herself not to. She resisted, but the pull was stronger than her own will. Her feet scuffed over the soft carpet, then scraped over the cold, wet wood floor of the balcony. The whirlwind surrounded her, propelled her to the rail. She heard the doors slam behind her, and didn't even turn. Her eyes probed the darkness below. Would this unseen hand pull her right over? She didn't think she'd be able to stop it if it wanted to.

God, what is happening to me?

She resisted and the wind stiffened. The sash whipped loose and the robe blew back. No part of her went untouched by this tempest. Like invisible hands it swirled around her thighs, between them. Her breasts quivered. Her nipples stood erect and pulsing. She throbbed with heightened awareness, her flesh hypersensitive to the touch of the wind as it mercilessly stroked her body. Her heart raced, and before she could stop herself she'd let her head fall back, closed her eyes and moaned softly at the intensity of the sensations.

All at once it simply stopped. The warmth and the essence of bay rum lingered, but that intimate whirlwind died slowly, giving her control of her body once more. She didn't know what it had been. A near breakdown? A mental lapse of some sort? Whatever, it was over.

Shaken, she pushed her hands through her hair, uncaring that her robe still hung gaping, having been driven down, baring one shoulder. She turned to go back inside.

He stood so close she nearly bumped into his massive chest. Her head came up fast and her breath caught in her throat. His black eyes seemed molten as they raked her. The mystery wind stirred gently. She could see silver glints behind those onyx eyes, and she felt their heat touch her as the wind had when his gaze moved slowly upward from her bare feet. She felt it scorching her as it lifted, over her legs. The hot gaze paused at the mound of black curls at the apex of her thighs and she thought she'd go up in flames. Finally it moved again, with deliberate slowness over her stomach. She commanded her arms to come to life—to pull her robe together. They did not respond. His eyes seemed to devour her breasts, and she knew her nipples stiffened under that heated stare. The man licked his lips and she very nearly groaned aloud. She closed her eyes, but they refused to stay that way. They opened again, against her will. They focused on his, though she didn't want to see the lust in his eyes. Finally he looked at her throat. The bruise he'd put on her there seemed to come alive with his gaze. It tingled, and she felt the muscle beneath the skin twitch spasmodically. She saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. He closed his eyes briefly, and when they opened again they locked with hers, refusing to allow her to look away.

Her arms regained feeling and she jerked the robe together in a move that showed her anger. "You," she whispered. She felt fear and confusion. More than that, she felt sheer joy to see him again. She refused to let him see it. "What are you doing here?"

CHAPTER FOUR

Waiting for you," he said slowly, watching her.

Her mind rebelled against what that implied. "That's ridiculous. How could you have known I'd come out here?"

The intensity of his gaze boring into her eyes was staggering. "I summoned you here, Tamara ... just as you've summoned me nightly with your cries."

Her brows drew together so far it hurt. She shook her head in denial as she searched his face. "You said that before. I still. don't know what you mean."

"Tamara..." He lifted one hand in slow motion. He turned it gracefully at the wrist, and trailed the backs of his long fingers downward, over her face. She closed her eyes involuntarily at the pure rapture his touch evoked, but quickly forced them open again and took a step back. "Listen to your heart. It wants to tell you—"

"Then I do know you!" She felt as if there were a bird trapped in her stomach, napping its wings desperately. Her eyes tugged at his as she tried to pull the answer from their endless depths. "I thought so before. Tell me when we met, Marquand. You seem so. . . familiar to me." Familiar wasn't the word that had been on her lips. He seemed precious to her—like some one she'd cherished once, someone she'd lost.

She saw the indecision in his eyes, and a glimmer that might have been pain, before he closed them and shook his head. "You will remember in time. I cannot force it on you—your mind is not yet ready. For now, though, I would ask that you simply trust me. I will not harm you, Tamara."

His eyes opened again, and danced over her face. The way he looked at her made her feel as if he couldn't do so enough to appease him, as if he were trying to absorb her through his eyes. She stilled her responses to the feeling, and reminded herself of the game he'd played with her last night. Her shoulders squared. Her chin lifted.

"Your message was delivered, Marquand. Daniel knows about our meeting and your little... performance. I made sure he understood." As she spoke her fingers touched the still-tender skin at her throat. "It probably won't change anything, though. He doesn't listen to me where you're concerned, so you can see how ineffective this conversation will be. Leave me alone. If you have something to say to Daniel, say it to him in person."

He listened. . . so well it seemed he heard her thoughts as well as her words. When she finished he tilted his head very slightly to one side. "You believe I kissed you only to make a point with St. Claire," he stated, his words slow, carefully enunciated and laced with the barest hint of an accent that she had yet to place. "And the thought causes you pain."

She released a clipped sigh and shook her head. "Why would it cause me pain? I don't know you. I don't care "

"You felt drugged when I kissed you, sweet Tamara. You felt the ground tilt beneath you, and the sky above begin to spin. Your heart raced, your pulse roared in your temples. Your skin came to life with sensation. In those moments, as I held you, nothing else existed. No," he said when she shook her head fast, and parted her lips to blurt angry denials. " No, don't. I know what you felt, because I felt it, too. The touch of your hands, the taste of your mouth, the feel of your body pressed to mine sent me to the very edge of my control."

She felt the blood rush into her face. Her cheeks burned hotter with his every word, and yet the familiar knot of longing formed in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to tell him he was crazy to believe that, but she couldn't seem to form the words.

Again his hand rose to her face, and she didn't pull away this time. She couldn't say why, but she felt like crying. "Tamara, I swear to you, I did not know you were even acquainted with St Claire until you said the words. I came to you because you begged me to do so. In your dreams you begged me to come."

Her eyes had begun to drift closed as his hand stroked her cheek, but they flew wide now. She searched her brain frantically. How could he know about the dreams? She shook her head quickly. "No, that isn't true."

"What isn't true? That you dream each night before dusk? That the dreams are testing your sanity, Tamara? That you cry out to someone in your sleep and cannot recall the name when you wake? Do not forget, you confided all of these things to me last night."

Relief nearly made her limp. "That's right, I did." She had told him about her nightmares. That explained why he knew.

"The dream was different tonight, though," he said softly.

Again her eyes widened. It had been different. He couldn't know that. She hadn't told him that. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "The name I call, I can't remember what it is, but I know it isn't Marquand. Why do you want to play with my mind?"

"I want only to ease your mind. It is true, you have never cried my surname. It is my first name you call in your sleep." His hand had fallen from her face, to gently stroke her hair.

Breathlessly she whispered, "I don't even know your first name. So it can't be—"

"Yes, you do, Tamara." His gaze took on a new dimension as he stared into her eyes. "You know my name. Say it."

And she did. Just like that, she knew the name she'd cried over and over again in her recurring dream. She knew it as well as she knew her own. The shroud had been lifted from her memory, and she knew. But it couldn't be him. She shook her head. "You aren't—"

"I am." Both his hands rested on her shoulders now, and he squeezed gently. She winced inwardly because he'd put pressure on the spots where Curt had held her last night, and the skin there had bruised. He immediately readjusted his grip on her, as if he'd sensed her discomfort at the instant she'd felt it. "Say it, Tamara."

Choking on unshed tears, she croaked, "Eric?"

He nodded, his face relaxing in an approving half smile. "Yes. Eric. If you require confirmation, I'm certain your St. Claire can provide it."

She looked at the floor, her relief so great the muscles of her neck relaxed. She didn't need confirmation. She knew he told the truth. Why this intense relief, though? And why had she dreamed of him in the first place?

"You've begged me to come to you, Tamara, and I am here." He caught her chin in gentle fingers, and lifted her face to him. "I'm here."

She wanted to fling herself into his arms. She wanted to hold him desperately and beg him not to leave her ever again. But that was crazy. It was insane. She was insane. As tears spilled over and rolled slowly down her face, she shook her head. "This isn't happening. It isn't real. I'm hallucinating, or it's just another dream. That's all. It isn't real."

He pulled her against him suddenly, his arms going around her, his hands stroking her back and shoulders, lifting her hair, caressing her nape. "It is real, Tamara. I am real, and what you feel for me is real. . . more real, I think, than anything else in your life." His head turned and she felt his lips pressed to her hair just above her temple. . . lower, to her cheekbone. . . lower, to the hollow of her cheek. His voice uneven, he spoke near her ear. "How did St. Claire manage to get custody of you? What happened to your family?"

She found herself relaxing against him, allowing his embrace to warm and comfort her. " I was six when I fell through a plate glass window," she told him, her voice barely audible to her own ears. " I severed the arteries in both wrists and nearly bled to death. They called it a miracle when I pulled through, because they hadn't been able to locate any donors with my blood type. Everyone expected me to die." She drew a shuddering breath. In truth, she remembered very little about the accident, or her life to that point. Daniel had always insisted it was probably best for her not to try to remember. What was blocked out was blocked out for a reason, he'd said. If her mind didn't think she could handle it, she probably couldn't. After all, near-death experiences were traumatic, especially for a six year-old child.

She released the air she'd taken in, drew a steadier breath and continued. "I was still hospitalized when my parents were taken with an extremely rare virulent infection. By the time the virus was isolated and identified, they. . . they'd both succumbed."

"I am more sorry for that than I can tell you," he said softly, his breath caressing her skin as he spoke. "I wish I had been there for you."

"So do I," she blurted before she had a chance to consider the words. She cleared her throat. "But Daniel was there. He worked part-time in the research lab at the hospital then. As soon as he heard about the miracle girl upstairs, he came to see me. After that he was there every day. He brought presents with every visit, and constantly went on about how he'd always wanted a little girl like me. By the time my parents got sick, Daniel and I were best friends. When they died he petitioned the courts for custody, and got it. I had no other close relatives. If it hadn't been for Daniel, I would've been alone."

She felt his swift inhalation, and the slight stiffening of his body. "I'm sorry." The words were almost a moan, so much pain came through in them. His arms tightened around her and he rocked her slowly.

God, why did his touch feel like heaven? Why did the wide, hard chest beneath her head and the steel arms around her feel like the safest cocoon in all the world?

His voice only slightly more normal, he said, "It was Daniel who arranged for your employment at DPI, then." She only nodded, moving her head minimally against his chest. "And what do you do there, Tamara? Do you work with St. Claire?"

"No," she mumbled into the fabric of his coat. "My security clearance isn't—" She broke off, stiffening, and jerked away from him. My God, he'd played her well! "DPI is a government agency, a subdivision of the CIA, for God's sake. And you are the subject of one of their most long-running investigations. I certainly don't intend to discuss what I do there with you." She broke eye contact, and shook her head in self-deprecation. "God, you're good. I was actually buying all of this. You just wanted to milk information from me."

"You know better." His deep voice held anger now, and for the first time Tamara felt afraid of him. She backed up another step and felt the iron rail press into the small of her back. Eric Marquand stood between her and the doors. "I only want to discern whether I can trust you. St. Claire is out to destroy me. I cannot dismiss the possibility that you are a part of that plan."

"Daniel wouldn't hurt a fly!" She bristled at the suggestion that her beloved Daniel was anything less than the sweet, loving man she knew him to be.

"I know that to be false. I do not need proof of his intent. I already have it. It is you I need to be sure of, Tamara. Tell me what your duties entail."

He took a step nearer and there was nowhere for her to go. I won't," she told him. "I can't betray the division ... or Daniel."

"You would rather betray me?"

She shook her head fast, confusion muddling her brain. "I couldn't betray you. I know nothing about you."

"You could easily be the instrument of my destruction."

"But I wouldn't—"

"Then tell me. Answer whatever I ask, it is vital—" She shook her head again. He sighed and pushed one hand back through his hair, loosening several black silk strands from the queue in the back. When he looked into her eyes again the intensity had returned. "I can force you, you know."

Fear tiptoed over her spine. "If you touch me, I'll scream."

"I don't need to touch you. I can make you obey my will just as I made you come out here tonight... with my mind."

"I think you need help, Marquand. You're more screwed up than I am, and that's saying something."

One raven brow rose inquiringly. "You doubt what I know to be true?" He stared at her, and she saw an iridescent shimmer, as if the jet irises were suddenly translucent and the swirling light behind them came through. She felt her mind turn to water, and the hot whirlwind began to stir around her ankles, gaining force as it rose until it surrounded her like a twister. Her hair whipped her face. The satin robe flagellated her legs from calf to thigh. The wind moved, forcing her forward until only millimeters separated her from him.

He put his hands on her throat, his thumbs caressing the hollows above her clavicle. His fingers slipped beneath the material of the robe at her shoulders. The wind whipped the sash free, seemingly at his command. Slowly he pushed the scarlet satin from her shoulders, and it fell, to her horror, in a shimmering cascade at her feet. Yet she was incapable of lifting her arms to prevent it. She tried to tell her body to move. He wasn't holding her to him by force. Her arms hadn't been pinioned to her sides by his iron grip. They only hung limply there, abnormally heavy, unable to move. Her feet seemed to have the same mysterious malady. She could not make them take her a single step away from him.

Her eyes had followed the soft red cloth as it fell, but he caught her chin now and lifted it. He stared down into her eyes, but his gaze shifted every few seconds to her throat.

Part of her mind screamed in protest. Another, primal part screamed for his touch. He lowered his head and caught her earlobe between his lips. He nibbled it so lightly his touch was almost imperceptible, yet desire shot through her in fiery jolts. His lips trailed a path around her face and stopped only when they reached hers. They lingered there, barely touching. His hands touched the backs of her thighs and rose slowly, cupping her buttocks, squeezing, parting. One slipped around her hips, to cup her most intimate place, while the other remained behind her, to hold her immobile. She felt his fingers touch lightly, part her, probe her, and she heard a stifled whimper that must have been hers. Fire coursed through her veins, heating her blood until it boiled. She wanted this. . . damn him, he was making her want it!

Both hands flattened against her stomach and inched slowly upward. She trembled violently, knowing what was next. Awaiting it with a burning need that came against her will. Still his lips worked hers, sucking at them, first upper, then lower. Biting them softly, licking them with quick tiny flicks of his tongue, followed by slow, languorous laps that traced their shape. His fingers finally reached her breasts. He positioned a thumb and forefinger at each nipple, barely touching. She moaned low and hoarsely in supplication, and he closed them, pinching, rolling the erect nubs between his fingers until they pulsed like the rest of her.

She realized she'd regained use of her arms when she found them linking behind his head and pulling him closer. Her mouth opened wide to him, and his tongue plunged into it, stroking hers, twining with hers, tugging at it. He pulled it into his own silken moistness, and suckled the way she wished he would suckle her breasts. They throbbed for his mouth.

Before she'd completed the thought his hands were at her back, between her shoulder blades. His lips burned a path of liquid heat down over her chin, over her throat, along her chest. She arched backward, supported by his hands behind her, one at her back, one at her buttocks. He bent over her and unerringly found one swollen crest with his mouth. Mercilessly he worried it, licking until she whimpered, sucking until she cried out and biting until her hands tangled in his hair, holding him to her.

She couldn't catch her breath. She wanted him so badly it was out of control. Her center throbbed with hot moisture, and longed to be filled. . . with him.

He lifted his head and eased her upward until she had her balance. At some point during the rapacious seduction he had released her mind. She was unsure when, exactly, but at some time she had been free to object, to pull away, to slap him. She hadn't. Instead she'd responded like an animal. She was angry, with herself, with him and with her mind for refusing to give her the memory she needed to make sense of all of this.

He bent down, retrieved her robe and straightened again, slipping it over her shoulders. "You see?" He said it very softly.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Her voice cracked as she asked the question. She tugged her robe together, yanking the sash tight. She couldn't look him in the eyes.

"Not to you, Tamara. I came tonight for you. To help you, if you'll permit it."

"Was what you just did to me supposed to help me, too?"

When he didn't answer right away she looked at him. To her surprise his gaze fell before hers. "No," he finally whispered. "I meant to demonstrate. . . . I did not intend to go so far."

She frowned, looking at him—really looking at him- for the first time since he'd peeled his body from hers. His eyes fairly glowed with passion and were still hooded. His breaths came in short, shallow gasps, just as hers did. My God, he'd been as swept away by what had happened between them as she had! He moved past her, his hands trembling as he gripped the iron rail and looked down over it into the blue-black night, and the illuminating snow covered ground below. His back was presented to her, its broad strength slightly bowed. Nothing prevented her going back inside.

"I am afraid I've handled this badly," he said slowly and carefully, though his voice was still hoarse. "It is not my wish to frighten you, or to make you loathe me. I care for you, Tamara. I have for a very long time."

She allowed his words to penetrate the confusion in her mind. "I think I believe that."

He turned, faced her and seemed to search for the correct words. "I truly came to you because I heard your cries. I had no other motive. Can you believe that, as well?"

She drew a slow breath. "I work with a young boy who has, on occasion, demonstrated some psychic ability. Several operatives have had sessions with him, besides me. But his powers, however slight, are always a good deal more evident when he is with me. I suppose there's a chance I might have some latent clairvoyant tendency that's been enhancing his. Maybe you did somehow hear my dreams. I won't say it's impossible."

She was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, no matter how outrageous his claims seemed to be. Besides, how else could she explain what had been happening?

Encouraged, it seemed, he went on. "I came to you only because of the desperation in your cries. I swear this to you. I had no idea St. Claire was your guardian." He took a step forward, one hand lifting, palm up, a gesture of entreaty. "Try to imagine how I felt when I discovered it, Tamara. The woman who'd been calling me to her, living; under the same roof as the man who has doggedly pursued; me for months. How could I not suspect a conspiracy to entrap me?"

She listened as he presented his case. She supposed he ; had a point. She would have thought the same if she'd been in his place. "I suppose you had cause to be suspicious." She looked at the floor, bit her lip. She could reassure him without revealing any sensitive information. The truth was, she knew very little that was classified. "I have a low security clearance. Sometimes I think they invented a new one, just for me, it's so low." She smiled slightly when she said that, and she faced him. "I can't count the number of times I've tried to argue Daniel out of this crazy idea that you're. . ." Why couldn't she finish the sentence? She swallowed and went on. "He always counters my rationale with the claim that he has loads of evidence to prove his theories. And I always respond by asking to see the files. The answer never changes. My clearance isn't high enough." She studied his face, but it gave no evidence of whether he believed her. He listened attentively. " I never told him about the dreams. I didn't want to worry him."

He nodded. "Is there a chance he might've found out in another way?"

"How could he, short of reading my mind?" She blinked and looked away suddenly. "Unless..." He waited expectantly. She made up her mind. What she had to say couldn't hurt Daniel. If anything, it might help him avoid a lawsuit if she could stay on good terms with Marquand. She tried to avoid the burning knowledge of her own powerful feelings for a man she barely knew. "There were times when I cried out loud, loud enough to alert Daniel and bring him to my room. He always told me he hadn't heard clearly enough to guess what I'd said in my sleep, but I suppose there's a chance he might not have told me if he thought it would add to the problem."

"Or if he knew I would come to you, and planned to lie in wait."

Until that point she'd done her best to see his side of things. Now her head came up fast and she bristled. "You need to get that idea out of your mind. I admit, Daniel follows you, lurks outside your house and watches everything you do. But why on earth would he want to trap you, as you say? What do you suppose he'd do with you when he got you?"

"He specializes in research, Tamara, not surveillance. What do you suppose he'd do with a live specimen of what he considers an unstudied species?"

Tamara's stomach lurched. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she closed her eyes. "That's ludicrous! Daniel would never... He's the most gentle man I've ever known." She shook her head so hard her hair flew around her. "No. No, Daniel couldn't even entertain the thought."

"You don't know him so well as you believe to." He spoke gently, but his words were brutal. "Has it occurred to you that he might have known of the connection between us all along, that it might have been what drove him to take you in from the start?"

Eyes wide, she stared at him, shaking her head in disbelief. "It would never occur to me to think that. Daniel loves me. I love him! He's the only family I have. How can you suggest" — She stopped and tried to catch her breath. Suddenly her head throbbed. The lack of sleep seemed to catch up to her all at once. Every limb of her body ached with exhaustion.

"You have to at least consider the possibility. He knew about me, even then. I can prove it to you, if—"

"Stop it!" She pressed her palms flat to the sides of her head.

"Tamara—"

"Please, Eric," she whispered, suddenly too tired to shout or to argue any longer. "Please don't do this, don't say these things to me. I feel so close to losing my mind I don't trust my own senses anymore. I'm not sure what's real and what's delusion. I can't deal with all of this."

Her head bowed, her eyes tear filled, she didn't see him come closer. He gathered her into his arms and held her. His arms offered only comfort this time. There was no lust in his touch. "Forgive me, Tamara. My thoughtless words cause you pain. Forgive me. I don't wish to hurt you. My concern for you overwhelmed my common sense." He sighed, long and low. "God, but I've bungled this."

She found too much comfort in his arms. She felt too warm and safe and cherished there. It made no sense. She needed to be away from him. She couldn't think when he was so close. She straightened, stepping out of his embrace. "I think... I think you ought to leave."

The pain that flashed in his onyx eyes was almost more than she could bear to see. He dipped his head. "If you wish." He met her gaze again, his own shuttered now. "Please do not forget the things I've said to you tonight. If ever you need me, you have only to call to me. I will come."

She blinked, not bothering to argue that his claim was impossible. Perhaps he had picked up on her dreams, but they had been exceptionally powerful dreams. He couldn't possibly think this odd mental link of theirs extended beyond the one isolated incident. He didn't give her time to ask. His hand at the small of her back, he urged her toward the French doors. He opened them for her and gently pushed her through. She stepped inside and stopped, suddenly aware of the cold. Goose bumps rose on her arms and an involuntary shiver raced through her. She stood there a moment, then whirled to ask him how he'd gotten onto her balcony in the first place, a question she'd stupidly not thought of sooner—but he was gone. She shook her head hard and looked around her. It was as if he'd never been there.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jamey Bryant squirmed in his chair, his eyes focused more often on the falling snow beyond the window than on Tamara or the box in the center of the table.

"Come on, Jamey. Concentrate." She felt guilty ordering the boy to do what she found impossible. All day she'd been unable to get Eric Marquand out of her mind. His face appeared before her each time she closed her eyes. The memory of his touch, the way his lips had felt on hers, the security of being rocked in his arms haunted her without letup. The pain she'd seen in his eyes before he'd vanished haunted her more than anything else.

Then again, she still had a tiny doubt he'd been real. He could have been a figment of her imagination, a delusion, a dream. How else could he have vanished from her balcony so quickly? He couldn't have jumped. At the very least he'd have broken a leg. So maybe he hadn't been real.

But he had. She knew he had, and the way he made her feel had been real, as well. Nothing so intense could be imaginary.

Jamey sighed and fixed his gaze on the cube of cardboard between them. He screwed up his face until it puckered and the furrow between his fine, dark brows became three. He leaned forward and his freckle-smattered face reddened until Tamara thought he was holding his breath. Her suspicion was confirmed a moment later when he released it in a loud whoosh and sank back into his chair. "I can't," he said. "Can I go now?"

Tamara tried to summon an encouraging smile. "You really hate this, don't you?"

He shrugged, glanced toward the window, then back to the box again. "I wish I could be like other kids. I feel weird when I know things. Then when I don't know something I think I should, I feel stupid. And then there are times when I get things that don't make any sense at all. It's like I know something, but I don't know what it means, you know?"

She nodded "I think so."

"So what good is it to be able to know something if you can't make sense out of it?"

"Jamey, you aren't weird and you know you aren't stupid. Everyone has some quality that sets them apart. Some people can sing notes that seem impossible to the rest of us. Some athletes do things that seem supernatural to those who can't do the same. That's exactly what extrasensory perception is, something you do a lot better than most people. It's just not as understood as those other things."

She studied his face, thinking he didn't look much comforted by her pep talk. "Maybe you should tell me what it is that's bothering you."

He blew air through his lips, and shook his head. "You know I'm lousy at this. It's probably nothing. I—I don't want to scare you for no reason."

She frowned. "Scare me? This is about me, Jamey?"

He nodded, avoiding her eyes.

She rose from her seat, walked around the table and dropped to one knee in front of him. Since she'd begun working with Jamey six months ago, they'd formed a tight bond. She couldn't have loved him more if he were her own son. She hated that he was agonizing so much over something involving her. Always, he'd been incredibly sensitive to her feelings. He always knew if she felt upset, or under the weather. He'd known about the nightmares and insomnia, too.

"You are not lousy at this. At least, not where I'm concerned. If you've picked up on something, just tell me. Maybe I can explain it."

His mouth twisted at one side. He looked at her seriously. His intense expression made him look like a miniature adult. "I keep feeling like something's going to happen to you... like someone is going to—to hurt you." He shook his head. "But I don't know who and I don't know what, so what good is it to know anything?"

She smiled softly. "There's been a lot going on with me lately, Jamey. Personal stuff. Stuff that's upset me quite a lot. I think you might be picking up on that."

"You think so?" His dark eyes met hers hopefully, then darkened again with worry. "Is everything okay?"

She nodded hard. "I think so. And, yes, everything is working itself out. The nightmares I'd been having are gone now."

"Good." His frown didn't vanish, though. "But I still get the feeling there are people out to get you." He chewed his lip. "Do you know anyone named Eric?"

Something hard, like a brick, lodged in the center of her chest. She gasped audibly, and rose so fast she nearly lost her balance. "Eric?" she repeated dumbly. "Why? Is there something about him—"

"I dunno. I just keep getting that name floating in at the oddest times. I always feel really sad, or else really worried, when it comes. I think maybe that's what he's feeling like, but like I said, I'm lousy at this. I could be reading it all wrong."

She let the moment of panic recede. She'd thought he might say Eric was the one out to hurt her. She still wondered if it might not be the case, but didn't want to let Jamey sense it. She drew several calming breaths and tried to compose her face before she looked at him again.

"Thanks for the warning, Jamey, but I think you're overreacting to this danger thing. Look, why don't you open the box? At this point I don't even remember what was inside."

After a last cursory glance, as if assuring himself he hadn't frightened her, he leaned forward, swung one arm out and caught the box, drawing it to him on the follow through. When he looked inside his eyes widened, and he pulled the video game cartridge out. "Dungeon Warriors! Mom's been looking all over for this—where'd you find it?"

"Your mom didn't look as hard as you thought. I told her not to."

He examined the colorful package eagerly. "Thanks, Tam." He stood, obviously in a hurry to get home and try out the new game.

"Go ahead, Jamey. Your mom's waiting right downstairs." He nodded and started for the door. "Jamey," she called after him. When he glanced back at her she said, "If you get any more of these weird vibes about me, and if they bother you, just call. You have my number. Okay?"

"Sure, Tam." He gave her a broad, dimpled grin that told her his mind had been eased for the moment, and hustled through the door, leaving Tamara alone to contemplate his warning.

* * * * *

She worked late that evening, trying to use her mundane duties to fill her mind. It didn't work. She finally went home to find the house looking abandoned. Of course, it was past dusk, so Daniel and Curtis had already left on their nightly spying mission. Despite his unfounded accusations against Daniel, Tamara felt a little sorry for Eric Marquand. It must get tiresome looking out his window night after night to see them there.

She bounced in her VW Bug over the curving, rutted driveway. Snowflakes pirouetted over the rambling Victorian mansion, caught in the glow of her headlights. Their pristine whiteness emphasized the age-yellowed paint. Tall, narrow windows stood like sad eyes. Rusty water stains like teardrops beneath each one enhanced that fanciful image. Tamara set the brake and got out to wrench open the stubborn overhead garage door, muttering under her breath. She'd argued for an automatic one every winter for the past three, all without success. Daniel wouldn't budge an inch. What he couldn't do to the old house himself simply wouldn't get done. He didn't want a crew of strangers snooping around and that was final.

She drove her car inside, noting the absence of Daniel's Cadillac. A finger of worry traced a path along her spine. She hoped he wasn't driving tonight. The roads were slippery and, dammit all, she'd never replaced the spare after he'd had that flat two months ago. She imagined Curt was with him, and comforted herself with the thought.

She flicked on lights as she moved through the foyer. The phone began ringing before she'd even sat down to remove her boots. She tracked across the faded carpet to pick it up.

"Tammy, it's about time you got home. Where've you been?"

She bit back the sharp retort that sprang to her lips. "Curtis, are you with Daniel?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't answer the question."

"I came straight home from the office, if you must know. I worked a bit late and the roads are slick. I don't want him driving."

"I'll take care of him. Look, Tam, are you in for the night?"

She frowned hard. "Why?"

He hesitated, started to speak, stopped and started again. "It's just, after that incident with Marquand the other night, Daniel and I both feel it would be best if you, uh, try to stick close to home after sundown. I know how much you resent being told what to do, but it would be for your own—"

"My own good, I know." She sighed and shook her head. " Look, I don't have any plans to leave the house tonight. Besides, I thought you guys were watching Marquand's every move."

"We are, but—"

"Then you don't have anything to worry about, do you? I'm heading for a long soak in a scalding bath, and then straight to bed, if that makes you feel any better."

"It does." He was quiet for a moment. "It's only because we're worried, Tammy."

"Yeah, I know it is. Good night." She replaced the receiver before he could make her any angrier, and headed upstairs to follow her own advice about the hot bath. As for straight to bed, she knew better. At work she'd been on the verge of falling asleep on her feet all day. Now that she was home she felt wide awake and brimming with energy.

She toweled herself dry after a soothing, if not a relaxing, soak, and pulled on a pair of comfortable jeans and a baggy sweater. She wriggled her feet into her heaviest socks and halfheartedly dried her hair, before padding downstairs to hunt for something to fill her empty stomach. She'd just settled on the sofa in the huge living room with a thick bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich sliced diagonally on a paper plate, and a can of cola, when the doorbell chimed.

Tamara rolled her eyes, lowered the sandwich she'd just brought to her lips and went to open the door. Her irritation disappeared when Eric Marquand stepped over the threshold into the foyer. She slammed the door after giving a fear-filled glance down the driveway, and looked at him agape. "You shouldn't be here, Eric. My God, if Daniel saw you here, he'd have a stroke!"

"He won't. He and Rogers will remain on sentry duty outside my front gate until dawn, as they do every night, I promise you. They did not see me leave. I took great pains to assure that."

She stood still, fighting the bubbling sense of joy she felt at seeing him, arguing inwardly that it made no sense to feel so about a stranger. It was there, all the same.

"After my behavior last night, I half expected you to throw me out. Will you, Tamara?"

She tried to tug her gaze free of his, but was unsuccessful. "I. . . no. No, I'm not going to throw you out. Come in. I was about to have a sandwich. Can I make one for you?"

He shook his head. "I've already dined. If I'm interrupting your dinner. . . ."

She shook her head quickly. "No, I mean, you can hardly call a sandwich and a cola dinner." He followed her into the living room and sat beside her on the sofa, despite the fact that she'd waved her arm toward a chair nearby. She reached for the dewy can. "I could get you one."

"Thank you, no." He cleared his throat. "I've come because. . ." He shook his head. "Actually, there is no other reason, except that I couldn't stay away. Tamara, will you come out with me tonight? I give you my word, I will say nothing against your St. Claire. I'll ask you no questions about DPI. I only want your companionship."

She smiled, then stopped herself. Did she dare go out with him? After all the warnings Daniel had given her about him?

Eric took her hand in his, his thumb slowly stroking the tops of her fingers. "If you cannot believe my charges against him, Tamara, you should equally doubt his against me. It is only fair."

She nodded slowly. "I guess you're right. Okay. I'll come with you." She stood quickly, more eager than she wanted him to see. "Should I change? Where are we going?"

"You are beautiful as you are, sweet. Would you mind if we simply went driving until something better occurs to us? I don't wish to share you with a crowd just yet."

"Okay. I'll grab my coat and... Driving? I didn't see a car. How will we—"

"Finish your sandwich, Tamara. It is a surprise."

She couldn't stop herself from smiling fully at that, and for a moment he seemed almost staggered by it. "I'm not hungry, anyway," she told him, rushing past him to the foyer and the closet near the front door. "I was only eating to fill the loneliness."

She tugged on her heaviest coat, a long hounds tooth check, with a black woolly scarf around the collar and matching mittens in the pocket. She stomped into her boots. When she looked up again he was staring at her. "Have you been lonely, then?" he asked softly.

She blinked back the instant moisture that sprang to her eyes at the question. It never occurred to her to lie to him. "I often think I'm the loneliest person I know. Oh, I've got Daniel, and a few friends at work, but..." She looked into his eyes and knew he'd understand. "I'm not like them. I feel set apart, like there's an invisible barrier between us." She frowned. "I don't feel that way with you."

His eyes closed slowly, and opened again. Flustered more than a little bit, she hurried through the room and took the telephone off the hook. Without an explanation she trotted upstairs to her room and spent a few minutes stuffing spare blankets underneath her comforter, to make it look as if she were asleep there. She shut off her bedroom light and closed the door.

When she turned, Eric stood there. One brow lifted as he looked down at her. "For St. Claire's benefit?"

"This way I can relax and enjoy our evening," she said softly, her gaze lingering on his lips for a long moment; she saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. When she lifted her gaze to his eyes, she saw they were focused on her lips, and her tongue darted out involuntarily to moisten them.

"I promised myself I wouldn't touch you tonight," he told her in a voice softer than a whisper. "But I don't believe I can prevent myself kissing you."

"You're bound to, sooner or later," she told him, striving to keep her own voice level. "Maybe we ought to get it out of the way now." He stood perfectly still, not a single muscle moving. She stepped forward, tilted her head back and touched his lips with hers. She felt him tremble when she settled her hands on his rock-solid shoulders. She let her eyes fall closed, parted her lips against his and tentatively slid the tip of her tongue over them.

He sighed into her mouth as his arms came around her waist to crush her against him. The pressure of his lips forced hers to part for him, and he tasted every bit of her mouth, even reaching his tongue to the back of her throat in a forceful, thrusting motion that hinted at far greater pleasures to come. His hands moved over her body, one holding her to him while the other tangled in her hair, pulling her head back farther to accommodate that probing tongue more deeply. She felt his hot arousal pressing into her belly, telling her how much he wanted her. She moved her hips against him, to let him know she felt the same mindless need.

When the fire in her blood raged out of control he pulled away, panting. "This is not the way, Tamara. With everything in me, I want to take you right here. I want to lift you to the wall, or take you on the floor, damn-lit. But it is not the way. You might hate me tomorrow, when the fire no longer burns in your eyes." He stroked the hair away from her face. He pressed his lips to each eye in turn. "Agree with me, before I lose control."

Tamara's body was screaming that she wanted him to lose control. Her mind knew he was right. She didn't know him. She had once, she was certain of it now. But she couldn't remember that. It would be like making love to a stranger, and that would make her feel cheap and ashamed. She stepped away from him. "You're right. I—I'm sorry."

"Never apologize for kissing me, for touching me, Tamara. Your caress is a gift worthy of any king... one I will be grateful for whenever you choose to bestow it."

* * * * *

Eric could barely bring himself to stop what she'd started in St Claire's corridor. He'd only just restrained himself in time. The desire she stirred in him was a beast he could hardly subdue. He had to, though. The blood lust in him intertwined with sexual desire. The two were so closely linked among his kind that there was no separating them. If he took her, he'd take her blood as well as her body. She'd know the truth then, and she'd despise him forever.

Or worse. . .

No, he refused to believe she could be party to Daniel St Claire's machinations.

Refusing to believe it does not make it impossible.

If she was plotting his destruction, he'd know, he reminded himself as he descended the stairs beside her. He'd see it in her mind.

Vampires can learn to guard their thoughts. Why not her?

She is no vampire, he thought angrily. I've never known a human to be capable of such a thing.

You've never known a human like Tamara.

At the bottom of the stairway Eric glimpsed a light glowing beyond a doorway at the far side. She'd flicked off every other glaring electric light she'd come to, so he touched her shoulder now, and pointed. "Do you wish to shut that light off, as well?"

She shook her head quickly, opened her mouth to explain, then seemed to think better of it. Not before Eric heard what was in her mind, however. To go through that door was forbidden to her. St. Claire's basement lab lay at the bottom of the staircase there, and he'd deemed it off limits. Eric would have liked to go down there now, to examine the ruthless scientist's files and equipment. But he'd given Tamara his word that he'd come here only to be with her. How could she believe him if he betrayed her trust in such a way?

He'd spoken the truth when he'd spoken those words, yet he could've told her more. He wanted to be with her because he feared for her safety. That St Claire had known of the connection between them from the start was obvious. He'd orchestrated events to gain custody of the child, Eric felt certain of it. Whether to brainwash her into helping him in his plots or to use her as unwitting bait remained to be seen. Either way, though, Tamara was no more to St Claire than a pawn in a high-stakes game. She could not be safe with him. That Eric had to leave her side by day had him at his wits' end, but what choice did he have? He would stay by her side when he could, and he'd try to learn exactly what St. Claire had on his mind. He'd protect Tamara if he had to kill the bastard himself. In the three times Eric had seen her since returning from his travels, he'd learned one thing he hadn't fully realized before. He still adored her.

The emotions had changed, radically. She was no longer the small child in need of bedtime stories and lullabies. She was a woman grown, a woman of incomparable beauty and incredible passion. . . a woman capable of setting his pulse throbbing in his temples, and his blood to boiling for want of her. He knew what he felt for her. He understood it. Constantly he needed to remind himself that she did not. She couldn't, nor could she fathom her own feelings for him. To her, he was a stranger. . . at least until her memory returned, and until she became aware that she could know anything about him simply by searching his mind. Now, though, at this moment, he was a stranger.

He hoped to remedy that to some extent tonight.

She locked the door, pocketed the key and turned toward him. Eric allowed himself the pleasure of encircling her shoulders with his arm. No matter how good his intentions, it seemed he couldn't prevent himself from touching her, holding her close whenever possible. Her coat was too thick for his liking. He could scarcely feel the shape of her beneath it. He urged her down the curving driveway, and felt her start in surprise when she caught sight of the vehicle that awaited her there. One horse's ears pricked forward and his head came up at the sound of their approach.

Tamara stopped walking to turn wide eyes toward Eric. He smiled at the delight he saw in them. "I thought a sleigh would be more enjoyable than any other mode of transportation," he said.

Her smile took his breath away, and she hurried forward, sending a powdery blizzard ahead of her as she plowed through the five inches of new snow on the ground. She stood in front of the black, speaking softly, for the horse's ears only, and stroking his muzzle. He blew in appreciation. Eric joined her there a second later. "This is Max. He's a gelding, and I think he's as enchanted by his first glimpse of you as I was."

She glanced up, meeting his eyes, her own acknowledging the compliment, before Eric continued. "And this—" he moved toward the golden palomino beside Max "—is Melinda, his partner."

Tamara stepped to the side and stroked Melinda's sleek neck.

"She's beautiful—they both are. Are they yours, Eric?"

"Unfortunately, no. I was able to rent them for the night." He watched the emotions in her face and felt those in her mind as she touched and caressed one horse, then the other. "I'm thinking of buying them, though," he added. It was true. The moment he'd seen her joy at the sight of the animals, he'd wanted to own them.

"Oh?" Her attention was, at last, on him again. "Do you have a stable?"

"I'll have one built," he announced. She laughed as he took her arm and led her around the horses, to help her into the sleigh. Eric climbed in beside her and picked up the reins.

"I've always loved horses. When I was a little girl I wanted to own a ranch, where I could raise them by the hundreds."

Eric nodded. He remembered her love of horses. He'd hoped it still existed. He snapped the reins lightly and clicked his tongue. The sleigh jerked into motion, and Tamara settled back against the cushioned seat. He took them off the paved road as soon as possible, onto a snow-coated side road that was barely more than a path. He watched her more often than the road ahead. She remarked on everything with little sighs of pleasure—the full moon glistening on the snow, making it sparkle as if it held tiny diamonds just beneath the surface, the ice-coated branches that made ugly, bare limbs turn into sculpted crystal. The crisp, clean air that touched her face, and the scent of the horses' warm bodies.

Eric nodded in agreement, but in truth he was aware of none of it. It was her scent that enveloped him. It was seeing the way the chill breeze played with her hair and reddened her cheeks and the tip of her nose that entranced him. He felt only the warmth of her body, pressed alongside his own, and saw the moonlight glistening in her eyes, rather than upon the snow. Beyond the rhythmic thudding of the horses' hooves he heard the music in her voice.

Her arm was wrapped around his, and her head rested upon his shoulder. "This is wonderful, Eric. It's the most fun I've had in..." She blinked and considered a moment. "I can't remember when I've enjoyed a night this much."

"Nor I," he whispered, certain it was true. "But you must tell me if you grow tired, or I'll likely keep you out all night."

"I don't get tired at night. Not ever. I haven't slept a night through in over a month... closer to two. So if you want to keep me out all night, I'll be more than willing."

She seemed so exuberant and happy. Yet he worried about this sleeplessness. She'd mentioned it before. "Are you able to sleep by day, then?"

"No, I have to work. I usually catch a few hours in the afternoon, though." She tipped her head up and saw his frown. "Do I look like I'm suffering from exhaustion to you?"

"Quite the opposite," he admitted.

She settled against him again, then straightened, snapping her fingers. "It's French, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Your accent."

"I wasn't aware I had one." God, she was beautiful. Her eyes in the moonlight seemed luminous, and he noticed again the thickness of the lashes surrounding them.

"It's very slight. I barely notice it myself. I've been trying to place it. Am I right?"

He nodded. "I was born in France."

"Where?"

He smiled down at her, amazed that she even cared to ask. "Paris. I haven't been back there in... years."

"You sound as if you'd like to go, though," she said, studying his face. "Why haven't you?"

"Bad memories, I suppose. My father was murdered there. I nearly suffered the same fate, save for the intervention of a good friend." He saw her eyes widen. He'd vowed to be as honest with her as he could without giving away the secret. He wanted her to feel she knew him.

Her hand clutched his upper arm more tightly. "That's horrible."

He nodded. "But a long time past, Tamara. I'm recovered."

"Are you sure?" He met her intense scrutiny. "Have you talked it out with someone, Eric? These things have a way of festering."

He tilted his head, considering his words. "It was... political. and utterly senseless. It left me without any family at all, and if not for Roland, I'd have been without a friend, as well." He looked down to see her listening raptly. "I never had many to begin with, you see. I always felt separate—set apart from my peers."

"You didn't fit in. I know exactly what you mean."

He looked deeply into her eyes. "Yes, I imagine you do."

"Tell me about your friend. Do you still keep in touch?"

He chuckled. "It is sometimes a long time between letters, or visits. But Roland happens to be staying with me at the moment."

Her head came up, eyes eager. "Could I meet him?"

He frowned. "Why would you want to?"

She had to give her answer a long moment's thought before speaking it. "You... said he saved your life. I..." Her gaze fell to her hand, resting on her knee. "I'd like to thank him." Eric closed his eyes at the warmth her words sent through his heart. "He's a recluse. Perhaps I can arrange it, though. Unlike me, he still has a residence in France, though he rarely lives there. He owns a sprawling medieval castle in the Loire Valley. He hid me there for a time after we fled Paris."

When he glanced at her again it was to find her gaze affixed to his face as it had been through most of the ride. "You are a fascinating man," she whispered.

"I am a simple man, with simple tastes."

"I'd love to see your home."

"Another time, perhaps. If I took you there while my reclusive friend was in residence, he'd likely throttle me." He slipped his arm around the back of the seat, and squeezed her to his side. "It is furnished almost exclusively in antiques. Electric lighting is there, of course, but I seldom use it. I prefer the muted glow of oil lamps to the harsh glare of those white bulbs, except in my laboratory."

"You're a scientist?"

"I dabble in a few projects that interest me."

Her lovely eyes narrowed. "You are being modest, I think."

He shrugged, gave a tug on the reins to stop their progress and reached beneath the seat for the thermos he'd brought along. "You told me once, a very long time ago, that your favorite beverage was hot chocolate. Is it still the case?"

* * * * *

For the first time in years Tamara felt completely at ease with another person. The hours of the night flew past almost without her knowledge. They talked incessantly, touching on every subject imaginable, from music and art to politics. He fascinated her, and the more she learned about him the more she wanted to know.

Through it all she was constantly aware of the physical attraction that zapped between them. She'd deliberately sat close to him, so her body touched his. She liked touching him, so much so that she felt cold and alone when they hit a rough spot in the road and she was jarred away from his side. Without hesitation she resumed her former position. He seemed to share her need to feel her close. He touched her often. He kept his hard arm around her, managing the reins with one hand. When they passed beneath an overhanging branch and a handful of snow dusted her, he stopped the sleigh and turned to brush it away from her shoulders and her hair. Their eyes met, and she felt the irresistible pull of him. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers with infinite tenderness. He held himself in check, though. She sensed his forced restraint and knew he was determined to go slowly with her. . . to give her time to adjust to what was happening between them.

She wondered exactly what was happening between them. She knew that it was intense, and that it was real. She knew that she'd never felt this way toward another human being in her life. And she knew that whatever it was, she didn't want it to end. She wanted to tell him so, but didn't quite know how.

He left the sleigh in the same spot near the end of the driveway when they returned to the house. He walked her to the door, and stopped as she fit her key into the lock. Her heart twisted painfully at the thought of leaving him. The lock released, but she didn't open the door. She turned and gazed up at him, wondering if he knew.

"I'd like to see you again," she said, suddenly shy and awkward with him, which seemed strange considering all that had passed between them before.

"I think it would be impossible for me to go a night without seeing you, Tamara," he told her. "I will come to you again. . . do not doubt it." She bit her lower lip, searching his face. "I'm a grown woman. It's silly to have to sneak around this way. You know you could end this foolish notion Daniel has about you, if you wanted to. Just come to the house during the day. He'd have to realize then—"

"He would only assume I had some protection against the daylight, sweet. Nothing can change his opinion of me." He looked away from her briefly. "I have my own schedule—one that is vital to me. Should I alter that to accommodate the whims of a man determined to persecute me?"

"No, I didn't mean it like that!" She sighed, feeling deflated.

"It's just that I hate deceiving him."

"If you tell him you're seeing me, Tamara, he'll find a way to prevent it." She met his gaze again, and saw the hint of impatience vanish as he regarded her. "Let me amend that. He would try to find a way. He would not succeed."

She believed that he meant it. "I'm glad you said that," she admitted.

She knew he would kiss her. She saw the heat come into his luminous eyes in the instant before his arms imprisoned her waist. Her lips parted as his descended. The restraint he'd shown earlier dissolved the instant her arms encircled his corded neck and her body pressed to his. His lips quivered as they covered hers, and she accepted his probing tongue enthusiastically. Even with her heavy coat between them she was aware of the heat of him touching her, as if his hands touched her naked skin. He explored her mouth, and his fingers moved lightly over her nape, sending exquisite shivers down her spine.

She'd experimented with sex. In college, though she'd lived at home at Daniel's insistence, there had been plenty of opportunities and no shortage of eager tutors. Her times with men had been few, though, and inspired more by curiosity than passion. Tonight, with Eric, she wanted it. A hunger like nothing she'd known existed made a cavern inside her a vast emptiness that only he could fill. It gnawed at her mercilessly, and the longing made her groan deep in her throat.

He straightened, and she knew he saw the need in her eyes. His own closed as if he were in pain, and his arms fell away from her. "I must go," he rasped. He reached past her and threw the door wide. There was no tenderness in his touch when he pushed her through it.

She felt tears stinging her eyes when he turned and walked away.

CHAPTER SIX

At 7:00 a.m. she sat across the table from Daniel, nursing a strong cup of coffee and a pounding headache. "It's probably just a bug," she repeated. "I'm tired and achy. I'll spend the day in bed and be myself again by tomorrow morning."

His lips thinned and he shook his head. "I'll call in, make arrangements to work at home today. That way—"

"I don't need a baby-sitter."

"I didn't say you did. I only think I should be here, in case—"

Tamara slammed the half-filled cup onto the table, sloshing coffee over the rim, and got to her feet. "Daniel, this has to stop."

"What? Tam, I'm only concerned about you."

"I know." She pushed a hand through her hair, wishing she could ease the throbbing in her temples. She felt like a wrung-out rag this morning, and in no shape for a confrontation. "I know it's love that motivates you, Daniel—I know you care. But for God's sake, look at me. I'm not an orphaned little girl anymore." She kept her voice level, and moved around the table to press her hands to his shoulders. "You and Curtis are smothering me with all this concern. You hover over me as if I'm Little Red Riding Hood and there are wolves behind every tree."

Daniel looked at the floor. Have we been that bad?"

"Worse." She squeezed his shoulders gently. "But I love you, anyway."

He met her gaze, and slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Tam. It's not that I think you need watching, like a child. It's. . . it's this thing with Marquand, dammit. I'm terrified he'll try to see you again."

She let her hands fall away from him, and straightened. Eric had said he believed Daniel knew of the connection between them. Could he have been right? "Why would you think that?"

He sighed as if she were stupid. "Tamara, you're a beautiful woman! Curtis said the man was obviously attracted that night at the rink. He'd have to have been blind not to be. These creatures have a sex drive like rutting animals. Even one as old as he is."

She turned away from him, trying not to laugh. Eric was not a "creature," nor was he old. The skin of his face was smooth and tight. He moved with a grace beyond anything she'd seen before, and yet his strength was obvious. His body rippled with hard muscles and kinetic energy.

Shaking her head, she reached for her coffee. "Just how old is he?"

"Two hundred and thirty something. I've traced him to the French Revolution, when he was imprisoned and should have been beheaded in Paris. His father was, you know."

Tamara had lifted her cup to her lips, but now she choked on the sip she'd taken. Eric had told her his father was murdered in Paris! He'd said it was "political." My God, could Daniel possibly be right—no. No, that was utterly ridiculous.

But I've never seen Eric during the day.

She shoved the doubts aside. This was nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

"He's dangerous. Tam. Clever as a wizard, too. I wouldn't put it past him to use you to get to me.

And he says you're using me to get to him, she thought. Aloud, she only said, "I'd never let that happen."

"I know. Tam. But promise you'll tell me if he tries to make contact. We have to be careful. He's evil—"

"Yes, you've told me. He's the devil himself. Okay, I'll let you know. Happy?" He studied her face before he nodded. "Go to work," she told him playfully. "He can't bother me during the day, right?"

She tried not to let his words replay in her mind, over and over again all morning. She only wanted to go back to bed and get some much-needed rest. That was impossible to do, though. She supposed she wouldn't act so impulsively if she'd had a decent amount of sleep in the past several weeks. If she'd been in a normal, relatively sane frame of mind, nothing could have convinced her to do what she suddenly decided she must do. Unfortunately, her sanity was in question, and she thought if she didn't answer the questions in her mind once and for all, it would slip away from her completely.

She had to prove to herself that Eric Marquand was not a vampire. She thought that made about as much sense as trying to prove the earth was not flat, or that the moon was not made of green cheese. Yet several hours later she sat in her pathetic excuse for a car alongside the road in front of Eric Marquand's estate.

She glanced at her watch. Only an hour or so left before sunset. Part of her wanted to put this off until tomorrow. Part of her wanted to put it off permanently. Still, she was here, and she knew if she didn't go through with this now, she never would.

Getting the address hadn't been easy. She couldn't possibly have asked Daniel or Curt without sending them both into hysterics. She couldn't show up at work and tap the DPI computers. Her security clearance wasn't high enough to get her the correct access codes. She'd spent most of the day at the county seat, scouring the records deemed "public domain." She'd struck out on birth certificates. He didn't seem to have a driver's license, or a car registered in his name. He did, however, have a deed to his home. She found the information she needed in the property tax files. His address was there, and she frowned to note it was only a few miles southeast of Daniel's house, on the northern shore of the sound.

She'd spent the entire drive back arguing with herself. Was she about to shore up her sanity, or had it already been buried in an avalanche? Would any sane person visit a man's home during the day to prove he wasn't a vampire?

Too late now, she thought, pulling her car around a bend in the road and easing it close to the wood lot on the opposite side. I'm here and I'm going in. She left the keys in the switch, and walked back to the towering wrought-iron gate. She peered between the bars and the crisscrossing pattern of vines and leaves writhing between them, all made of flattened metal. The pattern was the same as far as she could see in either direction. Beyond the fence a cobblestone driveway twisted its way toward the house. Huge trees lined the driveway, so she had to move around a bit to get a glimpse of the building beyond them.

When she did she caught her breath. The house towered at least three stories high. It was built of rough-hewn stone blocks, each one too big for three men to lift. The windows—at least, the ones she could see—were arched at the tops, and deep set. They reminded her of hooded eyes, watching but not wishing to be seen. She touched the gate and at the same instant noticed the small metal box affixed to a post just inside. A tiny red light flashed in sync with her pulse. This was no antique fence, but a high-tech security device. She drew her hand away fast, wondering how many alarms she'd set off simply by touching it. She waited and watched. No sound or movement came from within.

When she could breathe again she glanced up. The spikes at the top of each of the fence's bars looked real, and sharp. Climbing over would be impossible. But there had to be another way inside. She squared her shoulders and began walking the perimeter.

It seemed like a mile as she pressed through tangles of brush and a miniature forest, but it couldn't have been that much. The fence bowed out, and curved back toward the house in the rear. She didn't find a single flaw in it, and she bit her lip in dismay when she reached the end. The last spiked bar of black iron sank into the ground at the edge of a rocky cliff. Below, the sound roiled in white capped chaos. The wind picked up and Tamara shivered. She had to do something. Go back? After all this?

She eyed the final spear of the fence. The ground near its base didn't look too solid. Still, she thought, if she gripped the fence tightly she might be able to swing her body around to the other side. Right?

She gripped a filigree vine with her right hand, the right side of her body touching the fence. She faced the sound and the biting wind that came off it. She had to lean out, over, and twist her body in order to grip the same vine on the other side of the fence with her left hand.

Bent in this awkward, painful pose, she glanced down. Points of slick, black rock jutted sporadically from water of the same color. They appeared and disappeared with each swell. They winked at her, like supernatural, unspeakably evil eyes. Her hair whipped around her face. Her nose and cheeks burned with cold, and her eyes watered. She edged forward until her toes hung over, then drew a breath and swung her left leg out and around, slamming it down again on firm, solid earth.

She couldn't stop her gaze from slanting downward once more as she straddled the iron fence, one arm and one leg on either side while her rear end jutted into Space. A wave of dizziness, almost exactly corresponding to the waves of seawater moving below, temporarily swamped her brain. She had to close her eyes to battle it. She swallowed three times in quick succession before she dared open them again.

Grunting with the effort, she released her right hand from the outside of the fence and brought it around to cling to a bar on the inside. She clung for all she was worth. All that remained was to move her right leg around to this side now. She lifted it, drew it backward, out over the water, and jerked it in again, slamming her foot down on the ground near the edge. But the ground she stood on dissolved like sugar in hot coffee. Too near the edge, she had time to think. Her right foot scraped down over the sheer face of the cliff until the entire leg, to the thigh, made an arrow pointing to certain death on the rocks below. Her left leg lay flat, heel down, on the ground so she was almost doing a split. She still clung to the fence with her left hand. Her right had been torn free when she'd slipped so hard and so fast.

The filigree vine she gripped began slowly to cut into her fingers. They burned, and in moments they throbbed incessantly. She knew she couldn't hold on another second with each second that she held on. The muscle in the back of the thigh that lay flat to the ground felt stretched to violin-string proportions.

Frantically she dug at the stone face with her toe, knowing as she did that it was useless. She was going to die on those rocks beneath the angry black water. . . and all for the chance to prove to herself that Eric Marquand was not a vampire.

Her fingers slipped. Her thigh throbbed with pain. She slid a couple more inches. Then her toe struck a small protrusion in the cliff face. She pressed onto it, praying it would hold. It did, and she was able to lever herself higher, and get a grip on the fence with her free hand. She pulled, scraping her foot along the sheer stone, wriggling her body up until she was completely supported by the solid, snow-dusted ground. For a long moment she remained there, hands still gripping the cold iron bars, face pressed to them, as well. Her body trembled and she wished to God she'd never embarked on this crazy mission.

Fine time to change my mind, she thought. I'm certainly not leaving here the same way I came. She sighed, lifted her head and pulled herself to her feet. She'd just have to go inside, confess her lunacy to Eric and hope he wouldn't laugh her off the planet. Then she sobered. He might not find her intrusion funny at all. He might resent her snooping as much as he resented Daniel's.

She brushed snow and damp earth from her jeans, wincing and drawing her hand away. A thin smear of blood stained the denim and she turned her palm up to see spiderweb strands of scarlet trickling from the creases of her fingers. She fought the tiny shiver that raced along her spine, balled her hand into a fist and shoved it into her pocket, then strode over the snowy ground toward the rear of Eric's house. She knocked at a set of French doors similar to her own. When no response came she thumped a little harder. Still no one answered.

He wasn't home. And she was stuck in his backyard until he got home, she thought miserably.

The wind howled off the sound, battering the house and Tamara with it. Her jeans were dampened from the snow and the wet ground. Her hand was throbbing. She had no idea when he'd return, or even if he would tonight. She couldn't stand here much longer or she thought she'd suffer frostbite. No, she had to get inside. Eric could be as angry as he wanted, but she'd left herself with few options. She wasn't about to tempt the sound again by trying to leave as she'd arrived. The French doors seemed like an omen. If they'd been any other type, she would have had no options. But French doors she could open. She'd had to force her own a time or two when she'd misplaced the key.

She dipped into her coat pocket hoping to find—yes! A small silver nail file presented itself when she withdrew her fist and opened it. She turned toward the doors, and hesitated. Another gust exploded from the sound, and suddenly wet snow slanted across the sky, slicing her face like tiny shards of glass. She huddled into her coat and moved more quickly. She slipped the file between the two panels, nimbly flicked the latch and opened them.

She stepped inside and pulled the doors together behind her. She thought it wasn't much warmer here than outside, then saw the huge marble fireplace facing her, glowing with coals of a forgotten fire. She tugged off her boots, shrugged free of the coat and hurried to the promise of warmth. A stack of wood beside the hearth offered hope, and she bent to toss several chunks onto the grate, then stretched her nearly numb hands toward the heat. She stood for just a moment, absorbing the warmth as the chills stopped racing around her body. Tongues of flame lapped hungrily at the logs, snapping loudly and sending tiny showers of sparks up the chimney.

After a time she lowered her hands and glanced around her. She had the urge to rub her eyes and look again. It seemed she'd been transported backward in time. The chair behind her was a profusion of needlepoint genius. Every scrap of material on the thing had been embroidered with birds, flowers, leaves. The wooden arms and legs had scroll-like shapes at their ends. A footstool of the same design sat before it, and Tamara bent to run one fingertip reverently over the cushion. All of the furniture was of the same period. She was no expert, but she guessed it was Louis XV, and she knew it was in mint condition. Marble topped, gilded tables with angels carved into their legs were placed at intervals. Other chairs similar to the first were scattered about. The sofa. . .no, it was more like a settee, was small by today's standards. Its velvet upholstery of deep green contrasted with the intricately carved wooden arms and legs.

She examined the room itself, noting a chandelier of brass and crystal suspended high overhead. Yet at one end of the room shelves had been built to hold thousands of dollars worth of stereo equipment, and rows of CDs, LPs, and cassettes. Nearby, a rather ordinary-looking bar seemed out of place in the antique-filled room, with the parquet floors. She saw oil lamps on every stand, yet a light switch on the wall. The sun sank lower, and she walked toward the bar, snapped on the light and licked her lips. She could use a drink. She was still shivering intermittently, despite the warmth filling the room. If Eric could forgive her for breaking into his home, she reasoned, he ought to be able to forgive her for stealing a small glass of—of whatever he had on hand.

She went behind the bar and ducked down to look at the nearly-empty shelves underneath. Not a single bottle rested there. Glasses, yes. A couple of expensive cut-crystal decanters. She stood, frowning, turning only when she heard the almost silent hum of the small refrigerator, built in to the wall behind her.

Smiling at her own oversight, Tamara gripped the handle and tugged. . . .

A tiny chunk of ice placed itself in the center of her chest, and slowly grew until it enveloped her entire body.

Her jaw fell. She took a step back, blinking, unable to believe what she was seeing. Blood. Plastic bags filled with blood in two neat stacks. She felt as if she'd been dropped into the fury of a cyclone. She saw nothing all at once, except a thin red haze, heard nothing but a deafening roar. Mindlessly she shoved at the small door. It swung, but didn't quite close, and slowly it slipped back to its wide open position. Tamara didn't notice. She turned away, face buried in her hands, fingertips pressing into her eyelids as if she could erase what she'd seen.

"It wasn't real. It couldn't have been real. I'll turn around. If I turn around and look again it won't be there because it wasn't real."

She didn't turn around, though. She lifted her head, focused on the French doors and hurried toward them. She wanted to run, but couldn't. Just walking in her socks seemed absurdly loud on the parquet floor. She felt eyes on her, seemingly from everywhere. Her own gaze darted about, like a bird flitting from branch to branch on a tree, in constant motion. She couldn't shake the feeling that someone was right behind her, no matter which way she turned. She moved forward, then whirled and walked backward a few steps. Only a yard to go. She'd grab up her boots. She'd snatch her coat as she ran outside. She wouldn't wait to put them on first. Another step. An invisible finger of ice traced a path up her backbone.

"Too crazy," she whispered, turning fast and walking backward again. "It's all too crazy—this place—me. I'm too crazy." Her mind cartwheeled out of control and she pivoted once more, ready to make a lunge for the door. Her path was blocked by a broad, hard chest covered in crisp white cotton.

She automatically drew back, but Eric's hands clamped down on her shoulders before she'd moved a half step. Frozen in place, she only stared up at him as her breaths began coming too quickly and too shallowly. Her head swam. Against her will she studied his face. His eyes glistened, and she knew more than just bald terror of this man. She felt a sickening sense of loss and of betrayal. Daniel had been right all along.

"What are you doing here, Tamara?"

She tried to swallow, but her throat was like a sandy desert. She pulled against his hands, surprised when he let them fall from her shoulders. A strange voice behind her made her whirl between heartbeats. "Snooping, of course. I told you not to trust her, Eric. She's DPI." The man standing near the bar waved a hand toward the opened refrigerator. That first glimpse of him nearly extinguished the small spark of reason she had left. He was dressed all in black, with a satin cloak that reached to the floor all but blanketing him. He moved like a panther, with inconceivable grace and latent power. He exuded a sexual magnetism that was palpable. His dark good looks were belied by the ageless wisdom in the depths of his smoldering jet eyes. As she watched he lifted a decanter to the bar, and then a matching glass. He reached into the open fridge and took out a bag.

Tamara had never fainted in her life, but she came very close then. Her head floated three feet above her shoulders and her knees dissolved. For just an instant black velvet engulfed her. She didn't feel herself sink toward the floor. Eric moved even before she knew what was happening. He scooped her up as soon as she faltered, carried her to the settee and lowered her carefully. "That was unnecessary, Roland!" She heard his angry shout, but knew he hadn't moved his lips. Her sanity slipped another notch.

She sat with her back against one hard wooden arm. Eric sat beside her, his arms making walls around her. His right hand braced against the back of the settee, his left against the arm on which she leaned. She cringed into the warm green velvet. "Get away from me." Her words tripped over each other on the way past her lips. "Let me go home."

"You will go home, Tamara. As soon as you tell me what you are doing here. Is Roland correct? Have you been sent by your employers? Perhaps by St Claire himself?"

CHAPTER SEVEN

Deny it, Eric thought desperately. Deny it, Tamara, and I'll believe you. If it costs my existence, I'll believe you. He watched her chalky face go even paler. He honed his senses to hers and felt a shock of paralyzing fear. Fear. . .of him. It hit him painfully.

"Tamara, you needn't be afraid. I'd sooner harm myself than you." He glanced toward Roland. "Leave us for a time." He spoke aloud to be certain Tamara understood.

He had no doubt Roland did so for the same reason. Slanting a derogatory gaze in her direction, he said, "And if she would lead a regiment of DPI forces to the back door?" He stepped out from behind the bar and came nearer. "Well, girl? Speak up. Have you come alone? How; did you get in?"

Eric shot to his feet, his anger flaring hot. "I am warning you, Roland, let me take care of this matter. You are only frightening her."

"I? Frightening her? You think I felt secure when I woke and sensed a human presence in this house? For God's sake, Eric, for all I knew I was about to be skewered on a stake!"

"Th-then it's true." Tamara's voice, shaking and sounding as if every word were forced, brought Eric's gaze back to her. "You're—you both are, are—"

"Vampires," Roland spat. "It isn't a dirty word, at least, not among us."

She groaned and put her head in her hands. Roland shook his head in exasperation and turned away. Eric took his seat beside her once more. He wanted to comfort her, but wasn't certain he knew how. He pulled one of her hands into his own, and stroked her palm with his thumb. "Tamara, look at me, please." She lifted her head, but couldn't seem to meet his gaze. "Try to see beyond your fear, and the shock of this revelation. Just see me. I am the same man I was last night, and the night before. I am the same man who held you in my arms... who kissed you. Did I frighten you then? Did I give you any reason to fear me?"

Her eyes focused on his, and he thought they cleared a bit. She shook her head. More confident, he pressed on. "I am not a monster, Tamara. I'd never harm you. I'd kill anyone who tried. Listen with your heart and you'll know it to be true." He reached one hand tentatively, and when she didn't flinch or draw away he flattened one palm to her silken cheek. "Believe that."

Her brows drew together slightly, and he thought she might be thinking it over. Roland cleared his throat, her head snapped around and the fear returned to her eyes. "If it is me you fear, you need not. I do not choose to trust you as my dear friend does, but neither would I lift a finger to harm you. My anger at finding you here is directly related to my wish to continue existing." The last was said with a meaningful glance at Eric.

"Tamara." When he had her attention again, he continued. "There are those who would like nothing better than to murder us in our sleep. We both thought my security system infallible. Please, tell me how you breached it."

She swallowed. Her throat convulsed. "Where the fence ends," she said hoarsely. "At the cliff." Her gaze flew to Roland. "I didn't bring anyone here. I didn't even tell them where I—" She bit her lips before she could finish the sentence, but Eric had barely heard her words.

"At the cliff?" he repeated. For the first time he looked at her closely. Her denims were damp and caked with dirt. A streak of mud marred her high cheekbone, and her hair was wild. The scent of blood reached him from the hand he held, and he spread her fingers wider with his own. Drying blood coated her palm. Fresh trickles of it came from narrow slices at the creases of three fingers. It pulsed a bit harder from the fourth. "How did this happen?"

"I—I fell. I had to cling to the fence, and the vine patterns are sharp. They cut—"

Roland swore softly and whirled to leave the room. Eric could clearly see what she described. He sensed what had happened, her fear, her panic and her pain. The memory embedded itself in his mind as firmly as it had in hers, and it shook him to think of her coming so close to death while he slept, helpless to save her. Roland returned, dropped to his knees beside the settee and deposited a basin of warm water on the table beside it. He squeezed a clean white cloth and handed it to Eric. As Eric gently cleaned her hand, Roland looked on, his face drawn as if he, too, could envision what had happened. The wounds cleansed, Roland produced a tiny bottle of iodine. He took Tamara's hand from Eric's, and dabbed each cut liberally with the brownish liquid. He recapped the bottle, and took another strip of white cloth from some hidden pocket beneath his cloak. Carefully he began to wrap her four fingers at the knuckle.

"It—it's only a couple of scratches," Tamara croaked, watching his movements in something like astonishment.

Roland stopped, seeming to consider for a moment. He grinned then, a bit sheepishly. "I sometimes forget what century this is. You've likely been vaccinated against tetanus. There was a time when even minor scratches like these could have cost the entire hand, if not treated." He shrugged and finished the wrapping with a neat little knot. He glanced up at Tamara, caught her amazement and frowned. "You assumed we would go into a frenzy at the scent of your blood, like a pack of hungry wolves, did you not?"

"Enough, Roland," Eric cut in. "You cannot blame her for misconceptions about us. She's been reared by a man who loathes our kind. She only needs to see for herself we are not the monsters he would have her believe." He studied Tamara, but found she wasn't looking at either of them. She was staring at the white bandage on her hand, turning it this way and that, frowning as if she didn't quite know what it was, or how it had got there.

His stomach clenched. She'd had a scare out there at the cliff, and now another shock, in learning the truth about him. She was shaken. He'd have to go gently. "Tamara," he said softly. When she looked up, he went on. "Will you tell me why you came here?"

"I... had to know. I had to know."

He closed his eyes and made himself continue. "Then St. Claire doesn't know you've come to me?"

Some of the fear returned to her wide, dark eyes, but to her credit she answered honestly. "No one knows I'm here."

He swallowed, and squared his shoulders. He had to ask the next question, no matter how distasteful. "Did you come to discover my secrets, and take them back to your guardian, Tamara?"

She shook her head emphatically, straightening up in her corner of the settee. "I wouldn't do that!" When she met his gaze again, her eyes narrowed. The fear seemed to be shoved aside to make room for another emotion. "I was honest with you, Eric. I found myself telling you things I had never told anyone, and every one of them was the truth. I trusted you." Her voice broke, and she had to draw a shaky breath before she could continue. In that instant Roland nodded toward Eric, indicating he was satisfied that she posed no threat, and would leave them alone now. Roland vanished through a darkened doorway. Tamara found her voice and rushed on.

"I told you about the nightmares, about how I thought I might be going insane. I bared my soul to you, and the whole time you were deceiving me. Daniel was right. You were only using me to get closer to him!"

Eric felt a shaft of white-hot iron pierce his heart. All she wanted at this moment was to get away from him. He swallowed his pain. "I never deceived you, Tamara."

"You deceived me by omission," she countered.

"And I would have told you the rest of it, in time. I didn't think you were ready to hear the truth."

"The truth? You mean that you've been plotting to rid yourself of an old man's harassment, and you were using me to do it?"

"That I am not like other men. I had no idea you were under St. Claire's hand until you told me yourself, and after that my only goal was to protect you from the bastard!"

"Protect me? From Daniel?"

Eric let his chin drop to his chest. "If I was lying to you, you would know it," he told her slowly, carefully, enunciating each word and giving each time to penetrate her mind. She was angry now. He didn't suppose that should surprise him. He met her probing, questing eyes. "We have a psychic link, Tamara. You cannot deny that. You've felt its power. When you called to me in your dreams, when I summoned you out onto the balcony. Have you realized yet that you can cry out to me, across the miles, using nothing but your mind, and that I will hear you?"

She shook her head fast. "The dream was a fluke, and beyond my control. I couldn't do it at will."

"You could. Put it to the test, if you doubt me."

"No, thank you. I just want to go home. . . and—"

"Do not say it, Tamara. You know it is untrue," Eric cut in, sensing her declaration before she uttered it.

She met his gaze, her own unwavering. "I don't want to see you again. I want you to leave me alone. I can't let myself be used to betray Daniel, or DPI."

"I would never ask you to do either one. I haven't yet, have I?" He grabbed her shoulders when she would have stood, and held her where she was. "As for the rest, now you are the one lying, Tamara to yourself and to me. You do not wish for me to leave you alone. Quite the opposite, in fact."

She shook her head.

"Shall I prove it to you, yet again? You want me, Tamara. With the same mindless passion I feel for you. It goes far beyond the past we share. It exceeds this mental link. I would feel it even if you were a stranger. Our bond only strengthens it, and vice versa."

She stared into his eyes, and her own dampened. "I can't feel this way for you. I can't, dammit."

"Because I'm a vampire?"

She closed her eyes against the glycerin like tears that pooled there. "I don't even know what that means. I only know you despise the man I hold more dear to me than anything in the world."

"I despise no one. It is true that I distrust the man. But I wish him no harm, I swear to you." Her eyes opened slowly, and she studied his face. "I could not long for something that would cause you pain, Tamara. To harm St. Claire would also harm you. I can see that clearly. I'm not capable of causing you pain."

She shook her head. "I don't know what to believe. I—I just want to leave. I can't think clearly here."

"I can't let you go in this frame of mind," he said softly. "Stop trying to rationalize, Tamara. Let yourself feel what is between us. You cannot make it disappear." His gaze touched her lips, and before he could stop himself he fastened his hungry mouth over them, enfolding her in his arms and drawing her to his chest.

She remained stiff, but he felt her lips tremble against his. Barely lifting his mouth away, he whispered, "Close your mind and open your heart. Do not think. Feel." His lips closed the hairbreadth of space again, nudging hers apart, feeding on the sweetness behind them. With a shudder that shook her entire body Tamara surrendered. He felt her go soft and pliable, and then her arms twined around his neck and her soft mouth opened farther. When his tongue plunged deeply into the velvet moistness, her fingers, clenched in his hair. One hand fumbled with the ribbon that held his customary queue. A moment later the ribbon fell away, and she swept her fingers again and again through his hair, driving him to greater passion.

He pressed her backward until she lay against the settee's wooden arm and still farther, so her back arched over it. His own arm clutching her to him rested at the small of her back, protecting her from the hard wood. His other arm stretched lengthwise, up her spine so his hand could entangle itself in her hair. His fingers spread open to cradle her head. He moved it this way and that beneath his plundering lips to fit her to him. His chest pressed hard on hers. He drank in the honeyed elixir of her; he tasted every wet recess his tongue could reach. He caressed the roof of her mouth, the backs of her teeth and the sweet well of her throat.

She groaned, a deep, guttural sound that set an inferno blazing through him. She shifted beneath him so that one leg, bent at the knee, pressed into the back of the settee, while the other still hung off the side, onto the floor. He responded instantly and without thought, turning into her, pressing one knee to the cushion and lowering his hips to hers. He brought one hand down, sliding it beneath her firm backside and holding her to him while he ground against her. He throbbed with need, and he knew she could feel his hardness pushing insistently against her most sensitive spot, as his hand kneaded her derriere. He felt her desire racing through her, and the knowledge that she wanted just what he did added fuel to the fire incinerating his mind.

He trailed a burning path over her face with his lips, moving steadily lower, over her denned jawbone, to the soft hollow of her throat. Her jugular swelled its welcome, and her pulse thundered in anticipation. He tasted the salt of her skin on his stroking tongue, and the stream of her blood rushing beneath its surface tingled on his lips. His breathing became rapid and gruff. His own heart hammered and the blood lust twined with the sexual arousal, enhancing it until both roared in his ears as one entity.

Another moment—another of her heated, whimpering breaths bathing his skin, or one more shift of her luscious body against his straining groin—and it would take over completely. He'd lose control. He'd tear her clothing off and he'd take her. He'd take her completely. He'd bury himself inside her so deeply she'd cry out, and. he'd drink the nectar from her veins until he was sated.

She arched against him then, pressing her throat hard against his mouth, and her hips tighter to his manhood. She shivered from her toes to her lips. Even her hands on his back and in his hair trembled, and she moaned softly—a plea for something she wasn't even fully aware of craving.

He gathered every ounce of strength in him and tore himself from her so roughly he almost stumbled to the floor. He whirled away from her, bent nearly double, holding the edge of the table for support.

He heard her gasp in surprise, then he heard the strangled sob that broke from her lips, and when he dared look at her, her knees were drawn to her chest, her face pressed to them. "Why—" she began.

"I'm sorry. Tamara, you make me forget common sense. You make me forget everything except how badly I want you."

"Then. . ." She paused for a long moment and drew a shuddery breath. "Then why did you stop?"

He had to close his eyes. She'd lifted her tearstained face to search his for an answer. When he opened them again, she was dashing her tears away with the backs of her hands. "I came to you to help you, to protect you. You called to me for help. You thought yourself slipping away from sanity. I had to come to you. But not for this—not to satisfy my own unquenchable lust."

She shook her head in obvious confusion. He stepped forward, extended his hands, and she slipped her feet to the floor, took them in her own and rose.

"There are still many things you do not fully understand. No matter how badly I want you—and I do, never doubt that—I cannot let my desire cloud my good judgment. You are not ready."

She glanced up at him, and very slightly her lips turned up. "I don't know anything about you, and yet I feel I know you better than anyone. One thing I do know is that you were right when you said you were different from other men. Any other man wouldn't have stopped himself just now. The hell with what was best for me." She sighed and shook her head. "When I'm with you, even I say the hell with what is best for me. Sensation takes over. It's as if I lose my will. It frightens me."

His lips thinned and he nodded. He well understood what she was feeling. The powerful feelings seemed beyond her; control. Well, they seemed beyond his, as well. But he'd keep himself in check if it killed him.

"Will you tell me yet, how I know you? When did we get so close? Why can't I remember?"

He reached out, unable to resist touching her again. His body screamed for contact with hers. He lifted her hair away from her head, and let it fall through his fingers. "You have had enough to deal with tonight, Tamara. Your mind will give you the memory when it can accept and understand. It grieves me to refuse anything you ask of me, but, believe me, I feel it is better for you to remember on your own. Ask me anything else, anything at all."

She tilted her head to one side, seeming to accept what he said. Then, "You told me your father was murdered in Paris. Was it during the revolution?"

He sighed his relief. He'd thought she would run from him. Even the strength of their passion hadn't frightened her away. . . yet. He slipped an arm around her shoulders, and she walked beside him easily. He drew her into the corridor, and through it to the library, where he flicked the switch, flooding the room with harsh electric light. Normally he wouldn't have bothered. He'd simply have lit a lamp or two. He waved a hand to the huge portrait of his parents on the wall. It had been commissioned shortly after their marriage, and so had captured them in the bloom of youth and the height of beauty.

"Your parents?" She caught her breath when he nodded. "She's so beautiful, such delicate features and skin like porcelain. Her hair is like yours."

At her words Eric felt a rush of memory. He saw again his petite mother, remembered the softness of her hair and the sweet sound of her voice. She'd spurned the trend of leaving the child rearing to the nurse. She'd tucked him into bed each night, and sung to him in that lilting, lulling voice.

He hadn't realized Tamara stared at him, until she suddenly clutched his hand and blinked moisture from her eyes. "You must miss her terribly."

"At least she escaped the bloody terror. Both she and my sister, Jaqueline, lived out their lives to the natural end, in England. My father wasn't so fortunate. He was beheaded in Paris. I would have been, too, if not for Roland."

"That's when you were. . . changed?" Eric nodded. "And afterward, when you were free, why didn't you join your mother and sister in England?"

"I couldn't go to them then, Tamara. I was no longer the son or the brother they remembered—the awkward, withdrawn outsider who never fit in and lacked confidence enough to try. I was changed, strong, sure of myself, powerful. How could I have explained all of the differences in me, or the fact that I could only see them by night?"

"It might not have mattered to them," she said, placing a hand gently on his arm. "Or it might have made them despise and fear me. I couldn't have borne that... to see revulsion in the eyes of my own mother. No. It was easier to let them believe me dead and go on with their lives."

* * * * *

The night was a revelation. What at first had frightened and shocked her she soon found only one more unique thing about Eric Marquand. He was a vampire. What did that mean? she wondered. That the sun would kill him, the way inhaling water would kill a human? It meant he needed human blood in order to exist. She'd seen for herself how he acquired it. Not by killing or maiming innocent people, but by stealing it from blood banks.

As the hours of the night raced past he told her of the night he'd helped his mother and sister escape France, and been arrested himself. At her gentle coaxing he'd shared more of his past. He'd related tales of his boyhood that made her laugh, and revealed a love for his long-lost mother that made her cry. He might not be human, but he had human emotions. She sensed a pain within him that would have crippled her had it been her own. How many centuries of a nearly solitary existence could one man bear?

She found herself likening her solitude to his, and feeling another level of kinship with him. By the time he walked her to her car the feeling that she'd known him forever had overwhelmed her confusion over his true nature.

Until she arrived home, after midnight, to find Daniel and Curtis waiting like guard dogs. "Where have you been?" They snapped the question almost in unison.

"Here we go again," she muttered, keeping her bandaged hand thrust into her pocket. "I was out. I had some thinking to do, and you both know how much I enjoy crisp wintry nights. I just lost track of time."

She was shocked speechless when Curtis gripped her upper arm hard and drew her close. His gaze burned over her throat, and she knew what he sought.

"You saw Marquand tonight, didn't you, Tammy?"

"You think I'd tell you if I did? You are not my keeper, Curt."

He released her, turned away and pushed a hand through his hair. Daniel took his place. "He's only worried, just as I am, honey. I told you before we suspected he'd try to see you again. Please, you have to tell me if he did. It's for your own good."

If she told Daniel the truth he'd probably have a coronary, she thought. She swallowed against the bile that rose at the thought of telling him the truth. But lying was equally distasteful. "I didn't see anyone tonight, Daniel. I'm confused and frustrated. I needed to be alone, without you two hovering." She'd done it. She'd told an out-and-out lie to the man she loved most in the world. She felt like a Judas.

Curtis faced her again. He took her arm, gently this time, and led her to the sofa, pushing her down. "It's time you heard a few harsh truths, kid. The first one is this. I do have the right to ask. I love you, you little idiot. I always assumed you'd realize that sooner or later, and marry me. Lately, though, you've been acting like I'm a stranger. I'm tired of it. I've had enough. It ends, here and now. I won't let Marquand come between us."

"Come between—Curtis, how can he? There is no us."

He sighed in frustration, looking at her as if she were dense. "You see what I mean?" He made his voice gentler, and he sat down beside her. "Tamara, no matter what he's told you, you have to remember what he is. He'll lie so smoothly you'll hang on every word. He'll convince you he cares about you, when the truth is, he only cares about eliminating any threat to his existence. And at the moment the threat in question is Daniel. Don't let his words confuse you, Tammy. We are the ones who love you. We are the ones who've been here for you, who know you inside and out."

She wanted to answer him, but found herself tongue-tied.

"I know what's happening," Curt went on. "They have an incredible psychic ability. He's pulling one of the oldest tricks in the book on you, Tammy. I'd bet money on it. He's planting feelings in your mind, making you think you know him. You feel like you are intimate friends, but you can't remember when you met or where. You trust him instinctively—only it isn't instinctive. It's his damn mind commanding yours to trust him. He can do it, you know. He can fill your head with all these vague feelings for him, and make you ignore the ones that are real."

My God, could he be right?

"You're confused, Tam," Daniel added slowly, carefully. "He's keeping you awake nights by exerting his power over you. That's why you feel as if you can sleep during the day. He rests then. He can't influence your mind. By using the added susceptibility caused by the lack of sleep, his power over your mind can get stronger and stronger. Believe me, sweetheart, I've seen it happen before."

She stared from one of them to the other, as a sickening feeling grew within her. What they'd said made perfect sense. Yet she felt a certainty in her heart that they were wrong. Or was that in her mind—put there by Eric? How could she tell what she felt from what he was making her feel?

"What reason would I have to lie to you, Tam?" Daniel asked.

She shook her head. She couldn't bring herself to tell the truth. She'd feel as if she were betraying Eric if she did. But she felt she was betraying them by keeping it from them. She had a real sensation of being torn in half. "It doesn't matter, because you're wrong. I haven't seen him since the night at the rink. He hasn't been on my mind at all, except when you two hound me about him. And my insomnia was just from stress. It's gone now. I'm sleeping just fine. In fact, I'd like to be sleeping right now."

She rose and made her way past them, and up the stairs to her room. She collapsed on the bed and pushed her face into the pillows. She wouldn't close her eyes until dawn. Was it because of Eric? Was he trying to take over her mind? Oh, God, how could she ever know for sure? She herself had said that she couldn't think clearly when she was with him. And hadn't he demonstrated how he could take control of her that night on the balcony?

She sat up in bed, eyes flying wide. How could she stop it?

"I can't see him anymore," she whispered. "I have to stay away from him and give myself a chance to see this without his influence. I need to be objective." The decision made, her heart proceeded to crumble as if it were made of crystal and had just been pummeled with a sledgehammer. "I can't see him again," she repeated, and the bits were ground to dust.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"She despises me." Eric drew away from the microscope at the sound of his friend entering the lab where he'd ensconced himself for the third night running.

"She might fear you, Eric, but it's as you pointed out. She's been reared by a man who thinks us monsters. Give her time to adjust to the idea."

"She's repulsed by the idea." Eric pressed four fingertips to the dull ache at the center of his forehead. "There is nothing I can do to change that. The fact remains, though, that she is in trouble."

Roland frowned. "The nightmares have returned?"

"No, and she no longer cries out to me. But she hasn't slept since last I saw her. I feel her exhaustion to the point where it saps my own strength. She cannot continue this way."

"Not since you saw her? Eric, it's been three nights—"

"Tonight will make four. She's on the verge of collapse. I want to go to her. But to force my presence on her if she's not yet able to handle it could do more harm than good, I think. Especially in her present state of mind."

Roland nodded. "I have to agree. But it's killing you to stay away, is it not, Eric?"

Eric sighed, his gaze sweeping the ceiling as his head tilted back. "That it is. What is worse is that I am not certain I can help her when she's ready to accept my assistance. Why does she not sleep? Is it simply the blocked memory of our encounters keeping her from her rest, or something more? Is it possible that my blood changed her in some way—that its effect is felt even now, after all this time? Or is it only when I'm near she suffers this way? Would she be better off if I left the country again?"

"Use a bit of sense, Eric! Would you leave her without aid in the hands of that butcher who calls himself a scientist?"

Eric shook his head. "No. That I could never do. If these things have occurred to me, they must have occurred to him, as well. I'd not be surprised if he decided to use her for his experiments."

"Are you certain he hasn't?"

"I'd know if she were in pain, or distress."

"Perhaps he has her sedated, unconscious," Roland suggested.

"No. She doesn't summon me, but I feel her. I feel the wall she's erected to keep herself from me. She resists the very thought of me." An odd lump formed in his throat, nearly choking him, and an unseen fist squeezed his heart.

* * * * *

The nights were the hardest. She'd taken to staying late at the DPI building in White Plains. Her reasons were multiple. One was that she got a lot more work done after sunset. No matter how physically and emotionally drained she became, the energy surged after dark. She wondered why Eric would want to torture her-this way. She couldn't give in to her body's need for rest during the day. She'd convinced Daniel that she was better, and for the moment it seemed he believed her. At least he wasn't hovering over her constantly. Then again, she hadn't left the house except to go to work and come home again, in days.

Curtis was another problem altogether. He checked in on her three or four times every day while she was at work, and it was an effort to appear wide awake and bright eyed at his surprise visits. He hadn't mentioned again his outrageous suggestion that she marry him. She was grateful for that. She knew he didn't love her, and still had enough acumen in her dulled mind to understand what had prompted his words. He wanted to protect her from the alleged threat of Eric Marquand. He wanted her under his thumb twenty-four hours a day, and especially those hours after dark. He saw that she was outgrowing his and Daniel's ability to control her. As her husband, he assumed he could keep her in line. She couldn't hate him for it. After all, it was only because he cared so much and was so concerned about her that he had spoken at all.

She gathered up the files on her desk and carried them toward the cabinet to put them in their places. The sun had vanished. She felt wide awake. It frightened her. How much longer could she go on without sleep?

Another question lingered in the back of her mind, one more troubling than the first. She avoided it when she could, but at night found it impossible. Why did she feel so empty inside? Why did she miss him so? It was foolish, she barely knew the man. Or did she? She found it difficult to believe that her sense of knowing him in the past had been planted there by some kind of hypnosis. The familiar sense of him didn't seem based in her mind, but in her heart, her soul. And so was the aching need to see him again. She longed for him so much it hurt. How could this feeling be false, the result of a spell she was under?

"Tamara?"

She looked up fast, startled at the soft voice intruding on her thoughts. She blinked away the burning moisture that had gathered in her eyes, and rose, forcing a smile for Hilary Gamer.

Hilary smiled back, but her chocolate eyes were narrow. "You look like you've been ridden hard and put away wet," she quipped. "And you've been doing a great impression of a recluse lately, Tam. Haven't even been coming outside for lunch. I've missed it."

Tamara sighed, and couldn't meet the other girl's eyes. Hilary was the closest friend she had, besides Daniel and Curtis. They used to do things together. Lately, Tamara realized, she'd had no thought for anyone other than Eric. "It wasn't intentional," she said, and shrugged. "I've had a lot on my mind."

A soft hand, the color of a doe and just as graceful, settled on Tamara's shoulder. "You want to tell me about it?"

Tears sprang anew, and her throat closed painfully. "I can't."

Hilary nodded. "If you can't, you can't. You aren't going home to that mausoleum to brood on it all night, either, unless you're going through me." The mock severity of her voice was comforting.

Tamara met her gaze, grateful that she didn't pry. "What, then?"

"Nothing wild. You don't look up to it. How about a nice quiet dinner someplace? We'll get your mind off whatever's been bugging you."

Tamara nodded as all the air left her lungs. It was a relief that she could put off going home, pacing the hollow house alone while Daniel and Curt either huddled over their latest "breakthrough" in the off-limits basement lab, or took off to spy on Eric for the night.

Daniel appeared in the doorway and Tamara flashed him a smile that was, for once, genuine. "I'm going to dinner with Hilary," she announced. "I'll be home later and if you waste your time worrying about me I'll be very upset with you."

He frowned, but didn't ask her not to go. "Promise me you'll come straight home afterward?"

"Yes, Daniel," she said with exaggerated submissiveness.

He dug in his pocket and brought out a set of keys. "Take the Cadillac. I don't want you stranded in that old car of yours."

"And what if you end up stalling the Bug alongside the road somewhere?"

"I'll have Curt follow me home." He held the keys in an outstretched hand and she stepped forward and took them. She dropped them into her purse, extracted her own set and handed them to Daniel. He gave her a long look, seemed to want to say something, but didn't. He left with a sigh that told her he didn't like the idea of her going out at night.

It was worth it, though. For three wonderful hours she and Hilary lingered over every course, from the huge salad and the rich hot soup to the deliciously rare steaks and baked potatoes with buttery baby carrots on the side, and even dessert—cherry cheesecake. Tamara ordered wine with dinner. It was not her habit to imbibe, but she had the glimmering hope that if she had a few drinks tonight, she might be able to sleep when she got home. She allowed the waiter to refill her wineglass three times, and when dinner was over and Hilary ordered an after-dinner seven-seven, Tamara said, "Make it two."

The conversation flowed as it had in the old days, before the nightmares and sleepless nights. For a short time she felt as if she were a normal woman with a strong, healthy mind. The evening ended all too soon, and she said goodbye reluctantly in the parking lot outside and hurried to Daniel's car. She took careful stock of herself before she got behind the wheel. She counted the number of drinks she'd had, and then the number of hours. Four and four. She felt fine. Assured her ability was not impaired, she started the car, pulled on the headlights and backed carefully out of the lot.

She'd take her time driving home, she thought. She'd listen to the radio and not think about the things that were wrong in her life. When she got home, she'd choose a wonderful book from Daniel's shelves and she'd lose herself in reading it. She wouldn't worry about vampires or brainwashing or insane asylums.

The flat tire did not fall in with her plan, however. She thanked her lucky stars she was near an exit ramp, and veered onto it, limping pathetically along the shoulder. She stopped the boat-sized car as soon as she came to a relatively sane spot to do so, and sat for a moment, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. "I never replaced the spare," she reminded herself.

She looked up and spotted the towering, lighted gas station sign in the distance, not more than three hundred yards from her. With a sigh of resignation she wrenched open the car door, and hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder with her thumb. She spent one moment hoping the attendant would be a chivalrous type, who'd offer her a ride back to the car. . . and maybe even change the tire for her.

She almost laughed aloud at that notion. She knew full well that a few minutes from now she'd be heading back to her car, on foot, rolling a new tire and rim along in front of her. Oh, well, she'd changed tires before. She walked along the shoulder, glad of the streetlights in addition to the moon illuminating the pavement ahead of her. Her cheerful demeanor deserted her, though, when a carload of laughing youths passed her, blasting heavy metal from open windows despite the below-freezing temperature, and came to a screeching halt. Two men—boys, really—got out and stood unsteadily. Probably due to whatever had been in the bottles they both gripped.

She turned, deciding it would be better to drive to the station, even if it meant ruining the rim. As soon as she did, the rusted Mustang that seemed to have no muffler lurched into Reverse and roared past her again. It stopped on the shoulder this time and the driver got out. He came slowly toward her. The object in his hand that caught and reflected the light wasn't a bottle. It was a blade.

She stiffened as they closed in on her, two from behind, one dead ahead. No traffic passed in those elongated seconds. She considered darting off to the side, but that would only put her in a scrub lot where they'd be able to catch her, anyway. Better, she decided, to take her chances here. Any second now a car would pass and she'd wave her arms. . . step in front of it, if necessary.

She glanced over her shoulder at the two youths. One wore tattered jeans and a plaid shirt, unbuttoned and blowing away from his bare, skinny chest in the frigid wind. The other wore sweats and a leather jacket. Both looked sorely in need of a bath and a haircut, but she couldn't believe they'd hurt her. She didn't think either of them was old enough to have legally bought the beer they were swilling down.

She caught her breath when her arm was gripped, and she swung her head forward. The one who held her was no kid. His long, greasy hair hung to his shoulders, but was rooted in a horseshoe shape around a shiny pate. He was shorter than she and a good fifty pounds overweight. He grinned at her. There were gaps in his slimy teeth.

Without a word he took her purse, releasing her arm to do so, but still holding the knife in his other hand. She took a step back and he lifted it fast, pressing the tip just beneath one breast. "Move it and lose it, lady." He tossed her purse over her head, where the two boys now stood close behind her. "Her big Caddy has a flat. You two get it changed, and we'll have ourselves a little joyride."

"There is no spare," she took great pleasure in telling him, thinking it might thwart his plan to steal Daniel's car.

"But you were on your way to buy one, right, honey?" She didn't answer, as the boy in the leather jacket pawed the contents of her purse. "Ninety-five bucks and change in here."

The man with the knife smiled more broadly. "Take it and go to the station. Take the Mustang. Bring the tire back here and get it changed." He traced her breast with the tip of the knife, not hard enough to cut, but she winced in pain and fear. "I'll just keep the lady company while you're gone."

She heard the patter of their feet over the pavement, then they were past her, on their way to the noisy car. They spun the tires as they headed for the gas station. The man turned her around abruptly, twisting one arm behind her back. He shoved her down the slight slope toward the brush lot. "We'll just wait for 'em down here, outta sight."

"The hell we will." She struck backward with one foot, but he caught it with a quick uplift of his own and she wound up facedown in the snow with him on her back.

"You want it right here, that's fine with me," he growled into her ear. She cried out, and immediately felt the icy blade against her throat. Her face was shoved cruelly into the snow, and then his hand was groping beneath her, shoving up inside her blouse, tugging angrily at her bra. When he touched her, her stomach heaved.

My God, she thought, there was no way out of this. Daniel wouldn't worry. He thought her out with Hilary. Even if he did come looking for her, he'd never look here. She'd only used this exit because of the flat. Her normal route home was three exits farther on the highway. His breath fanned her face. With one last vicious pinch he dragged his hot hand away from her breast, and tried to shove it down the front of her jeans, while his hips writhed against her backside.

He's going to do it, she thought. White panic sent her mind whirling, and she fought for control. She couldn't give up. She wouldn't allow herself to feel the hand that violated her. She refused to vomit, because if she did, she'd likely choke to death. She needed help.

Calm descended as Eric's face filled her mind. His words, soothing her with the deep tenor of his voice, rang in her ears. I'd never harm you. I'd kill anyone who tried. She closed her eyes. Had he meant what he'd said? Have you realized yet, his voice seemed to whisper in her mind, drowning out the frantic panting of the pig on top of her, that you can cry out to me, across the miles, using nothing but your mind?

Could she do it? Would he answer if she did?

If you need me, Tamara, call me. I will come to you.

He had managed to unbutton her jeans. The zipper gaped. He rose from her slightly, removing his filthy, vile hand, to fumble with his own fly. She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to make her thoughts coherent. Help me, Eric. Please, if you meant what you said, help me. At the sound of his zipper being lowered she felt the oddest sensation that her mind was literally screaming through time and space. It was a frightening feeling, but not unfamiliar. She'd felt it before. . . in her dreams. The urgency of her thoughts pierced her brain with a high-pitched pain. I need you, Eric! For God's sake, help me!

* * * * *

Eric paused in swirling the liquid in the test tube, and his head tilted to one side. He frowned, then shook his head and continued.

"So what's this hocus pocus?"

He glanced at Roland, one brow raised. "I am trying to isolate the single property in human blood that keeps us alive."

"And what will you do then? Develop it in a tiny pill and expect us to live on them?"

" It would be more convenient than robbing blood banks, my friend." He smiled, but it died almost instantly. His head snapped up and the glass tube fell to the floor and shattered.

Roland jerked in surprise. "What is it, Eric?"

"Tamara." He whipped the latex gloves from his hands as he moved through the room. The white coat followed and then he raced through the corridors of the enormous house, pausing only to snatch his coat from a hook on the way out. By the time he reached the gate he was moving with the preternatural speed that rendered his form no more than a blur to human eyes. He used the speed and momentum to carry him cleanly over the barrier, and sensed Roland at his side. He honed his mind to Tamara's and felt a rush of sickening fear, and icy cold.

Minutes. It took only minutes to reach her, but they seemed like hours to Eric. He stood still for an instant, filling with rage when he saw the bastard wrench her onto her back and attempt to shove her denims down her hips as his mouth covered hers.

Her eyes closed tight, she twisted her face away, and sobbed his name. "Eric. . . oh, God, Eric, please. . ."

He gripped the back of the thug's shirt and lifted him away from her, to send him tumbling into the snow. He bent over the stunned man, pulled him slightly upward by his shirtfront and smashed his face with his right fist. He drew back and hit him again, and would have continued doing so had not her soft cry cut through the murderous rage enveloping him. He turned, saw her lying in the snow and let the limp, bloody-faced man fall from his hands. He went to her, falling to his knees and pulling her trembling body into his arms. He lifted her easily, cradling her, rocking her. "It's over. I'm here. He can't hurt you now." He pressed his face into her hair, and closed his eyes. "He can't hurt you. No one can. I won't allow it."

She drew one shuddering, slow breath, then another, and yet another. Suddenly her arms linked around his neck. She turned her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder and she sobbed—violent, racking sobs that he thought would tear her in two. She clung to him as if to a lifeline, and he held her tightly. For a long while he simply held her and let her cry. He whispered into her hair, words of comfort and reassurance. It was over now. She was safe.

With an involuntary spasmodic sob she lifted her head, searched his face, her eyes brimming with tears and wide with wonder. "You came to me. You really came to me. I called you. . ."

He blinked against the tears that clouded his vision, and pushed the tangled hair away from her face. "I could not do otherwise. And you should not be so surprised. I told you I would, did I not?"

She nodded.

"I cannot lie to you. I never have, and I swear to you now, I never will." He studied her, knowing she believed him. Her blouse had been torn, and hung from one shoulder in tatters. The fastenings of her denims hung open. She was wet from the snow, and shaking with cold and with reaction, no doubt. He carried her up the slope to the pavement. Roland moved around the automobile. Eric saw that the tire lay on the pavement. Roland had the jack and its handle in his hands and he tossed them into the open trunk.

When he reached the car he glanced down at Tamara once more. She still clung tightly. "Are you injured? Can you stand?"

She lifted her head from his shoulder. "I'm okay. Just a little shaky."

Eric lowered her gently to the pavement, and opened the passenger door of the car. He kept hold of her shoulders as: she got in. Roland had just tossed the flat tire into the trunk and slammed it down. Eric called to him. "Where are the others?"

Roland answered mentally, not aloud. Ran like rabbits, my friend.

You let them go? Roland, you ought to have thrashed them for this, Eric answered silently, falling into the old habit of speaking that way with his friend.

What of her attacker? Did you kill him?

Not yet. His anger returned when he thought of how close the bastard had come to raping Tamara. But I intend to, and then those sorry curs that helped him.

Murder doesn't suit you, Eric. And the other two were mere lads. Leave this as it is. It will be for the best.

Tamara rose from her seat in the car, and Eric realized he hadn't closed the door. Her hand came to his shoulder, and with surprising calm she said, "Roland is right, Eric. They were just kids. When they see the shape you left their friend in, they'll realize how lucky they were tonight. And you know you can't go back there and murder that man in cold blood. It isn't in you."

Both men glanced at her, Roland's gaze astonished. He lifted his brows and spoke aloud. "This will require getting used to. It is odd to think a human can hear my thoughts, although I assume it only occurs when I am conversing with you, Eric. She hears what you hear."

Eric nodded. He slipped his coat from his shoulders, and arranged it over her like a blanket. "She hears what I hear," he repeated. "She can feel what I feel, if she only looks deeply enough. She can read my thoughts and my feelings. I can keep nothing from her." He spoke to Roland but his words were for Tamara's ears. He longed to have her trust. "I'm going to drive her home. Care to ride along?"

Roland took a step away from the auto as if it might bite him. "In that?"

Tamara smiled. Her gaze slid to Eric's and he smiled, as well. She would be all right.

"I am glad you both find my aversion to these machines so highly amusing. I shall manage to travel under my own power, thank you." With a dramatic whirl of his black cloak he vanished into the darkness.

Eric closed Tamara's door, circled the car and got in beside her. For a long moment he simply looked at her, drinking in the familiar beauty of her face. Her eyes moved over his in like manner, as if she, too, had craved the sight of him.

He dragged his gaze away, and searched the car's panel. "It's been a while," he told her, frowning. "But I assume you still need a key."

Her smile sent warmth surging through him. She glanced around, and pointed into the rear seat. "It was in my purse."

He glanced where she pointed and spotted her handbag, spilling over the back seat. He leaned over, located the keys and returned to the correct position. It took him a moment to locate the switch. The last time he'd driven a car the switch had been on the dashboard, not the side of the steering wheel.

He inserted the key, turned it on and jerked at the mechanical hum the car emitted. She laughed aloud, the sound like music to him. He felt some of her tension leaving her with that laughter.

"How long has it been?" she asked him, amusement in her voice.

Smiling, he looked at her. "I don't recall, exactly. But fear not, I am a quick study. Now then. . ." His feet did a little tap dance on the floorboard. "Where's the clutch?"

"It's automatic." She slid across the seat, closer to him, and pointed to the pedals on the floor. "There is the brake and that's the accelerator. Now hold your foot on the brake."

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to his side. He pressed his foot onto the pedal she indicated. She put her finger on the indicator. "Look. Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive. Put it in Drive." He did, smelling her hair, then jerking his head around when the car began to move.

He eased it onto the street and moved it slowly until he got a feel for the thing. Soon he maneuvered the car easily, finding the correct ramp and bringing them onto the highway.

"You said you could never lie to me," she said softly, settling close to him. "Is it true?"

"I could attempt to lie to you, but if I did, and you paid attention, you would know." He tightened his arms on her shoulders. " But I'd never have reason to lie to you, Tamara."

She nodded. "I don't want to go right home. Could we stop somewhere? Talk for a while?"

CHAPTER NINE

She didn't need to tell him that the first thing she had to do was to wash the memory of the vile man's touch away from her body. It amazed her that he could read her so well, but he did. He took her to his home, parking the Cadillac within the fence, and around a bend in the driveway, so it couldn't be seen from the highway. He then suggested she call Daniel with a plausible explanation for her lateness. She told Daniel that she and Hilary were heading to a nightclub after dinner, and that she didn't know how late she'd be. He grumbled, but didn't throw too much of a fit. She had to give him credit. He was trying.

When she replaced the receiver of the telephone, Eric reentered the living room, carrying a tray with a bottle of brandy and a delicate-looking long-stemmed bubble glass. She eyed it, unconsciously rubbing one palm over her breast where the pig had touched her.

"His filth can't touch you, Tamara. You're too pure to be sullied by one so vile."

She realized what she'd been doing and drew her hand away. "I feel dirty... contaminated."

"I know. It is a normal reaction, from what I understand. Would you feel less so if you bathed?"

She closed her eyes. "God, yes. I want to scrub myself raw every place he—"

"I sensed as much. I drew a bath for you while you spoke to St. Claire."

Her eyes opened then. "You did?"

He lowered the tray, poured the glass half-full of brandy and brought it to her. One arm around her shoulders, he led her down a long, high-ceilinged corridor, and through a door.

The room glowed with amber light from the oil lamps, and the tall, elegant candles that burned on every inch of available space. A claw-footed, ivory-toned tub brimmed with bubbly, steaming water. He took the brandy from her unresisting hand and set the glass on a stand near the tub. He picked up what looked like a remote control from the same spot, thumbed a button, and soft music wafted into the room, as soothing as the steam that rose from the water, or the halo glows of light around the myriad of tiny flames.

She leaned over the tub, touched an iridescent bubble and felt the spatters on her wrist when it popped. His hand touched her shoulder and she turned, staring up at him in wonder. "I can't believe you did all this."

"I want to comfort you, Tamara. I want to erase the horror that touched you tonight. I want to replace it with tenderness. I cherish you. Do you know that?"

She felt a lump in her throat. His words were so poignant they made her eyes burn.

"I won't lose control. I couldn't unleash my passions on you after what you've experienced tonight. I only want to pamper you, to show you. . ." He closed his eyes, lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles, one by one, then opened his eyes and turned her hand over and pressed his lips to her palm.

She gave her consent, without parting her lips. He heard it, it seemed. He gently removed her tattered blouse, and set it aside. He reached around her, unhooked her bra in the back and then drew the straps down over her shoulders. Her right breast was bruised, and she felt the marks of the other man's fingers would never go away completely.

"The marks are only skin-deep, and they will fade." He pushed her still-damp jeans down, lifted his hands and she held them, to balance while she stepped out of them. She removed the panties herself. She didn't want him to look down at her body. She still felt dirty, despite his words. He kept his gaze magnetized to hers, holding her hands as she lifted one foot, then the other into the bubbly water. She sank slowly down, leaning back against the cool porcelain and closing her eyes.

She felt the touch of the chill glass in her palm and she closed her hand on it. "Sip," Eric instructed. "Relax. Let the tension ebb. Hear Wolf gang's genius."

She tasted the brandy, not opening her eyes. "Mmm. This is wonderful."

"Cognac," he replied. She heard the trickle of water, then felt a warm cloth moving over her throat, and around to the back of her neck.

She frowned, still keeping her eyes closed. "There used to be a legend about vampires and running water. . . ."

She heard his low chuckle. The cloth left her skin to plunge into the water. He squeezed it out, lathered it with soap and returned to his gentle cleansing—of her soul, it seemed. "Completely false." He moved slowly over her chest, washing her breasts as her heartbeat quickened. But he didn't touch her in passion, only in comfort. "And so is the one about the garlic, or wolfsbane. And, as you already know, the crucifix."

"But sunlight..."

"Yes, sunlight is my enemy. It is one of the things I try to work out in my laboratory. The how of it, and the why. What I might do to change it." He sighed, and lathered her stomach and abdomen. "I can't tell you how much I miss the sun." His hand, covered by the wet cloth, moved over her rib cage beneath the water, and down her side.

"The wooden stake?"

"It isn't the stake that would do me in. Any sharp object could, if used properly. A vampire is almost like a sufferer of hemophilia. We could bleed to death quite easily." He ran the cloth between her legs all too briefly, and then moved on to rhythmically massage her thighs.

"Why do we have this mental link?" She took another long, slow drink of the cognac and opened her eyes to watch his face as he answered.

"I will try to begin to explain it to you. You see, not just any human can become a vampire. There are, in fact, very few who could be transformed, all of whom have two common traits." He moved to her calf, kneading the back of it as he soaped it for her. "One is the bloodline. It traces back to a common ancestor, but I suspect it goes back much farther, even, than that."

"Who?"

He captured one of her feet in both his soapy hands and lifted it from the water to rub and caress and massage it until the foot and his hands were invisible beneath a mound of suds. "Prince Vlad the Impaler... better known as—"

"Dracula," she breathed, awestruck.

"Exactly. The other trait—" he rubbed her big toe between his thumb and forefinger "—is in the blood itself. There is an antigen called Belladonna."

She sat up fast. "But I have the Belladonna antigen." He turned his face toward her, his gaze momentarily locking onto her breasts, jiggling with the sudden movement just above the water's surface, bubbles clinging, sliding slowly down.

He licked his lips. "Yes, and you have the ancestor, as well. Such humans with both traits are rare. We call them the Chosen. Always there is a mental link between us and them, though in most cases the humans are unaware of it. We know if they are in danger, and we do our best to protect them. The incident in Paris was not the first time Roland had saved my life, you see." He forced his head to turn away again, she noticed, and he went to work, with his magic hands and fingers, on her other foot. "That is where our link began. It became much stronger, and that part of it you must remember on your own."

She lowered herself into the water again. She believed him. She no longer doubted what he'd told her. The sensation of being able to see what was in his mind was awesome to her, but very real. She knew, for instance, that it would do her no good to insist he tell her more of their past and this link. He wouldn't. For her sake, he wouldn't. And she knew, right now, the effort it was costing him not to jerk her roughly into his arms and to kiss her until her head swam with desire. He held himself in rigid check, knowing the terror she'd felt tonight. For her sake, he held back.

He loved her.

His love was like a soft, warm blanket, enveloping her and protecting her from the world. Nothing could touch her with this feeling around her. It was heaven to be loved so much. Cherished, as he'd told her. The emotions touched her almost physically. Their warmth was palpable.

"Roll over," he said, his voice very deep and soft in the tiny room. She did, folding her arms on the tub's rim to make a pillow for her head. His powerful hands worked the soapy cloth over her back and shoulders. He massaged and caressed and washed her all at once, and his every touch was pure ecstasy. God, she wondered. What would it be like to make love to him?

He shuddered. She felt his hands tremble with it. He heard her thoughts. With her face averted she found the courage to speak them aloud. "Why do you always... hold back?"

His sigh was not quite steady. "This is not the wisest subject to discuss with you naked, wet and plied with brandy." He kneaded her buttocks with soapy hands, but removed them soon. She rolled over, studying his face in the candlelight. "Do you want me?"

His jaw twitched as he studied her, "More than I want to draw another breath."

"Then why—"

"Hush." The command was bitten out. He rose from his crouching position beside the tub and pulled a blanket-sized towel from a rack. He held it wide open and waited. "It is for your own good, Tamara," he told her.

Tamara got up, stepped out of the bath and onto the thick rug beside the tub. His towel-draped arms closed around her, then moved away, leaving the towel behind. "I'll leave you to dress—"

"You didn't leave me to undress," she snapped. She wasn't certain what made her angrier—the knowledge that she wanted him or the fact that he refused to oblige her.

"Your blouse is ruined." He nodded toward the stand where he'd placed her clothes after she'd discarded them. "There is one of my shirts for you to wear." He turned from her and strode out of the room.

"For my own good," she fumed after he left her. She reached down into the bubbly water and jerked the stopper out. "Why is everything I hate always supposedly for my own good? It's like I don't know what's good for me and what isn't."

She roughly adjusted the towel under her arms, and tucked the corners in to hold it there. She knew what was good for her. She was an adult, not a child. She wanted him, whatever he was. And he wanted her, dammit. All of this honorable restraint bull was making her crazy. The only time she felt right anymore was when he held her, when he kissed her.

Tonight. . . tonight more than ever she needed that feeling of rightness, of belonging. She moved very slowly through the door, down the hallway and back into the living room. Eric's back was to her. He knelt in front of the fireplace, feeding sticks into it. She made no sound as she moved barefoot over the parquet floor, onto the colorful Oriental rug, but he knew she approached. She felt it. She stopped when she stood right behind him, and she placed her damp hands on his shoulders. He'd removed his jacket when they'd arrived here, and rolled his shirt sleeves up when he'd bathed her. His arms, bare to the elbows and taut with tense muscles, stilled at her touch.

Slowly he rose. He turned, and when he looked down at her, his eyes seemed almost pain filled. "You are not making this easy."

His white shirt's top two buttons were open. She touched the expanse of his chest visible there. "Make love to me, Eric."

So hoarsely she wouldn't have known his voice, he answered. "Don't you know that I would if I could?"

"Then tell me why. Make me understand—"

"I'm not human! What more do you need to know?"

"Everything!" She curled her hand around his neck, her fingers moving through the short, curling hairs at his nape, then playing at the queue. "You want to love me, Eric. I feel it every time you look at me. And don't start telling me what's best for me. I'm a grown woman. I know what I want, and I want you."

His eyes moved jerkily over her face. She felt his restraint, and her bravado deserted her. She began to tremble with emotion, and she went all but limp against him. Eric's arms came around her. His hands stroked her shoulders above the towel, and the damp ends of her hair. "Oh, Eric, I was so afraid. I've never been so afraid in my life. He held my face down in the snow—I couldn't breathe—and he—was on me—his—his hands—"

"It's over now," he soothed. "No one will hurt you again."

"But I see him. In my mind I see him, and I can still—smell—God, he stank!"

"Shh."

"Make me forget, Eric. I know you can." She spoke with her face pressed into the crook of his neck. Her hands moved over the back of his head, and she turned her face up. She saw the passion in his black eyes. "I need you tonight, Eric."

His lips met hers lightly, trembling at the fleeting contact. They lifted away. His gaze delved into her eyes, and she saw the fire's glow reflected in his. He moaned her name very softly, before his mouth covered hers again. She tilted her head back, parted her lips to his voracious invasion. His tongue swept within her, as it had done before, as if he would devour her if he were able. It twined around her tongue, and drew it into his mouth to suckle it. She responded by tasting as much of his mouth as he had of hers, as her eager fingers untied the small black ribbon at his nape. She sifted his shining jet hair, pulled a handful around to rub its softness over her cheek. She tugged her lips from his to bury her face in his long hair and let its scent envelop her, drowning out the memory of the other. She turned then, to kiss his neck, and then a warm, wet path down it, to the V of his shirt. He trembled, his hands tangling in her hair. She brought her own down, to clumsily unbutton and shove aside the cotton that stood between them. She flattened her palms to his hard, hairless chest. She moved them over its broad expanse, her lips following the trail they blazed. She paused at a distended male nipple and flicked her tongue over it, nearly giddy with delight when he sucked his breath through clenched teeth. Her hands moved lower, over the pectorals that rippled beneath taut skin, to his tight, flat belly. Her fingertips touched the waistband of his trousers, and she slid them underneath.

A moment later her hand closed around his hot, bulging shaft. Eric's head fell backward as if his neck muscles had gone limp. He groaned at her touch and she squeezed him and stroked him, encouraged by his response. His head came level again, his eyes fairly blazing when they met hers. He brought one hand around to the front of her and caught the corners of the towel she'd wrapped herself in. With a flick of his fingers the thick terry cloth fell to her feet. His arms slipped around her waist and pulled her body to his, flesh to flesh. The sensation set her pulse racing. His hard, muscled chest and tight, warm skin touching her soft breasts. His strong arms around her, his big hands moving over her bare back, crushing her to him. She clung to his shoulders, further aroused at the sinewy strength she found there.

Attacking her mouth once again, Eric lowered her gently to the floor. She lay on her back, stretched before the fire, and he lay on his side beside her, one arm beneath her, pillowing her head for his plundering mouth. His other hand moved hotly over her body. He cupped and squeezed her breasts, gently pinching her nipples until they throbbed against his fingers. He moved his hand lower, trailing fingertips over her belly, and then burying them in the nest of hair between her thighs.

With a slowness that was torture he parted the soft folds there. She closed her eyes when he probed her, and felt the growing wetness he evoked from her. She wanted him. She parted her legs and arched toward his exploring fingers, to tell him so. She closed her eyes when he took his mouth from hers and lowered it to nurse at her breast. She felt him tremble when his teeth scraped over her nipple, and she pressed his head to her with one hand and fumbled for the fastenings of his trousers with the other.

He helped her push them down, and then he kicked free of them, lying naked as she was. She opened her eyes to look at him in the firelight. She thought him the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Every inch of him was tight, hard, corded with muscle. His skin was smooth and taut, elastic and practically hairless. Her gaze moved down his body, up it again, and met his smoldering eyes. Are you certain? he seemed to ask, though he never said a word.

In answer she fastened her mouth to his, pulling his body to her. He covered her gently. Instinctively she planted her feet, bent her knees and opened herself to him. Slowly he filled her, and she caught her breath at the feeling. This was more than sex, she thought dimly, as he pushed gently deeper. This was a completion of some cosmic cycle. He belonged here with her, and she with him. This was right. He withdrew, so careful not to hurt her, and began to slide inward again. She gripped his firm buttocks and jerked him into her. The fullness forced the breath from her lungs, but she arched to meet his next powerful thrust.

His pace quickened, and Tamara knew nothing for a time, except for the sensations of her body. His mouth moved over her throat, her jaw, her breasts. He suckled and licked and bit at her, setting her blood to boiling. His hands had moved beneath her to cup her buttocks and lift her to him. They kneaded her, caressed her and rocked her to his rhythm. His rigid shaft stroked to her deepest recesses, no longer hesitant, but hard and fast. She felt a tension twist within her. His movements inside her drew it tighter, and she trembled with the force of it. Tighter, and he caused it. He sensed her body's responses and he played upon them, adjusting his movements to draw out the exquisite torture. She bucked beneath him, seeking a release that hovered just beyond her reach, and she felt a similar need in him.

He moved within her more quickly now, his breaths coming short and fast. His mouth opened, hot and wet against her throat, and she felt her skin being drawn into it. She felt the skim of his incisors and the answering thrum of her pulse. She knew a craving she'd never known before, and she arched her throat to him just as she arched her hips to meet his. She screamed aloud with her mindless need, gripped the back of his head and pressed him harder to her neck.

The tension drew tighter, so tight she thought she'd soon explode with it. He withdrew slowly, and she whimpered her plea. "Please... now, Eric... do it now!" He drove into I her, withdrew and drove again, the force of his thrusts beyond control, it seemed. He plunged so violently it would have lifted her body from the floor if he hadn't held her immobile, forcing her to take all of him, with all the strength he could muster. And she wouldn't have drawn away if she'd been able. She wanted this. . . and more. Another rending thrust and she felt herself reach the precipice. He let her linger there, drawing it out until her cries were like those of a wounded animal. His teeth closed on her throat. She felt the incisors pricking at her skin and she clutched him closer.

They punctured her throat as he plunged into her again, driving her over the edge. The pain was ecstasy in the throes of the climax that rocked her. She convulsed around him, and then harder as she felt him sucking at her throat. Her body milked his, and she trembled all over, violently, with spasms of pleasure she hadn't known could exist. He bucked inside her, and she knew he'd reached the peak, as well. She felt his hot seed spill into her as her own climax went on and on. His mouth open wide at her throat, his tongue moving greedily to taste her, he shook with the force of his own release. He groaned, long and low, and then collapsed on top of her with one last, full body shudder. He carefully withdrew his teeth.

He started to move off her, but she quickly wrapped her arms around him. His head was pillowed on her breasts, and she held him there. "Don't move yet," she whispered. "Just hold me."

He pulled free despite her words, and rolled to the floor beside her. He sat up, gazing down at her, his eyes glistening, mirroring the fire. His fingers touched her throat, and he squeezed his eyes closed. "God, what have I done?" His words were no more than a choked whisper. "What kind of monster am I that I would allow myself—"

"Don't say that!" She started to sit up, but his hands came fast to her shoulders.

"No, you mustn't move. Lie still. Rest." He moved one hand through her hair, over and over again. "I'm so sorry. So very sorry, Tamara."

She frowned, shaking her head. "You didn't hurt me, Eric. My God, it was incredible—"

"I drank from you!"

"I know what you did. What I don't know is why you act like you've stabbed me through the heart. I've lost more blood than that when I cut myself shaving!" She made her voice more gentle when the pain didn't leave his eyes. She reached up and stroked his face with her palm. "Eric," she whispered. "What ill effects will there be? Will I become a vampire now?"

"No, that requires mingling of—"

"Will I be sick?"

"No. Perhaps a bit dizzy when you get up, but it will pass."

"Then why are you so remorseful?" She sat up slowly, angled her head and pressed her lips to his. "I loved what you did to me, Eric. I wanted it as badly as you did."

"You couldn't—"

"I did. I feel what you feel, don't forget. I understand now why you held back before. It's a part of the passion for you, isn't it? It's another kind of climax." His eyes searched hers, as if in awe. "You see, I do understand. I felt it too."

He shook his head. "It didn't repulse you?"

"Repulse me? Eric, I love you." She blinked and realized what she'd just said, then looked him in the eyes. "I love you."

CHAPTER TEN

Two in the morning. She lay staring up at the white underside of her canopy, wishing to God she could close her eyes. Eric had insisted on bringing her home after she'd blurted that she loved him. He had seemed shocked speechless for a few moments. Then he was awkward, as if he didn't quite know what to say to her. She was confused. What did he want from her, a physical relationship without emotions? But there already had been emotions between them, deep, soul-stirring emotions she was only beginning to understand. And she'd thought he loved her. He'd implied it. He'd said he had love for her. Was that the same thing?

She turned restlessly onto her side and punched her pillow. Again she glanced at the cognac on the bedside stand. He'd insisted she take it with her, since she'd remarked on how wonderful it was. No wonder, she thought now. The stuff was bottled in 1910. It was probably worth a fortune. And here she was swilling another glassful in hopes of using it as a sleep aid. If she didn't get some sleep soon she was going to collapse at work, in front of everyone, and then what would Daniel do? Probably check her into a rest home.

She wandered into the bathroom, still wide awake a half hour later. What was she going to do about Eric? Daniel would die if he knew the truth. She loved the old coot. She would hate to hurt him. God, her mind was spinning with too much tonight. She opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged until she found the brown plastic prescription bottle. She'd tried the damned sleeping pills before. Single doses, double doses, even once a triple dose. She hadn't even worked up a good yawn. She twisted the cap and poured four tiny white capsule-shaped pills into the palm of her hand. She popped them into her mouth with a cynical glance at her reflection. Who was she kidding? She wouldn't close her eyes until dawn.

A glass of water rinsed the caplets down. She wandered back to bed, realized she still held the worthless bottle of tranquilizers in her fist and dropped it carelessly on the stand.

* * * * *

"Kill him for this."

Daniel? Was that Daniel's voice tickling the fringes of her consciousness? He sounded angry, and strained. "I tried to tell you." Curt's voice was louder, more level. "She should have been under constant surveillance. If we'd followed her, we'd have had the bastard."

"If your tranquilizer works. It hasn't been tested, Curtis. You can't be certain it will immobilize him."

"And how the hell do you suggest we test it? Send out a notice asking for volunteers? Look, I've done everything I can think of. All signs are, it will work. There's nothing left to do but try it."

Try what? On whom? And why were they both so angry?

"He raped her, Curtis." Daniel's voice warbled on the words. "It wasn't enough to take her blood, he had to have her body, as well. The son of a bitch raped her. . . left bruises on her skin. My God, no wonder she couldn't bear to face us in the morning."

"I never thought Tammy would be the kind to try this way out. Pills and brandy!" Cult's voice sounded harsh on her ears. "Why the hell didn't she tell us and let us handle it?"

Raped? Tamara remembered the pig on the highway ramp. . . his hands on her, his filthy breath on her face. But he hadn't raped her. Eric came and—Eric—my God, they thought Eric had put these bruises on her body. She struggled to open her eyes. Her lips moved but no sound came from them. She had to tell them!

"She's coming around." Daniel's presence lingered closer. She forced her heavy lids to open. Nothing focused and the attempt left her dizzy, with a sharp pain in her head. She felt his hands on her forehead, but it seemed her forehead was not attached to her. Everything seemed distorted.

"Tamara? It's all right, sweetheart. Curtis and I are with you now. Marquand can't hurt you now."

Frantically she tossed her head back and forth on the pillows. Pillows that were too plump and stiff, with cases too starched and white. Not her own pillows. "No. . . Eric. . . not. . . him. . . ." Damn, why couldn't she make her mouth form a coherent sentence?

"Eric," Curtis mocked. "I told you she remembered. It's all been an act. I wouldn't be surprised if she went to him willingly, Daniel. We always knew he'd come for her, didn't we? And I always said she'd never be one of us. You brought her right inside DPI. For Christ's sake, I wonder how many secrets she's passed already?"

"She wouldn't betray us to him. Curt," Daniel said, but his voice was laced with doubt.

"Then why did she mix those pills with the booze? It's guilt, I'm telling you! She sold us out and couldn't face it."

"What could she possibly have told him? She doesn't know anything about the research!"

"That we know of," Curtis added, his words meaningful. "He would like nothing better than to murder the both of us, Daniel. We're the leaders in vampire research. He gets rid of us, he sets the entire field back twenty years or more."

"You think I don't know that?"

She struggled against the darkness she felt reaching out to her, but it was a worthless fight. She whispered his name once more before she sank into the warm abyss. The voices of the men she loved grew dimmer.

"He'll come to her ... just like before."

"We'll be ready. Get the tranquilizer and meet me back here."

* * * * *

Eric paced the room yet again, pushing a hand through his hair, adding to its disarray. "Where is she? I attune my mind to hers, and yet I feel nothing!"

"She's probably managed to get some sleep. Do not disturb her."

Eric shook his head. "No. No, something is wrong. I feel it."

Roland's brows creased with worry, despite his feigned sigh of exasperation. "This ingenue of yours is becoming a bit of a bother. What trouble do you suppose she's got herself into this time?"

"Wish to God I knew." He turned, paced away toward the fireplace, spun on his heel and came back. He stopped and met Roland's gaze. " I shouldn't have let it happen. She was already in a fragile state of mind. When she realized what she'd done in the cold light of day she likely felt soiled, infected by my touch, made—"

"Shut up, unless you can say something reasonably intelligent, Eric. If she didn't mind it last eve, she won't mind it now. You think the girl doesn't know her own mind? My interpretation of events is this: your blood, given her so many years ago, altered her to some degree. It sealed the bond between you, and made her feel a natural aversion to sunlight, an abounding exuberance by night. It is a logical guess, then, that she would not be as repulsed by the taking of a few drops in a moment of passion, as a normal human might."

Eric sighed long and loud. "She thinks herself in love with me. Did I tell you that?"

"Only a hundred or so times since we rose a mere hour ago, Eric. . . not that I'm keeping count. What's so surprising in that? You fancy yourself in love with her, do you not?"

"I don't fancy myself anything. I do love her. With everything in me."

"Who's to say she doesn't feel the same?"

Eric closed his eyes slowly, and left them that way. "I hope to God she doesn't. It is enough that I will have to bear the pain of our eventual separation. I wouldn't wish such agony on her." He opened his eyes and met Roland's frown. "It is inevitable."

"It is anything but that. She could be—"

"Do not even think to suggest it." Eric turned away from his friend, his gaze jumping around the room, settling nowhere. "This existence has been my curse. I wouldn't wish it to be hers, as well."

Roland's voice came low, more gruff. "If it is the loneliness of which you speak, Eric, no one understands better than I."

"Your solitude is self-imposed. It's as you want it. Mine is an unending sentence of solitary confinement. I don't interact because I cannot trust in anyone—not with DPI always seeking a way to destroy me."

"My solitude—" Roland cut himself off, and simultaneously closed his mind to Eric's curiosity. When he began his voice was steadier. "Is not the matter we were discussing. Your existence would not be lonely if you had someone with whom to share it."

Eric closed his eyes and shook his head. "I have already considered this question, Roland. I've made my decision."

"The decision, my friend, is not yours to make."

Anger flared within Eric. His head came up, and he slowly turned to tell Roland exactly what he thought of that remark, when the scent slowly twisted around his mind. He gripped it the way a drowning man would grip a lifeline, and he concentrated, focusing his entire being on that one sensation coming to him from Tamara. The scent. . . . he frowned harder. . . . clean. . . . sterile. Sickeningly familiar.

His eyes wide, he faced Roland. "My God, she's hospitalized!"

Eric lunged for the door, but Roland leapt into his path. "A moment, Eric. You tend to lose all sense of caution where Tamara is concerned." He reached for his satin cloak and flung it about his shoulders with a long-practiced twist of his arms. "I dare not imagine what sort of mess you'll end in without me along."

"Fine." Eric paused as he reached for the door. "Roland, you can't wear that to a hospital. You look as if you've stepped out of the pages of that Stoker fellow's book."

"I have no intention of going inside. Can't bear the places, myself."

True to his word, Roland lurked in the shadows outside while Eric followed his sharpening sense of Tamara to the proper floor. He took the stairs, and he sent the probing fingers of his mind out ahead of him, ever on the alert for St Claire or Rogers. Before long he caught a hint of their presence, very near Tamara's, though he felt it nowhere near as strongly as he felt hers.

He glanced up and down the fourth-floor corridor and quickly spotted the room. He'd have known it without help, but the burly man in the dark gray suit posted outside her door made it obvious. Eric didn't recognize him, but knew at once he was DPI. If he was going to see Tamara he'd need to find another way. Already he felt reassured. Her stamina reached from her mind to his, though he sensed she might still be groggy. She was well. He felt it.

His relief was so great he very nearly didn't notice the hinged metal folder on the counter where nurses milled. A strip of white tape across the front bore the words in black ink. Dey, Tamara. Eric stiffened. He had to see that folder. Only then would he know the extent of her injuries, and exactly what had transpired to land her here. He closed his eyes.

Roland? Are you still out there?

Where else would I be? came the bored reply.

I could use a distraction, Eric told him.

Done.

Eric waited for about thirty seconds, uncomfortably watching both directions, half expecting St Claire to appear at any second. Then a bloodcurdling scream came from a room in another corridor and every nurse stampeded. A male voice echoed through the halls. "It was grinning at me—right through my window! I swear! And it, it had fangs—and its eyes—"

Eric grinned slightly, against his will. He hurried to the desk and nipped open Tamara's folder. He didn't need to scan it long. According to the physician who'd examined her, Tamara had been rushed in early this morning, unconscious and with vital signs that were barely discernible. She'd ingested a large amount of tranquilizers, combined with alcohol. According to the doctor's examination, she had recently had sexual intercourse. He further noted the bruises on her torso, and concluded that she'd been raped sometime the previous night. The pills and alcohol had been, in his opinion, a suicide attempt.

The sheet swam before his eyes. His stomach churned. Had he been alone he'd have roared like a wounded lion. As it was, he had to hold his anguish in check. It wasn't rape that had driven her over the edge, he alone knew that. It was something far more damaging to the soul. She'd made passionate love to a monster. Hadn't he known it would be more than she could face when the fire died down? Nearly blind with pain, he closed the folder and headed back the way he'd come.

Roland had just leapt down from the ledge. "Did you hear that fool bellow?" He laughed hard. "I haven't had such fun in years." He halted his chuckles and cleared his throat. "So, how did you find our girl? Did you see her? Eric—my God, you look like hell. What is it?"

Eric swallowed hard and forced the words to come. It wasn't easy. His throat was so tight he could barely inhale, and when he did it burned. "I . . . couldn't see her. A guard is posted outside her room. DPI." He spotted a bench nearby and went to it. He needed to sit. It was as if he'd been hit by a train. "She tried to take her own life, Roland."

"What!" Instantly Roland sat beside him, his arm at Eric's back. Eric barely felt it.

"I told you she'd regret what we—what I did to her, when she could think clearly. But I had no idea it would repulse her so that she couldn't go on living!"

"You are wrong!"

The violence in Roland's voice didn't penetrate the wall of pain around Eric. "Sleeping pills mixed with alcohol. It's all on her charts."

Roland gripped both of Eric's shoulders and forced him to look him in the eye. "No. She wouldn't do it."

Eric shook his head. "You barely knew her."

"True, but I know the despondency it takes to drive one to that extreme! Eric, I've been witness to such, firsthand. I've seen all the signs." His voice softened. "I only wish I had known them in time." He shook himself then. "Eric, do not accept less than her own words to confirm this theory. I know it to be wrong. See her. Talk to her."

Eric shook his head for the hundredth time. "I am the last person she would wish to see."

"If so, she will tell you so and you will have your answer. If not, you'd do her a grave injustice to leave her in that room with a DPI guard preventing her leaving."

Eric's shoulders stiffened where before they'd been slumping. "I suppose I could go in through the window. But I fear St Claire and Rogers might be in the room with her."

"Give me a moment," Roland said, dropping his brutal grip from Eric's shoulders and rising to pace away. "I'll think of something."

* * * * *

She blinked the haziness away slowly, and realized Daniel sat close to her, holding her hand. She wondered why she seemed to be in a hospital room, and bits of the conversation she'd heard earlier began surfacing in her mind.

"You're awake." Daniel leaned nearer. "They said you'd be coming around soon. You shouldn't have been out as long as you were, but we all figured the rest would do you good, so we let you be."

It had done her good, she thought as her mind cleared more and more. She felt the energy surge and longed to toss the covers back and go outside. She licked her parched lips. "It's night, isn't it? My God, how long have I slept?"

"I found you in your bed this morning." He swallowed. "I thought you were asleep at first, but then I saw the pills, and the brandy." He repeatedly pushed one cool palm up over her forehead. "Baby, you should have just told me. I wouldn't have blamed you. It wasn't your fault."

She sat up in bed so fast his hand fell away. Fully now, she recalled the words she'd only dimly been aware of at the time. They all thought she'd tried to kill herself. Moreover, they thought she'd been beaten and raped, by Eric, no less. They'd seen the marks his unbridled passion had left on her throat.

"Daniel, I have to tell you what happened last night."

"Don't torture yourself, sweetheart. I already know. I—" A sob rose in his throat, but he fought it down. "I'll kill him for what he did to you, Tam. I swear to God, I will."

"No!" She came to her feet all at once. "Daniel, you have to listen to me. Just. . ." A wave of dizziness swamped her, and if Daniel hadn't been there to steady her she'd have sunk to the floor. "Just listen to me, please."

"All right. All right, honey, I'll listen if you feel you need to talk it out. Just get back into the bed first, okay?" She nodded, clinging to his soft shoulders and easing herself back down. When she was once again settled back against the pillows, she focused on staying calm.

"Where is Curtis?"

"Outside. He walks the perimeter once very hour. We're not going to let Marquand get near you again, honey. Don't worry on that score."

She rolled her eyes. "Curt should hear this, too, but it can't wait. You'll tell him everything I tell you. Promise?"

He nodded. She cleared her throat and tried to summon courage enough to be honest with him. She should have been from the start. "I've seen Eric Marquand several times since that night at the rink," she blurted at last. Daniel opened his mouth but she held up two hands. "Please, let me get through this before you say anything." She licked her lips. "He's taken me on a sleigh ride, and fed me hot cocoa and fine cognac—in fact, the cognac I had last night was a gift from him. I've been to his house, too. We sat before a fire and talked for hours. He's not a monster, Daniel. He's a wonderful, caring man."

"My God. . ."

"Last night after I left Hilary I had a flat tire. I had to pull off an exit and was going to walk to a service station. I was—" she closed her eyes at the memory "—attacked. I fought him, but it was no use. He was very strong. I think he would've killed me when he'd finished. But Eric came just in time." Her eyes opened now that she'd gotten past the most horrid memory of last night. "He pulled the man off me, and beat him unconscious. He carried me to the car. He covered me with his own coat, and then he drove. He would have brought me directly home, but I asked him not to. I needed time to calm myself." She reached for his hand. "Daniel, Eric saved my life last night."

Daniel stared at her for a long moment. "But, how could. . . I don't—"

"He's not the monster you keep telling me he is," she told him. "He's more human than a lot of men I know."

For a moment Daniel appeared uncertain, but then his eyes narrowed. "You can't deny the marks he left on your throat. That's proof of what he is."

She lowered her eyes. "I won't deny them, but I won't lie about them, either. I'm not going to tell you things that are none of your business, Daniel. But you have to know that everything that happened between Eric and me last night happened because I wanted it to happen. I wanted it, even knowing what he is: He didn't hurt me, and he never will."

"Tamara, what are you saying? You admit he's a vampire and still you defend him?"

She met his gaze without flinching. She would not be ashamed of her feelings for Eric. But she thought she'd given her guardian enough shocks for one evening. "I'm saying that you don't need to worry about me. No harm will ever come to me with Eric around." She put a hand on his arm and squeezed. "I want you to think about something, Daniel. For a long time you've assumed that because his kind is different, they are inherently evil. You've been wrong. You need to sit down and realize how bigoted that mind-set is."

He shook his head and got to his feet. His eyes on her seemed to hold an unvoiced accusation. "Haven't Curtis and I warned you about the mind control he might exercise over you? Haven't I begged you to tell me if he tried to see you again? Tamara, you cannot believe his lies! He would kill me if he had an opportunity, and you are just the one to give it to him! He's using you to get to me, Tamara. You'd have to be blind not to see that!"

She drew in a sharp breath at the fury in his voice, and in his face. It was as if she'd betrayed him. She'd never seen him so angry. "Daniel, you're wrong—"

She was interrupted by a mechanical beep coming from Daniel's belt. He pushed a button and it stopped instantly. "I have to go. Curtis—" He bit his lip.

"Curtis what?" Tamara felt a chill go up her spine. It had something to do with Eric, she was certain of it. Daniel had said Curtis was out searching the grounds, or something like that. Had he spotted Eric? What would they do to him if they caught him? Daniel didn't answer, but moved quickly through the heavy wooden door. As he did, she saw the guard posted outside it, and her heart raced all the faster. She couldn't get out to try to warn Eric that they were out for blood. My God, what if they got to him?

The door closed and she paced the room, battling the dizziness that tried to return sporadically. She shut her eyes and tried to call out to Eric as she'd done before, with her mind. Eric, if you 're out there, be careful! Daniel and Curt—

Her thoughts came to a halt as a chill breeze rushed over her body, and a familiar voice spoke softly. "Are presently being led a merry chase by Roland, all in order to clear them out of here." As her eyes flew open, he swung his legs over the windowsill, landing gracefully on the floor. He stood still for a moment, as if waiting for her permission to come any closer.

Tamara raced toward him and threw herself into his arms. "Eric!" His arms around her seemed hesitant, and then he pushed her from him and eased her back into the bed. His face, she now noted, was a study in misery. Lines were etched deep between his brows and on both sides of his mouth. His eyes were moist and searching. He dropped to one knee beside the bed, and his voice thickened with every word he uttered. "Sweet Tamara, I never meant. . . My God, I never meant to bring you to this. I swear it to you. If I'd known—but I should have known, shouldn't I? I should never have done what I did." He choked on the words and a single tear slipped slowly down his face.

Her heart wrenched as she reached out to touch it, absorbing it into her fingertips. "Don't think what you're thinking, Eric. Not even for a minute. This was an accident, nothing more." His gaze met hers, and she saw the doubt there. "Look into my mind, since you're so talented at that sort of thing. Better yet, look into my heart. How could you think I'd want to leave you?" She felt him doing just what she'd suggested, and as he probed her mind she explained what she'd done. "I knew I wouldn't close my eyes all night, and I had to go to work, or else Daniel would know something was wrong. I sipped the cognac, but it didn't help. A bit later I tried the sleeping pills that have been sitting in my cabinet for over a month. I'd taken them before without any ill effects at all. The problem was that I wasn't thinking clearly, and didn't stop to consider the consequences of mixing them with alcohol. That's all, Eric. I promise, that's all."

He gathered her into his arms and she felt the shuddering breath he released as it bathed her neck. "I thought you'd awakened to regret having given yourself to me. If ever you do, Tamara, you must tell me. I will not be the cause of your despair. I will leave you now, if you tell me to do so."

Her arms clenched tighter and she whispered, "No. Don't leave me, Eric. Don't. . ." Frowning with a sense of deja vu so strong it made her light-headed she pulled away from him. " My God, I've said that to you before. In a hospital bed just like this one. I begged you not to leave me. . . but you did."

He nodded, his eyes studying her carefully. "I honestly thought it best for you. I was wrong. I won't make that mistake again. If you ordered me to stay away from you, I'd never go so far as I did then. You'd have my protection. I'd watch over you, as I should have done before. St. Claire never would have got his hands on you if I'd been wiser then."

"Then it was when I had the accident. That was when I knew you? All these memories and familiarity stem from the time I was six years old?"

"Yes. It is coming back to you now. Soon the rest will, as well, and you will understand better."

She nodded, wishing she understood now. She wouldn't press him on it, though. He shouldn't be here. It wasn't safe. "Eric, I had to tell Daniel it wasn't you who attacked and bruised me, but I couldn't very well hide the marks on my throat." His eyes moved to that spot and she felt their heat. An answering warmth spread within her, but she forced herself to ignore it. "I told him that I went to you willingly, that you forced nothing on me. He still insists you have me under some kind of spell, though. Eric, he's furious. It isn't a good idea for you to be here."

His lips thinned, and he studied her for a long moment. "You love this man, and I've tried to restrain myself from speaking against him, for your sake, Tamara. Tonight I cannot. It is better to risk your anger than to allow you to continue in your blind trust of him. It is no more safe for you to remain than it is for me. Especially now that he knows of our intimacy."

She stroked his face lovingly. "Old habits die hard. He's so used to thinking the worst of you, he can't do otherwise, and I think you have the same problem. Daniel loves me, Eric."

He covered her hand with his own, closed his eyes and turned his face to press his lips to her palm. "It kills me to hurt you, Tamara. The traits I explained to you, the ones that make you different from other humans—"

"The Belladonna antigen and the common ancestor?"

He nodded. "St. Claire knew of them even then." She frowned at him, blinking. "He did? But why hasn't he ever told me?"

Eric held her hand in his own. "Tamara, there is a good possibility that he only took you in because he knew you were one of the Chosen. He knew of your connection to us, and he knew that as long as he had you, one of us might come near enough to be captured."

"Captured?" She searched his face, his mind, as he spoke, but she saw no sign that he was lying to her. "For. . . what?"

His lips parted, but closed again. He shook his head. "I am afraid for you," he told her. "Believe me that is my only motive for telling you these things."

She shook her head, blinking as hot tears pooled in her eyes. "I know you mean it, you believe all of this... but it's wrong. You're wrong. Daniel loves me like his own daughter." She lowered her gaze and shook her head. "He has to. He's the only family I've had for all these years. If all of that was a lie—no. You're wrong."

Eric sighed, but nodded. "I will not press the matter. But Tamara, he is not the only family you have any longer. You have me. No matter what else might happen, you always will. Do you believe me?"

She nodded in return, but her eyes didn't focus. She was searching her mind, realizing that Daniel must've known Eric had visited her in the hospital all those years ago. It was the only explanation for his overprotective behavior now.

Something niggled at her mind, and she squinted hard, trying to remember. "Eric, when I came around earlier, they were saying something about a. . . a tranquilizer. . . ." She heard their voices replay in her mind, and had the confirmation she'd dreaded. He'll come to her, just like before. And then Daniel. We'll be ready. Get the tranquilizer and meet me back here. Her stomach clenched.

"No tranquilizer known has any effect on vampires, Tamara."

She shook her head hard. "I got the feeling this was something new, something Curt's been working on." She met his gaze then, her fear for him overcoming her own lingering doubts. "I know I'm safe with them, Eric, but as things stand, you aren't. Please leave before they come back."

"I won't cower in fear of them—"

"But Roland might not be safe, either. If there is some kind of drug, and he lets them get too close. . ."

He frowned then, and nodded.

"I'll go, then—this time." Once again he pulled her upper body to him, and kissed her neck, then the hollow just below her ear, then the ear itself. "I find it unbearable to leave you, though."

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back to give his mouth better access. The sensations he sent through her body would overwhelm her common sense in a few seconds. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and her breath caught in her throat. His lips kissed a path to hers, and then he feasted on her mouth and her tongue as if it were to be his last meal. When he lifted himself from her she clung. She pressed wet lips to his ear. "I wish you could stay. I want you so much it hurts." She felt him tremble in response to her words and her touch.

"It is too soon—you've been through so much." Gently he pushed her until she lay amid the pillows. "I will leave you, but not to go far. If anyone tries to harm you, call to me. You know I will hear you."

"I know."

He left the way he'd come, and Tamara thought it felt as if he'd taken a pan of her with him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She closed the window, returned to her bed and feigned sleep, though she was wide awake and jittery with restlessness. Daniel returned a few minutes after Eric had left her, and took a seat near the window. Tamara ignored him. She wasn't yet ready for a confrontation, but she knew one had to come. She needed to hear from his own lips that the things Eric suspected were wrong.

Dawn approached and Tamara couldn't avoid sleep's clinging vines. They gradually encircled her and tugged her down into slumber. When her eyes flew wide only a moment later, it was to see the final splash of the sun's orange light slowly receding from the sky. Daniel's chair was empty.

She waited, lying still and lazy as the life seemed to filter back into her body. Amazing that she'd slept all day two days running now, so deeply she hadn't been aware of the time ticking past. Refreshed and energized, she flung the covers back and started opening drawers and closet doors in search of her clothes. She'd had enough of this confinement. The only clothing she found were her nightgown and her long hounds tooth-check coat. She sighed relief that her boots rested on the closet floor.

There was no guard now. She guessed Daniel assumed she'd only needed guarding after sundown. She caused quite a stir when she announced to the nurses at the crowded desk in the main corridor that she was checking herself out. Forms needed to be signed and the doctor notified. She couldn't just leave. She coolly requested that whatever forms needed signing be handed over at once. She'd already phoned for a cab, and fully intended to be ready when it arrived.

Less than half an hour later she marched through the imposing front door of the neglected house she'd called home for the past twenty years. Daniel stood just beyond the door, pulling his coat on. He looked up, surprised to see her. His smile died slowly when she didn't return it.

"We need to talk" was all she said in greeting.

His faded cornflower eyes turned away from her probing dark ones. He nodded, and exhaled slowly. "I left a cabby waiting outside. I'll just go get my purse, and—"

"I'll take care of it." Daniel moved past her and out the door before she could argue the point. She heard the vehicle move away, its tires crunching over the packed snow on the road. Daniel returned a moment later. He removed his coat, draped it on a rather wobbly coat tree and gently helped her out of hers. She'd already toed off her boots.

"You ought to go upstairs and lie down. Tam. We can talk in your room."

She faced him squarely. "Is there a DPI guard outside my door?" His gaze dropped so fast there was no doubting his surge of guilt. " Why was I under guard, Daniel?"

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I won't lie to you. I was afraid Marquand would try to get to you there."

"Because he came to me once before in a hospital?" Daniel's head snapped up, eyes widening. "You—you remember?"

She turned from him, stalking though the foyer and into the huge living room. She knew he followed. Her long, quick stride and stiff spine showed her anger almost as well as her words and tone of voice. She faced him again. "No, Daniel. As a matter of fact, I don't remember. For the past g few months I've been slowly, systematically losing my mind because I can't remember. I'm trying. . ." Her throat threatened to close off, and she bit her lips, swallowed twice and forced herself to go on. "You've known about this—this link between Marquand and me all along, though, haven't you? For God's sake, Daniel, how could you keep something like this from me?"

His brows lifted, creasing his forehead. "Tam, I was only doing what I thought was best for you. Trying to protect you—"

"By watching me go insane? My God, the nightmares, the sleeplessness—you had to know it all revolved around Eric. You knew, and you never said a word."

"You were in a fragile state of mind! I couldn't say anything to make it worse."

"Of course not. You couldn't say anything to ease my fears, either, could you, Daniel? Not the way Eric did. You couldn't simply tell me that it was all right, that I wasn't going crazy that there was a reason for all I was going through and that I'd understand it as soon as my mind was ready to let me remember. You couldn't comfort me that way, could you?"

Daniel couldn't have looked more shocked if she'd slapped him. "He—"

"But you didn't want me to remember, did you, Daniel? Because you knew. You knew how close Eric and I had become, and you knew he'd come to me some day. All these years you've been waiting, watching."

She waited for a furious denial, but saw only remorse in Daniel's leathery face. She had to press it further. She had to ask the final question, though she dreaded hearing the answer. "Is that why you took me in all those years ago, Daniel? Was I just the perfect bait to lure him to you?"

For a long time he didn't answer. When Tamara turned away from him in disgust, his soft hand shot out to grip her arm and turn her back toward him. "I was blind with ambition twenty years ago. Tam. There was nothing in my life except my work. I'd have done anything to get to Marquand. . . then. But not now." His hand fell from her arm, and he paced away from her slowly, eyes on his feet, but not seeing. "I grew to love you, sweetheart. How could I not? And it wasn't very long at all until I stopped looking forward to the day he'd come back. I started fearing it. I was terrified he'd come and take you away from me."

She held the tears in check. She wasn't certain where she got the strength to do it. "My entire life has been a lie. From the second you came to my hospital room you were enacting a cold, calculated plot." She shook her head. "What were you going to do with Eric when you caught him?"

There was no remorse in his eyes when he faced her this time. Only the frigid gleam of hatred. "Don't pity him, Tam. He's no better than an animal—a rabid wolf who has to be stopped before he can spread his disease. Oh, I had big plans once. I was going to learn the answers to every question I had about him—his kind. Now all I want is to keep him from hurting you."

"Hurt him, and you'll be hurting me, Daniel." He stepped closer to her, slowly shaking his head from side to side as his eyes searched her face. "I love him," she said.

Daniel's eyes closed tight and he released a guttural grunt as if he'd been punched hard in the stomach.

She didn't show mercy. She felt none after what he'd said about Eric. "You say you love me, but I don't think that's true. I think you've used me all along and just can't admit it to me now."

Again he shook his head. "That isn't true. I do love you—couldn't love my own child more than I love you."

"Prove it." He faced her, standing stock-still as if he knew what she would ask of him.

"Tamara, I— "

"Drop the research, Daniel. Give up this plan to capture Eric, or any of them." She took a step toward him, and realized she was willing to beg if it would help. "He isn't what you think. He's kind and sensitive and funny. If you met him on the street you wouldn't know he was different at all. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, only to be left alone. If you want your questions answered, Eric would probably be willing to answer them, once he sees he can trust you."

"That's absurd! If I got within his reach I'd be a dead man. Tamara, you're the one who doesn't know this man. He's cunning and ruthless. You accuse me of using you, but he's the one using you. . . to get to me, I think."

She blinked slowly. "I can see I'm not getting through to you." Feeling her heart had been bruised beyond repair, she turned and moved to the curving staircase.

"Where—"

"I'm going to shower and change. Then I'm going out. Tomorrow I'll come back and pick up my things."

"You can't go to him. Tam! My God, don't do this—"

"I can't stay, not unless you agree to what I've asked. Keep in mind the way you've deceived me all this time, Daniel. How much have I ever asked from you? If you love me, you'll do this for me. If not, then it won't kill you to see me go."

She moved up the stairs, and did exactly what she'd said she would. Daniel didn't try to stop her. When she left by the front door he was not in sight.

* * * * *

She sank into his arms when he opened his door to her. Eric had sensed her turmoil as she approached, and he felt a burgeoning anger toward those responsible. St. Claire and his protege, no doubt. He held her, and her tears flowed into his shirt. Beyond her, through the open doorway, he felt eyes upon him, and he kicked the door closed. Rogers, he realized slowly. He'd followed her. Eric felt the man's rage like a blistering desert wind, and not solely directed toward him. The heat of his anger was aimed toward Tamara, as well, and the knowledge shook Eric. He knew when the van moved away. The sense of hatred faded, and Eric put it aside for later consideration. Tamara needed to be the center of his attention now.

He held her tighter, and pulled her with him into the parlor, where a cheerful fire and a pot of hot cocoa awaited her. He settled himself on the settee, pulling her across his lap as he might do a small child. He cradled her head to his shoulder, stroking her hair and feeling the painful throbbing in her temples and the dampness of tears on her skin.

"Oh, Eric, you were right. Daniel knew about us all those years ago. He knew you'd come back some day, and that was the only reason he took me in when my parents died." He felt her shuddering breath.

"He admitted it to you?"

She nodded. "He could—could barely look me in the eye."

Eric released a sigh, wishing he could choke the life out of the heartless bastard for causing Tamara this kind of grief. "I am so sorry, sweet. I wish I had been wrong."

The air kept catching in her throat, making each breath she took like a small spasm. "It hurts to know the truth. I love him so much, Eric."

Love him, not loved him. Eric frowned.

She lifted her head from his shoulder. "I can't stop myself from loving him just because he lied to me. I think. . . in his own way. . . he loves me, too."

"I keep forgetting how well you read my thoughts," he told her. "How can you believe he cares for you after—"

"I have to believe it. It hurts too much to think he's been acting the part all these years. He says he came to love me, and that his motives for keeping me with him changed." She blinked away the remaining tears, and gently brushed his white shirt with her fingertips. "I got you all wet."

"I would gladly catch every tear you shed, if you'd permit it, Tamara."

Her lips turned up slightly at the corners, but still they trembled. "I'm giving him one more chance." Eric's brows lifted, one higher than the other, as he was prone to do when puzzled. "I told Daniel that if he truly loves me he'll drop his research, and the investigation of you."

"Sweet, trusting Tamara," he said, lifting a lock of hair with his forefinger and tucking it behind her ear. "Do you believe he'll agree? He's made me his life's work, you know. He was tracing my every movement even before you were born."

"I don't know if he'll agree. But, Eric, if he doesn't I think you should go away from here. I'm terrified of what he has planned."

He smiled fully. "I am well aware of what he has planned for me. And no, I will not give you new nightmares by sharing it with you. You needn't fear for me, Tamara. With vampires, age is strength. I am over two hundred years strong. A mere human—or even a pair of them—pose no threat to me."

"But this tranquilizer I heard them mention—"

"It matters not, I'll not leave you again."

She gazed into his eyes with so much love Eric nearly winced. "I wouldn't ask you to. I'd go with you."

She'd go with him, and he knew she'd stay with him. For the span of her mortal life he would be allowed to cherish her and adore her. And then she would leave him to die of heartbreak. He wouldn't have her for more than a moment in time a mere twenty more years, at best. For though he hadn't shared the knowledge with her, he was painfully aware that humans with the Belladonna antigen rarely live beyond their forty-fifth year.

Perhaps, he thought, Roland had been right. Perhaps the decision wasn't his to make. But could he sentence her to an eternity of darkness? Would she even want it?

Her hand at his face broke his line of thought, and he looked into her eyes. "What is it?" she asked. "I feel sadness but I couldn't tell what you were thinking."

"I was thinking that you must leave me in the morning." She had enough to deal with tonight. Let the question of her mortality wait for another time. "I wonder if it is wise, now that St. Claire and Rogers know the nature of our relationship? I do not like to think of you within reach of their wrath."

"Unless Daniel changes his attitude, tomorrow will be the last time I set foot in that house." She looked at him and smiled very softly. "Unless I'm jumping the gun. You haven't invited me—"

"Shall I come to you on my knees? Shall I beg you to stay with me?"

"You only need to tell me you want me." Her voice came out lower than a whisper, and he saw the glimmer left by the tears turn into a soft glow, put there by passion.

"In my existence I have seen women of such beauty it was said they could drive a man beyond reason. Beside you, they would fade as a candle's flame beside the heart of the sun. Never has a woman stirred me as you have done." He lowered his head, tilting her chin with one hand to settle his lips over hers. Softly he sipped them, suckled them, first upper, then lower. He lifted only enough to speak, and to be able to watch her glorious face as he did. "To say that I want you is not enough. Might as well say that the parched and barren desert wants the kiss of the rain. You are the part of myself that's been missing for more than two centuries."

The shimmer in her eyes now had nothing to do with her earlier pain. "Eric, you make love to me with your words as thoroughly as you do with your body." She pressed her mouth to him, parted her succulent lips and invited his tongue's invasion. He accepted eagerly, and her taste aroused him even more than the last time he'd kissed her. Eventually he lifted his head to breathe. "I can't say it as well as you can," she told him, breathless now. "But I feel the same. My life was so empty. I thought I'd never stop wondering why. Then I found you and I knew. I don't know what went between us before, Eric. I don't know why we are this close, but whatever it was, it bound us together. You are a part of me, as vital to my existence as my own heart. If you leave me again." She stopped there. The sob that involuntarily blocked her words came without warning, he knew.

He lifted her in his arms as he rose from the settee. "Leave you? Leave you? Look into my heart with yours. See what is there, and end your doubts. I would swim naked through a pool of shredded glass for you. I'd crawl on my belly over hot coals through hell itself to get to you. You are in me, woman, like a fever in my blood. All I find myself wanting these days is more of you."

He took her mouth fiercely; plundered it as she'd been longing for him to do. He knew she had. He'd heard her silent begging. Even as he took her mouth he moved with her, to the staircase and up it. By the time he reached the top he was panting, as she was. Her fingers twined and tugged at his hair. Her tongue dipped and tasted him, then wrapped around his and drew it back into her moistness. She suckled it as if it were some rare, prized fruit—something she needed in order to live.

He kicked open the bedroom door, carrying her through it, certain she only vaguely noted the candles and oil lamps that cast their flickering, amber glow over the bed he'd prepared for her. He laid her gently upon the high mattress, then straightened, allowing his gaze to devour her. He'd never thought highly of the denims today's women favored. On her, however, he found them alluring, the way they hugged her form like an outer skin. Then again, on her he thought he'd find a burlap sack alluring.

She blinked and broke eye contact, glancing around the room. The satin coverlet on which she lay was fortunate enough to receive a long, appreciative stroke from her equally soft hand. She regarded the oversize four-poster bed and the hand-tooled hard-wood, then the masses of candles and the two lamps burning scented oil. "You did all of this for me?"

He nodded, watching her face. "You approve?"

Her smile was her answer. She held his eyes prisoner as her delicate fingers began to release the buttons of her blouse. He took a step toward her. She stopped him with a small shake of her head. Eric swallowed hard, but obeyed her silent request. He stood where he was, as the fire inside him burned out of control.

She shrugged so that the blouse fell from her shoulders, and he saw the creamy-colored silk garment beneath it. She slid from the bed, releasing her button, then her zip. She pushed the denim down over her hips, down her long, bare legs, and daintily stepped out of them. She looked to him like a confection prepared especially for him to savor. Cream-colored lace touched her thighs, and the exposed mounds of her breasts. As he fought to form words she repeated his earlier ones. "You approve?"

A low growl was all he managed before he had her in his arms, crushed against him. When his hands lifted the scanty lace to cup her hips he found them bare to his touch. For him, she'd done this. To please him. To arouse him to the point of madness, he thought. He moved his hips so the aching bulge that strained his own zipper nudged her center. He brought one hand up to push the flimsy strap aside and expose her breast to his rough exploration. As his hand teased her nipple to a taut pebble hardness he spoke, moving his lips upon her throat. "You wish to drive me mad, woman? I hope you're certain you want this. I believe you've pushed me beyond the point of return."

He lifted her, hands on her silk-clad sides, and dropped her onto the bed. She watched him struggle with his shirt. He didn't hesitate, but removed his trousers and shorts, as well. He couldn't wait to be inside her luscious body. He saw her eyes focus on his erection, and he clambered onto the bed beside her, eager to mount her. Then he stopped himself. She was his for the entire night, he reminded himself. He needn't take her in haste. He could love her slowly, drive her as wild as she'd already driven him.

She reached for him, eyes glazed with passion. "Are you in such a hurry, sweet Tamara? Would you deny me the chance to savor you first?"

"You want to drink from me again?" Her words were merely sighs given form. "Do it, Eric. I am your slave tonight. Do what you want."

"What I want is to devour you. Every succulent inch of you. At my leisure. Will you lie still and allow it, I wonder?"

He knelt on the mattress beside her, and reached for her tiny foot. He lifted it, kissing a hot path around her ankle, nipping the bone with gentle teasing scrapes of his teeth, then sliding his tongue over it, tracing its shape. She breathed faster, and he moved his head. His mouth trailed very slowly up the soft flesh of her inner calf. He lifted her leg, flicking his tongue over the sensitive hollow behind her knee. She shook violently, and he glanced up to see that her eyes were closed tight. Oh, yes, my love. Tonight I'll show you the meaning of pleasure. His mind spoke to hers, since his mouth was too busy carrying out the promise. He nibbled and tasted and licked at her thigh, moving higher slowly and steadily so she couldn't mistake his intent. By the time he reached the heart of her, her need was so great she whimpered with each breath she released. One flick of his tongue over her, and she cried out. Open for me, love. Give me your sweet nectar.

She did. He slipped his hands beneath her quivering buttocks and tilted her up, and then he gave her what she silently begged him for. He ravaged her with his mouth, and his teeth. He plunged into her with his tongue. Her taste intoxicated him. He shook with feeling, for her sensations were his, as well. She gasped for breath, tossing her head back and forth on the pillows, her hips writhing beneath him. He pushed her ruthlessly to the precipice, and then forced her over it. She screamed in ecstasy—and still he persisted. She shuddered uncontrollably and pushed his head away, gasping.

"No, no more—I can't—"

"Oh, but you can. Shall I show you that you can?" He lifted himself and moved until his body fully covered hers. He nudged her opening with his hardness. So wet, and still pulsing with her climax. He drove into her without warning. She shivered beneath him as he withdrew and drove again, and yet again. He gave her no time to recover from the first shattering explosion. He forced her trembling body beyond it, and toward another. He anchored her to him with his arms, forcing her acceptance of his every thrust. He covered her mouth with his, and forced his tongue inside, still coated with the taste of her. He plunged harder, faster, and he knew when her fists clenched and her nails sank into the flesh of his back that she was once again on the brink. He swallowed her cries this time when she went over, and she swallowed his, for he fell with her. His entire body shook with the force of his release. He clung to her, relaxing his body to hers.

Aftershocks of pleasure still rippled through him when he began to move inside her again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Too soon, she thought, when she knew dawn approached. She studied his profile as he lay beside her, and she thought again she'd never known a man so handsome. No shadow of beard darkened his jawline. In fact, his face was as smooth as it had been earlier. He caught her gaze on him and smiled. "I shall have to leave you soon," he said, giving voice to her thoughts.

She snuggled closer, wishing he didn't. "Where do you go? Do you rest in—in a coffin?"

He nodded, sitting up slightly and reaching for his shirt. "Does the idea repulse you?"

"Nothing about you could ever repulse me, Eric." She sat up, too, as he poked his muscled arms into the white sleeves. She pushed his hands away when he began to button the shirt, and leaned over to button it herself. "I don't think I'd like seeing you in it, though. Why a coffin, anyway? Is it some kind of vampire tradition? Why not a bed, for God's sake?"

He laughed, tipping his head back. Tamara found her gaze glued to the corded muscles in his neck. She leaned nearer and pressed her lips to it. He stroked her hair. "It is for protection. There are more humans who know of our existence than you would believe. Most would like nothing better than to terminate it. We could sleep in vaults, or behind locked doors, I suppose. But nothing offers more protection than a coffin, which locks from the inside and has a trapdoor built beneath it."

"Trapdoor?" She finished with his last button and looked up, interested. "Are you conscious enough to use it?"

"The scent of imminent danger would rouse me even from the deepest slumber. Not much, mind you, but I only need move one finger. The button is placed in the spot where my hand rests. When I touch it the hinged mattress swings down, dumping me into a hidden room below. It springs back into place on its own. The only side effects are a few aches from being dumped bodily."

"You feel pain, then?"

"Not while I'm holding you." As he spoke he pulled her into his arms. "But that is not the answer you wanted, is it? In truth, I feel everything more keenly than a human would. Heat, cold, pain." His fingers danced over her nape. " Pleasure," he whispered close to her ear. " Pain can incapacitate me, but whatever injuries I might sustain are healed while I rest. It's a regenerative sleep, you see." His lips moved over her temple. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks and then her mouth, thoroughly and deeply. " I believe I will be in need of it after this night."

She smiled at his little joke, but the smile died when she realized that the sky beyond the window was beginning to lighten. She looked at his heavy-lidded eyes, and she felt his growing lethargy. "You need to rest." She pulled from his embrace, reached for their clothes and handed his to him. "Come on, it'll be light soon."

"Too soon," he told her. But he took the trousers from her, and slid off the bed to put them on. "I still dislike the thought of you going back to St. Claire today."

"I know." She fastened her jeans, and walked around the bed to stand close to him. "I have to, though. And I love you more for not trying to tell me what to do. I know you don't think highly of Daniel, but just like he's wrong about you, you're wrong about him, Eric. He isn't all bad."

In the distance the sky began to turn from gray to pink. Eric's shoulders lost their usual spread. His chin wasn't as high as it had been. She put an arm around his waist, and he draped one over her shoulders. She was beginning to feel tired, as well. They descended the stairs side by side, and all too soon stood locked together in the open doorway as Eric kissed her one last time.

She fought her sleepiness as she drove back home. She thought she might have time to catch an hour or two of sleep before she'd have to force herself awake and head in to work. She'd decided to resign. She couldn't, continue working for DPI, knowing how they'd sponsored Eric's constant harassment over the years. Besides, it now was a blatant conflict of interest. She was in love with the subject of their longest-running investigation.

She let herself in, and caught her breath. Daniel, fully dressed, lay sprawled on the sofa, one arm and one leg dangling. A blanket had been tossed over him, but he'd only twisted himself up in it. His hair looked as if he'd been outside in a strong wind. When she drew nearer, the odor of stale alcohol assaulted her, and she saw the empty whiskey bottle on the floor.

"Well, finally made it home, did you?"

She caught her breath and looked up fast. Curtis lounged in the doorway that led into the huge dining room, a cup of coffee in his hand. "What are you doing here, Curt?" She glanced quickly at the clock on the wall. It was only five-forty-five.

"You've been with him all night, haven't you?"

There was something in his eyes, some coldness in his voice, that frightened her. "I'm an adult, Curt. Where I go is my business."

He straightened, came across the room and slammed the cup onto a table. "Can't you see how perverted this is? He's a frigging animal! And you're no better—acting like a bitch in heat. Christ, Tammy, if you'd needed it that bad all you had to do was ask—"

She reached him in two long strides and brought her hand across his face hard enough to rock him back on his feet. " Get out!"

"I don't think so." He stood facing her, and she saw absolute hatred in his eyes. How had she ever thought she had a true friend in this man? He blinked, though, and altered his tone of voice. "You're under some kind of spell, Tammy."

"What went on here last night?" She took a step to the side and went past him, through the dining room, knowing he'd follow. In the kitchen she got a cup of coffee for herself, and added sugar, hoping it would give her an energy boost.

"Daniel drank himself into a coma. What does it look like?" She turned, cup in hand, and frowned at him. "He called me around midnight, babbling about you and Marquand. I couldn't make sense of half of it. By the time I got here he'd drained the bottle. He was slurring something about dropping the research, or losing you forever. Is that the game plan, Tam? You use emotional blackmail on a guy who's been like a father to you? Force him to give up forty years of work, just so you can have your kinky fling?"

She felt no anger at his remarks. Only joy. "He said he was going to drop it?"

Curt's glare was once again filled with loathing. "He was too drunk to know what he was saying. But let me tell you something, Tam. I'm not going to drop it. Daniel has taught me everything he knows, so if he's ready to throw in the towel, I'll pick it up. You won't manipulate me the way you do him."

She opened her mouth to hurl a scathing reply, but saw Daniel standing weakly beyond Curt, making his way into the kitchen. "You, Curtis, will do what I tell you. I got you this far in DPI, and I can just as easily have you tossed out."

He made it to a kitchen chair, leaned on the back of it for a moment, head down, then pulled it out and sat down. "Daniel, are you okay?" She turned to pour a cup of coffee, and then set it before him. "Can I get you anything?" He looked at her for a long moment, seemingly searching for something. Finally he shook his head, and stared into the coffee cup.

"I owe her, Curtis. You know it as well as I do. We're dropping it."

"You're falling for her game, hook, line and sinker, aren't you?" Curt paced the room, shaking his head, pushing his hands through his hair. "Can't you see she's sold you out? She's joined the enemy, Daniel. She's the one we should have been studying all this time. I always told you she was more vampire than human!"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Tamara set her coffee down, spilling half of it.

"You mean to tell me you still don't know?"

"Don't know what?"

Daniel struggled to his feet, one hand massaging his forehead. "That's enough, Curtis. I think you ought to leave now. Tamara and I need to talk."

Curtis eyed Tamara narrowly. "You mark my words, Tammy. You go through with this sick liaison and we'll all end up dead. You'll have my blood on your hands." He nodded toward Daniel. "And his. You just remember that I warned you." He turned on his heel and strode away. A second later the front door slammed, rattling the windows. Daniel returned to his seat, shaking his head. "He'll get over it. Tam. Give him time."

She sat across from him and slipped her hand over his. "He's wrong, Daniel. Eric is the gentlest man I've ever known. I want..." She drew a steadying breath and plunged on. "I want you to meet him. Talk to him. I want you to see that he's not what you think."

He nodded. "I figured you would, and I suppose I have to. I don't mind telling you. Tam, I'm afraid of him. The scientist in me is excited, though. To be that close. . ." He nodded again, and went on. "The biggest part of me knows this is inevitable. I'll do my best to make my peace with him, Tam. I've been over it a million times, all night long. It boils down to one thing." He reached up and cupped her face with one hand. "I don't want to lose you." Slowly he closed his eyes. " Bringing you into this house, into my life changed everything for me, Tamara. Before that I was. . ." He opened his eyes and she was surprised to see tears brimming in them. He shook his head.

"Go on. You were what?"

"A different man. A bastard, Tamara. More of a monster than Marquand could ever be. And I'm sorry for it... sorrier than you'll ever know."

She shook her head, not certain what to say. She felt this to be the most honest moment they'd ever shared.

She finished her coffee and went to bed, and Daniel didn't wake her. In fact, she was roused by the phone, shocked when she blinked her clock into focus and saw the time. She groped for the phone when it shrilled again, and brought it to her, wondering why Daniel hadn't answered it himself.

"Tam?"

At the familiar voice, her irritation dissolved. "Jamey?" She frowned and checked the clock once more. "Why aren't you in school?"

"I cut out. Tam..." He sighed and it sounded shaky. Tamara sat up in bed. "Something's wrong."

"Are you sick?" Her alarm sent the lethargy skittering to a dark corner of her mind. "Did you get hurt or something? Do you want me to call your mom?"

"No. It's not like that, it's something else." Another shuddering sigh. "I'm not sure what it is."

"Okay, Jamey, calm down. Just tell me where you are, and—"

"I took a cab. I'm at a pay phone in Byram. I didn't want to come to the house."

At least that was normal. The rambling Victorian had always given Jamey a case of the creeps. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Hurry, Tam, or we'll be too late."

Fear made her voice soft. "Too late for what, Jamey?"

"I don't know! Just hurry, okay?"

"Okay." She replaced the receiver with shaking hands. Something was terribly wrong. She'd heard the terror in Jamey's voice. Along with her gut-twisting concern was a flare of anger. Whoever was responsible for upsetting him this much would have to answer for it. She yanked on jeans and a sweatshirt. She pulled on socks and sneakers, then a jacket. She took a hairbrush from her purse and jerked it through her hair on the way down the stairs. Daniel was just coming up from the basement.

"What is it, hon?"

"Jamey. He's all out of sorts about something. I'm going to meet him in town, buy him a burger and talk him through it." She hugged Daniel quickly, then shoved the brush back into her bag and pulled out her keys.

Five minutes later she picked Jamey up. He was tugging on the Bug's door before it came to a full stop. He climbed in, looking pale and wide-eyed. "I think I'm goin' crazy," he announced.

Her instinct was to tell him that was nonsense, but she'd felt the same way recently—too often not to take his fear seriously. "I've thought that a time or two myself, pal." She searched his young face. Eleven years old was far too young to have such serious troubles weighing on him. "Tell me about it."

"You know before, when I asked you if you knew someone named Eric?" She stiffened, but nodded. " Well, I hope you know where he lives. We have to go there."

She didn't question Jamey. She put the car in gear and moved quickly down the street. "Do you know why?"

Jamey closed, his eyes and rubbed his forehead as if it ached. "I think somebody's trying to kill him."

"My God." She pressed the accelerator to the floor, shifting rapidly.

"It's been coming in my head ever since I hung up the phone. It won't leave me alone until we go there—but it doesn't make sense."

"Why?"

"Because. . . I get the feeling he's already dead." She drove the Bug as fast as it would go, and it vibrated with the effort. Even then, it took twenty minutes to reach the tall gate at the end of Eric's driveway. Tamara almost cried out when she saw Curt's car, pulled haphazardly onto the roadside nearby. She slammed on her brakes, killed the motor, wrenched the door open. She ran to the gate with Jamey on her heels.

It had been battered with something heavy. The pretty filigree vines were bent, some broken. The gate hung open and the electronic box inside was crushed. Pieces of its insides littered the snow. A single set of footprints led over the driveway, toward the house.

"Eric!" Tamara's scream echoed in the stillness as the reality of what was happening bludgeoned her mind. A small, firm hand caught hers and tugged her through the gate.

"C'mon, Tam. Come on, hurry!"

She blinked against the tears but they continued to fall unchecked. She couldn't see where her feet were coming down as she ran headlong, guided only by that strong grip. Eric's castle like home loomed ahead, a tear-blurred mound of rough-hewn blocks. In a matter of seconds they were at the door, which stood yawning.

She swiped her eyes and hurried through. The living room looked as if a madman had raged through. Maybe that was exactly what had happened. The priceless antique furniture lay toppled. Some had been smashed. One of the needlepoint chairs had a leg missing. Vases lay in bits on the parquet floor. Heavy, marble-topped tables lay like fallen trees.

She stumbled almost blindly onward, through the formal dining room, where a candelabra had been hurled through a window, into the kitchen where cupboard doors had been ripped from their hinges. The sounds of breaking glass reached her and she turned, glimpsing the door she hadn't noticed. It hung open wide with a stairway that could only lead to the cellar. The sounds came from the darkness below, and a hand of ice choked her. She had no idea where Eric's coffin was, but if she'd had to hazard a guess she would have guessed the cellar. She approached the door.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump so suddenly she almost fell down the stairs. Jamey's other hand steadied her. "I called the police," he told her softly.

"Good. Stay by the front door and wait for them, okay?"

He looked up at her, but didn't agree. He remained at the top, though, as she slowly descended the stairs. Her foot on a different surface told her when she'd reached the bottom. The air was thick with blackness and the strong aroma of spilled wine. Glass shattered and she forced herself to move toward the sounds. "Curtis!" She shouted his name and the noise abruptly stopped. She stood still. "Stop it, Curt. Just stop it—this is crazy."

She waited while her eyes adjusted to the dark. She finally made out his shape. It grew clearer. He stood near a demolished wine rack, and he held a double-bitted ax. Broken bottles littered the floor around him. He stood in puddles of wine. The rack's wood shelves hung in splinters.

"Get the hell out of here, Tammy. This isn't your business. It's between me and Marquand!" He lifted the ax again.

Tamara threw herself at his back, latching onto his shoulders from behind to keep him from doing more damage. He dropped the ax to the floor and reached back, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her from him. She stumbled, hit the wine-soaked floor, but scrambled to her feet again. She faced him, panting less from exertion than fear. "The police are on their way, Curt. You'll wind up in jail if you don't get out of here, right now."

He reached for her so fast she didn't have a chance to duck. He grabbed the front of her coat, bunching the material in his fists. He whirled her around, and slammed her back against what once had been the wine rack. The back of her head hit a broken shelf and red pain lanced her brain. "Where is he, Tammy?"

She blinked, feeling her knees weaken. She pressed her hands to the wall behind her for support, then she froze. She felt a hinge beneath her palm. This was no wine rack. It was a door. What the hell would a vampire want with wine, anyway? Why hadn't she guessed sooner? And when would it hit Curt?

She sucked air through her teeth. "He's not—here."

The back of his hand connected with her jaw, and his knuckles felt like rocks. "I said, where is he? You damn well know and you're damn well going to tell me."

Involuntarily a sob escaped. Tears burned over her face. Curtis let go of her coat, but gripped her shoulders. "Christ, Tammy, I don't want to hurt you. You're under his control, dammit. You'll never see him for what he is until he's gone. If I don't do it, he'll kill us all."

She faced him squarely and shook her head. "You're wrong!"

"He's not even human," he told her.

"He's more human than you'll ever be!"

Curt's hand rose again, but it was caught from behind. "Leave her alone," Jamey shouted.

"What the hell?" Curt looked back, shaking Jamey's grip away effortlessly. Then he turned on him. "You little—"

"Curtis, no!" But before he could hit the boy, Jamey lowered his head and plowed into Curt's midsection like a battering ram. Both went down in a tangle of arms and legs and broken bottles. Tamara grabbed Curt's arm and tried to pull him away.

"Hold it right there!" A strong light shone down the stairs, and footsteps hurriedly descended. A police officer took Tamara's arm and pulled her away, while another lifted Curt, none too gently, then bent over Jamey. "You all right, son?"

"Fine. I'm the one who called you." He pointed an accusing finger at Curtis. "He broke in... with that." He angled his finger toward the ax on the floor.

The cop whistled, helping Jamey to his feet, and turned back to Curt. "Izzat right?" He took Curt's arm and urged him up the stairs, while the second officer herded Tamara and Jamey ahead of him. At the top, in the better light, her officer tugged her into the living room and told her his name was Sumner.

"You the owner?"

"No. I. . . he's out of town and I was keeping an eye on the place for him," she lied easily. Jamey stood aside, not saying a word.

"I'll need his name and a number to reach him." He'd pulled a stereotypical dog-eared notepad from his pocket. "He's en route," she said. "But he should be back tonight."

He nodded, took down Tamara's name, address and phone number, then bent his head and frowned, his eyes fixed to her jawline. "Did he do that?"

Tamara's fingers touched the bruised flesh. She nodded, and saw anger flash in the officer's green eyes. "I need to take Jamey home, and... get myself together. I know you need a full statement, but do you think I could come in later and give it to you then?"

He scanned her face, and nodded. "You want to press assault charges?"

"Will it keep him jail overnight?"

He winked. "I can guarantee that."

"Then I guess I do." The officer nodded, took Eric's name down and advised her to have herself looked at by a doctor. Then he went into the dining room and spoke to his partner. Moments later Curds was led toward the front door with his hands cuffed together behind his back.

"You'll regret this," he repeated again and again. "I'm a federal officer."

"One without a warrant, which in our book makes you just another breaking and entering, vandalism and aggravated assault case." Sumner continued lecturing as they went out the door and along the driveway.

Jamey looked to be in shock. Tamara went to him and ran one hand through his dark, curly hair. "You have guts like I've never seen, kiddo." He looked up but didn't smile. "I hate to admit it, Jamey, but I'm awfully glad you were here with me."

A smile began beneath hollow eyes. "What's going on? Why did Curtis want to kill Eric?"

She looked at him, not blinking. "A lot of reasons. Jealousy might be one, and fear. Curt is definitely afraid of Eric." She wouldn't lie to Jamey. She wasn't certain why, but he was a part of all of this. "Eric is different—not like everyone else. Some people fear what they don't understand. Some would rather destroy anything different, than learn about it." He still looked puzzled. "Do you know about the Salem witch trials?" He nodded. "Same principle is involved here."

Jamey sighed and shook his head, then grew calmer, and got the adult expression on his face that told her he was thinking like one. "Fear what's different, destroy what you fear."

She sighed, awed at the insight of the child. "Sometimes you amaze me." She walked with him out the door, and pulled it closed. She propped the gate with a big rock, so it would at least look like a deterrent. "You think it'll be all right until I get back?"

Jamey frowned at her. "I don't have any more weird feelings jumping in and out of my brain, if that's what you mean." He smiled fully for the first time.

"You know, Jamey, you probably saved my life in there. If you hadn't called the cops. . ." She shook her head. "And you likely saved Eric's, too, as well as his friend, Roland."

He looked back at the house, with one hand on the car door.

"They're in there, aren't they?" He didn't wait for an answer. "They would've helped us, but they couldn't. If Curt had found them, he'd have killed them."

He didn't ask Tamara to confirm or deny any of it. He just slid into the car and rode home in silence.

Tamara told Kathy the bare facts, while trying to gloss over the worst of it. Jamey envisioned a break-in at a friend's house. He and Tamara arrived just in time to prevent it. The suspect was in custody and all was well with the world. Tamara kept the bruised side of her face averted, and made excuses to hurry off without coming inside for a visit. Kathy Bryant, while flustered, took it all in stride.

Tamara arrived back at Eric's front gate a little after 5:00 p.m.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Eric opened his eyes and slowly became aware of the smell of dirt surrounding him. He rested in an awkward position, not upon his bed of satin but on the rough wood floor of the secret room beneath it. He frowned, his head still cloudy, and squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He recalled the sudden sense of danger that had roused him from the depths of his deathlike slumber to a state hovering near wakefulness. He'd automatically flexed his forefinger on the hidden button, dumping himself into this place. He was safe and the feeling of mortal danger had passed.

Eric stood on the small stool, placed here for just such a purpose, and reached above him to the handle on the underside of his mattress. He pulled downward, then reached higher to release the lock on the lid. A moment later he swung himself over, landing easily on the floor. He attuned his senses, felt no threat and moved across the room to the coffin Roland had set upon a bier. He tapped on the lid, not surprised when Roland emerged from a concealed door in the bier itself, rather than through the polished hardwood lid.

He straightened, brushed at his wrinkled clothing. "What in God's name has been happening?"

"I'm not certain." Eric stood motionless. "Tamara is here."

Roland too, concentrated. "Others have been. Three-no, four others. Gone now."

Nodding, Eric unlocked the door. They moved quickly through the darkened passage, and Eric unlatched and pushed at the wine rack that served as its entrance. It gave a few inches, then jammed. He shoved harder, forcing it open. Both men took pause when they stepped into the cellar.

The electric light bulb above glowed harshly. What had been a well-stocked wine rack was now a shambles, with only a bottle or two remaining intact. The aroma assaulted Eric, pulling his head around until he saw the plastic pails on the floor, filled to the brim with broken glass and bits of wood. An old push broom and a coal shovel were propped against one pail. The floor beneath his feet was damp with wine. Another scent reached Eric's nostrils and he whirled, immediately spotting the slight stain on the wall near the hidden door, and knew it was blood. Tamara's blood.

He flew up the stairs then, and through the house, skidding to a halt when he entered the parlor.

Tamara lowered the two far legs of a heavy table to the floor. She ran her fingers over the chipped edge, sighed deeply and bent to retrieve an old gilded clock. She brought the piece to her ear, then placed it gently on the marble table. Eric took in the scene around her, realizing she'd already righted much of it. She turned slightly, so he saw the dark purple skin along her jaw, and picked up a toppled chair, setting it in its rightful place.

"Tamara." He moved forward slowly.

She looked up at the sound of his voice, and rushed into his arms. He felt her tears, and the trembling that seemed to come from the center of her body. No part of her was steady. He closed his arms as tightly as he dared around her small waist, and held her hard. Roland had stepped into the room and stood silently surveying the damage.

"Who is responsible for this?" Eric stepped back just enough to tilt her chin in gentle fingers, and examine her bruised face.

"It was. . . it was Curtis, but Eric, I'm all right. It isn't as bad as it looks."

Eric's anger made the words stick in his throat. "He struck you?" She nodded. He reached around to touch the back of her head gently, and knew when she winced that he'd found the cut. "And what else?"

"He. . ." She looked into his eyes and he knew she'd considered lying to him, then realized it would be useless. "He shoved me against the wall and I hit my head, but I'm fine."

He sought the truth of that statement, probing her mind, wondering if she was truly all right.

"Must have come through here like a raging bull," Roland remarked.

"I've never seen him so angry," Tamara said.

"Nor will you ever see it again." Eric let his arms fall away from her and took a single step toward the door. Roland blocked his path quickly and elegantly. Eric knew he had little chance of moving his powerful friend aside.

"I believe we should hear the tale before any action is taken, Eric."

Eric met Roland's gaze for a moment, and finally nodded. "Remember, though," he said. "He was warned what would happen if he harmed her." Eric turned to Tamara, and noted that as she came to him her gait was wobbly. He slipped his arms around her and helped her to the settee. Roland left the room, and returned in a moment with one of the remaining bottles. He took it to the bar, poured a glassful and brought it to Tamara.

"Take your time," he said softly. "Tell it from the start." He sat in an undamaged chair, while Eric stood stiffly, waiting, wishing he could reach the bastard's throat in the next few seconds.

Tamara sipped the wine. "I guess the start isn't all that bad. I convinced Daniel to drop the research. He agreed when I told him I'd leave forever if he didn't."

Eric frowned. "He agreed?"

"Yes, and that's not all. I asked him to meet you, talk to you. I want him to see you the way I do, and know you would never hurt me. He agreed to that, too."

Eric sat down hard. "I'll be damned—"

"I'm not at all convinced this is a good idea," Roland said. "But I'll leave that for later. Go on with the story, my dear."

Eric saw Tamara sip again, and her hand on the glass still wasn't steady. He sat closer to her. "When Daniel told Curtis he was dropping the research. Curt was furious, but defiant. He said he'd continue with or without Daniel's help. Daniel told him to drop it, or lose his job at DPI. Curt left madder than ever. . . but I still never thought he'd come here."

Eric frowned and shook his head. "How did you know?"

"It was Jamey, the boy I work with. He's something of a clairvoyant, though it's a weak power except where I'm concerned. He knew your name, Eric. He picked up on my nightmares, too. He called me, frantic, and when I picked him up he insisted we come here. He said someone was trying to kill you."

Eric glanced up at Roland, and both men frowned hard. Tamara, not noticing, went on with her story.

"When we got here I heard Curt down below, smashing things. Jamey called the police and I went down to stop Curt. I was terrified your resting place was down there somewhere." She closed her eyes, and Eric knew she had truly been afraid for his life. "I told Jamey to stay by the front door, but he came down, too."

"Stubborn lad," Roland observed.

Tamara's eyes lit then, and her chin came up. "You should have seen him. He charged Curt like a bull, took him right to the floor when Curt tried to hit me again."

"Was the boy injured?" Again it was Roland who spoke. Eric was busy watching the changing expressions on Tamara's face, and reading the emotions behind them. It changed again now, with a silent rage. He felt it rise up within her, and its ferocity amazed him. He hadn't known she was capable of a violent thought.

Her voice oddly low, she said, "If Curt had hurt Jamey, I'd have killed him."

Eric shot a puzzled glance toward Roland, who seemed to be studying her just as intently. Tamara seemed to shake herself. She blinked twice, and the fire in her eyes died slowly. "The police arrived then. I pressed assault charges. He'll be in jail overnight, so you'll have time to regroup." She placed a hand on Eric's arm. "I'm sorry the police got involved. They expect both of us to show up tonight, to give statements."

"I should be angry with you, Tamara, but not for calling the police. For risking your life. You could have been killed."

"If he'd killed you, I'd have died, anyway. Don't you know that yet?" As she spoke she leaned into his embrace, and settled her head on his shoulder. "You have to get this place fixed up. Curt will flash his DPI card around and get himself out by morning."

"Unfortunate for him, should he decide to give up the protection of a jail cell so soon."

"Eric, you can't ... do anything to him. It would only give those idiots at DPI more reason to hound your every step."

"You think I care?"

"I care." She sat up and stared into his eyes. "I intend to be with you from now on, Eric, wherever you go. I'd like it if we were free to come and go as we please, and I could visit Daniel from time to time. I want to enjoy our life together. Please, don't let your anger ruin it before it's even begun."

Her words worked like ice water on his rage. The points she made were valid, and while he still thought St Claire a moral deviate, he knew she loved the man. He glanced helplessly toward Roland.

"I wouldn't want to square off against her in a debate," he said dryly.

Eric sighed. There was no way in God's earth he could allow Curtis Rogers to get away with what he'd done. But he supposed he'd have to plot a fitting retribution later. There was no use arguing with Tamara. She hadn't a vengeful bone in her beautiful body—except where this boy, Jamey, was concerned. And that puzzled him.

"As for the gate and the door," he said, sensing her lingering worry for his safety, "I can make a few calls tonight and have a reliable crew here by first light."

"But he got in once, Eric," Tamara said.

"Dogs!" Roland stood quickly. "That would solve it. We'll acquire ten—no, twelve—of those attack dogs you hear about. Dobermans or some such breed. Tear a man to shreds."

"I think a direct line to the police department will be just as effective." Eric couldn't keep the amusement from his voice. Roland did possess a brutal streak. "An alarm that alerts the police the moment security is breached. I admit, I hate depending on them for security, but it will only be necessary until—" he stopped, and slanted a glance at Tamara "—until I think of something better. Meantime, why don't we visit the police station and get the unpleasantness over with. We may still salvage what remains of the night. I had such plans. . . ."

* * * * *

How he managed to make her laugh after what she'd been through tonight, she couldn't imagine. But he did. By the time they left the police station he was behind the wheel of what he referred to as her "oddly misshapen automobile," and she was splitting a side over his shifting technique.

The house had been restored to order as much as possible. Roland had left a fire blazing brightly, and a vase stood in the room's center, filled with twelve graceful white roses. A card dangling from one stem drew her attention. She lifted it and read, "My thanks for your earlier heroism, Roland."

She shook her head, and turned when she heard strains of music filling the room. Mozart again. "Your friend is certainly chivalrous."

"You inspire that sort of thing in a man," he told her.

She smiled and went into his arms. "What about these plans you mentioned earlier?"

"I thought you might like to dance."

She tilted her head back and kissed his chin. "I would."

"Oh, no. I couldn't possibly dance with you dressed like that."

She frowned, stepping away from him and looking down at her jeans and sweatshirt. "I admit, I'm not exactly elegant tonight, but—"

"I've a surprise for you, Tamara. Come." He turned her toward the stairs and urged her up them. He led her into the bedroom she'd seen before, and left her waiting inside the doorway while he lit two oil lamps. He turned to a wardrobe, gripped its double handles and opened it with a flourish.

Curious, she moved forward as he reached into the dark confines and removed a garment carefully, draping it over his arms. When he turned toward her Tamara's heart skipped a beat. It was something made for Cinderella. The jade-colored fabric shimmered. The neckline was heart shaped, the sleeves puffy and the skirt so fully flared she knew there must be petticoats attached. The green satin was gathered up from the hemline and held with tiny white bows at intervals all along the bottom, to show the frilly white underskirt.

Her mouth opened, but only air escaped. "It belonged to my sister," Eric told her. "She used to cinch her waist with corsets, but she wasn't as petite as you. I suspect it will suit you without them."

She forced her eyes away from the dress and back to him her heart tightening. "Your sister... Jaqueline. And you've kept it all this time."

"I supposed I am a bit sentimental where my little sister is concerned. She wore that gown the night she accompanied me to a performance of young Amadeus, in Paris."

Her eyes had wandered downward to the glittering silk, but snapped up again. "Mozart?"

"The same. She was not overly impressed, as I recall."

He smiled down at her. "I should like to see you in the gown, Tamara."

She gasped. "Oh, but I couldn't—it's so precious to you. My God, it must have cost a fortune to keep it so well preserved all this time."

"And no good deal of fuss, as well," he said. "But nothing is too precious for you, my love. It will make me happy to see you wear it. Do it for me."

She nodded, and Eric left the room. She was surprised, but didn't question it. She shimmied out of her own clothing, including her bra, since the upper halves of her breasts would be revealed by the daring neckline. She touched the dress reverently, and stepped into it with great care, terrified she'd rip it while putting it on. She slid her hands through the armholes, and adjusted the shoulders. "Eric!"

At her call he returned, and she presented her back to him. Wordlessly he tightened the laces and tied them in place. He took two steps backward, and she turned slowly to face him. His gaze moved over her, gleaming with emotion. He blinked quickly and shook his head. "You are a vision, Tamara. Too lovely to be real. I could almost wonder if you would disappear, should I blink."

"Does it really look all right?" It felt tight, and her breasts were squished so high they were fairly popping out of the thing.

Eric smiled, took her hand and turned her toward the wardrobe doors, which still stood open. She hadn't noticed the mirrors on the inside of the doors, but she did now. He left her standing there and turned to lift a lamp, better for her to see her reflection.

She caught her breath again. It wasn't Tamara Dey looking back at her. It was a raven-haired eighteenth-century beauty. She couldn't believe the transformation. And the dress! It was more like a work of art than a piece of clothing. She glanced gratefully up at Eric, then froze, and looked back toward the mirror again. "It's true! You have no reflection!"

"An oddity I still seek to solve, love." He closed the doors and took her hand. "Now, about the dancing. . ."

He led her back downstairs into the roomy parlor, thumbed a button and the piano sonata stopped abruptly. A moment later a minuet lilted from the speakers. Eric faced her, pointed one toe and bowed formally. Tamara laughed, picking up his thoughts. She dropped into a deep curtsy, imitating those she'd seen in movies. He took her hand and drew her to her feet.

"Look at me as we turn," he instructed moments later. "The eyes are as important to the dance as the feet."

She fixed her gaze to his, rather than keeping it on her bare toes peeping from beneath the hemline. She tried to imitate his pace as they circled one another.

"That's it." His voice was soft but his gaze intense as the flames in the hearth. "You're a quick study."

"I have an excellent teacher." She met him as he stepped forward, then retreated just as he did. "You must have danced with every beautiful girl in Paris."

His lips quirked upward. "Hardly. I always loathed this type of thing." He lifted her hand in his, high above their heads, placed his other hand on her buttocks and urged her to turn beneath their joined fingers. " Perhaps one needs the right partner."

"I know what you mean. I never liked dancing before, either, even in high school." She stopped abruptly.

"Now you've broken the rhythm. We shall have to begin again."

"No. I think it's my turn to be the teacher." She stepped away from him and hurried to the stereo, fiddling with buttons until she'd stopped the CD, and turned on the FM stereo. She scanned stations until she heard the familiar harmony of The Righteous Brothers on the oldies station. "Perfect." She went back to Eric, slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her body as close to his as the full skirted dress would allow. "This is the way my generation dances. . . when they find the right partner. Put your arms around my waist and hold me close." He did, and she settled her head on his shoulder and very slowly began to sway their bodies in time to "Unchained Melody."

"Your method does have its merits. Is this all there is to it? Certainly easily learned."

"Well, there are variations." To demonstrate, she turned her face toward him and nuzzled his neck with her lips. He moved his hands lower, cupping her buttocks and squeezing her to him. He lowered his head and nibbled her ear. "You're a quick study," she told him, repeating his compliment.

"I have an excellent teacher," he replied. He lifted his head slowly, moving his lips to her chin and then capturing her mouth with his. He kissed her deeply, leaving her breathless and warm inside. His hands at the small of her back, he bent over her and moved his tantalizing lips down the front of her throat to kiss her breasts.

She arched backward, her hands tangling in his hair. Her fingers nimbly loosened the ribbon and threaded in the thick jet waves. One of his hands came around her, to scoop a breast out of its satin confines and hold it to his mouth. He nicked his tongue over the nipple, already throbbing and hard, then closed his lips around it and suckled her roughly. She didn't realize he'd moved her until she felt her back pressed to a wall. She opened her eyes, forcing words despite the sighs of pleasure he was evoking. "Eric. . . what about. . . Roland. . ."

"He knows better than to interrupt." He had to stop what he was doing to speak, but he quickly returned to the business of driving her crazy with desire. When she strained against his mouth he responded by closing his teeth on her nipple. She shuddered with pleasure. He anchored her to the wall with his body and used his hands to gather the voluminous skirts upward in the front, no easy task. Nonetheless, he soon had them arranged high enough to allow his hands ample access to her naked thighs and the unclothed moistness between them.

His hand stilled when it found no scrap of nylon barring its way. She'd seen no need for panties, knowing instinctively where the night would lead. His fingers moved over her, opened her and slipped inside, stroking her to a fever pitch. When they finally moved away it was only to release his own barriers, and then his manhood, hot and solid, nudged against her thigh. His hands slipped down the backs of her legs, and he lifted her. He speared her with a single, unerring thrust, and Tamara's head fell backward as the air was forced from her lungs. That action put her breasts once again in reach of his mouth and he took advantage.

She locked her legs around his body, her arms around his neck, and she rode him like an untamed stallion. He drove into her, his hands clutching her buttocks like a vise and pulling her downward with every upward thrust. In minutes he trembled, and she hovered near a violent release. His teeth on her breasts clamped tighter, and rather than pain she felt intense pleasure. That other kind of climax enticed her nearer. Her entire body vibrated, her every nerve ending tensed at the two places where they were joined. Closer and closer he drove her, until she writhed with need.

Even when the spasms began, she craved more. "Please," she moaned, he fingers raking through his hair. It was all the encouragement he needed. She felt the prick at the tip of her breast, and then the unbearable tingling as he sucked harder. With his first greedy swallows she exploded in sensation, both climaxes rocking her at once. Her entire body shook with pleasure, even as she realized he'd stiffened, plunged himself into her one last time and groaned long and low against her heated skin.

As if his knees had weakened he sank slowly to the floor, taking her with him. He brought her down on top of him, still not withdrawing from her. He released her breast and cradled her to his chest, rocking her slowly. "My God, woman," he whispered into her hair. "You take me higher than I knew was possible. You thrill me to the marrow. Have I told you how very much I love you?"

"Yes, silently. But I won't mind if you tell me again."

His lips caressed her skin, just above her temple. "More than my own existence, Tamara. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you. I would die for you."

She licked her lips. "Would you meet with Daniel?"

He hesitated, and she felt the tightening of his jaw. "It will not change anything."

"I think it will." She lifted her upper body slightly, and regarded his face. "It would mean so much to me."

He cupped her head to pull her down to him again, buried his face in her hair and inhaled its scent. "If it is so important to you, I will do it. When you return to St Claire at dawn, tell him I'll come just after nightfall."

She found his hands with hers, and laced her fingers through his. "Thank you, Eric. It will make a difference. You'll see." She lifted her head and pressed her lips to his. "But I'll call him. I don't want to leave at dawn."

She felt his body stiffen and knew he'd argue the point. "Eric, they'll only keep Curtis overnight. What if he comes back here while you rest?"

"No doubt you'd like to meet him at the door with claws extended, my tigress. But I'll not have you in harm's way to protect me. What kind of man do you take me for?"

"You'd be defenseless if he found you during the day."

"Tamara, the workmen will be here at first light, and the repairs completed by noon. They will be under instructions to notify police of any intruders, and to arm the new security system before they leave. No one will disturb my rest."

"I'll leave when they do, then."

His eyes flashed impatience. "You will leave at dawn."

She shook her head from side to side. "I won't go."

"I won't have a woman taking my place in battle."

The harshness in his voice brought burning tears springing to her eyes. "I'm not just a woman. I am the woman who loves you, Eric. I'd sooner peel every inch of flesh from Curt with my nails and teeth than to let him near you during the day." A sob rose in her throat, but she fought it down. "You don't know how I felt when I realized he was in here today.. that he might have already murdered you. My God, if I lost you now, I couldn't go on."

The hands that came back to her shoulders and nape were gentle, not angry. "And you do not know, my love, how I felt when I woke to find you had been beaten while I lay only a short distance away, helpless to defend you. How could I bear it if I woke to find you murdered in my own home?"

"But that would never happen. Curt couldn't really hurt me. He only acted so crazy because he cares so much."

Eric's long fingers caught her chin and turned her slightly, so his eyes could scan the bruise. "And I suppose this is a token of his undying esteem."

"He was in a rage. He regretted it as soon as he realized what he'd done."

"No doubt he'd regret killing you the instant the deed was done, as well."

"But he wouldn't—"

"My love, you trust too freely, and too deeply. As much as I hate being forced to do so, I can see I must give you an ultimatum. You will leave here at dawn, or I will not meet with St Claire. And before you agree, with the intent of stealing back here as I rest, you should be aware that I will sense your presence. I know when you are near, my love." His voice softened, and he touched the skin of her cheek with his fingertips.

She blinked away the stupid urge to cry. One tear spilled over despite her efforts, and he leaned up to catch it with his lips. "Do you truly wish to spend what remains of this night bickering?"

She shook her head, unable to sustain her anger. He only wanted to protect her, just as she wanted to protect him. She understood his motivations all too well. She lowered her head until her pliant lips had settled over his coaxing ones, and she tasted the salt of her own tear.

* * * * *

Eric stood in the doorway long after she'd driven out of sight, heedless of the growing light in the eastern sky. "Stand gaping like that another five minutes and you will be there permanently, my love struck friend." Roland came around Eric, shoved the heavy door closed and eyed the broken lock. "I suppose your men will arrive within the hour to repair that?"

Eric nodded mutely.

"For God's sake, man, snap out of it!"

Eric started, glanced at Roland and grinned foolishly. "Isn't she something?"

Roland rolled his eyes ceiling ward, and shoved a glass into Eric's hand. "You're whiter than alabaster. You haven't been feeding properly. The few sips you allow yourself are no doubt sweet, Eric, but not enough to sustain you."

Eric scowled at Roland's rather crude observation, but realized he was right. He felt weak and light-headed. He drained the glass, and moved to the bar to refill it.

"Tell me," Roland said slowly. "Has anything been decided?"

"Such as?" Eric sipped and waited.

"You know precisely what I refer to, Eric. The decision to be made. Has our lady voiced an opinion?"

"You cannot think I'm considering passing my curse on to her."

Roland sighed hard. "When did you begin seeing immortality as a curse?"

"That is what it is." Eric slammed the glass down on the polished hardwood surface. "It's been unending hell for me."

"And what kind of hell has it been these past days, Eric?" Eric didn't answer that, knowing Roland had a valid point. "I thought to save your life two centuries ago in Paris, not curse it. Eric, I live in solitude because it is the only way for me. I had my chance at happiness centuries ago, and lost it. I don't expect another. But you... you are throwing yours away."

Eric bowed his head and pressed his fingertips to his eyes. "I don't know if I could do it to her." He heard Roland's sigh and raised his head. "I have made one decision, though. I've agreed to meet with St. Claire."

"You can't be serious."

"Quite serious. It means a great deal to Tamara that St Claire be reassured of her safety. She seems to think I can accomplish that by talking with the man. I have my doubts, of course, but—"

"The only thing to be accomplished by such a meeting is your destruction. Think about it, Eric. Wittingly or not, Tamara has lured you into the spider's web, just as St Claire planned from the start. Once in, there will be no escape."

Eric stood silent, contemplating Roland's words. The idea that the whole meeting scheme might be a trap had niggled at him since Tamara had first broached the subject. Of course, he knew she was no part of it. And if it was a trap, what better way to show Tamara the true nature of those she trusted? Providing, of course, he was able to escape.

Reading his thoughts, Roland bristled. "And suppose you prove this valuable point to the girl, and lose you own life in the process?"

"I won't. I can't, for Tamara's sake. Without me she'd be as she was before. At their mercy."

Roland grimaced. "At the moment, my friend, I fear it is you who are at hers."

Eric smiled. "I can think of no place I'd rather be."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As the sky glowed with the rising sun, Tamara peered into Daniel's bedroom. He lay atop the covers, fully dressed, snoring loudly. A half-empty bottle was on its side, on the floor near the bed. The cover wasn't screwed on tightly. Moisture dotted the neck and a few drops of whiskey dampened the worn carpet. A glass lay toppled in an amber puddle on the bedside stand.

She frowned as she moved silently into the room, picked up the bottle and the glass, and retreated again. What was driving him to drink himself in oblivion every night? In all the years she'd known him she'd never seen Daniel drink more than a glass or two at a time. She'd never seen him drunk. She returned with a handful of tissues and mopped up the spills, then dropped a comforter over Daniel and tiptoed away. Something seemed to be eating at Daniel-something more than just the knowledge that she was spending her nights with his lifelong enemy.

She forced the troubling thought out of her mind, determined to concentrate only on the good things to come. Tonight Daniel and Eric would meet. She had no doubt they'd become friends, in time. And Curtis would see reason. He may have lost his head for a time, but he was intelligent. He'd recognize the truth when it was staring him in the face.

The future loomed up before her for a moment as she soaked in a steamy, scented bath. Like a giant black hole, with a question mark at its center, it hovered in her mind. She ignored it. She had all she could deal with at the moment, just trying to keep the present running on an even keel. She'd worry about her future later, when things settled down.

Her plan was to bathe, put on fresh clothes and drive back to Eric's to see if the workers had arrived as he'd promised. With the brilliant sun, glinting blindingly off the snow outside, came physical and emotional exhaustion. She fell asleep in the bath, quite against her will, and for once she didn't sleep soundly. Her dreams were troubled and her sleep fitful. She saw herself old, with white hair and a face deeply lined. Then the dream shifted and she saw a cold stone marker with her name engraved on its face. She saw Eric, bent double with grief, standing beside it, surrounded by bitter cold on a bleak wintry night.

She woke with a start, and realized the now-cold water around her body might have aided in the seeming vividness of the dream. Still, she couldn't shake the lingering images. "It doesn't have to be that way," she said aloud, and firmly. And she knew she was right. Eric had explained to her what it meant to be what he called Chosen. She could be transformed. She could be with him forever. The thought rocked through her, leaving her shaken like a leaf in a storm. She could become what he was.

She pressed a palm to her forehead, and shook herself. Later. She'd consider all of this later. It was more than she could process right now. She toweled herself vigorously, to rub the cold water's chill from her goose-bumped flesh, and dressed quickly. A glance at the clock near her bed chased every other thought from her mind. Noon! By now Curt could have.

She took the stairs two at a time, shocked into immobility when she reached the bottom and saw Curt, comfortable in an over staffed chair, sipping coffee. Daniel, now awake and sitting with Curt, rose, and she felt his bloodshot gaze move over her still-damp hair and hastily donned clothing.

His gaze stopped at her bruised face, and he spun around to glare at Curtis. "You did that to her?"

He looked at the floor. "You don't know how bad I feel, Tammy. I'm sorry—more sorry for hurting you than I've ever been for anything in my life. I was out of my head yesterday. I— Can you ever forgive me?"

She stepped down from the lowest stair and moved cautiously toward him, scanning his face. She saw nothing but sincere remorse there. He met her gaze and his own seemed to beg for understanding. "I'm still afraid for you," he told her. "I'm afraid for all of us, but—"

"I know you're afraid, Curtis, but there's no reason to be. If Eric had meant to hurt you, he'd have done it by now. Don't you see that? In all the months you two have harassed him, he's never lifted a hand against either of you."

Daniel cleared his throat and came closer to the two of them, forming a circle that seemed intimate. She noticed he'd shaven and taken pains to dress well, in a spotless white shirt and knife-edged trousers, brown leather belt and polished shoes, a dark blue tie held down with a gold clip. Did he want to keep his excessive drinking a secret, then? How could he think she'd not know?

"I have to admit," he began, "it's damn tough for me to consider that I might have been wrong all this time, after the lengths I've gone to." She saw him swallow convulsively and blink fast before he went on. "As scientists, Curtis, we have to consider every possibility. Because of that, and because I love Tamara, I'm going to give the man the benefit of the doubt."

"I can't believe you're going to meet with him, Daniel," Curtis blurted, shaking his head. "But I suppose if you've made up your mind—"

"Has he agreed, Tam?" Daniel interjected.

She nodded, glancing apprehensively toward Curtis.

"Tonight? Here, and not long after dark? He agreed to all of it? I'm not about to meet him anywhere else, even with all your assurances."

"I didn't have to tell him your preference to meet here." She spoke defensively, before she could stop herself. "He suggested that himself."

Daniel nodded, while Curtis let his head fall backward, and stared at the ceiling. Blowing a sigh, he brought his gaze level again. "Okay, if this is unavoidable, then I want to be here."

"No!" Tamara barked the word so loudly both men jumped. She forced her voice lower. "After yesterday, Curt, I don't want you anywhere near him."

Curt blinked at her, his eyes going round with apparent pain. "You don't trust me?" He searched her face for a long moment, then sighed again. "I don't suppose I can blame you, but. . ." He let his gaze move toward Daniel, but his words were addressed to Tamara. "I hope to God you're right about Marquand."

"I am," she told him. "I know I am." She glanced toward the door, recalling her hurry to leave. She still wanted to check on the repairs at Eric's even though it now seemed Curt had come to his senses. "I have to go out for a while."

Curt caught her arm as she turned. "You haven't said you forgive me for being such an idiot yesterday." His gaze touched her bruise, then hopped back to her eyes. "I feel sick to my stomach when I think of what I did."

She closed her eyes slowly. She wanted no more anger and hard feelings. She wanted nothing bad to interfere with her happiness. "It's been a tense week, Curt. I knew you didn't mean it. I forgave you almost as soon as it was over."

"You're one in a million, Tam."

She hurried away, glad to be alone behind the wheel of her Bug and headed toward Eric's house.

She found two pickup trucks and a van lining the roadside. Young, muscular men worked in shirt sleeves, despite the snow on the ground. She pulled her car to a stop behind the van, and settled into the seat more comfortably. She wasn't planning to leave here until she knew the place was secure. Despite Eric's threat, she knew he wouldn't stay angry with her.

Twice during her vigil she felt her eyelids drooping, and forced them wider. She got out and walked in the biting winter air to stay awake. The crews didn't pack up to leave until well after four-thirty. In an hour the sun would begin to fade, and Eric would wake. Still she waited until the last man had left, gratified to see him look suspiciously at her car before he drove away. She was certain he'd jotted the plate number. Eric had said they were dependable. He was right. Then she pulled away, too. She wanted to have time to change into something pretty and perhaps do something new with her hair before Eric arrived for his talk with St. Claire.

She knew something was wrong with her first glimpse of Daniel's frowning face. "What is it?" She hurried toward him, not even shedding her jacket or stomping the clinging snow from her boots. "Tell me. What's happened?"

"I'm sure it's nothing. Tam. I don't want you to get worried until we know for su—"

"Tell me!"

Daniel looked at the floor. "Kathy Bryant called about an hour ago."

"Kathy B—" Tamara's throat went dry, and her stomach felt as if a fist had been driven into it. "It's Jamey, isn't it?"

Daniel nodded. "The school officials claim he left at the normal time, but. . . he never made it home."

"Jamey? He's missing?"

* * * * *

Jamey sat very still, because it hurt when he tried to move. His arms were pulled tightly behind him, and tied there. A blindfold covered his eyes and there was some kind of tape over his mouth. It felt like duct tape, but he couldn't be sure.

He'd left school to walk home just as he always did, cutting through the vacant lot behind the drugstore. Someone had grabbed him from behind. A damp cloth had been held over his nose and mouth and Jamey had known it was chloroform. He hadn't recognized the smell or anything, but he'd seen enough movies to know that's what they hold to your nose and mouth when they grab you from behind. Never fails. Chloroform. It stank, too. He'd felt himself falling into a black pit.

Now he was here, although he had no idea where here was. He couldn't see, and he could barely move. He assumed he was inside, because of the flat, hard surface he sat on and the one at his back. A floor and a wall, he guessed. He was in an old kind of place, because he could smell the old, musty odors. Inside or not, though, it was cold. Breezes wafted through now and then and he felt no kind of warmth at all. He was glad he'd zipped his coat and pulled on his hat when he'd left school. He sure couldn't have done it now. He couldn't do much of anything now.

Except think. He'd been thinking a lot since he had come around and found himself here. Mostly what he thought about was who had grabbed him. He'd felt a clear sense of recognition flash through his mind the second the guy-and he was sure it had been a guy—had grabbed him. He'd been on the brink of total recall when the chloroform had got to him. If he'd had just a few more seconds.

But maybe it would come to him later. Right now his main concerns were two—his empty stomach, and the dropping temperature.

* * * * *

Tamara listened, numb with worry, as Daniel related the details of Jamey's disappearance. He'd left school to walk home at three-thirty. His mother had been over his route, as had the police, and found nothing. His friends had been questioned, but nothing of any use was learned.

She knew she should remain where she was and wait for Eric. He could meet Daniel when he arrived, and then she'd explain what had happened and ask him to finish the talk another time. He'd help her find Jamey. Rationally she knew that would be the wisest course of action. But her emotions wouldn't allow it. Despite Kathy Bryant's lack of panic when Tamara phoned her, she felt it building within her own mind. Kathy had the assurances of the police, who saw this type of thing all the time, that Jamey would turn up safe and sound within a few hours. But Tamara had her own, sickening intuition that something was terribly wrong. When she closed her eyes and tried to focus on Jamey she felt nothing but coldness and fear. She had to find him, and she couldn't wait. He was cold, afraid and alone, and. . . .

"I can see you want to go, Tam," Daniel said, placing a gentle hand on her arm.

She shook her head. "I can't. Eric will be here before long, and I know how nervous you are."

He shook his head. "To tell you the truth, I was thinking it might be better for the two of us to have a private talk. You go on, go see to the boy. I'll explain to Marquand when he gets here."

She hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Go on," he repeated.

She hugged his neck. "Thank you, Daniel." She pressed her trembling lips to his leathery cheek. "I love you, you know."

She whirled from him and rushed to her car, then changed her mind and took his, knowing he wouldn't object. It would be faster.

She got the same story when she talked to Kathy face to-face. The poor woman seemed to grow more concerned each time she glanced at the clock. Her confidence in the official prediction that Jamey was perfectly all right must be fading, Tamara thought.

Tamara ignored the gathering darkness, knowing Eric would soon meet with Daniel, and probably come looking for her as soon as he was told the reason for her absence. She wasn't worried about his ability to find her. He'd know where she was without thinking twice. She wished her psychic link to Jamey was that strong. If she could just close her eyes and know. She shook her head. She couldn't, so why waste time wishing? She spent some time in his bedroom, going through things to see if there was a note or some clue. . . knowing all the while there wouldn't be. He hadn't left of his own accord. Her link was strong enough to tell her that much.

She had Kathy draw her a map of his usual route home, and she went to the school, parked the car and walked it, all of her mind honed for a hint of him. The police had been over the path he would've taken, and found nothing. Kathy had, as well, but Tamara felt certain she would find something they'd missed. . . and she did.

Something made her pause when she began to walk along the sidewalk past the drugstore. She stopped, lifted her head and waited. Her gaze turned of its own accord to the lot behind the store, a weedy, garbage-strewn mess that any parent would forbid her child to cross. Just as Kathy had probably forbidden Jamey. Yet she detected a meandering path amid the snowy brown weeds, broken bottles and litter. From her bag she pulled the flashlight she'd asked Kathy to lend her, and checked the hand-drawn map. To cross the lot would save several minutes of his walk home. She folded the map and pocketed it, aimed the beam and moved along the barely discernible path. Little snow had managed to accumulate here, and the wind that whipped through constantly rearranged what there was.

Bits of paper and rubbish swirled across her path as she moved behind the flashlight's beam. Crumpled newspaper pages skittered, and a flat sheet of notepaper glided past. She sought footprints but saw none and knew that if there'd been any the wind would have obliterated them by now. Pastel bits of tissue blew past, and then a tumbling bit of white that looked like cloth. She frowned and followed its progress with the light. Not cloth. Gauze. A wadded square of gauze.

The breeze stiffened and the scrap tumbled away. She chased it a few yards, lost sight of it, then spotted it again. She picked it up, careful to touch only a corner of the material, and that with her nails. She turned it in the beam of light. It hadn't been used on an injury. There was no trace of blood anywhere. Slowly, like a stalking phantom, the odor made its way into her senses. She wrinkled her nose. Was that. . . ?

"Chloroform," she whispered, but the word was lost in the wind.

* * * * *

Eric walked up the front steps of the St. Claire's house and pressed the button to announce his arrival. He shuffled his feet as he waited, and frowned when no one answered the door. He'd told himself repeatedly that he could handle whatever hinds of surprises St. Claire might have in store. Still, his mind jangled with warnings. He pressed the button again.

"I tell you something is amiss!" Roland came from his hiding place among the shrubbery and stood beside Eric at the door.

"And I told you to stay out of sight. If he sees you, he'll be convinced we've come here to murder him."

"Have you not noticed, my astute friend, that no one answers the bell?"

Eric nodded. "Patience, Roland. I'll summon Tamara." His brows drew closer as he honed his sense to hers, but he felt no hint of her presence within the house. The wind shifted then, and the unmistakable scent of blood came heavy to them both. Eric's startled gaze met Roland's, and then both men sprinted around the house, toward the source.

They paused in the rear, near an open window with curtains billowing inward. Without hesitation Eric leapt onto the ledge and then over, dropping lightly to the floor inside. The smell was all-encompassing now, and when he glanced around the room he had to quell the jarring shock. St. Claire lay sprawled on the floor, in a virtual pool of his own blood. It still trickled from a jagged tear in his throat, but from the look, there was little left to flow.

"Decided to join my party, Marquand? You're a little late. Refreshments have already been served, as you can see."

Eric glanced up and saw Curtis Rogers standing in a darkened corner. "You," he growled. He lunged at the man, but Curtis ducked his first attack, flinging something warm and sticky into Eric's face. Blood. And he'd tossed it from a glass. Automatically Eric swiped a sleeve over his face, and an instant later he had the laughing little bastard by the throat. A sharp jab stabbed into his midsection. Not a blade, he thought. It was. . . Oh, hell, a hypodermic.

He flinched at the pain but caught himself, withdrawing one hand from Curtis's throat, clenching it into a fist and smashing it into his face. Rogers went down, toppling a table on the way, breaking a lamp. Eric walked toward him, aware now that. Roland had come inside. He felt his friend's hand clasp his shoulder from behind.

"It's a trap, I tell you. We must go, now, before—"

"No!" Eric shook Roland's hand free and took another step toward the man on the floor, who made no move to get away. Suddenly Eric knew why. A wave of dizziness assaulted him. He fell to one knee as Rogers scurried backward like a crab. He felt his mind grow fuzzy, and his head suddenly seemed too heavy to hold upright.

Vaguely he felt Roland gripping him under the arms. He saw Rogers get to his feet and pull another hypodermic from somewhere. He tried to mutter a warning, but couldn't hear his own slurred voice. Roland let him go with only one hand when Rogers approached. He backhanded the bastard almost casually. Curtis sailed through the air, connecting with a bookshelf before slumping to the floor amid an avalanche of literature. Even drugged, Eric marveled at Roland's strength.

"He's drugged you, Eric!" Roland's voice came from far away. "Fight it, man. Get up."

He tried, but his legs seemed numb and useless. Roland lifted his upper body and half dragged him to the window. Eric knew his thoughts. He suspected Rogers would have an army of DPI agents, possibly all armed with syringes of this new drug, converging on the place at any moment. Yet in his hazy mind all Eric could think of was Tamara. Why wasn't she here? Could she bear the grief of losing St Claire this way? My God, she adored the man.

But she was here! His mind was suddenly pummeled with her aura. He tried to call out to her, but Roland was already pulling him through the window. "Nnno," he tried to say, unsure if he'd actually made a sound.

As Eric felt himself pulled to the ground he heard her steps, and the opening of a door. He lifted his head and tried to see her. He did. She appeared unfocused, a blurry silhouette, but her eyes found his and connected, just for an instant. Then they moved downward, and he heard her agonized screams.

"Have . . . to . . . go . . . to her."

He slumped into unconsciousness as Roland carried him away.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Tamara felt the shock like a physical blow. She'd glanced up automatically when she'd opened the library door. She'd felt Eric's presence like a magnetic force on her gaze. She'd seen him. He'd looked at her briefly, and his face had been smeared with something red. She'd glimpsed scarlet stains on his normally pristine-white shirt cuff, as well, before he'd moved away from the window. She let her puzzled gaze travel downward, drawn there by some inner knowledge she couldn't credit. The scream of unbridled horror rose in her throat of its own volition when she saw the spreading pool beneath Daniel's body. the gaping rent in his throat.

She threw herself to the floor, heedless of the blood, and drew his limp head into her lap, stroking his face as her vision was obscured by tears and her mind went numb, unable to face reality. She mumbled soft words of comfort, unaware of what she said. Her mind slipped slowly, steadily from her grasp.

Curt's hands on her shoulders gripped hard, and shook her. He said something in short, harsh tones, but she refused to hear or acknowledge. "Call an ambulance," she told him with the slurred speech of a drunken person. "He's hurt, he needs help. Go call an ambulance."

"He's dead, Tamara." He released his hold on her, and tried instead to move Daniel's head from her cradling arms. She clung to him more tightly, closing her eyes as her vision cleared. She didn't want to see. "He's dead," Curt repeated loudly.

She kept her eyes closed and shook her head. "He's only hurt. He needs—"

Curt's hands closed on either side of her face, tilting it downward. "Look at him. Open your eyes, dammit!"

The increased pressure made her comply and she found her gaze focused on deathly gray skin, suited, already glazing eyes and the ragged tear in Daniel's jugular. She shook her head, mute, her mind trying to go black. Her body slowly went limp and Curt jerked her to her feet the moment she relaxed her grip on Daniel. She slipped and nearly fell. When she looked down she saw that the floor was wet with blood. Her clothing soaked in it, Daniel's body drenched. Insanity crept closer, its gnarled hands gripping her mind and clenching.

"I told you this was how it would end."

She blinked and looked at him.

"You saw him yourself. Tam. It was Marquand. When I heard Daniel scream I kicked the door in. I couldn't believe what I saw. Marquand was... he was sucking the blood out of him. I jumped on him, but he'd already severed the vein—tore it right open. Daniel bled to death while I fought with Marquand."

Her face blank, she looked again toward the window, recalling her fleeting glimpse of Eric. the blood on his face. No. It wasn't true, it couldn't be. Mentally she cried out to him, closing her eyes and begging him to tell her the truth, to deny Curt's words. He didn't respond. His silence drove her beyond control, and while she felt curiously detached, she watched as a blood-soaked woman wearing her body gave way to insanity. She tore at her clothing, raking her own face with bloodied nails, tore at her own hair and screamed like a banshee. Curtis had to backhand the woman twice before she crumpled to a quivering, sobbing heap on the floor. He left the room, but returned in a moment and injected her with something. The proportions of the room became distorted, and voices echoed endlessly. She had to close her eyes or she knew she would be sick.

When she opened them, the unmistakable glint of early morning sun slanted through her window and across her bed. Her head throbbed, but she was clean and dressed in a soft white nightgown. Her face hurt, and a glimpse in the mirror showed her another deep purple bruise complementing the one on her jaw. This one rode high on her cheekbone. She shook her head, dropped the hand mirror onto the stand and slipped from the bed. The bruise came from Cult's knuckles, landing brutally across her face when she'd lost her mind last night. But none of that had been real, had it? It hadn't really happened.

Silently she moved through her doorway, over the faded carpet in the hallway and down the stairs. All the way she kept thinking it had been a nightmare, or a delusion. She stopped outside the tall double doors to Daniel's library, and paused only a moment before she pushed them open. Her eyes moved directly to the carpet in the room's center. A pungent, metallic odor reached her at the same instant she recognized the bloodstains, and saw the masking-tape outline of Daniel's body.

"Tammy?"

She turned and looked up at Curt, wondering why she was so numb. Why wasn't she wailing with grief? Daniel was dead.

"Honey, I don't want you to let yourself be consumed with guilt. You had no way of knowing he was using you all along. The bastard must have planned this for months. Even Daniel believed him."

That's right, she reminded herself. Eric had never loved her. He'd seduced her. He'd used her to get to Daniel and then he'd brutally murdered a helpless old man. She'd practically caught him in the act. Hadn't she?

No. It isn't possible. I can't believe. . . I won't believe it.

"This has to be handled delicately and quickly," Curt went on, apparently unaware of her jumbled thoughts. "DPI doesn't want any local cops poking around."

She blinked, searching her brain for rational thought. . . logic. "But he was murdered."

"It's going down as a heart attack."

She looked back to the bloodstained carpet and shook her head. "A heart attack?"

"Our own forensics team will take care of Daniel. He's being cremated this morning. . . on the premises, right after Rose Sversky has a look at him. We'll have a memorial service this afternoon."

Tamara frowned at the mention of DPI's top forensic pathologist. Dr. Sversky's patients were kept in cold storage in a sublevel lab. She closed her eyes as she thought of sweet Daniel down there.

"I hate to leave you on your own, Tam, but there's a lot to do. We want to move fast before anyone has a chance to ask any questions. Word of this leaks out, By ram will turn into a circus. Be at St. Bart's at two for the service."

The telephone shrilled as Tamara tried to digest what he was telling her. There would be no burial in a grave she could visit. Daniel would be reduced to ashes within the next few hours. He'd been ripped from her so suddenly, so violently she felt nothing now but shock. As if she'd lost a limb.

Curt turned toward the phone in the living room, ignoring the closer one in the library. "Stay out of there for now. Tam. A cleanup crew will be here this afternoon."

Oh, yeah, she thought. DPI's good old "cleanup crew." When they finished you wouldn't be able to find a blood cell with a microscope.

Cleanup would be more aptly named cover-up, but what the hell? Curt's voice cut through the dark shroud over her heart. "No, Mrs. Bryant, I'm afraid Tamara isn't up to a phone call just now, but I will pass along the—"

She bolted at the sound of "Bryant," and jerked the phone out of Curt's hand before he could finish the sentence. How, even with all that had happened, could she have forgotten about Jamey? "Kathy? I'm right here. Is there any... There isn't?" She sighed in dismay when she learned Jamey still hadn't been found. She listened as the woman poured out the frustrations of a long, sleepless night. When she finally began to run out of steam Tamara cut in. "I'm going to find him, Kathy. I promise you, I will. I'll check in later, okay?"

She closed her eyes and stood still for a long moment after she hung up. A moment ago she'd wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after her. She'd wanted to sit in a corner and cry until she died. Now she had a purpose to keep her focus. For today, she would do her utmost to find Jamey Bryant. Tonight she would go to Eric and hear what he had to say. She wouldn't believe he'd killed Daniel until she heard it from his own lips. She couldn't believe it. . . nor could she deny what she'd seen with her own eyes. So she'd give credence to none of it, for now. For now, she'd simply focus on Jamey, and hopefully remain sane long enough to sort out the rest.

Curt was behind her as she moved toward the stairs. "So to anyone who asks, it was a heart attack. Don't forget. The only people who know the truth are Hilary Gamer—she came over and helped get you into bed last night—and Milt Kromwell, Daniel's immediate superior. And, of course, Dr. Sversky. Are you sure you'll be all right?"

She nodded, wanting nothing more than to get started doing something that would absorb all her concentration. She was upstairs and in her room dressing before Curt's car left the driveway. She checked her jacket pocket when she pulled it on, and nodded when she felt the bit of gauze still there.

* * * * *

Jamey knew it was morning because he felt the sunlight gradually warming his stiff body. Thank God for the sleeping bag. He'd have frozen to death for sure if it hadn't been for that. The creep had shown up in the middle of the night with the bag, and slipped it up over him. He'd brought a ham sandwich, too, and a cup of chicken soup and some hot chocolate. He'd untied Jamey's hands so he could eat, but the blindfold had stayed put. He had ripped the tape off so roughly it had felt to Jamey as if his lips were still attached to it. Something cold and tubular had been pressed to his temple and a gruff, phony voice had rasped close to his ear, "One sound and I blow your head off. Got that, kid?"

He'd nodded hard. He fully believed Curtis Rogers would do it. Any guy who'd slug a woman the way Curds had slugged Tamara wouldn't give a second thought to blowing away a kid. And he knew it was Curtis now. He hadn't seen him, or heard him speak without the phony voice, but he knew. So he'd nodded like a good little hostage and had eaten his soup without seeing it. He had been allowed to relieve himself in a pail before he was tied again, arms behind him just like before, tape back over his mouth.

Damn, he hated that tape. After Curt had left, sometime during the long, cold night, Jamey's nose had started to clog up. He'd felt sickening panic grip him. How would he breathe if his nose clogged up and he had tape over his mouth? One thing was sure, Jamey didn't intend to spend another night here to find out. Curt had rasped that he'd be back in the morning, so Jamey would wait. He had a plan. It wasn't much of a plan, he figured, but it was better than nothing.

He didn't have to wait long. Before the sun had been shining very long, Curtis showed up with another cup of cocoa and a cheese Danish from a fast-food joint. He didn't say much this time, and Jamey didn't have the nerve to ask questions. He ate, did his business and sat calmly while he was retied and taped. But when Curt left this time, Jamey's senses were honed like razors. He listened carefully, memorizing the sounds of Curt's steps across the floor as he left. He waited then, just to be sure Curt wouldn't come back. Then he slid himself across the floor in the direction Curt had gone. He humped and slithered on his rear end. His feet pointed the way. He bent his knees and pulled himself along by digging his heels into the floor. He made good progress, too, until he hit a wall.

He sat there, confused for a moment. Then he realized there must be a doorway. Not a door, since he hadn't heard one open or close. But there must be a doorway. He wriggled around until his back was to the wall so he could run his hands along it as he humped sideways. He figured he'd worn his pants down to the thickness of tissue paper and implanted about a hundred slivers in his backside by the time his hands slipped off the flat wall and into empty space.

The doorway! He'd found it!

He was so excited he didn't even bother turning around again. He just pushed off with his feet and went backward through the opening. . . and into space.

Not a doorway, you idiot, a stairway. Oh, damn, a stairway. . . .

* * * * *

Rose Sversky was a tiny sprite of a woman with short white hair in a close-to-the-head haircut and Coke-bottle glasses. She looked as if she'd be more at home cutting cookies than corpses. Tamara sat in a hard chair amid the organized chaos of chrome and steel and sheet-draped tables, painfully aware that one of those tables had supported Daniel's body only hours earlier. Maybe only minutes earlier.

Dr. Sversky handed the bit of gauze, now safely encased in a plastic zipper bag, across the desk to Tamara. "You were correct about the chloroform. Unfortunately, gauze is a poor receptacle for fingerprints. I couldn't find a hint of who took him." Tamara sighed hard and swore, but Rose wasn't finished. "There was a small trace of blood. Most likely the boy's though I can't be certain without something to compare it to. Do you know his type?"

Tamara frowned. "No. It's probably in his records, but it'll be easier just to ask his mother. I'll get back to you. It's funny, though, I didn't see any blood."

"I don't think you could have without a microscope. It was just a trace. Probably bit his tongue when he was grabbed." She sat silent behind her huge desk for a long moment, then reached across it to cover Tamara's hand with her own. "I'm sorry you're going through so much at once, dear. Daniel was a good man. I'll miss him."

Tamara blinked. She hadn't wanted to think about Daniel now. . . here. Still, she couldn't keep her gaze from jumping to the nearest table. "You're doing the death certificate, aren't you?"

"Yes. I've fixed them before, and I imagine, as long as I stay with DPI, I'll fix them again."

"It doesn't bother you, changing a cause of death from something as violent as this to a simple heart attack?"

Rose frowned. "Actually, unless anyone's already heard the rumor, it's going down as an accident." Tamara looked up and Rose hurried on. "It's always better to stick as close to the truth as possible. When I found that blow to the back of the head, I figured we might as well use it as the cause of death."

Tamara stared at her. "I wasn't told about any blow to the head."

Sversky removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I hope it eases your mind to know this. He was hit with a blunt object hard enough to render him unconscious before the laceration to the jugular. He probably never even felt it." She shook her head. "I've never autopsied a victim of—of a vampire attack before. It's nothing like I thought. You always see two neat little puncture marks on victims in the movies. This was—" She broke off and shook her head. "But you don't need to hear about that."

No, Tamara thought. She didn't need to hear it because she'd seen it. She rose slowly, thanked Rose Sversky and left. As she rode up in the elevator her fingers touched the tiny marks on her neck. They were barely noticeable now. She frowned as the doors opened on the ground floor, and she walked out to the Cadillac as if in a daze.

She'd wasted most of the day talking to people who lived along Jamey's route home from school, and more of it waiting while Rose Sversky examined the gauze pad. Mechanically she drove home, showered and changed into a black skirt with a white silk blouse Daniel had bought her one Christmas. As she did, her head pounded and her heart ached. She wanted so badly to find some answer to Daniel's death other than the obvious one. Her mind kept offering hopeful hints as reasons to doubt Eric's guilt, but she had to wonder if she was only seeing what she wanted to see. The fact that Curt claimed to have heard Daniel scream, and kicked the door in to see Eric biting him, was in conflict with what Rose had said about Daniel being unconscious when his jugular was slashed. But Curt might be confused, or might have heard Daniel scream just before he was knocked out. The fact that Eric would not need to cause such a bloody mess could be valid, or perhaps he'd just been as cruel as possible in eliminating his tormentor.

Eric? Cruel? Never.

She did what she could to repair the ravages of emotional upheaval with a coat of makeup, then went to the church in downtown By ram and sat in the front pew for a brief, pat sermon. It was, she figured, an all-purpose sermon they kept on hand for people whose names remained on the rolls but who'd given up attending services long ago.

When it was over she sat with a plastic smile firmly in place, and accepted condolences of all in attendance. Mostly co-workers, she noted. Daniel's work had been his life. It would have been more appropriate to hold the service in his office, or his basement lab.

When it was over. Curt came to her, took her hands and drew her to her feet. She'd been aware of him sitting a few seats away and watching her pensively all through the service. "Going home?" he asked.

She nodded. "I'm exhausted. I don't think any of this has sunk in yet."

"How's the hunt for the kid progressing?"

She sighed. "It isn't. I'm going to ask Kromwell to get the FBI involved. He has friends there."

"So do I," Curt said quickly. "Why don't you let me do that for you?"

Her eyes narrowed briefly. His smile seemed false, somehow. Then again, hers probably did, too. Hers was false. "Okay. I'll take any help I can get." She swallowed as the uneasiness she felt niggled harder. "It was sweet of you to stay with me last night, Curt. But if you don't mind, I'd kind of like to be alone tonight. I need. . . to sort things out. Do you understand?"

He nodded. "Call if you need me." He leaned over, pressed a brief kiss on her lips and squeezed her shoulders. She watched him leave, and pulled on her jacket. She was headed for the door herself when a soft hand on her arm stopped her. She turned, and at the sympathetic look on Hilary's face she instantly burst into tears.

Hilary hugged her hard and they stood that way until Tamara had cried herself out. She felt cleansed, and was grateful for a friend she could cry with. Hilary dabbed at her own damp eyes. "You know if you need anything. . ."

"I know." Tamara nodded, and swiped her wet face with an impatient hand.

"Is there any word on the little boy?"

Tamara met Hilary's doe eyes and felt another good cry coming on. She sniffed, and fought the fresh tears. "No, nothing yet. I found a piece of gauze with traces of chloroform on it near the spot where he was last seen. There was a trace of blood, too, and I'll be able to confirm it was his as soon as I check with his mother about his type."

"Why would you have to do that?"

Tamara only frowned.

"You're telling me you don't know James on Bryant's blood type?"

"No, I don't. I suppose it's in his records, but—"

"I guess it's in his record. It was one of the first things put in his records. It's the same as yours, Tamara. That Belladonna thing. I can't believe you didn't know."

"Belladonna?" Tamara couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Hilary, how do you know this?"

"I was the one who got the order to enter all of his medical records into DPI computers under level one. I remember thinking that was pretty high for simple medical records, but—"

"Who gave the order?"

Hilary frowned. "I don't know, it came down through channels. Look, I probably shouldn't be discussing any of this with you, Tam. I mean, it is filed under level one, and your security clearance "

"Isn't high enough," Tamara said slowly. Tamara left then, with Hilary frowning after her. She got into the car and drove away from the church, barely paying attention to traffic. "He has the antigen," she mumbled to herself. "Does he have the lineage, too?"

"Of course he does. That's why his psychic link with me is stronger than with anyone else."

Whoever ordered those records at level one deliberately classified them beyond her security clearance, she realized slowly. They didn't want her to know.

"But they knew. They knew we were close and they knew that if Jamey was in trouble, I'd go after him." She blinked fast. "Jamey was taken to get me out of the house. . . and then Daniel was murdered."

Eric could never harm a little boy. Besides, Jamey had been taken in broad daylight. Eric hadn't killed Daniel. But someone had. . . someone with access to level one data. Someone who wanted it to look like the work of a vampire. "And someone who knew about the meeting between Daniel and Eric," she whispered. She bit her lip. "Curtis?"

She almost missed the driveway. She hit the brake and jerked the wheel. She killed the engine near the front door, got out to run inside, and locked the door behind her. "My God, is it true? Was Curt angry enough to murder Daniel?" She pressed her fingertips to her temples. "What on earth has he done with Jamey?"

She swallowed a sob and ran up the stairs to Daniel's room. She found his keys in a matter of minutes and hurried back down-with them, jangling in the silent house like alarm bells. She didn't hesitate at the basement door. If she did, she'd never go down. She inserted a key, turned it and shoved the door open.

It was still only late afternoon. Outside, the sunlight glinted off the surface of the snow so brightly it was painful to see. Here a dark chasm opened up at her feet. She couldn't even see the stairs. Yet the answers to all her questions were likely a few steps below her. She had no choice but to go down.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jamey shook his head to clear it, but it only brought excruciating pain. He'd been out cold. he knew he had, but had no idea how long. He was on his back and his arms, still tied behind him, had gone completely numb. He tried to sit up, and the pain that knifed through his chest was like nothing he'd ever felt. He thought it would tear him in half. He stopped with his body half sitting up and half lying down. But remaining like that hurt still more so he drew a breath to brace himself, and that sent more pain through him.

Grating his teeth, he shoved himself farther up, relieved when he felt a wall to his right. He leaned against it, then sat still and let the pain slowly recede. It didn't go far. As the blood rushed into his arms, they throbbed and tingled and prickled unbearably. He'd have yelled if he could, but the tape remained over his mouth. His eyes were still covered, and his ankles still bound. His lungs felt funny, and it was more than just the stabbing pain that hurt every time he inhaled. They felt the way they feel after you go swimming and get a little bit of water in them. He kept having the urge to cough, but he was terrified to give in to it. If he coughed, with this tape over his mouth, he'd probably choke to death—especially if that weird feeling in his lungs was what he thought it was. He thought it felt as if something were sticking right into his chest. A blade, a sharp edged board he'd hit on the way down, something like that. And he thought that whatever kept trying to choke up into his throat might be blood. If it was, he knew he was in a lot of trouble.

* * * * *

She flung the file to the floor in disgust, and turned to leave the small office she'd discovered. She hadn't even made it to the lab itself, which she suspected lay beyond the padlocked door to her right. She needed no more of the revelations she'd found here. In Daniel's files she'd found what he'd termed "case studies." In truth these were detailed accounts of the capture and subsequent torture of three vampires.

Two had been taken in 1959, by Daniel and his then partner, William Reinholt. The pair were described as "young and therefore not as powerful as we'd first assumed." They were "relieved of a good deal of blood to weaken them, thus assuring the safety of my partner and myself. However, they were unable to sustain the loss, and expired during the night." Another study noted was of a woman who called herself only Rhiannon, and who was "entirely uncooperative, hurling insults and abuse constantly." Due to their last efforts, they took less blood from her, leaving her too strong to deal with.

Daniel returned to the lab after hours of "tests and study" to find his partner dead, his neck broken, the bars torn from the window and the "subject" gone.

Tamara felt like cheering for the mysterious Rhiannon. She felt like crying for the man Daniel had been. A monster, just as he'd told her. She hadn't realized just how accurate that confession had been.

She stopped herself from leaving, as appalling as she found the notes. She had to continue scouring the files if she wanted to find a clue as to where Jamey had been taken. She hoped to God there was one to find. She was beginning to think this her last chance. She had a terrible certainty in the pit of her stomach that if she didn't find Jamey soon, it would too late.

She returned to the file cabinet and pawed through more files. There was none with Jamey's name on it, but she halted, her blood going cold, when her fingers touched one with her own. Slowly she withdrew the file. It was thicker than any of the others. Something inside her warned her not to open it and look inside, but she knew she had to.

Moments later she wished she hadn't. Thumbing through the pages, she'd paused when she'd seen her parents' names on one, her eyes traversing a single passage before they became too blurred to read farther.

It has been decided that I should seek to gain custody of this child. She will act as a magnet for Marquand and possibly others of the undead species. The parents, as expected, refuse to cooperate. They are, however, expendable, and of less value than the countless lives which will be saved if this experiment bears fruit. A rare viral strain has been chosen. Their exposure will be carefully contained. Death will occur within twenty-four hours.

"No," she whispered. "Oh, God, no. . ." The file fell from her nerveless fingers and sheets spread over the floor. Tamara gripped the edge of the open file drawer, her head bowed over it. Daniel had killed her parents. For a moment she conjured their images in her mind, ashamed that they were blurred and indistinct. She barely remembered them. Her memories of them, too, had been stolen from her. Daniel's refusal to discuss them. . . to allow her to keep mementos of them. . . his constant advice that her mind didn't want her to remember, that she was better off forgetting.

She drew several short, panting breaths, and forced her eyes open. She blinked the tears away and glimpsed the polished grips of a handgun, protruding from beneath the files in the drawer. Just as she reached for it a hand closed on her shoulder and pulled her backward.

She whirled. "Curtis!"

His narrow gaze raked her, then the open drawers and scattered files. "Been doing a little exploring, Tammy?"

Why had she doubted Eric, even for a second, she wondered silently. Why hadn't she gone straight to his home when she realized it must have been Curt who killed Daniel? He'd have helped her find Jamey. But it was too late for hindsight now. There was still an hour before full dark. And she still had to know where the boy was. "What have you done with Jamey, Curt?"

His brows shot up. "You have been busy. What makes you think I took the kid?"

She shook her head. "I don't think, I know. Where is he?"

"He's safe. Don't worry, I wouldn't hurt the kid. . . right away. I'd like to study him a little. Later. When I've finished with you and Marquand. Does that reassure you?"

She shook her head so hard her hair billowed around her like a dark cloud. "If you hurt him, Curtis, I swear to God—"

"You'd be better off worrying about yourself, Tammy." He took a step nearer her and she backed up. He took another. So did she. In a moment she realized he'd backed her up to the padlocked door. She stiffened. He pulled a key from his pocket, held it out to her. "Open it."

She shook her head again. "No."

"You want to see the kid, don't you?"

"Jamey?" She glanced furtively over her shoulder at the door. "He's in there?"

"Where else would I put him?"

Relief washed over her and she snatched the key from him, stabbing it into the lock and twisting. When it sprang free she jiggled it loose and shoved the door open. If she could just get to Jamey, she thought, they would be all right. It would be dark soon, and Eric would come for them. She moved into the darkened room. "Jamey? It's Tam, I'm here. It's all right... Jamey?"

The door closed and her heart plummeted when she heard locks being slid home. A flick brought a flood of light so brilliant she had to squint to see. She scanned the room, certain now that Jamey was not here. There was a table in the room's center, with straps where a person's ankles and wrists would rest, another at the head. Beside the table a chrome tray lined with gleaming instruments. Above it, a dome-shaped surgical lamp. She swallowed hard against the panic that rose within her. Beside it was the sickening realization that this was the room where the two young vampires had died at Daniel's hand, and where Rhiannon had been tortured to the point of a murderous rage before she'd made her escape.

She turned to face Curtis when she heard his approach, and in an instant he gripped her upper arms mercilessly. He pushed her backward, oblivious to her feet kicking at his shins, or her thrashing shoulders. When her back hit the table she sucked in her breath. "My God, Curt, what are you doing?"

He brought her wrists together, held them in one hand and reached for a bottle with the other. He twisted the cap off with his teeth, then held it under her nose. She twisted her head away from the frighteningly familiar scent, but her mobility was limited and his reach was long.

When her head swam and her knees buckled he set the chloroform down and shoved her roughly onto the table. A moment later she found her ankles and wrists bound tight. She blinked away the dizziness, then averted her face fast when he held pungent smelling salts to her nose.

"That's a good girl. Don't go passing out on me, now. It would defeat the whole purpose." She tried to bring the whirling room into focus, relieved when it stopped tilting and spinning. "You can summon him mentally, am I right?"

She pursed her lips, and refused to look at him.

He gripped her chin and made her face him. "Don't answer me, Tammy. I'm betting that you can. We'll soon find out, won't we?" He read her expression correctly and smiled. "You think I'm afraid of him, Tammy? I want you to call him. When he gets here, I'll be ready and waiting."

She shook her head. "I won't do it."

Curtis smiled slowly and Tamara felt a cold chill race up her spine. "I think you will," he said, bending over her to fasten the strap over her forehead, leaving her virtually paralyzed. "I think you'll be screaming for him to come by the time I'm finished." He reached to the tray, and she tried to follow his movements with her eyes. He lifted a gleaming scalpel, looked at it for a long moment, then twisted his wrist to glance at his watch. "Another twenty minutes ought to do it, honey."

* * * * *

Eric went completely rigid in his coffin as a shock of pain shot through him. Eyes wide with sudden alacrity, he flicked the latch and flung the lid back. He was on his feet in a moment, brow furrowed in concentration. He focused on Tamara. He called to her. He waited for a response but felt none.

For a brief instant he wondered if it was possible she believed what Rogers had intended she believe—that he had murdered her beloved St Claire. He dismissed the notion out of hand. She knew him too well. She was fully aware she need only look into his mind to know the truth. She wouldn't believe his guilt without giving him a chance to explain. Which was why he'd fully expected to find her waiting upstairs when he rose this evening. Instead, he sensed only emptiness. No doubt she was beside herself with grief, but he would not allow her to shut him out. He'd help her through, whether she wanted him to or not. Again he called to her. Again he received no response.

Roland rose with his usual grace, but when Eric glanced at his friend he saw an unfamiliar tension in Roland's face. He ceased his summoning of Tamara to ask, "What is it?"

"I am not sure." Roland visibly shook himself. "Have you had word from our Tamara?"

"She doesn't heed my call."

"Go to her, then. She may be out of sorts after last night, but I have no doubt she'll see the truth when you tell it. If you—" He stopped, cocking his head to one side as if listening. "Damnation!"

Eric cocked one brow, waiting for an explanation, but Roland only shook his head. "I'm still uncertain. I shall go out for a time, see if I can puzzle it out. Will you be able to manage this on your own?"

"Of course, but—"

"Good. Give my regards to our girl."

Roland spun on his heel and left as Eric watched him go, wondering what on earth was the matter. Shrugging, he returned his concentration to Tamara. Why do you ignore me, my love?

He felt no reply, then suddenly another spasm of pain shot through him, stiffening his spine. He blinked rapidly, realizing the pain must be hers in order to make itself so completely known to him. Tamara! If you refuse to answer, I will come to you. I must know what—

No!

Her answer rang loudly in his head, and he frowned. You are in pain, love. What has happened to you?

Nothing. Stay away, Eric. If you love me at all, stay away. Again, intense, jarring pain hit, nearly sending him to his knees, and he knew someone was deliberately hurting her. Rogers?

"I should have killed the bastard the first time I set eyes on him." He fairly ripped the door from its hinges in his haste to get to her. He gained the stairs, and then the frigid night air. His preternatural strength gave him the speed of a cheetah, and beyond. He raced toward her, and would have gone right through the front door had not a quavering train of thought pierced his mind. It's a trap, Eric. Stay away. Please, stay away.

He paused, his heart thudding, not with exertion but with rage and fear for Tamara. A trap, she'd said. He used his mind to track her down, then moved slowly around the house, seeking another way in. He finally knelt beside a barred window, obscured from view by shrubbery.

Tamara lay strapped to a table beneath a blinding light. Her blouse had been sliced up the center, as had her brassiere. She still wore a dark skirt. Her feet were bare. Hot pink patches of tissue oozed blood the way a sponge oozed water, in various spots over her torso. One was on the breast from which Eric himself had tasted her blood. Another, at the same spot on her throat. Rogers had amused himself by taking tissue samples, Eric realized. He now stood aside, laying a prod like instrument down and picking up what looked like a drill.

"Even that baby didn't make you call him, huh. Tam? Well, I have other tricks in my bag. I could really use a bone marrow sample." He depressed the trigger, and the drill whirred. He release it, held it poised over her lower leg. "What do you say. Tammy? Do you call or do I drill?"

Tamara's face was deathly white. Her jaw quivered, but she looked Rogers in the eye. "Drop dead," she rasped.

Shrugging, Rogers lowered a pair of plastic goggles over his eyes and lowered the drill. With a feral growl Eric smashed the glass and ripped the first bar he gripped free of the window. In a second he was inside.

"Eric, no! Go away, hurry!" Her voice was unrecognizable. The stringy bark of an ancient cherry tree, the voice of sandpaper.

Eric lunged for Curtis, who dropped the drill and lifted something that looked like an odd sort of gun. Too fast, the dart plunged into his chest. He jerked backward, gaping like a fish out of water, and fell to his knees. He gripped the dart, pulled it from his flesh and held it up, looking first at it, and then beyond it, at Rogers's triumphant leer. The drug. He'd been expecting a syringe, not a gun. He forced himself to his feet and took an unsteady step toward Rogers. "You. . . will. . . die for this," he gasped. He took another step, then sank into a bottomless pool of black mists.

* * * * *

Roland moved in the night like a shadow, speeding over darkened streets, then stopping, listening and moving on. Ever closer to the boy. The faint sense of the boy had niggled at him since he'd arrived on Eric's doorstep. But it had been so faint he'd barely been aware of it, much less able to pinpoint the source. Naturally, he understood that the Chosen usually "connect" only with a single vampire. He was the only one who'd sensed Eric as a child. Others would have recognized him, had they encountered him, of course. But no others heard him calling. They didn't feel the pull. Just as with Tamara, Eric had been the one drawn. Roland felt her only through Eric.

This boy called out to someone. . . not to Roland. If he'd been summoning Roland the entire matter would have been so much simpler. As it was, with the faintest trace of a signal to go by, and the boy not even aware of transmitting it, he'd be lucky to find him in time.

That was the hell of it, Roland thought as he paused again to try to feel the signals the child was sending. They grew weaker with each passing moment. The knowledge that the child's life was ebbing overlapped the pull of him like an alarm sounding in Roland's head—like one of Eric's security contraptions. If only his sense of the boy was clearer! If only the boy was reaching those invisible fingers out to him instead of someone else—someone who apparently wasn't listening. Roland hadn't known it was possible for one of his kind to ignore the desperate cries of a child, a child likely to expire before this night's end.

* * * * *

Eric opened his eyes and found himself strapped to the same table Tamara had previously occupied. His hands, feet and head were bound just as hers had been. Unlike her, he was still fully clothed. No doubt the bastard had been uncertain how long his drug would be effective, and was unwilling to risk personal injury. He hadn't wanted Eric waking until he was fully restrained. . . as if these measly straps would make a difference. Eric pulled against them, shocked when the effort left him limp and even dizzy.

He's drawn vials of blood from you, Eric. It's why you 're so weak.

The explanation came to his mind from Tamara's, and with it a lingering pain, a weak, shaken feeling and utter desolation. He wanted to see her, but couldn't turn his head. He tried to attune his groggy senses to hers and they finally began to sharpen. He knew Curtis was still in the room. It was why she hadn't spoken aloud.

What has the bastard done to you?

Nothing so terrible, came the weak reply. I'll be all right.

I feel your pain, Tamara. I cannot see you, and keeping things from me only frightens me further. Tell me. Tell me all of it.

He felt her shudder, as if it had passed through his own body. He. . . took little patches of skin. It burns, but the scrapes aren't deep. He drew blood from me, too.

Eric sensed her pain, certain there was more. The jolts of pain he'd felt earlier hadn't been caused by superficial abrasions. He had an instrument when I arrived—a rod shaped device he brandished over you. What was it?

She hesitated for a long moment. It is. . . charged. . . with electricity.

Rage flooded through Eric. He would kill Curtis Rogers for this, he vowed silently, even as Tamara continued. He killed Daniel. He wanted me to believe it was you, but I could never believe that. He's taken Jamey, Eric. I don't know what he's done with him—

Her thoughts ceased abruptly with Curtis's approaching footsteps. He leaned over Eric. "Finally awake? Drug didn't last quite as long as I'd hoped, but then, it's still experimental."

"You push me too far, Rogers."

"Not a hell of a lot you can do about it at the moment, is there? I am going to need some samples from you, too, you know. A little bone marrow, some cerebral fluid. Then we'll see just how much sunlight is bearable."

Eric felt the terror Tamara experienced as Rogers described his plans in explicit detail. He also felt the weakening effects of the drug waning. His strength began to seep back into his limbs.

"Curt, you can't do this to him. Please, for God's sake, if you ever cared about me, let him go."

Rogers stepped away from the table. Eric couldn't turn to look, but he knew the bastard was touching her. He felt her shiver of revulsion, and he heard the chilling words. "You haven't figured it out yet? I never did care about you. . . except as a research subject. A half-breed vampire, Tam. That's what you are. The only thing you're good for is scientific study. Oh, maybe you're good for a few other things, too. I intend to find out before I'm finished with you."

She sobbed involuntarily, and Eric jerked against his restraints. The movement brought Rogers back quickly. "Hmm, you're still a little too lively for my tastes," he drawled,rattling instruments on a tray. A moment later Eric flinched as a needle was driven into his arm. He felt the life force slowly leaving his body with every pulse of blood that rushed into the waiting receptacle. In moments he was sickeningly dizzy, and too weak even to flex his fingers. He felt himself slipping from consciousness. His heavy lids fell, and vaguely he heard Tamara crying, "Stop it, Curtis, please. My God, you're killing him. . . ."

* * * * *

Tamara struggled against the straps he'd tied around her, but it was useless. Her hands were bound behind the chair, her ankles tied to the chair legs. Her entire body pulsed with pain, due to the dozens of scrapings he'd taken from her skin. She was dizzy from the loss of the blood he'd drawn, and weak and shaken from the jolts of electricity he'd sent through her to try to force her to summon Eric. She'd refused, but it had done no good. Eric had felt her pain and rushed to her side. She should have known he would. He'd come to help her, and now all she could do was sit and watch while Curt drained the blood from him. Eric grew whiter and perfectly limp. Finally Curt removed the needle. He lifted Eric's eyelids and flicked a penlight at them, then nodded, satisfied.

She was surprised when Curt glanced at his watch, and then moved to close the shutters. "I think it will be safer to work on him during the day, don't you, Tam?" He brushed away the broken glass, seemingly unconcerned about the bar Eric had wrenched free. He turned to a cupboard, pulled out a fresh bottle and syringe, and Tamara flinched automatically. "Easy, now," he said softly. "I want to get a few hours' sleep. I know he isn't going anywhere, but I have to make sure you stay put, too, don't I?" He gripped her arm and sank the needle, far more deeply than was necessary, into her flesh. She stiffened, trying to resist the drowsiness that began creeping up on her. Curt let his hand move over her breasts before he drew away. She would have pulled her tattered blouse together if she'd been able to move her arms. His touch made her want to vomit.

"I hate you. . . for this," she managed, before she was unable to resist the lure of sleep any longer. Her head fell forward.

She had no idea how much time had passed when she lifted it again. The dark spaces between the shutters showed gray now, rather than black as before, so she feared dawn was approaching. Her arms ached from being pulled behind her, and her head throbbed so forcefully she could barely focus her vision.

When she did, she saw Eric lying exactly as he had been earlier, as pale and still as. No. She wouldn't complete the thought. He was all right. He had to be. She mustered all of her strength and hopped her chair toward him. "Eric. Wake up, Eric, we have to get out of here." That he didn't respond in the slightest did not deter her. She reached the table, and turned so her back was at his side. She bent almost double and strained her legs until she managed to lift the chair on her back. She groped with her fingers, felt his at last and gripped them. "Do you feel me touching you? Wake up, Eric. Untie me. Come on, I know you can do it. You wake enough to push your damned hidden button, you can wake enough to loosen a simple knot. Our lives depend on it, Eric. Please." She sucked in a breath when she felt his fingers flex. "Good. That's it." She angled her hand so the knot touched his fingertips, and continued speaking to him softly as she felt his fingers move. She knew it was a terrible effort. She felt the energy he forced into just moving his fingers. And then she felt the strap fall away from her hands, and she heard him exhale.

Instantly she bent and freed her feet. She stood, turned to Eric and reached down to release the straps that bound his ankles, then his wrists. When she bent over his head, releasing the final strap, she stroked his cool face with her palm. "Tell me what to do, Eric." She wanted to help him, but wasn't certain how. Hot tears rolled down her face to drop onto his.

His eyes fluttered, then remained open. "Go," he whispered. "Leave me. . ." The lids fell closed again. "Too late," he finished.

"No, it isn't. It can't be. Don't do this, Eric, don't leave me."

She caught her breath as a memory surged like a flash flood in her mind. In her imagination it wasn't Eric lying on the table. It was Tamara, a very young Tamara, small and pale and afraid. Her wrists were bandaged and she knew that the bandages wouldn't help. She was going to die. She felt it.

Until the tall, dark man had appeared beside her bed. She knew his face, even then. She didn't know his name, but it didn't matter. He was her friend. . . she'd seen him before, even though she'd pretended she hadn't. She sensed he, didn't want to be seen, and she didn't want to frighten him away. He used to come and look in on her at night. He made her feel safe, protected. She knew that he loved her. She felt it, the way you can feel heat from a candle if you hold your hand near the flame.

She was so glad to see him there with her. But sad, too, because he was crying. He stayed beside the bed for a long time, stroking her hair and feeling very sad. She wanted to talk to him, but she was so weak she could barely open her eyes. After a while he did something. He hurt himself. There was a cut on his wrist, and he pushed it to her lips.

At first she thought he wanted her to kiss it better, the way her mommy used to kiss her hurts sometimes. But as soon as the blood touched her tongue she felt something zap through her. . . just like when she'd touched the frayed wire on the lamp once. Except this didn't hurt and it didn't scare her the way that had. It zapped just the same, though, and all at once she knew he was giving her the medicine that would make her better, and she swallowed it.

She felt herself get stronger with every sip. A long time later he pulled it away, and wrapped a clean white handkerchief around his wrist. He slumped in the chair near the bed, and he was almost as white as the hanky. He felt weak and tired, and she felt strong and better. She knew she would be okay. And when she looked at him again, she knew his name. In fact she knew all about him, somehow. She sat up in bed, and listened as he told stories and sang lullabies. He was her hero and she adored him. It broke her heart when he finally had to go.

Tamara shook herself, and brushed at the tears. "I remember," she told him. "Oh, Eric, I remember."

His only response was a slight flicker of his eyes. His lips formed the word Go.

"Not without you," she told him.

"Too. . . weak." It cost him terribly just to utter the words. His face showed the strain. "Go on."

"Never," she whispered. "Not if I have to carry you on my back, not if I have to crawl, Eric. I'd sooner slit my own wrists than leave you here with—" She broke off there.

He forced his eyes open once more, and met her gaze. "No. You... too weak. . . could lose too. . . much." Ignoring him, Tamara brought her gaze to the tray, and snatched up a scalpel. "No. . ." He put as much force as he had behind the word. "Could. . . die—"

She grated her teeth and pulled the blade over her forearm. She forced the small cut to his mouth. Too weak to fight her, Eric had no choice but to swallow. Her blood flowed into him slowly, but with the samples Curt had already taken, she soon felt weak and dizzy. Her head swirled and the room slowly began to spin. Eric shoved her away from him, snatching up the strap that had bound her before, and jerking it tight around her arm, above the cut.

She vaguely heard the door open, just before she was jerked away from Eric. Curt spun her around and slammed a fist into her temple, sending her to her knees. Blinking slowly as the ceiling rotated above, she tried to see what was happening. Eric was on his feet. Curt was snatching a hypodermic from a shelf. He stood crouched and ready. Eric fell into a similar stance and they circled one another, wary, each ready for the other to spring.

She had to help Eric, she thought through a haze. He didn't stand a chance against Cult's new drug, and if Curt got the best of him this time, she didn't doubt he'd kill him. She couldn't just sit here and watch to see which of them was still breathing after this battle. Eric could not lose. It was that simple. If he did, they would both die here, in this chamber of horrors. And what would become of Jamey?

Unnoticed by either man, she slid backward across the floor toward the door Curtis had left wide. When she reached it she gripped the knob and hauled herself to her feet. Dizziness swamped her and she staggered, but with a desperate lunge she made it to the file cabinet, praying it was still unlocked. She heard something crash to the floor in the laboratory. She heard shattering glass and clanging metal. She yanked on the top drawer and it slid open. She reached inside, groping blindly as she looked over her shoulder, certain Curt would emerge at any second. Her hand closed on the smooth walnut grips and she slowly withdrew the handgun. Stumbling, she made her way back to the doorway. Curt's back was toward her. He stood between her and Eric, who was backed to the far wall, facing her. She thumbed the hammer back.

"That's enough, Curtis. Put the syringe down or— Curtis!" He lunged at Eric, making a sweeping attack with the syringe. Tamara's finger clenched on the trigger, and before she was aware of it, she'd shot twice.

Curt jerked like a marionette whose strings are tugged suddenly, then slumped slowly to the floor and lay still.

Eric slammed flat against the wall as if he'd been punched. Tamara saw the blood spreading across his chest, and then he, too, slumped to the floor.

"Eric!" she shrieked, and dropped the weapon. "My God, Eric!"

* * * * *

Outside an abandoned, crumbling building Roland paused. The boy's signal had been stronger than ever only a second ago. Now it had faded completely. Had the child died? In desperation Roland went inside, his night vision showing him the small form lying weakly against a wall.

He knelt beside the boy, a flick of his fingers snapping the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles. He took the blindfold away, and gently peeled the tape from pale lips. He gathered the child up in his arms and strode from the building, even as his senses sharpened to ascertain the problem.

The child was slipping into what modern medical people call shock, his blood pressure dangerously low, his skin cold and clammy. He was bleeding internally from a lung, punctured by a broken rib. He had a bruise on his brain—a concussion, that is—but Roland didn't believe that injury to be serious.

Cradling the child in one arm, he removed his cloak with the other, and quickly wrapped the boy in it. Warmth was vital. As was speed. He raced with the child to the nearest hospital. As they sped through the night the boy opened his eyes. "Who are you?" was all he said, and that softly.

"I'm Roland, child. Don't worry. You'll be fine."

"Eric's friend?"

Roland frowned. "You're Tamara's Jamey, aren't you?"

He nodded and settled a bit, then his eyes flew wide. "Is she okay?"

"Eric is with her," Roland replied.

They sped into the emergency room, and were immediately surrounded by nurses, with forms to be filled out and endless questions. One took the boy from him and placed him on a table. "Call my mom," Jamey said softly. Roland nodded, searching his memory for the child's last name. Bryant, he recalled Tamara saying. He went to the desk and asked for a telephone.

As he waited, he realized that Tamara must be the missing link. It was she the boy had been unconsciously summoning. She hadn't heard. She wasn't even one of them. Perhaps, though, she was meant to be.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Tamara fell to her knees beside Eric and pulled his head up. She thought he'd be dead. Her weakness and dizziness, as well as her sore arm, were ignored, beaten into submission by her grief. She was amazed when he spoke through clenched teeth. "It isn't the bullets, Tamara. It's ... the bleeding."

"Bleeding." She frowned. "The bleeding!" Of course. She remembered now that he'd told her how easily he might bleed to death. She shoved him flat and tore his shirt open with her right hand, then struggled to her feet. Weaving and dizzy, she made her way to the row of cupboards, ripping open three doors before she found rolls of bandages, gauze and adhesive tape. With her arms full, the left one still throbbing, she staggered back to him. Clumsily, one-handed, she wadded bunches of gauze to pack into the two small wounds. He grunted as she worked. He felt pain more keenly than a human would, so she knew this must be excruciating. Still, she made herself continue until it seemed the bleeding had stopped. She wrapped long strips around him to hold the gauze in place. She pulled them tight and taped them there.

Dizziness hit her anew, but Eric sat up and gripped her shoulders when she would have fallen. He made her sit beside him, and carefully he bandaged the small wound on her forearm, padding it thickly and then removing the strap he'd tied around her arm.

They helped each other to stand and slowly made their way out of the lab, around Curtis's still body and up the stairs. When they emerged outside into the paling light of the early predawn sky, Roland appeared in the driveway, and came toward them.

"I had a feeling you might need me. I can see I was mistaken." He eyed them both. "Rogers?"

"Dead," Eric said bleakly.

"I shot him." Tamara made herself say the words. "And my only regret is that he won't be able to tell me what he did with. . . with Jamey." Her voice broke, and she felt tears stinging her eyes.

"The boy is being attended now. I took him to the emergency room."

Tamara's head went up fast, and Eric's arm tightened around her. "Go to him, love. You need your arm stitched, anyway."

"I'm not leaving you until I know you're all right." She glanced up at the sky and frowned. "We'd better hurry or both of you will be in trouble."

Roland put a hand on her shoulder. "I give you my promise, child, that Eric will be as good as new by nightfall. We can make it to the house in less time than you could drive in your car. Go, see to the boy."

She looked up at Eric, and his arms closed around her. His lips, though pale and cool, captured hers and left them with a promise. "Go, love. Until tonight."

She nodded, and hurried to her car. She found a jacket in the back seat and zipped it on to cover her torn blouse before she left. There was nothing that could persuade her to go back inside that house. She noticed that Eric and Roland remained, watching until she drove out of sight, before they went their own way.

* * * * *

Hours later, her arm stitched and bandaged, the police's questions temporarily answered, her head mercifully clear, Tamara knelt before the fire in Eric's living-room hearth and added logs to the glowing embers. She felt safe here, knowing he was nearby. She hadn't felt this safe, she realized, since she'd been a child of six, in a hospital bed, clinging to the hand of a tall, handsome stranger, who wasn't a stranger at all.

When she'd absorbed enough heat to remove the chill from her body, she wandered to the stereo and slipped a CD into the player. Mozart's music filled the entire house, and Tamara moved from room to room, lighting every lamp. The day was beginning to wane. Night approached and she was too filled with anticipation to sit still and await it. She took her time in the downstairs bathroom, luxuriating in a hot scented tub. When she finished, she didn't resist the impulse that sent her to the bedroom upstairs for the dress he had given her. She put it on carefully, located a brush and stroked her hair to gleaming onyx. When she returned to her seat by the fire the sun rested on the horizon, about to dip below it.

* * * * *

In the hidden room beyond the cellar Eric looked down at his torn, bloodied shirt and grimaced.

"Not much time to clean up before retiring, was there, Eric?" Roland's grin irritated him still further.

"I suppose you find this amusing?"

"Not at all. In fact, I took it upon myself to make a few preparations after I dropped you into your coffin this morning." Roland waved a hand to indicate the fresh suit of clothes that hung nearby, and the basin of water on the stand near the fire.

Eric's temper dissolved. "Only a true friend would think of such trivial necessities."

"No doubt I will ask that you return the favor one day." Eric washed quickly, knowing she waited upstairs. He donned the clothes in haste, and hurried up the stairs to join her. Roland tactfully took his time in following.

She waited by the fire. She was wearing the gown, and Eric felt a lump in his throat. She stood quickly when she heard him, and eyed him with obvious concern. "Eric. Are you—"

"Fully recovered, love. I told you the sleep is regenerative, didn't I? You haven't been worrying about me, I hope."

"I've been worrying about a lot of things," she admitted, but relaxed into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder.

He held her hard for a long moment, eyes closed, relishing her nearness, her scent and the feel of her body so close to his. Then he straightened, took her hand in his and examined her wounded arm. "It's been stitched?" She nodded, and Eric tilted her chin in his hand and searched face. "And the other injuries? Are you still in pain?"

Her smile was his answer. "I'm fine."

"Looks a good deal better than fine to these eyes," Roland boomed as he joined them in the parlor. "A sight take a man's breath away, if ever there was one."

Tamara smiled at Roland and lowered her lashes. "Are all you eighteenth-century men so gifted at idle flattery?"

"I am a good deal older than that, my dear, so my flattery can be nothing but genuine." Just when Eric felt slightest twinge of jealousy, Roland went on. "I can you two have important matters to discuss, and I have appointment of my own to keep, so I'll be on my way."

"I know about your appointment," Tamara said. Eric glanced down at her as she stepped out of his embrace, walked over to Roland and linked her arm through his.

"What's this?" Eric kept his tone jovial. "You two have been sharing secrets?"

"None that I know of, Eric." Roland looked at Tamara as she led him to the settee and pushed him to sit down. "Have you begun reading my mind, as well, little one?"

"No, but I spoke to Jamey's mother today." Roland nodded as if he understood. Eric, however, was still completely in the dark. Tamara returned to him, pulled him to the settee, as well, and joined him upon it. "Roland saved Jamey's life last night. Curtis had kidnapped him because he's like me, one of what you call the Chosen. That's why we've always been so connected, Jamey and I. I've been going nuts wondering what I could do to be sure Jamey would be safe. . . that some lunatic like Daniel wouldn't decide to further science by murdering his mother and adopting him. That's what Daniel did, you know. My parents' deaths were not accidental."

Eric nodded. For some time he'd had a lingering suspicion that had been the case. She eyed Roland. "Kathy says you've asked her to travel to one of your estates in France. That you need a live-in, full-time manager there and that you would like her to do it. She says you offered her more money than she could turn down." Tamara shook her head. "She would have done it for nothing after you brought Jamey back safe and sound."

"He was hardly that when I last saw him," Roland commented. "How is the boy?"

"He's going to be fine."

Eric frowned hard. "I'm not following all of this. If the boy is one of the Chosen, then where was his protector when he was in all of this trouble?"

Roland sent Eric a meaningful glance. "I wondered the same, until I realized the truth. The boy is fortunate to have a guardian such as Tamara, Eric."

"What are you saying?"

Tamara seemed unaware of the currents running between the two. She reached for Roland's hand and gripped it. "Thank you, Roland. Jamey means so much to me. You'll make sure they leave right away, won't you? Before anyone sees a connection between Jamey and Curtis, and starts poking around."

"You have my word, young one. And now, I'd best take my leave before my best friend becomes my executioner." He sent Eric a wink. "Do not think to oppose the fates, Eric. These cards were drawn long ago, I think." He left them without another word.

Tamara stood abruptly, and paced restlessly toward the fire. "We'll have to leave right away, as well, Eric. When Curt's body is found I'll be a suspect because I lived there and didn't report it. You'll be one, too, because of the break-in. We should go away from here." She stopped in front of the glowing hearth, and turned to face him. The fire made a halo of light around her, so she seemed ethereal, truly a vision. "But first there is something else, and I think you know it as well as I do."

Eric rose, went to her and gazed down into her face. She was more beautiful, more precious to him than the most flawless diamond could be. God, but he loved her beyond reason. More than anything, he wanted to keep her with him, always. He swallowed. "It is an endless, lonely existence, Tamara. An existence of endless night. A world without the sun."

"How could it be lonely if we were together?" She gripped his lapels in her fists. "If it's a choice between you and the sun, Eric, I choose you without a moment's hesitation. Don't you feel the same about me?"

His throat tried to close off. He forced words. "You know I do. But, Tamara, immortality is not a gift. It is a curse. You will live to see all those you love return to the dust—"

"Everyone I've ever loved is gone, except for two. You and Jamey. And as much as I adore him, he's not a part of my life. He has his mother, his own life to live." She blinked as her eyes began to moisten. "Please, if you deny me, I'll truly be alone. What must be done, Eric?"

Her tears caused his own eyes to burn. "You need time to consider."

"What have I had for the past twenty years if not time?" A waver crept into her voice. "I've been wandering aimlessly in a world where I never belonged. I was never meant to be there, Eric, I was meant to be with you. To be like you. Roland knows it. You heard what he said, the decision isn't ours to make. My fate—" she lifted a trembling hand to the side of his face, tears streaming now down her own "—is right here in front of me."

The glow of the firelight made the satin gown seem like a soft green blaze. Her hair glistened, and even her skin seemed aglow. Her scent caressed him as truly as her hand did. She cleared her throat, and he knew she was forcing herself to go on. "I know... you have to drink from me," she whispered. "But that's only part of it, is that right? That you have to drink from me, Eric?"

He could not prevent his eyes from fixing themselves on her exposed throat, or his tongue from darting over his lips. "And . . . and you from me," he answered. Just saying the words had the blood lust coursing through him, singing in his veins, gaining intensity until it throbbed both in his temples and in his loins.

She stood on tiptoes, encircled his neck with her arms and offered up her parted lips. He obliged her, and his desire for her became all consuming, just as his love for her had long since become. Her nimble fingers worked loose his shirt buttons and her hands spread themselves wide upon his chest, then slipped around it, so her lips could pay him homage.

"All my life," she whispered, her lips moving against his skin, her breath hot and moist upon it. "All my life has been spent for this moment... for you. Don't deny me, Eric. I'm already more of you than I am of this world."

"Tamara," he moaned. She tilted her head up and he captured her lips again, feeding from the sweetness of her mouth. He gathered her skirts in his fists and lifted them, his hands then running eagerly over her naked thighs and buttocks. "My God, how I want you. You are a fire in my heart, and each time the flame burns hotter, not cooler. I fear it will never cool. You are an unquenchable thirst in my soul."

Her hand slid between them to the fastenings of his trousers. In seconds she'd freed him, and she caressed his shaft with worshiping hands. "I'd like to have eternity to quench that Unquenchable thirst, Eric. Say you'll give it to me."

The heat she stirred in him raged to an inferno. His hands slipped down the backs of her legs to the hollows behind her knees and he lifted her off her feet. She linked her ankles at his back, clung to his shoulders and closed her eyes as he sheathed himself inside her. So deeply he plunged that a small cry was forced from her wet lips, and even then he knew it would not be enough. Not this time.

She rode him, not flinching from his most powerful thrusts, and he held her to him, his hands tight on her soft derriere. She threw her head backward, arching the pale, satin skin of her throat toward him, a hairsbreadth from his lips. He kissed her there, unable to do otherwise. Her jugular thudded just beneath the skin. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him nearer. His tongue flicked out, tasting the salt of her skin, and as he drew that skin between his teeth she moaned very softly. When he closed his teeth on her skin she shuddered, and her hands pressed harder.

"Make me your own, Eric. Make me yours forever, please."

He groaned his surrender, opening his mouth wider, taking more of her throat into his hungry mouth. The anticipation brought a new flood of desire and he tried to plunge more deeply, though he was already inside her as far as he could go. He withdrew and sank himself into her, again and again. His fever seemed mirrored in her, because her responses were just as ardent. Her legs tightening around him, she pressed down to meet his every upward thrust, arching toward him to take him further.

She arched in unspeakable ecstasy. His thrusts inside her matched the pulse of her heart pumping the very essence of herself into his body. The feel of him suckling at her throat sent tingles racing through her.

She felt herself begin to fade, to weaken. She was vanishing like mist under a searing sun, until she no longer existed apart from this feeling. . . this ecstasy.

Only vaguely did she notice when he raised a hand to his own throat, and then, while his mouth was still clamped to her, he pushed her face to his neck. Vibrations seemed to reach the core of her soul. A hunger such as she'd never known enveloped her and she closed her mouth over his neck and she drank.

They were locked together; he moved deep within her, while his teeth and lips demanded all she could give. His hands held her hips to his groin and her head to his throat. His movements became more powerful, and she knew hers did, as well. The approaching climax was like a steaming locomotive, about to hit them both. She moaned, then screamed against his throat again and again as she felt herself turn into the brew in a bubbling cauldron, and slowly boil over. Eric shook violently, groaning and sinking to his knees, still holding her to him.

They remained as they were as the waves of sensation slowly receded, leaving them warm and complete. She knew they'd exchanged ounce for ounce, drop for drop. They were sated. . . and they were one.

Carefully Eric unfolded his legs and lay back, keeping her on top of him, cradling her like something precious. She relaxed there, only moving enough so her feet were not behind him when he lay down. The strangest sensations were zipping through her. Her skin tingled as if tiny electrical charges were jolting from nerve ending to nerve ending. Her head reeled with sensory perceptions. Everything seemed suddenly more acute. The firelight, brighter and more beautiful than ever before. She'd never realized how many different colors there actually were in a flame, or how she could smell the essence of the wood as it burned.

"Eric, I feel so strange. . . like I'm more alive than I've ever been and yet. . . so sleepy." Her eyes widened. Even her own voice sounded different.

He laughed softly, stroking her hair. She swore she could feel every line of his palm as it moved over her tresses. "Thank you for convincing me, my love. I couldn't have gone on without you, you know."

"Is it done?" She struggled to stay awake.

"It is nearly done. You must sleep. I've waited two centuries to find you, Tamara. Only you, I know that now. I can wait now, through one more night, one more day. When you wake again, it will be done."

She burrowed her head into his chest. "Tell me. . . ."

"You'll be stronger than ten humans." His hands stroked her hair, her back, and his hypnotic voice carried her like a magic carpet. "You'll get stronger as you grow older, but that will be the only sign of aging you'll see. Your senses will be altered, heightened, more so than they already are. And there are psychic abilities, too. I will teach you to control them, to use them. I'll teach you so many things, my Tamara. You will live forever.

"With you," she muttered, barely able to move her lips now.

"With me. Always with me, love."

--2 Twilight Memories (1994)--

For Melissa and Leslie,

who recognized Rhiannon's potential

even before I did

INTRODUCTION

It's because I'm not good enough.  Or, so he thinks.  It isn't that he doesn't desire me, because we both know he does.  And why wouldn't he?  Mortal men fall at my feet like simpering fools begging for a crumb of attention.  Immortals, as well, those few I've known.  Why then, does the only man I desire reject me?  Why does he feign in~ difference when I can see the lust in his eyes?  Why has he asked me to remain away from him, to cease distracting him with my periodic visits?  It isn't as if I bother him so often.  Once every fifty years or so, when my fantasies of him no longer suffice--when my longing for him becomes too strong to resist.

My visits, though, do little to ease my discomfort.  He only reaffirms his decision, each time, and pleads with me to stay away.  He'd send me away himself, were he able.  He'd banish me from his very sight, were it in his power to do so.

Just as my father did.

I know, I am not what most males expect a female to be.  I am outspoken.  I am strong.  I fear very little in this world, nor would I, I suspect, in any other.  But it is not my oddness that makes me so unloved by the males.  Or should I say, unlovable?  It can't be that, for my father rejected me before I'd had opportunity to display any of my strange tendencies.  He rejected me simply for being his firstborn.

A great Pharaoh of Egypt, a god-king of the Nile, he fully expected the gods to bless him with a son as first born.  When he was given me, instead, he saw me as some sort of punishment for whatever sins he imagined himself guilty of.  I was allowed to remain with my mother only until I saw my fifth year.  It would have been more merciful to have tossed me at birth from the gilded halls of his palace, and left me as bait for the jackals.  Yet he did not.  At five, I was banished, sent to live among the priestesses of Isis at the temple.  My brothers, when they came later, were treated as I should have been.  They were welcomed as princes.  Their arrivals were celebrated for months on end.  Yet I, the one truly destined for immortality, was ignored.

I vowed then never again to care for the affections of any male, but I find I do now.  Not that my emotions are involved.  I am far too wise to fall prey to silly romanticism.  I am not a simpleminded, gullible mortal, after all.  No, it is not romance I want.  It is only him.  My desire for him is a palpable thing, as I know his for me to be, as well.  It angers me that he denies it, that he sees me as unworthy.

This time, though, I will manage it.  I will prove to him that I am the bravest, the strongest, the most cunning individual he's ever known.

I've come upon some information, you see.  A while back, Roland had some serious trouble, along with two other immortals, back in the States.  The details are not important.  The gist is that the most precious being to Roland, right now, is a boy by the name of Jamison Bryant.  He is one of The Chosen--that is, one of those rare humans who share the same ancestry and blood antigen as we immortals.  One who can be transformed.  He shares a special link with Roland, a closeness of which, I freely admit, I am envious.  And the boy is in grave danger.  So might Roland be.  I am on my way not only to warn them, but to protect them both, in any way necessary.

Please, do not misinterpret my motive.  I do not rush to his side because of any overblown emotional attachments.  I've already made clear that my feelings for Roland are only physical in nature.  It hurts enough to be rejected on that basis.  Think how stupid one would have to be to open oneself up to more pain!  No, I do this only to prove my worth.  He will see, once and for all, that Rhiannon is not a bit of dust to be swept away at a whim.  Not a mere limpid female, to be ignored as so much chattel.  I am worthy of his affection, just as I was my father's.  They are the ones who are wrong, to cast me aside. 

They are the ones who are wrong.

Although...

There are times, when even I begin to doubt it.  There are times when I hear my father's voice, echoing in those vaulted corridors, his condemnation of me.  And I wonder.  Could he have been right?  Am I, truly, his curse?  Nothing more than a pawn of the gods, to be used to mete out punishment to a sinful king?  How could my father have been wrong, after all?  He was pharaoh!  Only a step below a god himself.  Might he have been right?

Just as Roland might now be right in avoiding my touch?  Perhaps he sees something that I have not.  Perhaps he knows how unworthy I--

No!

I am Rhiannon--born Rhianikki, princess of Egypt, firstborn of Pharaoh.  I am immortal, a goddess among humans, envied by women and worshiped by men.  I could kill them all as easily as I could wish them goodnight.

I could!

I am worthy... and I intend to prove it.  I am Rhiannon.  And this is my story.

CHAPTER ONE

He moved as one of the shadows beneath the overhung roofs, along the twisting, narrow streets.  He detested the fact that he was here, walking among them.  Some passed so near he could have touched them, simply by raising a hand.  He felt the heat of their bodies, saw the steam of their warm breaths in the chill night air.  He felt the blood pulsing beneath their skin, and heard the rapid, healthy patter of their hearts.  He felt like a wolf slinking silently among timid rabbits.  With his preternatural strength he could kill any of them without taxing himself.  It frightened him to know he was capable of doing just that, if I pushed.

For an instant, murky images of the distant past clouded his vision.  Air heavy with dust and the scents of sweat and blood.  Fallen men, like autumn leaves upon the damp, brown earth.  Hooves thundering as the riderless horses fled in a hundred directions.  One man, a boy, in truth, remained breathing.  The lowly squire in ill-fitting armor sat high upon a magnificent, sooty destrier.  The horse pawed the ground with a forefoot and blew, eager for more.  Only silence came in answer.  The silence of death, for it surrounded them.

The young Roland saw the blood-coated broadsword, the crimson tears, dripping slowly from its tip.  As the red haze of fury began to fade, he let the weapon fall from his grasp.  Stomach lurching, he tugged the steel helmet from his head, then the mail coif, and tossed both to the ground.  Aghast, he stared at the carnage, too sickened just then to be thankful their faces were hidden by helmets, their wounds covered by their armor.

The boy felt no elation at what he'd done.  No, not even later, when he was personally knighted by King Louis VII, for heroism and valor.  He felt nothing but a grim and disgusting new self-knowledge.

For he had enjoyed the killing.

Roland shook himself.  Now was no time for remembrances, or regrets.  He reminded himself that despite his likening of them to rabbits, some humans were capable of ultimate deceit and treachery.  Past experience had taught him that.  And if the report he'd just had from the States were true, one of those humans, more treacherous than any, might even be a few yards from him.  It was that possibility that had drawn Roland into the village tonight, in spite of his self-imposed solitude.

His plan was simple.  He would slip unnoticed through the medieval-style streets of L'Ombre, and into the inn called Le Requin.  He would listen, and he would watch.  He'd scan their thinly veiled minds and he'd find the interloper, if, indeed, there was one to be found.  And then he'd deal with it.

The night wind stiffened, bringing with it the scents of late-blooming roses, and dying ones, of freshly clipped grass and of the liquor and smoke just beyond the door he now approached.  He paused as the door swung wide, and the odor sharpened.  A cluster of inebriated tourists stumbled out and passed him.  Roland drew back, averting his face, but it was an unnecessary precaution.  They paid him no mind.

Roland squared his shoulders.  He did not fear humans, nor did many of his kind.  More that he feared for them, should he be forced into an unwanted encounter.  Besides that, it made good sense to avoid contact.  Should humans ever learn that the existence of vampires was more than just the stuff of legends and folklore, the damage done would be irreversible.  There would be no peace.  It was best to remain apart, to remain forever a myth to those endlessly prying mortals.

As the door swung once more, Roland caught it and slipped quickly through.  He stepped to one side and took a moment to survey his surroundings.  Low, round tables were scattered without order.  People clustered around them, sitting, or standing, leaning over and speaking of nothing in particular.  The smoke-laden air hung at face level, stinging his eyes and causing his nostrils to burn.  The voices were a drone, punctuated often by the splashing of liquor and the clinking sounds of ice against glass.

Her laughter rose then, above all else.  Low, husky and completely without reserve, it rode the smoky air to surround him, and caress his eardrums.  His gaze shot toward the source of the sound, but he saw only a huddle of men vying for position near the bar.  He could only guess she must be at the center of that huddle.

To push his way through the throng of admirers was out of the question.  Roland had no desire to draw undue attention.  No, nor indeed, any desire to renew his timeless acquaintance with her.  To resume the slow torture.  He ignored the surge of anger he felt at the idea that any of the humans might be close enough to touch her.  He would not wish to witness the clumsy gropings of some drunken mortal.  He didn't really believe he might break the fool's neck for such an offense, but there was no need pressing his temper to its limits.

He could learn as much by listening, and he did so now, attuning his mind as well as his hearing, and wondering what she was calling herself these days.  For although he sought confirmation, he had no doubt about the identity of that seductive laugh's owner.  No doubt at all.

"Do another one, Rhiannon!"

"Oui, cherié. 'Ow about zome rock and roll?"

A chorus of pleas followed, as the willowy, dark form extricated herself from the mass.  She shook her head, not quite smiling in that way she had.  She moved with such grace that she seemed to float over the hardwood rather than walk on it.  The slightly flared hemline of black velvet swaying a fraction of an inch above the floor added to the illusion.  Roland had no clue how she managed to move her legs at all, given the way the full-length skirt clung to them from midshin on up.  She might as well have paraded naked before her gaping admirers for what the garment hid.  The velvet seemed to have melded itself to her form, curving as her hips did, nipping inward at the waist, cupping her small, high breasts like possessive hands.  Her long, slender arms were bare, save the bangles and bracelets adorning them.  Her fingers were be ringed and tipped in lengthy, dagger-sharp nails of blood red.

Roland's gaze continued upward as she moved across the room, apparently unaware of his presence.  The neckline of the ridiculous dress consisted only of two strips of velvet forming a halter around her throat.  Between the swatches, the pale expanse of her skin glowed with ethereal smoothness.  His sharp eyes missed nothing, from the gentle swell of her breasts, to the delicate outline of her collarbone at the base of her throat.  Around her neck she wore an onyx pendant in the shape of a cradle moon.  It rested flat on the surface of her chest, its lowest point just touching the uppermost curve of her breasts.

That swan's neck, creamy in color, satiny in texture, gracefully long and narrow, was partially covered by her hair.  It hung as straight and perfectly jet as the velvet dress, yet glossy, more satin than velvet, in truth.  She'd pulled it all to one side, and it hung down covering the right side of her neck, and most of the dress.  It's shining length only ended at midthigh.

On her left ear she'd hung a cluster of diamonds and onyx that dangled so long they touched her shoulder.  He couldn't tell whether the earring had a mate on her right ear, due to her abundance of hair.

She paused, and bent over the man on the piano bench, whispering in his ear, her narrow hand resting on his shoulder.  Roland felt himself stiffen as the beast buried deep within him stirred for the first time in decades.  He willed it away.  The man nodded, and struck a chord.  She turned, facing the crowd, one forearm resting upon the top of the piano.  With the first rich, flawless note she sung, the entire room went silent.  Her voice, so deep and smooth that were it given form it could only become honey, filled the room, coating everything and everyone  within.  Her expression gave the lyrics more meaning than they'd ever before had.

She sang as if her heart were breaking with each note, yet her voice never wavered or weakened intensity.

She held the mortals in the palm of her hand, and she was loving every minute of it, Roland thought in silence.  He ought to turn and leave her to make a spectacle of herself in this insane manner.  But as she sung on, of heartache and unbearable loneliness, she looked toward him.  She caught his gaze and she refused to let go.  In spite of himself, Roland heard the pure beauty of her voice.  And though he'd had no intention of doing so, he let his eyes take in every aspect of her face.

A perfect oval, with bone structure as exquisite and flawless as if she were a sculpture done by a master.  Small, almost pointed chin and angling, defined jawline.  The slight hollows beneath her cheeks and the high, wide-set cheekbones.  Her eyes were almond-shaped and slanted slightly upward at the outer corners.  The kohl that lined them only accentuated that exotic slant, and her lashes were as impenetrably dark as the irises they surrounded.

Against his will he focused on her full, always pouting lips as they formed each word of the song.  Their color was deep, dark red, like that of wine.  How many years had he hungered for those lips?

He shook himself.  The fruit of those lips was one he must never sample.  His gaze moved upward to her eyes again.  Still, they focused solely upon him, as if the words she sung were meant for his ears alone.  Gradually he realized the patrons were growing curious.  Heads turned toward him to see who had caught the attention of the elusive Rhiannon.  He'd fallen under her spell as surely as any of these simpering humans had, and as a result, he'd been unaware of the growing risk of discovery.  Let her behave recklessly, if it pleased her to do so.  He wouldn't risk his existence to warn her.  More likely than not, his remaining here would result in trouble.  Her nearness never failed to stir the beast to life, to bring out his baser instincts.  That she did so deliberately was without doubt.  Though if she knew the whole of it, she might change her mind.

He gripped the door, his eyes still on her, and jerked it open.  He made himself step out into the bracing chill of the autumn night even as she held the hauntingly low, final note, drawing it out so long it ought to be obvious she was no ordinary woman.  Yet, a second later, Roland heard no one questioning her.  He only heard thunderous applause.

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon felt the sting of the slap she'd just been issued.  Her anger rose quickly, but not quite quickly enough to prevent her feeling the hurt that came along with it.  So Roland could look her over so thoroughly and simply walk away, could he?  He could ignore the dress she'd chosen simply to entice him.  He could pretend not to hear the emotion with which she'd sung or even to notice the song she'd chosen.  Well, she supposed she'd need more drastic measures to get his attention.

She stepped away from the piano, quickly muttering that she had a headache and needed to slip away without her male attendants surrounding her.  The piano player, François, tilted his head toward a door in the back, and Rhiannon made her way toward it.  She paused only long enough to grip the upper arm of the drunkest male in the room.  She pulled him, stumbling in her wake, out the door.

She could only just make out the dark shape of Roland's retreating figure, farther along the narrow street.  She didn't call out to him.  She wouldn't beg him for something so simple as a hello, after decades of separation.  She had a better idea.

She pulled the drunken man with her a few yards farther, then turned him, her hands s6pporting his weight mostly by clenching his shirt front.  She shoved his back against a building.

For a moment, she studied him.  He wasn't bad-looking, really.  Red hair, and freckles, but a rather nice face, except for the crooked, inebriated grin.

She hooked a finger beneath his chin, and stared into his green, liquor-clouded eyes for a long moment.  She focused her mental energies on calming him, and gaining his utter cooperation.  By the time she lowered her head to his throat, the man would have gladly given her everything he owned, had she asked it.  She sensed no evil in him.  In fact, he seemed a perfectly nice fellow, except for his heavy drinking.  She supposed everyone was entitled to one vice, though.  She was about to indulge in hers.

She parted her lips and settled her mouth over the place where his jugular pulsed beneath the skin.  She wished the man no harm.  She only needed to get a rise out of Roland.  Her willing victim moaned softly, and let his head fall to the side.  She nearly choked on her laughter.  She was glad one of them was getting some pleasure out of this.  The act had lost its luster for her long ago.

"Dammit Rhianikki, let him go!"

Roland's hand closed on her shoulder, and he jerked her roughly away from the drunk's throat.  The man sank to the ground, barely conscious, but from her entrancement of him, not from blood loss.  "You could have killed him," Roland whispered harshly.

Rhiannon allowed the corners of her lips to pull ever so slightly upward.  "Always so eager to think the worst of me, aren't you, darling?  And it's Rhiannon, now.  Rhianikki is too--" she waved a hand "--Egyptian."  She gave the man on the ground a cursory glance.  "It's all right, Paul.  You may go now."  With her mind, she released him, and he rose unsteadily.  His puzzled expression moved from Rhiannon, to Roland, and back again.

"What happened?"

"You've had a little too much Chablis, mon cher.  Go on, now.  Be on your way."

Still frowning, he stumbled back into the tavern, and Rhiannon turned to Roland.  "You see?"

"Why are you here?"

She lifted her hands, palms up.  "Not even a hello?  A how are you?  A glad to see you're still drawing a breath?  Nothing?  How rude you've become, Roland."

"Why are you here?"  His voice remained impassive as he repeated the question.

She shrugged.  "Well, if you must know, I heard about a certain DPI agent, rather nasty one, too, who'd traced you here.  They say he's already in the village.  I was worried about you, Roland.  I came to warn you."

He looked at the ground and slowly shook his head.  "So, knowing an agent of the Division of Paranormal Investigations is in the village, you naturally flaunt your own presence here to the utmost possible degree."

"What better way to flush him out?  You know how keen they are on vampire research."

"You might've been killed, Rhiannon."

"Then you'd have been rid of me at last."

He was silent for a moment, scanning her face.  "I would find no joy in that, reckless one."

From beneath her lashes, she looked up at him.  "You do have an odd way of showing it."

He placed a hand on her shoulder.  She slipped one around his waist, and they moved together along the winding road, toward his castle.  "You need to take more care," he went on, his tone fatherly... and utterly maddening.  "You've no idea what DPI is capable of.  They've developed a tranquilizer that renders us helpless."

"I know.  And I know about your scrape with them in Connecticut, when they nearly took Eric and his fledgling, Tamara."

Roland's brows shot upward.  "And how do you know all of that?"

"I keep track of you, darling."  She smiled.  "And for years I kept track of that scientist, St. Claire.  He held me for a time in that laboratory of his, you know."

He sucked in a sharp breath, gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him.  She could have laughed aloud.  At last, some emotion!

"My God, I had no idea.  When... how..."  He broke off and shook his head.  "Did he hurt you?"

Warmth surged within her.  "Terribly," she confessed with a small pout.  "But only for a short time.  I had to break his partner's neck, I'm afraid, when I made my escape."

Roland shook his head, and closed his eyes.  "You could have summoned me.  I would've come--"

"Oh, posh, Roland.  By the time you could have arrived, I was free again.  No human can hope to get the best of Rhianikki, princess of the Nile, daughter of Pharaoh, immortal vampiress of time immemorial--"

His laughter burst from him involuntarily, she knew, and she drank in the beauty of his smile, wishing she could elicit its appearance more often.  There was a darkness in Roland's eyes at times.  Some secret that troubled him, one he'd never shared.

When his laughter died, he turned and began walking once more.  "Tell me how you know about the DPI agent in L'Ombre?"

"Since St. Claire came so close to having me, I've kept a close watch on the organization.  I have spies inside.  They keep me informed."

He nodded.  "Then you are a bit more sensible than I gave you credit for being.  You know, of course, St. Claire is dead."

She nodded.  "But his protégé, Curtis Rogers, is not."

Roland stopped walking again.  "That can't be.  Tamara shot him when he was trying his damnedest to kill Eric."

"Yes, shot him.  And left him for dead, only he wasn't.  He was found a short time later, and he survived.  It is he who has come to France looking for you, Roland.  He wants vengeance."

"On me?"

"You, Eric, Tamara... and the boy, I'm afraid."

She saw the pale coloring drain from Roland's face.  She'd known already of his attachment to the child he'd rescued two years ago.  The boy was one of The Chosen, a human with an unseen bond to immortals.  DPI knew it, and attempted to use him as bait in their trap.  No doubt, they would not hesitate to do so again.  Rhiannon knew all of this, but seeing firsthand his obvious reaction to a whisper of a threat to the lad, brought home to her the intensity of his caring.  She felt the rush of turmoil that coursed through him, and she placed a calming hand on his arm.

"Jamey," he whispered.  "The bastard had him once.  Nearly killed him."

"And so you know why I've come."

His brows rose inquiringly, and she rushed on.  "To offer my help in protecting the boy."

"Noble of you, but unnecessary.  I can protect Jamey.  I won't have you putting yourself in harm's way for my sake.  It would be far better if you left France at once."

"For your peace of mind, you mean?"

She searched his face and she knew when his gaze fell before hers that she'd hit on the truth.  "Then you are not so indifferent to me as you pretend?"

"When have I ever been indifferent to you, oh goddess among women?"

She almost smiled.  "Well, your peace of mind is of no concern to me.  In fact, I find a certain pleasure in keeping you off balance.  And I am staying, whether you like it or not.  If you won't let me help you watch over the boy, I'll simply seek out this Rogers character, and drain him dry.  That should solve the problem."

"Rhianik--Rhiannon, surely you are aware that the murder of a DPI agent would only serve to instigate further trouble."  He drew an unsteady breath.  "Killing rarely solves anything."

She shrugged, keeping him always in her sight with sidelong, lash-veiled glances.  How she delighted in baiting him!  "They'll never learn what became of him.  I'll grind him up and feed him to my cat."

Roland grimaced and shook his head.

"Perhaps I'll torture him first.  What do you think?  Bamboo shoots under the nails?  Usually effective.  We could learn all DPI's secrets, and--"

"For God's sake, woman!"  He gripped her shoulders hard as he shouted, but his horrified expression faded when she burst into helpless laughter.

He sighed, shook his head and eased his grip on her shoulders.  Before he took his hands away, though, she caught his forearms.  "No, Roland, don't."

He stood motionless, his face devoid of expression, as she slipped her arms around his waist, and drew herself to him.  She rested her head upon his sturdy shoulder.  With a sigh of reluctant compliance, Roland's arms tightened around her shoulders and he held her to him.

Rhiannon closed her eyes and simply allowed herself to feel him.  The contained strength in him, the rapid thud of his heart, the way his breaths stirred her hair.

"I have missed you, Roland," she whispered.  She turned her face slightly, and feathered his neck with her lips.  "And you have missed me, though you are loath to admit it."

She felt the shudder she drew from him.  He nodded.  "I admit it, I've missed you."

"And you desire me," she went on, lifting her head enough so she could study his eyes as she spoke.  "As you have no other... nor ever will.  You disapprove of everything I am, and everything I do, but you want me, Roland.  I feel it even now, in this simple embrace."

"Subtlety has never been your strong suit, Rhiannon."  He took her arms from around him, and stepped away, resuming the walk without touching her.

"You deny it?"

He smiled slowly.  "I want to walk in the sunshine, Rhiannon, yet to do so would mean my end.  What one wants is not necessarily what one should have."

She frowned and tilted her head.  "I hate when you speak in metaphors or parables or whatever you call those silly words you use."

He shook his head.  "How long will you alight here this time, little bird?"

"Changing the subject won't make you feel better, you know."

"It was a simple question.  If you cannot answer it--"

"Answer mine, and I'll answer yours.  Do you want me?"

He scowled.  "She is a fool who asks a question when she already knows the answer."

"I want to hear you say it."  She stopped, and looked into his eyes.  "Say you want me."

Roland's glance moved slowly down her body and she felt his gaze burn wherever it touched her.  Finally, he nodded.  "I want you, Rhiannon.  But I will not--"

She held up her hands.  "No more.  Don't ruin it."

He chewed his inner cheek, and she felt his anger begin to boil up.  "Now my question, temptress.  How long will you stay?"

"Well, I've come to help protect the boy.  I suppose I will stay until the threat is gone, and..."

"And?"  His brows drew close and he scanned her face.

She tried not to smile as she answered him.  "And until I've given you exactly what you want, Roland."

CHAPTER TWO

Roland felt as if he were the Bastille, and she the revolutionaries.  For a single instant, he was certain he'd never stand a chance.  He attempted to remind himself of all of her faults.  She was impulsive, impetuous, and as unpredictable as the weather.  She acted without first thinking through the consequences of her actions.  And sooner or later it was going to cost her.  Hell, it already had cost her, and dearly.  He sensed she was glossing over the details of her time in St. Claire's hands.  Yet he knew better than to press her for more.  He'd have killed the bastard years ago, had he known.  He'd kill him now, if the scientist were alive.

Studying her faults did little good.  Already, the beast inside was wakening.  Already, her presence had him thinking in terms of murder and retribution, had him fighting to control the violent side to his nature.  He studied her and shook his head slowly.  She was so much the way he'd been once, in his mortal lifetime.  All the things he'd fought for years to suppress.

Perhaps he'd not succeed in dampening his desire for her by counting her faults.  Perhaps instead, he ought to count his own.  Even better, he should remind himself what had become of the other woman he'd lusted after.

"You're guarding your thoughts, Roland.  Are they so unflattering?"

"I guard my thoughts out of habit.  Do not take it personally."

 "I think you lie.  You don't wish me to see something."

He shrugged noncommittally.  If she was determined to stay and taunt him, he'd resist her as best he could.  For her sake, as well as his own.  He would keep his distance.  Never would the beast he held within be unleashed upon her.  She'd done nothing to deserve that.

And perhaps while she was here, he'd teach her to act maturely and sensibly.  He'd show her the differences between a true lady, and the untamed child she was now.  Like changing a cactus flower to a rose, he thought.  He refused to acknowledge that the results would benefit him, as well.  For he could never be as inflamed with longing for the rose, as he'd always been for the prickly flower.

No, he told himself the lesson would be for her, to get her to exercise some caution from time to time.  He liked Rhiannon, sometimes in spite of himself.  He'd truly hate to see her come to grief because of her nature... the way he once had.

He frowned, and wondered briefly how long her visit would be.  She hadn't told him.  Her habit was to flit in and out of his life at will.  She never remained long enough to do more than stir up a whirlwind, to pummel his senses--as well as his sense--with her vivacious nature, and then she would vanish.  She was a desert sandstorm... a whirlpool from the Nile.

"Roland, darling, you are ignoring me."

He had been doing anything but that, though he would never admit it.  Instead, he glanced down from the corners of his eyes, and gave her a sharp nod.  "Precisely."

She sighed in exasperation.  "I suppose if you refuse to discuss our relationship--"

"We have no relationship, Rhiannon."

"We'll simply have to discuss the boy."  She kept on speaking as if she'd never been interrupted.  It was another of her maddening habits.  When speaking to Rhiannon, you either say what she wants to hear, or you are ignored.  Maddening!

"What about the boy?"

"Where is he, Roland?  Is he safe?"

He felt his spine relax a bit, now that they were on a neutral subject.  "At first, he and his mother lived in the castle."

"That ruin?"

Roland stiffened.  "The east wing, Rhiannon.  It's perfectly habitable."

"For a monk, perhaps.  Do go on."

He scowled, but kept on speaking.  He had no desire to engage in verbal skirmishes.  "Then Kathryn took ill."

"No wonder, in that drafty place."

Roland ignored the taunt this time.  "It was cancer, Rhiannon.  She died eight months ago."

Rhiannon's hand flew to her throat and she drew a quick, little breath.  "Then, the boy is alone?"

"Not entirely.  He has me, and there is Frederick, of course."

"Frederick?"  She tilted her head slightly.  "That bear of a man you found sleeping on the streets in New York?  Roland, can he be trusted with the boy?"

Roland nodded without reservation.  Frederick was slightly slow-witted, but he had a heart of pure gold.  And he adored Jamey.  "Yes.  If I didn't trust him, he wouldn't be in my household.  Jamey needs someone with him in those hours between school dismissal and sunset."

Still walking beside him, she stroked her long fingers across her forehead as would a Gypsy fortune-teller preparing to do a reading.  "Mmm, you enrolled him in a private school, no doubt."

"He refused a private school.  Said he was not a snob and had no intention of becoming one."  Roland shook his head.  "He does have a strong will.  At any rate, he's known as James O'Brien.  It's the closest I could come to Jamey Bryant."

"And where is this boy of yours, now?  Tucked safely into his bed at your chateau?"

"He had a soccer match tonight.  Ought to be arriving any time now."  He glanced ahead of them, to the tall, gray stone wall that surrounded Castle Courtemanche, and the portcullis at its center.

"You provided Frederick with a car, as well?  Can he maneuver one?"

He frowned, and turned to follow the direction of her gaze.  "Damn it to hell."  He gripped Rhiannon's arm and drew her nearer the cover of the brush along the narrow road's edge.

"Whatever are you doing?"

"Hush, Rhiannon."  Roland moved slowly, silently, approaching the gate, and gazing toward the Cadillac that sat just outside it.

"That car should not be here."

"It isn't..."  She bit her lip, and her eyes narrowed as she stared hard at the dark colored vehicle.  "There's a man behind the wheel."

Roland nodded.  Already his mind scanned the intruder's but he found it closed to him.  Most humans were so easily read it was child's play to scan their thoughts.  This one had deliberately closed his mind off.  Roland was certain of it.  In the darkness, even with his preternatural vision, Roland couldn't see clearly enough to make a positive identification.  The hard knot in his stomach was the only indication Curtis Rogers occupied the car, and that he was watching, waiting... for Jamey.

Rhiannon whispered.  "But I get no sense of the boy."  She shook her head in frustration.  "Is that Rogers?"

"I don't know, but if it is, and it's truly vengeance he wants, then Jamison is in danger."

Rhiannon sucked in a breath.  "You believe this Rogers would kill the boy simply to hurt you?"

Roland shook his head.  "More likely kidnap him, and wait for me to come to his rescue.  But while he had the boy, Rogers wouldn't hesitate to perform tests on him, experiments to discover more about the link between The Chosen, and the un-dead."

"I know about DPI and their love of... experiments." 

Roland slanted a glance toward Rhiannon, sickened anew by the knowledge of what had befallen her while in DPI's hands.  Truly, he felt an urge to protect her from them, just as he was forced to protect Jamison.  Foolish notion, he knew.  Rhiannon would never stand for being protected, not by anyone.  Moreover, were she with him constantly, stirring his mind to such turmoil, she would need protecting not by him, but from him.

"Where is the boy?  It's late."

Roland shook his head, freeing his mind of its distractions, focusing again on the matter at hand.  "When they win, they usually stop for a meal on the way back.  They are sometimes quite late."  Even as he spoke, Roland searched for Jamey with his mind.  It came as a blow when he found him, and realized he was ambling along the road from the opposite direction, completely oblivious to the threat that awaited him.

The man in the car saw the boy, too, for the door opened and he stepped out.  Jamey drew nearer, and before Roland could decide on a course of action, Rhiannon shot to her feet and ran toward the man.

"Oh, thank goodness, I've finally found someone!"

He turned to face her, wary-eyed and suspicious.  Roland had a perfect view now, of the man's face.  Curtis Rogers had changed little in the past two years.  His blond hair still hung untrimmed and too long in the front.  His pale brows and light eyes gave him the look of a weakling, and Roland knew that was precisely what he was.  Yet with the resources of DPI and their constantly innovative arsenal of weapons and drugs, he was an enemy not to be taken lightly.

And right now, Rhiannon was standing within his reach.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Just a woman in need of assistance.  My car went off the road a few miles back.  I've been walking forever, and..."  She continued moving forward, affecting a rather convincing little limp as she went.  "You simply must offer me a ride."

Get into that car with him, Rhiannon, and I'll remove you bodily!  Roland made his thoughts clear to her, and his anger with them.  Had the woman no sense?  If she got herself killed, he'd...

Posh, Roland, you can be such a stick in the mud. 

She smiled up at Curtis as she stepped closer.  "You wouldn't dream of leaving me out here on my own, would you?  I'd never forgive you if you did."

Her voice was a virtual purr now, and Roland felt his hackles rise.  Rogers's gaze moved slowly, thoroughly down her body, not missing a curve, and lingering too long on the enticing expanse of cleavage her dress exposed.

"I'd like to help you, lady, but I have some business to take care of."

Roland began to step out of hiding.  Enough was enough.  If he let it go on much longer--if Rogers laid one finger on her--

No, darling!  Her mind reached out to his with silent fingers.  Your Jamey is getting too near.  Slip around us and intercept the boy.  I'll keep this one distracted.

If he realizes you're an immortal-- Roland began to warn her.

Her low, husky laugh floated to him, and caused Rogers's brows to raise.  Look at him, Roland.  He's far too busy noticing I'm a woman.  As if to prove her point, she stepped still nearer the man.  Her hand floated upward and she traced the edge of his lapel with her nails.  Rogers's attention was riveted.  Roland thought he could have danced a jig around the fool and not gained his notice.  Jealousy rose like bile into his throat to replace the fear for her that had been there before.  He slipped into the trees along the roadside, and quickly emerged again when he'd passed them.  Jamey approached him now, only a few yards distant.

"Jamison... it's Roland.  Come here at once."

Without a moment's hesitation, Jamey ducked into the trees where Roland waited.  "What's up?"

Roland frowned, noting the soon-to-form bruise under Jamey's left eye, and the slightly swollen lower lip.  "What in God's name happened to you?"

Jamey shrugged in the carefree way only a fourteen-year-old can manage.  "Soccer's a rough sport."  He glanced farther along the road and the carefree demeanor left his face.  "Who is that?"

He had a maturity that at times went far beyond his years, and he'd grown as protective of Roland as he had once been of Tamara.  "I hate to upset you, Jamison, but the man in the car is--"

"Rogers!"  Jamey recognized Curtis when the man moved into a more advantageous stance, and the boy lunged.

Roland caught his shoulders and held him easily.  "What do you think you're doing?"

"That bastard almost killed me!  When I get my hands on him, I--"

"You will watch your language, Jamison, and you will stay quiet and do as I tell you.  You can't instigate a physical altercation with a grown man."

"I'm a lot bigger than I was two years ago," Jamey said, his voice dangerously low.  "And you know he has it coming.  I owe him."  His milk-chocolate-colored eyes glowed with absolute fierceness.

Roland felt a shudder run up his spine.  God, but Jamison was familiar.  His rage, his anger--Roland had known all of it, at that age.  It had nearly destroyed him.  It had destroyed others.  Far too many others.

"That he does, Jamison.  But--"

Jamey's struggles suddenly ceased.  "Who is that?"  His eyes widened, and Roland followed his gaze to see Rhiannon, playfully tousling Curt Rogers's hair.

Roland felt anger prickle his nape.

"A friend of mine.  Her name's Rhiannon and I believe she thinks she's distracting Rogers so you can slip into the castle unnoticed." 

Jamey swallowed.  "She's gorgeous."

Roland just stared at her for an elongated moment.  The moonlight played upon the satin skin of her shoulders like a caress.  "Yes," he said softly.  Then he shook himself.  "Yes, and apparently Rogers thinks so, too."

Rogers's hand settled on one of Rhiannon's naked shoulders, and proceeded to stroke a slow path down her arm.  Roland felt the fury leap to life in his veins in a way it seldom had.  For just an instant, his palms itched to clutch the chilled hilt of a broadsword.  Then he reminded himself he no longer needed one.

"Come, Jamey, before she decides to--"  He stopped himself before he finished the comment.

Jamey looked up at him, then glanced toward Rhiannon again, a sudden understanding lighting his eyes.  He said nothing, only nodded, and followed Roland into the woods and up to the tall stone wall.  He put an arm around Roland's shoulders.  Roland did likewise, then leapt, easily clearing the wall and landing with a thud on the opposite side.  Jamey hit the ground and tumbled forward.  He shook his head sheepishly, got to his feet and brushed the dust from his jeans.  "One of these days, I'll get the hang of that."

Roland heard Rhiannon's deep laughter filling the night air.

"Is she... like you?"  Jamey had never used the word vampire, but Roland thought he knew.  The boy was too insightful not to make his own assumptions, and his assumptions were usually right.  Roland looked at him, and simply nodded.

"She shouldn't be out there with Curt Rogers," Jamey said.

"You're right about that.  Go on inside, and wait for me in the great hall."  Roland spoke while gazing toward the portcullis.  When Jamey didn't reply or move to obey, Roland sent him a sharp glance.

Jamey shook his head.  "No.  I'm not a little kid anymore and I'm tired of other people fighting my battles for me."

Roland very nearly barked at him, then closed his eyes and gave his head a shake.  For an instant, he could have sworn he was looking at the image of himself, arguing with his father on the day before he'd left home for good.  Fourteen.  Yes, he'd been just that.  And a mere two years later...

He blocked out the memory of that bloody battlefield.

  "There is no battle to be fought," he said calmly.  "Please, just go inside so I can fetch Rhiannon.  God knows what kind of trouble she'll get into on her own."

Jamey kicked at a stray pebble with undue force, and shoved a hand through his hair.

"Why can't he just leave us alone?"

"Because he's still breathing."  Rhiannon's voice startled Jamey.  He jerked his head up in surprise.  Roland only turned slowly and watched her approach.  He'd heard her land when she'd vaulted the wall.

Apparently someone else had, too.  A tall, beefy form lumbered forward from the shadows, placing himself directly between Rhiannon and Jamey.  She stopped, her brows lifting.

"It's all right, Frederick.  She's a friend."

Rhiannon's imperious gaze clashed with Frederick's untrusting one.  Rhiannon took another step forward.  "Don't you remember me, Freddy?"

He frowned, and tilted his head to one side.  Then he nodded, smiling.

"Rhia... Rhian--"

"Rhiannon," she supplied.

Frederick frowned, obviously remembering a slightly different version of her ever-changing name.  Roland stepped forward, closing the gap between them, with Jamey at his side.  He hoped the relief he felt at seeing her sound and without injury didn't show on his face.

"What have you done with Rogers?"

Rhiannon ignored Roland's question, and let her dark gaze linger on Jamey, who stared at her in turn as if she were made of chocolate.

"Hello, Jamison.  I've heard a lot about you."  She lifted her hand as she spoke, and Jamey took it at once, then looked down at it as if he wasn't sure what to do.

"Nice to, urn, meet you."  He let her hand go, after giving it a brief squeeze.

"Rhiannon..."

She met Roland's eyes.  "Are you afraid I've killed him?  Wouldn't we all be far better off, if I had?"

"I know we would," Jamey said softly.

Roland shook his head.  "Killing is never justified, Jamison.  It never makes anything better.  It can destroy the killer just as surely as it does the victim.  More so.  At least the victim still has claim to his soul.  The killer's is eaten away slowly."

Rhiannon rolled her eyes, and Jamey came close to smiling at her.  She noticed, and bestowed upon him her devastating half smile, before turning back to Roland.  "Well, if you're too kindhearted to kill the man, what do you suggest?  He's obviously discovered Jamey's whereabouts.  We can't simply sit here and wait for him to come and take the boy."

"I'm no boy," Jamey said.

"I think Jamison should go to the States for a while, spend some time with Eric and Tamara.  It will be safer."  Roland glanced at the boy to see what he thought of the idea.

Jamey widened his stance and lifted his chin.  "I'm not running away from him."

Rhiannon's warm gaze bathed Jamey with approval.  He felt it, and stood a little taller.  Roland was beginning to feel outnumbered.  "What have you done with Rogers?" he asked again.

Her gaze dropped before his.  "I tired of his sloppy advances.  The fool tried to put his tongue into my ear."

Jamey chuckled hard, shaking his head, so his longish black curls moved with his laughter.  Rhiannon smiled at him, while Roland scowled at her.

"Rhiannon, you have not answered the question."

She shrugged delicately.  "Monsieur Rogers is having a nap.  I think he's been overworking himself of late."

"Rhiannon..."  Roland's voice held a warning, but it seemed she was too busy exchanging secretive glances with Jamey, to take heed.

"Oh, Roland, I merely tapped him on the head.  Honestly, he won't even bear a scar."

"Wonderful!"  Roland threw his hands in the air.  "Now he'll know you're in league with us.  He'll hound your steps in search of retribution just as he does mine."  It infuriated him that she constantly did things to put herself at risk.  Then he realized how his concern for her would sound to her ears.  If she knew of his true feelings, she would never let up on her attempts at seduction.  And he would only hurt her in the end.

"And you've conveniently left him lying at the front gate, blocking our exit," Roland added, to give more severity to his complaints.

Rhiannon caught Jamey's eye and winked.

"All right, little bird, out with it.  You haven't left him lying at the front gate, have you?"

"Well of course I haven't.  I'm not an idiot."  She placed a hand on Jamey's shoulder.  "Come now, and pack yourself a bag or two.  That lovely Cadillac is just sitting out there, all warmed up and ready to go."

 "Go where?"

"My place.  I have a little house just beyond the village.  Rogers won't bother you there."

"No, Rhiannon.  Jamey will be far safer here, with Frederick and I to watch over him."

She studied him for a long moment, and seemed deep in thought.  "All right, then.  I'll be back soon."

"Rhiannon, where are you--"   Before Roland could finish the question, she was gone.  He heard the sound of Curtis Rogers's car roaring to life a second later.  Then it squealed away into the night.

CHAPTER THREE

She took the fine car.  Not that she couldn't move much faster on her own.  She drove for a long time, speeding past the tiny village of L'Ombre and over its twisting roads, taking sharp curves at excessive rates of speed, and laughing as she did so until gradually, the pavements broadened and traffic increased.

When she finally came to a grinding halt at the airport at Paris, she removed the keys and walked to the rear to open the trunk.

Rogers moaned, holding his head in two hands as he sat up.  His narrow, angry eyes raked her but he didn't attempt to move. 

"You carry a syringe in your breast pocket," she said softly.  "Take it out."

He straightened, one hand slipping beneath his jacket toward the pocket.  She watched him, and when that hand tensed, hers shot forward entrapping it at the wrist before he'd had the chance to move it.  He probably hadn't even seen her movement.

"Now, I'll stand for none of that.  Roland tells me this drug of yours actually works."  She pulled his hand from beneath the jacket, his resistance so puny in comparison to her strength that it was almost laughable.  When the syringe was in the open, she took it with her free hand.  "Perfectly awful, this little needle.  Still, I suppose it's better than St. Claire's former methods.  Draining our blood until we become too weak to fight him, leaving him free to perform his sadistic little experiments."

Curtis looked up suddenly, still rubbing the wrist she'd just released.  "You're the one, aren't you?"

"Which one would that be, darling?  Certainly not one of the two fledglings he held.  The ones from whom he drained a bit too much blood?  The ones he murdered?  No, I'm not one of those.  Not at all, as you can see."

"You're...  Rhiannon.  You escaped.  You killed one of the finest scientists DPI has ever--"

She waved a hand.  "Scientist?  I say he was a twisted little pervert.  He enjoyed the pain he inflicted."  She tilted her head to one side and fought not to let her face reveal what the memory of that pain did to her insides.  She'd been tortured to the point of near madness.  To an immortal as old as she, pain was magnified incredibly.  It was felt thousands of times more keenly than by a human, hundreds of times more keenly than by younger vampires.

"Then again, that night I must say I understood.  I did enjoy what I did to him."  She kept her voice cold, her tone without inflection.  "Tell me now, Curtis Rogers, has this drug been tested on human subjects?  What, I wonder, would be the effect should I inject it into you, for example?"

His face lost all color and she felt his rush of fear.  "The drug has absolutely no noticeable effect on human beings."

She tilted her head back and laughed, the sound bubbling up from deep in her throat.  "Oh, how you amuse me.  You know I can read your thoughts.  You're far too frightened right now to mask them, and yet you lie determinedly.  The drug would kill you, would it not?"

He shook his head in denial.

Rhiannon held the needle skyward and depressed the plunger, sending a small spurt of silvery liquid into the air.  Curtis lunged, landing on his feet on the concrete of the parking lot and immediately ready to flee.  Rhiannon closed her hand over his nape and squeezed.

"It's no use, you know.  I'm as strong as twenty grown men, and you with all your research of my kind, are aware of it.  I'm older and more powerful than any of us you've encountered.  I could kill you now without breaking a sweat, Rogers, my pet."

Still holding his nape in an unshakable grip, she dragged one nail lightly over the short hairs there.  "How do you want it, I wonder?  Would you like me to simply snap this neck of yours?  It would be the quickest, the most merciful way.  Or I could, indeed, inject you with your own creation.  Any drug powerful enough to tranquilize a vampire would probably kill an elephant in its tracks, to say nothing of a puny mortal such as yourself."

She turned him to face her and she saw his fear.  She could feel it, and she could smell it.  She shook her head slowly.  "No, I think those methods are not nearly poetic enough to suit me, Curtis, dear."  She depressed the plunger farther, squirting the contents of the syringe down the front of his shirt, splattering his jacket.  She tossed the empty needle to the floor.  "I think, perhaps, for you--" she gripped his necktie and jerked him nearer "--the old-fashioned methods are the best."

"No," he whispered.

"For God's sake, no!"

She went so far as to actually rake her teeth across the tight skin of his throat, even drawing a bit of blood, which tasted so delightfully wonderful she nearly forgot to behave herself.  But then she took a firm grip on her thirst, and she lifted her head from his throat.

"Oh, mon cher, you are delicious.  But Roland has warned me I mustn't kill you.  Only delay you until their flight--"  She bit her lips, as if she'd let some important bit of secrecy slip through them.  "No matter.  They are far from your reach now."  She released her hold on him and he staggered backward.  One hand lifted, palm pressing to his throat.  When he saw the blood it came away with, he nearly fainted, such was his distress.  She could have seen it even with mortal eyes, but in her vampiric state, she felt and sensed his every thought. 

"Bother the boy again, monsieur, and I will delight in finishing you.  And I assure you, despite your protests to the contrary, you shall delight in it, too.  Right unto the moment of your death."

His eyes shifted frantically right and left as he sought assistance.  None was to he had.  "You'll pay for this," he shouted when he felt safer, farther from her.  He edged toward an approaching vehicle.  I'll make sure you pay.  All of you."

"Yes, I know you will try.  One final word, my dear, and then I must go.  The taste of you on my lips has left me with a powerful appetite."

"You're an animal!"

She smiled slowly.  "Quite right.  A predator, to be precise.  And if you go near Roland again, you will become my prey.  Believe me, if it is Roland I avenge, your experience will not be a pleasant one.  I will hurt you, Curtis Rogers.  I will make you writhe!"

With a single burst of speed, she left him there, knowing to his human eyes, it must have seemed she'd simply vanished.  He wouldn't go to the castle.  Not right away, at least.  She thought she'd convinced him that Roland and the boy had boarded a jet bound for parts unknown.  He'd fallen so easily.  He would search elsewhere first.  They'd be safe during the approaching dawn.  Yet, there were still precautions to be taken.  Rhiannon sped toward the small rental house outside L'Ombre, to accomplish these, and of course, to fetch her cat.

*    *    *    *    *

Roland had no idea where she'd gone, or when she'd return.  That was the thing about her.  Flighty.  Volatile.  Unstoppable.  Damn near irresistible.  He groaned under his breath.  He couldn't forget his desire even in his anger.

When she'd looked at Jamey earlier, Roland could have sworn he'd seen the stirrings of genuine affection.  Of course, she would have 'to feel something for the boy.  He was one of The Chosen.  A human with the same two rare traits all vampires had as humans, the single combination that allowed them to be transformed.  The line of descent, including, but surpassing, Prince Vlad the Impaler--yes, despite all of Eric Marquand's theories, it went back farther than that.  And the blood antigen known as belladonna.  A human with these traits, though he may never be aware of it, becomes the ward of the undead.  Vampires watch over such ones, especially the children.  They cannot do otherwise.  And all preternatural beings can sense the presence of such ones, or the hint of a threat to them.  Yet rarely are these Chosen ones transformed, or even contacted.  Mostly, they simply go through their lives never knowing of their psychic link to a society they would believe a myth.

The situation with Jamey was unique.  In order to protect him, Roland had been left with little choice but to arrange things as they now stood.  DPI knew of Jamey's traits.  They knew of his connection, not to one, but to three--now four--vampires.  They placed a great value on the boy, his worth to them greater than would be his weight in gold.  They would stop at nothing to possess him, to hold him in one of their diabolical laboratories, to run countless, torturous experiments upon his fragile young body while they awaited the inevitable arrival of his protectors.

And with all of this on the line, Rhiannon had played another of her vanishing acts.

But he knew better than that, didn't he?  Unpredictable, she was, but not disloyal.  Her carelessness only applied to matters of her own safety.  Not to that of others.  He wanted to be angry with her, but instead, found himself worried.  She was gone, yes, but where was Rogers?  With her?  She'd been captured by a manlike him once.  Would she be reckless enough to end up in their hands again?

As soon as Jamey was safely installed in his modernized apartment in the east wing with Frederick at his side, Roland made the decision to search for her.  She'd resent it, no doubt.  She liked to do as she pleased without interference.  But he felt she might be at risk, and he couldn't ignore that possibility.

Before he made it to the door, he sensed her presence.  He realized a moment later that he'd felt an overwhelming sense of relief along with it.  But that was ridiculous.  He hadn't been that worried about her.

She entered the great hall through the tall, arching door of ancient hardwood, which was banded with black iron straps.  At her side lumbered a panther, sleek and black as the velvet gown she still wore.  The beast's green eyes glittered like emeralds, and as it gazed steadily at Roland, it stilled utterly, and emitted a deep-throated growl.

"What in God's name is that?"

"My cat.  Her name is Pandora, and I would appreciate it if you would treat her with the respect she deserves."

"Rhiannon, for God's sake--" Roland took a single step forward, and froze when the cat crouched, snarling, teeth bared, about to spring.

"Pandora, hush!"  At her stern command the animal relaxed, straightening rather lazily, still watching Roland's every move.

"Roland is a friend," Rhiannon said softly, stroking the cat's big head with her long, dagger-tipped fingers.

"Come, Roland, stroke her head, so she'll know you mean no harm."

Roland swore under his breath, but knew Rhiannon adored the beast, simply by the light in her eyes.  He would indulge her, this once.  It wasn't as if the cat could harm him.  He moved nearer the animal, and stretched out one hand. 

In a lightning-fast move, Pandora batted his hand away with claws extended, and a short angry snarl.

"Pandora!"  Rhiannon smacked the cat on the nose, and reached out, gripping Roland's hand and frowning at the single scratch the cat had managed to inflict.  A tiny, narrow path of beaded red droplets.

"I'm sorry, Roland.  She is so protective of me, you see, and you did raise your voice."  Then she lifted his hand, brought it to her lips, and, very catlike, herself, ran her damp tongue over the mark, from knuckles to wrist.  She closed her eyes at the erotic impact of the act.  Roland knew, because it rocked him, too.

Tongues of flame licked at his groin, and Roland winced at the force of it.

"Come, darling," she whispered.  "Show Pandora how close we are.  That will work to calm her.  I know it will.  Come, take me in your arms.  Just this once.  Just to calm the cat."

"Rhiannon, I don't think--"

"Why must I work so hard to earn each little touch you bestow?"  She shook her head, glancing at the cat, who again, began to snarl menacingly.  "Surely you won't die from my kisses, Roland, toxic though they may be.  Our embrace will reassure Pandora.  She will keep Rogers out of the castle while we rest, by day.  She is well trained, I assure you.  Now, please, just take me in your arms.  Hold me to you.  Kiss my lips.  It will be all the evidence she requires, I promise you."

Without quite meaning to, Roland stepped closer.  He slipped his arms around Rhiannon's slender waist, and she immediately pressed her hips against him.  Waves of desire raced through his veins.  Her deceptively fragile-looking arms linked around his neck.  Her scent was unlike anything human.  An exotic mingling of the preternatural blood flowing beneath her skin and the spiced juices of her arousal dampening her interior, the henna she insisted on rinsing through her hair and the mysterious incense she burned regularly.

A mortal man would notice none of it.  Nor would he see the subtle change in the light refracted in her black eyes, and know it signaled the onset of the powerful lust only immortals can feel or understand.  It borders on violence, this lust.  It mingles with the thirst for blood until the two entwine and become inseparable.

His arms tightened around her, until her proud breasts pressed hard against his chest.  Their stiff little nipples--twenty times more sensitive than a mortal woman's might be--poked into his skin, even through the dress she wore, and the shirt covering him.

He looked down into her face, his eyes feasting for a moment on her parted lips.  He could still catch the faint trace of his own blood on her tongue.  Slowly, he sunk into the madness only she could create within him.  He lowered his head until his face, his lips, moved over her smooth cheek.  He traced the high cheekbone, and then the shape of her finely arched brow.  His lips nibbled a path down the straight, narrow bridge of her nose, then danced over the bit of flesh between nose and upper lip.

She made a tiny sound, like a purr, in her throat, and tipped her head back slightly, to lift her lips to his.  Driven beyond restraint, Roland took her mouth the way a man dying of slow starvation takes his first crumb of food.  His hands twisted themselves into her hair and his tongue swept inside her.  Her taste was intoxicating, an aphrodisiac, certainly, for he throbbed with wanting her.

She felt his arousal, pressed her hips closer, and murmured his name into his mouth on a low, husky exhalation.

Roland put her from him, stepping back, though it took more effort than lifting this castle above his head could have taken.  The lust in him roared loudly in his ears, but he dared not give in to it.  No.  He could too easily lose his sanity in Rhiannon.  He could be swept completely away on a mindless journey of passion.  He could forget what was important.

The boy, in the east wing preparing once again to face a fight not even a grown man should have to endure.  The tiny cimetière in the forest beyond the castle's outer walls.  The five graves, so old now they would be invisible had he not kept them up, replacing the headstones every few years, and always with more ornate and expensive pieces.  His mother lay there, beneath the cold earth.  His father, and his three hearty brothers who had once scoffed at his desire to become a knight.  Truly, he knew, they'd only been afraid to see their youngest sibling thrown into bloody battle.  They'd loved him.  And he'd returned their love with hatred, and betrayal, and finally, with abandonment.  No, he could never forgive himself that.

Most important of all was that he never forget the beast that lived within him.  It had lurked in the depths of his black soul even when he'd been a mere mortal.  It must be contained, for were it loosed now, the destruction it might wreak would be irreparable.

Rhiannon made him careless.  She brought out the impulsive, irresponsible lad he'd once been.  The one foolish enough to let that beast escape.  She made him, at times, long to free the animal inside.  To allow it to take over.  She filled him with such hunger that all else seemed unimportant.

"Roland, darling?  What is it?"  Rhiannon stood alone now, a yard of space between him and her.  She appeared composed, but he felt the confusion, the thwarted passion frustrating her.  "Don't stop now," she whispered.  "We must convince Pandora..."

Roland shook himself.  What he felt for her was nothing but lust.  He wanted no companion at all, let alone one as uncontrollable and explosive as she.  Her very presence was a danger to his sanity.

He felt the huge cat's heavy, silken body pressing to his leg, first the head, then a long, slow stroke of its neck and side over Roland's calf.

"I believe the cat is convinced, Rhiannon."  Roland lowered his hand and scratched the feline's head.  It arched to his touch and purred like a motorcar.

"Pandora, you traitor!  I told you to wait until later to be friendly!"

Roland's brows shot up.  "You mean she didn't need convincing at all, only your command?"

Rhiannon's lower lip protruded ever so slightly farther than her upper one, looking as plump and moist as a ripe plum.  "I have to go to great lengths, sometimes, to get any cooperation from you, you stubborn man."

"And the cat?"

Rhiannon shrugged.  "I haven't figured her out yet.  Only that she can read me, and I her.  We connect on a psychic level neither of us can understand.  I don't need to speak to her, only to send her mental messages.  Not words, mind you.  Images.  And she obeys me without question."

"So she snarled at me because you told her to do so?"  She shrugged, trying for a look of innocence and failing.  "Just as I shall tell her to guard Jamey as we rest.  No mortal shall set foot inside these walls with Pandora about.  Not and live, at least."

"Suppose she makes the boy into a light snack?"

 "She would no more do so than you would, love."

The remark stung, but Roland ignored the barb.  "You're certain?"

"Do you think I would risk the child you adore so blatantly?"

He pursed his lips, then shook his head.  "No.  I suppose you would not."

"You suppose."  She tossed her hair over her shoulder and strode away, toward the crumbling, curving stone stairs that spiraled upward along the circular keep's wall.  "Come, Pandora.  I'll introduce you to your new friends."

As she moved up the stairs, the huge cat leaping to catch up with her, Roland scanned her mind.  He saw her envisioning Jamey and Frederick, envisioning herself embracing them, and the cat being lovingly stroked by their mortal hands.  He wondered at it, but he didn't question it.

He had enough on his mind at the moment.  He wouldn't waste time worrying about her true motives in wing to help the boy.  She was sincere, he knew.  Yet still, it baffled him; for in all the time he'd known Rhiannon, he'd never thought her capable of feeling much for any mortal.  Her thirst for adventure, and constant excitement came above all else.  He'd never understood her, the risks she took.

No.  He'd do better to assess his own ridiculous responses to her.  Naturally, she excited him.  What man, mortal or immortal, could remain indifferent to her touch, her scent, her vibrancy?  He didn't constantly resist her advances because he didn't want her.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  He wanted her too much... physically.  To copulate simply for lust's sake was to lower oneself to the level of an animal.

Moreover, she would only flit out of his life when it was over.

Not that he cared.

And there was the constant fear of losing control.  Rhiannon inspired that tendency in him like nothing else could.

Roland composed himself after several moments of pondering, and went to the worn stone stairs.  He slipped along the darkened corridor, and paused outside the vaulted door to the apartment.  He opened it only slightly, and nearly cried out at what he saw.

Jamey lay on his back upon the floor, with that black beast over him, front paws pressed to Jamey's chest.  The boy's hands cupped the panther's huge head, shoving it left and right roughly.  The cat made deep, threatening sounds, its tail swishing in agitation.  Roland tensed, about to launch himself upon the cat, but he stopped in his tracks as he realized that Jamey wasn't crying out for assistance.  He was laughing!

Before Roland's stunned eyes, Jamey threw the cat over, onto its side, then Pandora rolled herself onto her back and lay still, head turned, watching the boy.  He got to his feet and rubbed the animal's glossy underbelly vigorously, while the cat arched her neck and closed her eyes, emitting a loud purr.

Roland forced his gaze beyond the spectacle, to where Rhiannon stood with Frederick.  She gave him a half smile.  "She's just an overgrown kitten, you see?"  She crossed the room to Roland's side.  "It's odd, I thought I would have to introduce them... give them time to become acquainted.  Yet, it's as if she recognized Jamey the moment she saw him."  Her dark gaze reached out to Frederick with intensity.  "You must take care with her, Freddy.  She may not be as receptive to you."

Frederick licked his thick lips and moved slowly forward, his limp more pronounced now than earlier.  "Pandora," he called in his baritone voice.  He moved slowly toward the two on the carpeted floor.  "Pandora, come here, kitty."

The cat looked up, then slowly rolled onto her stomach.  She lay with paws extended, head up, still as a sphinx, eyeing Frederick.  He glanced up at Rhiannon.  "Can I pet her?"

Rhiannon nodded, her own gaze fixed on the panther, sending silent messages.  Frederick reached out, gently touched Pandora's head, and stroked it slowly.  He continued until, finally, the cat's deep purr came once more.  The glittering eyes closed, and the big head pressed upward against Frederick's hand.

Frederick laughed, tipping back his big, blond head as he did.  "Thank you for bringing her."

"Thank you for trusting her," Rhiannon replied.  "Rogers likely won't bother us here today.  I led him to believe you'd all left the country.  Still, she will keep him out should he attempt anything."

"I bet she will," Frederick said softly.

"And tomorrow evening, we'll see about getting Jamey somewhere safe."

"No."  Jamey stood, and faced both Rhiannon and Roland.

Roland sighed.  "I know this is difficult for you, Jamison but--"

"No.  It's impossible.  I'm not going anywhere tomorrow.  I have one more practice, and then the big match."  He faced Rhiannon.  "It's the championship, Rhiannon.  We can't leave until after that."

Roland opened his mouth, but Rhiannon held up her hand.  "This game of yours... soccer, isn't it?"

Jamey nodded.  "I've worked all season for this.  I'm not letting Curt Rogers cheat me out of it.  He's taken enough from me.  We're playing in the dome stadium, under the lights.  It's the biggest match of the year."

 Rhiannon nodded.  "The game, what time--"

"Seven tomorrow night."  Jamey's eyes lit with hope.

Rhiannon seemed deep in thought.  "It is dark by seven, is it not?"

Roland was unable to hold his silence any longer.  "Rhiannon, we cannot protect the boy in a stadium crowded with spectators.  Do not even suggest--"

"It is important to him, Roland.  Surely you can see that."

"I have to make the practice after school tomorrow.  If I miss it, I can't play in the match.  Coach's rule."

"No.  That I cannot arrange," Rhiannon said softly.  "This practice session is by day, Jamey.  We could not protect you there."

"I can protect myself."

"It is simple, really," Rhiannon went on as if he hadn't spoken.  "I will simply pen a note to this coach, telling him you've twisted your ankle, and must rest it for the entire day or else not be capable of playing in the game.  If he requires a note from a doctor, I will, of course write one.  I will deliver this note, along with a check, a donation, if you will, to the athletic department.  I'll make it a hefty enough sum that the man will be only too happy to excuse you from practice.  There, you see how simple?"

Jamey smiled slightly.  Then frowned.  "I shouldn't take your money--"

"Posh," Rhiannon said with a wave of her hand.  "I have more than you can imagine."  She looked at Jamey, her eyes glowing with affection.  "Besides, I can't remember the last time I watched a soccer match.  So, it is decided."

She strode out the door, the picture of elegance in her black velvet gown.

Roland dogged her steps.

She stopped on the stairway and turned to face him, daring him to argue with her.

"I do not have any intention of attending this soccer match."

She shrugged delicately.  "Well, we'll miss you, of course, but if that's your decision"

"Jamison isn't going either.  It's too great a risk."

She rolled her eyes.  "What is life without risk?"

"I forbid this, Rhiannon."

"Forbid all you like.  Jamey and I are attending the match.  And believe me, darling, no mere mortal is going to harm that boy while I am near.  You forget who I am."

He shook his head.  "There will be, perhaps, over a hundred mortals in attendance.  We'd be spotted immediately.  Recognized for what we are.  Have you no sense7"

She only turned and resumed walking down the stairs.  "Just as I was recognized the other night at Le Requin?  Roland, there are ways to disguise ourselves.  A bit of flesh-toned makeup on our pale skin, a pair of shaded lenses if you fear the glow in your eyes will be seen.  A bit of powder to those blood-red lips.  It is so obscenely simple to fool them, you see.  Besides, they are modern humans.  They wouldn't believe what we are, even if we walked up to them and announced it."

"This is utter foolishness," he muttered as he watched her proceed down the stairs.  How could one disguise one's nature, one's violence?  How could Roland allow the two people he most wanted to protect to place themselves in such a vulnerable position?

She reached the bottom step, and waited for him to join her there.  "You've lived as a hermit far too long, Roland.  You deny yourself the simplest luxuries."

"I have all I require."

"Nonsense.  If you could see some of the places I've lived.  Mansions in the countryside, penthouse suites in the finest hotels.  I have a delicious condo in New York.  When I choose to drive, I only travel in the height of luxury.  I attend the opera, the ballet, the theater.  Roland, there is no danger.  Not to us.  Who could hope to harm us?"

 "DPI, as you well know."

"Ah.  I make one mistake in all my centuries of existence, and you cling to it like Pandora with a steak."

 "They nearly had Eric, too.  It can happen."

"Eric is young... a mere two centuries old, Roland.  You have triple his strength and powers.  Besides, what is the use of endless life if one lives it like this?"  Her hands moved to encompass the great hall.

He sighed.  Arguing with her was an exhausting venture.  "I live here because I want to do so."

"No.  I think you cling to the past.  I think you fail to embrace your immortality, to relish it, as I do, out of some misguided sense of family loyalty, or something."

"And I think you seek out danger deliberately, as if daring death to claim you.  Why do you do it, Rhiannon?"

Her face quickly became shuttered, showing not a trace of emotion.  Even her mind closed to him, a heavy veil dropping instantly over it.  He knew he'd hit on something, but had no idea what.

"Even if that were true, you must believe I wouldn't include your Jamey in my challenge.  I would not risk him, Roland."

"Why not?  What is he to you?"

"It is what he is to you that matters."  Her ebony gaze fell to the floor, and for an instant, Roland glimpsed stark agony in her eyes.  "I know how he feels.  I know just the kind of pain there is in his young heart.  The loss of his mother--"  She blinked rapidly, and stopped speaking as her voice grew hoarse.  She whirled away from him, and headed across the stone floor toward the heavy doors.

"Where are you going?"  His mind reached out to hers.  He felt as if he'd been shown a part of Rhiannon no one had ever before seen.  He wanted to know more, wanted to identify the source of the pain he'd just glimpsed.  Wanted to end it.

"To my lair, of course.  It's nearly dawn."

He found himself at a loss.  He hadn't expected her to leave the castle today.  "I... I thought you'd stay here."

"And sleep where?  I suppose you have some spare box of polished hardwood I could use, stored in those dank dungeons of yours?"  The cynicism returned to her voice.

He didn't answer.

"I prefer a soft bed, Roland.  I prefer satin sheets to shrouds.  A fluffy down comforter and a plump soft pillow beneath my head.  I prefer fresh air, rife with the fragrance of incense."

"Sounds very lovely.  But where is your protection?"

"Come to me some dawn, darling, and I will show you."  With a swish of her velvet dress, she turned, strode to the door and was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

Roland woke at full dark, feeling the rush of tingling awareness sizzling in his every nerve ending.  He quickly unfastened the complex locks on the inner lid, using his mind to scan the immediate area, before throwing it wide.  He leapt to the floor with ease, landing soundlessly on the cold stone.

His rest had not been peaceful.  Often he'd found himself hovering on the verge of consciousness, while images flitted to and fro in his mind.  He was troubled, and not just on Jamey's behalf.  The images had been of Rhiannon, more often than not.  Beautiful, desirable, reckless Rhiannon.  Had he no more sense than a rutting mortal?  Could he not distinguish common, vulgar lust from true feelings of affection?  Could he not banish the temptress from his mind?

He moved slowly through the crumbling passages of the dungeons in utter darkness, his extraordinary vision showing him the way.  Blind, he'd have known the way.  It was embedded in him.  Every niche of this castle was.  It had been his home in boyhood, his curse in adolescence, his prison as a young man.  It had become the purgatory of the immortal, the place in which he would serve the sentence for the sin he'd committed against the family he'd adored.  Yes, adored, but adored too late.

And what earthly good was done by dwelling on it now?

He tugged at an iron ring mounted in what appeared to be an immobile stone wall, using a great deal of his vampiric strength to move it.  No mortal could hope to achieve the same feat without the help of some explosive or other.  He slipped into the passage, and mounted the perpendicular spiral stairs of rusting iron.  His every step echoed a thousand times in the darkness.  There had once been a ladder here as the sole entrance to the dungeon's lowest level from the castle keep.  When the ladder had needed replacing, the set of spiral stairs had seemed more apropos.

At the entrance to his chambers on the castle's ground level, he opened the door and emerged into his wardrobe, shoving hangers and suits of clothes aside.  These, of course, he carefully rearranged to cover the entrance.  Then he chose a fresh suit, and emerged into his chambers in the west wing.

He moved directly to the antique desk and took a long wooden match from the holder there to light the oil lamp.  He repeated the ritual, lighting several more until the room glowed with a soft, golden hue.  Looking around him now, he supposed Rhiannon would scoff at the place he called his home.  The draperies that covered the tall, arched windows were heavy and faded with time.  They smelled of dust and age.  Their color was green, once brilliant as emeralds, but now dull, as if one were seeing them through a heavy fog.  The windows themselves, a concession to modern times and added long after the deaths of the castle's rightful barons, were streaked and dirty.  Looking through them was like looking through the filmy eyes of an old man.  But wasn't that what this castle was, after all?  An old, old man, whose every beloved friend had left him to wither and die alone?

The brocade upholstery on the antique set tee had lost its luster long ago.  The fireplace was a cold, dark cavity, holding the ashes of a fire long forgotten.  The hardwood chairs, once throne like and imposing, sat like sad witnesses to the end of an era, their wood grain and hand-tooled designs barely discernible through the years of neglect, their embroidered cushions worn and faded.  High above, the chandelier, with its tier upon tier of candles, hung dark and brooding like a ghost of the past.  Draped with cobwebs and shrouded with dust, it watched in silence as Roland served his eternal death sentence in the rooms below.

Rhiannon would hate these rooms.

And what did he care what Rhiannon thought of anything?

She's here, now.

The realization came to him with sudden clarity.  She was here, on the grounds.  He felt the vivid colors of her aura, and sensed the mad vibrations in the air, the snapping electricity that always announced her presence.  In spite of himself, Roland hurried through his nightly bathing and dressing.  Not because he was eager to see her again, he told himself.  Not that at all.  He only wished to be present to keep her in check.  God only knew what she might do left to her own devices.

He followed his sense of her, moving soundlessly and quickly through the echoing corridors and finally into the great hall.  Still she was not in sight.  He sensed Jamey's presence now, as well, and Frederick's... and the cat's.  Not within the keep, but without, in the courtyard.

Beyond the heavy plank door, he saw her in the darkness.  Surprising him was something she did well and often.  Why had he not grown used to it by now?

She raced over the grass less brown earth, her path illuminated by silvery moonlight, keeping a spotted ball moving along between her feet.  She was clad in a pair of black denims, which had been cut off midway up her shapely thighs.  Small white socks barely covered her ankles and her feet were encased in black, lacing shoes with garish red stripes and mean-looking cleats protruding from their soles.

As Roland stood, transfixed, Jamey raced toward Rhiannon thrusting one foot between her two and snatching the ball away.  Rhiannon tripped and tumbled head over heels in the dirt, rolling to a stop with a cloud of brown dust rising around her.  Roland lunged, but stopped himself when he heard her deep laughter.  She stood and brushed the dirt from her derriere.

"Very good, Jamey."  Again she laughed.  She pushed the ebony hair from her face, leaving a dirt smear on her cheek.  "Show me again, I want to learn this."

Roland cleared his throat, and Rhiannon turned, spotting him.  "Don't look that way, love," she cooed.  "I'm not going to hurt him."

For a shocking instant, Roland realized he'd been more concerned about her hurting herself.  Imagine!  He'd been afraid the most powerful immortal he knew might hurt herself playing soccer with a young boy.  Damn strange.  True enough, immortals felt pain more keenly than mortals did, and Rhiannon would be especially sensitive.  But any injuries Rhiannon might sustain would heal as she rested by day.  Still, it stunned him that the thought of seeing her in pain should shake him so.

"See to it you don't," he told her, unwilling to admit the true path of his thoughts.  "He does have that match tomorrow night."

"Does this mean you've decided to stop arguing the point?"

He nodded, but reluctantly.  Rhiannon strode baldly up to him and threw her arms around his neck.  Her embrace resulted in his starched white shirt and tailored jacket be coming as dirty as she was.  Yet he withstood it well enough, even though her body pressed tightly to his that way sent his pulse racing and caused his eyes to water.

"There are conditions, Rhiannon."

She gazed up at him, for though she was tall for a woman, he was still a good deal taller.  "Conditions?"  Her eyebrows furrowed, showing her displeasure.

He cleared his throat.  He was about to anger her.  Seemed to him everything he said angered her.  Still, he had to speak his mind.  A ball of foreboding about this excursion had lodged somewhere in his stomach and he couldn't shake the feeling that she was about to put herself at risk... yet again.  "At this match, you will behave with a modicum of decorum."

"Oh, will I?"

"You will try, for once in your existence, not to draw undue attention.  You will be polite, soft-spoken and unobtrusive."

Her eyes glittered.  "And just why will I transform myself this way?"

Roland sighed.  He only wanted to keep her from being discovered by Rogers or another one like him.  Why did she have to be so defensive?  "Because I have asked you to, Rhiannon.  And because it is the wisest course to take.  Rogers isn't stupid, nor is he the only agent in the area.  Anyone who's learned Jamey's identity will know enough to look for him at that match."

For once, her chin dropped rather than thrusting upward into his face.  She gave an almost imperceptible nod, and Roland felt a mingling of surprise and relief.  He'd been certain she would argue.  Protecting Rhiannon was going to be as much a challenge as protecting Jamey, he thought grimly.

*    *    *    *    *

"Ready?"  Roland asked the following evening, an hour before the match was to begin.  He stood near the huge, empty hearth in the great hall.  Rhiannon closed the heavy door, causing its hinges to groan in protest, and crossed the cold, dusty stone floor to join him.

She chewed her lower lip.  "I'm not sure.  I don't have the benefit of a reflection by which to judge my appearance."

He fought the urge to smile.  "Must be a damned nuisance to a woman of your vanity."

She met his gaze, her own flashing.  "Quite right.  You ought to paint my portrait, so I can see what I look like when I wish it."

"You know I don't paint anymore."

"Perhaps it's time you started."  She glanced around her, and he knew she was noting the absence of any decoration adorning the gray stone walls.  There were only torches mounted in brackets, and here and there the mounted antlers of one of his brothers' kills.  "This place could use it.  Whatever became of the portraits you'd done of your family?"

He shook his head.  The subject was not open to discussion.  Having the faces of those he'd failed looking down at him would be too much agony to bear.  "In answer to your initial question, Rhiannon, you look fine."

"That, my dear Roland, is no answer at all."  She stood before him, hands at her sides.  "Look at me, darling.  Describe to me what you see.  I am so tired of going out and about wondering if everything is in place."  She waited a moment.  Roland's gaze moved over her, and he found himself unable to form a coherent thought.  "I'll help," she offered.  "Begin with my hair.  Is it all right?"

She turned slowly and Roland nodded.  "It gleams like satin, as you well know."  His eyes traveled the length of it.  She wore it long, and unencumbered by barrettes or dressings of any kind.  She'd combed it all to one side, as she was prone to do, thus leaving the bare length of her swan's neck visible to the point of distraction.  She had braided a tiny, silken lock on the left side of her face; from the crown of her head all the way to her waist.  It had a petite charm that lured one to touch it.

Rhiannon, catching his gaze, lifted the braid in two fingers.  "You like it?"

"Yes."  He licked his lips, then caught himself.  "Yes, it's just fine.  Are you ready to go now?"

"But you haven't finished."  Her pout was utterly false.  She leaned forward.  "What about the blouse?  Does it show too much cleavage?"

Against his will, his eyes were drawn downward to the plunging neckline of the satiny, emerald-colored garment.  The swell of her creamy breasts filled the lowest part of the V, and Roland felt a twisting sensation in his stomach.  "When do you not show too much," he asked, trying for a sarcastic tone.

She shrugged, straightened and struck yet another pose, this time hands on her hips.  "And the skirt?  Do you think it's too short?"

It was tight, molded to her hips like cling wrap, black and made of suede.  It buttoned down the front, and as if the garment had not already been daring enough, Rhiannon had left the bottom two buttons agape.  Her thighs, shimmering beneath silk stockings, extended from the skirt's edge.  As she stood there, turning first to one side, then the other, Roland's gaze affixed itself to her legs.  "Perhaps it's simply that your legs are too long," he suggested.  But instead of sounding dry and uninterested, his voice came out hoarse and none too loudly.

"These stockings are wonderful, don't you think?"  She stepped nearer and bent one knee, propping her foot on low stool.  "So soft against my skin.  Touch them, Roland and you'll see what I mean."  She caught his hand in hers and pressed his palm to the front of her thigh, then rubber it up and down over the smooth, cinnamon-tinted silk.

He swallowed.  "As I've mentioned before, you lack a certain degree of subtlety.  Why do you not simply tea my clothes off and attempt a forced seduction?"  H snatched his hand away, more angry with his own responses than with her childish attempts to lure him.

He saw the hurt in her eyes before she covered it, and he regretted his words at once.  She truly couldn't help herself, he supposed.  She was simply being Rhiannon He'd allowed his anger at himself to spill out onto her "I'm sorry, Rhiannon.  I didn't mean--"

She tossed her hair.  "Of course you did.  You'd prefer me to become what you consider a true lady, to sit on an embroidered cushion and bat my eyes until you take the initiative, and ask me to dance.  Hah!  I'd be coated in mot cobwebs than this great hall by the time you made up your mind."

She turned her back to him.  "I was going to the match with you, but now I believe I will ride in the car with Frederick and Jamey.  Enjoy your walk, Roland.  And it God's sake, change into the clothes I brought for you before you leave.  If you think attending a schoolboy soccer match in such formal attire is inconspicuous, you better think again."

He glanced down at the bag she'd dropped near the door as she whirled and walked through it.

He did not enjoy his walk.  It turned out that he wasn't quite hard-hearted enough to hurt Rhiannon and take any sort of pleasure from it.  He hadn't meant to insult her, but she was getting to him, dammit.  Any man would be less than cheerful and charming when feeling as frustrated as he'd been.  To resist her overt sexual overtures took every bit of will he possessed.  But to give in to them would be foolhardy, to say the least.  Not only would she never let him forget that she'd won this particular battle of wills, but she'd probably flit away like a summer breeze when the act was done.  He might not see her again for years.  And in the process, she'd have loosed the beast he'd battled for so long.

No.  This... thing that sizzled between them was purely physical in nature.  It's overwhelming potency... well, he could attribute that to the vampiric state.  Every sensation was felt more keenly by immortals.  Desire was simply magnified by his nature.

That explanation firmly established in his mind, he used his preternatural speed to arrive at the stadium before the little car he'd purchased for Frederick.  He much preferred travel by his own power or by horse, to being helplessly hurtled through space by three thousand pounds of manmade scrap metal.

At the stadium, he felt more conspicuous in the attire Rhiannon had chosen for him than ever he had in his own overly formal clothing.  The blue denim hugged his backside and clung with unaccustomed tightness to his groin.  The sweatshirt was black.  That part did not disturb him.  But the blaze of neon paint across his chest, proclaiming him a fan of something called the Grateful Dead, had him at the end of his patience.  He was not amused by the skull and crossbones, or by the not so subtle irony in her choice.  At least he blended in with the crowd.

In contrast, Rhiannon, seated just to his left, was anything but unnoticeable.  She shouted encouragement, not to mention a few obscenities when the opposing team made progress.  She was in constant motion, wriggling in her seat, leaning forward or standing or both, when she wanted a better view, much to the delight of the males in the seats near her, Roland noted with a rush of inexplicable anger.

Still, in the seats below, near the team's bench, he saw that Frederick was nearly as animated.

Jamey, looking fierce in his uniform and with black smudges under his eyes to fight glare from the overhead lights, raced across the artificial turf with the ball.  Rhiannon shouted encouragement, getting to her feet as he neared the goal.

Roland scowled.  Was this supposed to be unobtrusive behavior?  My God, he couldn't take his eyes off her, nor could several other men in the immediate area.

Roland forced his gaze back to the field of play, just as another lad thrust a leg in Jamey's path, tripping him so he tumbled head over heels, hitting hard.  Roland caught his breath.  Jamey got to his feet, though, and charged after the brat.  When Jamey regained possession of the ball, Roland stood.  He had no idea he'd done so, but there he was, upright.  When the bully approached, Jamey skillfully passed the ball to a teammate, and when the teammate was similarly accosted, he passed back to Jamey.

A moment later, Jamey planted one foot and slammed the ball with the other, driving it into the goal with impressive speed.  Roland applauded as loudly as anyone.  Rhiannon released a piercing whistle that probably damaged some human ears.  He touched her arm.  She looked at him, her half smile a full-blown one for a change.

"You're forgetting yourself."  He nearly didn't remind her.  He didn't want to see her brilliant smile die.

"So are you," she told him.  But she did sit down again.

*    *    *    *    *

Jamey's team won by a slim margin.  Rhiannon felt drained from the excitement of the match.  She and Frederick walked to the parking lot, while Roland waited outside the locker room to escort Jamey out.  Rhiannon was certain no DPI operatives had been in the stadium.  She'd kept her mind attuned throughout the match, and had caught not the faintest sense of a threat.  Still, she remained watchful, and she scanned the minds of everyone who passed, in search of belligerent thoughts.

Frederick got into the car and started the engine, letting it idle as they waited for Roland and Jamey.  Rhiannon stood near the driver's door, one arm propped on the car's roof.  Others began to leave, a few at a time.

Within a short time, the lot was deserted.  The moon's light this evening was more often than not obliterated by inky clouds.  The concrete field became eerily silent, save the occasional sounds of vehicles passing on the street nearby.  Time passed with leaden feet.

"The game was wonderful, wasn't it, Freddy?"

He nodded enthusiastically.  "I practice with Jamey sometimes.  But I'm not much good at running."

Rhiannon frowned slightly.  "Your leg?"

Again, he nodded.

"Do you mind if I ask what happened to it?"

"No, it's all right.  It happened when I was in the city, when I didn't have anyplace to live.  It was wintertime, and I guess it just got too cold."

Rhiannon suppressed a shudder at the thought of gentle Freddy, freezing his limbs on a frigid winter's night.  "Does it hurt you very much?"

"Oh, no.  It hardly bothers me at all, anymore."

"I'm glad."  She looked toward the rapidly darkening building.  "They're taking too long."

"Maybe we better go back and check on them."

A warning prickle of danger danced over Rhiannon's nape.  She sent the probing fingers of her mind in search of the source, but there was nothing tangible.  "I think you should wait here, in the car."  Rhiannon shook her head, still unable to pinpoint the source of her precognition.  "Lock the doors," she added.

"Rhiannon, is somethin' wrong with Jamey?"  Fear made Freddy's voice hoarse.  "'Cause if there is, I'm going with you."

"I don't know," she said truthfully.  "But it really will be better if you wait here.  In case Jamey comes out and I miss him.  Okay?"  She tried to sound unconcerned, and for a moment it surprised her that she should care to ease the mind of a mortal.  Then again, Freddy was no ordinary human.  When she saw the car doors were locked, she gave him an encouraging nod and hurried across the blacktop toward the entrance.

The thrill of foreboding grew stronger and her fear for Roland and the boy grew with it.  Her quickened steps snapped loudly over the lot, and then the sidewalk.  She rounded a corner and reached for the doors.

A heavy arm came around her from behind, jerking her off balance and into the shadows.

Fool!  Did this human think he could hope to do battle with her and win?

She prepared to pull free, turn around and wring the idiot's neck, when pain split through her consciousness like a piercing cry.  The blade tore the flesh at her waist, only a small cut, surely.  Yet the scalding pain paralyzed her.  And when she felt she could move again, his voice gave her pause.

"I know your weaknesses, Rhiannon.  Loss of blood, exposure to sunlight, direct contact between your flesh and an open fire... and pain."  The blade pressed to her rib cage, but didn't cut.  "Pain," he went on, his voice a rasping serpent in her ear.  "The more severe, the more it weakens you.  Isn't that right?"  The blade's point pressed into her sensitive skin.  "And the older the vampire, the more keenly she feels it."  More pressure on the blade.  A trickle of blood ran beneath her satin blouse, over her abdomen.  She sucked breath through her teeth.  "So this must be just about maddening, isn't it?"

Teeth grated, she forced words through her lips.  "What do you want?"

Again the blade poked, twisting this time.  She cried out, then bit her lip.  She wouldn't summon Roland, not until she knew what he would be facing.  "What do you think?" he rasped.

He was not Curtis Rogers.  He was not anyone she'd ever encountered before.  He was strong for a human, and unstintingly cruel.  The first wound, the one in her side, still pulsed hot spasms of pain as well as blood.  She felt herself weakening.  A vampire as old as Rhiannon need lose very little to meet her demise.  She needed help.  Damn, but she hated to admit that.  She'd never found herself less than able to deal with adversity.  It infuriated her that this human had identified her few weaknesses, and used them so skillfully against her.

Her knees began to tremble and she forced them rigid once more.  "Who are you," she growled, "and why do you court death so eagerly?"

"Not death, Rhiannon.  Life.  Eternal life.  Immortality.  You have it.  I want it."

The man was insane!  "You have no idea what you're talking about.  You're not..."  She paused, dizziness swamping her brain.  She blinked it away.  "Release me.  I must... sit."  She pressed her free hand against the hole in her side, hoping to slow the flow of her life from her body.

"If I release you, lady, you might just find enough strength to kill me.  That is not my goal."

"If I die, so does your chance of getting what you want."

"Not really.  There are others."  His grip on her tightened.  His pinpoint blade pressed harder, and the end twisted slowly.  She was breathing hard now, in broken, ragged gasps.  A response to the pain.  Tears blurred her vision.  "Give me what I want and I will let you go."

"And if I refuse, you'll let me die?"  The words came slowly, and her speech was slurred.  "I choose death, then."

"Not death, Rhiannon.  Something far worse.  There are DPI agents all over this place tonight, waiting for that boy of yours.  But they'd consider you a greater prize, don't you think?  The vampiress who murdered one of their most highly valued researchers all those years ago?  I'll just give a shout and bring them running.  You're too weak to fight them.  Getting weaker all the time."

She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on Roland.  Take Jamey out of here.  Be careful.  They're watching, and...  Before she completed the thought, the bastard twisted his blade again, and Rhiannon couldn't stop the gasp of pain that escaped her.  "Well?  Are you going to give me what I want?"

Her legs gave out.  The loss of blood combined with the pain was simply too much.  She went to her knees, causing the man's blade to rake up over her rib cage, and nick her throat.

At that moment, the man flew backward for no apparent cause, landing with a heavy thud on the ground.  "You've just ended your life, human."  It was Roland's voice, and it was quivering with a rage she'd never heard in him before.  He reached for the man, who lay on his back, staring defiantly up at him.

"Here!" the mortal yelled at the top of his lungs.  "They're here!  Hurry!"

"That won't save you."  Roland lifted the man by the front of his shirt, and Rhiannon knew he was about to crush his larynx.  She'd never seen Roland so angry.  He'd forgotten his well-schooled caution, his carefully cultivated calm.  She felt it in his every thought, saw it in every line of his face.  He would kill the man, and anyone who tried to stop him.  The force of his anger shook her to the core.  She hadn't known he was capable of such explosive violence.

"Roland, they're coming," she managed to say.  "We must go.  Think... of Jamey."

He pummeled the man's face with his fist, and slowly lifted him again.  "Let them come.  They'll soon wish they'd kept their distance."

She put every ounce of strength she had into her voice.  "Roland, please!  I'm bleeding--"

All at once, it seemed, his fury dissipated.  Roland dropped the limp form to the ground.  Then he whirled, bending over Rhiannon and lifting her easily into his arms.  He searched her face, his eyes wide with fear now, rather than narrow with a barely suppressed rage.  She felt him stiffen as he realized the extent of her blood loss and the weakness of her body.  In a burst of preternatural speed, he left the parking lot and the sounds of running feet behind.

"Where... is Jamey?"

"We had to sneak out a window and duck through the brush.  There were DPI agents watching all the exits.  I put him in the car with Frederick and saw them safely off.  They're fine."

She sighed, but it was broken by pain.  "Good."

"You're still losing blood."  He stopped, and settled her on the ground.  She glanced upward, seeing only the black outline of gnarled tree limbs against the paler gray of the night.  They were in a wooded area.

She heard the tear of fabric as Roland hurriedly opened her blouse.  Then there was more pain, even at his gentle touch, as he pressed a handkerchief firmly to the wound.  "Hold it there," he instructed.  "Hold it tightly.  Ignore the pain."

She did, but cried out.  "Easy for you to say.  You're less than ten centuries old.  I'm more than twice that."

"With age comes strength," he replied in a hoarse voice as his fingers touched the smaller wound.  She winced.

"And weakness."  She drew a shaky breath.  "You well know that I'm far more vulnerable to pain and blood loss, sunlight and fire, than you are."  Her head fell backward, her neck suddenly incapable of supporting it.  "I'm not certain I'll make it to dawn, Roland."

Again, he slipped his arms beneath her, lifted her.  This time, he pressed her face to the crook of his neck.  "You will, Rhiannon.  I won't allow it to be otherwise.  You only need to drink."

She stiffened, unsure of his meaning.  His hand at the back of her head pressed her nearer, his fingers moving softly through her hair as his palm held her to him.  Her lips touched the skin of his throat, tasted its salt.

"Drink," he said again.

And she did.

CHAPTER FIVE

Roland closed his eyes as her lips moved against his throat.  The blood lust came alive at her touch.  The sexual desire pummeled him until he felt too weak to fight it.  God, but he wanted her.  And what she was doing now only trebled the already powerful longing.  Slowly the restraint he'd been struggling to hold in place shuddered beneath the assault of desire.  Roland drew a strangled breath.

"Enough!"

He hadn't meant the single command to sound so harsh.  She immediately lifted her head, blinking.  Roland saw the passion in her eyes, even through the pain clouding them.

"Any more and I'll not have the strength to carry you home, Rhiannon," he lied in a much softer tone.  He still feared for her well-being, but in truth if she didn't stop right then, he'd have dropped her into the tangy scented leaves at their feet, and made frantic love to her, pain or no pain.

"Put me down, then.  I can walk."

He only shook his head and began again, in the direction of the castle.

"I said put me down.  I've never needed any man to help me, and I never will.  I can manage on my own."

"You needed the help of a man tonight, Rhiannon.  No doubt if you continue in your reckless life-style, you'll need it again.  And you need it now, whether you'll admit it or not, so rest in my arms and are quiet."

She did settle more comfortably against him, but the set of her lips told him the argument was far from over.  "I will, but only because I know the truth.  You're carrying me because you like it.  You like the way my body feels so close to yours.  As for my needing the help of a male, you are completely wrong.  I was only waiting for the right moment to rip that fool's head from his shoulders.  I'm as capable as any male, mortal or immortal, young or old, and you ought not forget it."

Roland rolled his eyes.  "I thought at least to get a word of thanks for saving your life.  Instead, I get scolded for daring to assume you were in need of assistance?"

She was silent for a moment, considering his words, he thought.  "All right, I suppose I owe you my thanks, then.  Only don't dare think of me as inferior."

"I never have, Rhiannon."

"That is purely a lie."

Roland frowned, searching her upturned face as he continued carrying her through the thickening forest.  Crisp leaves and fallen twigs crackled beneath his hurried steps.  "Why do you say so?"

"Foolish question."

Roland focused on the bite in her tone, rather than on the weight of her hip, or the way it slid over his abdomen with his every step.  He forcibly ignored the feel of her head nestled upon his shoulder, and the softness of the rounded breast that pressed to his chest.  "I believe being assaulted by DPI operatives makes you decidedly cranky."

He saw her part her lips to reply, then she stopped herself, frowning.  "I'm not sure he was DPI.  At least, if he was, he was more concerned with his own interests than theirs."

"What do you mean?"

"Roland, the man was uncommonly knowledgeable about our kind.  He listed our weaknesses.  He called me by name."

Roland stopped walking, glancing ahead to the dark stone wall that completely surrounded the Castle Courtemanche.  He could hear the violence of the River Tordu to his left as it splashed and roiled its way to fuse with the older, calmer waters of the River Loire.  To his right, past the edge of the woods, a cool, green meadow rolled like a carpet from the outer wall to the winding dirt road.  But the aromas of the grasses, of the rivers, of the very night, faded beside the scent of Rhiannon's hair and skin.

Roland shook himself and honed his senses, searching for the presence of others.  They'd made excellent time, but he feared DPI forces would be on their way.

"Roland, you aren't listening.  I scanned, and found no sign of this man, though he was lying in ambush.  He can mask his presence, block us out."

Roland nodded.  "It was only a matter of time before they learned that simple trick, Rhiannon.  It shouldn't alarm you."

"He ordered me to transform him."

Roland froze, a chill of precognition tiptoeing up his spine.  "That's ridiculous.  He couldn't be transformed unless he was one of The Chosen.  Anyone working for DPI would know that--"

"Which can only mean he is one of The Chosen.  Roland, we should have felt his presence.  He has somehow sharpened his psychic abilities.  The man is dangerous."

Roland recalled again the shock of pain that had lanced through him when he'd felt Rhiannon's mind reaching out to him back at the stadium.  He recalled the rage he'd felt when he'd seen the bastard holding her, that knife piercing her sensitive skin, the blade twisting as she gasped in pain, the tears shimmering over her eyes.

"You ought to have let me kill him."

She stilled utterly, searching his face.  "You very nearly did, Roland.  I've never seen you like that."

"With good reason."  He glanced down at her.  He wished to God she hadn't witnessed the ugliness inside him.  But now that she had, there was little use in denying it.  "I'm a man capable of great violence, Rhiannon.  There lurks within me a demon, one who thrives on bloodshed."

She frowned, sable eyebrows bunching over her small, narrow nose.  "I've known you from the first moment of your preternatural existence, Roland.  I've never seen a sign of this demon."

"I keep it in check, or I have, until now."  He gazed at her beautiful, flawless face.  Why was control so much more difficult when she was near?  She was like a magnet, drawing the beast from its hidden lair, stirring it to life by her very presence.  "It was in me before, Rhiannon, when I was yet a mortal."

"You were a knight!  One known far and wide for courage and valor and--"

"All pretty words for bloodlust.  I was talented in the art of battle.  A skillful killer.  No more."

She stiffened in his arms.  "You're wrong about yourself.  This demon you claim possesses you is no more than the will to live.  Those times were violent, and only the violent survive in battle, a man must kill or be killed.  You did what was necessary..."  She winced all at once, and clung more tightly to his neck.

His knowledge of her discomfort was as acute as if the pain were his own.  "Press the handkerchief more tightly, Rhiannon.  The bleeding is beginning again."  He strengthened his hold on her and ran the last few steps to the wall, leaping easily over it.  Now was no time for recriminations or confessions.  Not while her very life was slowly seeping from her body.  Oddly enough, Roland felt as if his vitality were draining away, as well, keeping perfect pace with hers.

He carried her over the barren courtyard, past the crumbling fountain that marked its center and through the huge, groaning door.  He set her on her feet to pull the door closed.

The cat lunged gracefully from the lowest stair, stopped in front of her mistress and seemed almost to study her, eyes intent and intelligent.  Pandora lifted her head, and sniffed delicately at Rhiannon's blood-soaked blouse, and the sound she emitted from deep in her throat could have been a snort of alarm.

"There, kitty.  It's not the end of me."  Rhiannon stroked the cat's head with one hand, still holding the hanky to her waist with the other.

Jamey came bounding down the stairs with Frederick on his heels.  The boy stopped a yard from Rhiannon, his face setting into a granite mask no child of his age had any business wearing.

Frederick came forward, dropped to one knee in front of her and moved the handkerchief aside briefly before pressing it tight again.  "It's bad.  You need stitches."

"Not necessary," Roland stated, hoping to hide the effect of those words on his equilibrium.  Stitches.  It brought to mind the image of a sharp object piercing her sensitive skin, an object held by his hand.  The pain would be incredible.

Frederick looked again and shook his head.  "It isn't gonna stop bleeding."

Roland swallowed hard.  Frederick had been a medic in the army before he'd succumbed to the mental illness that kept him so childlike.  The man knew a bit about injuries.  Still, the thought of the pain...  "She needs only rest."

"Nonsense," Rhiannon said softly.  "I can rest, but the regenerative sleep will only come with the dawn.  I doubt I can keep from bleeding to death until then."

At her words, Roland felt a fist in his stomach.  Reckless and irritating though she was, he could not see her die.  Even the thought was too much to bear.  He glanced once more at Frederick.  "Can you do it?"

Frederick's blue eyes widened and he shook his head.  It was obvious the very idea scared him to death.

"You'll have to stitch it up, Roland."  Rhiannon's voice was steady and firm, but he heard the underlying weakness.  "There must be a needle somewhere in this place.  You can use the silk thread from my blouse.  It's ruined, anyway."

He met her slowly clouding gaze and knew she was right.  The specter like image of the needle, wielded by his own hands, inflicting what would be agonizing pain on her sickened him.  He stiffened his resolve.  He would do what must be done.

"I'll bring a needle," Frederick said softly.  He turned and lumbered up the curving stone stairs, hugging the wall as if afraid of falling should he walk too near the open side.

Roland swept Rhiannon up once again.  He turned toward the vaulted corridor to the west wing.  Jamey's voice, low and trembling, stopped him.  "It was Rogers, wasn't it?"

Rhiannon's head rose from his shoulder as Roland turned to face the angry boy.  "No, Jamison," she told him.  "It was not.  It was a man I've never seen before."

"Was he DPI?"

She sighed.  "I can't be certain."

Jamey's gaze met Roland's then.  "Did you kill him?"

"No."

"He would have, though," Rhiannon put in quickly, as if defending him.  "I had to insist he drop the man and leave before the others discovered us there."

"Killing him would have solved nothing, Jamison.  It would only have brought more trouble."

Jamey shook his head slowly.  "Not good enough."  His gaze again met Roland's and there was an intensity burning in the young eyes that gave him cause to shudder.  Like looking into a mirror and seeing his own youth.  "Doesn't matter," Jamey said.  He glanced back at Pandora, and simply tilted his head.  Then he walked ahead of them down the corridor, with the cat leaping to keep up with him.

Roland frowned.  "Did you see that?"

Rhiannon, still staring down the dim corridor after the two, shook her head.  "He is communicating with my kitten."

She sounded as if she disliked the idea.

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon grated her teeth and squeezed her eyes tightly.  Roland's hands trembled as he poked the needle into her skirt, and pulled another tight knot in the thread.  He snipped the thread with tiny scissors, and bent over her to begin again.

She wore a cream-colored camisole, stained with her own blood.  Roland had deftly removed her ruined blouse and her skirt.  She lay on her back on Roland's bed.  Of course, it wasn't really his bed.  He only kept one in his chamber for appearance's sake.  She'd had a brief moment to be grateful he kept it made up with fresh linens and a fluffy down comforter, before this torture had begun.

Roland sat upon the bed's edge, grim-faced.  Jamey stood at the opposite side.  After the first stitch and Rhiannon's breathless reaction to it, the boy had gripped her hand.  She squeezed it harder with each jolt of pain, then reminded herself not to crush his mortal bones to dust.

"This is my fault.  I shouldn't have made you take me to that game."

Rhiannon shook her head quickly.  "I was the one who insisted you go, and I don't regret it a bit."  Her teeth clamped down on her lower lip as the needle was plied once more.  She felt beads of icy sweat upon her forehead.  "You played wonderfully, Jamey.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself."

"You could have been killed."

"No danger of that with Roland around."  Again a jab, and again she sucked in a sharp breath.  "Of course, protecting helpless women is old hat to him."

"You are hardly helpless, Rhiannon," Roland stated, but his lips were set in a thin line as he worked.

"He was a knight.  Did you know that?"  She had to say something, anything to distract Jamey from the bitter fury she sensed overwhelming him, and to distract herself from her own suffering.  It was unfair for one to be so strong and yet so weak.  And though she tried to disguise her agony from both of them, she knew she was failing utterly.  Roland's face grew more pale and the hatred in Jamison's eyes increased with every gasp she drew.

Her effort to distract the boy seemed to work, for Jamey's eyes widened.  For once, he lost the look of a haunted young man, and looked like a boy, filled with wonder.  "A knight?  With armor and swords, and all that?"

"Yes.  He was knighted by King Louis VII, for heroism.  But he's never told me the entire story."  She squeezed her eyes tightly against hot tears as the needle poked again.  She wanted to hear the tale, she realized.  It would alleviate some of the pain.  More over, she sensed Roland needed to tell it.

He shot her a look meant to quell her, but she responded with a quick shake of her head.

"Will you tell us now, Roland?"

Roland glanced quickly at Jamey.

"Yes, I wish you would," a deep voice boomed from beyond the open door.  Rhiannon looked up quickly to see a large, handsome man, and a petite woman with a head of long, dark curls and perfectly round, doe's eyes.  Immortals, both of them.

"Eric."  Roland stood at once, dropping his implement of torture to the bedside stand.  The two men met in the center of the room and embraced as if they were brothers.  Jamey ran to the woman, who wrapped her arms around him and began sniffling like some simpering human.

From the corner of her eye, Rhiannon saw Pandora crouch.  The cat's teeth became visible as her lip curled away from them in a menacing snarl.  Her claws extended to a dangerous length, and her haunches tensed as she prepared to spring upon the woman holding Jamey.

There was no time to shout a warning.  Rhiannon lunged from the bed, landing awkwardly upon the cat, clinging tightly to her neck.  The stitches Roland had painstakingly administered tore free, and she cried out in excruciating pain.

The soft-looking female flung herself away from Jamey, and fell to her knees beside Rhiannon.  Pandora struggled free of Rhiannon's weakened grasp, but was firmly caught again by Jamey.  Then Roland was scooping her back into the bed, swearing under his breath.

"Mind telling us what the hell is going on, old friend?"

Roland didn't look at Eric.  His tortured gaze remained on Rhiannon's face.  He swept her hair out of her eyes and smoothed it back.  "We had a little run-in with DPI.  I'll fill you in later."  Roland searched for his needle, and tried to thread it without success.  Through the burning tears, Rhiannon saw the violence with which his hands trembled.

The small woman touched his shoulder.  "Let me."

Sighing in unmistakable relief, Roland surrendered the implements, and got to his feet.  The woman took his place on the bed at her side.  "I'm Tamara."

"Rhiannon," she said through grated teeth.  "And I'll have no more of that needle."

Tamara frowned and glanced down at the wound, bending to push the camisole up, out of the way.  "Doesn't look like you have a choice."  Her head swung around sharply when the cat stepped up and sniffed at her hand.  Jamey still held the panther by the diamond-studded collar.

"Pandora, my cat," Rhiannon supplied, her voice weakening by the second.

"What are you doing here?"  Roland's voice was clipped as he addressed Eric.  "The village is swarming with DPI agents."

"Yes, that's why we've come.  We thought you might need reinforcements."

"But how did you know?"

Tamara bit her lip as she applied the needle.  "I have a friend, Hilary Garner, who still works for them.  She's kept us informed.  DPI knows you're in the area, but not about the castle.  Not yet, anyway."

Rhiannon shook her head.  The woman worked swiftly, and steadily.  It would soon be over, at least she could be certain of that much.  "Curtis Rogers knows.  He was at the front gate only last night."

"Curt is here?"  Tamara's skin paled, and her hand stilled briefly.

"Not at the moment.  I sent him on a wild-goose chase."

"If Rogers knows, he's keeping it to himself," Eric said, his voice low and dangerous.  "No doubt he wants to exact his revenge single-handedly."

Tamara looked up suddenly, her gaze meeting Jamey's across the room.  Her eyes took on a troubled expression.  "Enough talk about Curt and DPI.  I, for one, am dying to hear this medieval tale.  Roland, a knight?  No wonder you ooze such chivalrous charm."

Rhiannon shot a narrow look toward Tamara.  She disliked this fledgling's open flirting.

"I was a knight.  There is little else to tell."  Roland's expression was guarded.

"I doubt that is the case, Roland," Eric said.

"Doubt all you like.  There is little else I care to tell, then.  Leave it."

His clipped tone left no question as to his stand on the topic.  Eric's brows rose, but he nodded.  "If that's what you wish."

Tamara put one final stitch into Rhiannon's side, tied the knot and set the needle aside.  Rhiannon sighed loudly.  "Thank God that is over."

"Lie still until dawn, Rhiannon.  If you tear them out before then, I'll have to do it all over again."

Rhiannon was stunned.  Was this mere fledgling threatening her?  Her?  Rhiannon?  Princess of Egypt?

Then the slip of a thing glanced down at her and winked.  "It's late.  Jamey, you ought to be getting to bed."

To Rhiannon's surprise, Jamey didn't argue with Tamara.  He nodded, and glanced toward a chair in a corner, where Freddy already slumped, snoring.

*    *    *    *    *

Eric had a crackling fire blazing in the hearth, behind the protective screen.  Rhiannon lay still in the oversize bed, and Roland thought even she looked small in its billowing folds and covers.  He hadn't seen Tamara since the death of Jamey's mother, eight months ago.  Tamara and Kathryn Bryant had been friends before Tamara's transformation, so the young one had taken it hard.  He still saw that pain lingering in her eyes.  Along with it, he saw her worry for Jamey.

"He's so different.  So... full of anger."

"Most of it aimed at DPI, and Curtis Rogers in particular," Roland told her.  "It troubles me.  And it troubles me still further to leave the boy unguarded by day.  Except for Frederick, there is no one to watch over him."

"Well, we can solve that problem, for the moment at least."

Roland frowned at Eric's statement.  "What on earth do you mean?"

"I've been experimenting with a new drug, a sort of a supercharged amphetamine.  By using it, I can remain awake and alert by day."

"In sunlight?"  Roland was amazed.  True, he'd known of Eric's passion for test tubes and chemicals, but he'd never dreamed of results such as this.

"No, I need to remain shielded from the sun."

Rhiannon sat up slightly only to have Tamara, ever attentive, sit beside her and help her into an upright position.  As she bent to tuck more pillows behind her, the young one said, "There are side effects, Roland.  Without the benefit of the regenerative sleep, he gets weak, tired, not to mention damned irritable."

"Never mind that," Roland said quickly.  "You'll give me this drug and I'll be able to guard Jamey by day."

"I'll guard him myself, Roland.  Until we think of a better solution."

Roland shook his head quickly.  "No.  It is my responsibility--"

"You can both do it," Tamara interrupted.  "Take turns, for heaven's sake."

Rhiannon sighed hard and shook her head.  "A fine solution, but a temporary one.  I believe you are all overlooking the obvious."

Roland moved nearer the bedside.  Her face still twisted with pain whenever she moved, but besides that, she seemed to be holding her own.  "What is it, Rhiannon?"

"Somewhere on the planet, the boy has a father, does he not?"

Her words were a blade in his heart.  "A... father?"  He shot a questioning glance at Tamara.

"Kathryn's husband left her before Jamey was born.  He might not even know he has a son.  His name was James.  James Adam Knudson."  She shook her head.  "I wouldn't know where to begin searching for him."

"Not that it matters.  A man who would abandon a wife and child has no right to reclaim either one of them."  Roland stalked away from Rhiannon.  She didn't argue the point.  And no one again suggested that Jamey might be better off with his natural parent.

Roland filled his friends in on what had happened at the stadium, and Rhiannon told them of the strange man who'd attacked her, and his demands.

*    *    *    *    *

Toward dawn, Eric took Tamara down to the dungeons, to one of the hidden resting places Roland had at the ready.  After hours of discussion, Eric had finally agreed to allow Roland to take the drug, and remain awake through the daylight hours to watch over Jamey.  He'd given Roland three vials of fluid, to be taken at four-hour intervals, beginning well before the lethargy began to steal over him.

Roland swallowed the first of them, grimacing at the bitter taste.  He tucked the empty vial into a pocket, and climbed the stairs to check in on Jamey and Frederick.  Pandora lay at the foot of Jamey's bed.  Jamey slept peacefully.

He returned to his chambers.  There was still an hour before dawn.  He found Rhiannon still in his bed, though she'd obviously been up briefly.  Long enough to "borrow" one of his white shirts, and shed the bloodstained camisole, along with every other scrap of clothing she'd worn.  She lay on her side, giving him an optimum view of the long, slender leg exposed beneath the shirt's hem.

"When dawn approaches, I'll take you below."

She rolled onto her back, wincing slightly with the action, and bending one knee.  "I've no desire to rest my bones in a dungeon."

"Rhiannon, it isn't safe here."  He turned to pace away from her.  "Hasn't this incident taught you a thing about caution?"

"Posh, Roland, this is a perfectly secure place to rest.  Draw those musty old drapes of yours, bolt the door, and there you are.  Indulge me just this once.  I promise I won't make a habit of napping here and disturbing your precious solitude."

"With everyone milling about the castle, my solitude has long since been shot to hell, as the expression goes.  Here, my dear, is the only place you'll be napping in the foreseeable future.  I want you where I can be sure you're safe."

She bit her lower lip as if to think it over.  He knew the tone of command in his voice would rankle her.  Still, he wouldn't have her in some insecure little house so near a village overrun with DPI operatives.

"It's true that my main source of security is Pandora.  With her guarding Jamey, I might be vulnerable in my usual place.  I might consider staying here..."

"There is nothing to consider.  You're staying."

 "There are conditions, Roland."

  He lifted his brows.  "Conditions?"

"For one, I will sleep here, in the bed.  If you're so worried about my well-being, you can simply climb in beside me.  Should anyone attack me as I rest, I have no doubt one of us would rouse enough to summon Pandora, who would make them into catnip.  Besides, if this new drug of Eric's works, one of you will be awake, anyway."

Roland shook his head slowly.  "I will concede to that request, so long as you will give it up should there be an added threat, or reason to believe DPI can reach us here."

She nodded once.  "I'm not finished.  I simply cannot rest in a place that looks like this.  So, you will allow me to spruce it up a bit."

Frowning, he moved nearer, and sat on the edge of the bed.  "Your conditions are piling high.  Surely you do not envision yourself a chatelaine."

"I envision myself comfortable, Roland.  Nothing more."  She lifted an arm in a sweeping gesture.  "Surely you cannot mind if I wish to remove a few cobwebs and a bit of dust."

His eyes narrowed.  "I know you too well to believe that is all you will do."

She shrugged, lowering her lashes over downcast eyes.  "Well, I was thinking new drapes might be of use.  After all, I want to be sure the sun can't penetrate by day."

He gave her a curt nod.  "Drapes and dusting, then.  That is the extent of it.  Agreed?"

"And I wish to keep the fire."  She met his gaze again, and the look in her eyes should have warned him.  "It gives me that warm, cozy feeling I had when you carried me through the forest in your arms."

"You press your advantage, Rhiannon."  His voice had little force behind it.  He," too, was remembering the feel of her in his arms, and of her lips upon his throat.

"Oh, but I'm not finished yet."  She sat up carefully, and took his hand in two of hers, tracing invisible patterns on his palm with her nails until he shuddered.  "I want you to tell me about your life before I met you.  I want to know how you became a knight."

"That is not a subject I wish to discuss."

She stared so intently he felt her tugging at the curtains that veiled his mind.  "Roland, you've kept your past in side you for a very long time, and a great deal of pain along with it, I believe.  You've twisted events until you've branded yourself a devil.  Don't you think you might benefit from an objective opinion?"

He felt, oddly enough, an urge to tell her everything.  But he feared even that Rhiannon might be repulsed if she knew the entire tale.  Then he asked himself if that wouldn't be a good thing.  Let her see the blackness in his soul for herself, and perhaps she would finally understand why he kept himself from her.  She might even decide she no longer wanted him.

Some time later, he wondered how he had capitulated so easily.  What was there about her that usurped his will?

 Still, he found himself sitting with his back against the headboard, his legs stretched out over the mattress.  Rhiannon snuggled down, her head resting on his thighs.  He absently stroked her hair as he spoke.

"I was the youngest of four sons.  It was my parents' fondest wish that I enter the monastery.  In those times, there was little else for a younger son to do.  My becoming a monk would bring prestige and influence to the family name."

Her hand stroked his thigh.  Her silken fingers left a fiery path.  "You, a monk?"  She said it as if it were laughable.

"I felt the same.  So, at fourteen, I ran off, determined to make my own way.  I wanted nothing more in the world than to become a knight.  After two weeks of scrounging myself enough to eat, I came upon a small babe, not yet a full year of age.  He sat upon a blanket on the grass, while his mother and her ladies gathered berries nearby.  None of them saw the wolf.  But I did."

"A wolf?"  Rhiannon's eyes widened and her hand stilled upon his thigh.  "Stalking the child?  What did you do?"

"Froze with fear, at first.  Then the babe looked toward me and smiled.  He made this gurgling, cooing sound and waved his chubby hands in the air."  Roland shook his head.  "I don't know what possessed me, but I drew my knife, the only weapon I had, and I leapt on the wolf as it went for the child.  It was a fool's errand.  I was nearly torn to shreds."

She sat up slowly, facing him.  It surprised him to see her blink fast against a moisture building in her eyes.  Her face was so near to his he could feel the quickening of her breaths.  "Did you kill this wolf, Roland?"

"Yes, apparently so.  I don't remember much after the first few bites."  She closed her eyes and shuddered visibly.  Her hair fell over one eye, and without thinking, Roland reached out, and moved it aside.  His fingers lingered on her face, so soft.  He thought he might be absorbed in her eyes, those huge, exotically slanted, jet orbs.  "When next I woke, I was in a fine bed, being tended by servants.  The child was the grandson of a great baron, and the son of a knight.  Sir Gareth of Le Blanc.  He took me as his squire when I was healed.  For two years, he treated me almost as a son.  He taught me all he knew, and allowed me to train with the knights in his outer bailey."

"And you, with your stubborn determination, which I know so well, took to that training with a vengeance.  You grew stronger and more skilled with each passing day."

He shrugged.  "I did pick up some basic skills."

"Tell me the rest."  She was like a child asking for a story, he thought idly, his fingers still stroking her hair.

"I was traveling with Sir Gareth one day.  There was a tournament he was to attend.  Of course, there were others along, knights and their squires who rode with us.  A band of knights loyal to a sworn enemy of Gareth's father were waiting in ambush."

She said nothing.  But she lifted her hand to touch his face, almost as if she could see the pain of the memory there.  "Gareth and the others fought fiercely, and killed several of them, but they were outnumbered."  He shook his head slowly, and the past resurfaced as if it were yesterday.  The clang of steel upon steel.  The shouts and groans of the fallen men.  The frantic shrieks of the horses.  The pounding hooves.

"When Gareth fell... something happened to me.  I don't know what.  I found myself dragging him off the battlefield, into the brush, and pulling the helmet and mail coif from his head.  With his last breath, he pushed his sword into my hands, and bade me fight on."

"But you were just a boy!"

He shook his head.  "Sixteen was near enough to manhood in those times, Rhiannon.  You know that.  I demanded the other squires assist me as I removed Gareth's breastplate and hauberk, and put them on.  It seemed to take forever, but we accomplished the task in minutes.  I donned his coif and helmet, and pulled Gareth's gauntlets onto my hands.  With his sword in my grip, and a layer of ice coating my heart, I marched straight into the melee.  I was driven by a force I didn't know.  It was the demon I've since discovered in my soul.

"I found my master's horse, a massive destrier with a taste for battle, and mounted him."

"And you fought in his place," she breathed.

"More than fought.  I was enraged.  I remember little, other than the endless swinging of the broadsword, and the shattering impact of it when it hit home.  I remember the sounds, the screams of the fallen, and my own battle cry.  I was a man possessed, Rhiannon.  When the battle ended, I alone remained.  Dead men surrounded me."

He shook himself of the memory, and gazed into Rhiannon's eyes.  He was shocked to see a single tear roll slowly over her face.  He leaned forward, for some inexplicable reason, and pressed his lips to it, absorbing its salty taste.

"I've never told this story to another living soul, Rhiannon."  His lips moved against her dampened cheek as he whispered the words, and her fingers threaded in his hair.

"Nor will I," she promised.  "Not on pain of death."  She lowered her head to his shoulder.  "What happened next?"

"The squires had scattered, but not far enough that they hadn't witnessed the battle.  When we returned to the castle of Gareth's father, they told of what they'd seen.  I was treated as some sort of hero.  It wasn't long before I was summoned to the court of King Louis, who was a second cousin to Gareth's father, the baron.  I was knighted as a reward for what they called valor.  I had my wish.  But I no longer wanted it.  I wanted only to return to my family, and never experience such violence again."

"And did you?"

He forced a smile for her.  Her eyelids were drooping.  Apparently, Eric's potion was working, for he felt no hint of tiredness.  "I'll save the rest of the tale for another night, Rhiannon.  You need to sleep now.  And heal."

She shook her head as she lifted it from his shoulder.  "You loved this Gareth.  It is no wonder you fought as you did.  Your grief gave you this rage, not some demon."

He closed his eyes, and wished he could believe it were the truth.  "Rest, Rhiannon.  We'll talk more when you wake."

She lowered herself into the bed until her head again lay in his lap, and her arms encircled his waist.  It was exceedingly strange, he thought, that he felt comfortable with her there so close, rather than disturbed.  Moreover, the weight on his heart seemed somehow lighter than it had before.

CHAPTER SIX

As she felt herself falling steadily into the leaden, replenishing sleep, Rhiannon felt the hard length of his thigh beneath her head.  For once, she had no desire to seduce him.  In fact, she felt closer to Roland than she ever had, and he hadn't so much as kissed her.

A strange turn of events, since she knew full well her feelings for him were only physical in nature.

Still, it was nice, this closeness, this sharing.  It felt right, in some way.

It also troubled her.  She'd been determined to demonstrate to him that she was as worthy as any male on the planet.  She'd been ready to show him she could be just as brave, just as fierce, just as strong.  She'd wanted to be certain he could no longer reject her on grounds similar to those her father had used.  That she was not good enough.

Now, knowing of his unstinting courage and ferocity in battle, even as a boy, she would have to try harder than ever.  A man of such valor would not be easily impressed.  A man who, as a mere boy, had thrown himself upon a wolf to save a babe... this was pure heroism, whatever he chose to call it.  This would require some thinking.

Before the cloak of blackness settled completely over her mind, she felt the wonderful sensation of his hand cupping her face, his fingers tracing its shape.  She smiled... and then she slept.

*    *    *    *    *

Roland studied her as she rested, but he couldn't see well enough from his present position.  He slid himself from beneath her, and rose.  Standing beside the bed, he could gaze down at her face to his heart's content.  God, but she was a beauty.  Every delicate bone beneath her satin skin delineated and shaped her face to sheer perfection.

He was suddenly, overwhelmingly, besieged with the urge to paint her portrait.  He longed all at once for a brush in his hand, and the smooth feel of oils as he spread them over canvas.

Ah, but that was foolish thinking.  Painting was a mortal pursuit.  Something best done beneath the sun's golden rays and caressing warmth.  It was not the pastime of un-dead, restless souls.

What was it about her that brought out such urges?  By the gods, he'd actually stood in a crowded stadium and cheered on a school soccer team last night!  He'd dressed in denims and a sweatshirt, and he'd placed himself into a crowd with countless DPI agents milling about.  When was the last time he'd participated in anything so foolish?

He shook his head.  She did have a way of reducing a man to the role of willing servant.  Even him.

He knew it beyond any doubt, when, a few seconds later, he gripped her shoulders and rolled her from her side onto her back.  She was so perfect.  He had to see her, just see her.  Though he had no intention of indulging himself in the luxury of reproducing her image on canvas, he could at least appreciate what was here before him.

 He reached for the shirtfront, and hesitated.  Was it wrong to look at her this way, as she rested, helpless to object?

He closed his eyes.  No.  Rhiannon wouldn't object in the least.

He released the buttons, the few she'd bothered to fasten.  Slowly, very slowly, he parted the garment until her body was revealed to him.  His sigh was involuntary, and indicative of how much he'd longed to look at her this way.

His gaze traced her arching, graceful neck to the delicately etched collarbones.  Lower, to her small, proud breasts, perfectly round and lily-white.  Their centers were the subtle color of the meat of a sweet melon.  Their nipples pouted.  He wouldn't paint her that way, though.  If he were intending to capture her image, he'd tease them taut first, so they thrust outward, tempting a man's lips to touch them.

The way he was tempted now.  Just to capture one soft bud between his lips, to suckle it until it became hard, until it throbbed against his tongue.

He swallowed hard against the onslaught of desire, and resumed his perusal of her form, letting his gaze move lower, over the gentle swell of her belly, the dark hollow of her navel, the narrow curve of her waist with the painful wound on one side, the soft flare of her hips.  The triangle of sable curls.  God, it gleamed like satin.  He wanted to touch it, to see if it could truly be as soft as it looked.

Before he could tell himself not to, he was doing just that.  His fingers settled themselves into the silken nest.  Yes.  It was as soft as it appeared.  Softer.  And though he knew he should not, he moved his fingers lower, parting her secret lips, delving into her.  When he felt the answering moistness coat his fingers, he closed his eyes and groaned aloud.  He sunk onto the bed, leaning nearer.  Her subtle scent reached him and he shuddered.  He moved his fingers deeper, then slowly drew them back.  Her body trembled, and he looked up quickly.

She lay exactly as she had, perfectly still.  But her nipples stood stiff and aroused now.  He brought his fingers to his lips, his eyes closing involuntarily as he sucked the taste of her from their tips.  He wanted her.  More than wanted her, he had to have her.  If not physically, then at least...

Roland stepped away from the bed, but his gaze remained.  He had to capture her on canvas.  There was no other way to rid himself of- this all-consuming lust.  True, he hadn't painted in a very long time.  He'd lost the desire, or perhaps the ability to pour his soul onto a rectangle of canvas.  Suddenly, now, that desire returned.  He'd never thought to feel it again.

Today, this once, he would put brush to canvas.  And when his little bird took wing, he'd have a bit of her here, with him.

*    *    *    *    *

In the hours of earliest dawn, behind the tightly drawn draperies and beneath a cobweb-draped ceiling, Roland worked with materials that had long ago been packed away in trunks.  The oils were newer.  He'd been unable to resist buying the new, modern paints whenever he'd seen them.  It had become a ritual of self-torment, knowing they were at hand, and wondering if he'd ever feel moved to use them.  Now, the smell of the paints in his nostrils was like a drug, and his brush flew over the canvas as an extension of his soul.

He didn't sketch her first.  He didn't need to do so.  He needed only to look at her, stretched upon the bed like an offering to the gods, and allow his image of her to transfer itself from his eyes to his mind to his hands.

He worked feverishly, losing himself utterly in the act of creation in a way he had not done in years.  His hands moved the brush with a touch as gentle as if he were caressing her skin.

And then, almost before he'd been aware a minute had passed, he sensed movement in the castle.  Jamey was awake, and Frederick.  Even now they were making their way down to the great hall, and then off to the lower east wing, where the kitchens awaited them.

He sighed, saddened at having to give up so soon.  He'd forgotten the delight he could feel in such a simple act.  He'd accomplished so little.  The shapes and colors on the canvas were not recognizable.  But he knew they'd take form, gradually, over the next several days.

He reluctantly cleaned his brushes and put his paints away.  The canvas, he left, to allow it to dry.  He'd be sure it was stored safely long before Rhiannon stirred tonight.  Not that he thought she would mind him so closely studying her nude form as she rested.  He rather thought the idea would please her.

Lastly, he went to the bed, gazing once more at her nakedness.  The length and firmness of her legs enticed him, with flickering images of those shapely limbs wrapped around his body, those curving hips pumping against him.

He was aroused.  Painfully so.  He realized that he had been the entire time he'd been painting.  He closed his eyes and tried not to think that he could strip off his clothing and slip into the bed with her.  He could fondle her, touch her, taste her to his heart's content, and she would never know.  He could bury himself inside her.  He could find release in her succulent moistness, and she'd never be the wiser.

He bent over, blowing a cool breath of air across her breasts, to see the nipples stand hard once more.  Her response was immediate.  Perhaps he could even bring her to climax without her being aware of it.

The thought was enticing--no, maddening.  To elicit the ultimate response from her body without the awareness of her mind.  By night, he could remain as resistant to her charms as he wished.  By day, she could be his to pleasure.

  The temptation was great, nearly too great.  He took a firm grip on his mind, realizing that once again the beast inside was trying to take over.  To use Rhiannon in such a way would be rape.  Whether he knew she wouldn't object or not was not the issue.  To take her without her consent would be unforgivable.  Was this the way he would repay her for the sheer joy she'd given him?

Joy?

Roland blinked, replaying his own thoughts.  Yes.  Joy was what he'd felt for those brief hours this morning while he'd been painting.  And earlier, when he'd watched Jamey fight his way to victory in the soccer match.  He'd felt joy then, too.  Absolute pleasure.  Delight.

He hadn't thought himself capable of feeling any of those things anymore.

He looked at her face, and shook his head.  Who'd have thought a reckless, out of control, renegade vampiress like Rhiannon could instigate the return of pleasure in his life?

He pulled the shirt together, and fastened the buttons.  He tugged the comforter over her, then bent low, and pressed his lips to hers.  They were moist and pliant and sweet, even in sleep.  He slipped his tongue inside her mouth, tasting every part of it, only stopping when he felt madness trying to engulf him.

"Thank you, Rhianikki, princess of the Nile."

*    *    *    *    *

Roland was nowhere about when she rose.  But she wrinkled her nose at the very slight scent in the air.  She sniffed again, and frowned.  It smelled a little like paint.

Unable to positively identify the lingering odor, she rolled out of the bed before she gave the wound at her waist a thought.  She stiffened as she remembered it, half expecting to be pummeled by pain at any second.  She wasn't, though, and when she parted the shirt she wore, she saw that the wound was gone without a trace.  Only the tiny stitches remained.  The area wasn't even sore.

She got to her feet and strolled about the chambers, whipping open wardrobes and peering into closets in search of something to wear.  She didn't find anything, but decided not to let it dampen her spirits.  She felt good this evening.

After hearing him talk last night, she'd come to the conclusion that Roland was suffering from a ridiculously prolonged state of depression and a severe guilt complex.  But since he'd opened up that painful wound and allowed her to see a little of what caused it, he might be better able to heal.  And that thought brought her pleasure.  She hated to see him tormenting himself over things long past.  It was a waste of his time and his energies.  Besides, he ought to be spending both on her.  It would be a far more exciting exercise.

The door opened and he entered then, bringing with him a heavy decanter made of lead crystal and filled with crimson liquid.  He placed it on a stand, and a glass beside it.

She frowned.  "What is this?"

"Nourishment.  You need it, after last night."

"What I need is warm, and drawn straight from some innocent throat, Roland."

"Rhiannon, that is murder."

"Still perfectly willing to believe the worst of me, I see."  She strode toward him, the shirt gaping in a way he could not fail to notice.  "I never murder them.  I only taste.  A sip here, a sip there.  It isn't missed." She was teasing him, and delighting in it as she always did.

His gaze seemed drawn to the swell of her breasts the shirt revealed, so she stepped closer, and bent low to reach for the decanter.

"But if they remember--"

"I take from men as they sleep, Roland.  Most of them recall it as an erotic dream."  She filled the glass, straightened again, and brought it to her lips.

"And the marks you leave on their throats?"

"It isn't necessary to mark the throats.  Blood can be taken from any number of places, some that are difficult to examine too closely."  She drained the glass and set it down, licking her lips.  "Would you like me to show you?"

He averted his gaze, she hoped, to hide a sudden surge of passion.  "No, Rhiannon, I wouldn't.  And I would strongly suggest that you feed as we do, from our own supply here.  It will not do to rouse undue suspicion with so many DPI operatives in L'Ombre."

She stepped closer, and ran her fingernails up the column of his throat.  "Or is it that you dislike the thought of my lips touching another man's flesh?"

He met her gaze and held it for a moment.

She licked her lips.  "I had the most interesting dream as I rested."

He quickly looked away.  "Did you?"

"Mmm.  It isn't often I dream, you know.  The sleep is too deep.  But this time... I felt things."

"What sort of things?"

She shrugged.  "It was very brief.  A touch, an incredibly intimate touch.  And later, a delicious kiss."

He turned from her, and she knew he was guarding his thoughts.  "Very strange, indeed."

"Perhaps it is only that I so long for such things."  She walked up behind him, so when she spoke, her breath would fan the back of his neck.  "If only you would oblige me, I might sleep more soundly, Roland."

His back went rigid.  "I'm sorry, Rhiannon.  I don't think it would be wise."

She sniffed.  He still wasn't impressed enough with her.  He still thought her unworthy of his attention.  She stepped around in front of him.  "My wound needs attending.  Will you at least assist me with that?"

His brows bunched with immediate worry, and when she strode away, toward the bed, he followed on her heels.  "What is it, Rhiannon?  Hasn't it healed yet?"

She sat on the bed's edge, then leaned back, flipping the shirt open to reveal her waist, her hip, and the lower edge of one breast.  "It's healed, but I wish you would snip away the threads.  They itch."

Roland closed his eyes briefly.  When he opened them again, he seemed to have become a mannequin.  No emotion showed in his eyes.  "Of course."  He located the scissors on the nightstand, and pulled up a stool, sitting so his head was more or less level with the mattress.  His hand touched the spot on her waist, and stilled.  Slowly, he stroked his fingers over the area.

She closed her eyes.  "It feels so good when you touch me."

He drew his hand away, and brought the tiny scissors to her flesh.  Carefully, he snipped the threads.

"Even when I was asleep, it felt good.  You did touch me, Roland, didn't you?  It wasn't a dream."

He finished the job, set the scissors aside, and got to his feet.  "I'm going out to check the grounds."  She felt waves of frustration emanating from him.  Why was he so determined to resist her?

"I'll come with you."

"I'll go alone.  Jamison is with Eric and Tamara in the great hall.  You might ask him for something to wear.  Eric and I will fetch some of your own things for you, later on."

She was immediately angry.  "I am capable of fetching my own things, Roland.  Furthermore, I'm not about to stay where I am so obviously not wanted.  Perhaps I'll rest in my own bed tomorrow."

He said nothing, only walked out of the room.  Rhiannon picked up the glass from the stand and hurled it against the wall, where it smashed to bits.

She heard a small laugh and then Tamara appeared in the doorway Roland had just exited.  "You find my anger amusing, fledgling?  You wouldn't, were it directed at you."

Tamara shook her head and stepped inside.  "I'm not laughing at you, Rhiannon.  Don't be so defensive.  It's just that Eric has made me feel like throwing things a time or two."

Rhiannon tossed her head.  "He could never have been as purely maddening as Roland is."  She strode to the hearth and bent to toss a log onto the barely glowing sparks.

"He wouldn't make love to me when we both wanted it so badly we were going slowly insane," Tamara confided.

Rhiannon straightened, but didn't turn.  "What was his reason?"

"He thought I would be repulsed when I learned what he was."

"And were you?"

"I loved him.  It took a while, but I finally convinced him of it.  Be patient with Roland.  Don't give up."

Rhiannon whirled to face the little thing.  "You don't think I'm in love with him, do you?  My God, Tamara, I am not nearly so foolish as to allow that to happen."

Tamara smiled.  "Of course not.  Then, you're only interested in a fling?"

Rhiannon's gaze fell.  "I want him.  There is nothing wrong in that."  She frowned.  "Except for his exceeding stubbornness."

"Does he give you some well thought-out reason for abstaining?"

Rhiannon shook her head.  "Only some nonsense about what one wants not always being what is good for one.  I know the true reason.  He thinks I'm not good enough.  He'll soon learn better."  Rhiannon searched the room for her skirt, and shed Roland's shirt, only to reach for a fresh one.

"Why on earth do you say that?"

"Because it is true."  She found the skirt and stepped into it, fastening a few of the buttons, and then tucking the shirt tails into it. 

"That's crazy.  You're the most attractive woman I've ever seen."

Rhiannon turned to face her.  Perhaps the little fledgling wasn't as bad as she had first thought.  "And you are indomitably cheerful."

She smiled.  "Why shouldn't I be?  I get to spend eternity with the man I love."

Rhiannon rolled her eyes.  "Must you be so human?"  She hunted for her shoes, found them and slipped them on.  "Tell Roland I'll return before dawn."

She felt Tamara's rush of alarm at her announcement.  "Rhiannon, where are you going?"

"To my house, to fetch some clothing."

"You shouldn't.  It isn't safe, there are DPI--"

"Too bad for them if they get in my way.  I'm in no mood for it tonight."

She moved toward the door, but the bold little thing grabbed her arm.  "Rhiannon, please wait.  There's something I need to say to you."

Rhiannon tilted her head to one side.  "Say it, then.  I'm in a hurry."

"It's about... the man who held you prisoner, in his lab in Connecticut."

"Daniel St. Claire?"

Tamara nodded.  "Yes.  He... he was my guardian.  He adopted me after my parents were killed."  Tamara swallowed hard as Rhiannon frowned.  "I learned later that their deaths were planned.  He only wanted custody of me to try to lure Eric in for live research.  I know what happened to you--I read about it in his files, after he died.  And, those other two he held, as well.  I'm... I'm sorry.  "

Compelled by Tamara's honesty, Rhiannon reached out one hand to ruffle the young one's curls.  "You have nothing to be sorry for, Tamara.  These things happened before you were born.  You're lucky you survived."

"I don't know if I would've, if it hadn't been for Eric."  She licked her lips.  "I loved Daniel like a parent for a long time, even after Eric tried to tell me the truth about him.  I hope--"

"That I do not hate you for it," Rhiannon finished, reading the young one's thoughts.  "Rest assured, I do not."

Tamara smiled, her eyes slightly damp.  "I'd like to be your friend."

Rhiannon blinked fast, angry at the ridiculous lump that came into her throat.  "I don't believe I've ever had one of those."

"Not even Roland?"

Rhiannon laughed.  "No, most especially not him.  He doesn't even like me."

"I think you're wrong about that.  When we came in last night, it looked as if his seeing you in pain was killing him."

"Really?"  Rhiannon's brows lifted and she felt something silly warm her insides.  She caught herself.  "Listen to us, gibbering about males like a pair of giggling teenage mortals.  We are above it, Tamara.  Goddesses among women."

"But women, all the same," Tamara replied.  Rhiannon frowned, considering that.  Then she shook her head.  "I must go.  I have much to do tonight.  Some shopping, even."

"Shopping?  But, Rhiannon, the DPI--"

"Posh, let them chase me through the stores if they think they can keep up.  I extracted permission from Roland to clean these chambers up a bit, and hang new drapes.  I further intend to purchase enough candles to keep that chandelier glowing nightly for a year.  It's like resting in a graveyard this way."

Tamara chewed her lower lip.  "I don't blame you for wanting to spruce things up.  This is like something out of an old horror movie."

"Precisely.  Besides that, my efforts will drive Roland to the point of murdering me.  And I do love to torment him.  Unless I hurry, the stores will close.  So, farewell."

Rhiannon hurried out a rear door, leapt the wall without an effort and raced to her rental house outside L'Ombre.  She wasn't a complete fool.  Though she saw no sign of anyone watching the house, she took the precaution of slipping around the back.  She scaled a wall, and entered through a second-story window.

She turned on no lights at all, only lit a few candles.  Her night vision was excellent.  She picked through her clothing until she found a short little skirt that flared when she moved, and a blouse to go with it.  She packed other items into a suitcase, to take back to the castle when her errands were finished.  Then she ran a hot bath until the tub was brimming, and spent a heavenly, albeit all too brief time soaking.  She would have loved to linger, to burn some incense and relax, but with Roland's warnings still echoing in her mind, she didn't dare.

She'd return later for her suitcase.  For now, she went over to the hidden safe and took out some of the credit cards she kept on hand.  She had one more errand, an important one.  She would show Roland how worthy she was before this night ended.  She lifted the receiver and dialed a number she knew well.

Her agent in France, Jacques Renot, was highly paid, and utterly trustworthy.  He also was an ex-DPI operative who knew how to break into their computers.

He recognized her voice at once, and she could almost hear him smiling through the phone lines.  Whenever she woke him at night, it always meant a large bonus in his next check.  He was worth every penny she paid him.  How many others could keep track of her many aliases, her countless bank accounts?  Her need for anonymity was making Jacques a very rich man.

"I need to know the name of the hotel where Curtis Rogers is staying, in L'Ombre," she said simply.  "Can you get it?"

"Oui.  It might take awhile, but--"

"I'll call you back in twenty minutes."  She hung up.

It wouldn't take long to do the shopping.  After all, she knew exactly what she wanted, and price was no object, so why waste time?  She had important things to do.

CHAPTER SEVEN

She said she was going shopping."

Roland felt as if he would explode.  Shopping!  By God, Rhiannon was more than reckless.  She was utterly insane!  "Why the hell didn't someone come and let me know?"

Eric pulled Tamara aside and stepped in front of her, as if to guard her from Roland's anger.  "I've been looking for you for two hours, Roland.  I had no idea where to find you, and you ignored my summons.  What more could we do?"

Roland pushed one hand through his hair, and let his eyes fall closed.  "We have to find her.  There are DPI operatives all over the village.  And if Curtis hasn't told them about the castle, you can bet he's told them about her.  They'll spot her in a second.  She stands out from other women like a swan among crows."

He ignored the meaningful glance Tamara shot Eric.  "Might be nice if she could hear you say so."  Roland only shook his head.  "Honestly, Roland, I don't know why you're so worded.  She isn't going to do anything risky," Tamara said.

"Hah!  She likes nothing better than to risk her pretty neck at every opportunity.  If you knew her at all, you would be worded, too."  He was racked with worry.  Why on earth had he let her out of his sight after she'd been nearly killed?  Why in the name of God had he thought she'd exercise some caution after that incident?  Didn't he know her better?  He ought to have been watching her every move.  Instead, he'd deliberately closed off his mind so she wouldn't be able to track him down while he visited the little cimetière in the small wood lot near the castle.  He'd felt a sudden need to be there, to remind himself what he'd done to his family, and to the only other woman who'd ever stirred him to this kind of madness.  He'd come close to letting those sins slip his mind yesterday, and doing that would only doom him to repeat them.

As he started for the door, Eric gripped his shoulder.  "I'll come with you."

He glanced through the window where Frederick and Jamey frolicked with Pandora in the safety of the courtyard.

"And leave only Tamara to watch over Jamey?"

"What do you suppose Rogers would do if he found her here with only gentle Freddy and a cat for protection?"

Tamara tossed her head, flipping her hair behind her shoulders in exactly the way Rhiannon always did.  "I'm no helpless mortal," she declared.  "I can take care of myself."

Eric bit his inner cheek to keep from smiling, Roland noted.  "You've been around Rhiannon too much, fledgling," Roland said.

"And you haven't been around her enough," she snapped.  "Either that, or you're a blind fool.  She thinks you dislike her.  She thinks you believe she's not good enough for you.  If she does do something crazy, it will probably only be her way of trying to show you how wrong you are."

"Where on earth do you get these notions?  Rhiannon believes herself good enough for God himself, to say nothing about me."

"It's not what she thinks that matters, it's what she believes you think."  When he only frowned and shook his head, she fumed.  "I could just shake you!"

Eric caught her shoulders and drew her back against him.

"Easy, my love.  You might hurt him."  He glanced up at Roland.  "Go on, go find your rebel.  I'll keep things secure here."

Roland left the castle, but he couldn't help wondering about Tamara's words.  Was there the slightest chance that Rhiannon felt she had to prove herself to him?  It was utterly ridiculous, of course.  But then, Rhiannon had made that remark about his seeing her as inferior.  Perhaps there was some truth to Tamara's theory.

Now, though, he had no time to worry about theories or motivations.  Rhiannon was out on her own, and there were at least two potentially lethal enemies lurking in the village.  He needed to find her right away.

He began at the house she'd told him she was renting, just outside the village.  That she'd been there was without question.  The bloodstained skirt and his white shirt lay on the floor, and the tub's interior was coated in droplets announcing its recent use.  The room still smelled of the scented candles she'd burned.  The candle wax was still warm.

A suitcase lay on the bed, laden with clothing.  He assumed she was planning to bring it back to the castle with her on the return trip, but wondered if he was assuming too much.  She'd been fairly angry when he'd last seen her.

He shook his head, and checked the room thoroughly.  He saw the notepad and pencil near the phone and he hurried to it.  She'd written something on the top sheet, obviously.  But she'd torn it off.  He licked his lips, lifting the pad to the light to try to make out the indentations of the pencil.  No luck.  Angry, he turned to fling the thing at the wastebasket... and he saw the small bit of yellow paper, crumpled and resting atop some other rubbish.  He picked it up, and smoothed it out.

There was an address, and a room number.  Beneath those, underlined, one word:  "Rogers."

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon saw the two men silhouetted by the lamplight.  They sat in the hotel suite's front room.  She clung to the windowsill, fifteen stories up, peering in at them as the sounds of traffic and mortal activity filled the night.  She was at the window of a bedroom, but she could see them both clearly through the open door.  For once, she wished she were older, more powerful.  She longed for the power to transmute herself into a mouse, and crawl about the room that way.  She'd heard there were a few who could achieve such a thing, the very ancient ones.  She'd tried it herself a few times, but always only managed to give herself a walloping headache for her trouble.

She did have the ability to entrance humans.  She could, possibly, lull them into a state of catatonia, and then dance through the rooms at will without arousing a response from them.  But there was a chance her efforts would only result in alerting them of her presence.  For the man with Curtis Rogers was the one who'd attacked her at the soccer match.  And she already knew he could guard his mind from hers.

A little shiver raced over her spine as she studied his face.  He was mean-looking, with a wide, pugnacious nose and a thick coating of dark stubble.  He was heavy, his arms big, but not fat.  He looked like one of the professional wrestlers she'd seen on cable TV a time or two.  He wore his dark hair cut close to his head, in short bristles.  His lips were too thick.

She listened intently, and heard little other than their voices, speaking low.  She sniffed the air, and smelled the big one's sweat, and Curtis's cologne, and expensive whiskey.

Silently, she hauled herself over the edge.

"We understand each other, then?"

Curtis shrugged.  Rhiannon slipped to one side, out of their range of vision should they look this way.  "I don't need to understand you.  If you can help me capture one of them, you can name your price."

The man shook his head.  "Not just any one of them.  Her.  She's the oldest, the most powerful.  It's her I want."  He slugged back the whiskey in his glass and licked his lips with a fat tongue.  "I want you to tranquilize her, and leave me alone with her, for as long as I need."

Curtis shook his head.  He got to his feet, crossed to the bar and gripped the amber-filled bottle by its neck.  "You want to screw her.  You're not fooling me.  Hell, I can't blame you.  She's a hot one."

The other man pursed his lips and said nothing.  He held his glass up when Curtis approached, and whiskey splashed into it.  "Maybe I will, but that isn't my main goal.  You certain she'll be absolutely helpless?"

"Absolutely.  This drug has been tested.  It works."  Curtis filled his own glass and paced away.  "You mind if I ask why you think you can capture her when the rest of us have failed?"

"I have certain abilities.  And I know their weaknesses."

"So do we."

"I know how to use them."

"Yeah, well, I can't say I have much confidence in your chances.  But if you can do it, you can have her as helpless and as often as you want her."

Rhiannon shuddered at the image.  She recalled too well the last time she'd been helpless at the hands of a DPI operative.  Weakened from the blood they'd drained away, she could only lie there, hands and feet restrained, as they tortured and touched her.

"Then you'll tell me where they are."

She stiffened, listening.

Curtis hesitated.  "There are others that interest me, besides her.  They're mine.  Mine alone, you understand?"

"Perfectly."  He chuckled and the sound made her shiver.  "You have special plans for them, no doubt.  I wouldn't dream of interfering."

"And you can tell no one else.  If their locale gets out, the entire DPI body will be staked out around the place.  I'll never get my hands on them," Curtis said.

The man nodded.  "Agreed."

Curtis sighed long and hard.  "They're at a castle called Le Chateau de Courtemanche, south of L'Ombre."

His accent was terrible.  The name of the village had sounded like "lumber."  Rhiannon wished she could simply kill the both of them.  God knew it would be justified.  Unfortunately, Roland would never forgive her.  He and his noble, knightly ideas about honor.  And he thought he had a demon in him.  Ha!  If he had a demon, then she must be one.

"It might be of help if I were to take a sample of the drug--"

"Forget it, pal.  That formula is top secret.  No one has it but me, and that's the way it's going to stay."

So you think, Curtis, dear, Rhiannon thought.

"All right.  I don't need it."  The man rose and turned toward the door.  Curtis turned to a table, out of Rhiannon's sight.  She moved to a more advantageous angle and peered at him.  He snapped the lid on a briefcase, and she glimpsed rows of test tubes, with rubber stoppers, inside.

The drug.

"Aren't you going to tell me how to reach you?  I don't even know your name."

The man opened the door and paused.  "I'll contact you, when it's necessary.  As for my name, you may call me Lucien, for now."

He left the room, leaving the door wide.  Curtis hurried to close it, shaking his head.  He carefully fastened the lock, and then came toward the room she was in.  She flung herself beneath the bed, and peered out to watch him.  He kept going, right through the door that led to the bathroom.  She pulled herself out, and hurried to grab the briefcase.  In seconds she was out the window once more, and clambering carefully down.

She reached jumping distance and leapt elegantly to the ground, landing with a little bounce, and fighting to stave off laughter.  She was nearly giddy with her success.

Arms came around her from behind and pulled her into a darkened alley.  She struggled, but the strength in them was unbelievable, and for just an instant, she fully expected to feel the jab of Lucien's blade in her side once more.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

 "Roland!"  She turned in his grip, and went nearly limp with relief.  "You frightened me half to death.  I thought you were that hunk of beef who tried to knife me before."

"I could very well have been.  You take less care than a whirling dervish."

"I daresay, I've known more dervishes than you have Roland, and I take a good deal more care than they."  His arms still imprisoned hers, and she shook free.  She lifted the briefcase, and thrust it at him.  "Maybe you'll stop being so angry when you see what I have."

"I don't care what you have, you could have been killed or captured trying to get it.  When are you going to listen to me, Rhiannon?"

"Just look at it, Roland.  I know you'll be pleased."

He thrust the case back into her hands: "Not here."  He gripped her arm and began striding away, down the alley.

She tugged free once again, sorely hurt that he didn't even care to see what she'd accomplished.  "I have a car waiting.  A rental."

"Leave it," he barked.

"Go to hell, Roland.  My packages are inside."

She raced away from him before he could grab her again.  In seconds, she'd settled herself behind the steering wheel.  She was surprised when the passenger door jerked open and he slid in beside her. 

"You detest automobiles."

 "I'll put up with one tonight."

A little of her anger faded.  "Just to be with me?"

"Yes."

She very nearly grinned.

"Because if I let you out of my sight, there is no telling what kind of foolish thing you'll do next."

He could have slapped her and hurt her less.  She refused to let him see it, though.  She started the engine and pulled away from the hotel.  The case rested on the seat between them.  He didn't make a move to look inside and she wouldn't ask again.

She pulled to a stop right in front of her rental house, and Roland scowled.  "Keep going, Rhiannon."

"I only want to fetch my suitcase."

"Then park somewhere else and we'll walk back for it.  No sense announcing our presence."

"Stop telling me what to do."

"Someone has to.  You haven't sense enough to act responsibly on your own."

She got out and slammed the door.  "That's enough.  I am staying right here.  I wouldn't go back to that musty old castle of yours if there were twenty DPI men waiting for me right now."

She dragged the briefcase out of the car as Roland jumped out the opposite door.  She threw it at him, putting a good deal of force into it.  The case hit him squarely in the chest, and he staggered backward.  "Give it to Eric.  It's the tranquilizer.  I thought he might like to examine it, see if he can come up with an antidote, or something."

"Rhiannon, don't be ridiculous."  He tossed the case back into the car and came around it.  He caught up with her, gripped her upper arms and made her face him.  Then his eyes widened, and he looked at her in disbelief.  "You're crying."

She ripped one arm free of him, even though doing so hurt considerably, and dashed the tears from her face with her hand.  "No, I'm not."

He shook his head slowly.  "Rhiannon, I didn't mean to hurt you--"

"You?  Hurt me?"  She released a bark of laughter.  "I am the daughter of a Pharaoh, a princess of Egypt.  Men fall at my feet if I wish it.  Mortals and immortals alike.  Do you really think I can be hurt by the likes of you?"  Her throat burned.  "I hate you, Roland de Courtemanche.  I detest you, and you will not have the opportunity to reject me ever again."

*    *    *    *    *

Roland returned to the castle alone.  He drove the car, for the simple reason that he didn't want DPI to see it outside Rhiannon's house and realize she was inside.  He wasn't even certain they knew it was her house, but it would seem likely.  Her description would have been bandied about L'Ombre, and questions asked.  Someone would know the elusive Rhiannon had rented the cottage.

He entered through the front door, and found no one about.  He stalked to his chambers and stopped in the doorway, unable for a moment, to draw a breath.

Frederick glanced down from the ladder where he stood, polishing the silver chandelier that winked and sparkled.  Tamara stopped swiping the bare windows with the wet cloth.  Eric glanced up from the hearth where he knelt with a wire brush, scrubbing the stones.  Jamey lowered the broom with which he'd been attacking cobwebs.

"Where's Rhiannon?" the boy asked.

Roland looked at the floor, rather than into Jamey's eyes.  The cat came toward him, tail swishing, a similar question in her feline eyes.  "She's at the house she rented.  She wanted to stay there."

"Roland..."  Tamara's voice carried a warning, but Eric stopped her with a glance and came forward.

"What's in the briefcase, my friend?"

He looked down, having nearly forgotten what he carried.  "It's the drug, the tranquilizer Rogers used against you before."

Eric lifted one eyebrow.  "How did you--"

"Not me.  Rhiannon.  She slipped into Rogers's hotel suite and stole it."

Eric's jaw dropped for just a moment.

Jamey smiled and shook his head.  "Man, she's got guts."

"Guts?"  Roland scowled at the boy.  "It was an idiotic thing to do.  Rogers was in the room at the time, not to mention that other fellow.  The one who nearly killed her."

"And she went in there, anyway," Jamey insisted.  "That took guts."

"She is reckless and self-destructive."

Tamara threw the washrag she'd been using onto the floor and stomped across the room.  "She is brave, and cunning, and absolutely beautiful.  I wish I were more like her."

Eric looked at her, a hint of alarm on his face.  "I like you the way you are, Tamara."

"Rhiannon is far too sure of herself.  She should be more careful."  Roland slung the briefcase onto a stand and sunk into a chair.

"She's not at all sure of herself.  Roland, you hurt her again, didn't you?"

"What on earth do you mean, 'again'?"

"Tamara, leave him alone.  Roland is right about this.  Rhiannon takes far too many risks."  Eric touched her shoulder and she whirled on him, glaring in a way Roland had rarely seen her do.  "If one of you had done what she did tonight, you'd be congratulating yourselves until dawn.  Why on earth can't you give the woman some credit?"

"Did Rhiannon get the new drapes?"  Frederick called down from the ladder.

Roland lifted his head.  He felt a heavy burden of guilt lowering itself upon his shoulders, and Tamara was only adding to it.  He'd wanted to protect Rhiannon.  Instead, he'd somehow hurt her.  "Out in the car, I believe."  He looked once again at the rooms around him, and shook his head.  "You've all been working nonstop all night, haven't you?"

"Don't thank us," Tamara snapped.  "We did it for her, not you."  She hurried out of the room with Jamey on her heels.  Frederick limped down from the ladder and went after them.

Eric sat in a chair opposite Roland.  "A car?  Care to tell me how that came about?"

Roland did, beginning with the luggage in the cottage, and ending with the scene outside it.  As he spoke, Jamey carried in a package containing the new drapes, and took his place on the ladder to hang them.  Frederick came in to help, setting a box containing no less than a hundred candles, on the floor.

Roland and Eric largely ignored the two, and soon they trooped out again to return with more packages.  It was a full thirty minutes before Eric frowned hard and looked up.  "Where is Tamara?"

Frederick only shrugged and limped out once more.

Jamey went to follow, but Eric gripped his arm.  "Jamison, tell me where she is."

Jamey licked his lips.  "She went to Rhiannon's.  Don't be mad, Eric.  She made me promise not to say a word."

Eric grimaced and whirled to go out the door.  He nearly collided with Tamara and Rhiannon.  Roland swallowed hard, relief welling up that she was here, safe.  She looked around the room with ill-concealed surprise.  Roland thought she deliberately avoided his eyes.

"Your drapes are perfect, Rhiannon.  The color of sunshine, and still heavy enough to keep it out.  They look wonderful."  Tamara's hand rested gently upon Rhiannon's arm.

"Tamara, you scared me half to death."  Eric pulled her into his arms and squeezed her hard.  "Next time you get the notion to go off on your own, would you check with me, please?"

"Why should I?"  She thrust her chin up at him, but slanted a glance toward Roland.

"Because I love you, Tamara.  If anything should happen to you..."  He closed his eyes and shook his head.  "It would kill me.  You know that."

Again she looked at Roland, her glare as piercing as a blade.  When she faced Eric again, her expression softened.  "I know.  I'm sorry I worried you."  She kissed him lingeringly, and Roland averted his gaze.  He noticed Rhiannon had turned away, too.

Frederick had mounted the ladder and was fitting candles into the holders.  Tamara turned to him.  "It's late, Frederick.  Why don't we leave the rest for another time?"

He nodded, fit one last candle into place, and climbed slowly down.  Rhiannon picked up her case and walked through the double doors into the bedroom.  She put it on the bed, and began unpacking.

Eric went in behind her.  "Getting those vials was quite a coup, Rhiannon.  I might be able to find a way to nullify the drug's effects, given time."

"I was hoping that would be the case."  She cleared her throat.  "I learned a bit while I was in the hotel room.  The man who attacked me is not with DPI.  He calls himself Lucien."

Roland's attention was caught.  As Tamara hustled Jamey and Frederick toward the door, shooing Pandora out with them, Roland moved into the bedroom.

She didn't look at him, only kept removing things from her case, sorting them into neat stacks on the bed.  "No one in DPI knows about this castle.  Only Curtis Rogers and this Lucien.  He convinced Curtis to tell him while I was listening in.  He offered to help capture me, in exchange for certain... privileges."

"What sort of privileges?"  Roland couldn't keep quiet any longer.

Rhiannon barely spared him a glance.  "He asked if Curtis would tranquilize me to the point of absolute helplessness and then let him have me alone for as long as he needed."

Tamara gasped from the doorway.  Roland swore fluently.  Rhiannon shook her head.  "He wants to be transformed.  I imagine that is the only thing he would force me to do.  Not that I intend to give him the chance."

Roland paced toward her.  "Why you?  Why doesn't he target one of us?"

"He said because I was the oldest.  He wants high-proof blood, Roland."  It was the first time she'd addressed him directly.  Her eyes still looked like those of a wounded animal, and he realized all over again how deeply he had hurt her.

Eric put a hand on Rhiannon's shoulder.  "We all care about you, Rhiannon.  For that reason, we hope you won't take any more unnecessary risks."

She faced him head-on.  "I will not cower in a corner and wait for them to come for me.  They will be the ones cowering before I finish.  They will wish they'd never heard my name."

Tamara touched Eric's arm, and tilted her head toward the door.  He sent Roland a sympathetic glance before they left.  Alone with Rhiannon, Roland had no idea what to say.

"I, um… I'm glad you came back."

"I am only here because of Tamara.  She is frightened for Jamey and she asked me to stay, and help protect him."

He nodded.  She opened the drawer of an empty dresser.  "They might be rather stale-smelling.  Haven't been used in a while," he said.

She drew a small package from her case.  "I brought some cedar chips."  She sprinkled some of them into the drawer.  "You haven't said anything about the drapes.  How much do you hate them?"

He drew a deep breath.  "Actually, I'm beginning to feel glad you convinced me to allow it.  The entire place feels... warmer."

"Then you won't mind that I bought a bedspread and some throw pillows to match."

He shook his head slowly.  "No.  I don't mind."  He felt his eyelids growing heavy, his body slowing gradually.  He reached inside his jacket and removed a vial of Eric's revivifying potion.

Rhiannon frowned.  "Perhaps you shouldn't.  You look tired."

He only shook his head, "Rhiannon, do you feel as if you need to prove something to me?"

Her gaze lowered all at once.  "No, Roland.  Not anymore."

There was a finality in her tone that hit him with staggering force.  Was she giving up on her relentless pursuit of him, then?  Why on earth should that make him feel so utterly miserable?

He shook off the feeling of desolation, and downed the potion.  "Good.  Because you never did, you know."  She said nothing, only continued piling clothes into drawers.  "I've never doubted your abilities, Rhiannon.  Your strength, your courage, your utter boldness in facing danger."

She stopped in the act of sorting nightgowns, holding a sheer black peignoir out before her.  She frowned over it.  "For a woman, you mean?"

"That is not what I mean.  I wouldn't have wished to face you in battle as a human.  I still wouldn't."

She draped the gown over the back of a chair, and Roland's mouth went dry when he realized she probably intended to wear it.  He couldn't help envisioning her pale, smooth limbs beneath the translucent gauze.  She scooped up a handful of clothing and moved toward the wardrobe, to begin hanging them.

Standing with her back to him, she shook her head.  "I don't understand you at all, Roland.  If you don't think of me as inferior, then why do you dislike me so?"

"I do not dislike you.  I dislike the things you do."

She finished hanging clothes, and turned, tilting her head.  "Which things?"

"Outrageous things, Rhiannon.  Things that put you at risk.  Like... like singing in that tavern, for example."

She smiled fully, and her eyes sparkled.  "Ah, but Roland, it was such great fun.  And you have to admit, I'm not bad."  She frowned then.  "Was that it, you think I sing horribly?"

He closed his eyes.  Truly, she was exasperating.  "You have the voice of an angel."

She seemed to glow with his praise.  "Really?"

He nodded.  "It's that you were drawing so much attention to yourself.  I only want you to be careful."

"The only attention I wished to draw was yours."

"Then you ought to have come here, and sung to me in private."  She opened her mouth to reply, but he continued speaking.  "It's not only the singing.  It's all the other risks you take.  Flirting with Rogers that first night.  Slipping into his hotel room tonight."  He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.  "Can't you see that my anger at you was because I was afraid for you?"

She studied him so intently that he had a brief surge of hope she might actually be listening.  Then, "If I had come to the castle, to sing to you in private, would you really have listened?"

He clapped a hand to his forehead.  "You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

She waved a hand.  "Of course, I have.  You dislike my risky adventures.  You dislike my every behavior.  No doubt, you dislike the way I dress, as well."

"In public, Rhiannon, it wouldn't hurt to try a bit harder to blend in, for your own protection."

"I knew it.  Well, Roland, where shall I begin?  Shall I fashion a dress from a feed sack?"  Her voice grew louder, her words tumbling out in a rush of anger.  "Would that please you?  Shall I slouch when I walk, so my height isn't so noticeable?  Or maybe I should begin by hacking off my hair.  It's probably my most conspicuous feature, wouldn't you say?"  She strode away from him, and began a frantic search of the chambers, opening every drawer and cupboard and chest.

Roland gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him.  "Stop it."

"No.  There are scissors here, somewhere.  I know there are.  I'll even let you do the honors, Roland.  Just--"

He shook her.  "Stop it!  You know that isn't what I meant."

"No, I don't.  I don't understand you at all.  If I dress and behave as a widow in mourning, will that make you want me, Roland?  If I suddenly become a blushing wallflower, will you find me desirable then?"

"You want to know how desirable I find you?"  He glared at her, his rage blending with his passion to overwhelm his common sense.  He knew he should release her, leave the chamber this instant before she drove him too far.  The beast within, taunted to wakefulness by his anger, his fear for her, and his desire, was on the rampage.

But her scent twined through his brain, eliciting the memory of her the previous day, lying all but naked before him.  The taste of her seemed to come to life upon his lips.  The way her breasts had looked, and how they'd responded to his touch.  His lips had been so close to them.  His hunger for her whipped the beast to a frenzy and he shuddered with the force of it.

"You want to know how much I desire you?" he repeated.  He looked down into her blazing eyes, and knew it was too late to battle the beast inside.

CHAPTER EIGHT

There was something in his eyes, something that should have warned her.  But she couldn't curb her anger.  "I already know.  You don't desire me at all.  You want someone who looks like me, but who is timid and quiet and withdrawn.  You touched me while I rested, Roland.  While my body could respond but my mind could not."  She shook her head in frustration.  "It isn't me you want."

Roland's grip on her shoulders eased, and his hands slipped slowly down her arms.  His gaze stabbing into her eyes, he reached her wrists, encircled them and drew her hands forward.  Then he pressed her palms flat to his groin, and moved them slowly up and down over the solid, throbbing length of him.  "You're wrong."  His words were nearly a growl.

Rhiannon felt a shudder of absolute longing move through her.  She closed her eyes at the force of it.  Then his mouth was crushing hers, his arms were around her, pinning hers immobile.  He pressed her lips open and thrust his tongue into her mouth, licking its roof, and her teeth and her tongue.

She wanted to put her arms around him, but his crushing embrace prevented that.  Her hands worked, all the same, at the button of his trousers.  In moments, she was able to close them around the silken, rigid evidence of how very much he did want her.  She squeezed, and stroked, and ran the pad of her thumb over the tip.

He moaned into her mouth, and suddenly gripped the front of her blouse and tore it open.  He was frantic, a man possessed, she thought, as he ripped the bra away, and bent her backward, bowing to suckle her breast.  Ruthlessly he tugged and bit, ravaging her sensitive nipple until her knees quivered and her hands buried in his hair to urge him on.

He fell to his knees then, and yanked the skirt until its seam gave way.  He pressed his lips to the front of her panties, hands gripping her buttocks, and she felt his breath and the moistness of his kiss right through them.  A second later he ripped them aside, and kissed her there again.

She couldn't stand up much longer.  Her legs were jelly.  Her knees had dissolved.

Then his tongue parted her folds, and lapped a hot path inside.  She fell to the floor, but he came right with her.  Growling deep in his throat, he pressed his palms to her inner thighs, and shoved them apart.  He buried his face between them.

It was torture, sweet, succulent torture, and he applied it like an attack.  His mouth devoured, his tongue assaulted.  His hands fought to widen the gate of her fortress, and he mercilessly deepened his invasion.

She screamed aloud when his conquest was complete, and still the siege continued, rendering her no more than a quivering, panting captive.  When her hands tried to push his head away, he caught her wrists in a grip of iron, and plundered on, until every bastion of sanity had been rendered useless.

Then he was moving upward, over her body.  Her newly freed, trembling hands shoved his trousers lower, and he plunged himself inside her without a second's hesitation.

His size and the force of his thrusts made her gasp.  His mouth covered hers again, and the sweep of his tongue into her throat matched the rhythm of his body, pounding into hers.  She pressed at his shoulders once, as a signal he should slow down.  This wasn't as she had envisioned it.  This wasn't the lovemaking she craved from him.  But his hands only caught hers, and pinned them to the floor at her sides.  His pace, if anything, became more demanding.

And in moments, her hips arched in response to that demand, and her tongue swirled around his in a savory dance.  Harder and harder he rode her, until his lips left her mouth to slide down to her throat.  She tipped her head back as he drew her skin into his mouth.  She was approaching a second, shattering climax, and she reached for it, eagerly.

She knew he was there as well when he reared inside her, and she felt the hot pulse of his seed.  Then his teeth sank into her throat, and he growled once again.  She moaned in a hoarse voice as the climax held her endlessly in its grip, then shook all over as it released her.

Her muscles slowly untwined and relaxed.  His mouth was still fastened to her throat.  She felt the movements of his lips and knew he still drank.  Her essence flowed into him, and her body began to weaken.  The lethargy that crept around her senses was tempting her, calling her to embrace it.  But it would be brief, she knew.  He would stop at any moment, and her head would clear.

But he didn't.  On and on, he took from her, and the ecstasy she felt became tinged with fear.

She pushed at his shoulders.  "Roland..."

He lifted his head with some reluctance.  His eyes still glowing with passion, he stared into hers.  "You're delicious," he whispered.  "All of you."

She felt a sudden confusion inside her.  She thought she ought to smile up at him, but instead she felt like crying.  Why?  For God's sake, why?  Wasn't this what she'd wanted?

He rolled off her, stood and righted his trousers.  He reached a hand down to her.  "Come, it's nearly dawn.  You're feeling it already, aren't you?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat.  He hadn't even taken off his clothes.  His eyes were hot with lust, but devoid of feeling.

"Yes, I suppose I am."  She allowed him to take her hand, and pull her to her feet.  But her knees refused to support her, and she swayed away from him.  She caught herself on the arm of the set tee leaning over it like a drunkard.  Her head fell forward.  Her hair veiled her face like a dark curtain, through which she could not see.  Rather, she heard his ragged breathing slowly take on a normal rhythm.  She felt the gradual ebb of his mindless lust.

Roland caught her shoulders, tugging her upright, turning her to face him.  "What is it?"

She lifted her chin to see confusion in his expression.  My God, he wasn't even aware…

His eyes narrowed, then focused on the fresh wound at her throat.  The heightened color left his face all at once.  She heard him curse roughly, and that was all.  She felt herself falling, but oddly, there was no sense of landing at his feet.  Instead, it was as if she simply continued a downward spiral into utter blackness.

*    *    *    *    *

The knowledge of what he'd done was like a blade thrust through the mists of passion to plunge into his heart as he caught her in his arms, and lifted her.  Her head fell backward, her endless satin hair trailing down his legs as he carried her to the bedroom, and laid her down.  He smoothed the ebony locks away from her face and pulled the covers over her pale body.  He had to close his eyes tightly for the burning that assailed them.  Certainly not tears.  He had none.  Hadn't had for centuries.  What use were tears to a beast?

God, that he'd thought he might someday conquer the bloodthirsty demon within him was a joke.  But to have found the proof of it like this...

Mentally, he called to Eric.  She wouldn't die.  As he recalled the way he'd ravaged her, second by second, he knew he hadn't taken enough to kill her.  But he might have, had she not stopped him when she had.  There'd been no logic in his brain at that moment.  Only sensation.  The feel of his body possessing hers, of her climax milking the seed from him, of her blood filling him, had chased every vestige of morality from his mind, and given free rein to the monster that lurked inside.

He heard the door creak open, but didn't turn.  Instead he clasped her limp, slender hand in both of his, and brought it to his lips.  "I'm sorry, Rhiannon.  God, I'm sorry."

"Roland, what..."  Eric's steps approached from behind, then stopped.  Roland released her hand and turned to face his friend.  Eric wasn't looking at him, however.  His gaze fixed upon Rhiannon's white face, and then upon the two tiny wounds at her throat.  "What the hell have you done?"

Roland parted his lips but found himself unable to speak.  Then he was shoved roughly aside as Eric went to the bed, leaned over it and touched Rhiannon's face.  Roland turned his back.  Shame engulfed him.  Remorse filled his every pore.  "I didn't mean--I lost control, Eric.  I nearly--"

Eric gripped Roland's arm and drew him from the room.  He closed the bedroom door.  His anger struck like a fist, and Roland couldn't blame him for it.  "What the hell were you thinking?  How could you allow yourself to--"

"I don't know, dammit!"  Roland lowered his head, pressing a palm to his forehead.  "Is she all right?"

Eric sighed hard.  "She'll be weak when she wakes, and more than likely, she'll feel like hell.  She'll need to feed right away.  All in all, I'd say she's in better shape than you right now."  He shook his head.  "Tell me what happened, Roland.  This is so unlike you."

"Oh, but it isn't.  It's exactly like me."

"That's ridiculous.  You're the most controlled man I know."

"Am I?"  Roland paced away, toward the fire.  He stared into the glowing coals, inhaled the pungent aroma of the smoldering wood.  "Have you ever wondered why I remain such a staid, quiet individual?  Have you ever once considered what fiendish qualities I might be holding in check?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."  Eric came nearer.

Roland faced him, pointing one outstretched finger toward the bedroom.  "That is what happens when I ease the reins of control, Eric.  The lust for blood, be it in battle or in passion, takes over.  It's time you knew your dearest friend is no more than evil given form and substance."

Eric frowned.  He touched Roland's shoulder, then gripped it hard.  "I've never seen you like this."

"What you've seen of me is a veneer, my friend.  Today, you've met me for the first time.  Perhaps it would be best if you took your fledgling and the boy, and went as far from me as possible, before I contaminate all of you."

"Don't be ridiculous."  Eric let his hand fall away.  "We'll talk more tonight.  The sun is already cresting the horizon.  You ought to go below."

Roland shook his head.  "No need.  I availed myself of your potion."

Eric's frown deepened.  "When?"

Roland shrugged.

"An hour ago.  Perhaps less.  What does it matter?"

"Why didn't I realize... Roland, sit down.  Crawl out of this well of self-loathing and listen to me."  Without waiting for Roland's compliance, Eric shoved him toward a chair.

Roland sat, but he wasn't concerned with what Eric had to say.  No words could alter the truth.

"It wasn't you, you fool," Eric all but shouted.  "It was the drug.  If anyone is to blame for this debacle, it's me."  He pulled a chair close to Roland's and sat down.  "The drug has a tendency to increase aggressive behavior.  At least it did in the animals I initially tested it on.  When the same symptoms didn't occur in me, I assumed immortals were immune to that side effect.  That was a grave error, obviously."

Roland shook his head slowly.  "What a genuine friend you are to try to accept blame for my true nature.  It wasn't the drug, Eric.  It was me."

"No.  Roland, use your brain and listen.  I should have realized that older vampires would be more susceptible to adverse effects than younger ones.  Just as they're more susceptible to other elements.  Sunlight.  Pain.  Don't you see?  The drug caused this."

Roland faced Eric without blinking.  "You truly do not wish to see me for what I am.  If the drug did anything at all, it was only to weaken the tenuous grip of my control.  The beast within is mine alone, I know it well."

"You're a damned fool if you believe that."

Roland stood.  "This conversation is senseless.  Go below and rest before the sun fries your wits any further."

"I've been below.  I took Tamara down not thirty minutes ago.  But, like you, I imbibed the drug this dawn.  I understood we would take turns at this day shift of ours.  And this conversation is not senseless.  It makes perfect sense, and if you were not so stubborn, you would know it."

Roland could stand no more of Eric's rationalizing.  He started for the great hall.  But his persistent friend followed on his heels.  At the foot of the worn stone stairs, Roland turned.  "You want a turn guarding the castle, be my guest.  But stop hounding me, Eric.  I need to be by myself for a time."

Roland hurried up the stairs.  Thankfully, Eric remained at the bottom.

He moved past the second level, and the entrance to Jamey's apartment.  He continued upward, beyond the third level, and the decaying chambers that hadn't been used since his time as a mortal.  The stairs ended abruptly at a heavy wood door, and Roland shoved it open.  He stepped into the weapons room, a huge, circular tomb, without windows.  It was black as pitch, but he could see clearly.

Suits of armor stood like dust-coated specters, the darkness within them eyeing him with what felt to him like condemnation.  Well deserved, Roland thought.  Broadswords hung upon the stone walls, tarnished with neglect and time.  Their finely detailed scabbards were barely discernible through the filth.  Crossbows lined the floor in one section, likely inoperable by now.  Bolts stood in a short, wooden box.  Hundreds of them, bunched together like a porcupine's quills.  Shields leaned against the wall, the faded remnants of the Courtemanche family crest upon their faces.

Roland felt bitter irony when he glanced at the black, rampant lion, teeth bared, upon a field of red.

The beast and the blood.  How appropriate.

He tore his gaze from the grim reminders of his past, of his family, and strode toward the ladder at the far end of the room.  As he neared the top, he shoved at the trapdoor above him, and climbed through it to the tower room.  He found the long, wooden matches upon the table where he'd left them, and struck one against the rough stone wall.  Then he lit the candles until the entire room was aglow.

Like the chamber below, this one was circular.  The walls had been lined with slits, from which the archers of old could shoot at intruders if the castle came under siege.  Roland had sealed the slits only recently.  There were times when he rested here, by day, rather than in the dungeons beneath the earth.

He wouldn't do so again.  The dungeons were fitting enough for a man such as he.

For a moment, he stood in the room's center and turned slowly.  His paintings stood all around him.  Those he'd done as a boy, all but ruined by the ravaging hands of time.  Once they'd been fanciful images of dragons and knights and heroic dreams.  Then there were the portraits, which had come much later.  The faces of his mother, and father.  The accusing eyes of his brothers.

Upon an easel, the unfinished portrait of Rhiannon drew him nearer.

He'd come to this room to destroy it, to destroy all of them.  He intended to slice them to shreds.  He was no painter, no artist.  He had not the heart of a poet, but the heart of a villain.  What right did he have to hold to these memories of a human' with a soul?  They were false.  Utter lies, all of them.

He drew a dagger from a sheath at his hip, and lifted it.  He strode up to the portrait.

But something stopped him.  He knew not what, only that it was a force stronger than his anger.  He gazed at the image, that was now only a jumble of vague shapes and outlines.  In it, he saw Rhiannon, her almond eyes reaching out to him, filled with warmth, and light.  With a strangled sob, he dropped the dagger to the stone floor.

He turned his back to the painting and faced instead a small table where his paints and pallets and brushes stood at the ready.  Beside it, stood another ladder.  He looked slowly upward, to the trapdoor at the top.  Above was the top of the castle.

He used to go up there as a boy, and look out over the woods to the spot where the two rivers joined.  Narrow, rapid Tordu, laughing as it bounded into the broad, calm waters of the Loire.  As one, the two rivers continued their unending journey southward in a glistening, glittering strand.

Beyond the trapdoor was daylight by now.  The warm rays of a golden sun, with nothing overhead to prevent its touch.  He started forward, placed his hands on the rungs.

Then he paused, and looked again toward the painting.  He moved as a blind man, guided by unseen hands.  He grabbed up the brushes, and a pallet.

*    *    *    *    *

Her head throbbed, and her stomach seemed alive, the way it twisted and writhed within her.  She felt slightly stronger now than she had when she'd first stirred, to find Tamara in worried attendance.  She'd fed, and gradually, her strength had begun to filter back into her.

"Where is he?"  She saw Tamara's face tighten when she asked the question.

"I don't know.  Eric said he'd holed himself up in the tower room all day.  Then at dusk, he went outside.  He hasn't come back."  The young one searched Rhiannon's eyes.  "You were hoping he'd be here when you woke."

Rhiannon shrugged, hoping to hide her disappointment.  "I was only curious."

Tamara touched her hand.  "Don't be too disappointed in him, Rhiannon.  Eric said he was pretty distraught over what happened."  She frowned, her pretty face puckering.  "Not that he doesn't deserve to be."

"Oh, posh, Tamara, I'm fine.  And don't tell me you don't enjoy a small sip or two in the throes of passion."  Tamara blushed.

"Well, yes… but--"

"I like to think he was so overwhelmed with desire for me that he took leave of his senses.  It's rather flattering, actually."

Tamara shook her head.  "Eric thinks the drug was to blame.  He feels terrible about it."

Rhiannon tilted her head to one side.  "I know little of chemistry.  Do you think he's right?"

"Oh, yes.  Eric is a genius about those things."  She glanced at Rhiannon, then lowered her lashes.  "Was it... very nice?"

Rhiannon almost smiled.  Perhaps would have, if not for the lingering pain lodged in the center of her chest, for which she had no explanation.  She'd never encountered a vampiress so embarrassed to discuss sex.  "My body nearly exploded at his touch," she said frankly.  "I've wanted him for a very long time, you know."

Tamara faced her fully then.  "So, why do I see such sadness in your eyes?"

Rhiannon blinked and turned away.

"Come on, Rhiannon.  If you aren't going to talk to me, then who?"

She met the younger woman's gaze once more.  She sensed only genuine caring emanating from her.  "My body was sated."

"But?"

Rhiannon sighed.  "It was almost as if he were alone as he plunged himself into me.  Almost as if I weren't even there."

Tamara nodded sagely.  "You wanted tenderness, some cuddling" some talking.  I understand."

Rhiannon lifted her brows.  "Cuddling?  Where do you come by such ideas, fledgling?  Do I honestly look to you like the type of woman who needs cuddling?"

Tamara grinned.  "He'll come around.  Give him time."

Exasperated with the young woman's nonsense, Rhiannon flung back her covers and got to her feet.  She didn't miss the sudden widening of Tamara's eyes, before she turned her back.  Imagine, being so bashful with another woman.  Well, Rhiannon certainly had nothing to be embarrassed about.  She went to the dresser, tugged out a pair of designer denims and slipped them on.  At the wardrobe, she removed a thin silk blouse in a stunning electric blue, and poked her arms into the sleeves.  As she fastened the onyx buttons, Tamara faced her again.

"You're going out, aren't you?"

Rhiannon nodded.  "Yes, and it will be useless for you to tell me to stay here and rest.  I'm immortal.  Granted, I feel like a brisk wind could blow me away right now, but it will pass."  She knelt near the closet and searched for a suitable pair of walking shoes.

"Eric said Roland headed for the woods, just beyond the wall."

Rhiannon turned.  "Reading my mind, are you?"

"I don't have to.  I'm a woman."

*    *    *    *    *

She'd rested too long, Rhiannon told herself as she crossed the grassy meadow, its dew dampening the hem of her jeans.  Cool, moist breezes bathed her face, and the full moon lit her way.  She wouldn't try to summon Roland, or to track him down by honing her senses to his.  She had a feeling he would only go out of his way to avoid her if he knew she sought him.

At the meadow's edge she leaped the wall, and stepped into the darkness of the woods.  Twisted, dark-skinned trees and thorny bushes surrounded her, but she pushed steadily onward, determined to find him.  She had no idea what she wanted to say to him, but she knew she had to say something.  Tamara had been wrong about her wishing to be cuddled, but right about the talking.  She needed, desperately, to talk to Roland.  More important, she needed him to talk to her.

The scents of the rivers grew stronger as she neared them, and a fine, silvery mist hung at knee level.  Decomposing limbs and plants made the earth beneath her feet like a sponge.  It sank with her every step.

She took her time, moving slowly, inhaling deeply to experience every aroma the night had to offer.  The spinning in her head eased a bit with each passing moment, and eventually she came upon a well-worn path, meandering among the trees.  She followed it, stepping in and out of the abstract patterns the moon's light painted on the ground.  A small gust caused the elms to sway and groan as if in agony... or in ecstasy.  Their deep tenor harmonized with the soprano voice of the breeze rushing over the smaller branches high above.

She approached a wrought-iron gate, with an elaborate C twined around its bars.  It creaked as she pushed it open.  The wind stiffened.  Huge limbs parted, bathing the tiny cemetery in moonglow.  Markers stood in uneven rows, most crumbling with age.  Five stood apart, large and elaborate.

Roland stood with one hand braced against an obelisk taller than he.  On the face was carved a crest, with two crossed swords above it.

Without turning, he spoke.  "So, you've found me."

"So I have."  She stepped nearer.  The crest on the stone was one she knew well.  She'd seen the same rampant lion on Roland's shield when she'd found him all those years ago, lying near death on a field of battle.  "A relative?" she asked softly.

"My father."  He straightened and waved a hand to the man-size crucifix beside him.  "And my mother."

Rhiannon came forward until she stood very close to him.  He didn't look at her.  She glanced at the stone, at the likeness of the Savior painstakingly chiseled into it, every detail of his face clear in the swirling white marble.  "The stone is breathtaking."

"In deference to her devotion."  He shook his head.  "I shudder to think what she would say, could she see what I've become."

She wanted to argue, but sensed it would best be put off for another time.  She moved to the three nearly identical stones in the next row.  Tall blocks, arched at the tops and made of obsidian.  They differed only in the scenes etched into their faces.

Roland came behind her and pressed a palm to the proud stag depicted on the first.  "Albert, the hunter," he said softly.

She could feel the pain emanating from him in waves as he moved to the next marker and touched the knight, seated upon a rearing destrier.  "Eustace, the warrior," he told her.  He then glanced toward the third, with the warship at full sail upon a choppy sea.  "Pierre, the sailor.  My brothers.  Meet Rhiannon, the latest victim of my cruelty."

"Roland, no--"

"Ah, but you wish to hear the rest of the story, do you not?"  He faced her with bitter hurt in his eyes.  "I believe I left off after the first appearance of the beast that lives in my soul.  You remember, how I butchered the men who'd murdered Sir Gareth?"

"You were little more than a boy, and enraged by your grief."

He nodded.  "So you said before.  No doubt, after a firsthand encounter with my violent side, you've reformed that opinion."

She studied his face, noting the puffy circles beneath his eyes, the haggard features, the tight jaw.  "Eric believes it was a side effect of the drug."

"Eric would rather believe anything than the truth."  He turned away from her.  "Can you stomach the rest of the tale, Rhiannon, or would you prefer to leave now?  I've no idea why, but some demon drives me to tell it to you.  All of it.  Perhaps I need to see your face when you finally realize what I am."

"I know what you are.  If you want to tell me, I want to hear it."

His eyes narrowed, and one hand shot out to grip her upper arm.  "You'd best be certain, Rhiannon.  Once I begin, you will hear it all, whether you wish to or not."

She stared up into his face, aching for the pain he felt.  "Are you trying to frighten me, Roland?  To drive rile away so you won't have to release this pain or exorcise these demons?"

"There is no exorcising these demons.  They are a part of me.  And if you are not frightened of me after what I did, then you are a fool."

She jerked her arm from his grasp, and drew herself up to her full height.  "Then I am a fool."  She walked past him, away from the markers to a small, grassy knoll beneath a giant of a tree.  She sat down there, leaning her back against the rough bark.  "Tell me."

CHAPTER NINE

She was a fool.  She must be, to be here with him like this.  Even with the remorse flooding his mind, he was aware of her.  His body ached to join with hers once more, to find that blissful release that had nearly shattered the ice coating his heart.  Just looking at her hands reminded him of how they'd felt stroking his arousal; like silk and firm and strong.  So strong.  The sight of her lips elicited the memory of the heat and moisture he'd found beyond them, the taste of her tongue.  Beneath the thin silk blouse, she wore nothing.  He found himself wondering if the brush of the fabric over her breasts would arouse her nipples to the hard tautness of pebbles, and if it did, whether he could stop himself from tearing it off her, and sucking at them until she begged him to stop.

She wore tight-fitting denims, damn her.  They were pressed as snugly between her silken thighs as his body had been.  He wanted to put his face into her lap and inhale her bittersweet fragrance.  He wanted to taste her again, to become drunk on her own potent brand of spirits.

"Roland."  Her voice was but a whisper.  He saw her hand reaching up to him, and he took it.  She tugged until he sat beside her against the tree trunk.  "Tell me," she urged again.

He nodded.  "The tale is not a pleasant one, Rhiannon."  Roland drew one bracing breath and prepared himself for her reactions.  "After the battle of which I told you, I longed only to return home.  To put aside my sword and my lust for violence forever."  He paused, looking for a long moment into her fathomless eyes.  She would, no doubt, detest him when he'd finished the tale.  All the better.  Perhaps she'd finally get some sense and leave him alone for good.

"But when I did, it was to find my father's enemies at the castle.  The Baron Rosbrook and his clan had taken it."  He closed his eyes at the memory.  The first sight to welcome him upon returning home had been the crumbled outer wall, then the charred, blackened section of the castle that had been burned. 

Rhiannon's hand touched his face.  "Your family?"

"Murdered."  The single word carried little emphasis.  But words could not describe what he'd felt that day.  Looking like a man, but with the fears and the heart of a boy, he'd crossed the barren courtyard in time to see them cut his father's limp body down from the gallows, and toss it atop the others in a rickety wagon.  He'd stood motionless, unable to believe that what he saw was real as the wagon clattered past him, and beneath the raised portcullis.  Like a man entranced, he'd turned and followed, until the wagon stopped near the lip of a steep embankment.  And one by one, the bodies had been flung over the side.

He began to tremble again, just as he had then.  He wanted to shut out the memory, as he'd wanted to turn his eyes away from the heartrending sight all those years ago.  And just as before, he was unable to do so.  His father, his brothers, were tossed like refuse, their bodies rolling and tumbling to the very bottom of the rocky ravine.  Other knights, stripped of their armor, some with the horrendous wounds of battle marring their flesh, others with no sign of injury save the telling fluid movement of their heads on boneless necks, tossed away without a prayer or a tear shed for them.  Then the women.  The first charred corpse was unrecognizable, until he'd glimpsed one unburned corner of the gown.  His mother's gown.

"My God, Roland."  Rhiannon's voice was choked, and she clutched his shoulders in her hands.  She'd been inside his mind, he realized dully.  She'd relived those moments of his long ago homecoming right along with him.  "I had no idea," she whispered.  "I'm so sorry."

"So am I, Rhiannon.  Had I been at home, where I belonged, I might have prevented it."

"How."  Roland, you were a boy, a boy with no knightly training when you left home.  What might you have done, other than be killed yourself?"

He looked into her upturned face, and shook his head as he battled a rash of childish tears and a fierce burning in his throat.  "I'll never know, will I?"  He managed to swallow past the lump, and blink the blurring moisture from his eyes.  "Unfortunately, I had left.  I had been trained.  I'd been in battle, and gained a reputation as a fierce fighter, thanks to Gareth's family.  There may have been nothing I could do before the fact.  But afterward--"

"If the murder of Gareth enraged you, the murder of your family and the taking of your home must have been far worse."

He nodded, remembering, experiencing it all again as he relived it for her.  "It happened in an instant.  I went from paralyzing shock, and unspeakable grief, to rage and a thirst for revenge that drove me close to madness.  It took weeks, but I gathered an army.  Some were friends of my father's.  Most were knights in the employ of Gareth's family.  They aided me as a matter of honor.  I had avenged Gareth and their fellow knights, so they would help me to avenge my family."

"And?"

He looked into her eyes, wishing he didn't have to go on.  But he did.  He couldn't have stopped himself from telling her all of it now, had he wanted to.  "By my command, they gave no quarter, nor did I.  Some of the Rosbrooks escaped the blade, but most died by it.  Until only one remained.  A younger daughter, no older than I."

He saw Rhiannon close her eyes, and assumed she was dreading what came next.  "Her name was Rebecca, and she had the face of an angel.  Silvery blond curls, huge f blue eyes.  She was an innocent.  I ordered her thrown into the dungeons."

She released her breath all at once.

"Why are you relieved, Rhiannon?  Because I didn't kill her outright?  It would have been better if I had."

She shook her head.  "I know you, Roland.  After a few days, you must have realized that her father's sins were not hers, and released her."

"Released her?"  He almost laughed.  "No, Rhiannon.  You don't know me at all.  But you are partly right.  In time, I regretted that she should suffer for what her father had done.  I removed her from the dungeons and put her into a bedchamber on the third level.  I intended to return her to her relatives, until I learned she had none left.  The girl, of course, detested me for what I'd done, just as I had detested her family for the murder of mine."

"What became of her, Roland?"

He removed Rhiannon's hands from his shoulders, folded them into her lap and covered them with one of his own.  He searched her face, waiting for the condemnation he was certain would appear there soon.  "I decided the best I could do for her would be to wed her.  To keep her in the castle and try to right the wrong I'd done by making her my bride, sharing with her my wealth and my name."

Rhiannon blinked.  "Did you... did you love her?"

"Love is an emotion of which I am not capable, Rhiannon.  Nor have I ever been, even then.  Does an animal feel love?"

She parted her lips, then bit them.  "What did she say to your proposal?"

"It was not a proposal.  It was a command.  She could marry me or return to the dungeons permanently."

She didn't flinch from his steady gaze.  "Which did she choose?"

"Neither.  She flung herself from the tower."

"Oh, God."  Rhiannon closed her eyes, and he noted the appearance of moisture on her thick lashes.

"So, now you know."  He let his chin fall to his chest.  A second later, he felt her fingers threading through his hair.  That she could bear to touch him at all now, amazed him.  That she did so with such tenderness was beyond comprehension.

He lifted his head, and met her damp gaze.  "I swear, I didn't intend to hurt you, Rhiannon.  I simply lost my senses.  I allowed the violent nature that is truly me, to take control.  I'm more sorry than you can imagine."

"I know.  As I know you were sorry after the girl's death, and more than likely, after every battle you ever fought from then on."

He shook his head.  "I became a mercenary knight, a hired fighter.  I left the castle in the hands of caretakers.  I couldn't bear to be here, with the memories of my past mistakes haunting me in every hall."

"Ah, but now you alter the tale, Roland.  For I knew of you long before you knew of me.  The gallant knight who fought for a price, but always on the side of the weak, and always on the side of the just.  I knew you were one of The Chosen, Roland.  I was fascinated by you."

He frowned, not believing her.

"It's true," she said.  "It was years after your knighting, of course, and I knew nothing of what horrors befallen you in your youth.  I heard tales of your valor I tracked you down.  For some time, I followed you your men.  God, what it did to me to see you leading them astride that magnificent black war-horse with the eyes seemed to blaze.  To witness you in battle was worse yet.  The gleaming armor, the powerful way you would wield that sword, your fearlessness."

"You saw me fight?"

She nodded.  "The battle at Lorraine, at midnight fought to free the kidnapped Lady la Claire.  And the in Normandy, when you helped the fallen men from field, friend and foe alike.  So I know you exaggerate battle lust you claim."

He felt his jaw go slack.  "Rhiannon, why did you n tell me this?"

She shrugged.  "I was afraid you'd laugh at me.  An immortal vampiress, smitten by a man she'd never met.  But I was, you know.  I wanted to come to you, even then.  Never had I seen a man so strong, or so brave.  I was enamored of you, Roland.  Then, you heard of Bryan, Gareth's young son, that same babe you'd rescued from the wolf, a man grown by then.  He was in dire need, and you rushed to his aid."

Roland nodded.  "Yes.  His castle was under siege he couldn't withstand the attackers much longer.  A messenger managed to slip out, and brought word to me."

"And you went there, knowing full well you were short on men, and still exhausted from the last skirmish.  With little food, and weapons in need of repair, you went.  By night, you went, so I was able to follow, and to watch."

He nodded.  "The enemy outnumbered us ten to one," he said, recalling his shock as he'd peered at them from the cover of the forest.

"And you attacked them all the same, but only after releasing any of your men who wished to leave.  Few did, as I recall.  That battle was the fiercest I had ever seen, Roland.  I was terrified for you.  You managed to rout the invaders, but in the end, you were cut down.  I found you lying in the dirt, near death.  You remember?"

He nodded, recalling vividly his first glimpse of her.  A mysterious, utterly beautiful lady in a flowing black gown, leaning over him, whispering that he would live, that she would not allow him to die.  He remembered her tears, raining down on his face, and the way their moist warmth transcended his pain.

"Of course, I remember.  I was dying.  It was then you transformed me."

"Knowing full well you were worthy of the gift.  More worthy than any of us, perhaps.  Yet you spend eternity grieving over past mistakes and condemning yourself for a passionate nature."

Roland stood, and gazed upward at the stars.  "You call it passion.  I call it evil."

She was on her feet, at his side before he was aware she'd moved.  She had a talent for that, moving soundlessly, as if floating.  She stood before him and lifted her soft palms to cup his face.  She drew it down, so he was gazing into her eyes, rather than at the starry night.  Of the two, he thought, her eyes were the most lovely, the most brilliant.

"It is time for you to let the past die."

He felt his heart contract painfully in his chest.  "I cannot."

"Yes, you can.  There is so much for you here, in the present.  So much you deny yourself.  So much you could take and savor--"

"There is nothing, Rhiannon."

"There is Jamey."

He released a ragged breath, though the pain inside only grew sharper.  "Yes, there is Jamey.  I've been giving him a lot of thought these past days."

Her hands fell from his face, and settled upon his shoulders.

"I'm beginning to think you were right.  The boy may be better off with his natural father.  He needs a normal life, not one filled with danger and immortal beings.  He ought to live in a suburban house, not a crumbling ruin."

She drew a thoughtful breath.  "You'll still need to watch over him, even if you are able to locate his father.  And there is always a chance..."  She bit her lip and her eyes filled suddenly.  Roland felt her wince inwardly in pain, and wondered at it.  "A chance that his father will not want him," she finished.  Her hands fell to her sides, and she averted her face.

"Rhiannon, what--"

"And even without the boy, you have your friends.  Eric and Tamara adore you, Roland."

 "They have each other."  He shook his head.  He couldn't tell her how terribly lonely he felt when he had to witness their happiness.  It only exaggerated his own isolation.

  "What about me, then?"  She faced him again, gripped both his hands in hers.  "Don't tell me you didn't forget all that pain when you made love to me.  Don't say you didn't feel the same sheer joy of being alive, that you made me feel."

He closed his eyes.  "I did not make love to you.  I assaulted you."

She drew his hands toward her, pulling them around her to the small of her back.  Then she left them there, to slip her arms around his neck and press her body to his.  "Perhaps you will get it right the next time, then."

He didn't push her away.  He couldn't.  Staring down into the endless pools of her eyes, he simply couldn't.  "There cannot be a next time, Rhiannon."

"There can.  There will."  She pressed her lips to his, parted them, swept her tongue into his mouth.

Summoning every ounce of his faltering control, he released her and turned away.  "No."

"But Roland, I--"

"No, Rhiannon.  You still don't comprehend it, do you?"  He shoved his hands roughly through his hair.  "There is so much in you that reminds me of who I once was.  The impulsiveness, the passion, the way you laugh in the face of danger.  Dammit, Rhiannon, it is never as hard for me to control my nature as when I am with you.  Your very presence stirs in my soul the qualities I constantly fight to suppress."

She said nothing.  He couldn't turn to face her.  Looking at her would only tempt him anew to give in to the beast.  It was ironic that the one thing he wanted most in this world was the thing that he must deny himself.  It was almost as if the gods were laughing at him, dangling this prize before him just to see him pay for his sins.  "Sometimes, Rhiannon, I believe you are my punishment.  My curse."

He turned then, and stopped dead.  The pain in her eyes was such as he'd never before seen.  Yet they remained dry.  Wide, and hurting, but utterly dry.  Without a word, she turned and walked away, toward the wrought-iron gate.  Her rapid pace was brought up short, though, when it Eric appeared just beyond it, emerging from the mist like a ghost.

"Rhiannon, thank God I've found you.  Is Roland--"

"Here, Eric," Roland called.  He moved forward, glancing at Rhiannon's stricken face.  He'd hurt her again.  Severely this time.  He felt it as surely as he felt the river-moistened breeze on his face, and he had no idea how, or even if, he could remedy it.

"Excuse me," she muttered, then staggered away into the densest part of the woods.

Roland took a step to go after her, but Eric's hand on his shoulder stopped him.  In the distance, he heard Rhiannon retching violently.  He shook Eric's hand away and again began to go after her.

"Dammit, Roland, listen to me.  Jamey is gone."

Roland halted on the dark path, his lower legs swathed in mist, fiver-damp air filling his lungs.  An icy hand closed around his chest.  He turned.  "Gone?  What do you mean, 'gone'?"

"He's left.  Run off."  Eric fished in his pocket, and pressed a folded sheet of paper into Roland's hand.  "We found this in his room."

Roland glanced again in the direction Rhiannon had gone.  He heard nothing now.  He sent the probing fingers of his mind out to hers, but found it closed to him.

"I'll go," Eric said softly.  "Read the damned note and meet me back at the castle."

Roland watched him go, then smoothed the note open with hands that were not steady, and read;

Dear Tamara,

I have to leave.  Please don't try to find me.  I'm a man now, and I can take care of myself.  But as long as I am with Roland, he'll think he has to take care of me.  Now everything is happening like it did before.  Curtis is back.  DPI is driving everyone crazy, all because of me.  It was my fault Rhiannon got knifed at the match.  And I know it was my fault she got hurt again last night.  I heard you and Eric talking.  I don't know what happened, only that Roland hurt her somehow, and that it was because of that stupid drug he's been taking to keep him awake.  He wouldn't have been taking it if it hadn't been for me.  He shouldn't have.  Even I know better than to mess with drugs that way.

Tell Eric to lay off on the chemicals.  He's always trying to change what he is, what all of you are.  Tell him I think you're about as close to perfect as you can get.  Better than any of the normal people I know, except my mom.

Don't worry about the DPI guys catching up with me.  I'm not stupid.  I know how to be careful.  I'll write to you when I figure out where I want to stay, and get my life together, just so you'll see that I'm okay.

I really love you guys.  All of you, but especially you, Tam.  You've been like an older sister to me.  I'll miss you, but I have to do this.  Try to understand. 

Love,

Jamey

Roland closed his eyes slowly, and crumpled the sheet in his fist.  "Damn."

*    *    *    *    *

She stiffened at the approaching steps, but it was only Eric.  She swallowed the bitter bile in her throat and schooled her face into an emotionless mask.  Not for anything in the world would Eric see that her heart had been torn to shreds.  He'd only report the fact to Roland.  She would die before she'd let him know how much he'd hurt her.

His curse.  Perhaps he was right, at that.  She'd been her father's curse, and now Roland's.  Rejected by the only two men in the world from whom she'd craved acceptance.  Shut out by the only two men she'd ever loved.

Loved?

Posh, she didn't love Roland.  She wasn't foolish enough to have allowed her heart to become involved in what was purely a physical attraction.  She'd loved once, and once only.  She'd loved her father, and his disdain had taught her well never to love again.

She lifted her gaze to watch Eric's hasty approach.  She waited until he reached her.

"Are you all right?"

She lifted her palms up and glanced down at her own form.  "I seem to be, don't I?"

"You were ill.  I heard you--"

"Dry heaves.  A reaction to too much exertion after... after what happened.  No more than that, I assure you."

His eyes narrowed and she knew he didn't believe her.  It was to his credit that he didn't pry.

"Go on, tell me what's happened.  You didn't come charging into the woods to check on my health."

"No, I didn't.  Though maybe I should have."  He took her arm, his eyes scanning her face with some concern.  "Come with me.  I'll explain as we go."

He did, and by the time they entered the great hall, Rhiannon knew the situation was grave.  Jamey, determined though he was, couldn't hope to outsmart or outmaneuver DPI.  Her concern for the boy acted as a buffer against the sting of Roland's condemnation.  She had a focus.

Tamara paced, her face wet with tears, her eyes as red-rimmed as a drunkard's.  She whirled toward the door when they entered, and it was heartbreaking to see the disappointment in her eyes when she saw that it wasn't the boy.

Frederick sat on the floor, knees drawn as close to his bulky chest as he could get them.  He looked as if he'd been crying, as well.

Rhiannon went to Tamara, and folded the slight woman into her arms.  "There's no need for such devastation, fledgling.  We'll find the little rat in no time."

"How?  We don't even know where to begin."

"Your cat's gone, too," Frederick moaned from where he sat.  "I should have been watching him closer.  It's all my fault.  What if those bad men get Jamey?  What will they do to him?"

"No bad men are going to get Jamey," Eric intoned.

Tamara sniffed and straightened.  "It's not your fault, Frederick.  We were all supposed to be watching him.  Jamey is too smart for us, that's all."

"I'm stupid," Frederick said softly.  "If I wasn't so stupid--"

Rhiannon stepped to him, bent over and pulled him to his feet.  "Freddy, you are not now, nor have you ever been, stupid.  I won't hear such nonsense from you again.  Jamey slipped by all of us.  Do you think we're stupid?"

He shook his head.

"You're right.  We're not.  And neither are you.  Now..."  She turned, slowly, addressing all of them.  "Enough of this weeping and wailing.  I cannot stand it.  You're all forgetting one important thing."

"And what is that?"  The voice was Roland's.  He stood just inside the doorway.  She hadn't heard him come in, and his eyes sought hers now, not hard with condemnation, but desperate for help.

"Who I am," she said, her voice so low it was only a hint above a whisper, but as clear and resonant as a bell.  "Rhianikki, daughter of Pharaoh, princess of Egypt.  I was a priestess of Isis, studied the words of Osiris.  I felt the burning sands of Egypt beneath my feet when the pyramids were still new.  Within my soul is the wisdom of the ages, young ones, and there is nothing, nothing, that I cannot do."

She watched Roland's reaction to her speech, fully expecting to see the familiar skepticism on his face.  Instead, she thought she saw relief.

There was no doubt it was hope that filled Tamara's round eyes.  "What should we do, Rhiannon?"

"Not we, Tamara.  You.  You are the closest to Jamey.  You and he had a psychic bond even before Eric transformed you, isn't that true?"

"Yes, but--"

"No buts.  You need only concentrate on the boy.  Seek him out with your mind."

Tamara shook her head.  "I can't.  I only feel him when he's trying to reach me, or--or when he's in trouble."

"You can.  It takes only the power of the mind.  I will show you the way, Tamara."  Rhiannon turned to Roland.  "We'll need a quiet room.  One with no outside auras cluttering it up."

Roland frowned.  "No one has used the chambers on the third level in centuries."

She nodded and turned to Frederick, who was sorely in need of something to do.  "Freddy, in Roland's chambers, in the small dresser beside the bed, you'll find two special candles and a packet of incense in a silver chalice.  Will you get them for me?"

Frederick limped off to do her bidding.  Eric scoffed.  "Incense and candles?  What kind of nonsense is this?  We ought to be out searching for the boy."

"Be my guest, Eric.  Go and search to your heart's content.  You'll only be wasting your time.  We have to know where he is."

Eric shook his head.  "Don't take it personally, Rhiannon.  I'm a man who believes in science, not hocus-pocus."

No doubt were you human right now, you wouldn't believe in the existence of a race of undead blood-drinkers," she retorted.

He looked at the floor.

"Eric, listen to her," Tamara said softly.  She turned from him.  "I trust you, Rhiannon.  Just tell me what to do."

Eric threw his hands in the air and turned to Roland.  "Are you going to stand still for this?"

Roland shrugged.  "Unless you have a better idea, or a clue where to begin searching…"

Frederick returned with the incense and candles.  Rhiannon took them and led Tamara up the stone staircase, Roland and Eric following.  On the third level, she passed several rotting doors before pausing at one.  She stood still a moment, then nodded.  "This one."

"Why?"  Roland stared at her intently.

"You object?"

She watched him for a moment as he struggled with the decision.  She didn't know why, and she told herself she didn't care.  He'd made his feelings for her clear enough.  She wouldn't trouble herself about them any further.  Her only goal now was to locate the boy.  Then she would leave and never return.

Finally, Roland sighed and nodded once.  "Go on."

She pushed the door open and stepped inside, Tamara behind her.  For just a moment, she paused in the darkness to examine the chamber with her preternatural vision.  The outermost wall curved with the shape of the tower, but the other three were flat.  Two windows had been cut through the stone on that curving wall.  Narrow openings, narrower without than within, that had no glass in them to block the night wind coming through.  Two benches, facing each other, and carved of castle stone, sat near the windows.  Ancient rushes, dry as husks, lined the cold floor, crackling beneath her steps.  The tapestries that had once been brilliant works of art, hung in straggles from the walls.

Rhiannon turned to Roland and Eric.  "It would be better if you waited below."

"And leave Tamara to play sorceress games alone will you?  Not quite, Rhiannon.  I'm staying."  Eric stepped farther into the room, leaned back against the stone wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Eric--"

"It's all right, Tamara," Rhiannon said.  "I'm fairly used to being mistrusted by males."

"It isn't that--"

She quelled Eric's protests with a single glance.  "I'll need your cooperation if you insist on staying.  You must be utterly silent and still, and you must make an effort to keep your mind closed to us.  Agreed?"

"Fine."

She glanced once at Roland, though even looking at him brought a stab of pain so intense she had trouble, keeping it hidden.  "You won't know I'm here," he told her.

Oh, but she would.

She moved into the room's center, knelt down and waited for Tamara to join her.  "I want you to lie down," she told her as she placed the candles and poured some of the incense into the chalice.

"I might have some matches," Roland offered.

"Silence."  Rhiannon's whispered word carried a tone of authority, and Roland said no more.

Rhiannon stretched herself out on the crisp rushes, lying on her back.  At her right, near her shoulder, but far enough away to be safe, was one blood-red candle.  Near her waist, the silver dish, and a small mound of dried incense.  Near her hip, the second candle.  Beyond those three items, Tamara lay still.

Rhiannon closed her eyes.  "Relax, Tamara.  Close your eyes.  Put all fear and worry from your mind.  Feel the stone floor beneath your back begin to soften.  Inhale slowly, deeply.  That's it.  Hold the breath in your lungs for a moment.  Drain the nourishment from the air before you release it once more.  Slowly... slowly.  Yes, all of it.  Every bit, until your lungs are utterly emptied.  Now, wait... wait... and inhale once more.  Fill yourself to bursting, but slowly.  Yes."

She kept her voice low, even, hypnotic.  "With each breath you take the floor is becoming softer.  Feel it?  It's like down, now.  You can feel yourself sinking into it, can't you?"

"Yes."

"Good.  Now, continue just as you're doing.  And I will do the same.  When your mind is floating free, you will know, Tamara.  Reach out to Jamey then.  Think of him.  Put his image in front of your eyes.  Surround yourself with the memory of his scent.  Concentrate on the precise curl of each lock of his hair, the sound of his laughter, the warmth of his touch.  In this way, you will find him."

Rhiannon began her own ritual breathing, then.  She allowed herself to relax, and began sinking into the abyss of her own psyche.  She would focus on Pandora, and hope for some clue through the cat.

*    *    *    *    *

Roland stood beside Eric, leaning back against the wall, watching the bizarre ritual.  True, he'd been willing to give Rhiannon a chance, especially since he was afraid to open his mouth to object.  He seemed to wound her every time he spoke to her.  Why, he wondered?  Why did he hurt her the way he did?  He certainly hadn't intended to.  God knew, she didn't deserve it.  He'd shared with Rhiannon his most terrible secret, the one he'd been sure would cause her to hate and fear him.  Instead, she'd offered comfort.  Dammit to hell, she'd shed tears for him!  And he'd wounded her in return.

She hadn't looked him squarely in the eye for more than a second at a time since she'd left him in the cimetière.  He regretted that he'd caused her such pain.  But at least now, her feelings toward him seemed to have cooled.  One of them needed to remain at a distance, or he'd end up hurting her beyond repair.  And looking at her slender body, relaxed in a trancelike state on the rush-strewn floor, he knew damned well it couldn't be him.

As the minutes ticked away, though, even Roland began to doubt her.  What sort of witchcraft was she working here?  How could lying about in age-old rushes help Jamey?

He was eager to be out and searching for the boy, and worried in case DPI should beat him to it.  Then, with a small popping sound, the candles standing between the two women burst into flame.  A second later, the incense in the dish began smoldering, sending a soft gray spiral of fragrant smoke upward.

CHAPTER TEN

Nothing came.  Nothing she wanted, at least.  Rhiannon sat up abruptly and pinched the candles out with her fingers.  She massaged her temples and sighed.

This had been her room.  Rebecca's room.  The girl who'd thrown herself from the tower to escape marriage to Roland.  Images of the young, lovely creature had flooded into Rhiannon's psyche, making it impossible to concentrate on Pandora.  There was something troubled in Rebecca's spirit, something uneasy.  She was not at peace.

"Rhiannon?"

She glanced up at Roland, saw the question in his eyes.  "I'm sorry."

"He's in a car."

Tamara's small voice startled them all.  She still lay on her back, but her eyes were open.  She remained motionless, as if she feared that moving would shake the images from her mind.

"He's in a small, black car.  There's a blue duffel bag in his lap, with some clothes inside, and a little money.  And his cleats.  His cleats are in there, too."  With that sentence, her voice warbled and her eyes filled.

Eric started forward, but Rhiannon held up a hand.

"Tamara, who is driving the car?"

She frowned.  "I don't know him.  He's very big.  Like a wrestler.  His hair is cut close to his head so it sticks up in bristles.  It's dark.  His nose is like a bulldog's." She frowned harder.  "There is a tattoo on his right forearm, a cobra."

"Lucien," Roland whispered.

"Can you tell which direction they drive, Tamara?"

  She shook her head.  "There are mountains, with snow at the peaks."  Tamara sat up slowly, and Eric bent to help her to her feet.  She met his intense gaze.  "It's the same man who attacked Rhiannon, isn't it?  He has Jamey now."

Eric nodded.

Never before had Rhiannon seen such an expression on the fledgling's face.  Always, she'd seemed so timid, so mild.  Now, her eyes glowed with the fierceness of an approaching storm.  She tossed her head like a lioness, her jaw tight with what looked like rage.  "If he hurts Jamey, I will kill him."  She spoke in a calm, level voice, leaving no doubt she meant what she said.  Stiffly, she moved past Eric and out the door.  Eric hurried behind her.

"Well.  I've never seen her like that."

"I have," Roland said softly.  "But only when the boy was threatened."

She turned in the doorway, where she'd been standing to watch them go.  She was alone with Roland, she realized all at once.  She swallowed the lump that leapt into her throat.  "This was her room, wasn't it?"

He glanced around him, and nodded.  "How did you know?"

"I feel her here.  She did not detest you so thoroughly as you think, you know."

He shook his head.  "That, I cannot believe."

She shrugged.  "It's not my concern what you believe.  I only thought you might like to know."  She turned to go, but he caught her shoulder from behind.

"My words, in the cimetière were not meant to cause you pain, Rhiannon.  If they did, then I'm sorry."

She stiffened.  "It takes more than words to cause me any pain.  Don't worry yourself on that account."

He pulled her around to face him, and she saw the regret in his eyes.  "Rhiannon, I hurt you.  I know I did, and believe me, I wish I could take back the words that caused that hurt."

"Why take back the truth?"  She removed his hand from her shoulder with a brush of her own.  "We have the boy to find, Roland.  This conversation only delays his rescue."

*    *    *    *    *

Roland sat in the front of the rental car, map unfolded on his lap.  Of them all, he was the most familiar with the area and the terrain, having traveled much of it by horseback in times long past.  True, the towns and cities and roads differed.  But the lay of the land was the same.  And the only snow capped mountains near enough for Lucien to have reached within such a brief span of time, were in the direction they now traveled.

Eric drove as Roland navigated.  Rhiannon remained in the back seat beside Tamara.  The small vehicle seemed to reverberate with the tension it held.  It was Eric who finally broke the silence.

"I believe I owe you an apology, Rhiannon."

"Whatever for?"

"I didn't take your meditation seriously.  I should have."

She waved a dismissive hand.  "Don't give up your skepticism so easily.  We haven't found Jamey yet."

"But we're on his trail.  Tamara feels it too strongly for it to be a mistake.  I don't doubt that."

Roland shook his head.  "Admit it, Eric.  She had you hooked from the moment those candles burst to life on their own."

Eric smiled and glanced over his shoulder at Rhiannon.  Roland wished he could do the same, but looking at her had traumatic effects on his mind.

"He's right," Eric said.  "That was a convincing display."

By the tone of Rhiannon's voice, Roland knew the exact expression on her face.  That almost smile.  The look in her eyes that said she knew something you didn't.  Many, many things you didn't.

"A simple parlor trick for an immortal, Eric.  I could teach you to do it.  To be honest, I usually light the candles in a more mundane manner, but I was angry and wanted to be sure you were suitably chastened."

Roland glanced sideways at his friend in time to see the surprise on his face.

"Well, it worked."  Eric frowned and adjusted his mirror for a better view of her face.  "You say you could teach me to do it?"

She must have nodded, but Roland wasn't certain.  You have all become familiar with the physical strength that comes with immortality.  But the dark gift brings with it a psychic strengthening, as well.  It grows with age, as the physical powers do.  Lighting the candles is simply a matter of focusing your mind's power on their wicks.  Like a beam of light, it hits, and they ignite.

"As both the strengths reach full potential, we can learn to combine the psychic with the physical to achieve the two feats even I've not yet mastered.  But I've heard of some who have."

Roland tilted his head.  "Rhiannon, there are some things better left alone."

"Of course there are," she told him.

"Cobras and active volcanoes are among them.  This is not."

Eric grinned wider.  "She's got you there.  Tell me, Rhiannon.  What two feats are you speaking of?"

"One is flight.  And I'm actually very close to mastering that one.  I can remain aloft for just under a minute.  The trick is in maintaining the speed, and keeping the mind utterly focused."

Roland did turn now.  "For God's sake, Rhiannon!  I had no idea you were experimenting with such nonsense.  You'll get yourself killed."

Her eyes narrowed.  "If I do, that will be no one's problem but my own."  She shifted her gaze back to Eric.  "Actually, practicing is horrible.  I can only go up once a night.  Then I fall and am usually too broken and bruised to do more than crawl back to my lair and wait for the healing sleep."

Eric frowned, and Roland felt the glance he shot his way.  "That is pushing your luck, Rhiannon.  Suppose one night you're too badly injured to make it back before dawn?"

She shrugged.  "Then I supposed I would roast, wouldn't I?"

She was trying to hurt him, Roland thought.  Her words were filled with bitterness and pain; pain caused by his own careless words.  She was only speaking this way to strike back.  What in God's name had he said to hurt hell this much?

"And the other feat?"  Eric prompted.

"Ah, this will amaze you.  There are some, I am told who are able to alter their form."

"You mean, change shape?  In what way?"

"Any way they wish, I imagine.  The tales I've heart name only one immortal capable of such feats, and the forms he's said to have taken include the raven, the wolf and the infamous vampire bat."

Now, Roland noted with a twinge of gratitude, even Tamara's attention was caught.  She'd done nothing throughout the entire ride but stare out the window into the passing night.

"You've got to be kidding," she said, eyes wide.  "A vampire bat?"

"Well, I like to think he has a sense of humor, and did it on a lark.  Honestly, if given the ability to be anything one wished, why would one choose to be a nasty little bat?"

"Who is this talented immortal?"  Eric asked, and Roland could tell by the tone of his voice that he was fascinated by the possibilities.

"He is called Damien.  He is said to be the oldest and most powerful of any of us.  I never sought him out.  I have no desire to meet the man."

"Why not?  I'd be thrilled to talk to him," Eric said.

Rhiannon lowered her voice deliberately, Roland was sure.  "You know the trick I did, igniting the candles with my mind?"  Eric nodded.  "Well, it is said Damien can perform the same feat on people, mortal and immortal alike.  He just looks at them, and... poof! Living torches."

Tamara nudged her with an elbow.  "You're trying to scare us."  She looked at Roland.  "None of this is true, is it, Roland?"

He sighed.  "As far as I know, it's all true.  Though I've never witnessed any of it firsthand."

Eric shot Roland an accusing stare.  "Why have you never told me any of this?"

"As I said, there are some things best left alone.  You think I want you out leaping from rooftops and breaking your neck?  Changing yourself into a baboon and then getting stuck that way?  Seeking out this man who can burn you to a cinder?"

"Honestly, Roland, you are such a--" Rhiannon stopped in the middle of the sentence, her entire body going rigid.  Her hand flew to her lips.  "Stop the car!  Stop, Eric, at once!"

Eric slammed his foot onto the brake pedal.  Tires skidded in gravel as he tried to pull to the side.  Rhiannon was out the door before the vehicle had come to a full stop.  Like a gazelle, she leaped the ditch and bounded into the forest.

Roland raced after her, having no idea what to expect.  He knew Eric and Tamara were right behind him, but his entire being was focused on Rhiannon.  He'd felt the slap of her sudden shock as if it had been his own.  But she'd been so closed off to him since they'd spoken in the cimetière that he hadn't been able to tell what was wrong.

Then he saw her.  A quivering, sobbing heap on the ground, her arms around the sleek, black body.  Pandora wasn't moving.  The cat's eyes were closed, and there was a sickening twist to one foreleg.  Blood caked to a cut near her silken ear.

Roland knelt and pulled Rhiannon away.  Eric and Tamara were there, and as Eric began to examine the cat, Roland held Rhiannon in his arms.  She sobbed helplessly, her entire body quaking with each spasm.  Gone was the haughty, arrogant princess.  In his arms, he held a devastated child, and it tore his heart out to see her so tortured.

"She's alive," Eric said softly.  "But I'm not sure we can save her.  She needs a veterinarian."

"Then we'll find her one," Roland declared, his arms tightening of their own will around her shuddering body.  Her tears soaked his cloak at the shoulder.  "There's town five miles east of here.  It will only be a small detour."  Roland lowered his head, pressed his lips to hers "She'll be all right, Rhiannon," he whispered into her hair.  "I promise you."

She shook her head against his neck.  "She... has to be."  She drew a ragged breath and lifted her head to gaze into his eyes.  "I'm s-sorry."  Stiffening, she pulled herself from his embrace.  She bent over the cat again, carefully slipped both forearms beneath the body and lifted her.  Then she turned and started for the car, her shoulders still quaking with involuntary sobs.

Roland swallowed hard.  Had he so alienated her that she couldn't even accept comfort from him?

He raced ahead of her, and opened the car's rear door.  Rhiannon folded herself into the vehicle, the cat still in her arms.  She scooted across the back seat, cradling the huge animal's head and shoulders in her lap.  Roland gently eased Pandora's hindquarters in as far as he could, and closed the door with care.  Tamara squeezed into the front, between the two men.

As Eric drove, Rhiannon whispered, stroking the cat's big, still head.  She spoke as if no one else were in the car, addressing the animal as if it were human.  "Don't leave me now, Pandora.  There is no one else, you know.  Only you.  If you go, I'll be alone again."  Between each few words, a sob was torn from her breast.

Tamara turned in the seat, tears dampening her lashes.  "You love her very much, don't you?"

Rhiannon shook her head briskly.  Her hair hung over her face, still bowed to the cat's.  Tears glued strands of it to her cheeks.  "Don't be ridiculous."  She sniffed and sobbed once more.  "I'm an immortal.  I don't believe in loving anything."  She stroked Pandora's head.  "It's just that... she has loved me.  Just as I am, she has loved me.  No one else ever has."

"Oh, Rhiannon--"

"I never had to prove myself to her.  I was never unworthy in her huge green eyes.  Never her curse."

Roland winced at her words.

"Unconditional acceptance, absolute devotion.  I've never known those things in all my years of existence except from Pandora.  She wouldn't dream of rejecting me as not good enough to deserve her attention."

Roland felt a stinging in the backs of his eyes, and he heard a suspicious sniff from Eric.  "Rhiannon, no one could ever see you as unworthy--"

"No one but you, you mean?  Ah, but you were not the first.  No, that honor was reserved for the man who sired me.  Don't think your indifference is so important, Roland The greatest Pharaoh of Egypt labeled me his curse long before you did."

Eric pulled the car to a stop at an all-night service station, and as the attendant emerged, he rolled down his window and asked in French if there was a veterinarian in town.  When the answer was affirmative, Roland got out and demanded a telephone and a directory.  He would rouse the man from sleep, if necessary.

As he waited for the veterinarian to answer his telephone, he berated himself endlessly.  He'd known nothing of Rhiannon's past.  That her father had rejected her.  Oh God, and with the same words he'd used in the cimetière.  He could not have caused her more heartache, he suspected, had he been deliberately seeking to destroy her.  Could he not inhale without hurting her?  How could he repair the pain he'd caused?

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon leaned over the table in the clinic that was no more than a room in the man's home.  "You ought to keep her sedated until I return," Rhiannon told him.  "There is no telling how she will react to strangers."

"Oui, I will take no chances, mademoiselle."  He rubbed his balding head, and adjusted the rectangular specs on his nose.  "I have treated many species, but never ze pet panther."  He paused, but Rhiannon offered no explanation.  After a moment he shrugged and let it go.  "She was struck by ze auto, non?"

"I don't know.  I found her in the woods like this."  Rhiannon glanced up into the mortal's pale blue eyes.  "If you can save her, I will build you a new clinic.  An entire hospital, if you wish.  I will give you more money than you can make in a year.  Three years."

His smile was sudden, and genuine.  He took her hand and patted it.  "I adore animals, mademoiselle.  You share zat with me, non?  I will save her eef I can, whether you promise me the moon or bushel of apples as payment."  He released her hand to stroke Pandora's silken fur.

"I believe you will."  She sniffed, and swiped at her eyes.  She hadn't cried so much since the guards had carried her from her father's palace, to be placed in the temple of Isis.  She'd been a five-year-old child then.  She was ageless now.  It was ridiculous, how fond she'd grown of the cat.  "I don't know when I can come for her.  A few days, perhaps."

"I will care for her.  Do not fear."

"Thank you."  It didn't seem enough.  She'd meant what she'd said.  If he pulled Pandora through this, she would shower him with rewards.

Leaving the cat there felt like abandoning a babe.  Rhiannon fought her tears and forced herself to go.  Jamison needed her right now.  She mustn't forget that.

In the car, she sat in stony silence for a time, until Tamara took her hand and held it firmly.  "She'll be all right."

Rhiannon nodded.  "Lucien will not."

"You think he did that to her?"

Rhiannon nodded again.  "Pandora was with Jamey.  Now Jamey is with Lucien, and Pandora is on a cold table.  Yes, I believe he is responsible.  And I believe he will wish for death long before it's granted him."  She closed her eyes and sent her thoughts over the miles.  Do you hear me, Lucien?  I'm coming for you, you know.

Her eyes flew wide with surprise when she heard, echoing through her mind, the reply.  I'll be waiting.

*    *    *    *    *

"It will be dawn soon.  We need to seek shelter."

Tamara sighed in frustration and Roland well understood her feelings.  "We'll do Jamey no good if we all sizzle in the sun, Tamara."

"True enough."

Eric continued driving, but turned onto smaller and narrower dirt tracks, in search of a safe resting spot for all of them.  Finally, an abandoned barn came into view.  Roland pointed to it.  "We can drive around to the back, to hide the car from view.  Better yet, get the door open and pull it right inside.  What do you think?"

"That would be the best idea.  The ground in front looks smooth enough.  Why don't you open the door, and see if there's room inside?"

Roland did, wrenching the door.  It gave way and slid on its rusted tracks until there was room enough for the car to pass through.  The barn was empty, save for a huge mound of musty-smelling hay and a few ancient-looking tools scattered about.  Roland moved a broken pitchfork and an old milk can out of the way, and waved for Eric to bring the car in.

As soon as the engine died, Roland closed the barn door, plunging them into darkness.

"This will be safe enough," Tamara observed.

"Can't be certain about cracks and crevices, Tamara.  We'd best burrow into that haystack before we sleep, just to be safe."

She nodded, moving closer to Eric, who slipped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her closer.  She let her head lean onto his shoulder and closed her eyes.  "What do you suppose this Lucien person wants with Jamey?  He's not DPI."

Eric shook his head.

"He wants immortality, Tamara," Rhiannon told her.  "He wants me to transform him.  I imagine he will use Jamey's life to bargain with."

Tamara grimaced, and turned fully into Eric's arms.  Roland felt his stomach clench and unclench in involuntary spasms.  His arms ached to wrap around Rhiannon in the same manner.  But he told himself the breach between them was a good thing.  No matter how bad it felt.  No matter how he longed to erase the hurt he'd caused her.  It was better this way.

"He knows we're coming," Rhiannon said.  "He has incredible psychic capacity for a human.  He's waiting for us."

"At least we know Jamison will be kept alive in the meantime," Roland said, seeking to comfort Tamara in some small way.  Unfortunately, he was about to cause her a great deal more discomfort.

"Tamara, there is something I need to tell you.  About Jamey."

She turned, frowning.  "What is it, Roland?"

Roland averted his gaze.  She would likely hate him for this.  "I've initiated a search for his natural father."

Her eyes widened.  "You--but why?  I don't understand.  Jamey doesn't need him.  He has us."

Roland shook his head slowly.  "I am as fond of him as you are, Tamara.  You know that.  But we must think of what is best for Jamison."

"To leave the people he knows and loves?  To go off and live with a stranger?  You think that's best for him?"

Eric touched her face, turned it toward his.  "Tamara, hear him out.  If you were in Jamey's place, wouldn't you at least like to know your father, to find out something about him?"

She frowned harder, and shook her head.  "He abandoned his son--"

"He never knew of the boy's existence," Roland said slowly.  "You said it yourself.  He deserves to be informed.  Jamey deserves to be given the options, and to make his own decision."

"If you're sick of caring for him, Roland, then Eric and I will take him!"

Rhiannon shook her head slowly.  "Tamara, as long as he is with us, DPI will hound him.  They watch us too closely, we're too easily spotted.  In a normal, mortal family, Jamey would blend in as just another human boy.  He'd be safe."

"I can't believe you're all saying these things," Tamara said, shaking her head.  "Especially you, Eric.  How could you turn on me this way?"

Eric looked stricken.  "No, Tamara.  I only--"

"I don't want to hear any more!"  She tugged free of his grip and raced out of the barn, through a smaller, side door, and into the night.

Eric put his head in his hands.  Roland felt as if he'd been saying the wrong thing at the wrong time forever.  "I'm sorry, Eric.  I didn't realize how strongly she would react."

Eric shook his head.  "Not your fault, old friend.  She'll see that it's the right thing, given time."  He glanced again toward the fading night beyond the door.  "I'd better go after her."

He did, and Roland turned toward Rhiannon.  "You think I'm doing the right thing?"

She sighed, and walked away from him, settling herself down on the hay.  "Since when does the staid and honorable Roland de Courtemanche seek the opinion of the reckless and self-destructive Rhiannon of Egypt?"

"I would like for us to remain friends, Rhiannon."  He crossed the barn, and sat down beside her in the sour-smelling hay.  "And while I do think you reckless and self-destructive, I still value your opinion."

"Do you?"  Her finely etched brows rose above her slanted, dark eyes.

"You know I do."

She sniffed, tilting her chin upward.

"Then you'll be interested to hear that I think you are the biggest fool ever born."

He frowned, studying her perfect face, seeing the hint of sadness still lingering in her eyes.  "Why?"

She stared at him intensely, as if trying to light the wicks of the candles in his mind.  "You'll never have with another, what you could have had with me."

His throat went dry.  "I know that."

"Then you're ten times the fool I thought you were."  She turned away from him.

He touched her shoulder.  "I didn't know about your father's rejection, Rhiannon.  I chose my words poorly when I referred to you as my curse.  It's little wonder you're so angry with me."  She didn't turn to face him.  "Rhiannon, I didn't mean it the way it seemed to you.  It's that I want--"

She jerked away from his touch and faced him, eyes blazing.  "I do not care what you want, nor am I interested in your interpretation of your own words."

"Rhiannon, if you would let me explain, you would see that--"

"It no longer matters, so stop hectoring me with it."  She looked away once again, and her eyes cooled until they held a chill that reached out to him.  "I am leaving, Roland.  Just as soon as the boy is safe, and Pandora is well enough to travel.  I am leaving, and this time, I will never darken your door again."  She smiled very slightly, but it was a smile of bitterness and pain.  "You ought to be extremely relieved.  Your curse will soon be removed."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Roland rose before the others, flinging the mildew-scented hay away from his face, and brushing it vigorously from his clothes.  His sleep had been anything but restful.

He told himself of the many possible reasons for that: Tamara's anger at him, and the rift he seemed to have caused between her and Eric; worry over Jamison's physical well-being, compounded by concern for the boy's state of mind; the question of whether the cat would recover, and if not, what effect that would have on her owner.

But none of those things were truly what had kept his mind twisting and turning all day long.  In truth, it was his own careless words and the pain they had caused in Rhiannon that haunted him.  God, for the power to travel back in time, armed with the knowledge about her he now had.  If he'd known that her own father had rejected her with the same decree, "You are my curse," he'd never have repeated the devastation.  True, he needed to remain apart from Rhiannon, but not for his life would he wish to hurt her.

The truth was, he cared for her.  A great deal more than he'd ever allowed himself to admit.  It had been easily denied when she'd been far away, when her visits had been few and oh, so far between.  Denying it had become more difficult with her return, but not impossible.  Her reckless ways and boisterous nature enabled him to mask irritation as dislike and disapproval.

But when he'd seen her on the dew-wet forest floor, reduced to uncontrollable sobbing, clutching the limp cat like a babe in her arms, he'd been unable to deny it any longer.  Her pain had sliced into his heart.  He'd suddenly wanted nothing more than to take that pain away.

He strolled to the side door, his feet sinking in loose hay.  Three birds took flight as he passed beneath the rafters on which they nested, their wings flapping noisily and echoing into the high barn.  A feather drifted down past his face, and he watched it fall.

Outside, onto the drying, browning autumn grass, he moved.  The air held a hint of the winter to come, but the sky was without a cloud.  Stiff weeds scraped his shoes as he moved away from the barn, senses attuned for outsiders.  He heard only the perfect harmony of the crickets, the occasional whir of a bat swooping and diving overhead, the unearthly whine of the wind whipping across an ancient weather vane high atop the barn.

He didn't want Rhiannon to leave.

The knowledge made itself known to him almost as soon as her decision had left her lips.  He would be utterly alone if he knew he'd never see her again.  True, she'd never been a steady presence in his life, but he'd always known she was there.  He'd always had the absolute certainty that if he summoned her, she would come to him; that when he least expected her, she'd show up unannounced.  She'd drag him into a whirlwind, whip it into a hurricane, listen to him tell her how foolish and reckless she was, and then blow away like an errant summer breeze.

He couldn't ask her to stay.  Her presence played havoc with his control, made him careless.  He would only hurt her, over and over, as he'd already proven.

He closed his eyes, and her face hovered in his mind.  That he could ever harm her deliberately seemed absolutely impossible.  For a moment, he considered the possibility that Eric had been right.  That his brutish behavior with Rhiannon had been a side effect of the drug.

Then he shook his head roughly.  What difference did it make?  It couldn't change what he knew about himself, what he truly was.  How could he ask Rhiannon to stay, knowing her presence would drive him beyond hope of recovering?

If only she would change her reckless ways, alter her wild nature, calm her impulsive mind.  He could help her.  She could help him.  If he could convince her of it, then perhaps...

No.  Rhiannon would never change.  He was sorely afraid he'd hear of her death one day.  And he had no doubt it would be dramatic and horrible.

"Roland?"

He turned at the feminine voice, knowing by its lack of depth and timber that it belonged to Tamara, not Rhiannon.

She came forward, head bowed, not meeting his eyes.  She stopped when her toes nearly touched his, slipped her arms around his neck and hugged him hard.  "I'm sorry I said those things to you.  I know how much you love Jamey."

He returned her embrace, taking comfort in the physical closeness of another living being.  "It's all right, Tamara.  You're on edge.  We all are."

She lowered her arms and took a step backward, her gaze meeting his at last.  "I'm so afraid for him."

"We won't let any harm come to him, fledgling."

She nodded fast, squeezing her eyes tight for a moment.  When she opened them again, she searched his face.  "What about you?  I know you're hurting.  I can see it in your face."

He averted his own gaze, shaking his head in the negative.

"Don't lie to me, Roland.  You're in pain.  But so is Rhiannon."

He looked at her once more.  "Has she spoken to you about this?"

"Of course not.  She can't even admit to herself that she's hurting.  But she is.  When this is over--"

"When this is over, Rhiannon will go her own way, and I will go mine.  To do anything else has... has risks far too great to consider."

Tamara smiled very slightly.  Her palm came up to cover his cheek.  "Oh, Roland.  How can someone as wise as you be so blind?  There are no risks too great, when it comes to love."

"Love?"  He shook his head as her hand fell away.  "There is no love involved here.  Your romantic leanings are clouding your vision."

"Your stubbornness is clouding yours."

"Everyone ready?"  Eric's words accompanied the squeaky protest of the large barn door as he forced it open.

Roland looked beyond him to where Rhiannon stood, brushing bits of hay from her hair.  She moved forward, yanking the car door open.  Roland couldn't stop himself going to her before she got in.  He reached up, as she stiffened, and took a piece of hay from the back of her head.  He held it up between them.  "You missed one."

Her eyes, as they fixed on his, were wide and fathomless.  He scanned their ebony depths in search of some hint she would allow him to become her friend again.

Instead, he saw a glimmering tongue of flame beyond the jet, and felt an answering fire leap to life in his soul.  She still wanted him.  And God help him, he wanted her, too.  She licked her lips, swallowed hard and finally tore her gaze away.  As she tucked herself into the car, Roland closed his eyes and swore under his breath.

"You'll work it out, old friend."  Eric's hand clapped to Roland's shoulder, his deep voice, with a hint of amusement, was low and near his ear.  "If you don't go stark raving mad first."

Roland shot him a scowl and rounded the car's nose to slide into the front passenger seat.  He wouldn't attempt to sit beside Rhiannon in the back, though his body was demanding he do that, and anything else necessary to be close to her.  He needed to focus on Jamey.  All of this anguished soul-searching would wait until the boy was safe and sound once more.

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon hated herself for still feeling such potent desire for a man who'd rejected her time and time again.  Still, there had been something in his eyes, something new.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.  She was imagining things, that was all.  The thought of leaving him, of never seeing him again filled her with such utter desolation she wondered how she would bear it.  Already, the idea burrowed a fresh wound into her heart.  It dug in right beside the pain she felt for Pandora, and the worry of losing her, as well.  Was there to be nothing left to her?

When the car ran low on petrol, Eric pulled into a service station.  He and Tamara got out to stretch their legs.  Roland leapt out, as well, and she saw him head for a pay phone.  He'd barely said a word to her throughout the journey, but she'd felt his eyes upon her often, and looked up to see his head turned, his gaze caressing her.  And he didn't look away when she met it.  He faced her and allowed her to search his eyes, to try to see what drove him now.  Unfortunately, all she detected was misery, regret and confusion.  No help at all.

In a moment, he returned to the car, got in and twisted around in the seat, propping an elbow along the back of it.  "I phoned that vet.  He says Pandora is going to pull through."

Rhiannon was stunned, and the relief that rinsed her soul with his announcement overwhelmed her.  "She's all right?  She's really going to be all right?"

Roland nodded.  "She might have a permanent limp, but she's recovering nicely and he was able to save the leg."

 Rhiannon closed her eyes and released all of her breath at once.  When she opened them again, she saw that self satisfied expression on his face.  "I suppose I owe you my thanks."

He shook his head quickly.  "You owe me nothing.  I only wanted to see some of the worry leave your eyes."

She felt a lump form in her throat.  "Why?"

"Why?  What do you mean, why?  I care about you, Rhiannon.  To see you in pain causes me pain, as well."

The hot moisture that sprung to her eyes was rapidly battered back by her fluttering lids.  She bit her lip and forced her breaths to come calmly, not in broken gasps.  Was he saying he cared for her?  She refused to ask.  She wouldn't give him yet another opportunity to reject her.

Yet, an insane and childish hope alighted in her heart, despite her best efforts to squelch it.

Tamara returned to the car with Eric and they were off yet again, headlights bounding into the night.  It was nearly dawn when they entered a tiny village in the shadows of the French Alps, and Tamara clutched Rhiannon's hand and whispered urgently, "This is it.  This is what I saw."

Eric stiffened behind the wheel.  "You're certain, Tamara?"

"Yes."

Rhiannon licked her lips, her pain forgotten as she began feeling the anticipation of the showdown she sensed was to come.  A little shiver of unease danced over her nape, making her shudder.

"We should park the car," Roland said, his voice sure and calm.  "We'll strike out on foot, and search for Lucien's automobile.  We can question any villagers we meet about the black car, and describe both Jamey and Lucien to them, in case they've been seen."

"Or we might try simply asking Lucien where he is.  He wants us to find him.  I'm certain of it."

Roland turned to stare at Rhiannon.  "But then he would be forewarned."

"He already is, Roland.  He knows we're coming," she said slowly.

"But not exactly when we'll arrive."

"Not the precise moment, no.  But he knows it will be by night.  And he must know that tonight is the most likely possibility, simply by the distance traveled.  We do not have the element of surprise in our arsenal, Roland."  She licked her lips, thinking again of Pandora's twisted leg.  "Nor do we need it."

"She's right," Eric said.  "I think we should get this thing underway, right now, tonight.  If we begin searching, we may not find them before dawn.  Then we'll be forced to leave Jamey in his hands for another day."

Roland inhaled, pursed his lips and finally sighed.  "All right.  Since time is of the essence, go ahead, Rhiannon.  Make contact if you can."

Her brows rose at his "if you can," but she settled onto the back seat and closed her eyes.  The time has come, Lucien.  Where are you?

She didn't need to try again, or to concentrate very hard at all.  It was as if he'd been attuned to her already and was only awaiting her words to make the fact known.

Very good.  You were faster than I'd hoped.  There is a cabin, halfway up Mont Noir.  I will await you there.

She frowned, disliking the confidence emanating from his mind.  Is the boy well?  Is he safe?  I warn you, if you've harmed him, you will pay.

She waited.  But there was no response.  Focusing her being on his, she tried again.  Lucien, this conversation is not over.  I wish to know of the boy.

Again, there was no reply.  Rhiannon opened her eyes, and shook her head.  "A cabin, halfway up a mountain called Noir.  Odd name."

"I know where it is," Roland said.  "Come, we'll have to go by foot.  There are no roads up that sheer face."

Eric clasped Roland's arm before he could get out of the car.  "We do not wish to be trapped up there at dawn, Roland.  Is there time?"

Roland nodded.  "Three hours is sufficient.  I'd guess we have nearer to four."  Roland glanced into the rear seat, and Rhiannon bristled, sensing what he was about to suggest.  "Perhaps it would be better if some of us remain behind, in case the others are somehow bested."

"Good idea," Rhiannon said quickly.  "You and Eric should wait here, while Tamara and I go up and teach this foolish mortal a lesson."

Eric turned fast, then understood her motives and smiled.  "I would never allow Tamara to face danger without me at her side.  Unfortunately, she feels the same about me.  Aggravating as all hell, but there it is."  He glanced toward Roland.  "You can't hate the man for wishing to protect you, Rhiannon."

"I am capable of protecting myself," she replied, her voice thin.  "And him, too, if necessary.  If he knows me at all, he ought to know that."

"With your recklessness and your anger over the cat, Rhiannon, I am afraid you'll charge without hesitation into whatever kind of trap the infernal bastard has waiting."  Roland sent her a quelling glare that held more than just anger.  "I was only hoping to keep you from an earlier than necessary demise, if possible."

She tilted her head to one side.  "With you there, constantly reminding me how foolish I am, how can I help but exercise a modicum of caution?  You worry for nothing."

"I worry for you!"  The words burst forth on an explosion of anger as Roland jumped out of the car and slammed the door.  Rhiannon got out, slamming her door, as well, and stood facing him, formulating a scathing reply.

But his hand suddenly swept a path through her hair, settling in a gentle curl around her nape.  "Stay close to me, Rhiannon.  And be careful.  Please, for God's sake, be careful."

Again that stupid lump came into her throat, so large this time it nearly choked her.  And she heard herself answer like an obedient schoolgirl.  "I will, Roland."

She shook herself.

A second later, the four of them started down the narrow, twisting roads of the village, toward the mountain that loomed at its edge.  A dark, hulking shape, it rose from the smaller peaks around it like an angry god among sinners.  Its sheer face seemed to be barren of anything, save dark-colored granite, and its peak was swathed in dense mists.

*    *    *    *    *

The climb would have been difficult for mortal men.  Roland winced as he thought about Jamey, being forced, perhaps brutally, to ascend the ragged-edged slope.  He would have been exhausted by the time they reached the top.  Cold, perhaps hungry.  Frightened.  Grieving for Pandora, if he knew of her fate.  The poor child had no way of knowing she would recover, or even that she'd been found.

He took a moment to curse himself for not seeking out the child's father long ago, then returned his attention to the matters at hand.  Rescuing Jamison.  And protecting Rhiannon.  He had no qualms about admitting the sudden fear for her that held him in its grip.  For it was Rhiannon who seemed to be the sole focus of Lucien's obsession.  She was the one he'd attacked with his nasty little blade.  She was the one whose blood he seemed determined to have running in his veins.  She was the one he could contact psychically, and whom he could hear in turn.  The man was no ordinary human.  And his interest in Rhiannon, Roland sensed, had far greater meaning than any of them yet knew.

The slope angled sharply away from the level, grassy ground.  An abrupt change from the lush and fragrant area around them.  The surrounding hillsides were grassy, at least at their bases, and dotted with trees and vegetation.  Not Mont Noir.  A fitting locale, Roland thought, for the grim battle that was to come.

In very little time, they had ascended beyond the spots where malnourished tufts of coarse grass sprouted from between the stone, and clambered their way over sheer, bare rock.

Roland's foot slid once on the surface.  He caught himself then reached behind him to grip Rhiannon's hand and help her along.  The look she shot him was not one of anger, but one of puzzlement.  Why should she seem so confused by his wanting to help her?  Eric helped Tamara along in much the same way.

They were four dark shapes, scaling the side of a black mountain in the dead of night.  To the world below, they would be invisible.  Wind howled over them, buffeting them as if to send them tumbling down.  Air grew thinner and crisper with every foot they gained.

Finally, they crested to a level area and in the distance, Roland saw smoke spiraling into the night.  He pointed to the pale gray column, and started toward a cluster of boulders and rock outcroppings.  The smoke seemed to emanate from somewhere beyond them.  Though the ground was level, and much safer here, he kept his hand curled around Rhiannon's.  He half expected her to pull hers flee.  When she didn't, he immediately wondered why.

Hurrying now, they raced over uneven, rocky terrain, rounded the cluster of stone that blocked their way and stood facing a reddish log cabin.  Small windows stood on either side of a wide, plank board door, like eyes above a toothy grin.  Frilly-edged curtains, from this distance, were the lacy lashes.  So cozy, this little haven on high.  So innocuous in appearance.  The perfect, comforting setting to disguise purest evil.

Her hand still resting in his, Rhiannon stood beside him, gazing as he did at the quaint little building.  He studied the soft yellow glow of the lamplight from beyond the windows, and he felt the shudder that rippled through her.

Instinctively, he squeezed her hand.  Just as instinctively, he thought, she squeezed his in return.  The exchange took place in less than a second and then they were looking at each other.  Eyes searching, a thousand questions in both sets.  Not a single answer in either.

Roland swallowed.  He released her hand and slipped his arm around her shoulders as they started for the cabin.  She didn't pull away.  Eric and Tamara walked abreast of them until they stood before the door.

"I'm certain he doesn't have the tranquilizer," Rhiannon said softly as she reached for the door's curving metal grip.  She closed her hand around it and pushed it inward.

It swung without a sound.  Glancing around apprehensively, Roland stepped in before her.  A hearth on the facing wall snapped and sparked invitingly.  In an overstuffed chair, the back of Lucien's head was all that was visible.

"Come in, come in," he said without turning or moving in any way.  "Rhiannon is quite right.  I don't have the tranquilizer.  And this is no sort of a trap.  It's a meeting.  One I hope will be mutually beneficial."

Roland stepped farther inside, still looking about him.  His senses were honed for others present, but he sensed no one.  Rhiannon came in beside him, but her eyes, he noted, were only for Lucien.  They were filled with hatred and anger, and he touched her arm in an effort to calm her.

She stepped forward, gripped the back of the chair and yanked it onto its back.  Lucien rolled to the floor, eyes wide.  But as she loomed over him, his lips curved upward slightly.

"I'm going to kill you now, you bastard," she said slowly.  "I'm going to take my time about it.  Are you ready?"

He shrugged.  "I have nowhere to go."

She reached down for him, but Roland grabbed her arms from behind.  "Wait, Rhiannon."  He looked down at the man who waited expectantly for him to finish.  "Lucien, where is the boy'?"

A solid line of eyebrows rose.  "When I tell you that, she'll be free to murder me.  I'd be kind of foolish to give away my edge, now, wouldn't I?"

Rhiannon tugged, but Roland held her firm.  He was surprised to see Tamara leap forward, grip Lucien by the front of his knit sweater and haul him to his feet, though she had to lift her arms above her head to do so.  Seeing such a small figure exert so much brute strength was impressive, and strange.  "If you don't tell us where he is, then I will kill you, anyway, so you don't have much choice."

Again, the dark brows rose.  "Such tempers on you immortal women."  He pulled his sweater from her grip and stepped backward, smoothing the fabric.  "I have a proposal to make.  The least you can do is hear it before you make a decision."

Eric had vanished.  Vaguely, Roland knew he was searching the cabin to ascertain for himself the presence of anyone else, including Jamey.  He emerged from a room then.  "Jamison isn't here."

"No.  He isn't here.  If you want to know where he is, you'll listen to what I have to say."

Rhiannon glanced over her shoulder at Roland, the look in her eyes assuring him it was safe to let her go.  He released her arms, giving her a slight nod, then focused on Lucien once more.  "Say your piece, monsieur.  But know that if we dislike what you have to tell us, you'll not live to finish the sentence."

Eric came to stand close to Tamara.  "And you'd best begin by telling us about Jamey.  Where is he?  Is he safe?"

Lucien drew himself up, though he already towered above all of them and fairly bulged with muscle.  "The boy is in perfect health and quite likely to remain that way.  So long as you cooperate.  His location, I'm afraid, is something I cannot reveal to you just yet."

Tamara drew a shaking breath.  "Tell us what you want, Lucien.  Let's stop playing games and get to it."

"A woman who thinks like me.  I like that."  Lucien walked brashly past them, bent and righted his easy chair.  He circled to the front of it and sat down, waving a hand to the other seats nearby.

Rhiannon took the rocker nearest the fire and pulled it forward, directly in front of Lucien.  She sat down, her gaze glued to his unshakably.  "We all know what you want, Lucien.  The dark gift.  Immortality.  But I don't believe you realize how foolish it is to ask it."

"Why foolish?"  He leaned forward.  "Isn't eternal life what every man longs for in the depths of his soul?  Hasn't it been that way from the beginning of time?"

"Do you know how the change is accomplished?"

He nodded.  "You will drink from me.  Then I from you.  When our blood mingles, I will be one of you."

"You will never be one of us," Tamara snapped.  Rhiannon's eyes seemed to pierce the very space between them.  "What is to stop me from draining you dry once my teeth are embedded in your muscled neck, you fool?"

He smiled, his gaze unwavering.  "There is a letter in the hands of my lawyer, in which the boy's location is revealed.  The letter is addressed to Curtis Rogers, of DPI.  My lawyer has instructions to send a facsimile to Rogers tomorrow night at midnight."

Rhiannon blinked, and Lucien's smile widened.

"On the other hand, fair Rhiannon, if you transform me without mishap, I will reveal the boy's locale to you, giving you ample time to reach him first."

For the first time, Roland saw uncertainty in Rhiannon's eyes.  She broke eye contact with Lucien, and sought Roland's gaze, instead.

"Do not trust him, Rhiannon.  There would be nothing to stop him draining you dry, either.  You'd be weakened by the act.  You know that."

"A risk you'll have to take, my dear, if you want the boy safe.  On the other hand, you can refuse and see him become a subject for live study by some of the world's most unscrupulous scientists."  He leaned toward her still farther.  She didn't back away.  "I understand you have firsthand knowledge of just how much... discomfort they can impose on a living being."

Tamara caught her breath.  Roland closed his eyes, knowing her memories of that horrific lab must be the stuff of Rhiannon's deepest nightmares.

"Here is how generous I can be," Lucien went on.  I'll give you time to think it over.  Come back at sundown tomorrow.  If you agree, we'll make the switch, and you'll have the boy back before the fax goes out.  Or, you can kill me, try to find him on your own, fail and regret it for the rest of eternity.  The choice is yours."

Rhiannon blinked slowly.  "It seems we have little choice."

"One thing, Rhiannon.  You come to me alone, tomorrow evening.  I don't trust them for a minute.  You come alone, or the deal is off."

Roland felt a blade twist in his chest.  "Absolutely not," he said in a low voice.  "I won't allow it."

Rhiannon acted as if he hadn't spoken.  "I hope there will be time, Lucien.  The gift of endless night isn't given as simply as you seem to think.  There is a ritual involved."

Roland frowned, wondering what on earth she was up to.

"I care nothing for your rituals.  I only want the blood."  She shrugged.

"Well, if you don't want the full extent of the strength, then we can dispense with the meditation.  I supposed..."

Lucien frowned, licking his lips.  "How long does this... ritual take?"

"Several hours."

He tilted his head.

"You won't need more than thirty minutes to get to the boy before Rogers does."

Rhiannon's brows arched.  Roland thought he might be the only one who saw the triumph in her eyes.  "Then there is sufficient time."

"Rhiannon, you can't do this," Tamara cried.

"I must, fledgling," Rhiannon said softly.  "Think of Jamey."  She turned, and fixed Tamara with an intense stare.  "Think of Jamey."

Tamara blinked, and averted her eyes.  "I--I will."

Rhiannon tossed her hair over her shoulder as she got to her feet with fluid grace.  "Until tomorrow evening, then.  Of course, you know you must fast from now until then.  No food, no drink.  Otherwise, you won't cross the threshold.  You will die upon it."

Roland frowned again.  It was absolute nonsense.  Not that he intended to allow her to go through with it.

"And you mustn't sleep tonight, or tomorrow, either," she went on, crossing to the door.  "If the conditions are not just right, you will die.  Do you understand?"

Why was she spouting such drivel?

"You seem to take great care with the life of a man you despise, Rhiannon."  Lucien's voice was laced with the shadows of suspicion.

"I would kill you as soon as speak to you, Lucien.  It is the boy's life I'm taking care with.  If you die before you tell me his whereabouts, he'll fall into the hands of devils.  That, I cannot allow."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Well before dawn, they'd taken refuge in a dilapidated house several miles outside the village.  Rhiannon boldly built a fire in the ancient-looking pot-bellied stove, using bits of the rotted shutters for fuel.

"You take many chances, for a being so sensitive to flame, Rhiannon.  The chimney is likely in as sad condition as the house."

Roland again, admonishing her as always.  "Stop worrying.  There will be no direct contact between my flesh and the flames.  And I'll see it's well doused before we rest."

Eric and Tamara had gone down into the basement to seek a resting place, and, she suspected, to spend some time alone.  She suppressed her jealousy of them and tried to focus on more practical matters.  Frankly, she wished she'd brought a huge, fluffy comforter along to wrap herself in.  Sleeping in a mound of mildewed hay had been bad enough; this pile of refuse would be worse yet.

"Rhiannon, it's time."

She fed another bit of wood to the burgeoning fire, careful to keep her hand from the flames, closed the iron door and brushed the black soot from her fingers.  "Time?"

"To tell me what you have planned for Lucien."

"So you can tell me how foolish and risky it is?"  She shook her head quickly, and crossed the room to gingerly examine an ancient-looking sofa.  "Thank you, no.  You, Eric and Tamara can spend your time looking for Jamey.  I'll keep Lucien busy... alive, but busy, until you find the boy."

"Thus the talk of a lengthy ritual?"

She nodded.  "He wants power.  He craves it the way a drunkard craves liquor.  It's a weakness to want something that badly.  I'll use that weakness against him.  If he believes my ritual will give him more strength, he'll take part in it."

She thumped the ratty cushions repeatedly, watching for some creature to skitter forth.  When none did, she turned and sat down.

Roland came and sat beside her.  "And what of your admonition that he neither eat nor rest?"

His shoulder touched hers, he sat so close.  His thigh pressed to hers, but he didn't even try to rectify matters.  She wasn't sure whether she should do it herself.  She knew she didn't want to.

"Deprivation of food and sleep weakens the mind.  It's used by all the most successful cult leaders, you know.  I only wish I could make him fast longer before I face him."

She didn't move away.  If Roland didn't mind the closeness, why should she deny herself the supreme pleasure of it?

"Face him in what way, Rhiannon?  You make it sound like a battle."

Sighing, she leaned back against the gray-colored stuffing that poked out from the ragged upholstery, her arms crossing over her chest.  "It will be a battle, of sorts.  A battle of minds."  She closed her eyes and tried to see her hastily concocted plan clearly.  She wanted it to seem like a sound course of action when she explained it to Roland, not like the ravings of a careless, reckless child.

"While Lucien meditates, Roland, I will be working on his mind.  I will entrance him, as I've done to countless humans when the need has arisen.  I will bring him completely under my control."

Roland half turned, so he faced her.  She avoided his eyes, but he would have none of it.  He caught her chin in two fingers and turned her face to his.  "You are well aware this man is no ordinary human.  His psychic abilities are strong.  He is able to conceal his mind from yours."  His eyes sparked with emotion, but she didn't think it was anger.  His jawline tightened.  His full lips thinned.

"He will be weakened and tired.  I will be strong and ready for the fight.  The incense and candles that distract him will help me to focus."

His hand dropped from her chin, to settle on her shoulder.  "If this works, and you are able to get him under your power, what then?"

She resisted the impulse to tilt her head sideways, and brush her cheek over his hand on her shoulder.  Barely resisted it.  "I'll scan his mind and learn where the boy is.  I'll relay the information to you and the others, and you will rescue him."

"You make it sound so simple."

"Because it is."

"And if you fail?  If his mind is too strong?"

"That will not happen."

"It could, Rhiannon."

"It won't."  She reached up with one hand to cup his face.  "Just this once, Roland, try to believe in me.  Look beyond all my faults and see the strength that is mine.  I can do this."

His frown came suddenly, and left just as fast.  "I've never doubted your strength.  I do believe in you, Rhiannon.  That's never been a question.  But I fear--"

"That I will bungle it and cost Jamison his life."  She lowered her hand and shrugged his from her shoulder.

"No, little bird.  That you will save Jamison and risk your own existence in the process."  Roland stood abruptly, reached down and gripped both her hands to pull her to her feet.  "Lucien nearly killed you once, Rhiannon.  I have an uncanny feeling that is his intent, even now."

"The risk is not important.  Getting Jamey back is."

"I'll go with you," Roland said hoarsely.  I'll stand watch over this entire exchange, and if he lifts a hand against you, I will kill him before he draws another breath."

She shook her head.  "You can't.  He wants me alone--"

"I'll go along, or you will stay away.  Your choice, Rhiannon."  Like chips of glassy coal, his eyes glittered.

She sighed and turned away.  "Why must you be so difficult?"

A hand of steel closed on her shoulder, turning her so she collided with his chest.  At the instant of impact, another arm snapped around her waist, as firmly as a padlock's hasp.  His breath bathed her face as she turned it up, and then his lips caught hers in a merciless hold.  His tongue fought its way through the barricades of her lips and plundered every part of her interior within reach.

In seconds, she went from shocked victim, to willing partner.  Her mouth opened wide and the sensual dance began.  They took turns lapping each other's mouths, suckling each other's tongues, nipping each other's lips.  Rhiannon's arms twisted around his neck.  Roland gripped her buttocks in his eager hands, and pressed her hips to his, moving them back and forth tomb her against his bulging arousal.

When his mouth left hers at last, she felt the shudder that rocked through him.  He lowered his face to her hair, and his lips moved against it.  "That's why I am so difficult, reckless one.  Because this planet, without you among its inhabitants, would be as grim a place as... as this house.  And as empty."

Rhiannon closed her eyes at the sweet agony those words inflicted on her soul.  She could feel the thunder of his heartbeat against her chest, his breath in her hair.  "But you want that emptiness.  You want my disturbing presence removed from your life."

His hold on her tightened.  His words came on a voice gone gravelly with feeling.  "No, Rhiannon.  It's not what I want, but what is necessary.  It's not you I want out of my life, but the monster that lives within me.  How can I make you understand?"

The breath she drew was halting and shallow.  "I don't!  I want to understand.  I only want you."  She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked up into his eyes.  "I swore I wouldn't give you the chance to reject me again, Roland, yet here I am offering myself up for your scathing words.  When Jamey is safe, and I am far away, I'll have nothing but sweet memories of your touch, your kisses.  The ghost of that single time will never be enough to sustain me, I fear."

His dark eyes fell closed, and she saw his lips tremble.

"Give me one more memory to cling to, Roland.  I'll ask no more of you, I promise.  Make love to me now."

He opened his eyes again, and the fire in his gaze burned into her heart.  She lowered her forehead to his chest, unable to face him as he pushed her away from him, yet again.

"Go on," she whispered.  "Tell me to leave you alone.  Remind me that no lady would say the things I've said.  Let me feel your disapproval one more time.  Perhaps then I will finally get it fixed in my mind that I'm not worthy of your..."  She stopped herself as her throat closed off.  Love.  She'd been about to say love.  God, what was happening to her senses?

"I'm sorry, Rhiannon."

She bit her lip, bracing herself for his rejection.  He brought his hands slowly upward, his palms skimming her spine, his fingers brushing over her nape.  He cupped her head, and tipped it up, staring down into her eyes.

"It is not you who are unworthy, it is I.  I ought not allow myself even this embrace, after my loss of control the last time..."  He lowered his face to hers, until his lips barely brushed over hers as he spoke.  "But I cannot turn you away.  My desire for you burns away my will."

His mouth covered hers, his palms still pressed to the sides of her head.  He kissed her as he never had before.  Gently, slowly.  Every sweep of his tongue was a tender exploration, every shifting of his lips, a caress.  His fingers dived into her hair, raking through it again and again.  And then he drew himself away, as she rose from the sofa, shivering with passion.

"Undress for me, Rhiannon.  Let me see you clothed in nothing but your stunning beauty."

She nodded, and lifted unsteady hands to the silk blouse she wore.  His gaze held hers captive as she slowly freed the buttons.  But when the blouse fell away, and her breasts stood unclothed before him, he broke contact with her eyes to stare fixedly at her chest.  She didn't flinch from the intensity of that stare.  She felt her nipples harden in response to it, as if reaching out to him. 

He drew a sudden breath, and moved his gaze lower as she released the fastening of the denims, and drew down the zipper.  Without shame or hesitation, she pushed the jeans down, and the panties with them.  She stepped out of the garments and kicked them aside.

Roland came toward her, one arm reaching out.  She stepped away just as quickly, and when he sent her a quizzical glance, she smiled.  "Now you."

Her smile was answered with one of his, and he quickly removed his shirt, dropping it to the dusty floor.

She let her gaze roam freely over the expanse of skin revealed to her, the dark swirling mat of hair that invited the exploration of her fingers, her lips.  "I've always adored your chest, you know.  So broad, so..."  Unable to resist, she moved nearer him, and ran her hands over the crisp hairs and firm muscled wall.  She lowered her face to its center, and inhaled his scent.

When she lifted her face away, she ran her hands up ward.  "And your shoulders," she whispered, surprised at the hoarse quality of the words.  "And your arms.  One would think you a body builder by the shape of you."

"The only weight I've hefted was that of a broadsword, as well you know."

She pressed her lips to his shoulder.  "Then I'm glad you hefted it."  She kissed a trail toward his neck and up it, savoring the taste of his skin.  Her hands slipped down ward, fumbling to open his trousers, then eagerly, shoving them downward.  "Hurry, Roland."

He chuckled low, and helped her divest him of his remaining clothes.  Then they stood, bodies pressed together, flesh against flesh.  The hairs of his chest rubbed over her breasts.  The hard length of his arousal stood rigid against her abdomen.  She ran her hands over the curve of his back, down to his buttocks, which flexed in response to her touch.

Roland's hands rested at her waist and he kissed her deeply, hungrily.  As one, they sunk to the floor.  Rhiannon pushed gently until Roland lay back.  She stretched out atop him and lavished his neck and shoulders with kisses.  She moved her lips over his chest, and ruthlessly caught one small nipple between her teeth.  He gasped in pleasure or surprise.  She wasn't certain which, until his hands closed on her head to hold her closer.  She sucked at the hard little nub, then licked a path down his sternum, across his belly, around his navel.

His body shuddered its response to her ministrations.  His breaths came faster as she continued tormenting him.  When she touched the tip of his arousal with her tongue, he groaned like distant thunder.  When she closed her lips around him, his hips arched upward.  His fingers twined in her hair.  In moments, he was panting, and his hands sought to move her away.  But she persisted in worshipping the core of him with her mouth until his panting became a helpless plea, and the hands fighting her, gripped her, instead.

He cried her name in a strangled voice, and his entire body went rigid as his essence spilled into her.

Slowly, he relaxed, still shuddering with her touch.  She lifted her head and slithered up over his body.  She held his gaze, and licked her lips.  Instantly, his hardness pressed to her thigh and she shifted, settling herself over him, poising herself to receive him.

His hands shot down to her hips and he drew her down hard, sheathing himself inside her.  Her head fell backward and her eyes closed.  He filled her, more than filled her, and not just physically.  Being with him this way filled some barren cavern in her soul.  An unexplored place no one had ever entered.

She felt his hands glide over her back, and press to her shoulders.  He drew her downward, lifting his upper body, and capturing one of her breasts in his mouth.  Gently, he suckled her, then harder, the pressure of his mouth increasing with the pace of his upward thrusts.

Rhiannon felt him pushing her quickly toward that place she'd just taken him.  She lifted and lowered her hips, urgently racing to that place.  She cradled his head to her breast as she approached it, feeling the skim of his teeth just as the world exploded around her.  She shook with the force of her release, even as he continued moving inside her.  He held her hips in place, and kept the pace frantic.  He nipped and tugged at her nipple until she cried out, and pulled away.

Then he lay still, staring upward into her eyes, and she knew he hadn't completed the journey with her.  He pulled her down to his chest, holding her there.  Her face was buried in the kinky curls, and her body still trembled with the aftermath.

Clutching her tight to him, he rolled them both over until she was beneath and he was above.  He tipped her head upward and kissed her long and hard.  She was breathless, and somehow, still hungry for more of him.  He seemed to know for he began again, in a slow, tormenting rhythm she thought would surely drive her out of her mind.  Her nerve endings seemed to have been rubbed raw, for she felt every sensation as if it were magnified a thousand times.  The size of him, and her own flesh stretched around him, the whisper of his crisp triangle of hair meshing with her own, softer one, the lash of his tongue inside her mouth, the friction of his chest against hers.

As the fires inside her blazed anew, she lifted her legs to encircle him, hooking her ankles behind his back.  His reply was to slide his arms beneath her, cup her buttocks, lift her hips more tightly to him and spear her more deeply than before.  His pace increased as her body grew taut.  His tongue lapped a path from her mouth to her ear, and then his teeth closed on its lobe.

It was she, this time, who was made to pant helplessly as his body drove hers higher and higher.  But it was both of them who cried out in sweet, anguished joy as their juices met and mingled.  She felt the slow throb of his body and her own convulsing around him.

Gradually, the room came back into focus.  Rhiannon looked around her, then into Roland's jet eyes.  "We are fortunate Eric and Tamara have not walked in before now."

His smile was slow and enticing.  "They won't.  I have it on good authority that they are hidden away somewhere, doing the same thing we are."

She nodded with understanding, her envy of their happiness striking her anew.  For her, this would be the last time.  Already the pain of that knowledge began to engulf her in misery.  "Perhaps we ought to find a place to rest before dawn."

"We have an hour until dawn, Rhiannon."  He lifted a hand to stroke her hair.  "An hour I intend to fill in some most interesting ways."

The pain faded.  "What ways?"

"Let me show you."

*    *    *    *    *

As dawn approached, they took refuge in a darkened closet on the second floor.  They lay down in the narrow space, still naked, bodies twined together.

Already, Rhiannon slept.  Her head rested on Roland's shoulder, her silken hair covering his chest like a blanket.  He held her close and listened to her breathing.

He hadn't lost control.  He hadn't become a raging beast, not even for a moment.  Instead, he'd become one with her, and found a joy beyond anything he'd ever known in the joining.

Perhaps there was hope for him yet, he thought, finally facing the idea which had nagged him from their first kiss.  He was no longer sure he had the strength to let her go.

Let her go?  He shook his head slightly.  There was no certainty in his mind that he could convince her not to go.  Always before, she'd flitted in and out of his life with all the predictability of a cyclone.

But that was before, he thought in troubled silence.

Before what?  What have we shared, beyond the consummation of a long-lived mutual lust?  The fevered coupling of two willing bodies?

No.  There was more to it, surely.  Not love, for he knew himself incapable of such a tender emotion.  He'd believed himself in love once before.

Like a blade, the memory of that other time sliced through his mind.  Rebecca, so young and innocent.  He'd fancied himself in love with her for a time.  But his actions, his need to control and command her, had resulted in her suicide.  His love, or, what he'd thought of as love, had been poison to her.

Would it be the same to Rhiannon?  Was he not, already, searching his brain for ways to change her, to transform her into some meek-willed creature who'd be content to live the solemn life he preferred?  Would he, in time, kill her spirit the way he'd killed Rebecca's?

He looked down at her, sleeping so peacefully in his arms.  No, he couldn't do that to her.  It would be a crime beyond murder to try to stifle Rhiannon.  Perhaps he could convince himself to let her go, after all.  Perhaps he could keep his thoughts to himself until she was free of him.

He owed her her freedom, if nothing else.  It was, after all, the only gift he had to give.

*    *    *    *    *

Just after dusk, the two of them made the trek up the side of Mont Noir, to the quaint-looking cabin that held within its cozy walls an unmeasured evil.  Lucien.  Who was he?  Rhiannon wondered.  Why had he singled her out, of all the undead who walked the night in this twentieth-century world?  There were many.  Few older than she, but some.  The infamous Damien, for one.  Why had Lucien not sought him out to demand the dark blessing?

Rhiannon nearly laughed aloud at that notion.  Even among vampires, the name of Damien was whispered with wariness.  Lucien would not dare to try his games with such a creature.

She stumbled on a protruding rock, and Roland's arms came around her.  She leaned gratefully into his embrace.  Too soon, she would leave him.  Too soon.  She shook her head at the thought.  Never would be too soon.

"Something troubles you."

She faced him, sighing.  She was rapidly growing weary of guarding her thoughts from Roland.  The venture was an exhausting one, for he seemed constantly to be probing her mind with his questioning one.  He'd always been the one being with whom she'd felt most able to relax.  She'd always allowed him to roam her mind at will.

Sad, how things had to change.

"I was only thinking of Tamara," she lied with unease.  "She is so new to these games of the mind.  I hope she is able to locate the boy."

Roland nodded, still holding her close to his side as he maneuvered around a bed of loose stone.  "It would be helpful if Jamison were trying to reach out to her."

 "Do you think he will?"

Roland's lips thinned as he shook his head.  "Not if he thinks doing so would lead her into danger.  I suspect he's learned the trick of guarding his thoughts from us.  Otherwise, we'd have tracked him by now.  He's a stubborn one, that boy."

Rhiannon nodded, thinking again of Tamara and Eric.  She'd left them sitting upon the moss-covered ground in a small clearing of a nearby wood.  Candles and incense burned between them, and Tamara's eyes were closed as she sent the fingers of her mind out into the night, in search of her beloved Jamey.  If anything happened to the boy, Lucien would die, there was no question of that.  For if Rhiannon and Roland didn't finish him themselves, Tamara would do so.

A small smile tugged at Rhiannon's lips.  "Eric's fledgling has a dark side to her."

Roland glanced sideways at her.  "Don't we all?"

"I suppose we do.  But with her, it's well concealed.  Like the leaves of the nightshade vine, and its wine-colored berries.  Beautiful, harmless-looking, but containing a deadly nectar."

"I'd hardly classify Tamara as deadly."

"We all have the capacity, Roland, given the right motivations.  I believe most humans do, as well."  She licked her lips and watched his face as she spoke to him.  "This notion you have that you are somehow more monstrous than the rest of us is born either of ignorance or conceit.  I've not yet decided which."

He halted, turning to face her, a frown digging a ditch between his brows.  "Are you angry with me, Rhiannon?"

She blinked.  He'd hit on it, precisely.  She was angry with him.  Furious, in fact.  Because of his foolish notions, she would be miserable for longer than she cared to think about.  But rather than voice this newfound knowledge, she only shrugged, and pointed.  "The cabin is just around those rocks, as I recall.  I ought to go on alone from here."

Roland set his jaw.  I'll come a bit farther."

"He'll be able to see you.  Just wait here, in the shadow of these boulders.  As soon as he is assured I've come alone, you can come nearer.  But do take care, Roland."

His eyes seemed to scan her face for a moment.  "I can barely believe what I'm seeing.  You're excited about this encounter!  You're looking forward to it!"

She lifted her eyebrows, and shrugged.  "I've always enjoyed facing a challenge."  She knew the remark would infuriate him.  She also enjoyed doing that, though she'd never quite understood why.

She glanced down at her attire, gleaned from some of the tourist shops in the village below.  Close to her skin, she wore tight black leggings, and a form-fitting body suit of that wonderful fabric called Spandex.  This would enable her to move as freely as possible, should the need arise.  Her shoes were flat, and shiny black, but the soles had good treads for climbing the sheer rocks.

However, she'd covered the practical, contemporary garments with a flowing kimono of deep blue satin, which, when she freed it, would cover her feet.  At the moment, it was bunched up around her waist to ease her travel.  Roland had added his own black cloak as a finishing touch.  It was warm, and added an air of magic to her every movement as it gleamed around her like the wings of a raven.  It had neither collar nor ties, only two buttons to hold it in place at her throat.

Roland nodded in approval.  "Every inch the enchantress, Rhiannon.  He'll shudder in fear at the sight of you."

"Don't make light of it," she chided.  "Every advantage I can use is needed, and if my clothing can help to intimidate him, that's all the better."

"I know.  I wasn't."  He caught her shoulders, and held them firm.  "Be careful, Rhiannon."  His eyes conveyed much more meaning than his words.  He was truly worried for her safety.  "At the first sign of skullduggery, summon me.  Don't hesitate."

"I won't."  Something inside her urged her to move forward, to press her body to his just once, to lift her lips to his, and wait for his parting kiss.  She fought the feeling, hoping it didn't show in her eyes, averting them in case it did.  "Now, let me go, before I lose my nerve."

"The gods would lose their wisdom first," he said, but his hands fell away.

She turned and hurried toward the cabin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rhiannon halted a few feet from the cabin's little door, closed her eyes and silently composed her thoughts.  She could not afford to be distracted now by worry about the boy, or even by her extreme sadness over the parting that would follow this ordeal.  She must concentrate only on Lucien.

Before she was prepared, the door opened, and the object of her thoughts filled the entrance.  "Come in, Rhiannon.  I trust you've kept your word and come alone?"  As he spoke, his beady eyes swept the area around her, and she knew he searched with his mind, as well.  He would find no hint of Roland there.  He could guard his presence from this man without much effort.  Despite his powerful mind, Lucien was only a human.

"Of course.  Did you think I'd risk the boy, or that I'd be so afraid of you I would bring reinforcements?"  His gaze came back to her, and altered slightly as he took in her attire.  "Don't fool yourself, Lucien.  I fear no mere mortal."

He stepped aside as she strode into the cabin.  She made her steps broad, kept her head high.  He would see no faltering in her entrance.

"No?  Not even Curtis Rogers?"

Was that remark supposed to shake her?  "Him least of all.  He is a weakling, blinded by his hunger for vengeance.  I could kill him with as little effort as you would swat a fly.  But that is neither here nor there, is it?"

Lucien shrugged and closed the door.  Rhiannon focused her mind on the house, finding it empty save for the two of them.  She stepped nearer the hearth, allowing the fire's warmth to spread over her.

"You're dressed quite differently from the way you were last night.  Is there any significance to it?"

She turned a surprised glance upon him.  "I thought you knew all about me.  Can it be your research is lacking after all?  Do you not recognize the robes of an Egyptian priestess?"

He said nothing, only eyed her up and down.  "May I take your cloak, at least?"

"You may not.  I've grown rather fond of it."

"Suit yourself."

She studied his face.  His eyes appeared slightly slack lidded.  She detected darker circles beneath them.  "You have followed my instructions?"

"I have.  No sleep, no food, no drink.  I'm thirsty as sand dune right now, to tell the truth."

"It will pass," she told him.

"How is the boy?"

"Fine.  Safe, for the moment, at least.  I've no doubt your friends are out looking for him."

She only lifted her brows.  "Think what you will."

"It doesn't matter.  They won't find him."  He crossed the room toward a closed door, and opened it.  He stood, aside, and waved a hand for her to enter.

Rhiannon moved forward, the cape swaying with ever step, the kimono brushing the floor.  Pausing in the door way, she saw a small room, a bedroom, perhaps, but devoid of any furnishings, save a table and a glowing kerosene lamp.

"Let's get on with it."  Lucien stood close behind her, his voice cold on her nape.

She stepped inside, and he followed.  From a pock inside the cloak, she pulled a small sack.  Lucien's gaze took in every movement.

"What's that?"

She loosened the drawstring and removed several candles, a packet of incense and a silver dish, placing them on the floor in a small circle.  "Nothing to be afraid of, Lucien.  You see?"

He knelt and picked up a candle, studying it, sniffing it.  Then he lifted the packet of herbs and examined that, pouring a bit into his palm.

"Incense," she said.  "It goes in the dish, in the center of the circle of candles."

He shot her a wary look, then poured as she had instructed.  "You want me to light them?"

He was nervous.  She saw it in the way he kept licking his lips, in the constant darting movements of his eyes.  "No.  We'll take care of that in a moment.  Douse the light, if you please."

He frowned, but stood.  Cupping a hand over the far side of the glass chimney, he blew into the lamp.  The room fell into inky darkness.  She could see him clearly.  He could see nothing, though he tried to keep her in focus.  Right now, he was squinting like a mole.

"Now sit, cross-legged upon the floor."

He did as she told him.  Rhiannon rounded the circle of unlit candles and lowered herself opposite him.  Tentatively, she probed his mind with her own, as a test.  She found it completely closed to her.

"You must concentrate, Lucien.  There must be nothing on your mind except the candles.  Focus upon their wicks.  Think of nothing else.  Envision flames, leaping to life at your command.  Do it now."

She saw him staring hard at the candle just in front of him.  She aimed the beam of her own thoughts there, and in a moment a small pop sounded, and the wick flared to life.

Lucien jerked as if slapped.

"Very good," Rhiannon purred.  "Your mind is strong, for a human."  Again, she sought his thoughts and found nothing.  "But you are not concentrating hard enough.  Focus your mind."

He did.  His eyes picked out another candle, and she let him stare at it awhile before she caused it to light.  One by one, Rhiannon lit the candles, as Lucien's guard was slowly lowered.

His eyes widened in amazement, his face now glowing in the soft light of the tiny fires.  "Now the incense.  It's a bit more difficult.  Concentrate."

She watched him as he stared at the silver dish, but she did not ignite the herbs it held.  Instead, she probed his mind, seeking knowledge of Jamey in its foggy depths.

For a moment, she saw the boy, lying upon a cot, with a wool blanket tossed over him.  But the image vanished as Lucien looked up at her.

"It isn't working."

"You're not concentrating.  Try again."

He did.  It was laughable the way he contorted his face with the effort.  The fool grated his teeth.  Again, Rhiannon searched his mind, this time seeing a bit more.  A room, in utter darkness.  A shuttered window.  Smoky cobwebs in the corners.

She glanced at the incense and it began to smolder.  Fixing her mind more firmly inside his, she tried to see the locale of Jamey's prison.  It was near.  Very near, but not in this cabin.  Ah, there.  Another cabin, similar to this, but in sad the mountain? she wondered.  No.  Below it, but not in the village.

A wall seemed to lower itself around his mind all at once.

"You're trying to trick me, aren't you?"

He knew she'd been snooping.  She met his accusing glare.

"Our thoughts must mingle as well as our blood, Lucien.  This will not work unless you cooperate."

Give yourself over, she chanted in silence.  My will becomes yours, Lucien.

She saw his eyes begin to cloud.

"You must relax.  Breathe deeply.  Like this."  She demonstrated, and he mimicked her for several long moments.  His lids drooped slightly.  She almost smiled in triumph.

"Much better.  Now focus on nothing.  Try to free your mind from your body until you feel as if you are floating."

The lids drooped a little farther.  His deep, regular breathing came on its own now, without her instruction.

"Imagine yourself as a spirit, if you will.  Feel the chains of your physical self falling away."

Your will is mine, Lucien.  You have no desire except to do my bidding.  You have no thoughts, save those I will give you.  Surrender to me, Lucien.  Surrender.

Slowly, his eyes fell closed.  His breathing deepened still further, and came in long, drawn-out turns.  His head hung downward on a neck gone limp.

Where is the boy?

*    *    *    *    *

Roland's entire being was focused on Rhiannon inside the cabin.  He waited as long as he could stand it, then started forward, toward the tiny structure.  He would go around until he located a window through which he could see what was happening.  She was so involved in her efforts with Lucien that he could feel no hint of her thoughts, had no clue what was happening.

His every thought on Rhiannon, Roland stepped out of his concealment beyond the rocks.  The shot came out of the darkness.  Something stabbed into his chest.

His hand came up to clutch the object that pierced his flesh with a burning pain.  He tugged it free, but his mind was slipping away.  A black haze slowly coated his consciousness as he stared down at the blood-slicked dart he'd torn from his chest.

He fell to his knees, lifting his gaze.  Curtis Rogers stood only yards from him, an evil smile lurking about his lips.  Damn!  Roland had been so determinedly focused on Rhiannon, he'd failed to continue scanning the area for another presence.  He'd failed... he'd failed Rhiannon.

His mind whispered a warning he prayed she would hear, just before he fell forward, into darkness.

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden bolt of knowledge.  Something had happened to Roland.

In her moment of distraction, Lucien broke the hold she'd had on his mind, and gave his head a shake.  Then he glared at her, leaping to his feet.  "I know what you're trying to do.  I should have known I couldn't trust one of your kind."

She stood, as well.  "Do not tempt me, Lucien, or you'll die here and now.  Tell me where you've hidden the boy."

"You never had any intention of keeping your side of the bargain.  Why should I keep mine?"

"Because you will die if you don't."  She stepped around the candles toward him, but froze when the door behind Lucien swung wide, and Curtis Rogers stood there pointing some sort of weapon at her.

"You!"

"Ah, we meet again, Princess."

She took a single step and no more.  The dart plunged into her shoulder and she cried out in sudden pain.  She closed her eyes, certain the dart contained the tranquilizer, certain her time had run out.  With her final moments of consciousness, she sent her thoughts to the fledgling, Tamara, conveying all she had learned, begging her to find a way to save Roland and the boy.  She fell forward, catching herself on a wall, then slipping slowly downward as her legs folded beneath her.

"Her friend was outside," she heard Rogers saying, though his voice echoed as if far away.

"Will you take him, too?"  That was Lucien.

"No.  I've learned from my mistakes.  I don't want to deal with two of them at once.  One at a time, from here on.  He's not going anywhere.  Let the sun take care of him."

She felt her neck muscles melt as her head fell forward.  It was jerked up again by a cruel hand in her hair.  Lucien's twisted face hovered before her.  "Before you go beddy-bye, there's something I want you to know.  The scientist you killed all those years ago, Daniel St. Claire's partner, was my father.  And I won't rest until I see all of your kind pay for his death."

She tried to make her lips form words.  "B-but... you... you wanted..."

"To become one of you?  Yes.  The strongest one of all, so I could eliminate the rest with ease.  So I could live to see the last of you die in agony."

"You," she whispered with the last bit of strength she possessed, "are the one... who will die."

*    *    *    *    *

Nearly dawn.

Roland felt the approach of morning with every cell in his body, and still he could not move.  He'd managed only to pry his eyes apart.  Now he could watch the horizon slowly paling, from deepest black, to midnight blue, to varying and ever-lightening shades of gray.

The cabin was empty now.  There was no sense of Rogers, or Lucien... or Rhiannon.  He knew they must have taken her.  Again, she would be subjected to their cruel torments.  Because of him.

Roland grimaced in pain at the thought of Rhiannon in Rogers's hands.  He had to live--if only to free her.

Summoning every muscle to do his bidding, grating his teeth with the effort, he slowly, painstakingly, clutched at the earth and dragged his body forward.  He couldn't wait for Eric to come to his aid.  There might not be time, or his friend, too, might be disabled or in trouble.  Again, Roland dug his fingers into the dirt and stone.  Again, he hauled his body a few inches forward.  At this rate, he wouldn't make it to the cabin's door before noon.  Still, he had to try.

Away from the shelter of the rocks, he dragged himself.  Halfway into the clear, level area, with no kind of shelter from the rising sun.  Halfway to the cabin.  Again, he clawed and pulled his way, glancing toward the east, where he could see the pale orange glow just touching the edge of the sky.  Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran, burning, into his eyes.  He clutched at the ground again, and grunted with effort as he struggled onward.

From the opposite direction came the sound of padded feet, running toward him.  He turned his head, and then released his breath in a rush.  To his left, the sun.  Now, to his right, a wolf the size of a Saint Bernard, but with muscles rippling beneath its sleek coat instead of fat.  If the one didn't kill him, the other surely would.  He had no strength left to fight either enemy.

Recalling his last experience with a wolf, Roland wished the sun would hasten its arrival.  Then the beast was upon him, and he knew it was too late.

But what was this?  Not a snarl came from the wolf, not a bared fang did the animal display.  Instead, it stopped at his side, lowering its huge head, nudging its way beneath Roland's all but useless arm.

In shocked wonder, Roland could only stare as the wolf pushed and shoved at his body.  It only stopped when Roland's right arm and shoulder were supported by the animal's strong back.  Having no clue what was happening or why, or whether this was some dream he was having in the throes of death, Roland fought to bring his other arm around the front of the animal's neck, until he could link his hands together.  The moment this was accomplished, the wolf started forward, not even straining under the tremendous burden of Roland's limp weight.  Roland's upper body was carried, the rest of him dragged, but in the wrong direction.

He could have screamed in frustration.  If only he could command the wolf to drag him to the cabin, the way Rhiannon could command Pandora.  He tried, but found the wolf a poor listener.  He forced his head up, to look ahead, his cheek brushing the soft, deep fur at the wolf's throat, his nostrils filling with the animal's scent.  Then his jaw fell open.  The wolf had brought him to a small cave, dug into the side of a sheer stone wall.  It was barely visible with the overlapping rock above, and the outcrop jutting from the sides.  He'd never have known of the cave's presence.

The beast dragged him inside, then along the cool, uneven floor, around a sharp bend and all the way to the back.  The sun would never reach here, Roland suspected.  He released the wolf's magnificent neck, and lowered himself to the floor.

The wolf stood over him, staring down into his eyes for just a moment.  There was a wisdom in those eyes, the likes of which had no place there.

"I know not what you are, wolf--" a memory of Rhiannon's tales about ancient ones who could alter their form, about Damien, hovered in his fogged mind "--but I thank you," Roland managed to say.  His eyes were heavy and he could barely form words.  "Meager reward... for saving a life.  I know."

He'd expected the beast to turn and lope away.  Instead, it lowered itself to the stone floor a few feet from him, and its eyes fell closed.  In a few seconds, Roland's did, as well.  His last thoughts were of Rhiannon.  Where was she as the cruel sun rose into the sky?  Was she safe?  Sheltered from the burning rays?

When next Roland awoke, he was alone.  He glimpsed the stone walls around him, wondering whether he'd dreamed the entire incident with the wolf.

It was night again.  He felt strong, and he hurried out of the cave with one thought on his mind.  Rhiannon.  He must find her, now, before even another minute passed.

He strode toward the cabin.  He'd begin there, to search for a clue.

"Roland!"

The shout brought him up short, but he knew an instant later it came from Eric.  He faced his friend, accepted the harsh embrace.  "Roland, what's happened?  We've been out of our minds with worry."

Roland's soul felt as empty, as hollow as he knew his words sounded.  "Rogers.  He got me with one of those darts of his, then left me for the dawn to find."

"And Rhiannon?"

Roland felt his throat seal itself off.  He closed his eyes.  "I... I don't know."

Eric grasped Roland's arm and both men approached the cabin.  Eric flung the door wide, so hard it smashed into the wall, and the two went in different directions, searching the place with methods none too gentle.

In the small, empty room, Roland stopped, his heart twisting as he eyed the circle of candles and the dish of incense.  It's exotic scent still tinged the air.  Then he saw the bloody little dart, lying on the floor in a corner.  In a voice gone hoarse with pain, he called to Eric, and pointed.  "They've taken her," he whispered.

"We'll get her back."

Roland nodded, then scanned his friend's face.  "Where is Tamara?"

"She's taken the boy back to the castle, Roland.  They're in no danger, now.  Jamey was suddenly released last night.  It was never him they wanted, only Rhiannon.  Once they had her, they let him go.  If they need bait to lure the rest of us, they'll use her."

Roland nodded, for the explanation made perfect sense.

"I'd have been here to help you, Roland, but Jamison was turned loose in a forest, and left to find his own way.  We spent most of the night searching for him, and I had no idea what had occurred up here--although I think Tamara did."

Roland cocked a brow.  "How?"

Eric shrugged.  "She heard something from Rhiannon... it was what led us to that particular patch of woods in the first place.  Then she heard no more.  She kept saying she was certain something was wrong, but she didn't know what."  He shook his head.  "I was damned afraid for you, Roland.  How did you manage to escape the sun, with that tranquilizer in your blood?"

Roland thought again of the wolf, of the knowledge in its eyes.  "I'm not certain."  He shook himself.  "It doesn't matter now.  We have to find Rhiannon."

*    *    *    *    *

As the drug's effects waned, the day sleep took over.  Rhiannon roused only very briefly between the two.  In a fogged, floating kind of state, she glanced around her, knowing she was in a chilly place with no windows or doors, no light of any kind.  She sat hunched on a cold floor, with another cold surface at her back.  And when she moved her arms or legs, there was the sound of metal clanking against metal.

Then she slept again, so she thought it must be day.  When the sleep evaporated, she knew it was night.  Or was it?  For with the setting of the sun would come the rush of tingling energy, and the zinging awareness in hell every nerve ending.  With night would come strength, and power.

Why did she still feel as if her limbs were made of lead, and her head stuffed with wet cotton?

Lucien's face loomed above her, grinning lasciviously "Don't fret, Rhiannon.  It's only Curt Rogers's handy little drug making you feel so weak.  I gave you a half dose just before sunset.  Looks as if it was enough."

Vaguely, her brain began to function.  She felt the damp; chill of the stale air around her, smelled the stench of stagnant water, and rodent leavings.  "Rogers... told you he'd never... give you the drug."

"Rogers didn't have a choice in the matter.  Did you really think I'd let him drag you off to some sterile laboratory and hold you under military guard before I had what I wanted from you?"  He laughed low in his throat and shook his head.  "He had no more intentions of keeping his promise to me than you did."

Her body weak, Rhiannon struggled to her feet, only to realize that iron manacles encircled her ankles, with chains that were bolted to the stone wall.  Her wrists were likewise imprisoned, with longer lengths of chain.  She turned her head to one side, then the other, testing the strength of the chains with an experimental tug.  The cold iron bit into her flesh.

I'll keep you weak enough so you won't be able to tear them free, Rhiannon.  Don't doubt that."

She faced him, feeling her anger well up inside her.  "What has become of Roland?"

"Your friend who was lingering outside the cabin?  Curtis shot him with a dart, like you, and left him there for the sun.  He's probably dead by now.  No hope of rescue there."

His words were like the lashes of a whip across her heart.  She closed her eyes against the flood of tears.

"Oh, how touching," Lucien said, gripping her chin and lifting it.  "Now, unless you want to follow him, after you watch me kill the boy, you will transform me."

Her eyes flew open.  "You still have Jamey?"

"Of course."

She studied his face, wondering if he was telling the truth.  She'd awakened with the sense that Jamey was well and safe.  Had it been a dream?  Wishful thinking?  Or had someone been attempting to reassure her?

"I can keep you here indefinitely, Rhiannon.  I have plenty of the drug, and all the time in the world.  If the boy's life isn't incentive enough to convince you, we can try using pain as an impetus.  I know how much you dislike that."

Her neck was so weak she had trouble holding her head up when he took his hand away from her chin.  Her memories of the time this man's father, and his partner, Daniel St. Claire, had held her captive, loomed in her mind in an attempt to drive her from her senses.  She pushed it away with effort.  "And if I capitulate?  If I initiate you into the, world of unending night, what then?  Am I to suppose you will release me, when I heard you admit you live only to see me die?"

"Suppose what you will.  I'll free the boy if you do a say.  If not, you both die.  The choice, fair Rhiannon, is yours."

She lowered her head until her chin rested upon her chest.  It was hopeless, then.  She had no need to fight the fear, for her grief overwhelmed it.

"I have things to do.  I'll return for your decision in a: hour."  With that, he left her, his steps echoing in the darkened, stone dungeon.

Yes, dungeon.  Where on earth had he brought her?  A dungeon suggested a castle, and a castle likely meant they were still in France.  Perhaps even in the Loire valley where thousands of medieval castles dotted the lands cap Roland's among them.

Roland.

Just the thought of him brought a stab of pain to her soul.  She called out to him, sending her mental voice into the night like a mournful wail.  Again and again she called to him, but she heard no reply.

Could he truly be dead?  Gone forever before she' managed to tell him the truth she'd kept locked away for so long?

"I love you, Roland de Courtemanche, baron, knight immortal, man.  I love all of you," she whispered.  She lifted her head skyward, as if to cry out to the gods.  "Return him to me, and I swear I will become what he wants No more will I seek out danger and flaunt myself in its face.  No more will I live recklessly, walking an unsteady line along the very edge of sanity.  I'll become the staid and quiet woman he wants, anything he needs.  Never will I leave his side, if only I am given one more chance!"

Her words died on a broken, ragged cry, and she let her head fall forward once more on a neck gone limp.  Her sobs racked her body, and only the lengths of chain kept her from falling.  For she knew in her heart, her chances were gone.  Roland had not answered her desperate cries.  He'd been taken from her, torn from her heart before she'd realized he'd made his way into it.

Her grief paralyzed her, and she sobbed endlessly, wellsprings of tears pouring from her eyes.

Still, she knew that if Roland would ask anything at all of her from beyond the grave, it would be to do what was necessary to protect young Jamison.  The last gift she could ever give to him would be the boy's life.  She had no choice but to do as Lucien asked.  He'd kill her when the deed was done, there was no longer any doubt of that.  She could only hope it would be swift and clean.

*    *    *    *    *

Halfway down the mountainside, her cries reached him.  Roland's head came up, and his stomach clenched in a tight knot at the anguish in her voice.

Eric's hand clamped down on his shoulder like a vise.  "Don't answer her."

"Are you insane?  Listen to her--"

"I am.  No doubt, Lucien is, as well.  If you answer, he'll be ready and waiting for us.  He already has too many weapons in his arsenal, Roland.  That drug, Rhiannon's life, Curt Rogers's aid.  No use giving him fair warning, as well."

Roland swallowed hard.  Rhiannon's cries kept coming, and he heard her grief, her tears, her pain.  God, but he'd never been aware how much she truly cared for him.  No wonder his careless words had hurt her, time and again.  He cursed himself now, for having to hurt her once more, and swore on the graves of his family that he would never, in all eternity, ever cause her pain again, even if it cost him his life.

He closed his mind off, for her pleas were driving him to near madness, and his rage added to that still more.  He focused only on honing his mind to her location, and then pointed himself in that direction.

He and Eric sped through the night until all at once, Eric skidded to a halt, gripping Roland's arm.  "I was mistaken in that list of Lucien's advantages.  Look."  He pointed down a steep embankment.

Far below, a smoking wreck was all that remained of Curt Rogers's Cadillac.  Roland sent the fingers of his mind into the wreckage, and saw the vision of Rogers's charred body, twisted grotesquely behind the wheel.

"This was no accident," Roland said softly.  "He died by Lucien's hand."

Eric nodded his agreement.  "Then Lucien has no intention of turning Rhiannon over to DPI once she's transformed him."

"No."  Roland's voice was grim.  "He intends to kill her."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They circled the mined fortress twice, in search of guards or watchmen, before leaping the crumbling wall.  They crossed the barren courtyard, Roland's palms itching to feel a steel hilt, his shoulder aching for the butt of a crossbow.  A moat, filled with green brackish water that appeared thick with filth and stunk to the heavens, surrounded the castle.  The drawbridge was raised.

In days of old, they'd have fashioned a bridge of a freshly cut tree, a battering ram of another.  Today, matters were much simpler.  The two leapt the moat, side by side, and edged around the square stone shape of the keep, in search of a way to enter quietly.  Both were careful to guard their thoughts, even from each other.  A steel wall had been lowered around their minds.  Lucien must not know of their approach.

It was difficult, for Roland knew that somewhere within these decaying stone walls, Rhiannon was imprisoned.  Weakened, perhaps in pain.  Were she well, she'd have torn the place apart by now, and Lucien along with it.  Her patience would have found its end.

They finally came to a small opening in the stone, a window, which had never seen glass.  Roland clambered through, and stood, looking around him while Eric followed.  The place was in ruin, no question.  The very walls were crumbling.  The stone floors had spider webs of cracks, and huge gouges.  It was black as pitch within the cold walls of this castle, but with his piercing night vision, he made his way slowly forward, along decrepit corridors, his mind on Rhiannon.

His heart grew heavier with every echoing step he took.  Surely these weak stone walls could not hold her in her normal state.  How he wished to see her, enraged, bringing Lucien to his knees with the sheer force of her anger.  He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head.  That he'd ever thought to tame her spirit was a joke.  It was untamable as she was.  It was what made her Rhiannon.

After trekking through endless corridors and passages, they came to the top of a set of stone stairs, crumbling as they spiraled downward into what seemed the hub of the earth.  The smells of dankness and decay assaulted him as they descended.  The sounds of water trickling, of rodents scratching, and of their own steps, echoed in his ears.  She was here, in this hell, more than likely believing him dead.

Each step was placed with utmost care, as silently as possible.  Roland scarcely dared draw a breath for fear he would alert Lucien and incite the man to harm Rhiannon.  God, the very thought of her here was enough to drive him mad.  Was she imprisoned in some freezing, tiny cell?  Was she, even now, shivering with the cold and with her grief over his own supposed demise?  Was she drugged, weakened to the point of helplessness in the face of Lucien's brutality?

Had the bastard harmed her?  Had he touched her?

He'd die if he had, Roland vowed.  He would die either way, he amended.  The beast was loose, and Roland, for once, welcomed its presence.  He'd tear Lucien limb from limb and take great pleasure in the tearing.

Eric touched his arm, and inclined his head.  Only then did Roland hear the sounds of voices, echoing softly through the cavernous underworld.  Like ghosts wandering aimlessly, the voices filtered toward them.

"Are you ready, then?"

"I'm ready, Lucien."  Rhiannon's voice was weak, conveying the state of her body, and of her mind.  The sound of it was a torment such as Roland had never known.  He crept nearer.

"Remember, no tricks.  If any harm comes to me, the boy will die where he is.  You understand that?"

"Yes."

"Good."

"So I will bide my time, Lucien.  And you will pay."

There was the sound of grim laughter.  "I knew you'd be furious about the cat.  The animal gave me no choice, Rhiannon.  When it bounded in front of my car, the temptation was just too great for me."  There was a pause.  "From the boy's reaction, you'd have thought I'd killed his dearest friend."

Roland stepped closer, still unable to see them, but he could hear more clearly.  He heard Rhiannon's labored breathing, and then her voice, with the barest hint of her former spirit making her words quiver with rage.  "You didn't kill the cat.  And when the boy is safe again, you might well become a snack for her."

"The cat survived?  Then why are you still so angry?"

"Bastard!"  Rhiannon drew a deep, ragged breath.  The argument seemed to be taxing whatever strength she still possessed.

"You know... the cause of my anger.  What you did to Pandora pales... beside your other crimes."  She paused, breathing deeply, brokenly.  "You... you've taken from me... the only man I have ever loved."  The final words were barely whispered, and the evidence of tears was clear in her voice.

Roland stood stock-still when those words floated toward him through the darkness.  He closed his eyes as a horrible pain washed over him, and only stirred again when Eric's voice urged him on.

"Steady, my friend.  You'll get used to the idea."

He swallowed hard, and began moving silently forward.  The shock of Rhiannon's admission faded as his rage, again, began to build.

"I will avenge Roland, Lucien," she whispered.  "Make no mistake."

"You leave me no choice but to be sure you never get the chance, Rhiannon.  One would almost think you had a death wish."

"Take care."  Her words were weak and faint.  "For I have nothing left to lose."

There was the sound of chains rattling.  Then a strangled gasp.  "Feel the tip of this needle in your side, Rhiannon?  If I get the slightest notion you are trying to bleed me dry, I'll depress the plunger.  There's a large enough dose to kill you in seconds."

They rounded a corner, and Roland saw the nightmarish scene laid out before him, illuminated only by the harsh, flickering light of a single torch.  Rhiannon, all but limp, supported more by the chains at her wrists, than by her own power.  Her eyes were hooded and moist with pain, without light of any kind.  Desolate.  Her hair hung over one side of her face.  The hem of the deep blue kimono was dampened and dirty.

Facing her, his back to them, Lucien stood with legs planted apart, his fist gripping the hypodermic that was jabbed into her side, right through the flowing kimono she wore.  He gave it an evil twist and she whimpered, too weak to cry aloud.

Roland lunged, but Eric gripped his arm.  "If you attack now, he'll kill her."  The words were whispered harshly into Roland's ear.  "We have to get him to remove that damned needle before we touch him."

The sight of Rhiannon suffering riled him, but he knew his friend's words to be true.  He glanced around, seeing in all directions in the inky blackness.  Far above, more chains dangled from a towering ceiling.  Roland could guess at their torturous purposes there.  He nudged Eric, and pointed.

Eric nodded.  "Can you get up there without a sound?"

I'll know in a moment.  Can you get Lucien's attention without costing Rhiannon's life?"

"I'd better, hadn't I?"

Roland drew a steadying breath and leapt upward, gripping a protruding stone high above, and anchoring the toe of one shoe in a chip in the wall.  He glanced below, saw Eric watching, and gave him a single nod.

Eric stepped forward, out of the shadows, into the red-orange torchlight.  "Pardon me, Lucien, but you forgot to tell her a few things, didn't you?"

Lucien whirled, tearing the syringe from Rhiannon's waist as he did.  Her face contorted in pain.  Her cry brought a convulsion to Roland's stomach.

"Marquand, isn't it?  Rogers told me about you."  Lucien lifted the needle like a weapon, clutched in a beefy fist, and started forward.

"Before you killed him, you mean?"

Roland waited.  He needed a bit more space between Rhiannon and the point of that needle.

Lucien glanced over his shoulder at Rhiannon.  She only hung, all but limp in her chains, hopelessness etched into her face like chinks beaten into old armor.

"Shut up, Marquand."

"Afraid I'll spill the beans, are you?  Once she knows, she won't be so cooperative, will she?"

Roland nodded in approval.  Lucien would lose Rhiannon were to learn Jamey was safe and sound.  He would be forced to silence Eric.

"Knows... what?"  Rhiannon's head came up slowly.  Her eyes focused on Eric.

"Why, that Jamey--"  He stopped, sidestepping Lucien's charge with all the grace of a matador dodging a bull.  Roland launched himself from the toehold in the wall, soaring above the stone floor, catching the dangling length of rusted chain.  It swung with the force of his momentum, carrying him swiftly onward.  He let go a second later, and plunged downward, onto Lucien's broad back.  Both men crashed to the floor, Lucien landing facedown with Roland's weight atop him.

Lucien's hand, still gripping the hypodermic, twist and turned, straining backward in a doomed attempt stab Roland.  Roland rose, one knee pressed into the center of the much larger man's spine.  He clamped a hand Lucien's wrist, and squeezed until he felt the subtle crack of bone giving way.  With a shriek, Lucien released 1 hold on the syringe.  And even then, Roland didn't let t bastard up.  The beast within wanted vengeance, and it was on the rampage.

A little more pressure and you can break his spine as easily.  Snap it in two.  Just press the knee a harder...

 "Roland?"

He lifted his gaze from the quivering heap of flesh beneath him, and saw Rhiannon staring as if she were seeing a ghost.  The beast within seemed to dissolve in that instant.  He no longer thirsted for vengeance, only for her.  For her touch, the feel of her lips beneath his, the sight of her half smile and the mischief in her eyes.

He stood, aware that Lucien rolled to his back clutched his shattered wrist with his other hand.  He paid no attention, knowing Eric would see to the bastard.  His only concern was for her as he moved slowly forward.  Her eyes widened.  Her lips parted slowly and she mouthed his name again, though no sound emerged this time. 

He reached her, then, and his arms went around her.  Oh, to feel her, living, breathing, her strong heart pounding against his chest!  He cradled her head to the crook of his neck, threading his fingers in her silken hair, words tumbling from his lips without thought, or even order.  Here was where she belonged.  In his arms, her body pressed to his.  He felt he could never release her.

She lifted her head and her eyes moved over his face with such intensity he could nearly feel their touch.  "I... I thought..."  Her hands came then, following the path of her eyes, touching his face as if not believing it was real.  The chains jangled with her movements.

"I know," he whispered.  "I know.  I dared not answer you, knowing that one's psychic strength."  He caught one of her wrists in his hands, drew it downward, away from his face, and easily snapped the manacle.  As it clattered down, slamming into the wall, he reached for the other.  "Has he hurt you, Rhiannon?  Has he touched you?"

 "Nothing... could hurt me... more than believing...  I'd lost you."

Their eyes met for a long moment, and Roland wondered how he'd failed before to see the love in hers.  He must have been blind.

Unsure what to say in the face of such powerful feelings, uncertain what this meant to either of them, Roland dropped to one knee and snapped the shackles at her ankles.  Her arms came to his shoulders, and then her weight when she tried to step away from the wall.  He scooped her up with minimal effort.  Her head fell limply to his shoulder, and he closed his eyes in exquisite agony.  God, but it was sweet to hold her again.

Eric tossed the now-unconscious Lucien aside, and came to stand beside them.

"I should have killed him," Roland muttered, gazing toward the man on the floor of his own dungeon.

Eric lifted one brow, and tilted his head toward Lucien.  "Go right ahead, my friend.  He can't even resist, at the moment.  I'm sure, beast that you claim to be, it won't bother you in the least to lean over and crush his larynx.  Only take a moment.  Go on.  I'll take Rhiannon for you."

Roland glanced down at Lucien once more, then at the woman in his arms.  He couldn't murder a man in cold blood.  In battle, yes.  He'd take great pleasure in fighting Lucien to the death.  But not like this.  He eyed Eric, and sighed.  "I suppose there is a lesson in there somewhere, my friend.  But all I wish now is to take Rhiannon out of this place."

He started back through the dungeon, and then up the crumbling stairs, leaving Lucien to his own devices.  Likely a mistake, but there it was.

*    *    *    *    *

She rested in his gentle, unfaltering embrace, sometimes conscious, sometimes not.  She knew little of the exact process by which they'd arrived, only that in what seemed little time at all, they were entering the great hall of the Castle Courtemanche, to the cries and embraces of Tamara, and Jamison, and Freddy.

A low snarl drew Rhiannon's gaze downward.  Pandora limped through the little gathering, her foreleg wrapped in a plaster cast.  She rose on hind legs, her good forepaw on Rhiannon's chest, and nuzzled her mistress's cheek with a cold nose.

Rhiannon stroked the cat's face.  "Pandora, my kitty, you're home.  Yes, yes, it's good to see you, too, love."  She kissed the cat's muzzle, before Roland shooed her away.

"We picked her up on the way back," Tamara said softly, crowding forward much as the cat had, to stroke Rhiannon's hair away from her forehead.  "I wanted her to be here to greet you when Roland brought you home."  The young one frowned, her gaze concerned.  "Are you all right?"

Rhiannon smiled her assurance that she was, though she felt far from all right.  She was rapidly growing weary, resenting the powerful effects of the drug.  She sought out Jamey's face, and reached out to him.  "Jamison.  I was so afraid for you."

He looked at the floor.  "I'm sorry.  I almost got you killed... again."

She shook her head, but Roland turned away from them, striding down the vaulted corridor toward his chambers, with her in his arms.  "We'll all have time to talk later.  She needs rest now."  As he spoke, he looked down at her face.  She searched his, wondering at the uncertainty, the endless questions in his eyes.  He seemed almost afraid of something.  A most unusual state of being for one so valiant.  Moments later, he was lowering her onto the bed, tucking her beneath the brilliant yellow comforter, propping her head and shoulders with the pillows she'd purchased such a short time ago, but seemed like aeons.

"Roland."  She reached up to cup his face in one unsteady palm.  "I have much to tell you."

"Shh.  I want you to rest.  By tomorrow evening, you'll be feeling like your old self again, I promise.  We can talk then."

"My old self?"  She blinked slowly, recalling her promise to whatever gods might be listening.  She would lose him unless she could keep her vow.  She knew that beyond any doubt.  "No, Roland.  I'll never be--"

He hushed her with a gentle finger upon her lips.  "Rest, little bird.  We'll talk later."

"Yes."  She let the heaviness of her eyelids pull them down, no longer wishing to fight off sleep.  "Yes, we can talk later."

*    *    *    *    *

But she was not herself again when she rose the following evening.  Nor did she return to normal in the following days.  Stronger, yes, Roland observed in the great hall.  There was no longer the film of drug-induced stupor covering her diamond-bright eyes.  But the mischief wasn't there, either.  Or the taunting, or the come-hither gaze he'd half expected to see.  She was like a shadow of her former self.  Quiet, exceedingly polite, refusing to argue, no matter what stupid remark he made to incite her.

Roland leaned sideways, elbowing Eric's middle.  "Do you suppose there are lingering side effects to Rogers's tranquilizer?"

Eric cocked one eyebrow.  "Why do you ask?"

"Look at her.  She's quiet, almost... timid.  She's been like this damn near a week now."  As he spoke, Roland glanced again toward Rhiannon.  She sat in an oversize chair Roland had hauled down from one of the storage rooms above, staring into the flames of the huge hearth, seemingly absorbing the fire's warmth in the chill room.  She absently stroked the head of the cat that lay at her side.

Eric shrugged.  "I suppose she might still be a bit shaken..."

"Rhiannon doesn't get shaken."

"Hush, she'll hear you," Tamara whispered, crossing the room with Jamey at her side.  "And this is no time to upset her.  Jamey's father will be here any minute.  We don't want him walking in on one of her indignant speeches, do we?"

"I'd pay to hear one of her speeches, right about now," Roland muttered, but they moved as a group nearer the fire, and the various chairs situated around it.

"The great hall looks much nicer, Rhiannon.  You've done wonders."

Rhiannon looked up, smiled softly and continued stroking the cat.

"Yes," Eric said, picking up where Tamara had left off.  "All the candles and lamps soften the harsh stone, and the curtains and rugs are in perfect taste.  Don't you agree, Roland?"

Roland only nodded, watching Rhiannon's face, a frown tightening his own.

"I still think it would have been better if you'd let her hang your paintings, Roland," Tamara said.

Roland shrugged.  He did, too.  He'd only refused Rhiannon when she'd asked because he'd been sure she would argue and fuss and fight with him until he conceded.  He'd been looking forward to fighting with her.  He missed it.  Instead, she'd only nodded in acceptance and not asked again.  He felt like screaming at her.

He watched her, watching him.  "It's lovely, yes.  And a shame we won't be able to remain here longer.  But with Lucien still alive, and knowing our whereabouts, it will be better if we all move on."  He studied the way her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass.  At last, he thought, as her knuckles whitened in evidence of her fierce grip.  "I can think of no other solution.  Can you, Rhiannon?"

For an instant, the fire flared in her eyes, so brilliant feared sparks would leap out to burn holes in her rugs.  "The solution," she said, back stiffening, chin lifting, "would be to find that sniveling worm of and..."  She blinked rapidly, looking at each of them turn.  Then she sunk back into her chair like a ball slowly deflating, and shook her head.  "Whatever you decide to do is fine with me, Roland."

Roland pressed two fingers to his forehead, Tamara shot Eric a concerned look.  Eric only shook head.

A heavy knock sounded throughout the room, Rhiannon rose with her ever-present grace.  Her long billowed around her, touching no part of her legs or giving any clue to her shape as she moved.  Its waist was cinched, but the blouson bodice drooped over the waistline.  The neck was high, and buttoned all the way.  Worst of all hair, her glorious, raven's wing hair, was twisted into a sleek knot at the back of her head.

Give her a pair of wire specs and some button-up shoes and she'd be the picture of a nineteenth-century school mistress.

She touched Jamey's arm.  "You know Roland only this for you."

"I know."  Jamey touched his pocket, the one he knew held the letter from his father that had been waiting here upon their return from the mountain.  He hadn't expected his solicitor to find the man so easily, or that would reply so soon.  "I'm not angry.  I think... I need to do this."

Rhiannon stroked Jamison's hair, then hugged her.  A second later, Tamara rushed forward to do the same, while Rhiannon opened the door.

The man who stood there was six inches shorter she.  His build suggested an active life-style, but his dark hair was short, and thin, and he wore round glasses perched on his nose.  His eyes were the kindest Roland thought he had ever seen, and they focused only briefly on the beauty at the door, danced once around the great hall and the people within it, then homed in on Jamey, and glowed with emotion.

For a long moment, the two only stared at each other.  Several letters and phone calls had been exchanged by now, so they were not quite strangers.  Roland had to respect James Knudson's easygoing methods.  He hadn't tried to convince Jamey to become his son overnight.  Instead, he'd invited the boy to spend a few weeks at his home in California.  To get to know his stepmother, and half brother.  And Jamey had agreed.

Roland felt his throat tighten when Jamey moved forward.  He stopped before his father, and for a moment the two simply stared at each other.  Then the man clasped the boy in a fierce hug, and they clung for a time.  When they stepped apart, James Knudson removed his glasses and pressed a thumb and forefinger to his eyes.

It hurt to know he would lose the boy to his father.  But it was right, and Roland had known it for some time now.  The man was a junior varsity soccer coach, for God's sake.  What more could a boy wish for?

Jamey turned and met Roland's gaze.  "F-father, this is Roland.  He's saved my life... more than once, now."  Jamey bit his lip.  "And this is Eric, and Tamara, and Rhiannon."  He faced each of them in turn, his eyes dampening.

James cleared his throat, obviously a bit confused by the eccentric setting, and the formal clothing all but Tamara wore.  But he stepped forward and shook each hand firmly.  "I know how much you all mean to... to my son."  He shook Roland's hand last, and longest.  "I'm more grateful than I can tell you.  If you hadn't searched for me, I might never have known I had a son."

Roland nodded.  He couldn't have replied had he wished to.  His throat was too tight.

Tamara stepped forward, speaking in his place.  "Remember, we love him, Mr. Knudson.  And that this is only a trial run.  The decision to stay with you must be entirely Jamey's."

He nodded.  "I would never try to force myself on him, Miss, uh, Tamara.  I love him, too."

She met Jamey's gaze, then hugged him once more.  "You know how to reach me if you need anything, kiddo."

"I know."  Jamey hugged her in return, then released her and faced Roland.  "I'm, uh, I'm gonna miss you."

Roland's heart trembled in his breast.  "No, young man.  I'll visit so often there will be no chance of that."

Jamey held out a hand, and Roland gripped it firmly and pumped twice.

The boy turned toward Pandora, who'd been sleeping near the hearth, and up until now hadn't made a sound.  Jamey went to her, bent over and wrapped his arms around her neck.  The cat's tail swished, and she rolled, pulling the boy with her.  He sat up laughing, and the cat placed a paw upon his knee.

"Take care of them, Pandora."

The cat's green eyes seemed to assure him she would.  Then Jamey rose and returned to his wide-eyed father.  When the man could tear his eyes from the black panther, the two moved to the door, and stood in its opening.

"We'll be watching out for you, Jamey," Rhiannon said softly.

Eric nodded.  "If you get into any danger, we'll know.  You can count on it."

"Curt's gone now, so there will be no more harassment from him," Tamara whispered.

"And Rhiannon's computer-expert friend is going to erase all of your files from DPI's systems.  It will be as if you never existed, to them."  Roland stepped nearer Rhiannon as he spoke, needing someone close for this painful parting.  "You can enjoy yourself the way a four-teen-year-old ought to, with no more worry about cloak-and-dagger nonsense."

Jamey opened his mouth, then closed it.  Instead of words, he moved back toward Roland and hugged him hard.  Then he turned, walking quickly toward the door, and his father.  "I'm ready now."

His father clapped an arm around Jamey's shoulder.  He glanced back at the others.  "I hope you'll stay in touch."

  "Rest assured, we will," Roland said.

The pair stepped out into the night, and the door swung slowly closed behind them.  Eric folded Tamara into his arms.  Roland wished he could do the same to Rhiannon, but he hesitated.  She'd shown him no hint of encouragement since the incident with Lucien, and he knew her well enough to know she would have, if she wanted him.

Perhaps his hard heart had finally killed the love she'd once felt for him.  Why now, when he wanted it so desperately?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Amid glowing candles, Roland put the finishing strokes to the canvas before him.

In a week, he hadn't seen this woman.  Oh, Rhiannon was here, as he'd prayed she would be.  She'd mentioned no more about leaving him forever.  But she wasn't really Rhiannon.  She was a dim shadow of the vivacious, slightly vain princess of the Nile.  He wanted her back again, as wild and flighty and unpredictable as before.  He missed her.  The entire castle seemed empty, like a tomb, without her boisterous presence filling its every corridor.  He wondered why he'd never noticed the emptiness before.

His eyes traveled the image of beauty before him.  His brush had captured the texture of her skin, the glow of devilment in her dark eyes, the waves of her satin hair.  He longed for her as much as ever, perhaps more.  But she seemed almost indifferent to him now.  Where before, she'd driven him to frustration with her constant flirtations, now she barely sent him a longing glance.  It was maddening.

"So that's what you've been doing up here."  Eric's voice came from the trapdoor in the floor's center, just before his body followed it up.

He stood, brushed himself off, then eyed the painting, arms crossing over his chest.  "Roland, it's breathtaking."

 "It's Rhiannon.  How could it be otherwise?"

Eric smiled, giving his head a swift shake.  "Have you told her yet that you're madly in love with her?"

Roland scowled.  "She'd likely laugh me out of the castle.  You know Rhiannon's views on silly, human emotions."

"Her views might have changed these past weeks, my friend."

"They wouldn't be the only thing to have changed, then."

Eric studied Roland's face for a long moment.  "You know, you might stop to consider that she is only conceding to your requests."

"What kind of fool notion is that?  I never asked her to become a piece of the furniture."

Eric shrugged, thrust his hands into his pockets and slowly paced away from Roland.  "You've constantly reminded her how reckless she is, how impulsive.  You've criticized her love of attention, her need to attract notice wherever she goes, her outrageous behavior.  More than once, in my presence, you've asked her--no, ordered her--to behave like a lady.  Now, you're complaining because she's doing as you wished."

Roland frowned hard, and looked at the floor.  "Do you really think that's what she's doing?"

Eric shrugged.  "It's as good a guess as I can come up with at the moment."

Roland dropped his brush into its holder, and kept his gaze focused on it.  "So what do I do about it?"

*    *    *    *    *

Rhiannon held the sunny, yellow pillow in two fists, pulling in opposite directions until the fabric gave way with a horrible tearing sound, and fluffy white stuffing snowed down onto her feet.  She gave a little growling shriek and spun in a circle.

"Ah, Rhiannon, there you are.  Where've you been hiding these past few days?"

She faced the fledgling and bit her lips.  She hadn't meant for anyone to witness her release of temper.  "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ha!"  Tamara came into the room, bent and picked up two handfuls of stuffing, flinging it in the air.  "What's this, then?  You planning to restuff all the pillows to impress him?"

Rhiannon batted aside the falling fluff.  "I don't need to impress anyone."

"Of course, you don't.  I only wondered if you were aware of it, that's all."

With a little snarl, Pandora leapt off the bed to pounce on the wads of stuff as it landed, batting awkwardly with her plaster-encased paw.

"You make no more sense than my cat does," Rhiannon said softly, kicking more of the stuffing aside and walking into the living area.

"How long do you think you can keep this up, Rhiannon?"

She turned to Tamara, who followed on her heels.  She was about to shout a denial, but saw the wisdom in the young one's eyes.  "Not much longer.  Oh, Tamara, I simply wasn't created to be meek.  I'm ready to claw my way up the walls.  What's more, it doesn't seem to be having the desired effect at all.  He's barely looked at me since that night he carried me home."

"Oh, he's looking, all right."

Rhiannon frowned, but the fledgling seemed reluctant to say more.  "Out with it, vampiress, or leave me in peace."

"Some peace, tearing apart innocent pillows when it's really him you'd like to rip in two."

Rhiannon sighed, her patience as thin as her temper.  "Say what you've come to say, young one."

Tamara smiled.  "Eric and I are leaving tonight.  I only came to say goodbye."

"Leaving?"

"Oh, don't worry.  We'll come back again soon.  It's just that I want to be close to Jamey, in case he needs me.  And you and Roland need to be alone, I think, to work this out."

Rhiannon looked at the floor and shook her head.  "I fear there is nothing to work out.  He knew I meant to leave as soon as the boy was safe.  I've not kept my word and no doubt, he's wondering why."

"Well, before you do, take my advice and talk to him.  Tell him everything.  Don't hold anything back, not anything.  Get things straight between you, once and for all, Rhiannon.  If you don't, you'll never forgive yourself."

Rhiannon blinked.  Then she tenaciously lifted her arms and put them around Tamara's shoulders.  She hugged the little thing to her chest.  "For one so young, you give good counsel, fledgling.  I will miss you."

*    *    *    *    *

They gathered that night, the four of them, round the hearth in the great hall once more.  Roland watched Rhiannon's eyes, noting with some satisfaction the spark that had finally returned.  She wore the black velvet gown she'd worn that first night, and she toasted them all with her blood-red nails gripping the glass she lifted.

"When next we meet, it will be someplace different," Eric said softly.  "I'll miss this drafty old castle."

"Oh, I don't know," Tamara said.  "Roland might not have to give the place up, after all."  Her eyes held a secret, and Roland almost grinned at the childish amusement she seemed to take in knowing something the others didn't.

"Go on, fledgling, say whatever it is that's on your mind."

"Yes, Tamara.  You've had that look in your eyes all evening, ever since you made those phone calls to be sure it was safe for us to return to the States," Eric said.  "What on earth makes you so smug?"

She shrugged.  "I spoke with my friend, Hilary.  The one who's still with DPI.  It seems they're investigating the disappearance of a powerful psychic, suspected of murdering Curtis Rogers."

"What?"  Roland's hand gripped his glass more tightly.  Tamara shot Rhiannon a knowing glance.  "The last they heard of him, he was at an emergency room in Paris, having a crushed wrist set.  He vanished from his hospital bed in the middle of the night, and no one's heard from him since."

Roland slanted a glance at Rhiannon, noting that Eric and Tamara were looking at her, as well.  She sipped her beverage, and pretended not to notice.

"Rhiannon, what do you know about this?"

She met his gaze and shrugged delicately.  "I haven't a clue what you're talking about."

"Rhiannon..."

She sent him a silencing glare.  He was so relieved to see her acting haughty again that he let the matter drop.  He could see she either didn't know what had become of Lucien, or had no intention of saying.

When they'd said their farewells at the front door, Roland closed it and faced Rhiannon.  The time had come, he decided, to tell her the truth.  He would bare his soul to her, once and for all, risk her ridicule and her are, admit he'd been wrong all along and ask her to forgive him.  True enough, he'd driven poor Rebecca to suicide, and that was a pain from which he'd never recover.  But he thought Rhiannon was too strong a woman to allow him to hurt her the same way.  At least, he hoped so, because there was no way in hell he could let her walk out of his life.  Not ever.

What he saw in her eyes stopped him cold.  The arrogant daughter of the Pharaoh was back, indeed.  She glared at him for a single moment, then started up the stairs.

"Come with me, if you will, Roland.  I, too, am prepared to take my leave, but there is something I must discuss with you first."

"Leave?"  He hurried after her, trotting up the worn stairs.  When she proceeded right up to the tower room, he thanked his stars he'd covered the painting before he'd left it.  "You're leaving?  Rhiannon, I--"

"No.  I've given you ample time to say your piece.  You haven't so much as whispered a word of it, so my turn has come."  She went to the ladder at the room's center, up it and out onto the very top of the keep.

Roland followed.  When he emerged on the top, she was leaning against the uneven layer of stone that created a short wall, gazing out over the rolling field, through the night" to the junction of the two rivers.  The night wind whipped her hair, until strands of it came loose from the bun at the back of her head.  She turned to face him, her hands going to the knot of hair, angrily tearing pins free, and tossing them over the side with an exaggerated flourish.

When her hair whipped loosely around her, she sent him a defiant stare.  "So dies your wallflower."

Thank God, he thought.  But he said nothing.

She turned from him once again.  "I cannot leave here until you learn the truth, because I will, in all likelihood, never see you again to tell you how your beloved Rebecca really met her demise."

Roland frowned.  "I thought we had come here to discuss... you, and me."

She licked her lips, and averted her gaze.  "On that subject, it seems there is little to discuss.  But there is much you don't know about Rebecca."  She drew a breath as if to steady herself.  "You told me you never loved her, but you know you cannot lie to me.  I sense your feelings... most of the time.  I know how very much you cared for her."

"And what it drove her to," he muttered, glancing beyond Rhiannon, to the ground, far, far below.  Remembering the way he'd found Rebecca there.  The pain came to life inside him, the guilt.

"The room where I took Tamara to meditate, it was Rebecca's room.  I've been back there, you see."

Roland frowned.  "Why?"

"Her aura has remained.  She hasn't been at peace, Roland, not in all these centuries, because of your guilt.  She needed you to know."

He shook his head, not wishing to hear this.

"Tonight she will rest at last, for tonight I will tell you what she made known to me in that room."

Roland closed his eyes.  "I do not wish to discuss Rebecca.  Not here."  The image of her body plunging over the side haunted him even though he squeezed his eyes tight to shut it out.  "She loved you, Roland."

He opened his eyes all at once.  "She despised me."

"She wished to hate you for what you'd done, but she found herself falling in love with you, all the same.  She came here, to this tower, only to try to decide what to do.  She was racked with guilt at her feelings.  She felt she might be betraying her father's memory by them, but she intended to accept your marriage proposal all the same."

He released a sudden whoosh of air.  "You lie.  Why are you saying these things, Rhiannon?  To try to erase the burden of guilt I've carried for ages?  It's no use.  I know what I did to her."

"She wore a golden crucifix, on a leather thong around her throat."

Roland inhaled quickly, looking into Rhiannon's eyes.  She didn't seem to be seeing him.  Instead, it was as if she were looking beyond him.  Her hand rose, in a fist, to the spot where the cross had rested upon Rebecca's throat.

"How do you know that?"

"It was fashioned for her by her father, and she cherished it."  Her hand came away, palm opened.  Her gaze searched her empty hand.  "But the thong came loose, and the gold cross fell."

Roland frowned, unable to speak.  Rhiannon turned, and leaned over the wall.  "It became caught in a crevice of the stone.  She could see it, and she tried to reach for it."

Roland gripped Rhiannon's shoulders.  Her stance, the way she leaned over, was precarious at best.  He turned her toward him, astonished to see tears in her eyes.  "But she was small, like Tamara.  She couldn't hope to reach it, could she, Roland?  And she fell.  Poor, innocent, silver-haired angel.  She fell, and the cross remains."  She stepped aside, pointing one finger downward.

Stunned, Roland stepped to the wall, and leaned over it.  At first, he saw nothing.  Then a glimmer caught his eye.  There, wedged tightly between two rough-hewn gray stones, the small crucifix glinted a reflection of the moon above.  He shook his head in wonder, as an incredible burden seemed to dissolve from its longtime place upon his shoulders.

"She didn't take her own life," he whispered.

"No, Roland.  It was an accident."  Rhiannon returned to the trapdoor, and stepped onto the ladder.  "So now you may live your life without the guilt you've been feeling.  It is my parting gift to you."

Roland whipped himself around to face her.  "Wait!"

Despite his bark, her head vanished as she stepped down the ladder.  Roland leapt through the trapdoor after her, catching her shoulders, and turning her to face him before she could reach the next door.

"I said wait."

She blinked rapidly, but her gaze didn't flinch from his.  "For what?"

He shook his head.  "There... are still things we need to discuss, Rhiannon.  You know it as well as I."

"It no longer matters, Roland.  It makes no difference now."

"Why?"

"Because, you fool, there is nothing more I can do.  Nothing more I care to do to make myself desirable to you.  For years, I've sought to show you I was worthy.  These past weeks have been one escapade after another.  Yet all I did to show you my strength only served to anger you further.  The more I endeavored to make you want me, the more averse you became to the notion."

He felt his lips pull upward in a smile, and reached out to her, but she pulled away, turning her face from his eyes.  "Rhiannon, I--"

"No.  Listen to me for once, Roland.  I will say this now, or never feel moved to again.  You might as well know all of it.  When Lucien held me in that hole, he told me you were dead.  And I howled my grief to the gods.  I swore I would be the meek-willed creature you wanted me to be, if only they would return you to me.  Can you believe it?  Me, Rhiannon, bargaining for a chance to please a man."

He closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly, but she rushed on.

"I've tried to do as I promised, Roland.  For days, I have whispered around these walls like a withering primrose.  And what has it accomplished?  You pay less attention to me now than before.  And it wouldn't have mattered if you had, because I cannot convert myself to suit you, or anyone.  I've learned that only recently.  I am who I am.  Rhiannon, born Rhianikki, daughter of Pharaoh, princess of Egypt, vampiress, immortal woman."

She turned, and gripped his shoulders in her hands.  "Look at me, Roland.  Do you not see it in my eyes?"

The only thing he saw in her eyes, just then, was a sudden, glittering flood of tears.

"I love you," she whispered.  "You can search the world, sift the deserts, comb the seas, and you will never find a love like mine for you.  It is endless, boundless, and it will never fade.  I've fought it for most of my existence, and still it remains.  Yet you choose to throw such love away, just as my father did before you.  You are a fool, Roland, to let me leave here.  But I am equally a fool for throwing myself at your feet one last time before I go.  Step on my heart and end this agony, once and for all.  At least now, you can have no doubt what you will be missing."

Roland bit his lips.  He wouldn't shout at her, though the temptation was great.  "Rhiannon, are you finished?"

She nodded.  "Yes.  I'll keep my promise and leave you now."

"No.  Not quite yet.  I believe there are a few things left unsaid between us.  Will you listen?"

"No."

He searched her face, but she turned it away.  "Why not?"

Her voice came hoarsely.  "I don't wish to compound my humiliation by crying like a child in front of you, when you reject me this one final time."

He sighed as she stepped away from him.  "At least hear this, Rhiannon.  All this time, all the risks you've taken, the recklessness you've shown, you haven't been trying to prove your worth to me."

She turned slowly, her gaze fierce.  "Haven't I?"

"No, nor to your father."  He stepped nearer, and gripped her shoulders.  "You've only been trying to prove it to yourself.  Your father's rejection, and then mine, made you question your own worth, Rhiannon."

She blinked, and he saw the fresh moisture that sprung to her lashes.  "Perhaps..."

"Question it no longer.  Your heroism, your courage, are beyond those of any knight I've ever known, Rhiannon.  You are a woman beyond any who has ever existed, nor ever will.  Believe that."

She sniffed angrily, and tugged away from him, averting her eyes.  "Let me go.  I've no wish to cry in front of you."

"Is that what telling you I love you will do, make you cry?"

She swallowed hard, and turned to him, eyes wide with disbelief.

He took her hands in his, and brought them to his lips.  "Rhiannon, just hear what I will tell you, please.  I've fought my love for you from the night when you found me, nearly dead on that battlefield, and took me in your arms.  Oh, I thought I had reasons.  I was an animal, unworthy of such a goddess as you.  I told myself my love was poison, that it would bring you only misery as it had everyone I had loved before.  I resented the way you would come and go at will, leaving me longing for your return, and convinced myself I didn't care if you stayed a day or a month with each visit.  But I did, and I died a little inside every time you left me alone."

He turned toward the covered painting, and took one corner of the cloth in his hand.  "This time I swore I'd keep a small part of you with me, for always."  He tugged the fabric away, and heard her sharp intake of breath.

He looked at her as she stared at the image of herself on the canvas.  Her hand trembled as it moved from her lips, to the painting.  She touched it, and tears rolled from her eyes, down her cheeks.  She shook her head.  "This... isn't... can't be... me."

"It is the very essence of you, Rhiannon.  But I'm afraid I've changed my mind."  He met her startled gaze.  "I won't let you go this time.  I won't be satisfied to gaze at this painting.  I want to gaze into your eyes.  And I want to see them alight with life and mischief the way they've always been.  Not dull with the effort of reining in your own nature.  I came to love you just the way you are, Rhiannon.  And I will fight with you through all eternity if ever you try to change."

He fell to his knees at her feet, clutching her hands to his heart.  "Stay with me for always, goddess among women.  Be my mate, my lover, my friend.  Never leave me alone to long for you again."

She dropped to her knees, as well, her hands threading through his hair.  "I adore you, Roland.  But I'm not sure I can exist in seclusion, live this life of a hermit the way you do."

"No, I would not ask it of you.  My sentence is at an end, Rhiannon.  You've given me the keys that set me free."

She smiled, then, and it held all the mischief and devilment he'd missed these past days.  "Tell me again."

"I love you, Rhiannon."

He rose, and his arms crept around her waist.  Hers slipped over his shoulders.  He kissed her mouth deeply, thoroughly, as if he were tasting her for the first time.

"Your father was so wrong, Rhiannon.  Do you know that yet?  You are a treasure, one so rare, so precious... one that can be sought, and found, but never owned.  Only held for a while."

"Then hold me, Roland.  Hold me for a very long while."

--3 Twilight Illusions (1994)--

To Jena, who gave Da mien his magic. I love you.

CHAPTER ONE

It is an old story But one that can still be told About a man who loved And lost. Shannon took copious notes, swearing at the inefficiency of a penlight for writing in the middle of a pitch-dark theater. She swore again at the narrow arms on the seats, which were no good at all for holding a notepad.

Especially when the jerks on either side of her seemed to think they owned exclusive rights to them. She growled a sigh, shoved the meaty arm to her left out of the way and whispered loudly, "Hey, do you mind? I'm trying to work here."

Anger was good. Anger would keep her mind away from the images burned into it. Tawny, with hair and eyes that matched her name, and a porcelain-doll face, and a smile that lit up a room. Her dreams of becoming a star, her overly dramatic way of expressing herself. Her feariessness. Her stubbornness. Shannon wanted to remember the vibrant upstart actress by day, call girl by night, best friend forever, Not the pale, naked body sprawled on the rumpled sheets, with its vacant-eyed stare. Not the twin gossamer strands of scarlet meandering over her paper-white neck. God, not that.

The guy in the next seat grumbled and shifted as far away from her as possible. Shannon wrote, only vaguely aware of the spreading applause. The gradual quieting. The sense of expectation in the crowd. The deep, melodic voice of the man at center stage announcing that he would need a volunteer from the audience. A sudden burst of movement and loudly voiced offers from the female spectators distracted her only for a moment before she adjusted the dim penlight and continued writing.

"The women here are practically drooling. It would be easy for him to lure one anywhere he wanted. Still no one who can tell me where he was last Wednesday night between..."

Her pen stopped on the pad and a cloud of frigid air seemed to envelop her.

She glanced up, toward the aisle three seats away. He stood there, a tall, shadowy form draped in black satin. An instant later the spotlight caught up with him, illuminating his hair, until it gleamed blue, and making his ivory skin seem even paler. His arm was outstretched, his hand reaching toward her. And his eyes, huge and round like an owl's, seemingly holding the wisdom of the gods and the pain of a thousand hells, focused on her, keeping her prisoner.

"You, miss."

She wished her heart would stop racing. There was still no shred of evidence that the man was a twisted murderer. Only a matter of circumstance and her own suspicions.

"Me, what?"

His lips curved upward. His gaze fell to the notepad, the penlight and the pen she'd been juggling all evening, then jumped back to hers again.

"What's your name?"

"Sh-Shannon ... but, I"

“A round of applause for the lovely Shannon, our courageous volunteer."

He said it loudly, waving toward her with a flourish and a ripple of that shimmering cloak. The spotlight obeyed him, instantly dousing her in a pool of hot white brilliance that did nothing to chase away her ominous chill.

She squinted as the applause swelled. His hand closed on hers, big, warm, hard. He pulled, none too gently to her feet.

She gave her hand a tug, but his grip was as good as any pair of handcuffs ever invented. He pulled her along at his side. Her protests went unheard beneath the noise of the crowd and the accompanying music. He dragged her up the steps far to the right and onto the stage. She could either fight him and look like an idiot, or accept this fiasco with a modicum of grace. She decided on the latter, though she thought the vain bastard could use a good kick in his oversize ego.

He looked into her eyes, and again, his lips curved; It didn't go far enough to qualify as a smile. More like an "I know what you're thinking and find it amusing" kind of a look.

She glared at him, her mind exchanging his black eyes for Tawny's light brown ones wide open, glazed, forever blind.

His grip on her wrist eased. He frowned down at her and his hand slid down to clasp hers. They stopped center stage. Behind them, a red velvet curtain rose as silently as a ghost. Shannon glanced over her shoulder, saw a clear pane of glass balanced across the backs of two chairs.

"The lovely Shhannnon " he drew the consonants in her name out until it sounded like an incantation " is about to assist me in defying the very laws of nature... of Mother Earth..."

She told herself not to lose her anger to the ever-growing tide of uneasiness that could easily become fear. Killer or not, he couldn't very well hurt her right in front of thousands of onlookers. She stiffened her spine.

"If you think I'm letting you saw me in half, forget it," she rasped, teeth grated, mouth barely moving. She glanced sideways at him, saw the twitch in his lips, felt his hand tighten on hers.

"Of gravity itself," he went on.

He had a way of speaking that was utterly mesmerizing, each word enunciated slowly, his mouth seeming to caress every syllable before releasing it. It made you focus on his lips as he spoke, against your own will.

"This way. Shannon." Mist shot up from the floor, encircling their legs to twist and writhe in time with the erotic music, if music could be that.

Slow, sexy, with an urgent beat. He led her to the makeshift table, waved an arm over it, then, took her hand and guided her up a pair of wooden steps as the silken music swelled, his every movement in perfect synchronization with the beat.

"Lie down. Shannon. And prepare to be swept away."

She shivered a little, wondering if he spoke in those slow, measured tones all the time or only on stage. She lay back on the cool glass, her gaze never leaving his face. Even his breaths and the blinking of his eyes were grace epitomized, as if they, too, had been choreographed. He circled her once, one arm extended, cloak swirling as he moved. Then, with a flick of his fingers at his throat, he whipped the cloak from his shoulders, swung it outward, draped it over her. He drew it up from her feet, covering her right up to her chin.

The fabric was heaven, satin inside and out. She wanted to rub it against her cheek. The scent that invaded her mind was dusky and potent. Like nothing she'd smelled before.

His hand touched her forehead, sweeping downward. His fingertips closed her eyes. She stiffened, again thinking of Tawny.

"Relax, Shannon. Don't move. Let your muscles melt at my command. Break the bounds of earth. Free yourself from the constraints of gravity."

She sighed hard, blinking away the angry tears the image of her friend had brought to her eyes. Da mien Namtar knew how to put on a show, if nothing more. Of course, he wouldn't be the hottest magician in the world if he didn't. Da mien the Eternal. She'd have rolled her eyes if they'd been open. More like Da mien the Master of Optical Illusion. But maybe she'd learn something about him if she paid attention. Maybe she'd manage to stop thinking about Tawny long enough to find a hint of who'd killed her.

And how? For the love of God, how?

She focused her mind, lying still as he'd instructed. She didn't want to break this contraption and get dumped on the stage nothing happened. Shannon heard a collective gasp from the audience and opened one eye. Da mien stood near her feet, holding a chair in one outstretched hand. She frowned a little. The chair that had been propping up that end of the glass? But her body was still horizontal.

He set the chair down and walked to her head, pausing to lay that feather-light hand over her eyes again, closing them once more. She popped them right open again, though. She'd paid to see the damned show. She certainly couldn't see it with her eyes closed, and she wasn't about to miss what might turn out to be a clue.

He was standing at the head of the makeshift bed now, looking down at her face. He pursed his lips when he saw that her eyes were open, but she didn't close them again. His gaze grew intense, probing, piercing. He bent, and she knew he was pulling the other chair from beneath the sheet of glass. When he straightened he held the chair, whirled around and threw it off stage right.

When she could see him again he had a plastic hoop in one hand. He ran it over and under her, then around her body, back and forth to demonstrate no strings held her aloft.

The hoop was tossed aside, as well. He leaned over her face. "Concentrate with me now. Shannon. There is nothing to fear."

With a look of glee, he pulled the cloak over her head. That would teach her for not keeping her eyes closed, she imagined he was thinking.

She heard him mutter words in a language she didn't recognize. Then there was a strange sort of vibration. She felt the glass under her back move.

It slid to one side. She instinctively began to clutch it with her left hand, but his caught hers and held it still. Her chilled fingers, surrounded by his graceful, warm hand. She almost squeezed it, almost turned her palm to his and laced fingers with him. Weird notion. Luckily, he released her before she had time to follow through.

She felt the glass slip out from beneath her. The music faded as the beat of drums grew louder, faster. She remained where she was, lying in midair above the stage. How the hell-The cloak was moving now, satin rasping against the denim of her jeans as it slipped down her body. Da mien stood there, stark-white shirt opened at the collar to reveal a muscled column of throat. Gleaming dark curls showed on his chest. He stood a few feet behind her, arms outstretched, palms up, eyes closed as if in concentration. He had incredible lashes for a man.

In fact, everything about him was pretty incredible. Shannon knew Tawny better than anyone, and she had a feeling Tawny wouldn't have left the theater that night without at least offering. As he lifted his hands and the drums pounded frantically, Shannon seemed to rise on a cushion of air. She caught her breath. Higher and higher she floated, until she had to close her eyes to keep from getting dizzy.

Then she just stopped, far above his head. She dared a peek downward. He was staring up at her. He stepped forward. " To me. Shannon," he called loudly, firmly, in a deep voice that would be tough to argue with. Then he bent his elbows, snapped both fingers. The music stopped all at once. and she fell. It lasted an instant, the sensation of plummeting full-speed through space, the certainty that the landing was going to hurt like hell, the urge to scream out loud. She bit her lip. and landed in his arms.

She blinked in shock. He stared down at her, and his smile was just a bit fuller. His banded arms cradled her tight to his chest, and the sensation was alien to her. She thought she might be just a little closer to understanding Tawny's alley- cat morals after tonight. He lowered his head, touched her forehead with his lips. She was sure he'd burned a brand into her skin by the touch of his mouth. But that was stupid. It was the music, and the mist and the magic making her feel ripples of pleasure race up and down her spine. Not the touch of a man. Never the touch of a man.

The crowd's roar almost deafened her. He looked away from her, out toward the audience, and she followed his gaze. They were on their feet. every last one of them, and their cheers went on and on, vibrating right to the rafters.

But her attention strayed back to the man who held her. His strong profile, the elegant line of his jaw, the aquiline nose. And the light gathering brilliance somewhere deep within those jet eyes. He loved this.

He absorbed the adoration of the crowd the way the desert absorbs the rain. He was in sheer ecstasy. He almost glowed.

The curtain lowered in front of them and he set her on her feet. His hands caught her shoulders, turned her to one side and pushed gently.

"Offstage, Shannon. Watch from there." A stagehand hustled toward her and Da mien leaned over, whispering close to her ear, "You were wonderful." Then the short redhead gripped her arm and led her offstage. He pointed to a folding chair and ran out of sight, a clipboard clutched in one hand.

Shannon glanced back to see the heavy, rippling curtain rise as if weightless. Da mien stood center stage, fastening the ties that held the cloak at his throat. When the curtain stopped its spectral ascent, the crowd beyond it still stood, still cheered.

Sketching an elegant bow, he held his hands up for silence.

"Thank you. Thank you all. I'm afraid the fair Shannon won't be rejoining you. I've decided to have her for dinner."

Laughter rippled through the theater.

Da mien opened his arms to his sides, the edges of the cloak held in his hands.

"Farewell, my friends."

A drum roll pattered across her heart. The crowd went utterly still. He lowered one arm and swept the other over his face in typical Dracula style. He whirled in a circle, once, twice, faster, three times.

Cymbals smashed. The cloak fell, a satin puddle. He'd vanished. Shannon came to her feet, squinting, searching that shimmering black mound. She saw movement and frowned harder. What the hell was that little. The bat launched itself from its satin nest, fluttering wildly, swooping in crazy patterns before soaring out over the crowd. It dove low, eliciting shrieks of delighted horror, gasps of surprise. Then it turned and headed back to the stage. It angled left and flitted right past Shannon's face and out of sight.

The curtain fell again and the theater shook with applause.

The noise went on and on before it slowly died. She heard people in the crowd shifting, moving. The activity backstage increased. Shannon shook away the spell the magician had briefly cast over her, and looked around her. She had a mission, despite that his mystical illusions had made her lose track of it for a few minutes. She crossed her fingers and started off in what she hoped was the right direction. She wasn't finished with Da mien Namtar yet. She had questions and she wasn't leaving here until she got some answers.

A tap on her shoulder made her spin around, half expecting to see the magic man himself smirking at her. Instead it was the same red-haired man who'd led her offstage. Her purse dangled from one pudgy, freckle-smattered hand.

"Da mien said I should give this to you. Said all your stuffs inside."

"Thanks." She took it, her gaze busy looking beyond the man.

"Where is he?

I need to talk to him. "

"No chance of that. He's gone already."

"He's... gone?" She felt exactly like a balloon being slowly deflated.

"Long drive to that palace of his in Tigris. And it's raining."

"Palace?"

The redhead looked at the floor, shaking his head slow. "Like something' outta "Life-styles of the Richer-Than-I'llEver-Be." Know what I mean? "

She did. She'd seen the photos in the entertainment magazines, which couldn't get enough of the world-renowned, millionaire magician. Nor could his legion female fans. She tilted her head.

"I heard he was a recluse.

You'd think he would keep where he lives secret, keep the fans from hounding him. "

"Everybody knows about that place, but there's no danger of him being' hounded. He's got a security system like Fort Knox. Nobody could get in there."

"Nobody, huh?" She thumbed the strap of her bag over her shoulder and turned to go.

Da mien, Once again, I write you and hope for a response. And this time, I'll make an effort to explain my motives more completely, and perhaps ease your misgivings about me. I am a vampire, like you, and a scientist. I devote my time, over two centuries now, to the study of our kind, in an effort to better understand the peculiarities of our existence. Why are we here?

To what purpose? And also, in the hope of easing some of the less pleasant aspects of our lives. I study the Chosen, as well, those humans with whom we share an inexplicable psychic link. Those we're drawn to, and whom we instinctively try to protect.

Those who can be transformed, and who have the same elusive antigen in their blood as all of us had at one time. My studies have yielded a great deal of information. But I crave more.

You, Da mien, I've been told, are the most powerful, the most ancient of us still in existence. You're said to have abilities beyond those of younger immortals, and I've no doubt your wisdom exceeds ours, as well. I wish only to meet with you, talk to you, learn from your vast aeons of immortality.

Your wisdom could benefit us all, Da mien. I should like, very much, to be your friend.

Yours in darkness, Eric Marquand Da mien crumpled the letter with its formally patterned sentences that, in his opinion, made it clear to anyone who cared that the author wasn't from this time, and tossed it into the cold ashes of his modern, marble hearth.

This Marquand ought to learn to sound as if he belonged here and now.

Da mien had always thought that was the most important part of fitting into any culture--sounding as if you belonged. No sense drawing attention to yourself.

He grimaced, remembering the last line of the note: / should like, very much, to be your friend. Friend. The word disgusted him. He didn't want or need to be anyone's friend. He'd lived through that debilitating pain once, and didn't have the slightest urge to repeat it.

This Eric Marquand, this infant of an immortal, this vampire who called himself a scientist, wouldn't learn much from him, anyway. Marquand had probably gained more knowledge about the un dead in his mere two hundred years of existence than Da mien had in almost six thousand. Da mien had existed in solitude. He wanted no contact with others of his kind, and most of all, no contact with the Chosen.

The Chosen. They scared the hell out of him. This irresistible instinct he knew all vampires felt, to watch over them, to care for them--it shook him to the bone. It threatened his solitary life. He didn't want to care for anyone. Not ever again. The only way to avoid the mental tug of those rare humans was to avoid them, and that was exactly what Da mien had always managed to do.

That is, until tonight.

He'd sensed her presence in the audience from the second he'd stepped onto the stage. He'd felt her there, and there'd been that pull, magnetic, powerful. Some demon inside had urged him to see her, talk to her, touch her and feel the power snap between' them. He'd felt that urge before, when he'd chanced to cross paths with one of them. He'd always been able to resist it.

Not this time, though. He'd wanted to touch her, and he had.

Maybe a little too much. Da mien deliberately kept his mind closed, like pulling shutters tight over a window. He didn't want or need to open himself to the thoughts and feelings of others. He didn't care about them, wasn't the least bit curious. But tonight, in the brief moments of physical contact with the woman, he'd felt an avalanche of emotions pouring from her mind to his, emotions so powerful they'd shaken him. He'd felt her pain, her anger.

Most of all, her grief. Anu, for a second he hadn't been sure if it was hers or his own, resurfacing to cripple him one more time. It was so similar.

The ancient instinct to make things better for her had leapt to life, forced itself to the front of his mind. He'd doused that blazing urge with an act of will, and made a greater effort to shut her out. But it had been close.

It had been too damned close.

He'd need to be more careful from now on. And he'd most definitely need to avoid any more contact with this particular woman, who affected him the way no one ever had.

She wore a black spandex body suit and leggings. A black nylon face mask, taken from a Cat Woman costume she'd bought one Halloween, covered her face.

Only her eyes and mouth showed. The thin gloves that covered her hands were black, too, as were the lightweight tennis shoes on her feet.

She even wore black nylons so her ankles wouldn't stand out in the darkness.

She'd given the man a chance. She'd phoned his house three times. He'd answered the first time, and as soon as she'd told him who was calling, he'd barked at her not to bother him and hung up on her. It had been busy ever since, and she suspected the hermit had taken it off the hook. Fine.

He wanted to do this the hard way, then she'd oblige him. Hell, she had nothing to lose. His refusal to talk to her was a roadblock. She wanted to find out who'd killed her best friend and how. This guy was effectively stopping her in her tracks. Too much like being controlled. Too much like letting someone else pull the strings that ran her life. There wasn't much that could make her angrier, more defensive, more ready to do battle. The last time anyone had controlled her life, she'd been sixteen years old, and the results were not pretty. It hadn't happened again.

She scanned the big hulk of black that was his mansion, and wondered what was so great about this setup, anyway. No motion detector on the fence that surrounded the place. Just an alarm that would sound if the locked gate were tampered with, and a couple of surveillance cameras mounted up top. "Big, fat, hairy deal," she muttered.

She slipped the coiled rope from her shoulder, tossed the grappling hook to the tree limb that hung right over the fence--how could Mister Security have missed that? --and climbed up. Walking farther out on the sturdy limb, she attached the hook again, and lowered herself to the ground inside the fence.

Simple. A kid could break into this place.

Two spotlights came on, aimed right at her. She hit the dirt facedown, her heart thudding in her chest like a jackhammer. Damn!

The lights remained on for several seconds before going out once more. So there were motion detectors. Anything moved within their range and those damned lights would come on again, giving her away if they hadn't already.

Okay, think.

The sensor had to be aimed at the movement in order for it to work. She was assuming it wasn't aimed right at ground level or the lights would snap on with every rabbit or field mouse or stray leaf that blew past.

Okay. It was worth a shot. She hadn't heard a sound from the house so far, so maybe magic man was asleep.

She slithered toward the house on her belly. She hadn't had much of a look at it yet, in this gloomy darkness. She knew only that it was huge, and utterly dark. Not a light glowing from a single window.

She'd try the door first not that she expected to find it unlocked, but there might be a doggy door or something she could crawl through. As long as there wasn't a doggy to go with it. She crossed her fingers and humped her way up the broad flagstone steps like an overgrown inchworm.

When the door was right in front of her face, it slowly opened, and her vision was filled with a pair of calf-hugging black boots.

CHAPTER TWO

What, exactly, are you doing here. Shannon? "

His anger vibrated in those low, measured tones, but seemed to be held in rigid control. She opened her mouth to answer, still staring straight ahead at his gleaming skintight boots. No words came out.

' "Much as I might fantasize about the implications of your present position, I think you ought to get up now."

She did, quickly, and she felt her face heating beneath the mask.

That's right, the mask. How the hell did he know it was me?

She tugged it off and glared at him.

"Look, I tried to talk to you at the theater, but you left. When I called, you hung up. You really didn't leave me much choice" -- "The choice I left you with was to leave me alone."

His dark eyes burned with some inner fire. Black fire. Dark light. How was that possible? She blinked and shook herself. The wind picked up a little, and it made a deep moaning sound when it passed through the branches of the big oak tree. Perfect October night wind. She faced him, and tried to ignore the shiver of apprehension. How could a man as attractive as this one make her feel so afraid? nothing scared her. Not even death. Not that she'd admit it, anyway. She couldn't afford to, in her present condition.

"I'm afraid I can't leave you alone."

"Why not?"

"Let me in and I'll tell you." She watched his face, and knew when he didn't refuse that he was wavering.

"It's important."

"It must be." He glanced down over her attire as he said it, and his sarcasm couldn't be missed. Just when her chin rose and a few choice set-downs jumped to her lips, he nodded once and stepped aside.

"Ten minutes. Shannon. Then you either leave on your own or I call animal control."

She sauntered past him, feeling triumphant, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Who do you think they'd pick up? Cat Woman or Batman?"

He grimaced, as if her little joke had been so bad it was painful, but he couldn't hide the twitch at the corners of his lips. She wondered, for a second, why he'd want to. Then she turned to see where she was going, and all her thoughts stampeded from her mind like cattle from a burning barn.

The short hall she'd traversed opened into a circular room that would put the Oval Office to shame. Black marble fireplace with two arched openings.

One for the fire and the other to hold the neatly stacked logs. The mantel stretched the length of it, and was littered with artsy objects encased in clear-glass cubes of varying sizes. The floor gleamed, the same swirling black marble as the hearth, accented here and there with colorful Turkish rugs. Their patterns were wild, order less, vivid. Were those black eyes peering up at her from behind swirls of scarlet and gold? God, these things, with their braided tassels and secret meanings, could pass for Aladdin's magic carpet. One lay near the fireplace, all but invisible under a mound of pillows. Round, square, oval, satin, silk, velvet, blacks and reds and golds.

A chaise lounge the color of goldenrod, and big enough to hold a crowd, held court to one side of the fireplace. Its shimmery fabric would glow with the firelight when there was a fire. There was a couch, but it wasn't really.

It had no back. The plump red cushions angled upward at either end, curving over scrolled wooden arms. Long strands of red fringe hung to the floor all the way around it. The wooden legs and trim were engraved with obscure shapes and symbols.

She blinked and gave her head a shake.

' "Not what you expected?"

It was as though an icy wind had just blown over her, the way she shivered.

But it wasn't an icy wind. It was a warm breath, and four simple words spoken softly, close to her nape.

She drew a breath, closed her eyes, calmed herself. She wouldn't let the man's mystic demeanor shake her. After all, it was only part of the act. A persona he put on and took off like the satin cloak he wore. An image. He took it further than she'd anticipated, but that wasn't proof he'd taken it to the ultimate extreme. Was it?

"Perfect setting to keep the image intact, Da mien." She continued scanning.

There were two wide, arched doorways, at ten o'clock and two o'clock if the fireplace was noon. Neither of them had a door. Instead they were draped with countless strings of beads that looked like onyx.

"Although," she went on, trying to keep the amazement from her voice as she found one wondrous item after another, "I don't know why you bother.

I was told few people ever get past the front gate. So, who are you trying to impress? "

"The room is for me. I like it this way."

The walls and high ceiling were plastered, their surfaces rough, like stucco, and slightly yellowed, as if very old, although she was sure they were new.

The lights were recessed into the walls, with half circles of intricate plaster work shading them from below. The effect was a muted glow that seemed to emanate naturally from above.

She stepped closer to the mantel, eyes widening as she looked more closely at the items within the glass cubes. Small figures of bearded, almond-eyed men.

What looked like a billy goat standing on its hind legs, apparently plated in gold. A chipped piece of pottery shaped like a glass, with animals and designs painted in dulling colors and perfect symmetry. An uneven, rather rectangular hunk of stone with line after line of tiny, detailed marks.

Writing?

"Are these things as old as they look?"

"That depends on how old they look."

She faced him, frowning.

"They're artifacts, aren't they? You collect them. But where do you find things like this, in some pharaoh's tomb?"

"Nice guess. Try a bit earlier and a little farther south." She bit her lip, racking her brain, but he cut her off.

"It doesn't make any difference. Shannon. I've given you ten minutes, and you've wasted the first three gawking at my living room. Are you going to tell me what it is that drove you to dress in that ridiculous outfit and break in?"

Her anger returned, and with it, her awareness of why she was here.

"You think it's some silly thing, don't you? That I'm an obsessed fan and all I want is an autograph or a souvenir of Da mien the Eternal."

He tilted his head to one side, crossing his arms over his chest as if waiting patiently for her to get to the point. It was infuriating. She unzipped the small fanny pack that was snapped around her hips. The manila envelope she pulled out wasn't sealed.

"How often do you do that levitation routine, using an audience member as a volunteer, Da mien?"

His gaze dipped to the envelope, then met hers again.

"It's new. Tonight was only the third time I've done it. I like to keep the act varied."

"This was the third time," she repeated.

"Do you happen to remember your volunteer last week?" She pulled out the photos, not giving him time to answer. She kept her eyes on his, careful not to glance down at the pictures she held out to him. She'd seen them too many times already.

He looked at her for a long moment, brows creasing. She saw some kind of war going on in those glittering black eyes. When he took the stack, his fingertips brushed over hers and she shivered. She turned away from him, paced to the piece of furniture that looked like Cleopatra's bed and sat down.

She refused to look at him. She gazed, instead, into the cold hearth, noticed the crumpled bit of paper there, wondered what- was on it and whether he'd leave the room long enough for her to get a look.

She never heard him approach, so it shocked her when his hand closed around her wrist and he jerked her to her feet. His grip was like iron, and he glared down at her with a fire in his eyes that was potent, and dangerous.

"What in hell is this garbage?" His other hand clutched the photographs.

Fear should have taken over. That it didn't wasn't on account of her unshakable courage. More that she had nothing to lose. nothing at all.

What was the worst he could do to her? Kill her? So he'd beat the disease to the punch. Big deal. It was laughable.

"Don't you recognize her, Da mien? I'll admit, it's tough with her skin white as candle wax and her eyes glazed over like that. Still, her hair is the same. Tangled, but basically the same. She was an actress, you know.

At least, she wanted to be. "

His grip tightened.

"What kind of sick prank are you trying to" -- "You do remember her. Good.

It's no prank, Da mien. Tawny Keller is dead.

She died in her bed, a few hours after she performed for the last time, as your audience volunteer. "

His gaze narrowed. His grip on her arm eased, then his hand fell away. He turned slightly, shook his head.

Shannon reached into the fanny pack again, pulling out several stapled-together pages.

"Don't believe it, huh? Well, try this, then." She thrust the papers under his nose.

"Medical examiner's report, autopsy results."

His gaze rose to hers again. Anguished. She had the brief sense that he was bleeding inside, but it vanished as fast as it came.

"How did you get these things? Are you a cop?"

She squared her shoulders.

"Not a cop, a PI." He hadn't taken the papers, so she tossed them aside.

They spread their pages like wings and fluttered to the floor. Silence stretched tight between Da mien and her. She didn't want to live it again, didn't want to feel it again.

"I found the body."

The memory rushed over her, even though she fought it with everything she had. Pounding on Tawny's door. Worried because she hadn't answered the phone, and they always talked first thing in the morning. The door hadn't even been locked. God, she was careless!

Shannon felt a cold hand grip her heart as she recalled walking in, calling, hearing no answer. But she'd known, she'd felt that dread even before she'd entered the bedroom and seen what no one should ever have to see.

She turned to hide the pain from him and paced away. "They're keeping the whole thing quiet. There'd be a circus if the apparent cause of death leaked to the press. But I saw her. I knew. I traded my silence for the photos, the reports. I've worked with this ME before, and he's a stickler for the rule book. He wouldn't have let me have these things if I'd given him a choice." She stared into the darkened fireplace, battling tears and eventually winning.

"They threatened to pull my license if I got involved in this, but I don't really give a damn. She was my best friend." , He cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry." He'd moved closer to her, stood right behind her now. He must walk like a cat.

"But I still don't see" -- She whirled on him, poking his wide chest with a forefinger.

"Don't you? She bled to death, Da mien. And the only injuries found on her entire body were those two little marks on her throat. You tell me how the hell anyone could do that to her, and then you tell me who you'd suspect if you were in my shoes."

He closed his eyes as if he were in some kind of physical pain and turned slowly away from her.

"It's impossible. There had to be some other injury, or " "Read the damned autopsy report if you don't believe me. The cause of death is listed as extreme blood loss. They can't explain it. If this were an upstanding citizen instead of a hooker-slash-actress, they'd be probably call the FBI."

She closed her eyes.

"But it was just Tawny. Just some nobody who grew up on the streets and did what she had to do to survive. Just my best friend since I was sixteen years old. I'd have never lived to see seventeen if it hadn't been for her."

He said nothing, only stood with his back to her, one hand shielding his eyes.

"The police think I'm crazy. They say there's no evidence to point to you.

But I'm not crazy. I'm good at what I do, and right now the only goal in my short, miserable life is to get to the bottom of this. " She sniffed, and tried to erase the waver from her voice.

"I'm trying to track down the woman who volunteered to be your assistant the week before Tawny did.

Rosalie Mason. But you know something, Da mien? I'm not having much luck.

And my gut tells me I'm not gonna find her, or if I do, she won't be in any shape to tell me a thing. "

She heard his slow, long sigh.

"So, you came here to accuse me of murder.

You've done that. Maybe you ought to leave now. "

"Rosalie was a prostitute, too, you know." She paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, ignoring his words, going a little faster with every lap.

"She attended the show that night with a John. No one's reported her missing. No one wants to talk to the cops about where she might be. They're ignoring the fact that she just isn't around anymore, because no one cared.

But it's different with Tawny.

Someone cared about her. And I'm not letting this go. "

"Go home. Shannon."

His form appeared in front of her, stopping her pattern. She stared up at him.

"So, which is it, Da mien? Are you insane enough to believe you really are what you pretend to be on stage? Or is this just a publicity stunt? A few vampire killings while you're in town to entice the populace. Oughtta work wonders at the box office." Her brows drew closer as she studied him.

"How much did Tawny suffer before you killed her, Da mien? Just how the hell did you do that to her?"

His anger pounded down at her like a physical force. " " What do you think?

"

If his tone and his threatening stance were supposed to intimidate her into cowering silence, it didn't work. She thrust her chin up and held his gaze.

"7 think this is a pattern. And if I'm right and it holds true, then I'm next in line, aren't I? I'll know for sure, then. And you know something, Da mien? I almost hope you do come for me. Because I'll be waiting."

She felt his rage. It seemed to zap and spark in the very air between them.

If it did, then it must be wrestling with her own, because she was furious.

He hadn't denied a thing.

"Oh, will you?"

"You're damn right I will, and you'd better take me out on the first try, because I won't hesitate. And I never miss."

"Going to shoot me, are you?"

"Blow your head right off your shoulders. I don't know how many other girls you've left lying dead in your wake, but you messed with the wrong one this time. Tawny was my best friend in this world. It ends here. So give it your best shot, magic man.

It's gonna be your last one. "

She turned away from him, started for the front door, but his hand shot out to grip her arm and he twisted her around to face him again.

"You're not going anywhere."

Her eyes widened, eyes the exact color of very old amber. He felt the rush of dread that passed through her. But she didn't show it, didn't cower or even lower her head. Her golden blond hair framed her face so she looked like an angel. At the moment, a fiercely angry, avenging angel. He opened his mind, deliberately opened it, for the first time in aeons, The bombardment stunned him. He released her, his hands automatically pressing to his temples at the force of all that hit him. Voices, thoughts, emotions, sensations. Thousands upon thousands, pummeling him all at once.

Too much. Too many.

He closed his eyes, took a staggering step backward. The noise of countless voices pierced his eardrums. Feelings of pain, pleasure, heat, cold, sickness, exertion, trampled over his body until it vibrated as if electrified. Visions flashed in front of his eyes, blinding him. A thousand scents assailed him, a thousand tastes coated his mouth before he managed to block them out, slamming the door of his mind like the lid of a casket.

Closing it, sealing it.

For the love of In anna! It had been so long since he'd attempted to receive the sensations of others. he'd grown in powerin strength, in the ability to do the trick, and at the same time, neglected the taming of his own abilities. He'd need to work on it, relearn the ways to filtering the vibrations, to home in only on the mind in question.

Which, at the moment, was hers.

He opened his eyes, blinking the room into focus. He was alone. He turned to stare down the short hallway. The door stood wide, with only the night beyond it.

Gone. As if she'd never been there.

Da mien closed the door and stood for a moment, still trembling with the aftereffects of the blow he'd just taken. He made himself move back into his comfort room. The haven he'd created for himself. The place he felt the most relaxed. The sunken eyes of the dead woman stared up at him from photos scattered over gleaming black marble floor. The marks on her lily-white throat seemed to taunt, to laugh at him.

You think yourself the enemy of death, Da mien? You think wrong. I've won at last, you see? You've surrendered. I own you now.

He lunged forward, snatching the horrible pictures from the floor, falling to his knees in front of the hearth, throwing them down on top of the cold ashes.

"I didn't kill her." The words came as if on their own, in a harsh whisper.

The face of the once-beautiful young actress stared at him, accusation screaming from the silent depths of her sightless eyes. He focused the beam of his thoughts, and the photo burst into flames. Red orange tongues danced and licked, spreading to the other photos in the hearth and then to the letter he'd thrown there earlier. Da mien watched them burn and wondered what more he could have done to prevent this.

The thirst--the damned need--had grown stronger with every year he'd lived.

It raged now like the Bull of Heaven, sent down to wreak the vengeance of the gods on mankind. It was impossible to deny, or to deprive the hunger.

Animals no longer sufficed. The cold plastic liquid stolen from blood banks couldn't fill his burning need. He couldn't ignore it.

He'd tried. In fact, he'd made it a ritual of self-torment. Whenever the hunger came, he refused to feed, fought the bloodlust, resisted it until it became all powerful. He'd thought that by resisting it, he'd be the one to grow stronger. It hadn't worked out that way, though. Every time he tried, the lust raged more potent in his veins, until every cell of him screamed for the elixir, until his mind left the realm of his control and he hunted, swathed in a blood red haze of mindless need.

And even then, he'd thought he'd kept a modicum of restraint. He'd fed only in sips, and only from those women who'd hounded his steps after a performance. The groupies. The ones who slipped uninvited into his dressing room, baring pretty necks and offering themselves to him, sometimes begging him to take them.

Fantasies, he knew. And he'd laugh off their offers, only to appear in their bedrooms--in their dreams--a few hours later. There, twined in their warm, mortal arms, he could sate his roaring lust. And by his simple command, these willing victims would remember the entire exchange as an erotic, plea- sure-filled dream. As they drew their first breaths; bathed in sunlight, the marks on their throats would begin to heal. If they noticed the wounds at all, they'd remember a minor accident to explain them. One that had never happened. He thought he'd been so careful. Always leaving them asleep, looking utterly tranquil and contented, having gained as much satisfaction from the exchange as he had.

Had he gone too far? Had that desire inside him overwhelmed him to the point that he'd drained one of them and not even been aware of it? Could it?

That's right, Da mien. I've won. You've not only surrendered, you've joined my army. Joined it alongside sickness and war and famine. One of my horsemen now, Da mien. An instrument of death.

He moaned in agony and folded his arms around his middle. No one despised the shadow of death more than Da mien. No one. Death was his enemy. His greatest foe. If he'd reached the point where feeding his own demon meant feeding death another victim, then he'd end his existence tomorrow. He'd walk naked into the sunrise. He'd. No.

He straightened his body and stared into the blackened remains of the photos in the hearth. Red still glowed around the edges of the letter, and bits of white showed amid the charred paper. Before he did anything, he needed to learn the truth. If he'd killed, if indeed he had taken a life, then he deserved to surrender his own.

But if not, then there was someone else.

He paced the floor, deep in thought. Someone who, perhaps, wanted the world to believe Da mien was guilty.

His steps stopped near the first archway. Someone who was doing it by preying on the women whose blood he'd tasted?

No, how could anyone know that? He would have been aware if anyone had seen him, wouldn't he?

Preying on the women who'd assisted him on stage, then?

His gaze flew to the spot where he'd last seen Shannon.

If he didn't go after her, watch over her, and his theory was on target, her life might very well end tonight.

If he did go after her, as his every instinct was screaming at him to do, and his greatest fears were true. her precious life might end anyway.

Anu, how could he risk killing someone he wanted only to protect? How could he risk his need for solitude by giving in to the urge to protect her, when his mind was telling him to run in the opposite direction?

What the hell was he going to do?

CHAPTER THREE

1 he raven soared into the night, its glistening blue black wings spread as it rode the wind, spiraling upward, ever upward. Then, folding those gleaming wings to itself, it dove at dizzying speeds, until anyone watching would have caught his breath in alarm, fully expecting to witness the death of a once- graceful bird. Instead, though, the wings unfurled.

The bird slowed, arched upward and, with gentle flapping, alighted upon the rail of a balcony on the twenty-third story.

She slammed the apartment door, turned the lock, shot the dead bolt, fastened the chain. Breathless, she leaned back against the door, closed her eyes.

The courage, the defiance, had been flawless right up until he'd grabbed her and told her she wasn't leaving. At that moment, with that iron manacle of a hand gripping her arm, those cold, sure words hanging in the air and those unnaturally gleaming, jewel black eyes holding her captive, she'd felt pure, undiluted panic.

Instantly his image flashed into her mind, a snapshot of the way he'd looked at that moment. What had happened to him? He'd released her all of the sudden, his hands going to his head as if it were splitting in two.

His eyes squeezed shut tight in apparent pain.

And she'd run like a rabbit.

She'd climbed over the fence to make her escape, no longer caring how many alarms she set off. Her rope and grappling hook still hung from the monster of an oak tree out front. Her Cat Woman hood probably still lay on his front step. She'd forgotten the photos of Tawny and the autopsy report. She'd forgotten everything except that she didn't want to die. When he'd grabbed her arm and told her she wasn't leaving, she'd thought she was about to.

She squeezed her eyes tighter to prevent the stupid tears that tried to leak through, and shook her head at the bitter irony. Her, running from death.

Her, not wan ting to die. God, what a joke! Not for the first time, she heard herself cursing fate for its idiotic mistake in choosing Tawny as the victim of this sick killer's whim. It should have been Shannon.

Tawny had a future, a life waiting for her. A career. She'd have made it happen, too. Shannon knew she would have. She had a way of willing things to go the way she wanted. Shannon swore and swept a hand over her damp eyes.

shouldn 't have been Tawny. It should have been me. God, why wasn't it me?

At least one of us could have gone on, lived, maybe had a family someday.

Blinking, she crawled out of the self-pitying puddle she'd stepped into.

If she didn't get herself together, it would be her. And it would end any chance she had of bringing Tawny's killer down before her time on this planet ran out. If he was coming for her, it would probably be tonight.

Tawny had died the same night she'd volunteered as his assistant. And as far as she could tell, the other woman, Rosalie, hadn't been seen since the night she'd taken her turn in the spotlight. So he would probably come tonight.

Probably pretty soon.

She was tired. Damn, but she was tired.

Shannon dipped her hand into the fanny pack for the stubby . 38 revolver.

It had been with her the whole time she'd been at Da mien's. She'd never really been in any danger. She could have dropped to one knee, pulled out the little black handgun and pumped all six rounds into him in under three seconds. Sure, it would've been tough to prove self-defense, when she'd broken into his house and he'd been unarmed. So, she'd have done some time.

Not a hell of a lot, though.

She took the gun into the bathroom with her, set it on the little sand-colored counter that surrounded the shell-shaped coral basin. Within easy reach. No one was going to sneak up on her. Not even someone who walked as quietly as he did.

She stripped off her clothes, quickly and not too neatly, tossing them and leaving them where they landed. Then she stepped beneath the hot, pounding spray and just let it soothe her aching muscles. God, it would be good to take a break from all of this. Relax with a good book, or a bowl of popcorn and an old Bogart movie. Jump in the car that often cost her her grocery money and head south until she hit sand and sun, and just bask for a while.

But she knew she couldn't. Not now. She'd set the wheels in motion and she had to see things through to the end. There wasn't a lot of time. She was all too aware of that.

Even with Tawny's death and all its repercussions, all the questions screaming for answers. Shannon still couldn't stop her mind from wandering where she least wanted it to go.

Da mien Namtar.

The image of him floated into her brain again, damn him. He was a murder suspect. Not to the police, granted. But in her mind he was. Right now he was the only suspect. So she shouldn't think about the odd awareness she felt around him, the prickling sensations that encompassed her, the palpable touch of those eyes.

"Physical distractions," she muttered, and tipped her head back to let the hot water drench her hair. She inhaled the moist steam, hoping it would put some sense into her head. He was utterly handsome, in a dark, exotic kind of way. Add to that the fact that his performances were always loaded with sexual innuendo, and it was no wonder her libido was responding this way.

Or was it? She'd thought herself immune to sexual desire. She'd had little experience; the clumsy, drunken gropings of the man who was supposed to be her guardian, the foster parent she'd been sent to when she was sixteen.

She'd had no choice about going to live there. Orphans, abandoned children didn't have a hell of a lot of choices, and God knows she'd had none to speak of up to that point in her life.

Certainly no choice over what that bastard had tried to do to her.

From that day on, though, the choices had been all hers. No one had ever told her what to do again. No one ever would.

Only one good thing had come out of that time in her life, and that was that she'd met Tawny. They'd been sent to the same foster home, from different orphanages. They'd suffered the same abuse, albeit for a short time. They'd fled before the bastard's attempts could lead to the ultimate violation.

They'd had little choice. Neither Shannon nor Tawny had trusted authority enough to turn him in then. Whom would they have told? The same pencil pushers who'd sent them to him? And where' would they be sent next?

Someplace worse?

Later, Shannon had written a letter to the social worker, recounted everything, even signed her name--but she hadn't told them where to find her.

She couldn't risk losing control of her own life again.

The results of their brief stay with that man had been totally different.

For Tawny, there was no more respect for her body. It became a means to an end, and she used it that way, laughing inwardly at the men foolish enough to pay her for something they could get at home free. Idiots, she'd called them. If they were dumb enough to hand over their hard-earned cash, that was their problem. She'd always said the Johns didn't know it, but they were the ones being used.

For Shannon, it was different. She'd made up her mind that she would never want to be touched by a man. Never. She couldn't even think of sex without remembering the disgust, the humiliation, the stench of his breath. How could closeness with any man ever bring her pleasure? She'd shunned Tawny's methods of survival, taken a menial job cleaning hotel rooms, instead.

It had been a long time, though. And for some reason, she wasn't recalling all that revulsion when she thought of Da- when. She probably should be.

She sighed and tried to put him out of her mind, but she couldn't. She remembered his performance tonight. Scantily dressed beauties running their hands up and down his body to some frantic jungle beat as he prepared to perform the next feat, seductively touching and caressing him as they fastened chains around him for an escape trick. It was little wonder he had groupies throwing themselves at him. Little wonder he seemed to exude some mystical allure to her. He probably had the same effect on most women, which surely accounted for the gossip she'd read in the fan magazines about the ones who were constantly offering to take him to bed after a show.

The question of the hour was, did he murder them after obliging them? Had Tawny been taken in by his sex appeal and offered herself as others did?

It was something Tawny wouldn't have hesitated to do. Was that why he'd killed her?

Or maybe the opposite was true. It might be the ones who seemed indifferent to him that suffered the ultimate punishment. Maybe Tawny had turned him down. Maybe that was why he'd killed her.

But why do it in such a grisly way? And how? How the hell do you drain the blood out of someone, leaving only two tiny wounds in her neck? How do you do it without a drop of blood spilling on the sheets, or the pillows the person is lying on? What the hell do you do with it after you've taken it?

She lathered her body, rinsed it, washed her hair, and still felt no closer to knowing what had happened to her friend.

There had been precious few other cases demanding her attention. She'd referred them to larger investigations firms, hating to have to give away business when she'd fought so long and so hard to get established. But this took precedence, and besides, she wasn't exactly saving up for retirement. It wasn't as if she was going to be spending much money. All she needed was enough for the next few car payments, and another month or two's rent, if that. She wouldn't be taking on any new cases. She kept the office open only for her own case now. And when she found Tawny's killer, she'd close it for good.

She intended to focus solely on Tawny's murder from here on. She couldn't afford a single distraction. She would use every second of the time she had left to-Dizziness swamped her and she reached out blindly, clutching the shower curtain to keep from falling. She let her body rest against the cool, wet tiles of the shower stall, held her head with one hand and shut the water off with the other. She waited for the vertigo to pass, but it didn't.

Damn! Why now? Why the hell now?

She groped for a towel, twisted it around her and staggered out of the shower, pausing only to clumsily pick up her gun before continuing through to the living room. She had to get to bed, had to lie down, rest until it passed. It would pass. It always did. God willing, the bastard wouldn't show up to kill her before it ran its course.

She needed the bed, and she fought to keep her balance until she got there.

She had to huddle into the blankets, because the chills would come next. And then she'd shiver and shake and run a fever until they finished with her.

They usually lasted only an hour or so. But they'd been coming more frequently lately. Her body's little alarm clock, reminding her every so often that time was nearly up.

She made it just to the doorway of the bedroom before she collapsed. She felt her legs melt from her ankles to her hips, and then the floor rose up to greet her. She pulled her arms under her to push herself up, but they'd become useless, heavy, nearly impossible to move.

The shaking kicked in. Her body jerked with the chills, and she could hear her own teeth chattering. God, she was so cold. She felt the goose bumps rising on her arms and legs. If she could just get to the bed. She'd always had time to make it to the bed. The damned episodes were hitting faster, harder, than before, she realized, as well as more often. She didn't want to think about what that meant.

But why the hell did it have to happen tonight?

Concentrating fiercely, she managed to tighten her hand around the gun, though the effort cost her. She broke into a cold sweat, fought to catch her breath. She couldn't lose the gun. She had to cling to it in case he came for her. He'd kill her if he found her defenseless like this. God, she hated being helpless, weak, not in control of her own body. She focused on the feel of the cold wood grips in her hand, made herself feel the trigger, kept her mind on where the barrel was pointed, even as she strained to make her arms function and struggled to pull her shuddering body across the floor.

Every muscle in her throbbed and ached in protest, burned with an unseen fire. Then the damned convulsions tried to tear them from the bone.

Someone bent over her, lifted her, and a familiar scent invaded her awareness. Dusky. Subtle. Somehow erotic. The arms around her, the chest against her, felt familiar and warm and hard. She forced her eyes open, tried to focus her vision, but saw only a blurred outline. It didn't matter.

She knew perfectly well who held her, who carried her across the room and lowered her to the bed. Covers were tugged over her, tucked tightly around her. The electric blanket she'd so recently purchased for just this kind of occasion was plugged in, turned on. She knew, because she felt it begin to heat her chilled skin. He gently worked the gun out of her trembling hand and set it aside. His hands, those big, hard, magic hands with their long, elegant fingers, pushed her hair away from her face.

"Do you want me to call an ambulance. Shannon?"

She heard the words, heard that soft voice, which had been harsh the last time he'd spoken to her. It was still like velvet music on her ears, but so gruff now. So hesitant.

She tried to form an answer, gave up and shook her head, instead. Even that small effort took every ounce of energy she could summon.

"Your family, then?"

"N-noo. There's ... no one."

"What is it? What's wrong with you?" The low, level timbre of his voice seemed to have deserted him. He spoke quietly, as if he might hurt her ears if he used his normal tone. She felt the strength of his hands on her shoulders. The warmth, of them. The pressure of each fingertip, pressing urgently into her flesh.

Fear tried to make itself heard in her mind, but there was too much else there in the way. She knew, somehow, that she ought to be afraid of him right now, but she wasn't. And it had to be because of the illness. It must be dulling her intellect, or she'd be scared to death.

The electric blanket's heat seeped a little more deeply into her body. The shaking slowed. The chills eased, just a bit, but left that aching that made her feel as if a steamroller had just mowed her down. She felt his weight leave the bed, heard his steps.

God, she was so groggy when these spells came. Why hadn't he killed her yet?

Where was her gun? Why wasn't she screaming for help, or reaching for the phone or dragging herself to the door?

He returned, the bed sinking when he sat on its edge. Pills touched her lips. Then cool water. She swallowed as he held her head up, his long fingers curled around the back of her neck, threading up into her hair.

"Ibuprofen," he told her.

"For the pain and the fever."

She nodded. He lowered her to the pillow again. The shaking eased further.

"Better?"

Her eyes could not stay open, no matter how she strained to look at him, to see what he was thinking, what he'd do next, whether there was murder in his jewel black eyes.

"You care to tell me how you planned to take on a crazed killer in this kind of shape?"

He sounded angry. She wondered why.

"Did-didn't ... plan this."

"Is it better? Is it easing?"

She started to fall asleep, only to feel his hands tighten on her shoulders and lift her from the pillows.

"Tell me!"

Her eyes flew wide. Here it was, her fogged mind told her. The end. And they'd find her in the morning the way she'd found Tawny. Drained of her blood, lily-white, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Dying of one of these attacks didn't seem so terrible when she considered the alternative.

She had to do something. She focused her mind, the strength of every muscle, into one small act to save herself. One all but limp hand swung outward, toward the nightstand. That was where he'd put her gun, wasn't it? She connected with the lamp and heard it crash to the floor.

He stilled, then gently lowered her back down to the pillows. Her vision was clearing. She saw his black eyes search her face, saw him reach out.

Then his hand was pressing something hard and cold into hers.

"This what you're after?"

She closed her fist around the cool wood grips, breathed again.

He pushed a hand through his dark hair.

"Keep it, if it will ease your mind. Shannon. But I didn't come here to kill you."

She drew the handgun close to her chest, covered it with her other hand, relaxed a little. The barrel pointed in his general direction. Her finger just barely touched the trigger. Her eyelids drooped. She popped them open again.

"It is getting better, isn't it?"

She nodded.

"What... why are you here?" Her voice was slurred, as if she'd been drinking.

"If you d-didn't come to kill me, then why..." Her lids tried to close. She fought to keep them open. It was getting harder.

He smiled a little.

"You can barely stay awake. It's all right, Shannon.

Sleep a while. "

"No. Not... until you... you leave..." She licked her lips, forced her gaze to fix on him, to get her message across.

"Get the hell out."

Da mien had seen her eyes spit golden fire at him. And for just a second she'd reminded him of his oldest friend, the only man who'd ever had the nerve to stand up to him, and he smiled.

She was afraid, but she had the courage of In anna. She saw him as a demon, but she challenged him to battle. Much as he'd once done. She was like him.

And like Enkidu.

Da mien licked his lips, hearing the ragged, shallow way she breathed as her body surrendered to sleep's unstoppable invasion.

The demon he'd once sought to vanquish had been death itself. But fighting death was a sad exercise. Death always won in the end. Hadn't he searched endlessly for the key to immortality, only to find, instead, a perpetual living death?

He did not want to do it. With the will of every second of his nearly six thousand years, he did not want to do it. But he left the bedside, went to the little bathroom and dampened a cloth with cool water. He brought it back to bathe her heated face, her sweat-slick forehead, her fiery-hot neck. He'd keep an all-night vigil, not out of affection or even a passing fondness, but out of simple decency, and in a sort of remembrance.

The sight of her burning up with fever, shaking helplessly on the bed, brought back the worst moment of his existence, when he'd watched his best friend die in such a similar way. He'd felt so helpless then. Crying out to the gods for mercy, only to have them answer in vengeance.

He reminded himself that Shannon was not his friend. She was a stranger.

And these were not death throes racking her slender body, but simple fever chills. Already they were easing.

"Don't..."

He glanced sharply down at her, but she wasn't talking to him. At least, he didn't think so.

"It'll help the fever," he told her, and settled the cool cloth on her forehead again.

"Don't touch me." She whimpered, and twisted in the bed. "Tawny, make him stop!"

Fat tears rolled down her face, and Da mien couldn't help the lump that came into his throat when he saw them, though he knew it was stupid, senseless.

He didn't care about this woman.

He touched her face.

"It's all right. Shannon. No one's going to hurt you."

It shocked him when her small hand shot upward to cover his where it rested on her cheek.

"Don't leave me," she whispered.

"I'm so afraid..."

She wasn't talking to him. She was asleep, still burning up with a fever and half out of her head. She was dreaming. She was not talking to him.

Even so, he knew he'd stay with her. How could she possibly defend herself in this kind of state? If it was true that some maniac was preying on the women who'd assisted him on stage, then she was in danger.

He did not want to believe that was possible. And yet, part of him did.

Because if someone else hadn't killed that other one, it must have been him.

And it couldn't have been him.

He barely recalled her face. There'd been so many over the centuries, so many who'd sated his eternal hunger. Young, beautiful, all too ready to sink with him into a well of ecstasy. But he'd never killed them. Never.

He hated death.

He forced himself to remember Tawny. She'd come to his dressing room after the performance. She'd slid her warm palms slowly over his chest and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. And she'd tucked a piece of paper into the waistband of his pants before she'd slipped away. Her address. And he'd known he would visit her there. The bloodlust that night had reached the height of its power. He couldn't fight it anymore. He'd fought it through the entire evening, forcibly wrenching himself from the luscious dancers who were his assistants in the act. Dragging his gaze away from their pulsing jugulars time and time again, as the roar in his mind grew deafening, and the hunger writhed inside, and his will weakened.

So he'd gone to her. She'd been half-asleep in her bed, and he'd awakened her with a kiss, but never spoken a word. She'd stripped away her nightgown and pulled him down to her in the rumpled sheets, hidden by the darkness of midnight. And as he'd pierced her body with his, as he'd assuaged the burning hunger at her throat, as he'd reached the precipice of blinding, urgent desire, there was that instant of insanity. That single heartbeat in time when he was no longer inside his mind.

And when he'd pulled away from her he'd felt the same flood of guilt he always felt. He'd stared down at her lying still, sinking into sleep. He'd pulled blankets over her, and silently commanded she recall the experience as nothing but a dream. Then he'd fled into the night, his conscience too raw to stay there another second.

Now he paced, beside the bed of another beautiful woman, Tawny's friend and would-be avenger. And he questioned the accuracy of his own mind. She had been sleeping when he'd left her there, hadn't she? Or had she been dying?

Was there a chance he'd taken too much, that he'd snuffed out a young life?

He'd believed the spark of decency that his soul still had left wouldn't allow him to sink to that level. And he knew, beyond doubt, that he did have a modicum of decency left. If he didn't, he wouldn't be here with Shannon right now. He'd leave her to whatever fate had in store and save himself the anguish of starting to care. It was a big risk. He knew that more every time he looked at her.

He pushed the golden blond hair away from Shannon's face, felt the silken texture of it between his fingers, against his palms. He'd make sure the threat to her was eliminated, even if he himself turned out to be that threat, and then he would run to the farthest reaches of the globe and never, never set eyes on her again. Never so much as think of her again.

And he'd do it without letting himself care about her. Da mien Nam- tar cared for no one. It had been that way for centuries, and that was the way it would stay.

He could see, though, that he had little choice except to try to find out what had happened to Tawny Keller. For if he had become a man who could no longer exist without taking the lives of others, he knew he had to end it.

All of these things circled like a cyclone in his mind as he sat with her, watched over her, took care of her. He was doing exactly what he'd sworn he'd never do. Taking on the roll of protector to one of the Chosen.

Acting on impulses that were purely physical, instinctive, like a goose flying south in autumn.

It was only as dawn approached that he realized he couldn't leave her there alone, unprotected.

Anthar watched that building and a smile curved his lips. Just before dawn, the being once called part man, part god came out, carrying the woman in his arms. Unconscious? Or asleep? Perhaps entranced? Whatever, it didn't matter. The pagan had come to care for someone. again. He rubbed his hands together in glee. It was too perfect. Too utterly perfect. Ah, the destruction of Gilgamesh--soul and body, mind and spirit--was at hand.

At last, the tools to carry it out had been given. He'd awaited them long, but patiently. For it was not possible to completely demolish a man who cared for no one. The caring, that was the key. the weakness.

As long as it truly was caring.

Anthar dared not attempt to read the pagan's thoughts, lest he tip his hand.

It was vital he remain undiscovered, unknown, un sensed, as he observed Da mien's every move. He had to be sure before he could proceed.

A test, then. Or several. Whatever was necessary to be sure. And then the slow torture and ultimate destruction would begin.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ohe awoke feeling as if she'd been in a fight with a freight train and had lost. Her head throbbed. Her body ached. Her throat had been scrubbed with steel wool. Her tongue had doubled in size and dehydrated. She squeezed her eyes tighter against the shimmer of sunlight that glowed red against her lids, and burrowed more deeply into the big downy pillow. Its satin case caressed her cheek. When she inhaled, her lungs filled with potpourri-tinged air. She hugged the luxuriant, fluffy comforter more closely around her-Her eyes opened wide. She stilled utterly as a snowball of foreboding rolled up and down her spine. This was not her bed. She'd never owned white satin sheets or a down-filled comforter. She rolled onto her back, sitting up and blinking until her bleary eyes focused. This was not her room, either. The black lacquered headboard, the huge matching dresser with its gold trim, the little copper potpourri pot, simmering over a white candle on the stand near her head. None of this was hers.

"What in hell..." She tossed the covers aside and got up. Plush white pile hugged her bare feet, enveloped her toes. She blinked and shook off this through-the-looking-glass sensation. The room was a triangle, and the tall, gleaming black door opposite her was its point. Where on earth was she?

For the briefest second she wondered if she'd died and proceeded on to some waiting room between heaven and hell. But that wasn't it. That couldn't be it. She felt too damned miserable to be dead.

She went to the door, gripped the knob, twisted. It refused to budge. She jiggled it, tugged again and pounded on the wood.

"Hey, what's going on? Let me out!" Her heart pattered harder as she awaited a response that didn't come. Only silence. A heavy, smothering silence that closed in around her like a shroud. She willed her pulse to slow, pushed a hand through her hair, tried to calm herself. It wasn't a dream. She was sure she was awake. Okay. So what happened?

The memory of the night before returned slowly, but clearly. She'd had an episode. A bad one, worse than any so far. And then Da mien had been there.

A slow breath worked its way into her lungs. She'd been afraid he'd come to kill her. But he hadn't. He'd actually. he'd tried to help.

"Yeah, some help. As soon as I was out cold, he kidnapped me." She glanced around the room, having no doubt it was somewhere in Da mien's modern-day palace. The guy must have something against plain old square rooms. She walked the perimeter, flinging open the door in one angled wall and seeing a triangular bathroom. The door in the opposite wall revealed a triangular closet. Actually, the whole thing would have been a square if the three rooms hadn't had walls dividing them.

The huge bed, black lacquer like every other piece of furniture here, reclined like a decadent goddess in the center of the triangle's base.

Tall narrow windows stood sentry duty on either side of it, their livery, black satin, held apart by white bows. She parted the luxurious drapes and glanced outside to confirm her suspicions. The tall fence she'd scaled the night before stood watch in the distance. Sloping roofs, at varying heights, loomed at right angles, and the vine-covered brick walls were familiar.

It was his place, all right. And the window was no good as an escape route.

Looked as if she was at least three stories up, with nothing but sheer wall and the grassy ground, carpeted in decaying autumn leaves, below her. The sun was low. She'd slept most of the day.

"Damn him." Shannon jerked the drape back into place, and stalked back to the bathroom in search of a way out. A hidden door. A heating duct.

Anything.

nothing. Just gleaming porcelain, glittering chrome and sinfully thick terry cloth. Spotless. Expensive. The hot tub was big enough to hold the Democratic National Convention inside. And the robe that hung from the wall was. wait a minute, that was her robe!

Charging back into the bedroom, she yanked open the door of the closet, only to see more of her clothes hanging neatly inside. A pair of jeans, a button-down blouse, her brown suede jacket. Her favorite running shoes stood innocently on the floor. Her purse perched on a shelf.

"That son of a--what the hell does he think he's doing?" She paced back toward the bed, and that's when she saw the picnic basket on the floor beside it. She narrowed her eyes, moved cautiously closer, flipped it open. A pile of fruit. She looked closer, lifted the other lid. A half-dozen assorted muffins. A thermos bottle. A sugar bowl. Her stomach rumbled. Part of her wondered if he'd put something into the food.

Another part wondered why he'd bother. If he'd wanted to hurt her, he'd had his chance last night.

She disliked this situation. Everything in her rebelled against it, and if she'd cared to analyze herself this morning, she would know why. Her choices had been taken away. It was almost as bad as if she were a child, a ward of the state, again. She was not in control of anything at this moment. He was. He'd brought her here without her consent, locked her in |it||||g^, for some insane reason, chosen the clothes she'd wear today, the food she'd eat for breakfast, the soap she'd use in the damned shower.

When she saw the bastard again, she would probably kill him.

In the meantime she was starved. The hell her body had been through last night had drained her. And while he had chosen the food, it was entirely up to her whether or not to eat it.

She threw caution to the wind and reached for a muffin, then the thermos, praying it held good, strong, ultracaffeinated coffee.

It did, piping hot. Aromatic steam rolled from the brew as she poured. It tasted even better than it smelled.

She looked around the room again, shaking her head in frustration.

"I don't know what you're up to, Da mien, but you aren't going to get away with it. "

Da mien had decided there were only three possibilities. One, that he'd lost control of his own mind, that he'd become the harbinger of death, his hated enemy. Two, that there was another vampire hunting the streets of Arista.

Or, three, that an ordinary mortal with a twisted mind was responsible for the killings, and for some sick reason, wanted them to look like the work of a vampire. Though how any human could manage it, he still couldn't guess.

The killer might be someone who wanted Da mien to be blamed for his kills. If that was the case, then Shannon was in grave danger. And much as Da mien had sworn never to do it, he was inclined to protect her. The blood ties, damn them straight to hell, were impossible to ignore. He could hate the instinct all he wanted, but he couldn't resist it. No more than a human can resist the gravitational pull of the earth, and go floating off into never-never land. He had no choice, no matter how he looked at it. And he resented the intrusion on his solitude.

"The lady's awake, sir."

Da mien pulled himself from his ponderings to glance up.

The deck of cards he'd been shuffling went still in his hands. Netty tilted her small head to one side and the other, like a little, curious bird.

He forced a smile, and her face crinkled with her answering one. She had the frail build of a music- box dancer, and the temperament of a saint.

Where else would he ever find someone to take care of the everyday needs of this place, to deal with the repairmen and the gardeners and the salesmen, to put up with his bizarre hours and strange requests, all without question or complaint? What the hell would he do when death crept up to claim Netty?

"Thank you, Netty." He pursed his lips, wondering what he'd say to Shannon when he went up the stairs.

"Been awake for quite a while, now. Pacin'. Nervous like."

Her head tilted again, and he knew she'd like nothing better than an explanation for the unheard-of circumstance of a stranger, much less a woman, in the house. She'd never lower her proper British ways enough to pry, though, no matter how curious she was.

"You left the food for her?"

"Oh, yes. Sleep in' like the dead, she was, when I went in. Lovely thing, don't you think? All that angel's hair spread around her " "You can go now, Netty. You're through for the day."

She bit her lip, bobbed her head and hurried from the room with quick little steps. Seemed wherever she went, Netty was always hurrying. He heard the back door, then the motor of her car.

He stiffened his spine and glanced toward the staircase. He didn't have to open his mind or try the trick of scanning hers to feel the fury emanating from Shannon. It was palpable. It filled every recess of the house, and all of it was directed toward him.

He sighed heavily, cut the deck one-handed, then fanned the cards facedown on the table. With exaggerated grace, he extracted four cards and flipped them over. Four aces. One more card trick to add to the repertoire. He grimaced as he rose and started for the stairs.

When he reached the door, he paused, startled to realize there was something warm surging like a South Sea tide in his belly. Anu forbid, he was looking forward to seeing her! That worried him.

"She's nothing to me," he whispered, willing his mind to remember it.

"nothing."

He freed the lock with his mind and stepped inside. The first thing that hit him was the clean, moist smell of her. She'd bathed. He could feel the steam in the air, smell, the water drying on her skin, almost taste it.

Her hair was still damp, curling at the ends. She wore jeans and a green button-down cotton shirt. She was in the process of rolling the sleeves, when she whirled to face him. The fact that she hadn't fastened a single button didn't seem to faze her in the least. Her amber eyes flashed gold and her jaw went taut beneath the smooth skin. There were glistening droplets still clinging to her lashes.

"It's about time you showed up. Just what the hell do you think you're doing, bringing me here! Locking me in! That's unlawful imprisonment, mister, and \ can tell you, you'll find yourself in a cell the minute I"

She broke off, glancing down, apparently having finally noticed where his gaze was focused. The frilly white edges of the bra caressed the mounds of flesh they cupped like adoring fingers, and he couldn't for the life of him look away. She was beautiful. He hadn't taken the time to really appreciate feminine beauty in too long. He satisfied his needs in darkness, with hurried encounters and no words exchanged. He realized just what an oversight that had been, as he traced her flat belly, the dark well of her navel, the swollen curves of her breasts, with his eyes.

He stared long and hard at the darker circles at their centers, just visible through the white material. Their peaks came alert as he stared and he felt the razor-edged blade of desire run him through.

She turned her back to him, buttoning up.

"I want a phone. I'm calling a cab and then I'm getting the hell out of here, and when I get back to my apartment, I'll probably call a cop."

He said nothing, just watched her. She tucked the shirt tails into the jeans before facing him again.

"Well?"

Her cheeks were pink with rage and her eyes sparkled. Her breaths came a little too fast, and her fists were clenched.

"You look a lot better. How do you feel?"

She threw her hands in the air, rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Perfect. Where the hell's that phone?" She walked past him, through the door and into the wide hallway. She looked up and down it, obviously not sure which way to go.

"Do those attacks come often?"

She started, as if she didn't know he'd walked along behind her.

"None of your business. Which way is the phone?"

"Answer my questions and I'll take you to it."

If her eyes could shoot daggers through his heart, they would have. When she spun on him again her hair flew out around her like a wet halo, spraying his heated face.

"Why did you bring me here last night?" Her eyes widened slightly for just an instant as the obvious answer occurred to her.

"I was unconscious, wasn't I? Did you do anything to me?"

"Shannon, for God's sake, I don't go around molesting delirious women. I brought you here because I was afraid to leave you alone. You were sicker than hell. I'd have called some of your family to take care of you if I'd known where to reach them. But I didn't, so I decided to do it myself."

"I don't have any family." Her eyes narrowed to slits as she studied him.

"It's happened before, hasn't it?"

"Once or twice." She turned her back on him, started down the hall in the wrong direction.

"How often?"

She shrugged.

"What's it to you, anyway?" She stopped a few yards away, turned and came back, apparently deciding to go the other way.

When she passed him, he took her arm, walked beside her. "nothing," he reminded himself.

"Absolutely nothing. The phone is downstairs, but you don't need it. I'll drive you anywhere you want to go."

She blinked up at him, pausing in their trek toward the stairway, which was now in sight.

"You will? I mean ... you're not going to try to..." Her gaze fell to the floor and she shook her head.

"What did you think--that I was holding you prisoner?"

She met his gaze, her own flashing again.

"You locked me in."

"There was a reason." He started down the stairs, led her through the narrower hall to the second staircase and then down that. When they finally emerged on the first level, he guided her into his oval library, waved her toward a leather sofa.

She stiffened, remaining in the doorway.

"What is this? I said I wanted out."

"Shannon, when you broke in here and asked for ten minutes, I gave it to you.

I'm only asking you to return the favor."

Her head tilted to one side, a wary animal sizing up its chances with a predator. She didn't trust him. She had good instincts.

"You can leave whenever you want to. I won't stop you. There's a phone on the desk over there." He pointed. She looked, licked her lips, nodded.

"All right. Okay. Ten minutes. No more."

No more. Unfortunately for both of them, there was going to be more. A lot more. And he'd keep her with him by force if he had to. But first he'd try to talk her around to his way of thinking.

And he'd pray he wasn't worthy of all her fear.

Why the hell did she agree to sit here and listen to him? The guy could talk her into buying swampland in the desert if he applied himself. There was something about him. She walked into the library, took a look around. The room's shape came as no surprise. The curving walls were lined with books, most of them old-looking, with that wonderful, slightly musty smell that old books always have. The sofa and chairs were rich brown leather. New. Their aroma mingled with that of the books, and that more subtle scent that was distinctly Da mien.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. He stood right where he'd been before, watching her intently. It was his eyes--that's what it was. They were so huge and deep and expressive. So dark. Combined with the tenor song of his mellow voice, they were compelling.

"So, talk," she said, trying to sound callous, wishing she felt that way.

She didn't want to think maybe she'd been wrong about him. She didn't want to let her defenses down. And she sure as hell wasn't going to trust the man. She didn't trust anyone. She and Tawny. they'd trusted no one but each other.

"What was that?" His sable brows rose slightly, and his jet eyes probed.

He came toward her, then stopped.

"What?"

"You looked..." He licked his lips, shook his head.

"nothing. Never mind.

It's none of my business. "

"Probably not." She turned and ran her fingers over the dusty spines, glanced at titles. Sumerian Mythology, The Gods of the Ancients, The Epic of Gilgamesh. "I know you think I killed your friend. But since I know myself better than you do, I'm inclined to disagree."

He came up behind her as he spoke. Too close. She felt his nearness like static electricity, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. She tried to focus on the titles instead of on the physical effects of being so close to him. A newer volume about Gilgamesh. And another. He had several versions of the same story.

"That in mind, I have to assume someone else is responsible for her murder.

If I'm right, then you're at risk. "

"If you're right? Sounds like you're not even convinced you're innocent."

She turned in time to see him blink when she said it, as if she'd poked a raw spot.

"I thought you might be in danger. That's why I followed you home last night. That's why I brought you here when I saw that you were too sick to defend yourself. I was only trying to protect you."

She met his gaze, fighting to keep her own hard, not let it soften the way her heart had begun to do at those last few words. She swallowed hard. In all her life no one had ever thought to protect her. No one had cared enough to. She'd had no shelter against the cruel realities of life. She'd had to face them all, head-on, and her only protection had been her own strength.

"Yeah? Why should I believe that? You barely know me, why would you want to protect me?"

' "What was the alternative. Shannon? Stay here and let you die? Read about your body being found in the headlines of tonight's paper?"

"Tonight's, tomorrow night's... what's the difference?" Someone would be finding her body one of these days. After this last attack, she figured it wouldn't be much longer.

He frowned, his gaze probing so deeply she had to turn away.

"What do you" -- "Look, I have to go. Is there anything else you want to say before I do?"

"If you go, and there is a killer stalking you, you'll be defenseless."

"I've been called a lot of things, Da mien. Never defenseless, though."

"Shannon" -- "If I stay here, he won't try anything." She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin.

"If he doesn't try anything, I won't be able to take him out.

You get it? "

He blinked twice, understanding dawning in his black eyes. His hands went to her shoulders. Strong hands. Hard and warm and urgent. The urge to lean closer whispered across her mind. Stupid. She must still be slightly off kilter from last night.

"You want him to attack you."

"You're damned right I do."

"That's insane. You'll get yourself killed." He appeared shaken by the idea.

"It's perfectly sane from my point of view. And so what if I do? I'll take the bastard with me."

"You're risking your life" -- "It's not so much to risk. Let go of me."

He looked down at his hands, as if he hadn't been aware of the way they'd been holding her shoulders, the way they'd begun to pull her just a little closer. The way that scared the hell out of her, because she'd been thinking about getting closer to him. Wondering what would happen if she slipped her arms around his muscled neck and leaned against his broad chest. Would he hold her closer, harder? Push her away? Murder her?

His hands fell to his sides. He lifted his ebony gaze to hers. "What do you mean by that? That it's not much to risk?"

Fears crept up on her. She battled them away. She wouldn't talk about it.

She wouldn't think about it. And she damned well wouldn't cry about it.

Her eyes burned, but she blinked them cool again. What was so bad about death? Life hadn't exactly been a walk in the park.

"I'm leaving now. You said you'd let me go. So let me go."

"I'm sorry. Shannon. But I can't."

The rush of anger was a welcome relief after the other things she'd been feeling.

"I knew I couldn't believe a word you said!" She brought her fist into his middle clean and fast and hard, smiling smugly when he staggered backward, doubling over. She turned and ran toward the doors.

"Stay put, damn you!" The doors thundered shut as if a gale force wind had driven them. She felt her eyes bulge, the shivering up the back of her neck, the tensing of her spine.

She turned very slowly. He was just unbending himself, one hand pressed to the spot where she'd hit him. He looked angry. "How did you" -- "I'm a magician, remember?" He grunted, standing straight again.

"The--the house is rigged?"

"Something like that."

"You can't keep me here."

"I'm not going to let you get yourself killed. Believe me, Shannon, I don't like this any more than you do. But until this threat is removed, I'm your shadow. Whither thou go est and where thou lodge st and all that.

I'll be there. " He shook his head slowly, as if he'd just reached a decision and wasn't at all pleased about it.

"That's bull. You're up to something. You want something from me. Might as well put it on the table, Da mien. I'm not buying what you're selling."

He licked his lips and the action drew her gaze, sent hot images sizzling into her mind. His kisses. God, what would they feel like?

The thought seared her from the inside out.

"I need to see her body," he said at last.

She blinked, and dragged her attention away from his mouth.

"You what?"

"I want to see your friend."

Shannon's stomach clenched like a fist.

"For God's sake, why?"

He averted his eyes, paced back and forth in front of the bookshelves.

"I have to see for myself how she died. "

She blinked again, a cold foreboding settling in her heart. "What do you think you can tell by seeing her? Do you have any knowledge of forensic pathology? Have you ever studied death, Da mien?"

His head came up, eyes level with hers, and she thought there couldn't have been more pain in them if she'd shot him through the heart.

"All my life," he whispered.

"I must be insane." Her voice was near his ear, a harsh rasp as they crouched in the shrubbery near the rear entrance of Arista's medical examiner's office.

"I've been calling every day to try and get her body released for burial.

They keep putting me off, saying there are still more tests to be run. They wouldn't even let me see her." She parted a tangle of branches and peered through.

Da mien snagged her waist with his arm and pulled her down beside him again.

She was noisy and in constant motion. Clandestine surveillance could never have been one of her strengths as a private investigator, "Sit still," he warned. But then he had trouble following his own advice.

His arm remained around her tiny waist, despite his mind's commands that it move away. Her right side pressed tight to his left one. He could feel the softness of her breast, the curve of her hip, the firmness of her thigh against his. This was insanity.

"I didn't think anyone would be here so late," she said, as if their closeness had no effect on her at all.

"What are they doing?"

A shiny black hearse with a government emblem on the sides, and the letters "DPI" in bright yellow paint, backed up to the door. The driver emerged, walked around the vehicle and opened the back. Shannon stiffened beside Da mien. "They're moving her!"

He tightened his hold on her.

"It could be anyone. Shan- non."

She shook her head hard, meeting his gaze, her own tortured. Then her head swung forward again, as the office door opened. Two men pushed a gurney out into the night, stopping behind the hearse.

"That's the ME." Shannon nodded toward the shorter, pudgy one who wore the white lab coat. The other man was taller, elegant in his movements, solidly built and darkly attractive. He wore an expensive gray suit and a long black wool coat.

"You'll rule it a suicide," he told the medical examiner. His voice carried the ring of authority.

"There's still the PI that found that body" -- "We'll be in touch with her.

Don't worry. We've dealt with situations like this before." The driver and the ME collapsed the gurney and lifted the vinyl-encased body up into the hearse, while the tall man stood with his hands thrust into his coat pockets, watching. His breath made little steam clouds that hid his face. He exuded confidence.

The ME walked back inside, shaking his head and muttering, as the driver slammed the doors. Then the two got into the front seat and the vehicle moved away.

Shannon was shaking all over.

"Where are they taking her? They can't just take her away like this.

Dammit, Da mien, let go of me!"

He held her tighter. She kept struggling until the hearse rolled out of sight, and then it was as if the fight went out of her. She felt limp. Her head lowered to his chest and her hot tears dampened his skin. She clung to him with one hand and rained painless blows on his shoulder with the other.

"You should have let me stop them."

He threaded his fingers in her hair, moved his palms over it again and again.

He knew this pain. He knew just what she felt right now, what she'd felt since her friend's death. Too well. Maybe that was another reason for this closeness he had to keep fighting. The grief. The shared pain.

He held her for a long time while she cried. He hadn't had a chance to look at the body, but he'd been close enough. He'd lowered the walls around his mind for an instant, just long enough to focus on the dead woman. He needed to practice more, to hone his mind better. But he had managed to understand one thing. Tawny Keller's death had been brought about by a vampire.

Da mien still wasn't certain if that vampire was him.

Shannon straightened, swiped her eyes so hard it must have hurt her.

"Something's going on, Da mien. Those men were feds or something--the ME wouldn't lie about a cause of death unless he had no choice. I know that.

He's a suit, but an honest one. "

Da mien nodded his agreement, but was as baffled as Shan- non.

"I don't understand this any more than you do ... unless..."

Her head came up sharply.

"Unless what?"

He shook his head.

"I was going to say, unless they actually believe in the existence of vampires, but that's unlikely, isn't it?"

She shrugged and looked away. But Da mien wondered. If he hadn't kept himself so closed off from others of his kind, he might know more. Was the federal government aware of their existence?

What in hell was this DPI?

Shannon touched his arm.

"I want to go home. Take me home now."

He saw her clearly in the darkness, her red, swollen eyes, the track of each and every tear she'd shed, burned into her pale ivory flesh.

"You'd be safer at my house, I think."

She shook her head so hard her hair flew.

"I can take care of myself. Take me to my place or I'll go somewhere and call a cab. It's up to you." She sniffed loudly.

He helped her to her feet, encircled her shoulders with his arm and walked with her around the building to the sidewalk, toward where he'd parked his car. The chilly October breeze whisked over them, and he hoped it cooled her burning cheeks.

"If you insist, I'll take you to your apartment. But you still might be in danger. Shannon. I'll just have to park myself outside the building and try to watch over you from there."

"Sure you will. And pigs will fly, too." She went to the passenger door of his gleaming black car. One of his indulgences. A Jaguar. He liked it, liked driving it fast, liked the new smell of it. When that smell wore off, he'd immediately buy another. He had few enough pleasures in this life.

She opened the door and stood there, staring over the car at him.

"So are you gonna drive me, or not?"

"I'm gonna drive you."

CHAPTER FIVE

-Da mien sat in the car near the front of her apartment building. It wasn't much of a building. Tall, narrow. Too few windows, and fire escapes with huge sections missing. The ugly red bricks looked ready to crumble. The security was nonexistent. It wasn't a slum, but he didn't like the idea of her living here.

She came onto the balcony twice, glancing down at his black car. He shivered a little when she leaned on the iron rail. The damned thing probably wasn't in any better shape than the rest of the place. After that he saw her part the curtains a few times, and he knew she was looking, checking to see if he was still there. Almost as if she expected him to leave.

Maybe she'd be better off if he did.

Da mien couldn't bring himself to believe he'd killed those other women, but he couldn't ignore the possibility, either. He didn't know whether this change in his hunger was normal, something every immortal felt with age. He didn't know if others had killed without even being aware of it.

Was something like that possible?

He thumped his fist on the steering wheel as the questions tormented him.

Traffic and people passed by. Lights in buildings blinked off one by one as this less-than-elite section of Arista went to sleep.

He wished now that he hadn't avoided all contact with others of his kind, wished there were someone he could ask about these things, and about this DPI, whatever it was, and the murder of Tawny Keller. Da mien ought to know.

As far as he was aware, he was the oldest of any of them. He ought to have the answers, but dammit he didn't.

He thought of the letters he'd received from the one who called himself a scientist, Eric Marquand. If anyone could shed some light on all of this it might very well be that young, curious man. Da mien grimaced at the idea of asking for help. The very thought of contacting Marquand made him squirm with unease. He'd existed alone, in a vacuum for so long now. His only emotional ties were the safe ones he felt with his crowds of fans.

When they stood and cheered for him it was almost as if time melted away, almost as if he were an adored ruler again, a beloved king, basking in the unconditional love and loyalty of his people. It was the adoration of those crowds that had driven him to perform all these years. A man could only do without love, connections, for so long. The audiences gave him enough to sustain him. It was the only love allowed into his solitary life, and it was enough. It had to be enough.

He shook his head slowly. No, he'd try to solve this thing on his own.

He'd only use Eric Marquand and his studies of the un dead as a last resort.

And in the meantime he'd watch over Shannon, keep any harm from coming to her.

A job that would be a lot easier if only he could listen to her mind. The idea of trying it again sent a bolt of phantom pain throbbing through his temples. Still, it was one of the benefits of being who he was. He ought to use every tool he had to solve this puzzle, to keep her safe.

He braced himself, and very slowly, began to lower his defenses to allow the myriad vibrations outside to filter into his mind. He consciously kept a thin veil in place and focused all his energy on her, putting her image firmly in his mind's eye. He tried to attune his senses to hers, to feel what she felt.

For an instant the rush of sensations surrounded him, but he forced himself to bear it. He grated his teeth against the bombardment and concentrated harder. Gradually, the intensity eased, quieted, lightened. He sifted, searched, sent his mind out in search of hers.

She wasn't in the apartment.

He stiffened in his seat as he felt her thoughts. Anger. Alarm. Urgency.

Something about her car. She was running. a rear exit. A parking lot.

Da mien was out of his car like a shot and speeding around the building. He saw her there, her feet and legs bare and cold in the autumn chill. She wore a short blue nightgown that shimmered like silk, but wasn't, and her hair was pulled up into a bushy blond ponytail that bounced wildly as she ran over the pavement.

He looked in the direction she ran, and saw two young men crouched at the door of a primer brown Corvette that had to be as old as Shannon was. One of the men turned as Shannon approached, and he laughed. She never slowed her pace. The thief started toward her and lifted his hand. Da mien saw the tire iron he held. He lunged forward, knowing as he did that he couldn't reach her in time. Already the two stood close, and the man's hand swung down, no doubt about to crush her skull.

But Shannon's small hand shot up and gripped the man's wrist, stopping the tire iron's descent. Her knee jammed hard into his groin, and the man grunted loud, doubled over. The tire iron clanked to the broken pavement.

Da mien froze for a shocked instant as Shannon spun backward, smacking her heel across the man's chin and laying him flat on his back. It happened in two clicks of a second hand.

The second man turned toward her, pulling a gun from his tattered jeans.

Before he leveled its sights on her, she kicked it out of his hand, sending it sailing in an arc and then skittering across the pavement. He swung a fist at her, but she ducked, and when she straightened, she brandished the tire iron the other one had dropped.

He held his hands up in front of him, backing away.

"Okay, lady. Okay, you win." As Da mien hurried forward, the thug helped his partner to his feet, and the two ran into the darkness. He heard their rubber soles slapping.

They didn't go far, though.

He gripped Shannon's arm, still dazed by what he'd seen. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, but didn't say anything, still trying to catch her breath.

Da mien turned to look at the unpainted car and shook his head. He was going to blast her for risking her life over a hunk of scrap metal, when he heard the unmistakable click of a hammer being pulled back. His head went up, and his piercing night vision showed him one of the two thugs, holding the gun, pointing it at Shannon.

Da mien whirled toward her, propelling himself forward just as the blast shattered the night. He felt Shannon hit the ground hard underneath him.

And he felt a searing pain burn through him.

Anthar watched as he always watched--witness to every breath the pagan drew--and smiled slowly to himself. The bastard. The insolent, blasphemous bastard. Da mien the Eternal. Whatever he called himself now, it didn't matter. He'd be gone, vanquished, destroyed by his own hand. Conquered by his own emotions. And soon.

The thugs whose small minds Anthar had implanted with the notion of stealing the woman's car were bumbling fools, yes. But at least one of them had fired his weapon at her. And the heathen had thrown himself in front of the bullet.

Finally, after endless millennia, the bastard cared for another living soul.

Anthar had waited so long, tried so often to hurt him this way. But Da mien kept to himself, cared for no one. Not even the women he took on occasion, while Anthar watched from the shadows, his presence so carefully cloaked even Da mien couldn't sense him there. Da mien drank from those women so gently, so careful not to harm them. Sickening, gutless worm! So tenderly he would use them that Anthar would become convinced there must be some feeling there. But alas, none ever came. When those women had died, Da mien the Eternal hadn't even been aware of their passing.

Damn him to everlasting torment!

Ah, but this time would be different. This time there was something more.

Just the something Anthar needed to hurt him in the most devastating way possible.

But he must proceed with caution.

Damn, but it wouldn't do to take the bitch too soon. He had to test Da mien's feelings yet again. He had to be sure the oldest immortal alive would feel the ultimate pain, shame, remorse. He had to be sure.

Another test was in order.

They were gone. He heard them run and then nothing. Da- when's body lay heavily on top of Shannon's. She was on her back. He was angled across her chest, his head near her left shoulder.

"They're gone," she said, and shoved at him.

"You can get off me now, Da mien. I don't know why you came rushing out here like some knight on a charger, anyway. I can take care of my" She'd pressed her hands to his shoulders to move him off her, and touched the warm dampness seeping through his shirt. He felt the shock that passed through her body.

She sucked in a coarse breath.

"Da mien?"

He moved, but slowly. It hurt to do it. He sat up, and she jumped to her feet, bending over him. His white shirt was stained crimson. He pressed one hand to the front of his shoulder and tried to stand.

Shannon bent to help him, sliding an arm around his waist and holding him firm.

"Damn you straight to hell, Da mien, you've gone and got yourself shot.

What's the matter with you, jumping on me like that?" She walked toward the building's back entrance, pulling him along with her.

He glanced down at her, almost giddy with relief that he'd knocked her out of the way in time.

"That gun was pointing toward your head. Was I supposed to stand there and let them shoot you?"

"Yes!" She reached out to open the door, then held it with her hip while she helped him through.

"Dammit, you're probably going to bleed to death."

He was not going to bleed to death. Actually, the wound was minor except for the excruciating pain it caused. Debilitating, momentarily paralyzing pain.

His shoulder still screamed with it. But he'd expected that. One of the few things he did know about his kind was that sensitivity to pain--to any physical stimulus--increased with age, just as the strength and psychic powers did. As for the tendency to bleed dry, it didn't concern him too much. He could keep pressure on the wound until dawn. It wasn't bleeding all that badly. It would heal with the regenerative sleep. Any injury would.

What did concern him, besides the pain in his shoulder, was the feel of her small arm anchored around his waist. The way she held him tight to her side as they entered the elevator, the urgency in her eyes when she looked up at him. Her smell. Her warmth.

"You're pale. Did it bleed much?"

"I'm always pale. And no, it's nothing."

She narrowed her eyes and stared at the spot where he pressed his hand to the wound.

"It's not nothing--it's a bullet. We'll call an ambulance from the apartment."

He shook his head, but studied her determined face, noting the strength in it.

"Why did you rush out there in your nightgown, Shannon? Why risk your life, when calling the police would have been just as good?"

"What're you, kidding me? My car would have been long gone by the time the cops got here. Do you know how long and hard I work just to keep up the payments on that car?"

"Corvettes don't come cheap." Not even primer-coated ones whose rust spots had been sanded off, he supposed.

The doors slid open. She tightened her grip on him and started into the hall.

"Not just a Corvette. A 1962 Stingray, mag wheels, four barrel carb and an engine that would blow your black Jag's doors off."

He smiled. He couldn't help it, and the pain didn't stop it. "Your dream car?"

"Abso-freaking-lutely. Nobody messes with my car."

"I'll keep that in mind."

She stopped outside her apartment door and pushed it open. She hadn't locked it and that bothered him almost as much as the hole in his shoulder, but he refrained from commenting on it. He'd seen firsthand why she kept insisting she could take care of herself. She hadn't done half-badly at it.

She pulled him inside, kicked the door closed, and didn't let go of him until she'd eased him onto the sofa. And when she did, he felt the absence of her touch like another wound in his flesh. She hurried back to the door, locked it. So she wasn't completely careless with her own well-being. Then she knelt in front of him and reached up to tear the sleeve away from his shirt.

She tried to push his hand aside so she could look at the wound.

"It's barely a scratch." He kept his hand where it was.

"That's a lot of blood for a scratch, Da mien."

"I'm a heavy bleeder. I'll be fine."

She scowled at him.

"Hey, you jumped in front of a bullet for me. The least I can do is take a look at it." She reached for the shoulder again.

He ducked her hand.

"Oh? Then you're admitting that I probably just saved your life?"

She straightened, propping her fists on her hips.

"Yeah, for what it's worth, you probably did."

"At no small risk to my own?" He prompted. She said nothing, but tilted her head to one side.

"Well?"

"All right. Okay, I'll give you that much. So what's your point?"

"That I'm not planning your murder, for starters." He got to his feet, not waiting for her reply, and walked to the bathroom. He was a bit weaker than usual, a response to the amount of blood he'd lost. Good thing he'd had the presence of mind to put the pressure on right away. It wouldn't take much to incapacitate an immortal as old as he was.

He closed the door behind him. One place he did not want to spar with Shannon Mallory was in her bathroom, where mirrors abounded. But he felt her presence there, even though he'd locked her out. It was in the still-damp towel slung over the shower-curtain rod. And in the clothes she'd been wearing earlierin a little heap on the floor. And in the scent she favored. Subtle. Not floral or fruity. More enticing than that.

Herbal. Like exotic incense or some rare spice. It clung to everything, even the air was tinged with it.

He opened the cabinet and tried to put her out of his mind and focus on the matter at hand, namely applying something to the wound to staunch the blood flow until dawn. He'd sit with his hand on it for the next few hours if necessary, but he'd prefer not to.

There. A roll of gauze. Some adhesive tape. A hairbrush with a few honey gold strands catching the light and glowing at him. It was like a halo around her, that hair of hers. Like something unreal.

"Angel hair," Netty had called it.

Dammit, stop thinking about her!

He peeled the shirt away from his chest, tearing it so he didn't have to ease the pressure on the wound. He tossed the ragged, blood-spattered white garment into her wastebasket.

One-handed, he wrestled the little cardboard box open and dumped a pile of gauze pads into the sink.

She thumped the door.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine, Shannon. Relax."

"Let me in. I want to help."

"I'll be out in a minute."

"Damn you, Da mien" -- "You're repeating yourself. Shannon." He didn't think the gauze pads would be enough, and glanced around for something more substantial to pack the wound.

"Tell me something, will you? Why didn't you bring your gun out there with you?"

"Because I'd have killed the little bastards if I had." She pounded on the door again, jarring it.

"Open the damn door."

"No."

"Fine, see to yourself. There's a little brown tin in the cabinet. Pine tar. It's made from the sap of pine trees. An old folk remedy. If you're too pigheaded to see a doctor, then at least use some of it. It'll stop the bleeding better than Super Glue."

He frowned. There was a slight trembling in her voice, one that belied the careless way she tried to throw her words at him. He spotted the tin, flipped the top off and sniffed suspiciously at the dark brown goop it held.

Piny. Okay, it was worth a try.

"Did you find it?"

He thought she'd walked away, left him to fend for himself. She was still standing on the other side of the door, waiting. "Yes. It looks disgusting."

"Smear it on."

He nodded, dipping two fingers into the stuff, then removing his hand from the wound just a little. The bleeding began again immediately, but he was able to spot the edges of the graze, and pinched them together. Then he smeared the thick, tariike substance over the wound.

It was almost instant. The blood flow stopped. Cautiously, he eased the pressure of his fingers. But the flesh didn't pull apart. The tar held it sealed tight. He shook his head in wonder.

"Da mien? You okay?"

For such an obstinate thing, she was certainly worded about his health.

"I'm okay. Your concoction works wonders." He pressed a gauze pad to the wound, wrapped a strip around it and taped it in place. Then he ran a little water in the basin and washed the blood from his chest, his arm, his shoulder, his hands. Only when he'd rinsed every trace of the pinkened water down the drain did he open the door. And when he did, she was still standing there. He couldn't have missed the way her stiff stance relaxed slightly when he stepped out.

Her gaze flew over his face, to his shoulder, back to his face again. He saw her worry, her fear for him, and it touched him in spite of himself.

Then her eyes moved downward, over his unclothed chest, lower, to the snap of his pants. Her cheeks colored, and he smiled a little, wishing he had the energy to try to read her thoughts again right now.

"Stupid jerk."

Da mien blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"You're a jerk, locking yourself in like that. What if you'd passed out in there? Huh? What am I going to do--kick the door in?"

He laughed. She got angrier, so he forced himself not to laugh anymore.

"You have a very strange way of showing gratitude. Shannon."

"Gratitude? You think I'm grateful to you for almost getting yourself killed on my behalf? What're you--dense? You pull any more crap like that and I'll" -- She blinked fast, and turned her back on him. Not before he'd seen the moisture gathering in her eyes, though.

Something in his throat expanded, cutting off his airway. He lifted one hand, and without intending to, settled it on her shoulder. Her hair brushed his knuckles and he shivered. "Shannon" -- She stepped away from his touch, paced to the center of the room, turned, her face expressionless.

"I don't think the attempt on my car was related to this other business. Do you?"

He stared at her, wishing he knew why it bothered her so much that he'd helped her. Why it was so hard for her to accept that he wanted to protect her.

"I'm inclined to think not" was all he said.

"They only shot at you because you charged at them like the cavalry."

"Yeah, well, if I hadn't they'd have had my wheels."

"How did you know?" She'd turned again, walked to the sofa, sank onto it as if she were exhausted.

"I have a remote car alarm. Someone tries to get into the " Vette, this little device in my purse sounds a warning. " She pushed her hair away from her face with one hand, then paused in the act.

"How did you know?"

"I..." He glanced away from her narrow, piercing gaze.

"I was walking around the building, just checking for anything unusual. I heard them, but by the time I realized what was happening, you were..." He turned to her again, trying to see more than just what her delicate face revealed.

"You were kicking the hell out of them. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Trial and error, mostly." She looked past him, and he wondered what she was seeing.

"Tawny and I used to practice on each other. Usually ended up a pair of walking wounded, but you have to be able to take care of yourself when you're a kid on the streets. She's as good as I am ... I mean, she was. That's why I can't understand why" -- She broke off, met his gaze again, licked her lips. Da mien knew what she would have said. Why didn't Tawny fight off her attacker? Why did she submit? The answer was all too simple, really. A vampire doesn't have to attack his victims or struggle with them. He seduces them. They offer themselves, willingly, even eagerly, to his promise of ecstasy.

Guilt reared up inside him, and he couldn't hold her stare. Some immortal had rewarded that willingness, that childlike trust, with murder. Some immortal. But who?

Not me. It wasn't me. "It wasn't you, was it?"

He shook himself free of the instant notion that she'd read his mind, or that he'd spoken the thought aloud. Coincidence. She rose and stepped closer to him, staring up into his face, her eyes narrow, darkening to the color of cinnamon.

"You wouldn't risk your life to save a stranger if you were cold-blooded enough to kill another one. Would you?"

"Of course not."

But what if I did? What if I killed that innocent girl, and what if this one is next in line? The next time the thirst becomes unbearable, the next time it overpowers my will. -In anna, save me, but already the scent of her, the warmth of her skin, the pink ness of it, is getting to me. I can hear the sweet river of blood running in her veins. I can smell it. And she's so soft, so beautiful. I want her. I want all of her. "You stayed. I really didn't think you would."

"What?" He shook free of the voices in his mind.

"When you said you'd come here, watch out for me, I didn't believe you.

You surprised me. " She frowned, and paced slowly away from him, head tilting to one side as she walked. She stopped a few yards away, turned toward him once more.

"So if you're not going to kill me, then what are you after?"

He looked at the floor, shook his head deliberately.

"I should go."

"Why?"

He was turning toward the door, when she asked the question. He stood where he was, his back to her. When her body heat warmed his bare flesh as she moved to stand behind him, he went rigid.

"You agreed with me that the car thieves were probably not related to the murder. So the killer might still try, right? I mean, I'm in as much danger now as I was earlier, right?"

He closed his eyes as her scent assaulted him.

"At least. Maybe more."

"Then stay."

Oh, but this wasn't right, this roar inside him, urging him to turn around and crush her to his chest. To take her mouth until she gasped for breath and to-- It just wasn't right. It hadn't been long enough for the thirst to bring on this need. And it wasn't thirst alone this time, burning through him. It was desire, too. Not the desire that coupled with the hunger, but one born of itself. Or born of her.

Her hand touched his uninjured shoulder. Her small fingers squeezed his flesh.

"Look, Da mien, you saved my life. Much as I hate to owe anything to anyone, I can't overlook something this big. Last night, when I was sick, you took care of me. I just want to return the favor."

He shook his head, tore the door open.

"You'll be safe by day."

"By day? What" -- "I'll keep watch until then, but not here. From the car.

And if you come down there. Shannon, I can't guarantee anything. So stay put."

"But I" -- "Good night." He stepped into the hall, closed the door behind him, and with a burst of speed, managed to be halfway down the stairs before she'd yanked the door open again.

Okay, so she'd misjudged the guy. Badly. All right, she'd flat out accused him of murder. He'd pretty much convinced her she'd been wrong. Twice he'd appeared out of nowhere right at the moment she'd needed help. So far he hadn't asked a thing in return.

Of course, she wasn't stupid. He wanted something; he just hadn't gotten around to asking for it yet. Nobody helped anybody without a damn good reason. She'd learned that the hard way. Oh, the lovely foster family that had taken her in had seemed hunky-dory at first. All that bull about how they loved children, couldn't have any of their own, wanted to help a down-on-her-luck teenage orphan who had just about run out of hope of ever being adopted.

Right.

Tawny had been with them a month before Shannon moved in. She'd come from another institution, but Shannon had been in most of them by then. They'd never met--a small miracle, since their paths must have crossed a hundred times as they both went through the system. They'd hated each other's guts at first. At first. But then the insanity began. Mr. Gray son had some pretty sick ideas. And his wife knew all about it, but was too much of a mouse to let him know she knew.

Anyone who thought two sixteen-year-old girls couldn't fend for themselves on the mean streets ought to try living with that kind of threat looming for a while. The streets are a breeze after that.

God, to think she and Tawny had toughed it out through hell and high water, only to come to this. Tawny dead. Shan- non not far behind her. Why the hell had they bothered surviving at all?

But that thinking was borderline self-pity, so she swiped her mind clean like a blackboard under a damp sponge and started over. Da mien.

Yes, she'd been thinking about Da mien, and whatever it was he wanted from her.

For a second there, she could have sworn it was sex. Something about the way his body went all right when she touched his bare skin.

But she dismissed that idea almost as soon as she thought it. The guy was an idol. He could have any woman he wanted, just by snapping his magic fingers.

Why the hell would he be interested in her?

So there had to be something else. And it would be only a matter of time until she found out what.

Meanwhile, she needed to concentrate on something else. What in God's name had he meant when he said she'd be safe in the daytime?

CHAPTER SIX

She stopped in at the office for the first time in three days. The legwork had kept her out, tracing Tawny's steps in the week before she'd died, trying to find out who'd killed her, why and how on earth they'd done it in such a macabre manner.

The only lead she'd found was Da mien, and she was no longer sure the guy was anything other than an eccentric, world-renowned magician who valued his privacy and went to great lengths to preserve the mystique of his alter ego.

She'd tried her damnedest to check his background, but had come up empty.

Before exploding onto the scene as the world's most beloved magician, he had, it seemed, no past at all.

"Shannon. Hey, where you been? I was starting to think you'd gone outta business."

She smiled at Sal, standing in the doorway of the pizzeria, with his clean white apron covering his rounded middle. She hadn't told him, or anyone, that Tawny's murder would be her last case.

"Hey, Sal. Not out of business, just busy. What's new?"

"Rent's going up next month."

"What--again?" It didn't matter. She wouldn't be here next month.

Sal nodded, rolling his eyes.

"Probably a letter wait in' for you. Got mine yesterday."

"This place isn't worth what we're paying now," she grumbled. She unlocked the door beside Sal's, swung it open, mounted the steep stairway.

Sal came to the bottom and called up to her.

"You could afford the rent if you didn't drive such a fancy car, you know."

"So you keep telling me. It'll be fancier as soon as I save up enough for a paint job." She'd get that done. She promised herself she'd get that done before she went down for the count.

"That's baloney. You don't look good. Shannon. You eat in' right?"

"I will be today." She reached the top of the stairs and unlocked her office door, then paused to look down at Sal. "Two slices for lunch, with the works."

"Everything but anchovies. I know how you like it."

She smiled, swung her door open and stepped inside. The man sitting in a chair in front of her desk rose, set the file folder he'd been perusing aside, parted his lips to say something, and then thought better of it. His gaze dropped to the revolver she was pointing at his chest. She'd jerked the gun from her waistband in a split second, before he'd even turned fully. He stood very still.

"Who are you, and what the hell are you doing in my office?"

He licked his lips, a quick, nervous little dart of his tongue. And then she recognized him. He was the one who'd taken Tawny's body out of the ME's office last night.

"Take it easy with that thing. I have ID. May I?"

She nodded, a little shiver dancing up her neck.

"You pull anything other than a wallet out of that fancy jacket you're wearing and it's gonna have a big hole in the front."

His hand dipped into the jacket, came out with a small leather folder. He handed it to her, and she took it, never moving her gaze from him. She nipped it open, glimpsed a photo ID from the corner of her eye. She took a quick look, her gaze darting back to him every other millisecond or so.

Stephen Bach man. Then she read a little further and blinked.

"CIA?"

"One of its subdivisions."

"Which one?"

"That's not important."

She narrowed her eyes, scanning the card more carefully, trying to see whether it was genuine or a fraud. She had no way of knowing. She gazed at him again. Tall, broad- shouldered. He had an athletic build to him, and his dark hair curled a little at the ends. Gray suit, spotless white shirt.

Telltale bulge beneath the left arm.

She wiggled the gun barrel.

"Put your weapon on the desk, Mr. Bach man.

Slowly. "

He nodded, removed his gun, a shiny nickel-plated 9 mm Ruger, and set it on the desk. She stepped forward and picked it up, tucked it into the back of her jeans.

"How'd you get in here?"

He smiled a little.

"I told you. I'm CIA."

She held his gaze, nodding, and then took the file folder he'd been reading.

It contained her notes on Tawny's death. She frowned hard.

"Why is the CIA involved in a murder investigation?"

"Oh, come on, Ms. Mallory. We both know this is no ordinary murder. May I sit now, or do I have to be standing in order for you to shoot me?"

She nodded, moving behind her desk as he sat. She took her own seat.

"Just what the hell is going on?"

The man stared hard at her.

"You're the one who found her. Why don't you tell me?"

"What do you want from me, Bach man?"

"You're going to tell me all about Tawny Keller. And all about yourself.

And everything you think you know about this case. "

She smiled slowly.

"Why would I do that?"

He shrugged, pursed his lips.

"Because we both want the same thing. To catch her killer. And because if you don't, I'll have your private investigator's license pulled before noon."

"Sure do know how to sweet-talk a girl, don't you? Tell you what. I'll tell you everything I know, if you'll answer me one or two questions first." She wasn't going to tell him a damned thing. For all she knew, he could be a fraud. Then again, maybe not. He certainly had clout with the ME's office.

His eyes nan-owed.

"If I can. What do you want to know?"

"Why I can't get Tawny's body released to me. I want to give her a funeral."

She knew he had the answer to that question. She waited.

That tongue darted out again.

"Settle for a memorial service. Buy a marker, if you want. You won't get the body."

"Why?"

"It's now the property of the federal government. That's all you need to know."

He might as well have slapped her.

"What the hell have you done with her, Bach man? I know she's been moved.

Where is she?"

"Good little private snoop, aren't you? How'd you know we moved her?"

She bit her lower lip. She wouldn't show weakness, turmoil, nothing. Not to this suit.

"ME's been giving me the royal runaround. I had a suspicion.

You just confirmed it. "

He nodded.

"Not bad. But I can't tell you where she is. Sorry."

He glanced at his watch.

"You want to move on to the next question? I don't have all day."

She fought with her temper and won. Voice level, cold, she asked him, "How did she really die?"

"Blood loss."

"I know that. I mean ... how?"

He stared hard at her.

"Damned if I know."

It was such a blatant lie he might as well have been wearing a sign. He made sure she knew he was lying. So smug. The bastard.

"My turn, Ms. Mallory. You've been seeing a doctor--four times in the past month. What's the problem?"

She felt her brows lift.

"There isn't any problem."

His head tilted sideways.

"I thought you were going to cooperate."

"I am. I didn't feel well, got checked out. There was no problem."

"I can verify this more easily that you'd believe."

"Why am I not surprised?"

He studied her for a long time. He wasn't sure if she was being flippant or blatantly honest, she could tell. Good, let him wonder.

"You've seen a lot of Da mien Namtar in the past couple of days."

She blinked, then stopped herself from registering her surprise in any other way.

"Have I been under surveillance?"

"Not yet."

"Him, then?"

His lips thinned.

"I need to know why you've been seeing him."

So the CIA was watching Da mien. She wondered if he knew it.

"I'm a fan,"

she told Bach man.

"Is there something I should know about Mr. Namtar?"

"I'm not altogether sure you don't already know."

The puzzled expression she felt twist her brows was genuine. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"Do you think he had something to do with the murder?"

"Anything's possible."

Bach man was talking, but he wasn't saying a damned thing. The briefcase he held caught her gaze.

"Maybe I should watch myself, then."

"Maybe you should stay away from him altogether."

Was that a warning? What did this bastard know?

"I'm already familiar with your background, and the victim's" -- "Tawny. Her name was Tawny. Use it."

He snapped open the briefcase on his lap, nipped open a notebook.

"Whatever. You were wards of the state, assigned to a foster home in Flat bush. Then both ran away. It's what went on between then and now that's tough to document. She was obviously a whore. How did you survive?

Same game? "

She pulled the man's own gun from the back of her jeans, worked the action and pointed it right at his nose.

"Your time's up, Bach man. Get out."

"I'm not finished." He closed the notebook, then the case.

"You'll be more than finished if you don't leave--now."

He nodded.

"Fine. There are other ways to find out what I need to know."

He reached for the folder on her desk. She squeezed the trigger. The bullet shattered an ashtray two inches from Bach man's hand. He froze, turning to stare at her. It was anger not fear she saw in his eyes.

"I could have you in jail for that. "

"I could blow your brains out and say I mistook you for an intruder. Leave the file here, and go."

His eyes darkened, but his hand fell to his side. He stepped toward her.

She opened the door and moved aside. In the doorway, he turned to face her.

"You keep quiet about your friend's death, Ms. Mallory. It's going down as suicide and the first time you say differently, you might just disappear yourself."

"If you think I'll let it die, you're wrong."

' "You have no choice in the matter. And I mean what I say. You don't know what you're dealing with here." He glanced down at the Ruger she still held and opened his hand.

"My gun?"

"Not anymore." She slammed the door in his face.

It took her all of five seconds to decide to follow him when he left, and as she did, she racked her brain for answers. Bach- man must be legit. The ME wouldn't have cooperated otherwise. So why was the government so interested in the murder of a prostitute? The way she'd died. It had to be.

But how had Tawny died, exactly? How had someone put those marks on her throat, drained her blood? And why?

She had a feeling Bach man knew. But the son of a gun wasn't talking.

Da mien pored over the pages of the newest translation, searching. always searching. But for what? No matter how many stone tablets were uncovered in the sands of Iraq, no matter how many cuneiform symbols told the story of Gilgamesh the hero, Gilgamesh the king, there would never be one recording the true end to the tale.

He slammed the book closed, tossed it to the floor. His eyes burned, but he blinked them clear again. Rereading the stories never failed to reignite the pain. Stupid. It was long gone now. Netty cleared her throat, drawing his attention.

"You have a guest."

At Netty's side in the library doorway. Shannon stood staring at him. She shifted the backpack that hung over her shoulder, glanced past him to the book he'd just thrown.

"If it's a bad time" -- He shook his head quickly and got to his feet.

"No. Pet peeve, that's all."

"She looks so much better tonight, doesn't she now, sir? More color to her cheeks." Netty patted Shannon's arm.

"I'll bring you a hot toddy. Just the thing for this chilly autumn night.

Warm your bones."

"That's really not" -- Shannon broke off. Netty was already hurrying away with those abbreviated, high-speed steps of hers. Shannon shook her head, smiling a little.

Da mien couldn't take his eyes off her. But when her gaze met his again it was troubled.

"What's wrong?"

She licked her lips.

"Look, I don't know why the hell I'm even here.

Except maybe I owe you. That and that I've got good instincts. I had to have, the way I grew up. Not so much who to trust and who not to trust.

More like who'd slit your throat and who'd just rob you blind. "

He frowned. She was rambling. Nervous.

"You don't trust anyone."

"Right."

"You said you and Tawny learned to fight on the streets. I meant to ask "

She shook her head, stopping him.

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does." He stared at her; those huge amber eyes seemed to reach out to him.

"Where was your family?"

She looked at the floor.

"My mother dumped me when I was a baby. I don't even remember her."

"Then you were adopted?"

Her lips twitched a little.

"They tell me I was a sickly kid. Skinny, asthmatic. I grew up a ward of the state, saw lots of institutions, a few foster homes. I met Tawny in one of them." She turned a little away from him, fingered the strap that was anchored over her shoulder.

"And then?" He wanted to know. He didn't stop to tell himself that he shouldn't. It wouldn't have mattered if he had.

"Things got rough. We decided we could do better on our own. And we did."

He considered reading her mind.

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen. And that's all I'm going to say about it, I came here, Da mien, despite the fact that I still don't really trust you, because right now I distrust you a little less than the other guy."

She'd changed the subject so firmly that he knew she wouldn't reveal any more of her past to him. So he took the bait.

"What other guy?"

She paced the room, shoving her hands into the deep pockets of her brown suede jacket. She moved toward the fire. Stood near it, as though she were absorbing its warmth.

"On the streets, when someone does you dirty, you do them right back. But it works the same the other way. I guess I've never gotten that damned unwritten code out of my head. You helped me out, so here I am. Maybe I'm an idiot, but here I am."

He moved closer, wishing he could see her face, read whatever was in her eyes. He understood her pain over losing Tawny a little better now. They'd been together since they were just kids. They must have been like sisters.

"Shannon, I don't have a clue what you're talking about."

She whirled around, standing so close he could feel her agitated breaths on his face. Her eyes were wide, dark gold.

"I think you're in trouble, Da mien. I think maybe we both are."

But the urgency in her eyes faded when she glanced past him. Frowning, he turned to see Netty just beyond the doorway, a steaming mug in her hand.

She stepped forward, beaming a smile as she brought the toddy to Shannon.

"Thanks, Netty." Shannon sipped.

"Mmm, wonderful. Aren't you having one?"

Her gaze probed Da mien's.

"Ah, he never eats a thing, this one. Surprised he don't waste away before my eyes."

"That's all for today, Netty. Go on home to your grandchildren."

She nodded, blew Shannon a kiss, then waved as she trotted away in search of her coat. Shannon sipped her drink and walked to the book lying on its bent pages. She set the mug down and bent to pick the heavy volume up.

"Oh. Gilgamesh again. You read about him a lot, don't you?"

"Hobby of mine."

He heard the back door close, though he knew the sound would never reach mortal ears. Soon afterward, the car started up and Netty drove away.

"Not a pleasant one," she said.

"You weren't too happy with whatever you read in here."

"It's what I didn't read in there. But that's off the subject, isn't it?"

"Can I take it home? I'd like to read it."

He nodded.

"It'll bore you to tears. Moldy old stories that don't matter anymore. You said you were in trouble. Shan- non."

She set the book carefully on the desk.

"I said we."

She shrugged the backpack off, let it thump to the floor. The thing was heavy. She knelt, unzipped it and pulled out a stack of papers. Then another. File folders, notebooks, photographs, manila envelopes.

"I thought you ought to see these."

"What are they?"

She fished in the bottom of the bag, making sure she'd removed everything, then shifted her position, curling her legs beneath her for comfort.

"Don't know for sure--haven't gone through it yet." She glanced up at him, her eyes slightly shiny. She was excited, maybe still afraid, but wound up, as well. "Da mien, did you know the CIA had you under surveillance?" ' "The CIA?" He almost laughed. Then he saw her frown, and knew she was serious.

He shook his head slowly and sat down across from her.

"Shannon, what's going on?"

' This suit broke into my office today. It was the same man we saw last night, with the ME. When I got there he was going through my files.

Flashed some fancy ID card and said he was CIA.

"One of its subdivisions' were his exact words. This DPI--if it's for real--must be it. He wanted to know all about Tawny and me, and then he started asking about you. Threatened to have my investigator's license pulled unless I talked."

Da mien felt a slow anger begin to simmer.

"He threatened you?"

"Don't worry--I didn't tell him anything. But he knew I'd been with you lately, and he more or less said you were being watched." She shook her head, glancing down at the pile of documents in front of her.

"Do you have any idea why they'd be interested in you?"

He shook his head. There was only one reason he could think of, and that was impossible. No government agency would take the existence of his race seriously enough to investigate it. The murder, then. It must have to do with the murder.

"You said they asked about Tawny?"

Shannon's glimmering amber eyes clouded just before her lashes lowered, hiding the emotion in their depths.

"They aren't going to bring her back, Da mien. He wouldn't tell me where they took her or why, just that her body belongs to the government now, and I ...

I can't even bury her." When she looked up her eyes swam with tears.

"He knows how she died--I'm sure of it. But he won't say. I have to know, Da- when. Can you understand that? I have to know what happened, who put those holes in her throat, what she went through, whether she suffered or was afraid..."

She was hurting, this pixie with the leather-tough heart. She was hurting because her best friend had died. And he knew that pain so well that he hurt, too. He reached up, cradled her head in his hands and drew it downward to rest on his chest, with the mound of papers on the floor between them. He stroked her silky hair, wishing he could do more.

"I'm sorry, Shannon. I know how much it hurts to lose someone you loved.

There's no other pain like it. I know." It wouldn't ease her pain to know how Tawny had died. She'd never believe it if he told her it really had been a vampire. So he didn't.

She let him hold her there a moment longer, then she straightened, blinked for a moment and stared hard into his eyes.

"Who did you lose?"

Enkidu's face hovered in his mind's eye, his laughter filled Da mien's ears.

Just as if no time at all had passed.

"A friend," he told her.

"He was like a brother, like the other half of me. My weaknesses were his strengths, and his were mine. We did everything together...." Da mien swallowed the lump in his throat, searched her face. What was it about her that had him talking about Enkidu this way? He hadn't voiced that old anguish in ages.

"And then he died," she whispered.

"And now you're a recluse." She tipped her head to one side.

"Is that why? Are you afraid to have any more friends, because they might leave you someday?"

"It isn't a question of 'might." Death is certain, guaranteed to every mortal on the planet. "

"I'm all too aware of that. But life's too short to waste it alone."

He smiled in an attempt to break the tension.

"You're one to talk. I haven't seen hordes of companions beating paths to your door."

"No, but not because I avoid making friends. I don't shut myself away from the world, Da mien, the way you do. I just don't make attachments easily."

She looked up as she spoke, and the fire's light glowed its reflection in her eyes, made her golden hair gleam. Did she want an attachment now? With him?

The gods had better help him if she did. She really was beautiful. So fragile looking, skin as delicate as lily petals. The hardness, the calluses on her heart, didn't show.

Da mien shook himself when he realized how he was staring. He looked away quickly, glancing down at the papers.

"You haven't finished telling me how you got these."

"Oh." She blinked, seeming to gather her thoughts.

"Well, I threw the guy out on his ear and then I followed him. Some Spock .

He didn't even notice.

He's staying at the Hilton over on Tenth. I lurked around until he went out again, then just went to his room and helped myself. "

Da mien's head came up fast.

"You" -- "It's kid's stuff, getting into a hotel room. I used to clean them, you know, to put myself through school and help pay the rent. I just gave the clerk the creep's room number and said I'd lost my key." One hand dipped into her jacket pocket and she pulled out a key card.

"He was more than happy to give me another. Figured I'd hang on to it, in case we need it again."

"Shannon, the man's going to know these papers are missing."

"Yeah, and if he has half a brain, he'll know who took them. I imagine my license is as good as gone. Doesn't matter, though. He would've pulled it anyway. He was pretty licked off when I shot at him with his own gun." She smiled, appearing more like a mischievous teenager than a wounded, wary adult.

"Don't look like that--I was only trying to make a point. I didn't hurt the guy."

"It isn't him I'm worried about."

Her brows went up and down expressively.

"Well, it oughtta be. He really ticked me off."

Da mien felt his lips pull into a reluctant smile as she got to her feet and walked back toward the table where she'd left her drink. He scanned the folders while she sipped. She moved closer to the fire again, her back to him.

"I was planning to close the office soon anyway. Already quit working on everything except Tawny's murder. Sent most of my clients to other agencies."

A manila folder had her name on its tab. Frowning, Da mien opened it and saw medical notes, test results. The file was thick. He closed it, glancing up at her back, and slid it under a sofa cushion just as she turned again.

"Looks like we'll have to pull an allnighter You up for it?"

"If you are," he said. He was more than a little bit worded about letting her see whatever was in the reports on him. But he couldn't think of a way to get around it. He still couldn't believe this Bach man man knew. No.

It was impossible. But if Bach man wasn't investigating the un dead, then just what was his interest in this case and in Da mien?

Shannon squeaked and jumped backward, sloshing her drink. A brown field mouse raced past her feet and stopped in a corner. Shannon set the glass on the mantel and grabbed the brass poker, turning toward the creature.

"Wait." Da mien stepped forward, closed his hand around hers and took the poker away. He replaced it in the holder.

"What're you, nuts?" She certainly looked at him as if he was.

"You let one in, you'll be infested before you know it."

He shook his head, pointed.

"Look at it. Shannon." She turned her head, staring at the tiny, white-bellied mouse. Its brown eyes bulged and its body trembled.

"Just stand still," he told her. Da mien moved forward slowly, his eyes sending silent messages to the creature. When he was close enough he crouched down, cupped his hands and scooped the mouse into them.

"There. See how harmless he is? You scared him half to death." He closed one hand around the body, careful not to crush it.

"/ scared him?"

With one forefinger he rubbed the tiny head. He glanced up at Shannon.

"He's just looking for a few crumbs and a warm place to spend the winter.

Want to pet him?"

He held the mouse out, and she backed away.

"No, thanks."

He shrugged and walked toward the doorway.

"What are you going to do with it?" She trotted behind him.

"Da mien, if you put it outside it's just going to come back in."

"There's a rickety little woodshed out back. I'll turn him loose in there.

Mice love woodsheds. "

By the time she finished reading. Shannon was feeling more than a little bit uneasy. She'd found herself looking up at Da- when over and over again while she'd read the notes, noticing the lack of a single gray hair. Not a wrinkle on his smooth face. Damn, the man had to be old enough to have accumulated a few crow's-feet. Then she'd laugh at herself, realizing how ridiculous it was to be thinking what she was thinking. Then she'd read some more, and feel a little uneasy all over again. Line after line of reasons to believe Da mien Namtar was a vampire. A vampire, for crying out loud. The so-called evidence was lined up like a grocery list. Times of Da mien's comings and goings, side by side with the times the sun rose and set on the day in question. Where he'd been seen, and when and with whom.

He read steadily, never glancing up. He looked puzzled, and then worried, and then angry.

Finally, she stood up and stretched the kinks out of her muscles. She forced herself to dismiss every bit of what she'd read as nothing more than the rantings of a nut.

"Well, I guess that settles it. The guy's not CIA, or if he's is, he's suffering from burnout. God, he thinks he's the latest version of Kolchek."

"Who?" She glanced down and smiled, but the tension remained on Da mien's face, in his black eyes.

"Kolchek. You remember, the old TV series with the vampire hunter....

Da mien, don't look so devastated, the guy's insane."

He rose, head down, and paced toward the fire to toss another log onto the dwindling flames.

"Either that, or you're really a vampire."

He spun to face her, eyes wide.

"Hey, I was kidding. Take it easy, will you?"

"I can't take it easy. Shannon. The man's been recording my every move for days. I don't like it."

"Well, of course you don't. Who would?"

She returned to her spot on the floor and snatched up the last sheet he'd read, wan ting to know what had upset him so much. He lunged toward her, reaching for the paper, but she ducked away and scanned the lines.

Then the blood rushed to her feet and her breath froze in her lungs.

"My God..." Her gaze shot to Da mien's. He stood motionless, looking devastated.

"You didn't want me to see this, did you?"

"Do you blame me?"

She licked her lips, and reread the lines. Tawny's body was the second that had been found. The first, another young woman, had died of identical wounds to the throat. And there was a note that she, too, had volunteered to be Da mien's assistant on stage. Rosalie Mason. The woman Shannon had tried to find.

She shook her head, staring at Da mien in disbelief.

"That's why I didn't want you to see it. Shannon. That look that's on your face right now. I know what you're thinking."

"That's bull, because right now, / don't even know what I'm thinking." She got up again, walked to where she'd dropped her backpack and picked it up.

"I'm going now. I'm overtired, and if I don't get some sleep soon, I'll be bunking in your shed with that mouse."

"You can use the guest room " "No." She softened her tone. She didn't really believe any of this, did she? Of course she didn't.

"No, I really can't. Not tonight."

"You're afraid of me."

She chewed her lower lip, blinked twice.

"I'm not. Maybe that's what worries me." She took a single step, then turned back and picked up the new book on Gilgamesh, the one he'd been reading when she'd arrived.

"You, uh, you said it was okay to borrow this, didn't you?"

Da mien nodded. Shannon slipped it into her pack, then slung the bundle over her shoulder and started for the door. Da mien followed, touched her shoulder, stopping her before she went out.

"I know you don't trust me. Shannon, but I have to follow you home. It's still dark, and " She spun around, blinking up at him.

"That's right, it is. And that reminds me to ask you why it is you're so sure I'm safe during the day, but in danger at night."

"Vampires only hunt at night."

A little chill ran over her nape at those words. She ignored it.

"Get real, Da mien."

"I'm serious." He sighed hard, pushed a hand through his hair and stepped away from her.

"There's no such thing." But when she said it, her words were barely more than a whisper.

He turned and met her eyes.

"Then let's say the killer wants it to look like a vampire. Can you buy that?"

She nodded, still wary.

"He'll hardly change his tactics now and strike by day."

She felt the tension in her spine ease.

"For a minute there I thought you were going to say you believed in this stuff Had me worried." She was still worried. She just wasn't sun what about. Not that he was a blood-sucking night stalker. No that.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The final test. It would be definitive. After this there would be no question as to Da mien's fondness for the delicate mortal woman.

Anthar had allowed himself no contact with her. He'd kept his mind utterly isolated from her, just as he knew his nemesis had wished to do. It would never do for Anthar to develop a soft spot for her. She was a pawn. Her purpose was to mete out punishment, and nothing more. Anthar felt no hint of the instinctive urge to protect her. And if he had, he'd have ignored it.

The fuel that powered his actions was more powerful than anything else could be. The need for vengeance. He'd been obsessed with the downfall of this onetime king for too long to allow anything to interfere.

And the test he'd devised this time would tell him all he needed to know.

He'd use an element that could spell destruction for any immortal. Da mien the Eternal would have to risk more than the passing pain of a bullet to save his mortal pet. He'd risk his very existence this time, or watch her die.

If he should try and fail to save her, well, that would only add to his torment. If he should not try at all, then Anthar would know he hadn't cared.

It was all so simple to arrange. But not now--dawn was too close. Tonight, with the first layer of darkness on the autumn sky. He'd begin by making her sleep . very soundly.

The story was riveting.

She hadn't wanted interruption. She'd turned on the answering machine and refused to answer the door, even when the man thumping impatiently on the other side had most likely been an angry CIA Spock by the name of Bach man.

She had no idea why he didn't just break in. Maybe he really believed she wasn't here.

Didn't matter. She had no time to talk to him. No. She needed to spend today trying to decide whether Da mien Nam- tar could possibly, in her wildest dreams, be a cold-blooded murderer. Or maybe he was just completely insane.

Multiple personalities, perhaps, and maybe one of those personalities was a vampire.

After he'd left, she'd tried to sleep, couldn't. Countless scenarios popped into her mind, and kept her tossing and turning well into the morning. The result being that when she finally did sleep, she hadn't awoken until noon.

She was beginning to keep some pretty vampiric hours herself.

When she did finally rouse herself, he was on her mind again, from the second she opened her eyes. The only conclusion she'd reached was that she just didn't know enough about the man to make a judgment call. And she'd decided then and there to read this book, cover to cover. To try to see what was in here that moved him so deeply, and maybe find a clue to what made him tick.

And now she knew, and it moved her, too.

Sad, tragic story. All about a great king and the man who became his closest friend--more than a friend, really. Gilgamesh had been a bit of a tyrant at first. A strong man, fierce in combat, abundant in wisdom. So much so he was thought of as half man, half god. But he'd forgotten how to feel compassion for his people.

Enkidu was raised on the steppe, among the wild things. People thought of him as half man, half animal. But he came into the ancient city of Uruk one day and deliberately stood right in Gilgamesh's path. A public challenge.

The two fought, and the description of the battle was more poetic than anything Shannon thought she'd ever read: They fell like wolves at each other's throats, like bulls bellowing, and horses gasping for breath.

crushing the gate they fell against.

The dry dust billowed in the marketplace and people shrieked. The dogs raced in and out between their legs.

A child screamed at their feet that danced the dance of life which hovers close to death.

And quiet suddenly fell on them when Gilgamesh stood still exhausted. He turned to Enkidu, who leaned against his shoulder and looked into his eyes And saw himself in the other, just as Enkidu saw himself in Gilgamesh.

In the silence of the people they began to laugh And clutched each other in their breathless exaltation.

A lump formed in her throat as she read on. The two had been inseparable from then on, and the book told of their adventures together, how they were two parts of a single whole. And how, finally, Enkidu had slowly died as his friend looked on, helpless to save him.

The verse narrative was moving, and that surprised her. She hadn't expected writers from something earlier than 4000 b. c. to be so expressive. She blinked back tears as she read another passage, aloud, just to savor the beauty of it as it described Gilgamesh's crippling grief.

"The word Enkidu roamed through every thought like a hungry animal through empty lairs in search of food. The only nourishment he knew was grief, endless in its hidden source.

Shannon stood very still, knowing exactly how the man had felt. She'd felt that kind of grief when Tawny had died. She still felt it. She had to wait a few minutes before she could read further. Her tears blurred her vision, but she had to finish.

Engrossed, she read on. Gilgamesh, no longer a great ruler but an ordinary man who'd lost his way, wandered in the desert, perhaps a little insane, in search of the secret to eternal life. He became obsessed with the idea of becoming immortal and of carrying that secret home with him, to bring Enkidu back to life. A mission that was doomed to fail.

By the time Shannon closed the book, there were small, spasmodic sobs pulling at her breastbone. She brushed her eyes dry, shook her head and tried to focus on her reason for reading this heartbreaking tale in the first place.

To understand Da mien.

Of course. He said he'd lost his best friend. God, he'd even described their closeness in a way that mirrored the closeness of Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the ancient tale. No wonder he identified with it. And with her.

It was as though some triangle of endless mourning connected the three of them.

But what did that mean to her?

She set the book down, absently caressing the cover, and paced the length of her living room, then back again. Could Da mien be a killer? A man who was moved to tears by a story thousands of years old? A man who obviously felt things more deeply than any man she'd ever met? He couldn't even let her kill a little field mouse, for God's sake.

All her life she'd been taught, over and over again, not to trust anyone.

Not anyone. So why did she so stubbornly persist in wan ting to trust him?

All right, maybe it was time she took a good long look at her motivations here. She did just that, over a long steamy soak in a scented bath.

She'd never been with a man, had never wanted to be.

Until lately. Lately, she'd caught herself thinking about it more than once.

Wondering if there was a chance it could actually be as wonderful as Tawny used to always tell her it could be. And she had to be brutally honest and admit that it was Da mien who was inspiring these kinds of thoughts. No wonder, really. He was such a sexual creature.

It was getting dark outside. He'd be here soon, to stand guard over her for the night. She really ought to get out of the water and dress. What would he do, she wondered, if she kissed him?

Didn't matter. She wasn't going to find out.

Was she?

She felt a peculiar lethargy stealing over her body as she soaked. An unnatural kind of exhaustion, as if she'd popped a sleeping pill or something. She sponged her skin and fought it.

She thought maybe she'd like to find out after all. Hell, she had nothing to lose, and why not experience everything she was curious about before her life ended?

God, she was tired. Her eyes drooped and her body sank a little lower in the water. She dragged herself out of the tub and pulled on a robe. Was it this damned illness making her so sleepy? She'd already dozed half the day.

Whatever, it was irresistible. She shuffled to bed, wet hair and all.

It wasn't the smoke that woke her it was the alarm. Shrieking at her, breaking the night with its whistling pitch. She was half-dressed before she smelled the smoke, creeping in and surrounding her senses, little by little, so she wasn't certain for a moment. It might be her imagination. The alarm might be malfunctioning, and. She pulled on the jeans she'd left on the floor, since they were within reach. She was hopping into the living room as she tugged them up, snapped them, yanked on the zipper. She was headed for the door, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the wispy gray fingers reaching toward her from beneath it.

They grew longer, floating upward, spreading. She took another step and felt a deep terror twist to life in her soul. She pressed her palms to the door, only to suck air through her teeth and yank them away from the heat.

"God! Oh, God!" Panic beat a message across her heart. She fought it, tried to use her mind. She whirled in a circle, then dashed across the room, yanking a blanket from the back of the sofa, heading for the bathroom. She jerked at the tub's faucet and dumped the blanket in. She jumped in on top of it, stomping on it up and down until it was soaked, then hauled it out, dripping and cold, and carried it back to the door.

The smoke seeped steadily beneath it now, and she dumped the wet blanket to the floor, kicking it tight to the crack under the door. Then she watched.

The smoke stopped.

A sigh of relief that she knew wasn't called for escaped her lips anyway.

She ran to the phone, picked it up and jiggled the cutoff. Dead. Her throat went dry. She licked her lips, standing in the room's center, turning slowly in a full circle. What could she do? She was twenty-three stories up and her only way out was through a door she knew better than to open. What in the name of God could she possibly do?

She went to the bedroom to stare out the window. Flames lit the night. She saw their orange glow dancing upward from the stories below her. She saw the flashing lights of rescue vehicles bathing the crowd that had gathered below.

She saw people in their nightclothes, wandering like bugs. God, how had she slept through all of this? And she saw the huge gap where the fire escape ought to be. She would be down there soon, being led around by those fire fighters like the bug people were. Just as soon as they put the fire out and came for her. She would. She only needed to keep her head.

She went to the closet, opened it and picked up her worn- out baseball bat.

She hurried back to the bedroom, and the window shattered with the first impact. She hoped the people below were far enough away to avoid the flying glass. She imagined they were. They'd expect windows to be smashed by the ones still trapped.

Trapped.

She bit her lip, and tore her gaze away from the people below and the flame's color on the night sky. She went back to the living room and glanced longingly at the balcony. But red tongues of flame leapt up around it, attacking from the one below. She couldn't go out there. No haven there.

She returned to the bathroom, stoppered the tub and let more water rush into it. Cool water. And then she filled a dishpan, carried it into the living room and hurled the water at the hot door. The paint on the inside was blistering now. The smoke was finding its way around the blanket. The next dish panful hit, spattered, splashed back on her face.

She threw another blanket into the water, this one to wrap herself in should she need it.

What else? What else?

Her heartbeat escalated when she realized she was sweating The temperature of the room was increasing. The floors. God, the bottoms of her bare feet felt the heat seeping up through the floors.

Calm. Calm, don't panic. Go to the window again. Let them know you're here. A signal.

She tied several sheets together, taking her time, trying to keep her hands from shaking so hard, knowing there was nothing to do but wait. When she glanced up, she saw a layer of smoke suspended at waist level, and she got down from the bed to sit on the hot floor. She tied the end of her sheet banner to the bedpost and tossed the rest out the window.

They'd see the white flag in the night. They'd come for her.

Her eyes burned. The inside of her nose stung. Her chest hurt.

It's the smoke. The smoke is the enemy. Have to stop breathing so much of it.

She went to the bathroom again, to the overflowing tub, but she didn't turn the water off. She took a clean washcloth, wet it and held it to her face.

She swiped at her burning eyes, but when she opened them again, it was dark.

The power had gone. The tub spluttered to a stop. She held the cloth over her nose and mouth to filter the air, but she choked anyway. She pawed for the tub, dragged the wet blanket from it. That thick, acrid stench coated her mouth and tongue. She dropped to her knees and crawled from the bathroom, pulling the sodden weight behind her.

The explosion came from nowhere and from everywhere. Burning brands rained on her like shrapnel, and a blinding wall of flame stood where the door used to be. She crawled faster, on knees only, coughing, clutching the washcloth to her face with one hand and pulling the soaked blanket with the other. She found her way to the bedroom door by the light of the inferno spreading like a pool through her apartment. She hurled herself through, then closed it and pushed the blanket to the bottom.

The coughing racked her now, and with each bout she spasmodically inhaled more of the smoke that was choking her. Killing her. She sat on the floor, turning herself slowly, blinking her watering eyes in pitch-darkness to get her bearings. The window--she wanted to get back to the window. She ; choked again, dragging in more of the acrid stench. Her finger^ I screamed in white-hot pain, and she suddenly realized the ring she wore was burning a brand into it. She yanked it off, threw it away. Her hair was soaked in sweat, her skin sizzling with the heat.

And then she found the window. She found it by the glow of the sheets she'd hung out, which were burning now, like everything else. Flames climbed the sheet like a rope and leapt the windowsill to invade. She lurched to her feet, to the bed. She fumbled with the knot she'd made, but a fit of choking caught her, held her in a merciless grip. She had to stand long enough to undo the knot on the bedpost. When she finally got it free, and sent the sheets sailing to the ground below, she dropped to the floor again.

Only this time it wasn't volitional, and she didn't get up.

He had never intended to use the power of the psychic bond between her kind and his. But he was increasingly glad he'd begun to relearn the ways of doing it. As soon as dusk fell and he came fully awake, he homed in on Shannon. He'd go to her, take up his nightly vigil, just as soon as he'd showered and dressed. And until then he'd keep track of her with his mind.

He ignored the cravings of his body. He shouldn't feel such an urgent need yet. It hadn't been that long. And the damned hunger that kept dancing in his mind shouldn't be wearing Shannon's face. Damn, what was happening to him?

He tried distracting himself from this irrational need for her by thinking of new and amazing feats to perform for the crowds while he took a record-fast shower. He thought about escape tricks, and reminded himself to go through that book on Houdini that he'd bought last month, while he threw on his clothes. But all the time, in one corner of his mind, he was feeling her thoughts, experiencing what she did, smelling and tasting and hearing along with her. The old talent had come back to him with a little practice, more powerful than he'd remembered it.

She'd been silent, so deeply asleep she hadn't even dreamed.

Then there was an abrupt shift. Every one of her senses went rigidly alert.

Da mien smelled smoke, felt it, thick and stinging, clawing at his nostrils, scratching his eyes. Heat like a lead blanket tried to smother him. He felt her fear. Stark terror. All so fast, it had happened.

Fire. And he knew, dammit, that his skin would go up like gasoline if he touched the flame.

Didn't matter, though. He had to get her out. If not, he'd have to experience her death. Feel the gradual ebb of her life force, see what she saw in her mind as she battled the final enemy. Anyone but her, he thought in sudden panic, and the real possibility of it hit him. She couldn't die, not Shannon. It would kill him this time.

He'd done it, then, hadn't he? He'd let himself start caring about her.

Da mien stepped out of his house, lifted his arms. Seconds later he soared, a shadow in the night sky, a streak of darkness there and gone so suddenly no mortal eye would see him. He soared toward her, and he felt her heartbeat slow.

Damn you, you won't win. Not this time!

He sped through the starry sky, piercing clouds like an arrow. He felt the cool, crisp air on his skin, and then the searing heat on Shannon's. He smelled the biting autumn air and then the stench of smoke. And then he was there. The conflagration raged like a tower of pure hell, and he dove, swooping through the broken glass of her bedroom window.

He thudded to the floor of a smoke-filled room, and even with his night vision, he could barely see. The heat was intense, and here and there tongues of vicious flame broke the inky blackness. He avoided them, focusing only on Shannon, and he found her, dropped to his knees beside her just as her labored, raspy struggles for breath stopped altogether.

She lay still, eyes closed, a limp angel. He scooped her into his arms, cupping her head with one hand and held her face to his. He blew his breath into her lungs. Once, twice, again.

She coughed, drew a strangled breath, only filling her lungs with more smoke.

Her arms came weakly around his neck, and her face pressed to his throat.

She choked his name before she lost consciousness again.

Cradling her to his chest, a burden so light he barely noticed the added weight, he leapt through the window again, speeding through the night too rapidly to be seen, like one more wisp of sooty smoke that appeared, then vanished in the blink of an eye.

He came down away from the lights and the crowd, in a darkened alley between the next two buildings. The street just beyond was a chaos of sirens. Red and white flashes bathed Shannon with color. Vehicles moved back and forth, horns blasting, voices shouting.

She stirred in his arms, drew a wheezing breath and then exploded in a seizure of coughing that he thought would tear her body apart. He held her to his chest until the paroxysm passed, then searched her soot-streaked face.

"Shannon?"

She blinked him into focus with red eyes, frowned, then glanced beyond him to the burning hulk. Red-orange tongues of fire lapped at the night sky, as if they'd consume it, as well. "How " Her question was cut off by her coughing.

He carried her out of the shadows, into the crowd. He shoved his way through until he reached an ambulance, then snatched the oxygen mask from its hook on a tank.

"Hold on, mister. I'll handle it." The young man turned a valve, held the mask to Shannon's face and waved an arm toward the ground.

"Lay her down here."

"A stretcher." He bit the two words out and glared at the man in white.

"Sorry, but they're all in use. Just give her to me" -- As the medic spoke he reached for Shannon, but a sweep of Da- when's arm sent him stumbling aside.

"Hey" -- Da mien shut him up with one glance before he looked for a soft place where she could rest. He spotted an empty police car and carried her toward it. The man swore under his breath, but came along, carrying the oxygen tank. Da mien yanked open the rear door of the cruiser and lay her down across the back seat. She was coughing again, pushing the mask away, trying to sit up.

"Da mien" -- "It's all right. Shannon. You'll be fine now."

' "You got" -- A fit of coughing took her and she was weak when it let her go. She sat up anyway, her arm along the back of the seat to brace her.

She held the clear plastic mask to her face, head bowed as she sucked a few breaths of oxygen, but her eyes never left his. Her head came up, slowly, as if it weighed too much for her neck to support.

"You got me out."

He nodded.

"Rest. You need to" -- "How?"

He said nothing, just watched her. She turned her head to stare at the blazing building. She drew two more breaths, then moved the mask aside.

"You went in there, didn't you? You walked into that..." Her brows drew together and she returned to her scrutiny of his face. She coughed again, drew herself straighter, searching his eyes.

An ambulance pulled up beside the police car. Two paramedics jumped out, yanked a gurney from the back and rolled it to a stop behind Da mien. The one with the oxygen tank tapped the roof.

"We've got an ambulance available now. We can transport her."

She shook her head.

"No, I'm fine."

"We're taking you to a hospital, miss. You inhaled a lot of smoke" "I said I'm fine." She got her feet to the pavement again, shoving Da mien aside so she could stand up, then closing a hand on his shoulder for support. She glanced just once more at the building, then met Da mien's eyes, her own shooting sparks that were just a bit duller than usual.

"Why?"

He wasn't sure just then that the smoke she'd inhaled hadn't damaged her brain.

"You need see a doctor. Shannon. Lie down on this gurney and" -- "Stop talking to me like I'm two years old and spill it, Da mien." She paused to cough, wheeze, gasp, pressing the palm of one hand to her chest, bending almost double. The young man held the mask she'd discarded to her face. She took one gulp of oxygen and pushed it aside, lifting her head with an obvious effort.

"Why did you risk your neck for me like that?

Again? You have a death wish or what? "

He frowned at her.

"You know you and your lousy attitude are beginning to get to me. I went to a lot of trouble to snatch you, kicking and screaming as usual, from death's door. I don't expect a thank-you at this point, but you'd better believe you are going to see a doctor if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you there myself."

She sucked at the oxygen, eyes narrowing on his face.

He cocked his eyebrows.

"Don't get that suspicious look, Shannon Mallory.

This wasn't a plot to get you to stop suspecting me of heinous crimes. If that was all I wanted to accomplish I could have left you in there. "

The mask moved away.

"I never said" -- Her glare faltered, and she began coughing hard enough to tear her lungs to shreds, he thought.

He picked her up.

"I'm tired of arguing with you, dammit." He held her hard and climbed into the back of the ambulance.

He sat on a seat, with her on his lap, and sent the attendant a nod.

The youth clambered in with them, bringing the oxygen along, bending over to affix the mask once more to Shannon's face. Da mien could see the medic wanted to suggest Da mien follow in a car, meet them at the hospital. He even opened his mouth to do it, but he changed his mind. The other man closed the double rear doors and went around to the front. The vehicle lurched, jarring her against his chest. Her arms encircled Da- when's shoulders and she let her head relax against him. He closed his eyes. In seconds they were under way, siren blasting.

They hadn't gone far, when she lifted her head, reached up to yank the mask from her face, but Da mien caught her hand in his, held it, stared down into her eyes. He could will her to be still. But he found himself wan ting to convince herinstead. He liked her spirit, irritating though it was.

"Shannon, there is nothing in this for me. That's what you're wondering about, isn't it? What my angle is, what I'm after? nothing at all."

She twisted her hand from his and yanked the mask away. "I didn't ask for you to jump into the middle of my life." She drew a slow, careful breath.

"I don't need a hero."

"I didn't claim to be one."

"Ha! You ran into that burning building like some kind of comic-book superstar! There was no earthly reason for you to" -- Her accusatory comment was cut off by another bout of coughing, and Da mien pressed the mask to her face again.

When she'd calmed and faced him again, he lifted the mask. She looked at him in silence for a long time. Her gaze fell to somewhere in the vicinity of his chin.

"There was no reason for you to risk your life like that."

She spoke more softly, he thought, so she wouldn't instigate a return of her choking and gasping.

"There was every reason," he told her. He pushed her hair away from her face.

Her eyes narrowed, shooting amber sparks at him. He wiped some of the soot from her face. She tried to sit up, and he let her. She slid from his lap to settle on the edge of the gurney. She didn't look him in the eye. She stared downward, and her golden hair fell over one side of her face.

"I thought. I really thought it was all overin there. "

"I'm glad you were wrong."

She nodded.

"I owe you, Da mien... again." The ambulance turned and slowed.

Then came to a stop. The rear doors opened, and she got to the ground by herself, refusing his help as well as the medics'. The young man reached out to take Shannon's arm, but she jerked it away.

"I can walk perfectly well by myself. God, you'd think I was ... was..."

She stood, wavering slightly, glanced at Da mien, blinked. She lifted one hand toward him.

He caught her when she began sinking. Stubborn woman! He carried her through the double Emergency Room doors that opened on their own at his approach. He walked into chrome- and-white chaos, the smell of Lysol, the squeak of rubber soles on spotless floor tiles and the clatter of wobbling wheels on gurneys as they were pushed along. She muttered that she was fine and didn't need to be carried. He was ushered to an examining room, where he laid her carefully down on a table that was covered in immaculate white paper. She smudged it with soot.

Da mien evaporated as soon as the first nurse appeared with a stack of forms to be filled out. Shannon sat on the edge of the bed and filled in the blanks, wondering if they handed this same stack to cardiac-arrest victims before administering CPR.

A nurse came in with a soft, damp cloth and a basin of warm water and proceeded to wipe the soot from Shannon's face. Okay, she thought. They were sweethearts. She was just thinking bitchy thoughts because she was in a bitchy mood. Damn, she'd lost just about everything she had.

"The doctor will be right in, Ms...." The blond woman glanced at the forms.

"Mallory. You just relax and let me get your vitals, okay?"

Shannon nodded as a thermometer was popped into her mouth.

As it turned out, that nurse spent a good half hour with her. The doc was in and out in five minutes flat, pronouncing her well enough to go home, and then the nurse was back, wondering what she was going to wear.

Shannon hadn't thought of that. And when she did, she thought of other things, things she'd never see again. Her Sting CDs, her brown suede jacket.

Her eyes flew wide, she clutched her middle and groaned in real pain.

The nurse grabbed her shoulder. Da mien burst into the room.

"What's wrong?

What's happening? "

Shannon moaned again, louder. It really hurt.

"My car. Oh, my car, my car, my car." She covered her face with her hands when Da mien and the nurse exchanged looks.

"After those thugs tried to steal it, I parked it in that damned sinkhole they call an underground garage. Oh, damn, don't you get it? My car..."

She groaned. They didn't understand. They couldn't. "Just get out and leave me alone," she muttered into her hands.

She heard the door close, thought she might be by herself, looked up.

Da mien set a big shopping bag on the floor and came toward her.

"You're crying." His magic fingers rose and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"You think it's stupid, crying for a car." She sniffed and tried to stop, but more tears flowed. She gave up, closed her eyes and let them come.

His hands slipped over her shoulders, around to her back. He pulled her head to his chest, and he rocked her slightly back and forth.

"I don't think it's stupid."

"Tawny... used to collect them."

"Cars?"

She sniffed and nodded, pushing her face closer to his chest. That white shirt of his still held the smell of smoke, but his scent was there, too, and it crept into her brain and rubbed her sore spots with a healing touch.

"Matchbox cars," she told him.

"The Corvette was her favorite. But it was my favorite, too. We'd always fight over that one. Little, candy-apple red Stingray with the doors that really opened and closed.

She'd put it on her dresser, and I'd snatch it and put it on mine. We were too old for toys, but hell, we didn't have much to call our own in those days. " She cried a little harder, ashamed of herself, but needing to do it.

"And... and my birthday came, with no party or presents, just like always.

And she--she wrapped that stupid little car up in a page of comics and gave it to me. It was her favorite, and she gave it to me. She swore someday we'd have a real one, and we'd ride around together...."

His arms tightened around her.

"So that's why your car means so much to you, hmm?"

She nodded again.

"It might be okay, you know. They have the fire pretty much contained, according to the radio, and it didn't look to me like the lower floors were too badly damaged."

She lifted her head, gazing wide-eyed at his face.

"You think?"

"It's possible. I'll check on it for you just as soon as we get you settled in."

She felt her brows draw together.

"Settled i" -- ' "I went to a department store a few blocks away while you were being examined, picked you up a few necessities."

"You" -- "You're coming home with me. Shannon. And I don't want to hear any arguments about it." He stood in front of her, searched her face.

She was quiet for a long time, searching his right back. His dark eyes, his raven hair, the face that made her want to trace each strong feature with her fingertips. He'd saved her life . twice now. He certainly wasn't going to hurt her.

"Da mien..." She hesitated, hating to voice her fears, but forcing herself to go on.

"Do you think the fire--"

"They're saying it looks like arson, but they won't be certain for a day or two."

She gnawed her lips.

"It's all connected, isn't it? Someone doesn't want me digging into Tawny's murder."

"There's no proof--"

"It might even have been Bach man. He said he could make me disappear." She eyed Da mien, wishing she knew the truth.

"I just don't know. It might have been an attempt on your life. It might have been a coincidence. Either way, you'll be safer with me. I don't want you alone anymore. Shannon."

She didn't want to be alone anymore, either. She simply nodded.

"Okay."

CHAPTER EIGHT

He scooped her up in his arms again and strode through the emergency room over the protests of the nurse, who kept talking about hospital regulations and wheelchairs. There was a part of Shannon that rebelled against the coddling. That little suspicious voice in her mind that insisted he must have a motive, whispered constant warnings in her ear: You don't need anyone to take care of you. You can take care of yourself-- you always have. Don't get used to this. It's not gonna last, and we both know it, don't we? It'll just make you weak. Yell at him. Tell him to put you down.

But she didn't. Because there was another part, a part that seemed to be growing bigger all the time, that liked the way it felt to be cradled in his strength. The hard arms that held her, the solid chest she leaned against, were feeling less like invaders of her independence and more like her own solid fortress, her refuge. It felt good to be held this way, dammit. And who the hell ever said she didn't have the right to feel good once in a while?

She put her arms around his neck, mentally thumbing her nose at that cynical voice. He stepped outside, into the hospital parking lot, and she thought there had never been an autumn night that tasted as crisp and clean as this one. There was a second, as he carried her toward the black Jag that crouched like the cat it was named for, when she wondered how he'd got the car here so fast. Someone, probably a cop or a fire fighter, must have brought it over. It didn't matter, really.

He settled her on the seat, pulled the safety belt around her, fastened it.

Then he looked at her, just looked at her for a long time. She could see his eyes moving minutely, as if he had to see every part of her face. Their focus shifted, from her forehead to her nose to her jaw. Her lips, her eyes.

She lifted a hand, thinking she might still have soot smeared on her skin.

But he caught it, stopping it, holding it in his. She met his ebony gaze.

His lips moved just a little, the barest whisper of a smile. He stepped back and closed her door, still staring at her face. After a moment she offered a small smile in return. Finally, he dragged his gaze away, went to his side of the car and got in. And then he drove.

When they reached the house, he carried her again.

"You'll want to shower.

Your robe is still in the bedroom you used before. " This he said as they mounted the broad, curving staircase.

The cynic was getting louder.

"Da mien put me down. I'm not too helpless to walk up a flight of stairs."

"I'm not as sure of that as you are." He kept walking.

She didn't argue anymore, sensing it wouldn't do much good anyway.

Besides, they were already heading up the second flight. He'd put her down soon. Now, why wasn't she as relieved by that thought as she'd expected to be? He held her crushingly tight, as if he were afraid he might drop her.

She let her head rest on his shoulder, and then felt the oddest certainty that he'd bent his head to brush his lips over her hair.

Silly. Just her imagination overworking itself again.

He flung the bedroom door open, stepped through it and lowered her to the floor. His hand clasped her waist for longer than it had to, just to steady her. He looked so concerned that it made her uncomfortable, and she took a step away from him.

"I think you're right. I want a shower. Get that damned smoky reek out of my hair before I choke on it."

He nodded, but didn't leave. He opened the closet and set the shopping bag he still carried on the top shelf, then turned to her again.

"Can you manage by yourself?"

That made her smile a little. He really must think she was a wimp.

"What are you gonna do, Da mien, bathe me personally, just in case I'm not strong enough to lift a bar of soap?"

The worried expression in his black eyes changed. They darkened or intensified or something. For a long time, she couldn't look away. And when she finally did, she felt shaken, a little weak-kneed, and not from smoke inhalation.

"I'll be back to check on you in a few minutes." His voice wasn't even or calm, as it had been before. He turned and left her there, and she got the impression he was in a hurry.

When the door closed- she stared at it, licked her lips. "Yeah," she whispered.

"And then what?"

She scrubbed. She shampooed her hair again and again, and stood under the shower spray until she wondered if his supply of hot water was endless. As she lingered in the shower, she thought of Da mien. The great magician. The man. What made him want to perform for a living? she wondered. And what had he done before? And. and was he thinking about her as often as she'd been thinking about him lately?

She shook her head and told herself to get a grip. When she thought she'd finally rid herself of that clinging smoky odor, she toweled dry and reached for the clothes he'd just bought for her, the ones she'd worn to leave the hospital. But she smelled the smoke again. Well, no wonder.

She'd been coated in that scent when she'd put them on, and now the clothes were infected. It figured, didn't it?

She wrapped up in a towel and went in search of the robe she'd left here.

She found it in the closet, pulled it on. But as she did, she glanced up at that shopping bag on the top shelf. It still bulged. He had said he'd bought the stuff for her, hadn't he? She wondered if there was anything more substantial in there to put on. She stretched out an arm, but the shelf was too high to reach that way.

Biting her lip and glancing around, she spotted a chair and quickly pulled it over to the closet. She climbed up, and the bedroom door opened, and Da mien stood there, arms crossed, looking at her the way he might look at a little girl hanging upside down from a set of monkey bars.

He'd showered, changed. He wore a pair of black jeans that fit him way too well and a wine-colored button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows, so her eyes were instantly drawn to the fine dark mist of hair on his forearms. When she met his gaze again, he was smiling.

She ignored his amused expression and reached for the bag.

"Watch out!"

His yell came just as she felt the chair slide sideways and begin to tilt.

She toppled. The bag flew out of her hands as she plummeted. She groped for a hold. The next thing she knew, she was slamming into his chest so hard his back smacked into the wall. Her arms automatically clung to his neck as he held her upright against him with her feet dangling a few inches above the floor. His arms were right around her waist, crossed at the small of her back. Her face was above his, and only a fraction of an inch away. She caught her breath. He didn't let her go. He was staring.

She didn't know what part of her so fascinated him, because her own gaze was fixed to his mouth.

It wasn't the first time she'd caught herself looking at those full lips of his and wondering what kind of a kisser he was. Would he be gentle, well mannered, neat? Or hard and hot and messy? Probably the latter, she figured, narrowing her eyes as she thought about it. Yes. Definitely the latter.

He closed his eyes and thumped the back of his head to the wall, as though trying to clear it or something. His arms loosened on her waist so she could slide down, but as her body moved over his, she felt the rigid arousal behind his zipper, and she knew her heart skipped a beat.

She turned him on? Good grief, she hadn't realized that. Well, all right, she'd suspected it once or twice, but. Her toes touched the floor. She unlaced her arms from around his neck and lowered her heels until her feet were flat. He opened his eyes. She hadn't noticed before how thick and glossy his lashes were, or how the irises themselves were smooth as black satin. She took a step away from him, but her eyes remained mated to his.

His big hands rested just above her hips now, and she felt his fingers knead her flesh there, but she wasn't sure if it was a voluntary movement or something he did unconsciously. She thought about the magic in those hands, the ease with which he moved them on stage, the way things would appear in them as if from thin air, the way the very elements seemed to respond to their commands, to obey their every wave or even a snap of those long fingers. What kind of magic could hands like that work on a woman? And she thought about the hard length of him, stirred to life just by the touch of her body against his. And for just a second, she wondered what it would be like to let a man like this one make love to her.

Probably beyond anything she could imagine.

He pushed her away, and he turned abruptly, as if he'd pound the front of his head against the wall this time. He didn't, but his magic hands were clenched into trembling fists at his sides and his shoulders were stiff and the muscled cords in his neck stood out.

Oh, come on. He couldn't possibly want her that much. Maybe, if she were some swimsuit model or cover girl, but not her. So what was this?

"I, uh, didn't hurt you, did I?"

His head fell until she figured his chin was touching his chest. He made a sound that was half snort, half laugh. His voice was very soft and kind of raspy when he said, "No, Shannon. You didn't hurt me."

She shrugged.

"I didn't think so." She turned away from him, just in case he should look at her. She didn't want him to see how much he confused her. Sheesh, if he was that hot for her, why didn't he just say so? He couldn't possibly be afraid she'd turn him down. It wasn't as if a guy like this one probably got turned down often. Maybe not ever. He wanted her. So why didn't he do something about it?

She bit her lips hard, and waited.

"You ought to eat something," he said, and she wanted to scream in frustration.

"Come downstairs."

In the circular room that was his favorite, a roaring fire awaited them.

He wanted to be sure Shannon was really all right before he rested at dawn.

She'd nearly died. He still couldn't quite believe she hadn't.

But she was alive, more alive than anyone he'd ever known. He watched her spoon down the chicken soup he'd warmed for her. He hadn't dared to try anything more complicated. It had been a long time since he'd worried about food, though there was always plenty in the kitchen. Netty had to eat while she was here, and bare cupboards might have made her wonder.

Shannon had finished her soup. Now she meandered around the room, examining things with the fierce curiosity of a child. She picked up the shiny black box that made things disappear on stage. She opened it, examined the mirrors inside, closed it again, turned it over. He watched her, seeing the life, the rampant vitality of her, her spirit. She'd nearly died. He couldn't get rid of that thought.

The robe was too short, and he really should have insisted she find something more to wear. There were other things in the shopping bag, but they both seemed to forget about that after she'd fallen into his arms.

He'd forgotten everything for a few minutes. How to breathe. How to think.

She'd wanted him to kiss her. He knew it with a certainty that made his head spin.

Yes, he really ought to go back upstairs for that shopping bag right now.

Her legs were too shapely, too smooth-skinned and firm. It was too easy to envision them wrapped around him.

Why in hell had he brought her here? Was he completely insane? Did he really think he could keep her here with him, spend every waking moment this close to her, alone with her, and not lose control, not reveal himself?

Maybe he was insane. How many centuries could sanity last, anyway? Was it immortal, as well? Hell, maybe he'd never been sane in the first place.

She approached the huge marble fireplace, whiskey-colored eyes catching its glow. Her gaze moved over the framed charcoal drawings of the ancient world.

One depicted the Euphrates, cutting a path through the desert. She glanced at the artifacts in their clear glass cubes. Frowning, she bent closer to the marble figurine under the glass.

"What is it?"

"An ancient goddess of love and fertility. The Sumerians called her In anna, the Babylonians, Ishtar. Queen of Heaven."

"She's beautiful. It looks old."

"Almost five thousand years old."

Her amber eyes widened, and she lifted the glass cube that covered the piece, then glanced at him.

"May I?"

He nodded, watching as she held the small sculpture, ran her fingers delicately over it.

"I can't believe I'm touching something that people thousands of years ago might have touched, something this old."

He wanted her to touch him that way. He was that old. Older.

She shook her head in wonder and replaced the glass. Then pointed to the piece beside it.

"And this one? What is it, a goat?"

"Yes. It's newer, made around 2600 b.c. The blue in the horns and beard is lapis lazuli. The rest is gold."

"You collect this stuff?"

He nodded, watching her gaze move over his face as if its shape fascinated her. Then she turned to the last piece on the mantel.

"This one's kind of ugly."

"It's not art."

"What is it?"

"A piece of a story." He moved forward to stand beside her. She squinted at the carvings that covered every inch of the stone's face.

"This is writing?"

"Man's earliest form of writing. Cuneiform script. This piece was done around 4000 b.c." in Sumer. "

She studied it more closely, as if trying to absorb its meaning.

"Does anyone know what it says?"

Da mien nodded.

"It's part of the story of Gilgamesh."

She looked up quickly, and he saw regret in her eyes.

"Gilgamesh. Oh, God, Da mien, your book... the fire" -- "It's all right."

"But I" -- "Shannon, it's just a book. The latest translation. I have dozens of others with the same story in them. You've seen them yourself" -- "But it's precious to you."

It was. They all were. But how could she know that?

"I can get another one."

"I'll get you another one. And a copy for myself while I'm at it." She sighed, her hand resting feather-light on the glass. "It was a wonderful, terrible story. I'm glad I read it before the book burned."

He frowned at her, trying not to see that in the firelight her skin resembled fine silk, trying not to hear the sincerity in her voice.

"You did?"

She nodded absently, her gaze going back to the uneven chunk of stone.

"Tell me what it says."

He closed his eyes.

"You don't really want to hear " "I do. That story touched me, Da mien. I think I understand the pain that drove Gilgamesh into the desert. I lost a best friend, too, you know."

"I know." And he did.

"This is a recounting of Enkidu's death. Gilgamesh was at his side, clutching his hand. Enkidu looked at Gilgamesh and spoke to him. This is what he said."

Da mien turned his eyes to the stone. '"You will be left alone, unable to understand in a world where nothing lives anymore..."

" He tried not to feel the pain of that horrible day again.It had changed over the centuries, even altered its form, but never dulled.He still felt it like a freshly whetted blade slicing his soul.His voice thickened as he read on.

"" You'll be alone and wander, looking for that life that's gone, or some eternal life you have to find. Your eyes have changed. You are crying. You never cried before. It's not like you. Why am I to die, you to wander alone? Is that the way it is with friends? " Gilgamesh sat hushed as his friend's eyes stilled. In his silence he reached out to touch the friend whom he had lost."

Da mien stopped with one hand braced against the mantel and stared into the flames. He only brought himself up out of the well of pain when he heard her sniff. He lifted his head, glanced at her, and saw tears in her amber eyes.

"It's so sad. And you read it with such emotion." She sniffed once more and ran the back of one hand over her eyes. "You should have been an actor."

"I am."

She nodded, biting her lip, turning toward him again.

"You told me that you'd lost a friend, too. That's why you feel so strongly about this epic, isn't it?" He nodded, not trusting his voice just then to speak.

"You've read so much about Gilgamesh. Was there more?"

"More?"

"To the story." She looked at him with so much hope in her eyes.

"It's so sad to believe that's all there was. There ought to be more. Did he ever find the secret? Did he manage to bring his friend back?"

Da mien sighed, shifting his gaze back to the stone.

"He found immortality, but it didn't make him a god, the way he'd thought it would. It didn't give him the power to bring Enkidu back. It made him a demon. The people who'd adored him hated him and called him a monster. They didn't even believe he was Gilgamesh anymore, but some evil imposter. Their king was dead. His foolish search for eternal life condemned him to an endless existence, where he was forced to witness over and over again the triumph of the one enemy he'd hoped to defeat. Death."

She turned again to the stone.

"It says all that?"

' "No, Shannon. That part of the story hasn't been uncovered yet. It's just my own theory."

She stared at him for a moment, her jaw slack. Then she blinked her shock away and lightly punched his shoulder. "Cheerful SOB. Aren't you? Couldn't you come up with a better theory? Something with a 'happily ever after' at the end?"

"I wish I could."

She smiled, but her lips trembled just a little. She reached down to the stack of logs, picked one up and tossed it into the fireplace. A shower of sparks rained out, and Da mien jumped out of the way. He thought his heart skipped a beat. But none made contact, and he hastily replaced the glass screen in front of the flames.

Shannon didn't seem to notice. She was settling down on the floor, amid the pillows on the Turkish rug. She crossed her legs and patted a spot beside her.

"I could discuss Gilgamesh all night. He fascinates me, but I'm hereby tabling the creation of a happy ending for him until another time.

There's something a little more immediate we need to talk about. "

"Like what?"

"Like how we're going to catch Tawny's killer. We haven't made a hell of a lot of progress so far, in case you haven't noticed."

He lifted his eyebrows.

"Does that mean you've finally decided I didn't do it?"

"Do you think I'd be here if I hadn't?"

It wasn't really an answer. Actually, he thought she just might be here either way. She had a little too much courage sometimes.

"You have an idea where to begin? Because I certainly don't." He crossed his legs and sat down beside her.

"As a matter of fact, I do."

His head came up quick at the tone in her voice. Why did the way she said those words, that slight lifting of her chin and that hint of stubbornness in her eyes, send a chill up the back of his neck?

"Tell me, then."

She tilted her head to one side, eyes sparkling again. "You're not going to like it."

"Why am I not surprised?"

She smiled, and he knew he'd made a mistake by sitting down here with her.

She was too close, and her scent twined into his mind, tying it up in knots.

His gaze moved over her face, such an exquisite face, high cheekbones, mouth like a plump bow, small turned-up nose. He'd like to see that face twisted in an ecstasy so sweet it was painful. He could give her that.

Problem was, he was afraid he might kill her in the process.

Her brows drew together, her hand lifted to touch his face. "You all right?"

Her touch on his skin was agony. He turned away, and her hand fell.

"Fine.

What's this idea I'm not going to like? "

She seemed a little hurt by his action, but she went on anyway.

"The killer is only striking the women who've volunteered to assist you. At least, that's the way it looks so far. I thought he might try for me when I became your latest volunteer, but he didn't. So we have to rebait the trap.

I'll be your one-and-only, full-time, exclusive assistant from now on."

"Absolutely" -- "Starting tomorrow night."

"Not."

"I knew you wouldn't like it." She held his gaze, and in the bright challenge shining from her eyes he could almost see her daring him to dish up his best arguments.

"You'd be risking your life."

"Moot point. I might already be on his hit list."

"And you might not."

"You can't keep using audience volunteers, Da mien. It isn't fair to make them targets" -- He stood, paced away and turned to face her again.

"I won't use them anymore."

"Then he's liable to start preying on your paid assistants." She rose, too, and came toward him.

"At least with me, it's an informed decision.

Those other women have no idea what they're letting themselves in for. "

He pushed one hand through his hair, hating that she made sense.

"I'd rather close the show, cancel the rest of the performances."

"You'd be sued."

"I don't care."

She lifted her chin, standing close to him and practically on tiptoe, trying to look him levelly in the eye.

"We'll never catch him unless he tries again. This is important to me. Da- when. The risk is nothing. I've got nothing to lose. All I care about right now is catching this bastard and making sure he pays for what he did to Tawny."

"Shannon "

"And I'm willing to make a concession."He waited.

"I'll stay here with you, make it easier for you to continue in this role you've taken on as my protector, much as I don't need one. If you say no, then I'm out the door, right now, tonight."

"Where would you go?"

"I still have my office. I could bunk on the couch there."

Stubborn, beautiful witch.

"I could camp on your doorstep and watch over you anyway."

"But I'm safer here. This place is like a fort."

He lowered his eyes, knowing defeat when it was staring up at him from a pair of honey golden eyes.

"All right. All right, I give up. You win."

Her arms snaked around his neck, and she squeezed him hard.

"Thank you, Da mien. You won't regret this."

Oh, but he already did.

It was nearly dawn when she finally noticed the time and said good-night.

And while he hated using mind control on her, he did invade her psyche just a little, instructing her to sleep the day through. He couldn't have her snooping around the mansion during the day, or taking off on her own and getting into trouble when he couldn't help her. She was just spirited enough to do either. Probably both. He was endlessly thankful that fire at her place had occurred at night. Otherwise, she'd be gone already.

Gone. The thought put a lump in his throat. He tried not to let it keep occurring to him over and over again after she'd gone up to bed, but it persisted anyway. He swallowed hard, and walked up the stairs to peer in at her. Some stupid need to see her once more, just to confirm that she really was alive and here with him.

He cracked the bedroom door. Naked longing, hunger, bloodlust welled up within him when he did. She lay there, amid the pile of covers she'd kicked away. Sound asleep. Her robe was a small soft puddle on the floor.

If he were an artist, he'd paint her, just like this. Naked, relaxed, alive.

Beautiful. One corner of the sheet clutched in her fist, held between her breasts. With everything in him he wanted to go to her, touch her, run his trembling hands over her flesh, explore her moist recesses with his fingers, his lips, his painfully erect arousal.

He pulled her door closed, pressed his back to the wall and drew a tormented, open mouthed breath, expanding his lungs until he thought they'd burst.

The thirst raged. The need. The hunger. And if she was going to be safe in this house, he had to find a way to assuage it. He knew, too well, that if he resisted, if he denied his savage nature too long, the craving would build and build until he was out of control. Until it took over.

That was the way it had been with the two dead women. He'd thought it would be all right. It had always been before. He'd only taken what they'd offered, sating his endless thirst in the process, feeding at their tender throats, quieting the monster within that demanded sustenance.

And for a few insane seconds in their arms, he might have taken leave of his senses. It was possible. Maybe he only regained his grip on sanity when he was home again, lying still, feeling their warm blood rushing through his veins.

No, dammit! He was certain he'd left them alive. He'd only sipped. He'd never be the instrument of a living being's death. Never. Anyone, a Newborn baby, would be more likely to commit murder than Da mien.

He tore himself away from the wall and stalked through the wide hallway, down the winding staircase. Now the hunger called again. This time, he wouldn't be stupid enough to deny its power over him. He wouldn't try to fight it or put it off. He couldn't let it grow until it reached the point of madness. Not again. Not with Shannon in the house. So near. So sweet.

She 'd be succulent.

"No!"

Da mien stopped in the center of the foyer, closed his eyes and focused on her mind, her soul. It took only a second to be sure she was still asleep.

Before he left, he armed the security system. What he had in mind would take just a few minutes. No one could get to her in that amount of time.

She'd be safe.

Da mien slipped out into the night, whirled until he became only a gray blur to human eyes. And then he flew, a dark streak across the sky.

CHAPTER NINE

Shannon opened her eyes to see Da mien standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her. His black eyes blazed. His jaw was tight, his stance rigid.

He said nothing, just watched her.

She sat up, let the covers fall away from her body, and realized she was naked beneath them. She drew a gasp and jerked the covers up to her neck again. Then lifted her gaze to his. It hadn't wavered. She knew he'd seen her breasts for just an instant. She felt heat moving up through her face, a rush of embarrassment, and she couldn't keep looking at him. Her chin lowered until she saw only her fist, clutching the blankets to her throat.

She felt a tug. Then another. She glanced up fast. Da mien held the bedclothes in his hands, just below her feet. He pulled them toward him.

Slowly but steadily, the covers slipped away. She wanted to jerk them back .

or at least part of her did, but she couldn't seem to move. Her arms were numb, heavy, useless.

Her breasts were visible now, and the blankets and sheets still kept slinking lower. Satin whispered over her hips, her thighs, her knees. She shivered, but it wasn't cold. Her ankles were exposed now. Her feet.

Da mien held the rumpled bundle of covers to one side and let it fall to the floor.

She couldn't roll away from those probing eyes, or lift her arms to cover herself. She sat still, immobilized by some force she didn't understand, as Da mien's hot gaze explored every inch of her body. She saw the bulge at the juncture of his thighs beneath those tight black jeans he wore. She knew what was going to happen. She wasn't afraid. No. It was time. She wanted this.

He took a single step toward the bed.

"Da mien," she whispered.

"Let me love you. Shannon."

She couldn't catch her breath to answer, so she only nodded. He reached out to touch her-Her eyes fluttered open, and she was alone in the room. Alone in the bed, under the soft weight of blankets and a comforter. She lifted the covers and peeked underneath. She'd slept in the buff for lack of a nightgown or any clothing at all except the loose-fitting robe, which tended to tangle around her legs. No wonder she'd had erotic dreams. The feel of satin sheets against her skin had been the inspiration, not the strange man of illusions. That was all it was. Just because he'd been invading her waking thoughts lately didn't mean he'd been the cause of her dream.

But she knew better than that, didn't she?

She grated her teeth and punched the pillow. She'd had a hell of a time getting to sleep. In some ridiculous part of her mind she'd been waiting for, even expecting, him to come to her. But he hadn't. Of course he hadn't.

She looked around for her robe, belatedly realizing it was dim in the room.

Night already? She glanced at the little windup clock on the nightstand--7:15. Dusk. God, she never slept this long at once. Then again, she'd never had dreams like the one she'd just had, either. She sat up in bed, ran one hand across her forehead, and found it damp with sweat.

The knock came at her door and she jumped. Her gaze flew to the wood as his deep voice floated through.

"Shannon? Are you awake?"

She bit her lip. Her dreams had been accurate, if farfetched. They'd reproduced that satin touch of his voice on her senses. And the warmth of his breath, dampness of his lips as he'd whispered against her skin.

Not him, she reminded herself. My dream.

"Shannon?"

"Just a minute." She hopped out of bed, hugging most of the covers around her, still frantically looking for her robe or the clothes she'd taken off the night before. nothing was to be seen. She made it to the door, opened it a crack and peeked through at him.

He stood close to the door, as dark and mysterious as ever. Spotless white shirt, tight black pants with tapered legs. God, he was sexy.

"I brought you something to eat." He held a plate in one hand, but his gaze was fastened to her shoulders and her neck, and the fist with which she held sheets and blankets to her breastbone trembled.

"Can I come in?"

She blinked.

"I'm not exactly dressed" -- He shrugged and shouldered the door open, strolling in as though it were an everyday thing.

"Shannon, I'm around half- dressed, beautiful women all the time. I can handle it, I promise." He sent her a smile as she clumsily adjusted her coverings under her arms. He set the plate on a nightstand.

"Yeah, maybe you can, but I can't." She crossed to the bathroom, blankets and sheets trailing behind her like Lady Di's bridal train. Tugging her tails in behind her, she closed the door.

"Where are my clothes?"

"I asked Netty to get them cleaned for you. They're in the closet."

He sounded as if he stood right outside the bathroom door. She didn't hear him move away.

"Well, would you kindly hand me something to put on?"

He chuckled, but a second later he knocked. She cracked the door and his hand poked through, clutching a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and fresh new underwear.

"Those aren't mine."

"Netty did a little more shopping today. Can't have you wearing the same thing everyday, can we? Take them. Shan- non. They won't bite."

She took the clothes and closed the door again, then quickly dressed.

"I don't know why you're bothering. You won't be in them long."

Shocked, she stared at the bathroom door. Finally, it seemed, he was ready to make a move. It wasn't at all what she'd envisioned.

"That's the crudest proposition I've ever had." She opened the door and stood, hands on hips, facing him. Butterflies battled inside her stomach.

She'd been right in reading the signs last night. He did want her. The moment of truth was here.

"Can't you do any better?"

He touched her face, trailing warm fingertips over her cheek, until she fought the urge to close her eyes and lean against him.

"I can do better.

Don't doubt it. But that wasn't a proposition. Shannon. Just a statement of fact. "

Her eyes popped open and she scowled.

"You're taking this just a bit for granted, aren't you?" She hadn't even decided to say yes yet.

"You said you wanted to be my assistant until we caught the killer, didn't you?" She nodded mutely.

"Well, you certainly can't do it dressed like that."

Embarrassment brought heat to her face, but she turned her head to hide it from his sharp gaze, and tried to convert the discomfort to something more constructive.

"If you think I'm parading around on stage in one of those skimpy sarong skirts with a bikini top, the way your other assistants do, you're in for a surprise, Da mien."

"You won't be parading. You'll be graceful, floating, dancing. And we only have about an hour to rehearse, so will you kindly eat this feast Netty cooked for you so we can get on with it?"

This was not right. He'd fed, just to be sure the hunger was assuaged, just to prevent himself from feeling this powerful lust for her. And he'd been sure he was perfectly in control when he'd come to the room. He'd marched in, with Shannon wearing nothing but a tangle of blankets, just to prove it to himself.

But all it had taken to convince him otherwise was a single glimpse of her smooth skin, bare shoulders and delicate neck, the outline of her collarbone under her skin, the shape of her jaw. The lust hit him again the second he'd set eyes on her, hit him as powerfully as it had before he'd fed. Something was wrong. This damned thirst must be getting stronger. He'd never felt the need again so soon. Never!

And it wasn't a temporary thing. The feelings grew more intense with every second he spent near her, until he was thinking of little else. He wanted to feel her warm flesh pressed to his own, to hear the sounds she made as he worked her body, drove her to madness, made her want the things he did.

But he couldn't make love to her. For all he knew he might kill her if he did. And even if he wasn't the one responsible for the deaths of those other women, he still had reason to keep a distance from Shannon. He didn't want to let his feelings for her get any stronger. It would kill him to care that much again. When she left--as she must--it would kill him.

What was wrong with him? There were so many things he ought to be focused on right now. The killer who stalked the streets of Arista, the person who might make Shannon his next target, for one. If he hadn't killed those two women himself, then he had to know who had, or the murders might go on and on. And this new power his nature seemed to be gaining. He needed to explore it, to find answers to the questions tormenting him. He should contact this Marquand. The man might have some answers.

And then there was Shannon and this mysterious illness he'd worried about since he'd first seen its effects. He had, he thought, the answers to that in his possession, in the supposed CIA man's files on her. But he hadn't had time to go over them yet, with her always so close.

Or maybe it was the guilt he felt at blatantly invading her privacy that way.

But he needed to do that, to find out what was wrong with her before it became worse. She'd admitted that attacks like that had happened before-She whirled across his room, into his arms, and nipped backward in an apparent faint. He nearly dropped her, he'd been paying so little attention. Her body's jerking movements were proof she was fighting laughter, and her eyes popped open a second later.

"I don't know how I'm going to get through this without giggling, Da mien.

It's so dramatic. I'm not a dramatic person. "

He couldn't help but smile at the sparkle in her eyes, the dimples in her face.

"No, I'd call you more irreverent than dramatic." He lifted her upright again and took his arms from around her. Holding her like this was too much, even now.

Netty's clapping came from the doorway and she hustled forward. '"Course it seems absurd now. Shannon, wearing blue jeans and dancing in a living room.

It'll all be different on stage, when you're in costume and the music is thrummin' in your ears and all that misty stuff is twirl in' around your legs. You'll see."

"You think so?"

Netty wiped her hands on her apron and sent Shannon a wink.

"Oh, I know these things. Toured with the Somerset Theatre Troupe in London when I was in my prime. Played Eliza Doolittle. Knocked 'em dead, I did."

Da mien frowned.

"You never told me that, Netty."

"You never asked," she replied.

"Truth be told" -- she tilted her head, addressing Shannon "--he's always been such a cold fish, I was beginning to wonder if there beat a heart in that big chest of his. He's different now, though, since you been com in' round."

Da mien opened his mouth to tell Netty she was overstepping, but she cut him off before he said a word.

"Got to get to it, if I'm going to get to the theater in time to see Shannon's debut. If there's nothing else...?"

Da mien shook his head.

"Thank you for the clothes, and the meal, and everything else you've done for me," Shannon said as Netty turned to go.

' "No thin' of it, child. You remind me of an orphan in need of moth erin'.

I like coddling you just a mite. "

Shannon's eyes widened, but Netty was already on her way out the door. She glanced at Da mien as if dumbfounded.

"What is it?"

"What she said, I..." She blinked twice, then shook her head.

"Just a coincidence, I guess. Never mind."

A short time later, she tugged at the bottom of the leopard- print bikini top and nervously adjusted the knot in the side of the matching sarong skirt.

Roxy, Da mien's former assistant, had not been happy about the change. In fact, she'd thrown a fit, and Da mien had been tossing out one excuse after another, until, fed up and wondering who the hell had a name like "Roxy"

anyway. Shannon had stepped between them.

"Look, toots, I'm a PI. Repeat it and you'll wish you hadn't. I'm taking your place because Da mien's assistant is liable to end up as some lunatic's target. Repeat that and I'll break your jaw. If you think I can't, try me.

Any questions?"

Roxy, tall and elegant, stared down at Shannon for a long moment, gaping.

Finally, she glanced at Da mien again.

"This had better be legit, Namtar.

I have a contract. "

"You'll still be paid for every performance."

She nodded once, spared a parting glare at Shannon, then turned on her heel and left.

Shannon sighed, shaking off the memory of the nasty little confrontation and focusing instead on Da mien's every move out there on stage. She struggled to remember everything he'd told her. Keep her head up, back straight. Be graceful, confident.

That she was beautiful, and would be terrific. That was the second time he'd called her "beautiful." She could learn to like it.

When he nodded toward where she stood, she braced her hands against the prop table-on-wheels and pushed it out onto the stage. Da mien introduced her as his "delectable assistant, Shannon." She waved to the crowd as he'd told her to, and was surprised when they applauded her loudly. The rock music swelled, and the show got easier as she went along, handing Da mien the props from the table, adding little flourishes of her own now and then. When the trick was finished and Da mien gallantly kissed the back of her hand, she fanned herself and winked at the audience. They loved it, applauding wildly as she sauntered offstage, pushing the little cart. It wasn't nearly as tough as she'd expected it to be. And it was kind of fun.

She could flirt with him as much as she wanted, and he'd just consider it all part of the act.

She was incredible. So full of mischief tonight, and her sense of mayhem and devilment spilled over. It was contagious. The crowd adored her.

But when the mist swirled around his legs, and the low, driving music began for the finale, he glanced offstage where she waited and saw the twinkle had faded from those eyes. She was serious. She knew there was no comedy in this part of the act. He took a moment to be thankful she had her mirthful streak under control. He held one hand out toward her, and she swirled to him as the volume swelled. He took her hand, and she stilled, facing the audience, just as they'd rehearsed.

With one fingertip on her chin, her turned her to face him. Then, with a flick of his wrist, his fingers fanned before her eyes. The music pumped louder. She let her eyes take on an entranced, blank sort of stare. Then he slipped one arm around her waist, feeling the warmth of her flesh burn his skin. His other hand cupped the back of her head and he bent her backward.

Drawing a steadying breath, he lowered his head to her throat, parted his lips, caught her skin between them.

And the lust roared to life.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He'd told himself that it would fade as soon as he began his performance. He'd repeated this same act, sometimes while the hunger was paining him, but he'd never been so tempted to make it real. He was sated. He'd fed last night just to kill the rampant desire.

Why was it convulsing in his brain?

Her skin was like satin, and salty against his lips. He kissed her throat, and couldn't stop his tongue from stroking a slow path over it. He felt her shudder in response to that, and he heard her whisper his name, for his ears alone, a plea barely audible in her voice. Her scent twisted into his nostrils. The soft thrum of her pulse seemed amplified in his ears. He could feel the rush of blood passing just beneath the skin. His teeth closed just a little, and he heard the startled breath she drew.

Shaking himself, he realized that her hands clutched the back of his head.

Her fingers clenched and relaxed in his hair, again and again, as if on their own. Her head tipped back a little farther and the pressure on his head increased. Ever so slightly, she pressed her throat to his sucking mouth.

Imploring. Offering. Submitting. His body began to shake. The need engulfed him. Sweat dampened his face.

With a deep growl he hadn't meant to emit, he released her, tugged her arms from around him and lowered her, quickly and roughly, to the floor.

The crowd roared, coming to its feet as one entity. Da mien faced them, blinking. For a few brief seconds he'd forgotten their existence. There'd been nothing but Shannon, the taste of her, the desire that suddenly exploded inside him; He'd even forgotten the capsule of stage blood he was supposed to break open and apply to her neck.

She was lying there, motionless except for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed far faster than she ought to. His gaze was caught for a moment, mesmerized by the subtle lifting of her scantily covered breasts.

They were large and round and soft. The valley between them seemed like a magnet to his lips, his face.

He looked away, sweeping the hair that had fallen to stick to his damp forehead with one hand. Without waiting for the curtain to fall and lift again, he swept the satin cloak over his face and whirled.

It was a raven that emerged from the fallen folds of his cloak tonight. It swooped out over the crowd before returning to the stage and then diving off stage right. The curtain came down to thunderous applause.

Ah, yes, this was going so well. Anthar watched, having only slipped into the theater in time for the finale. He was convinced Da mien had been so engrossed in his pretty assistant that he hadn't even detected the presence of another ancient one. Of course, he never had. Anthar was good at veiling his presence from others. Still, he'd never been this close. Always before, he'd observed from a great distance, shadowed Da mien's steps, witnessed his nights with those other two. But Da mien had never sensed him there, and he didn't seem to have noticed Anthar's presence tonight, either. That was good. The fool was obviously enamored of the girl, obviously fighting with himself to keep his lust from sating itself on her. It was only a matter of time, then. Just as soon as Da mien's will dissolved and he took the beauty to his bed, as soon as he ravaged her body and drank from her throat, Anthar would know. He was never far from Da mien, always watching.

He'd know when it happened, and then Anthar would move in.

It would be nothing to finish the job, to drain her dry. And he'd leave her in the bed where Da mien had taken her, and he'd let that bastard find her there, let him believe her death belonged to him. Let him think he'd killed the one he loved.

Ah, the torment, the agony he'd feel then! It would be sheer beauty to see.

And then the once-great king would take his own life. Anthar had no doubt of it at all. Gilgamesh the Great would be no more. His punishment, Anthar's vengeance, was at hand.

Anthar rubbed his hands together with glee and made his way out of the theater.

"You really are wonderful, Da mien. They love you. Listen to them--they're still cheering."

Da mien tried to take in her words without hearing the soft silken sounds of her voice. Erotic the way it stroked his ears, the way he could conjure it whimpering, sighing, crying out his name in the heights of pleasure.

Focus on something else, you idiot. Anything. The crowd, focus on the crowd.

He opened his mind, hoping the sensations of others would drown out his own.

He'd feel their adoration, their love. It would be enough. It had always been enough. The only connection in his life, the only emotion he allowed himself. The love of the crowds. He deliberately ignored the voice of Shannon's thoughts, concentrating on those still cheering in the theater.

And then his head came up sharply, and he grated his teeth.

Another, like him, was here tonight. Another vampire. God, he'd thought of this explanation for the murders, even tried to convince himself of it.

But he hadn't really believed. Not fully. There'd been a big part of him that still believed he was the killer, and there wasn't another one like him for hundreds of miles. But one was here, tonight.

And the bastard was getting closer.

Da mien leapt to his feet just as the door to his dressing room swung open.

He gripped Shannon's arm, ignoring her questions, pulling her to stand behind him.

The man stood motionless in the doorway, staring at Da- when. His eyes were black, his hair as raven as Da mien's was. He smiled just a little and nodded, his gaze slipping past Da- when to where Shannon stood behind him.

' "I enjoyed the performance," he said slowly, carefully, and there was a slight accent to his words, maybe French.

"You're talented. Miss Mallory."

"Thank" -- "Don't talk to her. Don't even look at her, or I'll tear you apart, right here." Da mien was breathing too rapidly, and the rage that infused him was surprising.

One of the man's dark brows arched upward, as if he were puzzled.

"There's no reason to be so hostile, Da mien. I only came to talk to you."

"Then we'll talk alone."

"I assure you, I can be discreet, if that's what concerns you." He gave his head a small shake.

"Perhaps this was a bad idea. Since you refused to answer my letters, I thought to see a performance, try to get a word with you in person. I ought to have respected your privacy." He took a step backward.

"What letters? What are you talking about?" Da mien demanded.

Shannon wrenched herself free of his restraining hand, thanks to his momentary distraction, and stepped around him. "Don't go."

She slanted Da mien a sideways glance.

"Honest to God, I've never seen you so rude. What's the matter?" As she spoke she extended a hand, and the stranger took it, brought it to his lips.

But when he lifted his head he was frowning.

Da mien gripped Shannon's other arm and pulled her away from the stranger.

"Who are you, and what do you want?"

But the other man's eyes remained on Shannon, and they were darker than before.

"You'd best He down, Miss Mallory. You aren't well."

Da mien glanced at her, noting for the first time the paleness in her face, the coolness of her skin where he held her wrist. He closed his fingers, and felt the rapid patter of her pulse. And she was beginning to tremble, just a bit.

"I'm fine. Just a little tired."

The stranger's eyes sought Da mien's, and the man shook his head so slightly it was barely a movement at all, as if to say, "She is not fine.

Not at all. "

Shannon drew a deep breath, and Da mien saw her stiffen her spine.

"I would like to go home, though. This theater is cold as a meat locker.

Maybe you and Da mien could talk there, Mr...."

"Marquand," he said smoothly, his accent utterly charming and seeming to fit perfectly with his Old World way of speaking.

"Eric Marquand, and I think that's a wonderful idea."

"Marquand," Da mien repeated. He closed his eyes, realizing his mistake, then wondering about it. How long had this Marquand been in town? Long enough to have committed two murders?

Stop being a fool, Da mien, and get this woman someplace she can rest.

She's on the verge of collapse. Can't you sense it?

The voice, coming into his mind so clearly it was as if the other man had spoken, took Da mien by surprise. He'd never used the telepathy, always kept his mind closed and rarely spoke to others, except to command his victims to remember his visits as a dream.

He shook off the surprise and looked at Shannon again, this time attuning his mind to hers, as well. He felt the queasiness swirling in her stomach, the unbalanced feeling in her head, the cold creeping into her bones.

In anna forbid, not another attack!

"Shannon?"

"Fine... I'm fine."

But her speech was slurred, and her cold skin began to warm under his hand.

He scooped her up and shouldered past the stranger. His questions could be answered later. Now all that mattered was caring for her, seeing her through this episode. Damn, why hadn't he found the time to read those files? Why?

CHAPTER TEN

By the time Da mien's Jaguar sped into the driveway, she was barely conscious, shaking violently, burning with fever. He hit the brakes in front of the mansion, skidding on the gravel. He threw the door open, jumped out and ran to her side. His heart was in his throat as he bent to pick her up.

It was bad. Whatever the hell this thing was, he knew it was bad. And it scared him. Maybe he shouldn't have brought her here, though she'd insisted.

He ought to have called the paramedics, someone.

He started for the front door at a run. then froze when he saw the man who stood there, waiting. Enough like Da mien to be his brother.

Apparently, this Eric Marquand was powerful enough to travel faster than Da mien could with the car.

The man nodded, grim faced, and opened the door.

Da mien strode through, straight into the circular room Shan- non liked so well, and lowered her to the sofa. The bold bastard came right in behind him, and Da mien whirled.

"Get the hell out!"

"Do you want to help her or not?"

His voice was very smooth, very calm. His accent barely noticeable. Da mien tried to scan the man's thoughts with his unpracticed mind. He sensed no malice there.

"Can you help her?"

"I'm not certain."

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you."

One dark eyebrow arched higher than the other.

"For one so ancient you're very uninformed about our kind, aren't you, Da mien? I could no more harm one of the Chosen than you.

None of us can. None that I know of, at least. " He glanced once more to the sofa where she lay trembling violently. " Blankets. Heavy ones. Stoke the fire, as well. "

Da mien scowled at the man. He was torn between wan ting to set himself between Shannon and anyone who might be a threat to her, and his desperate need to help her. She moaned helplessly, and the sound slashed a path right across his heart, laying it open, making it bleed. He hurried to her side, sat on the sofa beside her. For all he knew this stranger could be the murderer. He wasn't about to leave Marquand alone with her. Not for a second.

"You'll find blankets in the closet at the top of the stairs." Marquand nodded, started to move away. Da mien focused the power of his mind on the hearth, and the flames blew higher, roaring and snapping like a torch. The other man stiffened and sent an awed glance Da mien's way before he continued up the stairs.

It was an hour this time before she calmed, and then she slept as if comatose. The young vampire had been of some help after all, feeding her some brew he'd concocted to ease her pain, lower the fever, and help her rest. Now he paced before the roaring fire, looking grim and sober.

"Why did you come here?" Da mien finally asked, when he could drag his gaze away from Shannon's pale face. She'd be all right now. She had to be.

"If you've read my letters, then you know. I'm something of a scientist among our kind." He looked at Shannon and shook his head slowly.

"I'd been warned against approaching you, but I have so many questions. I'm hoping you can answer them."

"nothing more than that?"

Eric glanced at Da mien, frowning.

"I only came to see your performance, Da mien. I've been hearing incredible things about you. My curiosity won out over my caution. Then, naturally, when I sensed this one's distress, I had no choice but to try to be of help."

He tilted his head as he studied Shannon. "Never have I come across one so fair. Golden haired. Most are dark, like us." His head whipped around then, and that one irritating brow shot up again.

"No need for that rush of jealousy, friend. I have a mate of my own. I've no desire to seduce yours."

"She is not my ... mate, as you so quaintly put it."

Marquand's lips thinned.

"What are you going to do?"

"What can I do?" Da mien's stomach twisted into a knot. "You can see for yourself how sick she is. But she refuses to let me take her to a hospital.

Hell, I don't even know what's wrong."

Eric searched his face in apparent disbelief.

"Have you never known one of the Chosen before, Da mien?"

"Of course not!" Da mien spun away from Shannon, shoving a hand roughly through his hair and pacing the room's length.

"Dammit, Marquand, you think I welcome this attachment? This fierce need to protect and watch over her? What does it come to, except pain and loss? I hate feeling anything remotely like this." With his audiences, he could accept the love and still remain distant. Somehow, it wasn't enough anymore.

Eric only stood, unbearably calm, and stared into the flames. "You have much to learn, my friend."

"Don't call me that. I have no friends. I don't want to have any."

Eric shrugged.

"As you say. Still, there is much you need to know. About her, for example.

How old are you, anyway?"

"Almost six thousand years." He heard the man gasp. "You can see you're just a child in comparison."

Eric came forward, gripped Da mien's arm.

"Were you the first?"

The light in the man's eyes was nearly blinding when he asked the question.

"Why are you so curious?"

Eric's hand fell away.

"I don't know. I've spent my entire existence questioning, seeking answers, experimenting."

"And I've spent mine in seclusion--except for the performances. I want no closeness at all." He glanced at Shannon. "She had to come to the theater that night. I'm afraid she might be dying. God help me, what if she's dying?"

"She may well be." Da mien shook his head in instant denial, but the stranger went on.

"None of the Chosen live beyond their fortieth year. None I've known of, at least, and I've tracked many through their lifetimes.

This medicine I've developed is specifically to ease their discomfort at the end. "

Da mien's gaze was drawn inexorably back to her still, pale form on the sofa.

The only color in her face were twin cherry blotches on her cheeks, from the fever.

"I didn't know..."

"All right, my questions can wait. Yours are obviously more important right now. As I told you, Da mien, I'm a scientist. The brutal truth is that these symptoms are what all of the Chosen ones experience near the ends of their lives. She's younger than most. Then again, her coloring is unique, as well. I'm certain that unless she is transformed, she'll die."

Da mien swallowed hard and battled the bitter tears that fought to the surface of his burning eyes. He wanted to scream. To rant, to curse the gods. But he'd done all that once, long ago. It hadn't done any more good then than it would now. "How long?"

"How often do the attacks come?"

"This is the second time in under a week."

Eric nodded.

"She has little time left, then. Days. Perhaps less. An attack will come, and she'll sleep, as she's doing now. Only it won't be sleep. It will be coma. And she won't wake from it. There is nothing to be done. The medication will keep her relatively comfortable." He moved forward, placing a hand on Da mien's shoulder, squeezing gently.

"I'm sorry. Da- when. She won't suffer, I promise you."

Da mien shook off the hand and walked slowly toward her. He fell to his knees beside the sofa and caught her warm hand in both of his.

"I can't do this again. I can't watch her die."

"Da mien, there are few mortals in this world who'd be emotionally stable enough to live as we do. It's not an option to be taken lightly" -- "The alternative is to let her die."

Marquand came forward, his steps soundless, stopping just behind Da mien. ' "Would she want this? Does she even know it is possible?"

Da mien said nothing. He only let his eyes trace the exquisite bone structure of her face. The delicate line of her jaw. The cheekbones. The satiny skin that covered them. And those lips, so full and plump, and slightly parted now as she rested. He couldn't bear to see her robbed of life. Not her, not the most vital, the most utterly alive person he'd ever known.

"She won't die this time, Da mien. She'll recover. You'll have time to explain this to her, give her a choice. She'll need time to accept it as a viable alternative, time to consider the implications. It has to be her decision." He shook his head slowly.

"And it will have to be made soon."

Da mien felt a burning dampness flood his eyes.

"Tell me something, Marquand. I think I already know, but tell me anyway."

"Anything," he said gently.

"Did you kill two women in Arista?"

He was silent for a long moment.

"You're right. You know the answer to that already. I don't kill, Da mien."

Da mien dropped her hand, stood and faced the young one. "No, I didn't think you did. I would've known, I think. So this" -- he lifted his palms up "--this curse. It's not even an option I can offer her. Not really."

Eric Marquand shook his head quickly as if trying to clear it.

"Why not?"

"You've got no idea, do you? No, of course not. You're so young, so innocent. Where do you get your sustenance, Marquand? Animals?"

"Blood banks, and what difference does it make" He scowled at Da mien.

"Where do you get yours?"

Da mien paced from the sofa, deliberately keeping his back to them both.

"Humans. The need..." His jaw felt tight. He lowered his head, covered his eyes with one hand.

"Dammit, it gets stronger, more powerful with age. It becomes a living thing, impossible to resist. And only living blood appeases." He heard the words thickening in his throat, his voice becoming hoarse.

"I can't see her die, but I can't condemn her to live like this."

He lifted his head, found himself facing the tiny figure of In anna. Her half smile seemed smug, knowing. He removed the glass, clutched her figure in his fist, raised his hand.

"Damn you. Damn the world and everyone in it!" His trembling fist clenched tighter and the figure he held crumbled to bits beneath the pressure. He felt his face contort, and he bowed his head, pressing his fist to his brow as the dust and bits sifted through his fingers.

Marquand came forward.

"Get hold of yourself, Da mien. You have to explain this to me. Please, for her sake if nothing else. Are you saying... you kill?"

He didn't seem as much repulsed as he was fascinated. He stood beside Da mien near the fire, studying him intently.

Da mien lowered his fist, flung the remnants of the statue into the fire.

"I didn't think so." He thought of the two women who'd ended up dead, and his fear that he'd been responsible. But he wouldn't divulge his deepest terror to this stranger.

"You needn't tell me, Da mien. I hear you clearly."

Da mien started, then twisted his head to stare at this stranger.

"Damn you, stay out of my head!" He wasn't at all used to being around other beings capable of reading his thoughts. He'd mastered the art of keeping others' thoughts and feelings out of his mind, but never of guarding his own.

There'd been no need.

"No matter," Eric said lightly, and Da mien knew he was glad to have changed the subject.

"It's easily learned. I'll help you. Tell me now, when did the need become so powerful? At what age did it become necessary to take from the living?"

Da mien shook his head, devastation racking his body. Why didn't this child take his questions and leave him to suffer alone? Suffer? It wasn't a strong enough word. This was Enkidu all over again! The grief would kill him this time.

"I only ask because I want to help you."

"No one can help me."

"Dammit, Da mien, don't be so.-.Enkidu? Is that the name you just" Da mien whirled to face him.

"Stay out of my thoughts, fledgling, or you'll go up in a ball of white-hot flames."

To his utter shock, the young man smiled.

"Rhiannon said you could do it.

I wasn't sure I believed her. "

"Who the hell is Rhiannon?"

' "Rhianikki, princess of Egypt. Only around three thousand years younger than you. Until now she was the oldest vampire I knew. But she's never exhibited this lust you claim. I mean, she does occasionally sip from the living, but only because she so enjoys driving Roland to the edge of frustration. That's why I asked when this powerful thirst took over."

Da mien looked up slowly. Roland. He recalled the name. He'd helped a vampire by that name a couple of years ago. Poor bastard had been drugged and left for the sun. And Da- when had gone to him, despite his vow of solitude. But he'd gone in disguise.

"Da mien?"

He started, recalling the question.

"Certainly more than thirty centuries ago." He searched Eric's face.

"You see? If it hasn't affected her, then there must be a reason.

Something she's done or been exposed to that you have not. Perhaps I can find out what it is. "

Da mien's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"What is it you want from me, Marquand?" Hell, he sounded like Shannon now, questioning Marquand's motives.

"I want you to talk to me. Tell me everything. How you were made, by whom, when. I want to know if it's true that you can alter your form, and that you've accomplished flight. I want to know how you do these things. I want"

-- "And in return, you'll try to find the answer to my unquenchable thirst."

Da mien turned in a slow circle and finally sank into a chair.

"It's getting worse since I met her, you know. All it takes is her scent to drive me insane."

Eric laughed.

"Yes, well, that isn't exactly the same hunger, my--Da mien.

I feel that, as well, at a simple glance from Tamara. You know that the desire for sexual release and the bloodlust combine in us, each feeding from the other, until it's impossible to distinguish them. "

Da mien's brows lifted and he studied the man again. He really did have a lot of knowledge.

"It's true," Eric said.

"And that kind of frenzied need is only at its worst when the object of it happens to be the woman you love."

"I don't love her!" Da mien roared the denial, shooting to his feet.

"And I'm damned well not going to." He paced in a small circle, trying to contain his rage, trying not to vent all his anguish on Marquand, who was only trying to help.

"All right. I'll agree to tell you everything you want to know. But I don't believe you can find a way to solve my problem, so I want you to agree to do one other thing in return." He returned to his seat.

"Name it," Eric said quickly, settling into a chair opposite him.

Da mien folded his hands to keep them from clenching into fists.

"I need help to find the truth about the deaths of those two women. I need all the help you can give me. And if it turns out... if it turns out that I killed them..." He looked at Eric, at his honest, intense gaze. He was beginning to sense that he could trust this man.

"Then I want you to destroy me."

He hadn't wanted to believe the things Eric Marquand, the intellectual, had told him. That she was dying. That there was nothing that could save her mortal life. But as Da mien sat beside the bed where he'd moved her and scanned the files this CIA person had kept on Shannon, he found only confirmation of what Eric had said. The medical reports were inconclusive.

Her red blood cells seemed to be dying, inexplicably. Transfusions hadn't helped. The new red cells died almost as soon as they were infused. And her rare blood type would have made transfusions an all-but-impossible treatment anyway.

The Belladonna antigen. Eric had explained all about it. The Chosen, as they were called by the un dead, were humans with the Belladonna antigen in their blood, apparently handed down from a common ancestor. They were the only people genetically capable of being transformed. All the un dead had shared the same rare blood type as mortals.

Their other traits were not so easily explained. The way they exuded something that alerted vampires of their presence. The way the un dead felt compelled to watch over them, protect them. It was, Marquand theorized, a chemical reaction of some kind.

But as Da mien stared at Shannon's pale face, her golden tresses spread over the pillows, he knew that what he felt for her was more than chemically induced. He had to find a way to save her.

The files were thorough, and he read them front to back. They told of her mother's abandonment. Her childhood of being pushed and shoved from one agency to another.

At sixteen, she'd arrived at the last of the foster homes, where she'd met Tawny. And a few months afterward, both girls had disappeared. There was a notation that the man who'd been her foster parent was later convicted of child molestation, diagnosed as a pedophile and institutionalized. He'd committed suicide a few months later.

The bastard. If he wasn't dead already, Da mien would have hunted him down and done the job himself.

"What are you reading?"

He looked up quickly, then set the papers aside and leaned over the bed.

It was no wonder she wore the crusty exterior all the time. She'd had to develop a shell to protect her from life. He held her hand in both of his, and his initial urge on seeing her eyes open and looking at him was to press his lips to her fingers, her knuckles. Instead he lowered her hand to the bed.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better. Fine, actually."

But she wasn't fine. She was lying to him about that. She was dying, and she knew it. She'd known it for some time. He felt incredible relief at seeing the color slowly returning to her skin, the sparkle to her eyes, but he didn't let that relief show. She wasn't comfortable with his relief. Or his concern. And it occurred to him that she didn't want him to care about her. She never had. Now he understood why.

He got up, fighting against an insistent lump in his throat that wanted to choke him. He couldn't let her know that he was aware of her condition.

She'd probably never forgive him for prying. Besides, talking to her about it meant dealing with it himself, and he wasn't sure he could do that. Not yet.

He'd let himself care about her. He was going to lose her. It was going to hurt. At least now he knew. Maybe he could keep his feelings from growing any stronger than they already had. Maybe he could minimize the damage, keep his head. Find a way to help her.

He flung back her covers and held out a hand.

"Come on, get up. You have any idea how long you've been lying around? All last night, all day today while Netty fussed over you. It's night again, and she refuses to go home until she sees you're feeling better. Come on downstairs or we'll never get rid of her."

She looked uncertain. And then she smiled and slipped her hand into his.

He tightened his grip, just a little.

"You strong enough. Shannon? Do you want me to carry you?"

Before she could answer, the bedroom door flung wide. Netty stood in the doorway, glanced at Shannon and screamed like a banshee. She ran across the room with staccato steps and folded Shannon in a powerful hug.

She released Shannon only long enough to turn to Da mien. "Out with you.

She's wan tin' a bath and a change of clothes, and then some tea. " She put an arm around Shannon and urged her toward the bathroom.

"You're going' to be just fine, my girl. Netty will see to that." But Shannon's eyes met Da mien's and he felt the warmth in their message.

"Go on now. Your friend, Mr. Marquand, is wait in' downstairs. I'll bring her along when she's ready."

Da mien gathered up the papers he'd been reading and left the room.

All the while she bathed and dressed, and sat quietly while sweet Netty pulled a brush through her hair, the knowledge was eating away at her guts.

Da mien ought to know the truth.

He'd been so good to her, and he deserved to know the truth. If he let himself care about her, even a little bit, it would only lead to pain. And he did care, a little. Much as she'd hoped he never would, and much as he tried not to let it show, he couldn't hide the look in his eyes when she'd woken up just now.

He'd gone through the agony of losing a friend. So had she. So had the mighty Gilgamesh myriad years ago, and it had brought him to a grief that had devoured his soul. She knew now, since their conversation about the epic by the fire, that Da mien's grief was a lot like Gilgamesh's. He'd survived a loss that should have crippled him. What would happen if history repeated itself? He couldn't get through it again--she was sure of that. So the only answer was to tell him now, before he let himself care too much.

Is that the way it is with friends?

Enkidu's dying words echoed in her ears. For a second she heard them, as if she'd been there when they were spoken, in a voice gone weak and gravelly with physical pain, instead of having heard them read with that same emotion by Da mien, identical agony racking his voice.

Netty helped her down the stairs and left, wishing her goodnight before grabbing her coat and leaving for the evening. Seemed every time she saw the woman, Netty was leaving. Of course, that was because she'd been keeping such odd hours since she'd come here. Up all night, sleeping all day while Netty bustled around the place.

Shannon moved toward the library, with her heart breaking. God, how much she would like to have one night with Da- when, one night to explore this electric pull he seemed to emanate for her, to discover the secrets of passion. To let him teach her all of them. It wouldn't be fair to him, though. She couldn't allow herself to get close to him, not physically, not emotionally. She had to warn him of the grim future, and then let him go.

Let him distance himself from the pain, avoid it.

She stopped near the library door, startled to see two dark heads leaning over the desk. Da mien looked up, saw her and shot to his feet. In less than a second he'd crossed the room, and for an instant she was sure he would sweep her into his arms. He'd hold her tight to his chest, his trembling hands clenched in her hair, and she'd hear his ragged sigh, feel his muscles slowly relax.

He'd never held her that way before. Except by accident, when she'd fallen from the chair. Her response would be automatic and irresistible. Her arms would wind around his waist. Her face would press into the white shirt, and her eyes would fall closed. When she inhaled, his scent would fill her, and when she exhaled she'd feel the warmth of her breath spread through the material beneath her face.

The fantasy died when he reached her and stopped. He stood away from her, his hands on her shoulders as if she might fall without support. He was touching her, but it was impersonal. A matter of courtesy rather than passion. And since she was determined to keep her distance from him, she ought to be grateful for it.

"You all right?"

She swallowed hard, nodded. But she wasn't. And she had to tell him she wasn't.

"Fine, now."

"You shouldn't be up. Shannon. You need to rest" -- "There'll be plenty of time to rest when I'm ... later. I feel fine now, really." She glanced past Da mien, noticing the man she'd met just before she'd collapsed sitting at the desk, watching the two of them.

"Hello again. I'm afraid I don't remember" -- ' "Marquand. Eric to you.

You look a good deal better than when I last saw you." He rose and came forward as he spoke in that odd, old-fashioned way of his. His trousers were knife pleated, his jacket cut short, and both were spotlessly black against his crisp white shirt.

"I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Thank you." She glanced toward the desk, the papers that littered it, and frowning, hurried forward.

"What's all this?" She fingered the sheets, reading the bold print.

"DPI?" She looked quickly toward Da mien, then back to Eric Marquand. "Then this government agency is for real?"

Eric nodded grimly.

"The Division of Paranormal Investigations," he explained.

"A subdivision of the CIA and, I believe, the employer of your acquaintance, Mr. Bach man."

She turned slowly, staring first at Eric and then Da mien in blatant disbelief.

"Paranormal investigations? As in ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night? Is this where my tax money is going? But I thought the guy was just burned out and" -- "It's a bunch of hogwash. Shannon." Da mien came forward, scooping the outspread papers together into a neat stack and dropping them into a desk drawer.

"But why are they investigating you? And why me, for God's sake? There's nothing the least bit paranormal about me." Neither man spoke, though Shannon waited expectantly. Then she recalled the questions Bach man had asked. He'd been interested in Tawny's murder. He'd taken possession of her body. He'd. "You're saying that what was in Bach man's files was true, not just a lunatic's ramblings. This agency really does believe in vampires.

Not only that, but they think there's one on the loose in Arista."

Da mien opened his mouth, but Eric beat him to the punch line.

"Yes, they do."

She felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen. She turned to Da mien.

"They think it's you, don't they?"

"They use government funding to investigate seemingly paranormal events,"

Da mien explained calmly, sending Eric Marquand a look that could have wilted fresh roses. The look Eric shot back was almost as bad. They obviously disagreed over how much to tell her.

"I imagine their main goal is in uncovering hoaxes. Shannon. Maybe they'll be able to find out how Tawny's death was staged to appear so much like some vampire's handiwork."

She frowned, shaking her head.

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Her gaze sought Eric's, but he averted his eyes, saying nothing at all. She shot Da mien another, probing, stare.

"Because, Da mien, if this Bach man's opinion is representative of the whole agency, then these people are serious. Your image could be digging you into a bottomless pit. On the other hand, it ought to be fairly easy to humor them. I'm telling you, fanatics can be dangerous, and this crew would have to be pretty fanatical to believe..."

She turned from him, pacing the floor.

"You could fix it, though. Stage a press conference in broad daylight.

Offer to undergo a series of tests, blood work, whatever. Get a photo op on the arm of a priest, that type of" -- She stopped mid- tirade, stood in one spot and gazed from one man to the other. "What? What's wrong with you two, why are you watching me like that?"

"I'm going to leave now," Eric said softly, and the look he sent Da mien was filled with unspoken messages.

"Eric, why are you involved in this, anyway?"

He smiled at her.

"I've had a few run-ins with DPI before. I thought I might be of some help."

He turned, nodded to Da mien and left.

She watched him go, frowning in bewilderment. What was going on between the two of them? They obviously knew something they hadn't let her in on.

She turned back to Da- when, puzzled, then saw the nervous way his eyes moved over her face, the anxiety there, and she sighed. He was still worried about her.

She licked her lips.

"We, um ... we need to talk."

He nodded, but didn't seem to be looking forward to a heart-to-heart.

Telling him the truth about her health could wait. There were secrets being kept and she didn't like it one bit.

Coward. You're jumping at any excuse to put it off, and you know it.

"I'd like to know what was going on down here."

He shrugged, turning his back long enough to stroll around the desk.

"We were talking about the murder, just tossing ideas back and forth. Eric wants to help us get to the bottom of this thing."

She waited. He stood there and stuffed his hands into his deep pockets, as if he didn't know what else to do with them, as if he were nervous.

' "And you were talking about Bach man and this DPI. How are you going to deal with him, Da mien?"

"I haven't decided yet. But not by blowing an image I've worked years to perfect."

She threw her hands in the air, palms up.

"Da mien, if the man thinks you're a vampire, you have to do something."

"No, I don't."

She narrowed her eyes, moving forward until she could lean over the desk and look him in the eye.

"You're keeping something from me. Don't deny it. I can see it in those black eyes of yours. What is it, Da mien?"

"nothing that needs to concern you. Shannon."

She squinted, as if that would clarify whatever was hiding beneath his words.

"If it concerns Tawny's murder, then it concerns me." She shook her head in anger, and paced away from him.

"Don't you get it yet, Da mien? I'm living to get this guy. There's nothing more important to me. nothing."

When she turned to face him again, saw the intensity in his black eyes, she almost amended that. There was something as important, rapidly approaching more important to her. Him.

"And we will."

"How?"

"We've already put the wheels in motion by having you appear with me last night. Be patient. Give it some time."

"I can't be patient. And I don't have time." He closed his eyes when she said that, as though she'd poked him with a hot needle. She rushed on.

"I mean, you only have one more show, Da mien, and then it'll be over. If he doesn't make a move, we might never know who he is. "

"We will," he insisted.

She rolled her eyes, nipped her head back and turned in a slow circle, sick to death of his vague assurances.

He caught her shoulders in his hands, stopping her.

"I have a surprise for you. Why don't you forget about all of this for just little while. You've been sick. You deserve to relax."

She lowered her chin, searched his eyes.

"A surprise?"

He nodded, gripped her hand and drew her out of the library, through the hall to the circular living room and then along the arched corridor to the front door. He opened it wide and waved one arm with a flourish. ' "Voila."

The Stingray glistened beneath its freshly applied coat of candy-apple red paint. Even its tires gleamed like new.

"Is that... my car?"

He was pulling her down the front steps, into the biting October wind. It tossed his dark hair in a way that made her want to push her fingers through it. He stopped by the car, opened the driver's door, then ran around to the passenger side and slid in. She was still standing by the open door, shaking her head.

"Come on, get in. It's freezing out there."

She couldn't speak. A brick or something equally huge and rough-edged was lodged in the back of her throat. She sat down in the driver's seat, reached for the key and paused, her eyes widening.

"What is that?"

She glanced sideways at Da mien. He reached forward and pushed a button.

The Spin Doctors' latest hit blasted from the newly installed CD player, rattling the windows. She reached up and turned it down. When she looked at Da mien again, she found herself battling tears.

"Why?"

He shrugged.

"You wanted it red. I had the money. Why not?"

It was so thoughtful, so sweet, that he'd remembered her story about the Matchbox car. Even down to the color.

"And the CD player?"

"You seemed to like mine."

No one had done anything so nice for her, not since Tawny had given her that stupid little Matchbox car on her birthday. She didn't want him to care about her, dammit. But, God, it felt good to know that he did. Good and sad and terrible all at once.

She reached a hand up, touched his face. His eyes darkened. She could barely see them through the veil of tears in her own. His lips trembled slightly.

And then he turned away.

"It's no big deal, Shannon. Come on, start her up and get some heat in here.

Let's take it for a drive." He reached up to turn the volume higher.

Shannon bit her lip. Then she started the car.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She ejected the Doctors and slipped in the brand-new Sting CD. Da mien had a boxful of CDs stashed in the glove compartment. The guy was full of surprises. She didn't know why it felt like some kind of exquisite torture having him do something so wonderful for her. She wasn't sure if it hurt or felt good. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, to feel ecstatic or depressed. And feeling both was exhausting and confusing.

She knew only that the small car put them close to each other, and the sentimental words flowing from the speakers now in that husky voice filled what little space remained between them. She could smell Da mien, feel his warmth. An odd zing of energy, one she only felt when they were close, whirred in her nerve endings. It was electricity and attraction and awareness, and something else. As they drove through the cool autumn night, with fallen leaves shooting up behind them as they passed, she found her gaze on Da mien more often than the road. On his strong face, his deep, glittering onyx eyes and his sensual lips with their dramatic color.

He didn't have flesh-colored lips like a lot of men. His lips looked like fruit that's ready to be picked. And she thought they'd taste the same way.

His hand shot out to jerk the wheel to the left. She swung her gaze back to the pavement, where it belonged, but knew it wouldn't remain there long. She pulled a U-turn at the first wide spot in the road and headed back toward his house.

If there was one thing she wanted before she died, it was to make love to this man. The only problem with that was that it would end up hurting him.

She bit her lip, negating that thought inwardly. As deeply as Da mien felt things, she might very well end up destroying him. She didn't want to do that, and it surprised her just how much the thought of causing him pain bothered her. She hadn't cared enough about anyone to give a damn if their feelings got hurt. No one but Tawny, at least.

And to think she'd believed he was a killer.

God, her feelings were all mixed up.

Okay, better to concentrate on her most important goal in life. Finding this killer. Driving around listening to Ten Summoner's Tales on a starry autumn night with this incredible man was wonderful, but it was getting her nowhere.

"You know, he's never going to make a move against me when I'm with you."

She glanced at him as she said it. She'd studiously avoided staring at him for the past few miles, but his eyes were on her, dark and deep and dreamy, when she met his gaze. He blinked, as though she'd distracted him from some deep thinking.

"What?"

"Our killer. He's not likely to attack me when you're at my side. You know that."

He averted his gaze.

"Maybe I'm not in as big a hurry to see him try to murder you as you are."

"I'm in a hurry to catch him."

' "I'm not going to let you walk around alone with a big bull's-eye painted on your forehead."

"Then you want to let him get away? Because that's what will happen, Da mien."

He frowned, his wide sable brows touching.

"We'll think of something."

"That's not good enough." She turned slowly into his winding driveway, and he used a remote control he had in his pocket to open the gate.

"After the next performance" -- "The last performance."

"Right. When it's over, we might stage something. Make it seem as if you're alone, when you really aren't. Try to trap him."

"I don't want to wait that long." Mostly because she doubted Da mien would go through with it. He was way too protective of her. It should irritate the hell out of her instead of making her want to hug him.

"Shannon, it's risky. It's using you like chum to bait a killer shark. It ought to be a last resort. With any luck he'll tip his hand before then, and we won't have to risk it."

She shut the engine off. She had her own ideas about how much they could and couldn't risk here. To her way of thinking, the biggest risk was the one that the killer would get away. Her life was no risk at all. It was all but over anyway. Where the hell was the risk in that?

"You're tired." He touched her shoulder.

"Hell, Da mien, I've slept thirty-six straight hours. How can I be?" She didn't say she wasn't. She was. Drained.

"You're still pale."

She laughed a little.

"Maybe this Bach man nut will think I'm a vampire next."

He didn't laugh with her. In fact, he looked pained for a second. She opened her door.

"So, you won't let me try my plan tonight. I'm not up to fighting with you about it." She got out and started for the front door, knowing he was right behind her.

"So how about we spend the rest of the night going over those notes Eric Marquand brought you? All that stuff about these DPI crazies." She waited at the door while Da mien unlocked it, swung it wide and let her walk in before him.

"I've already gone over all that. There's nothing that can be of any help."

He closed the door, locked it.

Shannon strolled nonchalantly through the short hall into the round room she was beginning to love. She let herself collapse backward onto the chaise. He didn't want her examining those papers Eric had given him. He'd locked them in the desk as soon as she'd entered the library and started looking at them. Strange.

"So, maybe tomorrow we can visit Bach man at his, hotel, try to get him to answer some questions. What do you think?"

Da mien blinked quickly.

"I have a few appointments tomorrow. Business stuff. I'll have to be away for most of the day."

"Oh." She hoped her disappointment didn't come through in her voice. She wasn't eager to spend the day alone. although, the idea did present her with the perfect opportunity to take a peek at the papers in that locked desk.

He crossed to the hearth, tossed a couple of logs onto coals that never quite died down, then took a seat on the floor, amid the cushions.

"Are you tired? You want to rest?"

"I'll be able to rest all I want tomorrow, while you're gone."

"That's a good idea."

She sat up, drawing her knees around underneath her.

"So does that thing work?"

He followed her gaze to the wide-screen television.

"Yes. I don't use it much. Can't say I'm overly fond of television. Mostly I watch the news and tapes of other magicians. Helps me spot my own flaws."

"If you have any flaws, Da mien, believe me, they're invisible to the human eye."

He looked a little startled. She couldn't believe she'd actually done that.

Flirted with him. She was a selfish bitch.

"I have them. Shannon."

Oh, why were his eyes drawing her to him like giant super magnets? Why didn't she have enough character to resist? Why in the name of" God was she sliding off the chaise and onto the floor beside him, curling up amid the pillows as if she just wanted to get closer to the fire. She did, and the fire was Da mien.

"What are they? Your flaws."

His dark eyes were burning zigzag paths over her hair. "You'd run screaming if I told you."

She shook her head, and she read amazement in his eyes when her hair flew out around her and sealed back to cover her shoulders.

"It takes a lot to scare me. I'm not afraid of you."

His hand rose, floated magically upward, and his fingertips touched her hair, hesitant, unsure.

"Maybe you should be."

She swayed forward, her mind no longer having any noticeable influence over her body's actions. She closed her eyes, tipped her face up and pressed her lips to his. They trembled a little, nearly pulled away. She pressed harder, parting her mouth in gentle invitation.

His sigh filled her. She drank it, and his hand slid more deeply into her hair, cupping the back of her head, holding her face to his. His lips opened and his tongue slipped between hers to lick at her mouth's interior. She opened wider, giving him all the access he could want. Her arms encircled his neck, and she kissed him with everything in her.

But he pulled away. He got to his feet, turning his back to her. He kept pushing a hand through his hair, and he bowed his head, staring into the fire. The tremors she felt racking her body were mirrored in his unsteady stance, his labored breathing.

"I'm sorry. Shannon."

She stayed where she was. If she got up, she'd go to him, throw herself at him like some desperate, love-starved wanton. She wouldn't do that, to herself or to him.

"I'm not." She smoothed her hair a little and fought with her racing heart rate.

"I've never been kissed like that before."

"Then the men you've known have been fools."

He still didn't look at her. She smiled at the compliment. A warm flood of pleasure rushed through her veins. "Wouldn't have mattered. I never wanted any of them."

She saw the way his spine stiffened. He couldn't have missed the implication. That she did want him. God, it was unfair of her to put him through this.

He turned slowly, looked at her.

"Shannon, believe me, you don't want to waste yourself on me. Especially if you've never been with a man. That's something too precious to" -- "Be honest about it, at least." She got to her feet, frustrated and angry and hurt. She turned away.

He caught her shoulder, turned her around to face him. "Shannon, I'm sorry"

-- "Don't be. I'll survive." She shook her head hard, so her hair flew over her face like a curtain.

"I never thought I could ever want any man, Da mien. Never believed it was possible. Ironic, isn't it, that when I finally do, it's a man who doesn't want me back?" What was wrong with her?

Why was she acting this way?

His hands on her shoulders trembled as they tightened, and suddenly she was crushed to his chest. His arms surrounded her, strong and hard, and her breasts pressed against him. His mouth covered hers, captured it, and his tongue delved and drank and stroked. Paster, rougher, deeper. She slid her arms around his neck, threaded her fingers in his raven hair and licked at his tongue with her own. God, he tasted good. She wanted him so much it was a living force inside her. She felt his hips grind against her and she arched toward him in response. His arousal pressed into her belly, rock hard and insistent.

A little tremor raced through her, along with memories she'd rarely allowed her mind to access. Memories of other hands, drunken, clumsy ones. And of fear. He seemed to sense her hesitance, because he lifted his head.

"Shannon?" A choked whisper.

Gleaming black eyes probed hers.

"Just promise you won't ... hurt me." It was the voice of the little girl she'd been. The innocence she hadn't felt in so long.

His eyes fell closed. He levered himself away from her, just a bit, and his arms fell from around her, then rose to stroke her hair.

"I won't hurt you. Shannon. Not ever. And that's why this insanity isn't going to go any further."

"Insanity?"

He pushed her away, turned her toward the arched doorway into the big dining room, urged her through it and beyond, past the library doors, to the wide staircase.

"Go to bed. Rest. And don't ever make the mistake of thinking that I don't want you. Shannon. I do. Too much."

She turned, searched his face, not understanding. He'd ignited a fire in her blood and she wanted him to put it out. Here, now. She'd go up in flames if he didn't.

He averted his face, closed his eyes.

"Go on. Now." Cruel words. Angry tone. Or desperate.

She ran up the stairs, trying not to cry before she reached the bedroom.

She didn't want him to see her cry, to hear her frustration. The door flew open at her touch, smashed into the wall behind it, marring the satiny wallpaper. Shannon slammed it closed behind her just as forcefully, and with her back pressed to the cool dark wood, she felt for the lock, turned it without looking. Her eyes squeezed tight against the pain of his rejection.

Her teeth grated to hold it back, but the battle was useless.

The tears came--bitter, loud, hot tears that blazed their paths into her skin.

He'd said he wanted her. He'd kissed her as if he wanted her. But if he wanted her, he could have had her tonight. She'd humiliated herself, acted like a whore, offered herself as freely as if she did it every day. He couldn't know how much it had taken for her to open herself up to him that way. He couldn't know how much it had cost her.

She sank to the floor, sobs tearing at her chest.

The vase hit the hearth and exploded into a thousand onyx shards, raining down on the marble tiles, the pillows, the Turkish rug nearest the fire.

Da mien clenched and unclenched his fists, fighting to resist the desire that threatened to overwhelm him. He'd never wanted anyone the way he wanted Shannon. She drove him insane with lust. Desire tore through his brain, roared in his ears like a living thing, like a dragon breathing fire to ignite his soul, to devour his mind.

In anna herself could never inspire passion like this! Dammit, what Shannon did to him.

"Da mien?"

He whirled, his face, he was certain, twisted in a fierce snarl that would frighten the life out of a god. Eric Marquand didn't seem frightened at all, though. He stood there, nodded as if in understanding.

"Are you all right?"

"No, dammit, I'm not all right. Do I look all right to you?"

Marquand turned away, as if to warm his hands near the fire. Da mien had a sneaking suspicion it was actually to keep his expression hidden.

"Are you in love with her yet?"

Da mien made a noise halfway between snort and sigh. "That's the stupidest question... Of course not. You think I'm an idiot?"

"I didn't call you an idiot, Da mien." Marquand still didn't look at him.

It sounded as if there might be a slight smile hiding in his voice.

"It's physical desire. nothing more. It's only because I'm spending too much time with her." Da mien stalked into the entry hall, stopped near the door and snatched a coat from a peg on the wall.

"I need to take a walk in the cold air."

"It isn't simple desire, Da mien." Marquand stood beside him.

"And walking isn't going to make it go away."

He thrust his fists into the coat, jerking it around him.

"Oh, no? What is, then?" He injected enough sarcasm in his voice not to have it missed.

"Making love with Shannon."

Da mien went utterly still, his back to Marquand. When he spoke, his voice came out as a rasping whisper, hoarse with pain and frustration.

"I can't do that. I'm afraid..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

"Afraid you might kill her. I know. A hell of a predicament, my friend."

"I told you not to call me that."

"Keep telling me. I might listen someday." Marquand pulled his own coat on and calmly fastened the buttons, one by one.

"Da mien, I don't believe you killed those women, and I don't believe you could hurt Shannon even if you wanted to, but I suppose it's best to restrain yourself until we're sure."

He clapped a hand to Da mien's shoulder.

"For now we'll walk, if you think it will help."

Da mien turned slowly, searched this stranger's face, and felt, for the first time, the unseen bond between them. They were brothers. Marquand was sincere in wan ting to help him through this hellish torment. That knowledge shook him to the core. For so long, he'd managed to avoid any kind of closeness, the slightest hint of caring. He couldn't imagine how to act, what to say. He swallowed hard, shook his head. It was as if, after wandering in darkness, lost, alone, without hope, someone had joined him.

Someone with a candle.

/ don't want this. Dammit, I don't want to care for this man. or for Shannon.

"Too late," a voice whispered from somewhere. Had it come from his mind or Marquand's? He glanced at the other man for an answer. Eric only smiled vaguely, and opened the door.

She couldn't have slept even if she'd wanted to, but she feigned sleep when she heard Da mien's key in her door just before dawn. She knew he'd come in to stand over her, stare down at her. She felt his fingertips gently smoothing her tearstained cheeks, pushing the tangled hair away from her face. She smelled him, felt his warmth, heard his breathing. She wanted to open her eyes, to reach up to him. God, she wanted to feel those strong arms around her again, crushing her so tightly against him. Making her feel he wanted to be closer, closer than any two people had ever been.

She wanted to feel his heart racing in time with hers, but. She slammed her mind tight against those thoughts, against any thoughts of him. She resisted the urge to move her face against his touch. She could almost imagine his thoughts trying to reach her, his mind telling her to rest today, to stay here until he came back for her, not to wake until he returned.

Strange, the things her mind conjured. She closed it to him, refused to hear the odd things she imagined he was telling her. Refused to think of him at all. A few moments later she felt the satin touch of his lips on her face.

And then he was gone.

She stayed in the bed a long time, only rising when the soul of the house screamed its solitude, assuring her that she was alone. She showered, dressed and hurried down the stairs, calling out to Da mien just in case.

There was no answer.

She'd been a fool. She knew that now. The attraction she felt for the man had distracted her from her purpose, and she'd lost precious time. There was no chance for anything between them. God, she'd known it was wrong even to try. She ought to be glad he'd rejected her. It would save him heartache in the long run. She'd been selfish, thoughtless, to let him know she wanted him. She must have gone temporarily insane.

Not anymore, though. He was keeping things from her, things that had to do with Tawny's murder and with Bach man and this crazy organization, DPI. She had to find out what. How could she hope to track down a killer if she didn't have all the facts?

Shannon went to the library, glanced around the room once before closing the door. She circled the desk, stopping behind it to give the drawer an experimental tug. Locked, as she'd known it would be. She wasn't unprepared. It was nothing to break into a desk drawer. The letter opener on the blotter was all she needed, and the drawer slid open without any further encouragement.

The papers had been arranged neatly in a manila file folder. So he'd looked at them again. They were supposed to be nothing, a bunch of irrelevant information, so why had he felt the need to go through them one more time?

And what was Eric Marquand doing with a packet of information on this strange government agency, anyway? He'd said he'd had run-ins with them in the past.

What kind of run-ins? she wondered. She shook her head, grimacing. With his dark good looks and antiquated mannerisms, it wouldn't be surprising if the lunatics had accused Eric of being a vampire, too.

Crazy.

She removed the folder from the drawer, closed it and carried it with her to the circular living room. It was a comfort room. Da mien was right about that. There was something in its shape and the lighting, the warm colors, the odd furniture, even the artifacts lined up on the mantel, that seemed to hug you close, warm your soul.

Only red-orange coals glowed on the grate. Shannon arranged a pair of small logs on top and blew gently until flames licked to life. Resin seeped and snapped and flared, and for a second she remembered the fire in her apartment building, the feeling of being trapped, the fear. But this place was the opposite of that hell. This place was a haven from anything bad.

Or maybe it was Da mien she was beginning to think of as her haven.

She went to settle down amid the pillows on the floor, but a sharp glimmer reflected the firelight, stopping her. She knelt, and saw one broken piece, then several, of what had once been an onyx vase.

Frowning, she picked up the larger pieces, then gathered the tinier shards by rolling them up in the rug. Then she shook it outside the door. She checked all the pillows carefully, brushing all the glass away before she made herself comfortable on them.

She tried not to imagine how the vase had been broken. Tried not to wonder whether Da mien had been angry or frustrated, or just nervous and clumsy.

Either way, she had to be at least partly to blame. And she wondered for the first time if maybe he'd been telling the truth when he'd said that he wanted her. Maybe there was some other reason he'd turned her away. But what?

Enough already. She'd come to the conclusion that thinking about Da mien only distracted her from her real purpose here, hadn't she? When would she get that through her head? She sank into the pillows, opened the file folder and began reading.

CHAPTER TWELVE

He awoke with the night in the lush third-floor bedroom beyond the hidden door. He opened his eyes, his senses gradually sharpening in response to the usual stimulants. The silken softness of the satin sheets caressed his naked flesh. The plump feather pillow cradled his head. The warmth from the fire in the hearth below radiated into the room through the brick chimney in its center. The beat of the music from the stereo he'd set to turn on at dusk, with the help of an automatic timer, filtered softly from the speakers. He'd chosen Eiton John tonight. A song called "Mellow," with a sultry rhythm that lived up to the title. The electric air freshener spilled the scent of the ocean into the room. The lights came on, dim at first, but brightening gradually.

All of it designed to comfort him in an existence where there was little comfort. He took his pleasures where he could find them. In things instead of in people. He surrounded himself with modern technology, luxurious fabrics, pleasing scents and soothing sounds. As he came fully awake, he knew it wasn't enough. Not anymore. He wanted Shannon. Her heated skin against his, instead of the cool satin. Her erotic scent filling him, rather than the artificial aroma; her sighs of pleasure surrounding him, soothing him more than any music could.

He sat up slowly as his strength filtered into him. His mind cleared its dull haze and began to sharpen. And then he went stiff with the sense of emptiness in the house. She was gone.

He threw back the covers, leapt from the bed, tried the trick of opening his mind to hers, of homing in on her thoughts and feelings to tell where she was. But his mind refused to focus. His brain screamed for action, and he complied. He threw on his clothes and ran downstairs to search the house, already knowing she wasn't there.

Netty awaited him at the foot of the stairs.

"She left you a note," she said, as if reading his thoughts.

"In the library, on the desk."

He shot a worried glance over her careworn face, and then moved past her into the library. Netty hurried along in his wake.

"Were you here when she left?"

"No. I've been in and out today, did some shopping for her, took care of some bills. She was still in bed sleep in' last time I checked in."

Da mien strode to the desk and snatched up the envelope with his name scrawled on the front. He removed the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and imagined he could still smell her scent in the ink, feel the warmth of her hands on the stationery.

"Da mien." It was written at the top of the sheet in her small neat hand.

He glanced over the paper at Netty, and she nodded once, then turned to leave the room, wringing her hands all the way.

When the door closed behind her, he read on.

I couldn't stay after last night. I don't know if I can face you again, with the way I acted. I'm sorry. It was wrong of me to put you in that position, and I don't want you to feel guilty or responsible, no matter what might happen down the road. You've done nothing but look out for me.

You're the kindest man I've ever known, Da mien. Maybe that's what made me want you.

Still, I hope you can understand now, why I need some time alone. I'm going away for a few days, somewhere warm. Going to laze in the sun and try to get my head together. Please don't come looking for me. I want to be by myself, and I hope you'll respect that.

There was nothing more, just her name scrawled across the bottom of the page.

But as he'd read her words, he'd felt what lay beneath them. Her hurt.

Hurt he'd caused. She was ashamed of her actions, ashamed of wan ting him.

Damn, that was the last thing he wanted her to feel!

And something else, there was something else. Something in the lines about going away that rang utterly false in his mind, and sounded a warning he couldn't ignore.

She hadn't gone anywhere. He was sure of it even before Marquand arrived, breathless, agitated, waving a bit of paper in front of him.

"You have to get out of the house." He said it without preamble, after barging in.

"I mean it, Da mien. You're not safe here."

Da mien ignored him, still trying to puzzle out the truth hidden in Shannon's lies.

"Da mien, are you listening to me? Bach man knows where you rest. He'll try for you by day as you lie defenseless."

Finally Marquand's accented words penetrated the haze of pain and loss.

"Impossible. No one knows where I rest."

Marquand thrust the sheet of paper into Da mien's hands. Da mien didn't have time for this, but he glanced down and read the brief note.

"Bach man, he rests in a hidden room on the third floor. The entrance has to be through the second guest room on the right, though I don't know where exactly."

There was no signature, and the words were typed. No way to judge the handwriting. Da mien shook his head in disbelief. His gaze met Marquand's.

"Netty?"

Marquand shrugged.

"It's possible."

"I can't believe she would" -- "I can't figure how else the bastard could have come upon this information. But worry about that later, Da mien. For now you'd do well to get yourself another resting place, one well away from this house." Marquand paced the room in a small square pattern.

Da mien frowned, studying the sheet of paper in his hand. "How did you come upon it?"

Marquand quit his pacing and turned to face Da mien.

"I simply checked the messages left for Bach man at the front desk of his hotel." He tilted his head to one side.

"Honestly, Da mien, you must begin to use your powers more efficiently. It's an elementary matter to use our mental powers to influence the actions of humans. I caused the clerk to leave his station for a moment and retrieved the messages. Simple."

"If it's so simple, then where the hell is Shannon?"

One of Eric's dark brows quirked upward.

"I told her to rest until nightfall. Mentally. It's worked before. Only this time it didn't. She was gone when I woke up."

"Interesting."

"Interesting? It's dangerous."

"It's possible she closed her mind to yours. The trick can be learned, even by humans, though I've rarely seen it happen. Then again, she'd have no reason to do it, since she has no idea what you are." His gaze sharpened.

"You didn't take my advice and tell her, did you?"

"Of course I didn't tell her."

Eric shrugged.

"Then I can only assume she felt reason to close herself off from you. Have you angered her in some way?"

Da mien felt like screaming at the man. He was so damned calm!

"Look, the why and how doesn't matter. She's gone and I get the feeling she's in danger. The only thing we ought to be doing right now is looking for her."

"So, look. What's stopping you?"

Da mien nodded sharply and reached for the door handle.

He'd begin with the car. It would be easier to track down than the woman.

A firm hand on his shoulder brought him up short in the hall. When he turned, it was to see Eric with a pained expression on his face as he rolled his eyes, shook his head.

"Sit down, Da mien. Clear your mind. Open it, seek her out."

"But if she's closed herself off from me..."

"You won't be able to influence her, but you ought to sense her presence, feel her surroundings, discern whether she's safe."

Da mien shook his head slowly.

"I'm not sure I can do it. God, Eric, you don't understand. I've never used this psychic ability. Never wanted to."

He glanced up as a thought occurred to him.

"Why don't you do it?"

Another irritated sigh.

"The Chosen connect most thoroughly with a single vampire, Da mien. In case you haven't yet realized it, you are that one for Shannon. I might sense her dimly, especially if she's in peril. But for you the knowledge will come much more easily. Try, please."

Da mien nodded, but doubted it would work. He walked back into the living room, lowered himself onto the chaise and tried to relax and let his mind go blank. He closed his eyes.

"All we need now is Rhiannon with her incense and candles," Eric muttered.

Da mien opened his eyes, lifted his brows.

"nothing, just talking to myself. Concentrate, Da mien. Focus your mind on Shannon. Put a picture of her in front of your eyes. Bring her to life inside you until you can feel her touch, smell her scent."

Da mien closed his eyes again, and found it remarkably easy to bring Shannon to mind. It only took recalling the way her mouth tasted, its warmth, its depth, its heat. He shifted uncomfortably, but kept his focus.

The sense of danger increased with his every thought.

It was incredible, that's what it was. It was absolutely incredible. No sane person would take any of it seriously, because none of it could possibly be true.

But it seemed true. Shannon had read the notes on the organization known as DPI. The Division of Paranormal Investigations. It was a secretive organization, one whose purposes the taxpayers and most of the politicians in D. C. knew nothing about. And its sole reason for existence, according to Marquand's notes, was to seek out and destroy vampires, though they claimed it was to discover their secrets through research. Marquand held the organization responsible for murders, kidnappings, torture.

Of vampires.

He claimed his own wife--no, mate, that was the term he'd used--had been abducted by the ruthless scientists. That she'd been subjected to horrible experiments just because they knew of her association with him. And that was when she was still mortal. Before he'd transformed her.

Still mortal? He'd transformed her?

Shannon had been shaking all over by the time she'd finished reading and replaced the papers in the desk. Marquand must be as crazy as Bach man. He actually believed himself to be a vampire. He actually believed it.

Shannon wondered if he really even had a wife, or if this beautiful Tamara mentioned in the file was just a figment of his obviously sick imagination.

But Da mien believed it, too. He must, or he wouldn't still be associating with the man. He'd have had the guy committed by now.

She had to stop thinking about it, had to stay alert. She'd left the mansion in her car, knowing how noticeable it was, and she'd driven slowly, for a couple of hours, all over town, hoping to attract the notice of the killer.

Then she proceeded to her office, driving so she could easily be followed.

Once inside, with the lights blazing an invitation to all corners, she checked to be sure the gun was loaded and ready. And she sat down to wait.

The killer, the perfectly human killer, would come for her. At least, she hoped he would. She couldn't have made it much easier for him. He'd come tonight or not at all, and if he did, she'd be waiting. She'd deal with Da mien and Marquand and Bach man and their misguided delusions later. Right now, she only wanted to stop a killer, avenge Tawny; and she sensed her time was running out.

Death was a dark shadow that had been stalking her for a long time now.

But tonight it felt closer than ever before. She could feel its clammy breath chilling her nape, feel its gnarled claws reaching out to her.

She had to get the bastard tonight.

She didn't have to wait long before footsteps sounded on the stairs outside.

She stood up, lifted the gun, watched the doorknob turn.

But it wasn't the killer that quietly walked into her office. It was Stephen Bach man.

She lifted the gun anyway, pointing it squarely and steadily at the left lapel of that gray tweed jacket. He ignored it, walked up to her desk and took a seat.

"You ready to come over to my side yet. Shannon Mallory? Or are you going to wait until they make you their next victim?"

She blinked. He studied her steadily, just waiting.

"At least I know you're not one of them. You were driving your fancy car all over, right under the blazing sun."

"And you were following me."

"Smart girl. So why'd you leave him? You finally have sense enough to get scared?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about monsters. Shannon. Not the kind that lurk under a little kid's bed, but real adult monsters. Beings that live by killing.

Animals that feed on fear and death. You know about Da mien now, what he really is. You wouldn't be here if you didn't. Humans mean nothing to him, to any of them. We're disposable, here only to fill their twisted cravings."

He leaned back in the chair and tugged on his flawless cuff.

"You're damned lucky you got out when you did."

"You're crazy if you think I believe any of this."

"Any of what?"

"You know what. That Eric Marquand and Da mien are... vampires. There's no such thing and you're nuts if you think there is."

"I don't think. I know." He tilted his head.

"So the newcomer is Marquand.

I thought it was, but I'd never seen him up close. We've been watching him longer than any of them. Almost had him once. Da mien, we didn't know about.

Not until the murders. I've only had him under surveillance since I got the report on that first body. "

She laughed, ignoring the ball of knowledge that thudded into her stomach.

"You're certifiable."

He leaned closer, his dark eyes intense.

"Have you ever seen him in the daytime. Shannon? Have you ever seen him eat? Hmm? Is there a mirror anywhere in that entire place?"

"There's food in the house. I've eaten there" -- "But he hasn't."

She shook her head.

"And his schedule is only to keep up the image. It's a mystique, for the fans. That's all."

"A vampire murdered your friend, Ms. Mallory. And if you're not careful, you'll suffer the same fate... or something worse."

She frowned at him, her hand clenching reflexively on the pistol butt. She still pointed the weapon at him, too jumpy and nervous to relax her stance.

"What do you mean, worse?"

He shrugged, got up and paced to the window.

"I have a notion Da mien the Eternal would have killed you by now, if that's what he wanted. I think he has other plans." Bach man shoved his hands into his perfectly fitted trousers pockets and pretended to study the view.

"Spit it out, Bach man. What are you dancing around?"

He glanced over his shoulder at her.

"I think he wants to make you one of them. Keep you for his own sick pleasures. Forever. Worse than hell, if you ask me. You'd be his prisoner for eternity."

"How did you ever get so screwed up, Bach man?" She paced toward the door, then to her seat again, clutching the back of it with one hand, clutching her gun in the other. She stared at the floor, let the barrel drop along with her gaze. "Suppose I bought this line of crap? Wouldn't turning me into a vampire negate the whole plan? Wouldn't I be as strong as him then? How could he keep me prisoner?"

"You know precious little about the subject. Powers increase with age in these creatures. And he's so old we don't even have a handle on his origins yet. Marquand, we know about. Comes from France, transformed during the Revolution."

She knew her eyes widened as her head came up again, knew she gasped. It was stupid, because she didn't really believe any of it.

"You're telling me Eric is over two hundred years old?"

He looked at her as if she was an idiot.

"That's young for them. The oldest one we have a file on is from Ancient Egypt, daughter of a pharaoh.

And we suspect your Da mien is even older than her. "

"You're nuts." She strode over to where he stood, near the window.

"Look, just what do you think you're getting from this visit? Why are you bothering to tell me all of this?"

His lids lowered to half-mast.

"Why do you think?"

She frowned, took a single step backward. But his hands on her shoulders stopped her.

"I like you, Mallory. I like your spunk. I even like the way you took my damned sidearm. Not to mention you're probably the sexiest damned female I've ever laid eyes on."

Lies. All lies, and so obvious it was child's play to see it. He wanted something from her, and it damned well wasn't her body. She watched his eyes.

"You don't even know me."

"I know you're sick, dying maybe."

Her eyes flew wide. Her chin went up.

"How do you know that?"

"Your medical records. But you knew I had them. They were in the files you stole from my hotel room."

Her medical records were in those files? But she hadn't seen them. Had Da mien? Had he known all along about her health, and kept it from her?

Why?

"You're a rare specimen. Shannon. You have a blood antigen and line of descent that makes you one of the few people in the world who can become one of them. Unfortunately, it also makes you sure to die young. They all do.

But we're doing research at DPI, Shannon, research that might help you."

Research. She'd read about their research in Marquand's notes. Tamara, strapped to a table in a hidden lab and tortured, until Eric Marquand had come to get her out. And then he'd been captured, drugged, nearly killed.

Maybe it wasn't all fiction after all.

"If you'd come with me, put yourself in my hands, we might be able to find a way to keep you alive. We might even find a cure" -- She pulled from his rough embrace.

"Come with you where?"

"The facility in White Plains. It's a research center."

White Plains. It was mentioned in Eric's file. God, could it all be true?

"You'd be safe there. Shannon, under constant guard. We have the best doctors and scientists in the field " "So, then I'd be your prisoner? Hell of a choice I'm left with, isn't it?"

"You wouldn't be a prisoner. You'd be protected. There's a difference."

She was afraid of him all of a sudden. Afraid that he wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Look, I'm all too aware how little time I have left. But I don't intend to spend it as some- one's pet guinea pig. And I don't believe any of this farfetched crap about vampires. All I want to do is find Tawny's killer, and no matter what you say, I don't believe it was Da mien."

His gaze raked her face.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

There was a warning in his words.

"Why? What are you going to do?"

He shook his head slowly.

"You'll come with me, in the end. One way or another."

She lifted the gun's muzzle.

"You planning to try and force me?"

"Not yet. Not with those two still out there. I don't aspire to end up like some of our other researchers who've tried that tack. But I would advise you to stay away from him. Shan- non." He stepped past her, toward the door.

"He's going down. I have no choice in the matter. He's a killer.

And when it's over, I'll be seeing you again. " The hardness in his face eased just a little.

"And no matter what you might think. Shan- non, it's for your own good."

She shook her head fast, following him to the door.

"This is crazy.

Bach man, he's not what you say he is. I swear " " You don't know. / do. "

He opened the door.

"I'm taking him out. There's no other way."

She argued, but she was talking to an empty doorway. Bach- man was gone, threats and all.

She blinked slowly, feeling as if she were immersed in a strange dream.

She wanted to wake up, but couldn't. She didn't want to accept that all of this was real. Bach man really believed in it, along with an entire division of the US. government. So did Eric Marquand. And Da mien? What did Da- when believe?

He found her sitting on the floor of her shabby little office, facing the door, her gun in her hand. Her eyes were perfect ovals of confusion. And damp. The lump in Da mien's throat couldn't be swallowed away.

"I thought we agreed you would wait until after the next performance to tempt fate. Shannon."

He stepped inside. She stood.

"I didn't think you'd find me so soon.

You're too smart for me, I guess. "

Frowning at the paleness of her face, he took a step forward. His heart jelled when she took a step back.

"You afraid of me now?" he asked softly.

"What happened?"

She shook her head in denial, but he saw the fear in her eyes.

"I'm not. I just want to be alone, that's all. Can't you just go? Please?"

Holding her jittery gaze with his own, Da mien shook his head slowly.

"I can't leave you here alone. You know that. "

She turned her back on him, and her hair flew with the abrupt motion. He wanted to touch it, bury his face in it, inhale its sweet fragrance.

"I'm sick of you making all my decisions for me."

"I haven't" -- "You have!" She paced away, still not facing him.

"You decided I should stay with you after the fire. You decided how we should investigate the case. You decided to let me perform with you, but only to put me off. And now you're deciding not to let me take what amounts to my last chance at getting this bastard.

Look, I've been too independent for too long to let someone take over now. "

She stopped on the opposite end of the room, as far away from him as she could possibly get. " My life is my own. I say what I do and where I go.

Right now, I want to be here, and I want to be alone. "

"Why?"

She shook her head and looked at the floor.

"Dammit, I'm not leaving here without an answer." He strode across the room, and she cringed, sending a bolt of pain through his chest. He gripped her wrists, holding them to her sides. They stood facing each other, the window their backdrop.

She refused to answer, but the fear in her eyes was all the answer he needed.

When she looked away from him, that fear increased. Her eyes widened and her skin went milky white. "My God..."

"What?" He stopped speaking when his gaze followed hers to the perfect image of her, reflected in the darkened window as clearly as if the glass were a black mirror. Though he stood beside her, his image wasn't there.

She met his gaze again, blinking, fear making her lips turn bluish and tremble as if she were freezing to death. "B-Bach man told me, but I didn't believe..."

"Bach man. I should have known. He's been here, then?"

She nodded. What sense was there in lying to him? She searched his face, the same handsome face she'd found so beautiful before.

"God, Da mien, tell me it isn't true. This is all crazy, isn't it? It's a fantasy. It's a fairy tale."

He hesitated.

"Shannon..." He tried to form words, but none left his lips.

What could he say?

"You can't even deny it?" Shock made her voice a whisper.

"I'm having a breakdown, aren't I? This is only happening in my mind. You aren't even here--I'm all alone. Maybe you don't even exist, and I" -- "That's enough. Shannon!" He put one arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the door.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

She stiffened, resisting him.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"The hell you aren't."

She snatched the gun from her waistband as she danced away, then leveled it at him. In a lightning-fast move, he took it from her, then crushed it to a small metal lump. He let it thud to the floor.

She shook her head too fast and stepped backward. Her pupils dilated, until the amber of her eyes was only a thin ring around them. He'd terrified her.

He shouldn't have done that.

"I'd never hurt you. Shannon. You know that. You have to know that. I couldn't if I wanted to." Still she stared, wide- eyed, pale. He could see the erratic pulse thudding in her neck. "I can't just leave you here for the murderer to find. And I damned well can't leave you to Bach man so he can fill your head with nightmares or, worse yet, take you off in chains to some maximum-security lab for what those bastards call research." He saw her blink when he said that, and wondered if Bach man had suggested it already.

"I only know about it because Eric warned me. Shannon, come with me. I'll try to explain" -- She lunged for the door, but he caught her around the waist and jerked her back. She ended up crushed to him, her heart pounding, her cheeks flushed.

Her breaths came in short little puffs. She stared up at him, her lips trembling, and shook her head from side to side.

Having her this close to him stirred his senses to full alert. His heart raced in time with hers, and he spread his fingers over the small of her back.

"Shannon... it kills me to see you so afraid of me. Don't you know that I could never hurt you? Don't you know...?" He whispered the words, and saw her eyes moisten. His head bent, and he took her mouth, took it with a frenzy that couldn't been tamed. His hands moved all over her, unable to touch enough of her at once. He traced her spine, kneaded her shoulders, sifted her hair, caressed the gentle curve of her neck.

Very slowly it dawned on him that she was not resisting. Her trembling hadn't stopped, but it had changed. Her hands rose, timidly, before locking around him. Her head tipped backward in response to the thrusting of his tongue, and she suckled him. His ardor flamed high. He pressed his hips forward, to show her, and her hand ran up over his shoulders and down again.

When she arched against him, he cupped her round, firm buttocks, squeezed them, pulled her harder against him, and heard the soft moan she made.

Insane with wan ting her, he moved her backward until she bumped the desk.

With a sweep of his arm he cleared it, and then he lowered her onto its surface. Her breaths came fast and warm on his face. He ripped the front of her silk blouse open. Buttons flew. Her breasts hid behind the lacy fabric of a bra, but he tore that away, too, baring them to his hungry eyes. With a little growl, he bent to nurse at them, feeding a need that went beyond hunger, beyond lust. He sucked hard at one tight bud, feeling it stiffen and stand. He caught the peak between his white teeth, snapping them down on the crest again and again until she screamed his name and clutched his head in both hands. Then he repeated the torment on the other.

She was panting now, each inhale short and shallow, each exhale a whimper.

He lifted his head, watching her face as his hands moved to her jeans, their button, their zipper. He shoved the denim down over her buttocks, running his palms over their smoothness as he did. He pushed them down her thighs and she kicked them from her feet.

Then he straightened, standing between her legs with an arousal so hard it was painful. He stared down at her, bared to him, and he told himself he couldn't do this. He shouldn't. "If you stop this time, I will shoot you,"

she whispered. "I don't want to hear any more of this craziness. I just want you."

He knew it was wrong, knew she was as afraid as she was aroused. And yet he sank his fingers into the silken curls between her thighs. He parted her folds, and explored her tight, damp center. He found the tiny nub, and pinched it between his fingers. She closed her eyes and cried out.

"Shannon, I" -- "I don't care! What have I got to lose, Da mien? Dammit, make love to me!"

He prayed she wouldn't regret that command, even as he unfastened his pants to free his throbbing erection. He saw her gaze fasten to that part of him; he felt the touch of her eyes burning him. Placing his palms to her inner thighs, he spread her wider, and stared at the delectable feminine morsel before him. Then her hand closed around him and pulled gently. She guided him up tight to her slick center, squeezed him hard and let him go. Her gaze held his as she lay back on the desk, hips arcing toward him, waiting.

He sank into her slowly, gradually, deeper and deeper until there was no more of him to offer. He pressed tight to her, and she sighed long and coarse.

Her hands clutched his buttocks. His hands closed tight around her waist, better to hold her to him. That grip tightened as he withdrew, and this time, he was not gentle when he plunged into her. Again, he pulled back, holding her imprisoned between his strong hands as he thrust once more. Her muscles tightened around him, as if wan ting to keep him there forever. She lifted her head and shoulders from the desk, reached for him with her mouth, and he responded, bending over her, kissing her. He made love to her mouth as hard and deep and as urgently as he was making love to her body.

And then she went still, her entire body stiffening, her hands clenching, her breaths stopping for an interminable moment. He felt the tightening around him. An instant later she screamed aloud, and her body spasmed its release in waves that forced him to respond in kind. He spilled his essence into her, feeling as if it were drained from his toes. And then he sank onto her beautiful body, and he held her in his arms.

Watching their frenzied coupling from the fire escape, Anthar swore viciously in Sumerian and then in Babylonian and finally in English. He'd waited, waited endlessly for Da mien to give in to his lusts and take the woman. And he had; at long last, he had. But he'd failed to drink from her. Somehow he'd overcome the instinct as powerful as nature itself, and he'd refrained from even a sip. Dammit! If Da mien had so much as tasted her nectar, Anthar might have found an opportunity to separate them, finish her off and leave her for Da mien to find. He'd have believed himself the villain. He'd have gone insane with remorse and grief and self-loathing.

Why the hell hadn't the bastard tasted her?

Now Anthar would have to wait for another opportunity. And judging by the girl's health there might not be one. He hadn't realized how close she was to her end. If she died, his opportunity for the perfect revenge would die with her. Da- when had to be driven to suicide. It was the only way to ease the agony of Anthar's wrath.

After all, that was the way Siduri had died.

Siduri. Ah, how beautiful she'd been, and how he'd wanted her. He might have had her, too. Anthar had often visited her little cottage by the sea.

But alas, the Great Gilgamesh had stopped there, half dead and half mad, filthy and exhausted and starving. He'd paused on his quest for immortality, just long enough to destroy the life of an innocent barmaid. And she'd taken him in. She'd fed him, clothed him and held him in her arms to ease his pain. And when he'd recovered, he'd left her, cold snake that he was.

He'd never once looked back, never once paid heed to her pitiful begging of him to stay.

He didn't even know how much she'd loved him, never learned of how she'd died.

She'd just walked into the sea. Just kept walking until she could walk no more. Then she'd swum. And like him, she'd never looked back.

Only Anthar knew. For he had her words, engraved in the stone tablet, written in the script she'd been forbidden as a woman to learn. She'd learned anyway. She'd learned from Anthar himself. And many other things, as well.

So beautiful, so bright. Dead because of Gilgamesh, as surely as if he'd choked her life away with his own two hands.

Gilgamesh would pay. Yes, he would, by whatever means necessary. He would pay by losing what he most loved.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

One curled into his arms, trembling and all but limp, as Da- when struggled to put her clothes back into place. It wasn't easy. When he tried to rise away from her, she clamped her arms around his neck and fought not to let him go. When he gently removed them and stood back, righting his own apparel, he saw tears gliding silently down her cheeks.

"Ah, Shannon..." He gathered her up, standing her on her feet and holding her to his chest. But her legs seemed rubbery and weak. She sank once, then stiffened her knees as if by sheer will. She cupped his face between her hands, searched it through the pools in her eyes.

"It isn't true. I knew it. It's all just nonsense. Bach man's crazy." Her words tumbled over one another in their haste to break free.

"You're no monster. No monster could make love to me the way you just did. Tell me, Da mien. Say it." She kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes.

"I've never felt this way before. Not for anyone, Da mien. Only you, so you have to tell me it's all a lie. A dream. Make-believe." Again she kissed him, his jaw, his neck. Desperation making her tremble. He caught her shoulders to stop the madness, but she rushed on.

"Yes, make-believe. An illusion, just like in your act. That's all it is.

Illusion. Say it, Da mien..."

The trembling increased, and he felt her kisses heating. Not with passion, but with fever.

He caught her face, held her away from him just a little. Her skin glowed milky white, with those telltale apples beginning to shine in her cheeks.

Her eyes already dulled and took on that unfocused quality.

"Dammit," he muttered.

"Dammit, not again."

"Jus' hold me." Her whispered words slurred into one another.

"I'll be all right ... long's'you hold me." She melted against his chest.

He closed his arms around her, scooped her up into them. He stared down at her relaxed face, her hooded eyes" and he felt a pain beyond all endurance.

Something cold and hot all at once, freezing and burning his heart until the organ split into a hundred bits. He couldn't stand to see this, to see her suffer this way, to watch her die.

He clenched his fists as he held her, and cried out loud in his agony, the words in the old language. One no living man could know. He cried her name, and Enkidu's, and he cursed the gods and the world and life and death and pain. And then he buried his face in her hair and he wept hot, bitter tears.

Her warm, satin palm rested softly on his cheek.

"Don't cry. I didn't want this ... didn't want ... didn't mean to love you...."

He lifted his head, staring at her in shock. She smiled very slightly, "I wish . I didn't have to die . to leave you . like this. " And then her amber eyes fell closed.

"Da mien."

He turned slowly, but couldn't take his eyes from Shannon long enough to look at Eric Marquand.

"Da mien, you must bring her away from here. There's danger."

"Look at her, Eric...." Da mien shook his head fast, as if denying his own words.

"It's different this time, darker. More insidious."

Eric stepped forward and bent close to Shannon. When he straightened again, his face was grim.

"I'm sorry. Damnably sorry."

Da mien looked up, brows lifted, the question he couldn't voice settling in his eyes.

"She'll slip into coma before this night is out. She won't wake, I fear.

The end is close. "

"No...." Da mien's knees buckled. He fell onto them, clutching her limp form to him, bowing double as he held her, rocked her.

"Come, Da mien. Bring her to the house I've rented. Bach- man's been following you and Shannon, not me. I'm sure he knows nothing about the arrangements I've made tonight." Da mien didn't move.

"Come, at least we can make her comfortable, keep her warm."

Da mien nodded, mute with pain, unable to speak. Blasphemous bastard, it's less than you deserve! He stopped in mid step, tilting his head and frowning toward Eric for silence. Pure rage filled his mind, the thoughts, bitter with hatred, rang clear in his brain. But from where, or whom?

Watch her die, you dog! Watch her die and wish for death yourself, for I'll bring it to you soon enough, Gilgamesh of Vruk.

Just as suddenly as it had come, the sensations flooding his mind vanished.

Da mien shook himself, then glanced at Eric. "Did you hear it?"

"Faintly. The message was directed to you."

"How many others ... like us ... are there here?"He hadn't believed there were any besides the two of them in Arista, until now.Now he wondered.

"None, Da mien. We'd know if there were. They'd have no reason to hide their presence from us."

"But they could? If they wanted to, they could?" One brow bunching lower than the other, Eric nodded. "It was a vampire, Eric. I'm sure it was. One who knows me." Da mien bolstered himself after being thoroughly shaken by feeling such a rush of pure hatred flashing through his consciousness. He focused instead on Shannon, and the pain overshadowed everything else.

"I can't even take her home. Not with Bach man planning to raid the place in search of me."

"He won't come near until dawn. It's still early. We'll be secure enough for the night, at least. We can make other plans from there. Come."

Moments later, Da mien tucked Shannon's pliable form onto the chaise in the circular room. He sensed she'd rather rest here, near the fire, than upstairs alone in the big bedroom. She liked this room. Eric bent to add logs to the fire, as Da mien sat beside her and stroked her hair.

"Oh, my! What's happened to her?"

Da mien glanced up, seeing Netty's worried face, forgetting her possible betrayal in his concern for Shannon.

"She's sick, Netty. Very sick."

"She needs a doctor, she does." The woman hustled forward, quick steps bringing her beside the chaise. She reached for Shannon's hand and grasped it to her breast.

"There's nothing they can do for her." Da mien's voice broke, and he let his head bow. His neck seemed too limp to hold it any longer.

"You mean, she's dying?"

He bit his trembling lips until he drew blood.

Eric turned away from the fire.

"Netty, some blankets for her, if you will. We can only keep her warm and"

-- Netty backed away slowly, her face a jumble of confused emotions.

"No, sir. No, sir, this isn't right!" She shook her head fiercely.

"He said she'd be all right. He said it was all on account of the spell you'd put on her" -- She broke off, eyes going even wider. When Da mien's head came up slowly, she searched his face.

"But you didn't put this on her. I can see that now, you didn't. Oh, Lord, what have I done?"

Eric stepped forward, coming between Da mien and Netty even as Da mien rose to his feet.

"You're talking about Bach- man, aren't you?"

Netty nodded, her gaze meeting Da mien's again.

"He said no harm would come to you! He said it was all to save Shannon. He told me you were... you were..." She shuddered and looked at the floor.

"Demon spawn. Said she'd die unless I helped him."

"And you told him about the secret room on the third floor." Da mien could barely control his rage.

She bit her thick lower lip, tears coursing down her face now.

"Bach man said she'd die if I didn't tell. I only wanted to help the girl!"

"I ought to tear your heart out" -- "Shut up, Da mien!" Eric held one arm out to his side to keep Da mien from walking past him. Not that he could have actually stopped him.

"Netty, it's not too late to redeem yourself. I intercepted the note you left at the hotel" -- She groaned softly.

"I phoned him later. He knows, he does."

"Tell us what Bach man is planning," Eric coaxed.

She nodded hard, still glancing every few seconds at Da- when, fear mingling with the remorse in her eyes.

"I was to let him in at first light. He wanted to look at the room where you sleep."

"What he wants is to murder me in my sleep, you foolish woman."

"I didn't know. I swear it!"

Da mien glared at her, then turned again to resume his vigil over Shannon.

"I can't think about this right now. I" -- He broke off with a shake of his head.

"Is it true, then? What Bach man says you are?"

"Netty, what kind of idiot would believe such nonsense?" Eric asked, with a laugh in his voice.

"Bach man is insane, a fan gone over the edge. Surely you've heard of this happening before, stalkers plaguing stars of all sorts." He paused, and Netty nodded, thoroughly engrossed.

"So, Bach man has convinced himself that Da mien's stage identity is the real thing, and cast himself in the role of vampire slayer." Eric stepped forward, touched Netty's arm.

"He's dangerous, Netty. He really means to kill Da mien."

"And I almost helped him do it!" she cried. She buried her face in her hands, sniffling loudly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Namtar."

He didn't care, didn't even acknowledge her apology. He was too enveloped in pain to feel anything else.

"Just go. Go, both of you. Leave us alone."

Netty broke into tears and ran from the room.

Eric came and knelt beside him.

"It won't be safe here beyond darkness.

You know that. "

"I'll take her out of here before then."

"And go where?"

Da mien shrugged, staring hard at Shannon, thinking of the words she'd whispered to him before her eyes had closed.

"I don't know. It doesn't matter, really."

"Shall I return for you" -- "No. You've done enough. Keep your distance now, Eric. I don't need an audience, let alone any help for this grief.

It's an old, familiar companion."

Eric nodded once, and backed away.

So alive. He'd never known anyone to be as much alive as she'd been. The sparkle of mirth in her eyes. Her delighted laughter. Her ferocity when she felt cornered or bullied or threatened in any way.

It had been a very long time since Da mien had shared laughter with anyone.

He had with her, he realized dully. Over and over again, she'd made him smile. She'd filled his loneliness with her constant presence. She'd brought joy and tenderness back into his existence.

And now she was dying. Leaving him to walk alone, as Enkidu had done.

Leaving him, just when it seemed their goal of finding her friend's murderer was within reach. Just when he'd learned of another, a fiercely angry, vampire in the city. One who hated him He blinked slowly as he realized the implication of what he'd just thought. Another vampire. One who hated Da mien beyond all reason.

He 'd been responsible for those deaths! And driven by his own demons had staged them to look like Da mien's work. That had to be the answer.

A light flickered somewhere in the endless night of his soul. He wasn't a murderer. The thirst hadn't taken control of him. More proof of that lay in what had transpired between the two of them before she'd succumbed to this illness. He'd made love to her. Frenzied, passionate, obsessive love to her. But he hadn't tasted her life's blood. He'd remained in control, despite the lust for her that raged inside him.

His reason before for not transforming her had been simple. He'd been suffering with the thought that he might be a killer, and couldn't bear to see her suffer the same someday. That reason was gone now. His other reason had been a selfish one. He hadn't wanted to let himself love her.

He hadn't wanted to risk the kind of hurt he'd known before.

But it was already too late to avoid that. And if she were immortal, maybe he wouldn't have to lose her at all.

He looked at her, stretched out on the chaise like an offering to a demon god. Would she want it? Would she have accepted the dark magic if he'd offered it to her while she'd been able? Could she bear a life without daylight, without the kiss of the sun? Could she abide the notion of her eternal soul bound forever to her eternal body?

He swore viciously and turned away. He couldn't make that decision for her.

He couldn't! No matter how much he loved her, how it would tear him apart to see her die. He had no right.

Tears swam in his eyes. He didn't battle them. He buried his face in his hands and felt his shoulders quake with sobs. And then her hand rose, touched his back.

He turned, sliding onto his knees on the floor. He clutched her hand, kissed it, then bent to kiss her face.

"I'm... sorry," she whispered.

"I should ... have warned you."

"It wouldn't have changed anything. Shannon." He'd have loved her even if he'd known all along. He was certain of that.

She stared up into his eyes, her own damp, unfocused arid glittering with the firelight's reflection. She blinked at the tears, but more quickly flooded to take their place. This time she let them come and her hand clutched his tighter.

"I'm so afraid."

He didn't know what to say. What could he say to comfort her?

"I've denied it, you know. Held my chin up, pretended to be this big brave person, but I'm not." Tears flowed freely, leaving angry red streaks on her skin. Her lips pulled tight, her teeth bared.

"I don't want to die, Da mien. I don't want to be brave anymore. I don't give a damn about dignity."

He stilled, staring down at her face.

"Do you mean that, Shannon?"

Her face relaxed. Her eyelids drooped, and he knew the end was close. Her breaths came so shallowly, and so randomly. No longer regular.

"I'd ... I'd give anything..." she whispered. "Anything... if I could just live..."

Her eyes fell closed.

He cupped her face between his hands, shook her gently. But she was beyond reach now. Sinking into the coma Eric had predicted. She wouldn't wake again. But she didn't need to, did she? Hadn't she just given him her decision?

Not really. She's feverish, sick. She didn 't know what she was saying, didn't realize I could actually do it. All true. But did it really matter? Could he really bear to let her die?

Could anyone, mortal or immortal, sit idly by and watch someone he loved slip away, knowing he had the power to save her?

No. No, that was beyond endurance. No matter how he tried to tell himself it was wrong, that she should have been given the option while she was still cognizant enough to make an informed decision, he couldn't turn away. He didn't have that much strength in him. He couldn't face the madness again, and he knew it would come. He felt it descending on him as he sensed her heartbeat slowing, her breaths becoming less and less frequent. He couldn't do it, dammit! He couldn't go on without her. He couldn't sit here and watch her die, when she'd just all but begged him to save her.

He lifted her, his palms sliding up to her shoulder blades. Her head fell backward, hair like a golden silk curtain. Sweet Sleeping Beauty. He was about to give her the kiss that would wake her from death's slumber. He was no prince. She deserved better. He lowered his head, and as his lips touched her skin, he whispered, "In anna, forgive me. Enkidu, help me.

Shannon, sweet Shannon. stay with me. "

Anthar roared his rage aloud, forgetting his need for anonymity. It mattered little, for the heathen was too enamored with his precious morsel to notice.

He'd noticed earlier, though. He knew there was another, one who wished him dead. He knew, and he'd be on his guard now. So much the better. The bastard would know why he suffered before he died.

But damn! To be robbed of watching Gilgamesh grieve for her death was a blow! He'd planned, waited so long. Of course, he'd wished to arrange it differently, to kill her himself and let the great one believe he'd done it.

Then to watch Gilgamesh consumed by despair unto the point of taking his own worthless life.

All his plans were mined.

Ah, but he would not give up his quest for vengeance. Si- duri deserved to be avenged, and she would be. Anthar would simply have to kill Gilgamesh himself, and the woman, too. Her first, to increase the eternal one's pain.

Perhaps he'd make Gilgamesh watch while he took her. Yes. She'd give little resistance, even with her newfound strength, she'd be a weakling compared with him.

And Anthar feared Gilgamesh himself, but little. He was nearly as old, the difference being a matter of minutes.

Anthar had followed Gilgamesh into the wilderness after Siduri's suicide.

Followed to exact his revenge then. He'd caught up in the midst of Gilgamesh's meeting with Ut- napishtim, the Enlightened One. The ancient wise man, it was said, had been made immortal by the gods in order to save him when the great flood ravaged the world. But he'd been charged not to share the gift, lest it become a curse instead.

Yet something about Gilgamesh must have touched the old man, for after great thought and much tormented arguing, he'd granted Gilgamesh's wish.

They'd exchanged blood, and the act left Utnapishtim weak, and Gilgamesh strengthened.

"You will live forever now, my young friend," the old one had whispered, before sending Gilgamesh away.

Anthar slipped in right after, and took advantage of the old man's weakened state to force him to repeat the ritual he'd just witnessed. If Gilgamesh lived, so must Anthar. He must live long enough to have his revenge.

And so he had.

And so he would.

Shannon had no idea how much time had passed, when she opened her eyes.

She felt a little foggy at first, as if her head were stuffed full of wet cotton. She struggled to sit up, but her bones felt heavy and uncooperative.

Strong hands helped her, eased her up, and she looked around, frowning.

They were not in Da mien's house. She glanced up at him, then remembered the way they'd made love, and she smiled softly.

"How long have I been asleep?" Her brows drew together. Her voice sounded strange to her, somehow deeper and more resonant than before. But that was silly.

"All of last night, and all through today."

"It's night again?"

He nodded. His eyes were troubled, worried about something, and she had no idea what it could be, unless he was suffering over her sickness. Yes, that must be it. She'd had another attack right after that incredible sex on the desk in her office.

On the desk!

She lifted a hand to touch his face. She'd have to tell him the truth, prepare him for the eventuality that was unavoidable.

A low-flying bat swooped between them and shot upward once more, drawing her gaze. She gave her head a little shake and looked again. She could see every inch of its small body in perfect detail, despite the darkness. She could count the bones delineated in the thin black skin of its wings. Her eyes seemed to be working at high speed, because she could see each and every flutter of those wings, though they beat too rapidly for that to be possible.

They ought to look like a blur. Then she bit her lip and her eyes widened even farther. She could hear each flutter, as well, and the piercing squeals, and their echoes bouncing back like sonar blips to tell the creature what lay ahead. And she could smell it. She could smell it.

It was musky and ripe. My God, she felt the air currents stirred by those wings, passing by her face.

She shook her head slowly.

"That's not possible."

"What isn't?" Da mien leaned forward, gripping her hand, and she could count the lines in his palm just by feeling them. She looked up into his face, and saw the unearthly gleam in his black eyes in a way she'd never seen it before. She saw the pale perfection of his skin, and she knew his scent, erotic and enticing though it was, could not be human. His hair was too perfectly raven, too silken, too soft, to be human.

Or maybe she'd succumbed to an overactive imagination because of a lunatic named Bach man. Maybe she was having a breakdown of some kind. She licked her lips.

"Da mien, why are we outside?"

"We had to leave the house. Bach man planned to come for us today, so I brought you here."

"Where, exactly, is here?"

He smiled and glanced around.

"A cave I know of, deep in the woods outside the city. You remember? We passed these woods in your car the other night.

No one can find us here. You're safe. "

The wind blew a perfect harmony. She heard notes she'd never heard before.

Every rustle of every leaf, every branch as it bowed.

"This is so strange."

"Tell me."

She looked at him again, shocked once more that he appeared so different to her, so obviously different from any other man. And so afraid. What was he afraid of? She shook her head.

"No. There's something more important I have to explain to you, Da mien.

About... about this illness of mine."

He lowered his eyes.

"I'm..." She licked her lips.

"I'm dying, Da mien."

Without looking at her, he replied, "No, Shannon. You are not."

She gave her head a shake. He hadn't seemed surprised at all. No shock, no questions. Just a simple denial. He lifted his head. His black gaze stabbing into hers, he added, "Not ever."

She blinked.

"What do you mean?"

he wants to make you one of them. You'd be his prisoner, forever. She tried to blink away her memory of Bach man's words, but they wouldn't leave. She shrank back a little.

"Da mien, what are you saying? What are you going to... to do to me?"

"It's done."

"What's done?"

He reached out, fanned his fingers in her hair, spread them wide, as if to feel more of it.

"Do you remember last night, when death was so close you could feel its cold breath on your nape? Do you remember crying, telling me you'd give anything, if only you could live? Don't you feel it. Shannon?

Don't you know? "

Her breath caught in her throat. She remembered very little after their lovemaking on the desk. Too little. Hadn't she decided that all of this talk of vampires was craziness? Some- one's insane fantasy? It couldn't be real. Hadn't she begged Da mien to confirm that for her, right after they'd made love?

And hadn't he failed to do it?

There are no such things as vampires!

She stood up, feeling an unfamiliar strength seep into her. The fogginess in her brain had gone, leaving it sharp and alert. Her senses jangled with awareness, as though a zillion electrodes were pulsing tiny currents into her nerve endings. She felt energized, healthy, strong. More alive than she ever had.

She glanced down, opening and closing her hand and studying it as she did.

Why did it feel so different? At last, she pressed that same palm to her throat, driven by some wild impulse, some impossible notion. And she felt the tiny indentations, two punctures, quickly healing over.

Her gaze flew to his. She shook her head in denial.

"It's all right. Shannon. There's nothing to be afraid of."

He lifted a hand, took a step toward her.

"You won't be sick anymore. You won't die. You'll never die."

"My God!" Another step away, and still he advanced.

"My God, it's true, you are" -- "And so are you."

"No!" But even as she shrieked the word, she knew it had to be true. Why else were her perceptions so altered? She cupped her palm over the wounds on her throat, as if covering them could make them disappear.

"How could you, Da mien! How could you do this to me?" Tears crept into her voice.

She choked on them, fought them down.

"Shannon, I had to. You were dying. I couldn't let you die when you kept telling me how much you wanted to live."

"You can't do this, dammit!"

He lowered his hands, stood where he was. He seemed to bear some silent devastation she was beyond caring about. "It's done." Like a judge handing down an irrefutable sentence. Two words with more meaning than any she'd ever heard.

"So, now what happens? You keep me with you forever? I turn to you for everything? Is that what you expect now, Da mien? Because you know I can't exist this way on my own, don't you? You know I have no idea how to survive like this, what to do, where to turn. So I'm utterly dependent--is that the idea?"

She was terrified, terrified of what she was now. Alive or dead? Human or some other sort of creature? Natural or a freak? Immortal or damned?

He only shook his head, obviously confused.

"Of course you can depend on me to" -- "The hell I will!" She shouted it, her voice too loud to be natural, so loud it hurt her own ears. She squeezed her eyes tight and forced herself to speak more softly.

"What can kill us?"

"What?"

"What can kill us? Tell me, damn you."

He blinked slowly before answering.

"Sunlight. The slightest touch of a live flame. Any injury that causes severe bleeding. We're like hemophiliacs in that way. If you can't get the bleeding stopped right away you..." His voice trailed off.

"Shannon, why are you asking me this?"

"Because I need to know. Because I don't know if I want to live like this.

Because. " She covered her face with both hands and turned away from him.

She was a liar and a coward. She didn't want to die, and she knew it. But God, what was this alternative he'd given her? Blindly, sobbing, she took a few steps away, toward the mouth of the cave.

"Where are you going?"

"Away. Just away."

He followed, catching her shoulder. She jerked back from his touch.

"Shannon, you can't just go off by yourself."

"Why the hell not?"

He stood there gripping her arm.

"Please. Just sit down, give yourself time to adjust. Let me explain what all of this means...."

"Leave me alone!" She pulled away, stood facing him, breathless with shock and anger.

"I swear to God, if you don't let me go I'll hate you forever. Does that even matter to you, Da mien? Or was Bach man right about that, too?" She turned again, and raced off into the forest, into the night.

Da mien didn't go after her. He couldn't. His grief over what he'd done, preserved her life, transformed her into something she couldn't begin to understand, his knowledge that he'd acted for reasons purely selfish, nearly paralyzed him with pain. He hurt, he ached, for her. For what she was suffering right now. The confusion. The fear. And yet he couldn't bring himself to regret what he'd done. He couldn't be anything but glad that she was alive when he rose tonight, instead of lying cold and lifeless, forever still on the chaise. That was the alternative. That was what he could have risen to see tonight, would have, if he hadn't acted.

So he didn't regret it. He only wished he'd done it differently, explained things to her earlier, before the decision had to be made, allowed her to choose.

He started after her, only to find his way blocked by a solid form. His eyes met Eric's and found understanding, even sympathy, there.

"Let her go, Da mien. She needs time. She has to explore this new realm she finds herself inhabiting, grow accustomed to it."

Da mien shoved Eric aside and strode on.

"How can I let her go? You said yourself what kind of bastard this Bach man might be. You think I want to see her captured for live study by that animal? And what about this rogue vampire that's on the rampage? How do you know she's safe from him?"

Eric kept pace easily.

"I didn't say we couldn't watch her. We'll keep her in sight, but from a distance. Da mien, you have to give her a chance to accept this on her own.

You've forced it down her throat and she's choking. Can't you see that?"

Da mien stopped. He turned to stare at the other man. Then felt his own shoulders slump in concession.

"You're insightful, Eric. I'll give you that."

"I'm glad you think it. For I have a few other notions. I haven't wished to involve my mate in this for fear of the risk."

"Risk?"

Eric nodded.

"I'd no idea what sort of temper you possessed when first I approached you, Da mien."

"And now?"

"No worse than most. I believe Tamara can be of help to your Shannon."

"That might be true." Da mien walked on, but his pace was slower. Part of his mind remained focused on Shannon, felt her tears, her confusion.

Another part listened intently to what Eric suggested.

"There's still Bach man, and this rogue we've discovered."

"I wouldn't bring her here if I had a choice, Da mien. But the fact is, she's coming, whether I like it or not. She'll be at the house I rented within the hour."

Da mien only looked at him, brows raised in question as he waited for Eric to finish.

"She worries about me. She found out about Bach man's presence here, and nothing could stop her from joining me."

Da mien blinked, wondering what that kind of devotion must feel like.

"You're a lucky man, Marquand."

"That I am."

"Go on to your house, then, and wait for your fierce protector. I'm going back to the mansion to watch over Shan- non." At Eric's frown he added, "From a distance."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

She tried not to notice how fast she was walking, or that she didn't get winded, or that her heart didn't even speed up. She ignored the fact that, while she felt the cold as she never had before, felt its crisp touch on every inch of her body, she didn't feel cold, or uncomfortable with it. She didn't get goose bumps or shiver. She tried to pay no attention to the incredibly flavorful taste of every breath she drew, or the scents of every plant and animal she passed, and of the air itself.

God, but she'd never been so aware!

When she reached Da mien's house, she climbed the gate with no trouble, wondering about this new agility and strength. She walked inside, resisting the astonishing differences. The colors in the Turkish rugs that she'd never seen before. The intricate patterns. The smell of the fire.

The taste of the wood smoke.

It would overwhelm her if she paid attention. She felt she could sit for hours and explore her heightened senses. The flames in the hearth. My God, the flames. Look at them!

She stared, paralyzed by the beauty of the dancing tongues of light and energy and color. She had to force herself to break away.

Not now. Not now. She wanted only to gather up her belongings, toss them into her car and drive far away from here. Far away from Da mien and Eric Marquand and this entire nightmare she'd fallen into.

She started through the round room, not intending to pause at all, when something stopped her. Some inner knowledge she couldn't understand made the hair on her nape stand up. And she went still, trying to find the source. Finally she turned around. Her gaze went to the arched doorway on the other side, and Bach man stepped out from his hiding place just beyond the beads, his gun pointed right at her.

Some hysterical person inside her began to laugh. It began as a chuckle and grew, gaining strength until she was gripping her middle with both hands, tears pooling in her eyes. She could easily have let it go on until she sank to the floor and the laughter led to hysteria and the hysteria to madness.

But she didn't. She caught hold of herself. She stopped the laughter and eyed the weapon.

"Bach man, what are you doing? You want me to take that one away from you, too?"

"Where is he. Shannon?"

She shrugged and wiped her eyes dry.

"Not here. But you must already know that. You've been searching the place all day, haven't you?"

He frowned, scanning her face, and she stiffened, wondering what he saw.

She waited, her breath halted.

"You've been crying. Why?"

She blinked, nearly limp with relief. He didn't see the change, he couldn't.

Mindful of the marks on her neck, she lowered her head. When she lifted it again her hair hung down the front of her shoulders, hiding the wounds.

"Oh, Bach man, why didn't I listen to you?" She let a few new tears dampen her lashes.

"I thought I loved him, you know. But he left me. Just walked out."

"And you don't know where he went?"

She shook her head sadly.

"I hate him now." It wasn't true. She didn't know what she felt for Da mien anymore, but it wasn't hatred. She didn't think it ever would be.

Bach man nodded, but didn't put the gun away. His face softened a little.

"Shannon, come with me to the institute. We might be able to help you there."

It was a lie. She knew it the second the words left his lips. She wasn't even certain Bach man knew it was a lie, but she did. Amazing. Not the slight intuition she'd felt when he'd lied to her before, but a glaring neon sign flashing in her mind. "Are there others there, others like me?"

He nodded, and for an instant she glimpsed a frightening image. Men and women imprisoned in cell-like rooms. Strapped to tables. Desolation in their faces.

She licked her lips.

"I don't know." Fear gripped her heart. He might honestly think he could help her, but she knew he couldn't. If she went with him, she'd become a prisoner, a research object, a guinea pig. She took a step away from him.

"I'll think about it, though. Give me until tomorrow to" -- His eyes narrowed and the gun's muzzle lifted a fraction. He shook his head.

"No, Shannon. You're coming with me now."

She felt herself go cold all over.

"I'm not leaving here without you," he said softly, dangerously.

"I wanted to wait until I had him, but he's gone. My chance to get him is gone. But I'm not going back to White Plains empty-handed. And I'm damned well not leaving you here to die." He shook his head.

"Besides, I'm not sure you don't know where he is. Maybe I can convince you to tell me."

"I told you--I don't know. He's gone. He's not coming back." She defended Da mien instantly and without any hesitation. Yes, she was angry with him for what he'd done to her. But this was instinctive and had nothing to do with the other.

"He'll come if you're in trouble, I think. I didn't want to do it this way.

Shannon, but if I were to, say, shoot you, I think he'd know. I think he'd be here in a matter of minutes. Seconds, maybe." He worked the action of the gun.

Fear rippled through her and her mind sought wildly for an answer. But the sixth sense she'd felt before seemed to have deserted her.

Was he bluffing or would he really do it? She couldn't just stand there and let him shoot her. She held her hands in front of her, palms out.

"No, don't. I'll go with you. I'll tell you where he is--I will."

Bach man nodded, his frown altering, softening.

"I figured you'd change your mind. Don't worry about him. Shannon. He won't suffer. That's if I decide to let him live long enough to take him in.

I might not. He's a murderer. Someone has to stop him. Someone has to stop them all."

Then there were others. Others like Da mien, hunted and persecuted by people like Bach man, and maybe even killed. Just as Eric Marquand's notes had said. It was too horrible to believe.

She lowered her head, chin to chest, and forced a couple of sobs. She took one faltering, weak-kneed step toward him, then another. She swayed sideways, catching herself on a table. Her palm pressed to her forehead and her eyes closed.

He strode to her, gripping her forearm none too gently. It hurt, though she didn't think he meant it to. Her skin seemed more sensitive than before.

When he squeezed her arm, pain shot all the way to her shoulder.

She lifted her other hand, settled it on his shoulder as if for support.

Her fingers clenched hard into his flesh. Her knee rose and connected.

She'd expected him to double over in pain, giving her time to escape.

Instead he launched into the air, propelled by the simple lifting motion of her knee into his groin. He screamed aloud, a hoarse, gravelly yell, and he sailed backward, hitting the floor five feet away. The gun skittered across the marble tiles to stop near the hearth, well beyond his reach. Then he doubled over.

Shannon's hand flew to her mouth, and she felt as if her eyes would pop out of their sockets.

"Did I do that?" she whispered.

"Ah, hell, this is so frigging strange."

He struggled to his feet, rage in his eyes, even as Shannon thought that those thugs who'd tried to steal her car ought to try it again now. If they thought she'd given them what for last time. She halted that speculating as Bach man stood, took one staggering step forward, lifted a shaking hand, forefinger extended.

"You ... you're one of them."

"Not by choice," she muttered.

"Look, Bach man, why don't you just get the hell out of here before I really hurt you, okay?"

He glanced toward the gun, took a step toward it. She leapt, easily covering the distance in a single, gazelle like move, and put herself between Bach man and the weapon. He thrust a hand into a pocket and emerged with a blade.

"Come on, Shannon. Come over here and try that again." He was panting, breathless, obviously in pain.

She held her hand up, telling him to stop.

"Don't do this," she said softly.

"Don't..."

"You think I want to?" He moved nearer, still brandishing the blade. She backed away, but he advanced.

"I could kill you, you know," he rasped.

"One little nick, honey, and then I could stand here and watch you bleed."

She gasped.

"Give it up, Shannon. Don't make me do it."

He lunged, and the blade swept toward her. She jumped back again and he missed perhaps deliberately, she couldn't be sure but now her back was against the mantel. There was no more retreat. Nowhere to go. He stood in front of her, grim- faced, and she recalled Da mien's having told her how easily she could bleed to death.

Bach man lifted the blade. He pressed its pointed tip to her throat.

"Say you'll come with me Shannon. Don't make me hurt you."

She'd die before she'd go with him. She had to do something. Her hand groped behind her, moving slowly, so as not to alert him. It bumped the glass cube that enclosed one of Da mien's artifacts. She lifted the glass, set it aside and clenched her fist on the section of stone tablet.

And in that instant, that very instant as she felt the pressure of the cold blade increase, felt its tip press harder into her flesh, she sensed as clearly as if he'd spoken it, his intent to kill her unless she cooperated.

And to kill Da mien, as well. She knew only one thing. She didn't want to die. Da mien had been right about that.

In a surge of strength brought on by panic, a surge she didn't try to gauge or temper, she swung the stone forward, catching him in the side of his head.

He fell sideways and his body slammed to the floor so hard she thought he'd cracked the marble. He didn't move, of course. She blinked, felt the bile rise up in her throat, wanted to retch. She tore away from the wall and ran to the door, flinging it open, racing through it--and colliding hard with a broad chest.

"Shannon" -- His arms closed around her, and she sagged against Da mien, clinging to his neck, sobbing.

"I think I killed him. Oh, God, I think I killed him."

"I'm sorry. Shannon. I came as fast as I could, the second I sensed something wrong, but" -- He broke off, threading his fingers in her hair, lifting her into his arms. He carried her back through the house, holding her face to his shoulder as they passed through his comfort room. He took her up the stairs, laid her gently on the bed. "Shannon, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say."

She searched his face, his beloved, beautiful face, and she didn't know what to say, either. Her fingers clenched, and she realized she still held the stone. She drew it up to her chest, rolled slowly to her side, facing away from him, and closed her eyes.

Sighing, Da mien covered her with a blanket, and left her alone.

Da mien went downstairs to check on Bach man's condition, but the man was gone. Shannon hadn't killed him after all. It would be a relief to her to know that. .

Eric's voice came from the doorway.

"Are you all right?"

Before Da mien formed an answer, his lovely young mate came forward, with all the grace of a ballerina in the midst of a dance. She drew a flask from a pocket inside her coat, and offered it to him.

"Here, Da mien.

You're white as chalk. Drink. "

"Tamara, love, that isn't" -- Eric began, but he paused, searching Da mien's awe struck face.

"What is it, my friend?"

A burden floated away from Da mien's shoulders.

"The need. The thirst. By the love of In anna, it's changed. Altered. I don't feel..." He smiled softly at Tamara and took the small flask from her hands. He drained it, and by the gods, it assuaged the emptiness inside him.

It satisfied his thirst as thoroughly as it had thousands of years ago. He didn't feel that raging need to take from a living being. Not even a twinge of it.

Eric studied his face, reading all of these thoughts, Da mien knew.

"Amazing," he whispered.

"Not so amazing." Tamara tilted her head, sending spirals of raven curls over her shoulder. Her black eyes glittered with knowledge and Da mien shot her a searching glance.

"I know about your problems feeding, Da mien. Eric and I don't keep secrets.

But honestly, you men are so dense about some things. Every species has to procreate. Nature gives them all urges that, when followed, lead to mating and reproduction. Is it so farfetched that we're burdened with the same urges? The need to drink from the living gets stronger, more maddening, more demanding, until you perform the ritual, the creating of another one of us.

Then the need vanishes."

Eric shook his head in blatant amazement.

"So, we must transform one of the Chosen once every thousand years or so, in order to preserve our sanity." He smiled, then laughed. "Makes perfect sense, Tamara."

Her brows rose in perfect arches.

"Sure it does."

Da mien paced to the chaise and sank into it.

"One problem less to deal with. Why do I still feel like hell?"

"You ought to rest. It's nearly dawn. And your Shannon should be moved from that bedroom, with those big windows." Pretty young Tamara wrinkled her nose.

"Although I don't think she's quite ready yet to wake up in a coffin."

"No. I think we'll be safe enough here today, in my usual place. I just wish I knew what happened to Bach man."

"You won't have to worry about him--for a while, at least," Eric said.

"He staggered into the street and collapsed. A carload of teens found him and they sent someone for an ambulance. Even if Bach man comes to and starts talking, no one will pay much attention. A man with a head injury, raving about vampires, isn't exactly believable. It ought to be at least a day before he can contact DPI for reinforcements. You ought to be prepared to leave here then, though, Da mien. They don't take these kinds of things well at all." He paced away.

"What of Netty?"

"I bought her a ticket on a cruise ship that leaves at first light, paid her off enough to make her think twice about betraying me again."

"Good. Your troubles are dissipating, my friend," Eric said cheerfully.

"You've whittled them down to two--Shannon's mind-set and this rogue in the city."

"And we'll deal with all that tonight." Tamara tugged on Eric's arm.

"If we'd brought Rhiannon along, she'd have had that rogue for breakfast."

"Which is exactly why I asked you not to mention this either to her or Roland. Tamara, love, we have no idea of this renegade's age or strength.

Rhiannon would charge in, fearless as always, and perhaps get herself killed.

"

Da mien's mouth quirked up at one corner.

"This woman sounds like someone I'd like to meet."

"Only in a good mood, believe me," Eric intoned. Tamara elbowed him and dragged him to the door.

"Good rest. Da- when."

"Good rest," he replied without thinking. He watched them go, then turned to tackle the problem of Shannon.

He came back, as she'd known he would. He just couldn't seem to understand that she needed time to herself. She rolled onto her back and faced him.

Then she wished she hadn't. There was pain in his eyes when he looked at her.

She sniffed and sat up.

"I felt strong before, but it's waning. Is it only temporary?"

"It's almost daylight." He spoke softly.

"Day weakens us. We rest until dark, and wake feeling strong as ever." He approached slowly, as if waiting for her to object. When she didn't, he sat on the edge of the bed.

"You must have a thousand questions."

She nodded.

"But it's almost dawn." He licked his lips, obviously nervous.

"Shannon, you made it clear you don't want to spend eternity with me. Don't want to depend on me at all. There are others who can answer your questions.

You don't have to bring them to me."

She swallowed hard, lowering her head. She'd hurt him by saying those things.

"I didn't mean" -- He held up a hand.

"I want you to stay with me through today. There's no time to find you another safe place to rest. I'm not trying to force myself on you, I promise. I just want you safe. There's another vampire in the city. The one who killed Tawny and the other woman.

Eric and I will find him and stop him. After that you're free to go where you want. Run to the other side of the world"-- She shook her head hard.

"I didn't mean" -- "Bach man isn't dead," he told her.

"But he'll be out of action for a while. Still, there are others, that organization he works for--they'd like to eradicate us. And this other vampire, an evil bastard who hates me for reasons I still don't understand.

It isn't safe for you to go out alone until I find him, but I swear, it won't be long. Eric and I will leave with the sunset to hunt him down. Then you can leave with my blessing."

She closed her eyes, knowing she'd hurt him deeply, maybe beyond repair.

He held out a hand to her. She took it and rose from the bed. Without a word, he led her through the hall, up another flight of stairs and through a door on the third floor. He walked right into a closet, and she was surprised when the wall that was the closet's back slid open. He drew her inside, slid the door closed again, hit a button, and the lights came up.

Music began. Sting, her favorite. An exotic incense filled the air. He touched her hair, then abruptly drew his hand away.

"You can have the bed," he said, his voice hoarse.

"I'll take a blanket and lie on the floor."

"You'll be uncomfortable..."

"Not really." He smiled very slightly.

"I sleep like the dead."

God, what was wrong with her? Wasn't this the same man she'd fallen in love with? Couldn't she find a way to forgive him for forcing her into an existence she wasn't sure she could bear?

She tried. She tried to judge her feelings for Da mien. She'd been so sure before, just before all of this. When he'd made love to her, she'd known she was deeply in love with him. There'd been no doubt. And only the knowledge that she was dying had kept her from telling him so. She hadn't wanted to hurt him. But what about now? Could she love him now? Knowing what he was. what he'd made her?

She'd realized that she didn't want to die. But did she want to live? Like this?

"Give it a chance, Shannon," he whispered.

"Don't walk out into the sunrise just yet."

"I wasn't thinking of that."

"Make sure you don't." She sat on the edge of the bed and he came to her, knelt in front of her, took her hands.

"Hate me for bringing you over, if you have to. But don't hate yourself or what you are. You haven't changed, not really. You're the same beautiful, vibrant, wonderful woman you were before. You're still strong and capable, and as independent as you want to be."

"I have changed." She averted her eyes.

"I thought I'd killed Bach man. I'm glad I didn't, but I could have, Da mien.

I don't think I can stand the thought of taking a life."

"You wouldn't have hurt him if you hadn't been forced. You don't know the extent of your strength yet. Shannon. And that wouldn't have happened if I'd been here faster. It was more my fault than yours." She didn't look at him, and he hurried on.

"You hit the men who tried to steal your car. One of them could have hit his head and died. But you didn't find yourself questioning the value of your mortal life when it was over, did you?"

She blinked and met his gaze.

"No."

"It was an unavoidable accident. Shannon. Self-defense. And Bach man is going to recover. You didn't kill anyone. Try to put it behind you."

"But don't you have to kill people ... to live?" He closed his eyes as if that remark hurt him. She licked her lips.

"You don't, do you?" Slowly, she shook her head.

"No, you couldn't. You couldn't even bring yourself to kill that mouse...."

"I cherish life, all life. I despise death. Shannon. It took away the dearest, most beloved friend I ever had, until you. It tried to claim you, as well."

As she listened to him, her mind grew heavy and foggy as it had been when she'd first awakened. She glanced down at the stone she still clutched, and blinked.

Da mien was easing her back onto the pillows. She stared up at his face in wonder, and recalled the story he'd told her, the ending to the Epic of Gilgamesh. The one that had never been recorded, that he called his own personal theory.

"He found the secret," she whispered.

"But it didn't make him a god, and it didn't give him the power to bring Enkidu back. It only condemned him to an endless existence, to watching death win over and over again."

The greatest king ever to rule, driven to the edge of insanity by the grief of losing his closest friend. She lifted a hand and pressed her palm to his cheek.

"It was you."

His eyes fell closed. He lay down beside her, wrapping his arms around her.

"You felt the power of the bond between Enkidu and me from the first time you read of it. You cried for it. I remember. You know how I felt about him, don't you?"

"Enkidu?"

He squeezed his eyes, but a tear slipped through anyway. "The brother of my soul," he muttered in Sumerian. Amazingly, she knew what he said. She heard the words pass from his mind to hers and the meaning was clear.

"As much as I loved him. Shannon, I love you even more. How could I watch you die? How could I, when I had the power to save you? It was wrong. I know that. I knew it then. But Shannon, I had to do it. I'd do it again."

His arms tightened around her, almost reflexively, she sensed, as if he were reliving that moment when he'd chosen to cling to her--to do whatever he had to--to keep her with him. Her eyes should have been wide with wonder at this new knowledge of him, this new understanding. But instead they were heavy, lids dropping, sleep claiming her. She snuggled close to him, twisting her arms around his waist, not wan ting him to keep his promise and sleep on the floor. She pressed her face into the crook of his neck, and she smelled his scent and tasted the salt of his flesh on her lips as she whispered, "Gilgamesh..."

And then she fell asleep, thinking of the lines she'd read in the epic, lines that returned to haunt her. Lines about grief: It could go on for years and years, and has, for centuries. It yearns and waits to be retouched, by someone who can take away the memory of death.

He was gone when she awoke. She sat up slowly, blinking, realizing vaguely that the lights were still dim. They brightened gradually. The music began as if by itself, and only grew louder as she came fully alert.

"Quite a setup he has here, isn't it?"

She started, eyes flying wider. A woman stood in the room near the doorway.

She was small, a pixie, with a tiny waist and cascades of raven curls that reached it. She smiled and took a step forward.

"I'm Tamara."

She'd heard the name, she was sure. She frowned. Tamara. Then she was real.

"Eric's wife?"

"Well, not 'wife' exactly. We didn't do a church wedding or anything. Till death us do part' would be kind of meaningless for us. But our vows are just as binding. No, more binding." She strode to the stereo system in the back of the room, started pawing through the CDs.

She wore snug-fitting jeans and a green silk button-down blouse. A pair of shiny black flats on her feet. Even makeup. Shannon stared, gaping, until the woman turned and smiled at her.

"I know I don't look like a vampire, do I? Rhiannon does. She's all tall and elegant and has this haughty attitude. But I think she was like that, even mortal. She's a princess, you know. And I'm just... just me."

"I didn't mean to stare."

Tamara came forward, sat on the edge of the bed.

"I've only been in darkness for a few years. Shannon. I know what you're going through." She lowered her dark, velvety lashes. "Well, sort of. In my case, I had to practically beg Eric to bring me over. I can't say for sure how I'd have dealt with it if he'd just done it, without asking how I felt first."

Shannon licked her lips.

"I still didn't believe you existed. The next thing I know, I wake up and I'm one of you."

Tamara nodded, meeting Shannon's eyes with real concern in her own.

"It's a tough adjustment under any circumstances. But I'll help you, if you want." She smiled a little, and her hand rose to touch Shannon's hair.

"You're beautiful, you know. I've never heard of a fair-complected vampire before. You must be as rare as a flawless diamond."

Shannon felt herself blush at the compliment.

"It's probably because of the lineage. I think the darkness is inherited, along with the Belladonna antigen."

Shannon took that in, nodding. Then she glanced toward the door and gnawed on her lower lip.

"He and Eric went out to see if they could find this rogue vampire that's been raising hell around here."

She nodded again. She wished Da mien hadn't left before she'd awoken. She'd hurt him. He thought she wanted to be away from him. That wasn't at all what she wanted. She wasn't sure exactly what she wanted anymore, only that she understood now. She understood his pain, his loss. She'd been half in love with Gilgamesh since she'd read his epic. And now she knew why. And she knew why he'd made the decision he had when she'd been dying in his arms.

Being who he was, he couldn't have done anything else.

"You'll have time to tell him all that. He'll be back before dawn."

She blinked in surprise.

"We can hear each other's thoughts. Shannon."

"That's incredible."

Tamara smiled. I'll teach you how to do it. You can surprise Da mien when he gets back. For now, why don't you get up and shower and dress? There's so much I want to tell you about, show you. All of it, Shannon heard clearly.

All of it spoken without Tamara's having uttered a sound. Her head spinning.

Shannon got up and complied.

Tamara seemed so normal.

She'd been thrilled to ride in Shannon's car, more thrilled yet when Shannon let her drive it awhile. They took turns choosing CDs and they played them at ear-piercing volume, singing along until Shannon actually began to feel like herself again. Maybe Da mien was right. Maybe she hadn't changed all that much.

They parked the car, then walked through the streets. As they did, Tamara urged Shannon to practice the telepathy, and soon they were conversing almost totally in silence. Shannon started attempting to read other people's thoughts as they passed. The results were often hilarious.

Then, in a trash-littered, abandoned alley, Tamara stood by Shannon's side.

"Let's race to the other end."

A shiver of apprehension skittered over Shannon's nape. "This isn't a very good place to hang out, Tamara."

"Think about it," she said.

"Who's gonna bother us?"

Shannon smiled. She was right.

"You've got a lot of strength now. Shannon. And speed. You won't believe it. Be careful not to hit the wall on the other side. Pain hurts more now than before."

"I'd noticed that."

"On three," Tamara said, and then counted mentally.

They were off like bullets from a gun, and Shannon would have collided with the wall if Tamara hadn't caught her arm and brought her to a skidding stop.

For hours Tamara helped Shannon to explore her new self. And as time flew past. Shannon began to think this wasn't so bad after all. She could jump from the top of a tree and land on her feet. She could see in the dark.

All her senses were honed to razor sharpness. She was strong, energized.

And she could read minds.

"You think that's incredible, just wait until you... you know." Tamara's pale cheeks pinkened.

"No, I don't know. Wait until I what?"

Tamara grinned and tilted her head to one side.

"You and Da mien.. you know..."

"Oh." Shannon bit her lip.

"Is it... different?"

"Way different."

Shannon licked her lips.

"I don't know when I'll find out. Things aren't exactly... right between us."

"You love him, don't you?"

She thought about that, and found herself nodding emphatically.

"I do. I really do. I lost sight of it for a while, a really short, confused while.

But I never stopped. "

"Well, he's nuts about you. You'll work things out."

Shannon nodded, recalling his words to her before she'd fallen asleep this morning. He'd said he loved her even more than Enkidu. It awed her that he could feel that strongly about her.

They walked back to the car, only to meet a stranger there. A vampire.

Surprising that she knew it at a glance, but she did, and she stopped short.

He was tall, and almost emaciated. So slender. In his long face every bone was visible. His neck was like a reed, his shoulders pointy and hard.

He approached them slowly, and Tamara caught her breath, gripping Shannon's arm.

"No use," he said, and his voice reminded Shannon of a cobra's hiss.

"I'm six thousand years old. You're a toddler and a Newborn. Don't bother running."

And in the blink of an eye, he had them, his bony arms anchored around their waists, capturing their arms at their sides. Shannon struggled. She knew Tamara did, as well, but couldn't see her. He'd taken off at such incredible speed that everything was a blur. She thought they were airborne, but couldn't be sure. Tamara hadn't told her anything about flight.

Don't call out to Eric and Da mien. Tamara's thoughts echoed in Shannon's ears. It could be a trap for them. I've been through it before.

"No matter," the monster who held them rasped.

"I've left a note at the house for them. It's long past time for Gilgamesh to meet his fate."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They'd tried for hours to pick up some sense of the rogue in the city.

They'd sought a hint of his thoughts, his presence, in the places where the victims had been found, and in the theater, and in and around Shannon's office. The sense of him should be stronger where his physical self had been. But their efforts got them nothing. He was concealing himself against them, and doing it well.

They returned to the house then, and Da mien braced himself to come face-to-face with Shannon again, to see the despair in her eyes, the fear of him, the anger. Maybe this time there would be hatred in her amber eyes, as well. He had no idea what he could say to her. She despised what he'd done, hated what he'd made her. So how could she not hate him? How could she even bear to see him again, let alone sleep another day under his roof? What would she say when he told her he'd failed, and asked her to stay with him for one more day, give him one more night to make it safe for her to leave him? He couldn't let her go until this threat was removed, even though he was sure the hatred he'd felt emanating from this rogue had been directed at himself alone.

Hell, he didn't want her to leave at all, to be honest. He couldn't bear the thought of living a night without her vibrance to brighten it. Irony tasted bitter. He no longer had to fear he had become a ruthless killer, that to love her would be to endanger her. And he no longer had to fear that death would tear her from him. But he'd lost her all the same, hadn't he?

He felt Eric tense beside him. And then he sensed it. The feeling of something wrong, terribly wrong, of danger. The knowledge that the rogue had been here.

He ran to the front steps, up them, and found the note, impaled on the point of a dagger as old as time, pinned to the door.

Eric tore it down, leaving the blade where it was, and struggled to read, but he shook his head.

"It's not in any language I know."

Da mien frowned, taking the sheet of paper from him.

"It's cuneiform script." The symbols on the paper were similar to those chiseled into stone aeons ago. A cold shiver racing through him, Da mien translated aloud: '"Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, lord of a people long dead, vile betrayer of the gods, immortal, demon, murderer. For your role in the death of one who loved you, for your hand in her murder, for the life of Siduri, my betrothed, you will stand trial. In the temple of In anna, you will be judged, that the gods might witness your sentence carried out. No longer does the temple lie buried beneath the burning sands of Uruk. Still buried, yes, but not there. Never to be seen by mortal eyes. Brick by brick did I move it. I await you there. Your lover waits at my side. Ready she stands to take your sentence upon herself in case you fail to heed my summons. Long have I anticipated this reunion, man of old. Anthar."

" Da mien looked up from the note, to see the fear, the won- erin Eric's eyes.

"Gilgamesh," he muttered, staring at Da mien.

"My God."

"I'm no one's god, just an immortal like you. We have to p now, fast."

Eric's brows rose.

"But how? You've no idea where you're ,oing."

Da mien gripped his arm.

"Your Tamara" -- "Will stubbornly erect a fortress around her mind rather an lure me into what she must know is a trap." Eric closed his eyes.

"I'll try, but if she really doesn't want me to know where she is..." He shook his head and tried to concentrate.

"What the hell is this?" Shannon watched the huge doors slide slowly open, then jerked against the hands that tugged her into an elevator big enough to hold an elephant. God, he was strong. His bony hand gripped her arm so hard she thought he'd break it. Tears streamed down her face. Her throat closed so tightly she could barely draw a breath. Her chest spasmed with sobs she tried to stop. And still she fought him.

She was afraid, terrified of what this skeletal man planned to do to her.

But more than that was the fear of what he'd already done. To Tamara.

They'd been airborne, soaring through the night at a speed that seemed impossible, with the wind stinging Shannon's face, screaming in her ears.

So high the ground seemed no more than a fast-moving, colorful blur. And he'd just let Tamara go. Just let her go!

She hadn't even screamed. Not a sound. nothing. And Shannon couldn't see where she landed, because the bony bastard had still been speeding through space, still been clutching her tight. But Shannon had screamed. And she hadn't stopped screaming until he'd hit her with a skinny fist and knocked her close to senseless.

And now she was in this elevator, going down at a sickening speed, deep into the bowels of some kind of structure that seemed to sit in the middle of nowhere.

The doors opened almost before they'd come to a teeth- jarring stop. The hand on her upper arm closed tighter, and wincing in pain, she stepped out into a stadium-size room where every step echoed a thousand times. In the center of the room, she saw it, a towering wonder of whitewashed brick, gleaming, immaculate. Her gaze traveled over the angular ramps and steps and corners, all leading upward. A squared spiral at least forty feet high, topped by what looked like a temple.

"What the hell is this?" she asked again.

"Who is this Anthar?"

Da mien shook his head.

"He must be from my time to now who I am and understand the cuneiform so well. The ilade is ancient. Sumerian. And he must have known me once o have heard of Siduri."

"A woman?"

Da mien nodded.

"I'll explain later. We have to hurry." Already a cold knot of foreboding twisted inside his heart. He vi shed he could blink his eyes and be at her side. But he knew )etter. He was as attuned to her mind as he could get, and all he felt was her fear. It overwhelmed everything else. There was a dim sense of the direction in which she'd traveled, and Da mien followed that sense, felt himself getting closer.

Anthar. Who the hell was he, and why this quest for veheance? Da mien didn't know. He knew only that if the bastard lurt Shannon in any way, no matter how small, Da mien would ill him a little at a time. She must be so frightened. By In- inna's mercy, she must be twice as sorry he'd brought her ver by now. She probably wished he'd simply let her die. He'd wanted to do so much for her. To show her happiness, o make up for all the sorrow in her life. Instead he'd brought her into a world of darkness, and so far all she'd known had )een fear.

He'd get her out of this safely. He would, if it cost him his life to do it.

And then he'd give her what she craved. Her reedom. No matter how much it would hurt him, Da mien new he had to let her go.

Eric had been silent for some time, and when Da mien broke ut of his own thoughts long enough to glance at the man, he saw turmoil contorting Eric's face. He stopped, facing him. "Marquand, what? What is it?"

His jaw tight, eyes moist, Eric kept moving. Then faster. And a moment later, he knelt beside a still form on the ground, cradling it in his arms and quivering with silent rage.

Da mien ran forward.

"Tamara!" Her left leg bent at an unnatural angle, and one arm was twisted beneath her body. Obviously broken. Da mien's heart turned to ice as he saw Eric's pain. But her lovely black lashes fluttered, and she stared up at the man who held her with so much love in her eyes it hurt Da mien to witness it.

"I'm ... glad to see you."

"Tamara." Eric's voice wavered. He bent lower, kissed her face.

"Gently, Eric. It ... hurts."

"I'll kill him," Eric whispered.

"I'll kill him for this."

Da mien felt tears choking him. When the hell had he become so attached to these people?

"You're going to have to move her, Eric, pain or not. Find her some shelter before dawn."

Eric nodded and glanced around.

"Where the hell are we?"

"Somewhere in Ohio, I think." Da mien glanced around him.

"There are houses. I can" -- "No." Tamara tried to lift her head, her good hand clutching Eric's arm.

"Da mien, you have to go on. Find Shannon before that beast hurts her." She drew a pained breath.

"But be careful. It's you he wants."

"I know." Da mien straightened and stared off into the distance.

"Go ahead, go after them," Eric said.

"I'll take care of Tamara. We'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

Tamara nodded.

"I'll be okay after a day's rest, Da mien. And we'll join you ... with reinforcements."

Eric's jaw went rigid.

"Tamara, you didn't" -- "I most certainly did. We have to end this bastard's killing spree, Eric.

And we need all the help we can get. " She relaxed a little, letting her head fall onto Eric's knees.

"I pity that bastard if Rhiannon gets to him before Da mien does."

Eric glanced back at Da mien.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, Tamara."

"Neither would I." Da mien turned, and started off again toward Shannon.

He was forced to seek shelter when the sun rose. But he resumed his search the instant it set, and he knew when he'd found her.

His best guess was that the structure dead center of a barren field had once been a missile silo. One of those sold by the government to private owners when arms-reduction deals took the place of the cold war. He approached the doors, and they opened. Then the bastard knew he'd arrived.

Da mien stepped inside what appeared to be an elevator, not caring if he was walking into a trap as long as he could get to Shannon. The car swept downward, clanged to a stop and opened as if to spit him out.

Da mien stood frozen for a single moment, reeling at the sensation of having stepped back in time. The ziggurat stood as haughty and immaculate as it had been when it was new. This same temple had been the center of his city once.

It had been filled with his people, his gods. A man-made mountain is what it was. A high, white monster of stairs and ramps, sharp corners turning this way and that, a path to the heavens marching its way to the cella at the very top. The temple proper. The chamber of the gods, where sacrifices had been offered.

He knew the temple well, remembered the way the white bricks had gleamed beneath a blazing desert sun. Now it stood in darkness.

Appropriate. Ironic.

Mounting the first steps, Da mien went upward, following the same path he had thousands of times so many years ago, only faster now, his strides more powerful than ever before. And more desperate. In seconds he stood at the entrance to the cella. He stiffened his spine and went inside.

A figure like a walking skeleton moved from sconce to sconce with a torch in his hand, lighting each as he came to it. The main room, sixty feet in length and lined with sconces on both sides, soon glowed with amber light as it had in days long past. Shadows fled the touch of the torchlight, ducking into the darkened doorways that lined the chamber. Every few yards a smaller chamber opened off one side or the other. But this was the room of worship, the room of the gods, the room of sacrifice.

Da mien stepped forward, marveling that the place had been so well restored.

The stone figures that depicted the worshippers were just as he remembered them, some standing as high as his knees, others smaller. Male and female, bearded and smooth skinned, eyes too large, hands folded in prayer.

Da mien moved past them, tearing his gaze away from the figures that represented his people. Instead he focused on the emaciated man who'd stopped at the opposite end of the chamber, and turned to face him.

"I'm here, Anthar. I've done as you asked. Where is Shan- non?" ' Anthar only smiled, an evil expression, the flickering orange torchlight making it more so. He stepped aside, waving a hand beyond him to the life-size statue of the god Anu. Anu's golden hair and beard had been polished until they gleamed, and his eyes, inlaid with lapis lazuli, danced with fierceness in the firelight. At his sandaled feet, upon the stone offering table. Shannon lay wide-eyed, trembling, her hands bound at the wrists, clenched together on her stomach. Her ankles, too, were bound together. She was dressed in a white gown, fastened with a jeweled brooch at one shoulder, leaving the other bare. Golden bands encircled her arms.

Her feet were bare.

As Da mien's gaze met hers, he felt her fear, her absolute misery. He tried to convey reassurance, hope, comfort. Anthar stepped forward to ignite the torches near her head and at her feet. She cringed from him, and a sound of terror came from deep in her throat. Da mien lunged forward, but Anthar stepped into his path.

' "Look around you, Gilgamesh. See the gods you betrayed by seeking to become one of them." He lifted the torch toward each of the deities that towered at Anu's right and his left. The goddess In anna, whose name you cursed from the deathbed of your friend. PA, of the fresh springs, friend to mankind. Even him you have offended. Enlil, god of earth, wind and spirit, whom you have defiled. Ninurta, god of war, furious with you now. "

Da mien held his temper in check with an effort.

"It seems, Anthar, the only one I've offended is you. The gods haven't acted against me in all this time. I hardly think their justice would be so slow in coming."

"Their justice is at hand," Anthar said in a deep monotone.

Da mien shook his head.

"If that's true, then I'm ready for it. Let's get on with this, Anthar.

Release the woman now. Whatever you have in mind, it's meant for me to suffer, not her."

'"Not just yet, Gilgamesh."

Da mien moved forward, meaning to free Shannon himself. ut Anthar reached to a small stone stand and snatched up a itual dagger, its handle inlaid with glittering jewels--emeralds aid sapphires, diamonds and rubies. The blade was honed to i razor's edge. He held it poised at Shannon's throat and she creamed, her voice echoing endlessly in the hollow room long after she'd gone utterly still. She stared at Da mien, her gaze clinging to his almost desperately.

"If you move, blasphemer, I will hurt her. Badly I will hurt her. Likely she'll bleed dry before you can help her."

"I'm very old, rogue," Da mien said softly, his voice oddly hoarse.

"Older than any, except Utnapishtim himself, who made me. You ought to be careful about angering me."

' "Utnapishtim made me, as well, great king of Uruk. Only moments after you."

Da mien looked quickly at the gaunt-faced man.

"He wouldn't have " ' "He had no choice. His exchange of blood with a young madman left him weak. I forced him to repeat the ritual, only so that I would live to see you die."

Eric's voice came into Da mien's mind then, and he knew his friend yes, friend was on the way, monitoring events mentally, offering advice. The blood was diluted then, when this Anthar was made. You 're still stronger.

Da mien nodded, sensing Eric guarded his thoughts from Anthar. He tried to do the same. Maybe.

"What crime have I committed to anger you so much that you'd follow me into eternity just to see me pay?"

"Do you recall Siduri? My beautiful Siduri, who gave her heart to a beast?"

Da mien nodded, stepping a bit closer, only to wince as Anthar pressed the tip of his blade harder into Shannon's neck. "Answer aloud, so that the gods present may know of your sins."

He licked his lips.

"I was half out of my mind with grief when Enkidu, my friend, died. I went on a quest in search of immortality, thinking I could somehow bring that gift back to him and raise him up again. When I came to Siduri's cottage by the sea I was near starved, sunburned, travel-weary and all but insane. She brought me inside, washed the sand and the sweat from my skin. She fed me and clothed me, restored my health and part of my senses."

Anthar grimaced, his thin lips drawing away from his foul, uneven teeth.

"Is that all she gave you, heathen?"

"She gave me comfort, Anthar. We shared a bed."

"She was my betrothed!" he screamed, nearly rattling the brick walls.

That declaration shocked Da mien. But still it didn't seem reason enough for so much hatred, "I didn't know" -- "You used her as chattel and cast her aside to resume your mad quest. She begged of you to stay, but you turned a deaf ear to her tears."

"No. She knew I'd go on from the day I crossed her threshold. She knew" -- "You killed her. She thought herself in love with you, gave you all of herself as proof of it, even though she'd promised herself to me."

"And that was no crime!" Da mien stepped forward once more, staring at this shell of a man.

"You know as well as I do that in that time it was a king's right to take the virgin brides before their husbands did. Right or wrong, it was the law. So how can you say that I committed some crime by bedding your woman?" A flimsy argument, he knew, but all he could think of at the moment.

"Bastard, she lost her soul when you left her. But you wouldn't know, would you? You never looked back to see how she fared. You didn't know that she walked into the sea the very next dawn, walked and kept walking.

Drowned herself for the love of a worthless king who would make himself a god! "

Eric's voice came again, like a solid hand clasping his shoulder. It wasn't your fault. Don't let it distract you.

But Da mien felt the blow. He staggered a bit, then caught himself.

"I didn't know. She... she was kind to me, Anthar. I cared for her. I am sorry. More sorry than I can say."

' "Your sorrow will not suffice, Gilgamesh. You must suffer as I did."

Incinerate him.

Da mien shook his head quickly, responding to Eric in the silent form of communication he'd so recently mastered. I'm not sure it would work, and it takes an unbelievable amount of energy to incinerate anything. If it failed, I'd be practically helpless.

Da mien had gone utterly still, watching the way the firelight played on Shannon's skin, in her hair, a terrible fear of what this bastard intended settling like ice water in his veins. " " What are you going to do, Anthar?

"

"I'm going to take your woman as you took mine." He glanced down at Shannon as he spoke.

"And then I'm going to drain her, and let her die.

And you are going to stand witness to it, Gilgamesh. For I want to see you suffer, before I kill you. "

"You haven't got the strength to kill me."

"We'll soon see."

The man, blade still in his hand, bent over Shannon, and she screamed.

At the same instant there was a tremendous crash and a rain of footsteps at the entrance. Da mien knew without turning that four immortals had entered the cella. A powerful female voice echoed like that of In anna herself. For a second Da mien wondered if the statue of the Queen of Heaven had come to life. "Exactly what kind of death wish do you have, you sorry excuse for an immortal!"

"You're in for it now, Anthar," Tamara stated flatly.

The rogue was distracted for a bare instant, and that was all Da mien needed.

He spun in a circle, becoming a blur, and an instant later, a massive wolf launched itself at the evil vampire, sending him crashing to the floor, the knife skittering away.

Shannon tried hard to cling to her sanity as the horror played out before her eyes. The wolf snapped at the man's throat, but then they rolled, and a second later the wolf backed away from a coiled king cobra, cape unfurled, poised to strike. The wolf leapt into the air, and as it hurtled earthward, it became a hawk that swooped and dove, drawing the snake away from her. She rolled her body off the stone table, pulled herself to her feet, both hands working as one, and began hopping toward the two who fought. The snake had the hawk cornered now, and would strike at any second. She had to stop this.

But a tug at her hands brought her to a stop. The woman, tall and slender, regal as a queen, with her ebony hair all swept to one side and diamonds and onyx dripping from her ears, leaned over the rope at Shannon's ankles.

"You fledglings are nothing but trouble." With a flick of her scarlet-painted, dagger-tipped fingers, she freed Shannon's ankles, then her wrists. "I'm Rhiannon," she said, as if she were saying "I'm Queen Elizabeth." She pulled Shannon toward the corner where Eric and Tamara waited with another man Shannon didn't know. At their feet, a sleek black panther crouched, watching the struggling beasts with predatory eyes.

"None of them for you, Pandora." The woman stroked the cat's head lovingly, but her eyes were on the floor where the two battled.

Shannon whirled, half expecting to see Da mien dead on the floor. But there was a lion now, and a jaguar, ripping at each other's throats, rolling in a tangle of claws and teeth.

"Do something!" She screamed.

Tamara touched her shoulder.

"I don't know what we can" -- She broke off when Shannon jerked away from her touch. Shannon had spotted the glittering dagger on the floor, and she lunged for it, falling to her knees to snatch it up. Rising slowly, her gaze on the combatants, she started forward, lifting the blade high above her head, giving a little growl she'd never heard herself utter before.

The tall woman caught her shoulders.

"Fool, you'll be killed! Come with us. Da mien wants us to take you out of here, someplace safe."

Shannon turned on her, the blade between them an unspoken threat.

"I'm not going anywhere. You try to force me and you'll wish you hadn't, lady."

Tamara's eyes went saucer-wide. The two men, who'd been talking urgently, went silent.

The woman eyed Shannon for a moment.

"I'll forgive that fledgling. Once."

Shannon ignored her imperious words and turned once more. The forms on the floor had become men again. They stood, facing each other, panting, bleeding from various wounds. Eric and the strange man both lunged forward, but Da mien held up a hand to stop them.

"Get Shannon out of here, for the love of In anna!"

"I won't go!" she shrieked.

"Anthar, stop this at once. You're no match for all of us!" It was the stranger who shouted it.

"Care to put that theory to the test?"

Anthar whispered. He looked at the stranger, his gaze hardening, intensifying in a way Shannon had never seen. It was as if an energy pulsed from his sunken eyes.

"Roland!" Rhiannon threw herself at the stranger, sending him sprawling to the stone floor just as a ball of flame exploded in the air where he'd stood.

She rose, facing Anthar, rage in her eyes.

"Oh, now you will pay" -- He laughed at her, and Shannon thought the woman's rage was so full-blown it made the air around them quiver.

Anthar turned away from her and lunged, shoving Da mien onto his back on the floor. He yanked a blade from his boot and lifted his arm to plunge it into Da mien's throat.

"Noooo!" It was a battle cry, emitted as Shannon launched herself. She landed squarely on the man's back, both hands gripping his wrist, pulling it away from Da mien with every ounce of strength she possessed.

Anthar flung her from him like a dog ridding itself of a flea. She felt herself fly through the air. She landed brutally hard. Her head connected with the stone offering table, sending her senses reeling. Dizzy, her head exploding with pain, her body weakened by it, she forced her eyes open.

Da mien growled his rage, flinging the man away from him, then focusing his eyes on the bastard as he struggled to get to his feet.

The man seemed to feel that heated gaze. He froze for an instant in time, and turned to face Da mien.

"Can you do it, do you think?" His thin brows rose, and he moved forward, menacingly. The black panther growled deep in its throat, crouching low.

"Better question, can you do it fast enough?" Anthar sprang forward, arm swinging in a deadly arc, the knife he clutched on a collision coarse with Da mien's neck. He'd behead him!

Da mien stood his ground, staring harder, not backing away even an inch, and Shannon shrieked at him to move.

Just before he reached Da mien, Anthar's body froze. It began to tremble, then vibrated head to toe. His eyes bulged and a wisp of gray smoke writhed from his hair. A tremor rocked the temple floor, and then a roar, as Anthar burst into a blinding ball of white flame. His keening came more loudly than the blast, and seemed to echo within the temple chamber even after he was silent. It died slowly, an eternal prisoner of the cella walls. And there was nothing, just nothing. Anthar was gone.

Da mien sank to the floor as if the act had drained every ounce of his energy.

Shannon struggled to her feet and ran to him, fell to her knees, not caring that the stone floor scraped them raw. She pulled him to her, her hands cradling his head. She couldn't speak. She only moaned softly and rocked him against her as the tears flowed. God, she loved him. She hadn't realized just how much until she'd thought he might die trying to save her.

If he had, what would she have done? How could she have gone on?

His arms went around her waist, his face nestling in the white linen that covered her, nuzzling her belly. His hands stroked her back again and again.

"It's over now. Shannon. It's all right. You're safe now." He pulled himself up a little, pressed his lips to her wet cheeks, to her burning eyes.

"Safe now," he whispered again, as her arms encircled his neck. "And free of me. You'll leave with the others. One more day, Shannon. You'll recover from all of this while you rest tomorrow, and then I want you to go. I just hope you can find some kind of contentment in this life I've condemned you to live."

She blinked, her tears ceasing abruptly.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

We're stuck here for the day," Tamara observed, her voice soft with relief.

She sat on the cold floor, her knees drawn to her chest, and watched as Eric approached Da mien. Shannon had withdrawn suddenly, going silent after Da mien had told her she could leave him soon. He couldn't look at her to judge her mood, whether she was happy at the news or angry to have to wait through one more day. He couldn't stand the thought that he might see her eagerness to leave mirrored in her eyes. Eric reached out a hand and Da mien clasped it, letting Eric help him to his feet.

"I wasn't much help, I'm afraid," he said aloud, and silently he said more.

For God's sake, Da mien, she jumped on the bastard to save you.

"You were more help than you know." It was true, Da- when thought, a little surprised. Not just the distractions their arrival had provided, breaking Anthar's concentration more than once and probably saving Da mien's life.

But the feeling of support. The warmth of friends. It was something he hadn't felt in centuries.

And she tried to help me because she feels she owes me, for saving her life in the past.

"Well, at least I can patch up the worst of these injuries for you."

Normally, Da mien would have turned away, insisted he could take care of himself. But not now. He stood still while Eric ripped a sleeve from his own shirt and began tearing bandage-size strips.

"Tamara's right, you know," Da mien observed, loudly enough so everyone, including Shannon, could hear. He wanted her to understand that he wasn't deliberately prolonging her presence here.

"We couldn't make it far before sunrise, and who knows what kind of shelter we could find out there? It's best to stay here, rest tomorrow and leave at dusk."

He chanced a peek at Shannon to see if she understood. But she was kneeling now in front of Tamara, and a second later, hugging her.

"I thought you must be dead. "

"I almost wished I was when I landed." Tamara smiled at her.

"But I'm fine now."

Shannon shook her head slowly, mutely. The newcomer, Roland, stood with his back against a stone wall, while regal Rhiannon tore a strip from the hem of her floor-length satin dress and used it to make a sling for his arm. He must have injured it when she'd knocked him to the floor. He winced in pain, and Da mien saw the woman wince along with him. Her eyes were dark with concern when she looked at him. Jealousy stabbed Da mien.

Why couldn't Shannon look at him like that?

She did a second ago. Eric again. The optimist.

No, she didn't.

"He should see a doctor," Shannon whispered. She glanced back at Da mien, who was currently using pressure to stop the bleeding of a small cut on his forearm, while Eric wrapped a makeshift bandage around it.

"And so should you, Da mien."

Tamara ran a soothing hand over Shannon's hair.

"Any injuries we have heal while we rest during the day. Hasn't anyone explained that to you yet?"

She shot Da mien a slightly accusing stare as she asked it.

He only shrugged.

"Shannon has a lot to learn, and plenty of time to do it." Da mien glanced at his watch.

"It'll be dawn in a few hours. I think I'll move to one of the smaller chambers now. After that battle, I don't feel like doing any thing but lying down." He avoided Shannon's eyes. The truth was he didn't want to see her anymore. It already hurt too much knowing she'd leave him so soon.

Rhiannon left Roland's side to approach Da mien as he turned to go. She wasn't smiling. She seemed to float over the stone floor rather than walk, until she stood before him, chin lifted, eyes blazing.

"Not until we've been introduced, at least."

"Rhiannon..." Roland's voice held a warning.

She ignored it.

"So, you're the great Da mien I've heard about."

"And you're Rhiannon, princess of Egypt." She was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Shannon, of course, but lovely just the same. Elegant.

"I've heard of you, too."

"You nearly got my friends killed." It was a simple statement of fact.

"It wasn't his fault, Rhiannon." Tamara's voice didn't douse the hint of fire in her eyes. But Roland's good hand closing on her shoulder, his words, spoken low and near her ear, did.

"I don't think it's my imagination, Da mien. The wolf I just saw fighting a cobra looked awfully familiar to me. We've met before, that wolf and I.

Haven't we?"

Da mien averted his eyes. Rhiannon frowned hard at To- land.

"Wolf? You mean..."

"In France, my love, when you'd been captured by Lucien and I lay immobilized, watching the sun come up to fry me. The wolf that came to me, pulled me into a cave as I clung to its furred neck. That wolf with the wisdom in its eyes..."

Roland let his voice trail off. Da mien said nothing, only nodded once, and turned to go into the nearest chamber. He'd gone against his vow of seclusion to help Roland back then. But he'd been in the area on tour and sensed the man's distress, loud and clear, though he hadn't been listening.

Even when he'd decided to step in, knowing he couldn't let someone die when he had the power to save him, he'd done it in disguise. He'd wanted no one's gratitude. No one's friendship.

He'd been wrong. He had their friendship now. Even Rhiannon's. Her hand rose and cupped his face. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. No words were needed. Da mien nodded a confirmation to himself. He had their friendship, and he was better for it.

But he didn't have what he wanted most. Shannon. Not just her, but her heart. Her love. And he couldn't deal with the fact that he was about to lose her in front of them, friends or not.

"You should all find a place to rest, be sure no light can penetrate." He turned once again and walked into the first darkened room within reach.

Roland lowered his head and disappeared into another one. The cat left Rhiannon's side to lumber toward Shannon. She stood, her back to the wall, a little thrill of alarm jingling her nerves. It sat on its haunches in front of her, lifted a forepaw and playfully batted Shannon's hand. She felt her eyes widen, but she stayed still as the cat rose and moved forward, shoving her head against Shannon's hand and pressing upward, eyes closed. She stroked the animal, blinking in shock.

"Her name is Pandora. She's... usually a very good judge of character."

Shannon met Rhiannon's almond eyes, saw the ruby lips curve just slightly.

"Not everyone has the courage to shout defiance in my face. Barely anyone, actually."

Shannon lowered her head.

"I'm sorry about that. I know you were only trying to help me, but I..."

She glanced toward the chamber where Da mien had gone, a lump forming in her throat.

"I couldn't leave him."

"You threw yourself onto the back of a creature that could have killed you."

"I had to try."

Her lips curved a little more. Her eyes glittered. She sent a meaningful glance toward the chamber doorway.

"Yes. A woman in love always has to try." And then, the picture of elegance, she floated into the room where Roland had gone. The cat trotted along behind her, a slight limp in her feline gait.

Shannon glanced down to the stone floor where Tamara sat, Eric now resting on her opposite side. Their hands were joined, fingers interlaced. Tamara met Shannon's eyes and nodded once.

Licking her lips, squaring her shoulders. Shannon turned and entered the dark chamber where Da mien had gone.

He heard her come in, knew she was there even before he heard her. He felt her presence. He groaned inwardly, but there was another voice in him, one that was thrilled to have these few moments with her, alone, before she left him forever.

He'd brought a torch in here, mounted it in the sconce on the wall near the back of the room. He sat on the floor, back to that wall, watching the play of shadows on the small carved figures and the play of light on their eyes.

They seemed alive.

She crossed the room, sat down beside him. By Anu's power, she was a goddess come to life, still dressed in the sacrificial gown, with the golden bands on her arms. She didn't look at him, so he was free to study her until it hurt.

Her golden tresses tumbling over her shoulders, her satin skin, her velvet lashes.

"I've lost count now of the number of times you've saved my life."

He said nothing. She was sitting very close to him, but not touching. He longed to reach out, to run his hands through her silken hair, to bring her face to his and taste her mouth one more time. He clenched his hands into fists that trembled. She was here out of gratitude, he told himself.

nothing more.

"I've been thinking," she whispered.

"About a lot of things. About you, mostly. The man I got to know, and the man I know now. And I realized that you're the same. Da- when or Gilgamesh, mortal or immortal, you're the same."

Still he said nothing. Only watched her struggle for words, waited for her to continue, to tell him why she would leave him.

"I was afraid of something I didn't understand, and angry because I felt you'd taken control." She tugged at the tip of her right index finger, picked at the nail. Nervous.

"I'm afraid to let other people have any authority or control in my life. It terrifies me."

"Because of your childhood," he said softly, unable to keep silent on the subject.

"It's understandable. Shannon. If the man who tried to abuse you wasn't already dead, I'd kill him myself." He blinked, fighting down the rage that had risen inside him.

"I knew how you felt. I had no right to act without asking you. No right at all, and I knew it."

She nodded slowly. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

"And what would my answer have been, I wonder?" She drew a deep breath, and released it slowly.

"I've been thinking about that a lot, too. And you know, I think if I'd known all there was to know, if I'd had a chance to get to know these people, to accept what seemed impossible to me, I think I would have agreed. I think... No, I know I would have wanted this."

He turned his head sharply, staring down at her eyes, torchlight in amber.

"When you were fighting with Anthar ... God, I was so afraid he'd kill you.

And I started wondering what I would do, how I would go on without you."

"You don't have to be dependent on me. Shannon. I never meant to make you feel that way. Any of them can teach you all you need to know."

She shook her head, staring into his eyes, an- intensity building in hers.

"But I don't want any of them to teach me. I want you to do it, Da mien."

He lowered his head. It was too painful to stare into her eyes for another second.

"So you've decided you can bear to be immortal. You've decided you'd like me to teach you. But, Shannon, I've decided... that I just can't do it."

"No?"

"No." He met her eyes again, forced himself to.

"I can't be around you and not be with you. Shannon. I want you too much, and I'm not strong enough to fight it anymore. I love you. Shannon." He got to his feet, frustration urging him to beat the walls down with his bare hands. But it wouldn't help.

She stood, too, facing him. Her expression so solemn that he had to look at her, had to wonder what she was working up to, here.

She lifted her hands to the brooch that held the white gown in place.

"No, Shannon..."

A second later, the garment was a soft white cloud settling around her feet.

"I don't want you to fight it right now, Da mien."

He wanted to close his eyes. But nothing could make him turn away. She was too beautiful, standing naked before him, torchlight flickering over her pale skin. He reached out with hesitant hands, and paused. But he couldn't stop himself, could he? Whether it was gratitude or just ordinary desire, he couldn't turn her away. Not when he knew so well it would be the last time.

He touched her arms, ran his palms slowly up and down over them.

"Shannon..."

"I told you, I would have taken this option if you'd offered it before I got so sick," she said.

"But you haven't asked me why."

He ran his palms over the perfect curve of her back, pulled her close to him, bent his head to kiss her neck, her jaw, her face. Ah, she tasted like ambrosia! He caught her earlobe between his teeth. She wanted to drive him insane, didn't she?

Her fingers traced invisible patterns in his hair.

"Ask me why, Da mien."

He took her mouth, fed on it, and she responded in kind. Dammit, but he wanted her. Even knowing it would only result in more pain when she left him. He fell to his knees to suckle her breasts, and his blood heated when her breaths quickened and her hands held him to her. He kissed a path over her belly, tongued her navel, then bent lower to taste her secret sweetness.

He wanted all of her, every bit. He'd commit her to memory and never forget.

She gasped, her hands trembling on the back of his head as he worked her into a frenzy with his mouth and tongue. She whispered his name, and he used his teeth, smiling when she shuddered in response. Her knees buckled, but he followed her down, climbing up her body with his mouth as his hands worked to open his pants. He'd have her, one last time. He'd be sure she never forgot him, either, even if she lived ten thousand years, a hundred thousand!

He reached her face, parted her mouth with his tongue and made love to it, even as he urged her thighs wider and nudged into her moistness. She arched her hips to take him inside, and he went, eagerly. Her slick entrance clenched him, squeezed him as he drove deeper, filling her up and retreating. Holding back, teasing her until she bounced beneath him, before he plunged into her once more. It was heaven. It was hell. It was slow, burning torture.

He rode her hard on the path to ecstasy, and when he hovered at the brink, he felt her teeth at his throat. She took his essence into her body, as release pounded through her. His own climax was his reply, and she clung to him as if she were drowning. Then relaxed beneath him. He felt her muscles unwind, one by one. She sighed long and low and her fingers wound in his hair again.

"That was like nothing I could have imagined." A bare whisper. A new wonder in her voice.

He rolled off her to lie on his side, lifted her head to pillow it on his arm.

"Your senses are heightened. You feel everything more thoroughly than before." He kissed her cheek. It had happened too fast. He should have taken more time, made it last, drawn it out. It was over. Dammit, already it was over.

"You can say that again." She opened her eyes to stare up at him, the laughter vanishing from the amber.

"Ask me why I would have chosen to live, Da mien."

He swallowed hard, a small candle of hope igniting in his dark soul, just from the touch of the light in her eyes. He hated that glimmer. It would only make the impending disappointment harder to take. But he asked her. He grasped at the straw she dangled.

"Why would you have chosen to live, Shannon?"

"Not just because I was afraid of death. Not for eternal life and health and youth. Not for all this strength and energy, or even for the chance to avenge Tawny's murder."

She paused, her head lifting until her lips hovered a hairbreadth from his.

Her eyes shot amber sparks at him, and the candle inside him flared brighter.

"But because I love you."

 "Shannon..." He caught her head in his hands, kissed her, tasted her, dug into her mouth with his tongue.

"I'll never leave you, Da mien. Gilgamesh. I'll be with you for always. You will never have to walk alone again. And neither will I. "

He kissed her again, deeply, and the slow healing of his oldest, deepest wound began.

it yearns and waits to be retouched By someone who can take away The memory of death.

--4 Beyond Twilight (1995)--

Copyright © 1995 by Margaret Benson

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

To Lisa, my littlest angel

Chapter One

He twisted away, but her hands were still there. Burning him. Whispering across his chest like wind over water. He shivered. He sweat. He gasped for air but inhaled only her scent. He reached for sanity and found his fingers entangled in short, satiny hair. He opened his eyes and found them captured by hers. Huge, dark, innocent. Imploring, hot, sexy eyes, staring down at him as he lay trembling with desire on his bed. And he knew he was lost. He lifted his arms, slid them around her small body to pull her down to his chest. Parted his lips to taste her succulent mouth…

And there was nothing there. He lay panting and alone, his torso and face coated in a slick sheen, his arms wrapped around themselves. He sat up fast, blinking in the gathering dusk, grabbing the first thing his fist closed on and hurling it into the opposite wall. Both hands pushed through his hair. Dammit, he was still shaking, still hotter than hell for some fantasy woman; a dreamworld pixie who looked more like Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell than a swimsuit-issue cover girl. What the hell was the matter with him?

“Pressure.” He muttered the word to himself and slid naked from the bed for his ritual cold shower. The dreams had been coming for months on a regular basis. “Stress,” he added, stomping into the hotel bathroom, flicking the light, twisting the knobs.

It was the job. Hell, it would get to anyone. He’d failed his last mission, damned near got himself killed while he was at it.

His latest assignment had been handed down eight months ago and he still hadn’t had any success. So many close calls, so many near misses. Every time he thought he had her, she pulled some trick out of her sleeve and slipped right through his fingers. And almost didn’t cut the mustard with DPI. An agent for the CIA’s secretive Division of Paranormal Investigations had to deliver the goods. He was closer than he’d ever been to doing just that. She was here, in this small, middle-of-nowhere town in northern Maine.

Stephen “Ramsey” Bachman was a hunter of sorts, but his quarry wasn’t human. She was a vampire.

It was her house and she had finally come home to roost. The place was like something out of an old Vincent Price movie. Big and gothic and sadly in need of a coat of paint. The front door was unlocked. It was just before dusk.

Finally, he had her cornered, right in her own backyard. She’d been on DPI’s Most Wanted List for more than a decade. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t his business to know why, just to bring her in. And he had a feeling he was about to do it.

He gripped a small leather satchel in his right hand. Inside were three syringes, each containing a dose of tranquilizer developed by legendary DPI researcher Curtis Rogers. His original formula had been lost when he had been killed, probably by one of them, though no one had ever proven it. But Bachman didn’t need proof. They were all the same, ruthless killers who preyed on the innocent.

DPI’s scientists had been painstakingly working to recreate Rogers’s tranquilizer and they thought they’d finally succeeded. He swallowed hard. Tonight would be its first actual test.

The huge, darkly stained door groaned when he pushed it open. His steps echoed on the dusty, time-dulled parquet. He ignored the baroque furnishings, the dark woodwork, the cobwebs, the dust, and he headed straight for the spiral staircase. It creaked with every step.

He’d cased this house early on, as soon as he’d learned she owned it. He knew the basement was prone to flooding and that there was only one room in the place with no windows. That room was where he was heading right now. It had been empty the first time he’d seen it, but he had a strong feeling it wouldn’t be vacant tonight.

He reached the top of the stairs and started down the tall, narrow corridor, moving right past the rows of closed doors. He knew which door hid his nemesis. When he reached it he paused with his hand on the knob.

His first inkling that something wasn’t quite right came when he turned the knob and it gave without resistance. His feet planted, he stood still a moment, listened, feeling the very air around him for a warning, a sound.

Nothing.

He pushed the door inward and stepped slowly inside. Nightmarish candlelight illuminated the entire room. A hundred tapers danced and flickered, casting lively shadows on the walls, the ceiling, the floor. And there was music. The melodramatic chords of a ghostly pipe organ floated softly on the air. A little chill raced up his spine. Not one of fear, induced by the music and candles. But one of foreboding, as he wondered just what in hell she was up to this time.

The coffin gleamed black with shining brass trim from atop a flower-strewn bier. He stepped forward, noting the dead roses at the head and foot. Nice touch. If he found her, he thought he’d choke her before he ever took her in. He was tired of this, tired of her games and jokes, all of them seemingly designed to make him look like a fool.

He approached the coffin, glancing over his shoulder every second or two, just in case.

A thick curtain of cobwebs stuck to his face and he swept it aside with an angry gesture. The music swelled a little louder, he thought as he put his hands on the lid.

Jaw clenching, he opened it.

Then he stood there, blinking in shock as he stared down at the most horrendous creature he’d ever seen. She had hair like a matted rat’s nest, tight facial skin tinted blue, with black rings encircling the sunken, closed eyes. The cheeks were hollow, gaunt. The lips were pulled back in an almost snarl, baring the pointy tips of yellowed incisors. He could count the bones in the narrow hands that lay crossed upon her chest. The gruesome image, along with his own, was reflected in a mirror on the inside of the lid.

Ramsey poked a finger into the skin of her arm, then let his chin fall to his chest as he blew every bit of air from his lungs. She’d done it to him again, damn her. The body in the coffin was made of wax. And Cuyler Jade was probably a hundred miles away from here by now.

Soft laughter, like crystal water bubbling over smooth stones, filled the room. He stiffened and spun around. The woman stood in the doorway, her hand over her mouth, her mischievous eyes twinkling with candlelight and mirth.

“If you could have seen your face…” She laughed some more, closing her eyes and tipping her head back.

She was tiny. Her gleaming black hair was cut short, with spiky bangs on her forehead and jagged ends laying on her neck. She brought her head level and tilted it slightly as she studied him. She looked like a pixie, like Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell.

Impossible. It’s your imagination, dammit. She’s not the woman in your dreams.

He said nothing. She stepped into the room, bold as brass. “I’m kinda tired of this endless chase, Ramsey.”

He blinked. “What did you call me?”

“Ramsey. Isn’t that what all the guys in military school dubbed you? Stephen Bachman from Ramsey, Indiana, became Ramsey in the tenth grade, if I remember correctly.” She smiled and moved closer. “Don’t look so surprised. Isn’t the first rule of all you secret agent types to know your enemy?”

He watched her approach until she stood only inches away from him. She wasn’t the one he was after. She couldn’t be. She was the imp from his dreams. The erotic, sexy, innocent-eyed devil that smiled as she touched him. The one that drove him half out of his head with pure animal lust. She wasn’t a monster.

She offered a tiny hand, and as he closed his huge one around it she told him the last thing he wanted to hear. “I’m Cuyler Jade. The one you’ve been chasing all over the country for the past eight months.”

He swallowed the sand-covered rock that seemed to have lodged in his throat, and quickly dropped her hand.

“So here I am,” she told him. The impish light in her eyes was tempered with a hint of uncertainty. The brazen smile on her lips, a little unsteady. “Question is, Ramsey, now that you’ve got me, what are you gonna do with me?”

He stiffened his back. Okay, so she was a vampire. And he’d had recurring, wildly erotic dreams about her for the past several months. Almost as long as he’d been after her. So what? He had a job to do, and that was his priority—not his unruly libido.

“I’m going to arrest you.” His voice sounded cold, harsh. Good. “You’re now a federal prisoner, Ms. Jade. I’m taking you back to New York, to our headquarters in White Plains.”

“Are you?”

God, her eyes were big. And dark. And those thick lashes made him think of Bambi, made him feel like the heartless hunter.

“Afraid so.”

“And what if I won’t go with you? You going to overpower me?”

She knew he couldn’t do that. Remarkably, she stood still while he opened the satchel and brought out one of the syringes. “I could tranquilize you.”

She frowned at the hypodermic. “That stuff work?”

He shrugged. “One way to find out.”

He reached for her arm, but she danced away from him before he could grip it. Tapping her chin with a coral-tipped finger, she faced him once again. “Suppose I was to come along peacefully?”

He studied her through narrowed eyes, all too aware of her knack for tricks and pranks. “Why would you do that?”

Her black eyes narrowed. She came back to him, leaned in so close her breath fanned his throat. One of her small hands came up and her fingertips danced over his nape. “‘Cause you’re not going to go through with it, Ramsey.”

He swallowed again, hoping she wouldn’t press any closer and accidentally discover the effect she was having on him. He shifted his stance and tried to remind himself what she was. She only looked like a woman. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead, and he tried to summon the will to jab the needle into her arm before she could slip away again.

Instead he only managed, “What makes you think so?” His voice sounded coarse. Not at all as intimidating as it ought to.

Her lips curved upward just a little. “I know about the dreams,” she whispered.

He didn’t let it shake him. All right, it shook him, but he didn’t let it show. “Because you caused them? Another one of your tricks?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what caused them, Ramsey. But I’ve been having them, too.”

Chapter Two

She watched him, waited to see his reaction to her words. She truly believed what she’d told him, that he wouldn’t be able to take her into custody. But she didn’t think he was fully aware of it. Not yet, anyway. Ramsey Bachman had a thing or two to learn about himself. And Cuyler had decided she was the only one who could teach him.

He was speechless for a long moment. Then he shook his head, staring at her from wary, deep gray eyes. “You’re a good liar, Cuyler. But not that good. You haven’t had any dreams about me.”

“No? Want me to describe them to you?”

“No.” He said it too quickly.

She smiled. “I get to you, Ramsey. You know I do. It’s not a big surprise, really. You get to me, too. I’m not afraid to admit it.”

“Dream on, Cuyler.” Still holding the syringe in one hand, he clasped her arm with the other and turned her toward the door. “Come on, if you’re so eager to surrender. My car’s out front. You want to pack a bag?”

“Not just yet.” She resisted the urge to pull her arm away yet again. She couldn’t do that, couldn’t let him think she was up to something. But the big boys from DPI were getting restless waiting for Ramsey to bring her in. Much longer and they’d come for her themselves, and she’d rather take her chances with Ramsey than with them. She had to play her cards fast and well.

The wariness had never left his eyes. It only intensified “You’re trying to pull something on me.”

“I have a deal to offer you. Take it or leave it, it’s up to you.”

“No deals. You’re coming with me. Now.”

“No. I’ll come in with you in a few days. Without a peep. No tricks, no struggles, no fuss. I promise.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?”

“You want me to write it in blood?”

He released her arm, let his own hang loosely at his side, and stared at her so hard she could feel the touch of those eyes. More than that, she could feel the anger behind them, and the pain. And her arm still tingled where he’d held it. It still baffled her, this awareness between the two of them. This attraction. She’d felt it before she’d even laid eyes on him.

“What do you want in return?”

“Hmm, a hunk with a brain. You’re a rare specimen, Ramsey.”

“What do you want?” he repeated, impatience giving an edge to his voice.

She tilted her head, shrugging delicately, walking in a small circle with a happy bounce in her steps. He was faltering. He wouldn’t even have asked unless he was considering giving in. “Nothing much. Just a little bit of your time. Three nights of it should be enough.”

“Three—”

She stopped, spinning on her heel and pointing at him. “You spend three nights with me. At dusk on the fourth, I’ll be ready and willing to head off to Nazi headquarters with you. Okay?”

He shook his head slowly. “Three nights…doing what with you?”

She rolled her eyes, threw her palms up. “Not that, for crying out loud. Crimey, if that was all I wanted from you, I could have had it months ago!”

“The hell you could.”

Forget it, Ramsey. I’m right and you know it. Picture it. You from one of those hot and heavy dreams to find the real thing naked in your arms. You tellin‘ me you’d roll over and go back to sleep?“ She moved closer as she spoke, leaned into him, stood on tiptoe until her nose nearly touched his chin. ”I don’t think so.“

“I don’t give a damn what you think.”

She shrugged, but backed down and resumed her circular pacing.

“So if you don’t want me sleeping with you, then what are the three nights for?”

“I sleep during the day.” She ruffled the short layers of her hair with both hands. He was exasperating. She hadn’t expected it to be this difficult. She turned away from him, picked a slender white candle from its holder and tilted the flame to an incense dish, igniting the cone in its center. She inhaled the sweet fragrance. Just because she hadn’t expected difficulty didn’t mean she hadn’t prepared for it.

“Look, Ramsey, I need to spend some time with you if I’m going to figure this out, that’s all. I just want to get to the bottom of this…this thing.”

“What thing?”

She made two fists, held them near her temples and squeezed her eyes tight. She was going to hit him if he didn’t stop acting so obtuse. She took a step backward, and he very logically advanced an equal distance. He stood near the incense. A spiral of scented smoke rose around his head.

“You know I could have killed you months ago, or hurt you so badly you would have been off my case for a long time,” she told him. “I could have closed my eyes and given one good mental scream and had half a dozen older, stronger ones here to get rid of you for me.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you?”

“I don’t know! That’s the thing I want to get to the bottom of! I can’t even think about hurting you. Hell, I’ve got this off-the-notion that I ought to be looking out for you, but—”

“You? Looking out for me? That’s a laugh.”

“Damn straight, when I know you’re planning to haul me off to a death camp.”

“It’s not—”

“Don’t bother, Ramsey. DPI’s research techniques are well documented. Look, I made you an offer. What’s your answer?”

He shook his head slowly, then pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and shook it again. Glancing down at the syringe in his hand, he straightened a little. “Sorry, Cuyler. I’ve been the butt of too many of your tricks. I don’t believe you for a minute, and whether it’s three nights from now or not, I’m still taking you in. Why delay the inevitable?”

She lowered her head, looked at the floor. “Well, I’m sorry, too. But I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

He lunged toward her, but she’d known he would. She was ready. Before he could blink, she snatched the offensive little hypodermic from his hand. She snapped the needle with her thumb, dropped it on the floor and crushed it under her foot. Facing him, she lifted her palms. “Try again?”

“Damn you…” His voice trailed off. He squeezed his eyes tight, opened them, closed them again.

She stepped closer to him.

“What…what did you…” He swayed backward.

Cuyler gripped his shoulders, held him steady. “You’d better sit down, Ramsey.”

He did. His legs folded and he hit the floor hard, but remained upright, one palm pressed to his right temple. He lifted his head to look at her, the gleam of anger in his eyes dulling. “I knew…I couldn’t…trust one of you.”

“You can, Ramsey. I promise, you can.” She knelt beside him as his eyes closed. His body fell backward, but she caught him and eased his shoulders and head to the floor. She bent close to his ear and whispered, “You’ll see.” She stood and snuffed out the drugged incense.

He opened his eyes slowly, warily, and registered surprise that he was still able to do so. The throbbing in his head was enough proof that he was still alive. So she’d only drugged him. But for what purpose?

He struggled to sit up, only to feel her hands on his shoulders pressing him back down. “Lie still for a while. Here, this will help” She laid a hot cloth across his forehead.

He blinked her into focus, then looked beyond her. The room was dim, but he knew with a glance that they weren’t in her tumbledown house. He’d been all through it. There’d been no canopy bed surrounded by sheer black curtains. No stone walls. No fireplace snapping and crackling with red-orange heat.

“Where the hell am I?”

She pursed her lips. “My hideaway. I can’t tell you where, exactly. Just in case I’m wrong about your inherent sense of decency. I wouldn’t want you running back to DPI with directions to my one and only haven.”

He grated his teeth. He’d strangle her as soon as he got his strength back. He didn’t think he could stop himself. With an angry snarl he sat up, brushing her hands away. His feet swung to the floor and he got up, swayed a little, caught himself. Then he walked unevenly toward the arched window cut into the thick Stone wall. He braced himself against the cold sill and stared through the thick, tinted glass.

All he saw was snow. Gentle hills and valleys of it, without end, unrolling like a lumpy sheet beneath a starry sky.

He turned toward her again, dazed with disbelief. “Where the hell am I?” he repeated.

“North. You are definitely north.”

“North of what?”

“Just about everything.” She ended with a little laugh, those eyes of hers glittering with mischief.

“Dammit, Cuyler—”

“Look, all you need to know is that you’re miles from another human being. There are no roads, no transportation, and no Phones. Nothing. Just you and me, together for the next three nights. Just like I told you.”

Letting his head fall backward, he stared up at the vaulted ceiling, the gaslights glowing in the chandelier.

“Don’t look so upset. I’ll take you back when I know what I need to know.”

He shook his head, met her gaze. “If there’s no transportation, then how the hell did we get here?”

“That doesn’t really matter.”

He pushed one hand through his hair, scanned the room, spotted the open door and left her standing there. She followed him. He heard her steps on the ceramic-tiled floors as he moved quickly through the corridor, glancing into rooms furnished as if for some fairy-tale princess. Satins and ruffles and lace. Trinkets he didn’t take time to examine littered every surface.

He found the stairway, broad and stone with a gleaming hardwood banister, and he hurried down it. Another fireplace. More gaslights, more stone. More expensive-looking antique furniture.

The front doors were huge, and double, with stained-glass panes in starburst patterns centering each of them. And they were unlocked. He flung them wide and stepped out into the biting wind, bitter cold. There was nothing. As far as he could see, there was just nothing. A sense of doom settled on his shoulders like a thousand-pound pillar.

She touched him again. Her small hands closed around his upper arm and tugged at him. “Come back inside, Ramsey. It’s going to be all right, I promise you.”

He lowered his head. The wind stung his face, his ears. He let her pull him back inside, but he was shaking his head. “It isn’t.”

“It will.” She closed the doors, turned to face him.

“There are things I need…”

“I know. The insulin.”

His head came up fast. “How do you—”

“I brought everything from your hotel room. Your clothes, the medicine, everything. The only thing I didn’t bring was that nasty drug you were planning to inject me with.” She closed her eyes, shook her head slowly. “That really disappointed me, Ramsey. I didn’t think you’d do it to me, but you were going to.”

“Immoral bastard that I am, right? I notice you didn’t hesitate to do the same to me.”

Her brows rose, then she smiled a little and gave a shrug. “Guess you have me on that one. But, honestly, the incense is harmless. It just lasts a few hours and the only side effect is a bad headache.”

He rubbed one throbbing temple with his forefinger. “Tell me about it.”

“You want something for it? Aspirin or—”

“I don’t want anything except to get the hell out of here.” He was angry. He hated feeling trapped, forced into a situation he didn’t like. And he sure as hell didn’t like this. Being locked away in a miniature castle with the object of his most vivid, graphic fantasies. Knowing he couldn’t lay a hand on her. Hell. That’s what this was. Hell on earth.

“And you will. Soon. But, Ramsey, there are things I have to know.”

“If you think you can pry any DPI secrets out of me—”

“Not about your precious organization. About you.” She reached out to him, took his hand, drew him into the huge room, and pressed him into a chair near the fire. “Relax, Ramsey. Please, just try to accept that you’re going to be here for a few days, so we can get on with this. Think of it as a mini-vacation.”

He looked up into her innocent eyes, marveling that they could hide so much deceit. “A vacation?”

“It’s warm and safe. There’s plenty of food. I have wine, too. Your favorite kind. You want some?”

“So you can knock me out again?”

“I don’t need to knock you out again.”

She turned and walked away from him, fishing a bottle of white zinfandel from an ice bucket on a nearby pedestal table. She poured some into a glittering cut-crystal glass and brought it to him, pressing it into his hand. He’d had time to get up and run, but what was the use? There was nowhere to go.

She knelt down in front of his chair, her hands resting on his knees, and stared up at him with more intensity in her eyes than he’d ever seen. He braced himself against that look. He wasn’t going to believe a word that fell from those full, moist lips. And he wasn’t going to entertain a single erotic thought about her current position.

“I want to tell you something, and I want you to listen to me. I’m out of tricks and tired of games. Everything I say to you from here on will be nothing but the truth. I’d like for you to return the favor.”

She paused, waiting. He said nothing.

“Ramsey, if you take me to that research lab in White Plains, I’ll die. And I won’t be the first.”

“That’s bull. DPI isn’t in the habit of murdering—”

“But they are.”

Ramsey shook his head hard. “They’re scientists. They want to learn all about you—”

“They want to eradicate us from the planet.”

“Yes.” He sighed, admitting that much. “Yes, but not by killing you. By finding a cure.”

Her eyes flashed with anger and for just a second he felt the force of her rage. “A cure. Where do you get this stuff, Ramsey? It’s not a disease. We don’t need a cure for what we are any more than you need one for being tall or for having gray eyes.”

He was skeptical. “You wouldn’t like to be human again, to feel again?”

“I’m as human as you are, dammit. And what makes you think I don’t feel?”

She stared up into his eyes, her own brimming with so much emotion he almost wondered if she might somehow be an exception to the rule. But her eyes narrowed and she looked at the floor.

“The good ol‘ DPI handbook, right, Ramsey? We’re all animals. Emotionless, cold-blooded killers.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Aren’t you?” He wasn’t asking. Not really. He knew what they were.

She bit her lower lip, blinked fast. “No. But they are. Do you have any idea how many of us have died at their hands, in the name of their so-called research?”

“And yet you promised to go there with me, willingly, after these three nights.” If he sounded skeptical, then he was. He wasn’t as gullible as she apparently thought he was.

“Yes. If you still want to take me there.”

“Why?”

“Because I know that you won’t. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own name, Ramsey. I don’t know why, but I am.”

He shook his head slowly. “That doesn’t make any more sense than dragging me up here.”

“I think it does.” She closed her hand around his, held it there, and he felt the warmth of her flowing into him, through him. A tingling awareness skittered along his nape, up his spine. Something odd happened to him. He felt invaded, as if her very soul was seeping into him, or his into her, or something.

“Do you feel it?” she whispered. “There’s something between us, Ramsey. You know there is.”

He shook his head in denial and tugged his hand away from hers. It was no more than another of her tricks.

“It’s more powerful than the connection I feel with one of the Chosen.” She said it softly, eyes downcast.

“The Chosen…that’s your term for humans with that rare belladonna antigen in their blood?” He sat forward a little, thinking maybe he’d get something out of this forced incarceration, some kernel of knowledge to take back with him. If he ever got back.

She nodded. “They’re the only ones who can be transformed. We all had that antigen as mortals. But you don’t have it. I’d have known right away if you did.”

“How?”

She rose, chewing her full lower lip with even, white teeth. “We sense them. I can’t explain it, but we always know. We have an instinctive need to watch over them, protect them—

“Make them into what you are?”

She shook her head. “No. Never, unless they want it and we’re sure they can handle it. Most couldn’t deal with it, I think.”

He leaned back in the chair, studying her face for a long time. She was telling him things she didn’t have to tell him. And she was being honest. He’d read up on the connections between certain humans and vampires. What she said matched the research DPI had done on the subject. So, was she serious about not lying to him, or was she just trying to gain his confidence?

Stupid to even consider that she was sincere. She was just baiting her trap.

“There’s usually one person in particular to whom a vampire feels the strongest connection,” he said, quoting almost verbatim from the studies he’d read. “Is that right?”

She paced away from him, nodding as she went.

“So, who’s your pet mortal?”

She stood right in front of the fire, her back to him. “You are.”

Ramsey blinked, then forced the shock into submission and tried to keep a logical, analytical mindset. “That doesn’t make any sense, Cuyler. I don’t have the antigen.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She shouted it as she whirled to face him.

He stood and slowly moved toward her, searching her face for a sign she was lying. He saw only turmoil and frustration in her eyes, as real as if she were honestly experiencing those feelings. She had him completely confused, and he didn’t like it.

“Then why do you think—”

“I dream about you, Ramsey. I think about you when I’m awake. I know when you’re angry, when you’re sick, when you’re in pain.”

She grasped his shoulders, and he couldn’t believe that there was moisture in her eyes.

“I want you to the point of madness, but it’s more than that.”

She wanted him. And that should scare the hell out of him, because he knew that with her kind, sexual desire was so closely entwined with the bloodlust that the two became inseparable. If she wanted him, then she not only wanted him in bed. She probably wanted to drain him dry, too.

Another reason to keep his mounting desire under control. Hell, if he gave in to it, he’d end up dead.

“You’re out to destroy me,” she went on, her voice catching in her throat. “I ought to be running away from you as fast as I can go. But all I feel is this longing to be as close to you as I can get.”

She released him, looked at the floor, and he saw the way her lips trembled.

“My rest is torment. I wake up frustrated and confused instead of rested and strong. It’s driving me crazy, Ramsey. All I want to do is figure out why. Can you really blame me for that?”

Ramsey had trouble swallowing when a single tear spilled onto her cheek. Not a manufactured one. She quickly turned away from him, brushing the back of one hand over her face to wipe it away. For some reason he had the urge to wrap his arms around this suffering pixie and make it all right for her. He grated his teeth, stiffened himself against the softening that seemed to be happening inside him. She was the enemy. She was a master of lies. She had murder on her mind; his murder. He had to remember that. He didn’t know what she could possibly have to gain by convincing him of all this bull, but there had to be something.

In a private office on the fifth floor of a building in White Plains, N.Y., three men stared at a small, lighted screen, watching the little red blip flash on and off incessantly.

“It has to be a malfunction,” Stiles said.

“No. No, it makes perfect sense. It’s dark there eighteen hours straight, this time of year,” Whaley argued. “Perfect for one of them.”

“But why would she take him there?”

The third man hadn’t spoken yet. He removed a pipe from his teeth and tapped spent tobacco into a plastic ashtray on his desk. “I knew he’d turn on us. Hell, it was a given. A matter of time. I’m just glad we planted the tracking device in his suitcase.”

“A matter of time?” Stiles frowned, puzzled. “You sound as if you were expecting this.”

“I was,” Fuller said.

“But, Mr. Fuller, I don’t—”

“Until you need to know, don’t bother asking.”

Stiles sighed hard, but nodded his acceptance. “So, what do we do?”

Wes Fuller paced the room for a moment, his bulk making his steps fall heavily. Then he calmly began refilling his pipe. “We get some maps, some more information, some equipment, and we go up there. Get ourselves two research subjects for the price of one.”

Chapter Three

It wasn’t the castle it at first appeared to be. It was actually no bigger than an average house, all made of stone, blocks of it two feet in depth. Deep gray here, lighter there. Sometimes nearly white. It had the huge rooms and high ceilings of a mansion. But the place wasn’t what it seemed. The ground floor consisted of only three rooms. The palatial front one with the fireplace, a dining room fit for a king, and a tiny cubbyhole of a kitchen with a fridge and stove that appeared to be gas-powered, like the lights. He tried the faucets, found they worked. Hot and cold. The place had every comfort.

It was a whimsical place. Made him think of the castles and enchanted cottages in fairy tales. Everywhere he looked there were crystals. Huge blocks of quartz with jagged points like countless fingers, sparkling at him. Glittering purple amethysts. Lapis lazuli, so blue it hurt your eyes to look at it too long. Tiger’s eye, flashing and winking yellow and gold at him as he passed. And a hundred others he couldn’t identify. Tiny pewter statuettes peered up at him from every inch of space not occupied by a stone. There were fairies, unicorns, dragons, wizards, castles on high. My God, there Were hundreds of them. And the art that adorned her walls held similar themes. No pastels, though. Grim colors, grays and browns and dull blues. Lots of charcoal sketches. Pegasus. Pan. An ugly creature that might have been a troll.

Interesting.

“Looked your fill yet?” She sat on a beanbag chair near the fire—a beanbag!—with her legs curled beneath her. She hadn’t followed him, seeming content to let him explore the house on his own. More evidence there was really no way out. If there was a chance he could escape, she wouldn’t have let him out of her sight.

“I haven’t looked upstairs yet.”

“Three bedrooms, with a bathroom between two of them. No big deal. Can we sit down and talk now?”

“The place is smaller than it looks. The size of the room is deceptive.”

“Astute observation. Please, Ramsey, I have so much I want to know.” She sat a little straighter, pleading with those big, round eyes that seemed to want to suck him into their depths.

“How’d you ever find this place?” He poured himself some more wine, his back to her. He had to avoid looking at her if he was going to manage to remain in control, maybe get her to let something slip, like how the hell he could get out of here.

“I had it built. Always wanted a castle all my own. Ever since I was a little girl.”

That tidbit made him turn to face her. His next question was impulsive and not at all what he’d intended to ask. “How old are you, Cuyler?”

“Ninety-nine.” She smiled fully when she said it. Her smile was something to see. Made her eyes crinkle at the corners and sparkle with mischief. “Pretty spry for my age, huh?”

“How long have you been—”

“Didn’t do much research on me, did you, Ramsey?”

He shook his head. “Research isn’t my job.”

“Right. I forgot. You just hunt us down and bring us in.”

“I’m not going to apologize for it.”

“Who asked you to? I just wondered why you suddenly wanted to know about me.” She turned to stare into the firelight. It made her eyes glow, and gleamed its reflection on her multilayered ebony hair.

“I’m curious.”

“Is that all?” She didn’t look at him. Just sighed softly before she went on. “I was twenty-five. My sister and I danced at a gin joint in Chicago during the height of Prohibition.”

He stopped with his wine halfway to his lips and just stared at her with his mouth gaping. “You were a flapper?”

She shrugged, looking at him, grinning. “I was young and I needed the money.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it, she was funny. She’d always been funny. Every time she’d pulled one of her pranks on him and slipped out of his reach, she’d done it with a stroke of humor that couldn’t be ignored. More than once he’d been in the midst of anger and frustration, only to find himself smiling and shaking his head at her wit. That dummy in the coffin at her house had been just one more example of her impish streak.

He stared at her, tilted his head a little. He could see her very clearly in his imagination, wearing a fringe-covered sac dress and a headband with a feather. Then his laugh died. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more. Seeing her as a real person with a life and a past would only make this harder.

“Honestly, I loved to dance. We both did. And we were good at it.”

“I’ll bet you were.” It slipped out before he thought about it. He averted his eyes, cleared his throat. “So, what happened?” He could have kicked himself. Hadn’t he just decided he didn’t want to know?

“There was this woman, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. She was elegant. No, regal is a better word. But she was fun, too. She used to come in all the time, bugged us to teach her the dances. One night she came in dressed as a flapper and joined us on stage.” Cuyler shook her head slowly, smiling, the movement drawing his gaze against his will. “She was something. Every man there wanted her, but she never seemed interested. And when the lushes got a little out of hand with us, she’d step in and scare the hell out of them.”

Ramsey wondered what man in his right mind would be interested in any other woman when Cuyler was in the room, then frowned and reminded himself what he was doing here. “Who was she?”

Cuyler only leaned back in her beanbag, drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She ignored his question. “One night there was a raid. FBI. G-men as we called ‘em back then. The owners fought back, naturally. The rest of us got caught between machine guns.”

She released her legs and rolled to her feet with a little bounce. She walked toward him, stopped when she stood right in front of him, then caught the hem of her blouse and lifted it.

Ramsey licked his lips and tried to deny his instant reaction to the sight of that taut skin, her flat belly, the curve of her waist, the dark well of her navel. He stiffened when she took his hand and pulled it toward her, but he didn’t pull away. And then his palm was pressing to her warm flesh and he felt odd puckers that shouldn’t be there. They barely showed, but he could feel them.

He frowned, moving his hand over her waist, feeling more of the puckers, and more on her rib cage. Slowly, it dawned on him just what these scars had to be, and for some reason his stomach convulsed, twisting into a knot, and a hot fury came to life in its center. He set the wine on a stand and stood, both hands on her warm skin now. Clasping her waist, he turned her slowly and ran his palms over the small of her back, as well, then higher, slipping them beneath her blouse and up to her shoulder blades.

He tried to swallow as he felt the scars left on her smooth flesh where the bullets had passed through her body. But he couldn’t. His throat had closed off. He had a sudden image of her, with her short ruffly hair held in place by a feathered headband, her fringed dress filled with holes, her small pixie’s body riddled by bullets.

His hands stilled on her skin. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the image.

She leaned back just slightly, pressing herself closer to his touch. “My sister was killed, and I wasn’t far behind her. But that woman found me in the chaos. She took me out of there while the bullets were still flying. I don’t know how, but she did. She laid me down in the alley and she asked me if I wanted to live.”

“And you said yes.”

She turned to face him and somehow his hands ended up on her shoulders. He ought to move them away. He really ought to.

“What would you have said?”

He shook his head slowly. It wasn’t a clear decision between good and evil. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. Not the way he’d always thought it would be. He couldn’t get the image of it out of his mind, her small body jerking like a marionette’s as bullets tore hot paths right through her. Her lying still, the life seeping away from her. Why was this so vivid to him? Why did he feel as if he’d witnessed the whole thing? His hands tightened a little on her shoulders, a natural reaction to the sensation of her life slipping away. “I don’t know.”

Her hands rose in slow motion, came to rest lightly on his chest. “I probably wouldn’t have known, either, if she’d asked me while I was strong and alive. But I was bleeding. I was dying. I couldn’t even feel the pain by then. And I said yes.”

He couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t imagine himself in the same situation doing anything differently. But the decision, that single moment in time, was only the beginning. And he found himself wanting to know more. “What about afterward? When you were changed, a completely different being? Did you regret your choice?”

She closed her eyes, smiled softly. “But I wasn’t a different being. Ramsey, the changes were physical. I was the same person inside. A little flaky, maybe. A believer in fairy tales. A practical joker. I was the same. I still am.”

His stomach clenched. For a second he wondered what right he had to drag this woman off to DPI’s research center. He stared down at her wide eyes, her moist lips, and felt her lean toward him. His hands tightened on her shoulders. She rose on tiptoe and tilted her head up, fit her mouth to his…

The hiss of resin seeping from the firewood got louder just as he caught her lips, began sucking at them, tracing their shape with his tongue. A loud snap worked like an electric shock, jarring him out of the spell she’d woven around them. He wouldn’t have fallen so easily unless she had. He deliberately called up the image of his mother’s lifeless body and unseeing eyes, focused on it to remind himself of why he’d joined DPI in the first place.

He lifted his head and pushed her away. Dammit, she was playing with his mind, making him feel things he had no business feeling. Those dreams he’d had of her, these pictures she was drawing for him, it was all part of her plan.

He looked at her. She was biting her lip, shaking her head, looking everywhere except at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She spun in a circle, pushing both hands through her dark hair, ruffling it until its short layers resembled the feathers of a flustered raven. “It won’t happen again. That’s not why I brought you here.”

She was apologizing. He gave his head a shake. Why the hell was she apologizing?

“Look, Ramsey, I’m not trying to seduce you into anything. If we can come to an understanding, I want it to be because you’ve thought things through and listened, and you believe me. Not because your libido was too strong to resist.”

He blinked twice, more confused than ever. Seduction would be her best weapon here. Did she mean to tell him she wasn’t even going to try? And why did that idea feel like such a letdown? Hell, he ought to be relieved. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about her passions taking over and him ending up dead.

Glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner, he felt his eyes widen. They’d been talking for a couple of hours, yet it hadn’t seemed more than a few minutes.

She followed his gaze, shook her head. “You ought to eat, Ramsey. And take your insulin before you get sick.”

He frowned, glancing through the windows where the pale winter darkness still reigned. “Just how far north are we, Cuyler? Shouldn’t it be light by now?”

She shook her head. “Dawn around 9:00 a.m. Dusk again by three this afternoon. That’s part of what I like about this place in the winter.”

“Don’t you get tired on so little rest?”

“Hell, Ramsey, since you’ve been on my tail my rest hasn’t been very restful, anyway.”

He knew she was referring to the dreams. Maybe she really had experienced them. He doubted it, but there was probably a slight chance. And there was also a slight chance, he conceded at last, that she was being straight with him about her reasons for bringing him here. For, even though he couldn’t admit it to her, she’d been haunting his life the same way she claimed he’d been haunting hers. Only difference was, he hadn’t known who she was. Just the pixie with the big sexy eyes that seduced him in his dreams. So maybe she did want to understand this thing, and maybe she would let him go when she had her answers. Maybe she was telling the truth.

But he doubted it.

Wes Fuller held the lighter to the tobacco in the bowl and inhaled until it caught. He puffed appreciatively, then held the pipe in his hand and blew smoke rings as he studied the maps tacked to the wall.

“Only way in will be by helicopter. And then they’ll hear us coming.” It was Stiles, his chief aide. Stiles, always the cautious one, always wary. “We could land a few miles away, though, and hike in. But we’ll want to be sure we can get in and out by daylight. We want to be well out of there before dark.”

“What’s the matter, Stiles? Afraid the three of us can’t handle her?” And that was Whaley, the intrepid. He wanted a battle. It gleamed from his eyes like a fever.

“Stiles is right in this case,” Wes said slowly. “We have no way of knowing whether she’s alone up there or not. There might be half a dozen others with her.”

Stiles’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of that. My God, do you supposed Bachman is still alive? I mean, what if they just took him up there to—”

“He’s alive.”

“But, sir, how can you—”

“He’s alive. There’s not one of them who’d hurt Bachman. If there was, he’d have been long dead by now. God knows, I’ve given him the riskiest assignments, sent him up against the worst of them. But he’s never been hurt beyond repair, and he’s never brought one in.”

Stiles blinked.

Whaley frowned. “You telling me you’ve deliberately put Bachman in high-risk situations with them? Including this one?”

Fuller nodded. Whaley wanted to hit him. Fuller could see it in his flashing eyes. But he wouldn’t. He was a subordinate and he knew his place. “You’ll understand in time, Whaley. Till then, you’ll just have to trust my judgment. Bachman’s been one long experiment. And his usefulness to us has just about run out. Don’t trust him, whatever you do. He’s never really been one of us. He just didn’t know it.”

Chapter Four

He’d eaten, injected his insulin, and searched the house from top to bottom. For what it had been worth. The most interesting thing he’d found had been a sled in the basement and some harnesses hanging on the wall. No dogs, though. No outbuildings where any might be kept. So the sled was useless. Everything he’d found had been useless.

Interesting, but useless. He’d left her bedroom for last. He figured the longer he waited, the more deeply she’d rest. Now he stood at the foot of the fanciful bed and stared at her through the sheer red bed curtains. She lay uncovered, curled on her side, hugging her pillow. A gossamer bit of a nightgown hid very little. Her legs were not long, but so shapely he caught his eyes roaming them from her exposed slender hip to her small toes.

He blinked fast and forced himself to look somewhere else. He’d come to see if she had secrets hidden in her bedroom, hadn’t he? Well, he ought to be looking for them, not gawking at her perfect little body and wondering if she would wake up if he went over there for a better look. He hadn’t expected this. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe that she’d seem like a corpse as she rested, lying flat on her back, hands folded over her chest, not breathing, cold, white. Instead she looked just like any other woman. Relaxed. Warm. Breathing deeply and steadily. No, not like any other woman. Much better. Almost irresistibly innocent and vulnerable right now.

He swallowed hard and walked to the dresser against the stone wall. There were three black-and-white framed snapshots of Cuyler and another young woman in full flapper regalia. He didn’t like looking at her that way. He knew she’d been mortal when the photo had been taken. Vampires didn’t show up in photographs. But, honestly, he couldn’t spot a single difference in her. Mischievous grin, sparkling black eyes, innocence and sex appeal all wrapped up in the most appealing package imaginable.

He turned from the photos to examine the books. There were at least a hundred of them lining the shelves that stood against the wall, and as he scanned the titles, he noted they were all high fantasies. Sword and sorcery stories, with knights and dragons and magic. She was really into that stuff.

He gave up on the bedroom, because no matter what he chose to investigate, he found his gaze drawn back to her again and again. He couldn’t stay in that room with her. It was dangerous. God, could she weave spells even in her sleep?

He headed back downstairs into the dining room. He hadn’t examined the books on the shelf there, but as he did, he noted they were the same. Fantasy stories about other worlds where good always won over evil. Ironic.

Then he spotted a few that were different. He pulled one out, frowning. He grinned as he scanned the blurb. It was about vampires, of all things! He slipped the book back into its place, wishing he had time to read a little of it, see what the latest fiction writer had dreamed up and whether it compared with the real McCoy. But he had to catch a few hours’ sleep while he had the chance. From the looks of things, there wasn’t much else he could do right now.

She writhed in her bed, knowing all of this was just a dream, but dying of sheer, tormented pleasure all the same. He was kissing her. His mouth was warm, wet, eager as it moved from her fingertips over her wrist, along the inside of her arm and into the hollow of her elbow. He tickled the sensitive skin there with his tongue, then moved higher, up to her shoulder, over it to her neck. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, moaned softly. Her fingers buried themselves in his hair as he pushed the nightgown from her shoulders. Then he moved to her breasts, taking one in his hungry mouth, feeding on it like a starving man while he tormented the other with his fingers. His knee moved between her thighs, nudging them apart.

She touched his unclothed chest, raked her nails lightly over his nipples until he panted. Then her hand slipped lower, finding the smooth, rigid core of him, encircling it, squeezing, running her fingers over the tip.

He stared down at her, saying nothing, just watching. Then he closed his eyes, and she knew his need was almost painful. She opened to him, and he settled himself on top of her, nudged against her slick opening. She lifted her knees, desperate for him, for fulfillment. She needed this, needed him. No one else could fill the emptiness inside her. And she knew that he needed her just as desperately. Only she could soothe his wounded heart, erase the pain that darkened his soul, replace his anger and hatred with tenderness and love.

Her hands reached for him, to pull him to her…

But there was only air. Her eyes flew wide and she screamed in frustration, tugging at her hair. She punched the pillow, threw it, knocking half a dozen pewter figurines from the stand beside the bed, then pressed balled-up fists to her eyes and moaned like a wounded animal.

Her door banged open and he stood there, staring at her. His face was flushed, beads of sweat stood on his brow. His breathing was uneven. He looked at her, and when their eyes met she knew he’d had the same dream. Every image she remembered was reflected in his eyes. He must know it, because he averted them, as if that would stop her from seeing.

“You cried out. Are you okay?”

She drew three open-mouthed breaths, closed her eyes, and finally shook her head. Her palms rose to her face and she lowered her head. “I can’t take this anymore, Ramsey. I can’t. I’m gonna go stark raving—”

His weight made the mattress sink, and then his hands gripped her shoulders. “You think I don’t know? It’s driving me to the edge, too, Cuyler.”

She sobbed, and he drew her head to his chest. She felt the warm skin, the muscle, smelled him, wanted him. She slipped her arms around his waist and clung tighter.

“Dammit, Ramsey, why’d you come in here? You’re only making it worse. She turned her face to his chest, pressed her mouth to his skin and tasted it. She kneaded his shoulders with her nails as her pulse thundered in her temples.

One of his hands lowered to her waist. The other crept over her nape, up into her hair, and he tipped her head back. Then his mouth came to hers. She parted her lips, and his tongue dug into her, stroking deep and pulling back in an erotic pattern. She fell backward on the bed, and he came down on top of her, feeding on her mouth, crushing her body to his. She felt his arousal pressing hard between her legs, and she arched against it.

Then he stiffened and rolled off her. Sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her, he pushed both hands into his hair, clenching fistfuls of it, and swore in a voice rougher than tree bark.

“Damn you, Ramsey…” She rolled onto her side to face the other way and tried to stop the flow of frustrated tears.

“I can’t. I can’t do this.”

“Then why did you—”

“I didn’t mean to. Hell, Cuyler, I was still half-asleep, probably having the same dream you just had.”

He got up and paced away from the bed, the front of his jeans poking out like a tent.

“This is crazy. It’s crazy.”

She blinked, sitting up and fighting the tears into submission. “Maybe if we just did it, the dreams would stop…”

He turned slowly to face her and his eyes were hard, cold. “No.”

The finality in his tone cut to the quick, and for a second she thought she saw the reason. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you? You’re afraid I’ll take more than just your body.”

He faced her head-on, not flinching. “Wouldn’t you?”

Cuyler closed her eyes, grated her teeth. As much as she wanted him, who was to say she wouldn’t lose control of her deepest desires in the heights of passion? Bracing her shoulders, she forced herself to be honest. “Maybe I would. But I’d never hurt you, Ramsey. You have to know that. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

He searched her eyes for a long moment, and she felt as if her very soul were being scoured. “If you’d been capable of hurting me, I doubt I’d still be breathing. So I guess I have to believe that.”

“Then why—”

“Look, I told you, I can’t. It’d be unnatural for…” He stopped midsentence, maybe due to the shock and pain that must have shown on her face, or perhaps it was the involuntary cry she uttered. “That isn’t what I meant. Wait—”

“Go to hell, Ramsey!” She was on her feet and through the bathroom door almost before he could blink. She slammed it so hard she loosened the hinges, then she turned the locks.

She didn’t say a word to him when she came out, freshly showered, dressed in dark gray stirrup pants and a long, fuzzy, white sweater. She didn’t have to say anything. He could see the hurt in her eyes. He felt like an assassin’s bullet, like a cobra’s venom. He felt like the lowest, meanest form of being in the universe for blurting what he had. Worst of all, he hadn’t meant it. It had been his own voice of self-preservation trying to convince him to keep his hands off her. It had been desperation, searching for any excuse that would pull his hormones off the scent and tame his libido. Hell, he’d been holding himself back by believing she’d do him some kind of harm if he took her. But he hadn’t believed it. Not really, and once his conscious mind admitted that, he’d had to come up with another reason to abstain from the erotic feast he imagined every time he looked at her.

Unnatural. He’d blurted it and she’d looked as if he’d just kicked her right in the gut. It hadn’t been what he really thought. And that was kind of odd, when he considered it. Because it used to be what he really thought. When had his spin on things undergone such a radical change?

She plopped down onto the bed and leaned over to pull on slouchy white socks. He walked over and sat down beside her. The second his backside touched the mattress she shot to her feet as if she’d forgotten something in the bathroom.

“Cuyler, listen for a—” The whir of a battery-powered hair dryer cut him off.

Ramsey blew air through his teeth and went into the bathroom with her. She sat on the vanity’s padded stool, hair flying all over the place as she whipped the dryer through it. There was no mirror. He wanted to say something. He just wasn’t sure what. He didn’t want to make amends, exactly. Hell, she was still his enemy. The fact that he was burning up inside for her didn’t change that. But he’d hurt her. And despite his years of learning that vampires had no feelings, he regretted it.

Opening the cabinet, for want of anything better to do, he found his kit right where she’d left it. He unwrapped a fresh needle and took out a color-coded strip. With a quick, practiced flick of his wrist, he poked the forefinger of his left hand, squeezed a fat drop of blood out, and smeared it on the strip. Then he watched for the color change. He was moving like a robot, doing the things that came automatically, without really giving any thought to them.

He felt her gaze on him, heard the hair dryer flick off, and looked at her.

“Are you sick?” If her eyes got any bigger, they’d swallow him whole.

“Just checking the blood sugar.” He glanced at the strip again.

“And how is it?”

“Fine.” He put the used needle and strip back into the container. He’d dispose of them properly when he got back to civilization.

“Do you have to do that every day?”

He nodded as he held his finger under the cold water tap for a second or two.

“Has it ever been out of whack?”

“My sugar level? No. It’s always within normal range. I have a good doctor who keeps me in great shape. Hell, I’m the healthiest diabetic I know.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits as she studied him. “And who is this Marcus Welby of the nineties?”

“Just one of the best hematologists in the country.”

“Don’t tell me. A DPI staffer.”

Ramsey shrugged, wondering about her line of questioning, but relieved she’d apparently forgotten his earlier slam. “Yup. One of the perks of being an agent.”

“Kind of balances out against having to work around us animals, doesn’t it?” She got up and brushed past him, going back into the bedroom, yanking a pair of huge, fluffy slippers with unicorn heads on them from under her bed.

“Look, I didn’t mean that.”

“Sure you didn’t.” She lifted one foot, put a slipper on it. “Ramsey, if you didn’t mean it, then why are we both dressed and vertical?” She never even looked at him. Just hopped on the slippered foot and dressed the other one.

It came out before he could order it not to. “Because I know damned well it’ll do me in. Cuyler, once wouldn’t be enough. I’d be addicted, and I know, as sure as I’m standing here, that I could OD on you. You really think I could take you to bed and then take you in? If I had you once, I…”

He glanced up at her, saw her blinking rapidly, staring at him in something like childish wonder. “What?”

Her lips curved upward a little. “I just didn’t know you wanted me that much.”

And she shouldn’t have known. It didn’t do any good tipping his hand to the enemy. But he’d been honest, if nothing else. He was determined to take her in, and he knew he couldn’t do it if he ever made love to her. He lowered his head, refusing to meet her eyes. “I didn’t say I did—”

“Sure you did, Ramsey. Don’t try and take it back now.” She took his arm in her warm hand and tugged him along beside her back into the bathroom. “Come on downstairs after you’ve had your shower,” she told him softly. “I’ll get you some breakfast I don’t want you getting sick.”

Then she left him. And he had to wonder when he’d stopped seeing her as something abnormal, something frightening, and started seeing her as a woman with a few special needs. One of which he’d really love to fulfill for her.

Chapter Five

“I’ll keep this impersonal, Ramsey.”

“What?” He finished the whole-wheat muffin, washed it down with a gulp of remarkably good coffee.

“As long as you find the idea of laying a finger on me so frightening—tempting, but still frightening—I’ll try and make it as easy on you as I can. But we have to talk.”

“We talked last night. I don’t see that it’s helped matters any.” He wanted to correct her, tell her he didn’t find the idea frightening at all, anything but, in fact. But it was probably better to let her hurt a little, let her hate him. And he wasn’t satisfied with what he’d gotten out of her last night. He wanted to know more.

“I talked, you didn’t.”

He stiffened a little, watching her. “What do you want to know?”

“How you wound up working for DPI. When did they approach you, Ramsey?”

“My senior year at military school.” It was a lie, but he figured the less she knew about the truth, the better off he’d be.

“And don’t you find that a little odd? DPI’s a secret organization. Even most of the CIA’s top dogs don’t know about its existence. They obviously don’t make a habit of announcing their Presence, or drafting high school students. So why you?”

He took another sip of the coffee. “How do you know so much about DPI?”

“Their exploits are well documented. I probably know more about them than you do.”

“How? Where is all this documentation you keep mentioning? Where’s the proof that they’re guilty of all the crimes you accuse them of?”

She sighed and got up from her seat. Walking to the bookshelf he’d so closely examined last night, she pulled several titles from it, brought them to the table and set them in front of him.

The vampire books. He frowned up at her. “You call this proof? It’s fiction.”

“The world in general seems to believe that. Those of us who know better have good reasons to let them keep believing it.”

He glanced down again at the books, shaking his head in disbelief. He picked one up.

“You ought to read them, Ramsey. See the whole hunt through the eyes of the prey for a change, instead of the predator.”

He riffled the pages, scanned a few, felt his blood chill. “There’s classified information in here! Hell, this is a blow-by-blow account of a DPI investigation!”

She only shrugged. “Like I said, the world thinks it’s fiction.”

He slammed the book down on the table and stood, facing the bookshelves. “What about the rest of them?”

She smiled slightly, lifted her eyebrows. “What, my fairy stories? Who knows?” She turned to a shelf lined with pewter figurines, picked up a winged dragon and lovingly stroked its fierce-looking head. “I like to think they could be real, that there could be some other world where fairies and magic exist. I mean, why not? Vampires are real, and most people consider us fantasy.”

He should be angry. He had been for all too brief a time. Why, then, was he feeling so enchanted all of a sudden? Couldn’t DPI have sent him after a monster? Why the hell did they have to pick a beautiful pixie who believed in fairy tales? He cleared his throat and tried to focus on business.

“Does DPI know about these books?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Are you going to tell them?” She looked at him with those huge dark eyes, all innocence and beauty.

He lowered his head. “I have to, Cuyler.”

She was standing in front of him before he knew she’d moved. Her small hand lifted his chin a little, and she stared up into his eyes. “Why are you so dedicated to them? What did we ever do to you to make you hate us so much?”

He only shook his head. He couldn’t tell her. It was bad enough that these traitorous feelings for her assaulted him with every breath he drew. His betrayal stung, and if he spent much more time with her, it would be complete.

“Tell me about your childhood, Ramsey. What was your family like?”

He stiffened. Was she reading something in his eyes, his thoughts? “There’s not much to tell. I was my mother’s only child. Never knew my father.”

She lowered her head, walked slowly away from him, then reached for a battery-powered boom box on a low shelf. She pushed a button and soft, hauntingly beautiful music filled the room. A woman’s voice, like a gossamer strand wavering in a slight breeze, singing in what sounded like Gaelic. New Age stuff.

Cuyler closed her eyes for a second, listening. Softly, she prompted him. “Tell me about your mother.”

Hot blades ran through his chest. “She died when I was twelve.” He turned his back to her, walking into the front room and sitting down in a chair near the fireplace. He stared into the flames, remembering.

Her hands closed on his shoulders. “She was all you had, and you lost her. No wonder I see so much pain in your eyes.”

He said nothing, and tried not to feel her soothing touch as she began a rhythmic massage.

“How did she die?”

“I don’t remember.” His eyes wanted to close. He hadn’t slept much, and when he did, he didn’t rest. He only dreamed about making frantic, hot, imaginative love to Cuyler.

“Why are you lying to me, Ramsey?”

Her fingers kneaded the sides of his neck. He let his head fall sideways to give her more access. “I’m not going to talk to you about my mother,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction. He sighed as the image of her danced through his memory. “She was beautiful, all carrot-colored curls and pale blue eyes. And she’d sing… Sometimes, right before I fell asleep at night, I can still hear her singing to me. Wild Irish Rose, that was her favorite.” For a few seconds his mother’s lilting voice played in his memory. Then he felt Cuyler’s lips on his head. She bent and pressed her cheek to his, and he felt the dampness on her skin.

“I’d take the pain away, if I knew how.”

“I know you would.” Why did he say that? And why did it sound so true? He swallowed and tried to regain his strength. “We all have pain, Cuyler. Just part of life. You must have hurt, too, when you lost your sister.”

She sniffed, and her hands slid down his chest to rest near his heart. “For a while I wanted to die. Then I wanted vengeance. I thought about hunting down every man involved in that raid. But it wouldn’t have eased the pain. It wouldn’t have brought Cindy back.”

“Might have stopped them from snuffing out another life, though.”

She straightened, came around the chair and knelt in front of him. He shouldn’t have been surprised at the tears on her cheeks, but he was. Her kind wasn’t supposed to have human emotions, wasn’t supposed to care. Wasn’t that what he’d been taught? And hadn’t that particular bit of DPI doctrine been losing validity with every second he’d spent near Cuyler?

“What happened to you then?”

“A military school. Some benevolent organization foot the bill. I lived there, stayed with relatives who’d rather not have had me during vacations. Then the DPI academy, for training.”

“And indoctrination.”

He shook his head slowly, staring down into her beautiful face. “It wasn’t like that.”

But it was. Since he’d been twelve years old, he’d been educated under the organization’s watchful eye, beginning with the debriefing right after his mother’s murder. They were the ones who’d paid for his education, who’d provided a private tutor to teach him the things he wouldn’t learn in any school. He’d been filled with hatred already, and that hatred found validation in his secret lessons, the ones he’d been warned not to talk about. He supposed now, that they’d seen him as the perfect candidate. He’d had a score to settle. He’d been seeking vengeance all his life. They’d known that, and offered him the means to achieve it.

And now he was sitting here with one of those he’d spent his life hating. He was sitting here wanting her with every cell in his body, talking to her like a cherished friend, finding a kind of understanding he’d never expected shining from her teary eyes.

But it was all a lie. It had to be.

“I don’t want to be here with you, Cuyler. You’re too damned convincing.” He pushed her hands away from him and got to his feet. Leaning against the hearth, he closed his eyes.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Lifting his head, he looked down at her, still kneeling in front of the chair. “My mother was killed by a vampire. One of you. Someone that feeds on the innocent without a hint of remorse. A killer.” He hoped his words would rekindle the hatred in his soul, reinforce his resistance to Cuyler and her wiles.

Her eyes widened and for a moment she only stared at him in stunned silence. Finally she shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”

“You’re all the same.” He looked away from her. Dammit, he couldn’t spout DPI policy while he was looking into those eyes. “So now you know. Nothing you can say is going to change it. You can pretend to be just like us all you want, Cuyler, but I know what you are. And I’ll never stop hating you.”

She rose slowly, anger beginning to simmer in her eyes. “You’re lying. You don’t hate me. If anything, you hate yourself for not being able to—”

He lifted a hand, cutting her off. “Don’t bother. You’re only trying to convince yourself.”

“But it’s so stupid! Ramsey, one of your kind murdered my sister and pumped enough bullets through my body to kill an elephant. But I don’t hate you for it. I don’t lump all mortals in with the few truly evil ones. I don’t go out hunting them down like animals to exact vengeance.”

“Don’t you?”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her. “How can you ask me that?”

God, the hurt in her eyes… He looked at the floor, at the bean-bag, at the fire. Anything but at that pain he’d caused. “Look, you got what you wanted. We’ve talked. Do you think we can get the hell out of here now?”

She stood so still, stunned maybe. “I don’t have what I wanted. I still don’t know why there’s this connection between us. I still don’t know what misguided force makes me give a damn about a man like you.”

“Let’s chalk it up to physical attraction and call it even.”

“It’s more than that and you know it!”

He faced her, forced his expression to remain hard as stone. “Maybe for you it is, but not for me, Cuyler.” He strode to the stairway, started up it. “I’m packing my things. You line up whatever means of transportation got us here, and have it ready.”

“I won’t.”

He never broke his stride. “Then I’ll go on foot.”

“I won’t let you!” She came up the stairs behind him.

“You have to sleep sometime, Cuyler. One way or another, I’m out of here.” He went into the bedroom, slammed the door and turned the lock. He couldn’t look at her, listen to her, for one more second or he’d break. It was all a game, some mind game she was playing to win his trust, and it had been working all too well. Until he’d brought the memory of his mother’s death back to burning life, anyway. Damn Cuyler for making him talk about his mother, for stirring up that old pain, and especially for acting as if she cared. Damn her.

Chapter Six

Like a potent corrosive, his rejection burned through her. But he didn’t hate her. She knew better. It was in his eyes, in his voice. She was so attuned to his feelings that it was impossible to be fooled by his stubborn resistance. He liked her, in spite of his determination not to. He wanted her, though it went against everything he’d ever believed in. But she also knew that the conflicting emotions were slowly tearing his soul apart. She sensed his every emotion, even the ones he denied; frustration, confusion, anger, desire. Bringing him here, forcing him to see her as she was, instead of as DPI had painted her, was the same as torturing him. It was cruel to put him through this, especially now that she knew where his hatred originated. To see Cuyler as a woman and not a monster was, in Ramsey’s mind, to betray his mother. To side with her murderer.

Maybe she ought to just take him back, let him go.

She twisted the doorknob, freeing the lock with her mind the way Rhiannon had taught her. Ramsey was asleep. He reclined on the bed, his back against the headboard, his head cocked to one side until his ear touched his shoulder. He looked as if he’d sat down there with no intention of going to sleep.

Cuyler walked softly to him. Even in sleep, he seemed strained. A slight frown puckered his brows. His lips were tight. His pain showed in his face, a pain he’d felt for a very long time. For a moment, as she looked at him there, she saw the image of the boy he’d been. A boy whose innocence and mischief had been stolen from him along with his mother. A boy forced to become a man before his time, a man who’d forgotten how to love.

She stared at him, sending silent, soothing messages from her mind to his. She focused her energy on relaxing him into a deeper sleep and chasing his worries from his mind the way an autumn wind chases fallen leaves. Then she leaned closer, clasping his sturdy shoulders and easing him lower until his head rested on the soft pillows and his back wasn’t bent so severely. She tugged a blanket from the foot of the bed to cover him. Then she bent and brushed her lips across his, a whisper of a kiss.

When she straightened away from him, his hand reached toward her. He whispered her name.

She ran a hand over his cheek, into his hair. “I’m here. Rest now. Just rest.”

His body relaxed again, and he sank back into his deep slumber. Cuyler sighed softly, shaking her head in remorse. She couldn’t let him go. Not now. DPI had targeted Ramsey for their vile organization from the second his mother had been killed, she was sure of it. They must have known of his anger, his fury and feelings of helplessness. The guilt even a boy of that age would suffer; that he hadn’t been there, hadn’t been able to help her. Those ruthless men had stoked the fire of Ramsey’s anger, built it into the blazing inferno that was rapidly devouring his soul. They were using a young boy’s pain as a weapon against Cuyler and her kind. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that they intended to use it against Ramsey, as well. DPI would see both of them destroyed unless she could find a way to fight them.

She understood so much more now. But still not enough. There was no explanation for the connection between her and Ramsey. She sensed the solution to all of this hinged on her discovering the cause of that emotional, mental link. And until she did that, despite the pain it caused him, she had to keep Ramsey here, with her.

Ramsey trudged through the snow, half-blinded by the brilliant sun flashing from its pristine surface into his eyes. He had to find a way out of this mess. He was desperate, and this was his last-ditch effort. There had to be some means of transportation, somewhere. A plane, a snowmobile, something. Clever as she was, Cuyler had probably hidden it a distance from the house to keep him from escaping. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of the possibility sooner.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He supposed the stress and sleepless nights were beginning to wear on him. It was only when he woke to see bright winter sunlight slanting through the window that he’d realized just how tired he’d been. Oddly, he felt rested, refreshed even. No dreams, for a change.

But that wasn’t right, was it? There had been dreams, just not the usual wildly erotic ones that left him exhausted. He’d dreamed of Cuyler. She’d been leaning over the bed, touching his face, stroking his hair and whispering softly to him. Her touch had been soothing, her voice like a salve on his oldest wounds. He hadn’t wanted her to leave.

He stopped walking and closed his eyes as a shaft of pain bisected his chest. There’d been a blanket over him when he woke. He didn’t remember putting it there. Had Cuyler really come to stand over him, touched him that way, whispered so lovingly, so gently, as he’d slept?

She’d kissed him. Her soft, moist mouth had touched his for the barest instant, and he’d wanted to pull her into his arms, into his bed. He’d wanted to feel her smiling lips caress every inch of him, and then he’d wanted to do the same to her. The hell with the danger that she might go too far. The hell with the fact that they were sworn enemies. He wanted her with a passion above and beyond all of that. Above and beyond everything.

He opened his eyes and drew a deep breath, steadying himself. He had to get away from her. She was bewitching him, using her mental powers to make him forget his life’s work, driving him so with desire he’d gladly exchange his every principle for a night in her arms. He was in danger with her, and he had to get out or lose his mind.

But now that he had, he almost wished he hadn’t. He’d trudged a couple of miles, he figured, and the scenery hadn’t changed in the least. Nothing but white. No trees. No vegetation of any kind. Hardly any hills. He was pretty sure what he was looking at could be described as tundra. He hoped to God he found some form of aid soon. He wasn’t exactly dressed for long periods of exposure. Only thin rubbers separated his shoes from the hard-packed snow. His ski jacket was hardly sufficient, and he didn’t even have a hat with him. The wind whipped hard out here with nothing to break its progress.

He walked a little farther, then frowned and tilted his head. What was that sound? A motor of some sort growled in the distance. He turned slowly, trying to gauge the source, then realization dawned. A snowmobile. No, more than one. And the sound came from the direction of the house, though he couldn’t see it anymore. His first thought was that Cuyler was coming after him, using a machine she’d had hidden somewhere.

But that thought was quickly banished. It was still daylight. She wouldn’t even be awake yet.

He blinked slowly as that thought sunk in. She wouldn’t be awake. She’d be lying in her bed, behind unlocked doors, thinking she was completely safe up here in the middle of nowhere.

The motors died abruptly. They didn’t fade away, but simply cut out. The snowmobiles had stopped, and as near as he could guess, they’d stopped near the house. Someone was there, and with a churning in his gut, Ramsey thought he could guess who.

It made no sense to think DPI had somehow tracked them here. But it made less sense to think some harmless folks had just decided to take a snowmobile ride north of the Arctic circle and happened upon her house. Cuyler was there, alone and completely helpless. Her stories of torture and murder were utter fabrications. He knew that. But they were echoing through his soul all the same as Ramsey started walking back the way he’d come. Then he started running.

He followed his own tracks for several yards, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the biting wind. But the tracks got harder and harder to see as he went. He frowned hard, and whispered a little prayer they wouldn’t disappear entirely before the house came into view. Damn, he’d been an idiot not to take windblown snow into account. It had been filling his tracks behind him all the way out here.

And then he couldn’t see them at all. Not even the tiny depressions he’d been following this far. Dammit to hell, he couldn’t see the house. Everything looked the same in every direction. The wind was blowing harder, its bite sharper with every gust. It would be dark soon, and colder than ever. He tried not to think about what might be happening in the house right now, but images danced through his thoughts anyway. Cuyler’s warnings about DPI’s tactics rang in his ears, no matter how he tried to tune them out. He hadn’t believed her. He’d told himself she was just trying to convince him not to take her in. But he now found himself wondering if there was even the slightest chance of truth in her horror stories. He didn’t want to believe that, wouldn’t let himself believe it. But the idea that anyone might deliberately hurt her…

Why the hell did it drive him to the brink of madness to consider it? Why?

The motor sounds came to life again. He was closer. He tried to run faster, but the frigid air burned his lungs and throat. They were moving, fast, in the opposite direction.

“Ah, God, no…” He tried for more speed, but he was out of breath. His muscles screamed in protest. His legs gave out just as the house came into view, and he dropped to his knees in the snow, scanning the horizon where the sun hovered, about to set.

And then he spotted them. Three snowmobiles zipping over the tundra in the distance. One pulled something behind it. Something long and narrow that looked like a box. He groaned in anguish as they moved out of sight.

He wasn’t sure how long he knelt there. Emotions raced through him, so potent and confusing that he felt dizzy. Hadn’t he been determined to take Cuyler in himself? Hadn’t he vowed that he’d never stop hating her and everyone like her for what they’d done to his mother?

Why, for God’s sake, was he racked with guilt that he hadn’t been there to protect her? The frustration was as bad as what had consumed him as a result of not having been there to protect his mother. Why? Why was he kneeling in the snow, burning inside with the urge to go after them, to somehow get her away from them? He cursed softly at the thought of riding in like some knight on a charger to rescue his damsel from villains. It wasn’t like that. She was the villain of this piece.

Wasn’t she?

He got to his feet and made his way back to the house, not even bothering to stomp the snow from his shoes as he ran through it and up to her bedroom, already knowing he wouldn’t find her there.

The empty bed was rumpled, the drawers and closet gaping wide, clothes strewn everywhere. When he went back downstairs, he found more of the same. The place had been searched, hurriedly and recklessly, before they’d taken her away. Her pewter figurines lay strewn everywhere. Her crystals had tumbled helter-skelter to the floor. The bookshelves had been emptied, her precious fairy-tale stories trampled beneath uncaring feet.

He bent to pick up the first of the vampire books she’d shown him, and bit his lip against the burning in his throat and eyes.

He couldn’t hope to hike out of here tonight. He’d die of exposure before he reached help, and then Cuyler would be on her own. He had to wait, though it would damn near kill him to do it. At first light, he’d go, with as many provisions as he could carry. He’d get out of here, somehow. And he’d find her.

After that, he didn’t have a clue what he’d do.

For now, though, he had to sit tight and await the cold dawn. He sank into a chair, weak from turmoil, and opened the book in his hands.

Chapter Seven

It took him two hours to read the entire book. And Cuyler had been right. The entirety of one of DPI’s most disastrous investigations had been documented there, from the viewpoint of its subjects. It was quite a different take on things from the one in the official records. Oh, the facts were the same, but DPI’s methods and motivations and the characteristics of the subjects of that investigation, couldn’t have differed more. Ramsey had to believe it was all propaganda. Because if it were true…

He groaned in undisguised agony. If it were true, then Cuyler had been right about the torture involved in DPI’s research. Even several deaths, all detailed here in these pages.

But it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

He knew, though, that it very well could be. He’d never been involved in the research end of things, never actually witnessed the so-called harmless studies performed on the subjects. He wasn’t a scientist. And while he’d been told that the prisoners brought in would be kept for a week or two and then released, unharmed, he’d never actually seen that happen, either.

DPI believed Cuyler and her kind to be no better than animals. Beings without emotions, incapable of caring. Heartless, soulless beasts who preyed on the innocent with no sense of remorse. That much he knew. And it wasn’t so farfetched to think that an organization who believed that about a group might want to annihilate that group. Was it? So why hadn’t he known about it? And would it have made a difference to him if he had?

Up until a few days ago he’d believed everything DPI said about the undead. And he’d had a personal vendetta, to boot. But not against Cuyler. Everything he’d ever believed had been a lie, at least where she was concerned.

He got up, intending to go to the little kitchen and begin packing supplies for his trek out. He was no longer so certain he could wait for dawn to break. There was a new urgency eating at his soul. He had to get to her, just to prove to himself that she was all right and not being subjected to the torments described in the book. With every second that passed, those scenes embedded themselves more deeply in his mind, only the victim wore Cuyler’s beautiful face.

He stopped halfway to the kitchen, stiffening at the scraping sounds coming from the front door.

“Cuyler?” Hope surged in his chest as he sprinted and yanked the door open.

A big, furry dog stood there, staring at him. It barked twice when he only stared back in confusion. Where the hell had it come from? More barking followed, and he looked up in amazement to see three other dogs, identical to the first, sitting patiently in the snow. Huskies, all of them. Silvery fur and ice blue eyes. Magnificent, wide chests.

Sled dogs?

The one at the door barked again. Ramsey frowned, thinking of the sled and harnesses he’d seen in the basement. Was this how Cuyler had brought him here? Were these dogs hers? But what were they doing here now? Where had they been?

It didn’t matter. He saw the means to get out of there, and he knew he had to take it. Leaving the door wide, he ran into the basement and hauled the awkward sled up the stairs. He dragged it outside, and went back for the harnesses, praying he could figure out how to put them on properly, hoping the dogs would allow it.

Hell, he didn’t know what good it would do. He had no idea which way to go, even with transportation.

When he brought the harnesses outside, the dogs surrounded him, barking excitedly, tails wagging. They seemed impatient as he stretched the straps out, trying to see which way they went. But they stood motionless when he draped the things around them, and he knew they were used to this procedure.

Once he got them hooked to the sled, he ran back inside long enough to get his coat. That was all. His thoughts of bringing provisions had fled. All that remained was his urgent need to get to Cuyler, to make sure she was all right.

He stood on the back of the sled and picked up the reins. The dogs were off like a shot the minute his feet touched the narrow platform, nearly jarring him off into the snow. He didn’t try to guide them. They seemed to know exactly where they were going. All Ramsey could do was hang on and pray that they really did know.

He wasn’t sure his prayers were answered until several hours later when the dogs stopped and stood barking like a raucous group of soldiers celebrating victory. A huge, barnlike structure stood in the middle of the perfectly flat, snowy plain. As Ramsey tried to adjust to the oddness of finding it here, a gruff voice called out to him.

“I expect you’ll be wanting to fly out of here, after that other plane.”

Ramsey turned and gave his head a shake. A grizzled old man, his face completely obliterated by a massive gray beard, came from the barn and bent to expertly release the dogs from their harnesses.

“Who are you?”

“Just call me Kirkland. Did they take Miss Jade?”

“How do you—”

“Miss Jade, she told me there might come some men someday to try and take her. Warned me not to tell a soul about her house out there. And I never did.” His tone suggested he thought Ramsey might have.

He couldn’t believe this old man knew the truth about Cuyler couldn’t imagine her entrusting him with it. “Did she tell you why they would want to?”

“Nope. And I never asked. Ain’t my business.” He slung the harnesses over his shoulder, absently stroking the heads of the dogs who milled and danced around his legs. “Knew there was trouble, though, soon as I spotted that other plane. Miss Jade’s a good woman. Kind of heart. Nursed one o‘ my dogs after he’d tangled with a wolf. Took care of him as if he’d been her own. Even sat up all night with him, didn’t she, Duke?” He ruffled the fur of the dog in question before turning his attention back to Ramsey. “So are you gonna help her?”

Ramsey could only nod mutely.

“Good, then.” He walked into the barn and Ramsey followed, watching him hang the harnesses on the wall. A small plane sat like a giant bird at rest, taking up most of the space. The old man tugged a large, sliding door and Ramsey helped him open it.

“I don’t get this. What are you doing up here?” Ramsey followed him, getting into the plane behind him. He ducked his head and settled into the seat beside Kirkland in the cockpit.

“Livin‘, mostly. I fly folks in and out for hunting and such. Transport supplies for the Inuit village a few miles off.” He slanted a sideways glance at Ramsey. “Best buckle up. Takeoffs are rough.”

“Do you know where they went?”

The old man nodded, but didn’t say a word as the engines came to life and the craft rolled slowly out of the barn.

“Where is he?” The man blew his offensive tobacco smoke into her face, and Cuyler turned her head as much as she could. It wasn’t much.

She was handcuffed to a chair in what she took to be a bedroom, with three cruel faces watching her every move. Ordinarily she’d have simply snapped free of the cuffs, knocked the men on their arrogant backsides, and made her escape. Unfortunately she’d had the extreme displeasure of proving their newly developed tranquilizer did, indeed, work. She’d been injected just as she’d begun to rouse with the sunset. And now she was as weak as a mortal. A tired mortal. Her mind was murky at best.

Not so murky that she couldn’t wonder about Ramsey, though. At first she’d thought he might have been involved in her capture. The relief that filled her when they’d begun asking her for his whereabouts had made her weaker than she already was.

“Miss Jade, don’t make us resort to drastic measures.” The fat, white-haired man had cruel eyes, like two small blue buttons on his face. Emotionless, snake’s eyes. “We all know how sensitive your kind is to physical pain. Don’t make us hurt you.”

When she averted her face, he caught her chin and forced her to look at him. Another gentle puff of smoke in her face. She coughed.

“Tell me where Bachman is.”

“I told you already, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was alone in the house.”

The man—the others called him Fuller—smiled grimly and shook his head. “His suitcase was there. We know he was with you.”

“I stole it,” she lied. “He’d been hounding me for months. I thought I might find out why if I took his things and went through them.” She tried to keep her chin up, defiantly. She forced her sagging spine stiffer. She had to be strong, but she couldn’t help but wonder where Ramsey had gone. Maybe the dogs had come early. Maybe he’d found them and run away from her while she’d slept. God, she hoped that was the case. She’d arranged with old Kirkland to turn the dogs loose on the third day, knowing they’d make a beeline for her home. If Ramsey found them, if he knew how to use them, he’d be okay. They knew the way to Kirkland’s hangar as well as they knew each other.

Fuller turned to the thin, dark one. “What do you think of that, Whaley?”

“I think she’s lying.”

“I’m not.” She blinked and tried to think of a way to convince them, but only came up blank. “Why are you after him, anyway? I thought he was one of you.”

“So did he—” Whaley began, but his reply was cut off by a swift look from Fuller.

The third man sat in a chair, silent. He didn’t appear to have the same stomach for abuse his two colleagues shared.

“You’re going to have to tell us, Miss Jade. We can’t go back to headquarters without him.”

She sagged inwardly. They were taking her there. And if they did, she’d die. She could have called mentally, begged others of her kind to come to her aid. But with this tranquilizer in DPI’s arsenal, any who tried to help her might end up sharing her fate. She didn’t want to die with that on her conscience. God, if only she knew Ramsey was all right.

Fuller’s hand disappeared into his pocket. It came out with a big, shiny pair of pliers. He opened and closed their ridged teeth slowly, right in front of her face. Then he handed them to Whaley, who moved around behind her.

“Begin with the little finger of her left hand,” Fuller said matter-of-factly. “Crush it.”

She felt the cold instrument touch her finger. “Wait! All right. All right, I’ll tell you the truth.”

The tool moved away from her hand. Fuller looked down at her, smiling grimly. “That’s more like it. Where is he?”

Kirkland brought the plane in expertly at a small airport.

“This is it? This is where they landed?”

“Nope.”

Ramsey drew a sharp breath and waited. Kirkland had already explained that he’d been able to track the other plane with the sonar equipment back at his hangar. But the guy was a man of few words.

“Landed at Loring, not too far off. Couldn’t very well take you to an air force base now, could I?”

Grating his teeth, Ramsey prayed for patience, and time. He kept telling himself that Cuyler was fine. They wouldn’t hurt her. But more and more, his own voice of reason sounded like a liar.

Kirkland opened the hatch and Ramsey jumped to the ground. He took a look around, but apart from the runways and hangars and small planes, there was nothing to give him a clue. “Where the hell are we, Kirkland?”

“Northern part of Maine.”

Northern Maine? Why the hell would they bring her here? Why not go straight on to White Plains? He scanned the place, sifting his mind for answers.

“Nearest city’s Limestone,” Kirkland continued. “Caribou’s a little farther. You got any idea where they took her?”

“Limestone?” He almost sagged in relief. DPI had safehouses scattered all over the country, kept them at their agents’ disposal. If an operative got into trouble, he could take refuge at one of them. They had security systems like Fort Knox, and direct phone and computer links to headquarters. Like the obedient, devoted agent he’d always been, Ramsey had memorized the addresses of every safehouse in the northeast. There was one just past Limestone.

He didn’t know why they’d have taken her there. Capturing her had been their goal, and now that they’d done that, what could they have to gain by delaying their return?

Unless she wasn’t their only goal? Maybe there was something else, something here, that they were after.

Ramsey faced the grizzled man beside him. “I need a car.”

Chapter Eight

It was ridiculous to be going about it this way. He worked for DPI. He was one of them. He could punch in the code, walk right through the gates, up to the front door, and demand to see the prisoner.

But something held him back, made him cautious. Crazy, vague suspicions clouded his mind. He’d put them to rest when he saw that she was okay, but until then, he figured he’d be better off erring on the side of caution.

He’d had to argue with Kirkland to get him to stay behind. Hell, the guy had no idea what he’d be getting into if he came along. DPI was big. Powerful. It was dangerous to get on the wrong side of them. It was bad enough Kirkland was going to make the call.

Vaguely, she heard the phone and the low muttering from beyond the closed bedroom door. Two of the men remained with her. One, the one called Fuller, had gone out to answer it. Seconds later, he returned.

“We’ve got him.”

Whaley rose from where he’d been comfy on the bed. “Bachman?”

Fuller nodded. “That was the hospital in Caribou. Seems Bachman was brought in, unconscious. They found this number on him.”

Cuyler bit her lip to keep from gasping. God, what had happened to Ramsey?

“What the hell was he doing in Caribou?” Whaley asked.

“Probably trying to make his way here, to the safehouse. I still think you guys are wrong about him.” That was Stiles, the most gentle of the three. “How bad is he?”

“Doesn’t look like he’ll make it through the night. We’d better get over there.”

Pain tore through her heart. Dying? Ramsey was dying? She squeezed her eyes tighter to stop the tears that burned in them.

“What about her?”

Fuller glanced at Stiles, who stood unspeaking in the corner. “Can you handle her?”

The pale man nodded.

“She gets too lively, just give her another shot. We’ll call in from the hospital.”

She didn’t lift her head as the two walked out. Just let it hang. She’d be damned if she’d give them any reason to inject her with more of that awful, debilitating drug.

Ramsey crouched behind a shrub near the gate and waited. Two men came out of the house. Their car started up, headlights came on, and he cringed lower. An electronic hum, a metallic groan, and the gates swung open. The car rolled through, and they began to close again.

He watched the car accelerate as soon as it hit the road. The gates were still closing. Taillights disappeared around a bend, and Ramsey lunged to his feet and dove. The metal scraped his sides as he threw himself in, then banged solidly as his body hit the ground. Closing his eyes, he drew three steadying breaths. Night birds slowly resumed their nightly serenade. A few seconds later, frogs joined in. The wind rustled the trees again. Other than that, Ramsey heard nothing. He got to his feet, brushed himself off, and started toward the house.

The numbered panel beside the door stared at him, the System Armed light glaring like an evil eye. If they’d changed the entry code and he punched in the wrong numbers, an alarm would tell anyone inside of his presence. And he was certain there was still someone inside. They wouldn’t leave Cuyler unguarded.

His tongue darted out to moisten dry lips, and he tasted the sweat on his upper lip. There was no other way. If he opened a window or door without entering the code, the alarm would sound anyway. His hand rose slowly, hovering at the panel. He wiggled his fingers, grated his teeth, and entered the four-digit code he’d committed to memory.

The red light blinked out. A green one came on instead.

Ramsey pressed his ear to the door, listening. Only silence came from within. He gripped the knob and his hand slipped on its surface when he tried to turn it. Rubbing his palm against his pant leg, he tried again.

The door opened without a creak, and Ramsey ducked inside, closing it quickly and quietly behind him. He didn’t hesitate, but went directly to the staircase and up it, straining every cell in his body to be quiet.

At the top, he froze as heavy footsteps sounded. Pressing his back to the wall, he waited and watched. A door opened down the hall. In the muted light he recognized the man who emerged. Ron Stiles. Ramsey had worked with him before. He’d personally thought the guy lacked the grit to be with DPI. Tonight, though, he was secretly relieved the mild-mannered agent was the one guarding Cuyler.

Stiles crossed the hall and ducked into a bathroom, never once glancing Ramsey’s way. When the door closed, Ramsey hurried to the room Stiles had exited and slipped inside.

Cuyler sat in a hard chair, her arms pulled severely behind her. Her head leaned forward unnaturally. She wasn’t moving, and Ramsey felt his pulse skid to a stop. Dropping to his knees in front of her, he caught her chin and lifted it.

Her eyes were tear-swollen and closed. A vivid purple bruise marred her cheek, and her lower lip was crusted with dried blood. He just stared at her, unable to form words.

Weakly, she tugged her chin away from his hand. “Leave me alone,” she murmured. “Please, just leave me alone.”

“Cuyler…”

Her eyes opened, but they were unfocused. She stared at him from somewhere behind that drugged haze. “Ramsey?”

The toilet across the hall flushed and a second later steps came toward him. Ramsey fell back a few steps, so he’d be behind the door when it opened. Stiles came inside.

“If you twitch, I’ll have to shoot you, Ron.” Big words, he thought, for a man with no gun.

Stiles’s narrow back stiffened, but he didn’t move. His hands rose slowly on either side of his head. “Bachman? I thought you were—

“Never mind what you thought.” Ramsey came closer, reached around Stiles and took his side arm. “Now get me the key to the handcuffs. Quick.” He prodded the man’s back with his own gun, glad Stiles had fallen for the bluff.

Stiles nodded hard, dipped into his pants pocket and brought out the key. He held it up, and Ramsey prodded him again. “Get those cuffs off her.”

“Damn.”

“Do it!”

Stiles moved slowly around to the back of Cuyler’s chair, bent down and unlocked the cuffs. He stood again, dangling them from one crooked finger. “I didn’t believe Fuller when he said you’d turn on us.” He shook his head. “Guess he was right.”

Ramsey moved forward, keeping the gun leveled on his former colleague. “Why did he think that?”

Stiles just shook his head. “I’m not saying any more. Kill me if you have to.”

“Okay, if I have to.” Ramsey nodded toward the man. “Snap one of those cuffs to your wrist, Stiles.” He waited while the other man complied. “Good. Now turn around, hands behind your back. Come on, you know the drill.” Stiles turned. “On your knees.” When he complied, Ramsey moved quickly to slip one cuff through the foot of the bed, around the frame, and then snapped it around Stiles’s other hand.

“You won’t get far, Bachman. Fuller and Whaley will be back here just as soon as—”

“Fuller?” Ramsey gave his head a shake, stuffing the automatic into his waistband. Fuller was his immediate superior, a man he’d trusted. And Whaley was the crudest’s.o.b. ever to walk the planet.

Ramsey went around in front of Cuyler again, kneeling. She sat limply, rubbing her wrists. Ramsey’s anger grew when he saw the way the cuffs had cut into her flesh. He grew still more angry when she lifted her head to look into his eyes and he saw the pain in hers.

“Which one of you did this to her, Stiles?”

Stiles only glared at him and shook his head.

“And why, for God’s sake? It’s pretty obvious the tranquilizer works. Why’d they have to hit her?”

Stiles swore viciously. “She wouldn’t tell us where you were. You’d think she was human the way you’re carrying on. Hell, Bachman, she’s only one of them. An animal, like the rest.” At Ramsey’s glare, he lowered his head. “I forgot, though. You are, too, aren’t you? Just like them.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Ramsey rose, towering over the man on the floor, his fists opening and closing at his sides.

Stiles clamped his jaw and refused to say another word. Ramsey turned back to Cuyler, bent over her, gripping her shoulders. “Can you stand?”

She nodded, and tried to rise to her feet, only to have her knees buckle as she collapsed against him. Ramsey caught her, slipped one hand beneath her legs and lifted her. He carried her across the hall and into the bathroom. Propping her against the sink, he ran cold water onto a washcloth. Carefully, he bathed her bruised face, her swollen eyes. He dabbed the blood from her lip.

“Here, hold this to that bruise and I’ll look for something to put on your wrists.”

She took it, but shook her head. “We have to get out of here, Ramsey. Those other two…” Her words trailed off and she swayed a little.

Ramsey found a tube of ointment and some bandages in the cabinet and stuffed them into his pocket. Then he bent to scoop her up again. He carried her down the stairs, toward the front door.

Cuyler’s eyes had fallen closed again. The damned drug. And God only knew what else they’d done to her. His fury was beyond anything he’d felt in his life. The closest he’d come was the rage he’d felt when his own mother had been murdered. But that had been a child’s rage. It didn’t compare to the full-blown tempest whirling inside him now. He wanted to kill the DPI bastards for hurting her this way.

He carried her out into the chilly autumn night, marveling at the way her small body fit in his arms. He cradled her to his chest as if she were something precious. Hell, she was! Why was that so hard for him to admit? Cuyler was special, no matter what else she might be, and she didn’t deserve what they’d done to her.

His shoes ground over gravel as he ran to the gate, opening it. He didn’t care that it set off alarms inside…it didn’t matter now.

Ramsey reached the twisting, narrow road and started up the opposite direction from the one Whaley and Fuller had gone. The car sat off the roadside where he’d left it, surrounded by scraggly brush and branches. He managed to open the passenger door with one hand and lower Cuyler to the seat. He forced his hands to remain steady as he snapped the safety belt around her, but it wasn’t easy. She looked bad, and he had no idea what to do for her. She might be dying for all he knew.

Gently he pushed her hair out of her eyes. Why had he left her the way he had? Why the hell hadn’t he been there when those bastards had shown up? Why hadn’t he believed what she’d told him about DPI?

Her eyes opened, mere slits fringed by damp black lashes. “Hurry.”

Nodding, he slammed her door and raced around to the driver’s side. Seconds later the car reversed out of its hiding place and onto the road. Grinding gears in his haste, Ramsey shifted, and spun tires as they sped away from the safehouse, away from DPI, away from everything Ramsey had known in his life.

Ron Stiles twisted and squirmed until he managed to work the extra key out of his back pocket. It took some maneuvering to fit it into the lock without being able to see what he was doing, but he did it. The cuffs sprang free and he automatically brought his hands around in front of him and rubbed his wrists.

Then he stopped and looked down at them. Cuyler Jade’s wrists had been rubbed raw, bleeding. There’d been no reason for Fuller to put the handcuffs on so tightly. But he had, and it had pricked Stiles’s conscience to see it. Still, he hadn’t said anything.

And there’d really been no reason for Whaley to hit her. Not once, but twice. And they hadn’t been slaps. The bruises on her face had come from Whaley’s knuckles when she’d told them more lies about Ramsey’s whereabouts. Once again, Stiles hadn’t voiced his objections. If Ramsey cared about her at all, Stiles supposed it was little wonder he’d been furious to see her that way.

But that was the question, wasn’t it? Why on earth did Ramsey care about her? How had he gotten so mixed up with her that he’d toss his career—his life—in the toilet by coming to her rescue that way? God, he knew she wasn’t human. He knew. So what was going on in his head?

Stiles hadn’t wanted to believe what he’d read in Ramsey’s files. He’d balked against what Fuller had said. That Ramsey had turned on them. That he was the enemy now. But now that he’d seen the proof of it with his own eyes, he couldn’t doubt anymore. He just wished he understood.

Stiles left the bedroom, jogged down the stairs, and picked up the phone.

Chapter Nine

She couldn’t believe he’d done it. As Ramsey drove the car through the night, Cuyler forced her heavy eyes open and looked at him. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. His jaw tensed as if he were grating his teeth. Perspiration made his forehead shiny in the glow of the dash lights, and dark stubble coated his face. Gray eyes, intense with concentration and maybe a little fear, darted her way every few seconds. And when he saw her gaze on him, one side of his mouth pulled upward slightly and briefly. An almost smile, meant to reassure her. No more.

“You really came for me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised.” He shook his head, sighing. “You’ve been saying all along I wouldn’t take you in.”

She bit her lower lip, unable to take her eyes from his face, from the strength she saw in it. And the turmoil. “You risked everything…”

He turned onto a larger road and increased his speed. Then, licking his lips, he glanced her way again. One hand left the steering wheel and he brushed it lightly over her bruised cheek. His lips thinned. “I’m sorry, Cuyler.”

“Sorry? You just saved my life—”

“If I’d listened to you in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to. If I hadn’t left you there, alone…” He blinked slowly, lowering his hand and focusing his vision on the road once again. “I tried to get back when I heard the snowmobiles, but—”

“It doesn’t matter.” She slid her hand over his on the wheel. “You came after me. You got me out of there.”

He shook his head. “It’s not over yet, Cuyler. They aren’t going to let us go without a fight. And they’re after both of us now.”

“They were always after both of us.”

He frowned, slanting her a sidelong glance.

“Ramsey, they kept asking me where you were. The fat one, Fuller, he told the others that you were never really one of them, that it was only a matter of time before you turned on them.”

Ramsey blew all the air out of his lungs. “That doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. Why would he say something like that? I’ve never given them any reason to question my loyalty.”

“I don’t know.”

Ramsey swore under his breath and hit the brakes, snapping the headlights off as he pulled the car onto the shoulder. Cuyler followed his gaze and saw the flashing lights ahead, on the ramp to the highway. A roadblock.

“Do you think they’re looking for us? Already?”

“DPI works fast.” He pulled the car around in a U-turn and slowly drove back the other way, flicking the headlights back on when they were out of sight. “We’ll have to take back roads out of here.”

“To where? Ramsey, where can we go?”

He closed his eyes slowly. “I don’t know.” He turned onto a side road, and then another. “There’s a map in the glove compartment.”

She took out the map, unfolded it on her lap, and tried to keep her still-clouded mind focused on finding out where they were, and on discovering a safe route. “Okay, at the end of this road, turn left. That one runs parallel to the highway.”

He followed her directions, but even before they reached the road she’d pointed out, Cuyler saw the glow of more flashing lights in the distance.

Ramsey swore. “They’ve got us boxed in.” He stopped the car, shut it off, and turned to face her. “We’re not gonna get by them in this car. How do you feel? You up to a walk?”

She lifted her chin and swallowed her fear. She had to be strong to help him through this, even though the pain they’d inflicted and the blood she’d lost made her weaker than she’d ever felt in her life. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

With a nod, Ramsey shrugged out of his jacket, then used the sleeve to wipe the steering wheel and gearshift, the headlight button, and anything else he might have touched. “No sense leaving them any clues.”

She nodded, taking the map with her as she got out of the car. Then he got out, and came around the car. He put his jacket around her shoulders, folded his big hand around hers, and led her into the woods at the roadside.

The darkness worked in their favor as they made their way from one small patch of woods to another, keeping the road in sight but staying far enough away from it to remain concealed by the trees.

She was exhausted. He knew she was. And frightened. Hell, he couldn’t blame her. He was scared himself. DPI was not going to be easy to elude. Besides, he had other reasons to worry. He didn’t have a drop of insulin on him. And if he didn’t get some soon, he fully expected to start feeling the effects.

His watch told him there was an hour before dawn, when Cuyler suddenly stopped, clutched her stomach and doubled over. She fell to her knees, groaning and then retching violently.

Ramsey knelt beside her, held her shoulders. Fear made him shudder as he wondered what could be wrong. God, she was so weak, already.

She rose, unsteadily, leaning on him for support. “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

“No, you’re not. Cuyler, what the hell is it?”

She sniffed, still not standing very steadily. “I don’t know. Maybe the drug they injected me with. I don’t know. It’s all right now, though.”

It wasn’t. It was perfectly clear that she was anything but all right. She was pale, trembling, cold. She needed someplace warm to rest and… Hell, he didn’t know what else she needed. But whatever, he was determined to get it for her. They were approaching a town, of sorts. A small grouping of neat little houses, with cars and the occasional bicycle in short, paved driveways. Supporting Cuyler with an arm around her shoulders, tucking her body close to his, he took her toward them, scanning for someplace, anyplace, where she might lie down for a while.

She stiffened when he pulled her out of the sheltering trees and toward clipped back lawns, all of them littered with colorful leaves. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “Come on, trust me.”

She did, but hesitantly. They crossed three backyards before they found one with a prefab shed standing in it. Ramsey sighed in relief and started toward it, only to come to an abrupt halt when a huge dog lunged out of its doghouse and began barking loudly.

He took a single step backward, ready to duck back into the trees, but Cuyler caught his arm, stopping him. She didn’t say a word. Just moved closer to the dog, staring at it with an intensity that was palpable. The dog stopped barking. It stared right back at her, ears pricked forward, head tilted to one side. Then its tail wagged. She bent forward to stroke his big head. Ramsey only stood, dumbfounded, watching.

She turned to face him, smiling weakly. “He’ll keep quiet now;”

Ramsey shook his head. “So, should I start calling you Dr. Doolittle?”

“It doesn’t always work. But sometimes, I can let animals know I’m a friend.”

He took her hand again and led her to the shed, thanking his lucky stars there was no lock on the door. It opened easily, without a creak, and he pulled her inside. When he closed the door behind him they were in total darkness. He held her close to his side as he moved to the back, tripping once over what felt like a lawn mower, knocking over a shovel. Against the back wall, he urged her to the floor, then went back, feeling his way. He found a tarp that covered some piece of small machinery, and tugged it away.

He returned and settled beside her, tucking the tarp around both of them for warmth.

“We could have gone farther.” She snuggled close to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“You’re barely putting one foot in front of the other, Cuyler. You’re sick and you know it.” He ran one hand through her tousled hair. “What can I do to make it better?”

He felt her hesitation, could almost feel her deciding not to tell him. “Nothing. It’ll pass.”

“Funny how I can tell when you’re lying.” He drew a breath. “It’s not just the drug, is it, Cuyler?”

She didn’t answer.

“Cuyler, if there’s something I can do to help you, I want to do it.”

Her hand touched the side of his face. “No, you don’t.”

It was her tone, more than her words, that tripped the knowledge in his brain. “It’s the blood loss, isn’t it?” He felt her stiffen, knew he’d hit on it. “Your wrists bled, your lip. Quite a lot from the look of your blouse.”

“The injuries aren’t that bad, Ramsey. We tend to bleed a lot. That’s all.”

“So you need to replenish it.”

“Tomorrow night. We’ll find a blood bank somewhere or—”

“You could take some of mine.”

“Ramsey, no—”

“You’d feel stronger, better, wouldn’t you? Cuyler, it’s all right. I trust you.”

She sighed and sat up a little straighter. “That isn’t the point. Look, Ramsey, it would make us even more connected than we already are. The link between us is already tearing you apart inside. I don’t want to make it even stronger.”

He sat up, too, gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I don’t go ten minutes without thinking about you, Cuyler. I’ve gone against everything I’ve ever believed in just to make sure you’re all right. I don’t see how it can get any stronger.”

He felt her shake her head. “It’s the situation. Ramsey, you’d made up your mind to get away from me. You struck out through the frozen wilderness on foot, you were so desperate to leave. And if those men hadn’t shown up, I don’t think you’d have come back. You’d have found a way out, gone back to your old life and stayed as far away from me as you could get. You still might want to do that, if we survive this.”

He closed his eyes and drew a steady breath. “I was still fighting what I felt. Dammit, you can understand that, can’t you? One of you killed my mother, for God’s sake. How could I—”

“One of us. You see? You still see it that way. An individual killed your mother, Ramsey. I had nothing to do with it.”

“I know that—”

“I could get help for us. I could summon others to help us out of this mess. We could stay with them until the danger passes. I could do it right now, Ramsey.”

He went utterly silent at her words. Others. Others like her. Vampires. The beings he’d been taught to hate for most of his life. He breathed deeply, and shook his head. He couldn’t trust his life to them. Just because he’d finally realized that Cuyler wasn’t a heartless predator, didn’t mean the others weren’t.

She sighed deeply, and he thought he heard sadness in the sound. “It’s all right. I won’t do it. I wasn’t considering it, anyway. I wouldn’t want to bring anyone else into DPI’s sights. I only wanted to make a point.”

“Cuyler, you can’t expect me to put my life in their hands.”

“No. And I don’t. But, Ramsey, they’re just people. We were all human once, just like you. There are good and bad in any group, and you can’t just write off an entire race because of one incident. It’s bigotry, can’t you see that?”

“No, it’s not. It’s different—”

“It’s different because we’re different, right?” She leaned against the wall, turning her back to him.

He knew he’d hurt her, angered her. But, dammit, it had been a major leap for him to see her as less than a monster, as a caring woman with thoughts and feelings like any other. Now she expected him to accept the entire race as just ordinary folks with a slight aversion to sunlight and solid food? They’d been different, even as humans. That damned antigen in their blood made them different.

No, dammit, he wasn’t ready to concede that everything he’d ever learned had been wrong. DPI may have gone too far in their persecution, but they’d had reasons. Ramsey had reasons, too. His mother. She was his reason, and he couldn’t let go of his old anger so easily.

Ramsey dozed, and it was full daylight when he woke. Cuyler slept in a corner, far away from him. It was the darkest spot in the shed, and while no sunlight touched her body, he covered her entirely with the tarp, just in case. There were no windows in the metal shed, but light spilled through seams in the tin here and there. He worried about the beams moving as the sun did.

Sounds of life—motors, air brakes—floated toward him. He opened the door a crack and peeked outside, checking first to make sure the light didn’t touch Cuyler. A school bus rolled to a stop in front of the house. He couldn’t see who boarded, since the house itself blocked his view, but a few seconds later it rolled away, followed closely by the two cars that had been in the driveway.

God, could he be so lucky? A two-career family with all the kids in school? He slipped out of the shed, glancing in both directions to be sure no one could see. He gave the dog a cursory glance, but the huge Newfoundland was busy devouring a fresh supply of kibble and didn’t even look his way.

Swallowing a healthy dose of anxiety, Ramsey walked up to the back door and knocked as hard as he could. What better way to find out if anyone was home? He waited, rehearsing what he’d say if someone answered. He figured he could pretend he was at the wrong house. But no answer came. The lock was a snap for any government agent worth his salt. In a few seconds he was inside, carefully and quietly searching the place just to be sure no one was around. Sighing in relief when there wasn’t.

It was too much to hope that one of the residents might be diabetic and have some insulin lying around. But he checked anyway. Not finding any, he was extremely careful when he raided the fridge. He had to eat, but God only knew what his system would do with whatever he put into it. He made do with a few stalks of celery and a sugar-free rice cake. There was a little coffee left in the pot, and he heated it in the microwave and gulped it down. Then he headed for the living room and snapped on the television, only to stumble a few steps backward when he saw his own face and a composite drawing of Cuyler’s on the screen, with a 1-800 number beneath them.

He only heard the words “Armed and extremely dangerous,” before the picture changed and the reporter launched into another story.

His initial reaction was to head for the shed, gather Cuyler up, and run as fast as they could go. But he couldn’t do that. He had to wait until sunset. There was no other way.

He got another rice cake, and sat down to work out the most immediate problem. Cuyler’s condition. She was weak, sick. He knew what she needed to feel strong again. And he knew she wouldn’t take it from him no matter how often he offered.

So he had to come up with some way to convince her. And there was only one that came to mind.

Chapter Ten

She woke to the warning vibrations skittering over her nerve endings. The tarp slipped from her shoulders as she sat up, calling out to Ramsey.

“Right here. I’m right here.” There was a click, and then the beam of a flashlight bathed the space between them. One side of Ramsey’s mouth curved upward before the other, but she got the feeling his smile was hiding some new turmoil. “Found a few treasures in the house.”

She sat up straighter, but dizziness swamped her. He saw it, frowned at her, and she tried to change the subject. “You were in the house?”

“Yeah. No one was home.” His smile died slowly. “I only took what we needed. They won’t even notice it’s missing.”

Her breath escaped in a rush. “Just what did we need so badly I you had to steal for it?”

His head came up fast, a look of surprise on his face. “Didn’t mean to shock you like that, Ramsey. I forgot, my kind isn’t supposed to have any moral values at all. You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

His brows drew together. “You wake up cranky, anybody ever tell you that? You still don’t feel very well, do you?” She refused to answer. Ramsey scanned her face. “You sure as hell don’t look as if you do. Anyway, I didn’t steal this stuff, exactly. I left some money. Stuffed it under the sofa cushion.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wonderful. But it still wasn’t worth the risk. You could have been seen.”

“But I wasn’t. And I got us a much-needed flashlight. Ought to come in handy, since we can only travel by night.”

“I have excellent night vision.”

“A sleeping bag, so we don’t catch pneumonia.”

“I can’t catch pneumonia.”

“Some food—”

She crooked an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, right. I forgot. How about this, then?” He handed her some folded clothing, and she took it.

“What—”

“One pair of jeans, size six, petite. They must have a teenager about your size. And a warm sweater. Now put them on and quit griping. We have to move.”

She got to her feet, set the clothes aside, and grabbed the hem of her blouse. Then she paused. “Well?”

Ramsey blinked, breaking his intense stare. “Well, what?”

“You going to turn off that light?”

“Sure.” There was a soft click, and the shed was once again bathed in darkness.

Cuyler heeled off her shoes, pulled her blouse over her head, then stepped out of her pants. She reached for the clothing she’d set aside, but Ramsey’s hand closed over hers, stopping her.

She drew a quick breath, looking behind her. “What is it?”

“Not dark enough in here, I guess.”

He stood closer, his shirt brushing her back. Then his hands crept around her waist, pulling her back against his strong chest. “I still want you, Cuyler. I’m still having those damned dreams.”

She closed her eyes tightly, stiffening herself against the onslaught of desire that rocked her. She couldn’t let this happen, not now, not when her hunger was so strong. She hadn’t fed in such a long time. Didn’t he realize what would happen if they…

“I can’t…”

“Why not?” His head bent over her shoulder, his lips finding and nuzzling her neck. The brush of his new whiskers scraped over her skin, and she shivered.

Any excuse would do. She had to stop this craziness. “You still see me…as… Stop, Ramsey.” Her head tipped sideways as his mouth moved over her shoulder. Warm fingertips trailed upward, along her spine. “I don’t want…” The words became a sigh.

“Yes, you do. And so do I. Hell, I’m tired of fighting it, Cuyler. I’m tired of trying to deny it, hoping it will go away. It won’t. I think we both know that.”

“But…” His palms came up beneath her breasts, cupped them, squeezed. “Ramsey,” she breathed. “Ramsey, you still believe…”

“The hell with what I believe. This is physical. Beliefs don’t enter into it.” His fingertips closed on her nipples. She caught her breath. He applied more pressure and she sighed. In one quick motion he turned her around, caught her mouth beneath his, dug his tongue into her. She responded, sucking it, running her hands up his back, under his shirt.

He gripped her buttocks in his hands, lifting her as he sat down on the seat of a lawn tractor, pulling her onto his lap so she was straddling him. Then he attacked her breasts with his mouth, sucking, biting, licking at them until she writhed against the hardness she felt poking up through his jeans. “This isn’t fair,” she whispered.

“It was your idea. You said back at the house that if we just did it once, we might get over it. Well, here we are, Cuyler. Let’s test your theory.”

He devoured her nipples again, one after the other, all the while holding her hard to his lap and moving his hips against her. Then his hands closed on her waist and he lifted her, higher, until her backside rested in the curve of the steering wheel.

“What—?”

“I did this in my dreams, Cuyler. I want to try it for real.” His hands slipped up the insides of her thighs, and he pressed them Open. Then he dropped kisses along them, moving higher, ever higher. Finally his mouth found its goal and he pressed his face to her. His tongue parted her and found its way inside. Cuyler’s head fell backward as she felt him licking her, scraping her with his teeth, sucking at her until she trembled all over.

Her hands tangled into his hair and he lifted his head, staring up at her as his hands moved to his jeans. Then he returned them to her waist, to pull her down to him. As he filled her, she felt the current that moved through both of them. Twining her arms around his neck, burying her face there, she sank lower. He clasped her hips, lifting her, lowering her again, plunging deeper inside her with every thrust.

Her lips caressed his neck, and her need mounted, beginning to build as she’d known it would. Every step she took toward fulfillment fired the hunger. She tasted the salt of his skin, felt the blood rushing beneath it.

He moved faster. Ecstasy hovered just beyond her reach, and the thirst raged. She tore her head away from his muscled neck, averting her face.

His hands slid up over her back, captured her face and turned it toward him again. He kissed her, deeply, desperately. “It’s all right, Cuyler.” His lips moved over hers as he whispered. He guided her head to his neck once more. “It’s all right. Do it.”

Her lips trembled on his skin, then parted. Only a sip, only one small taste of his essence. Just enough to get her through this night.

He stiffened, moaning deep and hoarse as her teeth pierced his throat. His hands pressed to the back of her head even as his body rocked harder and faster in time with hers. The climax claimed her, held her in its shattering grip for an instant, and forever.

As it slowly faded, the ripples of pleasure smoothing and stilling, Cuyler lifted her head away and closed her eyes to prevent the tears from spilling over. “God, what have I done?” She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see condemnation in his eyes. She began to rise, but he held her to him.

“You had to, Cuyler. You needed—”

Her sudden stare stopped his words. She searched his face, not believing what she was thinking, not wanting to think it. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew the way desire would heighten the need until I couldn’t fight it?”

He nodded once. “Yeah. I knew. And I also knew you couldn’t take another night on the run without it.” He shrugged, his hands moving into her hair, stroking it. “I offered earlier. You refused. I couldn’t think of any other way.”

That’s all it was, then. Physical needs that needed fulfillment, just as he’d said. Only he’d been referring to hers, not to his own.

She slid to the floor, pulling from his grasp when he tried to keep her with him. Without a word, she picked up the clothes and began to dress. He got up, as well, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Making love to him had filled her heart to overflowing. Realizing how little it meant to him had broken it in two, and she could almost feel the fragile contents spilling onto the floor.

Cuyler heard him moving around, packing up his treasures, she imagined. Then he stood still, and she felt his gaze on her.

“I hurt you,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to.”

Blinking her eyes dry, she fixed her face into a smiling mask, and turned to face him. “No, Ramsey. It was physical, right? No feelings involved.”

His eyes probed hers, reaching through the darkness, it seemed, into the depths of her soul. “Maybe…” He stopped speaking, his head coming up slowly. “What is that? Sounds like a flock of geese, or…”

Cuyler listened, and then her broken heart froze inside her. “Dogs! God, they’ve got dogs!” The crying of what sounded like a hundred hounds filled the night, louder when she flung the door open and ran outside.

Ramsey grasped her hand and headed for the street. She knew there was no use creeping through the woods, not now. Speed was what mattered. Calming one family pet with the power of her mind Was a simple trick. She knew better than to try it with an entire pack of vicious hounds.

Cuyler’s heart hammered with fear as she ran beside Ramsey. The baying drew nearer, louder. In moments the dogs would burst out of the woods where they were searching. They’d be on them seconds later, and it would be over. Everything—life—would be over.

“There! Look!” Ramsey didn’t slow down. He kept running, but veered into a driveway, only stopping when he came to a mean-looking black motorcycle leaning on its kickstand. Releasing her hand, he straddled the seat. One kick, two. The motor roared and Ramsey twisted the accelerator, revving it. Puffs of black smoke belched from twin pipes at the back. Cuyler leapt on behind him, clinging to his waist as he released the clutch and the bike lurched into motion. Inexpertly, he turned it around, lowering one foot for balance. Then he shifted, gunned it, and they shot out of the driveway and down the street.

She might be killed on this suicide machine, she thought vaguely. But at least she couldn’t hear those damn dogs anymore.

Okay, so he’d hurt her…again. He could only pray there would be time to make it up later.

When he’d decided to make love to Cuyler, he’d told himself he was doing it for her, so she wouldn’t wilt and die of her brand of starvation before he could get her to safety. The problem was, what he’d told himself had been a lie. And not even a very convincing one. He’d wanted her. Hell, he still wanted her. Instead of dulling this rampant lust he felt, being with her had only sharpened it to a razor’s edge. It hadn’t been physical, dammit. It had been something more, something deeper, almost…almost spiritual. And when she’d finally done what he’d wanted her to do…

He shook his head in wonder. For a few brief seconds he’d felt everything she was feeling. He’d experienced her thoughts, known her emotions, felt every sensation that rippled through her body. It had been as if their minds had melded into one. He’d had the shocking sensation of her heart beating beside his within his own chest.

All of that had combined with the passion he felt for her and exploded into something he’d never felt before. It wasn’t like sex with a…with a normal woman. It was above and beyond, a whole other world.

And so what had he done with all this newfound knowledge about her? Nothing. He’d ignored it, pretended it hadn’t happened, let her go on thinking the entire exchange had been his own clever plot to get her to drink.

She was hurting over that, now. There was a real, physical pain where her heart lived. She felt as if her soul was bleeding, and she was battling tears.

Ramsey blinked in shock as those emotions flicked through his mind just as clearly as if they were his own. What the hell?

A police car blocked the road ahead. Ramsey leaned left, turning the handlebars and heading the bike over someone’s back lawn. They bounded up and down on the seat as he drove over what felt like a washboard, up a shallow hill, and onto another road, then continued in the direction he’d been going. The ploy worked. The police couldn’t get ahead of him in time to block his way, and he realized he could get to the road that ran parallel to the highway in the same manner.

This time, though, he didn’t wait for a cruiser with flashing lights to force him off. He drove across a farmer’s field, rutted and rough all the way, and he had to struggle to keep the bike upright. The cops would converge on the road where he’d been. But he would zip right past them by another route. For the first time tonight he thought they just might get out of this mess alive.

Cuyler was beginning to think so, too.

Ramsey frowned, glancing at her behind him. Her arms tightened a little at his waist, and her head rested against his back. He supposed he could no longer doubt that she had feelings and emotions. Not when he was experiencing everything she thought, everything she felt. This must have been what she’d meant when she’d told him that the connection between them would be even more powerful if she drank from him.

He felt her emotions. She was scared. But beyond that, a profound sadness made her keep fighting back tears. She thought that maybe she’d been wrong about him, all along. She thought that he’d never be able to see that his mistrust of her kind was a mistake, a product of the hatred he’d nurtured for so long. And she thought…

Ramsey blinked in shock and nearly dumped the bike. She thought she might be falling in love with him.

“Have we lost them?” She had to yell close to his ear to make herself heard over the motorcycle.

“Only for the moment,” he shouted back. “Once they get a chopper up, they’ll spot us again.” The road they were on veered away from the highway, but he followed it anyway. It took her a moment to realize where he was going, but when she saw the sign, she stiffened. Limestone 5 Miles.

“Ramsey, you’re going the wrong way! This is where we started!”

“Exactly what they’ll be thinking,” he told her. He took a turn, then another, and within a few minutes they were on a road Cuyler recognized. Ramsey stopped the bike, and when they both got off, he pushed it into the trees at the roadside. Taking her hand, he pulled her along beside him, right up to the gates of the house where she’d been held prisoner such a short time ago.

Chapter Eleven

She shivered uncontrollably as Ramsey pulled her through the gates, along the path, right through the front door. He knew what she must be thinking. That he’d lost his mind, or that he’d decided to turn her over to DPI after all. It amazed him that she didn’t argue with him, just came along, completely trusting a man who’d given her nothing but reasons not to.

Sensing her turmoil, he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as he closed the door behind them. “It’s gonna be all right, Cuyler. This is the safest place we could be right now. The last place they’d think to look for us. And you can bet Fuller and his men won’t be back here as long as they think they’re on our trail.”

She bit her lip, her gaze scanning the living room. The place looked like the home of a wealthy, tasteless individual. Not a branch office for a government agency. But then, that was the whole idea. DPI’s anonymity was vital to its success.

Ramsey armed the security device, then began fiddling with the buttons, programming a new entry code, one Fuller wouldn’t know. Cuyler walked slowly away from him, and he heard her exhausted sigh. Fortunately, though, her wounds had healed with the daytime rest. Her wrists were no longer cut and bruised. The purple mark on her face had vanished, and her cut lip had healed.

But some wounds were tougher to heal than others. And he still felt her pain, the one he’d caused himself. He a nave to find a way to remedy that soon, or he’d lose her. He wasn’t sure they could get out of this alive, but if they did, and if they went their separate ways the way Cuyler seemed to have decided they must he was going to hurt for a very long time.

He paused in punching buttons, to slant her a glance. “Cuyler, you’re wrung out, Why don’t you go upstairs, take a nice hot bath, relax for a while?”

She blinked slowly, and he knew she was tempted by the suggestion. “No, Ramsey. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Suppose I go up there and a swarm of agents kick the door in?”

“I don’t think that’s likely to happen anytime soon.”

He finished punching in the new entry code. No one would open this door, or the front gate, without him knowing about it. Then he turned to her again, saw the uncertainty in her eyes. “Go on, Cuyler. Ask me.”

“Ask you what?” Her chin lifted a little, and he saw her trying to mask her doubts.

“Why I brought you here,” he said softly. He ran one hand over the side of her face, cupped her cheek. God, her skin was soft. “Not to give you up, Cuyler. If they want you, they’ll have to go through me.”

She bit her lower lip, nodding, but he knew she wasn’t as sure of that as he was.

“You don’t believe it?”

“I…” She shook her head, paced away from him. “How can I believe you’d lay your life on the line to protect someone you still see as some kind of inferior species?”

“That isn’t—”

“I know. That isn’t what you meant to say.” She shook her head, turning to face him again, her gaze steady, strong. “But it’s how you feel.”

He shook his head slowly. “You’re wrong, Cuyler. There’s nothing inferior about you.”

“Just the rest of my kind, right, Ramsey? So what does that make me? An exception? A freak?”

He lifted his hands, palms up, struggling to find words that would convince her how wrong she was, but she gave him a single glance that told him it would do no good. She wouldn’t listen. He let his hands fall to his sides, sighing in defeat.

“So, why did you bring me here?”

Ramsey closed his eyes, tried to find some patience. It would take time to get her to trust him again. She’d believed so strongly in him before, and his fall from grace must have been a damaging one. But not fatal. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

He took her hand in his and laced his fingers with hers. Such a small hand, silky soft, steady now, despite her fears. He thought about the way that hand had felt tangled in his hair, those fingertips sinking into his shoulders. He glanced down at her, caught her staring up at him, but she looked away fast. He cleared his throat and pulled her with him to the door at the far end of the room. When he stepped through, he waved an arm at the equipment that covered every inch of the counters that lined the room. Computers, faxes, phones, radios, an entire bank of video screens, each showing a steady view of a different room within this house.

He heard the air escape her in a rush, heard her murmured exclamation. Ignoring it, he moved forward, snapping on the police band receiver, and then the more sophisticated radio. The one DPI used to keep in touch. He listened for a minute, heard nothing but static. Then he sank into a chair and flicked on a computer.

“What are you doing?”

He glanced sideways at her, but his attention shot right back to the screen. “I’ll know everything they do, every move they make from here on in, Cuyler. We’ll figure a safe way out of here before morning. Meanwhile, this system is a direct link to the main one in White Plains. I’d like to see what they have on me, find out why Fuller’s been doubting my loyalty.”

He heard her move, then turned to see her leaning against a wall, chewing her lower lip. “There’s not much you can do here, really. I’ll be on top of things. Take that bath.”

Cuyler bathed. She didn’t do as Ramsey had suggested, though, and lounge around in steaming water for hours. She made it quick and efficient. Then she scoured the house for extra clothes, finding none. She made do with the jeans and sweater she’d been wearing. After she’d towel dried her hair, she wandered back down to the first floor, located the kitchen, and brewed a pot of coffee.

With a cup in her hand, she went back to the room, tapped once, and walked in. Ramsey’s face did a lousy job of hiding his emotions, and the look it wore made her heart trip over itself. He faced her when he heard her come in, tried to mask his bewildered expression, but still failed miserably.

She crossed to where he sat, pressed the mug into his hand. “How bad is it?”

He licked his lips, lowering his eyes. “Pretty bad.”

“Tell me.”

He glanced at the screen in front of him. It showed a spider web of lines that looked like a map, with little red lights glowing at intervals. He pointed to one of them. “These are the roadblocks. There’s not one route out of here they haven’t plugged tight. They’re checking every vehicle that passes.”

“So we can’t get out by car. We can go on foot.”

“They have choppers up, scanning the ground for us. And the dogs are working the woods. Cuyler, I don’t think—”

The front door slammed and both of them went stiff, whirling toward the sound.

“You don’t think at all, Bachman. That’s part of the problem.”

The deep voice was one Ramsey had heard before. He recognized it, and rose slowly.

The dark form filled the doorway, nodding once to Ramsey. “Hello again, Agent Bachman.”

Ramsey tried to swallow, but found his throat blocked by a brick of hatred. This man was a killer, a killer Ramsey had been sent to bring in. But he’d failed. “Damien.”

“Aren’t you glad to see me, Bachman? Thought you’d be overjoyed, after chasing me all those months, trying to capture me for your bosses at DPI.”

Ramsey took a single step forward. “You killed two women, you bastard. And you—”

Damien glared at him, his black eyes glittering with unconcealed dislike. “I killed one man. A vampire. The one responsible for the two murders you were sent to investigate.”

“Liar!” Ramsey lunged toward him, only to have Cuyler leap in front of him, her palms flat to his chest.

“It’s true, Ramsey! There were witnesses. I’ve read the whole account, and he’s telling you the truth.”

Ramsey glanced down at her, then at the man he’d spent months trying to capture, the man who’d made a beautiful young woman into a creature like himself.

Damien blinked and held his gaze. Some of the fury left the vampire’s eyes. “She was dying,” he said simply. “I loved her, Bachman. I couldn’t just stand by and let her go.”

Ramsey narrowed his eyes and shook his head.

“Check your precious DPI files, if you don’t believe me.” Damien lowered his head and paced in a small circle. “They know now it wasn’t me who murdered those two. They know it was Anthar, the vampire I killed. Yet the hunt for me continues.” He stood still, shot Ramsey a glare. “Go on, check. You have the information at your fingertips. Or are you afraid of what you’ll find?”

Ramsey blinked twice, and stared at him, stunned speechless. “Anthar?” he finally managed. He glanced toward Cuyler, and she nodded confirmation. Sighing hard, Ramsey sank back into his chair. He closed his eyes. “All right. I believe you.”

Cuyler sighed in relief, but Damien only cocked his brows in surprise. “You don’t need to see the proof?”

“No.” Ramsey shook his head slowly. “No. I’ve found quite a few surprises in my own DPI files. Enough to show me what they’re really about.” He shook his head, meeting Cuyler’s gaze. “You were right all along. I just wish I’d believed you sooner.”

Cuyler blinked moisture away from her eyes, and faced Damien. If she looked a bit awed, Ramsey figured it was natural. She was in the same room with the man reputed to be the oldest of all of them, the first. “Why are you here?” she asked him.

“To get you out.”

“But how did you know—”

“No time for that, child. You must come with me now.” He took her hand and tugged her toward the doorway.

She pulled free. “I’m not leaving him.”

Damien’s eyes took on a feral gleam. “He’s not worth your devotion, Cuyler. He’s one of them, those same bastards who make our very existence a game of hide-and-seek. The ones who see to it we never know peace. If they’ve turned on him now, then all the better. Poetic justice, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you!”

His glare grew sharper still.

“They had me, Damien. He got me out. He risked his life to do it.”

“Too little, too late. What good did it do? He’s one of them, Cuyler! Leave him here and be rid of him for good.”

“Damn you with your us-and-them mentality! Don’t you see that’s exactly the bigotry that got us to this point in the first place! Damien, your way of thinking is just as twisted as DPI’s. Can’t you see that?”

Ramsey touched her shoulder, his hands squeezing gently, but his gaze remained on Damien. “Can you get her out?”

“There’s no doubt.”

“No!” She twisted her head to stare into Ramsey’s eyes just before he slammed them shut.

“Go with him, Cuyler.”

“I won’t! Dammit, I won’t!”

“There’s no time to argue,” Damien said softly, though his eyes had lost some of their anger, and a frown that might have been one of confusion had taken up residence between his brows. “Have you noticed the radio silence, Ramsey? The sudden stop in all radio contact?”

Ramsey opened his eyes and turned slowly to stare at the computer screen that glowed like an all-seeing oracle.

“They knew the second you turned it on and began accessing information,” Damien said softly. “They’re probably already on their—”

A bullhorn-enhanced voice apparently shattered the slight grip Cuyler had on her composure. She screamed at the first words, but Ramsey still heard them.

“Bachman, we have the house surrounded. There’s no way out. Give yourselves up.”

Ramsey lowered his head. “Can you still get her out, Damien?”

“Ramsey—”

“If we can get to the roof,” Damien replied, cutting her off.

She threw her arms around Ramsey’s neck. “No! I won’t do it. I love you—”

The bullhorn-enhanced voice came again. “We’ll give you ten minutes, Bachman. Then we come in shooting.”

The sharpshooter in the tallest pine tree whistled, and when he had Fuller’s attention, he whispered loudly, “There’s a third person in there, Fuller. A man, tall, very dark complexion.”

“How the hell—” Fuller nodded, and hurried toward the DPI van, glancing as he did at the miniature dish on the top. “Can you get this thing up and operational? I need to hear what’s being said inside.”

The technician only held up one hand for patience, adjusting his headset and fiddling with dials. Finally he nodded and smiled. He handed the headset to Fuller, who held it up to one ear. Then his eyes widened, and he smiled.

“It’s him!” He shook his head slowly. “We’ve hit the damn jackpot this time, fellas. Get me a line to Bachman. It’s time to make a deal.”

Chapter Twelve

Damien studied Ramsey as if seeing him for the first time. “Hard to believe we have one common goal, after all this. We both want to see Cuyler get out of this alive.”

Ramsey lowered his eyes. “We have more in common than you know, Damien.”

The other man frowned, parted his lips to ask something, but Ramsey cut him off. “Look, it’s no secret that I don’t like you.”

“You’re not exactly my favorite person, either, Ramsey.”

“Unpleasant as you are, though, you’re not a killer.”

“Thanks so much for informing me.”

Ramsey blew air through his teeth. “You want to shut the hell up and let me apologize!”

“Is that what you were doing?”

Damien’s stare was as hateful as ever, and Ramsey knew the one he sent back was as bad, or worse. Ramsey wanted to deck the guy, but he restrained himself. There was another part of him that wanted to shake Damien’s hand, call him friend.

“The one you killed, Anthar…” Ramsey swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head.

“What about him?”

Clearing his throat, stiffening his spine, Ramsey answered. “He was the one who murdered my mother.” He heard Cuyler catch her breath. “DPI knew all along. It’s in my files, along with a lot of other…” He bit his lip, shook his head. “Doesn’t matter now, I guess. I just thought you ought to know.”

“Know?”

“That you’re not quite the bastard I had you pegged as being, all right? Now, if you don’t mind, can we quit talking and get Cuyler out of here?”

Damien tilted his head to one side. “You aren’t a bit afraid of me, are you?”

“Oh, hell yes, Damien. Scared witless. Don’t you see my knees knocking?”

Damien chewed his inner cheek, eyes narrow. “You’re an unusual mortal.”

“You’re both idiots!” Cuyler shouted the words as she crossed into the living room and peered through a curtain. “And insane, to boot, if you think I’m leaving here without you, Ramsey.” There were tears glittering in her eyes. “We go together or not at all.”

He went to her, unable to stop himself. Vaguely he was aware of Damien tactfully slipping out of the room, but his mind was focused on Cuyler. Her heart was breaking. He could feel it. Or was that his own? His hands slipped around her waist as she turned to him and he pulled her close.

“I’m not worth dying for,” he whispered. “Cuyler, you have to go with him.”

She threaded her fingers in his hair. “You love me, don’t you, Ramsey?”

His eyes devoured her face. Her turned-up nose, her huge, dark eyes. That ruffly jet hair.

“Say it, just once, say it.”

He nodded, his mind reeling with the force of what he felt. “I don’t think love is a strong enough word. Hell, Cuyler, you’ve turned me inside out. Before you, I swear there was ice running in my veins instead of blood. A big hunk of granite hatred where my heart ought to be. You changed that.” He lowered his head, captured her sweet mouth one last time, kissed her the way he’d been wanting to all night long. When he pulled away, he licked the taste of her from his lips. “Yes, Cuyler. I love you.”

Tears flowed like rivers on her cheeks. “Then don’t ask me to go on without you.” She sniffed, swallowed, her voice became tight and thin. ‘“Cause I don’t think I can.”

“You’d have to sooner or later anyway.” His thumbs swept the moisture from her cheeks. “You’re immortal. I’m not and there’s no way I can be.” God, how it tore him apart to utter that lie. There was a way. He knew that now, was still jolted by the knowledge. But he couldn’t tell her. She’d never leave if she knew.

She shook her head fast and hard, but he caught her face between his palms, held it still. “It’s the truth. We would have had to face it eventually.”

“I don’t want to hear this!” She whirled away from him.

Damien reentered the room, clearing his throat to announce his presence. Ramsey met his probing gaze. It was knowing, that look.

“There’s a door to the roof through the attic,” Ramsey said, fighting for a level tone. “I want you to go with Damien now. They won’t wait patiently much longer.”

Damien went to Cuyler, took a gentle hold on her arm, and started for the stairs. The telephone jangled and Ramsey went rigid. It rang again, and this time the voice on the bullhorn shouted at him to pick it up.

His hands damp with sweat, he did.

“Bachman?”

His lips thinned. The voice belonged to Wes Fuller, his trusted superior. “What the hell do you want?”

“Wouldn’t be a good idea for your two pals to go up on the roof, Bachman. We have sharpshooters high enough to hit them there.”

He swore his heart turned to ice in his chest. He covered the mouth piece with one hand, waved to get Damien’s attention. Damien halted halfway up the stairs and waited, watching Ramsey’s face intently.

Ramsey cleared his throat. “What makes you think anyone was thinking about going to the roof?”

“Oh, we don’t think. We know. I’ve been listening in on your touching little conversation.”

“Maybe you’d like to meet me one on one, Fuller? Maybe you need a little dental work done, hmm?”

Fuller’s laugh was low and throaty. “No, thanks. Look, I know you’ve been sniffing around in your files… among other things. How much do you know?”

“About what?”

The other man hesitated, then went on. “Your diabetes, for starters.”

“I know I don’t have it. Never did.”

“And your insulin?”

“An experiment. To mask…” Ramsey glanced toward Cuyler on the stairs, and decided not to say any more.

“Go on, Bachman. Tell me, do you know about your blood type?”

“I know,” he said softly, slowly.

“So you know all that crap you just fed the…lady was bull. You could join the ranks and live happily ever after with her. You realize that?”

Ramsey stiffened. “What’s your point, Fuller?”

“I could let you go. Her, too. I could pull back and let you both walk out of here, right now. I have the authority.”

Just like that. Fuller let the words hang in the air for a long moment. But Ramsey wasn’t stupid. There was more. It was either a trick to get them to let their guard down, or Fuller wanted something. He wasn’t certain which.

“What’s the catch?” He tried not to let the sudden surge of hope come through in his voice.

“Finish the assignment you had before this one. That’s all. Not so much to ask, is it, Bachman?”

Ramsey closed his eyes, knowing exactly what Fuller wanted. The job before this one had been the capture of Damien Namtar, the most powerful, the oldest, probably the first of all vampires.

Ramsey had had no qualms about hunting him down a year ago, when he’d believed with everything in him that the man was a heartless predator, a killer. But now he knew better. He’d wronged Damien with his persecution. And he owed the man. More than ever, Ramsey knew what would happen to Damien if he were turned over to DPI. They were the heartless killers, not him. God, it was all so clear now. Why had it taken so long?

“How do you expect me to do that?” he asked, just to stall, trying to think of some way out of this trap.

“The tranquilizer, Bachman. There are filled syringes in the desk, bottom drawer. Just stick him, and leave the rest to us. You and your pet can walk away and never look back.”

Ramsey turned and met Damien’s steady gaze. Not looking away, he replied, “It might take a little while.”

“I can give you an hour, Bachman. Not a minute longer.” The connection was broken.

Ramsey licked his lips and put the phone back in its cradle.

“What?” Cuyler whispered. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” His gaze shifted to Damien’s and he got the odd feeling the man knew every word that had been said. “I bought us some time, is all.” He reached for a piece of paper and a pencil, and scribbled quickly. “They can hear every word we say, so be careful.”

When he held it up, Damien and Cuyler came back down the stairs. Cuyler looked at it, blinked in surprise, and showed it to Damien.

Ramsey looked around the house, feeling more trapped and helpless than he ever had before. More, even, than when he’d awakened in Cuyler’s castlelike hideaway. The thought made him close his eyes and wince inwardly. He’d give a limb to be there with her right now. He’d let so much time go to waste, time when he’d been alone with her in that magical place.

They could never go back there now.

Inspiration struck, and Ramsey tilted his head so they’d follow, and headed for the basement. The place was solid, lead-lined and secure. Ramsey didn’t think they’d be heard down here. Still, he whispered what he had to say.

“Damien, we need to exchange clothes.”

Damien lifted one brow, then lowered it, his eyes narrowing in understanding. “Why?”

“There’s no time to go into it,” Ramsey lied. “Look, there are sharpshooters out there. If you head for the roof, they’ll pick you off so fast it’ll make your head spin. I have a plan.”

Damien nodded thoughtfully and lowered himself to the bottom step. “Tell me about it.”

“I told you, there isn’t time.”

Cuyler looked from one to the other. “I don’t like this, Ramsey. Tell me the truth, what did that bastard say to you on the phone?”

Ramsey looked away, chewing his lip. “Nothing you need to be concerned about.”

“No,” Damien agreed. “He simply offered to let you and Cuyler go free, in exchange for my capture. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Ramsey’s head came up and his eyes flashed angrily. The jerk was going to ruin everything.

“And you planned to put on my clothes, pretend to be me, and give Cuyler and me time to escape.”

“Ramsey, you can’t!”

Ramsey clasped her hands in his, squeezing to calm her, while glaring at Damien. “You had to spill it all? You couldn’t just take her and go?”

Damien gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. “An unusual mortal,” he said again, as if to himself.

“I’ve had enough of both of you!” Cuyler tugged her hands from Ramsey’s and stalked through the basement, peering through the narrow windows, whose bottoms were level with the ground outside. One after another, pacing back to the first again as Damien and Ramsey continued their silent battle of wills.

“Here!” Her shout caught both men’s attention. “Okay, see that DPI car right there? It’s the closest one to the house.”

Damien glanced at Ramsey. Ramsey only shook his head.

“I won’t bother trying to explain to you two. You’re too busy with your own tug-of-war to listen. Ramsey, get Fuller on the line again. Tell him you agree to his terms, but he has to pull all the police off the highways. The chopper has to land. Tell him you’ll surrender Damien only to him and those two clowns he has with him. Everyone else has to leave. Especially those sharpshooters. I can see one from here, up in a tree. We won’t stand a chance unless we get rid of them.”

Ramsey frowned, rising, gripping her shoulders. “Honey, I don’t know what—”

“We’ll need a distraction. Then we make a run for that car. We’ll squeeze through this window, and…” Her words came to a stop as she pulled free of Ramsey, clambered onto a wooden box, and pried the window from its opening. Ramsey could only watch in wonder as she wrestled it free, and very quietly climbed down, setting it aside.

“Look,” she whispered, even more softly than before. She pointed to the shrubs growing between the house and the car. There would only be a few yards without cover.

She nudged Ramsey’s shoulder. “Go on, get up there and make that call.”

Chapter Thirteen

They hovered at the open window as Ramsey conversed via the cordless phone with Fuller. No one was in sight outside now. Only two DPI cars and three agents. They must want Damien very badly, Cuyler mused, to take such a chance.

Either that or they were playing a huge bluff. Maybe the others were only out of sight, waiting. Maybe Fuller and DPI had no intention of letting any of them go.

“He’s out cold, Fuller,” Ramsey said into the phone. “Apparently your tranquilizer works. Cuyler and I want transportation out of here. Now.”

Ramsey held the phone away from his ear, and Cuyler leaned in close to hear the reply. Damien didn’t bother. Cuyler wondered if perhaps he didn’t need to. She had no idea the extent of his powers.

“You and Cuyler stay put. We’re coming in. When we see for ourselves that he’s incapacitated, we’ll let you go.”

Ramsey covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Lying through his teeth.” Removing his hand, he said, “All right, Fuller. But you better keep your word.”

They waited, all of them pressed to the opening in the window. Cuyler knew Damien could leave if he wanted to. He had the ability. But he stayed, all the same.

When they heard the front door open, and Fuller calling Ramsey’s name, Ramsey made a stirrup of his hands, and bent. Cuyler stepped up, pushing herself through the window. She emerged kneeling, concealed by the shrubbery, still close enough to hear Fuller’s voice raised in alarm.

“Where the hell are you, Bachman?” Then, “Dammit, he’s up to something. Search the place.”

Damien was beside her a second later. Then Ramsey himself crawled through. She bit her lip as Damien reached back, offering a hand, which Ramsey took. Sandwiched between the two men, she glanced toward the car.

“We move as one,” Ramsey said, his body shielding hers on one side. Damien nodded. Bending low, they ran toward the car. Just as they reached the end of the shrub cover, the front door of the house burst open and several shots rang out.

She felt Ramsey stiffen beside her, but he never faltered. One arm came around her and he moved faster, around the far side of the car. Ramsey opened the back door, bending over her body as she threw herself inside, facedown on the floor. The window above her exploded and glass rained down into her hair. She tried to turn, tried to see Ramsey and Damien, but the bullets whizzed near her face, bringing back a flood of horrifying memories, until she could only lower her head again, covering it with her hands. She heard the door slam and felt the car jerk into motion. And then the bullets stopped ringing in her ears. She chanced lifting her head, only to see Damien on the back seat, sitting calmly amid the gunfire, his gaze so intense… and then glowing as he stared at something behind them.

Curious, even while shaking all over, she sat up a bit, following his gaze. She saw the DPI men running toward their car. But before they reached it, it exploded in a ball of blinding white flame.

Shielding her eyes and gasping, she glanced at Damien. But he didn’t notice, still too focused on what was behind them. He stared at the house now, even as the confused men turned to scramble toward it.

All three flew backward when it exploded. This time, the ground beneath the car rocked with the impact. She heard Ramsey swear, saw him twist in the driver’s seat to look at the sight. Then she was looking, too. The entire house was nothing but a flaming framework, rapidly disintegrating to ash. Great beam-shaped lengths of fire fell in slow motion, disappearing into the mouth of the inferno waiting below to devour them.

She still felt the vibrations of the explosion, and the house was all but gone already.

My God.

They rounded a bend. The car weaved in and out of its lane and steadily lost speed. Cuyler frowned, clambering over the seat. “Ramsey, what’s wrong? What’s—”

She bit off the rest of her words, seeing the blood that soaked the front of him. His grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled, his eyes steadily glazing over, his back bowing more and more as his right leg began a spastic dance. The car jerked with his foot’s movements on the accelerator.

“Ramsey!” She swung her leg over his, jamming her foot down on the brake and jerking the gearshift into Neutral. She gripped the wheel, guided the car to the roadside, slammed it into Park, and grabbed Ramsey’s shoulders, shaking him. “Dammit, Ramsey, don’t do this to me! Ramsey! Ramsey!”

He focused on her eyes, and she could see it was a struggle. One side of his mouth pulled into that half smile of his, and he managed to wink. “Maybe Damien oughta drive, hmm?” Both his legs trembled now. Then they stopped, and his eyelids fell closed.

Cuyler buried her face in the crook of his neck, crying uncontrollably. “It isn’t over, Ramsey. Damn you, it isn’t over. Not yet, not like this!”

A firm hand on her shoulder drew her gaze upward to look into Damien’s solemn eyes. “No, Cuyler. It isn’t over. Not yet.” He got out of the car, opened the front door, hauled Ramsey out, then carefully placed him across the back seat. Cuyler got back there, too, and lifted Ramsey’s head as she slid in, so she could cradle it in her lap. Damien got behind the wheel. “Hold on to him, Cuyler. I’ll drive you somewhere safe. And the rest…” He glanced over his shoulder at the man she held, his eyes narrow. “The rest, I guess, will be up to Ramsey.”

Ramsey woke to the most incredible, burning pain he’d ever felt in his life. But at least he woke. He supposed he ought to be grateful for small favors.

His chest was bandaged. His legs had gone numb. But there was warmth, softness. His head was pillowed on what felt like satin. Small hands were running over his face, through his hair. A musical voice, like the wind, begged him to wake up. Salty tears rained down on his face. Trembling lips pressed to his over and over again.

He opened his eyes. Hazy, everything was so hazy. His body felt weak, drained. And there was this incredible urge to just close his eyes again and float away.

“Ramsey?”

God, but he didn’t want to float away. Not if “away” meant away from Cuyler.

“Right here.” That didn’t sound like his voice. It sounded far away, echoing back to his ears from the other end of a hollow tunnel. Man, he was fading fast. He tried to look around, but could only make out several halos of golden light. Candles? And one bigger one, a fireplace, maybe. He felt the warmth, smelled the fragrance. Yes, a fireplace. And he thought he was on a bed, but he couldn’t be sure. “Where are we?”

“Damien’s house…one of his houses, as he put it. We’re safe here, Ramsey. Damien went to get rid of the car. When he comes back, I’m sending him for a doctor.”

“A doctor can’t help, Cuyler.” He knew it, somewhere deep in his soul. Just the same way he knew her devastation. She sensed him slipping away, just as he did. And she was dying a little bit, right along with him.

He struggled to sit up, and she helped him. “I can’t stand this, Ramsey. I can’t stand losing you.” She propped pillows at his back.

He caught her hands, brought them to his lips. “I’ve been a fool.”

“You saved our lives, Ramsey. Even Damien knows what you did back there.”

“A fool,” he whispered. God, it was getting harder and harder to speak, to string words together. He had to focus every ounce of strength on saying what he had to say. “He’s a decent man, Damien. I was wrong… about him. About…about everything.”

“It doesn’t matter now—”

“Yes. Yes, it does. I’m not…” He drew a painful breath, grated his teeth. “I’m not what you think I am, Cuyler. The insulin… all this time…they tricked me.”

She sank onto the edge of the bed, running her hands through his hair. “Don’t try to talk. Just rest—”

“I don’t deserve…to be…to live. But I’m not ready to die, either.”

She choked on a sob. Shaking all over, she lowered her head to his chest, clung to him.

“But I’ll…make it up to you…to all of you.”

She lifted her head and stared into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I want to live, Cuyler.” He wanted to stop. He was panting, out of breath as if he’d just run a marathon, but he had to continue. “I want to be able…to love you…the way you deserve.” The pain in his chest was unbearable. But the pain in his heart was worse. “I want it. I want you to do it to me, Cuyler. Right now.”

Her brows drew together as she searched his face, desperation etched in her every feature. “Do… Ramsey, what are you saying? I can’t transform you. The antigen—”

“I have it.” He inhaled, but it was too shallow. His voice grew weaker with every word. “I have…all along. The insulin…” That was it. It was the end. He felt himself slipping steadily away from her. He tried to tighten his hold on her, but didn’t have the strength. With supreme effort, he gasped, and in a harsh whisper, went on. “I love you, Cuyler…”

His eyes fell closed and the breath slowly escaped his lungs.

“Ramsey! Ramsey, no…”

But she knew the end was here. And she knew he’d been telling her something… something she didn’t understand.

Go on, Cuyler. Damien’s soft, deep voice floated across the boundaries of time and space. He’s one of us. Always has been. It’s all in the files. They’ve masked it with some new drug or other. Told him it was insulin and that he was diabetic. They’ve brainwashed him through most of his life, and still he found his way to you. Go on, bring him over. If ever a man was worthy of the gift, it’s him.

Cuyler felt her eyes widen. She was shocked beyond belief, and half wondered if the voice in her mind might have been her own imagination. But if there was a chance…

She bent her head and kissed Ramsey’s slack mouth. Then she bent lower, sliding her lips over his bristly jaw, to his throat. “Come back to me, love,” she whispered, her lips moving over his salty skin.

When Ramsey opened his eyes a long while later, there were a hundred new and unbelievable sensations coursing through him. Things he’d never felt before, didn’t understand, a sense of elation and strength and vitality he’d never had before.

But all of that paled beside the joy he felt at finding Cuyler cradling him in her arms. He looked up at her, saw the uncertainty in her huge onyx eyes as they searched his face.

“You did it, didn’t you?” he asked her, and even his voice seemed different. Or maybe it was his hearing that had taken on a new intensity.

She nodded. “You said… I thought…” She bit her lip. “Don’t hate me for it, Ramsey. It seemed to be what you wanted. If I misunderstood, then—”

“It’s what I wanted.”

“But—”

He lifted his head, silencing her by pressing his lips to hers. “I love you, Cuyler Jade. You know that, don’t you?”

The worry fled her eyes and she smiled. “Of course I do. I knew it before you did. And it’s a good thing.”

“Why’s that?”

She kissed his forehead, then his mouth. “Because, Ramsey, I love you, and I wouldn’t settle for anything less in return. Especially since I have to put up with you for the rest of eternity.”

“Eternity with Tinkerbell,” he said, grinning. He gathered her into his arms and held her close. “I can’t think of a sweeter fate.”

--5 Born in Twilight (1997) --

BORN IN TWILIGHT

Copyright © 1997 by Margaret Benson

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

DARK LOVER

I loved not the night

but he drew me,

With dark whispers beckoned me near His shadows I thought

would subdue me, Enslave me in chains made of fear

I wished not to look but he wooed me,

His strong, gentle hand turned my face

I opened my eyes

and saw beauty,

Where I'd seen but a desolate place

I fled from the night

but he chased me,

He caught me in arms of dark steel

I sighed as I let him

embrace me In his touch, at last, I could feel

I turned to the night

and he kissed me,

On his lips I tasted sweet wine

I opened to night's

sacred mystery He took me, and whispered, "You're mine"

The night has become

my dark lover

By day but a dream, bittersweet At sunset I run

to no other My surrender to night is complete

This book is dedicated to you. You who refuse to apologize for your choice of entertainment.

You who walk into a bookstore, place your stack of romances on the counter and look the clerk in the eye with your chin up and your spine straight.

You who-despite the opinions of pop psychologists-know full well the difference between fantasy and reality.

You who have made romance the world’s top-selling form of fiction.

All of you who share the secret-romance novels are by women, for women and about women. You and me.

No wonder some people are so afraid of them.

Chapter One

I am damned. I am damned. I am damned.

Those words were the only ones I could utter as I stumbled through the city streets that first night of my new life. My hair in tangles, my clothes torn and dirty. Passersby looked at me and then quickly looked away, their eyes flashing with alarm—or was it contempt?—as their steps altered to give me a wide berth. Almost as if they knew.

I’d been on the right path. Or I thought I had. Perhaps I’d been a bit too confident in my righteousness. Pride goeth before a fall, after all. But surely the sin of pride didn’t warrant this severe a retribution. Surely it hadn’t been the hand of God that brought me this low.

No. No, God had nothing to do with it. Nor Satan himself, but a monster. A creature far more hideous than even Lucifer in all his evil glory could ever be.

For thirteen years I’d been as pure and as holy as I envisioned the very angels to be. From the darkest night of my life—the night my mother had left me at the altar at St. Christopher’s, promising she’d come back for me soon—I had done only good. Though I’d barely been old enough to know good from bad then, a nine-year-old child abandoned by her mother learns quickly enough. If I were only good enough, perhaps she would come back for me.

She hadn’t. But it had only served to convince me that I hadn’t been good enough. It only served to make me strive to be better.

The sisters had raised me well, taught me all they knew of the ways of truth and righteousness for His name’s sake. And I hadn’t left them when I’d come of age, but instead, had clung to the refuge I’d found among them.

My final vows would have been spoken a week from that horrible night. Just one more week. And I wondered, for just a moment, if I’d have been safe from the monster had I taken the veil sooner. Would my devotion have protected me then?

“I am damned,” I muttered again, this time sinking to the steps of a beautiful cathedral. I didn’t gaze up at the spires, or wonder at the beauty of the stained-glass windows. I couldn’t. When I looked at the colors, my monstrous eyes refused to linger on the heavenly blues and greens and golds. They focused instead on the bits of scarlet-colored glass, and on those alone. And a hunger stirred from the very depths of my soul. A sinful hunger, one I could not—would not—assuage.

I’d gone out alone that wintry night, despite the sisters’ dire warnings…

My soft-soled shoes made squeaking sounds as I raced down the steep wooden stairs from my cell. I was in a hurry to be off. It was snowing outside! The first snow of the winter, and how I loved it. I’d been pacing my chamber, unable to concentrate on my studies, or much of anything else for that matter. All I seemed able to do was glance at the small, white-faced clock on my wall, and scowl at its slow ticking, before turning back to my single window to gaze longingly out at the snow.

We were not a cloistered order, exactly. We did go out among the worldly, but only in service to the Lord, or when Mother Mary Ruth saw it as absolutely necessary. Tonight it was my turn to work at the shelter several blocks away. And while I knew I should be rejoicing in the opportunity to serve God by helping my fellow man in his time of need, I wasn’t. I was rejoicing in the opportunity to go out in that brand-new snow.

I pulled a light shawl over my habit, which was a simplified version of the ones the true sisters wore. I’d have one like theirs soon. In just over a week when I took my solemn vows.

But my steps faltered as I reached the bottom of the staircase and saw Sister Rebecca, who was to accompany me to the shelter, leaning against the newel post and looking sickly.

“Sister, what’s wrong?” I rushed forward, my heart sinking as much at the thought of having to stay in tonight as at the thought of Sister Rebecca being ill. We always worked in pairs at the shelter. Always traveled there and back together.

“Stomach virus, or so I suspect,” she replied. She was young, like me. It had been only a year since she’d taken her final vows, and I sometimes thought it was a shame she’d never married or had children, as lovely as she was. And as I thought it, a small, niggling doubt tried to creep up my nape and into my brain, but I shook it off. This was the only life I’d ever known. I remembered almost nothing from before my mother left me here. I wouldn’t know how to live among the worldly. Besides, I wanted to be good. And there wasn’t a better way, was there?

“Don’t worry,” Sister Rebecca said, valiantly lifting her chin and trying to paste a smile over the grimace on her lips. “I’m not going to beg off. You’ve been looking forward to this all day.”

Had I been so obvious? I averted my face. “No, Sister Rebecca. I won’t have you going out when you feel so poorly. You should be in bed.” I pressed a hand to her forehead, and felt heat there. Then I turned her around, and helped her toward the stairs. “Now, go on upstairs and rest. I can certainly tend to the needs of the homeless without a partner on the verge of collapse.”

She stiffened, as I’d feared she would. “You will most certainly not go out alone! You know the mother superior’s rules!”

“Surely she’d make an exception if she knew you were sick. She’d never insist you go with me.”

“No. She’d insist you stay here.”

“Lucky for me she’s not here, then.”

Sister Rebecca shook her head slowly. “Look at you! Your eyes are sparkling tonight. What has you so excited, Angelica?”

“The snow,” I said, spinning around and stopping when I faced the window and could see the snowflakes pirouetting in the glow of the streetlights outside. “I want to be in it. Feel it on my face.”

Her soft hand came down to my shoulder. “There will be other snow, Angelica.”

“But this is the first,” I said, and I faced her once more. “Please let me go. I’m a grown woman. Grown women traipse about this city by themselves every day.”

“Not women of this order,” she began.

“Well, technically, I’m not of this order…yet. So I can do what I want.”

“Angelica…”

I stopped on my way to the door, and turned to face her.

She smiled, and I saw the fever in her pink cheeks and shining eyes. One strand of golden hair had escaped her wimple and curled against her cheek. “You’re a very strong-willed young woman, Angelica,” she said, but her smile remained. “And adventurous, and more than a little bit mischievous. I often wonder if you’ve given enough thought to the decision you’ve made.”

But I only shrugged. “I’m going to the shelter. Mother superior can lecture me when she returns, but until then, I’m going out in the snow.”

She nodded then, as if in defeat. “Hurry then. Don’t miss your bus. If you do, you come straight back here—” But I was already out the door.

Oh, the snow! I’d always loved winter. I tipped my face up to let the icy, wet flakes fall against my cheeks and my nose. And even tasted them the way a small child might do. They coated everything I passed, like powdered sugar on parked cars and sidewalks and windowsills and front stoops. And I know I dawdled, because it enchanted me so. I remember thinking it was like magic, that first snow of the winter. Like a fairy tale come true. And I remember telling myself that I was far too old to be so giddy over a simple thing like snow. Dancing in it like a little girl. But I couldn’t help myself. I was giddy.

And wrong, I was wrong to have come out alone, blatantly breaking the rules of the order. But I’d done so often enough in the past that the sisters must surely expect it by now. I disliked rules. I’d probably have to change my rebellious ways and conform a bit better once I took my vows, but I refused to do so until then. After that…

Again, that shiver of doubt. Again, I shook it away. I’d think about that later. Not now. All I wanted to do right now was walk alone at night, breaking the rules with every step, and enjoy the snow.

And that is precisely what I did. When I finally reached the bus stop on the corner though, it was only to see my transportation rolling away without me.

It threw me, but only for a moment. After all, I was almost a sister of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy. I was good. I lived my life serving God, and surely no one else did so with such enthusiasm as I. And certainly, wherever I went I was walking within the protection of His love. In fact, I’m sure I felt invulnerable, though where I got that idea, I do not know. It was not something the sisters would have taught me, not something I’d read in my studies. But I felt it, all the same. I felt surrounded by a protective shield that would let no harm come to me, and because of it, I foolishly decided to walk the six blocks to the shelter. And that, I later realized, was the foolish pride that led to my downfall.

He was waiting. Crouched in the shadows of a garbage-strewn alley. The monster called out to me as I passed, and my steps slowed to a reluctant stop. What a fool I was.

“Sister! Sister, please, help me.”

My beloved snow fell in gentle puffs as I turned to look into the darkness, unable to see the owner of that plaintive voice. I stood a little straighter, feeling a hint of fear for the first time. “Who’s there?” I called. “Come here, where I can see you.”

“I can’t. I’m hurt. Please, Sister. Don’t let me die here in the cold. Help me!”

My fear did not evaporate. It was simply outspoken by my unwavering confidence. I was a servant of the Lord, and I would walk where even His most trusted angels feared to tread, if that were what was necessary. I’d help this poor soul in the alley. But I’d be careful, cautious, wise. Tentatively, I stepped into the blackness, and an icy shiver raced up my nape, chilling me right to my soul. And I should have known. I should have known right then not to go a single step farther.

“Over here,” he moaned, drawing me closer. Closer, until the lighted, busy street was out of reach. And when I was close enough, still blind in the darkness, he came at me. Bony arms with the strength of Samson closed around me, nearly crushing me, and a hand clapped over my mouth. I struggled. Mightily, I struggled. For though devout, I had never been timid or weak, or cowardly. I kicked at him with a force that surely should have broken his shins. And I boxed his ears hard enough to knock him unconscious. I twisted and pulled against his grip, and tried to bite the hand over my mouth. But nothing I did to him seemed to have any noticeable effect. He didn’t flinch, or even draw a harsh breath. My heart pounded so loudly it deafened me as he dragged me deeper into that alley. And silently, I began praying. Praying for salvation from this madman, praying for my life to be spared. Lord, forgive me for that error. I should have been praying for my immortal soul, not the preservation of this life, this body.

He threw me down among the rubbish so hard my breath was taken away when I hit. And then he came down on top of me, as I gasped for air among the fetid garbage. The stench was sickening. I caught my breath, parted my lips to scream, but he covered my mouth again. He sat there, straddling me, and with his free hand he tore the wimple from my head, freeing my hair and grasping handfuls of it.

“Black satin,” he whispered as he fingered my hair. “And eyes like onyx. You’re perfect.” I struggled beneath him. “Perfect. I won’t be alone anymore.”

I still could not see him well. Only the shape of his face, and the darker wells of his eyes were visible. But I could not escape the feeling that he could see me perfectly.

“I’ve been watching you for so long, you know. I’ve chosen you, of the many I’ve known. You should be grateful, Angelica, for the gift you’re about to receive.”

I shook my head, but to no avail.

“Yes. Grateful,” he went on. “No cloistered order for you, my perfect one. No vows. You’re not meant for that. You’re meant for me.”

The monster bowed over me, lifting me slightly from my bed of refuse. He bent to my throat, and my stomach turned when I felt the touch of his cold mouth on my skin. With one hand, he forced my head back until I thought my neck would break. And then the moment I shall never forget for as long as I live. Indeed, the moment I’d never dreamed of. I thought he would rape me, murder me. I thought many things when that creature bent over me that night. But I never thought this.

There was pain—brief, shocking pain, when his incisors pierced the tender skin of my throat. And then that pain was gone, and I was left instead with the horror of what was happening to me. His mouth sucked at my neck as he drank the very lifeblood from my body. I could feel it, feel my essence leaving me through those two tiny holes in my throat. My mind swam, faded. Everything faded. The stench of the garbage and the chill of the cold winter night. The feel of those wet snowflakes on my face. The very ground on which I lay. Everything vanished, and I was left with nothing. Every aspect of me was focused on the part of me where this monster had fastened himself. My throat, and his mouth drawing the blood from it, were all that remained of the universe.

He lifted his head. I lay still, barely conscious, unable to move or utter a sound. He moved, and there was a glint of silver. I couldn’t even feel alarm when it occurred to me that he held a blade. That he would finish me now. I could hear nothing. The sounds of the city could no longer reach my ears. Only his voice.

He lifted me, pressing my face into the crook of his neck, and he whispered, “Drink, Angelica. Drink…and live.”

He forced me closer, his hand on the back of my head. And my lips touched warmth, wetness on his throat. I tried to draw away, but my weakness would not allow it. And the first taste of it touched my tongue, quickening my senses. A jolt, like a blast of icy wind, shot through me. I think my eyes shot wide. My lips parted on a gasp, and more of the thick, salty liquid surged into my mouth. Had I not swallowed, I’d have drowned. And if I’d been as devout as I’d prided myself on being, that’s precisely what I would have done. Let myself drown in this cursed elixir. Gone willingly into the arms of the Lord rather than surrendering myself to the instinctive need to stay alive. But instead, I swallowed. And that was when I first felt the power of this devilish hunger. It shot through me, overwhelming all that I had ever been. It took control, a need I couldn’t even identify. I closed my lips over the wound in his throat…and I drank. Hungrily, greedily, I drank, and as I did, my body came alive with sensations I’d never known. So gluttonous was I, that he had to push me away when the curse was complete. Push me, his unwilling victim, away from his neck.

And I lay there in the garbage. And my eyes cleared. I could see. I could see everything. Every aspect of his white face, and black eyes, and bloodstained lips. Every grain of sand in the bricks of the building beside me. Every star in the sky. My skin tingled with new life, new awareness. I felt in a way I’d never felt before. The shape of each snowflake as it hit my skin. Every molecule of chilly air that caressed my face. Every pebble and piece of trash that lay beneath me. I could identify each vile smell. And my hearing…I could hear the conversations of people passing on the street. The roll of tires on the wet pavement. The squeaking of snow-dampened brakes.

I heard the traffic light turn green.

“What is this?” I cried, and my own voice was so shockingly different, so vivid and rich and clear, that I pressed my hands to my ears and squeezed my eyes shut tight.

“You’ll learn to control it,” he told me. “You can close it out, hear only what you wish to hear. You’ll learn. I’ll teach you.” He removed my hands from my ears, pressed them to the rubbish at my sides. “I’ll teach you. You’ll live forever, Angelica. You’re not mortal anymore. You’re like me now.”

I opened my eyes. “Like you?” I was horrified.

“Yes.”

And my heart seemed to stop beating as I realized what he had done, what I had allowed him to do. “I’m damned,” I whispered.

“Come. Your first lesson awaits.” He hauled me to my feet, dragged me toward the mouth of the alley, though I pulled against him. My habit was torn as he grabbed at me. “Strong,” he whispered. “Already, you’re very strong. You’ll be even stronger, Angelica, after we feed.” He stopped, holding me there at the mouth of the alley, and I watched his odd, black eyes scan the passersby.

“Feed?” I whispered, terrified.

“Yes,” he said, and he smiled. I saw his teeth then, his fangs, razor sharp and glistening. “On them.” He nodded toward the people who passed.

Horror enveloped my heart. He was a monster! A demon. A…a vampire. I shivered as the word whispered in my mind. He’d made of me another creature just like him. And I’d allowed it. I’d even taken part in it. I’d—

He caught me up in his arms, though I fought, and he carried me back into the alley. Slinging me over his shoulder, he clutched the side of the building and began to climb. Like a spider, he made his way to the very top, and I stopped my struggling for fear I would fall. Higher and higher he went, and the wind blew stronger here. My beloved snowflakes became weapons. Tiny arrows slung by the Angel of the Lord to punish me. Cutting my face with their biting touch. And yet I did not shiver or suffer from the cold. Only felt it more acutely than I ever had.

He climbed onto the roof, and then raced over rooftops, leaping from one to the next. I think I screamed as we seemed to sail through the night sky like true demons. I think I screamed. If so, the sound of it is only a vague memory now.

We made our way to the ground again, to the streets, and I knew where we were. Not far from the shelter where I’d been so arrogantly going this night. Oh, why had I been so rebellious? Why?

He pointed, and I looked. A handful of the city’s homeless stood around a fire barrel, warming their hands near the dancing flames. Red-orange light painting their haggard faces and illuminating their tattered clothes.

“There,” he said. “Our victims…ours for the taking, Angelica. Their lives will be no great loss.”

The people I’d spent years trying to help. This man intended to feed on them, to use them in order to sustain his own cursed life. “No,” I begged him. “No, please, we mustn’t. It’s a sin to kill!” For I knew that murder was exactly what he had on his mind.

He left me free to run if I chose. He must have known, animal that he was, that I could not. Like a great, stalking wolf, he crept up on them. But quickly. So quickly there was no time for me to shout a warning. And then, without hesitation, he grabbed one. There was a shout of alarm, and then the others scattered, vanishing in the night. And he held the man he’d chosen. A terror-stricken, aged face that I knew I had seen before. In the shelter. In the soup kitchens where I’d worked. I’d given him blankets, and that very sweater he wore. I’d prayed with him.

I raced forward, but too late. The beast had plunged his wretched teeth into the neck of the innocent old man. I battered his head, clawed at his face, but he only released his victim when he’d taken his fill. He lifted his head, and he smiled at me. And his lips gleamed scarlet in the firelight. I backed away, shaking my head, working my mouth but unable to speak.

The man whose name I could not recall slumped to the ground, eyes wide, but already glazing over. His face was the face of death, bathed in the dancing glow of the fire in the barrel beside him.

The monster licked his lips, and then with the speed of a striking cobra, snatched a handful of my hair and pulled, making me cry out in pain. “You shall never fight me again, Angelica. You’re mine now. Mine, do you understand? All your life I’ve watched you, waited for you. You’ll go where I go. Do as I say. Feed when I feed.” He glanced past me, into the shadows, and that evil smile returned. “Even now your first victim waits. There, quivering in the night, thinking we cannot see him in the darkness.” He stared down into my face. “I’ll bring him to you, and you will take him, Angelica. You will drain him dry, or suffer my wrath.” And then he released me and started forward. I turned and saw the boy, a mere youth, dressed in tattered rags, crouching in the darkness, shivering and wide-eyed with fear. And I could not let that creature take his life. I could not.

My hand closed around a piece of wood that protruded from the fire barrel. The end I grasped was not burning, but as I pulled it out, I saw that the other end was aflame. With a low growl, one I could not believe came from me, I lunged forward, swinging my torchlike weapon with all of my newfound strength.

But it wasn’t the force of my blow that did the deed. The flaming end of the club crashed against the vampire’s head, knocking him to his knees. But I’m sure the damage I did was minimal. It was the flame. The blaze seemed to leap at him, fire licking at his hair, and then at his clothes. He surged to his feet, his lips parting in a snarl as he came at me. But the fire…I crossed myself as I watched it engulf him. It seemed as if he’d been doused in gasoline, the way the flames spread. I backed away when he reached for me. And that was all. He fell to the ground, and there was a surge of white-hot flames. And then nothing. The flames died away as if they’d never been. The tiny sparks and embers sailed into the night and blinked out, one by one. And not even ashes remained to soil the perfect white snow at my feet.

The boy in the shadows was gone, and I could hear his fleeing footsteps still reaching my ears as he ran. I staggered away, shocked, terrified, appalled. I had killed. I had been transformed. I was a creature like the one I had murdered. I was damned. Damned.

His hearing was excellent. Not preternaturally so, since he was still a mere mortal, but good enough to know what was going on. The bastards were going to kill him.

For three days, he’d been strapped to this table, inside this tiny cell. Poked and prodded by DPI scientists in white lab coats until there wasn’t an inch of his skin they hadn’t violated. Nothing. There wasn’t a bodily fluid they hadn’t taken samples of. Not one. But it wasn’t humiliation he felt. It was rage. And this time, the bastards would pay. Jameson Bryant might not be a vampire, but he wasn’t a child any longer, either. He was a grown man, and as of tonight, he was a man bent on revenge. He’d tear this building down brick by brick when he got free. He’d destroy the Division of Paranormal Investigations and everyone connected with it.

Jameson understood DPI’s interest in him. He knew—had known since he was a boy—that he was different. His blood type was rare, shared with only a chosen few. The belladonna antigen made him a subject of study for these so-called scientists. The few, rare individuals with this blood type were the only mortals capable of being transformed. Being made over…becoming vampires. And every living vampire had claimed the belladonna antigen during their mortal lives.

DPI, in their quest to learn all there was to know about the undead—and thus enable themselves to rid the world of them—often used live research subjects. But they’d had their chance with Jameson long ago, when he’d been just a boy. And they’d nearly killed him then. Would have, if not for his undead friends. Roland in particular. Still, they’d had their time with Jameson Bryant. Surely there was no more they could learn from him now.

God, to think Tamara had once worked for these bastards! But she hadn’t known. She hadn’t known.

Jameson didn’t know why every preternatural being on the planet didn’t band together and destroy DPI the way DPI was intent on destroying them. They didn’t deserve the constant harassment, the fear they were forced to live with due to this secretive government agency. Oh, certainly, there were evil ones among the undead. Just as there were among any race of beings. But for the most part, vampires were the best people Jameson had ever known. They’d taken him in when his mother had died. Practically raised him.

Well, if Roland and Eric and the others wouldn’t raise a hand to bring this organization to ruin, Jameson would. It was time. Long past time.

They had their “specimens” he’d heard them say. The experiment had been completed in record time, and now they could go on with phase two, whatever the hell that was. Well. They weren’t fools then. DPI knew from experience that Jameson Bryant’s friends were not the kind of people they wanted to tangle with. And now they would “dispose of the subject” before any of his undead protectors were the wiser.

He pulled against the straps that held his arms and legs to the cold, metallic table. They had a surprise coming if they thought he’d go down without a fight. This might not be Jameson’s first involvement with DPI, but it would damned well be his last.

One way or another.

“Jamey!”

At the harsh whisper, Jameson turned his head as far as the restraints would allow. And then he swore, because Roland stood at his cell, bending the bars apart as if they were made of rubber.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What the hell do you think?” Roland stepped into the cell and easily tore through the straps that held Jameson pinned down. “Are you all right, Jamey?”

“Fine. And it’s Jameson now.” He sat up, jumped down from the table and faced down the man he loved like a father. A man who was centuries old, but who appeared not much older than Jameson was now. Though a bit paler skinned, and with eyes that gleamed a little brighter than a mere mortal’s would.

Roland smiled. “I keep forgetting. Look at you. You dwarf me now.”

“What you keep forgetting, Roland, is that I don’t want my friends risking their lives for me.”

“It would have been riskier to leave you to them,” Roland said, and he shrugged sheepishly. “Rhiannon would have fed me to her cat.”

Jameson tried to hold on to his anger, but that was a useless effort. He could well imagine Roland’s mate, Rhiannon, threatening just that, and since her “cat” was no less than a panther, it was a threat not to be taken lightly. Not that she’d ever carry it out. She adored her husband.

Jameson embraced Roland, who hugged him back just as fiercely. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other. Jameson had been leading a fairly normal, mortal life in San Diego, under an assumed name, thinking DPI would never find him again. He owned a bar there, and profits were good.

And then one day as he’d locked up and headed for his car, he’d been grabbed by two thugs in dark suits, and the next thing he knew he was strapped to a table in White Plains. Talk about deja vu.

“We can catch up later,” Roland said, releasing him. “Eric is—”

“Eric is here?” Jameson asked, suddenly angry all over again. Damn, when would they learn not to risk their lives every time he got into trouble? “And Tamara?”

“She’s waiting outside with Rhiannon.”

Jameson backed away from Roland, stiff with renewed anger. “Dammit, Roland, how could you let Tamara come here? You know what could happen. What they’d do if they ever got their filthy hands on her again!”

“She wouldn’t stay behind. You know her well enough to know—‘”

“Hurry it up, will you?” Eric appeared at the cell door, a small cut on his forehead trickling scarlet. “One of them got away, and—” He broke off, eyes widening slightly as they skimmed Jameson, head to toe. “Good God, has it been that long? Look at you!”

Jameson shook his head, wondering how the hell a thirty-year-old adult man could be made to feel fourteen again. He supposed it could only happen when the two who made him feel that way were several centuries older. It would probably never change, no matter how long he lived. Roland grasped his arm, and hurried from the cell, pulling Jameson along with him. They ran into the hall, following Eric, who led the way to the nearest window. He stopped there, pushing it open.

Jameson planted his feet, and looked from one man to the other. “You guys are kidding, right? We’re on the tenth floor for—”

The two flanked him, gripped his arms and jumped.

Chapter Two

“Two guards dead,” DPI supervisor Wes Fuller repeated, though everyone in this staff meeting already knew the body count. “Six others injured. And that bastard Jameson Bryant gone, free as a bird.” He rapped the pipe, bowl down, against the glass ashtray, expelling the spent tobacco.

“Doesn’t matter.” Chief aide Stiles went over the checklist on his clipboard, nodding as he did. “We got everything we needed from him. Our theory was correct. Once they’re transformed, the males are sterile. Beforehand, though, while they’re still human—‘”

“Human my ass. They’re only passing. Animals, all of them.”

“Yes, well…” Stiles cleared his throat. “At any rate, before that kind is changed over, they’re fertile. The belladonna antigen doesn’t seem to affect the sperm count.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Fuller pushed his chair away from the conference table, the casters squealing in protest of his bulk, and got to his feet. He turned his gaze to Dr. Rose Sversky, who was pushing seventy, and still the sharpest member of DPIs research team. She had snowy-white hair, cut short, to go with her pixielike frame. She ought to be wearing an apron and rocking grandbabies, not dissecting vampires.

“You have the data?” Fuller asked. “What’s the breakdown?”

Rose adjusted her Coke-bottle-thick eyeglasses and cleared her throat. “Of the twelve thousand, five hundred female subjects we’ve tested and/or autopsied in the past two decades,” she said, her voice clinical and cold, “just over three thousand still had viable egg cells in their ovaries. Ninety-eight percent of those had been transformed for less than a year. None of them for more than twenty-three months.” She looked up from her notes, and moved her glasses down a notch to peer at him over the tops of them. “To break it down, Mr. Fuller, yes. It is entirely possible that a newly formed female vampire could mate with a mortal male, and produce a child.”

Hilary Garner’s pencil lead snapped off. The sound drew Fuller’s cold eyes, and he scowled at her. “Try and keep up, Garner. We’ll need these notes.”

“Yes, sir.” She blinked the horror from her eyes, and went to the desk for a fresh pencil. She’d only recently been promoted to this position, executive secretary to Weston Fuller. It came with a huge bonus in pay, terrific hours…and some frightening, sickening revelations as to what this organization was truly about.

She hadn’t believed her friend and co-worker Tamara Dey, all those years ago, when she’d tried to warn her. She hadn’t seen anything to indicate that what Tamara had said was true. The kidnappings, the torture, the murders.

Hilary paused there, staring down at her reflection in the solid silver pencil holder on Fuller’s expensive desk. Caramel skin, and wide brown eyes with a few crow’s feet at the corners stared back at her, and her reflection whispered, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Hurry it up, Garner. I haven’t got all day.”

Clearing her throat, Hilary snatched a pencil from the holder and hurried back to her seat beside Chief Fuller.

“Now then,” he began, still addressing Rose Sversky, who looked far too sweet and far too old to be involved in a covert government agency. But she was involved. Up to her bushy white eyebrows. She was the world’s top—and, Hilary thought, likely the world’s only—forensic pathologist specializing in the examination of the remains of vampires. But Fuller was still speaking and Hilary was supposed to be paying attention.

“Suppose one of these females were to mate with a mortal who carried the antigen? What would the results be?”

Rose shrugged. “A baby, I imagine.” She winked, and an uneasy chuckle went around the table.

“Yes, but what kind of baby?” Fuller looked around the room, eyeing each high-ranking agent at the conference table one by one. “Don’t you see what I’m getting at here? Should these creatures find a way to reproduce, we’d be outnumbered within a few years.”

“So what are you suggesting we do about it?” Every eye turned to Hilary when she blurted the question. Hell, she wasn’t supposed to have any input at all here. Just sit quietly and take notes while the big boys made their plans. Rose was the only female at the table besides Hilary, and she was only there because they couldn’t get by without her.

Wes Fuller leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her as if he were awaiting an apology. Hilary sat up a little straighter, looking him dead in the eye, and not giving him one.

The tension stretched to the breaking point, and finally he came forward, slapping his palms on the tabletop and leaning toward her. “What we’re going to do about it, Miss Garner, is find out.”

“F-findout…?”

“Find out what the results of such a mating would be. Research, Garner. That’s what we do here.” He nodded to Stiles, returning to his former comfortable, almost lounging position in his chair as he made life-and-death decisions as though he were ordering lunch. “We have the frozen samples from Jameson Bryant, and you say they’re fertile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Then he turned his attention to Whaley, the eastern regional operative coordinator. “We’ll need a female, newly changed over. Preferably close by so we don’t run into trouble getting her here.”

Whaley nodded once, sharply. “I’ll put every operative in the area on alert. We’ll have a subject within the week.”

“Good.” Fuller smiled grimly, then glanced into Hilary’s eyes, making her feel dirty inside. “You have any sort of problem with this?”

She blinked, lowered her chin, said nothing.

“I hope not,” Fuller told her. “Because we deal harshly with employees who can’t stomach the work we do here, Miss Garner. Very harshly.”

“I understand,” she said, meeting his gaze once more. And she knew when she looked into those chilling eyes, that she did. She understood perfectly. If she tried to get out, tried to walk away…she would die. Or disappear, just like pretty young Tamara had done so long ago. And no one would ever be the wiser.

Fuller dismissed them, and one by one they filed out of his office. He stopped her at the door and nodded back at the notepad she’d left on the table. “Have those notes typed up and ready for me within the hour,” he barked, and then he pushed past her into the corridor with the others.

Hilary only nodded and watched him go.

“Are you feeling all right, dear?”

She brought her head up fast, and searched Rose Sversky’s aging face as she gathered file folders from the table. They were alone in Fuller’s office, and against her better judgment, Hilary closed the door.

“Rose…how can you be a part of something like this?”

Rose frowned, scanning a sheet before closing a folder and adding it to her stack. “Something like what? It’s research. It’s necessary.”

“It’s more than that.”

Rose looked at her then, really looked at her. She pulled her glasses lower on her nose, tilted her head back and seemed to search Hilary’s face.

Hilary moved forward, as if by being closer she could reach the woman. “This place is a prison. Do you know they have prisoners in the sublevels? Locked up in cells like animals?”

“Of course I know, dear. I’m the head researcher.”

She could have slapped Hilary and shocked her less. “You know?” Rose nodded. God, Hilary thought, she’d probably known all along. Hilary had found out only recently, and she’d stupidly assumed the kind-looking old woman would be as appalled and horrified by the news as she had been. “But, Rose…”

“But nothing. We’re not talking genocide here. These are animals, not human beings. They feed on human beings. For heaven’s sakes, it’s them or us. Surely you can see that.”

Hilary took a backward step, the wind knocked out of her. “But…but what they want to do! A baby, for the love of Christ! And what will happen to it if they succeed?”

“Not a baby. A pup. A young animal, no different from the rest.” She slipped her glasses back to their former position, and sighed. “It would be the most incredible research opportunity we’ve ever had.”

Hilary swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. This was the stuff of nightmares, and she was going to throw up. Was this sweet little old lady actually getting wistful about the chance to carve up a child? Her hands were damp with sweat and shaking, and she felt dizzy as a sense of unreality washed over her. Her knees tried to buckle. She braced a hand on the table to keep from falling down.

“Hilary,” Rose began, taking a step forward, narrowing her eyes. “You do understand why this is necessary, don’t you? Because, if you don’t—” her face softened with a blatantly false smile and equally phony concern clouding her eyes “—I can arrange to have you taken off this case. Perhaps you weren’t quite ready for this promotion. Not everyone can handle the research we do here, and DPI is quite aware of that.”

Her voice had changed. Become sugary. And there was a dark suspicion behind that fake concern in her eyes.

Of course DPI is aware of it. And the ones who can’t stomach the work here disappear without a trace.

Hilary swallowed hard, shook her head. “No, I think I understand it better now. You’re right. It’s necessary. I’m…glad we talked.”

“Of course,” Rose replied, and her smile became a little more genuine. “Any time you have misgivings, you can come to me. All right?”

“Thank you. I’ll do that.” And you’ll run right back to Fuller to report everything I say. Hell, you’ll probably add this little conversation to their file on me.

Still smiling, Rose hugged her stack of manila folders to her chest and left the office. Hilary leaned back against the door, and tried to quell the nausea. She’d said too much, blurted her thoughts without thinking first. Let herself see Rose Sversky as a stereotype. A sweet old lady. Somebody’s grandma. Mrs. Santa Claus. Dammit, she was nuts to have opened this can of worms with that woman. Rose had been aware of the atrocities DPI was sponsoring for years. Years! Hell, she was likely a part of them!

And what would she do now? Had Hilary saved herself in time, or had she given herself away completely? And what if she had?

She was scared. Jesus, she was scared.

Jameson and the others stayed a few days in Rhiannon’s Manhattan penthouse. Heavy black draperies lined every window, with dark shades beneath them. And there wasn’t a coffin in the place. Everyone slept in beds, by Rhiannon’s order. She liked the good life, Rhiannon did. Satin sheets on every bunk in the suite.

Jameson had to smile at her antics. She certainly kept the conservative and staid Roland hopping.

Roland. How many times had he saved Jameson’s life now? Three? Four? There was the time DPI agent Curt Rogers had kidnapped Jameson when he was—what, twelve? That prick had left him tied up in a condemned building in the heart of winter. All just a ploy to get to Tamara, of course. If Roland hadn’t found him after he’d fallen down those stairs, though…

And then, later, after his mother died, that bastard Lucien had taken him, offered to trade his life for the dark gift. Once again, his friends had stepped in to save him. Rhiannon had nearly died that time in the effort.

And now, here they were again. Pulling him from the jaws of death in the nick of time. So certain that just because he was still mortal, he couldn’t take care of himself.

Hell, he was half vampire already. He lived like one. Slept days, and worked nights. It had come naturally to him, after spending so much time in their company. Even when Roland had found Jameson’s natural father for him, and sent him to live with the man in California, he’d stuck to his nocturnal ways. .

Someday, he supposed, he’d ask one of them to change him over. Someday. Not yet, though. He still had a few mortal years left, and he’d like to see a lot more sunrises before he said goodbye to them forever. He liked a good steak, a glass of wine, and he wasn’t ready to give it all up for a strictly liquid diet.

“You guys shouldn’t hang out in the city for very long,” he warned the others, as he paced the floor that night. Their third night here. “You know the place is practically lousy with those DPI bastards.”

Rhiannon smiled. “I wish I would run into one of them.” She licked her lips, earning her a scowl from Roland. It didn’t faze her. She reached down and stroked a path over Pandora’s head, and the cat batted playfully at her hand.

“You’re right, Jamey,” Tamara said softly, and she went to the nearest window to part the draperies and snap the shade so it rolled up on itself. Then she stared out at the glittering skyline. “But I don’t want to leave until you do. I know you’re still furious. And I know you want revenge.”

He shrugged. “That’s my problem. I’m not going to keep telling you, I don’t want you involved in my troubles, Tam. You’re going to get yourself killed one of these times, sticking your nose in where—‘”

“I had a dream.”

Jameson stopped talking when she turned slowly, pinning him to the spot with her huge, black eyes. “Jamey, I had a dream… about you.”

Eric lifted one brow at his wife’s statement, setting aside the book he’d been reading. A new one on quantum physics. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I didn’t say anything the first time…but…I had it again, today.” She swung her gaze to Jameson’s, shaking her head sadly. “It wasn’t visual. Just a feeling. A horrible feeling that something’s going to happen to you, Jamey. Right here, in this city. So I’m not leaving. Not until you do.”

Jameson lowered his head, seeing no sense in arguing with Tam. She’d been like a sister to him, even when she was mortal. Protective even then.

“Well now,” Rhiannon purred, slinking across the room to stand beside Tamara with as much grace as that cat of hers. “I agree. We remain. If anyone touches Jameson, we…” She smiled that half smile that had been giving him wet dreams since the first day he’d laid eyes on her. “Take action,” she finished.

Jameson grated his teeth. It didn’t matter that he was taller than Roland, or that his muscles were more firmly developed from hours in the gym than Eric’s had ever been. It didn’t matter that he’d found a gray hair amid the jet-black ones last week, or that he’d celebrated his thirtieth birthday the month before that. They’d always see him as a child in need of their protection. Always.

He turned, stalked to the apartment door, picking up his coat on the way. “I’m going for a walk.” Then he looked back at them, his hand still on the doorknob. “And if any of you follow me, I swear to Christ, I’ll never come back.”

“Jamey!” Tamara rushed forward, grabbed his arm as if to stop him.

“Jameson,” he told her gently. “Look at me, Tamara. No, I mean really look at me. I’m not Jamey anymore.” She did, her I ebony eyes racing over his face, tearing up as she nodded. He ran his hand through her dark curls, and then lowered his head to kiss I her cheek. “Please understand, Tam. I just need some space, okay?”

Her lower lip quivering, she nodded. “Be careful,” she whispered.

“I’m always careful.”

He turned and left the apartment.

He walked, alone and after dark, completely unafraid. Aside from his occasional run-ins with DPI, few people ever wanted to mess with Jameson once they’d looked him in the eye. He supposed the old anger showed there. And now, probably more than ever. Now that he’d been used, humiliated, as an adult this time, at their bloody hands. Oh, he knew about them. The way they’d had Tamara’s parents killed just so they could get their hands on her. Used her, from the time she was a little girl, as bait, knowing she had the antigen, and knowing, too, that sooner or later one of the undead would show up to check in on her.

And when the one appointed to be her mortal guardian, kindly old Daniel St. Claire, had changed his mind, when he’d decided he couldn’t go through with the plot to use the child he’d raised as his own, they’d had him killed as well.

They were ruthless, bloodthirsty animals. They hunted the undead like game, and when they found them, their experimentation techniques were utterly free of any hint of conscience.

The bastards.

Jameson wanted to know why they’d taken him this time. What kind of information they were seeking. Why they’d taken the particular specimens from his body that they had, and what they intended to do next.

He wanted to know. But how could he find out? That was what he needed to think about, and he needed to think about it alone. Outside, with the fresh, snapping winter air keeping him sharp, and without all those concerned, protective eyes watching over him.

He walked fast, enjoying the exertion and the chill. And he planned. Well, he supposed he might break into DPI headquarters and go through their files. Maybe tap into their computers and see if any information could be found there. Or perhaps he could just grab one of them. That Nazi-like doctor, Rose Sversky, for example, or perhaps Fuller’s lapdog, Stiles. He could torture one of them into talking. Maybe even Fuller himself. Jameson smiled as he thought about the pain he’d like to inflict on that bastard, who’d done likewise to so many, for so long.

Whatever he decided, he couldn’t do anything until he convinced Eric, Tamara, Roland and Rhiannon to get the hell out of here and leave him alone. If they stayed they’d get themselves tangled up in whatever mess he ended up creating, just as they always did, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want his friends—family, really—put at risk because of his need to vent this old, ever-growing anger. His passion for meting out some long-overdue justice. He couldn’t allow them near this. It was going to be messy.

So he supposed he’d have to wait, and…

Jameson came to a stop in the street, and stood silently, head cocked slightly to one side as the cold wind ruffled his hair and stung his cheeks. He’d heard something…something so faint no one else passing on the street seemed to notice. Or if they did, they didn’t seem to care. He had to strain to catch it again, with the slow-moving traffic, and blasting horns, and hissing air brakes. Less noisy now than during the day, but not by a hell of a lot.

A second ticked by, then two. And then he caught it again. The sound was that of moaning. Agonized, pain-filled moaning.

And the voice was that of a vampire.

A little shiver crept up the back of Jameson’s neck as he pinpointed the source of the sound. An abandoned building, several yards away from him. Crumbling brick and fingers of broken, dirty glass. Snow on the old stone dormers. Gargoyles lining the top, though little remained of those gruesome guardians now. You couldn’t even make out their features aside from their snarling mouths, and angel’s wings, dusted now in snow.

She was in there.

How he knew that—how he could even hear the sound of her voice—Jameson didn’t know. It wasn’t audible. Not to mortal I ears, anyway. But that was just it. His were mortal ears. So why was he hearing her, sensing her there? Why could he feel her pain?

Jameson Bryant was not a fool. He’d encountered other preternatural beings before, those who were strangers to him. And he always avoided them. True enough, it went against their nature to harm one of their own—one of the Chosen. Those rare mortals with the belladonna antigen coursing through their veins. They always knew that antigen. Scented it or sensed it or something. And most of the undead tended to protect and watch over those mortals with the antigen. Dark guardians. Dark angels. His mouth twisted in a smile at the irony of that.

But there were exceptions to every rule. And there were monsters in every race and every species. He did not make a habit of walking up to strange vampires and extending a hand.

But this time was different. He was compelled, drawn by some force he neither recognized nor understood. She might be mad. She might be a killer. She might turn on him. But he had no choice but to climb over the graying boards nailed in the shape of a cross in the doorway of the ruined building, and make his way through the rubble, to where she was.

And when he finally saw her, his heart tripped over itself.

She sat, curled in the fetal position in a corner. Her black dress—or robe or whatever it was—was torn and tattered and filthy. As was her tangled ebony hair, long and dirty and covering her face. She was startlingly white. So very white she nearly glowed in the darkness like a wraith. And thin. Emaciated, even. Her hands…Jesus, he could see the bones in those chalk-white hands.

He took another step toward her, and her head came up fast, eyes wide and fear-filled. And as she stared at him, the clouds skittered away from the moon, allowing its light to spill through the broken glass, and bathe her face and her eyes in that ethereal glow. She was painfully thin, but even then, she was beautiful. The shape of her face, like a sculpture in the moonlight. High, sharp cheekbones, and a delicate jawline. Full lips, parted slightly, and a long slender neck that held him motionless as he studied it. Then she moved her head just slightly, and the light fell on her eyes, and he caught his breath. They were violet. Brilliant, vivid violet. So bright was their color that he’d have suspected it to be false if he didn’t know better. Huge, luminous eyes that shone with color. Her thinness, he suspected, made those haunting eyes seem even larger than they were. And no doubt it was that same condition, and those slight hollows it caused in her cheeks, that made her bone structure seem like that of a goddess. Or an angel.

She wasn’t an angel, though. She was a vampiress, quite possibly a dangerous one. He knew that.

And he knew a few other things, as well.

He knew this vampiress was on the brink of starvation. He knew she might very well be beyond the brink of madness. He knew he should leave.

And he knew, damned good and well, that he wasn’t going to.

Chapter Three

I had wandered alone for three nights. Hiding out in the very filthiest, vilest parts of the city, for I felt this was all I deserved. I was a filthy, vile being now, wasn’t I? Violated by a monster, and made into one just like him.

And I knew it was my fault. Because there had been a moment, one single moment in time when I could have said no. I could have chosen death and salvation over life—unending life and damnation. I didn’t have to drink when he pressed my face to his throat. I didn’t have to drink. But I had. I had. I’d been filled with an incredible, powerful urge not to die. I’d wanted to live! And so I had.

God had seen fit to test me before I pledged myself to Him. No doubt He had sensed my misgivings. My flawed faith. And I’d failed that test. Failed it miserably.

But there was one thing I would not, could not do. And that was to prolong this life by feeding on the living. The innocent. Lambs of God, flocks of them outside, even now. And I, the wolf, hungering for them. Starving for what was the very essence of them. God, how the hunger burned in me! I writhed with it. When one of them passed by the windows of my hovel, and the wind sharpened, I caught the scent of their blood, and my mouth watered. My eyes filled with tears. My flesh tingled and my nerves came alive, singing, and then screaming with need. With every part of me I wanted to take one of them, take them the way I’d seen that monster do it. Gorge myself at their soft throats and taste their salty skin against my lips. Sink these newly elongated, razor-sharp fangs deeply into them, and drink.

Something, some small part of the person I’d once been, remained alive in me, and it was that part I clung to, and drew on to sustain my resistance.

That part…and the crucifix I wore around my neck. The symbol of all I believed in. I ran my hands over the smooth grain of its wood, and studied the grimace on the face of the Christ, the one too tiny for me to have even noticed before. Those things kept me going. Though they did not keep me sane. Like a rabid dog at the sight of water, I do believe I was quite mad that night.

And then he came.

I smelled him, as I had the others. No. No, that’s not quite true. It wasn’t the same. His scent came to me more powerfully than theirs had. It tantalized my senses to an even greater extent, so that I curled into the corner, drawing my knees to my chest and hiding my face against my legs, and praying he would pass by. Quickly, before that succulent scent drove me completely out of my mind.

He didn’t, of course. His scent came stronger and more delicious with every second. And then there was a sound. A small sound, his steps coming nearer across the littered floor. I looked up, and he was there, his breaths making little clouds of steam in the dark. Staring at me as if he’d never seen anything quite so pathetic as the picture I made there in the filth. And I wanted to scream at him. Get away! Can’t you see what I am? Don’t you feel the danger you’re in?

“Don’t be afraid,” he said to me. I wanted to tip my head back and scream with laughter, but I hadn’t the strength. This man, this poor, innocent mortal man, telling me not to be afraid of him. Such irony!

But I didn’t laugh. I didn’t make a sound, but simply sat there, staring at him. His beauty amazed me. I saw it—as I saw everything now—in greater detail than I’d ever done as a mortal. Even in the darkness of that wreck, I could see him. For I saw very well in the darkness now. His eyes—not coal-black. But dark, velvet brown. With blacker stripes, wavy stripes surrounding his pupils like rays around the sun.

He was like the sun…the sun I would never look upon again.

His hair was thick and he wore it long. I could see, even from this distance, its luster, its richness. It would feel like silk, that raven mass of unruly curls. His skin wasn’t chalk-white and sickly like mine, but bronze, as if his body had been coated in honey just for me.

I licked my lips as my eyes feasted on the bit of flesh exposed at his muscled throat. And then I lowered my eyes, closed them. I wanted him. I wanted his blood, and I wanted his body. I, a virgin, whose intent had been to pledge myself to Christ, and to remain chaste until I died. I craved him with a hunger so carnal it shocked me. Was this yet another aspect of my new character? Was I to become a harlot as well as a demon and a murderess?

“Go away,” I croaked. “You’re not safe here.”

But the man came closer, towering over me, and frightening me, until I recalled that I was stronger. Despite his size—and he was a big man, broad across the shoulders and very tall—I had nothing to fear.

He stood over me, staring down, those tiger-striped eyes of his soft with pity when they should have been wide with revulsion. “You’re starving, aren’t you?”

Yes, I was starving. And I could hear the strong, and steady thrum of his pulse now. The rushing river of the blood running through his veins. I could hear it!

“Please!” I cried, burying my face in my hands. “Get away! I can’t stand it!”

And then his hand came to stroke the hair from my face. It slipped down to cup my chin, lifting my head until I stared up at him again. I could feel the warmth of that hand, suffusing my face. I could feel every line in his palm. “You’re just a fledgling, aren’t you?”

But my eyes had found the spot where his pulse beat in his throat, and for the life of me, I could not look away.

“I can help you,” he told me. “It will be all right, you’ll see.”

“Go, please…” But my voice lacked conviction now as I thought of the taste of him. My mouth on his skin. The warm rush of his blood as I—

“I can’t just go away and leave you here. You’re suffering, I can see that.”

I moaned low and deep in my throat, and the tears rolled from my eyes. Sobs tore at my breastbone, shaking my body, racking me. I wanted to take him more than I wanted to draw another breath. And yet I couldn’t. How could I? He’d done nothing wrong. Tried to help me, even.

But my crying was the wrong course of action, because the big, beautiful fool put his strong arms around me, and I could feel every curve of the muscled firmness beneath his clothes. He drew me close, holding me gently, rocking me a little. Saying, “Shh, it’s all right. I have friends who are like you. They can help you. I’ll take you to them. It’s going to be all right.”

He went on like that, stroking my back and my hair. I had no idea why. But his movements made me insane with this unnatural need. Insane with lust for him, body and blood. And the two desires seemed to intermingle until I couldn’t distinguish the carnal lust from the unnatural hunger. They became one. My face rested in the crook of his corded neck. My lips even touched his warm, salty skin, as he held me there. And it was the end. All I could stand. There was no shred of humanity left in me at that moment. I was simply a hungry animal, and he was my meat.

I slipped my arms around the beautiful man, opened my mouth and sank my sharp new fangs deeply into him. Skin, and muscle, and then the pop as I pierced the jugular. He gasped. But didn’t fight me very hard at all. In fact he leaned closer, held me tighter, and I felt a shudder work through him. He groaned and threaded his fingers in my hair, and pressed his hips against me. I felt his arousal, the hard shape of him nudging me between my legs, and like a common whore, I arched against him.

I think, perhaps, he didn’t realize that this would be the end of him. Not until I’d nearly drained him dry. That was when he began to twist in my arms, and pull. But as starved as I was, it was useless. He couldn’t break my hold on him. Already, he was weakened from the loss of his luscious blood.

“No more,” I heard him whisper, so close to my ear. “Please, no more.”

But I held him tighter, and bit down harder, and sucked at the wounds in his throat all the more. His strength surged through me, filling me, warming me, bringing me to vivid, sparkling life again. And he said, “Damn you…you’re…killing me,” in a barely audible whisper.

That voice, that same silken voice that had been music to my ears, pleading now, for his very life, and reduced to this harsh whisper. I was horrified, and shoved him away from me. But he collapsed on the floor like a rag doll, and lay there, his eyes no more than glazed slits, staring up at me. And then they fell closed.

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary, what have I done?” I whispered, and I turned to run away.

“Hold it right there.”

This voice had no music. No silk. It came harshly, cruelly, from just beyond the doorway. A voice that held authority, command and menace. I froze there, panic trying to chill my body, so recently warmed by my victim’s blood. This newcomer couldn’t see the man I’d just killed. Not from here. I hoped he wouldn’t. I couldn’t bear for anyone to know what I’d done, what I’d become.

He stepped into my range of vision, and he was pointing a weapon at me. A gun, of sorts.

“There’s a tranquilizer in here,” he said. “You come along peacefully, and I won’t have to use it.”

I eyed the gun, and then the man. “Come along…where?” I asked him. And then I licked my lips, and I could still taste that handsome one on my tongue. Shameful pleasure filled me at the taste of him.

“You’re very young, aren’t you? When did those bastards change you?” Suddenly the voice was filled with sympathy.

“Three nights ago,” I told him quite honestly, seeing no reason to lie. The light the man held shone in my eyes, then, and glinted from my crucifix, and illuminated my tattered habit.

“For the love of Christ,” he muttered. “You’re the missing nun.”

“Novice. Not nun. Not yet.” I closed my eyes, averted my face from his light. “Not ever.”

“I can help you,” he said, and he clicked off the flashlight as if it were a sign of good faith. “I work for DPI—the Division of Paranormal Investigations. It’s a government agency, Sister. We’re doing research, and—”

“Don’t call me ‘Sister,’” I said. “Don’t ever call me ‘Sister.”

“I’m sorry. Listen…come with me. We’re working on a cure. There’s a chance we can help you.”

I narrowed my eyes and studied his face. “Where?”

“Our headquarters. In White Plains. It’s not far, really. Come on, come with me. Let me help you. You want to be human again, don’t you?”

I blinked, searching his face. Was it truly possible? Could I regain my mortal self, and with it, my immortal soul?

No! Don’t trust him!

I went stiff as, very clearly, that satinlike voice rang in my mind. The voice of my victim. Not wandering through my head like a stray thought or a daydream. But speaking, weakly and breathlessly, in my mind. His voice. It was real.

I glanced behind me, and his eyes, though barely open, met mine, held them. Don’t go with him! Don’t go…

I snapped my head around, ignoring the dying man. Surely he was not the one I should be listening to right now. He’d admitted to me that he had friends who were…like me, as he’d put it. Other vampires. Was I to trust a friend of those creatures, those leeches in human form, those predators of the night? No. I hated them. All of them, and I hated myself for being like them. I wanted it to end! I could not exist as a monster. I could not.

“I’ll go with you,” I said. And the stranger took my hand.

Fool. I kept hearing his voice in my mind as I went with the stranger. Though it grew weaker and weaker. Traitor. You’re a traitor to your kind. And you deserve whatever they do to you there!

I closed my eyes, tried to block out his voice.

I could have helped you. You’ll wish you’d let me…I swear you’ll wish…

And then nothing. Nothing at all. Had he finally died then? A heaviness like none I’d ever known filled my heart. I’d killed. Twice now, once for no more reason than to preserve my own life. I was damned, but perhaps the road to salvation was not entirely blocked to me. Perhaps this was simply a test, or a lesson I had to learn, before I could take my final vows. Perhaps there would be forgiveness for me still.

The stranger opened the door of his automobile, and I got in. And as we pulled away, I heard him again, that musical voice, perhaps its dying breath.

You were right, Tam. Dammit, I need help…I…I…

There was no more. Not another hint of life from that condemned building. A large tear rolled down my cheek as we rounded a corner and drove out of sight.

“Jameson? Can you hear me?”

“He’s going to be all right, Tamara. We got to him in time.”

“But Eric…”

“Shh. Let him rest. He’s going to need all of his strength when he wakes. It won’t be easy for him to deal with this. He wasn’t ready, you know.”

“I know.” A hand stroked Jameson’s face. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “But we just couldn’t let you go.”

Jameson opened his eyes, and then blinked, because something was wrong with his vision. Everything was too bright. Too vivid. He quickly closed them again, startled. “What happened?” he whispered, searching his memory.

“You were attacked,” Tamara said softly, and he was amazed that he could hear the very vibrations of her vocal cords as she spoke to him. The perfect hum of her voice. Like music. “You called out to me for help. We found you in—”

“Wait…I remember. That crumbling ruin.” It all came back to him then, but as he held up a hand to stop Tamara from speaking, he turned it slowly, eyeing the white bandage on his wrist. When he looked at his other wrist, he saw another. “What’s going on?” he said slowly, eyeing each of them, one by one.

Rhiannon sat in a chair on his left. She closed her elegant hand around one of his much larger ones. “Some renegade bastard drained you to the point of death, Jameson. We had no choice.”

He shook his head, but even as he did, the truth was making itself a home in his mind. He couldn’t deny it. Even without their worried, slightly guilty expressions he’d have known. He was feeling things. Every wrinkle in the sheet. His skin was alive, tingling, and he could hear the way the breeze outside fluttered over the single dead leaf that still clung to that flowering maple. How many stories below was that skinny tree, planted in a perfect circular opening in the concrete? Twenty-four?

Again, he looked at the bandages. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“You were unconscious,” Tamara whispered. “Too weak to drink.”

“So?”

“You were dying, Jamey—Jameson,” she went on. “I thought…”

Eric turned toward the windows, gazing out at the night, not looking Jameson in the eye. “I had to rig up some tubing,” he said. “For the transfusions.”

“Trans…fusions?” He looked at Eric’s back, staring until the man turned. “Eric?” Then he swung his gaze to Roland, who stood silently in a corner of the room, saying nothing, just watching, listening. “Roland? Jesus, are you saying that I’m…”

Roland nodded, just once. “Yes. Your mortal life ended last night, Jameson. There was nothing we could do to save it. The one thing—the only thing we could do for you, was give you another life to replace the one that bastard stole from you. A lift of…unending night.”

Jameson closed his eyes and swore. He heard Tamara’s soft crying, felt Rhiannon’s hand tighten on his.

“I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “God, I can’t believe it.” Then he searched their faces. “Which of you did this? Whose blood is running in my veins now? Yours, Roland?”

Tamara sniffed. “All of us,” she told him, drawing his gaze to her tearstained face. “We all gave to you, Jameson.”

He closed his eyes, shook his head, expelled his breath in a rush. “Dammit,” he said. “I didn’t want this. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Dammit—”

“Enough!”

His mouth snapped closed at Rhiannon’s harsh command. She rose from her chair, leaning over him, eyes narrowed to slits, reminding him sharply of the way Pandora looked just before she pounced on an unsuspecting rabbit.

“We gave you life, Jameson. The alternative was death. You should be thanking us.” She bent even closer, so her long, glistening black hair trailed over his face. “Unless, of course, you’d have preferred the second option. And if that’s the case, it’s not too late.”

“Rhiannon!” Tamara shouted, jumping to her feet. “How dare you—”

Rhiannon straightened, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. “I dare, Tamara darling. I dare anything. You know that. And frankly, I’m a bit weary of this one’s constant lack of gratitude.” As she said it, she nodded toward Jameson.

He couldn’t believe Rhiannon was this angry with him, but she was. Her eyes blazed with it, and when Roland came forward to slide his hands over her shoulders, she shrugged him off and walked away. She paced back and forth at the foot of his bed. “We took care of you when you were a child, Jameson,” she said, her voice deep and smooth as black satin. “Saved your life for you on more than one occasion, risked our necks for you more often than not. Found your father for you. And yet all you’ve done is complain. We treat you like a child! We call you by the wrong name! You don’t have enough space!”

Jameson sat up in the bed, pushing the covers aside, lowering his feet to the floor.

“And then,” she went on, “you bumble your reckless way into still more trouble, and as you lay dying, with what could have been your very last breath, Jameson, you call out to us for help. What in the name of the pharaohs were you expecting us to do? We can’t raise the dead! You asked for help, and we gave you the only help we could give. And still you complain.”

“That’s enough, Rhiannon,” Roland said, and he said it sternly. She glared at him, but he didn’t back down. “You know nothing about what Jameson is feeling right now.”

“And you do?” she shot back.

Roland nodded, turning his gaze on Jameson. “I do. Rhiannon, and Tamara too, you both sought this life. I did not. It was forced on me, Rhiannon, when you found me near death on that battlefield in bloodstained armor.”

“And on me,” Eric said softly. “When Roland came to me in that filthy French cell, the night before I was to face the guillotine.” He met Jameson’s eyes. “I was terrified, then, of what I’d become. And though you know us, know us well, I imagine you’re a bit frightened, too. You think that now you’re a monster like we are.”

A lump came into Jameson’s throat, and his eyes stung. “I have never thought of any of you as monsters, Eric. You have to know that. It’s just that…all of this…” He shook his head. “I thought I’d have time to get used to the idea. I thought I’d be the one to decide if and when I was ready for this.” He lifted his head, met Rhiannon’s haughty stare. “You’re right, Princess. I’m being an ass, and I’m sorry. If it hadn’t been for all of you, I’d be dead right now, and I was even less ready for that.”

He could see her softening. Rhiannon liked it when he addressed her by her proper title. She was a pharaoh’s daughter, after all. Not that she’d ever be likely to let any of them forget it. Jameson lowered his head, closed his eyes. “So I’m here. It’s done. Can’t be changed. I guess I might as well get used to the idea.”

“You’re going to be just fine, Jameson,” Tamara told him. “I promise.”

He lifted his head, met her eyes and thought this wasn’t all bad. He’d be even more able to take on DPI with his new abilities. He flexed his hand, wondering just how strong he was now. Strong enough, perhaps, to go back to that towering facility in White Plains and tear it down, brick by brick? Strong enough to make the bastards tell him what this last round of tests performed on him had been all about? And then kill every last one of them?

“I imagine the first thing we’ll need to teach you is how to guard your thoughts,” Roland said, looking him squarely in the eye. “Although when they’re as foolish as that one was, it might be better that we all know about them, hmm?”

“I don’t blame you, Jameson,” Rhiannon said, and her anger seemed to have been banked, for the moment, anyway. “I’ve been wanting to destroy everything even remotely associated with that organization of buffoons for years. But they all fight me.” She jerked her head toward the others in the room.

“For good reason,” Roland told her. “If we were to do that, we’d be making everything they believe about us, true. We’d become the heartless predators they claim we are. Deadly, destructive and dangerous. And they’d have all the more reason to mount a full-scale attack against us. Can you imagine, Rhiannon, what would happen if other branches of the government became involved? The military, for example?”

She tossed her head. “Bring them on.”

Roland rolled his eyes heavenward, but Jameson laughed aloud. And then Eric was stepping closer, scanning his face. “Enough of all this,” he said softly. “Jameson, tell us about the beast that attacked you. Who was he? Can you describe him?”

“Yes,” Roland put in. “We can’t let him go on—”

“Not him,” Jameson said, getting to his feet and turning to face them. “Her.” He saw the frowns on their faces as he went on. “And we don’t have to hunt her down. She surrendered herself to a DPI operative right before my eyes. Turned herself over, without batting an eye. I think she bought what he was selling, about them being able to make her human again.”

“My God!” Tamara got to her feet. “Who was she, Jameson? Did you know her? Had you ever seen her before?”

He shook his head slowly. “I think the agent might have known who she was, but I was barely conscious. I kind of came around when he told her to come with him, to let him help her.”

“It’s better he found her than I,” Rhiannon said.

“She was mad, I think,” Jameson went on. “Filthy, her clothes tattered. She seemed very young…and I’m certain she was on the brink of starvation. I heard her crying, so I went to her. I thought I’d bring her to you, and you could help her.”

“And we would have, of course,” Tamara told him.

“If I ever see her again, I’ll wring her pretty neck.” Jameson thought of how fragile she’d seemed…just before she sank her fangs into his throat. And then he thought a little further, and had to avert his face from the others.

She’d taken him someplace he’d never been. Shocked him at that first piercing of his flesh, but then…

Jesus, why hadn’t any of them told him what it was like? Was it normal to react that way? He’d never been so turned on in his life as he’d been when she’d held him hard against her, and worked his throat with her mouth and her teeth. And he’d wanted it. Wanted her. And for a few minutes, he’d figured it would be all right. That she’d only take enough to keep her alive, and then she’d stop.

But she hadn’t stopped. The bitch had tried to kill him. And he’d been hard for her right up until he’d collapsed at her feet.

Jesus.

“I’ll kill her,” he whispered.

“Vengeance is a wasted emotion, Jameson,” Tamara told him.

“She tried to kill me.”

“Perhaps she didn’t know better.”

“Or,” Rhiannon put in, “perhaps she simply lost control of herself. It’s been known to happen…in certain circumstances.”

Jameson looked up quickly, wondering if they’d all been privy to his every thought just now. But Rhiannon was looking at Roland as if he were a juicy steak, and he thought he detected a glint in Roland’s eye, as well. Jameson decided not to say any more about his erotic attack. He tried not to think any more about it, either, but that was far harder than it should have been.

Time to change the subject. “Look, if DPI goons are out rounding up vampires for another group of experiments, maybe it’s time you guys get the hell out of the city.”

“Exactly,” Roland said. “But don’t forget, my friend, you’re a vampire now, too.”

Jameson frowned. Damn.

“Even should you decide to go ahead with your plans to learn what they wanted you for this last time they took you, Jameson, you have to agree, it would be better to wait. You need time to get used to your new nature. To learn to control it. To test the limits of your strength, your endurance.”

He had a point there. Damn him.

Roland smiled, no doubt having heard that thought, too. “There is much you need to learn about being a vampire, Jameson.”

“Hell, Roland, I know more about being a vampire than you think. I’ve been around you most of my life.”

“Yes, that’s true enough. But living the life of the undead is a far different matter than just witnessing it. You’ve discovered that already, haven’t you?”

It was true. It was different, far different than he’d imagined it would be. His senses were altered, heightened somehow. And there were new ones to explore as well.

“All right,” Jameson finally conceded. “All right, we’ll all go. But I’m coming back. I’ll find out what those bastards wanted with me, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Every one of them looked worried. Except Rhiannon. She wore her Mona Lisa smile. Very secretive. And Jameson wondered what the hell she was thinking.

Chapter Four

They took me to a large building, down in an elevator to a sterile white room, with a bed, and a chair, and little else. I was led inside, full of questions. How could they help me? What was this experimental cure that could return me to humanity?

I turned to ask my questions, only to see a solid steel door closing on me. No window in that door, and locks aplenty. I heard the locks turning, and a feeling of dread welled up inside me. I went to the door, tried to push against it, but it didn’t give at all. And it should have. It should have. I was strong, stronger than any locks they could make. I knew that.

Ah, but that man, the one who’d brought me here. He’d injected me with something. A drug, he said, to prepare my body for the shock of becoming mortal again. And it had to be that that had taken away my strength.

And now I was here, locked in this room. A prisoner, for all practical purposes. And I recalled the voice of my beautiful victim telling me not to trust them. Not to go with that stranger.

God, had I made a terrible mistake?

I paced the room throughout that first night, and it seemed endless. And then finally the door opened, and a kindly, white-haired woman of tiny stature smiled at me.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Dr. Rose Sversky. I’ll be taking care of you while you’re here.”

Taking care of me. This sweet, harmless-looking old woman. I nearly sagged in relief. I hadn’t made a mistake after all. They would truly help me here.

“Why am I locked in like this?” I asked her. “It frightens me.”

“Oh, dear, they really should have explained.” Dr. Rose came in, closing the door behind her. “There are others here, others like you. People we’re only trying to help.” She shook her head, clicking her tongue. “But some of them…well, they can be quite monstrous, you know. They’d attack anyone, even one of their own kind.”

I believed that readily. I’d fallen victim to one of them, and I had no doubt that they were all just as beastly. Just as horrible as I had started to become now that I was one of them.

“The locks are to keep them out, dear, not to keep you in. For your own protection, honestly. Someone should have told you.”

I sighed hard, my relief palpable.

“Now, if you’ll just hop up onto the table,” she said, smiling her reassurance, “I can get started making you human again.”

I obeyed hurriedly. The woman eyed my dirty habit, shook her head, and pulled a hypodermic from her pocket.

“How long will I have to be here?” I asked.

“Well, it might be weeks, to be honest. The process involves several steps, you know. But you needn’t worry. We’ll take better care of you than your own mother would. You’ll see.” The needle’s tip sank into my arm, and in a few seconds, my world became dark and murky. I drifted into unconsciousness.

When I woke, I wore a white hospital gown. I had been bathed, and my hair had been washed and brushed. I felt oddly violated. I wondered what sort of procedure the kindly old doctor had performed on me, but there was no way of knowing.

Eventually, my door was opened once more, and a strong young man entered, handed me a glass of scarlet liquid and left without a word. Not a word. As if I were an inanimate object or a pet to be fed. I drank the cold stale sustenance he’d provided, but it lacked the invigorating warmth of blood drawn from the living. That warmth I still recalled suffusing my body as I fed at the throat of that beautiful man who’d offered to help me.

But I didn’t want that warmth. I didn’t want to prey on the innocent. I wanted to be mortal again, to have my old life back. And so I drank, and I prayed it would not be long I’d have to remain in this place.

Hilary Garner listened to Rose Sversky’s report, and tried to keep a semblance of clinical detachment on her face. She wasn’t certain she succeeded. But she tried.

“We’ve successfully harvested and fertilized a single egg from the subject. Only one. The implantation will have to go off without a hitch, and if it doesn’t take, I’m not certain we’ll get another shot. We may have to have another subject or two before we achieve success.”

Fuller nodded, his narrow-eyed gaze slipping to Hilary’s face every so often, as if he were watching for something. A slip. She kept her expressionless mask firmly in place. She’d show this man nothing. There was nothing she could do, anyway.

“Schedule the implantation for tonight,” he said. “Let’s get this experiment under way. How is the subject?”

Rose smiled her grandmotherly smile. “Irony always amazes me, Mr. Fuller, but this time it’s overwhelmed me. The subject is a virgin.”

Fuller’s brows rose high. “You’re kidding me.”

“No. Other than that odd state of affairs, she remains completely cooperative. She still believes she’s going to become mortal again. She won’t give us any trouble.”

“Don’t get too complacent, Sversky,” Fuller said. “She’ll give us plenty of trouble once she realizes she’s pregnant. And she’ll have to realize it, sooner or later.”

“Yes, well, she will if the implantation is successful.”

Fuller nodded. “Best prepare one of the maximum-security cells for her. Once she figures it out, she’ll fight us every step of the way.” He shook his head. “A freaking virgin birth. Wasn’t she some kind of nun before she was changed over?”

“Something like that,” Sversky said with a chuckle. “Will wonders never cease?” Fuller replied. He leaned back in his chair and began filling his pipe.

I was slowly going insane. Stir-crazy would be the closest term. I had no books. No television. No radio. I was allowed to bathe nightly. And my liquid meals were brought to me by soft-spoken, even respectful individuals dressed in white. From glasses, not warm bodies, I fed. And the sustenance was diluted. Thin and cold, and I began to suspect, laced with some sort of tranquilizer. Since coming here, I’d never once felt that odd surge of vampiric strength that I’d felt before.

I should have known, I suppose. I should have seen the signs. The heavily veiled disgust in the eyes of those caregivers. The glances they exchanged. When I objected to any of the conditions I lived under, I was told that they’d never be able to help me get back to being mortal again, unless I cooperated with them. So I did.

And oh, that was so foolish! So incredibly foolish.

I had no idea why they would want to do what they did to me. No clue. Not in my wildest imaginings could I concoct a reason. But it soon became apparent.

Months had passed before I understood what was happening. Truly understood it. My belly began to swell, and more than that. I could sense a life force within me. I could feel it there. A separate entity. Living, growing, inside me. I was, I realized, stunned, with child.

And as that knowledge came to me, I pounded on my cell door, screaming and kicking at it. But no one came to tell me why they’d done this to me. No one came near.

I sank to the floor only when I sensed daylight painting the earth, slowly stealing my consciousness. And this time, when I woke, I was in a far different place.

I was sealed in a dark, coffinlike box. Panic took a firm hold on me, and I beat against the lid with my fists, screaming until I was hoarse.

At last, the cover was lifted. I flew from my prison, only to be gripped by three strong men. I kicked and shouted. I asked them pleaded with them to tell me why they’d done this, what their intentions were. But to no avail. I was injected with the familiar drug, returned to the pathetically weak state I spent all my waking hours in, and then they let me go. I slumped to the floor, sitting up, eyelids heavy, and warily examined the room around me.

The sterile white walls were gone now. I was in a dungeonlike cell, with barely any light. One of the men pulled me to my feet, and ushered me close to the rear wall, while another clamped shackles around my wrists, and then my ankles. I was chained, chained to the cold stone wall at my back.

A glass of the detestable liquid was pressed into my hand. The chain was long enough to enable me to drink. And yet I did not. I stared at the glass, and shook my head. “No,” I told them, lifting my chin in defiance. “I won’t drink. I’d rather die than go on living in this prison! Let me go. I demand you let me go!”

One of the men chuckled, and shook his head. “If you don’t feed, you’ll lose your baby. You don’t want to starve your own baby, do you?”

I swallowed hard, tears flooding my eyes so that the men swam before me. I couldn’t do that, couldn’t starve my own child, and they knew it. They knew it.

Oh, God, what had I done? What had I done to deserve this particular hell? Only then did I fully understand what a grave mistake I had made. Willingly, even eagerly, I had made myself their prisoner. Their guinea pig. I could scarcely believe it was true. They saw me as a creature. A laboratory rat, and I was, from then on, treated as such.

I drank, because I had little choice, and so I lived. Lived on their drugged liquid, kept too weak to break my chains or fight my captors. Each night I remained chained to the cell walls. But the days were far worse. For each dawn, as soon as the day sleep overtook me, my vile captors took me down from my wall and sealed me inside that coffinlike box. More often than not, dusk would fall, and I would awaken still trapped in that tiny cement sarcophagus. I’d claw and kick and cry, and I’d hear them laughing as they passed me by, not letting me out until they were good and ready. It seemed they enjoyed my panic.

They no longer tried to conceal the disgust in their eyes. I was treated as an animal. For the sake of the child I carried, they continued to provide me with sustenance, and warmth, and sanitary conditions. For the sake of the child. I knew that. And I knew, too, with a growing sense of terror, that what became of my child once I’d given birth, was completely beyond my control.

And I knew something else in those long months of my captivity. Those long months of a loneliness more intense than anything I’d ever known. As the child grew in my womb, as I felt it there, living and even moving eventually, I spoke to it. Wrapped my arms around my swollen belly and cradled it. I even sang to it, in a voice that surprised me with its preternatural range and purity. I’d always loved to sing, but I’d never found such joy in doing so with my flawed, mortal voice. Now I thought I must sound like the very angels. And as the time passed, I came to realize that I loved the baby I carried. She—and for some reason, I was certain, even then, that she was female—she was the only living soul I spoke to in all that time. She was a part of me, my very heart. And I loved her with everything in me. Never in my life had I contemplated motherhood. I’d never imagined that I would have a child. But now, I could not imagine not having one. This one, whom they would try to take from me as surely as the sun would rise each morning. They would try to take her.

And I would die before I would allow that to happen.

Every once in a while, Hilary slipped down to the maximum-security sublevels, and checked in on that wide-eyed young woman they held there. And once, very late in the experiment, she heard something that made her heart trip to a stop in her chest. Singing. The purest, most angelic singing she’d ever heard in her life.

She crept closer to the cell, and peered through the mesh-lined safety glass. And she saw her. Pale and thin, except for her protruding belly. Her name was Angelica, though to DPI she was called by a number. Her hair shone like black satin, long and lustrous, and she had huge violet eyes. Their color no less than stunning, even through the. tears that spilled slowly from their purplish depths.

She sat on the floor of her cell, chains dangling from her arms and pooled around her legs. She hugged her bulging belly, and rocked slowly back and forth, and she sang “Amazing Grace,” so beautifully that it brought tears to Hilary’s eyes.

And then she stopped singing all at once, and lifted her head. She stared right into Hilary’s eyes from beyond that glass. And Hilary was unable to look away. She was so sad, so frightened and so utterly alone. It was horrible what this organization was doing to her. Horrible.

And if I try to help, she thought, they’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. I’ll disappear, just like Tamara.

But the story went that Tamara hadn’t disappeared. According to the DPI grapevine, all those years ago she’d become one of them. A vampire, like the ones she’d been trying to help. Could it be true? Could Tamara be out there somewhere?

She shook that thought away and looked back at the woman in the cell. But the plea was still there, in those violet eyes. And Hilary knew that she had to help. She had to try. She had to.

She closed her eyes, and turned away. And the singing began again, filling the entire sublevel with beauty. And as she passed other cells where other captives languished in despair, she saw them listening. Saw them closing their eyes and drinking in the beauty of that song.

Hilary ran from the cell block to the elevators, eager to shut out that sad, sad voice. But even after the doors slid closed, she kept hearing it. Ringing in her mind. And she saw those beautiful eyes, imploring her to act.

It was difficult walking into Fuller’s office for the staff meeting that night. Harder than ever to keep her mask in place. But she had to. She made a valiant effort, too, she thought.

Until Rose Sversky’s dire predictions filled the room, at least. “We can’t take it C-section,” she said. “They bleed like hemophiliacs. The mother would probably bleed out before we could get the child, and then we’d lose them both.”

“Then we go natural,” Fuller said, tamping more smelly tobacco into that rank pipe of his as Hilary took rapid notes.

Stiles cleared his throat. “Sir, you know that kind feels pain as if it were magnified a thousand times.”

“Like I give a damn,” Fuller said.

Rose’s eyes met Stiles’s. Even the two of them, monsters though they were, were not quite as heartless as Fuller. They saw the undead as animals, yes. But even animals didn’t deserve unnecessary agony.

“She’ll need to be tranquilized,” Rose said. “With her preternatural strength, if she pushes, she could crush the child. We’ll give her the drug, a far higher dosage than the daily one. Enough to render her semiconscious before we induce labor.”

“And what happens to the baby?” Hilary whispered.

Again they all looked at her, but they were over being surprised at her ever-increasing interruptions.

“The baby will be our most prized research subject,” Fuller explained. “Ms. Garner, this is a first. A one of a kind. Will it be born a vampire, or a mortal, or some mutant cross between the two? We’re going to learn more from this creature than…Ms. Garner?”

It showed in her face. That sick feeling that made her think she’d better get out of here fast before she lost control and broke into tears in front of all of them. She schooled her features, stood up slowly. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to excuse me for a minute.” She turned toward the door.

“Stomach bug, Ms. Garner?” Fuller’s voice was full of speculation, and the look in his eyes was deadly as she glanced back at him.

“Yes,” she told him. “The flu, I think.”

“It had better be.”

It was a haze of pain and horror and fear. The first drug they gave me left me nearly paralyzed. And the second one brought on the pain. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t see the walls I passed as they wheeled me along, strapped to a stretcher, into an elevator and up. They took me to a room with masked, white-coated people and machines and equipment of all kinds. And those masked demons surrounded me, staring down, snapping on surgical gloves.

They spoke, but I didn’t know what they were saying, so dazed was I by the pain. I hurt, I only knew that. I thought my body would tear itself in half, and I screamed. I know I screamed.

And those white coats all around me, eyes eager with excitement. There was only one, the brown-skinned woman with the big doe’s eyes, who might be different. I’d seen her before, the woman with the kind brown eyes. The kindest brown eyes I thought I had ever seen. She looked as horrified from behind her surgical mask as I felt.

Oh, and I was horrified, beyond all thought. Horrified, because I could barely move, could barely think. And all I could feel was pain. And I knew I was helpless to fight them. Helpless to protect my child. Utterly…helpless.

She stood beside my head, the one with the kindness in her eyes. She stroked my face, not speaking, but I could see the pity in her eyes when they met mine. And then there was relief, so swift and sudden I nearly floated off the table with it. Doe Eyes turned her head, looking down at the men and woman who stood at the foot of the table on which I lay. I followed that gaze, looking where she did. And I saw my child. The woman I’d thought of as a kindly old grandmother held her—a pink, wrinkled blur in her arms. A blur that squirmed and kicked and had jet-black hair stuck to her head.

And then that pretty one leaned close to me and whispered, “A girl. And she looks healthy.”

I moved my lips, lifted my hands toward my child, my daughter. I tried to beg. “Please…”

And those doe eyes filled with tears. They met mine. Held mine. “Please,” I whispered. “Help me…help…her!”

She looked at me, then at my baby as they carried her from the room, out of my sight. All of them, leaving me lying there. And I watched them go, as great heaving sobs that hurt as much as the birth had, tore through my body. I tried to sit up, tried with everything in me to tear free of the straps that held me down. But the drug made my efforts into a joke. A sideshow, as I cried in agony and they took my child out of my sight.

And then that beautiful, dark-skinned woman who seemed different from the others touched my face. I turned to look up at her, and her eyes, with tears swimming in and nearly spilling from them, met mine again.

“Help her,” I whispered.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

Then she left me to the orderlies, who arrived to clean me up and return me to my cell, I was left wondering whether I had imagined that nod, the assurance in those eyes. I prayed I hadn’t.

The classified ad read:

Tamara, remember me? Eighteen years ago. You had the chicken, and I had the seafood. We both had the wine. A little too much. And the cheesecake was more than we could resist. All that cholesterol. It could cost me my life. Call me. 374-555-1092.

No one would have thought it anything unusual. But Tamara did. Eric paced, looking worried.

“Where did you get this?” Tamara asked, looking up at him from where she sat in the oversize house they owned just outside San Diego. Jamey had returned to get his affairs in order. Sold the bar he’d owned, traded in his car, bought another under an assumed name. He was making arrangements to hide his money as well. DPI must not be able to track him. He had to live the way the rest of them did now. In hiding.

“A vampire by the name of Cuyler saw it, recognized the name, tracked us down and sent it to us. She thought it might be meant for you. Do you think she was right?”

Tamara nodded slowly. “Of course she was right. This is from Hilary Garner. We worked together at DPI. I remember that night, we went out together. I went home alone, and had a flat. That was the night I was almost—”

“I’d rather not be reminded of what nearly happened to you that night,” Eric said. He moved forward, stroking one hand through her hair. “This could be a trap, Tamara. Hilary still works for DPI.”

She shook her head hard. “No. Hilary wouldn’t do something like that. And look at this last line.” Tamara held up the paper and pointed. “‘It could cost me my life.’ She makes it sound as if she’s referring to the cheesecake, but she’s not. It’s there to let me know this is urgent.” She looked into Eric’s eyes. “I have to call her, darling. I have to.”

He lowered his head, and she was glad that for once he didn’t argue. “I was afraid you were going to say something like that.” She held his gaze until she saw him conceding. He sighed hard, and nodded. “I’ll rig something up, just in case. They won’t be able to trace the call.”

She smiled, and then kissed him.

Since his change, Jameson had been learning. Testing his strength and energy. Honing his mental skills. And he was decidedly happy with his progress. He could run nearly as fast as Eric. Climb and leap and jump as well as Roland. He could speak to any of them without uttering a sound. That was probably the most surprising aspect of his new nature. And the hardest to get used to. He could read their thoughts now just as easily as they’d always been able to read his. Unless they were guarding them. He’d become adept at erecting a mental shield around his mind, one that could bar entry to any vampire.

He’d expected to miss eating a good meal, but oddly enough, he didn’t. His other senses were so finely honed, so much sharper and more acute than before, that he took sensual pleasure in everything. Sounds and sights, smells and feelings bombarded him constantly. The tastes he’d once enjoyed were easily replaced. Easily forgotten.

He did regret that he’d never have the chance to fulfill his dream of a “normal” mortal life. A life with a family, a wife, children perhaps. But then, that had never really been a possibility anyway. He’d always known that those rare individuals who carried the belladonna antigen had abbreviated life spans. Few ever lived beyond the age of thirty. Jameson was thirty now, and while he hadn’t experienced the onset of any of the usual symptoms, it probably wouldn’t have been much longer before he had. So his initial anger at his dearest friends was long since reduced to cold ashes.

The fury he felt for the woman who’d attacked him, though—that remained red-hot. Coals of that anger glowed in his soul, and it would take only a bit of stirring to bring them back to blazing rage again.

He’d been attacked, fed upon without his consent, made to feel helpless and nearly killed. Oh, how he’d like to run into that raggedy vampiress again. He was strong now, stronger than she would ever be, he was certain, since he’d been infused with the blood of the truly ancient. Rhiannon in particular. Yes, he’d like to see that tangled and tattered woman try to attack him again. He’d toss her away like a rag doll. Snap her like a matchstick. She would learn.

Of course, that fury would probably never be vented. She was likely long dead by now. Vampires, Jameson knew all too well, didn’t tend to last long in captivity. Particularly when their captors saw them as useless once the experiments were done. Easier to simply let them die in an agony of slow starvation, or just tranquilize them with that drug they’d developed, and stake them out in the burning rays of the sun. Disposable experiments.

Somehow, it gave Jameson no pleasure at all to think of that bone-thin and chalk-white vampiress dying in such a way. No pleasure at all.

Above all the lessons he’d been taught by his friends was that he mustn’t take blood from the living. The bloodlust could become overwhelming, and a vampire could easily lose himself in the act of assuaging his passionate thirst. Well, he’d witnessed that firsthand, hadn’t he? And since he had no desire to kill anyone—anyone in San Diego, at least—he took his blood as the others did. From the stores they kept, robbed from blood banks and hospitals.

“Jamey, I need to talk to you.”

He turned, saw Tamara entering his room in one of the many houses they all kept around the country, this one in San Diego. He really wasn’t certain why they were still here. His affairs were in order. He had plenty of money and a good cover to keep him invisible from DPI’s prying eyes. His lessons were pretty much complete as well. They could go wherever they wanted. He supposed they hadn’t moved on yet because they simply hadn’t felt the urge to do so.

Tamara still hadn’t stopped calling him Jamey, and he’d all but given up hope that she ever would.

He frowned as he met her eyes, and a little trill of alarm rushed through him, because she looked…very upset. “What is it, Tam?” She approached him, gnawing her lower lip, but then stopped halfway, and gripped the back of an armchair as if for support. And this alarmed him even more. “My God, what’s wrong?”

“Jamey—Lord, but I don’t know how to tell you this…”

He went to her, gripping her shoulders and easing her trembling body into the chair she’d been clinging to. “Has something happened to Eric? Or Roland? Is Rhiannon all—”

“Everyone is fine, Jamey. But you…you won’t be.” She tipped her head up, her eyes probing his. “If you fly out of here in a blind rage, Jamey, you’ll only end up getting yourself killed, and that won’t help the situation. This is…it’s horrible. If it’s even true. If it is, we have to take action. But with thought, and planning, and extreme caution. I can’t stress that enough.”

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Tam.”

She licked her lips, closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “When DPI held you…”

As her words trailed off, Jameson snapped to attention. “When DPI held me?” he prompted. “Go on, Tam, get to the point.”

Tamara cleared her throat, lifted her delicate chin, looked him in the eye. “You said they took…samples.”

He averted his eyes. But Tamara’s small hand came to his shoulder, and her steady gaze drew his back like a magnet. “I need to know…what kind.”

“That’s not something I’m going to discuss,” he said. “Not even with you.”

“Forgive me,” she whispered. Then cleared her throat. “Did they take your semen, Jamey?”

“Tamara, for Christ’s sake!” He turned away, pulling free of her gentle grip and pacing the floor.

“I must know.”

He only stopped when he reached the window. He shoved the black chintz draperies apart, braced his hands on the wide sill, and stared out into the murky gray night. The clawlike fingers of storm clouds reached past the moon, breaking its light into thin, jagged portions. And the stars were invisible.

“Why?” Jameson whispered. “For the love of God, Tamara, why would you ask me something like that?”

“Because I’ve been told something too horrible to believe,” she told him. She didn’t cross the room, didn’t come to put her hands on his shoulders as he’d half expected her to do. Instead she remained sitting in the chair nearest the fireplace. And when he turned to face her he saw her staring into the dancing flames. He saw the teardrops rolling slowly down her cheeks, reflecting the light of the fire.

“Tell me,” he said.

She nodded once. “You remember Hilary? My friend from so long ago?”

Jameson tilted his head, searching his memory. “She worked for DPI,” he said at last.

“So did I.”

“That’s different, Tara.”

“Maybe not,” she told him. “Maybe it’s not so different at all. She drew her black eyes from the firelight, and turned her gaze to him again. ”She told me they had taken your semen, Jameson. She told me they’d frozen it. She said their research had shown that some female vampires—very young ones—still had functioning ovaries.“

Jameson felt his eyes narrow as he stepped away from the window, closer to Tamara. “What in hell are you saying?”

“The men—once they’re brought over, they seem to be quite sterile. But you know DPI and their unending quest for knowledge about our kind. You know them, Jamey. They wanted to know what would happen if a female vampire were to have a child. And since they couldn’t mate her with a male vampire, they decided that one of the Chosen would be the next best choice.”

Jameson stood in front of her now, between her and the hearth’s protective screen. “Are you telling me they intend to implant a woman with my seed?”

More tears. She bit her lower lip, then tipped her head back, staring up at the ceiling. “No, my love. I’m telling you they’ve already done it.”

“Already…”

Tamara’s head came level again, and she got to her feet. Her hands closed on Jameson’s shoulders, and her grip was firm. “Last week a vampiress being held in that place gave birth to a child, Jameson. Your child.”

“No!” He pulled free of her, spun away. He slammed his fists down on the mantel, and the clock and other bric-a-brac lining it flew into the air and smashed to the floor. “No, it’s not possible.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s killing me to tell you this, Jamey, but Hilary says it’s true. They…they have your child.”

“I’ll kill those bastards,” Jameson shouted. “I’ll kill every last one of them, I swear!” He stalked across the room, and yanked the door open, only to be met by a solid wall of resistance.

Roland, Eric and Rhiannon stood there, blocking his path. Jameson shoved his way past them all, but Roland gripped his arms and fought to keep him from leaving. “Jameson, please! Just listen—‘”

“No. I’m through listening. I’m through letting you all treat me like a child. Jesus, Roland, don’t you realize what’s happening? A child—my child, Roland, if what Tamara says is true—is being used as a research subject by those monsters.” He swung his gaze around to Rhiannon’s. “You were their prisoner once,” he told her. “You know…you know better than anyone, Rhiannon, what they’re capable of. I have to get my child out of there. I can’t wait.”

“Of course I know that,” Rhiannon told him. “And I agree fully that the animals must pay, Jameson, though these others will no doubt argue that point. We only want you to be aware, before you go, of some vital considerations.” She stopped there, turning to Eric, nodding at him to go on.

Jameson stopped struggling and met Eric’s eyes. “First, just keep in mind that we only have Hilary Garner’s word that this is your child,” Eric said. “And—”

“Do you really think that matters? No child deserves to be used the way they will use him…or her…” He turned to Tamara, whose tears flowed unchecked now. “Him, Tamara? Or her?” And his voice broke as he asked the question.

“Her,” she whispered. “A girl.”

“A daughter. Jesus Christ, I have a daughter.” He felt dizzy, weak, ill.

“Maybe,” Eric said. “And we’d mount a rescue attempt no matter whose child it turned out to be. But Jameson, there’s one more thing you need to be aware of before we move in.” Eric licked his lips. Closed his eyes very briefly. “You have to prepare yourself, my friend. We don’t know what sort of child we’ll find. Whether she’ll be mortal or…or—”

“Or vampire?” Jameson moved closer to Eric, searching his face. “My God, Eric, you don’t think…no. No, not a newborn vampire. That’s too horrible for words. A child who lives on blood? A child who can never grow older?” Jameson closed his eyes, then popped them open again and turned to Tamara. “This Hilary, she saw the baby?”

“Only for a moment. She just glimpsed her, and says all she could tell for sure was that she was…she was beautiful. Dark curls. Like yours, Jamey.” Her beautiful face fell then, into her delicate hands, and Tamara wept. Her shoulders shaking with it. Eric went to her, took her into his arms.

Jameson stepped away from them, looking back at them all. “You love me,” he said, his voice coarse. “I know you all love me. But do you trust me?”

“Of course we trust you, Jameson,” Roland said quickly. But Rhiannon was looking at him with wariness in her eyes. As if she knew full well what was coming next.

“I’ve never asked anything of you. I’m asking you now, and this means more to me than anything ever has. If you care for me as you say you do, then let me go after my daughter alone.”

Tam’s head came up sharply, eyes red and puffy and wet. “No!”

“This is my child,” he went on. “My responsibility. For once, treat me as an equal. I am, you know. I’m your equal now. There’s no more reason for all this protectiveness. None at all. And if you won’t let me do this, if you won’t trust me to save the life of my own child, then…” He lowered his head, shook it slowly.

“Then,” Rhiannon said softly, “our relationship with this young man is going to be severely damaged.”

Jameson met Rhiannon’s eyes and nodded. “Yes. That’s it exactly.” Then he looked at the rest of them, each in turn. “Trust me enough to know I’ll be wise, and cautious, and that I won’t satisfy this rage that’s burning inside me at the risk of my child’s life.” And then he went to Tamara, and he stroked her hair away from her face. “I want you to wait for me. If I need you, I’ll call to you, I promise you that.”

“Swear it, Jamey,” Tamara whispered. “Swear to me you’ll call us, if you’re hurt or if you’re taken. Or if things look too dangerous. Swear it to me, and I’ll believe you.”

“I swear, Tam.” He stared down into her eyes. “You’re more to me than a sister could be. Closer to me than my own soul, sometimes. You’d know if I were lying to you. I’ll call if I need help. My pride won’t get in the way of saving that child. I need to do this alone, Tamara. I need to focus everything on getting to her, not on worrying which of my friends will suffer or die in the attempt. Please…”

Tamara sniffled, brushed at her eyes but nodded. “All right then. Go. We’ll be waiting.”

“There are many of us, Jameson,” Roland said. “There are others who will come to your aid. Damien, the oldest of all of us. The first, and the strongest. He’d come in a heartbeat. And his mate, Shannon. And so many others.”

“It might very well take all of us to defeat DPI this time,” Rhiannon said softly. “And if it does, we’ll all be willing. Know that, Jameson. Say the word, and we’ll be there.”

Jameson nodded. But he had no intention of risking their lives unless he had to.

A daughter. A tiny, newborn child. His child was waiting, somewhere, for her father to come and rescue her. Her father. He closed his eyes as the enormity of it hit him. Her father.

As he turned to go, a single tear fell and rolled slowly down his cheek.

Chapter Five

I was hosed down like an animal, and then wheeled back to my prison cell. Men lifted me from the gurney, and carelessly dropped me into that box where I was condemned to spend my days. The coffinlike box with the lid that sealed from without. The place where I would lie, trapped and suffocating, until they saw fit to let me out.

And only vaguely did I realize as they shifted me into this tomb, that it was not dawn. Nor even near to dawn. It was still fully night, and the slumber wouldn’t fall upon me for several hours yet. Surely the chains on the wall were preferable to being trapped in this box!

“Please,” I said to the two who lowered me into my prison. “It’s not daylight yet.” My words were thick and slurring together. And I was still weak from the drugs they’d given me, still feeling the residual cramping from my enforced labor.

They did not answer me. Just lowered me into that box, and reached for the lid.

“No!” I tried to pull myself out again, tried with everything in me. Suddenly I was terrified of being sealed inside the tiny casket. I couldn’t bear it. I wouldn’t! It might have been some form of precognition that made me feel this panic, but whatever the source, I felt it, and I fought.

But it was little use. One orderly, a burly man in white, held me down as I kicked and clawed, while the second easily pushed the lid into place. I screamed. I howled and pushed at the heavy, perhaps lead-lined lid that held me prisoner, but my efforts were worthless and exhausting. I heard them working without. Heard the bolts they inserted to keep the lid down tight. And eventually, I stilled. I would have curled up into a tiny fetal ball if the space were wide enough to allow it. But as it was I could only lie flat in the darkness, with the ceiling only inches above my face, and my knuckles brushing the walls on either side of me. I pressed my hands to my flat belly, empty now of the child I’d cherished all these months, and I wept bitter tears, until it seemed no more remained.

There wasn’t enough air. I couldn’t move. I could only lie there in the pitch-black closeness, feeling the heat of that cramped space closing in on me. With my heart, my mind, I felt my child’s presence. I knew she was near…but that faded a short while later. My sense of her grew slowly weaker, until it vanished entirely. Why I was so aware of her, I did not know. I’d felt her crying for me, and I’d known she was comforted in someone’s arms. I’d sensed when she was wrapped in a warm blanket, and when she’d fallen into a contented sleep. And I knew now, as surely as I knew my own name, that she’d been taken from this place. Taken away, so far away that I could no longer reach her. And the tears I had thought were used up, renewed themselves, and spilled from my eyes.

I slowly realized the awful truth. These people had used me. And their use for me was finished. They had no reason to keep me alive any longer. And I knew with an instinct that struck me with mind-numbing fear, that the lid of this coffin was never going to open again.

How long, I wondered, would it take for me to die?

The white lab coat had belonged to the man who was now occupying space in the darkest corner of a supply room. As did the ID tag. Jameson knew this was not a foolproof plan, but not entirely a bad one either. He could read their thoughts. He’d know which of them were suspicious of him, and which believed his stories. He moved through the corridors of the fourth subterranean level of DPI headquarters in White Plains. The last place any of them would expect to find a vampire visiting of his own accord. He knew well enough that the captives were kept below ground level, and the more important the prisoner, the deeper he would be found. Like a living burial, life in this hole. He pushed a stainless-steel cart full of instruments, and he wore a pair of latex gloves, and he stopped on occasion to flip open the chart he’d stolen, and gaze thoughtfully at the gibberish scrawled there. All to add flavor to his charade. An extra white lab coat, and surgical mask and cap were tucked inside the coat he wore. And he knew from the blueprints he’d pilfered that there was a rear exit used only to remove the remains of those who died in captivity here. An elevator that went directly to that exit. And a large blast furnace in the room that elevator opened into. A crematorium, of sorts.

He passed a young woman…then stopped as he sensed her gaze on him, her approval of his appearance, the initial flare of attraction, and he turned to her, saw her glancing back at him, running one hand through her silken blond hair, and moistening her cover-model lips. “Excuse me, maybe you can help,” he said. “I’m a little bit lost.”

Her smile was quick and brilliant, and she was hoping he’d ask her to meet him after her shift. She was a lab technician, an up-and-comer, very talented. And utterly without morality. “Sure,” she said, her gaze dipping only briefly to the ID tag on his chest. Seeing it dangling there was all the confirmation she required. She was a beautiful fool. “What are you looking for?”

“ The uh—” He glanced around, made a pretense of being secretive, knowing full well that not everyone here would be privy to the most secret of information. Then he checked her ID tag, noted her security clearance was one of the highest and nodded. “The new mother?”

The woman frowned, and a bit of suspicion rose in her mind.

He heard her thoughts plainly. Why would he be visiting that one? She’s probably dead by now, anyway.

“I’m supposed to take a few samples, and then move the remains down to forensics,” he added quickly.

“Oh.” The suspicion left her pretty face. “One level down, isolation cell 516-S.”

“Thanks.”

She was thinking maybe she ought to mention this man’s mission to someone. Jameson turned once more, flashing his most brilliant smile, yet careful to conceal the telltale tips of his incisors. “Say, what time do you get off?”

“Midnight,” she told him, a triumphant gleam in her green cat’s eyes. “Why?”

Jameson stared into her eyes, and though he’d never used the mind control before, he knew he could do it, so long as the mortal in question didn’t resist. And he sensed no resistance or fear in this one. He’d seen Eric do it. The trick took practice, and he hadn’t had much. Still, influencing the actions of one mortal female shouldn’t be too difficult. Say nothing about me to anyone. Say nothing. Nothing.

Aloud, he said, “Why don’t you meet me in the parking lot at twelve-fifteen? We could go out for drinks…or something.”

She nodded, her eyes eager. “That sounds nice,” she said.

“Great.” He turned and headed down the hall to the elevators. He passed several others, but none of them seemed at all wary of him. The woman he sought, whoever she was, was in all likelihood dead, according to the pretty technician. Why was she still here then? And would he find the child, as he’d expected he would? He’d thought they’d be together, sharing a cell at the very least. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Sublevel five was like a dungeon. And it was only seconds before Jameson knew this was where they brought the vampires when their use for them had ended. This was where the undead were left to die. The second death. The final one. This level was encased in concrete, and painted a dark green, like a basement Morgue in a hospital. Each tiny cell had a door, and all the doors were sealed. And he could smell the stench of death heavy in the air.

He reached the door with the correct number. No guards on this level. Apparently, they assumed none was needed for dead or dying vampires. Jameson gripped the door handle, and it was with only a minimal exertion of his strength that he pulled it open, breaking the locks in the process.

He stepped inside, and caught his breath. In the far corner of the tomblike room was a box the size and appearance of a stone sarcophagus. Six inches thick. No baby in sight, and thankfully, no tinier, infant-sized deathtrap sat nearby. He’d thought to find the child with her mother. He’d obviously been mistaken. And if she were dead already, the woman would provide no clues as to where his daughter might be. Even if she were alive, he realized, heart sinking, she might know nothing. But he had to try.

Stepping closer, Jameson pushed the huge stone top aside, wincing at the grating whine of it. The sound was like a cry, and it echoed endlessly in this room. Within it was a smaller coffin, ordinary wood, though he sensed there was a layer of lead within it. This one was bolted shut, but he snapped the bolts like twigs, and wrenched the lid from the casket.

In the pitch-darkness, his eyes were as sharp as those of a cat. And she lay there, still and white, the sharp bones of her face protruding into her pale skin. Her hair spread around her in tangles. And he stared down at her in utter shock, and whispered, “You!”

Her eyes opened, their violet light so dulled he barely recognized it there. “Please…” she whispered, parched lips barely moving to form the words. “My…child…”

Why she made the effort to speak the words aloud when it was so difficult for her, he could not fathom. She could transmit her thoughts to him much more easily. Her. Why the hell did it have to be her? What twist of fate had brought this ridiculous irony about?

“Where is the child?” he demanded, gripping her shoulders, shaking her when she would have faded into slumber. “Where?”

She parted her lips, but only a low moan escaped them. Jameson shook her again, and she blinked up at him. “They…took my baby… they took her…”

“Took her where, dammit!”

Her eyes widened at the anger in his voice. And then she stared up at him as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re alive,” she said with a sigh, scanning his face.

“No thanks to you. Now, dammit, where is the child?”

Licking her lips, she shook her head. “I…they’ve taken her…away from here.”

“She’s not in this building?”

She shook her head.

“And you’ve no idea where she is?”

“No.”

Jameson swore, spinning in a slow circle, then pacing away from the woman’s intended tomb.

“Please,” she groaned. “Don’t…leave me here.”

And then he laughed, a low, bitter sound that echoed from the concrete walls, and turned to face her again. “You want me to help you? Me, your victim, the mortal man you did your best to murder? Why the hell should I? You tried to kill me, lady. You drained me and left me for dead, and then you turned yourself over to these bastards. It’s your fault they’ve got their hands on my daughter, and you deserve everything they—”

“Your… daughter?‘”

Jameson stopped speaking and stepped closer to stare down at the pathetic, yet somehow still beautiful woman, who was too weak even to sit up on her own. “Yes,” he said softly. “My daughter. I was once a prisoner here, just as you are now. And it was my seed they used to impregnate you. She is my little girl. And I will find her.”

She closed her eyes, drew a painful breath. “I…can help you.”

“How?” He didn’t think he believed her. Hell, he wasn’t truly going to leave her here. Wouldn’t leave his worst enemy to die this way. But she obviously thought he would, and she was trying to convince him not to. Grasping at straws. Bluffing, in all likelihood.

“I…” She gripped the edges of the coffin, struggled to sit up. And Jameson’s hands moved automatically. It seemed they found it a bit too easy to forget this woman had once tried to murder him. He slipped his hands over her shoulders, grimacing at how thin she was, and helped her to sit up. She had to cling to the wooden sides to keep herself in that position, and her head fell forward as if even holding it upright were more than she could manage. “Please, if nothing else…take me out of this box.”

He saw the fear in her eyes when she lifted her head briefly to look around her, when she realized the box she’d been entombed within had been sealed inside a larger one, made of stone. “They’re monsters,” she whispered.

“Ah, so you’ve finally figured that out, have you?” Jameson gathered her featherlight body into his arms and lifted her out of the box. But when he lowered her feet to the floor, her legs buckled. She fell against him, and only his quick reaction kept her from sinking into a heap at his feet.

He held her. And doing so stirred up unpleasant memories. Memories of the last time he’d held her this way, with her face pressed to the crook of his neck. Of the desire that had overwhelmed him when she’d put her mouth to his throat. Of how much he’d wanted her at that moment. She’d been desperate then. Starving. She was, if anything, more so now. He waited, tense and expectant, his arms around her waist to keep her from falling. Her body pressed tight to his. And he felt her lips touch the skin of his neck, felt her soft gasp.

And then she turned her head away from his neck, and rested her cheek on his shoulder.

Of course. She wouldn’t attempt to overpower another vampire. Particularly as weak as she was. It was that, nothing more, surely.

“Tell me,” he said, “how you think you can help me to find my child.”

“My child,” she whispered, not moving. “There’s…there’s a link between my baby and me. I felt it…even before she was born.

“I knew how…she’d look.” She slipped lower in his arms, sinking toward the floor, and he was forced to hold her tighter, closer. “I knew she was female. I spoke to her…and she heard, I know she did.” Her voice was so weak. But a whisper, and speaking was obviously a tremendous effort.

“Of course she did,” Jameson said, not believing a word she said.

She lifted her head, met his eyes. “I could feel what she felt. I knew when she was here, and I was aware of it the instant they…took her away.” Her head lowered to his shoulder again, and he knew she could hold it up no longer. She was very near death right now. “I’ll know again, when we get close to her. I swear to Christ, I will.”

Jameson tipped her chin up with one hand and searched her eyes, wondering if she might be telling the truth, nearly wincing at the agony he saw in their violet depths. And then he scanned her mind, not expecting to find much there, particularly if she were lying. She’d be smart enough to guard her thoughts if she hoped to fool him. But he was surprised, because her mind was utterly unguarded. Completely open to him.

He must take me out of this place! Yes, he’s a monster… a horrible monster, just like the other… but even a monster is better than dying here. I’ll run from him. I’ll get away as soon as I leave these walls behind. And then I’ll use this psychic bond to find my child by myself. I’ll take her away from them…and away from him. His kind will never lay eyes on her. I’ll protect her from all of them. And if I must feed on the innocent to do it, then so be it!

Jameson tilted his head, studying the brief, rebellious anger in her eyes. Shocked by the power of it. Hungry. She was so very hungry. And she thought him a vile monster. Odd, since if vampires were monsters, she must surely realize she was one as well.

She hated him. Hated what he was. Hated every one of her own race. She was a traitorous, murderous creature. And she wanted to take his child from him.

But the bond with the baby was apparently real. And he needed her if he hoped to rescue his daughter. The rest, he’d worry about later.

“Come on,” he said, turning for the door. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She took a single step, and fell to the hard floor. Jameson looked at her, lying there, all but helpless, and slowly he closed his eyes, knowing full well what must be done. Hating it, but knowing it. He could not carry her from this place and risk being seen. She must wear the disguise he wore, and she must walk out on her own. And she couldn’t do that in this weakened state.

He crouched and scooped her up into his arms, holding her like a child, and then he turned her face to his own throat, one hand at the back of her head, cupping her, supporting her. Sharing blood with another vampire…he’d been warned of the bond it could create. The attraction it could stir. The longing it would embed in the depths of his soul like an addiction. But it could not be helped. For his daughter, he must do this.

She turned her face away.

“You know what’s necessary as well as I do,” he told her. “Do it.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, and he thought there might be tears on her cheeks.

“Do it, damn you!” And he turned her face to him again, pressed her tight to his neck.

She parted her mouth and sank her fangs deeply into his flesh, and Jameson drew a deep, shuddering breath. He felt her mouth working him there, hesitantly at first, but then harder and faster as the bloodlust overwhelmed her. He felt each movement of her lips, each lap of her hungry little tongue. And lust came rushing through him. Weakening him. He trembled with it, dropping to his knees and moaning, and still he held her there. His heart rate quickened, and his breaths came rapid and shallow. True, Roland had warned him how closely the bloodlust and sexual desire were linked in his kind. How the two intertwined to the point where they were nearly inseparable. But this was a thousand times more powerful than what he’d experienced with her before. And he hadn’t expected it to be like this. Not like this. Not this urge to pull her closer. To do to her what she was doing to him. To take her, in every way he knew how, until, until…

She lifted her head, blinking and looking dazed. He hadn’t had to tell her to stop. She’d done it on her own. And judging from the look in her eyes, he thought she’d experienced the same mind-numbing desire as he had.

As he…still did?

He swallowed hard, and got to his feet, lowered her to the floor, still shaking with unbelievable need. Her face was no longer chalk white, but was slowly becoming infused with healthy color. A glow. And her eyes were shining brighter with every second he spent looking into them. Her dulled hair took on a new gleam, and her hollowed cheeks began to plump right before his eyes.

God, she was beautiful.

He blinked the thought away. No time for this. Not now.

“I…feel stronger,” she whispered, but the shock of the desire that had raged between them still showed in her violet eyes. “Thank you.” She was bewildered. She had no clue what had transpired between them, was completely shocked over the feelings that had swamped her just now.

Looking back at her, he nodded and reached into his pocket for the second lab coat he’d brought along. He held it open for her, and she turned, swayed, nearly fell, but managed to catch her balance and thrust her arms into its sleeves. It wasn’t starvation weakening her now. It was desire. And it disgusted her. Jameson watched her struggle with the buttons for just a moment, then ran out of patience and bent to do them up himself, effectively covering the thin white robe that was all she’d been wearing.

He then produced a surgical mask and a disposable paper head covering, a puffy thing with elastic. Quickly and efficiently, he wound her long, tangled hair into a bunch, snapped the cap over it and tucked the loose tendrils up underneath.

“That’s going to have to do,” he said, standing back and eyeing her, noting how those violet eyes stood out above the white mask she wore. “Come.” He took her hand once more, pulled her out of the room, into the hall, and started down it. He looked down at her, saw her fear in her eyes. She was afraid of him. He’d sensed that from the start. And no wonder. She must expect some kind of retribution from the “monster” she’d once tried to murder. But right now, she was more afraid of the others who roamed this place. Her eyes were wide with it, and she was trembling.

He squeezed her hand for some reason he could not explain. Perhaps to calm her fears. It was cold, shaking. She didn’t pull it away. “I don’t know your name,” he said softly. “Ironic, isn’t it? We have a child together, and don’t even know the simplest things about each other.”

“I’m Angelica,” she whispered.

Angelica. Angel, he thought. A dark, frightened, lonely angel. Stupid thought. She was no angel.

“I’m Jameson.”

They reached the elevator that led to the furnace. No one should be there at this hour of the night. DPI didn’t dare risk one of their victims waking—bolstered by the night—as they shoved him into the flames, and wreaking havoc on the attendants. They stepped inside, and the doors slid closed. “What happened to you?” he asked her as the car started upward. “How did you end up alone in that condemned building, half-starved?‘”

She lowered her head, shook it slowly. “I was mad. Out of my mind, that night.”

The car jerked to a stop. Angelica was jostled against him, and he closed his arms around her without forethought.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you,” she whispered. “It’s my fault you’re…”

“What, Angelica? A monster? That’s what you think I am, isn’t it?”

She looked up at him as the doors slid open, eyes widening. Yes, she must know he’d read her mind now.

“Just so you know, your plan to run from me as soon as we’re out of here is never going to come about.”

“What?”

Taking her arm, he led her from the elevator, and out through the exit. There were guards outside of course, but he kept close to the shadows, using trees and shrubs for cover. He stopped behind one, out of earshot of those sentries, and faced her once more. “Your maker should have taught you better, Angelica. Vampires can read one another’s thoughts. Just as I read yours back there. Even a fledgling ought to know enough to guard them. You are not going to run from me once we’re away from here. You’re not going to find my child and take her away where I’ll never lay eyes on her again. I won’t allow that.”

“You can’t stop me,” she whispered. “I can find her. I’m the one with the bond to my little one, not you!”

“Which is why,” Jameson said as the guards in the distance turned away, and he started forward again, still holding her arm in a firm grip. “I’ve decided to keep you with me. Right by my side, Angelica, until we find our daughter. As my prisoner, if need be.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said, gripping her arm and leading her quickly across an open space before the guards could turn in their direction again. “But don’t worry. I’m not nearly as monstrous as you seem, for some reason, to think I am.”

I went with him. But only because I had no choice. I was still weak, and run-down, and he was obviously much stronger than I. I knew nothing, then, of my own abilities. Of the limits of my power, or the psychic part of my newfound senses. I only knew that I could die easily if exposed to fire, as my creator had. And that starvation could leave me weak and barely able to function. I suspected it, too, could kill me, but of course, I couldn’t be sure.

So I went with this stranger. This vampire. This Jameson who claimed to have fathered my child. I went with him, thinking I’d certainly traded one hell for another, and vowing in silence that when I was strong, I would run. If he could read my thoughts, then let him. I would run from him, just as fast and as far as I could, at the very first opportunity.

I was afraid of him. When I’d put my mouth to his skin, a wildness had come to life inside me. A madness far more intense than what I’d felt the first time I’d taken from him. A passion that blazed like hell itself, and weakened me with its intensity. I was ashamed of the feelings that had overwhelmed me for this man. And what frightened me even more was that I’d sensed he’d felt them, too.

I must escape him.

But until then, I would bide my time. Use it to regain my strength and to discover the extent of my abilities. That way I’d be more able to rescue my child from the animals who held her.

Jameson was young, not more than thirty. He was human when I met him. I was certain of that. No vampire would have allowed me to do what I’d done to Jameson. He was strong, too. Broad across the back, and very tall. But I would escape him. When we were out of this place, I would get away. I had to, for my daughter’s sake. And for my own.

He led me right up to the towering and obviously electrified mesh fence that surrounded this prison, and as I looked up at it, my hopes of escape faded rapidly. “What now?” I whispered, turning to look up at him.

He frowned down at me as if puzzled by the question. Then he reached up to pull the cap from my head, and remove the mask from my face, tossing them carelessly to the ground. “Now,” he said, “we jump it.”

I nearly choked as I stood there, searching this grim-faced man’s countenance for some sign that he was joking. When there was none, I looked up at the fence, back at him, and slowly shook my head. “It’s impossible.”

“You have no idea how strong you are, do you?”

Well, of course, I did not. But I felt admitting as much to him would be a dire mistake.

“Just how long ago were you made, Angelica?”

I shrugged, turning my gaze to the fence once more, ignoring his question.

“Put your arm around my shoulders,” he instructed, and though still doubtful, I did so. He slipped his strong arm around my waist, his fingers pressing into my belly as he pulled me firmly against his side. And that rush of desire for him returned. What was this madness?

Then he bent his knees, drawing me down with him. “Now… jump!”

He pushed off, and I did as well, nearly laughing at the idiocy of it all. I fully expected to hop perhaps a foot or two into the air, and then land right back where I stood. So I was ill prepared for the flight that followed. We sailed into the night sky like two rockets, propelled upward by no more than the force of our legs, pushing off. The mesh rushed before my eyes in a blur, and then we cleared it by several feet. And as the momentum eased and changed, and we began to plummet toward the earth on the other side, my heart nearly tripped to a stop in fear. My hair blew upward, and the night wind whistled past my ears. I peeked below us, saw the ground rushing at us at dizzying speeds, and I clung to Jameson and I buried my face against his shoulder, too afraid to look again. He closed his free arm around me, holding me against him as if I were a child. We hurtled downward, and I expected I would suffer incredibly upon impact.

But instead, I felt my feet hit the ground, and then my knees bent as the rest of my weight followed. My body absorbed the impact without pain. I stumbled and fell onto my backside, the motion pulling me out of Jameson’s firm embrace, which was a relief and a disappointment, all at once. I felt clumsy, I recall, as I saw the grace with which he landed, squatting low and then springing upright again, all without wobbling in the least. And then he turned to me, reached for me and pulled me to my feet.

I could only stare up at the fence we’d just leaped, almost effortlessly. I couldn’t believe…

“You didn’t have a clue, did you, Angelica?”

Dumbly, I shook my head, then faced him and, realizing what I’d just admitted, bit my lower lip.

“Who made you?” he asked, searching my face. “What kind of vampire would bring you over and leave you alone?”

I met his dark eyes, lifting my chin. “You ask me things that don’t concern you.”

He blinked, but finally nodded and stopped waiting for my answer. Apparently he’d realized it was not forthcoming. Taking my arm, he led me through the parking lot to a small black sports car that seemed to be crouching there, waiting like a bandit in the night. It was completely concealed in the shadows.

He opened a door, and I slid into a seat so low that it seemed to rest atop the road. Then he slammed the door, moved away and got in on the other side, sliding behind the wheel. He started the engine and we rolled away, unnoticed. And when the place that had nearly been my deathtrap was finally out of sight behind us, I turned to him. “How will we find our child?” I whispered. “Where will we begin?”

He met my eyes, and his seemed to blaze in the orange-red glow of the dash lights. “We’ll begin by finding out which of them knows,” he said. I saw his hatred for my former captors—his former captors, if his story was true—flare in his eyes. Saw it for the first time. I knew that hatred well, for I felt it, too. “And then we take them. We question them, one by one, until we get the answers we need.”

“They will never tell us,” I said, shaking my head and losing hope rapidly.

“They will,” he replied, and he fixed his eyes on the road ahead. “If they want to live.”

Chapter Six

Jameson drove away from White Plains, and as he did, he tried to keep his eyes, and his mind, on the highway ahead of him. But that was useless, because his curiosity about the woman in the seat beside him seemed to gain strength with every mile that passed. He’d asked her about her origins. Twice now, and he’d been rudely slapped down on both occasions. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of asking again.

But he couldn’t help but wonder about her. What kind of woman had she been in life? When had she been changed, and by whom? And why did she seem to detest her own race so thoroughly?

She leaned back in the passenger seat, her head resting against the black leather, her eyes closed. She wasn’t sleeping. No. Not at all. She was feeling. As Jameson let his thoughts slip unnoticed into her mind, he sensed her every aspect was focused on feeling that connection she’d described to him. The one that would tell her when her child—his child—was near. Her mind seemed almost to sniff the air through which they sped, to search every car they passed, and every building, and every field and every wood-lot. And the farther they went, the more desperate that search became, until he could almost hear her soul crying out to the child.

She’d taken only a very little sustenance from him. And he realized now that it was not enough. She was draining her own energy, sapping her strength in this mental search, and as little as she understood about her own nature, Jameson was surprised at her ability to even try it. Instinctive, he supposed.

She was paling, now. Her eyelids twitched in protest, and a gentle shudder worked through her body. He wanted to despise her. And he should. He certainly should. She’d attempted to murder him. She’d handed herself over to his oldest enemies, allowed herself to be used by them, and because of her, they now had his child. The only child he’d ever have. In the hands of the people he despised with everything in him. All because of her.

And yet he didn’t quite hate the woman. He shrugged and mentally shook himself. It was natural that he couldn’t hate her just now. She was barely able to remain conscious, as weak as she was. Months of captivity, and God knew what kind of abuse. Pale and trembling and sickly. No, he couldn’t hate any person in this kind of sorry state. Not even her. He’d worry about hating her later. No doubt it would come in time. He touched her shoulder.

“Angelica,” he said, and then schooled his voice before going on. It should have the sharp ring of command, rather than that quiet hint of concern. “Stop, you’re not strong enough.”

Her eyes opened, but slowly, and she blinked at him as if rousing from a deep slumber. And then her gaze focused, her eyes narrowed. “What do you care how strong I am? You detest me, remember?”

“It’s not something I’m likely to forget,” he told her. “And my only concern about your strength, Angelica, is that you not waste all of it and kill yourself before I find my little girl.”

Something flashed in her eyes. A fierceness that surprised him. Even when she’d attacked him all those months ago, he’d sensed no viciousness in her. Only desperation. This was quite different. Like a lioness eyeing a careless hunter and licking her chops. A half-dead lioness, still managing to stir up a healthy rage for what she perceived as a threat to her young.

“You need to understand something, Vampire,” she spit at him, making even this harsh whisper sound violent. “No matter what you do to me, no matter how you try, you will never have that innocent child. I am her mother, though not long ago I’d have believed it impossible. I am her mother. And I will raise her in a fine and moral manner. She will not be touched by the likes of you. I will not have her corrupted by your evil. If you want her…” She closed her eyes, took a breath, as if the very act of speaking was draining her. “You’ll have to kill me.”

Jameson closed his eyes very briefly and shook his head as if to shake the confusion away. “The likes of me?” he repeated, searching her weary face in brief glances. “Angelica, you are the likes of me.”

“No.” She turned her face away from him, staring out the window into the night. “I’ll never be like you.”

“And how can you be so sure of that, when you have no idea what I’m like?” He turned the wheel, taking the exit that led to the isolated estate on Long Island, which through a series of tricky legal maneuvers and several transfers of deed still legally belonged to Eric. It had been so many years since he’d been sighted there that DPI had long ago stopped keeping the place under surveillance. Eric had been there, though. And he’d been busy.

“I know what you’re like,” she said, and her whisper was weaker now.

She was remembering. Remembering something that made her stomach heave and her heart race with fear. A dark alley, and an amazingly strong man, holding her down and—

“Stop it!” She snapped her head around to face him, eyes filled with fury. “Stop invading my mind, damn you!”

Anger rose up, but it was brief and gut level. She had every right to order him to keep out of her thoughts. He knew better than to read another’s mind without permission. It was just that he was so damned curious about her, and…and those frightening memories he’d just glimpsed made him even more so. He sighed hard. “I don’t like you, Angelica. That’s no secret. But if you’re to be of any help at all in finding our daughter, you’re going to need to learn a bit more about your own nature. And I suppose there’s no one else to teach you, so…”

She let her head fall back against the seat. “I don’t want to know anything you might want to teach me.”

He lifted his brows. “No? Not even how to guard your thoughts? Not even how to keep monsters like me from reading your mind whenever the mood strikes?”

She sent him a sidelong glance, filled with suspicion and mistrust.

“It’s very easy, Angelica, and once the technique is learned, your thoughts will only be readable if and when you intend them to be.”

Her head came around a little farther, eyes narrowed. “Black arts, no doubt. Sorcery. Satanism.”

“I don’t believe in Satan,” he said. “So it can’t be that.”

“Heretic,” she muttered.

Jameson shrugged. “Close your eyes and envision your mind as a house, your thoughts as its inhabitants. And you as the master of the household.”

She frowned, not closing her eyes or doing anything he told her to. But she was filing it all away for later consideration, he thought.

“Others wish to invade your home, and it’s your responsibility to protect those who live there. So you build a wall. Pick any material you like. Brick or steel or stone. But see yourself, very clearly, building that wall, making it solid and strong, raising it higher and higher, until your house is no longer just a house, but a castle. A fortress. Impenetrable.”

A bit of the suspicion left those violet eyes. They widened, and for once, looked directly into his. And their impact, when she did, jolted him like an unexpected blow to the chest. When their gazes met, something happened. It was as if her eyes probing his were the trigger to release the memories he’d vowed to put from his mind. The feelings…the desire…the touch of her lips and…

He blinked, and jerked his own gaze back to the road ahead, breaking the powerful connection. He realized he’d missed his turnoff, and pulled a U-turn in the road and headed back the other way. Then, clearing his throat, he went on, trying very hard to pretend he’d noticed nothing unusual when their eyes had met. Her mind. He’d been telling her how to protect her mind. “See yourself as the keeper of the wall you build,” he said. “You can send messages out to others at will, and—”

“I can?”

He glanced at her again. Wider now, those eyes, and filled with purple wonder. Moments ago they’d been passion-glazed as she felt the same things he had. But like him, she’d done her best to hide it. And focused instead on the words they’d been saying. Words, floating on the surface of a still lake, while the deeper waters churned into chaos just below.

She was looking so innocent right now. So surprised at what he’d told her. He caught himself halfway to smiling at her, and checked it with ease. “Yes, of course you can. And you can hear the thoughts of others as well.”

“Yes,” she said, very softly. “I do hear them. All of them, all the time. It’s maddening. Like a constant roar in my head, with nothing clear. Everything jumbled and garbled. I—” She looked up quickly, as if everything she’d just said had tumbled from her lips without her consent. As if only just now realizing that she was speaking to him as if he were something other than a monster. And she clamped her jaw, gave her head a tired shake.

It angered him. But he spoke all the same. “Your wall will admit only the messages you wish to receive. All others will bounce off it like carelessly aimed arrows.”

Her brows rose, and she looked at him, doubting, but hoping, he could see that much.

He shook his head, looking straight ahead and refusing to see that distrust in her eyes anymore. “Try it and see for yourself if you’re so certain I’m a liar. Go on, do it. Concentrate. Build your wall.”

Her lips thinned and she rolled her eyes, but seconds later, he saw her leaning back, relaxing, and focusing inwardly on the things he had told her. He gave her time, waited several moments, driving slowly and looking at the coastline as it came into view.

And then he sent his mind to hers, seeking and probing. And he found her wall. Felt it there, a flimsy barrier. His stronger will could break through if necessary, but her defenses would get stronger with time.

“Very good,” he said. “Not bad at all, in fact.”

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You’re trying to confuse me with all this nonsense.”

“Am I?” he said. And then he focused his mind on hers, and without speaking aloud, said, We’re near the sea now, Angelica. See it, off in the distance?

And he saw her stiffen, and turn toward him as if he’d spoken. Saw her flinch when she noticed that his lips were not moving. Saw her look off in the direction he’d mentally indicated, and notice the Atlantic shore.

“It’s…it’s uncanny. It’s unnatural,” she whispered.

“No, not to us it isn’t. And it can be damned convenient. Especially when you find yourself in a scrape. You can send out your cry for help across the miles, and bring others to your aid.”

She lowered her head, shook it. “I’d rather take my chances with my own trouble, thank you all the same.”

“And why is that, Angelica?”

She lifted her brows and her shoulders at the same time. “Same reason it’s unwise to deal with the devil, Vampire. He can’t be trusted. Nothing made of true evil can be.”

“So we’re like Satan himself, now, are we? Made of evil? Not to be trusted? I didn’t realize you were in such close contact with the Almighty, Angelica. Has He told you all this personally? Or are you judging me without divine assistance?”

“I don’t need to judge you,” she whispered. “You’ve already shown your true colors. You began as my rescuer and became my captor. I’ll know better than to make the mistake of trusting your kind ever again.”

“If I were untrustworthy, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that all vampires were, oh Angel of wisdom. And while we’re at it, let’s set the record straight. I began as your rescuer, that’s true. Then I became your victim when you tried to murder me. And then, dark Angel, I became your lover.” He enjoyed the little gasp that statement instigated. He even smiled a little. “True, it was only in a test tube, but we mated, nonetheless. And now, Angelica, I am both rescuer and captor, but only to prevent you from playing the role of child abductor.”

She lowered her head, closed her eyes.

“How can anyone so detest the very thing they are?” he asked, half to himself. “You are a vampire, Angelica. When you condemn us, you condemn yourself.”

“I’m not the one who’s condemned you,” she whispered. “God has. And for some reason, He’s turned His wrath on me as well.”

He tilted his head to one side, saw the utter torment on her pretty face. “You believe this is some form of punishment from God?”

“It’s hell,” she whispered. “I died in that alley, and this is hell.”

“What alley?” He knew…she’d been made in an alley, and against her will, quite obviously. But he wanted to know more. Wanted to know everything.

She averted her face, bit her lip, refused to answer him.

“You know, Angel, you’re really without a clue. You have no inkling of what being a vampire is all about. You’re jumping to conclusions without the slightest bit of evidence. Do you have any idea how self-righteous and arrogant that is?”

“I’m one of the damned,” she whispered, her throat apparently very tight. “Do you really think I care if I seem arrogant to you?”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

She flinched and turned her head away. Jameson let the silence stretch between them. Then he saw their destination bathed in the headlights’ white glow, and he nodded toward it, thinking he could change the dreary subject. “This is where we’ll be staying, for now. A base of operations. At least until they catch on. It probably won’t take them long.”

She eyed the house, shaking her head. “I don’t want to be here. I want to be out searching for my child.”

He lifted his brows, amazed in spite of himself. “You can barely function,” he said. “And you obviously aren’t thinking clearly. You need to rest, and to feed. Give yourself time to regain your strength, and perhaps even learn a bit about your own nature. It’s obvious you know nothing.”

“I don’t want lessons, I want my baby!”

He swallowed hard as he faced the blazing purple flames in her eyes. “So do I,” he said. “But it will be dawn soon. There’s nothing we can do in the short time of darkness we have left. We’ll start our search at sundown.”

She grated her teeth in frustration, but turned to wrench her door open all the same. Jameson gripped her wrist before she could jump out of the car, and she faced him once more. “And I do mean we,” he told her. “Don’t even think about waking before me and slipping away on your own, Angelica. The place may look decrepit, but that’s an illusion. My friend Eric keeps it up, and his technological standards are the highest. It’s a fortress, Angelica, and I hold the key.”

“I despise you!” She wrenched her wrist free of his grasp, and turned to get out of the car.

Jameson held her there easily, preventing that. “Close the door. We’re not quite there yet.”

Scowling at him, she did.

The house was as frightening to me as anything could have been. I was terrified. Alone with a monster who seemed to know more of me than I knew of myself. A man who’d taken me from one prison only to bring me to another. This one looking as if it belonged to a band of witches in old Salem. But it didn’t. It belonged instead to a band of vampires. And perhaps that was even worse.

We drove past a tall iron gate that hung open and seemed attached only by one hinge. Above us, an arch of black filigree spelled the name Marquand. The drive was littered with broken limbs, overgrown with weeds and lined with scrub trees and briars. And then the house itself loomed before us like a giant demon. It was a tower of gray stone blocks, and ivy had crept over most of it. Large timbers had been nailed over the massive front door. The wrought-iron railing was broken, and leaned over the chipped stone steps like a crippled old man leaning upon a cane. Water stains darkened the stone beneath each tall, narrow window, giving the ghastly illusion that the house had been crying. I shivered at the thought. Beyond the house, a sheer cliff tumbled raggedly down to the sea. I could see the black water churning in the distance, and I could hear the breakers smashing against the rocky shore.

And still Jameson drove his small black car farther. He turned off the drive and drove through the brush, and as we went, it seemed a path opened out where none had been visible before. We drove deep into a tunnel made of briars and brush so dense it was impossible to see outside it. Impossible, I realized, to see inside it, as well. Ingenious.

And then Jameson shut off the engine. But he left the keys in the switch. For a fast getaway, I guessed. “Now,” he said, looking at me in the darkness, seeing me just as clearly as I could see him, with his velvety brown, tiger-striped eyes, “you can get out.”

Obeying this man made me cringe, but it seemed there was little else I could do. I opened the car door and got out. He was beside me so quickly I gasped in surprise. And again, he took hold of my wrist. I looked down at his hand, wrapped around me, and I knew he could break that small narrow wrist of mine with one simple twist. And at that same moment, it occurred to me that he hadn’t once hurt me. Though he could have, and though it had seemed as if he’d very much like to on more than one occasion, he had yet to cause me any pain. His grip, when he found it necessary to hold me, was tight. Firm. Even unshakable. But not painful.

I thought of the careless cruelty of the one who’d taken me in the alley. He had hurt me. Time and again, without a thought.

It would be a mistake, though, to believe the two were so different. They were the same, both damned, both monsters, demons, servants of Satan himself. I would not let his deceptive gentleness lull me into complacency. I must escape him. And I would.

He led me still deeper into this tunnel of undergrowth, to a wall of the stuff at the very end, and then he pushed some of the branches aside, and stepped forward, and down, pulling me with him.

A staircase…cut into the very earth, and spiraling downward. For just an instant I envisioned the fires of hell awaiting me at the bottom, and I pulled against him.

He turned then, eyes narrow. “It’s all right, Angelica. There’s nothing here to be afraid of. I know all of this seems absurd, but believe me it’s necessary. For our safety. Come.”

Swallowing my fears, I went with him, down into the depths of the earth, and then along a narrow underground passage. We finally emerged from it, passing through a sturdy door and into a larger room, and it was then that I blinked in utter astonishment.

This was not at all what I had expected. A tomblike dungeon, yes. But not this.

The room was large and beautiful. With a stone fireplace at the farthest side, and kindling lying ready on the grate. A fragrant stack of cherry wood stood beside it. The walls had been painted a muted shade of rose, and paintings lined them. Lovely works, and I noticed then that many of them included a fiery sun’s loving rays bathing various land and seascapes. Oriental rugs covered the floors, and a velvet settee, heaped with pillows and throws, stood in one corner. An antique cherry rocker in another. A marble-topped table littered with objets d’art in a third. There were oil lamps everywhere, and doors. More doors like the one through which we’d entered.

He closed the huge door through which we’d come, and for the first time, I saw the digital panel on this side of it. He punched some buttons, and a red light came on. It was true, then, what he’d said. I was trapped here, with him.

“You see,” he said, facing me again. “Nothing to fear. Through there is a fully functional bathroom, and you’ll find plenty of clothing in various sizes stocked in the closets. You’ll be able to bathe and put on some real clothes. That ought to feel pretty good after all those months in nothing but this thing.” As he said it, he touched the thin white gown I wore, brushing his hand over my shoulder. And I shivered.

He let his hand fall to his side again, averting his eyes. “Everything you need is right here. There are exits from each room. Tunnels like the one we came through. They each open onto various parts of the property, so if we need to escape, we can. And here—” he nodded at the small appliance built into the wall, a minuscule refrigerator “—is enough sustenance to keep us going.”

I stared at the little door, aghast. “What…what do you mean?”

He opened the door with a little flourish. I’m not certain what I expected. A long narrow vault holding the bodies of his victims or something equally horrendous, I suppose. But instead, I saw stacks of plastic bags like those used in blood banks and hospitals. My shock must have shown in my eyes, because he tilted his head, and sent me a look as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking. “You see how little you know, Angelica? We don’t feed on the living. That comes straight out of Sunday afternoon monster movies. Why the hell would we prey on innocent humans, when there’s blood readily available elsewhere?” And he slammed the door, shaking his head in disgust. “I suggest you feed. I’m going to shower and change. Don’t try to leave. The doors will not open without the proper codes. Even if you happened on them by chance, an alarm would sound. And if all of that somehow failed and you did escape, you’d only find yourself out in the open with no shelter in reach and daylight approaching. You’d toast in the sun.” He turned as if to leave me alone there.

“And the sun would kill me?” I asked. I couldn’t stop myself from asking. For nine months I’d existed without knowing the first thing about myself. He’d made me realize, in his crude way, how very little I knew. Not even what things might kill me. And these were things I had to understand. The questions that had been boiling inside me at first—the ones I’d buried and ignored in my foolish certainty that none of it mattered, since I’d be human again one day—came bubbling back to the surface with a new urgency.

I was a member of a race I knew nothing about. Like a newborn, unfamiliar with her own body. I wanted to know.

His back went stiff, but when he turned to face me once more, his stern expression had softened. His brows rose in bewilderment. “Yes. Of course it would. My God, Angelica, you don’t even know that much?”

I lowered my head and turned away from those knowing eyes. I’d revealed too much already. Anything I told this creature would be turned against me, I knew that.

He stared at my back for a long moment, awaiting an answer. An answer I dared not give. So instead, I attempted to change the subject entirely. “Where will I sleep?” I asked.

“Ah, yet another of Eric’s marvels. I’ll show you.” He moved past me to yet another door and pushed it open. Then waved a hand so that I would precede him inside. “Not my first choice, of course,” he was saying as I walked into the room. “But when you see the safety of these, you’ll understand. Eric is a genius about these things. He’s installed…Angelica?”

I could not move. I stood rooted to the floor, staring in horror at the two caskets, gleaming at me in the darkness. I could not breathe, I was so terror-stricken. Even looking at them, I could feel myself trapped inside, feel the cramped space closing in on me, hear my own screams and feel my hands beating against the lid, to no avail.

Jameson touched my shoulder, and all my pride left me in a rush. I spun around to face him, falling to my knees and gripping his hands in mine, not caring that I knelt at the feet of a demon. Lowering my head to hide my tears did nothing to keep the sobs from breaking my words into fragmented bits. “I…beg of y-you…” I said, choking on the words. “Do not put me into that box. Please…”

Jameson’s heart tripped to a stop as he saw what his thoughtlessness had reduced this fierce woman to. Kneeling on the floor, clutching his hands and shaking. She was cold as ice. Damn. How could he have been so cruel as to forget where he’d found her?

Sealed in a tiny box and left there for God only knew how long. Left there to die.

He bent down, closing his hands around her small waist and lifting her until she stood again. When he tilted up her chin, he saw the tears staining her cheeks, and he swore. “Jesus, Angel, of course not. I wasn’t thinking…” Keeping one arm anchored around her waist, he moved her out of that room as quickly as possible. She was still shaking like a frightened rabbit. “No,” he told her. “God, you truly do think I’m a monster, don’t you? You honestly thought I’d force you into one of those coffins, seal you inside the way those bastards at DPI did? How could you think that?”

She closed her eyes, and he could see her battling the panic that had overwhelmed her, fighting for control. “What else would I think? You said I was your prisoner. You said you’d keep me here until we found her.”

“I was thinking of our safety. Eric has those coffins equipped with all sorts of…never mind, it doesn’t matter. I should have thought before I ushered you in there. I didn’t mean to frighten you like that.”

He turned, crossing the first room again to open a door on the opposite side. And this time he entered first, leaving her to follow at her own pace. He went to the nightstand and bent to light an oil lamp. They didn’t need it to see by, but he thought the amber glow made things seem warmer. Less frightening.

She came in, slowly, warily. God, she mistrusted him. He stood where he was and watched her examine the very normal-looking bedroom. A huge canopy bed held state like a royal personage. Rhiannon’s doing, of course. She preferred luxury to caution. Always had.

“Is this more to your liking?” he asked.

She stepped farther inside, turning her head, taking in her surroundings.

“Look,” he said, pointing. “The bathroom is through there.”

She looked, nodded, but her glance returned to the bed. When her violet gaze had first fallen there, it had seemed to Jameson that her muscles relaxed a bit. She sniffed and brushed at her eyes.

Her breath escaped her in a trembling sigh as she closed her eyes. “Yes,” she breathed at last. “This is much better.”

Jameson stepped away from the bed, shaking his head in puzzlement as she came forward, tugged the plump satin comforter down and nodded in approval at the way the bed looked.

“You’d better feed now, Angelica,” he said, his voice taking on the tone of a parent instructing an innocent child. “Dawn is only a short while away, and you need the sustenance before you sleep.”

She nodded, absorbing that information. “Yes, all right.” And she moved past him into the front room again. He heard her open the refrigerator, heard the chink of glass as she located the crystal stored in the cabinet above it. Heard her pouring.

How in the world, he wondered, was he going to manage to hate a woman who needed him so desperately? She knew nothing. Nothing about her strength, nothing about her psychic abilities. Not even how to feed, or what could kill her! It was uncanny. He needed her help to find his daughter, but first she needed his help. To know what she was now, what she had become.

There was no way he could hate a woman who needed him the way this one did.

So he’d try to help her, instead. But the next question on his ever-growing list was how the hell could he manage to help a woman who detested him? She hated him, and his kind. She hated herself, by all appearances. She hated what she was. She didn’t want to learn about her new nature, didn’t want to explore it, didn’t want his help.

Yet she’d taken it when he’d ignored her objections and given it to her. She’d erected the mental barrier around her mind as he’d instructed. She’d fed when he’d advised her to. She’d even asked him a question or two.

Perhaps he could help her. And perhaps she’d realize that he and his kind were no more monstrous than mortals were. Much less so in most cases. And maybe she’d give up her ridiculous notion of taking his daughter away from him. Maybe she’d realize that his own child did not need to be protected from its father.

Or maybe she wouldn’t realize it.

There was so much to think about. But not now. He’d drive himself insane if he tried to solve the puzzle of Angelica now. For now, he’d simply light the fire, and see that she’d fed enough to sustain her, but not enough to make her ill. And then he’d let her rest, while he planned what to do tomorrow.

Tomorrow. When she would awaken stronger, and likely more determined to escape him than ever. Not to mention more able. How would he deal with her then?

One thing, at least. It ought to be easier to hate her when she no longer appeared so helpless.

And that was a good thing. Right now, he was realizing just how dangerous not hating this woman could be. Because when he wasn’t hating her, he was wanting her. And the sooner he rid himself of that particular longing, the better.

Chapter Seven

Jameson never did get around to showering in the wee hours of that morning. He watched her far too long, lost himself somewhere in the long locks of her satinlike hair, or perhaps it was among the glittering facets of her eyes. Nonetheless, he put it off too long, and the day sleep crept over him with the dawn. She’d fed, and then crawled into the oversize bed and fallen asleep instantly, and still he was watching her.

And finally, he managed to pull himself away in time to get to the settee in the front room before he fell asleep at the foot of her bed. Like a devoted servant sleeping at the feet of the mistress he’d die for.

Right.

When the sun went down again, he rose before she did. He headed for the bathroom before even giving her a passing glance. While he was washing beneath the spray, he reminded himself several times that he hated her. And that she hated him. And that the sharing of their blood was what made him crave her so. Dream of her, when the day sleep should be too deep for dreams.

Having convinced himself of that, he emerged from the small bathroom wrapped in a terry robe and rubbing his wet hair with a towel. But he stilled in the doorway when he saw the utter confusion on Angelica’s face. She stood staring into the closet, her brows drawn together, head tilted to one side as her graceful hands flitted over the clothes that hung there. Her skin had more color this evening. The day rest had done its magic in rejuvenating her. She seemed stronger. And the bones no longer protruded from her face. Instead of sharp and angular it was gently oval now, with cheekbones an actress would die for.

“Something wrong?” he asked her, snapping his attention back to the matter at hand.

And she jerked as if surprised by his presence. She really did need to tune in to her newly heightened senses and learn how to use them. She should have sensed him there, felt his eyes on her. Instead, she reacted like a mortal.

“These… these are all very… normal.”

“You were expecting…what? Black satin capes with stand-up collars and scarlet lining?” He tossed the towel onto the foot of the bed as he passed, then stood just behind her, looking over her shoulder at the clothes.

“Of course not.”

“Sure you weren’t. Hell, I only know of one vampire who still wears a cloak, and I think he just does it for the dramatic effect.” He moved past her to pull a violet cashmere sweater from the rack. One of Tamara’s old ones. Modest and demure and sweet, like her. It would fit this woman…in size, if nothing else. And the color nearly matched her eyes, although no man-made dye could ever equal those sparkling amethysts of hers. Jameson blinked and shook himself. “Here. This will do you for tonight.” Then he continued flipping the hangers. “And a pair of jeans to go with it. What size are you?”

“Size?”

“In jeans,” he said, pausing with a pair of black Levi’s in his hands. When she didn’t answer, he turned to look at her. “Well?”

“I’m…not sure.”

Jameson frowned at her. “How can anyone not know what size jeans they wear?” Then he narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those women who refuses to tell a man her size.”

“That would be the height of vanity,” she said, and she averted her eyes. “It’s simply been quite some time since I’ve worn blue jeans.”

Aha, he thought. A clue to who this mysterious woman had been. “Why is that, Angelica?”

Her head came up sharply, eyes wary.

“I mean, what kind of things did you wear? Perhaps I can find something like what you’re accustomed to.”

And it seemed to him in that moment that she came as close to smiling as he’d ever seen her do. Not that she actually smiled. Not at all, but there was a hint of mirth in her eyes. “Nothing you’re likely to find in a vampire’s closet,” she said. “The jeans will be fine.”

But Jameson wasn’t as willing to change the subject as she seemed to think he’d be. “You were wearing a dress of some sort when I saw you that first time. Though…I didn’t have preternatural night vision, then. And it was quite dark. I seem to recall it as black and loose fitting. Kind of like a—‘”

“I’m going to bathe now,” she said, interrupting him, and leaving him with no illusions that it had been unintentional. “I really care very little what I wear. I just want to hurry and begin the search for my child.” And she tugged the jeans from the hanger, turned and quickly crossed the room, closing the bathroom door behind her.

And for the first time, Jameson thought back to that night when she’d nearly killed him. Really thought back. Oh, he’d thought about it before. Far more often than he’d like to admit, actually. But he’d always focused on the way she’d felt, pressing tight to him while her avaricious little mouth fed at his throat. The way he’d felt…

Now he needed to get past that madness, and focus on something else. Details. Senses besides the one flaring to life in his libido. He went to the bed, sat down on its edge and mentally replayed all of it, from his first glimpse of her. Her tangled hair. Her dirty face. The sunken cheeks and hollow violet eyes. And the tattered black…dress…or was it a dress?

There had been beads of some sort, clutched in her bony hands.

Beads she’d been worrying or playing with, and that she’d dropped abruptly when he’d spoken to her. Beads…and she’d held them, one by one, between her fingers. Held each one, caressing it, and muttering before she moved on to the next. And they were…

My God. Rosary beads? And the black dress could have been…a habit. Jesus, was it possible? Had Angelica been some kind of…of nun in life? In life, yes, even up to the very moment when she’d been brought over, or she wouldn’t likely have still been wearing the habit.

She’d called him a heretic. She’d spoken of vanity. And she was so damned concerned about God and Satan and good and evil, and being damned. It made sense. Lifting his head very slowly, Jameson stared at the closed bathroom door. Beyond it he could hear water running, and the nearly inaudible sound of singing, her singing, very softly so he wouldn’t hear. “Amazing Grace.” And then the sound of Tamara’s hair dryer drowned out her song.

He was still sitting there when she came out, wearing the jeans and the sweater he’d given her, sometime later. And he was still reeling from what he thought he had learned about her. And more determined than ever to know the truth. And yet part of him tried to get in the way of his curiosity. It was the part of him that knew full well she wore nothing beneath the sweater. He hadn’t given her a bra, wasn’t even sure Tamara kept such things around down here, and wouldn’t have known what size to choose if he’d found a cache of them in the closet. His eyes were drawn to her breasts, and the cashmere clung to them because of their dampness. And he could see her shape very clearly underneath. Her nipples poking out into the fabric in reaction to its rough, yet soft texture rubbing against them.

He licked his lips.

She stopped halfway across the room, and froze there, waiting. And when he realized she was looking at him, looking at her, he forced his gaze upward and met her eyes. And he knew she was only pretending to be offended over where he’d been staring. Because he could see the awareness flaring in the violet depths. The arousal. The hunger.

He licked his lips again, and told himself to get to the matter at hand. Was she…had she been…what he thought she had?

He cleared his throat. “I was wondering, Angelica…if perhaps I should be addressing you as Sister Angelica?”

She took the question well, he thought. The swift intake of breath and slight widening of those eyes the only clue she’d been dealt some kind of blow. “If I had taken my solemn vows, I would have been Sister Mary Elizabeth. Since that day never came for me, I’m still simply Angelica.”

“If not exactly angelic.” He quipped. Then he saw her wince and almost regretted it. “So you were a novitiate?”

“Something like that.” She came forward, and finally resumed pulling the brush through her now gleaming and utterly glorious hair. It was incredible, that mane of hers. Thick and wild and long. The hair of a goddess. Or an Angel. A dark angel. “Of what order?”

She turned, still brushing. “Why is it you ask so many questions about me, Vampire? You hate me, blame me for all that’s happened. So why do you want to know?”

“You…bore my child. Isn’t it natural for me to be curious?”

“Nothing about you is natural.”

“And you know that for sure, do you? Are you sure you were just a novice nun and not God Almighty Himself?”

Her head snapped toward him. “How dare you!”

“ ‘Well, you certainly pass judgment as if you were, as much as you try to deny it. I was merely checking.”

She got up, paced away from him in quick, angry strides. She was stronger now. Maybe just a little bit more herself. Having sustenance had helped even further to restore the shape of her face, and the gleam to her hair. And the sparkle to her eyes. And the spring to her step.

With her hair flying wild, and her eyes flashing, wearing sinfully tight-fitting jeans, and an equally revealing sweater, it was easier to imagine she’d been a centerfold than a sister.

Jesus, he wanted her.

“I want to go now. I want to find my baby. I’m tired of you and your prying. What will we do to find her? Where will we begin?”

He stared at her for a long moment. It should be easier to hate her now that she was strong and well. It should be. Why wasn’t it?

Before he’d been distracted by the way she looked, and then by who she might have been in the other life, he’d been trying to decide how best to warn her about the possible nature of their child. He hadn’t come to any perfect conclusion, but he knew he had to say something. Give her some kind of preparation, just in case.

“Before we begin,” he said, slowly, “there’s something…I’m not certain you’re aware of. Something you need to prepare yourself for, Angelica.”

Her brows furrowed. “You’re frightening me, Vampire. Whatever it is, just tell me and let’s be on our way.”

Jameson licked his lips, averting his gaze. He’d been wrestling with the possible nature of his child for days. It had been a blow when he’d first realized the implications. But he’d been among friends. People who loved him and explained it gently, and who would be there for him no matter what.

It would be far worse for her. She was alone, except for a man she despised more with every breath she drew.

Bracing himself, he met her eyes. Brilliant now, glowing like amethysts in candlelight. Breathtaking. “There has never been a child born to a vampiress before. None…that I’m aware of, at least.” She blinked. That was all. “Angelica, we have no way of knowing… what we’ll find, when we find our baby.”

“What…we’ll find?”

“Whether she’ll be mortal…or immortal. Or some cross between the two. Whether—”

“No.” She took two staggering steps backward, then gripped the back of a chair, her fingertips digging into the fabric.

“I hope to God she’ll be a normal child, Angelica, but we can’t be certain until we see her. It would be tragic if—”

“Your kind,” she whispered. “They never grow older?”

Again, she confirmed his suspicion that she knew nothing about her own race. “No. Our kind never grow older.”

“She’d be trapped inside the body of a newborn for all of her life?” She shook her head from side to side, rapidly. “No, it’s too horrible. It can’t be.”

“It might not be. I only…I only wanted to warn you. In case…”

She lifted her chin, and met his eyes, her own wide and clear and filled with fierce determination. “God won’t do this. Not to her. It’s enough…sweet Jesus, it’s enough to punish me. But not my baby. She is a healthy, normal little girl. She is. I know it.”

Had he thought her weak? Physically, perhaps. But never in any other way. Not her. She looked like an avenging angel just now. And he found himself nodding in agreement with her. “You’re right. She’s fine. I’m sure of it. I’ve been worrying for nothing.”

And in that very brief moment, when their eyes met and held, something passed between them. A connection was made. They touched on some level. And then she looked away and the feeling vanished.

“Do you have any sort of plan?” she asked him.

“Just a starting point. This woman who contacted my friend Tamara to tell her about the child…Hilary Garner. She works for DPI, but apparently even she couldn’t stomach them using a child this way. I have her address. We’ll go there tonight, talk to her. She might know where they’ve taken the baby…and she might be willing to tell us.”

“And if she isn’t?”

Jameson gritted his teeth. “Then we’ll convince her.”

Hope surged in my heart as we neared the building where the woman lived. I sought with every part of me for some sense that my daughter was near, but felt nothing. Still, I clung to that hope. This woman would know something. And she would help us.

Surely that had been her intent all along, or she never would have contacted Jameson’s friend. Jameson…

He was not living up to my expectations of him. He’d taken me from that horrible place. Fed me from his own body. Even…oddly enough…tried to comfort me when I’d been terrorized at the sight of those coffins. And he seemed as determined as I was to rescue our child.

Our child. It was wrong to keep referring to her in that way. “She needs a name,” I whispered, half to myself.

Jameson turned to stare at me, brows lifted, then lowering as he understood. “Yes, she does. Do you have something in mind?”

I tilted my head. “When I was alone, chained to the walls of my cell, or trapped in that box waiting for my guards to feel the urge to release me, I talked to her. I sang to her and cradled my belly in my arms and pretended to hold her. I called her Lily. That’s the way I envisioned her. As perfect and flawless as a beautiful lily. And Amber, because she was a mystery as old as time. A child born to a vir—” I bit my lip, then. But too late. My loose tongue had given away yet another of my secrets.

“Born to a virgin?” His eyes widened in disbelief. And then he smiled. “It’s almost…holy. The first child born to a vampire… is born of a virgin.”

“There is nothing holy about what they did to me,” I said, and again wished I would learn to keep quiet and not blurt my every thought to this man.

“No. Of course there isn’t.” He was silent for a moment. Then, “I know what it’s like, Angelica. I was held by them, too. And more than once.”

“Perhaps you know what captivity is like, Vampire. But you cannot know how it feels to have your living child taken from your womb by your enemies. Taken away from you while you’re told that you will never set eyes on her again.” Tears welled in my eyes then. That pain was still fresh and sharp. It cut to my very soul, if indeed, I still possessed one.

“No. I can’t know that. It must have nearly killed you.”

“I’d have preferred they cut out my heart.” I averted my face to hide my tears from him.

“You can tell me, Angelica. There’s no need for embarrassment between us.”

I looked at him, and knew it was true. We were linked, somehow. Bonded by blood, and by the child we shared. Much as we might dislike each other, that bond was not going to be easily broken. Perhaps not broken at all.

“I was drugged. Weak. I should have been able to help her…but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. It was like a nightmare, where you try and try to make yourself wake up, but you can’t. It was horrible.”

I lowered my head, only to feel his hand cover mine gently. Warmth and comfort in his touch. It surprised me. “We’ll find her,” he said, and his voice was firm and sure. “Amber Lily will be all right.”

For a moment, I felt reassured. Imagine, reassured by a man I knew was a monster. A demon. An abhorrence to God.

But then he reverted to his true nature. “And when we have her safe, I’ll make them pay. I’ll kill them. One by one…all of them. They deserve worse than death for what they’ve done.”

“Only God can say who deserves death, Jameson,” I told him.

“God is too slow.” The anger I saw in his eyes frightened me. It was there in those black tiger stripes that split the brown velvet apart, a jet-black flame, leaping and crackling with rage. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the vampire.” He stopped the car, and looked up at the towering apartment building’s myriad lighted windows. “And it begins with this one right here, unless she tells me what I want to know.”

Hilary Garner’s apartment had been ransacked. Thoroughly, and recklessly. Jameson knew DPI’s tactics, and he knew their searches were usually conducted with such care that few people would even notice they’d taken place. This time, it had been different. They must be very angry with this woman.

Or they had been. She wasn’t here, and he wondered whether she were even still alive. DPI did not deal lightly with agents who wanted out. Or who betrayed the organization.

He heard Angelica’s gasp, and whirled to see her staring at a photograph in a silver frame. One of Hilary Garner and a friend, arm in arm, smiling at the camera. “What is it?”

“This woman,” she said, pointing. “She was with me when I gave birth. She…I could see in her eyes that she was suffering… She bent close to me, and told me that the baby was a girl.”

“But did nothing to keep those bastards from taking her away.”

“I pled with her to help Amber Lily. And she nodded. Very slightly, she nodded.”

“Trying to ease her own guilt.” Jameson swung his arm and sent the photograph crashing to the floor.

Angelica stared at him, wide-eyed. “She got word to you. She tried to help.”

“She worked for them, Angelica. For years, she served the devil himself. One token act now doesn’t exonerate that.”

“Even the worst sinners can repent,” she whispered.

“The hell with repentance. I want her to pay. I want them all to pay. Dammit!” He slammed his fist onto the table where the photo had been, and the wood split in two. Tears burned in his eyes. The disappointment did likewise in his gut. Damn, he’d been so sure he’d find something here. Some clue. Angelica could afford to be charitable. She probably didn’t have a clue what those bastards might be doing to that helpless baby right now. But he did. He did, and the nightmarish images would not go away.

And then she was standing very close to him, head tilted to one side as she stared into his eyes. “You…you’re crying?”

He turned away abruptly, not wanting her or anyone to see the torment inside him.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered from behind him. “I didn’t know you…you care as much for Amber Lily as I do, don’t you, Jameson?”

He sighed. “Jesus Christ, Angelica, why do you think I’m here? What the hell do you think I’m doing if I don’t care?” He faced her again, saw her shaking her head.

“But I thought…I thought…”

“I know what you thought. You thought I was a monster. An animal without feelings or emotions. Well, surprise, Angel. I’d cut off my arm if it would save Amber from those bastards. I’m every bit as human now as I was before, Angel, and so are you, whether you can see it or not. The differences are physical, not spiritual. Hell, if anything, I feel things more deeply than I did then. And you do, too. You know damn good and well you do.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, her gaze turned inward. Jameson sighed hard, frustrated with trying to make her understand. She was as bad as the rest of them.

“You’re hurting,” she whispered, searching his face with eyes that were wide with surprise and wonder.

He closed his eyes, tipped his head back as the pain overwhelmed him. “I just want to hold her in my arms. I just want to know she’s safe and…and…”

His voice broke, and he was ashamed. Until he looked at her again and saw the tears flowing like rivers from those violet pools. “I know,” she whispered. “Yes…I know…I don’t know why I thought…”

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

“Do you love her?” she asked, and as she did she lifted a hand to touch his face.

“I love her more than my own life, Angel. I’d die for her here and now if I knew it would make things safe for her. And I know that I’ll love her even more when I lay eyes on her. When I touch her for the first time…”

His tears ran down to her hand where it rested on his cheek. And she stepped closer, a tremulous smile dancing over her lips as she nodded. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, you will. Oh, Jameson, she’s so beautiful. Her hair is thick and satiny and dark as a raven’s wing.”

Like yours, he thought, and he touched a strand, ran it between his fingers.

“And her eyes are as black as midnight. So big, and innocent…”

And that was it. All she could take. She choked on a sob, and her face crumpled. She cried noisily, her entire body shaking as he pulled her close. Hell, he felt like crying, too. He might dislike the woman, but they shared something. This…this grief and worry and gut-wrenching fear for their little girl. And they always would share it. No matter what.

He held her close, rubbed her back and stroked her hair. “It’s gonna be okay, Angel. We’ll find her. I’m telling you, I haven’t even begun.”

“Aw, gee, isn’t that touching?”

Jameson stiffened. The deep voice came from the doorway, and they both spun around to see its owner. The man stood there, pointing a weapon at them. A weapon Jameson knew contained the one most powerful tool in DPI’s arsenal. The drug they’d developed that would render even the most powerful vampire helpless.

In a flash, Jameson had pushed Angelica behind him. That he’d done it instinctively and without forethought didn’t matter. It was understandable. Protecting the mother of his child would come naturally to any man.

“You have no use for us,” Jameson told the man calmly, slowly. “You’ve got what you wanted from us. Don’t go risking your neck for nothing.”

“Do I look like a fool to you?” the man asked, smiling slightly. “Now talk, Bryant. Where is the child?”

Jameson’s blood went cold. “What the hell do you mean, where is the child? You’re the ones…” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t know where she is?”

“Stop playing games. We’ve had this place under surveillance for days in case Garner tried to come back, though I can’t believe she’d be that stupid. Now where is she? Where is she hiding that kid?”

He felt Angelica’s eyes on him. Felt some kind of foolish hope spring into his chest. “The child,” he said slowly, “is in a place where you’ll never get your filthy hands on her again. Guarded by a hundred vampires. A thousand by the end of the week. Tell your boss to give it up. It’s over. We’ve won.”

The man’s brows lowered. “You’re lying.”

Jameson only shrugged.

“Come on, you’re coming back with me. We’ll get the truth out of you lying scum, one way or another.” He looked past Jameson at Angelica, and smiled just a little. “I’m gonna have a good time trying various ways to make you talk, sweet thing. I’ve heard your kind can’t get enough. We’ll find out, I promise.”

“Touch her and I’ll rip your heart out,” Jameson growled, and he had no idea where the words came from, but knew he meant them.

The man’s eyes flashed with anger, and he lifted the gun barrel, centered it on Jameson’s chest.

“No, there’s no need of that,” Angelica said from behind him. “Please, don’t…don’t use that thing.”

“That’s a good she-dog,” he said. “There, you see, Bryant? Your girlfriend wants to cooperate. Maybe she knows a real man when she sees one, eh?”

She was too upset to guard her thoughts. And she felt ill, physically ill at the thought of this pig laying his filthy hands on her. And yet, she’d submit, if it would keep her alive long enough to rescue her child.

Jesus, she had a core of solid steel in her.

“Fine,” Jameson said. “We’ll come along peacefully. You can put the gun down.” And he took a step toward the man. The fellow looked surprised, then smug. He waggled the barrel of the gun, and Jameson moved forward.

No! Angelica’s thoughts rang clearly in his mind. Jameson, don’t go over there! He’ll shoot you!

Easy, Angel, he told her without words. He knew damned well the bastard would drop him where he stood. It was Angelica he wanted alive, not him. And he’d be damned if he’d let the pig touch her. This animal isn’t going to lay a finger on you. Trust me. I just need to get a little closer.

He sensed her start of surprise. She’d spoken, mentally, for the first time. And heard his reply in her mind as clearly as it he’d said the words aloud. She hadn’t truly believed it possible, he thought. Well, now she knew.

Jameson moved a few more steps…and then he lunged with such speed he knew the mortal could see no more than a blur. He twisted the gun from the startled man’s grip with one hand, hit him hard in the face with the other. And ended standing over his unconscious attacker. Looking down at the helpless bastard, he pointed the gun, knowing the drug contained in its dart would be lethal to a mortal.

And then Angelica gripped his arm. “You don’t have to kill him. He’s no threat to us now.”

Jameson swallowed the bile in his throat. “You’re right, I don’t have to kill him. I’m killing him because I want to.”

He closed his finger around the trigger. Angelica’s hands swept in like the wind, and snatched the gun away. She couldn’t have done that if he’d been expecting it. But he hadn’t been. As he looked up in startled surprise she flung the weapon, and it sailed across the apartment, smashing the window and arcing into the night.

“Jesus Christ, Angelica!” he snapped. “Why the hell are you protecting this bastard? You know what he intended to do to you.”

“Murder is a sin, Vampire, no matter what one’s justification may be.”

“And according to you, I’m already damned, so what the hell do I care about one more sin on my record? Hmm?”

He bent down, gripping the man by his lapels, lifting him off the floor, intent on doing him in with or without the dart.

“No,” she cried, and gripped his shoulders. “No, Jameson. I…I might have been wrong about that. What if I was wrong?”

He turned, looked down into her pleading violet eyes.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, don’t kill this man when you don’t have to.”

And he couldn’t. Not now. For some reason, her eyes did him in, and he let the worthless lump of flesh thud to the floor. “No doubt he didn’t come here alone,” he said. “Come on.”

He led her over the body and into the hall, but not to the elevators or the main stairs. Instead he went the opposite direction. He found a service elevator, and hit the button marked Roof. And once inside, he allowed himself a hint of hope. Just a bit of happiness, and relief.

“Jameson, where are we…what…”

“Did you hear what that bastard said, Angelica? They don’t have her. They don’t have our little girl.”

He looked down into her eyes, and saw his own excitement reflected there. “I heard.”

“Garner,” he muttered, thinking out loud. “It had to be Garner. She must have taken her. I can’t imagine why, but…”

Angelica closed her eyes and a soft sigh escaped her parted lips. “She has kind eyes, this Hilary Garner. She’s trying to help. She won’t hurt her.”

“She’d damned well better not.” The car jarred to a halt, and its doors opened. Jameson stepped out, and up the short flight of stairs to the door at the top. Then through it. And he was on the roof, beneath the stars. Hurrying to the edge, he peered down to the street below. Cars were parked helter-skelter, at cockeyed angles, and men were hurrying from them into the building as more vehicles screeched in behind them.

“This place is swarming.”

“There’s a fire escape, down this side of the building,” she called, drawing his gaze. And for just a second, he stopped, and just looked at her. She was silhouetted by a starlit night sky, and her hair blew in the wind like a shining ebony flag. And when she turned and looked at him, some of that starlight danced in her eyes.

“Jameson? The fire escape?”

He shook himself. “They’ll be expecting that. They’ll have it covered.” He turned and glanced at the building next door. Separated by an alley no more than ten feet wide. “We’re gonna have to jump for it, Angel.”

On legs that seemed unsteady, she crossed the roof to stand beside him, and her eyes widened as she looked down, then up at him. “We can’t…we’ll fall and—”

“You don’t know the half of what you can do. This is a short hop for you, now. You’re strong. Stronger than ten of them,” he said, nodding toward the men below.

“I’m not.”

“You are,” he insisted. “You want to know our best-kept secret, Angel?”

She stared into his eyes, obviously frightened. “Yes,” she said.

“The truly ancient ones…can even fly.”

She shook her head. Then stopped, stared at him, and her eyes went even rounder.

“They’ll laugh us out of immortality if we can’t make this little leap. Come on, Angel. Trust me, I’ve been around vampires all my life.” He took her hand, led her back to the other side. “We run, and we jump. Don’t hesitate, or you’ll put us both in some pretty intense misery.”

“The fall would kill us.”

“No. But it would probably hurt like hell.”

She looked doubtful. He squeezed her hand. “Our baby is safe. She’s not in their filthy hands anymore, Angelica. Doesn’t that make you feel like you could fly?”

She nodded, still shaky though.

“If we don’t get out of here, we won’t get her back. For her, Angel. For our Amber Lily.”

The fear in those violet eyes vanished. She nodded once, firmly. “All right.”

“Good girl.” Clinging to her hand, Jameson ran, and she matched him, step for step. She didn’t falter, didn’t hesitate, poured every bit of her effort into it. As one they pushed off, and as one they sailed into the night, arching high. He felt the rush he’d felt each time Roland had challenged him to push his abilities to their limits, only to find they truly had none. The wind whistling in his ears, riffling through his hair. And then they landed, hard, on the next building, and he pulled her close to him on impact to keep her from falling forward and smashing her face.

His arms linked around her waist, her body pressed to his, he looked down to see her…smiling. Her eyes glittering up at him. “We did it!”

“I told you.” That smile of hers. That was what got to him. Seeing her smile, when she’d been in such agony such a short time ago. An agony they’d shared. There was hope now. Real hope, and they were sharing that as well. He lowered his head, and he kissed her. And it was lunacy. Madness. But her lips were full and moist and chilled from the night air. And they felt good beneath his, ripe and succulent, and he drew on them, traced them with his tongue, parted them and slipped his tongue between them.

The lust hit him hard, like a freight train, and he felt it running her down as well. She shuddered and clung to him, parted her lips and tipped her head back. He bowed over her, and plunged his tongue deep into her mouth, and thought about plunging himself deeply into her body.

A thought he forgot to guard.

She heard it loud and clear, and went stiff. Then gently, she pulled free of him and turned away. She was breathless. And so was he.

“I’m…” He pushed a hand through his hair. Christ, he’d just kissed the hell out of an almost nun. And thought about doing one hell of a lot more to her. Which was nothing new, and nothing she hadn’t been thinking as well. But… “I’m sorry.”

“We have to go, Vampire,” she said, but her voice was coarse and shaky. “They’ll find us here soon enough.”

“Yeah.” He let her lead this time, and he followed, wondering what the hell kind of insanity had just had hold of him.

When we reached the ground again, Jameson and I crept through the shadows of the night. I could hear very clearly the crackling of their radios as they spoke to one another. As they searched for us. It was obvious that we were a high priority to them. No, that wasn’t exactly right. It was our daughter they wanted. A tiny babe who didn’t even know why so many people should be hunting for her.

And I would die before I would let them have her.

I looked sideways at the man who stood close to me, and I realized that he would likely do the same. Give his life to protect the baby. Already, he’d risked it, and more than once. Perhaps… he was not exactly the monster I’d believed him to be.

Or perhaps he was. I’d seen the rage in his eyes. I’d watched him stand over a helpless man, perfectly willing to take his life. No hesitation. No compunction. No morality. Perhaps it was only in regard to his child that he showed any sense of honor or nobility. Perhaps.

He had kissed me.

I still marveled over how that had come about. But it was easy enough to understand. We’d both been exhilarated at the knowledge that perhaps our child was safe, somewhere. Carried away in the moment. He’d never have laid a finger on me otherwise, I had no doubts about that. He hated me. Had told me as much. Even blamed me for this entire predicament. Held me solely responsible for the danger Amber Lily was in right now. And yet I responded to him like a lust-starved lover. And I did not understand why.

As for his judgment of me, I, for the most part, agreed with it. I’d been a fool. An utter fool. And he was right, it was my fault our child had been taken. But I hadn’t known, then, the horrors that I knew now.

I only knew that I should have listened to him as he lay on the floor near death, telling me not to go, not to trust the DPI agent who’d come for me. I should have listened.

We stood now in an alley, peering through the night at the men who surrounded the building. The vampire’s squat black car waited like a deadly spider, only a few yards away from us. But those men were only a few yards beyond it. They stood facing the building, in case we came out, no doubt. Their backs were to us.

We can make if to the car, I heard him say. And then realized that he hadn’t said it at all. This silent way of speaking made me dizzy. He took my hand, an act that seemed to be becoming his habit, and led me forward. Then he opened the driver’s side door, which was nearest us, and crouching low, I crawled over his seat and into my own. When I was there, I kept my head down.

Jameson was beside me in no time at all, and he pulled the door very gently shut. And then he turned the key.

Immediately, those men spun around. Jameson jerked the shifting lever, and the car lurched into motion. But not before those men began firing their weapons at us. Such a horrific scene I’d never imagined. Men, firing guns at us. The black barrels spitting fire in the night. The window beside me shattered, and I heard Jameson swearing as he yanked hard on the wheel. Only seconds later, those other vehicles came to life, and roared in pursuit.

But the chase they gave was not my main source of concern. A searing pain, like a red-hot blade, screamed through my mind, enveloping my entire body. I’d never known such pain. The labor had torn through me like this, yes, but I’d been drugged, and it had been duller. Distant. This was immediate and agonizing. And yet it was not my own. Not my own.

“Don’t worry,” he said, maneuvering the vehicle at dizzying speeds. “They’ll never catch us. This car goes like hell, and I have the advantage. I can run without lights.” He looked toward me, and tried to keep the pain from his eyes. But when his gaze met mine, he saw the agony in my gaze. “Angelica?”

“Tell me, Vampire,” I said softly, “is it only the sun that can kill us? Or would their bullets do the job as well?” And as I spoke, I lifted my hand and laid it against his waist, and I felt the blood there, dampening my palm.

“We’ll worry about that later,” he said, but I knew he was in terrible pain. He spoke through gritted teeth, and his flesh was white, eyes sparking with anguish. “First we have to get the hell out of here.” He took a corner so fast that I was flung against him. I cried out when his pain grew worse, and he looked at me sharply.

“Angelica? You’re not hurt, too, are you?”

“No,” I whispered, staring down at the blood that pooled on the seat around him in horror. “No, it’s your pain I feel, Vampire. As if it were my own. Why? Is this normal?”

He shook his head slowly, grating his teeth. “I don’t know.”

“You’re weakening!” I said, because I knew it. “You’ll bleed to death, won’t you?”

“Put pressure on the wound,” he instructed, and he caught my hand and drew it to his side, pressing my palm to the blood-soaked injury. “Don’t let it bleed, Angel. We can bleed to death in no time flat. It’s deadly to us.” Another corner, and I did as he said, but my hand was shaking, and I was afraid my efforts were doing little to stanch the flow. But the pain began to fade as well. And then his head fell sideways, and his eyes closed.

“Stay awake, dammit,” I ordered, my voice harsh as I took the steering wheel when his hands dropped to his sides. “Don’t you die on me. Hold on!”

But I don’t think he heard me. He just lay there, and the pain went away. I steered the car off the road, pulled him out from behind the wheel and took over the driving myself. We were almost back to the house near the sea, so that was where I took us. But I was terrified. Terrified he was going to die and leave me to face this challenge alone. And though he’d called himself my captor, I found that the thought of his death gave me no pleasure. In fact, it filled me with a horrible dread. I’d become dependent on him to some extent. And I needed his help. Those things were true. But they were not the source of my anguish.

I simply didn’t want this man, this enigma I’d only begun to understand, to die. I didn’t want him to leave me. Not yet. Not like this.

And that feeling frightened me almost as much as the blood oozing from his side did.

Chapter Eight

Their luck seemed to be nothing but bad. Dammit, the bastards had shot him. He shouldn’t have risked it. Should have just left the damned car and taken off on foot. He’d been an idiot, thinking like a mortal, a habit he’d thought Rhiannon’s constant chiding had cured him of.

As he blinked his eyes clear of the pain-induced haze, he realized Angelica was driving. She’d pulled him from behind the wheel at some point—though he had no memory of it—and now she was speeding over the highway as if the devil were on her tail. He hadn’t even realized she knew how to drive. Had never bothered to ask her. But she was driving, and burning the pavement right off the damned roads in her wake.

Only several miles and hair-raising turns later, when she apparently thought she’d lost her pursuers, did she slow down. Her gaze kept dancing over him, and her violet eyes were alive with worry. Glancing nervously into the mirror first, she pulled the car off the road, and turned to him where he lay slumped in the seat, clinging to consciousness with everything in him. He’d passed out once or twice already. He was sorely afraid that if he did it again, he wouldn’t wake up.

Her pretty eyes widened when he thought that. “You’re getting better at it,” he managed. “Reading my thoughts.”

“You’re too weak to prevent it,” she said, and she tore his shirt open, and he recalled dreaming of her doing something very similar. Only under radically different circumstances.

She sucked air through her teeth, and that made him look down. The wound was a jagged tear in his side, an inch or so above his hipbone, which pulsed with blood at an alarming rate. A flesh wound that would barely threaten a mortal.

“Why does it bleed like that?” Angelica whispered. “It isn’t that bad. Why won’t it stop?” And as she spoke she began searching the car, looking in the glove compartment and leaning over into the back seat.

“Any wound can kill a vampire,” he told her. Her teacher, that’s what he’d become. Someone older and wiser, whom she needed in order to survive. And that was why she was so worried about him right now. Wouldn’t do to let himself go thinking anything else. “We tend to bleed like hemophiliacs when our flesh is torn deeply. I’m afraid, sweet Angel, that I’ll be dead within minutes unless we can stop the flow.”

Apparently, Angelica had already reached the same conclusion. Because before he finished speaking, she yanked his shirt off him, tearing the fabric in the process. She tore off a sleeve with her teeth, and balled it up, pressing it into the wound. The rest of the shirt, she twisted into one long band, then wrapped it around his middle, so tightly he could barely inhale. She pulled it hard to apply pressure to the wound, and he moaned. Pain. She was causing him intense pain, and she knew that. And she was feeling it, too, an oddity he still hadn’t figured out. Maybe Roland could explain it.

As for the pain, it couldn’t be helped. Though he had thought she’d be a bit more squeamish about inflicting it on him. She hadn’t been, though. Hadn’t even flinched, and it was probably a good thing. He’d die otherwise. When she’d finished the job, she waited, watching the makeshift bandage.

“Don’t bleed,” she muttered, half to herself and half to the wound in his side. “Don’t bleed, don’t bleed, don’t bleed…”

“It doesn’t dare,” he told her. Then he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.

“Don’t leave me,” she told him.

He looked at her, frowning. But she said no more. She started the car again without looking at him—at his face, anyway. The wound, she perused often. She popped the clutch, then, and sped back to Eric’s house as fast as Jameson’s high-performance engine could take her there. And then she put her luscious arms around him, and struggled to pull him from the car. He tried to help her, even got his feet out the door and onto the ground. She anchored one of his arms over her shoulders, and helped him inside. No doubt she could have carried him if she’d had to. She had the strength, though he wasn’t certain she was aware of it yet. Still, he hadn’t been a vampire long enough not to feel a bit odd at the prospect of being picked up and carried by a female, so he told her he could walk, and then he managed to do so. Barely. She took him down through the passage, and then inside, and she activated the locks after she closed the door.

“Jesus, Angel,” he said, pausing for a few shallow breaths before going on. “That was stupid.” She eased him into the bedroom, and then gently onto the bed.

“What was?”

“The locks. You don’t know the code. How the hell will you get out if I die?”

“You’ll just have to stay alive, Vampire. If you don’t, I’ll be stuck. So buck up and tell me what to do.” And then, as he felt himself starting to slip away, she was leaning over him, shaking his shoulders. “Dammit, Jameson, what should I do?” And he saw tears standing in her eyes.

She was, once again, the woman he could not hate. The woman who needed him. He’d always had a weak spot for women in need. Tamara, first. He remembered trying once to take on a grown man in a bare-knuckle right when he’d been no more than a scrawny twelve-year-old, to protect her. Even Rhiannon, the strongest woman he’d ever known, had her weak moments, and Jameson would have taken on the world to protect her.

And now, this one. This dark angel who seemed to need him more than any of them ever had. He didn’t want to feel protective of her, but it was unavoidable. He felt it. He couldn’t do otherwise. Even though he was the one lying here at death’s very door, he felt her need. He wasn’t going to drop dead and leave her on her own. He was going to fight, so that he could stay alive. He wanted to be with her when they found their daughter again. He wanted to see those violet eyes when they were alight with joy. He never had.

Hell, he was actually beginning to like the woman.

He stroked her hair away from her beautiful face. “Any wound will heal during the day sleep,” he told her. “All you have to do is keep me alive until then.”

“How?”

He tried to smile. “Stop the bleeding. Replace what I’ve lost. You manage that, I’ll be just fine.” He struggled to keep his eyes open.

She blinked. “What if I can’t?”

“Look in the bathroom, Angel. There should be some supplies in there for…this sort of emergency.”

She touched his face, checked the wound and then, biting her lip, went into the bathroom in search of supplies. Jameson had no doubt she’d find what she needed there. Eric kept this place stocked with everything anyone might conceivably need. And his friend didn’t let him down. Angelica returned with an armful of bandages, and even needles and silk thread. The bandages would have to do. No way was he lying still while she stuck that needle into him. And she wouldn’t have time, anyway. It would be dawn soon.

She returned to the bed, removed his makeshift tourniquet and watched with horror in her eyes as the bleeding began all over again. With one hand pressed to the wound, she tore strips of bandage with the other, and her teeth. Pinching the jagged edges of his torn flesh together, she taped them there. Bit by bit, closing the wound. And when she finished, and blood still seeped through, she made a clean, new bandage from a roll of gauze, knotting it tightly around his middle. And then she sighed in relief, nodding. He assumed that meant the bleeding had stopped.

While he lay there, thinking this was going to be all right after all, the woman picked up a needle and some of that silk thread.

“No,” he said, his voice a raw whisper. “That’s not necessary.”

“I didn’t think so either, at first,” she told him, unerringly spearing the needle’s eye with her thread. “But I see now that I was wrong. If you so much as move the bleeding is going to start again,” she told him. “You could die, Vampire.” She finished threading the needle, and loosened his bandages again. “Hold on,” she told him. “This is going to hurt like hell.”

He passed out from the intense pain when I sewed up the gash in his side. That and the blood loss. I hadn’t realized pain was different in all of us, not just in me. Everything that hurt me, hurt me more since the change. Now I knew it was part of this new nature of mine. Pain was magnified, just as every other sensation was. And for some reason, I could feel his pain. I hadn’t felt the pain of those other vampires, who’d been held captive in the cells alongside my own. Nor that of my maker, when I’d set him afire and watched him burn. But I felt Jameson’s pain.

It didn’t seem so odd. The man was in my blood, in my soul. He was like a virus I could not cure. Slowly growing stronger and spreading throughout my system, until he affected my every thought and feeling.

In a very short time, I’d somehow become quite attached to this man who claimed to be my captor. It had begun, of course, with the physical sensations I’d experienced when I’d taken him. And then the longing. The craving for more of that. It had deepened, I believed, because of the child we’d shared. I’d carried his very flesh and blood within me for months, nurtured it. Loved it.

How could I not be attached to him? Even…even fond of him, despite his being an unrepentant monster, and despite his violent hatred for DPI. He’d spared the man’s life tonight. Because I asked it of him, he’d spared it. Surely, he was not quite as horrible as I’d believed him to be at first. Certainly not the same as the beast who made me. No, I’d been wrong about that as well. Jameson would never force himself on me that way.

Though there was, deep inside, a small part of me that wished he would. For then I would be able to experience the fulfillment I craved with him, and suffer none of the guilt of making the choice to do so.

The thought heated my face, and made me sweat. I pushed it aside and focused on the matter at hand. I sewed the wound very well, and then cleaned and wrapped it. And then I just looked at him, lying there, soaked in his own blood. The bleeding was stopped. It would stay stopped. And if what he had told me about the regenerative qualities of the day sleep were true, he would survive. Maybe.

But he needed to feed, to replenish what he’d lost. And then to rest. The wound, according to the vampire, would be healed when he woke. I needed only be sure it didn’t break open again before then.

The sweater I wore was soaked in Jameson’s blood. Ruined. The jeans, too, had absorbed a great deal of blood. His were in worse shape than my own, though. And I knew I would have to clean him up. There was no one else here to do it. And the task excited me. I know it is shameful, but there it is. I was aroused at the thought of undressing him, of bathing him.

I first shed my own clothing. What good would it do me to hold him and wash him if I were only soiling him again in the process? I dived beneath the shower spray very briefly, just long enough to rinse the blood away from my skin. I donned the robe he’d worn earlier, and hurried back to his side. All told, I wasn’t away from him for more than three minutes. And he was still all right.

Lifting him gently, I peeled what remained of his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. As I turned back to him, I went completely still. Naked from the waist up, he was…he was beautiful.

I had never looked upon a man’s form before. Not this way. He was firm. Muscular, yet lean, and somehow very graceful. His skin lay taut and supple and I longed to touch it. To run my hands over his chest, and flat belly, and feel him beneath my palms.

It was a foreign longing, and yet I was growing used to it. I’d never experienced such attacks of lust before. My curiosity had been answered by the sisters, who simply told me that such things were sinful and unsuitable for a young woman to be thinking about. Nothing more. I was forbidden to touch my ripening body, forbidden to explore it, and learn the secrets of its pleasure. But now, they were secrets I longed to know. Never before had I been so absorbed with physical desire. Only with him. His body held my eyes prisoner. And while I was embarrassed and ashamed, I could not stop myself from looking my fill. His chest intrigued me most, I think, with its hard nipples tempting me to touch.

I licked my lips, pulling my eyes away. But they were drawn back again. And again.

He needed my help right now, not my passion, I reminded myself. But my hands trembled as I unfastened his jeans. And my entire body shook as I stood over him, and worked the denim down over his hips, and thighs, and finally worked it free of his feet. I wouldn’t look. I told myself that I would not look at him anymore, and forcibly, I kept my gaze away from him, rushing back to the bathroom for a basin of warm water and a clean, soft cloth. But there was no helping it. I had to look at him as I gently washed the blood away. I washed his arms and his chest as my eyes feasted on the smooth taut skin of his belly. And I washed his hard, rippling abdomen, and the narrow curve of his hip as I stared down at those powerful thighs and the dark curls between them. And the root of him, at rest now, but beautiful and filled with erotic promises I couldn’t even begin to understand. Dark. Mysterious. And I wanted to touch him. To awaken that organ and see it come to life in response to my touch. I wanted to feel it, explore it. Learn the secrets of his pleasure as well as my own.

This was so unlike me, these wanton thoughts. I bit my lip, and chased them away. It was wrong, I knew, to look at him this way while he was unable to prevent it. Wrong. And it would be even more wrong to touch him while he rested. Because perhaps if he could object, he would. I knew all too well that he held no tender feelings for me. Hated me, in fact. Given all of that, he might resent my taking liberties with him.

Carefully, I washed the blood from his legs, but even this was a sensual pleasure; running my hands over him again and again, with only the soft cloth between his flesh and my own. My hands tingled where I had touched him. And I felt good. Sinfully, wantonly good.

When I finished, I was hot. I was breathing too rapidly, and beads of sweat dampened my face and my neck. My pulse fluttered in my throat, and my stomach clenched. And I knew why. I wanted him. I was hungry for him. I told myself that it was ridiculous, that I didn’t even like him. That he detested me in return. That I could very easily have been his murderess one night long ago, and that it wasn’t something a man like him was likely to forget…much less forgive.

But it didn’t matter that he hated me. That minor detail did nothing to dampen this desire that blazed to life inside me. I wanted him. How could any woman not want him, when he was laid out before her, naked and beautiful and utterly helpless? Even a virgin, even a nun, even a saint, would have been stirred to a sensual awareness. And I was none of those things, right now. I was none other than a vampiress. A creature of pure sensuality. A creature in whom every sensation was heightened and magnified a thousand times. And for the first time, the very first time, I realized that I was relishing this new nature of mine. Delighting in the sensual awareness. Wanting more of it.

What would it be like, I wondered, to make love to this man?

Foolish notion, of course. Oh, I could look on him, even touch him without his consent and perhaps without his knowledge. But I certainly couldn’t make love to him. It was impossible.

And I was getting waylaid by my newfound fascination with the male form. Because he was still in danger from the blood loss he’d suffered, and I mustn’t forget that.

He needed to feed. And there was plenty of sustenance in neat little bags just in the next room. I rose, dropping my washcloth into the basin and turning to go and get him some. But then I stopped as I realized how difficult it would be to feed him. I had only glasses. He was unconscious. I might be able to rouse him enough to make him drink, but…

But I didn’t want to bring it to him in a glass, cold and stale and weak. I knew the difference between that and warm, living blood. And I also knew the sinful delight of drinking from him. And that it had left him shuddering with desire as much as it had me. And I wanted to feed him myself. I wanted his mouth on me, his teeth sinking into my flesh, his lips drawing my very essence into him. It would stir the desire in me even higher. I knew that, sensed it, because of what had happened to me each time we’d shared blood before. But it would also give me such intense pleasure that I could not resist.

This craving for his touch had driven me to madness long enough. I would explore it a bit now, while he was unconscious, and unable to ridicule my longing with those knowing eyes. I would let him take from me, because I wanted to know what it felt like. And because I was feeling free and uninhibited with him lying there completely unaware.

Boldly, I stretched out on the bed beside his naked body. Wearing only his robe, I lay there, and I pulled him, gently, onto his side, and then lower, so that his head and shoulders lay across my chest. Oh, and I closed my eyes, delighting in the feel of his masculine weight pressing me down into the mattress. And then I sighed in anguish at the feel of my breasts being crushed beneath his bare chest. These were feelings I’d long ago decided that I would never know. The weight of a man on top of me. It was forbidden me. So I relished each sensation, one by one, enjoying it thoroughly before moving on to the next. I parted the robe I wore, baring my breasts so they could feel his chest against them. And it was good. I ran my hands up and down his spine, closing my eyes as I learned his shape. I cupped his buttocks. They were so perfect and small and firm in my hands as I pulled at them, arching my hips so that his erection pushed against me.

Yes, erection. He was hard now. Not even conscious yet, but responding to my touch as if he were. I’d sensed this desire ran both ways between us. Now I knew it was true.

I moved one hand upward, sliding it over the perfect curve of his muscled back, cupping the back of his head, and gently guiding his face to my chest. With my mind, I reached out to his, in just the way he had shown me. Feed now, Vampire. Take what you need… what you crave…take it from me.

And he did. His mouth moved over my skin, and I closed my eyes. He kissed my breast, and then his lips parted, and his teeth pierced that tender skin. I cried out in pleasure and pain and he drank from me, took from me, as I had taken from him. His movements were slow, and clumsy. He suckled me slowly, very slowly, and gently. Too gently. His hands fumbled upward, like the hands of a sleepwalker, and they found my hair, and stroked it, like stroking a cat, over and over as he fed. And lust for him raged and burned inside me, growing more powerful each time he swallowed.

I could feel him growing stronger. Feel him regaining his power. Soon his hands were in motion, finding mine, and sliding up my arms to settle on my shoulders. And then he lifted his head, opened his eyes. Hungry eyes, glazed with passion, heavy lidded. They met mine for only a moment, and there was no inhibition in them. No resistance. No hesitance. Just desire.

And a jolt of fear surged inside me, as I wondered what sort of beast I had roused to life. I should end this, right now, I thought. I should gently move him off me, and give him the chance to come fully awake.

He licked his lips slowly, and then lowered his head again, and all of my good intentions dissolved. His fevered lips traced a path to the roundest part of my shoulder, and then he nipped at me there. Sharp, strong teeth drawing blood, and I tipped my head back, gasping in delight. And then he moved again, down over my chest. Pausing and making me gasp again. He sampled each of my breasts, and the skin over my rib cage, and my belly, and my hip, and then he buried his face between my legs, licking and biting at me even there. By the time he began working his way back up my body again I was in agony. My facial muscles contorted into a grimace of longing and restraint. My breaths rasping in and out of my chest. My skin dampened by his mouth, and dotted with tiny, erotic wounds.

He stretched his nude body atop mine, and lowered his mouth toward my lips, and I caught him, framing his face with my hands and I whispered, “Wait.”

God, the look in those tiger-striped eyes of his. He was a creature driven sheerly by sensation right now. And I was very close to joining him in that state. Very close.

“Wait for what, Angel,” he whispered, from somewhere deep in his throat. And he pressed his mouth to mine, caught my lower lip between his teeth and snapped at it.

I twisted my head to one side. Perhaps I never should have started this. I hadn’t intended for it to go this far. I hadn’t been fair to him. He likely had no idea what he was doing. I hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t planned on what would happen if he should awaken. “You’re losing yourself to the bloodlust,” I managed, though I didn’t want to talk right now. Didn’t want to explain things to him or warn him away. I simply wanted him to take me. Now, before I had time to think it through. I wanted him inside me. Fast and hard and deep.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, fast and hard and deep, Angel.”

Oh, God, I’d forgotten to guard my thoughts.

“Oh, Christ, Angel…touch me. Touch me like you want to.” And he took my hand, and brought it down between us. And I did. I ran my fingertips up and down him, encircled him and squeezed him. And I read every one of his thoughts as they passed through his mind. He wasn’t blocking them. Not at all. All Jameson could think about was how every single sensation was magnified a thousand times since he’d been brought over. And how Rhiannon had told him that with sex it was more like a million times, and how he hadn’t experienced that yet. And how he wanted to. How he’d been wanting to since he’d first felt the touch of my lips on his skin. How he’d dreamed of doing this with me.

Knowing it drove me to lunacy, I think. I pressed against him arching my hips, and then his lips trailed down my jaw to my throat, and he sucked at the skin there. And St. Francis of Assisi couldn’t have resisted. I wrapped my arms around him and held tight, and he brought his head up and kissed me. Deeply, the I’d been wanting him to. Pushing his tongue into my mouth and feeding on mine in turn. Kneading my buttocks with his hands and lifting my hips toward his in a fury of need as well as promise.

Frantically, he pushed at my robe and I lifted my upper body from the bed to help him peel it from me. Between the two of us, we managed to remove the robe completely without breaking apart at all. His heart hammered against my chest. He was panting, and his skin was hot to the touch. He muttered, and I kissed him and clawed at his skin, nearly incoherent with the need burning in me.

He knew how overwhelming it could be, I sensed it. He was kicking himself for it. It had all been patiently explained to him. He’d been warned, so he knew what to expect, he told himself. While I did not. All I knew was that every cell in me was screaming for release. He was weak from the pain of that bullet, and still, I was certain, not fully aware of what he was doing. But I couldn’t stop it now. I couldn’t.

Ah, but dammit, he was coming aware, and he was thinking he should stop.

“Angelica…”

I lifted him away, rose just a little, parting my thighs wider, positioning myself beneath him. His passion-glazed eyes held mine as he lowered his body, slipping inside me. I arched against him, tilting to receive him as he pushed deeper. I took more of him. And I closed my eyes and moaned. And that sound seemed to take the last of his resistance, and grind it to dust. He grasped my buttocks and pulled me tight to him, plunging himself all the way into my body. And I tipped my head back and cried out in pleasure. He began to move inside me. And I rode him, clung to him, felt like a warrior goddess as I took all he could give and demanded still more.

When I began to tremble and shake, and when my eyes flew open wide, he knew. I hadn’t erected any shields around my mind either. Not just now, and he knew exactly what I was feeling. Even felt exactly what I was feeling. I was shocked at the pleasure of this. Shocked at the delicious tightening going on at the very hub of my body. I’d never felt it before, didn’t know what the pinnacle was, but strained toward it all the same.

And when it came, he bent his head and sank his teeth into my throat, and sucked hard at me. And the orgasm doubled, and trebled, and went on and on and on. I felt shattered by its power, and I screamed, and my nails scratched bloody trails down his chest, as I arched like a cat, pressing my hips to take his erection all the way into me, and pressing my throat to take his teeth all the way into me. And he came too, his shuddering release seeming to spill more than his seed into my body, seeming to draw more than the slick fluids from my core, and from my throat. It seemed his soul was drawn from him as well, and it seemed mine was drawn from me. And the two tangled and twisted and mingled together, even as our body fluids were doing, and became one. The ecstasy was so intense I thought I would die. I honestly thought I would die. Waves and waves of it washed over me, sweeping me away into a world of insane sensations, pure, undiluted physical ecstasy. No pleasure this incredible could come without a price.

But I didn’t die. I came back to myself, very slowly, and when I did, I felt disconnected, dizzy, as if my brain were still floating out there somewhere.

And Jameson was collapsed on top of me. Arms twined around me, his head on my chest. Utterly relaxed and already, I thought, sinking in a pool of velvety sleep.

When he woke…

I drew a deep breath and let it out very slowly. When he woke there was going to be hell to pay. I doubted he’d forgive me for this latest transgression any more easily than he had when I’d attempted to murder him. This had been very close to rape.

I reached down for the comforter, and pulled it up to cover us both. And then I lay there, and wished that this fevered coupling had assuaged the hunger I had for him. But it hadn’t. It still burned inside me. Still grew. It anything, this had only made it stronger. Deepened and empowered it to demanding new levels.

Lord help me, I craved the man like never before. And I was damned if I had a clue what to do to change it.

I was ruled, for that brief interlude, by nothing but feeling. Sensation. Lust. Desire. Sin. And I took him like a true harlot. No seasoned streetwalker could have seemed more thorough, I’m certain, than I was that night.

Out of my mind. Overwhelmed by my own heightened passions. I must have been.

But then I woke, to find myself naked as the day I was born, and twined around the vampire like a vine that would wither without him. And I was mortified.

Worse than anything else for me then was that I remembered every second of it. Every guttural sound I’d made, and every shameless thing I’d done. I even remembered the climax that had seemed to shatter my soul into a thousand glimmering bits.

Very carefully, I pulled myself out of his arms, and sat up…and then I gasped in horror at what I had done, for it was even worse than I had realized. I’d scratched his chest with my long nails, and he was covered in tiny bite marks. And he was naked, and sleeping, and easily as beautiful as a god. A dark pagan god. My temptation. My downfall. My Satan.

God help me, but desire stirred in me anew as I looked down at him there. I pressed my hands to my face in shame. And then I cried. For I did not know this creature I had become. I did not know her at all. And I was not at all certain I wanted to.

“Angelica,” he whispered, and I felt movement as he sat up. His hands touched my shoulders as if he would slip his arms around me and pull me close. Comfort me.

But I could not bear his touch. Not now. Not when I wanted it so.

“How could I have done it?” I whispered.

“Ah, Christ, Angelica—”

“You should have warned me. You knew what would happen to me if I were ever to let you drink from me. Because it was the same when I drank from you. You knew, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Vampire?”

Lowering his beautiful striped eyes from mine, he nodded. “Yes. I knew what kind of lust would hit you if I drank from you, Angel.” He lifted his head and looked me in the eye. “I just had no reason to think you would do it. Why would I warn you against something I thought you’d never do?”

“You should have. Don’t you see what you’ve done? What you’ve taken from me? What you’ve made me?” I turned my face away, snatching at the blankets to cover myself.

“I didn’t make you into anything, Angelica. You are what you are, and you did to me exactly what you wanted to do. You were the aggressor, Angel. I was barely in my right mind. Hell, if I’d done to you what you did to me you’d be screaming rape.”

I turned my face away in shame, unable to deny that he was right. He was so right.

“You wanted it as badly as I did, Angelica. We’re both adults. Why are you so mortified?”

“You made me want it,” I whispered, but I knew, even then, that he spoke the truth. I’d felt desire for him from that first night. It had been a large part of what made me take him then, that first time. It hadn’t been hunger alone, but lust. Even then, though I had denied it with everything in me.

“I tried to stop you,” he muttered, as I climbed out of the bed, dragging the covers with me. “But, Angel, you drove me…”

I gritted my teeth and, battling tears, turned away from him.

“You’re disgusted by what you did, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re ashamed. Aren’t you, Angel?”

“Of course I’m ashamed!” I all but shouted.

“Yes. Yes, of course you’re ashamed. Disgusted. You gave in to physical desires and made love to a monster. A man you despise and the very thought of it makes you want to throw up.”

I shook my head in denial. He had it all wrong. I had decided he wasn’t a monster, that I’d been wrong about him. It was my own lasciviousness that shocked and appalled me. Not him. Lord. I was so ashamed.

“Come back to bed, Angelica,” he said very softly. “Look at you, you’re teetering on your feet. The sun is coming up outside. You can’t stay awake any longer.”

But I ignored him, and made my way into the adjoining room, wrapping myself in the blankets and sinking onto the settee. My limbs felt heavy. My brain, foggy and dim. I knew it was dawn. My body sensed the sunrise as it had since I’d been made over into this creature I now was. A creature of immoral appetites and uncontrollable hungers. A creature of sin, surely.

He stood in the doorway, looking at me, and he, too, was weakening.

“Leave me alone, Vampire,” I whispered. “I won’t shame myself further by sleeping in your arms.”

I saw the anger flash in his eyes. “Sleeping in the arms of a monster, you mean? I’m no more monster than you, Angelica. But have it your way. I won’t touch you again. I wouldn’t have done so this time, if I hadn’t been half-delirious with blood loss. Believe me, I’m no more thrilled by the notion of sex with a person I detest than you are.” And he turned, stepping out of my sight, returning to the bed we’d so recently shared.

So he detested me. I was about to tell him that his assumptions were wrong. That I was ashamed of my sinful nature, and not of having given myself to him. Not of wanting him. For if I were to desire anyone, it seemed quite natural that it should be him. No other man had ever even begun to stir me this way. No, I was ashamed of the desire itself, not the object of it.

But it was just as well I hadn’t told him, for now I knew that he detested me, and resented my taking him the way I had.

It only shamed me more to feel a desperate yearning to go into that room with him, to feel his nude body pressed to mine once again. I still hungered for him. More now than before. The coupling had done that, I knew it instinctively. It was as if our souls had joined. The sensation had hit me before, when I’d drunk from him. But now it was greater and more intense. And if I lay with him again, I sensed this link between us would become still stronger. Each time I surrendered to this need, it would have more power over me. It would grow harder and harder to resist.

And resist I must, if there were to be any hope at all for my stained soul.

“Come, get dressed. It’s night.”

I stirred awake, only to find his hand clasping my shoulder. I pushed him away, shoving him at the very spot where the bandages were before I realized what I was doing, and then I winced and drew away, an automatic response.

“The day sleep is regenerative,” he reminded me. “It heals us.”

I sat up, holding a blanket to my chest, and examined his waist, where I fully expected to see a gaping, bloody hole. But there was none. And then I looked up at him. He stood there, wearing a fresh pair of jeans, slowly buttoning a clean shirt. And the marks I’d put on him with my nails and my teeth, had vanished as well.

“You see,” he said. “You didn’t lose so much to me after all. You’re a virgin again by now.”

“You bastard.”

His response to that was a bitter smile. He buttoned his sleeves and turned away from me. “You might want to dress, Angelica. We’ll have company before long.”

I lifted my brows, and forced myself to look at him again. His gaze had been fixed to my bared neck and shoulders, and gleaming with that need I still felt. I was not flattered by his desire. For I knew that in him it was only physical, and that he hated me. He quickly averted his eyes. “Go on, they’re coming even now.”

“Who?” I asked, getting to my feet with the blankets wrapped around me. Fear churned to life in my stomach. Surely if those DPI men had discovered our hideaway he wouldn’t be so calm.

“Some friends of mine. Monsters, like me.” He stepped closer, reaching up to stroke my face in a mocking gesture. “Don’t be so skittish, Angel. They might want to rip your pretty throat out for the way you left me to die, but I won’t let them.”

I know my eyes widened. And then, without warning, the door burst open, and I came face-to-face with a woman who must surely be the queen of all of them. Tall, and regal, with long, perfectly straight raven hair that nearly reached the floor, and black eyes that gleamed with anger. I backed away slowly, my heart racing.

“Jameson!” she snapped in a deep, rich voice. “What reason could you possibly have to frighten her that way? Look at her, she’s shaking.”

He did look at me, his mouth twisting in a mocking smile. “It’s no more than she deserves, Rhiannon.”

But another woman had entered behind her, a small, gentle-looking creature, with masses of ebony curls. She smiled at me, and came to where I stood. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “We’re friends. We’re here to help, honest.”

“Don’t be so quick to comfort her, Tamara,” Jameson said, as two men came in as well, one of them wearing a cloak that reached to the floor. “But I’m lax in my duties. Eric, Roland, ladies, I’d like to introduce Angelica. The vampiress who attacked me less than a year ago, and then left me to die.”

They all stared at me. All those dark eyes, and probing minds. And I turned, and fled into the bedroom, closing the door and turning the locks, even knowing that could not keep them out if they wanted to come for me.

I stood there, trembling, watching that closed door, and waiting. Fully expecting one of them to come crashing through it at any moment. My God, these were his friends. His vampiric protectors. The ones who had saved his life when I’d left him for dead. They’d kill me, surely!

Trembling, I fumbled for some clothing, never taking my eyes from the door. What I ended up pulling over my head was some sort of dress, black gauzy fabric that brushed my shins, and straps that crossed my chest, surrounded my neck and crossed again at my back.

At least I was decently covered now. I wouldn’t die naked.

Chapter Nine

“Really, Jameson,” Roland sighed. He turned from staring at the door Angelica had just closed, to face Jameson, his black satin cloak swirling theatrically. “Was that really called for?”

Jameson closed his eyes and shook his head. “She thinks we’re all monsters. Worse than the devil himself,” he said, but he was tired. And putting a scare into the holier-than-thou Angelica hadn’t given him the pleasure he’d half hoped it would. Acting as if sex with him were going to damn her soul hadn’t exactly endeared her to him. She’d been so hungry for him, so wonderfully passionate in his arms…and then, she’d been disgusted by her own actions. Disgusted by him.

It infuriated him!

“Was it really her who attacked you that night?” Tamara asked, her delicate brows lifting.

“Yes.”

“But why, Jameson? Has she told you why?”

He paced to the settee, and sank onto it, sighing. “She hasn’t. But I have a pretty good idea.” They were all waiting, expectant eyes on him. “Look, I’ll explain it all later. Right now, we need to find Amber Lily and—‘”

“Amber Lily?” Tamara said, her eyes widening, her lips softening in a tremulous smile. “Oh, Jamey, that’s beautiful.”

And he couldn’t help smiling back. “Yes, and so is she,” he said. “Angel says that her eyes are wide and round and dark, and that her hair is curly.”

“Angel?” Tamara frowned. “That’s an odd thing to call a woman you seem so…angry with.”

Jameson averted his eyes. Unusual, indeed. It was a damned term of endearment. When had he slipped into the habit of calling her that? It had begun as a sarcastic barb. But it had become more.

“Jamey?” Tamara said, searching his face. “Are you sure there isn’t something more going on betwe—”

“Enough of this sentimental nonsense.” Rhiannon’s voice filled the room with its tone of command, and Tamara cut herself off. “I do believe we have a situation here that needs attention. That woman in the next room attempted to murder one of us. Our own Jameson. And I, for one, am not about to let such a crime go unpunished.”

She took a step toward the bedroom. Jameson’s stomach clenched. Jesus, what had he done? He’d been furious with Angelica, yes, but why had he run his mouth the way he had? Rhiannon’s temper was nothing less than explosive…especially when someone she cared about was hurt. He jumped from his seat and stepped into her path, holding his hands up. “Rhiannon, no! Wait—”

“Wait?” she said, lifting her brows. “That creature fed on you. Tried to murder you, and you tell me to wait?‘”

Jameson looked past her, searching Roland’s eyes for assistance. Roland only shrugged. “She does have a point.”

“Of course I do. I’ll never forget the way we found you, Jameson, lying there near death in that crumbling ruin! The woman must pay. Now step aside and let me deal with her.”

“Dammit, Rhiannon, it wasn’t like you think!”

She narrowed her eyes. “Move on your own, darling, or I’ll do it for you.”

“No. Listen to me, dammit. She’d only just been brought over, and she thought that made her some kind of monster. She refused to feed, thinking it was a sin.”

Rhiannon lifted her brows. “Surely the one who made her could have clarified—”

“She was alone, Rhiannon, and scared to death. By the time I found her she was half-starved and two thirds out of her mind. I don’t think she even knew what she was doing.”

“Make all the excuses you want for her, Jameson. She attacked you, and now she’s going to regret it.” Rhiannon put one hand on his shoulder and shoved him aside.

Jameson caught himself, and stepped into her path again. “You’re not laying a finger on her, dammit! She’s the mother of my child, Rhiannon, and if you want her you’ll have to go through me.”

Rhiannon tilted her head to one side, folded her arms across her chest and gave him a very small, very smug smile. “That’s about what I thought,” she said. “Well now, perhaps you’d best remember this little episode, Jameson dear, before you go terrorizing the poor creature again.” She poked him in the center of the chest with a long, dagger-sharp nail. “Because if you don’t, you’ll answer to me.” And then she turned to Roland, and winked. “Thank you, darling, for not interfering.”

“I knew you were pulling Jameson’s chain, Rhiannon. And I was certain you had a point to make.”

Eric lowered his head, shaking it slowly and sighing. “You had me worried,” he admitted. “I thought blood was about to be shed.”

Tamara laughed aloud. “And I thought you were going to step in and ruin everything,” she said to Eric.

Jameson just shook his head as his tense muscles finally uncoiled. He’d thought Rhiannon seriously meant to do Angelica harm. He should have known better. The witch was just tormenting him, trying to prove some obscure point or other. “Damn you for that, Rhiannon.”

“You’ll thank me for it someday,” she told him. “Now step aside so Tamara and I can attempt to speak with the woman you were so willing to risk your life for.”

“I wouldn’t call that risking my life,” he said, but he moved. Now that he knew Rhiannon wasn’t going to hurt Angelica, he was more than willing to let her pass.

Rhiannon lifted her regal brows. “Then you don’t know me very well.” Then she sailed past him. With a penetrating glance at the door, which released the locks, she walked into the bedroom, Tamara close on her heels.

“Now, Jameson,” Roland said, stepping to the mini-refrigerator and opening it. “Where are they keeping this daughter of yours?”

Rhiannon was like an ancient queen. She wore a skintight, scarlet dress that swept the floor at her feet, with a dramatically plunging neckline. Her nails were long and sharp and painted bloodred.

Tamara looked like an ordinary young woman. She wore jeans, as Jameson seemed always to wear, too, and a turquoise sweater with pale flowers embroidered all over it. She was petite, soft-spoken, and had a warm, easy smile. Of the two, she was the more approachable, or the one I feared least, anyway.

“Don’t look so afraid,” Rhiannon said in her deep, rich tones, and she even smiled a little. “Jameson explained everything. You heard, did you not?”

I nodded, though I was still shaking. “It surprised me…that he’d bother to defend me at all.”

“Why does that surprise you, fledgling?” Rhiannon asked.

“B-because…he hates me.”

Rhiannon slanted a dark glance at Tamara. Tamara winked. “No doubt he’d like you to keep right on thinking that,” she said. “But now you know better, right?”

I closed my eyes, lowered my head and battled the tears that seemed always to be trembling near the surface. “I don’t know anything anymore. Not who I am…or what I am. Or what I feel.”

“Oh…” Tamara came close to me, sliding her arms around my shoulders, hugging me like a sister. “Oh, Angelica, you’re crying! There, now, please. It’s going to be all right. I promise you.”

I sniffed and lifted my eyes to hers. Beyond her, I saw Rhiannon roll her eyes, and begin to pace. “How can you not know what you are, dear? You’re immortal! All this blubbering is no more than a waste of time. You should be reveling in your new nature. Relishing it!”

“Rhiannon, it’s harder for some. Be patient.” Tamara turned again to me, her eyes very large and very kind. I was surprised to see such things in the eyes of one of the damned. “It takes time, Angelica. But soon you’ll realize that you’re the same woman you were before. The changes are only physical. So your diet has changed, and you’re stronger now. Your senses are heightened, and you’ll never die of those bothersome ‘natural causes’ that take so many mortals. You won’t age. But deep down, inside, where it counts, you’re just the same.”

I faced this sweet-faced vampiress, more ashamed than I’d ever been, and I shook my head. “But I’m not.”

“Sure you are. I’ll prove it to you. Tell me, what did you do before you were brought over?”

I blinked away my tears. “I was…I was studying with the Solemn Order of the Sisters of Mercy. In another week, I’d have taken my solemn vows, and…” I broke off there as the two women looked at each other, eyes wide.

“You were…” Rhiannon whispered, “a nun?”

“Almost,” I said.

“Good God, no wonder you’re so thoroughly distraught!” Rhiannon paced across the floor. “Certainly not a candidate for immortality,” she ranted. “Not this kind, at least. Who brought you over? He took you by force, didn’t he? You certainly didn’t ask for this! Tell me his name and I’ll teach him a lesson about—‘”

“He’s…he’s dead.”

Rhiannon seemed to skid to a halt in the center of the bedroom.

I lifted my chin and met her astounded eyes, ready to take whatever punishment she’d attempt to dole out, as I confessed my dark secret. Not only had I attacked her friend and left him for dead, I had actually murdered another of her kind. But I wasn’t going to deny it. “He killed an innocent man, right in front of me,” I said. “And then he tried to force me to do the same, to a boy. Just a frightened boy. And I couldn’t. So I…” I closed my eyes, swallowed the lump that came into my throat, nearly choking me. Rhiannon came closer, staring down into my face. “You killed him, didn’t you?”

I opened my eyes, but was unable to face her. Looking at my hands in my lap, I nodded once. Only silence came from the two, and when I got up the nerve to look at them again, Rhiannon’s lips had curved very slightly at the corners in a mysterious, Mona Lisa smile.

“My, my,” she said. “You might just be made of sterner stuff than is at first apparent.”

“He deserved what he got,” Tamara said softly. “You mustn’t blame yourself, Angelica. It’s not a sin to kill in defense of another.”

“I wasn’t defending anyone when I nearly killed Jameson, though, was I?” I turned and paced away from the two of them, miserable and disgusted with myself. They seemed so good, and so sure of themselves. Graceful and wise, and somehow quite comfortable with what they were. Why couldn’t I be like them? I wondered.

“Well,” Rhiannon said, “there might have been a bit more involved there.”

“Yes,” I said. “I was hungry. Such a selfish reason to hurt someone.”

“Somehow I doubt you hurt him much.” Rhiannon’s eyes met Tamara’s, and it seemed to me they twinkled. “The taking of blood from a living being is more than simply feeding, darling. As I’m certain you learned that night. It’s quite sexual, actually. At least, it is if there is already an attraction there.”

I know I blushed. I averted my eyes.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Tamara said. “It takes some getting used to, Angelica. This must be very hard on you. But believe me, if you’re still having…feelings for Jameson, it’s only natural. Once you drink from a man, any existing attraction sort of…well, gets magnified.”

“Magnified, hell, it explodes,” Rhiannon added. “But it should be a comfort to you to know that it works the same way on him.” She smiled more fully now. “And from the way he stepped in front of me to protect you, fledgling, I suspect you two have exchanged a bit more than blood by now.”

“Please, I can’t bear to talk about this anymore!” I turned my back to them both, covering my face with my hands.

“Rhiannon,” Tamara scolded. “Can’t you see she’s mortified by all of this? She was a nun, for heaven’s sake. They’re celibate, you know.”

“Well then I’d say she had a narrow escape. She’s obviously not cut out for that sort of…chastity.” She grimaced when she said the last word. “The sooner she gets beyond that, the better. It’s such a mortal response! We’re vampires, fledgling. We feel as no other creature can feel. It’s the best part of being what we are, don’t you see that? A gift. A blessing, really.”

I whirled on her, then, horrified by her heresy. “How can you talk about blessings and gifts? Don’t you know that you’re damned now? We all are!”

Rhiannon stared right into my eyes, blinking in surprise. “First, little one—and you might want to file this away in that righteous little brain of yours for future reference—never shout at me. Never. I am older than ten of your lifetimes. I am Rhiannon, of Egypt…”

“Here we go,” Tamara muttered.

“Daughter of Pharaoh, princess of the Nile,” Rhiannon went on. “Worshiped by men. A goddess among women. Envied by all—”

“Enough, already, Rhiannon. She gets the picture. You want to move on to point number two, now?”

Rhiannon scowled at Tamara, but it was a playful scowl. “Just making sure she has the facts,” she said, then turned to me once more. “Secondly, who are you to say who is damned? Do you pretend to know the mind of the Almighty? How do you know it wasn’t He who created us? Would a loving God damn one simply for being different?”

I blinked in shock. But Tamara picked up the conversation from there, and I ended up staring at her. “You’re so sure we re evil, Angelica. But how do you know? Because that’s the way horror films have painted us? Surely that isn’t enough to go by.” She took my hand. “There are good and bad among us, just as there are among any race of people. So look at us, Angelica. Look at who we are. What is it about us that would make us evil? We don’t hurt anyone. We don’t kill—”

“Well, not unless someone really asks for it,” Rhiannon said. Then she offered me a wink.

“Why should we be damned just because we drink blood, and exist by night? Mortals eat meat, don’t they?”

I tilted my head and studied them. Two, kind, beautiful women. Vampires. Telling me that they were not servants of Satan. But just people. Just people, like anyone else.

“I don’t know what to say.” I shook my head slowly as I tried to look at them that way. As just people. “I hadn’t thought of it this way. All I’ve thought of since the night I was changed, was finding a way to go back to what I was before.”

“You still are what you were before,” Rhiannon said. “Only better.”

“Angelica,” Tamara said, “we came here to help you get your baby back. But…but I’d like to do more than that. I’d like to be your friend…if you’ll let me.”

I saw nothing but sincerity in Tamara’s eyes. And then I glanced toward Rhiannon, to see if she felt the same.

Rhiannon shook her head. “This is beginning to resemble a scene from Steel Magnolias,” she said in a sarcastic tone. “Accept our offer of friendship, Angelica, before she starts weeping.”

But beyond the flippant words, I could see that she, too, wished to help me. Why, I did not know. I had done nothing but judge and condemn them both. Truly they were showing more godlike qualities than I had.

“I accept,” I said. “And I’m sorry for what I said before. That you were damned. You’re right, I’m not God. It’s wrong of me to sit in judgment.”

Tamara smiled and started forward, opening her arms to Rhiannon and to me.

Rhiannon held up a hand. “I do not do group hugs,” she said softly. “And I believe we’ve wasted enough time. There is a child out there in need of our help. And if any of those bastards has done a thing to harm her, then I doubt even God Himself can protect him from Jameson’s wrath.” She lowered her head. “And if He does, He should probably worry about mine, next.”

“I think Amber Lily is safe…for now, at least.”

Both women turned to me, brows lifting in question.

“Your friend,” I said to Tamara. “The woman, Hilary Garner. We think she’s taken the baby and gone into hiding, somewhere.”

Tamara sighed hard. “If she has, then you’re right. The child couldn’t be safer. Hilary is a good person.” Rhiannon narrowed her eyes. “She is,” Tamara insisted.

“We’ll get her back, fledgling. Make no mistake about that,” Rhiannon said. “Now perhaps you ought to put on some shoes.” This with a sheepish glance at my bare feet.

It was Tamara who dived into the closet and emerged with a pair of dainty black flats. “These will look great with that dress.” She handed them to me. “And the dress is fabulous on you. Jamey’s eyes will pop out.”

“Jamey,” I whispered, half-smiling at the cute nickname his friends had given him. How he must hate it. “He could not possibly care less what I look like.”

“You’re mistaken about that, young one,” Rhiannon told me. But of course, she was wrong.

There was a tap on the door, and then it opened. Jameson stood there, and when his gaze met mine I sensed something that could almost have been concern in his eyes.

“Is everything all right in here?” he asked, pulling his gaze from mine and looking from Tamara to Rhiannon.

“Being born in this century, Jameson,” Rhiannon said, walking past him and pausing at his side, “you obviously know very little about honor and chivalry. I’d strongly suggest you learn it.” She stared hard into his eyes. “Soon.”

“And I’d strongly suggest, Rhiannon, goddess among women, that you learn a little something about minding your own business.”

She lifted a hand, and I held my breath, half-expecting her to strike him. Instead, she gently patted his cheek. “You’re lucky I adore you,” she told him.

“Enough wasting time,” the cloaked man said, coming forward to slip a possessive arm around Rhiannon. When he did, she rubbed herself against his side almost like a cat. “Jameson has reason to believe Hilary Garner has run off somewhere with the child. We have to track her down immediately. She won’t be able to hide from DPI for very long.”

“Yes, Angelica told us.” Tamara paced into the other room. “Hilary had relatives up north. She used to talk about visiting there. Some cabin in the mountains.”

“That’s too vague,” I said. “How will we find it? And even if we do, what if that isn’t where she’s gone?”

“If you know about this cabin, Tamara,” the other man, Eric, said, “then chances are, DPI knows as well.”

“If they do, it will be in Hilary’s file. Eric, if we could get to a computer…”

“We could tap into the DPI information banks, get everything they have on Hilary and go from there,” Eric said, nodding hard.

As they discussed their plan, speaking rapidly, I felt my heart sinking in my chest, so rapidly that it left me dizzy. Pressing my palm to my breast I sank against the wall, all my breath rushing out of my lungs.

“What is it, Angel?” Jameson—the only one of them who seemed to detest me—stood close to my side. “What is it?” he demanded, searching my face.

“I don’t know. I just feel…we have to go to her. Now. We can’t wait.”

He stared hard into my eyes. Not looking away, he said, “She feels…there’s a connection to the baby. She senses things. We should start north, right now.” Finally, he broke eye contact, turning to Tamara. “Can you give me anything else to go on, anything at all?”

Closing her eyes, Tamara seemed to search her memory. “Hilary used to take the train north to someplace called Petersville. I think she’d rent a car and drive from there.”

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Jameson said. He took my arm and pulled me upright again, none too gently.

“Perhaps Tamara and I should start north with Angelica,” Rhiannon said, and to my surprise, I detected a note of concern for me in her voice. “You men can work on getting more information and then join us there.”

“Not on your life,” Jameson snapped.

Tamara and Rhiannon exchanged amused glances.

“Forget what you’re thinking. I don’t suppose my dark angel told you her plans, did she?” He scowled at me. “No, I didn’t think so. She wants to run from me, monster that I am, at the first opportunity. Use this psychic link to find Amber Lily and then take her away where I’ll never have the chance to put my godforsaken, cursed hands on her. Isn’t that right, Angelica?”

“If you still believe that, then you truly are a monster,” I whispered at the hate I saw in his eyes. “I’m only just now beginning to realize that it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a vampire. You must have been just as monstrous as a mortal man.” I tugged my arm free of his hateful grip and stalked back into the bedroom for the shoes I’d left lying on the bed.

“She doesn’t set foot out of my sight,” I heard him saying, his tone commanding and harsh. “Not for a minute. I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her.”

“Jameson, for heaven’s sakes,” Roland said.

“Lad, you have a great deal to learn,” Eric put in with a sigh. “I thought we’d taught you better. Will you listen to yourself?”

“Oh, let him be,” Rhiannon interrupted him. “Can’t you see, Eric, darling? He thinks he’s fooling someone—besides himself. I mean.”

“Damn it, Rhiannon—”

“Oh, do shut up,” Rhiannon replied. “Take your fledgling and go north, Jameson. We’ll find out what we can here, and then we’ll join you.” And then she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Why she bothered, I did not know. She must have known I could still hear her very clearly. Perhaps it was only for effect. “And take good care of her, Jameson. Take very good care of her. If harm comes to her, you’ll have to answer to me for it.”

“What’s this?” he said, astonished. “You her best friend all of a sudden?”

“I…like her,” Rhiannon replied. And she said nothing more. I heard her soft steps coming closer. She came into the bedroom, where I was sitting on the bed’s edge contemplating the pretty shoes Tamara had found in the closet. “Don’t take any nonsense from him, Angelica. Never forget, you’re of the superior gender.”

“It’s difficult to feel superior, when I’ve somehow become his prisoner.” I knew Jameson could hear me if he cared to listen. But I didn’t care.

“Prisoner, posh!” Rhiannon said. “Have you tried to escape him yet?”

I shook my head. “No, of course not.”

“I doubt he could keep you here against your will, Angelica. In our kind strength comes largely with age. And he’s no older than you. Younger, in fact, if only by a few days.”

I tilted my head, my eyes widening in wonder. “You mean…I’m as strong as he is?”

“Quite possibly so, darling. Keep that in mind when he gets bossy. And remember, if you’re not trying to escape, you’re here of your own free will. No matter what he tells you.”

My chin rose a bit. “Thank you, Rhiannon.”

She smiled slightly, then turned and strode from the room. As she passed Jameson, she whispered, “Prisoner, indeed. Did we teach you nothing at all?” But she never slowed her pace. She marched right out the door, and the other three followed seconds later, leaving me alone, once again, with the man I wished I could detest.

He stared at me for a long moment, in silence.

“They…are not at all what I expected,” I said, unsure what it was he was waiting for.

“No,” he said. “Because you were expecting a band of monsters like something out of an old horror film.”

I shook my head. “Maybe. I’m not really sure what I was expecting.”

He nodded. “They are the finest beings I’ve ever known, human or otherwise,” he said, turning to stare at the door they’d just exited. “They’ve saved my life more than once, risked their own safety for me often, been like family to me.”

“And made you one of them when I had left you for dead,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“And yet they don’t hate me for that.”

He shrugged, and reached out as if to take my arm. But still stinging from his earlier biting remarks, I shrugged away from his touch.

“I forgot,” he said, his eyes boring holes into mine. “My touch repulses you…even when you’re the one to ask for it. I’ll try to remember that from now on, Angelica.”

“That isn’t fair,” I said. “You don’t understand—”

“I understand, my dear, that I won’t sample your charms again even if you beg me to. Or…should I say, when you beg?”

“I would never—”

“Save it,” he said. “Only time will tell, Angel. I’m just letting you know in advance that I won’t stain your snow-white flesh by putting my cursed hands on you again. So don’t hold your breath waiting.”

My anger flared as it seldom had before. I hadn’t been repulsed by him, as he seemed to think. But I was now. “Has it even occurred to you, Vampire, that I saved your worthless life by doing what I did?”

“And you have my undying gratitude,” he said, his eyes flashing with sarcasm. “Next time I find you dying for lack of blood, honey, I’ll return the favor. Give you a little of mine and screw you senseless while I’m at it. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

I lashed out with my hand, hitting him hard across the face. So hard his head snapped around sideways, and an angry red welt appeared on his cheek.

He snagged my hand in a cruel grip, and pulled me tight to his body. His hard chest pressed to my breasts, and his warm, angry breaths fanned my face as his eyes blazed down at me. And though I hated him at that moment with everything in me, I wanted him, too. And he knew it. Damn him to hell, he knew it.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You’d like that.” And then he released me abruptly, turned away and left me there alone. He headed out through the exit that led to the car in its hiding place of brush and briars. And I watched his powerful strides, his magnificent grace, his tightly leashed control.

The bastard knew it, he knew that I wanted him. And I would have been humiliated by his obvious knowledge of my wanton desire for him.

Would have been…but I wasn’t. Because I wasn’t alone in my misery of need. He might see my hidden desires, but I could see his just as clearly. I had seen what flashed in his eyes, in spite of himself, before he turned away from me.

He wanted me, too.

Chapter Ten

Jameson had been driving in silence for several hours, with no real idea of his ultimate destination, aside from Tamara’s vague reference to Petersville. Once there, he had no idea what to do next. But he’d worry about that when he got there. For now, he had other things on his mind.

Angelica.

She sat beside him, pensively silent, and he knew she was worrying about Amber Lily. She’d spoken little since getting into the passenger seat. But her skills at guarding her thoughts were still not quite what they should be—what they would be, with a little more practice—and he could read them. He suspected that even when she became adept at building the wall to guard her mind, he’d be able to see inside. Because there was something between them. Something powerful and potent, and he was beginning to suspect that all his explanations for it were no more than nonsense. Because he was beginning to think that this was something that had been between them from the very first. It was what had allowed his mortal ears to hear her preternatural sobs. What had drawn him to that building in the first place. It was what had made her lose control when she’d taken from him that first time.

He didn’t know what it was. But there had been something there. And he was a fool. A thousand times a fool. Because he thought she was the most beautiful, passionate, fiery, strong woman he’d ever known. And he wanted her more every time he looked at her.

And she was disgusted by him.

And knowing it didn’t stop his stupid mind from wandering into forbidden territory. All it did was wound his pride, and his pride, when wounded, was more deadly than an injured grizzly.

He knew she wouldn’t want him sharing her thoughts, invading her mind, as she called it. But he couldn’t stop himself. He even tried. But it wasn’t working. It was as if each feeling that flitted through her mind was flitting through his as well.

The sex had deepened the link between them. He’d known it would. Just hadn’t been certain how it could. Now he knew.

He didn’t hear her thoughts word for word, as he’d been able to do at first. But the feelings came through. Fear. Gut-wrenching, soul-wringing fear. She was sick with it. Utterly ill with it. It was killing her, slowly, and by cruel degrees, that she didn’t know where their baby daughter was.

And he’d been unmercifully tough on her. He was regretting it, now, though he really shouldn’t be, because she’d deserved it, and then some. Looking down at him as if he were some lower life form. Thinking of him as a demon, a monster. Believing him unfit to be a father to his own child. She deserved his anger for that. What did she expect, that he’d be thrilled with her condemnation of his kind?

Her kind?

He glanced across the car at her. And he knew above all that it was his pride she’d hurt. He wanted her to be as completely engrossed in him as he…

Scratch that.

She sat stiffly, concentrating very hard on trying to get a sense of the child. But he didn’t think she was having much success at it. They’d been driving for hours, and she’d been doing this the whole time. Searching, striving, reaching with her mind. He could see the lines of tension at the corners of her lush lips, and in her forehead. And he was overcome with the ridiculous urge to ease them.

“We have no reason to believe she’s not safe and sound with the Garner woman,” he said. He couldn’t believe he was trying to comfort her. Couldn’t imagine what would make him even give a damn how much she was suffering right now. Dammit, if he couldn’t feel her pain, he might be able to ignore it.

“I know,” she said, her voice gruff.

“Tamara says Hilary is a good person. We have to believe that.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

And then she went right back to worrying again. Her head was throbbing with a pain that reached all the way down the back of her neck. He could feel that. And the pain was weakening her, as pain tended to do to their kind.

“You’re making yourself sick, Angelica.”

She blinked, and turned to look at him. So much pain in those eyes of hers. So much…ah, God help him…need.

“I can’t help it.”

“You have to help it. Try not to think the worst. You’ll be so worn down by the time we find them that you’ll be no help at all.”

She tilted her head. “Worrying can weaken me?”

“No, but the headache it’s causing could damn well do it.”

Her brows drew together in a frown. “You’re poking around in my mind again? Reading my thoughts?”

“Not voluntarily, I’m not.”

Her curious gaze scanned his face. “What do you mean?”

Jameson drew a deep breath. He had not wanted to bring up the subject with her. Not when just thinking about it reduced him to a mass of unfulfilled yearning. But he supposed he owed her an explanation. “We shared blood, Angelica, and that was enough to forge this bond. We had a child together, and I think we both know that strengthened it. And then we…we had sex.” He saw the flare of memory in her eyes. It seared him before she quickly turned away. “That forged an even more powerful link between us. Kind of like the link between you and Amber Lily.” He shook his head, sighing hard, knowing she’d likely be even more repulsed when she realized how much a part of her he had become. How much a part of him she had grown to be. “Whether I like it or not,” he said, “I know when you’re hurting. I can feel your pain, and I imagine you could probably feel mine as well.”

“Yes.”

Not disgust in her voice. Not that at all. Just affirmation. He looked at her quickly, but she wasn’t grimacing.

“I felt it even before we made love,” she whispered.

Made love?

“I felt it when you were shot. Knew you’d been hit even before I saw the wound. I thought at first the bullet had torn through my side, but then I looked, and there was no wound in me. It was in you, instead.”

“And you felt it?” he asked her, amazed.

“Yes, I did.”

He blinked, thinking this through. “Then the tie between us—whatever the hell it is—was already very strong. The sex…well, that would only serve to make it even more powerful. Very strange.”

“It’s disturbing,” she said. He looked at her. Not disgusting, but disturbing.

“How so?” he asked her. “What do you feel from me now, Angelica? There’s no pain, nothing to upset you.”

“All I feel from you now, Vampire, is rage. It’s frightening in its intensity. Huge and black and potent.” She lifted her head, staring straight ahead of them, as if she could see his anger. “And I would hazard a guess that the rage inside you can be as debilitating to you as this worry might be to me.”

Jameson felt his lips thin. “You’d probably be right.”

“Why do you hate them so?”

“They have our daughter, Angelica. How can you ask me why I hate them?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. That isn’t all of it. You hated them before then. That night…that night when I stupidly went away with that agent, believing all his promises, you hated them then. It was in your mind when you tried to warn me.”

“But you went anyway.”

“Yes. And you can’t forgive me for that, can you? You can’t forget that it’s my fault they have our child. My fault, for believing their lies.” She fell sideways until her head rested against the window glass. “I don’t blame you,” she whispered. “You’re right to hate me for letting them take her. But you can’t possibly hate me for it any more than I hate myself.”

Jameson looked at her, saw the twin tracks of tears slowly moving down her face. She was wrong. He might have blamed her for this once, but not anymore. Not since he’d realized the hell she’d been suffering in that ruined building where she’d gone to hide. Gone to starve.

“So tell me,” she said. “Why did you hate them so?”

He lifted his chin, swallowed hard. “Years ago, they held Rhiannon prisoner. Had her strapped to a table while they took samples from her flesh. This was before they’d developed their nasty little tranquilizer. Their only method for keeping us too weak to fight them was starvation. There was nothing to ease the pain of their experiments. Those bastards tortured her nearly out of her mind. But she escaped. Killed one of their top scientists in the process. Broke his neck, she did.”

“I can believe that.”

Jameson looked at her as he drove, saw her shudder in response to his words. “When Tamara was a small child, her parents died of a rare virus. And a doctor who’d sort of taken her under his wing offered to be her guardian. There was no one else, and his petition was approved.”

Angelica’s lips were parted, eyes wide with interest.

“Turned out the doc was really with DPI, and the parents’ exposure to that virus was all part of a well-laid plan. They knew Tam had the belladonna antigen—that rare blood type that enables a human to become a vampire. And they also knew that people with that blood type often have a special bond to one particular vampire, who tends to watch over them.”

She gasped softly. “Is that true? I had no idea.”

“Yes, it’s true,” he told her. “A vampire feels a special affinity for a given mortal, feels drawn to them, senses when they’re in danger. And often steps in to protect them, though most of the time, the mortal never knows any of it. Eric had been Tamara’s protector. Saved her life once when she was just a little girl. And DPI knew it, knew he’d come back someday. So they wanted to hold Tamara as bait. And they stopped at nothing to do it.”

Angelica was shaking her head, her eyes filled with sympathy for the child Tamara had been. “They killed her parents…my God. It’s horrible.” And then she turned those big round eyes on him, and he almost forgot to be angry with her. “And what about you, Jameson? When did you get involved with them?”

“I met Tamara when she worked for DPI.”

“She—?”

He nodded. “Yes. Well, remember, she was raised by one of them. He brought her into the organization largely so that he could keep tabs on her. But she wasn’t in on any of the really sensitive stuff that went on there. They gave her milk-toast cases. Like working to discover the alleged psychic powers of a twelve-year-old boy.”

“You?” she asked.

“Yeah. Only the psychic stuff was a ruse. They wanted me under surveillance because I had the antigen. The whole damned cycle was gearing up to start all over again. But Tam figured it out. The bastards kidnapped me to get to her and Eric. Roland saved my ass, for the first of many times. When it was over, my mother and I had to get the hell out of the area. Roland took us to France with him, gave my mother a job, sent me to private school.”

“And you knew… you knew they were… vampires?”

“Sure I knew. I was young, but not blind.”

“And it didn’t frighten you?”

“It was those DPI bastards who frightened me.”

She nodded, and it seemed to Jameson that she was truly interested in what he was saying as they drove the many miles that separated them from their child. “Where’s your mother now?”

“Died a couple of years later. Roland took care of me, though, until later when those DPI bastards tracked us down again. After that he got to thinking I might be better off with my birth father. Hired a PI to track him down, and I ended up in San Diego living with Dad until he passed on two years ago. And my old pals at DPI didn’t catch up with me again until last year. They bundled me into one of those inconspicuous gray vans and took me to their ‘research center,’ for ‘testing.’ In fact, the others had only busted me out of that hellhole a few nights before I found you in the condemned building.”

She nodded slowly. “So DPI has been a thorn in your side for most of your life.”

“They’ve been one step behind me all the way. Same as the others. No one should have to live looking over their shoulder.”

“And you’re going to be the one to end it.”

“Someone has to.” He felt his jaw clench, and tried to relax it. “Jesus, Angelica, when I came for you, there were others. Those freaking cells were all full. Some dead, some dying, some just being kept alive long enough for those animals to finish their experiments on them. It can’t go on. It just can’t go on.”

“But can one man stop them?”

“This one can.” He slanted a sideways glance at her. “I have motivation, Angelica.” She lifted her brows, waiting. “Our daughter,” he explained. “I’m not going to let her grow up with the constant threat of those bastards looming over her. I can’t.”

She blinked twice, and nodded. As if she…maybe…understood.

“So now you know what makes me such a monster,” he said. “I hate them. I want them all to pay. And I fully intend to extract their penance with my own two hands. Just as soon as my daughter is safe.”

She lowered her head, shook it. “You’re letting your anger control you,” she said. “You could die in this feeble attempt.”

“Then I’d die for a cause,” he said. “Better than dying in a stone sarcophagus, helpless and sheeplike.”

She lowered her head quickly, stung by his words. And dammit, he should have thought before he’d spoken. “You’ll never be able to forgive me for turning myself over to them,” she said.

He shrugged, tried to find words to tell her that he did now. Wondered why he couldn’t just blurt it, and knew the culprit was his pride. “You thought I was a monster. You thought that DPI agent was safer than me.”

“I did think that. I did, it’s the truth. The one who…who changed me…” Shaking her head, she let her voice trail into silence.

“What about him?” He could feel her reaction to even thinking of that one. Terror. “You never told me, Angelica. What happened to you to bring you to this?”

She looked at him, really looked at him. And then she sighed. “I can’t believe it will make any difference to you.”

He sighed. He wasn’t going to beg her to tell him. Hell, he’d told her his entire life history, and she couldn’t tell him one little bit about her own past? Fine. Let her close herself off from him if that were what she wanted. She was so resistant to him. So…almost afraid of him it seemed. It made him angry all over again.

He was quiet after that, for several miles, and I was, too. He’d given me a great deal to think about. I could even understand his irrational hatred of DPI. But I still disapproved of his intention to destroy everyone involved in the organization. There were good among every group.

Even vampires, as I was rapidly learning. “I never told you so, Vampire,” I said, after a long period of silence between us. “But I’m sorry for what I did to you that night when we first met.”

“I’m not.”

I looked at him, and my surprise must have shown very clearly.

“Oh, I didn’t think I was ready for the change,” he said, and I sensed he was being as honest as he’d ever been with me. “But I’m better than I was before. Stronger, and smarter. I’m experiencing life now in a way I never could have then. Ironic, isn’t it? Only when my mortal life ended could I truly savor all it was.”

I nodded mutely, waiting for him to continue.

“When you…when you drank from me that night…God, I had no idea it would be like that. I didn’t even fight you, Angelica. You remember that?”

“You did,” I told him. “At the very last.”

“It was ecstasy,” he whispered. “I didn’t want it to end.”

I remembered. How well I remembered the erotic thrill that shot through me as I suckled at his throat like a babe. It had frightened me and thrilled me and confused me, all at once. I hadn’t understood it then. I still wasn’t certain I did. That he would confess he’d felt the same way, amazed me. Surely he couldn’t hate me when he’d been so eager to participate in his own draining.

“It’s the allure of the vampire,” he told her. “His victims give themselves willingly, and die in a storm of sensations that are beyond physical orgasm.”

“Yes,” I whispered, and I closed my eyes, recalling the way I’d felt when he’d brought me to a similar pinnacle the night before, in the wee hours before sunrise. A rapture beyond human endurance.

“That’s why we don’t drink from the living, Angelica. It would be too easy to get carried away. To hurt them by taking too much. We deny ourselves that rush, in order to protect them. But the craving is always there. Always.”

I nodded my head. Because he was so right. The craving was here, now. Burning inside me. Whispering that while we couldn’t take from the living, we could take from each other. Whispering that if he could truly feel my pain, he could surely feel this ache that was gnawing inside me, yearning for his touch, for his teeth, for his taste, once again.

Rhiannon had warned me of this. And if we gave in to this lust again, it would only become stronger the next time, and the next. I knew for the first time the power of drugs over the addicts I’d helped care for in the city’s shelters. But this was worse. Far worse.

Jameson cleared his throat, drawing my gaze. His jaw was tight.

His eyes, bright with passion. “That sign,” he said in a rusty voice. “Petersville, five miles.”

“Good,” I said. “We’re nearly there.”

“We’ll need to find shelter,” he went on. “We’ve been driving all night. It will be dawn not too long from now.”

I met his eyes, stared into them, and I knew he saw my hunger, because I saw its reflection looking back at me. I would not shame myself again, I vowed. He disliked me, and I him. Oh, yes, I’d come to believe that perhaps all of his kind were not damned, after all. But he was damning himself with anger and hate. And I was so afraid of what I felt for him. So afraid he’d keep his earlier vow to throw it back in my face should I admit how much I wanted his touch again.

And though he’d conceded that the passion was mutual—a conclusion I had already reached on my own—it was still very clear that he disliked me. Distrusted me. And I could not have sex with a man who didn’t even like me! I would not let animalistic urges overwhelm me to that shameful extent. Not again.

And I know he saw my firm decision in my eyes. Because his darkened with renewed anger, and his jaw went tighter.

He stopped at a dilapidated, abandoned house, a mile past the cluster of neat country homes that made up the town of Petersville. The place had been modest, a two-story farmhouse, perfectly square. And it wasn’t sagging or rotten. But the windows were mostly broken out, and the wood stood gray and peeling and sadly in need of paint. He drove the car around the back, out of sight from the road. And when he cut the engine, we sat there in the darkness, silent, for a long, tense moment.

“I suppose we should go inside,” he said at last, and I heard the tightness of his voice. “To make sure there’s a place safe from sunlight, where we can rest.”

“Yes.” I opened my door and got out, stepping into the dry brittle grasses that rasped over my bare calves and brushed the hem of the black dress I wore. I didn’t want to go into the house with him. I didn’t want to lie down beside him. Not yet, while there was still more than an hour before sunrise would lull me to sleep. He saw too much of what went on in my mind.

“You’re afraid,” he said, coming up to stand beside me where I’d stopped, just outside a boarded-up rear window. “You don’t trust me, do you, Angelica?”

How could I tell him that it was myself I didn’t trust?

“Don’t worry,” he snapped when I didn’t reply or even look at him. “I’m not going to touch you again. I already told you that, didn’t I?”

I closed my eyes to try to block my thoughts. But they raced around in my brain anyway. And I strained to keep him from hearing them as well. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to make me lose my mind the way I’d lost it before. So the decision would be taken out of my hands, and I’d be left with little cause to feel the guilt or shame I knew I should feel. I wanted him to force me, so that I could assuage this burning hunger inside and leave my conscience clear.

I was ashamed of these thoughts, and lowered my head to follow him inside.

“There’s a basement. It would be the safest place,” he said, his voice stiff and formal. “The floor is concrete. Not comfortable, but better than damp earth.”

He stood at the mouth of a blackened doorway, looking down. And I moved as close to him as I dared, peering past him. There were no stairs. Had been once, but only a few rotted boards remained. Without a word, Jameson jumped down and forward, landing on his feet on the floor. Then he turned, hands busy brushing the dust from his jeans. “Coming?”

I drew a breath and swallowed. Rhiannon said I was as strong as he was. Difficult adjusting to the idea. Even more difficult for a woman who still felt very much mortal, to pitch herself down from the top of a nonexistent stairway, to the concrete floor below. Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and pushed myself away.

He’d stepped backward, but I hit him anyway. My body crashed into his and sent him sprawling. I landed on top of him. My body was pressed hard against his, just as it had been that night. And I could smell the masculine, exotic scent of his flesh, and I could hear the thrum of blood rushing in the veins just beneath it. My own pulse pounded harder. The steady beat in my throat growing stronger, more demanding.

His hands came to my shoulders, and gently lifted me, as he slid himself out from under me. He cleared his throat, but didn’t look my way. I couldn’t have looked him in the eye even if he had. “You need more practice.”

Practice was not even close to what I needed. What I needed was escape. I needed to be away from him. I’d be awake for another hour, and this burning for his touch would surely drive me insane.

“I think,” I said, recognizing the coarseness in my voice, hearing the slight tremor in my words, “that we should split up.”

“Do you, now?”

I nodded, forcing myself to look him in the eye. “We could cover more ground. Find Amber Lily that much sooner.”

“You mean you’d find her sooner. You’re the one with the link to her. And then what, Angelica? You disappear with the only child I’ll ever have?”

I lifted my chin. “I give you my word, Vampire. I won’t run away.”

“Ah, but you’re just one of the damned now, aren’t you, Angel? A monster like me, without a soul or a shred of morality. What is your word worth?”

“I won’t run away,” I said again. “Besides, you say there’s a…a connection between us, now. Surely, even if I ran, you could find me.” I was testing him.

“I’d find you,” he said softly. “If I had to search to the ends of the earth, dark Angel, I’d find you. Make no mistake about that.”

“Then why not let me go on my own?”

“Because I don’t want to have to find you. And because I don’t trust you. You have to admit, your judgment has been rather flawed to this point. I don’t want you making a mistake that would get my daughter killed.”

I lowered my head, closed my eyes and sat down on the concrete floor. “So the things you said in the car were only lies. I should have known.”

He came closer and sat down beside me. “Let’s talk about lies, shall we, my dark Angel? Hmm?”

I lifted my head and looked at him. Saw the anger in his eyes. “I haven’t lied to you,” I said.

“Oh, but you have. You don’t want to get away from me for the baby’s sake. It’s for your own. You can’t stand it, can you, Angel? A saint like you. It makes you sick to your stomach to be so hot for a monster like me. Doesn’t it?” I turned my face away but he pressed his palm to my cheek, turning me to face him again. “You think I can’t see it, Angel? You want me. You’re burning up inside for me. You can’t stop thinking about it, can you? My hands on you. My mouth on you.” He smiled bitterly, and shook his head. “Poor little Angel’s spirit is at war with her flesh, and she’s disgusted by it.”

“You’re wrong,” I told him. “I don’t want you! I don’t even want you in the same room with me! I hate you!”

“I know you hate me,” he whispered. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?”

Shaking my head in denial, I clambered to my feet, turning my back to him. But he was right there behind me, standing so close I could feel the heat of his flesh. And then his breath fanned my neck, and his body brushed up against the back of mine. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. With one hand, he swept my hair aside, and lowered his head, his lips hovering close to my throat, but not touching. I trembled all over, from head to toe, I shuddered. And inside I was screaming for his touch.

He moved his hips, and his hard arousal pushed against my backside. And then he bent lower, and his lips brushed my throat. All the fight went out of me in a long, shivering sigh, and I let my head fall back, and to the side, baring my neck in blatant offering to him.

His breaths on my skin were coming in hot gusts now. “I thought you didn’t want me in the same room with you,” he whispered, but it was a breathless whisper, and strained.

“Please,” I moaned, from deep in my throat.

And he wrenched himself from me, turning away, pushing his hands backward through his hair. “So who’s the liar now, Angel?” he growled.

I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging tight, and slowly sank to my knees. My head bowed, and I wept in bitter frustration.

He stood there, looking at me. “Believe me,” he said, “it’s every bit as distasteful to me, wanting someone I can’t stand the sight of. But at least I’m not so goddamned self-righteous that I lie about it. You’re not going anywhere, so we’re both going to have to live with this situation.”

And I rose, anger and indignation giving me the strength his nearness had robbed me of only seconds before. I turned, and looked him in the eye. “The hell we are,” I told him, and I turned toward the doorway at the top of the stairs, bent my knees and pushed off. Amazingly, I sailed upward as easily as I’d once stepped over a crack in the sidewalk, and landed on the floor above. And then I ran, out of the house and into the night.

The wind whispered in my hair and my ears, as I ran. I knew he was coming after me, but I didn’t turn around to confirm it. I just ran, and in seconds, I’d forgotten about my pursuer, my demon. There was a new thrill in running this fast, so fast everything around me became a blur. I didn’t run into anything, though I was going far too quickly to see clearly. Some kind of inner guidance system I hadn’t been aware of before, kicked in, to steer me around obstacles and over dangers in the path. I raced through the forest, for miles. Miles I ran.

And then I stopped. And I wasn’t even breathless. Amazing. My blood was surging in my veins, my heart beating strong and sure in my chest. I felt strong. Stronger than I had ever felt in my life. And I thought I understood what Jameson had said before, about not fully savoring his life, until it ended.

Oh, but that fool understood very little else. I wasn’t disgusted by him! I yearned for him. Why did he have to be so cruel?

“Dammit, Angelica, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Ah, yes, my Lucifer had caught up to me at last. I turned to face him. “You can’t keep me against my will,” I said. “I’m every bit as strong as you are.”

He rolled his eyes. “Remind me to thank Rhiannon for telling you that, will you?”

His sarcasm was not mean. Not biting. And I almost smiled at it. Almost. Perhaps the exertion was what we’d both needed to break the tension between us.

No. It wasn’t what we’d needed. But it was better than nothing.

And then I heard something. A cry, very distant. The cry…of a child. My heart tripped to a stop in my chest. But the wailing sounds grew louder, more insistent.

“The baby,” I whispered. And Jameson stared into my eyes, every bit of animosity gone. As one we turned and raced as fast as we could, in the direction of that sound. Down a wooded hillside we flew, crashing through dense undergrowth and thorny briars, and all but tumbling onto the gravel-topped road that wound along at its base.

“There,” Jameson shouted. And I turned to see a woman, lying still on the ground. The wailing was louder now than ever. In a single leap, I was crouching at the woman’s side, lifting her head and shoulders from the ground, shaking her.

“Wake up, woman! Where is she! Tell me, where is the baby!”

Groggy eyes opened, then widened. A look of panic came into them as she scanned the area around her. And then she screamed, clasping her face between her palms. She screamed and screamed and screamed.

I turned my eyes to where she was staring, and saw it then. The car, flipped over and lying on its top. The child, trapped inside, hanging upside down and howling in fear. The flames licking up into the night sky from the base of the automobile, where the gas tank would be, unless I were sadly mistaken.

“My baby!” the woman screamed, over and over again. “Please, save my baby!”

Her baby. Not mine. The cries I had heard had been the cries of this woman’s child. The result of a car accident.

“Hurry!” she shouted, struggling to her feet. “Hurry, for the love of God, the gas tank!” And then she collapsed in a heap of unintelligible sobs.

I could not believe what I was seeing. Jameson was clambering over the vehicle to reach the door nearest the child. The flames—and I had seen firsthand the explosive effects of flames on a vampire—were licking up around him. So close to him…

I got to my feet, leaving the woman, hurrying forward. The vampire wrenched the door free and sent it flying into the night. If daylight had allowed the young mother to see his strength, she’d have fainted dead away. I nearly did, when I saw how far that scrap of metal sailed. And then Jameson was inside, crawling, tearing at the belts that held the child prisoner. He paused no less than three times to beat at flames that lapped at his clothes. But each time went right back to the child.

I ran closer, reaching the car just as he emerged with the baby cradled in his arms. He raced toward me, pushing the child at me, dropping to his knees, and it was only then that I realized his delicate vampire’s skin was smoldering. Thin spirals of smoke rose from it like specters reaching to the night sky. His black eyes held mine for only an instant, and I saw the agony there. And then I felt it, the hot brands searing his skin, as if it were my own. He rose, staggered away from us, and I saw the stream gurgling in the distance. I heard the splash as he reached it, and the heat on my skin faded, but the pain remained.

The baby cooed and chirped at me, drawing my gaze. I looked down at her, and hugged her gently to my breast. But my heart was slowly breaking. Her lush hair wasn’t raven, but red. Her eyes, not jet, but baby-blue. And the plumpness to her cheeks and triple chin, her drooling mouth gave me to know she was a good deal older than my Amber Lily. Cutting teeth already, perhaps.

One chubby, questing hand reached up to grip a handful of my hair and tug almost playfully.

“Please…”

I lifted my gaze. The woman. She’d managed to get to her feet again, and she stood before me now. Her face already bruising, her hair tangled and her lip bleeding. She stretched out her arms toward her child, tears streaming down her face.

Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard. Her child. Her precious child, not mine. I bent to kiss the infant’s silky-soft cheek, and then I placed it in its mother’s loving arms.

She hugged the baby close, bowing her head as sobs wrenched her slender frame. Sirens in the distance, then. Another vehicle pulling off the road. White headlights illuminating the darkness, contaminating its preternatural purity with artificial light. Light that didn’t belong in the night, I thought. It was an intruder.

I took one last look at the mother and child, embracing and sobbing. And then I slipped away into the shadows, where I belonged.

Chapter Eleven

Jameson lay neck-deep in the icy waters of a fast-running stream, and let the chill sink in. Its cold seemed to work into his pores, easing the horrible searing sensation. Stopping the blistering and popping of his skin. It slowed the burning. Even numbed the pain a little. Not nearly enough.

Dammit, he was hurting.

He closed his eyes, wishing the cold would anesthetize him to it, but he knew better. The best he could do was find shelter and let the day sleep do its work. At least he wouldn’t have to suffer long.

And as soon as the sun set tonight, he’d go after Angelica. No doubt she was long gone by now. He just hoped she didn’t find his baby and take her off to parts unknown before he caught up with her. He wanted to see Amber Lily. He wanted to hold her just once in his arms, snuggle her close, before he returned to take DPI down. He needed to feel her, to know she was real.

He didn’t really blame Angelica for seeing him as an unfit father. An unrepentant vampire must seem like a pretty strange being to her. One who loved what he’d become. One who relished it, and wouldn’t go back to being mortal if it were as simple as swallowing a pill. When it was all she longed for in her heart of hearts. And besides all that, there was his violent nature. His hatred for DPI, and his determination to destroy it. She didn’t really think he’d expose his daughter to that dark side of him, did she? He only wanted to love her. Just for a short time, before he did what he had to do.

But thanks to some cruel twist of fate he might never get the chance now. Angelica would be far away by the time he’d recovered enough from the burns to go after her. But he would find her again. He didn’t think there was a force on earth that could keep him from finding her.

Soft splashing sounds made him jerk his head up fast. And then he blinked and squinted to be sure he wasn’t seeing an illusion. Angelica, sloshing through the water, soaking the sexy black dress she wore clear to her hips as she made her way to him. She stopped beside him. And he looked into her eyes and was thinking of making some smart remark about how he’d expected her to be gone by now.

But he couldn’t. Because what he saw in her eyes was devastation. And she looked at him, and her lips pulled away from her teeth in an expression of pure heartbreak. Her back bowed forward and her shoulders shuddered and her eyes squeezed shut tight. But she didn’t burst into tears. She battled them back. Fought them valiantly. And won.

Ah, hell, he knew that bitter anguish. He’d felt it, too. At first, when he’d heard that baby’s cries, he’d thought…

He’d thought he’d finally found his daughter. And when he’d held the baby in his arms, even knowing by then that she wasn’t his own…it had been heaven and hell all rolled into one.

Angelica drew a shaking breath and stiffened her spine, slowly standing straight and strong again. A water goddess, rising from the waves, taming them. A phoenix bird, full of fire, rising from the ashes. Pulling herself upright, despite the pain. “Can you stand?” she asked him. “Walk?”

Her voice was brittle. Like it would snap right in two in a stiff breeze. She hated him. He didn’t blame her, either, after that little fiasco in the basement. But for Christ’s sake, he was half out of his mind wanting her. Craving her. Fantasizing about the things he wanted to do to her. Knowing full well she felt the same… and all the time knowing she was repulsed by wanting him that way. He repulsed her. It was a lot for a man’s pride to take.

And he’d been hot as hell and frustrated and furious over the entire situation. Who better to take it out on than her? She who was disgusted by his very touch. Who better?

Her hands slid over his shoulders and she pulled him to his feet. “I asked if you could walk, Vampire. Answer me.”

“I can walk,” he said. Then he stood up to prove it.

“Then you’d better do so. And fast. It will be dawn soon.”

He narrowed his eyes, tilted his head. “I thought you’d decided to go off on your own, Angel? Thought you’d be halfway to Timbuktu by now.”

“Well, I’m not.” She walked close beside him, one hand poised near his elbow, as if she’d catch him should he fall. She walked slowly, her dress dragging through the swift-running dark waters. And he remained at her side, and wondered why she hadn’t left him. Why she was helping him. Why it made him so damned angry to know her true feelings. The emotional ones, not the physical.

To his horror, he stumbled the second he stepped out of the water. Without the stream’s icy touch, the pain was back, full force, and it hit him like a mallet.

But his Angel was right there, living up to his sarcastic nickname for her. She stood close, pulling his arm around her shoulders, and slipping hers around his waist. She held him so close it was almost as if she truly cared. And she winced each time the pain flared hotter, and he knew she was feeling it, too.

He couldn’t move very far. He knew that. He hadn’t the strength, and he’d never make it all the way back to that abandoned farmhouse they’d planned to spend the day in. Maybe, if he had strength enough for speed. But not like this. He’d never make it before dawn. She ought to go on alone. He ought to tell her…

But he needn’t have worried. It was only minutes before she found shelter, a miniature cave cut into the rocky hillside. She helped him inside, moving all the way to the farthest reaches of the place, and then easing him down onto the cool, rocky floor. She hurried outside, leaving him alone.

He didn’t suspect her of abandoning him this time. No, he was beginning to know her a bit too well to think she’d leave him in this sorry state. She might hate him, but she was a woman of ethics. He didn’t imagine she could leave her worst enemy in this kind of agony.

She returned, moments later, her arms loaded down with pine boughs. Half a tree’s worth, by the looks. She wove a solid wall of them, and braced them at the mouth of the cave to keep out the sun. And then she came back inside, kneeling before him, sharp black eyes racing over his body, narrowing on every angry red burn mark that she spotted.

“I could make a fire, to dry our clothes,” she said.

“I’d rather not look at another fire for a while.” The burns were small brands, up and down his calves mostly, but a few patches on his forearms and back had taken some heat as well.

“Will this kill you?” she whispered, her eyes meeting his.

“You couldn’t be so lucky,” he told her, and he saw her lips thin. The pain in her eyes intensified.

“You’re in agony.”

“So are you,” he said, sitting up a little, searching her face. She averted it quickly, but not quickly enough. He’d seen the tears. “My pain will be gone with the night, Angel. It’s only a few more minutes until dawn. But yours is going to follow you into your dreams, isn’t it?”

Her shoulders quaked, and when she turned to face him again, her cheeks were wet, her body trembling. “I thought it was her,” she whispered. “When I heard that baby crying, I thought…”

“I know.” His own throat tightened. “I know, Angel. I thought so, too.”

Her head bowed as the tears overwhelmed her, and he couldn’t help himself. He wrapped his arms around her shuddering frame and pulled her close to him. And he held her, choking back his own anguished tears. He hated this woman, he told himself. He hated her because she was disgusted by him.

The hell with it. He’d get back to hating her later. He didn’t hate her now. Not at all. He stroked her silken hair, and caressed her trembling shoulders, and he rocked her in his arms until the pine needles at the entrance began to lighten with the rising sun. And then he cradled her as she slipped into sleep. A few moments later, he followed her there.

He was not a monster. I stirred awake, still nestled in his arms, my head resting upon his chest. And I knew that I had misjudged him so thoroughly that I could not have been more wrong. Of course I had. I’d put him on the defensive right from the start, attacked him and accused him, and he’d shown me his worst in return. If he despised me, I realized, I’d given him reason.

He had known that the screaming child was not his own. He had known it before he’d gone to the overturned car. There was no doubt of that. And yet he’d gone, all the same. He’d burned himself, and I knew enough of my kind to realize that a single false move or stray breeze or misstep could have sent him up in a blinding conflagration. At any moment, he could have suffered the same agonizing death as that creature I’d killed. But he risked it, to save the child of a stranger. And a mortal stranger, at that.

I had known mortal men, Christian men, who would not have done what this dark demon had done. He was not the embodiment of evil. He was not a devil sent to tempt me into sin. He was just a man, I realized, lifting my head and allowing my eyes to roam his face. A man filled with anger and in search of vengeance, yes. But also a man with a good heart, and boundless courage, and unselfish valor.

And beautiful velvet-brown eyes with stripes of ebony that glittered in the moonlight.

And a well-deserved dislike for me.

His eyes opened, searched mine. “You’re awake before me,” he said, still sounding sleepy. “That’s unusual.”

“The burns must have weakened you more than you realized.” I sat up slowly, hating to pull my body from the wonderful nest of his. His chest made a fine pillow, and his arms had remained around me even as he’d rested.

“You’re probably right. I still feel a little fuzzy.”

My head came around, my eyes locking with his. “Perhaps you need…”

His gaze dipped to the hollow of my throat only briefly, before he slammed his eyes closed and turned his head away. “What I need is to get the hell out of this cave.” He lunged to his feet and hurried to the doorway, a single swipe of his powerful arm sending my pine-bough door sailing into the night. Then he stepped outside, tipped his head back and inhaled, expanded his marvelous chest and stretched his arms overhead. I remained in the doorway, simply watching him. Fully appreciating—not for the first time—the utter beauty of the man. And I realized that perhaps I had been unable to see such things before. Clinging to my mortal ways of thinking.

It was high time I got used to the idea that I was not a mortal woman anymore.

The thought sent a shiver of what might have been fear—or might have been excitement—up the base of my neck. And I realized there was something else tickling my senses as well. Something bright and shining.

And then I recognized it. My child…she was near. And she was well. Content and safe. Warm, and comfortable, and unafraid. I was slowly infused with a new sense of hope, and a certainty that I would hold that tiny blessing in my arms before this night ended. The knowledge—and it was that. Knowledge—certainty—left me nearly giddy with excitement.

I left the cave, and went out to stand behind him. “She’s all right,” I said to him, and he turned very slowly, frowning at me. “Amber Lily is well, and safe, and we’re close to her, Jameson. I can feel her.”

He smiled, fully smiled. And if I’d seen his smile before, I did not remember it. The flash of his white teeth in the darkness was a thing of rare beauty. He came close to me, took both my hands in his. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I told him. “Yes, we’re very close. We’ll find her soon. I know it.”

He closed his eyes in relief, releasing the night air he’d inhaled, and letting my hands fall from his grasp as he did. “Good. The others should be coming along any time now,” he said. “We’ll meet them at that abandoned house where we left the car.”

I tipped my head sideways. “How do you know that?”

He laughed, a sultry, sensual sound that came from deep in his chest. “Angelica, we’re not the only two vampires who can communicate without words. Though…it does seem much more powerful between you and me.”

I didn’t look away when he stared down into my eyes.

“Close those amethyst eyes, Angel,” he said softly, speaking to me as gently as if he were speaking to a lover. “And think of the others. Speak to them.”

“But they’re not even here yet.”

“Try,” he coaxed.

So I did. I closed my eyes and put Tamara’s gentle face firmly in my mind. My thoughts were slow and deliberate and I concentrated fiercely. Tamara? Are you there? Can you hear me?

I’ll be seeing you within the hour, Angelica. Very clearly and as soft as her spoken words, the voice of Tamara’s thoughts sang out to me.

My eyes opened wide in surprise. Did you find out anything? I thought rapidly, hope surging in my chest.

We have a location for the cabin. By the time you two get back to Jamey’s car, we’ll be there. I promise, Angelica.

I frowned and looked at the vampire, who’d been watching me intently. “She calls you Jamey,” I said, brows lifting. “I’ve been meaning to ask about it.”

“It’s what I was called when I was just a boy. Tamara seems to have trouble breaking old habits.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Sometimes she has a hard time remembering that I’m not a child any longer.”

How anyone could look at this strong, tall, handsome man with the anger in his soul and think of him as a child, I did not know.

He had the build of a god. A dark, dangerous pagan god, with erotic promises gleaming in his eyes. And the more time I spent with him, the more desperately I wanted him to fulfill those promises for me.

His head snapped toward me, eyes flaring wider.

“What?” I asked him, startled.

He blinked, and shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind. Come on, we’d better start back.”

“There is no hurry,” I told him, joining him stride for stride all the same. “I can run just like the wind.”

He looked at me a little strangely. “Yes, that’s true enough.”

“I didn’t realize it before.” I turned to look up at him as we walked. “What else can I do, Vampire?”

His brows rose, jaw twitching now and again. And he seemed unable to look into my eyes for very long. “Well, you know already about the jumping.”

“Almost like flying,” I said, and I tipped my head back, eyeing the tall, broad limb of a hard maple tree. “I wonder how high I can go?”

“Angelica, not now—”

But I was off, bending low and springing skyward and sailing high into the night. I didn’t clear the limb, but caught hold of it with my hands, and dangled there. They couldn’t keep my daughter from me, I mused as I swung back and forth. No one could. I was stronger. More powerful. And for the first time I was allowing myself to feel that strength surging inside me.

I glanced down at the vampire, who stared up at me as if very puzzled. And then I let go, and pirouetted as I plunged downward. I fell when I landed, in an ungraceful tangle at his feet. He only stared down at me, shaking his head.

“Are you all right, Angelica? You haven’t gone a little nuts on me, have you?”

I got to my feet, brushing twigs and dried-out leaves from my dress. “We’re going to find her. I can feel it.”

He nodded at me. “I believe you.”

I looked skyward. “And I spoke to Tamara. Miles away still, and I spoke to her with my mind, Jameson. Do you know how incredible that is?”

One corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Yeah. I know.”

“What else is there?” I stood before him, looking up into his eyes. “What other things have I failed to notice about this new nature of mine?”

His brows drew together, and he studied my face for a long moment. “Listen,” he said softly. I parted my lips to speak, but he held up a finger for silence. So I was quiet, and I listened. At first I heard only the normal forest sounds. A breeze teasing the pine needles, and the song of a night bird here and there. But then, slowly, more sounds joined in the chorus. The creaking of a bough, and then of several of them. The sound of a squirrel’s feet as he scampered through the fallen leaves. A distant woodpecker’s drilling. The gurgling laughter of that stream. Each sound was distinct, and clear. Not a jumbled mix as I might have heard before. They were amplified, yes, but so individual. I heard a deer leaping. The beat of a bird’s wings. A pinecone fall to the forest floor from a tree that was miles away.

“It’s amazing,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

I sighed and looked up at him. “You know what’s even more amazing than this?” I asked him. “It’s that I’m a mother.” Lowering my head, shaking it sadly, I went on. “It wasn’t in my plan, you know. It was the farthest thing from my mind, but I was all wrong. And I’m beginning to think maybe… maybe that bastard did me a favor that night.” I trembled when I said it, a chill-evoking memory slipping through my brain. But I shook it off at once. “I’m a mother, now, and I can’t imagine not being one.”

He took my shoulders in his hands, searching my face. “You‘ re… different, Angelica.’”

I nodded. “Yes. Very different. And it’s about time I quit whining and dealt with it, don’t you think?”

I didn’t pull free of him, just stared up into his eyes.

“You never told me,” he said, turning me and beginning our trek through the woods, slipping my arm through his as if it were the natural thing to do.

“About what?”

“About you.” He turned to look down at me. “I gave up all of my secrets, Angel. But I still know nothing about you. So tell me.”

And I nodded. It was time. Perhaps what this man and I needed was to start over again. Perhaps if I treated him as just a man, and not a monster, we could come to some sort of understanding. Maybe even a truce.

“I was nine when my mother left me at St. Christopher’s,” I told him.

“And why did she do that?”

I shrugged. “I’m told she was very poor, unmarried and possibly addicted to heroin, but of course, I don’t remember. I should, I suppose. Maybe I’ve blocked it out. I recall her face. Reed-thin, and pale, with dark circles around her eyes, and hair like mine, only cut short. I remember her voice. Harsh. Never gentle. Never tender. I remember crying and crying and crying for her, for weeks after she left me there. But it did little good.”

He pushed a pine bough out of my path, and I walked past it, leaning a little closer to him than I needed to. But relishing his warmth.

“So the sisters took care of you?”

“Yes. They raised me. I got the notion that I’d done something bad to make my mother give me up. And decided then and there that if I could only be good enough, she’d come back for me one day.”

“But she didn’t,” he said, and when I met his eyes, they seemed sad. For me. Was he feeling my pain, then? Or just feeling for the knowledge that I felt it?

“No. She didn’t. And I must admit, I wasn’t very good at being good.”

“No,” he said, feigning disbelief.

“I was somewhat adventurous. Used to sneak out after dark and roam the streets. Explore the belfry. Swing from the ropes there.”

“You must have given the poor nuns heart failure.”

“They said so often enough.”

“And yet you wanted to join them?”

“Yes.” I thought back, thought back hard, really searching my soul. “I think perhaps I never quite got rid of the notion that my mother had found me not good enough. That I had to be good. I couldn’t think of a better way to prove I was good than to join the order.”

“I suppose that makes some kind of sense.”

“But I was never truly content there. All I ever wanted to do was get out. And our excursions from abbey walls were extremely limited. So when it was my turn to work with Sister Rebecca in the homeless shelter, I was always very eager to go.” I looked up at him, and his eyes darkened as if he knew my fear as I remembered. “That last night in particular. It was snowing, you see. And I’ve always loved the snow.”

He stopped walking, stared intently at me. “And what happened, Angel?”

I lowered my head. “Rebecca was ill. I broke the rules and went anyway, alone. And I missed the bus, and decided to walk.”

“Alone?” he asked, eyes widening. “At night?”

I only nodded.

“And that’s when it happened?” he said, urging me to continue.

“He was waiting for me.” I shivered a little, and hugged myself. “He dragged me down among the garbage. I thought…well, I thought everything but the truth. There was nothing I could do to fight him. He was a vampire, with strength like I have now. I was just a mortal woman. Oh, I tried, of course. I beat him bloody, but it didn’t even faze him.”

“He…he forced the dark gift on you?”

I nodded, unable to look Jameson in the eye.

“And then left you alone, not teaching you anything about yourself?”

“No. No, he wanted to teach me. You told me once that there is some special bond each vampire has with a chosen human. I think, perhaps, I was his. He said he’d been watching me all my life. But he was sick…twisted, somehow. My first lesson was to be the murder of a young homeless boy. He demonstrated the technique first, of course, by taking a frightened old man. And then he chose my victim for me.” I lifted my head then, and faced him. “I took a burning length of wood from a barrel fire, and I hit him as hard as I could. The blow put him on his knees, but it was the fire that killed him.”

“You killed him,” he muttered, staring down at me in disbelief. Then he shook his head. “Good. Saves me the trouble.”

“I thought,” I said, starting forward once more, “that God had cursed me. I thought the only way I could survive was by killing, and I vowed not to do that. So I hid myself away, and waited for death. I had no idea the bloodlust would become so overwhelming.”

“You had no idea about much of anything at all,” he said.

I nodded my agreement. “But I’ve decided to learn.”

“I can see that.”

“It’s because I know she’s safe,” I told him. “I know she’s all right, and for the first time since that horrible night, I…I feel good.”

That was a lie. It wasn’t the first time. I had felt good once before. He’d made me feel…utter ecstasy.

I averted my face, because I could feel him trying to read my thoughts. And then I walked faster, back toward the abandoned house where we’d left Jameson’s car. He caught up to me in short order, and when he reached my side, he walked just fast enough so he pulled ahead of me. So I quickened my pace to pull ahead of him, and then he did likewise.

I slid him a sidelong glance, saw the twinkle in his eyes and sprinted as fast as I could go. He took up my unspoken challenge, and we raced all the way back to that tumbledown house.

And there I collapsed on my back in the grass, staring up at the stars, and thinking that I had never truly appreciated the night’s ethereal beauty before. Never once.

He stood there looking down at her. Yes, she was damned near giddy because of this feeling that had come over her in her sleep. The sixth sense that assured her their daughter was fine and safe, and very nearby. But Jameson sensed that there was more to it than that. That perhaps she was beginning to come to grips with her new nature. To see her new reality and to deal with it.

And as her fears and insecurities were slowly, methodically, stripped away, the woman she’d been before was beginning to emerge. He sensed it, knew it, the way he knew so many things about her. Even with the sisters, she’d been a hellion. Always tempting fate, and playing jokes and causing mischief. A child at heart, always. He’d seen it all so clearly when she’d told him her story.

The frightened, desperate woman he’d known wasn’t even a shadow of the real Angelica. Lord, he’d been thinking that was all she was. The truth was a revelation.

She lay in the grass now, with her lustrous dark hair spread all around her, and the stars twinkling their reflection in her eyes. And he almost groaned with the force of his desire for her. Almost lay right down upon her, right there, and…

“Ahem,” Roland said pointedly.

Jameson turned to see his friend standing behind him, and then he wondered just how much of his errant thoughts Roland had been able to read. “You’re here. Good.”

Rhiannon walked up next to Angelica, lifted her arms out at her sides and let herself fall backward to the ground. Angelica laughed.

It was, Jameson realized with a small start, the first time he had heard her laughter.

“You’re looking better, fledgling,” Rhiannon said, sprawled on the ground beside her.

Angelica sat up, smiling. “She’s near us. I can feel it. We’ll find her soon.”

“And?” Rhiannon prompted.

“And…and knowing she’s all right, safe and happy at this very moment, has given me…I don’t know. A respite, I guess, from all the worrying about her. And I did what you said, Rhiannon. I let myself…enjoy…what I’ve become.”

“As well you should, young one.”

Jameson tore his eyes from her beautiful face, and turned to Roland. “Where are Eric and Tamara?”

“Staking the place out, and waiting for us to arrive. We thought it best to get someone into position as soon as possible, in case the child is moved again.”

Jameson nodded. “Where is this place?”

“Only a few miles from here,” Roland told him.

Angelica came between them. “Let’s hurry, Vampire,” she said, her eyes pleading, making Jameson’s heart trip over itself in his chest. Dammit, why couldn’t he accept the friendship she seemed to be offering him, and leave it at that? Why did he have to hunger for so much more? “I want her in my arms,” she rushed on. “I want to hold her close to me. Please.”

He nodded, averting his eyes because he didn’t like seeing the love gleaming from hers. Love for her child. It lit up her entire face. He started toward the car with Angelica at his side, then stopped when he realized Roland wasn’t following.

“What are you waiting for?”

Roland nodded toward Jameson’s car. “You know how I feel about those things,” he said. “The trip up here was unnerving enough. Rhiannon and I will come along under our own steam. We can cut through the forest, and probably get there before you, too.”

Angelica tilted her head, eyeing Roland. “You’re faster than a car?” Roland nodded. “You must be very old, then,” she said.

Jameson’s dearest friend smiled broadly. “Milady, I am ancient. And yet my darling mate is several centuries older.”

“When I said I was a daughter of Pharaoh, child, I was not joking,” Rhiannon said, moving forward to take Roland by the arm. “I was alive when the pyramids were built.”

Jameson watched Angelica’s angel-eyes widen in awed wonder.

“I’ll tell you about it sometime,” Rhiannon said with a wink.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Angelica replied, and then she turned and hurried to the car. Roland had given Jameson the directions, so he bid his friends farewell and jumped behind the wheel.

“Hurry,” she whispered, turning those excited violet eyes on him one more time. She meant what she said. She felt something. Felt it strongly. It showed.

“I will.”

We parked some distance away, and then crept through the night-shaded woods to the cabin. It rested on a hilltop amid stands of virgin pines that filled the air with their scent and whispered secrets to one another when the breeze moved through their needles.

Jameson kept one hand cupped around my elbow as we moved silently through the forest, creeping up on the cabin. I saw the glow of oil lamps in the windows, and the soft gray spiral of smoke floating from the chimney. I smelled burning wood.

But something felt…wrong.

Jameson turned to me, brows furrowed. “Tamara and Eric aren’t here,” he said.

I blinked, closing my eyes and trying hard to home in on that sense of my daughter. The calmness, the safety of her environment and her comfort still reached me. As did her nearness.

But not as near as she should be.

My heart plummeted to my feet. All that exuberance rushed out of me like air rushing from a punctured balloon, leaving me weak and devastated. “She isn’t in that cabin,” I whispered. “Jameson, we’re too late. We’ve missed them.”

He looked into my eyes, shaking his head hard and fast. “No. Look, maybe Hilary just went out for supplies or something. Eric and Tam probably followed her.”

Hope seemed to run from his eyes to mine, filling my heart. “You think so?”

“My best guess, Angel. Let’s go in for a closer look, okay?”

I nodded, drying my tears, and we crept closer, out of the cover of the trees and into the open. The house seemed devoid of life, utterly deserted.

Until a blinding spotlight glared into our eyes, and a loud voice boomed, “Take another step, and we’ll kill the child!”

Panic rooted my feet to the very ground. But not Jameson’s. He quickly stepped in front of me, pushing my body behind his in a gesture that was so protective it left me breathless with amazement.

“Back up slowly,” he whispered.

I did exactly as he said, knowing it was the protection of the trees he sought. But I clung to his waist, pulling him with me as I backed toward shelter.

“I said stand still. Don’t move, or the child dies!”

“Liar!” I shouted. “You don’t have my baby!” But despite my brave words, I stopped moving, doubting my own instincts.

“Not here,” the voice replied. “But we have her. Go ahead and run, and you’ll find out.”

Only by squinting into the blinding light could I make out the shapes of several men standing just beyond it. And then one of them stepped forward, and I cried out. Because he was holding sweet Tamara in his arms. Her head hung limply forward, and it seemed it was her captor rather than her own legs keeping her upright.

“Tam!” Jameson shouted, lunging forward, but freezing again when the man lifted a blade to her throat.

“Stay still, or watch her bleed like a pig!”

He did as he was told, and I felt his anguish. Shared it. “Don’t hurt her,” Jameson said, his voice strong and clear. I was convinced only I could detect the waver that lingered beneath his words. He adored Tamara. I’d known they were friends, but not the extent of their closeness. Not until now. He would die for her. Gladly, he would. “Let her go,” he went on, taking a wary step forward, holding his arms out at his sides in a nonthreatening posture. “Let her go, dammit, and take me instead.”

I gasped in horror. Then bit my lip. Please, Jameson, don’t!

“We’ll be taking all of you.” The DPI thug lifted a gun, one I recognized, and my stomach lurched in fear of the tranquilizer I knew the weapon held. And I could see now, from where I stood, better than I had before. I could see the slumped forms of Eric and Roland lying on the ground. Unconscious…or perhaps dead. And just beyond them, Rhiannon, that most regal of all vampires, as several men slung her limp body onto the back of a truck.

I took a single step forward, as an unbelievable fury rose in me.

Run, Angelica! Jameson’s mind screamed out to mine. You can get away. Go, find the baby and take her as far away from them as you can get!

“I can’t leave you like this,” I whispered, automatically speaking aloud, too frightened to think clearly enough to do otherwise. “I can’t—”

Go! You’re the only chance our daughter has now! If they catch all of us, she’ll be theirs forever, Angel. Do this. Run!

Trembling from head to toe, I turned and started for the trees. I heard the shot, and glanced behind me in time to see Jameson, the man I’d once thought of as a monster, leap into the path of the dart that was flying toward me. I saw it plunge into his chest, and saw him sink to the ground. I screamed.

Run… His thoughts were weakening as the drug did its work. Run, for the love of Christ, run…

And I ran.

I raced through the forest, heedless of my direction. Limbs slapping my face and tearing at my clothes and hair. I ran, pouring all of my vampiric strength into getting away from them. Jameson was right. I had to stay free, I had to find Amber Lily, and take her from those beasts! But there was another thought, too, whirling in my terrified brain as I plunged through the wilds of the forest. I had to stay free so that I could go back. For him. I had to go back for that arrogant vampire. I couldn’t go on if he died at their hands. And the others, as well. I’d go back for all of them.

Chapter Twelve

Hilary Garner ran. She’d seen them coming, seen them surrounding the cabin that had been the only safe haven she could think of for the child. And God help her, she’d stolen the tiny baby right from under their noses back in White Plains. She’d had no idea if the child’s mother was still alive. But her father was. Tamara had received Hilary’s cryptic message, and told her Jameson was on the way.

But it had been impossible to wait for him.

Every day, Hilary had checked in on the newborn. Those big dark eyes, and tiny hands, and satin hair, had enchanted her. And she couldn’t wait. DPI’s roster of experiments had been finalized, and the first of them had been put on Rose Sversky’s schedule. And dammit, Hilary couldn’t wait.

So she’d taken her, and she’d brought her here. And the bastards had found her. One of them must have realized she’d slipped away from the cabin, too, because she could hear them coming. Heavy footfalls, crushing the leaves and twigs as they ran toward her.

She hugged the bundled-up baby tight in her arms. “Don’t worry, honey,” she whispered. “Hilary’s going to take care of you, baby. I promised your mama. And I promised myself. I said I’d watch over you, sweetie, until your daddy came for you, and that’s what I’m gonna do. I swear, I will.”

She ran faster, weaving and ducking through the trees. But the footsteps came closer, louder, and then someone shouted.

“No. Please, God, help me keep my promise!”

Shots rang out in the night, and searing hot hammers seemed to pound her in the back, slamming her body forward.

“Jesus Christ,” a man yelled. “You’ll hit the freaking kid, you idiot!”

She tried to keep going, tried to keep moving. But she lost all the feeling in her legs. They buckled, and she fell to her knees. And then slipped lower. And her arms cradled the baby, and she bent her head to kiss the plump cheek. “I’ll keep my promise,” she whispered.

And even before she finished, the men were looming over her, taking the child from her arms. The one man passed the baby to the other. “Here. Whaley said to radio in when we had her, and then get her into a vehicle headed straight back to headquarters. No stopping. No detours. Got it?”

Hilary weakly turned her head, to see the other one nod once and turn to go. She watched the baby disappearing from her sight. “He’ll…never…make it back there with her,” she managed. “I won’t let him.”

“You aren’t going to be much help to anyone for much longer, Garner.”

“I have to,” she whispered. “I promised.”

He shook his head, his eyes dipping down to her torso, then turning away in disgust. He left her there, shouting to some of the others as he did. “It’s all over here. Let’s get back to the house and transport the others to The Pit.”

“But one is still at large, sir.”

“One, we can handle,” he said. “Later. Let’s be sure the others are taken care of first.”

And she listened to them tromping away, their footsteps growing fainter, and then fading entirely. Hilary closed her eyes, and let her head rest against a hunk of moss-covered deadfall. “Please, God,” she whispered. “It’s been so long since I’ve come to you…I know that. But…but I’m sorry.” She gritted her teeth in pain, and drew a breath, forcing herself to go on. “I don’t know if you can forgive me for…for all the time I spent working for those monsters. But I didn’t know, God. I didn’t know.”

The wind seemed to whisper through the pine boughs. It seemed to be calling her name.

“Forgive me, Lord,” she went on. “And help me. I need help to keep my promise.” She opened her eyes and looked up at the dark sky. “Send me a sign,” she whispered. “Send me an angel, and I’ll know I’m forgiven. I’ll know you’re hearing me now, if you’ll just send me an angel.”

Jameson woke in chains. His mind was groggy, and weak from the drug, but he fought the debilitating effects, blinked his vision clear and tried to survey his surroundings.

He was underground. The smell of the earth surrounded him, even beyond the circular wall made of huge concrete blocks. Jesus, he was in some sort of round dungeon. He was slumped on a hard floor, his legs shackled to the wall behind him, his arms chained up and outspread. Clenching his jaw, he tugged at those chains, but they only rattled in response. He was too weak. Damn, he was too weak to break free.

A soft moan drew his gaze, and he saw the others, chained just as he was. Eric and Roland, Tamara and Rhiannon, her dark hair hanging over her face. But not Angelica. There were other chains dangling from the walls. Empty of prisoners, hanging alone. Angelica occupied none of them.

Thank God. Thank God, she’d gotten away.

Roland staggered to his feet as Jameson looked on. He lifted his head, and their gazes locked.

“Where the hell are we?” Jameson asked, though he was certain Roland had no more clue than he did.

“I can’t be sure. Probably one of the safe houses the bastards have scattered all over the country. They’ll bring in reinforcements before they try to move us back to White Plains, I imagine.”

Jameson could believe it. Armored trucks and armed guards.

And perhaps there was another reason they hadn’t been moved just yet. “They want all of us,” he said, realizing his speech sounded drunken and slurred. Roland’s brows came up. “Angelica got away. And she’s the only one left who’ll keep trying to rescue the baby.”

“Yes,” Roland said, nodding slowly. “They’ll want to eliminate every possible threat to their keeping that child. She must be considered their most valuable prisoner.”

“I don’t believe they have her.”

Eric was stirring awake now. And then Tamara and Rhiannon as well.

“What makes you think so, Jamey?” Tam whispered.

“Angelica,” he said. “I’m not sure what might have happened since, but right up until the moment we were ambushed, Angelica was convinced the child was still safe. She didn’t believe them when they said they had her, and I have to cling to that. She senses things about the baby. And she was feeling… almost exuberant. So sure our Amber Lily was in safe hands.”

“Maybe,” Tam whispered, her head nodding once before she pulled her chin up once more. “Maybe Hilary got away before they found the cabin. Maybe the baby is still safe with her.”

“Yes,” Eric put in, sounding weak. “They knew we’d come after her at the cabin, so even if they had missed catching her there, they’d have lain in wait for us.”

“With all of us in captivity, they’ll be sure we don’t reach the child before they do,” Roland said.

Rhiannon lifted her head, her eyes flashing with anger. “Captivity, my love, is not at all what they have in mind for us. They know better. They won’t risk it.” She lifted her head, then slowly closed her eyes. “Look above us,” she whispered.

And one by one the others tipped their heads back. Jameson did likewise, and then felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. There was no floor above them. This was no basement, no dungeon, but a pit, with its circular stone walls rising high all around them. An arching ceiling towered high above. A ceiling entirely made of glass.

Jameson tugged at the chains with renewed vigor. Damn the drug! He was as weak as a mortal! Weaker. He pulled until the iron cuffs cut into his wrists, and still didn’t loosen their hold on him.

“God, no,” Tamara whispered, and then Jameson heard her soft crying, saw her tears. Her eyes sought Eric’s, and her hands strained against their bonds to reach his, but too much space separated them. “I love you, my darling,” she whispered between sobs. “You’ve given me so much happiness. So much joy…”

“Tamara…” Eric moaned, straining against his bonds.

Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed. “Stop it! Stop with the dying declarations of love. We are far from finished!” But her voice didn’t quite ring with its usual conviction.

Because she knew, as they all did, that when the sun rose and filled this hole with its golden light, it would be the end. For all of them.

“Dammit,” Jameson shouted. “Dammit, I shouldn’t have let you get involved in this. I knew better. I knew I’d just bring trouble to all of you.”

“We’re family, Jameson,” Roland said, his voice level and low. “We couldn’t not get involved.”

“At least there’s still a chance for your child, Jamey,” Tamara whispered. “Angelica will find her, take her away to safety.”

“There will never be a chance for my child,” he said, his rage rising up to envelop his entire being, “Until DPI is brought to ruin. Dammit, when will the rest of you see that? We should have destroyed them long ago. They won’t rest until all of our race is annihilated, I know it. And you do as well.”

They said nothing. But there was guilt in their eyes as they looked at one another. He didn’t need to hear them say he was right. Maybe they still didn’t believe he was. But Jameson knew. One day, someone would rise up. Someone would lead them in revolt, and DPI would be laid to waste. He’d planned to be that someone. But now it looked as if the job would fall to another.

To his own daughter, perhaps.

Jameson lowered his head, closed his eyes, and focused every fiber of his being on Angelica. Find her, Angel. My beautiful, dark Angel. Find her and keep her safe. I can’t be there for her. It’s over for me. But you can. You must. Save her, Angel, and tell her about me. Tell her about her father. Tell her… that he loved her.

I stopped running. I was not certain what made me stop, but something did. Some sense. Some feeling. And then Jameson’s voice flooded my mind. His farewell. His goodbye. And my heart twisted and tore and bled. “No!” I cried out, shaking my fists at the night. “Don’t do this, Vampire! Don’t leave me!”

But there was no further reply. I tried to get a sense of where he was, using my mind, but I found nothing. And I sobbed, great heaving sobs that tore through me and left me weak.

I had to find him. And my daughter. And I would. Dammit, I would! I raced through the woods, sending my senses out before me, searching, seeking.

Someone was near.

I halted in my panicked race, and turned in a slow circle. And then I heard it. A soft moan, guttural and pain-racked. And for just a moment, I recalled the night that seemed a lifetime ago. That night when a similar sound had drawn me into an alley, where a nightmare awaited me.

Every nerve in me jangled to life. I came fully alert, and turned toward the source of the sound. I saw only a mass of deadfall. But the moan came again.

Closing my eyes, I sent out my senses, feeling the very air around me. But there was no one else. Only one person. One very weak, pain-racked mortal. Moving silently, I stepped closer. And then I saw her. She lay very still among the brush, and the scent of blood was strong around her.

My hesitation vanished, and I hurried forward. Brown eyes opened when I crouched beside her, and I knew her. This was the dark-skinned woman with the kindness in her eyes. The one who had been with me when my daughter was born. The one who’d promised, without a word, that she would help my innocent baby.

Hilary Garner. She lay still, and very near death. Her body riddled with bullet holes, and blood flowing slowly from each of them.

“You,” she whispered, and it was a tremendous effort for her even to speak.

“I’m here,” I said, stroking her hair away from her face. “Don’t try to talk. I’ll help you. It will be all right.”

“No.” Weakly, she shook her head. “Nothing…you can do. It’s enough…that you’re here.”

And yet I pressed my hands to the wounds in her chest, attempting to slow the ebb of life from this woman.

“I asked…” she rasped, “God…to send me an angel. And…he sent you.”

I blinked in shock, and looked down at her. Angel. It was what Jameson called me. But surely God wasn’t still having a hand in my life. Surely he hadn’t guided my steps. Surely it wasn’t possible that I was still a part of his plan.

Was it?

“They…they took her. They took…the baby…”

“I’ll get her back,” I said, and I tore strips of cloth from my dress and packed them into her wounds.

“He’ll…protect her,” she said softly. “He promised…I promised.”

“I owe you more than I can ever repay, Hilary Garner,” I whispered.

“White Plains,” she said, and she was weakening rapidly. “They’re going to try…to take her back…there.”

“I’ll go for her. Don’t worry, I’ll find her.”

A soft hand came up to grip my wrist as I worked to pack another wound with cloth. “The…others…first.”

I frowned down at her.

“Route…Ten,” she gasped and bit her lip. “Twelve miles north. An old…l-logging road…veers east.”

“And what is there, Hilary? Is that where the others are being held?”

She nodded, her eyes falling closed. But then popping open again, blazing with urgency. “The Pit,” she whispered. “Dead… by dawn…all of them…”

My hands stilled as an icy chill swept through me. “By dawn?” My God, how could I do this? How could I, alone, rescue the others before sunrise? I couldn’t.

“I…I didn’t know,” the weakened woman went on. “All those years…worked for them…didn’t know…I swear…”

“I know that. You’re a good woman, Hilary. A kind, caring woman.”

“ ‘P-pray for me… Sister… pray… for me…”

I closed my eyes in anguish over this woman’s pain. And over what she asked of me. “I can’t…”

“Yes. You can. God sent you to…find me. He…still hears you.”

Tears burned in my eyes, because I did so want to believe it was true. Whether I did or not, though, I couldn’t deny her this one small comfort. Bowing my head, I gathered her hands in mine. “Our Father,” I whispered, “Who art in heaven…”

She mouthed the words along with me for a time, but stopped before the end. A soft smile played at her lips then, and her eyes opened, wide and clear and bright. “Thank you,” she said to me. And then looked beyond me, lifting a hand toward something I could not see. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes…I’ll keep my promise now.” Her face relaxed, and her eyes fell gently closed. Her hand dropped to the ground at her side. And for just an instant, it seemed a soft white glow emanated from her still form. A glow that seemed to rise like mist from rain-damp ground. I blinked, rubbing my eyes. But there was nothing there, when I looked again. Only a still, empty body. And I thought of the abandoned farmhouse not far from here.

I buried Hilary Garner in a shallow grave, which I scraped from the earth with my hands. I gathered what stones I could find nearby to build a cairn atop her. And I knew it was enough. Nothing would disturb this grave. I sensed it, knew it with my heart.

And then I rose on wobbly legs, and turned in the direction that would lead me to the road.

Stiles drove while Special Agent Keller—the rookie who’d come running out of the woods looking spooked with the infant in his arms—rode shotgun in the back seat. He sat beside the kid gun drawn, wide eyes skimming the dark woods they passed. He was scared. Stiles knew scared when he saw it, and the rookie had all the symptoms.

Figured he’d get saddled with a spooky recruit on a job this important. It just figured. If he lost the kid again, Whaley would have his hide.

They were almost to the town of Petersville now. Stiles automatically glanced into his rearview mirror to check on his passengers, and then he did a double-take, because he could see the little one very clearly in the mirror. And she was kicking her blankets away from her and smacking on her fist like any normal baby might do.

His stomach clenched a little as his conscience whispered in his brain. What if the kid was…was normal? What if she didn’t turn out to be like those animals who’d spawned her?

He looked at her again, and the tiny fist lowered from her bow-shaped mouth. Her huge, dark eyes seemed to stare straight into his, in the mirror. His throat went dry. He had to look away.

Stiles forcibly tore his gaze from the baby’s, and when he did, he shouted an expletive and jerked the steering wheel. The car went into a skid, sliding sideways, throwing dirt and gravel as it scraped the road’s shoulders, and finally coming to a jerky stop halfway to the ditch.

“What the hell are you doing?” Keller shouted, righting himself and retrieving his gun from the floor. “Trying to get us killed?”

Stiles blinked and stared at the road. “There was something…‘” he muttered. He got out of the car and walked a few steps from it onto the dirt road, and stood there looking left and right.

Keller came up behind him, gun back in his hand. “Did you see something?”

“Yeah,” Stiles whispered. “But…” He gave his head a shake, and turned to Keller. “I don’t suppose you saw it, did you?”

“I didn’t see anything,” Keller said. “What was it? A deer? Or..hey, Stiles, it wasn’t one of them, was it?”

Stiles shook his head slowly. “No. Damn, Keller, you can’t tell anyone about this, okay? Anyone sees us sitting here, we say we had a flat tire. You got that?”

Keller nodded. “Sure. So long as you’re gonna tell me what you saw.”

“What I thought I saw,” Stiles corrected him. “Because it wasn’t real.”

“So what did you think you saw?” Keller asked, shoving his gun back into his pocket.

Stiles shook his head, looking at his feet. “There was this light. And then we got closer, and it looked like…”

“Looked like what?” Keller prompted.

Stiles sighed. “An angel. White gown and wings and the works. All glowing with this white light, and standing right in the middle of the damned road.” Again, he shook his head, this time with a nervous laugh. “And then it was gone. Stupid, huh? I think I need to get more sleep, maybe take some time off…”

“Or…m-m-maybe not,” Keller said.

Stiles lifted his head and saw the rookie’s ashen face. His wide eyes and trembling forefinger were both aimed at the car, and when Stiles looked, it was to see that same eerie white glow spilling from every window in the vehicle. It glowed brighter than any man-made light could possibly do, just for a moment, and then the light faded away.

He gave his head a shake, as if he could somehow clear it, and then forced himself to move forward. But he had a pretty good idea already what he was going to find when he reached the car.

He leaned over the vehicle, peered inside, and then straightened and looked back at Keller, who was still rooted to the spot where he stood.

“The baby?” Keller asked.

Stiles blinked, feeling dazzled and shell-shocked. And then he just shook his head. Gone. The kid was gone as if she’d never been there.

Keller was breathing hard all of a sudden. “We gotta get out of here,” he muttered, hurrying back to the car. “It might come back here…for us, this time.”

Stiles gripped his shoulder and pulled him up short. “Listen, Keller, and listen good. No one is to hear about what we saw here tonight, got that? We talk about this, we’re gonna get locked up in a rubber room somewhere. Hell, we might even end up subjects for DPI study.”

Keller gasped at that statement. “We had a flat,” he said slowly. “We got out to change the tire, and someone grabbed the kid. We didn’t see a thing.”

Stiles nodded, swallowed hard, and, with frequent nervous glances over his shoulder, made his way back to the car.

It had been a miracle, Susan Jennings thought, over and over again. Only twenty-four hours ago, she’d swerved her car to miss a deer, and lost control. God, in heaven, she’d never forget the fear that had taken hold of her as the wheel had been wrenched from her hands and the car somersaulted down the side of that embankment.

Or the utter horror of pulling herself from the ground and realizing that little Alicia had still been inside.

And then, just like angels, those two strangers had appeared, as if out of nowhere. Just like angels, she thought again, smiling as she pushed the rocker into motion, cradling Alicia in her arms and holding her bottle to her lips. They’d saved her baby’s life. And then vanished in the night before she’d even had a chance to thank them.

Alicia’s gentle sucking slowed, and then stopped as her blue, blue eyes fell closed. Susan got up carefully, and tiptoed across the room to lower the baby into her bed. Then gently tucked the covers around her.

A soft knock sounded at the front door.

Susan turned, frowning hard, and sending a quick glance toward the clock on the wall. Who in the world would be calling at this time of night? She went to the door, opened it a crack and stared out into the kindest brown eyes she’d ever seen.

I raced north on Route 10, driving Jameson’s car, which I had located right where he left it, concealed by a stand of pines off the roadside a few miles beyond the now-abandoned cabin. And I did as he had so wisely done then. Hid it from DPI’s vigilant eyes. I saw the log road that veered to the east, but drove past it, pulling the car into a grove off the roadside, and then turning back on foot.

And when I found the logging trail again, I did not travel upon it, but cloaked in the shadows of the trees that lined its edges. The darkness was my friend tonight, as it had never been before. And as I drew nearer, black clouds skittered across the face of the low-hanging moon, painting it with velvet brush strokes, and deepening the night still more.

I saw a bubble in the ground, like a clear glass dome. And around it, four men stood like sentries guarding some coveted treasure. All of them armed, I knew. I could not hope to take them on all at once. One of them would be bound to shoot me with his deadly little darts.

What should I do?

Lure them away, I thought. One by one, if necessary. But Lord, the sun would not be long in rising. And I saw now why that would spell death for the four who must be trapped beneath that clear bubble.

I gripped the lowest bough of the pine under which I stood, and with a twist of my hand, snapped the branch in two. It made a startling sound in the night, and all four guards went stiff and alert.

“What was that?” one demanded. “Who’s there?” He lifted his weapon.

“Probably just an animal,” said a second.

“I don’t think so.”

“So go check it out.”

The first man shook his head. “Whaley said to do everything in pairs. You know how tricky their kind is.”

“Come on, then. We’ll both go.”

The two men turned toward me, and started forward, moving slowly, weapons aimed. One drew a flashlight into his free hand pointed it my way and clicked a button. I pushed myself off the ground quickly, landing in the safety of the pine tree’s arms before that beam of light fell on me. One at a time had been my plan. Not two at once. No matter. I wouldn’t give up. Couldn’t. Jameson, that vengeful vampire, was trapped like a rat, and when the sun rose…

I shuddered as I thought of the agonizing way in which he would die. Felt a peculiar emptiness growing inside me at the very thought of it, and my stomach tied itself up in knots. And then I stilled myself, and waited. The two did not walk close together as I’d hoped they would. But not far enough apart to suit me either. One of them stopped directly beneath me.

The other stood, perhaps four feet away, his back to me now. I would have to be quick, and smart. Quicker and smarter than the men were. It shouldn’t be hard, I told myself. I was a vampire.

I let myself fall from the tree, landing squarely atop the man who stood there. He emitted a loud grunt before my fists crashed down onto his skull, rendering him unconscious…at least. The other one whirled at the sound and leveled his weapon at me. Using all my speed, I dived to the side, and the dart his gun fired skimmed over my arm, cutting, but not embedding itself in my skin. Its tip sank into the tree beside me. I prayed it hadn’t discharged any of that drug into my flesh. In the split second it took for the man to find me again with his sights, I’d plucked the dart from the tree and hurled it at him.

It drove itself deeply into my attacker’s throat. His gun clattered to the ground, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Then he fell forward, and did not move again.

But I had not been as quiet at I would have liked. The two remaining at the dome were aware of the commotion, and one lifted a radio to his mouth. I snatched the gun from the ground, pointed it and pulled the trigger. But only a muted “click” came in reply. The gun hadn’t been reloaded. “Something’s going down,” a guard shouted at his radio. And I threw the empty weapon at him with all my strength. “Get us some back—unnnnnhhhh—” The metal dart gun hit him squarely in the face, and he was flung backward so hard he crashed through the glass dome behind him. I heard him hit the bottom, far below, and then I heard no more.

I stood, without shelter, my eyes holding those of the one remaining man. He held his hands toward me, shaking his head from side to side. “Please…just take them, okay? Just—”

I must have been quite a frightening sight to this poor mortal. My hair in tangles, and no doubt littered with pine needles and stray leaves. My hands scraped raw and dirty from digging a grave for Hilary. My dress torn from my mad race through the forest, and my arms and chest spattered and smeared with Hilary’s blood as well as my own.

Perhaps she’d been right. Perhaps God was directing my steps. Somehow.

I nodded to the gun in the remaining guard’s hand, and he dropped it to the ground. I lifted a hand and pointed to the radio attached to his belt, and he tossed that aside as well. And then I moved toward him. The fear in his eyes reached me, and I almost felt sorry for him. He began to back away, but I didn’t want him falling through the shattered dome and dying, so I pushed off with a burst of speed, and before he could have seen me move, I had him by the front of his shirt.

“D-d-don’t kill me,” he whispered. “P-please…”

I put my arms firmly around him, and jumped through the break in the glass bubble. He howled aloud as we plummeted, but I held him tight when we hit, not falling on my backside as I was so prone to do.

Around me I sensed the stunned expressions on the faces of the others. But I only glanced away from my captive long enough to assure myself they were all there, and all alive. My eyes locked with Jameson’s for a long moment. He pulled uselessly against the chains that bound his wrists to the wall, and I felt anger such as I had never known at those who had put him here, left him here to die. But I pulled my gaze free, forcibly so.

“Where is my child?” I demanded, giving the guard a shake.

“I…I don’t know…I’s-swear—” His wide eyes danced around the room, fear-filled as he saw the fury of each captive vampire, and then horrified still more as he saw the prone form of the other guard, the one who’d fallen through the glass dome. The man’s body lay broken in the center of the floor.

I shook him again, snapping his head back and forth with the force of it. “Pay attention to me, you little liar,” I said to him. “Where is she? Where is my baby?”

“They were taking her back…to headquarters,” he stammered. “B-but they had a flat. Th-they got out to change the tire and—and—and—‘”

“And what, mortal!”

“The kid was gone!” he blurted, sobbing now. His nose was running and tears pooled in his eyes. “Just g-gone. S-someone took her right outta the c-car. A radio alert went out—w-we thought it was you!”

I believe the man was telling me the truth, or as much of the truth as he knew. Of course, what he said could not have been what had truly happened. The only ones who could have rescued my baby were here, with me. Except for Hilary, of course, but sweet Hilary was dead. I’d buried her among the pine needles, beneath the pungent, sentrylike trees in the forest.

“But I thought…I thought Hilary had the child,” Tamara’s soft voice asked, filling this dark pit with warmth.

I turned to face her, meeting her wounded eyes. “I’m sorry, Tamara. They…they killed Hilary.”

She cried out when I said it, then let her head fall until her chin touched her chest, and her tears fell in silence.

“I found her in the forest. Dying. And she told me where you all were being held, that you’d be dead by dawn unless I found a way to help you.”

“Thank God for her,” Tamara whispered.

“I have,” I replied. “I buried her there in the forest. It’s a beautiful place, Tamara. She’s at peace there.” She nodded, thanking me with her eyes, if not with her lips.

“And now DPI has my daughter again.”

“They don’t,” the guard piped up. “I told you—”

“No doubt they’ve told you this as a ruse,” I said. “A ploy, in case I came here and forced you to talk.” I looked at the others, the chains that bound them to the walls, and then glanced above me at the sky. Paling, already. Paling. I gave him another shake. “The keys.”

“R-right front p-p-pocket.”

I snatched the keys from the man’s pocket and pulled him with me to where Jameson stood, bleary eyed, and pale. Holding the guard with one hand, I unlocked the Vampire’s shackles with the other. Jameson stared at me. “You shouldn’t be here, Angelica. Dammit, can’t you ever do what you’re told?”

“I’m saving your life, Vampire,” I snapped. “Or hadn’t you noticed that yet?”

Jameson stepped away from the wall, and I slammed my prisoner up against it and snapped the vacant shackles around his wrists. Then I raced to each of the others, freeing them in turn.

Rhiannon rubbed her wrists, and gave me a weak imitation of her almost smile. “That was very good, Angelica. I might just make a goddess-among-women of you yet.”

“Thank you,” Tamara said, rushing into my arms and hugging me as hard as her strength would allow. “I thought this was the end. Thank you, Angelica!”

“Some people seem to have more difficulty showing gratitude than others,” Eric intoned. “But I, too, thank you, my dear.” This he said with a pointed glance at Jameson. And then he took Tamara into his arms and held her hard, closing his eyes tight, kissing her hair.

“Don’t be so quick with your gratitude, Eric. We’re not out of here, yet.” As he said it, Jameson looked upward. “None of us is strong enough to climb, or jump, out of this pit.”

“None but me, you mean.” I tapped Tamara’s shoulder, and when she turned to me, I wrapped my arms tightly around her, bent at the knees, and jumped with all my might. And we sailed past the shattered dome, landing safely on the ground. “Hide,” I whispered. “One of them managed to use his radio before I got to him. More might be coming.” Then I went back down for the others, and one by one, brought each of them out in the same manner.

Jameson insisted I take the others before him. Rhiannon reluctantly stepped into my embrace. “Imagine,” she said. “I’m reduced to depending on a mere fledgling for salvation.”

“Even worse,” I told her. “You’re being forced into a hug.”

She scowled at me as we soared upward. But I saw her deep affection for me hiding there beyond the scowl. And I wondered how I could come to love a woman more truly than if she were my own sister, in so short a time.

At last only my nemesis remained. We faced each other for a moment. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “I told you to go after the baby.”

“I’ll stand a far better chance of reaching her with your help,” I told him.

“You’re stubborn and foolish!”

“You’re an arrogant, overbearing jerk,” I spit back.

“You could have been killed, coming back for us,” he said to me.

“And you would have died if I hadn’t,” I whispered. “I had to try, Jameson. I couldn’t bear the thought.” I slipped my arms around his waist. “Hold on to me.”

He gripped my shoulders in his hands, and I looked up, into his eyes. “No,” I said, and my voice trembled now. “Hold me close.”

He stared down into my eyes for a long moment, and then he pulled me tight to him, bowed his head and kissed my mouth. Feverishly, he kissed me. Desperately. And I clung to him, and kissed him back with the same unrestrained fierceness. When at last, he lifted his head away, I was shuddering with longing for this man I knew felt nothing for me except contempt. But it didn’t fill me with disgust and self-loathing as he probably thought it did. I refused to let it. I wasn’t yearning for the touch of a monster, or even of a sinful man whom I hated. I yearned for this man, whom I had come to care for, somehow. And I saw no terrible sin in that.

We bent our knees and jumped together, though he was still too weakened by the drug to be of much help, and we landed on the ground, still clinging to each other. He stood, pulled me to my feet and, for some reason I did not understand, he clung to my hand as we ran off into the forest, in the direction the others had taken. We didn’t speak again. I saw lights in the distance, heard mortal voices as DPI troops fanned into the woods like soldiers, searching for us. No doubt intent on killing us all, on sight. We went quickly, and quietly, and when we reached the car, we piled inside. Even Roland, though he protested at riding in the thing.

The sky became lighter, paling to purple, as I sped back to the only shelter I could think of. The abandoned house where Jameson and I had planned to stay that first night. But when I stopped the car and got out, Jameson touched my arm.

“We’ll leave the car here. If they find it, they’ll think we’re trapped inside the house, and it might distract them. But I think we should head for that cave of yours.”

“There’s no time,” I said, searching his eyes.

“It’s darker in the forest,” Rhiannon said quickly. “There will be time, if we hurry.”

We did hurry, though the others were far slower than I. Twice Tamara told me to run ahead, to leave them and wait for them at the cave, but I refused to leave these newfound friends. I had come, in a very short time, to care for them very deeply. They’d become the family I had never had. The reward I’d always dreamed my goodness would earn for me, as a child. They were all risking their lives to help my baby daughter. And I would lay down my life for any one of them.

But even if it hadn’t been for the love I felt for Tamara and Rhiannon, I could not have brought myself to leave Jameson. If the sun rose and began to blister my skin that very moment, I could not have gone on without him.

It was because he was the father of my child, I told myself, as I walked beside him through the gathering light. I was linked to him through the baby. That must be the explanation.

He turned and looked into my eyes then, and something inside me seemed to rouse from a heavy slumber. And I knew that my theory held no water. There was a bond between us. But for my part, at least, it wasn’t our daughter alone that had created it.

There was something more. Something I could not begin to understand.

You’re in love with him, fledgling, Rhiannon’s voice whispered in my mind.

I swung my gaze to meet hers, startled, realizing I’d forgotten to guard my thoughts.

She smiled at me, sent me a wink. And I sensed she spoke to me alone, and kept her thoughts between us, so Jameson couldn’t hear them. Yet another trick I’d like to learn. Of course, I knew it from the first time he spoke of you. You’ll be good for him, Angelica. Exactly what our arrogant young Jameson needs. Her smile grew larger as she slanted a glance at him. Then she looked at me again, mischief in her eyes. Don’t tell him just yet, young one. He needs to suffer a bit longer, I think.

Suffer? Oh, Rhiannon might be wise, but she had no clue about Jameson. He wasn’t suffering at all on my account. His only torment came of his longing for our child, and of his craving for revenge against DPI. He might want me with the passion of a madman. But there was nothing beyond that. And as for me, well, I most certainly was not in love with him.

It would be a very foolish woman, indeed, who would let herself love a man who despised her.

Chapter Thirteen

Jameson came awake slowly, the scents of the night gradually filling his lungs and coaxing him away from the heavenly arms that held him in his dream. When he was half-awake, at just about the point where he’d decided he’d rather not wake up, he realized those arms were Angelica’s. And those were her lips, and her soft moans he’d been playing in his mind all day. It made him angry that he couldn’t control his mind while he slept. He wouldn’t dream of her that way if he had a choice in the matter. Because it was too disappointing to wake to the harsh realization that she would never whisper the things to him in the realm of reality, that she did in the dreamworld.

He’d been resting against the cool stone wall. And he’d fallen asleep with Angelica close beside him. But as he wrestled himself more fully awake and turned to look at her, just to assure himself she wasn’t truly as beautiful as his dream had painted her—though he knew full well she was—he didn’t find her there. She was gone. A tiny trill of alarm shivered up his spine, and he sat up straighter, blinking the sleep haze from his eyes.

“Good, you’re awake,” Roland said. “We need to get an early start if we’re going to catch up to them before they have the child firmly installed in that building in White Plains.”

The others were up as well, Rhiannon brushing her long hair Tamara snuggling sleepily in Eric’s arms.

“Not we,” Jameson said softly. “I.”

“Jamey—” Tamara began, sitting up straighter, but he cut her off.

“No, Tamara. I’m not willing to have you risking your lives for me anymore. You could have been killed. And the risk is even greater now. They’ll be furious that we escaped, and more determined than ever to kill us all.” As he spoke his gaze kept darting toward the cave’s entrance, but no sign of Angelica appeared there.

“Worried about her?” Rhiannon asked.

Jameson snapped his head around, met her mischievous black eyes. “Where is she?”

“She went out to scout the area. Said she wanted to be sure it was safe for us to emerge.”

“She shouldn’t be out there alone,” Jameson said, and he started toward the entrance.

“Just what is going on between the two of you?” Tamara asked, and her tone suggested she might be thinking there was considerably more between them than there was.

“Don’t start, Tamara,” he said. “There’s nothing between Angelica and me.”

“Nothing but a baby,” she countered.

“Oh, there’s more than a baby,” Rhiannon said, lifting her brows. “There’s passion. The air practically crackles with it when they’re close. And the way they look at each other.” She smiled softly. “I think you love the girl, Jameson.”

“Rhiannon,” Roland warned, but she only smiled at him, and sent her knowing gaze right back to Jameson.

Hearing it stated aloud like that made him feel more miserable than ever. “Of course I don’t love her,” he snapped. He’d be a damned fool if he did, wouldn’t he? Since he knew perfectly well she felt nothing for him. Nothing beyond the physical at least. “I feel nothing for the woman,” he said.

A sound near the entrance brought his head around. Angelica’s eyes met his, but she quickly looked away. There was no doubt in his mind she’d heard what he’d said. And for some reason, he sensed a shimmer of pain in her gaze. Ridiculous.

“I don’t see any DPI men hiding in the trees,” she said softly. A little too softly, in fact. “I think it’s safe to venture out.”

“Next time wait for me,” Jameson told her.

Her violet eyes fixed on him, flashing with rebellion. “That’s right. I’m still your prisoner, aren’t I? Forgive me for not asking permission before I went out of your sight. Foolish of me to think that saving your life would change things, wasn’t it?”

“That’s not what I meant—Angelica!” But she’d turned and hurried out of the cave again, leaving him there to wonder why she was so angry.

“Well done,” Rhiannon said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Well done.”

He shrugged free of her touch and hurried out of the cave, stepping gratefully into the bracing coolness of the night. A chill autumn breeze snaked up his neck, eliciting a shiver. The moon was completely invisible tonight, obliterated by dark clouds that filled the entire sky. And the wind moaned and whistled in the pine boughs. He didn’t see her at first. And then he spotted her, standing with her back to the cave, staring off into the forest. Her hair danced in the wind, long satiny fingers waving, crooking. As if to draw an unwary traveler close. As if to draw him close.

Stiffening his spine, he went to join her there, knowing full well he was letting himself fall victim to her silent allure. But then, that was what he’d been doing all along, wasn’t it? Hell, he’d never been a man who found it easy to admit defeat. He stepped up behind her, standing very close. But she didn’t acknowledge his presence. Didn’t even look at him. It was a revelation, to know a woman who detested him so thoroughly. A new experience for him.

“I didn’t mean that you needed to ask permission before leaving my side, Angelica. You know that. It’s just that going out alone could be dangerous. I was concerned for your safety. That’s all.” And as he spoke he stepped up beside her. Still not touching her, though everything in him wanted to.

She slanted him a brief glance, but quickly returned to her contemplation of the forest. “Well I appreciate your concern, Vampire, but it’s unwarranted. You may not have noticed, but I’m becoming quite adept at taking care of myself.”

“I have noticed,” he said. He scanned the surrounding trees, hoping to see what she found so interesting. Seeing nothing unusual, he concluded she simply didn’t want to look at him.

“I must have seemed like a pathetic wretch of a vampire to you,” she said, her tone musing. “I’ve no idea why it took me so long to find myself again. But I assure you, Jameson, when I was mortal, I was never so needy or weak.”

“I never thought you were weak.”

She turned to him, facing him fully for the first time. “But I’m still your prisoner. Tell me, Vampire, do you really think it is still my intention to steal our daughter and take her away where you’ll never find her?”

Her eyes were a pale lilac color in the centers, deepening to dark purple at the edges, glittering everywhere. “I don’t know,” he said, unable to look away. “Is it?”

She blew air through clenched teeth, an exasperated sound, and turned away. “If it was, then why would I have come back for you? I could have left you there to die, and had my daughter all to myself when I found her.”

“If you found her,” he said. “As you pointed out, you’ll have a far greater chance of getting her back with my help.”

“And you believe that’s the only reason I came back for you.” She stated it flatly, neither confirming nor denying it.

“What else would you have me believe?” He leaned one shoulder against a sticky pine, folded his arms across his chest, and eyed her. She didn’t care for him. Detested him. Had told him as much. It hurt that her desire for him disgusted her. It hurt far more than it should. “The lust between us is strong, Angelica, but I can’t believe you risked your pretty neck just for the chance to have me again.”

“You’re an arrogant fool.”

“Not so arrogant,” he told her. “It runs both ways. You know that.”

He reached out, stroked the slender column of her throat with the backs of his fingers. Maybe…he just needed to make sure. Glutton for punishment, wasn’t he? She slapped his hand away, but not before he’d felt the gentle shudder that worked through her. Yes, she still wanted him. And yes, she was still repulsed by it. He had his answer.

“Come along, lovebirds,” Rhiannon called with barely concealed laughter in her voice. Jameson felt certain she’d witnessed that little slap. And it angered him all the more. “We need to get moving.”

He leaned in close to Angelica, and even before he spoke he knew that wounded pride was a dangerous thing. “It doesn’t matter that my touch disgusts you, does it, Angel? We both know you crave it.”

“Remind me of that when you touch me again and I’ll tear the fingers from your hand, Vampire.” And with those scathing words, she turned to join the others as they hiked through the forest.

No DPI forces surrounded the abandoned house where they’d left the car. So once again they all piled inside and started south. Their destination was DPI headquarters in White Plains. They knew that was where the bastards would have taken Amber Lily, and if it cost Jameson his life, he’d get the child back.

And once she was out of harm’s way, he’d return there. To make the world a safe place for her.

They’d only traveled a bit more than ten miles, though, when they spotted a DPI van, and then several other cars with the familiar government emblem on their doors, all parked along the roadside, practically lining the tiny village of Petersville. Men in suits were knocking on doors, talking to people.

“What the hell is this?” Jameson whispered, as he slowed to a crawl, and drove carefully along the town’s main street.

“Either they’ve decided to sell cosmetics as a sideline,” Tamara said, “or they’re doing a house-to-house search.”

“For us?” Angelica asked, eyes widening.

“No.” Rhiannon’s comment drew all eyes, except for Jameson’s. He kept his hopping between the road and the men who had apparently invaded the town. “We’ve never made a habit of seeking refuge in a mortal household,” Rhiannon went on. “What earthly reason would they have to think we’d start now?”

Jameson blinked. In the seat beside him, Angelica drew a trembling breath.

“The baby?” she whispered.

“Perhaps that guard wasn’t lying when he said she’d disappeared,” Roland offered.

“But that’s impossible. Who would take her? And why, for God’s sake?” Angelica’s voice rose an octave, and Jameson knew panic when he heard it. “What kind of person would steal a baby from a parked car, while its drivers were busy changing a tire? What kind of sick, twisted person would—‘”

“Angel.” Jameson put his hand over hers, closed his around it, felt it trembling. It was odd the way he forgot his anger and frustration with the woman when he saw her upset. “Don’t think the worst. We don’t even know that’s what this is. They might very well be searching for us.”

“Keep driving, Jameson. We’ll find out what’s going on here in short order,” Eric said. So Jameson drove. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to release his hold on Angelica’s hand. Before they got to the edge of town, though, he could see the roadblock set up farther along the road. A battered pickup truck ahead of him was stopped and then searched, its driver questioned.

Jameson looked around for another way out of town, but saw none. Stopping in the middle of the road would draw suspicion, and pulling a U-turn would likely get them all killed.

The hand he still held exerted gentle pressure, and when he looked at Angelica, she was nodding toward an oversize, modern log cabin at the very edge of town. It stood atop a small hill, with a long driveway leading up to it, and seemed set apart from the village proper. “There,” Angelica said. “It looks empty. Pull in the driveway and act as if we belong here.”

“And what if it’s not empty?” Why was it, he wondered, that he felt compelled to disagree with everything she said?

“Look, those scaffolds on the far side. And the roof. It’s only partly shingled.”

“She’s right,” Eric put in. “The place is still under construction. Pull in, Jameson, we don’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

Nodding his agreement, Jameson turned the car into the driveway, drove all the way to the house and then cut the engine. They sat silently at the cabin’s feet, an elevated redwood deck stretching out above them.

“It’s a beautiful house,” Tamara said.

“It’s nearly all windows,” Rhiannon returned. “Foolish mortals and their damnable love of glass.”

“We should go inside.” Angelica sent a worried glance at the cars still blocking the road just south of town. “It will look suspicious if we just sit here.”

“If we go all at once, and they see us…” Jameson bit his lip, to stop himself from disagreeing with her yet again.

“It’s dark, Jameson,” Rhiannon pointed out. “The moon is covered by clouds. They can barely see their own noses, let alone count heads from way down there.” And since she was sitting beside one of the rear doors she opened it and got out. Roland and Tamara followed, and then Eric got out the passenger side in the front, extending a hand to Angelica. Always the gentleman, Jameson thought rather unkindly. But he got out as well. They trooped around the deck to the broad steps, mounted them, and entered the house from the deck through sliding glass doors. They’d been locked, but mortals had yet to develop a lock that could keep a vampire out.

Inside they were met by a broad cobblestone fireplace, with a glass face, a gleaming hardwood bar, wall-to-wall plush carpeting and a sofa, love seat and chairs that resembled fat brown teddy bears.

“This place is fabulous,” Tamara said, sinking into one of the chairs. The thing seemed to hug her. “I wonder if the plumbing is finished? What I wouldn’t give for a hot bath about now.”

Jameson stiffened. “You won’t be staying that long.” Tamara lifted her head, and eyebrows at the same time. “What do you mean? We can’t very well go on, Jamey, with them blocking the road.”

“You know damned well you can,” he told her. “You just take to the woods, and skirt around them. Borrow another vehicle south of town and continue from there.”

Roland tilted his head to one side. Eric crooked a brow. “What about you?”

“I’m staying,” he said. “I’ll stick around just long enough to find out what they’re looking for. If it isn’t my daughter, then I’ll move on exactly the way you did.”

“And go back to White Plains?” Eric asked.

He only nodded.

Tamara got up, pacing, running her hands over the crocheted afghan that was draped over the back of the sofa. “We’ll all stay,” she said, though it was obvious she knew he’d argue. “And then we’ll leave together.”

“Tam—”

“Jameson is right.” It was Angelica who spoke, and they all turned to face her, with surprise in their eyes. “You’re good friends, but you were already nearly killed in this search. I know you want to help us. But think of what it would do to Jameson if one of you lost your life in the process. Think of how he would feel.”

Grating his teeth, Eric nodded. Roland lowered his head. Even Rhiannon seemed resigned.

“There’s time enough left tonight for you to get out of here,” Jameson said. “I don’t want you trapped in this town with DPI agents milling around like flies. I won’t be here myself any longer than I have to.”

He saw Tamara’s eyes moisten. But she nodded. “All right.” she said. “I…I guess I’d feel the same way if I were in your place.”

“You know damn well you would.” He turned to Angelica, then, knowing the toughest battle would be this one.

“Don’t even suggest it,” she said.

He drew a deep breath. “I can find out what we need to know by myself,” he said. “There’s no need for us both to take the risk. Go with them. Meet me back in White Plains.”

“And if Amber Lily is here? What then, Jameson? You might pass by her and not even realize it. No. No, if you want me to leave you’ll have to drag me out of here. Otherwise, I’m staying.”

“Angelica—”

“I’m her mother,” she said, staring at him with so much determination and fire in her eyes that he knew the fight was lost. “I have every right to be here. And here is where I’m staying.”

He closed his eyes, lowered his head.

Tamara came to him then, hugged him hard. “I love you, Jamey. Be careful. Please.”

He hugged her back. Then said his goodbyes to each of the others. He noticed, not for the first time, that they seemed just as reluctant to leave Angelica as they were to leave him. She had a way about her. Worked right into a person’s soul before he knew what the hell had hit him. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one so beguiled by her magic.

Finally, the others slipped out the back and vanished into the forest’s sheltering arms. Jameson watched them go, and then he paced. He needed a plan. He needed a solid, safe plan whereby he could find out what the hell was going on in this town without being seen. And without putting Angelica in danger.

But he was damned if he could think of any way to do it.

She sat on the sofa, her fingers absently toying with the afghan on its back. And he didn’t like looking at her there, because he wanted her so much it was painful.

So he stalked into what would no doubt be the kitchen when finished. It was now no more than stark white wallboard with blotches of spackling compound in regular patterns. A stepladder stood in the room’s center, with a painter’s apron tossed over one rung.

He turned when Angelica came in behind him, knowing she was there even before he saw her.

“We can’t just sit here,” she told him. “We have to find out what they’re searching for.”

“And how do you suggest we do that, Angelica? Walk up to one of them and ask?”

“Not one of them, but one of the residents of the town. It should be a simple enough mission.” She had the crocheted throw in her hands now. As he watched, she wrapped it around her like a shawl, complete with a hood that hid her hair.

“You’re not going out there,” he told her.

“They’ve seen you a lot more recently than they’ve seen me, Vampire. In fact, when I was held there, very few people ever saw me. Most of them wouldn’t recognize me even without my little disguise. I’ll walk back to that little shop we passed, on the pretense of buying something. It will be simple.”

“No.”

She came closer to him, put her hands on his upper arms. “Jameson, please. We have to do something. I can’t just sit here, it’s driving me crazy.”

Jameson saw the desperation in her eyes. Dammit, he couldn’t refuse her when she looked at him that way. What was wrong with him, anyway, that he found even the smudges on her face endearing? He sighed hard. “All right, if you insist on this, then I’ll go with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t. You’d be too easily recognized, Vampire,” she told him. “You told me yourself how often you’ve dealt with them.”

But for once he was ready for her arguments. “I’ll follow you. I’ll keep to the shadows. No one will see me.”

“And if they do, they’ll think nothing of some dark stranger stalking a lone woman in the middle of the night,” she said.

“My way or no way, Angel. I go with you or you don’t go at all.”

“While we argue over this, our daughter could be…” She closed her eyes, not finishing. “All right,” she said. “You win.” And she lifted her head to search his face.

He restrained himself from wiping a smear of dirt from her cheek. It wouldn’t be wise to touch her just now, when she was looking so vulnerable…so beautiful. “Go on, got get cleaned up,” he told her. “You’re sure to attract notice like that.”

She looked down at her clothes as if she’d forgotten the state she was in. “Okay.”

He watched her go in search of a bathroom, listened to the sounds she made, the water splashing over her skin. She was quick, back in minutes, looking cleaner, but no less worried.

Not waiting for his permission, she walked past him, going back through the living room to the door they’d entered.

“Wait, Angelica,” he said, hurrying after her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “If you’re going on the pretense of buying something, you’ll need cash. Here.” He pressed several bills into her warm hand. Felt it shaking with anticipation of what she was about to learn. “Go slow,” he warned, “and keep your head down. Be careful, Angelica. I’ll be close by if you need me.”

She met his eyes, held them for one long moment, and he thought she might have wanted to say something. But then she seemed to change her mind. She turned, and hurried out the door.

Jameson turned in a slow circle, pushing his hands through his hair. He didn’t like what he was feeling. Didn’t like it a bit, and didn’t want to think about it. Not now, when he had to focus everything in him on finding his daughter. But soon. Soon he was going to have to come to grips with this thing that seemed to have taken possession of his very being.

Soon. Right now, he had an angel to follow.

I knew he’d kept his promise to follow me. I could feel the infuriating man, close to me, wherever I went, though I never once saw him. I glanced behind me often. I felt him close. But he seemed invisible.

The store was not far away. I found it easily, and thanked my stars that it was still open. Though nearly deserted. It seemed most people in this town had taken to their homes early tonight. Likely these troops of inquisitive government agents had frightened them half to death. The place was one large room, cluttered with bric-a-brac and snack foods. A bell over the door tinkled merrily as I stepped in from beneath an old-fashioned red-and-white-striped awning.

“Hello,” a friendly, male voice said, and I looked up, startled. But it was only the man who stood behind the counter, and his eyes held no malice. His head was shiny pink, with not a hair to be found, and he wore rectangular bifocals low on his nose. “Can I help you find something?”

“Do you have postcards?” I asked, trying to keep any hint of fear from my voice. The shop smelled of fresh coffee, and peppermint sticks.

“Sure do.” He came around the counter and led me to a rotating rack filled to overflowing with scenic postcards. “Lookin‘ for anything in particular?”

“I’ll know it when I see it,” I said with a tight-lipped smile. And I began scanning the cards as if in search of just the right one.

“So you’re a tourist. Didn’t think I recognized you.”

“Yes, just passing through.” I pulled a card with a photo of trees and mountains and blue sky. “Seems I picked a bad time to visit here,” I said. “Judging by the roadblocks and those men roaming the town. Was there a prison break or something nearby?”

The man shook his head, clucking like a hen as I handed him the card and he headed back to the register. “Crying shame, is what it is. What the world’s coming to, I’ll never know.” He punched buttons and the register chimed. The drawer slid open. I handed him a dollar bill.

“What happened?” I ventured.

He shook his head again. “Kidnapping,” he said. “Some young couple was traveling just north of town, and had a flat. Got out to change the tire, and when they got back in, their little baby daughter was gone. Someone snatched her, right outta that car.”

I lost my breath. My God, could what that guard have said been true? My baby had been stolen from me by DPI, and then stolen from them by…by whom?

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a terrible thing. Can’t believe it could happen right here in Petersville. Never had anything like this happen around here before. Goddamn perverts oughtta be shot.”

I caught my breath, tried to speak. “What are they doing to find the baby?”

“Well, they’ve got a roadblock set up south of town. Checking every vehicle that passes. They got search parties goin‘ through the woods, and more men going door to door askin’ questions. Personally, I don’t think it’s gonna do ‘em any good. One of those kind gets hold of a child…well, they rarely find ’em. Alive, anyway.”

I braced my hands on the counter to keep my knees from buckling. “Alive?”

“Them kind usually go for the older kids. Can’t imagine what they’d want with a little one like that. Sick sons-a-bitches.” He dug for change and closed the drawer. “Here you are, miss.”

I held out my hand for the chilled coins. “Thank you,” I muttered and turned to go.

“Don’t forget your postcard,” he called, and I turned back again. The card still lay on the counter. I picked it up, but I knew my hands were shaking badly. “You have a nice trip, now,” he called as I left the shop. I only nodded, and stepped outside.

Chapter Fourteen

I was shaken. More than shaken, when she came out the door with the bells that chimed with every movement. She stepped under the striped awning onto the broken sidewalk, stood perfectly still for a moment, closing her eyes. And then she shivered visibly, and she turned and she ran.

Jameson was so startled by it that he didn’t react at first. Just stood there dumbfounded and watched her go, watched the blanket shawl fly from her shoulders unnoticed as she disappeared, ducking around the corner of a building.

He shook himself and went after her, all thoughts of remaining hidden fleeing his mind. He paused where the blanket had fallen, picked it up and pressed its woolen softness to his hands. Damn. Something was wrong. Whatever she’d learned in that store had hit her hard.

For just a moment he wondered why a more obvious explanation for her flight didn’t occur to him. Shouldn’t he be assuming she’d run away, not from what she’d heard in the shop, but from him? Shouldn’t he be thinking that she’d fled as she’d promised she would, intent on finding his child and taking her far from the reach of a monster like him?

Probably. If he truly believed the things he’d been telling himself about Angelica from the start, he would, no doubt, have been thinking those thoughts. If he’d truly accepted his own rash judgment of the woman—that she saw them all as some lesser species, as animals, saw herself as somehow better than the rest of them, the things he’d been chanting like a mantra in his mind—then he’d have been furious with her right now.

But he wasn’t furious. He was worried. And there was, for some reason he could not explain, no question in his mind that she had not run from him. Why?

Because she’d risked her life to save the lives of his dearest friends. To save his life. Because he’d seen the way she’d hugged Tamara and the affection in her eyes when she bantered with Rhiannon. Because he’d seen her slowly become aware of her newfound strength, and watched her explore it and test it. Running beside him like a mischievous wood nymph. Leaping to see how high she could go. Reveling in the beauty of the night. Marveling at her psychic powers. Taking on four armed men like a lioness protecting her cub, and frightening one of them nearly to death as she questioned him about her child.

Angelica was none of the things he’d believed her to be. Least of all, selfish. And she would not deny him his child. Not when she knew how much that baby meant to him. And she did know. Because she couldn’t help but know. They were connected, the two of them. She felt what he did. And he felt…

He closed his eyes, sought for her with his mind. Anguish! Tears! Sobs that were painful in their intensity. And fear, a sickening, gut-churning fear. Those were what he felt right now, and the sensations came clearly, from her. From Angelica.

Jameson walked to the edge of the building, and looked down the wide lane that ran along its side, twisting up a hill and then vanishing into the forest. She’d gone this way. And he would find her.

She might still detest him. Hell, part of him couldn’t even blame her for that. He’d condemned her for a fool from the night he’d taken her from her cell. He’d made her his prisoner, threatened her, and then given in to the physical urges he knew she could not control—because, dammit, he couldn’t control them either.

Yes, she probably had more reason than ever to think of him as a monster, and to hate him. But he realized slowly that he’d lied when he’d said he hated her.

He’d never hated her. Not even on that long-ago night when she’d nearly taken his life.

Jameson turned and walked along the road she’d taken, searching for her with his mind. And it wasn’t long before he found her

Just inside the edge of the forest, she lay facedown on the moss-covered ground, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs. He stood there for a moment, wondering at the pain he felt seeing her like this. Not her pain, though he felt that too. But his own. Why did it tie his stomach in knots to see her crying? Why did his throat close up tight? Why did his eyes burn?

“Angel,” he whispered.

She drew a shuddering breath, and pushed herself up on her hands, lifting her head, looking at him. Her face was wet with tears, her eyes swollen and stricken. Some force compelled him to move forward, and he dropped to his knees in front of her, his hands sliding beneath her arms and closing around her as he pulled her tight to his chest. “Angel,” he whispered again, though speaking was agony. “Don’t cry. Please, it kills me to see you cry.” His fingers tangled in her hair, as if of their own will,, and he cupped the back of her head. Her damp face pressed to his neck, where his skin absorbed her tears. Her arms encircled his waist.

“It’s‘t-true,” she sobbed. “Someone has taken her, Jameson. They don’t know who has our baby. They don’t know where she is. What if—”

“Shh.” He stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back, willing the spasms to stop wreaking havoc on her slender body. “She’s away from them, Angel. She’s away from DPI. They can’t hurt her now.”

“But what kind of person would take her? What if it’s some horrible, demented—”

“No.” He clasped her shoulders and set her away from him. just a little. Just enough so he could look into her eyes as he spoke to her, enough so she could see the conviction in his eyes. “You’d feel it if she were in pain or distress. You know you would. And you don’t. You don’t.”

She blinked at the tears that pooled in her amethyst eyes, and stared so deeply into his that he felt she could see everything he’d ever been, or ever would be. “No,” she said softly. “No, I don’t.”

“Then she’s safe. We have to believe that, Angel. She’s safe for now. And away from those bastards who held her. We’ll find her before they do. I swear to Christ, Angel, we’ll find our daughter.”

He saw her lips tremble, and impulsively he pressed his lips to them, his only thoughts at that moment of stilling their tremors. Of soothing and calming this woman. He tasted her tears. When he lifted his head away, she searched his face.

“I’m so afraid for her, Jameson.”

“I know. I am, too.” He forced himself to let his arms fall away from her. Because he knew that in a few more moments, he wouldn’t be able to.

“No,” she said. Jameson looked at her, let her see his confusion. “I need…” she began, but her voice trailed into silence.

“What, Angel?”

“You. Your strength. Please, just hold me. Don’t let me go, not now. I’ve never felt so alone. I’ve never needed this way before, and I can’t…”

He’d sworn he’d refuse her the next time she came to him this way. He’d sworn…ah, but he’d been a fool. He could never refuse her. If she came to him a million times, he’d accept her a million times. He…

No. It wasn’t that.

He pulled her into his arms again, holding her close, and she clung to him as if she’d shatter should he let her go. She turned her face up to his, and he kissed her. No questions, no worrying over the repercussions. The guilt she’d feel when it was over. The revulsion that would swamp her when she realized that she’d given herself, once again, to a man she despised. It would come. He didn’t doubt that. But he didn’t care. She needed him. She’d said so. And Jameson needed her, right now, too. She was the only person in the world who truly understood his anguish over their missing daughter. The only one who could. It was the one thing they shared, this agony. And it seemed only fitting they share the comforting as well.

He kissed her, and her lips parted when he nudged them with his tongue. He tasted her mouth, knew its sweetness was his addiction. He’d never get enough of this…never get enough of her. Her hands became feverish, tugging his shirt open, tearing its buttons and scattering them on the forest floor. And then her mouth drew away from his, and she kissed his neck, and his chest, and his belly as he knelt there in the pine needles. Each touch of her mouth on his skin made him tremble, and he reached down to grip her tattered dress by the hem, and pulled it over her head.

Her naked breasts tantalized him, rubbing against his chest as she kissed his lips once more, their nipples hardening and pressing into him. His hands on her shoulders, he pushed her backward, until she lay down, and then he fell on her, feeding on her breasts like a man possessed. He suckled her hard, fiercely, bit at those distended nipples while her hands clasped his head to her.

This was madness. Sheer madness. But he couldn’t fight it. Didn’t want to fight it.

He rose, and pulled her to her feet. And then giving a gentle shove, he pressed her back against the stringy trunk of a pine. She stood braced there, panting, eyes half-closed, lips wet from his kisses, nipples erect and pulsing. And he released the button and the zipper on his jeans, and pushed them down until he could step out of them. Then he knelt, and kissed the sable curls between her legs. His tongue slipped between her lips, tasting the salty moistness there, and she gasped. He pressed his hands to her thighs, parting them, and then he pushed his face into her, licking up inside her, growing more frenzied with each taste of her, and driving deeper with his tongue. To devour her wasn’t enough, though he tried. He used his teeth and his mouth, heard her cries and felt her hands tugging at his hair.

And then he rose once more, sliding his mouth up over her belly, tasting her breasts on the way, and then taking her mouth again, holding her to the tree with his body while his hands worked to make her as crazy for him as he was for her.

“Take me, Vampire,” she whispered and she laid her head back against the pine, tilting her chin up and offering her luscious throat. Offering him everything. All of her. “Make it good. Make me forget…”

Gripping the back of her thighs and lifting, parting, he plunged himself inside her. She cried out in pleasure, and he thrust deeper, withdrawing and sinking himself to the root again and again. He felt her body responding, felt the tightening around him. Her hands at the back of his head again, guiding his mouth to her throat. “Do it,” she moaned. And he did. He opened his mouth over her soft flesh, and then he bit down, piercing her skin, and then her jugular. He thrust his hips forward, burying himself inside her even as he was drinking from her. And when she came, every part of her vibrated. Her legs locked around his waist and jerked tight, pulling him deeper. Her head tipped back farther pressing his fangs more deeply into her throat. Her back arched as she pressed herself open to take him all the way. Her arms clenched around him, and she screamed. His seed shot into her, and he held her there to receive it. All of it. And then he held her still longer, until the madness receded, and his body relaxed, and they sank to the ground as one.

And he didn’t want it to be over. He wasn’t ready for her guilt and revulsion. Her hatred of him and his kind. As he held her, he caught her chin, tipped her head up, and he lowered his, and he kissed her. Their passion was spent, and they were, for the moment at least, sated. Even drowsy. But he kissed her all the same. And it was a tender kiss, long and slow and gentle.

When he lifted his head, she opened her eyes, searching his face, her expression one of confusion.

“You’re not my prisoner, Angelica. You never really were,” he told her. “Whenever you feel you want to strike out on your own, you’re free to go.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered, and for just an instant, there was something in her eyes that took his breath away “Not ev…” She bit her lip, averted her gaze. “Not until we find Amber Lily.”

He only nodded. And then he released her, though to his surprise she seemed in no hurry for him to do so. He got to his feet and gathered up their clothes. And before he put his on, he went to her with the poor misused dress that had seen better days. And he slipped it over her head, and gently helped her put her arms through the sleeves, relishing every instant he could spend touching her.

She sat there on the ground, staring up at him, watching as he put his own clothes on. And she said, “I’ve been so wrong… about…so many things.”

He didn’t want to misunderstand her. He didn’t dare jump to conclusions, because it would destroy him. “About what, Angelica?”

She closed her eyes. The breeze came very gently, lifting her hair, making it dance. And then her head came up, and her eyes opened wide. “Listen,” she said.

Frowning, Jameson listened. But he didn’t hear a thing, apart from the usual myriad forest sounds. “What is it, Angel?”

“Don’t you hear them?” She tilted her head. “Bells, Vampire, Church bells.”

He felt a little shiver race up his spine, because there were no bells. My God, had his poor dark Angel been pushed too far? Had she slipped over the edge, to the black bottomless pit of insanity?

“Angel,” he whispered, taking her hand. But she was already getting to her feet, turning toward her imaginary sound, looking as if she were mesmerized or worse. And she started walking.

“Angel, wait. Where are you going?”

“To church,” she whispered, and then she turned to face him. her eyes perfectly sane. “It’s been too long, Jameson. I accused God of turning His back on me, but I was wrong. I was the one who turned my back on Him. Don’t you see? Hilary…she made it all so clear to me. When she was dying there in the woods…she told me God was still with me, guiding my steps. She told me that. He would help her keep her promise, to watch over Amber Lily until she was safe in our arms again. And now…now those bells.” He saw the relief in her eyes, wished to Christ these imaginary bells of hers were real.

“It has to mean something, Jameson. It has to. I’m not damned by God. I might have come close to damning myself by believing it, but not anymore. It’s going to be all right.”

“Yes,” he told her. “It is. I promise.”

She touched his face. “Come with me.”

And he nodded, because he didn’t have the heart to tell her she was imagining things. She took his hand, and started walking through the pines, higher and higher up a thickly forested slope. And then the wind picked up, just briefly, and for the slightest instant, Jameson thought he heard…bells.

I followed the sound of those bells, because I felt as if I had to. I had to go into the house of God, and fall to my knees, and tell Him that I was sorry. That I understood now. All that had happened to me had happened for a reason, and who was I to pretend to know why? I didn’t know. I only knew God still had a plan for me. I wasn’t estranged from Him at all. I’d only thought I was.

When we reached the top of the hill, I heard the vampire mutter under his breath. The bells had stopped now, but I no longer needed them. The tiny chapel sat alone amid the deep green pines. We’d come to it through the forest, but I saw the narrow, winding road that led to it from the town below. Its spire was nothing spectacular. Plain glass, rather than brilliantly stained panes filled its windows. A small red door stood at the front.

I sighed in relief, feeling as if I’d come home. And I climbed the steps. Jameson came along beside me, clinging to my hand, searching my face often. The door was unlocked as I’d known it would be.

The place was filled with yellow candlelight that danced and flickered on the hard wooden pews, and on the altar. A single worshiper sat there. A woman, who sat in the front pew, rocking the baby carriage she’d parked before her. And I recognized her. “Look,” I whispered to Jameson. “It’s her.” He nodded. “Yeah, the woman who had the car accident.”

“The one whose child you risked your life to save,” I said, and I squeezed his hand.

I moved on past. Jameson sat down in the front pew, and let me go forward on my own. And I did. I crossed myself and knelt before the wooden crucifix that stood alone on the altar, and in silence there, I prayed.

Jameson watched Angelica kneeling there. She seemed so serene, all of the sudden. And he knew this meant a lot to her, to make her peace with God. He sat beside the woman whose name he didn’t recall, and she looked up at him. Her eyes widened and then she smiled.

“You!” she whispered to him.

“Yes. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? How is the little one?”

“Alicia is fine,” the woman whispered, but she was shaking her head.

Jameson frowned, sensing her turmoil. “Is something wrong?”

“No. No, not wrong. Just…so many odd happenings. Seeing you again is the least of them, I suppose.” She closed her eyes. “Two miracles, in such a short space of time. First you and that…that beautiful girl, saving my baby from the car. And then…”

He tilted his head. She rocked the baby carriage that sat in front of her gently. “And then?”

“And then…I don’t know, exactly. But I think I was visited by an angel.”

Lord, but why must religion make so many people so very crazy? he wondered.

“She was beautiful, too. A dark-skinned angel, with the kindest brown eyes I’d ever seen. All dressed in white, and sort of…sort of glowing.”

Jameson saw Angelica stiffen. But she didn’t turn around. Just knelt there, rigid, listening.

“And…what did this angel want?” he asked.

“It was incredible.” The woman shook her blond head. “She said I owed a debt. That my baby had been saved for me, and that now I must save someone else’s. She had a little girl in her arms. A newborn. And she just handed her to me, and said that I should keep her safe, until her mother came for her.”

A soft, wounded cry was wrung from Angelica. She stood up, turned slowly. And her eyes were so wide, and so hopeful that he thought he would probably wring this woman’s neck if she were making up stories.

“The angel said,” the woman went on, her words coming slowly now as she met and held Angelica’s eyes, “she said I’d know her when I saw her.” And then she smiled. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

But Angelica couldn’t seem to speak. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Big fat tears filled her eyes and spilled over.

“Yes,” Jameson said. “If you’ve found a missing baby, she’s ours. Please…”

“Something told me to come here. Just come to church, and wait. And sure enough…” She shook her head again, getting up, bending over the carriage, and pulling the blankets away.

Jameson looked. Angelica didn’t. She stood rooted where she was, almost as if she were afraid to look. Afraid to see that her baby daughter wasn’t there.

The fat-cheeked, carrot-topped baby, Alicia, lay sound asleep in the carriage. And tucked close beside her, a tinier infant, with raven’s-wing curls, and wide ebony eyes that stared right up at him.

And his heart seemed to swell until he thought it would burst. He bent over that carriage, reaching his big hands down to gather up the fragile bundle. He gathered her close, very close, and he closed his eyes and held her to him.

“Amber Lily,” he breathed, because he couldn’t seem to speak any louder than that. His face was wet. And he opened his eyes again, and lifted his head, and saw Angelica standing there, blinking and dazed, her beautiful violet eyes fixed on the child. She drew a gulp of air, and blinked, and fell to the floor. Her legs seemed to melt into puddles beneath her.

Jameson moved closer to her, and knelt down. And then he very gently eased his daughter into her mother’s arms. Angelica’s entire body shook, and she was smiling and crying and trembling all at once. She bent to kiss the baby’s forehead, and a tiny hand clutched a handful of Angel’s hair, and tugged.

Angelica looked up at him from watery eyes. And he knew, right then, that he loved her. He loved her. And he loved the child they’d created together. And he always would. No matter what. And part of him, a very large part of him, wanted to bundle the two of them up in his arms, and run away to a secluded cabin somewhere, and just live there in ecstasy forever.

But there was another part of him that knew that was impossible. And not only because Angelica could never feel for him what he felt for her. But because there would be no peace, no happiness for her, or for her child, until DPI was annihilated.

No one else would do it, he thought, and as he looked at the woman he loved cradling his daughter in her arms, he knew why. No one else had as much reason.

He reached forward, stroked his hand slowly over Angelica’s tearstained cheek. “Wait here, Angel,” he told her. “I’ll go back into town and get the car, and then we’ll make our way out of here.”

“Yes.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke. Her eyes were only on her daughter, and so filled with love he thought he would die from the sheer beauty of it.

He bent to kiss his child, and then turned and hurried out of the chapel. He took only enough time to be sure no one was around, and that no one noticed him cutting through the woods that lay along the back of the town, angling down so he emerged on the hillside just beyond the vacant cabin where he’d left the car.

He hurried now. Got into the car, and backed down the long driveway, cutting around into the narrow road, shifting into drive. He didn’t speed through town. That would be asking for notice.

Although, now that he was back, he didn’t see the official-looking cars and vans lining the streets as he had before. And there were no men in dark suits or trench coats knocking on doors or questioning passersby, either.

What the hell was going on? They couldn’t have given up, could they? Not so soon…

A tiny shiver of apprehension raced up his spine as he turned the car easily onto the well-worn dirt road that would take him back to the chapel on the hillside.

And that was when heard Angelica screaming.

It wasn’t with his ears that he heard her cries. It was in his mind. And it wasn’t the telepathy coming into play. She wasn’t speaking to him directly or deliberately. But she was horribly afraid…or in pain. Or both.

And then her cries stopped and Jameson heard nothing at all. He pushed the accelerator to the floor, his wheels churning up clouds of dust as he sped over the narrow road. He took hairpin curves far too fast, nearly fishtailing out of control and jerking hard on the steering wheel to right himself again. But he never slowed down, and he never lost the horrible, gut-wrenching feeling that he shouldn’t have left them. Angel and Amber. He shouldn’t have left them even for a minute.

The sky glowed up ahead. Black smoke billowed up into the clouds like the breath of the devil. He careened around a corner and skidded to a stop in front of the church, but it wasn’t a church any longer. It was a nightmare. The tiny building was nearly burned to the ground already. Nothing identifiable remained. It was just a misshapen mass of fire and smoke, a heap of flaming rubble.

He wrenched his door open and got out, running forward, shielding his face with a bent arm when he felt his flesh start to blister.

“Come back,” a voice cried, barely audible over the roar of the flames. “You’re too close.”

His mind was numb, his body chilled to the core, despite the heat. He turned and saw the blond woman, cradling her child in her arms and sobbing, stretching one hand out toward him. And he went to her, shaking his head, demanding answers.

“Angelica! My daughter, where are they!”

But the woman only sobbed and shook her head.

He stopped when he stood right in front of her. “What the hell happened here, woman! Tell me, dammit!”

“I don’t know,” she said, her words broken and weak. “I’d just left, when the place…it was like a bomb went off inside! God, it was terrible. Terrible!”

No. No, his mind whispered. “Angelica and the baby were still inside?” Turning, he started toward the burning ruin once more, but her hand gripped his arm, stopping him.

“They never had a chance, God bless them. I’m so sorry.”

“No!” He stared at the fire, the pile of debris, and he knew that if they had been inside when the explosion had happened, they were dead now. Both of them. Dead. Burning-hot tears blinded him. He clenched his fists. “No,” he yelled again, and then he tipped back his head and howled in anguish and grief and helpless fury. And his preternatural voice rose into the night like a cry to the heavens, and its power reverberated through the skies and the forest, causing the towering pines to tremble.

They heard an odd cry that night in the town of Petersville. One so loud and anguished that it rolled like thunder, and echoed endlessly as it faded away. It was a blood-chilling kind of a sound. The kind of thing that could break a heart and give a man goose bumps all at the same time. Some said it was the cry of a wounded beast of some kind, though none speculated too loudly on what sort of beast could make a sound like that one. But most were of the opinion that they’d heard the voice of the devil himself.

Chapter Fifteen

My daughter was beautiful. And healthy.

And mortal.

I wasn’t so overwhelmed that I didn’t understand what it meant when the woman, Susan her name was, told me how good Amber Lily had been about sleeping the night through. And about her healthy appetite. She’d been feeding my daughter the same formula she fed to her own. And she claimed Amber Lily had gained two pounds already, and that her hair was getting curlier all the time.

She was mortal. She was growing and changing like a mortal child would do. I didn’t know what vampiric traits she might have inherited from me, if any. But I was so relieved to know she needn’t feed the way her parents must, and that she would not be trapped for eternity inside the body of a newborn. And those things alone gave me hope.

Things were going to be all right. Finally, at long last, everything was going to be fine. I couldn’t wait for Jameson to come back so that I could tell him.

Susan, the woman I knew I’d never be able to repay, said she had to get her own child back home now, and gave me her good wishes.

“Thank you,” I said to her. “It’s not enough, but—”

“There’s no need,” she said, and she looked deeply into my eyes. “We’re even now.”

I nodded, and I know my smile was bright as I held Amber Lily in my arms, and she squirmed and kicked.

I watched Susan and Alicia go. It was only as the door closed behind them that I felt the presence. And I whirled, to see several men coming into the tiny chapel, invading its sanctity, from a rear entrance.

“Don’t move,” one said, and he held a rifle. “Don’t even wiggle. My sights are on the baby, and if you so much as twitch I’ll blow her right in half. We’re through playing games with you, lady.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t, because I knew he wasn’t lying. He’d kill my child without a second thought. The pig!

The others closed in around me, and then one jabbed me with a needle and I felt myself weakening. It was only when a third took my daughter from my arms that I panicked. But I needn’t. Jameson would come, he would come for us!

They half dragged, half carried me out the back door as the drug quickly did its work, turning my body into a disobedient mass of limp flesh. Hurry, Jameson, I thought. He would come, and he would know what had happened. He would know we’d been taken. He would know where to look for us.

They tossed me into the back seat of a car, and then one of them turned and glanced down at his watch. He stood there, waiting, and I frowned.

And then the chapel exploded in a white-hot blast that shook the ground beneath the car. I cried out, horrified, wondering if Susan and little Alicia had gotten far enough away to be safe before it had happened. And then the man smiled and got behind the wheel, and I knew. I knew what they intended. For Jameson to believe we were dead, killed in that chapel. So he’d never look any further for us. And as long as they kept me drugged, I thought, slipping closer and closer to that horrible black sleep this drug would induce, I’d be unable to tell him any differently. Two men were in the front of the car, and two others came around to get into the back, with me. One of them was holding my daughter.

Barely able to move, I nonetheless managed to push one of my shoes off my heel until it dangled on my toe. As the man bent to get into the car, I let the shoe fall to the ground. And then he shut the door, and the car pulled away. I kept my gaze on my baby’s wide ebony eyes, until I couldn’t do so any longer.

He sat there on the ground, and eventually the woman left. And other mortals showed up. A shiny red fire truck with local men manning hoses that soaked the blazing wreckage and turned it to a pile of smoldering blackened beams and charred ground and piles of ash. He sat there, never moving. And he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t move, not ever again. He’d sit there until the sun rose, and he’d greet it with gratitude.

He’d lost them. Lost them both. And dammit, he’d barely had a chance to know his child!

But he’d known Angelica. Known her laughter, the light in her violet eyes. He’d known her touch. He’d loved her. Dammit, he’d loved her with everything in him, and he’d never even told her.

How could she be gone so suddenly? Torn from him without warning. How?

And why for the love of Christ?

“Son, why don’t you let the medics have a look at you?”

“His wife and baby were in that church,” said another strange voice. “So someone said, anyway.”

“Merciful heavens, no wonder he looks like that!”

“Think he can hear us?”

“No. I’m afraid the man’s gone plumb out of his mind.”

“Son, come on. Get up, now.”

He didn’t speak, but he did rise. He didn’t want to be bothered by the well-meaning mortals. He wanted to go away and be alone and remember her while he awaited the dawn. His feet scuffed the ground as he wandered away from all of them, heading around the wreckage that used to be the chapel, circling it like a planet circling the sun. It was as if some force pulled at him, and kept him from leaving this orbit. His heart…his heart was in that mess of rubble. His soul. His child…

Or…was she?

DPI had called Amber their most valuable research subject ever. Would they really have destroyed her?

“No…”

He tripped over something, and he glanced down at it, irritated. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, because the pain that came then was almost more than he could bear. “Oh sweet Jesus, it’s Angelica’s shoe.” He dropped to his knees, and scooped it up as carefully as if he were handling a fragile treasure, and then he hugged it to his chest, and let the tears come. His back bowed with them, and he choked on powerful sobs that nearly split him in half. Because he knew that while DPI might balk at murdering Amber Lily, they wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her mother. Angelica. And he didn’t think he could go on without her—and yet he had to find a way. For their baby.

When he grew too weak to remain sitting up, he fell, facedown on the dusty road, and his bitter tears wet the tire tracks in the dust, and he couldn’t breathe, and he didn’t care.

It came to him slowly. Very slowly. But when it did, it was enough to stir him out of the well of mindless agony. Enough to make him reach, one last time, for cognizance, and perhaps… perhaps hope. He pushed himself into a sitting position again with one hand, and stared at the shoe in his other. It wasn’t burned. Wasn’t even singed. Or torn or damaged.

He turned his head, and saw that there was a hell of a lot of distance between the wet, smoke-belching remains of the church and this spot. And as he examined the ground here, he saw no other debris. Nothing else was thrown this far in the explosion. And the tire tracks…

This was the area in back of the chapel. And, yes, the small dirt driveway circled around behind the building, but all the townsfolk had stopped out front. None had driven back here.

Jameson got to his feet, and scanned the ground, walking slowly toward the church. And sure as all hell, he found footprints. Men’s shoes. Several men. And the uneven marks between them that suggested something being dragged. Or someone.

“She’s alive,” he whispered. He held the shoe tight in one hand, and fell to his knees right where he stood. He bowed his head, closed his eyes. “She’s alive…she has to be. Thank God,” he whispered.

Jameson stood alone just outside the fenced-in perimeter of DPI headquarters in White Plains. Angelica was inside. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. And things were ready. He’d met with the others just north of the city, and explained all that had happened. Tamara had contacted Susan Jennings, and offered her more money than she’d ever seen in her life to come back with them, and care for Amber by day. No one had explained why it was necessary. She hadn’t asked. Jameson trusted her.

He’d had his short, precious time with his sweet, wonderful daughter. And now it was over. He’d get no more time with her. But he’d save her from these bastards. And then he’d make sure she never had to worry about this damnable persecution from them again. He’d bring this place to ruin…tonight. He’d make the world safe for her. And he would very likely die in the process, but not until he’d accomplished what he’d come here to do. And it would be well worth the sacrifice. He’d see to it that Angel and Amber had the life they deserved. And to hell with the consequences. They were worth this, worth anything to him.

He leaped the fence, and started forward. He’d do this, because it needed doing. And he’d do it alone.

And then he stopped, because someone had hit the ground beside him. “Not alone!” a voice called, and Jameson turned in surprise. Eric stood at his side. He smiled and winked. “Not by a long shot, my friend.”

And even before he finished speaking, others came forward, stepping out of the shadows one by one, to stand beside him. Tamara was there, and Roland and Rhiannon. Even Rhiannon’s cat had joined them. And there were others. One in particular. A man who seemed as though he must be a king.

He was taller than anyone there, and darker, too, with huge, haunting eyes and a voice like thunder. “I am Damien,” he said extending a hand to Jameson. And Jameson blinked in shock as he took it. This was the oldest…the first, of all of them. “And I’m grateful to you for stirring us to action.”

“But I didn’t…” he began.

“No. No, your Angelica did. But on your behalf.”

Jameson turned toward the building that held her, dumbfounded.

“Seems she finally mastered those psychic skills,” Rhiannon said softly. “And though weakened and drugged, she managed to call out to us. She knew you would come, Jameson. And she begged us not to let you do this on your own. She said she’d rather die here than to know you’d given your life attempting to save her.”

“She told us what you intended to do tonight, shamed us, really, for not being here to back you up,” Damien added. “So here we are.” He nodded to the people who surrounded him, vampires, all of them. “My bride, Shannon. Former DPI agent Ramsey Bachman and his wife, Cuyler Jade. And every other vampire who was within range of Angelica’s rousing mental wake-up call.” He put a hand on Jameson’s shoulder. “We’re in this together,” he said. “Your Amber Lily is not just your child, Jameson. She is our child, our miracle, the first of a new generation, be she mortal or otherwise. And she is going to be the most cherished being we’ve ever had the privilege to love.”

“You’ll need help caring for her,” the pixielike woman named Cuyler Jade said softly. “It will be difficult, sleeping by day. But there is a place, far to the north, where darkness lasts so very much longer than light for part of the year. And I want you to take your child there, so that she, and not the sun, can decide when you should sleep.”

“Yes,” the man beside her said. “And we should establish another home in the southern reaches, for the other part of the year.”

“We’ll all help you,” the pixie said.

Eric nodded. “For now, we have a warm, safe haven waiting, and Susan, your mortal friend, is there, ready to care for Amber through the daylight hours.”

Jameson nodded, seeing now that this thing was possible. That everything would be taken care of for Angel and the baby. “You might end up taking them there yourself, Eric. I have no intention of leaving this place until all that remains is rubble.”

“That’s understood,” Eric told him, and he glanced sideways at Damien.

Damien nodded. “It needs doing. We all know it, and we’re here to see that it’s done.”

Jameson looked up and down the length of the mesh fence, blinking in wonder. There were hundreds, perhaps a thousand of them. And before his eyes, they began linking arms, all the way around the building. A chain of the living dead, moving slowly forward, intent on reclaiming their right to exist.

Jameson focused his mind on Angelica’s as he began to move along with them. And a hand closed around his left one, and another around his right. As one living wall of justice, they closed in on the heart of their persecutors.

I did not know whether my pleas had been heard by any others. But I knew Jameson was coming. I sensed it with everything in me. My efforts at contacting others, begging them to help him tonight, combined with the effects of the drug, left me weak, and barely conscious. I’d hoped to have enough strength left to contact Jameson…to tell him the enormity of what I now realized I felt for him, just in case it was the last chance I had. But I had no power left in me. I was conscious, barely conscious. But I was alert enough to know that night was nearly over. Dawn would come within the hour. Jameson might well be overwhelmed by the sun before the DPI forces could murder him. The odds against his success were staggering. And yet I prayed, with everything in me, that God would protect him, and protect my daughter. For I loved them both with every cell in my body.

They hadn’t had us here for very long at all. Amber and I had been sealed in a cell in one of the lower levels, while guards stood outside our impenetrable door, awaiting their leader’s arrival, and his orders. I wondered what those orders would be. How they attempt to kill me this time, and what would become of my precious little girl?

They’d left me unchained, apparently confident that I was too groggy to cause them any trouble. I sat on the floor in the corner and hugged her close, and I sang to her as I had done in those lonely months before her birth. And she smiled. She smiled at me as I sang.

It was not pretty, but Jameson had known it wouldn’t be. It was war, and needed to be treated as such. These people were intent on murdering his own. As soon as they were sighted, guards emerged, armed guards firing weapons filled with conventional bullets for the most part, though a few managed to get their hands on the dreaded tranquilizer guns as well. But they really didn’t stand a chance against so many.

They were immortal. They could move faster than the human eye could see, becoming blurs of shapeless color in motion. They could leap out of the paths of the bullets fired at them, and with a single swipe of a single preternatural hand, render the shooter unconscious. Or worse.

And Damien…

Jameson paused only once to witness in stunned awe the sheer power of the oldest of all immortals. The way he would focus those intent eyes on something until it burst into flames. The way he could whirl until he vanished in the night.

But even the wonder of seeing firsthand the legendary abilities of the man couldn’t distract him for more than an instant. The first lines of defense were nearly broken, and Jameson was the first vampire to cross them, smashing a door from its hinges in his rage, and lunging inside.

Those who approached him found themselves sailing bodily through the air, crashing into walls and sliding to the floor, bloodied and immobile. Someone yelled from behind, and he whirled, only to see Pandora’s sleek black form spring upon a guard who’d been about to shoot him in the back.

The guard’s cry was chilling, but brief.

All around Jameson people were shouting, guns were going off, explosions were rocking the ground. He made his way to the back, fighting through the armed men who rushed forward to join the battle. And then through the others, the cowards, who knew what was happening—who had, perhaps, known all along that this day of reckoning would come—and whose only goal now was escape. Like rats fleeing a burning ship they raced for the rear exits. Jameson passed the research lab just as its barred windows were smashed to bits, and hordes of vampires surged inside, intent on destroying every trace of information these bastards had gathered. He heard the computers being hurled to the floor, smelled the smoke as the files were set aflame. But he didn’t stop. He kept moving onward, finding the stairs, not trusting the elevators. And his instincts were good, because halfway down, the lights went out. Someone was using his head. Vampires could see perfectly in the dark. Humans, on the other hand…

He collared a white-coated fool who was whimpering for mercy, and slammed him against the wall. “Where are they?” And when the man didn’t answer he slammed him again, and his wire-rimmed glasses fell to the floor.

“D-d-d-down…th-that way…p-p-please—‘”

Jameson released the man, and raced in the direction he’d pointed. And then he skidded to a stop in the dark, cold hall of the lower level. Because…he heard her.

She was singing. Her voice was wavering, weak…but she was singing, and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard in his life.

“Angel…” His knees nearly buckled in relief, but he forced them steady and ran to the door that was all that remained between them. And growling with the effort, he tore the thing away and hurled it back down the hall.

She sat there, on the floor, and she lifted her head, met his eyes. “You came,” she whispered, and tears flooded her face.

“You knew I would,” he said, and he ran forward, fell to his knees, his hands cupping her head, his eyes searching her face.

“Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right, Angel, because I can’t quite believe—”

“I’m all right. It’s…the drug. That’s all.”

He closed his eyes in relief, then opened them again when a small hand smacked him in the chin, and looked down at his child, warm and safe in her mother’s arms. “And you’re all right, too, aren’t you, my love?”

She cooed and chirped at him like a small bird just testing its voice.

“She’s more than all right,” Angelica whispered. “She’s mortal, Jameson. She eats and sleeps and grows…just like any other child.”

“Not like any other child,” he told her. “No, not my Amber. She’s far from normal. She’s the daughter of an Angel.”

He leaned forward, pressed his lips to Angelica’s and saw her close her eyes and absorb his kiss. And when he straightened, he slipped his arms beneath her and scooped her up. “Hold Amber Lily tight, sweet Angel. I’m taking the two of you out of here.”

She blinked up at him. “Yes…but Jameson, there are others. Other prisoners, suffering here, and I—”

“That, my dear, is being taken care of,” said a regal, familiar voice from near the doorway. He turned with Angelica in his arms, to see Rhiannon, her cat at her side, and a barely conscious, reed-thin vampire in her arms. “Now come, I want that precious little one out of all this.”

Jameson hurried forward, and made his way to the stairs again. He carried Angelica up them, back through to the front entrance, dodging smoke and fires and debris, but very few bullets now. This battle was already waning. He raced outside, carried Angelica and Amber Lily to the mesh fence and lowered them to the ground in the shelter of some bushes near it.

He straightened, looking back toward the building.

Angelica grabbed his arm. “You’re not going back.”

“I have to.”

“You could be killed,” she cried.

And he stared down into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now. You and the baby are safe. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, Jameson. I’m not going to let you go back there. It does matter, don’t you see? It matters more than ever.”

He looked down at her, frowning, saw fresh tears brimming in her eyes. “But—”

“But nothing. Dammit, Vampire, if I’ve only survived all of this to lose you now…” Her voice trailed off and she bit her lip.

Jameson’s heart leaped, but he didn’t dare think…no, she was drugged and grateful and overwhelmed. “Angelica,” he said, kneeling beside her. “You and Amber Lily are safe now. And free. And I’ve got no more excuses to coerce you into staying with me, the way I’ve been doing for the past few days. You…” He sighed hard. “You can go, if you want to. But Angel, I don’t…I don’t think I want to live long enough to hear you say goodbye.”

“You’re immortal,” she said softly. “And even with that, you’ll never live that long.”

He looked down at her. “What are you saying, Angel?”

“I’m saying that I love you, Jameson.” She stared up at him through her tears. “I love you.”

He blinked down at her, his jaw dropping, his heart squeezing into a knot. “Angelica…” He couldn’t go on, couldn’t speak.

She lowered her head. “I was hoping…you might feel something for me, too. Maybe…maybe I was wrong…”

Jameson gathered her into his arms, with their daughter between them, and lowered his head and kissed her deeply and passionately, as his heart swelled to bursting.

He lifted his head away. “I’ve loved you all along, Angel. Even that first night, I felt something… something I couldn’t explain. I told myself I hated you, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. You…you’re everything to me, Angel. Everything.”

She smiled weakly, and he kissed her again. He held her there, in his arms, and he caressed her face, and reveled in her closeness, her love. And as they embraced, the others surged out of the building, crowds of them, all that had gone inside and still more. Other captives, free now, some weak, some near death, but all rejoicing. And when everyone was safely outside, Damien stepped forward, focusing his gaze on the building before them for long, tense moments. And suddenly, it exploded in a blinding ball of energy. Every brick crumbled. The percussion rocked the ground, and the flames lit the night like a torch of hope. A deafening roar of triumph went up from the crowd of vampires.

Epilogue

No one would have guessed that most of the adult chaperons at the junior prom were vampires.

Jameson held his wife pressed close to him in his arms. They swayed slowly in time to the music played by suited youths on the stage in the center of the decorated gymnasium. He and Angelica lingered in the shadows, as did most of their friends. Rhiannon and Roland sat at a candlelit table, watching the festivities. Eric and Tamara were dancing near the rear exit. It wouldn’t do to draw too much attention to themselves. They’d promised their little girl they wouldn’t, after all. And besides, this was her night.

“Go ahead,” said a young man several yards away to another one who stood nervously beside him. “Ask her.”

“No way. She’ll shoot me down and I’ll have to go jump off a bridge.”

“Maybe she’ll say yes,” said the first.

Both of them were watching the most strikingly beautiful girl at the prom. She was tall and slender, with hair as black as a raven’s wings that danced around her waist when she moved. And haunting ebony eyes that seemed to hold countless secrets. She stood near the punch bowl with her best friend in the world, Alicia. Both of them swaying a little in time to the music.

Clearing his throat, the nervous teenage boy approached her. “Hi, Amber,” he said.

And she smiled. “Hi, Jimmy.”

“Would you…um…would you like to dance?”

“I’d love to.”

The boy’s face split in a delighted smile, and he took her into his arms.

Amber looked across the dance floor and caught her father’s eye. I love you, Daddy.

I love you, too, Amber Lily. He sent his thoughts out to his daughter without a word, and then added a wink. Just see the young man doesn’t hold you too close.

Amber smiled and rolled her eyes ceilingward as her partner whirled her around the floor.

“Have we done it, do you think?” Jameson asked his Angel, pulling her still closer, nuzzling her ear with his lips.

“Made her happy? Yes, Jameson. I think we have.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have come,” he said. “Maybe we’re overprotective.”

“She doesn’t mind at all,” Angelica whispered. “She loves us, Jameson. Don’t you know that?”

He nodded thoughtfully, but still feared he might have offended his daughter by volunteering to chaperon her prom. He loved her so much, it was hard to know when he was overstepping, and when he was only being reasonable. “She’s so beautiful,” he said. Then he bent lower, and kissed the neck that so tempted him. “Like her mother.”

“And every bit as stubborn as her father,” she replied.

Frowning, Jameson glanced back at the dance floor. “So what do you think of this Jimmy?”

“I think he’s cute.”

He grumbled, and Angel kissed his nose.

“I also think we should let Amber Lily decide about Jimmy. She’s inherited her father’s brains, as well, you know.”

Jameson closed his eyes and sighed. “She’s really all right.”

“You still having trouble believing it?” she asked him. “Even after you made Eric repeat those blood tests five times to be sure? The belladonna antigen is different in her,” she reminded him, repeating what Eric’s tests had proven time and time again. “The gene that causes premature death in mortals who have the antigen is missing.”

He nodded. “And yet she has psychic powers as strong as ours—and her physical strength is getting more amazing every day.”

“Rhiannon likes to think she inherited her preternatural abilities from her aunt, the princess,” Angelica mused.

“It’s a miracle,” he said. “She’s a miracle.” He smiled and looked into her eyes. “Have I told you lately, my Angel, how very much I adore you?”

“Yes,” she said. “But feel free to tell me again.”

Just as he was about to kiss her, he felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see his little girl holding hands with her young man.

He straightened up, clearing his throat.

“Dad, Mom, I want you to meet Jimmy.”

“Hello,” they said in unison.

Jimmy gawked at them for a moment, then looked at Amber again. “You gotta be kidding me. That’s your mom?”

“Looks great for her age, doesn’t she?” Amber sent her mother a knowing glance that probably only made her seem more mysterious to the smitten young man.

“Yes. I mean…um, nice to meet you…both.”

“Likewise,” Jameson said.

Amber looked up at her father. “It’s almost the last dance,” she told him. “I saved it for you.”

Jameson felt his throat go tight, and his eyes begin to burn. But he managed to blink them clear as he took his daughter’s hand, and walked with her onto the floor. As he held her in his arms, he met Angel’s eyes across the room, and he saw the sparkle of happy tears there that matched his own.

“I’m glad you’re here tonight, Daddy,” Amber whispered.

“I’ll always be here for you, Amber Lily,” he promised. “Always.”

--6 Twilight Hunger (2002)--

TWILIGHT HUNGER

MIRA

ISBN 1-55166-886-6

TWILIGHT HUNGER

Copyright © 2002 by Margaret Benson.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

Visit us at www.mirabooks.com

Printed in U.S.A.

Long ago, I was writing vampire stories for Silhouette Shadows. When the line went away (briefly, I'm sure, being a believer in reincarnation) I thought for a time I wouldn't be able to continue with the series I had begun. But there were people at Silhouette who loved Wings in the Night as much as I did, as much as its faithful readers did.

The leader of them all was my editor, Leslie Wainger.

She kept this series alive by having me do one story as a Silhouette single-title release, another as a special Silhouette Intimate Moments two-in-one. Because of that, the popularity of the series never waned. She didn't give it a chance to wane. And all the while she was working behind the scenes to help me breathe new life into it, until finally, MIRA Books was ready to take the dive into the realm of the paranormal. Without Leslie Wainger,

I promise you, this series would have ended with two books and a novella. Instead this is book number seven, and I'm already plotting number eight and thinking about number nine. Thank you, dear, dear Leslie, for excellence in editing, for tremendous support of your authors, for the little hearts and smiley faces and comments you scribble in the margins of my manuscripts (you'll never know how much those mean to me, especially the "Damn you, I'm bawling" ones) but most of all for "getting" me and the quirky work I do.

This book is dedicated to Leslie Wainger from the bottom of my heart.

Chapter 1

We children were supposed to be asleep…

But we woke, as if in response to some silent summons. We crept to the entrances of our tents and wagons, drawn like moths to the snapping flames of the central fire and the dark, leaping shadows the strange woman cast as she danced.

There was no music. I knew there was none, but it seemed to me that music filled my head all the same as I peered around the painted flap and watched her. She whirled, scarves trailing like colorful ghosts in her wake, her hair, black as the night, yet gleaming blue in the fire's glow. She arched and twisted and spun round again. And then she stopped still, and her eyes, like shining bits of coal, fixed right on mine. Scarlet lips curved in a terrifying smile, and she crooked a finger at me.

I tried to swallow, but the lump of cold dread in my throat wouldn't let me. Licking my lips, I glanced sideways at the tents and painted wagons of my kin, and saw the other children of our band, peering out at her, just as I was. Some of my cousins were older than I, some younger. Most looked very much like me. Their olive skin smooth, their eyes very round and wide, too thickly fringed for the eyes of a boy, but lovely beyond words on little girls. Their hair was uncut, like mine, but clean and raven black.

We were Gypsies all, and proud. The dancing woman… she was a Gypsy, too. I knew that at a glance. She was one of our own.

And crooking her finger at me still.

Dimitri, older than me by three years, gave me a superior look and whispered, "Go to her. I dare you!"

Only to prove myself braver than he, I stiffened my spine and stepped out of my mother's tent, my bare feet covering the cool ground by mere inches with each hesitant step. As I crept closer, the others, taking courage in mine, began to come out, too. Slowly we gathered round the beautiful stranger like sinners come to worship at the feet of a goddess. And as we did, her smile grew wider. She beckoned us closer, a finger to her lips, and then she sat down on a log near the fire.

"Who is she?" I whispered to Dimitri, for he had joined us now, too, ashamed of himself, I thought, not to have been leading us all from the start.

"Stupid, do you know nothing? She is our aunt." He shook his head disgustedly at me, then returned his enraptured gaze to the woman. "Her name is Sarafina," he said. "She comes sometimes… though I suppose you are too young to recall her last visit. She's not supposed to be here, though. When the grown-ups find out, there will be trouble."

"Why?" I too was entranced by the mysterious stranger as she lowered herself to the log, spreading the layers of her colorful skirts around her, opening her arms to welcome the young ones who crowded closer to sit on the ground all around her. I sat closest of all, right at her feet. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful. But there was something else about her, as well. Something… unearthly. Something frightening.

And there was the way her eyes kept meeting mine. There was a secret in that black gaze—a secret I could not quite see. Something shadowed, hidden.

"Why will there be trouble?" I whispered again.

"Because! She is outcast!"

My brows drew together. I was about to ask why, but then the woman—my Aunt Sarafina, whom I had never seen before in my life—began to speak. And her voice was like a song. Mesmerizing, deep, beguiling.

"Come, little ones. Oh, how I've missed you." Her gaze swept the faces of the children, the look in her eyes almost painful to see, so intense was the emotion there. "But most of you do not remember me at all, do you?" Her smile faltered. "And you, little Dante. You are… how old now?"

"Seven," I told her, my voice a mere whisper.

"Seven years," she replied with a heavy sigh. "I was here the day you were born, you know."

"No. I… didn't know."

"No matter. Oh, children, I've so much to tell you. But first… " She tugged open a drawstring sack that dangled from the sash round her waist, and from it she began to draw glorious things, which she handed around to one and all. Sweets and confections such as we had never tasted, wrapped in brightly colored paper. Shiny baubles on chains, and glittering stones of all kinds, carved into the shapes of animals and birds.

The one she gave to me was a stone of black onyx in the shape of a bat. I shivered when she placed the cold piece into my palm.

When the sack was empty and the children all quiet again, she began to speak. "I have seen so many things, little ones. Things you would not believe. I journeyed to the desert lands, and there I saw buildings as big as mountains—every stone larger than an entire Gypsy wagon! Perfect and smooth they are, and pointed at the top." She used her hands to make the shape of these wonders in the air before us. "No one knows who built them, nor when. They have been there forever, some say. Others say they were built as monuments to ancient kings… and that the bodies of those rulers still rest inside, along with treasures untold!" When our eyes widened, she nodded hard, making her raven curls dance and her earrings jangle. "I've been across the sea… to the land below, where creatures with necks as tall as… as that yew tree there, walk on stilt legs and nibble the young leaves from the tops of the trees. Yellow gold they are, and spotty! With sprouts atop their heads!"

I shook my head in disbelief. Surely she was spinning tales.

"Oh, Dante, it is true," she said. And her eyes held mine, her words for me alone, I was certain. "One day you will see these things, too. One day I will show them to you myself." Reaching down, she stroked a path through my hair and leaned close to me, whispering into my ear. "You are my very special boy, Dante. You and I share a bond more powerful even than the one you share with your own mother. Remember my words. I'll come back for you someday. When you need me, I will come."

I shivered and didn't know why.

Then I went stiff at the sound of the Grandmother's squawk. "Outcast!" she yelled, rushing from her tent and jabbing her fingers at Sarafina in the way that was said to ward off evil, the two middle fingers folded, forefinger and little one pointing straight out. She made a hissing sound when she did it, so I thought of a snake with a forked tongue snapping.

The children scattered. Sarafina rose slowly, the picture of grace, and I alone remained before her. Almost without thought, I got to my feet and turned to face the Grandmother. As if I wished to protect the lovely Sarafina. As if I could. My back was toward the woman now, and as her hands closed on my shoulders, I felt myself grow a full inch taller.

Then the Grandmother glared at me, and I thought I would shrink to the size of a sand flea.

"Can you not tolerate my presence even once every few years or so, Crone?" Sarafina asked. Her voice was no longer loving or soft or kind. It was deep and clear… and menacing.

"You've no business here!" the Grandmother said.

"But I have," she replied. "You are my family. And like it or not, I am yours."

"You are nothing. You are cursed. Be gone!"

Chaos erupted around us as mothers, awakened by the noise, dashed out of their tents and wagons, gathered their children and hurried them back inside. They acted as if a killer wolf had appeared at our campfire, rather than an outcast aunt of rare beauty, bearing exotic gifts and amazing tales.

My mother came, too. As she rushed toward me I tucked the stone bat up into my sleeve. She stopped before she reached me and met Sarafina's eyes. "Please," was all she said.

There was a moment of silence as something passed between the two women. Some message, unspoken, that left my mother's eyes sad and welling with tears.

Sarafina bent down and pressed her cool lips to my cheek. "I'll see you again, Dante. Never doubt it. But for now, go on. Go to your mamma." She gave me a gentle shove and let go my shoulders.

I walked to my mother, nearly hating her for making me leave the mysterious Sarafina before I'd had a chance to learn her secrets. She gripped my arm tightly and ran to our tent so fast that she nearly dragged me off my feet. Inside, she closed the flap and cupped my face in her hands, falling to her knees before me. "Did she touch you?" she cried. "Did she mark you?"

"Sarafina would not hurt me, Mamma. She is my aunt. She is kind, and beautiful."

But my mother seemed not to hear my words. She tipped my head to one side and the other, pushing my hair aside and searching my skin. I tired of it soon enough and tugged myself free.

"You are never to go near her again, do you hear me, Dante? If you see her, you must come to me at once. Promise me!"

"But why, Mamma?"

Her hand came across my face so suddenly I would have fallen had she not been gripping my arm with the other. "Do not question me! Promise me, Dante. Swear it on your soul!"

I lowered my head, my cheek stinging, and muttered my agreement. "I promise." I was ashamed of the tears that burned in my eyes. They came more from shock than pain. My mother's hand rarely lashed out in anger. I didn't understand why it had tonight.

She knelt now, her hands on my shoulders, her worn face close to mine. "It's a promise you must keep, Dante. You endanger your soul if you break it. Mark me well." She drew a breath, sighed, and kissed the cheek she had so recently wounded. "Now, into bed with you." She was marginally calmer, her voice nearer its normal pitch.

I was far from calm. Something had stirred my blood tonight. I crawled into my bed, pulled the covers over me and let the tiny, cold stone bat drop from my sleeve into my hand. I held it, rubbed its smooth surface with my thumb, beneath the blanket where my mother could not see. Mamma watched over me for a long moment, then blew out the lamp, and curled up—not upon her own bed, but on the floor beside mine, a worn blanket her only cushion.

In the silence, I rolled toward the side of the tent and thrust a forefinger through the tiny hole I had made in the fabric, so I could watch the grown-ups round the fire long after they had sent the children to bed. I tugged the hole a little wider in the darkness. And through that tiny hole, I watched and I listened as the Grandmother, the crone of the band, the eldest and most venerated woman of the family, faced off against the most vibrantly beautiful female I had ever seen in my life.

"Why do you torment us by coming back to our midst?" the Grandmother asked, as the dancing flames painted her leathery face in orange and brown, shadows and light.

"Why? You, my own sister, ask me why?"

"Sister, bah!" The Grandmother spat on the ground. "You are no sister to me but a demon. Outcast! Cursed!"

I shook my head in wonder. What could Sarafina mean? Sister? She could no more be the old one's sister than… than I could.

"Tell me why you come, demon! It is always the children you seek out when you return. It's for one of them, isn't it? Your wretched curse has been passed to one of them! Hasn't it? Hasn't it?"

Sarafina smiled very slowly, her face angelic and demonic all at once, and bathed in fireglow. "I come because you are all I have. I will always come back, old woman. Always. Long after you've gone to dust, I'll be coming back, bringing gifts to the little ones. Finding in their eyes and in their smiles the love and acceptance my own sister denies me. And there is nothing you can do to prevent it."

Before Sarafina turned away, she looked past the Grandmother and right into my eyes. As if she had known all along that I was there, watching her from the other side of that tiny hole in the tent. She could not have seen me. And yet, she must have. Her lips curved ever so slightly at the corners, and her mouth moved. Even though no sound emerged, I knew the word she whispered. Remember.

Then she turned, her skirts flying, and vanished into the night. I saw the trailing colors of her scarves like tails behind her for only an instant. Then the blackness of night closed in where she had been, and I saw her no more.

I lay down on my pillows, and I shivered in inexplicable dread.

It was me. My aunt had come for me. I knew it in my soul. What she wanted of me, I could not guess. How I knew it, this was a mystery. But I was certain to the core of me that she did have a reason for returning in the face of such hatred.

And the reason… was me.

Slowly, slowly, the smoke from the Gypsy campfire thinned. The light thrown by the flames dulled, and the heat—so real she had sworn she could feel it on her face—went cold.

Morgan De Silva blinked out of the fantasy. She was not looking at a Gypsy campfire through the huge dark eyes of a small boy. She was sitting on the floor of a dusty attic, staring down at the time-yellowed pages of a handwritten journal, bound in leather covers so old they felt buttery-soft against her hands. The vision painted by the words that spiderwebbed across the aging pages had been vivid. It had been… real. As real as if she'd been in that Gypsy camp in the distant past, instead of on the coast of Maine in the early spring of 1997.

Morgan turned the page slowly, eager to read on…

The ringing of the telephone, floating faintly from no small distance, stopped her. With a resigned sigh, she closed the large volume and returned it carefully to the aged trunk, atop a stack of others just like it. When she closed the trunk's lid, its hinges groaned and a miniature explosion of dust puffed out at her. Brushing her hands against each other, then her jeans, she blew out the candles that were the only source of light in the room and hurried down the narrow, steep attic stairs.

She hadn't expected to find a thing up there other than cobwebs and dust. Exploring more of the ramshackle house had been an experiment in procrastination, not an act of curiosity. If her own work had been going anywhere, she never would have bothered poking around this aging, sagging house at all.

And that would have been a crying shame.

She ran through the hallway, between walls of crumbling plaster, the lath beneath it visible in places, to the next set of stairs. These were wider, but not in much better repair than anything else around the place. The third step from the top was missing a board, and she skipped it automatically and trotted the rest of the way down as the phone kept on ringing.

If it were another lawyer or bill collector, she thought breathlessly, she would hunt them down and kill them.

The wide staircase emptied itself into a huge room that must have been glorious once, a century or so ago. Now it was filled with nothing but heartbroken echoes and a tangle of bare wires sticking out of the domed ceiling, where some magnificent chandelier must have once been. Beyond that room, through a pair of double doors, was her room. Her… office. For the moment, at least. But only until she earned back her fortune and returned to L.A. in triumph.

Pretty much the opposite of the way she had left.

Her heart was pounding from exertion by the time she got that far, and she was out of breath, slightly dizzy, and pressing one hand to her chest. Ridiculous for a twenty-year-old woman to tire so easily, but there it was. She had never been healthy, and she knew she wasn't ever going to be. But at least her condition hadn't begun to worsen yet. It was too soon. She had so many things to do.

Finally Morgan snatched up the telephone, which was as antiquated as the rest of the place. The handset weighed at least two pounds, she guessed, and the rotary dial seemed to mock her high-tech tastes.

If her "hello?" sounded irritated, it was because she was dying to read more of those journals up in the attic, to find out more about their author. She might be on the verge of admitting that she was a talentless hack, but she still knew good writing when she read it, and what she had been reading upstairs was good writing. Painfully good.

"Morgan? What took you so long? I was getting worried."

Her irritation fled at David Sumner's familiar voice. Her honorary uncle—a title she'd stopped using long ago—was the only person who hadn't turned his back on her when she had gone from spoiled rich girl to penniless orphan in a matter of hours. He was the one person she didn't mind hearing from just now.

"Hey, David," she said. "I was just… exploring. This place is huge, you know."

"No, I don't know, never having laid eyes on it. You sound a little out of breath."

"Two flights of stairs will do that."

She noticed his hesitation. He tended to worry about her far more than he should.

"How is the place, anyway?" he asked at length.

"It's a wreck," she told him, her tone teasing, partly because she was trying to ease his mind and partly because she enjoyed teasing him. "Which serves you right for buying it sight unseen. Who does stuff like that?"

She could almost see his puckered face, the laugh lines around his eyes, his balding head. David had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. "A friend of the family," her parents had always called him. But it had seemed to Morgan that he'd barely tolerated the family.

Of course, he had known the truth about her parents all along. She had only learned it recently, through tabloid headlines and courtroom vultures.

"I bought it for the location, and you know it," David told her. "And I trust my real estate guru on such matters. The building is coming down, anyway."

"Yes, it is," Morgan said. "As we speak."

He was quiet for a moment. "That bad, huh?"

She could have slapped herself. Sometimes she could be such a self-centered little… "It's not," she said quickly. "I was joking." She looked around her at the room she had chosen to inhabit. It had been somebody's library or study once upon a time.

She thought of the little boy she had been reading about and wondered if it had ever been his. In his older years, perhaps, when he had decided to write his memoirs.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him. A dark, broad-shouldered form bent over the desk, with a quill pen in his long, graceful hand. Her heart jumped, and she caught her breath and turned toward him. But there was nothing. No man, no form, no quill pen. Just her computer with its electric blue screen. Whatever she had seen was there and then gone. A vision. A thought form. A little overactivity of her imagination, perhaps.

A shiver worked its way up her spine, but she shook it away.

"Describe it to me," David was saying.

"What?" she asked, dragging her eyes away from the old desk.

"The house. Describe it to me."

She flicked her gaze toward the desk again. No one there. Sighing, she tried to comply with David's request. "It must have been incredible once. The scrollwork around the fireplace mantle is worn and faded, but lavish. I think it's hardwood. You're going to want to take that entire piece out before you tear it down. And there's hand-tooled casing that borders every one of the tall windows. This place has… I don't know. Something."

"It's far from what you're used to, though," David said.

"Yeah, well, it's not Beverly Hills, and we aren't having movie stars over for poolside parties… but I wouldn't be getting any work done that way, would I?"

"And are you? Getting any work done?"

Morgan looked at the glowing blue screen of her computer—which had only escaped the notice of the estate lawyers because it had been with her at UCLA when her parents had been killed and the true state of their finances revealed. They were broke, and so far in debt Morgan could barely wrap her mind around the actual numbers. She hadn't been able to make sense of it, at first. Her father was a successful director, her mother an actress who had reached her zenith a decade ago and had been doing smaller roles lately, but who had still seemed content with her life.

Or so Morgan had thought. She soon learned she had been living in a bubble. The level of cocaine in her parents' systems the night of the accident was so high the coroner wondered how they had even managed to drive.

They'd been addicts, their entire lifestyle a lie.

The house and everything in it had been sold to pay off a portion of their accumulated debt, and Morgan had to drop out of school. Her tuition had already been months overdue. And apparently her friends were as shallow as David had always tried to tell her they were, because once the truth came out, they had abandoned her like last year's wardrobe, while those she had always considered beneath her seemed secretly amused by her troubles. The last few days on campus, she had found tabloid pages tacked to bulletin boards in every hall, screaming about the secret, drug-infested life of the famous couple who seemed to have had it all. The nightmare behind the fairy tale, and the poor little rich girl left to pick up the pieces.

She had run from L.A. with her tail between her legs, with nowhere to go and nothing left besides the things she managed to take with her. She'd pulled into David's driveway with nothing but her Maserati—the registration in her name, thank God—and the stuff she had crammed into its minuscule trunk. He was her last hope, and she had half expected him to turn away from her in disgust, just like all the rest.

But he hadn't turned away. He'd helped her sell the car, buy a modest used one and pocket the difference. When she said she needed a hideaway where she could go to lick her wounds, he told her she could use this place in Maine, free of charge, for as long as she needed to.

Which wouldn't be long, she thought silently. She had always intended to become a wildly successful screenwriter. It was just going to have to happen a bit sooner than she'd planned. David was a producer. He would help her make the right connections, maybe even produce her screenplay himself. He'd promised to give her a shot. Help her all he could.

All she needed… was the material.

"Morgan?" David's voice jerked her away from the path her thoughts had been wandering. "Did you hear me? I asked, how's the script coming?"

She blinked at the blank computer screen. The blinking cursor. "Fine. Great. It's coming great." So great that she had decided to go exploring this ancient wreck of a house rather than continue the battle with the blank screen. The only key on her keyboard getting a steady workout was the one marked "delete." She'd been producing garbage since she had arrived here. Garbage.

"You know, it's only natural you might have some trouble getting started," David said. "Don't push yourself. You've been through a lot. Your mind needs time to digest it all."

Morgan shrugged. "That's not it," she told him.

"No?"

"Of course not. It's been six months. I'm completely over it."

"Completely over losing your parents, your fortune, your home, your education and what you thought was your identity?" He made a clicking noise with his tongue. "I don't think so."

"Well, I am. And to tell you the truth, finding out I was adopted explained a lot of things. I mean, you know my parents were never all that… involved."

"That was the cocaine, hon. Not the adoption. Not you."

She cleared her throat when it started to tighten up, gave herself a mental kick. "As for the rest of it… I'm going to get it all back, David. Everything I lost. And then some."

She heard the smile in his voice. "I don't doubt it a bit."

"Neither do I," she said, glancing again at the blank screen, feeling those doubts she'd denied nearly smothering her. Damn, why couldn't writing a blockbuster script be as easy as she had always thought it would be? She used to watch films with the feeling that she could do better in her sleep.

"So when can I expect the screenplay?" he asked.

Licking her lips, she wished to God she knew. "A masterpiece takes time… and it's… so unpredictable."

"I need a fall project. I'm saving a slot for you, Morgan. Three months. I need the material in three months. Can you do that? Write it over the summer and get it to me by September?"

Lifting her chin, swallowing hard, she said, "Yes. I'll have it finished by September. No problem."

Big problem.

"Great," David said. "You're gonna be fine, Morgan. You can get through this."

"Of course I can."

"Do you need anything?"

"No, no, I'm fine."

"Your funds still holding out?"

She licked her lips, forced the lie out. She'd cleaned out her accounts on David's advice, before the lawyers and creditors could get hold of her money, and she'd had the cash from the car. But while she had no rent here, there were other expenses. The phone, the electricity, and she had to eat. Truth to tell, the money in her checking account was dwindling.

"I'm fine," she said again.

"Good," David said softly. "Good. You let me know if there's anything you need."

"I will, David."

He was quiet for a moment. "How about your health?"

Drawing a breath, she sighed. "You know how I hate being thought of as sickly."

"Did I say you were sickly?"

"No."

"Well?"

She pursed her lips. "The brisk clean air up here is working wonders on me," she lied. What could she tell him? The truth? That it was cold and dreary and damp here, and that she resented having to think of a sixty-degree day in late April as a heat wave, when she would be basking in eighty-degree heat beside her parents' pool, working on her tan by now, if she'd been home?

But it did no good to wish for what she couldn't have.

"I ought to go, David," she whispered around the lump in her throat. "If I'm going to have this done by fall, I ought to get at it."

"Okay, hon. You just call if you need anything."

"I will, David. Thanks."

Morgan replaced the old receiver on its hook and gnawed on her lower lip. She turned the rickety wooden chair toward the computer screen, assured herself once again that no one was in it, and finally sat down. She poised her hands over the keyboard, told herself to write something, now, today, or else give up for good and go out and find a job. The problem was, she couldn't do anything.

Writing was the only thing she had ever wanted to do, and she'd been good once. Or… she thought she had. In school, her essays got raves. The theater group had even produced one of her plays. Everyone loved it. The campus critics, the local press…

But that was when she'd been Morgan De Silva, the brilliant daughter of a famous director and a beloved actress, the girl leading the charmed life and destined for success. Now she was Morgan De Silva, disgraced has-been, penniless, homeless, practically run out of town and staring into the face of a future more bleak than she could have imagined a year ago.

Now… now she just didn't know if her talent had ever been real, or if it had been her name winning her praise all this time. She didn't know anything anymore, not who she was, or what she was doing or why the words had just stopped coming. It was as if the well inside her had been a part of the illusion her life had been. As if it had dried up when that illusion had been shattered.

She lowered her hands, having put not one word on the screen. Outside, the wind howled; the lights dimmed, then came back. The old house groaned when the wind blew. Probably, if she was as old as it was, she would groan, too, she thought. And then she wondered just how old that was.

Those journals… there had been no dates inscribed, but it was obvious they'd been written long, long ago. At least a century… and maybe closer to two.

That thought brought her back to the one she'd had earlier, about the journal writer. Dante. Had he lived here, that man who'd been a Gypsy boy, entranced by his outcast aunt? Had he been in this very room, perhaps, pacing before a fire, his quill pen lying untouched on some polished antique desk? Had he courted his muse as impatiently as she did, grown frustrated when the words wouldn't come?

Drawn as if by an unseen hand, she rose and walked out of the office, through the ghostly front hall and up the wide staircase. She traversed the hallway, ignoring the doors that lined either side. She hadn't even ventured into most of the rooms up here. There were so many.

But her goal was none of them. Her goal was beyond, up the back stairway into the attic, where spiderwebs held court and dust ruled the day. She knelt as she had before and fished the book of matches from her jeans pocket, then lit the candles in the gaudy candelabra she'd found downstairs. As their soft yellow glow spread, she lovingly opened the hand-tooled chest, took out that first volume, stroked its cover and opened it slowly, careful not to break the brittle pages. Turning to the place where she had left off, she began to read. And once again she lost herself in the words.

Chapter 2

It was fully thirteen years before I saw Sarafina again. Thirteen full years, during which I had learned many things. I had learned that no matter where we went, we would be driven out eventually. I had learned that no matter how honest we might be, we would be called thieves by strangers who knew nothing about us. So I learned to take what I wanted and wish them all damned. I might as well enjoy the fruits of the crimes attributed to me, I reasoned. If I were caught, I would pay for those crimes, whether I had committed them or not. Better I hang for my own offenses than for those of some pale-skinned whelp who pretended honesty and was believed without question, so long as there was a Gypsy nearby to take the blame.

But of all the things I had learned, one bit of knowledge eluded me, though I had sought it without end. I had never learned the mystery of Sarafina. Who she really was, how she was related to us, why she had been ousted from our band. Nor what was the nature of the curse she was said to carry.

Not until the night when my life nearly ended—did end, for all practical purposes. It did end—and a new one began. It was late autumn, and the year was 1848.

I was a young man then. Hotheaded and reckless.

My family was about to pack up and move on yet again. Not because we had grown tired of the place but because the locals accused us of stealing livestock, and we knew the law would be on us soon.

Before we left, I had decided I would extract a pound of flesh from our accusers. More than a pound, actually.

The moon was newly born that night; only a strand of silver gleamed in the sky as I crept into the farmer's barnyard. And even that light was blotted out more and more often as long, clawlike fingers of blue-black clouds reached across its slender arch. I didn't care what I stole that night, so long as I took something. It was retribution. It was repayment for the slander done to me and mine.

The first animal I came upon was a bearded billy goat. I remember it well… fawn and white, and shaggy. Horns curving back, away from its head. Hooves in sad need of trimming, like the too-long fingernails of an old man.

Slipping a rope around its neck, I led the goat away from the shed where it had been penned. Across the worn ground where, by day, the hens would peck and dig. Now they were roosting along the top rail of the fence and in the scraggly young saplings here and there. The goat came along easily, right up until I passed through the gate and started away from the barnyard. Then it stopped all of a sudden, planting its forefeet and bleating loud and long and plaintively. It was like a scream in the night.

I should have let the animal go. But pride in a young man is sometimes overblown, and in me it was combined with anger and fury and frustration.

So I kept tugging on the lead rope, dragging the animal through the lush green grasses, which were damp with night dew. It dragged its feet, tugging and thrashing its shaggy head from side to side, bawling like a lost calf.

The farmer never called out, never ordered me to stop or release the goat or anything else. I never even knew he'd stepped out of his house. That was how silently death came for me that night. One moment I was cussing at an ornery goat, turning and tugging, the rope over my shoulder and the goat behind me. And the next I was facedown on the ground, my ears ringing from the explosion of the gunshot that had come as if from nowhere.

I could not believe it had happened so easily, so suddenly. Without fanfare or drama. The farmer had simply pulled the trigger of his black powder rifle, sending an earsplitting roar through the night and a lead ball through my back.

Shock and pain screamed in me in the seconds after I hit the ground. I felt, for a moment, the fire of the ball's path and the rush of the warm blood soaking my clothes. But then something far more frightening than pain came to me.

Numbness.

It began at my feet, as best I can recall. And I wasn't aware of it as it happened but afterward, when I heard the farmer's footfalls coming closer. I realized that I could not move, that I could not feel my feet. Within a second of that realization I felt the numbness spreading, creeping up my legs as steadily as a rising tide. My hips and pelvis, my belly. It rose further, and the pain that was like a fire in my back vanished. It simply vanished.

I felt nothing. I tried to move my arms, my legs, but I could not.

I gasped in shock when my body suddenly flipped, for I had not even felt the toe of the cruel farmer's boot as he used it to roll me onto my back. But I saw the hate in his eyes as he stared down at me, his weathered face like the bark of an aging cherry tree, white whiskers long and unkempt.

"Thievin' Gypsy scum," he said. He spat on me, and then turned and walked away, taking his goat with him.

He hadn't killed me.

The relief of that was soon overruled by the realization that he would have, had he not been certain I would die on my own within a few minutes. I could not feel the blood spreading beneath me, staining the grass. But I sensed it flowing from my body, felt myself weakening steadily from the loss of it. Felt myself… dying.

I heard his footsteps retreating. Heard the door of his ramshackle house banging closed. And then I heard nothing beyond the gentle wind of the night, whispering in the trees. Whispering my name.

"Oh, sweet Dante," a voice said from very nearby. Not the wind. Not this time. "You've brought this upon yourself far more quickly than I would have liked."

I moved my eyes, turned my head very slightly, but only that. For the most part, my eyes seemed to be the only part of me I was still able to command.

Sarafina stood beside me, silhouetted by the night, like some dark angel. Those black fingers of cloud stretched over the stars behind her. I tried to speak, but the words came so softly, I knew she could not hear them. Then she knelt and bent close to me, and with every ounce of strength in me, I managed to say, "Sarafina… I am dying."

Her soft hand brushed my dark hair away from my forehead. "No, Dante. You know full well I shall not let that happen."

"B-but… "

"Hush. It is almost time." She glanced down at my body, and I wondered what she saw. "You've nearly bled to death. It will only be another moment."

My eyes widened, and panic choked me. "Sarafina!" I rasped, fear giving my voice new strength, though it still emerged as little more than a harsh whisper. "Please!"

"Trust me, my darling. You will not die."

"But… "

"You will not die," she said again.

I lay there, fading, fading, darkness closing in around the edges of my vision. I realized dully that she looked no different to me than she had when I'd seen her last. No older. No different at all.

"There now. That's better."

My eyes opened, fell closed, opened again. My breaths came shallow and sparse, and I could feel my heartbeat. It pounded in my ears, ever slower… slower… slower…

"Listen to me, my special one," she said, and her voice seemed to come from very far away, as if she spoke to me from the depths of a cave. "You have a choice to make, and it must be made now. There will be no time to deliberate. Do you wish to die? Here and now? Or live, though it will mean living in exile, as I do? Hated by the family, outcast, and driven away."

I felt weak. As if I were becoming a shadow. I didn't understand her questions.

"Life or death, Dante? Speak your answer. If you delay, the choice will be gone. You will die. Tell me now. Which will it be? Life… or death?"

I strained to form the single word but never heard it emerge from my lips or felt them move at all. It was all I could do to think the word with the intention of speaking it aloud. Life.

"Good."

She moved. My vision was fading, so that I could not see where she went, what she did. Then she pressed something warm and wet to my lips and whispered, "Drink, Dante. This is the elixir that will make you live. Drink."

The warm, thick liquid touched my lips, and there was a quickening of my senses, followed at once by a shocking sensation of need. I closed my mouth around the font she offered and nursed at it like a suckling babe. Life seemed to awaken in me, along with a hunger such as I had never known. My arms moved, my hands clasping this bounty, holding it to my face, as I sucked at the luscious fluid that flowed into me.

"Enough!"

Sarafina gripped a handful of my hair and jerked my head away. And only then did I realize it had been her wrist at which I'd been so eagerly feeding. Her blood I had been drinking so hungrily. Even now, she pulled her forearm away, tugging a scarf from her hair and wrapping it tightly around the wound.

Horrified, I felt my stomach lurch, turning my head away from her and lifting my hand to swipe at my mouth.

"It's all right, Dante," she whispered. "It is the way the gift is shared."

I looked down at my hands, red with the blood I'd wiped from my mouth. But alive. Strong. I moved my fingers, made fists.

"What is this?" I asked her softly. "What… what does this mean?" And even as I said it, the numbness was receding down my body. The feeling rushed back into my torso, my legs and my feet, with heightened intensity.

My senses prickled with keen new awareness. My skin tingled at the touch of the very air. My eyes seemed to see more vividly, more precisely, than ever they had. And strength surged through my veins.

She tore my shirt away, making strips of its fabric as she spoke. "It is a gift, young Dante, though the old one calls it a curse. It is a gift I have given to you. You will never die now. Never grow older. And though your family will turn against you, you will never be alone, as I have been. For I will be with you. Always."

Looking over my shoulder at her, for she was now wadding the fabric and stuffing it into the wound in my back, which caused me immense pain, I shook my head. I did not understand. She tied several strips tightly around me, to hold the wads in place, then reached down, clasped my hand and helped me to my feet, and even as I rose, I saw the old man's silhouette looming just behind her.

I opened my mouth to shout a warning.

Before I said a word, Sarafina turned with such speed she seemed a mere blur. The farmer's rifle went sailing through the air, out of sight, firing harmlessly into the woods as it hit the ground. And Sarafina, the beautiful, gracious woman by whom I had been so entranced, gripped the farmer's shirtfront and jerked him forward. Before I could even react, she had fastened her mouth to his throat.

I heard the sounds… I saw, very clearly in the darkness now, what she was doing. Drinking… his blood. Gorging herself at his throat. At first the farmer pounded her back and kicked at her… and then… then he simply surrendered. I heard his sigh, saw him close his eyes and even wrap his arms around her. He let his head fall backward, and I saw him grind his hips against Sarafina's as she continued to suck at his throat.

And then there was no life left in him at all.

She let go his shirt, and the corpse fell to the ground. Empty. A rag-poppet. Utterly drained.

With one of her scarfs, Sarafina dabbed delicately at her mouth as she turned to face me. I gaped at her, my mouth working soundlessly.

"Don't look so shocked, Dante. Are you telling me you're only just figuring it out? Hmm? We are Nosferatu. We are undead." She licked her lips, tilted her head and smiled very slightly at me. "Vampires," she whispered, and I swore the night wind picked up the word and repeated it a thousand times in a thousand voices.

Vampires.

A breeze from some unseen source made the candle flames leap and flicker. Morgan tore her eyes from the weathered pages and automatically looked behind her. But of course no one was there. Nothing was there. This wasn't real.

It wasn't real.

"Oh my God," Morgan whispered. "This isn't a diary. These aren't memoirs. It's… it's fiction. It's incredible, breathtaking fiction!"

Oh, maybe not to the man who had written it. The delightfully insane artist who had crafted this tale had, perhaps, even believed it. Imagine. A man who honestly thought he was a vampire. A man who had, in all likelihood, lived here. Right here. In this house.

Something scraped the window, and Morgan whirled, her hand flying to her chest as her heart leapt. But it was only a tree limb, bent and clawlike, scratching at the glass. Not some creature of the night who called himself Dante, come back to claim his diaries and his house. Of course not. Vampires were not real.

The sudden movement, the scare, left her slightly dizzy and made her chest pound. She waited for it to ease. The rush of breathlessness passed, as it always did. She drew a few deep, cleansing breaths and glanced at her watch. She had been sitting in the dark, musty attic for hours, lost in the imaginary world of a madman. When she should have been working on her own tales of intrigue.

God, how was she ever going to have a saleable script ready for David in three months? Especially now, when all she wanted to do was read more of this incredible tale.

Vaguely she wondered how long it had taken the imaginative Dante to pen his fantasies. Not long, she thought… if every journal in this stack were filled. And even then, she didn't know how he had managed it all in one short lifetime.

He was dead, though. He had to be dead, because she had finally come upon a date, so there was no doubt. And his words, his tales… they just lay there, untouched. So vivid, so wonderfully written, it was almost heartbreaking that they hadn't been shared with the world. God, if she had written something this good and it had never been seen, she would have been…

Oh.

Oh. The thought that just occurred to her! This could be her work. For all anyone else knew, it could all be her work. Who the hell would ever know the difference?

"No," she whispered aloud. "It wouldn't be right."

Wouldn't it? her mind argued. She had just decided it was criminal that this work hadn't been shared. She had just acknowledged that if she had been the author, she would have spent eternity regretting that the work lay here, undiscovered. The written word was meant to be read, after all. Not hidden away but… shared. Experienced.

She knelt again in front of the trunk, licked her dry lips. What harm would there be, she wondered? Dante was long dead, and no one else could possibly know of the existence of these diaries. Could they? Of course not! If they did, these journals wouldn't have been left here to molder in a dusty attic.

And there were so many of them!

"My God," she whispered. "This is a gold mine. I'm sitting on an absolute gold mine here." And as she sat there, staring down at the trunk full of stories, she knew that they were even more than that. They were the key to getting everything she wanted, to reclaiming everything she had lost. Wealth. Power. Fame. Her triumphant return to L.A. It was all right here. Almost like a gift… left just for her by some long-dead madman who'd called himself Dante and believed himself to be a vampire.

She took the first journal carefully, holding it to her breast like a lover as she straightened, and, turning, she carried it downstairs to her office.

This time, when she held her hands over the keyboard, Dante's journal was lying open on the table beside the computer. And this time, the words came.

Chapter 3

Maxine Stuart was watching JFK for about the twelfth time on the little VCR/TV combo in her bedroom, a copy of Catcher in the Rye in her lap, a half-dead can of Coke on the bedside stand, when she heard the sirens. The sound stabbed her in the belly like an ice-cold blade and brought her slowly to her feet, though she couldn't have said why. She went to the window, pushed the curtains aside. She could see the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles passing on the highway in the distance. Heading south. Her gaze turned in that direction, and she narrowed her eyes on the faint red glow in the distant night sky.

A familiar Jeep bounded into her driveway, and about a second later she heard the front door of the small house open, heard her mother speaking to Max's friends as she let them in. Maxine shut the TV off, turned and opened her bedroom door as they came hurrying through the house.

Her two best friends came around a corner into the hall and stopped when they saw her standing there. Something was up. Jason didn't shake easily, and he looked shaken. Storm—her real name was Tempest, but she hated it—was downright pale. Maxine's mom was right on their heels.

"So what is it, what's burning?" Max asked.

"It's Spook Central," Jason said without even missing a beat. "It's bad."

"It's awful," Stormy added, and her round jewel-blue eyes were damp. "I don't think anyone got out alive."

Spook Central was Maxine's pet name for the large, nameless government compound just outside town. The main building was huge and sat well back from the road behind a large, electrified fence, surrounded by surveillance cameras and shrouded in secrecy. A research lab—that was the party line, anyway, and so the gullible locals believed. Medical research was done there—they were working on finding cures for cancer and AIDS, stuff like that. Good work. Almost holy. Too sacred to mess with or poke around in. Who would question such a saintly mission?

Maxine had her own theories, as she did about most things, and right now she hoped to God the one she had always considered the most likely—that the place was a military lab working on germ warfare and chemical weapons—was dead wrong.

Nightmare images from Stephen King's The Stand coiled and uncoiled in her mind until she shook them away and stepped into action. She turned, reaching back into her room to snatch a jacket from the back of a chair. Then she was striding down the hall. "Let's go."

"Go? Go where?" her mother asked, falling into step behind the three of them as they headed for the front door. When no one replied, Ellen got around them, stepping right into their path. "Max, don't you go over there. You'll just get in the way and maybe get hurt."

"Come on, Mom, I'm twenty years old. I'm not going to bother the firefighters. I just want to know what's going on."

"Then read about it in the morning paper, like everyone else."

"God, how can you be so innocent?"

Ellen Stuart sighed, looking worried, but also resigned. No one had ever really been able to change Maxine's mind once it was made up about something, and her mother ought to be getting used to that by now, having experienced it firsthand from the day she brought the three-month-old orphan home for the first time. "Be careful."

"Always." Maxine yanked a mini-backpack off the hook by the door. An iron-on patch with the words Trust No One and the X-Files logo decorated its front. She slung it over her shoulder, and the three friends trooped out of the house.

They all piled into Jason's creamed-coffee colored Jeep Cherokee. He liked to joke that he had picked the color to match his skin. And it did, pretty closely. Maxine took the back seat. Stormy, a pixie-sized psych major with short, spiky, bleached hair, got into the front with Jason, closing her door just as he backed out into the street and headed out of town.

Maxine sat on the edge of her seat, her head between the two in the front. "You can see the fire from here. Look at that."

They did. Stormy shivered, lowered her eyes. Jason stared as if mesmerized for a moment, then snapped out of it, flicking on the radio, turning the dial. "I knew you'd want to go," he said. "It came over my brother's scanner. If he wasn't a volunteer firefighter, I probably still wouldn't know."

"Still nothing about it on the radio, Jay?" Stormy asked. She was nervous; playing with her eyebrow ring was always a sign of that.

He kept flicking the dial, then gave up, shaking his head slowly. "I expected special reports, crap like that, but there hasn't been a word."

"They report what they're told to report," Maxine said. "Despite my mother's gullible belief in the system, the phrase 'free press' is an oxymoron in this country."

"I like your mom," Jason put in.

Max blinked at him as if he were speaking another language. "I like her, too. What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"I just don't think you ought to be calling her gullible. She wouldn't like it."

Maxine closed her eyes, shook her head, then glanced at Stormy for backup.

"He's right," Stormy said. "Your mom is cool. You're so lucky."

"Of course she's cool! Hell, I would have gotten a dorm room or an apartment or gone to college out of town if she wasn't cool, instead of staying home and going to a local school. But this has nothing to do with my mother or how cool she may or may not be! I'm talking about the government here. Cover-ups. Covert operations."

Stormy shrugged, averting her eyes. Topics like this always made her uncomfortable. But Maxine wasn't uncomfortable discussing it. She was more uncomfortable having lived practically in the shadow of that huge, fenced in, well-guarded compound all her life, and never once knowing what went on inside.

She knew only one thing for sure. It wasn't cancer research. She would have given her eyeteeth for a look beyond the tall, electrified fences of that place. Just one look. Now maybe no one would ever know the truth.

Jason drove on, pulling the Jeep over onto the right-hand shoulder before they got to the point where emergency vehicles lined both sides of the road. Highway flares lay across the pavement. Orange and white striped sawhorses with red reflectors were lined up behind them, forming a boundary that was supposed to tell them to keep out. They got out of the Jeep. Flames in the distance licked at the night sky, and Max could already taste the smoke in her mouth with every breath.

"This way." Maxine walked along the road's right shoulder, beyond the parked vehicles, and her friends followed. The burning compound was on the left, at the end of a long curving drive. She led the others forward until they were directly across the street from the entrance to the compound. Firefighters were across the street, partway along the drive, facing away from them. They were completely focused on their work, anyway. Maxine crouched near an ambulance, tugging the others down with her.

The fire trucks had apparently driven straight through the gate at the head of the drive. The guardhouse nearby was empty, the gate itself lying flat. The fence to the left and right of it was buckled and broken. The surveillance cameras that had been mounted on poles lay smashed to bits. Volunteer firefighters in yellow jackets marked with glowing silver reflective tape manned huge hoses attached to tanker trucks in the curving paved drive. Every time they beat the flames down a little, the trucks would roll closer, the men pushing farther into the fury.

"I don't know how they can stand it. God, I can feel the heat from here," Stormy said, pressing a palm to her face.

"I'm surprised their hoses aren't melting," Jason whispered. "If they move any closer… "

"If they move any closer, we'll be able to get in."

The other two looked at Maxine as if she had sprouted horns.

"What?" she asked.

"You gotta be out of your freaking mind, Max," Jason told her, while Storm just shook her head. "We can't go in there."

"No one's watching the entrance. They're all distracted, fighting the fire. We can get in without even trying."

"Okay, I'll rephrase that. We can go in there. But we shouldn't."

Now it was Maxine's turn to gape. "What are you, crazy? I've been dying to get behind those gates since I was old enough to see through that lame cancer research cover story they've been using."

"Which was when she was about six," Stormy muttered.

Max shot her a look but hurried on. "Don't you guys get it? This is our chance. No guards, nothing. We can finally see something besides the lie."

"And just what do you think there's gonna be left to see, Max?" Jason pointed at the place. "It's completely engulfed in flames."

"I won't know until I try."

He sighed, lowering his shaved head and running a hand over it. No one spoke again for a long time as they crouched and waited and watched. Twenty minutes went by before the firefighters pushed a few yards closer. Max shot to her feet, glanced both ways and ran across the street. Her two friends hesitated, then followed. They crossed the pavement and jogged through the opening, right over the mesh of the toppled gate, past the abandoned guardhouse and into the trees that lined the driveway. There were a lot of them. The better to block the place from the view of casual passersby, Max thought. Pines. Of course they were pines. Year-round-camouflage for whatever went on inside.

They ducked beneath one of the trees, and Max stared ahead. The fire was being steadily beaten down. Those firefighters were something else, she thought, wondering if Jay's older brother, Mike, was among them. They never gave up, even though they had to realize by now that it was a lost cause.

More sirens came, and Max looked back toward the road to see police cars, cops getting out, dispersing some of the curious onlookers who had now begun to gather on the road out front. "We just made it in time," she whispered.

"If they catch us in here, our asses will be toast," Jason said.

"If we get any closer to that inferno, they might be toast anyway," Stormy added.

The firemen ahead fought on, soaking the place down, beating back the flames and pressing ever closer. The trucks rolled forward a little more, and Max urged her unwilling comrades to do the same. "See that flagpole over there?" she asked, pointing. Jason and Storm looked at it, then at her.

"Once they get up that far, we can cut around the side of the building and make our way to the back."

"And then a flaming wall can come down on us, crushing us and roasting us at the same time," Storm said. Her gaze was fixed on the burning building, and the flames' reflection danced in her eyes.

Max swallowed any second thoughts she had about dragging her two best friends into this, beat them down the way the firefighters beat down the flames. It was for the greater good, she told herself. And besides, they wouldn't get hurt. She wouldn't let them get hurt. Maxine Stuart took care of her friends.

Movement drew her attention. "There they go!"

As the fire truck rolled ahead, Max ran forward, cutting off to the left and moving rapidly away from the pool of firelight that spread like an aura from ground-zero. The trees ended there, and she paused at the very last one. She tried not to feel a huge sense of relief when she realized Jason and Storm were still at her side. But she felt it anyway. God, they were loyal.

The distance from the front to the back of the rubble that had once been the main building was at least half a football field, without so much as a shrub for cover. But it was dark. Getting darker with every cloud of thick smoke that wafted from the fire.

"We can make it," Max said.

"They're gonna haul our asses to jail for this, Maxie," Jason said.

"Ready?"

Neither of them answered her. Max licked her lips and trusted them. "Go!" And she ran.

She was never certain they were following until she stopped when she reached what had been the far end of the building and they bumped into her in the darkness. Hands gripped shoulders as they steadied each other. Then they stood for a moment, catching their breath, squinting into the darkness. There were fifty feet between where they stood and the smoldering remains at the rear of the building. It no longer much resembled a building at all. It wasn't tall or square. It was a heap. Flames leaped up here and there, although most of the real fire had moved hungrily toward the front, having had its fill here, it seemed. There were glowing red shapes forming mounds underneath the charred forms of the skeletal underpinning. There were ashes, smoke. Were there people in there? she wondered. Bodies?

"This is close enough," Stormy whispered.

Max looked around. "You see that shrub over there? It's out of the smoke." She pointed. "You two wait for me there. I promise I won't be long."

"Don't, Max," Jason warned. He sounded pissed off. "Just… don't."

"Five minutes," she said. "Just five freaking minutes. This is once in a lifetime, Jay." She didn't wait for him to argue. She ran, instead.

They didn't follow this time.

It was hot. Damned hot, and the smoke was burning her eyes and her nose, and she kept trying not to cough too loudly and give herself away. She ran until she reached the rear of the building, and then she moved closer and closer to it, as close as she could stand to get. She figured her hair was probably getting a little singed, and she had to watch where she put her feet to keep from stepping on smoldering embers that would have melted right through the soles of her shoes.

She looked around, squinting through the veil of smoke and the shimmering heat waves. There were several things on the ground in one area. Large broken boxes—computers. Smashed to bits. Some burned and charred, others just smashed. Had someone thrown them out the windows in an effort to save them? Or maybe to destroy them? She kicked at one. What she wouldn't have given for a hard drive from one of those machines. God only knew what she might find. Bending, she reached out to pick through the pile of rubble, but the pieces were so hot they seared her fingers, and she jerked her hand away, sucking air through her teeth.

"Shit." She put her burned fingers to her lips, blew on them, drew them away and shook them in the air as she kept on walking. Her foot kicked something that rolled, and she looked down, frowning, looking closer. When she realized she was bending over a charred forearm and hand, she pulled back so suddenly she almost fell over. "Jesus!"

Her breathing quickened now, her lungs sucking in more smoke with every breath, but that couldn't be helped. She continued her search, spotting other evidence of human remains in the wreckage. More and more of it. Bodies. Parts of bodies. It was as if she had stepped into hell's dumping ground. Jesus, why hadn't anyone been able to get out alive? What the hell had happened here?

This was stupid. She had been a fool to come here. She started to turn, to go back, when movement caught her eye. Movement in the smoky distance. She went still, squinting, staring.

Gradually, the movement took shape. A man, his clothes burned, his skin so sooty she couldn't tell if he was black or white. He was hunched over, walking unevenly, bending and straightening over and over again. It looked as if he was picking things up, dragging himself away from the wreckage and picking things up as he went. She was about to offer to help him when she heard her name shouted from a distance.

The man heard Stormy's call, too, and he went stiff, jerking his head toward the voice. A tongue of flame leapt to life somewhere near him and illuminated his face for just an instant. His hair had been burned completely away from one side of his head, and the scalp and one side of his face was charred. Black, with pink showing through here and there. She tried to memorize his features, the rounded face, the shape of his chin. He tucked whatever he had been holding into his pockets and ran in a lumbering, uneven gait away from the voice and right toward Maxine.

She ducked down low, held her breath, willed herself not to move. She didn't know for sure that the man was dangerous, but if he were up to anything good, he wouldn't be running away. Maybe he was just a snoop, like she was. But probably not. He'd been inside that burning building. That much was obvious.

He limped past her, never even looking down at her as she sat there fighting not to shiver in fear. He moved so close she could smell his charred flesh, and it made her stomach clench reflexively.

Something fell from his jacket. Something—no, two somethings—dropped to the hot, rubble-strewn ground right at her feet. He never noticed, just kept going, dragging one leg, lunging with the other, until he vanished in the smoke.

Swallowing hard, Maxine reached for the items. One was a CD-ROM. The other, some kind of ID badge. She swore every nerve ending in her body tingled with electricity as she tucked the two still-warm items carefully into her pocket and, turning, ran back the way she had come. She refused to look again at the carnage. Refused to look behind her, even when she swore she felt the disfigured man's gaze burning into her back. She just hurried as fast as she could back to where she'd left her friends and fell to her knees near the shrub where they waited.

"God, thank God, you're back!" Storm said. She bent over Max, stroking her back. "Are you all right? What happened back there?"

"Did you find anything? What did you see?" Jason asked.

Maxine lifted her head, looked at them. "It's… there were… bodies."

"Oh, God," Storm said, closing her eyes.

Max gripped Jason's forearm, and he helped her to her feet. "Let's get the hell out of here, okay?" he suggested.

She nodded. They fell into step together, with Max in the center, her two friends flanking her almost protectively. They had made it almost all the way to the front gate when the sounds of rumbling motors flooded the night and vehicles came roaring along the street and into the drive. They ducked into the nearby pines, watching as camo-painted trucks and Jeeps with spotlights mounted on them bounded past. At least one vehicle had a machine gun mounted on a tripod in the back. Soldiers armed with weapons came spilling out of the trucks and fanned out onto the grounds.

Ten feet ahead of Max, a cop stood with his back to them, looking at the commotion with his head tilted to one side. Her cop, Maxine realized with a rush of relief.

Jason saw him at the same time, squeezed Max's arm, whispered, "Cop."

"It's okay. It's Lou Malone."

Jason sent her a frown.

"He teaches that women's self-defense course I take."

"You remember him, Jay," Storm put in. "He used to work our high school dances. He's the one Maxie always had a crush on."

"Oh, yeah. That one." He sent Max a look that asked if she still did, but she just rolled her eyes and looked away.

Someone spoke into a bullhorn, startling her so much that she jerked her gaze away from the back of Lou's head. "This is a government facility and therefore, a military operation. Local firefighters are to cease all activity at once. No one is to leave this site without clearance. Line up in an orderly fashion near the front gate and you'll be escorted off the premises. That is all."

"What the hell is going on, Max?" Storm whispered, clutching Maxine's arm. "They've got guns."

"They're not going to use them." Jason tried to sound confident and sure of himself but missed that goal by about a mile. "I mean, they're soldiers. They have to carry guns. Right?"

They watched from their pine-scented blind as the soldiers tugged firemen away from their hoses. Some of the firefighters obeyed, moving to form a straggling line by the gate. Those who didn't move fast enough were searched where they were, then escorted to the front gate and through it. More soldiers searched the fire trucks, and the vehicles in the street, as well.

"Well, I'll be dipped," Officer Malone said to himself. "What the hell is all this about?"

Licking her lips, Maxine stepped out of her cover, walked up to Lou and cleared her throat. He turned fast, then gaped at her in surprise. She loved him. Had since tenth grade. And it didn't matter that his face was hard and lined, or that he was eighteen years older than she was, or that he saw her as little more than a pain-in-the-ass kid with a big imagination.

"Well, if it isn't Mad Maxie Stuart, my favorite redhead," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Why the hell am I not surprised to see you here?"

"Hey, Lou. I just wanted to see the fire."

"Uh-huh." He glanced at her friends. "Don't you two know better than to let her drag you into her schemes?"

They shrugged, said nothing.

"Lou, I don't like this," Max said. "This whole soldier bit. They're searching everyone."

"Yeah, I see that."

"Just an excuse to grope the females," Stormy said. "If they think they're gonna run their hands all over my body, they'd better think again."

Maxine watched Lou's eyes slide to hers as Stormy spoke and knew her friend had fallen on the right tactic. "I don't relish the idea of them copping a feel of my ass, either, Storm." Even as she said it, a soldier slammed a firefighter who resisted him up against the guardhouse. Lou saw it and winced.

"I'm scared, Lou. I just want to get out of here," Max said.

Lou Malone pursed his lips in thought; then, finally, he nodded. "It's not like you kids are any threat to national security. These guys are a little overzealous, I think. Look, there's a break in the fence, just past those pines. See that tallest one? It's near that. Go on, get outta here. I never saw you."

"Thanks, Lou."

He gave Maxine a worried nod, and, impulsively, she leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Get your ass straight home, Mad Max. No more screwing around with grown-up stuff, okay?"

"I promise," she said. Then she ran off in the direction he'd shown her.

Max waited until Jason and Storm had gone home. She told them nothing about the man she had seen gathering evidence from the rubble. Nothing about the trophies she had recovered. She didn't want to tell them anything that could put them in danger or make them accessories if what she had done turned out to be a crime. Late that night, very late, she gently wiped the soot from the partially melted plastic of the name badge.

There was a photograph of a man, and the words, "Frank W. Stiles. Security Level: Alpha. DPI."

She knew what "Security Level: Alpha" meant. She had learned that the first time she tried to uncover the truth about UFOs and government cover-ups. Alpha was the word used to indicate the top-level security clearances in certain agencies under the auspices of the CIA. But in all her years of research she had never once come across any reference to any agency or operation called DPI.

Jesus, what the hell had she stumbled upon?

She was nearly shaking when she washed the soot from the CD-ROM and slid it into her computer, praying the heat hadn't ruined it.

It hadn't.

When she clicked RUN, the driver whirred and the screen went black. Red letters lit up the screen.

TOP SECRET DOCUMENTS

of

THE DIVISION OF PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS

CASE FILES D145.9—H376.51

Continue?

The final word blinked its question at her, almost daring her to take it up on the challenge.

Stiffening her spine, she clicked on the word and brought up a table of contents. Names. They were simply names.

Damien, aka Namtar, Damien, aka Gilgamesh

Daniels, Matthew

Daniella

Dante

Devon, Josephina

Obviously alphabetical, the list began in the Ds and ended in the Hs. Some were first and last names, some only one name. There were maybe a hundred entries, as near as she could tell without counting. Clicking back to the top of the list, she began scrolling down it. Then she came to one that made her stop in her tracks.

Dracul, Vlad (See full bio for alias list.)

"What the hell?" Curious, she clicked on the name, and a graphic popped up. A drawing, not a photo, of a thoroughly modern-looking man, with long black hair and unusually full lips.

The most well known of the species, he was born in Carpathia and transformed, as nearly as we can tell, in his early twenties. Sired by an unknown enemy soldier, probably a Turk. Most recent sighting, May, 1992, Paris.

"Most recent sighting?" She blinked at the screen, her mind not quite digesting what she was seeing. "Ninety-two?"

Below the graphic, with its piercing eyes and pale skin, were more choices: Known Kills, Known Associates, Known Havens, Full Bio.

"What in the name of God is this shit?"

She hit the back button, clicked on another name in the list, and again was brought to a screen with an image of the person, this one an actual photograph labeled "taken before transformation" and a brief bio.

Josephina Devon. Born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1962. Transformed in the summer of her 30th year, June 1992. Sire: R-532 aka Rhiannon.

The vampire "Vampire?" was captured by DPI researchers in December of the same year. Held at DPI Headquarters in White Plains, NY, USA. Expired in captivity, 1995.

Again, the same choices were offered for further information, this time with one notable addition: "Tests Performed on the Subject & Results of Same."

This was not real.

This could not be real.

When she clicked on "full bio" she found a document more than a hundred pages long. With details that made her mind spin with the impossibility of it all. When she opened the file that referred to tests performed, she thought she was going to be ill. This person, this woman, had been a lab rat. Held and experimented upon in that very building. In her own town.

But no. It hadn't happened, because it wasn't real.

There were no such things as vampires. Much less a covert government agency devoted to researching them.

And yet, here was the proof that there were.

There were.

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

The next day, she still hadn't decided, when the doorbell rang and she answered it to find no one there. Just an unmarked manila envelope on the doorstep.

Her mother was already at work. Most days she left before Max was even out of bed. The odd delivery made Maxine curious, particularly after last night. She looked up and down the street. No strangers lurked anywhere. No suspicious vehicles with tinted windows slid past. The neighborhood was stirring to life. People opening their doors, picking up their morning papers.

Maxine picked up the envelope, looked at it, turned it over. Nothing. Not one word, not a label, not a stamp.

Frowning, she went back inside, closing and locking the door behind her. She took the envelope to the kitchen table, opening it as she walked, and she tipped it, dumping the contents out beside her bowl of corn flakes. Photos. What the hell? She frowned. Polaroids. Three of them. Then she blinked and snatched them up. That was Jason, sound asleep in his bed! She moved it to the back of the pile. The next shot was of Stormy, from the neck up, in her own shower. Maxine swore and looked at the third one. It was a shot of her mother, getting out of her car in the parking garage of the hospital where she worked as an R.N.

The telephone rang, and she damn near jumped out of her skin. Maxine clenched her teeth, dropped the photos on the table and went to pick up the phone.

"Do you like the photos, Maxine?"

The voice was a whisper so cold it sent a chill down her spine. "Who the hell is this?" Maxine reached for the answering machine on the table, jabbed the record button with her forefinger.

"Those shots were all taken in the past twelve hours, you know."

"Why?" Her hand was clenching the telephone so hard her knuckles were white. She wished it was this son of a bitch's neck. How dare he? God, he'd been in Jason's bedroom. In Storm's bathroom. And in that dark parking garage, alone with her mother.

"To show you how easy it is for me to learn everything about you, and how quickly and effortlessly I can get to the people you love. To shoot them. With a camera, this time, but—"

"You fuck with my family or my friends and you die. Do you understand me?"

"That's quite the threat, coming from a girl barely out of high school." He laughed, a deep, low sound that changed into a racking cough.

Max held the phone away from her ear, looking at it as realization dawned. It was him. The burned guy she'd seen at the fire. He must have seen her after all. He stopped coughing, and she put the phone back to her ear. "Why are you calling me? What do you want from me, anyway?"

"I want you to forget everything you saw last night. Pretend you were never there. Tell no one."

"Fine. I'll be glad to. If you'll tell me what happened there last night."

"I'm not making a bargain with you, Maxine. You'll do as I say. Forget you ever saw me."

"But—"

"Listen to me, you nosy little bitch!" She jerked in reaction to the anger in his voice. "If you so much as mention anything about seeing me at that fire to anyone, the next thing you find on your doorstep will be a body. Or a part of one. I'll just shuffle those photos and pick one at random. Are you following me now?"

"Yes!" She paused, took a breath, her outrage completely smothered by her fear. He would hurt her mother, her friends. "Yes, I… look, I don't know anything. I'm no threat to you. And I'm the only one that saw you. I didn't tell them. I didn't tell anyone. They don't know anything." She was shaking. She pressed a hand to the wall because her legs felt so unsteady.

"That's good. See that it stays that way. I'll be watching you, Maxine. And rest assured, I know how. I'm going to hear everything you say and see everything you do. Don't test me."

"I won't."

He hung up the phone.

Maxine wanted to sink to the floor. She looked around her, feeling exposed, vulnerable. She depressed the cutoff, then lifted it again. With a trembling forefinger, she punched the star key, then the six and the nine. Maybe she shouldn't. Maybe he wasn't kidding and would know she had tried.

"The last number that called this line was," the computer-generated voice said. Then it paused as its components worked. "We're sorry. That number is not available." It clicked off.

Swallowing hard, Maxine hung up the phone.

What the hell was she supposed to do now? Was he watching her? Could he see her even now? Were there bugs or hidden cameras in her own house? She searched her mind and mentally wondered what Oliver Stone would do.

She told herself to use her head. To think.

Okay. The guy had been in a fire last night. Wounded, burned. Suffering from smoke inhalation, too, by the sounds of his cough. He must have spotted her leaving, maybe even followed her home, and then followed Jason and Storm. He learned where they lived, went and got a camera, sneaked back and took the shots. Then he returned to Max's home and watched the place. He'd followed her mom to work in the wee hours of this morning and taken that shot of her. Then he'd come back here and dropped the envelope and made the phone call. Not from the pay phone, because that would have been traceable. A cell phone, maybe. She leaned over the answering machine, hit rewind and then play. As the tape played back, she heard traffic sounds in the background and some telltale static.

She stopped the machine, popped the microcassette out. He was on the road, on the move. He would have to be. He would be watching her, yes. If he were CIA, he would know how to plant bugs and cameras. But she didn't think he'd had the time to do those things yet. He probably figured he could scare her enough to keep her on the straight and narrow until he had all his ducks in a row.

Fine.

She went to her room, saved the contents of the CD-ROM to her hard drive, just in case, then tucked the CD and the name badge into her pocket along with the tape and headed out of the house. It wouldn't look unusual for her to walk to campus. She had classes today.

She wouldn't pursue this and put her mother or her friends at risk. She had no doubt the man would carry out his threats and then some. No doubt at all. God knew the government had committed far more serious atrocities and gotten away with them. Especially if the accounts on that CD were true.

But she wouldn't forget. And she would make sure she had plenty of copies of this evidence tucked away in various places. Because someday she would be older and in a position to blow the whistle. Someday when she was established, with a Ph.D. behind her name, and a law license and some clout of her own. Then she would demand some answers.

But not yet. Right now she was just Mad Maxie Stuart, the twenty-year-old college student with the big imagination.

Imagination my ass, she thought. If she had ever needed proof that the government was up to no good in her hometown, she had it now. If that bastard on the phone thought his threats would put her off the scent, he was wrong. His threats were like the validation that had always eluded her. She wasn't a nut. She was right.

She had been right all along.

And she could be patient.

Chapter 4

5 Years Later

Dante woke to the sounds of crackling flames and the smell of smoke. It was so like a fragment of his oldest nightmare that for a moment he believed it was just that, a dream memory come to haunt him, and he didn't stir. But then he felt the heat and the sting in his eyes. He sensed the angry flames and knew they were real.

He sat up fast, too fast, then had to blink in order to clear his swimming head. Night had not yet fallen, he realized dully. He was still weak with the languor of the day sleep. His limbs felt heavy as he turned himself sideways in the large bed and let his legs fall to the floor. They tingled in rebellion when he put weight on them, but he lumbered anyway, stark naked, across the lush carpet, toward the bedroom door. He didn't go far. He didn't have to. Flames snapped and snarled beyond the door, and its gleaming finish began to bubble and sweat.

Dante's nose burned with the smell, and his mind whirled with questions. This was not a coincidence. He turned toward the window, tugging back the heavy draperies, then ducking to the side as the sunlight seared his exposed skin. It hung low in the sky, that blinding yellow death, but it was there, dammit. If he went outside, he would roast.

If he stayed in here, he would do likewise.

The door groaned ominously, swelling inward before its pregnant belly burst, giving birth to hungry flames. Smoke wafted in like a great black ghost. His flesh sizzled. Growling deep in his throat, Dante tore the drapery from its rod, wrapped it around him like a shroud and dove through the glass.

The ground didn't give an inch but met him brutally, knocked the breath from his lungs, jarred his teeth and rattled his bones. He rolled, got to his feet and ran blindly as he felt the sun heating his skin through the fabric. There was motion to the left of him, then an impact as he slammed bodily into what felt like a car. Brakes squealed, and someone shouted a curse to the accompanying blast of a horn, but Dante just kept moving. He had to peer through the opening in the fabric to see where the hell he was going. Across the pavement, yes, this was right. He ran flat out, off the road, across the weed-strewn parking lot, his bare feet blistering with every searing step as he raced toward the shore. The sunlight beyond the drapery was beginning to penetrate now, and he could feel his flesh blister. Damn, damn, damn. Head down, bare feet pounding, drape clutched around him like a cloak, he ran.

There was a sound. A whirring sound, and then something skewered his arm. It felt as if a red-hot blade had driven straight through. He stopped dead at the stunning pain, groping beneath the drapery with his one functioning hand and feeling a shaft, like a dowel, embedded in his upper arm, warm, thick blood pulsing from the point of entry.

"I got him!" someone shouted. A man's voice.

A dead man, Dante thought viciously. He forced himself to keep moving. Then his feet touched water and he pressed onward, sloshing to knee depth, then mid-thigh. The cool salty wetness was like heaven on his flesh. God, he was baking. A few more yards and he pitched himself headlong into the Atlantic and swam deep. He let go the drapery, but it hung, tugging at the shaft in his arm until he tore it free. Pain screamed through him, but there was no time to acknowledge it. He swam, as deep as he could go, and still deeper, until he couldn't feel the sun heating his skin any longer.

Then he rolled, his body brushing the sand and shells and assorted litter on the bottom and stirring up a watery cloud as he looked above him, toward the surface. The sky beyond the water was still pale, but growing ever dimmer. The water cooled and soothed his heat-razed flesh, but his arm was alive with pain, and in a moment he realized the clouds in the water were taking on a pinkish hue. He glanced down at his arm. High on the outside, halfway between shoulder and elbow, the bolt he'd all but forgotten was still piercing him. Blood oozed steadily from around it, blossoming in the water.

The maniac had shot him with a crossbow.

Dante lifted his arm and saw the bolt sticking out the underside. Lovely.

Gripping the bolt with one hand, he pulled it free, swearing the damned thing was a mile long, grating his teeth at the intensity of the pain as it slid through his flesh. Jesus! Mortals would never know pain like vampires did. Never.

He dropped the bolt to the ocean floor, but the blood still flowed. And it would continue to flow until he bled out, unless he found a way to stanch it. The wound would heal only with the day sleep. If he lived that long.

He reached down to the sea's bottom, scooped up a handful of the muddy sand and, mustering every ounce of tolerance he had, packed the stuff into the hole in his arm. The pain was excruciating. He howled with it, but in the depths, who could hear? He packed the sand in from both sides of the wound, then plucked a handful of coarse seaweed and wound it around his arm. Using his teeth and one hand, he knotted the rope-like stalks.

He was weak from the pain, his lungs starving for air, and though he would not die for the lack of it, it was nearly impossible to convince himself not to inhale.

When he looked up again, the sky was dark, and he whispered a silent thanks to whatever sorts of angels watched over the undead. He pushed his feet into the ocean bottom, just a little. Slowly, very slowly, he let himself float to the surface. When his head broke through, he sucked in a deep breath. It felt heavenly, filling his lungs, clearing his head. He pushed his dripping hair off his face and scanned the shoreline.

"He's got to come out sooner or later."

Dante followed the sound of the voice to its owner, a man who stood on the shoreline, waving a flashlight around over the surface of the water. He was looking seventy-five yards too close to the shore. Thinking like a mortal, applying mortal limitations to a creature who laughed at them.

"If he does, he'll kill us both," said another man. "The sun's gone down."

"But—"

"We failed. You have to know when to admit defeat and walk away, Raymond. Otherwise you won't live long enough to try again. After dark, they're in control. You understand? The night is our enemy."

Gazing through the darkness, Dante spotted the second man on the shore. The left side of his face, between the cheek and the eye, was mottled and scarred, pulling the eye itself into a grotesque pout. Higher, there was a pink patch where no hair grew on his head.

"Put the light out," the scarred man ordered.

The other one, Raymond, obeyed. "How can he stay in the water that long? Huh? I didn't think they could breathe underwater like freaking fish or something."

"They can't. But it would take a very long time for one to pass out from lack of oxygen."

Dante pulled his arms through the water, moving silently, steadily closer, eager to rip out their throats and drain them dry. He'd lost a substantial amount of blood. He could replenish himself at their expense. The two were certainly courting his wrath.

But before he could reach them, they hurried away. He heard doors slam, a motor start up, and then saw the lights of a car as it left him. No longer bothering to move slowly or quietly, Dante swam until his knees dragged in the sand. Then he got to his feet and waded out of the cold ocean. As he stood on the shore, ankle deep in the water, stark naked and cold as stone, he looked back toward the flaming torch in the night that had been one of his favorite homes.

"I'm going to have to kill those two, whoever the hell they were."

"Dante?"

He knew that voice, and he waited there, dripping wet, his arm screaming in pain, until Sarafina stepped out of the shadows. She was beautiful, as always. Dressed in a full skirt of black lace, scalloped at the bottom. A white peasant blouse pushed down to bare her milky shoulders. Colorful silk scarfs at her waist and in her black, curling tresses, trailing her like comets' tails whenever she moved. She wore too much makeup. Always had. Thick black liner and dark shadow gave her a menacing appearance, and the long, curling bloodred nails added to that. But she was a Gypsy. She embraced the stereotypical image that went with the blood. It was her gimmick.

She moved closer, gripped his shoulders, making him wince, and kissed his face, his mouth. He felt her warmth and smelled a fresh kill on her breath.

"You're all right?" she asked when she finally released him.

"I've got a hole in my arm, but it will keep. The bastards burned my house."

"Did you see them?" she asked.

He nodded. "They're gone now, or they'd be dead."

"Did one of them have a scarred face?"

Looking at her sharply, Dante nodded. "You've encountered them?"

"Him, at least. He was following me one night in Rome. I'd have ripped out his throat if he hadn't realized I'd spotted him and run like a rabbit."

Dante sighed. "The man is a pest."

"The man needs killing."

Rolling his eyes, Dante managed a smile, in spite of his pain. "You think every mortal needs killing, Sarafina."

"Thirty of our kind have been murdered in their sleep, Dante. And other fires like this one have come close to claiming more. Someone knows our secrets." A chill went through him—at her words, or because of the cold, he wasn't certain which. "Let's go someplace where I can get dry," he told her. "We'll talk there."

"Yes. You'll draw a crowd soon enough, standing out here naked."

Taking his arm, Sarafina led him to a black limousine that was parked around a bend in the road, put him into the back seat and slid in beside him. Dante almost smiled at the extravagance.

The driver said nothing of the sopping wet, naked man his employer had apparently plucked from the waves. He didn't even look directly into her eyes when she spoke to him. He was well trained, Dante thought. Very well. Maybe too well. Pushing a button so the glass partition opened just slightly, Sarafina said, "Take us to the apartment, pet. And turn up the heat back here."

The driver's only reply was a nod as the glass slid closed again. Then the car was in motion.

Sarafina picked up a large crocheted shawl and proceeded to rub Dante's shoulders, chest and hair with it. "I think it's that dreadful DPI," she said. "They have to be behind this."

Dante sent her a quelling glance, then jerked his head toward the man in the front.

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, love. He can't hear me with the partition closed, and even if he could, he wouldn't repeat a word."

Dante glanced again at the man in the front. He was very pale, very thin. His eyes seemed hollow. He couldn't see the man's throat, but the fact that he wore a turtleneck beneath his navy-blue jacket spoke volumes. Dante looked at Sarafina again. "You're not supposed to use them as slaves, 'fina. It's bad form."

She shrugged. "At least I don't kill them outright. Unless they displease me. Stop changing the subject. What do we do about this organization?"

He shook his head slowly, debating whether to put the poor mortal out of his misery when the ride had ended. Then again, what good would it do? Sarafina would only find another whose mind she could bend to her will. The more often a vampire drank from a mortal without killing them, the more addicted the mortal became, until he was little more than a mindless subservient worm, like the driver, craving only the feel of his mistress's fangs sinking into his flesh.

"DPI was destroyed five years ago," he told her. "The government stopped funding the project after that. It no longer exists."

"Then who is hunting down vampires?"

He shrugged, looking away.

"More interestingly, who is giving them their information? How do they know where we rest, where we hunt, where we live? Even DPI, with all their research, didn't have this much information on our personal lives." She dropped the damp black shawl on the seat between them. "That is the person we need to find, Dante. Whoever it is, we need to kill them… slowly, I think. I'd like to see them writhe for a while first."

She pushed a button, and the glass between the front and back seats slid open once again. She leaned closer to it. "Your wrist, my pet. Your mistress is hungry."

Smiling wanly, the driver lifted his arm, poked his hand through the opening. The sleeve of his jacket was already rolled back, and several puncture wounds littered his forearm. Gripping his forearm with both of hers, Sarafina sank her teeth into him and sucked at him for a long while. Dante looked away but couldn't deny the hunger stirring inside him.

She lifted her head, licked her red lips clean. "Would you like some, Dante? My pet is quite delicious."

"You're cruel, Sarafina. Kill him and have done with it."

She lifted her brows as if wounded, then turned her attention back to her driver. She licked his forearm clean of the trickles of blood left behind and gently rolled his sleeve down again. "Here we are, love. Pull over right here."

He nodded, pulling the limo to a stop. Then he got out, came back and opened her door.

They were on a highway. Traffic rushed past in a blur of lights and motion. Sarafina didn't get up. Without so much as looking at him, she said, "I want you to do something for me, love."

"Anything," the driver whispered. He was a tall man, Dante noted. Dark hair sprinkled with gray, a thin, angular face and a beakish nose.

"I want you turn around, and walk out into the middle of the highway."

The driver stared at her, not directly at her eyes, but somewhere below them.

"Sarafina—" Dante began.

"Do it now," she said.

Dante closed his eyes and swore under his breath. The driver turned and stepped out into the oncoming traffic. His body was hurled about a hundred feet when it was struck. By then, though, Sarafina was behind the wheel and driving away.

She never even looked back.

"I just don't understand why you won't move back to L.A., Morgan. You have everything you wanted. You could return in triumph now, just the way you always said you would."

Morgan paced across the marble tiles of the great room, heels clicking with every step. She wore a loose-fitting teal blouse and matching pants in brushed silk that whispered over her skin when she moved. She loved the way it felt. "I like it here," she said. "Come on, David, even you have to admit I've done wonders with this place in five years' time."

"I'm beginning to wish I'd never sold it to you," he muttered, half under his breath. He eased his large frame into a claw-footed antique chair, looking around the great room as he did. She knew he had to admire what he saw. The plasterwork ceiling had been freshly redone, right down to the cherubic angels in the corners and filling the concave dome directly above them.

She took the seat across from him, handed him a pass of iced soda. Her own glass looked identical, res, despite the early-morning hour, there was vodka mixed with hers. She needed the strength. She loved I avid, but dammit, she wished he would just leave.

She didn't care about anything except getting back to her journals. To the fantasies and the man who had written them. God, to go a single waking hour, much less a day, without wallowing in his mind was nearly unbearable. She never left the house anymore. She never wanted to. And when she slept—oh, God, it was best when she slept Because he was so much more real in dreams.

"I have to admit, I'm confused," David said, taking the soda, sipping it. "I thought it was all decided. You were going to hide out here, lick your wounds, write your blockbuster, make your fortune and come home to reclaim everything you'd lost."

"Ahh, yes. And restore honor to the De Silva family name." She smiled just a little.

"If I'd known you could write the way you can, and as quickly as you can, I have to admit, I'd never have let you come out here in the first place."

Morgan averted her eyes. "I couldn't write like that. Not out there. I found my…inspiration, for want of a better word, here. In this house. I couldn't work anywhere else. I can't, David. I won't."

"That's superstitious nonsense."

No, she thought. It wasn't. Dante was here. She felt him here. Her own beautiful madman. God, he—his diaries, at least—had given her back her Me. And yet, they had stolen a part of it, too. The man who'd called himself Dante had captivated her mind, her soul, in some dark way she had yet to understand. He was real to her. He was more than a long-dead lunatic who had written down his insane delusions. He was real. He lived… inside her somehow. Inside this house.

But she couldn't explain any of that to David. Instead she stared up at the crystal chandelier she'd had installed in the great room and wondered how close she had come to the one that was there originally. When Dante had lived here.

It hadn't been easy to restore the house. And it hadn't been cheap. But thanks to the box office success of the first two films in her vampire series, she had been able to afford to do exactly what she wanted. And that included hiring period experts to help her plan her restoration, to make it as accurate as possible. Although much, much more luxurious.

Her third film had been out for exactly eight weeks, and it had already made Morgan wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. David, as well. And now they waited to see what other dreams might be realized.

Morgan glanced at her watch. "Isn't it time yet?"

"Close enough, I suppose. Come on." David got to his feet, held a hand out to her. She took it and let him pull her up. "God, Morgan, you've got to put on some weight. You're not an actress, you know."

She smiled at him, hiding the weakness in her legs, the slight rush of dizziness that often hit her when she got up too quickly. "You can't be too rich or too thin," she quipped. "Besides, if all goes well, I'll need to look good in some designer's idea of a dress in a few weeks."

Right. As if she would leave this place, even for that.

They walked across the tiles to the double doors that opened into her office. The fireplace had been converted to gas now, and the first thing Morgan did upon entering was turn it on. Lush oriental rugs covered the newly refinished hardwood floor. The desk was a reproduction, the computer state of the art. And the walls were filled with images of Dante. Charcoal sketches she'd done herself, rather than stills from the films. The actor who played him did a wonderful job, of course, but he wasn't Dante. She knew Dante.

There was a sketch of him as a small boy with huge dark eyes, peering up at a beautiful Gypsy woman who danced beside a campfire. There was another of him sitting at this very desk, brooding over his journals.

"This is almost creepy," David said, shivering a little as he crossed the large room, took a seat and picked up a remote control. "God, don't you ever get sick of him?"

Morgan paused near another drawing, her eyes locked with the staring, sightless eyes of the subject "I know every line and contour of his face," she whispered. Then, as the silence drew out, she shook herself, forced a smile. "Of course that's impossible. It's all what my mind has created from the raw materials in the di—in the screenplays. But it seems real. I see him in my dreams as clearly as if he were real." She smiled. "I even know the sound of his voice."

"Writers," David muttered. He pushed a button, and the antique replica cabinet's doors slid open, revealing the big-screen television set behind them. He hit another button to flick it on, and one to set the channel. "I'd get sick of him," he said. "Real or not."

"I could drown in him and not get sick of him," she said. "Sometimes I think maybe that's what I'm doing. Drowning in him."

When David didn't answer, she glanced his way, saw him looking at her oddly. Morgan gave a little laugh to ease the worry from his eyes. "We creative types are supposed to be eccentric. Don't scowl like that, you'll wrinkle."

He looked away with a sigh, but his gaze froze on the television screen, and he snatched up the remote, thumbing the volume up higher. "Here it is!"

The famous couple at the podium took turns reading from a list, and Morgan thought the brief spot took longer than any two-hour feature she had ever sat through. She slugged back her drink and waited until they got to the part that interested her.

"In the category of best original screenplay, the nominees are… "

A hum seemed to fill her head, the room, her ears. She couldn't hear what they were saying any longer, but suddenly she saw her name on the screen along with four others. "Morgan De Silva, for Twilight Hunger."

David surged to his feet, hugging her hard against him, smiling and laughing and twisting from side to side as he held her. Morgan surrendered to the rash of darkness that swamped her brain and simply went limp in his arms.

She was lying on the chaise when she opened her eyes again. David sat close to her, patting her hand. "There you are. It's all right. I guess this meant more to you than I realized."

"It's not that… " she began. Then she recalled what had just happened.

God, it was true. She was nominated for the top award in the film industry. For work that wasn't even her own. She had never expected it to go this far. And yet, she had, in a way, known it would. It had to. The stories were too good not to be recognized as such. There was something… transcendent about them. Something that touched the audience on a level that was almost visceral in its intensity.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded but didn't bother trying to sit up. This was very odd. She had expected to feel… jubilant at this moment Wasn't this beyond her dreams? Wasn't this supposed to fix everything that had been missing from her life? Why did she still feel so empty inside?

"You're going to have to come back to L.A. with me now," David said. He pushed one hand through his thinning honey-blond hair, which was getting gray at the temples. "There are going to be parties. Receptions. Interviews. You should be seen."

The thought of leaving this place set her heart racing. She shook her head quickly, fighting back her panic. "I can't leave now."

"But—"

"The new one is at too delicate a point right now, David. I can't stop working on it without losing my momentum. And I can't work anywhere else. So I have to stay right here."

He closed his eyes slowly, as if attempting to digest her words.

"I should be finished with it by the time of the actual ceremony. I'll be able to come out for that I promise."

His eyes popped open. "But you need a dress. And hair and…honey, people plan for months to get ready for this one, special night. God, if this had happened to the girl I knew five years ago, she'd have insisted I fly her to Paris to shop for a gown. And probably would have bought three of them before making a final decision."

Sitting up, very slowly, so as not to induce the return of her familiar lightheadedness, she met his eyes. "I'm not that girl anymore."

"No," he said. "You're not. You've changed, Morgan. And not for the better. You've practically become a recluse."

She banked her anger. He was right, and if she spoke her mind, she would tell him to go home, so she could get right back to her reclusiveness. Crawl back into the velvet darkness of Dante's world. She hated not being enmeshed in it, missed him like a lover when she went a day without wading through his life, processing it through her own mind and soul, and onto her computer screen. Changing his memories, his deepest thoughts, into lines and stage directions, so that he could come to life on the screen. It was almost as if she were somehow trying to resurrect him from death by giving life to his memories.

Not enough. God, it was never enough.

"I've made you angry," David said.

"No. No, I'm just… overwhelmed." She smiled up at him. "So are you taking me out for breakfast to celebrate or not?"

Lifting his brows, he sighed. "Yes, of course I am. How soon can you be ready?"

She forced herself to look happy. To play the role of the excited honoree, eager to celebrate the achievement of a lifetime.

The truth was, she just wanted to get it over with and return to her house. His house. To be alone with the nonexistent man who haunted her, day and night. Heart and soul. Who possessed her mind.

Dante.

The man who had written volume upon volume in the first person, and who had, she was convinced, believed every word he had written.

He had believed he was a vampire.

She almost wished it could be true.

Chapter 5

Dante stood outside in the darkness, the wind in his face, tangling its cool damp fingers in his hair. Just a hint of rain looming. He felt its touch on his skin in that wind. He tasted it. The waves from the sea crashed to the shoreline just beyond the house. His house, or it had been once. Warm yellow light spilled from its windows, as if welcoming him home. But he knew better. Someone was inside. He could feel and taste them the same way he did the rain in the air. A woman.

When he had decided to come here, he hadn't even been certain he would find the place still standing. Last time he'd seen it, the house had been on the verge of ruin. But no more. Someone had gone to great pains to restore the house he had built over a century ago. The white flagstone walkway that curved up to the front door was just as he remembered it. The lampposts at the far end like sentries. Oh, they hadn't been electric, of course, as they were now. Nor had the lights inside the house. But the shutters were black, and the paint was white and fresh. And the chimney was the same size and shape, even though the bricks were all brand-new.

The door was different, he noted. It had been white, with four glass panes in a fantail pattern in the top. The new door was far more elaborate, wider, flanked by tooled hardwood borders and a wide mantle arching over the top. Artificial flowers were affixed in that arched mantle. It struck him for a moment, how false that was. How ridiculous. The smell of plastic and silk on the things made a mockery of the beauty they tried to imitate.

Artificial flowers were a sacrilege.

An oval of stained glass stretched almost the whole length of the door, and the handle was gleaming brass. The place looked almost new again. Two cars sat in the white gravel driveway, both of them foreign and fast. Money lived here now. A woman with wealth. And youth. He tasted that on the air, as well.

There was a man. Older. Robust. Strong. While the female had a weakness about her. He didn't smell sex in the air, so he assumed the relationship was platonic.

He was curious, he had to admit. Eager to see what had been done to the inside of the place. And he couldn't leave, anyway. Since his near miss with the scarred man, he had found his every haven invaded, his every familiar haunt under watch. The man knew his secrets somehow. So Dante had come back here—to a place he hadn't used in over a century—to find safety and solace, until he could figure out what to do.

Obviously, he'd stayed away too long. Someone was riving here.

Not that it mattered.

He walked around to the rear of the house, found the willow tree still there, but so much larger than before that he had to look twice. God, time passed in a blur. Easily, he leapt onto a low-hanging limb and began to climb. The smooth bark, flexible limbs, the whisper of the dangling greenery, all these were familiar. He'd planted this tree here a hundred years ago.

As he neared the level of the master bedroom, he stopped, tipping his head to one side and opening his senses. He felt something. Not quite a scent on the air. Something else. Something… that stroked his nerve endings to life like a magnet moving over metal shards.

What was that?

He crept closer, climbing from the limb onto the railing that surrounded the balcony, his hand curling around its cool metal. Then he lowered himself down onto the balcony itself and walked closer to the closed glass doors. Sheer white curtains hung in those doors. Sheer enough that he could see through them, into the bedroom beyond.

The woman lay sleeping in a four-poster bed.

Her hair was the color of cinnamon, lush and long, and spread over the pillows. Her skin was creamy white, and as pale as if he had already tasted her. Naked arms rested atop the thin white sheet that he sensed was all that covered her. Her neck was long and slender. Dante licked his lips, and his desire stirred. He didn't make a habit of sampling innocent blood. He killed, yes. He could live on cold, stale blood stored in plastic bags, as some did. But he didn't really call that living. So he killed, but mostly only those who dearly needed killing. Other times, he paid for his desires to be sated. There were women who specialized in satisfying needs like his. They were discreet, and paid enough to keep them that way.

This woman… she wasn't one of them. And yet he was drawn to her, pulled. He wanted her.

He stood so close to the doors that his breath, though cool, fogged the glass. He wiped it away, looking at her, and he wished silently that she would tug the sheet away, so he could see her more fully. Know for sure if she wore anything against her skin, underneath the covers.

Almost before the thought was complete, the woman lifted her hand to the top of the sheet and peeled it slowly away from her body. She was completely naked, as he had suspected. And for a moment all he could do was look at her and drink in her beauty. Small breasts, but soft, their tips rose-colored and plump. She was far too thin, ribs showing clearly beneath her skin. The hair between her thighs was the same burnished color as that on her head.

He let his gaze move up her body again. Let it linger on her breasts, and he thought about tasting them, and even as he thought it, her nipples stiffened. Frowning, Dante watched with some amazement. Could she be aware of his thoughts on some level? He could exercise mind control over a weak-willed mortal, he knew that, but he would at least have to be trying. The odd stray thought shouldn't…

He shifted his gaze to her face and wondered, should he happen to think about her creamy thighs parting for him, whether she would…

Her legs moved apart. Dante shivered with arousal and hunger, and not a little fear. It was as he was backing away that his mind cleared, giving him the answer he should have seen right away. Suddenly he understood what he'd been sensing earlier, that prickling awareness and attraction.

She was one of them. She was one of the Chosen.

He backed across the balcony, reached the railing and, turning, jumped it without hesitation. On the ground, he stood, looking around him and then out to the sea, as if it held the answers. If he'd had anywhere else in the world to go, he would have gone, and gladly.

But the sun would be up soon. And this place was the only haven he had left. He could create others, but that would take time. No, for now, he could only stay here.

But he was going to have to avoid the woman at all costs. Never had he experienced that sort of mind link with a mortal. Never. Nor had he with others of his own kind. What the hell did this mean?

He walked out toward the cliffs and, at the familiar spot, looked down at the stone ledge, some fifteen feet below. There was a small opening in the stone wall that backed that ledge. It was still shrouded by the vines he had planted ages ago. They sprouted around his feet where he stood and grew from the bits of soil along the cliff-face, draping downward to cover the cave's entrance like a curtain.

He hoped the passage that ran beneath the earth all the way back to the house hadn't collapsed by now. And he hoped the rooms hidden beneath the old house hadn't disintegrated to dust after so much time.

She was dreaming about Dante again.

He stood over her bed, staring down at her. Just stood there. He didn't say anything, and he didn't touch her.

She lay there, staring back at him, wishing he would do or say something. Anything. But he didn't.

She opened her mouth to speak and found she couldn't. So instead she looked at him. It was odd that she knew his face so well, she thought idly as she perused it in her dream. It was angular, and cruel. Longish and shadowed. His jawbone was sharp, his nose narrow. The eyes set deep, and so dark that he seemed to be looking out at her from somewhere deep within. From his soul, maybe.

He wanted to see her. Her eyes, once held by his, were locked there. And she knew what he wanted. All she wanted was to please him. She lifted a hand, peeled her covers away and lay there, completely naked and unashamed, as his dark, intense eyes burned over her. Every part of her.

Touch me, she thought. For the love of God, just touch me.

She blinked—and he was gone.

Just that suddenly.

Awake now, Morgan lay in her bed. Her covers were on the floor, and her body was alive. But she was alone.

God, these dreams were taking on a life of their own, weren't they? Maybe she needed to think about some sort of therapy. Not that she hadn't dreamed about him, over and over, night after night, since she had come to live here. But this time it had been different. It had been… real.

She sat up slowly, ran a hand through her hair and got to her feet. She pulled on a satin robe the color of cream, walked to the glass doors and opened them, stepping out onto the balcony, inhaling the night air deeply. It tasted good.

Then she paused and stared straight ahead.

A man stood on the cliffs, wind buffeting him as it was buffeting her. He was staring out toward the sea, and she couldn't really see his face. And yet there was something so incredibly familiar about him. The fall of his hair. His stance. Something.

A fist seemed to close around her stomach as clouds skittered away from the moon and, for just an instant, his face was touched by moonlight.

"Dante… " She whispered his name, breathed it.

And as if he had heard her, even though it was impossible from that distance, he turned sharply, looked right at her.

"It can't be… " Morgan closed her eyes, took three openmouthed breaths as her heart hammered in her chest. "It can't be."

She opened her eyes again.

The cliffs, the sea, the wind, and nothing else. No one was there. No one was there at all.

Chapter 6

Maxine leaned back in the ergonomic chair and blinked her eyes several times. You didn't blink often enough when you stared at a computer screen all day. She'd read that somewhere. It wasn't good for your vision.

The front door opened, and Storm came in, a big white bag from the bakery in one hand and the morning mail in the other. "Time to take a break!" she called. "Carbs, calories and cream filling, just what the doctor ordered."

Max sighed, pushing the chair back. It rolled on its casters from the computer desk to the middle of the floor in what used to be the living room and was now an office. If you used the term loosely. It more closely resembled an explosion in a paper-and-file-folder factory. With computers. Lots of computers.

Storm dropped the bag on her own desk, sat down and peered inside. "Mmm, I got jelly and cream filled, and now I can't decide."

"How many are in there?" Maxine asked, lifting her brows.

"Half dozen." Storm didn't look up. The doughnuts had her mesmerized.

"Better go for one of each, then."

She looked up then, brows arched. "You think?"

"Oh, yeah. Far better than the risk of making the wrong choice."

"I like the way your mind works," Stormy said, smiling, as she reached into the bag to pluck out a doughnut.

Max got out of her chair and wandered into the kitchen, which was still a kitchen, where she poured two cups of fresh coffee. "Did you ever wonder just how screwed up I must be to be in the same town, in the same house, in the same rut, after all this time?"

"No."

Max smiled at the sound of the word, because it was doughnut muffled. She carried the two mugs back into the room in time to see Stormy taking another bite and closing her eyes in ecstasy.

Max set Storm's cup down in front of her and bent to help herself to a doughnut, knowing they would vanish if she didn't.

"You care to elaborate on that answer, or are you just gonna go with the one-syllable reply?"

Stormy swallowed, licked her lips, took a sip of her coffee. She still had a ring of powdered sugar around her mouth, but what the hell?

"Who wouldn't be in the same house? Shoot, girl, your mother gave it to you free and clear. You'd have been nuts not to take it. And I fail to see any rut. You're running not one, but two, businesses. Both turning a profit, I might add."

"Barely," Maxine muttered. She sighed, dunked her doughnut and took a big soggy bite. When she finished, she dropped the first of her two bombshells. "Web page design is getting boring, Stormy. To tell you the truth, I'm thinking about dropping it."

Stormy blinked. "Dropping it?"

"Closing it down."

Setting her coffee mug on her desk, Storm got to her feet. "Why would you do that? That's where you earn most of your income."

"Yeah, but it was never my life's work. I mean, it's okay. I'm good at it, but it's not my dream job. Never was."

"So what are you telling me? They're hiring over at Spies-R-Us?"

Max shot her a quick glance. "Don't even joke about that."

"Then what?" Storm threw her hands in the air, turning in a slow circle and searching the ceiling for an explanation. "I thought this side business of yours was enough to satisfy your inner snoop, Max. I mean, hasn't it been?"

"No, it hasn't. If anything, it's only whetted my appetite." Max had kind of stumbled into the realm of Internet crime investigations when one of her Web clients asked her advice in dealing with a cyber-stalker a year ago. Since men, she had helped track down a half-dozen others by tracing them through their super-anonymous, supposedly untraceable screennames. She had even helped to bust up several hoax rings revolving around so-called paranormal sciences. Scam artists who went online hawking everything from psychic readings to ghost-busting powders. Which was perfectly legal until you tied them to their partners, who harassed and sometimes frightened gullible people into believing they needed otherworldly help, then fed information to the scam artist, who used it to convince the client he was really in touch with "the other side."

All of this had given Max the opportunity to touch base with her favorite cop now and then. Not that that had any bearing on her decision to move into this line of work.

"So what would you say if I told you I was thinking about embarking on another little enterprise?" she asked.

Storm turned to face her, searched her face warily. "A third business?"

"I'm dropping the Web designing services. So it would only be a second business. And, in fact, it would be more like taking the existing one to a new, higher level."

"What do you have in mind?"

Max wiped the doughnut sugar from her fingers onto her jeans and went to her desk. She opened a drawer, took out a sheet of paper, slid it across the surface. "Take a look at this and tell me what you think."

Storm came closer, leaned over it, reading aloud. "Maxine Stuart, Licensed Private… " Then she looked up. "Licensed private investigator? Since when?"

"It just came today. I sent in the application months ago."

"Maxie… "

"Look, I know. It sounds way over the top, but if you think about it, it's what we've been doing anyway. Just in cyberspace instead of real time."

"They can't shoot you in cyberspace." Storm rolled her eyes. "Who else knows about this?"

Max shrugged.

"Maxine Stuart, who else knows?"

Max lowered her eyes. "Well, Lou knows."

"Lou. Lou Malone. I figured as much. He probably encouraged this, didn't he?"

"Well, he, uh, helped me with the application process. He was one of my references."

"Uh-huh."

"Look, I'm good at this. And Lou's already got a few cases ready to toss my way."

"Hell. I don't know why you don't just jump that man's bones and get it over with, Max."

"I intend to. Just as soon as I can get him cornered." Stormy's eyes widened, and Max smiled in sheer nasty delight "But one thing has nothing to do with the other. If I was doing this just to get closer to Lou, I'd have joined the force. It would have been easier."

"Yeah. Right. Isn't the old crock due to retire pretty soon?"

There was a throat clearing, and they both turned to see the old crock himself standing in the doorway. Max couldn't judge for sure how long he'd been standing there, how much he might have heard. She figured the man's bones would more easily succumb to any jumping she might attempt if she could sneak up on them. Take 'em by surprise, that sort of thing.

He was too thin, so his suit looked a little on the baggy side. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Stormy turned her back to him and made wide eyes at Max. Max ignored her. "Come on in, Lou. Did you smell the doughnuts or what?"

He didn't smile, didn't tease her in return the way he usually did. "It's, uh—kinda delicate."

Frowning, Maxine walked over to where he stood. He didn't wait. Instead he turned, stepped out onto the porch. When she joined him mere and closed the door behind her, he said, "I'll buy you a cup of coffee. We can talk there. All right?"

"Sounds serious."

"Yeah. I need your help with something. It's sorta right up your alley, Max, or I'd never ask."

"Why not?"

"Why not what?"

"Why would you never ask?"

He drew a breath, sighed heavily. '"Cause you're brand-new at this kind of thing, and I sort of had it in mind to start you out with something a little more milk toast. Background checks on suspects, shit like that."

"Got that much faith in me, do you?"

"You're a kid."

"I'm twenty-five."

"Like I said… "

"Shut up, Lou." She yanked open his car door and sat beside him. He didn't take her to the coffee shop, as she had expected. Instead he pulled around the drive-through window of a fast food joint and got two large coffees, one black, one with two creams and three sugars. She smiled as he rattled off the order without asking her. He knew exactly how she liked her coffee.

His bones, she mused, were practically jumped already.

He drove to the nearest parking area, shut the car off and turned in his seat to face her.

"Gee, Lou, if you want to take me parking, maybe we should aim for something just a little more secluded."

His face colored. "Yeah, right."

"There's this old gravel bed south of town where everyone used to go to make out back in high school. You know it?"

He avoided her eyes. "Of course I know it."

"Mmm. So you've been there?"

"Yeah. Shining lights on kids who ought to know better and sending 'em home to their mammas. Now, do you wanna talk business or do you wanna play, Maxie?"

She wanted to play. With him. Now. But she'd obviously pissed him off. He always got pissed off when she flirted with him, even a little bit. "Fine. Business. Go ahead." She sat back in her seat and sipped her coffee.

"Okay. There's this woman. She's a friend of mine. A good friend."

Fingernails raked across a chalkboard inside her head, and Maxine sat up straighter.

"Her name is Lydia Jordan. She runs Haven House."

Max blinked now as her mind filled in the blanks. "That's that girls' shelter downtown? For runaway teens in trouble?"

He nodded.

"But I thought that was run by a pair of former prostitutes."

Again he nodded.

She lifted her eyebrows and stared at him. "This friend of yours is a hooker?"

"Was a hooker."

"And how the hell is it that you know her so well?" she asked, and she really didn't care how bitchy it sounded.

He smiled at her. "Hell, Maxie, if I wasn't old enough to be your father, I'd almost think you were jealous."

"You're nowhere near old enough to be my father." He was, technically, but she wasn't about to admit it.

He sighed, shaking his head. "I met Lydia the first time I picked her up for soliciting. I was a rookie, and she couldn't have been more than eighteen. I must have brought her in a dozen times over the years before she finally got herself straightened out. I didn't know Kimbra as well. But the two of them met on the streets, became best friends and helped each other start over."

"That's the partner? The other half of the dynamic duo?"

He nodded. "They got legitimate jobs, took classes, and once they had themselves taken care of, they reached back down to help other girls like them. I think they'd both spent some time at Haven House before they took it over. Anyway, none of that matters right now."

"Of course it matters. Just how close are you to this Lydia person, Lou?"

He sent her a look she rarely saw on him. An angry one that told her very clearly that she was crossing some unseen, unspoken boundary line and that she'd damn well better back off.

She sighed and looked away.

"Kimbra Sykes is dead. Murdered. And Lydia has somehow got it into her head that some kind of supernatural forces were involved."

Maxine was unimpressed. "Did a lot of drugs while she was turning tricks, did she?"

"No. But she's always been incredibly superstitious."

She wanted to ask him why the hell he thought she should care how superstitious this ex-whore might be. She hated the woman. Instantly, automatically hated her. "So what makes you think I can do anything to help her?"

He put a hand on her shoulder. "Max, have I done something to make you mad at me?"

"No." She didn't even look at him as she spoke.

"Well then, how come you're sitting there puckered up like a prune?" He only sighed when she refused to answer. Then he shook his head. "I just thought that—hell, you know all about this kind of stuff. Remember that woman who thought her house was haunted, and how she hired that Internet ghost-buster to come clear it out for her?"

"And it turned out he was the one haunting it? Yeah, I remember."

"You knew. You knew right off the bat it was a hoax. And you were able to convince that woman, mostly because you knew so much about the subject. You went in there telling her that a real ghost would never behave the way hers was—remember? Had her eating out of your hand!"

She shrugged, warming just a little at his praise. "I'm pretty good when I know my subject."

"And you know this subject You and your skeptical mind, always having to dig into anything you come upon that doesn't seem quite right Learn all you can about it and then proceed to debunk it."

She shrugged. "It's not that I don't believe in the paranormal. I just know that ninety-nine percent of the ghosts, goblins, psychics and channelers out there are con artists. I believe what I can see with my own eyes, not what people tell me. And even when I see it with my own eyes, I don't believe much of what the government or any other authority figure tells me. If that makes me a skeptic, then I'm a skeptic."

"You're a skeptic."

She shrugged. "I still don't see what you want me to do for your… friend."

"I want you to convince her that her best friend was not murdered by a vampire."

Maxine's head came up very slowly. She met his eyes, looking for the hint of humor that would tell her he was joking. But it wasn't there.

"Vampire?"

"Yeah. Is that the craziest freaking thing you've ever heard or what?"

She nodded vaguely, but in her mind, she was back at that burned-out building, five years ago, with the soldiers, the lights. Hell. She had always known it would come back to haunt her. She knew things she shouldn't know. Things no one should know.

"When can I meet this Lydia person?"

"Then you'll do it?" he asked.

She met his eyes, swallowed hard. "For you? Sure, Lou. You know I can't say no to you. I just wish you'd get around to asking me for something a little more fun."

He laughed uneasily, patted her on the head and looked away. Then he started the car up again and drove her back home.

Chapter 7

Dante woke in the sour-tasting darkness of his tomb and looked around, seeing everything.

It wasn't really a tomb. Not exactly, though all it would need to make it mirror one was a rotting corpse or two. The square concrete room was large, windowless, airless. Down here, one inhaled stagnant dankness and mold rather than oxygen. The subterranean room held only a handful of items: a kerosene lantern on a rickety old table and a coffin. And while he found sleeping in the thing to be a laughable cliché, it had its advantages. First and foremost, it would discourage anyone who might somehow find his way in here. Anyone other than a vampire hunter, that was. Secondly, coffins were built to last This one was as well preserved as it had been when he'd been here last. The padding inside was still soft and intact, if a little less-than-fresh smelling. It sat on a bier that was a rectangle of concrete, rising up from the floor. Built for just that purpose, the bier was the third advantage. Hollow inside, it led to a secondary tunnel. He had never yet needed to use the trap door in the bottom of the coffin, but it was good to know it was there, should he need it.

This place was secure. Safe. But it had never been meant for habitation. It was a last resort, nothing more. That he had been forced to retreat to this place should only spur him to take action that much sooner.

He needed to learn who these new vampire hunters were, where they were getting their information. He needed to stop them.

Smoothing the wrinkles from his clothes, he glanced just once at the cement spiral steps that led up to a solid ceiling. There was a hinged doorway in the floor there, completely invisible from above. But when he'd opened it, curious to see what the woman had done to his house, he'd found a wooden barrier. Someone had apparently laid a new hardwood floor over the old one in his study. Oh, he could have smashed through it easily enough, but announcing his presence was the last thing he had in mind.

Bad enough she had glimpsed him that first night, just before dawn.

Looked right at him and whispered his name. He'd heard her clearly, despite the distance. His senses were honed by centuries of immortality and, he thought, blood drinking. Living blood was raw power to his kind.

She had said his name. And he'd heard her, physically heard her, but also heard her mentally. He had felt that whisper echoing within his mind. And he'd felt the intense yearning that had been wrapped around it. He had even felt an answering tug at his own heart, and yet that made no sense. He didn't even know the woman. But she, apparently, knew him.

He wondered about that. It ate at him. Had she seen his name on some stray scrap of paper that had been left lying around the house? It wasn't on the deed—he'd used a false name then.

And if she had simply seen his name somewhere, that did not explain how she could connect that name to the stranger she had glimpsed standing on the shore in the dead of night. She had recognized him. How that could be, he didn't know.

She was one of the Chosen, those few special mortals with the rare Belladonna Antigen in their blood. The same antigen all vampires shared. They were the only mortals who could be successfully transformed. And they drew his kind like magnets. Many vampires found honor in watching over the Chosen. Protecting them. To Dante's way of thinking, that was foolhardy in the extreme. Being drawn to mortals, caring for them in the least, would only make a vampire vulnerable, weak. It was said that it was nearly impossible for a vampire to harm one of them, unless he were insane or mad with passion. The bloodlust, perhaps.

He knew he had to find out all of that and more about the woman in his house. Despite the fact that he felt, already, that legendary attraction between her kind and his. He could fight that. It was information he needed from her.

She probably didn't even know about the antigen in her blood that made her different from other mortals. He didn't know much about it himself, except that all vampires shared it. And that there was a psychic attraction between mortals with the antigen and the vampires who could smell it on them like a perfume.

He smelled it now!

Footsteps padded across the floor over his head, and Dante looked up sharply, listening. It was her. He felt her. Her feet were either bare or clad only in something soft, socks or stockings or thin cloth slippers. She stopped walking, stood in place. Right in front of the fireplace, if the fireplace were even still there.

Unable to resist, Dante moved directly beneath the spot where she stood and lifted his arms over his head. He pressed his palms to the ceiling, closed his eyes and opened his mind.

Morgan leaned over to turn the knob on the gas fireplace. It flared to life, and she stood there for a moment, admiring the flames. And then, suddenly, the bottom dropped out of her stomach. The blood seemed to drain from her head, and a rush of shivering cold shot up her spine.

She braced her hands on the mantle, leaned forward and dragged in one ragged breath after another. "What the hell was that?" she whispered.

Then she went very still and lifted her head slowly. Blinking, she turned and glanced behind her. "Who's there?"

No one answered. The house remained still, silent, empty. David had left for L.A. hours ago. And yet she had the most powerful feeling she was not alone.

Drawing a deep, steadying breath, she told herself she was imagining things. Just as she had been imagining that man on the cliffs last night. That man who looked like her mental image of Dante, the madman who'd lived in this house a century ago. Maybe she was spending a little too much time immersed in his journals. Of course she was. But why shouldn't she, when she no longer wanted to do anything else?

She forced herself to walk across the floor to her desk, though her feet seemed oddly reluctant to move at first. The uneasy feeling fled as she sat down in her chair, booted up her computer, opened the file. She worked better at night than she did during the day. No wonder, given the subject matter.

The scene she wrote was one she felt in every cell of her body. She had lived it as she had read the account in his journals. And she lived it again now, as she transferred the tale onto her computer, only this time she told it from the point of view of the woman. Dante's victim.

The woman had seen the dark stranger watching her at night—but she would never approach him. There was a dangerous air about him, and yet he exuded something—something sinful. That drew her, spoke to her, tempted her to impure thoughts she could barely contain.

And then one night he came to her while she lay sleeping in her bed. His mouth on hers was what woke her. Although she wasn't really awake. A voice in her mind told her that this was just a dream. A dream in which she was helpless to resist him. And so she responded willingly, even eagerly, to his touch, his commands. It was all right, because it wasn't real. And in the morning she would remember it as a guilty dream and nothing more.

In her mind, as she wrote the scene, Morgan became that woman. Dante's love slave unaware. She felt every touch she described. Tasted his mouth on hers, felt his tongue invading her, its texture and cool wetness when he laved a path over her jaw and neck and, lower, to her breasts. She sucked in a gasp, shocked when he closed his mouth on her breast, without removing the nightgown.

The impulse to push him away, the shame, the guilt…

But it's only a dream. You can't move, love. It's but a dream.

Pleasure melted through her when he suckled her, then pinched her nipple between his teeth while she winced in ecstasy.

Morgan's heart beat faster as her fingers flew over the keys.

She lay in the bed, still, paralyzed by her dream state, as Dante's hands deftly removed the nightgown, then skimmed over her flesh, teasing and touching places she would never have dared let any man touch. He invaded her private places. He invaded her. And she liked it. All of it. And wanted more.

His eyes. God, his eyes, how they burned when they stared into hers. Willing her, commanding her to be still. To surrender. It's only a dream, she thought. I can't wake, and I can't move. So it's all right. It's all right to let him do as he will, because I have no choice.

He slid his fingers into the moist wetness between her legs and then moved them in and out. His thumb found the most sensitive place on her body, and pressed and massaged it as his fingers drove into her again and again. She found she could move after all as she parted her legs to him. He leaned closer, reaming her mercilessly as her entire body jerked against his hands. His mouth parted, and he kissed her throat, sucked the skin between his teeth, bit down. His teeth sank into her throat, and the orgasm screamed through her.

Morgan cried out loud, her entire body trembling, her hand flying to her neck at the sensation of a mouth feeding there. Her heart pounded, and she was wet and close to orgasm herself, though she had not been touched. She sucked in a sharp breath and stood up unsteadily, backing away from her computer. God, it was so real. She'd felt the sensation of incisors puncturing her skin. His mouth on her, his hands on her, his fingers…

And then that brief, sharp, delicious stabbing bite.

Shaking all over, aroused beyond belief, she drew her hand slowly away from her throat and looked at her palm. She fully expected to see traces of blood there. But there was nothing.

"God, what is this? What is happening to me?"

Turning around on legs that wobbled, she glanced at the clock and realized that time had flown past. The page number in the corner of the screen told her she'd composed a dozen pages of sheer dark erotica, and she wondered how the hell it was going to translate onto the big screen.

No. It wouldn't.

She looked back at the pages and pages of description, and finally highlighted it all and hit the delete key. In its place she inserted the stage directions from which the actors and the director could build what they would. "They have intense sex without intercourse. He drinks from her. She remembers it as a dream the next day." When she finished, she saved the file, shut the computer down and stood there blinking at it, wondering what the hell had possessed her just now.

She had gone on a journey. A flight of pure imagination. In her mind, she had felt every touch. And while she had fantasized about Dante before, about making love to him, or, rather, to the character he played in his insane ramblings, it had never been so vivid. So real.

She was wet. Her skin was hot to the touch, her breasts firm and sensitized. And the blood pulsed rapidly in her neck where she had imagined his mouth.

She walked upstairs rather unsteadily, ran a cool bath and told herself she needed to get laid before long. She must be more sexually frustrated than she realized.

Dante had moved when she had moved, pressing his hands to the floor beneath the place where she sat, sensing her on the other side of that wooden barrier and opening his mind to hers.

What he'd found there held him fast. She was imagining herself. And because she could see herself clearly in her mind, he could see her there, as well. In her mind she wasn't as thin or as pale as he knew she was in reality. She was healthy, shapelier. Her hair was the same, burnished red and long and thick. Her eyes—he'd never had the chance to look into her eyes before. They were emeralds, sparkling beneath a layer of sheen.

She lay on a bed, surrounded by sheer white curtains, and he, Dante, stood over her, staring down at her. He saw his own face quite clearly in her mind, and though it shifted and hid behind the mists of her imagination, when she focused hard, those mists parted. His features were precise. It had been a long, long time since Dante had looked at himself in a mirror. But this was very much as if he were doing just that. He'd forgotten how shadowed his face appeared. How deep set his eyes were. How wide his mouth was.

It stunned him to see himself there in her mind, in her vision. And for just a moment he pulled back a bit, unable to breathe while so completely immersed in her. He blinked, seeing only the dull room again. Very faintly, he heard tapping. Rapid, uneven tapping, broken now and then.

And then he felt the woman shiver, and he turned his attention back to her again, to the vision unfolding in her mind while that odd tapping rushed on in increasing tempo. He saw himself undressing the woman, heard himself telling the woman in the bed that this was all just a dream, that she had no control over what was about to happen and therefore no responsibility for it. That because it wasn't real, she could allow herself to feel things she would never feel, without guilt or shame or fear of any sort He asked her to surrender her will to him, and she sighed her consent. And then he knelt beside the bed and slowly undressed the woman while she lay there, helpless to resist him, and not wanting to, anyway.

He watched this scene unfolding, mesmerized, trapped, unable to pull his mind free as the phantom Dante touched and caressed every part of the woman, first with his hands, then with his lips. He felt every sensation that passed through her in her fantasy, could smell and feel and taste her. And when he saw himself take her throat, saw his teeth sink into her delicate flesh, he bit down unconsciously, and for one glorious moment he tasted her blood on his tongue and felt her release ripple through his body as she screamed his name aloud.

Then the fantasy shattered. The woman above shot to her feet; he heard them hit the floor. The room was black again, and he stood there, beneath her, shaking, bodily, from his head to his feet.

Leaning back against a cool concrete wall, he fought to catch his breath. What the hell was the woman doing? How did she know his face, his voice, much less understand the powers he possessed? How could she know what he was?

Did she want this thing she dreamed of in such vivid detail it had been as if she were describing the scene aloud, like some Gypsy storyteller of old? Was that what this was about? Desire? Lust?

He was hard and aroused and hungry. Damn hungry. He knew far too little about these Chosen mortals and their link with the undead. But already he sensed it was far more powerful than he had ever understood.

He needed to know more.

He needed to feed. And not on her. God, if the fantasy had been that mind-numbing, what would the reality be like?

He would kill her. If he touched her, he would lose all control and take everything she had. Her body. Her blood. Her life.

Shaking off the lingering images of the woman's fantasy, but unable to so easily rid himself of the arousal it had stirred in him, he strode to the arching steel door at the far end of the room, slid the bolt free and stepped into the cave-like tunnel that led to the outside. Then he headed into town.

To feed.

Morgan soaked in the cool water of her opulent bathroom, and tried to erase the images from her mind. Oh, she had dreamed of Dante before, but it was always very clear that it was just that. A dream. And she saw through his eyes and thought with his mind every day when she wrote down his stories, embellishing to her heart's content. But when she did, she always knew it was only make-believe. All writers lived in the heads of their characters. But they knew what reality was. And what it wasn't.

This time she had felt him. This time she had felt his hands on her skin, his breath on her neck, his teeth piercing her flesh, his mouth sucking at her throat.

It had been real.

And it had been incredible.

Sighing, she sank lower into the water, closed her eyes, tried to think about something else, anything else.

The awards ceremony. The dress she still hadn't chosen. The time she would need to spend in L.A. Minimal time. Something was happening here. Something she needed to explore fully until she understood it.

She wasn't going anywhere until she did.

What the hell, she might as well begin now. She closed her eyes, visualizing again the scene she had just written. Bending her knees until they rose up out of the water, she slid her hand down her thigh, touched herself and imagined it was his hand touching her. She shivered and whispered his name. "Dante… "

He could travel very quickly when the need arose, and it had indeed arisen tonight In an hour's time he was in Bangor, walking the streets, his eyes sharp and watchful.

He found her easily enough. She didn't need to work, not with what he paid her to be available to him. And he didn't have time to seduce an innocent. or to hunt down a victim deserving of death. Not tonight. Tonight he needed his gratification given swiftly and unquestioningly.

She opened the door when he rang the bell, smiled at him. "It's been a while."

He nodded, stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"You want something to—"

"No. Come here."

Blinking, she seemed a bit afraid, though she shouldn't be. This was something they'd done often enough before. He supposed, however, that his mood had something to do with the flash of fear in her eyes. He tried to soften his expression, even attempted a smile. "Come here."

Swallowing, she stepped closer. Her hands pressed to his chest, slid up his shirt, curled around his neck. She let her head fall backward.

Dante didn't hesitate. He bent and bit into her. She gasped, went stiff, then relaxed very slowly and melted against him. Her blood rushed over his tongue, coating his throat, filling him, warming him. Life coursed through his veins; he felt it tingling there, making him alive with it. Sexual desire stirred in him, and he arched against her as he drank, his hands sliding lower to cup her hips to him. God, how he needed, craved, hungered! Her blood pulsed into his mouth with every beat of her heart—but then it began to slow.

Alarm shot through him, and he lifted his head away, licking his lips—God, she was delicious—and looking down at her.

The blond woman's head slumped to one side. Her eyes were closed, and her skin was very pale. There were two tiny holes in her neck, a thin ribbon of blood twisting from each of them.

Jesus, had he killed her?

"Belinda? Come on, wake up." He shook her gently, patted her face.

Her eyelids fluttered but didn't open. Sighing, he scooped her into his arms, carried her to her sofa and laid her down. He propped her feet on pillows, then tucked a blanket around her.

By then she was stirring, her eyes slowly opening. Her smile was weak. "Damn, you do me good," she whispered.

"Are you all right?"

Inhaling slowly, she seemed to take stock. "Dizzy. Lightheaded as hell. That's never happened before." Her words were slightly slurred, as if she were drunk. He'd taken too much.

"I'm sorry," he said. "My fault. I… it won't happen again."

She smiled weakly. "I like it. I just wish you'd take me the other way while you're at it. I'd like to fuck you raw, baby. Why won't you let me?"

He shook his head slowly. "Not part of the deal." He drew a breath, sighed. "You're going to be fine," he said. "Just sleep, all right?"

"Whatever you say, baby. You're the boss." She closed her eyes, and he sensed her falling asleep almost at once.

Getting to his feet, Dante tugged ten one hundred dollar bills from his pocket and laid them on the coffee table. A bonus for Belinda, who used to sell her body for a living but now sold her blood and made ten times the money. She was his personal whore. He made a point never to get too close, to spend much time, to touch her any more than was necessary. And he only fed from her a few times a year. He had others, around the country, in Europe. Belinda willingly moved between three East Coast cities so she could be where he needed her, when he needed her. He kept her in lush apartments, paid her a generous monthly salary. She never complained.

He didn't know what she or the others like her thought of him. Whether they realized what he was or believed he was simply a rich man with a vampire fetish. He did know they would never breathe a word. He paid them far too well, and he had made it clear well in advance that the money would vanish, as they themselves would, if they spoke of him or his peculiar appetites to anyone.

He'd found them on the streets. In the gutters, for the most part. When you pulled someone up from such misery, they were usually grateful enough to be loyal. You couldn't trust anyone who had been born rich. That had always been his opinion, at least.

That woman, back there at his house in Maine. She had been born rich. He smelled it on her.

He didn't trust her.

And having sated his blood lust, he thought he would be safe to return there now. To have a closer look at this woman who knew so much about him.

To begin the task of learning her every secret.

Chapter 8

He came to her again that night. And again she knew it was only a dream.

She'd gone to bed after her bath. And she had left the balcony doors open, almost as a challenge. Almost as if some ridiculous part of her mind clung to the fanciful notion that he might, somehow, be real.

Fictional characters did not come to life and visit their authors, she told herself. Why, then, did she brash her hair until the repeated movement of her arms had made her breathless? Why did she wear the small, sheer black peignoir to bed?

She was a fool. She was obsessed. In love with a man who didn't exist In fact, she was probably in love with a man who never had, except in the mind of a deluded writer. The dark loner, Dante, immortal, utterly sexual creature of the night, had never been real. He was a figment of the journal writer's imagination.

And yet she was completely and utterly obsessed all the same.

She lay awake for a long time, silently begging him to come to her dreams, if only as a way to ensure that her own mind would comply and bring him there while she slept. Finally she drifted off.

And then she felt a cool breeze wafting from the open balcony doors, and she knew he was there. In her dream, she opened her eyes, and she saw him, standing at the foot of the bed, staring at her, his gaze onyx fire. And again it wasn't like the dreams she had had before. If she didn't know it was impossible, she would have believed this to be real.

"Dante," she whispered.

He lifted his brows as if surprised. "Most women would react quite differently to waking and finding a stranger staring at them as they slept."

"You're not a stranger," she whispered. "I know you."

"So I have gathered." His voice was exactly as she had known it would be. Deep and very soft. Erotically soft. But clear and rich, too. "What I would like to know is… how?"

Her dream self sat up in the bed. She let the sheet fall away from her. Let him see her. She wanted him to see her. "How?"

He responded as she had wished he would. Of course he did. This was her dream. His gaze slid down her body, Lingering on her breasts, clearly visible beyond their sheer black filter. "How do you know me?"

She closed her eyes, felt her body respond to his gaze as if it were a touch. "I'm not sure myself. It's as if I'm completely possessed by you." Opening her eyes, she fixed them to his. "Or perhaps it's just that I want to be."

"Do you?"

She nodded very slowly. "It's odd, you know. I've never felt for any man what I feel for you. And you—you're just a fantasy. Just a dream." Looking away from him, she said, "I suppose that's just as well. Better, maybe. No one gets hurt."

He tipped his head to one side. "A dream, am I?"

She nodded. He smiled just a little. "Is that what you want me to be? A dream? Like the one you had earlier in the evening?"

Her eyes widened, and she felt a rush of desire and fear coursing through her in a heady combination. She didn't answer, but he moved closer to her, until he stood beside her bed. Reaching out with one hand, he took the sheet and tugged it slowly down her body, slowly exposing her hips and legs and feet.

"Tell me all I wish to know, and I might just comply with your… request" He sat now on the side of her bed. She was half reclining, back against the headboard, and he reached out, dragged the back of his hand over her breast, his knuckles just grazing her nipple. "Beginning with your name."

"Morgan. Morgan De Silva."

"That's very good." He turned his hand, gave her nipple a tiny pinch, her reward, and she gasped in pleasure.

"I wonder, Morgan, would you be so submissive if you thought I were real?" he asked, lazily stroking the nub now, squeezing, tugging now and again.

"If you were real, you would make me as you are."

Those words seemed to startle him. He paused in his ministrations to her breast, his eyes shooting to hers. "Why would I do that?"

"Because we were meant to be together, Dante. You're a part of me, and I am a part of you." She lowered her eyes. "Fantasy, yes. But if you were real, then these feelings would be real. And you could no more resist them than I."

For just a moment she thought there was a flash of fear in his eyes.

She covered his hand on her breast with her own. "But you're not real. Even though this fantasy of mine has suddenly become more real than it has ever been before." She looked down at his hand on her breast. "I can feel you."

His fingers resumed their steady, delicate manipulations.

"I want to feel everything with you, Dante. Everything I have imagined."

He drew his hand away. "Impossible."

"Of course it's possible. Anything's possible in a dream."

"I must leave." He got to his feet, but before he'd gone a step toward the door, she was on her feet, too, clutching his shoulder, turning him.

He turned, reluctantly, as if he would rather not have, and when she had his attention, she slid the straps of the peignoir from her shoulders, pushed it down and let it fall to the floor. She stood there, naked, and his eyes moved over her body, boldly inspecting every inch of her. Taking his hand, she tugged him back to the bed, then lay down on her back.

"Take me, Dante." She pushed her hair away from her neck. "Taste me. I want to feel it again, the way I felt it earlier. Possessed by you, blood, soul and body."

She saw him tremble, but she still had hold of his hand, and she pulled him gently closer. Again he sat on the edge of her bed, and this time, she sat up and pressed her mouth to his, her arms twisting around his neck.

He kissed her, fed from her mouth, suckled her tongue, nipping it with his sharp teeth and drawing tiny droplets of blood. As he did, he pressed her down again, until his body pressed hers to the bed, and he devoured her mouth. One knee was wedged between her legs, parting them, and she felt his erection now, beyond the barrier of his jeans, pressing to her naked, open center.

Reaching down, she grabbed his zipper.

He covered that hand with his own and gently pulled it away as he broke the kiss.

"I'll hurt you," he whispered.

"You can't hurt me. It's my dream."

Sitting up, panting for breath, he whispered, "Close your eyes, Morgan. And I'll give you what you want."

Lying still, she did as he asked. She closed her eyes.

He leaned close to her again, and his lips now were very near to her ear. "Surrender to me," he whispered, slowly, repeatedly. "Open to me. Let me inside you. Inside your mind."

"Yes," she whispered. Her legs parted, but he didn't touch her. And yet he did. Somehow, he did. Without touching her, he caressed her. Like phantom fingers on her skin, he stroked and rubbed and slid around her body, touching her nowhere and everywhere at once. She could see it in her mind, feel it as if it were real, but she knew he hadn't moved. Not a muscle. He was sitting as he had been, staring at her.

"That's it," he whispered. "Give yourself over. Feel me, Morgan. I'm inside you, around you. Do you feel me?"

"Yes!"

"Around you, inside you, possessing you, owning you. Your body is mine to command at this moment, isn't it, Morgan?"

She nodded, as she twisted and writhed on the bed, craving more, craving so much more.

His lips very close to her ears, he whispered, "Come, Morgan."

The orgasm broke through her like an explosion. She screamed his name, her arms lashing around his neck and pulling him close. And then she felt it, his mouth parting and snapping closed on her throat, his teeth piercing her skin, and then the delicious sucking.

"Yes, yes, yes," she whispered as the climax went on and on, driven further by his drinking from her.

And then she faded. She faded and vanished, lost herself utterly in him.

Dante licked the blood from his lips and lifted his head away. He shouldn't have tasted her. Dammit, he hadn't meant to. Her arms fell away from his neck. He eased her onto her pillows. Straightening away, he pulled the covers over her, then turned and closed his eyes.

Already he was hungering for more. He had only meant to pleasure her with the power of his mind. But God, it had as potent an effect on him as it did on her. And when she'd pulled him to her, cradling his face to her neck as she shivered and bucked with her climax, he had lost himself in the scent of her. The blood, rushing just beneath the skin, her hands pressing him closer, her neck arching toward him.

And so he'd taken her. Just like that, he'd plunged his teeth into her luscious flesh and drunk.

Only a little. God, only a little. But the power of it was beyond understanding. It rocked him, the force of her life inside him. It made him shudder. It made him want more.

Rising from the bed, Dante took two staggering steps toward the window before he caught himself in a grip of iron will. No. He couldn't leave, not now. She was asleep, and while he had seen very little inside her mind while he'd been there, probing, he had seen pages of what looked like his own handwriting and a room—a familiar room. His study.

He didn't know what it meant, but he had come here to find out.

Glancing back at the bed, where she slept deeply, he made his decision. He refused to let the heated affections of some strange mortal female sway him from his task. And yet he had trouble drawing his gaze away from the two tiny holes in her neck and the trickle of red from each of them. He nearly leaned down to lick the stray droplets away, but he resisted. God knew he could as easily rip out her throat.

He moved silently, soundlessly, past the foot of her bed, toward the door. Then he opened it and slipped into the darkened hall, pulling the bedroom door closed behind him.

And then—then he went still, as the mists of time parted and he seemed to be looking a century into the past. The hall's hardwood floor gleamed with finish so new he could smell it. And the wide stairs, wider at the base than at the top, spilled downward into the great room that was exactly as he remembered it. The vaulted dome ceiling housing the crystal chandelier. The pristine woodwork with its intricately carved trim. God, he had missed this place.

As he walked slowly down the stairs, his palm gliding over the highly polished bannister, he saw the differences. The paintings on the walls were not the ones he'd put up himself. The chandelier was electric, not gas powered, as it had been when he had lived here. The furniture was different. Oh, she had the period right. How she knew he'd decorated the entire place in rugged-looking reproductions from the time of the Norse invasions, he couldn't begin to guess. But she had done likewise. The chairs were like the thrones of a barbarian king. Solid square legs and arms, with the heads of bears or lions at the ends. Boxy tables to match, and in the corners stood pedestals of granite bearing sculptures of legendary warriors. Eric the Red, with his two-homed helm. A muscled valkyrie astride a winged horse.

His choices hadn't been exactly the same. But that she'd chosen this culture, the Vikings, as her theme was beyond coincidence. The woman knew him. Study of the period had been a hobby of his. A chill whispered up his spine. He glanced toward the dark-wood double doors that led to his study. Or had once. It had been his haven. His shelter against the world.

He was almost afraid to go in there, almost couldn't make himself do it. But then he did. He moved to the doors, gripped the brass handles, turned them and pulled the doors open.

His study opened out before him as if he were looking again into the past. The fireplace on the far wall had been restored to its original design. The huge antique desk in the corner was not exactly like his, but the size was right. The chair before it was modern, of course, with casters, and the computer on top of the desk seemed completely out of place.

It occurred to him suddenly that that must have been the spot where she had been earlier tonight, when he'd been inside her mind. When he had felt her fantasizing about him. Felt everything she imagined as if it were real.

Before he could dwell on that for much longer, he caught sight of something else, something that drew his head around fast and then captured his full attention.

Drawings on the walls. Some in frames, some just tacked up haphazardly. God, there were a dozen of them. And they were all… him.

He stared as if stricken, moved closer against his will, and scrutinized every line, every shade and shadow that made up the contours of his face. And as he did, he ran his hand over his own chin and cheek and jawbone. So unnatural to be able to look at himself this way, when he had been unable to see his own reflection for so long. Centuries. Was his face that angular? Were his eyes that deep, that shadowed? God, he looked haunted.

How did this woman know him? How?

The room suddenly seemed too small and felt like a vacuum. He sucked in a breath, then another, but couldn't seem to find enough air. The shock, he supposed, of seeing himself depicted so clearly. He opened every desk drawer but found no evidence, and he scanned the bookshelves, as well, to no avail. The computer mocked him. He knew very little about the machines. Searching its contents would be challenging. And still, he supposed, he was going to have to attempt it.

But first, air. He was still having trouble digesting all of this. Particularly when he glimpsed the drawing of him as a child, near the campfire of his family, while Sarafina danced. His breath caught in his throat then.

Dante dragged himself to the nearest window, flipped the catch at the top and opened it easily. Then he took a deep drink of cool, bracing night air.

A shrill, piercing tone split the silence of the night and shattered his renewed composure. Hell, it was some kind of an alarm. He clasped his palms to his sensitive ears and lunged through the open window, running from the house into the welcoming arms of the night.

As he paused, crouching in the bushes while deciding what the hell to do next, she came. Morgan. Awakened by the alarm, she had gone directly to the study where he had been. As if she knew. God, how connected they were.

She stood in the open window, looking out into the darkness, her face completely confused, utterly vulnerable. She would remember their encounter only as a dream. And yet she knew someone had been inside her house. The way she was staring out, squinting, searching the darkness, it seemed almost as if she were hoping to see him, rather than fearing she might.

The woman had no idea the kind of power she was playing with. No idea.

She had better hope she never had to learn.

He started to leave, but then he saw her move, and something about the way her eyes changed caught his attention. She was turning, staring hard at the windowglass, and lifting a hand to her neck.

Oh, God, the reflection. She saw the wounds by night that would have vanished at the first touch of sunlight on her flesh. She saw the two punctures, the tiny ribbon of blood on her white flesh. She saw them—and she knew.

Chapter 9

"Personally," Lou said, "I think Lydia's just been watching too many movies. This paranormal bullshit is all the rage on the big screen lately."

"Yeah?" Max glanced across the front seat at him. He was driving his beat-up Buick, and there was a console in between them holding his foam coffee cup, his sausage-and-egg croissant, a small notebook, several candy bar wrappers, and numerous other bits of paraphernalia. The man spent way too much time in his car.

"Sure," he said. "What, you don't know? I figured you probably saw every new monster movie the minute it came out."

She sent him a smirk. "I don't like poorly done horror," she said. "It just isn't what it used to be anymore. All slash and no class. You know what I mean?"

"Sure I do."

"Besides," she said, "I don't like to go to the movies alone. And there's not exactly a steady stream of potential dates beating a path to my door."

He shook his head from side to side. "I can't imagine why not."

"No? Well that's nice of you, Lou. But you're just saying that. I'm not really very pretty."

He made a grunting sound and blurted, "The hell you aren't."

Max averted her face, pretending to look out the passenger side window so he wouldn't see her shit-eating grin. "Well, maybe I'm passably cute," she ventured. "But cute isn't the same thing as sexy. Men don't tend to see me as sexy."

"Blind men, maybe."

Her smile grew even wider. She forced it into biding, made her eyebrows arch in delicate surprise, and turned to look at him. "You mean you think I'm sexy, Lou?"

"I… ?" He closed his mouth, drew his brows together, saw right through her. "You know, you shouldn't tease an old guy like that. It's not nice."

"I'm not—"

"Look, here we are," he said, wheeling the car toward the parking lot as if it were the safe zone in a life-or-death game of tag. "Now remember, hon. This lady is an old, dear friend of mine. I care about her feelings. She's just lost her best friend in the world, and I gotta tell you, that's the least of the losses she's been through in her Me. So you be on your best behavior. I'm talking manners, Maxie. Show some respect."

"Sheesh, you act like I'm going to go in there and spit on her or something."

"I just want you to ease her mind. That's all. Disabuse her of this farfetched notion she has about bloodsucking night stalkers. And be convincing. Okay?"

She lowered her head, lifted her gaze and fluttered her lashes. "Anything you say, Lou."

Lou rolled his eyes heavenward as he pulled the car into the first empty space in the lot outside June's. The place had a bar in one half and a dining room in the other. It was pretty dead at midmorning on a weekday, which was, Max figured, why Lou had chosen it.

She got out her side, not bothering to lock the door, which Lou remedied for her with a look of exasperation. The way Max figured it, if someone was so desperate for wheels that they would make off with Lou's rustmobile, more power to them. He would do better collecting the insurance.

They walked up the steps to the diner's entrance. Lou opened the door for her, and she made damn sure to brush his body with hers when she went through it He pretended not to notice.

A woman looked up from a table when they came in, her eyes skimming Max quickly, lighting on Lou, and warming as she got to her feet and smiled. It was a weak, watery smile. And Max probably would have felt a rush of sympathy for anyone else who smiled like that. Except that this woman was a buxom bleached blonde who would look good in a feedbag, and she was sending that wet smile to her cop.

Max quelled her urge to scowl at the woman as Lou led her to the table.

"Lydia," Lou said. "How you doing, hon?" He reached out for a gentle hug as he spoke to her, and Max felt her blood throb in her temples.

"I'm all right Thanks for coming, Lou." She eased her grip on him and glanced at Maxine.

"Lydia, this is Maxine Stuart, the girl I was telling you about. Maxie, Lydia Jordan."

Lydia's smile didn't falter, didn't turn into one that seemed forced or strained, as Max had expected it to.

She probably thought Max was too young to be any competition for Lou's affections. Well, she damn well better think again.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am that you agreed to meet with me, Maxine," Lydia said, reaching out to clasp Max's hand in both of hers. "Lou says you know more about this kind of thing than anyone he knows. And I so need the opinion of someone like you, whose judgement I can trust beyond question."

Max blinked, a little surprised. So Lou had sung her praises, had he? Cool. That was good to know. She shot Lou a look, but he avoided it and waved at the chairs. "Let's sit and get on with this."

Max sat on one side of the small square table, Lou on the other, with Lydia in between them. Lovely. A waitress appeared to fill the coffee cups waiting on the table, left menus and quietly vanished.

"Gee, she was talkative," Max commented.

"I told them we wanted as much privacy as possible." Swallowing as if she had a lump in her throat, Lydia looked Max in the eye. "I understand Lou has already told you the basics. My partner… my… my best friend in the world, Kimbra Sykes… was killed on her way home one night two weeks ago."

"I've seen Lou's notes on what happened," Max said, keeping her voice down in case anyone might be listening in. She wouldn't want to get Lou into trouble for the world. "They found her the next morning in an alley."

Lydia nodded, her blond hair moving with every motion. She wore too much makeup, Max thought unkindly. Old broads tended to do that Pile it on in the effort to cover up the ravages of time.

Lou's going to be mad as hell at me for this,

"Maxine, but… " Lydia pulled an envelope from the black leather attache case at her side, slid it across the table. "I got copies of the crime scene photos and the autopsy report before the F.B.I. took over the case."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Lydia, how the hell—"

Lou broke off as Max started to open the envelope and Lydia held up a hand to stop her. "I'll go freshen up, give you time to look that over."

Max paused with her hand inside the envelope. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking."

"That's okay. Go ahead, that's what I brought it for." She got to her feet, headed for the rest room in the back and vanished from Max's line of vision.

"You didn't know she had this stuff?" Max asked, sliding the documents and photos from the envelope.

"No, and I have no idea how the hell she got her hands on it, either. The freaking Feds came in, took all the evidence and destroyed any copies we'd made."

Max looked up at him. "They did?"

"Yeah. It just happened. There's something going on, Maxie, but I'll be damned if I know what. My best guess would be maybe a serial killer using this same M.O. But if you breathe a word of that, I'll deny it."

"Thank goodness Big Brother keeps the public so well informed," she muttered. She laid the stack on the table, flipped over the top page and stared down at the crime scene photographs. A woman, very tall and lean, maybe in her early forties, lay on the ground in an alley. She wore khakis and a forest-green sweater with a V-neck. Her light brown hair was twisted into a neat knot.

"Not a hair out of place," Max muttered. "Look at her clothes, Lou. They aren't dirty or torn. Her makeup isn't even smeared."

"I know."

She flipped through the photos and got to the autopsy shots, which were routine until she got to the closeups of the woman's neck. Two tiny punctures marred the lily white skin there. Again she flipped pages rapidly, until she got to the autopsy report. "The woman died from blood loss," she told Lou. "It says an impossibly small amount of blood remained in her body, but that she didn't have a single injury anywhere. Not a cut, not a bruise, no internal bleeding, nothing—except for those two puncture wounds at her throat." She skimmed the page, then went back to the first stack of photos, flipping quickly through them. "And not a drop of blood at the crime scene, either."

She lifted her gaze, met Lou's eyes. Then, beyond him, she saw Lydia approaching slowly and took her cue, shoving the stack of papers and photos back into the envelope. No one should have to see their best friend looking like that.

"Well?" Lydia asked, stopping, standing near the table. "What's your opinion?"

"Can I keep these?" Max asked, holding up the envelope. "I'd like to study them a little more."

"Of course. I made copies. But… what do you think, Maxine? Am I completely insane to think it could have been… I mean… "

"You're not insane at all. Either someone was trying very hard to make this murder look like the work of a vampire… or else it actually was."

"Maxie… " Lou looked as if he wanted to throttle her.

"Sorry, Lou, but for crying out loud, do you have any better theories?"

"A hundred! Alien abduction would be a better theory than that. Jeez, Max, I brought you here to make things better, and you've only made them worse."

"Don't yell at her," Lydia said. Her voice was soft but firm. "I wanted her to give me her honest opinion, and she did that, in spite of the fact that she must have known it would piss you off, Lou. Let her be." She turned her attention to Max. "What do you think I should do now?"

Maxine felt herself grow a little taller. The woman was asking her advice as if she were someone important, someone whose opinion mattered. And the fact was, Max realized, she was. No one could help Lydia more than Max could. But damn, this was one can of worms she'd been secretly hoping she wouldn't have to open again—at least, not yet. She remembered the burned, sooty face of that man and the sound of his voice, threatening her loved ones on the phone.

She shook herself and realized Lydia was still waiting for an answer. "The first thing, the most important thing, is that you are to tell no one about this. No one. Pretend you don't know. Pretend you're swallowing whatever cock-and-bull tale they spin for you about Kimbra's death. Thank them and don't argue. Don't question. I swear to God, that's vital."

Lydia looked surprised but was nodding emphatically. Lou, meanwhile, had narrowed his eyes on Max and was staring at her as if she'd lost her mind.

"Other than that, just go about your daily business as normally as you can. Stay off the streets, behind locked doors at night. Some company wouldn't be a bad idea. I mean, just in case."

"Yeah, right," Lou said. "I suppose you're gonna suggest she hang garlic and crucifixes around her bed, too, huh, Maxie?"

She shot him a glance. "I don't think they really work."

He rolled his eyes, shook his head. "Lydia, go home and forget about this meeting. I should have known better than to bring Mad Maxie Stuart in as the voice of reason. Let the authorities handle this, and I promise you, you'll get your answers in time. You just need to be patient."

He turned then. "And as for you—"

"Lou, please," Lydia said.

Max slumped in her chair. "It's okay, Lydia," she said. "Go ahead, go back to your routine. Trust me, I'm on this." Then she sighed. "Maybe you should go now. I think Lou wants to yell at me alone for a little while."

Lydia looked at her, finally nodded. "Looks like you can handle him."

"I can."

"Thank you, Maxine. Thank you. I'll be in touch."

Max yanked a business card out of her pocket and handed it to Lydia almost as an afterthought. "It's, uh—one of my old ones. Haven't had new ones made up yet."

Lydia nodded, tucking the card into her pocket Then she gave Lou a hug and left the diner.

Max got to her feet. "Come on, Lou."

"Come on where?" he asked.

"My place. There are some things you need to see. And if you still want to yell at me after you've seen them, then you can feel free. I'll welcome it. But if not—then you gotta help me figure this out."

"There is nothing you can show me that will make what you just did to that woman all right, Maxie. I'm never gonna forgive you for this."

"Yeah, you will."

He reached for the envelope, but she snatched it off the table before he could grab it. "That's classified material," he said.

"I know," she said. "I've got reams more of it at my place. So this will fit right in."

He stared at her, waiting for the punch line, and when it didn't come, he lifted his brows and widened his eyes.

"Come on," she said. "I'll explain when we get there."

Lou noticed the change in Maxie right off the bat. Man, she'd taken him by surprise, encouraging Lydia's delusions instead of debunking them. Max was wild, yes. Impetuous, that, too. Irreverent, and a little bit self-involved. But damn, he'd never thought she would turn on him when he was counting on her.

He was more than a little disappointed. Then again, she was a kid. What could you expect?

But now he was getting worried. When they left the diner, she acted as if she thought someone might be watching them. She looked up and down the road, looked underneath his car before she got in, checked the back seat, and then kept checking the rearview mirrors as he drove.

"What the hell is the matter?" he asked her.

She glanced at him, shook her head. "Stop at the bank. I need to get something."

He frowned at her, but pulled into the bank's driveway. "Drive-through window?" he asked.

"Safe deposit box."

Okay, that sent a Me chill up his spine. What the hell was Mad Maxie up to? He parked the car as she dug through her purse and finally came up with a key. Then he followed her inside, and damned if her behavior didn't set his antennae on high alert. He'd seen her cynical, skeptical and ridiculous, but he'd never seen her paranoid. And there was part of him—a small part—that thought maybe she had reason. He found himself watching her back as if she were his partner and they had just entered a roomful of cutthroats.

She noticed it; he knew she did. Saw the way her eyes warmed in appreciation. She had hellacious eyes, Maxie did. Big and green and shiny. Went with the fiery red hair. She was a Technicolor female. In spirit as well as looks. She sent him a wink and a secretive smile as a teller led her into a back room. Lou grated his teeth and moved in closer, put his back to the door she'd gone through, kept his eyes on the place and tried to ignore his slightly increased pulse rate.

Maxie, he realized, had no idea what it did to him when she flirted the way she did. Constantly. She thought he was too old to react to her, thought he was no threat, no danger. A gelding. Hell, it wasn't exactly flattering, but to be honest, Lou liked that she felt safe with him. He was damned ashamed of himself for the reactions, in both body and mind, that he couldn't always prevent. He would rather be shot than admit that to her, though. He didn't want her knowing he was just another dirty old man.

Eighteen years between them. Technically, he was old enough to be her father. Okay, a young father, but still…

She came back out and he didn't see anything in her hands that she hadn't had when she'd gone in. Then he noticed that her handbag was plumper now than before. Jesus, she was being careful.

He led her out to the car, put her in, got behind the wheel and put the vehicle into motion again. "You ready to tell me what this is all about yet, Max?"

She glanced up at him, licked her lips. "You're the only person in the world I trust enough to talk to about this, Lou. No one can know. No one. I haven't told my mom or Stormy or anyone."

"Understood," he said.

"I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but I was afraid it would get you into trouble. And I knew it could put you in danger." He snapped his head around toward her. "Let's go to your place, okay? Mine's too busy. Storm's in and out all day, and besides, they know where I live."

"Who knows where you live? Jesus, Maxie, you're starting to scare me."

"You have a computer at home, right? With a CD-ROM drive?"

He nodded, and his mind wandered briefly to the condition of his apartment, but that was trivial. Something had really frightened Max. And she wasn't a stupid girl. He didn't think she would blow something completely harmless this far out of proportion.

"Is that what was in the safe deposit box, Max? A CD-ROM?"

"And an ID badge."

He lifted his brows. "What kind of an ID badge?"

"Kinda like yours. Only instead of City Police, it says DPI."

"Never heard of it."

"I'm pretty sure it was a secret unit within the CIA, and it used to be headquartered right here in White Plains. Before it burned to the ground, anyway."

He sat there for a full minute, processing what she had just told him. Then he got it. "You mean the cancer research center that burned five or so years back?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Only it wasn't cancer they were researching."

He swung the car into his space and gripped the wheel with both hands, facing her. "You were there, snooping around, that night. I remember when you asked me to—" He broke off as it came clear. "You took this stuff from the fire that night, didn't you, Maxie? That's why you needed me to help you get around those soldiers who showed up."

"Now you're getting it And it gets even better, Lou. Someone besides you saw me snooping around there that night."

"Who?"

"The guy who belonged to the ID badge, I think."

"Holy freaking… "

"Don't freak on me yet, cause this is just the believable part of the story. Come on. If I tell you the rest, you'll have me hauled away to a mental ward before I get very far. You gotta see this stuff for yourself."

She opened her car door, got out, hitched her purse up onto her shoulder.

Lou got out, too, but his head was spinning. He couldn't believe Max had stolen secrets from some kind of government agency. My God, people went to prison for less.

He took her arm, led her up the outside stairs to his second-floor apartment. "I don't know what the hell you've gotten yourself into this time, Max," he said softly. "I just hope to Christ I can get you out of it."

Chapter 10

Morgan worked endlessly, long into the nights, typing away on her computer, or pacing and talking to herself, as Dante watched her every move.

He never saw her eat. She drank constantly, though. Vodka, mixed with whatever soft drink she had on hand. Whatever she was writing had her obsessed. And he sensed it had to do with him. He did not want to believe it had to do with his secrets being revealed to his enemies.

His nocturnal visit had worsened things, he thought. It might not have, had she not seen the evidence of his kiss of possession with her own eyes. It had been gone the next day. She might even have believed she had imagined it all.

But obviously she was afraid she had not.

He couldn't get into the damned study to find out what she was working on—not without setting off alarms, which would alert both her and the police. Even if he could gain access, finding what he wanted would be difficult. He'd been watching her, night after night, writing feverishly. She saved everything on CDs and stored them in a large safe that hadn't been there before. It was hidden behind a mock bookcase. Its door opened away from the window through which he observed her every move, so he hadn't been able to see what else might be inside.

Tonight he watched her typing frantically, just as he watched her every night. He had tried again, putting his hand to the floor beneath her to help him connect with her mind, see what she was seeing there, but without success. She had erected barriers of some kind. At least when she was awake. She wouldn't be able to sustain them while she slept. But damn, he was afraid to go to her in her sleep again. Afraid he would lose control.

He almost had, the last time…

She worked long into the night, and when she stopped, she leaned back in the chair as if utterly drained.

God, she was beautiful. Skin like alabaster, long straight hair in a shade of copper that shone as if it were a light source all its own. She was so thin. It had been three days since he'd been in the same room with her, touched her—and he was determined not to do so again. He would just watch her from outside, and sooner or later she would forget to turn a lock or set an alarm, or perhaps she would leave the house. His chance would come.

But not tonight. She rose at last, glancing at her watch. He knew by the proximity of dawn, which vampires always sensed, that it must be near 2:00 a.m. She was unsteady on her feet. He was beginning to think she was ill. In fact, whatever weakness he had sensed in her that first night seemed to be worsening by alarming degrees, as did the unnatural pallor of her skin. It worried him. God, it made his mind reel.

Even feeling poorly, though, Morgan remembered to take the CD from the drive, slide it into its protective sheath and put it in the blasted safe. It was frustrating as hell that he couldn't see the numbers she punched in. Almost as frustrating as being unable to see the computer screen as she wrote for hour upon hour upon hour.

Neither of those things was as frustrating as being so close to her and yet unable to touch her again. Or as sensing she was ill but not knowing why.

He dreamed of her when he rested by day. It was unnatural for a vampire's day sleep to be plagued with dreams. Unheard of, in his experience. He had never dreamed—not once from the day Sarafina had brought him over into the realm of night. Not once—until he had first sipped from the font of Morgan De Silva.

She shut the computer off and went upstairs, and he had to admit to feeling a surge of relief as he rose from his position outside the study's window and went around to the rear of the house, clambering up the tree to watch her as he did every night.

Sarafina would probably laugh at him if she could see him behaving this way. She would probably attribute his childish antics to lust—and she wouldn't be completely wrong. But there was something more than desire at work here. There was this bond—he denied it, but he felt it all the same. He had to know how this woman knew him.

She entered the bedroom and walked straight through it into the adjoining bathroom. When he had lived here, the bedroom had been a two room suite. What had been his bath, she had converted to a walk-in closet. What had been an entire sitting room, she had converted into a bath fit for royalty. Most days she settled for a fast, brisk shower in the morning. The room had a three-sided, frosted-glass enclosed, corner stall for that. But this time, she didn't go to the shower. She went to the huge tub, cranked the faucets on, then paused, sitting on the edge as if exhausted by that simple motion.

She didn't close the door. She never closed the door. Why the hell should she, up here on the second floor? Why should she expect to be seen up here?

He wanted to stay. To watch her bathe. But if he did, he would likely smash through the windows and go to her in spite of his determination not to. Gathering his resolve, he leapt down to the ground. He went to the ocean to bathe himself and spent an hour walking along the beach, reasoning with his own mind, grappling with his own desire. By the time he returned to her balcony, he fully expected her to be in bed, sound asleep.

She was sound asleep. But not in her bed.

She was in the bath. Her pale body was limp, her head hanging to one side, hair dragging in the water. He thought she was dead when he threw open the balcony doors and raced inside, through the bedroom and into the bathroom. "Morgan?"

She didn't respond at all.

He went to the tub, scooped her up into his arms, dripping wet, and carried her to the bed, snatching up a towel on the way. She was alive. He knew that at once, sensing the life in her, hearing it buzzing through her cells, that singing energy no one could name. It stopped singing at death. It sang louder and more clearly in the undead.

She lifted her head weakly from his shoulder. "Dante?"

"I'm a dream. I'm only a dream," he told her.

She relaxed in his arms. He carried her to the bed, toweled her off a little, and laid her down, quickly pulling the covers over her so he wouldn't have to look at her skin. "Why are you so ill, Morgan?"

She smiled very softly. "I'm dying. Didn't you know?"

He went very still, his hands still clutching the blanket near her shoulders. His eyes shot to hers. "Dying… "

"I have this rare blood type," she told him. "The doctors say everyone who has it dies young, but no one can seem to figure out why."

"The Belladonna Antigen," he whispered.

"Yes, that's the one." She let her head sink into her pillows, sighing. "I didn't expect it to get this much worse so soon."

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't know it was… I didn't know it was fatal."

"Of course you did. You live inside me. You know everything about me."

"Not this."

She smiled very slowly. "I'm so tired." Her eyes fell closed, her head tipping sideways and a lock of hair falling over her eyes. "I hope it isn't tonight," she whispered. "I hope I have… just a few more weeks. I need to finish… and then the awards… "

She drifted off, muttering words that might have made sense to her but made none to him. He tried to look into her mind once she fell asleep. It was no longer closed to him, but she was so tired, there was nothing to see. She slept like the dead. And that was no cliché in her case.

Dante tried to sense the life force in her, to guess how long she had. It was weak. Hell, he didn't want to increase the bond between them still further, and yet he was compelled, for some odd reason, to help this woman.

He knew better, his mind told him. It would strengthen the bond between them. It would make this longing even more difficult to resist.

And yet, she was weak. She was fading. He sensed it.

It came down to the simple fact that he did not want to let her go. He pushed back his sleeve, brought his wrist to his mouth and bit down. His incisors sank into flesh, popped through cartilage, pierced the vein, but not too deeply. Just a nick. He slid the thumb of his free hand over the wounds, held it there as he moved his wrist to Morgan's lips. In his mind, he created the image of what he wanted her to do and sent it to her with the force of his will. Then he pressed his wrist to her mouth.

She drank. Her lips parted and closed over the punctures, warm and wet, and she suckled him like a baby at its mother's breast. Desire shot through him like an electrical charge. She licked, swallowed, sucked harder. His breath came faster, and he grew hard with arousal. Finally, teeth grated in sweet anguish, he held her forehead with one hand and pulled his wrist away. He yanked a scarf from the nightstand, knocking a book to the floor in the process. As he twisted the scarf around his wrist, he glanced down at the title. Psychic Self-Defense. Dion Fortune, no toss. No wonder he could no longer so easily read Morgan's thoughts. He tied the scarf in a knot, tourniquet-tight It would do until dawn. Dawn was not far off, in fact.

He glanced down at the woman on the bed. Her skin was pinker now, and she felt warmer to the touch. She would feel stronger tomorrow.

But again, she couldn't know why. She had to remember him only as a dream. And dammit, he had to make some kind of progress in figuring out why and how she knew as much about him as she did.

Maybe she was psychic. Maybe that was the explanation that so eluded him. Perhaps she'd picked up some kind of trace emanations he had left in the atmosphere of this place.

Again he looked at her. There were traces of his blood on her lips. Dante leaned forward, pressed his to them, kissed the droplets away.

Her eyes fluttered open. "How can I love a man who doesn't exist?" she whispered. "I do, you know. I love you, Dante."

He felt his eyes widen in alarm. "The last woman who said those words to me nearly cost me my life."

"I know," she whispered, rolling onto her side, eyes falling closed again. "Laura Sullivan, the lass from Dunkinny."

Dante went utterly rigid. "How do you know that name?" But she didn't answer. "Morgan?" But no. He could wake her, but that would be too risky. He would have to wake her completely in order to get any straight answers out of her. And then he would never convince her that this had all been just a dream. Instead, he laid his hands on her head, focused on her mind, probed and sought.

What he found was her, beautiful, healthy, staring into a man's eyes—his eyes—and whispering, "I'll never betray you the way Laura Sullivan did, Dante."

Then he saw a screen behind them both, alight with moving pictures that retold the tale. He saw the woman he had loved, the only mortal he had ever trusted with the truth of what he was. He saw her, and she looked the way she had looked then. She led a mob of the villagers, all of them bearing torches, and she shouted at them, "He's a beast, I tell you. He tried to drink my blood and admitted to me what he is—and his friend Donovan, too! We have to destroy them!"

Then the others shouted "Burn, burn, burn, burn" as they hurled their flaming clubs at the castle he shared with Donovan O'Roarke, his young protegé.

The screen went black. In her mind, once again, there were only the two of them. "I already know what you are, Dante. I love you all the same." She leaned up in the dream, her lips pressing to his.

Dante backed out of her mind in a rush, shook himself.

It was true. She knew all of his secrets. All of them.

Chapter 11

She slept heavily, late into the afternoon. But when Morgan finally did wake, she woke all at once. Her eyes opened wide, and she sat up with a gasp, as if something had shocked her out of a deep sleep.

Nothing had. She sat there blinking, pressing her hand to her forehead in anticipation of the rush of dizziness that always came when she sat up too suddenly, or stood up too suddenly, or ran up the stairs, or a thousand other things.

It didn't come, though. And as she sat there, she slowly became aware of the way she felt. She felt… better. Almost good. Frowning, she flung her covers back and got to her feet, testing her balance, waiting for the weakness. It occurred to her that she didn't remember getting into bed last night. In fact, the last thing she remembered was the bath, and…and then the dream.

Closing her eyes slowly, she let her breath rush from her lips. Dante. He had come to her again in her dreams. Squeezing her eyes a little tighter against the rush of sweet pain the memory brought, she tried to recall the details to her mind. But nothing came clearly. Just the memory of his voice, speaking in its deep velvety hush, soothing her. His hand, cool on her face. His nearness. His realness.

Oh, and his taste!

God, had she really dreamt that?

She was losing it, she knew that. Completely enmeshed in the life of a man who didn't exist. Living his stories by day, dreaming of him by night. My God, she was an acclaimed screenwriter. And yet she didn't care. She cared about nothing except him, a man who did not—who could not—exist!

Something compelled her to check the French doors that led out onto her balcony before she did anything else. They were locked. From the inside. Of course they were. What had she expected? Sighing, she turned and walked into the bathroom.

She stopped in the doorway, staring in at a tub still full of water. "That's so odd." More than odd, a voice in her mind warned. It was completely unlike her to leave water in the tub. She was meticulous about this house, had been ever since she had first come to know its one-time owner. To her, this place was Dante's headstone. His memorial. His marker. She honored it.

Another sign of her looming nervous breakdown, she supposed. And what on earth had possessed her to sleep all day long? Hell, she shouldn't complain. As good as she felt, she would be able to make up for lost time long into the night.

Heading back into her bedroom, she decided to get out of the house for a little while. Outside, in the brisk spring air, maybe go for a walk down the beach and into the Norman Rockwell town a mile away. It would do her good. Besides, she couldn't remember the last time she had felt capable of walking on the beach.

She showered quickly, threw on a pair of jeans and a cozy sweater, dressed her feet in a pair of white ankle socks and lightweight tennis shoes. She only towel dried her hair, then left it loose. And she grabbed a handbag she rarely used, and a jacket, just in case.

Then she trotted down the wide staircase with a sense of anticipation she couldn't explain and didn't want to. At the bottom, she caught herself, slowed her pace, mentally reminding herself that she would be breathless and panting if she didn't She wasn't, though. Her heart wasn't even pounding hard.

Maybe she was getting better. Maybe the sea air or those herbal supplements she'd been taking were finally kicking in. Maybe…

She walked briskly through the house, out the back door and down across the sloping green lawn toward the cliffs. For a moment she simply stood there, staring out at the horizon. The sun was setting on the other side of the world. If she were on the West Coast, she could watch it go down over the ocean. A huge blazing ball of fire, quenching itself slowly in the cool embrace of the sea. She hadn't watched the sun set over the Pacific in years. But she could watch it rise over the Atlantic. And tonight she could watch the darkness gradually stealing over the water, changing its color, as the sun set far, far behind her.

She thought about the words that could capture such a sight and describe it. The way the water kept changing, racing, it seemed to stay a shade darker than the sky. The sky went from robin's egg to lilac, navy to midnight blue. The sea from turquoise to purple to ebony.

The wind picked up as the sun sank lower. Salty and ever cooler, it pushed Morgan teasingly, daring her to push back. She stood there for a long time as the first few stars winked to life in the darkening sky. Sighing in appreciation, she inhaled the night air. It tasted good. She wasn't ready to go in just yet. Turning, she headed down the path along the edge of the cliffs to where it rolled downward to the shore at a gentler angle. When she reached the level of the shore, she followed the stony, sandy shoreline southward toward town.

Easton was small. Picturesque, but not enough so that it had become a tourist trap—not yet, at least. The sidewalks tended to roll up early. Morgan veered away from the beach onto the town's main road, just north of the downtown area. She took the sidewalk and walked along, looking in the shop windows, most of which were already closed.

A crowd drew her attention, and she glanced ahead, saw the line forming outside the movie theater, its small, lighted marquee above their heads. The theater was small, two screens, a couple of hundred seats. No surround-sound or giant screen. It was closed until showtime, and the doors opened a half hour before each show and not a minute sooner.

Glancing up at the scrolling marquee, Morgan couldn't help but smile. Her latest film was showing, and underneath the title the colored lights spelled out a message that scrolled past repeatedly. "Easton's own Morgan De Silva has earned a Best Screenplay nomination! See the film tonight!"

She blinked happily. Gee, it seemed she was something of a celebrity around town. Odd that no one had been out to the house to bother her. Of course, she kept a very low profile, rarely ventured out, had an unlisted phone number and a whole lot of electronic security. Maybe people just respected each other's privacy out here?

There had to be more to it than that. Part of her knew what, but most of her refused to acknowledge what that part of her knew. It was silly to believe that people avoided going anywhere near her house because it still emanated the predatory energy of the man who had once inhabited it.

She still carried her jacket. Now she put it on, tugging up its lightweight hood and tucking her long hair inside it. She dug into her purse for the case that held her designer sunglasses and slipped them on, as well. Then she moved ahead and took her spot at the end of the line.

She felt a shiver go up her spine, as if a cold breath had just whispered across her nape, and she turned fast. But no one stood behind her. There was someone standing on the sidewalk, though, several yards away, in the direction from which she had come. A man. He stood in the shadows, all the way at the end of the block, on the corner. And the moment she looked his way, he slipped around the corner and out of sight.

His stance… his silhouette, nothing but a dark shape in the night. And yet she thought… No. She was letting her imagination run away with her again.

"Miss?"

She turned, realized it was her turn to step up to the ticket window. "Sorry. One please, for Twilight Hunger." She slid a ten across the counter, waited for the change, which was a crisp clean five with her ticket on top. She'd been out so few times since coming here mat the low ticket prices still surprised her. She tucked the five in her jeans pocket and held on to the ticket as she moved inside.

She got a seat in the back and sat quietly while the previews began to roll.

Morgan had thought she was the last one in, but the doors opened a few minutes into the previews, and someone else entered. Again that chill danced over her spine, and Morgan turned to look his way.

He was already making his way to the opposite side of the theater, but, like her, he took a seat in the back row. He wore a long coat with its collar turned up around his face, and he, too, had dark glasses.

It was foolish to think of Dante when she saw the stranger. It was just some other lonely soul who preferred to keep his identity to himself. Dante didn't exist. The Dante of those journals, the one who haunted her mind, had never existed. Only a slightly deranged man with a wild imagination and an excellent way with words. The Dante whose life was about to unfold on the screen at the far end of the room was a fictional character. A figment of his creator's imagination, enhanced, perhaps, by Morgan's own. But he wasn't real. And she had to get that through her head. He was not real.

Just because she'd been having vivid, visceral dreams about him…

And just because she had hallucinated those marks on her neck that night…

They were there! her mind insisted. I checked in the bedroom mirror, and they were there.

But gone without a trace in the morning, she reminded herself. And as vivid as her dreams had been lately, how could she be so sure that seeing those marks hadn't been just another part of one of them? "Dante isn't real," she whispered to herself. "And he most certainly isn't sitting in this dark theater, watching me watch this film."

Why, then, did she feel herself sinking more deeply into her seat as his story began to play out for the audience—and as the words across the screen told them all that she, Morgan De Silva, had created it?

Chapter 12

Lou got a call before Max could show him what she had on the CD, and then he managed to avoid her for a couple of days—hell, she wasn't even sure why, unless he was doing some research on his own.

Finally she caught him by waiting for him at his apartment after his shift. And then she sat him down and made him look at his computer while she manned the mouse and showed him the vampire files of the organization known as DPI.

When they finished, Lou looked as if Max had popped him between the eyes with a two-by-four. He sat there blinking at the computer screen long after she had closed the file and removed the CD from the drive.

"Do you think if you stare at Bill Gates' brainchild long enough you'll find your way back to that logical world where everything makes sense?"

He glanced at her vaguely.

"Believe me, it doesn't work. I spent a couple of hours staring at the Windows logo myself after I saw what was on that CD. It didn't help a bit."

"It's nuts. It's a prank."

"The man I saw outside the fire that night was no prank, Lou. He was real. And he dropped the CD and the ID badge. That place, that so-called research center—it was for research, all right On vampires."

He shook his head.

"I never told you what happened the next morning. The morning after the fire."

"Something happened the next morning?"

"I had an envelope delivered to my front door."

His brows rose now as he studied her. "What was in it?"

"Photos. My friends, Jason Beck, asleep in his bed, and Stormy in her own shower. And there was one of my mother, in the parking garage at work. It had been taken that morning."

"Any note?"

She shook her head. "No, he called instead."

"He called you?"

Maxine nodded. Lou was getting riled now. She had known he would. He was the most laid-back guy on the planet until someone he cared about was threatened or harmed. Then he got damned dangerous. And he did care about her, even if he was too dense to realize it.

"The same guy you saw that night?"

"I think so, yeah. I mean, it had to be him."

"What did he say to you, Maxie? Did he know you took those things?"

She shook her head slowly. "Nope. But he knew I'd seen him there. He made it clear that he could get to my friends and my mother at will, told me to forget I'd ever been there, that if I so much as mentioned seeing him or being in that place the night of the fire, he would find out and make me regret it."

"He said he'd hurt your mother."

She nodded. "And I believed him. I still do. And I kept the tape of that call, Lou. You can hear it for yourself." She was nothing if not prepared. She took the tape out of the envelope, popped it into Lou's machine and let it play.

Lou muttered a string of cuss words under his breath. When the tape finished, he said, "I need a beer."

"I could use one myself." She left him sitting where he was—on the edge of his camelback couch, elbows braced on his knees—walked into the kitchen and opened his fridge. As she had expected, it was well stocked. All the beer, coldcuts and cheese a man could eat. A few bottles of ketchup, mustard, salsa, hot sauce and horseradish. Horseradish? She took out two long necks, twisted off the caps and carried them back into the living room of the three-room apartment. She handed him a bottle, then flopped onto the couch beside him and took a long drink from her own.

Lou was looking at her oddly as she swallowed.

"What?"

He shrugged. "Never saw you drink before."

"I've been legal for years, Lou."

"Sure. I just never think of you that way."

"I hadn't noticed," she said, loading on as much sarcasm as the words could carry.

He was quiet for a long moment, sipping his beer, studying her sipping hers. Made her feel damned self-conscious. Finally he set the bottle on the coffee table, no doubt adding a fresh new water ring to the collection that had accumulated there. "You must have been scared half to death, Max."

She shrugged, took another gulp. "It shook me up some, yeah."

"You should have told me about this."

"And what could you have done, Lou? File a report? This guy worked for some offshoot of the CIA, Lou. The C-fucking-IA."

He sighed. "Even if that's true—"

"It's true. And if I'd told you about it, he would have known. If you had filed a report, he would have known, and maybe you'd have been getting threats, too—or worse."

He sat back a little. "You were protecting me." He said it deadpan.

"Not just you. Myself, my mother, Stormy and Jason."

"And me."

She shrugged, looked away, because it was true. "Maybe I just don't trust cops."

"I know you don't trust cops. But you trust me."

She smiled just a little. "Yeah, and you trust me, too, don't you?"

He pursed his lips. "You're sharp. You don't lie, and you're damn tough to lie to. What's not to trust?"

"You trust me," she insisted. "So trust me on this. There's not a passably sane person in the entire civilized world who believes vampires exist. But if they don't, then why does the government have volumes of research on them? Why does it know them by name and have life histories on so many of them? This is real, Lou. They exist."

He shook his head. "I can't wrap my brain around that one, Maxie."

"You will. Hell, it's taken me the better part of five years. Unfortunately, you don't have that kind of time."

He glanced at her, and she knew he was wishing she wouldn't finish the thought, but she had to.

"Lydia Jordan's friend was killed by one of them, Lou. There's no getting around that."

He shook his head slowly. "She was more than a friend. And you can't tell Lydia about any of this, regardless."

"Why not? What's the point in keeping this secret?"

"I don't know what the point is, but there has to be one, or the government wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to do it!"

She widened her eyes and bobbed her head at him.

"Hell, Max… just let me think, okay?"

"Fine." She polished off her beer, leaned back on the couch and absently reached for the newspaper strewn on the coffee table, picking it up, leafing through the sections. She picked out the magazine section, which she always read first. She flipped it open, paused and shook her head. "Speak of the devil."

"What?"

Sending Lou a lopsided smile, she held up the page so he could see the article's title. "Vampire Thriller Garners Coveted Nomination."

He rolled his eyes, shook his head. "Figures."

She licked her lips as she began to skim the article about the film and the reclusive screenwriter, until she got to the short synopsis of the story, and there she paused. "Uh… Lou?"

"I'm still thinkin'."

"Yeah, well, think about this. Wasn't one of the names on that CD-ROM 'Dante'?"

He glanced at her sharply. "I think so. Why?"

She licked her lips. "Maybe we'd better take another look at the file on that one. And, uh—then we ought to think about going out. Maybe even catching a movie."

In the theater, the story, a prequel to the earlier two films, unfolded on the silver screen. A young man, a Gypsy, lay on the ground. The makeshift bandage was torn and bloody. But there was no longer any pain, and his strength was returning. More than returning, it surged in him, singing in his veins like a thousand violins. He tore the bandage off, balled it up and threw it to the ground beside the rest of what had been his shirt. He stared at his Aunt Sarafina. Her black eyes gleamed in the night, though there was no light for them to reflect. And he saw more now than he had seen before, as if he were seeing her through new eyes now. How he'd ever missed something so obvious before, he couldn't imagine.

Sarafina was not human. Her skin was too smooth. No pores, no flaws. Her lips were too dark, and her eyes had that glow, that luster, as did her hair. There was something else. Involuntarily, instinctively, he tipped his head back and, without sniffing, he smelled the scent on her. Something pungent and exotic, like a mingling of sex and blood. Her scent.

"Your scent, too," she said softly, her voice a rich combination of tones in harmony, not one flat pitch as he had always believed voices to be. It was as if he had never truly heard before.

Then his wonder faded as he realized she had been reading his thoughts. His eyes widening, he turned from her, started off through the woods.

"And where do you think you're going, Dante?"

"Home. Back to the village. Where I belong."

"You can't go back there now." She didn't follow him. She stood where she was, and since she wasn't shouting, he didn't understand why he could hear her so clearly, just as clearly no matter how far he walked from her. "You're outcast now, just like me."

"You lie!" he shouted, and he ran faster and faster.

As he approached the village, the young man was surprised that he heard no music. It was their last night in this camp. In the morning they would move again. All the items they could pack had been packed. Tonight there should be a huge fire, with music and dancing, and stories of past adventures told with excited anticipation of what new ones might lie just ahead.

Instead, there was silence. He heard the fire crackling, smelled it long before he should have. But of voices, there were almost none. Mere whispers now and again, and the gentle brush of fabric as his people moved around the camp.

He emerged from the trees and paused to stare at his family. The Grandmother knelt near a large boulder, grinding herbs with her mortar and pestle. His cousins didn't run or play but instead sat around watching her, their eyes damp, shoulders slumped. The men were grouped together at the far end of camp in a huddle of angry faces, muttering quietly in a way that made Dante wonder who had angered them. They looked as if they were plotting violence. The women were clustered around the tent belonging to Dante and his mother. And beyond them all, he could hear his mother's soft, broken crying coming from within the tent.

He was drawn forward, into the light of the flames. "Mother?" he called. "Everyone, what has happened?"

Heads snapped up fast, eyes widening and turning in his direction. He heard his mother say his name on a ragged breath, and then she was pushing her way through the women as she emerged from the tent.

The Grandmother stepped into her path, putting herself directly between them. "Stay away!" she commanded Dante, and she held her hands up, forefinger and pinky extended, hissing as she poked the sign at him repeatedly. "Stay back, I say!"

Dante blinked at her in shock. "Grandmother… what's wrong with you? It's me, it's Dante. What… ?"

His mother pushed the older woman aside then and came closer. "Is it really you, my son? Dimitri said you were killed. Shot dead when you tried to steal a goat."

"If you lied to us about such a thing… " The deep-voiced threat came from Dimitri's father.

"I didn't lie! I saw it, I tell you. He was shot, both barrels of the old man's shotgun."

"You weren't even there!" Dante said, instinctively denying the tram. Knowing somehow that if he admitted what had really happened, his family would believe him to be some kind of demon. A vampire, just as Sarafina claimed he was. But it wasn't true. It wasn't!

"I followed you, Dante." Dimitri's eyes were narrow on him now, untrusting, perhaps even afraid. "I knew you were out for adventure. I planned to join in when the old man came out. I saw him fire. I saw you fall."

"And then you ran, didn't you?" Dante asked, grasping the idea like a drowning man clutching a limb. "Admit it. You heard the gun, and you ran and left me there to die."

"I ran." Dimitri lowered his black head in shame.

"You see?" Dante forced a nervous smile as he glanced at his mother and the Grandmother, and then at the men who were gathering around. The women had gathered their children and were standing as far from him as possible. So many huge brown eyes on him. "He didn't stay long enough to see that the man's shots never hit me. Only frightened me, so I fell down. I was not even hit, much less killed."

Several of them glanced toward Dimitri for confirmation. His head came up slowly, and he stared at Dante. "I saw the blood. You are as a brother to me, Dante, and I love you, but I saw the blood."

Dante shivered, knowing how frightened Dimitri must have been to witness such a thing. He looked for support from the other men but found only suspicion in their eyes. And several of them were not even there, he realized.

"Turn around, Dante," the Grandmother told him. "Let me see your back."

"You'll find nothing there."

"Turn!"

One did not disobey the Grandmother. Dante turned, praying he had managed to wipe all the blood away, wishing he could see his own back. Everyone looked. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder at them, saw his mother inspecting him closely. "There is no wound," she said. "And I see no blood, only there's so much dirt it is hard to be sure."

"Why can you not take my word?" Dante asked. "Dimitri was mistaken. Mother, you wept for me when you thought I was dead. Can you not rejoice for me now that you see me alive?"

She stared at him, hope lighting her eyes. Trembling, she lifted a hand toward his face, and he closed his eyes as he awaited her warm touch.

The forest beside him came alive as men emerged from it, the men he'd noticed missing from the crowd before. When they saw him, they gaped as if seeing a ghost, and Dante shot a look at his mother.

"We sent them out to bring your body home to us, Dante," she explained.

"Tell us," the Grandmother commanded. "What did you find at the farmer's shack?"

The oldest of the group, Alexi, lifted his hand from his side. A ball of material was in it, and as he unfurled the mass, Dante realized what it was. He could do nothing to stop Alexi from holding it up for all to see. Dante's shirt, a hole rent in its back, strips torn away, the entire thing soaked in drying blood.

"The farmer was dead," Alexi said softly. "Two holes, right here." He used his fingers to poke himself in the throat, and young Dante remembered seeing his aunt, Sarafina, drain the old man by biting him there.

"Nosferatu!" the Grandmother shrieked, tugging Dante's mother behind her and jabbing her fingers at him again. "Leave us, demon! Go your way and leave us!"

As one, the entire village pulled away from Dante, moving nearer the fire. He shook his head, lifting a hand toward them in appeal. "Please! I am not a demon! I am just as I was before. I am Dante." He found his mother's eyes in the crowd. "I am your son!"

"My son is dead." The words were low, deep, reverberating with pain.

"No!"

"It was Sarafina, wasn't it, boy?" the Grandmother asked him. "She came to you as you lay dying. She passed her curse on to you. Didn't she?"

"No!"

The Grandmother spat on the ground. "We shall see, young devil. For the sun rises soon. Our Dante's soul will find peace when your body burns!"

Dante's mother spun toward the east, and she stared off into the paling sky. Then she raced to him, put her hands on his chest and pushed at him. "Go, Dante! Go now. I cannot bear to lose you twice."

"Mother? I don't—"

"Go! Cover yourself!"

"You do him no favors, child," the Grandmother muttered.

Then Dante felt something he had never felt before. A heat, searing from somewhere deep within him as the first rays of the sun pierced the sky, shooting like arrows from the horizon, stabbing him deeply and burning there. "Ah!" He clutched himself, gritted his teeth. Thin spirals of smoke began to rise from his flesh.

"Run! Into the woods. Find shelter!" his mother screamed.

The burning was unbearable. Dante turned, and ran. The trees offered relief, but only for seconds as he lunged headlong, deeper into the forest, seeking shelter from the sun, his heart breaking, his mind racing, but all of it secondary to the searing pain of his burning flesh. He dove into the first cover he saw, a pile of deadfall, and burrowed deeper, pulling leaves and brash over and around him as he dug to the very bottom of the mound.

And then he sat very still, waiting for the pain to ease, waiting. He had to think. He had to understand why this was happening to him.

But his head was suddenly heavy. Far too heavy, and his eyes, though tear-filled, were closing. He fought to stay awake. God, how could he sleep when his entire world had just been turned on its head? But there was no resisting this sleep. In fact, it didn't seem at all like falling asleep. It seemed, he thought, panic gripping his heart, like dying…

Morgan got up and ran from the theater. Dante, who had been watching the events of his own life play out on the screen in a state of utter disbelief and increasing anger, saw her go, and he rose slowly and followed her. She had done this. Somehow that woman knew his secrets. And she had told the entire world.

She was going to have to pay. Tonight.

Lou had read the entire DPI case file on the alleged vampire who went by the name of Dante before they managed to find a theater still showing the flick mat Mad Maxie was so hot on seeing. It had been released a couple of months ago, but now, with a Best Screenplay nomination, a few places were showing it again. Maxie managed to locate one while he read, and then she came and read over his shoulder, since it was two hours before the next showing.

So they both were fairly up on the bullshit in the file as they sat in the theater. Which meant mat he knew, and he knew that she knew, that what was playing out on the screen was pretty much an adaptation of several key parts of the file. Not as dry, of course. Goddamn riveting, actually.

But the high points were the same. Gypsy kid, shot for stealing a goat, transformed into a vampire by an exotic aunt who never aged. Right. The fiction on the screen was cold hard fact, according to this crackpot government agency. The only difference was, the film was slanted in sympathy with the creature. He came off as wounded and lonely, cursed and hunted. The files made him sound more like a vicious animal that needed putting down.

Lou knew damned well he would never convince Max that both versions were bullshit. Not now.

"Now do you see what I'm talking about, Lou?"

He walked beside her, back up the carpeted slope out of the theater. Someone bumped into her, jostled her, and he automatically grabbed her upper arm. "All I see is that your top secret information seems to be not so secret after all."

"If that were the case, it would be public knowledge. Some investigative reporter would be all over this stuff."

"What, you didn't see the latest Enquirer? I'm sure they covered it. Right next to the baby they found inside an uncut pumpkin, still on the vine, and the rash of alien abductions in Upper Butthole, Nebraska."

She sneered at him. "If it were public knowledge, it would make the Times."

"Um-hm."

"Lou, this is real. We've got the same set of facts from two separate sources now. This woman, this screenwriter, she knows more about this than either of us. We've got to talk to her."

He led her to his car, put her in it and got behind the wheel. "I don't want to talk to you about this anymore. Tomorrow morning, I'm gonna call in a few favors."

"No."

"I have a buddy who works for the CIA. Low-level guy, but still…he'll know who to ask about this…this DPI garbage."

"Lou, no."

"I'm a cop, Max. I'm not swallowing a bit of this. It isn't in me to swallow it. Not without proof."

She caught his face between her flattened palms and turned him to face her. She was close to Mm. So close he could feel her breath on his mouth. It smelled like hot buttered popcorn and was every bit as tempting.

"Don't tell anyone. Lou, please. It's too dangerous."

He looked at her. She had those huge green eyes, and right now they were scared. He didn't see Mad Maxie Stuart scared very often. When he did, it meant something. Damn, he just wished she wouldn't get so close. Sighing, he lifted a hand and tousled her short red hair, moving her face away from his in the process. "Okay, all right. Fine. I won't say anything."

"And we'll try to trace the screenwriter. Morgan De Silva. And just talk to her."

He sighed, pulling the car up in front of Maxie's house-slash-office. "I'll think about it."

"I'll do it with you or without you, Lou."

"Now, listen, Maxie, you be patient. Give me a few days to sort through all this." He waggled a finger at her, father-like. "And not a word to Lydia in the meantime. Understand?"

"Not a word to Lydia about what, Lou?" a voice asked.

He swung his head around and saw Lydia herself standing on the other side of the car. She had apparently been waiting for Max to get home.

"Come on inside, Lydia," Max called, getting out of Lou's car and heading toward her house. "I'll explain everything. See you later, Lou."

"But… "

"Bye, Lou," Lydia said, sending him a smile.

Lou gave his head a quick shake, wondering how the hell he had managed to lose control of the situation so quickly. "Listen, Lydia, whatever she tells you is pure conjecture. You gotta know that up front."

Lydia rolled her eyes at him and joined Max, walking up the steps to the front porch and across it toward the door.

"Don't either one of you do anything without calling me first. Understand?"

Maxie looked at him over her shoulder, sent him a wink. "Of course we won't. Wouldn't be any fun without you."

Then she opened the door, and the two of them went into the house.

Lou went back to his car. But he didn't go home. He went back to the station instead, because that was where he kept all his business-related phone contacts. He looked up the number of his CIA buddy and gave the man a call. As vaguely as he could manage, he asked his friend to find out what he could about an alleged secret CIA unit known as DPI.

Then he drove back to Maxie's house and parked outside to watch the place for the rest of the night.

Chapter 13

A soft hand fell on Morgan's shoulder as she sat there on the beach, sobbing.

"Why do you cry?"

It was a woman's voice, deep and rich, slightly accented. Morgan lifted her head and swiped her hands across her cheeks. She could barely see the woman who'd walked up beside her. She was a tall, slender blur. Dark hair, cranberry-colored coat. "Oh, God, you must think I'm an idiot."

"No. I, too, had a very strong reaction to the film. Not as strong as yours, however." She sat down in the sand beside Morgan.

"You… you were at the theater?"

"Mmm. I saw you run off, weeping, and I was concerned."

Finally Morgan cleared her eyes enough to look at the woman who was sitting beside her on the sand. Her wine-colored trench coat reached to her ankles and was buttoned all the way down. Long black boots on her feet, hugging her calves. Her hands were gloved in matching black leather, and her face was partially hidden by exquisite masses of black curls. She wore a lot of makeup. Way more than Morgan would usually find tasteful. And yet she had the presence to pull it off.

She stared out over the waves, not looking Morgan directly in the eyes.

"What made you run from the theater that way?"

Lowering her head, Morgan shook it slowly. The woman didn't seem to know who she was, and she preferred to keep it that way. Her sunglasses and head scarf remained in place, and she was grateful for them. "The story seems very real to me," she said softly. "I've seen it play out a dozen times." More than that, in her mind. "And every time I have the same reaction when his family rejects him that way. Sending him out into a world of darkness all on his own. I guess it just hits me on some level."

"Mmm. Me, too. I was treated much the same way by my family." She turned now and seemed able to lock on to Morgan's eyes right through the sunglasses. "You also, I would guess?"

"Yes." She spoke without meaning to. As if the words were drawn out of her. The woman had stunning eyes. Dark, maybe black, and somehow luminous. The sun had long since set, and the waves lapped gently at the shore beneath a star-dotted night sky.

"Tell me," the woman said, her voice soft and low. Compelling.

"I… was never close to my parents. It was only after they died that I learned I was adopted."

"Ahhh," she said on a breath. "Poor thing. And you wonder, then, about your real family. Your blood." As she spoke, she reached out a hand, gently moving Morgan's long hair off her shoulder, letting it fall down her back. Her eyes slid over Morgan's chin, touching her throat, and the skin there heated as if the touch were a physical one.

"Yes," Morgan said. "I do wonder about them. What they were like."

"Perhaps this history of yours is why you feel such empathy with Dante—the vampire in the film."

"Or maybe it's just that I live in his house."

The woman started, her eyes widening slightly and jerking up to Morgan's again. The spell of her quiet voice was broken. It was sharper now. "Whatever do you mean by that, child?"

What was she thinking? God, a slip like that could annihilate her budding career. She could never, never admit that the character in her films had been someone else's creation—much less that she lived in the home that had once been his. If she did, the rest would come out, too. That she had plagiarized his mad ramblings to create her award-nominated work. She tried a false smile, shaking her head in self-deprecation. "The house in one of the films reminded me a lot of my own, that's all."

"Oh."

She had the distinct feeling the woman didn't believe her. Getting to her feet, she brushed the sand from her clothes, turning her back to the woman as she did so. "I should go, it's getting late and… " She turned back again.

But there was no woman there.

Morgan blinked rapidly, searching the beach in one direction, then the other, scanning the water and the distance back toward town. Nothing. No one.

My God, had she imagined the dark woman? She pressed a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes. "Maybe I need to get away from here for a while. Just for a while." But even as she said it, she knew it wasn't possible. She couldn't leave. It was no longer a matter of simply not wanting to. The moment the words left her lips, she felt sick inside, a sense of panic stirring at the mere thought of leaving here. Leaving… him.

"What the hell did you think you were doing with that girl, Sarafina?" Dante demanded, and his tone was harsh. Too harsh, perhaps, as it caused Sarafina's perfectly arched brows to lift in question.

"Then you know her. Mmm. What is she to you?"

"Nothing." He snapped his answer without looking at her, lest she see too much. "What are you even doing here? I couldn't believe it when I sensed your presence in that theater."

Sarafina shrugged innocently, though he knew too well there wasn't an innocent bone in her body. She gave her head a shake, taunting the wind with her riotous hair. "I came to see you. I couldn't help but feel you in the theater as I passed through town, so I went inside. Imagine my surprise when I saw our history being played out on the screen."

He closed his eyes, unable to reply to that. He'd been shocked to his core to see his own life in that film. And it felt far too much like a betrayal. Especially now that he knew the truth. It was Morgan. She had written the screenplay.

Once again a woman who claimed to love him had betrayed his secrets to his enemies. To everyone. To the world.

"Apparently it had an equally upsetting effect on the girl, whoever she is. The way she ran out of there." Sarafina locked her black eyes on his. "I'll ask you again. What is she to you, Dante?"

"She's an innocent mortal, nothing more." He didn't tell her that he had been nearby, listening to every word of her conversation with Morgan. He had fully expected to have to intervene.

"Oh, she's far more than an ordinary mortal, my love. Far, far more." She took his hand, and they walked side by side along the beach, a mile from where Sarafina had been talking to the girl. "But we'll get to that," she said. "Why did you interrupt me when I was having such an illuminating discussion with the whelp?"

"To stop you from ripping out her jugular, dear gentle aunt. She's a local and would be missed."

Truth to tell, he'd been following Morgan with half a mind to do just that himself—to destroy her. But when he'd seen his bloodthirsty Sarafina with her, he'd felt a stab of fear and an undeniable instinct to protect. He had shouted to Sarafina with his mind, and she had responded by rushing to his side in a blur of motion too fast for any human eye to follow.

"It goes to show just how poorly I've taught you, doesn't it?" she asked. "And how isolated you have made yourself all these years. I couldn't have harmed her if I'd wanted to. She's one of the Chosen."

He nodded. "That much I had put together on my own. But I admit I know very little of just what that means, aside from the fact that she shares the same antigen we all do, and that she can become as we are."

Sighing, Sarafina nodded. "I knew she was in the theater before I'd been there a heartbeat," she said. She stopped walking when she came to a large boulder, took a seat upon it like a queen taking her throne. Dante stood nearby, watching her as she stared out at the sea. It was the blue-black hue of wet slate. "We can feel their presence. This much you know. We cannot harm them."

"Cannot?" He pondered that for a moment. "I thought it was more that we tended not to want to. What would happen, do you suppose, if we tried?"

She glanced up at him quickly. "You have some reason for wanting to do the girl harm?"

"I barely know her." He looked away as he said it.

Sarafina shrugged delicately. "If we tried—well, I'm not sure what would happen. The truth of the matter is, we're more often compelled to protect them when we encounter them in passing."

That explained his urge to come between his aunt and the weeping Morgan.

"They have abbreviated life spans, you know."

His head snapped up. Morgan had said as much, but he hadn't wanted to believe it. "No. I didn't know that," he lied, unwilling and unable to let his aunt know how much he and Morgan had communicated in her dream.

Sarafina only nodded. "Mmm. Rarely live beyond thirty mortal years. She looks as though she's deteriorating already." She shrugged.

"What can be done?" he asked, searching Sarafina's face.

"Nothing. Bring her over or let her die. It's a simple choice, really." She shrugged. "They say that for each vampire, there is one of the Chosen with whom the psychic bond is stronger. I've always found it to be so much hogwash. Romanticism and nothing more."

"Oh, do you? You're saying your bond with me wasn't like that?"

"My bond with you was nothing like that, Dante. You were my family. My nephew. The only one of my clan with any kind of link to me. I loved you because of that." She stared out at the sea, and the wind lifted her curls from her shoulders. "No, this other bond, this one that is spoken of in whispers among the undead, is said to be intensely more. It manifests itself as an extreme psychic link between the minds. Some claim a vampire can communicate mentally with their special mortal, and he or she with them. It also creates an extreme sexual hunger between the two that becomes even more heightened should they share blood."

She swung her gaze to Dante, and he quickly averted his eyes. "Is she living in your house, Dante?"

He schooled his expression, guarded his thoughts. "Yes."

"Then where are you staying?"

He did not want her seeing the inside of Morgan's house, he thought. She would realize Morgan was the one writing the stories for the screen—a secret it would be difficult to keep for very long anyway, if Sarafina were to stay in town. But the longer, the better. He thought that if anyone could get past the instinctive distaste for harming one of the Chosen, it would be Sarafina. And she would, if she knew the truth. She would kill the girl and let the consequences be damned.

"A cave. Nothing that would suit you, love."

She crooked a brow. "There is a house for rent only a mile or so from here. Shall we procure it for our use?"

He nodded vaguely, thinking how very badly he wanted to see Morgan tonight, wondering how the hell he was going to rid himself of Sarafina in the meantime.

"Then that will be our mission tonight," she said. "Tomorrow night, we'll see that film again. All of it, this time. And we must find out who is telling our tales to the filmmakers, and how he got the information. Apparently a native of this place, if the theater marquee is correct. Though likely he's moved to some glamorous city by now."

"He?" Dante asked, frowning.

"Morgan… something or other. I'll get the full name tomorrow." She smiled at him. "But tonight, that house. It's quite isolated. We can stay there tonight, and no one will be the wiser."

Dante nodded slowly, thinking as he did. "Go ahead of me," he whispered. "See about the house. I'll join you by dawn. I have… to feed."

She crooked her brow at him. "The house will be ready. It's a mile north, on that road that runs along the coast. A once proud Victorian that has been painted a ghastly yellow, with pink-and-green trim."

He nodded, recalling the exact place she meant.

"Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't rent it for yourself already."

Why would he? He'd been living beneath the feet of the woman his body craved. And now he knew for certain why he craved her so, but that did nothing to ease the hunger.

"I require very little in the way of comfort, 'fina."

Leaning close, she clasped his collar in both hands and kissed him on the mouth. "Come before dawn, love, or I'll come looking."

"I will."

She left him. He waited until his senses could no longer detect her anywhere nearby, and then he went to find Morgan. He couldn't play with her anymore. He needed answers. Now.

It was 4:00 a.m. when Lou's cell phone bleated, jerking him out of what had damn near been a little nap. He'd been sitting in his car all night, watching Maxie's place. He thought maybe Lydia was sleeping over, because she hadn't left yet. And hell, he didn't blame her, if Max was telling her vampire stories in there.

He picked up his phone. "Yeah?"

"Malone, where the hell are you?"

He frowned at the familiar voice of his longtime partner, back when they'd had the manpower to put two cops in every car. "Denny?"

"They've been looking everywhere for you, Lou. Listen, you'd better get over here, pronto."

"Jesus, I'm not due in for another… " He glanced at his watch.

"Not the station. Your place, Lou. There's been a break-in, and… it's not pretty."

He frowned, and a tiny sliver of ice jabbed him in the chest. He knew just by Denny's tone that he would get no more than that over the phone, so he didn't bother asking. "I'll be right over."

"If, uh, you've been with anyone tonight, you might just want to bring them along, too."

Lou blinked, drawing the phone away and staring at it, then bringing it slowly back to his head. "Are you suggesting I might be in need of an alibi, Den?"

"Might not be a bad idea."

Lou swore softly. "What the hell is going on over there?"

Too late. Sgt. Dennis Kehoe had already disconnected.

Someone tapped on Lou's car window, and he damn near jumped out of his skin. It was only Maxie, though, grinning at him and holding a coffee cup in her hand. He set the phone down, rolled down the window.

"If you want to spend the whole night watching me, Lou, you could just say so. It's not like I'd object. But it would be more fun if you'd do it from closer range."

He stared up at her as she shoved the cup into his hands. "So you know I've been here ever since I dropped you off?"

She shook her head. "You left for twenty minutes or so right after. Remember?"

"Shit." He did remember. That drive to the station, the phone call to his friend at the CIA. Hell.

"What's the matter, Lou?"

He glanced at her, noticed she was still dressed. If you could call it that. She never wore much. Thin-strapped T-shirts that were tight fitting with smart-ass remarks across the front, or loose silky blouses that were even sexier. If it got cold, she tossed a jacket over them. "Where's Lydia?"

He saw her face tighten up just a little. "She's sound asleep. Why?"

"Get in, would you? I need to go to my place for a sec."

"Okay, okay, Lou. Fine." She came around the car, got in. "You don't look so good. You okay?"

"I'll let you know when we get to my place."

As it turned out, it wasn't okay. It wasn't at all okay. He knew that when he pulled up and couldn't even get into the parking lot because of all the police vehicles. Yellow tape criss-crossed every entrance, and an ambulance was just pulling away.

"What the hell… ?"

Lou put a hand on Maxie's shoulder to calm her down, stopped the car and then got out. "You'd better wait here. I'll come get you if I need you."

"Uh-huh." She opened her door and got out, walking so close to him that her thigh and hip seemed to have melded to his, and she wrapped an arm around his and held on tight.

"Malone." Captain Howard Dutton, Lou's boss, lifted the crime scene tape for Lou to duck underneath. "I need to know where you've been tonight. All night."

"He's been with me." Maxie spat out the words before Lou could so much as open his mouth. "Who was in the ambulance?"

The captain blinked, and Lou knew he wasn't used to being questioned by a mite of a thing like Maxine Stuart. He shifted his gaze to Lou's again. "You've been with this woman all night?"

"No," Lou said. "I dropped her off at her place around ten. Left to go to the station to find something I'd left in my desk. Then I went back. All told, I was gone about twenty minutes."

"Anyone see where you were during that time? Can you verify that you didn't come back here, to the apartment?"

Lou felt his stomach clench. "No."

"Yes, he can, Captain." Maxie cut in yet again. Both men looked at her sharply. Max shrugged, focusing on Lou. "Look, I admit it. I thought you were sneaking off to meet some other woman—"

"Other woman?" What the hell was she talking about?

"—so I followed you. I saw you go into the station, and I waited until you came back out. Then I followed you back to my place."

"And Officer Malone didn't see you, ma'am?"

"I, uh… I parked in back and went in the back door. He never even knew I'd been gone." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Now, will you please tell us what's going on here? Who was that in the ambulance?"

The captain sighed, again addressing Lou and shutting Max out, which Lou knew pissed her off. "We responded to a report of a prowler in your building, Lou. When we got here, your apartment door was open, the place was trashed, and there was a woman on the floor. She'd been shot in the head at close range. We found a twenty-two on the floor nearby, no prints." He turned. "Denny, where's the weapon?"

"Right here, sir." Dennis held up an evidence bag as he hurried closer.

Lou looked at it and damn near puked but tried to keep his poker face. "It's mine. The spare I keep in the closet."

"I thought it probably was," Captain Dutton said. He turned, leading them forward up the stairs toward the apartment. "We're gonna need you to look around, see if anything's missing."

Lou nodded. He walked right behind the captain, Max still close beside him. "What about the woman?" Lou asked. "Is she dead?"

"They're going through the motions," Dutton replied without looking back. "They don't expect her to last the night, though. We figure she'd been lying there for five or six hours. We never did find any prowler, but one neighbor heard what could have been a gunshot around ten p.m. She thought it was a car backfiring and wrote it off. The ID in the victim's bag read Jones. Tempest Jones. You know her?"

Max stopped walking. Lou turned to look at her even while processing the name, which seemed vaguely familiar. Then he forgot about it when he saw Max's face, which had gone utterly white. Her jaw gaped, worked soundlessly, and her grip on his forearm tightened like a vise. Wide green eyes stared into his, moistening, and she whispered, "Stormy."

Shit. Maxine's best friend. Max damn near went backwards down the stairs when her knees gave. Her hand on his arm went lax, and she sort of sagged, but he grabbed her quickly, pulled her in close, figuring it was okay at a time like this. The captain turned. "Then you did know the victim?"

"She's a friend," Lou said. Max's arms had snapped around his waist, and her face was pressed into his shirt. He felt wetness there, but she cried silently. "Listen, Captain, can you just secure the place, post a man on it? I need to take Max to the hospital."

The captain made a face but nodded. "Yeah, sure, fine, but one thing, Lou. How well did you know this girl? This Tempest Jones?"

He shook his head. "Well enough to share doughnuts and coffee with her. Not well enough so I recognized her legal name right off. That good enough for you?"

The captain sighed, inclined his head. "Go on."

"Thanks." Lou moved Max's body around his own, like shifting the position of a belt. He got her around to the side and managed to shuffle the two of them back down the stairs and past the tape to the car. Someone opened the passenger door for him, and he glanced up at Denny, gave him a nod of thanks.

Denny looked worried and maybe a little surprised. Sure he looked surprised. It must seem to him, to everyone here, as if he and Mad Maxie were some kind of couple. As if that could happen.

He eased her onto the passenger seat, and she still clung to him. "Hon, you gotta let go now, okay? Just for a minute, so I can drive us to the hospital. Hmm?"

Sniffling, she nodded against his chest, but it still took long seconds for her to loosen her grip on his neck. He put her seat belt around her, snapped it in place and closed her door. As soon as he was behind the wheel, she latched on to him again. Head on his shoulder, clutching his arm. Made it tough to drive. Not that he minded.

"What the hell happened?" she asked him as he drove. "Why would Stormy go to your place?"

He licked his lips. "I don't know. I just don't freaking know, Max." Then he lowered his head. He didn't like thinking what he was thinking. But all of this had happened after he'd made that phone call to his old friend at the CIA. And Stormy Jones was one of the people Max had said had been threatened by that goon five years ago.

It couldn't be connected, though. Goddamn, it couldn't be.

Chapter 14

Dante did not intend to creep up to her window tonight, as he had done in the past. He planned to stride right up the walk to the front door, ring the bell and introduce himself when she opened it. Yes, it would shock her. But though physically fragile, he sensed she had emotional strength she hadn't yet tapped. She would deal with the shock. And then she would answer to him for what she had done.

He climbed the sloping ground from the shore onto the grassy hilltop, then nearer, crossing the back lawn and circling the house. But when he got close his skin prickled, not with the attraction he always felt as he drew close to her, but with warning.

Alert now, he looked around, seeing the strange vehicle in her driveway. He didn't smell exhaust in the air. It must have been sitting there for at least a short time. Whoever was in the house with Morgan had been waiting for her when she had finally returned to the house.

Closing his eyes, Dante attuned his senses. As always, Morgan's essence was clear and easy to locate. The other one was far more difficult to perceive. It took effort, almost as if the man—yes, it was a man—had constructed a wall around his mind. There was something about the stranger Dante didn't like. He felt… dangerous.

Dante went up to the house, walked slowly around it, drawing one palm over the wood as he stepped around and between the plants and shrubs. They had not gone into the study. He didn't know why, but he felt like congratulating her on that.

And then he did. Without even quite meaning to, he sent the message. Good thinking, Morgan. He doesn't need to go in there.

It stunned him to the marrow when he heard her mind's reply. That room is my special place. Mine… and Dante's. No one goes in there.

She spoke to him and thought she was speaking to herself. Carrying on that internal dialogue that people tended to have with themselves. Never knowing that one side of the conversation was coming from someone else.

I don't like this man, she was thinking.

He's dangerous, Dante warned, quickly focusing on what was important. Be careful of him.

He knew she was nodding to herself, to him, even though he couldn't see her. And then he reached the outer wall of the sitting room and felt the hum of her energy right through the wall. He stopped there, turning to face the side of the house, pressing both palms flat and probing his way deeper into her mind. And still deeper. When he felt resistance, he whispered in her brain, Open to me, Morgan. It's only me. Let me come inside. You know I won't hurt you.

And she did. With a shuddering sigh, she relaxed and let him in, all the way in. He found himself seeing through her eyes. Hearing with her ears. He didn't take control. Wasn't even certain he could if he tried, but it didn't matter. That wasn't the purpose of his being this close to her.

Protecting her was. Which was odd, considering he had come here furious enough to kill her himself. At least, he had convinced himself he was furious enough to do her harm. Now he wondered.

The man, the stranger, was standing with his back to Morgan, studying the layout of the house in false admiration, nodding in false approval. "Very nice, what you've done with the old place."

"I like it," she replied. "But you said you were here to interview me about my work, Mr. Stiles."

"Please, call me Frank. I realize I should get moving on this. I'd never have bothered you at four a.m. if I hadn't seen you coming in. I don't doubt you're tired. It was awfully good of you to let me come in at all."

"Well, you did say you had driven six hours to get here in time to meet your deadline. But as I said, it's going to have to be brief. Will you have a seat?"

She didn't offer him refreshment. He didn't ask. Instead, he turned as he took his seat in a massive hardwood chair with lions' feet and a velvet cushion. Dante saw his face through Morgan's eyes and felt his heart skip. Or was that Morgan's heart?

The left side of the man's face was mottled with pink flesh that looked like a melted rubber doll. The eyelid drooped, the cheek sagged, the lips twisted, and the ear was a misshapen lump. He wore a hairpiece on that side. Dante hadn't spotted it at first, but now he could see that the hair was a slightly different shade and a bit less coarse on one side of his head than on the other. It was a good job. Good enough to fool a mortal.

The scarred man smiled at her. To her credit, Morgan smiled back. But she, too, was sensing something off about the man, and it wasn't due just to his appearance. She kept thinking it might be, chiding herself for being nervous because of a scar. The man couldn't help that. But she kept sensing something wrong beyond the surface.

"You must be very excited about your award nomination," he said. "I think it's well deserved."

"Thank you. Yes, I am quite overwhelmed that the film has been so well received."

"It's a good film." He pulled out a notepad from a pocket, and then a pen. It looked exactly like the notepad you would expect a reporter to carry. Which was another red flag, as far as Dante was concerned. "But then again, so were the first two. Why do you think this one was so much more well-received?"

Dante's heart seemed to stop beating. The first two?

"The first two films were much lower budget," Morgan said. "But even so, they gained a cult following that was beyond all our expectations. That, of course, led to our being able to release the third in a much bigger way."

The man nodded. "Is there a fourth in the works?"

"Of course."

The man nodded and scribbled and smiled, while Dante's heart twisted itself into knots. "I think these films have a realism about them that other vampire films—indeed, nearly all horror films—tend to lack. The Dante character… he's completely believable. Very real."

Morgan swallowed uncomfortably. He is real—to me, her mind whispered. Aloud she said, "Well, that's the key to good fiction, you know. Making it believable."

"Indeed," the reporter said. "But this is beyond believable. It's… well, it's almost as if it's a true story. And when I stumbled on the fact that your home was once owned by a man named Dante, well, I have to admit, I got curious."

Every nerve in Morgan's body went taut. "What are you talking about, Mr. Stiles?"

"Oh, come on. It's a matter of public record."

She shook her head slowly. "No," she said. "It's not." Then she seemed to catch herself. "I don't know where you got that information, but it's incorrect. This place was abandoned by its former owner, a Mr. Daniel Taylor. The state claimed it when he died without an heir, and my uncle David bought it from them."

"Daniel Taylor was one of many aliases the vampire Dante has used over the years."

She made a face. Dante couldn't see it, but he could feel her twisting her lips and bending her brows, as if she thought the man were speaking of something too stupid to even contemplate. "My goodness, you have a big imagination."

"It's fact, Morgan. Just as the things in those films of yours are fact."

She got slowly to her feet. "You're insane if you think vampires are factual, Mr. Stiles. And I don't like entertaining insane strangers in my house in the dead of night. I think it's time for you to leave."

"And I think it's time for you to tell the truth. Vampires are real, Ms. De Silva. You know it, and I know it. Dante is real, and he's going to be mad as hell when he finds out you've been making major motion pictures out of his deep dark secrets."

She strode across the room, even as a cold shiver worked through her body. Across the foyer, toward the front door. She reached for the handle.

The man was close behind her all the way, and he put his hand over hers on the door knob. "I'm not a reporter," he told her. "I work for the government. I've spent my life studying creatures like Dante, Ms. De Silva, and I know enough about them to know that you are in serious danger. If he finds you—"

"Get out." She jerked the door open despite his hand on hers. "Now, Stiles!"

"How did you learn all that information about him? Tell me."

She glared at him. "If you don't leave, I'm going to call the police."

"I'm not going to let you do that."

Her hand moved, quick as a heartbeat, to the little numbered panel on the wall, fingers dancing over the security system's buttons before he could reach to stop her. "There. The police will be here in five minutes."

"I'm trying to help you. He's a monster, Ms. De Silva. He'll find you, and trust me, he'll kill you unless you let me help."

She leaned toward him. "There are no such things as vampires," she whispered. Then she smiled as a siren sounded in the distance. "Hmm, quicker than I expected."

The man sighed his frustration, turned and ran out of the house, his gait uneven. She saw his car as he drove away and made a note of the license plate quickly before she closed the door, turned the locks. Then slowly, very slowly, she went still and silent as her mind replayed the words the man had said. That Dante was real. That he would be furious with her for sharing his secrets with the world. That he would kill her.

But he couldn't kill her, she thought in an unfocused and vague way. He loved her. No, no, she corrected herself. She loved him. If he were real, he would love her, too, because there was no denying the power of that bond. But he wasn't real. He didn't exist. So he didn't love her. And he certainly couldn't hurt her.

Closing his senses, Dante retreated from her mind, slowly feeling his own flesh again. He opened his eyes, blinking his vision into focus. He moved his hands, clenching and releasing his fists a few times. The sirens were getting closer. Stiles was long gone. But now the police were on their way. So was the dawn, in a few more hours. And yet he didn't go to Sarafina, or the house she had no doubt made ready and waiting. He didn't go very far at all.

"He said he was a reporter," Morgan told the police officer who'd shown up. The way his siren had wailed, she'd half expected a small cop army to come crashing in on her. Instead, there was just the one fellow, a rather innocuous looking grandpa type. If he'd had a hair on his head or face, he could have played a convincing Santa. As it was, though, he had only the ready smile, the twinkling eyes and the belly. His uniform was midnight blue, almost black. He didn't wear a hat, and his head was as shiny and pink as his cheeks. He'd introduced himself as Sandy Gray, which sounded more like a color than a name, she thought.

"So you let him in," Sandy said. "Did he show you any ID?"

She shook her head. She and Officer Sandy were standing in the foyer, face-to-face, he a hair shorter, she feeling less than reassured, and more tired by the minute. "Do you mind coming in where we can sit down?" she asked.

"Of course not." He followed as she led him through to the same sitting room where the man had been.

"I went for a long walk today. It made me realize how out of shape I am. It really wiped me out." She sat in her favorite chair. The cop remained standing, and she figured she could understand that. At last he was taller that way. She didn't even mind.

"You said the man gave you his name," he prompted, drawing her back to the subject.

"Yes. Stiles. Frank Stiles. It didn't seem like a made-up name at the time."

He jotted it down.

"He had a notepad, like yours there. A pen, instead of a pencil. Said he'd been waiting for the chance to interview me about the award nomination, and that he'd driven six straight hours just to interview me in time for a morning deadline."

The man nodded. He knew about the nomination. Since seeing the theater marquees, Morgan realized that everyone in town knew about it by now.

"Then what happened?"

She drew a breath. "I brought him in here. He sat over there." She pointed. "Asked me a couple of questions. I started getting the feeling he wasn't really a reporter at all."

"Really? What did he say to make you suspicious?"

She blinked. "I don't know. Nothing, really, it was just a feeling." She shrugged and moved quickly past the topic. "I asked him to leave, and he refused. He seemed vaguely menacing, and so I hit the security panel's alarm button. As soon as he realized what I had done, he ran off."

He nodded. "So he didn't harm you in any way?"

"No."

"And he didn't take anything?"

"No."

He folded his notebook. "I don't really see that a crime has been committed here."

She tipped her head to one side and stared at him.

"Well, not leaving right away when told to isn't exactly criminal behavior."

She sighed. "I suppose not. But this is not your everyday situation, Officer. I mean, I'm not trying to be a bitch here, but I am something of a celebrity. I think he wants something, and I think he'll be back."

He studied her face. "Obsessed fan? That sort of thing?"

"Sure. It's possible, isn't it?"

That, more than anything else she had said, seemed to work. The officer turned it over in his mind and nodded.

"Why don't you give me a description, ma'am? We'll have everyone keep an eye out for this character."

She nodded and proceeded to describe Frank Stiles in exquisite detail, from the scarred face to the clothes he was wearing. But she never once mentioned that he claimed to work for the government, or vampires or the accusations of plagiarism the man had made.

Even so, the cop looked more and more skeptical as she concluded her description. "I, um… I got the license plate number as he drove away."

"Did you?"

She nodded, pulled the slip of paper on which she had jotted the plate number from her pocket and handed it to him. He looked it over, then looked at her. "Maine plates?"

"No. New York."

"Hmm." He tucked the scrap into his own pocket. "You gonna be okay here alone for the rest of the night, ma'am?"

Oddly, the thought popped into her head that she wasn't alone. But that made so little sense that she wasn't even sure where it had come from. "I'll be fine. I'll set the security system, and this time I won't let any strangers inside."

"That's a good plan," the cop said. "We'll have a patrol car drive past a few times tonight, okay? If anything looks off, he'll stop."

"Off?" She gave her head a shake. "You mean, like body parts strewn on the lawn, the doors and windows smashed in, that sort of thing?"

He pursed his lips. "It's not gonna come to that, ma'am. You sure you're all right? I could drive you into town, put you in a room somewhere if—"

"No. No, I'm fine. That was my twisted sense of humor there." He still didn't crack a smile. "Thank you, Officer Gray." She walked him to the door and locked it behind him, resetting her security systems.

Then she went upstairs, took a quick shower, put on a cool nightgown and curled up in bed with another of Dante's journals.

But she couldn't lose herself tonight, not even in the spellbinding words of her phantom lover. The words of that other man, the scarred man, kept coming back to her again and again. Vampires are real… Dante is real, and he's going to be mad as hell when he finds out…

She sighed, pushing the covers back, forgetting for a moment the precious book that lay there in her lap. It hit the floor with a thud, and dust rose from it. It had landed on its back, open wide, and when she lovingly bent to pick it up again, some of the words from the time-yellowed pages caught her eye.

Trapdoor…

Beneath the house…

Coffin…

Shivering, she picked the book up. It was the eighth volume, and this was a section she hadn't read before. As she scanned the yellowed pages, a cold chill worked through her body. At last, something that could be verified. Proven. If she had the nerve.

Closing the book, sliding it carefully beneath the pillows, she turned and walked back downstairs, pausing at the double doors of her sanctuary, the room that had been Dante's study. His favorite place, and hers, as well. Swallowing hard, she stepped inside and moved toward the fireplace. She peeled away the oriental rug, rolling it back, baring the hardwood floor underneath.

It was unmarred. Unbroken. No hinges, no outline of a trapdoor where one had been described in the book. But the floor might have been covered over many times since those pages had been written. She recalled the sensation that had rinsed through her, the feeling that Dante was close to her, touching her, inside her mind—how many times in the past few weeks? Often when she was right here in this room.

Reaching for the iron poker, she walked across the floor again, from one wall to the other, tapping the floor with the poker as she did. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, thud.

She stopped, frozen in place, wondering if she had heard a difference or only imagined one. Again she tapped, and again the sound changed near the place where the trap door was supposed to have been. As if it were hollow underneath.

Licking her lips, Morgan knelt down. She jammed the tip of the fire poker between the floorboards, then tipped it back to pry them up. The boards resisted the effort, of course. She jabbed the thing harder, deeper, pried again, leaning into the effort with all her weight. And again and again. Until finally a single floorboard came free, breaking jaggedly in the middle.

Breathless, sweating, Morgan stood there, leaning on the poker, staring down. Underneath the floorboard was an older, rotting board, and a single tap of the poker stabbed a hole straight through it into the dark void underneath the house. Still unable to catch her breath, Morgan raced to her desk for a flashlight and returned to the hole she had made. Flicking it on, she shone its beam down through the opening. An old curving staircase was directly below her. Leading from the very floor on which she knelt down into the bowels of the earth.

Straightening away, her heart pounding with so much force she thought it would explode at any moment, she stared at the floor. "My God, could it be true? Could he be… real? Dante?" she whispered.

Then she snatched up the poker again and pried up another floorboard; and then another. She bashed in the rotted trap door—and yes, that was what the boards underneath had been. It was clear now—she could see the rusted hinges—and finally she made an opening big enough to fit through.

Swallowing hard, nodding firmly, she clutched the poker in one hand, gripped her flashlight in the other, and lowered herself through the hole and down to the stairway.

Morgan was not in her bedroom when Dante peered in from the balcony. He had changed his mind about striding up to the front door and confronting her. After the scare she'd had tonight with the scarred man, it would be too much.

She wasn't working with him. Wasn't feeding him information—at least not consciously. He was furious with her, yes, eager to confront her and rage at her for what she had done. Equally eager, though, to visit her in her dreams as he had done before. To make love to her with his mind, even though it was sheer hell on his body. It was release, of a sort. He was hungry for her, craving her, even as he wanted to throttle her until she was silenced forever.

But she wasn't in the bed awaiting his phantom touch or his vampiric rage. And she wasn't in her bathroom showering or bathing so that he could watch the water beading on her alabaster skin or possibly drown her in it. In fact, his senses told him she was far from this area of the house—and agitated in the extreme.

He thought of her earlier encounter with the scarred man, and worry gnawed at his gut. Idiot that he was, he felt every cell in his body aching to go to her, protect her, save her. He didn't sense the man's presence. But he knew that Stiles, as he called himself, was trouble. It was he who had been hunting Dante and his kind for months now. It had to be the film that had led him to Morgan. Stiles would use her to get to him if he had to.

Something was wrong, terribly wrong, with Morgan. Dante felt a twisting pain in his gut that wasn't his own, a hitch in his breathing, a chill of fear—no, terror.

No time now for caution. He responded to irresistible instinct, lunging through her room, into the hallway, following the magnetic pull of her being on his. He raced down the stairs. The study doors were open this time, and when he surged through them, ready to defend her from whatever was the matter, he was brought up short by the sight of broken boards lying on the floor beside the bunched-up rug and the gaping black opening beyond.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, no… "

Dante didn't know what the hell to do. He stood there frozen in time for an instant. And then he heard her scream.

Chapter 15

Morgan walked warily down the curving wooden staircase hidden beneath her floorboards, placing her feet slowly, cautiously, shifting her weight gradually. The stairs groaned in protest as if they could give way at any moment. But they didn't, and she managed to make her way to the bottom. She found herself in a dank, dark room. A basement—one that didn't exist, according to every record on the place. God knew she had gone over blueprints and plans and age-old titles during the remodeling as she tried her damnedest to restore the house to its original appearance. She had learned the colors of the decor in several of the rooms. There had been a sketch of the chandelier, and an aging photo of the gardens in back.

But nowhere had there been mention of a cellar. In fact, the lack of one was mentioned more than once in those documents. Almost apologetically, as if it were an inexcusable oversight on the part of the builder. The builder—Daniel Taylor.

Daniel Taylor is one of many aliases the vampire Dante has used…

Oh, hell.

Taking a breath of stale air that had never seen sunlight, Morgan flicked her flashlight on, moved its beam around. Wooden beams crossed the low ceiling above her head. The walls were built of flat stones, piled on top of each other. She didn't know how the hell they stayed upright. An arching opening stood at the far end of the smallish room, and she went toward it, shining her light. No spiderwebs. She found it odd that there were no spiderwebs sticking to her face as she tiptoed, barely breathing, over the dirt floor.

She moved closer and finally stepped through the archway into the smaller, even darker room, this one made of concrete. The beam of her light arced around it to the left, falling on a small table, a kerosene lantern, a book of matches. She could smell the fuel. The lantern's globe was clean.

Blinking, she made her way to the lantern, and then, anchoring her flashlight under one arm to keep its beam where she wanted it, she found the lever that lifted the lantern's globe, struck a match and touched it to the wick. As she lowered the globe into place again and adjusted the flame, soft yellow light filled the room. It was such an incredible relief to have a more helpful source of light that she sighed as she turned to see what the place looked like now that she could see.

On the far side of the room, on a platform that kept it raised off the floor, was a box made of time-dulled wood so dark it seemed black, with tarnished silver handles on the sides.

She stood there staring at it, her mind refusing to process the information her eyes were sending for the drawn-out space between two heartbeats.

And then her mind whispered the truth to her. A coffin. And a scream ran in terror from her lungs, bouncing off the walls and diving back into her own ears to hide.

She bit her lip to silence herself and fought to catch her breath as her heart galloped. The coffin's lid was closed. It looked old. How long had this thing been here? God, what was inside? Her mind wanted to know. It told her body to move closer, touch the wood, open the lid and see…

Him. Dante.

The rest of her wanted to ran. Every cell, every muscle, tingled and twitched with the urge to turn and flee from this place. But her body refused to do either. Her legs were trembling so hard she could barely stand on them. Stress tended to do her in as quickly as physical overexertion, and today she had experienced both in levels beyond what she'd been capable of withstanding for over a year now.

It's not real. This is another of those vivid dreams. That's all.

But no. In her dreams she was always strong, vital, bursting with energy. And she never felt fear. In the dreams he loved her.

God, could that scarred man have been right? Could those journals be real? Could her Dante be lying right here in this casket? Perfectly preserved. Immortal? Undead?

"Maybe not," she muttered. "Maybe he just had himself secretly buried here. Maybe that's all this is. The hundred-year-old rotted corpse of a wealthy, eccentric lunatic is probably all that's in that box. Just bones by now. That's all." And when she saw it, when she saw the proof that Dante had been an ordinary man with a vivid imagination and a gift for writing, maybe that would be enough to break the spell he had cast on her. Maybe she could free herself of the sticky web her own obsession had spun to entrap her.

Catching her breath, she forced her feet to move closer. One step, then another. She wasn't even sure she could bring herself to open the lid when she got to it. Then again, it might be sealed. It should be sealed, shouldn't it? They didn't just toss bodies into boxes and leave them unlocked.

Then again, they didn't usually hide them underneath houses, either.

She was at the coffin now. She told her hands to rise, and they did, though she was almost surprised to see them obey. She lowered her hands gently to the coffin. It was cold to the touch, and a layer of grime lay between the smooth wood and her palms. Drawing a breath, she told herself to open the lid.

"Don't." The single word came in a deep, rich, hauntingly familiar voice from behind her.

Morgan froze at the command and closed her eyes. He had entered silently. She hadn't heard a sound, not a footstep. Nothing.

"Let it be, Morgan. There's nothing in there that you need to see."

Eyes still closed, she whispered, "Dante?"

"I… " The voice hesitated, and Morgan opened her eyes and knew that his next words would be lies. She knew it as surely as if she were the one about to speak them, making them up as she went along. She felt him groping, searching his mind for a convincing lie. "Yes, I am Dante, but not the one you think I am. He was my great-great-grandfather."

"And he is buried here." She said his next line for him.

"It was his last wish."

She nodded. "And why are you here?"

"To see you." He paused, breathed, and she felt him searching and spinning. "That film of yours is so like the old man's delusions that when I learned you were living in the house he had built, I knew you had learned of his fantasies somehow and used them to create the script."

She didn't turn to face him. She couldn't Not yet. "You're saying they're not real?"

He forced a laugh, just a breath, really. It was the most false thing she had ever heard. "Of course they're not real."

"And you came inside my house without knocking?"

"I… was about to knock when I heard you scream."

"From outside."

"Of course."

"And yet you set off no alarms when you came in?"

He didn't speak. Morgan swallowed hard, and in one swift act of will, pushed upward on the lid. The coffin lay empty, white satin lining beginning to yellow with age. The lid stayed up when she let it go and turned slowly to look on the face of her fantasy lover for the first time.

He stood there dressed in black trousers and a black silk shirt buttoned all the way to the collar, no jacket, no tie. He was dark. Everything about him… dark. Empty. Hollow. His face just as sculpted as she had imagined it, the hollows of his cheeks, the endlessly deep wells of his ebony eyes.

He took her breath away. Because she loved him. Because she was bound to him in ways she didn't even understand. Because he was so exactly as she had known he would be. Familiar. Beloved. He was hers.

"You're real," she whispered.

He stared back at her in silence. She felt him then, stealing into her mind. Felt him planting the certainty that this was just another of her dreams, willing her to believe it. She opened her eyes wide, shook her head hard. "Stop it. You're not a dream. I won't believe you are."

"How can you be so sure?"

"It's no use, Dante. Even if you could do whatever it is you do to my mind, the broken floorboards, this room… they'll all still be here when I wake. Even you couldn't make it all go away in the time left before sunrise."

He studied her, his eyes probing and narrow. "You're either very brave or very foolish, Morgan. Don't you know how angry you've made me? I should kill you for what you've done."

"Then do it."

She saw the shock ripple through him. She didn't let it stop her. Her hands went to the high collar of her nightgown, and she ripped it open, popping buttons all the way to her waist. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes. "Do it, Dante."

Her pulse beat in reaction to the touch of his eyes on her throat. She felt him shiver, felt her own heat rise. She wanted something she couldn't name, as little sense as it made. She knew she was dying anyway, and soon, judging by her symptoms of late. If she had to die, why not in the way he had described so erotically in his journals? The way she had experienced so vividly, if only slightly? Why couldn't she die in utter ecstasy as her essence flowed into him?

And suddenly he was there, his arms tight around her, pulling her body hard against his as he bent over her. His mouth closed on her throat, and she whispered, "Yes… " He bit down without breaking through and suckled her skin. She arched her hips against him, felt the arousal pressing back. Morgan had never felt such fire burn in her body as she did then. Her hands tangled in his hair as she twisted and writhed in his powerful arms, pressing her body closer, arching her throat to his hungry mouth. She felt his lips, warm and wet on her skin. His tongue, stroking and tasting. The delicious pinch of his teeth biting down, just a little.

And then suddenly he wrenched himself away from her so violently that she stumbled and fell to the packed earth floor. Breathless, she remained there, knees bent awkwardly, arms braced on the floor behind her as she stared at him. At his eyes, gleaming now with an odd luminescence that didn't seem to come from the glow of the kerosene lamp. At his face, drawn tight in some kind of unnamed anguish.

"You have no idea what the hell you're playing with, Morgan," he said, his voice coarse and unsteady.

"I know," she said. Her words came less forcefully than she would have liked. Her chest moved rapidly as she fought for breath in between. "I know you… better than anyone ever has, Dante… Or ever will."

He went very still, his eyes narrowing on her. "How?"

She closed her eyes, let her head fall backward. Then her arms bent, and she was lying flat on the floor. God, she was so weak suddenly. It was all too much.

He swore softly and bent to gather her up into his arms. He carried her out of the place, up the rickety stairs, and managed to get up through the jagged hole in the floor. "Are you hurt?" He asked the question almost reluctantly as he took her through the house, obviously knowing his way around.

"No."

"But you are ill," he said unnecessarily.

She nodded, resting her head against his chest. "You're changing the subject."

"Ami?"

They were in the hall now, where he turned and carried her unerringly to her bedroom. To the bed. Then he lowered her onto it, but when he would have straightened away, she locked her arms around his neck and held on. "You want to know how I know about you?"

Leaning over her, one knee on the bed, his face only inches from hers, he nodded. "I have to know."

"Then make love to me, Dante, and I'll tell you."

His eyes flared hotter as he stared into hers. "I cannot do that, Morgan. You're too weak."

"Not for that. Never for that." She lifted her head from the pillows, using him as leverage, and pressed her lips to his. "Please."

Groaning softly, he returned the kiss, folding his arms beneath her and lifting her upper body to his chest. His tongue traced her lips and, when she parted mem, slipped inside to taste her. His breaths came harder, faster, and he slid his mouth from hers to trace her jawline down to her neck and kiss her there, where he had before.

He let her go, let her fall. "I can't… "

"You have before. You have. I know it was real. It wasn't a dream. Dammit, Dante, you've been with me, night after night."

"It wasn't real. It was in your mind, in my mind. It wasn't real."

"Then make it real!"

His muscles were so tense he was shaking, and his jaw was rigid. Then he glanced toward the window, and she followed his gaze and realized the dawn was at hand. "Tell no one what you've seen tonight. I swear to you, Morgan, if you breathe a word, you'll die. Do you understand? I'll have no choice in the matter."

"Do you really think I would betray you? My God, Dante, I would never—"

"You already have."

She blinked and realized he was referring to the film. "It's not the way you think it is."

"You've told my secrets to the world, Morgan. Some of my dearest friends have died because of what you revealed about me and my kind in your films. I'm being hunted because of you, my every step hounded by that man you met earlier tonight."

She felt her eyes widen. "I didn't know. I never would have told your stories, Dante, if I had known they were real. You have to believe that!"

He got to his feet, went to the window. "I have to leave."

She surged from the bed, weak, nearly exhausted, and clutched at the back of his shirt. "Then come back. Dante, promise you'll come to me tonight. I'll tell you everything, I swear."

He glanced back at her. "Or maybe you'll have the scarred man here waiting when I arrive?"

"I would let him kill me first… "

She dropped to her knees, suddenly too weak to stand. Her head falling forward, she drew a shallow breath. "I would die, Dante, before I would betray you." It was a string of words floating on a breath, a mere exhalation, not even a whisper.

"Words I've heard before, Morgan." Dante knelt, clutched her shoulders, lifted her chin to search her face. Then he folded her to his chest, held her there with one hand, and took something from his pocket with the other. She saw it shine as it flicked open. A small pointed blade, like a leather punch. He drew it to his own throat and jabbed it in, grunting in pain as he did.

Morgan gasped, her eyes fixed on his corded neck as he drew the blade away and a scarlet strand of blood unwound from the puncture wound, trailing over his skin. She licked her lips. The scent of it touched her nostrils, and a feral lust twisted in her gut. His hand was in her hair, at the back of her head, pulling her closer, but she didn't need it She knew what she needed.

She buried her face in the crook of his neck, closed her mouth over the wound and sucked the blood from his body. She drew on the opening, her tongue darting to catch any drops that escaped her hungry lips. She lapped at him there until he pulled her away, pressing one hand to the wound in his throat. For one insane moment she fought him, pressing closer, clawing at his hand, trying to steal more of this drug she craved. She could have ripped his throat open with her own teeth in that moment, like a wolf. She could have killed him.

He held her off easily enough. But when she looked into his face, she saw the same bared teeth, the same breathless hunger, the same feral gleam lit his eyes. My God, he wanted to devour her in exactly the same way. Like an animal. Like a predator.

He flung her toward the bed, lunged out onto the balcony and vanished over the side. Morgan lay where she had landed, half on the bed, half off, panting. Her body was alive, tingling, her heart beating loudly and strongly. She didn't feel weak anymore. She felt alive, more alive than she had in years.

This, she realized, must be a glimmer of what it felt like to be… to be what Dante was. To be a vampire.

She wanted it. Suddenly she wanted it with everything in her. She wanted to be a vampire. And she wondered if she would be, now? If drinking his blood would make her what he was.

Dante made his way to the house Sarafina had told Mm about with all due haste. He found her there, pacing, waiting for him, but he only muttered a terse greeting before moving past her into the basement. She had tossed some blankets into a pair of crates to make do.

She was on his heels instantly, of course. "Where have you been? What's kept you, Dante? Jesus, is that your blood I smell?"

"A minor accident."

"There's no such thing!" She gripped his shoulder to stop him, but he kept moving anyway, climbing into the box she'd prepared for him, pulling the lid over himself. She caught the lid in her hands to prevent him covering himself fully and ranted on. "You know how easily we can bleed out, Dante. What the hell happened to make you so careless?"

"I had a run-in with our scar-faced vampire hunter," he told her. Because if she ever knew the truth, she would explode. And nothing, not even her bond to their kind, would protect Morgan from Sarafina's wrath. She was incredibly possessive. Not only of the slaves she kept, but of him. He was her only family. That meant a great deal to Sarafina.

"The scarred man? He's in town?"

"Yes. So be careful." Dante gave the cover another tug. "The sooner I sleep, the sooner the rejuvenation process can heal my wound, 'fina."

Sighing, obviously still filled with questions, Sarafina secured the lid over him. He found the latches that had been affixed to hook from the inside, and he hooked them. Then he listened while Sarafina made her bedtime preparations and climbed into her own box.

He lay very still, closed his eyes. Waiting. Sleep was a long time in coming, though. Even when it did finally sweep over him, he couldn't stop the images from playing through his mind. Images of him—and Morgan. Naked, entwined. His body buried to the hilt in hers. His teeth sinking into her flesh. Her blood flowing into his body. God, he wanted her. He wanted to possess every part of her. Her soul. Her flesh. Her blood.

And he knew it would be worse now. She had drank from him not once, but twice. He had tasted her, and he knew damned well that he would do it again if he wasn't careful. If he made love to her, he would drink from her. Drain her, maybe. He wouldn't be able to stop himself. And in her weakened state, he would kill her. He would kill her.

God, he didn't want to kill Morgan De Silva. He wanted… he wanted to love her.

Too bad he was incapable of loving anyone at all.

Chapter 16

Maxine and Lou were sitting in the hospital waiting room, where they'd been sitting for the past four hours. It was daylight now. Stormy's parents had been notified and finally taken into a private room to await word. None had come. None whatsoever. It was the crudest form of torture Lou could think of. The CIA ought to use it. Just refuse to tell some parent how their wounded child was doing until they gave up every secret in their possession. Hell, it would work every time.

"I've got to get hold of Jay. Jason Beck," Max said. "He would want to know."

Lou didn't like seeing his normally spunky Max this way. She was pale and shaken. Like someone had hit her smack between the eyes with a fucking two-by-four, and no wonder. He remembered the kid she referred to. He had been the third part of their inseparable trio all through high school and college. "Do you know where to find him?"

She shook her head slowly, stayed quiet for a long time. Then finally she spoke again. "It's probably just as well," she said. And it took Lou a moment to realize she was still talking about Jason Beck. He wondered vaguely how she'd managed to lose touch with someone she'd been so close to. But time passed. Shit happened.

"Why do you say that?"

"Come on, Lou. You know what this is about as well as I do. They found out that I'd told you what I knew about DPI."

He averted his eyes.

"It's the only thing that makes sense. They kill Stormy and frame you. It's a message to me. A lesson for me. It serves to make sure I won't ever tell anyone else. They destroy two people I lo—care about. Just like that Stiles guy told me he would. The question is, how does he know I told you?"

Lou licked his lips, lifted his gaze to hers slowly. "I made a call last night."

She went very still. Didn't say anything, just stared at him, begging him with her eyes not to tell her what she had to know he was going to tell her.

"To the friend of mine who works for the CIA. I asked him to find out what he could about DPI. Told him I suspected they'd been running some kind of covert op out of White Plains until the HQ burned five years ago. I didn't mention you or the man you saw."

"You didn't have to." She swallowed hard. "I asked you not to talk to anyone, Lou. How could you do this tome?"

"Hey, Max, come on. I had no reason to think it would result in anything like… like this."

"No reason? You had one reason. You had my word. I told you they threatened my friends and my mother, and you went right ahead and—" She stopped there. "Oh, God. Oh, God, my mother."

She was on her feet and heading for a pay phone before Lou could stop her. He leaned back in his vinyl seat, pushed a hand through his hair. She was right; she was dead right. If it had been another cop asking him to keep quiet about something like this, he would have taken them at their word and done it. But he'd underestimated Max. Mad Maxie the conspiracy theorist, always seeing trouble where there wasn't any.

Well, hell. Maybe for once she wasn't so far off base.

There was a dull ping, the elevator doors off to the left slid open, and Lydia came hurrying from them, eyes wide. "What happened? Lou, are you okay? Where's Max? God, is it Max?"

"No, no, she's fine. I'm fine." He was on his feet and met Lydia halfway, hugged her good and hard.

"I woke up this morning and no one was at Max's. So I called your place and got some cop who told me I could find you both at the hospital. Jesus, Lou, I was scared half out of my mind."

She looked it, he thought, stepping back a little. Her hair was a mess, no makeup. She looked her age for a change, which was kind of refreshing. But totally unlike her.

Then she lost interest in him completely when she saw Max coming back from the pay phone. Lydia walked up to the kid and hugged her as if they'd been friends for a long, long time instead of only a few days. "Honey, you look like hell."

"I feel it."

"How's your mother, Max?" Lou asked.

"Fine. Maybe she's safe down there. Maybe they don't know where she is. Or maybe they don't have the manpower to be down there and up here at the same time. Or maybe there's only the one man, the one I saw. Maybe it's just him, working alone." She pushed a hand through her hair. "God, I don't even know what we're dealing with here. I don't know who to be more afraid of. The vampires or the vampire hunters."

Lydia let her go and stepped back, staring at her.

Lou looked up and down the hall to be sure that remark hadn't been overheard. "Keep it down, will you? Someone will show up waving a one-way ticket to the mental ward with your name on it if you keep this up."

She glared at him.

"Will someone please tell me what's happened?"

"It's my friend Stormy. My partner in the business. She was found at Lou's place with a bullet in her head. They left her for dead, but she wasn't quite. They trashed Lou's place, and they used his gun. Tried to set it up to look like he'd done it."

"My God." Her gaze shot to Lou's, but then she turned it inward. "Wait a minute. Stormy? There was a message on your machine from someone named Stormy this morning when I got up. I saw the light, thought it might have been something from you, letting me know where you were, so I played it."

"I never looked at the machine when we got in last night." Max gripped Lydia's hands. "What did she say?"

Glancing around her, Lydia lowered her voice. "She said she had an odd call from Lou asking her to come to his place. That she wanted to let you know, in case he was in trouble. She said he sounded funny." She gave her head a shake. "I think that was all, but it's still on the tape in your machine."

"That machine records the time the call came in. Do you remember what it was?"

"Around nine p.m.," Lydia said.

She nodded. "It wasn't Lou. Lou was with me, seeing a movie, and then sitting outside watching my place. Someone called her. Lured her over there and met her at the door with a twenty-two."

"Thank God it was a twenty-two," Lou put in. "Anything bigger would have killed her."

"But why? Why would anyone want to do that?" Lydia was baffled.

"It has to do with—" Max broke off as a doctor finally emerged from the room where Stormy was being treated. At the same moment a nurse came from the private waiting room with Storm's parents behind her. Everyone crowded together in the center of the waiting area.

"She's alive," the doctor said. "But she's in a coma."

Storm's father, a blond man whose normally healthy tan seemed to have turned to gray, lifted his head, met the doctor's eyes. "Is she brain dead, Doctor? Just tell us the truth."

"No. She has brain wave activity. It's minimal, but it's there."

"How long will she be in the coma?" Max asked, stepping forward, clasping Mrs. Jones's hand. "I mean, a day? A week?"

"We have no way of knowing when or… or even if she'll come out of the coma," the doctor said. "But as long as she has brain wave activity, there's hope." They all waited for him to say more. Lou knew what they wanted to hear. Exactly how much hope? Exactly what were her chances, and when would they know anything more for certain? He could see by the doctor's weary face that he didn't have any answers to give them.

Sighing, the doctor led them all to chairs, urged them to sit, sat opposite them. "Look, there have been cases where a coma has lasted months, even years. Sometimes they wake up, sometimes they don't. The longer she stays comatose, the lower her chances of recovering will be. But there have been cases where people woke up after extended comas to make nearly full recoveries. There's just no way to know."

"And what about when she does wake up?" Mrs. Jones asked. "Will there be brain damage?"

"We can't even begin to tell until she does wake up, ma'am. Again, though, the sooner she regains consciousness, the better."

"She'll wake up," Max said. She said it to the doctor, and then she said it again to Storm's parents. "She will wake up, and she'll be fine. They say comatose people can hear you talking to them. Is that true, Doctor?"

He nodded. "In some cases. I've seen reactions in the EEG readouts when loved ones speak to comatose patients."

"Then that's what we should do," Max said, in typical Maxine-Take-Charge-Stuart fashion. "I think someone should be in there with her all the time, talking to her. And if no one can be there, we can have tapes of our voices playing, or music. I know all her favorite music. Nothing slow, though. I mean, we want something hardcore and powerful, like God-smack, banging in there. We won't let her slip away. We just won't let her."

"Some of those might be very good ideas," the doctor said. "Keep in mind you'll have to give her a chance to rest in between."

"If she wants to rest, she can damn well wake up." Maxine's eyes were brimming with tears.

Mrs. Jones cupped a hand to Max's face. "You're a good girl, Maxine. A good friend." Then the woman looked past her at Lou and lowered her eyes.

"You need to know, Mrs. Jones, that Lou was at my place last night. I wasn't lying when I told you that. You know how much I love Stormy. I wouldn't lie to you about this. Someone set him up."

Mrs. Jones nodded.

"We've known Officer Malone a long time," her husband said. "It would take a lot more than what we've been told so far to make us believe him capable of anything like this."

"I appreciate that," Lou told the man. "And I swear to you, I'm gonna do everything I can to find the SOB who did this to your daughter and put him away for a long, long time."

"Yeah. And so am I." Maxie sent Lou a look when she said that. And he knew what it meant. They were going to do this her way from now on. With his help or without it, Maxie was going to track down that screenwriter and pump her for information about—God, he could hardly think it without smirking—vampires.

And when he glanced at Lydia, Lou knew she was going to be attached to Max at the hip until they got the answers she wanted. This was not even close to what he had hoped to accomplish by bringing the two women together. Not by a long shot. In fact, his entire goal had been derailed by all this nonsense. He had fully expected Max to reassure Lydia that there were no such things as vampires and end that part of the entire arrangement. After that, they were supposed to get to know each other as friends and maybe later make a few discoveries on their own. The same discoveries he'd made himself, entirely by accident.

It was all blown to hell now. Christ.

"She may need another blood transfusion, Mrs. Jones," the doctor said, and as soon as she started to get to her feet, he held up a hand. "No, ma'am. You can't donate any more today. We have supplies, don't worry."

"I'd prefer to know the source," the woman said. "I know, I know, the blood supply is safer than ever, but still… "

"I'm A-positive," Maxie said.

"Me, too," Lydia put in.

The doc shook his head. "Not what we need for her, though you're welcome to donate anyway. Anyone for A-neg?"

Lou raised his hand like a schoolkid.

"You're elected." The doctor sent Lou off with a nurse, and he thought it pretty ironic that he was entertaining the notion that vampires might be real even as he let some pretty young thing drain a pint from his veins.

"Can we see her?" Stormy's mother asked.

The doctor nodded. "Absolutely." He led the two parents away, and Max noticed with a wrenching ache in her belly the way Mr. Jones held his wife close to his side, all but holding her up, like he was loaning some of his strength to her.

She sighed and turned to Lydia. "We need to talk."

"You poor thing." Lydia hugged her again. "I know what you're going through. When Kimbra died, I just… "

"She was more to you than a best friend, though, wasn't she?"

Lydia looked at her for a moment, smiled gently, sadly. "Am I that obvious?"

"I saw the photo you have in your wallet when you opened it the other day. The two of you, arm in arm. The way you were looking at her."

"I loved her," Lydia said softly. "She was my whole life. And even though it's not the same, I can see you love Stormy. I can see the hurt in your eyes. God, it's like looking into a mirror a few weeks ago."

Max swiped at her eyes. "We don't have time for a pity party here. We need to get our stories straight about last night. And then we need to get rid of that tape in the answering machine."

Lydia frowned at her. "Get our stories straight?"

"Lou sat in his car outside my place all night long," Max told her.

Lydia nodded in agreement. "Right I remember when you spotted him out there. I thought it was real sweet of him."

"Exactly. So that's two of us who can swear that Lou never left our sight."

"Except that he did," Lydia said softly. "Remember? After he dropped you, he took off for a while? He was back in no time, but—"

"Yeah, and the damn fool told them so." Max licked her lips. "I had to think fast, so I said that when Lou left, I followed him. Made up some line about suspecting he was seeing some other woman and being jealous. I confirmed what he told them, that he'd gone to the station and then come straight back to my place."

Lydia nodded slowly. "I didn't know you and Lou were—"

"We aren't."

"So you lied to the police."

"I know he didn't do this. You know it, too."

Lydia turned away, drew a deep breath, finally blew it out with a sigh. "Of course I know it." She turned to face Max again. "I was there, after all, when you left to go follow him. I tried to tell you Lou was a one-woman man, but you just had to make sure."

Max bit her lip. "You could have been sleeping upstairs. You could have no knowledge one way or the other."

"Two witnesses are better than one. Especially if they think that one is the suspect's lover, Maxine."

Max nodded. "Thank you."

"No need. I like Lou. We've been friends a long time."

"He doesn't know I made it up. He would never let me do it."

"Understood," Lydia said. "You mentioned the answering machine?"

"Yeah, we need to erase the message." Then she shook her head. "But there might be a clue in it. I should find a way to keep a copy."

"We could just put in a new tape," Lydia suggested.

"It's not on tape. It stores the messages electronically."

"Buy a new machine," Lydia said. "Take the old one and stash it somewhere safe."

Max nodded slowly. "It's a good plan. Later I can transfer the message to tape and destroy the machine, just for good measure. But for now, that's the fastest solution. And we have to get it done before they decide to search my place."

"I'll take care of it. Stay here, see your friend."

Max nodded. "Use cash. And buy it someplace busy, like Wal-Mart, where they won't remember you. And don't make your appearance too memorable."

Biting her lip, Lydia frowned hard at her. "Just what are we dealing with here, hon?"

"The government. A part of the CIA, I think. A secret part that may not even exist anymore, but the man who shot Stormy was a part of it."

Lydia nodded slowly. "You called them… vampire hunters."

"That's exactly what they were. Maybe still are." She sighed. "Look, I'll tell you everything I know. But you can't mention it to a soul. That's what got Stormy shot."

"Okay. Understood. But not now. This isn't the time or the place. I'll go take care of that machine of yours, and we'll talk later."

"May as well meet up at the police station," Max said. "They're going to want sworn statements from all of us."

"Noon?" Lydia said.

"Noon's good."

"See you then."

After Lydia left, Max waited around until Lou finally returned from donating blood with a bandage on his arm. He looked at her as if checking her over, like he was searching for signs as to how she was holding up, and while her independent-woman side thought it was hopelessly old-fashioned of him, the rest of her loved it that he worried.

"I'm okay," she told him before he bothered to ask.

"No, you're not, but I don't see how you could be." He looked around. "Where's Lydia?"

"Had some things to do. She's gonna meet us at the station at noon, so we can give them our statements."

"And then what?"

She shrugged. "I'm gonna go home, make some tapes of my voice for Stormy's mom to play for her, gather up a few CDs and my programmable player, and get it all set up in her room. Then I'm gonna pack."

"Pack?"

"I hate to leave Stormy, Lou. But according to what I've been able to find out online, that screenwriter lives in Maine. And we really do need to talk to her. She's the only lead we have right now, besides Stiles, and we can't find him."

"If he knows about the films, we're as likely to find him in Maine as anywhere else."

She blinked twice, then stared at him. "We? Does that mean you're going with me?"

"Yep."

"Will they let you, before this case is solved?"

"Nope. I'll just have to be sneaky. Good thing I've got an expert to help me on that." He gave her a smile, lopsided and sad, but real.

She thought about hugging the big lug, but Storm's parents came walking up to her then, her crying softly, him holding her. "Go on in, Maxine," Mr. Jones said. "We cleared it with the doctor, and we both think hearing your voice will do her a world of good." He pointed her down the hall. "Two-oh-seven."

"Okay. You two ought to get something to eat, and maybe rest a bit. I know you want to be here, but you're gonna need time off, too. If you go getting sick, you won't be much help to Stormy, after all."

"We'll be fine. Go on, go see her now."

She glanced at Lou. "Go ahead, Maxie. Take your time. I'll be here waiting."

Sending him a grateful nod, she went down the hall, searched for the door marked 207, and found it. There was a moment, though, when she almost couldn't go in. She stood with her hand on the door, not pushing it open, and she wondered if some deluded part of her mind thought this wouldn't be real until she saw it with her own eyes. Or if she was just afraid Stormy would die while she was in there.

Didn't matter. Stormy mattered. That was all. She swallowed her fear, pushed the door open, peered inside.

It did not look like Stormy lying in that bed, and for the barest instant Max thought she had the wrong room. But then logic made her look more closely. Yes, she was more still and pale than she had ever been, and her eyebrow ring had been removed. Her short, bleached hair had vanished. It might be swathed by the skullcap of bandages she wore, or it might have been shaved. Max didn't know.

But the elfin face and fine-boned features were Stormy's. There were leads going from her head to a monitor, from her chest to another, from her nostrils to an oxygen pump, from her wrist to an IV bag, and from somewhere under the sheets to a bag at the foot of the bed, which she did not want to think about.

The nurse smiled at Max. "Well, Tempest, you have a visitor. Isn't that nice?"

"Call her Stormy," Max said firmly. "Make sure you tell the other nurses, too. She wouldn't answer to Tempest even if she was fully awake."

The nurse nodded, turning with her hands on her hips. "And here I was thinking what a gorgeous name you had. I love Tempest!" Then she shrugged. "I suppose Stormy is nice, too, though." She was leaning in, adjusting the covers and talking to Stormy as if she were wide awake and hearing every word.

Max liked the nurse. She liked her attitude. She liked the caring in her eyes. "I'm Maxine," she told the nurse, as she came closer.

"And do you have a preferred nickname, too?"

"Mad Max, but don't spread it around."

The nurse laughed, patting Stormy's shoulder. "Did you hear that? Mad Max. Girl, I like your friends. Well, have a seat Mad Max, and I'll give you two some private time."

Max sat down, and the nurse left. The constant beeps of the monitors were dragging. Steady and almost hypnotic. "Man, we're gonna have to get them to turn off the sound on these contraptions, Stormy. You think?" She leaned closer, clasped Storm's hand. "It's Max, honey. I'm here, and I know what happened, okay? I know it wasn't Lou. I don't want you to worry about that."

No response. She lay there completely silent and still.

"I know you're in there, Storm. I know you can hear me." She spoke louder, more firmly. "Everything is fine. Your parents are fine, I'm fine. And the man who did this is going down. Understand?"

Still nothing. Just the monotonous beeps.

"You have to focus, hon. Focus every ounce of your energy on waking up. You hear me? That's all I want you thinking about. And you might as well know you aren't going to get a moment's peace until you do. I'm getting your favorite CDs, and someone's gonna be in here talking your damn multiply pierced ears off until you wake up. No one's gonna leave you alone. You got that?"

The beeping patterns changed. Picked up speed a little.

Max glanced around her at the machines, as if she would know a damn thing by looking at them. But something had agitated Stormy. What had she just said? No one's gonna leave you alone. She licked her lips. "Being alone worries you, does it?"

Again the pace picked up.

"No one will leave you alone. I'm gonna have someone guarding your door, and someone else in here with you, twenty-four-seven. I promise you, you're safe here. Okay?"

She couldn't tell if she had eased Stormy's mind or not. But the beeps slowly resumed their former pattern.

"Keep trying to wake up, hon."

The nurse came back in, told Max it was time to go. Max nodded. "I gotta leave for a bit, babe, but I promise you're not gonna be left alone. I promise." She turned to the nurse. "Can you stay with her until her mom gets back?"

"Of course I'm staying. It's almost time for my program!" She reached for the remote, flicked on the room's television, and pulled up a chair. "I hope you like Passions, girl, 'cause I never miss it," she told Stormy.

"She loves it," Max said. "I'll see you later, Storm. Don't be scared, hon. I've got your back, okay?"

The nurse nodded in approval, and Max left the room. Back in the waiting room, she went to Lou, leaned against his chest and hoped he wouldn't complain. He didn't. He hugged her instead. "We need to get guards on her room, Lou. If he finds out she's alive, he might come back."

"He would have no reason to."

"What if she saw him?"

"Hon, you saw him. You already know what he looks like, as well as his name. Being ID'd is not on his list of worries for some reason."

"Still… "

Sighing, he nodded. "I'll get right on it."

She closed her eyes. "We have time to get some breakfast?"

"Yeah. I phoned in, told them we'd be coming in at noon to talk to IAD and give our statements. We have a couple of hours yet." He took her arm, and they walked to the elevators together.

Chapter 17

Morgan slept through most of the day again. It was afternoon when she woke, stretching her arms above her head and arching her back, feeling good. She opened her eyes, and everything that had happened the night before returned to her. She felt a delicious sensitivity at her throat, and, flinging back the covers, ran to her dressing table to examine it in the mirror.

A purple bruise and the marks of his teeth. No punctures. No. He hadn't tasted her blood, but he'd fed her his own. She could still taste him on her tongue.

What did it mean? she wondered yet again. How did one become a vampire, if it were possible at all? Was she already changing? Was this vitality singing in her veins a part of it, or only a temporary side effect from drinking him? This sleeping through the day, waking only late in the afternoon, was this a sign that she was becoming as he was?

She only knew she'd been getting steadily weaker until he had first come to her. Now she felt stronger, as she had the last time. She thought, the way she had been feeling, she might well have been dead by now without his intervention. His… his blood. He was keeping her alive.

But for how long? She had to know. And she knew where to find the answers. Or hoped she did. Dante's journals. There were still one or two she hadn't read completely through. That was what she would do for the rest of the afternoon, she decided. Read. Research. She had several hours before dark, and that was precisely how she would fill them. She stripped off the torn, buttonless nightgown, pulled on her white satin robe, tied it and moved down the stairs to the study, where she kept the journals locked away in a safe.

But when she stood in the open study doors, she saw the mess on the floor and realized she had other work left to do. Broken boards lay beside the hole. If it were true that the scarred man was hunting Dante, and if he were to come back here and somehow see this…

Damn.

Her afternoon passed more quickly than she would have liked. She had to shower, dress. Then, taking one broken piece of wood with her, she drove into town to the nearest lumber yard and purchased matching pieces of the correct length to patch the damage she had done. She bought a hammer and nails, a small crowbar and a handsaw.

When she returned home with her purchases and faced the task before her, she felt a hint of doubt that she would be able to pull it off. Ordinarily this kind of physical labor would be far too much for her to tackle alone. She'd toyed with the idea of hiring someone to do the job but realized she had no idea who she could trust. How would she explain the need to keep it quiet, and even if she did, wouldn't that just make the worker more likely to tell? Her being who she was, he would probably sell the tidbit to a scandal sheet for a few thousand dollars.

Besides, she didn't feel as if the job was too much for her. Not today. Shrugging, she knelt on the floor, took up the crowbar. She would never know until she tried, she decided.

It took her an hour to pull out the old nails that held the broken scraps of lumber to the main beams underneath and remove the bits of wood. Then more time as she measured the hole and marked her new boards at the right length.

Now the test, she thought, as she took up the saw. If she could manage this, it would be a miracle.

Swallowing her doubts, she laid the sawblade across the line she'd drawn and drew it backward. Then she began to pump the saw back and forth, as smoothly as she could. The short end fell away, clattering to the floor, and she looked at it in something like shock. She drew a hand over her brow, felt sweat beading there. Her heart was pounding, her body warm with exertion. God, when was the last time she had felt this way?

She continued to work, sawing the boards, fitting them in place, nailing them as she went along. When there was only one board to go, she paused to kick all the scraps, the old lumber, the broken pieces, the sawdust, the bent, used nails, into the hole. Then she nailed the final board into place.

It didn't look perfect when she finished. The boards were a different color, lighter, newer looking, unfinished, and the joints were less than tight. But it was the best she could do at the moment. Her newfound energy seemed to be starting to wane.

She got a broom to sweep up the remaining bits of sawdust and dirt. Then she pulled the oriental rug back down to cover the new boards.

Brushing her hands and straightening, she was finished.

Only an hour now, until sundown. She looked down at herself, realized she was damp with sweat, and had sawdust clinging to her skin and her hair. If he came back—God, she hoped he would—she didn't want him seeing her like this.

"I need to get ready," she whispered. "For Dante." Yet more of the day wrested from her hands. She would barely have time to read at all. Still, it was important.

A half hour later, she returned to the study, freshly showered, her hair clean and lavender scented and blown dry, flowing loose down her back. She wore the white satin robe that tied at the waist and hung all the way to her bare feet, and she carried a pot of herbal tea and a cup with her. It was a special blend, supposedly good for boosting one's energy. Hers was running low, though still higher than it had been before Dante had come to her.

She turned on the gas fireplace, then went to the safe in the wall, took out one of the precious journals, one of those she still hadn't read all the way through, and curled up in the big armchair nearest the fire. Filling her teacup, she flipped through the pages until she found the place where she had last left off. And before very long, she was immersed once again in the tales of the vampire, hearing them as clearly in her mind as if they were spoken in Dante's deep, rich voice.

Sarafina tried to warn me. "Never mix with mortals. Never." She said it early in my education and repeated it often. "Our kind must live alone."

"What about the Chosen?"

I knew the term. That surprised her to some extent, I think, because I hadn't heard it from her. We sat by a fire that night, in a grove of trees, the way we had done in our mortal lives. I think that at the beginning, that was what Sarafina envisioned. A band of two—two Gypsy vampires, living the way we had before. She was trying, I think, to recapture some of what she had lost when she had lost her family, her tribe. But of course it was impossible. I accepted that long before she did.

"The Chosen are humans with a connection to us. Something about the blood," she told me. "We know which ones they are because we sense them. We feel drawn to them, and sometimes they to us. But we do not make ourselves known to them, Dante. That must be understood at all costs. We do not."

"They can become vampires. Like us," I said.

"They can. And do you know what happens when they do?"

I shook my head.

"They go mad."

She said it so simply, as if it were an established fact. "All of them?" I asked, even though I knew better. I hadn't gone mad, nor had Sarafina.

She didn't answer that. "Some become so morose they refuse to feed until their bodies become dormant, brittle shells that lie as if dead for untold centuries, their souls trapped inside. Some become giddy with their newfound vampiric power and go on gluttonous killing sprees, leaving so many bodies in their wake that the mortals realize what is happening and hunt us like animals in their vengeance. They die, too. We kill them ourselves. We have no choice, unless the mortals beat us to it."

I sat there listening, rapt with attention.

"Some simply open a vein and let themselves bleed to death. Others walk deliberately into a fire like this one and burn to ash."

I studied her for a long time. The way the fire danced on her face and in her eyes. "I was one of the Chosen," I said. "You sensed it in me and transformed me."

"I had no choice. You were dying."

"You had a choice. You could have let me die."

She averted her eyes, shrugged as if my words were of little consequence.

"I think you planned to transform me all along, Sarafina. I think that's why you came back to the family, singled me out."

She looked at me again, pierced me with her eyes. "Perhaps I wished for that, Dante, but I would not have done it without careful consideration. This life is not an easy one. I know it must seem so to you at this point, but it's not."

"You think this life seems easy to me? I lost everyone I loved, 'fina. My own mother, my family, my very way of life. Everything I knew was torn from me that night. It's been far from easy. Yet I have not gone mad, or ended my own life."

"It will become harder."

I mulled that over for a moment. How certain she sounded. Was she so unhappy, then? I began to realize how very lonely she must have been all those years before I had crossed over to join her in darkness. "Most mortals cannot bear the shock of the change. The loss of all they were. Even those who do adjust and accept do not all last A hundred years, perhaps two, and then the reality of eternal life begins to reveal itself to them as it really is. As much curse as blessing. As much pain as pleasure. And they, too, often choose not to continue."

"And what of those who do?"

She was silent for a long moment. "Those who do continue, I suppose, find a way to make peace with what they are. They stop fighting it. They stop hoping for a cure to make them mortal again. They stop looking for rhyme or reason to explain their existence or justify it. And they simply accept."

"Have you reached that point?" I asked her.

Meeting my eyes, she shook her head. "No. But I've seen that acceptance in the eyes of some of the old ones. I've heard them speak of it And I am determined to survive, on my own terms and in my own way, until I find it for myself."

And she would, I thought. But for now, she was restless. Seeking something, maybe this peace she spoke of, maybe something else. I couldn't know.

"Then what do you do, 'fina?" I asked. "For… companionship?"

"We have each other for that."

"That's not the kind I meant." I had to look away, still not comfortable with the lustier aspects of what I was, still not understanding it, as this was very early in my preternatural life. I couldn't face her as I spoke. "When I feed from the humans… especially the women, though sometimes with the men, as well… I feel… "

"Desire," she said, finishing the sentence for me. "I see now what it is you need to know. How to sate it."

Eyes fixed on the fire, I nodded.

"Do not be embarrassed, Dante. We are sensual creatures. It is our nature. Every physical sensation is heightened to degrees far too intense for mere mortals to bear. We feel everything a thousand times more keenly than we did before. Pain, yes. To the point where it can paralyze us. But pleasure, too. God, the way we experience physical release is beyond comprehension."

My throat went dry, and I felt a stirring of desire at her description.

"The blood lust and sexual lust are very closely bound in our kind," she went on. "You cannot experience one without the other. Should you attempt to have sex with a mortal, you'll end up biting deeply into her flesh before you've finished, drinking her into you. The two go hand in hand. The ecstasy of the drinking enhances the orgasm, and the orgasm enhances the ecstasy of the blood. The combination of the two is such potent, mind-numbing pleasure that you give yourself over completely to sensation. You hurt them. You kill them."

I studied her through narrowed eyes. "I don't think I believe it."

"No?"

"No. Certainly I sense that some of what you're saying is true, but not that physical pleasure could drive me beyond the ability to control myself. Certainly not that."

"Perhaps," she said slowly, drawing out the word. "It's less likely you'd kill one of the Chosen, though still a risk. It's best to stick with other vampires, or make for yourself a few slaves."

"Slaves." I said the word with contempt. She always kept several at her disposal. Mortals, not of the Chosen caste, whom she had made virtual zombies, utterly devoted to her. She drained them, but not to the point of death. Then replenished their bodies with a modicum of her own cursed blood. She did this over and over, keeping them captive for days at a time, until the bond was forged. One night she would rise to find them utterly hers. Ready to obey her every command, their very existence based on their desire to please her. I did not know how she managed to mate with these mindless drones without killing them. I think she usually did end up killing them in the end, but how she kept them alive in the meantime, I do not know.

I hated them. I hated the sight of them. And I had no desire to know the details of what she did with them.

But for me, I knew my own soul. And I knew that I could never become so drunk on pleasure that I would kill an innocent. "I don't believe you," I told her. "I think you only want to keep me from being close to anyone other than you."

She lifted her brows. "Do you now?"

"Yes. Perhaps you don't have the inner strength to control your lusts, to have sex without murdering your partner. But I do."

"Well. That's very good to know."

I was not to know it then, but my dear benefactor had a plan in mind to teach me, once and for all, the truth. It was weeks later. We were staying in a fine home, guests of some wealthy old man who was utterly smitten with Sarafina. I disliked mixing with the mortals this way. Living among them, making excuses for the hours I kept. This did not bother Sarafina. She didn't mind living with them. She kept herself hidden away behind a patina of lies. No part of her, body or soul, ever touched them. Not on any level beyond that of predator and prey. She was playing make believe as their friend, their guest. She felt nothing for them. Nothing. And I was fairly certain she had been hunting peasants in the nearby village. Three people had gone missing since our arrival.

I did not like to think that my aunt was murdering the innocent. However, it was her choice. Not mine. We did not sit in judgement of the acts of another vampire unless they directly endangered us as a whole. So long as she was careful to dispose of the bodies and didn't kill too many in one town and draw suspicion on herself, I had no business telling her it was wrong, much less trying to stop her. She would have to deal with her own guilt, or karma, or sin, or whatever were the results of her actions. It was not my place. This was one rule among our kind, and the first my aunt had taught me.

It was as I contemplated these things in my rooms one night that a gentle tap sounded on my door. I didn't bother opening my mind to gather impressions, a mistake I made often, I fear, in my early days. I simply assumed it was 'fina and called, "Enter."

The door opened, and the serving maid I remembered from the late dinners where 'fina and I pretended to eat with our host and various guests, night after tiresome night, stepped inside. She wore very little. A nightgown of fabric so sheer that every inch of her warm mortal flesh was visible, and she carried a candle. Her hair, masses of it, honey blond and wildly curling, was loose and tumbling. Her lips wet and parted. Her body full and lush.

Forcing my gaze to her face, her eyes, I said, "What is it you want of me?"

"You've got it wrong, m'lord. I've come to ask that very question of you." Her accent was of the lower classes, though not quite Cockney. She'd trained herself to lose the harshest edges of her natural speech, I guessed. Imitating instead the more pleasing tones of her employers.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

She stepped farther inside, setting her candlestick on the bureau, closing the large door behind her and then eyeing me calmly. "I see the way you look at me, m'lord. At my breasts when I lean close to pour yer tea. And at my arse when I bend to pour anyone else's. I got tired of waitin' for you to ask, thought I might be bold and make the offer."

It was true enough. The wench wore necklines scooped so low I had wondered more than once how she kept those delightfully plump tits contained. They swelled above the fabric of her dresses, and she made sure to wave them under my nose as often as possible. I'd been tempted. I'd been intrigued.

"Surely yer not shy, now, are you, m'lord?"

"No. I'm not shy."

"You'll find I'm not, either." And she proved it, while walking across the room toward me, tugging at a tie at her neckline and shucking even the thin garment she'd been wearing. It floated to the floor, and she stood proudly naked, not a foot from where I still sat in a chair near the fireplace.

I could smell every scent of her. She was clean, freshly bathed, just for me, I thought. Her hair smelled of henna, her skin of aloe. And I smelled her arousal, too, and knew she was damp with the juices of it. And I'd yet to even touch her.

I licked my lips in anticipation. God knew it had been years since I'd known a woman in the way she wanted me to know her. I'd devoured many, yes, drinking from them in small, restrained draughts that left me craving more and left them quivering with desire. I went to them by night, commanded them to remember me as a dream.

Sarafina had told me I could do no more without killing them. I didn't believe her. Surely I could… touch…

The wench dropped to her knees, stroked her hand over my groin and felt my aroused state. She smiled up at me, then tore my breeches open and bent to lick at my root. I shuddered in pleasure, desire blazing through me at the first touch of her tongue, but then she took me into her mouth, warm and wet, took me deep. Her arms twisted around behind me to hold me to her, and she bounced up and down on my cock, sucking with all her might. Even as the semen rose in my rod, so the blood lust rose in my veins. I felt it, like a dark hunger, growing stronger with the pleasure she gave, until I could hear the blood rushing beneath her skin. I could smell it. I had to have it.

Gripping a handful of her hair, I pulled her head from me, pulling her onto her feet and forward, so she straddled me. I grabbed her hips and slammed her down, stabbing deeply into her, so deeply she cried out—in pain or pleasure or some mingling of the two, I do not know. I didn't care. Again she began bouncing up and down on me. I'd had her throat in mind, her sweet jugular, but the swollen mounds of those succulent tits bouncing in my face changed my mind.

I reached out and caught one like a prize, sucked hard on the nipple and then bit down. She shrieked in delight, and I pierced the very tip with an incisor and sucked hard at the thin trickle of blood that came.

It touched my tongue, and I was lost. Sensation, need, that powerful hunger that overwhelms all logic, burned through my brain as I sucked harder, bit deeper to increase the blood flow, ignoring her shrieks as I held her to me and took what I wanted, even then knowing it wasn't enough.

I got up, my cock still embedded in her, her legs anchored around me, her bleeding nipple tight in my teeth, and I walked to the bed, tumbled us both down onto it crossways, landing hard atop her. I let her breast go at last as I rammed myself into her so powerfully the heavy bed thumped and jerked, inching across the floor with my thrusts. She was crying out now, too loudly not to be heard in her passion. I silenced the wench with a hand to her mouth and sank my teeth into the other breast, biting deeper this time, plunging both fangs in to the hilt and drinking, sucking. I fucked her hard and sank my teeth into her delicious flesh over and over again, her shoulder, her arms and, finally, her throat. My razor-sharp teeth sank through her flesh as if it were butter, broke through the cartilage with a popping sound, and then the jugular gave up its bounty. I drove my shaft to the hilt as her heart pumped the blood into me in willing sacrifice. I devoured her and I climaxed, and it was magnified a thousand times from the climaxes I'd known as a mortal. A million times. My body nearly shook itself apart. I was momentarily blind. Deaf. My entire being was focused at the two places where we were joined—my cock inside her and my teeth in her throat. Between the two arced bolts of lightning. And that was all I was. Sheer mind-bending pleasure so intense it was agony. I cried out with it, releasing her throat, drawing my head back to roar in savage delight.

When the sensations finally waned, I still lay there on top of her, relishing the feel of her Life thrumming in my veins and the satisfaction of sexual release. I was high, soaring on the aftermath of such intense gratification. I was warm, her blood pumping through me, empowering me.

Gradually I became aware of a slow, rhythmic clapping from somewhere in the room. Bunking out of the buzzing energy in my head, I lifted my eyes, focused them, and saw Sarafina standing on the far side of the room, applauding. "Well done, Dante. Very well done."

I looked down at the woman beneath me. Her eyes were wide open and glazing already. And her throat—God, I hadn't simply punctured it, I'd torn a wide, gaping wound. I'd ripped her flesh, severed the vein, torn through the muscle, baring her windpipe. I scrambled off her, backing away, but I saw it all. There were smaller wounds on her breasts, her arms, her shoulders, even her jaw. They'd bled, but only a little. I hadn't let much of that nectar escape my hungry mouth. Her center was torn, bloody from the force with which I'd pummeled her.

I brought a hand to my mouth in shock, but it came away with traces of scarlet adorning it. It was on my face, I knew. I'd buried my face in that wound, slavering to get more of her into me. And I must be wearing a lot of the evidence still.

It was on my hands, my chest.

Turning in shock to Sarafina, I whispered, "Why didn't you stop me? Why?"

"Stop you?" She shook her head. "I sent her to you, Dante. Some lessons are only learned by doing. Now you know what will happen if you spend your passion on a mortal. Save it. Slaves or other vampires are the only safe options if you're determined not to kill. Then again, perhaps you've changed your mind about that, now that you've seen how good it is."

"I don't kill."

"You do now. Like a wolf or a shark or any other predator, you've had a taste of it, Dante. You'll do it again. We're predators. It's what we do. But that argument is for later. Now we must leave this place before tonight's work is discovered. Wrap the slut in blankets and go wash yourself up. I'll gather our things."

"But—"

"But nothing. She already composed a note, informing the household that she has run away with a stable boy. I actually had her believing you would want to take her away with us once you'd sampled her luscious body." She tipped her head back, laughing delicately. "I vow, Dante, you did her nicely. I had no idea you were such a stallion."

"Shut up, 'fina," I saw where her eyes were and righted my breeches. "You're my aunt, for God's sake."

"God has nothing to do with it, boy. And I'm not only your aunt—your great-great aunt—I'm also your mother and your sire and your sister. The blood ties of the past mean nothing. We are a new kind of family now. And I could take what you gave to her and more without sustaining any damage at all."

I stared at her coldly. "The blood ties of the past still mean something to me, Sarafina. And I promise you, we will never be together in that way."

I saw the hurt and the anger in her eyes. Perhaps she had been undead for so long that the propriety of mortals meant nothing to her, perhaps she had even forgotten it. But I hadn't. I hurt her with those words. But I meant them. And while I hated what she had done to me that night, I knew that I had learned an important lesson.

Never to have physical relations with a mortal.

Morgan closed the book, blinking in shock. There had been exceptions. Something about slaves, which she didn't find the least appealing. Something about "the Chosen," which she understood even less. And other vampires.

Nothing about how one made other vampires. Nothing about anything helpful—except that she now knew why Dante refused to sleep with her.

And she thought it might be for the best. She certainly didn't want him to kill her.

She glanced down at her attire, licking her lips in trepidation. Quickly she jumped to her feet, returned the journal to the safe, closed and locked the door, and then closed the false bookcase over it. Then she ran out of the study, hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She had to change. She didn't want to tempt him to do… to do that to her.

But the moment she closed her bedroom door, she heard him. Not aloud, but, in some strange, fascinating way, inside her mind.

Morgan.

She ignored the voice in her head and tugged open a bureau drawer.

Morgan!

The French doors flew open, blasted by a gust of wind. She spun around, gasping in shock. But he wasn't standing there on the balcony, as she had half expected. Trembling, she went to the doors to pull them closed, and that was when she saw him. He stood on the back lawn, halfway between the house and the sea. And she felt him looking right at her.

Come out here to me. Now.

Could she really be hearing him without a sound? She thought about calling down that she would be just a minute, but the final word came again.

Now.

It compelled her. She couldn't convince herself not to obey. Turning, Morgan walked out of her bedroom, down the stairs and through the house to the back door. She stepped out onto the flagstone patio and down three more steps, until her bare feet were sinking into the damp, cold grass. It sent a chill through her, and still she walked on. She walked until she stood facing him, an arm's length between his body and hers.

His gaze slid down her body. She felt it like a touch, shivered with cold and with awareness.

"Now we have time. All night, in fact. And you're going to tell me, Morgan, how you know about me."

She met his eyes and found herself incapable of coherent thought. There was nothing in her mind beyond submission. Obedience. It took an act of sheer will to break the hold of those eyes on hers, compelling her to tell him everything he wanted to know, but she did it. She looked away, past him at the sea.

Her mind whispered that if she told him about the journals, he would take them away. And, God, she couldn't lose her only link to him.

Or were they her only link to him?

"How did you do that?" she whispered.

His eyes closed for a moment as he sought patience. "Summon you here?" he asked, and when she nodded, he sighed. "I'm a vampire. An old one."

It wasn't an answer. "So you've learned mind control over the years?"

"To some extent, yes."

"Then you could summon anyone to come to you, make them come even if they didn't want to?" She was looking at the ground now, anywhere but into his eyes.

A finger hooked beneath her chin, tipped her head slowly up. "You wanted to."

A shiver worked through her body.

"It's more difficult to convince someone to do something they don't want to do. But I have the feeling, Morgan, that I could convince you to do just about anything I asked."

"I… " Her breathing quickened, and he noticed. She knew he noticed—she saw it in his eyes—and she almost thought he could hear her heartbeat speeding up, too. "I heard your voice in my mind. As clearly as if you were standing beside me, speaking to me."

He nodded.

"Does that happen with everyone, too?"

He broke eye contact this time but didn't look away as she had done. No, he just shifted his gaze to her lips. "I came here to ask questions, not answer them."

"I have questions, too," she said. "And I need answers as badly as you do."

He squared his shoulders. "Your conditions have changed, then?"

"I don't… "

"Last night you offered to tell me everything I wished to know if I would take you. Tonight you're ready to trade information instead of sex."

When he said the words "if I would take you," a shiver worked through her and heat pooled in her center. It brought vivid images to mind. Take you. It implied her submission, willing or otherwise. His mastery, his possession of her in any way he desired. She wanted it, and more. She craved it. She could see it so clearly in her mind. His hands holding her wrists, his mouth moving over her body, kissing and tasting and nipping, sampling her flesh and her blood while she whimpered in pain and pleasure.

"Stop it!"

His voice, harsh and sharp, brought her to attention. He had turned away, his hands pressed to his temples and his eyes closed.

"I can see your thoughts as clearly as you can, Morgan. And I warn you, my restraint is running low."

"I'm sorry."

He stood there for a moment longer, gathering himself, she thought Finally he drew a breath, straightened his back and turned to face her again. "I beg of you, tell me what I need to know. The more time I spend near you, the more you place yourself at risk."

She quelled the fear in her belly. "At risk of what, Dante? Being killed? It's a small risk, I promise you that I'm dying anyway. I'm not sure I'd have made it through the day if you hadn't… " She remembered vividly drinking from his neck and quickly slammed the door on the memory. "I need to know some things first."

"So you can use them in your next screenplay?"

She lowered her head. "When I wrote the script, I didn't know you were real. I thought I was mining the delusions of a crazy old man who was probably long dead."

Sighing, he turned and began walking toward the cliffs. She fell into step beside him, but his strides were long and powerful, and she had to take two steps for every one of his. "You have to believe me, Dante. I would never betray you. Not now."

"And why not?" he asked.

"Because I am in love with you."

They had reached the cliffs, and he stopped walking when she said the words, just stood there, facing the sea. "You don't know me. You don't know what I am. What I truly am. Your writer's mind has spun some sort of fantasy from the romanticized myths and legends you've heard and read. But you don't know the truth, and you need to get it fixed firmly in your mortal mind, Morgan. Vampires are predators. Killers. And mortals are their prey."

"Is that the way it was with Laura Sullivan? Was she your prey?"

He shot her a heated glance. "I was young. In love. I thought I could overcome my natural tendencies with her. She turned on me before I ever had the chance to find out." He lowered his head. "It was the second part of a vital lesson, Morgan. Mortals and vampires are mortal enemies. Do you believe for one moment that a mongoose could love a cobra? And even if it did, they would be doomed. One of them destined to destroy the other."

She swallowed her fear. "What does it mean to be one of the Chosen?" she asked.

He turned his head to stare down at her. "Where did you hear that term?"

"The same place I learned all the other things I know about you. I know that certain humans are called the Chosen. I know that it's something to do with their blood, and that vampires sense them and feel protective of them."

He looked away. "Then you know as much as I do."

"Not quite."

"This is a waste of time. I'm leaving." He turned his back to her.

"Am I one of them, Dante? And does it mean I don't have to die?"

He went utterly still.

She moved closer to him, slid her hands up his back and curled them over his shoulders. "When you fed me from your body, Dante, I felt… alive. Every sense heightened, every nerve ending awake and feeling everything. But it didn't last. I want to feel that again. All the time. I want to be what you are."

"So now we come to the heart of the matter at last. You seek entry into the world of the undead. That is what these declarations of love and desire are truly about." He turned to face her. "You don't have a strong enough mind to bear it, Morgan. You'd be dead inside a year."

"That's a year more than I have now."

He shook his head. "I won't do it to you. I refuse to visit this madness on another."

"Then it is possible. I am one of the Chosen!"

He pushed a hand through his hair in frustration. "Yes. Dammit, yes. You carry the Belladonna Antigen in your blood. You're one of the Chosen. It's why you're wasting away so soon. Your caste do."

She nodded, processing the information and reviewing the tale she had read in her mind. He would be far less likely, his evil aunt had told him, to harm one of the Chosen. "How is it done?"

His eyes gleamed softly in the night. He was angry at her for forcing this and yet aroused at the prospect. His gaze danced over her throat. "I sink my teeth deep into your lily-white throat, Morgan, and I suck the very lifeblood from you. I gorge myself on you until you hover on the very brink of death. If I take a little too much, you die. You lie there, hovering between life and death, until I decide to feed you from me. If you have enough strength remaining in you to drink, then you do. You drink from my veins. You swallow my curse."

The wind blew in harder from the sea. "And that's all?"

"You sleep. You wake. You feed. And it's complete."

She nodded firmly. "All right then." She pushed her hair behind her head, held it bunched there in one hand and tipped her chin up toward him. "Do it."

He looked down at her, a feral gleam in his eyes. Tracing the back of his forefinger over her throat, he growled very softly, like an animal in the night.

"Yes, you want to. You know you do," she whispered.

His breath came harsh and raspy. But she felt him fighting her, fighting his hunger and his desire. And then she remembered what she'd read. How closely the hunger for blood and sexual desire were linked.

He turned his head away from her.

She tugged free the sash of her robe and let the wind part it for her, driving it from her shoulders, down her arms, and then tearing it away. She stood naked, arms outspread, the cold wind razing her.

Dante's gaze came back to her. Riveted to her breasts as they pebbled in the cold wind. She moved closer, slid her arms around his neck and, standing on tiptoe, pressed her mouth to his.

With a shuddering sigh, he kissed her. His mouth tasted hers, their tongues twined and mated, and he held her body nestled against his almost tenderly. His lips left hers to trail over her jaw, onto her neck, where they suckled and kissed, and then he lifted his head as if with great effort. "Please, don't make me hurt you. I couldn't bear it, don't you understand? And I will hurt you. I will."

"It will be different with me. I'm one of the Chosen. I love you, and I know. I won't let you hurt me, Dante."

"You couldn't stop me."

"I have nothing to lose, don't you see that?" She tipped her head back again, her hands pressing to the back of his until he shivered and let her push him lower. His lips brushed her flesh. He groaned softly. "Please, please, Dante, please… "

Growling, he opened his mouth and sank his teeth into her. She felt a stabbing pain and then only warm waves of increasing ecstasy as he nursed at her throat He suckled her, drank from her, and her body vanished. All that remained was that place where his mouth possessed her throat and his teeth pressed into her flesh.

There was a sound. A hiss of air and a thud. Dante grunted in pain, and let her go, staggering backward. Morgan slumped to the ground, dazed, weak.

"I've got you now, you bloodthirsty bastard!" a voice shouted.

Morgan looked up and saw a rod embedded in Dante's shoulder, blood oozing from around the wound; then her gaze shot the other way, and she spotted the scarred man running toward them, a crossbow in his hand.

"Morgan… "

"I'm fine. Run, Dante. Go. Now!"

He did. Vanishing in a single burst of movement over the edge of the cliff. When he jumped, Morgan screamed from sheer instinct. And then the hunter was kneeling beside her, looking over the edge in search of his quarry. She looked, too, but Dante was nowhere to be found.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, swung a weak blow at the man. "Damn you! What the hell is wrong with you?"

The man looked at her. His gazed moved down her naked body in the darkness. Damn him, he looked as such as he wanted. Getting to her feet, weak and dizzy but determined not to show it, she looked around, and found her robe hanging from the gnarled branches of a geriatric apple tree. She walked unsteadily toward it, snatched it free and tugged it on.

"I just saved your life, you know!" the man Aerated, hurrying after her.

"You shot my boyfriend and probably killed him," she snapped. "I'm calling the police."

"You're not calling anybody." He gripped her shoulder and spun her around. She clutched the robe tight around her, especially the wide part around the neck. "Not until you let me have a look at your throat, anyway."

"You had a look at everything back there," she replied. "Should have looked your fill while you had the chance, because you won't get another."

"He was drinking from you. You were letting him. Fucking bloodwhore!"

"You're insane." She started toward the house again, but her knees buckled and she had to stop, lean against a tree and breathe deeply.

"He's taken too much," the man said. "He'd have killed you if I hadn't come along."

"It's the shock of seeing my boyfriend shot with a crossbow and knocked off a cliff, you lunatic!" She was vaguely aware of a car pulling into the drive out front. She heard it clearly, saw the headlights. Heard a door slam.

He grabbed her arm again. "Tell me the truth, dammit."

"Let go of me! Help! Someone help!"

"Hey! What's going on out there?" a man's voice called. There were running feet, and then she saw forms in the darkness, coming around the side of the house. Three of them. It was too dark to make out faces at a distance. The newcomer in the lead said, "I'm a cop, mister, and you'd better let that lady go before I decide to put a bullet in your ass."

The scarred man released her arm, turned and ran into the night.

The new man muttered a cuss word and took off in pursuit, while the other two, both women, rushed to either side of Morgan, asking if she were all right.

She kept her head down, clutched her robe tight, not wanting to reveal the telltale punctures on her neck to anyone. "I don't know who you all are, but I'm glad you came along when you did," she muttered.

"Just point us to the nearest door, hon," said one of them. "We'll get you inside."

She nodded, pointing to the back door, and she got her knees steady again. They helped her inside, through the back door into the kitchen, and she kept her head down, face averted, as she hurried through ahead of them. "Just wait here, will you? I just need a minute… "

She felt their eyes on her—curious, no doubt—as she hurried through the house, but they did respect her request. No one followed her. She paused at the study to lock the doors, and then she dragged herself upstairs to her room.

God, she was so weak. That bastard. His interruption might very well be the end of her. She shed the robe, dragged open a closet and located a silk pajama set. She pulled on the bottoms, slung the top on the bed and went to a dresser drawer, digging until she found a black turtleneck. She pulled it quickly over her head, then put on the pajama top and added slippers for good measure. When she stood in front of her full-length mirror, she saw a pale, frail woman. Curling her fingers around the neck of the shirt, she tugged it down, leaning closer to her reflection. The two punctures were there. Tiny, purple.

Swallowing hard, she eased the collar back into place against her skin, reached for a hairbrush and wondered who these new people were. She was going to have to go back downstairs and face them in a matter of minutes. How, when she could barely stand upright?

She would manage.

God, where was Dante? He'd vanished over the cliff but had never hit the water. She was certain she would have heard the splash if he had. What, then? God, was he all right?

Tears welling in her eyes, she tiptoed onto the balcony and looked out at the night sky. "God, Dante, are you all right? Tell me you're still alive. Tell me something, somehow. If you died because of me… "

Morgan.

His voice came clearly in her mind. And with it was a bolt of pain that was nearly blinding. She pressed her hands to her head, dropping to her knees.

I'll come to you again.

It was a promise, given with another blast of unbearable pain.

"Dante, where are you?" she said aloud. "Let me help you. Let me do something."

But there was no reply. Nothing. And she knew he wouldn't say more. Because when he sent his thoughts to her, he sent his agony, too. God, that they could be this connected—ah, but he had drunk deeply from her tonight. That might have something to do with it.

"I love you Dante," she whispered. "I swear I didn't know that man was coming. I swear it. And I'll kill him myself to protect you. I will." She had to prove it, though. She knew that. God, what he must be thinking! That she had planned this, set him up for that animal to shoot down.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, she backed inside but left the doors open so he could return to her if he were able. And then she turned, squared her shoulders and went to face the strangers downstairs.

Chapter 18

Maxine paced Morgan De Silva's large kitchen, taking in every detail, from the tiny square marble tiles that lined the walls to the larger marble slab in the exact same pink and gray swirls that formed the surface of the island in the center. The oblong island had four flat burners and a sink on one end. The other end was bare, with stools arranged around it. Lydia occupied one of them, but Max couldn't sit. Not with Lou out there in the night, chasing after God knew who—or what.

"Did you see what I saw?" she asked. Really just to fill the silence. There was no doubt in her mind that Lydia had spotted it.

"What?" the older woman asked.

"On that white robe she was wearing? The collar?"

Lydia looked at her blankly, then shook her head.

"Blood, Lydia. Just a little, a drop or two. But it was there. And so was the way she clutched that collar around her neck."

"I assumed she was cold, or shaken. Maybe both."

Max shook her head firmly. "She was hiding something. Did you see how fast she hurried out of here?"

"She was upset, Maxine."

"Ten to one she comes back here wearing something that covers her neck." She paced toward the back door again, parted the curtain to peer out. "God, I wish he'd get back here." Max sighed in frustration, gripped the knob. "To hell with this. I'm going after him." As she jerked the door open, Lou came puffing tiredly up the steps.

Max managed to keep herself from flinging her arms around him, but she did give him a good look. No damage that showed. "You catch him?"

"He's long gone. I didn't even get within sight of him."

"Damn."

Lou sank onto a stool, only to rise again when the woman they had inadvertently rescued reappeared in the kitchen. Max's gaze went straight to her neck, and when she saw the black turtleneck, she sent a smug look at Lydia. But Lydia wasn't looking back at her. She and Lou were both staring at the woman as if seeing a ghost.

Frowning, Max looked back at her. Then she blinked and stared. "My God… "

"Who are you? What is this?" the woman asked, gaping at Max.

Max knew the feeling, because the same questions were spinning in her mind.

"You two are almost identical!" Lou said it as if he thought no one else had noticed.

No, they weren't, Max thought. Morgan De Silva was pale as a ghost, so thin she was bony, and her hair was long, endlessly long, and perfectly smooth, shiny. Maxine was no stick figure. Her hair was shorter and tended to curl if she let it grow at all. And she had color. At least enough to distinguish her from a corpse. But aside from those differences… this woman could have been her twin.

Max sank onto a stool, and that word, "twin," played and replayed in her mind. God, was it possible?

"You're Morgan De Silva," Lou said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes. But I don't understand what this is all about. Why… what… ?"

"Ms. De Silva, please, this is as much a shock to us as it is to you," Lou said slowly. He was still standing. Morgan De Silva was, too, though it didn't look as if she would be much longer. Hell, Max had to wonder how those skinny legs carried anything at all, much less an entire human being. Even one as scrawny as her.

Right on cue, she wobbled. Lou took her arms in that way of his. Non-threatening, easy. "Come on, sit down," he said. She did.

He glanced at Max. She wasn't sure if he was nudging her to speak or checking to see if she was okay. Maybe a little of both. She looked back at him, not knowing what the hell to say.

Nodding almost imperceptibly, Lou took the lead. "I'm Lou Malone," he told Morgan De Silva. "I'm a cop from White Plains, New York. This is Maxine Stuart, and over there is Lydia Jordan. They're friends of mine."

Looking at Max unblinkingly, Morgan said, "Are you a cop, too?"

"P.I.," Max said.

Licking her lips, Morgan turned her gaze inward. "You were adopted?"

"Yeah. You?"

Morgan nodded. "Your birthday?"

"May 4th, nineteen—"

"Seventy-seven." Morgan lifted her head slowly.

Lydia was getting up, Max noticed with the part of her brain that was still capable of noticing anything beyond the woman sitting in front of her.

"Lydia?" Lou asked.

"This is private, Lou. They ought to be alone."

Nodding, Lou pressed a hand to Max's shoulder. "We'll take a walk by the water. Yell if you need us."

She nodded, not really even processing what he was saying. When the door closed, she was alone with a strangely pale, frail woman who could have been her twin. Who—maybe—was her twin. "This is really tough to wrap my mind around. I mean, I always knew I was adopted. But no one bothered to tell me I had a twin sister running around somewhere."

Morgan stared at her. "You mean this little surprise visit isn't the culmination of some kind of search?"

Hell, she sounded a little hostile. "No, it's not the culmination of anything. Until I saw your face, I had no idea."

"You hadn't seen my face before?"

"I've never even been to Maine before."

"I meant in the press. On TV."

The light dawned. "That's right. You must be kind of famous now, with the nomination and all."

"Kind of," she said. She seemed to be striving for some sort of authoritative posture, head up, spine straight, eyes focused. But Max could see the struggle, and it ruined the entire effect. "So if you didn't know about me, what are you doing here?"

"Jesus, does it matter?" Max got to her feet and moved just a little closer. Lifting a hand, she touched Morgan's face with her fingertips. "We're sisters. I can't even believe this, it's… "

Morgan lowered her eyes. "We shared a womb for nine months. It's not that big a deal."

Max let her hand fall to her side again. "Is that all this means to you?"

"Our mother obviously didn't think it was all that important. Why the hell would she have given us up—much less split us up—if it meant anything to her? It's a biological coincidence."

"You're one cold bitch, aren't you?"

Morgan's eyes snapped to Marine's. "Why don't you just tell me what you want from me so we can get to the point here."

"What I want from you?"

The pale woman lifted her brows and waited.

Max rolled her eyes. "Oh, I get it. You've got money. Success. You think that's why I'm here, that I'm after a cut."

"I was just nominated for a major award. I've had a lot of press. Are you telling me that has nothing to do with your sudden interest in me?"

"I told you, I didn't know you existed until I saw your face." Max said the words as firmly as she knew how without shouting them. "The reason I came here has nothing whatsoever to do with your money or your damned award nomination. God, who the hell raised you, anyway?"

"A pair of glittering Hollywood cocaine addicts, not that it's any of your business." She closed her eyes, and her head fell forward. She didn't try to fight it this time. Just let her long red locks hang in her eyes. "Once more, why are you here?"

"I'm here because my best friend is lying in a hospital bed with a bullet in her brain, in a coma from which she probably won't recover. And I want the son of a bitch who put her there."

Morgan blinked. It seemed to Max she had perhaps finally penetrated the shell around the woman's soul "I'm sorry. But I still don't see what that has to do with me."

"It has to do with vampires, Morgan."

She flinched. Max saw it clearly. She tried to cover it, but it was too late. "That's ridiculous. Vampires don't exist."

"Oh, I'm not talking about the fictional ones. I'm talking about the real ones. You know. Like in your film."

"I've had a very difficult day," Morgan said softly. "I hate to be rude, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

The woman honestly didn't look well. "I'll leave right after I tell you a very short story. All right?"

Meeting Max's eyes only briefly, Morgan nodded. "So long as it's very short."

"So short it has no ending. Not yet, anyway. There was a compound in my hometown. Supposedly a government-run research center. It had been there for as long as I could remember, but five years ago it burned to the ground. I sneaked past the firefighters, hoping to finally get a clue what had really been going on there all those years."

Morgan interrupted with a short burst of air. "What made you think anything was going on there, besides research?"

"Armed guards. Surveillance cameras. Vehicles with government plates in and out all the time. Electrified fence. Dogs. You name it. I found two things when I got inside: an ID badge and a CD filled with information on vampires. Years worth of information. One of the vampires was called Dante, and the information about him recorded on the CD is very similar to the background of the Dante in your films."

Morgan stared attentively at her now. She no longer looked as if she were suffering the tale just to be rid of the teller. She was rapt. "And the ID badge?"

"It belonged to Frank W. Stiles, an agent of the Division of Paranormal Investigations, which I suspect is a secret division within the CIA."

"Frank W. Stiles." Morgan whispered the name.

"The reason I found those things is because they were dropped by a badly burned man as he dragged himself out of the rubble. The next thing I knew, the place was surrounded by military. I managed to slip away, but what I didn't know was that the man had seen me. And the next day he let me know that if I breathed a word about having seen him, or about anything else I might have seen that night, he would kill my best friends and my mother. My adoptive mother."

"Is this the same best friend you said was shot?"

"Yeah."

"And you think it's connected? You said yourself this incident was five years ago."

"There's more. Just recently there was a murder in our town. A woman who was very close to Lydia Jordan. It looked like the work of a vampire, and I realized I couldn't keep the information I had to myself any longer. Not if people were dying. So I told Lou what I knew, showed him the CD. The next thing I know, my Mend is found in Lou's apartment. She'd been shot in the head with Lou's gun. I know Lou didn't do it, but it was pretty clear someone was setting him up. I know it was Frank Stiles. I know it."

"When did this happen?"

Max wondered why it mattered. "Last night between nine and ten p.m. Why?"

"And how long did it take you to drive here? You did drive, didn't you?"

"Yeah, we drove. About six hours, give or take."

Morgan nodded slowly, no longer in a big hurry to get rid of her newfound sister, it seemed. "So who is it you're after? The vampire who killed Lydia's friend or the scarred man who shot yours?"

Max blinked. "I didn't say he was scarred."

Morgan lowered her head, shaking it quickly. "You said he was badly burned. Same thing."

"No, it's not. Not really."

"I just assumed—"

"You've seen him. Hell, of course you have. He probably made the same connection I did when he saw the film."

"You're putting words in my mouth. I never said—"

"All I want is the truth," Max said.

"I don't know the truth!" Morgan's knees seemed to give, and she clutched the countertop to hold herself upright.

"You look really ill, Morgan. Have you been sick?"

"It's a… condition. A certain blood antigen. Belladonna. Although, if we're twins, I would have expected you to have it, too."

"Plain old A-positive."

"Is that even possible?"

"I don't know," Max said. "I suppose we'd have to ask a doctor or… something." She lowered her head, then raised it again. "Who was that, attacking you out there tonight? Was it Dante?"

Morgan shook her head slowly, pacing away from Max, her gait unsteady, feet almost dragging. "It was the scarred man—Stiles. Like you, he thinks Dante is real and that I can lead the way to him. But you're both wrong. There is no Dante. And even if there were—"

Her legs dissolved, and as she slumped toward the floor, Max grabbed her and held on, eased her down rather than letting her fall.

"You knew, didn't you, Lou?"

He looked at Lydia's face as they walked along the cliffs outside. Her hair had been pure honey gold once, but now a few strands of gray had appeared in its waves. Her face was sharper now, harsher, having lost the plump-cheeked look of youth. And yet she was still beautiful.

The grass fell away just beyond where they walked, vanishing into the face of a steep rocky cliff that plunged to the shore below. He liked the ocean up here. It smelled good. Salty and fresh, and the sea breeze wasn't as cold as he would have expected it to be. It seemed to roll in with the waves.

"I suspected," he admitted at length. "About Maxie, anyway. That's why I introduced you two. I honestly didn't expect her to take off with this vampire theory the way she has. It was just an excuse to put the two of you together and give you a chance to see what was obvious to me."

"And Morgan?" she asked.

"I had no clue whatsoever, Lydia. I swear."

She licked her lips. "You should have told me. About Max, I mean."

"I thought it was something you two ought to put together on your own." He put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry if I did it wrong, hon. You know I want the best for you."

"I know you do."

"You gonna tell them?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I need to think."

They both turned as Max's voice shouted for Lou from the house. Lydia gripped Lou's arm. "Could he have come back?"

"Come on," Lou said, taking her arm as they ran across the wide expanse of back lawn toward the house. "We haven't been out of sight of the house," he muttered. "He could have come in another door, I suppose, but—"

They reached the house, rushing inside to find Morgan unconscious on the floor and Max kneeling beside her, cradling her head and looking scared to death.

"Jesus, what happened?"

"She just collapsed!"

Lydia ran forward, knelt beside Max and touched Morgan's face. "She's so cold."

"I think she's sick," Max said. "Lou, can you get her into her bed? I'm gonna see if I can find a phone number for a doctor or something."

Nodding, Lou bent to scoop the woman up. She didn't weigh more than a minute. Then he carried her up the stairs and started hunting for the right bedroom.

Max sat by the strange woman's bed and stared at her. It was 2:00 a.m. Lou was long asleep in one of the guest rooms, Lydia in another. This place had a half-dozen spare bedrooms, all made up, that apparently got very little use. Thin films of dust in the spare bedrooms told Max that her odd little twin didn't have much company.

She had been unable to sleep a wink herself. So she'd come in here, and now she sat and watched the woman sleeping like the dead. The bed was a huge four-poster, with white lace coverlets over mounds of blankets and thick pillows all around her. Four people could sleep in that bed with room to spare.

This place was gorgeous. Huge and gorgeous. The adjoining bathroom was bigger than Max's bedroom. Hell, so was the walk-in closet. And the clothes!

She rubbed her arms against a chill. When she had come in here, the French doors with the creamy sheer curtains had been open, the chill autumn night breeze wafting in. Max had closed them. But it was still too damned cold in here.

But of course all those thoughts were just trying to distract her from the real reason she was here. Oh, she told herself a thousand lies. That she just wanted to try to get used to looking at a face so like her own. That she wanted to be nearby in case Morgan awoke, to explain why they were all still here, invading her home. That she was worried the obviously ill woman would take a turn for the worse before morning.

But none of those were the real reason.

She wanted to see underneath that turtleneck collar.

Licking her lips nervously, Max leaned forward. Morgan lay on her back, just as still as stone, her face startlingly white in the darkness, her hair spread on the pillows around her. Sleeping Beauty. Max reached closer with her hand, and it hovered just above Morgan's neck. Then she moved it closer, very slowly. Her fingertips touched the black fabric.

Careful, she told herself. Don't touch her skin, or she'll wake. Careful…

She pinched the edge of the stretchy fabric between her thumb and forefinger, and pulled very gently out and downward. She leaned closer over Morgan, trying to see behind the collar.

They were there. Just as she had thought they would be. Two tiny marks, deep maroon in color.

"Dante, nooo," Morgan moaned in her sleep.

Max jumped so suddenly she let the collar snap back against the other woman's neck as she jerked backward.

"Stay away!" Morgan rasped. Her head began to turn to one side and the other on the pillows. "No, Dante, don't come here." There were tears squeezing out from beneath her closed eyelids now.

Max couldn't help but feel a twist of pain in her gut. This was her sister. And she had been attacked by a vampire. Max didn't know why the hell Morgan insisted on denying it, but the evidence was there, from the marks on her neck to the words of her nightmares, begging the monster not to come back.

"No, no!"

Max leaned in again, clasping Morgan's shoulders this time. "Easy. It's all right. You're safe."

The woman stopped straggling. She went still, her breath rushing in and out a bit more slowly than before.

"It's all right," Max whispered.

Morgan blinked her eyes open. It seemed to take her a moment to remember who Max was. That brief instant of shock was followed by one of dawning realization. "You're still here?" she asked softly.

"You passed out downstairs. Lou carried you up here."

She nodded, her eyes falling closed. "I'm fine. You can leave now."

"That's not what your friend David said."

Her eyes flew wide again. "D-David? You've spoken to—but how?"

"I was trying to find a phone number for your doctor or a family member or someone, and not having much luck, when the phone rang. It was a man named David Sumner, who seemed very worried about you. I explained what had happened—"

"There was no reason to do that," Morgan whispered.

"He'll be here in the morning. He asked me to stay until he could arrive. So I did."

"I don't need watching over."

"I know about Dante," Max said flatly.

Morgan's gaze shot to hers. "So do I. He's a fictional character in some films I wrote."

"I meant the real Dante. The one who left those marks on your neck."

Morgan's hand flew to the spot on her neck, but when she felt the collar there, she frowned. "There are no—"

"Save it, sister. I peeked."

Sighing with everything in her, Morgan said, "You don't understand."

"Why don't you explain it to me?"

Morgan sat up then, slowly. Max automatically leaned in to plump the pillows behind her, and when their eyes met that time, she felt a connection, the first one. "You don't have to deal with this alone anymore," she told Morgan. "You've got family here now. That means something to me, even if it doesn't to you. You're my sister. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

Leaning back on the pillows Max had arranged for her, Morgan lowered her eyes. "It means something to me, too." She said it as if with great reluctance. "I just… I was shocked. I didn't mean to be… cold."

"You'd had a rough evening."

"But it wasn't Dante. He wouldn't hurt me."

"No?" She tried not to show her jubilation that Morgan had finally admitted—or all but admitted—mat Dante was real.

"No. It's the scarred man. He's the enemy. He's the one who attacked me. He had… " She had to pause there, battle down a sob. "He had a crossbow."

"That must have been terrifying."

"It was. God, I was so afraid. And I still don't know if he's… " She stopped there, bit her lip.

"You don't know if he's what? Coming back? You don't need to worry about that, Morgan. You've got a cop, a P.I., and a counselor for runaway teens in the house. Between us, we can handle just about anything that comes up. He's not going to get near you again."

Morgan looked at Max for a long moment, almost as if she intended to argue, but then she simply nodded. "You really aren't after anything from me, are you?"

"No. I'm really not." Max closed a hand around one of Morgan's thin, cool ones.

Morgan returned the squeeze. "Rest now. You'll feel better in the morning." Nodding, Morgan closed her eyes and sank into sleep.

Chapter 19

It was late morning, and Max had fallen asleep in her chair when the creaking of the bedroom door made her jerk herself awake. She twisted toward the door, half expecting to have a fight on her hands. But it was neither a dark vampire nor the scarred Frank Stiles who walked quietly into the bedroom. It was Lou, and he was with a big, sandy-haired man who stared at Max as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes.

"Maxie, this is David Sumner," Lou said. He couldn't quite manage a whisper, but his voice came out softly all the same.

Nodding, Max got to her feet, and only then did she realize she was still holding Morgan's hand. She gently let it go, placing it on the bed and giving her newfound sister one last lingering look before she turned back to the men. "Let's talk downstairs, can we? She's sleeping so soundly, I hate to wake her."

Lou nodded and started to leave, but Sumner didn't. He moved closer, leaned over Morgan and looked at her, his eyes troubled. He touched her very gently, just laid his hand lightly on her face. She sighed deeply, but other than that didn't respond at all.

Lowering his head, the man nodded, turned and walked out of the bedroom. Max followed, closing the bedroom door behind her, and it was a good thing, because Sumner began asking questions almost immediately.

"What happened to her? Why does she look so pale? My God, her skin is as chilled as if she's been on ice overnight. And—"

"One question at a time, Mr. Sumner," Max cut in, holding a stop-sign palm toward him and pressing her other hand to her head. "I haven't even had my morning infusion of caffeine yet, and I didn't exactly get a lot of sleep last night."

Sumner offered an apologetic nod. "God. I can't get over the resemblance. Officer Malone—"

"Lou, it's Lou."

"—told me about you as soon as I got here, but I just—I can't get over it."

Max understood the reaction only too well. "I've been looking at Morgan all night, and I still can't get over it, either," she said. "I didn't know I had a sister at all, much less a twin."

"Neither did I," Sumner admitted.

They reached the kitchen, where Max smelled coffee brewing and made a beeline for it. She didn't see Lydia anywhere and wondered where she'd gone. The two men sat at the table, and she poured herself a coffee and joined them. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still unclear on your relationship with Morgan, uh, David, is it?"

"Yes, David. I'm… well, an honorary uncle. I've known Morgan ever since she was a year old. If they'd been religious types, I suppose I would have been named Morgan's godfather, but that was never formalized. When they died… well, I was all she had."

"You also produced her vampire films," Lou observed, picking up a cooling, half-empty cup of coffee and sipping its contents.

"Yeah, well. I'll tell you, I didn't expect them to be as good as they were. When I saw that first script, I swear to God, I told her she should shop it around. Get a bidding war going among the real heavy hitters, you know? But she wouldn't do it. She wanted me to make her first film. So I cut her in for half the profits and did the best I could with it. She deserved more. But as it turned out, the films grabbed a following right out of the gate, and the momentum built to the success of this third one."

Lou nodded slowly. "So how was she, the last time you saw her?"

"Not like this." David glanced at the watch he wore. "I can't reach her doctor before ten. I'll call him then."

"Then she has been ill?" Lou asked.

David drew a deep breath. "Listen, Morgan's star is just starting to rise. I don't want this getting out."

"We're not looking for a story to sell to the scandal sheets, David," Max told him. "If we were, then the missing twin angle would be plenty. There's something not right here, and I—we only want to help her."

Lowering his head, David said, "I'm afraid there's not a lot that can be done for her. She, um… she has a rare condition. An antigen in her bloodstream that has medical science baffled. No one seems to know why, but individuals who have this antigen in common begin to weaken and fade in their mid to late twenties and rarely live beyond their early thirties."

"What… what are you saying?" Max whispered, meeting his eyes. "That she's… "

"I'm sorry. I know this must come as a shock." David sighed, lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "She's known about this since she was a teenager," he went on without looking up. "Hell, it's what made her so driven, and why she was so determined to get a screenplay produced right away, at such a young age. She knew she didn't have a lot of time."

Max sat there staring at him. Her eyes were burning. Her mind spinning. "That's… that's wrong, that's not—that can't be true."

"Max," Lou began.

"That's not it, Lou!" She shot a look at David Sumner. "You're telling me she's dying?'"

"We didn't expect it to get this much worse this soon, but—"

"Oh, God," Lou muttered.

Max just sat there, getting angrier and angrier. Finally she pounded a fist on the table. "This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Look, I don't know what else might be wrong with her, but the reason she's in the state she is right now is because she was attacked by a vampire last night."

David Sumner was silent, just looking at her, then Lou, then her again. "That's not very funny."

"I saw the marks on her throat. I looked while I was sitting up with her and she was asleep, and when she woke up I called her on it, and she admitted it to me." She was speaking too rapidly now, and she could see that she was scaring the shit out of Sumner. "Dante is real. She admitted it! Although she insists he's no threat to her."

Sumner got slowly to his feet, looking nervous.

"Maybe now that I'm here you two should move along. I'm really grateful for your help but—"

"Now he thinks we're crackpots, Maxie. Sheesh, you ever hear of being subtle?"

She shot Lou a look. "You brought the CD, didn't you?"

"I brought it."

"Well, show him. Just fucking show him."

Nodding, Lou got up as if his limbs ached. They probably did, from that chase the night before. He glanced at David Sumner. "Give me a half hour of your time, Sumner. If you still think we're a pair of lunatics when I finish, we'll leave. No fuss, no muss. Okay?"

Sumner licked his lips, looking from one of them to the other. "I… suppose so."

"Good. Is there a computer around this place?"

"In the study, but Morgan keeps it locked. She hates anyone going in there." The words made Maxine's antennae quiver. "I have a laptop in the car," the big man added.

"Then let's go get it." Lou glanced back at Max. "You better go take a nap, huh? You didn't sleep all night. The bed in your room was still made up this morning."

She nodded, her eyes heavy. "Maybe I'll do that," she said. "Where's Lydia, anyway?"

"Went out first thing. Into town for supplies, she said. She'll be back."

Max frowned and thought about going for a walk around the grounds—maybe the fresh air would wake her up. But her eyelids and muscles disagreed with that plan, so she sucked down her coffee as if it were lifeblood and refilled her cup again. She had no intention of taking a nap.

Morgan was weak, groggy, when she woke. And there was an empty, hollow feeling emanating, echoing, from somewhere deep in her center. A yearning… for Dante. It was beyond simple desire. It was beyond human love. It was an ache, a desperate, endless need. The soul-deep hunger of a woman on the brink of death by starvation.

Clenching her teeth against the emptiness, she got up, took note of the daylight still flooding in through the thin curtains on the French doors and silently cursed it. Even if Dante had survived—God, please!—he wouldn't be able to come to her. Not now. Not in daylight.

She dragged herself tiredly into the bathroom, wanting a fast shower, knowing she lacked the energy to take one. There was no hopping in, scrubbing down, rinsing off and hopping out. No, but she did manage to crank on the taps and peel off her clothes. She stood under the spray with her hands braced on the shower wall and her head hanging down. She couldn't get through the day like this. Jesus, she needed…

She knew what she needed. She needed Dante. She needed him inside her, his fire burning life through her veins. He had taken too much from her. Not to hurt her, God, she knew that. He was going to do what she asked. Make her what he was. Drain her and then refill her with his own life. Stiles's interruption had cost her dearly.

Something, some sense that was very much like hearing a sharp noise but not quite, made her lift her head and listen. Was someone else in the house?

God, those strangers from last night? Were they still here?

She had to admit to a softness toward the woman who claimed to be her sister. But anyone who meant Dante harm was her enemy. She would protect him, no matter what. No matter who she had to fight.

Reaching for a towel, she stepped out of the shower, feeling cleaner but no stronger, and only a little more awake. She paused to look into the full-length mirror at her body, dropping the towel to the floor and wondering how Dante could want her as she was. Skinny. Weak. Pale. Lifting her chin, she looked at the place on her throat where he had pierced her. Her body tingled all over at the memory of the sensations that had rushed through her then. The ultimate possession. She had been completely his—and relishing it.

Then she narrowed her eyes, her fingers dancing over the skin of her neck. There were no marks. No punctures, as she knew there had been the night before. Moving closer, she looked again, frowning. Very faint marks, barely pink against the white of her skin, betrayed the place where his incisors had been embedded in her flesh. The holes and the bruising around them were gone. The marks that remained… even they seemed to be fading before her eyes.

"It was real," she whispered. "I know it was."

She pulled on a robe, a different one, scarlet satin, hoping to draw energy from the color. She brushed her hair, although the act was exhausting, and finally she crept down the stairs to face the intruders. She had to convince them that she was all right and get rid of them. Otherwise Dante would never be able to come to her again.

At the bottom of the wide curving staircase, Morgan paused, staring across the foyer to the open doors of her haven. Her study. The place she let no one invade. She thought of the floorboards beneath the rug, the hidden space below, where, for all she knew, Dante might have taken refuge last night Her heart stuttered, and anger pushed it into a faster pace than before. She surged across the foyer, into the study.

Maxine stood there, looking beautiful and alive and healthy. She was staring at the drawings of Dante that lined the walls, not touching anything, not searching, just staring.

"These doors are kept locked for a reason," Morgan said, her voice low, her anger in check.

Max jerked in surprise, her eyes wide as they met Morgan's. "You're right, I'm sorry, I just… couldn't help myself." She came forward, a hand going to Morgan's arm. "You shouldn't be up. You're still so weak."

"I'm fine." She pulled her arm away, willed herself to stay angry, not to soften again toward the woman. "This is my private study," she said. "I don't let anyone in here."

"So I was told. That's why I had to come in." She shrugged. "Look, I know I invaded your privacy. I thought maybe I'd find something in here that might help me save your life."

Morgan couldn't hold Max's eyes then, because the sincerity she saw in them touched her, though she didn't want it to. "Nothing can do that. There's nothing."

"You have to have more time," Max said. "You have to, Morgan. I just found you."

Morgan turned her back and denied the bolt of pain those words sent through her. "I spent a lot of time wanting that to be true. It only leads to disappointment, Maxine. I don't want to want it again. I've accepted the facts." And she had, she thought. But not the facts as her sister knew them. Morgan knew that living a normal life was no longer an option. She had thought accepting death was her only choice, but now she had another option. A new life of endless night. It might be possible. If she could only last long enough to make it happen.

Max was silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was thick. "These drawings—they're stunning."

Morgan turned, managed to face her again now that Max was attempting a lighter subject. "Thank you. They're just what my imagination tells me my character looks like."

Max blinked. "Come on, Morgan, we're past that. You admitted last night that he was real. Don't you remember? When I saw the marks?"

Pasting an innocent expression on her face, Morgan lifted her chin, let her hair fall back and parted the collar of her robe. "What marks?"

Max frowned, moving closer and inspecting her neck. "But… but they were there. You covered them up." She reached out and dragged a forefinger across the place where the marks had been, but when she looked, Morgan knew, she saw no traces of makeup. "I don't understand."

"You don't need to."

"Morgan, if this vampire is… is feeding on you, then whatever time you have left will be even less, don't you see that? David said the last time he saw you, you were—"

"David?" Morgan flinched. "David?"

"Don't you remember? I told you last night he was coming."

Morgan frowned, trying to sort out the confused muddle of her mind.

"He's here," Max said. "In that small parlor off the living room with Lou."

Morgan started out of the study, then turned to take Maxine's hand and tug her along. "How did you get into the study?" she asked.

Sheepishly, Max tugged a key from her jeans pocket. "It was on your nightstand. A lucky guess."

Taking the key, Morgan turned to close and lock the study doors. Clutching the key in her palm, she moved slowly across the parquet to the small parlor, wondering what was going on between Lou, the policeman, and her beloved David. When she walked in, the two men were huddled over David's familiar laptop, and they both looked up.

"David," she said, forcing a warm smile.

"Oh, baby." He surged to his feet and wrapped her in a warm bear hug. "Honey, how are you? You looked so bad when I arrived that I—"

"David, I need to talk to you. Alone." She turned to Maxine. "Please."

"Sure. We're not the Gestapo, Morgan. We only want what's best for you."

Lou got to his feet and left the room, joining Max in the living room. Morgan closed the door on them and turned to David, a man she knew would do anything for her. Anything. She met his eyes and said, "I want them out."

Max was stunned when a quiet, slightly guilty-looking David Sumner asked them to leave. Morgan had gone straight back to her bedroom, barely sparing her a glance on the way, and then David stood there in the large living room and told them they were going to have to leave.

Lou nodded just slightly. "I understand."

"I don't!" Max scowled at the man. "And you shouldn't, either, David. Not if you care about her. My God, I'm her sister. The sister she didn't even know she had. Her twin, for God's sake!"

"I know. I'm sorry, Maxine, it's just—it's what she wants."

"Do you really think that was her talking to you in there? It wasn't," Max insisted. "It was him. That vampire. He's got her under some kind of—"

"Max, come on." Lou cut her off gently. "I'm on your side, and even to me that sounds over the top."

"You think so?"

David touched her shoulder, so she switched from glaring at Lou to glaring at him. "I have to admit," David said, "the evidence you two have is… well, it's compelling. I'm not saying I believe it, but I can see where you might. But Morgan is extremely agitated and totally unlike herself."

"Gee, I wonder why," Max muttered.

"I just think, given her condition, it would be better if we humored her in this. At least until we can get to the bottom of what's going on here."

Max stopped frowning and slowly lifted her brows. "It sounds like you don't really want us to leave."

"Frankly, I don't." He pushed a hand through his hair and paced away from them before turning back. "I know phonies when I see them, and you people are the real deal. I know that. It's just that she's so damn sick, and so out of it right now. I don't know if I can handle whatever is happening to her on my own."

"And yet you're throwing us out."

"Out of the house, yes. But I'd like you to stay in town for a couple of days. Can you do that?" He held up a hand when Max would have replied. "I'll pay whatever you want for your time. And I'll put you up in town. There are some accommodations that are really quite pleasant."

Max felt a hint of relief. "I'll take you up on the room. But not on the—"

"She'll take you up on all of it," Lou cut in.

"She's my sister," Max said.

"She's rich. You're getting by, I'm retiring, and Lydia's scraping." Then he frowned. "Where the hell is Lydia, anyway?"

"She hasn't come back yet. We'll have to find her before we leave," Max said, a bint of worry gnawing at her belly. Then she turned her attention back to David. "You're going to have to watch her closely. Especially at night. We could come over, you know. Stake the place out, keep our distance."

Drawing a breath, David cast a nervous glance toward the stairs. "It seems wrong, spying on her. And yet… I'm worried." Sighing, he said, "I don't want to betray her. I'll watch her closely. Maybe even get her doctor to prescribe something when she sees him this afternoon. A sedative, something to help her sleep through the night."

Max wanted to argue. Lou stopped her. "We'll go. Just be sure you call us if you need to. And we can't stay up here indefinitely, either."

Max drew a breath, shaking her head. "I don't like this."

"I don't either, to be honest," David said. "Why don't you go on upstairs and say goodbye, Max?"

"If she wanted to say goodbye to me, she'd have said it down here." She looked from one man to the other, then sighed in exasperation. "I'll try."

David began telling Lou about the hotel where he sometimes stayed while in town, at times when he didn't want to interrupt Morgan at work, as Max headed for the curving staircase and started up it. It occurred to her that Morgan had everything. She was stunningly beautiful. Odd that the same face could look so different on two people. On Max, it was average. Passably pretty, no more. Morgan had reached the pinnacle of success in her career. Max still wasn't sure what her career was, although she thought the P.I. thing was her calling. Of course, she'd thought the same about Web design and Internet investigations. Both had gone stale for her. Morgan was wildly wealthy and had a dream house she could obviously afford to decorate exactly as she liked. Max was living in her mother's house and paying not a dime for the privilege. Morgan had a Mercedes sitting in the driveway, though it looked as if it rarely escaped from beneath its custom car cover. Max drove a VW Bug. An original VW Bug. Forest green. Got almost forty miles to the gallon. When it ran.

And yet Morgan was ill. And because of that, the rest of her wealth seemed like nothing at all.

Max tapped on the bedroom door only once. "Morgan, it's me. I'm coming in." She gave her a beat or two, then opened the door. Morgan was sitting in a chair near the French doors, staring out them.

Max walked across the room and stood beside her. "It's a beautiful view from here." And it was, a wide strip of verdant green grass, then a deep, midnight velvet band of sea, all dotted with whitecaps right now, and finally a robin's-egg blue sky with puffs of cloud floating past.

Morgan didn't speak.

Max said, "I'm leaving, Morgan. David said you wanted us out, so we're going. I only came up here to say goodbye."

Nothing. She didn't even look up at her.

"I guess you really don't give a shit, though, do you?" Max sighed, turned on her heel, headed for the door. "I don't know why I bothered trying."

"I'm sorry, Maxine."

She stopped halfway to the door. "Are you?" When Morgan said no more, Max turned slowly. "Why are you throwing us out, Morgan?"

Morgan met Max's eyes only fleetingly, touching, then dancing away before darting back again. She couldn't hold her gaze steadily. "Who raised you?" she asked at length.

Blinking, Max said, "John and Ellen Stuart. The most wonderful middle-class suburban couple in the world."

Morgan nodded very slowly. "And what was it like, growing up with them?"

"It was wonderful. I mean, it was a family. They loved me. The only bad time I can remember is when my dad died. That was the year I started college. It was his heart."

"And they were… involved? In your life?"

"Mom was on every committee at school, chaperoned field trips and sometimes school dances. Dad never missed a ball game or a school play." She almost smiled. "Yeah, they were involved. I always knew I was adopted. It was a non-issue. We loved each other."

"I loved my parents, too," Morgan said very slowly, choosing her words carefully and as if it were an effort. "But I'm still not sure why they adopted me. They didn't have time for me. It was almost as if I were an accessory they purchased to go with their image. I had nannies and tutors and instructors and a driver. And I had David. But my parents were uninvolved. Took trips without me. Tried to make up for it by showering me in money, expensive gifts, cars, clothes. I had my own credit card before I was fourteen."

"I'm sorry you had it so rough," Max said.

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Surprisingly, no. I meant it. I feel sorry for you."

"I don't want your sympathy. I'm just trying to explain to you why it is that the word 'family' doesn't have the same connotations for me that it does for you."

"Maybe not. I would think someone who's never had a real family would need one even more. But I guess I'm wrong."

"The timing is bad," Morgan said. "I'm dying. There's really no point in us… starting anything now."

"Now is the only time we may have."

Closing her eyes, Morgan lowered her head.

"Maybe…I have some things I need to work through. And I need to work through them alone."

"Well, you better work fast, Morgan, because if you think I'm going to stay away, you're wrong. I'll leave. For now. But I'm not going far, and I will be back. And I'll keep coming back, no matter how many times you try to throw me out. Understand?"

Morgan's head came up slowly, a frown between her brows. "No."

"No? You've never had anyone stick by you like that before, have you?"

"Only David. And he only did because he felt sorry for me. I didn't have anyone else."

"Maybe he stuck by you because he honestly gives a damn," Max said. "Kinda like me." She looked at her sister for a long moment; then, with a sigh, she turned and left the room.

Lydia watched her two companions drive away. The troubled Morgan was still sitting in her bedroom window, staring pensively out at the sea. David Sumner emerged from the house onto the patio in back, took a seat on a lawn chair and lit up a cigarette.

Squaring her shoulders, Lydia turned from her vantage point near the shore and began the long walk across the rear lawn toward where Sumner was sitting.

He looked up, spotted her coming, gave a welcoming wave as he got to his feet.

"You must be Lydia," he called.

She nodded, kept walking.

"I'm David."

"I know."

"Maxine and Lou have gone to a hotel in town." he said, a little less loudly now, as she drew closer. "I promised I would bring you along if you returned."

She nodded, kept walking.

"They thought you had gone into the village. I think they were hoping to run into you and… "

He let his voice trail off as she got still closer, until finally she stopped, a couple of feet between them. His eyes narrowed, brows drawing together.

"Hello, David. It's been a long time."

"My God. Oh my God."

Chapter 20

Morgan lay on the table in a paper gown, with goose bumps rising on her arms and legs. Why the hell did doctors' offices have to be so cold? A tube ran into her arm from an IV bag on a pole. Clear fluid filled the bag. The doc had injected some kind of supercharged vitamin shot into the tube, as well. Not that any of that would help. She knew what she needed, and it was not in that IV.

Dr. Hilman came back inside, looking serious. David was sitting in a chair nearby. He'd stepped out during the exam but returned immediately after, and Morgan didn't have the heart to toss him out. She loved David, and she knew he loved her. She had a niggling feeling he was up to something though. She knew she shouldn't. She had never had any reason to mistrust David. He was the only person in her rife she did trust, in fact. Besides Dante. Yet she had seen David today, alone with the blond woman. Lydia, that was her name. They'd been alone together, talking, and the atmosphere between them, around them, had seemed charged with some sort of intense energy. Morgan didn't know why. She had heard the car leave after Maxine's emotional goodbye. She'd expected to come down and find David alone.

Instead she'd found him deep in conversation with Lydia, and they had both gone silent when they had seen her.

It still bothered Morgan. What could he have been talking about with the stranger?

David got to his feet at the doctor's reappearance. "Well?"

Dr. Hilman was over fifty but looked thirty-nine. Nice hair of nondescript brown, with a few gray strands but no sign of balding. He was in excellent shape. Must make most of his patients feel decidedly unworthy.

He drew a breath, sighed, smiled with his nice even teeth. "Frankly, Morgan, I'd like to get you admitted."

It took a second for her brain to translate. Then she blinked. "To the hospital?"

"Just so we can keep an eye on you. Your blood count is low, you're anemic, and you just don't look good."

"Can't you give me a blood transfusion and send me home?"

He exchanged glances with David. "If we could find a donor. You know you have a rare blood type."

"Yeah. I know." She lifted her head. "I have a sister, you know. A twin. But she doesn't have the Belladonna Antigen. How is that possible?"

He frowned at her. "Identical or fraternal?"

"I don't know. We look alike."

"Lots of fraternal twins look alike. You're sure she doesn't have the antigen?"

"She's healthy. Robust even."

He lowered his head, shook it slowly. "We don't understand Belladonna, Morgan. It doesn't behave the way other antigens do."

She nodded, having figured as much. "Look, Doctor, you're not going to be able to do anything for me in a hospital bed except make me sicker than I already am. I want to go home. I want to be in my house. I need to be mere."

Narrowing his eyes, he leaned over her, removed the IV tube from her arm and applied a bandage as he asked, "Why?"

"I love it there. If I'm going to die, that's where I want to be, and if I'm not, then I want to spend the time I have left there."

"Really, Morgan," David said. "If it's only one night—"

"It's my life. I want to go home." She got to her feet. "You can't force me to stay in a hospital. I'm an adult. I'm going." Reaching for the counter where her clothes were folded, she took them. "You two can get out of here or watch me get dressed."

"All right, all right" The doctor turned for the door even as Morgan was pulling on her jeans. He stepped out, David close behind him.

She managed to wait until the door fell closed before she gripped the counter and held on. Dizziness, weakness. Damn, she'd gotten up too fast.

It passed slowly, fading until she could focus on the dull thrum of male voices outside the door. Buttoning her jeans, she leaned closer to listen.

"… something to help her sleep?" David was asking.

"I'll give you something to take home."

"I'll give it to her before bed."

The hell he would. She couldn't sleep. Not at night. Night was what she had been waiting and waiting for. She had to see Dante. She had to. She had to show him, to prove to him, that none of this was her, that she hadn't betrayed him. She edged closer to the door, leaned against it to listen.

"Tell me the truth, Doctor. How much time do you think she has?"

"You know I can't be sure of something like that."

"But you have an idea. I can see in your eyes that you have some idea. So what is it, Doctor? Come on. Months?" There was a pause. "Weeks?"

Still the doctor said nothing.

"My God, days?" David asked softly.

"Maybe. I'm sorry, David. I know how much you love her."

"There has to be something we can do."

"We could find a suitable blood donor," the doctor said. "That would give her a little more time."

"Then that's what we have to do."

"You realize… we'd only be buying time. In the end… "

"I realize it. I just don't accept it. I can't."

The pain in David's voice stabbed at Morgan's heart.

The doctor sighed. "I'll do everything I can to extend the time she has, David. I promise you."

Max tried to speak in the voice she always used as she continued narrating her most recent adventures into the telephone handset. "It was the damnedest thing, Stormy. Like she wanted me there, but at the same time, she couldn't wait to get rid of me. I'll tell you right now, hon, you're much more sisterlike than she is." She paused. "Anyway, Lou and I went to the hotel that Sumner recommended. Turns out he had called ahead. Guess he has clout, too, because you oughtta see this freaking place. We have a suite with two bedrooms, a sitting room and a little kitchenette. And the view—man, you've never seen a view like this, Storm. Great big windows looking out over the ocean. Waves and foam and rocky shore. Boats and gulls. Wait, you can hear them." She cranked open the window of the suite and held the phone out toward the screeching seagulls. Sea air rushed in, that fresh saltwater and fish tang, and an autumn nip.

"Did you hear them?" she asked, knowing there would be no answer. "You and I have to come back here when you're better. Stay in the same spot, you know? Of course, it's nothing in comparison to that house of my sister's, but it's nice. Hey, and when we come back, you can meet Morgan. You won't believe how much she looks like me. Only thinner and way prettier. Richer, too, but lonely. She's not happy. I don't know if she ever has been."

And she was sick, Max added silently. Sick, maybe dying. Just like Stormy. For a moment she felt a weight settle onto her shoulders, a crushing, heavy, pressing weight. It made it hard to breathe.

"Anyway," she said, her voice thicker now, speaking, an effort, "Lydia finally showed up here an hour after we did. Guess she went out walking and lost track of the time. She said David Sumner gave her a ride. He was going out anyway, taking Morgan to, uh, some sort of appointment."

She was being very careful not to say anything negative, anything frightening. Not only for Stormy's sake, but because she knew Storm's mom was probably hearing a lot of the conversation as she held the phone near her daughter's ear. She didn't want to upset the woman. And she certainly couldn't mention any part of the real reason why she was here in Maine.

"I love you, Storm. I want you to wake up. You know? So you can talk back, give me advice, tease me about Lou. It isn't fair, me doing all the talking. You'd damn well better wake up by the time I get home. Okay? Just wake up. Wake up, Stormy… "

She had to stop there. The tears were spilling over, and her throat contracted too tightly. She tried to get hold of herself, gulped in a couple of breaths.

"Easy, Maxie. Easy." Big, callused hands on her shoulders, heavy but gentle.

She glanced behind her at Lou; she hadn't even heard him come in. So much for the damn screeching gulls. He gave her a little boxer's massage. He did that a lot. It was the most physical contact she ever managed to get out of him, and she took advantage of it, because it helped. She leaned back a little, his chest behind her, solid, warm. She could almost feel herself drawing a little of his solidness and warmth into her body to battle the weakness and the chill. How could she bear to lose her sister and her best friend all at once?

"Maxine?"

She started, surprised to hear a voice on the line. For just an instant she thought—but no, it was Stormy's mother. "Hi, Jane. How is she? Is there any change?"

There was a long pause. Then, "She's no worse."

But no better, Max inferred. "Do you think she's hearing me?"

"I know she is, Maxine."

"Really? Was there any sign while I was talking to her?"

"I don't need any signs. I'm her mother. I know. You mean the world to her, and I know she's hearing everything you say."

Max nodded, sniffed, rubbed her cheek with the back of one hand. "I won't be here much longer. A day or two at the most."

"You do what you need to. I… I heard what you told Tempest—about finding your sister. That's the hand of God, young lady, that led you up there. Don't you doubt it. And don't take it for granted."

"I'm not."

Jane sighed. "We play the tapes you made for her, your voice reading to her. And the music you sent over, we play that, too."

"It's Tuesday, you know," Max said. "Her favorite show's on tonight."

"I know. There's a TV in the room. I won't forget. Goodbye, dear. Call again when you can."

"I will." Max lowered the phone slowly to the cradle, missed it somehow. Lou took it from her and put it in place.

"How's she doing?" he asked.

"No change." She turned slowly, slid her arms around his waist, let her head rest on his chest. He hugged her, rocked her back and forth a little.

"It's only been a day."

"Every day it's less likely she'll ever come out of it." She spoke against the fabric of his shirt but trusted that he heard and understood. "I'm losing two sisters at once, Lou. I'm not sure I can take this."

"You're tough, Max. Toughest kid I know. And I'm here for you, you know that, right?"

She nodded.

"Lydia's got a nice hot bath all run for you, and a cup of that herbal tea she picked up when she was out exploring today. I want you to go soak and drink that tea, and then I want you to take a nap."

She lifted her head, felt her eyes burning and wondered just how hellish she looked right now. "When it gets dark—"

"We're going back to Morgan's place to stake it out," he said. "Even though she and David both told us not to."

Max nodded. "You think you know me pretty well, don't you?"

"Am I right?"

"Yeah."

"So that's why you need to rest a while now. You're all in." He ran a palm from the top of her head down over her hair, until it cupped her cheek. "I don't like seeing you like mis, Maxie. I don't like it at all."

She smiled tiredly. "That's 'cause you're nuts about me, just too dense to know it." She leaned up and kissed him on the mouth, softly, briefly. Then she turned away and headed into the bathroom.

Lou sighed as he walked back into the sitting area of the suite and sank into a plush chair. Lydia was sipping tea, tapping one foot, nervous.

"She needs you, you know," he said.

Lydia shot him a worried look. "I'm right here."

"She's hurting bad. She doesn't deserve that. She's a good girl."

"I know she is."

He stared hard into her eyes. "You've got to tell her."

"And what good do you suppose it would do her to learn that her mother was a whore? Hmm?"

"Come on, Lydia, that's not even close to what you are."

"It's what I was."

"You were a kid. Alone and clueless. Now you're a freaking hero."

She rolled her eyes.

"You think you're not? You got out of the slime alive. Barely. So what do you do? Get as far from it as you can, the way most people would? No. No, you lie on the goddamn ground and reach back down into the thick of it to pull kids out. One after the other, you haul their asses out of the muck, hose 'em off, tuck 'em away someplace safe. A place you made safe for them. Then you turn around and go back for more. You get dirty, you get splashed with that shit all the time. Doesn't bother you. You keep on going."

She faced him, and he saw that her eyes were damp. "That's the way Kimbra used to talk about our work. Like it was something noble. Some kind of divine calling."

"It is."

She lowered her eyes.

"You do all that for those kids. Those kids you don't know. Now you have a chance to do something for your own. Your own kids, Lydia."

"They're hardly kids, Lou." She set her teacup down on the coffee table.

He shrugged. "They need their mother. Max feels like she's losing everyone she cares about. And Morgan—God, that girl has no one, other than Sumner. You don't connect with her now, you may never get the chance."

She averted her eyes, maybe to hide a rush of wetness, he thought. "She wouldn't even embrace her twin sister. What makes you think she'd give a damn about me?"

"You won't know unless you try, Lyd."

"They've managed without me this long… "

"And they're both falling apart."

She bit her lip. He felt sorry for pushing her so hard and decided to back off. "At least I've maybe given you something to think about."

"You have."

"Okay. We'll drop it. You better get some rest. Maxie's gonna want to sit up all night watching her sister's place, and I know damn well you won't stay behind."

"No more than you would," she said.

"Of course not." He got to his feet and headed for the coffeepot in the tiny alcove at the far end of the room.

"She loves you, you know."

Lydia's words stopped him in his tracks. He thought maybe his heart might have ground to a halt, too, but no, that was wrong. It was pounding hard enough to pump hot blood into his face. He said, "She thinks she does. But that'll only last until some young buck her own age comes along and sweeps her off her feet. Till then, I pretend not to see it."

"For her own good?"

"And mine."

"Because you'll both get hurt in the end?" she asked.

He didn't answer, but he did find it in him to get moving toward the coffeepot again. Found a cup, filled it.

"You know, sometimes I think that if only I could have seen into the future, if only I could have known that loving Kimbra would lead me to this horrible, gut-wrenching grief of losing her, maybe I would have turned away from her the day we met. Maybe I wouldn't have taken that risk."

He nodded slowly, as if fully understanding.

"And then I realize," she went on, "that that would have been the biggest mistake of my life. God, when I think of the joy I would have missed. The days we had… the nights." She sniffed. "No. I'd suffer anything in exchange for the love we shared. Anything. I'd never trade it in. Not even if it meant my pain would vanish without a trace."

Lou sipped his coffee and pretended with everything in him that her pointed message was sailing right over his head. It wasn't, of course. But he could pretend.

Chapter 21

"But it's not even dark outside yet."

"I know," David said softly. "But, Morgan, you're exhausted." His tone, his eyes, everything, so concerned. Full of love and worry. And yet he was keeping something from her. She knew he was. And it was more than just the fact that he was trying to drug her so she would sleep the night through.

She would be damned before she would let him.

"Come on, sweetie. Drink the tea and then go on up to bed. You need your rest."

She eyed the teacup. Laced, no doubt, with the tranquilizers Dr. Hilman had given him today. God, if he only knew that her life depended on seeing Dante again, on convincing him to do whatever it took to make her immortal…

She lifted the tea to her lips, pretending to sip. Lowered the cup again and then took the napkin from the coffee table and dabbed the poisoned moisture from her lips. "I'll do as you say, David, if you'll tell me what it was you and that blond woman were discussing when I walked in on you this morning."

He glanced at her sharply. "I already told you. I was just telling her where to find her friends. Offering to drive her into town to join them."

"It looked like a bit more than that."

He shrugged carelessly, but didn't hold her probing eyes. "It wasn't easy trying to explain why you would throw your own sister out of your home, Morgan. If it seemed intense, it was because I was struggling to find a way to justify your behavior."

It was intended as a barb, and it bit home. It stung a little to have the one person who had never hurt her suddenly jabbing her that way.

He reached over, took her hand and held it gently. "I don't mean to hurt you, love. It's just so unlike you to be this unfriendly."

"It's unlike you to turn against me," she whispered.

"Oh, Morgan, no. Not against you. Never, ever against you."

"Then what were you and that woman conspiring about? You went dead silent when I walked in. You were discussing something you didn't want me to hear."

He ran his hand through her hair. "Only because I don't want anything upsetting you, as sick as you are right now. I didn't want her demanding explanations of you, and I didn't want you trying to offer them. That's all."

Tears were brimming in her eyes, and she blinked them away, telling herself that it didn't matter that her most beloved, most trusted friend was lying to her. She didn't need him. She only needed Dante.

"Drink your tea, darling. Come on."

He lifted the cup, held it out to her.

Taking the delicate china cup from his large hand, she nodded slowly. "I think I'll take your advice and go up to my room. I'll take it with me, sip it in bed."

"That's a good idea."

He helped her to her feet, and she carried the cup with her to the stairs, started up them. "I seem to have become an awfully light sleeper," she said as he walked beside her, one hand cradling her elbow. "Must be all this time living alone. I've become used to silence, I guess."

"I'll be quiet as a mouse, love. You need your rest." He stopped, opened her bedroom door for her. She offered him a meek and obedient smile, kissed him on the cheek and went inside.

"Good night, Morgan," David said, and he pulled the bedroom door closed.

She walked across the bedroom to the French doors, opened them up and stepped outside. Then she tipped the little teacup upside down, pouring its contents toward the ground below. The stiff sea wind scattered the tea into a thousand droplets before it ever hit the earth.

Sighing, Morgan walked back inside, glanced at the neatly made bed, at her white satin robe hanging from the bedpost and the empty teacup in her hand. She would have to make it convincing. David wasn't a fool.

She set the teacup on the bedside stand. Then she tugged the covers back, rumpled them up a little. When she rearranged them, she put pillows underneath, working them around, plumping and flattening, over and over, before tucking the covers around them. Then she stepped back toward the bedroom door to look from the same point of view David would have when he checked on her, as she knew he would.

Good. It looked good. Just as if she were lying in the bed, burrowed beneath the covers with her back to the door.

She stripped off her jeans, her sweater, dropping them on the floor in plain sight. Even her tennis shoes and white ankle socks. She pulled on the robe. Then, finally, as a last touch, she closed the French doors again and lowered the shades beneath the sheer curtains. She closed all her other bedroom shades, as well, blanketing the room in shadows. Now it would be even more difficult for anyone to tell she wasn't really in the bed, at least without turning on the lights, and she didn't think David would risk waking her to do that.

Finally she tiptoed to the closet, pulled a warm blanket-like shawl of soft black felt from its hanger and draped it over her shoulders. She slid her feet into a pair of tiny slippers, like ballet shoes, only velvet. Then she walked quietly to the bedroom door.

She had to pause there, because her breathing was out of control. Too fast and too loud to go unnoticed. Just the simple acts of the past five minutes and she was out of breath. It was getting worse. By the hour, it was getting worse.

She waited for her breathing to calm, her pulse to slow. Then, finally, she opened the bedroom door, just a crack, and peered out into the hall. It was empty. Silently, she crept out, closing the door slowly behind her. Then, step by carefully placed step, she moved toward the stairs. The living room loomed below her. empty. She started down the stairs, one hand gripping the railing in case she stumbled. So many stairs. God. Where the hell was he? Where was David?

She listened but didn't hear him. Looked but didn't see him.

Finally she reached the bottom, and that was when she heard footsteps above her. Snapping her head up. she saw David coming along the hall toward the top of the stairs, and she quickly got off them, ducked around them at the bottom and ran silently from the living room to the study.

Quickly she took her key from the pocket of her robe and let herself in, closing the doors behind her. Then she paused, leaning back against the doors to catch her breath.

It took time for her heartbeat to slow. Time for her breathing to become closer to normal again. When it did, she opened the safe and removed three of Dante's journals and the CD that contained the only copy of the new screenplay. The one she had been working on for months.

She closed her eyes, drew a steadying breath. She was doing the right thing. She had read the tale, in Dante's own words, of how a woman's love and betrayal had nearly cost him his life and that of his dear friend. She had to prove to him that she wasn't going to do the same thing. This gesture… this would show him.

She sealed the safe closed again, then listened at the doors and, hearing nothing, slipped out, relocking them quickly and moving into the dining room, into the kitchen. At the back door, the alarm panel stood at the ready, its red light blinking. David had armed the damned thing!

Breathlessly, she tried to remember the code, but her mind was whirling with other things. David was coining through the house now. Coming this way! Dammit, when had she told him the alarm codes? Hell, how hard was it for him to guess, even if she hadn't told him? Her birthday.

Right. Her birthday.

She quickly punched in the numbers. The green light flashed on. David was coining through the dining room now, toward the kitchen. His steps got nearer and nearer. She yanked open the kitchen door and darted through it, hugging the books to her chest with one arm. Then she pulled the door closed quickly, but as quietly as possible. She raced toward the large willow tree, mentally counting as she ran. The alarm would reactivate itself in thirty seconds. Morgan hoped to God David wouldn't notice the green light before it turned red again. Reaching the tree, she ducked behind it and kept counting. When she reached thirty, she waited, staring back at the door, expecting it to burst open and David to come outside to see what was going on. But he didn't.

He hadn't even seen her.

Sighing her relief, she turned away from the house and walked down toward the shore and the spot where she had last seen Dante. Then she sat there, shivering and pulling her shawl more closely around her. Waiting. Waiting for him to come. What if he didn't?

The scene from the night before kept replaying in her mind. The way he'd jerked in pain, the blood oozing from around the bolt in his arm, and then him falling. Just plummeting.

How could he have survived?

But he wasn't human. He wasn't alive, really. Biting her lip, she looked down over the side. And there she saw what she hadn't seen before, in the darkness. A ledge. He must have landed on the ledge.

Frowning, she looked around, chose a spot and clambered over the side, lowering herself onto the wide stone ledge, like a natural balcony overlooking the sea. It wasn't easy to cling to the journals, the CD tucked into the pages of the top one, while making her way down. Thank goodness she hadn't tried to bring more of them.

She landed on the ledge. Here, she thought. He must have landed here. She ran her palms along the stone, as if she could still feel him. But she couldn't. Were the tiny stains she saw his blood? They could just as easily be droplets of salt water or rain or dew.

"Where did you go, Dante?" She looked to the left and right but saw nothing. Below, only sea and rock. He couldn't have gone into the sea, could he?

Sighing, wondering if she could manage to climb back up, she stopped and stared into the tangle of vines and the opening beyond them. "A cave," she whispered.

Parting the vines with one arm, she crept inside, into pitch, utter darkness and the constant chill of the deep earth. She drew her shawl closer, straining her eyes to see ahead of her. Stretching out her free arm, she moved it back and forth in front of her as she walked forward in slow, abbreviated steps. She expected cobwebs. There were none. Just smooth, cold stone beneath her slippered feet. She kept expecting to reach an ending of some kind. A drop-off, perhaps, and her feet slid cautiously. But the floor didn't fall away.

Her mind kept telling her to turn back. But everything else, her instinct, her heart and this mindless yearning for Dante, made turning back impossible. She was compelled to move forward. There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself over and over as the darkness swallowed her. What was the worst that could happen? She could die? She was dying anyway.

She stopped swinging her hand and instead dragged it along the wall, until the wall curved away from her, and she stopped, startled. Okay, okay. She took her time, trying to get oriented, feeling her way. The walls hadn't vanished, just widened. She was in a larger area now. She patted the wall following it around until her hand felt a spot that was different Steel rather than stone. Her fingers scrambled outward to its edges, and she realized she had found a door. She located the handle, an iron ring, and tugged, then pushed and tugged and pushed again until the thing moved, just a little. God, this wasn't going to be easy. Especially given how weak she felt today. Still, she set her precious books aside, summoned what little strength she could find and continued working at the heavy door until finally she managed to drag it open just enough.

Then she paused and leaned back against a bumpy stone wall, panting, breathless. And slowly, as she tried to will her heartbeat to slow, she felt something. Some… awareness. Some sense beyond the normal five—not a smell, not a sound—told her that she was close to him. Dante. He was here, somewhere. She wanted to sniff, but not that exactly. She lifted her head, searching with her mind, scanning the air for that sense of him, finding it, stronger now, thrumming in the very center of her forehead.

"Dante… " she whispered, her heart catching in her chest. That hollow yearning clawed at her belly. She pushed off the wall, bent to feel around until she found her books and hugged them to her, then squeezed herself into the space made by the slightly opened door and through it. "Dante, are you here?"

No reply. Pitch darkness, and yet her voice didn't echo as it should. She moved around, again, using her hand to gauge the shape and size of the room. Flat walls, not curved. And it smelled different. Her thigh bumped something that rocked, and her hand shot to it to steady it.

A small table.

And the item on it… a lantern. Then there should be…

Yes, she patted the table and found the matches. She must be in the room beneath the study, she thought, her heart tripping into a gallop all over again. Was this where he had come?

She set her books on the table, then fumbled in the darkness, lit a match and put its flame to the lantern's wick. When the light shone from the globe, she lifted the lamp and turned.

The coffin was there. Closed. Empty?

Swallowing hard, she looked down, and then she went still. Something dark red had been poured out on the floor. A lot of it, a puddle of it near the door, and then a ribbon that unwound, and another puddle reside the coffin. Oh, God, he had lost so much blood!

Carrying her lamp in a trembling hand, she moved closer, stepping around the drying pools, and for an instant she managed to tear her gaze away from the dull, dusty box and the life blood on the floor, to look around for a hook or… There was an ancient nail sticking out of one of the beams above her head. It was cocked up at an angle, as if it had been put there for this very purpose. She slid the lantern's wire handle over the nail and let it hang there. Then, nervously, licking her lips, she turned back to the coffin.

Was it dark outside yet? It hadn't been when she had found this place. But it had been a while now. Maybe an hour as she had slowly traversed the cave.

Only the length of her back lawn, but that was seventy yards, at least, every step of which had very likely been painted in Dante's blood. In complete darkness Morgan had inched the length of it. And then there was the time she had spent wrestling with the door. Which should have been locked. If Dante had been all right, he would have locked the damned door.

Her hands curled over the wood of the coffin's lid. She closed her eyes slowly, drew a breath for courage, prayed she wouldn't find a lifeless shell inside, and then she lifted the lid upward.

Its hinges, rusted with age and disuse, creaked and groaned.

Dante lay inside, perfectly still, utterly white. His face, so lifeless and yet so real. Pale. "Dante… " She touched his face, then drew her fingertips away quickly at the cool chill of his flesh. Was he dead? Had he bled to death from that hunter's arrow in his arm?

Tears blurring her vision, she tore her gaze from his precious face and looked at the rest of his body. He wore the black silk he seemed to prefer in shirts, and she saw that the left sleeve was torn away, his left arm bare except for the band of black silk that was knotted around it high on his bicep, almost to the shoulder.

Had he stopped the bleeding with his makeshift bandage? Would the faded lining of the casket reveal bloodstains if she inspected it?

Her eyes slid to his face again. "Oh, Dante, please be all right. You have to be all right. I need you." She whispered the words as she cupped his face in her hands and pressed her mouth to his cold, still lips.

Her own tears flavored the kiss. And he did not respond at all.

The words she had read in one of his journals and used in her first film came flooding back to her mind now. There were only a few ways a vampire could die, but bleeding to death was one of them. His wound—that would have healed by now, with the day sleep. Unless he had died before it had the chance.

She moved to his arm, tugging at the knotted silk until she got it loose, and then she unwrapped it from around his arm. There was no wound. Dried blood, yes, but no gaping hole in his flesh. It had healed. The books had told the truth about that.

Then they must also be correct about the fact that the blood he had lost could be replaced only one way. He had to take it from someone else.

"From me," she whispered. "Yes. From me." Leaning close to his face again, she stroked his hair. "I know you won't let me die, Dante. I know you'll do the right thing—and make me what you are—before you'll let me fade and die. I know you will. I trust you." Bending, she kissed his forehead. Then she straightened again and ran her hands over his jeans, checking the pockets, knowing he carried some sort of blade. She had seen him use it.

She found it, slid her hand into his front pocket to retrieve it, and as her hand slid intimately close to him, she realized that he was erect. It surprised her. And she knew instinctively that it wasn't the normal sleeping state for vampires. No. It was her. She was near, touching him, kissing him, and somehow, even in this state of near dormancy, he sensed it. And he wanted her.

Morgan dragged her hand over the front of his jeans, caressing the hardness there as she brought the blade toward her. Opening her palm, she saw what looked like a small onyx-handled jackknife. But the blade she unfolded wasn't a knife blade. It was long and slender and looked like a Phillips head screwdriver, except that the X-shapes that crossed at its pointed tip were razor sharp.

She stared down at the device, and a little shiver went through her. If she jabbed herself in the wrong place and he didn't revive as she hoped he would, she might risk bleeding to death herself, she thought. She needed to be careful. Not the wrist. Not the throat.

Drawing a breath, she closed her eyes and tightened her fist around the odd little blade. Then, with one swift movement, she drove it into the palm of her other hand. Pain stabbed through her, and she cried out. The device clattered to the floor as Morgan gritted her teeth, opened her eyes and slowly opened her hand. Blood pooled into her palm. She looked past it at Dante. His nostrils quivered, and his hands were beginning to move sporadically.

"It's all right, my love. It's all right now." Fisting her hand to keep the blood from spilling, she moved it to his mouth. A droplet, then two, escaped her fist and touched his lips.

His tongue darted out to catch them. And then his hands sprang up like a trap, one closing on her forearm, the other pushing her palm to his open, questing mouth. Before she knew what was happening, he was fastened to her there, sucking at the tiny hole she had made, swallowing her.

The sensations coursed through her as they had before. Every part of her came alive, and some new kind of lust burned in her veins. She felt his teeth, his tongue swirling over her palm, lapping up every drop.

And then suddenly his eyes were open. Wide open, but unseeing. They glowed with a feral hunger, that predatory gleam she had seen before, as he took her hand from his mouth, held it away from him. He sat up suddenly, sprang from the casket, landing on his feet, still holding her hand at the wrist. His breath came fast, and each time he exhaled, there was a growl from deep within him. He jerked her body against his and ground his hips into her, his mouth trailing over her neck, sucking the skin between his teeth, nipping, drawing blood and moving on. The pain was sweet torture, and she arched against him. With one hand she managed to tug loose the sash of her white satin robe, and he pushed it off her shoulders as he nibbled a path over them.

"Take what you need from me, Dante."

One more low, deep growl, and then he pushed her with his body until she hit the concrete wall. He gripped her thighs in his hands, lifted them around his waist, and he drove into her. He was as cold, and hard as the stone at her back, and he filled her, rammed deeper and sank his teeth into her again and again. The bolts of pleasure and pain rocking through her mingled until she couldn't tell one from the other, and she screamed as she climaxed, her entire body shuddering with the unbearable force of her release, and still he kept pumping into her and sucking the life from her veins.

She clung to him, and she whispered that she loved him, that she would die for him, then feared that perhaps she was about to prove it.

Lou and Maxine sat in the car, a few yards down the road from Morgan's mansion. It was a good spot They had a clear view of the back lawn all the way to the cliffs, and the front and one side of the house, as well. Max didn't think anyone would be coming or going without her and Lou seeing them. She had a Diet Dr. Pepper, and he had a mug of coffee. The sky was purple out over the water, darkening up higher, the water mirroring its progression.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Quarter past dusk."

"Very funny." She looked toward the front door of the house, saw it open and that Sumner fellow fill the doorway. He spoke to Lydia for a second, then stepped aside and let her pass. "She's in."

"You thought she'd have a problem?"

Max shrugged. "Sumner said for us to stay away and give Morgan some space. I didn't expect him to welcome Lydia with open arms."

Lou shrugged. "She's a beautiful woman."

"Yeah, but she's not into men."

"More's the pity," Lou muttered.

Max punched him, maybe a little harder than if she'd just been playing.

"I meant for Sumner's sake, Max. Sheesh." He rubbed his shoulder. She had no doubt it really hurt.

"Ten to one she'll be back out here in five minutes," she said, smoothly changing the subject.

"I'll take that bet."

She scowled at him. "So what is it with you two, anyway?"

"Who? Lydia and me?"

She nodded. "Did you and she ever… ?"

"She's not into men."

"Was once," Max said.

"How do you know that?"

"She told me she had a kid with some guy." Lou joked surprised as hell. "What, you didn't know?"

"Sure I knew. I just didn't realize she'd told you."

She shrugged.

"What else did she tell you?"

"Nothing." She looked at him, and it was pretty damn clear in his eyes that there was something else. "Jesus, Lou, tell me it wasn't you."

"What?" He blinked twice, then gave his head a broad shake. "No. I didn't have anything to do with those babies."

Max tipped her head sideways. "Babies? There were more than one?"

He licked his lips. "This isn't our business, Max. You wanna know about Lydia's past, you ask Lydia."

"Fine. Don't get so damned defensive, will you? I just wanted to know if you'd boinked her or not."

He sent her a look of barely restrained impatience. "Not."

"Not that it's any of my business."

"You got that right."

"It's not like we're boinking on a steady basis."

"Or at all."

"Well, the night's young, Lou. Don't rule anything out."

Lou tipped his head back, thumped it against the headrest repeatedly and stared at the ceiling of the car. Max averted her face a little so he wouldn't see her grin. God, she loved teasing the man. She knew he reacted to it with a stirring of arousal. It wouldn't bother him so much if he didn't.

And she was going to tease the hell out of him tonight. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. Stuck on a stakeout with him like this. Alone, all night, in the car. Just the two of them. What would he do, she wondered, if she were to reach over there and lay her hand on his lap? Probably leap out of the car and run for the hills. She looked down at her hand where it rested on the seat in between them. Neat, short, unpainted nails. She wished for a moment that they were long and sharp and painted like her sister's. Men liked that, didn't they? She inched her hand a little closer to his leg.

"Who the hell is that?" Lou asked, his head coming level, eyes sharp.

She resisted swearing out loud and followed his gaze. Then a tingling alarm raced up her spine as she saw the dark figure moving toward the house. He passed by the lamp post on the walkway, and it illuminated his face for a moment.

"It's Scarface!" Max said, squinting, staring harder.

"Is he the same man you saw the night of the fire?"

"I don't know. It was five years ago, remember?" she snapped. "He's ringing the bell. Come on, we'd better move."

She yanked open her door and got out. Lou got out on his side and hurried around the car to meet her in front of it. "Stay behind me, Max."

She didn't argue, but she would be damned before she would use him as a human shield. They reached the walkway just about the time the door opened.

Sumner said, "Who the hell are you?"

"The man who was attacking Morgan the night we arrived," Max called.

Both men swung their gazes around to face her and Lou. Lou had his gun in his hand. He didn't point it, just made sure they saw it. "I think it's time we had a talk, Mister… Stiles, isn't it?"

The scar-faced man nodded, his hands hovering about waist high, palms out. "Frank Stiles," he said. "And that's why I'm here. I want to talk." He looked at Sumner. "To all of you. I don't think you know what you're dealing with."

Sumner glanced at Lou. "What do you think?"

Lou walked up to the man. "Put your hands up, pal." The man raised his hands a little higher, and Lou handed his gun to Max, quickly patted Stiles down, then took the gun back again. "Sumner, you wanna hear what this guy has to say?"

"I think we probably should, don't you?"

Lou nodded reluctantly. "You try anything, I won't hesitate. You understand."

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," Stiles said softly. "I just want to help."

Sumner stepped aside. Stiles walked in, with Lou and Max right behind him. "Help?" Max asked. "Is that what you were doing to my sister when we arrived the other night? Helping her?"

"I was checking her to see if she'd been bitten."

Max lowered her gaze as they all trooped through the house into the small sitting room off the main living area. She imagined that was so Morgan couldn't hear or see them if she happened to come down the stairs. "Where's Lydia?" Max asked as they all sat down.

"Upstairs, checking on Morgan." Sumner turned to Stiles. "If you have some explanation for attacking that girl, sir, I would suggest you give it now."

"I need to start at the beginning. If you'll just give me five minutes, I can make you understand—"

"Yeah?" Max asked. "You gonna make me understand why you put a bullet in my best friend's forehead, too, while you're at it?"

Stiles looked her dead in the eye. "I was there. It's true. I was at that apartment. But I did not hurt your friend. He did."

"He, who?"

"Dante. The killer I'm trying to track down."

"Vampires don't shoot people, Stiles."

"They do if they're trying to set someone up. Like me."

"So Dante framed you? Funny, the cops all seemed to think Lou did it. He was the one who ended up framed."

"Lou is a cop. They knew he hadn't done it almost immediately. I was the next obvious choice." Max rolled her eyes, but Stiles went on. "Listen to me. Please."

Throwing her hands in the air, Max sighed and paced away. "Fine. Fine, you have the floor." She sank into a chair. Sumner and Lou were already sitting, but Stiles remained standing.

"For twenty years I was an agent with the CIA's ultra-secret Division of Paranormal Investigations. Our headquarters was in White Plains. Our charge was the research and elimination of vampires."

Max nodded. She had already known all of this. Sumner seemed stunned as he glanced at Lou, then back at Stiles. "My God, you mean it's all true?"

"What I'm telling you is true. The vampires revolted, attacked the headquarters, burned it to the ground and killed most of the operatives. That was five years ago. It was a disaster. Our funding was pulled, the division completely shut down. Any surviving agents scattered, going undercover, as I did."

"Why?" Max asked.

"To avoid debriefing. We know a lot of things the government would rather not risk being made public." He eyed Max. "That's why I threatened you that night. I couldn't afford for anyone to know I was alive."

"And when I told someone, even though it was five years later, you knew somehow."

He nodded. "I still have a few connections in the Agency. One of them told me about Officer Malone's phone call."

"So you went to Lou's place, lured my best friend there and shot her to teach me a lesson?"

"No! I went to his place to try to find out what he knew. That vampire was there, waiting in ambush. The girl was already unconscious. Before I could do anything, he shot her. Then he just gave me this evil smile and took off." He shook his head slowly and went on. "I knew he'd come after Morgan next, that's why I drove all night to get to her. To warn her."

"And why did Dante do all this?" she asked.

"He knows what I've been doing," Stiles said. "Searching for the surviving members of the DPI, patting them back together, re-forming our group as an independent entity. An elite unit of expert vampire hunters." He sighed, lowering his head. "Dante wants to put me away. He figured if he made it look like I killed your friend, you and Lou would find a way to put me behind bars."

Max leaned back in her chair, trying to digest all he had said. "That doesn't explain what Dante was doing in Lou's apartment in the first place."

Shaking his head, he said, "Don't you get it? You and Lou were trying to find out who had killed that woman—Lydia Jordan's friend. It must have been Dante. He must have been afraid you were getting close and gone there to see what you had on him."

"It's a little farfetched," Max said, sighing, turning it over in her mind.

Lou said, "What I don't get is, why do you want to kill all the vampires?" Everyone looked a little surprised, but he shrugged and went on. "Hey, if they're anything like the way Morgan depicts them in the films, they aren't so bad."

"Morgan is under the control of a powerful vampire, Officer Malone," Stiles said. "Trust me, I know what they're capable of. He's got her completely mesmerized. She'll do anything he says, even turn against the people who love her in order to protect him."

"I don't understand that," Max said. "How is that possible?"

"Your sister has a certain blood antigen. It's called Belladonna," Stiles said. "And it's slowly killing her."

"How do you know about that?" Sumner demanded, getting to his feet.

"Whenever the antigen was identified in a mortal's blood, that information was forwarded to the DPI's files. There aren't many who have it. But those who do, attract vampires like honey attracts bees. They feed on them, suck the life out of them. That's why they all die young. It's not the antigen. It's the vampire it attracts. And unless we kill this one, he'll keep coming back, keep on feeding on your precious Morgan until she dies. But if we stop him, she'll live."

Sumner averted his eyes, but Max saw the tears. "The doctor says it's the blood condition that's killing her."

"But he doesn't know how or why. Everyone with the blood type dies young. I'm telling you what the doctors don't know, Sumner. It's because they become victims. Belladonna blood is the vampire's favorite kind."

Max stared at him. "Are you telling me that she can get better? She can live?"

He nodded. "She can live. But we have to protect her from the vampire."

Blinking, Max looked at Lou, silently asking him to tell her that he believed this man, God, she wanted it to be true.

But Lou shook his head almost imperceptibly. Before he could speak, though, Lydia came charging into the room, breathless, wide-eyed. "She's gone!" she shouted. "Morgan is gone!"

Chapter 22

Dante's body surged with pleasure but not vigor. It was an odd sensation. He was sated, yet still groggy, weak. Maybe he had only dreamed the pleasures of release, of possession…

He lifted his head, blinked his vision clear. And frowned, more disoriented than before. He was on the floor, his back braced against the cool stone wall. And the lantern was burning. He didn't remember lighting it. He didn't remember waking.

He wasn't wearing his shirt. His jeans were undone and halfway down his hips. He tasted blood on his lips.

And then he saw her, lying naked in a puddle of white satin.

"Morgan!" Dante surged to his feet, only to sink to his knees again at the wave of dizziness that drowned him. One hand pressed to his forehead, he forced himself upright and walked on his knees to her. She lay on her side, curled into a fetal position, hair covering her face. "Jesus, Morgan… " He caught her shoulders, rolled her onto her back. Her hair fell away from her face, and he stared down in horror at her white skin, her closed eyes, her parted, pale lips. He had to force himself to look at her throat, at her body. And when he did, tears welled in his eyes. Tears. He didn't remember the last time he had cried for anyone, much less a mortal. Her throat bore the marks of his invasion. And there were more. Tiny pairs of pinpricks on her breasts and shoulders. Her belly and thighs. It hadn't been a dream. He had ravaged her. Taken her in every way. Her body. Her blood.

"God, Morgan, what the hell have I done?" He returned his gaze to her face, cradling her upper body in his arms, bending over her. "Please wake up. Please, Morgan, live. I can't have done this. Not to you." He listened for her breath. He felt for her heartbeat. He scanned for her life force… and sensed it, still there. Weak, but there.

Her eyes opened to the merest slits, and her lips curled somehow into a shadow of a smile. "Oh, my love… "

"Hush. Don't try to speak. God, Morgan, I'm sorry. I'm… "

"I… brought something for you."

He shook his head, not understanding what she meant, but she shifted her eyes and his gaze followed; he saw the books on the wobbly table.

"Your journals."

"My journals… " He searched his memory. "I left instructions with an attorney. They were to be shipped to a storage unit for safe—oh, hell what does it matter now?"

"It matters," she whispered. Her jaw clenched; she swallowed, began again. "The script, too. On a disk, there with the books. The one I've been writing. Destroy it, Dante."

He stared at her, shaking his head.

"You have to know you can trust me. I brought them all to you—to prove myself."

"You're worried about whether I trust you? My God, Morgan, look what I've done to you."

"You did what I asked you to do," she whispered. Weakly, she lifted a hand, touched his face. "Tears? Why are you crying?"

His hands trembled in her hair as he bowed over her, holding her head to his belly, shuddering with barely contained anguish. "How can you ask that? God, Morgan, I'm so sorry." His voice broke, and he shuddered with emotion as he held her.

"Fix it," she breathed. And she spoke now as if each word was an effort. "Feed me. Make me immortal, like you are."

Tipping his head back, Dante closed his eyes, clenched his jaw.

"Dante…please. You won't let me die. I know you won't."

A hot tear rolled off his cheek and fell onto her face as he lowered his head to look at her. "I can't transform you, Morgan. Not now. I'm too weak. You wouldn't survive the ordeal, and if by some miracle you did, you'd be little more than a mindless zombie."

She expelled a long, wavering breath. "I don't understand… I thought—"

"Sharing the gift takes a vampire at his strongest. And even then it drains him, weakens him. Last night I nearly bled to death before the day sleep healed my wound."

"But you drank from me."

He lowered his head.

"It's because I'm so ill, isn't it? My blood has barely any life left in it. That's it, isn't it?"

He nodded without looking her in the eye. "I've seen the effects of the gift gone bad before, Morgan. A vampire brought into this life with weak blood, or too little blood. Mindless shells with no reason, no thought, no personality, who exist only to feed. Monsters, truly monsters. I can't curse you to that kind of existence. I won't." Finally he met her eyes again. "I'm sorry, sweet Morgan. I'm so sorry."

"Well, you've done it again, haven't you, love?"

The voice was Sarafina's, and it came from near the entrance to his lair. Dante looked up at her. She wore red, full sweeping skirts of it, with a sheer black overskirt and enough jewelry to please a queen. "Tina. Thank God."

"Don't thank God for me, Dante. He has nothing to do with my existence." She narrowed her eyes on his face. "Are those tears I see? My God, look at you. Reduced to weeping over a mortal." When she tossed her head, her earrings jangled.

"You have to help her," Dante said. He saw Sarafina's anger, felt it like a red hot cloud around her, but he had to try. "She'll die unless you bring her over."

She released a burst of air, waved a dismissive, ring-bedecked hand, and her bracelets rang. "You want her so badly, bring her over yourself."

"I can't. I'm too weak."

"Oh, come now, Dante, you'd love her as an imbecile. She would obey your every whim. Be your slave forever, even better than a mortal one. They're so fragile, you know. She could hunt for you, serve you. Wouldn't you like that?"

He lifted his head. "You're the one with the penchant for mindless drones, not me."

"No, but you do seem to be the one more apt to fuck a mortal to death. This makes what, now? Two?"

"She's not dead."

"Give her an hour."

"Why won't you help me?"

Sarafina lifted her brows. "Because you've turned your back on me, Dante. You've decided, quite obviously, that I am no longer enough of a companion for you. That you need to bring in someone new. To replace me."

"That's not how it is."

"No? It's how I see it. I'll tell you what, Dante. If you really want my help, let me finish the little bitch off for you. I would so enjoy devouring whatever small amount of blood you left in that pale, weak little body."

Anger heated his blood, and Dante gently lowered Morgan's head and rose to his feet. Standing straight, he faced Sarafina. "I'll kill you first."

She flinched. He saw it, a short flash in her eyes. A tightening of her lips. "And that proves what I've said, doesn't it? You'd kill me, your life mate, for her?"

"You are not my mate. Or my wife or my partner or even my lover, 'fina."

"I made you," she whispered.

"And therefore you own me?"

She stood so tense and so rigid that her entire body trembled. And then she said, "Damn you to hell for betraying me, Dante! Damn you with the rest of my kin. I need none of you!" Then she whirled in a swirl of skirts and a clatter of jewels, and fled through the door, a blur of speed and motion.

Morgan's soft but desperate sigh drew his attention from Sarafina's pain—which he felt keenly. Logical or not, Sarafina was hurting. Now, though, he had no care for his dark mother's pain. Only for Morgan's.

"This is… all my fault," she whispered.

"Why did you do this, Morgan? Why?"

She shook her head. "You were so weak. I thought you might die."

"And it didn't even occur to you that you could die far more easily than I?" He knelt beside her, gathering her up into his arms, lifting her as he stood again. Then he shook his head. "No. No, you trusted that I wouldn't let that happen, didn't you?"

"This is my doing, not yours," she told him, leaning her head against his chest.

"I'm not going to let you die, Morgan."

She closed her eyes, but he saw her tears anyway, dampening and darkening her lashes from within. He carried her into the passage and along it, leaving the light far behind.

"The journals," she said suddenly. "You must bring them, Dante. And go to the house for the others."

"We can do that together, when you're well."

"They're in the safe, in the study. The year I found you—that's the combination. Nineteen ninety-seven."

"I'm not going to let you die, Morgan." He was weak, growing weaker by the second. But dammit, he could save her, save them both. He would.

"It's not your fault, Dante," she whispered.

He emerged from the cave and managed to hold her while climbing up the side of the cliff. Ordinarily he would have simply pushed off with his feet and jumped the distance. A small leap for one as powerful as he. But not tonight. Tonight he barely managed to clamber up the steep, stony path without dropping her, and when he reached the level ground, he was breathless, his muscles trembling with strain.

He started toward the house.

"Dante?" she whispered. "No! Don't take me back to them—I want to stay with you."

"You'll die without help, Morgan."

"Then I'll die in your arms. I'll breathe my last against your lips. Dante, don't make me go… "

He stopped walking and stared down at the woman who had risked her own life to preserve his. Who had trusted him completely and given selflessly. He had never believed anyone could love him the way this wraith-like creature must. His own family had turned against him. He'd lived his life trusting in no one. But he trusted her. And he realized, too late, damn him, that he'd known he could trust her before she had surrendered the journals or her work. Before she'd bled herself to the brink trying to save his worthless life. He loved her.

Leaning closer, cradling her head in his palm and lifting her face to his, he kissed her. Slowly, tenderly, he kissed her.

"Stay alive for me, Morgan. One night, so I can feed and grow strong again. One day, so the sleep can regenerate my power. Then I'll come for you. I swear I will. No army of mortals will keep me from you again."

He kissed her again, but this time her lips went slack against his, and when he lifted his head, hers hung limply and her eyes had fallen closed. He heard voices, saw her family and friends walking around the back lawn with flashlights, calling Morgan's name.

Lifting his chin, he called out to them. "Here. She is here."

"There he is!" someone shouted. "He's got Morgan!"

The gang of mortals came running toward him. Gently he laid Morgan down in the cool grass, bent to kiss her forehead and then, straightening, turned to flee. He had to live, to get strong again, so he could save her.

In three strides, the bolt penetrated his thigh. Pain beyond endurance shrieked through him as he tried to keep going. Weight on the leg intensified it even more, and he felt the blood pumping out of him. Three more steps. He went down hard, then tried to crawl, and finally, on his belly, he dragged himself toward the cliffs. Toward the edge. If he could pull himself over, maybe there was still a chance…

"Finally. You son of a bitch, I've finally got you." A hand clasped his shoulder and rolled him harshly onto his back.

The scarred man stared down at Dante. And then he smiled.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God… " Max knelt beside her sister. Morgan lay still on the ground, a white silk robe around her body, fresh puncture marks in her neck. No question now. "You see them, don't you? You see them, too, this time, don't you?"

Beside her, one arm around her shoulders, Lydia nodded. "I s-see them. I don't believe it, but I—I see them."

David said nothing; he was speechless, frightened to death.

Lou had his fingers on Morgan's wrist. He looked up, nodded once. "She's alive."

Max bent almost double, face contorting, sobs choking her, relief too powerful to contain. "Let's get her to the house."

Lou looked further along the lawn and frowned, getting to his feet. "Take her, David. I'll just be a sec."

Max followed his gaze to where Frank Stiles was leaning over the fallen form of the dark man who had done this to Morgan. Lou was striding over there, and Max got up, too. "Stay with her," she told Lydia, even as David gathered Morgan into his arms and started for the house. Then she ran to catch up to Lou.

Stiles said, "I've got you at last. You're not going to get away from me this time."

As Max looked beyond Stiles' vicious scowl to the man who lay on the ground, she caught her breath. He was exactly like the images Morgan had drawn—the ones that lined the walls of her study. "Dante, I take it?"

He nodded, but it was obvious he was in considerable pain. She looked him over, saw the blood gushing from around the metal bolt that pierced his thigh, and acted instinctively, dropping to her knees, tearing the denim fabric. "It must have hit an artery or something. My God, the bleeding… "

"His kind always bleed like that," Stiles spat. "Let him bleed out. He'll be dead in a few minutes."

"If I am," the fallen, dark man muttered through clenched teeth, "Morgan will be, as well."

"Don't you dare threaten my sister," Max whispered.

"I don't think it was a threat, Maxie," Lou said.

He dropped to one knee, clasped the bolt, glanced at Dante. Dante nodded once, and Lou pulled the arrow-like rod out in one smooth motion. As he did, Dante tipped his head back and howled in pain. Then Lou yanked his belt free of its loops, wrapped it around the thigh, above the wound, pulled it tight and watched as the bleeding slowed. He searched his pockets and emerged with a jackknife, then poked a hole in the leather so he could fasten the belt in place. He fastened the belt so tightly that Dante's thigh looked practically like an hourglass.

"I don't understand why you're helping him," Max finally said. "Why are we helping him, after what he did to Morgan?"

"No, no, Lou is right," Stiles said softly. "He's of far more use to my people alive."

Dante's gaze snapped to Lou's. And it surprised the hell out of Max to see what looked like the barest hint of fear in the vampire's eyes.

Lou drew her attention away from that, though, with his next words. "He brought Morgan to us. He called out to get our attention and got himself shot with that freaking crossbow of yours for his trouble. Where the hell did you have that thing, anyway, Stiles? I searched you before I let you in the house."

"It was in my car. I grabbed it the moment we realized Morgan was missing."

"He brought her back," Lou said. "He didn't have to do that. If he was trying to kill her, why would he have bothered?"

Stiles swore emphatically and rolled his eyes. "Doesn't matter. He's my prisoner as of right now. Get him out to my car and I'll take it from there. You people won't be bothered by him again."

Lou lifted his brows. "You're not taking anyone anywhere, Stiles. Get your ass to the house with the others or get the hell out of here."

"This is my project, Malone. I'm a fucking Federal agent."

"You're a former Federal agent, pal. My badge, on the other hand, is current, and unless you want to end up being my prisoner, I suggest you let me handle this."

Max saw Lou glance at her, his eyes searching. She looked at the creature on the ground, then at Lou again. Then she shook her head in disgust. She got up, gripped Stiles by the arm and tugged him along beside her back toward the house. He didn't fight her much. That worried her.

"You give that animal half a chance, he'll finish your sister off. Just like he did to your friend."

"Why don't you just leave and let us deal with this?"

"Oh, no. I'm not going anywhere."

"If you're staying, you're playing this our way. Otherwise Lou won't have to arrest you, because I'll do worse. You understand?"

Sneering at her in contempt, he nodded.

"Thank you," the vampire said.

"Don't thank me. I can't let you just walk away from this, you know."

"You have to let me go."

Lou shook his head. "What did you mean by what you said before? If you die, she'll die, too."

The vampire looked at him, searched his face. "I'm supposed to think you'll believe me if I explain it?"

"I don't believe any of this. But I do want to hear it."

Dante paused for a long moment, as if thinking. "I can save her. I'm the only one who can."

"How?" Lou asked.

Dante studied him, sighed. "I can't tell you that. Only that I need to heal, to get my strength back, before I can do a thing to help Morgan."

"Uh-huh," Lou said. "And how do you do that?"

The vampire looked away. "I have to feed."

"So you want me to let you loose so you can go bite some innocent and leave them as bad off as Morgan, or maybe worse?"

He helped the suspect up, drew one of the man's arms around his shoulders and started walking him toward the house. The guy was in some pretty intense pain, Lou knew that much. "I can't do that."

"I don't kill."

"And if you did, you'd admit it to me?"

Dante winced every time he put weight on his leg. "No. I suppose not."

"It's my responsibility to keep you in custody," Lou said, reasoning it all out in his mind as he went along. "That's the best I can do, just treat this like any other case. You're my chief suspect. From all apearances, you attacked Morgan. I can't book you and bring you up for a bail hearing—but I can keep you where you can't do any more harm until I figure all this out."

Dante sighed, and Lou wasn't sure if it was in compliance or despair. "Just keep her alive," he said.

"You know how sick she is, don't you? Even if she survives whatever the hell happened tonight, she's not gonna last much longer."

The vampire closed his eyes. "You just keep her alive. Promise me… "

Lou nodded. "I'll do my damnedest."

The vampire nodded. Then he said, "You seem like a decent man, for a mortal. Which makes me even more sorry… "

Lou frowned. "Sorry for wha—" He didn't get to finish. Something—a fist, he thought, though it felt more like a cannon ball—smashed into his head, and he went down in a heap.

Morgan's head turned back and forth as her body trembled. She was so weak, so incredibly weak. Max sat by her side on the sofa, doing her best to keep her sister still, as Lydia paced. David Sumner sat in a small chair in the corner, tears welling in his eyes.

Morgan whimpered and muttered. Every few unintelligible sounds she made were punctuated by one intelligible word. Dante. It was breaking Max's heart. She licked her lips, glanced up at the doorway when Lou came in. He was alone.

"Lou?"

"Sorry," he said, rubbing one side of his head. "He got away from me."

A string of curses polluted the room, and Max glared at Frank Stiles, who had been sitting in the shadows, observing everything. He snatched up his crossbow from the floor beside him and surged toward the door.

Lou stepped into his path. "It's not your place," he said.

"He'll kill again if you let him go. He has to, or he'll die himself. You saw how weak he was."

"I don't think he's gonna kill anyone," Lou said.

He looked past Stiles at Max and went on. "He could've killed Morgan. Hell, he could've killed me just now, if that was what he wanted."

"Lou, what if you're wrong?" Max whispered.

"What if I'm not?" Lou asked. "Max, he says he can save her. What if he's the one telling the truth here?"

"Oh for the love of—you honestly believe that? The word of an animal, for Christ's sake? Over me, one of your own kind?"

"Mr. Stiles, I don't think anyone in this room is one of your kind," Lydia muttered.

David Sumner looked at her, then back at Stiles. "Lydia, you can't be on the vampire's side in this. My God, look at Morgan."

"I am looking at her, David. And I'm listening to her, too. Are you? She loves him. She's dying, and all she can think of is him. Doesn't that say something to you?"

"It says she's in some kind of trance, just like Stiles told us."

"Or Stiles is lying and Morgan knows the truth," Lydia countered.

David jumped to his feet. "He put holes in your daughter's fucking throat, Lydia!"

She snapped her head up, eyes wide. Max thought her own heart stopped beating as she stared from David Sumner to Lydia and back again. "Wha-what did you just say?" Then, to Lou, "What did he just say?"

David dropped his face into his hands. "I'm sorry. It just—I'm sorry." His voice was muffled.

Max walked slowly to where Lydia stood. She stared at her for a long moment, searching her face, studying her features. Plumper than her own, more careworn. But suddenly there were similarities.

"You…you're…our mother?"

"I didn't ever want you to know," Lydia said, and it seemed as if she had to force the words through a space far too small.

"Why?" Max asked.

Lydia closed her eyes, shook her head quickly "Oh, come on. Is this your fantasy, Maxine? That your birth mother was a teenage runaway who sold her body on the streets to get by?"

Max's eyes filled with tears. "This is too much all at once. I can't deal with this right now." She blinked rapidly, brushed her eyes with the back of one hand. "Jesus, where the hell is that ambulance?" She paced away, looked out the window, then dropped the curtain and turned again. "Did you know this all along? Is that why you had Lou introduce us?"

Lou spoke before Lydia could answer. "She didn't know, Max. I… I had a suspicion. I knew your birthday was the same day Lydia always lights a candle and spends the day weeping for the babies she gave up. And that was why I put the two of you together So you could figure it out for yourselves."

Max stared at him, her face wet now. "You should have told me. How could you not tell me?"

"How could I tell you when I wasn't even sure myself?"

"Well, this is all very touching," Stiles said at last-stepping closer to the door. "But the longer I stand around listening to this soap opera, the farther that animal is getting from me." He started for the door.

Again Lou stepped into his path.

"Get out of my way, Malone."

"Give me the crossbow, Stiles."

Stiles smiled darkly, shook his head side to side. Take it, if you think you can." That implies that you don't think I can."

The man's smile widened, twisting his scarred face into a warped semblance of a sneer. "You're saggy, baggy, out of shape and tired."

"Well, yeah… " Lou shrugged, pulled his revolver, and pushed the barrel into Stiles's belly, all in one smooth motion. "But I have this."

Stiles shot his hands up over his head. Lou reached out and took the crossbow from one of them. "Now, go sit down."

Stiles glared at him, but he went back to his corner and sat. A second later a siren screamed outside, growing louder until finally its strobes of red and white light were chasing each other through the room from beyond the windows.

Lou put his gun away and turned to open the door as paramedics came inside carrying red boxes of equipment. Max stood, watching everything happen and seeing none of it. She was disoriented, confused and angry as hell.

And then Lou was there, pulling her close to him. "You look shocky."

"You should've told me, Lou."

"You had so much else to deal with."

"No shit." Mentally, she went over the shocks of the past few days. She'd found out that she had a twin sister, met that sister and learned she was dying. She had seen her best friend lying in a coma from which she might never recover. She had discovered that the ex-hooker with the heart of gold she had been jealous of was her mother. And tonight she had met her first vampire. Face-to-face. Jesus.

"Go to the hospital with your sister. Watch over her. Keep him away from her."

"Dante or Stiles?"

"Both. You shouldn't have to worry about Stiles, though. I'm gonna keep him with me."

"And where are you gonna be?"

"I have to go after Dante."

The paramedics were muttering over Morgan and strapping her onto a stretcher now. Max watched them for a moment. Then, "Lou, you just stopped Stiles from going after Dante—a move I could kick you for. Now you're going after him yourself and taking Stiles with you?"

"I stopped Stiles from hunting him down like an animal. Killing him—or worse. That's not what I intend to do."

"No, you're gonna hunt him down like a human being, aren't you? Read him his rights when you catch him, that sort of thing?"

Lou lowered his head. "Something like that."

"He tried to kill my sister. He's not a human being."

"I know that."

"Know this, too." She took the crossbow from his hands as they wheeled her sister out the door. "You can protect him all you want. But if he tries to get near Morgan again, I'll kill him myself. And I won't let anyone stop me. Not even you."

Then she turned away, only to bump into Stiles. He nodded as if in approval and tucked a business card into her hand. "My cell phone number. You're the only one seeing things clearly here. You might need me."

She shoved him aside and headed out the door after the paramedics, yanking a jacket off a hook on the way and draping it over her arm to conceal the weapon. She crammed Stiles' card into her jeans pocket. At the last moment she turned, glanced at Lydia. "You and David can follow in the car, all right? I want to stay with her, in the ambulance."

Lydia looked stunned, then relieved, as she smiled wetly and nodded. "We'll be right behind you."

Max faced forward again, started to leave. Halfway to the ambulance, she stopped. "Lou?"

He was there, only a few paces behind her. She'd felt him following. "Be careful, okay? Don't turn your back on that snake Stiles for a second. Or on Dante, either."

"Didn't plan to."

She turned her head, looked him in the eyes. She hated him for letting that animal go. No, she didn't. Not really.

"Ma'am?"

Max pulled her eyes away, turned toward the paramedic who'd called her. He stood holding the ambulance doors open.

"We have to go, ma'am."

Nodding, she hurried to the vehicle and climbed inside.

Lou watched her go, feeling like pond slime. He had let her down. That was betrayal he had seen in her eyes. She had expected him to take her side, avenge her sister. Hell, part of him had wanted to, but you didn't spend twenty years as a cop and not assimilate the training. It was who he was, a part of him. Something about Stiles wasn't right. Something about Dante didn't fit the profile Stiles had laid out. Something was off, he felt it right to his toes, and goddammit, his gut was telling him the monster was the good guy in all this.

It made no sense, but there it was.

As the ambulance drove out of sight, David and Lydia following close behind it in Sumner's Mercedes, Lou turned to go back inside.

But naturally, when he got there, Stiles was long gone.

Chapter 23

Under normal circumstances Dante would have been able to travel far faster on foot. But tonight he needed a car. So rather than struggling into some secluded place to rest, he limped weakly into the town and along the sidewalks, scanning the parked vehicles for dangling sets of keys. The other man's belt was still tied tight around his thigh, but every step he took caused blood to ooze from the wound. His jeans were soaked in it, and he was leaving an obvious trail, a crimson strand. The pain was blinding.

And fate seemed to be conspiring against him, because every car in the area was locked. Not a key in sight. In all his years he'd never mastered the art of car theft, and he regretted it now. If he survived this, it was a skill he would strive to learn.

Headlights shone in his eyes, and Dante instinctively backed into the shadowy recesses of a doorway. The car, a white Ford Mustang, pulled into an empty parking space, its radio blasting. Then it went silent and the lights died.

Closing his eyes, Dante focused his mind, casting a wide net and searching, sifting a thousand mental voices for those near him, then those nearer, and nearer still, quickly homing in on the driver. The young man was happily drunk and humming to himself, thinking about the girl in the passenger seat and how willing she was. Thinking about how many times he could do her before the booze he'd imbibed put him to sleep and reminding himself not to drink any more tonight so he could make the most of her.

Dante crept into his mind as silently as a burglar, and every time his thoughts strayed toward the keys in the ignition, Dante distracted him by gently nudging his mind back to thoughts of booze and sex and the woman in his car beside him. It wasn't difficult at all when they were drunk.

Within moments the young man was out of the car, laughing as he came around it, slung an arm around the girl and walked unevenly into one of the buildings that lined the street. Dante sensed them going up the stairs to the apartment above a shop. He let them get inside before he withdrew from the young man's mind. By then he was breathless, such a simple use of energy damn near draining him.

Pushing himself upright, he walked, dragging his wounded leg now. He made his way to the car and saw with relief that the keys were in the ignition. Yanking the door open, he got in, started the engine and drove away.

He needed blood, and he needed stitching, to keep himself from bleeding out before the day sleep could heal him. 'Fina had abandoned him. Though the way she saw it, he had no doubt abandoned her first. He had to get to Belinda, the woman he kept in Bangor.

It took an hour to get to her place. Her apartment i He had a keycard that let him in, and he made his way to the elevators, all without being seen by anyone. The place was dark and nearly silent this time of the night. Finally he reached her floor. Thank God. He wasn't going to last much longer.

He fell against her door, thumping weakly with a fist. When she didn't answer, he opened it and stumbled inside.

Belinda lay across the sofa. She wore red and welcomed him with sightless eyes. No. She wasn't wearing anything at all. Her wrists were laid open. Blood had spattered over the walls, hit the ceiling in places, and soaked into the carpet and the sofa. Her body was covered in it. And it was old blood. Dead blood. Wasted.

"Did you think I didn't know about her, Dante?"

Dante spun, nearly falling over at the sudden movement.

Stiles stood there, grinning at him with that twisted mockery of a smile. "I couldn't leave your little human blood bank alive. You needed her too much. I knew you'd come here tonight."

"She was an innocent. God, you heartless bastard." Dante tried to lunge forward but slumped instead, catching himself on a table then standing there, bowed, weakening.

"The end justifies the means, though. What you don't know is that I've reorganized some of the men who used to work for the DPI. Oh, there aren't many of us. Only a handful. Survivors of that famous vampire uprising in White Plains."

Dante shook his head. "The government—"

"Has nothing to do with us. We're privately funded. Your kind should be careful who they feed on, Dante. Rich men like vengeance, and they can afford to buy it."

Panting, Dante managed to keep his head up, though it wanted to fall. "Glorified hit men," he muttered.

"Vampire hunters. When we aren't being paid, we do it… just for fun." Stiles stepped inside, and three other men came in behind him, carrying weapons. One had a gun, one a crossbow, one a stake. Dante closed his eyes at the cliché of the third weapon, shook his head. "I see you have a rookie."

Stiles laughed. It was a low, honestly amused sound, yet dangerous at the same time. "It's good that you can joke at a time like this," he said at length. "No, Dante, that's no rookie. The stake has been treated with a new chemical we think will do your kind in. But, of course, we won't know until we test it." Coming closer, he lifted Dante's chin. "Guess who gets to be our guinea pig?"

Dante put all the power he still had into the fist he drove into Stiles' belly. Stiles doubled over, staggering backward, and the other three rushed forward.

"Hold it right there."

Lou Malone, the mortal cop, stood in the doorway with his handgun drawn, and the men in the room went still.

"Drop 'em!" Lou shouted.

Weapons clattered to the floor.

"Up against the far wall. Come on, move it. Face in. That's it," he said as he herded them. "Hands behind your heads. Feet apart, forehead to the wall. That's better."

He jerked his head at Dante. Nodding, Dante made his way toward the door, but on the way he paused, dropping to one knee to pick up the wooden stake. As soon as he closed his hand around the wood, his skin began to burn, and he dropped it fast, clutching his wrist and staring in shock at the smoke curling from his seared palm. Struggling to his feet, he staggered into the hallway.

"I've got a car outside," Lou said. "Wait in it, and keep it running. I'll be out in a sec." Lou grabbed a telephone, dialed 9-1-1.

Dante went to wait in the car.

Lou clocked the men on the head with the butt of his revolver. Then he ran the chain of his handcuffs under an old iron radiator and put the cuffs on two of them. He locked the door and left them there, figuring that ought to hold them until the local cops arrived. They would be detained for at least a little while. Long enough for him to get his preternatural prisoner tucked away safe and sound.

He figured he would have another leg of that chase on his hands, but at least now he wouldn't have Stiles mucking up the works. So he was surprised to get back to his car to find Dante slumped inside. He couldn't believe the vampire hadn't run again.

He got in, drove the car back to the hotel in Easton, and used the rear entrance to get the vampire in and up to the suite. Dante came around slightly as Lou hauled him bodily into the hotel, straight to the elevator and up to their floor. Inside, he took the groggy vampire straight to the bathroom and set him on the floor with his back against the wall.

Dante was still. Shit. Maybe he was already dead. Lou was damned if he knew how to tell. Did you check for a pulse? Did a vampire even have a pulse?

He found some scissors, a needle and some thread in Lydia's makeup bag. Okay. So he could at least stitch the guy up. The damn blood was still leaking out of him, making a puddle on the bathroom floor.

Using the scissors, Lou sliced away the jeans from just below the makeshift tourniquet. He peeled the blood-soaked denim away, tossing it into the tub. Then he glanced from the slick red length of Dante's leg to the needle and thread sitting on the counter. "Shit."

He got up and went into the living room part of the suite, opened the little mini-bar and took out two bottles. Whiskey and vodka. Twisting the cap off the whiskey, he tipped it to his own lips and drank it down.

Releasing a breath, he twisted the cap off the vodka, carried it back into the bathroom, and poured some of it over the wound in the front of the vampire's thigh. It rinsed the blood away, and Dante groaned in pain. When Lou looked at him, his eyes were open.

"I was beginning to think you were dead."

"What the hell are you doing to me?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking this thing's gonna bleed to the last drop. I assume that's bad, even for a vampire."

Closing his eyes, Dante nodded. "Especially for a vampire."

"Thought so." Lou took the needle. It had a strand of black thread in it, and he poured a little vodka over it.

"That's not necessary," Dante said. "I'm not going to get an infection."

"You don't say." Shrugging, Lou leaned over the wound. "Brace yourself." He poked the needle through, surprised as hell by the howl of pain. "Hell, even I wouldn't yell like that. I thought you were tough."

Through clenched teeth, Dante said, "Sensations… are… magnified in my kind."

"Oh. I didn't know." Lou looked at him; his face was a twisted grimace of pain. "Should I stop?"

"No."

This time, when he pushed the needle into the man's flesh, Lou winced himself. Four stitches, nice and tight. That was all it took to completely close the wound. He nodded, satisfied with himself.

"There's another… just like it," Dante said. "On the other side."

"Christ." Lou reached for the vodka, drank what remained of it, and helped Dante to roll over.

It was agonizing to inflict this kind of pain on someone, vampire or otherwise. Lou was damn near to losing his lunch by the time he finished, and his patient was little more than a quivering lump. Still, the stitches held. Dante wasn't bleeding anymore. Not even when Lou hauled his ass off the floor, braced him over the edge of the tub and hosed the blood off him as best he could. Then he toweled the vampire off and helped him to the nearest bed.

He figured if Dante lasted the night, he would be all right. Lou had picked up enough from their earlier conversation to have figured out that vampires healed by day, while they slept. He cleaned up the mess in the bathroom, and then he made himself comfortable in a chair near the bed, planning to sit vigil over the guy until sunrise.

It was going to be a long night. Sighing, he picked up the phone, called the hospital, asked to be patched through to Max.

Her voice, when she came on the line, was strained, tired. Old. Way too old to be coming from a girl like her. He wanted to say something that would make it better. Comfort her. Something. But damned if he knew what.

"How's Morgan doing?" Stupid question. How the hell did he think she was doing?

"They're giving her fluids. No blood. No donors. She needs it or she'll die." Her voice broke though she struggled not to reveal that she was crying.

"I'm sorry, Max."

"Did you find him?"

"Dante? Yeah. He's not in very good shape, either. I did what I could. He's resting now."

"And Stiles?"

"He and some of his friends are visiting with the local cops tonight, if all went the way I hope it did. I don't expect they'll be bothering us at least until tomorrow morning. Maybe longer."

"So my sister's safe for tonight."

"As far as we know, yeah."

There was silence on the line.

"Max… I'm sorry I let you down."

She didn't answer. He lowered his head, trying to think of a way to break the silence. Finally he said, "I'm at the suite. You have the number, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna keep an eye on him until daylight. He can't be any problem in daylight if I'm understanding this right."

"From what I read in those files, that's right."

"I'll just stash him somewhere dark toward morning, and then we'll figure out what to do next. Okay?"

"Okay."

"You call if you need me."

"I've got it covered."

That hurt. It felt as if she was saying she didn't need him. Wouldn't need him. No longer trusted him to be the man she could depend on. He had let her down. Fallen off his goddamned pedestal.

"Okay, then." He drew a breath, sighed.

"Good night, Lou," she said, and she hung up.

The silence of the broken connection seemed smothering. Sighing, he put the phone back in its cradle. He made one more round of the suite, making sure the doors were locked tight, dead bolts turned. As an afterthought, he retrieved the two tiny booze bottles from the wastebasket and stood them in front of the door. If it opened, they would tip over, clattering against each other, waking him if he had happened to doze off.

Finally he went back to the bedroom, sat down in the chair beside the bed where the wounded vampire slept and let himself have permission to just rest his eyes.

"You're being awfully hard on him, you know."

Maxine turned from the telephone at the nurse's desk to see Lydia staring at her. "Is this motherly advice or just an opinion?"

Lydia flinched. But then she seemed to steel herself. "I suppose I deserved that. In your eyes, at least."

Max sighed, feeling a twinge of guilt and ignoring it. "How is Morgan?"

"The same. They've got her wired for sound in there, though. IV lines, monitors, the works." She lowered her eyes, but not before Max saw them welling. They were red, in fact, as if she'd been shedding tears all night. "God, I hope I get the chance to… to tell her."

"That you're her mother?" Max asked. "You already had the chance, Lydia. But you didn't say a word. Not to Morgan, and not to me."

The older woman looked up slowly, met Max's eyes. "I hope I get the chance to tell her I love her. That's all. I never intended to tell her—or either of you—the rest."

Max swallowed the knot of guilt that rose in her throat. "Why?"

"I thought I explained that to you. Just how do you feel about knowing your mother was a whore?"

Max flinched this time. It was as if the woman had slapped her with her words. "You're ashamed of what you were."

"No. No, I'm not ashamed. But I knew you would be, and so would your sister in there, if she knew the truth."

"Know us that well, do you? After all of… what? A few days?"

A nurse came to the desk, and they both fell silent as she shuffled papers, gathered charts. Max turned to her. "Can you have them turn on the phone in my sister's room, in case I need it again?"

"I'm sorry, no phones in ICU. But there's a convenience phone in the Intensive Care waiting area; TV, too. It's just across the hall from your sister's room."

She nodded. "If I get another call, could you put it through to there?"

"Sure."

Max glanced at Lydia, inclined her head and started down the hall to the waiting area. As they passed the Intensive Care unit, she could see into Morgan's room through the large safety-glass window. David was in there with her, holding her hand, speaking to her. "Same scene, different hospital," Max muttered.

"Here it is."

Max looked toward Lydia, who was holding open a door on the other side of the hall. She went inside, looked around. There were three vending machines—snacks, soda and coffee. A television, a radio, a phone—not a pay phone either, but a real phone. Several chairs and a couple of futons completed the room. Max propped the door open, then took a seat that gave her a clear view of her sister across the hall.

Lydia dropped coins into the coffee machine and waited for her cup to fill.

"You said you're not ashamed of what you did for a living all those years ago," Max said slowly. "I'm curious about that."

Taking the cup of creamed coffee from the dispenser, Lydia sipped and grimaced. "Because I had no choice."

Max waited, but Lydia didn't seem inclined to continue. "Come on, Lydia. Don't you think I have a right to know the whole story?"

Walking to a chair, Lydia sat down slowly, took another sip of coffee and then set the cup on a small table beside her chair. "I suppose. It's not pretty."

"The truth rarely is."

Nodding, Lydia seemed to gather herself. "When I was ten years old, my father died. When I was eleven, my mother remarried. My stepfather was abusive."

How cool and clinical she sounded, Max thought. "He beat you?"

"Beat me. Raped me. He hurt me in just about every way he could think of. My mother, too. She didn't have it in her to leave, but I did."

"So you ran away from home? When? How old were you?"

"Fourteen. That's how long it took me to realize that my mother wasn't going to protect me. She couldn't even protect herself. And it was getting worse. I figured if I didn't get out soon, he would end up killing me."

"Where did you go?" Max studied her. Lydia's eyes were stark. Empty.

"Nowhere. There was no place I could go. I lost myself in the city, lived on the streets, made friends there. The drugs helped ease the pain. The people helped me learn how to survive. It seemed horrible at first, the idea of selling my body for money. But when you get hungry enough, it stops seeming so bad. Hell, it was far better than what was happening to me at home. I was in control. I got to say when and how and who—or at least that's what I told myself—and I got paid for it." She shrugged. "I got by for a while—until I got pregnant."

Max's stomach was tied in knots. "You didn't… make them use protection?"

"I didn't make them do much of anything, Max. It's dangerous out there. You piss off the wrong John, you end up bearing scars, or worse."

"You're lucky all you got was pregnant."

"You're right."

"So then what happened?"

Lydia lowered her head. "There was this old woman. Mary Agnes Brightman, but everyone just called her Nanna. She had a big house in White Plains. Word was she took in pregnant teens. So I paid her a visit."

"And she took you in?"

"Yeah. She wasn't incorporated, didn't have a license. Just a big house and a big heart. There were six of us staying there full-time while I was there, and countless others in and out. Nanna fed us, clothed us, talked to us like we were intelligent human beings, you know?" She sighed. "Some decided on abortion, and when they did, she paid for it, took them to a good doctor, got it done right, made them go to counseling before and after. Some decided to keep their babies, try to raise them. She helped them find housing, jobs, day care, file for public assistance until they could get on their feet. Some decided to have the babies and give them up for adoption. Nanna had a son who was a lawyer, and he helped them arrange that, no charge."

Nodding slowly, Max said, "That was the choice you made."

Lydia lifted her head. "Nanna and her son, Brian, took me once to see the couple who wanted to adopt my baby. Oh, I didn't get to meet them. Didn't know their names, nothing like that. But I watched them. They were shopping. They'd moved up to the top of Brian's waiting list, so they knew that they'd be likely to get a baby within a year. They were shopping for furniture. Cribs, walkers. And I watched them. She got misty every time she held up some tiny outfit or teddy bear. Got actual tears in her eyes. He would say something funny, joking about baby names or something until she smiled again. They looked… so good. You know? Nice. Normal. And that woman, God, she wanted you so much." Lydia drew a wavering breath.

"That night Brian showed me some photos of their house, though he couldn't tell me where it was I had no idea it was so close—right in White Plains."

She lifted her eyes to Max's. "I knew you'd be happy there."

Max felt a little misty herself. "But they didn't want us both?"

"They didn't have the chance to make that decision. When we learned I was having twins, Brian let me assume both of you were going to that same home. But that wasn't the case. He placed your sister with a different family."

"Why?"

Lydia's voice had turned coarse now. "Oh, he thought he was doing a good thing. Helping out a dear friend on the West Coast who desperately wanted a child. I don't think he meant to harm anyone. But he did. I never knew the truth until after Nanna died some ten years later. She had found out, somehow, and was furious with her son over it. She left me her house, with the explanation that I had been wronged when she had only wanted to help me, and that she owed me reparation."

"And you kept her work going," Max filled in.

"I had been going back there often, helping out with the new girls in between my other jobs. Legitimate jobs. One of Nanna's conditions of helping girls like me was that we promised not to go back to the life. I was one of the few who kept that promise. Kimbra was another. I first met her at Nanna's house." She shrugged. "So when Nanna died and left the place to me, I knew almost as much about running it as she did. Turned out Kimbra had a great head for business. She helped us incorporate as a non-profit organization. Haven House."

Max drew a breath and looked Lydia in the eye. "And you thought Morgan and I would be ashamed of this story?"

Lydia looked away. "Just the beginning."

"Just nothing." Licking her lips, Max impulsively gripped Lydia's hand. "You were right about that couple. I had that idyllic childhood you wanted me to have. And if that lawyer hadn't taken her elsewhere, Morgan would have, too. My adoptive parents were wonderful, Lydia. I never suffered the lack of anything. Most of all love."

Lydia closed her eyes. "God, you don't how much hearing that means to me. Letting you go… it was so hard."

"I can imagine. But I think you did the right thing. And I'm grateful."

"The right thing… for you, maybe. But Morgan… "

"Don't give up on Morgan just yet. She comes from good stock."

They both turned to look across the hall, through the glass to where Morgan lay. Lydia nodded. "I, um, I'm going to go sit with her for a while."

"David looks like he could use a break."

Lydia got to her feet. Max did, too, and then hesitantly, awkwardly, she gave Lydia a brief hug. Lydia squeezed her hard, then let her go.

"I think I'll call Lou back."

"Good idea," Lydia said. She gave an encouraging nod and left the room.

Lou fell asleep in his chair, his head hanging to one side, ear pressed to his own shoulder. Something woke him. Two somethings. One was the sudden shrill ring of a phone. The other came first, though. It was Dante's voice. And it was coming from close to him. Very close to him. Like in his face.

Dante said, "I'm very sorry about this, Malone. But I have no choice."

Then the phone rang, and Lou's eyes popped open. Dante was leaning over him, and Lou flung his arms up to push the vampire off, but the chair went over backward and Dante came with it to the floor. He sank his teeth into Lou's throat as Lou fought to pry him off.

Lou swung out an arm, knocking the stand over. The phone fell to the floor. Vaguely, he could hear a tinny voice repeating his name.

"Jesus!" Lou gritted his teeth against the sensation of being drained. "I saved your fucking life!" He intended to shout it, but it came out weaker than that. "I helped you!"

His heart pounded harder than he thought was healthy, and he kept struggling to push the creature off, but his efforts were useless.

Finally Dante lifted his head and let Lou's fall backward to the floor. "You're still helping me," the vampire said, and he looked… different. Stronger. His eyes glowed, and his skin seemed to plump with life.

Yeah, Lou thought. My life.

Dante wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then he scooped Lou up off the floor and dropped him on the bed. Turning, he picked the phone up from the floor, set its base on the stand and brought the receiver to his ear. "Your boyfriend needs you, Maxine. He's waiting for you at the hotel. You'd better hurry. I didn't drain him dry, but I was damned thirsty."

He hung up the phone.

Lou moaned, reaching for it, knowing fall well what the vampire was doing. Trying to lure Max away from her sister so he could get to her himself. Dammit.

Dante looked down at him in the bed. "I really am sorry. There was no other way."

Lou tried to sit up as Dante turned and left the room, but he only managed to raise his upper body a couple of inches before falling backward again, into darkness.

Chapter 24

"Wait!"

The phone went dead, and for an instant, Max felt panic creeping up her spine and wrapping its cold claw around her brain. But only for an instant. She shook it away, stiffened her spine, depressed the telephone's cutoff, and then dialed star-six-nine.

The mechanical voice recited the digits of the last number to call the line she was on. It was the number of the hotel. The vampire hadn't been lying about that.

Then maybe he'd been telling the truth about Lou, as well.

She slammed the phone down, ran to the door. She had to get to him, help him.

Then she stopped still as she stood facing her sister's room, seeing her lying there in the bed, helpless. Why had Dante told her what he had? Out of the kindness of his heart? No. He wanted her to leave her sister unguarded.

Dammit! How was she supposed to choose between her sister's life and Lou's?

It occurred to her then that she didn't really need to choose.

She went back into the waiting room, picked up the telephone, dialed 9-1-1, then told the dispatcher where Lou was and that he was near death from blood loss.

Then she dug in her jeans' pocket for that other number. The one that sleaze-bag Stiles had given her. As she dialed, she hoped that whatever Lou had done to the bastard to keep him tied up with the local police all night had failed.

It was very dark, like standing outdoors on a still night, in a thick fog. Mists swirled, and Morgan floated, without the will or the strength to move. The girl with the spiky blond hair floated out of the mists, looked at Morgan and said, "Hey. I know you."

Morgan shook her head slowly. "No."

"Yes. You're her. I heard Maxie talking about you."

Her head lifting slowly, Morgan asked, "You know Max?"

"You're the long-lost sister, right?" The blonde smiled. But then her smile slowly died. "Max keeps telling me to come back. And I want to go back. I just can't find the way."

Morgan sighed, every part of her too tired even to nod her head. "I know the way," she said. Her words were slow, expressed more as a sigh than a sentence, and that only with effort. "But I don't have the strength."

Tilting her head to one side, the blonde said, "Gee, do you suppose we could help each other? I mean, work together?"

"I don't think it works that way. I'm supposed to die, I've always known it."

"I don't think so. I mean, have you seen how fast some of them come through this place?"

God, her head was heavy. So tired. "I haven't seen anyone."

"What do you mean? Of course you have. Look! There goes one now!"

Morgan saw only a streak of light flash across the deep blue backdrop of the swirling silvery mists. "I thought those were shooting stars."

"Uh-uh. I've been watching them. I think they're just like us. Only they know where they're going. And we're kind of… stuck. Because we don't. That must mean something. Right?"

Morgan shrugged, too tired to care.

"Look, I'll help you. I'm strong, I'm just lost. I'll help you, and you tell me the way. All right?"

"I… can't."

"Sure you can."

The blonde bent down and clasped Morgan's hand. Energy melted into her, a pool of life. The girl tugged gently, and Morgan rose to her feet as if weightless.

"Now," she said. "Which way?"

Morgan surfaced slowly, unsure what was going on, knowing only that she ached for Dante. God, where was he? Why hadn't he come for her?

She couldn't raise her head to look around the hospital room, and her hearing was distant, as if all sound was muffled. She saw through cloudy vision as Maxine, her sister, spoke to Lydia and David.

"They'll be bringing Lou into the ER any minute. Please, go down there and wait for him. And if… if it's really bad… come back for me. Otherwise, though… "

"We understand," David said, his eyes solemn. "Be careful, Max."

Max nodded, and Morgan wondered what was going on. What had happened to Lou Malone? And why did David feel the need to warn Max?

He must be afraid Dante would come for her. Oh, God, Morgan thought desperately, please let him come for me!

After David and Lydia left the room, Maxine opened the closet door, stepped inside it and closed it again.

What in the world… ?

Morgan waited silently, her heart hammering. The lights were all turned out. The glow of the various monitors surrounding her bed painted the skin of her hands with a faint green tint. It seemed to Morgan that she could hear every tick of the clock as she waited, waited, wondering what her sister was up to.

The window slid open. A soft breeze moved the curtains. They danced like ghosts; then a dark form climbed through. Morgan's heart leapt in her chest as Dante landed on the floor easily. He looked at her, met her eyes, and everything in her seemed to sing. She wanted to speak, to cry, to leap up and run into his arms, but she couldn't move, couldn't speak. A tear welled in her eye, rolled onto her cheek. Dante saw it, and it seemed to Morgan that love shone in his eyes as he hurried to her bedside without even looking around first. His long, slender hand stroked Morgan's hair away from her face. And Morgan saw the glimmer of a tear on his cheek, shining in that greenish glow.

"I'm here," he whispered. "It's all right now, my love. I'm here."

He bent to press his lips to hers, and she tasted his kiss only briefly. The door burst open suddenly, and Dante jerked his head away.

Frank Stiles, the scarred man, burst in from the hall, as three other men—his cohorts it seemed—appeared as well, two from the adjoining bathroom, another from behind the bed curtain. Weapons were drawn, aimed at Dante, and Maxine stepped out of the closet. "Back away from her, Dante," she ordered.

Morgan's heartbeat raced. She tried to form words, lifted a hand in weak protest, but she was ignored.

"You don't know what you're doing," Dante said softly, staring at Morgan, his eyes gleaming with emotion. "Please, she's going to die, Maxine. Your sister is going to die unless you let me help her."

"I'm sorry. I don't believe a word you say, Dante. Not after what you did to Lou."

Lou? Morgan wondered. What had Dante done to Lou?

Stay calm, my love. Malone is fine, I promise you. Dante's thoughts rang in her mind, soothing. Stay alive. I'll come back for you, I swear it.

He started to turn for the window.

Stiles fired a weapon, and Morgan caught her breath. It wasn't an explosion but a small pop, as his gun shot a dart into Dante's shoulder. Whatever it was, it worked instantly. Dante buckled, dropped to his knees. One of the other men yelled, "It works!"

Dante looked up at Maxine with pained eyes. "For the love of God, don't let this happen."

Max moved closer to him. "You blew your shot at getting any sympathy from me when you attacked Lou Malone. He was the only one who wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, you know. The only one who wanted to help you. And you turned on him."

"You don't realize what you've done." He turned his gaze from hers to Morgan's, his eyes filled not with sorrow, but with promise. He would come back, he would find a way. He swore it to her without speaking a word.

"Get back, Ms. Stuart. We'll take it from here," Stiles said. He nodded to one of his men, who opened a pack and took out a rope with several pulleys and latches attached. He tied off one end and dropped the other out the window.

Maxine backed off.

"You're just fortunate we weren't detained by the police after all," Stiles went on. "Luckily your boyfriend the cop only had one pair of handcuffs on him. He had to leave one of my men free, who managed to free us before the police showed up."

One of the men bent over Dante, who was completely unconscious now. As Morgan watched in horror, unable to do a thing to help besides move one finger over and over on the call button at her pillow, the man snapped a belt around Dante, then flung him easily over his shoulder. "Ready, sir."

A nurse stepped into the room from the hallway, went still, eyes wide, and said, "Just what the hell is going on in here?"

"We're Ms. De Silva's private security team, ma'am. This man broke in here. We're taking him right back out again." Stiles wiggled his gun like a finger, and the nurse's face drained of color as she looked at his scarred face. "Now you just stay quiet until we're gone, hmm?"

The nurse backed into the hall, turned and ran, shouting for security. The big guy who had Dante over his shoulder sat on the windowsill with his back to the open window, the rope in his gloved hands. He put his feet to the windowsill, pushed off, then rappelled down the side of the building with Dante anchored over his shoulder. The others clambered out just as quickly, bagging their weapons and taking them. They were gone in seconds, as if they had never been there. Almost.

Maxine went to the window, removed the rope and dropped it after them. Then she closed the window and returned to her chair, sinking down tiredly.

Two hospital security men dressed like cops, came crashing through the door, looking ready for all-out war. Maxine looked up at them as if vaguely irritated. "What is this?"

"We were told there were armed men in this room, ma'am." The leader jerked his head, and the other man went through the room, the closet, the adjoining bathroom, checking everywhere and finding nothing and no one. He even looked out the window, but Stiles and his cronies were too fast to be spotted so easily. And well hidden in their black clothes, on a night as dark as this one.

"Armed men?" Max asked. She faked an incredulous laugh. "I suggest you have whoever told you that fairy tale tested for drugs," she said. "There's been no one here for hours."

Frowning, the men muttered among themselves and finally left her alone, but Morgan noticed one of them remained in the hall outside the door, just to keep an eye on things.

Maxine sighed, and she closed her hand around Morgan's, glancing down at Morgan's face and finally realizing that Morgan's eyes were open and staring straight into hers.

Morgan strained to force words, and even then, only the barest whisper emerged. "You get him back," she rasped. "Or I'll die hating you for this, Max. I swear I will."

Dante's captors sat around a table, smoking, talking in low tones. Dante had been rendered temporarily unconscious by the drug, whatever the hell it had been, but already its effects were wearing off. He was still weak. Far from fighting strength, but at least he was awake. Able to listen, smell, try to discern his surroundings. He was on a table, he thought. Flat and hard. His arms and legs were restrained. He smelled only tobacco smoke and the moldy, musty smell of age and disuse. He opened his eyes a mere slit and saw bare lathe and crumbling plaster, spiderwebs and broken boards. Shattered windows with razor shards of glass still in them. An abandoned house?

"The drug works. You did it, Frank. You reproduced the old Rogers formula perfectly!"

"Yeah, and just in time, too. Man, he went down fast," another man said.

Stiles spoke next. His voice was beginning to become familiar to Dante. Familiar… and hated. "It works, but we have no idea how well, or for how long. I only had partial notes on the process. The rest were destroyed in the fire."

"Well, he's out," said one of the others. "That says all I need to know."

"Then you're a fool."

The men went quiet for a moment. Then, "What are we going to do with him, boss? You said we weren't ready to keep prisoners yet."

"We aren't. The cells in our new headquarters aren't even finished. And even when they are, capturing them will never be our goal. I want you to remember that, men. That's where we differ from the old DPI. Our mission is to eliminate them. Wipe them out. The entire race. However, keeping a few for experimentation will help hone our weapons for maximum effectiveness."

Dante suppressed a shudder. This man was single-handedly re-establishing the DPI—and making it more bloodthirsty than ever.

"This one, though, we kill. But we can at least keep him alive long enough to see how the tranquilizer works. He might as well serve our purposes before we slice him open and watch him bleed out."

Gently, Dante gave an experimental tug on the restraints. They felt solid, and he sensed he wasn't yet strong enough to break them. And then he wondered why he even bothered to try. If he couldn't save Morgan, what was the point? God, why had he waited so long to acknowledge the bond between them? She hadn't. She had known it for what it was from the very start. She was his. Meant to be with him. It had taken him centuries to find her. And now she was being taken from him. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

"Go see if he's still out," Stiles ordered.

Footsteps came closer. Dante relaxed his features, lay perfectly still, limp.

"Still out," the man called.

"Make sure," Stiles said.

The man was quiet for a moment. Dante heard him puffing on his cigarette. Then the puffing stopped, and Dante felt heat near his neck. It got hotter, and then the tip of the cigarette pressed to his skin. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out as the skin seared. Pain screamed through him. He did not react. He couldn't, or they would kill him. And dammit, then it really would be over. But as long as he drew a breath and she still lived, there was a chance. Slight, but real. Very real. He had to survive, escape and get to Morgan.

The hot brand moved away, but its bum remained, sizzling skin cells. Dante smelled his own burned flesh.

"I'm sure," the man said. "He's really out."

Morgan lay very still in the bed, watching, too weak to do more. Even speaking exhausted her. She wasn't going to live much longer; she knew that with a dire certainty. And she didn't care. Dante. He was all she cared about. God, if she couldn't be with him, then death was a far more desirable prospect than that of life without him. But she could not bear the thought of him in the hands of those evil men. She couldn't bear it.

Tears slid down her face in utter silence as she lay there, unable to howl her anguish. Her longing for him was so deep and so sharp that it cut into her very soul. And the pain was unbearable. She barely heard her so-called sister as the girl sat beside her, telling her all the reasons why she'd had to betray the man Morgan loved. He'd shot her best friend, she said. He had attacked Lou. He was a killer. They were words. Far less convincing, less moving, to her than the words of a madman on the pages of a diary.

The door opened. Morgan watched with dying eyes as Lou Malone walked in, a bandage on his neck. He looked fine. Healthy. Pink.

"Lou!" Max jumped from her chair and flung herself into his arms. "Oh, God, are you all right? I can't believe he did that to you—and after you tried to help him! I can't believe… " She let the words trail off. "Where are David and Lydia?" she asked.

"I sent them back to the house to get some rest." Lou wasn't looking at her though. He was looking at Morgan. She held his eyes and prayed he could see the plea in hers. She parted her lips, tried to speak. "Dante" was the whisper that emerged.

"I thought he would have been here by now," Lou said. He clasped Max's shoulders, put her away from him, searched her face. "Have you seen him?"

"Seen who? Dante?"

Lou nodded. "I assumed he was coming for Morgan." He closed his eyes. "I was so afraid you would get in his way. He's damn dangerous when it comes to her. I don't think there's anything he wouldn't do—"

Max lowered her head. "He came," she admitted. "I knew he would. I had Stiles and his men here waiting."

Lou blinked. His gaze shot to Morgan's, to her cheeks, where hot tears rolled in slow motion, then back to Max again. "Did they kill him?"

"They shot him with some sort of dart. I don't think it killed him, but I don't know for sure. Then they took him out of here."

"Where?"

"How would I know? Jesus, Lou, don't look so concerned about the guy. He tried to kill you."

"No," Lou said sharply. "He didn't."

"What do you mean, he didn't? He… he bit you. Drained your blood."

"And told you where to find me. They gave me two pints. Two pints, Max. The doc in the E.R. said I'd have been fine even if they hadn't brought me in. Tired, dizzy, weak for a couple of days, but fine."

"He attacked you." Max lowered her eyes. "And he shot Stormy."

"He made sure I would be found. He made sure not to take enough to do me any harm. And let me tell you, I think he could have used a lot more, as weak as he was."

Shaking her head as she kept her eyes cast down, Max said, "He came here. He came after my sister."

"Even though he must have known there was a chance he would be ambushed. He knows you're not stupid, Max. Sure, he thought he might lure you away, but it was a shin chance. And he came anyway. Risked whatever hell he's in right now to get to her."

"To kill her," Max snapped.

"Or maybe to save her."

"No. You're wrong. You have to be wrong."

Morgan's heartbeat sped up, and her breath was coming faster. God, they were so close. So close to understanding. They had to save Dante. Please, God, let them save him from those men.

There was a tap on the door. A nurse poked her head inside. "Ms. Stuart? You had a message at the desk from, uh, Lydia. She said someone had been trying to reach you on your cell phone with no luck and finally left a message with her at the house. You're to call this number." She handed Max a slip of paper.

"I turned the cell phone off. There was a sign."

The nurse nodded. "They can mess with certain equipment in hospitals. But, um, between you and me you can use it in here if you want. Just stand near the window."

"Thank you." Max opened up the folded slip of paper, reading the number on it as the nurse walked out of the room. Her head came up slowly, eyes meeting Lou's. "It's the hospital in White Plains." Her eyes fell closed. "Oh, God, it must be Stormy. She must be gone, Lou. Oh, God, she's gone."

Lou wrapped Max up in his arms. Part of Morgan felt that her sister deserved to lose someone she loved, after what she had done to Dante. But most of her wept to see her sister in pain.

"You'd better call," Lou said. "Her mother will want to talk to you."

Nodding, Max straightened away from him and started fishing in her purse. Lou snatched a couple of tissues from a box on the bedside stand and caught her chin in his hand to hold her face still while he dabbed her tears away.

Sniffing, Max poked numbers into her cell phone, held it to her ear and waited. And then she said, "Hello? Mrs. Jones, it's Maxine."

There was a pause. Then she cupped the mouthpiece, spoke to Lou. "She can't bring herself to tell me. She's putting someone else on." And then suddenly her eyes shot wider, her hand moved, and she spoke into the mouthpiece again. "Oh my God. OhmyGod, Stormy? Is that you?"

Her face crumpled, and her voice became a series of laughs punctuated by sobs, with a few words in between as she spoke to the friend she had thought was dead. When she finally got herself under control, she said, "I want you to know that we got the man who did this to you. He's not going to hurt anyone else, not ever." Slight pause. "Yes, yes, we're sure." Then her eyes shot to Lou's. "Just to be safe, though, can you describe him?" And then, very slowly, the color left Maxine's face. Her jaw went lax, and she turned slowly to Morgan. "Oh my God. No. No, Stormy, everything is fine. Listen, you just rest, get strong again. I have to go, but I'll speak to you soon, okay?"

Finally she hit the kill button. "The man who was waiting in your apartment that night to shoot Stormy had a horribly scarred face."

"Stiles," Lou growled. "And if he lied about that, I'm betting he lied about everything else, as well."

Max turned to Morgan, her eyes wide, wet. "Oh, God, what have I done? Morgan, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Morgan held her eyes, begging her. "Please… " she managed.

"I know. I know." Max turned to Lou. "We have to rescue Dante."

"No shit. But how the hell are we going to find him? Stiles could have taken him anywhere."

For the second time that night Morgan's window slid slowly open. Again a form climbed inside. But this time it wasn't Dante. It was the woman Morgan recognized as Sarafina. She was stunning, with masses of jet hair and ebony eyes, lips of blood red, and skin as pale as snow. She stared at them, her gaze potent enough to send chills up Morgan's spine. She wore red velvet, and she said, "I may have a suggestion."

"Who the hell are you?" Max asked, stepping between Morgan's bed and the woman standing near the window.

"Brave, for a mortal. My name is Sarafina. I am Dante's sister. And his aunt, and his mother."

"You're a vampire," Max said, and it sounded like an accusation.

"Your powers of observation are astounding," the woman said, sarcasm dripping from every word. "Yes. I am a vampire. Not the tooth fairy, not the sandman, a vampire. And you will either help me get Dante back or pay for his life with your own. Are we clear on that?"

Max stood her ground. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Her brows rose. "Well, the fact that I'm going to offer myself as bait for the vampire hunter ought to be sufficient for that, don't you think?"

Max and Lou stared at her, stunned.

"Come now, it's the only way. Dante's not sending signals strong enough for me to pick up mentally. I can't find him on my own. But I know he's alive. I can feel it."

"Alive," Morgan whispered, fresh tears welling in her eyes.

"Yes. Which is more than I can say for you, mortal."

Morgan smiled at her, weakly, unsteadily. She didn't care that she was hovering on the brink of death. She didn't care—so long as Dante would be all right.

"Come, we've little time. You," Sarafina said to Max. "Contact the scarred man, tell him you have another vampire. That I've been injured, can barely function, and that you've bound me and will hold me for him. Tell him to meet you at the house, near the cliffs, if he wants me. Then gather up your sister and bring her along as quickly as you can."

She turned then to Lou. "While she does all that… " She held out her arms, wrists pressed together. "Bind me and take me to the cliffs to await the vampire hunter."

"Lou, I don't think you should go with her. Not alone."

"Afraid I'll kill him, are you?" Sarafina asked. She rolled her eyes. "Mortals. Fine, if you want me weak enough that I pose no threat, we can arrange that, too." She drew a dagger from her pocket. "Just see to it I don't faint and bleed out entirely." Lifting her arm, she brought the blade to her wrist.

Lou caught her hand, stopped her from slicing herself. "No." He looked at Max. "We have to trust her, Max. We need her at full strength or we risk losing the fight. Stiles has at least three other men working with him, and maybe more, all of them armed."

"Not to mention trained," Max said. Then she paused, turning to Sarafina. "Can you help my sister? Dante says he can save her. Does that mean you can, too?"

The woman looked at Morgan, licked her lips. "Frankly, I fear she may be too far gone to survive the transformation at all at this point. Add to that the fact that if I were to try, it would leave me too weak to fight for several hours, and by then, Dante might well be dead." She looked away.

"But there's a chance."

"There's a chance. But I won't do it."

"And you expect me to trust you?" Max asked.

Lou clasped her arm. "Be reasonable, Maxie. If she tries and it fails, we lose them both. If she tries and it works, we save Morgan and lose Dante. Do you think that's what Morgan wants?"

Morgan tried to say no, but it emerged as a groan instead.

"Her way, we have a shot at saving them both."

Closing her eyes, lowering her head, Max finally nodded. Then she gripped Lou's arms. "Be careful, dammit."

"I will."

Max turned to Sarafina. "I don't give a damn what you are. If you hurt him, I'll find you and I'll kill you."

The woman looked surprised, and perhaps a little amused. "I do believe you'd try." Then she turned to Lou. "Come," she said. She flung him over her shoulder as if he were a rag doll, turned and leapt out the window.

Max cried out and lunged to the window, hands braced on the sill, looking down. Then she sighed in relief.

"Call," Morgan whispered. "Call."

"Yeah. I'm on it." Max took out her cell phone again.

Chapter 25

"Stiles. Thank God you're still there. Listen, I don't know what the hell to do. We've… we've got another one."

"What?"

"Another one. Of them." Max swallowed hard, her eyes locked with her sister's ever-weakening gaze as she spoke on the phone. "I think he sent her. She tried for Morgan. Lou was here, they struggled, and she wound up going out the window. He didn't mean to push her, it just happened. She damn near took Lou with her."

"She was injured?"

"Yeah. Pretty badly, by the looks of it. I don't know, she was unconscious. We tied her up, but I'm not sure how long we can hold her. If she comes around… "

"Where is she now?"

"Lou took her to the house. He figured he couldn't very well hold her here, where someone might see. He's going to lock her up there or something. Told me to tell you he'd wait for you by the cliffs."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes." Stiles rang off.

Nodding her head slowly, Max pocketed the phone and sat down beside her sister, stroking her hair. Morgan's eyes were mere slits. "Just a little longer, babe. Hang on, okay?"

A nod so slight her head barely moved. Then the door opened, and Dr. Hilman walked in. "Maxine, you wanted to see me?"

"Yes," she said. She got to her feet to face him, lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. "I want to take Morgan home."

"Impossible." He said it quickly, without even thinking about it first.

"Let's just drop the bull from the beginning. We both know it's possible. Maybe not advisable, but possible."

Shaking his head slowly, the doctor said, "She may not survive the trip, Maxine."

"C'mon, Doc. Do you even expect her to survive the night?"

Licking his lips, he lowered his head. "Frankly… no."

"Then what's the difference? She wants to die at home. In her own bed, in the house she loves. There's nothing you can do for her here except maybe prolong her life a few extra hours. But you can do something for her. You can grant her last wish. I'll take full responsibility."

He lowered his head, pressing his lips together.

"If you say no, I'll take her anyway," Max added.

With a sigh, the doctor moved past her, bent close to Morgan, touched her face. "Is this what you want, Morgan? You want to go home, even though you might last a little bit longer here?"

She managed to nod, even pulled her lips into a ghost of a smile.

The doctor straightened, inhaling deeply. "All right. I'll get the paperwork."

"Time is a factor here."

"I'll be quick."

He was—amazingly so. Ten minutes later Max was signing beside the X and wheeling her blanket-wrapped sister out to the waiting taxi. A short while later they were pulling into the driveway, and Morgan sighed her relief audibly at the sight of the old house again. God, it really did mean the world to her.

Max studied Morgan's face for a long moment. She didn't look the way she had looked only days earlier. Her face was sunken, deep purple wells had appeared beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were concave. Her lips were pinched and chapped. She looked like an old woman.

Max paid the driver, got out of the cab, went around it to open her sister's door and hugged her gently. David came out of the house, and when Max moved aside, he scooped Morgan up and carried her easily into the house, up the stairs, and, moments later, was tucking her into her bed. Max stopped off in the study to take one of the smaller charcoal drawings of Dante from the wall. She carried it upstairs with her. When she got to the bedroom, she placed it in her sister's hands and saw just a hint of the former light flash in the dying woman's eyes.

"Hold on, Morgan. If you feel yourself slipping, look at Dante's face and know he's coming for you. I'm going to bring him to you myself. I promise."

A slight nod. A breath of relief. A single whispered word. "Hurry."

Max glanced at Lydia, at David. "Stay with her."

"You know we will. Be careful, Max," Lydia said, and gave her a quick hug.

Max hugged her back and whispered in her ear, "Tell her. It might be your last chance."

Sarafina lay on her side on the cool, damp ground above the cliffs. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, her ankles bound together with duct tape. She lay still, motionless, eyes closed, hair in disarray. She'd rubbed clumps of soil over her dress and her arms, smudged a bit on her face, hoping to look more convincing in the darkness.

Lou banked a hint of admiration for the woman. Brave. Then again, she had reason to be. She was stronger than ten ordinary men. Still, this was a risk. She must care a great deal about Dante.

"So I'm still not clear on your relationship with Dante," Lou said softly. He stood beside her prone form on the cliffs, watching the night, listening for Stiles to arrive. "You said you were his mother, sister and aunt. Just how the hell does that work?"

She opened her eyes, looking up at him without moving her head. "Sister, because all vampires are siblings. We come from a common source, we share the same blood. The same antigen that makes us unique. Mother, because I am the one who changed him from dying mortal man to powerful immortal creature. I birthed him into this life."

Lou nodded slow. "And aunt?"

"The usual way. Great-great-aunt if you want to get technical. I was his great-grandmother's sister."

He nodded again. "So you changed him because—"

"Hush! They're coming." She closed her eyes again. "He'll know the cuffs alone won't hold me, mortal. He'll try to drug me, as he did Dante. We can't let him."

Lou strained his eyes and ears but didn't see or hear a thing. Then again, her senses were supposedly working at some elevated level. Just how elevated, he could only guess. He didn't question their accuracy. Hell, after that jump from the third-story hospital window, he figured there wasn't much she couldn't do.

Eventually the sounds of footfalls in the grass reached his substandard ears, and he focused in that direction. Stiles's shape emerged from the darkness. He was wary, looking closely, moving slowly. He approached the fallen Sarafina the way Lou figured he would approach a sleeping tiger.

"She's unconscious," Lou reassured him. "She was hurt pretty badly in the fall."

"That's what the redhead told me on the phone," Stiles said. He drew a syringe from his pocket, held it upright and checked its contents, then took another halting step forward. And another. He started to reach for her, then drew back.

"Oh, for Pete's sake, will you do it already?" Lou asked.

Stiles finally moved closer, dropped down on one knee, brought the syringe toward Sarafina's arm. She flung her head up suddenly, slamming Stiles in the chest, knocking him off her and the syringe to the ground. Lou threw himself at her, and they struggled for a moment as Lou picked up the syringe and quickly squeezed its contents onto the ground, hiding his actions from the other man.

"There, goddammit," Lou growled.

Sarafina went limp, let her head fall to the ground, closed her eyes. Lou got up, disentangling his limbs from hers, brushing himself off. He handed Stiles the empty syringe. Stiles eyed it, then him. "Thanks," he said.

"Bitch tried to kill me," Lou said. "That's twice in one night. You were right about them, Stiles."

Stiles nodded. "She won't try again." He dropped the syringe to the ground, bent and scooped Sarafina up into his arms. "Remember," Stiles said as he turned to trudge back toward the house. "You tell no one. This is over. You and' everyone else involved just need to forget all about it. Understood?"

"I won't forget," Lou said. "But I will keep it to myself." He forced a smile. "Hell, who'd believe me, anyway?"

"Exactly."

Lou walked with Stiles around the house to where the man's car waited. He winced when the bastard tossed the woman into the trunk. She landed hard, and then he slammed it closed. Stiles said, "You won't be seeing me again."

"No offense, Stiles, but I sure hope you're right." Lou waved him off as Stiles got behind the wheel and drove away.

As soon as the taillights vanished around a curve in the road, Max pulled up in Lou's car, flung open the passenger door, and Lou jumped in.

"It's been so long," Lydia said, pacing the bedroom an hour later. "Why haven't they come back by now? God, it will be dawn soon."

David put a hand on her shoulder. "Try to have faith, Lyd. It's going to be okay. It has to be."

She smiled at him in a way that told Morgan there was something between them. Something they'd kept from her.

"Max was right," David said softly. "You should tell her."

Lydia held his eyes for a long moment before turning to Morgan. Sniffling, she came to sit on the edge of the bed, clasped Morgan's hand. Lydia's felt strong and warm around it. Looking Morgan in the eyes, she said, "Morgan, I am the woman who gave birth to you and Max. I'm… I'm your mother."

"Mother… " Morgan whispered the word. She wasn't entirely shocked by the news. She'd wondered why Lydia seemed so connected to Max, why she seemed to care so much about her, when they'd only just met. She'd caught the woman crying over her in the hospital, and, knowing she was adopted, it hadn't been such a wide leap.

"I gave you both up for adoption because I thought you would be better off. I wanted you to have a good life. But I was told you were both going to the same family. It was a decade before I knew you'd been separated."

Sighing, Morgan nodded with her eyes. She was too weak to move her head. Then she slid her gaze to David. "Father?" she asked, despite the effort it cost.

"No," David said. "Though we thought for a time I might have been." He came closer, too, sat down on the bed. "I was one of Lydia's… clients. Young, wealthy. I always liked her. When she told me she was pregnant, I agreed to be tested. And when I learned you weren't my children I… I walked away. It was a mistake, Morgan. It haunted me. I looked Lydia up again a year later, and she told me you'd been adopted, though she didn't know the details, except that you were happy. So I hired an investigator to find you. Maxine was fine, in a loving, healthy family. But you… " He shook his head. "I didn't like the people who'd adopted you. And I didn't know how the hell to undo what had already been done. So I moved to the West Coast, and became your adoptive father's best friend. It was the only way I could stay close to you, watch over you. And I was compelled to do that. I didn't contact Lydia again to tell her, because—well, because I knew it would kill her if she realized she'd handed you over to people like that."

He leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry I never told you the truth."

She closed her eyes. "Love you."

When he sat up, he had tears in his eyes.

Morgan wanted to tell them both that it was okay. That she didn't hold anything against either of them. But she couldn't. This damned weakness was robbing her of the ability to do much of anything. She was existing from one breath to the next, more uncertain with each one she drew whether she would have the strength to draw another. But she tried to tell them with her eyes. And that was the best she could do.

"What's taking them so long?" David asked.

Max stopped the car when she saw that Stiles had slowed down. She'd been driving without headlights, in pitch darkness, guided only by the distant red glow of his taillights. It was risky at best. Stupid at worst, but it was for her sister. She couldn't believe how badly she had managed to screw up. She had to make it right.

She put the car in reverse, saw no traffic behind her and backed up with nothing more than her own reverse lights to guide her. When she was out of sight of Stiles' car, she put the headlights on and found a place off the roadside to park. Then she shut the car off and turned to Lou. "This is it."

"Not for you, it's not. You take the car and go. Get some backup out here. I don't care what you have to say, just get some cops to head this way. I'm going in alone."

"The hell you are." She whipped out her cell phone, dialed 9-1-1. Then she frowned at the thing when nothing happened. "Dammit, we're out of range."

"Like I said, you go for help."

"Even if I did and help came running, they wouldn't get here in time. We have to do this now, Lou. You and me. With maybe a little help from the Mostly-Dead-Duo in there, if we're lucky and they're in a good mood." She left the keys in the ignition, got out of the car, not even waiting for Lou to reply, and started trudging forward.

He caught up to her in short order. "You could get hurt, Max. I couldn't live with that."

"My sister's dying, Lou. I caused it. I have to do this. If I don't, and she doesn't make it, how the hell do you think I'm gonna live with myself?"

He swallowed hard, staring at her in the darkness. "Dammit, you're so fucking stubborn."

"Yeah, and you love it."

"Here." He slapped a gun into her hands. Small. His handgun.

"What about you?"

He lifted his opposite arm, and she saw for the first time the dark outline of the shotgun he carried. "I figured it was time to break out the big guns."

"Good thinking."

They strode side by side along the road until they could make out the shape of Stiles car in the overgrown driveway of a falling-down house. It looked abandoned. But there was light coming from inside,

"Do you think Sarafina is still in the trunk?" Max whispered.

"He'd be an idiot to leave her there."

They moved in closer to the house, leaving the car for now. If Sarafina were in the trunk, she could probably get out, Max thought, and there was no sense wasting time or tipping off the enemy by rattling around trying to open a locked trunk. She assumed Lou agreed when he passed by the car without stopping.

They were approaching the rotten-looking front steps when Max felt a gun barrel in her spine. "Move and she dies," a man said.

She jerked her gaze sideways and saw Lou looking at her, a horrified expression on his face. "Okay, okay, easy," he said. "We're friends."

"Drop the shotgun."

Lou bent at the knees, laying the gun on the ground, and straightening again.

"You, too, hon," the man said.

"I don't have a gun to drop," she said. "You wanna loan me yours?"

"Fine, I'll get it myself," the man said, and he started patting her down, apparently certain she carried her gun taped to her crotch, judging by the amount of time he spent groping the area. He finally located the gun Lou had given her, took it and then nudged her forward. "Get inside. Both of you."

Lou and Max walked forward into the dilapidated house. Its door hung crookedly from one hinge. Max blinked in the white light of a gas lantern as she was prodded into a room where Stiles and two other men sat at a table.

"Well, what have we here?" Stiles asked, rising.

Through a doorway to the left, Max could see Dante strapped to a table and Sarafina strapped to another. She pretended not to notice them. "Impressive," she said, addressing Stiles instead. "So this is the new DPI headquarters? Talk about high tech."

"This is a temporary holding area," Stiles said. "So, do you want to die now, or would you prefer to tell me what the hell you're doing here first?"

Lou interrupted her before she could zing Stiles with a sarcastic reply. "I followed you."

"I knew it."

"Hey, if you knew it, why did you leave?"

"What are you talking about?"

Lou licked his lips. "After you left, I picked up that syringe and saw that there was still some of that drug left in it. I was worried she might not be out after all and jumped in the car to come and warn you."

Stiles lifted his brows, nodding as Lou spun his lies. He whistled long and low when Lou had finished. "And here I thought this was all a setup so you could get Dante out of here. So tell me, Lou, where did you leave your car? I didn't hear it pull into the driveway."

"Ran out of gas," Lou said. "Just a little ways back."

"Right." Stiles looked at the man behind Max. "Take them out back and shoot them."

Max shot her eyes to Lou. He stared back at her, and she saw that he was afraid—for her, not himself. Then the other man grabbed him and shoved him out of the house. She was being shoved right along behind him. They marched the two of them around to the back of the house, shoving her forward until she and Lou stood side by side, their backs to the men.

"Get on your knees."

"I'll die standing, thanks," Max said.

"Have it your way." The gun barrel moved from the small of her back to the base of her skull.

Lou moved suddenly, ducked low, and jammed the man behind him with an elbow. Then he turned and threw himself at the one with the gun to Max's head. The gun went off, deafening her, but she didn't feel pain, and reasoned that the shot had missed. She found herself on the ground, probably the shock of that gunshot next to her ear, but she got up as she saw one of the goons scrambling for his dropped gun. She went for it, too. He got it first and leveled it on her. Lou was grappling with the other man, both of them rolling around in the weeds.

Max held up a hand instinctively, and the gun, aimed right at her chest, went off. As it did, a dark form lunged between her and the shooter, like a black streak. Another shot, from behind her. Lou had won the fight for the other gun and shot her would-be assailant in the chest. The man went down in a heap. Behind Lou, his partner lay bleeding and unconscious.

She heard a car, tires squealing. Stiles and the one remaining thug getting away, no doubt. But she was too horrified to go after them. Dante, her sister's only hope, the man who had just taken a bullet for her, lay on the ground, bleeding, gasping, clutching his chest.

"Oh, God," she whispered.

"Just… stanch it." He ground out the words through clenched teeth. "Just get it stopped before I lose too much."

Nodding, she tore a strip from her blouse, balled it up, pressed it to the wound. Held it there.

Dante caught his breath. "Now… get me to Morgan."

"Lou, get the car," she said.

Lou ran into the darkness to comply. Sarafina came out of the house, looking at Max, at Dante in her arms. The handcuffs were still on her wrists, dangling like bracelets, their chain snapped in two.

"If you try to transform her tonight, it won't take," Sarafina said coldly.

"You don't know that."

"She's too far gone. And now you're wounded. Not at full power."

"I'll make it work."

"It could kill you."

"Then I'll die."

Sarafina lowered her head, closed her eyes. The car came screeching back. Sarafina went around the house to meet it, and Max wondered why. When she returned, Lou was at her side, and she held the roll of duct tape he'd used to bind her ankles. She tossed it to Max.

"Cram more padding into the wound. All you can fit. Then wrap him tight in this tape, all the way round his chest. Tight as you can make it."

Max didn't question her. She nodded her compliance, tore more fabric from her blouse and did exactly as Sarafina had instructed her.

When he was bound up tight, Sarafina said, "Now step away."

Max eased Dante's head to the ground, and Sarafina knelt beside him. "You have made your choice, Dante. Between me and this mortal woman you crave. You've chosen her."

"Why must I choose at all?"

"Will you come with me now? Leave her behind?"

He grimaced in pain. "I can't do that."

"Then you've chosen her." She brought her arm to her lips, bit a gash in her wrist, and pressed it to his mouth. Dante clutched her hand and drank as Sarafina went on. "This is the last time I will ever help you, Dante. You'll never have the chance to betray me again."

She jerked her wrist away, grabbed a strip of cloth Max had left on the ground and twisted it around the wound, using her teeth and one hand to knot it tight.

"I haven't betrayed you. Sarafina, wait… "

Without another word or a backward glance, she walked away, into the night, skirts dancing in the wind, bracelets and bangles jingling like bells. Dante closed his eyes. Aching, Max thought.

"Come on, Lou. Let's get him into the car. We have to get him back to Morgan."

Lou glanced at the sky as they hoisted Dante between them. "It'll be dawn soon."

"She won't last another day. It has to be now. If we're not already too late." She searched Dante's face. "Was she telling the truth about that? That it might not even work."

"If she's too near death, if I'm too weak… " Dante sighed and shook off their supporting arms, walking the rest of the way to the car unsteadily, but under his own power. He got into the back seat. Lou and Max got in the front. "It'll work," Dante said as Lou started the car, backed out the driveway. "It has to." Lou put the car in drive, and stomped the accelerator to the floor.

Chapter 26

Dante got out of the car, faced the house. The deepest sense of dread he had ever known swelled in his chest, overwhelming even the pain of the bullet hole. He could feel her inside. Her essence was weak, tenuous, and fading more with every breath.

His own body swayed with weakness, reminding him yet again just how closely they were linked to one another. Max grabbed his upper arm, steadied him. "Are you all right?"

"It's her. God, she's so weak."

"I know. Come on."

He let her lead him, and he noticed that Lou stayed below as they started up the stairs. He couldn't stop thinking that if Morgan died, it would be his fault. He should have listened to her from the start. He should have changed her right away, when she was strong. Now, even if he managed to save her, she would never know the preternatural strength she would have had if he had acted sooner.

He hated his selfishness. His fear. Yes, he'd been afraid of her. Afraid of the power she had over him. She could hurt him, destroy him. She would—if she died.

They reached the upper floor, and Max walked him along the hallway to the bedroom door. She tapped once, then opened it.

Lydia and David were beside the bed, but Dante's gaze barely swept over them on the way to Morgan. Oh, God, Morgan. He closed his eyes, lowering his head. She looked like a ghost already.

Max went to Lydia, to David. Spoke to them softly. Dante watched them as they each bent to kiss Morgan's forehead, then walked past him on their way out of the room.

Then Max leaned over her. "I've brought him, just as I promised I would."

Dante steeled himself, schooled his face into an expression of calm, and finally moved into Morgan's range of vision. When she saw him, her weak smile of welcome tore at his heart.

Then she shifted her gaze to her sister again. "Thank you."

Max nodded. "I won't see you again, will I?"

Morgan didn't answer, and Max leaned down to hug her gently. Then she straightened and backed away. "Be happy."

Dante glanced at the window. It was nearly dawn. He knew they would both be weak after the transformation, if it even worked. They would be vulnerable. He couldn't do it here. He needed her in a haven, safe from the sun. Gently, he bent over her, sliding his arms beneath her and lifting her from the bed. She was light as a dried stalk as she gazed up into his eyes. God, how he loved her.

He looked once more at Max. "Thank you for helping us."

"I only wish it hadn't taken me so long to figure out who the real monsters were."

Turning, Dante carried Morgan to the balcony, her white nightgown trailing down his side. He braced himself and leapt over the rail. The landing was jarring. It rattled his teeth, but he managed to remain upright. Then he carried her away from the house, toward the cliffs. He could feel Max's eyes on them as he walked into the night. He could feel her tears, as well.

He took Morgan into the hidden place beneath the house. As far as he was aware, she had never told anyone, not even her sister, about this place. It should be safe. He wouldn't put her in the coffin, not now. Not considering how near death she was, how frightened she must be. Instead, he tore the lining, and satin pad from it, and made them a cozy nest on the floor. Then he reclined there, his back against the wall, with her resting across his body. He bent to press his lips to hers.

She kissed him back. He felt it, sensed her responses, even though, physically, she could barely move. He touched her chin. "You'll be with me now. Always with me, Morgan. I'll never doubt you again."

"Yes," she whispered.

Lifting her chin, he pressed his face to her throat, bit down and pierced her jugular. Inside him, fires licked to life. Her pulse, fluttering against his tongue, the warm flow of her blood, the arousal he felt waking in her body, even in its weakened state, combined to create an answering need in him. And the hunger raged, as the hunger always raged in his kind.

He mustn't take too much, he reminded himself. Only a little. He felt her slipping away and drank deeply, until he pushed her into the shadowy realm between life and death. Her heart stuttered, skipped. He lifted his head away and stared down at her half-lidded eyes. A breath escaped her. A rattling, broken breath.

Quickly he tore the flesh of his wrist, and when the deep red blood welled, he pressed it to her lips. The touch of that fluid sparked her. She swallowed, and as her mouth filled, swallowed again. And then she began to suck, to draw the liquid from him. She needed a lot, and he knew what she felt. Not only because he had felt it himself, but because he felt every sensation that went through her. They were one while she fed at his wrist. Everything she experienced registered in his brain. Everything from how deeply she loved him to how badly she wanted him.

He weakened, and she sucked harder. Dizziness came, and still she drank. His head fell sideways, and his vision grew dark around the edges. He tugged his wrist slightly, but she held on and kept drinking.

Finally he gave a firm yank. He bound the wrist in a strip of fabric.

She fell backward, her back arching over his arm, her eyes falling closed.

Dante gathered her upper body, cradled her in his arms. "Please, don't die. Not now. God, let this work. Let it be enough. Let it work!"

Her lips moved, just slightly, right against his ear. Her breath, a whisper, weak but insistent. "Make love… to me… one… last… time."

He closed his eyes in misery. "It can't be the last time, my love. It can't." Pulling her over him, he dragged the white gown up her body, bunching the fabric around her waist. She was naked underneath. Her body lay against his chest now, her legs parted around his hips, linked behind him. He reached down to free himself from his jeans and immediately pressed himself into her. She was wet and yearning, ready for him. The blood lust did that. Even in this state, her hunger was for his body as much as for his blood, and it always would be. He clasped her hips, pushed himself deep inside her. She would have moved if she could have. He knew she couldn't, so he did it for her. Gently, slowly, as tenderly as he knew how. He kissed her and held her and moved very gently inside her. He had never made love this way—not in either of his lifetimes.

They were still locked together when the sun rose. And as she sank into slumber, he couldn't tell if she were dead… or undead.

And then he slept.

Epilogue

A month later

Dressed to the nines, Maxine sat and admired the way Lou looked in a tux. She was clutching his hand in one of hers and Lydia's in the other. Lydia, too, was glamorous tonight. Sequins, daring neckline, gorgeous cascading blond ringlets. She'd been drawing hungry looks all evening, from both men and women. Everything was beautiful, and yet bittersweet.

"This is incredible," Stormy said, leaning over Lou to grin at Max. "I can't believe you managed to get an extra ticket for me."

"For Best Original Screenplay, the nominees are… " the stunning female presenter on the stage said.

Stormy sat back in her seat as all of them focused on the stage. Max was practically holding her breath. David sat on the other side of Lydia, and from the look on his face, he was as nervous as she was when the starlet on the stage said, "And the award goes to… " and tore open the envelope.

Looking up, blinking back emotion, the actress said, "Morgan De Silva for Twilight Hunger."

The audience roared with applause. The emotional favorite had won. People rose to their feet, the five of them included. They hugged. Max and Lydia both cried liberally, and David made his way into the aisle and onto the stage as a voice announced, "Accepting the award on behalf of the late Morgan De Silva, David Sumner, her producer, director and dear friend."

He took the podium, nodding sadly as he shook the pretty presenter's hand, accepted her kiss on the cheek. He took the golden statue in his hands, fighting tears and waiting for the applause to die down. The big screen behind him was suddenly filled with a larger than life photo of Morgan, before the illness had ravaged her.

"God, she was so beautiful," Max heard someone say. "So young."

Slowly the crowd retook their seats and the applause died down.

David spoke. "Thank you. Morgan would have been so thrilled and so honored by this. I only wish she could be up on this stage tonight, accepting it herself. This firm—not just this one, but all three of her films—meant the world to her. And through them, I like to think her spirit lives on. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Applause thundered again as a pair of models led him off the stage.

Lou walked Max to the cemetery in the wee hours of the morning. Once there, though, he stood back. Gave her some space.

Standing alone, holding the golden statuette in both hands, Max stared at the beautiful rose granite headstone that had Morgan's name engraved on its face, along with her date of birth and date of death.

Sniffling, Max held the trophy out toward the headstone.

"You did it, my beautiful sister. You won."

Morgan stepped out from behind the headstone. She couldn't wipe the smile from her face as she took the statue and hugged it to her chest. "I did, didn't I? Oh, God, this is incredible! I won! I won!" She spun in a circle, tipped her head back and laughed, loving the rich, clear, powerful tones of her own voice, ringing in the night.

Dante came out of the shadows, as well, and stopped her spinning by catching her in his arms. Strong arms that she relished feeling around her. "Let's not forget whose story it actually was."

"Oh, please," she said, smiling up at him. "It was lifeless until I turned it into a script."

"Your script was lifeless until you fed it my story," he teased.

"Fine. We'll share the trophy, then."

Dante kissed her, and her laughter died away. "As we share everything," he whispered, and his deep voice so close to her ear sent delicious shivers up her spine.

Max cleared her throat exaggeratedly, and Dante finally released her. "You get to see her a lot more often than I do," Max said, opening her arms. "Do you mind?"

Dante waved his arm in surrender. Grinning, Morgan hugged Max hard. Her sister. Her very own sister. Morgan could barely believe how much she had come to love Max in two months' time. But it seemed, once survival had stopped being foremost in her mind, she had time to think about what it really meant to have Maxine in her life.

"You look wonderful," Max told her, holding her at arm's length as her green eyes danced over Morgan's face. "Healthy. Vibrant. Okay, a little pale, but I guess that goes with the territory."

"I am wonderful, you know," Morgan told her. "Better than I ever was, Max. Stronger. More powerful. I feel more alive than—than when I actually was. All thanks to you."

Max lowered her head. "I nearly got you killed," she whispered.

"No, love. You saved me. You showed up when I needed you most. You stayed, even though I tried to chase you away. You kept me alive, and you rescued my love and brought him to me." Still, Max's eyes were downcast. Morgan caught her chin, lifting it, holding her gaze. "Darling, if you hadn't come, Stiles would have done us both in. Even though it took you a bit to see the truth, it was your presence that made the difference. I'm convinced of that."

Max sniffed and hugged her again. "I'm just sorry it was so close. I should have listened to you from the beginning."

"That was a mistake I made as well, Maxine," Dante said, speaking softly. "In fact, I think Malone was the only one who was clear on things from the start."

"Clear my ass," Lou said, finally coming to join them. "I thought I'd lost it."

"Thank goodness you hadn't." Reaching out, Dante shook his hand.

Morgan took Max by the hand and led her away, leaving the two men at the graveside to chat. "We need to talk," she said.

"All right."

The two sisters walked together amid the stones of the rural cemetery, along its winding paths, among headstones that cast eerie shadows on the lush grass, fresh flowers and dead ones. Leafless trees swayed in the brisk night wind. The scent of flowers on a fresh grave, and the approach of winter, flavored the air.

"I wanted to talk to you about the house," Morgan said. "You've barely used it at all since I… well, since my funeral." A little chill of cool air whispered over her nape, and she shivered. "God, it feels funny saying that."

"It's your house, Morgan. You still need a place to live. I don't want to take it from you. I mean, the will was just a formality. It's only mine on paper."

"No, I meant it. I want it to be yours," Morgan said. "Besides, I can't occupy it openly and not risk discovery. I want you to have the place. Use it. Run your business out of it, if you want. It would be best for both of us."

"For both of us, huh?" Max asked. She paused near a bench that had been placed alongside the path for visitors and, turning, sat down. Morgan sat beside her. "Just how does it benefit you and Dante? Having relatives around all the time can't be a passionate young couple's dream come true. You guys are as giddy as newly weds."

"You don't know the half of it," Morgan said, averting her face. "He's incredible," she whispered. "I never thought I could be this… complete. For so long I had no one. Other than David. Now, suddenly, I have you, and I have this man who… he would die for me. He loves me that much. I still can't quite get over it."

"All the more reason to let you have your privacy," Max said. "My moving in wouldn't have one positive benefit for you two."

Morgan blinked against the moisture that came to her eyes and the catch that entered her breathing whenever she pondered Dante's love. "Yes, it would," she told her sister. "If you were there, I would have cover."

"Cover?"

Nodding, Morgan paced in front of the bench where Max sat. "As it is, I have to be so incredibly careful not to be seen. If you were here and someone saw me, they would just assume it was you. I could go out in public again, once in a while. Go to a movie, or go shopping." She stopped pacing, crouched down in front of Max and clasped her hands. "On top of that, if the place is occupied by my surviving family, strangers won't come snooping around."

"People have been snooping?" Max asked, looking concerned.

Morgan nodded. "Yes, every now and then. Curious fans, local kids. Hey, I'm famous. I won an award, you know."

Max smiled. "Yeah, I heard that somewhere."

"So?"

Max thought about it for a long moment. "It really would make a great place for the business. But, um, well, Stormy is my partner. She would have to come, too."

Morgan nodded slowly. She had only observed the blonde from a distance, but there was something oddly familiar about her. "Does she know about me?"

"I haven't told her," Max said. "But I think she suspects. And I do trust her. You know, she's convinced that she met you while she was in the coma. She goes on and on about how you led her back to the land of the living again. There's no telling her it was just a dream. So she feels she owes you. You can trust her not to betray your secret."

Morgan smiled just slightly as the memory that had been eluding her finally clicked into place. She had met her sister's best friend before—in a dream, when she was hovering between life and death in that hospital. Or… maybe it hadn't been a dream at all.

"And of course there's Lou. I have to consider him," Max went on.

"Do you think he'll agree to move up here? To work with you?"

Max shrugged. "I think I've got my work cut out for me to convince him to give it a try. But he was talking about a little cabin on the beach, and a fishing boat. He retires from the force soon, you know."

"Then what's stopping you, Max? Come on. Do it." She clasped her sister's hand. "I miss you. If you were here, we could have more time to make up for all the years we missed."

Max licked her lips. "If you're sure you want us here."

"You're my sister," Morgan said, smiling now, knowing Max would agree. "You know I want you here."

Finally Max nodded. "Okay. I'm here then. The Supernatural Investigations Service shall be based in Easton, Maine."

"SIS," Morgan said, with a slight nod. "I like it."

"I kind of thought you would."

Arm in arm, they rose from the bench and walked back to join the men at the grave. Morgan curled herself into Dante's arms, and he held her gently, lovingly. "It'll be dawn soon, love," he told her.

"I know." She smiled at her sister and the man who stood at Max's side, looking uncomfortable. "I'll see you soon?"

"Very soon," Max promised.

Morgan and Dante turned, moving into the shadows.

"You know, she's happier now than she has been her whole life," Max said, watching them walk out of sight. "She's so lucky."

"How's that?" Lou asked. He started toward the car, and Max fell into step beside him.

She shrugged. "Isn't it obvious? They're soulmates. Madly, wildly, eternally in love. I can't imagine how gratifying it would be to have a man love me the way Dante loves Morgan. It's pretty special, what they have together."

"I guess you're right," Lou said, sliding a casual arm around Max as they walked along the path toward the parking area. "Some folks go through their whole lives without finding that kind of thing."

"Yeah. And some have it right under their noses and refuse to see it."

"You think?" he asked, glancing down at her.

Max rolled her eyes, shook her head. "Yeah," she said. "I think."

Lou shrugged and kept on walking.

From the darkest shadows, Sarafina watched Dante talking and laughing with the mortals, finally leaving them with his lover held tightly in his arms.

"I'll love you forever," he whispered to Morgan. "I think, in some way, I already have."

"We were meant for each other, Dante. You know that now, don't you?"

"I've always known it on some level. The first time you said it, I got a chill." Gently, he kissed her. "I'm sorry it took me so long."

She smiled and kissed him back. "Just don't let it happen again." Then she danced away from him, her eyes sparkling with life and love. "Race you back to the house!" And, whirling, she laughed and ran off, nearly as rapidly as Sarafina herself could have moved.

Dante raced after her, never looking back.

So this was what he wanted. He had a new family now. He had turned his back on her. Dante—the last remaining link to her own family, her heritage, her blood.

Damn him.

He had betrayed her. Just as surely as every other member of her family had betrayed her.

It didn't matter, she thought, as she walked into the open and sat on the ground in a pool of spilled moonlight. She was a vampiress. She did not need a family. She didn't need anyone at all. And she never would.

No. Not ever again.

--7 Two By Twilight (2003)--

-- Twilight Vows --

Chapter 1

Irish countryside, 1808

I walked along the path that night, as I often did.  Bone- tired from working in my father's fields, coated in a layer of good Irish soil spread fine on my skin and held fast by my sweat.  My muscles ached, but 'twas a good sort of pain.  The sort that came of relishing one's own strength and vigor.  Of late, I hadn't done so any too often.  I'd been taken with bouts of weakness, my head spinning sometimes until I passed out cold as a corpse.  But today hadn't been like that at all.  Today I'd felt good, certain whatever had plagued me was gone.  And to prove it I'd worked like a horse in Da's fields.  All the day through I'd put my brothers and cousins through their paces, darin' them to keep up with me, laughing when they couldn't.  And I'd kept on wielding my hoe long after the others had called it a night.

So 'twas alone I was walking.

Autumn hung in the air, with the harvest beneath it and crackled under my feet and sent their aromas up to meet me as l walked by the squash patch, with its gray-blue hubbards as big as Ma's stew pot, and orange-yellow pumpkins clinging to their dying vines.  We'd have to gather them in tomorrow.  Gram said there would be a killing frost before next Sabbath.

A killing frost.

A little chill snaked up the back of my neck as the words repeated themselves, for some reason, in my mind.  Foolishness, of course.  I'd spent too many nights as a lad, curled on a braided rug before the hearth listenin' to Gram spin I her yams.  This time of the year, her tales tended toward the frightening, with ghosties and ghoulies her favorite subjects.  I supposed some of those tales had stuck in my mind.  Though a man grown now, and all of twenty years plus three, I still got the shivers from Gram's tales.  The way her voice would change as she told 'em, the way her ice-blue eyes would narrow as if she were sharing some dark secret while the firelight cast dancing shadows on her dear careworn face.

"Twas a night just like 'this one, boy.  When all seemed peaceful and right.  But any fool ought to know better than to walk alone after dark during the time of the harvest.  For the veil between the world of the living and that of the dead is thinning... and parting... and...

"Hush, Gram," I whispered.  But a chill breeze caressed my neck and goose bumps rose there to mark its passing.  I thrust my hands into my pockets, hunching my shoulders, walking a little faster.  Something skittered along the roadside, and my head jerked sharply to the right.  "Only the wind," I said, and then I began to whistle.

Any fool ought to know better.  Are you a fool, Donovan O'Roark?

I shook myself and walked still faster.  There were eyes on me... someone watching from the crisp, black night.  Or perhaps something.  A wolf or even an owl.  I told myself 'twas nothing, that I'd no reason to fear, but my breath began to hitch in my throat before puffing out in great clouds, and my heart to pound too quickly.

Then the dizziness came.

The ground buckled and heaved before me, though I know it never truly moved at all.  I staggered sideways, would have fallen into the weeds along the edge of the path, had I not managed to brace my hand against a nearby tree.  Palm flat to the warm, soft trunk, head hanging low, I fought to catch my breath, to cling to my consciousness.

The tree spoke.

"Alas, boy, I thought to wait... but I can see the deed must be done tonight."

I jerked my head up, then snatched my hand away, not from a tree, but from a man.  Yet... not a man.  His dark eyes swirled with the endless black of the very night, and his hair was black as soot, gleaming to midnight blue where the moon's rays alighted.  His lips, cherry red, and full.  Yet the pallor of his skin shocked me.  Not sickly-looking, not like death.  But fair, and fine, as if he were some fine work of art chiseled of pale granite.  As if he were a part of the moonlight itself.

I took a step backward, leaves crunching, the breeze picking up to tease my hair.  The wind grew stronger all of a sudden... almost as if it knew something dire was about to take place this autumn night...

...the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is thinning... parting...

I backed away more quickly.

The creature only shook his head.

"Don't try to run.  It will do you no good."

"Who are you?"  I managed.  "What do you want with me?"

 His smile was sad, bitter.  "Many things, Donovan.  Many things.  But for now... just the one."  He reached out, though I never saw his hands move.  They were simply there before him one moment, moving expressively as he spoke—and in the next instant they clasped the front of my homespun shirt.  I struggled against him, but he pulled me easily to him, and my fighting amounted to nothing at all.  I am not a small man, nor a weak one, despite my recent illness.  I stood fully a head taller than my da, and half that much above any other man in our village.  My shoulders were broad and well formed by a lifetime of hard work.  I'd never met a man I wasn't certain I could whip, should the need arise.

Yet this one, this thing, dragged me to him as if I were a child.  Closer, inexorably closer, even as I twisted and tugged and fought for my freedom.  He bent over me.  Fear clutched at my heart, nearly stopping its frantic beat.  Pain shot out through my chest, and down my left arm, and I couldn't draw air into my lungs.

Then I felt his mouth on my neck... lips parting, and the shocking pain as his teeth sank deeply into the skin of my throat, piercing me.  Pain that faded almost as quickly as it appeared.  And as it faded, so did everything else.  Everything around me, from the soft singing of the crickets to the smell of the decaying leaves.  I no longer felt the chill autumn air.  There were three things of which I remained aware, three things that filled all my senses.  Darkness.  Silence.  And the feel of his mouth on my throat, draining the very life from me.

Then even those things disappeared.

*    *    *    *    *

"Donovan!  Donny-boy, wake up!  Wake up!"

Someone shook my shoulders.  Da's voice shouted in my ears, sounding like it never had.  Raspy, panicky, afraid.  There was a taste in my mouth, salty and rich.  I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, as I fought to open my eyes.  When I looked at my hand, I saw blood, glittering in the moonlight. 

What had I done?  What..?

Da scooped me up into old arms that shouldn't have had the strength to lift me.  And staggering under my weight, he carried me toward the village, shouting for help.  It was only moments before others came, my neighbors, my friends.  Alicia with her flowing auburn curls and cat's eyes as green as Ireland itself, the girl I dreamed about at night.  My ma, and sisters.  My body was jostled as neighbor men relieved Da of the burden, and bore me swiftly into my home.  They lowered me to a pallet, while Ma shouted questions.  But no one could answer her.  No one knew what had befallen me out there on the path this night.  Only me, and one other soul.  A monster, a creature of nightmares and Gram's tales.

Gram.  Gram would know what had happened, what this meant.  I listened for her voice among the others, but it was a long while before I heard it.  And its grimness did nothing to reassure me.

"It can only be evil," she all but whispered.  "'Tis the Eve of All Hallows.  Foolish lad, out walking alone tonight of all nights!"

Ma hushed her impatiently, but I saw the way she stiffened at Gram's words.  She snatched up a lamp, elbowing the men aside and leaning over me as if to see for herself.  Then Ma gasped and drew slightly away, her loving eyes going wider.

"Lord a' mercy, there be blood on his lips."

"Aye," Da said.  "But what does it mean?"

My mother said nothing.  Gently, her hands pushed my shirt aside as she searched for injuries.  I forced my eyes to remain open, though sleep..

Or is that death?

...called to me, drew me closer just as the stranger had done.  I couldn't fight much longer.

Ma looked down at me, fear growing large in her eyes, though I could see her trying to keep it concealed from me.  "You'll be all right, my boy.  I'll see to that.  You'll be—"

As she spoke, she pushed my hair aside.  "Twas long, my hair.  Hung well past my shoulders, thick and darkest brown.  My Ma lifted the heavy locks, and her eyes changed.

As if the light of love flickered... a guttering candle.  She snatched up a cloth, muttering a prayer in the old language as she dabbed the blood away from my throat with one hand and lifted her lamp higher with the other.

And then my mother screamed.  "Devil!  Demon spawn!  Get the children out of this house, 'tis the mark of Satan!"

I felt my eyes widen as her face turned hateful.  I lifted a hand toward her as she backed away.  "Ma, what's wrong with you?  'Tis me, your son, Donovan—"

But she shook her head, her eyes fixed to the place on my throat where that creature had feasted, and she continued to back away.  "Die, Lucifer," she whispered to me.  Her son, her firstborn.  And I couldn't believe she said it, couldn't believe the hatred in her eyes.  "You're not my son, nor worthy to be there in his poor body.  Die, or I vow I'll kill you myself."

I'd been fighting to hold on.  But her words... the shock they sent through my body... 'twas all it took to shake my tenuous grip on life.  And I sank into darkness.  Into death.

This time, the darkness lasted longer, though I was never aware of the passing of time.  I only knew I felt clean when I began to surface toward life once more.  My body, my clothing... were fresh.  I smelled of heather and honeysuckle.  The clothes I wore were not the scratchy, rough weave I wore

 every day, either.  Ma had dressed me in a fine suit of clothes she'd made for me herself, and only allowed me to wear on the most important occasions.

I heard voices, smelled the familiar scent of tallow candles and lamps.  And flowers.  So many flowers.  Someone played a fiddle, drawing the bow 'cross the strings in a slow and mournful wail.  I heard the clink of glasses, and smelled good beer, and food.

Slowly, I managed to get my eyes open.

I never should have done that.  For I found that I lay in a coffin.  Homemade, likely by my da's own hand.  The coffin had been set upon a table at 0'Connor's tavern.  Women walked past, heads low, tears damp on their cheeks.  Men stood still, drinking beer from tin tankards.  Sean Ryan stood in a corner with his fiddle tucked under his chin, eyes closed.  Alicia, the girl I'd often kissed when her da wasn't looking, sat by herself in a chair, staring straight ahead, but seeing nothing.

Father Murphy stood up front, right beside the coffin, his back to me, his prayer book opened, and by clearing his throat he got everyone to look his way.

"Donovan O'Roark was a good man, but evil struck him down in the prime of his youth..."

Lord a' mercy, they were givin' me a funeral!

"No, Father," I cried as loud as I could manage.  "I'm alive...  Da, Ma, I'm..."  I struggled to sit up.

Someone screamed, and then the room went dead silent.  Father Murphy faced me, white as a specter, wide-eyed as he crossed himself.  Alicia leapt to her feet and shouted, "Kill it!  Kill it before it destroys us all!"

"No!"  I cried.  "I'm not evil!  "Tis me, Donovan O'Roark... won't someone listen...?"

"Get the women and children out," Father Murphy shouted, and for the first time I thought he sounded like some mighty prophet of old.  His voice fairly shook the walls.  Or perhaps 'twas my hearing that was altered, for indeed it seemed every voice was sharper, clearer to me.  And the fiddle...

No time to dwell on that now, for my best friend Sean and some of the other young men began urging the women out of the tavern.

My ma stayed behind, glancing at me, then at my da.  "You know what must be done."

Da nodded, and Ma fairly ran from the room then.

I braced my hands on the sides of the coffin, making as if to get myself out, thinking how they'd all laugh once they realized how foolish they were being, and—

*    *    *    *    *

Da shoved me back.  Hard.  Cruel.  Never had he handled me so roughly.  I blinked in shock.  Then froze—literally felt the ice creeping through my veins—as I saw Father Murphy take a wooden stake from somewhere nearby, muttering, "Your wife was right, O'Roark.  'Tis good we were prepared for this."  He pressed the tip of the stake to my chest, and my da, my own beloved da,

handed him the mallet.

From outside I could hear my mother sobbing softly and the girl I planned to marry one day shouting "Kill it!  Kill it now!"

Father Murphy lifted the mallet.

I don't know where the strength came from—or, I didn't know then.  I suppose I blamed it on panic or fear, rather than anything preternatural.  But when I shoved against the hands that held me—my father's hands—I felt little resistance.  I surged from that coffin with the force of a tidal wave, and landed on my feet beyond the two of them.  My trusted confessor and my flesh-and-blood sire.  My would-be executioners.

"Da, how can you do this?  What have I done to deserve—"

"He's not your son," Father Murphy said.  "He's evil, the same evil that took your son away.  Do not heed him."

"But I am your son!  Da, look at me!"

Da turned away.  "Get thee behind me, Satan."

"Da, 'tis me, your firstborn..."

He faced me again with blood in his eyes.  Yanking the stake and mallet from the priest's hands, my father surged at me, and suddenly there was no doubt in my mind he meant to do murder.  I spun away and ran.  Out the front door, the only door, and right through the midst of that crowd of mourners who'd called themselves my friends.  My family.  My woman.

"Get it!"  someone cried.  "It mustn't escape!"

And I fled.  Shoving them aside easily, I ran, faster than I'd known I could run.  I heard the pursuit.  Some had fetched dogs, others had mounted their horses.  I saw the flickering of yellow-orange torchlight coming closer as I ran for my very life.  And they kept coming.

Someone yanked me off my feet and into the bushes alongside the path.  I looked up, and saw the creature who'd brought all of this upon me, and I opened my mouth to curse his very existence.  He easily covered it, stilling me and drawing me deep into the cover of the greenery.  A second later the mob thundered past, shouting and cursing me, promising to destroy me in the most horrible ways imaginable.  Calling me "Satan."

My captor no longer needed to hold me still, for I had no will to move.  I relaxed to the ground, lowering my head as tears burned my eyes.  My pursuers were gone.  My assassin remained, but I no longer cared.  "Kill me if you will," I offered.  "I've no reason to wish to live."

"You have it all wrong, Donovan," he told me, and gripping my arms, he pulled me to my feet.  Strong hands, gripping me hard, but no pain as a result.  "You were dying before.  The weakness, the dizziness, the blackouts."

I looked up sharply.

"Oh, yes, I've been watching you.  You'd have been dead within a few more days, at most.  But you... you didn't want death."  He lowered his head, shook it.  "Rarely have I come upon a man as vividly alive and in love with life as you, my friend."

I frowned, shook my head.  "Then why did you try to kill me?"

"I wasn't trying to kill you, Donovan.  I was giving you life.  You'll never die now.  You can't."

"I...  I can't...?"

"Well, there are ways, but... listen to me, lad.  I took your blood, drained you to the point of death.  And then I fed you from my own veins and filled you once again.  It's how the dark gift is shared, how it's given."

"Dark gift.  I don't know—"

"Immortality," he told me.

I stood there, blinking in confusion and staring up at this man.  His dark head silhouetted by a Halloween moon, and bordered by the clawlike, leafless branches of slumbering trees.  A pumpkin patch at his back.  An owl singing of my death in the distance.  And I think I sensed then, finally, just what he was about to say.

"My name is Dante, and I am a vampire."

I gasped, but he took my hand in a firm grip and shook it.  "Your name is Donovan," he told me, patient as if he were a teacher instructing a slow student.  "And as of tonight, you are a vampire, too."

Chapter 2

Rachel Sullivan waltzed into O'Mallory's pub as if she'd never been gone, and ignored the hush that fell as she passed.  Glasses stopped clinking, men stopped spinning their yams.  Eyes followed her when she sashayed to the back of the room and snatched a white apron from a hook.  Behind the gleaming mahogany bar, Mary folded her arms over her plump middle and smiled.  Rachel tied the apron on and turned around, eyeing the round, wooden tables and the familiar faces at each one.

"An' what's got you all so tongue-tied?" she asked, tossing her head.  "I told you I'd come back, and now I have.  So stop your gaping and drink your ale."  She turned briskly back to the bar, snatching up a tray with two foaming pints on it, and then unerringly spotted the pair who had empty glasses before them, and delivered their refills.

The talk started up again.  Mostly directed at her now.  Unshaven men who'd known her father, welcoming her home.  Curly-headed women asking her about the States as she hustled back and forth with her laden tray.  For the first time in what seemed like a long time, Rachel released a long, cleansing breath, and felt the tension drain from her spine.  She was home, truly home.  And it felt good.  Better than the degree she'd worked so hard to earn.  Better than anything had since... since before she'd left.

She'd been afraid, half expecting the locals to be wary of her now, but the rapid return to normalcy in the pub told her that fear had been unwarranted.  The people of Dunkinny didn't like outsiders, that much was true.  Oh, tourists occasionally found their way to the isolated village, particularly the ones with Irish surnames out to discover their roots.  The locals were polite enough, but always reserved.  Wary.  Rachel, though, had been born and raised here.  Orphaned here, and taken under the collective wing of these villagers.  They'd been sad when she'd left them, but not angry.  With one exception—Marney Neal, who'd been so determined to marry her.  But he wasn't here tonight, she noted with relief.  And the others welcomed her back into their midst without a second thought.  Eight years away, but they didn't see her as an outsider.

"Welcome home, Rachel."  Mary, who'd owned this place and the boarding house attached to it for as long as Rachel could remember, hugged her hard, slapping her back with enthusiastic blows.  "I've kept your old room for you.  I can already see you'll be takin' your old job back."

Rachel didn't have the heart to tell her it was only for a short time.  Only until she got her thesis written, the final step in earning her doctorate.  And then she'd...

What?  Become the world's leading social anthropologist?  Teach at an Ivy League university in the States?

She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of Russell Finnegan's stale pipe smoke, fresh beer, and the sheep manure on Mitch Marley's boots.  When she opened them again, she faced the window, and stared out at the worn track that passed for a road in this tiny village, and the rolling emerald hills, and the crumbling castle—Castle Dante—in the distance.  It stood amid a ghostly mist as haunting as the tale that went along with the place—the tale she was basing her thesis on.  Beyond the castle were the cliffs, and the green-blue sea far below.

And that was the other reason she'd come back.  To see that castle one more time.

As a child, she'd believed in the tales.  But in her heart, she'd never accepted the villagers' condemnation of the men who'd once lived there.  One of them, she swore, had come to her.  Twice in her childhood she'd met him, or so she'd believed for a long time.  The first time had been when she'd nearly drowned in the river one night long ago.  A dark stranger had pulled her from the water, breathed into her lungs, cradled her gently until others arrived, and then disappeared before she'd even had a chance to thank him.  The second time was after her parents' deaths, when she'd lain awake and afraid in her bed, unable to sleep, feeling more alone than any being ever had.  He'd come to her, held her hand, and told her she wasn't alone at all.  That she had a guardian who would watch over her, protect her always, and that she must never fear.  She'd barely seen his face in the darkness, but in her mind, she'd believed him to be Donovan O'Roark, or his ghost.  And she'd loved him.

Always, she'd loved him.  Even later, when she'd realized her childhood memories were only dreams, and that there were no such things as vampires, she'd nurtured a tender place for the fictional legend in her heart.  And while she was home, she'd visit that castle once more... perhaps just to assure herself that he wasn't truly there, awaiting her return.

*    *    *    *    *

She'd been home for two weeks when he came.

The air was brisk, with the cold taste of winter on its   f the pub were propped open all the same, to let the pipe smoke out and the fresh air in.  And the fire snapping in Mary's cobblestone hearth kept the chill at bay.

When the silence fell this time, it was uneasy, rather than the friendly hush that had fallen upon Rachel's unexpected return.  Then, she'd felt the smiling eyes, the welcome.  Now she felt a frisson of something icy slipping up her spine.  And when she turned to follow the curious gazes, she saw the stranger walking along the darkened road.

He paused, and stared off in the distance, toward the dark hulking silhouette of the castle.  Mitch Marley gasped.  Russell Finnegan gaped and his pipe dropped from his lax mouth to the table, unnoticed.

The tension that filled the room, filled her, was ridiculous, and unnecessary.  "I'd forgot," she muttered, "just how superstitious you all are.  Look at you, gawking at that fellow as if he's Donovan O'Roark come back from the dead!"

Mary crossed herself.  "You saying you don't believe the old tales now that you're educated, Rachel Sullivan?"

"Old tales are just that.  Old tales.  Nothing more.  I'll prove it, too."  Rachel stepped into the open doorway, hands braced on either side, and leaned out.  "I don't know where you're going, stranger, but if it's food and a warm bed you're lookin' for, you won't find it anywhere but here."

"Lord preserve us from that saucy girl," Mary murmured.

"Feisty as she ever was," someone agreed.

But Rachel ignored them, because the man was turning, looking at her.  It was dark tonight, no moon to help her explore his face.  She could only see dark eyes gleaming the reflection of the soft, muted light spilling out of the   pub.  Firelight and lamp glow.  Mary detested bright electric lights at nighttime, though Rachel often suspected it was the bill she truly disliked.

"Come inside," Rachel said again, more softly this time because she sensed he could hear her very well.  "Warm yourself by the fire.  And show these friends of mine that you're not the monster from their favorite folktale."

*    *    *    *    *

I stood there, stunned to my bones.  Amazed first that she'd spoken to me at all, for I knew the people of Dunkinny to be a superstitious lot, untrusting of strangers.  Or they had been when I'd first left here, nigh on a hundred years ago, and they had been so still each time I'd returned since.  But people in solitary villages like this one never tend to change overmuch.  She was different, though.  She'd always been different.

I fancied it ironic; I'd been one of them once, and that wariness, that mistrust of strangers, was still with me.  But I'd been betrayed too often to let it go.  It was, in fact, stronger than ever.

So then, why did I stop?  Why did I turn and look at her when she spoke to me, when my natural reaction would have been to keep walking, never so much as pausing in my gait.

But I did pause.  Partly because of her voice, pure and silken, with the lilt of Ireland, of this very village to it.  So familiar and dear to me, that accent.  And frightening at the same time.  'Twas the voice of my own people, the ones who'd called me evil and tried to kill me.  The ones who'd later murdered the best friend I'd ever had.  But 'twas also the voice of the little girl I'd watched over long ago, but grown up now.  And somehow, still the same.

She spoke again, her tone haughty, mischievous, almost taunting.  And then I looked, and saw her silhouetted in the   doorway, surrounded by a golden glow.  Raven hair, long and wild.  I'd seen Gypsies less mesmerizing.

She held out a hand to me.  "Come," she said.

And as if her words held some sort of power over me, I went.

She clasped my hand as soon as I came within reach, and she drew me inside.  She had long sharp nails.  Red nails.  I liked them, and the warmth of her small, strong hand.  And the tingle of sensual awareness I felt passing through her body.  I liked that, too.  Knew better than to indulge it this close to what would soon be my home... again.  But liked it all the same.

Over the years, I had changed, but not drastically.  My skin was paler, yes.  It hadn't felt the touch of the sun in nearly two centuries, after all.  But its pink, healthy glow remained intact for several hours once I'd fed.

And I'd fed well tonight.

So when she drew me inside, there were no gasps of shock at my appearance.  She settled me into a wooden chair near the fire, and that's when I realized this pub was in the exact place that other one had stood long ago.  O'Connor's tavern.  The site of my funeral.  The place where my father had tried to murder me.

A lump came into my throat, but I forced it away.

"There, you see?" the girl was saying, hands on her hips, which moved enticingly whenever she did.  She waved a hand toward me.  "Just a tourist, not a legend come to life."  She faced me again.  "Tell us, stranger, what's your name?"

I cleared my throat.  "O'Roark," I said, waiting, curious to see their reactions.

The plump woman dropped a tankard of ale and it crashed to the floor, spewing amber liquid and odorous foam around her feet.

The girl stared at me, searching my face with an intensity that shook me.  But she couldn't recognize me.  She'd never seen my face clearly enough to know it again now.  And finally she grinned, a twinkle in her eye, and tilted her head to one side.  "O'Roark, is it?  Another one?  Tell me, Mr. O'Roark, have you come travelin' from the States in search of your family history?"

I smiled very slightly, unable to help myself.  Such a spirited girl, she was.  "Has my accent faded so much that I sound like an American to you?"  I asked her.

She gave me a sassy shrug.  "I only know you're not from Dunkinny.  For I know everyone in this town."

"You've lived here that long, have you?"

"Born here, as were my parents and theirs before them for five generations."

"Mine, too."

She frowned at me, and I took my time studying her face.  Small features, fine bones.  But her lips were full and her eyes large in that small face.  "You're saying you're descended from our O'Roarks?"

"So much so that I've inherited the castle."

At last, I'd shaken her.  The others had been uneasy from the moment I'd set foot inside, but not her.  Now, though, I saw it.  The widening of her deep green eyes, the loss of blood's glow in her cheeks.

"You're making it up," she accused, but softly.

I shook my head.

"He'll be wantin' to know about the legend then," Mary called.

"Aye, tell him the legend, Rachel!  Stranger he may be, but no man ought to risk dallying about that place unwarned."

Rachel.  She'd grown into the name.  A name as untamed and tempting as the woman she'd become.

She tilted her head to one side.  "He already knows," she ventured, studying me, watching my every reaction.

"How can you be sure?"  I asked her.  "Tell me, Rachel.  What is this legend that seems to make everyone here so I nervous?  Everyone... but you, that is."

She recovered quickly, regaining the bounce in her step | as she snatched two steins of ale from the bar, and brought them to the table.  One, she thumped to the table before me.  The other, she drank from deeply, before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and leaning back in the chair she'd taken.

Behind her the fire snapped and danced.  "Long ago Donovan O'Roark, a farmer's son loved by all, was walking home from the fields.  Alone, he walked, and well after dark, on the Eve of All Hallows."

I got a chill up my spine, and was reminded, briefly and vividly of my gram, and the way she'd spun her tales before the fire at night.  Tales I'd never believed in.

"But poor Donovan never made it home unscathed that night, for a creature attacked him."  She paused, looking around the room.  I did likewise, seeing the rapt attention on every face—though they'd likely all heard the tale a hundred times by now.  "A vampire," she said in a long, whispery breath.

I lifted my brows high, an attempt to show them my skepticism.  "A vampire," I repeated.

"Indeed.  The young man died that night, but he didn't stay dead long.  He rose from his casket at his own funeral!  No longer mortal, but a creature like the one who'd created him.  The villagers tried to kill him, but he was too strong, and he escaped into the night and vanished."

I lifted the mug to my mouth, pretending to sip the beer, and licking the taste of it from my lips when I set the glass down again.  "I still don't see what this has to do with the castle."

"Ah, so you're an impatient one, are you?"

I only shrugged and let her continue.

"Donovan wasn't seen again.  Not for a hundred years.  But everyone knew his tale.  Then, something happened.  The lord of that castle—" here she pointed in the castle's general direction, "—was a rich Italian man, some said a nobleman.  His name was Dante.  Now how do you suppose his castle ended up in the hands of the family O'Roark?"  I smiled and said nothing.  Rachel went on.  "No one had ever suspected Dante of anything evil.  He simply kept to himself, and that was the way the villagers liked it."

"He being an outsider, and all," I put in.

She gave me a curious glance.  "One night a young girl, who'd been hired to work sometimes at the castle, came running down from the cliffs, hysterical.  Screaming and crying, she was.  With blood runnin' down her neck in twin streams, and two tiny punctures in her pretty throat."

I didn't interrupt her, though the words near choked me trying to escape.  Dante had never harmed the girl.  He'd adored her, loved her to distraction, and in the end, done the one thing he'd warned me over and over never to do.

He'd trusted her.

Rachel sipped her beer.  "The girl said Dante was a monster who slept in a coffin by day, and fed on livin' blood by night.  He'd attacked her, tried to drain her dry, but she'd got away."

"Did anyone wonder," I asked, unable to keep still any longer, 'how a young thing like that could get away from a creature like him?"

She frowned at me.  "You want to hear the rest or not?"

I nodded.  She spoke.  "The girl said Dante wasn't alone up there.  She said he had another with him, and that companion was none other than Donovan O'Roark."

Around the room everyone nodded, muttering in agreement.

"The villagers discussed what needed to be done, while young Laura begged them to destroy the monsters.  Finally,   they agreed.  At just before dawn they marched to the castle armed with torches and oil, and they set the place alight."  When she said it, I thought she suppressed a shudder.

I remembered it all too well.  The flames, the sickening realization that the woman Dante had loved had betrayed him in the worst possible way.  His pained expression as he realized it, too.  I knew that pain so well, because I'd felt it when my own family, and the girl I'd loved, had done the same to me.

"The vampires were forced to flee, and when they did, the sun was already coming up.  And the castle has been owned by an O'Roark ever since."  She stopped.  I felt her hand on my arm.  "Mister O'Roark?"

I opened my eyes, just realizing I had squeezed them shut. 

"Are you all right?"

"It... it's a frightening tale.  Gruesome."

"But just a tale, as I've been trying to tell these good people."

I nodded.  "Go on, finish it.  What became of the two victims?"

She tilted her head.  "Victims?"  Lowering her gaze, her voice softer, she said, "I never thought anyone else would see them that way.  But you're right, 'tis exactly what they were."  She met my eyes again, her voice more normal.  "At any rate, they ran off in separate directions, but smoke could be seen curling from their clothes as they went.  The villagers believed they both died, burned to cinders by the sun."  She shook her head, almost sadly.  "But not long after that, a crew of men arrived to begin working on the castle, and when they were questioned they would only say a man named O'Roark had hired them.  The villagers believed it was Donovan, back from the dead a second time.  They all said he'd return one day to seek vengeance on the people of Dunkinny for the murder of his friend."

She sighed deeply, and for a long moment no one spoke, still under the spell of her story.  But Rachel broke the silence a moment later.  "I'm sure most of the locals are speculating as to whether you be him.  Tell them your given name, O'Roark.  Ease their superstitious minds."

I smiled very gently, and laid money on the table to pay for my unfinished beer.  Then got to my feet and turned for the door.  "My given name," I said softly, "is Donovan."  And then I stepped into the night, away from all of them and the dread on their faces.

Chapter 3

Someone was following me.

I slowed my pace slightly, keeping to the shadows, moving in utter silence.  My mind open, probing, tracking the curious fool.  Only one.  No threat to me.

I never should've done it; taunted them the way I did.  I knew better, and to this day I've no idea what possessed me to tell them my name, watch them go pale, and then walk away.  I'd frightened the fools, deliberately frightened them.  But it was no less than they deserved.  They'd built themselves up a hefty debt over the generations.  Turning on one of their own the way they'd turned on me so long ago.  Murdering Dante...

I paused along the roadside where the heather bloomed its last and its scent was heavy in the air, lowered my head as the pain swept over me along with the autumn wind.  They'd surrounded the castle, and brutally put their torches to our home, our sanctuary, forcing us to run for our lives.  But we'd only found the rising sun awaiting our desperate flight.  Its golden rays, so beautiful, so deadly.  I remember the searing, the blistering of my flesh, the horror that surged within me as I saw thin tendrils of smoke rising up from my own body.

I'd been the lucky one that cold morn.  By burrowing deep into a haystack in a field—a field I'd once worked at my father's side—I found shelter.  But for Dante...  I knew him to be dead.  For I never saw him again after that day, and I've no doubt he'd have contacted me somehow if he'd survived.

Lifting my head, I sent my senses out, realizing that in the flood of memories this place evoked, I'd lost track of my follower.

But the stalker had stopped as well, and stood now several yards away, just watching, and thinking herself protected by the darkness.  I almost smiled at her innocence, turned, and began walking again, wondering how far her courage would take her.

I'd left this place after the attack.  Traveled, saw the world, lived in so many places I barely remember them all.  But of people, of others like myself and mortals the same, I saw little.  I can list the name of every person I've ever had words with in the past two hundred years, and that's how few they've been.

Dante drilled it into me, again and again.  "Trust no one, Donovan.  No one.  And most especially, no mortal."

I could hear the sea in the distance now, and the road ran away from the farmers' fields and began to slope sharply upward, among rises too steep, and far too rocky, to be tilled.  She was still following.

So long as we'd lived by Dante's words, we'd been fine.  A lonely life, it was.  But safe, peaceful.  Satisfying in so many other ways.  The time we had, endless time—or so we believed then—to learn of music and art, to read and to write, to experience and to savor the things our mortal lifetimes would never have given us time to know.

But then Dante had fallen in love, and it had all ended.  He'd told the girl the truth, and it seemed to me she must have run all the way back to that ignorant mass of villagers, so eager was she to tell our secret and see us destroyed.

Dante had been right from the start.  Trust no one, and particularly, no mortal.

As I crested the hill, the wind blew in from the sea more fiercely, and I loved the feel of it.  My wind, my sea.  So familiar despite the bitterness I'd known here.  I sat down amid a small outcropping of boulders along the roadside... not because I was tired.

The castle towered before me, no sign of the fire that had nearly killed me a century ago.  Dante had willed the place to me, and I'd had it restored, or partially so.  I kept it up, always, ready for his return.  I'd long ago given up hope he'd ever come back... but somehow I couldn't let go of this place.

My good friend was gone, and I was alone in the world.  There was no room to doubt that.  And yet some foolish sentimental urge had drawn me back here to the very place where he'd been brutally murdered.  Back to this place, to the castle, to my ancestral home—to her.  I'd been drawn to see her again, to assure myself she was still safe and well.

She was nearly upon me now, the wind whipping her hair into wild chaos.  Her eyes narrowing as she squinted into the darkness, trying to see where I'd gone.  She thought she was stepping lightly, but I heard every footfall.  Not that it would have mattered.  She had a scent about her, one that was sharply different from the others—from any other mortal I'd encountered.  Dante had told me that some did, and he'd told me what it meant.

Among other things, vital things, it meant that I was forbidden to harm her.  By whose decree, I never knew.  Never asked.  Besides, I never was much for rules.  But I couldn't have harmed her if I'd tried.

She came closer.  Her long skirt snapped in the sea wind, whipping her ankles.  Her blouse... sinfully snug-fitting, and molding to her breasts as if trying to squeeze them.  She stood there a moment, so close I could feel her there.  And after a fruitless search for me, she lowered her head in defeat.  But still she remained, letting the wind buffet her body, and I do believe she was thoroughly enjoying its vicious embrace.  But then she turned to go.

I stood slowly, silently.  "Are you looking for someone?"

She sucked in a loud, violent gasp, spinning toward me, her hands flying to her chest as if to keep her heart from leaping out.  Then she paused, blinking at me in the darkness, drawing several open mouthed breaths.  "Lordy, you near scared the life out of me!"

I smiled then.  Her accent was no longer as pronounced as it used to be, and I knew that was because she'd been away for a time.  But it remained enchanting to me.  My own had faded until it was barely discernible anymore.

"I was beginning to think," I told her, "that nothing frightened you."

She gave a tilt of her head and a shrug.  "Well, it takes a good deal more than an old folktale and a stranger showin' up in the village, claimin' to be a ghost."

"I never claimed to be a ghost."

"You said you were Donovan O'Roark."

"Because I am."

She narrowed her emerald eyes on me.  She had witch's eyes, Rachel Sullivan did.  "Can you prove it?"

My gaze dipped to the pale, slender column of her throat, and impulsively, I put my fingers there and felt the blood churning beneath her skin.  "I could..."

 Her eyes sparkled.  It was true, nothing frightened her.  She smiled at me, and it took my breath away.  "Going' to bite my neck, are you?" she asked.

"If I did, would you run screaming to the villagers, and return with a mob bent on doing me in?"

Tipping her head back, she laughed softly, a deep husky sound.  Her neck... so close, so smooth...

She brought her gaze level with mine, obviously amused.  "I'd be more likely to bite you back, Donovan O'Roark, and don't you forget it."

I could say nothing.  She robbed me of words, of the power of speech, of coherent thought, with that flippant reply.

"But the proof I had in mind," she went on, "was running more along the lines of paperwork.  A driver's license, you know, or something of that sort."

Swallowing hard, I retrieved my wallet from my back pocket, extracted my identification and showed it to her.  A man in my position did well to keep things such as these up-to-date, and there were many ways of doing so, none too complex.  She took it, her fingers brushing mine, perhaps deliberately.  She had to squint and finally pulled a cigarette lighter from her deep pocket and, turning her back to the wind, used it to see by.

Nodding sagely, she handed it back to me.  "So you really are a descendant—named for your most infamous ancestor, no less."  She bit her lower lip.  "Is this your first visit to Dunkinny, then?"

She asked it as if trying to hide the question's importance to her.  I thought it best not to answer.  "Why were you following me, Rachel—it is Rachel, isn't it?"

"Indeed, Rachel Sullivan, with a few notorious ancestors of my own."

The back of my neck prickled to life at the mention of her ancestors.  Treacherous women, women I'd known too well.

She went on.  "The Sullivan women are somewhat known for scandals.  Perhaps I ought to warn you of that right off.  'Twas one of my own who four generations ago screamed accusations against Lord Dante, and got him killed, or so the legends have it."

It was true, Laura Sullivan had been her name.  My throat went dry.

"An' they say another Sullivan woman was promised to marry Donovan O'Roark himself--the first one, that is.  But when he rose from his coffin, she cried for his blood."

"Yes," I said softly, hearing her shrill voice again in my mind, shouting, "Kill it!  Kill it before it destroys us all!"   "Alicia," I muttered.

"Really?  I never heard her given name before."

I only shrugged.  "So have you come to pick up where your forebears left off, Rachel?  To destroy me?"

She slipped her arm through mine, and turned us toward the castle, walking slowly.  "You're a funny man, Donovan.  But you know as well as I those are only silly tales.  No truth to 'em, or at least, so little 'tis barely recognizable anymore.  No, I have a far different mission.  But I'll be needin' your help."

"My help?"  She had my curiosity piqued.  And yet I feared her.  It was too uncanny to be mere coincidence, and a shiver worked up my spine as I wondered if perhaps it was the destiny of the Sullivan women to destroy me—if they'd keep coming, generation after generation of them—until they saw the task completed.

And now I was thinking as foolishly and superstitiously as my people.

"Tell me of this mission, then.  What is it?"

She looked up at me and smiled, eyes wide and green as the sea, full of innocence and mischief like the eyes of the child I remembered.

"I've come to learn all your secrets, Donovan.  All the secrets of Castle Dante, and the truth behind the legend."

My heart tripped to a stop in my chest.  My voice hoarse, I said, "If I told you all of that, pretty Rachel, I'm afraid I'd have to kill you."

Pressing closer to my side, clapping her hand to my arm and leaning her head on my shoulder, she laughed.  A husky, deep sound, genuine amusement ringing in its voice.  "I do love a man with a sense of humor," she said.  "I can tell we're going to get along, Donovan.  Why, we'll be best friends 'fore we're done."

She was warm at my side, and far too close to me.  And I relished her nearness... for the lack of human companionship wears a man down over the years.

She was here to destroy me.  I had no doubt of that.  And yet I couldn't bring myself to send her away.  She couldn't force me to tell her anything, I told myself.  She couldn't learn anything I didn't wish her to know.  What harm would it do to let her accompany me to the castle?

Inside me, I heard Dante's dire warnings:  Don't do it, Donovan.  Don't spend another second with her.  She's dangerous!  She's a Sullivan, dammit.  Send her away, or kill her now and be done with it.

We stopped, the wind blocked now by the towering mass of the castle itself.  Before us two massive doors made of broad beams, and held together by black iron bands, stood like sentries awaiting the password.

"Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to see inside this castle," she said, so softly it was as if she were that little girl again, right now.  "But my parents forbade it, and filled my head with so many foolish old tales that for a time I was frightened to death of sneaking up here the way the older ones did."

"For a time?"

"Aye.  Later I changed my mind.  He was no monster, the man who lived here.  I crept around this place often, once I'd made up my mind to that.  So childish, hopin' for a glimpse of a man long dead."

"But you didn't go inside?"

"I couldn't.  I always felt..."  She drew a deep breath, let it out all at once.  "You'll laugh at me."

"No," I said.  "I won't.  Tell me."

She looked up, right into my eyes, and hers were honest, sincere, beautiful.  "I always thought this place seemed... sacred, somehow.  And... and it was my own blood kin that denied it, ruined it.  So to me, my setting foot inside would have been... a sacrilege."

"And now?"

She eyed the castle doors, shivered a little.  "Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe I'm the one who'll make it all right again, somehow."  She lowered her head, sighing.  "I'm different from the others, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"They tell the tale, again and again, and they all shudder with fear of the creatures they claim lived here once."  She placed a palm against the chiseled stone, closed her eyes.  "But not me.  The first time I heard the tale I was all of three years old, and I cried.  For hours, no one could comfort me.  To me, it wasn't a horror story, it was a tragedy.  One man, rising from the dead only to be driven out of the village by his own family.  Another, murdered only because he dared to love."  She met my eyes and smiled.  "To tell you the truth, back when I was still child enough to believe in the old tales, I thought of your ancestor as... as a friend.  My own guardian angel."

"And now?"  I asked her.

"And now I'm an adult, who knows better than to believe in fairy tales.  But it does seem like Providence that   you're here now.  Just when I've returned home from the States.  Just when I'm planning to write my thesis based on the legend, its sources, and its effects on the community to this day.  Just when I'm wondering how I'll ever learn all I need to know about Castle Dante and the original Donovan O'Roark—here you are.  I think it's a sign."

She was enchanting me, mesmerizing me.  Both with her | scent, and with her beauty, but mostly with that enthusiasm I and charm and slightly skewed view of the universe.

She had the belladonna antigen, and that was part of the attraction—had always been drawing me to her, urging me to watch over her.  I could smell it in her blood, could sense it there.  Every immortal had that antigen before they received the dark gift.  If not, they wouldn't transform... they'd simply die.  Dante had told me these things, and he'd warned me as well of the allure mortals with the antigen had for us... the attraction.  And it was said to run both ways.

I knew all this.  But knowing it did nothing to dampen its effect on me.  As a child she'd been harmless, no threat to me at all, just a little girl in need of a protector.  But now...

She stared up at me from emerald green eyes.  "Will you take me inside, Donovan?  With you fulfill my childhood dreams and show me your castle?"

And like a man held prisoner by a Gypsy enchantress's spell, I nodded, searched for my key, and opened my haven up to my enemy.

Chapter 4

There was something about him....

No, it was only her imagination playing games with her.  Yes, he was pale, but only slightly so.  And that grace about him, the way his every movement seemed as fluid as a part of a dance... it was simply his way.  It didn't mean a thing.

He wasn't the guardian of her imagination.  Her savior.

He gripped the iron ring and opened the doors, waiting and allowing her to enter first.  Taking a single step into the looming, echoing blackness, she stopped, battling a shiver of unease that kept tickling at her spine.

"I can't see a thing," she said, reaching into her pocket for the lighter once again.

She felt him enter behind her.  He stood close to her back as she fumbled in her pocket, and the deep moan of the door closing behind him made her heart skip a beat.  Closing her hand around the lighter in her pocket, she pulled it out and promptly dropped it on the floor.

"It's all right," he said.  "Wait here."

"As if I could do anything else," she replied, and hoped he didn't detect the tremor in her voice.

He moved past her then.  She never heard his footsteps, and it seemed they should echo endlessly here, the way her every whisper did.  There was a flare of light, a glow that illuminated his face for a moment, making it come alive with light and shadow as if he were some sort of undulating demon.  But then he leaned over, and in a moment the glow spread as he touched the match to the tapers in a silver candelabra, lighting them one by one.  And lifting it, he moved around the room, lighting others.  It seemed to Rachel there must be candles everywhere in this place.  By the time he returned to her side, the entire room glowed with them, shadows leaping and dancing, soft yellow light spilling over everything.

He took her hand.  Drew her forward.  Rachel went with him, her fear dispelled as her curiosity leapt to the fore.  The room was as big as a barn, and high, high above her, she saw something glittering in the candle glow.  "Is that a chandelier?"

Donovan looked up, then nodded.  "The entire place is equipped with gas lights, but I'll need to connect the main line and open the valves before they'll be of any use."

"What I wouldn't give to see this place in the daylight," she breathed.  She felt him tense and wondered why.

Twin fireplaces stood at opposite walls, each one laid ready, waiting only to be lit.  Each one had a huge stone mantel, and above them tapestries hung.  Breathtaking tapestries.  She moved closer to the one nearest her, covering Donovan's hand with her own to lift the candelabra higher.  "They must be ancient," she muttered.

"Quite old, medieval, or so Dante said."

Her spine prickled.  "Dante said that, did he?"

Donovan looked down at her rather quickly.  "Or so the story goes.  I'm only repeating what's been told to me."

She tilted her head, studying his face in the soft glow.  "Are you, now?"

Nodding, he moved her to the left of the fireplace, lifting the light again and nodding toward the wall, where two crossed swords hung.  "The broadswords are medieval as well, but Irish, whereas the tapestries are Italian."

"This Dante must have been quite a collector."

Donovan shrugged and moved on, pointing out other relics fastened to the walls, a suit of armor standing in a corner, looking ridiculously short, and the furnishings.  Large chairs with embroidered cushions and elaborately carved, utterly straight backs, were grouped around the fireplaces.  A large, ornate table with smaller, less elaborate chairs surrounding it held the room's center, each of its legs the size of a small tree.  And there were weapons everywhere.  Lances, maces, shields with their crests emblazoned across the front.

And every so often, they'd pass an archway of darkness, leading off into some other part of the castle.  Each time, she'd peer into the blackness, eyes narrow, eager to see more.  But each time, she saw nothing.

When they'd walked round the entire room, he led her to one of the cushioned chairs, setting the candles on a marble stand at its side.  Then he turned and knelt before the fire, and a second later it blazed to life, though she'd never seen him strike a match.

She let the warmth rinse through her, chasing the chill of autumn away.  And Donovan settled himself in the chair beside her.

"I'd offer you something to drink, but—"

"I know," she said.  "You've only just arrived.  I can't very well be expectin' your cupboards to be fully stocked so soon."  She smiled at him.  '"Twill be cold... lonely, living here in this place, don't you think?"

He nodded.  "Yes.  But there's a history here I needed to... touch.  I had to come back."

"Come back?  You have been here before, then?"

He blinked slowly, averting his eyes.  "Long ago."

"In your childhood?"

"Something like that."

She nodded, not pushing him further, though she was fully aware he hadn't really answered her.  He couldn't have been the man who saved her from the river.  That was twenty years ago.  He was far too young.  "Is this—this great hall—the only room you're willing to show me, then, Donovan?"

"For now," he told her.  "It wouldn't be safe to take you farther..."  A long pause as his gaze burned into hers.  "Without more light."

Her throat went dry.  She tried to swallow, and found she couldn't.  He had a hungry look about him, a predatory look that shook her.

"Perhaps I should go then.  Leave you to get settled in."

 "Perhaps," he said.

Nodding, she got to her feet.  He rose as well.  "I...  I'd like to come back.  To talk to you about the legend."

"I don't know much about that.  You'll be disappointed."

"I get the feelin' you know more about it than anyone else, Donovan O'Roark."  She turned and walked toward the door, and he trailed her.  She sensed he was eager for her to go.

But when he pushed the huge door open, a blinding flash of lightning cut a jagged path across the sky.  The rain slashed in at them, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

Closed within the huge stone walls, they hadn't even been aware of the change in the weather, and there wasn't a window to be seen in this room, she realized for the first time.

He stood motionless.  Said nothing.  Well, then, there was no way around it.  She lowered her head and took a step out... only to feel his hands closing on her shoulders, drawing her back inside.  She nearly sighed in relief.

"You can't walk back to the village in this."  He said it as if he regretted it right to his bones.

"I could.  I'm not sugar, Donovan, and I won't melt in a wee bit of rain."

He closed the door, lifted a hand and swiped the droplets from her face, and then her hair.  "Not melt, but get soaked through and take sick, at the very least.  Or worse, get crushed beneath a falling tree, or struck down in your tracks by a bolt of lightning.  No, I can't let you leave."

"You sound sorry about that."

He nodded, surprising her by not denying it.  "I like my privacy, Rachel.  You'll do well to remember that about me."

"Oh."

He frowned at her.  "What?"

Shrugging, she lifted her brows.  "I guess I was thinkin' there might be some other reason my being' here disturbed you so much.  No matter though."

She was only half teasing him, and she thought he knew it.  She was drawn to the man, in a way she didn't understand.  It was as if some sort of spell were being worked on her, to make her....

She closed her eyes, gave her head a shake.  "I believe I must be more sleepy than I realized."

"There should be some bedrooms made up," he said, his voice gentle.  Did she detect a slight tremor in it?

"Lead the way, then."

He nodded, picking up the dancing candles once more "Best stay close to me, Rachel.  I've no idea how safe the entire castle is, since only parts of it have been kept up.  Besides, you could get lost very easily in these halls."

She nodded her assent, and as he led the way into the dark, vaulted corridors, she held tighter and tighter to his arm, aware that with every step she took she was leaving safety farther behind.  Not that she feared him.

Oh, but she did.

The halls twisted, turned, veered off in countless directions.  He took her up spiraling stairways that felt like tunnels, they were so narrow and dark.  And then down more hallways.

"Donovan?"

He paused, and turned to look at her there in the darkness.

"Are you deliberately leading me round and round, only to keep me from knowing my way out?"

Solemnly, he shook his head.  "Just the opposite, Rachel.  The room is near a back exit.  So you can leave first thing in the morning."

"And why would I wish to do that, when you could just as easily lead me out of here yourself?"

"I...  I won't be here.  I have a pressing engagement, I'm afraid.  Very early.  So by the time you wake up, I'll be gone."

Tipping her head back, she studied him.  "Will you now?"

"Yes.  And Rachel, I want your promise that you'll do as I ask.  Leave here in the morning.  No snooping, or exploring.  I've already told you, it could be dangerous."

Studying him a long moment, she said, "Is there something here you don't want me to see?"

He shook his head.  "You have as big an imagination as those locals at the pub, don't you?"

She smiled.  "Bigger.  You wouldn't doubt it if you knew what I was thinkin' just now."

"And what was that?"

She lifted her brows and shoulders as one.  "That perhaps   the reason you won't be here in the morning is because you have an adverse reaction to daylight.  And that perhaps the reason you don't want me snooping about, is so I won't stumble upon the coffin where you rest."  She threw her head back and laughed at her own foolishness, and the sounds of it echoed endlessly, long after she stopped.  "I guess I still have a bit of that gullible child in me after all.  Or maybe 'tis simply livin' in Dunkinny that's made me so imaginative."

But he only stared at her until her smile died.

She bit her lip, and her hand trembled slightly as she lifted it to touch his face.  "I've hurt your feelin's now, have I?  I don't really think you're a vampire, Donovan.  But just a man.  A... a beautiful man."  She lowered her gaze, not quite believing she was about to say what she was.  "I hope you don't think it bold of me to tell you this.  But I—I'd like to see you again.  Not because of the legend, but just... just because."  And still he said nothing.  Lowering her hand, she rolled her eyes ceiling ward and drew a short, sharp breath.  "Landsakes, Donovan, say something, will you?  Am I makin' a total fool of myself, or..."

"No."  He reached out to brush a curl off her forehead.  "In fact, I've been trying very hard not to... feel anything toward you, all evening."

She felt the blood rush to her face.  "Oh."  Then, licking her lips, meeting his eyes again, she whispered, "Why were you trying so hard not to feel that way, Donovan?"

"Because nothing can come of it."

Her heart squeezed.  "You're married, then."

"No.  Of course not.  It's just..."  He shook his head.  "You'll have to trust me, Rachel.  Nothing can come of this.  I...  I probably won't even be here very long, and besides that, I—"  He sighed deeply.  "It doesn't matter.  Here, this is your room."

He pushed a door open and stepped inside.

Rachel followed, drawing a deep breath as the candlelight spilled on a canopied bed draped in sheer fabric of softest ivory.  "'Tis beautiful."

"It's been restored.  This is the room Dante had made ready for Laura Sullivan, the woman who betrayed him."

"My... my heartless ancestor slept here?"

"No.  No, she killed him before she ever saw it."

Rachel turned toward him, a new idea creeping into her mind.  "Are you puttin' me here, Donovan, so you won't forget whose blood runs in my veins?"

He didn't answer, only lowered his head.

"But you can't possibly blame me for what my forebears did."

 "No.  And I don't.  I simply thought..."  He shook his head.  "I honestly don't know what I thought."

She took a step closer, drawn to him beyond reason, and driven by more than her usual boldness.  She felt as if she knew him, as if she'd always known him, and there was no hint of shyness, and no earthly reason to temper her actions.  Simply being near him seemed to have stripped her inhibitions away.  "I can tell you what I think, Donovan O'Roark," she said.  And when he looked up, she moved still closer.  "I think you haven't the nerve in you to kiss me goodnight."

His lips quirked, as if he wanted to smile and was fighting it.  "Do you?  Is that meant as a challenge, Rachel Sullivan?"

"Indeed, it is.  I don't like this idea of you fightin' so hard to dislike me.  An' I know that if you kiss me once, you'll forget about all that nonsense my ancestors did to yours, and simply see me.  Not Alicia, nor Laura, but me.  Rachel Sullivan."

He started to shake his head.

"I dare you," she whispered.  "But I don't think you've the nerve."

His eyes darkened and she knew she'd won.  He set the candelabra down on a nightstand and he came toward her, a distinct purpose glowing in his midnight eyes.

Chapter 5

I moved closer to her, compelled by some force I couldn't begin to understand.  But my lips merely brushed across hers, their touch light, fleeting.  For her mouth was not my goal.  Not yet.  Part of me wished to frighten her, I think, but there was more.  To taste her.  I longed for it with a hunger more powerful than the preternatural bloodlust I'd lived with for so long.  And for a moment--only a moment--perhaps I forgot where I was.  Perhaps part of my mind slipped backward to the time when Dante and I lived like kings, feared by the villagers.  The times when we dared walk among them at night, before they understood what we truly were.  Those times when, should a maid strike our fancy, we were free to take her, to drink our fill from her pretty throat, and use the power of our vampiric minds to make her remember it only as a dream.  Those times before we were fully aware just how dangerous it was to interact with mortals in any way.

I reverted, I think, in my mind that night.  So my lips   brushed across hers, and then across her cheek, and over her delicate jaw, and she knew.  She knew on some level.  Her head tipped back, to give me access to what I wanted.  Her chin ceiling ward as the breath shivered out of her.  My lips found the skin of her neck; the spot where a river of blood rushed just beneath the surface.  Its current thrummed louder, overwhelming my senses.  Her scent, her texture... my head whirled.  And my lips parted, and I tasted her then.  The salt of her skin, warm on my tongue.  Her pulse, throbbing faster against my lips.  I drew the skin into my mouth, just a little, suckling her, allowing my teeth to press down ever so slightly.

Shuddering, she pushed herself closer to me, her body tight to mine—from the spot where my mouth teased her throat, to her breasts, straining against my chest, to her hips, arching forward, rubbing softly against mine and making me hard with wanting her.

My arms were around her, one hand cradling her upturned head, one cupping a softly rounded buttock and pulling her harder against me.  Hers were on my head, fingers twisting and tugging at my hair as I sucked at her throat.  I wanted to pierce her flesh.  She wanted it too, I sensed that in everything she did, every soft sigh that whispered from her lips.  But she didn't know what it was she was craving.  She would though.  She would.

I bit down harder, my incisors pinching, pushing against the soft flesh, preparing to break through that luscious surface to the nectar it concealed.

She gasped.  A harsh, startled sound louder than the blast of a cannon to my ears, so focused was I on the taste of her.  But it was enough to bring me back to myself, to make me realize what I'd been about to do.

The desire burned through me like a flame, and I trembled all over, a quake that utterly racked me as I forced   myself to step away from her—to raise my head from her throat, and lower my arms to my sides and step away.

She didn't react immediately.  And I knew too well why; could see it in the wide and slightly dazed look in her eyes.  The allure of the vampire—and something more, too.  Perhaps she'd felt the impact of this force between us as powerfully as I.  Even I didn't understand it fully.  To her, it would be even less comprehensible.

She came back to herself within a moment, blinking as if to clear her vision, and then staring up at me.  "I don't think P we ever been... kissed... quite that way before."  Lifting a hand, unaware she did so, she ran her fingertips slowly over the spot where my mouth had been.

"I... shouldn't have done that."

"Why did you?" she asked me.

I shook my head.  "I'm not sure, Rachel.  Perhaps for the same reason you allowed it."

Tilting her head to one side to study me, she frowned.  Her hair slid away, revealing her neck to me again, and I felt a rush of renewed desire as I saw the redness forming there, and the moisture, and the way her fingers kept touching the spot and drawing away.

"Go to sleep," I whispered, but it was more than a whisper.  I flexed the astral muscle, the one that didn't exist physically but was there all the same, the one that sent my wishes out to the minds of others.  "Forget this happened."  I caught her eyes with mine, sending the force out to her, the command that must be obeyed.  "Forget the kiss, Rachel.  It never happened.  Go to sleep, and when you wake—"

"Oh, I doubt I'll sleep at all, Donovan O'Roark," she whispered with a soft, shaky smile.  A bit of the mischief returned to her pretty eyes.  "But forgettin' that kiss is certainly not an option whether I do or not.  I'll either lie awake thinkin' about it, or go to sleep and dream it up again."  Her smile broadened.  '"Twas a rather nice kiss, you know."

I stepped backward, an instinctive act, rather like reeling in shock, I thought later.  She didn't react to the mind control at all.  It hadn't... it hadn't even given her pause.

I realized I was standing in the hall now, when she reached for the candelabra and offered it to me.  "You should take this with you, to find your way."

"No," I blurted, still trying to puzzle out her lack of a reaction to my commands, too much so to censor myself, fool that I was.  "I see perfectly well in the dark."  I could have kicked myself the moment the words left my lips.

"Can you, now?"  She drew the glowing tapers back to her side.  "I'll leave you to it, then.  Good night, Donovan."

And she closed the door.

I stood there, trembling.  Never had I been so drawn to a mortal before.  And never, not ever in two hundred years, had I been so ineffective in influencing the thoughts of one of them.  Making them forget.  This told me two things.  That her will was very strong, and that she didn't want to forget.

And she was here, in my home, my haven.  God, what if she learned more than she should?  What then?

Rachel closed the door, leaned against it, lowered her head and closed her eyes.  She was shaking so hard she could barely stand, and she'd been terrified he'd see it before he left.  She'd hidden it, she thought.  Pulled the mask into place in time.  Assumed the demeanor of the flirtatious, irreverent, and slightly cocky barmaid to conceal the depth of her reactions to him.

My God.  The way he'd kissed her... the way his mouth had, not just caressed, but devoured her... and then the feel of those...

Those teeth!

She stood bolt upright, still shaking, but no longer weak.  Her hands flew to her neck once more, fingers searching, feeling, terror creeping over her soul.  Had he...?

Diving into her deep pockets, she extracted a compact, struggled to open it, dropped it, and scrambled to snatch it up again.  Finally, she leaned over the glowing candle flames, staring into the small, round mirror at the red mark on her neck.  But there were no telltale puncture wounds, and there was no blood.

Just a small patch of bruised skin.  What her friends in the States called a hickey.

"Lord a' mercy," she breathed, snapping the compact shut, sagging once more.  "I don't know whether to be weak with relief or to question my sanity for thinking..."  Shaking her head, she drew herself upright, turned and went to the bed, taking the candles with her.  She set them on a nightstand, and well away from the bed curtains that draped down from the canopy to swathe the thing in luxury.  Beyond the sheer fabric, a red satin comforter swelled from the stacks of pillows beneath it, and when she pulled it back it was to find sheets of the same fabric, only black, not red.

The pulse in her throat beat a little harder.  She had no nightclothes here.  But the bed hardly seemed made for such things.

Glancing quickly back toward the door, she saw the lock there, waiting to be turned.  She saw it, licked her lips, and turned toward the bed once more.  This time, to begin undressing.

And she slid naked into that decadent satin nest, felt its cool softness caressing her heated flesh, surrounding her in sensual pleasure.  Cushioned and covered and enveloped within it.  And when she fell asleep it was to dream of things more carnal than she'd ever done before.

*    *    *    *    *

She woke to the morning sunlight streaming through the window and bathing her face—and she was more curious about the man than ever before. 

She flung the covers aside, got to her feet, naked in the chilly bedroom.  Her clothes lay folded on a chair, just as she'd left them.  She glanced at the unlocked door.  He'd said he would be gone by the time she woke.  But it was still early.  Maybe...

She dressed quickly.  Over and over his voice rang in her head.  Don't snoop.  Leave by the back door as soon as you wake.  I value my privacy.

It would be wrong to go against his wishes, after he'd been so kind to her, letting her in when he obviously didn't want to.  Letting her stay when he'd seemed almost afraid to.

Why?

She finished dressing, ran her fingers through her hair in lieu of a comb, and checked her appearance in the compact mirror since there were none to be found in the bedroom itself.

No mirrors?

She shook the thought away and examined her reflection.  She looked storm-tossed.  Wild.  Hardly studious, much less virginal, and probably more like a barmaid than she ever had.

Why?

Him.  His kiss, and a night spent reliving it beneath the caress of satin sheets that reminded her of his eyes.

"Damn," she whispered, and quickly made the bed before heading out the door, into the hall.  Light now.  Dim, for lack of windows, but enough light made its way in to see by.  The door that led out of here was obvious.  At the end of the hall to her right stood a tall, wooden door, with light glowing from beyond its thick pane of glass.  Swallowing hard, stiffening her spine, mustering her willpower,   she marched toward it, found it unlocked, and pulled it open.

Warm Irish sun bathed her face, her eyes.  Stretching before her, like the crooked, graying teeth of a very old crocodile, were the crumbling stone steps, curving intimately down this tower's outer wall and disappearing round its other side.  From here she could see the sea, glittering blue- green, with white froth roiling as the waves crashed against the rocky shore.  The cliffs were almost directly below her.

The steps were probably perfectly safe.

"But he kept going' on about the place perhaps being' dangerous," she muttered to herself.  "No, I really do believe he'd want me to go out the front way.  Indeed, if he were here, he'd likely insist."

She stepped back inside and closed the door.  Then she put her back to it, and faced a long, twisting corridor lined with doors, and open archways leading into other halls, or stairways going up or twisting downward.  Shrugging her shoulders and battling an excited smile, she whispered,  "I suppose I'll just have to search until I find a safer way out, won't I?"

Chapter 6

She got lost.  Hopelessly, frighteningly lost.  Lord, but she'd never realized how large this castle was, or how its corridors writhed about upon themselves like serpents in ecstasy.  And so few windows!  She no longer had any sense, even of what floor she might be wandering.  Her only means of navigation was to try to go toward lighter areas, and away from the darker ones.  But even this plan had its flaws, for she could only go so far before the light began to fade.  Her choice then became, walk into the darkness or go back to where she'd already been.  And going back would serve no purpose.

She made many discoveries that day.  Some pleasant ones, but mostly unpleasant in the extreme.  She discovered how thirsty she could become in a single day.  How gruesome it was to walk face first into a sticky spider's web in the dark.  How much she valued a good breakfast when one was unavailable.

Some of the more pleasant discoveries diverted her from her misery for short spans of time.  She spent hours exploring rooms full of fascinating antiques, and when she was tired, took a nap on a satin chaise fit for a queen.  Later, she stumbled upon the music room, where a harpsichord rested, dusty and old.  The soft cushioned window seats built into the stone wall.  She sat on one to rest, and caught her breath as she gazed out over what surely must be all of Ireland.  She was up so high.  She'd been up and down so many stairways that she'd lost track, and truly had no clue where she'd ended.  Now she knew, though the knowledge did her little good, except to tell her she ought to be going down.  And down some more.  And doing it soon, for from this vantage point she could see that the sun now rested on the very edge of the horizon, and would soon sink out of sight.  She must have napped longer than she realized.

She lingered there only a short time.  She might have stayed longer, despite the late hour, but she made the mistake of leaning over the old instrument, her fingers just lightly caressing the keys.  And it let out a belch of sound that nearly stopped her heart.  After that she had to be out of the room.  Ridiculous, the feeling that pervaded her senses then, but no use denying it.  She had the distinct sense that she must get out before Donovan learned she was here.  And that blast from the harpsichord might have given her away, even told him exactly where she was, had he heard it.

She ran from the room, back into the snake pit of corridors, and took the first set of stairs she found that led downward.

Only they led into darkness.  Or perhaps it was that night was falling now.  She kept going down, and the stairs twisted, circling and spiraling, lower and lower.  She kept one hand pressed to the walls on either side to keep from falling as she continued endlessly downward.  And yet there seemed no end.  She began to feel stifled, constricted by the walls at her sides, and even imagined them narrowing.  Tightening.  Squeezing in on her as if she'd been dropped into a funnel.

The stone step beneath her foot crumbled, and she drew back quickly, listening as the bits of it clattered and echoed into the darkness.  She could no longer see at all.  And that might have meant full night had fallen, or perhaps it was only that no light could penetrate this narrow spiraling staircase, all encased in stone.

"Enough," she muttered.  "I'm going' back."

And she turned, but her foot slipped, as a still larger chunk of the stone step fell away.  It bounded down, crashing like the feet of a giant.  And then there was another sound.  Soft at first, light.  Like the gentle beat of wings and a timid cry...

And then louder.

Screaming.

The air above her filled with rapidly beating wings and piercing shrieks as the bats that falling stone had startled awake swarmed above and around her.  Blind beasts!  Her scream joined their unearthly voices as she flailed her arms, but they battered her, colliding with her one after another, only to bound off in another direction.  She felt them hitting her.  Their small, furry bodies wriggling, and those rubbery wings pumping madly.  Tiny clawed feet, scraping her face and moving on.  Wetness—God alone knew what that was.

She screamed and beat at them, turning in circles and covering her face with her arms.

And then she tumbled.

Head over heels, her body hurtled down the staircase, bounding up and crashing down onto the uneven stone again and again.  Smashing against the curving wall, only to rebound from it and follow the downward spiral.  No bats now.  She'd fallen past them and their mad flight.  And for a single moment she thought the fall would be endless.

She came to a stop some seconds before she realized it.  Her head still spun and her body screamed in pain from a hundred bruises, each one throbbing as if it were being beaten anew.  But gradually, the sense of motion faded, and she realized she was still.  She lay on her side, more or less, though her limbs were twisted and bent in unnatural angles.

Slowly, she pulled herself upright, into a sitting position.  Every movement hurt.  Every spot on her body cried out in protest at her cruelty in moving it at all.  But gradually, she did, getting her arms and legs into a more natural state, checking them to be sure they still functioned properly.  Nothing seemed to be broken.  At least, she could move everything.

God, but it hurt!

Slowly, inch by inch, her hands on the wall nearest her, she pulled herself to her feet.  Her trouble, she realized, had not ended simply because her fall had.  She still needed to find her way out of this castle.  For the first time it occurred to her that she might be trapped here indefinitely.  She could starve, or die of thirst before anyone found her.

And somehow the thought didn't frighten her as much as the thought of being found...

But that was foolish.

The stairs had ended, and she was now on a level floor, more or less, though there were chips and breaks in the stone that made walking precarious at best.  Still, she made her way forward, wishing for nothing so much as a candle to see by...

The lighter.

She quickly dipped into her pocket and praised her lucky stars, it was still there.  She lit it, held it out in front of her, and saw that she was in a long, wide corridor of stone and utter darkness—very much like a cave.  But in the distance,   doors stood, silent and closed.  Perhaps one would lead to... to somewhere.

Her footsteps echoed—unevenly, since she was limping now—as she made her way down the hall, and paused before the first doorway.  Pushing it open, she found only an empty room.  So she moved on to the second.  And of course, an empty room greeted her there, as well.

Only one door remained.  Her heart in her throat, tears of frustration beginning to burn in her eyes, she touched the handle.  Locked.

A sob welled up to choke off her breath, and she lowered her head to the wood to cry.

But then there was a sound.  A soft creaking sound... a sound that came from beyond that door.

Like another door of some kind, opening... slowly opening.  Straining to hear, she pressed closer, listening with everything in her.  Gentle taps upon the floor.  Someone moving around.  Then a flare of light from beneath, one that grew brighter.

The steps came closer.  And something... something made her back away.

The door opened with a deep, forbidding moan of protest.

She looked into the eyes of Donovan O'Roark, saw them widen with shock and something that might have been fear--perhaps even panic.  And then she managed to tear her gaze from his to look past him into the room, where candles glowed now.  There was nothing there... nothing except a large, gleaming coffin, its lid standing open, its satin lining aglow in the candlelight.

Black and red, the satin inside that box.  Black and red like the satin in which she'd slept.

She backed away.

He reached for her.

She whirled, the lighter falling from her hands, and then she ran.

"Rachel!  Rachel, wait!"

Panic bubbled in her chest, larger and larger, expanding until she felt the bubble would burst and she'd die, right there, from the force of the fear that possessed her.  She fled, headlong, having no idea where she was going, what she would do.

But she knew he pursued her.  She knew he'd catch her soon, and Lord help her, what would she do then?  What?

The hallway ended.  Abruptly, and without a hint of warning in the pitch blackness.  She heard Donovan's voice shout a warning—one she ignored—and then she felt the solid, skin-razing wall of stone stopping her heedless flight with a single blow.  Her head, her body, the impact rocked her to the teeth and to the bone.  But the head was the worst, and she felt the warmth of blood running from the wound and stinging her eyes as she sank slowly to the floor.

"My God, Rachel..."

He was upon her like a wolf on an injured lamb, and she knew she no longer had a chance.  She'd die here in this dungeon or whatever it was.  She'd die here, bloodless and pale, and the vampire would have his vengeance on the females of the Sullivan clan at last.

He knelt beside her, gathering her into his arms and leaning over her.  She felt his breath on her face.  His fingers, probing the pulsing wound on her forehead.  "Damn fool woman, you could have got yourself killed!"

As if he wasn't planning to finish that job himself, she thought, groggy now, fading fast.

He got to his feet and carried her back down the hall, through one of the other doors, where she'd seen nothing, and right up to the wall.  She tried weakly to leap from his embrace, which likely would have resulted in cracking her head again, this time on the floor, but his arms tightened around her.  "Be still, Rachel."

"Let me go... let me go..."  She twisted, pulled against him, but his arms were like steel.  He paused there beside the wall, lifted one hand, holding her captive quite easily with the other.  He touched something and the wall moved, backing away and leaving a two-foot gap on either side.  Donovan carried her through that gap, and she caught her breath as the wall closed off again.  He moved left, up a single flight of stairs, these ones broad and solid, rather than narrow and crumbling like the ones where she'd fallen.  Then he touched another wall, this one at the top of the staircase, and it opened like a door.

He stepped out, and lowered her down onto a soft settee and then he turned to a wall, and did something.  Moments later a soft light suffused the room from above, growing brighter until the place was perfectly well lit.

The light above her was, she realized, the gas-powered chandelier.  And the room around her was the great hall.

"So close...  I was... so very close..."

"To what, Rachel?  To escape?"

She closed her eyes, touched her throbbing head.  He ignored her for the moment, intent on lighting first one fire and then the other as she lay there.  She felt the heat, saw the light.

"If it was escape you wanted, why didn't you leave by the back door when you awoke this morning?  Why did you insist on doing the one thing I asked you not to do?"

He turned to face her, she saw as she peered at him, but the sight of the flames in the fireplace, reflected in his dark hair and deep blue eyes, only made her head hurt more, so she quickly closed her eyes once again.  "I wasn't snooping.  I... the back stairs looked unsafe.  I was only tryin' to find a saner way to leave this ruin."

 He was closer now.  Right beside her.  "You're lying," he whispered.

"No—"

He gripped her shoulders, lifting her slightly, and readying, she thought, to do her in.  But his hands closed on bruised flesh, and she winced in agony.

Donovan went utterly still.  Then, frowning, he pushed her hair aside, eyeing her face, her neck.  "My God, you're more injured than I realized."

That he was choosing to ignore the fact that she'd all but seen him rise from a coffin would have been amusing, if she hadn't been so certain her death was imminent.  "I fell," she told him.  "Down a long flight of stairs... the bats frightened me, and I lost my footing..."  She bit her lip as the memory of it came up to choke off her words.

Sighing deeply, he gripped her shirt at its hem, and without even asking her consent, he tugged it over her head.  Then he touched her, with his eyes as well as his hands, examining the bruises and scrapes she'd suffered.

"I'm all right," she told him.  "Nothing's broken."

He nodded as if in agreement, but took a handkerchief, spotlessly white, from a pocket and pressed it to her wounded head.  "I'll find some ice for this."

"I don't want ice.  I just want to leave.  Please..."

He shook his head slowly.  "Why?  I thought you wanted to know all my secrets."

She clamped her mouth closed, swallowing hard.  His gaze moved, heating as it did, over her body.  She felt naked, wearing no more than a bra and skirt.  And the look in his eyes made her feel even more vulnerable and exposed.

"I've changed my mind.  I'll find some other subject to write about.  I just... just want to leave this place."

"And me, isn't that right, Rachel?  Because you've discovered the monster of your nightmares.  The demon of your childhood.  The legend you refused to believe.  All true, all real.  All alive... in me."

She met his eyes.  "It's true, isn't it?"

"What do you think?"

She only shook her head.  "I never believed you were evil.  Tell me I wasn't wrong."

He said nothing, just stared at her.

"Don't kill me," she whispered.  "I swear, I'll never tell a soul."

His smile was slow, and almost sad.  "I'm not going to kill you, Rachel.  And I already know you won't tell my secret."

She blinked, hope washing over her like a flood of warmth and sunlight.  "You can trust me.  I swear it, Donovan—"

"No," he said.  "I can't trust you.  That's why you're going to have to stay here."

Her brows rose high, eyes widening.  "Stay here?  But... but..."  She didn't understand, couldn't comprehend.  "For how long?"

He said nothing, but she could see his meaning in his eyes, could hear his deep voice tingle up her spine even though he never spoke the word.  She heard it, in her soul.

Forever.

Chapter 7

She was as bruised and battered as if I'd beaten her.  I felt her pain, in spite of myself, as I bathed each spot in cool water.

But she drew away, her eyes partly angry, but mostly afraid.  "Don't touch me.  I won't stay, do you hear me?  You have to let me go."

With my simple glance, an icy one, she stilled.  And I resumed pressing the cool cloth to the bruises.  "You will stay," I said.

"They'll worry about me in the village.  They'll come looking."

Her breasts strained against the bra she wore.  A small purple welt formed on one of them, and I pressed the cloth gently over it, not taking my hand away, but keeping it there.  Feeling her warmth seeping into my palm.  And the heat of desire flaring up from within.

She went utterly still, staring at my hand where it rested upon her breast.  Her breaths coming shallow and quick.

"Be honest, Rachel.  You didn't tell a soul where you were going."

She blinked, and I knew I was right.

"You'll send a note... to Mary at the pub, telling her you've gone traveling and don't know when you'll return."

"I'll do no such thing."  And she pulled free of me, leaping to her feet, snatching her blouse from the settee and struggling into it.

"You will do exactly as I tell you, Rachel."

"Never."  She surged toward the door, and I stood still, letting her make her foolish attempt.  When she tugged, she found the entryway sealed tight.  Locked.  She went still, her back to me, hand still on the door, and her head slowly lowered.  Softly, she whispered, "What are you, Donovan O'Roark?  And what are you going' to do with me?"

"I think you know what I am."

She turned very slowly, and I felt her gaze burning into me, searching my soul.  "No.  'Tisn't possible.  'Tis...  'tis some elaborate hoax."

"It's not only possible, but true.  And I think you know it."

Her eyes narrowed, a little of the fear leaving them.  She came nearer, studying me so closely I felt exposed to my bones.  But she stopped before she reached me.  "There are no such things as vampires," she whispered.  "And the tale of Donovan O'Roark is but a legend.  Not real."

I stood very still, wondering why I felt so vulnerable, why I was waiting in secret dread of her reaction when she finally realized the truth.

"That's it, isn't it?  This is your idea of a joke.  You're but tryin' to teach me a lesson."  One step, then another, and she stood very close.  "You're only trying to scare me, and for a time, you succeeded.  But I've come to my senses now, Donovan.  So why don't you simply tell me the truth rather than playing out this game and pretending you won't let me leave?"

Raising my hands, I let them rest gently on her shoulders.  "It is no game, Rachel.  Tell me, why should I- let you go the way Dante let Laura Sullivan go a century past?  So you can run screaming through the village the way she did?  So you can lead a mob back here at the break of dawn to end my miserable life?"  Closing my eyes very slowly, I whispered, "Perhaps if I were wise I'd do just that."

But I instantly regretted that impulsive declaration.  When I opened my eyes again I saw her frowning at me.  "I won't believe any of it.  If you're a vampire, prove it to me."

Lowering my head, I shook it slowly.  "You have the talk of the villagers.  The way they look at me when I pass... as if the devil himself is in their midst.  What more proof do you need, lass?"

She shrugged her shoulders.  "Turn into a bat," she suggested.

I looked up quickly, sensing the edgy humor creeping into her voice.  God, did she really believe this was all a joke?  "I'm afraid that's not a skill I've mastered.  I've heard that shape-shifting is possible to the truly ancient ones among us.  But I'm only two centuries old."

"Barely old enough to drive," she mocked.

Closing my eyes, sighing deeply, I muttered, "Do you have a mirror, Rachel?"

"A mirror?"

I nodded, not looking at her.  She hesitated.  Then, "Look, d-don't you think you've carried this joke far enough?  You knew I wouldn't leave as you told me, so you pulled that prank with the coffin, and your timing was perfect.  Though how you could be sure I'd find you in this maze of crumbling stone—I mean, I could've been killed and it really wasn't all that amusing, and—"

"Get the mirror."  I met her eyes, stared into them.  "Get the mirror, Rachel, and let's get this part of it over with, shall we?"

"You're a lunatic."  She dug into her pocket.  "This isn't going to prove a thing.  I swear, you've made your point.  I learned my lesson, my snooping days are over, and I..."  She drew a compact out of her pocket, fingered it slowly, and I knew her fear was coming back.  She fought it, but it was returning in spite of her skepticism.

"Open it," I told her.  "And then you can go back to hating me the way the rest of them do."

"Don't be silly," she said.  "They don't even know you."  She opened the compact.

"They've known me for two centuries," I said.  "I was one of them once."  I took the mirror from her hands, bit my lip slightly.  "Look, Rachel.  See me for the monster everyone else does."  And I held the mirror before my face.

She drew a deep breath, and moved around beside me.  And then she gasped, and backed away.  "It can't be... it can't be true."

I only stood where I was, snapping the despicable mirror closed and tossing it to the settee.

"Oh, it's true."

"And the legend?  The tale of how you sat up in your own coffin and the priest tried..."

"Tried to kill me.  My own father handed him the mallet and stake.  My own mother called me a demon.  And the girl I'd planned to marry screamed for my blood."

I heard her try to swallow, and the way she struggled to breathe.  "And the rest of it?  The belief that you'd return one day to destroy the village and take revenge on the Sullivan women?"

I lowered my head.  "Do you believe that's why I've come home, Rachel?"

She blinked, and looked up into my eyes.  "You said I couldn't leave.  What do you intend to do with me?"

"I don't know."

"Am I in danger here?"

"If I said no, would you believe me?"

Her throat convulsed.  "Let me leave, Donovan."

"You weren't so eager to leave me last night, Rachel.  Or have you forgotten that kiss in your chamber?"

"That was before..."

"Before what?  Before you knew the truth?  That I'm a monster, bent on destruction and revenge?  You know nothing about me, and yet you readily believe the worst."

For a moment she was silent.  Then sighing, she said, "You're right.  I'm behaving just the way the others do.  Judging you, when I swore I never would.  Exactly the way you believe the worst about me."  And her words rocked me.  "That I'd betray you simply because my ancestors did.  That if you let me go, I'd shout your secrets to the world."

I lowered my head.  She was right, that was exactly what I thought.  "So we're at an impasse."

She huffed.  Folded her arms across her chest.  "Are you going to kill me?"

"No."  Then I met her eyes.  "Do you believe that?"

"I shouldn't, but for some reason I do."

"Good."  I literally sighed in relief.

"Don't celebrate, Donovan.  Part of the reason I believe it is because I want to.  I'm only too aware that I'm likely kidding myself."

"I won't hurt you, Rachel, you have my word on that."

"Will you let me go?"

"I can't.  Not... yet."

"When?"

"I don't know."  I pressed both hands to my head and turned in a slow circle.  "I have to think."

She stood still for a long moment.  Then she blinked and looked at the ceiling.  "I'm having some trouble believing all this.  I should be screaming or running for my life, or fainting, shouldn't I?"

"You already did those things."

Her mouth quirked very slightly, a tremulous hint of a smile.  "So how do most women react when you tell them you're a vampire?"

"I've never told another woman."

I didn't look at her when I said it.  Instead I turned and walked toward the blazing fireplace, then lowered myself into a chair close to it, seeking the warmth.  "But if I had, I imagine they'd have reacted the same way you did.  First with horror, then disbelief, and now..."  I turned to look back at her, where she still stood.  "What are you feeling now, Rachel?"

She moved closer, taking the opposite chair.  "I'm mad as hell at you, for keeping me here against my will.  As for the other..."  Shaking her head quickly side to side, she shrugged.  "I'm not sure I know what to make of it.  And there's one other thing I'm feeling, Donovan O'Roark."

A hint of panic tickled at my nape.  "What?"

"Hunger."

*    *    *    *    *

She watched him, still battling an eerie sense of having fallen into some dream world.  Dizzy with the weight of his revelations, not sure she believed what her own eyes had shown her, she was dazzled.  But not terrified—or not as much as she had been at first.

He went away, leaving her to explore on her own, and she did, thumbing through the books in his bookcase, taking a closer look at the tapestries on his wall.  She recalled last night.  The kiss.  The way his lips had trailed over her throat, and he'd tasted her skin there.  The incredible sensations the touch of his mouth had evoked in her.  Sensations she'd never felt before.  Just at a kiss.

What had he been thinking?  Was it  the way it was depicted in fiction?  Had he been battling some kind of mad bloodlust?  Barely restraining himself from taking her life?  And why wasn't she paralyzed with fear?

But she wasn't.  She was curious now that the fear was beginning to ebb.  And more.  Still drawn to him as she'd always been.  And only now beginning to realize that what she'd believed as a child... might very well be true.  It was no longer impossible, was it?

She'd never feared the shadowy figure she saw as her protector when she'd been a child.  And she wasn't afraid of him now.  Nervous, uncertain, angry, curious.  But not afraid.

She must be losing her grip on reality, for she certainly should be.

He appeared then, a bowl of soup steaming in his hands, a glass of something red beside it.  As her gaze fell on the scarlet liquid and widened, she heard him mutter, "Wine," and immediately felt foolish.

Of course it was wine.  What else would it be?

He set the soup on a marble stand, then moved it closer to her chair.  She returned to her seat, eyeing the meal.

"It was the best I could do.  The workers left a few supplies in the cupboards when they left this last time."

She tilted her head to one side.  "And... what about you?"

He lowered his head.  "Don't ask questions if you aren't prepared for the answers, Rachel."

"I don't think anyone can be prepared for something like this.  Were you?"

His head came up quickly.  "What do you mean?"

"Well...  I mean, when you first... how did it happen to you?"

"Why do you want to know?"

She shrugged.  "I...  I just do.  You're holding me prisoner here, the least you can do is make conversation."

"It isn't conversation, it's interrogation."

She scowled at him.  "It's curiosity.  Nothing more."

"It's a girl after a story.  That paper, my secrets, as you said."  He cleared his throat, staring at a spot just past her.  "However, maybe it's for the best that you still want to know.  I believe I've come up with a solution to our mutual problem here.  A compromise."

"Oh?"  She sipped soup from her spoon, and dipped in for more.  It was hot, tasty.  "A bargain, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Well, this is interesting.  How can you make a bargain with me when you've already made it clear I'm stuck here whether I like it or not?"

"At least this way you'll get something in return."

"What?"

"Everything you want to know, Rachel.  Stay with me, give me time to make certain... arrangements.  Do this, and I'll tell you my story.  And when I've done the things I need to do, I'll let you go."

She tilted her head to one side.  "What kinds of arrangements are you speaking of, Donovan?"

*    *    *    *    *

I shrugged, unable to take my eyes from hers, openly curious, the fear fading bit by bit.  "I'll need to change my name, establish a new identity, prepare a place for myself to live, a new place, where no one has seen me before."

Shaking her head slowly from side to side, she whispered, "But why?"

"Because you'll know all my secrets.  And when you write your paper, others will know.  They'll flock here in droves, some merely curious, others... others intent on my destruction."

"I think you're overreacting.  No one would even believe it was true..."

"The locals already believe it."

She lowered her head.  "This isn't 1898, Donovan.  The angry mobs you envision are in your imagination."

"No," I said softly.  "They're in my memory.  I saw the best friend I'd ever had driven to his death, Rachel.  I have no intention of ending my life that way.  I won't."

She lifted her gaze to mine, probed my eyes.  "I don't suppose I blame you."  Then she set her bowl aside, still half filled, as if she'd lost her appetite.  "You seem to have given this a lot of thought."

"I have."

"I believe there's one thing you haven't considered, Donovan."  I looked at her, waited.  She rose and paced to the hearth.  Bracing her arms on the mantel she stared into the flames.  Their light bathed her face, gleamed in her eyes.  "You haven't credited me with an ounce of humanity.  So it will come as a surprise to you to learn I am, indeed, human, since you seem to believe I'm the same sort of monster you keep calling yourself."

"I never implied—"

"I would never write a paper that would drive a man from his home, force him to give up his entire life.  Why would I?  For a degree?  "Tis hardly a fair exchange."

I searched her eyes, looking for the lie.  But I didn't find it.

"None of this is necessary, Donovan.  I'll simply find another subject for my paper."

My eyes narrowed.  I almost wanted to believe her.  "Lord, but you think I'm lyin' to ya, don't you, Donovan?"

I had to look away.  "You might be lying," I said.  "Or you might be telling the truth.  I can't be sure.  And I'm afraid I can't risk taking you at your word."

"I've never broken my word in my life!"

She declared it with such fierceness it nearly shook my   resolve.  Lowering my head, unable to face her, I whispered, "I'm sorry."

She faced me, then glanced beyond me toward the door, and when I managed to look at her again, there were tears building in her eyes.  "You really are going to keep me here—like a prisoner—aren't you?"

"I have no choice, Rachel."

"The hell you don't, Donovan O'Roark.  The hell you don't.  You've been right about one thing, I'll grant you that.  You truly are a monster.  And not because you're a vampire, but because you have no heart.  No trust.  Nor a care for anyone besides yourself.  Make your arrangements if you must.  An' when you're ready to set me free, come fetch me."

Her anger washed over me like a tempest, and I actually staggered backward under its force.  Then she whirled and stomped up the stairs, intent, I was certain, on finding her room, slamming its door and throwing the lock.  And it would have been a very dramatic exit, too, if she hadn't paused, panting, halfway up the stone staircase.  Without looking back she said, "Kindly guide me back to my room, O'Roark.  I've no desire to become lost in this mausoleum again."

I nodded, and slowly mounted the stairs.  When I got to her, I touched her elbow, cupped it in my hand, and she pulled away.  "I am the way I am because I have to be," I said slowly as we moved up the stairs.  "It's a matter of self-preservation.  If Dante didn't teach me another thing, he taught me this.  We're meant to be alone.  To live alone.  To trust no one.  It's the only way we can survive.  He forgot his own most important lessons.  And he died because of it."

She'd stopped walking, and when I glanced down to see why, she was staring at me, still angry, but there was something else in her eyes as well.  "Alone," she whispered.  "An' just how long have you been living by those words, Donovan?"

"Ever since Dante died," I told her softly.

"A hundred years..."

I shrugged and started walking again, touching her elbow, propelling her upward.  "One gets used to it."

"No, I don't believe one does.  "Tis little wonder you've no idea how to behave toward another."

I turned at the head of the stairs, stopped before a large door.  "I think you'll like this room better, Rachel.  I...  I had it decorated myself."

She blinked.  "For whom?"

I looked at her.  "I... for no one.  It was a whim.  A foolish whim."  I pushed the door open, turned a knob affixed to the wall, and watched as the gaslights slowly came up.  I'd connected the lines while she slept, ignited all the pilots, even cleaned the glass globes.  I hadn't really expected her to leave as I'd ordered.  But I hadn't expected her to find my resting place either.

She stepped past me into the room I'd had built for no imaginable reason.  I remembered more than Dante's betrayal at the hands of a woman, and subsequent death.  I also remembered my friend's happiness, the glow about him when he'd been in love, and believed himself loved in return.  Even I had been hesitant to berate Dante or speak my doubts of Laura Sullivan's loyalty aloud.  There must be no other happiness in the world like that of love.

And while I'd existed in utter solitude all this time, my mind had opportunity to wander.  To wonder.  To dream.  What would it be like?  What if it happened for me?

And that fantastical dream had inspired me to build these rooms.  The suite I'd created for a dream lover I would never know.  The rooms I would give to her if she were real.  The rooms we would share.

Empty.  They stood empty and likely always would.

Except for Rachel.  For a few nights, they'd be filled with a woman whose beauty was worthy of them.

"Lordy, but this is lovely..."  She stepped inside, twirling in a slow circle to take in the sheer mauve fabric draped from the bed's canopy to form curtains.  The carpet, a similar color and so thick her feet left imprints as she moved.  The glass doors, that opened out onto a stone balcony fit for a princess.  The elaborately hand-tooled woodwork, painted gold to match the trim on the velvety wallpaper, and the tiebacks for the mauve drapes.

Her smile came, despite the situation.  And I secretly relished it.  The rooms were wasted with no one to enjoy them.  That they gave her pleasure pleased some secret part of me.

"There's more," I told her, taking her hand and drawing her toward one of two doors.  "The bath, here."  She gasped at the sunken tub, the golden fixtures.  Plump towels in deep green lined every rack, and deep rugs the same shade covered the floor.  Bottles of expensive oils and fragrances lined the shelves.

"Who did you dream of entertaining here, Donovan?  A queen?"

My lover.  The one I would never know.  But I didn't tell her that.

"There's a sitting room as well," I said, going back to the bedroom and pushing open a second door to reveal a room lined with bookshelves, two window seats, a small pedestal table with a pair of cushioned chairs, and a settee sofa, and rocker.  A fireplace laid ready, but unlit, and gas lamps lined the stone walls.

But she wasn't looking at the room.  She was looking at me.  "Why all this?" she whispered.  "Why go to all this trouble if you truly intended to live your life alone, Donovan O'Roark?"

I shook my head.  "As I said, a foolish whim."

"No, I don't think so."  She came closer, tipping her head back, searching my yes.  "You're lonely.  And tired of being, I think." 

"That has nothing to do with..."  I lowered my eyes, my voice trailing off.

"With what?  With why you're keeping me here?"  She blinked and looked around her.  "You might believe that, Donovan, but I don't think it's true.  I think you built this room with every intention of bringing someone here to fill it.  To fill... you."

I turned fully now, glancing at the fireplace as if it fascinated me and trying not to tremble in fear at her words.  "Thinking that way will only confuse you, Rachel.  I need no one.  I share my life with no one.  You're here because I cannot let you leave.  But I will, the moment my arrangements are made and it's safe for me to do so.  That's all.  There is no more to it than that."

I felt her staring at my back.  "All right.  If you say so."

I turned to go.  She stayed silent as I stepped into the hall and closed the door.  And then I stood there, trembling.

God, could she be right?

Chapter 8

All the modern conveniences," she muttered, alone in her suite of rooms.  He'd gone, left her here on her own, and he probably believed she preferred it that way.

She didn't.  This place was too large, too hollow and quiet.  Like a tomb.  She soaked in a tub brimming with steamy water, and sprinkled some of the aromatic oils in with her.  Her bruises needed the pampering, and the heat did ease her aches somewhat.

But she'd have to put her torn, dirty clothes back on when she got out, and the idea didn't appeal.  She didn't suppose he'd let her go long enough to rush back to her room above the pub and fetch her own things.  So would he expect her to spend her entire time here in the same clothing?

Moreover, did he expect her to spend it alone, in these rooms?

He couldn't.  She wouldn't stand for that.

When the water began to cool, she got out, wrapped   herself in a thick green towel, and stepped back into the bedroom.  The double doors of a built-in wardrobe beckoned, and she went slowly toward them, hesitantly reached out, and pulled them open.

"Lordy..."  The closet nearly spilled over with clothing.  Satins, silks and lace in a hundred shades cascaded from hangers.

To one side were drawers built into the wall, and as she tugged them open she found nightgowns almost too fragile to touch, and underthings.

"But why?"  She touched the garments, pulled the hangers along the rack one by one, saw that the sizes varied as widely as the colors and fabrics did.  She paused at a long full skirt, paired on the hanger with a white off-the-shoulder blouse.  It looked like something a Gypsy might wear.

"Take anything you like."

She caught her breath and whirled, automatically clutching at the towel around her.  "Donovan.  I didn't hear you come in."

"I expected the door to be locked."

She blinked, saying nothing.  But as she searched his eyes this time, she saw the pain there.  The loneliness.  He'd built these rooms on a whim, he'd said.  But it was obvious to her he'd prepared them for a woman.  Was she real? she wondered.  Or only some distant wish he'd allowed himself to indulge in secretly?

When she still didn't speak, he took a step backward, his hand still on the doorknob.  "I'm sorry.  I'll leave you alone."

"No, don't go."

He stopped abruptly, looking at her.  And she saw his gaze dip beyond her face, very briefly touching on her body, covered only by a towel.  And she knew her bruises showed, and her hair was damp and tangled, hanging over her shoulders.  And still she felt some deep reaction to that gaze.  As if it were truly admiration in his eyes, and not only surprise.

"You... want me to stay?"

She turned back to the closet, removing the clothes she'd been drawn to, not looking at him.  "If you're going to keep me here, Donovan, the least you can do is entertain me.  I'll go crazy if I'm to spend all my time in these rooms alone.  Lovely though they are, I'd soon die of boredom."

He lowered his head.  "I... thought you'd want to rest."

"It's too early to rest.  Besides, if I'm to sleep all night and you're to sleep all day..."  She blinked, and tilted her head to one side.  "You do, don't you?"

He only nodded.

"Well, then how are you going to keep to our bargain?  When will you have time to tell me all your secrets, Donovan?"

He brought his gaze level with hers quickly, and a frown marred his brow.  "So you've decided to write the paper after all?"

She shrugged, draping the clothes over her arm and heading toward the bathroom.  "You can believe what you wish.  You will anyway.  The truth is, I'm curious."

"That's all?" he asked.

She paused in the doorway to glance back at him.  "Yes.  That's all.  I'll only be a minute."  And she closed the door.  Quickly, she donned the skirt, long and loose, and moving around her like a spring breeze.  Then the blouse, its sleeves dipping low on her shoulders, and the elastic waistline clinging high enough so that a bit of her midriff was visible.  She ran a brush through her hair, frowning at the lack of a mirror in the room.

No mirrors.  As if, even in his fondest fantasies, he hadn't allowed himself to imagine a mortal woman filling his loneliness.  Only another creature like him.

She didn't fit the bill in the least, did she?

She blinked, and then frowned hard.  It didn't matter!  What made her think such a thing?  Oh, but she knew.  Was knowing more and more with each moment that passed.  He was that gentle soul who'd pulled her from the river, he was that dark angel who'd comforted her when she'd cried in her bed, alone and afraid.  And she'd loved him all her life.

He didn't trust her.  She wasn't even certain she could blame him for that.  She was a Sullivan.

But she was meant to set it right, she sensed that.  She was meant for him.

Finally, clearing her throat and gathering her wits about her, she stepped back into the bedroom.

Donovan looked her up and down, blinking as if in surprise.

"It's hardly modern," she said, fingering the fabric of the skirt.

"It's lovely.  You're lovely."

She averted her face, feeling the heat creeping into her cheeks.  "These rooms are so different from the rest of the castle... so is the great hall."

"Actually, it's only the north wing that's still in disrepair.  Unfortunately, that's where you ended up earlier.  Most of the place has been restored, updated."  He reached out to move her hair off her forehead, and  gingerly examined the bump there, a result of her collision with the wall.  "There's even electricity."

"But you use the gas lamps?"

"I prefer them.  Are you hurting much, Rachel?"

"I'm sore, but only a wee bit.  I'll be fine," she told him.  She eyed the soft golden glow emanating from the fixtures in the room and nodded.  "I agree, the gas lamps are far nicer.  Will you show me around, then?  Um... the restored parts, I mean.  I've no interest in seeing the north wing again."

"That's good.  I'm afraid that wing is off-limits while you're here, Rachel."

She searched his face.  "So there are some secrets you won't be sharing with me?"

His eyes hooded, he shook his head.  The north wing is unsafe, as you've already learned.  Stay out of it, Rachel."

Her curiosity rose to new heights.  "All right," she said.

She didn't think he believed her.

"Come."  He offered his arm.

She took it.  Closed her hand around his upper arm, and felt him.  Warm, not cold as one might expect.  He felt real.  He felt like a man.  Not a monster.

He had, she mused, the deepest, bluest eyes she'd ever seen, and hair a soft, dark brown, nearly black.  She'd been incredibly attracted to him at first.  And she still was.

He led her through the main hall of this wing.  Showing her other bedrooms, none in use, but many ready for company.  Odd, for a man who expected to be alone forever.  Then he guided her back down the stairs, where he showed her the library, a huge room lined with books on shelves that towered to the ceilings.  Leather chairs sat in pairs by the towering windows.

"'Tis a sad room," she said, speaking in muted tones as if she were at a funeral.

"Sad?  Why do you say so?"

She walked forward slowly, pausing between two chairs beside a tall window that was completely enshrouded by heavy velvet drapes.  "The seats... they're in pairs.  All of them.  But you've no one to sit in them with you."

When she glanced back at him, he only shrugged.  She turned forward again, and fingered the deep honey velvet.  "It's as if the world is a place you'd rather not see.  But it's too beautiful to shut out, you know."

Stepping forward, he pulled the cord and opened the drapes.  "Yes, I know."

She glanced out, then drew a surprised breath.  The windows looked out on a flagstone path that meandered amid lush shrubs and bushes she couldn't identify.  In the center, the moonlight glistened on a fountain, ancient, but completely restored.  A stone image of some pagan goddess stood on a pedestal, spilling clear water from her outspread palms to splash into the pool spreading below her.

"'Tis beautiful," she whispered, but then she drew her gaze away, staring in confusion at the other windows, their draperies drawn tight.

"They're only drawn by day, Rachel.  As soon as darkness falls, I part them."  He looked past her, into his garden.  "I love the night."

"And the daylight?" she asked, in a voice that emerged as a bare whisper.

"It would kill me.  The way it killed Dante."  He turned to face her.  "Would you like to walk in my garden?"

"Yes.  Yes, I'd like that very much."

He reached for her hand.  He seemed to make a habit of doing that.  She let him take it, though, and followed as he led her to the far end of the library, to yet another set of drapes.  These parted to reveal French doors, that opened onto the garden.

"It's larger than I could tell from the window."

Nodding, he cradled her hand in his, perhaps unaware of doing so.  Or maybe not.  "It stretches out on this side, and around to the rear of the castle, reaching nearly to the cliffs."

She fingered a delicate-looking vine that clung to the castle wall.  Narrow green buds nodded heavily from it.  "I've never seen this before."

"Wait," he told her.  "We'll sit.  Here."  He pointed to a stone bench with claw feet and lion's heads for arms.  They went to it, sat down.

"Is that why you rest by day?  Because you can't be exposed to sunlight?"

He turned toward her.  "Not entirely."

She only waited, willing him to answer while he searched her face for... something.  Her true evil intent, she imagined.  "As daylight approaches our functions begin to slow.  By dawn we're usually unconscious, whether we want to be or not.  And it's not the sort of sleep from which one can be roused."

"Like... death?"

"Not so deep as death, I imagine.  But far deeper than any mortal's sleep."

"So if someone were to poke you, or shake you or shout in your ear....."

"Or set me aflame or drive a stake through my heart," he finished for her.  "I'd be aware of it, but likely unable to react enough to defend myself."

"That must be frightening."

"It's the reason for the coffins, hidden in the bowels of the castle.  I'm most vulnerable while I rest... and why I'm telling you any of this I can't say."

"Maybe you're starting to trust me?"

"I trust no one, Rachel.  Beautiful mortal females least of all."

She blinked.  "You... find me beautiful?"

He stared at her for a long moment, and his eyes seemed to heat as they moved lower, raking her before slowly meeting hers again.  Then he simply turned away, facing the castle, and the curious vines.  "Look."

She looked.  Then she caught her breath as one by one, the green buds seemed to split.  Bit by bit they opened, milk-white petals unfurling, their faces turning up to the moon as if in welcome.  Welcoming the night.

"I've never seen anything like them."

"They're very rare.  Moon lilies.  I had them imported."

"They're beautiful."  As she looked around, she noticed other plants in bloom.

"I have no flower that closes up by night.  Everything either remains open through the dark hours, or only blooms in darkness."

"It makes sense.  Day lilies or morning glories would be wasted here."

He nodded.

Rachel yawned, quickly covering her mouth with her hand.

"It's late," he said.  "You've had an exhausting day.  You should rest now."

She tilted her head to one side.  "I can always sleep late in the morning.  "Tis not as if I'll miss anything."

He nodded, getting to his feet as she did, and guiding her back along the paths.  She trailed one hand through the water of the fountain as they passed, and he watched a little oddly as she did.  Then they were at the doors, and he was ushering her inside.

He pulled the doors closed behind them.  Reached for the lock, one that would have to be opened with a key.

"Donovan," she asked, and he paused, and turned to face her instead.

"Have you truly been alone all this time?"

He frowned.  "I deal with others only when I'm forced to."

"Well, that's not exactly what I meant."

"What then?"

She lowered her gaze.  "I...  I mean... have you been... you know.  Without a woman?  All this time?  An entire century?"

He blinked, gave his head a shake.  "What odd questions you ask, Rachel," he said.  "Why do you want to know?"

She shrugged, and realized she'd been breathlessly awaiting his answer.  "I... perhaps I shouldn't have asked something so personal."  She met his gaze, though, battling the turmoil in her belly.  "But you did say you'd tell my anything I wanted to know."

"I did, didn't I?"  His voice was no longer gentle.  In fact he seemed angry.  He gripped her arm, his touch careful, but firm and possessive, as he led her onward.  And she noticed that he seemed to have forgotten all about locking that door.

But she wasn't sure what had replaced it in his mind, and that frightened her more than anything ever had.

Chapter 9

I knew what she was doing.  Trying to get to me.  Trying to make me feel something for her.  Desire, and perhaps something more.  Because if I did, I'd soften.  I'd care.  I'd let her go, despite the fact that it would cost me everything.

She was wrong, of course.  I'd taught myself too well over the centuries I'd spent alone.  I would not care.  Not for her, not anyone.

I did desire her.  She'd succeeded in that regard.  But not because of her clever ploys.  I'd desired her from the moment I'd seen her again, grown into a beautiful woman, standing in the doorway of that pub and beckoning me inside.

I opened her chamber door, but didn't stand politely outside when she went in.  Instead, I followed.  And closed the door behind me.

She turned when she heard the thunk of the door banging shut, and her eyes widened, though she quickly tried to hide her alarm.

"You didn't tell me, Rachel.  Why did you ask what you did?"

She lifted her chin.  "I apologized for that," she said.  "I was only curious."

"I think it was something more than that."  I took a step toward her, but stopped when she backed away.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do.  You're playing a dangerous game, Rachel.  Perhaps you don't realize how dangerous."

She shook her head.  "I didn't mean—"

"Since you're so curious about sex, I'll tell you.  It's very different, sex with a vampire."

Lowering her head, her cheeks flaming, she closed her eyes.  "I don't want to hear this."

"You asked.  You'll hear the answer.  Look at me, Rachel."

Her jaw tight, she did as I asked.  And I sent my will into her mind, took control, as easily this time as flicking a switch.  "Come here."

She opened her mouth as if to refuse, then blinked in shock as her body disobeyed.  Her feet, scuffing the floor, propelled her forward.  "Closer," I told her, and she came.  She stood very close to me.  Head tipped back, eyes frightened, but aroused, glistening with a titillating mixture of fear and desire as she waited.  And I knew why she responded this time when she hadn't before.  Because it was what she wanted.

I lifted a hand to her face, touched her cheek very lightly, and trailed my fingers downward.  Over her jaw, and chin, and then gently down her neck, pausing to feel the heady beat of her pulse there.  Desire rushed through me.  It wasn't supposed to.  I hadn't planned it this way.

My fingers trailed lower, touching delicate collarbones, tracing her sternum, and then flitting lightly over one breast.  I felt her response, the soft breath she drew, the tightening   of her nipple beneath my fingers.  But more than that, I felt my own reaction.  She'd angered me... her power over me, the danger that power represented.  My own apparent inability to remain untouched by her, to resist her allure.  I'd meant to frighten her away, to show her how dangerous I could be so she'd stop tempting me with her eyes, and her words, and every damned breath she drew.  Instead, I was only making it worse.

"Please...."

It was a whisper, a plea.  I drew my hand away, but my fingertips tingled still.  I wanted her.

"Playing on my desires is a risky game, Rachel," I told her.  "Because I can touch your mind with mine."  I stared down into her eyes.  "Kiss me, Rachel."

She leaned up, her lips trembling, but parting, as they touched mine.  Then touched them again.  I stood motionless for a moment, but then shuddered and bowed over her, taking her mouth, possessing it, invading it, as she pressed her body tight to mine.

She tasted like honey.  Her effect was like that of some addictive drug, and my craving for her more powerful than anything I'd ever known.

When I finally lifted my mouth away from hers, I was breathless, my heart pounding.  But hers was as well.

Drawing a steadying breath, I delivered the final lesson.  "Do you want to know the worst of it, Rachel?  The bit of knowledge that will frighten you the most?"

She nodded, only once.

"Even with this power, I couldn't make you do anything you didn't truly want to do.  Your will is too strong for that."  And with that, I released her, closed my mind off again, broke the connection.

She stood there, staring at me, but the fire in her eyes came as much, I thought, from anger as from the desire that still lingered there.

"You... you bastard."  It was a whisper.

"I thought I behaved with a great deal of restraint.  I didn't want to, Rachel.  I don't think you did either."

She looked away.  "Are you enjoying this, Donovan?  Trying to humiliate me?"

"I was only making a point.  Don't try to seduce me into letting you go, Rachel.  I won't be played that way.  I won't be manipulated.  I may desire you but I'll never care for you.  Never.  I'm incapable of it.  But if you insist on arousing my desires, I won't be denied.  I'll have you."

She glared at me, her eyes snapping with a fire I thought I'd extinguished by now.  "If the only way you can have a woman is by taking control of her mind, then I pity you, Donovan O'Roark."

I opened my mouth to reply, only to find myself unable to find words.

"And if you think what you've accomplished is so impressive, you're a blind man."  Without another word, she gripped the elastic waistband of her blouse and tugged it over her head.  And then she stood there, breasts bared and perfect, plump and firm, swelling toward me like some forbidden fruit of Eden.

She moved closer to me.  "Go on," she whispered.  "Touch me."  She gripped my hand, and drew it upward, pressing my palm to her breast.  I closed my eyes as the warmth of her filled my hand.  Air hissed through my teeth, and I felt the heat stirring, bubbling up inside me like a volcano, long dormant, about to erupt.  I told myself to turn away, to leave the room, but I couldn't.  My hand moved, caressed, squeezed.  And then my other hand rose to do likewise, and my eyes fell closed as the desire became overwhelming.

Her breath stuttered out of her, her head tipping backward.  Exposing her neck, satin-soft and utterly tempting.  Lying before me like an offering to a dark god.  An offering I wanted to take.

"So you see?" she whispered.  "This power you have over me... it isn't only you who wields it.  I can as well.  And if it was seduction I had on my mind, Donovan, I'd have done more than ask a simple question of you."

And with that she took a quick sharp step backward, away from me, and left me standing there, panting, aroused to a state near madness, wondering if she had a clue what she had done.

"You're a fool."  I snagged her waist, and jerked her closer, one hand pushing her head backward as my mouth parted.

Her body crushed to mine, I bent over her and sank my teeth into her tender throat.  She gasped, stiffened, but then as I suckled her, extracting the precious fluid from her body, she uncoiled.  Her body melted in my arms, and her head fell back farther.  She arched her neck, pushing against my mouth.  "Yes," she whispered.  "Oh, yessss..."

I drew away, not sated, only having sampled the barest taste of her... wanting more.  Panting with wanting more.

Her hand stroked me, caressing the throbbing hardness between my legs, and in spite of myself, I arched against her touch.  But I couldn't do this.  Couldn't take her the way my body was screaming for me to do.

Because there was something more than desire here, something that frightened me.  This entire demonstration of mine had backfired, hadn't it?  She was the one who was supposed to be frightened.

I gazed down into her eyes, and knew she wasn't.  Not really.  Oh, there was some fear in her eyes, but it only served to enhance the wanting there.

As if she could see the indecision, my hesitation and my need to leave this room, she reached for the skirt, unfastened it, began to push it lower.

I closed my eyes, turning my back to her.  "This... is not going to happen."

"You want it, too."

"Yes.  I want to pierce your body with mine and take you.  Just as I want to drain every drop of blood from your succulent throat, Rachel."

"You wouldn't hurt me."

I spun around.  "What if hurting you is exactly what I want to do?"

"You don't."  She shoved the skirt to the floor, stepped out of the panties, and came to me again, her hands sliding up the front of my shirt.

I gripped her wrists and stared down at her.  Naked, aroused, all but begging me to take her.  So aroused she barely knew what she was doing.  I stilled her hands when she started unbuttoning my shirt.  "Stop it, Rachel."

She froze, blinking up at me.  When I released her hands she lowered them to her sides, and I noticed her trembling, head to toe.

She turned her back to me, and not knowing what else to do, I left the room.

*    *    *    *    *

What had she done?

Oh, God.  Rachel flung herself onto the bed, hiding her face in the satin coverlet, battling tears of utter shame.  "It was him," she muttered.  "He made me behave that way.  He..."  But she knew it wasn't true.  He hadn't forced anything on her.  She'd acted on her own, except for that one brief interlude when he'd meant to demonstrate his alleged power over her.  And she'd had to reciprocate--to salvage her pride by showing him that she had power, too.  Feminine power to bend the man to her will. 

And she had.  Perhaps too much, because he'd lost control.  She'd felt it, sensed it.  And understood it because it had happened to her as well.

 She'd behaved like a well-trained whore.  Who was this woman in her body?  Not her, not Rachel Sullivan.  She'd never act that way with any man.  Never.

But he wasn't any man.  He was her guardian.

Wasn't he?  What if she was wrong?

She had to get out of here.  Now, tonight.  She couldn't trust herself to remain near him, couldn't think straight this close to him.  What was this thing she was feeling, this certainty that he was meant to be hers, now and forever?  Was it foolishness?  A childish dream?

She sat up slowly, wiping her eyes and scanning the room for her clothes.  Heat flooded her face when she spied them thrown carelessly on the floor.  She'd done that.  Undressed for him, unashamed, brazen.  No, it wasn't her, but some wild woman who'd been living silently inside her.  Hiding, and choosing now to emerge—the worst possible time.

No, she had to leave.  She tugged on her clothes, paced to the door and cracked it open, just slightly.  He was nowhere in sight.  But loud, crashing music came up from below--the great hall.  Beethoven, she thought.  Violent in its power.

She crept into the hall and toward the stairs, then down them only a bit.  Just enough so she could see him in the great hall.  He stood near the blazing hearth, head lowered, eyes closed.  Utterly still as the music smashed over him.

Licking her dry lips, she moved lower, reaching the bottom of the stairs, not taking her eyes off him until she slipped around the corner.  He never moved, never flinched, or even raised his head.  She'd moved in near silence, but somehow she'd expected him to know.  To be aware of her, as if crediting him with some sixth sense he couldn't possibly...

Or maybe he could.  But he didn't notice her.

She'd planned to make her escape tomorrow while he... slept.  But she couldn't wait, not now.  He was too confusing... and too angry at her for her feelings.

Her hand rose to touch the spot where he'd fed at her throat, and she felt the tiny wounds there.  Not sore, but tingling with erotic awareness, so tender now, so sensitized.  Just touching them reawakened the memory of his kiss, his touch... his mouth working her there.

She had to pause, lean back against a cool stone wall and draw deep breaths into her lungs.  She wanted him.  She desired a man she truly didn't know, though it felt as if she'd always known him.  A vampire, but that made no difference to her.

She couldn't stay, because Lord only knew what she might do if she stayed.  If he came to her room again, kissed her again...

But he wouldn't.  He didn't want to care for her, he'd made that clear.  Straightening, she squared her shoulders, and followed the corridor to the library.  Then with one last glance behind her, to confirm he hadn't followed, she went inside.  The French doors remained as they'd been before.  Closed, but unlocked, and a moment later she was outside the castle.  Free, in his beautiful garden of night.

For a moment she hesitated.  It was such a contradiction, a man like him, having a place like this.  As S he was capable of appreciating pure beauty.  As if he had the soul of a poet, and not a determined hermit.

Shaking that thought away, she walked around the castle, each step faster than the one before, until at last she was running.  Her hair blowing in the night wind as she pushed her muscles to their limits, racing through the darkness along the path, ever farther from the castle and toward the road that led to it.  A road that meandered among woods, and later fields, and the village itself.

Free.  She was free at last.

And that was when she heard the hounds.

Chapter 10

Hounds?  She didn't understand.  Not at first.  But then she heard the men's voices in the distance, village men.  And then the hounds drowned them out.  Crying, baying in a horrific cacophony of noise that chilled her blood.

Marney Neal's hounds, she thought vaguely, knowing the animals were trained hunters.  But they didn't hunt game, they hunted men.  Marney trained them for that purpose.  So if they were out tonight they must be after some criminal.

Then why were they heading toward the castle?

Donovan?

She swallowed hard, but her throat was dry.  And then she stood there, frozen in fear, as the hounds rounded a curve in the road and came into sight.  Running, bearing down on her.  A horde of galloping, baying death.  She whirled, panic taking hold as she surged into the woods, even knowing they'd offer no protection.  But the dogs were too fast, too determined.  One leapt, and his forelegs clawed   her back, propelling her forward.  Instinctively she rolled to her back, but the beast was upon her, teeth flashing.  And then, suddenly the dog was hurled away.

Donovan.  He stood above her, surrounded by the dogs, wielding a club as they lunged and snapped at him.  "Go," he shouted.  "Run for the castle.  Go!"  One snatched his arm in horrible teeth.  She heard fabric tearing, saw blood as Donovan clubbed the animal uselessly.

Shaking, dirty and terrified, she struggled to her feet.  And then she staggered toward the road.  But she stopped as Donovan went down and the dogs leapt in for the kill.  Screaming, she crouched low, scooping up hands full of debris and hurling it at their tawny bodies to get their attention.

"Here, you filthy beasts!  Here!  Come!"  One dog turned toward her snarling.  "Come for me then," she cried, and then she turned to run, knowing they'd follow.

And they did.  She made it to the road with the hounds on her heels, now.  But the men were in sight, and she cried out to them.  "Marney Neal, call off your hounds!  Call them off!"

"Sakes, 'tis Rachel!" someone said.  But then the dogs were on her, knocking her down once more.

One of the men raced forward, shouting commands at the dogs.  Thankfully, they were trained well enough to obey at once.  The dogs fell away from her as one, and sat as docile as pups, awaiting the word of their master.  And then Marney himself, beer on his breath, was leaning over her, helping her to her feet.

"Rachel, fer the love of God, where've ye been?  We've been worried to death for you!  Are you harmed, girl?  Are you harmed?"

She let him help her to her feet.  "What in the name of God were you thinking, turning those killers lose on me like that, Marney Neal!  I should have you jailed!"

"Nay, 'twas for you I done it, child.  You disappeared and we feared the murderin' O'Roark had taken you to his lair!"

"What utter foolishness!"  She brushed the dirt and twigs from her clothes, and sent a furtive glance toward the j woods where Donovan must still by lying.  Perhaps dead already.

"Is it, Rachel?"  Marney eyed her suspiciously.  "I take the hounds through these woods every night since that bastard has been in residence.  Just to be sure he stays within his castle walls, and doesn't venture out to make victims of my neighbors."

"You're a superstitious fool.  Donovan O'Roark is harmless."

"Then what are you doin' here wandering these godforsaken lands?  And where have you been these past two nights, Rachel?"

She lifted her chin, met his eyes.   "Had I agreed to wed you as you wanted, I'd feel that to be your business, Marney Neal, but since I turned you down I've nothing to say."

"You've been at the castle.  As his lover?" he asked.

"As a guest, Marney.  No more than that.  Mary knows full well my interest in the legends associated with Donovan's ancestor.  He's offered to help me with my research."

"Indeed!"  Marney huffed, and eyed the castle as if it were something demonic.  "Well, you're found now.  Come with me, back to the village.  Mary will be relieved to see you there, and well."

She glanced again toward the woods, then quickly at Marney again.  "No.  I'll return to the castle tonight.  Tell Mary I'm fine and will contact her shortly."

He set his feet, hands on his hips.  "I'll not have it."

"You have no say in it.  Now kindly take your hounds and go home, Marney, before I decide to inform the authorities about this deadly pack you set on me.  They nearly killed me.  No doubt the law would see them all shot just to preserve the safety of the citizens."

"You wouldn't—"

"I will, I swear on my mother's grave.  Unless you leave now, I will."

His eyes held hers only for a moment.  Then lowered.  "You've changed, Rachel Sullivan.  The States have done this to ya, no doubt.  Or perhaps 'twas that monster in the castle."

"I've grown up.  I won't have you or anyone running my life for me.  Not anymore."

"Fine.  Ye deserve whatever fate befalls ye.  But mark my words, Rachel, the man of that castle is no human being'.  He's a monster, and more dangerous to you than my dogs ever could be."

He turned to go, with his dogs leaping up to follow, tails wagging.  Harmless pets.  Rachel waited until they were out of sight.  Then she turned and ran back into the darkness of the trees, falling to her knees beside the dark shape on the ground.

"Donovan?"

He opened his eyes, his face pain-racked and pale in the night.  "You could have gone with him," he whispered.

"Aye, I could have."  She tore strips from her skirt and tied them tight round the wounds to stanch the bleeding.  She'd never seen so much bleeding.  "Can you stand?  Walk?"

He tried to get up, faltered, and Rachel gripped him quickly, helping him to his feet.  Then, pulling his arm around her shoulders, she propelled him forward, through the woods toward the castle.  The road would be easier, but she'd prefer they not be seen by prying eyes.  Especially Marney Neal's.

"There's a trail to the left," he managed, though he spoke through gritted teeth.  "A shortcut."

She took him that way, found the trail and followed it, but felt his eyes on her face.  "Why?" he asked her, breathless, still bleeding.

"Don't ask foolish questions, Donovan O'Roark."

He leaned on her heavily, and when he spoke, his words were slurred.  "Is it foolish to ask why?  You were free.  It's what you said you wanted."

"I wanted my freedom, yes," she said.  "But not at the cost of your life."  She shook her head.  "You jumped into the midst of those hounds as if you thought yourself invincible.  You could've been killed."  He said nothing, and she tugged him faster.  "Don't be telling me again how you can care for no one besides yourself, Donovan O'Roark, for 'tis a bald-faced lie an' you know it."

"No—"

"No?  No, you say?  Why, then, would you risk your own life to save mine?"

He shook his head.  She couldn't see his face, because he kept it so low.  Or perhaps he had no choice, too weak to hold it upright.

"You're no more selfish than you are a hermit," she said.  "You're selfless, and more lonely than you even realize.  An' I'll tolerate no more of your nonsensical lies.  I've seen through this mask you wear, Donovan, and you can't don it again."

"You're seeing what you want to see."

Her hand felt damp, and she looked down to see the blood dripping from it where she clung to him.  "Damnation, why do you bleed so?"

"It... it's part of what I am.  Bleeding to death is one of the few ways I can die."

"That and sunlight," she whispered, glancing at the sky between the trees.

"There's plenty of time before dawn, Rachel.  More's the pity.  It is only with the day sleep these wounds will heal.  Until then—"

"Until then I'll stay beside you and be sure you don't bleed to death," she told him.

*    *    *    *    *

It shocked me.  Astounded me, really.  But that was precisely what she did.

My unwilling captive vanished, the rebel was gone.  Her stubborn determination, her boundless energy, was directed toward helping me now, rather than escaping me.  She eased me onto the settee in the great hall, then ran back toward the door.  For the briefest of moments I thought she would run from me now that she'd seen me safely back to the castle.  I was utterly bewildered when, instead, she turned the lock.

"What—"

"For Marney Neal and those narrow-minded fools like him," she said, back at my side now.  "Those hounds were meant for you, not me, Donovan.  You must know it.  An' those men would have stood gladly by an' let them tear out your heart had it been you and not me on that road."  She knelt on the floor beside me, shoving her hands through her hair, her cheeks pink with exertion, or frustration, or anger.  "Lordy, how do you live like this?"

It wasn't a question she expected me to answer.  Already she knelt beside the settee tugging my shirt away to reveal the jagged tear in my side.  Tearing the skirt she wore, until little remained but shreds, she packed the wound, and wrapped strips around my waist, tying them so tightly I could scarcely breathe.  Her every touch brought on the most intense pain—and the most excruciating pleasure—I'd ever known.  I thrilled at her hands on me, no matter the reason.

"Why do you come back here at all, Donovan," she asked.  "There must be places in the world where you're safe."

"There are."  I looked around the hall, my gaze straying to the hearth where Dante and I used to sit and talk for hours on end, or read in companionable silence while the fire danced.  "But this place is... dear to me."

"Then move it."

I only frowned at her.

'"Tis done all the time.  Rich folk buying castles and having them moved stone by stone to the place of their choice."

I shook my head slowly.  "It wouldn't be Ireland."

"No."

"You came back, Rachel.  Despite the narrow-mindedness, despite the unwanted attentions..."

Her head came up sharply.  "An' what would you know of that?"

"I know.  Marney Neal would do well to know when to give up."  I smiled slightly, despite the burning pain in my side.  "Before you do him bodily harm."

"Aye, an' he's lucky I didn't tonight."  She eyed my skin, shaking her head at all the blood.  "You've watched me, haven't you?"

So she knew.  I'd sensed it before.  That she was aware somehow of my presence those nights when I'd drawn near to her, pulled as if by some irresistible force.

"There was a time, long ago," she whispered, dabbing now at the blood with a dry bit of crumpled fabric, 'when I nearly drowned in the river near my home.  Someone plucked me out, breathed into my lungs, and brought me back.  But even as I lay there, choking, he vanished."  She stopped wiping and met my eyes.  "'Twas you, wasn't it?"

I lowered my head.

"And later, after my folks passed on.  When I lay awake, frightened and alone, someone came to me in the darkness.  Just a dream, I thought when I was older.  But 'twas no dream, was it, Donovan?  'Twas you, the man who told me he was my guardian angel, that I'd be safe, always."

I released a long, slow breath.  "It was."

"Did you ever know what that meant to me?  Did you know how I slept soundly, how I believed it, how I clung to it?  My parents were gone, but I had someone, still.  Someone watching over me as my dear ma had, protecting me as my da had done.  'Twas the second time you saved me, you know."

"No," I said.  "I didn't know."

"Now you do.  Quite a thing for a self-servin' monster to do, wasn't it, Donovan?"

"You don't understand," I began.  But I wasn't certain I could explain.  I didn't understand it either.  Not fully.

"Make me understand then."

Nodding, I shifted to one side, so she could sit beside me on the edge of the settee I saw her gaze shift quickly to the wound again, as if to assure herself my movement hadn't started the bleeding up again.  "Dante told me of our nature, long ago.  He told me that only certain mortals can become... what we are."

Her intense expression told him how interested she was in hearing more.

"As a mortal, I had a rare antigen in my blood.  It's known as belladonna.  That made me one of those few, one of the Chosen, as we call them."

"That's fascinating.  I had no idea..."

"I know.  Vampires are... aware of mortals with the antigen.  We sense them, just as Dante sensed it in me.  And there's more.  There's a... a connection.  For each vampire there's a mortal somewhere, one with the antigen, for whom that connection is stronger.  So strong that we're drawn to them."

"And... were you that mortal for Dante?"

I nodded.  "Yes.  I never knew it, but he watched over me for most of my life.  If trouble had come, he'd have | protected me.  And if I'd needed help, he'd have sensed it, wherever he might have been, and he'd have come."

She lowered her head, made a noise of disbelief in her | throat.

"You don't believe me," I stated.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to mine.  "If the legends are true, Donovan, he attacked you as you walked alone one night.  He made you into what he was.  If you call that protection, then—"

"I was dying."

She blinked fast.  Her eyes widened.

"I didn't know it, of course, but Dante did.  I'd been feeling the symptoms for weeks.  Weakness, dizziness, blacking out for no reason.  I had no idea what was wrong, and I'd thought it was something that would pass.  But it wasn't."

"How do you know?"

I didn't answer that.  Couldn't.  Not yet.  It would be too cruel to give her so much to deal with all at once.  I couldn't tell her that mortals with the antigen always suffered the': same fate--an early death.  I'd been very close to my end.

"I simply do," I told her instead.  "There's no doubt."

She stared down at me.  "Then... you'd have died if he hadn't... done that to you."

"Without a doubt."

She nodded, deep in thought.  "But he could have given you the choice.  He never asked you to decide."

I smiled slightly, remembering.  "Dante was never one to take time about acting.  He was impulsive.  Action first, thought later.  But there were other reasons too.  Had he told me, I likely would have repeated it to my parents, or the village priest.  And some secrets simply must be kept, Rachel."

She drew my bloody shirt down over my body, deep in thought.  I saw the moment she made the connection, because her eyes widened and met mine.  "I have the antigen, don't I?"

I nodded.  "You are the mortal I'm driven to watch over, Rachel.  It's a part of who—of what I am.  Don't go attaching any noble motivations to it.  It's simply an irresistible urge.  I couldn't ignore you if I tried."

"So saving me from the hounds...?"

"A reflex.  Nothing more."

She lowered her eyes.  "I'm not sure I believe you."

"Why not?"

She shrugged.  "I think there's an element of choice involved, Donovan.  You can't tell me that it was impossible for you to choose not to put yourself into the jaws of those hounds."  She tilted her head to one side.  "Or not to come back here at all.  But you did.  You came back because of me, didn't you, Donovan?"

I lowered my head.  "Perhaps that was part of it.  But I also came back because of Dante."

"Dante is dead."

"Yes.  But I don't know where..."

Frowning, she studied me.  "Where?  Where he lies, you mean?"

Sighing, I absently ran one hand over the wound in my side.  "When they came for us, put their torches to the castle walls, the sun was just beginning to rise.  We had no choice but to run.  Flames... devour our kind very quickly, you see.  We both knew our only hope was to make for the relative shelter of the woods, where the sun's light wouldn't penetrate quite as quickly.  And perhaps that would give us time to find shelter.  A few minutes, at best, but perhaps enough."  She nodded, urging me with her eyes to go on.  "When we emerged, they were waiting.  We could have stood and fought, and likely defeated them all."

"But...  I thought there were dozens..."

I nodded.  "We're very strong, Rachel.  We could have | fought, but the sun allowed no time.  We had to run.  They pursued us, though, and we had no choice but to split up.  I ran in one direction, Dante in another.  The mob... they | went after him."

"And what happened to you?"

"I made it to the forest, and the hay field beyond.  I saved | myself by burrowing deep into a haystack and remaining | there until nightfall.  It offered thin protection, but I survived.  Weak, burned in many places, but I lived."

"And Dante didn't," she said softly.

"I returned to the castle ruins by night... for weeks.  Knowing that's where he would look for me if he were : alive.  Even after I left the country, I came back periodically to wait for him here.  I had the place rebuilt, just in case.  But he never came.  Now I only want to know where he died."

"Will you put a marker there?" she asked, her voice quiet.

"A garden," I told her.  "Something as alive as he was."

"You loved him very much.  Yet you claim you care for no one."

"I loved him," I said.  "He was the last person I ever | let myself care for.  The lesson his death taught me was too hard won to forget."

I felt heavy.  Tired.

"If you can't love," she asked, "then how can you live?"

"It isn't so hard."

She closed her eyes.  "I'm like you," she said.  "In more ways than I realized."

"How?"

But she only shook her head as I slipped into slumber.

Chapter 11

She didn't realize the time until he went still, and his eyes fell closed.  It wasn't like death, this slumber of his.  More like a very deep sleep.

She'd told him she was like him.  Only now did she realize how much.  She hadn't loved, either.  With one exception.  Since her parents had died there had been, only one being she'd truly loved.  And as she'd grown older, she'd convinced herself that love had only been a dream.  But the love for that dream angel had remained.

And now she knew he was real.  Her savior, her dream, was real.

And damp with his own blood, in torn, dirty clothes.  He'd watched over her as a child.  Taken care of her more than once.  She could do no less for him.

But she could never tell him.  He must never know how much she'd loved him in her youth.  The fantasies she'd had.  Because he was afraid of love.  She'd never known anyone so afraid.

Slowly, Rachel got up off the settee and headed to her own rooms.  She found clean washcloths and soft towels, and fetched a basin of warm water.  Then she returned to Donovan.  He'd object to her caring for him this way if he were awake.  But he wasn't awake.

She took off his shirt, moving him carefully, half afraid doing so would jar him awake, or worse, start him bleeding again.  She eyed the bandaged wound.  No red trickle emerged.  Good.  But her gaze slid slowly upward, over his flat belly, and muscled chest.  His dark nipples intrigued her.

Her throat went dry.  She looked away.  Dipping the soft cloth into the water, squeezing it out, she pressed it to his skin.  But she could feel him underneath it.  Taut and hard.  Masculinity was like an aura emanating from his flesh.  Almost a scent, it drew her.

She leaned closer, over his chest, her face near enough so she could feel the heat rising from him and touching her.  Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply.  And something stirred down in the pit of her belly.  Something she knew, recognized, because she'd felt it before.  Whenever this man was near her she felt it.

But she had no business feeling desire for a man incapable of feeling anything beyond desire in return.

She felt it all the same.

"God, help me," she whispered.  "But I do want you, Donovan O'Roark."  She closed her eyes, tried to get herself under control.  Dipping the cloth in the now pink-tinted water, she squeezed it out again, and carefully took away her makeshift bandages from his wound, to clean it properly.

Then she squinted, dabbed the blood away, and looked again.

It... it was smaller.

It was shrinking.  Amazed, she watched as, in slow motion, the wound's edges pulled together like some kind of  experiment in time-lapse photography.  It took several minutes, but bit by bit the skin seemed to regenerate.  Leaving a pucker, and then even that smoothed itself out and faded away.

Blinking in shock, she washed the spot clean, searching for traces of the tear, but it was gone.  Gone.  In something like awe, she drew her fingers over the new, healthy skin.  "It's unbelievable," she whispered, and flattened her palm against his warm flesh.

When his hand fell atop hers, she jumped and quickly looked up at his face.  But his eyes remained closed, his breathing shallow, barely discernible.  But his hand closed around hers in his sleep.  A sleep in which he'd told her he was beyond responding to any stimulus.

He'd been wrong.

And now the hand of this man, who claimed he didn't need or want anyone in his life, clung to her own, and for the life of her, she wouldn't have taken hers away.

*    *    *    *    *

I woke to a feeling of warmth spread upon my chest.  And then as my senses sharpened, I knew that warmth was her.

Rachel was on the floor, her legs curled beneath her, while her head rested upon my chest.  Her lips... barely touching the bared skin of it.  One arm spanned me, hand on my shoulder.  Her other hand was tucked beneath her, held tightly in my own.

I flexed and relaxed my fingers, to confirm what seemed unlikely.  But it was true.  I was the one holding her hand like a lover.  Not the other way around.

I couldn't lie like this... not for much longer.  Her soft breaths whispering over my skin were driving me to the edge of madness.  I was hungry.  And she was too near.  Too...

Her fingers spread on my shoulder, then kneaded like a happy cat's claws.  She moved her face, as if burrowing, only my chest didn't give, and her lips brushed over it like fire.  The groan that rose up from the depths of me was a rumble.  A warning.  The same rumble one might hear from a volcano as the pressure within builds.  An eruption was dangerously near.

She stirred, satin hair tickling my skin as she sat up, batting huge dark eyes at me, myopic until she blinked the sleep haze away and brought me into focus.  Then she smiled.

"It healed," she told me.

"I told you it would."

"I know, but seeing it with my own eyes... 'twas amazing, Donovan."

I nodded, trying to ignore the fresh-wakened glow in her cheeks and the moisture making her sleepy eyes gleam.  The tousled hair.  She must look just like this when she's been thoroughly satisfied by a skilled lover, I thought.  Just like this.

I tried to sit up.  She noticed, and got off me so I could, and I instantly regretted the loss of her so near.  But when she got to her feet, it was to press her hands to the small of her back and arch.  She grimaced, groaned and rubbed, so I realized she'd spent a horribly uncomfortable day on the floor when she'd had a bed fit for a queen only yards away.  "Rachel, why on earth didn't you go to your room?"

She kept her hands where they were, fingers massaging herself.  But her head came up fast.  "An' leave you here by the front door, unconscious and unprotected?  Not likely!"

I lowered my head.  The smile that wanted to come to my lips was a dangerous one, I knew.  No sense encouraging her foolish notions.  "You'd already locked the door."

"Marney Neal could make quick work of that lock, and 'twouldn't be the first time."

I went still, sought her eyes, but she kept them averted.  "You say that as if you know."

"Aye."

The bastard.  "What lock was it he made quick work of, Rachel?"

"The one on my room at the pub.  Eight years ago, before I left for the States."

Her voice didn't break at all.  Mine would if I spoke again.  It would break or emerge as the growl I felt building up.  I'd kill the bastard.  I'd rip out his heart and—

"You're lookin' rather murd'rous, Donovan," she said softly, studying my face.  "An' truly, there's no need.  Marney's a thorn in my side, but a harmless one.  He'd never have gone so far if he hadn't had a wee bit too much ale.  An' I daresay he sobered up some about the time I shoved him out my window."

I blinked, then slowly reached out, hooking one finger under her chin and tipping her head up so I could see her face.  She seemed to be telling the truth.  "You pushed him out your window?"

"'Twasn't hard.  Marney didn't have much balance that night anyway, as I recall.  So he kicks in my door and starts groping at me like a ruttin' buck, going' on about marriage and love and other such nonsense.  I simply turned so his back was to the window, and gave him a bit of a shove."

I couldn't help it.  I smiled.  "But your room is on the second floor."

"Aye.  He broke his arm in two places when he landed.  Good for him our main road isn't paved, wouldn't you say?"

I felt an odd feeling welling up for Rachel Sullivan, in the center of my chest.

"No man alive ever got so much as a kiss from me   without my consent, Donovan.  Tis not something I'd tolerate."

My gaze faltered.  "Are you trying now to take the blame for what I did before?"

"I'm only saying you spoke true when you said that if I hadn't wanted it to happen, it wouldn't have.  And not only because I'd have prevented it, but because you would."

I met her eyes, my own narrowing.  "Don't start again tonight crediting me with qualities I don't possess."

She shrugged.  "I'm starving.  Aren't y—"  She broke off there, bit her lip, and sent me a quick, hot glance.  Her trembling hand shot to her neck, but the wounds there were gone now.  Would have healed with the daylight.  As if they'd never been there.

"Do you... would you..."

"Don't."  I looked away, forcibly, from her tender throat.  "Why don't you go to your rooms, Rachel.  You must want a shower, a change of clothes."

"But... how do you get...  What I mean is, where do you...?"

I looked at her again, unable to help myself.  "I don't kill, if that's what you're asking.  I have stores.  Cold, stale, sealed in plastic bags."  I swallowed hard, as one of my hands rose up to stroke her hair, arranging it behind her shoulder.  My fingers touched the soft skin there.  Felt the pulse thudding endlessly, the river of her blood, flowing there.  Warm, living blood.

"You... you drank from me... before."

"I shouldn't have done that."

"It was..."  She swallowed hard, but her eyes heated, and the flame singed me.

"It was ecstasy," I finished for her.  "I know.  That's the danger,  Rachel.  That's the allure.  What makes us so dangerous to you.  You want it.  You crave what could end in your own destruction."

She lifted her chin.  "You'd never hurt me."

"Don't be so sure of that, Rachel."  I turned away.

"But I am sure of it," she said to my back.  I'd been walking toward the kitchens, but I stopped then and stood motionless.  "Perhaps you're the one who needs convincin'."  She moved forward very slowly.  When she slid her palms slowly up the length of my back, curling her fingers on my shoulders, I stiffened, inhaled sharply.  "I'm not afraid of you, Donovan.  I've no reason to be and you know it, I think.  But you're afraid of me, aren't you?"

"Don't be a fool."

"I'd only be a fool if I were asking' you to trust me," she said, and she moved her hands slowly, caressing my neck, fanning her fingers up into my hair.  "Or to love me.  But I'm not, Donovan.  I'm not asking' for anything like that."

*    *    *    *    *

She was, she knew she was.  All her life she'd dreamed of this man.  He was meant for her, she knew that.  Somewhere deep inside her, she'd always known.  She'd never been with a man.  Even believing her guardian angel, her immortal Donovan O'Roark to be a fantasy, she'd saved herself for him.  Only for him.

He didn't turn, didn't speak.

She lowered her hands to her sides.  Defeated.  Maybe her dreams were as foolish as she'd once convinced herself they'd been.  Maybe she'd been wrong after all.

"I'm sorry.  I thought...  I thought you wanted me, too."  Turning away, she went to the stairs, climbed them slowly, and found the haven of the rooms he'd created for some fantasy woman--a woman he must have dreamed of.  A woman he'd never let in.

*    *    *    *    *

I stood where I was for a full minute.  No longer.  I ached for her, craved her with a force beyond endurance.  And she was right, I feared her too.  She could destroy me, if I gave her the power.

I went to the foot of the stairs, gazing up them, wanting with everything in me to go after her.  I wanted her.  It wasn't love.  It wasn't trust.  It was only need... a need I knew she felt as well.

I put my foot on the first step.  Closed my eyes, swallowed the  trepidation welling up in my throat.  Told myself this was a bad idea.  Very bad.  I took another step, and another.  And I could hear the shower running now.  In my mind, I could see her standing beneath it, wet and beautiful, utterly naked, mine for the taking.

What man alive would deny her?

"Not me," I whispered, and the words emerged deep and throaty.  "No, not me."

I took the rest of the stairs by twos.

Chapter 12

The door stood open... in invitation, I thought.  Her clothes lay tattered on the floor, and I recalled the hounds surrounding her.  The fear in her eyes.  The courage that surged in spite of it.

My fingers fumbled with the trousers I wore, and I stepped out of them, and into the bathroom.  Nothing between us now but the flimsy shower curtain.  Her naked on one side, beneath the pounding spray.  Me naked on the other.

Suddenly the water stopped flowing.  Her fingers curled around the edge of the curtain, and it slid open.  And then she stood there, still, silent.  Wide eyes sliding up and down my body, before finally meeting mine, holding them.

She stepped out, one foot lifting over the edge of the tub, lowering to the floor, then the other.  She didn't reach for the towels stacked nearby.  Instead she merely stood there, head tilted back, eyes dark and stormy.

I stared back at her, drinking her in with my eyes.  Water   beaded on her skin, her shoulders and arms.  Her tight belly.  Rivulets formed, trickling from her long, wet hair down over slick, perfect breasts.  She waited.  Up to me, I knew.  But did she really think I could turn away now?

Reaching out, I touched her.  Ran one hand slowly over her hair, and followed the water downward, absorbing it into my palm as I skimmed her delicate throat, her tender breast, her narrow waist and rounded hip.  I tugged her closer.  And she came so easily, at the merest nudge of my hand.  She pressed her body to mine with a soft sigh, twining her arms around my neck and tilting her head back for my kiss.

I shuddered in reaction to the feel of her in my arms, wet and so warm, as I touched my mouth to hers.  My arms closed tight around her, one hand cupping her buttocks while the other cradled her head.  When her lips parted, I tasted heaven, and the fire inside me flared hotter.  With my tongue, I delved inside, to touch and stroke hers.  I felt her shaking.  Warming until her flesh was hot against my hands.  Feverish.  I arched hard against her, and she pushed back.  No hesitation, no shyness.  My hands slid up and down her shower-damp body, unable to get enough of the feel of her as I fed from her mouth.  She was sweet.  And my mind floated away, until all that remained was sensation.  Desire.  And the taste of her.  I moved my lips away, licking the moisture from her jaw, and her throat.  She arched backward, and I slid lower, drinking every droplet from her skin, from her breast.  Taking the hard little nipple into my mouth and suckling, gently at first, but harder when her hands tangled in my hair.  Scraping and nipping with my teeth, making her whimper in need, a sound that added fuel to the fire.

I wanted her... all of her, everywhere.  Lower, I moved, dropping to my knees and kissing the wet path down her belly, nuzzling my face in the nest of damp curls, and then pushing deeper.  Parting her secret folds with my tongue, I tasted her, and she cried out, fists clenching in my hair and tugging it.  Hurting me so deliciously that my knees nearly buckled.  Then she stepped back, just a little, urging me upward again, until I was standing.  Her arms encircled my neck, and she lifted herself.  I helped her, clasping the backs of her thighs and lifting them, positioning them around my waist.  I felt her, warm and ready, teasing at the very tip of me, and closed my eyes at the flash of desire that nearly blinded me.  And then she lowered her body over mine, took me slowly, so slowly inside her.  Deeper... and deeper still, and when I felt the resistance, wondered at it, she pushed harder.  A soft gasp, a small sound of pain.

I went still.  Throbbing inside her, feeling her body's tightness pressing around me, holding me, I closed my eyes and knew the secret she hadn't told me.  The gift she'd just given me.  "Rachel..."

"Shh," she whispered, and then she moved over me, lifting away, lowering again.  Slowly, excruciatingly, her breasts sliding against my chest as she did, taut nipples caressing my skin.

Slowly, I told myself.  Gently.

She nestled her head in the crook of my neck, kissed me there, suckled me there.  Moved faster.  Her breaths hot and quick on my skin.  I pushed her back to the wall, gripped her buttocks and held her there, thrusting into her deeply, again and again.

She gasped, and clung to me, head thrown back, mouth open.  I kissed her, took her mouth as I took her body, but the need wasn't sated.  Even as my passion neared release, I knew it wouldn't be.

And it was as if she knew, sensed it somehow, because she clasped my head and drew it lower, pressed my face to her neck, tilted her chin upward, so the tender skin pressed to my lips.  I felt the pulse pounding there, tasted   the warmth and salt of her skin, knew it would be as good for her as for me, told myself there was no reason to deny what she offered.

"Take me, Donovan," she whispered.  "Taste me..."

I shivered.  I hungered.  I neared release more with every thrust, and craved as I'd never craved before.

With a trembling sigh, I parted my lips, closed them over her thudding pulse and, quickly, pierced her throat.  She drew a harsh breath, but her hands pushed my head closer, clung to me and she pressed her neck to my greedy mouth.  And I fed.  Suckled, devoured the very essence of her, and heard her short staccato cries as she neared climax.  And then I heard nothing but the thunder of my own heart beating in time with hers as I exploded inside her.  She screamed my name, shuddered around me, and slowly went limp in my arms.

I lifted my head, kissed the wound I'd left in her neck, and then her cheek, and her hair, and her lips.

She opened heavy-lidded eyes, and stared up at me.  And something about that look made me realize the enormity of my mistake.

It wasn't simple desire I felt for her.  Not need, not physical longing.  I felt something for her.  Something powerful and older than time.  I always had.

I'd done it, then.  I'd put the power to destroy me squarely into her hands.  All that remained was to see what she would do with it.

But not now.  Not yet.

As I lowered her gently to her feet, she stared up at me, and her deep green eyes gleamed like emeralds in moonlight.  She whispered, "Come," and she took my hand.  Drawing me with her back into the shower, turning on the water.  Standing with me beneath the spray.  She wrapped herself in my arms and kissed me.  Lingeringly... almost... lovingly.

*    *    *    *    *

She couldn't tell him how she felt, wasn't sure there were words for it even if she tried.  Completed, somehow.  As if a goal she'd been striving for all her life had finally come within reach.  As if the very essence of her had been touched, shared, poured out into another soul.  She was happy, truly happy for the first time in her memory.

He didn't feel the same.  Couldn't love her.  Wouldn't trust her.  But she refused to dwell on those things right now.  There would be time.  So much time.

She'd get her wish, her dream.  The man she'd loved all her life.  She lowered her eyes, tried to believe he would return that love.  Eventually.

"What is it?" he whispered, stroking her hair as he held her.They'd moved from the shower to the bed, where they snuggled now like lovers.  Tough to believe he felt nothing for her.  Impossible, in fact.

She shook her head.  "Nothing, Donovan.  I was just thinking..."

"Thinking about what?"

Shrugging, she brushed away her doubts.  "I'd like to walk outside," she told him.  "In the moonlight."

"Were you always such a night person, Rachel?"

She smiled at him, ignoring the wariness, the uncertainty in his eyes.  "'Tis growing on me."  She sat up, sensing his growing discomfort with the intimacy of holding her in bed this way, now that the desire was spent.  For her part, she'd have just as soon remained like that through the night, but...

She walked to the closet, pawed the clothes and chose carefully.  A dress of white, so he couldn't help but focus on her out there in the darkness.  With a full, soft skirt that would dance in the slightest breeze, and a plunging neckline to remind him of how much he still wanted her.  She hoped.

*    *    *    *    *

"I've always wondered what lies beyond this fence of yours," she said as we walked side by side in the moonlit night.  Her hair, dried during lovemaking and untouched by a comb, hung in natural, careless curls, giving her the look of a wild thing of the forests.  A fairy, or a nymph.  She enchanted me.

I should never have made love to her.  Never.

"I can show you," I heard myself tell her.  "But... there's no gate."

Frowning, I tilted my head, watching her study the tall, sturdy fence.  "And how do you know that, Rachel?"

She looked at me quickly, then averted her eyes.

"I... used to come here.  As a child."

"Often?"

Meeting my gaze, her own hooded, she shrugged.  "As often as I could slip away.  I knew 'twas you, even then, you see.  My secret protector."

I lowered my head to hide my reaction to her words.  My stomach clenched tight, twisted and pulled.  "Do you still want to see inside?"

She nodded.

"Come here, then."

Frowning, she came closer.  I scooped her up into my arms, bent at the knees, and leapt the tall fence.  I heard her delighted squeak as I came down on the other side.  And then she went silent, seemingly content to remain in my arms as she scanned the woods to her left, and the rolling meadow in which we stood.  Well-worn paths meandered among the lush sweet grasses, and into the wood lot "Look," I whispered, turning with her, pointing.

In the distance a doe lifted her head to glance our way briefly.  Then she went back to nibbling.  "Donovan, there.  Beyond the doe," Rachel whispered.

"Yes," I said, "I see them."  Twin fawns frolicked in the deep grasses.  Gently, I set Rachel on her feet.  "The fence keeps hunters—men like Marney Neal and his hounds—away.  The deer can leap the fence easily though.  Come and go as they please.  Most of them seem content to stay here."

"So you've made a haven for the deer."  She continued watching, laughing softly, a sound more disturbingly beautiful than a night bird's song, at the twins' antics.

"Not only the deer."  I turned toward the fence, crouching low and pushing the deep grasses aside.

"There are hidden places like this one, where the smaller creatures can get underneath.  And the game birds fly over to find safety.  Come," I said, extending my hand.  Her delight in this place so pleased me, I couldn't resist showing her more.

When she closed her hand around mine, a feeling of warmth suffused me.  And for a moment, it seemed perfect, natural.  Until I reminded myself that it was fleeting.  She'd leave here, one day soon.

I led her over the meadow, to the place where wildflowers spread like a patchwork carpet in every direction.  And beyond that, to the pond, fed by two streams.  It glittered in the moonlight.  Geese swam on the silvery water, undisturbed by our intrusion.  Rachel sank into the grass on the pond's bank, and in spite of myself, I sat down beside her.  Closer than I needed to, and yet not close enough.

"It's as if they know you're no threat to them."

"They should," I told her.  "They've been safe here for generations."

I felt her eyes on me.  "Why, Donovan?"

I shrugged.  "Why not?"

"Tell me."

I looked at her, half reclining now.  Like a goddess in her paradise.  "All right," I said softly.  "I created this haven for the animals because I understand them."  I looked again at the geese, who swam further from shore as a fox came slinking slowly to the water's edge for a sip.  "I know how it feels to be hunted," I told her.

I met her eyes.  She nodded as if she understood.  But she couldn't.  Or...  I refused to believe she could.

"You're truly a special man, Donovan O'Roark."

I shook my head slowly, but as she curled into the cradle of my arm and rested her head upon my shoulder, I felt special.  Cherished.

God, I was a fool to feel the things she made me feel.

We stayed there, in my own private paradise for most of the night.  Walking hand in hand, spotting and observing the wildlife.  Like young mortals in love.  Like some idealistic fantasy.  And I relished every moment of it, in spite of the knowledge that doing so was a fool's dream.  I only suggested we return to the castle when I knew dawn was on the rise, and Rachel still hadn't eaten.

But when we entered through the library doors, it was to the sound of urgent pounding, and shouts from the front.  And even before I went to the great hall to answer the noisy summons, I sensed my brief time in paradise was coming to an end.

Mary O'Mallory stood at the door, breathless, red in the face.  Her frantic gaze slid from me to Rachel, then relaxed slightly in relief.  "Rachel," she sighed.  "Lordy, girl, what took you so long?"

Rachel frowned, ushering her inside, one arm supporting the woman, and I knew she cared for Mary.  Genuinely cared.  I saw the worry in her eyes.  "We were outside," Rachel explained.  "Come, sit down before you faint dead away.  Whatever is the matter?"

Mary sat, though on the edge of the settee  As if ready to spring and run should the need arise.  "I need to speak with you, Rachel.  Alone."  She slid a sideways glance toward me, and I knew what she thought of me.  That I was a monster.  They all believed that.

All... except for Rachel.  She'd never seen me that way, had she?

"There's nothing you can't say to me in front of Donovan."

Mary pursed her lips.

"He's my friend, Mary."

"Never mind.  I'll give you your privacy," I offered.  But I slanted a long look Rachel's way.  Would she run now?  Should I lock the door?

No.  No need sending Mary into a panic.  They wouldn't be long.

"I'll call you when we've finished," Rachel said.  And I knew it was her way of promising she wouldn't run off.  But she would, eventually.  It was inevitable.  And it was going to hurt.

I only nodded and left the two alone.

*    *    *    *    *

Rachel sat beside Mary and clasped the older woman's hands.  "Now tell me, what's wrong?"

"The very fact that yer here, with that... that—"

"He's a man, Mary.  Just a man.  And he's been nothing but kind to me."

"Lordy, child, tell me you're not in love with him!"

Rachel only lowered her eyes.  "Why don't you simply tell me why you've come."

"'Tis the villagers, girl.  Marney Neal, above all.  He's stirred them up until I fear history is about to repeat itself.  An' I want you safe away from this place before it does."

A bird of panic took wing in Rachel's chest.  "What are you saying?"

"Marney claims the beast has you under some sort of spell, child.  That you're his prisoner, but too enchanted to realize it.  He's convinced them you're in need of rescue, Rachel, and even now the men are gathering at the pub.  'Twas all I could do to slip away unnoticed, to warn you."

Rachel lowered her head, closed her eyes.  "So they'll come here."

"Aye," Mary said.  "An' I fear violence will be done this night, child.  Ye must come away with me now."

Facing her squarely, Rachel nodded.  "I'll come.  But I'll speak with Donovan first."

"Rachel, you mustn't—"

"I must.  I can't leave him here, unprepared.  Unwarned.  I can't go without telling him goodbye or explaining...  No, you go on.  I'll be along shortly, I promise."

Mary looked as if she were about to argue, but when she met Rachel's eyes, she seemed to change her mind.  "I can see you're determined.  What's between you two, Rachel?"

"Nothing that need concern you.  Go, now.  Try to hold the men off until I get there."

Sighing, Mary left.  Rachel stood at the door, watching her go.  Then she turned, wandered back to the hall that led to the library, and called Donovan's name.  She heard his steps coming toward her, felt his essence touching her even before he came into sight.  He only looked into her eyes, standing very still, then nodded.  "You're leaving tonight, aren't you Rachel?"

"I must.  You have to let me go, Donovan.  It's—"

He held up a hand.  "I won't stop you.  My... arrangements are in place, for the most part.  I can leave here right after you do."

She tilted her head, frowning hard at him.  "My God, Donovan, do you still believe that's necessary?  After what we've shared?  The way we've talked... you really think I'd leave here only to tell your secrets to the world?"

He lowered his head.  "What I believe," he whispered, "is that I'm as big a fool as Dante was.  But I've no wish to suffer the same fate."

She looked up at him, stared deeply into his eyes, and what she saw there was pain.  "If you leave...  I'll never be able to find you again.  Will I?"

He averted his eyes.  "That's the entire point."

"No," she said softly.  "It's not even close to the point."

"Then what is?"

She stepped closer, gripped the front of his shirt in trembling fists.  "Must I throw my heart at your feet and wait for you to kick it aside?  I will then.  You mean more to me than my pride."

"Don't, Rachel—"

"I love you, Donovan O'Roark.  I've loved you all my life, and I will until I die."

His face seemed to crumple in pain.

"I'm leavin' you tonight, yes.  Because I must.  But only tonight.  I'd have come back.  I'd have come back here, for you."

"Rachel..."

"You'd do well to leave, too, Donovan, for there's danger to you here tonight.  But it's up to you where you go.  Far away, where I can never set eyes on you again.  Or close by... close enough so that I can find you... or you can find me."

Slowly, he shook his head.  "You don't understand.  It's the curse of my kind to live our lives alone, Rachel.  It's how it has to be."

"No.  'Tis how you've made it.  You have a choice now, Donovan.  But it's up to you."  Tears choked her.  God, she didn't want to leave him.  To lose him.  To never see him again.  But if she didn't, she might lose him anyway.  To an angry mob, just the way he'd lost Dante.  Impulsively, tears streaming over her cheeks, she pressed her lips to his, clung to his neck for a brief, passionate kiss.  Then she turned and fled, through the front door and into the waning night.

Chapter 13

When she left it was as if my heart had been torn apart.  I should leave as well, I knew.  I should pack up the few belongings I'd need, and make my way out of here.  I didn't know what Mary had told her, but I didn't disbelieve Rachel when she said I'd be in danger here tonight.  I should hurry.

I should.  But I couldn't.

She said she'd come back, and damn me for a fool, I believed her.  More than that, I wanted it to be true.  This place had never been more alive—I'd never been more alive—than when she was here.  Lighting my darkness.  A blazing sun shining her warmth on my endless night.

She might betray me, as I'd spent so much time convincing myself she would.  If she did, I'd be damned.  But I couldn't leave until I knew.

I went to the settee lowered myself to it, bowed my head, and sat there, very still.

Who was I kidding?  She wasn't going to betray me.  I'd   lost my heart to the woman, and when she came back I'd be here waiting.  And I'd tell her, at last.  My heart was in her hands.

*    *    *    *    *

Rachel sailed into the pub as if she hadn't a care in the world, though her heart was heavy.  He'd be gone when she went back.  He'd be gone, and she'd never see him again.

Still, she feigned surprise when she saw the men crowding the room, with Marney standing at the front of them all.  "My," she whispered.  "Business is better when I'm away, isn't it?  And what's the celebration tonight that has half the village in attendance?"

"'Tis no celebration, Rachel."  Marney stepped forward, clutching her hands as if she were his property.  "But 'tis glad I am that you've returned.  You'll be out of harm's way when we storm that damnable castle."

She frowned, and drew her hands from his.  "An' why is it you're plannin' to attack an empty ruin?"

"Empty?"

"Aye," she said with a nod.  "Donovan has gone.  Only came for one last look at the place before leaving it for good.  'Tis a shame you didn't make him feel more welcome here, you know.  He's a kind man."

"He's a beast!" someone yelled.

"Oh, I don't think that's true.  He was kind enough to help me with my research before he went on his way."  She walked behind the bar, reaching for her apron.

"I think you're lyin', Rachel," Marney said, eyeing her.  "I think you're trying to protect him, an' you wouldn't be if you weren't under his spell."

"Spell?" she asked, wide-eyed.  "Don't tell me you're fool enough to believe he's more than just an ordinary man?"

"You know he is."

She did.  He was above and beyond ordinary and ten times the man of any in this room.  But instead of telling them so, she only shrugged.  "I know no such thing.  But I do know this, Marney.  I'll not allow you to harm him."

"Then he is still there!"  Marney shouted, banging a fist on the table.

"I didn't say—"

"You didn't have to.  You've been naught but cold to me since your return, Rachel.  An' everyone knows you'd planned to marry me before you left.  'Tis that beast who's swayed yer mind."

"I never planned to marry you.  The plans were all on your side," she told him.  "And 'twas indeed a beast who made up my mind, Marney, but the beast was you.  Not Donovan O'Roark."

"We're going' up there, and when we leave there'll be nothing left but rubble.  He'll not escape us... not alive, at least."

He turned and the other men rose.  They piled out the door, Marney leading them.  Rachel surged after them all, but they moved quickly, and though she caught hold of several of the men, tugging at them, pleading with them, they were too frenzied to listen to her.  When they turned onto the curving castle road, Rachel ducked into the woods and raced for the shortcut Dante had shown her, so she could come out ahead of them.

But when she got to the frenzied men again, it was to see the castle door opening to their pounding summons, and Donovan stepping out.

He eyed the crowd, shook his head slowly.  He looked utterly calm, but she knew what he must be thinking.  That she'd done this to him, just as her ancestor had done to his best friend.  That she'd left him only to lead this crowd back here.  That she'd betrayed him.

Then he lifted his head.  "Where is Rachel?" he asked.  "Have you harmed her?"

She blinked in surprise, unable to speak.  He thought they'd harmed her?  Then...

"Rachel's no longer your concern," Marney told him.  "We all know you've bewitched her somehow, or she'd never defend you the way she has.  Once you're gone, she'll be fine again."

"Defended me, did she?  I'm not surprised," Donovan said, and she could have sworn he battled a gentle smile.  "Once I'm gone, you say," Donovan went on.  "So you intend to kill me, do you?"

"Aye," Marney growled.

"Just so long as you're honest about your reasons," Donovan went on.  "You want me gone because of Rachel.  Because it's me she loves and not you."

The men grumbled, and someone yelled, "Is that true, Marney?"

"So will you drive me out into the sunrise, Neal," Donovan went on, "or simply kill me here and now?"

"Here and now," Marney whispered.

"Are you sure you can?"

Marney's eyes narrowed and he lifted his rifle.  Rachel screamed and lunged from the woods, slamming her body into Marney's, and groping for the gun.  But-she never found a hold.  Marney staggered backward under the weight of her assault, and the shot cracked so loudly her eardrums split.  Then she felt the burn... the heat.  The rapid pulse of life from her body.

Blinking in shock, she would have fallen to the ground, had not Donovan lunged forward to gather her into his arms.  "Damn you!" he shouted.  "Damn you, look what you've done!  Rachel?  Rachel!"

She opened her eyes, studied his face.  Then she turned to Marney.  Go," she told him.  "Go away.  If I see you again...."

Marney backed away.  Already the other men were scattering shocked from their fury, perhaps, to realize just what they'd been about to do.  What had happened as a result of their foolishness.

Cradling her in his arms, Donovan bent over her, kissed her face.  And Mary crowded through the retreating men, made her way forward while Marney stood in the road, blinking in shock.  She leaned over Rachel, parting her blouse, and looking at her chest, where the pain throbbed and burned.  Grimly, Mary lifted her gaze to Donovan's.  "You can help her," she whispered.  "Can't you?"

Through her fading vision, Rachel saw him nod.  Then Mary turned away.  "'Tis only a flesh wound," she called to Marney.  "But I vow unless ye leave here now I'll inform the authorities an' have you arrested for attempted murder.  An' if you ever bother these people again, I'll do it.  Now go!"

Nodding, muttering that it wasn't his fault, Marney turned and ran away like the coward he was.

Mary faced the two of them once more.  "I don't imagine I'll see you again, will I?"

Rachel said nothing, unsure what Mary meant.

"Goodbye, child.  Be happy."

Then she was gone.

Rachel stared up into Donovan's eyes.  "I was afraid you'd think I brought them..."

"I knew better."

"Did you?"

"You know I did.  I kept telling you I couldn't trust, couldn't care... even when I already did.  I doubted you, Rachel, from the start, and I'm more sorry than I can tell you.  You didn't deserve that.  But you never gave up on me, did you?"

"How could I?  You're in my soul, Donovan O'Roark.  You have been since I was but a wee girl." 

"And you in mine," he told her.  "You made me believe in you, Rachel.  Made me... made me love you when I'd vowed it was something I'd never do.  I love you, Rachel Sullivan.  Do you hear me?  I love you."

"Of course you do," she whispered.  "You always have."

He smiled very gently.

"I'm dying," she whispered.

"Yes."

"But you can prevent it, can't you, Donovan?  You can make me... like you."

"'Tis not an easy way to live, child.  Never again to see the sunlight.  Always knowing there are those who would hunt you, kill you simply for being what you are."

"Wandering hand in hand beneath the moonlight, spending every moment in your arms," she said weakly.  "'Tis the life I want, so long as I can live it by your side.  That's the dream I've always had, Donovan.  To be with you... as we're meant to be... together."

"Then together we shall be, Rachel.  Always."  He lowered his head and kissed her, and she knew she'd found her dream come true, at last.

*    *    *    *    *

-- Run from the Twilight --

Prologue

Chicago, 1928

There were only a handful of cops in the area.  Just the few who'd been lose enough to hear the gunshots.  Officer Michael Gray stood in an alley between two buildings his gun drawn but basically useless, as rival gangs, fired at each over from opposite sides of the street.  Toy guns spat fire in the darkness.  Windows shattered, and people ran for their lives.  A car sped past, only to stop short as its windows exploded and the driver slumped over the wheel.

That was when he saw the boy.  He must have been seven or eight years old, and scared half to death by the noise.  He came out of nowhere and ran right into the street—right into the crisscrossing storm of bullets.

Michael reacted on sheer instinct.  He ran out of the alley, shoving his gun into his holster as he went, knowing he would need both hands.  He dove on the kid, pinning him to the pavement, covering him with his own body.  Sheer adrenaline drove him, and he didn't even feel the pain until he was lying still, holding the kid underneath him.  And then it hurt.  It hurt like hell, from a dozen places on his body.  But not for very long.

*    *    *    *    *    *

When Michael woke he was in a hospital bed, in some kind of a daze.  He didn't feel anything.  He couldn't seem to speak, but he could see and hear what was going on around him.  He heard a doctor saying there was nothing that could be done.  He saw a nurse shake her head and dab at her eyes, but then she slid a sideways glance in his direction an gave him a wink.  As if she knew something he didn't.  What the hell?  He was laying here, dying, and the nurse was winking at him?  What kind of a hospital was this?

That thought fled, though, when he saw his wife, Sally, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, pale as a ghost, shaking.  Then the doctor took her arm, pulled her to her feet and led her from the room.

As soon as they were gone, the flirtatious nurse hurried to close the door behind them.  Then she closed the windows curtains tight and came to his bed.  "About time," she said.  "It's damn near morning.  I thought they'd never leave.  Listen, they'll be back soon.  We don't have much time."

She was cute, with short dark hair and huge eyes.  He tried to move his kips, to give voice to the questions swirling in his mind, but he couldn't get them out.

"Don't try to talk," she said.  "Just listen, okay?  I'm not a nurse.  My name's Cuyler Jade.  I saw what happened in the street, and the way you saved that kid, and I followed the car that brought you in.  Then I sneaked in borrowed this uniform from some nurse's locker."  She turned in a little circle, arms out.  "Nice fit for a quick grab, isn't it?"

He blinked slowly, wondering if this was all some kind of hallucination.

"We have to make this quick," she said.  "You're a hell of a guy.  A hero.  You don't deserve to die, but you're going to.  Probably a few minutes from now.  You've got more holes in you than Swiss cheese, and I'm not whistlin' Dixie.'

Was this information suppose to comfort him somehow?

"I can see to it you don't die, Michael Gray.  I can see to it you live.  You won't be like you were before, but you'll be alive.  You'll be strong.  Healthy.  But different.  Very different.  Do you understand?"

He blinked, thinking the woman was insane, and shook his head slightly, side to side.

"Hell, of course you don't understand.  And I don't have time for the full rundown.  Just suffice it to say I went out the say way you did.  Cross fire, lots of bullets.  And look at me.  I'm okay.  You can be the same.  So lemme ask you this.  Do you want to live?"

He managed to nod.  Barely.

"Okay then.  It's gonna feel odd at first.  You need to just lie still, just like you are now, no matter what you feel.  Within a few minutes, the sun will be up, and you'll sleep ore soundly than you've ever slept in your life.  You'll sleep all day.  I'll be there when you wake up.  Understand?"

Again he nodded.

Then the woman pulled the curtains closed around his bed, bent over him and sank her teeth into his neck.

*    *    *    *    *

It happened just the way she'd said it would.  He felt power zinging through him—as if he'd been struck by lightning.  Every nerve ending tingled, and right on the heel of that sensation came another:  excruciating pain.  Every bullet hole in his body burned like fire.  He hurt a thousand ties more than when he'd first been shot.  His entire being screamed in agony, and blood rushed from the wounds, soaking the bed.

The woman, whatever, whoever, she had been, was gone.  The doors burst open, doctors and nurses rushed into the room.  Beyond them he saw Sally, biting her knuckles and weeping, and beyond her, the first rays of the morning sun peered through a distant window.  Then the pain faded, and everything went black.

Vaguely he felt a hand on his wrist, and heard a doctor's voice saying, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Gray.  He's gone."

But he wasn't gone.  Not really.  When he woke again, hours later, in the hospital morgue, he felt more alive than he ever had.  Like magic, the bullet holes had vanished.  And the woman, Cuyler Jade, explained to him what he was now.  What he had become, and what that meant, as she led him out the back doors of the hospital and into the night that was to be his home from then on.

He really cared very little for all the things she told him.  All he cared about was getting back to Sally.  Taking away her pain.  Showing her that he was still alive, that is was okay after all.

Cuyler told him that was a very bad idea, but he didn't listen.  He didn't believe her when she said Sally wouldn't understand, that she wouldn't accept him now.  He couldn't believe it.  It was something he had to learn for himself.

And he did, hours later, when he finally convinced the woman to leave him alone, let him do what he had to do.  He went home.  Where else would he go, besides home?

Sally was lying in their bed, but she wasn't sleeping.  She was wide-awake, weeping.  She hadn't even locked the house that night, so he was able to walk inside, just as if he were coming home from a hard day's work.  It felt good to come home.  And while his mind was still reeling from early dying and from the day's revelations, from all the impossible things Cuyler Jade had told him and his myriad new sensations racing through his body, he couldn't digest any of it, of even begin to explore what it all might mean.  Not until he talked to Sally.

God, he missed her.

He slipped into the bedroom.  She sat up in bed, with a little shriek of alarm, and he said, "It's okay, honey.  It's me.  I'm here.  I'm all right."  He found the light switch, turned it on so she could see for herself.

Her eyes widened as they skimmed down his body, and it was only then that he stopped to think abut what he must look like, still dressed in the bullet-riddled uniform that was stiff with dried blood.  "Look it's okay.  I didn’t really die.  I'm all right."

She slid up in the bed, pressing her back to the headboard.  He thought she would have backed right through the wall if she could.  "You're dead," she said.  "I said with you for hours.  I held your hand while it went cold as ice.  You're dead."

"No.  No, there was this nurse—not a nurse, really.  She said I could live.  And she did something and—I'm not the same anymore, she says.  But I'm still me.  I'm still Michael, still your husband."

"You get away.  Get away!"

He shook his head slowly.  "Honey, it's okay.  Look the bullets holes are all gone."  He lifted his shirt to show her.

"Get out!"

"But—"

"My Michael died  I don't know what you are—a walking corpse.  A ghost."

"A vampire," he said, an then wished he could take it back when he saw the sheer horror on her face.  "It's not like in the books, honey.  It's not.  It's nothing like that."

"My husband is dead," she said.  But her voice and eyes looked more dead than anything he could ever imagine being.  "Now I want you to leave."  In a burst of motion she rolled to the side and yanked something from the nightstand.  His gun.  His revolver.  She pointed it at him  "Go.  Get out—now—and don't even come back!"

He held up his hands palms toward her.  Cuyler had told him bullets would hurt like hell, pain, she said, was magnified in his kind, just like every other sense.  But bullets wouldn't kill him—unless he bled to death from the wounds.  Still, he didn't have any urge to try it out.

"Honey, don't.  Look, I'll go okay?  I'll go if that's what you want.  But you have to believe me, I'm all right.  And it really is me.  It's me."

She shook her head hard and thumbed back the hammer.

"I'm going."  He backed toward the door, his mind racing with ways to prove to her that he was who he said he was.  And then it hit him that he knew things no one else would know about her.  So he kept backing up slowly, but talking all the while, needing her to believe him and to accept him in a way he'd never needed anything, ever.  "Your maiden name is Litchfield.  You wore a white satin nightgown with tiny pink rose at the shoulders on our wedding night.  You collect seashells.  You hate green vegetables, except for peas, but only baby peas, and...

Tears fell from her eyes.  "If you're not dead Michael, then you're damned.  And I can't live with that, either."

"No, no, honey, you have it all wrong.  Just listen to me and I can—"

She turned the gun quickly, pressed the barrel to her head and pulled the trigger.  Just like that.  She was gone.

Cuyler Jade appeared beside him even as he stood there, paralyzed with shock.  "Oh, God," she said.  "Oh, God, I didn't think she'd react that badly.'

Michael grabbed her arm.  "Bring her back!" he shouted  "Do what you did for me.  Bring her back."

The little vampire looked up at him, her huge eyes wet, and shook her head slowly.  "I can't Michael.  Only certain people can become what we are.  It's something to do with the blood.  You'll know when you see one.  You'll feel it right to your toes.  She doesn't have it."  She glanced at the beg again.  "And besides, she's already dead."

He closed his eyes, regret drowning him.  "It should have been me.  If I'd stayed dead, she would still be alive.  This is some kind of punishment.  I cheated death, so it took her instead.

Cuyler shook her head slowly.  "You're missing an awful lot, for a cop.  Why do you think she had that loaded gun in here in the first place, Michael?"

Frowning, he looked more closely at the bedside stand.  He saw the glass of wine, the photo of him in his uniform—an the sheet of paper with her handwriting on it.  Trembling, he moved closer, until he could see what she had written there  "Don't mourn me, I've gone to join Michael."

Chapter 1

Present Day, Bangor, Maine

He satin the darkest corner of the smallish city's most popular "vampire bar," a place called The Crypt, and watched the mortals play at being gods.  They amused him.  Young people most of them.  Twenty-somethings who had barely lived long enough to taste life, much less immortality.  The women wore skintight black velvet gowns or scarlet-red sequined ones.  The men wore leather or tailed tuxes and starched white cravats with cheap fake jewels glittering from their centers.  They all wore cloaks of one kind or another:  satin, velvet, lined in scarlet or white fur.  Some had the stand-up collar of Dracula in a style that had never existed outside Hollywood.  Some were hooded.  Many of the patrons wore fake fangs.  A few who were, he thought, a bit too fixated and perhaps in need of mental help had actually had their own incisors fled to points.  They listened to hard-driving bands whose lyrics focused on body counts, and they drank made-up mixed drinks from the creative menu Type-O-Transfusion and Plasma Punch.  White Cell Watusi and Platelet Power.  Everyone one who drank here knew the code—the real drink behind the morbid name.  A screwdriver, for example, was known here as a "Cranial Drill."  All of them contained alcohol, which was perfectly legal now.  Most of them also came with brilliant red coloring added for effect, and stir sticks that looked like miniature wooden stakes.

Michael knew the code.  But he didn't drink here.  Or hadn't.  Yet.

He enjoyed watching them play, though.  It was interesting to see what the pop culture world of the twenty-first century really thought of his kind.

They were way off the mark of course  Vampires didn't often wear black lipstick, and he'd only met one who still insisted on the cloak.  As for the multiple piercing and tattoos, those would be less than healthy for vampires, given their tendency toward bleeding out.

Of course, the costumed customers were not the reason he came here night after night.  She was.

Mary McLean stood behind the bar, hustling drinks and handling drunks with a grace and good humor that belied her situation.  She wore snug jeans and a shimmering jade blouse of brushed satin beneath an apron as pristine as any cravat in the place.  Her hair was pulled back in a long sable ponytail that moved whenever she did and fascinated him, too.  In fact, he was expending a great deal of effort trying not to be fascinated by her, draw to her.  He was here to do a job.

She glanced up in his direction though there were too many bodies, too much smoke and too little light for her to have seen her there.  She felt him, though.  She felt his eyes on her, maybe his presence, as well.  That probably wasn't a good thing.  In fact, he knew it to be a bad thing.  She shouldn't be that aware of him.  Mortals rarely were, even her kind.

It had occurred to him that there were probably other ways he could go about watching her than to sit here, inside the vampire bar, where the thrumming pulse of healthy heartbeats vied with the pounding bass of the music for his attention.  It was risky to do if this way, and yet he couldn't resist.  He wanted her to see him, to notice him to talk to him.

Stupid.

She was one of The Chosen.  The rare belladonna antigen danced in her blood, and that meant that they were related, the two of them, in some distant and abstract way.  Only the children of belladonna could become vampires.  And every vampire had been one of the as a mortal.  Cuyler jade had taught him all that, long ago.  She'd been a friend, one of few.

But that was different from anything she had spoken of, and from anything he'd felt before.  Mary McLean's pull on his senses was powerful and keen.  He'd felt the tug of The Chosen before.  But never like this.

They tended to die young, her kind.  But she wasn't yet weakening.  She was strong, healthy, vibrant, alive.

For now.

She was going to be murdered soon.  That's why he was here.

She looked up again as she poured whiskey into a blood-red shot glass ,her eyes arrow, probing the shadows where he sat.  He forced his gaze away, looking instead at the people who filled the space between them.  Sweat-coated mortals, dressed—they thought—as vampires, gyrated in a dance that was little more than a mimicry of the sex act, while the speakers blasted the same refrain over and over again.

"Let the bodies hit the floor./Let the bodies hit the floor./Let the bodies hit the floor."

A blood-red shot glass landed on the far side of the table with a tap, then slid easily across to stop just in front of him.  He lifted his head slowly, letting his gaze take its time climbing her body, from her hips, level with the table, to her waist, over her chest, tracing the shapes of her breasts, ad moving very, very slowly over her throat.  Finally he examined her face:  chin, jaw, cheeks—God, she was surely sculpted by the hand of a master—and then he met her eyes.  Jade green, like the silk blouse, and just as shimmery.

Her eyes did not flinch from his steady, probing stare.  And he supposed one of them out to break the silence soon.  So he said, 'I didn't order anything."

"And she said, "It's on the house."

Pursing his lips, giving a nod, he wrapped his hands around the tiny shot glass.  "I didn't order anything."

"No need.  Do you care if I sit down?"  As she spoke, she was untying the white apron's strings, pulling it off over her head.

He thought about saying yes, but he couldn't resist the opportunity to spend a little time with her.  Reminding himself that the bond was only that of the blood they shared, even if it was somehow magnified with this one, he nodded.  She pulled out the chair opposite his and sat down.

"I'm Mary," she said.

"I know."

He lifted his brows, unsure what she meant.

"I say, 'I'm Mary.'  And then you say, 'Nice you meet you, Mary.  I'm...'"

She held a hand toward him, palm up.

"Michael."

She nodded.  "Well, Michael, you've been coming in here every single night for the past two weeks.  You don't eat.  You don't drink.  You don't dance.  Mostly you just sit here in the corner and watch me.  And I have to tell you, it's starting to make me uncomfortable."

He blinked at her, a little bit surprised.  "You're very direct aren't you?"

"I don't believe in playing games.  So why don't you just tell me what it is you're doing here, and then we can move on."

"Doing?"

She nodded.

"Mostly just sitting here in the corner watching you."  She averted her eyes, and that made him curious enough to probe her mind, eavesdrop on her thoughts and feelings.  What he found was fear.  She was afraid of him.  It hit him where he lived, and he instantly regretted his teasing reply.  "I would never hurt you, Mary."

She flinched a little when he said it.  "I never thought you would."

"Yes, you did.  What I'm having trouble figuring out is why."  She couldn’t know what he was.  It couldn't be that.  If she knew, then he would have expected her to be afraid of him.  And repulsed and horrified and driven to—

"Look, it doesn't matter," she said, breaking into this thoughts.  "It's none of your business.  But you need to stop all right?  Stop coming here, stop watching me."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Then you should probably be expected a visit from the police."  She pulled out her order pad and pen.  "I'll need a last name, address and number."

He smiled a little at the irony of it.  "You've going to report me to the police?"

She nodded, never lifting her eyes from the pad, holding the pen poised above it as if she fully expected him to start supplying personal information.

"Just because I come to this bar and happens to look your way every one in a while?"

Another nod.

"Why would the police think that was anything close to suspicious behavior?  You're a beautiful woman, Mary.  I can't be the only man who enjoys looking at you."

She met his eyes, held them, and her cheeks grew pink with the rush of blood.  There was something in her eyes, the spark and heat of attraction.  For a moment he read her thoughts and knew she felt the pull as strong as he did, but she squelched it with an inflexible will, told herself it was not only stupid but dangerous.

"If it were just that—you coming here, watching me—they probably wouldn't find anything suspicious about it at all.  But combined with the phone calls, the person who'd been following me and the break-in at my apartment—"

He held up a hand to silence her  "Wait.  You've had a break-in?"  Why hadn't he known about this?

"That's very good, Michael.  I don't suppose you know anything about it, though.  Or the phone calls, either?"

"I haven't phoned you.  And I've never broken into you apartment."

She swallowed hard, laid down the pad and pen but kept her eyes on the table.  He sensed conflict in her.  Part of her wanted to believe him almost desperately.  Part of her knew, instinctively, that he was telling the truth.  And a third part was afraid to give in to the other two.  Deathly afraid.  And no wonder  he hadn't realized that she was aware she was being hunted.  He should have.  The others had all been aware of it.

"So I'm supposed to believe it's just a coincidence?" she said.  "That I've picked up some kind of obsessed lunatic stalker and a harmless bar-bound admirer at exactly the same time?"

He reached across the table and, using just his forefinger, lifted her chin until  her eyes met his.  "I suppose that would be a lot to swallow.  No.  I'm not going to tell you it's a coincidence.  It's not.  The two things are related.  But not in the way you think.  I'm not your stalker, Mary.  I came here to protect you from him."

She blinked rapidly.  "If you were my stalker," she said softly, "that would be the best lie you could possibly use to get closer to me."

"It's not a lie."

"How can  know that?"

"Give me your hand."

"What?"

He didn't wait, just reaching for her hand and closed his around it.  She gasped a little, probably at the chill of his flesh—or maybe it was at the power of the contact.  Touching her made his body come alive in ways it hadn't done in years.  And maybe she felt that, too.  She didn't pull her hand free.  He didn't need to touch her to read her thoughts.  It would enhance the ability, yes.  But he wanted to touch her.  He was burning to touch her.

A flash swept through his mind as he opened it more fully to hers, her thoughts.  He closed his eyes, the better to see it.  The telephone ringing.  Her picking it up wary.  Then smiling.  Yes.

"Your Aunt Cherry... Cheryl... Sherry.  Sherry.  She phoned you yesterday morning, early.  She said her dog had been ill."

She jerked her hand away.  "Okay, I got it.  You're some kind of psychic."

He nodded.  "Some kind, yes."

"And you came here to protect me from a stalker."

He licked his lips.  She didn't believe him in the least.  She thought he was a fraud, a con man.  "He's a little more than stalker, actually.  He's... he's a killer, Mary."

She blinked, her face going a shade lighter.

"He strikes on the full moon.  I don't know why.  I can't seem to... to read him.  But I know you're the next victim.  And I'm here to protect you."

She stared at him for a long moment.  "Are you a cop?"

"I was once.  Not anymore."

"They why are you trying so hard to scare the hell out of me?"

He paused, studying her, feeling her thoughts.  "You were already afraid—but of the wrong thing.  I'm not the threat to you, Mary.  He is.  Fear is healthy.  It an be a powerful weapon.  Misplaced, though, it can get you killed."

"And trust is a beautiful thing," she countered.  "But misplaced, it'll get you killed even faster."

It was a well-aimed shot, and it hit home.  He wanted her to trust him.  But he was pushing too quickly.  Then again, there wasn't much time.

"So you had this vision," she said.  "And you showed up here to watch over me?"

He nodded.

"Right."

"It's true."

She nodded at the whiskey.  "You going to drink that."

"Probably not."

With a sweep of her hand she took the glass and downed its contents.  Then she set it down hard on the table.  "I'm off duty in a half hour.  I want you long gone before then.  I'm going to have my cell phone and my boss's German shepherd is with me, and if I see you lurking around anywhere, I'll turn the dog on you and dial 911 while you try to keep from becoming his bedtime snack.  Understand?"

He studied her for a long moment.  "How can I be sure you make it home safely if I don't watch over you?"

She suppressed a shiver—he felt it—then she glanced toward the window.  "You should know, being the psychic.  The moon's not full yet, he said, and she pushed her chair away from the table.  "Even if you're telling the truth, I should be fine for tonight."

Chapter 2

Mary sighed in mild relief when the an who called himself Michael left the bar.  She'd noticed him the first time he'd come in.  Of course she'd noticed him.  A woman would have to be dead not to notice him.  A woman would have to be dead not to notice him.  He was pale, but God, he was beautiful.  The most strikingly beautiful man she had ever seen.  His hair was long, a deep shade of brown.  He didn't tie it back or hack it off.  He left it hanging just as it grew, no apologies.  He was lean but powerful.  That sense of raw energy was more a palpable thing than a visible one.  He didn't bulge with muscle.  There was just this quiet strength about him that left no doubt about its presence.

But his eyes struck her most of all.  The first time he had lifted his hooded gaze to look her way, she'd felt these eyes on her like brands, and when she'd looked back, shed felt herself falling into them.  They were black, his eyes, and hypnotic.  They made her heart pound harder against her chest, and her breath came quick shallow.  They made her stomach knot and her hands tremble.

It was only when he'd broken the connection by looking away quickly that she'd realized he didn't want to make contact.  He wasn't trying to pick her up.  Throughout that night and the nights that followed, she had felt that penetrating gaze on her again and again, but each time she tried to return it, he looked away.

She was suffering the throes of an intense physical attraction to a complete stranger.  She was not the kind of woman who lusted after men she'd never met.  She didn't go to strip clubs or buy hunks calendars or pant for action heroes.  But if this guy were on a calendar, she thought, she would buy a copy for every wall in her apartment.

She'd fantasized about him at night, when she was alone in her room.  Fantasies so bold and so unlike her that they startled her.  And yet she relished every forbidden image that raced through her mind and her dreams.

It wasn't until the policeman working on her break-in complaint has asked her if there were anyone new in her life, anyone strange hanging around, perhaps paying undue attention to her, that she'd even begun to suspect her dark stranger at the bar might be the one.  The cop thought that the break-in, combined with her feeling of being followed home three nights in a row and the barrage of odd phone calls, added up to a possible stalker.  And that frightened her.

Not as much as Michael had.

The phone calls had begun two weeks ago.  At first the caller would just phone once or twice after the bar closed, wake her from a sound sleep and hang up.  Then he stated with the heavy breathing.  And now he'd moved up to whispered threats.  One-liners.  "I'm watching you," he'd tell her, or "I'm coming for you soon."

She'd gotten her number changed—the phone company had taken forever, but that had been done yesterday.  In the meantime, someone had broken into her apartment, though nothing had been taken.  Nothing she noticed, anyway.

So now she had all new locks on the doors and windows, and the police had promised to keep any eye on the place, whatever that meant.

When she hustled the last customer out of the bar and locked the door,  chill rushed up her spine.  Michael said the ma was more than a stalker—that he was a killer.  And that she was next on his list.  She swallowed hard, quickly rinsed the remaining glasses and wiped down the bar.

Tommy came in from the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel.  "Good night for you, Mare?" he asked.  He slung the towel over his shoulder and moved from table to table, turning the chair upside down and setting them on top.

She glanced at her tip jar.  A one-hundred-dollar bill lay on top of the mounds of one and fives and change.  "Uh... yeah.  Another good day."  She wasn't surprised.  There had been one in her jar every night for a while now.  Ever since the stranger named Michael started coming around.

Customers did not put money into the tip jar.  They left it on their tables or handed it to her themselves.  She kept the jar under the mahogany bar, on a shelf, and added her tips to it herself throughout the night.  She'd never seen Michael leave his table or come anywhere near it.  Not once.  And yet, somehow she knew he was responsible for it.

She would return the money to him if she could afford to.  But so far his tips had enabled her to fend off both the car-repo company and the landlord.  She could not afford to be proud.

She put a cap on the jar and dropped it into her purse.  "Walk me to my car?" she asked.

Tommy grinned at her.  "You bet."  He put up the last of the chairs, tossed his towel onto the bar and then moved behind it, toward the small closet hidden on one side of the mirrored wall.  "You have a jacket in here?"

"The blue one," she told him.

He got it for her, helping her into it before putting on his own, which was denim.  "Ready?"

"Ready."

Tommy opened the door.  Mary turned out the lights and stepped outside, into a light rain and a pitch-black night, pulling the door closed behind her and double-checking the lock.  Sealed.  Good.

The parking lot in front was deserted.  Only one car was in it, and that was her own.  She looked up and down the street, craned her neck to see through the warm rain, around to the back  of the building.  There were other businesses on either side of the bar, of course, but they were all closed up tight at this time of night.  There was no traffic whatsoever, and the streetlights did little to dispel the gloom.

"Where's your car, Tommy?"

"Left the headlights on last night," he said with a sheepish shrug.  "Battery was dead this morning.  But it's okay.  I only live five blocks away.”

"You're walking?"

He nodded, and flipped up his collar.

Swallowing hard, her keys in her hand by now, she argued with herself inside her head.  Tommy had always had a crushed on her.  Could he be the one making the calls, harassing her?  It was far-fetched, even more far-fetched if this stalker really was something far more dangerous.  Tommy wouldn't hurt a fly.

Then again, what if she left him walk home alone and something happened to him?  Could she live with herself then?

"Excuse me," said a voice from the darkness.

She knew that voice.  It sent shivers of recognition dancing down her spine.  Michael, her pale, wild-haired, potent-eyed admirer.

She turned and met his eyes, fell into them, felt her blood heat and her belly tighten.  God, what was it about him that stirred her up this way?  She licked her kip and saw his gaze shoot to them and stay there.  "I... suppose you need a ride, too," she said.  Part of her was hoping he would—and arguing with the part of her that hoped he wouldn't.

He nodded.  "Only...five blocks."

Five blocks.  He only wanted to ride as far as Tommy was going.  Well, Tommy certainly couldn't try and anything with Michael along.  And Michael wouldn't murder her in front of Tommy, either.  And that was exactly what the stranger intended, wasn't it?  To make her fell perfectly safe?  To let her know she wasn't in any danger?

Stupid.  He was not some guardian come to watch over her.  He wasn't.

And yet she let him.  "Fine.  Get in.  Both of you."  Tommy looked put out, but he moved toward the car.  Michael beat him to the front door opened it and slid in without asking.  When Tommy got into the back seat, he almost appearing to be sulking.

"Tommy," Mary said as she shoved the keys into the switch and started the car, "this is Michael.  Michael, Tommy."

"Hey," Tommy said

"Likewise," Michael replied.

Mary rolled her eyes and backed out of the parking lot.  She didn't fasten her seat belt.  Some insane primal fear told her she should be ready to throw herself out of the car and run for her life at a moment's notice.  A seat belt would slow her down.

She drove.  Her cell phone bleated.  She picked it up without a thought, ignoring all the public service announcements suggesting it was a bad idea.  She simply hadn't gotten around to buying a Madonna-mike for her head.

"Hello?"

"Are you afraid, Mary?  You should be."  The voice was the course whisper of her nightmares, and it was followed by a sharp decisive click.

She jerked the phone away from her head and glanced at the panel, but no number showed on the screen to tell her where the call had come from.  She set the phone down.

Michael was looking at her.  Those probing eyes staring straight through her skin and reading every thought—she could feel it.  He knew exactly what that call had been.  Maybe even heard it through her ears somehow.  No.  Impossible.

"Mary?  Anything wrong?"  Tommy asked from the back seat.

She shook her head.  "Wrong number," she lied.

Oh well.  At least the culprit was neither of the two men sitting with her alone, in the dark, of her car.

And then it hit her, and the bottom seemed to fall out of her belly.  Because if Michael wasn't the stalker, then he really had no reason she could think of to lie to her.  Did he?

Sure he did, her practical mind argued.  Plenty of reasons.  Maybe he was trying to make his name as a psychic by meddling in criminal cases.  He probably had a connection at the police department, who had put him on to her.  Or maybe he just wanted to get into her pants.  That would be reason  enough to scare her half to death, right?

She shot him a sideways glance.  His eyes were right there waiting, and he shook his head slowly left then right.  "Wrong on both counts," he whispered.

She felt her eyes widen.  How in the hell...?

"What's that?"  Tommy asked, leaning forward.  "I didn't hear you."

"Nothing  We're here."  Mary hit the brake, brought the car to a jerky stop without even pulling over the curb in front of Tommy's building

"Yeah.  Thanks for the ride, Mary."  He opened his door, then frowned at Michael's back.  "You coming?"

"Look at that, it's raining even harder now," Michael said nodding at the tiny beads glistening on the windshield.  'I only live a block further up.  Do you mind?"

Hell, he wasn't the stalker.  But that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous.

Tommy glanced at her as he got out.  "You okay with that, Mare?"

"You should be," Michael said.  "That stun gun tucked under the side of your seat is plenty to keep me in line."

She jerked her hand back to the steering wheel.  She'd been reaching below, just to make sure she could grab the little weapon quickly should she need it.  How the hell did he know?

"Mare?"

"Fine, Tommy.  Go ahead.  See you tomorrow night."

"Yeah, see you."  He closed the door and hurried away.

She glanced toward her passenger.  "So do you really live a block away?"

He shook his head from side to side  "I'm going home with you."

She closed her eyes.  "Oh, for God's sake—"

"No, Mary.  For your sake."

She sighed, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles were white.  "So what is it, Michael?  An I supposed to think you're some kind of knight in shining armor?  Maybe leap into bed with you to thank you for rescuing me from the evil phone call guy?"

He lifted his eyebrows.  "He's more than an 'evil phone call guy,' Mary.  He's a killer.  He's struck before—I can prove it to you, if you'll give me an hour.  I brought evidence."  He patted the shoulder bag that hung over his worn gray trench coat.  "And he'll strike against unless we stop him.  But he's not going to get you."

She thought he was finished.  He sounded reasonable, convincing and fairly sane.  He also sounded like a man who only wanted to watch over and protect her.  Which meant he was too good to be true.

Then he sent her a knowing smile and added, "how you choose to think me, on the other hand is entirely up to you."

Chapter 3

Michael was not the person who'd been harassing her.

She told herself that over and over again.  She refused to think 'He's not the killer" because she didn't want to believe there was a killer.  Just a nutcase with an obsession.

Michael was not easily dissuaded, and she found herself absurdly, perhaps stupidly, glad of that.  She wanted to see just what "evidence" he was carrying in tat flat brown leather case.

She drove though the city with the wipers beating out a steady pulse and the rain cascading over the windshield, until she came to the turnoff for her apartment building.  It had a parking lot in the back.  No nice dry garage.  No attendant,  But it was well it, had a gate with a lock, and only the tenants had keys.  She pulled up to the gate, stopped the car and looked into the back seat for her umbrella.

"I'll get it," Michael said.  She hated to admit she'd been hoping he would offer.  But she got the feeling he already knew that.  She handed him the key.  He was out of the car before she could offer him the umbrella and back almost as quickly.  Frowning at him, she said, "What you decide to take the umbrella after all?"

"It's done."

She looked from him to the gate.  In between passes of the wiper blades, she saw the gate standing wide-open, waiting.  "That was fast,"  She frowned harder.  "You barely got wet."

"I... hurried."

"Right."  She pulled the car through the gate and noticed that when Michael got out to close it again, he took a bit longer.  When he got back into the car, raindrops spatters darkened his coat and glistened in his long hair.  Her hand tensed, and she caught herself in the nick of time.  She'd been about to reach up and brush the raindrops from her hair—an act that would be too intimate and familiar.  It didn't feel too intimate, though.  It felt as natural as making love to him would feel.

Oh, God.

He handed her the keys.  His hand caressed hers as she took them, and she didn't think it was an accident.

"Thanks."

She drove across the lot into her parking slot, right in front of her ground-floor apartment.  It had a tiny concrete patio in front of the door, no more than five by five.  She had a huge potted palm sitting on it, a begonia in a hanging basket, a lawn chair, a set of wind chimes and a welcome mat  it was sheltered from the rain by the overhanging balcony of the apartment above which was exactly the same size.  And it sported an outdoor light.

"You leave these things out?  And no one's stolen them?"

She shrugged.  "Guess no one's interested in lifting a plant or three-dollar lawn chair."  She unlocked the door reached inside to flip on the light and then stood very still, staring in at the mess that had been her neat-as-a-pin apartment.  The sofa cushions were on the floor; books from the tiny bookshelves had been strewn about;  the lamp was lying on its side.  "Oh, hell, not again."

She started to get inside, but Michael's hand on her shoulder stopped her.  "Don't.  He could still be around."

"If he is, he's going to be one sorry freaking stalker."  She reached into the umbrella stand just inside the door, pulled out her trusty baseball bat and stomped inside.  "Come on out, you bastard.  I've had about all of this I'm going to take."

She was halfway to the kitchenette when she heard Michael say, "It's all right.  He's gone."  Did he sound slightly amused  She glanced back at him.  He was taking off his coat now, laying his brown case on the coffee table.

"How do you know?" she asked, watching him.

He tapped his head with his forefinger.

"Oh, right.  You're a mind reader."  She rolled her eyes.  "If you don't mind, I'd just as soon back that up with a mundane look-see."

He smiled at her.  She almost dropped the bat.  His smile was potent, a killer smile, and it made her go weak in the knees.  Damn him.  She turned away moving across the living room to the kitchenette, which was only separated by a breakfast bar, but it was enough for someone to crouch behind.

No one was there.  But the cupboard doors were all open, every last one of them, and there were dishes and food out that hadn't been out before.  She stepped back into the living room and looked at the only door off it, which led to her bedroom.  Her hand tightened on the bat.

"Let me," Michael offered.

She nodded.  There was no sense pretending to be brave when she was scared half to death.  She held the bat toward him.  He glanced at it and smiled again, but he didn't take it; just turned the knob and opened her bedroom door, stepped inside, looked around.

Some hero he was; he didn't even turn on the light.  She crept in behind him, bat at the ready, flipped on the light switch, scanned the room.

She didn't see anyone.  But her top dresser drawer was open, and her lacy delicates had been scattered around the room.  He noticed them.  She saw him notice them.  His gaze lingered on the negligee she'd bought at a lingerie party just to be nice.  It was sheer, sheer black, and tiny, and it lay across the bed.  As if she'd planned to put it on.

"That wasn't there before."  She said it almost defensively.

"I'm glad to know that.  I'd have thought you were expecting someone."

"I wasn't.  And I wouldn't wear that for anyone, anyway.  I mean, for anyone I'm currently seeing, because I'm not.  Seeing anyone, I mean..."

"I know."  He strode to the closet, opened the door, poked around inside.  Then he opened the remaining door, which led to the bathroom, where makeup and brushes were scattered all over the sink and inside it.  He even moved the curtain and looked inside the shower.

"No one where," he said.

He hadn't checked under the bed.  She bit her lip and wondered how silly she would look if she asked  him to.  He came back into the bedroom, walked straight to the bed, lifted up the covers and bent low to peer underneath.  Then he rose again and smoothed the covers back in place.  "Have I missed anything?"

"No."

"Good."  He went to the dresser, bent own and began picking up the things on the floor, pacing them back in the drawer.  His big hands on her bras and panties made her stomach clench.  Her mind whispered things she wouldn't want him overhearing, and her breath came shorter and faster than before.

She went to him and took the items.  "Really, um, I'll get it."

"I want to help."

"Then... go start on the other rooms."  She'd thought about insisting he let her do it all herself, but she know, somehow, he wouldn't see that as a viable option.  But she didn't want him handling her underwear, because she couldn't help but wish she was in them at the time, and that was a ridiculous thing or her to think about a man she had just met.

No matter what he looked like.  Or how intense his eyes.

It felt as if she knew him intimately—as if she'd known him forever.

He held her gaze for a long time, until she squirmed.  Then, finally, he broke eye contact as if it were an effort, turned and left her alone in the bedroom.

*    *    *    *    *

Michael had to force himself to move slowly.  He'd made a big mistake when he'd opened the gate.  He'd instinctively darted through the rain, moving at preternatural speeds no human could achieve.  He was only glad it had been too dark for her to have observed his movements.  She wouldn't have seen more than a streak, a blur of motion.

He put cushions back on the sofa, righted the lamp, began picking up books and glancing at the titles as he replace them on the shelf.  She read the classics.  Shakespeare, the Brontës, T.S. Eliot.  That was in keeping with what he had observed about her.  He knew she was intelligent.  He believed her to be shy and uncomfortable around people.  She barely talked to the customers at the bar where she worked but in a place that dark and that noisy, she didn't need to.  When any of them paid her undue attention she would start fidgeting with the cross she wore,  sliding it back and forth on its chain.  A nervous habit, as if the clientele really were vampires and cross really would ward them off.

God, how frightened would she he if she knew what he really was?

She had surprised him, he thought, glancing through the open bedroom door to see that she had finished in there and was moving into the bathroom.  When she'd grabbed the bat and challenged the intruder, he'd been surprised and pleased.  He liked her even better for that.  She'd been petrified, but ready to fight to protect her space.  Fear wouldn't make her back down.  It was a remarkable quality in a woman who kept to herself the way she did.  And he wondered if he'd pegged her wrong.  Maybe it wasn't that she was shy.  Maybe she simply didn't like people.

She seemed to like him, though—a little too well, maybe, even though she thought it unwise.

He moved into the kitchenette and stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, knowing she wouldn't want to eat from anything the intruder had touched.  He wasn't as certain about the food.  Mary was not wealthy.  Working a double shift at the bar to pay for rent and tuition, barely ever sleeping.  She was majoring in English, hoped to teach one day.  She baby-sat for some for the neighbors to earn extra cash, and when the bar's owner had been looking for someone to come in and clean the place on the weekends, she'd taken that job, as well.  Her degree was slow in coming—she was twenty-seven now, and getting closer to the goal.  She took only what classes she could afford, one or two at a time, fitting them around her work schedule.  She was between spring and summer session right now.

He knew a lot about her.  He supposed he should have expected the courage, given the determination and rive she showed in pursuing her education.  He hadn't.  He'd found it both surprising and endearing.  And like everything else about her, arousing as hell.

She came out of the bedroom as he stood with a box of macaroni and cheese mix in his hand.  He held it up, brows raised in question.  "What about the food?"

She shrugged.  "Can't you just mutter over it?  Work your mojo?  Find out if he messed with it or something?"

"I read people.  Not food."

She crossed the room, joining him in the kitchen, and he heard her thinking how much smaller it seemed with him in it, and that she didn't mind it, and then she thought about his hair again.  She' been thinking about his hair a lot.  It probably wasn't altogether wise for him to keep reading her thoughts, but he didn't want to stop.  She pictured herself running her hands through his hair, and then she pictured it spread across her chest as he kissed her breasts.  He almost groaned aloud.  Then she forced her focus to the food on the counter.

"Lets throw away whatever's open, keep whatever's sealed," she said.

"Let's throw it all away just to be safe."

"I can't afford—"

"I can."

She lowered her head, wrestling with her values, telling herself she couldn't accept money from a man she didn't know.  That it was wrong an somehow sleazy.

"Consider it payment for my room and board tonight"

Her head came up fast.  "You really can't stay here."

"Sure I can."

"You won't fit on my sofa.  You're too tall."

"Not an issue."  He scooped the food into the wastebasket, then closed the cupboards.  "Let's sit, so I can get rid of the doubts in your mind about me."

She shot him a look.  "Reading my mind again, right?"

He felt a bit guilty.  "I'm sorry.  I can't seem to help myself.  I'll stop if you tell me to."

She smiled at him.  God, she really was beautiful creature.  No bigger than a breeze, with those big jade-green eyes, and cheekbones sculpted by a god.  "You don't need to apologize, Michael.  I'm a total skeptic about this, in case you hadn't picked up on that already.  Despite the little demonstrations you've been tossing out."

"I know you don't believe me.  That's the first thing we need to get out of the way.  Come.  Sit"  He took her arm, led her into the living room and set her on the small, floral-patterned sofa.  "Now, tell me to do something, but don't say it aloud.  Just think it in your mind."

Her lips curved into a smile as the many voices of her own mind began to argue.

This could be fun.

Don't be an idiot.  Tell him to get me a glass of water.

No, tell him to kiss me.

Honestly it's not going to matter what I tell him.  I could tell him to carry me to the bed and undress me with his teeth, but he isn't going to hear any of it.

He held up a hand.  "That's enough."

"But I didn't—"

He met her eyes.  "Yeah, you did."  Then he went to the kitchen, got a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water from the bottle in the fridge.  He brought it to her but he didn't put it in her hand.  He set it down on the maple coffee table instead.  Putting his hands on her shoulders, he drew her to her feet, slid his arms around her waist and bent his head until his lips touched hers.

She shivered.  She was mortified, realizing he had heard every single thought, yet her entire body quivered in anticipation and need.  He kissed her mouth.  When she wished he would pull her closer, he did, and when she wished he would use his tongue, he did that, too.  She was sweet and shy, embarrassed and eager, nervous and frightened, but mostly she was hungry—for him.

He was beginning to think this little game had been a bad idea, because this had not been his intent.  He hadn't come here to make love to her but that was exactly what he was going to do.  And whether or not it was a good idea really didn't matter very much at this point.

He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom, still exploring her mouth with his.  Then he lowered her to the bed and bent over her, dragging his mouth away from hers, over her neck, to the top button of the jade colored silk blouse.  He kissed her flesh there, then freed the top button of her blouse with his teeth.  Kissed her again and undid another, then kissed her again there.

"No."  She put her hands firmly on his shoulders and gave him a push.

Michael froze, fought down his rising passion and slowly straightened away from her.  "It's what you wanted," he told her.

"It crossed my mind.  That's not the same thing."

He nodded, conceding the point.  "You're right.  A passing thought is not the same thing as real wanting.  But it felt like real wanting when you thought it."

She stared up at him.  She was still lying on the bed, was her blouse unbuttoned and her desire shining in her eyes.  "It was," she whispered.  "I'm trying to balance it with common sense.  This isn't me, Michael.  I don't act this way."

"I never ever once thought you did."

She nodded.  "It's too soon."

Leaning over her, he gently buttoned her lose gripped her shoulders and helped her sit up.

"For what it's worth, you've convinced me.  I believe you now.  And I'm going to take you up on that offer."

He lifted his brows.  'To undress you with my teeth?"  He knew that wasn't what she meant, but he couldn't resist.

"To stop eavesdropping on my every thought."

"I was afraid that was what you meant."  He sighed, showing his disappointment.  "Al right.  I knew better, I just—your thoughts were so flattering."

"It's not fair.  I can't read yours."

And it was a good thing, because a second ago he'd been thinking things that would either have driven her wild or scared the hell out of her.  And he didn't want to scare her.  "Trust me," he said.  "You'd find mine flattering, too."

She smoothed her hair and got to her feet.  "So are you ready to show me what's in the briefcase of yours?"

He nodded, took her hand, drew her back into the living room.  Even though leaving bedroom was the last thing he wanted to do.

Chapter 4

Four missing-person reports—photocopies, taken from various police departments—lay across her breakfast bar.  There were names typed across the tops, and they all had three-by-five snapshots attached with paperclips:  Samantha Carlson, Vivian Marie Patinski, Kathy Somerfield, Cynthia Stone.

Mary looked at the typed pages and tried to ignore the pretty, smiling faces of the women, the life in their eye.  "New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut—they all vanished from different states"

"All in the northeast," he said.  "As in Maine."

"Okay.  So he's a traveling stalker/"

"Read the reports."

Swallowing heard, she tried to focus on the pages instead of on the intensity of Michael's gaze or the disturbing tingle generated by his nearness.  And then she didn’t have to, because he narrated for her, maybe too impatient to wait.

"All four of them reported anonymous phone calls and feelings of being watched for a week or two prior to their disappearances.  Each of them reported a break-in.  Each of them vanished during the full moon."

A little shiver raced up her spine.

"Did they find... any of them?"

He lowered his head.  "He dumps them in various places.  Samantha's body was found by some fishermen in Crosswicks Creek.  Vivian turned up in a city dump, underneath a mound of trash.  Kathy ad Cynthia are still missing."

She pressed her lips together and looked again at the photos.  Then she glanced at their birthdates.  "All under thirty."

"That's not all they have in common, Mary."

She closed her eyes, not sure she wanted to know this, but certain that she had to.

"They all share a very rare blood antigen, known as belladonna.  You have it too."

She looked up at him fast.  "How do you know that?"

He held her gaze.  "The same way I know so many things about you.  I feel you, Mary.  Sometimes it's like I'm inside you."

She closed her eyes, suppressing a shiver.  She had expected his so-called evidence would expose him as a fraud, or maybe a sincere but misguided do-gooder.  Instead, he was convincing her.  "How were they...?"

She didn't have to finish the question.  "It's not important how they died.  Only that they were killed in the same manner."

"The two that were found, at least."

"All four," he said.  "But there are only autopsy reports on the two that were found."

Her gaze shifted to the brown leather case, which lay on the counter, its flap open.  Then corner of a manila envelope was visible inside.  Then Michael took the case, on the pretense of returning the police reports to it.  He closed it and set it beside him.  He really didn't want her to know how the women had died which told her it must have been horrible.

"Did you try to warn them, too?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly.  "I didn't know about them until after they were killed.  And then not from a vision but from casual conversation among... some of my peers."

"Your psychic friends?"

"He tried to smile.  "Something like that.  I heard about these four women, murdered, all of them bearing the antigen.  I don't expect you to understand why, and I can't explain it to you, but among people like me, this was a topic that generated a lot of discussion and concern."

"People like you..."

"And then I saw you—in a dream.  I felt you.  And I knew you'd be next."

"How did you know where to find me?"

He looked at the floor, gave his head a shake.  "It's difficult to explain.  Besides, I'm afraid you already think I'm deluded."

"So you have nothing to loose."

He drew a breath.  "Once I had seen your face, sensed your aura, even though it was only in a dream, I was able to home in and track you down.'

"Kind of like a bloodhound on he gets the scent?"

"Something like that."

She licked her lips and wondered why she wasn't afraid of him.  He could be the killer, for all she knew.  But if he was, why was he trying to warn her?  And how had he managed the trick of calling her on the cell phone while sitting beside her in the car?

Tricky.  But not impossible.  There were deices, recorders, timers.  She'd seen her share of spy films.

And yet she wasn't afraid of him.  He was odd.  Different.  She'd never met a man like him.  But there was no sense of fear.  Which might be exactly what he wanted.  Want it or not, though, there was no way he could held responsible for the storm of desire raging inside her.  No way.  That was all her.  He couldn't have planned that.

He was watching her now, studying her face.  Then he nodded toward his coat, which hung on a rack just inside the apartment door.  "There's a gun in the left pocket of my trench coat.  Extra bullets in the right.  I brought them for you, to protect yourself."

She blinked.  "I don't... like guns."

"I don't, either, but we're talking about your life here.  Go on, take it.  And while you're there, search the other pockets.  Assure yourself that I'm not hiding any other weapons."

Pursing her lips, she slid off the stool and went to the coat, doing what he told her.  The gun was a small black revolver.  The bullets were in a red-and-white box.  The other pockets were empty.

When she turned, he was standing beside her, though she hadn't heard him cross the room.  He stood with arms out from his sides.  "Go on.  I want you to be sure of me."

Swallowing hard, she set the gun and bullets down and put her hand on either side of his left arm, drawing them along it slowly, all the way to his wrist.  She repeated the action on the other arm.  He turned so she could run her palms over his back and shoulders, and she wished to God the shirt wasn't in her way.  Then, as she prayed he hadn't heard that thought, he turned again.  She ran her palms across his chest and belly.

Her heart was pounding so hard she thought he had to hear it.  He was reacting, too; she knew he was.  His eyes had closed, and his jaw was clenched tight.  She moved her head to his sides, up and down them.  Then she bent her knees, hunkered lowered, to rub a path along his outer thighs, to his calves.  She felt him shiver when she worked her way back up the inside

Finally she straightened.  "No weapons.  The words came out hoarse; she had to clear her throat.

"No deadly ones, anyway."

She looked away quickly.  "What is this thing, Michael?  Why do I feel so...?"  She couldn't finish.  She just let the words trail off into silence.

"I don't know.  But it's... not just you."

She looked at him and saw it clearly in his eyes:  he wanted her.  As badly as she wanted him.  But he broke eye contact to pick up the gun and bullets from where she had placed them, then put them into her hands.  "Keep the gun with you," he said.  "And keep it loaded.  There's no safety to worry about, and it's fairly simple to operate."

She played with the catch on the side, because it was something to do to take her attention away from her body's demanding cries.  He wouldn't say no if she invited him to her bed.  She wouldn't even have to ask him.  She could just take his hand, lead him into the bedroom.  He would understand.

She made the gun's cylinder fall open, so she could see the holes where the bullets would go.  Then she clapped it closed again and thought about loading it where to keep it while she slept and whether or not she could shoot someone—thought about anything but having sex with Michael Gray.

"Between that and your stun gun, you should be able to defend yourself," he said.

She nodded

"I wouldn't supply you with a gun if I mean to hurt you, Mary."

"You think I don't know that at this point?"

He nodded, glancing at the clock.  "It'll be awn soon.  You should get some sleep."

He was right.  It had been about 3:00 a.m. by the tie she' left the bar.  "So should you."  Go on, say it.  Just invite him to stay!

"I will.  We have one more thing working in our favor, Mary.  He always strikes at night.  Always."

"So far, you mean."

He nodded.

"And how is that in our favor."

"I can protect you by night."

She frowned not sure what that could mean.  Then she felt a lightbulb go on.  "You have a day job."  Then she sighed.  "So you plan to work by day, then stay up all night watching my back?  That's crazy, Michael.  How long do you think you can keep up a schedule like that?"

"As long as I have to.  And it's not as crazy as you think it is."  Again he glanced at the clock.  "But time is awfully short.  I really do have to leave you now."

He got to his feet, went to the door.  An suddenly she felt panic nipping at her heart.  She ran to the door behind him.  "Michael—"

He stopped, turned and placed a gentle palm on her face.  "He's nowhere near here.  Not now.  I'd know if he was."

She closed her eyes.  "Besides," she said, "then moon's not full."

"Look the door behind me."

"I will.  But... when will you come back?"

"I'll be at the bar right after sundown.  You make sure you get there before dark.  That way you'll be safe.  And keep your weapons with you."

She nodded.  "All right."  Swallowing hard, she took his hand in both of hers.  "Thank you, Michael.  I have no idea why you're doing this.  Why you even care, but... thank you."

"I'm doing it," he told her, "because I can't not do it"

"I don't understand what that means."

He smiled gently.  "Let's just say you have some kind of power over me.  I don't think I could resist it even if I wanted to.  And to be honest, I don't want to."  He cupped her cheek with his palm and leaned down to brush his lips over hers.  "Get some rest, Mary."

She nodded, and he stepped out the door.  Mary closed it and turned the locks.  Then she moved to the window and pushed the curtain aside to watch him go... but he was already gone.

As if he'd simply... vanished.

*    *    *    *    *

Mary slept until the ringing of the doorbell woke her.  Her eyes didn't want to open, but the ringing was rapid and repetitive and stubborn as hell.  She didn't want to get up.  I didn't seem she was going to get a choice in the matter, though.

Rolling to one side, she pried her eyelids apart just enough to see the luminous red digits on her alarm clock—10:00 a.m.  She'd been asleep for about five and a half hours—Michael had pulled his disappearing act around four-thirty.  The doorbell was still firing away.

"I'm coming, already!"

She pushed back her cover and let gravity pull her legs until her feet hit the floor.  Feeling around while yawning, she found her slippers with her toes and burrowed her feet into them.  She stood up, finishing the yawn, and then she went stiff as the fog in her brain finally thinned enough to let her fear shine though.

What if it was the killer at her door right now?

But Michael had said he only struck at night.  And during the full moon.  It was broad daylight now.  Still...

She opened the drawer in the bedside stand and took out the revolver.  She'd loaded it and put it there before going to sleep last night.  Where the hell to carry it, though?  There was no pocket in her flannel pajamas.  Licking her lips, scanning the room, with the doorbell pinging the entire time, she spotted a bathrobe on the back of a chair and snatched it up.  As she pulled it on and dropped the gun into its deep terry pocket, the doorbell changed to rapid pounding, and a voice yelled, "Open up Ms. McLean.  It's the police."

Police?

She frowned, tugged the sash around her waist and tied it as she scuffed to the door and peered through the peephole.  Two me in police uniforms stood at her door.  Beyond the parking-lot gate, she could see a black-and-white car with all the right emblems and lights attached.

She unlocked the door, but left the chain on, and opened it just a little.  "Look, I don't want to piss you guys off, but I'm gonna need to call the station and verify that you're really cops, okay?"

One rolled his eyes.  He was heavyset, with a face that reminded her of a panda, dark circles around the eyes and heavy on the jowl.

The other one was younger, a blue-eyed blonde who belonged on a tanning-oil commercial.  "That's understandable, considering the nature of the complaint you filed you last week, and then the break-in," he said.

She blinked.  "Why are you here?  You're not the cops who where handling that for me."

"Well, there have been some developments, ma'am.  Your case might overlap another one we're working, so—"

"Do you know something about this maniac who's been stalking me?"

"Maybe.  Do you?" asked the older one.

"Wait here."  She closed the door, turned the locks, glanced again at the car to see that they were city cops, then flipped open the phone book and found the number for headquarters.  She got a fast answer and a quick verification that yes, two officers by the names of Strickland and Dunst were currently standing at her door.

"Thank you," she said, and hung up the phone.  Then she took the little gun from her pocket and tucked it beneath the huge leaves of a houseplant.  Finally she opened the door.

"I'm Officer Dunst," said the boy.  "This is Officer Strickland.  We need to ask you a few questions, ma'am.  Do you mind if we come inside?"

"Of course not.  Sorry about the delay.  You'll be happy to know you're legit."  Neither of them so much as cracked a smile at her little joke.  She stepped aside and let them precede her in; then she closed the door again, not bothering with the locks.  She shouldn't need locks with two cops and a gun in a potted plant nearby.  She waved them toward the sofa and took a seat in the chair opposite them.  "So what is this about?"

"Tommy Campbell," Strickland told her.  "You know him?"

"Of course I know him.  We worked together at The Crypt—that's a bar, not an actual crypt, of course."

"We know."  Dunst's voice was softer.  "Can you tell us the nature of your relationship with him, ma'am?"

Little chills were racing up and down her nape.  "What's going on here?  Is Tommy in some kind of trouble?"

"Just answer the questions, ma'am.  Are you involved with Tommy Campbell?"

”Involved?  No, I'm not involved with Tommy.  We're friends.  We work together."  She licked her lips and the cops stared at her, waiting.  As if they knew there was more.  "He... he may be nursing a little crush on me."

"What makes you think so?"

She shrugged.  "I don't know.  He's never acted on it, never asked me out or anything, but he just gives off that vibe, you know?"  Great, she thought.  Now she sounded like Michael.

"When was the last time you saw him, Mary?" Dunst asked.

She frowned, a sudden fear gnawing at her gut. 

"Last night.  I gave him a ride home from the bar.  It was raining, and he didn't want to walk, so—what is going on?"

"What time did you trop him off?"

She closed her eyes, thought back.  "We closed at two.  It probably took us twenty minutes or so to get the customers out of there, and then we had clean-up.  He only lives a few blocks—I don't know.  It must have been close to three."

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes."

"Anyone else who can verify that?"

She frowned.  "Can't you just ask Tommy?"

The police officers exchanged a look.  It was Dunst who finally spoke.  "Ms. McLean, Tommy Campbell was murdered last night."

She felt herself go numb, and her mind seemed unwilling to process the words.  It was if he'd spoken in some other language.  Then they came blear, and she shook her head in denial.  "No, that's not possible.  Tommy is...  Tommy is..."

"Dead, Ms. McLean," Strickland said.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly as if to block out the man's words.  "But how?  Why?"

"Someone tied him to his bed, doused him with gasoline and set him on fire."

"Strickland, don't—" Dunst warned.

Too late, though.  She'd heard the horror, and her stomach heaved.  She shot to her feet, lunging through her bedroom into the bathroom, and vomited.  She sank to her knees in front of the toilet.

Dunst came in behind her.  "Are you all right?"

"I don't... understand this.  Why?  Why would any one hurt Tommy?  He's gentle—he's harmless."

He reached past her, flushed the toilet, and then he wet a cloth in the sink and handed it to her.  Mary wiped her face and hands and got to her feet.

"You were the last one to see him alive, Mary," Officer Dunst said.

She met his eyes and shook her head side to side.  "No, I wasn't.  The person who killed him was."  The man averted his gaze, ad then she knew.  "My God, do you think I had something to do with this?"

"We have to question you.  It's standard procedure."  He took her arm, led her back through the bedroom toward the living room, his eyes scanning, seeming to take in everything.  "We need to know everything that happened last night, up to when you dropped Tommy off."

She stopped walking when she reached the living room.  The other cop was on his feet, waiting.  "I've told you everything.  Tommy needed a ride.  I gave him one.  He got out and went into his building, and I came home."

"And that's all?"

She nodded.

"You didn't see anyone strange hanging around outside his place when you dropped him off?"

She shook her head slowly.  "It was pouring rain.  The streets were empty."

"What about at the bar?" Dunst asked.  "Anyone new been hanging around?  Maybe paying extra attention to him?"

She thought of Michael.  She should tell them about him.  He could verify her story, confirm that Tommy had been alive when she had left him and account for her whereabouts for the rest of the night.  But something told her that would be a mistake, so she just shook her head.

"After you came home, what did you do?"

She blinked slowly.  "I went to bed.  I didn't get up again until you two woke me just now."

"You didn't leave again?  Say between four-thirty and 5:00 a.m.?"

She shook her head.  "Is that... is that when it happened?"

They didn't reply.  It occurred to her that telling them about Michael wouldn't do either of them any good anyway.  Tommy had been killed after Michael had left here.

Tommy was killed after Michael left here.

She sank onto the sofa and looked up at them.

"Someone must have seen something.  Someone must know who did this."

Dunst nodded.  "If someone does, we'll find out."

She sighed and lowered her head.  "I hope to God you do."

The cops looked at each other again.  Dunst shrugged.  "We may have more questions for you later on, once we learn more.  Don't leave town for a while, all right?"

She lifted her head sharply.  "I'm a suspect, aren't I?"

"Everyone's a suspect until we rule them out.  We haven't rule you out yet," Strickland said.  He went to the door, opened it and stepped outside.

"I'll be right out," Dunst called.  "I'm gonna get her alternate telephone numbers so we can reach her."

With a nod, Strickland left.

Officer Dunst knelt in front of the sofa.  "Mary, this is between us, all right?  We think Tommy might have been your stalker.  Strickland thinks you found out and murdered him.  I don't."

"I appreciate that."

"There was some evidence found at his place that links him to... some other cases.  Unusual cases."

"You're being awfully vague, Officer Dunst."

"I'm sorry.  I have to be."  He took a card from his pocket and handed it to her.  "Theses people can help sort all this out.  I know them.  They're good people."

She glanced at the card.  It had the stylized initials S.I.S. across the top, and underneath, in smaller type, it read Supernatural investigations Services.

"Supernatural?"

"You didn't get it from me, understand?  This conversation never happened."

She nodded slowly.  "What the hell is going on, Office Dunst?"

"I don't know."  He averted his eyes when he said it, as if maybe he did know at last a little more than he was telling her.  "Give me your other numbers in case Strickland calls me on it."

She recited her cell phone number, which he scribbled quickly.  Then he gave her a reassuring smile and left.  She stood in the doorway, shocked ad trembling, until he got into the car with his partner and drove away.

Then she closed the door, turned the locks and sank to the floor, shaking.

Michael could have done this.

Michael didn't have anything to do with it, and you know it.

He had time, after leaving her.  He hadn't seemed to like Tommy.  But why?  Why would he do such a horrible thing?

What if he were the stalker after all?

He's not.  He can't be.

But there was a stalker, and it couldn't be Tommy.  The police were wrong about that.  What if the real maniac had killed Tommy because he know of Tommy's crush on her?  Was it a jealous rage of some kind?  Had this so-called evidence been planted at Tommy's place just to make him look guilty?

Her mind whirled with questions, and one gruesome image she couldn't erase from her mind—that of poor Tommy Campbell, burning alive in his bed.

Chapter 5

Something was wrong.

The bar was dark, only a single car in the parking lot beside his when he pulled in just after sundown.  Mary's car.  She tensed when his Jaguar's headlights illuminated her where she sat on her front step.  He felt her fear rise up.  It was palpable, even when he wasn't trying to read her thoughts.  He quickly killed the engine and doused the lights, so she could see him.

Even then, though, her fear only eased a minute amount.

He opened the door and got out, and she got to her feet and came toward him.  Her face was puffy, eyes red, as if she'd been crying.

"What's happened?"

She held his gaze.  "Tommy.  You remember Tommy, from last night?"

He nodded.

"He's dead.  Someone killed him."

He went to her, put his arms around her to pull her close, the instinct to comfort her overriding his certainty that she was afraid of him all over again.  But she didn't let him.  She pulled away, and he let his arms fall to his sides as a clod dread settled over his heart.  She suspected him.

"The police suspect me," she said.

It was the last thing he'd expected to hear.  "What?  Why on earth...?"

He was killed around 5:00 a.m. they said.  I was the last person to see him alive.  The last they know of, at least."

"My God."

She kept her eyes on her shoes.  He looked past her, noticing the sign taped to the entrance.  "Closed due to death in the family."  He shook his head in disgust.  Tommy had been young, early twenties at most.  And while Michael had found the boy mildly annoying, he was certain the kid had done nothing to deserve this.

He looked at Mary again.  She was barely holding herself together.

"How did it happen?"

"He was tied to his bed and set on fire."  She met his eyes briefly.  "You're supposed to be some kind of psychic.  Why didn't you see this coming?"

He shook his head.  "I don't see everything, Mary.  I don't have any connection to Tommy."

"You don't have any connection to me, either."

"Yes, I do.  You know good and well I do.  You feel it just as strongly as I do, Mary.  Don't deny that.  Not now."

She lifted her brows.  "Why shouldn't I deny it, when you refuse to explain it to me!  I know you aren't telling me everything, Michael."

He was silent for a moment.  She wanted to know everything.  The last mortal he'd trusted enough to tell everything to had blasted a hole though her own head in reply.  Mary might not react as badly as that.  But she would certainly pull away from him, and if she did, the killer would find her alone, unprotected.

He couldn't tell her everything.  But clearly, he had to tell her something.  "The bond we share is one of blood," he told her choosing every word with care.  "The antigen."

"You have it, too?"

He only nodded.  He would not tell her the rest... what he was.  "Mary, I had no reason to want to harm Tommy."

She licked her lips

"You shouldn't have come here, alone like this," he went on.  "You could be in danger, you know that."

She shrugged.  'I brought the gun.  I knew you'd be looking for me here.  And I needed to see you.  Besides, the police think Tommy might have been the stalker.  Apparently that's my motive for killing him."

"What makes them think that?"

She shook her head.  "They wouldn't say.  I'm not even suppose to know that much."  Clearing her throat, she walked toward her car, parked beside his black Jag.  "The police wanted to know if anyone was with me when I dropped Tommy off last night.  Anyone who could verify that he was alive when I left him.  But I didn't tell them about you."

It as good that she hadn't told them.  He didn't need the kind of snooping and investigation that would have resulted if she had.  But if it would clear her of suspicion...

"It wouldn't have mattered, anyway.  He was killed after you left my place.  You couldn't swear that I hadn't gone back and done this thing... any more than I could swear you hadn't."

He chose to ignore the latter comment.  "What evidence do they have against you?" he asked.

"I already told you, I was the last person to see him alive, and if he was the stalker, then..."

"That's circumstantial.  Is there anything physical?"

She frowned.  "I don't know.  How could there be, Michael?  I was never there."

"Never mind.  I'll find out.  But first, we need to get you somewhere safe."

She was dangerously close to tears.  "I'm not suppose to leave town."

He thought about that a moment.  If he took her away and the police couldn't reach her, their suspicion would increase exponentially.  "Do you have a cell phone?"  She nodded.  "And did you give the police the number?"

"Yeah."

"Good.  I want you to get into your car and follow me back to your apartment, all right?  We'll leave your car there, and you can come with me."

She shook her head.  "I'm not going anywhere with you, Michael."

He held her gaze for a long time, then finally sighed, giving up.  "You think it's me.  You think I killed Tommy don't you?"

"No.  I don't think that at all, but part of me thinks that maybe I should—that maybe this... this... chemistry between us is clouding my judgment."  She sighed, shaking her head in frustration.  "Hell, I don't know what to think.  I only know that you're a stranger.  As much as it feels like I've known you forever, you're a stranger to me, Michael.  I don't even know your last name."

He swallowed hard.  Why her lack of trust in him should cause him pain was beyond knowing.  That it did was beyond denying.

"I don't suppose I an blame you for being cautious.  You're right.  God, it seems to me that you know me better than anyone ever has, but that's just... that's just this."  As he said it, he trailed the backs of his knuckles over her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pushing closer to his touch

Then she opened them again and met his.  "Its' powerful, Michael.  Everything in me believes in you.  But I have to be sure."  She frowned.  "Isn't there some part of you that wonders if I might be guilty?  If your feelings aren't clouding your judgment?"

His eyes probed hers.  "No.  Not in the least.  But then again, I'm more used to trusting my senses then you are.  All of them tell me you're no killer.  And they've rarely steered me wrong."  He nodded slowly.  "We'll go back to your apartment.  I'll see you safely inside and leave my cell phone number with you.  Program it into your phone, so you can call me quickly if you need me.  You can stay there, and I'll go see what I can find out about Tommy's murder, and then I'll come back and fill you in."

She blinked, clearly uncertain.  "How do you think you can find anything out?"

He licked his lips, unsure how much to tell her.  "I was a cop, Mary.  For ten years, I was a cop."

"In New York?"

"In Chicago."

"Why did you quit?"

He hesitated.  "I was shot in the line of duty.  The injuries were... life altering."  He wasn't about to tell her that he'd been on the wrong end of a Capone-era tommy gun, or that he'd been pronounced dead in a hospital, only to wake up in its morgue forever changed.

He'd been offered a choice then—live or die.  He'd chosen to live.

"I sorry.  Is it still a painful memory for you?"

He shook his head.  "It's in the past."  Further I the past than she could ever imagine.  "But I do know something about police work.  I know where to look for the answers we need, and how to get them without anyone being the wiser."  He'd visited a great many police departments since his change.  There were always unsolved crimes—things he picked up on through his ability to read the thoughts of mortals, to move about almost silently.  There were always wrongs he could help right.  And he did.  Had for years.  Evidence would turn up where none had been before; missing weapons would be located; witnesses would come forward.  And the police never knew they'd had a helping hand—a cold, pale helping hand.  In a lot of ways, he was a better cop now than he'd ever been before.

She pursed her lips, then nodded.  "If you really think you can learn anything, then... then yes.  Let's do it.  Here, take my extra gate key so you can get back into my parking lot."  She turned away, walking toward her car.

"Gray," he said to her back.

She stopped and turned to face him again.  "What?"

"My name is Michael Gray."

"Oh."  She smiled at him, weakly, shakily.  "Thank you for that."

He nodded and then she got into her car and he got into his.

*    *    *    *    *

After he left her, Michael went first to the building where Mary had dropped Tommy off the night before.  There was no security no key card required to get into the building, and it wasn't difficult to find the right apartment.  Even without the yellow police tape marking the door, he would have known.  He could still feel the lingering chill of death in the air.  And there was the stench.  Burning flesh did not emit a pleasant aroma.

The apartment door was locked.  The lock gave without much resistance to the pressure of his hand, and he went inside and closed the door behind him.  He didn't turn the lights on.  He didn't have to.

The place reeked of smoke and charred flesh, but the only sign of fire was in the bedroom.  A ring of black surrounded the bed—it had burned through the carpet and charred the floor underneath.  The headboard had been destroyed, leaving only a bit of charred wood at its base.  The wall behind it was blackened, as well, and the ceiling above.  The mattress was missing, probably in a crime lab by now.

Oddly, the rest of the room showed very little damage.  The firefighters must have arrived in time to contain the blaze, saving most of the apartment and the rest of the building.  And probably a lot of lives in the process.

The room had been ransacked.  Many items, he sensed, were missing.

He went to the bed, bracing himself for the onslaught of sensations the acts would bring before he placed his hand on the bed springs.

He expected horror.  Pain beyond endurance.  Heat and searing torment.  It wasn't what he got.  He got nothing at all other than an image of a body on fire.  No thoughts.  No sensations.  Tommy hadn't been conscious when he'd gone up in flames.

Frowning, he searched the apartment but found no clues, got no other images.  It wasn't until he left the building, on his way to the police department, that he felt that death energy again.  Not from within, but from the alley just below Tommy's window.

He followed his senses into the garbage-strewn alley.  Rats skittered from his approach.  And then he smelled it.

Blood.

Moving closer, he located the source, a dark spatter on the brick outer wall of the building next to Tommy's.  He pressed his hand to the stain and immediately felt a stunning blow to his forehead, right between the eyes, and what felt like an explosion at the back of his skull.  He smelled the hot sulphur scent of gunpowder, and though he didn't hear a shot his ears rang as if they had.

Someone had been shot in the head.  Right here in this alley.

A young man.  Early twenties, small and wiry, with brown hair.

God, Tommy had been shot right here.  This was where he'd died.

It made no sense, Michael thought as he returned to his car and drove away.  Someone had lured or forced Tommy into the alley only to then return him to his apartment.  The risk of being seen carrying a body should have been enough reason not to do such a thing.  And then to bind the boy to his own bed and burn the body—it was insane.

He was still no closer to learning what the police had found to implicate Mary, he realized.  Whoever had done this had known where Tommy lived.  Perhaps it was someone he knew, then.  Or perhaps it was simply someone who had watched him enough to have learned that minor detail.

Hell, they could have figured that much out from the address on his driver's license.

But why?  Why kill the boy at all, much less burn the body?

He found out more when he slipped into the police station and played mind games with the officers on duty to keep them away from the places where he needed to snoop.  The place was no small-town PD, but it wasn't an overwhelmed, understaffed urban one, either.  No, this was a wealthy community, and their police department was well funded.

There were the usual drawers full of paper files, but each folder had a pocket in the front, containing a CD-ROM.  A quick check told him everything in the folder—from the crime scene photos on down—had been recorded on the CD.  It couldn't have been any easier.

He found the box of unused CD-RWs and made a copy of the official records.  Then he put everything back where he'd found it and slipped quietly out of the police department.

Easy.  When you could plant thoughts in people's minds, convince them they needed to be elsewhere and move too fast for human eyes to detect more than a blur of color it was almost too easy.

He got into his Jag and drove back to Mary's apartment, eager to examine the evidence he'd found.

More eager, though, just to be close to her again

Chapter 6

She paced, torn in two about what she should be doing right now  One tiny part of her brain told her she ought to be on the phone with the police, telling them everything she knew about Michael Gray—which was pathetically little.  Every other part of her trusted him implicitly on nothing more than instinct.

But with her life?

Licking her lips, she picked up the business card that Officer Dunst had given her.  She looked at the telephone number.  Officer Dunst had said they were "good people."

Glancing outside just once, seeing no sign of Michael, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number.

"Supernatural Investigations Service."

Mary had second thoughts.  She certainly didn't need to add any supernatural bent to what should be a simple background check.  "I think I have the wrong number.  Sorry."

"Don't you think you'd better make sure of that before you hang up?"

She sighed.  "Look, I just need an ordinary P.I. for a routine background check on someone.  There's nothing... supernatural about it.  I shouldn't have called."

"How'd you get this number?" the woman asked.

"I... um... a cop gave it to me."

"Officer Dunst?"

"Yeah."

The woman said, "Well, he sent us a lot of business.  I imagine he knew we'd be more than glad to take care of your routine background check for you, even if it's not precisely our usual area."

"You think so?"

"Either that or he has a feeling there's something supernatural about your case."

That was the feeling Mary had had when Dunst gave her the card.  But she didn't want to explore that suspicion too deeply.  "I just—look, there's this man who's shown up in my life.  He seems to know things he shouldn't, claims to be some kind of psychic.  I just wanted someone to run  a background check on him."

"We can usually do up a pretty thorough report within twenty-four hours.  It'll cost you a hundred bucks.  That's our special Dunst referral discount rate, by the way.  Sound acceptable to you?"

"Yeah.  Yes, that'll be fine.  His name is Michael Gray.  He's here in Bangor now, but he says he was a cop in Chicago, shot in the line of duty."

"Hell, girl, with that much to go on, we won't have any problem at all."

"Good."  She heard a vehicle outside and jerked her head quickly toward the door.  "Call me.  Make sure you only talk to me though.  My number is—"

"We have it, hon.  Shows right up on our caller ID box.  I'll talk to you tomorrow."

She hung up the phone, feeling guilty as hell and hoping to God Michael would keep his promise not to go poking around in her mind, reading things that were private.  The call she'd just made felt to her like a deep and unforgivable betrayal.  To keep her mind off it, just in case he snooped, she thought about Tommy, and the moment she did, the horror of the way he had died came flooding back to her.  She didn't think she would have any problem keeping her focus on that—she might have a problem driving it from her mind later on, though.

Someone knocked on the door, and she knew it was Michael, could almost feel his presence, but she looked first, all the same.  Then she opened the door and let him in, and forcibly resisting the impulse to slide her arms around him and press herself close to him and whisper that she'd missed him.

Maybe she was losing her mind.

He looked tired.  Or it might have been worry that made his eyes seem so careworn, his face so tense.

"Did you find out anything?"

He nodded.  "Many thing.  Still not everything.  I think I ended up with more questions than I had before."  He searched her face, and she almost squirmed with guilt, wondering what he could see there.  "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine.  And you'll have to take my word for it, since you promised not to do any more trespassing in my private thoughts."

He smiled just a little.  "I wasn't.  I told you I wouldn't, Mary, and I won't.  I promise."

"Just making sure.  What did you learn about Tommy?"

"You want the good news or the bad news first?"  He set his brown leather bag on the floor and shrugged out of the trench coat, then hung it up on the coatrack.

"You mean there's good news?"

He nodded, picking up the brown bag again, and walked through the apartment taking a seat on one of the stools at the bar.  "Yeah.  There's good news.  Tommy wasn't burned alive.  He was shot in the head in the alley outside his apartment."

"But... but the police said he was tied to his bed and burned alive."

"He was tied to his bed and burned, but not alive.  He was already dead."

As Michael spoke, he pulled a laptop computer out of his case, flipped it open and pushed the button that made it come on.

She wondered how the hell he could know any of that, then guessed.  "You must have got a look at the autopsy report."

He shook his head as the computer went through its warm-up routine.  "The autopsy hasn’t' been done yet."

"Then—"

"I went to the apartment.  I touched the bed.  I got nothing.  But in the alley outside, I felt the bullet.  It entered here."  He poked a forefinger to the spot between his eyebrows.  "Exited here."  His palm open, he cupped the back of his head.  "There was an explosion of blinding pain, but very brief.  Like the flash of a camera.  Then he was gone."

She closed her eyes.  "You don't know how much I want to believe it happened that way, Michael, but—"

"I found the spray of blood on the alley wall.  The police will find it, too.  And when they do get their autopsy report, it will verify that Tommy was shot in the head and killed before his body was burned."

"You're that good?" she asked.

"I'm that good."  He pushed a button on the computer, and the slender CD drive popped open.  Ten he dropped a shiny disk into it and closed it again.  He hit a few keys.  "I stopped on the way back to take a look at this.  It's gonna be hard to take, Mary."

"So this would be the bad-news part?"

He nodded.  "The police were investigating Tommy."

She frowned.  "For what?"

"He was their lead suspect in your break-in and the stalking."

"They told me that.  But I... I find it very hard to believe."

"They were going to execute a search warrant at his place today.  As it turned out, they didn't have to.  The fire was pretty much contained in one part of the bedroom.  The rest of his place only suffered smoke and water damage, I imagine the fire department contaminated any forensic evidence that might have been there, but... well, they did find these."

He flicked a button, nodded at the screen.  There were rows and rows of thumbnail-sized photographs—and they were all of her.  She squinted.

He moved the mouse until its arrow pointed at one, clicked it, and the photo appeared full-size.  It was her making drinks, standing behind the bar at The Crypt.  Taken from behind.  Michael closed it and clicked on another, then another and another.

In one she was walking through the front door of her apartment.  In another she was in her bed, sound asleep.  There were photos of her at the grocery store, at the bank, photos of her car, with close-ups of the license plate.

"He had an entire album full of these."

"He was that obsessed with me?"  She stared at Michael, shaking her head in disbelief.

"No, Mary.  I don't think he was obsessed with you at all.  I think he was hunting you.  These aren't the kind of photos a man with an obsession takes.  These are surveillance shots.  Every one has the date, time and place noted on the bottom.  And there's more."  He clicked on another image.  Enlarged, it revealing a hand-drawn map.

She frowned and looked again.  "That's my route home from work."

"He made maps of all your routes.  To and from the gym, the store, anywhere you went regularly.  Along with charts of the times and dates you visited those places."

"But... why?"

He licked his lips.  "This is the work of a professional, Mary.  Those phone calls—they weren't meant only to shake you up.  They were probably also checks to see if you were home, or how much time you spent in the shower or the laundry room or whatever.  He had your every movement charted and mapped."

She blinked slowly.  "And the break-in?"

He sighed, clicking on another image.  This one grew large enough to fill most of the screen.  It was her apartment, laid out like a blueprint, every item in it, including light switches, windows, doors, furniture and telephones, marked and labeled.

"The mess he left was just to cover what he was really doing here.  Mapping the place so he'd know it backward and forward when he came to do the job."

She lifted her eyes to Michael's.  "He... he was in the car when that phone call came.  You were there too.  Remember?"

He nodded.  "They found equipment at his place—a device that blocks any attempt to trace the call, another capable of being programmed to make a call and play a recording at a specific time before hanging up."

Mary couldn't believe what he was telling her.  "Tommy... was going to kill me?"

He nodded.  "I'm afraid so."

"But... but why?"

"I don't know.  But I think it's the same reason he killed the other women with the antigen.  They, uh, they found some photos of them at his place too"

She tried to prevent the tears, but she felt so betrayed.  So deceived.  Tommy had seemed like an innocent, naive young man, little more than a boy nursing a crush.  Not a cold, calculating murderer.  He'd had her fooled.

Searching her reeling mind for answers, she hit on only one ray of hope.  "At least I don't have to be worried anymore.  He's dead.  The full moon is the day after tomorrow, and I'll be able to go outside and look up at it if I want to, without worrying about some maniac attacking me."

She tried to force a lightness to her tone.  Even a false smile to her lips.  But Michael still looked grim.

"What?  What is it?"

"I don't know.  It's killing me that I don't know, but—Mary, I just don't get the feeling that the threat is gone.  I still sense danger around you."

She searched her mind, wondering why on earth she might still be in danger.  And then it hit her.  "I know what it is.  It's the police.  If they know all this...?"  She sent him a questioning look.

"They do.  This all came from their files."

She sighed.  "Then to them, it must look like I have the perfect motive for murdering Tommy.  They'll assume I found out he was a serial killer, and that I killed him to keep him from killing me."  She tapped a finger on her chin.  "What I don't understand is why they haven't arrested me already."

"Because it's a far-fetched notion to think that a bartender without any special training could take out a professional killer like Tommy Campbell.  That's why.  They're searching for something in your background that would make it believable."

"Like what?"

"Like that you're an expert marksman, or you have a black belt in some martial art, or that you spent ten years working as a CIA operative or something."

"Or that I was a former cop?"

He looked at her sharply.

"Michael, you knew he killed before, and you knew he was coming after me next.  I couldn't even blame you—not if you did it to protect me.  Given the power of our feelings toward each other, I might have done the same."

He held her gaze for a long time.  "I knew he had killed before, and I knew he was coming after you next.  But I didn't know he was Tommy Campbell.  And I was a cop.  Mary.  A cop.  Not a killer.  If I had known, I'd have wanted him to do time for it.  I'd have tipped off the police, exposed him somehow.  I wouldn't have killed him unless he gave me no other choice.  I'm not a murderer."

She had to look away from his eyes.  He seemed so wounded that she would suspect he had done such a thing.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "Please remember, Michael, I still don't know you very well."

He sighed, closed a hand around hers.  "You know me inside and out.  Just like I knew you.  I know you feel it, Mary."

Closing her eyes, she let herself admit it to him.  "Yes.  I do feel it.  This odd sense of familiarity, as if you're my best friend.  Someone I've loved, and loved me in return, for all my life.  Or maybe even longer than that."

Chapter 7

Michael made a halfhearted attempt to convince Mary that she didn’t need to comb through the contents of the CD herself—that he could nutshell the important pieces of information for her.  He knew before he suggested it that she would never agree.  Odd, how well he knew her.  As he'd expected, she insisted on seeing for herself.  As she clicked through the files, the various reports statements of witnesses, evidences lists, she didn't just skim.  She read every word.

"The police knew about the other murders.  And the blood connection, too.  It's al right here."  She pursed her lips, shaking her head as she scrolled down the screen.  "There's a notation to keep me under surveillance for my own protection, but it says they saw no need to alarm me, since the chances that my stalker was the same ma who'd murdered those other women was slim to none."

"I can't disagree with their decision on that," Michael said, trying to see the case from a cop's point of view.  "If I didn't have this bond with you, then I wouldn't have known it, either.  The fact that you happened to have the same rare blood marker as a handful of dead women in other states could have been a coincidence.  At least they were taking precautions."

He took her mug from in front of her and refilled it with coffee, then replaced in on the counter.  "We really should get you out of this apartment, Mary."

"I don't see the need.  The killer is dead."

"But the danger is still here."

She frowned at him.  "I don't know what you mean by that.  How can  it be, when Tommy's dead?"

He sighed, sliding onto a stool next to hers.  "I don't know, either.  It's there, that's all I can tell you.  It's around you like a dark cloud.  It hasn't changed in the least since Tommy's death.  I know I'm right, Mary."

She pursed her lips.  "There's no way you an be.  My main goal now has to be to clear myself of suspicion in Tommy's murder.  I can't do that if I go into hiding."

He searched her eyes.  "If Tommy was the stalker, the murderer, then why is he dead?  Who killed him?"

She shook her head slowly.  "I don't know.  A relative of one of his victims?  Or maybe it was completely unrelated."

"I don't believe that."

"What else could it be?"  She slid a hand over one of his.  "Michael, he's dead.  Maybe your... your feelings for me are messing with your reception on this."

He tried that theory on for size, but it didn't fit.  He'd trusted his senses for too long to start doubting them now.  So if it wasn't that, then what?  "Mary what if all the evidence is wrong?  What if Tommy wasn't the stalker and some one planted all that stuff to make it look as if he was, then murdered him.  It would certainly divert suspicion from themselves."

Her eyes clouded so quickly, so suddenly, that he almost winced.  "I thought of that, too.  Then I told myself it was too far-fetched.  The simplest answer is usually the right one, isn't that what they say?"

"That's what they say.  But nothing about this has been simple."

"Do you think it's possible?"

"It's the only explanation I can think of for what I'm sensing."

She swallowed hard, and her chin rose a notch.  "Well, then... that's just one more reason for us to find the man who killed Tommy.  We not only need to clear me of killing Tommy, but we need to clear Tommy of having been this psychopathic murderer.  It's unfair to his memory."  Lowering her eyes, she added, "and if the killer is  still out there, we need to get him before he gets me.  Reason number three."

"That would be reason number one,"  Michael corrected.  "And this apartment isn't essential to any of those goals."

She searched his eyes, probing them.  Ws she wondering just what hidden motivations might be lying behind them?  Did she still mistrust him?  He stared back, unflinching, letting her probe as deeply as she wanted, stating without a word that he had nothing to hide.  When in fact he did.  Then the telephone shrilled, breaking the silence so abruptly that Mary jumped two inches off the floor.

Michael gripped her shoulders  "All right?"

"Yeah, fine."

"You want me to...?"

"No, no, I have it."

It rang again, and she went to the stand and picked it up.  "Hello?"

Michael saw by the look in her eyes that there was no reply, and instantly, instinctively, slid inside her mind to listen through her ears.

"Hello?" she repeated.  "Who is this?"

No answer.  She closed her eyes an Michael heard her thoughts.  This can't be happening.  It can't be...  But the silence dragged on.  And then there was a single word, drawn out and raspy.

"Soon."

Click.  The phone went dead.  Mary slammed her receiver down and spun to face Michael.  "I'll go wherever you want"

"It was him."  He made it a statement, not a question.  And he withdrew from her mind, feeling guilty about having broken his earlier promise to her.

She faced him and nodded.  "It's almost a relief, in a way.  I didn't want to believe it was Tommy anyway.  It's going to be twice as satisfying to bring this bastard down, knowing he tried to make it look as if sweet little Tommy was responsible for his crimes."  She was speaking quickly, too quickly, not pausing for a breath between words.  "Talk abut speaking ill of the dead.  Bad enough that he murdered Tommy, but to go to all that trouble to frame him, to try to ruin his memory like that, is just... is just..."

She'd run out of steam, he thought.  Her rapid fire words stopped.  She closed her eyes, but the tears came through all the same, and when he pulled her close to him, this time she didn't resist.  She seemed to soften in his arms, against his chest, buried her head there and let herself cry.  He rubbed her back and shoulders, stroked her hair, wondered at the tightening of his throat and the burning in his eyes.  It hurt him to see her in pain, and all he wanted at that moment was to ease her fear and her suffering.

"It's going to be all right, Mary.  I'm not going to let anything happen to you.  I promise you that.  He won't get anywhere near you.  You'll be safe with me.  I'll keep you safe.  Trust me.  Believe me, Mary, I won't let him hurt you."

She nodded against him, sniffling.  "I do believe you," she whispered.

"Why don't you pack a few things?  I'll stow the laptop in the car, then come back in to carry your bags out for you.  All right?"

"Okay."  She straightened away, looking up at him.

It broke his heart to see her cheeks wet with tears.  "Okay," he said again.  It was a effort to let her go, but he managed to do so.  She went into the bedroom to pack, and he popped the CD-ROM out of the laptop, shut the computer down and folded it shut.  Then he slid it into his brown leather satchel and buckled it shut.  He grabbed his coat and headed out to his car.

*    *    *    *    *

She waited until he'd stepped outside to all from the bedroom telephone.  Her hands were shaking as she punched in the numbers.  Her heart and soul and body were at war with her mind, ripping one another to shreds.  She felt as if she were stabbing Michael in the heart by making this call.  And yet some still small voice in her mind told her that someone, somewhere, ought to know where she was going and how to reach her.

The ringer sounded twice before anyone picked up.  "Supernatural Investigations Services, Stormy speaking."

"Hi, this is Mary McLean.  I phoned you earlier?"

"Hi Mary.  Look, it's too soon to tell you anything yet, but—"

"No, no, it's not that.  I just wanted to give you my cell phone number.  "I'll be away from the apartment, at Michael Gray's place.  So you'll have to reach me on that."

"All right.  Shoot."

She glanced out the window.  Michael was walking back across the lot toward her door already.  So strong, so beautiful and so utterly devoted to her.  How could she still suspect him of anything?

She didn't, and that was the truth.  She was dead over heels for the guy.  It wasn't Michael she didn't trust right now; it was her own judgment.

She recited the number quickly.  Stormy read it back, getting the last digit wrong.  Mary corrected her.  Michael was opening the door.

"Got it?"

"Yes."

"Good."  She hung up the phone just as he stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him.  "I'll only be a few more minutes," she called.  As quickly as she could, she yanked a suitcase out of her closet, opened it and began tossing clothes inside.  As she slammed it shut, she tried to slam the door on her guilty feelings, as well.  But that wasn't so easily done.

*    *    *    *    *

Michael's home was not at all what she had expected.  She wasn't certain just what she had expected—something that spoke of extreme wealth, she supposed, since he drove a Jaguar and dressed in expensive clothes.  The place must be casting him a bundle, but it didn't advertise that fact.  It was a beach house.  Just one story, not tiny, but not sprawling, either.  He took a side road off Route 1, north of Bangor.  A few miles later he was pulling into the neat white gravel driveway that would right up to the front doors, which were sliding glass, with heavy drapes behind them.  Beyond the house was a beach, more rocks than sand, and plenty of frothing surf.

"This is where you live?"

He nodded.  "Only since I came to Maine, looking for you.  I found it the first night.  I like the ocean."

"So do I."

They got out of the car and he handed his key ring to her.  Then he opened the trunk to take out her suitcase, carrying it in one hand and his own case, with the laptop, in the other.  Mary reached past him to close the trunk, then walked beside him over the flower-lined path to the door.

"It's the square-headed key," he told her.  "The silver one."

She inserted the key in the lock, then slid the doors open and pushed the drapes aside to step in.  The place was open and airy, its kitchen and dining room combined in one broad space, two steps down.  Beyond them, the living room was two steps lower still, furnished with a brown velour sofa and chairs that looked as inviting as any she'd seen.  His coffee and end tables were brass and glass, and another set of sliding doors stood at the far end.  She dropped the keys on the table and went to them, pulling the drapes open and then she took in the view.

Steep wooden stairs zigzagged from the back door down to the rocky beach.  Not a soul was insight this early in the season.  But the sand and the rocks and the waves rolling gently in, one after the other, were a breathtaking sight.  An soothing, somehow.

"This place is beautiful."  She felt as if she really had found a haven.

"I'm glad you like it."  He carried her bas though the living room to a door on the left.  "This is the guest room.  You'll be it's first occupant."

"I can't imagine why.  If I had a friend with a place like this, I'd be here so much they'd get sick of me."  She said it with a teasing smile.

"You do have a friend with a place like this," he said.  His tone wasn't light or teasing.  "And I doubt I'd ever get sick of you."

She met his eyes, saw the tension, the passion, in them.  She had to look away.  "Michael, I... there's just so much going on now.  I can't even think about—"

"I know.  I wasn't trying to—"  He licked his lips and started over.  "No pressure, Mary.  Not from me, can certainly not now.  I just forgot to keep my feelings to myself for a second."

Her stomach tightened, and her face heated.  "I want to explore this... this thing between us."

"So do I."

"I just need time."

He nodded.

Maybe... maybe when this was over and she knew more about him—God, she had to learn more about him—maybe then she would be ready to take this to the next level, see where it might lead.

But until then... until then she was going to be fighting every instinct and desire in her to keep herself in her own bed in the guest room and out of his.

He cleared his throat, breaking eye contact.  "Look, my schedule is a little crazy.  I'll be gong before you wake in the morning and probably won't be able to get back until after dark.  I don't want you to feel trapped here.  But you will be safe.  No one knows where to find you here.  The locks are top-notch, and there's a security system, as well.

She nodded.  "I don't feel trapped  I feel rescued.  It made perfect sense to leave my car at my place so not to alarm the police, and you'll need yours.  I'll be find as long as can go down to the water, walk on the beach.  And don't worry about your schedule, Michael.  I'm used to sleeping by day and working by night, given my hours at The Crypt."

He only smiled at her, opening the bedroom door and carrying her bags inside.  The room was small and obviously unused.  Still, it was carpeted in thick pile, and the bed was huge and comfy looking.  A matching dresser and a beside stand with a clock were the only other items inside.

"It's perfect.  Thank you, Michael."

"You're welcome."  He looked around the room as if inspecting it for flaws.

"Stop.  It's perfect, I told you."

"I should have planned better," he said.  "I could have spruced the room up a little.  And now that I think about it, there's probably not a crumb of food in the place."

"What, you don't eat?"

He looked at her almost as if he were alarmed, but then he saw the teasing smile she sent him and returned it.  "There's a little store just a short walk from here.  We can stock up tonight."  He looked at his wristwatch.  "They're open for another hour yet."

"Then we'd better get to that right now."  He glanced at her suitcase.

"I can unpack when we get back."

"All right."  He led her out of the bedroom, out the back doors and down the zigzag stairs to the beach below, then turned left, and they walked side by side in the sand.  As they did, his hand brushed hers and turned, as if to enfold hers, but he stopped himself.

She wanted him to hold her hand.  She wanted far more than that.  Mary slid her hand into his, and when he closed his around it, warmth infused her entire being.

Something bright caught her eye, and she glanced out toward the sea.  The moon was shining down on the ocean, its silver light spreading over the rippling waters.

She swallowed hard.  "It's almost full."

"I know."  He squeezed her hand.  "I'll keep my promise, Mary.  You're safe with me, I swear it."

A shiver went up her spine in spite of the warmth of being near him.  It was a sudden rush of fear, of foreboding, almost a warning.  She hoped to God he could keep his promise.  But she wasn't certain that was possible if fate had other plans for her.

Chapter 8

He didn't want to feel the way he did about Mary.  He didn't want this power between them to be anything more than the undeniable awareness that always came between her kind and his.  She was one of what vampires called The Chosen—a human with the belladonna antigen.  They were linked by blood, the two of them.  The overwhelming urge to protect her was to be expected.

And yet he couldn't deny that there was more than that.  He was compelled to walk close to her, stand close to her, sit beside her, touch her at every opportunity, smell her.

Taste her...

No.  Not that.  He wouldn't do that.  She must never know what he was.  The memory of Sally's reaction to that knowledge was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.

They walked to the small store down the beach, and he bought two bags of groceries.  It was a difficult task, since it had been a long time since he'd had to shop for food, and the items offered today were foreign in comparison to what had filled the shelves in his own time.

He had to keep nudging her to make choices, and eventually she got over any feeling that he ought to be the one to choose  and just did it.  His relief must have shown on his face as the cashier rang them out.

"Not much of a shopper, are you?"

He shrugged.  "I usually east out."

She shook her head.  "You don't know what you're missing."

He did know, but to be honest, he didn't miss it al that much.  The appeal of food paled in comparison to the lust for blood.  Of course, he couldn't tell her that.  Or that while food might taste good going down, that was all it did.  Blood came alive inside him, sparkling and sizzling through his veins like living energy.  Electricity times a thousand.  Life.  It was life.  Even the stale aged blood he used as his sustenance, stolen from blood banks or hospitals, held the spark of that power.  He was hungry.  It had been days since he'd fed.  Yet he wanted to be near her, to protect her his every waking moment.  He couldn't take tie away to scavenge for a meal.

He took the tow paper grocery bags from the counter and, carrying one in each arm, left the store.  Mary caught up quickly and took one of the bags from him.  "You don't need to wait on me, you know."

"I wasn't."  No.  He was trying to keep her from seeing the glow of bloodlust in his eyes.  He fought his hunger, wrestled it into submission, buried it and focused only on her.

She walked along the path beside him, warm and alive and beautiful.  Her hair was long and loose tonight.  The sea wind blew it around her face.  In front of the store was a small parking area, and a road beyond it.  Behind it, there was a narrow, well-worn path that wound back to the beach.

"What is it you do?" she asked at length.

"Do?"

"Yeah.  You said your work keeps you away most days remember?"

"Oh.  My... work."

She smiled at him a little nervously.  "Must pay well.  You drive a Jag.  Live in a magnificent house on a private beach."

Plus, seventy years of careful investing had it's benefits, he thought.

"Is it law-enforcement related?"

He glanced at her, realized he was expected to come up with an answer, one that made as much sense as her suggestion did.  "Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is.  I do consulting work for, uh, security companies.  You know the kind that set up alarm systems and tie lock for office buildings and banks and things like that?"  He wondered if it sounded at all plausible and watched her face carefully for her reaction.

She nodded as if it made perfect sense.  "Sounds exciting."

"Id far rather be here with you," he told her.

She blushed in the darkness lowered her eyes, didn't answer.

They arrived back at the beach house, and he insisted on taking the bag from her as they climbed the stairs.  She couldn't know it was less than weightless to a ma as powerful as he, and she argued.

"I'm just as capable of carrying a bag of groceries up the stairs as you are, you know," she said, trotting up the steps behind him.

"No, you aren't."

"Am so."

"Would you like me to carry you up, as well Mary?"

She smacked him on the shoulder from behind.  "Show-off."

He loved her when she was in a teasing, playful mood.  It meant she wasn't dwelling on her fear.  They reached the top, and he turned to face her.  "Key's are still in my pocket."  He nodded downward.  "You want to reach in and there and feel for them?"

She smirked at him.  "You wish."  Then she took one of the bags from him, freeing him to get his keys himself.  She was more relaxed than he'd seen her since he'd first started going to the bar to watch over her at night, almost two weeks ago.  The moon had been new then.

He opened the door, and she went inside, toed off her shoes and carried the grocery bags to the kitchen.  Setting them on the table, she began unpacking.  She turned to a cupboard to open it, then frowned and opened a couple more.  "You weren't kidding about eating out a lot, were you?"

"I've only been living here a couple of weeks.  I really haven't stocked the place yet."

"Been too busy being my guardian angel to worry about eating properly, I'll bet."

She couldn't possibly know how right she was about that.  He shrugged, still nervous that the lack of food in the cupboards would cause her to ask questions, but Mary seemed to accept his explanations.  There were dishes in some of the cupboards.  They'd been there when he'd moved into the place, and he'd washed them and put them right back—even though to him they were little more than props.

"You know, you're really roughing it here, Michael.  No coffeemaker.  No toaster.  There's not even a microwave."

"Like I said—"

"Oh, don't explain.  I've never yet met a member of your species to be overly concerned with nesting.'

He went very still in the small kitchen.  "My... species?"

"Yeah.  Male."

He closed his eyes as his relief emerged in the form of a sigh and every tense muscle relaxed.  For a second he'd thought she might have known or guessed what he was.

But why would she guess?  She probably didn't even believe creatures such as he existed.

When they finished emptying the grocery bags, she stretched her lovely arms, yawned and said, "It's after midnight.  I think I'll get some sleep.  I cant believe you're up this late when you have to get up before dawn."

"I rarely sleep much at night."

She shrugged.  "Well, you should."  She smiled at him.  "You don't take very good care of yourself.  You need to do better."

"I'll try my best."

Their eyes met and held for a long moment.  Finally she sighed and looked away.  "Good night, Michael."

"Good night."

Then she headed into her bedroom.  Michael sat in the living room, listening to her.  Sensing her.  He could close his eyes and know where she was, what she was doing, just by opening his mind.  He didn't even need to probe hers.

He heard the water in the bathroom, felt her peel away her clothes and step into the shower.  He wanted her.  It was a hunger, like the hunger for blood.  And it was just as natural in his kind.  Desire, in a vampire, wasn't a mere fancy or passing impulse.  It was a demanding, insatiable, driving need.  He, for whatever reasons—and he didn't doubt their blood bond was one of them—desired her.  He would know no peace until he had her.

He sighed and told himself that likely meant he would never know peace.  Because he wasn't going to have her.  The risk that he would loose himself to the need to taste her blood was too great.  He knew that now as he'd never known it before.  He was going to protect her until he knew she was safe, and then he was going to go on his way, long before she could learn what he was.

He continued sitting there, tuned in to her essence, if not her thoughts for a long, long while.  The shower stopped running, and she put on something slight.  A T-shirt, perhaps  Then she slid into the bed and closed her eyes.

She slept.  He felt her sinking into sleep rapidly, and he knew she hadn't been sleeping well since this entire thing had begun.  She felt safe here, with him.

For a time he was content to sit there, feeling her sleep.  Then he heard her, very clearly, whisper his name.  Michael.  At first he thought she had spoken it deliberately, called, to him, and he was on his feet and at the bedroom door before it occurred to him that she was still asleep.

She'd said his name in her sleep.

He closed his hand on the doorknob, turned it, opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.  She lay on her side, and he could see her face, serene, relaxed.  Yes, she was asleep, hugging he pillow.  She nuzzled it's softness with her cheek, and again, she muttered his name.  This tie her hips moved just a little as she did, and her arms clutched the pillow fighter to her breast.

She was dreaming.  About him.

He shouldn't.  He told himself he really shouldn't.  She'd asked him not to pry into her mind, and he had honored that request, for the most part.

But he didn’t think he knew any man, mortal or otherwise, who could have resisted just a tiny bit of exploration.  He moved closer to the bed until he stood right beside it, his thighs touching the mattress.  He lowered his hand, planning to lay it atop hers very lightly, to enhance their connection, let him view her thoughts more vividly and with less effort.  But before he could make contact, her hand moved, turned and gripped his wrist hard.  Her breathing quickened just a little.  And still she slept.

He stared down at her face, then closed his eyes and focused on her mind, her thoughts, her touch.

And then he was there, inside her dream.  He saw two nude people, writhing on the bed:  himself and Mary.  She was lying beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist, linked at the ankles.  His hips were snapping as he drove into her, and hers moved in time, receiving him.  He felt her need mounting, her desire building, and yet she couldn't reach satisfaction.  Not in her sleep.  Not in a fantasy.

He burned with wanting her, wanting to assuage her hunger—but he knew that would mean facing the temptation to assuage his own.  And he needed her trust right now.  He would lose it if she learned what he was, and if he lost her trust, she would die.  Even with Tommy gone, he felt the menace surrounding her lie a nimbus.  She was still in danger.

He stroked her face and her hair, leaning closer, whispering to her mind with his, coaxing her dream along with erotic images projected into her mind and words spoken softly into her ear, until she shivered and trembled with the release his will and deemed inevitable.  And then her arms curled around his neck and her face turned up to his.  He kissed her.  He knew he shouldn't, but to deny himself even this brief taste of her was more than he could bear.  He kissed her, and her mouth moved beneath his, lips parting, tongue tasting.  Her fingers splayed in his hair as she kissed him, and he took full advantage of the opportunity to explore her mouth.

But she was sliding ever closer to lucidity, climbing slowly from the dream state, and he knew it had to end before she opened her eyes.

He eased into her mind with the command that she must sleep.  That all this was just a pleasant dream and nothing more.  He couldn't quite bring himself to tell her to forget.  No, he wanted her to remember, because he would.

He felt her falling away into the depths of slumber, and he lifted his head from hers.  Tucking the covers around her once more, brushing astray coppery curl from her check he forcibly ignored the soft, inviting rush of blood flowing just beneath her skin, the delicate, steady thrum of its pulsing there.  Involuntarily he licked his lips.

Then he closed his eyes, and forcibly turned away from her, striding out of the room, and out of the house.  He needed blood.  It wouldn't take long.

*    *    *    *    *

When he crept back into the house a half hour before dawn, sated and warm thanks to the local blood bank's flimsy locks but no less hungry for her, he smelled something that made him slightly queasy.  Following the aroma and his sense of Mary in the kitchen, he found her there, scooping yellow omelettes with flecks of green and brown and red onto plates.  Two of them.

Mary?" he asked.  "Why are you up so early?"

She looked toward him, smiling brightly.  The way she sparkled his morning took his breath away.  "I set the alarm an got up early so I could make you a special breakfast before you had to leave for work."

He looked at the plate, then at her.  His stomach twisted  "You shouldn't have gone to the trouble—"

"It's the least I could do, after all you've done for me."  She shrugged.  "You said you eat out most of the time.  I thought a home-cooked breakfast would be a welcome change."

"That's...  I don’t know what to say."  He truly didn't.  He couldn’t actually... eat that thing.  Could he?  And yet it touched him to his core that she wanted to do this for him.  To take care of him—the way he wanted to take care of her.

She smiled again and pulled out his chair.  I'm going to go out walking today and if I should pass a shop that sells them, I'll buy you a coffeemaker.  I don't know how you manage to start the day without coffee."  She pulled out a chair and sat down.  "Well?  Dig in."

Licking his lips, he sat in the chair opposite her.  The smell of the omelette wafted up to his nostrils, and his stomach rebelled again.  He glanced at his wristwatch.  "I'm not  going to have time to do this luscious meal justice."

"I'm not gonna be offended if you have to eat and run.  I know you have to get moving early."

He nodded and watched her eat a few bites.  But she kept looking at him, and he knew damned well she was going to be wounded and offended and, worst of all, suspicious if he didn't eat the food.  Bracing himself, he picked up the fork, squared his shoulders and shoved a bit into his mouth.

Sold food was a misnomer.  It wasn't solid at all, but a mushy mass that only got more soggy as one attempted to grind it to a digestible consistency with one's teeth.  He tried his best to turn the sound of revulsion leaping up from his gut into moans of ecstasy.  He almost gagged when he had to swallow, but he managed to force it down, and then he shoveled in another bite, and another.

He devoured fully half of his meal, then pushed his chair away from the table.  Bits of the horrible thing still clung to his teeth and tongue, and his in the crevices of his mouth.  'That was the most delicious omelette I've ever had, Mary.  Truly.  Thank you.  I'm so sorry I have to go."

"You're welcome.  And don't apologize."

He was already halfway to the front door.  His body was not designed to digest solid food.  His liquid diet was absorbed into his blood stream directly from the stomach.  The rest of the tract—hell, he didn't know, but he'd always assumed it was simply shut down.  It certainly hadn't preformed any noticeable function since he'd been transformed.

He closed the door behind him, and stumbled to the car, his keys in his hand as his stomach convulsed.  His plan was to get into the car, drive out of sight and then—but no, it was too late for that.  Dropping the keys on the car's front seat, he slammed the door and ran across the narrow side road and into a decorative copse of pinon pines.  And then he fell to his knees as his stomach rejected the meal in terms so violent he thought his body was being torn apart from within.

When if finally stopped, he moved a few steps away, fell to the ground, and lay there, shaking trembling, chilled trough and oddly weak.  He remained that way for several moments, until disgust forced him to get to his feet again and move farther.  There was a stream a few yards away, runoff from the  mountains leading into the sea.  He went to it, dipped his hands full of icy cold water and filled his mouth with it, over an over, swishing, rinsing and spitting until he had rid his mouth of every crumb he could manage.

He need a full bathroom, with a shower and sink and, most of all, a toothbrush.  And floss.  He shivered, and then he moved on into the scrubby excuse for a woodlot over the narrow deer path. 

The sun was on its way.  He could already feel its touch on the air, though it had yet to peek over the ocean.  He followed the trail, a shortcut to the cemetery, and emerged into the place from the rear.  It was an old cemetery, with several family plots, each one consisting of one large stone an several smaller ones, all surrounded by a wrought-iron fence.  They occurred in various sizes and styles, but nearly all the groups here were grouped that way.

A few more recent graves stood alone.  Up the hill a bit were the crypts, including his own.  His name was engraved on the top, chiseled into the granite, in all caps.  He'd purchased it, allegedly for his father, even staged a fake funeral a month ago, in preparation for his move here, knowing he would need a backup shelter from the daylight.

The door was sealed and looked like all the others.  But there was hidden catch to release the lock from the outside.  He did so, glancing around, opening his senses to be sure he wasn't observed.  Then he opened the door and went inside.  He closed it behind him an slid home the additional locks he'd installed on the inside of the crypt.

He sighed as he faced the four-by-eight rectangle and the stone slab upon which he was going to spend the day.

Chapter 9

The full moon was tonight.

No matter how else Mary tried to occupy herself though the day, that was one of the three thoughts that kept circulating through her mind.

The second was a question.  Why hadn't Michael taken his car this morning?  She lied to think he had decided at the last minute to leave it for her—except that she'd found the keys lying on the front seat and the car unlocked.  Which just didn't seem in keeping with his past as a police officer.

He'd left in such a hurry—almost as if he were desperate to get out of her sight.  She'd run to the window to wave him off, but he'd seemed... almost ill, suddenly.  The way he stopped near the car, fumbling with the keys, dropped them, then went staggering off at an uneven run across the street and out of sight.

Had someone picked him up?  Did he have a car pool he'd forgotten about or something?

No matter, she could just ask him when he got back home.  She was sure there was some explanation.

The third thing on her mind was the dream she'd had last night.  God, it ha been so real.  In the dream he'd made love other, and it had been intense and incredible and the most erotic thing she'd ever experienced, real or imagined.

She cleaned up the kitchen, then took Michael's car out to do some shopping, a coffeemaker being at the top of her list.  But all day long, erotic images and fluttering arousal gnawed at her, fighting for space beside the ice-cold fear in her mind.  Shopping didn't help to alleviate either of the conflicting emotions.  So when she returned to his place, she put her purchases away and tried to think of something else to occupy her mind.

She tried watching TV, but he didn't get many channels.  She thought about planning an extravagant dinner, but she really didn't think he'd enjoyed the breakfast all that much.  So she sat on the sofa, and she gave in to the more pleasant of the barrage of thoughts.  She let herself relive her exquisite dream of the night before.  Her and Michael, making love.  The things he'd whispered in to her ear, the ways he'd make her feel, the places he'd touched her, the feeling of him inside her...

She shivered and closed her eyes.  She had never had an experience like that one in her dream.  She'd had sex, but never like that.  It had been—like something beyond.  And she wasn't sure, but she thought she'd climaxed in her sleep.  Up until last night, she hadn’t thought such a thing was possible.

Oh, hell, so now she was going to sit here and have sexual fantasies about Michael for the rest of the day?

Yeah, she realized, she just might at that.  She'd wanted him from her very first glimpse of him, watching her in the bar, from the darkness.  His eyes, so intent and appreciative.  Almost hungry.

A delicious chill raced up her spine.  She shook it away, evens she wondered if he could possibly feel as powerfully attracted to her as she did to him.  She thought he did, and yet it didn't seem possible anyone could feel as strongly as she did about him.

But she shouldn't even be thinking along those line, not now, when so much else was happening.  The full moon was tonight.

She got to her feet and decided to explore the house.  Surely that would keep her mind off sex with Michael.  So she wandered.  There wasn't much more to the place than what she had already seen.  A laundry room in the back, with a nice jet-black washer  and dryer.  A garage on the side.  She went into it, not expecting to find much of interest—it was a garage, after all.  What would there be besides a few tools and car accessories, maybe some spare tires?  But when she entered she was surprised.  There was a shiny midnight-blue motorcycle leaning on its kickstand.

And why did knowing he rode that thing make him even more attractive to her?  She flashed on an image of the two of them riding it, her thighs framing his hips, her arms tight around his waist, her hair blowing in the wind.

Sighing, she wandered back into the house and went to the room she had been avoiding up to now.  Michael's bedroom.  Her hand closed on the doorknob, and she was almost surprised that it gave easily.  Then again, why would he lock her out of his bedroom?

What surprised her even more than the unlocked door was the total and complete wall of darkness that greeted her on the other side.  The place was black as pitch.  She felt the wall for a light switch, found one and flipped it on.

But illuminated, the room was almost as grim as it had been in the dark.  There was a bed, perfectly made not a wrinkle or rumple in it.  A dresser and matching stand flanked it, but aside from that, the room was empty.  It looked as rarely used as the guest room had.  And the windows!  There were only two in the entire bedroom, and they were covered so tightly that not a droplet of light could penetrate.

She moved closer to inspect the thick, velvet drapes of dark burgundy.  Behind them were black curtain panels in a cotton woven more densely than any she'd seen.  They were heavy and thick.  And behind those were blue window shades that must have been custom fitted, pulled down tight.

She pulled the window shade out a just a little, to look beyond it.  But the outside of the window was blocked, too, by shutters closed tight.

"I guess he can't sleep with any light in the room," she muttered.  Sighing, she carefully smoothed the layers of shade and fabric back into place and turned to go.  But paused when she saw that he had left his brown satchel on the bed.

The one with the evidence of Tommy's murder I it, and the laptop computer, and...

Licking her lips, she wondered suddenly if he had the evidence from the other murders in that bag, as well.  She glanced around almost guiltily, but that was silly.  She was doing nothing wrong.  Surely she sad as much right to peruse those files as Michael did.  More even.  Nodding hard, she snatched the satchel from the bed and darted from the room with it.

She chose to work in the little kitchen, because its sunny front window looked right out on the driveway, so she would see him if he came back.  She could also see the back doors and the steps to the beach from here.  If she was careful, she would see his approach and be able to shove the files back in the case, dash to his room toss it on the bed and get back out before he opened the door.

As an afterthought, she turned the dead-bolt locks on both doors, just in case.  Finally she extracted manila file folders from the bag and began to explore the records inside.  Beginning with the one marked Samantha Carlson.

Before lone she wished she hadn't snooped  Hell, she was fine reading the reports.  The police report said the woman's body had been found by fisherman in a New Jersey river, just as Michael had told her.  But the police had found photographs, as well, taken by the killer and left behind at the woman's apartment.  There were several snapshots, the instant kind, and she flipped through them one by one, growing colder and sicker with every shot.

The woman was nude, her body marred by stab wounds that the coroner said had not been the cause of death.  She'd been bound at the ankles and suspended by the from a light fixture.  Her throat was deeply cut, and a pool of blood covered the floor beneath her.

She'd been stabbed numerous times, then strung up and finally her throat had been cut.  Her arms were free and probably had never been bund.  Mary guessed that from the close-up shot of the arms and hands, covered with blood, probably because the woman had tried to keep the precious fluid from escaping as she'd hung upside down and bled to death.

So that was how he killed them.  And that was why Michael hadn't wanted her to know.

She finally found the ability to move again and returned to the written report.  It claimed the woman had been stabbed numerous times, either in an effort to subdue her or from a desire to torture her.  The killer apparently knew where he could drive the blade without causing immediately fatal injuries.  The killer had some sick reason for wanting to keep the victims alive until they bled out.

She couldn't read any more.  She closed the folder and returned everything to the brown bag.  She glanced outside, seeing no sign of Michael, ad then carried the bag back to his room, placing it on the bed just where she'd found it.  She was tiptoeing out of his room, pulling the door gently closed behind her, when a sound shot through her head like an arrow through her heart.

But it was only the ringing of her cell phone.

Sighing, she ran through the house to her temporary bedroom, rummaged in her bag while the phone rang again and again, and finally found the thing, yanked it out, her heart still pounding, and hit the answer button.

"Mary McLean speaking."

"Hi, Ms. McLean, this is Stormy from S.I.S.  We've finished your background check, and I thought you should probably know about it as soon as possible."

"What did you find?"

The woman sighed.  "First, you should know that I contacted Officer Dunst and got the background on what's been going on with you.  I told him nothing, just asked questions.  Normally this isn't the kind of information I would pas on to a client I didn't know, but I think in your case, you need the fully story.  Can you come out here  I'd really rather tell you in person."

She glanced at the clock.  "I don't know.  Where are you?"

"Two hours north of you, in Eaton.  The address is on the card."

Mary shook her head.  'No.  There's no way I can go that far and get back in time, and I really can't wait.  I need to know now."

The woman hesitate but finally began talking again.  "All right.  But this is going to be a lot to swallow over the phone, especially if you don't already know about... some of the things I'm going to tell you.  Michael Gray was indeed an officer of in the Chicago Police Department, and he was indeed shot in the line of duty—by a member of the Capone gang in 1928."

"Excuse me?"

"Officer Michael Gray, Chicago PD, has been dead for more than seventy years."

She shook her head.  "There's some kind of mistake.  It was probably his father or grandfather, or someone else by the same name."

"He's the only Michael Gray who ever worked there.  But given human imperfection, I got my hands on a photo just to make sure.  Do you have a fax?"

"No."  She recalled the laptop.  "Uh, but there's a computer.  Can you e-mail it to me?"

"Sure thing.  What address?"

She rattled off the address of her online account knowing that she could access it from Michael's computer, but hating the idea that she was going to have to go back to his room an boot the thing up.  It was getting late.  He would be home soon.

"I'm sending it right now.  Call me back if you want us to do anything further.  But... Mary you should prepare yourself to face some things you probably never believed in."

"Like what?"

The woman on the other end sighed.  "Have you ever seen Michael during the day?"

"Well... no, but—"

"I didn't think so.  Listen this is going to sound far-fetched.  But, Mary, there's a chance that Michael Gray might be a vampire."

"Vampire?"  She laughed, but the woman on the other end of the phone wasn't laughing, so her own died in her throat.  "You are joking right?"

"No.  I know quite a few of them.  They exist.  And they're nothing like what most people think they are.  They tend to be driven to protect people like you."

"People like me?"

"It's got to do with your blood, Mary.  Dunst told me you have the belladonna antigen.  That's probably why he referred you to us in the first place."

She went cold inside, remembering how often Michael had mentioned that the antigen connected him to her.  But surely this was complete and utter fantasy.  Vampires?  "Okay, sure.  Whatever you say.  You just send me that photo.  I think I can handle this myself from here."

"Fine.  If you change your mind—"

"I won't."  She hung up the phone.  Vampires.  Good grief, the woman was insane.  And yet, even though she knew there were no such things, she thought it a pretty sick coincidence that she'd never seen Michael during the day.  And his odd reaction to her meal this morning.  As if he'd had to force himself to eat it.  An the way he could read her mind.  And how quickly and silently he managed to move.

And the things he'd said about the antigen creating a bond between them...

Sighing, Mary forced the ridiculous notion from her mind and walked back through the house, peering outside, seeing no one.  But it was dimming.  It would be dark soon.  He'd said he should be back by dark.

Just another coincidence?

Hell.  She would just have to be quick.

She went to his room, took the computer out of its case, booted it up right there on his bed.  Seconds ticked by while she waited for it to go through the motions.  Then she clicked on the wireless Internet connection button, and the thing logged on immediately.  As fast as her fingers could move, she typed in her online server an brought up her private e-mail account.  Then she waited, drumming her fingers, staring at the mailbox icon, waiting, waiting... there!  The little flag popped up.  She quickly accessed the e-mail, clicked on the paperclip icon and watched as, line by line, a photograph revealed itself on the screen.  Hair, the top of a forehead, eyebrows, and finally eyes and the bridge of a nose...

"Oh, my God..."

Line by line, his cheeks, his mouth, his chin.  All of Michael's face stared at her from beneath a date policeman's hat.  It was a photo ID, with his name and the date underneath.  Michael Gray, born 5 February, 1899.

"This can't be..."

"Mary?  Hey, Mary, are you here?" he called.

Mary stiffened and lifted her chin.  And then his bedroom door opened, and he stood there, staring at her an at the computer.  "Mary what's going on?"

Shaking her head slowly from side to side, she said, "I don't know.  But I think it's time you told me.  Don't you?"

"I don't under—"

He stopped speaking as she turned the computer to face him, so he could see his own face filling the screen.

*    *    *    *    *

He didn't know what to say, what to do.  If she could only have controlled her curiosity for one more day.  But God, they couldn't deal with all of this—not tonight of all nights.  Tonight was the full moon.  If she ran from him now...

"I can ex—"

"How?"

He pursed his lips, shook his head.  "All right.  Look, I really didn't want to get into this so soon.  Hell I didn't want to get into it at all.  I don't want to scare you away from me, Mary.  I'm not evil.  I'm only trying to protect you.  You have to believe that."

She got up off the bed, backing up a few steps.  He felt as if he were reliving his worst nightmare.  "So is that you in the photo?"

He hesitated.  "Mary, I'll tell you every thing but first—tell me where you put the gun I gave you."

She frowned, "Michael, what the hell does that have to do—"

"Please.  Deep down, you trust me.  You know me.  Just answer the question."

She licked her lips.  He knew she was afraid of him, yes, but she trusted him, too.  "It's in the guest room, next to my bed."

"You swear?"  He broke his promise, probe her mind to be sure she was telling the truth.

"Yes.  Now you answer my question.  I that you in the picture?"

"Yes."

"Then you're more than a hundred years old?"

He nodded.

"How can that me, Michael?  You don't look a day over thirty."

"I shouldn't look a day over twenty-nine.  That's how old I was when I was shot."

"By a member of the Capone gang?"

He closed his eyes.  "There were two gangs doing the shooting.  I got in between them."

He watched her face carefully.  There was no sign of panic.  No hint of hysteria he'd seen in Sally's face that night.  So far.

"Michael, I just got off the phone with some detective agency that told me you might be a... a... God, I can't even say it."

"Say it," he told her.

She held his eyes with hers.  "She said you might be a vampire.  Is that what you are, Michael?"

He chose his words with extreme care.  "Mary, I'll tell you exactly what I am.  I'm the man you see in front of you, the one who's been with you for days now, protecting you from a killer.  I'm the an you know inside and out.  Nothing about me is different from what you already know.  But there are some things about me that you don't know yet.  Things that are unique.  The don't make me a freak or a monster or a demon.  I'm still me."

She nodded slowly.  "Go on."

She wasn't losing it, not yet.  "I don't age.  If I go out in sunlight, I'll burst into flames.  And in order to keep from going stark raving mad or dying of slow starvation, I have to feed on blood.  But I don't kill.  I never kill.  I have never taken a human life.  Never."

She stared at him, then at the door behind him.

"I didn't want to tell you this, Mary.  I didn't want to see the fear in your eyes the way I'm seeing it now.  I'm not evil.  I'm not a monster."

"No, of course not," she said.  But in her min she was thinking she had to get away from him.  That she couldn't think straight around him, that this was just too much to understand all at once.  Humor him, she thought.  Just keep him calm and get the hell out of here.  He heard it all.

"I'm trying to protect you.  That’s all I'm trying to do."

"And I'm... so grateful"  She was only a few feet from the door.  He was still by the bed.  She was going to lunge fast to get past him.

He lowered his head, sighed, and let her see her chance while he wasn’t looking at her.  She ran for the door, but he moved, too, a burst of speed so fast that she collided with his chest.

"What?  How did you...?"

He put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her and also preventing her from backing away.  Her mind was reeling, telling her there was no way he could be there.  He hadn't moved.

"Everything I magnified in my kind, Mary.  Speed and agility, physical strength and stamina, and all the senses.

She shook her head firmly.  "No.  I don't believe it.  I won't believe it."

"What's the alternative, Mary?  That I'm insane?  Some kind of deluded madman?  Have I done anything up to now to make  you question my sanity?"

"Please, let me go.  Just let me go, Michael."

Sighing, his heart breaking, he closed his eyes.  "I can't let you go.  It's the full moon.  He's out there."

Great, she thought, so now she had to choose between taking her chances with maniac or facing a killer.  Unless...

"Don't.  Don't even think it.  You know I'm not a murderer."

"How?  How could I possibly know that, Michael?"  She was shivering now.  The fear in her eyes, the hurt an confusion he felt beaming from them, was so real.  And so was the caring.  She felt so much for him—he could see it clearly in her eyes, in her mind.  She didn't know why or how, but he cared about him.  Deeply.  Even now, after what he had confessed.

"I know," he whispered.  "I know, Mary  It's the same for me."

She lowered her head.  "Stop invading my mind!"

"Shhhh."  His hand cupped her cheek, turned her face up to his, and kissed her.  His mouth covered hers, moving, caressing with his lips.

Heat pooled in his groin when her arms slid around his neck.  He wrapped his around her waist, pulling her tight against his body, and his tongue parted her lips and explored her mouth.  She tasted so good.  His hips moved  against her, and hers moved in reply.  He burned for her, and though it made no sense to her, she wasn't even bothering to deny that she burned for him as well.  She wanted him, and she didn't care what he was.  His heart soared with that knowledge.

His hands cupped her buttocks, holding her even closer.  Then he slid one hand up her back, beneath the blouse she wore, skimming her back.  No bra strap blocked its path—she wasn't wearing one.

He pushed her legs with his own walking her backward until she hit the bed.  He lowered her onto it, breaking the kiss while his hands pushed her blouse up over her head and flung it aside.  The laptop slipped off the other side, hitting the floor, and he didn't even look up.  His attention was on her breast  He bent to nurse at one and used his fingers to attend to the other.  She lay there, writhing in response this sucking, the gentle nips and pinches that he made steadily less playful, steadily more forceful.  She was moving her  head now, from side to side on the mattress.  Her body was hot, on fire.  He caught her hands in his, then lifted his head away, pressing her hands to her breasts, guiding her fingers to her own nipples, and pressing tighter and tighter until she whimpered.  Then he slid lower, his mouth working it's way over her waist and belly, this tongue dipping into her navel.  He unfastened her jeans and tugged the off.  Then he pulled off her panties, as well; his hands parted her thighs, and he kissed her there.

"Michael," she whispered.

"Shhh.  Let me make you scream."  He pressed her wide open with his thumbs and kissed her again.  And then his tongue slider her, teasingly, easily, before finally driving inside.  He ravaged her with his mouth, tongue, teeth, driving her to the edge of ecstasy—an then he rose up over her again, naked, though she had no memory of him undressing, and he lowered himself atop her while his hands guided her knees apart.  He slid into her, and a shudder moved through her from head to toe.

She locked her legs around his hips, arms around his shoulders.  Her hands ran over his back, and he shivered at her touch.  She was beautiful, and wonderful, and she was his.  A fierce sense of possession overwhelmed him as he drove her higher.  Her nails sank into his flesh as if se would never let him get up.  She wanted him, all of him, something more than this physical joining.  She told him so with her mind, with her body.  It was a primal need, one that was foreign to her.  She could no more identify it than prevent the flood of her climax from washing over her.  He could identify it though.  He knew what she wanted.  It was the same primal instinctive urge that made her arch beneath him, tip her chin straight up and press his head to her throat.  And he answered, parting his mouth over the skin there, biting down.

The stab of pain was brief, the ecstasy that followed blinding both of them as he tasted her life and her essence, taking it into him, making them one.

*    *    *    *    *

When her mind returned from the stratosphere and her body finally stopped shuddering with aftershocks, Mary found herself lying naked in Michael's bed, held in his arms, her head pillowed by his shoulder and chest, while one of his hands rubbed lazy circles over her back.  Gradually she realized he was speaking to her, his voice soft and somewhat coarse.

"I'll never hurt you  No one else will, either, I promise you that.  I'll die before I'll let anyone harm you.  Know that, Mary.  You have to know that."

She blinked slowly out of her state of bliss and careful stock.  She was in bed with Michael.  He had just confessed to being a vampire, a theory that both the investigation agency and the local cop had apparently found to be perfectly believable.  He could move so fast that her eyes couldn't follow the progress.  He could read her mind.  And she thought he might have bitten her neck.

Frowning, she lift a hand to touch her neck.  She felt two tender spots in her skin.

Was it possible, she wondered, that she had just had sex with a vampire?  Did she even care?  She loved this man.

He was still talking, rubbing her and whispering assurances of his devotion.  "I knew the blood, the antigen, connected us, but it's more than that.  I swear it's more than that.  I've never felt this drawn to anyone.  Not ever.  Belladonna antigen or not."

She blinked and lifted her head.  "Michael, explain to me how this... this antigen connects me to you."

He met her eyes, his own seeming disappointed.  And no wonder.  She hadn't exactly responded to his pillow talk in kind.  And he must be honoring her request that he stop reading her thoughts again, or he would have known what she was thinking.  It was odd, but she was getting to the point where she could sense him when he was probing around inside her mind; it was almost visceral.  But she didn't feel it then.

"Every vampire was once a mortal with the belladonna antigen," he told her.

She frowned.  "So a person without the antigen...?"

"Can never become a vampire.  Those with it have the choice.  I was given that choice as I lay dying in a hospital bed, riddled with bullets, all those years ago.  I chose life."

'And... how does one become a vampire?"

He stroked her hair away from her face.  "Another vampire has to transform you.  He would first drain the blood, and then—"

"Drain the blood," she repeated, going cold all over.

"It isn't as frightening as it sounds."

"Perhaps not, but it was exactly the way the other women, all of whom shared the antigen, had been killed.  By being drained of their blood.  God, she felt as if she were being torn in half.  How could she be so in love with him and yet so afraid of him?  His power made him dangerous.  But not to her.  God, he could never be a danger to her.

"You shouldn't think about that, Mary.  It's not something you need to even consider.  Not now.  You're strong, healthy.  You will be for a long time yet."

"I hope you're right about that."

"I intend to make sure of it.  It's the first night of the full moon," he told her.  "And I plan to hold you close in my arms, safe and protected, until sunrise."

There was nothing she could do—and nothing she wanted to do more than spend the night in his arms.  Her questions could wait.

She relaxed in his arms.  And it felt so good, so safe and so perfect there, that she couldn't believe there could be any wrong in it.  Being with Michael felt like being reunited with some part of herself that had been missing all her life.

The made love again.  Then she needed a food break, and he admitted that he couldn't digest solid food, and that her breakfast had made him violently ill.  That he'd forced himself to eat it, knowing how he would suffer, touched her deeply.  No matter what else he was, Mary believed that his feelings for her were very real.

Then spent the entire night talking, laughing, making love.

And then, finally, he rose and pulled on his clothes as he walked to the front door, gazed out the window.

She stood behind him her hands sliding over his shoulders.  Why couldn't he be an ordinary man?  Why/

"I have to leave you, my love.  It will be dawn very soon."

"Why can't you stay here?"

He lowered his eyes.  "I—I can't.  I don't want you to see me as I am when I sleep."

She decided not to argue, although she wanted to  'All right."

He turned wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her deeply.  "You don't know what it means to me, Mary, that you didn't run from me when I told you what I was.  You can't know.  Someday... someday I'll tell you.  For now—just know that you have restored he pieces of a heart that was shattered.  No one else could have done that, but you did.

Tears.  There were tears welling up in his eyes.  Swimming there, not spilling over—he had too much will to let them spill, she thought.

He stroked her hair.  "Will you still be here when I come back?"

She nodded, looking him straight in the eyes.  "I will.  I promise you, Michael, I will.  I don't understand any of this, but I want to.  And I'm not afraid of you.  No matter what you are."

He averted his eye, blinking rapidly.  "Lock the door behind me."  He glanced up at the sky.  It was paling already.  And yet he waited.

She knew he was delaying the moment when he would have to leave, to protect her right until he simply couldn't do it any longer.  And finally, jut as the first ways of sun lit the sky, he kissed her once more, then opened the door and left at a brisk jog.

Mary watched as he crossed the road and vanished into the copse of woods just beyond.  She tried to bank her curiosity, but she couldn't.  She didn't fear him, didn't want to run from him.  But she had to know.  She had to know all of it.

He was long gone, of course, by the time she entered the woods.  She already knew how fast he could move.  It was no surprise.  The woods were till dark; the early shafts of dawn didn't penetrate them.  The warmth did, and as the dew-damp ground warmed, it released its moisture in the form of mists that rose from the ground, and swirled around her feet and ankles.  There was a path.  Difficult to see beyond the writhing silver mists, but there nonetheless.

Mary followed it.  It meandered through the woodlot, then ended abruptly at a wide-open field that as dotted with shapes hiding in the food.  Too short to be trees.  Perhaps shrubs of some kind.  A sound drew her attention, like a door closing, and she whirled toward it but saw only the shape of what appeared to be a miniature house among the shadowy shapes.

Then she squinted as one shape seemed to come clearer.  It had wings.  Angel's wings.  She moved closer, then went stock-still as the rays of the sun burned through the mist and it thinned, and she saw the stones all around her.  Tombstones.  Monuments.  A stone angel.  And the little house?  The little house was a crypt.

She was standing in the middle of a cemetery.  And unless she was very mistaken, her loved had just entered one of the crypts and closed the door behind him.  Swallowing the urge to turn and run, she reminded herself that this was Michael, her Michael.  She had to know where he spent his days.

She forced her feet to carry her closer... closer... to the crypt from whence the noise had come.

And then she stood right before it, staring up at the name engraved at the top.  M I C H A E L  G R A Y.

Chapter 10

Mary called ahead, then drove two hours to get to S.I.S., the investigations agency.  She had expected an office I a building in a town.  The place at which she arrived was none of those things.  It was a huge Victorian manor, recently renovated and stunning.

The supernatural investigations racket must be a lucrative one, Mary thought, as she drove Michael's Jag into the driveway and brought it to a stop.

And then she sat there for a couple of minutes, doing what she'd been doing during the entire drive.  Wondering if she had lost her mind.

When a person tells you he is a vampire, you should run away.  Any sane person would have spent the day putting as many miles between herself and Michael Gray as humanly possible.  But no.  She must not be sane, because she was up here on a fact-finding mission instead.  And she knew exactly what kinds of facts she was hoping to find:  facts that would tell her that it was going to be okay.  That there could be some kind of future with Michael.  That he'd told her everything now; there were no more secrets he was keeping for her.  She wanted validation.  She wanted to know everything about him.

Yes, she'd been thrown for a loop by what he claimed to be, and by seeing him a crypt with his name on it.  And yes, she was scared to death by everything that had happened over the past few days.  Not of Michael.  Never of Michael.  Nothing else that had happened was powerful enough to override the feelings that had been steadily growing inside her from the first time he'd walked into The Crypt.

Last night those feelings had filled her to overflowing.  They made her fears and her rational mind tiny by comparison.  She didn't want to run away from him.  She wanted to stay.  Maybe forever.

As she sat there, mulling all that over, the front door opened and a woman with short blond hair and a diamond stud in her nose stepped out onto the front porch, crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to one side.

Mary shut the car off and got out.

"Nice wheels," the woman said.  "I'm Stormy.  You must be Mary."

Mary nodded and walked up the steps to shake her hand.  "Good to finally meet you."

"You look like hell.  You okay?"

She ran her handover her neck, where Michael's teeth had pierce her skin.  It still tingled there.  "I'm not sure.  I think I was bitten by a vampire lat night, but I have no idea what that means."

Stormy held her gaze.  "Well, you're still alive, so I'm guessing it means you had a damn good night.  Lemme see."  She pushed Mary's hand aside and peered at her neck.  "Hell, I can't be sure.  The punctures heal the minute the sunlight hits them, but sometimes there's a tiny pink spot that gives it away."  She squinted and leaned closer.  "Yeah, there's still a trace."

Mary closed her eyes.  The woman was as matter-of-fact as if she were talking about the weather.  "Then...?"

Story smiled at her.  "You really don't know anything about any of this, do you?"

Mary shook her head.

"Come on  come inside and sit down.  I'll fix you some tea.  Max and Lou will be here any minute."  She took Mary's arm and led her inside.

The foyer was spectacular.  It took Mary's breath away, with the crystal chandelier, the antique furniture and the stunning staircase leading up to the second floor.

"We live in the main part of the house.  The library serves as our office.  Come on, it's right through here.."

She led Mary through a set of double doors and into a library.  The room contained two desks.  One was neat shiny, nothing but a computer on top.  The other held a computer but strewn with file folders and papers and coffee rings, and had a miniature of the Conspiracy Theory movie poster taped to one side.  There was a gas fireplace along one wall and comfy-looking leather chairs, a settee and rows and rows and more rows of books lining the walls.

"Have a seat.  I'll get the tea.  And relax.  You're not going to grow fangs or anything fro one vamp bite.  All right?"

She couldn't believe the amount of relief that rushed through her at those words the reassurance.  God, to think she had actually been worried about something as far-fetched as—hell, everything she'd ever believed to be real and normal and ordinary had been turned inside out in the past few days.  She didn't suppose anything was ridiculous at this point.

Story left her in the library, closing the doors behind her.  Mary started toward a chair, as instructed, but paused, drawn to the bookshelves as she noticed the titles on some of the spines.  The Kybalion, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Key of Solomon the King...

Every book on the shelf had some mystical title, and many appeared to be extremely old.  There were illuminated manuscripts from medieval times, for heaven's sakes.

"I see you appreciate our collection," a woman's voice said.

Mary turned to see her standing in the open doorway.  She was petite, with short copper hair and huge green eyes.  She reminded Mary of an imp or a wood sprite.  She was standing beside a man who wore dress pants and a white shirt that seemed baggy on him.  He was older than she was and had a tried look about him.  Stormy walked in behind them and closed the doors.

"Mary McLean, meet Maxine Stuart and Lou Malone.  The three of use are Supernatural Investigation Services.  Officially, at least."

"Officially?"

"Maxine smiled, coming forward, extending a hand.  "Yeah.  Unofficially we have a couple of silent but extremely helpful partners.  Call me Max."

Mary shook her hand.  "These books are incredible," she said.

"Thanks.  There's a lot of incredible and accurate information in those books, stuff we need in this business.  But you have to wade through a lot of superstitious bull and religious dogma to find it."

Mary didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"Have a seat," Lou said, "and let's hear what's been going on."  He nodded her toward one of the leather chairs, so she took it.  Story handed her a cup of steaming tea and sat down on the settee, while Maxine went behind the messy desk with the movie poster on it and sat there, booting up her computer.  Lou took the remaining leather chair.

"I hardly know where to begin," Mary said.

"Start at the beginning," the man said.  He had a gentle, easy way about him that made her feel both comfortable and safe.

"All right."

So Mary sipped her tea and told them everything from the very beginning.  She told them abut the phone calls an the break-in, about reporting both to the police.  She told them about Michael, how he'd just started showing up at The Crypt, watching her, until he'd finally asked for a ride home so he could warn her that her stalker was a serial killer an that she was next on his hit list.  And then she told them about Tommy's murder, the police suspecting her, and her going to Michael's place.  And that was where she stopped.

Maxine, who'd been clicking computer keys intermittently throughout the tale, and Lou, who had been patient and silent, both looked at her waiting.  She didn't say anything until Stormy prompted her.

"What happened last night, Mary?  After I e-mailed you the photo of the cop named Michael Gray who was killed in Chicago seventy-some years ago?"

Mary sighed, licked her lips.  She drank the last swallow of tea from the cup.  'He walked in while I was looking at the photo.  So I showed him, and I asked him to explain."

"And?"

She lowered her head, shaking it slowly.  "He told me he was... a vampire."  Unable to remain sitting, she got to her feet, paced a few steps, turned and paced back.  "I don't know what the hell happened after that.  My logical mind told me I should run, and yet I didn't.  I didn't want to  I'm not afraid of him.  I've got all these feelings for this guy that don't make any sense at all.  He says it's partly because of my blood... something about the antigen, but it sounds like science fiction to me.  But he says there's more.  And, I don't know...  He kissed me, and the next thing I knew, we were—I just..."  She stopped pacing, pushed a hand through her hair.  "We spent the night in bed together.  And he..."

"He drank from her," Stormy filled in.  "Not much, obviously.  She's not even pale.  Probably just got a little carried away in the height of... well, you know how it is with vamps."

"Hot-blooded little suckers, every last one of them," Maxine said with a wink and a grin at her own bad pun.  "So what happened this morning?  You guys resolve anything?"

She shook her head.  "He reminded me tonight's the full moon.  That's when this killer usually hits, and even though Tommy's dead and al evidence points to him, Michael says he can still sense danger around me.  He made me promise to be there when he returned.  And I did.  And then he left."  She looked at her feet.  "I followed him.  He went to a cemetery, into a crypt, I think.  It has his name across the top."  She hugged herself and shivered.

"It's not as creepy as it sounds, Mary," Maxine said.  "I mean, some of them have the insides of those things fixed up nicer than a deluxe suite at the Ritz."

She looked up slowly.

Lou said, "You have to understand, they need to be careful.  There are people who hunt them like animals.  And God knows, if there existence ever became common knowledge, there would be no peace for them."

"All they want," Stormy said, "Is to live their lives in peace.  They aren't murderous maniacs, the way pop culture depicts them.  They're just people.  Just like us, with a few notable differences."

She had gazed at each of them in turn.  They were speaking so casually about something that, until very recently she hadn't even believed in.  Her knees went weak, and she bent them, landing in the chair behind her.  "You're telling me this isn't a unique situation here?  Vampires are so common that you people know all about them?"

They nodded, all three of them.  Maxine turned her computer monitor toward Mary.  "And so is the string of murders Michael's been telling you about.  We've been following them ourselves.  All the victims had the belladonna antigen.  You have it, too so his concern for your safety is valid."

Mary nodded, letting all her breath escape her at once.  "I was so hoping you'd tell me just the opposite.  I mean, I believe Michael.  I've believed him all along.  But it would be nice if someone could tell me he was overreacting—that I was never really in danger."

"Sorry about that."

Drawing a breath, Mary squared her shoulders.  "Can you explain to me a little more about this... antigen in my blood?  And the bond Michael says it creates between us?"

Nodding, Max glanced at Lou.  He cleared his throat.  "First, hon, let me just tell you that in all honesty, five years ago, I thought this was the most far-fetched pile of horse manure anyone had ever tried to dump on me.  But I've seen the proof.  I know it's true.  It's a lot to digest all at once, but it's for real.  It's important you not get hung up too that part of it, because you need to get by it in order to make much sense of the rest."

"I'm trying, believe me."

He smiled at her, reached across the space between them and patted her hand where it rested on the arm of her chair.  "Some people have the belladonna antigen.  It's a rare one.  And those who have it have a few things in common.  For one thing, they tend to bleed a lot when cut.  Some to the point of hemophilia, but others not quite so bad as that.  It's tough to find blood donors when they do, because so few people have the antigen."

She nodded  "And what else?"

He lifted his brows.

"You said that was one of the few things we have in common.  What are the others?"

He sent a look toward Maxine.  She pursed her lips, moved her head almost imperceptibly from side to side.  They were keeping something from her;  she knew it then.  Why so many secrets?

"Well, there's really a lot more than we can cover here today," Lou said.  "But the main thing you need to know right now is this.  The only people who can become vampires are people with the antigen."

"The Chosen," she whispered.

"Yeah.  That's what the vamps call them.  They know who has the antigen and who doesn't.  They sense it somehow, and they have this instinctual urge to protect them.  Some of them fight it, some embrace it, but its extremely difficult for them to ignore.  For a vampire to harm one of The Chosen is a rarity.  It's almost impossible for them.  I've only heard of one or two cases of it, and those both involved vamps with obvious mental illnesses."

"That means it's highly unlikely Michael could be the killer," Maxine said.

"Unlikely, hell," Lou added.  "It's all but impossible.

Mary nodded.  "I know that about him, but it's good to have something more solid than my own feelings to base it on.

Max got up from behind the desk.  "There's some lore that suggests each vampire will feel a bond with one of The Chosen more powerfully than with any other.  It's suppose to hold true even if that person has been transformed before the two meet.  The antigen remains of course.  I don't know if it's true.  I think it was with Dante and Morgan, though.  I've never seen anything like the power of the bond between the two of them."

"Dante and Morgan?" Mary asked.

"My sister and her husband.  Our silent partners in the business.  Hadn't you guessed by now?  They're vampires."

Chapter 11

Vampires.  Maxine Stuart's own twin sister—the award-winning, supposedly deceased screenwriter everyone had been talking about a few years back—was alive and well.  Or undead and well.

And according to Max, vampires were very well depicted in her sister's films.  They were not Stoker's murderous monsters or Whedon's soulless demons.  They weren't even immortal.  Not really.  They could die by several methods, including incineration, blood and starvation.  But they did have souls, feelings, and they were fully capable of every so-called human emotion.

Mary got so caught up in learning everything about Michael what he was and what that meant, that she spent the entire day talking with Maxine, Lou and Stormy.  They pulled out DVDs of Morgan DeSilva's vampire films, played them and narrated, answering Mary's questions while making judicious use of the pause function  In between films, they told her tales of their own encounters with vampires in the five years since they'd first opened their agency.  Mary lost track of how many times they told her their lives had been saved by one of the undead.  They lamented that she couldn't meet Morgan and Dante to see for herself what they were like, but the couple were vacationing in Ireland, looking up  one of Dante's oldest and dearest friends while they were there.

By the time she'd heard all they had to tell her, Mary was convinced that her instincts had been on target.  There was no need for her to run away from Michael.  There were issues the two of them would need to address.  God, there were more challenges to this new relationship than she could even begin to think about now.  But he was exactly what he'd told her he was, exactly what she had known in her heart he was all along.  He was the man she loved.

They were all in the comfortable living room, in that private section of the house now.  The last video had ended, and the stories had wound down.  Maxine had left the room briefly, and she returned now with a file folder in her hands which she offered to Mary.  "I think you should look at these records" she said.  "This is just what's official.  I have no way of knowing what he's done since he crossed over, but once I saw this stuff, I had no doubt about Michael Gray's character.  I don't think you will, either.  Not that you seem to anyway.  But you said you wanted to know everything.  Did you even know how he came to be shot?"

Shaking her head slowly, Mary opened the folder, skimming its contents.  It held commendations, testimonials and a 1928 newspaper report headlined, Death of a Hero.

"There was a shootout between Capone's gang and a rival gang,"  Lou Malone said.  And when she detected the catch in his voice, she remembered that he'd told her he had been a cop for twenty years before retiring and joining Maxine in this business.

Maxine sat down beside him, put a hand on his shoulder.  It was a loving touch.  He patted it with his own; a friendly gesture.

"A seven-year-old kid, confused and scared by all noise, ran into the cross fire.  Michael Gray ran out of a perfectly good covered position, into the storm of bullets, threw himself on the kid and acted as a human shield.  The kid got nicked, nothing serious.  Gray took nine bullets.

He went silent then, his lips pressed tight.

"A man like that doesn't turn bad," Stormy said.  He changed, physically, from a dying mortal to a powerful vampire.  But inside, he's still the same guy.  The hero cop who died saving a little boy."

Maxine nodded.  "The official reports say that his wife, Sally, shot herself with Michael's service revolver the night after his death.  I've been doing some digging, and rumor has it that he went to her after he was changed over.  Told her what he was.  She freaked out and blew herself away, right in front of him."

"Oh, God."  Mary had tears streaming from her eyes now.  She reached out to clasp Stormy's hands.  "Thank you.  Thank you all.  I can't tell you how much you've helped me."

"Glad to hear it," Stormy said.  She glanced at her watch, then shook her head.  "We've been talking forever.  Why don't you join us for dinner and then we'll—"

"What time is it?"  Mary asked.  For the first tie she realized how long she must have been here, in the company of these people.  Three movies, hours of conversation—and the sky beyond the windows was already growing dim.  "Oh, no."

"What's wrong?"

"I... I promised Michael I would be there when he came home tonight.  If I'm not—he's going to think—"

"Look, we'll call him," Maxine began.

"I have to go.  I have to be there."  She surged to her feet and ran for the door over the protests of the others.  She couldn't bear the thought of Michael returning home an not finding her there.  He would assume that, like his wife so long ago she couldn't deal with what he was.  And it was the furthest thing from the truth.

*    *    *    *    *

Maxine looked at Lou as the Jag squealed out of the driveway and out of sight.  "She said the killer was dead.  And Dunst agrees with that, right?"

"She also said Michael Gray sensed she was still in danger," Lou said, and he pursed his lips looking up at the sky.  "Moons gonna be full tonight."

"You're right.  We'd better follow her.  But it's going to be damned tough to keep up with her, given what she's driving and the way she's driving it."

"Then we'd better hurry."

"I'll try to reach Michael Gray," Stormy said, as Lou and Max ran to the car.  "I'll let him know what's going on, where she is, just in case."

*    *    *    *    *

Michael emerged from the crypt at sundown and crept through the cemetery as the darkness gathered, until he reached the woods at the rear.  Once on the bath, out of sight, hidden by the trees an the night itself, he pushed for speed.  But instead of feeling closer Mary with every step, he only felt an eerie, ever-growing sense of emptiness.  He knew before he even saw the vacant spot in the driveway that she wasn't there.

Mary was gone.  She'd taken his car, and she'd left him.

He wasn't even surprised.  Gut-wrenchingly disappointed, but not surprised.  He ran around to the rear of the house, down the slope to the beach and searching the shoreline as if he expected to find her out there.  But he didn't find her, and he had known he wouldn't.

He hadn't sensed any doubts from her as she'd made love with him all through the night.  He hadn't tasted her fear in her blood.  She hadn't fallen apart, hadn't been driven insane to the point of taking her own life, the way his wife had when faced with the knowledge of what he had become.  Foolishly he had let himself believe that wouldn't change when she had time to mull it over by the cold light of day.  Obviously it had.

He stood there on the shore as the waves washed up over his feet and the self-pity washed up over his soul.  But not for very long.  As the upper curve of the huge, silver moon crested the horizon and its light trickled toward shore on the rippled mirror of the ocean, he stopped feeing sorry for himself immediately.  The beam of moonlight pierced the veil of his pain with the shattering reminder that tonight might very well be the last night of Mary's life.

He didn't panic.  He'd been a cop for too long to panic.  Instead, he ran for the house while his mind sought order within chaos.  Where the hell could she be?  How the hell could he find her in time?  He tried sensing her but she was either too far away or entirely closed off from him due to fear or revulsion  or both.

A phone was ringing when he entered the beach house.  And it wasn't his.  It took him three full rings to realize it was her cell.  Dammit, she'd been so eager to get away from him that she'd left her phone behind.  As well as all  her other belongings, he noted as he surged into the gust room and snatched up the phone.

"Mary?"

"No, I'm sorry," a man's voice said.  "Is this Michael Gray?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"This is Officer Dunst.  I've been working Mary McLean's case and the Tommy Campbell murder.  I just got off the phone with an investigator who's been working with Mary.  And I told her I'd contact you right after I phoned Mary.  Is she there?"

Michael's head was spinning.  "No.  She left the cell phone behind.  I don't know where she is."

"I might.  Mr. Gray, Mary spent most of the day in Easton with those investigators, and now, if all is as it should be, she's on her way back..."

So many questions shot through his mind.  He managed to ask them one at a time.  What investigators?  Where were they located?  What time had Mary left?  Was she alone?  He made rapid notes cutting the officer off every time he tried to interject anything extraneous.  He had no time for narrative.

Once he knew Mary had left half an hour ago from a place two hours north on Route 1, he started to hang up the phone.

"Wait, Mr. Gray.  There's more.  The reason I was calling in the first place."

"Make it fast.  I have to get to Mary."

"The body we found in Tommy Campbell's apartment—it wasn't him.  He apparently killed a vagrant, then burned the body to make us thing it was him.  We also learned that Tommy had a twin sister who died in a car accident at the age of ten.  She bled to death.  They couldn't find a donor in time to save her.  She had the antigen, Gray."

"Tommy's still alive," Michael said softly.  "And he's after Mary."

"I’m gonna take Route 9.  You take Route 1.  She could have gone either way."

Michael disconnected, walked rapidly from the house into the garage, hit the button to open the overhead door and swung one leg over the eat of his bike.  Seconds later he was speeding through the night toward Mary.

And the moon kept on rising.

*    *    *    *    *

Mary drove the Jag for all it was worth, not an easy task on a highway that meandered through scenic areas and small towns and had posted speed limits all along the way.  She never touched the break petal... not until she passed another car that was off the road sitting at a cockeyed angel with one door open.  A person was lying in the road, and she just barely managed to swerve and miss him.  Then she skidded to a stop on the roadside, slammed the Jag into Reverse and backed up to the accident.

She was reaching for her cell phone to dial 911 before she remembered that she'd left it at Michael's place.  Hell.  She got out and ran back to the victim.  A young man, lying very still, face down.

Kneeling beside him, Mary touched his shoulders gently.  "Hey, hey, are you all right?"  No response, but he felt warm.  She pressed her fingers to his neck and felt a pulse beating there, strong and steady.  "Come on, wake up now.  You have to wake up."  She knew better than to move him, but damn he was lying in the road.  Another car could come along and...

He moaned and rolled very slowly onto his back.

"Wait, maybe you shouldn't move just yet.  Hold on now."  Then she saw his face and felt the blood drain from hers.  ”Tommy?"

He smiled very slowly and punched her in the belly.  Pain lanced her and she jerked backward, her hands going instinctively to her middle.  Warm wetness coated them, and she looked down to see that he had a knife clutched in his fist.  He hadn't punched her.  He'd stabbed her.

"T-Tommy?  Why?  God, why?"  She tried to get to her feet, stumbled, but managed to get upright.  She managed two staggering steps towards Michael's Jag, and then he had her by the hair, pulling her backward as the blade plunged into her back.

A cry was driven from her lungs.

"You should have checked in with the police today, Mary.  They finished the autopsy—found out that the body they found in my bed wasn't even mine."

Pain racked her, and she fell to her knees again.

"They had to wait for the autopsy or they would have told you that sooner.  But it doesn't matter.  I'll be in a new town, using a new name, by this time tomorrow."

He came around to stand in front of her, his knife, dripping wit blood, still in his hand.  She forced her eyes upward, away from the blade, to his face.  Beyond his head, she saw the full moon rising ever higher in the sky.  "Why Tommy?  Just tell me why?"

"You mean your precious vampire lover hasn't told you by now?  About the vampire hunters?  People who dedicate their lives to eradicating his kind from the planet?  No?"

"But... but I'm not... not a vampire."

He smiled.  "And you never will be.  See, that's the beauty of doing it my way.  I take your kind out before you can ever become like them.  It's way more efficient."

'It's murder."

"To hell it is.  You aren't going to live much longer anyway.  Most of you never live to see thirty."  She frowned, shaking her head in confusion.  "What, he didn't tell you that, either?  It's a handy little side effect of having the kind of blood you have, Mary.  You get weak, you get sick and, unless they transform you, you die."

She closed her eyes.  He crammed the knife into her shoulder, and her eyes flew open wide again with her scream.

"I'll admit, you probably had a few more years in you.  But what the hell, now or later, it doesn't make any difference.  All that matters is that I prevent any more of them from being made.  You oughtta thank me, Mary.  I'm about to save your soul."

She was fading fast.  He eyes fell closed again, and she thought of Michael, wished to God she had let him tell her his story instead rushing off to find out for herself.  She loved him, and yet she'd given in to her need to know all.  What hadn't she trusted her heart?

She knew what was coming next.  She had read the autopsy reports on this man's other victims.  He would stab her repeatedly, and then he would hang her by her feet and slit her throat while she was still alive, so that everyone one of blood would drain from her body.

"Why do you hate them so?" she managed.

"Why?  Because they could have saved my sister," he told her.  "But they didn't.  Not one of them came around to help her when she needed it.  If she couldn't live, then I'm gonna make damn sure none of you do."

He stabbed her again, in the side this time.  She barely felt the pain, though.  She was already losing consciousness, and she whispered a prayer of thanks for that.

Chapter 12

Maxine pointed when she saw the two vehicles on the roadside.  "There!  Over there!"

Lou swung the car off the road behind the other cars, and was out and running forward, his gun in his hand, almost before Max got the words out.  She was right behind him, and she saw what their headlights illuminated.  A young man, spattered in blood, leaning over a woman who was soaked in it, typing a rope around her ankles.  As she ran, she saw the other end of the room was looped over the low-hanging branch of a nearby tree.

"Freeze, buddy, or you're history!"  Lou, when he was in cop mode, had a voice that carried as if helped along by a bullhorn.  "Back away from the lady."

The man, the killer, straightened.  He had a knife in his hand as he took two steps backward; then he dropped it, turned and raced into the woods.

"Take care of Mary," Lou barked, and he raced off after him.

"God, I hate when he does that."  Max knelt beside Mary McLean.  "Ah, hell, look at this," she muttered, as she tore at the woman's blouse, trying to decide which hole to plug first.  She'd already lost a great deal of blood.  Max knew too well that there would probably be no donor close enough to help her.  She ran to the car for the emergency first-aid kit she and Lou kept there.  God knew they'd had to stop profuse bleeding enough tie to know what to do.  Pressure bandages plenty of gauze.  She punched 911 into her cell phone then cradled it between her shoulder and ear, so she could use her hands to keep working on Mary as she spoke.  Stormy had phoned to tell her that Dunst and Michael Gray  were on the way taking alternative routs.  So Max told the 911 operator to let Officer Dunst know by radio what had happened and where.  Then she hung up, despite the operator's insistent "stay on the line," and tossed the phone aside.

Even as she worked, plugging one knife wound after another, Max was painfully aware that while she might stop the bleeding, she could do nothing about any internal injuries, much less replace the blood the woman had already lost.  She kept looking up, search the dark woods for some signs of Lou and the killer.  She didn't want her stubborn partner to be the bastard's next victim.

Then the sound of a motor drew her head up.  A single headlight accompanied the sound, and by the time the motorcycle was close enough for her to make it out clearly, it was already skidding to a stop, crashing to its side as the rider leaped off and ran forward.

"I hope to God you're Michael Gray," Maxine said as he ran forward.

He proved he was by falling to his knees and shouting, "My God, no!  Mary!"

Max gripped his shoulders hard, gave him a firm shake.  "She's lost a lot of blood, Michael.  He didn't cut her throat, but there are a lot of stab wounds and we're miles from a hospital.  I've called an ambulance, but they're half an hour out.  I've done everything I can.'

He stare into Max's eyes for a dozen heartbeats, and she thought he read her meaning perfectly well.  Then he pulled free of her hands and gathered Mary to his chest, bending over her stroking her hair.

"My partner's gone after Tommy.  I've gotta go back him up," Max said.  "This... this is up to you now.  Do what you think is right."

*    *    *    *    *

Michael held Mary close to him, an he could feel the life ebbing slowly from her body.  God, he didn't want to lose her.

"Michael..."

Her whisper came warm against his neck.  He eased her back a little, enough so he could see her face.  God forbid she should be even more frightened at a time like this.  But she might be afraid—of him.  She'd felt from him, after all.

"It's all right.  I won't hurt you, Mary.  I could never hurt you."

"I know that."  Weakly she lifted her hand to his cheek.  "It doesn't hurt anymore," she whispered.  "I think I'm dying, Michael."

"Hold on.  We've called an ambulance.  Help is on the way."  God, once again his revelation of what he was had driven a woman he loved to her death.  He couldn't bare it.

Mary's eyelids fell closed, but she popped them open again.  "I have to tell you... to explain..."

"It's all right.  Save your strength.  You don't have to explain to me.  I understand why you ran away."

She moved her head left, then right, and it seemed to take extreme effort.  "No.  I wasn't... running away.  I just... I had to know."

He frowned, not understanding.

"I had to understand... what you are.  What it means."  She paused seemed to force herself to breathe.

"So you went to... those investigators?"  It hurt that she hadn't brought her questions to him.  "You could have asked me, Mary.  I'd have told you anything.  Anything you wanted to know."

'And I'd have believed anything you told me."  She was battling to keep her eyes open, clinging to consciousness with sheer will.  "I had to talk to someone... someone I didn't love."

He closed his eyes in sheer anguish at her words.  She loved him.  My God, she loved him.

"I lost track of time.  But I was coming back to you, Michael.  I was coming back..."

Tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision, as he leaned closer, pressing his lips to hers.  When he lifted his head away, he whispered "I want to tell you that I love you, Mary.  But those words don't begin to describe what I feel for you.  It's beyond love—at least beyond what I thought love could be.  It's a force more powerful than heaven and earth combined."

"I know," she said.  Her voice was weaker now.  So weak he had to bend closer to hear her words.  "I feel it, too."  She stopped there, breathing hard, as if even the mere whispered words were taking every bit of strength in her.  "The ambulance... won't get here in time, will it, Michael?"

He could barely speak past the lump in his throat.  "No."  And then he forced himself to go on.  "But I'm here.  And, God help me, I don't want to let you go, Mary."

She stared into his eyes, her own fierce and determined, and with what had to be the last of her strength, she raised her head and forced out tow final words in the strongest voice she could manage.  "Then don't.”  Then her head fell back again, and her eyes closed.

Did she mean...?  Oh, God, he couldn't be sure.  Had the investigators explained this part to her?  How could he commit this act without knowing for sure?

He was out of time.  Mary was dying.  Her heartbeat, which he could feel as if it were his own, began to skip and stutter.  Her breathing stopped entirely.

He wasn't even certain he could save her at this point.

But he had to try.

The murderer's blade lay on the pavement near Mary's feet.  Michael reached for it, took it, and made his decision.  Using the tip, he pierced his own throat.  And then he gathered Mary closer and pressed her lips to the tiny font.  Closing his eyes, he willed her to swallow.

And finally, after what seemed an endless moment she did.

Her body went rigid in his arms, and her teeth clamped down on his kin in reaction to the jolt of power she tasted.  And then she relaxed, and she drank.

Suddenly she pulled her head away, her eyes open wide.  "Oh, God, oh God, it hurts!  Michael it hurts!"

He held her against him.  "I know.  I’m sorry, my love, I'm sorry.  We feel everything so much more than mortals do.  Including pain."

She cried out, her head arching backwards, the veins in her neck standing out.  "H-how long?"

"Until dawn.  Only until dawn.  Then you'll sleep, and you'll heal."

The woman, Maxine, and the man he assumed was her partner emerged from the forest while Mary writhed and whimpered in agony.  The man held Tommy in a firm grip.  Maxine hurried forward knelt beside Michael, her gaze going from him to Mary, who was grating her teeth against the pain.

"Michael, we can help you.  Both of you.  Get the medical kit and bring it here."

Michael looked where she pointed, spotted the large white box on the pavement on the other side of Mary and fetched it as quickly as he could.  "I don't know what you can do for her," he said as he set the box beside Maxine.  "I... she..."

"She's one of you now.  I can see that, Michael."  She thrust a square bandage into his hand.  "Put that on the cut in your neck.  It's still bleeding.'

He took it, did as she suggested and watched Maxine work.  She pulled a cellophane-wrapped hypodermic needle fro the ox, tore off the wrapper and then pulled out a vial and inserted the needle into its end.

"What is that?  What are you doing?"

She was intent on her work, tipping the bottle upside down, drawing the fluid into it.  "You ever heard of DPI, Michael?"

He nodded.  "They used to hunt us," he said.

"They also used you as guinea pigs.  I got hold of some of their files several years ago.  Their research has turned out to be damn useful.  This stuff, for example."  She pulled the needle from the vial, snapping her fingers against it a few times.  "It's a tranquilizer they developed to keep their prisoners sedated—the only one in existence that works on vampires.  I'm going to give her a small dose.  She'll rest easy until sunrise comes."

Michael looked from the woman to the man.  Could he trust them?

Mary cried out, and he knew her pain was beyond endurance.  "All right," he said.  "Do it."

Maxine nodded and leaned over Mary, injecting her quickly and expertly.  Immediately Mary's face eased.  She relaxed her body, breathed a heavy sigh.  "Oh, thank you.  Thank you," she whispered.

Maxine smiled as she stuck a Band-Aid over the injection site.  "You're going to sleep in a minutes.  The next time you wake, you'll be fine.  I promise.  Okay?"

"Yes."

Max turned to Michael.  "Get her somewhere safe.  Watch those wounds until morning.  If they start bleeding again, we could still loose her."

"I won't leave her for a minute."

"We'll take the bike back to our place," she went on.  "You can pick it up tomorrow night.  Mary knows where we are."

He nodded, more grateful than he could imagine.  Then he glanced at the prisoner.  "What about Tommy?"

"Tommy's going to prison," Lou said.  "Or maybe the mental hospital.  Either way he'll never see daylight again.  Mary's a missing person now, and the police are on their way as we speak.  Even without a body there's enough of Mary's blood here to convince them that she couldn't be alive.  A lot of it is on Tommy-boy.  It's not our fault if he refuses to tell us what he did with the body.  He was stalking her, faked his own death.  I've got no doubt further investigation will link him to the other murders, as well.

"You can't do this," Tommy muttered.  "They can't live."

"Yes, they can, pal," Maxine said.  "Happily ever after, if you ask me."  She packed her med kit and loaded it into the car as Lou put Tommy into the back seat.  Then she went back to the motorcycle stood it upright and climbed aboard.  Lou pulled away with the car and the prisoner, and Max followed on the bike, riding it as if she knew how.

As gently as he could, Michael scooped Mary up into his arms and carried her towards the Jag.

"I'll get your seats all bloody," she whispered.  Her speech slurred, and she was fading fast—not into death like before, but only into sleep.  Painless, restful sleep.

"I don't care about the seats, Mary."  He opened the door and eased her down on the passenger side then worked the control to lower the back of the seat, so she was reclining.  "How's that?" he asked.

"Mmm."  She sighed.  "I feel so strange, Michael.  Everything seems... different."

"Everything is different."  He ran a hand through her hair.  "You're different now.  Do you understand that, Mary?"

She nodded gently.  "It's what I wanted."

"I wasn't sure."

Smiling very crookedly up at him, she said, "I know.  But I love you, Michael.  And I'm not like she was...  I don't want to die rather than accept something new and different.  I want to live.  I want to love you for as long as the universe will let me.  Forever, if that's possible."

"How did I ever find you?" he whispered, awe making hi shake his head slowly.  "How did I ever get so lucky as to find you?"

"I don't think luck had anything to do with it"

He kissed her, long, lingeringly.  "Sleep, my love.  When you wake, I'm going to show you a whole new world.

She smiled gently and let her eyes fall closed.

--9 Edge of Twilight (2004)--

ISBN 0-7783-2022-7

EDGE OF TWILIGHT

Copyright © 2004 by Margaret Benson.

Visit us at www.mirabooks.com

Printed in U.S.A.

This one is for you, though I've never known your name,

You, gentle-voiced spirits who whisper to me,

Who speak louder in case I didn't hear,

Who shout if I remain unmoved,

Who kick my shins until I either bleed,

Or take heed.

This one is for you.

You, eternal muses

Who shake me from the depths of sleep with an idea,

A scene,

A story that must be told,

You who drag my mind away from conversation,

And put that blank stare in my eyes, and silence my lips,

So that friends and family think me rude and inattentive,

Because suddenly, I can hear only you!

This one is for you,

Goddess of the Storytellers of old,

You who make me run stop signs,

And leap up from a public meal,

My exclamation nonsensical to any who might hear

As I race off to find a computer,

A pad and pen,

An eyeliner and paper napkin,

Anything!

Anything to capture your whisper, your breath,

My inspiration.

This one is for you.

Hell, they all are.

Prologue

Summer, 1959

"The guy actually pissed himself, I scared him so badly," Bridget said, laughing as they cut through the alley, jumped up onto the skeletal remains of a fire escape and swung inward through the broken window to land on the floor far below. The abandoned warehouse's floorboards were cracked from these oft repeated impacts. But it was home to the Gang of Five.

Edge loved the kid. But he wasn't happy with her right now. He tousled her Orphan Annie curls, knocked the matching barrettes askew. Twelve years old when she was made over; twelve she would remain, even though she'd been undead for more than a decade now. He'd found her on the street, wandering, alone. Orphaned by her maker, just as he'd been. Just as they all had been.

"So who the hell was he?" he asked.

Shrugging, Bridget climbed a ladder to the loftlike second floor, where they always met after a day of scavenging to divvy up the take. Edge didn't climb, he jumped. When he landed, a little cloud of dust rose up.

"Nice entrance," Ginger said without getting up from where she sat on the floor, her voice dripping sarcasm. She dressed all in black, kept her short hair and dagger-sharp nails that color, too, as if trying to live the cliché.

She brushed the dust from her black jeans as if he'd put it there deliberately.

"Quit your bitching, Ginger," Bridget snapped.

"Watch your mouth, pipsqueak."

Bridget spun on her, and Ginger leaped to her feet.

"Hey, hey, knock it off!" Baby-faced Scott got to his feet, as well, putting himself between them. "Come on, what's your problem, anyway?" He was skinny but strong. As strong as any of them were, at least, which was damn strong in comparison to humans. As vampires, they were kittens. "Fledglings" was the term Edge had heard older ones use. Both Ginger and Scottie had been undead for less than five years. She'd been eighteen, and he'd been a year younger, when the change occurred. Babies. But that was why they needed each other. And why they needed him.

Ginger and Bridget didn't show any signs of backing off. Scottie's blond, blue-eyed head and rail-thin build were hardly any more intimidating than his butter-soft voice.

"Settle down," Edge said. He said it sternly. "Now."

Blinking guiltily, the females parted. They always followed his orders. Edge hadn't applied for the job of leader of this little gang, it had just fallen to him naturally. He was the oldest. He'd been twenty-three when he was made over, which was older than any of them had been. And he'd been a vampire longer than any of them. Twelve years now. The hideout was his own. They'd just sort of… followed him home, one by one, until he had this gang of homeless vamps. A natural progression, he figured. He'd been part of a street gang in Ireland, the year he'd been transformed. Though that gang had been different Homeless toughs, each trying to out-tough the others. This little group… damned if they hadn't become almost like—a family.

Edge loved them, every one of them. He took care of them. And they looked to him to lead, trusted him to protect them, for some reason. His age, his experience, he didn't know. It was just the way things had worked out.

"So where's Billy Boy?" Ginger asked. "He should have been back by now."

Bridget shrugged and opened her backpack. "I took a mark all by myself today," she said, dumping out the contents. A wallet, cuff links and expensive watch fell out onto the floor.

"And as I've already reminded you, Bridget," Edge began, "you're not supposed to—"

"Hell, Edge, I'm not really twelve, I only look it." She smiled, deep dimples in little-girl cheeks. "You should have seen this guy," she said to the others. "College student, I think. Young, maybe a freshman. Rich as hell and looking lost. Probably his first time in the big city, right? So I spotted him on the street, caught a glimpse of the Rolex on his wrist and decided it was too good to pass up. So I got ahead of him a little ways and ducked into an alley. When he came past, I called out in this sweet little girl voice." She softened her tone, raised its pitch to a plaintive, innocent whine. "Help me. Please help me, mister."

Edge frowned but saw the rapt attention on the faces of the others.

"So he comes walking into the alley, and that's when I jumped him." She shrugged. "Heck, I was hungry anyways."

"Bridget, you didn't kill him, did you?" Scottie asked, while sending Edge a worried look. "We don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

"I didn't drink enough to kill him. Just scared the hell out of him. Quenched my thirst, too." She licked her lips. Then she smiled, falling back into her story. "I jumped onto his back, wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck and bit him hard. He was so scared he wet his pants! I laughed my ass off!"

Scottie muttered, "Oh, Bridget," shaking his head slowly. "What did this poor fellow ever do to you?"

"Leave her alone, Scottie," Ginger barked. "It's survival of the fittest out here. Kill or be killed. We do what we have to. Besides, she didn't hurt him."

"She didn't have to scare him that badly, either."

Bridget rolled her eyes. "All I took were his watch, wallet and fancy-schmancy cuff links," she insisted.

"You took a lot more from him than that, Bridge," Scottie said. "You took his pride."

Edge found himself agreeing. "Moreover, you put the rest of us at risk, Bridget," he told the girl. "What do you suppose this man is going to do now? What if he goes to the police or the press, and talks about a little girl with superhuman strength who stole his wallet and bit his neck?"

"He won't," she said with a smile. "He's a man, after all. He has his ego to think about. It's bad enough he has to live with the memory. He'd never dream of admitting it to anyone else. Besides, who'd believe him?" She grinned. "You should have heard him when I left him there, lying in the garbage with his pissy pants and bleeding neck. He starts screaming at me, swearing he'll get revenge. So I turn around and I say, 'Yeah, I'm real scared of a man who wets his pants in fear of a little girl with sharp teeth.'" She threw her head back and laughed. "That shut him up in a hurry."

Edge sighed, a dark feeling creeping over his soul. Bridget was not developing any sort of empathy, nor any moral values, despite his efforts to instill a modicum of something like ethics. Take only what you need, don't harm the innocent unnecessarily, that sort of thing. Scottie had a heart as big as the night, but he'd been that way before the change, Edge suspected. Ginger had just been mean, and she'd only grown meaner, and Bridget hadn't been old enough to know what she would have become. She seemed to be modeling herself after Ginger, though, more than any of them.

He took the wallet Bridget had stolen, removed the driver's license from it and examined the photo of a rather handsome young man with dark hair and eyes. "Frank W. Stiles," he read. "He's twenty-one." He flipped through the wallet, finding little else of interest, other than a business card with a phone number on it and the letters "DPI" embossed in black on its surface. He didn't know what that was, but the name on the card was J.D. Smith, and the title that followed it was "recruiter." Apparently the young Mr. Stiles was being courted by some company. Must be a gifted student.

Sighing, Edge shook his head. "What's done is done, I suppose. But you and I are due for a long talk, Bridget."

Sighing, he put the license and business card back, and tossed the wallet onto the floor. "How did the rest of you do?"

"Got seventy-five in cash and three credit cards," Scottie said. "I used that mind control technique you taught us, Edge. If it worked, none of them will remember a thing. And since I only took a little cash and one card from each victim, they'll just assume they misplaced their missing cards. Probably won't even miss the cash." He looked at Bridget as he spoke, as if it would help her get the message. "See, kid? It can be done without scaring them half to death and announcing our presence to the world."

Bridget stuck her tongue out at him.

"I got three hundred bucks and a diamond bracelet," Ginger added, her expression smugly superior. "One victim. I hid in the back of her limo, knocked the driver out and waited. She got in, and I snagged the purse and bracelet and hopped out the other side. She barely knew what hit her."

"Poor little rich bitch, I hope she wasn't too traumatized," Bridget said.

Scottie knew the remark was directed at him. "Just because she's wealthy doesn't mean she deserves to be harmed or frightened, Bridget."

Edge sighed. "Add the cash to the till. We'll hock the rest." He glanced at the Rolex, which had Frank Stiles's name engraved on its back. "It'll be dawn in two hours. I'm going back out to look for Billy Boy. I don't like that he's this late."

"Will we have enough to get out of here soon, Edge?'' Bridget asked.

She wanted a place in the country. A safe place where they didn't have to worry about being discovered some sunny day while they slept. Frankly, he thought it was going to take a lot more than the pittance they managed to take in from petty crime and picking pockets. He was going to have to think of something better, something bigger.

"Soon," he told Bridget. "Real soon, hon."

Then he went out. But he didn't find Billy Boy. Not until he came back, just a little while before dawn, and found all of them.

They were hanging upside down from the beam that supported the loft. Ropes had been tied around their ankles and looped over the beam. The floor beneath them was soaked in their blood. Every one of their throats had been cut.

Ginger, Billy Boy, gentle, sweet spirited Scottie, and his precious little Bridget. Dead. Murdered. The sight knocked the breath out of him, made his body go limp, and Edge fell to his knees. He didn't need to check their bodies to know they were gone. The stench of death was powerful. He'd felt it from the moment he'd neared the warehouse, and he'd run full speed the last several blocks.

But he was too late. His little misfits, his fledglings who'd depended on him to keep them safe, had been murdered.

He closed his eyes against the pain, but that didn't ease it. And finally he had to face the grim task ahead. He had to take care of them one last time. He climbed up to the loft to cut them down. And there on the floor he saw the little pile of stolen wallets, cash and credit cards, right where they'd been when he'd left. A few new items had been added to the pile, Billy Boy's take, no doubt. The diamond bracelet glittered up at him. Apparently the killer hadn't been interested in it.

And yet, Edge noticed, there were a few things missing from the pile.

Frowning, he moved closer. The Rolex was gone. The cuff links, too. And the wallet that had belonged to the man named Frank W. Stiles.

Blinking slowly, Edge realized that the man had come back. He'd had his revenge, just as he'd promised he would. How he'd done it, Edge didn't know. One man against four vampires? It seemed impossible. And yet it had happened.

Edge closed his eyes, vowed vengeance on the man who'd murdered his family. "You'll pay, Frank Stiles," he said aloud. "If it takes me an eternity, I will find you, and you will pay."

Chapter 1

Present Day

There was no way the woman could have known he was waiting in her apartment when she walked in that night. She couldn't hear him, because he made no sound. She couldn't detect his body heat, because he didn't emit any. He had all the advantages. He could see her just as well in the dark as he could have in full light. Maybe better. He could hear every sound she made, right down to the steady beat of her heart and the rush of blood through her veins. He could smell her. Strawberry shampoo, baby powder scented deodorant, aging nail polish, a hint of perfume, even the fabric softener scent that lingered on her clothes.

She stepped into the dark apartment, closed the door behind her and turned the locks, all without reaching for a light switch. She leaned back against the door and heeled off her shoes, shrugged the heavy looking handbag from her shoulder, along with her coat, and draped them both over a hook on the tree near the door. Still no light switch.

She sighed and padded across the carpet, sank onto the sofa, let her head fall backward. She worked as a nurse at an elementary school in rural Pennsylvania, spent her days wiping bloody noses and checking heads for nits. A far cry from her former career.

He waited until she'd closed her hand unerringly on the remote control and aimed it at the television before he spoke. "Don't turn that on."

The remote dropped to the floor, and she shot to her feet with a broken cry, her hands pressing to her chest as she searched the darkness with wide, frightened eyes.

"No need to be afraid," he said, stepping from the darker shadows near the door into the slightly lighter ones that surrounded her. She could see him now, just barely. A black silhouette in the darkness. To help her out, he shook a cigarette from his pack, put it to his lips, fired it up. He watched her fear deepen as the flame briefly lit his face. He took a long pull and released the smoke while she stood there with her heart pounding like a rabbit's. "I didn't come here to hurt you. I will, of course, if you make me. I'd probably enjoy it. But ultimately, it's up to you."

"Wh-who are you? What do you want?"

He rolled his eyes at the utter predictability of the questions. "Sit down. Relax. I only want to talk to you." He held out the pack. "You want a smoke?"

"N-no." She sat down, just barely perching on the very edge of the sofa, shaking from head to toe. "B-but… "

"But what? Go on, ask. The worst I can do is say no. What do you want?"

"Could you t-t-turn on a light?"

"No." He smiled, amused by his own little joke. "See? That wasn't so bad, was it?"

She let her head fall forward, catching her face in her palms. Crying now. God, he hated crying women. He reached out for a handful of the blond hair on the very top of her head, tugged her head upward. It didn't cause her any pain, but she whimpered anyway. "Come on, now. I'm going to need your full attention for this."

She sniffled, wiped her eyes, squinted through the darkness at him. If she could see him at all, he supposed she could probably see his hair. He didn't really care. He'd only refused to turn on the lights because she wanted them on. He needed her uncomfortable, afraid and off balance.

"So here's the thing," he said. "I've been hunting for this man for…oh, more than forty years now. And during the course of my search, I found that he had a connection to you. A recent one, in the scheme of things. So here I am."

"What man?" Her voice was only a whisper now.

"Frank Stiles." He saw the way she jerked in reaction, then tried to hide it.

"Why is it you're looking for this… Stiles?"

He didn't have to answer. But he answered anyway. "He's a vampire hunter. I'm a vampire, you see. Thought it might be fun. Turn the tables, hunter becomes the hunted and all that."

"Oh God, oh God… "

"I understand you worked for Stiles five years ago or thereabouts." He took another drag, blew a few smoke rings. "That true?"

"No. I… I never heard of him."

He moved his hand too fast for her to follow it, gripped her throat and squeezed. He kept the pressure light, just enough to cut off the air supply and reduce the blood flowing to her brain, enough to make her panic. Not enough to crush her larynx. She would be no good to him dead. He lifted her right off the sofa by her throat, while taking another drag from his smoke with the other hand. Then he let her go. She fell sideways onto the sofa, and her hands shot to her throat as she gasped for breath.

"You're going to tell me what I want to know before this night ends. It really doesn't matter to me how much pain you want to withstand before you talk. As I said, I'll probably enjoy it more if you make me hurt you. It's all the same to me." He sat down on the easy chair near the sofa, smoking and giving her time to catch her breath.

"Your name is Kelsey Quinlan," he said at length. "You are a Registered Nurse. You work at Remsen Elementary. Is all of this correct?"

Dragging herself upright again, still pressing a hand to her throat, she nodded.

"And five years ago, you worked for Frank W. Stiles as a research assistant. Is that correct?"

"Yes. I did. B-but—"

"Shhh. Just answer my questions. I'm not here to punish you for your crimes, whatever they may be."

She lifted her head, swallowed hard. It hurt when she did. He felt it. "He's the one you want to punish, isn't he? What are you going to do with him when you find him? Kill him?"

"Oh, I've already killed him. A couple of times, actually. Oddly, the man keeps recovering."

The hand that had been rubbing at her throat went still, and the woman's face paled in the darkness. "That's… not possible."

"That's what I thought. But I killed him really well the second time. Honestly. He was very, very dead. And then… well, then he just wasn't." He shrugged. "So what I need to know from you is just what kind of research he was doing when you worked for him?"

Her eyes shot wider. He smelled her fear.

"I'm not going to punish you, Kelsey. I already told you that." Again he shrugged. "Unless you're into that kind of thing, in which case—" As he said it, he reached for her.

"I didn't do anything to the girl! It wasn't me. It was all Stiles. I swear it."

He didn't touch her, lowering his hands slowly now that he had her talking. The taps were turned, the pump primed. The information would flow now. "What girl would that be?"

She blinked slowly. "The captive he held five years ago. The half-breed vampire."

He nodded slowly. This was in keeping with what the soldier-for-hire who'd worked on Stiles's security force had told him—after a lot of persuasion.

"Did this… half-breed have a name? Or did you just assign her a number?"

"She called herself Amber Lily Bryant. In the files she was Subject X-l."

Amber Lily. The Child of Promise. Then she did exist. He'd heard stories, of course. What vampire hadn't? But he'd pretty much dismissed them as legends. And the soldier he'd questioned had been ill-informed about what went on inside the old house in Connecticut where Stiles had conducted his "research." Still, he needed to test his witness, to make sure.

"This girl—she was a half-breed vampire, you say?"

The woman nodded.

"I think you're lying. There's no such thing. You're making up tales to distract me from my purpose here. Everyone knows vampires are infertile."

"Only the males. The females seem to ovulate for the first few months after being transformed. I thought—I thought you already knew. I thought all of you knew about all this."

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now, he thought. She was staring at him as if she could see his face. "Why don't you pretend I don't and fill me in?"

Nodding rapidly, she seemed to search her mind. "There was a mortal, one of the Chosen. You know about them—the only humans who can become vampires. They all have the same rare Belladonna antigen in their blood."

"And they all tend to die young if they aren't transformed. I know all that, go on."

She nodded. "Well this mortal, a male, was mated with a newly transformed vampiress, and X-l was the resulting offspring."

He pursed his lips. "This was a DPI experiment, I take it?"

She nodded. "Yes. It all took place before the Division of Paranormal Investigations was dismantled. Stiles worked for them then. I believe he was directly involved with the experiment. But a group of vampires attacked the research facility—"

"Research facility." He snorted. "Extermination camp, you mean."

"The parents escaped with the child." She lowered her head. "That's all the background I was given on her."

He nodded slowly. "So even though DPI was never restored as a functioning government agency, Frank Stiles continued the work on his own. And part of that work included hunting and capturing this half-breed child who'd escaped them years before?"

"Apparently so. But she was hardly a child by then."

"No?"

She shook her head. "Eighteen when he held her in Connecticut." Her eyes shifted, downward and then left.

"I did my best to protect her while he kept her. And she was still alive when the vampires came and broke her out." She met his gaze again and maybe saw the doubt in it. "They didn't kill me when they came for her, surely that should tell you something."

"As a rule, my kind tend to get squeamish about coldblooded murder—even when it's deserved. That they left you alive tells me nothing other than that they had weak stomachs." He shrugged. "I'm something of an exception to that rule, myself."

She sat very still, holding her breath.

"Stiles held the girl for how long?"

"I… don't remember exactly. A few days. No more."

"And he performed experiments on her?"

She lowered her head. "Yes."

"Details, Kelsey. I need details." He reached for her chin, tipped her head up so she faced him. "And I'll know if you're lying. I know you were lying about trying to protect her. You were as cruel to her as any of them. Fortunately for you, I don't give a damn about that. My interest is in Stiles. So tell me—and tell me everything."

The woman licked her lips, and he knew she believed him. She should.

"He wanted to know what kinds of powers she had. Whether she was immortal or not. What could kill her. That kind of thing. He kept her drugged, though, so she wasn't aware of most of the experiments. She probably didn't feel a thing."

"Really." His belly knotted just a little. "And what kinds of things didn't she feel, Kelsey?"

She drew a breath, had the decency to look ashamed. Her voice a bare whisper, she said, "Electric shock, enough to stop her heart, just to see if it would start again. Drowning, to see if that would kill her. Various toxins introduced into her bloodstream at fatal doses. Blood letting. Blows to the head."

"Jesus," Edge muttered.

"She revived every time, and she was long gone before he could try things like bullets to the brain or wooden stakes to the heart."

Edge rolled his eyes. Stakes indeed.

"She seems to age like a human. At least, she had the appearance of a normally aging eighteen-year-old, but she revivifies like an immortal."

"And what else?"

She shrugged. "He took the usual samples. Blood, lots and lots of blood. Tissue, hair, bone marrow."

"What did he do with them?''

She looked at him hard. "I don't know. I thought he was trying to map her DNA, but he kept a lot of his work secret Used to lock himself in a private lab for hours on end. One of the others who worked for him thought he had two sets of notes, one we could see and the other for his eyes only." She shrugged. "I caught him once, injecting himself with something. But I never knew what it was."

He pursed his lips. He suspected that Stiles had been trying to imbue himself with whatever it was that made the girl immortal—trying to steal her immortality, and whatever other powers she possessed, for himself. And it looked as if his suspicions were true. The bastard wanted to find a way to live forever without becoming a vampire, without being one of the Chosen, possessing the antigen. And maybe, Edge thought, he'd succeeded.

"In all the experiments, did Stiles ever find the girl's weakness? Did he ever find out what would kill her?"

She closed her eyes. "Not to my knowledge, no. If he had, she wouldn't have been alive to escape."

It didn't matter, Edge thought. He would. He would find Amber Lily Bryant, and when he did, he would find her vulnerability. Her poison. Her kryptonite. Because whatever it was, it would be the weapon he needed to kill Frank Stiles.

And for more than four decades, his one goal in life had been to kill Frank Stiles.

No half-breed vampiress was going to stand in his way. Not even the so-called Child of Promise.

He dropped the burned out butt of his cigarette onto the carpet, ground it under his heel as he got to his feet. "You've been very helpful, Kelsey."

She closed her eyes, sitting very still. "And now you're going to kill me, aren't you?"

"Thanks, but I've already eaten." He smiled at his own joke, but she didn't seem to pick up on the humor. "You're no threat to me, Kelsey Quinlan. You've told me what I need to know, and I doubt you're stupid enough to try to warn Stiles, even if you knew where to find him, which you do not. I've been reading your thoughts all evening. So given all that, why do you think I would kill you now?"

"For my crimes against… your kind."

He shook his head as he strode toward the door. "I don't give a damn about my kind."

Amber pulled her low-slung black Ferarri into the driveway of her parents' palatial home—no matter where they lived, it was always palatial—at midnight. This one was a Georgian red-brick mansion in an isolated little inlet of Lake Ontario's Irondoquoit Bay. It had come complete with secret passages and hidden escape routes and was one of their more recent acquisitions. The house on Lake Michigan had had to be sold five years ago.

Secretly, Amber loved it here far more. Maybe because, for the first time, she'd begun declaring her independence.

"So what do you suppose this 'family meeting' is about?" Amber asked, glancing across the seat at Alicia. "Another reasoned attempt to get us to move back in with them?"

Alicia released her seat belt and opened her door. "So far they've kept their promise not to pressure us on that.''

"Yeah, in exchange for us staying within a twenty-mile radius."

"After our little adventure in New York, Amber, we're lucky they didn't have us imprisoned in a convent somewhere."

"God, it's been five years already." Amber opened her door, and they both got out. She closed the door and hit the lock button on her key ring. "What do you suppose the statute of limitations is on something like that, anyway?"

"For normal families, or ours?" Alicia asked. She shrugged, running a hand along the smooth shiny black fender of the Ferarri. "Still, I don't suppose normal families buy such nice presents for their wayward daughters." She wiggled her brows. "Though I still think you should have gone with the little red 'vette. Then we could match."

"That would just be too cute, 'Leesh." Amber rolled her eyes, flung back her hair and walked side by side with her sister—and she didn't much care how official or unofficial it was, Alicia was her sister. It was an odd family, an odd, overprotective, obscenely wealthy family. The girls had two mothers, always had. One vampire, one mortal. And Amber's father watched over and protected all of them—even though he looked young enough to be their brother.

Which was why she hadn't told him about the dream that had been plaguing her for more than a year now. A dream that intrigued her—and terrified her, though she wasn't sure why. Her dreams tended to be precognizant, and everyone knew it. So there was no reason to trouble the entire tribe until she'd figured out what this one meant.

Just who the hell was the blond-haired vampire with the fiery eyes that made every part of her being turn molten when they locked with hers? And what was in the ornately carved box he handed to her that made her heart turn to ice with dread? She could never remember. Never. But there was a cold certainty in her mind that what the box contained… was death. She didn't understand what that meant. But she believed it. The tear in the vampire's eye as he handed her the box was too real to be denied. Death. Whoever he was, he would bring her death.

Amber closed her eyes and focused her mind on her mother, ordering herself to lock the dream away and keep it entirely to herself. We're here, Mom.

By the time the two were on the steps, Amber could hear the locks turning. The door was flung open, and Angelica, beautiful and forever young, was wrapping her arms around both of them. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here. You just don't know."

Amber hugged her mother hard, then stepped away. "Mom, we're here every weekend. How could you possibly miss us already?" And that was when she picked it up—the tense, sad vibe her mother couldn't have hoped to hide from her. Worry. Grief, even. She felt her blood rash to her feet and searched her mother's face. "God, what is it? Has something happened to Dad?"

"I'm fine, Amber," Jameson said. He stepped into the foyer with Susan at his side and held out his arms. Amber went to hug him, while Alicia hugged her mother, then they switched places and repeated the heartfelt, if obligatory, embraces.

Wringing her hands, Angelica hurried into the living room, with the others following. Amber kept looking at her father, asking him silently what was going on. He told her without a word to be patient and to brace herself for tragedy.

Amber was on the verge of tears even before she made it to the living room and settled into an overstuffed chair. Alicia, though unable to read minds with the accuracy of a vampire, was adept at reading faces and at feeling emotions. She, too, had picked up on the grief in the air. She sat in a rocking chair, reached out to clasp Amber's hand. Susan sat on the sofa, and Angelica sat beside her. Over the years, as Susan had aged like any normal woman, she'd taken on an almost motherly role with Angelica. She protected her, loved her, and kept one hand on her shoulder now.

Jameson remained standing, seeming to gather his words in his mind.

"Father, for God's sake, say something!" Amber exploded at last. "Has someone died? Are Eric and Tamara all right? God, is it Rhiannon? Or Roland? What's happened?"

Jameson licked his lips and shook his head. "No one has passed, Amber. But it's… it's Willem."

Amber blinked in shock. Five years ago, Willem Stone had saved her from the hands of a ruthless scientist who'd been treating her like his own personal guinea pig.

Since then, he and the vampiress he'd fallen in love with, Sarafina, had become a part of her odd little family. But unlike the rest of them, Willem was a mere mortal. Not one of the Chosen, not one who could be transformed. Just a mortal man. The most exceptional, incredible mortal man Amber had ever known.

Almost afraid to ask the question, she forced the words out. "What's happened to Willem?"

Alicia's hand squeezed hers tighter when Jameson said the single word.

"Cancer."

It was as if he were speaking a foreign language. She felt her brows bend into question marks. "What?"

"He has a brain tumor, Amber. It's inoperable. And it's… terminal."

"No." She searched her father's eyes, then her mother's and Susan's. "There has to be something we can do. There has to be something—"

"He's a mortal," Angelica whispered. "Mortals… die."

As she said it, Alicia and her mother exchanged a knowing look, one of sad acceptance, but it wasn't lost on Amber Lily. She wasn't used to dealing with death. She refused to accept it as the inevitable end to those she loved. Even the mortals.

"It can't happen. Not now, not yet," she said, as if saying the words emphatically enough could make them true. "God, Sarafina only just found him. How can he be taken from her like this? They should have had years together. Decades!"

"It's not fair," Alicia whispered. Then she licked her lips, shook her head. "But, it won't kill him. Will's the strongest man I know. He'll beat it. He will."

Amber nodded. " 'Leesha's right. God, he withstood torture in the desert, he was given medals for protecting all those men who would have died if he'd talked. He's a hero. He faced down Stiles, he even faced down Aunt Rhiannon and Sarafina and lived to tell the tale!"

"This is different, Amber," Susan said softly. "I know it's not fair, but it's the way life works. Death is—it's a natural part of the cycle for some of us, honey. It's just the way of things—part of being human."

Amber lifted her head, staring for a long time at Susan, noticing her gray hairs, extra weight, the wrinkles around her eyes. She looked at Alicia, who'd changed in the past five years in far more subtle ways. She'd lost the look of a teenager, looked like a woman now. While Amber hadn't changed at all. Not since that house in Byram, Connecticut. Not since Frank Stiles and his experiments.

She lowered her head. "Sarafina must be devastated."

"Rhiannon is with them right now at their place in Salem Harbor," Jameson said. "Eric's doing research at the lab at Wind Ridge, but… " He shook his head. "There's not a lot of time."

Amber's brows drew together. "How long?"

"Six months, at the outside."

Her eyes fell closed even as the words were spoken, and tears flooded them. God, six months. It was less than a heartbeat. She sniffed and knuckled away her tears. "I need to go to him. I need to see him—both of them. How is he? Have you spoken to him?"

"It was Rhiannon who phoned with the news," Angelica said softly. "She specifically asked for you to come."

Amber nodded. "And what about the rest of you?"

"We'll be coming later. First we're heading down to Eric's. Roland is already there. They need all the help they can get with the research," Jameson said.

"Besides," Angelica added, "we don't want to overwhelm 'Fina and Will. All of us descending on them at once might be a little too much."

"They'll want time alone, too." Amber swallowed her tears, though they nearly choked her. "Coming with me, Alicia?"

"One of us needs to stay and keep the shop open, hon. Pandora's Box can't run itself. But if you need me, call me, and I'll be there like lightning."

"Alicia, I'd feel better if you went along," Angelica began.

Amber interrupted her. "Mom, I'm twenty-three and perfectly capable of getting to Salem Harbor on my own."

Angelica thinned her lips.

"We both learned from our mistakes, Angelica," Alicia said softly. "We're not teenagers anymore. We own a business now. The Box is already turning a profit. We're responsible adult women. Both of us."

"I know that." Angelica shot a look at Jameson, and he gave her a silent nod.

Amber drew a breath and sighed in gratitude. Alicia was giving her time and space to do this on her own. Amber and Will—they'd formed an odd bond when he'd saved her life five years back. He was like the big brother she'd never had. She loved him madly, and maybe part of that was because he was an outsider, too. Part of this extended family of the undead, even though he wasn't one of them. Just like Susan and Alicia. Just like she was herself. Well, not just like, she thought slowly. She wasn't mortal, either. She didn't know exactly what she was.

Nodding hard, her mind made up, Amber said, "I'll pack up tonight. Leave early in the morning."

"Should I call the airlines for you, Amber?" Susan asked.

"No, I… I think I'll drive. It'll give me time to… process all this."

"Sounds like a good idea." Alicia got to her feet. "Are you guys all right?"

"We're dealing with it as best we can,'' Angelica said. "It's not easy on any of us. But Eric's refusing to give up hope, and maybe there's some chance he's right."

"But you don't really think so, do you?" Amber asked.

Her mother lowered her eyes, but Amber heard the hopelessness in her heart.

Alicia said, "Amber, let's get back. I'll help you pack, maybe even make you a few snacks for the road, huh?''

Smiling her thanks, Amber nodded. She got to her feet, let her father hug her hard. "When you go out there, Amber, forget your own pain. Think of easing theirs."

"I will."

"I know you will."

Edge was staked out in the shadows outside the kitschy little New Age-slash-magic shop in one of Rochester, New York's suburbs, a town called Irondequoit. The sign in the window read Pandora's Box, and included a stylized drawing of a treasure chest with its lid open and purple sparkles spiraling from within. The apartment where Amber Lily Bryant lived with her mortal roommate Alicia Jennings was on the second floor, and his research showed the two were joint owners of the shop, which they'd purchased from its former owners two years ago.

Why the Child of Promise was sharing an apartment and a business with a mortal, rather than living under the constant protection of a dozen vampiric bodyguards, he couldn't begin to guess. None of the vampires he'd questioned in order to track her down had offered a reason. The information he'd been able to glean had been piecemeal at best, but he'd been persistent, nosy, less than ethical, and he'd picked up the occasional unguarded thought. Taken together, the pieces had led him here… where she lived in an ordinary apartment with an ordinary mortal girl. She must be the most sought after prize of every vampire hunter in existence—and he had heard of many, besides the rogue DPI agent Frank Stiles. And yet she lived like a mortal. Unprotected.

If she had guardians, he thought, they ought to be taken out and beaten.

There had been no one at home when he'd first arrived, but the two woman returned around 2:30 a.m. in a car that made his mouth water even more than the red Corvette in the garage had done. A black Ferrari. Not that he would trade his '69 Mustang for anything in the world, but hell, a man could look.

They pulled into the driveway, but not into the two-car garage that was attached to the rear portion of the shop.

He took great pains to mask his presence from the Child of Promise, to shield his mind, his thoughts, his very existence, from her. He had no idea what powers she might possess, whether she had the ability to detect his presence or not, so he was taking precautions.

Not that she would have noticed him anyway, he realized once he took in her state. She got out of the car, took two unsteady steps toward the two-story building where she lived, and then stopped, braced one arm on the brick wall and lowered her head. Her hair was long, perfectly straight, and so dark he'd thought it black at first. But it wasn't. It was the darkest shade of auburn imaginable, deep shades of burgundy that gleamed in the glow of the streetlights. If pressed, he would describe her hair as black satin, rinsed in blood. It hung forward, so he couldn't see her face. But he could feel her—sense her, the way he could sense any other living creature. She didn't feel like a mortal, but not quite like a vampire, either. There was an electric energy about her, a static charge that made his skin prickle, his groin tighten and the fine hairs on his arms stand erect.

She made a sound, a sob that caught in her throat, and he realized she was crying.

Edge took an instinctive step closer, jerking into motion like a kneecap tapped by a doctor's mallet, before stopping himself. He dismissed the gut reaction, covering it with his more characteristic sarcasm. Just what he needed, he told himself. More blubbering females. What the hell was wrong with this one?

The other one was beside her a second later, and then the two hugged each other fiercely, both of them sobbing. The other girl was clearly the mortal one. She had short hair, as blond as his own. It would be curly if allowed to grow long, but in its present state it shot out in all directions in a stylized mess that looked good on her. She was attractive. She smelled faintly of magic. He thought she'd been doing more than stocking the shelves and managing the register in that shop of hers. She'd been studying, experimenting a bit, and keeping it to herself, he thought.

"I can't wait until morning, Alicia," Amber said, when she could control her sobbing enough to speak. "I need to leave sooner. As soon as I can get ready." She sniffled, wiping her eyes and stepping out of the other woman's arms. "I didn't see any sense in giving Mom a reason to object."

"And she would have. She's trying, Amber, but she can't help but be overprotective. Throw a few things in a bag, hon. I'll go online and get the directions while you pack."

Amber nodded, and the two went up the exterior stairs to the second floor apartment, arm in arm, locking the door behind them.

Not that a locked door had ever been a problem for Edge.

Chapter 2

Edge couldn't take his eyes off the woman, and she was that, a woman, not a girl, and not a child—of promise or anything else. Twice, she stopped what she was doing, went very stiff and alert. She felt his presence, despite all his efforts to conceal it. She felt his eyes on her.

He leaned against the bricks on the little balcony outside her bedroom, watching her through the sheer black curtains as she packed clothing into a suitcase. Every now and then she would pause as grief swept over her. He could feel it. She wasn't shielding herself tonight—either because she thought there was no one around who could read her, or because she didn't care. He rather thought it was the latter. He wasn't certain what had happened to her tonight; he thought perhaps someone had died. It was that kind of grief. And yet, there was something else lying beneath it. Something she was struggling to ignore. A kind of stubborn denial. A streak of rebellion he recognized. A fighter looking for a fight.

It was buried under all that grief, but it was there. He would know it anywhere.

As she moved around her bedroom, adding items to her suitcase, he was finally able to see her face. She had these huge, deep, wide-set eyes, oval and thickly fringed. They were stunning, her eyes—such a dark shade of blue he'd thought at first they were ebony. The rest of her face was beautiful, pale and delicate and finely boned.

He'd never been overly fond of beautiful women. Wouldn't have given this one a second look—if he'd had any choice in the matter. But it didn't seem as if his mind or body were obeying his personal preferences here. She drew him on so many levels his head was spinning.

It must be one of her powers, he decided.

He turned away. But he had to watch her, had to figure out what she was doing, how he could best get her to tell him what he needed to know. So he looked back again, just in time to see her glancing out her bedroom door into the hall, before closing the door and locking it. She was trying to be quiet, acting… sneaky.

Frowning, he watched, riveted.

She climbed up onto a chair and, reaching above her head, pushed one of the ceiling panels upward. Now this was interesting. Reaching into the opening, she tugged out a large file box, one of those cardboard numbers for storing documents and file folders. Edge moved closer to the glass, riveted as she climbed down, set the box on her bed and removed the lid. Her lips pursed, she tugged something out' of it: a black three-ring binder, with a white label on its spine.

Squinting until his eyes watered, Edge focused on that spine and eventually managed to read the words on its label.

X-l: Volume A.

"X-l," he whispered. It was Stiles's name for her. Then those binders—the box was full of them—had to be his notes. "I'll be damned," he muttered. "She's got everything he learned about her—all of it, right there."

And maybe the answers Edge needed. The key to Stiles's vulnerability.

She skimmed pages for a while, and Edge slipped inside her mind, trying to listen in. Her parents thought these notebooks were still locked in the safe at their home, he heard her thinking. She felt a little guilty about that. Someone called Eric had made copies of everything and taken them to his lab, while the originals had been secured in the house at Irondequoit Bay. Only they weren't. They were here, bidden in her bedroom. He couldn't get deep enough to read through her eyes, to see what she was seeing—but he felt her frustration before she slammed the book closed.

Whatever she was looking for, she wasn't finding it.

She dragged another suitcase from underneath her bed, slung it onto the mattress and opened it. Then she piled the notebooks into it, lining them up carefully, side by side, then adding a second layer, narrow front to wider spine. Finally she laid a few articles of clothing over the top and then zipped the bag. She put the empty cardboard box under her bed, double-checked the ceiling panel to be sure it was in place, and then unlocked and opened her bedroom door.

"I'm about ready," she called, snagging the two suitcases from the bed and heading into the hallway.

Edge left his post then, jumping to the ground, and creeping around to the front of the apartment again, where she'd left her car. The trunk popped open before she even exited the house. Remote control, he guessed. Then she was hurrying from the apartment, with her friend on her heels. She slung the cases easily into the trunk and slammed it, then went to the driver's door.

The blonde handed her a sheaf of papers and a grocery bag. "Here are your directions. And a few snacks for the road."

Amber Lily—God, the name was ill suited to her, Edge thought. She was more vibrant than amber and far tougher than any fragile lily. At any rate, she took the bag and peered inside. Then the other one took it back from her, opened the passenger door and set it on the seat. She laid the sheets of paper on the dashboard and turned to Amber again. "I love you, you know."

"I know. And I know why you're not going with me."

"Do you?"

Amber nodded. "I do. And I'm grateful. You're right, Alicia. I need to go alone."

"I'll come later. Give you a few days to be alone with Will."

Who the hell was Will? Edge wondered. And he wondered it with a passion that surprised him.

"I don't know how alone I'll be. Aunt Rhi's there. And don't forget 'Fina. I'll be lucky if she lets him out of her sight."

"She's not going to handle this well."

"I can't imagine her handling it at all," Amber said. She lowered her head. "God, they're so in love. I just don't know how she'll go on if he dies."

"I'm afraid… she might decide not to try," Alicia said softly.

Amber stared into her friend's eyes. "Let this be a lesson to us both. A girl can't afford to fall so deeply in love that she can't live without a guy. It's too risky." She shook her head. "God, when I see how desperately my parents need each other it scares the hell out of one. If one of them should lose the other… "

"I know. I know. But that's not going to happen."

"It could. But not to me. Never to me."

"You wouldn't know it to see how you're reacting to this news about Will."

Amber lowered her eyes, sighed. "It's different with Will, and you know it." She sighed softly. "Will saved my life. I just can't help thinking there might be some way I can… return the favor."

"Oh, Amber, don't," Alicia said softly. "Don't get your hopes up. You may be Superchick, but you're not a goddess. You don't have the power to cure cancer."

"I know that," she said.

But Edge got the feeling she didn't really mean it. He felt that stubborn determination, that fight, kicking its heels up somewhere inside her again. She tamped it down and wrapped the other woman, Alicia, in her arms. "But if there were anything I could do, I would. I owe him my life, you know. If I could give it to him, I'd do it in a minute."

"He wouldn't take it if you offered." Alicia kissed Amber's cheek, then brushed her fingers over it, maybe to wipe away a tear. "Go, and be careful."

"I will."

Amber got into the car, put in the key. Alicia pulled something from a pocket and handed it through the window to her.

"A CD?"

"My favorite traveling mix. Stroke-9. Matchbox-20." She frowned. "Ever notice all our favorite bands have numbers in their names?"

"Sum-41 on there?"

"Actually, they are." The two of them laughed. Am ber took the CD from its case and slid it into the player. Music, smooth and mellow, wafted from the car. Amber put the car in gear, pulled it slowly away from the curb.

Alicia stood there for a long time, watching her, waving.

Edge tore himself away from the emotional goodbye long enough to dash into the apartment—the two women had left the door unlocked, and the one who might sense him there was gone. He moved through the apartment far too fast for human eyes to detect him and found the computer easily—it was in Alicia's bedroom, and its screen still showed the driving directions the girl had printed out for her friend. He read the screen quickly. She was heading to some place called Harbor Rock, in Salem Harbor, just outside Salem, Massachusetts. He memorized the route, all of ten hours by car. He was slightly surprised that it tended to avoid the Thruway, which would have been faster. Then he ducked into Amber's bedroom when he heard Alicia coming back inside. He exited through the same window he'd been looking through moments ago, closed it behind him, and then headed away from the apartment, into the darkness.

A few blocks away, he found his Mustang. It had been glossy and black in its youth. Now it was dull and faded, and he owed the little car a paint job in return for its years of loyal service. It would do until he got where he needed to be, though. He planned to be riding in a fancy little Ferrari within a few hours.

Amber Lily was as soft hearted as they came—she'd revealed as much. Going by the neighborhood and what he'd seen of the apartment, not to mention the car, he would say she was fairly well spoiled, too, used to being pampered. Softhearted and sheltered.

This would be like taking candy from a baby. He would just have to be careful—because despite appearances, she was no baby.

Amber had been driving for two hours, and it was after 5:00 a.m. when she hit something. She felt the impact, the thud, saw the form bouncing off the hood of her car. A person! God, she'd never seen him! Her stomach lurched as her foot jammed the brake pedal to the floor.

Tires squealed, and the stench of hot rubber assailed her. "God almighty, where did he come from?"

She wrenched her door open and lunged from the car, only to be jerked back by the force of the seat belt. Fumbling, impatient and clumsy, she got it unbuckled and scrambled out of the car, racing to where the man lay very still on the pavement.

"God, are you all right? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I just didn't see you." He was lying facedown. She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. "Please," she whispered. "Please be all right."

He moaned, and Amber opened her senses, probing his mind for pain, for injuries. But what she found there shocked her so much that she jerked her hand away from him, shot to her feet and backed rapidly toward her car. "You're a vampire!"

Slowly he brought his hands upward, pushed his upper body off the pavement, and lifted his head. "That doesn't mean I'm not hurting like hell right now."

He turned over, the better to look at her, and she sucked in a breath so fast she hurt her lungs. My God, it was him.' The vampire from her dreams!

She stopped backing up, but she didn't move any closer, either. She watched him like a hawk as he got himself upright, brushed the dirt from the front of his leather jacket and jeans. He wiped the blood from his scraped cheek, then stared at a smear of it on his thumb.

"How do you know what I am?" he asked, as if he'd just thought of it. Then he widened his eyes a little, lowered his hand. "Was it an accident at all, you hitting me? Or are you one of those vamp hunters I keep hearing about?"

She relaxed a little. If he was afraid of her, she probably had no reason to be afraid of him. Other than the dream, at least. The one where she felt certain he was bringing her a gift—death in a pretty box. Whatever the hell that meant. "I'm no vampire hunter."

He frowned at her, took a step closer. She didn't back away, so he took another. He was limping a little. He had the posture of a wolf sniffing the air, but he wasn't sniffing. He was feeling. Sensing. "You're one of the Chosen—and yet, not exactly. You're not mortal. But you're not one of us, either."

She pursed her lips, lowered her head. "Look, it doesn't matter what I am. I'm no threat to you."

"Not unless you're behind the wheel, at least." He tempered the words with a smile, and when he smiled, a dimple cut into his cheek. He held her gaze, and her heart turned a somersault.

My God, she thought. Looking into his eyes had the same impact on her as it did in the dream. It was like electrocution. It made her heart race and her stomach feel tight. It heated her blood and tingled her skin. Who was he?

He closed the remaining distance between them, still limping, and extended a hand. "They call me Edge."

She took his hand. It was large and very strong. She liked the slight pressure it exerted around hers, and the way her blood warmed and pooled somewhere in her center at his touch. "Edge, huh? That a nickname?"

"What, you don't like it?" He pressed his free hand to his heart, keeping his other one around hers a second longer. "I suppose yours is better?''

He was asking her name. "Amber Bryant."

He blinked and drew his brows together. "Not Amber Lily Bryant?"

With a sigh, she nodded. It was tiring, being something of a legend, at least among the undead. "Guilty, I'm afraid."

"Well, that explains the mixed vibes you send out. You're the Child of Promise." Shrugging he said, "But I'm afraid it doesn't suit you at all."

"What? My name?"

He nodded. "No more than mine did, originally. It sounds like something fragile and delicate. A hothouse flower afraid to go outside. You don't look like a hothouse flower to me. Exotic, yes. But wild. Tough."

"So you're saying I need a nickname?" He nodded. "Amber Lily." He snapped his fingers. "Al."

"Al? That's exotic and wild?"

"No, but it's tough. How about Alby?" He smiled. "Yeah. Alby."

She lifted her brows. "I could get used to it." In truth, it made her skin tingle when he rolled it off his lips.

He finally released her hand and ran his own over his side, wincing a little as he did.

"I'm sorry about hitting you. Are you hurt badly?"

"A broken rib, I think. Nothing major. It'll heal with the day sleep. Guess I just won't make as many miles as I'd hoped tonight."

"You're… traveling on foot?''

"Only since the car died a few miles back."

She licked her lips. How many times had her parents warned her not to trust strange vampires? But so far, every vamp she'd ever met had been decent—especially to her, their legendary Child of Promise. "Where are you heading?" she heard herself ask.

"Salem. You?"

She blinked. If Alicia were here, she would say it was a sign. No such thing as coincidence, she would insist.

Synchronicity didn't happen by chance. She'd been doing too much reading about magic and Wicca lately, Amber had decided. Still, there was some part of her that agreed with her friend's logic.

"Salem," she said softly. "That's a long walk, even for a vampire."

"Too far to sustain any sort of speed," he said, nodding.

"You, um…want to ride with me?"

"Are you kidding? I'd pay to ride with you." He licked his lips, lowered his head. "If I wasn't broke, I mean."

"It's okay. I don't need money."

"Kind of guessed that from the car you're driving." He looked past her at the car. "You must be rolling in it."

"My parents are. It was a gift from my father."

He smiled at her. "Spoiled, then, are you?"

She smiled back at him. "Rotten."

"Must be nice."

"You wanna drive it?"

He sent her an astonished look. "Really?"

"It's the least I can do after running you over." She tossed him the keys, and he caught them. He seemed to forget about his limp as he walked to the driver's door and got in. She got in the passenger side, fastened her seat belt. He ignored his own.

"You're actually… nice, aren't you, Alby?"

"I try to be. Why, aren't you?"

"No," he said, shifting the car into gear, straightening it out and then stomping the accelerator. "No, I don't think anyone who knows me would call me nice."

He shifted, pressed the gas pedal down until the engine roared, shifted again. The car flew through the night in the way she guessed it was designed to do. She'd never driven it that way in her life. The car came to life under his expert touch, seemed almost to sit up and purr in response to being driven so hard.

She was a little bit jealous.

Reaching forward, she hit the play button on her CD and was surprised as hell when Edge began singing along.

He drove like an expert, faster than she would have done herself, but so professionally that it didn't make her nervous at all. He exuded confidence. And danger.

And yet she wasn't afraid of him, even though she probably should have been. Especially given the dream. But that was kind of the point of letting him ride along, wasn't it? To find out what the hell that dream meant, what it was that tied this man to her psyche and her subconscious.

After the song ended, Edge reached out to turn the CD player off and glanced her way. "So why is it you're heading for Salem? Vacation?"

"I wish. No, a friend of mine is sick."

"A mortal friend, then?"

She nodded. "Yes. A very good one."

He frowned a little, looking her way often, as if he enjoyed it. "It's unusual, a vampire having good friends who are mortals."

"I'm not a vampire," she told him. "And most people would describe me as somewhat unusual." She tilted her head, studying him in profile. He had the bone structure of a work of art, she thought. Broad, angular jawline and cheekbones to die for.

"What?" he asked, looking at her. "I have someone in my teeth?"

She smiled at the joke. "So you don't have any mortal friends?" she asked, just to change the subject from her reasons for staring at him.

"Mortal or otherwise."

She blinked. "You don't have friends at all, is that what you mean?"

"That's what I mean."

"Don't you get… lonely?"

"Depends on how you define loneliness, love. Do I get to wishing I had a group of well-meaning busybodies prying into my shadows and meddling in my life? Not on your life. Do I wish I had a pile of others depending on me to take care of them? No way in hell. Been there, done that. It's far too much responsibility for any sane person to take on. I'm not up to the task, anyway. Do I sometimes crave a body besides my own in my bed? You bet I do. But that's easily remedied. And friendship doesn't have to enter into it."

She didn't imagine he'd ever had too much trouble finding willing women to share his bed. The man was hot. And just enough of a bad boy to whet any female's appetite.

"Do you ever… just wish for someone to talk to? Someone who gave a damn what you had to say?"

He tilted his head. "Is that the kind of friends you have? The kind who listen and give a damn what you have to say?"

She smiled. "Sure. But they're also the kind who pry into my shadows and meddle in my life. I think it's tough to get the one without the other."

"I think you're right there." He sighed. "You have lots of them? Friends, I mean."

"Mmm. Friends, family. Guardians and protectors. Mostly vampires, but some mortals, too." She looked at him and suddenly smiled. "Hell, I have so many I can afford to share them with you."

"Whoa, no thank you. I don't need them." He studied her face for a moment before turning his gaze back to the road. "Doesn't look as if it's been doing you much good. Not lately, at least."

"What do you mean?"

"You've been crying tonight."

She ought to be used to the sharp observations of vampires, she supposed. The talent shouldn't surprise her. And yet he had taken her off guard. "The sick friend?" he asked. She nodded.

"What's wrong with him, exactly?" Blinking, she frowned at him. "How do you know it's a him?" She'd erected a shield around her thoughts from the instant she'd realized he was a vampire and able to read them. So he couldn't be picking things up from her mind.

"Rarely see a pretty woman crying over a girl. This fellow in Salem—your lover?"

She smiled broadly. "No. More like a beloved older brother. He saved my life once."

"Did he really? An ordinary mortal?"

"Will is probably the farthest thing from ordinary you'll ever come across. He was a colonel in the Army. Special Forces. Captured in the desert, tortured until he escaped, and he never told them a thing."

He lifted his brows, turning slowly to face her as she spoke. "Are you sure you're not in love with him?"

"I'm sure."

"Not even sleeping with him?"

"Never."

"Never?"

"I meant I would never sleep with Willem."

"Oh." He grinned at her. "I thought you meant you were a virgin."

She turned her head toward the window. "You're getting a little personal for someone I only met an hour ago, Edge."

"You let me drive your car. I figure that puts us on intimate terms."

"You figure wrong."

"So are you, then?"

She frowned at him.

"A virgin?"

"Why do you care?"

"Curious, is all."

"Well, I'm not going to satisfy that curiosity. So stop asking."

"Mysterious, aren't you? I like that." He reached across the seat, trailed a forefinger down her cheek, making her shiver. "I like a lot of things about you, Alby." She lowered her eyes, tried not to let her face turn red or her heart start racing, because he would hear it. But God, his touch sent a thrill through her, right to her bones.

"You never answered my question." She swung her eyes to him, shocked he was still asking.

"About your friend, I meant. Will. What's wrong with him?"

"Oh." She let her anger fade. "Cancer.'' "Terminal?"

She shrugged. "That's what they're saying. But I'm not ready to give up on him just yet"

"Really?"

She nodded.

"I don't suppose… no, never mind."

"No, go on. What were you going to say?"

He slanted his eyes toward her. When he looked at her, she could feel them touching her, and this time they slid from her face down to her neck, over her chest and hips and legs, all the way to the floor. "It's just, well, you must have different—powers, for want of a better word—than the rest of us. Is healing fatal diseases one of them?"

"I don't think so."

He frowned at her, and she knew what he was asking. "I don't know everything about myself, Edge. It's not like there's ever been anyone like me before, anyone I could ask."

"Surely you've tested them. Are you immortal?"

"I think so."

"But you age like a mortal?''

"Used to."

"Used to?"

She pursed her lips and said nothing.

He slid a hand over hers, where it rested on her leg. "Poor lamb, you're rather lost, aren't you? In spite of all your friends and their meddling?"

"I'm perfectly fine."

"No, you're not. You don't even know who you are. Or who you want to be."

She met his eyes. He held her gaze, smiled gently, and looked like a fallen angel. "Stick with me for a while, Alby. I'll help you find yourself."

She frowned, amazed at how her body responded to the touch of his hand, surprised that she let him turn her hand in his own, lace his fingers with hers. He had to draw his attention to the road again, but he kept on holding her hand.

"How?" she asked. "You don't even know me."

"I'd like to, though. I'd like to explore every part of you, inside and out. And while I'm at it, you might as well do the same. Who knows what discoveries you might make?"

When he looked at her again, his eyes made it clear that she had not misunderstood him. He'd meant for his words to sound as sexual as they had. To rub over her senses like velvet over satin. Like his finger over the very center of her palm.

"It'll be daylight soon," he told her. "We should find a place—a dark, private place, where the sun can't touch me."

She had never been so turned on in her life, she thought wildly. "I know just the place. Pull over, right up here."

With a smug half smile, he pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road. Amber reached to the dashboard and hit the trunk release button, then got out while he was frowning at her. She went to the rear of the car, looked into the open trunk and waited for him to join her there.

He glanced at her, then at the trunk. "Not very romantic, love. And not a lot of room for… movement."

"Then I suggest you lie still."

She'd moved around behind him while he spoke, and as she delivered her reply, she pressed both hands to his back and shoved hard.

He flipped right into the trunk, taken off guard by the sudden attack, and even as he rolled onto his back with a shocked expression on his face, she looked at the lid, flicked her eyes downward. It slammed closed.

He swore, a stream of profanity issuing from beyond the trunk.

"You deserved worse. You ever hear of manners, Edge? You were way out of line."

"You were loving every minute of it." He hit the trunk, a halfhearted punch that didn't even dent it. "Open it up or I'll kick your pretty car full of holes."

"You do that, you'll be walking the rest of the way to Salem. It's twenty minutes to sunrise. Just be still and go to sleep. When you wake, we'll be in Salem."

"Spoiled, evil little… "

"Watch it, Edge, or you'll wake to find yourself dumped on the roadside in a nice sunny spot around noon."

He was still muttering under his breath when she walked to the driver's door and got behind the wheel.

Chapter 3

As soon as the sun was fully up, Amber found a place to pull off and took a much needed nap. She supposed her exhaustion was more emotional than physical. The shock of learning about Will's condition, the grief. And then to literally run into the man she'd been dreaming about for a year… She was overwhelmed. She told herself she only needed a nap; an hour would be plenty.

The dream came again.

She lay in a bed, and Edge came slowly toward her. He held a box in his hands, and his eyes were locked with hers. Her stomach was roiling in the dream, her heart bursting with a mingling of emotions too powerful to bear. Passionate feelings that all revolved around the man—and whatever was in the box he held. She couldn't look away from his face, or from the tear that welled in his eye and spilled over to roll slowly down his beautiful cheek. He knelt, lowering the box so that she could look inside.

Don't look! her mind screamed. It's death he brings you! It's death!

Amber woke suddenly, sitting up so fast she banged her elbow on the car door. Slowly she shook herself free of the paralyzing fear the dream had left in its wake. God, what did it mean? Was she making a huge mistake by having anything to do with him?

Sighing, wondering if she would have the willpower to send him packing even if she decided it was the best thing to do, she looked at her watch, then blinked and looked again. It was after 11:00 a.m. She'd slept for more than five hours.

Hell.

She started the car and pulled it into motion again. After two hours, she stopped for a veggie sub and a bathroom break, freshening up in the rest room and wishing for a shower. Then she drove straight through. Still, the sun was sinking behind her when she finally pulled onto the winding country road that led from Salem to Salem Harbor and followed its meandering path to the house on Harbor Rock. Sarafina and Will had bought the place five years ago, and Amber had been there several times but still hadn't managed to memorize the driving directions. She supposed that meant a photographic memory was not among her special abilities. Cross one more off the list of things to wonder about, she thought.

The house was modern, a giant log structure at the tip of a peninsula surrounded by boulders and sea foam. Its windows were large and looked out on the sea. No one would ever suspect a vampire lived there with her mortal lover. Her all too mortal lover.

Amber pulled the car to a stop, shut off the engine and sat there for a long moment, staring at the rich wood tones of the house, trying to get a handle on her emotions. Her mother was right; she shouldn't show up grieving. Will was alive. Surrounding him in tears wasn't going to help him, and it would do nothing for Sarafina, either. She closed her eyes, called up the toughest part of herself, focused on control.

A loud thump from the back of the car jolted her right out of her meditation. "It's night again, and yet I find myself still locked in a suffocating trunk."

She lowered her head, shook it slowly.

"Alby, are you out there?'' Thump, thump.

Pursing her lips, she reached out and hit the trunk release. It flew open, and she felt the car move as Edge climbed out. Amber opened her door and got out, turned and found herself face-to-face with him, nose to chin.

"That wasn't very nice, you know."

She smiled. "I was trying to make a point."

"I got the point," he said.

"Did you?"

He nodded. "Yeah. You're one of those girls who's into making men beg."

Her jaw dropped. "You're deluded."

"I'm deluded? Come on, Alby, you're as into me as I am into you. Admit it."

She pursed her lips and searched for patience. "You're attractive enough, I suppose. That's not what I would call being 'into' you, though. I don't even know you."

He leaned closer, his eyes fixed on her lips. "You're saying this magnetism between us is purely physical, then?"

She blinked. "You're putting words into my mouth."

He looked at her mouth. "I'd like to—"

"Don't even."

He smiled at her, that dimple digging into his cheek and making her go soft and tingly all over. "All right, I'm coming on like a rutting buck, I suppose. I'm not used to dealing with sheltered virgins, is the thing."

"I never said I was—"

He held up a hand to stop her speaking, then glanced at the house. "So this is where your friends live?"

She nodded.

"I should take off." He turned to walk away.

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind… my bringing a guest."

He west still, his back to her. Don't worry, Alby. I'm not walking away for good. I'll come around again, once I get settled in."

"You're so full of yourself, you know that?"

"Yeah. You play your cards right, you might get to be full of me, too." She aimed a foot at his backside, but he felt it coming and dodged it, then turned to face her. "Violent little thing, aren't you?"

"You seem to bring it out in me."

He let his heated gaze move down her body. "You knocked me into that trunk like a vampire. Just how strong are you?"

"Stronger than you think."

"Stronger than me?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Why?"

"Just wondering if you're going to kick my ass for kissing you."

"But you didn't—"

She gasped as he snapped an arm around her waist, tugged her hard against him and, cradling the back of her head with his other hand, captured her mouth with his. He kissed her with his mouth open, moving it over her lips and drawing on them. And just when she let her body relax against his, let her jaw relax so her mouth fell open, just as she wished he would use his tongue and keep on kissing her for a long, long time, he released her and lifted his head away. He sent her a wink, then turned and walked back along the driveway toward the road.

He didn't look back. She stood there watching him out of sight, the sea wind blowing cool and damp over her heated skin.

"What," Rhiannon asked, "was that?"

Sighing, turning to face her unofficial aunt, Amber said. •'That was Edge." She slid a look at Rhiannon.

She stood there, her long, jet-black hair dancing in the sea wind, arms crossed over her chest, stern faced. "What kind of a name is 'Edge'?"

"A fitting one, I think. Where's Pandora? I don't see her."

Her attempt at changing the subject was a lame one, and she knew it. Her aunt's pet panther was nowhere in sight, and would have been had she been with Rhiannon.

"She's getting old. Long trips do her very little good these days. She stayed behind at Wind Ridge, with Eric, Tarn and Roland. And she thanks you for naming your little shop in her honor. Now, if we could get back to the subject at hand?"

"Will?"

"Edge," she said flatly. "Just what is going on between you and this character, Amber Lily?"

"It's too soon to tell, Rhiannon. But he'd better not turn up dead before I have a chance to decide."

Rhiannon smiled then, picking up on Amber's teasing tone. "Then you'd better decide soon. Having kissed my niece right under my nose, he might not have much time." She opened her arms, and Amber went to her, hugged her gently. "How are you, darling? I've missed you. It's been months."

"I thought I was fine, until I heard the news about Will."

Rhiannon thinned her lips. "He's out right now. Yet another appointment with yet another doctor."

"And Tina?"

"Said she needed a few moments alone, so I drew her a steaming, scented bath and told her I was going for a walk along the beach. I knew you were close, and I wanted a chance to speak to you alone before you saw her."

"How's she doing with all this?"

"Amazingly well," Rhiannon said. "Too well. It worries me."

Amber licked her lips, lowered her eyes.

Rhiannon drew a breath, clasped Amber's arm. "There's no need to shield your thoughts from me, Amber, I've been consumed with the same notion."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know exactly what I mean."

Amber pursed her lips, lowered her head.

"Did you bring the notebooks?"

Frowning, Amber brought her head up fast. "What notebooks?"

"Oh, please, child, we have no time for this. Stiles's notebooks. The ones your parents think are locked up in their safe. You took them, of course."

"How do you know that?"

"It's what I would have done," Rhiannon said.

Amber sighed. Dammit, her aunt knew her far too well. "Yes, I took them, but that doesn't mean we'll find any answers in their pages. God knows I've looked, but so far—"

A blood chilling shriek cut the night, and stopped Amber in midsentence. Even as the two women tore free of the shock and raced toward the house, there was a crash and a howl. "Gods. 'Fina," Rhiannon whispered, pouring on more speed, until she simply vanished in a blur of black.

Amber ran at a closer to mortal pace. She hadn't been there in some time, and she didn't want to collide with anything on the way.

When she arrived in the house, she hurried up the stairs and into a bathroom, the door of which stood wide. Sarafina stood in the room's center, dripping wet, naked except for the white towel she held to her chest. The glass topped vanity was shattered; makeup and hair products lay everywhere.

"Tina, honey? What happened?"

Rhiannon, who'd already sized up the situation and vanished from the room, appeared beside Amber, a thick terry bathrobe in her arms. "Let's get her out of here before she cuts herself to ribbons," she said, and she moved to Sarafina, her feet crushing glass on the way. "Stay still, Tina. Don't move."

Sarafina was shaking, staring but not seeing either of them. As Rhiannon tried to slip the plush robe onto one arm, Tina jerked away with a strangled cry, then sank to her knees amid the broken glass, tipping her head back and moaning like a wounded animal.

"By the Gods," Rhiannon whispered.

Tears sprang to Amber's eyes, and her throat closed tight, but she swallowed the urge to break down and cry, and instead joined Rhiannon. They crouched on either side of Sarafina, each of them pulling one of the woman's arms around her shoulder, sliding their free arms beneath her thighs. The towel fell away as they lifted her straight up, doing their best to avoid the glass, and carried her out of the bathroom while she dissolved in uncontrollable tears and racking sobs. They lowered her onto a large canopy bed swathed in sheer black curtains. Amber glimpsed blood but wasn't sure of its source.

"See to her. I'll take care of the mess," Rhiannon said. She retrieved the robe, which had fallen to the floor halfway between the bathroom and the bed, and tossed it to Amber. Then she returned to the bathroom.

Amber slid onto the bed beside the woman, sliding the soft robe easily onto her. Sarafina didn't fight. She wept, her entire body jerking as the flood of emotion battered her like a storm.

"It's all right, Tina. It's going to be all right." She pulled the robe together in front, letting the bottom half drape over Sarafina's long legs, loosely tying the sash, then leaning close to brash black curls from tear-wet cheeks. "It's okay to cry," she whispered. "You're not made of stone." She blinked back her own tears, but fighting them was nearly impossible.

Tina's face pulled into a painfully twisted mask. "H-h-he can't… I can't do this. I can't—"

"I know. I know." Amber embraced her quaking shoulders, pulled her gently close and found it surreal to be comforting one of the two toughest, strongest women she had ever known. The other one was in the bathroom, and if Amber's senses were on target, she was weeping, as well.

"It's too cruel," Sarafina whispered. "It's too cruel. How can he be taken from me? How?''

"I don't know."

Sarafina shivered, pulling free of Amber's arms to lie down, curled on one side in the fetal position, her back to Amber. "I knew I should never have let myself love him."

"You know you don't mean that." Amber closed her eyes and told herself this was exactly why she would never lose herself to a man this way. Never.

"Everyone I love leaves me. My mother died giving me birth. My sister hated me for that, all my life. My first love, Andre, plotted against me and turned the entire clan against me. Bartrone, my sire, walked into the sunlight one dawn." Her shoulders stilled from their trembling. "For the first time, I understand what drove him to that."

"Don't talk that way, 'Fina. You have to be strong."

"I'm tired of being strong. I'm so… so very tired." She sniffed. "If Willem must die—"

"Willem isn't dead yet, woman." It was Rhiannon's voice, stern and harsh. She'd apparently finished with her work and now stood in the bedroom. "If it is his fate to go, then you'll have time enough for hysterics when it's over. In the meantime, don't be so quick to give up on him."

Sarafina rolled onto her back, glaring at Rhiannon. "The doctors say there's no hope."

"Mortal doctors. Humans. Fools. What do they know about us? About our kind? We can do things they've never dreamed, Sarafina. We're gods compared to them."

"Will's not a god. He's not one of us. He's just a man."

"He's far from that, and you know it." Rhiannon came closer, pulling something from the deep pocket of her silk skirt, a glass vial with a cork in the top. "Drink this."

"What is it?"

Rhiannon pulled the cork free. "A modified version of that delightful tranquilizer DPI invented to use on us. Eric's been toying with it. It has many uses for our kind. Helps with pain. It'll make you sleep."

"I don't want to sleep. I want to be with Willem when he gets back."

"He'll be hours yet. You'll be awake by then, I promise."

Rhiannon pushed the vial to Sarafina's lips, and she swallowed the contents and made a face. She licked her lips and met Amber's eyes. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to be here."

"I'm sorry about—all of that."

"Don't be. I'd have torn the house apart in your place by now."

She blinked slowly. "It's not as if I didn't know the risks. Risk—that's not even right. When an immortal falls in love with a mortal, the outcome is certain." She looked at Rhiannon. "It's not as if I wasn't warned."

"It's not over yet, Sarafina," Rhiannon said. "Sleep now. Give me time to do what I do best."

'Fina lifted her brows. "What's that? Terrorize people?"

"Play goddess, of course." She slid a look at Amber, and Amber knew exactly what she was thinking.

The two of them stayed there until Sarafina slid into a deep, still slumber. Then Rhiannon touched Amber's shoulder, tipped her head toward the door and led the way back down the stairs.

Edge sat outside the house, in the darkness, keeping his presence to himself. He'd heard the scream right after he'd left Alby's side, heard the crashing, breaking glass, and he'd immediately thrown his senses wide-open, even as he raced back to the house on the seashore.

He didn't go inside. He didn't need to. He could see what was going on just as easily from outside, just by probing and prying. It was bad form among his kind to eavesdrop this way, but he didn't really give a damn about the protocol and etiquette of being undead. Never had. Normally this kind of snooping wouldn't go undetected, but the women inside were far too distracted to pay him any mind.

The woman they called 'Fina was grieving over a dying mortal. Willem. She was his lover, Edge deduced.

He felt her pain and had to shut it out because it was too intense to bear. Nearly paralyzing.

He wasn't sure whether the Child of Promise and her "aunt'' Rhiannon were aware of it or not, but it was clear to him the Gypsy Sarafina would not go on once Willem was dead. It was coming through his senses as clearly as the images of her dancing around a fire amid a village of painted wagons and reading palms in exchange for silver in some long-ago time.

It was, of course, nothing to him. He had a feeling she'd known once what he knew now. How foolish it was to care for anyone other than herself. How utterly stupid and self-destructive it was to put anything or anyone above your own well-being.

Stupid. She'd known it once. She'd put it aside. And now she was paying the price. She would die. There was no question. Within a few days—maybe hours—of her mortal lover's death, she would be gone.

He felt a little twist in his gut when he thought how much that was going to hurt Alby. Then he reminded himself that it was nothing to him. She was nothing to him.

He focused again. The one called Rhiannon—with her he got a feeling of age and extreme power, and he saw flashes of desert sands and pyramids, Egyptian temples and pharoahs—had drawn Alby into a lower level room, and the two were sitting now. He opened his senses, witnessed it all in his mind.

Rhiannon, seated in a thronelike chair, looked at Alby and said, "We are not going to let this happen."

"I'm not sure there's anything we can do to stop it."

"Nonsense. There's one thing. And you know it as well as I do."

"Rhiannon, I don't know—"

Rhiannon flung up a hand, and Amber fell silent. "You saw it. I saw it. Five years ago, Willem flung Frank Stiles from a cliff to the rocks below. The man should have been dead. But he wasn't. He took a boat and he rowed away."

"We can't be sure that was him," Amber said softly, even though she knew that it was. Edge felt the knowledge in her mind, and knew Rhiannon did, as well. "The man in the boat was too far away to see clearly, even for us. Stiles's body could have been swept out to sea."

"But it wasn't. It revived, he survived, and he lives still."

"Maybe… "

"An ordinary mortal, Amber. Not even one of the chosen. The rumors, the whispers, they're true. He made a serum from your blood, and he made himself indestructible. If it could be done once, it can be done again."

The pretty one lowered her head. "We don't know how he did it. There's no formula in his notes. He told no one, not even his most trusted assistants, what he was doing. No one knows how he accomplished it—if he accomplished it—other than the man himself."

Rhiannon seemed to consider that for a long moment. Then she said, "If you had the formula, would you let yourself be used in such a way?"

"I'd give anything to save Willem. How is this any different from offering a kidney or a bone marrow transplant? Of course I'd do it."

Edge was stunned. Why would anyone be so willing to do so much for someone else? It made no sense to him. A small voice inside whispered that he would have done the same once, a long, long time ago. For his fledglings. For little Bridget. But God, he'd learned how foolish it was to care that deeply. All the caring in the world couldn't prevent death when it came.

Rhiannon slid a hand over one of Amber's. "Eric wants me to send all of Stiles's journals down to him, along with a pint of your blood. He's working tirelessly to unlock the formula."

Amber nodded. "But he has copies of everything."

"I know. I think he believes there may be something he's missed, something a copy machine might not have picked up. A special ink, or perhaps some notes in the linings of the books. I don't know."

"Then we'll send them. The blood, as well. But… what if he can't do it in time?"

Rhiannon nodded. "I'm working on that. I'm going to find Stiles. And believe me—when I do, he will tell me his secrets."

A little shiver rippled through Amber—Edge felt its echo in him. He also felt a rush of excitement. If Stiles's immortality was the result of a serum made from the young woman's blood, then the key to his weakness lay within her, as well. Everything the nurse had told him was true. He had to learn the girl's secrets, even the ones she didn't yet know herself. He had to learn what could kill her.

And he had to be around when they located Stiles.

So he could kill the man.

He didn't think the imposing Rhiannon would be willing to take him along on her hunt for the man. But that didn't matter. Rhiannon wasn't going to find Stiles, he decided in that moment. Because Stiles was going to come here. Right here.

He had never had the chance to finish his experiments on the Child of Promise. It must have driven him to madness when she'd escaped. Like Amber Lily herself,

Stiles might not yet know the full range of his powers. He might not even know his vulnerabilities. And that was something he would be burning to know.

Imagine, being unaware of what—if anything—could kill you.

No, Stiles was going to come here, because Edge had the perfect bait to bring him here. Amber Lily Bryant.

Alby.

He would win her trust. He would learn her secrets. He would put out the word that she was here, and then he would use her to lure the man he hated more than any other.

And then he would kill Frank Stiles. It would be easy.

"Rhiannon," Amber said softly, as the older woman got to her feet. "You'll have to be very careful with him. If you kill him, we'll never learn his secrets."

"Oh, I won't kill him. I might make him beg me to kill him, but I won't."

Amber nodded.

"You're needed here, Amber. Dante and Morgan are on their way, but Sarafina needs you here. So does Willem. There's no one for him during the daylight hours. It's not good, when he's ill."

Amber nodded.

"I'll take the blood and the journals to Eric myself."

"My parents are on their way to him, as well, in hopes they can be of some help."

"Good. We'll need all the help we can get." Rhiannon lowered her head, smiling slightly. "If someone had told me I would one day be so desperate to save the life of a mortal, I'd have laughed in their face," she said. "And yet, I cannot bear to see that bitch of a vampiress in this much pain."

"It's because she reminds you of yourself," Amber said.

"Please, she doesn't come close to me. I'm the daughter of a pharaoh. A princess of Egypt."

"She's tough as nails, arrogant and slightly ruthless."

Rhiannon lowered her head, "And yet she's reduced to… " She cast a glance upward, toward the second floor bedroom. "I can hardly bear to see her this way."

"I know." Amber lowered her head. She sighed. "So when do you want to leave?"

"As soon as Willem returns." She sighed. "I suppose it's a good thing that stubborn mortal insisted on going to tonight's appointment on his own. He must have known Sarafina needed to vent some of this."

"And that she would never do it in front of him," Amber added with a nod. "Do you know how to draw blood, Rhiannon?" Amber rolled up a shirtsleeve as she asked the question.

Rhiannon laughed softly, and Amber, realizing the irony of asking what she just had of a vampire, laughed, as well. Then her aunt nodded. "Eric gave me rather detailed instructions. I have everything we need in my room. Paid a late-night visit to a medical clinic in Salem."

"Let's get it done, then," Amber said, getting to her feet.

Edge, drawn against his will, had to see this for himself. He crept up to the house, opening his senses to determine their location within. Then he crept inside, up to the bedroom, and watched while Rhiannon tied a rubber tourniquet around Amber's upper arm. She inserted a needle in the crook of Amber's elbow, then released the band.

Scarlet nectar flowed from her pink, healthy flesh, filling the tube and spilling into the plastic bag at its end. It ran in time with her pulse, increasing in pressure each time her heart beat. Edge's hunger gnawed at him, and his eyes would not move away from the rush of blood into that bag. He licked his lips. His passion stirred. How he would love to taste her. Just once.

"That should do," Rhiannon said when the bag was full. She removed the needle, pressed a cotton gauze pad to the tiny pinprick and bent the girl's arm over it. Then she gathered the other items. "Lie here for a while. I'll put this away and bring you some juice."

Edge ducked around a corner as Rhiannon left the bedroom. She paused in the hallway, looking this way and that, a frown etching her brow. He tried to draw himself inward and erect shields. He must have slipped, turned on by the blood.

When she continued on her way, Edge moved into the bedroom.

Amber saw him, and her eyes widened. "What are you doing here?"

"I told you I'd be back." His stomach knotted. "I felt as if you needed help, felt your blood being drained. But I see I misread the situation." He moved closer to the bed where she lay.

"Everything's fine, but it's nice to know you would have come charging to the rescue if it hadn't been."

He took her wrist in his hand, unbent her arm and gently peeled the gauze away from the tiny pinprick. "I'm just heroic that way, I guess," he whispered. Then he bent his head and pressed his lips to the wound. He tasted the barest hint of her blood, and his mind caught fire.

He heard the breath whisper out of her, and he couldn't resist letting his tongue dart out, licking a hot path over the crook of her elbow, tasting a tiny ruby droplet that lingered there. A shiver worked through his very bones at the taste of her.

She didn't taste like a mortal woman. She didn't taste like a vampire, either. She tasted different, exotic, and the jolt that hit him when her blood touched his tongue was far more powerful than anything he'd ever felt before.

Her fingers curled in his hair. She almost pressed him closer. Almost. Her hand was shaking with the effort she had to make not to. He felt it—everything she felt whispered through him.

Forcibly, he lifted his head away, wondering silently just what the hell kind of power this woman had. He'd never felt anything like her—and he hadn't heard anything about this part of her in the legends. No one had ever whispered that touching her could cause shock, that tasting her could be addictive, or that looking into those deep, dark eyes could prove fatal.

He had to avert his eyes and pull his insides back together, so he turned to take a little bandage from the bedside stand. He peeled off the wrapping, tried not to let his hands shake too badly as he applied it to her wound.

"Th-thanks," she whispered.

He met her eyes quickly, knowing that his tasting her had shaken her as much as it had him. He thought about kissing her then. Not to further his plan, though it would certainly do that. But just because he wanted to. And Edge had never been one to deny himself anything he wanted. So he leaned a little closer.

"Well now, what have we here?" Rhiannon asked from the doorway.

Chapter 4

He stopped in midmotion, seeing the alarm in Amber's eyes at the sound of the other woman's voice.

She cleared her throat. "Aunt Rhiannon, this is Edge."

Rhiannon came forward even as Edge got to his feet, turned to face her and put on his most charming smile. He extended a hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard of you. Princess of Egypt, right?"

The beautiful woman's stern expression softened just slightly. "Yes." She took the hand he offered, shook it. "And how did you meet my Amber Lily?"

"She hit me with her car."

Rhiannon blinked, shot a shocked look at Amber on the bed.

"It was an accident," she said. "But I figured the least I could do was give him a ride. He was coming this way anyway."

Her brows went up. "Really? And what brings you to Salem Harbor, Edge?"

"Amber's Ferrari."

She made a face, not embracing his humor.

"Actually, I just always wanted to see it."

She didn't seem to believe him. "Well, now you can."

He licked his lips. "I, um—I heard the commotion. Is there anything I can do?"

"We have things under control."

He nodded, then cast a glance at Amber in the bed. "I suppose I should go, then. Leave you to it."

"It was nice meeting you," Rhiannon said, stepping to one side of the open doorway.

Amber sat up on the bed, swinging her feet to the floor. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"

He smiled at her. "I'll find a place. I always do."

She sent Rhiannon a pleading look, to which the other woman responded with a scowl. But then, from outside the room, another voice came.

"That's the problem with royalty. They can be so rude." A third woman came into the room. She wore a plush robe and looked drained of energy. Her feet dragged a little when she walked, and her eyes were red, as if she had been crying or was suffering a hangover.

Amber shot to her feet, and Rhiannon turned to reach for the woman, but she held her hands up and stopped them both. "Don't."

Rhiannon sighed, but lowered her arms to her sides. "You should be sleeping."

She shrugged. "Tell your friend Eric his vampire-tranquilizer needs tweaking. It might have put you out of commission, Rhiannon, but for a vampiress as powerful as I am, it only produces a slight buzz."

"If you were yourself, Gypsy, I'd show you the meaning of powerful." Rhiannon said the words gently, though. It wasn't a real threat.

The "Gypsy" crossed the room, gently embraced Amber. "I didn't exactly give you a proper greeting, did I?"

"It's understandable," Amber said, hugging her back.

As they pulled apart, the vampiress studied Amber, stroked a hand over her hair. "It's redder than last time I saw you."

"More burgundy than red," Rhiannon said.

Amber shrugged. "It always seems to be changing. Mom says I have raven hair with bloody highlights."

She was all about highlights, Edge thought in silence. Her ebony eyes turned darkest midnight-blue if you looked closely enough. He wondered if they had changed, as well, or if they'd always been that way. Not that it mattered in the least to him.

The third woman was facing him now, offering a weak smile and a hand. "I'm Sarafina."

He took her hand. Her grip wasn't as strong as he would have expected in one as old as she was. The power of a vampire floated around them like a nimbus. It grew with age, and he sensed a depth of it in this woman—nearly as much as he felt wafting from Rhiannon. But it was hiding now, or dormant.

"They call me Edge."

"And you're a friend of Amber Lily's?"

He glanced her way. "I'd like to be."

"Then you're more than welcome to stay here with us."

"Tina, a word, please?" Rhiannon whispered.

Sarafina shot her a look. "There's no need for secrecy, Rhiannon. I imagine Edge has figured out by now that you don't trust him, and that you guard Amber Lily like your Pandora would guard a freshly downed antelope."

Pandora? Edge sent the mental whisper to Amber, wondering if she could hear and respond.

Her pet black panther, she thought back at him.

He was impressed with her telepathic skills and not sure how to respond to the likening of Rhiannon to a predatory feline, so he said nothing at all.

Sarafina moved closer to him, studied his face. "Not that she's overprotective, by any means. There are a lot of ruthless sons of bitches who'd give anything to get their hands on our Amber Lily."

"And you think I might be one of them?" He tried to look shocked, glancing from her to Rhiannon to Amber. "I'm a vampire, ladies. I'm one of you."

"You're a vampire. Not one of us," Rhiannon said, her voice soft, dangerous.

He held up both hands. "I didn't come here looking for free room and board."

Sarafina shrugged. "Still, I can't think of a better way to keep an eye on you than to have you stay right here, with us."

He smiled at her. "Not on your life, lady." Then he turned to Amber. "I'm out of here, Alby. But I won't be far."

He started for the door, and Amber came up behind him. "Edge, you don't have to—"

She stopped speaking when he turned around, snapped an arm around her waist, tugged her hard against him and kissed her mouth. It wasn't a long kiss. It wasn't meant to be. It was a message. And he thought the vampires received it loud and clear.

When he let her go, she frowned at him, almost as if she knew exactly what he was doing. Damn, she was supposed to be weak-kneed and confused. Instead she looked as sharp and nearly as mistrusting of him as the vampires were.

He said, "I'll see you again." Then he turned on his heel, walked into the hall; down the stairs and out of the house.

Amber closed her eyes, squared her shoulders and turned to face the two women. "Don't even start."

"I don't like him," Rhiannon said.

"He's up to something," Sarafina agreed.

"Of course he's up to something." Amber stalked down the stairs, with the two women right behind her. She headed to the kitchen, put on a kettle, dug in a cupboard for the herbal tea blend she and Willem both favored. Only then did she turn and face the women again. "Sit."

"Amber… " Rhiannon began.

"Just sit. Sarafina, you're going to fall down if you don't get off your feet." She took 'Fina's arm, pulled out a chair for her.

Sarafina sat down. Rhiannon didn't. She folded her arms over her chest and speared Amber with her eyes. "Amber, he's handsome, I'll grant you that," she said.

Sarafina agreed. "Devastatingly handsome."

"Hottest man I've ever seen in my freakin' life," Amber put in.

The two looked at her, wide-eyed.

"Look, I wasn't born yesterday, you know."

"No. Just twenty-three years ago," Rhiannon said. "Which really isn't much longer than yesterday."

"Not to you, maybe. But I'm not stupid."

"I never said you were stupid, Amber, just… inexperienced."

"With men, she means," Sarafina put in.

"Not so inexperienced I can't spot a con a mile away. God, do you think I believe any of this? He appears out of nowhere on a dark road and I don't sense him there? He had to be shielding." She shook her head slowly. "I've been mulling this over all the way out here. The only answer I can come up with is that he didn't want me to see him before I hit him.''

Rhiannon blinked, glanced at Sarafina, then looked back at Amber.

"And that he just happened to be going to Salem? Come on, I'd have to be a dimwit to fall for that."

"But you brought him here all the same," Sarafina whispered.

Amber nodded, moving behind her to squeeze her shoulders. "Yes. And I'm sorry if it added any more tension to a situation that's already unbearable, Sarafina. I didn't want to make things worse for you."

"Then why did you do it?" Rhiannon asked.

Amber met her eyes. "I think… I was supposed to."

"What do you mean?"

Sighing, Amber shook her head. "No. Look, this is my deal, okay? I'm not ready to talk about it, not yet. And certainly not when there's so much else going on." She leaned closer to Sarafina. "Don't burden yourself worrying about mis. I can handle Edge. And don't give up hope on Willem."

Sarafina jerked her head around to stare into Amber's eyes, then she turned her gaze on Rhiannon. "You're planning something, aren't you?"

Amber nodded.

"Amber, don't—" Rhiannon began.

"She has a right to know." Amber moved to the chair nearest Sarafina's, took her hands, held her eyes. "You remember when Will saved you from Stiles and threw him from that peak into the sea?"

She nodded. "We never found his body."

"I don't think his body was there. Rhiannon and I—we think he survived."

"But how… ?" Then she blinked, and her eyes widened. "The experiments? You think he was successful?"

"We can't know that for sure," Rhiannon said.

"But we're going to find out." The teakettle started whistling, long and slow. Amber got up to shut it off.

"The importance of our new friend Edge and his motives for coming here pale in comparison to this."

Rhiannon sighed. "On that, I suppose I have to agree."

Amber put a tea bag into her mug, poured the steaming water over it. "Rhiannon is taking a sample of my blood to Eric at Wind Ridge. My parents are going to meet her there. You know Eric and his science. If there's anything to be found, he'll find it. It's just a matter of time."

"Time." Sarafina sighed, lowered her head. "That's something we don't have in abundance."

"Dante and Morgan are on their way, Sarafina," Rhiannon said. "They're going to work from this end on tracing Frank Stiles. If he is still alive, they'll track him down. And once we know where he is… " Rhiannon didn't finish. She didn't have to.

"It might not matter," Sarafina said softly. "Even if we found some way to—to do this thing—"

God, Amber thought. She couldn't even say it.

"I'm not sure Willem would surrender his mortality."

Amber frowned. "Is this something you've discussed, then?"

She shook her head. "We try not to. He's so determined that we live in the moment—so determined to keep me from torturing myself by thinking about the inevitable." Lifting her eyes, she said, "Or what we thought was inevitable."

"Then you don't know," Amber said. "And you won't, not until you ask him."

"He's such a stubborn man."

"Aren't they all?" Rhiannon asked. She swallowed hard, facing Amber again. "Still, I don't like the idea of leaving here with that Edge character lurking around."

"I told you, I can handle Edge," Amber said.

"We'll watch over her," Sarafina said. Then she bit her lip. "Though I don't suppose that's very comforting to you, given what happened the last time Amber was in our care."

"Amber doesn't need to be in anyone's care," Amber said.

Rhiannon sighed. "Dante and Morgan will be here soon. I suppose between the four of you… '' She let her voice trail off.

Amber didn't argue that she could take care of herself, knowing it would fall on deaf ears, anyway. How did a twenty-three-year-old tell a pair of centuries-old immortals that she was a mature adult? It was impossible. She returned to the table with her tea, sat down, sipped it and prayed for patience.

Edge smiled at the irony of it as he eyed the abandoned church. He'd stuck close to the peninsula's shoreline, because he liked it It had been a while since he'd spent any time near the ocean. The sea was dark tonight, moody, mysteriously biding whatever it held in its depths. It reminded him of Amber Lily's eyes. And for some reason, he needed to keep it in sight. So he walked along the shoreline, covering several miles of distance in very little time. And then he spotted it. The tall steeple had bare patches of ribbing, where the shingles had been torn away by the storms and whims of the sea. Its once white paint barely qualified as a decent shade of pale gray anymore. It wasn't a large church. Just a simple rectangle, slightly longer than wide, with its back to the sea.

As he walked around the sad little church, he noted the tall windows, arched at the top, fitted with once red wooden shutters, all of them closed now with planks of wood crisscrossing them to keep them secure. At the front, the double doors were similarly boarded up. There had been steps once, but the weather had rotted them away. Only scraps of rotten lumber remained, surrounding a six foot square of black earth underneath the doors like an ugly scar.

Copses of trees stood on either side of the church, but in front of the building, scraggly weeds and a handful of saplings made for thinner cover. Edge walked that way and found the narrow dirt road that probably didn't see much use these days. It had grass growing in the middle, barely worn tracks on either side. It had probably been replaced with a paved, straighter road several decades ago. Maybe a newer church was built somewhere along it. But this one—this one hadn't seen use in a long, long time.

Moving to the side with the most coverage, he easily tugged off the boards, opened the shutters to look in at the broken window. Just as well it was busted, he would have had to break it anyway. He sure as hell wasn't going to yank the boards off the back windows, where beach walkers might notice. And the front doors would be more easily glimpsed, as well, should someone happen by. It was this side or nothing.

He brushed aside the broken glass, careful not to slide his hands over it—he didn't want to bleed to death before dawn. Then he held to the bottom of the window and easily jumped through, landing on his feet on the inside.

Brushing dirt off his hands, he took a look around.

There were crumbling plaster walls, broken floorboards, and cobwebs enough to weave a blanket. He brushed them aside as he walked through the place. A handful of pews remained, like the few remaining teeth in an old man's head. At the front, the floor was raised, but no altar stood there. He saw a door beyond the dais and went to it, forced it open, admiring the intricacies of the brass doorknob—an antique, no doubt, but tarnished to near black. The door had swollen, didn't want to budge, but he was a vampire and not in the mood to play. He shoved, and it popped open, immediately sagging to one side due to a missing hinge.

Edge stepped through. The room in the back was small, just a storage space, probably. There were shelves on the back wall, even a stray box or two, mold growing on the outsides of them. He reached for one of them, tugging it from the shelf. The wet bottom gave, and the contents spilled over his feet.

Candles.

He smiled. Perfect. Everything a vampire needed to feel at home. A trap-door in the floor led to the small basement. Barely room enough to stand. Dirt floor, stacked stone walls without a hint of cement to hold them together. Just flat stones piled atop one another on all four sides. He nodded in approval and moved back to the upper floor, slung his duffel bag onto a pew. Then he tugged one of the two remaining pews from its place, took it to the front, where the dais was, and set it dead center.

Returning to his duffel, he opened it and removed a smaller sack, carrying it with him. From the sack he took several small items and carefully, lovingly, set them in a circle on the surface of the pew. A bone-trimmed switchblade with Billy Boy's initials carved in the side. The silver crescent moon that Ginger had worn in her ear. Scottie's gold pen. He'd had the soul of a poet. And the opal barrettes Bridget had worn in her hair.

Edge retrieved a handful of the candles from the back, used his lighter to set the wicks aflame and dripped wax onto the pew, then set them upright in it, so they wouldn't tip easily. He placed them in a circle around the objects and watched their fiery light dance over his odd little collection of keepsakes.

His family. These items represented his family. The only one he'd ever had. The only one he wanted, because God knew he wouldn't put himself through that kind of pain again. The people they represented were long gone. Hunted down and executed by a man named Frank W. Stiles. And Edge was closer than ever to finding him and, finally, exacting revenge.

"You look wonderful," Amber told Will when he returned to the house.

"What, you were expecting otherwise?" He set his walking stick aside and gave her a hug, and she noted that his arms felt strong around her, powerful.

She smiled and hugged back, never admitting that she had expected otherwise. He had cancer, had been given a death sentence—she'd expected him to be pale and weak, to have lost weight. Not so. His hair hadn't turned gray. His face was harsher, more lines had appeared around his dark eyes, but they seemed more like laugh lines than age. And while his limp was more pronounced than it had been before, that could have been for any number of reasons besides the cancer.

"Don't look terminally ill at all, do I, kid?'' he asked.

She winced inwardly but kept her smile in place. "You look healthy as a horse. Guess it takes more than a little cancer to bother a Special Forces colonel."

"Retired," he said, retrieving his intricately carved and painted walking stick—one Sarafina had bought him on their recent trip to Africa—and limping to where his beloved sat. He leaned over 'Fina, slid his hand over her shoulder, bent to kiss her neck. She closed her eyes. They'd been all around the world, the two of them. Privately, Amber thought it the most romantic thing she could imagine. And thank God, she thought. Thank God they'd had the time they had, to be together. Just in case they were nearing the end.

Amber moved around the table, pulled out the chair next to 'Fina's. "Sit down, Willem, have some tea with me."

He smiled at her. "It's been a while since I've had anyone to share tea with." 'Fina sent him a playful pout, and he patted her hand. "Not that I'm complaining."

Amber poured, and Willem sat. His sharp gaze slid carefully over Sarafina's face, and Amber knew he saw something there. Maybe some clue of the emotional breakdown she had experienced during his absence. God love her, she'd pulled herself together in a hurry. Fixed her hair, her face, put on clothes. But Will knew her too well not to notice something was off.

Rhiannon sat, as well.

"So are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?" Willem asked when Amber set the tea in front of him.

Amber frowned. "Tell you what?"

He made a face, shook his head, sipped the tea and set the cup down. "Come on, kid. I know you. I know your so-called aunt there, and I know my wife. You've been plotting strategy."

Amber licked her lips and averted her eyes.

"Don't do it, Amber," he said softly. "Don't try to find Stiles." Turning his gaze to Sarafina and then Rhiannon, he went on. "If he finds out where Amber is, he'll come for her. You both know he will. It's not worth risking her life on the slim chance you can save mine."

"Don't you think," Amber asked, "that decision should be left up to me?''

He met her eyes. "Suppose it works, but you get yourself killed? You expect me to live with that?"

"You risked your life to save mine, Will. I'm only returning the favor."

"You're only a girl."

She glanced down at the walking stick, where it leaned against the table beside his chair. Then she jerked her gaze up and across the room. The stick flew like a well-aimed spear, at a speed so fast it hissed through the air. Just before it sank into the wall, Amber flicked up a hand, and it stopped dead. She flipped her hand over, and the stick turned vertical, then sailed easily back across the room and right into her palm. She set it down on the floor, leaning it against the table.

"I'm not only anything, Will. I may look young. I may be young, chronologically. But I'm a direct descendant of the most powerful vampire I know." When she said it, she looked to Rhiannon. "You sired Roland, he sired Eric, Eric sired Tarn, and all of you, together, saved my father from certain death when you gave him your blood to transform him into what you are. That blood runs in my veins. And I may not be a vampiress, but I'm not a human, either. And I'm stronger than any of you know."

Will nodded slowly. "I know you are. But you've been sheltered, protected. You've never had to fight to survive, to kill or be killed, Amber. It's not something you pick up overnight, and it's not easy. No matter how strong you are. Experience is worth as much as power. And while you have the latter in abundance, you have very little of the former."

She held his gaze. He held hers right back, stubborn as ever. She said, "Rhiannon is taking some of my blood to Eric and Tarn's tonight. They'll work on it in Eric's lab, with help and input from my parents and Roland. They might find the answers there. We don't necessarily have to bring Stiles into this at all, if he's even alive."

"Oh, he's alive," someone said. All eyes turned toward the doorway, where the two newcomers stood: strong, powerful Dante and his small, frail-looking companion, Morgan.

Dante's eyes went straight to Sarafina's, and their gazes locked. She trembled a little, rising to her feet, and Amber knew it was harder than ever for her to keep her emotions in check, now that her beloved Dante was here.

He swept forward, wrapping her in his arms. "I'm here for you, my precious 'Fina. I always will be."

"Don't make promises like that, Dante," she whispered. "You know life is uncertain at best, cruel at worst."

He closed his eyes, no doubt feeling her pain. Sarafina was a relative of his, an aunt or great-aunt, Amber thought, from the Same Gypsy band. But in truth, they were more like siblings. They loved one another, fought with each other, then made up again, just as a brother and sister might do.

Amber waited until they'd parted. She'd never met Dante and his bride, though she'd seen all of Morgan's films. They were still being made today, even though she was supposed to be dead. Her sister had allegedly found trunks full of unproduced scripts, and Morgan had collected more awards posthumously than most screenwriters did while alive.

The films were great, too.

When the introductions were complete, Willem said, "What did you mean about Stiles being alive?"

Pulling out a chair for Morgan, Dante remained standing. "You know, of course, that Morgan and I are silent partners in her sister's investigations agency in Maine. We have… sources. On both sides of mortality. Stiles has been sighted numerous times since your encounter with him five years ago."

"You have proof it was him?" Will asked.

"No. But there's enough circumstantial evidence to convince me."

Will thinned his lips.

"You have doubts as to whether we should pursue him?" Dante asked.

"Of course he has doubts," Morgan said softly. "Stiles is deadly, a threat to every one of us in this room. He nearly killed you twice, Dante. But he's most dangerous to Amber."

Will met Morgan's gaze, nodded. "Thank you. I'm glad someone here sees the risk besides me. I really prefer we give Eric some time to work in his lab with Amber's blood samples before we even consider bringing that monster into this."

"But you'll let us go after Stiles as a last resort?" Sarafina asked, her voice filled with hope.

"Don't even answer, Will," Amber put in. "It doesn't matter if you decide to let us. If Eric can't recreate Stiles's formula, we're doing it."

Will lowered his head. "Stubborn woman."

He'd said "woman," Amber noticed. Not "kid." She appreciated that. "As stubborn as you are, Will. And far from ready to give up on you."

"Even if we don't go after Stiles right away," Morgan said, "we can still begin doing some of the work of tracking him down. We've brought our files, everything we've been able to dig up on the man, and if you don't mind, we can set up a computer here, hook up to the 'net and continue following the leads we dug up at home."

Sarafina nodded enthusiastically, only to pause and look at Will. He nodded as well, sighing deeply. "Just be careful. I do not want word leaking out that Amber is here. It would put her at too much risk."

Amber rolled her eyes when Dante said, "Agreed."

"Now that you're all here," Rhiannon said, "I suppose it's safe for me to be on my way. I will trust Sarafina and Amber Lily to fill you in on our other little complication."

"We don't know he's a complication," Amber said quickly.

"But we will find out," Rhiannon replied.

As goodbyes were said, Rhiannon hugged Amber fiercely and whispered in her ear, "Do not let your guard down with that Edge character. He's powerful, child. Not old, but powerful all the same. And dangerous. I feel it wafting off him in waves."

"He must be related to you, then." Amber walked her outside to the waiting vehicle.

Rhiannon scowled. "If he wasn't up to something involving my favorite female in the universe, I might actually like the man."

"I promise I'll be careful. And, Rhiannon?"

The vampiress looked at her, one brow cocked. "Oh, no," she said. "You're not going to ask me to keep my knowledge of Edge from your parents."

"I'm not going to ask you," Amber told her. "I'm going to insist on it."

Rhiannon thinned her lips, crossing her arms over her chest. "Amber… "

"They'd come with flamethrowers and machine guns firing garlic-coated wooden stakes shaped like crosses, if they knew. You know they would."

Rhiannon smiled a little at Amber's use of every cliche, including those that had no more effect on the undead than on the living. But her smile died slowly. "They're going to have to know sooner or later, Amber."

"I prefer later."

"They'll hate him on sight, you know. Just on principle."

"Then the later, the better," Amber said.

"I don't know… "

"Rhiannon, Will had a point about my lack of experience. Let me do this. Let me figure out on my own just what Edge is up to and why he's homed in on me as his tool to get it." She shrugged. "Besides, there's always a slight chance he might just be smitten. Bewitched by my beauty, captivated by my sharp mind and entranced by my infinite charms."

"Oh, I have no doubt of that," Rhiannon said, smiling. "As you pointed out inside, my blood is running in your veins."

Amber rolled her eyes and watched as Rhiannon got into her Mercedes and drove away into the night. Then she turned toward the doorway, where Dante and Morgan waited—two vampires who had not, thank God, known her from birth and who did not, therefore, see her as a child but as she was.

She joined them inside, and being one of the only two mortals in the house, claimed she was tired and needed some rest. It made as good an excuse as any to slip out and stroll along the beach.

She rolled up her jeans, kicked off her shoes and waded through me ice-cold waves that washed up onto the sand and rock shore. But it wasn't a walk she wanted, and it wasn't solitude she sought, and she knew it.

She quieted her mind, then opened it, and put Edge's face before her eyes. It wasn't as if she didn't know his face intimately. She'd been seeing it for a long, long time now, in her dreams.

Silently, she called to him.

Immediately, he answered. And she got the feeling he'd been expecting her summons.

Chapter 5

"Has all the comforts of home, don't you think?"

Edge was standing in the window of an abandoned, falling-down church. He'd pushed open the shutters, spoken softly to her as she'd followed her sense of him along the beach. She turned, scanning the darkness. She saw well in the darkness, not as well as a vampire, but far better than a human.

It was always this way, Amber thought as she spotted him there and altered her course, turning toward the church. Everything she did, every talent she had, she weighed against the norms of the undead and of the living, trying to figure out where she fit.

She walked up to the window, stood on the ground looking up at him, six feet above her. "So does this luxury beach house have a door, or… ?"

He reached down, bending low. She took his hand, and he easily pulled her up and inside. Her body slammed into his as she landed, and he wrapped his free arm around her waist as if to steady her, and kept her there.

She lifted her head, saw the mischief in his eyes and the heat around the edges of his smile. She felt the firmness of his body against hers and the power of his arms around her. It felt far too good, made her want far too much more.

He let her go all too soon and turned to walk around the crumbling rain. She scanned the place, taking in every detail. The duffel bag slung on one of the pews, the other pew that had been placed on the dais, and the odd items that sat upon it among some candles that had been recently snuffed. He watched her look around the place.

"Well?" he asked. "You approve?"

"It's a hovel."

He shrugged. "Yeah, but it's home." He brushed a layer of dust off an empty pew, and she sat down.

"You should have stayed with us at the house. Could've had your own room, a soft bed, indoor plumbing… "

"Here I have my own bell." When she frowned, he pointed upward, and she saw the rope hanging from a hole in the ceiling. "Up above, it's open clear to the steeple. There's a bell at the other end of this rope."

"If you ring it, you'll blow your cover."

"It is a dilemma."

She smiled at him. "So what's with the little altar?" As she said it, she nodded toward the pew with the candles and other items. "You into Voodoo or something?"

"It's only a few mementos."

Sliding off her pew, she moved closer to take a better look. "You mind?"

He shrugged, so she examined the items more closely, even picking up one or two. An earring, a pair of barrettes. "So you wore an earring and barrettes when you were alive?"

"Not exactly."

She handled the switchblade, examining the initials engraved in the bone handle. B. R. "These aren't yours, are they?"

"Are now."

He was shifting his weight, his eyes moving rapidly from his keepsakes to her hands on them. It made him uncomfortable, her handling these things. She put the blade down carefully. "If you don't want to tell me, just say so."

Again, he only shrugged, then turned away. "So what's the deal? Back at the mansion, I mean?"

It was hardly a mansion. She averted her eyes. "I told you about Willem. He's mortal, and he's sick."

"Dying," he said.

She sighed.

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

"There's the rub, though, isn't it?" She looked at him sharply. "You don't have anything to say about it. Do you?"

She shrugged. "You might be surprised." He licked his lips. "That Egyptian Princess—she bled you, didn't she?"

Amber frowned. "With my full consent."

"I thought as much. Otherwise I'd have torn into her." That brought a smile to her face. He saw it and tipped his head. "What, you think I'd have trouble with her?"

"I don't think, I know."

He rolled his eyes. "I'm tougher than I look, you know."

"You look plenty tough. Don't get all offended." He sighed. "Doesn't matter. If I'd thought she was harming you—"

"You'd have fought to defend me, huh?"

"Do you doubt it?" He was serious now, his eyes darkening, taking on a look of intense emotion. She got the feeling he was lying but decided to believe. He moved closer, cupped her cheek in one hand and bent toward her. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to, but she knew damn well she was going to lose her focus the minute his mouth touched hers. So she spoke just before it did, while his eyes were closed and his breath was fanning her face.

"What do you really want from me, Edge?''

It caught him off guard. His eyes popped open, and they held the expression of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But he caught himself fast, banished the guilty look and replaced it with a lecherous one. "I thought we'd start with the kissing. From there, I have all sorts of ideas."

Her stomach knotted a little at the suggestion of sex, even though he hadn't actually said it. He didn't have to say it. He practically oozed it. "Beyond that, I mean," she managed, her words emerging hoarsely from a throat that had gone tight. "Why did you fling yourself in front of my car last night? Why are you pretending to be interested in me now?"

He blinked at her as if in confusion. "Do you cast a reflection, Alby?"

Frowning, she nodded. "Yes. Why?"

"Just wondering if you've ever seen yourself in a mirror."

She rolled her eyes, told herself not to let his smooth, slow words make her lose track of her mission here, and gently extricated herself from his full body embrace.

"If you have, why would you accuse me of pretending to want you?''

"You've only known me for twenty-four hours, Edge, and half of those you were resting."

"I wanted you in the first ten seconds," he said. Then he shrugged. "Being female and half mortal, I suppose you're one of those who believes it's necessary to get to know a person before indulging in an exchange of mutual ecstasy."

"Well, yeah. Especially with someone who's being less than honest about his motives."

"I'm being perfectly honest, Alby. I'm not declaring eternal love, and I'll tell you up-front that I never will. Hell, I'm not even sure I like you much at this point. This—" he ran a finger along her cheek until she shivered "—is purely physical." He ran his hand slowly down her neck, to her shoulder, from her shoulder down her back, following the curve of her spine. His fingertips left a tingling wave of sensation in their wake. His hand kept sliding lower, until she stepped away from his touch. "I don't believe in self-denial," he said softly.

"Then I'll do the denying."

"Hell." He heaved a sigh and flung himself onto one of the pews, sitting heavily. "So why are you here, Alby? If you didn't come to let me ravish you, what are you doing here?"

She bit her lip. "I already told you, I want to know why you're interested in me. What were you doing on that road?"

"Walking to Salem."

"Why?"

"Because my car died. I told you that."

"And why did you throw yourself in front of my car and pretend I hit you?"

He pursed his lips, lowered his gaze to the floor, sighed. "All right. All right, you're too smart for me. I did do that. I thought it was my best shot at getting a ride." He licked his lips and searched her eyes. "I had no idea who you were, though. Not until after the fact. And I've got no reason to try to fool you now. I already got the ride I was after."

"Not the only ride you're after," she muttered.

"Well, that goes without saying." His smile was one of pure mischief, and it turned her on like nothing she'd ever seen. "The only question now is, how am I going to get you to change your mind?"

She averted her face, felt the blood heating her cheeks.

"How long are you staying in Salem Harbor, Alby?"

She shrugged. "It really depends. There's a… a man who might be able to help me save Willem. If I can find out where he is, I'll leave immediately."

He nodded slowly. "Then we'll have to make the most of our time together, won't we?"

She felt her brows rise, turned to him in surprise.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten our conversation in the car? I promised I would help you figure out who and what you are." He shrugged. "It'll give me a chance to charm you out of your clothes, while I'm at it."

"Right." She sighed. "So how do you plan to do that?"

"Charm you out of your clothes?"

"Help me figure out what I am." If she were honest, she would admit she was more interested in the other. She was half afraid he could do it. Half hoping he could.

"You come back here tomorrow night, and I'll show you."

She licked her lips, nerves jumping. "Don't expect anything in return, Edge."

"Oh, I don't expect—I demand something in return."

She lifted her brows. "Do you?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"What?"

"This." He rose from the pew, walked slowly toward her, holding her eyes with his. She didn't move away, didn't even think about it. He pressed his palms to hers, at her sides, pressed his body to hers, rubbing, and she didn't pull back. No, she stood firm when he pressed himself against her, even, maybe, pressed back a little. He tipped his head to one side, she tipped hers to the other, and he lowered his mouth slowly, slowly closer to hers. Just before his lips touched her, he whispered, "Of course, I won't collect until I've delivered on my promise."

He started to lift his head away. And Amber heard herself saying, "The hell you won't." She tugged her hands from his and pressed them instead to the back of his head, pulling him to her, kissing his mouth. She felt his lips trying to pull into a smile as she kissed them; then they trembled and parted, and his arms slid around her waist and pulled her even closer. He pushed her mouth wider, digging inside with his tongue and feeding from her like a man starved to death. She heard a moan, wasn't sure if it was his or hers, and felt as if her very blood were blazing—molten lava crawling beneath her skin.

Finally, when the shaking was so intense she could barely stand and her mind was spinning, he lifted his head away and whispered, "God, Alby, I could eat you alive."

The words, combined with the blazing hunger in his eyes, sent a jolt of fear through her. She'd never been bitten by a vampire before. She had no idea what it would be like, but she knew he could easily lose control and drain her to the point of death.

His hand pushed her hair from her face. "No, Alby. That's not what I meant." He shrugged. "Though that would be good, too. I'll do both before I've finished with you."

She swore under her breath at the rash of desire his words shot through her. "I have… I have to go."

"But you'll come… here… tomorrow night," he told her. Then he smiled slowly, devilishly. "I promise."

Blinking, Amber turned and went to the window, leaped out, landing hard on the ground, and then ran all the way back to the house.

Edge had, the way he saw it, two options. He could screw the woman's brains out and wait for her and her friends to get a line on Frank Stiles, then follow them to the man. Or he could screw the woman's brains out and move forward with his plan to leak word of her presence in the Salem area to some of the underworld figures he knew, using her as bait to lure Stiles right here.

Either way, he was going to have her. He'd intended to seduce her all along, from his very first glimpse of her. But what he hadn't foreseen was the fire in her and the impact it had on him. By God, he'd never wanted like this. He hoped she was as strong as she claimed to be, because otherwise, he was liable to hurt her. Having her would be an unplanned bonus. Might feel almost as good as killing Stiles was going to feel.

He wondered if he should wait just a few days. Give her friends time to do their digging. Give himself more time to explore every inch of her, fulfill her every fantasy and violate her every inhibition. If he had to use her as bait, it would, after all, put her at some risk. He didn't care, of course. His goal was all that mattered to him.

And to prove that, he had to move and move now. But he would be sure he nabbed Stiles before the man got within a mile of Amber Lily. It would be a crying shame if anything happened to her before Edge had his fill.

The house was quiet. The sun had risen half an hour ago, and everyone except for Amber had slipped quietly into the comalike day sleep of the undead. Even Will had gone to bed. Amber looked in on him, sleeping soundly beside Sarafina in their queen-size bed. It gave Amber time—time to mull over what she'd learned about Edge the night before.

Dante and Morgan had turned one spare bedroom into a kind of "search-central" headquarters. Two computers with cable modems attached, a telephone with a line splitter, and a fax machine lined the room. If not for the bed, which had been shoved up against the far wall, it would have looked more like an office than a bedroom.

Amber spent a couple of hours there, reading the pages of information Dante and Morgan had gathered. There were file folders full of it. Nothing solid, though. Several out of focus photographs that might have been the scar-faced Stiles or a thousand other men. Numerous eye witness accounts that dragged on in painful detail and told her nothing. She found no pattern to the sightings, no one geographical area where Stiles seemed more likely to be. Paris, Albany, San Diego, Houston. She glanced up at the world map that was mounted to a corkboard and hanging on the bedroom wall, understanding now what all the colored push pins signified.

She went online, searching for clues about Stiles on her own, but again she came up empty. Finally she gave in to the sleepiness that was creeping up on her. She didn't require a lot of sleep. Had never needed the eight hours most people needed. And maybe that was part of what she was, or maybe it was the result of growing up with parents who were only awake by night. Whatever it was, Amber's habit was to nap, an hour here, two hours there. Her body seemed to know just how much sleep it needed, and she always woke up once she'd had it.

Right now, it was telling her to go to bed. So she did.

She slept soundly, and she dreamed erotic dreams of her and Edge, writhing and twisting around each other, with him whispering declarations of undying love along with all manner of dirty talk in her ear.

When she woke, Amber was sweaty and her heart was racing. She got out of bed, grateful that she'd had a dream about Edge that didn't include overwhelming feelings of grief and loss, and the presence of death looming over her. She headed straight into the shower, noting that the sun was still up and beaming brightly. Then she made herself a bowl of bran flakes with a sliced banana on top and sat down to eat it in her robe with a towel on her head.

"That looks good. Think I'll join you."

She looked up to see Willem limping into the kitchen. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. His feet were bare and his hair rather tousled. She got up immediately and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his strong neck, noticing the broadness of his shoulders and chest. It was hard to believe he was sick. Except that he looked haggard this morning, as if he'd put in a particularly rough few hours.

"It's good to have you back, Amber. We've missed you. And I gotta tell you, it gets lonely being the only human around here. Especially during the day."

"Tell me about it." She turned and pulled out her own chair, nodding until he took it. "Eat that, I'll get another." He started to argue, but she turned to the counter to fix a second bowl of bran flakes with banana slices, and since it took only a few seconds, he shut up and ate.

Returning to the table with her bowl of cereal, she sat down. "Of course, I'm not exactly human. Technically."

"You're awake and it's daylight. That's human enough for me."

She smiled, understanding that he was trying to keep the conversation light. "You should get yourself some mortal help around this place. I don't know how I'd have survived without Susan and Alicia to keep me company."

He smiled. "They're a unique pair, though. You're lucky to have found people you can trust the way you trust them."

"They're family." She ate some cereal, let the comfortable silence stretch between them. Then they both said "So how are you feeling?" at the same time. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and she said, "You first, since you're the one with the cancer."

"Blunt as ever, aren't you?"

"And I expect you to be the same."

His lips thinned. "I feel like I always have, most of the time. But once in a while I get these blinding headaches. Dizziness and nausea come with them, and they just about render me useless until they pass. Afterward I feel weak and shaky for a day or so."

"You're coming off one of them now," she said, stating it as fact.

He didn't deny it.

"How long do they last?" she asked, grateful that Will was being honest with her. Of them all, he was one of the few who didn't still insist on seeing her as a child.

"The first one was ten minutes. Then they started getting longer. A half hour, an hour. Two."

"And this morning's?" she asked.

He pursed his lips, glanced at his watch. "Four and a half."

"God. Isn't there anything they can give you for them?"

"They can give me enough morphine to knock me out until it passes. I don't tike that option."

Pursing her lips, she nodded. Willem wasn't the kind of man who would enjoy being unconscious and helpless. He would rather bear the pain and remain in control.

"How often?" she asked.

"Like the duration, the frequency is increasing. I'm up to two a week now."

She reached out a hand, smoothed her fingertips over his forehead, his temple. "I'm so sorry, Will. It's not fair."

"Life isn't fair. I've had a better one than a lot of people, I'm not complaining."

"No, you wouldn't."

"It's 'Fina I'm worried about. Frankly, I don't think she'll do well, if I… " He met her eyes. "She's going to need all the help she can get. Even then, I'm not sure she'll make it."

"I'm worried about her, too," she admitted. "We'll all be here for her, Will. You know that. In the end, that's really all we can do. The rest is up to her."

"I know." He smiled at her. "Your turn. What's up with you?" Before she could speak, he added, "And I expect you to be equally blunt, Amber."

She thinned her lips. "Okay. Well… I'm not sure at all, but I don't think I've aged since Connecticut."

He frowned at her, seemed to look her over more closely. Then he tipped his head to one side. "It's not like there are all that many changes between eighteen and twenty-three, you know."

"I know."

"Still, there probably should be some."

"I've been watching Alicia. She's the only other person I've spoken to about this, by the way, so keep it between us." He nodded. "The changes are subtle. Really very subtle, but she has changed. Her face has changed. Her hips are a little wider, and it's not weight, it's adulthood. You know?"

"I know." He frowned. "You aged normally up to that point, grew from a baby to a little girl to an adolescent into a beautiful young woman. Why do you think you suddenly stopped?"

"I'm thinking maybe it was death."

He frowned.

"Stiles killed me several times while he held me. You know that. I don't think I've aged a day since." She shrugged.

"It's a solid theory."

"It's the only one I have right now."

He nodded, crunched a few more bites of cereal and finally pushed the bowl away. "So tell me about Edge."

She almost choked on a banana slice. Will leaned back in his chair, smiling, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for her to come up with an answer.

She got up, stumbled to the fridge for some orange juice, poured two tiny glasses and took a drink from one of them.

"You're stalling for time, right?"

She put the juice back, carried the glasses to the table. "You're too sharp for me." Sitting down, she added, "It's not that I don't want to tell you, just that I'm not sure yet what there is to tell."

"Tina said you bit him with your car."

"Yeah, only I'm sure it was no accident. I got out to see if he was all right, and he said he was on his way to Salem. So I offered him a ride."

He nodded slowly. "You think that part was a coincidence? That you were both going to the same place?"

She shrugged. "I suppose it's not impossible. Last night I got him to admit that he deliberately bounced himself off my bumper, hoping to guilt me into a ride. Said his car had broken down and he wasn't looking forward to the walk."

"At least he was honest with you, then."

She licked her lips. "I have the feeling there's more."

"You think he's dangerous to you?"

"Yeah, but not in the way you mean."

He stared at her blankly for a moment, then his brows went up. "Oh."

She had to avert her eyes.

"So you like him, huh?"

"Hell, Willem, I don't even know him."

"But you're attracted to him."

She nodded, not meeting his eyes. "Big time."

"And it's mutual?"

She shrugged. "Either it's mutual or he's faking it because he's up to something, and I'm having trouble figuring out which."

"You want me to kick his ass for you?"

She laughed at that, and Will made a wounded expression. "What, you think I'm not up to it?"

"I'm sure you'd manage, Willem. You're not untalented in that area, for a mortal. I was just thinking you'd have to stand in line behind your bride, my parents and Aunt Rhiannon.''

He nodded in agreement. "I doubt they'd leave me any scraps."

"Pandora has dibs on the scraps. But frankly, I'd rather give Edge a chance to show his true colors."

He nodded slowly. "That makes sense. So what's the plan?"

"He seems to want to see me. Keep me around. I can't imagine what he wants from me, but—" She ignored the quick look he sent her. "But I think I'll figure it out, given time. And as long as he's here on the Rock, and I'm here, I may as well spend some time with him, see what I can find out."

He licked his lips, saying nothing.

She met his eyes. "What?"

He seemed uncomfortable, shifting in his seat. Then he said, "Dammit, Amber, it's not my place. This is out of my field, you know. But… well, given what I know about your parents and your upbringing, I would guess you're not altogether… experienced. With the opposite sex, I mean."

She shrugged. "I'm psychic. I'm powerful. I'm strong. I've fought at my father's side more than once."

"But you've never had a boyfriend."

She licked her lips, averted her eyes. "Well, there was Jimmy in high school. But the most we ever did was—" He held up a hand, and she broke off there, then nodded. "Okay, suffice it to say you're right. I'm not experienced in that area. But I can handle myself."

"You think so?"

She nodded. "I… think so. Besides, I think… I have to."

Willem frowned. "Have to?"

She turned her attention back to her cereal, but Will's hand came across the table and encircled her wrist, stopping its progress. The spoonful of bran flakes quivered in her. hand.

"What aren't you telling me, Amber?"

She swallowed hard, blinked twice and finally met his eyes. "I've been having… dreams."

"About?"

"About him. About Edge."

He sighed. "Hon, it's normal. Don't let that worry you. When there's an attraction, the subconscious sometimes—"

"I've been having them for a year, Willem. I met Edge for the first time on my way here, when I hit him with my car. But I've been seeing him in vivid, recurring dreams for months and months. And I don't know why. I don't know what it means. But I think… I think it has to mean something."

He blinked slowly, licked his lips, his gaze turning inward, no doubt remembering dreams of his own. "You're right," he said softly. "You have to find out what it means."

She nodded, glancing at the clock. "There's still an hour of daylight left. I thought I might go out to his place, rifle through his things and see what I can find."

"You want company?"

She shook her head. "No. I think I need to handle this on my own."

"Just let me know if you need any help, Amber. And be careful. Where is he staying, by the way?''

She looked at him with her brows raised.

"Just in case you fail to come home one night, I'll know where to look."

"Oh. Uh, there's an abandoned church a mile up the beach."

"I know it."

She tipped her bowl to her lips to drink the remaining soy milk from the bottom, then put it on the table. "Guess I'll get dressed, then." She got to her feet.

Will did, too. He came around the table, put his hands on her shoulders. "Your father wouldn't like this."

"My father still thinks of me as a little girl. But you know I'm not."

"I know," he said. "Just… don't let this Edge character get the best of you. No matter what you decide to do or not to do, make sure it's what you want. Your decision, Amber. For your reasons. Remember what you know about him and be mindful of what you don't."

She nodded, thinking there was a lot more she didn't know about Edge than that she did.

"If he hurts you, I'll take him out," he added, as if for good measure.

She smiled. "I'm counting on it." Leaning up, she kissed Will's cheek. "I love you, you know."

"Love you, too, Amber. Be careful."

"I will."

Amber took her time, walking along the edge of the rocky beach, barefoot, her jeans rolled up so the cold water could lap at her ankles as the waves rolled in. Guilt niggled at her for mistrusting Edge as much as she did. But only a little. She tamped it down by reminding herself how often her parents and their paranoia had turned out to be dead on target. There were bad people in the world. Edge might be one of them.

When she reached the church, the shutters were closed tight. She wondered where he was resting and sent a nervous glance toward the sky. The sun was still there, beyond the trees, hanging low, but not yet setting. She had time.

She stretched her arms, reached the very bottom of the shutters and tugged on them. They didn't move; something held them from the other side. So she yanked a little harder, popping them open, but only just slightly. She didn't want to let a shaft of sunlight in if he were lying within its reach on the other side. Pulling herself up, she peered through the crack she'd made and saw no sign of Edge, so she opened the shutters farther and climbed through. A little puff of dust rose from the floor when she landed. She quickly turned to close the shutters behind her, then faced in again as she brushed her hands against each other.

And then she frowned as she took in the changed appearance of the church.

The pews had been moved to one side, and in the large open space where they'd been, there was… equipment. A weight bench, with barbells balanced across its upright arms. A punching bag dangling from the rafters, a mat on the floor.

"What's he up to?" she wondered aloud, pacing through the church, examining the items, which were stamped with Salem Fitness Center, Salem, MA. She crooked an eyebrow. Edge had been busy.

She looked around for his duffel bag but didn't find it. The pew on the dais still held his strange little collection of keepsakes. There were more candles now than the three that stood on the pew. He'd affixed one on each windowsill. All unlit, of course. She wondered why he saw the need for candles, when he could see better than she could in the dark.

Where was he?

She went through a door at the rear of the church. It stuck a little, swollen from the weather and hanging by only one hinge, but she shoved it open and stepped into a dark, dusty storage room. There were shelves, a couple of disintegrating boxes with candles spilling out of them, and another door. Amber shoved that door open and stared down a rickety wooden staircase. Some of the steps were broken, others missing.

He was down there. Naturally he was down there. It would be the safest place to rest. No one in their right mind would attempt to navigate the broken-down stairs in the pitch-dark to invade his privacy. His duffel bag was apparently down there with him, since she hadn't located it anywhere else.

Drawing a breath, she started carefully, stepping past the missing first step, past the broken second step, and slowly lowering her weight onto the intact-looking third step from the top.

The distinct sound of wood splitting told her she'd made a serious mistake.

The sensation of plummeting through the darkness confirmed it, and the impact drove the point home.

Chapter 6

Edge sensed something, just beyond the fringed edges of his consciousness, whispering to him. His face tightened, and his nose twitched. He smelled her—that soft, exotic scent that was neither human nor vampire, and every cell in his body came to screaming awareness, all of them craving her. That need circled through his brain as the clouds cleared slowly from his mind. His skin prickled and tingled. He felt her. She was close.

Gradually, other sensations returned. He felt the hard packed earth of the floor beneath his back and the softness of the blanket in between. He smelled the musty scent of the cellar, the dirt. He felt the cold, damp air and tasted the sea in it. Consciousness returned, and he opened his eyes, stretched his arms and sat up.

Amber lay on the floor a few yards from him, underneath the useless, skeletal staircase. Edge came fully awake then, rolling easily to his feet, hurrying forward. She wasn't moving. He smelled blood. And he saw the broken stair above that hadn't been broken before. She must have gone straight through. Dammit.

Edge knelt beside her. She lay on her side, hair covering her face. He moved the hair away and saw the ruby strand, stretching from her hairline across her forehead to her cheek. It was already drying. She'd been lying there a while.

"Alby?" he whispered. She was alive. He sensed the life in her, felt her heart beating and the blood flowing through her veins. He heard her breaths whispering in and out. "Alby, come on. Talk to me now."

No response. Closing his eyes, Edge moved his hands over her. Out along her arms, over her neck, down her spine, not quite touching, just opening his senses, feeling for injuries. He examined her legs, then ran his hands up her sides to get a feel for the ribs. He didn't think she had any serious injuries. Gently, then, he rolled her over, scooped her up in his arms. He snatched his blanket from the floor, then stood by the foot of the broken stairway, bent his knees and pushed off.

When he landed at the top, she moaned.

Edge's throat went dry, and he swallowed hard, realizing that he really didn't want anything to happen to her. He told himself that was because he needed her. He needed her to lead him to Frank Stiles, and he needed her to reveal her weaknesses to him, so that he would know how to kill Stiles when he found him. And he needed, rather desperately, to get inside her, because if he didn't, he thought his head was going to explode.

None of that explained the sick feeling in his stomach on seeing her lying there, injured. It pissed him off a bit. He made a face at his own weakness, reminded himself she was no more than a means to an end, and carried her through to the main part of the church. He laid her on a pew, then tugged the blanket he'd slung over his shoulder and arranged it across her. Then he pushed the hair away to get a better look at the cut on her head.

His fingers found it; a rather wide gash and a lump the size of a jaw breaker.

"Owww."

He looked at her face, saw her eyes fluttering open.

She met his, sighed softly and let them fall closed again. "Oh, it's this again," she muttered.

"What again?'' he asked, leaning closer to catch every word.

"The dream. Same old dream. Where's the box, anyway?"

He frowned deeply, tipped his head to one side. "Alby, listen up. It's me. It's Edge. You hit your head and now you're—somewhat delirious, I guess."

"It's not the dream again?"

"No, Alby, it's no dream."

Her brows bent closer, and her eyes opened to squinting little slits. "Edge?"

"Mmm-hmm."

One hand rose to her head, but as soon as she touched it, she winced and pulled her hand away. Her eyes opened a little farther.

"Awake now?"

"Yeah. What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know.''

"What do you mean?" She'd been looking around the church, but now she looked at him.

"I mean, what the hell were you doing creeping around my place by day, Amber Lily?"

She blinked, seemed to search her mind, then her eyes went serious again. "I came to see you—but I got here a little early and decided to come in and wait. I didn't think you'd mind."

He crooked one brow at her, just looked at her, because he knew damn well she was lying. She knew better. She'd been raised by his kind.

"Well, I mean, sure, any vampire would mind having someone invading their space while they were defenseless. But it's me. I mean, I thought you and I had a… connection."

This time he arched both brows. "You thought so, did you?"

She shrugged. "Didn't you?" She sat up then, saving him the necessity of having to answer, pressing the heel of one hand to her forehead. "Damn, my head hurts."

"You came creeping into the cellar. A stair broke, and you took a tumble. Funny thing for a girl to do, when she only intended to come inside and wait."

She blinked up at him, peering from beneath her wrist. "What, do you think I was on my way down there to pull a Van Helsing on you? Did you see a wooden stake in my back pocket?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "What were you doing, then?"

She looked away, her hair black in the darkness, falling over her cheek and hiding her expression from him. "I told you, I arrived early and decided to wait." Edge honed his mind to hers, trying to be subtle, not too obvious about it.

She seemed to force herself to face him again, to look him in the eye and appear sincere. He wasn't fooled. "Can I help it if my curiosity got the best of me?"

He stared at her, and he felt something tugging at him, pulling him. A little shiver danced along his nape. Something inside her seemed to pulse with the gravitational pull of a black hole. There was a heavy emptiness there, and, consciously or not, she was aching for him to fill it.

He felt an answering demand from his own nether-regions, forced himself not to act on it, though he couldn't exactly ignore it.

"You were curious," he repeated, breaking eye contact to keep from being sucked in. "About what? What? I looked like at rest?" He let his lips pull into a sarcastic half smile. "What I wear to bed?"

"You wish."

He shrugged. "What, then?"

She shook her head as if angry with him, then winced at the pain the action brought and got to her feet anyway. "Look, if you don't trust me, I'll leave right now. You're the one who asked me to come back here." She took a step, swayed a little.

He gripped her shoulders. "Not so fast, now. You're still shaky."

"No kidding." She sagged closer to him, the movement imperceptible, and yet his body reacted, moving millimeters closer to hers at the same time. His hands tightened on her shoulders and let the gravity take over. She rested against him. He closed his eyes and told himself he was imagining the power that seemed to meld them together. It was silly, and completely counter to his purposes.

"Don't take offense, Alby. I don't trust anyone. It's nothing personal."

"You sound like my father."

He winced. Her father was the last person he wanted to remind her of. "Why? He a suspicious sort, too?"

"I used to think my parents were the most paranoid, overprotective vampires in existence."

"Used to?" He forced himself to relax his hold on her, let his hands slide down her back to rest at her waist and peeled his body from her, putting healthy space between them.

She shrugged. "Until Frank Stiles kidnapped me five years ago, pretty much proving my parents right."

The reminder that Stiles had held her pricked his soul. He didn't like thinking about that. "Used you as a guinea pig, did he?" he asked, even as he tried to tell himself he could really care less, turning and pacing away from her.

"You know who he is, then?"

He looked back quickly. "I've heard of him, yes. Former DPI, self-appointed vamp-hunter-slash-researcher. Have I got it right?"

"Pretty much."

He nodded. "He must have considered you his all-time prize catch."

She smiled at him, flashed it so unexpectedly it temporarily dazzled him. "Wouldn't any man?"

He shook the glitter from his head, rolled his eyes and grinned at her joke.

"So what's with the equipment?" she asked, looking around at the items he'd acquired the night before. "Vampiric strength not good enough for you? You aspire to something… bulkier?"

He smirked. "I've got all the strength I'll ever need, Alby. Don't doubt that. I got this stuff together for you, not myself."

"For me?'' She faced him, her pretty dark brows arching over those odd colored eyes. Blue-black as oil slicks, they were. "What am, I supposed to do with it?"

"Test yourself."

She frowned, but when she turned to look at the equipment again, it was with a curious, interested expression.

"You talked to me in the car, remember? You told me you didn't know the full extent of your powers."

"And you said you would help me find out."

He nodded. "So I thought to begin with physical strength." He smiled at her. "And I thought I might teach you a few moves, while we're at it. You may as well learn to defend yourself, right?"

"You think I can't defend myself?"

He shrugged. "You said Stiles got you. He'd never get me."

"He had an army, weapons, tranquillizers. There was nothing I could have done. Believe me, I tried.''

He looked doubtfully at her. "Tried what? Slapping him?"

She frowned, getting a little angry. "Why don't we play with these toys of yours, Edge? Then you can see for yourself what I can do."

He shook his head. "Not tonight, after that bump on the head."

She strode toward him, no longer the least bit unsteady on her feet, closed her hand around his wrist and brought his hand to her head. He frowned, but obliged her, probing the spot where the lump and cut had been. But the lump was nearly gone, and the cut itself was noticeably smaller. He shot her a look.

"Quick healing. It used to take a couple of days. I healed faster than a human but slower than a vamp. But since Stiles got through with me, it's been changing. A lot of things have."

"So you heal faster than we do now?"

She shrugged. "I don't have to wait for the day sleep. So it starts right away."

Edge nodded. "Why do you suppose your time in captivity coincides with these… changes?"

She pursed her lips, lowered her head. "I don't know." He knew it was a lie. She did know. Or thought she did. And he could guess her theory. Stiles had killed her, only to see her revive each time. Death and rebirth, even in myth, brought drastic change. Metamorphosis.

"What other changes have you noticed?"

She only shook her head.

He tipped his to one side. "Don't trust me yet, do you, Alby?"

She used his own words against him. "Like you, Edge, I don't trust anyone."

"I had that coming." He shrugged. "So you want to play?" He moved to the punching bag, braced his shoulder against it and framed it with his forearms. "Come on, let's see what you've got, love."

Sighing, she moved to the punching bag, gave it a couple of practice jabs.

"Come on, Alby. Like you mean it."

"I don't want to hurt you."

The laughter burst from him even louder than it would have if he hadn't been trying so hard to keep it in. He saw her face change, saw her draw back her slender arm, raising the opposite one in a defensive pose. He braced for the punch. She delivered it. The bag recoiled so rapidly that it picked him off his feet before he lost his grip and sailed backward, hit the wall and slid to the floor.

She walked across the church, and he looked up at her, standing there with her hands on her hips. "You okay?"

"Depends. Can you see the little birdies flitting around my head?"

She extended a hand. He took it and let her tug him to his feet. "Sorry about that."

"Hey, I asked for it." He brushed himself off, gathered up his pride. "So you're strong. We've established that much."

She nodded. "I'm strong. I can pick up my car, one end at a time, not the entire thing."

He could probably do the same, he thought. Yeah, he could do that.

"How about speed?''

"Dad had a treadmill custom-made for me, so I could clock myself in the privacy of our home, where I wouldn't be seen. I've hit sixty."

Then she couldn't move with vampiric speed, so fast she would blur human vision, appearing to vanish and reappear in a new place. He could. At least in this, he was superior.

"And then, of course, there's this."

He started to ask what, but before he spoke, she was looking across the room, and he followed her gaze. She jerked her head a little, and the pew she seemed to be focused on rose up off the floor and shot toward them. Edge ducked, flinging up an arm to protect his head, but the thing stopped in midair and landed heavily, tipping over.

He straightened, lowering his arm, blinking at her. "Unbelievable."

She shrugged. "That's me." Then she sighed. "Don't look so shaken, Edge. I can't control minds or hypnotize mortals or play with their memories. I can send and receive, if the other party isn't blocking. I'm not very good at eavesdropping on thoughts." She shrugged. "Psychically, that's about it. Except for the—"

She broke off there, but Edge heard the final word anyway. Her mind spoke it, though her lips didn't. "The dreams?" he asked. He searched her face, recalled her saying something about dreams earlier, in her delirium. She'd thought she was dreaming then. "What dreams, Alby?"

She shrugged, averting her eyes. "Sometimes I dream… things."

"Things that later come to pass?''

She nodded. "It's usually nothing significant."

"But… ?" he prompted, sensing there was more to the thought, though she was shielding more effectively now.

She faced him squarely. "Why are you so interested in me, Edge? Tell me the truth. What do you want with me?"

He smiled just a little, deliberately opened his mind to her, filling his head with images of the two of them engaged in various acts. He made the pictures as vivid and shocking as he could, and he saw her eyes widen, her face redden.

She turned away and whispered, "Besides all that, I mean."

He brought his shields up again. "Nothing, Alby. Why can't you believe me?"

"I know better, that's why. I'm not stupid, Edge. You want to use me… "

"In every imaginable way." He moved up behind her, and when he spoke those words, his cold breath caressed her neck. "I haven't tried to hide that fact from you, Alby."

She shivered.

He stroked his hands down her shoulders, outer arms, alt the way to her wrists, then closed his hands on hers. "It's all right. I can be patient."

"There's more. There's more you want from me. I know it."

"I swear there isn't."

"I dreamed about you, Edge."

He went very still, as stunned as if she'd hit him right between the eyes.

"I've been dreaming about you for nearly a year now."

"Really?" He didn't know how to react, what to say.

But he had to know; he had to ask. "What happens in these dreams?" he asked.

"Well, most recently… " she whispered. Then, suddenly, he could see inside her mind as she opened it to him, revealing the same erotic images he'd painted for her only moments earlier. He felt as if his blood turned to lava in his veins. His mind raced, and his hunger for her burned. "Jesus," he muttered.

"Oh, there's more.'' She leaned back against his chest, let her head fall to one side. He nuzzled her throat, let his lips slide over it, licked softly and felt the pounding beat in the jugular. God, he wanted to taste her.

"God, yes," he muttered against her skin. "What else?'' he whispered, parting his lips against her neck to speak the words.

"A couple of things. I'm overwhelmed with feelings of passion, fear and grief. You give me something."

"Yes?" He sucked the skin of her throat just a little, scraped his teeth over it without allowing himself to bite down, and he felt the heat and the passion in her, rising to equal his own.

"Oh, yes. You give me death."

Edge froze. Slowly he lifted his head from her neck, and, hands to her shoulders, he turned her to face him. "I… kill you?"

She nodded. "I don't know. I only know you bring me a gift, and the gift is death. Now maybe you see why I'm a little bit wary about trusting you, Edge."

Chapter 7

Amber watched him as carefully as she would have watched a coiled cobra. He'd seemed stunned when she told him about her dream. She thought his shock was genuine.

"I'm not going to get you killed." The way he said it, she could almost believe he was trying to convince himself as much as her. "I swear, Alby, I'm not. I wouldn't do that."

She shrugged. "That's a funny way to put it."

"What is?"

"You said you wouldn't get me killed. I didn't say you got me killed in the dream, I said you gave me death."

"It's the same thing, isn't it?"

"I don't think so. Not exactly."

He lowered his head, pacing away from her. "Hell, how could I kill you, anyway? I don't even know if anything can kill you. You don't even know."

She shrugged. "Well, no, but I know what won't. Drowning, electric shock, poisons, sunlight. Blood loss makes me pretty helpless, but who knows if it would kill me or not? I would imagine burning or beheading—"

"Stop it!"

She smiled, because he looked shaken by the images she'd painted in his mind. Turning away from him, she spent a few minutes pounding the punching bag with hooks, jabs, crescent kicks and back kicks. She was showing off, and she thought he knew it. When she stopped for a breather, he stood aside, hands on his hips, watching her. He said, "Do your dreams always come to pass?"

She sent him a glance. "So far? Always." She gave the bag one last kick for good measure. "Walk me back to the house?"

"And give me a chance to attack?"

"I think I could take you."

"I wish you would."

She smiled slowly.

He said, "Why aren't you running away from me as fast as you can? I don't get it."

"Neither do I. Partly because I want to know what the dream means. And partly… " She lowered her eyes, not finishing the sentence.

"Yeah, partly that. That I understand."

She brushed the comment aside. "I want you to spend more time with the others. Get to know them a little."

"I'm a loner, Alby."

She tilted her head. "It's okay, Edge. They don't know about the dreams. No one does, except Will, and he doesn't know the content. Only that I dreamed about you."

He pursed his lips, lowered his head. "Besides, they're better mind probers than you are, right? They might pick up on my ulterior motives. That's why you really want to drag me back there, isn't it?"

"You weren't lying when you said you didn't trust anyone, were you?" She sighed heavily. "Hell, Edge, if that's what you think, it's fine by me. So long as you have nothing to hide, why do you care?"

He seemed to mull it over for a long moment. Then he brightened a bit. "What's in it for me?" he asked her.

She was surprised, but less so as she examined the spark in his eyes. "You mean I have to resort to bribery to get you to spend time with me?"

"I'll spend every night with you, Alby, if you want. But with those others? Yes, it requires compensation. So what will you give me?"

"What do you want?"

He smiled, an evil smile. She knew, right to the core of her, what he was going to say. Sex. Or blood. Or both. He wanted to take her, own her, possess her, drink her, and God help her, the idea heated her to the verge of meltdown.

"A kiss," he said then.

She blinked at him as her brain registered what he had said, and that it did not match what she had been expecting. "I'm sorry?"

"A kiss. I want one long, passionate, uninhibited kiss."

"You've already kissed me."

He shrugged. "Doesn't mean I won't do it again, but that's beside the point. I want you to kiss me."

She frowned at him. "And if I do, you'll come back to the house with me?"

"And stay until a quarter to dawn, if that's what you want. But it has to be a real kiss. No little peck. Kiss me like you mean it."

She wasn't sure she would be capable of kissing him and not meaning it, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "All right, it's a deal. Pucker up."

He wiggled his eyebrows at her and sat down on a bench that had probably once belonged in front of an organ. "Just so you can reach," he explained. "Without standing on tiptoe."

"Mmm-hmm." She moved to the bench and turned to sit beside him, but he stopped her, hands on her waist.

"No, no. Here, like this." He moved her sideways until she stood right in front of the bench, facing him. Then he slid his hands down her sides, over her hips. His fingertips touched her backside as he moved his hands lower, to her thighs, then downward to the hollow behind her knees. Then he tugged gently, so she moved closer, until his knees were between hers and his head was level with her breasts. Pulling on one knee until she bent it, he brought it up, over the bench, around him. Then he tugged at the other.

Amber put her hands on his shoulders, and moved the other leg where he wanted it. He pulled her down, until she sat on him, straddling him.

"There. That's better now, isn't it?" he asked her. His voice had gone soft, rough. She felt him getting hard underneath her. Her belly twisted, and she wanted to do a lot more than kiss him and wasn't even bothered by the fact that his hands had settled on the curve of her ass, so they could keep her hips imprisoned against his. He moved his hips a little, rubbing his erection against her. "Yeah, that's much better. Now kiss me."

Amber licked her lips. His eyes followed the motion. She lifted her palms to his cheeks, tipped his head up a little and lowered hers. He didn't close his eyes but left them open, and she couldn't seem to break the grip they had and close her own. Not until she pressed her mouth to his.

He did not kiss her. He remained still, passive and expectant. She moved her lips over his, opening and closing, adding a little suction that tugged them into her, and she liked that. She experimented then with her tongue, pushing his lips apart and slipping inside. She traced his lips with her tongue, tickled the roof of his mouth with it, then slid over his teeth. She felt his incisors, long and razor-sharp. Then she played with his tongue until she managed to elicit the response she'd been craving.

He closed his arms around her waist, and he kissed her in return. His fangs scraped her lip, and he lapped the taste of blood from the scratch. His fingers tangled in her hair, and he seemed intent on drinking her very soul from her lips and her mouth. That was how deeply he kissed her, how much he took.

When he finally lifted his head away the blood lust was raging so strongly in him that his eyes seemed to glow. Amber was breathless, panting, her heart pounding like the bass-line of a rap song. Her entire body shook and trembled, and she felt light-headed. She twined her arms around his neck and lowered her head to his shoulder, resting against him, waiting for the high voltage charge pulsing through her to fade away.

"Alby?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"Is this another part of your… you know, abilities?"

She lifted her head slowly. "What?"

He seemed to be searching for the correct way to rephrase his question. "Have you kissed other men?" he asked, finally.

"Of course I've kissed men before." Boys, she thought. No men. Not really.

"Did they… did it… was it like this?"

"Like this?" She smiled at him, realizing it had been as mind-blowing for him as for her. But she wanted to hear him admit that, so she put on her most innocent expression and asked, "Like what?"

"Like what," he repeated, giving her a look that told her he knew exactly what she was doing. "Did their eyes roll back in their heads, doll? Did their tongues loll out to their knees? Did they go into core meltdown?"

The smile broke wide across her lips; she couldn't prevent it. "That's what it felt like to you, too?"

He thinned his lips, averted his eyes. "I didn't say that." Giving her a little nudge, he moved her off his lap, onto her feet, and got to his own. "Let's go, then." He flashed into motion, and before she could speak again, he was out the window, standing on the beach and waiting for her.

Amber went to the window, too, vaulted the sill and landed in a crouch, bouncing quickly upright again. She walked to where he stood, slid her hand into his, laced her fingers through his and began walking along the beach.

He looked down at their hands, a deep frown etching itself between his brows. It wasn't exactly one of dismay or dislike. More like… confusion.

"It's never been like that before, Edge. Never, not with anyone."

He pursed his lips. "Then again, that's not saying much, is it? Given your lack of experience, I mean?"

She looked up at him, and thought, You know better. It's got nothing to do with my virginity. There's something powerful here.

He pretended not to have heard her, though she knew he had. And together, they walked back to the house.

"I don't like this. I don't like it one bit," Morgan said softly. She was sitting in a chair on the patio, a notebook computer open on her lap. It painted her worried face in a soft electric blue glow. "Where is she, anyway? Not with that Sting wanna-be, is she?"

"Sting?" Dante asked. He sat nearby in a reclining lawn chair, beside a glass topped umbrella table. The umbrella, of course, was absent. It would have shaded them only from the moonlight. Sarafina sat beside him, and Willem was at the fourth spot.

"I don't think he looks anything like Sting," Amber said, tightening her hand around Edge's as she walked him up the redwood steps to the patio overlooking the beach. "Billy Idol, maybe?"

Everyone looked their way. She'd felt Edge stiffen just a little when they'd first come up and overheard the conversation. He hadn't relaxed, even when she'd turned Morgan's comment back on her.

Dante rose at their approach. "I'm afraid I don't know either reference." He smiled, nodding hello to them.

"It's just as well, since neither is accurate, anyway," Edge said. He glanced at Morgan, and at the laptop. "Bad news, I take it?"

She pursed her lips, shot a look at Amber.

"I'll probably tell him anyway," she said, interpreting Morgan's look correctly.

Morgan sighed. Sarafina said, "If Amber trusts him, we should, as well. She's the one in jeopardy, after all."

Edge lifted his brows. "What makes you think Alby's in danger?"

"Amber Lily is always in danger," Willem said. "She's one of a kind, Edge. Prize quarry for certain hunters."

"Like Frank Stiles," Amber explained in an aside. "That's who they're worried about."

"And now someone has leaked word that she's here, in Salem," Morgan said, and she speared Edge with her eyes when she said it. "It's all over the Internet."

"Well, don't look at me." Edge glanced from one of them to the other. "I'm not exactly a technophile."

"Edge doesn't even have electricity where he's been staying, much less an Internet connection." Amber tugged him by the hand to a thickly cushioned swing that hung from chains and a wood frame. She sat there, and he sank down beside her. She drew a breath. "So do you think Stiles has heard I'm here yet?"

"If he's alive, he's heard," Willem said softly. "I think you should leave, Amber Lily. Go down to Wind Ridge and join Rhiannon, Roland and your parents at Eric and Tarn's place."

Edge looked at Amber. "If Stiles knows where you are, will he come for you?"

She smiled slowly as she thought about her answer, then let the smile widen as it came to her in full. "There's not a doubt in my mind,'' she said. "And that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"Not a bad thing? In what world?" Morgan asked. "Amber, he had you once. You, of all people, should know what he's capable of."

Amber looked at her. "We need him," she said. "He might be our only chance of saving Will. If my being in Salem will bring him to us, then I should stay right here. Let him come. It'll save us the time and trouble of hunting him down. Frankly, if I'd thought of it, I'd have posted that information myself."

Will met Amber's eyes. "I'm not going to let you act as bait, Amber."

She shrugged, not holding his gaze. "If I were to go join the others at Wind Ridge, what makes you think I'd be any safer? What's to stop whoever leaked this information from leaking that, as well?"

She knew when she looked to Willem again and saw his jaw tighten that she'd scored a point. Dante said, "She has a point, Will. We can't be certain she's safe anywhere until we know who's spying on us and why."

Will nodded at the computer. "Can you track those posts back to the bastard who sent them?''

Rather than answering, Dante looked to Morgan. She nodded. "We can trace them back to the computer that sent them. Not necessarily the individual. And it'll take sometime."

"How long?" It was Edge who asked the question, and it rather surprised Amber that he was this interested.

"A day, maybe two. There's a tangled mess of screen names and identities to wade through, but I'll get there."

He nodded, then glanced at Amber. "Maybe they're right. Maybe you should go off to…Windy Hill or wherever that princess and the rest of your family are hiding out."

"Wind Ridge, and they aren't hiding out, Edge," she told him gently. "Rhiannon doesn't believe in it."

"Whatever. We could sneak you out of here quietly. As far as Stiles would know, you would still be here."

She tipped her head to one side, searching his eyes until he looked away. "You trying to get rid of me, Edge?"

He slanted her a look, maybe caught the teasing light in her eyes, sent her a wink. "Trying to keep you around, Alby. Alive and kicking."

She felt a little better, but she wasn't sure she believed him. It was odd, she thought, being so drawn to a man and second-guessing every word he said. "It doesn't matter," she told him. "I'm not leaving."

She eyed the others. "I'm as capable of defending myself as any of you, and you know it."

Will nodded slowly. "We know it."

"Then let's move on to another topic."

"Such as?" Dante asked, a little light of admiration in his eyes.

"Well… Stiles may be on his way here. We should plan for that, figure out what we intend to do about it."

"Wait for him," Sarafina said softly. "We won't have to do much more than that. He'll come to us."

Will shook his head. "He'll come to Amber. By day, more than likely, knowing she'll have less protection."

Edge frowned. "I hadn't… thought of that."

"It's how he did it last time," Will said. "Came for her by day, with half a dozen thugs, all of them armed." He shook his head. "I just don't know how to prepare you, Amber, to withstand an attack like that. But I think you should stick close to me by day. At least you won't be alone."

She lowered her head, looked away. "The two of us could kick the stuffing out of Stiles, Will." Then she added, "Besides, we aren't even sure he's still alive. There's no point in panicking."

"I've put tracers on his social security number," Morgan said. "If he's foolish enough to use it, I'll pick up any credit cards he might try to obtain or existing ones he might use, jobs he might take, vehicles he buys or tries to license, and just about anything else he does." She pursed her lips, shook her head. "Though if he is alive, he's managed to remain all but invisible for the past five years. Still, if he'thinks he's close to getting his hands on Amber again, he might get eager enough to slip up."

"I have more faith in the undead than I do in the computer," Dante said softly.

"What do you mean?" Edge asked.

Dante held his gaze steadily. "I've sent the message out to every vampire I could reach,'' he said. And Amber knew he was talking about a mental message, not a mass e-mail. "They know it's more important now than ever before to watch for Stiles, to contact us if he's spotted."

"Anything yet?" Amber asked.

He shook his head.

"I can keep an eye on the local hotels, inns, that sort of thing," Edge offered.

"There are dozens of them," Sarafina told him. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet, Amber thought, though she understood why. Her heart was breaking.

Edge only shrugged. "I'm a vampire. I can cover them in an evening."

"It's a good idea," Will said. "Stiles will need to stay somewhere, and he'll likely rush here without much prep time when he hears Amber is in town."

"Meanwhile, there's another problem we need to contend with."

"Another problem?" Amber searched Dante's face. "I can't imagine anything else dire enough to compete with Will's death sentence and Stiles's impending visit."

"Show her, Dante," Morgan said.

Dante's lips thinned, but he got to his feet and walked quickly down the steps and across the sloping lawn toward the shore. Amber followed him, Edge walking along beside her, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets. Waves rolled slowly, hypnotically over the rock and pebble strewn beach. Willem's small motorboat sat there, pulled up onto the beach. It had a rope extending from a metal ring on its nose to a large, darkly colored wooden post that had been driven deep into the ground. A tan-colored canvas covered it.

"Someone's been hunting in Salem," Dante said.

She bunked. "Hunting?" She wrinkled her nose, smelling something unpleasant and familiar.

Death.

The word whispered through her mind, and her heart turned over. The fear she always felt in the dream shivered through her soul.

Dante reached down, tugged the canvas back. Amber sucked in a breath when she saw the body lying there, turning her head away automatically.

"Hell," Edge muttered. "You might have warned her." His hands closed on Amber's shoulders as if to comfort her from the disturbing sight. But she sent him a look telling him she was all right and turned to take another look.

The woman lay in the bottom of the boat. She was in her fifties, gaunt and, of course, pale as porcelain. She wore a long black dress of sheer fabric over a satin underskirt. The sleeves had draping points at their ends. Her throat, Amber noted, bore two small punctures, right over the jugular.

She turned around again, staring at Edge, and realized Dante was doing the same.

•He lifted his brows and his hands. "Why are you looking at me?"

Amber frowned, wishing she knew what he was thinking just then, but his thoughts were guarded.

"Sure," Edge went on. "Blame the new guy. This is Salem, for Chrissakes. It's probably crawling with vampires."

Blinking slowly, Amber turned to Dante again. "What was she dressed up for?"

"I don't know. I found her when I was in town earlier tonight, just getting the lay of the land. Smelled her and homed in. She was underneath a pier, lying on the rocks. No identification, no other marks."

"How long ago was she killed?"

"Last night sometime. No one's been reported missing—not yet, anyway."

Amber pressed her lips tight. Edge said, "Why did you drag her back here, anyway?"

Dante's face darkened, and Amber spoke before he could. "We can't have bloodless bodies with fang marks in their throats showing up in Salem, Edge. Do you know what the media would do with a story like that? It would be an open invitation to every vampire hunter in the country."

"In the world," Dante said. "You're a loner, aren't you? One of those solitary vamps who shuns his own kind?"

Edge shrugged, reaching down to tug the canvas back over the body. "I don't shun them. Don't seek them out, either."

"Until now," Dante said.

Edge met his eyes. "If you want to accuse me of something, stop dancing around it and step up."

Dante held his temper, in spite of the clear challenge Edge had laid down. "We don't kill humans."

"We? What, you're speaking for me now? You don't kill humans, Dante. I do what I damn well please."

Dante's eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched. Edge leaned in a little closer, and Amber stepped between the two, pressing a hand to each powerful chest. "That's enough. Dante, if Edge says he didn't kill that woman, then he didn't. Let it go."

She was all too aware, though, that Edge hadn't said any such thing.

"You could do with some manners," Dante muttered. He turned away, heading back toward the house. "Who the hell sired you, anyway? Satan?''

"He didn't stick around long enough to give me his name," Edge shot back. "But according to local legend, it was O'Roark."

Dante stopped walking, stood stock-still in the sand. "Donovan O'Roark?"

Chapter 8

"We can take my car," Amber said, jarring Edge a bit from his contemplation of the ever-shrinking motor-boat. He dragged his gaze from the sea, fixed it instead on the woman who stood beside him on the pebble-strewn shore.

"To check the hotels in town, I mean," she added. "To see whether Stiles has checked into any of them."

"Right." He glanced at the sea again. "I'm surprised he's willing to dump the body like that."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Figured this crew of yours to be more the notify-the-next-of-kin-and-hold-them-while-they-cry types." He shook a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, fired it up.

She lowered her head, so her dark, dark hair fell over her eyes. "They're kind, Edge, but they're not stupid. Leaving victims around only draws attention to our existence. It would be a dangerous thing to do, for all of us." She glanced behind them at the ocean. "I pity her family, though. Never to know what became of her… "

"She has no family."

Amber looked at him sharply.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, lowered his head. "Lost them in a house fire six months back. Husband, teenage twins."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know this?"

He didn't answer the question. "Then last month she was diagnosed with cancer. Inoperable. So she went to that bridge, tied a cinder block to her leg, and stood there trying to work up the nerve to jump."

"You killed her, didn't you?"

"I did her a favor."

Amber sighed deeply, lowering her head. "You shouldn't have done it."

"Do you believe in an afterlife, Alby? Some paradise where souls go when their bodies wear out?"

She started walking back along the beach toward the house, and he fell into step beside her, smoking, waiting for her answer.

"I suppose I do," she said.

"Then she's there now, with her husband and her girls. Better than where she was, facing a slow, lingering death with nothing but her grief for company."

They'd skirted the house and come to where Amber's car was parked in the driveway. She went to the driver's door, opened it, but didn't get in. Instead she looked over the top of the car at Edge. "Do you?''

"What? Believe in heaven?"

She nodded.

He took a last drag from his cigarette, then flicked it away. "Haven't thought about it, Alby. Why should I? I'm never going to die."

They visited every hotel and inn they could locate, stopping first at a visitors' center for a comprehensive list. They didn't go inside. Copping a look at guest registries or computers wasn't necessary. Amber knew Stiles—far better than she would have liked. She searched for him by opening her mind, her senses, listening, smelling, feeling for his presence. She was certain she would know if he were near.

Certainly her psychic powers were nowhere near as strong as those of a vampire. But they were good, sharp. Especially where her one-time captor was concerned.

Oddly, she could have sworn Edge was doing the same thing. And yet, he didn't know Stiles. Did he?

By the time they had finished, it was 4:00 a.m. She drove back to the beach house, which was quiet now. Apparently everyone had gone inside. When they got out of the car, Edge said, "No sign of Stiles, then. You must be relieved."

She met his eyes, sighed. "Not as much as you would think. We need him."

He nodded. "We'll find him."

She was certain they would. They had to. She licked her lips. "That woman, the one you—"

"What about her?"

She lowered her head, looked away.

"You want to know what kind of cancer she had. Whether it was like your friend Willem's." He came around the car and, to her surprise, closed his hand around one of hers, tugging her with him as he walked toward the shore.

"Was it?" '

"No. Pancreatic. And it had spread to the liver, stomach. She was a mess."

Amber nodded. They were on the shore now, walking slowly back toward Edge's place. She looked at him, searched his face, wondering if he was a monster, wondering what the poor woman's final moments had been like.

He held her gaze as they walked, then stopped and turned her to face him. "I walked up on her, there on the bridge. Her grief was so loud I didn't even have to try to read her thoughts. They were pouring out of her. She looked at me, just looked at me, for the longest time. And she knew what I was. I don't know how, but she did."

Amber felt caught in his eyes, mesmerized by them. "Was she afraid?"

He shook his head slowly, left, then right. "She pushed her hair back, tipped her head to one side. She said, 'Please.' Just that one word, nothing more. But it came with a rush of pain that was… unbearable."

She saw the echo of that pain in his eyes, just for a moment.

"So I took her into my arms," he said, taking Amber into his arms as he did so. She relaxed against him, and he bent his head, nuzzled her neck. "I held her, and I drank from her." His lips moved against her throat as he spoke. "Her pain, her grief, her suffering, her despair—I took it all away, and I felt every bit of it as I did. But she felt… only ecstasy. A rush of relief and release." He let his lips part and close on the skin of her neck, gentle suction that made her knees weak. "She thanked me with her final breath."

"It was a better death than she might have had otherwise," Amber whispered. "Then you truly only did what you did—to help her?''

He backed away from her neck, blinked down at her. "I did what I did because it was a free meal."

The spell was broken. Amber took a shocked step away from him.

"Don't try to think of me as one of your do-gooders, Alby. I make decisions based on what's best for me, and me alone. I'm nobody's hero. And I'm nothing like your friends back there at Chez Stone."

She stood there for a moment, willing his mind to open to hers, but it was impenetrable. "I don't think I believe you," she told him.

"You don't want to believe me. You can't let yourself be taken by a man like me. You think you're too good for that. But you do want me to take you. So you're trying to believe I'm someone else."

"That's not what I'm trying to do."

"No?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. I'm just trying to—know you."

"And why do you want to know me, Alby?"

She held his gaze, decided to shock him by being straightforward with him. "Because I want you, and I can't let myself… be intimate with a man I don't even know. And because I'm not convinced our first meeting was an accident at all. I think you're up to something, and I can't let myself be intimate with a man I don't trust."

He smiled slowly. "You never know until you try."

"What would be the point?"

"The same thing that's always the point where sex is concerned, Alby. Pleasure. Screaming, trembling, mind-blowing pleasure." He ran a fingertip from her temple down her cheek to her chin. "What else is there?"

She held his gaze, shivering down deep, and she knew he was doing something to her with his eyes, with his mind, or trying to. He was making her want him. He had to be, because God, she'd never wanted this way before. Never!

"You're afraid of me, aren't you?"

She shook her head in denial.

"It's all right. That'll only make it better. Come on." He slid his arms around her waist, pulled her hard against him, so his hips were pressed to hers. He put his hands on her backside, squeezing it and holding her to him. He lowered his head, nuzzled her neck some more. She shivered, and he slid his lips around, tracing her jaw and finally finding her mouth. He kissed her, and she, opened for him, let him lick and taste and probe her.

He held her so hard that when he let his knees bend and fell backward onto the sand, he took her with him. He was powerful. So strong. And yet, so was she. And she was on top of him now, and angry with herself for being so afraid of something as simple as sex with this man, when she wanted it so badly she burned.

She shifted her legs so that she straddled him, her knees in the sand bracketing his hips, and she threaded her fingers in his hair and kissed him back, just as deeply as he'd kissed her. His hips moved against her, and she rubbed him in return. He made a little growling sound, rolling her quickly onto her back, pinning her there with his body. Rising a little, he reached down to her blouse, hooked a finger at the neck and gave a tug, tearing it from neck to hemline, smiling while he did it.

She gasped at the feel of the chill sea air on her naked breasts, but it was his eyes on them as much as the cold that made them harden and ache. He put his hands on her then, flicking his thumbs over her nipples and making her suck in a breath with every touch. Then he bent, sliding lower over her body so his mouth could catch a nipple, while his fingers held the other.

At the touch of his lips, she cried out. At the tugging, pulling suction, she stopped breathing. At the pinch of his teeth, every cell in her body screamed in pleasure.

He slid one hand between them, down the front of her jeans, and he didn't take his time, didn't hesitate, didn't wait for permission to tug them open. He pushed her legs apart with his own and slid his fingers into the wetness there, rubbing, stroking, driving into her until she was writhing.

Then suddenly the hand was gone, and the mouth left her breast, wet now in the cold air, and he was kneeling between her parted legs, tugging the jeans off her so furiously she didn't have time to object. He tore the panties off and threw them to the wind, then pushed her knees up to her chest and bent his head to her center.

She heard herself screaming, begging, panting and moaning, and didn't even recognize the sound of her own voice. His mouth attacked, his tongue possessed, as he devoured her. When she twisted he held her still, when she pushed at his head he shoved her hands away and burrowed deeper. He bit and licked and sucked at her until her mind exploded and she shrieked his name aloud.

And even as the spasms racked her body, he was sliding up over her, shoving his own jeans down as he did. She felt the hardness of him at her pulsing center, and then he plunged into her, spearing her deeply. She felt resistance, no real pain. Her body was too busy screaming in ecstasy to allow her to feel pain. And even before the waves of the first orgasm faded, he was pushing her toward another, driving into her, possessing her, holding her to receive him.

When she exploded again, he did, too. She felt the rash of him filling her, the pleasure of his release as, finally, for the first time since she'd known him, the barriers around his mind dissolved and she could feel everything inside him. His pleasure. His confusion. His wondering what the hell it was about her that made the experience more powerful than any he'd ever had before. His wondering how soon he would be able to convince her to do this again. His regret that he had to use her…

Use me for what? she wondered, and the moment she did, the shields slammed back into place around his mind. Dammit, it hadn't occurred to her that she'd been as open to him as he had to her during those moments of intense union.

He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, until she lay nestled in the curve of his arm, her head on his chest. She lay there, shivering with the aftermath of pleasure.

He said, "Still afraid of me?"

"Petrified," she admitted.

"Afraid I'm going to hurt you?"

"Try it and I'll kick your ass. I suppose I might be a little afraid of doing you permanent damage if I have to do that."

"Right."

She lifted her head, smiled at him.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

She looked away. "You think you could hurt me any other way? Emotionally? I don't intend to give you the power to do that, either. Don't flatter yourself."

He held her gaze. "You're a smart girl, Alby. Smart girl." Then he pulled her to him again, arching his hips to hers, hard and ready for more.

She kissed his chin and whispered, "The sun will be up soon, Edge."

He closed his eyes in frustration, fell back onto the sand, swore softly.

"Not too bad, hmm? If I could make a vampire forget the sunrise?"

He lifted his hips off the sand and tugged his jeans up. "Not too bad at all, Alby."

She pursed her lips. "You're a real romantic." She rolled to her back, sat up, and looked around the sand at her scattered clothes. Her jeans were within reach, so she pulled them on. Her panties and blouse were ruined. "How the hell am I supposed to walk back to the house like this?"

He rolled into a sitting up position, peeling his T-shirt over his head as he did, then handed it to her. "Put mine on. It's not like I need it."

She stared at him and tried not to let herself get distracted by the washboard abs, instead sending him a disapproving look. "You didn't even get undressed."

"I'd strip off every stitch if we had more time. I will next time," he told her. "Promise." He sent her a wink.

She scowled at him, held out a hand, and when he took it, she pulled him to his feet. "You're damn right you will."

His smile grew. "Wow."

"What?"

"I half expected you to tell me there wasn't going to be a next time."

"That would be pretty stupid, considering we both know there will be."

He waggled his eyebrows. "That good, was I?"

"That's not what I heard whispering through your mind a few minutes ago."

His eyes narrowed. "Thought I felt you listening in."

"It's the first time you've let your guard down since I've met you. I couldn't resist."

"Mmm. The euphoria of sex will do that to a man."

She shrugged. "So I was the best you've ever had, huh?"

"Everyone's the best one at that particular moment, Alby. Don't go reading too much into it."

"Don't worry, I won't."

He studied her face for a long while. She didn't hold his gaze, though, as they walked along the shore. Instead she let hers fall and found herself studying his chest again. He had a great chest. Not huge, not bulky, but every muscle clear and hard beneath the taut, pale skin. He could have been a sculpture. She thought vaguely that it ought to be illegal to cover it up, ever.

Finally she looked up. "We're going the wrong way, if I'm still walking you home," she said.

"You're not. I'm walking you home." He stopped looking at her, sighed and slid an arm around her shoulders.

"Don't tell me you're getting protective instincts just because we had sex?"

He made a sound of disbelief. "Hell no. I never wanted you to walk me home in the first place. Just wanted to get you alone on the beach so I could make my move."

"I see." She glanced out at the paling sky. "You going to have time to get back home?"

"Have you seen my speed?''

"Yeah, just a few minutes ago on the beach."

His head swung around fast, eyes wide, until he saw her smiling. Still he said, "Is that a complaint?''

She lowered her head, put a palm on his chest and slid it slowly over his luscious pecs. "I enjoyed every second of it, Edge."

"But next time you'd like to go slower." He put a hand over hers on his chest, so she had to stop moving it around. She wondered why. He licked his lips, looked past her. "We're here."

All too soon, she thought. She turned, saw the house behind her, sighed and faced him again.

"I should go," he said.

"So go, then."

He started to turn away.

"Bye, Edge. Have a good rest."

He stopped moving and stood there, then turned halfway around, and she thought he was arguing with himself. Finally, he sighed, swore under his breath and faced her again, only to wrap her in a fierce embrace. He took her mouth deeply, thoroughly, held her entire body so tightly to his own she wondered why they didn't meld. And she thought she felt him shiver.

When he let her go, he turned without a word and vanished. She knew he hadn't disappeared. It had only been a burst of speed.

She licked her lips, lowered her head, wondered why every cell in her body tingled and sang. She felt more alive than she had ever felt. Ever. Because of him?

No, she told herself. Not because of him. Because she'd experienced something she'd never experienced before, and it had been great. Better than great.

She couldn't let this feeling be because of him. She couldn't let herself fall for him, because he'd made it very clear to her that that would be a mistake. And because she believed him.

She'd dreamed of him. In the dream, he'd been dark, tortured, frightening. He'd given her something, something that terrified her. Death. What did it mean? That damned dream, what could it possibly mean?

She had to find out. And she had to be careful.

She walked along the beach, found a place to sit, with a boulder at her back and sank into the sand, drawing her knees to her chest. She watched the waves rolling slowly over the shore. Watched the deep indigo color of the sea slowly change to purple. The upper curve of the sun licked at the sky, painting the streaks of cloud above it in fiery red, neon orange, lemon-yellow.

"Beautiful thing, the sunrise."

She didn't take her eyes away from the spectacular sight when she heard Willem's voice or when he sank into the sand beside her. "I think people like us probably appreciate it more than most."

"I imagine we do. Being so intimately close to those who can never see it themselves."

"It's odd, isn't it? The very thing that ensures life can exist on earth means death to vampires."

"Mmm. Maybe someday we'll find a way around that."

She sighed, turning to study Will. He didn't look well, she thought. Paler than usual, and there were dark circles under his eyes. "How are you feeling?''

"Not great, but that's between us."

She nodded. "You can trust me."

"I know. I hope you know you can trust me, too."

"I do." She clasped his hand, leaning closer, so her shoulder pressed to his.

"Amber, Morgan managed to find the source of those Internet posts."

She lifted her head. "That's progress. So who sent them?"

He licked his lips. "We don't know who. But they were posted from a computer in the office of a local gym."

Amber's heart slowly formed a thin layer of ice.

"Salem Fitness Center,'' he said. "And the posts were sent after hours, sometime in the dead of night. We checked the police blotter in the local paper, found they'd reported a break-in that same night. A few pieces of equipment are missing."

She lowered her head very slowly. "Thanks for telling me."

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "Do you think it was Edge?"

She shrugged, knowing even that motion of uncertainty was a bald-faced lie. She knew it was Edge. He was using her—apparently as bait to lure Stiles. But why?

"Amber, I don't know this guy. What I've seen of him, I don't find particularly endearing, but… things aren't always what they seem."

She lifted her head, searching Willem's eyes.

"When I first met 'Fina, I thought I knew what she was. Bloodthirsty, cold-hearted, ruthless. I was wrong. There might be more to this Edge fellow than he's letting you see."

"I had the same notion myself."

"We might know a little more about him soon, at any rate."

"How?"

Will sighed. It seemed to Amber that talking was leaving him short of breath. And she thought he might be cold, as well. She rose to her feet, extending a hand to him. He pretended not to see it there and got up on his own, using the good leg and walking stick more than the bad one. Stubborn man.

They turned together, began walking back to the house. His limp seemed more pronounced than it had been earlier. "Dante said he mentioned the name of his sire last night."

"Yes. O'Roark. I think it's someone Dante knows."

"Someone Dante sired," Will told her.

She blinked in shock. "You're kidding me."

He shook his head. "He hasn't seen the man in centuries. Traveled back to Ireland several years ago hoping to renew the acquaintance, but it never happened."

She smiled a little. "Dante took an instant dislike to Edge, It's almost funny that it turns out they're related."

Will rolled his eyes. "I suppose, in vampiric terms, they are." Then he joined her in the smile, though his seemed halfhearted. "Serves Dante right. He's always been a little too full of himself, in my opinion."

"You just haven't forgiven him for hurting Sarafina all those years ago."

He shrugged, pausing at the bottom of the back steps, and she thought he was catching his breath.

"God, Will, it's worse than you've been letting anyone know."

He lifted his head. "Yeah. But keep that to yourself."

"You know I will, but how are you managing to hide it? Especially from Tina?"

"Hell, kid, I've learned a few things about shielding my thoughts from the graveyard shift."

She smiled. "How bad is it? Be honest with me, Will."

He pursed his lips, lowered his eyes. "I've been through worse."

"You've been through torture, so that's not really saying much."

He sighed and climbed the three steps to the deck, then crossed it. "It's not so much the pain—that comes and goes, and right now it's absent—it's this damned exhaustion. I can't stand being this weak."

"Maybe he did us a favor, posting that information on the Internet," she said softly.

"He?"

She shot him a glance. "Whoever it was, he had to be male. Women just aren't that obvious."

He knew perfectly well she thought it was Edge, but he wasn't going to call her on it. "Typical reverse sexism."

She got to the door before him, reached to pull it open, then waited while he walked through. "You ready to get some sleep?" she asked him.

He nodded. "You?"

"Yeah, soon as I shower."

He closed and locked the door, flicked a button. "We've got an alarm system and it's armed. If anyone comes near the place, you'll hear bells and whistles. You come straight to me if you hear anything like that. All right?"

"She nodded as she walked beside him up the stairs to the second floor, and they stopped outside the master bedroom. "All right."

"I mean it. I'm sick, not dead. I can still shoot straight, and my forty-five will stop an elephant in its tracks."

"I have got to get myself one of those."

He chucked her on the chin. "I'm well aware you're not without skills of your own, kid. But if Stiles and his goons come for you and you don't let me help fend 'em off, I'm gonna be mad as hell."

Secretly, she thought that if Stiles and his goons came for her, the goons would wind up dead or running for their lives, and Stiles would end up her prisoner for a change.

"Have a good sleep," she told Will.

"You, too."

She didn't, though. She had the dream again. The man, the beautiful man, with a face like an archangel, all dressed in black, came to her again, appearing from within a thick swirl of mist. He had a name now, her dark angel. Edge. And again he held out the box. Ornate, ancient looking, not a single inch of its rich dark wood face was smooth. All of it was carved, engraved, embellished, with swirls and symbols and shapes. She thought she saw eyes tooled into the wood. He offered it to her yet again.

As before, she told herself no. Don't take it. Don't touch it. Don't look inside.

But this time she could not stop her dream self from accepting the gift. She reached out, her hands trembling, sweat beading on her forehead, as her palms pressed to the sides of the box, and, slowly, she lowered her gaze.

She stared inside, and this time… she saw what was there.

Amber shrieked in terror. She sat up in the bed, coming wide-awake, and still screaming until she forced her jaws closed.

Her bedroom door burst open. Will stood there, wide-eyed, a handgun so big she was surprised he could heft it clasped in his hands.

"What is it?" he shouted. "What's wrong, Amber?"

She lowered her head, shaking it side to side, racking her brain, her memory. But the dream was gone. Whatever she'd seen, whatever had caused her terror, was gone like the morning mist when the sun comes out. What the hell had she seen in that box in her dream that had made her blood ran ice cold and her mind whirl in shock and denial?

"My God," she whispered. "Nothing could be that bad. Could it?"

Chapter 9

Amber refused to acknowledge the ache in her heart when she returned to the abandoned church just before sundown. The anger, that was all right. Acceptable. He'd used her, leaked her presence in Salem to the entire Internet-using public, just to lure Stiles here. For what purpose, she could only guess. He must have a grudge against the vampire hunter, Like so many of his kind. It didn't matter why. And it didn't matter that she would have done the same thing if she'd thought of it first. It only mattered that Edge had put her life at risk to satisfy his hunger for vengeance.

Well, he wasn't going to get away with it. She would call him on it tonight. Tell him she knew damned well what he'd done. Put him on notice that he wasn't to harm one piece of twisted pink scar tissue on Stiles's face until she got the information she needed from the man.

After that, she could care less.

Dammit, why did it hurt so much? She didn't give a damn about Edge. She wouldn't be stupid enough to have any feelings for a man like him. Any emotional feelings, at least. She couldn't help her physical feelings.

Her insides turned wet and warm when she thought about that, so she banished the memory as she climbed through the window of the church. Landing on the floor, she brushed off her hands, and eyed the punching bag that hung from a rafter. Salem Fitness Center was printed on its side.

"Bastard," she said, punctuating the word with a jab to the bag. It felt good, hitting the bag, imagining it as his face. His chiseled, sharp face. With those cheekbones and that damnable sexy dimple. She hit it again. "You used me, you son of a—" Right hook to the temple, rattling that peroxide blond head. Uppercut, splitting those full, sexy lips. "Probably never even wanted me. Not really." She delivered a roundhouse blow, then a series of kicks that she thought would be rib breakers for sure. "It was all just a game, wasn't it, Edge?" The final blow should have taken off his head.

It didn't. Instead it tore the bag from its eye-ring. The weighted sack flew a couple of yards and hit the floor, cracking several floorboards and sending up a dust cloud.

She pursed her lips, sucking in a few breaths, enjoying the surge of blood in her veins and the release of her anger. Then she turned, noted the spreading darkness and, for the first time, the lack of brick-a-brack on the makeshift altar in the front.

Her brows drew together. She opened her senses but felt no hint of Edge nearby. His presence made her skin tingle; there would have been no mistaking it. "Edge?"

But she didn't need to wait, or listen to the echoing answer of her own voice. She knew. He wasn't there. He was gone.

Edge opened his eyes and stared up at the wooden ribs curving downward, around either side of him. For a moment the notion that he'd been swallowed by a large fish amused him with its absurdity, and then his head cleared and he remembered. His head was pillowed by his freshly packed duffel bag, and his back by the sand and grass surface where beach gave way to meadow. He'd arrived back at the church with enough time to gather his things and head out, but he'd had to settle for the first shelter he'd found, which turned out to be an overturned rowboat. He'd hauled the thing inland far enough to be sure the tide wouldn't reach him and scrambled underneath for the night.

It was a good enough shelter. No sun made it through. And as he lifted one side now, he saw that the sun was long gone. He flung the boat over, sat up, ran his hands through his hair and instantly thought of the one thing he'd decided not to think of, the same thing he'd gone to sleep thinking of. Amber Lily Bryant.

By now, he thought, she probably had a pretty good idea of what he'd been up to, that he'd been the one to send the posts to the 'net, tipping off any who cared to know that she was in Salem.

Hell, he probably shouldn't have done that. And no doubt she was mad as hell about it. But it wasn't as if he intended to let the guy within a mile of her. She wasn't at risk. He wouldn't let her be at risk. He would nab Stiles long before Amber was in any danger.

And besides, this would be over soon. Stiles was on his way. Edge felt it right to his bones. He was making his way north, on U.S. 1., drawing closer with every tick of the clock. Odd he would take the scenic route, rather than the faster one, but Edge assumed the butcher had his reasons. The knowledge had come to him during his rest, clearly, sharply. He didn't question it. He'd been prepared to lurk around Salem, avoiding Alby and her expressive, soulful eyes for as long as necessary. It was just as well it would be over with soon.

He slung the duffel over his shoulder and began hiking into town. He didn't exert his preternatural speed. He didn't need to, he had time, and in fact, he was enjoying the walk, the night, the sea air.

In an hour, he was south of Salem, walking along the shoulder of the road, waiting for Stiles to show. It was going to be great, killing the bastard at last. He intended to make sure the son of a bitch stayed dead this time, even if it meant cutting him to bits and burning the pieces. He would relish every second of it.

Headlights came, grew brighter, passed by. He sent his awareness into each vehicle, until, eventually, he felt the approach of the one he'd been waiting for.

Stiles. He was sitting in the back seat, passenger side. Edge focused on him, homing in on his mind. He could see the backs of the heads of two men in the front seat. He could hear the strains of a baritone, booming out in Italian, and realized it came from a set of headphones. He felt the rub of a waistband slightly too snug, and the protests of muscles too long in the same position.

He waited, letting the headlights come closer, and then he stepped out into the center of the road.

The car didn't slow. Edge didn't move. He could play chicken with the best of them.

The driver stepped down harder on the accelerator, and Stiles yanked the headphones off and leaned forward. Shit. They were going to hit him. Edge braced himself for the impact, set his feet and waited. He wouldn't give easily, and that car was going to end up smoking in the ditch, at the very least.

It came faster, closing the distance between them.

He set his jaw.

And Alby stepped in front of him.

Even as his shocked mind registered her presence and his hands reached up to push her out of the path of danger, she set her feet and flung up her hands as if shooing a fly. Her hair blew behind her, tickling his face, but he saw the car all the same. Its tires skidded sideways, leaving black streaks of rubber on the pavement, and then it flipped up onto its side. Metal scraped the blacktop, and showers of sparks arched. Edge flung his arms up in front of his face automatically. But Alby still stood where she was, not moving, just watching until the car came to a stop in the dust on the side of the road.

She turned slowly.

Edge caught his breath. Her eyes glowed, blue-black, as if backlit from within.

But even as he searched them, the light faded. He found the ability to speak, said, "Jesus, Alby, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Came to tell you to go to hell," she said. "The timing was just good luck."

Turning, she started forward, toward the car.

Edge gripped her arm, tugged her around to face him. "How did you find me?"

She only smiled slowly and pulled free again.

Again he grabbed her, spun her around. "Dammit, Alby, get out of here. He'll hurt you if he can."

"Oh, and protecting me is right on top of your list of priorities, right, Edge? Just like making love to me was?"

"Alby—"

She flung her hand at him, and he thought she meant to backhand him across the face. But it was considerably more than that. While she never touched him, her energy did. He felt the impact like a blast of furnace-hot wind that lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backward a good ten yards.

When he landed, the breath was driven out of him. He lifted his head, shook it clear and focused on the woman.

God, she was raging. He felt it blasting from her in waves. She faced the car, jerked her head upward, then down, an exaggerated nod. The car followed the motion, rocking back down, so all four tires were on the pavement again. She swung her head to the left, and the front doors popped open. She pointed at the car, flicked her wrist upward, and the driver was yanked out as if by an invisible giant. He rolled and tumbled thirty feet along the road. She repeated the gesture and the other man was flung from the passenger side.

She got behind the wheel, slammed the door.

Edge dragged himself to his feet. He moved into the road, aware that Stiles was in that car with Amber, probably in the back seat. Jesus, what if he hurt her? What if he… ?

She gunned the engine, and the tires spun, spitting dirt and rocks up behind them as the car fishtailed its way back onto the road.

Edge moved faster, putting himself right in her path.

And he heard her shout at him mentally, Move it!

You'll have to go through me.

Have it your way.

She gunned it, and she hit him. The pain exploded from his hipbone, where the bumper drove into him, to his head, when it connected with the pavement. He felt his skull split and was blinded by pain.

Jesus! He couldn't believe she'd actually hit him. Oh, God, it hurt!

He struggled to get upright, and that was when he felt the moisture, the blood oozing from the gaping wound. Dammit. It flowed too fast, and though he pressed his hand to the wound to stanch the flow, he knew it wasn't going to do him much good. He sat up, struggled to his feet, pressing his hand to his head and watching through the flowing blood as Amber drove by. And then his knees gave out, and he sank to the ground.

"Dammit to hell," she muttered, easing the car along the road, keeping her focus divided between the unconscious man in the back seat and Edge. "Don't do this to me again," she asked him. "It's an act, it's just an act. Damn you, Edge."

But she saw the blood oozing from between his ringers where they splayed against his head, and she felt the pain shooting like an electric current through his limbs. And beyond him, she saw Stiles's two henchmen stirring.

As Edge's eyes rolled back and he sank to the ground, she stopped the car. She couldn't leave him there. Not like that.

Hell. Twisting in her seat, she leaned over to examine Stiles. He was leaning sideways, seat belt on, body limp, not a mark on him.

Faking?

Beside him, a black bag, like a doctor might carry, rested on the seat. She smiled slowly, yanked it into the front with her and opened it up. It was jam packed with fun little toys. Vials of drugs, tranquilizer guns, handcuffs with keys taped to the chain, leg irons and even a snub-nosed .38 and a miniature first-aid kit. She took out the handcuffs, put one of them on his wrist and jerked him forward until she could snap the other around the steering wheel. Then she put the keys in her pocket and got out, taking the bag with her.

"Edge?"

She moved closer to him, certain he was faking her out yet again. Damn him, using her to lure Stiles here and then trying to beat her to the bastard.

She knelt down on the pavement, where he'd collapsed, and she touched him.

He moaned a little.

"Edge?" She rolled him onto his back and saw the blood pumping from the cut in his head. "Dammit, why the hell didn't you move?"

His eyes didn't open. But his lips moved. In a bare whisper he said, "Didn't think you'd really hit me."

"You deserved worse."

"Mmm. True enough."

She dug the first-aid kit out of the black bag and rummaged inside. It was almost useless, but she did locate a roll of gauze and adhesive tape. She tore off strips of the tape, then pinched the gaping cut together and applied them. He winced, and she knew that pain in him was magnified. Vampires felt it like no one else. And she ached for him, even though she hated him at that moment. She wouldn't have stopped at all, if not for the fact that he would have bled out before dawn.

When she finished her work, the bleeding seemed to stop. She added some gauze over the wound, holding it there with more tape.

"You'll be all right now," she said. "I have to go."

"No." He gripped her arm, even as she rose from his side. "Jesus, Alby, you can't leave me here. I'm weak as a kitten."

"You'll last until daybreak. Just find some shelter and then you'll heal."

"I won't last an hour. Look around you, woman."

She did. The two henchmen were up now, moving cautiously nearer, one from either direction.

"Go away!" she ordered, and with a snap of her wrists, they were both flung backward.

Edge lay there, not moving. She leaned over him, gripping his shoulders. "Come on, get up, I'll put you somewhere safe."

"I'll die if you leave me," he told her.

"You're the best liar I've ever met."

"I never lied to you. I'm not now."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?"

He closed his eyes, hesitated, opened them again, and when he did, he opened his mind to her, let her see and hear and feel inside him. I need you, Alby. Don't leave me to die. Take me with you, wherever the hell you're going.

She stared down at him. As she did, a single strand of blood made its way from beneath the bandage on his head to trickle slowly down his cheek. "Damn you for this." She tugged him up into a sitting position, then pulled his arm over her shoulders and got upright, taking him with her.

"Thanks," he muttered, grunting the word as she hauled him to the car. She opened the front passenger door without touching it and slung him into the seat. Then she went around to the other side to open her own door. She unlocked the handcuff from the steering wheel, then leaning into the back seat, knocked Stiles onto the seat facedown, pulled his hands behind his back and snapped the cuff around the free wrist to keep them there.

Finally she twisted face front in her seat, pocketed the handcuff key and slammed the vehicle into gear again.

Edge lifted his head, opened his eyes, tried to take stock as his awareness slowly returned. His head hurt. That was the first thing that made its way to his consciousness: pain. A sense of exhaustion, of being drained of energy, followed on its heels, and he wondered why, but only briefly. Memory returned slowly. The clash with Stiles. Amber Lily's anger. He frowned, then, because the last thing he remembered was her helping him into the car. But he wasn't in a car now. He was in a pile of musty smelling hay, inside what must be a barn. She must have dumped him somewhere she assumed would be safe come sunrise and gone on her way.

Unfortunately he wasn't sure he was going to survive until sunrise, as bad as he felt.

"Awake, finally?"

He jerked his head toward the sound of her voice. She walked toward him, sank into the hay beside him.

"Finally?" Even speaking was an effort. "How long have I been out?"

"Long enough for all the coolant to run out of Stiles's radiator and the car to overheat, thanks to you."

"You're the one who ran me down."

"You should have moved."

"I didn't think you'd do it."

"You don't know me very well, then, do you."

"Not as well as I thought." He sat up, but waves of dizziness made it difficult. When he started to sway sideways, she gripped his shoulder, steadying him.

"How bad is it?"

"Bad enough so I didn't realize you were nearby." He pressed a hand to his aching head, felt the bandages she'd put there. "Given my usual reaction to your presence, it must be pretty bad."

"Oh, please. We're beyond that now, Edge. You can drop the act."

He lifted his head, searching her face.

She said, "We both know you were only using me to get your hands on Stiles."

He held her gaze until she turned her head away. Then he touched her face, turning it back again. "I didn't have to make love to you to get my hands on Stiles, Alby."

She rolled her eyes, pulled free of his touch.

Edge sighed. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Stiles?" She looked across the barn, nodded toward a corner where the man lay, unconscious, his hands cuffed around a beam. "I found some of Ms favorite tranquilizer in his little black bag."

"You should just kill him and have done with it."

She swung her huge, dark eyes back to his. "I need him alive."

He held those eyes for a long moment, before looking away.

"Why do you hate him so much?"

He shook his head, saying nothing.

"I'm not going to let you kill him, Edge. I can't."

"You drag him around the countryside with you much longer, Alby, he's going to get loose. He's going make a try for you. You know he will."

"Not this time."

Angry, he surged to his feet, but the weakness slammed into him like a wrecking ball, and he found himself flat on his back in the hay again a second later.

It shocked him when Alby's hair tickled his face. She was kneeling beside him, leaning over him, and she looked worried, in spite of her apparent determination to hate his guts. He closed his eyes.

"The damage to your hard head will heal when the sun comes up, but you're not going to make it that long, are you, Edge?"

"I'm fine."

She shook her head. "You need to feed."

"Good idea.'' God, even his voice sounded weak now. "Drag Stiles over here and let me have at him."

"I don't trust you not to kill him."

"Yeah, well, it's him or me."

"Not necessarily."

He shot his eyes to hers.

She shrugged. "There's me."

"No."

"Come on, Edge. You're fading faster than snow in a heat wave. You need blood. I've got it, and I'm offering to share. It would be foolish not to."

He felt the hunger stirring inside him at the very thought of it. Of tasting her. And while his body was weak, he was turned on as hell. "You've… never let a vampire drink from you before, have you, Alby?"

"No. I've heard it's… pleasant."

"Pleasant."

"Mmm." She lifted her arm, pushing her sleeve back, looking intently at the veins in her wrist.

"When I made you come, back there on the beach, and you were shaking all over and screaming my name, would you have, called that pleasant?''

"Edge, that's got nothing to do—"

"My drinking from you would be ten times as intense."

She blinked, clearly not believing him. "I think you're exaggerating."

He shrugged. "No one's ever tasted you. I've tasted plenty of humans, and even a vamp or two in my time. I know what it's like."

She met his eyes. "I'm not a human or a vamp. It could be entirely different with me."

And would be, he had no doubt of that. That was what worried him. God knew sex with her had been the most mind-blowing experience of his life. What would drinking from her tender veins be like?

He wanted it. He burned with wanting it. He wanted to be the first to devour her, just the way he'd been the first to take her body.

She was watching his eyes, which were no doubt beginning to glow with hunger by now. Trembling, she offered her forearm, extending it until her wrist hovered near his lips. "Go on," she whispered. "I can handle it if you can."

Still lying on his back in the hay, he lifted his hands, closed them on her forearm, and drew it to his lips. He let his lips and tongue taste the salty skin there but kept his eyes on hers. Saw them light just a little. She might pretend to hate him, he realized. But she wanted him. In every way.

He parted his lips, sucking at the skin, and then, tightening his grip, he bit down. His incisors sank into her flesh, popped through the tougher walls of her veins. He didn't bite deeply. Just enough to draw a thin trickle of her lifeblood into him.

But when it touched his tongue, he was completely unprepared for the force that hit him. A jolt so strong it made his entire body jerk in reaction. The power of it. God! Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened. Her head fell backward, and she shuddered.

He sucked a little harder, and her force arced through his body. Strength returned. Amber moaned, dropping backward into the hay, even as Edge sat up, dragging his mouth from her wrist so he could roll over onto her. Everything in him screamed for more, more than she'd offered. More than she'd given. He wanted all of her.

His hands found her blouse and slid underneath to find her breasts and close around them. She was shivering, her body begging him to take her. Her nipples were hard and hot against his cold touch. He pushed the blouse out of the way and bent to those peaks, sucking one of them and then biting it until she cried out in mingled pain and pleasure. He tasted her blood on his tongue and sucked harder.

She arched her back to tell him her cries were not protests. And he was hard, the furious hunger raging through him more powerfully than it ever had.

He wrestled her jeans off her, never releasing her nipple, and he freed himself from his own the same way. And then he was on her, pinning her to the hay and driving himself into her as deep and hard as he could.

She screamed and clasped his shoulders, then tore at the T-shirt he wore, peeling it off him. Her legs wrapped around his waist, locking at the ankles, and she tipped her hips up to receive him. He slid his hands to her buttocks, squeezing them hard, to hold her to him as he rose up, onto his knees, carrying her with him. As he knelt there, holding her, lifting and lowering her body over him again and again, he watched her head fall back, her hair slide sideways, baring her neck to him.

He pressed his mouth to her throat, kissing, preparing, and she whimpered what he took to be encouragement. So he sank his fangs into her jugular.

The blood flowed into him, and with it, everything she was feeling—and then everything she was. God, the power of this woman! It raged inside him, so shocking he surged to his feet, her legs still twisted around his waist. He staggered backward, slamming into a wall and feeling it crack behind him. Something crashed to the floor, a beam and several bales of hay from somewhere above avalanching from the ceiling, narrowly missing them, and he didn't care. He knew her, everything about her, everything she'd felt in captivity. Her furious love for her parents and her friends. Her grief for Willem Stone and fierce determination to save him. And her passion right now, for him, for Edge, overwhelming everything else. What she felt for him was so intense it humbled him, shook him to his core, and with it he felt her denial, her resistance, her fear.

And then there was something else, something… separate. Beyond it all, he became slowly aware of something more inside her. Within her, and yet separate. It was something new. Small. Only barely there. Deep, deep inside her.

Life.

His orgasm broke through him at the same time as the shock of his discovery, and he jerked his mouth away from her throat to break contact with the impossible truth.

She was coming, clinging to him, shivering and moving and milking him right to his core. And he held her while it ravaged her with its power and his own ecstasy pumped into her. He held her until the pleasure ebbed. And then he carried her back to the hay, laid her down there, very gently, pushed the hair away from her face and saw tears on her cheeks.

She'd lied to him. And he supposed he would be angry about that… later. But right now, he was too overwhelmed by his suddenly much clearer view of who and what she was. He was not ready for her. Whatever he'd been thinking about her, planning for her, he'd been wrong, because she was way beyond what he'd expected. Everything about her was… more.

She was physically stunning, her beauty on the level one would attribute to an angel or a goddess. A demon or a witch. Unnatural beauty. Her power—it was intense, not greater than his own, but different. The telekinesis, the precognition—yes, she had that, too; he'd felt it when he'd tasted her. The jolt of her blood hit his brain the way he imagined crack cocaine hit an addict. And he wondered if he would be able to live without it. Her passion—it was above and beyond anything he'd ever known any female to feel, and his own had matched it.

Her emotions—God, they were intense. What she felt for him was shattering, and even the mere glimpse of it he'd been allowed was enough to put him on the edge of panic.

Beyond that, he felt he'd committed a sacrilege, defiled something sacred. He hadn't even begun to understand what she was, just how special she was, until now. His mistake. Whoever the other man was, he was probably far more worthy. So he supposed it was just as well. Or he told himself it was.

He touched the tears on her cheeks, absorbing them into his fingertips. "I shouldn't have… "

"Yes, you should."

He closed his eyes against the soulful look in hers. "Are you all right? Did I take too much?"

She nodded, but seemed sleepy, her eyelids heavy.

"God, what have I been doing with you?" he whispered.

"You didn't take that much, Edge. I'm fine."

"That's not what I meant."

She frowned at him, then nodded. "Oh." The word was icy, and suddenly she didn't seem as sleepy anymore. "Stop looking so worried, Edge, I'm not an idiot. I know it didn't mean anything. We both got carried away, that's all." She rolled onto her side, putting her back to him.

Probably, he thought, so that he wouldn't see the lie in her eyes. "Of course it didn't mean anything. How could it?" Given what he knew now.

His body was surging with more energy than he'd ever had. More power. It made itself known to him more with each passing second. Her blood was… different. Supercharged and potent. It sang in his veins, making his skin tingle with heightened awareness. His mind raced with sensations; his body itched with pent-up energy.

Alby dragged herself to her feet. She searched for her clothes, putting them on slowly, clumsily. He moved closer, wanting to help her in spite of himself, but she pulled away from his touch. She might be tired and dull right now—thanks to him—but her anger was as sharp as ever.

No doubt she, too, was finally becoming aware of the distance between them. Probably thinking about the other one, whoever he was. He was as far beneath her as he could be. He wasn't worthy of an angel, and, frankly, he didn't want to be.

"I'm going to have to find another vehicle," she told him. "Stiles's car is stranded a few miles from here where I left it when it overheated. And I won't get far on foot."

So she didn't even want to talk about what had just happened between them? Or the secret she was keeping?

It occurred to him then that maybe she didn't even know.

Hell, that was it. She didn't know.

"Where is it we're going?" he asked her.

"I have to take Stiles to Eric and Tarn's place. Eric has a lab there."

"And when you get him there?"

"I make him talk, make him tell me about his formula for stealing immortality, and then we create our own batch."

"Using his blood?"

She buttoned her blouse without looking at him. "I wouldn't let him pollute Willem with his evil. No. We'll be using mine."

He nodded, understanding her reasons for that, but unsure it was a very good idea. He'd seen her worst nightmares—and they all involved Stiles and the time she'd spent as his prisoner. All the more reason to kill the bastard. The sooner the better. And why he should still feel that way, knowing what he did, was beyond him. He really was pathetic.

"You don't intend to let me go with you, do you, Alby?"

She glanced at him, smiled sweetly, though he could see the pain behind the smile. It swam in her blue-black eyes. "As soon as you curl up for a good day's sleep, Edge, Stiles and I are out of here."

"And you think I won't follow you?''

"You don't know where they live."

"Windy Ridge," he said. "Or something like that," he replied.

She made a face. "What state?"

He lowered his eyes.

"I really don't think my dear friends in Salem are likely to tell you. Especially not once I get to someplace where my cell phone can pull in a signal and call them."

"You have it all figured out, don't you?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Only one problem, love. Right now, I'm stronger than I've ever been in my life. And you're a little on the weak side." And he was getting angrier by the minute, as well, he thought. Bad enough she'd lied to him; now she was acting as if he were the enemy, all in an effort to protect a pig like Stiles.

She shrugged. "So?"

He smiled his most evil smile, spun on his heel and strode across the barn to where Stiles lay limp. He gripped the man by his throat, shook him so that his head flopped on his shoulders like a rag doll's. "Wake up, you bastard. I've been waiting a long time for this."

Amber lunged toward him, grabbed his shoulder to jerk him away, but she didn't have the strength to make it work. He shook her off, but carefully. She staggered a few steps backward but didn't hit the floor.

"Let it be, Alby. Better I kill him now than let you risk your life on some insane, hopeless trek alone with him. Especially now."

"What I risk or don't risk is my own business, damn you!"

He ignored her, even when she pounded on his back, and gave the man another shake. "Wake up, Stiles."

Stiles opened his eyes, looking confused. But when his gaze fell on Edge, his eyes widened. "You!"

Suddenly Alby stopped beating on him, and Edge knew she was wondering just how he knew this man.

"Been a long time, hasn't it, Stiles?" Edge growled.

Stiles glared at him. "Came to try again? You can't kill me, and you know it."

"Oh, I'll make it work this time. I just wanted you awake enough to know who was going to take you out."

Stiles tugged uselessly on the handcuffs, but they didn't give.

"Edge, don't. Please, don't do this," Amber whispered.

Edge tightened his hand on the man's throat, even as Amber screamed at him to stop. She pummeled him, the blows delivered with her mind, not her hands. None of them were powerful enough to shake him.

He squeezed, and, oddly, the satisfaction of crushing the life out of Stiles wasn't as good as imagining that the throat he was wringing belonged to the man Amber Lily had been with. Had slept with. Maybe even loved. He felt the satisfying snap and crush of the bones underneath his hand and watched the light fade out of Stiles's eyes. He held a little longer, crushing, making sure there was no sign of life left, and then he let go, let the limp body fall to the hay strewn floor.

"You son of a bitch."

He turned to look at her, saw the sheer hatred in her eyes.

"Best burrow under that haystack, Edge," she said, and her voice was ice cold. "Sun's coming up."

He looked beyond her and saw the first hints of dawn peering through the cracks in the barn boards. He swallowed hard. "Don't go on without me," he said. "We need to talk. And Stiles—"

"There's nothing you can say that I really want to hear."

"Alby, there are things you don't know." He sent an anxious glance toward Stiles as he spoke. Then pain sizzled in his skin, and he looked down to see smoke coiling from his shoulder, where a beam of palest sunlight touched him.

Alby shoved him out of the way, both hands flat to his chest. "Get into shelter, dammit."

He stood there for a moment, all too aware of the sun rising outside. It wasn't having its usual impact on him. He felt sleep calling to him, but not overwhelming him as it normally would have. His body didn't grow weak nor his mind lethargic. He was as strong and sharp as he would have been at midnight. And he credited her blood with that.

The light moved, narrow beams of it, seeming to creep toward him as the sun rose higher, slanting between the boards at an ever sharpening angle. "This isn't finished. Not until you hear me out. You have a lot of explaining to do, woman."

"I have explaining to do? You're the one who might have just signed Will's death sentence." She shoved him again. "Go."

"You'd care, then? If I were to stand here and burn?''

"I'd toast marshmallows and sing campfire songs."

"You're a liar."

Again he felt pain. Again light seared his flesh, his side, this time, just over the rib cage. And again Alby slammed him with her hands, shoving him out of the way. "Edge, will you just go?"

He shook his head. "Only if you'll wait for me. Go back to the house in Salem, where you're safe, and wait for me there."

"I… "

More light spilled in; his hair was starting to smolder. "One conversation, Alby. That's all. In Salem. After that I'll leave you alone forever." He felt increased heat, and suddenly she was smacking his head with her palms. Putting out tiny tongues of flame, no doubt.

"All right. All right, I'll do it."

"You promise?"

She shoved him full force, and he knew it cost her, knew she was still weak and tired because she had shared her blood with him. But she mustered her strength, and she shoved him hard, combining her physical and mental power. He shot backward, hitting a pile of hay. Then she lifted her hands, drew them sharply downward, her face contorted as if she was straining every muscle to do it. The next thing he knew, the mountain of hay was tumbling down on him. The weight pushed him to the ground. The battering continued, until he lay flat, choking on hay seed and dust, drowning in its musty scent, but utterly enveloped in darkness.

He sought her out with his mind, even as, at long last, the day sleep began to seep into him, stealing his consciousness.

Alby?

He felt her exasperation.

Promise me you'll do as I ask. Promise me.

If it will shut you up, I promise.

He sighed, finally letting his body relax and his mind surrender to the sleep.

Amber turned around slowly, because something had moved behind her.

Stiles's body lay limply, in a half-sitting position, suspended by his hands anchored to one another high above him, by the cuffs that were looped over a low slanting beam. His head hung very low, nearly upside down, with his neck twisted at an impossible angle.

But as she stood there, looking at him, he moved.

His head turned, and she could hear the sickening crunch of bones. His eyes were wide-open, unfocused, but seemingly fixed on her. That scarred half of his face, with its bright pink skin, never moved, but the other half twisted in a grimace as, slowly, he lifted his head, getting it perpendicular with his neck again. Bones popped and cracked like a favorite cereal she remembered from her childhood. When his head was upright, he turned it slowly, left, then right, making a horrible face as he did so, probably due to the pain. Then he shrugged his shoulders, tipped his head sideways once or twice, and, finally, got to his feet. He gave an experimental tug on the hand-cuffs that held his arms—at chest level now—around the nearby beam, and fixed his steady, searing eyes on her.

Amber swallowed her fear, took an involuntary step backward. She hadn't been certain he would revive—not until she'd seen it with her own eyes. Even now, she could scarcely believe it. She shivered.

Stiles only smiled.

Chapter 10

"Mmm, you've drugged me, I see," Stiles said slowly as he tugged on the handcuffs that held him. "Good thinking, that. Normally, I could snap this chain in two."

Amber tried to shrug off the eerie sensation of seeing him return to life right before her eyes, tried to sound as nonchalant and unperturbed as he did. "Me, too. You were barely conscious when I first put them on you, but I figured once you came around, that would be a risk."

He nodded. "So you've turned the tables on me, then. May I ask what you plan to do with me, now that you have me? Killing me obviously isn't part of the plan."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

He shrugged. "I'm still alive. And a few minutes ago, you were begging Edgar not to do it."

She blinked slowly. "Edgar?"

He nodded. "Quaint, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's cute as hell." She lowered her head to hide her half smile. Edgar. Who would have guessed?

"So will you tell me what you intend to do with me?''

Drawing a breath, sighing slowly, she moved across the barn to the medical bag she'd found in Stiles's car, digging out some of the tiny vials from amid the other contents, which included syringes, a pint of saline solution, bandages, antiseptic, even a tiny suture kit. She filled an empty syringe before realizing most of them were already loaded. With what, she couldn't be sure.

As an afterthought, she emptied them all onto the floor and refilled them herself. She slid her first loaded needle into a pocket, her back to Stiles, and kept another one in her hand.

"I'm afraid leaving you conscious long enough for conversation wouldn't be very wise of me," she told him. Especially, she thought, when she was already in a weakened state. Though she was dying to hear how he knew Edge. Edgar. Still, she didn't suppose she could really believe a word this animal of a man might tell her. So there was little point risking her life by letting him stay awake long enough to talk.

It was a shame, she thought, that she wasn't going to be able to keep her promise to Edge—at least long enough to rib him about this Edgar revelation. Her smile faded as she recalled his stunned expression after what had just happened between them.

Clearly he'd been worried, once the passion had died down. She thought she knew what he was worried about. That she might be getting romantic ideas about him, or developing feelings for him, or that she would expect something more from him now that they'd been as intimate as it was possible to be. Sharing blood was a powerful act. More powerful than she'd ever expected. And one that tended, her mother had told her, to create unbreakable bonds between two people, or to intensify existing ones.

He must know those things. Obviously he didn't want any bond with her. He'd regretted it the moment the passion had cooled, so much so that he'd seemed angry at her over it. If he hadn't been so weak with hunger, she doubted he would ever have capitulated in the first place.

She shrugged. To hell with him.

And yet, deep down, she missed him already.

She returned to Stiles, taking the needle with her, wondering if he were as weak as he was pretending to be, watchful and wary. "Sorry about this," she said. "I am going to want you awake and talkative later on. But until I have more backup, I figure better safe than sorry."

She reached out to roll up his sleeve.

He snapped the chain on the cuffs as if it were a length of yarn, grasped her wrist and squeezed until she dropped the syringe. "Not quite safe," he muttered into her ear. "But I think we can definitely count on sorry."

As the sun sank, Edge drew his first breath of the night and promptly choked on it. The musty hay didn't agree with him, he decided, and he began digging his way out of the mountain of it. It occurred to him as he did that he'd come awake fast, and fully. The usual moments of slowly dawning lucidity and gradually returning power hadn't come. And when he stood free of the mountain, brushing bits of hay and dust from his hair and clothes, he knew the infusion of power Alby had provided hadn't faded. If anything, it had grown in intensity.

Incredible.

He located his discarded T-shirt, shook it hard, sending clouds of hayseed and dust into the air, and pulled it on before taking a look around. He didn't expect Amber to be there. She'd given her promise that she would return to the house in Salem and wait for him there. So he wasn't alarmed at her absence. Though he probably should be, given that he'd discovered her lack of honesty, at least where he was concerned. He supposed it was her only fault. But it was a hell of a big one. And it was one he never would have suspected, one that hurt his pride.

Still, he wasn't alarmed at her absence… until he crossed the barn to the place where he'd left Stiles's body, lying limp and lifeless.

He'd never tried killing the man by crushing his neck before, and it had seemed to do the trick. Though it had troubled him that there had been no time to watch him, to make sure. Now, though, he wondered. Because there was no body.

He closed his eyes slowly. Had the bastard revived yet again?

Sighing, he forced himself to take a closer look at the area in search of clues. He found two things that terrified him. The handcuffs, their chain snapped neatly in two, and a spent hypodermic needle lying in the hay.

"Jesus."

His mind told him it might still be all right. If Stiles had revived while Alby was still here, even enough to break free of the handcuffs, she might have tranquilized him and taken him back to Salem with her.

And that had better be the way it had happened. Because if it wasn't, she was in trouble. Edge swallowed the rush of panic that tried to rise at the thought. It was an unaccustomed feeling for him, that exaggerated level of concern for another being. He hadn't felt this way since… since his fledgling band had been slaughtered. And yet it was real. He supposed, given the circumstances, it was understandable.

He tried to quiet his mind and to focus on Alby. He put her face in his mind's eye—it was surprisingly easy to do—and reached out mental fingers to feel for her. But there was nothing. No sense of her. Either she was blocking him—or she was dead.

Hell. He had to return to that houseful of busybodies in Salem, much as he dreaded the thought. It was the only way to learn what had happened to Amber Lily. And he still had unfinished business with Stiles.

He went on foot, but rapidly, pausing only long enough to get his bearings before exerting his full power. And he found himself moving at speeds he'd never before approached. When he arrived at the house on the shore, stiffened his spine and strode up to the door, it opened before he reached it.

Sarafina stood on the other side, and her expression was not friendly. Nor were those on the faces of the others who stood around her. Expectant, perhaps demanding, but definitely not friendly.

"Where the hell is she?" the vampiress demanded.

Edge didn't flinch from Sarafina's probing, accusing eyes. "I hoped to find her here."

For just an instant he thought she was going to lunge at him, but then Willem Stone gripped her shoulders from behind, moving her gently aside.

"Maybe you'd better come on inside and tell us what happened, Edge."

Sarafina nodded with a jerk of her head. "Yes, do come inside. We may as well hear the whole of it before I rip out your heart."

"May as well," he said, and he walked into what he perceived was a nest of vipers, wondering if he would walk out again. And then he reminded himself of the heightened state of his powers. They could have no clue as to the extent of his strength now. Hell, he had no clue as to its limits himself. He reached into his T-shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Willem has cancer, you ignorant whelp. What do you think?"

He took the pack out anyway, shook one loose and walked back outside onto the redwood deck to light it.

Then he took a seat in a lawn chair and glanced back at them, waiting.

With a furious sigh, Sarafina came outside. Willem followed, with Morgan and Dante close on his heels. They all sat. Morgan spoke first. "We know you're the one who leaked Amber's location," she said.

He shrugged. "I thought it was the best way to get Stiles here. That's what you all wanted, wasn't it?"

"We didn't ask for your help," Sarafina snapped.

Willem put a calming hand on her arm. "It isn't the help we mind. But we certainly had no intention of using Amber as bait."

Edge lowered his head. "And I had no intention of letting Stiles get within a mile of her. He wouldn't have, either, had she not taken matters into her own hands." He sucked on his cigarette while they waited, blew a few smoke rings before going on. "I was about to capture Stiles when she showed up and got in the way. She flung his car into a ditch as if it were weightless, then ran me down like a dog with it."

"Again?'' Morgan asked, a flicker of disbelief in her eyes.

"For real, this time. She dragged me into the vehicle with Stiles and took off. I was… a bit out of it. I woke in a barn, with Stiles cuffed to a beam, unconscious. She stuck around long enough to make sure I'd survive, buried me under an avalanche of hay when the daylight came, and when I woke again, she and Stiles were both gone."

Willem was searching his face, as if he knew Edge was leaving out vital parts of the story. "You should have killed the bastard. My life isn't worth Amber putting herself within his reach again."

"I did kill him, actually. Crushed every bone in his throat. But from what I found when I woke tonight, I'm guessing he didn't stay dead very long."

"What did you find?" Sarafina asked.

"The handcuffs were broken. And there was a spent hypodermic." When she frowned, he explained. "Alby must have taken Stiles's bag of tricks from his vehicle. The tranquilizer was inside. She kept him drugged for most of the time."

"Apparently not drugged enough," Dante muttered.

Edge shook Ms head. "I made her promise to come back here and wait for me. But obviously she didn't. What I don't know right now is which of them is the captive and which is the captor." His voice broke a little on the final word. He cleared his throat, took another drag of his smoke.

"We have to get word to Jameson and Angelica," Will said. "They'll want to leave immediately. It's more than a full night's drive from Wind Ridge."

Edge nodded. "I suppose the more of us there are searching for her the better."

"For her, perhaps. Not for you, Edge," Sarafina said. "Because if I don't kill you for this, Rhiannon will. And she's with Amber's parents."

"Yes, someplace windy with some vampire scientist and his bride."

"Eric and Tamara," Will said.

"That's where she planned to take Stiles," Edge told them. "If she's in control, that's where you'll find her."

"And if she's not," Willem added, "Angelica might be able to home in on her location."

Edge shook his head. "She's blocking. I tried that already and couldn't come close."

"Oh, aren't we full of ourselves?" Sarafina all but growled. "To think your bond to Amber Lily could begin to compare to the one she shares with her mother."

Edge lifted his brows. "You might be surprised."

Her eyes narrowed. God, she looked for all the world as if she would like nothing better than to rip out his throat.

"There's something else," Will said. "What aren't you telling us, Edge?"

He studied the man and thought he wasn't a bad sort, for a human. Of the bunch of them, he found he hated Willem least. He shook his head slowly, though. "Whatever else there is, is between Alby and me. And that's where it will stay. For now."

The man's lips thinned, and Sarafina surged to her feet. "You arrogant little wretch, I'll wring it out of you!"

"No." Again Willem stopped her, simply by reaching out and clasping her hand in his own. He didn't even have to get up. "Unless it has some bearing on our ability to locate her?" He glanced at Edge.

"It doesn't."

"Then it's not our business."

She bared her teeth and didn't return to her chair but instead paced the deck. "We need a plan. We need to search for her."

"Call her parents. Tell me where this Eric Marquand lives, and give me your list of known locations for Stiles. I'll find her," Edge said quietly.

"As if we'd trust you with this mission!" Sarafina snapped.

He shrugged. "I'm going, either way. Armed with all the information or not. Your choice." He took a final drag, then flicked the cigarette butt over the rail and into the sand beyond.

"I'll get you what we have in my files," Morgan said, getting to her feet. "Give me a second to print it up for you."

He nodded, and she hurried inside. Dante turned to Edge. "I'm going with you."

"The hell you are."

The other man shrugged. "Then I'll follow you. I don't trust you, Edge. If you find Amber Lily, one of us should be on hand. Sarafina and Will need to stay here, so Will can continue his medical treatments uninterrupted. Morgan can stay, as well, and continue working leads via the phones and Internet. I'm the logical choice."

Edge shook his head, rolled his eyes. "Right. Just the two of us."

"Three, actually," Dante said.

Edge frowned at him, not understanding.

"I made a few calls, mental ones as well as physical, while you and Amber have been away, Edge. Finally made contact with an old friend of mine I thought might have some input into this situation. He's on his way."

Edge shook his head. "I'm not waiting. You can catch up with me when this mystery guest arrives."

"He'll be here at any time, Edge."

"He's here now," a deep voice said from the darkness beyond the deck.

Something shivered down Edge's spine. An awareness he hadn't felt since he'd been newly made. A prickle, a connection like a live wire under his skin. He turned toward that voice, watching as the man came closer.

"You," Edge whispered. He was rocked, right to his core, as the vampire who'd sired Mm, then abandoned him, stood there, holding his gaze. "You son of a bitch."

Edge vaulted the rail and sprang on the man with all the fury he'd been carrying around for more than fifty years.

Chapter 11

After Stiles jabbed her with the needle, obviously operating at full strength while she was feeling absurdly weak, Amber thanked the gods that at least her brains were still functioning at full capacity and sank to the floor.

Stiles, the handcuffs hanging uselessly from his wrists, their chain snapped in half, leaned over her. "I've been hoping to run into you again," he said softly. "The timing is… well, it's quite astounding, really."

She let her eyelids hang heavy, half shielding her eyes, as if there really had been tranquilizer in that needle he'd jabbed into her arm, instead of the saline solution she'd found in his little black bag. The hypodermic with the actual drug was in her pocket. She'd had a feeling he was faking—had guessed the drag would have been wearing off by now. Just as she'd had a feeling she would learn more by playing along than she would by fighting him and—given her state—probably losing. So she'd taken a few… precautions.

"What are you… talking about?" she asked, slurring her words.

He shrugged. "You took my journals. You know what I did with the blood I took from you."

She nodded, moving her head as if her neck were made of rubber. "You made some kind of formula… from my blood… "

He shrugged. "Among other ingredients. I call it Ambrosia. Clever, don't you think? The nectar of the gods, key to immortality?"

"Ambrosia," she repeated.

"Ambrosia-Six, actually. The first five tries were ineffective."

"You injected yourself. And now you're… you're… immortal?"

"Well, not exactly." He smiled down at her. "It wears off, you see. I've had to remedicate myself every six months, and I'm nearly out of Ambrosia-Six. So you can see how fortuitous our meeting again is for me. Thank you, Amber Lily."

He watched her carefully, expectantly, and she knew she should probably be unconscious by now, so she let her eyes fall closed and her head go limp. He went to the black bag, and she heard him when he returned, turning the handcuff key, dropping the cuffs into the hay. She tried not to cringe in revulsion when he hauled her up over his shoulder and began striding out of the barn with the bag in his free hand. He paused near the door, looking around the barn. "If I knew where that bastard Edgar was, I'd take the time to kill him. He'll keep coming after me until one of us is dead, I'm afraid. And I don't intend for it to be me." He sighed as if in sincere and deep regret that he wouldn't be able to murder Edge, then kept walking.

Amber could feel the capped hypodermic, the only one left with real tranquilizer inside, poking her thigh where she'd tucked it into her pocket. She thought about jerking it out and jabbing him with it, but it occurred to her that he was giving her exactly what she needed. He was taking her somewhere to extract some more of her blood, so he could use it to make the very same formula she needed in order to save Willem. If she were there, pretending to be his prisoner, she could get the formula, or even steal his supply of the elixir. Ambrosia indeed. In the hands of a man as evil as Stiles, it was more the nectar of demons than of gods.

Still, she needed to know how he'd made the stuff. So she continued to hang limp over his shoulder and let him carry her down through the woods until they reached a narrow, barely paved road. To her surprise, there was a vehicle waiting there. A black Lincoln, parked along the shoulder.

As Stiles approached it, a woman got out of the driver's seat and opened a rear door for him without a word. Through the slits of her eyelids, Amber saw flaming hair, in a "big-hair" style, that surrounded the woman like a red cloud. She wore sunglasses with rhinestones on the frames. Spandex encased her legs to mid-calf, and hot pink polish colored the toenails visible in the spike heeled sandals. Her tight black rib-knit sweater had fake leopard fur trim around the collar and cuffs.

Stiles slung the black bag into the car. "I see the homing beacon did its job?''

"You are so smart, Frankie," the woman said, her voice irritatingly high pitched. "Puttin' it into the heel of your shoe like that—fuckin' brilliant."

He grunted and bent low, flipping Amber off his shoulder and onto the back seat.

"So this is the one, huh?''

"Yes."

"She don't look so special."

"Doesn't she?'' He sighed, then slammed the door and went around to get in the passenger side, while the redhead returned to her spot behind the wheel. "Head to the Boston Center, Brookie. It's the closest one."

"You sure you don't wanna drive?" she asked.

"I'm sure. I've had a trying evening, and I'm not sure I'm back to a hundred percent, even now. She drugged me, or I'd have been here sooner."

"She drugged you?"

"Mmm."

Amber felt the twit send an angry glance into the back seat and heard her mutter, "Feisty little bitch, ain't she?" prior to snapping her gum. She was driving by then, so she had to face front again soon. She said, "I waited all night. I would have come lookin' for you if you hadn't told me not to."

Amber almost laughed at the thought of the woman traipsing through the forest in those high heeled, open-toed, suicide shoes she was wearing.

"You did the right thing," Stiles assured her. "I hope it wasn't too awful for you." Gross. His voice had turned sugary sweet.

"It was pretty awful. It was dark, and I was all alone. I had to pee out in the bushes. I didn't like that one bit. And I saw a skunk."

"I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you, though. I promise."

Amber thought he was probably touching her then. Squeezing her hand, or something comforting and apologetic like that. Clearly their relationship was personal, intimate. Talk about an odd couple, Amber thought. A scarred, aging, evil genius and a beautiful young airhead.

Sighing, she told herself to just relax during the ride to Boston. It would give her body time to recover from her rather… energetic morning with Edge.

But as soon as she thought of him, she felt anything but relaxed. Feelings stirred inside her, as if he'd left a part of himself behind; a part that had taken up residence beneath her skin and deep in her bones. He was there, inside her, ail through her. She could smell him, feel him, taste him again, just by thinking of him. She could hear his voice, see his sarcastic little smile, and sense the passion burning between them as if it were still there.

The drive took only a couple of hours—almost the exact distance she'd managed to haul Stiles before his car had given out. Boston, that was good. Close to Salem. Close to help, should she need it. But she wouldn't.

Amber calculated the amount of time the dose of tranquilizer she'd given to Stiles had lasted and determined she needn't feign coming out of it until six hours had passed. So she continued the phony state as they pulled into a long, curving driveway and up a hill to a stylish brick house in the suburbs, surrounded by what looked like ordinary mesh fence.

She let Stiles carry her inside, noticing the eerie silence of the place as he punched codes into electronic boxes to open the gate and then the door. It felt… empty. She opened her senses briefly, trying to feel for others in the house on the hill, but she sensed no one. Two presences made themselves known to her. The dark, black, oppressive and sharp-minded essence of Stiles, and another. An intelligent, determined, manipulative essence.

She blinked, because it didn't match up with what she'd observed about the redhead. But she didn't sense a third aura. Only two. And two people, moving through the house and into a bedroom at the end of a hall. Amber was dropped onto a bed.

"Bring me the kit, Brookie."

The bimbo hustled away with staccato steps and was back only moments later. Amber heard rattling, and then felt the pinch when Stiles tied a rubber band around her upper arm. She braced herself, compelled her body not to stiffen or react in any way, fully aware of what was coming.

Her arm felt the cold swipe of an alcohol pad. Then the sting of a needle.

"Are you sure you need to do this?" Brookie asked.

"I told you, I'll die without it."

"Of a degenerative blood disease," she said.

"Yes. I need transfusions, and she's the only donor with the same rare blood type as mine. And she refuses to help me."

He was lying through his teeth, Amber thought angrily. He didn't have any degenerative disease. He might die without her blood, but only of old age or natural causes. Obviously he didn't trust the redhead enough to tell her the whole truth.

Amber felt the strength leaving her as the blood flowed from her arm into the receptacle. Dizziness seemed to sweep in to fill the void. Weakness. Nausea. God, he couldn't be aware she was already a pint or two low.

The bag filled; he leaned closer. "Hmm, not flowing very fast today. I wonder." He rubbed a hand along her cheek. "Best just settle for one, she's pale as a ghost."

"What do you care?"

"Think, Brookie. If she dies, where will I get my transfusion the next time I need one?" He pressed a cotton ball to the puncture, as he pulled the needle from her arm. Then he bent it at the elbow, holding it there.

"How you gonna be sure you can get it from her anyway, the next time? She could get hit by a truck tomorrow. Or just get too smart to let you catch her again."

"Don't you worry your pretty head about that, Brookie. I have a plan."

"Huh?"

"Come on, Brooke. Come with me. We need to get the process going."

"All right, Frankie."

They left the room, closing the bedroom door behind them.

Amber opened her eyes the moment they were gone. He had a plan? Hell, that didn't bode well. Gave her chills, actually. But that wasn't where she needed to focus at the moment. She scanned the room, visually and mentally, all without moving. But she saw no cameras monitoring her, sensed no eyes observing. This place was not equipped to hold vampires captive. He was counting on the tranquilizer to keep her in line—for now. And that was to her advantage. She got to her feet, only to sink immediately to her knees. Damn, but she was weak! She pulled herself upright again, made her way to the door, tried the knob.

Locked. And given the electronics attached to every other lock in the place, she had no doubt her so-called captors would be alerted if this lock were to be tampered with. Though breaking it would pose no real challenge, once she got her strength back.

A meal would help. God, she was famished.

She took stock of her situation, examining the room. No windows. Solid looking walls. A tiny heat register. Ceiling panels. She licked her lips. Those ceiling panels might be a possibility.

But not in her current state.

The dizziness returned, and she doubled over as nausea washed over her. She barely avoided throwing up as she staggered back to the bed, crawled facedown into it, and clutched the bedding in fisted hands. What the hell was wrong with her? A second ago she'd felt starved to death. Now her stomach was rebelling.

She hugged the bed as if she could stop it from spinning around the room by doing so and gave herself permission to go to sleep. She wouldn't rejuvenate with the day sleep, the way a vampire would. She wouldn't regain her strength in the space of a few hours, and her wounds wouldn't miraculously heal as she slept. She healed faster than ordinary mortals—but not quite as fast as a vampire by day. Though she had an advantage, in that she didn't have to wait for the day sleep for the healing to begin. It could take a full day, maybe longer, to get back to her ordinary self again. But maybe she would be strong enough to do what needed doing a lot sooner.

She would probably have to be.

Edge landed one good blow to Donovan O'Roark's jaw before Dante gripped him from behind and flung him to the ground. He landed hard, back first, and the breath was driven from his lungs. Then he sat up slowly, as Dante towered over him.

"You need to learn some respect for your elders, boy."

"Leave him be." Donovan O'Roark stepped up beside Dante, rubbing his jaw with one hand. "I had that one coming." Then he reached a hand down to Edge.

Edge scowled at him, not taking it. Instead, he got to his feet on his own.

Shrugging, Donovan turned his attention to Dante. "It's been a long time, my friend."

"Too long," Dante said. He extended a hand, almost hesitantly.

Donovan didn't take it. Instead, he wrapped the other man in a bear hug that should have crushed him. For a moment Dante appeared stunned. Then he returned the embrace. "Dammit, Dante, why didn't you come back? For decades, I thought you were dead."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I started hearing tales of you from others, accounts of you having lived for a time in one place or another. But always alone," Donovan said, his face full of questions.

Edge felt as if they'd both forgotten his presence. It angered him still further, and yet he was slightly interested in the discussion. Too much so to walk away just yet.

"At first I thought you'd died, as well, when the villagers burned us out of the castle. All because of my foolishness." Dante shook his head slowly. "I wanted no more to do with others of my kind, Donovan. And when I finally learned you'd survived, I… " He let his voice trail off.

"You assumed I would blame you for what had happened."

"I nearly got you killed, Donovan."

"You were betrayed. You should have known I wouldn't hate you for that."

Dante sighed. "Eventually my beloved Morgan convinced me of the same thing. I traveled to Ireland to look you up, but you'd gone. And still… "

"And still you're racked with guilt."

"I was your sire," Dante said. "My job was to teach you, to protect you. I let you down."

Edge finally spoke. "Funny, isn't it, how history repeats itself?"

Both men looked his way, and Donovan had the courtesy to lower his head. Dante started to speak, no doubt to reprimand Edge, but Donovan held up a hand. "No, he's right. I sired him and abandoned him all in the same night."

"Damn straight," Edge said. "Do you have any idea how confused I was when I woke to my new nature? My God, I didn't even know enough to seek shelter from the sun until my skin began to blister with burns. And I was completely unprepared for the intensity of the pain. I didn't even know how to survive, because of you."

Donovan nodded. "I owe you an apology."

"You owe me considerably more than that. Fortunately for you, I don't care enough to collect." He turned around, ready now to make his exit.

"There are things you don't know about that night, Edgar."

He froze in place. "It's Edge now. And I don't want to know."

"But you do want to find the Child of Promise, don't you?"

Slowly Edge turned and faced his sire once more, "I don't need your help to do that. I've managed to get by without it for more than fifty years, after all."

Donovan sighed. Dante said, "Don't think of yourself and what you want or need, Edge. Think of Amber Lily. The more of us there are searching for her, the better our chances of finding her. And sooner than one alone might manage to do."

"Yes, and the less time she's forced to spend as a captive of Frank Stiles, the better," Donovan put in.

When Edge looked at him questioningly, he added, "Your thoughts are less than well guarded tonight. And they've been mostly centered on Amber and her situation, with a few spare ones directed toward hatred for me."

Edge said nothing.

"Edge may not want to hear your explanation, Donovan," Dante said. "But I do."

Nodding, Donovan turned to Dante. "I found Edge lying near death. He'd been part of one of Dublin's street gangs, and there had been a war of sorts with a rival group. I'd seen part of the battle, been impressed by his courage. He fought like a true warrior. Utterly fearless. I thought he deserved to live."

"So you changed me over and left me there in the street," Edge said softly.

"I changed you over and was attacked. Both the gangs set on me at once, no doubt in shock over what they saw me doing to you," Donovan explained. "I was beaten to within an inch of my life. And then your fellows dragged you off somewhere, no doubt thinking they were reclaiming their valiant dead."

"God, you're fortunate they didn't bury you," Dante said.

"I feared that same thing," Donovan replied. "I searched and searched for you, Edge. Even when I was being hunted, and it would have been better to leave Ireland altogether, I stayed and hunted for you. But I never found you." He smiled just slightly. "Until now. By God, it's good to know you survived."

Dante lowered his head, shaking it slowly. "It's little wonder you mistrust your own kind," he said. "Tell us what happened to you that night, Edge."

He shrugged as if it were of little consequence. "They took me to a side street, dropped me in a ditch when they heard someone coming. Intended to come back for me, I imagine. But I woke when the sun started roasting my flesh. Ran from it, my clothes in flames before I found a bog and submerged myself. It was an effort to cool the flames. I didn't know enough to hide from the sun, but fortunately, I lost consciousness at that point."

"And woke again at sundown," Donovan surmised. "Wondering why you hadn't drowned."

Edge shrugged. "Whatever. It's over, doesn't matter."

"It matters to me," Donovan said.

The door banged open, and Morgan, the small, almost mortal-looking vampiress, came across the deck and down to the lawn where the three of them stood.

"You reached Amber's parents?" Dante asked.

"Yes. They haven't heard a thing from her tonight, and they're heading this way just in case. Eric and Tarn are staying behind in case she shows up there. We can reach Jameson and the others by cellphone if we need them and they're too far out to reach telepathically." She handed him a card with a number scrawled on the back.

Edge closed his eyes in anguish, then jerked in surprise when Donovan's hand lowered to his shoulder.

"She hasn't had time to reach them yet. We mustn't think the worst."

"You must be Donovan," Morgan said. "You don't know how long I've wanted to meet you."

"I forget my manners," Dante said quickly. "Donovan, this is Morgan, my bride."

"I assumed as much." O'Roark reached for Morgan's hand, rifted it to his lips. "I'm so glad to know Dante has found you, dear Morgan. I only wish we could have met under more pleasant circum—"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, can we omit the formalities?" Edge interrupted. "A woman's life is at stake here." Shaking his head, he turned away, not to be stopped this time.

"Edge, you don't even know where to begin," Dante called after him.

, "I'll begin where I last saw her," he barked. "Come along or stay and continue your happy little reunion. I don't care either way."

Amber slept. She didn't know for sure how long, but she knew when she awoke that night had fallen. She felt marginally stronger, and when she finally got around to checking her wristwatch, she cursed herself for letting so many hours pass beyond her awareness. Since when did she sleep so long at a stretch? What essential bits of information might she have missed?

She got up and went to the closed door, pressed her ear against it and listened with her entire being, mentally as well as aurally. She could make out a television in some distant part of the house, a crunching sound. Brookie, eating popcorn and watching the tube. Her thoughts were focused on the program.

Closer, she made out only occasional footsteps, the tap of glass against glass, and the pouring sounds of liquids. Stiles in his lab, no doubt. And his thoughts were carefully guarded, right up until the moment he said, "I can't believe it!" and a burst of surprise shot from his mind like a flash of light.

A door slammed, and his steps came her way. Amber flung herself away from the door and dropped back onto the bed, closing her eyes and willing her body to relax. Locks turned, and the door opened.

"Wake up. I need a word."

She blinked her eyes open, mentally counting the hours since he'd tranquilized her and deciding it had been long enough for him to believe it had worn off at this point. "I'm awake."

"Mmm. I guessed you would be. By now I assume you've put two and two together and realize your situation?"

Sure she did, she thought. But did he realize his? Aloud, she said, "Apparently I'm once again your house-guest. You took blood from me already," she added, glancing at the bandage on her arm. "But I'm guessing you need more?"

"Considerably more."

"I'm surprised you didn't drain me dry and have it over with."

"Well now, that would be killing the only source, Amber. The only one at the moment, anyway. If I'm going to live forever, I need to keep the font healthy."

"So you're just going to kidnap me once every few years or so and help yourself to a new supply?"

"That hardly seems practical, does it? You might get smart enough to avoid me after a while, and that would be the end of me."

"Going to keep me your captive forever? Even you can't possibly think you could get away with that."

"Oh, heavens no. Your gang of undead loved ones would hunt me to the ends of the earth."

"Glad you've finally figured that out."

"No, what I was planning was much more efficient. Harvest a couple of hundred egg cells from your ovaries, fertilize them with your own DNA, and raise myself a crop of baby blood donors."

She felt her blood run cold, and the earlier nausea returned full force. "I'm going to be sick."

"I'm not surprised." He took her arm and tugged her out of the room, into a hallway. Then he opened the door to a bathroom and stood aside.

Amber stumbled to the toilet, and fell to her knees as she rid herself of everything she'd eaten the day before.

She let her head hang low, reached up with a trembling hand to flush.

Stiles gripped her arm, helped her to her feet and turned her toward the sink. She rinsed her mouth, washed her hands. "So you're talking about… cloning me."

"Mmm."

She shook her head. "You can't. You can't possibly have the expertise to do something like that."

"No, but I can draft someone who'd be willing. Geneticists tend to be more interested in immortality than your average humans are. I'm sure one would accept it as payment in full for helping me out."

"But you haven't found one yet."

He shrugged. "I've narrowed it down. There are a handful of qualified scientists on my short list. But it's not the selection of a scientist that's holding things up at the moment, Amber."

"No?"

"No, no, not at all. It's your blood. There's something there that wasn't before, and it certainly puts a delay on any egg harvesting I might have had in mind. Of course, it could work to my benefit But I won't know for sure it's a perfect match for… oh, somewhere around nine months, I would guess."

Turning away from the sink very slowly, she stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about, Stiles?"

One eyebrow arched. The other eye had no brow, only pink scar tissue that puckered with the expression. "You really don't know?"

She rolled her eyes. "Stop playing games, will you? Either tell me or don't, I'm too dizzy and sick to stand here and play along."

"Oh, I'll tell you. What harm is there, after all? You'll find out on your own in due time. I ran all the usual tests on the blood I took from you, just be sure it hadn't altered or mutated—after all, it's been a while."

"And?"

"And something… quite surprising showed up."

"Food poisoning? Stomach cancer? What?"

He watched her eyes very closely as he replied, "A child. You're pregnant, Amber."

Chapter 12

Amber closed her eyes very slowly as the shock washed over her but quickly got a grip on herself as she realized Frank Stiles was lying through his teeth. "Very funny," she said. "But I happen to know that's impossible."

"Now what makes you say that? You stole my journals when you left five years ago. You read the notes."

She shrugged.

"So you know you're perfectly fertile. That was one of the things I recorded there. Which means it's far from impossible. Unless you're trying to tell me you've never been with a man."

She spun away from him, heading into the hall. She thought maybe she should make a break for it then and there but chose restraint. She still didn't have what she'd come for, she thought And she was supposed to be suffering the chemical hangover of the tranquilizer, a side effect she remembered all too well. "I'm not discussing this. It's absurd."

He shot after her, gripping her arm before she got far and hustling her straight into the bedroom. "Is this some kind of immaculate conception, then?"

"Leave me alone." She paced away from him, sat on the bed.

"I can easily put you on the table in my lab and examine you. Or you can give me a straight answer. Are you a virgin or not?"

She lowered her head. More than anything she would like to avoid undergoing any more of this man's "examinations."

"No."

"Then you have slept with a man. Or men?"

She didn't reply.

"Did you use protection?" This time, when she failed to respond, he sighed. "Fine, I'll go and get the stun gun, if that's how you want to do this. I just hope it doesn't have some dramatic impact on the baby."

"There is no baby."

He rolled his eyes. "Five minutes. I'll be back in five minutes. Don't try anything." Then he slammed out of the room, locking the door behind him.

Amber sank onto the bed, holding her head in her hands as it spun with disbelief. Male vampires were infertile. Everyone knew that.

She looked up at the ceiling tiles, wondering if she should try now to get the hell out of here. But no. He would be back in five minutes, he said. She had to wait this out, give it some time, get the formula he used to make his Ambrosia-Six.

Stiles was playing head games with her. That was all.

His five minutes turned out to be closer to fifteen, and she was pacing, eager to get past his return and get on with things. She was starved to death—again. At least the nausea had gone, and the dizziness. She still felt tired, weak.

Stiles unlocked the door, opened it and entered. He held a yellow plastic bag with a drugstore chain's logo on it, then handed it to her.

Frowning, she took it and glanced inside.

A home pregnancy test kit. She pressed her lips tight, swallowed a lump of fear. He was really taking this ruse to the bitter end, wasn't he? What she couldn't figure out was what he had to gain by trying to make her believe she was pregnant.

"It was a vampire, wasn't it?" he asked.

She blinked up at him.

"You've only been with one person, and that person was a vampire. That's why you keep saying it's impossible. Tell me, was it my old friend Edgar?''

Clutching the bag in her fist, she muttered, "That's none of your business."

"I thought I glimpsed his mark on your throat before we stepped out into the sunlight this morning." He touched her chin, turning her head to look at her neck. "No sign of it now, of course."

She pressed her lips tight, and he took her arm again, tugged her into the hall, shoved her into the bathroom. "Take the test," he said. "Convince yourself, so we can get past that and move on."

She shook her head. "What makes you think I'd trust this kit? How do I know you haven't rigged it to make me believe this insane notion?''

He shrugged. "I just went to the drugstore on the corner and bought it. Receipt's still in the bag. Check it out for yourself." He pulled the door closed but didn't walk away. She knew he was standing out there, waiting.

She glanced at the tiny single bathroom window and thought she could probably squeeze through it. But not yet She didn't have what she'd come after yet. If she had to play along, take this stupid test, she would. But she wasn't leaving here without Willem's cure.

She took the boxed kit from the drugstore bag. It was shrink wrapped, and she checked it carefully for tears. There were none. When she took off the cellophane, she checked the box's seal. It was glued tight. She tore it open and found everything inside just as intact. Nothing seemed to have been tampered with. She even checked the store receipt, which included a date and time stamp.

Okay, okay. So it was probably the real thing.

Sighing, she read the instructions, made a face and followed them. Then she paced the bathroom, watching the second hand on her watch impatiently.

There was a tap on the door.

She opened it and faced Stiles. "Well?"

She looked at her wrist. "Thirty more seconds."

He pursed his lips and waited. The time ticked away slowly, dragging its feet.

Finally time was up. She picked up the indicator stick and looked at the symbol in its tiny green tinted window.

A plus sign.

Blinking in shock, she looked again. But it was clear, clear as day. A plus sign. She even double-checked the instruction sheet to be sure that meant what she already knew it meant. "It's not possible," she whispered.

Stiles took her arm, guiding her back to the bedroom. She moved in a daze, not believing, even now.

"It was Edgar, wasn't it?"

She said nothing.

"Amazing. Every vampire DPI ever tested was sterile—males from the time of the transformation, females within six months or so. Are you sure you haven't been with anyone else?"

She frowned up at him, hearing, but not processing his words.

"Of course you are," he said. "Otherwise you wouldn't be so stunned by this." He shook his head slowly as he silently mulled over the ramifications.

Amber lay down on the bed, letting her forearm rest over her eyes.

Sighing, Stiles left the room, but he returned a moment later with a hypodermic. As he touched the needle to her arm, she jerked away.

He sent her his trademark smile, half natural, half a twisted grimace of scarred skin. "Don't worry, it's a half dose. And I've got no reason to believe it will be harmful to the fetus."

"You have no reason to believe it won't be, either." Then she caught herself. "Not that there is any fetus to be worried about." She looked past him at the floor, saw the small black bag, realized that was where he'd taken the needle from. Or at least she hoped it was.

Its slender sharp tip pierced her skin. She braced herself, waiting for the rush of dizziness and inevitable sleep, but it didn't come. Not for real. She thanked whatever sorts of angels watched out for her kind, whatever the hell her kind was, and let her arm go limp and her eyes fall closed.

Hours and hours passed before Amber finally felt the soft, heavy energy of sleep pervading the house. She was still tired, and her mind was spinning with the possibility that she might be carrying a baby. She really couldn't give it any credence, not now. Stiles was clever, clever enough to have a ready-made test kit on hand, or to fake a drugstore receipt. He had some reason for wanting her to believe something she knew to be impossible. She couldn't imagine what it was, but he had a reason. Maybe he thought she would be less likely to engage him in violence, or perhaps he thought he could hold the safety of her unborn child over her like the Sword of Damocles, using it to force her to cooperate with him.

She wasn't buying it. She couldn't.

Even so, she found her hands pressing to her abdomen. She closed her eyes and opened her senses. Her throat tightened until she couldn't swallow, because she felt something. Something so faint, so fleeting, that she couldn't be sure it was real. Was she picking up the essence of a new life or the effects of the power of suggestion?

She grimaced, got to her feet and arranged the covers over the pillows, thinking it probably wouldn't fool Stiles for a minute. With any luck, it wouldn't have to. She needed to keep her focus on the mission. She'd come here to get the formula Stiles called Ambrosia-Six and take it back to Willem to save his life. Stiles and his attempts at distracting her must not be allowed to work.

She could not allow herself to believe this insanity. Not even for a minute. Because if it were true…

No!

No.

She stepped up onto the bed and, from it, onto the top of the slightly higher nightstand. From there she could reach the ceiling easily, and she pushed one of its panels upward. It wasn't easy—there was insulation backing the thing, and she had to tear it apart with her fingers before it would allow the panel to move freely. She moved the panel to one side, then peered up into the rectangle of darkness, in search of a stud. There was one on either side of the opening, just as she'd guessed there would be—the panel's framework had to be attached to something, after all. She thrust her hands up through the hole, jumped just a little, and caught hold of the two-by-fours that flanked the opening; then, carefully, she pulled herself up into the ceiling. She made sure to lower her feet, one and then the other, onto the beams, not the panels. She would break right through those panels, and then she would give away her presence. So she straddled them, getting to her hands and knees, crawling along the two-by-fours, which stood up on their edges, left hand and knee on one, right on another, sixteen inches away. The narrow surfaces made balance difficult, and crawling on them was less than pleasant. Painful, in fact, by the time she'd moved a distance she judged would put her outside the locked bedroom door. She could have broken the lock, she thought. But so long as Stiles believed she was weak, kept tame by his tranquilizer, his guard would remain down.

She paused, pawing aside insulation and lifting a ceiling panel so she could peer below her. She was over the hallway now. She thought about dropping down into the hall but knew his lab would likely have a locked door, just as her bedroom did. If he were true to form, it would have an alarm on it that would sound when it was opened. So she would just keep moving.

She crept farther, certain there would be two inch dents in her knees by the time she finished. She slid her hands along until a sliver drove itself into one palm, making her suck in a breath.

"Dammit," she whispered.

The sliver was embedded in the fleshy pad beneath her forefinger. She tried to bite it and pull it out, but it was in too deep. She would just have to suffer.

She got moving again.

The next room she peered down into was a bedroom. She saw Stiles, lying sound asleep in his oversized bed, a sheet covering his torso. A naked arm and leg were flung over the woman who lay beside him. Brookie. She lay still, not quite stiff, but not relaxed, either. She was asleep, but not deeply.

There was something about her…

Amber lowered the panel into place again and moved on. She located a living room, an empty bedroom and a kitchen, before she finally moved a panel aside and saw a pristine laboratory.

She felt like shouting. But instead, she only lowered herself as far as her arms would reach and then let go, dropping to the floor.

She brushed her hands against each other, took stock of the room.

Utterly white. The walls, the floor, the cupboards, the countertops. Aside from the silver knobs on the drawers and faucets on the sink, the place wasn't broken by any other color. A refrigerator stood on one side. A desk and computer on another. She went to the PC, turned it on, then searched for the most recently accessed files.

The one he'd viewed most recently was called "Hilary Garner Journals."

Frowning, Amber clicked on the icon. The document opened in a word processing program, and as she skimmed the first few lines, she knew it hadn't been written by Stiles.

I should have believed Tamara, years ago, when she told me what DPI was really all about. I should have believed her, but I didn't. And now that I've seen the truth for myself, it's too late. If I try to leave—when I try, for I must—they'll hunt me down and they will kill me. I know that. And yet it's not fear that keeps me from making the move. It's their latest experiment. The female captive is pregnant. They inseminated her with the sperm of one of the Chosen—a male mortal with the rare Belladonna Antigen. Not just any male. But the little boy Tamara worked with so long ago, when we were best friends and she was still among the living. Jameson Bryant. Precocious little Jamey.

Amber blinked. My God, this was about her parents!

It was about her!

Tapping the down arrow impatiently, she read on.

Hilary Garner had sent a letter, in secret, to Tamara and Eric Marquand, telling them about the prisoner and her pregnancy, knowing they would get word to Jameson and he would do something. But in the meantime, she wrote about how quickly Angelica seemed to become aware of her pregnancy, even before any symptoms should have been apparent. She would sit in her cell, her hands embracing her lower abdomen, caressing, stroking the child there as if she could reach it…

… and she would sing. God, the sound of her voice was like a choir of angels, I swear. I never heard anything so heart-wrenching, so sad or so full of love. I think part of the power of her voice is preternatural—she can sing like no human being ever could. But it's more than that. It's almost… magic. The other prisoners can hear her songs, all up and down the sublevels. And even the most violent, the most agitated, seem to relax at the sound of them. They stop pacing, lie back, close their eyes. It's the most amazing thing… and the guard dogs react, too. I've observed a few of them when her voice came floating on the air. The way their ears perk up and their tails wag. Some of them even begin to whimper, as if trying to sing along. I think they'd cut loose and do it, if they were less well trained.

She talks to her baby as if the baby can hear her and talk back. And I don't know, maybe it can. She knows it's a girl, she says.

I can't leave here yet. Not yet. Because I think maybe I'm the only one here who's willing to help her and her baby. She begs me to help her. Every single time I see her, she begs me with those eyes of hers. So imploring, so expressive. I try to tell her that I will, that I'll do whatever I can, but of course I can't say it out loud. I hope she understands. I hope she can read my thoughts the way DPI says they can. I hope she knows. I'm staying on here, continuing to work for DPI until that baby's born, and then I'm going to do something to help. Somehow.

She's not a monster. She's a mother. The only monsters here are Fuller and Stiles and the others.

Amber closed her eyes, and her stomach clenched tight. Her mother. That had been her own dear mother, singing her heart out from a prison cell, wondering what would become of her child. And a short while later a mob of vampires had surrounded that building and burned it to the ground. That was where Stiles had gotten his scars.

God, what if she were in the same horrible predicament her mother had been? Alone, imprisoned and unable to be sure she could protect her child?

"But I'm not," she whispered. "I'm no prisoner, and I'm far from helpless. I have the upper hand here. I say how long I stay. I say when I leave." Even as the thoughts crossed her mind, she looked toward the door and thought about running.

Then she swallowed hard, faced the computer again. "Besides, I'm not pregnant." She closed the file and opened the next most recently viewed document.

Edge arrived at the barn alone. He didn't know or care whether the other two were following. He had no time to focus his attention behind him. Only ahead of him. Only on Amber Lily… and that bastard Stiles.

He went to the barn where he'd last seen her, only this time, instead of going inside, he circled the place, moving slowly, his entire mind homed to pick up any trace of her.

"Look at him," Dante said. "He's like a bloodhound trying to pick up a scent."

"Mmm," Donovan agreed. "I read somewhere that bloodhounds on the scent will be so focused, so oblivious to everything else, that they've been known to walk right over cliffs, into canyons, even in front of speeding traffic."

"Then my analogy fits," Dante put in. "He's not even aware of our presence."

"Of course I'm aware of your fucking presence," Edge said, spinning around. "Now would you shut up so I can concentrate?''

Dante and Donovan exchanged glances. "There might be a better way, son," Donovan said softly.

Edge turned very slowly, pinned the man with his gaze. "Son? You're my sire, not my father."

"Is there really a difference?"

Edge stared so intently he thought the other man should have burst into flames. But apparently there was still only one in existence who could commit such a feat. A vampire named Damian—the first, according to legend. As for Edge's efforts, Donovan's hair didn't even begin to smolder.

"Dante has something for you, Edge," Donovan said.

Edge shot a look at Dante. "And I suppose you want me to address you as 'Gramps'?"

"Hardly," Dante said, seeming not the least bit amused. Still, he tugged a packet of papers, all stapled together, from the pocket of his black trench coat. "I went through the files of the old DPI. They had what were known as safe houses all over the country. Ordinary-looking homes, in ordinary neighborhoods, fitted with labs, computers and cells for the occasional prisoner."

"So?"

"So I got the full list. The Northeast Region begins on page three," he said, holding the sheaf of papers out to Edge.

Edge took it from him with a sigh, flipped the first two pages. "I don't see what good it will do. It's hardly likely Stiles would be using the former DPI safe houses."

"Why not? They'd have been put up for sale by the government when DPI was dismantled. They were, at the time, in a hell of a hurry to wash their hands of the entire operation, distance themselves from it."

"Probably in case word of the atrocities DPI committed ever leaked out," Donovan suggested.

Edge pursed his lips and skimmed the addresses under the header "Northeast Region." He slid his forefinger along with his gaze.

That one, someone said.

Edge frowned, lifting his head sharply. "Well, if you already know which one, why the hell are you asking me?"

Dante and Donovan frowned at each other, then at him. "What makes you think we know which one?" Dante asked.

"One of you just said so."

"I didn't say a word," Dante said.

"Neither did I. Neither mentally nor audibly," Donovan agreed.

Sighing, Edge returned his attention to the sheet, reading farther.

No, no, go back. It's that one, up there, I told you!

He jerked his head up again, eyeing the other two men.

Fourth from the top, that's the one!

Neither man had spoken. Nor did this voice seem like the ones he heard when he communicated with others of his kind telepathically. No, this voice seemed for all the world to be coming from someplace inside him.

"Surely you can hear that," he asked.

Donovan's puzzled expression changed to one of concern. "I hear nothing. Edge, are you all right?"

"Please, spare me the parental concern." He glanced down at the sheet again, fourth listing from the top, and read aloud. "One sixty-three, Poplar Avenue, Boston. Is that the one?"

"I don't know," Donovan said, still confused.

Yes, the voice said. It was a male voice, not as deep as Edge's own. Some other vampire, trying to offer assistance from afar? Or was it one of Stiles's newest tricks? Had he mastered telepathy now? Was he trying to draw Edge and the others into a trap?

He squeezed his eyes tight. "All right. That's the one."

"What makes you think that's where she is?" Donovan asked.

Opening his eyes, Edge lifted his brows and tipped his chin to the right. "That's what the voice in my head is telling me, all right?" Then he shrugged. "And I don't hear any better ideas coming from either of you."

"Fine. Boston, then."

The formula was not on the computer. Nor was it in the file cabinet she managed to open with the force of her mind. She found several vials of her own blood in the refrigerator, but that was all.

Dammit.

Finally she put everything back exactly the way she'd found it and jumped upward, tugging herself through the hole in the ceiling again. When she looked back down at the room from above, she saw a tiny bit of pink fluff lying on the floor—a piece of the insulation. She looked at it and turned her head just slightly. The fluff spun across the floor and along the wall, vanishing behind a cabinet.

Perfect. She replaced the panel and crawled along the two-by-fours again until she was outside the lab and over the hallway. Then she emerged, lowering herself to the floor, straightening the panel behind her, making sure she left no signs. Then she began walking through the rest of the house.

He must have had notes somewhere. He must have recorded his work as he developed the formula. And he must have the formula itself hidden in this house. He didn't have a photographic memory that she knew of, so there had to be notes, a recipe, something.

Hell, where would he keep it, if not in the lab?

She tiptoed through the hallway, searching the house room by room. It was nearly dawn, she realized when she crossed the living room and glanced at the clock on the wall. It crossed her mind that very soon he would move her to a more secure location. She would be out of reach of assistance. Maybe she should remove the blocks from her mind. Send a call out to her friends. To her mother. To Edge. Just to let them know she was all right.

She closed her eyes and reminded herself of all the reasons why she must not do that. They wouldn't let her stay here long enough to get the formula. If they knew where she was, they would home in on her Like a flock of bats on a mosquito swarm. And they would know where she was if she lowered her shields. They would come charging to the rescue, just Like they always did. Edge right along with them, she thought—though she imagined he would deny it with everything in him, if asked. If he found her, he wouldn't leave Stiles alive. She didn't know what his issue with the man was, but it must be a big one.

No, she couldn't let her guard down. Couldn't let any of them know where she was. At least not until she got the formula for Will.

She padded through the carpeted living room, past the sofa and television stand and coffee table. There was a file folder on the coffee table, and she scooped it up as she passed, glancing at its label. "Poe."

Frowning, she carried it with her into the kitchen, set it on the table and opened the fridge as her stomach growled. She thought about helping herself to some of the fruits and vegetables that filled the drawers. Apparently someone—probably Brookie—had been sent shopping since their arrival here. Amber wondered if they would notice if anything went missing and decided to risk it. She took an apple, a banana, a stalk of celery; Then she opened the cupboards and located a box of granola bars. Thankfully, it was already open, so she took one out. Lastly she took a single serving size bottle of tomato juice. She loaded her stolen booty into a plastic grocery back she found tucked under the sink and turned back to the file folder on the table, flipping it open.

"Poe, Edgar, aka Edge," the top sheet read. "Ireland, 1943. Sire, Donovan O'Roark."

She blinked slowly. Edge's name was Edgar Poe? God, his mother must have had one sick sense of humor. And Stiles must be worried about him, to have pulled his file.

Something made her jerk her head up sharply. Not a sound—a feeling. No, the absence of a feeling. Not everyone in the house was asleep anymore.

Hell!

She closed the folder and stuffed it into her bag, certain she could sneak it back out to the living room before anyone noticed it missing. Then she tiptoed quickly through the house, every sense on full alert.

She made it to her bedroom door, saw the dead bolt on the outside.

A dead bolt. Nothing else. Excellent. She turned the bolt and quickly jerked the door open, ducking inside. Then, closing the door behind her, she used the power of her mind to close the dead bolt lock again.

She heard it snap into place and knew she'd been successful. Standing on the bed, she shoved the plastic bag up through the now loose ceiling panel, into the crawl space above—ceiling panels had long been a favorite hiding place of hers—and then she carefully put the panel back into place.

Even as footsteps came down the hall, Amber dropped into the bed, wriggled her way beneath the covers and wrestled the pillows up to the top of the mattress where they belonged. Just as she hugged them to her face, the door lock turned, the door opened.

Only it wasn't Stiles who came in this time.

It was Brookie.

Chapter 13

Amber smelled a hint of Brooke's perfume, left over from the day before, a sweet mix of bubble gum and tropical fruit. It was like something a schoolgirl would wear, something that probably came in a pink glass bottle shaped like a kitten.

The woman came farther into the room, her steps soft and padded rather than sharp and clicking. No heels. She was wearing slippers or socks this morning. Probably still in her nightgown. She crept up to Amber's bedside, pausing every couple of steps, as if she were approaching a sleeping tiger. Step, step, pause. Her breaths were strained, as if she were trying to keep them quiet, even while her pounding heart demanded more and more oxygen. Quick, short little breaths. Amber sensed her fear.

What the hell was she doing in here, if she was so afraid?

"Hey," she whispered. "Hey, wake up."

Blinking, Amber rolled onto her side and blinked her eyes sleepily. "What?" She frowned as if puzzled, rubbed her eyes.

"I just… wanted to check on you. See if you're okay," Brookie said.

Amber sat up in the bed, a hand to her head as if she were dizzy. No way was she giving anything away to this woman. Something was wrong about her, off. Studying her face, Amber said, "Who are you?"

"I'm Brooke. I… work with Frank. Sort of."

"Oh," Amber said. "You're one of my kidnappers."

"It's not like that." Brooke's coppery curls were in disarray, her green eyes huge and round as she shot a nervous look back toward the door. "I don't like what he's doing to you. But it's not like I can stop it."

"No, of course not."

"I saw the test kit in the bathroom, so I know you used it by now. Is it true? Are you… ?"

Amber shook her head. "It's not possible."

"The test stick in the garbage read positive."

"It was a trick. Stiles has some reason for wanting me to believe this absurd notion, but I know better."

Brooke frowned at her. "How could he have tricked you? The test kit—"

"He had it made up in advance. Tampered with it so it would give a false positive. He must have been planning this for some time."

Brooke lowered her head.

"What?" Amber asked.

Copper curls moved as she looked up again. "He sent me to the drugstore for the test kit."

Amber felt her heart squeeze into a tight little knot.

"It was on the shelf with dozens of others, in probably ten different brands. He didn't tell me what brand to buy. Heck, he didn't even tell me which drugstore to use—there are three within a couple blocks of here." She shook her head slowly. "Unless he managed to tamper with every kit in all three stores. And since we've never even been to this place until the day before he took you, I don't see how… "

"The day before he kidnapped me?"

She nodded. "We were here for one night. Just long enough to set up the lab, fill the cupboards and turn up the heat. Then we headed to Salem to hunt for you. I had to keep a distance, following along by using the homing device, and just wait until he came to me."

Amber pursed her lips. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"I… you asked."

"He told you to, didn't he? He told you to try to make nice with me, to win my trust so you could try to convince me to believe in this insanity he's trying to sell me."

Brooke took a few steps backward, toward the door. "If he catches me in here, I'm in deep trouble. I just—I just felt sorry for you."

"You felt sorry for me?"

"Young, pregnant, alone. Being held against your will." She sent another glance back at the door. "Is there anything I can get for you that will make this easier?"

"Sure, several things. A key to that door would be great. I'd also like the blood he stole from my veins returned to me."

Brooke pursed her lips. "I could get you some prenatal vitamins."

"I'd prefer a machine gun. Although that wouldn't kill him anyway, would it?"

"So you know about that," Brooke whispered.

"Do you?" Amber asked.

Looking up slowly, Brooke nodded.

"What will kill him, Brooke? How can he die?"

She shook her head, backing nearer the door. "He doesn't know I know."

"I don't want to kill him," Amber said quickly. "In fact, that's the last thing I want to happen. That's why I stopped Edge from killing him." She didn't even know if the woman was aware of anything that had happened until now. Not until she said it, at least. As soon as she did, she saw the acknowledgment in Brooke's green eyes.

"I've wondered… why you did that."

"Then he told you."

She shook her head. "I read some of his notes about it. I'm not supposed to know any of this."

"Stiles is the only other person in the world who's like me," Amber said. "Do you have any idea what it's like, not knowing what can kill you?"

Brooke licked her lips, her hand turning on the doorknob.

"Please," Amber asked, knowing she was about to lose her best chance.

Brooke met her eyes. "Incineration." She spat the word quickly as she jerked the door open. "Till there's nothing left but ash. It's the only way." Ducking out the door, she closed it softly behind her and turned the lock.

Licking her lips, Amber sat down to digest the information she'd been given. And yet, she couldn't really trust any of it. There was no way to be sure Stiles hadn't put Brooke up to this entire little visitation.

She was hungry. She thought about her hidden snacks and the file on Edge, wondered if Stiles would be in to check on her anytime soon and decided to risk it. She climbed onto the bed, reaching up into the ceiling, and retrieved her bag. Then she sat on the bed, opened the file folder, peeled the banana and kept her senses alert for Stiles's approach.

"Right there, see?"

Edge stood in brilliant sunlight, beside a gaunt, tough-looking kid of about seventeen. It shocked him to be standing in the sunlight and not burning. But after a moment he accepted that it simply was and focused on the boy. The kid wore faded jeans, with straight legs and worn-out knees. The hems were frayed. His hair was too long, dark and straight, and tended to fall into his eyes.

"Right there," the boy said again.

He was pointing, and Edge looked. There was a small, ordinary looking brick house, on a hilltop. Steps landscaped into the lawn zigzagged up the hill to the front door. There was a wrought-iron fence around the place, but it looked more ornamental than functional.

"That's where she is?" Edge asked.

"Yeah."

"How do you know?"

"What difference does it make? She's in there. You want to see?"

Edge felt his heart contract. "God, yes."

The kid smiled a little, gave a nod.

Edge felt his brain twist and whirl as if being sucked into a whirlpool. He pressed his hands to the sides of his head, grimacing in pain. And then just as suddenly there was a pop and a rush of relief. He blinked his vision into focus, gave his head a shake. "Jesus, what the hell was that?" At least the pain was gone. He lowered his hands to his sides and looked around.

He was in a tiny room, and right in front of him, Alby sat in a bed, under the covers, with her back braced against the headboard and her knees bent. An open file folder rested against her thighs. She was staring at something inside it. A banana peel and an apple core lay on the bed beside her, and she was working on devouring a granola bar and sucking down a bottle of tomato juice.

"Alby!" He moved closer, noting her color was still pale, but otherwise, she looked well. God, he wished he could sustain his indignation, his anger. But right now all he could feel was relief at seeing her again. "Are you all right?"

She didn't move, didn't react in any way, and when Edge reached out a hand to touch her, to shake her out of her apparent stupor if necessary, his hand moved right through her. As if one of them were made of smoke.

"This is a dream, Edge. She doesn't even know you're here," his companion told him.

"The hell she doesn't. Alby!" He shouted her name with his entire being, with his mind, with his soul.

She blinked, frowned, and looked up from the file folder, glancing around the room as if she'd heard or sensed something. Edge focused everything in him on her. I'm coming for you.

She continued to look around the room, then sighed and focused again on the pages she was reading so intently. Curious, Edge moved around until he could see what had her so engrossed.

The left side of the folder held a line drawing that bore a striking resemblance, Edge thought, to himself. It showed a lanky young man in a leather jacket, sitting on the hood of a '69 Mustang, a cigarette dangling from one hand.

Wait a minute, that was his Mustang.

He glanced at the facing page and saw a thick sheaf of papers, line after line of typed words, telling his story—or Stiles's version of it, anyway.

Again he was sucked headfirst into the vortex, and this time when he popped out the other side, he found himself returning to the warehouse on that horrible night in 1959.

Hell, no. No, I don't want to see this.

But he couldn't control the scene playing out in front of him, and he knew, somehow, through gut instinct, why. This was Alby's mind. He was seeing what she imagined as she read Stiles's account. Watching himself. Things didn't look exactly as they had been. The warehouse was cleaner, neater, the windows unbroken as he moved through it. And he looked different, too, more as he was today and less as he had been then.

He tried to withdraw from Amber's consciousness, but it wasn't possible. This wasn't like reading her thoughts, trespassing inside her mind. He didn't know what the hell this was. It was different, beyond his control.

He closed his eyes, and still he saw. He saw himself walking into the warehouse, heard himself calling out to Scottie and Bridget and the others. "I'm back. Didn't find Billy Boy. Has he come home yet?"

But only his own voice echoed back in answer. He remembered the dread, the certainty that something was terribly wrong.

He kept moving, and then, suddenly, he smelled it even stronger than before.

Death, rank and bloody, tinged the air with its reeking stench. It was coming from here, from inside the warehouse. "God, no," he heard himself whisper, and he ran forward, across the warehouse's floor, around the corner. Then he skidded to a stop and fought down the bile as he saw what awaited him there.

They hung upside down, suspended from the rafters high above, by ropes wrapped around their ankles. Their throats had been cut. Every one of them. Bridget, her little girl face streaked in blood. It had soaked her red curls, dripped from them into the pool on the floor. Her terror still echoed in the air.

He heard his own voice crying out in denial, felt the weakness that overwhelmed him until he sank to his knees, felt the hot tears welling in his eyes and spilling over.

Dead. Gone. All of them. And he was alone.

Staggering to his feet, he gathered his wits, leaped upward, to the loft, and looked at the items on the floor. Items that identified the killer clearly, just by the ones that were missing. Stiles. Frank W. Stiles. He would remember the name for the rest of his days.

He tugged out his pocketknife. One by one he cut the ropes, gripping them and lowering the lifeless shells of the vampiric children to the floor below, gently, with great care. His kids, he'd called them. His fledgling gang. The closest thing he would ever have to children of his own. When he jumped down from the loft again, he knelt beside them, shaking his head, touching their faces, washing them with his tears, speaking to them.

Edge spoke to his past self. "You idiot, shake off the grief and realize he's still there somewhere. He's watching. You could get him right now, right there! Wake up!"

But of course he couldn't change the past. In the past, he'd been too overwhelmed with grief and horror to think about opening his mind to the space around him. He watched as his former self went for a pail of water and a washrag, and proceeded to bathe the blood from his orphans. He watched as the past Edge went to wash the streaks of it from Bridget's delicate face.

Stiles. The name whispered through his mind with a certainty that couldn't be denied. Anger rushed through him, like fire through his veins. His blood turned to lava. He would find the bastard, wherever he was, and he would kill him.

But first…

The old Edge went through the kids' belongings, locating clothes for them, dressing them. Then he chose one item from each of them, to keep in their memory.

He lit a cigarette then. Sat on the floor, their bodies all laid out before him, smoking, talking to them.

"I'll get him," he said. "I'll get him for what he did to you. I promise you that. He'll pay."

And finally he got to his feet and flicked his cigarette into the pool of kerosene he'd poured around them. Then he left his home for the last time.

It was only as he stood outside, watching it burn, that he felt the presence. Someone was there… watching him.

Stiles!

He whirled, honing his senses to locate the man. Bastard! The nerve to hang around and watch him suffer! Watch him grieve!

He opened his mind, searching, casting a wide net, and sensing, even as he did, the man fleeing, escaping, slipping out of Edge's reach.

And then the images ended.

Edge's brain was nearly crushed under the pressure as he was sucked out of the consciousness he'd been inside and found himself back in the bedroom again, watching her, watching Amber Lily.

She closed the file folder, but the drawing was no longer inside. She held it, staring at it as tears flowed down her cheeks. "No wonder," she whispered. "God, no wonder you hate Stiles so much."

He shook off the excruciating pain of the memory. Never mind that, he thought at her. It's over. It doesn't matter anymore. Just stay alive. I'm coming to get you.

He jerked his head around—and so did she—at the sound of footsteps in the hall. She quickly jumped to her feet, shoving the file folder and banana peel and granola bar wrapper up into the ceiling. Then she dropped into the bed again and instantly went limp.

Her strength wasn't what it should be, but it wasn't seriously waning, either. The speed with which she'd moved was proof enough of that. Good.

The locks turned, and the door opened.

Edge's eyes narrowed as the bastard, Stiles, entered the room. Instinctively he lunged at the man, reaching for his throat, only to move right through him, bodily, which left him feeling sick and dizzy. He shook himself. Then the man moved closer to Amber, and Edge was surprised his anger didn't knock Stiles on his ass. It didn't, though. Stiles reached for Amber, lifting her hand, and letting it go. It dropped limply onto the blankets. He tapped her cheeks, moving her head back and forth.

"Amber Lily. Come on, wake up. You should eat something. We want to keep the baby healthy, now, don't we?"

Edge reeled. God, it was true, then, what he'd sensed before. Amber Lily was pregnant. She knew it now, if she hadn't before. She knew what he'd only sensed inside her, what he hadn't even been certain was real. More importantly—more chillingly—Stiles knew, as well. Where the hell was this child's father? He should be here, taking steps to protect his offspring. But he wasn't. Edge resented it. He resented being the only one who cared when the child wasn't his own, couldn't be his own. Which was utterly stupid, since the last thing on earth he wanted was a child. He never wanted to be responsible for anyone ever again. Only for himself.

He resented Amber Lily for not telling him she'd been with someone else before him. She'd just let him believe she was a virgin. Why? It burned like hell to know she'd been with someone else. Some other man had touched her, kissed her…

Hell.

She blinked her eyes open, and in a slurred voice said, "Stop it. There's no baby."

Stiles smiled, shaking his head. "You're a stubborn one, I'll give you that." He set the tray of food on the dresser. He started to say something else, but Edge was suddenly jerked out of the scene, jerked from everything, and sucked back into his own body. When he woke in the barn, which was as far as they'd managed to get last night before having to seek shelter from the sun, he realized that night had fallen.

Dante and Donovan were standing over him, brushing hay from their clothes and looking worried.

"What the hell… ?" Edge's head was pounding, and he pressed a hand to it, closing his eyes tightly.

"You were thrashing around in your sleep," Dante told him. "Muttering, clutching your head."

"For a while we didn't think you were going to wake," Donovan put in. "Damn strange. The day sleep is too deep for dreaming."

"It was no dream." Edge sat up slowly and lowered his hands from his head. "I think it was more like a—I don't know—it felt as if my spirit left my body." He looked from one man to the other, seeing curiosity rather than blatant disbelief. It gave him the nudge to go on. "There was a guide of some sort. He took me to Amber."

Dante lifted his brows. "Is she all right?"

He nodded. "Yes. For some reason Stiles's tranquilizer isn't affecting her, but she's pretending that it is. He's holding her in a house, in Boston. I saw it clearly." He could have kicked himself for wasting time, coming here, to where he'd last seen Amber, only to find she'd been a half hour from Salem the entire time.

"We'll have her Out of there before this night is out," Dante said.

"What else?" Donovan asked. "Edge, what the hell is it you're keeping from us?"

Edge sighed, shielded his mind and lowered his head. It was up to Amber Lily to tell them about her little secret. It wasn't his place, had nothing to do with him. "Nothing. We should let her family know where we think she is, and that we're going after her."

"Good idea," Dante said. "They're bringing two vehicles, they said. Can't be more than a couple of hours out by now."

"Can you reach them telepathically? Tell them where to meet us?"

Dante nodded.

"Then let's go get Alby," Edge said.

Amber didn't trust the meals Stiles had been bringing her throughout the day, though she had to admit she was surprised by his changed demeanor. He was treating her almost… tenderly, checking on her often. Too often. It had taken her most of the day to get through the file he kept on Edge, because his constant visits kept interrupting her. Edge had been hunting him since 1959 but had only had luck locating him since the destruction of the DPI. Prior to that, Stiles theorized, the protection of the organization had kept him too well covered for anyone to track him down. Edge had tried to kill him twice, Stiles had written. Smashed his head in with a brick once, and stabbed him once—more than twelve times. But both times Stiles had revived.

She supposed Stiles hadn't had the chance to add the latest attempt to this set of notes, with the neck crushing back in the barn. There must be other notes somewhere; the ones Brooke had seen.

Stiles set the latest plate of food he'd brought, a bedtime snack she supposed, on the nightstand beside the bed and leaned over to plump her pillows.

"How are you feeling?"

"Queasy as hell. I'm not sure I can eat this."

He nodded. "That's normal early in a pregnancy, according to what I've been reading."

She lifted her brows. "You've been reading about pregnancy?" She almost asked him if bloating were common. Her jeans were feeling awfully snug. Even if this pregnancy were for real—which it was not—she wouldn't be swelling at this early date.

"I sent Brookie out for some books today. Though I doubt any of them deal with this particular sort of gestation."

She licked her lips as he set the tray on her lap and pulled up a chair. "Why would you do that, Stiles?"

He shrugged. "Sure you can't manage to eat just a little?"

"You're planning to keep me here a while, aren't you? Long enough that you feel you need to know about prenatal care." She picked at the food, not eating any. Not because she wasn't starved to death, though.

"Nothing this noteworthy has happened in vampire research since… well, since your own birth. Naturally, I want to record it."

"And you need more of my blood, as well. To make the serum, the Ambrosia-Six."

He shook his head slowly. "What I took yesterday is enough for my next round of injections. I'm not taking any more of your blood, Amber, not until the child is born. I don't want to put it at risk, and besides, I don't even know the serum will work the same way as before. Your blood is different now that you're pregnant."

She resisted the urge to deny it yet again. He was determined to keep pushing this fantasy, so fine. She would go along with it. "Have you tried? Making your serum from the blood you took from me, I mean?"

He nodded. "I finished it this morning," he said. "Since your blood is different, this will have to be Ambrosia-Seven." Then he looked at her sharply. "Why do you want to know?"

She shrugged and averted her eyes. "I want to know every thing… about me, about what I am, how I… work." She dared to look at him again.

He still seemed slightly suspicious.

"It's frustrating, not knowing simple things… how long I'll live, whether I'm still aging, how I can die."

His face altered, a hint of sympathy appearing in his eyes. "Whether your baby will be normal?'' he asked.

Deciding to play along, she nodded hard. "That most of all."

He shrugged. "The serum's effect lasts six months. When it begins to wear off, I tend to age rapidly, but it stops the moment I inject more. I don't know how those things apply to you. You've always aged normally. Chances are your child will, as well."

She had aged normally, she thought—but only up to the first time Stiles had killed her, just to see if she would revive. That memory was a sharp reminder of this man's true nature. He was evil. Any sympathy he showed now was only an act. A ruse. He was trying to gain her trust for some sick reason.

If she didn't know better, she would think he wanted to keep her calm and happy long enough to get his hands on her baby. But she did know better. Because there was no baby.

"Have you tried the new serum yet?"

"I don't need it yet. Won't for another five or six weeks. And I do have one more vial of the A-Six remaining. Although I have to admit, I'm eager to see how the new formula works. Your blood seems… enhanced somehow from what it was before. It might be even more potent than the last batch."

"Really?"

"Mmm. Ambrosia-Seven might just be my greatest work yet."

"Then again," she whispered, "it may not work at all."

"I'm afraid that's all too true."

At least it was made, Amber thought. All she had to do now was get her hands on it and get out of here. The second he slept, she thought. The very second…

He got to his feet. "I'm going to move you soon, to a more secure location. That way we can dispense with the tranquilizer, just to be on the safe side."

He paused, as if expecting her to thank him for that. She didn't.

"For now, though… " He took a hypodermic from his lab coat pocket.

She flinched as he jabbed it into her arm but told herself it was all right. It was only salt water.

Only it wasn't. He must have restocked the little black bag, or taken this batch from another source. Her head swam, and she cursed under her breath.

"Just relax. Get some sleep," he said, taking the food from her lap, setting it aside, and then putting his hands on her shoulders to ease her gently onto the pillows. "There now. Don't fight it."

The sleep rolled in like the tide, covering her consciousness, sweeping it away.

She had the dream again. It unfolded in its familiar way. She saw Edge, standing across a darkened room, facing her. In his arms, there was the ornate little box, like a miniature treasure chest. He stared down into it, his face stricken. Then he turned, to bring it across the room toward her.

"No," she whispered. "I don't want it."

Again he bent lower as he approached the bed, so that she could look inside.

"I don't want to look," she heard herself saying. "Please, don't make me look." But she had no choice. And this time, when she looked at what the box held, the dream didn't fade as it had all the other times. It didn't black out. It didn't change. She saw it very clearly. It was a bundle, something small, wrapped in soft blankets.

She felt her heart begin to pound in her chest, because of what that bundle looked like. And yet she couldn't see beyond the blankets. Her gaze shot to Edge's face, and she caught her breath. A single teardrop rolled slowly down his cheek. She looked to the bundle in the box again. It was still. No movement, no motion.

Edge moved nearer, lifting the box closer to her.

And now she could see the tiny elfin face. The closed eyes. The blue-tinted skin. The deathly stillness.

Death. She was looking at the face of death. And her own child was wearing it.

The sound of her screams woke her.

Edge heard Amber Lily scream and sprang from where he was crouched behind a parked car. Donovan's hand on his shoulder stopped him from racing forward. "Easy. We have to wait for the others."

"The hell we do!"

"Edge, don't be foolish," Dante said sharply. "We'll have a far better chance of rescuing her unharmed once Rhiannon and Roland arrive with her parents."

"Unharmed?" He sent the man a look of sheer disbelief. "Did that scream sound to you as if she were unharmed?"

"There's strength in numbers."

"I've got all the strength I need." He shook off the hand that held him, ran for the house, vaulted the fence and kicked in the front door.

Some kind of alarm went off, emitting short, ear-splitting shrieks. He heard someone running toward him, saw Stiles's shocked expression as he appeared in front of him, dressed in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, a tranquilizer gun in his hand.

Edge hit the man so hard and so fast he never had time to pull the trigger. Stiles sailed bodily through the air, hit the wall, splitting it, and then slid to the floor. The gun landed on the floor at his feet, and Edge stomped it to bits as he strode through the house. He wasn't worried about Stiles. The other two men would be on his heels, and they would handle him. For now. "Alby! Where are you?"

There was nothing, no reply. He walked down the hall, smashing every door he came to with the flat of one hand. Each one flew open, crashed into the wall behind it and bounced back at him. Each room was empty.

Until the last one. And that was where he found her.

She lay in the bed, barely conscious, her eyes bleary and unfocused, her hair tangled and damp with sweat. Edge went to her, stripping back the covers and gathering her into his arms. She wore a nightgown of soft white muslin. She was weeping, trembling all over. Straightening, Edge turned to take her out of this place.

"No," she whispered.

He stopped. She was pointing at the ceiling. "Get the… file."

"Screw the file." He carried her through the open door into the hall.

"Edge, please!" She lifted her head, spoke as if forcing power into her words. "The lab. The serum." She closed her eyes slowly, clearly under the influence of a powerful narcotic.

"Where?" he asked.

She lifted a weak hand, pointing, and he carried her through the house, spotting Dante and Donovan leaning over Stiles's motionless body.

"Take care," Edge called to them. "He'll revive." Then, to Amber, "Which way?"

Again she pointed, and he crossed the room, entered another hallway, and kicked open yet another door. The spotless white laboratory stood there, immaculate as before. And empty. The refrigerator door stood open, and there was nothing inside. File drawers were likewise gaping and void. Amber looked around, then let her head fall limp against his shoulder.

"Oh, no."

"Who else was here?"

She licked her lips. "A woman. Brooke." Her eyes opened again. "The computer… ?"

He looked where she was looking, saw an empty desk. "Gone. As we should be."

He carried her back into the living room, where Donovan was securing Stiles's hands behind his back. Dante came in from another room. "The house is empty."

"Amber says there was a woman here."

Dante lifted his brows. "If there was, she left before we ever arrived."

"Well, she took Stiles's notes and his serum with her," Edge told them. Then he nodded toward Donovan. "Those cuffs won't hold him once he revives."

"Then we'd best see to it he doesn't revive, don't you think?" a woman's voice asked. Everyone turned to see Rhiannon entering the house. Behind her, another woman, one Edge had never seen before, raced toward him. And he knew, when he looked at her face, she had to be Amber's mother. She had the same penetrating eyes and sculpted cheekbones. She was stunning, and yet she didn't compare to her daughter.

She ran her hands over Amber's face, stroked her hair. "My darling," she whispered. "Tell me you're all right."

"I'm okay," Amber said, her voice weak, strained. It was fully obvious she was far from all right. "Stiles… has a device. Heel of his shoe. Homing beacon," she managed to tell them.

"I'll take care of it," Donovan said.

Amber's mother shot a look at Edge, obviously worried about Amber's drowsy, drunken state. He said, "It's the tranquilizer." He guessed its effects were the reason he'd been unable to sense Amber, to know which room she was in. "It'll wear off soon enough."

A man came in from the back of the house, apparently having entered that way. He strode right up to Edge, gathering Amber from his arms and into his own. "It's okay, hon. I've got you now."

Edge hoped, for the man's sake, he was Amber's father. Otherwise…

"I take it you're the fellow who used my daughter's life as bait for Stiles?"

"Easy, Bryant," Dante said. "He's also the man who led us to her and got her out."

"I can walk," Amber said, her voice still slurred. "Please, Dad, put me down."

Jameson Bryant looked at his daughter for a long moment, then hugged her fiercely before setting her on her feet. She looked at Edge, and her eyes seemed to pierce his soul. "Edge had reasons for what he did," she said, speaking to her father but never looking away. "And he had no intention of letting Stiles get anywhere near me."

"It was a mistake," Edge said. "If I could undo it, I would."

"I think you just did," Angelica said softly.

Rhiannon gripped Stiles by his shirt collar. "Let's get out of here. No doubt that alarm was heard beyond these walls." Turning, she dragged Stiles across the floor, his body bumping down the steps behind her.

The others followed, but Amber faltered with her first steps. Edge reached for her, but her mother was faster, gathering her close and helping her walk. And then, suddenly, Angelica stopped. Her eyes went wide, and she looked at her daughter.

"What? What's wrong?"

Angelica opened her mouth, closed it again, shot a look at Edge, and then at Jameson, who followed behind them. She licked her lips and seemed to battle tears. "Nothing. Never mind." Closing her eyes, she tucked Amber's head onto her own shoulder. Then she started forward again.

She knew. Edge had seen it in her eyes. She knew. Hell, if they thought he was responsible for Amber's condition, he would probably be dust by this time tomorrow.

Her family would stake him out in the desert to await the sunrise.

Fortunately for him, everyone knew such a thing was impossible. Male vampires were sterile. Amber's child could not be his.

Chapter 14

"We need to search the place thoroughly before we leave here," Jameson said as he eased her onto the couch. She could still smell faint traces of Brookie's popcorn. "Amber, rest here, on the sofa. You're safe here."

"I'll stay with her," she heard Edge say quickly. Then there was a prickle of tension in the air, but it passed.

She opened her eyes to find him sitting on the sofa beside her, his gaze fixed on her face, as if searching… for something.

"I didn't need rescuing," she managed to say. "I let him bring me here on purpose."

"And it was working well, love. Right up until he dosed you with that drug."

She thinned her lips, nodded. "I filled some of the syringes with water. Faked him out the first couple of times."

"Think he caught on?"

"Nah, just grabbed the wrong needle." She drew a breath, sighed. "You seemed… mad at me after we… "

He shrugged. "More at myself than you." Then he tipped his head to one side. "A little at you, though."

She pursed her lips. "You tried to kill Stiles, even though I begged you not to."

"Okay, so I was more than a little mad at you. Do you blame me?"

She frowned, unsure what he was talking about.

"Jesus, Alby, isn't there anything you want to tell me here?"

Very quickly, she averted her eyes. Obviously he sensed she was keeping something from him. He couldn't know what, of course. But—God, she wasn't ready to talk about this. Not here, not now. How did you just blurt something like this out to a man who thought himself sterile? She imagined herself saying it. "I might be carrying your child, even though you and I both know that it's physically impossible. And oh, by the way, don't worry too much about it, because it's going to be stillborn."

No.

"Alby?"

She sighed. "Look, there is something, but it's… "

"None of my business?'' he asked.

She frowned. "That's not what I was going to say."

"Why not? It's true. I'm sorry, Alby, you're right. I've got no right to press you on this. It's… not my place."

"The house is clear," Amber heard her father call. "Let's get Amber the hell out of here."

Someone lifted her from the sofa. It wasn't Edge. She needed to talk to him, to tell him he had things all wrong. But the drug was fighting her every step of the way.

"Rhiannon and Angelica will take her back to Salem. It's the closest, safest place for her," her father said.

"And the rest of you?" Edge asked.

"Roland, Dante, Donovan and I will transport Stiles to Eric's lab, in Wind Ridge. It's in Southwestern Pennsylvania, near the West Virginia border. Which group you go with is up to you, Edge."

Amber tried to open her eyes, get her voice to cooperate. She wanted to tell Edge to stay with her, that she did have something to tell him. But before she could manage to win the battle of wills with the drag, she heard him say, "I'll stick with Stiles. Alby's in good hands. She doesn't need me hanging around."

Her heart seemed to contract and shrink in her chest. He sounded so angry, so… hurt. Amber gave up the fight, feeling she'd lost more than just the battle, and sank into sleep.

She felt as if she should be in a state of panic, but she couldn't seem to work up to it. Everything was happening in a soft haze of slow motion bliss. Her head and limbs were heavy, her eyes too tired to stay open. And yet, when they did fall closed, the dream returned—or the memory of it did.

Her eyes flew open. "What—where—"

"Take a breath, honey," her mother said softly. "You're all right. I've got you."

She was, she realized, in the back seat of a car, snuggled in the curve of her mother's arm.

"Where… are the others?"

"The men took the other car back to Pennsylvania," Rhiannon told her softly. She was driving. "Stiles is in their trunk."

"What about Edge?"

Her mother looked at her gently, probingly, one hand stroking her hair.

"Oh, he's not in the trunk," Rhiannon said, deadpan. "Though I think he might have been safer there." She turned slightly, just enough to send Amber a sneaky smile.

"He shouldn't be with them," Amber said. "He wants Stiles dead. He'll kill him if they turn their backs."

"Darling," Angelica said, "there are four powerful men with him. Dante, Donovan, Roland and your father. They're not going to let him hurt Stiles."

"They won't stop him."

"Of course they will. Meanwhile, we're taking you back to Salem, where you can rest and recover from your ordeal."

Amber sat up. "Mother, the only thing I need to recover from is that one dose of tranquilizer Stiles managed to get into me. Other than that I'm fine."

"Are you?" her mother asked.

Amber frowned at her, searching her face. "What are you getting at?"

Rhiannon glanced over her shoulder as she drove, curious.

"Did you think I wouldn't know, Amber? As close as we are, did you think I wouldn't feel it the first time I touched you, see it the first time I looked into your eyes?"

"Mom, I don't know what you're—"

"You're pregnant, Amber."

Rhiannon hit the brakes so hard the tires squealed and hot rubber scented the air. She jerked the wheel to keep the car pointed straight ahead and brought it to a stop in a cloud of dust on the shoulder.

Then she turned around in her seat, getting up on her knees to stare fully at Amber, a question in her eyes.

Amber released the death grip she had on the armrest, glad they hadn't crashed, forced herself to look Rhiannon in the eye, and then her mother. "Obviously Stiles managed to spin his fairy tale for you before he was knocked unconscious."

"Stiles?" Rhiannon asked. "Is he responsible for this?"

"He made it up," Amber told them, even though she was no longer sure it was the truth. "He's been trying to convince me of it for some insane reason. I can't imagine why. Much less why he'd try to fool you."

Rhiannon rolled her eyes. But Angelica only lowered her head. "Stiles didn't tell me this, Amber Lily," she whispered.

"Then were did you get such a ludicrous idea?''

Angelica lifted her head again, and there were tears brimming in her eyes. "I told you. I saw it in your eyes, felt it in your touch." She pressed her hand to Amber's belly. "Can't you feel it, Amber? There's life inside you."

Amber felt the blood drain from her face as she shook her head in denial. "It's impossible. He made it up. It can't be real."

"It is real."

"But… but… "

"Who is the father?" Rhiannon's voice was short, clipped, deep and vibrating with menace. "I'll eat his liver."

"No, you can't hurt him. God, I don't even want you to tell him." She shook her head. "Let him go on his way. He's a loner, always has been. He wouldn't want this."

"You don't know that for sure, darling," Angelica said. "Give the young man a chance."

"No, you don't understand. All he wants is vengeance on Stiles. That's all."

The two women met each other's eyes, then, slowly, they both looked at Amber again. Angelica whispered, "Darling, you sound as if you think Edge is the father."

"Haven't you explained this to her?" Rhiannon asked. "Amber, vampires can't reproduce."

"Apparently they can," Amber said. She drew a breath, lowered her head. "He's… the only one."

Angelica searched her eyes, then sent a similar look to Rhiannon. "How is this possible?"

"I don't see that it matters," Rhiannon said. "Except as it concerns the methods I can use to kill him."

"Rhiannon, you aren't going to—"

"I say we douse him in gasoline, give him a head start and then see which of us can be the first to hit him with a lit match." Rhiannon smiled. "It'll be like a game of tag. Only, you know, better."

"Rhiannon, you're upsetting her."

"No, she's not." Amber sat up straighter in her seat and fixed Rhiannon with a very serious stare. "If you want to hurt him, Aunt Rhiannon, you're going to have to go through me first. And I promise you, I'm way tougher than any of you give me credit for being."

Rhiannon looked surprised, then angry. "You dare—"

"You wanna go right now?" Amber jerked her car door open, got out, waved a hand at the driver's door and watched it fly open, as well. She was dizzy, unsteady on her feet, and her jeans were so tight they hurt. But she was mad as hell and ready to fight.

Rhiannon got out of the car slowly, gracefully, like a queen alighting from a chariot. Amber stood ready. She kept her stance wide, knees bent, arms loose at her sides.

"I suppose," Rhiannon said slowly, "raging hormones and Stiles's tranquilizer could be to blame for this."

"Or maybe she's in love," Angelica said, getting out of the car, as well. She stood beside her daughter, put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't be ridiculous, Amber. Rhiannon is not going to fight you."

Rhiannon shrugged. "Not while you're pregnant, anyway."

"You'll have to, if you want to hurt Edge."

"So he gets to keep breathing for a few months longer." Rhiannon shrugged. "Suddenly defending your honor has lost its appeal. Ungrateful little whelp." She spun around and got back into the car, slamming the door.

Angelica shook her head. "You hurt her terribly, Amber."

Amber lowered her head. "She had it coming." But she regretted her tough talk with her aunt. No one loved her the way Rhiannon did. "I don't want Edge to know," she told her mother, deciding to deal with Aunt Rhi later. "Not yet."

Her mother shrugged. "He has a right to know. But you have a right to be the one to tell him." She shook her head. "But don't expect me to keep this from your father. We don't deceive each other."

"Then stay away from him for a while. In Salem, with Willem and Sarafina. Morgan's there, you know."

"Dante's Morgan?"

She nodded, knowing her mother would welcome the chance to get to know the vampiress-screenwriter. "I suppose. That's where you'll be, so I'll stay a while." She stroked Amber's hair. "A girl needs her mother at a time like this." Then her face split into a smile. "A baby," she said. "I can't believe we're going to have a baby in the family again."

Amber accepted the hug in order to keep her face hidden. But the memory of her dream returned, menacing and dark, with the image of the still, pale child in the ornate, almost coffinlike, box.

She closed her eyes to block it out. Please, she thought. Not that.

A car passed, followed by a bus so large it rumbled the highway.

Amber felt something and looked up, turning to follow the bus's progress. Then she yanked open the car door, pulling her mother in behind her. "Follow that bus, Rhiannon!"

"What?"

"The woman who took the serum is on it. I felt her as it passed. Brooke, her name is Brooke, and she's got the cure for Willem."

The voice in his head kept telling him he was going in the wrong direction. It was loud, so loud Edge couldn't believe the other men in the car couldn't hear it. And it was insistent. After arguing silently with the damn thing for several minutes and struggling to keep his thoughts shielded, he barked, "Where the hell do you want me to go, then?"

The other men stared at him, blatantly stunned.

"Hell," Edge muttered, and leaned against the seat back as if trying to catch some rest. In truth, he only wanted a rest from the insistent voice and from his own growing guilt. He'd left Amber in a fit of temper based on nothing more than jealousy. He was an idiot. God, it wasn't as if he were in love with the woman. He had no right to be jealous. Must be a male ego thing. Still, he'd made the wrong decision, for the wrong reasons, and he knew it.

Jameson looked from Dante, in the front seat beside him, to Donovan and Roland in the back with Edge. "Is he all right?"

"Hears voices," Dante said. He drew circles near his ear with a forefinger.

"We all hear voices," Donovan corrected. "Voices, thoughts—both from each other and mortals." He turned to Edge. "Are the voices like that, Edge?"

"Oh, God, he thinks he's a vampire therapist," Edge groaned.

Donovan thinned his lips. "If you'd tell us what's happening, we might be able to help." He looked to the front seat, to Jameson. "It even happened during the day sleep."

Jameson frowned. "That's not normal. Probably not a sign of insanity, either. It would take more than mental illness to penetrate the day sleep. Could it be someone outside you, Edge? Deliberately sending these messages?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Well, what do the voices sound like?"

He pursed his lips.

"Don't bother, Jameson. He's a loner. Far too manly to share his problems with us."

Edge glanced at Dante, who seemed to detest him, and perhaps just to prove the man wrong, he said, "It's one voice. Male. Young, though not a child. It feels as if it's coming from within me. But I can't control it, can't silence it."

"Can you converse with it?" Roland asked.

Edge frowned. "Yes."

"And what does it tell you?"

He sighed, shaking his head.

"It told him where to find Amber Lily," Donovan said, his eyes on Edge. "Didn't it?"

He nodded.

"And what's it telling you now?" Jameson asked.

Edge sighed. "That I'm going the wrong way."

"That's it?"

Edge nodded.

Jameson glanced at his watch. "It's nearly dawn. We're going to have to stop soon, seek shelter."

Edge nodded. "Alby can drive all day. She could put an awful lot of distance between us while we rest." God, why had he given in to his temper and left her side? It didn't matter that she was carrying another man's child. She was in danger, and he had to get to her. He felt it with everything in him, wanted to kick himself for ever leaving her in the first place.

Jameson was studying Edge's face intently. "You're awfully concerned about her."

"You should probably get used to it. God knows I'm starting to."

Jameson's brows went up; then his face darkened a little.

Donovan spoke quickly as if to diffuse the tension. "I wouldn't worry about her getting too far, Edge. After all, she'll stop once she reaches Salem."

She's not going to Salem!

Edge blinked, gave his head a shake, but couldn't ignore the voice. "She's not going to Salem."

"What? Why the hell not?" Jameson demanded.

"I'm damned if I know." He shook his head, heard words whispering through his mind. Canada. Edmunston, New Brunswick. He felt an urgency tugging at him. Dammit, he hated to leave Stiles. The bastard would escape him yet again, and it was high time he extract the vengeance that was his only priority. Or… used to be his only priority, anyway. Hell, when had that changed?

They passed a sign showing a bus icon.

"Take the next exit," Edge said. "There's a bus station. Get me there."

"You can't get on a bus this close to daylight," Donovan argued.

"No, not on one. Under one." He glanced at Jameson, who was studying him without blinking.

"The luggage compartment," he said. "It's not first class, but it gets you where you need to go." He nodded to Dante. "Don't pretend you won't be glad to be rid of me."

"I wasn't planning to." He steered onto the exit ramp, followed the signs for the bus depot.

"The four of you can handle Stiles all right without me," Edge said as he got out of the car when Dante pulled it to a stop outside the terminal. It was more an effort to convince himself of it than a statement of fact.

"Three of them," Jameson said, getting out of the front seat.

Edge looked at him.

"Don't even think of arguing. She's my daughter."

Sighing, he lowered his head. The man was right. He had ten times the right to go after Alby as Edge did. If it had been his own daughter—

Son.

Edge's head came up fast, and he looked around, but like every other time, there was no one there. He blinked hard, felt his throat getting tight. Of all the things the voice had said to him, this one made the least sense of all.

"What? What is it?"

Amber was going to have to tell her father about her condition sooner or later. Edge wasn't the least bit afraid of telling him—hell, he had no reason to be. But it wasn't his place. Right now, though… Right now, he didn't know what the hell to think.

The two men walked to the area just outside the terminal, where buses were lined up in angular parking slots, some with their engines running. Jameson approached a driver, just ambling down out of his vehicle, moving as if it were an effort.

"Is one of these buses going to Canada?''

The driver glanced at his watch, gave a nod. "Woodstock, Grand Falls, Edmunston," he said. "Three slots down. But he won't be leaving for a half hour yet." Then he glanced at the ticket window. "Ticket window isn't open until nine, but you talk with the driver, he can take care of it for you."

"Thanks."

Edge led the way to the large, silent bus. "Half hour," he said, with a glance at the sky.

"The sun will be up by then," Jameson said.

"Driver will come out before then," Edge said. "Warm up the engine, open the baggage compartments."

"And we just… what? Climb in and hope no one notices?"

"We can move faster than human eyes can perceive. Getting in unnoticed won't be a problem."

"And when the driver goes to toss a few passengers' bags in, and there are two bodies inside?"

Edge met the man's eyes, a hint of mischief in his own. "Have a little faith. It's not like I haven't done this before, you know."

Jameson looked doubtful, but he sat down on a bench outside the station. "I'll just sit here, then. Fortunately, this bench faces east, so I'll be able to see the sun a split second before I burst into flames."

"Such an optimist."

Minutes ticked by. Jameson seemed to be growing more nervous with every one that passed. Edge, meanwhile, stood near the bus and smoked.

Eventually a few passengers showed up, cars and taxis dropping them off, then leaving. They invariably went first to the ticket window, then grew anxious when they found it closed. Then they gathered around the bus.

But not around Edge. His smoke created a buffer zone. It was a secondary benefit of smoking—kept nonsmokers from invading your space. Oh, there was always a wheezing mealymouthed type who would come close enough to get a whiff and then make a big production of waving his hand in front of his face and sending Edge a dirty look. Just to make a point. The point, Edge guessed, was that smoking out of doors should be made illegal.

He smiled to himself as he wondered if the passive aggressive idiots ever caught a clue who—or what—he was.

Inevitably, it happened. One pale, scrawny mortal broke from the cluster gathered near the bus, walked a few steps in his direction, then began to cough. He tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his mouth, scowling over it at Edge.

Edge growled at him, softly, so the others couldn't hear, baring his fangs just for an instant.

The man gasped and backed away so fast he bumped into one of the people standing behind him. When he looked again, though, Edge was gone, having moved to the far side of the bus. Maybe the little prick would remember his manners next time, he thought a little darkly.

He heard the sound of the bus engine starting, then, moments later, the luggage compartments being opened. The driver slung bags in, heavily and none too carefully, one after the other. Edge moved around to the front of the bus, crossed to where Jameson was still sitting, pondering the sky, which had lightened alarmingly to a pale gray near the horizon.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Jameson said.

He got up, followed Edge back around until they stood near the rear of the bus. The driver's back was toward them, and the passengers were focused on climbing aboard the bus, picking out seats, wrestling with their carry-on bags.

Edge waited until the driver was reaching for one last bag and the final passenger had stepped aboard to knock several bags back out of the compartment with a quick grab.

Swearing and looking as surprised as a toddler when Jack pops out of the box, the driver bent to begin retrieving them—some had shot several feet from the bus, so he was kept distracted.

"Let's go, then," Edge said. And he dove into the compartment, on top of the bags, shoving them aside until he'd made room for himself behind them. Jameson joined him within a heartbeat and assisted him in redistributing the luggage into a neat stack in front of the two of them. There was just room enough to sit up. Not to lie down, and not to stand.

"Grand accommodations, Edge."

"Mmm. Fortunately, we'll be unconscious for most of the trip."

"We'll be more than that, if he doesn't hurry up and close the compartment door."

Beyond the luggage, Edge could see the light beginning to filter through. Not direct sunlight, not yet, but the daylight creeping just ahead of it.

The compartment rocked as the driver slung bags into it. Then, finally, he slammed it closed. Edge heard a latch turn.

Jameson sighed in relief. "About time. I guess we're home free now."

Edge shrugged. "Barring a rollover or flaming wreck, yes, I suppose we are."

"You're just full of happy thoughts, aren't you, Edge?"

"Always."

Chapter 15

Amber frowned at the sky, irritated that the extended layovers the bus had made had taken up so much of the darker hours. "We're going to have to stop soon. It'll be daylight."

Rhiannon looked back at her. "You forget whose car you're riding in, dear. There will be no need to stop."

"But… the sun."

Rhiannon shrugged. "Climb up here, child."

Frowning, Amber climbed into the passenger side of the front.

Rhiannon set the cruise control. "Take the wheel."

Amber took hold of the steering wheel, holding the car on course while Rhiannon climbed into the back seat. Then Amber slid over into the driver's side. The car wobbled a bit, veering over the broken white lines briefly, before Amber straightened it out again.

"I think it would be better to stop," Angelica said. "Amber can get some rest, find herself something to eat while we sleep."

"It would cost us precious time," Rhiannon said. "God knows this bus with its roundabout route, endless stops and long-term layovers, has already cost us enough. Why people ride those things I will never know. Besides, we'll be perfectly safe back here. I've installed certain… precautions."

"It's not us I'm worried about," she replied, sending a worried look at Amber.

"I'll be fine, Mom. If I'd wanted to rest, I would have during one of the layovers. And I've been grabbing junk food at every one of them. I just don't want to risk losing Brooke."

"You need to start taking better care of yourself, Amber. It's not just you you're driving to the point of exhaustion. It's your baby."

Amber closed her eyes, the words effectively dragging the impossible situation to the forefront of her mind again. But then, who was she kidding? It had never been far from there.

She glanced into the back seat, ignoring her mother's warnings. "So where are these safety features of yours, Aunt Rhi?"

"Are you sure you're all right to drive?" Angelica asked before Rhiannon could reply. "The drug—"

"Has worn off. I feel better."

"Amber, I just don't like this. I don't want you confronting the woman on your own."

"She's only a mortal," Amber said.

"So was Stiles."

Amber frowned. "If it were Dad dying slowly of something horrible, and the cure was rolling along the highway just ahead of us, would you be willing to stop?''

Angelica tipped her head skyward, then finally shook it slowly. "I don't suppose I would be."

"Then think of Sarafina. Think of Will. He saved my life, Mother. And yours."

"And mine," Rhiannon added. "There's no point in arguing with her, Angelica. She's going to do as she pleases the moment we're asleep anyway." She shrugged. "Much as I hate to admit it, in this case, I believe she's right."

"The sun is rising. Will you get into the trunk or do whatever it is you're planning to do back there before you both go up in smoke?"

Rhiannon nodded, then hit a button on the armrest that Amber had taken as the window control. The tinted glass side windows remained still, but panels rose up inside them—shining black sheets of what looked like acrylic. Rhiannon hit another button, and a similar sheet slid smoothly upward, covering the rear window. Amber could see through them, though they were very, very dark.

"You can see out, but nothing can penetrate within. No light. It's also bullet-proof, fireproof and airtight," Rhiannon said, sounding proud.

"Leave it to you to have a custom-made coffin on wheels," Amber said. "And a Mercedes, at that."

"Then you approve," Rhiannon said.

"Assuming there's another partition that slides up between the front seat and back… "

"Of course."

"Then yes, I think it's ingenious."

Rhiannon pursed her lips. "Kissing up isn't going to make me forget your bad manners, Amber Lily."

Amber sighed. "I'm sorry, Rhiannon. Chalk it up to the drugs, the stress, the fear and the fact that you were threatening to disembowel the father of my… baby." She had to force that word out. Saying it aloud was like—like making it real, somehow.

"I would do the same should someone threaten Roland," Rhiannon said slowly. "But only because I love him beyond reason. Beyond comprehension. Beyond life, death, sanity or madness. Beyond anything. Is that the way you feel about this… Edge character?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Amber said, the words spilling out automatically, without her giving any thought at all to her answer. "I'd be an idiot to feel anything for a man like him."

Rhiannon shrugged, hit another button, and the partition between the seats began to rise. "Well then, I cannot accept your apology. You're going to have to do better."

Amber sighed, wondering just how much groveling and ass-kissing she was going to have to do to make things up to her honorary aunt. "Sleep well," she told them as the partition neared the top.

"Be careful, Amber," her mother said. Her voice already heavy with sleep.

"I will."

The partition closed. Silence engulfed her. She sensed the two most important women in her life slipping far from her reach, into the day sleep, and felt utterly alone. Thoughts she'd been holding at bay came rushing in on her. A baby. God, a baby—one she feared would never live to draw its first breath.

Amber's dreams had never, ever been wrong. Not once.

Tears rose up in her eyes, even as she told herself that maybe, so long as she never let herself think of this child as real, as alive, as her baby, but instead just as a mass of cells destined to live for nine short months and then die, she would be able to bear it. You couldn't lose what you had never had, could you?

But I do have it. I have it now, alive and growing inside me. A baby. My own living child.

She hit the radio button. Classical strains filled the car, but only until she found a station playing hard driving Godsmack. She cranked up the volume, and let the sexy, growling voice and heavy bass drown out the unwanted thoughts.

When the night whispered to his senses, rousing him from the impenetrable day sleep, Edge felt the weight of a dozen pieces of luggage pressing down on him. A corner of a suitcase was jabbing him in the rib cage; a large heavy object that bounced with every bump in the road kept knocking him on the head.

He groaned and shoved and wriggled until he'd managed to move the worst offenders and allow himself a modicum of breathing room.

"God," Jameson muttered, his voice muffled. "I feel as if I've been beaten all day with a club." Some more cases shifted, and his face appeared in the hole they'd left behind. "This is torture."

"Maybe for an old guy."

Jameson scowled. Edge grinned at him, and then almost gasped in surprise when the other man returned a half smile. "Very funny."

"I do what I can."

"So will this barge be stopping anytime soon?"

Edge glanced at his watch. "Another hour. But we don't need to wait."

"No?"

"We're close."

"To Amber?"

Edge nodded.

Jameson's eyes narrowed on him. "How is it you're so connected to my daughter, Edge?"

Edge averted his eyes. "I don't know that I am. After all, it's not her voice that refuses to stop shouting at me."

"Are you sure this… voice… is on our side? I mean, it could be a trick. Someone trying to lead us into a trap."

"I've thought of that." Edge shrugged. "Frankly, it could be just that. I've got no frame of reference for this type of thing. You?"

Jameson shot him a look. "You're asking my opinion?"

"I figure a man who fathered a woman like Alby can't be all bad." He sighed. "So what do you think? You ever have voices in your head like this?"

Jameson shook his head. "Not like the one you describe, no. But… what kind of feelings does this voice stir within you? Is there a gut reaction? Anger, trepidation, fear?"

Edge shook his head. "More like… a call to battle. Makes me want to go charging in like some kind of mythical hero." He sighed heavily.

"And that worries you?"

"Greatly. It's not me. It's not what I do."

"Not the heroic type, hmm?''

"Heroes tend to die young. I intend to live a long time."

Jameson nodded. "And yet you're here, following a voice you're not sure you can trust, into what might be a life-threatening venture."

"Yeah." Edge smiled self-deprecatingly, shaking his head. "Go figure, huh?"

"Why?" Jameson asked.

"Damned if I know." He shoved some more cases out of the way, making a path to the compartment door.

"Is it because you'd rather risk your own life than hers?"

Without looking back at him, Edge said, "More likely because the damned voice screaming in my ears will drive me insane if I don't do what it's telling me." He got to the front of the compartment, turned so he was sitting down, and braced his feet against the door. "What do you say we quit with the analysis and get on with this?"

"Ready when you are," Jameson said.

With a nod, Edge shoved with his feet, and the compartment door gave way. He saw the pavement speeding by beneath him. "This is going to hurt like hell." He glanced back at the other man. "Sure your old bones can take it?"

"Enough with the age jokes. I may have been older than you when I was remade, but you've likely been a vamp longer."

"Mmm. So I have both mortal youth and vampiric power on you."

"I won't hold it against you." Jameson made his way to the front of the compartment, put a hand on Edge's shoulder. "Ready?"

"Aim for the grass along the roadside," Edge said. "It'll be kinder than the blacktop."

Edge leaped from the bus, Jameson at his side. They hit the ground hard, rolling down the grassy hill that ran along the roadside. The ground pummeled them, until they came to stop. Jameson sat up slowly, brushing dirt and twigs from his clothes, wincing in pain. Edge did the same, even while inspecting himself for cuts or gashes.

"You bleeding anywhere?" Jameson asked.

Edge shook his head. "You?"

"Don't think so." He got to his feet, then extended a hand down to Edge.

Edge hesitated, then took it, let the other man pull him upright. "Thanks."

Jameson nodded, then turned, and seemed to focus inward. He was silent for a moment, then he sighed. "I can't feel her," he said at last.

"She's blocking. Has been right along."

Jameson shot him a look. "Trying to protect us, keep us from following her and getting into trouble."

Edge thought it more likely she was blocking to keep something of a far more personal nature from her father—hell, from the both of them—but he wasn't about to say it aloud.

"If her mother were here, she'd pick up on her," Jameson said.

Edge lifted his brows. "Even if she's blocking?"

"Sometimes. They have a connection that's… it's powerful. I haven't seen anything like it, even among our kind. It started before Amber was even born. Angelica could communicate with her in the womb, could tell how she was doing."

"Amazing."

"I've always been just a little envious of the bond they share." He sighed. "It sure as hell would come in handy right now."

Edge shrugged. "It would, but we don't need it." He looked off in the distance, lifted a hand and pointed. "She's that way."

By the time the sun set, Amber had parked Rhiannon's customized Benz on the tree-lined lane outside the towering gates of a miniature castle. The building was made of pale, rust-tinted stone blocks and included two towerlike structures that flanked the entryway. Matching stone blocks formed a solid, ten-foot boundary fence around the entire property and held an iron gate in place that sealed off the driveway.

The sign mounted on the gate read Athena, and there were sculptures of large owls atop the stones on either side.

Amber squinted at it, willing it to give up its secret meaning to her, but the only thing she heard was the soft hum of the motor lowering the dark glass partition.

Rhiannon stretched and yawned. Angelica smoothed her hair away from her face. "What I wouldn't give for a shower," she muttered.

"Amen to that, sister," Rhiannon said.

Amber shot her a look, then glanced at her mother.

"Sorry," Rhiannon said quickly. "That was not a jibe at your former calling, Angelica. Just a slip of the tongue."

"I know."

Amber opened the car door and stepped out, putting her hands on her lower back and arching. Angelica got out, too, and paused in the midst of inhaling the night air to stare at the building beyond the gate across the street. "What is this place?"

"Yes, what have we missed, Amber? Fill us in," Rhiannon said, as she exited the car.

Amber got out, taking the keys with her, dropping them into her pocket. "Well, we're in Canada. Crossed the border a while back. I don't know what this place is. But it's where Brooke went. She took a cab from the bus station—must have cost a fortune, too, because it was fifty miles, at least. I followed her, of course."

"Were you seen, Amber?" Rhiannon asked.

"Of course not. I didn't even stay within sight of her. And the car is blocked from sight by that little copse of trees and the stone wall."

Rhiannon nodded. "So they have no idea we're out here."

"None." Amber glanced at her mother, then frowned. She was staring into the place as if transfixed. "What is it, Mom?"

Blinking and giving her head a shake, she said, "I don't know. It feels… familiar."

"You've been here before?" Amber asked.

"No, never. But the feeling… " She looked in at the house again; then her brows went up. "It feels like a convent," she said suddenly.

Rhiannon blinked in shock. "Oh, joy. This Brooke person has taken refuge in a nunnery?"

"I don't think they're nuns," Angelica said. "But there's that same kind of energy here."

Amber slid a hand over her mother's shoulder. "What kind? Tell us."

She narrowed her eyes. "A sisterhood. That place is filled with women who share a powerful bond and single-minded devotion to… something."

"To what?" Rhiannon asked.

"That I can't tell you."

Amber swallowed hard. "Somehow, I'd feel safer sneaking into an army barracks."

"You should," Rhiannon told her. She pursed her lips, frowned. "So what's the plan?"

Amber looked at the two women. "Alicia called me on the cell, just after daybreak. She'd driven out to Salem to join me there, and when I told her where we were, she insisted on coming up here. Said she had a feeling we were going to need her. She's on her way. Once she gets here, we have to get inside."

"Amber, we have no way of knowing what sort of security they have," Rhiannon cautioned. "And we can't just show up at the door. If they're tied to Stiles or the former DPI, they would likely recognize your mother and me for what we are on sight."

Angelica nodded. "I've seen the inside of far too many of their prison cells," she said. "I'd hate to end up hurled into yet another."

"And this Brooke person has seen you, Amber," Rhiannon went on.

Amber bit her lip, eyeing the gate, the wall. "Alicia was right, then. We are going to need her."

"How far out is she?'' Angelica asked.

Amber glanced at her watch. "She's got her 'Vette, and was driving straight through, so she'll get here a lot faster than we did. A couple more hours, at most." Her throat went tight. Why should the thought of seeing Alicia choke her up so much? She'd only seen her a few days ago. But it felt more like a lifetime.

Her mother read her face. "We'll just wait for her, then."

"Do you think it's too risky, Mom? I don't want to send her walking into a nest of vipers."

Angelica looked just as worried. "I don't know. Rhiannon?"

Rhiannon waved a hand. "Oh, please, what threat is a houseful of mortal women to us? I'll fry up the fat ones for a snack and use the skinny ones to pick my teeth when I've finished."

Amber made a face.

Rhiannon smiled a little sheepishly. "Sorry to offend your vegetarian sensibilities, dear. Can I help it if my mind is on food? I'm famished."

"Me, too," Amber said. She'd been irrationally starved for days now, and her waistline was showing the results all too clearly. "We passed a diner a few miles back. I'll call Alicia, have her meet us there. There was a medical clinic not far from it. Maybe you two can find some sustenance there."

"A blood supply or a nice young doctor," Rhiannon said with a twinkle in her eye. "At this point, either would do."

Chapter 16

This is the place. This is it! This is the place. You're here! She's here. She's here. She's here! She's—

"What do you think?" Jameson asked, staring through the barred gate at the mansion beyond.

Edge was crouching on the ground, holding his hands to the sides of his head, trying to silence the damned voice that had grown steadily louder and more powerful. "I think she must be here. Somewhere." He squeezed his eyes together. "Shut up, dammit!"

Miraculously the voice went silent.

Edge felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Jameson staring down at him, his brows etched into a worried frown. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"

Edge shrugged.

"I could feel the pain from ten feet away," Jameson said. "It's stopped now?"

"Yeah." Edge got slowly to his feet, massaging his temples. "First time it's responded to my shouting at it."

"I'm sorry, Edge. If I knew what the hell this was, how to stop it—"

"You wouldn't do a damn thing," Edge said. "Neither would I. It's the only thing we have to go on."

Jameson thinned his lips but acknowledged Edge's words with a sigh. "I suppose you're right." He looked around. "I don't see Rhiannon's car."

"No. Still… " Edge got to his feet, looked at the stone wall.

Jameson nodded. "Shall we?"

"Let's do it while my head's in between explosions."

The two vampires leaped easily over the wall, strode up the walk to the front door of the massive place, paused outside. "You going to knock?" Jameson asked.

Edge pursed his lips, gripped the knob, gave it an experimental twist. "Doesn't look like it's necessary. Door's open."

He met Jameson's eyes. Jameson gave a nod, and Edge opened the door. Then the two of them stepped inside, Edge looking right, Jameson left, before they both moved silently into a great hall that belonged in a castle.

"I don't feel her," Jameson said.

"Neither do I," Edge whispered. And he should, he thought. If he were this close to her, he should damn well be tingling all over with the sense of her being near him, the way he always did. God, he missed her, and it had only been a matter of hours. What was wrong with him?

That thought was chased away by another. A niggling sense that there was something terribly wrong here.

And then he did pick up someone's energy—but it wasn't Amber's. It was other people, women, many of them, all around him, hiding, watching, waiting.

It sent a shiver up his spine. He glanced at Jameson, saw that he felt it, too, and the two of them turned to slip right back out the door again.

But they never got there.

The women sprang, dozens of them. Blows rained down on Edge's head and body, driving him to the floor like a blade of grass in a hailstorm. The last thing he heard was the voice in his head, laughing like hell.

Alicia arrived at the small all-night diner twenty minutes ahead of schedule. Amber saw her cherry-red Corvette pull in from the window beside her booth, and forced herself not to spring up and sprint across the diner to meet her. It wouldn't do to create a scene, and besides, it would scare Alicia senseless.

Still, she rose from the booth as Alicia pushed open the glass entry door. Her friend spotted her, smiled broadly and hurried to wrap her in a hug. Amber's arms tightened around Alicia in return.

When they broke the embrace, Alicia's smile was gone and a searching look had replaced it. "Okay, give. What's wrong?"

"What makes you think anything's wrong?" Amber said, sliding into her seat at the table, averting her eyes.

"You hugged me hard enough to crack a rib, and you're shaking. And your eyes are big. And you're not looking at me." She frowned, glancing around the diner. "Where are Angel and Aunt Rhi?"

"They went out to get something to eat."

Alicia lifted her brows. "One of the locals piss them off?"

Amber smiled. "Nah, we passed a clinic ten miles out. We need them strong."

"Okay. So what's got you so off your game?"

"You mean besides the fact that someone I love is dying?"

"Yeah," Alicia said, matching her friend's sad but sarcastic tone precisely. "Besides that."

Amber lifted her head, met Alicia's eyes. "It's a long story, 'Leesh."

"Then talk fast."

Amber nodded. "It's got to do with that dream."

"The recurring one? The one where the vampire with the sexiest, most intense eyes you've ever seen gives you something that scares the hell out of you?''

Amber opened her mouth to object, but Alicia beat her to the punch, holding up a hand. "Hey, that was exactly the way you described it to me."

Amber sighed, lowering her head. "It's actually a pretty accurate description. He's real."

"You met him?" Alicia's eyes widened.

"Gave him a ride to Salem."

"Holy cow. You mean it was Edge?"

Amber frowned.

"Will and Sarafina told me about him. So? What happened? Did he give you anything?"

"You might say that, yeah."

Alicia tipped her head to one side, studying her. Amber met her friend's eyes, saying nothing. Then Alicia clapped a hand to her mouth. From behind it she muttered, "You slept with him."

Amber nodded. "Yeah. And now I'm pregnant."

Alicia frowned. "You're panicking, that's all. You can't be. You know male vamps can't—"

"This one can."

"But… are you sure?''

"I took a test when I was with Stiles, but I couldn't be sure he wasn't faking it for some sick reason. But he wasn't. My mother knew it as soon as she saw me. No test needed. It's for real, Alicia, and I'm scared."

"Does Edge know?"

"No, and I'm not sure I want him to. This is my issue. I don't need him involved."

"Well, he's kind of already involved, sis."

Amber made a face. Alicia smiled a little crookedly. "God, I'm going to be an aunt."

Shaking her head slowly, Amber reached across the table. "I had the dream again, 'Leesh. This time I could see what it was Edge was giving me."

"Was it a baby?''

Amber nodded. A tear surprised her by swelling and spilling over without warning. "Yeah, but… it was… it was… "

"What, honey? It was what?" Alicia slid out of her seat, coming around to Amber's side of the booth, sliding in beside her.

"It wasn't moving or… or breathing."

"No," Alicia whispered.

"I think it's going to be stillborn, 'Leesh. I think there's something terribly wrong with it, and it can't survive."

Alicia wrapped Amber in her arms, held her hard, stroking her hair. "No," she said again. "You're overwrought, you're scared to death, you're confused."

"My precog dreams are always on the money, Alicia. You know that."

"Yeah, well, I also know that male vampires are sterile. Apparently there really is a first time for everything, Amber. A first time for a male vampire to be fertile, and a first time for the Child of Promise to misinterpret a precognitive dream. It's not so far-fetched."

She sat back a little, pushing Amber's hair behind her ears gently. "And I know you. You're afraid to let yourself believe it might be all right. You think you're protecting yourself from being let down. You're being all strong and practical and tough, just like always. God, you're afraid to love a man so much you can't live without him—how much more scary must it be for you to let yourself get attached to your own baby?"

Amber licked her lips. "I suppose you're right."

"Honey, you're carrying a baby. And right now it's alive and well, isn't it?"

"It feels as if it is. My mother… she seems to think it is."

Alicia nodded slowly. "Well, you want my take on this?"

"I need it, 'Leesh. I barely held it together when I found out. I don't know which way is up right now."

Alicia nodded. "For a freaking borderline genius, you can be a real dope, you know that?" She drew a breath, sighed. "Listen, if this baby doesn't make it, you're going to be crushed right to bits. It isn't gonna matter one bit if you let yourself get your hopes up or not, or how practical or realistic you try to be. It'll destroy you. You know it, and I know it."

Amber leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. "So far, not being so helpful, pal."

"No, I'm being honest. It's not going to make any difference if you let yourself believe or not. It's gonna hurt just as much."

"Still not feeling cheered up."

Alicia ran a hand over Amber's hair. "The point is, it's not doing you any good to refuse to acknowledge this baby. It's not doing you any good to refuse to love it, or be happy about it, or excited, or any of those things. It's not doing you one bit of good, Amber. You'll be devastated anyway if you lose it. So what the hell is the point? Let yourself be happy about this. Let yourself be excited, and think of names and sing lullabies and pick out baby clothes. Let yourself be overjoyed. It's not doing you any good to go into mourning nine months early. There will be plenty of time for that later. Maybe. Because maybe there won't be any mourning to do at all. Deal with that when it gets here."

Amber opened her eyes, staring at her friend in wonder. "How did you get to be so smart?"

Alicia shrugged. "I hang out with a really brainy crowd," she said. She pressed a hand to Amber's belly. "Ohh, gosh, I could swear you're swelling up already. I wonder if it's a girl or a boy?"

She met Amber's eyes and smiled so hard Amber couldn't help but smile back. And it wasn't a fake smile. It was an outgrowth of the joy she'd been too afraid to allow herself to feel.

"What would I do without you, Alicia?''

"I don't know. You sure wouldn't have any fun, that's for sure." Then she blinked, and her eyes widened. "Does your father know about this?"

"No. If he did, Edge would be dead by now."

"Oh, hell. We're going to have our work cut out for us."

"You can say that again." Amber saw Rhiannon's Mercedes pull in. "Mom and Aunt Rhi are back."

"Oh, God, does Rhiannon know?" Alicia's eyes were even wider.

"Yes, she threatened to eat Edge's liver, and I told her she'd have to go through me to do it." Amber licked her lips. "I really hurt her feelings. She's still pretty mad at me."

"She'll get over it."

"'Leesh, neither Mom nor Aunt Rhi knows about the dream. I want to keep it that way."

"All right. I'll be really careful not to think about it without shielding."

"Thanks."

"So what's the deal with the cure for Will?"

Rhiannon blew the horn once. Amber got to her feet, grabbed her chocolate milk and headed for the door. "I'll explain on the way. Let's go."

Voices, whispering. Eyes, staring. Women, all of them, all around him.

Edge lifted his head, wincing at the pain that shot through it when he did. He pressed a hand to the most tender spot and blinked his vision into focus.

He was in the center of a very large concrete room. There was a white line painted on the floor, like the boundary line on a basketball court. It outlined a ten-foot square around him.

"What the hell?" He started to get to his feet.

"Don't step outside the line or you'll be destroyed," a woman's voice said.

Edge frowned, staring into the darkness, but the bright light glaring down on him and his little square prison from above made it impossible to focus on the darkness beyond.

He shielded his eyes, looking down, spotting Jameson lying on the floor near his feet. A rush of real concern rose up, catching him by surprise even as he knelt beside the other man, rolling him onto his back, smacking his cheeks.

"What did you use, some of Stiles's tranquilizer?" he asked, his voice flatly accusing them.

"We don't need it," a woman said. "Repeated blows to the head will render a vampire incapacitated just as effectively, but for a shorter period and with far fewer side effects."

"That's real considerate of you, bashing our heads in rather than using that nasty, relatively painless other method. I should probably be thanking you."

"You're welcome."

The woman, whoever she was, didn't seem to have any sense of humor. "So what is this place? And exactly what's going to happen if I step over the white line? Besides my draining you dry, I mean?"

"Sarah?" the woman said.

Another woman stepped forward, into the edge of the pool of light, right up to the white boundary line. She was tall, slender, dressed in a blazer and skirt, with her hair pinned up and a pair of plastic framed glasses perched on her nose. All business. She held a broomstick by its neck. "Watch," she told him.

He watched. She held the broom's business end over the white line, and in a flash, flames shot from both the ceiling and the floor, meeting in the middle. When she jerked the broom back, it was blazing. She lowered it to the floor, dipping it into a waiting pail of water. Smoke rose in ribbons, stinking up the place.

Edge was still swearing under his breath when the one called Sarah explained.

"The nozzles line the entire border, from both the ceiling and the floor. Any movement sets them off, and they go off too fast for even a vampire to beat them."

He lifted his brows.

"Yes," said the other woman. "We know what you are."

Edge swallowed hard. "So I take it you're the headmistress of this… Academy for Brutal Bad Girls, is that it?"

"I'm in charge, yes."

"Do you have a name?"

"Not that you need to know."

"Are you going to tell me what you're doing with us? Why you're holding us?"

She shook her head. "We're holding you because we don't yet know what sort of a threat you pose to us. What we'll do with you—well, we'll let you know as soon as we've made a decision on that."

She remained out of the light. It drove him mad that he couldn't see her face, the better to remember it and exact vengeance later.

"You won't be harmed. Just so long as you don't try to get out, you'll be fine."

"I'm afraid I have urgent business to attend to, headmistress."

"Yes, and I'd like to know what that urgent business might be," she countered. "Why did you come here? What are you looking for?"

He frowned, searching her mind. He found she'd made an effort to guard it, but she was no professional. He saw no hint of Amber or other vampiresses in her thoughts. She knew nothing about them. He wasn't about to tell her.

And then, just then, he became aware of that tingling sensation that heated his blood and tightened his loins. Alby was here. She was close. She hadn't been, but she was now.

"I came here out of curiosity," he told her. "I heard a group of beautiful women lived here, and I, being a red-blooded male, wanted to check it out."

"Or perhaps you thought to feast on us tonight," she said. "Or perhaps you heard other things about this place."

"That implies there are other things to hear. You're piquing my curiosity, headmistress."

"Melina, someone's at the gate," another woman said.

"Melina, hmm? That's a very-pretty name."

"You're wasting your time," she said. "Everyone, back to your duties, with the exception of those on guard duty. Guards, don't talk to them, don't engage them in any way. Keep your minds shielded. And if they give you any trouble, page me."

"Yes, ma'am," several voices said in unison.

"Good God," Jameson moaned, opening his eyes. "What the hell is going on? Where are we?"

The women were filing out of the room. Edge couldn't see them, but he could hear their steps, feel their retreat.

"I think we've landed in some sort of dominatrix boot camp," Edge said. "Could be fun, don't you think?"

"Stop fidgeting. They'll see you," Rhiannon whispered, as the three of them crouched in the bushes across from the lush, rolling lawns of the mansion.

"I can't see her!" Amber tried again to crane her neck so she could see beyond their shrubbery shelter, across the street, past the gate that had swung slowly open to admit Alicia after she'd spoken to someone through an intercom. Alicia stood now in front of the open door, pouring out the story she'd rehearsed to the woman who stood on the other side. The gate behind her closed with a finality that made Amber's heart trip over itself.

"She'll let us know if she needs help," Angelica said. "She's nearly as capable telepathically as you are."

It was an exaggeration, Amber thought. But her mother had a point, Alicia could send a mental shout for help if she needed to. Amber strained her ears to hear the conversation, but even her honed senses couldn't pick it up from this distance. She knew what Alicia was saying, though. That her car had broken down a mile away. That she'd been fleeing an abusive lover and feared he wasn't far behind her. They would let her use the phone to call her auto club. And it would take a few hours for the tow truck to be dispatched, so they would let her stay there, safe behind the stone walls, until it arrived.

Maybe.

From her crouched position, Amber could see the woman as she stepped out onto the stoop, looked around beyond Alicia and, finally, nodded and put a hand on Alicia's arm, guiding her inside. The door closed.

Amber sank to the ground. "Well, that's it," she said. "She's in."

Angelica nodded. "She'll be fine, Amber. She's smart."

"Smartest mortal I know," Rhiannon put in.

Amber nodded. The worry for her friend's safety, and the constant questioning in her mind as to whether she'd done the right thing by letting Alicia take this risk, were things she would rather not have clouding her mind, but she welcomed the distraction, all the same. Ever since they'd come back here from the diner, Amber had been getting niggling feelings, like tiny sparks being set off in her nerve centers. The sense of Edge, that instant feeling that came over her whenever she was near him—that feeling of being drawn inexorably closer to him, that irresistible tug of his invisible tractor beam, pulling her. But the prickles of awareness were brief and only lasted an instant. They did bring him to mind, though, and so much else with him.

She shook herself, reminded herself that Edge was far away from here, escorting Stiles to Eric's lab, along with Donovan and Dante and…

"Dad," she whispered. Her frown deepened.

Her mother clasped her shoulder. "You felt it, too, then?" she asked.

Rhiannon frowned at her. "Felt what?"

Amber gave her head a shake. "I just got the oddest feeling Dad was nearby. And Edge… "

"It's faded now," Angelica said. "But for a moment, I felt your father, as well. As if he were standing behind us." She closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head when she opened them. "It's gone now, whatever it was."

"They probably called Salem to check on us," Amber said. "They probably found out we'd taken a detour and got worried. Maybe it was just their worry we sensed."

"Their attention and focus, rather than their actual presence?" Rhiannon asked. Then she shrugged. "It's possible, though I think you would know the difference."

"It was so fleeting." Angelica frowned, "And almost… muffled."

"Diluted was the word that came to me," Amber said.

Rhiannon sighed. "Don't let it distract you. We need to focus on the job at hand. We have no idea when Alicia will manage to slip away from them long enough to… " She stopped then, arching one brow and looking toward the house.

Amber and her mother followed her gaze to see the outdoor light flash off, then on again, off, then on again.

"That's three," Rhiannon said. She nodded hard. "She works fast, that one."

"The faster the better, as far as I'm concerned," Amber said. "I hate her being in there alone. Come on."

They skirted the stone fence, finding the spot that seemed least likely to be visible from within. Amber crouched low and sprang, pushing off with her feet, catching the top of the wall with her hands and using them to propel her the rest of the way over, swinging her legs to the side like a gymnast on a pummel horse. She let her knees bend low to absorb the impact of the landing, then remained crouched there, palms pressed to the cool grass as she looked up, her senses open wide.

Her mother and aunt hit the ground on either side of her.

"This place has a half dozen doors," Rhiannon whispered. "Which one?"

Amber peered through the darkness, looking for a signal. Then… "There," she said, pointing to a glass enclosed annex. "That sunroom or greenhouse or whatever it is, attached to the back of the house. See the door there?" She waited for the others to spot it, to notice Alicia's trademark pink sunglasses dangling by their beaded chain from the doorknob.

"Come on," Amber said.

Staying low, the three of them raced forward, moving fast and silently. The glass structure sloped downward, its ceiling and walls entirely made of glass panels supported by a green metal frame. The door was glass, as well. Amber felt utterly exposed as she opened the door, sensing beyond it and snatching Alicia's sunglasses from the knob before stepping through.

The first thing that hit her was the humidity. It was steamy and moist, incredibly warm. And yet the glass was barely steamed up. Everywhere she looked, there were exotic plants, vines dangling from above, trees and ferns all around. Here and there, she spotted wicker tables, chairs, benches. A fountain bubbled and splashed in the center, and in one corner, a hot tub was the source of the steam. It looked as if it were made of stone, though the inside was clearly smooth and man-made.

Alicia lounged within it in a borrowed bathing suit. A dewy glass sat close to her hand.

"Workin' hard, 'Leesh?"

Her head came up fast, eyes popping open. She looked around, spotting them, then shooting a quick glance toward the double doors on the opposite side—doors that must lead into the main part of the house. "Shh. Lock the door behind you."

"Already did," Amber said. She tossed the sunglasses to her friend. "Good thinking."

"What did you expect?" She caught the glasses and draped the beads around her neck. The women moved closer, keeping an eye on the doors. "I haven't figured out what sort of sorority this is yet, but they seem genuinely nice."

"Sure are hospitable." Rhiannon splashed a hand in the water. "Putting you right in the hot tub out here."

"I got the feeling they'd be going through my clothes and purse while I was distracted. Little do they know I'm the one trying to distract them."

"Is there anything in there that will give you away?" Amber asked, alarmed.

"What difference does it make? You're in." She rose from the water, reaching for a terry robe that was slung nearby, pulling it on. "Through that door is a hallway. Kitchens are off to the right, pantry to the left. After that, there are libraries—I counted three—and offices on the east side of the house. The west side has a formal dining room, a sitting room, and a living room. The entire front is foyer. That's where the stairs to the second floor are, but I'm sure I spotted a second set off the pantry, right next to another set that goes down below."

"You are good," Rhiannon said.

"What did you think I'd been doing, soaking in a hot tub sipping fruit punch the whole time?''

Amber said, "I'll go below. Mom, you take the ground floor and offices, and Rhiannon can go upstairs and check the bedrooms. See if you can find out what kind of place this is, what these women are up to. But remember, the main objective is the serum. It's probably in some kind of vials or syringes, and most likely refrigerated. If it's labeled at all, it will say something like 'Ambrosia-Six.'" Rhiannon's brows went up in question. "That's what Stiles calls it."

"Clever."

"What about me?" Alicia asked. "What should I do?"

"You need to keep playing the role you've been playing, 'Leesh. Keep them from getting suspicious while we creep through this place."

She sighed but nodded. "Fine, then. If you insist." She shucked the robe and stepped back into the water. "Just don't forget me when you take off, or I might decide to stay." She sent Amber a wink, which for some reason brought a shiver of something else along with it.

Footsteps approached, and Amber, Angelica and Rhiannon ducked behind a nearby bush, melding into the greenery as the door opened and a woman came through. Green silk lounge suit, fiat shoes, short blond hair that was ultraneat. She exuded class and a sort of easy grace as she crossed to the hot tub and sank into a wicker chair nearby.

"How are you feeling? Calmer now?"

Alicia nodded. "This place just oozes calm, Melina. I don't know how to thank you," she said. "Has the auto club called back?"

"No, not yet. But you're more than welcome to stay until they do. They said no more than two hours, didn't they?"

Alicia nodded. "But I'm taking advantage of your hospitality." She got up, again reaching for the robe and pulling it on.

"You're no trouble at all."

"So what is this place, exactly?" Alicia asked. "I'm guessing it's not a spa, since there's just the one hot tub."

The woman called Melina smiled. "It's just… where we live."

"How many?" Alicia had slid her feet into slippers now. They were pink terry cloth and matched the robe.

"Twelve, at the moment."

"All women?"

"Mmm-hmm." She slid an arm through Alicia's and walked her toward the double doors.

"And you just threw in together, bought this place? I don't get it. Are you like a commune?"

"More like a sisterhood. We… share the same interests."

"What kind of interests?"

The woman smiled gently, leading Alicia through the double doors. "Mary made some of her famous turtle cheesecake for our nightly snack-and-coffee break in the sitting room. You have to try some."

"Cheesecake? Oh, honey, you don't have to try too hard to talk me into that."

They both laughed softly as they walked together back into the house.

Amber crept out of her foliate cover. "I don't like this."

"She obviously doesn't intend to tell Alicia what this place is really about," Angelica said.

"I couldn't read her,'' Amber put in. "She knows how to shield. Ordinary mortals don't."

Rhiannon lifted her brows. "There's something a little more ominous than that going on," she said softly. "I have the distinct feeling there are other vampires in this house."

Chapter 17

Amber squeezed her mother's hand before she let go and veered to the right, Rhiannon at her side, while Angelica moved straight ahead, toward the offices and living areas on the ground floor. Amber and Rhiannon entered a large room lined in shelves and cupboards, every visible space filled. On one wall, two doors stood side by side, like sentries. Amber gave the doors a slow motion wave, and they opened slowly, silently, to reveal two sets of steep, narrow stairs. One led up, the other down.

Amber nodded once to Rhiannon and started down the stairs into the basement, while Rhiannon headed up the other flight to the second floor. The basement stairs were less than sturdy, old and unkempt looking. It didn't fit, Amber thought, as she moved lower, step by creaking step. The rest of the house, though obviously old, was in perfect repair. The place might be old, but the owners kept it looking like new. This, though… this was different.

Almost… deliberately so.

She reached the bottom, a dirt floor cellar with stacked stone walls.

"This is just odd," she muttered, stepping into the cellar, slowly crossing the floor, examining everything from the breaker box to the furnace, both of which looked brand-new. And then she felt it—something that stopped her in her tracks.

She frowned, searching the atmosphere. "Edge?"

Alby!

God, he was here. Down here somewhere. Dull and muffled, but not by distance. Edge, what are you doing here? She asked the question with her mind, hoping to keep the fragile connection open. As he answered, she moved around the basement, searching for the place where the signal was strongest, like moving a radio antenna around in search of the strongest signal.

Came looking for you, what else?

Without Stiles? I thought he was your top priority.

Jealous, are you?

She stuck her middle finger up at him and hoped he knew it. When she felt laughter coming back at her, she was certain he did.

You're still mad at me, then. Even though I rescued you from Stiles?

My hero. She loaded the thought with as much sarcasm as she could manage.

Truth is, kitten, I couldn't stand to think of you off playing warrior princess games in your condition.

Amber went still. He knew?

What, no reply to that?

His signal was stronger, near the back wall. She went to the spot and ran her hands along the stones.

I… was going to tell you.

She detected a fissure—not a natural crack in the stone, but a barely discernible linear break that, though uneven, formed a rough-edged boundary in the shape of a door. Its edges zigged and zagged with the shape of the stone, an extremely effective concealment. Except to eyes as powerful as hers.

Don't apologize. It's not my business, after all.

She blinked. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Well, I'll admit, I was wildly jealous at first. Petty of me, I realize that now. I thought I was your first, you know. I believed you about that…

"You son of a… " Amber drew her knee up to chin height, then fired off a kick at the door. It crashed inward, from the top down, and she stomped over it into the huge room. Then she spotted Edge, sitting in the middle of the floor, her father sitting beside him, close by, oblivious to the mental conversation she and Edge had been having. Both men sprang to their feet when she entered.

"Amber, watch out!" her father shouted.

Too late, though. Two women had been standing at either side of the door, and they were on her instantly, gripping her arms and trying to force her to the floor.

Amber rolled her eyes, ripped herself free of their hands and jerked both fists up and back, smashing the faces on either side of her. The women crumpled to the floor, and Amber strode forward to the odd little white line painted on the floor around the men.

Edge flung his arms out in front of him, hands making stop signs. "Don't!"

"Don't come any closer, Amber!" her father said at the same moment.

She frowned at them, glancing at the floor. The toes of her shoes were at the edge of the white painted boundary. She rolled her eyes, shook her head. "But there's nothing there." She reached out a hand, half expecting to touch an invisible force field.

Edge hit her, hard, flat of his hand to her chest, sending her reeling backward. She hit the wall, then the floor, even as she saw the flames, closing on his arm from above and below like the jaws of a trap. Edge howled, jerking his arm back. His shirtsleeve was blazing. Jameson tore off his jacket and wrapped Edge in it, arm and all, smothering the flames.

"Oh my God, Edge, what the hell… ?" Amber asked.

He sank to the floor, letting her father's jacket fall away, hugging his arm to his chest. The shirt sleeve was gone, nothing but bits of blackened fabric left. His skin was just as black, just as tattered. "Didn't want you gettin' burned." He ground the words out. His jaw was tight, his entire body shaking now with the pain, which had to be excruciating. "Wouldn't be good for the little one."

Jameson was kneeling over him, telling him to stop trying to talk, but he stopped in midsentence. "Little one?"

Her father looked at Edge, then slowly turned his head to stare at his daughter. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"This is hardly the time," she said quickly. "We've got to find a way to turn off the damn flame throwers so we can get you out of here." She picked herself up from where Edge had flung her and moved close to the boundary again, knelt beside it, saw the harmless looking jets lining the floor. Lifting her gaze, she saw them in the ceiling as well, all neatly lined up and camouflaged within the white stripe. They were spaced every six inches or so.

Licking her lips, she said, "I have an idea."

"Amber Lily… " Jameson whispered. "Are you… are you… "

Edge winced in pain, bit his lip. "Sorry, love. I lost my head for a second." He let his head drop to the floor with an involuntary moan.

Amber ignored them both, even though Edge's pain was like a hot poker in her chest, and she dug into her pockets, praying she would find what she needed. And she did—a stick of chewing gum.

"Amber?"

"Yes, Dad. It's true. Apparently I'm pregnant. I'm also twenty-three years old. This is not a catastrophe." She crammed the gum into her mouth and chewed.

"B-but how… who… ?"

Amber looked past him at Edge, who was perhaps unconscious by now. She hoped he wasn't dead. Enough pain could kill his kind, or that was what the lore said. Lore, however, was proving to be a rather unreliable resource.

Her father followed her gaze, and his eyes widened. "But—"

"I know. It's not supposed to be possible." She plucked the chewed gum from her mouth and broke the pink wad in half. "But it is possible, because that's what happened. I can't explain it. I can only hope you know me well enough to know I wouldn't lie about something like this."

"God, Amber, you can't think I would doubt your word."

"Then it looks as if you're one up on our friend there."

Her father seemed as stunned as if she'd hit him between the eyes with a sledgehammer. Until he looked again at Edge, and then he just looked murderous. "I should have let the bastard burn."

"Now you sound like Aunt Rhiannon." She shrugged. "Actually, I haven't exactly told him it's his yet. I think he's making the logical assumption. Even though I thought he knew me better."

"Amber," her father began, his voice tender.

She held up a hand to silence him and eyed the floor, choosing a spot halfway between two of the jets. "I'm betting the sensors are within the jets themselves, since I don't see anything else that could hold them. I'm going to toss this piece of gum in to you, between the jets, so the flames shouldn't react. Don't reach out for it, Dad. Just wait for it."

He nodded. She tossed the gum, and it moved cleanly between two of the jets, hitting the floor inside. Jameson picked it up. "As my little girl once said about her parents' liquid diet, 'Ew. Gross.'"

She smiled at him. "I'll always be your little girl."

"Are you all right, honey?"

He was getting emotional. This was not a good sign. Sympathy and tenderness from her father right now would turn her into a blubbering basket case. Already her throat felt tight, just from the look in his eyes and the catch in his voice. So instead of answering, she just nodded, and managed to swallow and clear her throat.

"Here's the plan. I'm going to stick my gum over the nozzle on the bottom. You're going to jump up and stick yours to the nozzle on the top. We have to do it at the same time, or one of us is going to get burned. Fortunately, we can both move with pretty impressive speed. I'll give you a beat to get up there."

"Half a beat," he said.

She nodded. "On three. Ready?"

Her father bent at the knees.

"One, two, three!"

He jumped, and as soon as he left the floor Amber slammed her wad of gum over the gas jet's nozzle and jerked her hand out of the line of fire. By then, Jameson was back on the floor inside the square.

No flames shot out. "It worked," Jameson said. Amber shot forward, but he held up a hand. "Let me test it first." He picked up his jacket, the one that had put out Edge's blazing arm, and held it out over the gas jets. Nothing happened. He nodded. "Stay there, Amber. I'll bring him out."

It nearly killed her to do what her father told her, but she forced herself. She stood still while he bent to pick Edge up off the floor and turned toward the boundary line.

Amber shook her head, moving a few involuntary steps closer. "Dad, no. The two of you together are too wide. There's only a twelve-inch space here." Dropping to her knees, she held her hands to either side of the opening, to show him how much room he had to pass through.

Sighing, Jameson put Edge down. "Take his hands," he said. "You pull him slowly out, and I'll keep him steady." As he said it he lifted Edge's arms over his head, laying them gently on the floor.

She reached in, gripped his right wrist, then winced as she nearly grasped the burned left one. "I have to pull him by one arm, Dad. The other one's too damaged."

He nodded. "If he wakes up, we'll be in trouble."

"He won't wake up." She willed it to be true and slowly began to pull, dragging Edge through the opening. He twitched once, and Amber spoke directly to his mind and as powerfully as she could, said, Don't move, Edge. Lie still. Trust me.

Her face beaded with sweat as she pulled him out of the trap. Not from exertion, but from fear. Fear for Edge.

Finally his feet cleared the white boundary line. Jameson walked out behind him, as tense as she was, only sighing his relief when he stood in the clear. Then he closed the space between himself and his daughter, and hugged her gently.

She hugged him back. "Mom and Rhiannon are upstairs. 'Leesha, too."

He nodded. "You see to Edge," he said. "I'll go clear us a path, gather the troops and give you a call when we're ready."

"Make it a loud one, Dad. There's something about this room that seems to… insulate telepathy."

He nodded. "No wonder we couldn't sense you clearly."

She was staring down at Edge even as her father held her, thinking how she'd felt him, wondering if he'd felt her, too, in spite of whatever force was at work here.

"Honey… "

She swallowed hard. "I can't talk about it. Not now, Dad." She pulled free of him and bent down beside Edge, one hand smoothing over his face. "How long till daylight?"

"Eight hours," her father said. "But he's tough. He'll pull through."

She nodded. "He will."

Jameson sighed and left the room, gripping the two fallen guards by one arm each and dragging them along with him—to put them out of reach of his daughter, Amber guessed.

Amber leaned over Edge, drinking in the sight of him so eagerly it stunned her. "Hey," she whispered. "Come on, wake up for me."

His eyelids tightened but quickly relaxed again.

"Edge, come on. I know it hurts. Just try."

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Pursing her lips, Amber said, "Fine. I'll do it myself then." She patted him down, found his ever-present pocketknife and flipped it open. Then she made a little slice on her forearm, sucking air through her teeth as she did. The knife clattered from her hand, and she watched the blood well up in the cut. Nodding firmly, she cradled Edge's head in her other hand, lifting him up a little, and held the wound to his lips.

At the first contact, his body jerked in reaction, awareness. His tongue darted out, snaked over her flesh, and made her skin come alive. But then, just as suddenly, his eyes flew open, and he lifted a hand to push her arm away. "Amber, no," he whispered. "You can't, the baby—"

"You have to, Edge. You need it. Let me do this." She tried to press her arm to his mouth again, and again he flung up a hand to push her away.

This time, when he did, she saw a tiny puff of white smoke rising from his arm. "Edge!" God, he couldn't be burning, not again. The fire was out, how could he… ?

Amber went still then, as a drop of blood from her cut forearm landed on Edge's blackened flesh, and another puff of white smoke rose up. "What the hell?"

"What?" Edge lifted his head to look, but it moved as if his neck were made of rubber and fell back to the floor again with a little thud.

Amber leaned closer, squinting at his poor burned arm. But the spot where her blood had landed… was fading. The black was paling, and a tiny, droplet shaped patch of pink, healthy skin appeared in its place.

"I don't… I don't understand."

"Alby?"

"Shh. Lie still. Just lie still, Edge." She extended her cut forearm and, grating her teeth in sympathy for his pain, let the blood drip slowly onto him. Carefully she used her fingers to spread those drops over his burned skin. Again the white smoke rose from his flesh.

"What are you… God, that feels odd."

"Does it hurt?"

"Tingles. What are you doing, Alby?'' Again he tried to lift his head.

This time she helped him. Then she watched his face as he stared at his arm. It was healing, right before his eyes. Everywhere her blood had touched, he was healing. As he watched, she squeezed her wounded arm again, harder this time, forcing the blood to trickle rather than just drip.

"Alby, stop!" Edge closed his hand over the wound, and she knew it was an impulse. Apply pressure, stop the bleeding and all that. But he used his burned hand, and the process kept working. She watched as her blood oozed between his fingers, leaving healthy new flesh in its wake.

He released her, staring at his hand, fingers splayed, turning his palm. The front, perfect, flawless. The back, blackened, burned.

She touched the burned part, her fingers moistened by her own blood.

Edge lifted his eyes to hers. "How is this possible? How can you… ?"

She shrugged. "Damned if I know. You're my first."

He averted his eyes so fast, she knew what he was thinking.

"That makes twice now," she said. "You being my first."

He lifted his gaze slowly, met her eyes, searched them. "It's not important enough to… I was being petty, Alby. It doesn't matter."

"Mattered enough so you were furious with me back at Stiles's place."

He shrugged. "Male ego. Fragile thing, you know?"

She sighed. "Well, for what it's worth, Edge, I didn't lie to you."

He frowned; then his eyes widened and filled with some unidentifiable emotion.

"You were the first. The only man I've ever slept with, Edge."

"But it's not supposed to be possible… "

"Like this, you mean?" She ran her fingertips over his forearm, up and down his skin, making him look down quickly. His eyes widened as he stared at the new, flawless skin. Even the tiny hairs had grown back. His hand, his arm, were completely restored.

"Lots of things I used to think were impossible have been happening lately, Edge. This baby, for example. I thought it was impossible for a vampire to father a child." She shrugged. "But apparently it's not."

Blinking in shock, he stared into her eyes. "The baby… is… mine?"

She held his gaze, nodded once, and didn't look away.

Edge knew she was expecting something, some reply to leap from his lips, but none did. He was completely speechless. And he wouldn't have been, if he hadn't wanted so badly to believe her. Hell, he did believe her. But there was this twice-burned cynic in the back of his mind telling him he was a blind freaking idiot.

Everyone knew vampires couldn't father babies.

Except… maybe for him.

Or maybe it wasn't him at all, he thought, glancing again down at his arm and hand, turning them this way and that. Maybe it was all her.

His pain was gone. He could flex and open his palm without so much as a twinge.

Amber turned away, stung by his silence, maybe. "I really don't care if you believe me or not."

He snapped his attention back to her. "It's just… a lot to process," he said, but he thought maybe he'd waited too long to speak. The moment was gone. She'd been hoping for something, and he hadn't given it to her, and now she'd closed her hands.

"Tell me about it," she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. She shook her head. "It doesn't mean anything. It's not like we're ordinary mortals, after all. I'm not expecting you to marry me and put up a picket fence, and it wouldn't matter even if I was."

Edge got up off the floor. Amber was pacing away from him now. "And why wouldn't it?"

She stopped walking with her back toward him. "I don't know."

Edge frowned, staring at her back, sensing… something. Fear. Almost… grief. "What are you keeping from me, Alby?"

"Nothing."

He moved forward, clasped her shoulders and turned her around to face him. That she refused to look him in the eye confirmed what he suspected. When he clasped her chin and tipped it up, he saw a glistening in her eyes that made his heart turn over. "Tell me."

She closed her eyes. "The dream… the baby… " She lowered her head, closed her eyes. "I finally saw what it was you were giving to me in the dream, the one I've been having."

"Death," he whispered. "You said I gave you death."

She nodded. "In a small wooden box. I could never see what was inside, only knew it was something horrifying. Frightening. Devastating."

He narrowed his eyes on her, aching with her pain.

"I didn't know what it meant. I thought—if I got to know you I might figure it out."

"And now you have?"

She nodded. "The other night I had the dream again, but this time I could see what it was you gave me. It was a baby. A small, still, lifeless baby."

Edge felt his stomach twist and lurch. He actually doubled over, hands to his middle, staggering a few steps backward. Mouth open, he gulped in a breath, wondering at the power of the blow.

"Edge?"

He looked at her, confused. He didn't understand this. It was as if he were a child again, with his father's fist in his belly. His back hit the wall, and he tried to straighten, to breathe.

Amber ran to him, gripping his shoulder, touching his face. "Are you all right?"

He stared into her eyes, still moist and so incredibly hurting. "No. My God, Alby, are you?"

She lowered her head. "I thought you should know. It's better to be prepared, you know?"

She sounded so cool, so practical about the whole thing. And yet he could feel the storm roiling inside her. "There's no way to be prepared for something like that," he said. "Alby… "

She turned away from him, pacing across the floor. "Maybe it's for the best," she whispered. Her voice was strained, aching. "We don't even know what it would be."

"How can you say that?"

She shrugged, still pacing. "Suppose it's born a vampire? God, can you imagine? An immortal blood drinker, trapped in the body of a newborn forever?''

"Suppose it's not? Suppose it's normal?"

"Come on, Edge, it's mine and yours. There isn't a normal gene in its entire pool."

"Why are you acting this way?"

"What way?"

He went to her again, moving in front of her so he could study her face. "Cavalier. As if you don't care when your soul is bleeding."

"I'm not—"

"I can feel you bleeding, Alby. This is killing you. God, carrying this knowledge around, all alone… "

When he touched her, tried to pull her close, she tugged away. "Don't. We don't… have time for this. Not now."

His mind was racing. So many things rushing around inside it, but mostly one. "This dream, this vision of yours—it doesn't have to come true."

"I've never had one that didn't."

"Ever had one you tried to change?"

She closed her eyes, lowered her head.

"Well, think about it. Remember. In all those precognitive dreams you've had, have you ever once tried to change one of them?"

"No. Not until now. I dreamed about Will being… gone. Not dead, just—no one could find him." She shrugged. "I'm trying hard to change that."

"Then you can try to change this."

"I can't." She closed her eyes, bit her lip. "I can't."

"You can." Edge gripped her shoulders. "Dammit, you have to."

Her eyes snapped open, staring into his. "Edge, I'm so afraid."

And he heard and felt and sensed all she was feeling as the floodgates of her mind opened, swamping him utterly in her feelings, her fears. She was afraid to let herself hope, only to face disappointment. Afraid to try, only to fail. Afraid to love… only to lose.

She was even afraid to let him hold her right now, because she was only barely holding on to her self-control, and a touch from him, an embrace, would shatter her.

He wanted, right then, to hold her—maybe more than he'd ever wanted to do anything. But he held himself back, because that was what she needed. For now.

"Alby, you don't need to bear this alone, not anymore. I'll help you get through it. Whatever happens, it'll happen to both of us."

She stared into his eyes, her own slightly shocky. "I thought you didn't believe this baby could be yours."

"Hell, Alby. That was before you told me it was."

"And you believe me?"

He tilted his head to one side. "You do remember the last time we were alone together, right? When I was damn near dying and you made me drink… "

"So?"

"So something happened, Alby." Something major, he thought. She was inside him now, a part of him. Maybe she had been even before. He only knew that since that moment…

"What? What happened?"

"I saw inside you," he said. Then he shrugged, because the words sounded so heavy with meaning. He tried to lighten them with a look, an attitude. "I know you, that's all."

She was staring at him as if she'd never seen him before. Hell, no wonder. She hadn't tasted him, probably didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"It never entered my mind you would lie to me about this. I know you."

Her tears spilled over, running down her face. "Thank you for that."

He swallowed hard. "Come on, let's get upstairs. I'm antsy as hell down here, and there's no need to wait on the sidelines now that you've performed your little healing miracle. Is there?"

"No, I… guess not."

"Then let's go." Taking her arm, he turned her toward the door, walked up the stairs and straight into the razor-edged iron bolt of a crossbow.

"It's powerful enough to take off your head," a woman said softly. "So don't even think about trying anything."

Chapter 18

Amber counted her heartbeats, shocked when she felt Edge's hand sneak back to her hip, nudging her sideways until she was directly behind him.

"No need to get violent now." He didn't even seem rattled, just offered the woman his most charming smile. How any woman could withstand it, Amber couldn't figure. But this one didn't flinch.

"Come on, you might as well join your friends."

"Don't have any friends, love. I only came for the cheesecake."

Her eyes widened as she shot him a look.

"That is cheesecake I smell, isn't it? Don't tell me I'm mistaken."

"Move," she said, jerking the crossbow.

He moved, keeping that one hand behind him, on Amber's hip. Don't worry, kitten. We'll get out of this.

Who said I was worried?

He shot her a look, admiring and mildly amused.

The woman herded them through the house, into one of the rooms off the side, where Amber saw other women, armed to the teeth with various weapons, all of them pointed at Angelica, Rhiannon and Jameson. Amber and Edge were shoved into the midst of them.

"I think it's about time you told us what you're doing here," one woman said at last.

Rhiannon smiled at her. It was a smile that should have chilled her to the bone. "You would think a mortal woman would choose what might be her final words with a bit more care, wouldn't you?"

The woman faltered just a little. She swallowed hard. "You're the ones who broke into our home. You owe us an explanation."

"I owe you?" Rhiannon asked.

Amber put a hand on her shoulder. "I followed a woman here," she said. "Her name is Brooke, and she has something that doesn't belong to her."

From among the others, Brooke herself emerged. But this was a different Brooke. The big hair look was gone, her red locks smooth and slicked back now. She wore a no-nonsense suit and sensible shoes. She met the eyes of the woman in charge. "That's the one, Melina. That's her."

The one called Melina moved a step closer. But Edge stepped into her path. "Oh, no, you don't," he said, even as Jameson pulled Amber backward and the others closed ranks around her. "You're not getting near that one. Not without going through me, at least."

"Through all of us," Jameson added. He moved up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Edge.

Melina went still. "You've got this all wrong. We don't mean you any harm."

"Can't prove that by the lumps on my head," Edge said. "Or that cute little firepit you were holding the two of us in earlier."

Another woman entered the room. "The other girl is gone. I can't find her anywhere."

Melina nodded. "Alicia. Was she with you?"

"Never heard of her," Edge said.

She looked at him as if she knew he was lying, then turned back to the other girl. "What about Keisha and Kelly?"

"We found them locked in the storage room in the basement. We put them upstairs, in their rooms. They're hurting, but they'll be all right."

Edge nodded. "Those would be the two you had guarding us below. Of course they'll be all right," he said. "If we'd wanted them dead, they would have been." He reached into his pocket, and every weapon in the place jerked toward him. Then he held up a calming hand and took out a cigarette, stuck it between his lips. "Nervous bunch, aren't you?" He glanced at Angelica while digging for a lighter. Did you find out anything about them?

She kept her eyes on them as she replied. They call themselves Athena. Fancy themselves some kind of vampirologists.

An all-girl DPI? Edge asked silently.

"Not by a longshot," Melina said.

Amber sucked in a breath, and everyone stared at Melina.

She shrugged. "I'm a bit psychic. Clairaudient, to be precise." She sighed. "We don't hunt vampires, we study them."

"That would be a little easier to believe if you weren't currently aiming a small arsenal at us," Edge said.

She seemed to think on that for a moment. Then she looked at the other women in the room. "Lower the weapons."

"Melina, I don't think—"

"Lower them. Go on back to your work, and see if you can locate Alicia and bring her in to join us. Brooke, you can stay."

Slowly the weapons lowered, and the women filed out, though they looked unhappy about it. Amber breathed a sigh of relief and moved to a comfy looking chair to sit down. She heard Edge swear under his breath, and then he was tossing the unlit cigarette aside, kneeling in front of her, grasping her forearm.

"Damn thing is bleeding again." He looked toward Melina. "Can you—"

Before he finished the sentence, Melina was at the door, calling to someone to bring some bandages and ointment. A moment later she was passing a roll of gauze and some tape to Edge.

Amber sat still, surprised at this turn of events, as Edge tenderly wrapped her forearm, his face a grimace of shared pain and worry. "Got to thinking, I'll have to get used to not lighting up around you, won't I? Wouldn't be good for the little one."

She saw the looks her parents exchanged, and Rhiannon's raised eyebrows, though Edge didn't seem to notice.

"Can I get you anything else?" Melina asked.

"A pint of A-positive would be welcome," Edge muttered. Glancing up at Amber, he winked. He was trying, she thought, to lighten her mood.

"Perhaps an explanation would do just as well," Rhiannon said. "You, Brooke, or whatever your name is. What were you doing with Stiles?"

Brooke glanced at Melina. Melina nodded. With a sigh, Brooke said, "I was working under cover."

Amber was amazed at the change in her, not just her appearance, but in her voice and demeanor. She was no longer the bubblehead devotee of Frank Stiles. She seemed self-assured, confident, intelligent.

"We'd heard Stiles had developed a formula that imbued him with immortality. That he used the blood of… " She looked at Amber. "The Child of Promise to do it."

"And why was that of interest to you?" Rhiannon asked.

Brooke again looked to Melina. Melina said, "Because it's against the supernatural order. It couldn't be allowed."

"The supernatural order?" Angelica asked.

"Yes. Things that can't be explained are considered supernatural, even though they aren't really. They're perfectly natural, just beyond human comprehension." She sighed. "When mankind interferes, however, things… go wrong."

She glanced at Amber as she said it.

"Things… like me, you mean," Amber said softly. "I'm the result of man tampering with the supernatural order, after all."

Melina shook her head. "We determined that you could have been conceived with or without man's intervention," she said. "Your mother was artificially inseminated, but it could have happened just as easily the other way."

"So you decided to let her live, is that it?" Rhiannon asked.

"We're not killers. We're protectors. The Sisterhood of Athena has been guarding and protecting the supernatural order for centuries. Always secretly. We go unseen, unknown. We observe and protect, that's all."

"Then what were you planning to do with Stiles?" Edge asked.

She lowered her head. "Stop him. Destroy the formula, so no one else could ever make use of it. Keep him from creating any more, until he died a natural death."

Brooke nodded and picked up from there. "But when I learned of his plans for the Child of Promise, I decided I couldn't just take the formula and leave, as planned. I had to stay, to be sure he couldn't use her to make more."

Amber shot to her feet. "But in the end, you did take the formula and leave."

"Yes," she said. "Your rescuers were at hand. I slipped away as soon as I saw them gathering outside."

"What did you do with it, Brooke?" Amber demanded. "What did you do with the Ambrosia?''

Brooke looked at Melina, who looked at the floor. "We destroyed it. As well as all of Stiles's notes and computer files. Everything. It's gone."

"Oh, God. No," Amber whispered, sinking back into the chair.

Edge knelt in front of her, gripped her shoulders and spoke intently. "We still have Stiles, love. And I think between your aunt Rhiannon and I, we can convince him to talk." He turned toward Melina. "Thanks for the info. Since you don't have what we came for, we'll be leaving now."

Melina stepped in front of the door. "I'm sorry, but… it's just not that simple."

Rhiannon's eyes narrowed. Edge rolled his, rising slowly to his feet and turning to face the woman fully. "Why am I not surprised?"

"We're a secret society," Melina said. "Your kind must never know of our existence. We can't function effectively if we become common knowledge."

"It's a little late for that, don't you think?" Angelica whispered.

Jameson closed his hand around hers. "If you wanted to keep us here, you probably shouldn't have had them put the weapons away."

"You're very untrusting, aren't you?" Melina said softly. "Though I don't suppose one can blame you for that. I was only going to ask for your word that you will keep our existence to yourselves. That's all we want. Just a simple promise."

Edge stepped forward. "No."

"Edge, what harm would it do to—'' Rhiannon began.

Edge held up a hand toward her, and she stopped speaking. "I was thinking more along the lines of a trade."

Melina frowned at him. "What kind of trade?"

"We'll keep your secret… if you'll keep ours." As he said it, he looked at Amber. "The only person outside this room who knows about Amber's condition is Stiles. I think it would be best to keep it that way."

"On that, we're in agreement." Melina turned to Amber. "I'd give my right arm to know how it happened, whether it can happen again."

"We don't know that ourselves," Amber said softly.

The other woman nodded. "I hope… it goes well for you."

Amber tilted her head to one side. "I think I believe you."

With a sigh, Melina moved aside from the door, reached for the knob. "Will you… let me know?"

"Probably not," Edge said, taking Amber's hand in his, and walking her toward the door. "Nothing personal, though."

Melina nodded rather sadly. "I'll walk you out." She started to pull the door open, but just as she did, something hit it from the other side, slamming it open wide.

And there in the doorway stood Alicia, with a shotgun the size of a small cannon pulled up to her shoulder.

"Nobody move!" she shouted.

Brooke and Melina shot their hands skyward and stood motionless, while the others stood there gaping at her.

"Come on, you guys. Let's go!" Alicia said.

Rhiannon lowered her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. Edge looked at Amber, grinning broadly.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Come on, I'm busting you out!"

Amber laughed out loud then, even got up and went to gently take the gun from her friend's arms. "It's okay, 'Leesh. They're not trying to keep us here."

"They're not?"

Melina and Brooke lowered their arms as Amber leaned the shotgun against the wall. "God, where did you get that thing? It must have been all you could do to hold it up."

"I found their weapons room." Alicia shrugged, then smiled a little. "Thought I was finally going to get my chance to play hero."

Amber looked at her dear, dear friend. "Anyone with half a brain would have been long gone by now. You really thought you could take on an entire houseful of armed women? One little mortal with a shotgun?"

She shrugged, looking a little sheepish, then sending a meaningful glance at Amber's midsection. "I had to try."

"Do you have any idea how much I love you, 'Leesh?"

Alicia met her eyes and smiled. "Me, too."

Amber turned to the others. "Let's get out of here." She slid an arm around Alicia's shoulders, waited for Melina to lead the way to the front door.

As they filed out, Edge turned around. "Don't forget our deal now," he told Melina. "You don't want me to have to come back here."

She held his gaze, nodded. "I never break my word."

They walked to the front gate, all of them, and no one followed. No one. The gate swung open at their approach, then closed behind them after they walked through. Amber looked up at the concrete owls perched atop the gateposts. Then, finally, she lowered her head and gave way to the tears of disappointment.

Edge squeezed her shoulder. "It's going to be all right," he promised.

"How? They destroyed it, Edge. They destroyed everything. And it was Will's only hope."

"Not exactly," Alicia said.

Everyone looked at her. She smiled and pulled something from a pocket. A tiny glass vial, with a clear liquid inside.

"Guess I get to be the hero after all," she said, handing the vial to Amber.

"Is this… but… how?"

"I found it hidden in Brooke's bedroom, along with this computer disk," she said, pulling the disk from another pocket. "She must have given them all of the serum except for this one vial. And if my guess is right, she kept a copy of some of Stiles's pertinent notes, as well."

Edge muttered, "That two-faced little—"

"Don't be too hard on her, Edge," Angelica said. "Immortality is a very tempting thing."

Amber took the vial, looking at it. "This is the old stuff, the last of his original batch of Ambrosia-Six. Stiles said he had only one dose left." She narrowed her eyes.

"She must have turned over the newer batch. But she kept the last vial of the old one."

"How can you be sure?" Edge asked.

"He was calling the newer batch Ambrosia-Seven," she said, tapping the label with her fingernail. She frowned. "I suppose we should probably let Melina know that Brooke is less than trustworthy."

"We do that, we'll also have to tell her what we did with the formula," Rhiannon said. "And who knows what her little gang of women might do if they suddenly deem Willem to be in violation of their precious 'supernatural order."'

"You think they might harm him?" Jameson asked.

Rhiannon sent a narrow-eyed look back at the place. "I don't trust them."

"Any reason for that, or is it just a gut instinct?" Edge asked her.

She met his eyes. "They're mortals. That's reason enough." Then she bit her lip and shot a look at Alicia. "I've met very few of them who are trustworthy. Even fewer who are as exceptional and brave as our dear Alicia," she added quickly.

Alicia lowered her head, her cheeks blushing red.

"We have to get this back to Willem," Amber said.

"Half of it," Jameson said. "The other half should be in Eric's lab, so he can duplicate the formula. Otherwise, we'll be right back where we are now when this batch wears off."

"How can we know half is enough to keep him alive," Amber asked.

"We can't," her father told her. "We can only hope."

Alicia tucked the diskette back into her pocket. "I tried to open this to get a glimpse of its contents on the computer in Brooke's room, but it's password protected."

"Can you get to it, Alicia?"

Alicia nodded. "If I can't, Morgan can. We should get this to her in Salem, then we can e-mail the file to Eric."

"Guess it's time to split up," Amber said. "So who's going where?"

Rhiannon's Mercedes still sat where they'd left it, and Alicia's Corvette was parked nearby. Edge stepped up beside the 'Vette and stiffened his spine in preparation for a battle, though he hoped like hell it wouldn't be necessary. He said, "Nice little car, Alicia. Bucket front seats, no rear." He held her eyes. "No room for passengers, though. It only holds two."

The little blond mortal seemed to pick up on his meaning immediately. She pulled a set of keys from her pocket and tossed them to him. "Why don't you and Amber take it?"

Jameson opened his mouth to object. Edge saw it clearly, then saw, too, the way his tender little wife put a hand on his shoulder, silencing him. "I think that's a good idea," she said, before anyone else could object. "The rest of us can fit quite comfortably into Rhiannon's Mercedes."

"Good, then," Edge said. "We'll take the half that's going to what's-his-name's lab."

This time Jameson did speak up. "I'd prefer you take the dose of serum to Will in Salem. I don't want Amber within reach of Frank Stiles."

Edge lifted his brows. "I have unfinished business with Stiles. And believe me, I'm not going to let him get his hands on Alby again."

Amber cleared her throat. "Is everyone conveniently forgetting to ask me what I prefer to do?"

They all looked at her. Rhiannon seemed to be restraining a smile.

"I think Edge is right, we should go to the lab. Eric and Tamara, Donovan and Dante, and even Roland are there to back me up should Stiles try anything. And it's imperative I be on hand as Eric runs his tests." She nodded at the vial. "This is the last of Stiles's original batch. We need to know how to duplicate it, and my blood is the key ingredient."

Edge tipped his head to one side. "You make a good point."

"Yeah. Way better than your petty need for vengeance," Amber told him. "You're going to keep your hands off Stiles until I say so. If you won't agree to that, here and now, you can just leave and I'll go alone."

One corner of his mouth pulled into a grudging grin. "You'd turn me out, here, on foot, alone?"

"So fast it would make your head spin."

Edge sighed, turning to face her father. "As I think you can see, your daughter and I have some things to work out." Then he wiped the smirk from his face, turning serious. "You can trust me, Bryant. I won't let any harm come to her."

"I believe you, Edge." Jameson sighed. "Just remember, if you do, you'll answer to me."

"Understood."

Amber looked surprised, maybe because he didn't reply to Jameson Bryant's threat with sarcasm or lip. Actually it surprised him a bit, as well. But he understood the man completely, even respected him for his devotion to Amber Lily. He opened the car's passenger door for Amber. With thinned lips, she got in, pulled on her seat belt and slammed the door.

Jameson handed him the vial. He'd already sucked a portion into a syringe he'd found in Rhiannon's emergency first-aid kit, in the trunk of the car that had everything, to take to Willem Stone. "You're hauling precious cargo, Edge. Don't forget it."

"Not for a minute." He took the vial, held the man's eyes for one extended heartbeat. Something passed between them. They understood each other, Edge thought. Then, finally, Edge turned and went around the car to the driver's side. There he glanced at Alicia, offered her a warm smile. "Thank you for this," he whispered.

She nodded. "Be worth it, Edge."

He got in, started the engine and pulled the car into motion. And all of a sudden, the notion of several long hours alone with Amber seemed less appealing than it had before. She was angry, though he was uncertain why. And he had no idea what to say to her.

She finally looked at him after the first few miles of silence. "Well?"

"Well, what?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "You obviously wanted to get me alone so you could talk to me. So talk."

He slanted her a look. Smiled a little. "Now when did I ever give you the idea that talking would be my reason for wanting to get you alone? Hmm?"

Her face colored a little, and she looked away.

"Don't pretend to be offended, Alby. You've never played games with me before, don't start now."

"I'm not playing games. And I am offended if you think anything could be more important than—than what I'm facing right now."

He reached out to trail the backs of his fingers over her cheek. "What we're facing, you mean."

She shook her head slowly.

"What, you don't believe me? You think I'm going to take off and leave you to it?"

"Not until you get what you want," she said softly.

"And what is it you think I want?"

She frowned at him. "You've been pretty up-front about what you want all along, Edge. At least, once you decided to stop lying about it. You want Stiles. You want your revenge on him. That's all you ever wanted."

"No," he said. "Not all." He drew a breath, sighed deeply. "I don't suppose I get any points for leaving Stiles and coming after you when I thought you might be in trouble?"

She said nothing.

"Come on, please? Just enough to cancel out the black marks I earned for choosing to go with him rather than you in the first place?" He turned those eyes on her, flashed that blasted dimple. "It was a stupid mistake, Alby. I knew it the minute I was away from you, and I've been kicking myself for it ever since."

"When are you going to get it through your head that I don't care what you do?"

"When it's true, I suppose. It isn't. Not now, at least."

She shrugged. "It's going to be daylight long before we make it all the way to Wind Ridge."

"Yeah, well, I've got no intention of getting into the trunk again, lady." He eyed her. "Besides, you look exhausted. When's the last time you slept?"

She thought about it, realized she didn't remember. "I don't know. Since before we left Stiles's place."

"Curl up, love. Take a nap. I'll drive until I have to stop."

She blinked slowly, shook her head. "You don't even know where we're going."

"You can tell me before you rest."

She flipped open the glove compartment, took out a pocket-sized road atlas, flipped pages. He watched her. Not her finger, tracing a path along the map. But her face, as she frowned in concentration. The little lines between her bent eyebrows and the shape of her nose. Her tongue as she licked her full lips.

"You can pick up the highway about fifteen miles ahead. You'll probably have to stop before we need to turn off."

He nodded, only half listening, darting quick looks at the road ahead. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

She looked up quickly, startled, perhaps, by the abrupt change of subject. She mulled for a moment, then shrugged. "All right, I suppose."

"You're as pale as alabaster."

"You should talk." She said it with a slight smile.

He grinned back at her, relieved to have her teasing him. It was, he thought, a good sign. "Well, I have reason to be."

"So do I, although the way I've been feeling, I would think green would be a more accurate skin tone than alabaster."

His smile died. "That bad?"

"I can't be more than a few days pregnant," she said. "I can't believe it's already giving me symptoms. And when I'm not queasy or puking, I'm eating everything I can get my hands on. I seem to be getting fat just for the hell of it." She looked away, seemed suddenly nervous, and spoke rapidly. "I mean, it has to be from all the food I've been shoveling in," she said, her hands on her belly. "It can't be the baby. It's only been a few days."

"Just gives a man more to explore, love."

She looked away. "I've begun to wonder if… maybe there's something about me that makes things happen… sooner. I know it seems farfetched, Edge, but I suppose Eric could confirm that, with a few tests and—''

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," he said quickly. He frowned at her, searching her face. "God, you're still thinking I don't believe you."

She didn't look up, kept her eyes focused on her hands in her lap.

"Alby, look at me."

Licking her lips, she forced her head up, met his eyes.

"I have no idea in hell how this could have happened. No more than you do. But I don't for one minute think you're lying about it."

"I'm not sure I'd believe it, if I were in your place."

He sighed hard, hit his hand on the steering wheel. "This is about my initial reaction, isn't it? Hell, Alby, naturally I assumed the child wasn't mine. As far as I knew, there was no possible way it could have been. And you didn't tell me differently, don't forget. You didn't give me a chance."

She shrugged. "So you really don't… question this?"

"Of course I question it. I question how the hell it happened, why it happened, whether it's something about my body chemistry, or something about yours, or some chemical reaction that happens when the two meet. God knows there's something pretty damned explosive between us, after all. But I don't question you, Alby. I won't. And I don't need your friend the science geek running any tests to prove it, either."

She stared at him, her eyes wide, for the longest time.

She didn't say anything, just stared. He glanced at her a few times, but every time, it was only to see her staring back at him.

He drove on in silence for several hours. Eventually Amber tipped her seat back as far as it would go and curled onto one side, still facing him. He was beginning to wonder if he'd sprouted a second head or something by the time he looked at her to find her eyes had closed at last, dark, thick lashes resting on her cheeks. Her lips, full and moist, were slightly parted. Her breaths flowed in and out of her like waves rolling up onto the beach and then slowly back out to sea again.

He knew the instant she fell into a deep sleep. He felt the shields she'd erected around her mind slowly dissolving. The resistance melted away, and he could not quite resist the urge to tiptoe through her mind, to look in on her dreams. It wasn't ethical, but he'd never been the most upstanding citizen of the dark realms, anyway.

He slowed the car to a crawl, so he could focus more easily on her, on her mind, on her dreams. He saw it unfold, all of it… so clearly in her mind's eye.

He saw her lying in a large bed, her hair tangled, her face damp with sweat. He saw himself, on the other side of a strange bedroom, picking up a small, ornately carved wooden box, carrying it toward her.

He could feel her whispering in her mind, No, no, please, I don't want to see this again! And yet the dream unwound, unfurled, spun its images for both of them to see.

His dream self brought the box to her bedside, lowered it toward her, and then he could see, through her eyes, what was inside. A tiny, beautiful baby, with stunningly dark lashes and eyebrows and pale golden hair. It was still, still and white as porcelain.

A black veil slammed down on the dream images, but he could still hear Amber's thoughts swirling through her mind.

I'll lose the baby, she whispered, frantic, panic-stricken. And even if I could bear it, it's only the beginning, because I'll lose him, too.

He frowned, jerking his attention back to the road, realizing he was sending up a cloud of dust, having veered onto the shoulder.

I can't love him. I can't love the child. I can't let myself hope, because none of it matters.

"Dammit, Alby, that's just not true."

A car blew its horn, snapping him back to reality. Edge jerked the wheel, pulling back into his own lane and narrowly avoiding the oncoming car. Amber sat up straight, startled wide-awake.

He got the car stopped safely on the shoulder of the road. Amber sent him a questioning glance. "It's all right," he said. "I… I just got distracted for a minute."

She blinked at him, and he could see the trauma in her eyes, the grief, the worry. But then she went cold, pulling that curtain down over her emotions, over her feelings. And he understood it now, that sudden pulling back, the distance she seemed determined to put between them. He understood it—but he was damned if he knew what to do about it.

She looked past him, toward the sky, then turned to scan the area where they'd come to a stop. "At least you picked a good spot for it," she said.

He was so distracted that he didn't get her point, until he followed her gaze to the wooden sign, swinging in the breeze.

"Haven Inn, Bed & Breakfast," he read aloud. Then he lifted his brows. "As good a place as any, I suppose."

"If the room's too sunny, we can always stick you under the bed, or in a closet or something."

He smiled at her. "Gee, thanks. That sounds so inviting."

"Doesn't it?" she asked, slightly teasing.

His spirits rose, because hers seemed to be a bit lighter. "I can only hope they have room service."

"Going to order up a pint?" she asked.

"I was thinking more of just eating the waiter."

She sent him a smirk, and he smiled at her, then pulled into the driveway and up to the inn. Aside from the imitation gas lamps outside, the place was pitch-black. "I hope we'll be able to rouse the innkeepers before the sun rises," he muttered, killing the engine and headlights, getting out of the car.

Amber got out her side. "Worse comes to worse, there's always the trunk," she told him.

He shot a look at her over the top of the car, then hit the lock button on the keyring. "You are feeling a little better, aren't you?"

She averted her eyes, shrugged. "Let's get inside,

Edge."

He nodded, and when she came around the car, slid his hand around hers and walked with her to the door.

Chapter 19

The innkeeper was a small, round woman of indeterminate—but likely beyond middle—age. She came to the door in a flannel bathrobe that was cinched tight around her middle, with pink fuzzy slippers on her feet. Locks turned, the door opened, and the woman blinked up at Amber from amid a mass of artificially red curls.

"I'm so sorry to bother you at this hour," Amber said. "But we were hoping you might have a room available."

She wrinkled her nose, looking from Amber to Edge, who stood back a little, keeping to the shadows. He sent her a smile. "Just a pair of weary travelers, ma'am," he said. "We'll pay full price, even though the night's all but over."

Pursing her lips in thought, the woman hesitated only a moment, then finally gave a nod and opened the door wide. "Oh, come on in," she said. "You look too sleepy to do any more driving tonight, anyway."

She stood aside while they entered. The foyer was dimly lit by the small table lamp she must have flicked on when she heard them ringing the bell. She moved behind the large desk that occupied a corner, took her seat and pulled a large book down from a shelf on the wall beside her. "Well, welcome to Haven Inn. I'm Mrs. Monroe, but my guests call me Sally," she told them.

"It's the only rule. And your names are?" She stood there, with her pen poised over the page.

"Smith," Edge said quickly. "Mr. And Mrs."

The woman had pulled a pair of rectangular bifocals from her top drawer and was in the process of putting them on when she stopped and looked up at him, the glasses held halfway to her face. "Smith?"

"No one ever believes me," Edge said. "It's the curse of having such a common name."

She smiled, turning the book toward him. "Just sign in, and add the make, model and license plate number of your car."

"Of course."

"And I'll need a credit card.''

"We'll be paying cash," Edge said as he scribbled down some blatantly false information in the book. He set the pen down, pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open. He took out a stack of ones, pulled out six of them and slid them across the counter to the woman.

Amber saw the bills and frowned, then she shot a glance at Edge, caught the intensity in his eyes, the gleam. He was messing with the woman's perceptions.

She smiled and took five of them. "The rate is only $80 per night," she said. "Plus tax, of course. Total comes to $86.40. I'll get you some change." She unlocked a drawer in the desk.

"Edge… " Amber said, a warning tone in her voice.

He sent her a wink. "Come on, love, I'd let her keep the change, but I'm damned if we won't need it for gas and things along the way."

We can use my plastic, she told him with her mind.

Too easily traceable. Stiles has friends, don't forget. It's not worth the risk.

The woman handed him a ten, three ones and some change. More money than he'd given her in the first place. He'd managed to get the room for free and make a tiny profit.

Amber sighed, shaking her head at him in disapproval and vowing silently to mail a check as soon as she got home. The woman smilingly handed over a key. "Top of the stairs and off to the left. Breakfast is served at eight."

"We're not going to want to be disturbed, Sally," Amber said. "After driving all night, we'll probably sleep until sundown. Though I might creep out for a snack at some point in between. Can you make sure no one bothers us during the day?"

"Well… well, yes. I suppose I can do that."

"Thanks."

"Do you need help with your bags?"

"I'll get them later. Right now, I just need to sit down and rest my eyes," Edge said. He sent her a smile. "Go on back to bed, Sally. We promise not to disturb your sleep again."

She gave him a shaky little smile, succumbing to that irresistible charm like every other woman in creation would do. Herself included, Amber thought, as she followed him up the stairs. He'd been right when he'd said she seemed to be feeling a bit better in the car. She was feeling better, in spite of the persistent dream. Being with him again was the reason for it. She knew that, even though she couldn't quite figure out why. She responded to him the way the sea responded to the tug of the moon, and she felt like a fool for it, but that didn't change the facts. She felt warm all over when she was near him. Even the threat of an impending grief too big to bear seemed to fade when he was with her.

Idiot.

They didn't need to use the key. Unoccupied, the bedroom was unlocked, the door standing open. The room was almost too cute to bear, with its pink and blue quilt on the bed, its pillow shams and canopy and the curtains in the windows, all made of the same fabric. Plush pale blue carpet lined the floor. The dresser sported an antique replica clock and a lamp that could have been a prop from Gone with the Wind.

Amber walked in, then went straight across the room and through the door at the far end to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. While she was in there, she started a hot bath running in the claw-foot tub.

When she returned, Edge was lying on the bed, arms folded behind his head, looking relaxed and comfortable.

"Thoughtful of you, running me a bath," he said without looking at her.

She pursed her lips, moved to the bed and sat down beside him. "I suppose you're welcome to it. There's not all that much time before daylight. I can take mine after."

"Or we could take one together."

She shot him a look. He was still lying there, still looking completely at ease.

He shrugged at her scowl. "Hell, the damage has already been done, love. It's not like you can get any more pregnant than you already are." He shrugged. "Not much more I can do to you, is there? Besides… the good stuff."

"Edge, I just don't think… "

He sat up, one hand sliding around her nape. His touch silenced her, and reluctantly she closed her eyes, let her head tip backward.

He leaned closer to her, his lips near her ear, so that she felt his cool breath when he spoke. "I want you, Alby. Have since I set eyes on you."

She pursed her lips, tensed up. "I thought it was make believe."

"What, I wasn't convincing enough?" He put his mouth on her ear, nibbled the lobe. Shivers and heat ran through her all at once. "It was never an act, love. Never. I thought it would ease up once I'd had you. Forbidden fruit is sweeter and all that. But it only got worse." He slid his hand slowly to the small of her back, moving it there in gentle circles that tingled and burned.

"So you want me," she said.

"And you want me," he replied.

But I want more, she thought against her will. She closed her eyes, told herself not to let the thoughts swirling around in the depths of her mind leak out where he could see them. She didn't just want him. There was something else, something so deep it penetrated her soul. She knew him. He was inside her, a part of her. Had been since before she'd set eyes on him. Sharing blood had intensified the feelings, and she imagined carrying his child did so even more. But it didn't matter why she felt the way she did. It only mattered that she felt something about a million times more powerful than desire for him. She didn't like being the one who cared, the one who was bound to be hurt. She would have far preferred being the object of adoration and knowing all the time that she could take it or leave it. Never be the one to care the most. How many times had she given that advice to Alicia? Never need a man more than he needs you. And never, never let yourself need someone so badly that the thought of being without him becomes paralyzing.

"Let me hold you, Alby," Edge said softly. "Let me take away some of the worry, just for a little while. Hmm?"

Damn her, she didn't have the willpower to say no. She let him turn her toward him, let him kiss her, felt her entire body tremble in bone-deep reaction that was as much emotional as physical. He was rain to her parched, thirsty desert. He threaded his hands in her hair, and she drank in his kisses, his touches, his essence. And then, suddenly, he lifted his head away.

When she blinked her eyes open, it was to find him frowning at her, studying her face. "You're…you're crying," he whispered.

She sniffed and lifted her hand to wipe the errant tear from her cheek. "A combination of sleep deprivation and raging hormones," she told him. "Ignore it."

"Alby, there's nothing about you I can ignore." Tenderly he swept her hair off her forehead, tucking it behind an ear. She'd never seen him look quite the way he looked right then. "What can I do to make it better?"

She blinked her eyes dry, told herself it didn't matter what she did or didn't do in the hour before dawn. It couldn't possibly make her love him any more. It was too late for her. Swallowing her certainty that she was in for a heartache of preternatural proportions, she leaned up to him and pressed her mouth to his. "Make love to me," she told him.

He wrapped his arms around her, kissed her, even as he scooped her off the bed and rose to his feet. He carried her across the room and into the bathroom, set her down on the edge of the tub and broke the grip of his mouth on hers long enough to shut the water off. Then he dragged a hand through the water a few times.

"Nice big tub," he observed, unbuttoning his shirt, peeling it off.

God, he had a chest to die for. She ran her hands over it. "You were always into working out, weren't you?" she asked. "Even as a mortal. That would explain your penchant for stealing expensive workout equipment."

He shrugged. "It was pretty much a job requirement, back then." He unbuttoned her blouse, peeled it off her, slung it over a towel rack beside his own.

"As part of a gang, you mean?"

He nodded. "It wasn't like it is today. We weren't a group of malicious thugs, just a bunch of kids who did what we had to to get by." He tipped his head to one side. "You read the file Stiles kept on me."

She nodded. "How did you know?"

"I saw it. While I slept, I was there with you, Alby. In your head, inside that room where they kept you. It was the damnedest thing."

She frowned, but he only pulled her close for a lingering kiss, undoing her bra in the back while he was at it. And in a moment she was no longer able to focus on wondering what the hell all of this meant, or whether it might be possible he felt more for her than just wanting.

By the time Edge had worked her out of her jeans and himself out of his, she was entirely focused on sensation, on the moment. On the way his hands felt on her backside, his mouth on her throat and breasts, his body pressing against hers.

Edge slid his hands down her thighs, pulling them up and around his waist, an act that opened her to him, let him rub against her. Then he stepped over the edge of the tub, into the water, and sank slowly down, until he leaned back and she knelt on top of him.

Her breasts dangled over him, and he stretched up, catching one in his mouth, tugging at the nipple with his teeth until she moaned. Then she moved herself over him and lowered her body, taking him inside her. He closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy, and that encouraged her to move. To raise and lower herself over him, to drag her nails over his chest to make him feel the way he was making her feel.

God, it was good.

His hands clasped tight on her buttocks, drawing her hard and tight to him, and then he shifted his hips, moving inside her, but slowly. She threw her head backward and muttered his name.

But he kept to the slow pace, exploring her body with his hands and his lips. He ran his fingers over her spine, curled his hands on her shoulders, ran them down her arms. It was as if he were memorizing every inch of her. When he ran his palms over her abdomen, she looked down, seeing the little mound her belly made, how hard and tight it was. His hands trembled there.

She met his eyes, wondering what it meant. A pregnant woman didn't show in the first few days. Did he doubt her now, when her very body seemed to be insisting that she'd lied to him?

No. She saw only wonder in his eyes. Wonder, and something more.

He moved his hand lower then, until his thumb found the nub of sensation so close to the place where they were joined. He rubbed her there, and she shivered. He suckled her, hard and then harder, increasing the pace of his movements inside her. Then she was moaning his name as he drove her over the edge.

Edge held her until the ripples of pleasure began to fade, then pulled her upper body down so she lay on his chest in the warm water. He stroked her hair, kissed her neck. "Is it better now?" he asked her.

She closed her eyes, loving the feel of his body against her, his arms around her. "Yes," she lied. "Lots better now."

Amber might have felt better, Edge thought, but damned if he didn't feel worse. He didn't know what the hell the woman was doing to him. She'd crept into his veins and was spreading through his system somehow. She was changing him. He didn't like it. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't what he wanted.

Hell. He didn't know what he wanted anymore. Life had been so simple before he'd decided to cross paths with this woman. He'd known exactly what he wanted. His priorities were limited: self-preservation and revenge. Now those things seemed to have been displaced by other things—her safety, her well-being, her happiness. And that of her child.

His child. Imagine that.

Those things had first risen up to become as important as his own goals and desires. Then they'd become more important. Now they seemed to have shoved his own need for vengeance and sense of self-preservation right off the chart. Those things paled in comparison to her. To the baby.

Beyond that, there were all these other changes happening inside him. The newfound power and strength and psychism. The voice in his head that no one else could hear. The one that led him to Amber, even when going to her proved less than healthy for him. The one that thought it was funny to see Edge beaten down by a gang of mortal women. Not that he didn't find it mildly amusing himself, in retrospect. And it was all because of her. Somehow or other, her blood, her taste, her touch—all of it had changed him. In every possible way.

He didn't question the tight little pouch of her belly. She'd said herself that she'd been eating nonstop lately, and she could be bloated. Any number of things could explain it. Not that she'd bed to him. That wasn't even a possibility. The child was his. He knew it with a certainty he could not—would not—question, and he thought he should have sensed it all along. Should have known it at the very moment of conception. How could a man not notice when his universe was inexorably altered?

She'd taken him over.

He wondered if she knew, sensed, his need for her. God, he hated this feeling. He was utterly at her mercy.

And yet she sat in the tub with him, as fresh, hot water rose around them, even while the cooling batch drained. She washed him, lathering him with soap and scrubbing him down with a loofah. She worked on his arms and shoulders, arm pits and then his chest, where she lingered a long while.

She liked his chest, he thought, feeling it swell with the notion. She seemed to pay a lot of attention to it.

Finally he settled his hands over hers. He didn't speak, just pried the soap and sponge from her grip, and began washing her the way she'd been washing him. She was the one carrying the child. She was the one who was half mortal. The female, the weaker of the two of them. At least, he liked to think she was. Even though everything she had shown him had denied those notions.

He washed her chest, thinking he understood her obsession with his. Then he reached all the way around her and pulled her against him on the pretense of scrubbing her back. So small, so delicate she felt in his arms. Snapping her like a twig would be no challenge, and that knowledge frightened him in ways he'd never imagined. He stopped scrubbing for a moment and just held her against him, waiting for the soul-deep shudder that had worked through him to fade. He didn't like pondering how fragile she was, or how delicate the life she cradled within.

"Edge?" she whispered.

He swallowed hard, forced himself to release her. "Morning is coming," he said, as if that explained his momentary lapse.

"Finish up," she said, and she rose from the water like Venus rising from the foam. Rivulets ran down her skin as she stepped out of the tub, pulled on one of the complimentary, emerald green plush terry robes. "Haven Inn" was embroidered on the front in gold thread, beneath some kind of crest. "I'll go make sure the windows are all covered."

"You didn't wash your hair."

"I can do it later."

"But I wanted to do it."

She looked puzzled, her head tipping just slightly, her smile wavering and unsure.

Edge shrugged. "I've never washed a woman's hair before." Nor had he ever wanted to, he thought. He was pathetic. He thanked his stars she was pregnant. It seemed to be reason enough for her to let him hang around a while. Bask in her light. God knew he wasn't worthy.

She tugged the robe tight, took one of the towels from the big stack nearby and went to the bathroom window to hang it over the glass before drawing the curtains. "That's not a tight fit, Edge, so don't linger."

"I'll be out in a flash," he promised.

She nodded and left the room.

Edge finished his bath quickly, then wrapped himself in a towel and joined her in the bedroom. She'd managed to seal the room's two tall windows already, and he looked, then gave his head a shake and looked again. "Where did you get the duct tape and trash bags?"

She smiled. "Downstairs. I did a little snooping around the kitchen while you finished your bath."

"I was only five minutes."

"Closer to ten. And I can move almost as fast as you can, you know."

He nodded, walked to the canopy bed, eyeing it, then lifting the spread to glance underneath the bed. "You think I should play it safe?"

She tugged the covers out of his hand, then turned them down and shed the robe, crawling into the bed. Smiling at him, she patted the spot beside her.

"Hell, yes." He dove into the bed, then gathered her close to him. "Ah, this is way better than sharing space with dust bunnies."

"I thought it might be."

"Do you think it's safe, though?"

"What's the matter, Edge? Don't you trust me?"

He kissed her hair. "Course I do."

"I'm not going to let anyone get near you while you rest. The door is locked up tight, including the bolt and chain on the inside. Just relax."

He lifted his head, glanced at the clock. "Maybe I'm not ready to relax yet." She sent him a questioning look, and he wiggled his eyebrows. "Twenty minutes to sunrise. Think it's time enough?"

"For you or me?''

"Ouch!" He clutched his chest as if wounded, then grinned and pulled her closer.

"I'm only kidding, you know," she whispered. "You're an incredible lover, Edge. You take me to places I never dreamed of." She shrugged as he touched her. "Not that I have much of a frame of reference for comparison, mind you."

"And never will, if I have my way," he heard himself mutter as he pulled her into his arms. What shocked him was the realization that he meant it.

Amber fell asleep in his arms, and by the time she woke again there was life in the house around her. She could feel people moving around, hear their voices. Ordinary people. Nice, ordinary people. It was kind of comforting, in a way, to be surrounded by folks who knew nothing about her.

She took a quick shower and was delighted to find brand-new cellophane-wrapped toothbrushes and a sample-sized tube of toothpaste in the bathroom drawer, along with other comforting items, like deodorant, a hairbrush, a tiny sewing kit and a map of the nearby town. Gosh, that Sally really did want her guests to feel welcome.

Once she finished primping, she left the room, putting the Do Not Disturb sign on the door; then, as an after-thought, she decided to refasten the chain, just to be safe. From outside the door, she focused. Moving tiny things in precise motions was harder work than hurling large objects in a general direction. She used her forefinger to direct her energy, ran it along the door, lifting the chain on the other side and sliding it into the slot. Then she tried the door, just to make sure.

Finally she turned and headed down the stairs.

A couple were just heading out the front door, arm in arm, laughing all the way. Amber followed her senses to the kitchen, where she found Sally, garbed in a floral print dress and a full white apron, chopping vegetables on a cutting board. Beside her, in a row on the counter, were seven individual-sized pie tins, each of them lined in a perfectly trimmed crust.

"Pot pies for supper?" Amber asked.

Sally looked up quickly, startled. Too startled to stop the knife from continuing its downward journey. She hacked into her finger, shrieked and jumped. The knife clattered to the floor as she clutched her now bloody hand.

"Oh, geeze! I'm so sorry!" Amber raced forward, yanking paper towels off a roll and gripping the woman's hand to press the towels to her finger. "Hold this here. I'll get bandages," she said.

"In the bathroom, through there, down the hall, to the left," Sally said, nodding in the direction, because she couldn't really point. Tears were welling up in the woman's eyes. God, it must hurt.

"And don't apologize," Sally added quickly.

"I could just kick myself." Amber headed to the bathroom in search of the bandages and antiseptic ointment. But then she paused with the items in her hands. She recalled the magic her own blood had worked on Edge's burned flesh. Was it just him she could heal? Was it only vampires? Or would it work on anyone?

Licking her lips, she rummaged in the cupboard some more, locating a safety pin at length. Then she took all the items back to the kitchen with her. She got fresh paper towels, wet them at the sink and turned to Sally. "Sit down now. I'm very good at this."

"I hope so. I'm afraid it's deeper than I thought at first. I think I might need stitches."

"Let me take a look." Amber took the woman's hand in hers, turning it palm up, and with her free hand lifted the paper towels away. The cut was midway up the forefinger, and it was gaping. As soon as the pressure was off, blood started flowing again.

"Oh, mercy," Sally said.

"You shouldn't look at it. It'll make you queasy." The sight of all that blood was making Amber queasy, too. But she fought past it. "Lean back in your chair, close your eyes, and hold your fingers tight, right here." She showed the woman the pressure points on either side of the base of her forefinger. "Squeeze hard. We have to get the bleeding stopped."

The woman did as Amber told her, closing her eyes and squeezing. Amber lifted the paper towel, replacing it with the cold, wet ones, wiping the blood away. The bleeding slowed. Glancing quickly at Sally to be sure her eyes were still closed, Amber grabbed the safety pin, flipped it open and jabbed herself in the forefinger with it.

When the blood welled up in the pinprick, she again moved the paper towels aside and quickly squeezed a few droplets of her own blood onto the wound. Then she lowered the paper towels again.

"Hold them there for me," she told Sally.

Frowning, Sally did so. "It feels… funny, dear."

"Funny how?" Amber asked, unwrapping adhesive strips that had roses decorating them. Better than cartoon characters, she thought.

"Kind of tingly, icy cold and burning at the same time." She opened her eyes, looking worried. "You don't suppose I've sliced into a nerve or something?"

"It's going to be fine. Close your eyes now. I'll be finished in a minute."

Sally obeyed, leaning her head back. Amber lifted the paper towels again. She watched but saw no fresh bleeding, and as she dabbed away the blood that was already there, she could find no cut. Only a pale pink line where the cut had been.

She bit back the exclamation that jumped to her lips, and instead washed the finger clean of blood, applied a little ointment to a bandage, and then stuck it around the place where the cut had been.

"There," she said. "Done."

When she looked at Sally's face, the woman was staring at her, an odd look in her eyes. She said, "It… doesn't hurt anymore."

"Well, this ointment must have some topical pain reliever in it."

She frowned at her finger, bent and straightened it. "But it doesn't hurt at all. It's like I never cut it."

"What can I say? I'm good at bandaging." Amber smiled. "Now, how about we clean up this mess, and then I'll help you finish those pot pies."

"You're a guest, dear. I wouldn't dream of it."

"Nonsense. I'm a guest who just made you darn near hack off a finger. I owe you one."

"You haven't even had breakfast."

"Oh, don't worry. I plan to snack while I help. Why do you think I came wandering into the kitchen in the first place?''

Sally smiled. "I kept two plates of breakfast aside for you and your husband this morning. You can help yourself." She nodded toward the fridge.

Amber opened it and found two plates wrapped in tinfoil. She took the foil off the top of one and saw stacks of French toast, fluffy scrambled eggs, home-fries and sausage links. She flipped the tinfoil over, took the sausage links off the plate and dropped them into the foil, then did the same with the second plate. "I'm a vegetarian," she explained as Sally looked at her quizzically.

Then Sally nodded. "Ah, I had one of those here last summer. No worries, hon. The home fries were cooked in vegetable oil, and not even in the same pan."

"That's a relief. God, I'm starved." She took both plates out, set one inside the microwave and the other on the counter, and hit a button.

"You going to take a plate up for your husband?"

"Oh, he won't be awake before dinnertime. I'm going to eat them both."

Sally grinned ear to ear, carrying paper towels and bandage wrappers to the garbage, washing her hands at the sink. "My goodness, I would have guessed you to be one of those young women who eats like a bird. You're so tiny."

"I don't usually have this kind of appetite," Amber admitted.

Sally let her gaze roam down Amber's body, and it stopped on her belly. "Is there a reason for it?" she asked with a smile.

Amber licked her lips. "The truth is, I'm kind of eating for two."

Sally looked up, eyes gleaming, a smile on her face. "You're expecting!"

Amber nodded. "I've only known for a couple of days."

"Oh!" Sally clapped her hands together, rushing back to her pies at the counter. "You eat. I'll put these together and set them aside. Then you and I are going into town for some first-class baby shopping."

"We are?"

"Oh, dear, yes. Trust me now. Go on, eat."

The microwave beeped. Amber took out the first plate, inserted the second, grabbed a fork and a bottle of maple syrup, and dug in.

Chapter 20

Edge kept to the shadows while Amber thanked Sally for the huge basket of food she had made up for them to take along. He shouldn't be surprised, he figured, that Amber had won the woman's affections within the space of a single day. She'd won his in a heartbeat.

He smiled, waved goodbye, took the heavy basket from Amber and headed out to the car. Amber opened the passenger door for him, and he set the basket inside. Then he frowned at her. "It's chilly tonight. We'll be running the heat in the car. You think the food would be better off in the trunk?''

"No." She said it quickly.

Edge frowned at her, tipping his head to one side. "You hiding another vampire back there, Alby?"

She rolled her eyes, moving around to the driver's side. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, I know your penchant for shutting us up in your trunk. And you obviously don't want me poking around back there."

She crammed the keys into the switch and started the engine. "You coming with me or staying behind?''

Pursing his lips, Edge got in. He looked at her as she pulled away, then looked again. "You're wearing different clothes," he noted.

"Mmm-hmm. Sally took me shopping today. God knows I needed a change."

He nodded, noticing the loose fitting cotton sundress, white with lilac and yellow pansies all over it in honor of the impending springtime, and the long yellow cardigan sweater she wore with it in deference to the chill of winter still lingering in the air.

"It's pretty," he said. "Awfully timid for you, though."

"What, I'm not timid?"

He shot her a look. "You're vivid. You should wear jewel tones, not pastels. Satin and velvet, not cotton." He frowned a little. "You're not trying to change, are you?"

She shrugged. "Why would I?"

"The pregnancy. Do you think you need to behave in a manner befitting an expectant mother, Alby? Respectable, discreet… toned down?"

She didn't look him in the eye, which told him he might just be onto something.

"Don't mute your colors, love. It won't work, anyway. They're too bright to be covered in paler shades. They'll only bleed through."

She pursed her lips, seemed to think for a moment. Then she said, "I figured I should get used to it. I was looking at maternity clothes, and they really tend to be mostly muted pastels and sunny floral prints. Besides, I've been eating so much my jeans barely buttoned this morning."

"Maternity." He digested that. "God, I hadn't thought that far ahead. You're going to swell up like a hot air balloon before long, aren't you?"

She swung her head his way so fast he thought she must have wrenched her neck. "You have a problem with that?"

He grinned at her, looking her up and down and trying to imagine her tiny body stretched around a baby. Her little belly swollen to beach ball size. It made his insides feel knotted up to picture her that way.

He jerked out of his imaginings when her fist connected with his shoulder hard enough to make him wince, and he forced his eyes up to hers again. "What?"

She looked wounded, refused to speak to him and kept her eyes dead ahead.

He reached out, cupping his palm over her belly. "Hard to believe it can happen. You're so tiny. I mean, there's not enough of you to stretch to that size, is there?"

"Oh, you just wait and see," she said. And she said it like a threat. As if she expected it to upset him or bother him, which, of course, it didn't.

"I intend to." His hand warmed there where it rested on her belly. Warmed and tingled. "I saw this sculpture of a goddess once. She was as green as the forest, and her belly was huge. Her breasts, too. She looked like a wild woman, an earth mother, and yet she had this expression of… serenity. I thought at the time that she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen." He smiled at her. "That's what you're going to look like, Alby. Like an earth mother, a nature goddess."

When he dared a glance at her face, she was gaping at him, blinking as if she'd never seen him before.

He shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. That was the sappiest thing I've ever said. I think your pregnancy hormones must be spilling over into me. Probably seeped in with your blood."

Her smile was tentative but finally real. "You have a sweet side," she accused.

"Don't let it get around."

There was a sharp popping sound, like a gunshot, and the car jerked suddenly to the left. Amber gripped the wheel for all she was worth, her foot jamming onto the brake in a reflexive motion as the car skidded sideways. Edge gripped the wheel, as well, to help her hold it. A rush of panic hit him. What would have once seemed to him an amusing little thrill ride now scared him senseless, his mind jumping to thoughts of the tiny life inside Amber's womb. How easily it might be snuffed out.

The car finally came to a halt in a spray of gravel on the road's shoulder. Edge turned to Amber, hands to her belly, eyes wide as they searched her face. "Are you all right? Were you hurt? Is the baby… ?"

"Fine, I'm… we're fine."

He let his eyes fall closed and sighed his relief. He'd never known fear like that. While self-preservation had always been his top priority, he thought, he'd never really cared if he lived or died. Oh, he'd decided he preferred living on, but he had no fear of death and what lay beyond its veil.

Now… God, now he was a quivering wreck of a man. To panic over a little skid. Is this what fatherhood did to men? He would never have believed himself capable of falling this far.

Sighing, he backed away, opened his door and got out to survey the damage. The driver's side front tire was flat, with a large, jagged tear in it. Amber got out, as well, and came to stand beside him.

"What happened?"

"Blowout," he said. "It's no big deal. I can fix it. Keys?"

She slapped them into his hand, and he aimed the key ring and thumbed the button with the open trunk icon. The trunk opened as if by magic, and Edge went to the rear of the car. Amber gasped and raced after him, right on his heels.

"Wait!"

He didn't heed her. And then he was standing there, looking down into the trunk, at the semitransparent pink and blue shopping bags, each bearing a teddy bear logo. He glanced up at her, and she lowered her eyes. Then he returned his attention to the bags, tugging one open and reaching inside. He pulled out a brown plush bunny with floppy ears. A tiny quilt in bright yellow checks with happy little ducklings all over it. A stack of tiny white T-shirts, and an assortment of minuscule pajamas in the softest fabric he'd ever touched and every color of the rainbow. They had little feet at the bottom. He couldn't believe any baby could be small enough to fit these things.

He lifted his head again, met her eyes, the little pajamas still in his hands. "You bought baby things today."

She nodded.

"And you didn't want me to see them?"

Pursing her lips, she seemed to have to make an effort to hold his gaze. "I don't know why I bought them. Given the dream, it's not like the baby is going to get the chance to use them."

"Don't say that."

"Sally took me into town, to the baby stores. I saw these things and I got… foolish. I forgot what I know. I let myself believe… "

Edge gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. "You have to believe. Dammit, Alby, if you don't believe, who the hell is going to? If you don't believe, what hope can this baby possibly have?"

She blinked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Forget about protecting yourself from heartache,

Alby. You already know you can't. If it's going to come, it's going to come. But you can't just lie there like a doormat and wait for it. You can goddamn well fight it."

She stared into his eyes. "That's basically what Alicia said."

"Alicia's a smart girl."

Amber licked her lips. "The visions have never been wrong before."

"Damn the visions, then. Nothing is certain. Any tiny change you make can alter the future. You know that."

She blinked at him, seemed to gather herself, swallowed hard. "I so want to believe that."

"Don't want to. Just do it." He gave her a little shake. "Do it, Alby. I am. And I'll tell you what else, that baby is, too. No kid of mine is going to go down without a fight."

"I'm just not sure I'm strong enough to bear it, Edge, if… "

"I'll be strong enough for the both of us," he told her, even though he doubted his ability. He pulled her against him, pressing his mouth to her hair, holding her hard.

He felt her relax in his arms after a moment. Felt her melt against him and go soft and pliant. And then he felt the soft sobs shaking her back and shoulders as she wept. "I… wasn't sure what colors to get. So I… I bought everything."

"You don't have any sense of whether the baby is a girl or a boy, then?" Edge asked.

She sniffled, straightened a little, and looked at him, smiling through the tears on her face. "No idea at all."

I'm a boy. J.W. Mom calls me Jimmy. Tell her I like blues and greens, and especially red. I really like red.

Edge frowned, because the voice in his head was back.

And it hadn't been, not since it had directed him to where Amber was.

"My mother said she had this powerful sense of me from very early on. She knew I was a girl. She knew what I would look like."

I have my mother's hair, almost black with that blood-red rinse effect. But my face and my eyes, those are all yours. By the time I'm nineteen, people who see us together will mistake us for brothers.

"What the hell… ?" Edge whispered.

He tucked the blanket sleepers—that was what the pajamas were called, according to their tags—back into the bag and shoved it aside to reach for the spare tire and jack.

"Mom says there was even some kind of… communication going on between us when I was still inside the womb," Amber was saying. She stood by herself now, hands cradling her belly as if holding her child. "And afterward, as well. Hell, it's still pretty strong. I can shield from anyone else, but it's almost impossible to keep her in the dark for long." She licked her lips, sighed. "It worries me, Edge. It scares me that I'm not feeling those things for this baby. I keep thinking maybe it's just another sign that it's not meant to be."

"Or it could be because in this case the baby's psychic bond is to its father."

He rolled the tire out onto the ground, stood there holding it upright with one hand, the jack in the other, as she blinked up at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I just figured it out," he told her. "That voice in my head, the one that told me where you were, both when Stiles had you and again when you went to Athenaville."

He shook his head, only barely believing it himself. "It was the baby."

Her eyes widened. "Edge?"

"I wouldn't lie to you about this, Alby. He's a boy. He says he likes blue and green and especially red, and that he has your hair and my eyes." He frowned a little. "He also got a hellish kick out of his old man getting beaten up by a gang of girls—though I don't imagine he saw it coming."

"He… spoke to you?"

Edge nodded. "Yes. And more than that, he spoke about his future, about how he'll look at nineteen. Don't you think that suggests there's a hole in your vision, Alby?"

"I… I don't know."

"Well, he knows. He knows what we're thinking, hears what we're saying when he's tuned in. And it can't do him a hell of a lot of good to hear you thinking he's doomed from birth."

"No. No, it can't."

Edge nodded firmly and rolled the tire around to the front of the car. He leaned it against the fender, then knelt to put the jack underneath.

"Edge, why are you bothering?" she asked softly. And he realized she was in a hurry to be on the road again.

He shrugged, looked both ways, saw no traffic and straightened, lifting the car up with one hand. Amber crouched down and spun off the lug nuts with her fingers. She yanked off the old tire, slid the new one into place and quickly spun the nuts back on.

As she stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands, Edge lowered the car.

"Why do you suppose he doesn't speak to me?" she asked.

Edge picked up the demolished tire and the jack, carrying both of them back to the trunk and putting them inside. "I don't know. Why didn't you speak to your father before you were born?''

She shrugged.

"Is it because you love your mother more?"

"Of course not! I adore my dad. He… oh, I see what you're doing." She smiled a little. "Thank you for that."

"Listen, next time I get the little runt talking, I'll let you know. You can try to listen in, through me. I mean, you and I seem to have a pretty strong bond ourselves, don't we?"

"I think that's an understatement."

"Then you probably know I want to take a turn driving."

"Yes, I do," she said. "And you know I'm starving and need to stop somewhere for a veggie sub soon or die."

He smiled. "Yes, I do. What's wrong, are you sick of the things in the goodie basket Miss Sally packed?''

She made a face. "I polished that off an hour ago."

He smiled. "I'll pull off at the first spot I see."

Edge pulled into the driveway of the Marquand Estate just after midnight. He whistled softly as he cut the engine. "Some place. Looks like a miniature of the White House."

"Eric always lives in style. Though this place is a lot more modern than what he normally prefers."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm, stone castles are more to Eric's taste."

"Maybe he got sick of living the cliche." He opened his door and got out, then came around to open hers, as well, but Amber was out of the car before he got there.

"There's Tarn," she said, waving as Tamara came out the front door, onto the curving, elegant front steps, framed by twin pillars. Amber hurried forward, hugged Tam hard. Tamara wore jeans and a lacy white blouse, her long black curls draping over her shoulders like a shawl. Amber sighed, glad to see her dear friend again.

"It's been so long, honey. How are you?"

"I'm good. I… there's a lot to talk about, Tam. So much." She lowered her eyes briefly, then brought her head up again as she heard Edge's footsteps. She glanced his way. "Tamara, this is Edge."

"I've heard a lot about you," Tam said, reaching out a hand.

Edge took it briefly. "Not as flattering as the things I've heard about you, I'm sure. Hope you'll give me the benefit of the doubt, though."

He smiled a little when he said it, but Amber picked up a little undercurrent. Was he really concerned what these people thought of him? That would be a switch.

"I heard you saved Amber's life—a couple of times now, according to my last talk with her mother. That's good enough for me." She stepped aside. "Come on inside. Everyone's waiting."

Edge walked beside Amber into the house. She glanced up at him, wondered if he were nervous, or if there was something else wrong with him. He seemed off, somehow.

Tam led them into an elegant sitting room, every piece of furniture an antique. Eric had always had a penchant for oversized, chunky wooden pieces from various ages and cultures, and it showed here. Four men sat waiting. Dante and Donovan, Roland and Eric. All four rose to greet them. Of them all, Roland was the only one who was formally dressed. He wore a dark suit, crisp white shirt underneath with a tab collar.

Amber didn't sense any underlying animosity in any of them, and suspected her mother hadn't told them her little secret. Probably just as well.

She took the little vial from her shoulder bag, held it out to Eric. "This is a sample of the formula Stiles made from my blood the last time he held me. We sent an equal amount back to Salem, for Will. But… this is all there is."

Eric took it, nodding. "I've been running tests on Stiles's blood since Roland, Donovan and Dante brought him here. But… "

"No luck?"

Eric shook his head. "Oh, there's been luck. All of it bad. The man's blood is deteriorating. Rather rapidly, I'm afraid. Whatever changes had occurred in him are reversing themselves. In other words, he's aging."

Amber frowned. "He told me it would be several more weeks before that happened."

"He likely thought that was true."

"He told me he only needed the formula every six months or so," Amber said.

"This time… something's different."

Amber frowned. "What?"

Eric shook his head. "I don't know." He held up the vial. "With this I may be able to duplicate the process he used, though."

"And when you do, we'll create a fresh batch for Willem."

He averted his eyes. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He glanced at Edge. "You're famished."

"I'm way ahead of you, my friend," Roland said.

He'd slipped away, Amber realized, and she'd been too caught up in her talk with Eric to have noticed. But he'd returned now with a cut crystal goblet on a silver tray. He offered it to Edge.

Frowning, Edge took the glass, sniffed at it, then drank the contents down. "Fancy," he said, replacing the glass on the tray. "Thanks, I feel better already." Then he turned to Eric. "Where are you keeping Stiles?"

"Edge… " Amber began.

He met her eyes. "I'm not going to kill him, Alby. Yet. I just want to see him."

She held his gaze, trying to read him. Did she dare believe him? Donovan stepped between them. "I'll take you to him. He's in one of the bedrooms upstairs."

"Has he given you any information about how all this works?"

"No, nothing," Donovan said. "Come on, it's this way." The two of them went up the stairs.

Sighing, Amber turned to Tarn. "He's got a very old grudge against Stiles. He's been hunting him for more than forty years."

"Do you know why?" she asked.

Amber nodded. "Edge was kind of… mentor and protector to a small group of fledglings. Street kids who'd been transformed young and abandoned by their sires."

"Just as he was," Tamara whispered. Then she met Amber's eyes and clarified. "Donovan explained the circumstances."

"Edge loved those kids. He hasn't told me so, but I've felt it. Stiles butchered them. All of them."

"Oh my God." Tamara closed her eyes, shook her head. "Do you think Edge will try for Stiles again here?"

Amber swallowed hard. "I don't think he'd lie to me. But… just in case… "

"We'll keep an eye on Stiles, Amber. Don't worry," Dante promised. "Go on. Go to the lab with Eric. You two have your work cut out for you."

Sighing, Amber nodded and followed Eric through the depths of the house and into his lab. "Have a seat, Amber. I suppose the first thing I ought to do is take another small sample of your blood."

She felt her lips thin, knowing that within a few moments Eric would likely know the secret she was keeping. Still, she took off her long sweater.

Then she went utterly still, staring down at herself, at her belly. "Oh my God," she whispered.

Eric turned, stared at her with wide eyes, and blinked slowly. "Is there… something you forgot to tell me Amber?"

Edge walked into the bedroom with Donovan at his side and took a look around. Plush carpet, elegant queen-sized bed laden with plump, soft bedding and pillows, soft lighting, a crystal water pitcher and glass on an antique stand near the bedside.

"Who's idea was this?" Edge asked bitterly.

"Sorry?"

"Well, when he takes one of ours, they get a dungeon or a cage. Who decided to give him the presidential suite?"

Donovan sighed. "Vengeance isn't the Marquands' style, Edge. Besides, they don't have cages or dungeons here."

"Aren't they worried he'll escape?"

"Go on. Go take a look at him."

Edge rolled his eyes, but he moved forward to the bedside. He stopped when he could see the man's face. The plump covers had blocked his view from the doorway, but now he saw it.

Stiles lay in the bed, his face pale, creased with lines that hadn't been there before. And his hair had gone utterly gray. He opened his eyes weakly, spotted Edge and didn't even look panicked. He muttered, "Good. I've been hoping you'd show up. Kill me and end this."

Edge pursed his lips, ignoring Stiles as if he were a piece of the furniture. "He looks twenty years older. What the hell happened?"

"We don't know. It's more than the elixir wearing off, though, but I think Eric was trying not to send Amber into a panic. If the Ambrosia-Six had worn off, then, according to the notes we have, he would have begun aging again, but only up until he reached his true chronological age. That's not what's happening here. Within just a short time he's aged beyond that, and there's no end in sight."

Edge tilted his head, probed into Stiles's mind. "He knows what caused this," he said at length.

"Yes, we sensed the same. But he's not talking."

"Oh, he'll talk."

"Edge, I can't let you… "

Edge looked at the man in the bed again. "At this rate, he'll be dead in a few weeks anyway. Surely you don't intend to stand by and let him take his secrets with him."

Donovan lowered his head. From behind them, Tamara's voice came softly. "No, Edge," she said. "We don't intend that at all."

Both men turned to face her.

"We only hope we can discover what we need to know without resorting to violence. Or torture."

"And if you can't?" Edge asked.

Tamara lowered her eyes. "We still have time."

Edge pursed his lips, turning to look at Stiles and addressing him for the first time. "Well, old man, it looks as if you have a bit longer to decide to tell us what you know. But not much longer. I don't have the qualms these people do."

Turning, then, he strode out of the room, but he'd only gotten into the hallway when he felt the rush of pure panic hit him. Not his own… but Amber's.

"Alby?"

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. He lunged down the hall to the staircase, down it and through the sprawling house, following his sense of her. He didn't slow down, even when he realized others were following. He didn't have to think, to look into empty rooms, to wonder which door would lead to her. He just knew, and then he found that door and flung it wide.

She turned slowly to face him, her lips forming soundless questions, her eyes wet and frightened… her belly swollen so much that the fabric of the loose fitting sundress was near to tearing.

"Oh my God," Tamara whispered from behind him. "Amber… Amber, are you… pregnant?"

Amber held Edge's eyes, never looking away, and he held hers. "Yes," she said. "I have been for almost a week now."

"A week? But—" Tam didn't finish the sentence, ending instead with a little gasp.

"I thought I was just getting bloated. And maybe a little fat, since I've been eating nonstop… but this… "

"I don't understand," Edge said softly.

Amber whispered, "Something's wrong, Edge. Something is terribly, terribly wrong."

He shook his head in vehement denial and moved forward, pulling her into his arms and hoping to God she couldn't feel the paralyzing fear inside him, or the trembling that was starting down deep in his bones.

Chapter 21

She let him hold her for the space of a heartbeat, but then suddenly she ripped herself away, turned and ran through the house. Edge took a single step, but the sprite-like Tamara stepped into his path and placed a soft hand on his chest. "She needs to cry it out, Edge. And she's not going to do it in front of you."

"Why the hell not?"

She smiled softly, as if she knew things he didn't. Myriad things he didn't. ''I'll go to her…for now. Maybe you can stay and figure out just what it is my husband thinks he's on to."

Edge spun around to stare at Eric, who was hunched over a computer screen, hitting the scroll button rapidly. He wasn't idly browsing; he looked like a man in search of something specific.

"What? What is it?"

Eric shook his head. Tam was already gone, on her way up the stairs again. Donovan and Dante withdrew quietly, maybe to give him some space. But Roland came farther into the room, clapping a hand on Edge's shoulder. "Give Eric a moment. He'll tell us as soon as he's figured it out. Meanwhile, my new friend, I suppose congratulations are in order. This is nothing short of a miracle."

Edge shot him a glance. "Might be a bit premature for that, Roland."

"Not if you've won Amber's heart, my boy."

He glanced up at the man, about to say he hadn't even come close, but then decided that it wouldn't be exactly flattering to Amber to tell her family that she'd slept with a man she didn't love. "What the hell can be going on? How can she be that… that big this early?"

Roland shrugged. "Are you certain about the date you… er, that is, you and she… "

Edge nodded. "She was a—" He bit back the words, started over. "It was her first time. There can be no mistake. And it's not something I'm likely to forget."

"Here it is—here. Right here." Eric shot to his feet, reading aloud from the computer screen. "Alicia sent this e-mail while we rested. It's some of Stiles's most recent notes, taken from a disk she found at the Athena house. Listen to this. 'Ambrosia-Seven is ready to be tested, and even though I shouldn't need another treatment for several weeks, what better test subject than myself? In truth, I've been convinced for some time that more frequent treatments might increase my physical strength and psychic powers. I only hesitated putting it to the test due to the limited supply of Ambrosia-Six. Now, with a source in hand and plans to… ' Oh my God."

"What?" Roland asked, alarmed.

Edge only stood still, his face grim, jaw tense.

Eric met his eyes briefly before reading the rest. '"Now, with a source in hand and plans to clone all the future sources I will ever need, there's no longer reason for delay. Tonight I begin the new treatment.'" Eric looked up from the computer screen and met Edge's eyes once more. "This entry is dated the night you and the others rescued Amber from him." He searched Edge's eyes. "Did Stiles do it? Did he inject himself?"

Edge shrugged. "How the hell would I know? What difference does it make, anyway? It has nothing to do with what's going on with Amber and my son."

"It has everything to do with Amber and your… " Eric paused there. "Son? You… already know?"

Edge nodded, turned to pace away, pushing a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry I barked at you. I'm a little… "

"On edge?" Roland asked.

Edge grimaced but knew the lame attempt at humor was only an effort to lighten the mood. Sighing, he faced Eric again. "The man was in his bed, in his pajamas, when we kicked the doors in. Anything he had planned to do that evening, he would have already done. So chances are, if he didn't change his mind, he had already injected himself with this… Ambrosia-Seven."

Eric nodded. "Makes perfect sense."

"Not to me."

"I'm afraid it's as lost on me, as well, Eric," Roland said. "Explain, please."

"Stiles is aging at an accelerated pace. The baby also seems to be developing at a faster than normal pace." He shot Edge a look. "You're sure this is your child?"

Edge must have looked murderous, because Eric quickly held up a calming hand. "I mean, are you certain this pregnancy isn't the result of Stiles implanting her with a cloned embryo?''

Edge calmed himself, nodded. "I'm sure. She was pregnant before he took her."

He met the man's eyes. "Don't bother asking how I know, just trust that I do."

"All right." Eric frowned hard, so hard that Edge thought his brain must be processing ideas and thoughts and information as fast as a computer.

"So something about Amber's blood speeds up the aging process?'' Edge asked, eager to be clear on this.

"Yes, apparently, but that wasn't the case before. Her blood… it must be different now than it was before the pregnancy."

"Could the pregnancy be to blame for that?" Roland asked, while Edge's mind reeled.

"Could be. I'd say it's the most likely bet."

Edge shook his head, holding up his hands. "I was burned—badly burned—the other day. Alby cut herself. Figured she could revive me with a sip, you know? But a drop fell on my arm and… "

"And what? What happened?" Eric had come across the room, was leaning close to Edge, listening with every part of him.

"It healed. My skin tingled and burned and… healed. Just like that."

"Amazing," Roland whispered.

"Makes sense, though. Her blood is speeding up physical processes, cell regeneration, healing."

Edge shook his head. "What does this mean? Will my child be born in a week, only to reach old age within a couple of years?" He shot Eric a look, fully expecting the man to say it didn't mean any such thing.

Instead Eric lowered his gaze. "I wish to God I knew."

"Jesus, this can't be happening." Edge tipped his head back, facing the ceiling and the grief raining down on him from Amber, somewhere above. "She can't go through this."

"We'll get to the bottom of it. I just… I need more time." Eric held up a hand. "I know, I know. Time is the one thing we don't have."

Edge licked his lips. "I have to go to her."

"Go," Roland said. "She has to know the situation, and it ought to come from you." He glanced at Eric. "I'm going to call Jamey."

He turned and left the room.

"Jamey?" Edge asked. He stood in the doorway, his back on one side of the frame, his hand braced on the other. He'd closed his mind to Amber's heartache, because it was damn close to crippling.

"No matter how old Jameson gets, nor how many grandchildren he acquires, Edge, he'll always be Jamey to Roland. He practically raised the boy, you know."

"No. I didn't know that." Edge straightened, turned to face the direction he had to go. "How the hell do I tell her this?"

"We don't know anything for sure, Edge. It might be better if you… wait until we do."

"I don't know if it's possible to keep this from her. I don't know." He started out of the room, heading toward the foyer and the stairs to the second floor.

"She'll be in her favorite guest room," Eric called after him. "Fourth door on the left."

Nodding, Edge went up the stairs.

But Amber wasn't behind the fourth door on the left. Edge opened it and stood there, looking inside at the rumpled covers of the bed, the box of tissues on the stand. The room was empty. Without forethought, he let the veil fall away, opened his mind to hers, and felt her. The grief washed over him again, but it was no longer crippling or paralyzing. It was active and angry. Lashing out.

Turning, he moved back up the hall, past the stairs. She drew him to her as surely and swiftly as a super-magnet would draw a shard of steel. He opened the door of the bedroom he'd been in earlier, and took in the scene swiftly, in the space of a heartbeat.

The pretty porcelain table lamp, shattered on the floor. Its power cord had been wrenched from its base. One end was plugged into the outlet, and the other end, with two bare wires emerging like the forked tongue of a venomous viper, was in Amber's grip. She held it a hair's breadth from the quivering old man in the bed. Tears of pain streaked Stiles's scarred face.

"Tell me what's happening to me," she said, her voice dangerous, low, trembling with passion and power. "Tell me, damn you." She jabbed him quickly, briefly, with the wires, and his body jerked and spasmed in the bed.

"Jesus, Alby!"

She straightened, turning to face him, even as Edge crossed the room and jerked the wire out of her hands. "Give me that before you fry yourself." He yanked the cord from the wall to render it harmless, then turned to see Stiles shaking, weeping. A helpless old man. Shaking his head, Edge took Amber's arm. "Where the hell is Tamara? I thought she was watching over you."

"I don't need watching over. I sent her downstairs to find me a cup of tea." She nearly spat out the words. "As if tea could help anything."

"I don't—"

"He knows something. Don't you see that? He knows, and he's going to die without telling us."

"No, he's not. I'm not going to let that happen, Alby." Sighing as he faced her down, Edge noted the lines of tension around her lips, the tight set of her jaw, the way she was holding herself so stiffly she was all but shaking.

Gently he touched her cheek. "This… this isn't you. Hell, woman, this is more my style than yours."

"I can't… just let this happen. I can't let him die, Edge. I can't let our baby die."

The stiffness of her body fled all at once. She collapsed like a flag when the wind goes still. He closed his arms around her, pulled her against him. He held her, and his gaze wandered to the eyes of the old man in the bed. He read them, knew and understood what Stiles wanted, and in that moment, his own need for vengeance melted away. He knew what he had to do. He nodded, the movement barely perceptible. But the old man saw it and acknowledged it with a nod of his own.

So be it, then, Edge thought. So be it.

Carefully, he scooped Amber up, turned and carried her back down the hall to the room Eric had described as her favorite. It was a modern room, painted a soft lilac hue. Its curtains and bedspread were white, patterned with purple pansies, and sheer violet scarfs draped lazily from the top of the curtain rod, and over the dresser and bedside stand.

He tugged the covers back with one hand, then lowered her into the bed. "Listen to me, Alby. You have to stop the hurricane of grief that's raging in your mind long enough to listen to me."

She lifted her eyes to his, and he held them with everything he had. "I am going to take care of Stiles. And I promise you, I'll find out all he knows. Every morsel. I swear it. On the memory of my long dead family of fledglings, I swear it to you."

She sniffled, nodded in jerky motions.

"And Eric will take care of the scientific end of this. He'll put all the information Stiles gives me to use. If there's a way to solve this, we will. We'll do it."

"What if there's not?"

"But what if there is? What if there is a way, and we find it? Alby, you have only one job here. And that's to take care of our son. Take care of yourself, so he has a warm, safe, nurturing place to grow. Banish the stress. Chase it away, because it's toxic. It's poison to him. Understand?"

"I don't… I don't know if I can."

"You have to try. Try, Alby. You wouldn't smoke a pack of cigarettes or drink a quart of whiskey or inject yourself with heroin while you were carrying him inside you. This is just as bad. You've got to let it go."

Tears welled in her eyes, spilling over onto her beautiful cheeks. "Tell me how."

"Put your trust in me," he said. "I know I'm not what you probably thought of when you pictured the perfect man in your childhood dreams. I'm no one's knight in shining armor, Alby. God knows I'm aware of that. But I'm not going to let you down in this. I'm not going to let our baby down. I've got this. Let me deal with it. Trust that I can, and will, and just focus on doing what you have to do to keep little J.W. safe inside you."

She blinked. "J.W.?"

He nodded. "That's what he goes by," he said, smiling softly, stroking her hair in soothing, slow movements. "But he tells me his mother calls him Jimmy."

"He… he told you his name?"

He nodded. "I thought the initials stood for Jameson Willem, at first, in honor of your father and Will, but it doesn't feel quite right." He closed his eyes, put his palm on Amber's abdomen. "Shh, listen. Touch my mind and speak to your child, Alby."

Amber lowered her trembling hands over his and closed her eyes.

And Edge heard the voice that had become familiar now. I'm all right. Stronger all the time. Why is my mother so sad?

Amber's eyes flew open, fresh tears pooling. "It's really him."

"Yes. It's really him."

She licked her lips, focusing, and then she whispered, "It's James William. That's his name, for my father and Will, but different enough to be his own."

Edge let the slight smile pull at his mouth. "That's it. That feels right."

"And he's okay. For now, right now at this moment, he's all right. Healthy and strong."

"Yes. And that's what you have to focus on. If there's grieving to be done, Alby, then we'll do it when the time comes. Not before, not one damn minute before."

She nodded, harder, firmer, this time.

"Trust me, Alby. I'm going to take care of everything. You. J.W. Everything."

I trust you, Dad.

"I trust you, too," Amber whispered.

She opened her eyes, and looked up into his, and Edge felt a white hot blade slide neatly between his ribs to pierce his heart. He lost his breath for just a moment. God, how could he ever live up to such a promise?

The only person who had ever looked at him with that much trust in her eyes had been his precious Bridget. And he'd let her down. Let Stiles cut her throat. Let her die. He was terrified of having someone so precious—even more precious—depending on him again. God help him, he'd better come through this time.

"Thank you, Edge," Amber whispered. "Thank you." Her eyes fell closed again, much needed sleep stealing over her. Her body relaxed beneath the covers, and her breaths became deep and rhythmic.

"No, Alby," Edge whispered. "Thank you." He slid his hands from beneath hers, heaved a sigh, and turned toward the door, only to see Tamara standing there, a china tea cup balanced on a saucer in her hands, tears dampening her cheeks.

When Amber opened her eyes again, the sun was shining in through the bedroom window, and Alicia was sitting in a chair beside her bed.

Frowning, she blinked her friend into focus. "How did you manage… ?"

"Edge called me last night. Said he didn't want you alone while everyone was at rest. Your father chartered a flight for me, so I could get here by sunrise."

Amber sighed. "How is Willem doing? Did they give him the Ambrosia-Six?"

"As soon as we got back with it." She shrugged. "Sarafina thought he looked better."

"But what did you think?"

Alicia averted her eyes. "It's really too soon to tell."

She didn't think the formula had worked. Amber knew Alicia too well not to read her face. "Even if it did work," Amber said, "it's not a permanent fix. A few months, at most, and then—"

"Stop it. If it worked, that's a good thing. Let's not start borrowing trouble or worrying about what happens next. God, you've got enough to worry about." Her eyes wandered down the bedcovers, to the bulge of Amber's belly.

"Did Eric make any progress last night?"

Alicia averted her eyes. "Edge says I'm to keep you from focusing on anything negative."

"Are you his best friend or mine?"

"Amber… "

"Tell me. I need to know what's going on, 'Leesh."

Alicia's lips thinned, but she answered. "They can't duplicate the formula with your blood. Ambrosia-Seven was apparently a whole lot different than Ambrosia-Six, and maybe not in a good way. Eric says your blood is different now. He thinks maybe after the pregnancy it will change again, but there's no way to be sure."

Amber closed her eyes.

"He managed to run his tests without destroying the sample you brought him, though," Alicia said quickly. "That means we can give the second part of that to Will."

"That one tiny vial. That's all that's left. And there might never be more."

"Then again, there might be. God, Amber, when did you turn into such a pessimist?"

Amber sighed. Her stomach rumbled so loudly it made Alicia smile.

"Hungry?"

"Famished. It seems to be a constant state." She frowned, sitting up in the bed and pushing back the covers. "At least I'm not throwing up anymore."

"No, I'd say you passed that stage already." She nodded at Amber's belly as she said it.

Amber looked down, ran her hands over her middle. "I'm even bigger than I was last night. It's happening so fast, Alicia. God, I don't know what to think anymore."

"Well, lucky for you, I'm here to tell you what to think. And right now, I want you to think about taking a shower, putting on some clean clothes and doing something with your hair. By the time you finish, I'll have whipped up the biggest breakfast I can think of."

"Good luck finding food in this house."

"Hey, come on, you think I came empty-handed? I stopped at an all-night grocery on the way here from the airport. I like to eat, too, you know."

Amber smiled and clasped her friend's hand. "You're too good to me."

"Well, I'm gonna be an auntie. I have to be worthy." She squeezed Amber's hand, then turned toward the door. She paused there. "Tarn left some of Eric's clothes in the closet for you. And… Edge said to tell you he had them move Stiles."

"To where?'' Amber asked.

Alicia shrugged. "He wouldn't say. Only that it was someplace you won't be able to find him." She sighed. "I was kinda disappointed. I'd have liked a crack at that scar-faced bastard myself."

"You're turning into a regular warrior woman, you know that?"

"I'm turning into a lot of things. Change is good. Now go on, go take that shower."

Amber did as Alicia suggested. But as she stood beneath the shower spray, she found herself amazed at the new shape of her body. She would have stood naked in front of a mirror, had there been one in the house. She ran her hands over her belly, and as she did, something jabbed upward.

Amber went still, keeping her hand where it was. The baby kicked again, and she smiled, then laughed out loud. "Hey, in there. Guess you're awake, huh?"

She wondered if that meant anything. The baby being awake and active during the daylight hours. God, so many questions. How had her own mother ever managed to get through the uncertainty, the worry?

She got dressed, pulling on her own jeans but leaving them unbuttoned and unzipped, the fly folded inward.

She wore one of Eric's white button down shirts and her own bra, though she had to loosen the straps. She and Alicia shared a tower of pancakes, a luscious omelet and a pot of coffee, and then Amber fetched the packages from the trunk of the car and showed Alicia all the baby things she'd bought. They talked all day, and Alicia rubbed lotion on Amber's swollen belly to ease the rapid stretching of her skin, which was beginning to burn and itch.

By sundown, she was feeling a bit more optimistic—no doubt thanks to Alicia's constant positive conversation, on top of Edge's promises of the night before. She believed in him, in spite of herself. Maybe… somehow, everything really would be all right. Maybe Edge could somehow get the truth out of Stiles, and Eric could use it to solve the mystery of her blood.

Maybe.

She sighed, looking up from her comfy seat in the living room when Edge came in, moments after dusk. He stopped in the doorway, met her eyes across the room. It hit her then that she was doing what he wanted her to do. Trusting him, believing in him. Depending on him. It was something she'd never intended to do, and something that frightened her. She liked being in control, taking care of herself, needing no one. This… this was different.

She was completely in love with him. And that scared her even more.

Chapter 22

Edge took Amber by the hand and led her out the house's back door. The lawn there was fenced in, and sported an antique lawn swing and a wide-open view of the stars.

He sat down on the swing, and she sat beside him. He slid an arm around her shoulders, drew her close. "Beautiful night," he said.

Amber looked up at him. "It is."

"You're hurting, though."

She started to deny it, but the knowing look he sent her made her realize he wasn't buying it. "How do you know?"

"I feel you. More and more, it seems. What hurts, Alby?"

"My back, mostly."

He drew her down until she was lying across his lap, then ran his hand over her back, exerting gentle pressure, rubbing in small circles. "Wish I could make it better."

"You are," she told him, closing her eyes. "Just by being here, you are."

"That's a relief."

"It won't be long, Edge," she said. "At this rate, this child could be born at any time, and I… "

"You're scared to death."

She nodded.

"I'll make it all right."

"Do you really believe you can?" she asked, relaxing a little more.

"I have to believe it. I can't accept the alternative. But whether I believe isn't important. The question is, do you?"

Amber opened her eyes and stared up into his face. "It seems a little insane, but I do."

He nodded, pleased, she thought, by her answer. "Then hold on to that."

"I'll try."

Edge bent over her, pressed his lips to hers, kissed her slowly, tenderly. "You do that," he said.

Amber heard the back door open, sensed others coming out into the yard. She sat up, self-conscious, saw Tamara on her way across the lawn.

"I'm going to go check on Eric's progress," Edge said. "Relax out here a while. Enjoy the night."

"All right." She was confused, wondering at his tenderness, the look in his eyes. Wondering what it might mean and trying not to let herself hope…

Edge rose from the swing, nodding to Tamara on his way back into the house. Amber watched him go, tears welling in her eyes. God, why did he have to be so wonderful? It made her hope for things she'd already decided could never be.

Or could they?

"Don't you ever take a break?"

Edge asked the question after walking into the lab to find Eric bent over a microscope, peering into its lenses. Eric straightened, rubbed his eyes. "With everything else running at such an accelerated pace, I don't dare slow down." He removed one slide from the microscope, inserted another. "How is Amber?"

"Terrified. Pretending not to be, for the sake of everyone else."

"And Stiles?"

"Still in that attic bedroom, still aging. I don't see much change." Eric nodded at the dark glass vials that stood in a little rack near Eric. "Is one of those the Ambrosia-Six?"

"No, those are all fresh samples from Amber Lily. This one's a duplication of the serum Stiles called Ambrosia-Seven."

"But it's useless."

"For our purposes, yes," Eric said. "I packed the A-Six in foam, put it in the cooler. It'll be safe there until someone takes it back to Willem."

"Good thinking. We wouldn't want anything to happen to it," Edge said, looking at the fridge in the corner of the lab.

"No. Though, from what Alicia's told me, I don't think he's going to survive long without it. The first treatment doesn't seem to be doing a lot of good."

Edge lowered his head, swallowed his guilt, kept his thoughts sealed within his own mind. "You should probably go take a look at Stiles," he said slowly.

Eric was already back to peering through the microscope, but he straightened then. "I thought you said there was no apparent change?"

"No, not apparent to me. But the aging is progressing. I can't make a guess at how much time he has left. I was hoping you might be able to. After all, we have to find some way to make him talk before he expires, taking all his secrets with him."

Eric nodded thoughtfully. "You're right about that." He peeled off the latex gloves he was wearing and started for the door. "All right. I'll look in on him." He headed for the door, and Edge followed him out of the lab. When they went through the hallway, into the large sitting area, Eric frowned. "Where is everyone?"

"Outside. It's a beautiful night, Eric. Very warm for so early in the year. Amber's expecting her parents and Rhiannon to arrive soon."

"It's good that her parents will be here for her."

"Yes, it'll do her good to have her mother with her," Edge said. "I think I'll go on out and join them."

Eric nodded, and continued across the room and up the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, Edge turned and hurried back up the hallway and into the lab. He went to the mini-fridge, opened it, pried the flat square of foam off the top of the foam box and reached inside. The vial was there, nestled in bubble-wrap. He took it out, removed it from the wrappings. Then he found an empty vial to replace it and put everything back, just as he'd found it.

No one would ever know. At least not until the box was opened again. And then Amber would probably hate him for this. Hell, they would all hate him. What surprised him most was that he actually cared.

The others might forgive him in time, if his plan worked. If it didn't, they never would. But Amber—Amber would never forgive him, even if he succeeded. He closed his eyes, held the vial of precious fluid in his fist. It didn't matter if she hated him. He had to do this. For her. And for his son. But God, how he wished there were some other way.

Amber rocked slowly in the cushioned seat of the antique lawn swing, Tamara swinging beside her. The stars above her twinkled as brightly as if all was right with the world. As if her baby's life wasn't hanging in the balance, while Willem's waned to nothing. Alicia hadn't been honest with her about Will's condition. She'd tried to sugarcoat it. But Amber knew. She felt it in her soul. Willem was fading.

"It's a beautiful night," Eric said, stepping out onto the lawn to join her there. He looked around.

"Alicia's gone to the kitchen to make some dinner for the two of us," Amber told him. "Donovan and Dante decided to walk the perimeter. Make sure no one's lurking about the place."

He nodded. "Not a bad idea. Stiles still has a lot of associates. Roland?"

"I think he's off somewhere waiting for Rhiannon. He misses her terribly," Tamara said softly.

Eric met her eyes, and a silent exchange passed between them. Amber lowered her own eyes and pretended not to notice, but it did make her ache a little for the object of her own ill-advised affection.

"Where is Edge?" she asked, wondering why he wasn't still with Eric.

"He's not out here with you?"

"No. Last I knew he was going to the lab to check on your progress."

"That's odd," Eric said. "He told me he was coming out to join you."

Amber's heart skipped. Edge had told her he would take care of everything, that he would find a way to make Stiles talk before he died. What if… ?

Tamara met her eyes, read her thoughts there. "He wouldn't harm Stiles. He's completely set aside his desire for vengeance, Amber."

She licked her lips. "I know that. But still… " She got to her feet, belly first. It had swollen even larger during the course of the night. "Tell me where you're keeping Stiles, Eric. I have to make sure."

"We'll come with you," Tamara said, rising as well, and taking Amber's arm as if she needed help.

Together they went back into the house, up the stairs and all the way down the ornate hall to the very end. Eric opened a door there, onto another staircase, this one old, looking seldom used. He led the way up these stairs and through yet another door at the top, into the giant house's attic.

"You hid him up here?"

"Edge said to get him our of your reach," Eric said as he led them across a plank floor. "Though I found it pretty odd that he'd have any desire to protect him."

"He wasn't protecting Stiles. He was protecting Amber," Tam said.

Amber sniffed. "Stiles is in no condition to be any threat to me."

"Not physically, no." Tamara squeezed her arm. "But emotionally. Amber, if you lost control, if you took his life, I'm not sure you'd ever get over it. Not you. You're not a killer. You have a gentle soul, despite your tough exterior. Edge has seen it. He knows."

Amber thinned her lips and kept her eyes forward as she picked her way through the attic, over dust bunnies and stacked boxes, through a door at one end, where a bedroom had been set up. Bed, nightstand and lamp. A peaked wall, with a window in it. Not much more. The covers on the bed were rumpled, but no one was in it. And the window was open.

Eric stared for a moment, then turned to face the two of them. "Stiles is gone."

"And so is Edge." The voice came from behind, and Amber turned to see Roland standing there. "I found Stiles gone moments ago, and I've searched the place for Edge. He's not here."

Amber had to grab the foot of the bed to keep herself upright.

Eric lowered a hand onto her shoulder. "I know, Amber. I know it's disappointing. God, I was so certain he'd put his need for vengeance aside for your sake, but—"

"That's not what this is," she blurted.

Everyone stared at her, no one speaking. But she knew what they were thinking. That she was one of those pathetic women who fell in love and then went blind. Who refused to see the faults that glared at everyone else like neon. And for a moment she wondered if it was true.

"Amber, dear child," Roland said gently, "I know it's difficult to accept that someone you care about might not have your best interests at heart, but—''

"If Edge took Stiles, he took him to try to get the truth out of him. Not to kill him. He wouldn't."

The men looked at each other. Tamara slid an arm around her. "She's right. The man wouldn't abandon her. Not now."

"Tam, it might be best not to nurture false hope," Eric began.

"Oh, for God's sake! Listen to you. I know a man in love when I see one, and that man is completely out of his mind in love with Amber."

Amber shot her eyes to Tarn's.

"Come on, dear. You're pale as wraith. You need to lie down."

"I need to eat," she said.

"You two get going. Go fetch Dante and Donovan, and then all of you go out and try to find Edge," Tam said.

The two men left in a hurry. Tam and Amber followed more slowly, and when the men were out of sight, Amber said, "He's not, you know."

"Not what?"

"In love with me. Edge is a free spirit. A loner. He's not a romantic, not the kind who falls in love."

Tam smiled at her. "Is that what you think?"

"It's what I know."

"And you think you know him pretty well?"

"Inside and out," she said. "Sometimes it's like we're inside each other's minds. I understand him."

"I can see that."

"And I know he's not in love. But I also know he wouldn't have made the promises he made to me if he were going to break them at the first opportunity. He's up to something, Tam. He must think he knows a way to get Stiles to talk."

Tam nodded. "Keep on believing in him, Amber. No matter what the others may say. You know him best."

"I do."

They reached the ground floor, and Tam led her to the sofa in the large sitting room, the one near the gas fireplace. Amber let herself be coddled, feeling fragile, drained and overly emotional. She leaned against the pillow-padded arm and drew her legs up beside her. "He'll come back, Tam," she whispered. "I know he will."

Tam nodded. "You hold on to that."

She tried. But it wasn't easy. The night wore on, and the men returned from searching having found no sign of Edge or Stiles. They made less and less effort to conceal their anger. When Amber's parents and Rhiannon arrived, with Morgan in tow, Amber was beside herself, worrying they, too, would jump to the wrong conclusions and believe the worst about Edge.

That worry faded slightly, though, with her surprise when Sarafina and Willem came in through the entryway behind them. Will was ashen, bent over, dragging his feet and leaning heavily on his walking stick, one arm slung around Tina's shoulders.

Amber came off the sofa in her shock at his appearance. How could he have worsened so drastically in such a short time?

She rushed toward him, only to stop short at the shocked look on his face. And then she realized he wasn't the only one looking at her that way. Her parents seemed stunned, and Rhiannon gaped at her. "My God," she said. "This is even worse than we imagined."

"Oh, it gets better," Eric called. "Jameson, join us in the library, won't you? We need a word."

Jameson lifted his brows, then nodded. "I'll be back, honey."

"Dad, wait."

"Just… give me a minute."

"I'm coming, too," Rhiannon said, and the two of them strode off to the library, following Eric. Donovan, Dante and Roland were already in there.

"It's as if they think I'm already dead," Will said, his voice weak, hoarse, but laced with humor. "How are you, Amber Lily?" He held out his arms, though Sarafina kept one of hers anchored around his waist.

Amber moved into them, hugging him gently. "You look like hell," she said.

"And you look like you swallowed a beach ball."

She backed away, smiling at him.

"Well, I'll be damned if I'll be left out of the deep dark meeting in the next room. Think you can get me that far, my love?" Will asked.

Sarafina smiled up at him. "Not until we get what we came for, darling." She looked to Tamara. "The second dose?"

"It's in Eric's lab. Go ahead and take him to the library, 'Fina. I'll get it and bring it right in."

Nodding, Sarafina pulled Will's arm around her. Amber placed herself on the other side of him, but her mother held up a hand and took that spot for herself, though she couldn't seem to tug her gaze from Amber's swollen middle.

"I'm huge. I know."

"You're beautiful. Glowing, but you look exhausted, too." Angelica smiled. "I'm just so shocked. Tarn's phone call didn't prepare us for the sight of you."

"Well, she probably gave you the accurate account at the time. I seem to expanding exponentially."

Her mother sent her a worried look.

"Edge has forbidden me to think about that," Amber said.

"About what?"

"What happens if this rapid development continues after he's born. Will he be twenty by this time next year? Will he die of old age before he starts school? What if he can't even survive the birth itself?"

"Amber, stop it," Will said. And he put more power behind those words than anything he'd said since he'd arrived. He shot her a stern look. "Edge is right. What earthly good can thoughts like those do either of you?"

"None, Will. I know that. But knowing it doesn't stop the questions from echoing constantly in my mind."

They'd made it nearly to the library. Will moved very slowly and needed to stop every few yards to rest before moving on.

"What do you suppose the big meeting is about?" Angelica asked.

Amber sighed. "It's about Edge. He's vanished and taken Stiles with him."

Angelica's eyes widened.

"Eric and Roland seem to think Edge decided to have his revenge on Stiles after all. But I know better." She opened the library door, then stood aside so that Sarafina and Angelica could help Will inside.

"The bastard," Rhiannon was saying. "If he harms that man before we learn what we need to know I'll—"

"Don't be ridiculous, Princess." It was Jameson who interrupted her. "You're all being ridiculous. I spent time with the man, more so than any of you did. If he took Stiles out of here, then it was because he thought he knew how to make him talk."

"I'd like to agree with you, Jamey," Roland said, his voice sad. "But if making him talk were the lad's goal, he could have done it right here."

"It's not his fault," Donovan said. "Don't forget, he had no one to teach him, no one to explain things."

"That was more than fifty years ago, Donovan. For God's sake, you explained what happened. If he's using that as an excuse—" Dante began.

"I haven't heard him use any excuse at all!" Jameson exploded. "God, you're all tossing around explanations for an evil that doesn't exist in the man. I'm telling you, he's taken Stiles to make him talk."

"Just what method could he employ elsewhere that he couldn't have employed here?" Eric asked.

Before anyone could answer, Tamara burst into the room. "The Ambrosia-Six!" she cried, a white foam box in her hands. "It's gone!"

"No," Amber whispered. She clutched Will's arm. "Please, God, not that."

Will nodded slowly. "Well, I guess that answers your question," he said. "As to what method Edge could use to make Stiles talk that he couldn't use here. He's bribing him—with life."

Jameson closed his eyes. "Will's right. Stiles is the kind of man who craves immortality at any cost. He'd have given anything for that last dose of A-Six. Even if he knew there was a possibility it wouldn't work. Edge likely knew it was the only chance to get the truth out of him."

"No," Sarafina whispered. "By Devel, no!"

Will pulled her against him, though he had to brace his back against the wall to remain standing. "If Edge can get information that can help Amber and the baby, it's well worth it. I would have done the same."

She moaned against him, crying openly.

"Don't you hold this against him, Amber Lily," Willem told her. "Don't you do it. You know I'm not willing to live at your expense—or that child's. You know it. If he hadn't done it, I'd have found a way myself."

His knees bent a little. Sarafina lifted herself away, clutching him around the waist. She turned to the others. "We need to get him into a bed. He has to rest."

Nodding, Jameson strode forward, lifting Will easily and carrying him out of the room, with Sarafina right behind.

"I'll go see if they need anything," Tamara whispered, hurrying away.

"Donovan, you and I should continue to search for Edge until dawn," Dante said. "You, as his sire, would have the strongest bond to him."

He was wrong, Amber thought, sinking into a chair. She had the strongest bond to Edge. She'd been right to believe he wouldn't exact vengeance on Stiles at her expense. She'd been right to believe he had only taken the man to try to extract his secrets.

But had she been wrong to trust him? Had he just signed the death sentence of her best friend?

Tears welled in her eyes, and then more came when it felt as if a giant fist closed around her lower back and abdomen. The pressure was intense. She screamed, and thought the entire household probably heard it.

"So, here we are. Just the two of us. Ironic, isn't it? That of all people, I'd be the one with you at the end?" Edge sat in a rickety wooden chair, smoking a cigarette and studying the old man, who lay on the floor, a tarp over him for a blanket. Edge had carried the old bastard on his back until he'd located an abandoned farmhouse. He was using a shed out back. The house would have been too obvious. And hell, he didn't need too much time, anyway. This shouldn't take all that long.

"We both know," Stiles said slowly, "this isn't the end."

"Isn't it?"

"You aren't going to let me die."

Edge shrugged, took a slow drag and blew out the smoke. "I think that depends on you, Stiles. I'd like nothing better than to watch you die. Maybe even help you. But lucky for you, I've found something else to live for, besides vengeance." He nodded. "And your notes are somewhat… incomplete.''

He pointed to his head, tapped it with a forefinger. "Some things, I keep right here."

"What sorts of things?"

"The formula, for one."

"Oh, we've figured out the formula. That Marquand, he's quite the science buff, you know. You're going to have to do better than that if you want the little present I brought you." As he said it, Edge drew the vial from his coat pocket, held it close enough to Stiles so the old man could read the label, though he had to squint to focus.

His eyes brightened with hope; he licked his lips. "You'll give it to me?"

Edge nodded. "If you tell me what you know about Amber. And the baby."

"How do I know you'll keep your end of the bargain?"

Edge shrugged, reached into his pocket, pulled out a syringe, and tore off the cellophane wrapper. He stuck it into the vial, piercing the stopper and drawing all of the fluid up into the hypodermic. "I'll let you hold the needle. How's that?"

He offered it to the man. Frowning, Stiles took it, and immediately turned it toward his arm.

"Ah-ah-ah," Edge said, and he pinned Stiles's hand to the floor at the wrist. "You can't inject yourself until you've told me what I want to know. I'm not stupid. I let you inject it now, you won't tell me a thing."

"You may not let me anyway," he said. "You're far stronger than I am now."

"I'm also the only chance you have, Stiles. Now, are you going to start talking, or are you going to keep wasting time?"

He frowned, nodded. "Where do you want me to begin?"

"At the beginning," Edge said. "As in, conception."

"Ahh." Stiles nodded. "Well, it's got to be her blood. It has healing properties, you know. Always has had just a hint of that, even as a girl. That was one of the things I learned about her the first time I held her. One of the things I didn't put in my notes." He shook his head slowly. "But it was nothing like the degree it possesses now. I believe that when your sperm cells entered her body, they were… healed. Revivified by that slight healing energy she's always possessed. They were brought back to life. She made you fertile again. Probably only with her, though."

"She is one of a kind," he muttered.

"What's that?"

"Nothing." Edge told himself to focus and returned his attention to Stiles. "Her blood chemistry changed once she became pregnant."

"Yes. I was running tests on her blood the night you all came bursting in on me. It's far more powerful now, but volatile. Unpredictable."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can't predict how it's going to react to any test. One sample of plasma injected into a rat made it grow to twice its normal size in two hours. Another rat died, and a third gave birth."

"It was already pregnant?'' Edge asked.

"It had been sterilized," Stiles told him.

Edge frowned. "What are you saying?"

"Sometimes the blood healed, sometimes it caused… inexplicable things to happen. There was no pattern, no rationale. And yet it was obviously the most powerful fluid imaginable. So I made the formula. Ambrosia-Seven. And I… I couldn't resist the allure of so much power."

"So you injected yourself," Edge said.

Stiles nodded. "And immediately began to age."

"You think the A-Six will reverse the process?"

"It's the only thing that might."

"What if it only stops it?" Edge asked. "Suppose it only makes you stay as you are, right now, for years and years?"

"That's a chance I'm willing to take."

Edge shook his head.

"Can I take the injection now?"

"Just one or two more questions, old man. Then you can do whatever you want."

He nodded. "You want to know about the baby. About what its chances are, what it will be. I don't know those things. I have no way of knowing those things."

Edge nodded, believing the man for once.

"And what about Amber? Will her blood chemistry return to normal once the baby is born?"

Stiles nodded. "Her mother's did."

"What?"

"DPI held her mother throughout her pregnancy. Kept close tabs on her. Her blood chemistry was altered drastically during her pregnancy, though not in the same way as Amber's was. We took another sample right after the delivery. And it had returned to prepregnancy condition. I have no reason to believe Amber's won't do the same."

"You were there when Amber Lily was born?"

"I was there."

"Were there any… complications?"

The old man nodded. "Yes. We almost lost her, in fact."

"Amber Lily or her mother?" Edge asked, leaning forward.

"The mother. It was due to the intense pain of the delivery. Your kind… don't do so well with pain." He shrugged. "Not that anyone cared about the mother at that point."

"Of course not. She was just a means to an end to you."

"If not for us, your precious Amber Lily wouldn't even exist."

"I think maybe she would. I think maybe fate had more to do with that than you or DPI or anyone else."

"Fate." Stiles spat out the word.

Edge lit another smoke, leaned back, releasing Stiles's wrist but remaining close enough to grab it faster than the old man could move it six inches. He knew that Stiles realized it, as well, because he didn't even try. "You have a theory, don't you? About why Amber's body chemistry has changed so drastically? About why her blood suddenly has this volatile healing power?"

Stiles held his gaze, nodded.

"Then you tell me what it is. And don't leave anything out. Then you can have your injection," he told Stiles.

Stiles nodded, took a breath and kept on talking.

Chapter 23

Amber hugged her belly and sank to her knees as everyone came running.

Everyone, she noted, except Edge.

"God, no. Not yet!" she cried. "Not yet, I still don't know what to do. I still don't know… ahhhh."

"Easy, baby. Easy now." Her mother's arms were around her, gentle but strong. "Come on, let's get you up to bed. Tam? Rhiannon?"

"Right here," Rhiannon said. They helped Amber to her feet, and then her dad was there, picking her up and carrying her, just the way he'd carried Will only moments ago. Not because her mother couldn't have done it herself, but because he was her dad. As he carried her up the stairs, he gazed down at her face. "I wasn't there when you were born," he said. "It's almost as if I'm getting the chance to make up for that now."

"It might not be the happy occasion you're hoping for," she whispered. "Prepare yourself, Dad. I don't know… ahh!"

He picked up the pace, and soon she was in her bed. It felt different, and she realized vaguely that someone had run ahead to line the mattress in something. There wasn't time to discover what. The contractions came fast, hard. She closed her eyes, focused on Edge in her mind. It's time, she thought desperately. Edge, where are you? I need you!

Edge listened to Stiles's theory about what was happening in Amber's body, which had all the earmarks of a madman's delusion—except that it explained everything. And he could think of nothing else that could. So maybe it wasn't so farfetched after all.

And then he heard Amber's call like the cry of a wounded siren, reaching across space to touch him. His body tingled with nervous energy, and he looked at Stiles. "And that's it? That's all you know?"

"That's all I know." Stiles looked down at the hypodermic he held in his hand. "Are you going to keep your word?" Edge nodded once.

Stiles moved the needle toward his opposite arm, pressed the tip to his skin, then paused and looked up at Edge, as if surprised Edge had let him get that far. And then his face clouded. "How do I know this isn't a trick? That this is really the Ambrosia-Six?"

Edge shrugged. "How do you know it's not? What's the matter, Stiles, getting cold feet?"

"No. No, this is my only hope. Living on—it's worth any risk."

"Trust me on this, Stiles, it's not all sunshine. Hell, for me, none of it is." His pun seemed lost on the old man.

Stiles took a breath, drove the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger. Then he pulled the needle out again and dropped it to the floor. He laid his head back, closed his eyes, waited.

"Do you remember all those years ago?" Edge asked. "The way you killed my family?"

"Family. Hell, Edge, that wasn't a family. It was a street gang."

"They were family to me."

"Fledglings. No age, no power. No experience. Almost too dumb to live."

"I've always wondered, all this time. Why? Why did you do it?"

Stiles narrowed his eyes, staring at Edge. "Does it matter?''

"To me it does."

"They were street criminals. You all were."

"That's how we got by. Lifting wallets here and there, stealing what we could, when we got the chance.''

He nodded. "One of your little 'family' members cornered me in an alley. Took my wallet, took my blood… "

"Yes, Bridget told me about it. But she didn't take your life," Edge said. "She let you live." Then he studied the man's face. "Ah, but she terrified you, didn't she? Scared you so badly you pissed yourself." He tipped his head sideways. "She laughed at you, humiliated you. Showed you to be the coward you truly are."

Stiles frowned, his attention no longer on Edge's words. "Something's… wrong… "

"So you went back, probably with a gang of your own, since you've never been man enough to do your own dirty work."

"I'd made some new friends," Stiles said. "A group called DPI. They'd been trying to recruit me. Leading them to your lair was… sort of my initiation."

"So you tortured them, and then you killed them. All of them."

"God, something's wrong!" the old man said.

Edge watched as Stiles's face began to change. It puckered and wrinkled, right before his eyes. He said, "You were right before, Stiles. That wasn't Ambrosia-Six in the vial. It was Ambrosia-Seven."

"No… "

"'Fraid so."

Stiles clutched at his throat, twisting and writhing as his face contorted. The pain must have been intense, Edge thought. Good.

The man thrashed, convulsed, as the formula did its work. He aged right before Edge's eyes, rapidly, amazingly.

"Consider this payment in full," Edge said. "For Bridget and Scottie. For Billy Boy and Ginger. For everything you did to Amber in the past. For all the vampires you've ever tormented, Stiles. It isn't half what you deserve."

Stiles's eyes widened, bulged, and then suddenly he went still, his face frozen in a terrible grimace. Within seconds, even that faded as his skin crumbled and flaked away, leaving only bones. And those, too, became dust, until all that remained of him was a pile of powder in the vague shape of a human form.

Edge rose and opened the door. A stiff wind blew in, and the dust scattered, swirled. Good. Edge left the door standing wide and sprinted with all his power through the night. Amber needed him, even though she probably hated him right now.

"Ah, God, it hurts!" Amber panted, followed her mother's breathing instructions, even while wondering how a vampiress, in whom every sense was magnified a thousand times, had ever gone through this kind of pain without losing her mind. She clutched her mother's hand.

"It'll be over soon, Amber."

"I know. If you survived this, I can."

The men had been banished from the room. Tamara,

Rhiannon, Alicia and Angelica surrounded her, Tam at the foot of the bed, Rhiannon pacing.

Alicia said, "Rhiannon, isn't there something you can do?"

"I'm not a doctor," she said. "Nor have I ever given birth." Amber detected a hint of regret in her voice when she said it.

"You were a priestess, though. I've read about the priestesses of Isis. You've got… real power. And women came to you when they were ready to give birth."

Rhiannon came to a stop in her pacing, met Alicia's eyes. "You've been dabbling in the magical arts, haven't you, child?"

"Maybe. A little."

Rhiannon drew a breath, sighed. "Well, it's true. There was a childbirth ritual that seemed to ease the pain of the women in labor. By the Gods, it was so long ago… " She turned to Angelica, to Amber. "Do you want me to try?"

"Of course," Angelica said, looking to Amber for confirmation.

"I'll try anything at this point," she said.

Nodding, Rhiannon climbed into the bed, lifting Amber into a sitting position and sliding in behind her, kneeling. She put a pillow over her thighs, then lowered Amber's back to them, so she lay at an angle. Then she pressed her fingertips to Amber's temples, closed her eyes and began chanting—strange, foreign words that at first seemed awkward but soon fell into a gentle cadence and rhythm.

Angelica watched Amber's face, a question in her eyes. Amber nodded, because despite her initial doubts, she felt something. A warmth, soothing through her body like liquid heat.

"Tarn, get some candles," Alicia whispered. "Incense, too. Sandalwood, if you have it. I'll dim the lights."

Within a few moments the room's entire atmosphere had changed. Tamara returned to her position at the foot of the bed, keeping track of Amber's physical progress. Angelica sat in a chair right at Amber's side, holding her hand, coaching her through the breathing. Rhiannon remained where she was, stroking Amber's forehead and temples with her graceful hands, and chanting in that deep, powerful voice. Alicia moved around the room, placing candles and lighting them, then wafting the incense smoke around with smooth, graceful hand motions. Scarfs and veils had been draped over the lights. And Angelica was whispering Hail Mary's at her side.

The door opened, and Sarafina came in. She took in the scene, nodded her approval and joined in, adding her own Gypsy chant to the mix.

"It's time to push," Tamara said softly. "When the next contraction comes, bear down for a count of ten. All right?"

The contraction came all too soon. Amber bore down. All the women stopped their chanting, praying, songs, and joined in counting, all with one voice. "Ten, nine, eight, seven… " When they reached zero, they each returned to their individual techniques, only to return to the count the next time Amber had to push.

"The head's coming. It's coming, Amber."

The bedroom door burst open suddenly. Amber looked up and saw Edge standing there, his eyes wide, sweeping her, the women around her, and then focusing on the place where a new life was struggling to emerge from her body.

"Oh, God," he whispered. He looked as if he might be about to faint.

Panting, breathless, coated in sweat, Amber said, "Where the hell is Stiles?"

"He's dust."

Pant, pant, pant breathe. "Then—then you did it? You killed him?"

"Not exactly. Jesus, Alby, all this can wait."

"No, it can't! Ahh!"

"Push now, push." The women all began counting, and Edge came farther into the room, taking the spot at Amber's side, on the opposite side of the bed from her mother.

They reached zero, and Amber collapsed back onto Rhiannon's lap, panting. When she could breathe enough to talk, she said, "Tell me what happened, Edge. Where's the A-Six? What did you do with Stiles?"

He nodded, holding her hand, drawing it to his lips to kiss it, then speaking. "The Ambrosia-Six is still safely in Eric's lab. Just in an unlabeled vial."

Sarafina's song broke off abruptly. "You didn't give it to Stiles?"

"I'd planned to, but I knew Amber would never forgive me. It occurred to me I might be able to fool Stiles, so I told him I would, but what I gave him in exchange for his information was the Seven, not the Six."

Sarafina closed her eyes. "Thank the Gods," she whispered. "I have to—"

"Go," Amber told her. "Get it and inject Will. Do it now."

Nodding, Sarafina ran from the room as Edge called out after her, telling her where to find the precious elixir.

"What did Stiles tell you?" Amber demanded.

Edge shook his head, as if to clear it. "That your blood has always had healing properties. He discovered it when he held you captive the first time. That it somehow revivified my useless sperm cells, making them viable again. And that the conception of the baby caused a chemical reaction in you that will likely be reversed as soon as our child is born."

She gulped in air, nodded. "What about the baby?"

"He didn't know. Amber, he had some wild theories, but he just didn't know. I don't… "

"Ah, God!" She bore down again with the contraction.

Tamara leaned over her from below. "A little more, a little more, that's it! The head is out!"

The next contraction came with barely a heartbeat in between. Amber pushed again, and she felt the sudden whoosh of relief. A moment later Tamara was rising, a towel-wrapped bundle in her arms. Amber clutched Edge's hand hard, staring, whispering, "Please, please… "

And then the bundle wriggled. A soft, hoarse cry, muffled, gurgly, came from within it. Tamara lowered the baby into Amber's arms. She held her son, staring down at his pink, white-smeared face, his bright, open eyes, sobbing. "He's alive. God, Edge, he's alive."

"Not only alive, but big and strong," Tamara said, smiling.

Amber sighed. "The dream was wrong."

"Dream?" her mother asked.

Then Amber felt it, another mind-bending contraction. She cried out and pushed the baby toward his father. Edge took his son, holding him gently, gazing down at his tiny face with rapture on his own.

"Hey, J.W. Good to finally see you." His words were mere whispers.

"Oh, God, what's happening?" Amber cried. Edge looked up, his face suddenly worried. Tamara, at the foot of the bed, looked up at the two of them. "There's another baby," she said.

Edge felt his knees go weak. Angelica rose to her feet, leaning over the bed, reaching out. "I'll take him. It's going to be all right. Come here, little one."

Edge let her take the child from his arms. She left the room with the baby, and all his attention returned to Amber and the events unfolding before his eyes. He couldn't bear to see her in so much pain. Racked by so much fear. He was confused—if there were two babies, why had he heard only one voice?

Amber pushed, the women chanted and counted, and Edge held on to Amber, telling her softly that it would all be okay, but he had no idea if he believed the words he spoke to her. He only knew she needed to hear them.

Angelica returned. She'd lined what looked like the drawer of an ornate dresser in thick blankets. She'd cleaned and dressed the baby boy, wrapped him in one of the blue receiving blankets and laid him inside. She placed the makeshift cradle on a stand to await the second child, then gathered the wriggling baby from it and returned to the bedside to hold him, cooing softly.

Amber let her body go limp. "God, I can't. I can't push anymore. I can't… "

Angelica leaned closer, and Amber touched her newborn son's hand. Edge watched as the baby wrapped his tiny fist around Amber's forefinger. And suddenly she seemed stronger. Able to go on.

She pushed when told, panted in between. Her face was red, her hair sweat-soaked. She was utterly exhausted, and Edge felt it. He felt everything, the pain, the tiredness, but above it all, the fear.

"Here we go, one more push, Amber," Tamara said.

Again she pushed, forcing her second child into the world.

"A girl," Tarn said, gathering the baby as she had the first one, wrapping her gently, rising to her feet. But her face wasn't smiling as it had been before. "Come on, baby girl. Come on now." She put her hand to the baby's chest, shaking it gently. "Come on, honey, take a breath."

But the bundle didn't wriggle, and no cry emerged. "I'll get Eric," she whispered, turning. She laid the baby in the prepared makeshift cradle, reached for the door, stifling a sob. No, no way.

Edge looked up sharply. That voice. That familiar voice.

Bring my sister to me! And suddenly, Edge knew what to do.

Chapter 24

Amber watched in horror as everything in her dream came true, like a slow motion film reel playing in front of her. Edge crossed the room, picked up the dresser drawer and stared down into it. His chest heaved, and he turned toward the bed.

The drawer's front was ornately carved. From this angle, it looked like an elaborately engraved box. Just like the one in the dream. She jerked her eyes up to Edge's, saw the single tear, the same one she'd seen before, rolling down his face.

"No," she whispered. "No, Edge, this can't be happening… "

"Shh. Hold on, Alby." He came closer, to the side of the bed where her mother stood, holding the boy child, her face wet with tears. "Put him in here. Lay him beside his sister."

"But, Edge, she's—"

"Please," Edge whispered, so much emotion in his voice that it was choked and hoarse.

Rising to her feet, Angelica gently placed the healthy, wriggling baby beside the still child in the box. Edge knelt on the floor beside the bed, even as Amber sat up so she could see. She stared down into the face of her daughter. It was already tinged with pallor, a slight bluish tint to the skin. She was so small, so much smaller than the boy child. But even as she stared, her heart slowly being crushed by the weight of her grief, her baby boy's tiny little hand began to wave back and forth, almost aimlessly. When it touched, as if by accident, the still, lifeless hand of the tiny, frail child beside him, his hand opened and closed reflexively. He clasped his sister's fingers just the way a newborn child would clasp anything placed into its tiny fist.

The door opened, and Tamara and Eric burst into the room, followed quickly by the others. Even Will had managed to get himself this far. They crowded into the bedroom, then went still as, one by one, they took in the scene before them.

Amber knew they were there. But she couldn't take her eyes off her babies.

"Edge?" she whispered. "Her face… Am I imagining it?"

"No, she's getting more color. I see it, too."

"She's moving," Angelica whispered. "Look at her little foot… "

Suddenly the silence of the room was broken by a tiny, hoarse cry, like the bleat of a newborn lamb. The little girl in the makeshift cradle began to wriggle and squirm, as her scrunched-up face made her impatience clear.

Amber stretched out her arms, laughing and crying and shaking all over.

Edge leaned over the cradle, gathering both the babies into his arms. Rising again, he placed them into the bed with their mother, one nestled in the crook of each arm.

She gazed down at one baby, then the other, her tears flowing like rivers.

Edge stood there staring down at them for just a moment; then he sank into a nearby chair, as if he no longer possessed the power to stand.

"How… how did you know what to do, Edge?" Jameson asked, moving to the chair where Edge sat and hunkering down in front of him.

"J.W. told me. I think he… I think he healed her."

Eric nodded. "It actually makes sense. His mother's blood already had healing properties. Combine those with the enhanced powers of vampiric blood, and you get a powerful healer."

"Maybe." Edge shook his head. "Stiles had this insane theory that somehow the baby was controlling some things from within the womb. That's why Amber's blood suddenly had so much more power. That it wasn't coming from her… but from the baby. He even thought the child might have some control over how the power manifested. I didn't believe it… but now… I'm not so sure."

"Maybe we should give this new little family some time alone," Angelica said. She stood behind Jameson, her hands on his shoulders. "Not too long, though. I'm eager to start the spoiling process as early as possible."

Jameson rose to his feet with a nod; then he moved closer to Amber, leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "You were right all along to believe in him, even when everyone else doubted."

"You didn't," she said.

"I trust your judgment."

One by one they came to the bed, kissed the babies. Alicia was sobbing so hard she couldn't talk. Will only stroked their silken heads. Amber thought he looked better and noticed the bandage on his arm from the fresh injection. A half dose hadn't been enough, but now that he'd had the rest, the serum appeared to be working.

"Do you think it worked?" Amber asked him, searching his face.

"Does it matter? If it didn't, I'll just let J.W. here grab onto my finger."

She didn't argue with him, didn't say that they couldn't be sure J.W.'s healing power would work on others the way it had worked on his sister, and that they had no reason to believe it could bestow immortality. Even before she finished the thought, though, Will gave her a wink. "It worked, Amber. I'm sure of it."

He straightened away from the bed, walked slowly to the door. When he left the room and closed it behind him, she looked at Edge. He looked as exhausted as she felt. But he met her eyes, rising slowly from the chair, coming closer. "Can you part with them for a minute, do you think?"

"I don't want to stop touching them," she whispered. "But I can barely hold my head up."

He took the little girl from her arms. "She's going to need a name."

"How about Bridget?" Amber asked softly.

Edge looked up suddenly. Fresh tears came into his eyes as he met hers. "Thank you for that."

"You're thanking me? Edge, you did this. You kept your promise. You got the information from Stiles and made sure you did it without robbing Will of his cure. And you saved our little girl."

"Her brother did that."

"You both did it."

He snuggled the child for a moment, then laid her in the cradle. Next he took the little boy and hugged him, kissed his cheek and placed him beside his sister. "He's going to be a handful. He actually laughed at me when that gang of mortal females at the Sisterhood of Athena beat me down." He tickled the baby's chin. "I owe you for that, J.W."

Then he straightened and sat on the mattress, close to Amber.

He took her hands in both of his. "With all that's been happening, Alby, I haven't managed to get around to talking to you about… us."

She lowered her eyes. "You don't have to."

"Don't have to what? Talk?"

"Stay," she whispered. "You don't have to stay. With me, I mean."

He smiled slowly. "That's enough dancing around this already, don't you think?" She frowned at him. He said, "Just give in, Amber, and tell me you love me."

Her heart turned over, and she searched his eyes. "What?"

"Tell me you love me, Alby. Even though I'm not the prince you dreamed of, even though I'm not worthy of you by half. Tell me you love me anyway. But only if you mean it."

She held his gaze and stopped pretending. Pressing her hands to his cheeks, she said, "You are worthy. And you are exactly what I dreamed of. And I've loved you from the first time you kissed me. Even though you warned me not to."

"Did I?"

She nodded. "You told me you were not a romantic, not the kind of man who was going to fall in love or stick around or mate for life. And like an idiot, I ignored all that and fell in love with you anyway."

He smiled at her. The dimples in his cheeks, the light in his eyes making her breath catch in her throat. "It's just as well. It was all bullshit anyway."

"It was?"

"Hell yes. You haven't figured that out yet? Alby, I'm nuts about you. I've even developed a ridiculous attachment to that bunch of meddlers you call family." He kissed her lips, gently, slowly.

When he lifted his head away, she was still searching his eyes, and her own were full of questions. "I'm still not… What are you saying, Edge? Is it… if it's the babies, then—"

"It's not the babies," he told her. "It's not the situation. It's not the others. It's you, Alby. You are… the only woman in all creation for me. You've got my heart imprisoned inside yours. You own my soul. If I had to live without you, I think I'd wither and die. I love you, woman. Is that clear enough for you?"

Her throat tried to close off, and she couldn't talk. It was real. Everything she'd dared not hope for but hoped for anyway was real. He loved her.

She tried to tell him what that meant to her, but there were no words powerful enough. So with tears of joy streaming, she kissed him again instead.

Epilogue

Golden-haired Bridget wore a flowing skirt, a dozen bangle bracelets and big silver hoops clipped onto her ears. She was imitating her aunt Sarafina, who was teaching her to dance like a Gypsy while playing her new tambourine. It was the twins' second birthday, and the huge party had become an annual event by now. The family had agreed to take turns hosting it, and this year it was at Sarafina and Willem's home in Salem. The pony rides had been Rhiannon's contribution, and the bonfire and authentic Gypsy costumes were Tina's idea. There were cakes, ice cream, music and scads of adoring attention. Every gift the kids tore open was more elaborate than the one before. And yet J.W. was ignoring them all, spending his time running around the beach with his Uncle Willem in search of dying starfish. Every time he found one, he picked it up, held it in his hands long enough to heal it and then tossed it into the water again.

Amber reclined in a comfy chair on the redwood deck, surrounded by the women in her life. Her mother and best friend. Her aunt Rhiannon and Tamara. Morgan was there, and Donovan had finally brought Rachel around to meet everyone. Alicia's mother, Susan, was there, as well. It felt good; it felt right.

She watched as her husband talked with the other men. She saw how they looked at him, with respect in their eyes. They loved him, every one of them. Amber's father would lay down his life for the man who had saved his grandchildren, and Eric and Roland felt the same. Edge had even formed a new and tender bond with Donovan and Dante.

As for Will, well, Will would always be grateful. He was healthy, vital again. The cancer had died, and he had healed. And when he needed more of the formula, Amber could provide it. As predicted, her blood had returned to its original state. Rhiannon had "borrowed" some of the new batch of A-Six, to "test" it on her cat, Pandora, who was behaving like an animal in its prime again.

Laughing, Sarafina danced Bridget, with her mass of golden curls, closer to the deck, then sank onto the steps breathlessly, hugging the two-year-old in her arms. Dante parted from the group of men and came closer to her. "It's like we have our tribe back again, isn't it, 'Fina?" he asked.

She nodded. "Except no one here would betray us. Not ever." She stared out at Willem, romping now in the surf with J.W., his jeans rolled up to his ankles. "Will doesn't even have the limp anymore."

"I know," Amber said. "It's wonderful to see him so healthy. We came so close to losing him." She sighed. "I used to feel so alone. Such an outsider. Because I was different from the rest of you. Different from Alicia and Susan, too."

"Ahh, but the gang of outsiders is growing," Angelica said softly. "Now there are Will, and the babies."

"Now there's Edge," Amber whispered. "I'll never feel alone again."

Edge looked up, caught her eye from near the central fire. None of the vampires stood too close to it. And there was water everywhere, just in case. But life was risk, and having a fire, as in times long past, was a very small risk,

Sarafina had insisted. So long as none of them were stupid enough to get too close.

Hearing his whispered message, Amber got up and went to him, and he met her halfway. "Think they can handle the rugrats for an hour?" he asked.

"I trust them like no one else. Why? What did you have in mind?"

He smiled. "A little walk along the beach. I thought we could visit that spot we found once before. You remember it, don't you? That isolated little cove—"

"Where our babies were conceived?"

His eyes darkened, and Amber tingled all over. She sent Alicia a look, and Alicia replied with a nod, understanding perfectly. Then Edge slid his arm around Amber's shoulders, and they walked up the beach together, arm in arm.

"Are you happy?" he asked her.

She looked up into his eyes. "I've found bliss," she whispered. "Running you over was the best thing I ever did."

"I can think of several things you've done since that I enjoyed more."

"Mm Can you?"

"Yeah. Standing up for me with your family. Giving birth to those two little bandits back there. Healing Will. Healing me."

"When you burned your arm, you mean?''

He turned her to face him, stared into her eyes. "No, not my arm. My soul. My heart. You healed everything in my life, Alby. All just by loving me. You really are the Child of Promise. You're a miracle, and I'll cherish you until the stars fall."

He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her. And Amber knew she had found her place at last.

Witches

--1 Eternity (1998)--

ETERNITY

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove edition / December 1998

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1998 by Margaret Benson. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN: 0-515-12407-9

A JOVE BOOK® Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 987654321

This story is dedicated to

Sarah Osbourne

Who died in jail on May 10, 1692.

Bridget Bishop

Who was hanged on June 10, 1692.

Sarah Good and her unnamed child

The baby died in jail just before its mother was hanged on July 19, 1692.

Elizabeth How

Susannah Martin

Rebecca Nurse

Sarah Wildes

All of whom were hanged on July 19, 1692.

Reverend George Burroughs

Martha Carrier

George Jacobs

John Proctor

John Willard

All of whom were hanged on August 19, 1692.

Ann Foster

Who died in jail sometime after September 10, 1692.

Giles Corey

Who was pressed to death on September 19, 1692.

Martha Corey

Mary Esty

Alice Parker

Mary Parker

Ann Pudeator

Wilmot Reed

Margaret Scott

Samuel Wardwell

All of whom were hanged on September 22, 1692.

And to Sarah Dastin

Who was pardoned when the madness of 1692 came to an end, but who died in jail all the same, unable to pay her jail fees.

May we never forget.

The Witch Upon the Hill

Her eyes are black, the midnight sea,

Her hair, a sooty cloud

Her voice, the winds of fantasy,

Her heart like fire, and proud

I could not help but watch her

As beneath the moon she danced,

She whirled, she cast, she conjured

She sang a mystic chant

She soared into my soul that night

The starry sky her wings

She whispered secrets in my dreams

And spoke of sacred things

In my mind, she entranced me

Her kiss was magick-laced

Her touch, it left me trembling,

And craving her embrace

The skies obey her every wish,

The elements, her commands

She wields a power o “er me,

My heart lies in her hands

For her I’d cross the universe,

For her I’d swim the sea,

But what could an

Enchantress want with a simple man like me?

She came, and said, “I love you,

And likely, always will.“

My heart, I pledge, forevermore

To the Witch upon the hill

—DUNCAN WALLACE

Part One

Chapter 1

I always knew I was a Witch.

The definition of the word has since broadened somewhat, and rightly so, I imagine. Today anyone with the determination to learn and practice the Craft of the Wise can call herself—and deservedly—a Witch. But in my time there were no books written to guide a seeker, save the books of the Witches themselves, but the grimoires were kept secret. Back then one was only a Witch if one was born to, or adopted by, another Witch. And even then the young one wasn’t told all of the secrets. Some of them I didn’t learn until much later.

My mother was a wise woman, a Witch, and from the time I was very young I was taught the ways of drawing on the power of the sun and the moon and the stars and of nature itself. Above all else, I was taught the importance of keeping all that I learned secret. For the penalty meted out to practitioners of the Craft in those days was harsh. Mother never told me just how harsh. I learned that when I was twenty and one, in a lesson so cruel its memory remains burned in my mind, though three full centuries have passed. And yet it was because of that cruelty that I first set eyes upon Duncan Wallace.

The key to my mother’s ruin was her kindness. My father had died only a fortnight before, of a plague her simple folk magick could not fight. Many lives were lost in our small English village that brutal winter of 1689, and perhaps my mother simply could not bear to see one more death after so much grief.

At any rate, it was Matilda, the sister of my dead father, who came pounding on our door that dark wintry night. Looking startled at Aunt Matilda’s state—wild hair and wilder eyes and not so much as a cloak about her shoulders— Mother drew her inside and bade her take the rocking chair beside the hearth to warm herself. I offered tea to calm her. But Aunt Matilda seemed crazed and refused to sit down. Instead, she paced in agitated strides, her skirts swishing about her legs, her thin slippers leaving damp footprints on our wood floor.

“No time to sit an’ sip tea,“ she told us. ”Not now. “Tis my youngest, my little Johnny, named for my own dear brother who has gone to his reward. My Johnny has taken ill!” She whirled and grabbed my mother, gripping the front of her dress in white-knuckled fists. “I know you can help him. I know, I tell you! An‘ if you refuse me now, Lily St. James, I vow, I’ll—”

“Matilda, calm yourself!” My mother’s firm voice quieted the woman, though only for a moment, I feared. “I would never refuse to help Johnny in any way I can. You know that.”

“I don’t know it!” my aunt shrieked. “Not when you let your own husband die of the same ailment! Pray, Lily, why didn’t you save him? Why didn’t you save my brother?”

My mother’s head lowered, and I saw the pain flare anew in her eyes—a pain that sometimes dulled but never died away.

“I tried everything I knew to help Jonathon. But I couldn’t save him,” she whispered.

“Perhaps because you brought the illness on him from the start.”

“Aunt Matilda!” I stepped between the two, forgetting to respect my elders and tugging my aunt’s arm until she faced me, rather than my mother. “You know better. My parents shared a love such as few people ever know, and I’ll not stand by and hear you sully its memory.”

“Raven, don’t,” Mother began.

But I rushed on. “No one can bring on such a plague as this, and well you know it!”

“No one but a Witch, you mean, don’t you, Raven? Raven. She even named you for some dark carrion bird. Are you practicing the black arts as well, girl?” Aunt Matilda gripped my shoulders, shook me. “Are you? Are you ?”

I could only blink in shock and stagger backward, pulling free of her chilled hands. My aunt knew. But how? How could she know the secret that had been only between my mother and me? Even my father had been unaware…

“What makes you say such a thing?” my mother asked gently. “How can you accuse your own sister?”

“Sister-in-law and not by blood,” Matilda reminded my mother. “And I know. I’ve always been suspicious of you and your Pagan ways, Lily. From the time you helped me birth my firstborn and somehow took away the pain. And later, when you nursed me through the influenza that should have killed me. You with your herbs and brews.” She waved a hand at the drying herbs that hung upside down in bunches from our walls, and at the jars filled with philters and powders, lining the roughly hewn wooden shelves. “No physician could ease my suffering the way you did.” She said it unkindly, made it an accusation.

Slowly my mother nodded, her serene expression never changing. “Herbs and plants are given by God, Matilda. Knowing how to use His gifts can surely be no sin.”

“I saw you last full moon.”

The words lay there, dropped like blows, as we stared at one another, my mother and I, both remembering our ritual beneath the full moon, when we chanted sacred words “round a balefire at midnight.

“I know you have… powers. And I don’t care if they’re sinful or not. Not now. I need you to help Johnny. If you didn’t conjure this plague, then prove it. Cure him, Lily. If you refuse…” Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t finish.

“If I refuse, you’ll do what, dear sister? Bear witness against me to the magistrate? See me tried for Witchery?”

Matilda didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. I saw her answer in her eyes, and my mother saw it as well.

“You’ve no need of such threats,” Mother told her. “All you had to do was ask for my help. I’ll try my best for your son, just as I did for Jonathon. But Witchery or no, I may not be strong enough to help him.”

“If he dies, I vow, I’ll see you hang!” Aunt Matilda lurched toward the plank door, tugging it open on its rawhide hinges. “Gather what you need and come at once. I must make haste back to his bedside.”

She left us in a swirl of snow, not bothering to close the door. I went and shut out the weather, then stood for a long moment, my hand on the door. I had a terrible premonition that the events of the past few moments would somehow change our lives forever. I didn’t know how, or why, but I felt it to my bones. Drawing a deep breath, I turned to face my mother. I knelt before her, taking her hands in mine, staring up into eyes as black as my own. “Don’t go to him,” I begged her. “You cannot help him any more than you could help Father. And when he passes, she’ll blame you.”

“He is my own nephew,” she whispered. She tugged her hands away, got to her feet, and began to make ready, taking sprigs of herbs from the dried bunches hanging on the wall, pouring a bit of this powder and a bit of that into her special cauldron. The one with the hand-painted red rose adorning its squat belly. She added steamy water from the larger cast-iron pot that hung in the fireplace to the brew.

“We should leave this village,” I pleaded as I worked at her side, measuring, stirring, holding my hands above each concoction to push magickal energy and healing light into it. “We should leave tonight, Mother. Our secret is known, and you’ve told me how dangerous that can be.”

“I can’t break my vows,” she said. “You know that. When someone needs help, asks me for help, I am bound by oath and by blood to try. And try I will.” She looked into my eyes. “You should pack a bag and go to London. Take the horse. Leave tonight. I’ll send for you when—”

“I won’t leave you to face this alone,” I whispered, and I flung myself into her arms, stroking her raven hair, so like my own, though hers was knotted up in back while mine hung loose to my waist. “Don’t ask me to, Mother.”

Her mouth curved in the first smile I’d seen cross her lips since my father’s death. “So strong,” she said softly. “And always, so very stubborn. All right, then. Come, let us hasten to Johnny.”

We quickly packed our potions and some crystals and candles into a bag, pulled our worn homespun cloaks over our heads and shoulders, and stepped out into the brutal winter’s night.

But my cousin was dead before we even arrived at my aunt’s house. And we were greeted by a wild-eyed woman who’d once claimed us as kin, and the group of citizens she’d roused from slumber, all bearing torches and shouting, “Arrest them! Arrest the Witches!”

Cruel hands gripped my arms, even as I turned to flee. Accusations rang out in the night, and people stood round watching as my mother and I were surrounded, and then dragged over the frozen mud of the rutted streets. I cried out to my neighbors, begging for help, but none was forthcoming. And my heart turned cold with fear. As cold as the wind-driven snow that wet my face.

’Twas a long walk, the longest walk of my life. The poor shacks of the village fell away behind us as we were pulled and pushed along, and we emerged onto the cobbled streets that ran between the fine homes of the wealthy in the neighboring town. At last we stood before the house of the magistrate himself, trembling in the icy wind while our accusers pounded upon his door.

The man emerged in his nightclothes after a time, looking rumpled and irritated. “What’s all this?” he demanded, white whiskers twitching.

’Two Witches!” shouted the man who gripped my mother’s arms tightly. “The ones who brought this plague on us all, Honor.”

The old man’s eyes widened, then narrowed again as he perused us. Beyond him I could see the glow of a fire in a large hearth, and feel its heat on my face. I longed to go warm my hands by that fire. My fingers were already numb from the cold.

“What evidence have you against them?” the magistrate asked.

“The word of this one’s own sister,” said another, pointing at my mother.

“Matilda is not my sister,” my mother said, her voice ever calm, despite the madness around her. I would never forget her face, beautiful and serene. Her eyes, so brave, no hint of fear in them. “She is the sister of my husband.”

“Your husband who died of the plague!” the man cried out. “And now your nephew is taken as well.”

“Many have been lost to the plague, sir. Surely you wouldn’t accuse every bereaved family of Witchery?”

The man glared at my mother. “Matilda St. James bears witness, Honor. She’s seen them practicing their dark rites with her own eyes.”

“Tis a lie!“ I shouted. ”My aunt is maddened with grief! She knows not what she says!“

“Silence.” The magistrate’s command sent shivers down my spine. He stepped forward, glancing down at the woven sack my mother still clutched in her hands. “What have you there, woman?“

Mother lifted her chin, meeting his gaze. I could see the thoughts moving behind his eyes, the way he looked at us, judging us, though we were strangers to him.

“Tis only some herbs,“ she said softly, ”brewed in a tea.“

“She lies,” the man said. “Matilda St. James said this woman was bringing a potion to cure her young son. But she feared the Witch would deliberately wait until it was too late to help the lad, and her fear proved true. A Witch’s brew lies in that sack, Honor. Nothing less, I vow.”

“Tis no potion nor brew,“ my mother told him. ” ‘Tis simply some medicinal tea, I tell you.“

“Are you a physician, wench?” the magistrate demanded.

“You know that I am not.”

“Give me the sack.”

The hands holding my mother’s arms eased their grip, and she gave her sack over. The magistrate opened it, pawing its contents, and I shuddered recalling the stones we’d put inside. Glittering amethyst and deep blue lapis, for healing. And the candles, made by our own hands and carved with magickal symbols to aid in Johnny’s recovery. We would have set them around his bed, where they would have burned all night to protect him from the ravages of the plague.

The magistrate saw all of this, and when he looked up again, his eyes had gone cold. So cold I felt even more chilled despite the warmth from the fire at his back. “Put them in the stocks. We try them on the morrow. Perhaps a night in the square will convince them to confess and save us the time.” He withdrew, leaving the door wide, and reappeared a moment later with a large key, which he handed over to one of the men. “See to it.”

“No!” I cried. “You mustn’t do this! We’ve done nothing wrong. Magistrate, please, I beg of you—”

His door closed on my pleas, and again I was pulled and dragged as I fought my captors. But my struggles were to no avail. And soon I found myself being forced to bend forward, my wrists and my neck pressed awkwardly into the stock’s evil embrace. The heavy, wooden top piece was lowered as my own neighbors held me fast, and I heard the chain and the lock snapping tight.

I could not move. Could not see my mother, but I knew she was nearby, for I heard her voice, strained now, but steady. “Tell the magistrate he shall have my confession,” she said. “But only if he will let my daughter go free. She knows nothing of this matter. Nothing at all. You must tell him.”

The man to whom she spoke only grunted in reply. And then the villagers left us. In the town square, bent and held fast, we waited in silence for the dawn. The freezing wind cut like a razor, and the wet snow continued to slash at us. I shivered and began to cry, my face stinging with cold, my hands numb with it, my feet throbbing and swelling.

And then I heard my mother’s gentle voice, chanting softly, “Sacred North wind, do us no harm. Ancient South wind, come, keep us warm.” Over and over she repeated the words, and I forced my teeth to stop chattering and joined with her, closing my eyes and calling to the winds for aid. My mother’s folk magick could not make iron chains melt away. But she could invoke the elements to do our bidding.

Within minutes the harsh wind gentled, and the snow stopped falling. A warmer breeze came to replace the bitter cold, and my shivering eased. I was still far from comfortable, bent this way, unable to relieve the ache in my back. But I knew my mother must be suffering far more than I, for her body was older than mine. Yet she did not complain. I took strength from that, and vowed to keep my discomfort to myself.

“Hard times await us, my daughter,” she told me. “But whatever happens tomorrow, Raven, you must remember what I tell you now. Promise me you will.”

“I promise,” I whispered. “But, Mother, you mustn’t confess anything to them. Not even to save me. I couldn’t live if you were to die.” The thought terrified me, and I pulled my hands against the rough wood that held them prisoner, though I could not hope to work them free. She was all I had in this world. All I had.

“Perhaps this is my destiny,” she said softly. “But ”tis not yours.“

“How can you know that?”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve known from the day you were born, child. By the birthmark you bear upon your right hip. The crescent.” Tears burned my eyes. But my mother went on. “You’re a far more powerful Witch than I have ever been, Raven.”

“No. ”Tis not true. I can barely cast a decent circle.“

She laughed then, softly, and the sound of it touched my heart. That she could laugh at a time like this only made me love and respect her more than I already did, though I’d never have thought it possible.

“I speak not of the form of ritual, but the force, Raven. The power is strong in you. And you will need that strength. When this is over, child, you must leave here. Go to the New World. My sister, Eleanor, is there, in a township called Sanctuary, in the colony of Massachusetts. She is not a Witch, and knows nothing of our ways. She was born of my father’s faithlessness and raised by her own mother and not in our household. But she is kind. She will not turn you away.”

“Perhaps not,” I said. “But I will not leave you behind.”

“I fear ”tis I who will leave you behind, my darling. “Tis the night of the dark moon, when our powers ebb low. But even were our lady of the moon shining her full light down upon us, I doubt I could save myself. Do not cry for me, Raven. Dying is part of living, a birth into a new life. You know this.”

“Oh, Mother, stop saying such things!” I cried loudly, sobbing and choking on my tears.

When Mother spoke again, I could hear tears in her voice as well. “Raven, listen to me. You must listen.”

I tried to quiet myself, to do as she wished, but I vowed she would not die tomorrow. Somehow I would save her.

“When ”tis over,“ she told me, ”you must return to our cottage in the village. But do so by night, and be very careful. You mustn’t be seen. Do not wait too long, child, lest they burn the house in their vengeance or award it to Matilda’s family in return for her testimony against us. You must go back in secret. Gather only what you will need for your journey. Then go to the hearth. There is a loose stone there. Take what you find hidden beyond that stone.“

“But, Mother—”

“And take the horse, if she is still there. You may sell her in some other village. But take care. Should you meet anyone, do not tell them your true name. And as soon as you can, book passage on a ship to the New World. Now promise me you will do these things.”

“I’ll not let them kill you, Mother.”

“There is nothing you can do to prevent it, child. I’ll have your promise, though, and I will die in peace because of it. Promise me, Raven.”

Sniffling, I muttered, “I promise.”

“Good.” She sighed, so deeply it seemed as if some great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. “Good,” she whispered once more, and then she rested. Slept, perhaps. I could not be sure. I cried in silence from then on, not wishing to trouble my Mother with my tears. But I think she knew.

When dawn came, it brought with it the magistrate, and beside him a woman, looking distraught with red-rimmed eyes. Behind them walked a man who wore the robes of a priest. He had an aged face, thin and harsh, with a hooked nose that made me think of a hawk, or some other hungering bird of prey. He was pale, as if he were ill, or weak. And then they came closer, and I could see only their feet, for I could not tip my head back enough to see more.

“Lily St. James,” the Magistrate said, “you and your daughter are charged with the crime of Witchcraft. Will you confess to your crimes?”

My mother’s voice was weaker now, and I could hear the pain in it. “I will confess only if you release my daughter. She is guilty of nothing.”

“No,” the woman said in a shrill voice. “You must execute them now, Hiram. Both of them!”

“But the law—” he began.

“The law! What care do you have for the law when our own child has become ill overnight? What more proof do you need?”

At her words my heart fell. She blamed us for her child’s illness, just as my aunt had done. No one could save us now.

I heard footsteps then, and sensed the magistrate had gone closer to my mother. Leaning over her, he said, “Lift this curse, woman. Lift it now, I beg of you.”

“I have brought no curse upon you, nor your family, sir,” my mother told him. “Were it in my power to help your child, I would gladly do so. As I would have for my own husband and for my nephew. But I cannot.”

“Execute them!” his wife shouted. “Michael was fine until you arrested these two! They brought this curse on him, made him ill out of pure vengeance, I tell you, and if they live long enough to kill him, they will! Execute them, husband. ”Tis the only way to save our son!“

The priest stepped forward then, his black robes hanging heavily about his feet and dragging through the wet snow. His steps were slow, as if they cost him a great effort. He went first to my mother, saying nothing, and I could not see what he did. But he came seconds later to me and closed his hand briefly around mine.

A surge of something, a crackling, shocking sensation jolted my hand and sizzled into my forearm, startling me so that I cried out.

“Do not harm my daughter!” my mother shouted.

The priest took his hand away, and the odd sensation vanished with his touch, leaving me shaken and confused. What had it been?

“I fear you are right,” the priest said to the magistrate and his wife. “They must die, or your son surely will. And I fear there is no time for a trial. But God will forgive you that.”

Pacing away, his back to us, the magistrate muttered, “Then I have little choice.” And the three of them left us alone again. But only for a few brief moments.

“Mother,” I whispered. “I’m so afraid.”

“You’ve nothing to fear from them, Raven.”

But I did fear. I’d never felt such fear grip me as I felt then, for within moments the priest had returned, and he brought several others with him. Large, strong men. People filled the streets as my mother and I were taken from the stocks. The people shouted and called us murderers and more. They threw things at us. Refuse and rotten food, even as the men bound our hands behind our backs and tossed us onto a rickety wagon, pulled by a single horse. I crawled close to my mother, where she sat straight and proud in that wagon, and I leaned against her, my head on her shoulder, my arms straining at their bonds, but unable to embrace her.

“Be strong,” she told me. “Be brave, Raven. Don’t let them see you tremble in fear before them.”

“I’m trying,” I whispered.

The wagon drew to a stop, and the ride had been all too short. I looked up to see a gallows, one used so often it looked to be a permanent fixture here. I was dragged from the wagon, and my mother behind me. But she didn’t fight as I did. She got to her feet and held her head high, and no one needed to force her up the wood steps to the platform, while I kicked and bit and thrashed against the hands of my captors.

She paused on those steps and looked back at me, caught my eyes, and sent a silent message. Dignity. She mouthed the word. And I stopped fighting. I tried to emulate her courage, her dignity, as I was marched up the steps to stand beside her, beneath a dangling noose. Someone lowered the rough rope around my neck and pulled it tight, and I struggled to be brave and strong, as she’d so often told me I was. But I knew I was trembling visibly, despite the warmth of the morning sun on my back, and I could not stop my tears.

That priest whose touch had so jolted me stood on the platform as well, old and stern-faced, his eyes all but gleaming beneath their film of ill health as he stared at me… as if in anticipation. Beside him stood another man who also wore the robes of clergy. This one was very young, my age, or perhaps a few years my elder. In his eyes there was no eagerness, no joy. Only horror, pure and undisguised. They were brown, his eyes, and they met mine and held them. I stared back at him, and he didn’t look away, but held my gaze, searching my eyes while his own registered surprise, confusion. I felt something indescribable pass between us. Something that had no place here, amid this violence and hatred. It was as if we touched, but did so without touching. A feeling of warmth flowed between him and me, one so real it was almost palpable. And I knew he felt it, too, by the slight widening of his eyes.

Then his gaze broke away as he turned to the older man and said, “Nathanial, surely ”tis no way to serve the Lord.“

The kiss of Scotland whispered through his voice.

“You are young, Brother Duncan,” the older man said. “And this no doubt seems harsh to you.”

“What it seems like to me, Father Dearborne, is murder.”

“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live,“ the priest quoted.

“Thou shalt not kill,“ the young Scot—Duncan—replied. And he looked at me again. “They’ve nay been tried.”

“They were tried in the square by the magistrate himself.”

“It canna be legal.”

“His Honor’s own child is ill with the plague. Would you have us wait for the wee one to die?”

The young man’s gaze roamed my face, though he spoke to the old one. I felt the touch of those eyes as surely as if he caressed me with his gentle hands, instead of just his gaze.

“I would have us show mercy,” he said softly. “We’ve no proof these women have brought the plague.”

“And no proof they haven’t. Why take the risk? They are only Witches.”

The beautiful man looked at the older one sharply. “They are human creatures just as we are, Nathanial.” And he shook his head sadly. “What are their names?”

“Their names are unfit for a man of the cloth to utter. If you so pity them, Duncan, ease your conscience by praying for their souls. For what good it might do.“

“Tis wrong,“ Duncan declared urgently. ”I’m sorry, Father, but I canna be party to this.“

“Then leave, Duncan Wallace!” The priest thrust out a gnarled finger, pointing to the steps.

Duncan hurried toward them, but he paused as he passed close to me. Then turned to face me, as if drawn by some unseen force. His hand rose, hesitated, then touched my hair, smoothing it away from my forehead. His thumb rubbed softly o’er my cheek, absorbing the moisture there. “Could I help you, mistress, believe me I would.”

“Should you try they would only kill you, as well.” My voice trembled as I spoke. “I beg you… Duncan…” His eyes shot to mine when I spoke his name, and I think he caught his breath. “Don’t surrender your life in vain.”

He looked at me so intently it was as if he searched my very soul, and I thought I glimpsed a shimmer of tears in his eyes.

“I willna forget you…” he whispered, then shook his head, blinked, and continued, “… in my prayers.”

“If there be memory in death, Duncan Wallace,” I said, speaking plainly, even boldly, for what had I to lose now? “I shall remember you always.”

He drew his fingertips across my cheek, and suddenly leaned close and pressed his lips to my forehead. Then he moved on, his black robes rustling as he hurried down the steps.

“Do you wish to confess your sins and beg the Lord’s forgiveness?” the old priest asked my mother.

I saw her lift her chin. “ ‘Tis you who ought to be begging your God’s forgiveness, sir. Not I.”

The priest glared at her, then turned to me. “And you?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” I said loudly. “My soul is far less stained than the soul of one who would hang an innocent and claim to do it in the name of God.” Then I looked down at the crowd below us. “And far less stained than the souls of those who would turn out to watch murder being done!”

The crowd of spectators went silent, and I saw Duncan stop in his tracks there on the ground below us. He turned slowly, looking up and straight into my eyes. “Nay,” he said, his voice firm. “Tis wrong, an‘ I willna allow it!“ Then suddenly he lunged forward, toward the steps again. But the guard at the bottom caught him in burly arms and flung him to the ground. A crowd closed around him as he tried to get up, and he was blocked from my view. I prayed they would not harm him.

“Be damned, then,” the old priest said, and he turned away.

The hangman came to place a hood over my mother’s head, but she flinched away from it. “Look upon my face as you kill me, if you have the courage.”

Snarling, the man tossed the hood to the floor and never offered one to me. He took his spot by the lever that would end our lives. And I looked below again to see Duncan there, struggling while three large men held him fast. I had no idea what he thought he could do to prevent our deaths, but ’twas obvious he’d tried. Was still trying.

“Tis wrong! Dinna do this thing, Nathanial!“ he shouted over and over, but his words fell on deaf ears.

“Take heart,” my mother whispered. “You will see him again. And know this, my darling. I love you.”

I turned to meet her loving eyes. And then the floor fell away from beneath my feet, and I plunged through it. I heard Duncan’s anguished cry. Then the rope reached its end, and there was a sudden painful snap in my neck that made my head explode and my vision turn red. And then no more. Only darkness.

Chapter 2

Duncan didn’t even know her name.

He didn’t even know her name.

And yet he felt as if he’d lost a treasured friend… more than that, even. ’Twas as if a part of his own soul had just been brutally murdered in the town square.

Her surname, St. James, he’d heard that much muttered in the streets. More than that he didn’t know. Might never know.

“I tried,” he whispered. “God knows I tried.”

He’d been moved, beyond all reason, all logic, when he’d heard her strong, deep voice and the courage it held as it rang out over the spectators, shaming them as they should well be shamed. And he’d known then that he had to try. Though he had no idea now what he could have done, even had they let him pass. Even had he reached her again. Perhaps he’d been a bit mad.

Perhaps she truly was a Witch and had cast some spell, some enchantment, o’er his heart there on the gallows. He didn’t know. He only knew that something had possessed him—some sudden, violent, desperate need to save her.

And that he’d failed.

She swung slowly from the end of a rope beside her mother, her life snuffed out far too soon. And he realized, by the cold dampness seeping through his robes and chilling his legs, that he knelt now, before the gallows. He seemed to have fallen right where he’d been standing when the trapdoor had jerked away from beneath the beautiful girl. And he remained there still, kneeling in the snow.

He got to his feet, but his legs felt weak and his chest hollow. Staggering forward, he snatched a blade from a local man’s belt as he passed the fellow. Ignoring the man’s outcry, he moved beneath the gallows, to gather the young woman’s body into his arms. He held her tight to him as he sawed at the rope until it gave way. Her weight fell upon him, head resting on his shoulder like a lover’s. Satin soft hair, snow damp and fragrant, brushed against his cheek. He closed his arms round her body and turned his face full into that hair to inhale it and to feel it and to commit it to memory—as well as to hide the inexplicable tears that welled up in his eyes. So warm, her face on his skin. So much as if she were only sleeping.

“What might you have been to me?” he asked her, his voice a strangled whisper. “What might we have been to each other?”

But he spoke to death, and death did not answer.

“Though it makes no sense, lass, my heart is broken. I didna know you at all, an’ yet it feels so very much as if I did. As if I always have.“ He rocked her in his arms, and a sob choked him. ”Can you hear me? Are you out there, somewhere, listenin‘, lass? I’ll give you a proper burial, I vow it. An“ your dear mother, too.”

He held her close, enveloped in a sadness he could not explain and a new certainty about the path he’d walk in this life. And he owed her thanks for that, if nothing else, he realized.

A heavy hand fell upon his shoulder. “What sort of spectacle do you wish to make of yourself, boy?“

Duncan turned to see the murderer himself, Nathanial Dearborne, his own trusted mentor. “Do you ken what you’ve done this day?” he asked the man.

Nathanial’s eyes narrowed, and he signaled to someone with a flick of his wrist. Immediately three men rushed forward to tear the beauty from Duncan’s arms, even as he cried out in protest. They bore her away, dumping her body on the back of a rickety wagon where her mother already lay. The man in the driver’s seat snapped the reins, and the wagon trundled away.

“Where are they takin’ her?“ Duncan demanded, addressing Dearborne but keeping his gaze riveted to that wagon—to her—until it rounded a curve and disappeared from sight.

“To the pit beyond the town. Best to get their kind as far from decent folk as possible, lad. You’ll understand one day. This was… for the best.”

’Twas murder,“ Duncan spat out, ”an‘ sin of the most vile sort!“ He glared at the man now that the wagon was gone from his sight. ”I canna continue under the tutelage of a man who would condone it. My studies end here, today, Nathanial. I want no part of your priesthood, for you’ve shown it to be one of purest evil.“

Nathanial’s cloudy blue eyes narrowed, but not in anger, and he didn’t shout “Blasphemy!” as Duncan had expected.

He simply said, “I’d hold my tongue, were I in your place, Duncan. You have no idea what sorts of forces you are dealing with.”

“I willna hold my tongue. I canna.”

Nathanial shook his head slowly. “You know the teachings of the Church. The elimination of Witches is our duty as Christians, Duncan. ”Tis imperative we wipe them from existence, rid the world of the scourge of Witchery.“

Duncan searched the old man’s face. He’d been close to him once, thought of him almost as fondly as he did his own father. No more. “An’ what will you do next, Nathanial, when you’ve murdered them all? What will your next mission be? To rid the world of anyone else whose beliefs differ from your own?“

Nathanial smiled. “The Crusades attempted that and failed. I simply seek to do my duty, Duncan. And ”twill be a service to all Christians if I succeed.“

“Nay,” Duncan said. “Not all.” And he turned from the man, feeling nothing now but loathing for him. A man he’d once thought to be closer to God than anyone he’d known. But Duncan realized now that Nathanial was nothing. Less than nothing. A killer who seemed to enjoy his work.

“Where are you going?” Nathanial demanded. “Don’t turn your back on me, boy! Answer my question!”

With a glance over his shoulder and an awareness of the people looking on, listening in, Duncan replied. “I’m goin’ to gather my things, Nathanial. An‘ then I’m goin“ to see those two women get a proper burial. After that, I only know I’ll be goin’ as far away from you an’ your kind as I can. You are no man of God, but a hypocrite an‘ a killer, an“ I canna abide bein’ in the same village with you.”

Then he continued on his way without another word, hearing the gasps and whispers of the townspeople as he passed.

It surprised him when a hand fell upon his shoulder. Stopping in his tracks, he didn’t turn around. For he knew that gnarled old hand well.

“Duncan, wait,” Nathanial said. “Perhaps I was too harsh. ”Tis obvious this morning’s work has distressed you. But there is truly no need to take such drastic measures. Surely you don’t mean to leave here—“

“Aye, Nathanial, that I do.”

“You cannot!”

Frowning, Duncan turned. Nathanial composed himself, tempered his voice. “Duncan, you’ve been like a son to me. Believe me, boy, were this action not necessary, I’d never have—”‘

“But you did. ”Tis done, Nathanial, an“ there’s no undoin‘ it now.”

Lowering his head, Nathanial drew a breath. “I am ill, Duncan. Surely you know that.”

“Aye, I know it. I’ve seen you growin‘ weaker by degrees, an‘ wished to God I could do somethin‘ about it, Nathanial. But I canna help you. An’ being ill, even facin‘ death itself doesna give you the right to go about hanging innocents.“

“I… I had no choice.”

“An’ I have no choice now,“ Duncan said. He turned away, having nothing more to say to the old man he’d once loved. But as he walked on, he heard Nathanial continue.

“Tis because of the girl, isn’t it? This is her doing.“

Duncan kept walking.

“Damn her,” Nathanial cried. “Damn her, she’ll pay. I’ll make sure she pays!”

“She’s beyond your reach now, Nathanial.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure of that, my boy,” Nathanial muttered.

Duncan turned then, only to see the old man walking away. He didn’t know what Nathanial could have possibly meant by his words. But it didn’t matter. The lass was gone now. Dead, and Nathanial was as responsible as if he’d pulled the lever himself. Duncan would never forgive the man.

He went to his stark room in the back of the church, to gather his meager possessions into a sack. He would never return here again; he’d meant what he’d said. This place had been his home for two years as he studied for the priesthood at Nathanial’s feet. But that was over now. What he had seen today—and what he’d felt—had changed him forever. He sensed it deep inside, though he had no idea how this change would manifest. He only knew he had to leave.

He only knew the strange beauty had touched him, touched his heart, and his soul, and his life, and that he would feel that touch for a long, long time to come.

Slinging his sack over his shoulder, he walked out again into the streets. People whispered and pointed as he passed. He didn’t care. He would have liked a horse. It was a long walk to the place where they’d taken the girl and her mother. But he sensed it would be only the beginning of an even more distant journey. That the steps he took now were the first steps on the way to his destiny.

The darkness that descended on me when I reached the end of that rope was a temporary one.

I remember so clearly the sudden, desperate gasp I drew, the blinding flash of white light that stiffened my body and made me fling my head backward as I dragged in as much air as my lungs could contain. The rapidly fading pain in my neck and my head. And the shock I felt as I realized… I was still alive.

I was… alive!

I blinked my eyes open and looked around me, and then my stomach lurched. ’Twas daylight, morning. Still early, I guessed. I lay upon the ground with the bodies of the dead strewn around me. The bodies of hanged criminals, and those taken by the disease plaguing the area. This was the pit they’d dug for this purpose. Every so often men would come here with shovels to cover over the dead, and ready the place for another layer of victims of the plague and the gallows. But I was not dead.

I was not dead.

I sat up slow, gagging at the stench of rotting flesh, and looked around me, frantically searching for my mother. I’d had no idea her magick was strong enough to save us from the gallows, but it must have been, for I was alive, and she—

She… no. Oh, no.

I found her, and my heart shattered. She lay still, her neck broken, her eyes open but no longer beautiful or shining like onyx. They were already dulled by the filmy glaze of death.

“Mother! No, Mother, no!” I gathered her into my arms, sobbing, near hysteria as I held her close, and rocked her against me. “You can’t be gone! You can’t leave me this way. Why, Mother?” But she did not answer, and so I screamed my question again, to the earth and the sky and the corpses all around me. “Why am I still alive? Why do I live, and not my precious Mother? Why?“ But I knew I would get no reply.

Not from the dead. Not from my mother. Her spirit no longer lived in this body. She was gone. Gone, and I was alone.

Eventually I sat back and looked down at her poor body, an empty shell, yes, but even so ’twould not remain here in this vile place. Not while my heart still beat on.

Gently I lifted her in my arms. I was taller, larger than she. But even then it shouldn’t have been so easy to carry her. I thought perhaps ’twas my grief making me strong.

I made my way out of the pit and took my mother’s body into the forest nearby. And there, I scooped away the snow, and scraped out a grave for her with no more than my two hands and a flat stone for a tool. My nails were split, my fingers bleeding and throbbing with cold when I finished, but I was beyond noticing the pain. I buried my beloved mother there, and then I lay upon her grave and cried.

When at last he reached the gruesome place of the dead, Duncan shuddered at the sight of the bodies strewn there. He pressed a handkerchief to his face, and even then the stench was sickening. And disease, too, hung on the very air here. One could smell it, almost feel it. Yet he searched for the dark beauty among the dead.

“Where are you?” he whispered as his gaze scanned the carrion. That she should be here in this filth even for a short time brought a fury more powerful than any he’d felt before surging through his veins. What was it about her that caused such reactions in him? Why did he care so deeply for a girl he didn’t even know?

“Duncan!” a voice called, and he turned. “Come away from there afore you take ill!”

At the rim of the pit a young man Duncan had called friend since they were lads together in Scotland sat astride his horse. Samuel MacPhearson leaned on the pommel, looking down at him.

“I’ll nay go until I find them,” he said.

“Well, you willna find them, my friend, for they be elsewhere. I searched myself only an hour ago. Arrived here faster by horse, I suppose, than you could by foot.”

“Are you certain?” Duncan asked.

“Aye. I wouldna lie to you about this, Duncan. I can see ”tis important to you. Or she is. Did you know the lass?“

“Nay,” Duncan said, making his way to the edge. “But it felt as if I did.” When he began to climb up, Samuel dismounted and bent to offer a hand. Duncan got his footing at the top and brushed at his soiled clothes. Homespun, and barely fitting. But all he had once he’d discarded the robes he no longer felt able to wear.

“Why were you looking for them, Samuel?” Duncan asked.

“Same reason as you, I’d guess. To bury them proper. I liked what was done no more than you did, Duncan.” He looked out over the dead and grimaced. “I didna find them, though.”

Duncan’s heart twisted. “Where can they be?”

Samuel smiled, but ’twas bitter. ”No doubt your friend Dearborne would claim they used black magick to rise up an‘ walk away. But I suspect there’s a far more simple solution. Some relative came for their bodies in secret. It happens, Duncan.“

Duncan nodded but met Samuel’s eyes. “Nathanial Dearborne is no friend of mine.”

“He was here, you know.”

Duncan frowned. “Nathanial? Here?”

“Aye, lookin’ for those two women himself, I do believe. An‘ if he got here afore me, Duncan, he must have run his horse ragged the whole way. I meant to ask him why that was, but he beat a hasty retreat when he saw my approach.“

The thought of that bastard laying his hands upon the girl set Duncan’s teeth on edge. “He didna find them? You’re certain of that?”

“Certain as I can be,” Samuel said. “He seemed to be still searchin’ when I arrived, and he had no bodies o’er his saddle when he galloped away.“

“What could he want with them?”

“Nothing good, I’ll warrant.”

“The bastard.”

Samuel’s brows rose in twin arches. “Ah, so your great teacher is a bastard, now, is he?”

Duncan sighed, looking at the ground. “You were right about him all along, Samuel, an’ I should’ve listened to you. Aye, he’s a bastard, an‘ a killer, an“ I told him as much.”

“Indeed,” Samuel said, slapping Duncan’s shoulder. “Half the town knows of it by now.” He tilted his head to one side. “They’re sayin’ she bewitched you, Duncan. Stole your heart right there on the gallows.“

Duncan lifted his head to meet his friend’s eyes. “Perhaps she did,” he whispered.

“Aye, I can see this has shaken you deeply.”

“An’ what’s shakin‘ me more is that I willna know where she rests. Even that small comfort has been stolen from me. ’Twas wrong, what was done to her, Samuel.”

Samuel nodded. “Tis yet another reason I’ve decided to move on. I’m takin‘ Kathleen and leavin“ this place. An’ Duncan, my new bride an’ I would be proud to have you come along with us.“

Duncan searched Samuel’s face. “Where will you go? Back to Scotland?”

“Across the sea, my friend. To the New World. They say ‘tis far different there. Opportunity for every man. The rich an“ the poor livin’ as equals.”

Taking a deep breath, Duncan thought hard about saying yes. He’d heard talk of this New World, this America, where religious persecution, ’twas said, did not exist. Wild and new and exciting. The idea appealed. But he had matters to attend to. Responsibilities to uphold.

“I’d like nothin’ better than to do just that, Samuel. But not now. I must first return to Scotland to face my father with what I’ve done.“

Samuel shook his head. “Angus will be furious, no doubt. He paid Dearborne an‘ the Church a goodly sum to take you in for trainin“.”

“And I’ll repay every bit,” Duncan vowed.

“After you’ve repaid the debt to your father, Duncan… what then?”

Duncan shrugged, looking off into the distance, seeking something he couldn’t name. “I dinna know. In truth, I just dinna know.”

Samuel slapped his shoulder. “If you decide to join us in America, my friend, just come along. We’ll welcome you gladly.”

“Thank you,” Duncan said. “I might just do that.”

“I hope you will.” Then Samuel frowned. “In the meantime, Duncan, I hope you’ll put this day’s doings behind you. You’ve a haunted look about your eyes that worries me.”

“Haunted,” Duncan muttered. “Aye, ”tis just the way I feel. I think that bonny lass will be hauntin“ me for some time to come, Samuel. An‘ I doubt—rather seriously doubt—there’s any way on God’s earth I can put her memory behind me. I’m not even certain I want to.”

Hours passed as I lay weeping atop my mother’s grave. And then the day itself waned as well. ’Twas night again before I could even think of leaving her. Even wonder about what I was to do now. And ”twas then I recalled her words to me the night before. I had promised I would do as she asked. I had promised her. I must keep that promise. But first…

I dried my tears, tried to reach for the calmness necessary to do what must be done. I searched for that serene place inside me. My breathing deepened. My heartbeat slowed. In silence I pointed my forefinger at the ground and drew an invisible circle round my mother’s resting place. And within that circle I sat, closed my eyes, and wished my dear mother goodbye.

For just a moment the wind whispered through the trees overhead in such a way that it seemed my mother’s voice spoke to me. Be strong, Raven. I am with you… always…

“ ‘Mother?”“ Rising, I looked all around me but saw nothing. Only the very thin sliver of the newborn moon appearing in the sky. Like a sign. To start anew. To find a way to go on.

’Twas what my mother would have wanted.

I brushed my fresh tears away and nodded. ’Twas time. But I did not close the circle I’d cast. I left it there, willing it to protect her unmarked grave from harm of any kind. That done, I forced myself to leave her there, so that I could begin doing what she’d asked of me.

I followed her instructions to the letter, sensing she might know, somehow, and be disappointed in me if I did not.

I went to our cabin under cover of darkness, and slipping inside I saw chaos. Our home had been stripped of anything we had of any value. Blankets and clothing, our copper and iron pots. Everything. Even my mother’s precious cauldron, which I’d hoped to take with me that I might be reminded of her each time I brewed a magickal potion or used it in ritual. She’d painted a tiny red rose upon its face. It had been her most cherished possession.

But it was gone now.

Something glittered up at me from the floor, and I bent to scoop up a tiny bit of amethyst the looters had somehow missed. Caressing it as if ’twere a diamond, I placed the stone in my pocket.

Our dried herbs had been torn from the walls and trampled beneath booted feet. Not a stick of furniture nor even the braided rugs that had covered the floors remained, and I knew without checking the shed that the horse had been taken as well. They’d left nothing untouched.

I went to the hearth though, tugging at the smooth round stones until I found the very large one that came free at my touch. And then I set it aside and reached into the hole it left. There was a cloth bag there, stuffed full. Frowning, I pulled the bag out and sat down on the floor, untying its drawstring and looking inside. There was a smaller pouch within its folds, a pouch I found to be heavy with coin. And a dark, hooded cloak, lined with fur, all rolled up tight to make it fit in the bag. And there was a book. A beautiful leather-bound grimoire, filled with page upon page of my mother’s delicate script.

I opened the cover and saw a necklace, a golden pentacle, with a cradle moon adorning one curve of its circle and the beautiful image of a goddess reclining in the moon’s embrace. I lifted the pendant and beneath it, on the page, saw a note just for me.

My dearest Raven,

If you are reading this, you are on your own now. Do not mourn me, child. If my lifetime ended, ’twas only because it had served its purpose, and now I will go on to another. But for you, child, it is only the beginning.

Wear the pentacle, for it holds all the magick I ever possessed. My strength and my wisdom are within it, and they are yours to call upon so long as you wear it. But keep it near your heart, and not out for the world to see. ’Twas never mine to wear. I only held it in trust for you. It marks you as who and what you are.

In this book are all the secrets I’ve learned. But the one I will tell you now is the most important of all of them. My daughter, my beloved Raven, you are not like me. And the path before you will not be an easy one.

Raven St. James, you are an immortal Witch, a High Witch, though you’ve never known such beings existed.

When you suffer and die for the first time, you will know that what I say is true, for within a short while your body will revive itself. And from that moment on you will be stronger than before, and will never grow older.

I know this must shock you. But you are not the only one. There are others like you, though their numbers are few. And not all of them are good and pure of heart, as I know you to be.

The stories of them have been handed down through the generations of my family, and I will tell you all I know, and hope you put the knowledge to good use, to keep you safe. But I fear there is much I do not know, Raven. Things you will have to learn on your own.

There are two kinds of immortal Witches. The dark, and the light. The evil, and the good.

In some previous lifetime, my daughter, you died while attempting to save the life of another Witch. Because of this, you were born into this lifetime with the gift of immortality. But this is only one of two ways that gift can be passed on.

The other way is far more sinister. By taking the life of an immortal Witch, one also takes that Witch’s immortality, indeed, all of her power. I can imagine you crooking your delicate brow as you read this, wondering how one can kill someone who is immortal. There is but a single way, child. And that is to take the Witch’s heart from her very breast, and to lock it up in a small box where it will go on beating forever. Whoever retains the box, retains the power. Witches created in this way are dangerous to you, Raven, for they are never content with the power they have acquired. They cannot be, for eventually, the captive heart will weaken, its life force drained by the dark one who took it. The Dark Witch begins to weaken, to grow pale and sickly just as any mortal suffering from the ravages of old age might do. And so the Witch must kill again and again, in order to survive.

Always beware of others like you, Raven. For you’ll have no way of knowing whether they be dark or light. You will recognize them as Immortals, however. By the necklace many of them wear, one such as the one I give you now, and by the first touch of their hand. I do not know how or why that is, but I know “tis true. Be careful, my love. Let no Dark Witch take your heart.

Hidden in the center of this book is a dagger that has been handed down through the generations of my family from time immemorial, just as this pendant was, to be held for the day when a special one was born to us. “Tis as if they knew, somehow. It is yours, Raven, meant for you all along, I am certain. Keep it with you always and learn to wield it with skill. You will need to defend yourself from attack by those others. Above all, child, trust no one.

No one.

And know that wherever you are and for as long as forever, my love remains with you. Always with you.

Your loving mother,

Lily St. James

Blinking in shock at all I had read, I let the book fall open to its center and saw a jewel-encrusted dagger, tucked inside its sheath and hidden by the clever way my mother had cut away the centers of some of the pages. I took the weapon in my hands, turned it slowly, felt its weight, and tried to imagine myself using such a tool to do harm to another living being. The thought made me shiver. I did not believe I could ever do it.

But there was more to try to understand. More, so much that my mind could barely comprehend the enormity of it.

“Immortal,” I whispered. And I knew, I already knew, ’twas the truth.

Chapter 3

The sack over my shoulder, my face concealed within the hood of the dark cloak my mother had left for me, I left the only home I’d ever known for the very last time. There was but a sliver of moonlight to guide me as the moon moved from its darkest void toward its first quarter. The thin slice of its gleaming white crescent was barely enough to light my way. I saw no one as I started down the worn dirt path on foot, more alone than I had ever been. But I should have sensed the presence. I was too wrapped up in sorrow and overwhelmed by grief to use my senses. Even as a mortal, I would have felt the danger, I thought later, for a Witch is more attuned to her senses than most. And since I’d quickened from a state of death, my senses were even sharper than before. They seemed to grow stronger and more acute with each passing hour. But for some reason that night, I tuned them out and focused only on my loss. My sadness. The fact that I’d lost the only person left with whom I’d had a special bond, a connection.

There was, I realized, one other, now. Another to whom I felt a powerful bond. An inexplicable link. A man whose touch made my heart flutter like the madly beating wings of a captive butterfly. A man… I must never, ever see again.

Those thoughts, those feelings, clouded my mind, dulled my senses, or at least made me ignore them. And then the cloaked figure stepped from a small copse of trees, into the path in front of me, and a harsh voice whispered, “I knew you’d come back here.”

I came to a halt, narrowing my eyes to see his face, but it was hidden just as mine was, by the folds of a dark hood. My dagger was still secured inside the book, tucked deep in the bag that hung on my shoulder. I thought of it now, and wished I’d been wiser in heeding my mother’s warnings. And yet part of me still believed this stranger to be no more than a simple mortal. He couldn’t know who I was, much less what I was. Everyone here believed me to be dead.

“Who are you?” I asked him. “What do you want of me?”

And in a flash a dagger appeared in his pale, gnarled hand—a dagger so like my own that the sight of it took my breath away. “Not so much,” he rasped. “Only your heart.”

It couldn’t be! But ’twas true, I realized as he lifted the blade and came closer and I backed away. Another immortal, one who wished to kill me. The horror of it was suddenly real, far more real to me than it had been as I’d read and scarcely believed the words of my mother’s letter. I glanced around me desperately, but the snowy, twisting road and a few lightless, silent cottages were all I saw. No one would come to my aid. A breeze blew snow into my eyes and pushed at my hood, driving it down and away from my face, revealing me to him. Though I realized now he’d already known who I was. He had the advantage, then, for I had no clue as to his identity.

I walked backward, my eyes unalterably fixed to the blade, the way it gleamed when it caught a thin beam of moonlight. “I’ve no quarrel with you,” I whispered, fear making my voice taut and low. “Leave me alone, I beg of you!“

His laughter came then, low and frightening. Harsh and raspy, that sound that made gooseflesh rise on my nape. “That’s not the way this works, young one. A shame you won’t live long enough to learn the rules of this particular game.”

Suddenly he lunged forward, swinging the blade in a deadly arc. I jumped back, gasping as I felt its razor-sharp tip brush past my midsection. I slipped, damp slippers and numbly cold feet unwieldy on the snow-covered road. I nearly fell but caught myself. And he lunged again. I sidestepped this time, yanking the sack from my shoulder and swinging it at him with all my might. It caught him from behind and sent him stumbling forward. He went to his knees, and I turned to run for my very life. But within seconds I knew he was after me. I heard his steps keeping pace, gaining on me. Heard his breaths rasping in and out of his lungs as we ran. It seemed his lungs would burst if he pushed himself any harder. He seemed weak… it must have been desperation, then, that drove him on. My own heart pounded in my ears, and my breaths escaped in great puffs of silvery steam.

A tree’s limb loomed before me, and I saw it only an instant before I would have run into it. I had to duck low, and as I did, I gripped the branch, pulling it forward with me, and letting it go when it would give no more. It snapped back, slicing the air with a high keen, and spewing snow, and I heard him grunt as it hit him. I thought he went to the ground again, but I could not be sure.

The woods along the roadside were my only hope. I could not fight him, whoever he was, no matter how old or weak he might be. I stood no chance of winning, for I knew nothing of battle. And he’d wielded his blade with the skill of long practice. Ahh, but the woods—they had been my haven all my life. I knew them as well as I knew the cottage where I’d lived. And I took to their protection now, running as fast as I could, never tripping or falling once. I’d bragged to my mother that I could traverse these woods blindfolded. Now I was forced to live up to the claim. I stepped into the deeper snow, shivering as its chill embraced my ankles, soaking through my stockings, and wetting the hem of my skirt. I knew my way, and chose a meandering deer path that bisected the woods at their deepest. And soon I was surrounded by the heady scent of pine and the whispers of those needled boughs brushing one and another with every breath of night wind.

I heard him enter the forest, crashing about like a lame bear. I heard his foul cursing as he hunted for me, and his labored breathing as he grew ever more frustrated. But he would not hear me. My soft slippers and light steps, though my feet were nearly frozen now, were all but silent. And yet I almost believed the monster could hear the thundering of my pulse and the roar of blood through my veins.

I kept moving, and soon I didn’t hear him anymore. Breathless, I made my way to the far side of the small wood, emerging on the road that led to the harbor where the tall ships would be docked. I looked behind me often, but I saw nothing of my attacker. I had eluded him.

This time.

I realized now how very dangerous it was for me to remain in England. Word of my execution would spread quickly, and the tales of my body disappearing would make for wonderful gossip. If there truly were evil immortals out there who sought to take the hearts of their own kind—and I knew beyond doubt now that there were—they would find me all too easily here. I had to leave. Tonight.

So I continued on the road, eight miles to the harbor.

And there, tired from my long walk and shivering with cold, I paused, taken aback by the graceful beauty of those tall ships rocking gently upon the water. Naked masts rose high. The sliver of moonlight reflected back a hundred times from the surface of the briny deep and spilled generously upon the painted hulls. In fact, I thought, I’d never in my life seen anything quite so lovely as those majestic ships floating gracefully upon the water. Like powerful creatures at rest. And it might have been that I could see so much more than I ever had before. Yes, my night vision was getting sharper, but I could also see farther and pick out more details. Like the mermaid with the flowing golden hair, carved into the bow of one ship, and the words Sea Witch painted in elegant gold script along either side of her. Lovely.

I was jostled by several people as they passed, and I jumped, startled. There were people here. Many people, and Mother had warned me often that ’twas not safe for a young girl to come to the docks alone. Even more true now, I thought. If I were recognized…

Yet I had little choice. I had to leave England, and this was the place from which to do so. I simply pulled my hood closer, better to hide my face, and moved on. There were taverns where the seamen ate and drank, fought and swore. And women of the most disreputable sort, lounging with heavy lidded eyes and painted faces in doorways, calling out to every drunken man who staggered past. The stench of fish, and of liquor, hung heavy here. So much so that the salty fresh smell of sea air was nearly obliterated by it. I heard bawdy songs, off-key and slurred, coming from one establishment, and I dared not go inside. But ’twas not the drunken seamen I feared as much as recognition. Who knew which of these men had been in the crowd who’d watched as I was hanged only the day before?

Tugging at my hood again, I gathered my courage, and approached a woman in a ragged, revealing dress and smudged face paint. She stood near the entrance to a tavern, leaning tiredly against the building as if she’d been standing far too long. But she straightened at my approach.

“Can you direct me, mistress?” I asked her.

She perused me, top to bottom, and I kept my face lowered, one hand holding the hood in place. She smoothed her coppery curls with one hand. “You in hidin’, are you?“

“Of course not.” It startled me, how obvious I must be. Would she know? Would she guess? Would she alert someone in authority?

She only shrugged. “Yes, you are,” she said, “but ”tis nothin‘ to me one way or the other. What are you doing here, missy? Lookin“ to find yourself a seaman to warm yer bed?”

I felt my face heat, glad she couldn’t see. “I only wish to know if there’s a ship sailing for the New World tonight,” I told her. “I need to book passage.”

“Ahh, a runaway then? Is it yer man you be escaping?”

“Is there a ship or not?”

Her drawn-on brows arched high. But she concealed her surprise quickly, giving me a crooked smile. “Yer a spunky one, you are. You sure you want to leave? I could put you to work right here, if you like.”

“I have to go to the New World,” I whispered. “Tonight. ” Several men passed and I fell silent, sensing their gazes on me. They didn’t move on right away, and I was careful to keep my back to them. “Please,” I said. “If you know of a ship…”

“Let’s have a look at ye.” She yanked my hood down suddenly, and I heard a soft gasp from the onlookers even before I jerked it up again. The woman was shaking her head. “Shame yer leavin’,“ she said. ”Yer a pretty one, fetch a goodly price.“

I lowered my head and turned to leave her. She wouldn’t help me if I stood here begging her all the night through. I had no time to waste this way.

But then she surprised me. “Hold on, pretty one. There be a ship leavin’ at dawn. The Sea Witch.“

I stopped, and slowly turned to face her again. “Not until dawn?” My disappointment must have been clear in my voice.

“Dawn is only a few hours off, girl.”

“Is it?” I hadn’t noticed. Nervously I glanced behind me, in search of the fiend who’d attacked me earlier. And then toward the group of young men who’d seemed so interested in watching us. They still huddled in the shadows not far away. And I still felt eyes on me. When I looked to the woman again, she was frowning, staring at me as if she’d seen something she hadn’t before. Perhaps ’twas my fear that finally touched her.

“I can fetch the captain, bring him to you,” she said. And there was a softness to her voice that hadn’t been there at first. Speaking still lower, she added, “Come with me, girl. I can hide you just fine while you talk with Cap’n Murphy.”

I jerked my head up suddenly. “And what makes you think I need to hide?”“

She only smiled. “I been there, darlin’. I know the look. Come on, now.“ She took my arm and guided me around to the rear of the tavern, over the cobblestones that were blissfully free of snow, and through a door into a dark and musty room with several blankets strewn haphazardly upon a sleeping pallet, and little else. She lit a lamp and left me there, and ‘twas only a short while later she returned with a finely dressed man who reminded me vaguely of my father, rest his soul.

He looked me over, sent an uneasy gaze to the woman, and then said to me in a gruff voice that seemed far too loud in the small chamber, “I understand you wish to book passage to the New World?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Tis not cheap.“

I fished several coins from my bag. “I can pay.”

Again he nodded. “I’ll need… a name. To put in the books.”

I knew the woman must have told him I was hiding, or running away. And I had no idea why he would help me on her say-so alone. But the looks they exchanged were familiar ones, and perhaps he trusted her judgment, as unlikely as that seemed. A man like him, a woman like her. Still, he made it clear he was asking for any name I cared to give him, and I gave him the first one that came to mind. “My name is Smith,” I said in a soft voice, one quite unused to lying.

“Smith,” he said.

I thought he battled a slight smile. He lowered his head, but crinkly lines appeared at the comers of his eyes. My father had lines like those when he smiled.

“It will not do. You’ll need to be a bit more creative in the future, dear lady.” He looked up again and winked. “Tis more convincing that way. For now your name is Mistress Hunsinger. Rebecca Hunsinger, and you are traveling to visit your…“ He rubbed his bearded chin.

“My aunt,” I told him, relieved that at least that much was true.

“Of course.” He took the coins I offered, examined them in his broad palm, then eyed the small bag from which I’d taken them. “Is this all the luggage you’ll be bringing along?”

I lowered my head. “Tis all I have.“

He nodded thoughtfully. “Well now, look here. You’ve given me more coin than is needed. Perhaps you’ll allow me to use the excess on your behalf.”

I tilted my head to one side. “I don’t under—”

“Certainly there’s enough here for a simple dress or two, wouldn’t you say, Mary?”

The woman nodded. “I know just where to find what she needs.“

The captain pressed one of my coins into her hand. “Good. You’ll send them along with one of the men, then. Meanwhile, Mistress Hunsinger, I have a feeling you’ll feel better aboard the Sea Witch, behind the locked door of your cabin, will you not?”

I blinked in shock at these two strangers and their unexpected kindness. “Why are you helping me?”

The captain shrugged. “I’m known to be a good judge of character, mistress. But Mary here is even better. Perhaps one day, ”twill be me in need of help from a stranger.“

“I’m grateful,” I told them both. “You’ve no idea how much.”

“Course we do, lass,” Mary said. “Go along with Cap’n Murphy now. He’ll see you safely to where yer goin’.“

The man offered his arm, and I took it gladly. Eager to put England far, far behind me.

He’d seen her! The woman… the girl… the Witch…

But that was impossible. He’d watched her die, held her lifeless body in his arms, cried for her, even.

And yet, for just an instant he’d sworn…

Duncan had come with Samuel and Kathleen MacPhearson to the harbor, for they were two of the finest friends he’d ever known, and he’d be no kind of friend to either of them if he didn’t see them off and wish them well. He’d long since exchanged his dark robes for plain breeches and a white shirt, and he’d joined them here.

With Kathleen settled in their cabin aboard the Sea Witch—Duncan had writhed in bitter irony at the name of the craft—he and Samuel had gone back to the docks for a pint of ale and a long goodbye. They’d been talking with some other men of their acquaintance outside one of the taverns, when he’d glimpsed the small form of the woman.

And though she’d been concealed beneath a dark cloak and hood, something about her had caught his attention and refused to let it go.

As Duncan looked on, the whore to whom she spoke reached out and yanked the girl’s hood down. And Duncan gasped aloud as he glimpsed her face. Her beautiful, haunting face. Huge dark eyes, and curling ebony tresses of hair. A face that had burned itself a place in his mind. He wouldn’t mistake that face.

She’d tugged the hood up again, almost desperately. He’d only glimpsed her for a moment. And he knew what he thought he’d seen was impossible. And yet ’twas not possible he’d been mistaken.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that overwhelmed him. The feeling that this was the same woman he’d seen die on the gallows. Though she couldn’t be. She couldn’t be.

He battled a burning need to see her more closely. To make sure. To know…

A spell. She must surely have been a Witch after all, and he was under her spell. Imagining her face on strange young women. Thinking of her eyes each time he closed his own. Catching the scent of her hair on every stray breeze. ’twas unnatural!

And he was sounding like the fearful townsfolk who clamored to see Witches burned or hanged or pitched into the sea. What he felt may be magnified, exaggerated. But ’twas certainly natural. All too much so.

“Easy, my friend,” Samuel said in a low voice, one hand on Duncan’s shoulder. “She only looks like the dead girl. ”Tis not her.“

“You saw?” Duncan asked.

“A brief glimpse of ebony locks is all I saw, an’ all you saw, Duncan. Get hold of yourself.“

“Nay, I saw more.” He strained his ears to listen as the girl spoke to the whore, and he heard her saying she must go to the New World, heard the whore mention the Sea Witch.

“Tis only the ale playin‘ tricks on your mind, Duncan,“ Samuel said softly.

Closing his eyes, Duncan whispered, “Aye. I suppose you’re right.”

But he didn’t believe the words he spoke. And the woman… she’d be aboard that ship. That same ship, with Samuel and Kathleen. And if she were a Witch, they could be in danger. And if she wasn’t, then she should be dead. Hell, either way, she should be dead. But he was compelled, obsessed perhaps. Whatever drove him… he had to be sure. He had to.

Lowering his head, rubbing his temples, willing his lips not to utter the words hovering on his tongue, he said them anyway. “Samuel, I’ve changed my mind. I’m comin’ with you.“

When he dared lift his head, ’twas to see his friend gaping. ”Duncan?“

“I’m comin’ with you,“ he said again.

“But… but the debt you owe your father…”

“I’ll send him what I owe as soon as I find employment in the New World. As easy to pay the debt off from there as from Scotland.”

Samuel stared and searched Duncan’s face, concern etched on his own. And then he glanced over toward the cloaked woman and the whore, but the two were already hurrying away, around to the rear of the building.

“What made you change your mind, Duncan?” His sharp gaze probed Duncan’s as he awaited an answer.

Duncan only shrugged. “A feeling,” he said. “Just a feeling in my belly that ”tis the right decision. I can explain no more than that.“ He met Samuel’s gaze. ”Dinna ask me to.“

Samuel nodded, but again stared off in the direction the women had gone. “I dinna need to ask, I fear. Duncan, think! You saw the girl die.”

“Aye. I’m not likely to forget it, Samuel.”

Still Samuel stared at him.

Duncan forced a smile. ’Twas only a momentary lapse,“ he said. ”An‘ my decision has naught to do with her. I only feel… a need to be away. To go to some shore so distant that I’ll forget the blood I saw spilled here. Forget… forget her.“ But even as he said the words, he knew ”twas impossible. He’d never forget her.

Sighing deeply, Samuel nodded. “I’ll take you at your word, for now. And be glad of it, too.” He slapped Duncan on the shoulder. ’Twill be the adventure of a lifetime, Duncan Wallace. I promise you that!“

“I have no doubt ”twill be all of that and more,“ Duncan said, but he wasn’t smiling the way Samuel was. Instead he felt physically weak, and shaky, as if a fever were coming on, and atop that was an icy chill in his heart—indeed, in his very soul.

He was able to purchase space in a cabin for the passage to Boston Harbor in Massachusetts Bay Colony aboard the Sea Witch. He had his bag with him, the one containing all his worldly possessions, which amounted to a pathetically small bundle. He’d been planning to go on to Scotland as soon as he saw his friends off. But now his destiny seemed to be taking a sudden and unexpected turn. He was going to the New World, lured there, perhaps, by one of the very sirens he’d heard the seamen talk of. A Witch. A specter. A dead woman crooked her finger, and Duncan Wallace followed. He felt foolish, too foolish to tell Samuel the truth… that he still believed he’d seen her.

But not too foolish to make inquiries about her once he boarded the ship. He tried to be subtle. But though a few of the other passengers did indeed say they’d seen a woman such as the one he described aboard the Sea Witch, just as many denied it.

The ship weighed anchor at dawn, just as planned. And Duncan stood at the rail and watched England—and with it an entire phase of his life—disappear into the morning mist. Before his eyes it became a part of his past.

Except for her. She was present, in his mind, haunting him, always. In his dreams she came to him. He could not shake her image from his every thought. Duncan haunted the decks, searched every group of faces for her cream-skinned beauty, but never saw her. And finally he asked the captain himself. For if anyone would know, he would. He met the man at the helm, overseeing his navigator and manning the wheel. A stiff breeze mussed his silvery hair, but he faced it as if loving it, even as Duncan posed his question.

Captain Murphy shook his head slowly. “No. Sony, but I can’t say we’ve anyone aboard like that.”

“Are you sure?” Duncan asked. And he knew he must sound desperate, but he’d seen her. He hadn’t imagined it or hallucinated or dreamed it. He’d seen her.

The captain smiled. “I’m not so old I wouldn’t notice a beauty such as the one you’ve described, son. No, I tell you, she’s not aboard ship.” Then the older man frowned, searching Duncan’s face. “You don’t look well, young man. You be feeling poorly?”

The man’s face was more than speculative, and Duncan couldn’t blame him. This ship had departed not far from a town ravaged by the plague of late. If Duncan showed signs of illness, the captain would have no choice but to put him off in a dinghy, for the protection of the passengers and the crew. And the truth was, Duncan wasn’t feeling up to snuff, and hadn’t been since boarding this vessel. And he was worried. But he was also taking great care not to touch anyone else physically, and he stayed well away from the others as he searched the decks for his mysterious beauty. He had no desire to spread illness, if indeed he were becoming ill.

Samuel, of course, had been far too busy, in the confines of his cabin with his new wife, to notice Duncan’s behavior. All for the best.

“I’m fine,” he told the captain. “Tired, though. An’ a wee bit seasick, I fear.“

The captain nodded, smiling. “It will pass, once your stomach gets used to the rocking,” he said. “You haven’t told me your name, lad.”

“My manners are lacking. I am Duncan Wallace.”

“I thought I detected a hint of the Scot in your voice.”

“Aye, ”tis true.“

“Captain Davis Murphy,” he said, extending a hand.

Duncan couldn’t shake, for fear of making the man ill. So he pretended to lose his footing, and gripped the rail. “If you dinna mind, Captain, I’ll be goin’ back to my cabin now.“

“Of course.”

As he left, Duncan felt the man’s eyes on him. And he wondered if he’d fooled the captain even for a moment.

The journey was going to be exciting, I knew it from the moment we set sail. I spent much of my time sewing, mending my old clothes while wearing the ones the captain had sent to my cabin. I was grateful that I’d have presentable clothing to wear when I met my aunt Eleanor. But more of my time was spent on the decks of the magnificent vessel, staring out over the endless waters. I did so by night, of course, for I could not risk being recognized. But I loved the night, and always had. There was a magickal quality about wandering the decks alone, with no one else about save a few crewmen doing their jobs.

There was something about the sea that moved me. Such a magnitude of power surging beneath the tall ship. I was mesmerized by its endless rhythm, its mystery. And the wind that made those sails billow never let us down. I heard the captain remark more than once that he’d seldom seen the weather more cooperative. I only smiled to myself, and silently whispered thanks to my mother for all she’d taught me.

But as Captain Murphy approached me one night, I saw a certain grimness in his eyes. And I frowned at him. But he merely smiled in return, easing my mind somewhat.

“How are you enjoying the journey?” he asked me.

“Tremendously! I saw a great fish,” I told him. “Big as a house, way off in that direction.” And I pointed.

“Then your eyes are better than my lookout’s, mistress. He’s reported no such sighting.”

I lifted my chin a bit. “No, neither did the crewmen I pointed it out to. I fear they didn’t believe me.”

“Of course they did. ”Twas a whale, .dear girl. They’ve seen them before.“

I nodded. A whale. My vision had reached a whole new level now, enabling me to see much farther than the mortals aboard. And my other senses were sharper, too. These things amazed me but troubled me, also, for they only served to remind me how very little I knew of my new nature.

“I have some news which might disturb you,” the captain said. And as I tilted my head, he went on. “There’s a man aboard ship who’s been asking after you.”

My heart froze. I swore it stopped beating as I recalled the hooded figure who’d attacked me. And the captain must have seen my reaction in my face, for he paled.

“What man?” I asked. “What did he look like?”

“Young, dark hair and brown eyes. Said his name was Duncan Wallace.”

I caught my breath, but the captain was still speaking.

“There’s no need for you to fear him. I told him no woman such as he described was aboard. But ”tis of no matter at any rate. I plan to put him off soon.“

“Put him off?” I felt my eyes widen. He mustn’t.

The captain nodded. “I’ll wait until we reach a port, if I can, but if his symptoms continue, it will have to be sooner. I can’t risk everyone aboard for the sake of one soul.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, searching the captain’s face. “I know you to be a kind man, Captain Murphy. Why would you do such a thing?”

The captain lowered his head. “I believe the man to be ill.”

My eyes grew still wider. “No,” I whispered. Not him, not the man I thought of nightly, the man who visited me in dreams I knew would never be more than that. “The plague?” I asked, breathlessly, thinking of my father, and little Johnny, and how helpless my mother and I had been to help either of them.

“I can’t know that. But ”tis not a risk I can take.“

I nodded slowly. Duncan Wallace. He was more than just a man who’d touched my soul. He was a priest, or would soon become one. A man who was associated in some way with the priest who’d murdered my mother. A man who’d tried to save us. Who’d seen us die. Was he following me? And if he was, then to what purpose? Did he know, or suspect that I lived still? Would he execute me again himself if he knew what I was? Was he working with that horrible old man? Or was there some other reason?

I could not trust him, despite his honorable and brave actions that cold dawn. Despite the feelings his touch had brought to life inside me. I could not trust him.

But I could not let him be put off this ship, for he would surely die. He’d tried to save my life, no matter what his intentions toward me now. I owed the man.

“I’ve had experience with the plague, Captain Murphy,” I said quite softly. “I could easily tell by examining the man if it is that or some other illness.”

The captain frowned at me. “You could be infected yourself, mistress. Even the ship’s physician refuses to go near the man to examine him.”

I shook my head firmly. “I won’t become infected. I’ve cared for countless victims. I’ve never become ill.” He still looked reluctant. “Surely you’d not wish to send a man to his death needlessly?” I asked him.

“Of course not. But, mistress, I thought you… you feared this Wallace.”“

I shook my head. “No, I do not fear him.” I should, I thought, but somehow, I couldn’t manage to convince myself to be afraid of the brown-eyed priest. I cleared my throat. “Nor do I trust him. Captain, if I could look on him without him seeing me…”

The captain lowered his head, rubbing his chin whiskers in thought. “There might be a way.” Then he nodded. “Yes, I think it might work. Let me work on this now. Wait for me in your cabin. I’ll come for you when all is ready.”

I nodded my agreement. But I was not at ease as I returned to my cabin and waited there for word from the captain. I paced, nervous and frightened. I was taking a risk, I knew it. But as I thought of Duncan, of his eyes and the feeling, that sense of connection, that had passed between us there on the gallows, I knew I had no choice. Secretly, I’d longed to see him again. To thank him for what he’d tried to do. To feel that force moving between us once more. To touch his face, his hair, the way he’d touched mine. I’d longed… but secretly. It had been a fantasy. A dream I’d believed had no chance of coming true. Not ever.

And now it seemed… it would.

A tap came at my door, and I closed my eyes and stiffened my spine. “Who’s there?”

“Captain Murphy.”

I opened the door and faced the man. It had been more than an hour since I’d seen him last, and I wondered what he’d been up to, but I didn’t have to wonder long.

“We put a sleeping powder into some food and left it for him. I peered in only moments ago. He’s eaten every crumb and is resting quietly.“

I nodded, battling a chill of foreboding. “Then I’ll look in on him now. Take me to his cabin.”

I started forward, but the captain caught my arm. “Are you sure, mistress?”

Solemnly, I nodded. And then I moved beside him into the passage, toward the cabin of Duncan Wallace, and with every step, my heart beat a bit faster.

Chapter 4

Just when Duncan had decided his illness was little more than a passing case of the sniffles, his fever climbed dangerously high, giving him renewed reason for doubt. He’d taken to his bunk, pulled the covers up to his chin, and drifted in and out of sleep, alternately freezing and sweltering, shivering and sweating. Each time he woke, he felt worse than the time before.

Damnation. He was thirsty. Terribly thirsty, and his throat felt so raw it hurt to swallow. Bleary-eyed, he reached for the pitcher beside his bunk, only to find it dry. And the flickering candle beside it was burning low. How long had he been on his back? Hours? A day? He thought he might be approaching delirium.

The knock at his door couldn’t have come at a worse time. If anyone aboard saw him in this condition, they wouldn’t hesitate to pitch him into the sea. And he couldn’t say he would blame them. From his bed he called, “Who’s there?” in a voice gone hoarse and thready.

“Steward, sir. The cap’n asked that I bring a meal down to you. Said you were feelin’ a mite seasick, he did.“

Closing his eyes, Duncan prayed there would be water. Or ale. Any liquid would sooth his parched, burning throat. “Leave it by the door,” he called, softening his voice slightly because it hurt to speak any louder. “I’ll come for it by and by.”

“Very well.”

He heard nothing more and waited a good while to be sure the man was gone. He still didn’t believe he was sick with the plague. Miserable, feverish, aching, yes. But not dying. Not even close. Still, there was no use risking the health of others. When he felt it was safe, Duncan got to his feet, but his head began to spin the second he did so. He gripped the back of a chair, and it tipped over, toppling him to the floor along with it. Damnation. He was sicker than he’d realized. Could he not even walk on his own?

It seemed better not to try. The ship seemed to be rocking a bit more than usual tonight. Perhaps that was the blame. He crawled on all fours to the door, opened it, and glanced quickly up and down the passage. No one was in sight, so he hauled the tray inside. A fresh pitcher of ale stood upon it, and his thirst burned anew.

The food, the very sight of it, followed quickly by its aroma, made his stomach turn over. He dragged the tray to his bunk, managed to right the chair, and set the pitcher and cup upon it. Then he pulled himself to his feet and, leaning weakly against the wall, struggled to open the porthole. He dumped the food into the sea, eager to have it out of sight. Perhaps his stomach would settle down some, then.

That done, he let the tin dishes fall to the floor and sank down onto his bed. It seemed he’d used every ounce of energy, all his strength, just to accomplish this one small task. He was disheartened to realize just how weak he truly was.

He managed to pour himself a bit of the ale, slopping too much of it onto the chair as he did. His hand trembled and his wrist felt barely able to lift the pitcher. Then he drank, deeply. Hellfire, he’d never been so thirsty in his life. He struggled to fill the cup again but gave up, deciding he was wasting too much of the precious liquid. This time he grasped the pitcher in both hands and tipped it to his mouth, gulping the cool, frothy brew, letting it numb and sooth his throat, and dull his pain. It warmed him some—eased the aches in his bones and joints.

As a student of the priesthood, Duncan had never imbibed in ale overly much. Even that night at the docks before leaving England, he’d only sipped at a single mug, making it last the entire time he’d spent in the tavern. He’d had wine, of course, in very small doses. It had never disturbed him. But suddenly he began to feel even more light-headed and dizzy than he had before. He glanced at the empty pitcher in his hands and realized he’d drained it. The flickering candlelight made him dizzier still, so he lay back on his bed, fully clothed, and closed his eyes. ’Twould pass. The spinning in his head would pass, if he just lay perfectly still.

How long he lay there, he had no notion. He drifted, dozed, woke again only to find his head still spinning. But when he blinked his eyes open this time, the candle’s weak flame cast a dim glow upon a face.

Soft. Beautiful. Opalescent in the candle glow. The face of the woman he’d been dreaming about. The dead beauty. His Witch. His enchantress. Was he still dreaming, then?

She leaned over him, one hand sliding gently over his cheek, clasping his jaw and easing his mouth wider. She lifted the candle and seemed to be looking into his mouth. But he could only stare at her. The candlelight danced in her black eyes like the very flames of passion. Her lashes were as dark and thick as if she were a gypsy girl. And that hair. That magnificent hair, cascading and tumbling over her shoulders. Shamelessly free, and uncovered.

He moved his lips, tried to speak. “You… you’re alive…”

Her black eyes widened and snapped toward his, seemingly surprised to see him awake and staring back at her. Quickly, with a pinch of her fingers, she doused the candle and set it on the stand. And he heard her moving away, heard her soft, nearly silent steps crossing the floor.

“Please…” he whispered, and he reached out a weak hand toward her even though she couldn’t possibly see it. He couldn’t let her go, let her slip away again. He had to know…

Hinges creaked as the door moved. Her voice, the voice of his fantasies, spoke softly. “Tis not the plague, Captain, but merely a fever that will pass him by soon enough. If you keep everyone away, there will be no danger to the others aboard.“

“Are you sure?” The captain sounded less than certain himself. “Because unless you are, mistress—”

“I am certain. I would not tell you so if I were not. I owe you a great deal, Captain Murphy. I’d never repay you by lying about a matter so grave.”

The captain might have nodded, because he didn’t utter a word. Duncan’s head was swimming, and he was trembling with cold again, yet he strained to listen.

“I’ll stay with him for a while,” the enchantress said. “If you would bring some blankets, and the freshest water to be found, heated in a kettle. Just leave them outside the door.”

“But if ”tis truly safe—“

“I only said ”twas not the plague. Though his illness is not deadly, Captain, “tis most miserable. Best you spare yourself and anyone else from falling prey to it if you can.”

“All right. I’ll bring what you need. Shall I send the physician, as well?”

Duncan frowned when she spoke again, because her words made no sense to him.

“I can care for him far better than your physician can.”

Then he heard the door close and tried in vain to see her in the dark room. Her footsteps brought her nearer, but he might as well have been blind, the room was so devoid of light of any kind.

Her weight sank onto the bed beside him. One of her cool hands stroked his fevered brow, while the other tucked his blanket more closely around him. Her touch was heaven, cooling, calming.

“You’re going to be all right, Duncan Wallace. I promise you that.”

He closed his eyes, sighing at the comfort her touch brought to him. “You… you’re the Witch,” he muttered. “I saw you die.”

“No, Duncan. I’m but a stranger with a gift for healing. And you’ve never met me before. ”Tis the fever making you see another woman’s face instead of mine.“

She was lying. Even in this state, he knew she was. He lifted a hand, touched her hair, felt its silk just as before. He could even smell it, and he knew its scent was the same. “If you’re not the woman I saw hanged in the town square,” he whispered, “then light the candle and let me see your face.”

“The candle has burned out.”

He tried to sit up, to grip her shoulders, but she easily pushed him back down. He was too weak to fight her. Too sick. Sick. Damnation, he’d forgotten. “You should go, whoever you are,” he told her. “You could take ill, as well.”

“I’ve cared for many sick ones, Duncan, but I’ve never once become sick myself. You’ve no need to worry on that.”

He frowned, and as she leaned over him, pressing her ear to his chest, he buried both hands in her hair, caressing its softness, committing each curl to memory.

She caught her breath and went very still. But she did not pull away. Was she closing her eyes as he was, then? Relishing the feel of his hands in her hair? The beat of his heart beneath her ear? He imagined she was, even thought he heard her sigh in pleasure, before she stiffened her resolve once again.

“Stop, now, Duncan,” she said, but her voice was raspy and soft. “I’m only listening to your lungs, not embracing you.”

He ran his fingers gently up and down her nape. “I canna stop thinking about you,” he told her. “You’ve haunted me…”

“Don’t say these things.”

But he had to say them. Who knew when he’d get the chance again? “You mustn’t leave me again. You must tell me the truth. How could you have survived the hangman’s noose? How…”

She lifted her head away, and Duncan’s hands fell limply to the bed. “You are burning up with fever and imagining things. I’ve never even seen a hangman, nor a noose, much less survived such horrors. I vow, your imagination is a fertile one, Duncan.”

He sat up slightly, supporting himself on his elbow, so dizzy he could scarcely hold his head up. And when she moved close to him again, as if to ease him back down, he clasped her shoulders and drew her even closer. “Are you certain you willna catch this fever from me?”

“Of course,” she whispered, and he heard the fear in her voice. The delicious fear. She wasn’t pulling away, and she had to know what he intended.

“Good.”

His lips found hers in the darkness as if by second sight. Soft, moist, so tender. He kissed her mouth the way he’d dreamed of doing since he’d watched her die. The way no man of his background should even consider doing. But ’twas as if he moved, and acted, without his mind’s consent.

She tasted delicious. Sweet and cool and salty. Her lips were full and responsive, her tongue like satin when he touched it with his own. She shivered, or trembled. A soft sigh escaped her mouth, and he swallowed that sigh. His hands dived into her hair, and he deepened the kiss, parting her willing lips further, exploring her mouth, pulling her so close her breasts crushed to his chest. Her arms had gone around him, he realized, stunned. She was holding him, too, kissing him back. He lay back on his bunk, pulling her with him, until she lay stretched atop his body. He ran his hands down over her back and caressed her buttocks, and ached to be inside her, beyond the barriers of clothing.

She braced her hands against his chest and pulled her lips from his. “No,” she whispered. “You… you’re a priest.”

“And how could you know that unless you are the woman I believe you to be?”

He felt her shake her head in denial. “The captain… he said…”

“He’d not have known it either, pretty one.” Duncan closed his eyes, dizzy, and aroused to the point where it made him even more so. “I was only a student of the priesthood, lass. An‘ I gave it up the day I saw my teacher do murder.“

She was silent for a moment. “You gave it up?” A slow breath, he felt it warming his face. “Because of… of what you saw?“

“Admit you’re the one,” he begged her. “I’ve feared for my sanity, lass. Tell me you’re she who was hanged for Witchery in the town square. She who has haunted my mind ever since.”

“I am not.” But her voice trembled. “And you are quite drunk.”

“Aye, I fear ”tis true. They brought me ale and I drank it as if ‘twere water. I admit, I am unused to its sting.“

“And you’re half out of your head with fever.”

“An’ the other half with wantin‘ you.“ He pressed his palms to her back to bring her close, kissed her mouth again. His hands moved down her back, low on her thighs, and he bunched up her skirt to stroke the satin skin underneath. He arched his hips against her.

She pressed against him in return, and he heard her shuddering breaths. But she seemed to steel herself against him, and broke the kiss by turning her head to the side. Quickly she whispered, “When you gave up your studies, did you give up your beliefs as well, Duncan? Is it no longer a sin to fornicate?”

She said it in a clipped and harsh tone, and yet struggled to get enough breath for each sentence. As if she were as hungry for him as he was for her.

“I dinna ken what I believe. I’ve never…I’ve never wanted like this before. Perhaps you are a Witch, and I’ve fallen under your spell…”

She jerked free of him so roughly he knew he’d said the wrong thing. He tried to open his eyes, but it was so dark and he was so disoriented, he couldn’t be sure if they were open or closed.

“” ‘Tis a typical male who would find a way to blame his lust on the object of it. I’ve put no spell on you, Duncan Wallace. And if I did, ’twould be a spell designed to sharpen your dull brain, not to make you desire me.”

“Nay,” he whispered, feeling cold and empty as he listened to the sounds of her getting to her feet, righting her dress. “You’d have no need of a spell to make me desire you, my beauty, because I already do.”

“You’re out of your head with the ale and the fever.”

He sensed she’d turned her back to him. “You know not what you say.”

“Just tell me ”tis true. That you’re alive. That ‘tis not all of my imaginin“. ”Twill be enough to sustain me if only I know—“

“I am sorry, Duncan. But I cannot tell you what you wish to hear. If things were different, perhaps—”

“Dammit, woman, there is somethin’ between us, an‘ well you know it. Somethin“ alive an’ real passed between you an’ me on those gallows, an‘ you felt its power as much as I did, I know it. I saw it in your eyes. You stole my heart, lass… an“ I dinna even know your name.”

“You… are mistaken…”

A knock at the door interrupted her, but Duncan thought he’d heard tears in her voice. He feared she was leaving when she answered that knock, but she didn’t. She only took what was delivered and came back to him. He could sense the fever soaring high again. He was shivering cold, and damp with sweat, and his mind was wandering, drifting away before he forced it back with an effort. She brought him another blanket, and a cup of something hot and fragrant. She laid cool cloths, across his forehead. And then she told him to sleep. Gently she said the word. Again and again. Until he did.

But not soundly. Not so soundly he didn’t know when she spoke again a long while later, after he’d drifted in and out of sleep, perhaps for hours. Her words fell in a songlike cadence, or a chant, perhaps. He opened his eyes and saw her standing above his bed. How long she’d been there, he didn’t know. But moonlight spilled through the porthole now. A full moon, or nearly so. And she stood, bathed in that ethereal glow, and he could see her. He could see her with perfect clarity. Her eyes were closed, head tipped back, and she stood with her feet wide apart. Her left arm stretched upward toward the moon, her palm turned up as if to catch the pale moonlight that spilled into it. Her right arm was extended downward, toward him. She turned her palm down and pressed it gently to his forehead. And as she chanted, he felt energy flooding him. Filling him. Warm, potent, zinging energy.

Moon Goddess, Diana, send your healing hands, Move through me, renew me, and heal this good man.

She repeated the chant three times as he lay there. And then she went rigid, eyes flying wide. And Duncan felt a surge of something white hot and tingling jolt right through his entire body. ’Twas sudden, and brief, and then ”twas gone.

He blinked his vision into focus and scanned the room, trying to understand what had just happened. Then he spotted her. She leaned on the back of the chair, head hanging down between her arms, her face curtained by her glorious hair. Breathlessly, she murmured, “Sweet lady, never has it been like that…”

Duncan was breathless himself. But as he took stock, he realized… his head was clear. His pain gone. His throat, no longer sore. His head, no longer spinning. And he turned again to look at her, to see her and drink in the sight by the light of the moon—only to see her eyes widen in alarm.

“You’re dreaming,” she told him. “This has all been no more than a sweet dream.”

“No, lass, ”tis no dream. An“ what you just did—”

She held her palm toward him. “Sleep now, Duncan. Sleep.”

A wave of drowsiness suddenly swept over him, and his eyelids felt so heavy he could barely hold them open. “Dinna go,” he whispered. “I beg of you, dinna go. I dinna care what that was… what you are. I only need you to stay… please, angel… stay with me.”

“Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep and regain your strength. You’re exhausted. Rest, Duncan. Sleep.”

His eyes fell closed, though he fought to keep them open. And he felt her lips, warm and soft upon his… all too briefly.

“If I could stay with you, Duncan, I would. Believe me I would. “Tis better this way. I wish ‘twere not true, but ”tis, Duncan.“

He heard her leaving, heard the door creak open. Battling to stay awake, he forced words through his lips before losing himself to the veil of sleep that he could not resist. “I’ll find you again. I swear I will. I’ll find you…”

I’d never felt the power surge through me as it did that night. No, nor had I ever before felt the other forces that came to life in my blood then. The ones that burned in me when Duncan pulled me into his arms, when his mouth mated with mine, when he whispered that he hadn’t stopped thinking about me.

I’d never felt such things for a man. Not for any man. But I did now. For Duncan. From the moment our eyes had met I’d sensed there was something between us. Something new and powerful. I’d had no idea how powerful.

And yet, I could not trust him, could not tell him the truth. Secrecy was vital, especially from any man associated with the Church and her Witchhunters. He’d told me he’d given it up. But wouldn’t he tell me that even if he hadn’t? Wouldn’t that be the perfect way to fool me? To entrap me? Lure me into his trust, into his arms, into his bed, gain my confession and then haul me away? And what if I foolishly told him the only way I could be killed, what then?

No. I was weak where Duncan Wallace was concerned. My mother had trusted my own aunt Matilda, and now she was dead because of it. She’d written the words, emphasized them: Trust no one. No one.

I’d become hard that day they killed my precious mother. Harder than I had ever been before. But my hardness melted when Duncan’s lips touched mine. My wisdom faded away like mist in the morning sunlight. He’d tried to protect me once, yes. But hadn’t he just now accused me of bewitching him? Of making him want me by using some spell?

I’d heard it myself. Though he’d taken back the words, the sentiment that spawned them likely still lived in his heart. So ’twas best I not see him again. Not ever.

I remained in my cabin for the rest of that journey. The captain brought me my meals, spoke with me for a few minutes each day, and seemed concerned for my well being. He told me how Duncan had been quite crazed since his recovery, insisting a woman had come to him and made him well that night, demanding to know my name and where my cabin was. Most of the crewmen and passengers thought his bout of fever had warped his mind. Even his friends, the couple with whom he was traveling, seemed to fear for his sanity.

It disturbed me to let him go on unsure just what had happened that night in his cabin. To let him go on wondering how much of it had been real and how much a dream. But I had no choice. ’Twould do me no good to be with Duncan Wallace. Nor him, either. For what could come of it, after all? What could come of my falling in love with him? And I would—I knew I would. I’d have to watch him grow old, I’d suffer through losing him. He’d be forced to see me remain young and healthy, while he aged and withered. No. There was no point in following my feelings for him, none at all, for they would only lead to heartache for us both.

But often as I sat alone in my cabin… and more often when I sneaked up onto the decks in the wee hours before daylight, I wished it could be different. And when I thought of Duncan, of his kiss, a great heaviness seemed to settle atop my heart. It added its weight to the sadness already there, that which I’d carried with me from the night I’d lost my mother, and so I became quite melancholy. Silent and pale. I was told my eyes seemed haunted more often than not.

I’d mourned my mother for the whole of my journey, gone over the events that cost her life again and again, each time wondering if I could have done something to save her. But I knew this terrible grief, this near despair, was not what she would have wanted for me. She’d have wanted me to find my own life, to go on, somehow. She would hate knowing that I cried each time I thought of her. Her memory, she would say, should bring me warmth and joy, not sorrow. So eventually I vowed to try to make it so. I could not spend my life grieving. Not for her, and not for what might have been between Duncan and me, had our situations been different.

Often, in those long days of my solitary journey, I found myself thinking of the way Duncan had tried so valiantly to help us that day at the gallows. If he had succeeded, and died in the attempt, what would have been the result? I wondered if he would have returned to his next lifetime immortal, as I was. Such a thing seemed beyond belief to me. Surely not a priest, nor a man studying to become one! And yet the undeniable proof was in me. I had become immortal in just such a way.

I was changing daily—almost hourly—and these changes also occupied my thoughts. How far would they go? I wondered. Each day I grew stronger. My senses continued to sharpen themselves by gradual degrees. And I found that if I focused on my new nature, ’twas easier to escape my crippling grief. So many new and strange things were happening to my body.

I could hear conversations from a goodly distance, and hear them more clearly than before. I could see as sharply in the darkness now as I could by daylight, and had been able to do so since that night in Duncan’s cabin, even after I’d extinguished the candle.

By the time we sailed into the harbor at Boston Town, I could hear the fish swimming beneath the waves. I could detect—even distinguish between—the scents of each person aboard. Duncan’s above all others, and why that was, I did not know. I saw the purple line of the New World fully an hour before the lookout shouted “Land ho!”

Sanctuary was but forty miles from where the ship docked at Boston Harbor, and I was told ’twas a town on its own tiny peninsula that curved like a crooked finger into the sea. I was eager to see it. I waited, of course, until everyone had left the ship. Long, long after that I crept out of my cabin, half afraid Duncan would be waiting for me, even then. I even looked for him, searching the few faces I saw as I walked softly down the gangplank and along the dock and into the town. But he wasn’t there. I saw him not at all.

And perhaps a very small part of me… was disappointed. I told myself how foolish that was, but the truth was a lot of the feelings I’d been having lately were foolish. It didn’t stop me from having them, all the same. It didn’t stop me from craving a man I could never have.

Chapter 5

At Boston Town I purchased a horse with most of the coins still remaining in my purse. A fine black mare with fire in her eyes and spirit in her step. The livery man pleaded with me to take a more gentle animal instead, but I was insistent. From the moment my eyes met the animal’s, and she gave a sassy shake of her dark, flowing mane, I knew she was the one for me. I called her Ebony, for that was her color.

I’d taken to carrying my dagger strapped round my thigh, held there by the red garter my mother had made for me long ago. All the Witches of her family had worn one, she’d said. ’Twas laughable that I still wore the garter, when my stockings were long since too tattered to wear.

Beyond the dagger, I had only the drawstring sack my mother had given me, all my worldly possessions tucked away inside. Armed with a crudely drawn map, and pitifully few coins, I set out at dawn on the day after the Sea Witch had docked, bound for Sanctuary. My new home.

I rode on narrow paths, amid forests of such grandeur I’d never seen their like. The trees towered to the heavens, their trunks incredibly large. I marveled at the natural beauty around me, the forces of nature I could feel thriving in this place. There was great power here. I sensed it the way an animal can sense the approach of a storm.

After riding for an entire day, I estimated my journey to be nearly half complete, and stroked Ebony’s neck, praising her in soft words.

The dampness that coated my palm and her gentle nicker told me ’twas time to stop for the night. ”All right, girl. Time you had some rest. And me, as well. Though one would not think I should be the one to feel so tired when you’ve been doing all the work.“

The mare snorted as if in agreement, and I glanced at the area around me. Truly, there was little here. Woods that might be the homes of giants towered on either side of me. Ahead, there was only the dim outline of a well-worn dirt track, and even that vanished a short distance away as the sky turned dusky with twilight.

Sliding from the mare’s back, I gathered the reins in my hands and went very still, closing my eyes, listening to my instincts to tell me which way to go. ’Twould be far from wise to camp beside the road, lest some ne’er-do-well come upon us in the night. Besides that, Ebony needed water. She’d last drunk at midday.

Softly I scented the breeze, waiting. And my senses did not let me down. I’d suspected as much. I could hear, very faintly, the trickle and splash of a stream off to the left. Moreover, I could smell the water.

I glanced at Ebony and realized I needn’t have bothered. She smelled it, too, and looked eagerly off toward the woods in that direction. “Come on, then,” I told her, and led her off the trail and into the darkness of the forest.

It took a long while to find that stream. It seemed we walked a mile, though it could not have been that far. But surrounded by the lowering darkness and towering trees, I felt the full extent of my solitude here more than I had since leaving the ship at Boston Harbor. I was alone, in a strange, new land.

And yet, not quite as alone as I might have been. Somewhere in this New World was Duncan Wallace. And I wondered if he might be staring in awe at the virgin forests, or gazing up at the same purple sky. I wondered if he thought of me.

Ebony tugged at her reins, and I glanced ahead to see the stream, wide and bubbling like an excited child. I released her, and she trotted to its banks and bent to drink from its crystalline waters.

Hands on my hips, I inspected the lush grasses here. “ Tis a good spot,” I told the mare. “Tonight, we’ll sleep right here.” Using the length of worn and fraying rope the liveryman had given me, I picketed Ebony in a spot where she could reach both the sweet grasses and the water. Then I tossed my bag on the ground to use as a pillow. My cloak would be my blanket, the grassy ground, my bed. ’Twould do quite nicely.

A twig snapped in the woods to my back, and I stiffened, turning to look around. I saw nothing, but for the first time I wondered what sorts of beasties might roam these woods. Large ones, if the size of the trees was anything to go by. I’d not expect an animal to harm me unless I provoked it. A Witch is in tune with nature, and its creatures, and I’d come to believe that even wild animals could sense that and know instinctively that I meant them no harm. But these might be new creatures, animals with which I’d had no experience.

A rustling sound came then, and I forced my brain to calm, my senses to open. Slowly I moved toward the center of the place I’d chosen as my camp for the night and stood there, still and silent for a long moment, letting my eyes fall closed and my breathing slow, and lengthen. Opening my mind, I sensed the intense energy of the earth thrumming beneath my feet, and instinctively I crouched down to place my palms flat to the ground, the better to feel it, to absorb it, and fall into harmony with the forces moving here. Then, after a moment, I rose again, gradually unfolding my body until I stood upright. Tipping my head skyward, opening my arms to the heavens, I let the energies of the sky above me flow into me.

When I felt the familiar sense of being in perfect harmony with all around me, I lowered my arms to my sides and opened my eyes, feeling confident again that nothing in nature would harm me here.

And then I saw him, peering at me from within the trees, so much a part of the forest he nearly blended into it. But once I’d spotted him, my eyes focused, and he became clearer and clearer to me. A red man, dressed in animal hide all adorned with beads. His long hair hung in streaks of dark and light, and his eyes were very dark.

I’d heard talk of these natives of the New World. Indians, they were called. Or savages. ’Twas said they murdered and raped at their pleasure, and took the scalps of their white victims. And a chill of unwelcome fear slithered up my spine as I held his gaze with mine.

He did not move. Nor did he look particularly savage nor bent on my murder. In fact, he seemed natural there, in the woods… as if he belonged there. As if he were even more in tune with his environment than I could ever hope to be.

And then I realized… this was his home. It had to be his home. The sense of that came to me too strongly to be a mistake. I’d simply walked in without knocking and decided to spend the night without an invitation.

Licking my lips, rather nervously, I said, “I’m sorry if I have intruded. I’d like to sleep here tonight. If ”tis all right.“

He remained as he’d been before. Perfectly still, unblinking. Just watching me. And it occurred to me that he might not speak my language. So I spoke to him with my hands, as best I could manage. I pointed to myself, then folded my hands beneath my head, closing my eyes to indicate sleeping, and then pointed to the ground. Looking back at him, I waited.

He nodded, just once, and so slightly I might have mistaken it. I should thank him, I realized. But how did one make a sign for “thank you”?

Perhaps a gift. Kneeling, I opened my pack, searching my mind for something to give the man to show my gratitude and friendship, and finally found the small piece of glittering amethyst that I’d salvaged from my plundered home. But when I glanced up again, the man was gone.

I went to the spot where he’d been, but saw nothing, and the woods were so utterly undisturbed, I might have imagined him.

But I hadn’t, had I?

I didn’t think so.

Kneeling, I placed the stone on the ground, then returned to the grassy bank where my pack awaited.

I had a single biscuit in my pack, saved from my last dinner aboard the Sea Witch. I ate half of it, washed it down with water from the stream, and then lay down upon my pack, beneath my cloak, and slept. And dreamed that another man watched me from the shelter of the woods. A beautiful man whose face, it seemed, would haunt me until I died.

My nose woke before the rest of me. It twitched and sniffed and smelled something that made my stomach rumble. Then warm sunlight brushed my eyelids open, and the first thing I saw was food. Something golden colored and fragrant, resting on a slab of bark very close to my face.

Blinking and wondering vaguely if this were a dream, I sat up, grabbed the bark, and looked more closely. It was fish! Coated in something and cooked… still warm, in fact.

“Who in the…” I turned my head, scanning the woods around me, but saw no one. But it had to have been the red man I’d seen the night before.

I ate the fish eagerly, closing my eyes at the heavenly taste. And when I finished, and licked every crumb from my fingers, I leaned back, sighed in contentment, and muttered, “Savages, indeed. That man is kinder than many a white man I’ve known. Don’t you agree, Ebony?”

The mare only looked at me. Getting to my feet, I gathered up all my belongings once more, making ready for the second leg of my journey. But before I left that place, I crept into the trees where I’d seen the man the night before and looked for the stone I’d left him.

The amethyst was gone.

Nodding in approval, I mounted the mare, and we meandered out of the woods, to the trail, and began our long trek again.

And again, we traveled all the day through. I hadn’t expected it to take so long and, in fact, hoped to arrive at Sanctuary well before dark. I ate my remaining half biscuit, stale and crumbling now, at midday, and thought fondly of my delicious breakfast. But the trail seemed endless. Nightfall came, and still hours went by.

I was quite weary, and terribly hungry, when I finally rode into a small settlement with muddy paths running between a handful of small log structures more roughly built than any I’d ever seen before.

“Hello, mistress,” a deep voice called.

I turned in the saddle to see a heavy man with whiskered jowls and curious eyes.

“Elias Stanton is my name,” he said. “I be the town elder. What business have you in Sanctuary?”

“This is Sanctuary?” I asked, my heart sinking. I should have been glad, I suppose, that my journey was finally at its end. But this place was hardly what I’d expected.

The man’s eyes narrowed on me, and I realized my tone might have offended him. “I hadn’t realized I had come so far,” I amended. “My name is Raven St. James.” I saw no reason now to use a false name. My aunt would wonder why, if I did. “I am looking for my aunt, Eleanor Belisle. Do you know her?”

His bushy dark brows drew close. “I know her well,” he said, and I sensed a grimness settling about him. “Have you traveled far, then?“‘

“All the way from England. My ship only arrived at Boston two days past, and I rode from there.”

At that his frown changed to one of disapproval. “You traveled alone? Spent a night on the road? Unchaperoned?”

I’m afraid my chin lifted a little, when I likely should have assumed a humble and apologetic posture. “I had little choice, sir.”

“Well now, such impropriety will not be tolerated here, mistress. You might learn it now as well as later. Unmarried young ladies do not go about—”

“I am not unmarried,” I blurted. And my own words surprised me, for I had loathed liars for as long as I could remember. Yet the man’s attitude reminded me so much of the arrogant priest who had murdered my mother that I could not help but wish to take precautions. “My husband died, during our crossing.”

“You’re a widow-woman, then,” he said. His gaze roamed down my body, to my slippers, and up again. And I did not care for the shadow that darkened his eyes. Nor for the way his tongue darted out to moisten his lips. “ ‘Tis still unwise to travel alone, mistress, but at least not quite as scandalous.”

“I am weary, sir. My journey has been very long. Pray, direct me to the home of my aunt before I fall from the saddle.”

“Ah, yes, your aunt. I’m sorry my news is not better,” he said. “But your aunt has been taken ill. A physician came from Boston, as he does once a month when the roads are passable. He examined her and said there was nothing to be done.”

“What ails her?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

“Old age,” the man said. “Her heart has worn itself out. She’s all of fifty years, you know.” He shook his head sadly. “But ”tis good that you came. She needs caring for, being so far from Sanctuary proper. ’Twill be good for her to have you there.”

“I’ll go at once. If you’ll just—”

“Yes, yes. Follow this road, mistress. It runs along the coast, all the way to the very tip of the peninsula. High on the cliffs above the sea is where she and that man of hers, God rest his soul, built their cabin. Though the good Lord only knows why. ”Tis no more than two mile.“

“Thank you, sir.” I snapped the reins lightly, and the mare, though likely as weary as I, lunged forward. Perhaps she sensed this journey’s end was at hand. Or perhaps she simply found the little man as distasteful as I had.

I found the cabin just as the man had said, on the cliffs, with the mighty sea and its waves crashing below. But unlike Elias Stanton, I saw immediately why my aunt had chosen this site. I could envision no place more magnificent. Surely the gods themselves would gladly place their thrones along such majestic cliffs, while far below the rolling power of the sea paid homage.

The log cabin was humble but neat. And there was a crooked shed, which housed a cow and some hens, though the cow looked as if she’d been neglected of late, her ribs showing, her bag swollen. Though ’twas fully dark, no light shone from within the cabin. But of course, I could see quite sharply in darkness by now.

I took Ebony into the shed, relieving her of saddle and bridle, and rubbing her down as best I could with a rag that hung from a peg on the wall. Quickly I gathered hay from the small stack outside, and a pail of water from the well for her, and for the poor cow as well. And then I took up my sack and went to the cabin.

The door creaked as it opened, and I stepped inside to see a frail form hunched in a rocking chair beside a dwindling fire. I moved closer and softly whispered, “Aunt Eleanor?”“

The graying head came up, turning slowly toward me in the dim room. The dying fire was the only light, so I stepped closer that she might see me better, and knelt beside her chair. “Aunt Eleanor, I am Raven, the daughter of your half sister.”

Her parched lips parted, and her eyes widened slightly. “Lily’s girl? You be Lily’s little girl?”

“Yes, Aunt Eleanor. Lily’s little girl.”

“Saints be praised,” she whispered, and tears brimmed in her clouded eyes. “Oh, mercy, child, I thought I would never live to see you.“ She opened her arms, and I embraced her. Her thinness made me wince, but though weak, she squeezed me tight. Sheer joy gave her that strength, joy at seeing me. A welcome I’d neither expected nor hoped for… from a woman who was all that remained of my family.

Family.

All at once so much emotion rose up inside me that I could scarcely speak and my eyes burned with tears. She would never know what such a welcome meant to me. Never. But I’d be grateful for it all my life. And I hugged her back just as firmly, though with great care.

“You’re not to worry anymore,” I told her. “I’m here now, and I’ll care for you.” I sat away slightly, and kissed her careworn cheek. “You’ll be well again soon, Aunt Eleanor. I promise you that.”

And, of course, she was.

I pampered my aunt in every way I knew. By day I took long walks in the woods, finding, growing wild in this lush land, many of the herbs and roots that would help her. I never told her of it, of course. My mother had warned me to trust no one, and though I was certain my dear aunt would never intentionally bring harm to me, I was equally certain it was best I never give her the means to do so. I seasoned the meals I prepared for her with the natural remedies for her weakening heart and made teas of the tonics I brewed. Hawthorn berries and devil’s claw. Valerian root and chamomile, and wild garlic.

By night I performed quiet rituals over her bed as she slept, calling on all the powers of the Universe to aid in restoring her health. And of course, my magick was effective… though not as dramatic and shattering as it had been that night in Duncan’s cabin aboard the Sea Witch. Never once did I feel the surge of power I’d felt when I’d called down the power to heal Duncan. Never once. And I wondered why.

I thought of him often. Mostly when I lay alone in my bed at night, wondering what would become of me. Would I live alone for all eternity? Would I ever stop seeing the longing in his deep brown eyes every time I closed my own?

In between struggling with these unanswerable questions, I milked and cared for the cow and the hens, so that we had fresh milk and eggs aplenty. More than we needed, in fact, so that each day I would ride into town and trade the excess for other goods. Vegetables and game and freshly caught fish. Good for my aunt’s health, all of it.

Within a week Aunt Eleanor was strong enough to walk outside in the sunshine for a few minutes each day. Within two weeks she was gaining weight again, and the color had returned to her cheeks. After a month she was vigorous enough to supervise me as I planted a vegetable garden near the house. And at the end of my second month in Sanctuary, she was helping me gather eggs and nagging at me to take her to the Sunday meetings in the settlement.

I did not want to do this. The very idea of another clergyman, like the evil one back in England, glaring down at me with judgment in his eyes made me feel ill. And though this small church was no part of the Church of England, I was reluctant. But there was really no choice. I had to keep my secret, and attending services was necessary if I hoped to do so.

Since my arrival, no one had come to call on my aunt Eleanor, and I was quite happy to have it that way. People asked after her, of course, when I made my excursions into town. And each time I was asked, I would say that Aunt Eleanor was improving, and that we were fine and in no need of assistance. When they remarked that they hadn’t seen me at the Sunday meetings since my arrival in Sanctuary, I replied that I dared not leave my aunt alone for that long.

I truly thought I was handling things well, and discreetly.

But when I walked beside my aunt into the meeting hall that first time, I knew that I hadn’t. There were gasps and exclamations at the sight of my aunt’s rosy cheeks and shining eyes and renewed vigor. And for the second time in my life, my neighbors began looking at me with suspicion in their eyes.

Duncan worked like a mule, pouring himself fully into physical labor. And not just to help his friends, though he told himself that was the reason. He was trying to make himself forget. Forget her and the brief flirtation with madness he’d suffered while he’d been ill aboard that ship.

But no matter how hard he worked, she haunted him still. Her eyes, gleaming black and full of mystery and promise. Her lips, full and tasting vaguely of honey as they moved in delicious, erotic response against his own.

It hadn’t been real. He told himself that again and again as he worked by Samuel’s side, sawing timber, building a cabin, hunting and fishing, and tilling the soil. Cutting firewood, harvesting vegetables.

And though he did the work of three men, Duncan still couldn’t escape the memory of her. Neither the real memory, of her swinging from that noose, too beautiful and full of life to be dead, nor the false memory, the fantasy, of holding her body tight to his in a bed, of kissing her and begging her not to go.

He barely slept anymore. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw her there. She came to him in his sleep and loved him to the point of exhaustion. A gentle succubus. A seductive spirit. And though he knew ’twas only a trick of his mind that had created her, it felt just as real. Just as powerful.

He grieved her loss as if she’d been his lover. Ridiculous. But true, for she’d become his lover in his dreams. He was well and truly obsessed, and he knew that was no overstatement when he found himself searching the township of Boston for her. Everywhere he went, he sought her face, her hair. He was always, always searching.

And he feared he was cursed to do so for the rest of his life. For two full years had passed since that fateful voyage. And still, he found himself searching. ’Twas as if, though she’d died, part of her had remained alive inside him. Possessing him. He’d become depressed and moody, restless and irritable. And all the hard work in the colonies couldn’t cure him.

Samuel and Kathleen had tried to convince him to return to the pulpit. How would they feel if they knew the thoughts that plagued him? The fire that burned in his loins for a dead woman? He couldn’t do it. Not now, and perhaps not ever.

He’d earned enough by hiring himself out to help other settlers, and the debt he owed his father was finally paid in full. That goal reached, he felt adrift, directionless. The emptiness he felt threatened to consume him.

And then one day Kathleen returned from the marketplace with news that changed everything.

“I believe, dear Duncan, that I have found permanent and perfect employment for you.“ Her red hair danced in the breeze as she bent to set her basket of goods on the ground.

Duncan had been assisting Samuel in patching the roof, and looked down at his friend’s pretty wife in surprise. “You’ve done what your husband and all his cronies couldna do, then.”

“And it should not surprise you!” she teased, sending Samuel a wink and running a hand over her bulging belly. “There is a town two days’ ride north. Sanctuary, ”tis called. Their minister was called away, Duncan, and they’re sorely in need of a new one.“

Duncan lowered his head then, disappointment washing over him. “I’m no priest, Kathleen. You know that. I canna be, not after seein’ my own confessor, my mentor, commit murder.“

He didn’t tell her the other reasons, nor did he mention that it was that very same murder that kept him awake nights. The murder of the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid his eyes upon.

“You’re the closest thing to one, Duncan. Your trainin’ was all but complete when you left England. Besides, they don’t want a priest, just a pastor.“

“ Tis true,” Samuel said. “I’ve heard of this place. Sanctuary is but a small settlement. They’ve no need of pomp and circumstance there. Only guidance and a stirrin’ sermon of a Sunday morn. “Tis not the Church of England we’re discussin‘, after all.”

“I’ve already spoken to the man makin’ inquiries, Duncan,“ Kathleen continued. ”He’s at the Boar’s Head, and he’s hopin‘ you’ll come by.“

Duncan heaved a great sigh. “Samuel, you know my feelin’s on this matter. We’ve discussed it before.”

“Aye, I know them. But what better way to teach people tolerance and love for their neighbors than from the pulpit? You could change things, Duncan.”

“Not all men of God are like Nathanial Dearborne,” Kathleen said softly, sympathy for Duncan in her eyes. “I’ve known many fine, honorable men who preached to a flock. And so have you, Duncan Wallace. You cannot condemn the callin’ because of the acts of one vile man.“

Duncan knew she was right. “You’re a wise woman, Kathleen.”

“And well you know it,” she said. “Come, Duncan. What harm will it do to speak with the man? You’ve certainly had no better offers. The pay is fair and includes a cabin for you to live in.” She patted her round belly again. “And while I love havin’ you here, I fear ‘twill soon become crowded in this one.“

“Nonsense!” Samuel cried. “I’d been plannin’ to put Duncan to work as a governess, woman. Don’t go chasin‘ him off now.“ He laughed and nudged Duncan with an elbow. ”At least talk to the man.“

Duncan shook his head in surrender and glanced down at Kathleen’s gleaming eyes.

“His name is Elias Stanton,” she said. “And he’ll be leavin’ town in the morn.“

“I fear I’m outnumbered,” Duncan said softly. And perhaps they were right, after all. Perhaps he could do some good in one small settlement… if he were to take the position. He probably would not. But ’twas high time he leave his friends to their new life, their new home, and growing family. Time he struck out on his own.

And perhaps he’d find a way in Sanctuary to exorcize the beautiful ghost from his soul. He’d failed to forget her in all this time and seemed to think of her even more since he’d come here. Again and again, he would close his eyes and see her body swinging from a rope. Feel her in his arms or catch the scent of her hair on a stray breeze.

“Duncan?” Samuel tapped his shoulder.

Duncan started from his morbid thoughts. “All right,” he said. “I’ll speak with this Stanton.”

“Good,” Kathleen said with a laugh. “I told him you’d be there directly. Off that roof with you. And wash your hands afore you go. If I had time I’d take a blade to that hair of yours, but I suppose there’s naught to be done for it now.”

“You’d best run, Duncan, before my wife domesticates you thoroughly.”

“You make a good point, my friend.” Duncan climbed down the ladder and washed his hands. Perhaps part of the void growing inside him was because he’d left what he’d once considered his life’s work behind. In the various congregations scattered about here in the colonies, a preacher wasn’t expected to be without sin, as it seemed he was in England. Here he was still considered a man, flaws and all. Which was as it should be. Ministers married and raised families. Desires of the flesh, then, should not necessarily mean he could not serve.

Perhaps he would give it a try. Perhaps he could fill the emptiness in his heart. And perhaps, by doing so, he’d rid himself of the woman who lived eternally inside his soul.

Elias Stanton looked like a man with many grave matters on his mind as he sat before a pint of ale at a slab table, across from Duncan.

He shook Duncan’s hand but seemed distracted.

“I hope you didna wait long,” Duncan said, apologetic.

“No. If I seem impatient, sir, ”tis only because I have many problems to tend to. However, finding a new man to minister to the township takes precedence over the rest.“

“I hope your troubles are not too dire,” Duncan said, curious. Elias rubbed his hairy chin, and Duncan thought he had jowls like a mastiff.

“Oh, quite dire indeed,” he said. “Our town has a temptress nestled in its midst. A most improper young woman, truth to tell. An’ I believe she’s come to damn the souls of all the menfolk in Sanctuary.“

Duncan tried not to smile, though the man’s words amused him. “How shockin’,“ he said. ”But surely the men of Sanctuary have enough moral fiber to resist such temptation?“

Elias shook his head slowly. “I’m in hopes you can help them in that regard,” he said. “But ”twill not be easy. The girl is possessed of an unnatural beauty, and there is hellfire in her eyes. She’s neither humble nor obedient. Nor devout, for she misses services as often as she attends them.“ He shook his head in disgust.

“Perhaps the girl is unaware of the effect she has on the men.”

Elias took a long sip of ale, then set the glass down heavily. “She’s aware. Even enticed me to impure thoughts. An’ I tell you, not all our men have the moral fortitude and spiritual strength that I have. Some might be moved to do more than dream. They’ll fall victim to her wiles, surely. And that will be their downfall. “Tis why we cannot afford to go long without a minister.”

“I see.” Duncan wasn’t certain he did. Was Elias saying that because he desired a woman, ’twas her fault?

“There’s something evil about her,” the man went on.

Duncan felt a cold chill dance up his spine. Damnation. Such ridiculous discussions were what led to more serious accusations. Accusations like the ones that had caused the death of his phantom lover. And suddenly he thought that perhaps this was why he’d been led to this man, to this position. Perhaps he’d get the opportunity to prevent such an atrocity from happening to another innocent young woman.

Aloud, he said, “We all have a darker side, Elias. We only learn to control it.”

Elias frowned. “Tis more than a dark side, I fear. Abundance seems to surround this girl. While others in Sanctuary simply get by from one year to the next, she and her aunt grow wealthier by unnatural measures, and in an unbelievably short time. Two years ago the girl rode into our town with little more than the clothes on her back, and one feisty mare. Now she is quite possibly more wealthy than I, the town’s foremost elder! Imagine!“

“Aye. Imagine.” So the man’s pride was suffering, as well. Aye, Duncan thought, he had to take this position. He had to enlighten ignorant fools such as the one sitting across from him. Maybe he had a purpose in this life after all.

And there was something else, something Stanton had said, that had set off bells ringing in his mind. And then it hit him.

Two years ago.

Exactly when Duncan himself had come here. Exactly when the Sea Witch had docked at Boston Harbor. And if the ghost he’d seen aboard that ship had been real…

’Twas ridiculous. He was letting his thoughts run wild again.

But what if “tis her?

“What is the name of this temptress?” he asked.

Elias sighed deeply and shook his head. “No matter,” he said. “Tis my responsibility to put a stop to her mischief, and I’ve taken steps already… precautions really. You need only concern yourself with the moral well being of the community. Keeping them strong and steadfast while I make sure she does no harm.“

Duncan frowned. “What steps, exactly, are you referrin’ to, sir?“

Elias shook his head. “We should be talking about you.” And he began asking questions as to Duncan’s background, his schooling and experience, and positions on various scriptural debates.

Duncan found it very easy to guess the answers the man most wanted to hear, and those were the ones he gave. He had decided he wanted this position—wanted it badly. Because despite how little sense it made, he had to see for himself that this woman of whom Elias Stanton spoke was not the same one who’d haunted him all this time. And because, even if she were not… he had a grim feeling things in Sanctuary were heading rapidly toward disaster. And this time, perhaps, he could do something to prevent it.

If that wouldn’t exorcize his demons, he didn’t know what would.

“You simply must come to meeting today, Raven. People will think it odd if you don’t. The new minister is here!”

Aunt Eleanor fussed with the skirts of the new dress I’d made for her, then stopped herself. “Vanity,” she said. “At my age one wouldn’t think it a sin that would tempt me.”

“Wishing to look one’s best when greeting a newcomer is not vanity, Aunt Eleanor,” I told her sternly. “Tis simply good manners.“

’Twas the beginning of my third summer with my aunt, and the cottage looked very different than it had when I had arrived. We’d truly prospered. And my knowledge of natural magick was only a small part of the reason why. At least part of our success was due to simple hard work and smart thinking.

We’d set aside fertile eggs and allowed the hens to hatch them, over and over, until we’d raised well over a hundred chickens. We sold most, and kept many more, enough to keep our business going, and supply half the town with eggs. We’d twice bartered for the services of a neighbor’s bull, and our cow had produced twins both times. And, yes, I had used my knowledge of magick to help with that. All four calves had been female, and two would be producing milk and calves of their own very soon. Truly, we were doing exceptionally well.

We’d used our newfound wealth to hire the labor of some men, and now a small barn stood where the shed had been, and the chickens had a coop. We’d enlarged the hearth and built an oven among the cobblestones. And real glass, purchased in Boston, filled our windows.

“If you knew so much about good manners, child,” my dear aunt said, “you would accompany me to church.”

She made her eyes soft and pleading, like those of a child wheedling for a sweet. And again I marveled at how youthful and vigorous she had grown under my care.

“Please come with me, Raven.”

I closed my eyes in defeat. “Oh, all right. But if he’s as fond of shouting and pounding his Bible as the last one was, I shall get up and leave.”

“You wouldn’t!”

I smiled to let her know I was only teasing, and went to the bedroom we shared to fix my hair and put on one of my own new dresses, of shamelessly fine fabric and cut. I couldn’t help but think ’twas a far cry from the rags, tattered stockings, and worn slippers in which I’d arrived.

Reluctantly I tied my hair into a knot at the back of my head, and covered it with the small white cap with its dangling ribbons, as was customary. ’Twas considered sinful for a woman to wear her hair loose, though I failed to see why those silly townsfolk said so. I wore my hair down and flowing all the time, unless I was in town. And I was often tempted to do so publicly as well, to show them what I thought of their conventions. However, I had not forgotten the lessons I’d learned. ”Twas best to keep my strange ways to myself.

I was not a fool.

Though, perhaps I had been behaving as if I were. That Aunt Eleanor’s fortune had shifted so completely from the moment of my arrival had not escaped the notice of some. I could feel the eyes on me, hear the speculation in the whispers they shared as I walked among them. Perhaps ’twas time I convince Aunt Eleanor to sell the cabin and move away with me. I would not wait until it was too late a second time.

Sanctuary was becoming unsafe for me. I couldn’t quite smell the danger on the air… yet, but I felt it drawing slowly, inexorably nearer.

We had acquired a modest wagon, and I hurriedly went outside to put Ebony into her harness. She hated towing the thing, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her. However, the sight of my aunt and I riding double upon my horse’s back would likely have caused some of the townsfolk to faint dead way. And Aunt Eleanor might well end up on the ground, at any rate.

My aunt came outside the moment I had the wagon ready, a large basket in her hands filled with food for the meal that would follow services. I helped her into the seat, then climbed in beside her and clicked my tongue at Ebony. She set off at a jaunty gait, and despite the fact that she detested it, she did look fine pulling the wagon, feet stepping high, her long mane dancing with every step.

’Twas a fine day in May, not yet summer, but feeling every bit as if it were. A warm breeze came in from the ocean, carrying that sea scent I so loved along with it, and caressing my face and hair. A few strands fell loose, but I was enjoying the ride far too much to fuss over them. We traveled the worn track they called the Coast Road, along the very edge of the peninsula, and ”twas well and good I trusted Ebony to stay on course, for ‘twas more than I could do to stop gazing out at the frothy whitecaps winking at me from that broad blue expanse.

It could be said that I disliked and distrusted the people of Sanctuary. Elias Stanton in particular. But I was utterly enchanted with the place itself. The ground beneath me and the sky above. Sea to my left, and forest to my right. ’Twas like a magick circle unto itself. I felt the earth’s power here as I never had before, and perhaps it wasn’t all because of the forces moving in and around this wild, new land. Perhaps ”twas another bit of my new self making its presence felt. The ability to feel the places where Mother Earth’s power pulsed strongest. I sorely wished I understood more about my own nature. I knew instinctively there was far more to it than what my mother had been able to tell me. And yet how could I learn? How could I know? It plagued me like an unsolved puzzle. Why this gift of immortality? Was there some purpose to it all?

We arrived in town, and Elias Stanton himself hurried to our wagon and reached for my hand to assist me from my seat. I took it, though his touch made gooseflesh rise on my arms. The man’s gaze tended to linger on my form in ways that made me uneasy, and in his eyes I often glimpsed lechery, though on the surface, he acted every bit the gentleman. I knew ’twas a lie. I could see the worms in his soul.

“Ladies,” he said. “So good to see you both.” His hand lingered on mine, grasping briefly when I pulled. Then he cleared his throat, averted his eyes, and released me, turning to assist my aunt. “A fine day, is it not, Mistress Belisle?”

“Fine, indeed, Mister Stanton,” she replied. “But ”tis not the weather I wish to discuss, as you might well guess.“

“Ah, you’re curious about our new pastor, no doubt,” he said with a smile.

“Tell me about him,” she urged. “Is he young or old? Plump or poor?”“

“You will soon see for yourself,” Elias responded. And turning, offered her his arm. She took it, and he offered the other to me.

I was loath to accept. But people were watching. And more than ever, I was wary. I sensed something… something that made the fine hairs on my nape bristle. But I could not name what that something might be. I took his beefy arm and tried to hide my distaste.

“I vow,” Aunt Eleanor said, “nothing so exciting has happened in Sanctuary since… why, since my dear niece arrived and restored me to health.”

’Twas the Lord restored you to health, Aunt Eleanor,“ I said quickly, and I glanced at Elias from the corner of my eye. ”I only took away your loneliness.“ To Elias, I said, ”I do believe it may well have been the loneliness making her feel so poorly all along.“

“Indeed,” Elias asked, lifting his brows. “And are you a physician, Mistress St. James?”

My blood ran cold, and for a moment ’twas as though I was back in England, shivering outside the magistrate’s door while cruel hands held me fast and a demanding voice asked a similar question of my mother.

I blinked away the rush of fear that shot through me, and reminded myself I was no longer in England. That nightmare was behind me. And then I prayed it was true.

Fixing a smile to my lips, I said, “A woman physician? Oh, Mister Stanton, surely you jest. I wouldn’t know where to begin!”

His eyes, when they met mine, were filled with dark suspicions and blatant lust. And as we approached the plank steps leading up into the church, he pretended to stumble and leaned toward me, brushing his forearm against my breast. That I knew beyond doubt it was deliberate might have been intuition. Or something more. But regardless, I knew.

Startled, I turned and backed away, only to collide with a solid chest. Two warm hands closed on my shoulders, and suddenly I felt light-headed and breathless. His scent touched me, embraced me, and I knew before I even looked upon him who he was.

“Pardon,” a painfully familiar voice with a sweet Scottish lilt said from behind me. “Are you all right, lass?”

I stiffened, closed my eyes, opened them slowly. And then I turned, unable to do otherwise, and looked up into the face of the man… the man who, more than two years ago, had seen me die. The man who’d embraced me to the point of madness, made me want him as I’d wanted no other. The man who, by rights, should believe me to be dead. The man who’d told me he’d given up his ministerial studies. Duncan Wallace. Looking just as I’d seen him that first time, on the gallows. Once again dressed in the black robes of a clergyman.

Chapter 6

“So sorry, Mistress St. James,” Elias blustered. He straightened away from me, but I barely felt his unwelcome presence anymore. “A damnable pebble caught in my… oh. I see you’ve met our pastor.”

“St. James?” Duncan whispered, wide-eyed and suddenly pale.

If he revealed what he had seen on those English gallows… if he let on…

He suddenly gripped both my hands in his. His gaze never left my face but kept roaming it as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Panic caused my heart to pound. Panic… and his touch. His thumbs moved in gentle circles on the backs of my hands, and I thought he might not even be aware of it. I squeezed his fingers to remind him, and stared into his brown eyes, willing him to keep my secret. And then, reluctantly, I tugged my hands from his, though ’twas the last thing I wanted to do.

I remembered this man. Oh, he’d changed. He was no longer a handsome young priest, but a man grown now. And though it had been only two years, I knew that two years in this rugged new land were more than enough to bring about such changes. He was larger, broad across the shoulders and chest, and solid with strength. Even his neck seemed hard and corded with muscle. His hair was longer than before, but the same dark sable, pulled back with a thong. And his face…’twas harsher now. He looked weathered, as if he’d been through trying times.

All of this I took in, realizing that to his probing brown eyes, I was exactly the same. I had not changed. I never would. That he remembered me, too, was obvious.

“Do you know one another?” Elias asked, stepping closer, eyeing Duncan, and then me.

“No,” I said softly. “We’ve never met.” And I looked into Duncan’s brown eyes, silently begging him to say the same.

He licked his lips once, then looked past me to Elias. “Aye, the lass speaks the truth. Had we met, I’d surely recall it,” he said, his eyes laden with meaning. “Besides, I only arrived yestereve.” And then, smiling, he turned to my aunt, who all but shouldered me aside to take his hand in welcome.

“I am so pleased to meet you, young man,” she said. “I am Eleanor Belisle, Raven’s aunt.”

“Raven,” he said softly, glancing my way once more. When his gaze touched my skin, ’twas as if he touched me himself. I could feel the warmth of his eyes. ”So that’s your name. You can’t know how I’ve wondered…“ Blinking, he shook his head and turned back to Aunt Eleanor. ”I only hope I live up to your expectations, dear lady,“ he told her.

“Oh, I’m confident you will, Reverend.” And taking my arm, my aunt urged me up the steps and into the church, leaving Duncan to greet other worshipers as they filed past. But I could still feel his eyes on me.

When the sermon was ended, I realized I hadn’t heard a word. I’d been too caught up in the comforting sound of his voice to pay heed to the words he used. It didn’t matter what he said, so long as he said it in those rich, deep tones, with the lilt of Scotland in every word. I couldn’t stop staring at him, watching the graceful, powerful strides with which he would pace before the congregation as he spoke, and his magnificent hands gesturing to punctuate each line. His eyes met mine often. Those were the only times I would shake out of my state of blatant admiration of him enough to hear the words he spoke. Double entendres, shot like arrows at my heart as his dark eyes razed me in mingled anger and wonder and… something else. Scriptures about lies and deceit. And more, about desires of the flesh. The way they could burn a man, destroy him.

Was he bitter, then? Angry with me for leading him such a merry chase? It didn’t matter. If anything, the harshness I saw in his eyes now only served to make him the more beautiful to me. I wanted the man. I knew it with a sudden, urgent pang that left me breathless. But I knew ’twas impossible. For he was a minister. And I was a Witch.

I must put him out of my mind.

I must.

I could not.

After the sermon and prayers concluded, the entire population of Sanctuary turned out for the mid-day meal to welcome the new minister. It was held outdoors since there was no building yet large enough to accommodate everyone for the meal.

I sat upon a blanket near a shade tree, putting out the food my aunt had brought along, when I felt his gaze on me again. And looking up, I saw him, Duncan Wallace, staring at me. He did not look away when I met his eyes. Instead, he inclined his head very slightly and then turned to go back inside the church.

He wanted me to come to him. He’d made it quite clear. My throat went dry as I rehearsed in my mind what I would say to him. I’d gone over it before, of course. Many times I’d tried to imagine what explanation I could concoct should I meet anyone who’d seen me hang. But always, I’d been imagining this man in my mind’s eye. Secretly hoping, perhaps, that I would see him again one day.

“I left my shawl inside,” I told my aunt.

She only looked at me and winked. “Best go and find it, then, Raven. Before someone else does.“

I think she had some clue, even then, that I was truly going to speak privately with Duncan. But no hint of disapproval clouded her shining eyes.

I went inside and saw him sitting on a bench near the front of the church. My hands trembling, I went to him, stood before him, looking down, and thus having a view of the door beyond as well, lest someone come in and overhear the words he was going to say. Would he accuse me? Condemn me? I did not know.

Lifting his eyes to mine, he whispered, “Tis true, then, after all. You are alive.“

I swallowed hard. More than anything, I did not wish to lie to him. Not to him. But my mother’s words seemed to ring in my ears. Trust no one. No one! I could not tell him what I was. Especially not while he wore minister’s robes. Though it galled me to deny the truth to him.

“You say such odd things, Pastor. Of course I am alive.”

Holding my gaze, he shook his head slowly, wonder in his eyes. “I saw you die, lass.”

Feigning shock, I lifted a hand to my breast. “You have mistaken me for someone else, then. I’ve never died, else how could I be here?”

“Dinna lie to me, Raven. Not to me.” He rose suddenly, tall and strong and so close his body was nearly touching mine. “I cut you down myself, held your lifeless corpse in my arms, and dampened your hair with my tears. I…” He broke off there, closed his eyes and lowered his head as if he were too overwhelmed to go on.

My throat seemed to swell closed. “You… cut me down? You wept for me?“

He looked into my eyes, and I felt an incredible yearning build within my soul.

“You’ve haunted my dreams since that vile day, Raven St. James. And now you stand here before me, as beautiful and alive as you were the first time I looked into your eyes when you stood so bravely upon the gallows.”

I felt a stinging in my eyes, a burning in my throat. I could not deny who I was, for he would never believe me. No more than I would have believed him, had he told me he was not that young man I remembered so vividly. The lie, then. The one I’d concocted and honed in my mind over these past two years.

“I would know you anywhere,” he told me, and his hands clasped my shoulders, warm and firm. I could feel him wanting me, just by his touch. And I wanted him, too.

“I knew you on the ship,” he said. “You came to me then, when I was ill.”

He searched my face. I said nothing.

“Admit it to me, dammit! Have you any idea how many times I’ve doubted my own sanity since that night? Have you?”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Gods forgive me, I’m so sorry. Yes, Duncan, I came to you that night. I… they wanted to put you off, thought you carried the plague. I couldn’t let them.” With one trembling hand, I touched his cheek. “No matter the cost, I couldn’t let harm come to you.”

He nodded slowly, closing his eyes in relief. “I knew ”twas you. Even without the light. I’d know you even if I were blind, Raven.“

“And I you, Duncan,” I murmured, lowering my head. “I… I never forgot how you tried to help us.”

“Then you will tell me the truth,” he said softly.

I looked into his eyes… and I wanted to share this burden, this wonder, this miracle of what I was with him more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

And I lied to him.

’Twas a trick, and nothing more.“ I had to avert my eyes in order to force the words out. I could not lie to him while looking into his eyes. ”The dress I wore that day had a high neck. Do you remember?“

“Aye, I remember everything. The dress was brown, roughly woven, with small yellow buttons up the front, all the way to your chin. An’ your hair smelled of lavender.“

I was warm inside. His voice was like a caress upon my very soul. “Beneath the dress I wore a steel collar. No one could see it. It protected my neck from the noose.”

His eyes narrowed, probed, and plumbed mine.

“An’ where did you get this collar? They said you had spent the night in the stocks.“

“A friend… he stole into the square and slipped it round my neck.”

Frowning at me, Duncan shook his head. “Nay. Even with the collar, the fall could have broken your wee neck.”

And his forefinger danced across my neck as he said it, sending shivers down my spine.

“Could have,” I said. “But did not.”

His eyes were piercing, as if he sought to see inside my mind, to the truth hidden there.

“There was no life in you when I held you in my arms,” he whispered. “You were not pretendin’ that.“

“No,” I whispered, half afraid he’d see right through the lie. “I fainted. Perhaps from the fall… or the fear… I cannot say. But I woke in…” I shuddered at the memory. “In a horrible place.”

His face softened then. Slowly he lowered his head. “Aye, I know about that,” he said softly. Then meeting my gaze, he asked, “An’ your mother? Did she wear this trick collar as well?“

I closed my eyes, my pain all too real. “Someone saw my friend and he had to run away, or be caught. There was no time for him to help her as he did me. When I woke among the dead, she was beside me… and…” Tears choked me and I could not go on.

His hand came to me, stroking my cheek. I wanted to clasp it in my own and press a kiss to his palm. But I only stood still, closing my eyes at the feelings his touch evoked. Weak with relief that I was feeling this man’s touch again, as I’d so often dreamed of doing. Weak, too, with the remembered pain of finding my precious mother, dead.

“I went there,” he said. “To the place where they took you. But you were not there. Nor was your mother.”

I looked at him through my tears. “Why?”

“I couldna save you, lass. I thought… at least I might give you a proper burial.”

I smiled gently at him, and he brushed a tear from my cheek.

“You’re a kind man, Duncan Wallace,” I said.

“Nay,” he said softly, eyes going harder. “Not so kind, not when I’m lied to.”

I swallowed hard. He could be a dangerous man, as well. Dangerous to me. To my life as well as my heart.

“Go on, lass. What happened when you woke?”

“I carried my mother into the forest and buried her there.

She would have been pleased with the spot I chose, I think.“

“She’d have been pleased,” he said, “to know you survived.”

“She knew,” I whispered. And then I sniffed and impatiently dashed the tears from my face. “If you tell them what you know of me, Duncan—“

“I willna tell them.”

I could only blink in surprise.

“I willna betray your secret, Raven. I swear it on all that I am. But you must tell me the truth. All of the truth.”

I couldn’t look him in the eye when he asked me that. “I can only tell you that I have never brought harm to another human being. Not in all my life, Duncan. On my mother’s soul, I swear ”tis the truth.“

His hand turned my face toward his again. He searched my face for a long moment, his velvet brown eyes as piercing as before. And then he nodded. “I believe you,” he said. “But there is another question I have, and you must know what it is. I am a man of the cloth, Raven, a man of God, even though I abandoned my studies for the priesthood. And yet… and yet you’ve haunted my soul.” He closed his eyes slowly. “I have to know the truth. Am I damning myself by lettin’ you haunt my thoughts day and night? Am I, Raven? Are you, truly, a—“

The doors burst open then, and Elias Stanton, of all people, marched inside, saw us together, and stopped dead.

“Damning yourself?” I whispered, and anger swelled in my chest until I thought I’d burst with it. “How dare you?”

I took a single step toward the door and stopped when I saw the way Elias was staring from one of us to the other, his cheeks reddening with anger before he hid the emotion. Instead he painted his face with a false smile.

“Wondered where you’d gone, Reverend.” Then he nodded at me. “Mistress St. James.”

I acknowledged him with the briefest of glances, then turned to Duncan again. “Thank you for helping me find my shawl, Reverend Wallace,” I said, my tone dripping ice. “Aunt Eleanor says I’d lose my head were it not for my neck keeping it attached.”

“Then I’m glad your neck is intact,” he said softly, and there was an apology in his eyes. One I refused to acknowledge. More softly, he whispered, “Very glad.”

No. I would not feel this way for him. I would not.

Yet my knees were weak as I strode out of the church. And my heart, a quivering puddle.

’Twas midway through the afternoon when I drove our wagon over the worn path along the shore. My aunt prattled on about the sermon and the food and town gossip and such, but I paid little attention. I could think only of Duncan, the way he’d touched me. The look in his eyes. His promise that he would not betray me. I told myself I was angry with him for implying that my being a Witch could somehow damn his standing with his creator. And yet, I longed for the time when I might see him again. Certainly, my habit of skipping Sunday services was a thing of the past.

We were nearly home when I saw a woman in the road. Small and fair, with golden hair cut scandalously short, she was down on one knee, bending as if to tie the lace of her shoe. I drew the wagon to a halt before I spotted the pendant dangling from her neck, as she had no doubt intended me to see it. A pentacle, very like the one I wore.

As I caught my breath, I noticed the dagger that lay on the road beside her. And this was not only like my own, but identical to it.

The woman was a Witch. An immortal High Witch like me. I’d known ’twas only a matter of time before another one came for me. I’d known I should prepare myself for this day. But I wasn’t prepared. Not at all.

When the woman’s soft brown eyes met mine, I shivered. Perhaps I would not escape this time. Perhaps this day would be the last one I was to see. I was not willing to die. Not now, when I’d only just found Duncan again.

I was even less willing, however, to risk my aunt’s safety. So, holding this strange woman’s gaze, I handed the reins to Aunt Eleanor. “Go on to the cabin,” I told her. “I’ll be along soon.”

“But, Raven… my goodness, girl, what’s the matter? You’ve gone as pale as a wraith!”

“Nothing. I’m fine. I simply wish to speak with… an old acquaintance.”

And the woman on the road straightened, gathering her dagger and slipping it into the sheath at her hip as she stepped off the track to allow the wagon to pass. She wore breeches, as a man would wear, and white stockings. Her shirt was white, with laces up the front, and she wore no cap upon her short, golden locks.

“You know this person?” Aunt Eleanor asked in surprise.

“I will tell you all about it… later,” I promised. “Please, Aunt Eleanor, go on without me.”

My aunt rolled her eyes and shook her head to make sure I knew of her displeasure, but after I stepped down, she did as I asked, snapping the reins. Ebony drew her away from me. Away from this strange woman, home to safety.

The Witch took a step forward, and I took an equal step back. And then she smiled, though only very slightly.

“You’re right to be afraid, Raven St. James. But not of me.”

“No?” I lifted my skirts to pull the dagger from its place at my thigh. “You’ll understand if I choose caution over trust.” I held the weapon in my hands, though they trembled.

The woman looked at it, then at me. For a very long time she stared at me, as if taking my measure. There was something else in her eyes. “You don’t know me at all, do you, Raven?”

Narrowing my eyes on her, I said nothing, and it seemed for a moment a great sadness clouded her face. But she quickly dismissed whatever troubled her, chased it away to some dark corner, and lifted her chin once more. And then she drew her blade from its sheath, and I went rigid with fear.

But she simply tossed it. It landed at my feet, its blade embedded in the rich black earth. I looked down at it, blinking in surprise. Was this a trick?

“I am not one of the Dark Ones, Raven,” she said.

“Then… then what do you want of me?“‘

She shrugged. “Would friendship be too much to ask?”

Still, I was hesitant.

Shaking her head, she untied the string that held her breeches, and as I gasped, wide eyed, she tugged them low over her right hip, revealing the crescent mark blazed on the skin there. “Now will you believe I mean you no harm?” she asked, righting the breeches and looking not the least embarrassed.

“That proves nothing. We all have the crescent mark.”

“My Lord and Lady, you really are as ignorant as a babe, aren’t you?”

I said nothing, only waited for her to clarify.

“The Dark Ones bear the mark on their left flank, Raven. And the moon faces the opposite way. Did you not know even that much?“

Finally I lowered my dagger. “No,” I said. “I’m afraid I did not.”

“Then I was right to come to you.”

I met her eyes, so strangely like the eyes of a doe. Innocent and liquid, while somehow dangerous at the same time. “I don’t understand.”

She sighed deeply. “I shall begin at the beginning, then. I am Arianna Sinclair, and I am nearly two hundred years old.” I gasped in surprise, and maybe disbelief, but she only went on. “Several months ago I heard rumors of a lovely Witch hanged in a village in England, who’d been seen by some sailors alive and well only days later. And I thought to myself, she must truly be young if she took so few precautions to disguise her identity. So I set about the task of finding you, and here I am.” She picked up her dagger, wiped its blade clean of dirt, and sheathed it at her side.

I shook my head slowly. “I still do not understand,” I told her, no longer backing away in fear, relaxing my defenses. “Why would you want to find me?”

“The hanging… It was your first death, wasn’t it, Raven?”

I nodded.

“Then you’ve much to learn. You see, young one, if I heard the rumors, if I could so easily track you down, then you must believe others will do the same. I’m here to help you, Raven. To teach you.”

I stood before her now, my hands at my sides. She offered her hand, in friendship, I thought, and I took it.

And suddenly found myself twisted backward and held in small arms that had no business being so strong. My own dagger was wrenched from my hand and held to my heart, and I cried out, certain my life was about to end.

Her face close to my ear, she whispered, “First lesson, Raven. Trust no one.”

I shuddered at the familiarity of those words, the way they echoed what my mother had told me. And then she released me and gently pressed my weapon back into my hand as my heart thundered against my ribs. I was breathing heavily from fear, pressing one hand to my breast as if to calm my racing heart.

“I would say, Raven, that it is a very good thing I was the first to find you.”

“You weren’t,” I told her. And she crooked a golden brow. “Another one… a man, attacked me before I left England.”

“And you defeated him?” Her tawny brown eyes were wide now with disbelief.

Ashamed, I lowered my head. “I escaped him. Barely.”

“You survived,” she told me. “There’s no shame in living to fight another day, Raven. Come now, and take me to your home. I’ll be needing a place to stay, and I suppose a silly dress so I can pass as one of them.”

She expected my hospitality? After what she’d just done?

Smiling, she glanced at my dagger. “You can put that away. It will do you little good, anyway, until I’ve taught you to use it properly.”

“I believe I’ll hold on to it a bit longer,” I responded.

And her smile grew wider as she nodded her approval. “Very good, Raven. You’re a fast learner. You always were.”

“And how would you know that?” I asked, studying her closely.

She laughed at herself, shrugging. “Oh, don’t mind my cryptic comments. I’m a bit of a psychic, you know. I can read people. It’s just something I picked up on. Besides, after what you’ve been through, having to flee for your life, start over, you’d almost have to be a fast learner, wouldn’t you?”

She turned and began walking the road toward my home, glancing now and again at the tracks the wagon wheels had left in the dirt.

I had little choice but to follow her.

Chapter 7

Duncan paced the length of the spartan cabin he’d been given as shelter, turned, and paced back again. The fire snapped and popped loudly, drawing his gaze, and he found himself going still, staring into the flames, remembering.

The trapdoors dropping. The girl falling, the entire weight of her body hurtling toward the ground and then stopping short at the end of that rope. The way she’d jerked at the bottom. The way her head snapped. And then the way it had fallen upon his shoulder when he cut her down, as if her neck were boneless, or made of water.

Steel collar. There had been no steel collar.

The flames leaped and danced, and he thought of the fire he’d seen dancing in Raven’s onyx eyes. Hellfire? he wondered. Or something else?

If he were truly a man of God, he’d tell what he knew. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. Nay. If he spoke out, she’d be arrested. Harmed. Killed, perhaps. He could not believe that to be God’s will, no matter what she was.

Had she done something to him? Put some spell on him? Willed him to feel these things for her? Was such a thing even possible?

Heavy steps sounded outside, and he opened the door before old Elias Stanton could announce his presence. The man’s face, whiskered jowls and all, seemed grim. And he said, “We have to talk. There’s… something you need to be made aware of.”

“Come in,” Duncan said. And he wondered why he was irritated at the interruption. He ought to be glad to be distracted from thinking about her. To think of her was too confusing. Seeing her again—God, his preoccupation with the woman was bordering on obsession now that he’d seen her. ’Twas all he could do to keep himself from going to her. Right now, tonight.

“I had not intended to trouble you with this, Reverend Wallace, but upon seeing you in the church with Mistress St. James this morning, I felt it necessary.”

“This concerns Mistress St. James, then?”

Elias nodded and, clasping his hands behind him, began pacing much as Duncan had been doing only moments ago. “Reverend… I fear the woman is trouble,” he said. “You recall our conversation at the Boar’s Head, do you not?”

Duncan nodded, and instantly knew what Stanton would say next.

“The temptress I spoke of is none other than Mistress St. James herself.”

A cold hand seemed to clutch Duncan’s heart when Elias’s words confirmed what he had already guessed. He lowered his head, hoping to hide the flare of alarm that widened his eyes. Nay. Not again.

“I fear, my friend, she may be more than just a temptress. Much more.”

“Say what you mean, Elias. I dislike guessing games.”

Elias shrugged. “Surely ”tis obvious. The woman could easily be a practitioner of the black arts… a Witch.“

The hairs on the back of Duncan’s neck bristled, and he found himself instinctively defending her, not even giving his words thought before speaking them. “Dinna be ridiculous, Elias. Why would you think such a thing?”“

Elias turned slowly, his eyes narrow. “She’s unnaturally beautiful, is she not?”

Holding that gaze, Duncan nodded. “Incredibly beautiful,” he said. “But why do you say ”tis unnatural?“

“Because of the way she flaunts it before the men of this congregation. I’ll wager not a one has escaped her wiles. All of them lusting after her, I tell you, no matter how Godfearing they be. And that’s her plan, Duncan. To lure us all into sin, and damn us before she moves on to the next God-loving congregation.”

Duncan felt his lips pull into a grimace of distaste. The man was a fool. “Aye, no doubt the ruination of mankind is all the lass lives for.”

He’d meant it as sarcastic and biting. Elias only nodded in enthusiastic agreement, which made Duncan sigh, and try another approach with the thick-skulled man. “You said before that even you have felt this Witchly allure she exudes,“ he said.

Lowering his head, Elias said, “Yes. Though it shames me to admit it.”

“An’ you dinna believe it could simply be the natural feelin‘ of attraction any man might feel when he sees a woman of such exceptional beauty?“

“Never,” Elias denied flatly. “Tis Witchery, I tell you. I be above desires of the flesh. Or was, “til she worked her devilish wiles on me.”

Nodding, Duncan said, “I’m glad you’ve come to me with this, Elias.” And he was. Glad because in seeing how ridiculous the things Elias believed of Raven were, he could see more clearly how foolish he himself had been, only moments ago. Spells, indeed. He was drawn to the woman and had been since he’d first set eyes on her. And ’twas no more due to Witchery than was the sunrise or the changing phases of the moon. He desired her. And maybe more than that. Maybe… much more than that.

He searched Elias’s face as he concocted his lies. And it occurred to him that he’d rarely lied in his lifetime, had always made an effort at utter honesty. But for her, for Raven, he lied without pause. Without the slightest hesitation.

He thought he’d likely be willing to do far more for her. Die for her, should the need arise.

“I’ve seen many Witches durin’ my time in England,“ Duncan said. ”An‘ I can tell you beyond any doubt, Raven St. James isna one.“

Elias’s face fell, eyes widening. “How can you be so sure?”

Duncan tilted his head. “Have you never seen a Witch?”No,” Elias admitted. “But I was sure I had the day she arrived.”

Searching for a plausible lie, then latching on to the first one he thought of, Duncan said, “The eyes of a Witch are two different colors. The left is green, and the right is blue.”The hell you say!”

“Aye, Elias, ”tis true. And the forefinger of a Witch’s hand is longer than the middle one.“

Elias’s eyes narrowed, and Duncan was certain he’d pushed it too far. Damn, he’d had the man believing him for a moment.

“But a skilled Witch,” Elias speculated, “could likely disguise those things. Don’t you see, Duncan? Something is not right with the woman! Her crops, her wealth. ”Tis not by natural means she succeeds at everything she sets her pretty hands to. All without a man to aid her!“

“Could it be that she is simply wise an’ strong, an‘ perhaps a hard worker?“ Duncan put forth.

“I want you to go out there, Duncan. Mistress Foxgrove claims they’ve taken in another strange young woman, and I tell you, she’s likely another of their coven.”

“Their coven! Really, Elias, I believe your imagination—”

“Go out there tonight, Duncan. They liked you, the both of them. Pretend to be making a social call. And see what sorts of things they keep about that cabin. See how they behave when they’re alone and not in the public eye.”

“You want me to spy on them?” Duncan asked, already formulating the firmest refusal he could concoct.

“Yes. And if you won’t, Duncan, I’ll do it myself. However, I’m loath to get that close to her. I fear she’d bewitch me even further. You’re a man of God, Duncan, surely you’d be far safer than I?”

Closing his eyes slowly, shaking his head, Duncan recalled the distaste he’d seen in Raven’s eyes when this man had touched her. She wouldn’t like him snooping around. And suppose Elias should find something?

He hadn’t admitted it, even to himself, at least not consciously, but Duncan knew there must be something to find. Some truth to Elias’s suspicions. Raven was magick. Everything about her was mystical and potent. She’d cured him of whatever illness he’d been suffering aboard the Sea Witch. He didn’t doubt these things.

But she wasn’t evil. No matter what else she was, she wasn’t that.

And even if there were nothing for Elias to find in Raven’s cabin, almost anything could be construed by his suspicious, fearful mind as evidence. At least if Duncan went himself, he could return with a favorable report.

“All right, Elias,” he said softly. “I shall go. But meanwhile, do one thing for me?”Of course, Reverend.”

“Tell no one else of your suspicions. Should you be wrong about Mistress St. James, you could easily destroy her good name with such gossip. And you wouldna wish to do that should she be innocent, would you, now?”

He grunted and huffed, saying clearly that he could not believe her innocent, would not be proved wrong.

“Please,” Duncan urged. ’Twould only send the town into panic.“

Elias’s face softened then. “All right, I shall keep my suspicions to myself… for now. Except for…” He narrowed his eyes on Duncan. “Never mind.”

“Except for what?” Duncan asked, and he felt a cold foreboding in his heart. “Have you already spoken these suspicions, Elias?”

Elias averted his eyes. “Tis of no concern to you,“ he said. ”You’ll report back to me upon your return?“

Shaking his fears away, Duncan faced the man. “Aye, I’ll report to you, but on the morrow, Elias. ”Tis a long walk, an‘ I’ll no doubt prefer sleep to conversation when I return.”

“Tomorrow then,” Elias said, and touching the brim of his hat, he backed out the door.

He wasn’t going to her so he could spy on her, as Elias wished him to do. He was going to warn her. Duncan was certain she could have no clue what Elias suspected of her, or she’d have fled this place by now.

For just a moment, as he followed the road that led along the southern edge of the peninsula, overlooking the sea, he paused to wonder at the irony of what he was doing. Raven St. James had been convicted of Witchery and sentenced to death. He’d seen her die with his own eyes, only to find her alive and well, and again suspected of Witchcraft. And yet, he, a man of God, was about to warn her.

Worst of all, it wasn’t that he disbelieved the accusations against her. Not that at all. ’Twas that he simply didn’t care. He didn’t care. He remembered all too well the way he’d seen her standing in the moonlight, felt the power surging from her hands into his body that night aboard the ship. It could have been a dream, but he didn’t think so. And still, he didn’t care.

He only wanted to see her again. To get to know all there was to know of her. To understand the workings of her mind and the mysteries of her soul. To know what she was thinking. And to see to it she remained safe from harm.

Nothing else mattered. And as little sense as that made, he didn’t question it. It simply was.

Duncan knew what he would report to Elias, no matter what he found at Raven’s cabin tonight. In the morn he intended to assure Elias all was as it should be, thus ending the elder’s speculation.

But not, perhaps, ending his lust.

Duncan’s flesh heated and he tugged at the too tight collar that suddenly chafed his throat. He wore an ordinary pair of breeches and a white shirt, this night. For some reason, he disliked the thought of going to Raven in the robes of clergy. He sensed the clothing threatened her, somehow, and that wasn’t what he wished to do.

He didn’t like thinking about the way Elias looked at Raven St. James. He didn’t like Elias’s insistence that all the men of Sanctuary must be looking at her the same way as he. And he didn’t like that he himself was just as drawn to her as the rest. Because he wanted to believe that with him ’twas different.

At last her cabin came into view, and he saw the soft glow of candles in one of the windows. ’Twas a simple home, graying logs, set high on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. Pretty curtains of white, perhaps made by Raven’s own delicate hands, hung in the few windows of imported glass. And the door was hand hewn, a single thick board sawed from what must have been a mighty oak tree once. The area around the house was lush with gardens. Herbs grew in tangled patches along with vegetables and flowering plants. All bathed tonight in the light of the moon, so that the place looked wild and untamed and mysterious. The waves crashing against the rocky shore far below were like a chorus, a magickal chorus. This place made him think of the enchanted palace where the sleeping princess of a fairy tale awaited rescue.

Duncan moved closer, lifted his hand to tap on the door, only to pause when the sound of singing reached his ears. Raven’s voice, rich and beautiful, drifted over him like warmed honey. He’d heard that voice in his dreams often over the past three years. Heard it ringing out in condemnation of a crowd of bloodthirsty bigots. But he’d never heard it sweetly singing the words of a love song.

I’ve longed to taste your kiss, my love. To hold you would be sweet bliss, my love. My heart shall break, “ere you wait too long. Come to me, come love me, come answer my song.

“Raven,” he whispered. His heartbeat quickened, and his stomach muscles clenched as if in response to her words. He steadied himself, or tried to, but he was shaken to the core. And even as he told himself not to, he leaned closer to peer through the window beside the door, where the pretty white curtains stood slightly parted.

Raven St. James reclined in a large metal tub, water and bubbles brimming around her. Her arms moved, long and graceful and shiny-slick with moisture. One hand squeezed a cloth she held high above her as she leaned back in the tub. Water trickled over her neck and shoulders. Bare skin glistened in the candlelight as she tipped her head back, eyes closed as if in some secret ecstasy. And he wondered if she were thinking of him as she continued to sing.

For two years, in secret, I’ve yearned, my

love

Forever it seems I have burned, my love. Your love is forbidden, you can’t want

me, too. Come to me, sweet Duncan, and tell me

you do.

She ran her fingertips slowly along the underside of her chin, tracing a path down over her neck, her chest, and lower, to where he could no longer see.

And then, quite suddenly, she stopped. Slowly she lowered her head and leveled her gaze on the very window he was peering through, and Duncan caught his breath. Her eyes met his—though he was certain she couldn’t see him out here in the darkness. Still they met his, and held them. He couldn’t look away. Not for the life of him. It seemed to Duncan as if every cell in his body came to vivid life in that moment, stirred by her gaze and aroused to action. He tingled with awareness. As if he were the one caught naked and she the one shamelessly looking on.

And as he remained there, riveted, he heard a voice call the woman’s name from another room. Raven’s head turned toward its summons. A brief glance toward the window again, and perhaps a very slight smile. So slight he could have easily imagined it. And then she rose from the water like a Pagan goddess of old, and Duncan felt himself burn. Rivulets streamed down her body. She gleamed in the golden light of the dancing candles. Gleamed and shone as she daintily stepped from the tub onto the folded rug beside it. She showed no shyness, no shame as she blotted herself dry with a small cloth. Nor should she, for she was truly magnificent to behold. Sensuality surrounded her like a nimbus, her every movement as graceful as a dance. And he was aroused, tempted as he’d never been before.

’Twas said by those who’d taught him that to bathe fully naked was sinful. To touch one’s own body with the deliberate caress with which she’d run her hands over hers was to incite forbidden desires. Even to bathe too often was to embrace the sin of vanity. He’d never agreed with all of those teachings, and bathed often himself, feeling ”twas better to be vain than to stink. But for the first time, Duncan realized that perhaps there was wisdom in those particular teachings of the Church. For his loins were on fire as he watched her. She was, in that moment, the very temptress he’d been warned against.

But unwittingly. She was innocent. She couldn’t know he was watching. And in fact, ’twas he who was to blame for the fire burning in his soul right now. For he had no business peering through the woman’s windows. And yet, ”twas as if he’d been drawn there by some power beyond his will. And then held there by the force of her gaze.

She moved like a seductress, every inch of her body exposed to him as she turned and reached for a robe. And then she pulled it on, covering her feminine curves and delicate thighs and full, ripe breasts. And finally she moved out of the room, toward the sound of her aunt, calling her name once again.

“Is she as beautiful as you thought she would be?”“

Duncan went rigid as the feminine voice came from behind him, and he whirled to face a small, fair woman he’d never seen before. “I… that is, I was only—”

“You’re the preacher, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Aye. Duncan Wallace, mistress.” He fought to regain his composure.

“Well, Duncan Wallace, if I thought she’d mind your snooping, I’d gut you right here. Lucky for you I happen to know she wouldn’t mind. Not at all.”

He felt his face heating and lowered his head. “I wasna snoopin’, as you put it, mistress. My attention was drawn by her singin‘, and—“

“Like a songbird,” the woman interrupted. Then she turned toward the door and pulled it open. “Well, come on inside. You may as well let her know you’re here.”

Duncan, uncomfortable at being caught looking at Raven, and yet sensing somehow the small woman beside him held no judgment over him, stepped inside.

“Raven,” the woman called. “You have a guest.”

“Oh?” She stepped from the small bedroom, then went still as she met Duncan’s eyes. “Oh,” she whispered.

Was she embarrassed? Did she realize he might have heard the words of her song? His name floating from her lips with such longing? At that moment he battled the urge to sweep her into his arms, even knowing how inappropriate that would be. They barely knew each other. And yet it felt very much as if they did.

“I see you’ve met Arianna,” Raven said, as if searching for something to say.

“She didna tell me her name.”

“I got the distinct impression you couldn’t care less about my name, Reverend,” Arianna said. “Raven, take the man out for a moonlight walk. Show him the gardens, introduce him to Ebony, for heaven’s sake.”

“I… all right. If you want to, Duncan.”

He nodded. “Aye, I’d like very much to walk with you, Raven. We have… much to talk about.”

Nodding, she took a dark cloak lined with fur from a peg on the wall, and Duncan impulsively stepped forward, taking it from her hands. Moving behind her, he gently draped it over her shoulders. His fingers brushed the flesh of her neck before moving away. God, how he wanted to touch her.

“Th-thank you.”

His hands settled there on her shoulders for a moment. He didn’t want to take them away. But he had to, or she’d surely know the direction his thoughts were taking.

He opened the door and let her lead him outside. Her hair was still wet, and as he walked close beside her he could smell the scent of honeysuckle clinging to her skin.

She didn’t show him the gardens, or introduce him to anyone named “Ebony.” Instead, she led him out to the very edge of the cliffs. The wind gusted there, lifting her wet hair from her shoulders and snapping it like a whip. She faced the sea, staring out over the churning water, glancing down at the sheer drop to the rocks below.

“This is my favorite place,” she said. “I love the sea.”

It struck him that he’d been thinking the very same thing, as he’d been walking out here. That he loved the sea.

“There’s a small island out there, not far at all from shore. It sits all alone. No one ever seems to go near. I’ve felt like that… alone. Isolated from the rest of the land and surrounded by an element very different from me.”

“I’ve often felt that way myself,” he told her. “As if I dinna quite fit in with the rest of mankind. Dinna… ken the way their minds work. Canna make sense of them.”

She nodded, and was still for a moment. Then, “Why did you come?” She asked the question of him, but she didn’t face him.

He stood beside her, staring out over the water just as she did. “I dinna know,” he told her. “I was compelled to come, Raven.”

She nodded.

“I couldna forget you, after that cold dawn in the square. But I’ve told you that.”

“Yes.” She turned to face him. “I believe a bond was formed between us on the gallows, Duncan. Easy enough to understand, really. You were the only man there who seemed to care.”

“I did care,” he said. And he clasped her shoulders now, stepping closer to her, staring down into those ebon pools. “One look into your eyes, and I cared more than I’d cared for anythin’ in my life. Raven, I tried,“ he whispered. ”I swear to you, I tried to stop them.“

Her hand came up suddenly, palm flattening to his cheek, cupping it in a way that was somehow soothing. “I know you tried, Duncan. There is no reason for you to feel guilty for what they did. I knew you were no part of any of that. You risked your own life to prevent it, in fact. You don’t need to convince me. I was there.”

He nodded. And overwhelmed by feeling, by desire, he turned his face against her palm, let his lips touch it, kiss its tender center before rubbing his cheek against it once more. “Aye, you were there. So you know what I do. Raven… there is something here. Some powerful emotion between you and me. You must feel it.”

She lowered her hand, and then her head. “I feel… desire for you, Duncan.” Then she closed her eyes. “But ”tis a desire you believe will damn your soul.“

He was stunned at the bluntness of it. He’d never met a woman who spoke so plainly. But he cleared his throat. “I dinna believe that at all. I spoke… without thinkin’. Raven, I burn for you, “tis true. But I feel for you, too. And what I feel is the purest and most holy sort of carin‘ I can imagine. It canna be evil. It canna be damning. An’ if ’twere…’twouldna matter, lass.”

Slowly she lifted her head, met his eyes again. “And what do you propose we do about this feeling?”

Her black eyes fairly blazed. Duncan drew a breath, battled temptation. “We resist it, Raven. But only until we can be married.”

“Married?”

The fire in her eyes seemed to cool, and she lowered her chin. He caught it in his hand and lifted it up again, until she faced him. “The Scriptures say ”tis better a man marry than to burn with lust,“ he said.

“What your Scriptures say means very little to me, Duncan.” She sniffed and met his eyes. “My faith has only one rule.”

“Only one?” He searched her face. “An’ what is this rule you live by, Raven?“

“An it harm none, do what thou will.“ She shrugged. “ ‘Tis the only rule I’ve ever needed, the only one that makes sense to me.”

“Tis a good rule. But it doesna say, “Thou shalt nay marry.”

“Marriage between us… is something that can never be.”

“But—”

“I will harm none, Duncan. To marry you… I’d harm you, you must see that. ”Twould ruin you. I stand convicted of Witchcraft and sentenced to death. And even here, the suspicions about me have begun to stir anew. No, I can be no preacher’s wife.“

“Were you my bride, Raven, they would no longer suspect you.”

“Perhaps not,” she said softly. “But would you?” She faced him, searching his eyes.

Duncan shook his head. “I will believe whatever you tell me, Raven. If you say you’re innocent, I willna doubt it, I swear.“

“And what if I can’t claim innocence, Duncan? What if I am what they say I am?”

He gripped her shoulders, staring down into her eyes. “Are you?”

She lowered her eyes. “That’s just it. I cannot tell you what I am. I’ve seen what trusting others can do, Duncan. Seen it in my mother’s eyes just before they murdered her.”

“You can trust me, lass,” he said softly.

“But I can’t. And you would want no wife who kept such dark secrets from you, Duncan.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “Raven, I dinna care what you are.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because, lass, ”tis the truth.“

She shook her head slowly. “Perhaps it is, at the moment. But you will care, Duncan. The time will come when you’ll demand I tell all, and that is something I can never do.” She cupped his face in her hands. “We cannot be together as husband and wife.”

“An’ I canna go on without you,“ he whispered.

“Then be with me, Duncan,” she urged. “Come to me in the cloak of midnight, and in secret. For that’s the only way a love like ours can be. A love for the moment, fleeting and precious. Forbidden, and consigned to darkness.”

’Twill be more,“ he whispered. ”I vow, Raven, I will make it more.“ And then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her as he’d been dreaming of kissing her. And it didn’t matter that she was keeping secrets, or that she hadn’t denied the charges against her. All that mattered was this, holding her, alive and warm and real, in his arms, against his body.

And perhaps loving her this way was a sin. If it was, then he’d gladly be damned, because he couldn’t resist… nor did he want to.

Chapter 8

He kissed me as I’d never been kissed by another. He kissed me as I’d been kissed only once—by him, on the Sea Witch as the fever and the ale mingled in his blood. I’d thought, in some secret part of me, that he wouldn’t have touched me had he been sober and well.

But he was sober now. And healthy. And strong. He swept me away there on the cliffs. His hands in my hair, touching it in some kind of wonder, as if he’d never felt anything so soft. His lips, brushing my neck and caressing my ear as he whispered sweet love words in his soft, Scot’s lilt.

I’d told him I desired him. I dared not feel anything more. And yet I was not certain I could resist. He was like the sea, hurling its waves against the rocky shore below us, and slowly, steadily eroding the solid rock away. Bit by bit. As gentle, as softly as water, he wooed me. And the stone I thought was my heart began softening beneath his touch, even now.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” I whispered. “Of you…”And I, lass… night after endless night.” His hands deftly untied my cloak, and it fell to the ground, shaping itself into a perfect nest. Then his hands touched the robe I wore, trembling, as if he knew there was nothing underneath. And perhaps he did know, for I’d sensed him watching at the window, glimpsed movement there as I’d bathed. One moment certain he had come to me, the next convinced I was only imagining what my mind told me.

Slowly, hesitantly, he parted my robe, and then the sea wind came in to complete his task, pushing it wide so it flew behind me like a cape. Duncan’s gaze burned on my body, sliding up and down me as if he were glimpsing Divinity itself.

“You’re almost too beautiful to touch,” he whispered. Then he met my eyes. “An’ far too beautiful not to.“

His hands, tender and careful, came to me. Slid slowly from the column of my neck down the front of me, and I held my breath. At last he touched my breasts, palms skimming over them, pausing there as he closed his eyes.

“Tis heaven I touch,“ he murmured.

“No, Duncan, ”tis earth itself.“ I pressed myself closer. ”And I’ll not break at your caresses.“

At my word he squeezed, gently at first, with more pressure when I closed my eyes and released all my breath at once. And then he pulled me to him for more kisses, and his hands slipped around to the small of my back, and lower to stroke my naked buttocks, and my thighs. I shoved my hands between our bodies to tug at the laces of his shirt and breeches. He’d come to me tonight without the protection of his dark minister’s robes. He’d come to me as a man. A man like no other.

And I knew it even more so when I’d undressed him fully and looked upon him. He hadn’t been like this before. His chest had broadened, and his shoulders seemed capable of bearing any weight. His belly was tight and hard, hips lean. And he was aroused. Fully so, and the sight of him made my heart tremble. I touched him. Closed my hand around him, and understood, I think, the incredible magickal power of the mating of woman and man. I’d heard of it, of course. But never had it made sense to me. I saw it now, though. How he would fill me, complete me. How the scales of nature would hover for a time in perfect balance while I held him inside of me.

He breathed again only when I took my hand away. And then I lowered myself to the cushion of my cloak, reclining slightly, and opened myself to him. “Come, Duncan. I can wait no longer.”

For an endless moment he stared at me lying there wantonly. The sea wind blew harsher, brushing over my nipples with its chilled breath, touching my secret places with icy hands. Goose bumps rose on my flesh, while inside I burned.

I lifted one hand to him, and he knelt. “I have never…” he began.

“Nor I,” I whispered.

“We’ve been waiting then. For each other, I think.” He looked into my eyes, expecting my agreement, but I said nothing. “Dinna tell me you dinna believe it, Raven, for I know you do. I know you as I know myself… somehow. We were meant to be, you and I.”

“Perhaps,” I whispered, but I could tell him no more. To let myself believe in his romantic notions… would only lead to heartbreak.

“I’ve been told it can be difficult for a woman… the first time.” He knelt beside me. His fingertips danced over my neck and my shoulders.

“Not for me, Duncan. Not with you.”

He kissed me again, so slowly, so deeply. “I’d nay harm you for the world, Raven.”

“You won’t.” My words came in breathless sighs now.

He nodded, bent to nibble my ear, taste my neck. “My best friend… he says ”tis easier if the woman is… made ready.“

I smiled, eager only to be on with it. I wanted him so much I could barely lie still. “How will you make me ready, Duncan? Rub me with sage like a turkey?”

Sitting back slightly, he looked at the nest between my legs, licked his lips. “Like this,” he whispered, and then he touched me there. Gently he parted my folds and put his fingers on me, and I drew a gasp as a bolt of pleasure shot through my loins. Slowly he rubbed, exploring, watching my face so intently I thought he was trying to read my thoughts. When he pressed inside me, I cried out in delight, and arched my hips off the ground. How I wanted him.

“You’ve made me ready, then,” I whispered.

“Oh, nay, lass. There is more my friend spoke of.”

He bowed over me, and kissed me between my legs like a worshiper kissing the feet of a goddess. He opened me with his fingers, and kissed me again, and I moaned. And then his tongue snaked out, licking me, darting at the tiny nub that seemed to be the core of my desire, and then plunging inside as if he would devour me whole. Tears filled my eyes at the intensity of what he did to me, and I moved against him, pressing closer, losing myself to utter physical sensation as he probed and licked and tasted every part of me. My hands clenched in his hair as the tension in me tightened unbearably. Finally he moved up my body, nipping at my breasts, and then suckling them hard, no longer gentle, but seeming aroused beyond the ability to be so.

He settled atop me. I was so alive with sensation that when I felt him pressing inside me, ’twas as if lightning struck. I pressed my hands to his buttocks, gripping him tight, and I arched hard against him, to take him into me, all the way, all at once. There was a brief stab of pain, but I was so enraptured in pleasure that it felt good to me. Then he began to move, and I moved, too, sensing his needs, knowing his feelings as I knew my own. He fed at my mouth and my throat and my breasts by turns as he plunged himself into me again and again. He drove me nearer and nearer to something I’d never known. And finally the stars seemed to explode around me and I screamed his name, even as he stabbed deeper than before and cried mine.

He held me, slowly relaxing in my arms. Kissed my hair, my face, asked if I were all right, if he had hurt me.

“I am more than all right,” I told him, running my hands over the wonderful expanse of his back, his shoulders. So firm and hard to my touch. “I never knew, Duncan. I never understood…”

“Understand this, bonny Raven.” Framing my face with his hands, his directly above me, staring down with his heart in his eyes, he whispered, “I love you. I love you from the very depths of my soul. I would die for you, Raven St. James, an‘ never regret it for a moment.“

I looked at him, guilt showing in my eyes, I think, when I bit my lip to keep from answering him in kind. The words bubbled up in my throat, but I refused to let them spill out.

“Nay, dinna look that way, my love. I know you dinna return my feelings… just yet. But you will, Raven. You will.”

Lowering my lids to shield my true feelings from him, I shook my head. “I’ve given you all I have to give. My body. My virginity. And my promise, Duncan, that there will be no other man for me. Not ever.”

“Truly?”

I nodded. “I do not lie.”

“But canna quite trust me with the truth.”

“I told you I—”

“Nay. ”Tis all right, Raven.“ He stroked my hair, staring down at me with love pouring from his eyes and spilling over me like the very elixir of the gods. ”I am too in love to complain, to demand. I’ll lie at your feet like a cur dog, awaitin“ whatever crumbs drop from your fingers, and revelin‘ should you bestow even a pat on the head. Whatever you give me, I’ll relish and cherish and return a thousandfold, lass. I vow it, until the day I die, I’ll love only you.” He lifted my hand, pressed his lips to my fingers. “And eventually, you’ll see that I’d sooner die than betray you. You’ll ken that you can trust me as you can no other. You’ll tell me all, my love, and you’ll grow to love me, too.”

I stared back at him, and wondered how he could miss what seemed to be bursting from my very soul, what must show in my eyes. I already did love him, too.

But if I told him the truth…

No, I couldn’t. I’d be putting him at risk by trusting him. He’d be stripped of his position, driven from the town or worse, arrested and tried as my accomplice. And yes, there was more. There was that selfish fear, that gnawing certainty inside me that he would stop loving me if he knew the truth.

I’d never tell him. I’d never risk that. What we had— what we shared between us—would have to be enough.

Though I could never say it aloud, I would always, always love him.

Elias was waiting when Duncan made his way back to his cabin in town.

Duncan hadn’t realized it, of course. He’d been humming to himself, happier than he could remember being, but at the same time battling a sense of dread. He’d sinned. He knew that. He didn’t blame Raven for it, didn’t even regret it, really. But he did wonder how he could put on his robes tomorrow morn and go about the town folk acting as if he were still their spiritual leader. Their Christian guide. How could he? None of them was likely to have committed the sins he had this night. He’d be pretending, playing a role that was utterly false.

But how could it be wrong to love this way? When he felt the emotion bubbling up from some bottomless well within him. It didn’t feel sinful. It felt noble and pure and utterly… utterly right. It didn’t even feel new, but ancient, as if it had been a part of him from the time before time was, if such a thing were possible.

He stopped humming when he reached his door, as doubts crept into his mind once again. But when he stepped inside, a deep voice chased those doubts away.

“Whatever could have taken you so long, Reverend Wallace? You’ve been gone for hours.”

Duncan went stiff, searching the darkness and finally spotting Elias in the room’s only chair, near the dying fire. “You told me to observe the women,” he said. “So I did.”

“Surely they’re abed by now.”

“Of course they are.” Duncan walked to a table where a lamp sat and lit it, taking his time, setting the glass chimney in place with great care. Stalling as he sought an explanation in his mind.

“You remained out there, even after the women retired?” Elias asked, running short of patience, Duncan thought.

“Naturally,” he replied.

“But why?”

It came to him slowly, and that’s the way he spoke, slowly, carefully piecing the words together one by one. “You… obviously know naught of Witches, Elias.” He paced to the hearth, tossed a pair of logs atop the coals, since Stanton had apparently been too lazy to do so himself.

The flames licked up at the wood, searing the bark black and seeking the meatier wood beneath it. “Their… rites… are performed by night. Midnight bein’ the, ah, the Witchin‘ Hour.“

“Ahhh, the Witching Hour.” Elias nodded, and his eyes took on an eager gleam in the lampglow and firelight. “And did they? Did they strip off their garments and dance naked beneath the moon at midnight? Did they kill a calf and drink its blood or mate with a goat possessed by their beastly master? Did they?“

Duncan’s stomach clenched. He felt ill. And he knew with unrelenting certainty that Raven would never do such things as those of which Stanton spoke. If she were a Witch, then Stanton’s ideas about Witches were pure fancy. There was something spiritual, something holy, about Raven St. James. He’d sensed it from the start.

“They did nothin’ of the sort,“ he said very calmly. ”They only slept.“

Elias rubbed his chin. “Perhaps they knew you were still lingering about. They can sense such things, can they not?“‘

Duncan shrugged. “Nay, not in a man of the cloth,” he replied. Anything, any lie, to relieve the man of his notions. Elias Stanton was dangerous to Raven. Duncan knew it to his bones.

Elias nodded thoughtfully. “Then perhaps ”twas simply not their night to practice their Pagan rites.“

Closing his eyes, Duncan lowered his head. “There was naught in the cabin to indicate…”

“You seem so certain, Reverend. Are you sure they didn’t bewitch you?”

He shook his head rapidly. “I’m utterly sure of that, sir.”

“Hmm. Well, the situation bears watching. Just to be safe. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Did he have a choice? Nay. He’d already made Elias wary of him. He had to keep the man’s trust if he were to have any hope of protecting Raven from him. “I agree completely,” he said. “Rest assured, Elias, I will be keepin’ a very close eye on the goin’s on at that cabin on the cliffs. A very close eye.“

“Good.” Elias got to his feet. “I’ll let you get some rest, then. Good night.”

And he hurried out the door.

Had Elias believed a word Duncan had said to him? There was no way to be sure. Raven should leave this place. She should leave at once. And he would warn her of that. Should have done so tonight as he’d intended, but… well, her touch, her kisses, had chased everything else from his mind. Tomorrow. Aye. He’d warn her of the danger that lived here in Sanctuary for her. He’d warn her on the morrow.

“You have the look of a woman well loved,” Arianna said just as she lunged forward and swept her dagger in a deadly arc that could easily have gutted me on the spot. She looked all innocence this morning, with the early sunlight gleaming from her cropped golden hair, and her slight frame and small stature. But she could be a deadly opponent. I’d seen that right away.

And a good friend. I’d come to love her very much in the short while she’d been with us. So much so that I hoped she would never decide to leave. ’Twas as if I’d known her always, though that could not be possible.

“Perhaps there’s no need to tell you so…” She slashed at me again, nearly nicking me this time, but I danced backward just out of reach of the gleaming blade. “But I think it a poor idea.“

I thrust, she dodged. “Why?” I asked. “Is he not the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen, Arianna?”

“With perhaps one exception,” she said with a careless shrug. “But he’s also a man of the cloth.”

“Which means he’s in touch with the Almighty, just as we are.”

“Which means he believes Witches should be put to death.”

I went still, and so did she. Our blades raised, our bodies poised in ready crouches, we paused to catch our breath, and to lock gazes as she awaited my reaction to her words.

“Duncan tried to prevent the hanging that killed my mother,” I said. “He’s not like the rest.”

“Can you be sure?”

I blinked, lowered my head. “I… yes, I’m sure.”

Arianna shrugged. “I am not,” she said. “And I’m equally doubtful of your judgment where he’s concerned. I suppose ”tis lucky for you I’m here to watch out for you.“ She slashed at me again, neatly slicing the fabric that covered my middle this time.

I jumped back. “Be careful, would you? You could have cut me!”

“And what would it matter?“‘ Arianna asked with a grin. ”You’re immortal. You would heal.“

’Twould hurt all the same,“ I replied, scowling, but lifting my own dagger to waist height before thrusting it forward in a quick darting motion, drawing back just as quickly.

“Better I hurt you than your preacher man, Raven. I’ve a feeling you’d recover from the nick of my blade far more quickly than from a broken heart,” she said, and jumped sideways to avoid my blade. The act sent her off balance, and I leaped forward, shouldering her hard and sending her to the ground.

“Aha!” I shouted, and leaped on Arianna, straddling her middle, braced up on my knees. One hand gripped Arianna’s wrist, immobilizing the dagger she still clutched, while the other held my own blade to my friend’s throat. “I have you now!”

Arianna yanked one of her legs out from beneath me, planted a foot on my chest, and shoved hard, all in the space of a heartbeat. As I went sprawling onto my back, Arianna bounced to her feet without using her hands.

“Overconfidence is the quickest path to defeat. Never underestimate the enemy.” Then she laughed. “That was good, though. You grow better every day.”

“It does not feel as if I do.”

“You do.” Arianna’s smile gentled. “You know I am only concerned for your safety, don’t you? If I did not care for you, I’d keep my opinions to myself.”

“I know, Arianna. I just happen to disagree.”

“You could get yourself hurt. You know that.”

She looked so sad, and I wondered if she spoke with the voice of experience. “I know,” I said. “But ”tis worth the risk to have him, even for a little while.“

She held out a hand. I took it, and Arianna pulled me to my feet, then spun me around and held me fast, her blade at my throat. “I cannot believe,” she said close to my ear, laughter in her voice, “you fell for that one again?”

“Raven!”

’Twas Duncan’s voice, startled and horrified. He came out of the nearby trees and into view, staring in utter terror at Arianna, her blade, my throat. ”Let her go!“

Arianna glanced down into my eyes, her own sparkling with undisguised mirth. Then she looked at Duncan and shrugged. “Oh, all right. If you insist,” she said. She released me, and then she threw her blond head back and laughed in a voice that rang with the clarity of bells.

I couldn’t help it. I bent my head to hide it, but my shoulders shook as I, too, gave in to quiet laughter.

Poor Duncan only stood there, staring from one of us to the other in confusion. “I dinna ken… Raven, are you—”

“I’m fine, Duncan. Arianna and I were only… practicing.”

He frowned, looking me over from head to toe and frowning even harder. “You’re… you’re wearin’ breeches?“

“Being a man,” Arianna said, “you’ve likely never tried to fight in skirts, but I can tell you, Duncan, ”tis no easy task.“

I sent her a quelling glance and sought a plausible explanation. “We’re learning to defend ourselves, Duncan. That is all. We’re unmarried women living alone in a small settlement. We simply feel it the wise thing to do.”

“The wise thing to do,” he countered, “would be to marry.”

The mirth fled me and regret replaced it in my heart. “Please stop asking. You know I cannot.”

“You will, eventually.” He came closer. “So, will you show me the finer points of combat with blades?”“

“If I did, then how would I ever overpower you?” I asked.

“The same way you do now, my love, with a simple glance.”

I smiled as he came to me, wrapped me in his arms, and hugged me so tenderly I nearly cried.

“How did you find us, Duncan?” Arianna asked him, even now sliding her blade into its sheath. “We thought coming here the height of discretion.”

“Discretion is a fine idea,” he replied. “For if ”twere someone besides me to see you both in breeches, fighting as if to the death, there would be scandal indeed in the streets of Sanctuary.“ He lowered his head. ”More so than there already is.“ Then slowly he lifted it, met my eyes again. ”Your aunt told me you’d gone walkin‘ in the woods. Once I got near enough, I simply followed the sounds of battle.“

I smiled at that, but the smile he returned was a sad one.

“Something troubles you,” I said.

“Indeed. Elias Stanton suspects…” He slanted a worried glance toward Arianna, as if about to say something she shouldn’t overhear.

“Never fear,” she quipped. “I know exactly what that fool suspects. More than likely, he suspects me of the same things.”

“Aye, more than likely,” Duncan agreed. Then he gripped my hands in his. “You should leave this town, Raven. At once. I dinna believe ”tis safe for you here.“

I sighed deeply.

“You knew this day would come, Raven. We’ve spoken of it,” Arianna said.

I nodded but met Duncan’s eyes. “I’ll not go. I’ll not pack up and move away from…” I bit my lip.

“From what?” he pressed, squeezing my hands.

Closing my eyes, I whispered, “From you, Duncan. I don’t want to leave you.”

He smiled, then seemed to catch his lip between his teeth as if to stop its trembling. “You love me, lass. You either dinna ken it yet, or canna admit it to me, but you do. You love me.”

“Stop it, please…”

“All right. All right.” But he pulled me tight, kissed me softly, before he let me go and spoke once more. “I thought… I thought to go with you, Raven. If you’d have me.”

My brows bent until they touched. “But all you have is here. Your home, your position, your friends in Boston.”

“All I have, nay, all I wish to have, ever,” he whispered, “is here, right here in my arms.”

Pressing my lips tight, I averted my eyes. “My aunt Eleanor is not a young woman,” I told him. “She’d never leave this place.”

“She isna the one in danger here, Raven. You are.”

Arianna spoke then, coming closer to the two of us. Though she disapproved of my relationship with Duncan, she seemed to understand it. And she would neither nag nor play the part of my judge. Witches didn’t work that way. She’d voiced her opinion. Now she would leave it at that.

“I have to agree with the pastor on this point, Raven,” she said, then she glanced at Duncan and lifted her brows. “Imagine that.”

I saw Duncan smile at her, a tentative smile, and one Arianna returned, just as hesitantly. They would become friends, in time. I felt certain of that.

“It doesn’t matter that you both agree,” I said. “Eleanor’s husband built that house for the two of them. She clings to her husband’s memory by remaining there, and if she leaves…”twould be like cutting the roots from some great tree. She would wither and die.“

“How can you know that, Raven?” Duncan asked.

“Oh, she can. Believe me, she can.” Arianna lowered her head and shook it.

“She took me in when I had nowhere else to go, Duncan,” I told him. “And in the time I’ve been with her, I’ve come to love her very much. She… she is all I have left of my own mother. Can’t you see that?”

“Of course I can see it,” he said harshly. “What I canna see is you dyin’ because of it.“

Meeting his gaze, I whispered, “She has only a year left in her, Duncan.”

“She has… ?” He looked at me sharply, then at Arianna, who only lifted her brows and shoulders, and then turned to study a tree as if it held great interest. “How can you be sure of that?“

I lowered my eyes. The truth was, I’d studied the lines of Aunt Eleanor’s palm, and I knew. I’d restored her health, she would enjoy what remained of her time on this plane, but when a person’s purpose was done, they moved on, and all the magick in the Universe couldn’t change that. “I simply know it.”

He nodded. “Another of those things about which you canna tell me?”

“I owe her so much,” I said, brushing past his question as if he hadn’t spoken it. “I’ll not ask her to give up the home she loves, leave the place where her dear husband lies buried, spend the last year of her life miserable. I cannot. ”Tis only a year, Duncan. Perhaps less. Surely Elias Stanton and his suspicions can be put off that long.“

Duncan looked frustrated. He turned away from me, pushing a hand through his hair. But when he faced me once more, his jaw was set. “I’ll see to it you’re protected then. He willna harm you, Raven. I vow it on all that I hold sacred.”

“You mustn’t do that,” I protested. “I won’t have it, Duncan. Understand that.”

“I love you more than my own soul, Raven, and because of it, I canna do otherwise. You understand that.” He kissed me once more, hard, and walked swiftly away in the direction of town.

I watched him go, then sent Arianna a helpless glance. “What am I to do?”

“Teach me,” Arianna said, “the spell that makes a man who looks like that one into your devoted servant.”

I only shook my head at her. “Tis no spell, and well you know it.“

“Perhaps not,” she said. “A shame, though. I could have used it once.”

I tilted my head. ’Twas the first hint she’d ever given me as to her past. ”You… loved a man who didn’t love you in return?“

“I loved a man,” she said with a small, bitter smile, “who’d have been happy to see me dead.”

“Then he was a fool.”

She shook her head. “No, he was right. In the end I won his trust, if not his heart. And trusting me is what got him killed.“

She turned and started back toward the house. I hurried after her. “”Arianna?“‘

“I don’t talk about that,” she said, false gaiety in her voice. “It is history. I can’t imagine what made me bring it up.”

“But—”

“Please,” she said, and there was a wealth of power in the word. “Let it be, Raven. And suffice to say that, having seen the way your Duncan looks at you, I am beginning to think I may have been wrong about him.”

I went still and felt my heart swell. “Thank you for that,” I whispered. “But as to this other…” She sent me a quelling look. “All right,” I murmured. But I wondered. What kind of man could break a heart as strong as hers?

Duncan didn’t come to me by day after that. Only by night. Nearly every night. We’d meet in the forests or on the cliffs above the angry sea. We’d love until we were spent and then lie naked in each other’s arms, just resting. Just being.

I loved him more each time he smiled at me, each time he whispered my name. I wanted him with me always. And he came to me whenever the sun went down.

Except on my sacred nights, when I would make an excuse. I think he knew I was hiding something, one more secret added to the many I kept from him, but he never pressed. Only hoped endlessly that I would come to trust him enough to tell him my truths. If only he knew that I did by now. ’Twas for his own safety that he could not know the truth about me.

Once a month, when the moon was full, Arianna and I slipped away from the cabin very late at night, while Aunt Eleanor lay sleeping. Deep into the woods we’d venture, there to set a small balefire alight, and to cast a magick circle, invoke the elements to aid us in our work, and feel the power of our Goddess growing strong within us. We burned fragrant herbs and special candles we’d made ourselves with loving care and magickal energy. We left offerings of food and wine, or flowers we’d gathered for the occasion as a symbol of our love for the Divine.

I often pondered the nature of my religion and that of Duncan’s. I knew, as I’d always known, that his God and mine were the same. Our beliefs about Him differed, as did our ways, but in the end, there was only One. I saw the Divine as every bit as much female as male, and addressed both aspects, by referring to them as my Goddess and my God, my Lord and my Lady. Followers of Duncan’s faith no longer recognized the feminine Divine, but still prayed to Mary in times of need.

Prayer was another way in which we were at once the same and different. When in need, we both turned to Divinity for help. Duncan’s way was to surrender his will to that of the Almighty, seeing it as a separate entity, and asking for assistance. My way was to connect to that same Source, only to do it believing it was not separate from me, just as the Earth and the Air and the very sunlight are not separate from me. I am but a small part of a very large being, and that being is the Universe Herself. When I make magick, I feel Her energy flowing through me and then direct that power to bring my will into being. For me, prayer is not a request, but a command, delivered with the very might and power and authority of the Almighty.

But the most important difference between Duncan’s faith and mine was that I believed the religions of the world were simply many spokes on a single wheel, all springing from and leading back to the same, singular Source. And his decreed that there was only one way to salvation, and that anyone who chose another path was damned. Guilty of the most vile sin. Deserving of torture and death.

I wondered sometimes if he truly believed that. And if he did, how could he love me and still live with himself?

By the heavens… his feelings for me had to be tearing him apart inside. Or were they? I wanted to ask… but I couldn’t very well begin a theological discussion with him and not reveal more than I wished to.

So I put my questions aside and lived in the moment. I was, for the first time in my life, truly happy. Knowing I’d see him each night made my days pass in a glow of pleasure.

Holding him in my arms until the wee hours of dawn made my nights pass even more beautifully.

I suppose I should have known that it was too good to last.

Should have known. But didn’t.

Chapter 9

To the Most Esteemed Nathanial Dearborne, Your name is known even here in the Colonies, sir, where tales of your skill and success in exposing the practice of Witchery are passed from one man of God to another in tones of awe and admiration. Such dark practices must be uncovered, wherever they hide, and burned away by the light of righteousness. “Tis for this reason I post you now. The shadow of the Devil has fallen upon my own beloved settlement of Sanctuary in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. A Witch resides amongst us, of this I am certain. Her wiles and spells have placed the souls of the entire population in dire peril. The Witch’s name is Raven St. James, and while I am convinced of her guilt, there remains doubt in the mind of our settlement’s pastor. I fear the Rev. Duncan Wallace has lost the ability to see beyond her charms and sorcery, and has perhaps himself fallen victim to her sinful enchantments.

I have heard, Reverend Dearborne, that you have, at times, traveled far in your quest to rid the God-fearing Christian world of the scourge of Witchcraft, and “tis my fondest hope that you will do so now. I beg of you, sir,

come to Sanctuary. You may well be our town’s only hope. In God’s most holy name, I remain, Elias Stanton, Sanctuary, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Nathanial Dearborne received the letter three months after it was written to him. Amazing, he thought, how his fame had spread even to the New World. Amazing, and ironic. A High Witch, perhaps one of the oldest dark ones in the world, known far and wide as a Witch-hunter of the highest order.

But what better way to take the power of other Witches than to execute them and take their hearts before they revive?

He smiled to himself as he read the distraught words of this Elias Stanton. He’d found her. At last he’d found the young Witch who’d so thoroughly wronged him.

Raven St. James.

With Duncan, still with Duncan. How? Why? Did it matter? She was a powerful Witch, Nathanial had sensed that from the start. More powerful than most so young. ’Twas the power of her ancestors, the power of a long and unbroken line of natural Witches, all of it appearing collectively in the first High Witch ever to be born to her family. Even she hadn’t been aware of the full extent of her powers.

But Nathanial had.

He’d been weakening when he’d come upon the girl in the stocks that snowy morn. Barely functioning, and unsure how much longer he could go on. He’d needed an immortal heart, any immortal heart, to revive him, to restore his strength, his vigor. ’Twould give him the power to seek out an older one before he began to decline once more. So he’d touched the accused Witches as they stood imprisoned and bent over in shameful display in the public square. He’d felt nothing when he’d touched the mother.

But a jolt surged through him when his hand brushed over the girl’s. And he’d known, young and inexperienced though she was, he would take her heart, just so that he might live to take others.

And then the rest of the knowledge had come to him, whispering through his sharp mind like a breeze before he took his hand away. She had a strong heart in her, Raven St. James did. A powerful heart. He would not gain longevity by taking it, but instead, power. Magickal power. And he wanted it for his own. He wanted her young, tender heart beating endlessly, imprisoned in a tiny wooden box. With the others.

Now, though, there was more driving him than just that. Events had taken an unexpected twist that day at the gallows. A twist that burned in his gut, and one he would not, could not forgive.

Raven had cost him a young man who’d been… almost… a son to him. She’d turned Duncan Wallace against him, and the hurt he felt was more than he’d allowed himself to feel in centuries. Damn her. Damn her!

Nathanial had had a son of his own, once, long, long ago. Before he’d known about immortality, before he’d taken his first heart, and thus stolen the gift for himself. So much time had passed that he remembered very little about that life— the life before. But he remembered the boy, and his love for him.

He hadn’t thought it through, this endless life he’d managed to acquire for himself. He hadn’t thought it through!

Nathanial’s son had grown old. Died, eventually. As had his wife, and his friends and everyone and everything he’d ever known. So much pain swamped him then that he cursed his decision to kill his first Witch; to hold her heart entrapped in a small box, sucking the very life from it to extend his own lifetime.

He’d cursed his immortality. Briefly. He got over that in time.

But he’d never gotten over the loss of his son.

Duncan… Duncan had reminded him of the boy in some small way—had, perhaps, come close to filling the void that remained in Nathanial’s heart after all these centuries.

Until Raven St. James had turned Duncan against him.

She’d pay. She’d pay with her very heart. If it took him a thousand lifetimes, Nathanial would make sure of that. He’d get her, take her heart, take her special brand of magick and make it his own. He’d repay her for thwarting him, not once, but twice, for he’d attempted to kill her when she’d returned to her former home after the hanging.

But he’d been weak. And she’d defeated him.

Only once before had he been defeated in battle by a woman. Only once. He hadn’t been weakened, then, but at his strongest. But she had been a woman possessed of a fury beyond anything he’d ever seen. All because he’d murdered her lover. She’d nearly killed him, would have, had he not been clever enough to get away. He’d never face that one again if he had his way.

But Raven, he would face Raven.

And soon, for it seemed her day of reckoning was at hand. He knew where she was hiding. And as if the fates had decided to take his side for a change, he knew where Duncan was, as well. As if he were meant to go there, to dispose of the bitch once and for all, and to make Duncan come back to England with him. And he would. He would win Duncan back again, he would have Raven’s heart. Not because he’d die without it. Not this time. No, this time it was sheer vengeance that drove him. He wanted Raven’s heart… because she had taken his. She’d taken Duncan.

Duncan stood at the pulpit in the log structure that was his church, going over his notes for this morning’s service. His sermons had taken a turn of late. He didn’t preach about hellfire and the damnation of sinners anymore. He couldn’t. To do so made him squirm inside, knowing that according to the beliefs he was supposed to be preaching, he was damned himself. But more and more he questioned those beliefs. More and more he felt with everything in him that loving Raven St. James could be no sin. No more so than breathing… because it came to him just as naturally.

He looked up when the groan of the heavy door announced a visitor, and quickly hid a frown of displeasure when he saw Elias Stanton coming in.

He looked ill, Elias did. Pale, weak somehow. The man came inside and sank onto a wooden bench as if his legs were too tired to carry him any farther.

Duncan set his notes aside and hurried forward. “Elias? Are you ill?”

Shoulders slumped, Elias only shook his head. “Tis no natural illness plaguing me, Duncan. “Tis far darker than that, I fear.” As Duncan frowned, Elias lifted his head, revealing the dark circles beneath his eyes. “But I’ve not come to you for that. You’re no physician. ”Tis my soul needs cleansing, Reverend. I’ve come to confess. Will you hear me?“

Duncan blinked in surprise. “Aye, you know I will. But confession is nay part of our dogma here, Elias.”

“Nonetheless…” He lowered his head once more.

Duncan nodded, clasping Elias’s shoulder briefly. “Go on, then. Tell me what troubles you so. I’ll help you if I can.”

Tiredly Elias nodded. “Tis the woman.“

And Duncan knew without asking what woman he spoke of, but he asked all the same.

“That St. James wench,” Elias spat out. “Who else?”

A tingle of warning whispered through Duncan’s limbs. He took the bench in front of Elias, turned sideways to look back at the bowed man, and warned himself to keep quiet. To give nothing away. To simply… listen.

“I thought myself strong enough in my faith to resist her, you know. Fool that I was. No man could withstand such an onslaught.”

Swallowing the retort that leaped to his lips, Duncan only nodded. “What is it she’s done to upset you so much?”

Elias brought his head up fast, and his eyes lost some of that tired look when they filled instead with anger. Rage.

“What has she done? Have you not seen it yourself, Reverend? The sidelong glances. The way she parades her beauty so proudly about this town. The devil is in her, I vow it!”

“I’ve nay seen anythin’ of the sort,“ he said, too quickly, he knew.

“She’s taken to haunting my dreams,” Elias went on. “She comes to me by night, while I sleep. Tempts me to sin of the most vile sort while I’m helpless to resist. I tell you, only a Witch would be capable of such things!”

Duncan closed his eyes slowly. God, he’d been afraid of this. “Aye, only a Witch,” he said slowly. “Or a man lustin’ after an innocent. Take care, Elias, not to blame your own failin’s on another.“

“Tis Witchery, I tell you! And I’m not alone in my opinion, Reverend!“

Duncan felt his eyes narrow on the man. “Aren’t you, now?”“ And he waited, dreading what he was about to hear.

“I didn’t speak of it to you at the time,” Elias said slowly. “But I wrote to a man in England about her. A famous Witch-hunter. And now, at last, I have his reply.” This as he tugged a folded sheet of vellum from within his coat. “He believes all the signs are there, Duncan. He says she’s dangerous and that we ought to exercise extreme caution, that she could destroy us all! Read it for yourself!” He thrust the letter at Duncan.

Duncan recoiled from the sheet as if its very touch could burn him. “Nay, I’ve no need to read the words of a man like that. How can he judge and condemn a woman from across the sea, Elias? Think on this! He hasna even met her.”

“A man with his experience has no need. Besides, he will. He’s on his way here. Could arrive within a fortnight. Perhaps sooner. Then we’ll see—”

Duncan surged to his feet. “You’re bringin’ a Witch-hunter here? To Sanctuary? Good God, Elias, do you know what you’ve done?“

Elias rose very slowly, staring hard at Duncan from head to toe. “I see. I guessed it long ago, but I doubted my own instincts. Now, though, I see it clear. All those nights you spend out there, on the pretense of spying on those women. She’s got to you, too. Hasn’t she, Reverend? Hasn’t she?”

Duncan averted his eyes. “Dinna be a fool.”

“Have you fallen even further than I? Has she lifted her skirts for you already? Have you been sampling her tender—”

Duncan lashed out, unable and utterly unwilling to restrain himself. His fist connected with Elias’s face, and the man reeled backward, over the bench and onto the floor behind it.

“You dare!” Elias blustered, clutching his nose as blood ran from beneath his hand.

Duncan gripped the front of the man’s shirt and lifted him to his feet. “Raven St. James is a fine and decent woman. I’ll nay have you sullyin’ her name, nor causin‘ her harm on account of your own rampant lust, Elias Stanton. You’re a ruttin“ pig of a man, with a mind so bent on the carnal there isna room for reason nor decency left in you anymore.”

Elias stepped back and Duncan let him go.

“Leave her alone,” he told the bastard. “I’m warnin’ you, Elias, leave her alone.‘“

Elias sniffed, rubbed his nose again, and examined the blood on his fingertips. “I’ll forgive you, Reverend. Only because I know the power of her spells on a man. She’s obviously worked them on you as well. But she’ll get what’s coming to her. And I’ve half a mind to set the wheels in motion now, myself, rather than wait for the Witch-hunter’s arrival as he advises in his letter. What more evidence do we need, after all?”

“Do you spread any more of this malicious gossip, Elias, I’ll kill you myself.“

The man’s eyes widened, and he took a hasty step away. “You? A man of God, threatening murder?”

“Murder is what you have in mind for Raven. Dinna try to deny it.”

Elias narrowed his eyes. “Raven, is it? I knew—”

“You know nothing. She’s the innocent here. You’re the sinner, Elias. As the leader of this church ”tis my duty to protect the flock from lechers like you.“

Lowering his head, Elias shook it slowly. “You make me wonder, Reverend, whether she has enchanted you at all… or if perhaps you’ve been in league with her all along. Mayhap you be a Witch as well.“

“Get out!” Duncan lifted a hand that shook with barely contained rage, and pointed toward the door. “Get out of my church. You soil it with your very presence.”

Nodding twice, Elias turned and walked away.

Duncan released all his breath at once and sank onto the bench. Damn! Elias was dangerous, and this Witch-hunter, whoever he was, likely even more so. How many of the women in this town might be falsely accused, even executed, now that Elias had started this disaster? How many? Elias Stanton may well have lit a wildfire in Sanctuary that would spread until it consumed the entire settlement.

But it wouldn’t consume Raven. Nay, not if it cost Duncan’s life to prevent it.

He had to get to Raven, had to speak to her. She must leave this place, now. Right away.

But even now the parishioners were arriving for the service. God, there was no time. Afterward, then. He’d go to her tonight and he would make her understand the danger she faced here. He’d take the lass away from this place if he had to sling her over his shoulder and carry her all the way. Aye, he would!

He closed his eyes slowly and prayed to his God to watch over her in the meantime.

After the Sunday meeting, I lingered. Arianna didn’t. She put on a good show, acting prim and pious in her humble, dark skirts, white cap always in place, hair discreetly tucked beneath it. But she hated the Sunday meetings, the townspeople with their false smiles and friendly words when all the while they were whispering their suspicions to one another in private. And as usual, she left as soon as possible. She always did, even if it meant walking all the way back to the cabin. But I was feeling generous today, so I told her to take the wagon. I’d walk home this time, if she couldn’t wait to leave.

I was quite the opposite in my feelings about the Sunday meetings. Oh, the make-believe friendship of those backbiting locals riled me every bit as much as it did Arianna. But for me there was reason to stay. For I’d grown to cherish every moment I could spend near Duncan, even those moments when we had to pretend there was nothing between us. For he would shower love on me all the same—in a single glance sent my way and filled with fire, even as he spoke to one crowd of parishioners and I to another. In an accidental touch. In the very way his voice changed when he spoke to me. I knew I was always on his mind, in his thoughts, just as he lingered constantly in mine.

There were, of course, unpleasant experiences awaiting me each time I attended services. For Elias Stanton tended to pay nearly as much mind to me as Duncan did. Only his glances were dirty somehow, leaving me feeling stained when I chanced to meet his lecherous gaze, and even more so when he touched me “accidentally,” which happened more and more often.

I was blessed today, though, because Elias did not attend services. Aunt Eleanor, too, had stayed at home, having awoken this morn with a crushing headache that kept her abed. And since Arianna had already gone with our wagon, I was to walk back to the cabin alone. Not that I minded. I was, in fact, looking forward to the walk, for the leaves were turning and beautiful, and Duncan was on my mind.

He’d tried several times to speak with me, and there was a new urgency in his eyes when they caught mine, but each time he’d been swept away by someone else begging a word or asking advice. No matter. He would come to me tonight. In the forest, beneath the stars, we’d make tender love. I’d spend my walk home dreaming of the evening to come.

It did not turn out that way at all.

I’d trekked only halfway, walking slowly along the worn track, singing to myself, bursting with the joy of the changing seasons, the scent of the autumn leaves and the sea at my side. But I was jolted out of my pleasure at the sound of a horse’s clopping gait, and the rattling of the wagon it pulled. And when I turned, expecting to see Duncan coming to see me home, I caught my breath. For ’twas Elias Stanton manning the reins. He looked ragged, and there was a vacant look to his eyes that chilled me.

“Good morn, Mistress St. James,” he called, drawing the rig to a halt right beside me.

“Good morn,” I replied, my voice stiff. “We missed you at the meeting hall this morn.” I hadn’t missed him at all, but ’twas something to say.

“I had some thinking to do,” he said. “Thinking… that was best done alone.”

Something quivered inside me. Some sense of danger. I kept walking. But he snapped the reins to keep pace.

“I be on my way to call on your aunt,” he announced, as if I might care where he were going.

“How thoughtful of you.”

“Perhaps you’d care to ride the rest of the way in comfort, rather than taxing yourself by walking?”“

I met his eyes, cold and menacing, revealing the lie of his voice, and I gave a quick shake of my head. “I thank you, sir, but I am enjoying my walk too much to end it so soon.“

“Nonsense,” he said. “A woman walking alone is unsafe. Come, ride with me.”

“I walk this way often and never see another soul, Mister Stan ton. I assure you, I’m perfectly safe.”

Grunting deep in his throat, he stopped the wagon again, only this time he climbed down. Walking toward the horse, he took its halter in one hand. “I’ll walk with you, then. Lord forbid some harm befall you while I ride safely away, unaware.”

I lowered my head as my stomach clenched tight. “I prefer to walk alone.“ I blurted it, not softening the words or the tone in any way. There should be no mistake, I thought. I did not wish to walk with this man.

He understood all right, for his face darkened. He released the horse, and turned fully toward me. “The attentions of a man offend you, do they?”

I did not know what to say. “You are a married man. Mister Stanton. Surely you should not speak to me in such a way.”

“Married, yes, and pious to a fault, but still subjected to the charms of a sorceress. Just as our preacher seems to be.”

“I know nothing of sorcery! And the Reverend Wallace has never been anything but kind and perfectly polite toward me.”

“That is not what I see in his eyes when they meet your own, lady. No. I see lust. The same lust that rears up in my own heart with each toss of your head.”

“You’re being ridiculous!” I backed away, but he caught my wrists in his cruel hands.

“I know of but one means to rid myself of your allure, Raven. And that is to sate this lust once and for all.”

“Let go of me! Have you gone insane? Let me go!”

“No, mistress. I won’t let you go.”

He jerked me closer and mashed his face to mine. His mouth open and wet, his tongue lapping at my lips though I pressed them tight. I pulled backward, but he clung to me, held me fast to his body so that as I moved he moved as well, until my back was pressed to the trunk of a tree, and his flaccid body held me pinned there. I struggled frantically, but his perverted desire had caused him to have an overpowering strength, and I could not free myself, despite my own enhanced Witchly strength. He groped at the front of my dress, pawed at my breasts.

“Stop fighting, wench! You’ve brought this on yourself— visiting me in my dreams nightly as you do, tempting me to sin. I no longer rest at night. I cannpt eat by day. You’re draining the very life from me, woman, and now you’ll pay!”

I had to stop him or be raped. The knowledge came clear to me just that quickly. I had no choice in the matter, and since I couldn’t reach my dagger, I knew only one way. But it would take all of my focus.

Calm. I willed myself to go utterly calm. Forced my body to relax, and my mind to ignore what he was doing to me. I went inside myself, deep inside, to a place where his grunting and groping did not exist—as if they were happening to someone else and I was but a witness.

Closing my eyes, I whispered, chanted to Mother Earth, attuned to her, felt her strength beneath me and behind me and around me and, finally, surging from within me. I drew her energy up from the ground, centered that power until it thrummed in my veins, and then opened my eyes to find a focus for it.

The limb, above Elias Stanton’s head.

With a shout of release, I sent the power shooting forth, and the limb cracked and split. It crashed down, smiting the man and knocking him to his knees, and then flat to the ground, with the limb heavy atop him. He did not move.

I had no wish to stay to see whether he was dead or alive. I ran, leaping into his wagon and snapping the reins hard. His horse reared up and raced forward, and in moments the brute was behind me, and my home, my haven, loomed ahead.

Arianna was waiting when I arrived. She stared at me as I wheeled the wagon to a stop. Then her face paled, and she ran forward even as I tried to climb down.

“Sweet Mother, what’s happened!”

She gathered me gently into her arms, helping me down. And only as she stared aghast did I realize my dress was torn, my hair askew, my face hot and damp.

“This is Elias Stanton’s rig,” Arianna all but hissed. “He did this, didn’t he? Raven?”

Trembling, beyond words, I merely nodded.

“I’ll kill him.” And even as she said it her dagger appeared in her hand. “Where is he? I’ll cut out his liver!”

And finally coherent thought returned. Pushing my hair out of my face, head bowed, I said, “No, Arianna. Wait.”

“For what?” Her face had reddened clear to her ears. “Did he rape you, Raven? Did he—”

“No. I’m… I’m all right. But Arianna, we mustn’t speak of this. Not to anyone.”

“And what should we do? Keep quiet and wait for that beast to try again?”

Drawing a deep steadying breath, I shook my head. “We should take the rig back into town. We should say the horse brought it in with no one inside, and that we’re concerned about Elias. They’ll send men out looking, and they’ll find him in the woods, beneath a fallen limb. Alive… or, I think he was, when I left him there.”

She scowled at me so intently I felt her anger washing over me. “So we cover for him, lie for him?”

“No, Arianna. For us. You know what they think of me in this town. No one would accept my word over his. Let them believe it an accident.“ Again, I glanced down at my dress. ”Aunt Eleanor mustn’t see me like this.“

Lowering her head, Arianna blew a sigh. “Here, take my cloak.“ And she removed the cloak from her shoulders to cover mine, then gently smoothed my hair. ”I’ll do as you ask. But I still think he deserves to be drawn and quartered.“

“He accused me of bewitching him,” I muttered. “Of visiting him in dreams and driving him to… to this.”

“His own lechery has driven him. Nothing more.” She shook her head, eyeing the rig. “I’ll bring Duncan.”

“He must never know of this, Arianna. Please, don’t tell him. He’d kill Elias, I know he would.”

“The man needs killing.”

“Please…”

She sighed, lowering her head. “You ask a lot of me, my friend.”

“I know.” I lifted my head. “Have I told you how grateful I am that you came to me, Arianna? I haven’t, have I? But I should. You… you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

She blinked, looking away as if slightly irritated. “I would die for you, you know.”

I frowned, confused by the power in that simple statement. “But why?”

She shrugged. “You did for me once.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Meeting my eyes, smiling gently, she said, “Perhaps it’s time I told you the truth, Raven. You have this gift, this immortality, because in some previous life you died while trying to save the life of another Witch.”

“I understand that, but—”

“That Witch… was me.”

And before I could say another word, she leaped into Elias Stanton’s wagon and snapped the reins.

There had been no love lost between Duncan and the mysterious, mischievous-eyed pixie who seemed to have become Raven’s closest friend. They were polite to each other, but cool, and he sensed the smaller woman’s disapproval. Understood it, even.

But when he saw Arianna driving Elias Stanton’s rig into town that morn, her face expressionless and pale, he immediately felt his stomach tie in knots. He’d been steadily working to free himself of the people who seemed determined to have a word with him—and only now had he succeeded. He’d been about to start out to Raven’s cottage on the cliffs.

The pace at which the wagon moved was enough to tell him something was wrong. Terribly wrong. When it stopped in a cloud of dust, Duncan joined the crowd gathering around Arianna, but her eyes were on him alone, and he sensed a silent message in them.

“Mister Stanton’s horse arrived at our cabin with no driver,” she said, calmly, as slowly as if she’d rehearsed her words. “We’re concerned about his safety.” She climbed down with grace, nimble as a sprite, ignoring all the shouted questions. “Perhaps some of you might wish to travel the Coast Road and search for him,” she suggested.

Several men immediately shouted agreement and as they grouped off, and began making their plan, Duncan took Arianna aside. “What has truly happened?” he asked.

She averted her eyes. “Nothing good, Duncan. But I can say no more. I gave my promise to Raven, and I’ll not break my word to her.”

“Is she all right?” He nearly held his breath awaiting her answer.

“She’s unharmed.” Finally she met his eyes again, and he saw the concern there for her friend. “I’d have stayed with her myself and let that animal Elias rot. But it is you she needs, Duncan. Go to her.”

He nodded quickly. Let the others search for Elias. He needed to see Raven, to assure himself she was well, and find out what this was all about. And then he had to take steps to get her away from here, to somewhere safe.

What the hell had happened out there? God, he knew she’d been walking alone. But he hadn’t seen her leave, and by the time he realized she’d gone it had been too late to prevent it. He should have gone after her, right then. Should have escorted her home, and to hell with what the town gossips would make of that. Damn Elias to hell if he’d touched her, frightened her in any way. He’d kill the bastard. He’d kill him with his bare hands.

“Come,” he said to Arianna through clenched teeth. “We’ll go together.” They were not friends, nay, yet he still wouldn’t like the thought of her alone in this town should something rile the locals—should something turn them against her.

“I think I should linger in town. See what the vermin has to say when they find him. If he’s still alive, that is.“ Her frown was worried, more now than ever. And Duncan knew too well that Elias might speak his suspicions about her and Raven if he’d been provoked.

“I think it a bad notion, lass,” he said.

She tilted her head, studied him. “Is that worry in your eyes, Duncan? For me?” Her smile was small and brief. “I’m grateful for the thought, but believe me when I tell you I can take care of myself.”

He lowered his head. “Stay, then, if you’re certain,” he told her, speaking lower now. “But keep out of sight, Arianna. You might be judged guilty by association, does anythin‘ come of this.“

She nodded, but when he turned to go, she clutched his arm. He faced her again, and she stared straight into his eyes. “So might you, Duncan. You should be well aware of that. Well aware of the risk involved.”

“The only risk I’m concerned about is the risk to Raven,” he told her. And meant it. “But I’m aware of it, aye. And willin’ to face it. I’ll have no regrets, no matter the outcome.“

“You truly do love her, don’t you?” Arianna whispered.

“Aye, with everythin’ in me,“ he told her. Then he looked at her face, at the force of the emotions in her eyes, and added, ”As much as you do, I’ll wager.“

“You must love her a great deal, then,” she said softly.

Nodding, Duncan clasped Arianna’s shoulder briefly, a gesture of friendship he thought long overdue. They’d reached an understanding between them, he thought. He and Arianna had one thing in common. They were both utterly devoted to Raven and determined to protect her at any cost. ’Twas a powerful bond they shared, and he thought they’d both finally realized that.

“Take care, lass,” he told her. “You an’ I have much to talk about when this is over. I’d like you alive an‘ well for the conversation.“

She nodded, reaching out to briefly squeeze his hand in a gesture that told him she understood, and felt as he did. Their eyes met in silent communion, and then he turned and strode away.

Chapter 10

I felt soiled by Elias Stanton’s very touch, could still taste his vile mouth on my lips, and feel his hands…

Aunt Eleanor lay asleep, perfectly peaceful and safe. She would not remain so… not if I stayed here with her any longer. Stanton, if he lived, would spread his accusations against me, and my aunt would be at risk. Christians did not treat Witches kindly, nor did they show mercy to anyone associated with them. I would have to leave her. And soon, I feared. Duncan had been right. If only I had heeded his warnings.

Without disturbing my aunt, I slipped back outside, a woven washcloth in my fist. I only wanted to cleanse myself of the stain of Elias’s hands, rinse my mouth, scrub away the essence of his touch. But I was too frantic to carry water and fill the tub, much less wait for it to warm over the fire. No, I needed to wash now. At once. Every moment I waited made my stomach heave.

I hurried to the woods, to a stream there that emptied into the sea, and there I stripped off every stitch and plunged myself into the icy water. I drank in great mouthfuls of it, and spat it out again, over and over. I scrubbed at my arms, at my breasts, at my face. Everywhere he’d touched me. I scoured myself, but to no avail. Even then I didn’t feel clean, so I scrubbed some more.

“Raven.”

At the sound of my name whispered so hoarsely, I snatched my dagger from the rock at my side and whirled, raising it up, ready to gut the bastard if he came at me again.

But ’twas Duncan standing there on the bank, staring at me with eyes as wounded as dying stars. I parted my lips but could not speak. But I didn’t need to speak. He knew me so well, knew at a glance my devastation, my shame, though he did not—could not—know their cause. He came to me, walked into the swirling, icy stream fully clothed, and gently gathered me into his arms.

“Tis all right,“ he whispered, holding me close, turning and carrying me to the shore. ”I’m here with you now, my bonny lass, and ‘tis all right.“ His lips touched my hair as he held me like a frightened child in his arms. ”What’s happened to you, love? What’s happened?“

“N-nothing…”

He lowered me to the soft, grassy bank, snatching up the cloth to begin rubbing me dry. So gentle, his touch. So careful as he pressed the water from my hair and wiped it away from my body. “You’re freezin’,“ he whispered, and quickly picked up my dress. And then he stiffened, his hands tightened around my dress as he stared at it. I reached out, snatched it away, but ‘twas too late. He’d seen the rips and tears down the front.

Slowly he looked at me again, his eyes more thorough this time.

“You’re bruised,” he whispered.

My hands flew to cover my breasts where I could feel the soreness Elias’s cruel hands had left behind. But ’twas too late to hide the marks from Duncan’s eyes.

“Stanton did this,” he muttered.

I lifted my chin, swallowed hard. “It doesn’t matter.”

But Duncan’s face reddened, his jaw clenched with anger. “Oh, it matters, lass. I’ll kill him for this.”

“No, please…”

He touched his fingers to my lips, silencing me. Then he quickly divested himself of his shirt, and then his coat, dressing me in both with such exquisite care I nearly wept.

“You mustn’t take revenge on him, Duncan. Twould spell your ruin.”

“Aye, an’ what do I care about my ruin? Raven, darlin‘, I care only for you.“ Pushing my hair back away from my eyes, he stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. ”Did he…?“

“No.” I saw the doubt in Duncan’s eyes, held them with mine so he could see that I was being honest with him. “He would have, Duncan, though I fought. But a limb fell from the tree where he… where he…“ I stopped, drew a shuddering breath, began again. ”It might have killed him. I hope it did.“

“If it didna kill the bastard, I’ll do it myself.”

“Please, Duncan, I’ve had all the violence I can bear.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Then he gently pulled me close, cradling me in his arms, rocking me against his warm chest. I felt utterly surrounded by him, his strength, his love. “I’m so sorry, Raven. I should have been with you, should have protected you—”

“No, Duncan, do not for one moment believe any of this is your fault.”

“I love you,” he whispered, and he kissed me very softly, his lips on mine instantly erasing the memory of those other, cruel ones.

When he lifted his head away, I touched his face. “And I love you, Duncan Wallace. With all that I am, I love you.”

He blinked, searching my face in wonder. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear you say those words?“

I bit my lip, realizing what I’d done. But ’twas too late to take the declaration back now. And it was true, more true, perhaps, than any words I’d ever spoken.

“We have to leave here,” he said softly. “Tonight, Raven. There’s nay time to wait. I want to take you away, to somewhere safe from fools like Elias and this other bastard who’s on his way here even now.”

I sat up a bit, frowning. “Who?”

“A Witch-hunter,” he said, his voice grim. “I’d no idea until this morn, my love, but Elias wrote to some murderin’ cur in England, and the man could arrive at any time. We must make haste.“

I felt a shiver of utter dread creep up my spine.

“No, my lass, dinna be afraid,” he told me, clasping my hand in his. “No one will ever harm you again, Raven. I vow it on my very life.”

And those words made me shiver all the more.

Duncan stayed at my side as I packed a few belongings, and held my hand while I delivered my sad news to sweet Aunt Eleanor.

“You’ll come back,” she kept saying. And the hope in her eyes was so desperate that I couldn’t divest her of it. “You will come back once you’ve taken care of this… this…”

“Business matter. Tis all to do with some property my father owned,” I told her. “Very complicated and boring, but I must return to England to clear it up. And yes, of course I will come back.”

She blinked back her tears. “I won’t worry for your safety, at least. Not with Duncan going along to care for you.” She hugged me gently, kissed my face.

“I promise to protect her as if she were my own,” Duncan assured her.

I battled my tears, refusing to shed a single one in front of her.

“Don’t be any longer than you have to, child. I’ll be waiting for your return.”

“I know you will, Aunt Eleanor.” I squeezed her hands one last time. “I do love you, you know.”

“Well, of course you do. Off with you, now. No sense waiting—my, but ”tis already near dark.“

I knew it was. Duncan and I had deliberately waited for the night to fall. Like a dark blanket that would enfold and protect us. I finished with my goodbyes, and we stepped out into the night. It had always been our place, the place where we lived, where we loved. Night had been good to Duncan and me.

“I’m worried about Arianna,” I whispered.

“Aye, I am, as well. The moment I get you safely away from Sanctuary, Raven, I’ll return, an‘ I’ll find her. I promise you that.“

We were walking silently, hand in hand along the Coast Road. My belongings, what few of them I thought I would need, were in my pack, and Duncan carried it slung over his sturdy shoulder.

“Poor Aunt Eleanor,” I said softly. “She was heartbroken when we told her that I must leave.”

“Aye, no doubt, but she seemed to take the news in stride, all the same,” Duncan said.

“Oh, she tried to put on a brave face… for my benefit,” I told him. “But I saw through it. It broke her heart to say goodbye to me. I know it did, Duncan, for it broke mine, as well.“ I caught my lip in my teeth and swallowed back a sob. ”I’ll likely never see that dear woman again. “Tis almost like losing my mother anew!” The hurt bubbled high in my chest, and tears spilled over.

Duncan pulled me close to his side, his arm strong and protective around my shoulders. “Nay, lass, you shall see her again. I’ll see to it. We’ll settle someplace safe, Raven, and the moment we do, I’ll come back for her. Bring her to us.”

I stared up at him in wonder. “You would do that for me?”

“Aye, lass. I’d do any thin’ for you, and you ought to know it by now.“

“I do know it,” I whispered.

“Good.” He drew my hand to his lips and kissed it.

’Twas fully dark now, but the light of a full moon made it nearly as bright outside as it might be at midday. We’d hoped to skirt the village unnoticed by waiting until the hour grew late enough. A frightening prospect, indeed. But I felt safe with Duncan at my side. Safe and loved, and yet sad beyond words. Someday I would lose him, just as I’d lost everyone dear to me. It would always be this way, I imagined. Goodbyes. So many goodbyes.

I didn’t think I wanted to live to see the day I’d have to say goodbye to him. I didn’t think I could bear it.

Running footsteps made my thoughts grind to a halt, and I reached for my dagger, spinning around and lifting it up.

But then in the moonlight I saw Arianna’s face, reddened and damp with perspiration. Wide-eyed and breathless, she came toward us. And I knew something was terribly wrong, but even then I couldn’t restrain my joy at seeing her.

I flung my arms around her, felt the pounding of her heart and the rapid, deep breaths she drew. Her skin was hot and damp. “I’ve been worried out of my mind!” I cried. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”

“Not for long, I fear,” she said, hugging me back before straightening away and eyeing first me, then Duncan as she fought to catch her breath.

“Something is wrong, then?” Duncan asked her. And she nodded.

Of course something was wrong, I thought. Ah, but what surprise was that? Nothing had been right today. Not today. Perhaps not ever again.

“Thank the fates I managed to catch up with you.” Bending, hands braced on her knees, Arianna dragged in gulps of the bracing sea breeze that wafted up from the cliffs at our side. And slowly her breathing returned to normal.

“What is it, Arianna?” I asked.

“The townspeople. Stanton…”

“They found him, then? Alive?” Duncan’s voice was grim, and I knew that in spite of his goodness, his generous soul, he truly wished the man dead.

“Yes, alive, and spewing venom. But delirious enough so no one paid much notice at first. But he finally recovered sufficiently to convince them he wasn’t suffering delusions. He said you attacked him, Raven. Said you used Witchery to smash him with that limb and then left him to die.”

I only stood still and silent, already knowing the answer to my next question. “And they believed him.”

“They went out to the cabin in search of you. I raced ahead to warn you, Raven, but you’d already gone.”

“Aunt Eleanor?”

She shook her head rapidly. “They’ve left her alone. I think they will continue to, Raven. You’re the newcomer, the stranger here. She is one of their own.”

“Thank goodness.”

“I have no doubt they’re on your heels even now,” Arianna rushed on. “I cut through the forest to reach you first. Come, we must hurry.”

Nodding, I grasped Duncan’s hand all the harder and sent a longing glance down to the sea far below, where jagged rocks peered from beneath the surface only to vanish again with the waves. “What I wouldn’t give for a boat. They have to know this road is the only way we can leave Sanctuary.”

“Aye, they know it,” Duncan said grimly. “But if they try to harm you, Raven, they’ll have to go through me to do it.”

“Duncan, no. You mustn’t do anything to put yourself at risk. I—”

“Hold!”

I caught my breath, and whirled to see a mass of villagers streaming toward us and spreading like some oily pool to block our path. And when I spun the other way, I saw more of them. They carried torches. They shouted and accused. The very air around me snapped with the vibrations of their hatred, and their menace.

Trapped. Trapped here on these cliffs with no chance of escape.

“Stand aside,” Duncan called, even as he gently moved me behind him. “I know what Elias has told you, but I’m here to bear witness that ”tis nothin‘ more than a pack of lies spun by a man sick with desire for a woman he can never possess.“

“fis as Elias said,“ one man called to the others in a coarse voice. ”She’s bewitched even the preacher!“

They closed ranks around us. There was no way out.

“Tis untrue!“ Duncan shouted back. ”I tell you, as a man of God, in the name of God, this woman is innocent.“

“Blasphemer!” someone cried. “He’s in league with her.” And they surged forward like one living mass of evil, pressing ever closer on us from all sides. Duncan clung to me, shielded me with his own body, but I was torn from his sheltering arms by cruel hands. Hands that brought back memories I’d hoped never to have to relive.

’Twas as if the veil of time had melted away, and I was back in that poor English village. ”Twas as if I could feel the icy wind and the snow razing my cheeks, even though it was merely a crisp autumn night here.

“Get your hands off her!” Duncan roared.

But they held me all the same. And others held him, though they had a time of doing it.

Where was Arianna? I did not see her. She’d vanished.

The crowd stilled as Elias Stanton himself came forward, leaning heavily upon a staff and wearing a white cloth tied about his head. “This wench tried to murder me,” he cried. “Moreover, she’s guilty of fornication! With our own minister! A man of God, tempted to sin by a Witch!”

“End this curse! Free the preacher of her spells,” someone called.

“Pitch her from the cliffs!”

“Nay!” Duncan tugged at the men who held him. Fought them, just as he’d fought them before, at the hanging. And ’twas just as useless. ”I’ll nay stand by and see you do murder! Nay, dammit!“

“Duncan Wallace,” Elias intoned, “do you confess to the crime of fornication, and to the even darker sin of communing with a Witch?”

“I dinna confess anythin’ to you, Elias! For ‘twould be like confessin“ to the devil himself!” Duncan shouted. But he stilled his struggling, standing straight and tall while lesser men clasped his arms. He faced Elias Stanton squarely. I’d never seen the like of him as he was that night. Standing with his back to the sea, the wind whipping his dark hair into chaos as the waves broke and crashed below, his eyes flashing.

“What of you, Elias?” he asked softly, and the men around us went silent at the power in his quiet voice. “Do you confess?”

“I’ve nothing to confess to, young man!”

“Nay? What of tryin’ to force your attentions upon an innocent woman and then plottin‘ her murder to cover your own sins?“

Elias lowered his head and shook it slowly. “These men know me, Duncan. They’ve known me for years, and can vouch for my character. No, they’ll not believe a come-lately preacher nor a Witch over one of their own.” And lifting his head, he faced Duncan again. “Confess, Duncan. ”Tis the only way to save yourself.“

“I’d confess gladly, if my doin’ so would save her.“

“Alas, her fate is already sealed, my friend. But for you, there remains some dim hope of salvation. Confess, son, beg forgiveness of God on your knees and—‘“

“Burn in hell, Stanton.”

“Duncan, no…” I whispered the words, but it was too late. He’d damned himself already. Because of me.

Elias shook his head sadly and turned toward me. And his eyes were cold there in the darkness, beneath the light of a full moon. Cold and menacing. I had to save Duncan. Somehow, he must not be dragged into the depths of this mess I’d brought upon myself.

“Please, Elias,” I whispered. “Duncan is innocent! He knows nothing of me or my ways! ”Twas all me. I bewitched him, just as you said. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing tonight. Spare him, for the love of God, spare him!“

Stanton looked upon me with utter hatred in his eyes. The men holding me were even now binding my hands behind me, and I saw they were about to do the same to Duncan. I searched the crowd for Arianna, praying to the Great Goddess that they hadn’t put their hands on her as well, and sighed in blessed relief when I still didn’t see her there. She must have slipped away. Please, I thought, please let her have slipped way.

“Disavow her, Duncan,” Elias said softly. “Save yourself.”

“Never!”

“Do as he asks, Duncan.” I tried to move forward, to get closer to him, but there were too many of them holding me. Even with my strength I had no chance of overpowering them. “Please, trust me. Do as he asks.”

Meeting my eyes, he only shook his head. “Not on pain of death, lass,“ he whispered. ”Nay, not if it meant my own soul, would I speak against you.“

“Don’t listen to him,” I pleaded. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“Perhaps he’ll come back to himself,” Elias said, “when you lie dead and your spells are finally broken.”

Elias looked at the men who held me, gave a nod, and I was lifted. I cried out to Duncan as they carried me to the edge, pleaded with him, prayed he’d understand. “They cannot kill me! Do you hear me, Duncan? They cannot take my life! Save yourself, Duncan, I beg you!”

But already he was tearing free of his captors, lunging forward, struggling to reach me. The men standing at my head and at my feet swung me like a feed sack, and then simply let me go. Out, out into the vast emptiness of space and wind and moonlight I sailed, and Duncan raced toward the edge. I hung in space for only an instant, long enough to see the horror in his eyes, and to know what he would do.

“No!” I screamed, and then I plummeted, and Duncan, my beloved Duncan, lunged out, reaching for me as if he could catch me somehow, and haul me back to safety. But he couldn’t. He must have known he couldn’t. And his reaching only resulted in him falling—he followed the course I took. The wind whistled past my ears, and my body tumbled and spun. I shouted my love for him but couldn’t hear my own words for the crash of the sea below, drawing nearer—ever nearer. And then there was an impact, incredible pain. The snap and cracking of my bones as my body hurled itself upon the rocks and into the cold, salty water.

And then the pain blinked out, along with the light of life.

“Raven…”

I sucked in a sudden, sharp gasp, so deep it nearly burst my lungs when life returned to me once more. I opened my eyes, blinked the water away, and stared up at Arianna. She sat on the ground near the shore, my head cradled in her lap, the seawater streaming from my hair and soaking her clothes. She held me like a child, stroking my hair, caressing my face. Tears dampened her own lily-white cheeks.

“Raven,” she whispered again. “Oh, sweet Raven, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

And it all came back to me.

“Duncan!”

“Hush, now.” She soothed, gentled me, but I struggled free of her comforting, struggled free and got to my feet.

“Where is he? Where is Duncan? Tell me!”

Arianna bit her lip as I scanned the shoreline in search of my love. And then I saw him.

His broken body lay upon a jagged cluster of rocks some distance out, waves reaching up at him, tugging him as if they wanted to carry him away in their crystalline arms. I ran into the water, snouting his name, crying uncontrollably. But when I reached him, I knew ’twas no use. Even as I clambered up onto the rocks where he lay and pulled him into my arms, begging him to wake up, to speak to me, I knew. He was as boneless as a rag doll, broken in so many places his poor body barely held its form. His face lay still and pale in the moonlight, blessedly unmarred. The blue of his lips, and his bloodless skin, the coolness of his cheek where I touched it, told a story too horrible to believe. I gathered his head to my breast, bowing over him, weeping as I’d never wept before.

“Oh, Duncan, no. Not now, not yet. You can’t leave me so soon! For the love of the Goddess, why? Why couldn’t I trust you with the truth?”“

But I hadn’t, and now he was dead. Because of me, he was dead. I’d never know his touch, his kiss again. Never look into his brown eyes. Never…

“Oh, why didn’t I tell him! He’d not have died trying to save me if he’d known the truth of what I am!” I wailed my grief to the stars, ignoring the sloshing, splashing sounds Arianna made as she came out to where I was.

She stood waist-deep in the water, and gently she took my hand. “Come, love. Come away, now. You can do no more for Duncan here.”

Shaking my head, I clung to him. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t leave him this way. Please…” The words were as broken as my heart, as my precious Duncan’s body. I was broken. I felt I could never rise from that cluster of deadly rocks, never drag myself to the shore, never so much as lift my head again. The very life seemed to have fled me. And I thought then ’twould have been better if it truly had.

“The sea takes care of its own, Raven,” Arianna said softly. “His body belongs to the sea now. But you know his soul does not. You know that. Let him go, Raven.”

I shook my head and held him still closer, my face resting against his cool cheek. “I’ll never see him again,” I moaned. “Never again…”

“But you will.” She kept stroking me, my hair, my back. “He’ll live again, Raven, you know that, as well.” She spoke louder now, perhaps hoping the strength and command of her tone would reach me.

But nothing could reach the dark place where I lived now. “What does it matter? He’s lost to me.”

Arianna drew my face toward her, staring intently into my eyes from where she stood with the ocean waves lapping at her waist. “He died trying to save your life, Raven. When he lives again… he’ll be as we are. Immortal. His selfless act of love earned him the gift, don’t you see?“

Opening my eyes, lifting my head, I released a breath. “Tis true,“ I whispered. ”And never was any man more deserving. But don’t you see, Arianna? I’ll never know him. Never find him again.“

Arianna reached down to stroke Duncan’s wet hair away from his face. “But you will. ”Tis the full moon, Raven, when our powers wax strongest. I… I couldn’t save him. There was no time to cast a spell of enough magnitude to overwhelm so many bent on destruction. But I slipped away, to the woods. I did all I could, Raven. I did all I could.“

And at last her pain made itself known to me. I’d been so immersed in my own… I covered her hand with mine, where it rested upon Duncan’s face.

“I was actually growing to… to like the man,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.

“I know you’d have saved him if you could, my friend.”

She met my eyes, her own glistening. “More than your friend, Raven. Your sister. I am your sister.”

Sniffling, I nodded. “Yes, you are as a sister to me, closer even than that—“

“No. No, you aren’t hearing me. You truly are my sister, or were, a lifetime ago. And my sister you remain.”

I frowned, shocked and surprised. And yet it was as if she were telling me something I already knew.

“I was the eldest,” she said, “practicing the Craft behind our mother’s back, in secret, with a group of Witches from our village. You never even knew, then—”

“But—”

She pressed a finger to my lips. “No, just listen. ”Twas many years ago, you know. I’ve waited a long while to tell you these things. So let me speak.“ In silence I nodded, and Arianna went on. ”I didn’t know what I was then. We were but girls, you and I, you a year younger, but always stronger.“

“I? Stronger than you?”

She nodded. “The year was fifteen-ten. We lived in the village of Stonehaven, in the shadow of Castle Lachlan in the Highlands of Scotland.”

“Scotland…” I closed my eyes, lowering my face to Duncan’s once more. “Tis where Duncan comes from, you know.“

“Yes, I know.”

“I didn’t think I’d ever been there.”

“You were born there. Once.”

Sniffling, swiping away fresh tears, I nodded at her to go on.

“We were forbidden, of course, to play in the forests and lochs, but we did so all the same. I went too far into the water one day. My stomach cramped inexplicably, and I couldn’t get back to shore.” She touched my face, smiling gently. “You came for me, though, held me afloat and fought to get me to shore. And then there were others, the sons of Laird Lachlan himself. They swam out to help. But by then you’d been struggling with me for more than an hour. You were exhausted. Of course, they didn’t realize it. They were concerned only with me, for I seemed to be the one in trouble. You never told them otherwise.” She swallowed hard, loudly. “And when they eased me from your arms and drew me safely toward the shore, I looked back… and you were gone. Just slipped beneath the blue waters of the loch, leaving them so still ”twas as if you’d never been there.“

Staring at her, I whispered, “I drowned.”

“You drowned trying to save my life. The life of an immortal High Witch who didn’t even know she was one at the time.” She sighed slowly, and a tear slid down her cheek. “The lads went back after you, of course. And I stood there on the shore, knowing you’d left me, praying ”twas not too late to perform an incantation, so that I might know you again, one day. I called on all the powers of the Universe, Raven, and cast a potent spell. That when you lived again, ’twould be within my lifetime, and that you would look the same, and your name would again be Raven.”

I tilted my head to the side, touched beyond measure at her words. “You did that for me?” I whispered.

“For me,” she replied. “That I would have the joy of finding you again someday.” She shook her head slowly. “Of course I had no idea then how long my lifetime would be. But the spell worked, Raven. I did find you, and you do look the same—older, yes, but just as you’d have looked before, if you’d had the chance to reach womanhood. And your name is Raven, just as it was then. And… and I love you, my sister.”

A great sob welled up in my throat, choking the words. “I thought I had no family left… but I do. I have my sister.“

She put her arms around me, held me tenderly for just a moment. Then stood back and stared hard into my eyes.

“I performed the same incantation tonight.”

I frowned, searching her face.

“For Duncan. Even as he plummeted from the rocks, I hid myself in the forest and conjured with everything in me.”

Now I looked at her, truly looked at her, though she blurred through my tears. And then I lowered my gaze to stare at Duncan’s lifeless face. God, how I ached for him already.

’Twas all I could think of to do,“ she whispered. ”He will live again, Raven. He will look the same. And his name will again be Duncan. You’ll find him again someday, I promise you.“

Blinking in disbelief, I muttered, “When?”

“I’ve no way of knowing that. Nor is he likely to remember you, Raven, just as you had no memory of me when we met on the Coast Road that day. I did all I could do. I only hope ”twas enough to ease the grief I see in your eyes.“

Closing my eyes, I clutched her chilled hand in one of mine, and clung to my lost love with the other. ’Twill be enough,“ I promised. ”It shall have to be. “Tis all I have.” Then I opened my eyes and met hers. “You’ve given me hope where I had none before. How will I ever thank you for this?”

She shook her head. “I only wish I could have done more.” Then she cleared her throat, lifted her chin. “Raven, we have to leave here. If you hope to live long enough to find this man of yours again, we have to go at once.”

I stroked Duncan’s face. “We should bury him.”

“Listen to me,” she said, and the urgency in her voice cut through the haze of mourning in my mind at last. “The Witch-hunter Elias Stanton sent for arrived only a short while ago. I overheard some of the men talking about it. Saying the man was furious that Elias had taken action, instead of waiting for his arrival as he’d instructed. Saying the man would be out here soon, that he insisted on seeing the spot from whence you were thrown.”

My eyes widened, but I calmed myself quickly. “They can kill me as many times as they wish, Arianna. I’ve no fear of them.”

“You don’t understand. The Witch-hunter is an impostor, Raven. His name is Nathanial Dearborne and—”

“Nathanial Dearborne?” Now she had my attention. “The same arrogant priest who hanged my mother! I hope he does come. I’ll—”

“He’s no priest,” Arianna whispered. “He’s a High Witch. One of the Dark Ones, Raven. One of the oldest and most powerful I’ve encountered.”

“You know him?”

Grimly she nodded. ’Twas he who murdered the only man I ever loved, and used me to do it. I nearly killed him then, but he escaped me. But it isn’t me he’ll be challenging this time, Raven. It’s you he’s come for. You can’t best him in a fight and I can’t protect you every minute of the day and night. If you want to keep your heart intact, we’d best not be here when he arrives.“

Nathanial Dearborne, a dark High Witch. It made sense now. My mother’s note had told me that I’d know another only when I touched them—and that tingling sensation, the one I’d become so used to since Arianna had come into my life—was the same one I’d felt when that beast touched my hand as I hung in the stocks. I simply hadn’t made the connection before now.

“Duncan wouldn’t want you risking your life to bury his empty shell, love,” Arianna whispered. “Leave him to the sea, and come. He’d want you to stay alive, to await his return. You know he would.”

I looked down at Duncan, lowering my head as tears rained from my face to his. “Yes. I suppose he would.” Bending low, I kissed his cheek. “I love you, Duncan Wallace. In this lifetime and the next, I will always love you. I vow it on my heart.”

And gently I eased his broken body from the rocks. Even as I did, an unusually large wave broke over us and swept him from my hands as it washed back out to sea. As if the sea were claiming him.

“Goodbye, my love,” I whispered, but my words were only whispers, my pain so great I could speak no louder. And yet, I thought he might hear me.

Arianna touched my shoulders, and together we turned and made our way back to shore.

Nathanial Dearborne ran all the way to the base of the cliffs where she was supposed to have been thrown, but there was no sign of the dark-haired wench.

Nor of his beloved Duncan.

He clenched his hand into a fist and shook it at the heavens. Again! She’d eluded him again.

And this time she’d taken young Duncan Wallace into death with her! A death from which she could return… and he could not.

“Damn her,” Nathanial whispered. And fury rose up to engulf him. Oh, Duncan would be back. Yes, he’d return. But when he did, he, too, would be a High Witch. One of the Light Ones, and as such, Nathanial’s sworn enemy.

And if he knew Raven St. James, she’d manage to find the lad again, even then.

Then he paused, narrowing his eyes. What if she did? And what if, when she did, she found him as well?

Yes. Oh, he’d likely take the selfish bitch’s heart long before then. He’d never stop trying to exact his vengeance. But if all else failed, he could use what he knew…

He could use Duncan…

If he could find the lad before she did.

But he would. He had to. He’d find a way. And he wouldn’t rest until he’d exacted vengeance upon Raven St. James, until he’d cut out her heart and held it beating and bloody in the palm of his hand.

Chapter 11

Weak. Heavy. Languid. My body did not want to move, and I had no will to argue with it. Arianna gripped my forearm, tugging me along in her wake as we trekked into the woods. The village lay to the north, and the forest was but a thin strip of shelter between Sanctuary and the sea. And that might have been enough to protect us, if everyone in town truly believed me dead. They’d have no reason to suspect Arianna would have lingered in the vicinity for so long.

But there was someone who knew better. Nathanial Dearborne. And my gut told me he hadn’t traveled all the way from England only to accept defeat so easily. No, he would be searching for us. I felt it in my bones.

And still, I felt no desire to move. I only managed to continue sloughing along, dropping one foot ahead of the other, for Arianna’s sake. If I sank to the ground as I wished right to my soul to do, if I surrendered, she’d stay with me. I knew she would. And there would be yet another life lost because of me. More blood on my hands. Yet another one dead because of having loved me.

I would not let that happen. So I moved. But I felt numb, and dead inside. Truly, had it not been for Arianna, I’d have simply remained in the icy cold sea until Dearborne came for me. Not because of a desire to die, but because I had no desire not to. No reason to cling to my life. No will to fight for it.

I loved Duncan, and he’d been murdered, and my heart bled so profusely it seemed I could feel my life force draining away, bit by bit. Every breath drawn without him seemed to come a little harder. Every heartbeat cost more effort. Even lifting my head became too much work, so that I slogged through the forest without looking up. Head hanging, hair in my face, wet dress dragging through the brush. My only link to life, that small, strong hand gripping my arm. A lifeline. An undeniable force dragging me slowly forward, and maybe, inch by inch, out of the black swamp of deadly grief into which I had fallen. It sucked at me like quicksand, that grief. Pulled me under, choked me. But Arianna never let go. She refused to let it win.

And eventually, I surfaced enough to blink in the darkness and ask in a voice without life, “Where are we?”

She turned her head sharply, her steps ceasing all at once. But she did not remark on my finally having spoken. “Deep in the forest, heading south,“ she explained. ”We got past the settlement, and we’re well into the mainland by now.“

It seemed it took my brain a long moment to process her words. They fell on my ears like meaningless noise and gradually worked through the machinery of my mind and made sense. “Already?” I asked her, not really caring, but vaguely aware of how disoriented I was.

“We’ve been walking for hours,” she said, her eyes intense, probing mine. “It’s nearly dawn, Raven.”

Nearly dawn? How strange… how very… wrong that the sun would rise again now that Duncan was gone. It made no sense, somehow.

“Dearborne’s following. We must keep moving.” And she started forward again, tugging me into motion.

My legs hurt, and I glanced down to see that my dress was ripped to ribbons now. I could see bloodstains here and there. Obviously I’d walked like a blind person, through brush and brambles, never moving them aside, scratching my flesh and never feeling the sting. I felt it now. It began slowly, as my brain registered what my eyes were seeing, and told me that my legs should hurt. Then grew sharper, hotter. I lifted my hand to my cheek when that, too, began to pulse, and I discovered a long scratch there.

’Twould heal soon enough. That was part of the powers we both possessed, the rapid regeneration of any wounds we might suffer. Already, even the faintest bruise caused by my fall from the cliffs would have vanished. These new injuries would, as well. ”Twas one of the things we all had in common.

Our other powers were not so easily identified. For they were different from Witch to Witch, even in ordinary mortal ones. Some were gifted at divination, some at reading the stars. Some were psychic, some in touch with the spirit realm. Some could manipulate the weather, while others could communicate with animals. In immortal High Witches the area of power became magnified, and, Arianna had explained, other magickal gifts began to appear, and to grow. She’d told me that some of the very old ones had even mastered shape-shifting, though I doubted the validity of that tall tale.

My own powers were those of healing, always had been. But the longer I remained in this new form, this stronger, more sensitive, immortal form, the more I realized that my healing magick was only one very small part of my abilities.

There were more. Many more. Some, I’d discovered aboard the Sea Witch during my crossing. The acute hearing, the enhanced eyesight, and night vision. The ability to scent things, and people. And every spell I had cast since coming here had been incredibly potent, bringing immediate, incredible results. The fertility ritual I’d done for Aunt Eleanor’s old cow had produce a successful mating the very next day, and twin calves, big and healthy. When I’d worked a charm to increase our flock of laying hens, the results had required a larger shed be built for them all! When I wanted a sunny day for Aunt Eleanor, or rain for our vegetable patch, it happened almost as soon as the thought appeared in my mind. And a prickling sense in the back of my neck usually warned me when danger was near.

’Twas there now.

“He’s close,” I said.

Arianna stopped walking, turned to scan the woods. “I know. I feel him, too. But I don’t think he’ll make a move when I’m with you, Raven. He knows I—”

An explosion ripped through the forest, and Arianna stopped speaking and jerked. Her jaw gaped, worked soundlessly, and I cried out as I saw the gaping wound in my beloved sister’s chest. The blackened edges of the hole in the shirt she wore.

I reached for her, but Arianna’s eyes rolled and she slumped to the ground. Whirling, I scanned the trees, and then I saw him. Nathanial Dearborne, there among the pines. In his hands he clutched a musket, which stank of sulphur and spewed black smoke from its dark, deadly eye.

“You bastard,” I whispered. “I’ll not let you take her heart. I will not!” In a heartbeat my dagger was in my fist, and the numbness was fleeing from my body. I may have had no reason to live a moment ago. Now, though, I had found one. Vengeance. “You killed my mother in the name of God, when you’re nothing but purest evil. And I lost my love to the same vile lie. I’ll not let you kill my sister as well!”

“Sister, is it?” He stepped forward, dropping the now useless weapon to the ground, knowing, perhaps, that should he try to load it again, I’d attack before he could finish the job. He pulled his own dagger from his hip, saluted me with it mockingly. “For now, Raven St. James, ”tis your heart I want, not hers.“

“Then try to take it!” I shouted.

“Oh, I will. And long before your.. .sister revives to come to your rescue. It’s almost too good. Not only do I get my vengeance on you… but on her, as well. Can you imagine her grief when she wakes to find your lifeless body lying at her feet?”

“The only corpse to litter this ground will be yours!” I cried, and crept closer, my blade before me, though my hand trembled.

He came a step closer to me as well, then another. “I’ve killed hundreds, over the centuries,” he told me, his voice strong, sure. “How many have you taken, Raven?“‘

I blinked. He was trying to frighten me, to shake me. And he succeeded. I’d never killed. And despite all of Arianna’s training, I doubted my skills now.

“I could kill you so very easily, so quickly,” he said, coming still closer, then standing near enough so I could feel the heat rising from his body and see the fog of his breath appear and vanish again on the deadly blade he held. “So very quickly, you’d never know what happened.” Then he smiled. “But I’m not going to.”

I lunged forward, swinging my blade, and nicking his belly before he could jump back. He hooked a leg behind mine as I drew back from him in anticipation of his return thrust. Then he shoved me with his hand, so that I toppled backward to the ground.

He was upon me in an instant, straddling my chest and pressing me down into the earth so forcefully that I could scarcely draw a breath. Clutching both my wrists in one of his large hands, he pinned them to the ground above my head. He smiled down at me, a frightening grimace of a smile. “It’s going to be slow, Raven,” he said. “We have time.”

“Why?” I whispered. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“You figure it out,” he told me, and with his free hand, he sliced open the front of my dress, from my waist to my neck. Using the blade again, he parted it, baring my chest, my breasts. Then, the knife still in his hand, he touched me, the backs of his knuckles pressing to the center of my chest. “Right there,” he said. “Beating so fast… so hard. It’s strong, your heart. You’ll stay conscious as I begin to cut it from you, you know. I know how to do it.”

“Please,” I whispered, a tremor working through me from head to toe. Suddenly I didn’t want to die at all. Not at all, and most certainly not like this. “Please, I’m so young. What good can my heart possibly be to you?”

“You’re so clueless, my dear,” he whispered. “So very young, and naive.” He traced a path on my breastbone with the cold tip of his dagger. “You have immense power in you. Wasted on one with no idea what to do with it.”

“I… I…”

“And then there’s vengeance,” he went on. “Always a strong motivator.” He traced the same path again, this time cutting me, but not deeply. Just breaking the skin and leaving a bloody outline of the pattern he drew.

I whimpered. He smiled wider.

“What have I ever done to you?” I cried.

“You took my’s… you took Duncan. You turned him against me, and now you’ve cost him his life.“

“B-but he’ll return—”

“As my sworn enemy! All because of you! Damn you, Raven St. James!” Eyes blazing, he lifted the dagger high above me, blade pointing down.

I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound never emerged. There was, instead, a soft hissing sound, and then the thud of an arrow driving into Nathanial’s chest. He looked surprised for just an instant, then fell over backward.

I scrambled to my feet, pulling my torn dress around me and searching the forest.

The silver-haired red man… the one who’d given me the fish for breakfast a full two years ago… he stood in the distance, his bow in one hand, his black eyes holding mine. My hands went to my face as relief swamped me and tears sprang to my eyes. And my dress fell open again. The man’s eyes lowered, affixed upon my bared breasts, I thought at first. And then I realized that wasn’t it at all. He looked at the place where Nathanial had cut me, and his eyes widened as the skin there drew itself together, and mended. I quickly covered myself, but too late. He’d seen.

And even if he hadn’t, our secret would have been out. For when I turned, ’twas to see two other shirtless, dark-skinned men in buckskins, leaning over Arianna, then backing away as she sucked in her first new breath with a loud, desperate gasp. Her back arched off the ground, even as the hole in her chest closed in on itself and the younger men’s eyes widened.

I lunged forward, uncertain what they would do to her. But the silver-haired man touched my arm, and when I turned, implored me with his eyes. Narrowing my gaze, I searched his face. And finally, seeing no ill intent there, I nodded once.

He in turn raised a hand to the other two, and they picked Arianna up even as she was blinking her eyes open and looking around her. Silver-Hair took my arm, his grip gentle, and the five of us marched away, through the forest. I tugged free once, turning back, realizing Dearborne would revive, that there was only one way I could ensure that he stay dead.

But the old red man met my eyes, shook his head once, and took my arm again.

“Another time, then,” I whispered. “Another time.”

His name, in English, was Trees Speaking. In his own tongue, ’twas impossible for me to pronounce, and my constant attempts only made the other members of his tribe laugh at me as we all sat around a central fire that night, in their village. Long, narrow buildings all covered in pale bark served as their homes, and it seemed many generations of a given family resided in each one. But the gathering place, which seemed to serve as many purposes as the meeting hall in Sanctuary, was the area around this central fire.

’Twas there we were taken, and urged to sit. The old one spoke in a tongue that was like something ancient and sacred to my ears, and people spilled from their homes and stopped whatever they were doing, to stare at us, with wide, shining dark eyes. In a moment they broke away, running in a dozen directions. A dark, beautiful woman brought cloaks of whisper-soft doe hide to drape gently over our shoulders, while another, a plump young woman with an infant strapped to her back in some ingenious contraption, brought bowls filled with something like stew. Another draped a dress across my lap, and another dropped beads atop it. And one by one every member of this clan gathered round the fire, all seeming to vie for the spots nearest Arianna and me. We kept exchanging glances and shrugging. Neither of us knowing what to expect, much less what to say as they spoke to us in words we could not understand.

Finally a young girl, perhaps twelve or even younger, began to speak to me in halting English.

“I know some… white man tongue,” she said slowly. “My name Laughing River.”

I was surprised at her knowledge of English. And yet should not have been. The settlers were all around these people. They’d be wise to learn their language, and obviously they were that.

“My name is Raven,” I told the beautiful, sloe-eyed child.

“Raven?” And when I nodded, she turned to repeat the word to the rest in their tongue. Then turned to Arianna.

“I am Arianna.”

Laughing River tilted her head. “Ahhhrrrr…”

“Arianna,“‘ my sister repeated.

“Ahhrranna.” Laughing River nodded hard and said it again, with authority this time. Many in the circle tried to pronounce the name, but it only resulted in more laughter.

Laughing River pointed to the silver-haired elder. “Trees Speaking.”

“Trees Speaking,” I repeated. “Tis beautiful.“

“When Trees Speaking is born,” she told me, and waved a hand toward the towering pines around us, “wind in trees tell all he is Shaman.“

I tilted my head. “Shaman? What is a Shaman?”

Laughing River frowned hard. “Trees Speaking tell us you are Shaman, like he. He say you…” She moved her hands trying to express her words, and Trees Speaking spoke softly to her. She nodded hard, and translated. “He say you like him. You walk with spirits. You make powerful… medicine.”

I blinked, and glanced at Arianna. She lifted her brows and looked at the girl. “Magick?”

“Yes! Magick!” Laughing River said, nodding hard.

“Is that what a Shaman does?”

“Yes.”

She looked again at Trees Speaking, as I did. And then at those around him. They looked at him with respect, listened when he spoke, seemed to love the man.

“Then, I guess we are… Shamans… of a sort.” Arianna finally said. I heard the relief in her voice, for it seemed obvious a person of magick would be treated far differently here than among the whites.

“White man fear Shaman,” Laughing River said. And her eyes went sad. “Trees Speaking say white man try kill all who make magick.”

I nodded. “Trees Speaking is telling you the truth, I fear. They don’t understand us.”

The girl translated, and the old man nodded. Then he spoke again, and the girl smiled. “Trees Speaking say no one hurt you here. Magick sacred, even white woman’s magick. He say you stay.”

I glanced at Arianna. She swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I hate to drag them into this. Suppose Dearborne hurts them because of us?”

Laughing River quickly translated what was not meant to be shared, and to my surprise, the men around the fire burst into laughter. Our eyes must have registered our surprise, because the girl quickly explained. “They laugh because they know one white man no threat to them. They warriors, Crow-Woman.”

Crow-Woman? I supposed it might be close to “Raven’ from her point of view, but…

“No white man harm you here. Our warriors fierce. Strong.” There was pride in her voice.

Trees Speaking rose from his cross-legged position on the ground and smiled down at us. “Show me,” he said, very slowly, eyes narrow as he struggled to put the words together properly in his deep, raspy voice, a voice like the wind he was named for. “Show me… your ways… your …magick.”“ Then he touched his chest, patted it three times. ”I show you my ways… my magic.“

I looked at Arianna and blinked. A sparkle appeared in her eyes. “There are many, many kinds of Witches, Raven,” she whispered, “and not all of us use that particular word for what we are. Some call themselves Druids, some monks, some holy men.” She glanced at Trees Speaking. “Some Shaman. He could teach us a great deal, I think.”

Looking back at him, I recalled the way he’d watched me—perhaps, watched over me!—when I’d spent that lonely night in the woods so long ago. “Why not?” I replied. “We have nothing to lose.”

A flash of sadness clouded her eyes, but she turned to Trees Speaking and nodded. “Yes. We’ll stay.”

Trees Speaking smiled broadly. And so we stayed.

We spent well over a fortnight at that Iroquois village, sharing knowledge and esoteric wisdom with Trees Speaking. And I realized that Arianna had been right. There were many kinds of Witches. He was practicing virtually the same belief system we did ourselves. We only called it by different names. Trees Speaking told us of the sacred importance of the circle, and how he worked within one when doing magick. And we told him we did the same. He spoke of calling upon the Divine spirit residing in things like the wind, and the water, and the earth itself, and we marveled at that, for we had, as well. He told us how the basis of his power was his belief that all life is truly linked together through a common source, and again, we were awestruck.

But there was more Trees Speaking taught us. Things we hadn’t seen or practiced before. He taught us to hear what animals might be telling us by watching their movements and picking out signs and omens. He taught us the medicinal uses of many plants and herbs native to this land and growing wild within its forests. And perhaps, most amazingly of all, he taught us the secrets of invisibility.

I thought the man insane when he brought this up with us, but he only smiled, and, through Laughing River, explained. One doesn’t truly vanish. One simply becomes so attuned to his surroundings that he blends into them, and onlookers don’t see him there. He demonstrated this by hiding and asking us to search for him. When we did, we couldn’t find him anywhere. But then he spoke, and we turned and saw him clearly, standing with his back pressed to a tree trunk. He insisted he’d been there all along. So we listened and practiced and learned, and tested our newfound knowledge by games of hide-and-seek with the villagers.

Each night Trees Speaking would whisper some of his beautiful words to me before I retired to a place of honor in his family’s longhouse. He would move his hands over me and chant. And he told me he was working to mend my broken heart, for he could see it clearly in my eyes. Truly, my time there helped me far more than anything else could have done. By immersing myself in learning about these people and their ways and their magick, I was able to go on living. But the pain of losing Duncan remained fresh and strong in me. I thought it likely always would.

Finally we had to move on. ’Twas not planned, nor even thought through. But we knew ”twas time to leave when one of the young men returned from a journey bearing meat and furs aplenty, and bringing news that shook me to the marrow. He spoke it to Laughing River, and her face paled, eyes widened. She turned to me, and I saw moisture spring into her shining eyes.

“Crow-Woman,” she said. “Bear Killer say white women… die. Many, many killed.”

I frowned. “I… don’t understand. What white women? How were they killed, and why?”

She lowered her head. “White man say they… like you. Shaman. Witches.“

My stomach convulsed, and my lips pressed tight as if to stop it.

Arianna’s face went stony. “Where?” she asked.

“If you go they kill you, too!” Laughing River cried.

“Where, Laughing River?”

She closed her eyes. “Place called… Salem Village.”

“Salem Village.” Arianna shook her head, closed her eyes. “I doubt there’s a genuine Witch in the bunch.”

“Does it make a difference?” I asked her.

“Of course not. They’re executing innocents either way. Innocent Witches, or innocent women who know nothing of magick, wrongly accused.”

I tipped my head back, searching the sky. “We have to go,” I said softly. “We’re stronger, more powerful, harder to kill—”

“Much harder to kill,” she said.

“We have an obligation, then.”

“We do,” she agreed.

We stared at each other, both of us wondering what turn life would bring to us next. Both of us afraid, and yet a bit excited. My losing Duncan had done one thing for me besides cause me unspeakable pain. It had made me lose my fear of dying.

For the next six months Arianna and I were shadows in the night. We’d slip into Salem by darkness, freeing women from the stocks, and from the locked rooms where they were imprisoned. Often with their children, even babies, locked up with them. Filthy, malnourished, and thirsting, no blankets. Many had been tortured. And none of them seemed to have a working knowledge of the Craft of the Wise. Perhaps some genuine Witches had been hanged or burned when the madness had first run wild in Salem. Perhaps… but not now. Now anyone with a grudge could cry accusations against her enemy, and see that enemy tried, her very life in the balance.

’Twas the purest form of evil I’d seen since the day I set eyes on Nathanial Dearborne. And ”twas only much later that I learned that Dark Witch himself had been in Salem Village only a short while before the madness began. No doubt the bastard had been instrumental in starting this fire that swept through the place, destroying everything it touched.

We rescued dozens, Arianna and I. Women and children whose fates had been sealed. We took them deep into the forests and hid them there. Some had families still alive and not yet accused. So we located those loved ones and brought them out as well. Our band of outcasts and refugees numbered fifty and more by the time the fury in Salem ran its course. And at last we led them all southward, into Pennsylvania Colony and a Quaker settlement there.

The journey took nearly two months. Alone, they’d have perished. But Arianna and I were able to find food, to fish the streams, and gather roots and greens thanks to all Trees Speaking and his people had taught us, and they survived.

In their new village, they used false names, just in case. But they’d be safe in this place. I sensed it, and felt good about something for the first time since I’d lost Duncan.

And yet those we hadn’t been able to save… how they haunted me. I knew their names, every one of them. Sarah Osborne. Bridget Bishop. Sarah Good and her tiny baby. Elizabeth How. Susannah Martin. Rebecca Nurse. Sarah Wildes. Martha Carrier. George Jacobs. John Proctor. John Willard. Ann Foster. Giles and Martha Corey. Mary Esty. Alice Parker. Mary Parker. Ann Pudeator. Wilmot Reed. Margaret Scott. Samuel Wardwell. Sarah Dastin. I knew not whether they had been of my own faith… nor did I care.

They’d been living, breathing sisters of the human race. My sisters. And brothers. And children. My dear mother’s face seemed to appear in my mind as I tried to imagine the faces of the women who’d died.

And Duncan’s face hovered in my mind’s eye when I thought of the Reverend George Burroughs, a minister who’d suffered the same fate as my beloved Duncan. Not being pitched from the cliffs, no. Reverend Burroughs was hanged. Choked to death by a rope, and I knew that feeling all too well. But just like Duncan, the man had died at the hands of his own flock. Had I been a Puritan in Salem then, I’d have renounced my faith out of sheer shame for what had been done in its name.

I wept for all of them nightly for a long, long time after that. Sometimes, when it’s quiet and I’m alone, I still do. I cry for them… I cry for Duncan… I cry for myself, having lost him.

And my grief, it seems, is as immortal as my body, for it lives on still. Every bit as powerful, every bit as painful, as it was before… though three full centuries have come and gone.

Part Two

Chapter 12

1998

Three hundred years later, on the anniversary of Duncan’s death, I stood on the cliffs of Sanctuary, facing the sea. There was a lighthouse standing offshore now. It reached skyward from the tiny, lonely island where before there had been only seabirds and the occasional treasure hunter. Built a century ago, it had been used for a time, and then forgotten. Then it had been abandoned for the better part of five decades, its rounded glass looking like a lifeless, sightless eye. A sad reminder of the way time moved on all around me. The way the world grew and changed and evolved.

I did not.

There had been movement at the lighthouse a month or so ago. For a moment I’d felt an absurd hope spring up in my heart, a foolish joy the place seemed to be about to come back to life.

But I had not.

I was in limbo, living, but incomplete, waiting, always waiting for the return of my soulmate. My lover. I’d been many places in the endless years of my life. But wherever I roamed, I had but one purpose—to search for him. I scanned every sea of strange faces in search of the one I hoped to see.

In three hundred years that search had left me with nothing but disappointment.

I stood with my feet apart, arms spread wide, head tilted back. The sea wind whipped my hair behind me, and a soft glow painted my face as the full moon rose over the ocean. I knew, had always known, of the power in the moon. A physical tug, a pull. The waves felt it; the tides changed because of it. Animals felt it. Coyotes and wolves bayed in response. Lunatics felt it, stirring the sickness in their minds.

Witches felt it.

The surge of power within growing stronger and peaking with the moon. At the full moon I felt I could do anything. I was invulnerable, invincible, and as powerful as the Goddess herself. And I had only one focus for the immense power the full moon gave to me.

Duncan.

But something was different tonight. Perhaps it was only the endless longing in my heart—heaven knew it had been often enough before—but I felt more hopeful than usual. I felt as if… as if perhaps he were near.

And yet I couldn’t trust my own feelings where Duncan was concerned, for “wishful thinking” was real and powerful and sometimes too potent to distinguish from true intuition.

Standing at the eastern edge of the circle I had cast, I spread my arms and felt the wind on my face. “Mighty Energies of the East, Sacred Ones of Air, I call on you to attend this circle and empower these rites.” Immediately the wind in my face sharpened.

To my right, facing South, Arianna stood in the same position I had, arms spread outward and upward. She’d kept her blond hair short, and it ruffled in the breeze like the feathers of a golden bird preparing to take flight. Softly she intoned, “Ancient Energies of the South, Blessed Ones of Fire, I call on you to attend this circle and empower these rites.“

As I watched her, Arianna’s face glowed, just for a moment, as if someone held a candle before her, but no candle was there. Only the balefire we’d built, but that was behind her, in the circle’s center. Her huge brown eyes flicked open, and she tilted her head as if she’d felt that warmth on her face.

Solemnly, I crossed to the opposite side, the west. “Healing Energies of the West, Ancient Ones of Water, I call on you to attend this circle and empower these rites.”

Dampness… dotting my face, my forearms. I blinked at the mist that rose from the ground to leave its kiss of moisture on my skin. Truly some powerful magic would be worked here tonight.

Arianna had moved to the North now, and in a strong voice she called, “Powerful Energies of the North, Eternal Mother Earth, I call on you to attend this circle and empower these rites.”

And then I started, because I felt the earth herself rumble beneath me. A deep-throated vibration welled up from the ground, trembling against my feet and shaking my body so slightly I might have imagined it. When my wide-eyed gaze shot to Arianna’s, she met it, and nodded once. She’d felt it, too.

I moved to the center of the circle, then, to invoke the fifth element, that of spirit. And then together we said the words that would bring the presence of Divinity to our circle this night. When we finished it seemed that the circle pulsed more powerfully with unseen energies than it had ever done before.

Meeting Arianna’s eyes, I saw that she knew what I did. Something had changed. Something was happening. I’d planned to recite an incantation, to cast and to conjure this night, just as I had on every Esbat night for the past three hundred years. I used every power I possessed to ensure that when Duncan returned, as I knew he would one day, he would come here. To Sanctuary. To me. Over and over I’d willed the elements and every force of the astral plane to bring Duncan back here, to the place where I’d lost him. I could not hasten his return; it would have been wrong of me to try. His soul would incarnate again only when it was ready, when the time was right. But my greatest fear was that when he did live again, I’d never find him. The world was a big place, after all.

And though I sought him everywhere I went, I always returned here, where I waited. Endlessly waited, for his return.

But tonight was not the same as all those other nights when I’d worked my magick. As I stood in the center of my circle this night, with the large flat stone before me and the tools of my craft spread out upon it—cauldron and blade, wand and pentacle, censers and candles—I felt something different.

The winds of the four directions seemed to spin and whirl about the two of us as Arianna and I knelt before the altar, and she looked up into my eyes.

“No conjuring tonight, Raven,” she whispered. “Something’s not right here, I feel it.”

Blinking, I lowered my head. “Perhaps the Universe is angry with me… Plotting to make Duncan come here even if it’s against his wishes is not exactly ethical.”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen the elements react this way to a tiny bit of arguably manipulative magick before.” She moved closer to me as the whirlwind swept around us, around the balefire and the altar stone at the circle’s center. The swirling action of the wind on the flames was something to see, for they narrowed and lengthened as if the fire reached toward the heavens. A loud cry made me look up fast, gripping Arianna’s hand as I did, only to see a large raven land upon the stone altar. It looked at me, tilted its shiny black head, and looked at me again. The balefire’s flames leaped with a snap and a hiss, and I gasped as in the brighter light of the fire, I saw more clearly.

“Look! He’s injured!”

Arianna squinted, leaning closer, and saw the tiny droplet of blood that clung, quivering, to the bird’s gleaming breast. It trembled as if in time with the tiny rapid heartbeat. I reached out very slowly. “Come, namesake. Let me tend that for you.”

But the bird only squawked once more and, lifting its great wings, pumped them mightily and flew away.

Still staring at the spot where the bird had been, I whispered, “What does it mean?”

Arianna squeezed my hand. “The Druids said Ravens brought warnings. I don’t know, Raven, it was as if he were trying to tell you something.”

“But what?” I saw the blankness in her eyes, and rubbed my hands over my chilled arms. She wouldn’t speak it, but I knew what she was thinking. A raven—with a wound over his heart. It could well portend my death. Even now there might be a Dark One lurking, waiting to…

“You’ve survived their attempts before, Raven,” Arianna whispered, as if reading my thoughts. “You’re as good with your blade as I am now. You can defend yourself.”

I nodded, but the chill of fear still danced barefoot over my spine. “Let’s close the circle, Arianna. Something feels… wrong.”

“All right.” Quietly then, we performed the closing rites, and then gathered up our tools and turned our backs to the sea, facing the giant of a house.

It had begun as a simple home built on the site of my dear aunt Eleanor’s cabin. But it had… grown. We had money enough. Two talented Witches with several centuries to accumulate wealth would always have money enough to do whatever they wanted. Adding on to the house had become a bit of a hobby. A tradition. Almost an inside joke. The rambling structure was so utterly outrageous now it would no doubt have drawn curious sightseers from town in droves… under normal circumstances.

But we were Witches. We cast spells over the place, and wove astral shields to protect it. It wasn’t invisible, of course. But it blended in with the woods if one viewed it from the east, with the sea if one viewed it from the west, the sky if one looked at it from below. There were ways to avoid notice. There was magick.

Of course, we came and went often… and sometimes were forced to let years pass between visits, just to make sure the locals never became suspicious.

It was easier now, though. Sanctuary boasted few actual residents. Oh, there were the lobster men on the north shore, and the shop owners on the south. Innkeepers scattered hither and yon, and a handful of restaurateurs. But most of the people who came here today were vacationers in search of a coastal getaway and some autumn foliage. That log village with its mud tracks that I’d ridden into so long ago was long forgotten now. A tourist-trap had emerged in its place. It was no longer even part of Massachusetts, but of Maine, which itself had been a part of Massachusetts Bay Colony three hundred years ago.

As we approached the sprawling home we’d created, I felt Arianna nudge my ribs. “Shall we add a new wing this visit? Georgian this time?”

She was attempting to cheer me, I knew. “We did that in thirty-seven, love,” I said, pointing to the stately brick section that housed our overflowing library, our favorite sitting room, and a small alcove for… for whatever purpose we could think of. I’d thought as we’d built it how Duncan would love it. How we could sit there together, in that alcove, and reminisce, and…

Tears welled up in my eyes. I rarely spent a day when they didn’t.

“Oh,” Arianna said. “Well, Victorian, then? Or Gothic? Gothic would be so poetic for a pair of Witches, don’t you think?”

“You’re forgetting the west wing, Arianna. With the gargoyles we imported from France in eighteen-ninety-nine lining the roof.”

“Right, that slipped my mind.” She pouted. “Do we have a colonial wing?”

“Complete with a cobblestone hearth,” I said, smiling, letting my friend draw me out of my contemplative state. “Face it, Arianna, we have everything except a log cabin sprouting from this house of ours.”

“A log cabin…” Arianna said, clasping her chin and tilting her head as she studied the many roofs, some steep, some shallow, some flat, some slate, some steel, some shingled, all sporting chimneys—cobblestone, brick, block, and steel. “No,” Arianna said thoughtfully. “Logs would simply clash.”

The laughter burst from me just as she’d intended it to. And she smiled at my reaction as she reached for the back door. “It’s good to see you laugh, Raven,” she said softly, pulling our door open, smiling back at me. “It’s so seldom that you do.” Then her smile died as she stared past me, out toward the sea, and a curious frown creased her brow. “Oh, look.”

“What is it?” I turned to follow her gaze and saw that the old lighthouse standing dark and lonely on its tiny island was coming alive again. A light came on in one of the lower windows. Why it should thrill me so, I had no idea. Seeing a light in formerly dead eyes… perhaps somewhere inside it reminded me of my long wait, and my hope that my dead lover would be restored to me one day soon. Another light came on, followed by another. And for just an instant I felt a shiver as an icy finger trailed a path up my spine.

“Just what we need,” I muttered. “A new neighbor— and so close.” A reaction that made far more sense than the one I truly felt.

“Raven,” Arianna whispered. “Raven, look…”

She pointed to a dark shape moving in the sky, and as I squinted and it moved into the moonlight, I realized it wasn’t one shape but several; a dozen or more ravens, flying toward the lighthouse. One by one they landed atop it, or around it. And then in chorus they began to shout.

Drawn by invisible hands, I walked toward them, until Arianna clasped my shoulders, drawing me to a halt.

“Come inside, Raven.”

“I should go there,” I whispered. “They’re telling me something, don’t you see?”

“Yes. And what if what they’re telling you is ”Stay away from here, Raven St. James!“ What then, hmm?”

I blinked, shaking my head. “I don’t think—”

“The Celts used to say that when evil preachers died, they were transformed into ravens,” she blurted.

And I blinked, my stomach clenching. The only evil preacher I knew—had ever known—was Nathanial Dearborne. The bastard who’d killed my mother and hunted me all my days. How many times had I barely escaped his blade? How many more would there be before one of us paid the ultimate price?

Perhaps it was he the birds warned me of. Perhaps he’d caught up to me again after all these years. He was long overdue for another attempt. And maybe he’d finally found our haven, the place we’d kept so secret we’d hoped no other immortal would ever know we came here.

“Why is that bastard so determined to have my heart?” I whispered.

“You know why, Raven.”

I closed my eyes. “Because of Duncan.”

“Yes. Because of Duncan. And because of your magickal power—you’ve always known how special it is, Raven. You have a healing gift like no other, and you’re able to draw luck and good fortune to you like no Witch I’ve known.”

I closed my eyes. “I’ve lived three hundred years without the man I love. You call that luck or good fortune?”

“You know what I mean. The wealth, Raven. The way you and your aunt prospered back then, and the way we do now.”

“Any Witch could do that.”

“I lived two hundred years before I found you again, Raven. And I never managed it.”

“You got by.”

“Getting by is irrelevant. Have you looked at our bank statements lately?”

I sighed. Making good financial decisions had always come as naturally to me as breathing. It wasn’t something I was overly proud of, but I doubted I could help it if I tried. If I bought a stock, it skyrocketed. If I opened a bank account, the interest rate went up. If I bought so much as a lottery ticket…

“And now there’s your age, as well,” Arianna went on. “Nathanial would get a lot of life force from a heart three centuries strong. Besides all of that, the more times you thwart him, the more angry and determined he becomes. You know that, as well.”

Lowering my head very slowly, I said, “I’m going to have to kill him, aren’t I?”

Arianna nodded. “I’m afraid it’s the only way you’ll ever find peace.” She searched my face. “You’ve killed before, Raven. He wouldn’t be your first.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “but only in battle, when it was forced on me. Only when I had no choice. It takes something from me when I take a life, Arianna. I die a little each time.”

“The bastard needs killing,” Arianna told me.

“But not by me. Not unless he forces me to.” I bit my lower lip. “We’ll leave here for a while. Tomorrow. I’d rather avoid confrontation if I can.”

Tipping her head skyward, Arianna rolled her eyes. “Raven! Why must you be such a pacifist? After three centuries of living as a being who must kill or be killed, how can you cling to that mortal idea of morality? I swear, if I get the chance, I’ll cut out that black heart of his myself.” I looked at her harshly. “I will!” she vowed. “I’ve owed that bastard for a long time. But he’s as slippery as a snake where I’m concerned.”

“He does avoid you,” I said, contemplating. “It’s as if he’s always out there, watching us, waiting. Every time he’s attacked me since Duncan, it has been when you and I were apart. In Virginia, when I stayed behind to care for that ailing woman, while you went off to find her husband. In California, when I sat on the beach thinking of Duncan while you slept soundly in the beach house. In New York when we got separated in that crowd at the theater…”

“Because he knows I can take him.”

“I suspect you’re right,” I told her. “And that’s why he never gives you the chance. It’s me he comes after. Always me… and those I love.”

“So you’ll run from him again,” Arianna went on. “And what if Duncan returns here while you’re hiding from Dearborne? What if you miss your chance to find him again?”“

I only shook my head. “That won’t happen. We can keep watch from a safe distance.”

“He won’t come after you if I’m here, Raven.”

“You can’t watch over me twenty-four hours a day, Arianna.”

“But we’re not even sure Dearborne is here yet!” she wailed.

I turned to stare out at the night sky, at the full moon, and even as I did, a dark cloud eclipsed its golden face.

“He’s here,” I whispered. “I feel it. He’s here.”

Duncan stood near the curving glass windows of the lighthouse for a long time. Alone, as utterly alone as he’d always been.

She’d been out there again tonight.

The same woman, he was sure of that. The same one he’d glimpsed that first night he’d come here, a month ago. When this had been just another job, and not one he particularly wanted at that. Not that restoring a century-old lighthouse wasn’t exactly the kind of thing he loved best…just that it meant spending months surrounded by water. And he hadn’t been over the fear of water all that long. Heights barely gave him a second thought anymore, but the water…

Still, he’d agreed to come out here, take a look at the place. And he still wasn’t exactly sure why he’d done that when he’d been certain this was one restoration job he’d be turning down. He only knew that a strange sort of pit-of-the-stomach feeling had started gnawing at him from the moment he’d set foot in this tourist mecca town. And when he and the owner left shore in a small motorboat the first time to head out to the lighthouse, the physical reactions, the cold sweat and rapid heartbeat he’d been expecting, hadn’t come. They’d been overpowered by different reactions, unexpected ones as he stared back at the peninsula, and the cliffs at its tip. A clenching sensation in his stomach. An empty well opening in the vicinity of his heart. A tightening in his throat that made it hard to swallow.

All of that only got worse once he was inside the lighthouse, discussing the renovations with the owner, who wanted to fix it up and sell it. Already, he’d been reconsidering his earlier decision not to take on the job.

Then he’d glimpsed her. Through these very windows. She stood like some kind of sea goddess, on those cliffs, with the wind lifting her satin hair like a flag. Her face turned up to the rising moon as if she were drinking in every moonbeam. And he’d lost track of what the owner was saying, of what he was supposed to be doing here as he’d watched her, mesmerized. Someone said, “So how much do you want for this place?” and he realized later it had been him.

And now he owned it. Him. The guy who’d had a crippling, inexplicable fear of water ever since he’d been a toddler had bought himself an old abandoned lighthouse surrounded by the stuff. And he wasn’t even sure why.

But he was pretty sure it had something to do with her.

She’d been out there again tonight, soft breeze fingering her long, dark hair, yellow moonlight bathing her face. There had been another one with her, a tiny blond, but he’d barely noticed. The two had gone inside now… back into that twisted-up mishmash of a house that towered up there.

Odd, that house. He’d commented on it to lighthouse’s former owner, and the guy claimed he’d never even noticed the place.

How could anyone not notice that!

He shook his head and looked at the place atop the cliffs once more. The bonfire burned low, and by and by the blond one came back outside with a pail of water to pour over it. But of the dark one, he saw no more.

The cell phone bleated, and Duncan reached for it, still watching for a glimpse of the woman on the cliffs as if he were some sort of stalker. God, what was wrong with him? He jerked his gaze away deliberately and answered the call. Just before he brought the phone to his ear, he thought of his father, and almost laughed at himself. He often got an inkling of who was on the other end when the phone rang.

Then his jaw dropped when he heard his father’s voice on the other end. “Is that you, Duncan? There’s so much static…”

“Father?”

“Ah, then it is you. Good.”

Duncan licked his dry lips. His father wouldn’t be calling unless… “Is something wrong?”

“No, no. I heard you’d bought a lighthouse… on an island of all things! Couldn’t believe it.”

Frowning, Duncan shook his head. “It’s true. To be honest, Father, I can’t imagine you’d be all that interested.”

His father cleared his throat. “I know we haven’t been… close… since you left home.”

“Since I left home?” If he sounded sarcastic, he ought to. His father had ignored him most of his life… and Duncan often wondered why the man had bothered adopting him in the first place. As a newborn, no less. He couldn’t imagine a less paternal man. There had been nannies, an entire staff to care for him, until he’d been old enough to ship off to boarding school, followed by summer camp, followed by an expensive, private college. He’d barely known his father.

But he’d always wanted to. A relationship with the cold, distant man was something he’d craved in secret all his life. Sometimes he thought that might be the answer to that emptiness, that ache in his heart that he’d never been able to explain.

“I’m in Sanctuary, son.”

Duncan’s thoughts ground to a halt. “You’re… where?”

“In town. I arrived on Monday.”

Blinking, Duncan gave his head a shake to clear it. “You’ve been in Sanctuary for three days? And you didn’t even call me? No, no, that’s not the surprise, the surprise is that you’d bother calling me now. What do you want, Father?”

There was a long pause. “I want… to be your father, Duncan.”

The breath seemed to have been stolen from Duncan’s lungs. He couldn’t inhale, and couldn’t speak until he did. How long had he imagined his father saying those words? How many nights had he dreamed them, wished for them, as a child? And why, why had his father waited so long? Why couldn’t he have started this conversation years ago, when a little boy had needed it so badly? Why now?

Swallowing, Duncan said, “I’m a grown man with my own business and my own life. I don’t need a father now.”

“I know. Duncan, I know, believe me. My mistakes… well, they’re too numerous to mention, but I’m well aware of every last one of them. I want to start over, to try to… to make up for the past. Please, give me that chance.”

Duncan had to close his eyes, because they burned. When he spoke, his voice was gravelly, coarse. “Do you mean it?”

“I do, son. I swear to you, I do.”

But Duncan was almost afraid to let himself believe it. He’d wanted this too badly for too long to trust that it could be real.

“You aren’t convinced,” his father said. “But you will be. I sold my house, Duncan. And today I bought a new place, the old courthouse right here in Sanctuary.”

Frowning, Duncan took the phone away from his ear, stared at it for a moment, as if he could read his father’s expression through it somehow. Then he brought it back.

“That’s how serious I am about this. I want to be close to you, close enough so that we can work on… on building a relationship, Duncan. I want to start over with you. Will you let me try?”

Blinking the moisture from his eyes, Duncan nodded. “Sure, Dad. Sure, we can both try.”

His father sighed in relief, and Duncan could almost imagine the stern face cracking in a rare smile. “Meet me for breakfast tomorrow?” his father asked. “Here in town, at the Coast Road Cafe?”

With a quick swipe at his eyes, Duncan said, “Okay. Around eight?”

“Perfect,” his father said. And then he hung up without another word.

Duncan set the phone down after a long moment. He told himself not to hope for too much, not to invest any emotions in this apparent softening of his father’s hard heart. It would only lead to disappointment. But he’d had plenty of that over the years. He should be used to it by now.

Kneeling, he resumed the unpacking he’d been in the midst of when he’d become distracted by the dark woman on the distant cliffs. It was the first box. He traveled a lot. Always searching, it seemed, though he could never quite figure out what for. But wherever he went, this was always the first box he unpacked. His collection, the one he’d been accumulating ever since the fourth grade, when he’d bought the first piece at a five and dime with his allowance money. He thought the fascination might have begun when he’d read that poem by Edgar Allan Poe… or maybe the love of the birds had already been there, and that was why the poem had affected him so deeply. Why, that haunting refrain “Nevermore” could still bring tears to his eyes.

Either way, he liked them. Had over a hundred now. And the tiny sills along the insides of all these curving windows would be the perfect shelves for them.

He opened the box, removing the protective paper that cushioned them, and began removing his collection of ravens, one by one, placing them carefully, just so. And as he did, he whispered the words of the poem he sometimes heard in his sleep.

“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven, ”Nevermore.“

Chapter 13

Duncan was early. His father wasn’t at any of the round, lion-footed stone tables or their matching rock-hard benches outside the Coast Road Cafe. And the inside of the place was all but deserted. Too nice a day for anyone to want breakfast inside, he figured. The foliage-seekers filled almost every available spot outside—uncomfortable stone benches notwithstanding. The tourists wore cardigans and sunglasses. The locals wore flannel and baseball caps with the names of their favorite products on them. John Deere. Mack. GMC. His father fit into neither group, but Duncan would spot him easily enough. He’d show up in his traditional funereal suit with his thin ribbon of a tie dangling.

Duncan glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes. Daddy dearest wouldn’t be a minute early, either. Well, he’d walk, then. He was too nervous to stand still, or grab a table and wait. Besides, it was high time he got to know this town a bit, if he was going to live here.

The sun blazed so brightly from the clear blue sky that the hillsides nearby seemed fluorescent. The air had a bite to it, but it was invigorating rather than chilling. Made a man want to taste it.

Something had lifted his spirits this morning. He had a good feeling, and he hoped he was intelligent enough that it wasn’t because of his father’s apparent change of heart. That would be a foolish mistake. It didn’t seem as if it was, however. Something else lingered in the air. Expectation. A sense that something big was going to happen. A feeling that he ought to be holding his breath.

He often got… feelings… intuitions about things. But he’d never had one like this before.

Strange.

He walked a full block, then stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Across the street a woman stepped out of a small shop. She carried boxes, empty boxes, stacked inside one another. They towered so tall in her arms that they hid her face. But it didn’t matter. He knew her.

He knew her.

Sure he knew her. She was the woman who stood on the cliffs in the middle of the night. The woman he was compelled to watch. That was all.

It doesn’t feel like that’s all, though. It feels like something more.

When she turned and that long ebony hair swung around her shoulders, his heart did a crazy leap in his chest. He couldn’t make his legs work, could barely make his mind work. He could only stand there, staring at her, wondering why the hell she got to him this way. Cars passed back and forth between them, traffic increasing as the morning aged, but they didn’t disturb his intense study of her. He couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to.

She shifted the boxes to one side, balancing them on her hip. She wore black. Leather, he thought. A snug leather dress with a zipper that traced a path up the front of her, cool metal, he imagined, pressing to her center and running right between her breasts. The hemline hugged her thighs. Below that her legs were encased in black stockings that ended at short, laced-up boots with pointy toes.

His gaze rose once more. Her head turned toward him, slowly. Very slowly. As if she sensed him there, looking at her. Her dark, dark eyes met his, locked on them, held them. Then widened, and the boxes fell from her hands. The smaller ones spilled out of the larger ones when the stack tumbled in the stiff autumn wind. Her hair danced with the breeze, moving in apparent slow motion. Her lips parted, seemed to form his name.

She stepped off the sidewalk and into the street. Into the traffic. Eyes glued to his, blinking rapidly now, but never glancing to one side or the other, she came closer.

He did manage to look away—but only when the shadow loomed and the horn blared. The traffic—she was stepping right into the traffic, and there was a truck, and—

He opened his mouth to shout a warning. Before he made a sound, the dark enchantress lifted a hand toward the rumbling vehicle—like a traffic cop signaling “stop”—and abruptly the truck skidded to the left as if something had shoved it. Something big. It came to rest neatly against the curb. She never even looked at it, never took her eyes from his, just kept coming. The wind blew harder, and her hair writhed and twisted like Medusa’s.

And suddenly Duncan felt an icicle of fear slide up his spine. Why?

She stepped up onto the sidewalk. Came closer. Tears, he could see them now. Welling deep in her eyes, glimmering, spilling over. Wet black lashes shining, dampening her cheeks. Longing so intense he could feel it, flowing from her eyes with the pain and the tears. Closer. And she was so close now she was nearly touching him. God, was he dreaming this? Her body brushed his and he felt a snapping, crackling electricity spark between them as she tipped her head back, searched his face. A trembling hand rose to touch his cheek, brush at his hair, and he felt it again. Delicate brows drew together. She tilted her head slightly to one side, and she whispered, “Duncan?”

“Yes,” he said, amazed he could speak at all with the force of these unnamed, and utterly illogical, emotions swamping him. He felt absurdly like pulling her into his arms, like kissing her endlessly. It was an effort to keep his arms at his sides, and the muscles flexed and his fists clenched as he reminded himself to do just that. “How did you know my—”

“Duncan?” she asked again, both hands running over his face now, as if she couldn’t believe he were real. Her breaths came faster, and the tears flowed like rivers. “Oh, Duncan…” There was more, but the words were garbled and choked out on sobs so he only got bits and pieces. “Waiting” and “centuries” and “living without you.” Not that it mattered what she said. Not to him, because it was what she did that had his full attention.

She pressed herself against him, twisted her arms around his neck, and she kissed him. Even with the sobs making her hiccup and gasp, she parted her lips over his, so that he tasted the salt of her tears. She clung to him as if she’d never let go. And something happened to him. He didn’t know what. Something. It was as if he were someone else, someone who knew this woman and returned her wrenching emotions fully. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and it felt… familiar. The shape, the size of her, the way her body rubbed against his. And he bent over her— just the right amount to compensate for the differences in their heights. He returned her kiss. But it was more than a kiss. It was like… coming home when he touched his mouth to hers.

His mind seemed to shut down. It no longer mattered who he was, or who she was, or how insane this entire encounter was. All that mattered was the taste of her mouth, and its warmth. The texture of those lips moving against his, that tongue as soft and rough as velvet when he stroked it with his own. The feel of her waist clasped in his hands, or of her hair when he touched it, plowed his fingers into it, rubbed it against his cheek. Sweet. God, she was sweet. And small and pliant in his arms. And he wanted her. He wanted her with a power and a passion that exploded inside his mind. His hips arched against her belly. She didn’t even pull away.

He fed from her mouth, and his head spun. His heart pounded, and it felt as if something stabbed into it, but he ignored the sudden pain as his lips slid around to her jaw, and lower, to suckle the skin of her neck. No matter where he put his mouth he found sweetness, salt, softness, heat. And wanted more.

Panting, he lifted his head to stare down into her eyes. Still wet with tears, but wide and deep and incredible, they gazed back at him. He couldn’t speak above a whisper, felt dizzy, weak, and entirely disoriented.

“Who are you?” he managed to ask her. And next he’d ask who he was, he thought vaguely. Because for a few minutes there it was as if he’d lost his own identity. This shock, this dizziness, must be the aftermath of that temporary lapse.

She blinked up at him, and Duncan saw the fire in her eyes flicker and, slowly, begin to fade.

“Not that it matters,” he went on, very quickly. To hell with the fear of losing himself, losing his identity or even his soul to her…

Odd thought, isn’t it?

His only fear now was that she wouldn’t let him kiss her again. “I mean, it doesn’t matter,” he blurted. “Not at all. I just—”

“Oh, Duncan.” The words were a sigh. Unspeakably sad, then riding away on a stray breeze. Closing her eyes, she untwisted her arms from his neck, took a step backward. “Oh, sweet Duncan, I didn’t mean to do it this way.” She shook her head slowly. “What must you be thinking right now? You don’t even know me, do you?”

He swallowed hard, reaching up with one hand, stroking her cheek, and absorbing a tear into his fingertips. “Oh, yeah,” he whispered. “I know you. I’ve seen you on the cliffs… I’ve watched you… from the lighthouse.”

“You live in the lighthouse?”

He nodded, watching her face, wishing he could kiss her again. But even now the confused yearning of that moment was fading, and he was beginning to realize how weird all this was, and to feel self-conscious about losing his head with a total stranger. Practically making love to her in the street.

Still wanting to.

“How did you know my name?” he asked, maybe because it was all he could think of to say—to distract himself from thinking of her taste, and wanting more. To ground himself in something solid and logical and practical. To grab hold of the first rational thought to come into his mind in several minutes, and cling to it for dear life.

“I know a lot of things about you, Duncan.” She closed her eyes, lowered her head again. “But I’m messing this up. Badly.” And she looked up at him again. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds. “I meant to take it slowly. To give you time to get to know me again and—”

“Again?”

She nodded. “Yes. But don’t worry about that now. Don’t worry about anything now. I’ll explain it all, Duncan, and this time I’ll tell you everything. I won’t keep anything from you this time, I swear it.”

Frowning, he studied her and wondered for the first time if this beautiful young woman were, perhaps, slightly insane.

Good, Duncan. Better that than wondering what happened to your own sanity just now, isn’t it?

“This time?” he said, pretending not to hear his own mocking thoughts. God, how her black eyes gleamed. She reminded him of something… some… one.

“All that matters now, Duncan, is that you’re here. You’re here.” Her beautiful lips curved into a smile so enticing he found he really didn’t care if she were sane or not. “You’re really here.”

He found himself smiling back at her, a reflex beyond control. “Yes, I certainly am.”

She shook her head from side to side. “You don’t sound the same.”

“The same as what?”

She shook her head again. “You’ve lost the lilt of the Highlands. But beyond that…” She stroked his hair once more, tugged a strand away from his head and ran it between her fingers. “Beyond that, you’re the same. Lord, but I’ve missed you so much. And to think I thought it was him. And I left poor Arianna home packing, convinced we had to go away and—”

“Go away?” She sounded crazier all the time, but for some reason the idea of her leaving here shook him. His hands were on her shoulders now, and he battled a rising tide of panic that usually only crept up on him this way when he tried swimming or looked down from some substantial height. “But you can’t. Not now, not when—”

“Oh, but we’re not going away. No, Duncan, not now, I promise you that. I’m not about to leave you when I’ve only just found you.”

He sighed his relief. “I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

He nodded. “We… we know each other, don’t we?” he said, a little uncertain.

A cloud covered the light in her eyes. “We did… once. I’d hoped you might remember, but Arianna told me you wouldn’t. It’s all right, Duncan.”

He licked his lips, swallowed hard. “I can’t imagine meeting you and not remembering,” he said.

She shrugged, averting her eyes. “It was a long time ago.”

He tilted his head, studying her face. “You do seem… familiar to me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been…” He let his words die. Maybe that was why he’d been so drawn to her, so compelled to watch her from the lighthouse. Maybe he had known her once.

“Well, if I’m a bit familiar to you, then that’s something, isn’t it?”

“I’m half afraid you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

“There could never be someone else, Duncan. Not ever.” Lowering her head slowly, she whispered, “There’s so much we need to talk about. So much I have to tell you.”

“Apparently so.”

She drew a breath. “This must seem so strange to you.”

“It’s… yeah. It’s strange.” She bit her lip, and he rushed on. “Strange in a very nice way,” he added, and he caught her chin, lifted it so he could look into those mesmerizing eyes of hers. “Tears,” he said. “They’ve got no business filling eyes like these.”

She sniffed, and the tears welled deeper and spilled out onto her cheeks. “Will you hold me, Duncan? I know it makes no sense to you now, but I need to feel your arms around me more than I need to draw another breath right now.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. He pulled her close, and she nestled in his arms. She fit herself against him as if she were custom-made for him to hold. Her arms around his waist, her cheek resting on his chest. Her hair just below his face so its scent wafted up to entice. Something stirred a memory when he smelled that scent. Lavender and honeysuckle. He’d smelled it before, he knew he had.

For a very long time he stood there and just held her. It felt… potent. Emotions more powerful than any he’d ever known roiled around inside him, and he couldn’t even figure out why. But he didn’t want to let her go. Hell, he’d hold her like this forever if he had time.

Time.

Damn, the time.

He glanced at his watch, realized he was late now for his meeting with his father. Almost decided to let the old man sit alone all morning. But his conscience gave a twist. No, he’d wanted this chance with his father for too long to blow it when it finally came. He had to at least try.

“I’m sorry,” he told her as he stroked her hair and gently lifted her head from his chest. The regret he heard in his voice was genuine. He didn’t want to leave her. It made his knees weak, made his head ache to entertain the idea! Clenching his jaw, he forced the words to come. “I have to meet someone. I swear, if it wasn’t so important, I’d—“

“No, it’s all right. I… I should go, talk to Arianna before she has the entire house packed up.” She shook her head. “Besides, I need to… put my head on straight. Seeing you… it made me forget everything I’d planned, everything I wanted to say.“

A lump came into his throat. “I… will I see you again?”

Her smile was soft, edged with sadness and joy all at once. “I’ll come to you, Duncan. Tonight, I’ll come to the lighthouse. We’ll talk then. I promise you, all of this will make sense then.”

He nodded slowly, doubting anything she had to say could make any of this make sense. But he didn’t care. All that mattered was that she would come to him. She’d be with him. Tonight, and that was only hours away, and if she hadn’t made that promise, he didn’t think he’d be able to walk away from her right now. “I’ll be waiting,” he told her.

Leaning forward and up, she pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. Then, stepping away, she turned to go.

“Wait,” he said, and she stopped, glanced back at him. “I don’t even know your name.”

She blinked, as if to cover something in her eyes. “No, you don’t, do you? It’s St. James. Raven St. James.“ Then she turned again and hurried away.

Duncan stood staring after her until she was out of sight. Raven.

Raven ?

My God, what the hell was going on here?

“Duncan?”

Blinking out of his stupor, he half turned toward the voice that called his name. His father stood three feet away, on the sidewalk, hands thrust into the deep pockets of the long black coat that made him look like a mobster’s grandfather.

“Hello, Father.”

His father frowned, and the additional lines lost themselves with all the others on his face. It was a stern face, narrow and pale. Steel-gray hair, too long for a man his age, surrounded it. He looked like winter, Duncan thought. He’d always looked that way. Never seemed to change.

“I waited a good fifteen minutes at the cafe,” he said, his voice a monotone.

“I was on my way there.” He met the old man’s eyes, wondered if there would be a confrontation, accusations and defenses now. No, he wouldn’t defend himself to his father. He wouldn’t apologize. He was an adult.

His father’s gaze wavered first, and the man sighed. “No matter. I was just on my way back to the old courthouse building. Walk with me, Duncan?”

Duncan nodded, turning around and falling into step beside his father. Awkwardly trying to think of some light conversation, some casual words to break the ice. “So how have you been?”

“Same as always. And you?”

Duncan shrugged. His father spoke without making eye contact. It was a trait Duncan had never really become used to. “The business is going well,” he told his father at length.

“Yes, well, it should. There will never be a shortage of old buildings in need of restoration.”

“I hope not.”

“You bought that lighthouse.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue, gave his head a shake, but other than that didn’t break his stride or raise his head. “I found that surprising.”

“So did I.”

The old man did look up then. Sharply, quickly, scanning Duncan’s face in one sweep of his pale eyes and then facing the sidewalk again.

“I bought it on impulse,” Duncan explained. “I’m not sure why. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to stay there.”

“Mmm.” Their shoes tapped in sync over the sidewalk. Passing traffic. Dry leaves rustling against bare limbs in the breeze. Silence.

“You regret it yet?” his father asked.

Duncan sent the man a sideways glance. “No. No, I don’t.”

“So you’ll be staying around here for a while.”

He thought of the woman. Raven. Tonight.! “Yeah, I think so.”

“Then I have a proposition for you.” The old man paused and waved a hand. Duncan followed it to the square flat-topped building, made of deep gray stone blocks. Broad stone steps, with pillars top and bottom, led the way to the entry, which was by itself impressive with big, dark double doors attached with brass bells. “This is it.”

It took Duncan a minute to process the announcement. “The old courthouse? The one you bought?”

Nodding, his father mounted the steps. “Come, I want you to see inside. My apartments are above, on the second floor, but it’s the ground story you’ll be interested in, Duncan. I’ve already acquired some of the most—” He broke off there, turning his key in the lock and swinging the doors wide, and Duncan joined him. “Here, see for yourself.”

Duncan stepped inside. His father reached for a light switch, and then stood back and waited while Duncan’s gaze skimmed the crates, the boxes, the odd items stacked hither and yon, the large wooden items standing in one corner of the room. Were those… were those stocks!

Finally his gaze fell on a sign. The Gothic letters printed in red on a black background read: ye olde witch museum.

He blinked. “What is all this?”

“Just what it looks like,“‘ his father said. ”A tourist trap, but a moneymaker, Duncan, I guarantee it.”

“A Witch Museum?”

Nodding, his father moved around, touching first one box and crate and then another. “Torture devices, antique stocks, handwritten confessions—‘“

“And you don’t think it’s slightly morbid?”

“Ah, Duncan, don’t be foolish. It’s all in fun.”

Gee, do you suppose it was fun to the women who saw this stuff firsthand?

“Besides,” his father went on, “what do people come to this part of the country for, if not this? Why is Salem doing such a booming business, eh? This will succeed, Duncan, I’m sure of it.” He slapped Duncan’s shoulder—the most physical contact he’d made with his son in a dozen years. And as always, a shock of something like static electricity sparked where they made contact. Duncan stiffened, and pulled away instinctively. Oddly, it reminded him of the static he’d felt when the strange beauty touched him… and yet it had been different with her. Pleasant and exciting, rather than slightly repulsive the way it always was with the old man. Duncan had never understood it, and assumed he simply tended to conduct static more than most people.

His father’s lips thinned for a moment. Then he acted as if nothing had happened. And nothing had. Nothing new, anyway. “I hoped we could work on it together. Partners. You and I.”

Duncan lifted his head slowly to meet his father’s eyes. “You… you want me as your partner?”

His father nodded. “Yes, son, I do. It will give us a chance to… well, to make up for the past. Time to get to know each other, the way we should have done long ago.”

Duncan couldn’t believe it. A lump came into his throat, but he swallowed it down. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m an old man, Duncan. When a man gets to be my age, he starts to think… starts to wish he’d done certain things in his life a little differently… starts to understand what’s really important.”

Nodding, Duncan had to look away. “I’ve waited a long time for a chance like this.”

“Then take it, Duncan.” His father’s hand returned to his shoulder. Jolted him, then tightened there. “What do you say? Partners?”

Duncan faced his father and said nothing. How many times had his father made false starts like this? How many times had he seemed to want to get closer, only to pull away again, without explanation? And, God, even if he were sincere this time… something about the idea of putting these relics on display seemed crude. Repugnant, even.

“Duncan?”

“I… I don’t know.” Say no, some inner voice told him. And yet he wanted so much to be close to this cold man. Had wanted it for so long. “I… I’ll think about it.”

“That’s good enough.”

Good enough. When nothing Duncan had ever done had ever been good enough.

God Almighty, Duncan thought. Could this day get any stranger?

Chapter 14

“Raven.”“

I turned around, holding my hair to the back of my head in a temporary bundle and craning my neck to glimpse the effect in the mirror behind me. Then I frowned. “Maybe I should just leave it down.”

“Raven—”

“What do you think, Arianna?” Letting my hair fall, finger combing it slightly, I arranged it over my shoulders. “Yes, I’ll leave it down.” With a firm nod I faced the four-poster bed and the clothing draped over every inch of the mattress and hanging from the foot. “I just wish I knew what to wear.”

“Raven, will you stop for one minute and listen to me?”

Smiling—I hadn’t been able to stop smiling since that morning—I faced Arianna. “This is all because of you, you know. If it hadn’t been for your spell…” I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and mentally saw my beloved Duncan again. “He looks just the same. It’s as if… as if he never left me.”

“No, Raven. It is not like that at all.” Arianna stood close, gripped my shoulders, and the warm, familiar tingle passed from her body into mine as she stared hard into my eyes. “He did leave you. For you, everything seems the same, but it’s not, love. Not for him.”

I sighed softly. Poor Arianna, trying so hard to protect me from my own hopes and dreams. She just didn’t understand. “I know he may not remember me now, but he will. And he’ll love me again, and—”

“And how do you know it will happen that way?” she asked me.

I blinked. A finger of doubt crept into my brain, but I banished it. Ignored it. Pretended it didn’t exist just as I’d been pretending all day.

Just as I’d been pretending for three hundred years.

I’d spent all this time waiting for his return—none of it pondering how things might have changed between us.

“It has to happen that way,” I told her.

“Yes, that’s just the way I was thinking, Raven, when I set out to find my little sister more than three centuries ago. But your reaction was quite different. Do you remember?”

I did remember. And the doubt in my heart grew larger. “But—”

“You thought I’d come to kill you. You drew your blade, Raven. You’d have fought me—perhaps to the death. To you I was a stranger. Nothing more.”

My heart contracted at her words. Slowly I lowered my head. “You’re right.” Drawing a deep breath, I met her eyes. “But we’re sisters again now, Arianna. Closer, even, than that.”

“But our past together is just as gone. The life you led before is lost to you. You remember none of it. Not our father, a lowly saddle maker, nor our mother, nor our poor cottage in Stonehaven. Not the loch where we played…“ She closed her eyes. ”Our closeness now is based on this lifetime… we’ve built it together over centuries, Raven. It’s strong, and it’s real, but it’s not the same. It can never be the same.“

Turning slowly, eyes downcast, I felt tears well up and burn my eyes. “I… I hadn’t thought…”

“I know. That’s why I’m trying to make you think. Raven, Duncan may look the same, bear the same name, but he is not the same. To him, you’re a beautiful stranger who kissed him on the street one day.”

My head came up sharply. “He kissed me, too!”

“Of course he did. But, Raven, you could fling yourself into the arms of any red-blooded, heterosexual male and he would do the same. You’re a beautiful woman. Duncan is a man.”

“No,” I said. Biting my lip, I paced to the bed, snatching up a dress, eyeing it through my tears. “There was something there, something between us, Arianna. ”tfelt it.“

“Yes. You felt it. But did he?”

The fabric of the dress crumpled in my fists, I slowly lifted my head, faced her, bit back a sob. “He… he doesn’t love me?”

“He doesn’t know you.” Arianna came closer, took the dress gently from my hands, and laid it on the bed. Then she cupped my face and wiped my tears away with her thumbs. “I only want you to be aware… to be careful, darling. He’ll fall in love with you again, I don’t doubt it for a moment. But, Raven, he’s going to need time. And so are you. Time to get to know him again. He might be very different from the man you remember. You might decide you don’t even want—”

“I will never decide that!” I sniffed, brushing at my wet eyes. “I love him, Arianna. I will always love him.”

“I know,” she said softly. Turning, she fingered the clothes on the bed, pausing on a sheer, soft dress of ivory silk. “This one, I think.” She gathered the dress up, draped it gently over my arm. “It won’t be easy for him, you know. He’s going to have a lot to deal with, when you tell him. He’s immortal now, Raven. A High Witch like us, with maybe no clue that he has some fledgling powers coming to life inside him. You must remember what a shock learning of your own nature was to you, how difficult it was to accept, to understand.”

“I remember.” I let the robe I wore fall from my shoulders to the floor, then pulled the dress over my head. But the bubbling excitement I’d felt all day ebbed now. I was suddenly unsure, afraid. What if Duncan… what if he never loved me again?

“Be gentle when you tell him. Go slowly, love. Slowly.” She guided me to the mirror, lifted a brush to my hair, and smoothed it with long, soothing strokes. “And don’t expect too much all at once.”

I nodded, staring at Arianna’s reflection beside mine in the mirror. We stood in sharp contrast to each other, she so fair with her sunshine hair, cropped short around her face. With her pixie like features and huge brown eyes. Me, so dark, long ebony curls, jet-black eyes and lashes and brows.

“It must have hurt you, all those years ago,” I said. “To find me and realize I had no memory of you.”

She nodded. “I don’t know what I was expecting. An emotional reunion, I suppose. If I’d given it any thought I’d have realized that wasn’t going to happen.”

I turned toward her. “But it did. You are my sister, Arianna. You’re the sister of my soul. And while my mind may not remember our past together… my heart has never forgotten. The feelings live on there.”

She dipped her head, shielding her eyes from me. “Truly?”

“Oh, yes. Truly.”

Lifting her head, smiling and misty-eyed, she hugged me tight. “I do love you, little sister.”

“And I you,” I told her.

Finally she stepped away, looking me up and down. “Well, put your shoes on and go, then. This man of yours has kept you waiting quite long enough, don’t you think?“

I nodded emphatically. “More than long enough,” I told her.

Duncan paced. He wore jeans. Jeans should be okay, right? They were the all-purpose, fit-for-any-occasion uniform of the twentieth century, after all. He hoped jeans were all right.

He hoped she’d come. She said she would, but any woman crazy enough to kiss a man she didn’t even know in broad daylight on a busy street might not be too good at keeping her word. Or even remembering she’d given it.

No. She’d come. And who was he kidding, anyway? There was more going on here—with him, with her, with them—than just an impulsive kiss on a busy street.

It had been a busy street. Too busy.

And that was part of it, the way she held up her hand and that truck skidded to the side like it had been pushed there. That was… that was…

That was nothing. The driver must have locked up his brakes and jerked the wheel. That was all. It was nothing.

But she knew his name. She knew his name, and then there was her name. Raven. And he’d been collecting ravens all his life, been fascinated by them. Had books on them, paintings of them, and miniatures everywhere. Wooden ravens, stone ravens, cheap plastic dime-store models, and some made of glass. The large one, carved of pure black onyx, that was his favorite. Three hundred bucks he’d paid for that bird, even while asking himself why the hell any sane man would plunk down that kind of cash for a hunk of rock. He looked at it now, perched on a pedestal table all its own like a queen holding court. His fingers stroked its cool hard feathers.

But that was beside the point. Her name was Raven. And that was… weird. Not to mention that since he’d come here there had been real ravens stalking him. Okay, not stalking him, but he’d sure as hell seen more of the big black birds perched around this lighthouse than he’d ever seen in one place in his whole life.

Oh, but there was more. There was her. The obsession he’d had with her since that first time he’d laid eyes on her, over there on the cliffs, doing whatever it was she did on full-moon nights.

And she knew his name.

He felt nervous and jittery, and not like himself at all. He kept fighting smiles and warm, fuzzy emotions and even a tear or two, and he didn’t know why. He felt as if he’d stepped out of reality and into the Twilight Zone.

The soft hum of a motor jerked him back to himself, and he braced his hands on the sill to stare out the window. Then he tensed. The small johnboat came closer, and he peered, squinted. She sat in the stern, one hand on the outboard motor’s rudder. She wore white, or off-white. Something soft and flowing. It rippled with the breeze as the boat came closer. And then she steered toward shore and cut the motor. Tipped it up, so its prop rose from the water, dripping beads of the sea back into itself. The boat moved forward of its own momentum for another second or two, stopping only when its nose scraped along the shore. And then she was stepping out.

So graceful, he thought. She didn’t even get her feet wet.

She bent at the bow and gave the boat a tug to pull it more securely onto dry land. Then, turning, she faced the lighthouse. He should have gone out to help her. Some gentleman he was, standing here gawking at her while she manhandled the boat on her own. Not that it had seemed to give her any problem. She must be stronger than she looked.

His throat was dry. His stomach, queasy. She started forward, and he turned, went to the door, opened it, and stood there wondering what was happening to his stable, boring life. His solitary, predictable, lonely life.

And then she was standing there, facing him, looking uncertain, a little afraid, utterly beautiful, and he knew that old life was gone forever. Nothing would ever be the same again. Why he knew it, or how, didn’t matter. It was real, gut deep, and true. Telling himself it made no sense didn’t negate that certainty in the least.

“Hello again,” she said.

Was that a slight waver he detected in her voice?

“I’m… glad you came.” Or was he? Yeah. He was. “Come in.” He stepped aside to let her pass, holding the door for her. She moved past him. The front door led directly to the main room, which he’d made into a living room for himself. A curved sofa fit perfectly to one concave wall. Above it the windows looked out on the sea, on the cliffs and her home beyond them. No curtains. He hadn’t wanted anything blocking his view.

But she wasn’t looking at the view, or even at the paint cans and tarps, or the stepladder in the corner. She was looking at the birds. Staring at them, one by one, blinking, and then turning to him with a question in her eyes.

“Yes,” he said, wondering just how much of himself he wanted to reveal to her. Wondering if he even had a choice about that. “They’re ravens. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid.”

Her lower lip trembled. She caught it in her teeth.

“Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

Meeting his eyes, holding them with some kind of magnetic force he couldn’t resist and didn’t want to, she shook her head, first to one side, then the other. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

He shivered. “What, then?”

Licking her lips, she lowered her head, freeing him at last to look away. But he found he didn’t want to. “I don’t want to frighten you, Duncan,” she said very slowly, and it seemed she chose each word with great care. “But there are things you need to know. Things I have to tell you.”

He nodded. “Like… how you knew my name, for example.”

“Yes.”

“It all sounds very mystical.”

“Some might call it that.”

“I think you should know I’m pretty much a skeptic where anything… you know .. .flaky is concerned.”

A tiny frown knit her brow as she tilted her head. A look so startlingly familiar it hit him like a blow to the solar plexus and took his breath away.

“Flaky?”

“Paranormal.” He waggled his fingers in front of him. “Supernatural.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right. It’s all quite… natural, Duncan. It’s just that most people don’t know… or understand it.”

“But you do?”

She nodded.

They were still standing in the middle of the room, facing each other. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he stuck them in his pockets. “Why don’t you sit down. You want some coffee or a beer or—”

“No, thank you.” She sat. On the sofa. And now he had to go and sit beside her. There was a tension between them, something that made his skin tingle and his nerves jump. Something that made him want to touch her, pull her closer.

If he sat down next to her, it would be hard not to.

“Well, I want a beer,” he said. And he fled into the kitchenette. Not much of a kitchenette so far, actually. Just a mini-fridge, a card table with a hot plate on top, two folding chairs, and a couple of boxes full of supplies. And tools. There were tools everywhere. He took a beer out of the fridge, popped the top, and went back in to join her.

She’d turned sideways on the couch, one leg folded beneath her, arm resting on the back as she stared out the window. She didn’t turn to face him when he came in. “What made you buy this place?” she asked.

“The view.” He blurted it before he thought better of it.

Turning, she smiled gently, a tremulous little smile that he suspected contained a wealth of emotions, though he couldn’t guess what they might be. “You’re fond of the sea, then?”

“Actually, I’ve always pretty much detested it.” Safe subject. His personal neuroses never failed to cool things down with women, whether he intended them to or not. He usually kept them to himself. This time, though, he needed things to cool down a little. Maybe if she thought he was nuts… hell, they’d be pretty much even then, wouldn’t they?

He sat down, took a long pull from his can. “I’ve had a fear of water since I was a kid. Even baths were a major trauma when I was real young.”

She didn’t look as if she thought he was nuts. Instead she nodded. “Yes, I can see why.”

“Funny. I never could.” He lifted the can to his lips.

“Heights, too, I’ll bet?”

His hand froze with the can in midair. He blinked slowly, said nothing, and then took a larger gulp of the cool brew than he’d intended.

Licking her lips, she went on. “But you moved into a lighthouse, on an island, despite your dislike of water. And all because of the view?”“

He lowered his head. “Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it?”

“No. There’s a reason for it. For all of it.”

He took another sip of beer before facing her again. “And you know what it is?“

She nodded.

“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense, Raven. I’m dying to hear your theory.”

Drawing a deep breath, she lifted her chin. “You’ve lived before.”

Ahhh, so that was it. She was some kind of a psychic, or considered herself one. Well, it was interesting, if not exactly earth-shattering.

“You were born over three hundred years ago, in Scotland. Later you lived in England, where you were studying for the priesthood. And then—”

He choked on his beer, set the can down, and swiped his mouth. “The priesthood,” he repeated. “Me.”

“Yes. But you gave it up and came here. You lived right here in Sanctuary. And when you died…“ She closed her eyes. ”You died right there,“ she whispered, pointing. ”On the rocks below those cliffs you can see so clearly from this window. And that’s probably why you came into this lifetime with a fear of the water, and of heights, and part of the reason why the view from these windows affects you so deeply.“

Her words made his stomach cramp and turn, and his spine tingle, and his jaw clench. But they were utterly ridiculous, and there was no reason in the world he should feel any reaction at all.

“Next you’ll tell me that we knew each other in this… past life.”

She got to her feet. The ivory dress slid down her legs, brushing her calves. The light was behind her, and he could see her silhouette through the soft fabric. And that feeling, that craving he had no business feeling, stirred to life in him all over again. Then he realized she was crying. Not noisily. She wasn’t a noisy crier, he suspected. It was just one silent tear, glimmering on her cheek.

He rose, too, and touched that tear, absorbed it into his fingertip. “I wasn’t making fun,” he told her.

“But you don’t believe me.”

“I told you I was a skeptic.” When she would have turned away, he touched her shoulders, gently keeping her there, facing him. “Why does any of it have to matter, Raven? I like you. I’d… like to get to know you. Can’t we forget about all this hocus-pocus stuff and just be two people who just met? Two people who… maybe… could feel something for each other, given time? Hmm?”

She seemed to search his face. “It would be easier, maybe, if we could. But there’s more, Duncan. So much more. And it does matter… especially to you.”

He shook his head. “It really doesn’t matter in the least to me. But it does to you, doesn’t it?”

“It does. To both of us.” She cleared her throat. “We… were… you and I were…”

Frowning, he probed those black eyes of hers. “Lovers?” he asked her.

“Oh, Duncan, it was so much more than that. So very much more. When you held me, touched me, it was a kind of magick beyond anything I’d ever felt. And it was the same for you, I know it was…” She bit her lip as if to stop the words.

Too late, though. That irrational desire for her was sizzling through him now, and no amount of reasoning would vanquish it. “I suppose that would explain,” he whispered, and he let his hands slide from her shoulders, down her arms, and to her waist, “why I want you so badly right now.”

He leaned down, and he kissed her. Tentatively, lightly, so that she could object if she wanted to. The power of his attraction to her… was that what made such a jolting awareness between them? Was it something chemical? Something physical?

She didn’t object. Her lips formed his name against his, and then she melted into his arms. Her mouth parted, her arms twisted around his neck, and she kissed him back.

Warm, she was so warm, and soft, and her taste was like a drug that he couldn’t quite get enough of. He bent over her, deepening the kiss, hands at the small of her back holding her close, then burying themselves in her hair, and then slipping lower again while his tongue dove into her mouth. He gathered the dress up until he could touch her bare thighs, run his palms over them. Heat met his hands. Her skin seemed to be burning him. Fevered… for him. And when he explored the soft mound of her buttocks and found it bare, he knew this was what she’d come here for. He cupped her there, squeezed her and pulled her hips tight to his. The soft sound she made was like a plea.

So he turned her, and scooped her into his arms. He kept marauding her succulent mouth as he carried her up the curving stairs to the bedroom above. Glass all around… the old light in the center, and the mattress on the floor. It was all he had here… all he’d needed. Until now. Now he needed something more, and it was a need more powerful than any he’d felt in his life.

He laid her on the mattress, knelt beside her, and peeled the dress away.

And then he looked at her.

There was no shyness in her, none of the first-time nervousness other women had displayed. She lay still, proud and naked and utterly beautiful. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside.

Her soft small breasts rose and fell with every breath, quivered with every heartbeat. Their centers like sweetmeats, dark, dusky rose, their peaks hard, elongated, expectant. He bent over her slowly, saw her close her eyes, arch her back. And when his mouth hovered a hairsbreadth from her, she clasped his head and pulled him down, until he took her nipple in his mouth and suckled, and nipped, and tugged at it. Then he moved away, stretching his body out alongside hers, twisting his arms around her slender waist, pulling her against him. Her breasts against his naked chest, her body tight to his, her longing as intense as his was as he kissed her again.

Rocking his hips against her, he muttered, “God, lass, it’s been so long,” and was barely aware of his own words as he reached for the button of his jeans.

A buzz made him pause. He closed his eyes, sighed in agony as the sound grew louder. Another boat. Dammit, who the hell could be coming out here now?

He met her eyes as the sound grew louder and then died. Someone was here. No question. And his own little launch sat outside, so they’d know he must be home. Suddenly protective of her, he reached for a blanket, drew it to cover her even as he got to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “God, you have no idea how sorry. But I’ll get rid of them. I’ll be back.”

I knew it would be a mistake to let him make love to me. But how could I resist him? How could I resist my own burning need to hold him inside me again, after all this time? I craved him just as I had before… no, even more so. I loved him. I loved him, and none of the things Arianna said made a difference in that.

He trotted down the stairs, pulling on his shirt. I heard his steps cross the floor, and the creak of those hinges as the door swung open. And then I heard him say, “What in the world are you doing out here?”

Curious, and suddenly sure he wouldn’t be returning as quickly as he’d promised, I pulled my dress on, and found my shoes, which I’d kicked off at some point. One lay in one direction, one in another. I slipped them on, then crept to the stairs. Then down them. I was quiet, not wanting to interrupt Duncan and his guest, just eager to glimpse the visitor.

At the bottom of the stairs I paused. I could see through the main room to the door at the far end from here, and so far, I remained unnoticed.

But as Duncan spoke, the other man’s head came up. He met my eyes, finding me there unerringly, as if he’d known exactly where I was. And my blood rushed to my feet. Dizziness swamped me, and I nearly lost my balance. Because the man I hated above all others, the man who had tried to kill me more times than I could count over the centuries, Nathanial Dearborne, was staring back at me, and the message in his eyes was clear. He meant to have my heart this time.

And just when I thought my shock and surprise had reached the precipice of a dozen lifetimes, I heard the words that chilled me to the bone.

Duncan said, “Come in, Father.”

Chapter 15

I stepped off the bottom step and darted to the side, out of their sight. Pushing open the first window I came to, I rapidly clambered outside. What was wrong with me? Was I a fool? I hadn’t even brought my dagger tonight! It was at home, tucked away in a drawer in my bedroom, and I was helpless. A sheep awaiting the slaughter. How many times had Arianna told me I must carry it with me always? Always!

I ran to my small boat, shoved it away, and then leaped inside. Taking the oars from the floor, I dipped them, and stroked with all my strength. The craft shot away.

And then I paused, looking back. What about Duncan? What if it were him Nathanial was after?

But no. Duncan had called the man Father.

Father.

I shuddered again, sick to my soul. But how, why? And was Duncan safe?

I closed my eyes, searched my mind, sought the wisdom of the ancient Witches whose blood flowed in my veins. If Nathanial meant to have Duncan’s heart, he’d have had it by now. Duncan never would have lived to reach adulthood. It was obviously something else the bastard was after.

Me. It was me. He must have known that if he remained close to Duncan, he’d find me, eventually. And suddenly I knew with great clarity exactly what Dearborne intended. I knew it as surely as I’d known Duncan when I’d seen him again standing on the sidewalk in town. He would use Duncan… to get to me. But once he took my heart, his need of his son would be as dead as my lifeless corpse would be. He might very well intend to kill Duncan, too. But only after he’d cut the living heart from my chest.

There was only one thing for me to do. Kill him. Kill him before he could hurt Duncan.

I would not again be the cause of my lover’s death. Not again.

“It’s really not a good time, Father.”

“No? And why not?” His father stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind him and idly stroking the antique dagger he insisted on carrying. He’d had that thing belted to his hip for as long as Duncan could remember. But then, his father had always been fascinated with antiques. His collection of obscure books on the occult was probably the largest around. Nathanial loved things salvaged from the past. Duncan figured the dagger must be his favorite piece. That he likely treasured it the way Duncan treasured his own onyx raven.

Raven.

He glanced uneasily toward the stairs. But the sound of a motor drew his head back around. He ran to the window, to look out, only to see Raven’s small boat churning steadily away from the island, heading toward the rocky shore. “Damn.”

His father looked over his shoulder. “Who… ?”

“A girl. A strange, beautiful girl. I can’t believe she left like that.”

“I should apologize. I didn’t know you had… company.”

Duncan eyed his father then, immediately doubting the man. Her boat had been right outside, after all, and… No. He’d never build a relationship with his father if he kept doubting every word the man said.

“It’s all right. I’m sure I’ll see her again.” With a longing glance through the windows, he sighed and told himself to focus on the other stranger in his life. His father. “You want a beer?“

“Only if you have no wine.”

“I detest wine.” He headed into the kitchen, bit his lip, then turned to look back into the living room and forced a smile. “I’ll make a point to buy some, though.” It felt fake, this jovial attitude. This farce of friendship. And it hurt to realize just how strained things between him and the old man had become. God, could this ever work? Or was it too late?

Maybe, Duncan thought, it was too late a long time ago.

His throat tightened on that thought. He grated his teeth and resolved to give it a chance. Again. One last time.

When he joined his father with a beer—in a glass, in deference to Nathanial’s sensibilities—he found the old man holding one of the miniature ravens in his hands. The tip of his thumb kept running across the bird’s wooden breast. It gave Duncan a chill, though he couldn’t say why. He had to resist the urge to snatch his treasure away and replace it lovingly in its spot. But his hands itched to do just that.

Instead he held out the beer.

Clutching the bird too tightly in one hand, his father took the glass with the other. “So tell me about this mysterious beauty. Are you… involved with her?”

“I just met her.”

“Really? You’ll have to introduce me sometime.”

No way in hell.

And just where did that thought come from?

“Maybe. Sometime,” he said. “But right now, I’d rather talk about why you’re here.”

Nathanial shrugged. “Can’t a father visit his son without a reason?” He set the bird down carelessly, and it tipped onto its side with a clunk that set Duncan’s teeth on edge.

Instinctively he reached for it, set it upright in the spot where it belonged. As he did, he stroked its back, almost as if he were soothing it. As if it were real. Man, he was losing it.

“I’d like you to come to the courthouse—er, that is, the museum tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

Nathanial nodded, his pale blue eyes skimming the furniture, the floor, lighting, everywhere but on Duncan. “I’ve already taken care of most of the paperwork involved. Acquired the proper permits, and so on. There’s still the advertising to be done, but that won’t be a problem. Still, Duncan, there are physical aspects to this project that a man of… of my age—”‘

“Oh.” Was this his father? The cold, brutally independent, utterly secretive man he knew, asking for his help? “Look, I’m not real comfortable with this Witch Museum idea,” Duncan began.

“I know, you made that clear this morning. Still, there are all those crates to unpack, you know. The sign to hang. Shelves to be assembled and placed. All of that.”

And maybe that was why he’d asked Duncan to be his partner. He could handle the business end himself, and money was no problem. So all he wanted was a strong body for the grunt work.

Duncan frowned, looking away. He was jumping to conclusions. Judging Nathanial according to the pattern he’d set in the past. If this “one more try” routine were going to have any chance of working, he’d have to try to curb that tendency. But hell, old habits died hard.

“Besides,” Nathanial went on, “if you do decide to be my partner, I’ll want your input on things.” He looked at Duncan’s face, very briefly. Not his eyes, just his face. “I do hope it doesn’t upset you that I’ve done so much of the early work already.”

“No, of course not.” So maybe it wasn’t just a set of strong arms the old man wanted. A spark of hope flared in Duncan’s chest. A tiny kernel of belief in the man he’d always wanted to believe in.

“We need a gimmick,” his father said. “A hook to draw in the tourists for the grand opening.”

Duncan lowered his head. Part of him was ready to agree, while the other part grimaced in distaste. And still another part warned him not to hope for too much where his father was concerned.

Slowly he said, “I suppose if I were going to get involved in this—and I’m not saying I am—but if I were, I might suggest Halloween for the grand opening.“

Nathanial slapped his knee, sloshing beer from his glass onto the couch cushion. “There, you see! That’s the kind of brilliant idea I’d hoped you’d generate. It’s perfect. The holiday most sacred to Witches, as the grand opening of the Witch Museum.”

Duncan felt the blood leave his face. “I didn’t realize…”

“It’s perfect,” Nathanial said again.

“No, Dad, it’s not. Look, it was a bad idea. I spoke without thinking it through. Given the origins of the holiday… hell, it would be offensive.”

“Nonsense. It’s the perfect date, I tell you.”

“You don’t think it’s like opening a Nazi war crimes museum during Passover?”

“Not at all!” Nathanial rubbed his chin. “I hope we can be ready, though. It’s only a couple of weeks away.”

His father’s face seemed more animated to Duncan than it ever had as he talked about his plans—talked about their plans. It didn’t feel right, this idea of a museum devoted to relics of the Witch trials. Not that he knew much about the subject. But it sent an odd feeling up his spine to think about it.

Yet, his father was speaking to him as if he gave a damn—for the first time in Duncan’s memory. Besides, he hadn’t even seen the items to be put on display yet. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought.

He… hoped not.

Who was he kidding? He’d seen enough. Those stocks.

“I can’t be your partner, Father. It doesn’t mean we can’t try to work on things, but—”

“Does it mean you can’t help an old man unpack a few crates?”“

Sighing, Duncan shook his head. “No, it doesn’t mean that, either. I’ll help with the heavy work, all right?”

“Wonderful. Wonderful. As I said, there are the shelves and the sign, and…”

Duncan turned, barely hearing the animated buzz of his father’s voice now, as he gazed across the water to the main-land. It was too dark to see the cove far to the west of the cliffs, where Raven kept the small boat. There must be a path from there up to the house atop the cliffs. Perhaps he’d walk it one day soon.

He had to see her again. He knew that much. Crazy or not, he couldn’t seem to shake the woman’s image from his mind. And even if it turned out she was a raving lunatic, he had a feeling it would always be this way.

When I slammed the front door, Arianna leaped off the sofa, as startled as if a gunshot had gone off beside her ear. One hand pressed to her chest, she drew a deep breath and stared wide-eyed at me. “What in the name of the Gods are you trying to do, scare the heart out of me?”“

I met her brown eyes, and she stared into mine. And then her face changed. She came forward, one hand going to my shoulder. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Lifting my chin, I swallowed hard. “Nathanial Dearborne,” I told her.

The roses drained from her cheeks. “You’ve seen him?”

I closed my eyes. “Oh, Arianna, what am I going to do? I didn’t expect this! Even he couldn’t be this clever, this low, as to set himself up as… as… Sweet Goddess, I can’t even say it.”

Gripping my shoulders, she steered me backward to the velvet settee in the Edwardian parlor. I went easily, my bones like water.

“Go on,” she whispered. “Tell me what he’s done.”

I met her eyes, but they swam in my tear-hazy vision. “I don’t even know. I only know I was with Duncan, at the lighthouse, when Dearborne came to the door. And when he opened it…“ I bit my lip, shook my head in reborn disbelief. ”Duncan called him father, Arianna.“

“What?”

I nodded, reaffirming what I’d said. “I don’t know how, but that beast has managed to set himself up as Duncan’s father. And Arianna, I think… I think he was planning all along to use Duncan to get to me.”

“That’s impossible. Raven, listen to what you’re saying. No Witch, neither Light nor Dark, could manage a spell so powerful. To chose the soul who would incarnate as his own child… It can’t be done.”

I met her gaze, my own narrow. “So you believe it’s coincidence?”“

Arianna lowered her head, shook it. “Of course not. It can’t be that, but there’s simply no way Nathanial could have…“ And then her head came up again, slowly. ”Unless…“

“Unless?”

“Do you suppose Duncan is Dearborne’s adopted son?”

I blinked. “That’s it. It has to be.”

“And if that’s true, then you’re right. It has all been a part of Dearborne’s plan to get to you. Otherwise he’d have killed Duncan by now. He has to know the man is immortal.”

“Oh, he knows.” I got to my feet, too upset to sit still when every nerve in my body seemed to be squirming. “He knew Duncan would find his way to me again, one day. Somehow, he knew.“

Pushing both hands through her hair, Arianna paced away from me. “This is not good.”

“And that’s an understatement.”

“What are you going to do, Raven?”

I faced her. “What choice do I have, Arianna? I’m going to kill Nathanial Dearborne.”

She gripped my shoulders. “Oh, no. Not so fast, my friend. In the first place, if you murder the man Duncan thinks of as his father, he is going to hate you.”

“That’s just a chance I’ll have to take. Dearborne is out for my heart, Arianna, and you must realize that once he has it, Duncan’s could easily be next.”

“I know, I know, but—”

“Then what would you suggest I do? Wait for him to attack? Let him decide when and where and how it will be? No. My best advantage will be to surprise him. He won’t be expecting me to make the first move.”

“That’s because he thinks you have half a brain, Raven.” I scowled at her. “You can’t beat him.” She stated it flatly, dropped it as if it were a proven fact, with no room for doubt. “You know it, I certainly know it, having faced the man in battle myself… and Nathanial Dearborne knows it. You won’t stand a chance.“

“You told me I was as good as you now.”

“I lied.”

I blew a sigh and turned away.

“Let me do it, Raven,” she said.

I stiffened and stopped in my tracks. “You didn’t lie,” I said very slowly. “I am as good as you. You’re trying to protect me.”

“Duncan can’t blame you if I’m the one who does it.”

I went to her, took her hands in mine firmly, and made my gaze as penetrating as I could. “I won’t let you fight him for me, Arianna. You beat him once, yes, but that was centuries ago. There’s no way to be certain you could do it again. He’s had time to improve.”

“So have I,” she said.

“And so have I. The difference is, this is my battle, not yours, Arianna.”

She averted her eyes, but they slid back to mine. She understood, I knew she did. Didn’t want to accept it, but she would. I knew her well enough to know that.

“If you insist on fighting him yourself, Raven, then please, please wait. Put it off, just for a little while.”

“Why?“‘ My suspicion had to come through in my voice.

“Not to give me a chance to do it for you, love. But… because there might still be a way out of it. If there is, you should take it, because if you fight him, you’ll die.“

“He’s going to force me to face him sooner or later, Arianna.”

“If you die… Duncan might be next. You said it yourself.“

I couldn’t reply to that. She was right, and there was nothing else for me to say. “So I put it off, if I can. But what if there is no way out of this? How is delaying it going to help matters then?”

“The delay will give us time, Raven. Time to find out exactly what his plans are, maybe what his strengths and weaknesses are, as well. And knowledge is power.”

I nodded, hesitantly, but even so I couldn’t deny the relief I felt in knowing I wouldn’t have to face Nathanial right away. Unless he attacked me.

“You’ll have to avoid him. And in the meantime, you can work on making Duncan see him for what he really is. So if you do manage to survive the battle, he won’t hold it against you.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible. Including your winning this thing. If we work very hard between now and then. Are you willing?”

“Work is something I’m entirely willing to do—if it will help me rid the world of that bastard.”

“No time like the present,” Arianna said. There was a familiar hiss as she drew her blade and faced me, dropping into a ready crouch. “Let’s get to it.”

Sighing softly, I felt my lips pull into a reluctant smile. “Damn,” I whispered. “You can make me smile no matter how bad things get, you know that?”

“Don’t smile,” she said, though she was disobeying her own order even as she said it. “Fight.”

So we fought.

Arianna and I walked side by side along the route that led through the center of Sanctuary the next day. All but invisible, or we tried to be. We’d honed our talent for blending in with our surroundings, drawing so little notice we might as well have been invisible—one of the skills we’d learned from Trees Speaking long ago. Invisibility, he’d taught us, was not a physical state, but a mental one. It came in handy when one needed anonymity. And an immortal Witch living in a mortal world always needed that.

“Did you learn anything at the cafe?” I asked softly, leaning close to her.

“My waitress—Shelly, the redhead—said she didn’t recognize the name, but that someone had recently moved into the old courthouse building on Main.”

I nodded. “Jeremy at the herb store heard that someone was converting the courthouse building into some kind of museum.”

Arianna frowned. “That makes no sense. Why would Dearborne want a museum?”

I shrugged. “One way to find out.”

She nodded in agreement and we turned at the corner, walked to the old courthouse building, a truly lovely structure. I remembered when it had been built just over a century ago, all the hoopla of the brass band playing as the mayor cut a ribbon and the townsfolk applauded. Women in layered skirts and bonnets. Whiskered men in bowler hats. Children in knickers, pushing hoops with sticks.

Arianna’s arm came across my middle to stop me, so I bumped into it with my next step, then paused to look at her. “Look,” she said, pointing.

I did. And saw the two of them, Nathanial smiling in that frozen way he had, so that it didn’t look like a smile at all, but an icy grimace suitable for a Halloween mask. And Duncan, looking slightly confused, a bit uncertain, but so hopeful.

Of what, I wondered?

My heart felt as if it were in the grip of a large, contracting fist, just for a moment. It did every time I looked at Duncan. I could still barely believe I’d finally found him again. After all this time.

My narrow gaze returned to Dearborne. The man who would try to tear us apart all over again.

“We’ll wait,” Arianna said, drawing me with her toward the park, just across the little circle that made up the center of Sanctuary. There was a fountain in the center of the circle, pavement all around it. This was the point of the teardrop-shaped Coast Road. From here, the road ran out along the northern edge of the peninsula, broadening, circling around near our home on the very tip, and then running along the southern coast all the way back to this very spot. From here one could also head northwest, back into the mainland.

We sat down on a bench near the fountain—a piece I’d always found vaguely distasteful. A scene of a group of Puritans gathered round their preacher, a mean-looking fellow, book in one hand, the other one pointing skyward. It was sculpted in bronze. The water flowed up through its base and cascaded down several levels to pool at the bottom.

“What, exactly, are we waiting for?” I asked, staring back toward the courthouse.

“For them to leave,” she said. “We’ll take a look inside when they do.”

“They’ll lock it up.”

“Not if we make them forget to.” Arianna turned halfway to study the fountain. “Does this guy remind you of anyone?”“ She tipped her head toward the bronze preacher.

“Arianna, that’s manipulative magick and you know it.”

“Ah, but with harm to none,” she told me. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

I glanced at the sculpture. “Certainly not Duncan,” I told her. “He never looked like that. So haughty and threatening. When he wore the robes of clergy, they seemed more like blankets than bronze. Inviting, warm. Safe.”

She sighed, lowering her head. “You really do still love him, don’t you?”

“You know I do.”

I met her eyes, and Arianna pitched a penny into the well, making a wish in silence. “I wasn’t talking about Duncan, anyway,” she said softly. “Look at the eyes, the belly. No doubt the artist underplayed its true girth. Look at the jowls, Raven.”

I did, and then my own eyes widened. “My goodness, you’re right. He resembles Elias Stanton!”

Laughing, Arianna got to her feet, turning to face the sculpture. “Hello, Elias, you filthy old pig. Did some Witch get angry enough to turn you to bronze, I wonder?“

“Oh, what a thought,” I said. But on looking, even I wondered if it could be true, though I’d certainly never heard of a Witch, even an immortal High Witch, with that kind of power. Still, the resemblance was uncanny. And in a moment I was laughing, too.

And then the courthouse doors swung open, and Duncan emerged, his father behind him.

We sat down at once, as if on cue, and I focused my attention on the color and texture of the bench. Sun-bleached granite, hard and cool, slightly rough. Focus, focus, until my body seemed to soften, and to blend in with the bench on which I sat.

Arianna’s gaze remained on the two men while I did this, and I knew she was willing them to leave the door unlocked. Sending her thoughts, though gently. If she were too obvious, too aggressive, Nathanial might well sense her thoughts. If she were too gentle, on the other hand, he would be unaffected. If she were perfect, “thinking” at him with just the right amount of force, he’d simply forget to lock the door.

Seconds later Nathanial and Duncan came down the steps and toward us. Arianna put her back to the fountain, and she, too, went still and quiet and granite like. Sinking into the granite, my body melding, it seemed, with the stuff, I watched as Duncan and his father approached us and kept on walking, passing within five yards of where we sat and never even noticing we were there.

When they were out of sight, I pulled myself from the heavy, slumberous pose of stone as if waking from a short nap. I drew a breath, wondered if I’d breathed during that time. Granite benches didn’t, so I might have forgotten to myself.

“All right,” Arianna said. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, do we want to know what’s going on in there or not?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then come on!” She took my hand, and together we crossed the curved portion of street and headed up the courthouse steps. Arianna gripped (he ornate doorknob, gave it a twist. “Unlocked. Lord and Lady, I am good.” She pushed the door open, and the next thing I knew, we were standing inside.

It was a large room, the entry hall. Towering vaulted ceiling and gleamingly finished cherry woodwork everywhere. On the floor were boxes and crates in various shapes and sizes. Standing hither and yon were small stands and shelves, some assembled, some still in pieces.

And in one corner a large, old object that made me gasp and look again. Old, rough wood, rusted hinges. Stocks.

My stomach convulsed a little, and I gripped Arianna’s hand, squeezed it, and inclined my head so she’d see them as well.

“That vile bastard,” she whispered. “Look, Raven.” And as I met her gaze, she nodded toward something. So I turned.

The huge sign, elaborately painted in elegant Gothic letters of black on a shining red background, stood upright, propped against a pair of crates. It read: Ye Olde Witch Museum.

But it got worse. Underneath in smaller block letters it went on: genuine relics from witch trials around the WORLD.

Bile rose in my throat. For a moment I neither moved nor breathed.

Arianna had no such reaction. She bent over the nearest box, tearing the cover off and pushing aside the protective paper. “Candleholders,” she said. “A pentacle, a staff… my Goddess, they have some Witch’s staff. And there’s more. Shackles, fire irons… Raven, these are instruments of torture.”

Shaking my head from side to side, I, too, opened a box. “Diaries,” I said, gently opening the cover of one such book, so old and fragile its pages were like butterfly wings. “Oh, no, it’s a grimoire. And there’s an athame, and… and a cauldron.” I closed my hands around the small, stout iron pot, with its three squatty legs, lifted it, and saw the rose painstakingly painted by hand on the front. “No,” I whispered. “No, not this.” Tears burned in my eyes, and anger rose to overwhelm the sickness all of this brought upon me, as I stared for the first time in well over three centuries at my mother’s own sacred cauldron. It had been taken with every other possession when the villagers—or someone—had ransacked our home in England.

My fury, my outrage, became a deep buzz in my ears, and a red haze formed before my eyes, so that I didn’t even hear the sounds of Duncan and his father opening the front door.

Not until Nathanial Dearborne said, “Oh, good. Trespassers.”

Chapter 16

Duncan stood in the huge arching doorway, not sure what to think, much less what to say. Raven St. James stood facing him, one of his father’s antiques in her hands. A pot of some kind. Stout black iron, encircled by slender, pale fingers that moved restlessly over its surface. Red nails, glossy red, and smooth, and he thought of fire. Wondered if it showed when his blood heated, and quickly lifted his gaze.

She wasn’t looking at him, though, and that surprised him. Instead, she stared at his father, and the hatred in her eyes was second only to the horror he saw there. Potent emotions that shook him. Then they worried him.

Beside her was her blond pixie of a friend, who didn’t look any more amused than Raven did. Unlike Raven, though, she hadn’t lost the power of speech.

“I didn’t see any signs,” she said softly. “Last I knew, the courthouse was public property. Besides, the door was unlocked.”

“It’s not public property anymore,” Nathanial said, and he spoke softly, his voice odd. Challenging. A dangerous edge to it and a frisson of something he couldn’t hide. Something that sounded a lot like fear.

Duncan felt the tension in the room, thick enough to slice through, but he didn’t know why.

“It’s privately owned now,” Nathanial went on. “And you know that.”

“Ease up, Father,” Duncan said sharply. He didn’t know what the hell Raven and her friend were doing in here, but he didn’t like the edge to Nathanial’s voice. “They said they didn’t know.”

“They knew,” Nathanial said.

“Oh? And are you a mind reader?” the blonde asked, glancing down at the wooden sign on the floor. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“I think it’s fairly self-explanatory. It’s a museum. We’re going to open it on Halloween—or, um, should I say, Sam-hain?”

The blonde gasped. Raven’s eyes went wider and her lips parted. Her words were spoken so softly it was as if they emerged without a single breath pushing them. “Even you couldn’t be this vile, Nathanial Dearborne.“

“Wait a minute,” Duncan said in confusion. “You two know each other?”

Nathanial didn’t look at him. Neither did Raven. The blonde only glanced his way briefly, then focused on the other two again, her gaze nervous, darting. Her stance poised, knees very slightly bent, as if she were ready to spring into action. What was she expecting here? An actual fight?“

Raven lifted the cauldron. “This… it was my mother’s. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Duncan stepped forward, touched Raven’s shoulder, putting himself between her and his father in the process. His hand on her was gentle, and he squeezed slightly, instinctively wanting to calm and comfort her, even though it looked very much as if she’d come here to pick a fight with his old man.

Maybe because that was an emotion he could understand.

“Raven, look again. Come on, that pot must be a hundred years old.”

“Three hundred,” his father said from behind him, but Raven blurted the same words at the same moment. And Duncan only blinked and told himself this was all some kind of twisted dream.

“Regardless of who it belonged to, it’s mine now,” Nathanial said. “And it will be put on display with the other items confiscated from executed Witches.”

“No, Father. It won’t.” Duncan’s tone was hard, firm. He didn’t know why, but the idea obviously made Raven sick inside. And the paleness of her skin, the wideness of her eyes, was all it took to tell him which side he had to take here. Right or wrong.

“You’re a murdering thief, Nathanial Dearborne,” Raven stated passionately.

And it surprised him. His father might be an insensitive, argumentative, unfeeling bastard, but he’d done nothing to deserve that.

“Raven…” Her friend’s voice held a warning. But Duncan didn’t let her finish.

“My father’s political correctness might be in question here, Raven,” he said, still standing between them, both hands on her shoulders now when she moved to step around him. “But I don’t think he’s a murderer or a thief.”

Finally she looked at him. He’d been waiting, expecting, hoping she would. But when she did, he wished she hadn’t, because there was such intense pain in her eyes. Round, wounded eyes, searching his for something he didn’t think she’d find. The woman was traumatized, that was clear now. By him, by his father, or by the things she saw here, he didn’t know. Nor did he know why it stabbed at his heart to see her hurting like this—but it did.

“You’re involved in this obscenity as well,” she whispered.

Unsure how to answer, he hesitated. And then it was too late. She tried to speak, swallowed hard as if she couldn’t, as if something were blocking her throat, and then tried again. “So this is what he’s made of you, is it, Duncan? How could you be involved in something like this? How could you?”“

“Like father, like son,” Nathanial almost sang.

Whirling, not even aware he was about to move, he snatched his father’s lapels in fisted hands and glared at the man. “Not another word, dammit.”

But Raven’s hand was gentle on his shoulder, easing him aside. He didn’t have to move, but he did. He looked down at his hands, trembling as he clutched the front of his father’s jacket, and he wondered what the hell he was doing. She touched him, and he let go—shocked, angry, but unsure where to direct that anger.

Shaking his head slowly, he stepped aside. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on here.”

He shouldn’t have moved. It left Raven facing his father, and whatever was between them, it was potent and it was ugly.

“It ends here,” she whispered.

His father tensed, Duncan frowned, and Raven’s hand shot to her waist, disappearing beneath her draping, dark blouse. Duncan got the sickening sensation that she’d pull a gun in a moment. Instinct took over. He swept his father behind him with one arm and gripped her wrist with the other, stopping it where it was.

She met his eyes, and hers were hurting. And there was a message in her eyes, or he thought there was. Him or me, Duncan. Him or me.

Her friend lunged forward, clasping Raven’s hand in hers and dragging her away from Duncan, both from his touch and his sight, blocking her with a small, slender body. But he could still see Raven’s hand, and just beneath the hem of her blouse a small jeweled hilt clutched in her fingers. My God, a knife?

“No, Raven,” the blonde whispered. “Not here. Not now.”

For one tense moment Raven’s white-knuckled grip remained tight, half hidden in the folds of the blouse. But then it relaxed and the blood flowed back into her small hands as she lowered them to her sides.

“I think you’d both better leave,” Duncan said. His hands were shaking, his vision blotchy with the shock of knowing she’d just come very close to attacking his father with a knife. And here he was wondering just what the bastard had done to her to make her want to gut him.

Some chance he had of building a relationship with the man, he thought grimly, when he trusted him so little. Or maybe it was just that he knew him so well.

No, it was neither of those things. It was Raven. He’d defend her against the Devil himself or God Almighty without giving it a second thought.

The women hadn’t moved.

“Go on. We’ll talk later, Raven.”

“You don’t understand what he’s doing,” Raven said, very softly. “I know that. But even so, you ought to know how wrong this is.” Her friend released her and stepped aside. Raven lifted her head, dark eyes wet, probing. “These were the most cherished possessions of real women. Wives, mothers, daughters, sisters. Grandmothers, Duncan. Some were Witches, but most didn’t even know what a Witch truly was. And regardless of that, they were people. Human beings, Duncan. And here you have the plunder, the booty taken from them after they were brutally tortured and murdered.“ Her voice grew louder with every sentence. ”You have the weapons that hurt and killed them. The hot irons that seared their flesh until they broke or until they died. The stocks that held them like cattle in the streets. You have objects they considered sacred. And you plan to put them on display on Samhain, of all times!“

He lowered his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“And just why does this bother you so much, anyway?” Nathanial boomed, reaching for the cauldron Raven held, only to have her pull it away, holding it protectively at her side. “Anyone would think you considered yourself a Witch the way you’re taking on.”

Duncan blinked. Instantly the image of Raven standing on the cliffs in the light of a full moon, head back, arms extended skyward, wind blowing the dark gown she wore…

“You do,” Duncan said softly, without judgment. “You do consider yourself a Witch, don’t you Raven?”

She swallowed, faced him, a new fear lighting her eyes.

“Oh, do tell him,” Nathanial urged with a smirk. “He won’t hang you for it, after all.”

“Shut up, Father.” He searched Raven’s face. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

At those words her eyes welled with tears. “I won’t lie to you again, Duncan. I don’t consider myself a Witch, I am a Witch. I live by Witches Creed, which tells us to do harm to no one. But there are those who don’t. There are those who harm who they will without a hint of remorse. Some who even enjoy the harm they bring.” And she shot a poisonous glance at his father.

Duncan felt his eyes widen. “I’m not even certain I believe there are such things as Witches.”

“How can you doubt it when there are four of them in the room right now, Duncan?”“

He looked at the blonde, then at his father. But that was only three. “Oh, come on now—”

“You’ve no idea what you were born into this time around, Duncan. You’re a High Witch, like Arianna and me, a Witch of the Light. But your father isn’t. He’s one of the Dark Ones, and he means to kill me—”‘

Duncan threw up his hands. “That’s enough.”

“You know you have powers, Duncan,” she rushed on. “Think about it. Haven’t you ever known things before they happened, sensed things, heard someone’s thoughts, wished for something and had it come about almost instantly? Haven’t you ever—”

“That’s enough.”

She fell silent.

“I’m trying to understand you, Raven, but you’re way over my head with this. I think the best thing would be for you and your friend—”‘

“Arianna,“‘ the blonde said.

“Arianna.” Duncan glanced at her, saw recognition in her eyes, as if she knew him. But she couldn’t. Then he returned his gaze to Raven. “It would be best if you went home. You’re angry. My father’s angry. Go home, Raven.“

“Is that what you truly want?”

Those eyes of hers—God, they had something so powerful pouring out of them he could almost believe her nonsense. Right. She was a Witch and his father was a murderer. “You just tried to pull a knife on my father,” he told her… or was he reminding himself? “If it were any one else, Raven, I’d be calling a cop.“

“If you were any kind of a son, you’d have done just that!” his father yelled.

“I didn’t let her kill you,” he said softly. “Leave, Raven. I need to have a talk with my father.”

“Dammit, Duncan, this man you call your father is nothing to you! He can’t be! He conspired and plotted to get control of you from the moment you were born, but I tell you he’s not your father. He’s evil.”

“Have it your way, Raven.” Duncan reached for the phone. He had no intention of calling any cop on her, but she’d have no way of knowing that, and right now he just wanted her to leave so he could sort this out—and make his father tell him what the hell was going on between the two of them.

“He hanged my mother and me in a snowy square in England in the winter of sixteen eighty-nine, and you were there, trying to stop him!”

Duncan paused with the phone in midair. Because when she said those words an image passed through his mind— one so vivid it startled him. He saw two women, one unmistakably Raven, the other looking like an older version of her. They stood on a gallows with nooses draped round their necks. He saw his father wearing pastoral robes, eyes gleaming and cruel, and himself on the ground below, struggling against men who held him back. Raven and her mother faced the crowd, chins high, proud, unafraid, and then the floor fell away from beneath them and—

He closed his eyes fast and tight, lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose hard, as if to pinch away the disturbing image and the physical reaction it had evoked in him. Dizziness spun his brain wildly. He thought he might vomit.

“Duncan?”

He blinked, shook himself, met her eyes.

She stared back at him, and he kept doubting himself. Doubting she was the disturbed, confused beauty she appeared to be. Doubting everything he’d ever known or believed in. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “But you really do have to leave.”

Tears brimmed, but she lifted her chin. Looking a lot like she did on that gallows in the vision or whatever the hell it had been. “All right,” she whispered. “All right, if that’s what you want.”

She turned away from him, heading for the door.

“Leave the cauldron,” Nathanial commanded.

“Father—”

“No. It’s… it’s all right.” She looked at the pot she clutched, eyes tormented. But she set the cauldron down, stroked it lovingly, then pressed a kiss to her fingertips, and her fingertips to the rose painted on the front. That was when the tears spilled over. That was when Duncan’s insides churned, and his throat tightened up.

Facing the door unblinkingly, she strode through it like a martyr to the flames.

Arianna shook her head hard. “You’re going to pay, Dearborne,” she stated. “This is one time you won’t wreak your havoc and walk away unscathed. I’ll see to that, I vow it.”

“You’re no part of this, Arianna,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh, I’m a part of it. Make no mistake about that.” Then she swung her gaze to Duncan’s. “And you—I’m beginning to wonder if you’re even worthy of her this time around.”

Then she, too, sailed out the door.

Duncan shook himself, pressed his hands to his temples, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his head. “What the hell just happened here?”

When he looked up, he saw his father quickly wiping an expression of fear away from his face as he stared after the blonde woman who’d just left—watching so intently it was as if he were afraid she’d burst back in at any moment. But… Raven was the one who’d all but threatened him with a blade.

Nathanial covered the look quickly, and shrugged. “We were accosted by two admittedly attractive, but seriously disturbed women who think they’re some kind of Witches, and who take offense at our establishment.” He waved a hand. “That’s all.”

“No, Father, that’s not all. Those two ”attractive but seriously disturbed women‘ acted as if they knew you.“

“Yes,” Nathanial said, rubbing his chin and moving to a window to watch as the two moved away down the street. “That was rather strange, wasn’t it?”

“Well, is it true? Do you know them?”

Nathanial faced Duncan, put one hand on his son’s shoulder, as fatherly a gesture as he’d ever made. But he took that hand away again very quickly. Just as well. There was that static again. Duncan was always getting shocks from Nathanial on those rare occasions when the man deigned to touch him.

“I swear to you, son, I’ve never seen either of them before in my life. And you can believe that. I’d sooner cut the heart from your chest than lie to you.”

Lowering his head, Duncan released all his breath at once. “I just wish I knew what the hell their problem is,” he muttered. Then he glanced at the pot, and recalled the pain in Raven’s eyes when she’d had to set it down and leave it behind.

Forget about her, he told himself. Unbalanced, crazy women who broke into houses and accused innocent men of murder while wielding blades did not make the best love interests.

If he could just convince himself of that, he’d be far better off.

He couldn’t sleep. The events of the day kept replaying in his mind.

Nathanial had spent the rest of the afternoon showing Duncan around Sanctuary. The old man hadn’t even been angry when Duncan told him he couldn’t in good conscience have any part of his Witch Museum. He’d said he understood, and that he hoped the incident with the two women wouldn’t derail things between Duncan and him. He said he respected Duncan for defending the woman, that he’d been far too angry to think rationally himself, and that he regretted having been so harsh with her. He said he hadn’t been himself lately, and apologized for it.

And the part of Duncan that was still a desperate, lonely son aching for a father… wanted to believe him.

Wary, burned too often not to know how foolish the still small gleam of hope was, he nonetheless gave the old man the benefit of the doubt. One more time. One more chance.

Jesus, when would it be enough?

There had been a strained banter between them that day. At lunchtime his father insisted on buying.

It was almost as if they were… real. A real father and son for the first time. It had never been this way before. Not because he was adopted, Duncan knew that had nothing to do with it. But because his father had never seemed to care.

Now he did… or… he was pretending to.

So why, just when things were going so well, did a mysterious beauty have to come along and throw a wrench into the works? Why did Raven have to show up now and make him doubt his father even more than he had before?

Why was this tiny voice whispering in his mind that he ought to be with her tonight? He ought to be with Raven.

Duncan closed his eyes, rolled over in his bed, told himself to forget about her. Sleep eluded him like some rare butterfly flitting away from a clumsily swung net. And as for forgetting about Raven… hell, he knew better, didn’t he? Not why, not how… but he knew he couldn’t forget her. It was as if she were already a part of him, even before he’d met her. As if she’d somehow wheedled her way into his soul and waited there like a spider in the center of a web. Waited for him to stumble into Sanctuary, into her sticky clutches. And now the more he struggled, the more entangled he became.

A Witch. He sighed, rolled again, punched his pillow. A Witch of all things. Hell, the way he was feeling, maybe she was.

I sat alone in a darkened room. Arianna was out. Making herself scarce, knowing I needed some time alone. Privacy to lick my wounds. She wouldn’t have gone far, though. Not with that predator so close. She’d be watching over me like a tigress guarding a cub. My big sister. Three hundred—over four, since she’d lost me the first time—and she still played the part.

It made me feel warm inside. And it was a warmth I needed, because everything else suddenly seemed cold and dark and barren.

I’d been sitting there a long time, bathed in candleglow, smothered in a cloud of incense. A round table that had a pentagram painted on its surface sat in front of me, with a few tools laid out and ready. A slip of paper with Duncan’s name on it stood in the center, to represent him, since I had no photo. Surrounding it was a ring of stones. Fluorite to bring past life memories. Bloodstone to remove the blocks in his mind that prevented those memories from coming. Around the stones were purple candles, for purple is the color of hidden knowledge. And in each candle I had engraved Duncan’s name in sacred runes, along with the spiral of rebirth and the eye, representing the conscious mind. My herbs stood ready.

It was manipulative magick I was about to perform. The memories were his, but if his conscious mind were ready for them, he’d have regained them himself by now. And yet I knew he might be in danger from the very man he called his father. Unless he could remember, unless he could know the truth, he’d be defenseless.

This was the Temple-room. Sacred space, because Arianna and I had made it so. This place was used only for magick, on nights when we preferred to work indoors, whether it be due to the weather or for some other reason.

The reason tonight was privacy. I didn’t want Duncan spying on me, because I would know he was there, in that lighthouse, staring out across the waves. I’d know his gaze was on me, burning over my skin. And knowing that tonight would only distract me from the work to be done.

I’d been still for a very long time, chanting, breathing, keeping my mind utterly blank until I had descended into an altered state. My body was limp, and I could barely feel it now. I was sinking into my soul, connecting to the utter essence of my spirit, because that is the where the power pulses strongest. That is where my connection to the Universe lives. Only when I felt that connection open, felt the power flow freely through me, did I move. Slowly, very slowly, I opened my eyes, focused on the candle flames, and then on the censer, where charcoal burned, heating the powdered incense I’d sprinkled atop it. Now I added other herbs.

I sprinkled rosemary and watched it turn cherry red, sizzling and popping and sending its scent to the heavens, as I whispered, “Sleep.”

A pinch of dried marigold petals went next, crackling, blazing up briefly only to settle into a gentle smolder again as I whispered, “Dream.”

Then the holly, dropping from my fingertips in tiny green bits, and burning with the rest as I whispered, “Remember.”

Settling again into a comfortable position, legs crossed, eyes falling half closed, I watched the smoke rise steadily as the herbs burned, releasing their magick. And I continued to chant those three words over and over. I only hoped it would work. For without the memory, Duncan might never believe me. And unless he did, he’d be putting his life in grave danger. I wouldn’t lose him again—especially not to the likes of Nathanial Dearborn.

Funny, he thought he smelled something. A smoky, pleasant scent that… Nah, he must have been imagining it. There was nothing now.

Scent or no scent, his eyes were finally getting heavy. Lids drooping as his body relaxed bit by bit. Better. Sleep wasn’t eluding him now, but coming closer. Timidly, but steadily, and finally curling up beside him like a favorite pet. He drifted away, relieved that he was finally able to.

And then he forgot all that, because his bed seemed to be tilting back and forth… as if his island had become a boat, rocking on the waves. His throat was dry and sore, his skin burning hot. He was sick. Damn, when did he get sick, anyway? He’d been fine just…

Wait, someone was there. Hands, cool and soft on his forehead. For just a moment he saw Raven’s face in the glow of a candle, saw her hair, tumbling freely over her shoulders. “Tis you, lass,“ he whispered in a brogue not his own. And then he realized that it couldn’t be her, because Raven was dead.

Dead. No, that wasn’t right, but even as he thought that, the images faded from his mind. He wasn’t on a boat anymore, and her hands were not on his skin, nor was she soothing away his fever. No. The hands on him now were hard, strong, callused ones. And he struggled against them.

In front of him was a gallows, and upon it he saw Raven, with her mother beside her, and his own father standing with his gnarled hand on the lever. “Do you confess?” his father demanded.

“My soul is less stained than yours, Nathanial Dearborne. You’re a murdering thief. You enjoy the harm you cause. You stole my mother’s cauldron.” Raven said those things, and Duncan sensed he was mixing her words together with more recent ones. But it didn’t matter. His father’s hand closed around the lever.

“Nay!” Duncan screamed. “I willna watch her die!” But he heard the horrible groan of the hinges, and the sudden slam of the trapdoor flinging open, slamming downward. He even heard the snap of delicate bones when the two women plummeted to their deaths.

And then he was standing there in the snow, gathering Raven’s broken body into his arms, cutting the filthy rope away from her bonny neck, kissing her hair, her face. He couldn’t believe the force of the pain that engulfed him. He felt empty inside, crippled, devastated. He’d lost her. Lost her!

“Dinna die,” he whispered hoarsely. “You canna die, Raven, I love you.”

Her body stirred, then, and he brushed the hot tears from his eyes to look down at hers, and saw them open. “Don’t cry, my love,” she whispered. “See? I’m not dead.”

He felt his heart leap in fear. Sitting up in bed his eyes flew open wide, and he drew in fast, open-mouthed gasps in an effort to catch his breath. His skin beaded with cold sweat, and real tears burned paths on his face.

“Damn!” He flung back the covers, put his feet on the floor—not far away, since his bed was but a mattress—and then leaned over, elbows braced on his bent knees. “Damnation, lass, what’re you doin’ to me?“ Then he clapped a hand over his mouth, for he’d shouted the words in some other man’s voice. The accent… Scottish and archaic and…

“What’s the matter with me?” he whispered in his own voice.

Her. That was what. It was all her. Raven St. James. What he could do about that, he didn’t know. Was she really some kind of Witch? Could she possibly have powers he never would have believed in? Making him utterly obsessed with her? Making him think of her ahead of his own father, for God’s sake? Subconsciously, at least.

Right, right. And making him dream crazy dreams and wake up speaking with an accent. It wasn’t even possible.

But some small part of his mind didn’t believe that.

All right, all right, enough. There was a library in town. First thing tomorrow he’d go there and read up on this nonsense. He’d find out once and for all if there was such a thing as magic, or Witchcraft, or whatever she called it. And then he’d confront her, armed with at least a small amount of knowledge, and he’d tell her to stay the hell out of his life. And out of his father’s life.

And most of all, out of his mind.

Chapter 17

“I need to see him. Alone. Without worrying about that bastard Nathanial bursting in on us at any moment.” I paced, as I’d done most of the night, wringing my hands and wondering if anything I could say or do would ever make a difference, when I could see so clearly the feeling in Duncan’s eyes for that bastard. He cared for Nathanial. Dearborne had made him care. Learning the truth was going to break Duncan’s heart. And for that I hated Nathanial even more.

But Duncan had to know. He had to.

“I have to make him believe me,” I told Arianna.

“He doesn’t want to believe you.”

She sat at the table in our small breakfast room. The octagon-shaped area was completely surrounded by windows, and the sun streamed in like a warm yellow waterfall, drenching us both. Arianna bit into her bagel and sipped orange juice. I was too ill with tension to eat a bite.

Chewing, she mumbled, “As for you seeing him alone, that won’t be hard to arrange. I doubt it will help anything, though.” She swallowed, sipped, set the glass down. “I don’t remember Duncan being so dense last time.”

“He didn’t love the man last time, Arianna.” My stomach churned at the words, and in my mind I heard those I hadn’t spoken. Back then, it was me he loved.

I closed my eyes, ignoring the self-pitying voice in my head, talking above it to drown it out. “In those days everyone believed in Witches and magick, though they barely knew the meaning of the words. Today no one does.”

“Today no one believes in anything,” Arianna said. “It’s pathetic.” I sighed my agreement, while she tilted her head in thought. “But there’s nothing we can do about that. What I can do, though, is keep Nathanial out of your hair long enough for you to see Duncan alone. He probably isn’t going to listen, but I suppose you have to try.”

“Of course I have to try.”

She nodded. Rising, she moved closer to the glass windows that surrounded us, shielding her eyes and facing the sea. “Duncan is still at the lighthouse. And I don’t see any other boats there. Go on, pay him a visit before he decides to go into town to babysit the so-called father.”

I blinked, stopped my pacing, and studied her stance, the tilt of her head, the shape of her brow. Everything. In three centuries you begin to know a person too well to miss anything. Even the slightest change in Arianna’s breathing would have told me a tale.

“You won’t confront him,” I said, looking hard at her. “You won’t even let him know you’re there.”

“Not unless it looks as if he’s heading out to interrupt you. And then, I swear, I’ll make it casual. Public, even.”

“You won’t challenge him?” I asked, suspicious.

“He wouldn’t take me up on it even if I did, Raven. The man has an agenda, and I’m not on it. Not yet, anyway.”

I believed her, and nodded at last. “All right. Now is as good a time as any, I suppose.” I glanced down at my clothes. Unremarkable. Jeans, a snug black T-shirt with a flannel shirt pulled over it in deference to the autumnal chill in the air.

“Don’t even think about changing. He might leave while you primp. He already left the island once this morning. Thank goodness he came back in short order. You might not be so lucky next time.”

I sighed, shaking my head.

“Go, will you?”

I knew she was right. I was only putting it off… out of fear, really. His reactions… well, so far they’d fallen short of what I’d hoped for. I didn’t expect they were going to improve now that I’d accused his father of murder and not only claimed to be a Witch, but informed Duncan he was one, too. He probably thought I was a lunatic. And goodness only knew what kinds of lies his father had told him after I’d left that horrible place yesterday.

Arianna looked at me, making her eyes big and impatient.

“All right.” I sighed. “I’m going.”

My big sister smiled, touched a hand to her blade, and then got to her feet.

We parted at the door, Arianna heading into the small garage where we kept our car—an old Volkswagen Bug we’d both grown too fond of to replace—while I walked toward the cliffs. We rarely used the Bug while we were in residence out here. Walking to and from the village was so much more pleasant, and less damaging to the earth and the air. But I supposed in this case Arianna felt she might need the advantage of speed on her side. She could beat Nathanial back here and signal me if anything went wrong.

I hoped nothing would.

The path began at the top of the cliffs, wandered at angles down them, zigging this way and that way and finding the shallowest route. As I started my descent I heard the VW’s deep, froggy-voiced motor come to life, growl a few times, then fade as it moved away toward town.

The path was old. It had been here longer than I, and, Aunt Eleanor had confided, longer than she, as well. I often wondered whose feet had first trodden here, and if they’d been feet at all, or perhaps paws of hooves.

Sand-covered stone lay beneath my feet, slippery and gritty all at once. A chill breeze blew salty moisture onto my face, dampening the flannel shirt I wore with its misty droplets. I could smell the sea, taste the salt when I licked my lips, and feel it leaving wet sloppy kisses on my hair.

At the bottom my johnboat sat on the narrow strip of sand, dry and safe. I pushed it into the water and hopped aboard, then, crouching in the stern, tugged the rip cord and started the motor. All that remained then was to steer the little craft as the propeller whirled and pushed me forward. I sat down, felt the dampness of the sea creeping through the denim of my jeans, wished I’d brought something dry to sit on.

And then the shore was fading behind me and Duncan’s island grew larger, closer. I bit my lower lip as I stared ahead, wind blowing my hair back and chilling my face until my nose went numb and my cheeks burned with cold.

He heard my approach. I knew it a moment later when he stepped out onto the front step and stood there, hands deep in his pockets as he watched me all the way in. His face, so beautiful, just as it always had been to me. Those deep brown eyes, and dark, thick brows. His full lips and strong jawline.

But that beloved face was expressionless this morning. It told me nothing of how he felt at seeing my approach. And I wondered if perhaps he might not know how he was feeling about that.

When I killed the motor and stepped out, he came down to the beach. Bending beside me, gripping the squared-off nose of my vessel, he tugged it up, out of the water. Then he stood facing me, and I straightened and turned to face him in return.

“I decided last night to tell you to leave me alone,” he said. No greeting. No welcome. Just that.

“Did you?”

He nodded, his eyes roaming my face like a touch. “I can’t do it, though. I’ve been rehearsing the words from the moment I saw you start down that path, to the boat, and the whole time you were crossing. But it didn’t help.”

“I’m glad of that.”

He sighed, lowered his head, no longer looking at me. “Raven, I got some books on this… this Witchcraft thing. This morning. Now I haven’t had time to read a lot, but—” He broke off, perhaps because I was smiling at him, slightly, but smiling all the same. “What?”

“Why?” I asked him. “Why did you go to get the books, Duncan?”

He took his time about answering, licking his lips, looking skyward as if for help. “Because I thought you were crazy, and I didn’t want to think that, so I thought if I understood what you were talking about, I might see that… that it made some kind of sense.”

I nodded. “And not because you were curious about your own… abilities,” I said softly.

“I don’t have any abilities.”

“Oh.”

He looked down at his feet, quiet for a long moment, while I stood, waiting, knowing.

“Sometimes… I know who’s calling when the phone rings.” He shrugged, looking up again. “Sometimes I reach for it before it rings without even realizing it. And then it does.” He shook his head as if to negate everything he said. “But that’s nothing.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, everyone does that. It’s like when you hum a song and then flick on the radio and it’s playing. Or when you wish the guy ahead of you on the highway would change lanes just before he does…”

“Or when you mentally tell the red light to turn green and it happens,” I added with a nod.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly,” I repeated.

“That stuff happens to everyone.”

I didn’t speak. He looked at me, as if awaiting my confirmation, my agreement. I met his eyes and shook my head. “No, Duncan. It doesn’t.”

He looked away, hands plunging into his pockets. “Yeah, it does,” he said. “It has to.”

I was trying to go carefully, gently. He didn’t seem ready for any of this, and I was pushing it on him. But I didn’t have a choice. “It’s my fault you’re having trouble accepting all of this, Duncan. I didn’t explain things as well as I could have.”

He shook his head. “Maybe not, but it’s all right now. I think I understand. There’s nothing supernatural going on here. And as for Witchcraft, according to the books, it’s pretty much just a belief system based on—”‘

“No.”

He looked at me, brows knit in frustration.

“For some, that’s all it is—those things you’ve found in the books. A religion, a belief system one can study and learn and adopt. But those things are not what it is to us, Duncan. We’re different. We were born different. Witches, yes, but not like all those others practicing the Craft. Most of them don’t even know we exist, for it’s a secret we guard of necessity. We’re born with something extra, senses beyond the five. Weak, unpracticed, raw, but real.”

I was losing him. I could see the skepticism in his eyes even now, but like a fool I rushed on, because it had to be said. “We… we’re immortal, Duncan.”

“Immortal.” He closed his eyes and bent his head. “Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he whispered. His voice was harsh, raspy, emotional. Then he looked up again, his hands gripping my shoulders gently as he probed my eyes, and his were worried, filled with some kind of concerned sympathy that was all wrong. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I told myself it did, that I should stay the hell away from you, but I can’t do that, Raven, no matter how…” He stopped himself, closed his eyes briefly, then went on. “Listen to me. I have a wonderful therapist in Boston. He helped me beat my fear of heights, and the water thing, helped me deal with all the baggage my father has dumped on me over the years and—hell, he even helped me get rid of the dreams…“ He stopped there, his voice trailing off as he frowned hard.

“Dreams?“‘ I swallowed the hurt I’d felt at his insinuation that I was mentally unstable, and focused instead on Duncan. On his pain, his confusion.

“Damn, I’d forgot all about the dreams.”

I sighed at the way his face paled, just slightly, and closed my hand around his, turning him, beginning to walk beside him along the shore. “Tell me about the dreams.”

He shook his head quickly, jerkily. “It was a long time ago. I was only a little boy. They… they don’t mean anything.”

I squeezed his hand. “Please,” I said softly. “I’d like to know about them.”

He lowered his head, and his head clutched mine tighter, reflexively, I thought. I could feel the tremor of pain move through him. He was quiet for so long I didn’t think he was going to tell me. And then he began to speak in a soft, halting voice.

“I used to dream of a woman.” He shivered. “Holding me, crying…” His voice grew even softer. “She kept whispering my name and… saying she didn’t want to let me go.”

He looked at my face. I hoped my tears didn’t show. “The doc said it was a memory of my birth mother, embedded in my subconscious.”

I caught my lower lip in my teeth to remind myself to think before speaking. To go gently. Lifting my gaze, I looked out across the water, toward the shore a short distance from my home. To the place high on the cliffs, beside the Coast Road, where I’d lost him three hundred years ago. I felt that crushing pain again, that crippling grief. My heart contracted at the memory of his beloved broken body lying lifeless on those rocks, and suddenly, going gently seemed like the least important thing in the world.

“Do you see those jagged rocks thrusting up out of the water, just offshore?“ I asked, pointing. I didn’t wait for a response. ”That’s where I found your body, Duncan. That’s where I found you, and I thought it would kill me. I went to you, slogged through the waves out to where you were, and gathered you close, and held you against me and cried. I cried your name, and told you I couldn’t let you go, and that I refused to go on alone, without you.“

The old tears welled up in my eyes again. I didn’t look at Duncan, but out there at those rocks, reliving the nightmare as I spoke. I half expected him to interrupt, but he didn’t. So I went on.

“Arianna had cast and conjured even as your body plummeted from the cliffs, Duncan. She willed that when you lived again you’d look the same, and that your name would be the same so that I’d be able to find you and know you, and love you again.”

I faced him, so that the sight of him alive, and whole, and here beside me could chase my most heartbreaking memory from my mind. Hands trembling, I reached up to stroke his face. “And that’s exactly what happened.”

I could see his skepticism. But I could also see the man I loved, alive and well behind his eyes, yearning to escape— to love me again.

“If I’m immortal, then how did I die?” he asked slowly.

“You weren’t immortal then, Duncan. I was, though. They pitched me from those cliffs for Witchery. You tried to save me. You’re immortal now because in that other lifetime, you died trying to save the life of a Witch. That’s how the gift is earned.”

Shaking his head, sighing heavily, confused and frustrated and torn between his instinctive knowledge that I spoke the truth and his absolute certainty that all I said was impossible. He turned away. I drew my dagger. “Look at this,” I told him.

Slowly he turned. I did something then I was taught never, ever to do. I handed my blade over to another being. I gave Duncan my only means of defense. And he frowned as he turned it over and examined it.

“The man you call your father has one just like it, doesn’t he? One he carries with him everywhere he goes.”

Slowly Duncan’s dark gaze rose from the blade, to my eyes. “Yes. He does. But that doesn’t mean—”

“I know it isn’t enough, alone. But there is more, Duncan. More that I can show you…” I stepped closer to him, my hands, trembling, going to the button of the jeans I wore. Duncan went utterly still, his gaze riveted to my fingers as he dropped my blade to the sand.

“You have a birthmark, Duncan. When we were together in the lighthouse, you only took off your shirt. So I couldn’t have seen it. But I know about that mark all the same. It’s in the shape of the crescent moon, and it’s on your right hip.”

Blinking, he said nothing. But I saw the amazement in his eyes. And then they darkened as I tugged my zipper down, and pushed the jeans down over my hips. They tripped my feet, making me clumsy, so I stepped out of them, right there on the shore in the biting October wind. I lifted the T-shirt slightly, moved the panties I wore so my right hip was revealed to him, and whispered, “Look.”

He did. And then the color drained from his face.

“We’re all born with the crescent, Duncan. That’s how I knew you had it.”

“That… that can’t be real. You… you put it there.” I could hear the desperation in his voice.

“Do you really think so?”

His knees bent. I never knew whether he knelt deliberately or simply lost the ability to stand, but the result was the same. Duncan on his knees in the sand, his face very close to my hip. I felt his warm breath on me there, and closed my eyes. This was no time to let carnal desires overwhelm me. But then his fingers came to me, running over the crescent, tracing its shape, making me shiver more even than the cold wind was doing.

“Madness,” he whispered, so close I could almost feel the movements of his lips. “This is utter madness…” And then his mouth touched my hip. His lips moved over it, pressed to it, parted as if to taste my skin, leaving it damp and vulnerable to the wind. I drew in a jerky, noisy gasp when his tongue ran along the mark, hot and wet. Hungry.

Shuddering, I sank into the sand in much the same way he had done, until I knelt before him, facing him, seeing the desire burning in his eyes just the way it used to do. “Duncan,“ I whispered.

He kissed me—pushing me backward into the sand, pressing me down with his body, he kissed me. And it was as if he felt the frustration of the three hundred years of waiting as desperately as I did. Or maybe it was a different frustration. That of wanting so badly to remember and not being able to. I didn’t know. I only knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him, for I could see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch. He wasn’t gentle. I didn’t want him to be.

Already atop me, he ate at my mouth with unrestrained greed, then lapped a path over my throat. One hand gripped and squeezed my breast while the other battled my flannel shirt, and the T-shirt underneath, relentlessly striving to bare my body. As if he couldn’t wait, his mouth closed on that breast, despite the T-shirt barrier. The shirt grew wet from his nursing, my nipple felt sore, deliciously hurting when he bit and tugged at it. And at last he shoved the clothes away, tearing them over my head, shoving my panties down now as his hands closed on my buttocks, fingers parting, exploring the dark, damp places of me. His mouth found my breast without defenses now, exposed, and returned to applying exquisite torture.

One hand moved around to the front of me, cupped me, and then two fingers pushed my folds apart, wide apart, while another stabbed up into me. I arched against him, whispered in his ear, “Don’t make me wait, my love. I’ve waited so long already.”

His breath shuddered out of him, but he complied, loosening his own jeans, pushing them down, and then pressing his erection against me. A second later he filled me, and the sigh that initial thrust drove from my lungs seemed to contain all the longing of the past three centuries—for it all melted away with that first joining. It was as if I’d come home.

I held him, kissed him, moved with him there in the sand, told him I loved him over and over. My hands on his back, his shoulders, feeling him, knowing him so well. And then I forgot everything as Duncan drove me higher—to points beyond those where conscious thought existed. To a place where only feeling lived. My body writhed with pleasure as I cried his name aloud and clutched him tight with every part of me, and he cried mine, when he emptied his passion into me.

Then he was still, braced up on his elbows, staring down into my face with something—wonder? Awe—sparkling in his eyes. His fingers tangled in my hair, and he bent to kiss me.

“You’re going to be all right, Raven. I promise you that. I’m going to make you all right.”

Blinking away the haze of pleasure, slowly understanding that he still didn’t believe me, I felt all my joy fall to the ground like the dying spark of a falling star.

“You still don’t believe me.”

He stroked my forehead, pushing my hair away. “There’s something to what you’re saying, I realize that. The birthmarks… that’s too much to be coincidence, I know. And whatever it is, it’s feeding this… this…”

“Fantasy? Delusion?”

He smoothed my hair again, kissed it. “Don’t worry about that now, Raven. All that matters is that you get past it. I want you well, because I… I feel something for you. Something I can’t explain.”

“I’ve already explained it.”

He kissed me again, my forehead this time. “I’m going to call my doctor and force my father to go along with us on this. Arianna, too, if she’s involved. Then I’ll take you there myself, and we’ll get to the bottom of this, one way or—”

“Your so-called father has the mark as well, Duncan.”

He stopped talking, went silent, looked down at me with such sweet sympathy and genuine worry in his eyes that I almost laughed at him.

“I know you think I’m insane, but before you drag me off in a straitjacket, at least do me the honor of checking. Nathanial Dearborne bears the same mark we do, but his is on the left flank, just as it is with all the Dark Ones.”

“Raven, you have to let this go—”

“He adopted you, didn’t he?”

Rolling off me, slowly righting his clothes, Duncan nodded. “But that has nothing to do with any of this.”

“No? Then why do you both have the mark? Not heredity, Duncan. Look at the man. Find a way and you’ll see I’m right. He wants me dead, Duncan, and that’s why he adopted you.”

“No,” he said.

“He used you, Duncan. He knew you’d find me again one day, and when you did, he would as well. Because he wants me dead.”

“Stop it, Raven. He wouldn’t—”

“My Goddess, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were even instrumental in getting your natural parents to give you up. Perhaps he even harmed them once he realized who you were! All just to—”

“That’s enough!” Duncan sprang to his feet, glaring down at me. “God, I must be as crazy as you are to have let this happen.”

I gasped, cut to the quick. But slowly I sat up, gathering my clothes, retrieving my dagger from where it lay in the sand. “I’m sorry it hurts you, Duncan, but it’s true. All of it, and you have to know.”

“It’s impossible, that’s what it is. You’re spinning yarns too farfetched to even be called a fairy tale, and expecting me to turn against my own father based on them. God, Raven, do you know what a vile thing that is to say? That he had something to do with my birth parents dying in that accident?”

I lifted my head, met his eyes. “Then they are dead.” I lowered my eyes. “That bastard.”

He fell silent and lowered his head.

“Duncan…”

“He’s my father,” he whispered.

I’d gone too far. I knew it then. “I’m sorry, Duncan…”

“Get back in your boat and go home, Raven. I… I thought I couldn’t say it, but it turns out I can after all. Stay the hell out of my life. Stop playing with my head. Leave me alone, and more important, leave my father alone. If you go anywhere near him, I’ll have you tossed in jail. Understand?”

Blinking, I nodded. “I understand. But you should understand something, too, Duncan. That man murdered my mother, and probably yours as well. He’s tried to kill me more times than I care to remember, and brought nothing but grief to me all my life. But none of that matters to me. You are what matters to me, Duncan. And if it takes my very life, I’m not going to let him hurt you. You won’t die because of me. Not this time.”

He closed his eyes. I got to my feet, pulled on my jeans.

“I love you Duncan. You loved me, too, once, so much you gave your life trying to protect me. So don’t feel badly if I return the favor this time around, okay? It’ll only be karma evening things up.”

He whirled on me. “What the hell are you saying? Are we making some kind of suicide pact now?”

“No. If I die it will be at Nathanial’s hand. And if it happens, Duncan, no matter what you believe now, I want you to leave here. Get away from him as fast as you can, because you’ll be next.”

I turned to leave, striding toward my boat.

“Dammit, Raven, wait!”

I stopped. Duncan ran up behind me, catching my shoulders and spinning me to face him. Then he kissed me, hard and long and deep. And when he stopped, I saw moisture in his eyes.

“Do you have any idea what I feel for you? No matter what kinds of ridiculous tales you spew, I… Raven, it’s powerful, this feeling. It could be so much, if you’d just let it be. I think about you all the time, dream of you at night, ache for you, for Christ’s sake. It’s going to kill me to lose you, and I know that sounds like bull, because this is so new, between us. But that’s what it feels like.”

He searched my eyes, shaking his head, and the wind lifted his hair as it was lifting my own.

“Please, just let all this nonsense go. Stop harassing my father, stop spinning these fantasies. And just… just be with me. Just be with me, Raven.“

Tears blurred my vision, but I blinked them back. “I tried it that way last time.” I sniffed. “Then you used to beg me to trust you with the truth, the entire truth, the parts you sensed I was keeping from you. I didn’t… and you died because of it. So this time I’m telling you all my secrets, Duncan. But you don’t believe them, don’t even want to hear them. You want me to pretend they don’t exist, like I did before. And just be with you. The way I did then. But I can’t. No matter how wonderful the memory is of all those nights in your arms, I can’t do it to you again, Duncan. Because the memory of the way it ended is pure agony.” I touched his cheek. “It would kill me this time, I swear it would.”

He frowned so hard his brows touched.

“Know this much,” I whispered. “I love you. With every breath I take, I love you Duncan Wallace, just as I have for three hundred years while I wandered this earth in search of you, mourning you, aching for you. Utterly alone, I waited all this time to find you again. And now that I have, you won’t have me.” I lowered my head. “Your father and I have to settle things, Duncan, and when it’s over, one of us will be dead. If it’s me, don’t mourn. Just get away from him.”

He shook his head. “You won’t be hurting my father, Raven, and he won’t be hurting you. I’m going to protect you from each other. And you… from yourself.”

I nodded. “And if it comes to a choice between him and me?”

“Jesus, Raven, he’s my father.”

It was as if he drove a blade straight into my heart. But I said nothing. Just walked to my boat.

Duncan watched her go, a tear rolling down his cheek. Why did it have to be this way? What kind of madness was inside her that she had it in for his father the way she did? God, would she really try something? And why? Why did he fall in love for the first time in his life with a woman who had so many problems?

And why was this insistent feeling in his gut telling him she was perfectly sane, and that everything she’d said made some kind of sense?

He wanted to make it all go away. To love her so much she’d forget about all of this. To hold her and cherish her and exorcize whatever demons must be tormenting her.

But he also wanted to continue building a relationship with his father. A real one, a genuine one. The one he’d been hoping for and dreaming about since he was old enough to dream.

Hell. He couldn’t risk that Raven might actually try to harm Nathanial. She wouldn’t, though. She wouldn’t really.

As for the rest of it—his dreams, his memories, the fact that she’d called him Duncan Wallace—a name he’d never heard before, but that sounded perfectly familiar when she said it—the dagger, the birthmarks—all of those things, he refused to think about. For now.

Or thought he did.

But they were there, niggling at his mind, eating away at his disbelief. Making him wonder.

Two hours later he arrived at the courthouse in town, determined to be his father’s shadow until he knew for sure just how much of a threat Raven was to him. Until he knew for certain she was imagining things when she said his father wanted her dead.

When he got there, Nathanial did something so out of character that Duncan knew he was sincerely changing.

He handed Duncan the small black iron pot that Raven had tried to steal the other day.

“What’s this about?” Duncan asked, confused.

“I want you to give it to that girl. Raven… what’s-her-name. You know who I mean.”

Duncan could only stare at his father in surprise.

Nathanial shrugged. “Hell, son, it seems to mean something to her. I suppose in her poor twisted-up mind she must think all that she was saying was true. I have no reason to fight with her. So I thought, as a gesture of friendship, I’d let her have the damned pot.” He shrugged. “Call it a peace offering.”

Taking the pot from his father’s hands, Duncan shook his head slowly. “That’s really kind of you,” he said. “It must be worth—”

“It’s only money.” Nathanial waved a hand in dismissal. But his eyes seemed to be watching Duncan’s face very closely. As if he were doing this for a specific reason, and that reason had to do with Duncan’s reaction. As if it were a part of this whole act he’d been perpetuating. This whole “I-want-to-be-your-father” game the old man had been playing for reasons Duncan didn’t understand.

And now I’m just letting Raven’s madness poison my mind against my own father. Just what I don’t want to do.

But he’d been suspicious of his father’s motives long before Raven had come onto the scene. Hell, he’d been suspicious of his father for most of his life, particularly whenever the coldest man he’d ever known started making fatherly overtures toward him.

He just wasn’t sure anymore how much of that feeling was his own gut instinct, and how much was the power of suggestion Raven St. James wielded.

“Frankly, son,” Nathanial went on, “part of me wanted to call the police, swear out a complaint, something like that. But I realize she… well, she means something to you.”

“You do?”

“She does, doesn’t she?”

Blinking, wondering just when his father had become sensitive enough to pick up on something like that, he nodded. “Yeah. She does.”

“That’s why I decided it would be better to make peace than to wage war. For your sake.”

“For my sake.”

“I don’t want her coming between us,” he said, very softly.

And a tear shimmered in Nathanial’s pale, cold eye. A real tear? Duncan didn’t know. He’d never seen his father shed one before.

Jesus, between the two of them, they were ripping his heart to shreds.

Swallowing hard, feeling a softness he hated toward the hard man who was his father, he reminded himself not to believe too strongly, not to hope for too much. And he made a decision. One way or another, he was going to get a look at Nathanial’s left hip. Tonight.

Chapter 18

“Why don’t I pay the girl a visit tonight?”

Duncan paused in his constant, sickening perusal of the place—his father had been busy today—and felt a new chill lift the hairs on the back of his neck. “What girl?” But he didn’t really need to ask.

“You know,” Nathanial said. He stood in the center of the room, hands on his hips, looking around just as Duncan had been doing since he’d arrived here. Duncan had refused to take part in things, until his father had hurt his back trying to set up shelves, and Duncan had somehow ended up jumping in to help. He’d been here ever since. Shelves stood everywhere, all of them filled with “artifacts.” It made Duncan sick to look at them.

“The self-proclaimed Witch,” Nathanial went on. “I can deliver the cauldron along with an invitation to our grand opening. Maybe smooth those pretty ruffled feathers of hers, hmm?”

Straightening, Duncan sent his father a look of disbelief. He didn’t like being here. Didn’t like himself right now, for giving the old man the benefit of the doubt. Wasn’t he surrounded by proof of the man’s true nature? Wasn’t all of this just a little too cruel to be the result of ignorance or even narrow-minded bigotry?

“I don’t think visiting Raven St. James is a very good idea, Father.”

“And why not? It’s the least I can do! After all, you were making inroads with her before I stepped on her delicate toes with this museum. I’m well aware I messed things up for you.”

“No, you didn’t.” He lowered his head, shook it, couldn’t quite bring himself to tell his father that he thought Raven might be a bit… confused. Maybe because when he said it aloud he realized that he didn’t believe it. Not really.

“Still, I fear I got off on the wrong foot with the woman. And she is a local. I’d rather not have the locals turning against me before I even begin. Maybe I can make her see reason.”

“She doesn’t seem to know what reason is,” Duncan muttered. Then again, neither did he just now. “Besides, she’d never agree to see you.”

“I’ve thought of that. Still, I want to gift her with the pot, personally, an overture of friendship. You’ll just have to arrange it for her.”

Duncan turned from surveying yet another shelf and faced his father slowly. “What do you mean?”

“Set us up. She’ll never agree to meet with me, but she would if she thought she were meeting you. So ask her to meet you somewhere. Someplace… private. I… wouldn’t want to embarrass her, after all. And then I’ll meet her instead, gift her with the cauldron, and become her friend.”

His father’s eyes were as still as glass. His lips smiled, but the rest of his face seemed frozen, expectant.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Duncan said.

“Nonsense! Of course you can. It’s the only way it will work. I can see you care for the girl, son. This way she and I will mend our fences and she’ll see I’m not the monster she thought. That ought to smooth things over substantially between the two of you. Don’t you think?”

Swallowing the dryness in his throat, Duncan nodded. “It might.” No way. No way in hell. And what was he reacting to? His own gut instinct? The cold look in his father’s calculating eyes? Or maybe Raven’s crazy stories were making him feel this icy foreboding in the pit of his stomach.

“Well then?”

Duncan shook his head firmly. “It would be too cruel, Father. She thinks you’re some kind of murderer. Can you imagine how frightened she’d be to show up somewhere and find you there, waiting?”

“Yes,” Nathanial said. “I can.”

Duncan blinked. He’d never seen his father’s eyes look so dead. What the hell was happening here? Wasn’t it obvious? Nathanial was trying to manipulate him into setting Raven up. The question was why?

He wants me dead, Duncan.

No. Not that, it wasn’t that. Nathanial might be a cold, mean SOB, but he was no killer.

“What do you say we grab a late dinner, hmm?” Anything to change the subject. He didn’t like discussing Raven with his father. It seemed like some kind of blasphemy.

He wanted her. Maybe even needed her. Probably loved her. My God, he probably loved her.

But he needed her sane, dammit, with all these delusions blown out of her mind.

Unless of course, they weren’t delusions.

And now who’s crazy?

“Dinner?” Nathanial said. He glanced at his watch. “Damn, boy, dinner was hours ago! You should have said something. I got so caught up in this project I lost track of the time.”

“I’ve been doing that lately myself.”

“It’s late to go out.” His father frowned in thought.

“We could order in,” Duncan suggested. “If you’ll tolerate pizza, I’ll tolerate wine.”

“Ahh, we’ll dine in that quaint style… early redneck. Perhaps even put one of those… videos into the machine and stare mindlessly at it.”

Was he being hatefully sarcastic, or joking around? Tough to tell. He’d never heard his father joke around before. “You don’t have a VCR,” he reminded the old man. “But I’m sure we can find something on TV. It’s Monday night. Should be a football game on.”

“Ahh, yes, the sport of champions. Well, I’m willing if you are.”

“Great. What do you like on your pizza?“‘ Duncan picked up the phone, punched buttons.

His father shrugged, not even looking at Duncan. “I can’t imagine it much matters.” Then he sighed. “Perhaps we could invite your friend here. Not that blonde she had with her. I… I didn’t like that one. Still, your Raven could join us in this modern-day ritual. It would give me a chance to get to know her.”

Duncan’s hand tightened on the phone and he knew without a doubt he didn’t want his father anywhere near Raven. “You’re like a dog with a bone about this, aren’t you? She wouldn’t accept. Just give her some time and space, and maybe she’ll come around.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Then she doesn’t.” Duncan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, but I’m afraid it does, Duncan, my boy.”

Before he could ask what his father meant by that, the pizza guy answered the phone to take Duncan’s order. And by the time he hung up, his father was off on another subject. As if he’d forgotten all about Raven.

But Duncan had a feeling that might be an illusion.

So far, neither Raven nor Nathanial was proving to be what either seemed.

I paced outside the courthouse, a safe distance away, but close enough to watch the door. Duncan was inside, and he hadn’t left yet. There had been a delivery boy, a pizza box, and the mouth-watering aromas had reached me. Spices, tomato sauce, cheeses, and fresh crust. My stomach rumbled. I’d been too tense and worried and… yes, heartbroken, to eat today, and now I regretted it. But I didn’t regret being out here. I glimpsed Duncan in the doorway, just briefly. Dark, and beautiful, forbidden to me just as he’d always been. By choice this time, rather than by vows. But just as forbidden. Just as unreachable. His dark hair played with a stray breeze as he handed the delivery boy some bills. And when the boy left, Duncan stood there a moment longer, head cocked to one side, eyes scanning the benches and the fountain and the park beyond. Scenting the air like a wolf, I thought. He knew I was there. Sensed my nearness somehow. He probably didn’t even realize it, but he did.

And yet it seemed he’d deny the connection between us with his dying breath. Why must he be so stubborn?

Sighing as he moved inside and the door closed again, I sank onto the stone bench beside the fountain, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.

“Raven…” The harsh, familiar whisper brought my head up fast. Arianna came skulking from the shadows like a Halloween spirit. “What are you doing out here?”

“You must have radar,” I told her. “It’s barely been an hour since I slipped away.”

“I don’t need radar and you know it.” She came closer but didn’t sit. Instead she stood over me, feeling taller than me for a change, I thought. Her short hair riffled like dove feathers as she looked down at me from those huge brown eyes. Her Peter Pan stance, I called it, when she stood like this. Legs shoulder-width apart, hands planted on her hips, elbows pointing to either side of her. Give her a hat and a feather, and she’d probably fly. The leggings she wore, and the green velvet tunic that reached to midthigh enhanced the image considerably. I almost smiled.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re up to, or sit there inspecting my wardrobe?”

I shrugged. “Peter wore less jewelry, of course,” I muttered. She frowned harder. “Then again, so do most of the royals.“

“Are you mocking me? After I came all the way out here worried half to death about you and—”‘

“Hush, Arianna. I love you, you know that.”

“Then talk to me.” Her hands lowered to her sides, and she paced. “It’s to be tonight, isn’t it? You’ll go after him tonight.”

“Yes.” I drew my dagger, ran my thumb across its edge to test its readiness. A nervous habit I’d repeated a dozen times today. “It’s time.”

“You’re not ready.”

“And I’ll not become any more ready by putting it off.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“Duncan is in danger!”

She rolled her eyes. “Duncan should have listened to you in the first place.” Then she paused, glaring at the courthouse as if trying to send it up in flames with the sheer force of her gaze. “I’m beginning to hate them both.”

“Not Duncan,” I protested. “You’re my sister. You can’t hate the man I love, Arianna.”

“I can if his foolishness gets you killed.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want that to happen. And I knew it was possible. I just wished she wouldn’t remind me quite so often.

“So what are you waiting for? Having second thoughts?”

I shook my head. “Duncan’s inside. I’m afraid he’s going to spend the night. He thinks he needs to protect his… father from me.”

Arianna lifted one brow. “His father could probably roll a bus onto its side without breaking a sweat, as old as he is.“

I wasn’t being fair, I knew that. Duncan had said he meant to protect both of us, from each other. But it still felt like betrayal to me.

Arianna eyed me. “What if he’s weakening?” she asked suddenly. “Maybe that’s why Nathanial is so determined to have you this time, Raven. Maybe he needs a heart soon. You… um, you didn’t tell Duncan about that part of it, did you?”

“There are a lot of things I didn’t get around to telling him,” I whispered, averting my eyes.

“So what did you do all that time you were with him this morning? Or need I ask?”

My chin dipped lower. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I beg to differ! It certainly does matter. If he made love to you, Raven, then he must care. And if he cares, he’ll believe you over Nathanial.” I looked at her, my doubt in my eyes. “He will!” she insisted.

“He thinks I need mental help.” I heaved a deep sigh, leaned over, and trailed my hand in the icy-cold water that rippled in the fountain. Soft blue lights lit it from below, so my hand seemed to glow in the choppy water. Pink lights illuminated the flow that spilled from above, tumbling down the stairlike layers of the statue’s base, and losing itself in the pool.

“He’ll believe you if you just give him time.”

“There is no time. I can’t let him go on being so close and so damned vulnerable to a man who could kill him at any moment. And I can’t just wait for Nathanial to come for me. The waiting is going to drive me insane. I can’t eat or sleep, and that will all work to the old man’s advantage. You know that.”

“What I know is that your lack of appetite and restful nights has nothing to do with Nathanial, and everything to do with Duncan.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” My gaze returned to the courthouse. My vigil began anew. The lights still blazed from the windows.

“You can’t go through with this,” Arianna said, apparently reading my eyes as easily as I could read hers. “Not tonight, not with Duncan right there.”

“I didn’t think I could kill Nathanial in front of Duncan,” I told her. “But it doesn’t look as if I have a choice. Besides, when he sees his father wield that blade with every intention of doing me in, when he sees the old man’s skill—his well-practiced skill—then perhaps he’ll know I told the truth all along.” A light flicked off on the lower level. But seconds later one came on upstairs. “Still,” I said, sheathing my blade, getting to my feet, “I’ll spare Duncan seeing it if I can.”

“How?”

I shrugged. “He has to sleep sometime.” I started forward, crossing the cobbled street so reminiscent of old England. But Arianna’s hand on my shoulder stopped me, and I turned. “This will be a fair fight,” I told her before she could speak. “I won’t have murder on my conscience. I won’t attack Nathanial with the odds stacked in my favor. You’ll stay out of it, no matter what. I want your promise on that.”

Lifting her chin, my sister swallowed hard. “I don’t want to lose you again, Raven.”

It was not often I’d seen tears in Arianna’s eyes, but I did now. All her harshness and brass melted into twin pools that shimmered in her eyes.

“I know.” I hugged her gently. Stroked her short hair, kissed her face. “If I’m meant to triumph over him, I will.”

She nodded, sniffled, and straightened away from me.

“If I fall…” I began.

“If you fall, I’ll kill the bastard myself,” she told me.

I met her eyes and knew there would be no talking her out of it.

His father had seemed averse to the idea of Duncan staying over. That reaction offended Duncan slightly, hurt him a little, and prodded his suspicious mind a lot. Still, he’d talked the old man into it. No way was he leaving Nathanial alone tonight. He was half afraid the old man would head out after Raven the minute he was alone—and half afraid she’d come after him instead.

There was a guest room overlooking the circle, the park, and the fountain. His father’s room was on the opposite end of the hall, overlooking the road that led back to the mainland. There appeared to be several bedrooms in between, but the doors were all closed, and Duncan didn’t want to let his father know how little he trusted him by peering inside those other rooms as they passed. Still, he thought there was likely no reason he couldn’t have used any of the in-between rooms. And then he wondered why his father would want to keep him at a distance.

It didn’t matter though. This one was fine. He’d sensed something, got that little shiver up the back of his neck earlier when he’d looked out on the town circle. That same prickly awareness he got when she was near. Not Witchcraft. Just intuition. Normal intuition. He hadn’t seen anyone outside, but it was dark. And he doubted a nightbird like Raven would be seen if she meant not to be.

Going to the window, he stared down at the circle again. And again, saw no one. So he paced, and he waited, and he battled the growing feeling that something was going to happen tonight. To distract himself from it, he tried to figure out how he could check his father for the birthmark, and wondered if his intention to do just that made him as crazy as Raven was. Probably. He couldn’t understand why he wanted to believe the woman so much when he knew that everything she said was just part of some grand delusion. And it wasn’t that he wanted her to be right about his father. Just that he wanted her to be sane. No, it wasn’t that, either. It was something else. Something deep inside him, so deep he couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t examine or explore it. But it was there. Knowledge. Truth. Buried, but present, and whispering every once in a while. Words that he couldn’t quite hear. Reality that he couldn’t quite grasp.

Closing his eyes, lowering his head, he wondered what his shrink would think about this latest crisis. That he’d fallen head over heels in love with this particular woman from the second he’d set eyes on her. And why, for heaven’s sake? What was it about her?

Her eyes. Dark, as black as midnight, and full of mystery and onyx fire.

Her hair. Tangled silk. As twisting and writhing as Medusa’s, but gleaming and glossy and soft. Tempting his fingers and his lips to touch it. Threatening to bind him up and never let him go.

Her skin, like moonlight. Warm, when he touched it. Responsive against his lips. Sweet and salty and as addictive as a drug.

Her laugh, though she laughed very little. And her voice, deep and rich, slightly coarse. Whiskey and roses, that was what her voice was like. If whiskey and roses could sing in harmony, they’d sound like Raven St. James. It seemed he’d known her voice before he’d ever heard her speak. It seemed he’d known exactly the way she would sound.

But there’s more. Her courage. The way she faced that crowd from the gallows, shamed them all, she did, an“ never once cried out as she plummeted to her death! Aye, an‘ the way she refused to confess to any thin’ when she’d done nothin’ wrong. An“ her strength. When the bastard Elias Stanton attacked her, tried to rape her, she laid him out cold. Damn near killed him. The way I wanted to do when I saw her later—her dress torn, her satin skin bruised, scrubbin‘ herself raw in the crystalline cold o” the stream.

I didna think I’d ever seen any thin“ so pain-filled as her eyes that day. An‘…

Duncan went very still. Utterly still. “What the hell was all that? Where…” He looked around the room, as if he expected to see someone else there. But the someone else wasn’t in the room—the other man was inside him, inside his head, spewing memories that did not belong there!

None of those things had happened!

And yet they kept flashing. Bits and pieces. He was kissing her bruised skin as she cried, and trembled. He was whispering, “No one will every hurt you again, lass. I swear it on my life.” He was facing his father, only they both wore robes, and he was demanding to know where Raven’s body was being taken. And then he was there, searching a horrible place filled with the stench of death and decay, livid because he couldn’t find her there.

“Stop!” he moaned, pressing his hands to the sides of his head and turning in a slow circle. “Stop, dammit!”

Nay, Duncan, I willna stop. I canna. You must remember.

The lights had gone out at last, and I had slipped inside by means of a small window in the back. Silently I crept up the stairs, my dagger in my hand, at the ready, lest Nathanial be aware of my intent, and be lying in wait around some dark corner.

The stairs creaked as I mounted them, and I went still. But only for a moment. Testing the next step with care, I moved to the top, and there I paused, looking up the hall and down. Unsure which way to go. And finally turning left, and tiptoeing down the hall.

Just outside the door at the end, I heard Duncan’s anguished, “Stop, dammit!”

My heart leaped into my throat, and I kicked the door open, springing inside and landing in a ready crouch, dagger high, eyes darting.

He stood by the window. His back to the pane, staring at me. His face seemed tormented, unsurprised, too caught up in whatever was eating at him to feel startled at my rather dramatic entrance. But I saw that he was alone in the room, and slowly sheathed my blade. “I… I heard your voice. I thought.

“Thought what? That my father was in here trying to murder me?”“

I didn’t nod. It seemed the wrong time to speak ill of his father. “Where is he?” I asked.

“You think I’m going to direct you to his room so you can attack him in his sleep?”“

I lowered my head. Turning, I glanced back down the hall to calm the rising goose bumps on the back of my neck. I saw no one, and then I closed the door. Moving forward slowly, I reached up, touched Duncan’s face.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes moved over my face as if he couldn’t look at me enough to suit him. And then he closed them. “What isn’t wrong would be a better question.”

“Okay, what isn’t wrong?”

He met my eyes, smiling a sad, sarcastic smile. “Nothing.”

“That’s very good.”

“The woman I think I’m falling in love with has just broken into my father’s house, kicked in my bedroom door, and jumped in wielding a knife. And I ought to be calling the cops and having her hauled off to a rubber room somewhere. And instead I’m standing here wishing I could…” He let his voice trail off.

“You love me?” I whispered.

One hand rose to delicately cup my chin, and then he lowered his head, holding my eyes with his until mine fell closed, and his lips pressed to mine.

So tenderly he kissed me. As if he thought I might break. And when he straightened away, I stared at him in wonder. “Does this mean… does this mean you… believe me?”

He shook his head sadly, walked to the bed, sat on its edge. “I don’t believe anything. Not even my own feelings right now.”

“Oh.”

“Will you tell me something?”

I put my back to the window, half sitting on its sill, so I was facing Duncan, and the door beyond him. “I’ll tell you anything,” I promised.

He drew a deep breath, blew it out. “Was there ever a time when you were… attacked?”

I nodded. “Many have tried to kill me.”

“Now, that’s something I don’t understand,” he said quickly. “You keep saying how my father has tried to kill you, but then you claim to be immortal.”

“There is only one way to kill an immortal, Duncan. And that’s to cut the still-beating heart from his breast.”

“God,” he said, turning his head away in disgust. Then he closed his eyes, cleared his throat. “But I got off the subject. The attack I asked you about… this man wasn’t trying to kill you, he was trying…” He looked away, and it seemed he couldn’t finish.

Finally I understood. “To rape me?”

Duncan nodded. “Did it ever happen?”

“Once. It was Elias Stanton, the pig. Claimed I’d bewitched him into feeling desire for me, and so it was his right to act on it—teach me a lesson.”

Duncan closed his eyes. “When did it happen?”

“Sixteen ninety-two. I remember it well, Duncan. It was later that night I lost you.”

Lifting his head slowly, meeting my eyes, he said, “Tell me more.”

I searched his face. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“I think… I have to hear it.”

I nodded, licked my lips. “I was walking home from town, when he approached me. I resisted, he pursued. I wound up with my back to a tree, while he groped at me. In the end, he was on the ground with a heavy limb atop him, and I was racing back to my aunt’s home in his wagon.” I closed my eyes. “I told Arianna, but not Aunt Eleanor. It would have killed her had she known. I couldn’t even face her. I felt… contaminated. So I went to the stream, stripped off my torn clothes, and plunged myself into that icy water, and I scrubbed and scrubbed. But it did no good. I could no more rid myself of the memory of his vile touch than I could wash away the bruises.” I shuddered at the memory. But then I opened my eyes and faced Duncan again. “Then you came. And it was all right.”

Duncan bit his lip. His jaw was taut, as if he were bearing a great weight and straining to support it. “Why would my father want to kill you?”

I blinked. He jumped from one subject to another so fast it made my head spin. “I told you that you died trying to save my life, and that was how you earned the gift of immortality.”

“Something I still think is impossible.”

“Yes, I know.” I sighed. “So pretend it’s fiction, a story I’m telling to entertain you.”

“That’s exactly what it is.” But he said it as if trying to convince himself. His gaze held mine for a long moment. But it was Duncan who finally looked away.

“There is another way one can gain immortality, and that’s the way the Dark Ones, the evil ones, go about it. They gain it, Duncan, by stealing it. When they take the heart of another immortal, and keep that still-beating heart captive in a small box far away from the ever-young body of their victim, they hold that victim’s power as well. The first kill gives them immortality. But they need more. The ones that come later increase their strength and powers, and replenish their life force when it weakens and dims. They use the hearts like… like a child’s toy uses batteries. Drain them all but dry, then toss them aside for another.”

“And you think my father is one of these… these Dark Ones?”“

I nodded. “I’m a powerful Witch, Duncan. He wants that power for his own, and each time I’ve thwarted him he’s become more determined to have it.” I lowered my head. “But it’s not just the power. He hates me because he blames me for coming between you and him three hundred years ago. And here I am, doing it all over again.”

He shook his head. “It’s so far-fetched.”

“But you’re starting to wonder, aren’t you?”

He looked at me, saying nothing. “I called a lawyer this morning, after we talked. Asked him to find out any details he could about the car accident that killed my birth parents.”

I nodded, trying not to show him how deeply those words touched me, moved me. He was trying to believe me… or maybe trying to prove me wrong, but at least giving me the benefit of the doubt. “Thank you for that.”

He nodded, drew a breath, lifted his eyes to mine. “Don’t go after my father, Raven. Please, for my sake. Not yet. Give me some time to find out what… what the hell this is about. Time to understand.”

I lowered my head. Was he giving me the benefit of the doubt after all? Or just trying to distract me, to protect his father?

“Please. I don’t believe he’s this evil being you think he is. Raven, if you knew what he told me tonight, how he wants to make peace with you, you’d—”

The bedroom door flung open, and the old man stood there, dagger clenched in his fist, black satin robe held around his rail-thin, beanpole of a body with a sash. In a half crouch, just as I had been, he lunged into the room.

I flew forward to meet him, quickly putting myself between Nathanial and Duncan. And though we faced each other, blades at the ready light and nimble in our hands, the old man still tried to feign innocence.

“What is she doing here?” he asked. “Did she try to hurt you, Duncan?”

“You know I’d sooner die than hurt him,” I answered before Duncan could.

“If you insist,” he rasped, and he lunged at me, swinging the blade in a deadly arc.

“Stop!”

Duncan’s cry pierced my mind, but I didn’t straighten or take my eyes from his father. I knew better than to glance away, even for an instant, from a cold-blooded snake poised to strike.

“Dad, come on, this is insane. Raven, Christ, if you ever cared for me…“

Nathanial lunged again, but I dodged his blade with easy grace.

“Father, tell her about the pot. Give her the damn pot. You said you wanted to mend fences with her. Go on, go get the pot and—”

“That cauldron is worth nine hundred dollars,” he muttered.

“But you said—”

“He lied, Duncan,” I whispered. “He’s been lying to you all along.”

“Shut up and fight me, wench,” Nathanial snarled.

“No, Raven,” Duncan said softly. “If you love me, please, Raven, don’t. He’s an old man, please…”

“He’s an old man, all right. Centuries old, how many, even I don’t know.” I lunged, feinted, dodged. “You killed my mother, you son of a bitch, and now you’ve stolen Duncan from me. You will pay. But not tonight.”

Again, my blade flashed out, easily slicing the sash that held his robe together. I leaped past the man, dodging his returning slash, hooking the robe with my blade and tugging it back. Far enough. “There, Duncan!” I cried, knowing full well that crescent was in full view, if only for a moment. And then I landed in the hall. One hand on the rail, I vaulted over, landing on the floor of the foyer below, and then I spun around even as Nathanial’s footsteps pounded into the hall after me.

There. My mother’s cauldron sat on a shelf. Looking up, I saw Nathanial leaning over the rail, hatred blazing from his eyes. I gathered the cauldron in one arm. “Thanks for the token of friendship, Dearborne!” I cried. “Unfortunately, it was never yours to give.”

And as he raced for the stairs, I left the building by the front door and vanished into the shadows where I knew Arianna would be waiting.

Chapter 19

It was there. The mark Raven had told him about was there, just as she’d said it would be. Dark, bloodred, on his father’s left hip.

But that didn’t mean…

Jesus, how long was he going to keep denying it? Everything she’d shown him, everything she’d said—the flashes and dreams that kept haunting him. This feeling that he knew her, that he loved her… there had to be some reason for all of it.

God, just not the reason she said.

He raced into the hall, down the stairs, catching his father at the door, and gripping the man’s arms from behind. “Stop! I’m not going to let you go after her!”

The ease with which Nathanial broke Duncan’s grip was shocking. He was old. He had no business being so strong. But he didn’t run off in pursuit of Raven. Instead he turned, eyes as cold as ice.

“I suppose you’d rather I wait for her to sneak back in here. To kill me in my sleep. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not!” Duncan pushed both hands through his hair, sighing. “Look, she didn’t hurt you, didn’t even try. Because I asked her not to.” And he knew that much, at least, was true. “She’s not going to come back here tonight.”

Nathanial’s eyes narrowed. “She stole my blasted pot. I should call the police—”‘

“You were going to give it to her anyway.”

“Mmmph.” It was a growl, not an affirmation. “I changed my mind when I saw her in your room with her blade.”

“Yes.” Duncan moved past his father, closed the door, then turned to face the old man again. “It’s just like yours, her blade.”

Nathanial’s head came up slowly. “It’s similar.”

“And so is the mark on your hip.”

“Seen that much of her, have you?”

Duncan looked away. He wasn’t going to answer that. “She knows you, knew you before you came here. You lied to me when you denied that.”

Nathanial thrust his small blade into the sheath at his hip, turned away, muttering under his breath.

“God, you even wear that thing to bed?”

“I wear it everywhere,” his father replied without facing him.

“It’s time for you to tell me what this is all about. I want to know. And I mean everything.”

His back still to Duncan, his father kept walking. “No, you don’t.” Then he paused. “And even if you do, it’s not your business, Duncan. This is between her and me, and will remain that way.”

“For how long? Until one of you is dead?“‘

A long sigh emerged from his father’s lips. A raspy one. But he said nothing. And a moment later he kept walking, up the stairs, to his room. He closed the door firmly.

Duncan sank to the floor, holding his head in his hands. He didn’t know what to think, what to do, who to believe. It was obvious there was a fierce enmity between Nathanial and Raven. They had a past, those two. A violent one. Raven was all too willing to tell him all about it… but the things she told him surpassed belief and even the most distant realms of possibility. His father, on the other hand, would tell him nothing. And Raven’s version of things was looking more and more like the truth.

He knew one thing. There would be no killing, no dagger wielding, no bloodletting tonight. Not tonight. He’d make sure of it.

He couldn’t sleep anyway, so he played the part of sentry. And long after dawn, while his father still slept, he called the lawyer he’d contacted the day before. He called the man at home—woke him up, judging by the thickness of Jack Cohen’s voice.

“What did you find out?” Duncan asked without preamble.

It took a moment for Jack to identify him, another for him to figure out what it was Duncan wanted. They were acquaintances, not friends. Jack had done some work for Duncan’s restoration business, helped out with contracts periodically over the last several years, and Duncan had his home number. For emergencies only, Jack had told him when he’d scrawled it on the back of a business card.

Hell, if this wasn’t an emergency, Duncan didn’t know what was.

“I have office hours, you know,” Jack finally said.

“This is too important to wait. What did you find out about the accident that killed my birth parents?”

Jack sighed, hesitated. “It… was easier than I expected to check into it. You had their names and everything, so—”

“What did you find out?” Duncan asked again.

Jack cleared his throat. “This isn’t the kind of thing I like to tell someone over the phone,” he said. “But, uh… there was no car accident. Your parents were murdered, Duncan.”

His throat closed off. He closed his eyes, drew a breath. “How?”

“A mugging. Wallet stolen. The cops figured they must have resisted, tried to fight back.”

Opening his eyes, Duncan whispered, “Shot?” Please, please, please say yes.

“No. No, it was, uh… it was a knife.”

A knife. Or maybe an antique dagger with a jeweled handle.

“Did they get the guy?”

Another sigh. “The case is still unsolved. I’m sorry, Duncan, I wish the news had been better.”

“So do I,” Duncan said. “So do I.” He put the phone down and turned to see his father coming down the stairs.

Nathanial paused, frowning. “You’re up early!”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Duncan reached for his coat, hanging on an antique tree near the door.

“You’re leaving? But what about breakfast? We really do need to talk, Duncan.”

“We can talk later.” Duncan pulled the coat on, then eyed the old man. “When you’re ready to tell me the truth. Right now there’s… something I have to do.”

Lowering his brows, Nathanial said, “You’re going to see her, aren’t you?”

“Yes. So don’t bother charging out there to confront her, because I’ll be there to prevent it.”

He disliked the harsh, condemning tone of his own voice, and the way his father flinched and paled slightly at every word. Even though things looked bad, he had to remember his father might not be guilty of a damn thing. All of this could be…

His chin fell. Could be what? Coincidence? Some elaborate con? Bullshit. It was none of those things and he knew it.

Still, his tone gentled, almost as if there was still some part of him, some fatherless child inside, who wanted to believe the old man innocent. “I’ll be back later on.”

“She’s crazy, you know. She’ll try to turn you against me, Duncan. Don’t let her.”

“Look, all I want to do is fix this, make it all right, get at the truth. And I will.”

His father shook his head slowly. “I only wish you could. Make it all right, I mean. But you can’t, Duncan. You’re dealing with things you don’t understand. The way things are… is the way they’ve always been. It can’t be changed.“

“Anything can be changed.”

His father lowered his head tiredly. “I wish that were true. I’m… I’m tired. You’ve no idea how tired.”

Narrowing his eyes, searching his father’s face, Duncan took a step closer. “Tired of what?”

When Nathanial looked up again, his skin seemed pale, and dark circles seemed to have appeared beneath his eyes overnight. “Death. Life. All of it. I’m an old man, Duncan, and I ought to know it. I ought to just let go, but I can’t. I can’t. Maybe she’ll be the one to end it. Maybe it’s time someone did.”

“Father, what the hell are you talking about?”

Nathanial shook his head. “Nothing. I sound as crazy as she does, now, don’t I?” He smiled softly. “Go on, go to her. Do what you have to do, Duncan. We never know how much time we have left. We ought to spend it doing what we want.”

“You’ll be all right?”

“Fine. I promise. Go on, go.”

Sighing, suddenly uncertain his father should be left alone just now—but even more certain than before that he had to see Raven, he finally nodded, and left. He walked the two miles to Raven’s house. A pleasant walk, or it would have been if there hadn’t been so many unanswered questions swamping his brain. He walked along the Coast Road with the sea crashing to the shore below, giving him slight goose bumps and making him walk as far to the left of the road as possible. Raven’s story about him having been tossed from these very cliffs kept creeping into his mind, but he pushed it away. Still, it was sunny. The air held a brisk chill that invigorated, but no real wind. And the sound of the waves was pleasing, even if looking down on them did make him dizzy.

He paused once, near those very cliffs she’d pointed out to him—the place where she claimed he had died. Swallowing a lump of foreboding, he stepped closer to the edge, stared down at the froth and rocks below, expecting the slight dizziness that still hit him from time to time when he looked down from on high.

It didn’t come. Instead, there was a flash. Darkness, moonlight. Dancing red-orange torches and men all around him. Holding him. Holding… her.

“ ‘Disavow her, Duncan. Save yourself.”“

“Never!“‘

“Do as he asks, Duncan. Please, trust me! Do as he asks.”

Tears glittering on her cheeks in the moonlight.

A soft rending of his heart as he looked into those dark eyes. “Not on pain of death, lass. Nay, not if it meant my own soul would I speak against you.“‘

They carried her to the edge. Duncan broke free of those who held him, ran forward, reached for her.

“They cannot take my life!” she cried. “Save yourself, Duncan, I beg you!”“

They pitched her over the side, and he lunged for her, and then fell with her into the abyss.

Duncan pressed a hand to his head and staggered backward, away from the edge. God, what was that? A memory? A hallucination? Real or imaginary?

The image, the dream, was gone. But the feelings… the emotions… remained. Pressing out from somewhere inside his chest. Expanding, making it hard to breathe.

“God, what is happening to me?”

When he arrived at Raven’s driveway, he heard voices, and the rhythmic chink of metal clashing against metal. Was his father here before him, then? Were Nathanial and Raven fighting to the death, even now? A beat of panic pulsed in his throat, and he rushed forward, following the noise around to the rear of the house, and stopped in his tracks when he saw Raven and her blond friend wielding their deadly little daggers as if they meant to kill each other.

He lunged forward, then stopped. They were… laughing. Swinging those double-edged blades and ducking, rolling and springing to their feet again, and laughing.

My God, they were insane.

But graceful. So skilled in their movements that it started to resemble a dance the way they circled and lunged and dodged. Then Arianna let loose with a spinning kick that looked like some kind of martial arts move, and Raven’s dagger sailed from her hand to land point down, in the dirt, its jeweled hilt quivering.

Arianna leaped forward, her blade to Raven’s throat. “I have you now!” she shouted, a beautiful smile on her face.

“No, don’t!”

The shout was wrenched out of him, a knee-jerk reaction he hadn’t planned. The two women stilled, turning toward him. Raven looked surprised, but not the least bit afraid. Arianna, on the other hand, straightened, sheathed her blade, and rolled her eyes.

“Isn’t this familiar?” she said, her tone sarcastic.

And it was. He had a dizzying sense of deja vu all of a sudden. It was as if he’d done this all before. He had to close his eyes to regain his balance.

But then Raven was coming to him, stroking his hair with those loving fingers. “Are you all right?”

“More to the point,” Arianna said, “are you alone?”

He drew a steadying breath. “Nathanial is back at the courthouse. I wouldna… wouldn’t… bring him here.” Then he gazed at Raven to see if she’d noticed his slip— God, for an instant it felt as if that stranger inside had leaped to the surface and taken over.

Raven’s hair was tousled, and his fingers ached to smooth it. Her cheeks gleamed pink with exertion and her eyes sparkled.

“It’s all right,” she said. “We were only practicing. We do it all the time.” She didn’t mention his slip, but she’d noticed. He knew she had.

“I don’t even want to ask why,” he said.

“To stay sharp… you’ll pardon the pun.” Arianna smiled at her own joke. “So when people like Nathanial come for us—and they do, Duncan—we’re ready.”

“So you believe this nonsense, too? About immortal High Witches and beating hearts in little boxes… ?“ He shook his head, not wanting to think about it anymore.

“I see Raven did get around to telling you a few things,” Arianna said. “Well, Duncan, old friend, you might as well come inside. If you won’t believe your lover, then perhaps you’ll believe me. I’m far older than she is anyway. Just over five hundred, actually.”

“You’ll have to give me the name of your plastic surgeon.”

She lifted her golden brows. “You can still joke about it.

I think that’s a good sign. Do you drink coffee, Duncan, or is it still strong English tea you prefer?“

Strong English tea was exactly what he preferred. But how did she know that? “To be honest, I think I could use a beer about now,” he told her.

“Used to go straight to your head,” she replied with a smile. “I think you need all your wits right now. So tea it is.” She turned and led the way inside.

Raven gripped his hand and followed. “I was so afraid to leave you with Nathanial last night. Was there any trouble after I left?”

“He’s my father, Raven.”

“As if that means anything.”

They walked into a pretty room, with a fireplace flickering from one wall, and claw-footed furniture of deep cherry wood all around.

“You two sit. Talk. I’ll get that tea.” Arianna left them there.

Raven took a spot on the love seat, and Duncan sat beside her. He took her hands in his, stared into her eyes. “I want you to end this feud with my father,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether all of this other stuff is true or not. Nothing matters right now except that it has to end.”

She closed her eyes. “Do you think I want to fight him? Duncan, believe me, I don’t. I’d end this if I could.“

“You can. I can help. I don’t think he wants this any more than you do, Raven.”

“He has no choice, Duncan.”

Duncan closed his eyes. What now? Would she tell him more far-fetched tales?

“Didn’t you understand what I told you last night, Duncan? The Dark Ones take hearts, and keep them, and eventually, they use up the power. The hearts weaken, perhaps even die if they’re tapped long enough in this vile way. I don’t know. But I do know they weaken, and as they do, so does the Dark Witch who holds them. They need to take more, to kill again and again, in order to continue living.”

He swallowed hard. “You can’t truly believe this,” he said, but in a hoarse whisper, because somewhere inside him, he knew it was true. It couldn “t be. But it had to be.

“It’s why he wants me,” she went on. “He could have taken your heart, Duncan, but you’re young, and you’ve never even wielded the power of nature. Your heart might sustain him for a few decades at most. Mine would give him centuries.”

He only stared at her, wrestling with what she’d said. Arianna came in with the tea. She set the tray down and stood there looking from one of them to the other. “He’s never going to believe you until you show him, Raven.”

“I know.”

“So?”

Sighing heavily, Raven got to her feet. She bent to a drawer in an end table and pulled it open. And then she pulled out a small-caliber weapon. It looked like a derringer. Duncan’s blood rushed to his feet.

“What the hell are you—”

Raven handed the weapon to Arianna, then stood facing her friend. “Go on, do it. Let’s get this out of the way.”

Arianna pointed the gun squarely at Raven’s chest, from a distance of no more than two feet.

“My God, no!” Duncan lunged between them just as Arianna pulled the trigger.

Fire tore through his chest even as the explosion rang in his ears. Warmth oozed and he drew a hand upward, pressed his palm hard against his sternum, and felt the blood pulsing from beneath it. “Jesus Christ,” he said, but the words were slurred, and he sank to the floor. “Jesus Christ, you shot me. You freaking shot me.”

Raven snatched a towel from somewhere and pressed it to the wound. But she seemed more interested in keeping his blood from staining her carpet than in halting its flow. “I’m sorry, Duncan,” she whispered. Sitting down, she cradled his head in her lap. “You’ll be all right. In a moment.”

Her words were fading. Why wasn’t someone calling 911? My God, were they just going to sit there and watch him… ? “I’m dying.…” he rasped.

“Only for a moment,” Arianna said. “You’ll be a believer very soon, Duncan. I swear, I don’t know why Raven didn’t just shoot you in the first place. Would have saved so much time.” Then she grimaced at his chest. “It is messy, though.”

“The phone… Someone call… an amb—”

“Oh, you’re well beyond that, Duncan. No ambulance would do you any good now.” Arianna tipped her head back and laughed, and Duncan tried to call her a bitch, but he wasn’t sure the word was audible.

Raven bent closer, pressed her lips to his. And everything went black.

It felt as if he’d grabbed a bare wire with about 220 volts going through it. The jolt split him, surging up his breastbone, and for an instant he figured he must be in some operating room somewhere, with a surgeon opening his chest.

He arched up, tipped his head back, and dragged in a ragged gasp, starved, it seemed, for oxygen. And then his body relaxed and the power surge faded. He opened his eyes.

He was still in Raven’s house. On the sofa now, stretched out, shirtless. His head felt achy, light, still buzzing with the remnants of whatever current had zapped through him.

“For the love of Christ,” he muttered. “You still haven’t called an ambulance?”

“No need, Duncan.” Raven sat beside him, brushed his hair off his face. “Come on, sit up.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Sit up, Duncan.” Her hands slid under his shoulders, and she eased him into an upright position. Arianna sat nearby. A basin of blood-tinted water at her side, with a pink-stained washcloth floating in it looking like a donor organ. His heartbeat quickened at the sight, and he instinctively pressed a hand to his wounded chest to keep himself from bleeding to death.

And then he frowned, because there was no pulsing warmth oozing now. No sticky residue on his skin. His fingers probed, and then he bowed his head, staring at his bared chest. His clean bared chest.

No blood. No wound. He blinked, pressing both hands to his chest now, moving them, pressing again, searching for the bullet hole. It had seemed gaping before. Maybe it was just smaller than it seemed, and…

“There’s nothing there, Duncan,” Arianna said. “You died. Right there on the floor. We cleaned you up, and put you on the couch. In less than an hour the wound healed and you revivified. You’re alive now, and there’s no hole in your chest because you’re immortal.”

He gaped at her, then stared up at Raven.

“I know it’s shocking the first time,” she whispered. “I know how difficult this is for you to believe. But, Duncan, we didn’t mean to. Arianna was aiming at me—”

“Oh, but this is so much better. Really drives the point home.”

“Arianna, please!”

Arianna shrugged, making a lip-zipping motion with one hand. Raven turned to him again. “From now on, you won’t age. You’re going to start noticing other changes, as well. You’ll get stronger. Your other senses will sharpen. And your ability to manipulate nature, to do what we call magick, will be far stronger than it was before. Although, since you’ve never been a practicing Witch, I don’t suppose you’ll notice that.”

Again, he looked at his chest. “I can’t believe this.”

“Get him a mirror, for heaven’s sake,” Arianna said in exasperation.

“You have to believe it, Duncan. It’s true.”

“It’s true,” he whispered. “It can’t be… but it’s true.”

“Yes.” He searched her eyes, and she repeated the word. “Yes, Duncan.”

His head was whirling. Unreal. It was all so unreal.

“I want you to read this,” Raven said. And she pressed a very old book into his hands. So old its pages were curled and yellow, and the leather cover cracked in places. “This is three hundred years old. It was what my mother left for me.”

“Your mother?”

She nodded. “You see, I didn’t know, either. Not until Nathanial Dearborne hanged my mother and me in a snowy square as you looked on, fighting to prevent it, but unable to. That was the first time we met, Duncan, on the gallows just before I was to die. And something happened between us there, some connection was made. But it was over before it even began, or so I thought. We were hanged. Our bodies were pitched into a heap of the dead, where criminals and victims of the plague were dumped. That’s where I awoke. But my mother didn’t. Nathanial came for me there, intent on taking my heart before I could revive. And he must have been desperate then, because as young as I was, it wouldn’t have sustained him long. I was a powerful Witch, though, even then. And perhaps it was my magickal skill he sought. Or perhaps it was because you’d turned against him that day. You’d taken my side over his, and when he killed me, you hated him for it. You went to the place of the dead, too, looking for my body. You intended to give me a decent burial. But I awakened before either of you arrived, and I carried my mother into the woods and buried her there. And then I went home to find this book. Our cottage was ruined, had been plundered. My mother’s sacred cauldron, with the rose painted on the front, was gone. But the book she’d left for me, hidden behind a loose stone in the hearth, remained.”

Duncan opened the book reverently, scanned the first page—and knew, though it seemed impossible, that these really were her mother’s words… and really had been written some three centuries ago. So sad, his eyes grew damp as he read them, and then he met Raven’s again. “But I found you again after that, didn’t I, Raven?”

She nodded. “I booked passage on a ship to the New World. You boarded the same ship. And later came to this very town, as its new minister, and met me again. But even then I didn’t tell you the truth. I didn’t trust you enough, Duncan. So when they pitched me from the cliffs for the crime of Witchery, you lunged after me, trying to save me.”

Yes. Because it had seemed better to die trying to save her than to go on living without her.

How did he know that?

“If you’d known that I couldn’t die… you wouldn’t have fallen from those cliffs. You died because I didn’t trust you with the truth. And that’s why I’ve been so determined to tell you everything this time.”

He stilled as the one memory that had remained intact came rushing back to him. The dream he’d had as a child, the one he’d thought had to be of his birth mother, came back to him now. Clearer than before.

“You found my body on the rocks,” he said. “You were crying. God, it hurt me to see you crying. I wanted to touch you, to tell you it was all right, but I couldn’t. I was… hovering above, somehow. You held me. You wouldn’t let me go.”

“Yes,” she breathed, tears springing into her eyes. “Yes, Duncan, that’s exactly the way it happened.”

“And.. .you were there,” he said, turning to Arianna. “You protected her, told her they were coming for her, made her let me go, and took her away from the danger.”

Arianna nodded.

“The last thing I remember is watching the waves sweep my body away, swallow it up.” He closed his eyes as a chill rushed through him. It was a terrifying memory. But real. And there. He recalled the clothes she wore, and those he’d been wearing. He remembered the differences in her speech as she held him and spoke to him. Old, arcane.

“My God, it’s true, isn’t it?”

Raven nodded. “Yes, Duncan. It’s true.”

“And my father…?”

“Is one of the Dark Ones. He wants my heart, and likely yours, too.”

Duncan shook his head slowly. He knew it was all true, all of it. And still…

He blinked his burning eyes dry. “People can change,” he whispered, and he knew he was grabbing at straws. “If it’s been as many years as you say it has, Raven, then how do you know he hasn’t changed?”

She closed her eyes. “Oh, Duncan, I know you want that to be true, but he can’t change. If he stops taking hearts, he’ll weaken and die.”

“But save his own soul.”

“He sold his soul long ago.”

“But there’s a chance, Raven. There’s a chance you’re wrong about him. I’ve seen the changes in him since he came here. He’s been kinder, more real than before.”

Arianna got to her feet. “Why would the old man change after all this time? What motive could he possibly have to suddenly value his soul at all?“

Duncan looked at her squarely. “He has a son now.”

The sorrowful looks the two women exchanged let him know they didn’t believe him for a minute. He wasn’t sure he believed it himself. But he wanted to. God, how he wanted to.

“I have to give him a chance,” he said, turning to Raven. “I have to. He’s the only father I’ve ever known, Raven. I… I care for him.”

“Even though he might have killed your birth parents to get his hands on you, Duncan?”

“I don’t know that,” he insisted. “I… don’t want to believe that.”

Raven’s eyes went round and soft, and she nodded. “All right. I… I understand.”

“You’re giving him a second chance,” Arianna snapped. “A second chance that’s liable to cost Raven her life, do you realize that?”

“Let him be, Arianna.”

But something cracked in Duncan’s heart. Was Arianna right? Was he making a huge mistake? He stared into Raven’s eyes and hoped to God he wasn’t. “I won’t let him hurt you,” he promised. “I swear it, Raven.”

“I know you’ll try,” she whispered. Then she lowered her head. “Go on, go to your father, Duncan. Do what you feel you must.”

Chapter 20

Duncan supposed he must have walked back into town. The evidence was there. He stood on the cobbled circle, the fountain on his right splashing as if the entire world hadn’t just tilted off its axis. The courthouse loomed in front of him like some big, shadowy giant. No curtains yet on the lower floors. Nathanial had never been fond of frills or fluff. So the windows stood empty…just like the old man’s eyes.

So he was here, and he hadn’t brought the car in the first place, so he must have walked. He didn’t remember the trip. Only the haze that had been descending over his brain—or was it a haze burning away, revealing a light too bright to look upon?—ever since he’d finally understood that Raven St. James was not delusional. But immortal. And so was he.

Immortal.

My God. It was so immense a concept his brain couldn’t seem to grasp it. He kept thinking it must have been a dream, that it couldn’t really have happened. No one had shot him. He hadn’t bled. He hadn’t died only to come back to life again on Raven St. James’s sofa. But he knew that was bull. It had happened. And he needed to swallow it before it choked him. Swallow it, get over it, and figure out what the hell to do next.

Stop this ridiculous urge that kept surfacing… to test it. Jump off a roof or step in front of a bus just to see what would happen. Stupid. If a bullet in the chest wouldn’t kill him, what the hell would?

He closed his eyes and swallowed. Damn, it was as if he had to think about every step. Go to the door, open it up, step inside, speak to his father. His mind was so busy turning this over and over, examining it from every angle, he kept forgetting to pay attention to what he was doing. Forgetting to breathe, for God’s sake.

“Duncan?”

He looked up, drew himself out of his mind, and met his father’s darting gaze. An old man. A weathered, careworn face, a little paler than it was a couple of weeks ago. He was no killer. And he certainly had aged, hadn’t he? Didn’t Raven say immortals stop aging? So why hadn’t Nathanial?

Who are you kidding, Duncan? Can you remember him ever looking any different? He’s always looked like a man in his sixties. Always.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Father,” was his greeting.

“Did you see her?”

Duncan nodded.

“Well? What did she say? Did she fill your head with lies and fantasies again? Did she—”

“She said she’d like peace as much as you would, Father,” Duncan interrupted. Tired—he sounded tired. Felt it, too. “She said if you’d be willing to drop this ridiculous feud, so would she.” It wasn’t precisely what she’d said, but he was confident he spoke nothing but the truth. And she did say she wasn’t pursuing this battle because she wanted to.

His father’s brows bent, eyes narrowed, but instantly all of that stopped. His face went as still as stone, and slowly he averted his eyes. “Good,” he said, and then he let his shoulders slump a little. “You can’t imagine my relief.”

Duncan studied the old man with a practiced eye, but he couldn’t judge a thing, couldn’t be objective, was all too aware that he wasn’t in control of the situation. He never had been.

“Relief?” he asked Nathanial. “Is that what you’re feeling?”

Slowly his father’s head came up. “You think I’m the one who started this with her? She’s the one who came in here screaming accusations and trying to come between us!”

“Come between us? You could park a semi between us, Father, and that’s been true all my life. Long before she came into our lives.”

“She’s always been in our lives.” Nathanial’s head lowered. “I’ve been trying to change that, son.”

“Why?”

The brows crooked, the face puckered. “Why do you keep asking that?”

“Because I want to know. Was this a change of heart, Dad? Or is that just where it’s leading?”

He held his father’s pale eyes for once, willing the man to look at him, face him. And slowly he saw the knowledge dawn there. The realization that Duncan knew the truth.

“I was shot tonight, Father. Right in the chest.” He touched the spot with one hand. “Point-blank.”

His father seemed to go even whiter. “That’s… that’s ridiculous. Look at you, you’re… you’re fine.”

“Yes, I know. Because I’m immortal.” Nathanial’s eyes fell closed. “And so are you,” Duncan added.

There was a long taut strand of silence hanging in the air between them. Until it was broken by his father’s ragged sigh, and this time when the old man’s shoulders slumped, Duncan believed it was for real.

Duncan bent his head, knowing by his father’s reaction that it was true. His father was immortal. And if he’d kept that truth to himself all this time, how could Duncan expect him to be honest now?

Sighing deeply, Nathanial said, “I can’t talk to you about this now.”

“No, not now,” Duncan agreed tightly. “Not for the past thirty-five years, and not now.”

“Duncan, you don’t understand—”

“Or maybe I just don’t want to.”

Nathanial faced him. “I’m no immortal, Duncan,” he said, and suddenly Duncan saw the shadows underneath his eyes. “Far from it, in fact. I’m sick, Duncan. I’m… I’m dying.”

Duncan actually reeled backward at those words.“But—‘“

“That’s why I came here, bought this place. To be close to you. To make up for all that time… to be your father just once… before it was too late.” Shoulders shaking, the old man sank into a chair. And the sounds he made were as close to heartbreak as anything Duncan had ever heard.

Slowly, questions swirling still, he stepped closer. A hand went to his father’s shoulder, and then he knelt and stared up into the old face. “That can’t be.”

“It is. I… I don’t know what fantasies that pretty young thing has been weaving, Duncan. She’s… she’s disturbed. And tricky. I’ve dealt with her before, it’s true. I don’t know how she made you think you’d been shot, and convinced you of all this nonsense. Starter pistol, blanks, blood capsules… perhaps even some kind of hallucinogen. She does claim to be a Witch, you know. Maybe it was a spell of some sort. I don’t know. I don’t care. It doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things.”

Duncan swallowed hard. He tried to fit what his father said with what had happened this morning at Raven’s, knew intellectually that it didn’t fit, didn’t make sense, but set it aside for now. He’d hear what his father had to say. He’d listen to the lies. One last time. And it would be the last time.

“Every day I get weaker, son. I don’t have much time left. I don’t want to spend it arguing over some girl.”

Just as Raven said… They weaken in time, and have to kill again…

Nathanial lifted his head, eyes imploring, looking suddenly very much like the eyes of a dying old man.

“I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry for that.”

Duncan knew better, he knew better. Hadn’t he just been wondering about his father’s unusual strength? Hadn’t he just been noticing how the man had never changed?

“This confrontation has taken a lot out of me, I’m afraid.”

“Rest, then,” Duncan said. Because he needed time, time to think, to figure out what Nathanial could have to gain with this latest ruse. “I’ll, uh… I’ll make us some dinner.”

“I’ve no appetite,” his father said, and he got slowly to his feet. “I’d like to go to bed.”

“But there’s so much more to talk about.” He faced his father, made his voice firm. “I want the truth, and I’ll have it before this night is over.”

“And what does it matter now? I told you, Duncan, I’m dying.”

“So you’ll take the truth to your grave with you?” He felt mean. Cruel. Hell, he was being heartless, but he’d had it with the lies. “I know damn well it was no parlor trick Raven pulled on me this morning. I felt the heat of that bullet that plowed through my chest, Father, and I had a hole the size of a golfball to show for it. It was my blood all over me, not some trick capsule.”

His father closed his eyes, shook his head, and turned toward the stairs. “You won’t let up on me, will you? Even now?”

“I’m sorry. I need to hear the truth, and I’d like to hear it from you.”

“All right, then.” Nathanial mounted the bottom step, moved up one, then another. “You’ll hear it. But not now. Come back in an hour, Duncan. Come back in an hour and I’ll tell you everything. Everything. I promise.”

Duncan breathed deeply, trying to clear his head. His father was dying. It would have been easier to believe than anything else he’d heard today. But he didn’t believe it. Oh, he might be weak, maybe feeling poorly. Raven said the hearts wore out in time.

He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, marveled that he was referring back to conversations he’d considered nothing more than symptoms of mental illness only a few hours ago. He was exhausted, drained.

“All right. Rest. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here waiting. And we will talk.”

Without looking back, his father climbed the stairs, seeming old. Weak. Sick.

Duncan sank to the floor, glanced at the empty crates all around him. Crates that had held the most cherished possessions of murdered women. It was wrong, what his father was doing. Just wrong. He’d known it from the beginning.

And he knew other things, too. Raven wasn’t lying to him.

She wouldn’t. The things she said about Nathanial were absolutely true. If she said he’d killed, then he had. If she said he wanted her heart, then he did. He’d hoped his father could be capable of change, but he doubted that now.

As for his father… he would lie to Duncan without batting an eye. Duncan sighed. He’d give the old man some time, let him rest or get his story straight or whatever he was doing up there. And then he’d get the answers he needed. He’d insist on that. An hour. Two at the most, and then he’d make Nathanial tell the truth, for the first time.

I picked up the phone when it jangled.

Nathanial Dearborne’s voice rasped at me. “I need a heart. I wanted yours, but I’m out of time, Raven. Duncan’s will have to do.”

My throat went dry. I swallowed, tried to speak. “No,” was all I managed.

“You or him, darling. You or him. I won’t wait long.”

Lowering my eyes to shield them from Arianna’s probing ones, I said, “Where are you?”

I tried to keep my face expressionless as the man who’d been hunting me for most of my life told me where to meet him.

Slowly I replaced the receiver, keeping my eyes carefully turned away from Arianna’s curious, probing brown ones.

“Who was that?” she asked.

The lie stuck in my throat. I loved her—lying to her made me physically ill. But I forced the words anyway. “Duncan. He… wants to see me. To… talk.”

“Does he?”

“Yes. I, um, said I’d meet him.”

“Where?”

I looked up quickly, knowing I’d stumbled, and forced a smile that felt as weak as it probably looked. “Someplace private. Perhaps he’s beginning to remember after all.”

“Why are you lying to me, Raven?”

I looked away fast. “I’m not. Is it so hard to believe he might want some time alone with me?”“

“It is when I combine it with the look on your face. You look shaken.” She gripped my chin, tilted my head to the side and stared down at me as if she were a sergeant inspecting some soldier’s rifle. “No, Raven, this isn’t the face of a girl rushing off to meet her lover.”

“I’m no girl.” I pulled myself free of her grasp, tried to act huffy when all I felt was guilt for lying to the best friend I’d ever known. My sister. “I’m over three hundred, for heaven’s sake. And you know how important this is to me. Can you blame me for being nervous?”

She only kept looking at me.

“I’d better get ready.”

“Yes. Don’t keep him waiting.”

I swallowed hard and headed from the room into one of our countless corridors and up one of the many sets of stairs. Arianna didn’t follow. My room was my refuge, and I needed it right now. I think she sensed that.

The small, oval portrait I’d labored over for months stood on the night table beside my bed, bearing little physical resemblance to Duncan, but holding his essence all the same. The face I’d blurred, but his dark gleaming eyes shone from their deep wells, and his tumbling satin hair tempted my fingers just as it always had. His shadowed jawline spoke of feelings, immense feelings, all bubbling inside him in search of escape. It captured him, my experiment in painting.

I paused a moment, to run my fingertip over the image of Duncan’s face. “For you,” I whispered. “I do this for you.”

A tear burned at the back of my eye. Sadness welling up, not because I might be about to die, or worse. I hated to think of what that sort of death was truly like. For it wasn’t death, really, but a kind of limbo. The body alive, but inanimate. The heart beating, but captive, providing life force to a foreign body. And yet that wasn’t why I cried.

I cried for the love Duncan and I had once shared. The love I’d spent so many lifetimes searching for, only to realize, at long last, that it wasn’t coming back to me. A once-in-a-lifetime kind of love like ours had been was just that. Once in a lifetime. I’d never find it again. All these years I’d naively believed that Duncan would feel just the way he had before when I finally found him again. But he didn’t. Perhaps he couldn’t. Oh, he was attracted to me, drawn to me—even claimed to love me. But it was only a faint echo of what we’d had before. And that was all it would ever be. I supposed it was time I accept that.

Yes. Difficult though it was, it was time.

And this was not the moment to let the knowledge weaken me. I needed to acknowledge, accept, and move beyond it. Tonight I would fight for my life, as I’d done so many times before. My opponent was the most powerful foe I’d ever be likely to face. He could kill me very easily. I’d need to be sharp, to be quick. I’d need to be smart and I’d need to be ruthless.

Or I’d die.

Sniffling, I drew my hands away from the portrait on the stand and opened the table’s drawer. From inside I took a velvet pouch and, pulling it open, removed the agate pendant. No stone was more protective than agate, and this one had been charged with a spell to make it even more so. I fastened the chain around my neck, then turned to the door.

Nathanial had given me thirty minutes. No more time for dawdling. I left my haven, my bedroom, grabbing a cloak on the way. The dark blue velvet one that hung by the door, because it reminded me of that one I’d worn long ago. The one left to me by my mother. I pulled it snug around me as I tapped down the stairs. Swathed in those soft, warm folds, I felt protected. Safe.

But I wasn’t. I was far from safe. And there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I left on foot, by the Coast Road, and I knew Arianna must be watching me. She knew me too well to have believed my lie. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she not follow me. Or that I lose her if she did. I wouldn’t have her jumping between Nathanial’s blade and mine, and dying in my place.

I walked quickly and with purpose, but not so quickly that I didn’t take time to feel. The sea wind in my face, tugging at my hair. The tiring sun, already relaxing on the western horizon, warm on my skin, bright in my eyes.

When I’d gone around a bend in the road, I turned sharply left, cutting down the steep cliff’s face. There was one instant when Arianna could have seen me change direction, but only an instant. And I hoped the road’s curve hid me from her sharp eyes for long enough.

Pebbles clattered away beneath my feet, and I slipped, gripped a sharp rock, scraped the skin of my palm, but held on. Digging in with fingers and the toes of my shoes, I managed to keep from falling, and slowly inched my way to where this steep face melded with the path I’d taken so many times. Here, the going eased. When I reached my boat, I took it, hoping Arianna would never think to check. And then, keeping close to shore, I paddled back the way I’d come. Avoiding rocks, bounding on waves as they tumbled toward shore, but unable to go out further, for fear Arianna would spot me from above. I moved past the point where our house stood high above, and in the other direction, until the cliff’s sheer face eased again, shallowed, melted. There I rowed toward shore.

My feet got wet when I stepped out, and a wave rolled in at the same time, but I barely noticed. Too busy looking for a place to hide my craft. I dragged it into some brush, laid some loose branches and weeds over it, and brushed off my hands, satisfied that at least it didn’t leap out and shout my presence to anyone who happened to pass this way. A trained eye would still spot it, but not unless they happened to be looking. And if I’d done everything right, Arianna would have no reason to be looking for me here.

That done, I stood still, ocean at my right, and the woods to my left. The woods where I would meet Nathanial. My hand touched the hilt of my blade, closed around it, and remained there. I glanced out at the whispering trees. They glowed with soft green-yellow auras as the sun sank behind them. Like magick, a brief, luminous magick, that faded away, and the light with it.

And I felt its loss. No light now. Nothing. Just me, and the woods, and the darkness, and out there somewhere, Nathanial Dearborne, and his bloodstained blade.

He didn’t intend to fall asleep. And when he woke, head thick and eyes foggy, he had the oddest sensation that it hadn’t been sleep. Not really. It had been something else. Something foreign, and malignant. Its remnants made him shudder as if something slimy had slipped over his spine. He felt soiled.

He got up, didn’t even remember sitting down, but he apparently had. And then he remembered his conversation with his father, and the reason he hadn’t left when Nathanial had gone upstairs to nap.

He didn’t trust him.

But now, there was more.

There was an old man on a gallows, the rising sun painting his bony face, a light of malicious glee in his pale eyes as his hand caressed the lever. There was a girl more afraid than any he’d ever seen before, and yet so brave she shamed everyone else there. There was a warmth, an intense, magnetic warmth that seemed to melt from her eyes into his when she looked up at him.

“Believe me, mistress, I’d help you if I could.”

“ ‘They’d only kill you as well, did you try.”“

He felt it. Felt her. All of her. Her innocence, her power, her allure. Her beauty, not just the way she looked but the beauty inside her. He felt it flowing through him like warm honey, cleansing everything ugly from his soul. Filling every empty spot there was in him.

“ I willna forget you.”“

“ ‘If there is memory in death, Duncan, I shall remember you always.”“

He remembered that moment. He’d been wearing loose black robes, and Nathanial had, too. He’d fallen in love with her, with Raven, right then. With that look, that intense moment of feeling, all of it magnified a thousand times by the imminent presence of the Reaper.

And then he heard it again. That sound. The creaking, the slam, the horrible snap of a slender neck when it reached the end of a rope. It sickened Duncan, and his face contorted in remembered anguish as the memory played out in his mind. And then he was there, beneath the gallows. Holding her, his tears wetting her hair. Her body so soft, so small in his arms. Innocence. Utter innocence snuffed out without a thought. And Nathanial…

In his mind he looked up at the man. Nathanial looked back. Smiling.

“God, no…” The words were a rasp, a whisper, as Duncan shook the memories away, blinked the past from his eyes and turned to face the stairs the way Raven had faced those of the gallows. Fists clenched at his sides, he strode up them.

“It’s time, Nathanial,” he muttered as he moved upward. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to call the man “Father.” Not now. “And you’ll tell me the truth. For once in your life, you’ll tell me the truth.”

At the top he turned toward Nathanial’s room, stepped up to its closed door, and gripped the knob, not bothering to knock.

But when he twisted, he felt resistance. “Unlock this door and let me in. We need to talk. Now.”

There was not so much as a breath in answer. Duncan’s stomach clenched. “Nathanial?”

Nothing.

His heart tripped, and he thought of Raven, and for once, he wasn’t worrying about her hurting his black-hearted father. He was worried about Nathanial hurting her. Stepping backward, he slammed his shoulder into the door, then stumbled through when it split and fell beneath the force of the blow.

“You’ll grow stronger than you were before.” Raven’s voice whispered through his mind. He managed to keep his footing, barely, but the splintered wood on the floor shocked him. He was stronger.

He turned, then, toward the bed. It was perfectly made, not a rumple, not a wrinkle. Beyond it the window stood open, its curtains billowing inward like ghosts.

“My God, he’s gone after Raven…”

Duncan raced to the window. Hands braced on its sill, he looked out, but his father was nowhere in sight. Not only that, but the sheer drop, and the distance to the ground loomed huge. No way out but to jump. “Quite a feat for a weak, dying old man, isn’t it?” he asked himself, and then his shoulders sagged. He’d done it, hadn’t he? Given Nathanial the benefit of the doubt in spite of what Raven had said. And now Arianna’s warning rang over and over again in his mind. It could cost Raven her life.

God, he’d been a fool.

He remembered the gallows. Then the cliffs. He couldn’t lose her again. He wouldn’t.

“Duncan! Duncan, are you here?”

He spun around at the sound of Arianna’s voice and called back to her. “Here. I’m coming.” Then he ran down the stairs to greet her.

“Where is he?” She didn’t bother with preamble, and he could see she was breathless, wide-eyed, pale with worry.

“I don’t know. He did something to me, made me sleep, and slipped away. I’m afraid he’s gone after Raven.”

“She had a call a half hour ago,” Arianna said, turning in a slow circle, pushing one hand through her blond locks. “She told me it was you, that you wanted her to meet you somewhere.”

He shook his head. “I didna call her.”

She glanced at him sharply, even as he bit his tongue, but didn’t remark on his speech.

“Nathanial, then,” Arianna said after a moment. “I thought as much. She’s gone to meet him.” Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back. “But I don’t know where. I tried to follow, but she gave me the slip. Damn her for being so protective of those she loves.”

“Why would she go to fight him?” Duncan asked desperately. “I believed her, not him. And she promised she wouldn’t.”

“Oh, don’t kid yourself, Duncan. Nathanial knows exactly how to get Raven to dance to whatever tune he plays. All he had to do was threaten one of us.” She tilted her head. “Probably you, since I was safe at her side when the bastard called.“

Duncan felt a crushing sensation in his chest. “She’d face him down to protect me?”

“She’d die for you, Duncan. Just as you would have for her… did for her… once.”

He brushed past her, yanked the door wide. “We have to find her.”

Her hand on his shoulder brought him up short, but he didn’t turn. She spoke to his back. “I don’t think she can beat him. Prepare yourself, Duncan. By the time we get to her… it may be too—”‘

“Don’t even think it.”

Chapter 21

I waited, paced, and grew restless. When the sun had descended fully beyond the western horizon to sleep in some distant place far beyond the trees, I shivered. The air cooled all at once, and gooseflesh rose on my arms and the back of my neck.

An owl hooted three times, and I turned my head quickly toward the sound. The people of Old Sanctuary would have said it was an omen, a warning of death. Accurate. There would be a death tonight. The only question was, would it be mine? Or Nathanial’s?

A chill worked up my spine, settling right between my shoulder blades, as if someone’s eyes were on me. I looked behind me, but there was only the sea. Waves rolling gently over the stony beach, pausing there like a breath held in anticipation, and then receding in a slow-motion sigh.

Swallowing my fear, I turned to face the forest again. I stiffened my resolve, drew my blade, and walked forward. One step, then another, and another. I reached the edge of the woods and paused there, sensing the presence of my enemy. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was near, and likely had been ever since I’d arrived.

My fingers tightened on the hilt of my blade, and I stepped through the first line of trees and into the darker area beyond. “Where are you?” I called out.

“Waiting,” he answered, and his hoarse voice had little substance. Like the voice of a ghost. He must be weakening. No, it wouldn’t do to underestimate him. Perhaps that was only what he wanted me to think.

I moved forward a few more steps, which took me beyond the clusters of trees on this side and into a small clearing. Pines towered all around me, a circle made by nature. Standing in a half crouch on a carpet of grass, I moved my fingers on the hilt and scanned the shadows that loomed amid the trees.

I didn’t see him. Didn’t hear him. Instead, I felt him; the crushing impact of his aged body when he hurled himself at me from behind. The red-hot trail his blade left as it arched across my back.

I hit the ground hard, face first, but rolled fast and sprang to my feet again. He’d knocked the wind out of me, taken me by surprise, and sliced my flesh. I pulsed with pain, felt the blood dampening my blouse, soaking through it, to stain the cloak.

Facing him, I reached to the ties at my neck and pulled, then tossed the cloak aside. “You had the advantage, Nathanial,” I told him, careful to keep the pain from my voice. “And wasted it.”

“Too eager to see my enemy bleed, I suppose.”

“No more than I am.” I lunged and swept my dagger’s tip across his soft belly, drawing away just as quickly and avoiding his return thrust. We battled, fought, nicked and cut each other, but neither scored a killing blow.

We circled each other, both of us breathless, then lunged again, slashing and stabbing in a tangle of blades and limbs and then drawing back again.

I was tiring, panting.

He danced forward, I danced back, into the thickest cluster of trees. Then I focused on the pines. Their scent, the stringy, sticky bark, the needles that whispered their secrets all around me with every breath of a breeze that passed through them. In effect, I vanished. Melded with the pine trees and, in silence, thought of Trees Speaking and all he’d taught me.

When Nathanial pursued me, he slowed, stilled. His eyes darting this way and that as he searched for me. Then narrowing as he understood.

“You’re very good,” he whispered. Then thrust his dagger into the trunk of the tree nearest him. “Very good. But you can’t keep your focus long. I’ll find you, Raven.”

Not long, he was right. But long enough.

My feet are roots, sinking deep into the rich, black earth.

I curled my toes. I wouldn’t move. Not yet. To move would break the enchantment. I’d wait until he turned his back to me. It would give me the advantage I needed if I hoped to survive.

My body is still and strong, and my skin is like bark. The blood in my veins is pine sap, sticky and smelling of the very spirit of Earth herself.

Nathanial came closer, jabbed another tree.

My arms are limbs. Each nerve ending a fine needle, quivering, sighing on the breeze.

I could feel my heart pounding, hear it in my ears as Nathanial came still nearer, stabbing his blade into first one trunk and then another, until he reached the one right beside me. So loud, that beat in my chest. So strong with fear as I stood motionless, praying he wouldn’t hear it. It’s the pulse of life through my trunk. It’s the thrum of the spirit in me. I told myself anything to keep the image alive, the image I projected, the only thing between Nathanial’s blade and my heart right now.

He came closer, lifted his blade, tilted its tip up and spasmodically clenched his fist on the hilt.

Just as he thrust it at me, I let the image dissolve and dodged to the side. He missed me cleanly, but stood grinning at me all the same. “You can’t outwit me, Raven,” he said. “Never that. I’m too old, too clever to be fooled by your tricks.”

I couldn’t even argue it. “So I see. Then I suppose my only hope is to outfight you.”

“We both know you cannot.”

“We’ll see.” I lurched, swinging my blade, and when he dodged the blow, I leaped and kicked him hard in the belly. A loud grunt gusted from him as he doubled over. By the time he got his breath and straightened again, I was racing through the trees, taking an uphill course. If I could tire the old man, I might stand a chance of beating him. Maybe. If he were as desperate for a heart as he’d claimed, he should be weak. He should lack stamina.

He’d shown no signs of it so far, though. And if he’d lied…

I wouldn’t think of that now.

He gave chase. I knew when I paused for a breath and heard him crashing through the pines, branches snapping, needles raining to the ground in his wake like minuscule raindrops, whispering down.

Higher, then. And I ran on.

And then the trees parted before me, opening all at once onto a sheer drop to the sea. Planting my feet, I nearly overbalanced. My arms whirled backward twice, then I went still, blinking at the vista spread out below my feet. Endless space, and below it, jagged rocks winking and blinking up at me as the waves covered and uncovered them. White froth.

“Oh, now, this is amusing.”

I turned slowly, faced Nathanial. He stood in a powerful crouch, and if his face was flushed, it was with excitement, not exhaustion. His eyes gleamed. He wasn’t tired. If anything he was thriving on this battle. “You made a grave mistake, didn’t you, Raven?”

Grimly I knew Arianna had been right. I didn’t have the skills to beat him. I’d never beaten him. And if I fought him now, he would kill me. And then perhaps he’d kill Duncan.

But if I didn’t…

He’d promised he would go after Duncan anyway.

I couldn’t die here. I had to survive, even if it meant running from this fight. At least that way I would be alive to warn Duncan, to protect him, or try to. Goddess, I should have listened to Arianna in the first place. She’d told me I couldn’t beat him.

I looked to the left, to the right. In the distance I saw two forms coming toward me. Far below, they moved along a path leading up to these cliffs. And as I stared down at them, focused my vision, I saw the woman’s soft blond hair riffling in the breeze, and then the dark locks of the man beside her. Arianna… and Duncan. As if sensing my eyes on them, they both looked up. Duncan pointed, and I saw his lips move. It was likely he called my name, though he was too far away for me to hear him. Then the two ran. They’d be here soon.

I met Nathanial’s eyes again. Cold.

“Yes,” he said, having seen my thoughts in my eyes. “But by the time they arrive, you’ll be dead. And I’ll be gone. And know this as you die, Raven. I will take Duncan’s heart, too, once you’re out of the way. Your friend can’t protect him forever.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. He was lying. I saw it there clearly. He wouldn’t take Duncan’s heart unless he had to. And he wouldn’t even attempt it while Arianna was nearby. He feared her.

But there was no time to work this out in my mind any further, because he leaped at me. His blade drove directly at my midsection, and though I moved to block the thrust, I moved too late. Hot steel sank deep into my belly. Burning pain, terrible pain. I cried out, but all that emerged was a gurgling sound and a mouthful of blood.

He jerked the blade out again. Then he reached for me. And I knew he would hold me and carve into my chest, rip out my heart, end it all now. I took a single step backward as he reached for me. And there was nothing there. Air. I fell into its breath. In silence I plummeted. No sound at all. Not until the impact.

Duncan ran. His lungs worked in a way he’d never felt them work before. Efficiently. Powerfully. The beat of his heart seemed like an engine. Unstoppable, strong. His legs pushed his body to speeds greater than he could have reached before. But he didn’t marvel at these changes. Only noted them and felt grateful, because it meant he could reach Raven faster.

He could still see her, facing his father—or the man he’d called his father—on the cliffs. Nathanial moved closer, until Raven seemed trapped.

“We’re not going to make it in time,” Duncan rasped.

“We have to.” Arianna’s voice was a monotone of utter determination.

Then Nathanial drove forward, and Raven went stiff. Duncan could see her eyes widen, see her lips move, and the scarlet that bubbled from them. She looked down, then toward him. And Nathanial jerked his blade from her belly.

“No!” Duncan screamed with a voice that rolled like thunder, like the words of the gods themselves; his command broke the silent pause on that cliff. “Dammit, Nathanial, leave her alone!”

But it was as if no one heard. Nathanial reached out. Raven stepped back and into oblivion. She didn’t even cry out. Just fell. Just fell. He could hear her clothes snapping like flags in the wind, see her hair fluttering. He screamed her name in anguish. His head felt as if it were exploding, splitting, when her body hit the rocks below. A shock went through him. Pain, horror, devastation…

And memory. The clear, vivid memory of all of this happening before.

His heart filled with long-repressed emotions, unbearable emotions he realized had been there all along. Condensed, perhaps, and bottled up somewhere. But the bottle had shattered and the feelings swelled until he didn’t think he could contain them. And then he was running, clambering, half climbing, half falling, sending a shower of rocks down the cliffs before him, hearing their plunking sounds as they hit the water. Sliding, skinning his hands and chin and every other part of him, tearing his clothes, he made his way to the bottom.

And then he paused on the shore and searched the unforgiving waves for her.

There.

She lay faceup, half submerged. Her head and one shoulder and arm were sprawled on a sloped rock. The rest of her body submerged, broken, as the waves tugged at it, so steadily and greedily that she’d be swept out to sea soon.

He moved as if entranced. Sloshing into the water, walking out deeper, deeper, then swimming. He’d kicked free of his shoes at some point. He wasn’t certain when. But he reached that rock and pulled himself up onto its slick surface. And then he gathered her broken body into his arms.

Limp. So limp, so shattered. A porcelain doll smashed and tossed aside.

“No,” he whispered. “No, not now. God, Raven, not now.”

Her hair, long, dripping with seawater that streamed over her face and shoulders. He gently smoothed it, stroked her face with his hand as his tears came. Burning hot, like acid on his cheeks, they flowed. They fell, and mingled with the water on her lips.

He clung tighter, pulling her full against him, rocking her slowly and weeping without control, without shame. So tightly, he held her body pressed to his, her lifeless head heavy on his shoulder. The enormity of it crushed down on him all at once. To have loved her this much, this damn much, so much it was every part of him, every cell, every breath, his soul, his life… all his lives… How could he not have known? How could he not have felt this? And now, now when he finally did feel it, and know it and recognize it for what it was, and remember it… she was gone. She was gone. Oh, God, she was gone!

He kissed her face, her hair, as sobs rose up and tore at his chest, threatening to split him in two. Now he understood how she’d felt all those years ago, when she’d held his lifeless, broken body on these rocks. Now he understood what she’d faced… all those years alone. God, they stretched out before him like a desert, where every grain of sand was a shard of glass, and which he had to cross barefoot without a sip of water.

“I willna,” he whispered. “I canna do it, Raven. I dinna know how you did, but I canna. I canna go on without you, lass.”

She had, though. Her strength must be an awesome thing, to enable her to survive with this kind of pain. Three hundred years. Three centuries, she’d dealt with it.

“An’ when you found me again, what did I do? God, Raven, what did I do to you? I trusted him, believed him.“” He let her head fall backward, staring down at her face, so pale and still and lovely. “How that must have hurt you. How could I hurt you like that? You… you, Raven, my soul, my heart. How many times will I lose you this way? How many times?”

Still. So still. So dead. He closed his eyes and held her, loving her with everything in him, and another memory came to him. He was standing there, holding her in his arms for the first time. Beneath a gallows as he sawed at the filthy rope with a pilfered blade. And held her, and cried for the woman he didn’t even know.

But he had. He’d known her then, somehow. Some way. His soul had recognized hers. His heart had known hers, and he’d loved her. He’d loved her from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.

“I told you I wasna the man you remembered, Raven. But I am. I’m Duncan Wallace, an’ I was born in 1675 in the land of the Scots, the land of my father an‘ his before him. I’m the man who loved you all those lifetimes ago, an“ I love you still, Raven St. James. I love you still.”

He drew a breath, somehow got to his feet, and holding her cradled as carefully as if she were made of ice crystal, he drew her with him as he made his way to shore. He wouldn’t leave her to the sea. He couldn’t. Something was niggling at him through his anguish. A faint, desperate hope that wouldn’t leave him alone. He didn’t want to let the hope form fully, for fear ’twould only destroy him if it turned out to be a false one. But as he stepped out of the waves and carried her onto the shore, he couldn’t suppress it any longer.

He laid her down, in the lush green grass, in a spot dotted with tiny blue forget-me-nots. And then he sat beside her, leaned over her, and gently spread her hair to dry in the grasses. “That first time I held you, lass, that first time I wept for you… you were nay dead then. You survived that noose. You told me you were immortal. You told me you couldna die unless the bastard took your heart.” He closed his eyes, recalling the thrust of Nathanial’s blade, but he’d been so far away. He couldn’t tell…

“Tell me that bastard didna do that.”

Gently he touched the front of her torn, bloodstained blouse. Even the cool kiss of the ocean hadn’t washed those stains away. Nothing would, and he hoped nothing would wash them from Nathanial’s hands, either.

His heart in his throat, he prayed in silence. Please… please, dinna let it be…

Opening her blouse, he stared down at her chest. Pale, beaded with droplets of seawater, but unmaimed. There was no gaping hole, no wound near her heart.

He spread the blouse further and saw the wound she had suffered, the deep cut of Nathanial’s blade, high in her belly. But even as he looked, that wound began to heal. Its edges puckered and pulled in on themselves as if magnetized. One side met the other, pressed like a kiss, and seemed to meld before his eyes.

Stunned, he drew his gaze upward, focused on her face, afraid to believe, afraid to hope…

“Raven?”

And then she went rigid, back arching off the ground, hands clenching fistfuls of grass at her sides, heels pressing the earth. Her neck arched as well, chin pointing skyward, and she sucked in a harsh, greedy breath. It made him think of electrocution, that brief seizure. Her eyes went wide, too wide, for just an instant. And then her body relaxed again, and she lay limp on the ground, blinking slowly, staring at him from unfocused eyes.

“Raven,” he whispered. “Raven, Raven, Raven.” He slipped his arms around her, beneath her, lifting her gently against him, holding her close, but not close enough. It would never be close enough. She hugged his neck, so pliable in his arms, melting there. His hands burying themselves in her hair, he drew her head back slightly, and then he pressed his lips to hers, kissing her more deeply, more urgently than he had in this lifetime. Kissing her the way he had before, in that other time, when he’d known what she was to him. Because he knew it now. He finally knew it now.

She blinked in confusion when he lifted his head away. Her slender, perfect fingers touched his cheeks, touched the tears there as she frowned. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t put the overwhelming things he was feeling into words. Not yet, not yet. He felt as if he’d been lost… wandering and lost, and searching… and now he’d found her. He’d found himself. He’d come home.

He bent and kissed her again, and this time he didn’t stop. His hands pushed her blouse away, caressed her breasts, felt them warming, felt her entire body warming to his touch. He kissed her neck, her shoulders, her belly, where that wound had been. He kissed the place where her heart beat in her chest and willed that it would always remain there, strong and alive and full of love for him. He kissed her hips as he undressed her. Her thighs. Her center, where he lingered. How he loved her. How he’d always loved her.

She whispered his name with her heart in her breath and her hands in his hair, and he tasted more of her, wanted to devour her, make her truly a part of him, take her inside him somehow and keep her there, cherished and safe. Always safe.

When she cried out, he moved up over her body once more. He ran his hands over her flesh. Living and warm. Over limbs, alive and responsive now, no longer limp and broken. Did she know what she was to him? Could she know? My God, was it even possible that he was that much to her, as well?

Yes. It shone from her eyes and danced on the tiny, tremulous smile on her lips as she opened to him, held him, drew him down, took him inside her. She held his gaze as he moved, and she moved with him. Rocked him, loved him. He stared right into her eyes, into her soul, it seemed, as he made love to her. And the pounding of her heart and the pounding of his own blended with the pounding of the waves against the shore until it was all one. All one… and he felt as if he and she were one. A single soul that had been split for a time, united again at long last. She never blinked, nor did he. And when her lips parted and her breaths came in short little gasps, and he rode her faster and harder and deeper, their gazes remained locked. He felt their souls connect and touch, through their eyes.

She cried out his name, those black eyes widening. He felt the pressure build inside him, and then the explosion as he spilled into her, his entire body quivering with the force of his release. And in that moment, he saw himself in her eyes. As if he truly had merged with her, as if his soul really did live inside her.

And only then did those eyes fall closed.

He relaxed atop her, sliding slightly to the side, to ease the burden of his weight. “I have so much to tell you,” he whispered.

She nodded. Kissed his head. “And I you. I’d been thinking, Duncan, that our chance had passed. That we could never be as we were before.” Her hand stroked his hair. “But I know now that I can’t go on without you, Duncan. So whatever you can give me, it will be enough. I’ll make it be enough.”

He lifted his head, stared down into her eyes. “You dinna ken what this was, do you, lass?”

She smiled slightly. “You sound like the Highland lad you were so long ago. Are you lapsing into a brogue you don’t even recall, Duncan?”

“Am I? I dinna care if I am. It doesna matter. Nothing does right now, except…” He licked his lips, swallowed hard. “When I saw you on the cliffs… when I saw you fall—”

She sat up straight, eyes flying wide. “Nathanial! The bastard nearly had me! Duncan, we have to…” She paused, looking past him. “Oh, no,” she whispered, and her face went pale.

“What is it?”

She snatched her clothes, wet and tattered, throwing them on haphazardly. “Arianna! She was with you. Where did she go, Duncan, where—”

He gave his head a shake. He’d completely forgotten about Raven’s friend. “We… we were together when you went over the edge. I dinna ken where she went then, Raven. I was only thinkin’ of you, trying to get to you. When I did… she wasna with me.“

Her face crumpled, and her fingers went to her lips. Open-mouthed, she sucked in a breath and got to her feet, righting her clothes as best she could. “She’s gone after Nathanial.” Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “He’s better than either of us knew, Duncan. He’ll kill her.”

“We’ll stop him.” He helped her to her feet, and when she stumbled, held her tight to his side. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Raven nodded. Always so strong, so determined. “I love her, Duncan.”

“I know. I can see it.”

“He probably ran back to his lair—that obscenity he calls a museum. He doesn’t want to face Arianna. He fears her… She fought him once… nearly beat him, I think.”

“That’s where we’ll go. It’ll be all right, Raven, I promise. He’s never goin’ to hurt you, nor anyone you care about, ever again. I swear it.“

She stared up at him, and he saw the questions in her eyes. Maybe because he’d spoken with such passion just now, maybe because she sensed he meant every word.

“Later,” he promised, bending to plant a quick, tender kiss on her mouth. “I’ll tell you everythin’ later.“

He took her hand, closed his eyes briefly in ecstasy as he realized how good it was to hold that hand in his again… and together, they ran.

Chapter 22

Damn!

She’d done it, Nathanial thought viciously. Raven St. James had come between him and Duncan all over again. And she’d gotten away with it!

He’d had the woman! Had her right in his hands, impaled on his dagger, and still she managed to escape him! He should have held on to her, should have… but what use were should haves now? She’d escaped him. Fallen from those cliffs, to send his soft-hearted son scurrying after her. Once again Duncan had chosen Raven over Nathanial, even now, when they were supposed to be father and son. Even now.

But not her fair-haired companion. No, Arianna hadn’t been distracted for a moment. She’d headed up the cliffs, not down. And Nathanial had known then that she was coming for him.

He should have left this town, this state, perhaps this country, right then. Should have fled Arianna’s wrath without hesitation. He could seek out some weaker immortal once he was safely away, take the first heart he found and get stronger. But to leave without the hearts he’d already taken—those he kept captive in small wooden boxes— would be to leave whatever vitality remained. So he’d returned to the old courthouse, to the small room at the top where he kept them, locked away from prying eyes inside their tiny wooden prisons. Some beat so weakly now they could barely be heard. He suspected they’d stop one day. But they hadn’t. Most were no longer strong enough to support life, yet they kept beating on. One beat an hour, one beat a day. Were they truly immortal? Would they beat eternally? Somewhere, perhaps, in the dusty tomes he’d collected over the centuries, he might find an answer to that puzzle. An explanation. But he hadn’t yet.

If she arrived in time, he never would. And there would be no time to take his books or his journals with him.

Quickly he opened a large case and set it in the middle of the floor. And then he snatched the most recent kills, the strongest hearts, from the shelf, carefully setting those boxes inside.

Speed was of the essence here. He couldn’t face her, not now. She’d nearly beaten him once long ago, when he’d mistaken her for easy prey in Scotland. She’d been younger then. Weaker. He’d been at his best.

And she’d nearly killed him.

He would never forget the power of emotion again. Even as he’d battled, losing ground with every thrust, he’d wondered at her strength, her power. And reading his mind, it seemed, she’d uttered her curse. “You took the man I loved,” she’d all but growled. “And I’ll kill you for it.”

She nearly had. He’d run. Fled for his life, from a mere infant of a High Witch. And a woman, at that.

Thrusting the memory away, he closed his case, hefted it, and turned toward the doorway. Never again would he underestimate the power of hatred.

“It wasn’t the power of hatred, Nathanial.”

Her voice brought him up short. She stepped into view, into the doorway, blocking his escape. Arianna, a tiny mite of a woman standing with her legs wide, hands planted on her hips.

“So you truly do read my thoughts?”

“I hear thoughts sometimes. Yours are like poison. I’ll be glad to end them forever. But in the meantime, Nathanial, know this. Hatred has no power. The power that nearly killed you then was the power of love. My love for one of the many you murdered. And it’s that same power that will destroy you now.”

He took a step backward, setting the case on the floor to free his hands. “Which one was he, this victim of mine? It’s been so long… I can scarcely remember them all. Was he the barbaric Celtic warlord? The Mayan Shaman?” He shrugged. “Not that it matters. They all died on their knees, begging for mercy.”

“I can hardly wait to see how you do,” she said, and drew her dagger, held it lightly, tossed it from one hand to the other. “But to remind you, his name was Nicodimus, and he died with the blade of a coward in his back.”

She’d kill him. Nathanial knew it beyond a doubt. If he played by the rules.

He swallowed hard. “Will you kill me unarmed, Arianna, or give me a chance to draw my blade?” His hand inched toward the leather pocket at his side. He’d known she might get here before he could escape. He wasn’t a fool. He’d prepared for this.

She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll kill you in a fair fight or not at all,” she told him. “Go on.” And she nodded.

He drew the weapon from its sheath. Not his dagger. But a crude and inelegant handgun, the killing machine of the modern age. She sucked in a breath, but he simply leveled the barrel and pulled the trigger.

The impact sent her backward into the hall. She hit the stairs and tumbled, head over feet. Her body crashed down upon the first landing, bounced off the wall, and continued its brutal descent to the ground floor. Finally she came to rest at the bottom in a twisted, broken tangle.

Nathanial descended slowly, smiling to himself, and making certain she could hear his footsteps. He replaced the handgun, and drew out the blade as he approached her prone, battered form. She couldn’t move. Dying, she was dying. He’d make sure it was permanent.

“It’s a shame you prefer a fair fight,” he said, and he crouched over her, gripped her blouse in one fist, and tore it open. Sliced the center of her silken bra so that her breasts spilled free. “I prefer a sure win, myself.”

“Raven… will kill you for this…”

“Oh, I’m sure she will try.” He positioned the tip of his blade just to the left of the center of her chest. “Do you ever wonder about the bodies, Arianna?” he asked, pressing a little, drawing a droplet of blood, and hearing her suck air through her teeth. “They die, but don’t really. They remain ever new, ever young. Do you suppose their minds are still alive, as well? Do you suppose they know that they’ve been buried alive?”

He smiled slowly at the terror in her brown eyes, and then he drove the blade in to the hilt.

Raven went still, eyes bulging, and screamed out loud. Her hands pressed to her chest, and she dropped to her knees.

Duncan was beside her in a heartbeat. They’d just stopped his car, got out, and had been running toward the courthouse when she’d suddenly… suddenly what!

“What’s wrong? Raven, what—”

She didn’t answer, just lifted her wounded, watering eyes toward the courthouse, and screamed, “Arianna! Arianna! Noooooo!”

He didn’t know what to do. Didn’t want to leave her, but he had to go inside, and sensed what he would find once he got there. He scooped her into his arms, and headed for the car, intending to lock her in where she’d be safe while he went to see to Nathanial.

Halfway there she squirmed free and hit the ground running. He saw her pull that dagger from her hip as she went. Could barely keep up with her speed. Damn, he didn’t want her going in there if what he thought was true.

She burst through the front door, cried out, and raced ahead. Duncan entered on her heels, only to find her on the floor, holding Arianna’s blood-soaked body in her arms, sobbing hysterically. Arianna was a slick, scarlet shimmer. Raven was rapidly becoming one, too. He saw the gaping, jagged hole in Arianna’s chest, and then he looked away, unable to bear the sight.

It only took a footstep from above, and a glimpse of Raven’s eyes to set him into motion. Nathanial would pay. He’d pay for this.

“Kill him,” Raven whispered through gritted teeth, her voice raw.

Duncan nodded once and took the blade Arianna had given him from its place at his side. Carefully he stepped over the body at the foot of the stairs and headed up. And then he paused, because he swore he heard a whisper.

“Take mine, too.”

He turned quickly. But Raven only knelt, crying, and Arianna couldn’t have spoken a word. Still, he knelt and took Arianna’s blade from where it lay on the floor beside her, blessedly away from the spreading crimson pool. He tucked it into the back of his jeans, and continued up the stairs.

The sound came from the room at the top. It lay up a second flight, and through a door.

Duncan stepped into the room to see his self-proclaimed father opening the window, a suitcase at his side. His hands were coated in Arianna’s blood, his sleeves stained with it. Atop the suitcase sat a small wooden box, fresh blood dripping down its sides, a soft beat coming steadily from within. Arianna’s heart.

“Damn you to hell for this,” Duncan said softly.

Nathanial turned. He met Duncan’s eyes, closed his own. “Not you, Duncan,” he whispered. “I’ll face any of them, but not you.”

Duncan stepped forward. “Maybe I havena been immortal long enough yet to understand. You’re willin’ to fight with women, but not with a man?“

“Not with my son.”

“I’m not your son,” he said very softly. “The only father I knew was Angus Wallace, and he’s been dead over three hundred years. I suppose I had another, this time around. But ”twasna you, Nathanial Dearborne. ’Twas never you.”

Nathanial lowered his eyes. “So you remember.”

“Aye. I remember the man you were. A killer in the guise of a priest. Makin‘ a mockery of the faith you pretended to serve.“

“It’s all true. But you don’t understand, Duncan.”

“I understand that you had my birth parents murdered just to get your hands on me. Raised me without a hint of love, all so I’d lead you to Raven one day.”

Again, Nathanial nodded, confirming what Duncan had still hoped, in some tiny corner of his mind, he would deny. “It began that way, Duncan. But the truth is… I’ve come to care for you, boy. Just as I did before.”

“I can see how you care for me. ”Twas clear in the way you tried to murder the woman I love.“

“I might have died without another heart.”

“You think that makes it all right? You kill others just to prolong your own life, an’ you think that makes it all right?“

Nathanial shook his head slowly. “It’s the way things are for us, Duncan. The way it’s always been…”

“Not for you,” Duncan uttered quietly. “Not anymore.”

Nathanial closed his eyes. “I don’t want to kill you, Duncan, but I will if you make me.”

“I rather thought you would. An’ that says it all. Dinna you think… Father!“

Duncan lunged forward, still seeing Arianna’s blood, Raven’s pain, in his mind’s eye. Nathanial dodged, and then drew his own blade, attacking, stabbing, fighting as fiercely as an animal, a rabid animal.

“You’ve no chance against me, Duncan. I’ve seven hundred years of practice!”

Duncan tried again, but this time Nathanial kicked and the blade went sailing out of Duncan’s hand.

He heard Raven, her footsteps rushing up the stairs, through the door.

“Don’t, Duncan! Don’t fight him! I didn’t mean—I wasn’t thinking!”

Nathanial lifted his blade and came at him. Raven ran into the room behind him and cried out. And Duncan stood where he was. One hand flashed behind him, to close around Arianna’s blade. He brought it forward just as Nathanial lunged at him. And the blade sank into the old man’s chest, deeply and brutally, though Duncan hadn’t even thrust it. ’Twas Nathanial’s own forward motion, his attack, his own hatred, that killed him.

Blood welled, warm and thick, spilling over Duncan’s hands, and he took them away, disgusted. Sickened.

For a moment he stood, looking down at the man he’d called father, the man who lay dying. “I wanted your love,” he said. “I wanted it more than you know.”

Blinking slowly, his eyes already glazing over, Nathanial whispered, “You had it, son. I did love you… in my way…” His eyes fell closed, briefly. But then they opened again. His hand snatched the front of Duncan’s shirt with surprising strength, and he pulled him close. “I’ll prove it to you now,” he managed, and then he whispered something in Duncan’s ear. A second later his breaths stopped, his hand went slack, and Duncan straightened away from him.

Duncan’s throat closed off and he turned away, eyes burning. Raven enfolded him in her arms. Held him tight to her, where he belonged. Nathanial hadn’t loved him. That wasn’t love. Even with that one final gesture, it wasn’t love. Guilt, maybe. This was love, this thing he felt right here, this woman he held, who was healing him even now. This was love, and ’twas all he needed. All he had ever needed, or ever would.

“Don’t mourn him, Duncan. The world’s better off without him. He was evil.”

“I know.” He looked down at her, kissed her lips, finding some soothing elixir in her taste that eased his heartache. “But he’s still evil. He’ll… he’ll revive… ?”

“I’ll do what has to be done.”

He stepped away from her, searched her face. “Nay, lass. I canna ask you to do that—“

“I’ll do it, Duncan… I’ll do it because I love you.” She touched his shoulders, kissed his face. “If you knew, my darling, if you knew what you were to me… What you still are to me, you’d understand. Let me do this for you.”

“What I… still am?” he asked her. Lowering his head, he shook it slowly. “I doubted you. I called you crazy and gave my father more chances than a saint deserves, while refusing you so much as the benefit of the doubt. I nearly got you killed, Raven—”

“No.” She shook her head hard. “No, Duncan, it was your father who nearly killed me. You had no part in that.”

“An’ Arianna? Will you tell me now that her blood doesna stain my hands?“

Raven took his hands in hers, holding them tightly. “This is the way we live, Duncan. The Dark Ones pursue us, and when we meet them, we fight. Sometimes…” Her eyes filled, though she blinked against the tears. “Sometimes we die. Arianna knew that as I do, and she’d never have blamed you. She cared for you, Duncan. And I love you now, as I always have.”

“Do you, lass?”

She nodded. “I always will,” she told him.

Sighing, he nodded. He’d tell her the truth—that he did remember, that he was the man she’d been searching for all this time… that he loved her. By the Gods, he loved her! But first he wanted to give her something. A gift. A gift he knew how to give… because of an evil man’s dying words. And they might have been lies for all he knew. But he had to try.

“I’ll take care of Arianna,” he whispered, saw her close her eyes in stark pain. Then he picked up the small box, felt the chilling thrum of its beat from within, and carried it down with him.

I took Nathanial Dearborne’s heart. Not because I could grow strong by draining its power, but because it was the only way he would remain dead. The only way I could be sure. I would burn it, and his body, when this gruesome task ended. I would free his soul, and perhaps on some other plane, he’d learn what this long lifetime had been about. Perhaps he’d live again one day, a decent, loving man. A father, perhaps, who would learn the meaning of the word.

Gently, I placed Nathanial’s heart in an empty box on the shelf, but as I did so, I couldn’t help but notice all the other boxes, and the weak, slow beats emanating from them. His victims. All his victims. I’d burn this place. I’d destroy the hearts that lived on here, beating endlessly while the bodies that had once owned them lay in some nightmarish state between life and death. I’d burn them all and, in so doing, set their captive souls free.

Sighing, I felt my heart breaking for all of them, but mostly for my sister, my Arianna, my beloved best friend and kindred spirit. I felt empty, lost without her. As lost as I had been all those years without Duncan.

Had I ever told her, I wondered, how very much she meant to me?

Crying, I washed my hands in a basin of water, and then I went down the stairs.

Arianna’s body was no longer there, tangled and bloody. Duncan had moved her to an antique chaise fit for a goddess. He’d draped a sheet over her as she reclined there. And for that, I was grateful.

Duncan awaited me at the foot of the stairs. His dark hair tousled, his eyes swirling cauldrons of emotion. I saw so much there as his intense gaze locked with mine; pain, grief, shock. And something more. He took me into his arms when I reached him. I thought he needed to hold me as much as I did him, just then. To feed from my strength, to bolster me with his. Together we were so much more than either of us was alone. But that couldn’t be what he was feeling. Maybe three centuries ago, but not now.

“I have to tell you some things, Raven. An’ I hope you’ll do me the honor of listenin‘ before you interrupt.“

Smiling just a little, tears still spilling from my eyes, I stepped back and looked up at him. “Your Highland lilt is back, Duncan. I… it was upstairs, but I was too…” I frowned hard, searching his face. “What does this mean?”

“I thought you liked my lilt.”

“I do. I just don’t understand why it keeps slipping into your speech.”

“Tis more than the accent that’s come back to me, Raven.“

I blinked… then blinked again and searched his eyes. “Duncan?”

“I love you, lass,” he said very softly. “I’ve been fallin’ in love with you all over again, ever since I found you, Raven, but ‘tis more than that now. It has come back to me. All of it, all you were to me, an“ all I was to you. All we still are to each other.” He closed his eyes, searching for words as his strong hands kneaded my shoulders in time with the beat of my heart.

I tried to speak and couldn’t.

He opened his eyes, and they were wet. “When I saw you fall… ”twas like a doorway into the past opened up wide. An‘ God, my sweet bonny lass, when I held your poor broken body in my arms on those rocks, I knew…“ He cradled my face in his hands, his eyes poring over me. ”You’re everythin“ to me, Raven. Everythin’. You always were. My mind might have forgotten for a little while, but my heart remembered you, lass, from the moment I set eyes on you again. I love you, Raven.”

I touched his face, searched his eyes, and saw him there. Duncan Wallace, the man I’d loved so long ago, alive again, fully alive at last. “Duncan…” I collapsed in his arms, wanting to weep for joy. “Oh, Duncan, hold me. Hold me forever.”

“We’ll never be apart again, love. Never again, I vow it to you.” He kissed me with such passion and love, and held me cradled against his chest, wrapped warmly in his arms.

“You truly remember everything?”

“Aye,” he said softly. “The night I watched you through the cabin windows, bathin’, singin‘ like a siren, an“ drawin’ me near. The first time we made love on the cliffs with the sea crashing below us… all of it.”

I could barely breathe, so tight was my chest. I closed my eyes. “And how you died…just because I didn’t trust in you enough to tell you the truth?” I asked him.

He stepped back slightly so he could see my face. “I’d die a thousand times for you, Raven St. James. An’ even that wouldna show you the limits of my love. I canna… I canna find the words… there are no words. “Tis beyond somethin‘ as mundane as language. ”Tis beyond anythin“ physical…’Tis pure, Raven. Spiritual. Holy. You… are a part of me. Even death couldna change that.”

“No. Not even death,” I told him.

“I need you the way I need air,” he whispered, and my heart soared. He held me tight and kissed me, so tenderly, so deeply, that I knew he truly meant every word. “An’ I believe all that happened to us was just as ‘twas meant to happen. Had it been different, I’d be long dead by now, an“ you with no hope of seein’ me again.”

I closed my eyes. “I can’t even imagine living with that kind of pain.”

“I want to take your pain away, my love,” Duncan whispered. “All your pain. An’ I think I can. I think so long as I’m with you, you’ll never hurt again. Not if I can prevent it.“

I lifted my head and glanced toward the sheet-draped body of the other person I’d come to love beyond reason. And my joy dimmed beneath a fresh onslaught of sorrow. The sister of my soul lay dead and beyond my reach.

“No one can ease this pain,” I said very softly. “Not even you, Duncan, though I love you with everything in me. I’m so glad you’ve come back to me. Truly come back, at last. So long, I’ve waited. And maybe… maybe someday Arianna will find her way back to me as well.”

Duncan looked toward where Arianna lay, and his eyes widened for just an instant. Then he smiled, a tentative, wary smile. “Maybe sooner than you think,” he said. He took my hands in his, staring down into my eyes. “Nathanial… he said somethin’ to me as he lay dyin‘.“

I tilted my head, frowned up at him. “I don’t under—”

“He said, ”The heart beats on. The body only rests. Put it back.“ An’ then he repeated, it. “Put it back,” he kept sayin‘. “Put it back.”

I shook my head, and my breath caught in my throat. “P-put it back?”

Duncan nodded. “Aye. So… I did.”

“But…” I looked toward the chaise. Blinked my eyes as the sheet seemed to move. And then it moved again. “It can’t be… Arianna?”

The body beneath the sheet went stiff, the arms rigid, the sheet flinging aside as a desperate gasping sound filled the room. The sheet fluttered to the floor, revealing Arianna’s body, arching and taut… then relaxing back to the chaise. Still, unmoving, eyes closed.

I took a step forward. “Arianna?” I whispered, almost afraid to hope…

Her eyes opened. Arianna blinked, looked around, and then sat up fast, wide-eyed with fear. “What—Where—” Her hands clawed at her chest in search of the remembered wound.

I ran to her. “Arianna… Arianna, it’s all right. It’s okay, I’m right here.”

She stared at me, shocked and disoriented. Slowly she tugged at the remnants of her torn blouse and stared down at her chest. Even now, I could see the lines of the jagged cut, barely visible in her flesh, fading fast.

“How… how did you… what…”

I stroked her hair. “It’s over, Arianna. You’re all right.” My smile was watery and my chest nearly bursting with emotion. I hugged her close. “You’re really all right.”

“B-but…” She hugged me back, but she was trembling. “He took my heart,” she whispered.

“I know, I know, darling. But now I’ve taken his. And yours… yours beats still, back inside you, where it belongs.”

“But—”

’Twas Nathanial,“ Duncan said from behind me. His hands clasped my shoulders. Then he reached down and stroked Arianna’s hair as she lifted her head to stare up at him. ”He seemed to want to clear his conscience,“ Duncan explained. ”So he told me how to bring you back.“

Sitting back away from me, Arianna gazed up at him. “But how could he know that? I didn’t even know that… and… and…” Her eyes widened and her voice became a soft croak, barely audible. “He has other hearts here…”

“Well, yes, weak ones. Nearly lifeless, some of them. But—”

“Don’t you see?” She grasped my shoulders, shook me gently. “My Goddess, Raven, don’t you see?”

I met her eyes, and slowly shook my head.

She swallowed hard and seemed to gather herself. “Never mind. Never mind, I… this isn’t the time. We have to get out of here. Cover this up. My God, if they find this place, the blood, his body up there like that…“

“You’re right,” I said.

She got to her feet, holding the sheet around her and moving slowly forward, until she stood toe to toe with Duncan. “You… you did all right for a newborn.”

He lifted a brow. “Aye, I suppose so. Better than you, at least.” And I saw a teasing gleam in Duncan’s eyes.

“He’d never have taken me without cheating,” Arianna said, looking a bit more like herself, I thought. Slightly mischievous, cocky, arrogant.

“I have no doubt,” Duncan returned.

She smiled, tilted her head. “You saved my life… returned my life, more precisely.”

He nodded. “You did the same for me, that night when I died, with your castin’ and conjurin‘.“ He stared at me then, but continued speaking to Arianna. ”You gave me back my life.“

“Ah, so you finally got your head straight, did you?”

“I got my heart back, just like you,” he said. “An’ I’ll never let her get away from me again.“

“And I’ll never let mine slip away, either,” I promised him.

Arianna put one hand on Duncan’s, one on mine, and drew the two together. “A love like yours is so precious,” she said, and her voice got a little gruff, drawing my gaze to the tear that shimmered in her eye. “And a second chance is a gift beyond measure. Not everyone gets that. Cherish it.”

The tear spilled, glistening on her cheek, rolling slowly downward.

“Arianna?” I whispered, instantly concerned.

“No. No, we have work to do tonight. And when it’s done, we celebrate. This is no time for tears. Tears make their own time. Tears… belong in private. Come.” And she drew us out, out of that house of death, and into the night.

Hand in hand, Duncan and I walked away from sadness and loneliness and grief. And for the first time I could remember, the future looked bright… and it would be. As long as we were together.

Epilogue

Hours later we stood far away from the courthouse as its red-orange flame licked up into the night sky. Duncan and I stood arm in arm, watching the fire. And I felt like a Phoenix. I’d survived the flames, I’d risen from the ashes, and now, at last, I would live again.

Duncan’s arm was around me, strong and firm, just as I remembered it. He was just as I remembered him. Just as I loved him, and I loved him still.

Apart from us a little, Arianna knelt. She’d gathered all the small boxes with their weakening, barely beating hearts, and they sat around her in a circle. In her hands she held the other box, the one that held the heart of Nathanial Dearborne. She’d taken all of these, along with all of Nathanial’s books, from the house before we’d set it alight. I suspected she wanted to work a special ritual over them before putting them to the torch and freeing their captive souls once and for all.

Staring at the flames that even now devoured Nathanial Dearborne’s body, Arianna lifted the box that held his heart high above her. In silence Duncan and I closed our eyes and aided in empowering her spell by joining our will with hers as Arianna spoke in a low but powerful voice.

“Thy spirit is free, and separate from thee. Thy body’s no more, thy spirit can soar! I release thee, Nathanial Dearborne, and commend thy spirit to the light.”

Then she lifted the box higher, for the heart beat on.

“The life in this heart, this heart does not own. Return to thine own hearts, return to thy home!”

I caught my breath as at last I realized her intent. “Arianna, no. You mustn’t—”

“As I will it,” she cried, her voice ringing with sheer force, “so mote it be!”

The sound of the beating from within that box grew suddenly louder, suddenly deafening, and then all at once, the box burst into flames. I caught my breath as the blazing thing tumbled from Arianna’s hands to the ground, snapping and crackling as if soaked in some propellant. In seconds it flickered and died, leaving only ashes. Arianna sighed and relaxed. Nathanial’s heartbeat was silenced now. Utterly, completely silenced.

She sank to the ground, lowered her head. And one by one the soft, weak thrum of the dying hearts in the boxes around her grew stronger, louder, until they all pumped with the steady rhythm of life.

I lowered my head into my hands. “Oh, Arianna,” I whispered. “What have you done?”

“The hearts live on, the bodies only rest,” she told me. “That’s what Nathanial said, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But these were nearly gone. You should have helped them pass, Arianna, helped them find release, and peace. Now who knows how long they’ll go on beating from those prisons?”

Slowly she shook her head. “No. We don’t know that they’d ever have stopped beating entirely, do we?”

“Well, no, but we could have cremated them—”

“It would have been too much like murder,” she declared.

“Those hearts were not strong enough to sustain life, Arianna.“

“And now they are,” she shot back. “Now they’re as strong and as healthy as they were when he stole them.”

“But I don’t understand.”

Duncan’s hand closed around mine. “I do,” he said. He met Arianna’s eyes. “You’re goin’ to put them back.“

She smiled gently, and nodded. “If I can find the bodies they belong to. Nathanial kept journals and diaries among all those books of his. There might be clues there. If it worked for me… Well, there’s a chance.“

I stiffened, and stepped forward. “You… you’re leaving me?”

“Yes, my darling.” She cupped my cheek with her palm, leaned forward, and kissed me very gently, very briefly. “It’s time. This is your time, yours and Duncan’s.”

“No!” I cried. “No, you don’t have to leave. We want you with us. Tell her, Duncan!”

“She knows,” he said softly. “But I think this is her time, too. Her second chance… maybe.”

Arianna’s lips pulled tight, and her eyes welled with tears. “One of these hearts… means more to me than my own,” she said, then she bit her lip, but her tears fell anyway. “If there’s a chance in a million that I can find him… that I can restore him… I have to try.”

I blinked, searching her face. “You… you loved him.”

She said nothing, but I could see the truth in her eyes. So I hugged her close, held her a long time. “I will never be more than a wish away,” I promised her. “And you’ll come back to me. Promise me you will.”

“You know I will, little sister.”

Sniffling, I released her. Arianna gathered the small boxes, the six hearts of Nathanial’s victims, and gently packed them in a satchel. Then she zipped it tight and gathered it up. “I love you, you know,” she told me. Then she glanced at Duncan. “Both of you.”

“If you need us—” Duncan began.

“Ha! Me? Need help? You do make me laugh, Duncan.” But she said it with a wink and a smile. Then her smile died. “Take care of each other,” she whispered, just before she turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.

But not from my life. She’d return to tell me all about her adventures, and this mysterious man she sought. I knew she would. We were sisters, and always would be. Nothing could change that.

Just as nothing could change the love Duncan and I shared. A love beyond mortality. Beyond life, or death, or the forces of evil.

“Well, we should get started, too,” he said.

“Get started?” I turned toward him, and he gently brushed the tears from my eyes.

“I guess you didna believe me, did you lass? When I said I’d see to it you never hurt again.“

“Of course I did, but—”

“Then we’d best get started. I’ve lots of time to make up for, you know. Three hundred years of lovin’ to give to you. Three hundred years of sweet nothin’s to whisper into your ears, an‘ of gifts, an’ of kisses an’ pamperin’.“

I nodded. “And I suppose I have three hundred years of magick and of fighting to teach you.”

“Aye. But first, we travel.”

I tilted my head.

Duncan smiled and kissed my nose. “We dinna want that stubborn sister of yours to get too far ahead of us, do we?“

“We’re… going with her?”

“Aye, we’re goin’ with her.“

“But why?”

He stared down at me, his dark eyes growing darker, even as the light of that distant fire danced its reflection in their depths. “If you could see the joy in your eyes right now, love, I’d point to it, an’ I’d tell you, “That’s why.” I love you, Raven St. James. What makes you happy, makes me happy. I love you. I love you, lass.‘“

I closed my eyes when he kissed me again, and I knew it was true. The darkest night of my soul had ended, though it had been three centuries long. Dawn had finally broken, and my heart was whole again.

--2 Infinity (1999)--

JOVE BOOKS NEW YORK

Copyright © 1999 by Margaret Benson.

ISBN: 0-515-12610-1

Darkness

unfurled its shroud upon my soul

long before Death could take his toll

I walked in place,

breathed air without taste

A blind man with eyes

A dead man alive

A corpse animated

A hunger unsated

A soul made of stone

A heart with no home

Sunlight

spilled Her gold and warmed my skin,

though I fought not to let Her in.

I emerged from the grave,

by the magick She gave

The dirt in my eyes,

swept away by Her sighs

A dead man, reborn

Night gave way to morn

My hunger She sates

My fear She abates

My soul, She does own

My heart has come home

Infinity

unfolds through space and time,

as soft I hold Her hand in mine

I've found Her again

and a love without end

As Her kiss I taste,

my tears are erased

My grief-crippled soul,

at Her touch is made whole

And the gift from above,

is the joy of Her love

—Nicodimus Lachlan

Prologue

I am lying in a shallow grave, immersed as if in the bowels of some great, black sea. I know not how long I have been captive in this void, nor do I care. But something has disturbed me, has stirred me to consciousness ... of a sort. A sound. A steady beat, pulsing ever more strongly, forcing me back to the realm of coherent thought.

And thought alone.

The silk that once wrapped my body has rotted away. I have no coffin. Black, rocky soil is my tomb. But I am not dead. As dead as I can be, perhaps, and that is my greatest fear. I am . . . immortal.

I do not want this ... to think. To know. To remember. But that drumbeat in my mind will not release me. And bit by bit, my mind clears, my past resurfaces.

My name ... do I even know my own name?

I grasp in the darkness of my mind, fighting a momentary panic, and find it there ... Nicodimus. That is my name ... Nicodimus.

The beat that stirred me grows louder, as faint memories taunt me through the mists of my mind. There is no light, no return of feeling or sense. Only of awareness. Horrible,

wrenching awareness. A living nightmare. The knowledge that I have been buried alive.

And the beat grows still louder.

Gods, it is my heart! It is near. I sense it drawing closer to me the way a lodestone can sense the north. I feel its beat growing stronger when logic tells me it should be weakening ... slowing, fading, as its power is steadily drained by its greedy captor.

And yet, the proximity of the organ matters not. My heart is no longer my own, and without it, here is where I shall remain. I wonder, can the heart of an immortal ever cease its endless beating? And if it should, will the soul of its rightful owner find blessed release at last?

If not, then what remains for me? A living mind trapped in this undying body. A living soul held captive in a dead man's grave. How long can this go on? How long?

Forever.

The answer comes to me as if riding a whisper-soft breath. Her breath.

At the first thought of her, those teasing, distant memories break free at last, and rush through my mind all at once in a chaos of emotion too agonizingly shrill and sharp to bear. Images and fragments, painfully vivid, blindingly bright... that all begin with...

Arianna.

Arianna.

Arianna....

Part One

Chapter 1

1511, Stonehaven Village, in the Scottish Highlands

I rode my faithful Black, and he stepped high, as though he knew the man he bore to be of an utterly different breed than those others who surrounded us. Beside me rode an old friend ... a mortal, chieftain of his clan, and laird as well. Joseph Lachlan welcomed my visit. He called me his cousin because I claimed to be. But though I supposed I might be some distant relative of his, the link was too old to trace now. I used the name and claimed the clan Lachlan only when it suited me.

Joseph didn't doubt me, nor did he ask why I might need to retreat here for a time. And that was just as well, for I couldn't have told him the answers had he questioned me. The truth was that resting from the constant battle was only one of the reasons I'd come.

Another was the skulking, dark robed pair who'd been following me on and off over the previous seven centuries. Always silent, always faceless within the caves of their hoods. But I didn't need to look upon their faces to know. I'd avoided them sometimes. On other occasions, they had vanished without explanation. But more often than not, I'd

fought them. Sometimes one at a time, frequently both together. Once I had nearly bested Kohl, but he fled before I could finish the job. And once—this last time—the two immortal brothers had done the same to me, and I had fled. To Stonehaven—my sanctuary.

I feared very little, almost nothing. But there was a cold dread in the pit of my stomach where my oldest and most bitter enemies were concerned. And it came, I believe, of knowing exactly why they had stalked me so doggedly, and for so long.

They blamed me for the deaths of their sister and their nephews ... my wife and my sons. And they would never stop until they had taken my heart.

Or I theirs.

So I had come here to rest from the endless fighting. I put it from my thoughts in order to focus on the other reason I had returned to Stonehaven—the more important one. Her. The girl who had drawn me back here time and time again over the past seventeen years.

"You never age, Nicodimus," Joseph remarked. "You look to be the same fair lad I last saw five years past."

I sent a cocky grin his way. "And you've grown wrinkles about your eyes, Joseph. Soon I'll mistake you for my father." Joseph was perfectly bald, his pale head as shiny as his cheeks and his bulbous nose. He did have brows and lashes, but of a hue so pale it seemed as if he were entirely hairless. When he smiled, as he often did, it seemed even his bald head smiled along.

"No hope of that, lad. Your father was twice the man I'll ever be." Joseph lowered his chin. "I do miss him. But havin' you here on occasion is almost like havin' my dear cousin back with me again."

I had to avert my eyes. Joseph had never known my father. He had known only me. But when he'd seen me die at his side on a field of battle, I'd had no choice but to stay away for many years. And when I returned—as I had been compelled to do—I had simply claimed to be my own son. He had believed me.

"My father often spoke similarly of you, Joseph," I said

after a pause. I nudged Black's sides with my heels. The stallion trotted forward along the narrow, twisting paths of the village, chickens scattering in his wake. A fat man rolled a barrel of ale from a rickety wagon into the daub-and-waddle hovel that passed as the village tavern, while across the way a woman hurled wash water from a window hole where no glass had ever stood.

I'd seen London and Rome, Paris and Constantinople, great cities all around the world. Yet I marveled at how this tiny hamlet had grown. For when I had lived there it had borne no name. My home had been a thatched straw hut, cured hides stretched over the walls had served to keep out the cold. The meat I killed, my wife had cooked over a fire on the dirt floor.

Anya. Beautiful Anya. Meek, gentle, fragile. I could see her still, in my mind. Soft brown hair and eyes like the palest winter sky, her belly swelling with our third child as she watched over the other two. And I could see our boys. Jaymes, growing taller by the day and too skinny to stand up to a windstorm, though he ate more than his brother and I together. He had his mother's coloring, Jaymes did. And Will, a head shorter, but strong, already looking more man than boy. Hunting at my side, and outdoing me now and again. Begging to fight beside me as well.

The old pain trembled and howled and threatened to break free. I caught it with a will of forged steel, and forced it still and silent.

"The village hasna' changed since last you were here," Joseph said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Ahead of me, the crofters' cottages leaned crookedly, their thatched roofs showing wear. I caught myself studying the villagers we passed, with their well-worn kilts and haggard faces, and realized I was seeking the golden child as I did on each visit. But I did not see her there. And it occurred to me then that I might not even recognize her at first glance, after so long.

I nearly smiled at the unlikelihood of that.

She stood out from the rest of the villagers the way a diamond stands out among bits of coal; her dark brown

eyes gleaming against ivory skin. Her corn-yellow hair. Her upturned bit of a nose, and the gleam of life in her little girl eyes. And more. A spirit, a fire, undefinable, yet all but gleaming in its brilliance.

She had been a child, barely twelve years of age, when last I had seen her. She would be ... seven and ten now. Quite possibly wed—though people here now married later than they used to. I'd made Anya my wife when I'd been but four and ten. But things changed a great deal in seven long centuries. And wedded or not, this girl, Arianna, was likely still unaware of what she truly was.

"Is that saddle maker still in the village, Joseph?" I asked abruptly. "Sinclair, wasn't it?"

"Aye. Is your saddle in need of repair?" Joseph eyed it, likely seeing that it was perfectly fine. Likely thinking that I never paid him a visit but that I needed repairs done to my saddle.

"Only a bit of loose stitching at the girth," I told him. "But I ought have it checked before I leave again."

Joseph nodded. "'Twas a cursed bad year for poor Sinclair. Cursed bad."

My head swung toward him. "Was it?"

"Aye." Joseph's lips thinned, and his bald head joined his brow in a frown. "Lost a daughter, he did."

At those words, my heart seemed to ice over. I had been watching the girl all her life, awaiting the time when I would explain her own nature to her. When she was old enough, and mature enough to understand and deal with the truth. Perhaps I had waited too long. I tried to speak, but couldn't.

Joseph never seemed to notice the force of my reactions. He was involved now in the telling of his tale. "Nearly lost the both of his girls, that sad day. Over a year ago, 'twas. They'd been up to no good, playin' in the loch when their father had forbidden it. My lads were about, heard the shoutin'. Kenyon pulled the one to safety, an' Lud went back for her sister. But 'twas no use ... she drowned in the muddy waters of Loch Haven."

"Drowned?" I asked, nearly holding my breath.

' 'Aye. And young Arianna has ne'er been right since the day the loch claimed her sister."

I lowered my head and released my breath all at once. So Arianna was alive ... Not that she could have died by drowning. She'd have revived ... but to what?

Joseph nodded toward some distant point. "See for yourself, Nicodimus. She's there now, at the grave. 'Tis no place for a lass of ten and seven to be spendin' all her time. An' alone, no less! She's forever walkin' about alone." He ran a hand over his head, and slowly shook it.

I frowned, knowing exactly what Joseph implied. It was said that only a Witch walked about all alone. Only a Witch. And Arianna was one. But she couldn't know that. Not yet.

"Perhaps if I were to have a word with her," I suggested.

Joseph drew his mount to a halt, frowning at me. "Do you think it wise?"

"Why not? I've lost loved ones myself. I know a bit of what she's feeling." I knew, I realized, far too much of what she was feeling. It was a feeling she would have to get used to, for in time she would lose everyone and everything she knew. I sighed as I looked at her. Slight, so slight. Barely larger than she'd been at twelve. A golden wisp of a girl, the picture of innocence. She would have to learn to be hard. To close herself off. She would have to learn to stop caring, as I had done.

Looking worried, Joseph nodded all the same. "Take care, my friend. Dinna spend too long with her. She's promised to the cobbler's son, but even he's beginning to shy away. There's been some talk...."

"What sort of talk?"

Joseph shrugged. "Ah, I pay it no mind, nor will I tolerate anyone persecutin' the poor lassie. We must make allowances, after all. Grief can twist a mind in all manner of—"

"What sort of talk, Joseph?"

Joseph cleared his throat. "Some claim she slips out alone in the dead of night. An' she's been seen speakin' to

The Crones more than once. What people will make of it... well, you can guess as well as I."

The Crones... the outcasts. The word "Witch" was never spoken aloud here. The people were too superstitious to dare it. Everyone in the village knew what the three old women were, yet The Crones were tolerated. Their shack outside the village at the edge of the forest was left alone. That happy state would likely continue, so long as only good fortune smiled down upon the flocks and the crops and the crofters here. As for the blue-blooded Christians of Stonehaven, most would no more exchange a public greeting with The Crones than eat from the trough of a pig. But they visited the old women every now and then, for a potion to cure the croup or a charm for good luck. In secrecy. In hypocrisy.

I turned again to stare at the girl. She knelt beside the grave of her sister off in the distance. Perhaps she knew more than I'd thought she possibly could. It would explain her visits to the village Witches. But who was there to tell her? I'd never met another High Witch, Dark nor Light, in this part of Scotland. Never. And our secrets were seldom shared with anyone else. I'd ascertained years ago that The Crones were mere mortals, and knew nothing of our existence.

"I'll speak with her," I said. "Before she lets the gossips ruin her."

Joseph nodded. "Perhaps 'twill do some good at that. Shall I wait at the tavern, then?"

"If the owner still brews that secret recipe of his."

"Heather Ale?" Joseph asked with a crook of his invisible brow that resulted in new wrinkles appearing in his forehead. "That he does, Nic. That he does." Joseph gave a wink, and wheeled his horse about, heading away.

I turned my attention toward the cemetery once more, and nudged Black's sides until he leapt into a spirited trot. Stopping him a short distance away from the girl, I tied him to a scraggly tree, then walked to where Arianna Sinclair knelt. For a moment, I only stood still and silent, looking at her.

Arianna had changed. In five short years she'd grown from a waif into a woman. And that aura of vitality that had always surrounded her seemed stronger than ever before. Her golden hair draped about her shoulders like a shawl of spun sunlight, moving in the breeze every now and again. And I'd been wrong when I'd concluded she had not grown, for she had. Her breasts swelled now, a woman's breasts, straining the fabric of her homespun dress. Her hips had also taken on a sweet roundness, while her waist remained small.

Kneeling, spine straight, chin high, she lifted a fist, and let some herb or other spill from it atop her sister's grave, as she muttered soft words under her breath.

A spell. For the love of the Gods, had the girl no sense? In full daylight?

"What is it you're doing?" I called. I expected her to stiffen with surprise and perhaps fear at being caught. The lesson would do her good.

She didn't start, didn't turn to face me. "Should anyone else ask, I'm plantin' wild heather upon my sister's burial site."

"And if I ask."

"I think, Nicodimus, you know better than to ask."

I blinked in surprise. Just how much did she know? And the familiarity of her tone with me ... as if she knew me far better than she did. We'd spoken only a handful of words to one another in the past. Polite greetings at most, though my interest in her had always been more than that of a stranger. She was my kind. A rarity in itself. She was without a teacher, and... and something about her spoke to me on a level I had never understood.

The herbs gone, she pounded her fist thrice on the ground; a time-honored method for releasing the energy raised in spellwork. Then she lowered her head for but an instant. Finally, she rose, brushing her hands on her skirts and facing me. Her velvet brown eyes hadn't been so large before ... nor so haunted. ' 'It has been a long while since your last visit here," she said.

"Long enough so I must wonder how you could have recognized my voice."

'"Twas nay your voice, Nicodimus. Although 'tis true, you speak distinctly enough."

"Do I?"

"Aye," she said. "Almost like a Sassenach, rather than a true Scot. Careful, an' slow, without a hint of an accent, so a body could never guess where you truly come from."

"I come from right here," I told her.

She shrugged, and I wasn't sure whether she believed me or not. "Regardless of how you speak," she went on, "I knew you were there long afore you did."

Her words gave me pause. If that were true, her natural powers were incredibly advanced—particularly for one so young. "How?" I asked her.

She shrugged again. "I always know when you're near. Have since ... why since I was a wee bairn toddlin' along and clingin' to my mam's skirts... an' you came ridin' into the village alongside Laird Lachlan. Do you recall?"

I did. It had been then I had first set eyes on her, and I'd known—even before I'd seen the crescent shaped birthmark on her chubby right flank—that she was one of us. "I remember it well."

Arms crossed over her middle, she sent me a steady look, and I studied her in return. Her small, upturned nose was the same as before. But her face had thinned. No babe's plumpness to her cheeks. Not now. It was a woman's face, touched by sorrow.

"I always wanted to ask you about it—that feelin' I get when you're near. But it seemed I should remember my place, and be neither impertinent nor disrespectful."

"But you've changed your mind about those things now?"

She glanced toward her sister's grave and her eyes grew darker, her voice softer. "They seem less important to me now than the dust in the highland wind, Nicodimus." Her eyes were round and filled with pain—and something else: rebellion. A dangerous wildness flashed from somewhere deep within her, and seemed to fit with the way her hair

snapped whiplike with the wind, while her skirts flew about her ankles and bare, dirty feet.

"Propriety has its place, Arianna."

"Propriety," she whispered, looking directly at me again. "Society. Lairds and chieftains and crofters and slaves. What good is it, I ask you? What does any of it truly mean? Who cares whether a woman wears her hair unbound until she bears her first child, and bound up tight thereafter? Or if she walks about alone, or if she addresses a laird by his given name? What arrogant fool made up all these ridiculous rules that have us all hoppin' and scurryin' to obey?"

"You're angry," I said softly. "I understand that, Arianna. .."

"Aye," she replied. "I am angry. Tis meaningless, all of it!"

Her voice had grown louder with every word, until I gripped her hands gently in my own and felt the jolt of awareness that occurs when one of our kind touches another. She looked at me quickly, shocked by that heat, wondering at it, I knew, but I said only, "Keep your voice low." And I inclined my head toward the village nearby, where already several sets of speculative eyes were turned our way. Hands shielding careworn faces from the morning sun. Squinting, searching gazes trying to see who dared raise her voice in the cemetery, of all places.

Arianna followed my gaze and saw her curious neighbors. She sent them a defiant glare with a toss of her head that reminded me of Black when he is agitated and smelling a battle; the way he shakes his mane almost in challenge. I moved to take my hands from hers, but she closed hers tight and clung with a strength that surprised me.

I looked down at our joined hands, and for the first time a ripple of alarm zigzagged up my spine to tap at my brain. For this was no child clinging to my hands. This was a woman, young and beautiful and full of fire. And her hands were slender and strong and warm.

"You want to make them gossip about you. Is that it?" I asked her.

"Let them gossip. I dinna care."

I took my hands away. "Do you care what pain you cause others, Arianna?'' I asked, in a second attempt to put her firmly in her place, to let her know that what she might have been thinking just now when our hands were locked together, could never, never be. She was hurting, full of anger, confused and lonely for her sister. That was all it was. "You're promised to the cobbler's son," I reminded her.

She tilted her head to one side and shrugged. But it seemed her rant had ended, for her face no longer seemed like that of a warrioress about to do battle. ' 7 never made any such promise to Angus MacClennan. Nor do I intend to abide by it. An' believe me, that clod has no tender feelin's where I'm concerned."

"No? Why, then, do you suppose he's asked for your hand, Arianna?"

She smiled slowly, eyes sparkling now with mischief. "You can guess as well as I. He wants a servant. Someone to cook an' clean an' mend for him. But mostly, he wants someone to lift her skirts when he demands it. Someone to relieve his manly needs with so he'll nay have to hide in his da's woodshed an' do it himself—"

"Arianna!"

"What?"

She was all wide-eyed innocence, but I saw the gleam beyond it. I only scowled at her.

"A tender young girl isna supposed to ken such things, I suppose!" Again that expressive toss of her golden locks. "Nay, we're to blindly agree to be some man's slave an' his whore in exchange for our room and board. Well, it willna be me, Nicodimus. Not ever."

I had to bite back a smile. So bold and outspoken, and so damned determined. "A wife should be none of those things, Arianna."

"Name one who isna all of those things," she challenged me, leaning slightly forward, hands on her hips, legs shoulder width apart in a cocky stance.

"Your mother," I said.

She lost a bit of her cockiness. "Tis different with my mam."

"Why?"

"Because my da loves her, I suppose."

"And are you so certain your cobbler's son doesn't love you?"

She peered up at me from beneath her dark lashes. "Not so much as he loves his hand on certain nights in his da's woodshed."

I had to look away. To laugh aloud would only encourage her. And she needed no encouragement.

For a moment I thought about how seldom it was that I found myself inclined toward laughter. Genuine laughter. "I like you, Arianna," I said. "Just take care to bite your tongue from time to time. Not everyone appreciates a sharp wit and bold talk from a young woman the way I do."

She smiled up at me, all but glowing. And I thought I would enjoy spending a bit of time with Arianna while at Stonehaven this time, getting to know the astounding young woman she had become. And then I was shaken out of my thoughts, for she suddenly grabbed my hands and held them, and her thumbs caressed the hollows of my palms in slow circles. She stared up at me, her inquisitive eyes probing mine.

"You're different from other men, Nicodimus. I've sensed it always. You pay no more mind to the world and its silly conventions than I do. You... you're like me, somehow."

I averted my eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

"Dinna you? You're supposed to be Laird Lachlan's kin, yet you dinna live in his keep. You bathe just as often as you like, without a care that the church calls it vanity."

"And just how would you know how often I bathe?"

Her smile was slow, and it stirred something to life deep within me. "You smell good, Nicodimus. Clean. I like the way you smell." I looked away from the heat in her eyes. Her palm came to my cheek, turning my head until I faced her again, and then it remained there. "An' what's more,

you dare to talk openly and all alone to the girl half the clan thinks is crazy—"

"And the other half thinks is dabbling in Witchcraft," I interjected, hoping to shock her into silence. She saw too much, this girl. And she was looking far too closely, tampering with parts of me that no one had dared come near in a very long time. Her touch ... rattled me. Relief sighed through my chest when her hand fell away from my cheek at last.

"An' what if I am a Witch?" she shot back, undaunted.

I stared at her in surprise. She was all fire and life and utter defiance, boldly blurting words that could easily get her killed. "Tis no business of mine what you are, Ar-ianna," I told her. "And no business of theirs, either. Do as you will."

She rolled her eyes. "I intend to do just that!"

I gripped her shoulders to make her listen. "But keep it to yourself, for the love of heaven! If you can't conform, then pretend to conform. And never, ever again must you say something so foolish aloud! For your own sake, girl, take the advice of one older and wiser. One who would like to see you live to grow into womanhood."

"I'm a woman already," she told me, chin high, hair sailing in the breeze. "A woman like no other woman you've ever known." She swayed slightly closer to me, gaze locked on my lips.

I dropped my hands from her shoulders and staggered backward as her bold, enticing eyes flashed fire at me. I'd come to her to try to help her. Instead, I felt as if I were under attack. Her forces battered my innermost tower, and I had a feeling they could bring it to rubble with minimal effort.

"An' since you've mentioned it," she went on, "just how much older and wiser are you, Nicodimus?" She smoothed the front of her dress as she spoke, her fingers brushing very near to her breasts, but her eyes never left my face.

I saw her meaning in those eyes. Saw it clear, for she didn't seem the least bit inclined to hide it from me. It

unsettled me, shook me to my bones. I'd never thought of her in that way ... not until this very moment—or perhaps a few moments ago, when I'd seen her again, a woman grown.

"Too old for what you have in mind," I said, hoping I sounded mildly amused and sardonic. "Go find your cobbler's son now, and torment him in my stead."

But even as I turned to leave her, my mind spun its arguments. She would be eighteen in a fortnight. Oh, yes, I knew the date of her birth. I knew more about her than she knew about herself. I was over seven centuries old ... and yet at the time of my first death, I'd been twenty and eight. Physically ... I still was. And never more aware of it.

"You're meant for me, Nicodimus," she called as I walked away. "You must ken that as well as I."

I froze where I stood. She came toward me, but didn't stop when she reached my side. Instead she kept walking, brushing past me, and dropping a kiss upon my cheek as she did. The touch of her lips sent heat through me all the way to my toes. "You'll be mine one day," she whispered. "An' then, Nicodimus, I will know all the secrets you hide behind your sapphire eyes."

A shiver raced up my spine as I watched Arianna walk away, golden hair dancing in the wind. She walked proudly right up to where a crowd of crofters stood pretending not to watch her antics. Her chin jutting high, she nodded hello to each of them, her entire stance oozing defiance—as if she were silently daring anyone to chide her for going about alone. Or for kissing a guest of their laird so boldly.

Or for muttering incantations over her dead sister—and in the daylight at that.

Daring them.

No one took the challenge.

She was right when she said she was a woman like no other. For there had never been another who touched my soul the way she did.

Chapter 2

"Just what do you think you're about, Arianna?" her mother whispered harshly.

Arianna turned back toward the darkened cottage from which she'd just emerged, and hugged her dark cloak tighter 'round her shoulders. Her mother opened the splintery wooden door wider, and peered out at her. "I thought you were sleepin', Mam."

"How is a mother to sleep when her child roams about in the night like a wraith?"

Lowering her head, Arianna whispered, "I was only goin' for a walk. I couldna sleep."

Mara Sinclair shook her head, glanced up and down the path as if to be sure none of the neighbors were watching, and then stepped outside. She wore a nightshift that reached to her ankles and covered her arms to the wrists, over which she had thrown an old shawl for both warmth and propriety's sake. Out of long habit, Mara began twisting her long, gold and gray hair into a knot even as she sent her daughter a disapproving stare.

The sight of it made Arianna's temper rise. "Why do you do that?" she asked. When her mother tilted her head in confusion, she continued, "Your hair. Leave it, Mam.

Just this once, dare to ignore the rules of this foolish society and leave it."

With firm motions, her mother finished the job of binding up her hair and met Arianna's stare. "You so disapprove of me. Of all I am, all I stand for. I vow, Arianna, I dinna ken what's happened to you."

"You ken exactly what's happened to me, Mam. I've lost my sister," Arianna said.

Mara pressed one hand flat to her chest, and held the other up as if to ward off her daughter's words. "Dinna speak of Raven to me!" It was a shout. But then she bit her lip, tempered her voice. "I canna bear it, child."

Arianna shook her head. "Dinna call me 'child,' Mam, for I am a woman grown. An' I willna obey without question the way a child would do. The way ... you do."

Her mother lifted her head slowly, staring at Arianna with hurt in her eyes. "Nay. You never did, lass."

"You scold me for my silence. You say I'm broodin' an' that I willna talk to you. Yet when I try to express my grief for my dead sister, you silence me. What am I to do?"

"Talk to me of something else," her mother whispered, gaze lowering, lids shuttering her eyes at once. "Anything else."

"I think of nothing else," Arianna said.

"Oh, but you do, lass," her mother said, speaking slowly and meeting her daughter's eyes once more. "You think of wherever it is you go on these midnight walks o' yours. An' of late, you think of Laird Lachlan's comely cousin. I've seen you spyin' on him now and again."

Arianna searched her mother's face. Barely a line in her skin and yet she looked old all the same. It was more than the gray in her once pure golden hair. It was something deeper than any wrinkle could ever be.

"Aye," Mara went on. "I've seen the way you look at Nicodimus, lass." Reaching out as if to stroke Arianna's hair, she paused and lowered her hand. Arianna told herself she'd have ducked away from her touch all the same. And yet she felt the pain of longing for her mother's caress, having been denied it. Not since Raven's death had her

mother touched her in love. Instead they only hurt each other, over and over.

"Dinna wish for what you canna have, child," Mara warned. "He's far too old, an' above you as well. The kin of a chieftain, while you're but a saddle maker's daughter."

"You know nothing about Nicodimus Lachlan," Ar-ianna said, feeling as if her mother were attacking her. ' 'He cares no more for the silly ways of society than I, an' I can have any man I wish! You'll see!"

Mara frowned. "Child, you'll find only disappointment should you go dreamin' of such things. "Tis young Angus you'll wed, an' none other."

"I've told you before," Arianna replied slowly. "I willna marry that whelp!"

"Hush!" Again her mother glanced around, seeking watchers in the night. More concerned, Arianna thought, with what her fellow clansmen and kin might think than with her daughter's feelings.

"You think I'm nay good enough for the likes of Nicodimus Lachlan, dinna you? You think I'm nay pretty nor smart enough. But I am equal to him. Equal to any man, be he peasant or king!"

When there was no immediate reply, Arianna met her mother's gaze again, saw her eyes soften, dampen. "I certainly believe you equal to any man, daughter. 'Tis the man you might have a wee bit o' trouble convincin' of it."

Arianna sighed hard, and shook her head in disgust.

"Child, we used to be so close, you an' I. Do you recall? I'd sit an' comb your hair, an' sing to you 'ere I tucked you in to sleep...."

Arianna closed her eyes in response to a rush of pain. She missed those times. "An' Raven would sing along," she said, caught up in the memory for just a moment, in spite of herself. ' 'She had such a beautiful voice. And when she—"

"Nay, you mustn't!"

Arianna lowered her head slowly. "You blame me," she whispered.

"Whatever are you—"

"Speak the words, Mam. 'Tis high time we spoke the truth, you an' I. You blame me for my sister's death. I was the elder. I should have protected her. She drowned because of me. I—"

"Nay, child!" Her mother reached for her, and perhaps wouldn't have stopped halfway this time. But Arianna ducked away before she could find out. "'Tis untrue, Arianna," her mother rushed on. "Your da an' I have ne'er once blamed you for what happened."

Holding back her tears, Arianna lifted her head. "Of course you do," she whispered. "An' I canna dispute it, for I blame myself as well." Sniffling, Arianna turned to walk away.

"Come back here! Arianna, where do you think you're goin', lass?" her mother demanded in a voice gone harsh.

"I'm goin' where I want," she cried. "An' doin' what I want, an' I'll marry who I want, as well. I'll nay be good nor obedient ever again, Mam, for I've seen the truth of where goodness and obedience find their reward! At the bottom o' some murky loch is where!"

"Arianna..."

"Raven was the good one," Arianna whispered, shaking her head and backing slowly away into the night. "She was the good one. It should've been me who drowned, Mam. It should have been me!" Arianna turned and raced away into the night.

She refused to cry. Instead she worked her rage out by running as fast as she could over the rutted paths of the village and beyond them, toward the woods. When her lungs burned and her muscles screamed, she slowed to a trot and then to a walk. Her heart thrummed and her breath rushed in and out of her heated body like the wind in the trees around her. And then she rested, waited... and listened. The nighttime woodland sounds would soothe her. They never failed to help her regain control when her tight grip on it faltered.

Soft, pine-scented air caressed her face, stroked her hair, filled her lungs. Padded feet stepped over the ground off to the left. Three steps, then a pause. Then an airy sound...

sniffing. A wolf. Yes, a wolf. Nodding in affirmation, she moved a little farther, stopping again at a familiar scent that tickled her nose. Standing still, she inhaled softly, closing her eyes. She smelled the heather growing thick on the moors, and rich earth and night air. She didn't smell the wolf, though the old women had told her such a thing was possible. The wolf could smell her, they'd said. So why shouldn't she be able to detect his scent in the night air?

She put all else from her mind as she made her way to The Crones' cottage just inside the edge of the woods. She chased away her sorrow, her guilt, her rage, and replaced them by focusing on her senses, on honing them as The Crones had taught her, on feeling as if she were one with everything around her. On trying to detect the scent of a wolf in the night.

"You're late," a rich, female voice announced, and Arianna looked up to see Celia, her skin smooth and unlined, her silver hair loose and flowing over her shoulders as if she were a young girl. Her smile was warm, and despite her scolding tone she enfolded Arianna's hands in her own. It was the sort of touch Arianna had been craving from her mother. What would she have done this past year without the companionship of these three women?

A small fire danced in the clearing beside the crooked little shack The Crones shared. The light of the fire was bathing their faces, gleaming in their eyes, throwing shadows upon their worn woolen shawls. Their home was a humble one, built of rough-hewn plank boards and filled with knotholes. It had weathered to near black over the years, and had moss growing on one side and vines creeping up the other as if embracing the wood. Its thatched roof sagged in the middle, as if it were tired to the point of exhaustion. The wild tangle of growth in the back looked to be a weed patch, but was in fact a garden of herbs and plants with healing properties. But no matter how untended this place looked, there was magick here. Arianna had known it from the first time she'd come to these three women and pled with them to teach her their ways.

"My mam tried to stop me," she explained.

"An' you came anyway?" Celia asked with an arched brow.

"I'm a woman grown. I'm a Witch. I do as I will."

Celia tilted her head. She exchanged an indulgent glance with her two companions. They each smiled and shook their heads helplessly. "Do what thou wilt is but a part of the Rede, child. Tell me the rest," Celia said.

"I dinna—"

"Tell me the rest."

Sighing, Arianna muttered, " 'An' it harm none, do what thou wilt.' "

"Exactly," Celia said. "Do you think you harmed your mother tonight, child?"

"Nay! I dinna so much as touch her."

Celia's eyes narrowed. Arianna knew full well what she meant. She also knew that she likely had hurt her mother tonight—and that she would have to make it right.

Celia nodded, seeming to read Arianna's face. "Come," she said, and led Arianna closer to the fire. Arianna nodded her greetings to Leandra, the eldest of the three, a woman whose face was so lined it resembled the surface of the trembling sea. Her snow-white hair was piled atop her head, and when she spoke it was with the voice of gravel. Then Arianna turned to Mary, plump and always smiling, with steel-gray streaks in her thick ebony mane.

"Merry meet," Arianna said.

"An' to you, lass," Mary returned. "You ought be lookin' forward to this night's ritual."

Arianna smiled broadly. For a year and a day The Crones had been teaching her, letting her observe, answering her questions. But tonight, for the first time, she would be welcomed into the sacred circle as a Witch. And after her initiation, she would be allowed to participate in a magickal rite. She could barely contain her excitement.

So far, The Crones' "magick" had consisted mostly of concocting herbal remedies for various ailments, and they had managed to raise a cooling wind one hot summer's night. Arianna had been mildly disappointed. She'd been

expecting explosions of smoke and light, thunderbolts, and evildoers changing into toads.

She'd been hoping....

Well, what she really wanted to learn from the old women would take far more magick than what they'd shown her so far. But Arianna had learned one thing. Even in their minor workings, there was real power. Magick was real. Knowing that made Arianna certain she would one day learn what she needed to know.

Perhaps even from The Crones. For it may be that they were simply saving the stronger sorts of magick for later on.

"Tonight, you become one with us, Arianna. Our own sister in the Craft of the Wise." Leandra smiled, and more wrinkles appeared in her face before the smile died. "And then, we conjure rain," she said with a nervous glance at the sky. "For unless we get some soon, the crops could well begin to wilt."

"Aye," Arianna said, "and those fool villagers would no doubt blame you for it."

The three Crones exchanged glances, but didn't speak their fears aloud. Still, Arianna sensed their worry.

"Come, let us cast the circle," Leandra said.

I followed Arianna that night. I had been watching her often at night, hoping I could keep her out of harm's way, certain from what Joseph had said that she was too reckless to heed my warnings. I was right.

She went to The Crones on the night of the full moon just as I had suspected she would. Dammit, didn't she realize what a risk she was taking by sneaking out to that croft alone? What could happen to her if she were found out?

I followed, of course, and hid myself in the trees just beyond reach of the dancing firelight's glow.

Then I forgot why I had come. My mind became too involved in the beauty of what I witnessed.

The beauty of Arianna.

By the time I reached the edge of the clearing, the four

of them had cast their circle, and were well into their ritual. Arianna had removed her dark cloak, and beneath it wore a garment of flowing white, which reminded me sharply of the ritual robes of my first teachers—an order of Druid priests. In Arianna's golden hair was a ringlet of flowers, and as I looked on in silence, I realized this was some sort of initiation rite. Arianna knelt in the center of the circle, near the fire, and one by one each of the old women presented her with a gift.

Apparently, Arianna had studied long enough to be recognized as one of them now. It was almost laughable. Gods, if those Crones only knew.

In silence, one of the old women gave her a book. I recognized it as a grimoire, in which spells and rituals and ancient knowledge would have been painstakingly copied. The second old woman presented her with a pendant that I couldn't see in detail. The third gifted her with a dagger.

This made me peer more closely, for it seemed to be a very special dagger. One much like the one I carried—like the one we all carried at our sides.

But The Crones didn't know of our existence, or of their student's true nature. Did they?

There was no time to ponder this mystery, for the initiation rite concluded, and the four of them moved on to whatever magickal working they had planned for this night. I crept nearer, so I might hear them.

"Dinna be disappointed if the spell doesna work right away, child," the one who looked to be the eldest said softly. ' 'It oft' takes several tries before the rains come. We simply repeat our rite until they do."

Arianna nodded and took the small pouch the old woman handed her, looping its drawstring 'round her wrist.

"In honor of your initiation, Arianna, we've decided to let you perform tonight's incantation."

I saw Arianna's huge eyes widen in surprise. "Oh, but I—"

"You know what to do, lass," the plump one said with a smile, patting Arianna's arm. "We've taught you well."

"Aye," said the third, the one who seemed to personify

grace, and whose face defied her years. "An' besides, 'tis in the grimoire."

Drawing a deep breath, Arianna opened the book. She clutched the dagger in her right hand. The pendant hung 'round her neck. The three Crones moved to the center of the circle, surrounded the balefire, and slowly began to move in a deosil direction. Arianna stood close to the fireside, so they were circling her, as well. Laying the dagger upon the open book, she opened the small pouch the old one had given her, and withdrew herbs, which she pitched into the dancing flames. Her face was a study in concentration as she worked.

Something about her touched me just then. I couldn't have said exactly what. But it had to do with the golden fire glow on her cheeks, and the light in her eyes. Or perhaps with the curve of her lips, or the slender grace of her neck.

Lowering her gaze to the book, she began to read the words written there in a voice that came soft and uncertain.

Ancient Forces of the Sky.. .

Winds and Clouds and Rain on high . ..

Rainbow Goddess, hear my cry...

I saw Arianna's shoulder's grow straighter, saw her chest expand as she inhaled, and I knew she was feeling it; the surge of power. In our kind, it was magnified, and in a rite like this, she would have to feel it. She may not know it for what it was, but its essence would fill her; the very essence of the Divinity she'd called upon.

She lifted her head, chin pointing skyward, and her voice came louder now, and firm.

Mother Earth is parched and dry,

Without thy dewy kiss, we die,

I call forth rainclouds. Draw thee nigh!

I glanced skyward, saw the barest hint of shadow crossing the face of the full moon. Quickly I fixed my gaze

on Arianna again. Partly concerned for her, and for the reactions of her teachers, but mostly ... I felt pride.

Her body seemed to elongate and tense as she let the book fall to the ground, and lifted her arms over her head, dagger pointing at the sky. Her voice came as strong as thunder then, deeper than before, echoing unnaturally in the night.

I call forth the rain!

I call forth the rain!

I call forth the rain!

And as I will it, so mote it be!

A clap of thunder punctuated her command. The wind came then. A harsh downward sweep of it sent her white robe snapping behind her and her golden hair sailing. The Crones stopped circling, went still, and looked at one another with wide eyes. Then they were staring at Arianna as if they had never seen her before, and looking skyward as if in fear.

Arianna noticed none of it. She remained as she was, arms stretched to the sky, eyes closed, body buffeted by the wind as she silently commanded the rain to fall. She seemed completely lost in the power she wielded.

Dark clouds surged as if from all directions, collecting in one grim mass overhead, blotting out the face of the moon. Thunder rumbled. Lightning cut a jagged swath across the sky. Then the sky opened, and the rains poured down.

Arianna's eyes blinked open. Her face still tipped back, she parted her lips as if to taste the raindrops that pummeled her. Slowly she lowered her arms and her head smiling as she sought approval in the faces of her teachers. But instead she found only shock in their eyes.

"I... I did it," she said. I could barely hear her words over the pounding rain.

Shaking her head slowly, the plump one backed away, and quickly walked the perimeter, chanting a closing rite as she did.

' 'Celia? Leandra? Did I... did I do something wrong?''

It was the elder who spoke. "Go home, child. This rite is ended. We'll speak of this on the morrow." She turned and walked back toward the cottage as Arianna stared helplessly after her.

The third gripped Arianna's shoulders. "I hope to heaven you know how to stop it, Arianna. Suppose it goes on until we're all swallowed up by floodwaters?"

Arianna looked wounded, then angry. "If I've the power in me to call forth the rain, then I can certainly halt it. An' I dinna ken why you all act as if you've suddenly discovered a demon in your midst! I only—"

"Celia!" the old one called from the cottage.

With a sigh, Celia turned and walked away, leaving Arianna alone in the deluge she'd summoned forth.

Arianna turned and strode back toward the village, filled with too many emotions to count. Gods! The power that had surged through her! Such a feeling had only come to her once before; as she'd knelt on the shore of that dark-water loch, moved beyond reason to shout her commands to the sky.

She'd made it rain. She had made it rain!

And yet The Crones had seemed stunned, and almost fearful of her afterward. She'd expected them to beam with pride. It was all very odd, and she had no idea what to think. She only knew she felt powerful. She could wield magick and command the elements to do her bidding. Her hair and her dress were even now soaked through with proof of it!

When Arianna turned to walk along the muddy path to her home, Nicodimus stepped out of the shadows in front of her, arms crossed over his broad chest, rust-and-gold hair plastered to his head. "This has to stop, Arianna."

She didn't jump, didn't cry out in surprise at his sudden appearance. She'd sensed him there in the instant before she'd seen him. So she simply stopped walking and stood facing him as the rain continued to beat down upon them both.

"Whatever do you mean?" she asked, feigning inno-cense.

"You know what I mean. The penalties for Witchcraft are not to be taken lightly. And if you continue on this reckless course, you'll surely be found out."

She tilted her head to one side, studying him. "An' how is it you know about me and my so-called reckless course?''

His eyes, when they probed hers, were piercing and sharp. "I've been watching you."

"Aye, so you have. I wondered if you'd admit it."

He lifted one brow slightly higher than the other. "You knew, then?"

"I have felt your eyes on me more than once since last we spoke." She shrugged. "'Tis all right, Nicodimus. I've watched you, as well."

That seemed to take him by surprise, for he looked up sharply. "Have you?" She nodded. "But why?"

"Why? What a silly question. For the same reason you've watched me, of course. We're connected, you and I. Linked together in some way ... some way I've yet to understand. But you obviously feel it, too. Just as I do." She stared up at him, and when he said nothing, planted her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. "You're not goin' to deny it, now, are you?"

"I..." He seemed to think deeply before he spoke, his eyes studying her, as if seeing more than anyone else ever had. Or ever could. Pushing his wet hair away from his forehead, he pursed his lips, set his jaw. "I did not come here to speak of such things, Arianna, but to warn you."

"Warn me?" She shrugged. "I fear nothing, Nicodimus, so there's no reason to warn me of anything at all."

"I think there is."

Sighing, she rolled her eyes. "Speak your warning, if you must. I canna promise I'll heed it."

"You'll heed it," he said, and she thought she detected a hint of a threat in his voice. As if he intended to make certain she did. But he didn't say so. "You mustn't visit The Crones anymore," he told her. "There's no more they

can teach you. And already they begin to wonder about you, Arianna. To fear you."

"Fear me? What rubbish, Nicodimus! Why would they—?"

"Because, foolish girl, you're a far more powerful Witch than any of them. More powerful than any Witch they've ever known. They have realized that even if you haven't yet."

His hands closed on her shoulders as he went on. The delicious tingling of his touch rocked her, and she closed her eyes in response, but he barely seemed to notice.

"They brew herbal potions to cure the croup while you cast spells to bring the dead back from their graves! Can you not see the difference?"

She blinked in shock as the import of his words sank in, but she did not pull free of his grip. Somehow he already knew her ultimate goal—something she hadn't dared confess to anyone.

He took his hands away, looking at his palms and shaking his head. He'd felt it, too. That sizzling jolt. That heat that had no place amid this cold, pounding rain.

She swallowed hard and voiced the suspicion she'd always harbored about him. "What do you know of spells, Nicodimus? Dinna tell me you're a Witch yourself."

"What I am or am not is between me and my Creator, Arianna. You'd do well to take a lesson from that."

She shrugged as if she didn't care, but took his refusal to answer as an admission. "Why should I heed your advice if you dinna even trust me enough to tell me your secrets?" she asked.

"I trust no one with my secrets. I have lived too long and seen too much to make that mistake." He studied her eyes for a moment, and his expression seemed to soften. "But I'll tell you a little of what I know, if you will promise to stay away from The Crones from now on."

She lowered her head. "I will promise this much. I shall be more careful, and will think about your warnings."

He dipped his head to search her eyes, seemed to resign himself to the fact that she would promise no more, and

nodded. "All right. Then I'll tell you this much. Your sister will come back one day, Arianna. We all come back," he said softly. "The Crones must have taught you that much, at least."

She nodded. "Some would call those words blasphemy, Nicodimus."

"And some would call them truth," he countered. "But you cast a spell when your sister died, didn't you, Arianna? A spell to make her coming back ... different."

"How do you know?"

He lifted a golden brow, tilted his head.

She sighed. "Kenyon an' Lud Lachlan told you how I shouted it to the heavens, did they? I made them swear ne'er to say a word."

He kept his gaze riveted to her eyes, only the raindrops, a misty curtain, between them. "What sort of spell was it, Arianna?"

Closing her eyes, she told him what she'd told no one, not even The Crones. "My sister sank into the cold embrace of that dark water," she said, lowering her head slowly as the pain of that day renewed itself in her soul. "I lay upon the shore, fighting to breathe, choking water from my lungs, searching for her. And Laird Lachlan's sons, Kenyon and Lud, they both went back for her. Frantic, shouting. But I knew she was already gone. I felt it somehow. Like a large, heavy stone where my heart should have been."

Nicodimus sighed, and when she looked up at him, he squeezed her shoulders. "I know the feeling well, child. Go on."

"I felt anger, rage, an' ... something else. Like some other voice tellin' me what to do, only... nay aloud. I heard with my heart, with my soul, nay my ears. I knelt up, an' lifted my fists to the heavens, an' I demanded that my sister be returned to me. Aye, Raven will live again, but when she returns, she'll look the same, and bear the same name, and I'll know her again, for she will come back afore my lifetime is ended. Those are the words I shouted, the commands I sent forth, an' I tell you, Nicodimus, when

I did so I felt as powerful as the Goddess Herself."

Nicodimus expelled his breath. "That is because it was Her power you wielded, Arianna." He turned slightly away from her. "Within your lifetime," he muttered. "Sweet child, if only you knew how long that might be."

"Nicodimus?"

He faced her again, and she searched his eyes, not understanding what he'd meant. But he shook his head at her as if to tell her to forget about it. "Do you have any doubt your spell will be effective?" he asked.

Her chin came up. "None whatsoever."

"And who taught you such a conjure, Arianna?"

Slowly, she shook her head. "No one. As I said, it came from ... within me. 'Twas as if the very Queen of Heaven put the words to my lips ... or something."

"Or something indeed." His brows drew together. "You've no need of those village Witches any longer. There is no more they can teach you."

"But there is so much more I need to learn." She sighed heavily, pacing away from him, wringing her wet hands. "I want Raven back now, Nicodimus. I canna bear the loneliness without her."

When he didn't answer, she turned to face him again, only to glimpse a bleak expression in his eyes before he managed to shutter them. But deep in his eyes, she could still see a shadow of pain. Rivulets of rainwater ran down his corded neck, dripped from his chin. She wanted to wipe the drops away with her hands. With her lips.

Finally, he whispered, "I know how much it hurts. But there's nothing you can do to make her come back to you any sooner. Believe me, I've searched the world over for such a spell. It doesn't exist."

"Nay, it must," she whispered, clasping the plaid at his chest in her fists, staring up at him, pleading with her eyes.

' 'It doesn't. I would not lie to you about this, nor would I speak the words unless I knew them to be true. There is no way to raise the dead from their graves, Arianna. It cannot happen."

"Nay ..." Her knees buckled. She collapsed at his feet,

kneeling weakly in the mud. It was as if she'd been hit in the belly by a giant fist, the very breath forced out of her. She couldn't draw any air for a moment. For she knew, instinctively, that he spoke the truth. He wouldn't lie to her, not about this. So there was no way to hasten Raven's return. It was almost as if she'd lost her sister all over again at that moment. For she'd existed on a hope that had suddenly disappeared.

Gently, Nicodimus bent over her. He closed his big hands 'round her waist, lifted her to her feet again. "I regret taking your dream away. But 'tis best you know ..."

She leaned against his chest and would have fallen once again had his arms not come 'round her to hold her upright. Sobs burst from her all at once, her tears mingled with the rain that soaked his clothes. He lowered his head and she felt his lips grazing the top of hers, heard his comforting whispers. "You cast your spell, Arianna, and I believe you cast it true. It will work. She'll come back to you one day, you have to believe it. Cling to it, child. At least it is something."

Sniffling, Arianna lifted her head, searching his face with her damp eyes. "Aye. 'Tis more than you had, is that what you're sayin'?"

He nodded. "Yes. It is more than I had."

"Who did you lose, Nicodimus?"

Licking his lips, he set her gently away from him, cleared his throat, schooled his features. Hardened them. "If you must practice your rites, Arianna, do it alone and in some secret place where you won't be found out. It is safer that way. That is what I came here to tell you, nothing more." He turned to go.

Arianna caught his arm and he stopped, his back to her. "You ken all of it, dinna youT' she whispered. "You ken the ways of magick, and far more than those village Witches understand. You have the secrets I've been seekin' all my life."

"I know nothing beyond what I've told you."

Slowly she moved around until she was in front of him again. She smeared the tears from her cheeks with one

hand, and gripping his forearm with the other she probed his eyes. "I've been driven to learn the ways of the mystics, Nicodimus. Driven by some force deep inside me that I dinna even ken. An' drawn to you like a moth to the candle's flame from the first time I set eyes on you. And now I ken why. You can teach me, Nicodimus. You can tell me the things I need to learn."

"You're mistaken."

"Am I?"

He nodded.

"An' what of this, then?" Abruptly, she released his arm, and stepping back, bunched her skirts in both hands and lifted them high, baring her right leg and her thigh, and finally her hip, where the mark of a crescent moon stood in dark contrast to her pale skin. Clouds parted as if on command, and moonlight spilled down onto the birthmark as if in a caress. Nicodimus's gaze fixed to it in much the same way.

She saw him tremble, saw the sweat bead upon his upper lip. His hands reached out, and she closed her eyes in anticipation of his touch there on her bare hip. She held her breath, and felt the heat of his hands as they hovered a hairbreadth from her skin ...

But he only took her skirts from her hands to lower them. If his fingers brushed her thigh as they passed, it was purely unintentional, though that touch left a burning trail of forbidden pleasure in its wake.

"Do not," was all he said.

Breathless, shivering, she stared into his eyes as if daring him to deny the truth. "You bear the mark, same as I do, Nicodimus."

He caught his breath. "How can you know that?"

She lowered her eyes. "I told you. I've watched you just as you've watched me. I've peered from my da's croft as you rode through the village upon that magnificent black stallion, an' I've spied on you from the tall reeds near the loch, long before the sun has risen in the sky. You go there to bathe in the coolness of the wee hours."

"You have no right—"

"Aye," she whispered. "I do. That mark you bear upon your hip gives me the right. An' if that were not enough, Nicodimus, there is the stirring I feel deep in the pit of my belly when you step, naked and wet, out of that water into the glow of the early sun, lookin' as wild an' magnificent as Cernunnos Himself. We're bound to one another somehow. When you touch me, I feel a force pass between us that is more than ordinary desire. An' you know 'tis true, Nicodimus. For you feel it, too."

"Arianna—"

"What does the crescent birthmark mean?"

He closed his eyes only briefly. So strong and steadfast, while she trembled at his very touch. "You're a young girl. The time when you'll need to burden yourself with all of this is far away yet. Far away. When it comes, when you need to know... I'll tell you. I promise you that." He stroked her hair with his big hand. "For now, that will have to be enough for you." He lowered his head, shaking it slowly. "An' as for this other—"

"Us wantin' each other, you mean?"

His jaw clenched. "You're too young, and I am too old for either of us to entertain such a ludicrous notion, Arianna."

But he didn't deny it was true. It wasn't an admission, nor even much of a concession. But it was something. He wanted her, too. She knew that as he turned and she watched him stride away. But it wasn't enough. She wanted a good deal more than a promise and a pat on the head from Nicodimus Lachlan.

A good deal more.

"You'll be mine, one day, Nicodimus. Heart an' soul you'll be mine. You canna see it, but deep down in your soul, you already are."

Nicodimus stiffened, but kept on walking.

Chapter 3

Arianna was a girl in need of rescue. Yet at the same time, she was a woman ... a woman in need of a man. And I knew that made her dangerous to me. I had a weakness in me for a woman in trouble. And with her that weakness seemed trebled. I had long ago vowed never to care again, and I feared that rescuing Arianna would mean breaking that vow. Already I felt the slow burn of desire for her in my blood. And more. A softness. A weakness. A vulnerability.

Just as there had been before ... for Anya.

It had been a furious battle, between my own clansmen and those who dwelled in the lowlands. I no longer remember precisely when nor why it began, but in the year 764, I rode into battle beside my father, bow at my side and a quiver of arrows on my back. I fought bravely that day. I killed as many men as any of the other warriors, though I had but four and ten years, and this was my first battle. They congratulated me, my clansmen. Slapped my shoulders and sang my praises as we rode through the defeated village. Wounded men raced out of our path while women cowered.

As I looked around me, I saw her for the first time. A bit of a girl with wild hair as red as the sun before a storm. She tugged a wounded man by the arm, dragging his body from the path, though it was obviously more than she could manage alone. Her eyes met mine, and she stopped what she was doing, staring at me in silence.

Another man, younger than the wounded one, strode up to her and slapped her sharply across the face. "I told you to get him inside, Any a. Do it. Now."

"Yes, Marten." She lowered her head in submission and began tugging at the man again. I drew my horse to a halt before her.

"Leave him," I said.

She looked up at me, wide-eyed. Her eyes were the palest blue I had ever seen. The blue of water, or ice. A thin, weak blue. And they showed me her soul.

"Leave him," I told her again, my voice more gentle this time, for she was small and timid and afraid.

She slanted a glance at the one who'd slapped her, as if seeking his permission.

"Anya," I said, calling her by name. "He's too heavy for you. Let this brute who slaps small women carry him instead."

She let go of the unconscious one's arm, and he thumped downward to the dirt.

"You," I said, addressing the young man now. "Are you her husband?"

"Her brother," he said, all but spitting the words at me. "An' she'll do as I tell her or suffer the consequences."

The men around me muttered, but didn't interfere. "No," I said softly. "You'll both do as I tell you. Marten, is it? If you want that wounded man carried inside, do it yourself." He didn't move. I pulled an arrow from my quiver. I'd fired them all in the midst of the battle, and I'd had to run about plucking arrows from dead men in order to rearm myself. The tip was bloodied. I strung the arrow, but before I lifted my bow, Marten had slung the old man— his father, I guessed—over his shoulder and was lugging him away. Anya turned to follow.

"Wait," I said, and she stopped, her back to me. "Does he strike you often?"

Her body seemed to stiffen. "Only when I do not work fast enough, or do my work well enough to suit him."

"And how often is that?" I asked softly.

I saw her shoulders slump. "Every day."

My stomach churned with the urge to kill the bastard. "Is he the only one who treats you this way," I asked. "Or does your father join in as well?"

She turned to face me. "My father is far harsher than Marten, and my other brother, Kohl, is just as bad." Her eyes flashed with the first life I'd seen in them. "And now that you and your clan have defeated ours in battle, it is bound to be even worse. Our women will bear the brunt of their anger. While you ride away with the spoils."

"Spoils?" I lifted my palms and looked at the men around me. "Have we taken any spoils?"

They all answered in the negative. It had never been our custom to loot a defeated enemy's village. I looked back at Anya once more. "But perhaps we should. I am the victor this day, after all. I ought to take a token of this battle back with me."

Her eyes widened slightly. She took a step backward as I held out my hand to her.

"Come with me, Anya," I said. "Come with me and no man will ever raise a hand to you again."

She simply stood there, her brows crooked together as if she couldn't understand. She took a hesitant step forward, then went still as a man yelled her name.

I turned to see what had to be the second brother rushing toward us, and I quickly leapt to the ground, snatched up a sword, and grabbed Anya's hand.

"Let go of her!" Kohl shrieked, and then he cried, "Marten! Marten, they're taking Anya!"

By the time Marten came running, likely after having dropped his father headfirst, I was lifting the girl onto my horse. I swung up behind her. She neither helped me nor resisted. And I remember wishing she'd give some indication whether she wished to come with me or not. I'd

likely have taken her either way. It was my right to do so. But mostly I hated the thought of those men treating her so cruelly.

Marten and Kohl rushed me, and I could have easily killed one or the other of them with a single swipe of my sword, but I chose not to. Not in front of their sister. Instead. I simply kicked my stallion's sides, and we lunged forward. Tipping my head back, I bellowed a victory cry, and carried my prize away. And Anya whispered, ' 'Goodbye, my brothers." Her voice was neither jubilant nor sad.

I'd made a pair of lifelong enemies that day. Their vengeance had cost me dearly, and would again, I knew. And yet here I was, once again, tempted by a woman in need of rescue.

Yet, I could not quite envision Arianna ever taking the abuse Anya had. I imagined the man who would lift a hand to her would suffer a thousand deaths before she'd satisfied her need for vengeance. She needed rescuing only from herself. And that, she needed badly. For if she continued on the course she'd set, only disaster awaited her.

I went into the village often. Daily, in fact. And each time, I made it a point to see her, to watch her movements. But from a distance, for my own peace of mind. Being close to her was far too disturbing to me.

Most often I found her at the grave of her sister—not mourning, but focusing very intently with a look of stubborn determination on her pretty, elfin face.

One morning I found her near the loch, sitting on the grassy bank alone—always alone. She stared out at the blue-green waters that had taken her sister, a haunted expression in her eyes. I'd vowed to watch over her, to keep her from ruining herself, if I could, but to do so without interacting with her any more than necessary. If she knew how often I observed her, she would read more into my actions than was truly there. And that would feed her romantic notions about the two of us. Besides, sparring with her was exhausting ... and yet exciting to me.

So I'd decided to stay away. But the picture she made

there that morning was one so heartbreaking that I started forward. No one deserved to be as lonely as Arianna looked at that moment.

As soon as I took a step forward, I saw a young man approaching her, and decided to wait... and to watch.

He had to be the cobbler's son of whom Joseph had spoken; the lad to whom she was betrothed. His proprietary hand on her arm gave me to know as much. The way she shook it off only made me smile as I crept closer amid the rushes to watch this little scene play out amid a backdrop of sparkling water and rocky hillsides. The keep loomed tall and gray beyond them, looking almost like an extension of the cliffs beyond it. Its backdrop was the sky, the fluffy clouds drifting lazily past the sun.

"You've mourned your sister long enough," the lad was saying. Angus MacClennan was his name, I recalled. "It looks bad for you, Arianna, sitting out here all alone. 'Tis long enough, I tell you."

Arianna tilted her head to one side, studying him curiously. "How can one know how long is long enough? If I still miss her, if I still weep for her when I'm alone at night... then I still mourn her, Angus. And I do miss her. And I do weep for her. And I sometimes think that I loved her so much... a lifetime of mourning her wouldna be 'long enough.' "

Lowering his head, properly shamed, he whispered, "I didna mean you should stop missing her, Arianna. Only that 'tis high time you be happy again."

"An' how would you suggest I do that?"

He shifted his stance. Arianna remained where she was, sitting carelessly on the bank, knees wrapped within the folds of her arms, glancing at the boy occasionally only to return to her contemplation of the waves. It looked as if he was a bit of a nuisance to her, like a fly, and would get no more attention than one.

"You've long been promised to me," he said, seeming to choose his words with great care and forethought. "I want us to go forth with our lives, Arianna."

"Speak plainly, for heaven's sake."

He cleared his throat, thrust out his chin. "I want us to marry."

"Why?"

Very frank, very blunt, and spoken so quickly poor Angus nearly fell over backward. He blinked his surprise. "What sort of question is that?"

"A good one, I think. Why do you want to marry me?"

"Arianna, you're nigh on ten and eight! And I nearly twenty!"

"So we should marry because we are of a certain age, then." She frowned, shaking her head, still staring at the water. "Hardly seems reason enough to me."

Pushing both hands through his carrot-colored hair, Angus spun in a circle. Then he stopped and stared down at her. "Ahh, I see. So 'tis declarations of love you be want-in', is that it?"

She said nothing, but I saw her close her eyes as if in dread of what was to come.

Sure enough, young Angus rounded on her, dropping to one knee. ' 'I love you, fair Arianna. I want you to be my wife. To bear my children. To—"

"So, you love me, do you?" she interrupted.

He licked his lips. "Aye. Do you nay believe it?"

She shrugged. "Why should I believe it? 'Tis the first time you've spoken of love, Angus, and only now because you think 'tis what I wish to hear. So tell me, what is it you love about me?"

"I-I dinna ken—"

"Well, do you love the way I go about alone when 'tis deemed improper?"

"Nay, not that, but—"

"Then 'tis the way I speak my mind, be my thoughts impertinent or not?"

"Nay, of course not, lass. But I—"

"Nay? Then it must be the way I mourn my beloved sister.... Oh, nay, for you've already told me you dislike that about me."

"You talk in circles!" he shouted. "I-I love your hair, lass, and your eyes, and the figure you fetch in your

dresses." He gave a nod, looking quite satisfied with himself.

"My hair will turn gray and fall out in time. My eyes will dull and lose their glow amid the wrinkles that will pucker my face, and as for the figure I fetch, 'twill go to this childbearing you've spoken of soon enough. What will remain of your so-called love, then, Angus?"

He looked as if he'd been hit between the eyes for a moment. Then he frowned at her. "It willna matter," he said, his voice growing sharper now. '"Tis time, Arianna, canna you see that?"

"Why?" she insisted. "Tell me why. Tell me now or go away. Why, Angus?"

"My mother is ailing, woman!" he blurted all at once. ' 'How much longer do you expect her to run that household and care for me and my da and my younger brothers? 'Tis your place, an' the time has come for you to take it."

She rose, and the look in her eyes as she glared at him made me shiver, even from the distance between us. I actually feared for the lad for just a moment. I rose from my hiding place in the rushes without a thought.

"'Tis nay my place." She poked him in the chest with a forefinger. '"Tis neither my mother, nor my household, nor my brothers need carin' for," she said, poking him three more times. "I willna marry you, Angus. Not now and not ever, so you might as well stop with your askin'."

"You ... you ..." His face reddened. "You canna do that! You're my betrothed! You canna—"

"Katie McDaniel would swoon on the spot should you ask for her hand. Go find you a woman who wants you, Angus. 'Twill never be me. I'd sooner go to prison, for that's what life as a wife here would be like. Prison. Servitude. But there is more than that out there awaitin' me, an' I'll find it someday. I vow I will, or die in the search."

He stared at her, dumbfounded. "Who's been puttin' such wild notions into yer head, woman?'' Then he looked at the ground when she didn't answer. "Can it be true, what they're sayin'? Can it be true, after all?"

"Can what be true?" She looked exasperated with the entire discussion.

Angus lifted his head, and with a sigh of apparent surrender, reached out to her. "No matter. No matter at all, not now. Will you give me your hand, then? A gesture of friendship in parting?"

I went stiff, a little chill of warning creeping into my nape. Even as I started forward, she offered her delicate hand. Angus took it and gripped her hand hard. Too hard. I saw the alarm in her eyes, saw her try to pull free, and I raced toward them. But Angus had a blade in his free hand now, and with a ruthless swipe of it, he cut her. Blood sprayed from her wrist and she screamed. The sound cut right to my heart. Angus jumped backward, wide-eyed, terrified, first at the way she bled, and then as he caught sight of me bearing down on him.

"I dinna mean ... They say a Witch doesna bleed when ye cut 'em! They say a Witch doesna bleed—"

My fist crushed the better part of his face, and when he landed hard on his back, he was blessedly silent. I turned and gathered Arianna close as her knees began to give. I closed my hand firmly around her wrist, slowing the blood flow with pressure. I didn't want her to die, only to revive into a new life; an endless life of fighting just to stay alive. Not yet. Not when she was so young, so innocent. She'd never survive.

"There, lie back, lass. I have you."

"I'll kill him," she whispered through grated teeth. "That simpering, superstitious lout!" She lifted her head to eye the wound. "I'll bleed to death."

"You know I won't allow that to happen. Lie back, Arianna."

She did, reclining half across my lap, her side pressed to my chest. I tore a strip of cloth from her skirt and wrapped her wrist up tight. She winced in reaction and bit her lip. "I'm sorry it hurts you, lass."

"Fear not, Nicodimus. I'm committin' every bit of this pain to memory, so that I can visit it back upon him."

"Hush." I tied a knot in the makeshift bandage. "You'll need stitching. Can you stand?"

She nodded, and then clung to my neck as I got to my feet. She tried to stand without aid and wobbled a bit. I eased her into the crook of my arm. "Come down to the water's edge, and I'll wash some of the blood away."

"My head is spinning," she whispered, but she walked beside me, lowering her head as she sank down into the grass beside the water. This time, she remained sitting up on her own, as I tore at my clothing and used the scraps to bathe her with loch water. Gently, I wiped the blood from her slender forearm. She sat still and silent, contemplating the loch as before. I rinsed the scrap of cloth, squeezed it out, and moved to her face, wiping as carefully as I could. Then I paused, my heart tripping, as I saw a teardrop slip down her cheek.

"Don't cry, Arianna," I said, and I washed it gently away.

She whispered, '"Tis ironic, dinna you think? Now both the Sinclair sisters' blood nourishes this water."

"Then this water must be very special indeed," I said softly.

She met and held my gaze. Her eyes were so brown and deep ... and filled with far more pain and wisdom than a girl of nearly eighteen should know. She touched a palm to my cheek. "You likely saved my life just now, Nicod-imus."

I shook my head, and concentrated on cleaning her face, trying to keep my touch cool and impersonal. "'Twould take more than a cut such as that one to do you in."

She opened her mouth as if she would argue the point, but as she did, she spotted her beau on the ground. Her eyes widened, and I followed her gaze to where he lay. His nose broken, lip bleeding. I supposed I hit him a mite harder than I should.

"Mercy," Arianna said with a gasp. "Have you done him to death?"

"I think not. He moaned a moment ago. And don't pity him, Arianna. He didn't get half the beating he deserves."

I scooped her up into my arms, cleaner now. At least not covered in enough blood to send her mother into a dead faint should she catch sight of her. "I never could abide a man who'd harm a lady."

Looking back at the lad, she told him softly,' 'Think how surprised you'll be, foolish Angus MacClennan, when you learn once and for all that Witches do bleed."

I knew exactly what she was thinking, though it didn't take any magick to do so. Her thoughts were writ clear across her face. "If you think you can go about wielding magick for such petty causes as vengeance, lass, then you've had poor teachers."

She blinked up at me. "Are you admittin' you know of such things personally, Nicodimus?"

I scowled at her. "I'm only saying young Angus has done you a favor. He'll consider this proof of your innocence." I nodded toward her bandaged wrist. "Though I'd like to throttle him for it, all the same."

Her smile was sweet and slow. "You care for me far more than you know," she whispered.

I ignored that remark, finding it far too close to the truth. "When word gets out that Angus cut you and you nearly bled to death, then the speculation about you might well die." I glanced down at her. "At least until you do something to revive it all over again."

"Superstitious fools, all of them. They'll never let it die. They'll say the blood was an illusion, a trick, that I conjured the blood to appear and flow just to fool him." She tilted her head. ' 'At last Da canna expect me to marry the whelp now."

"Ahhh, you owe him for two favors, then."

She glared at me, and then sighed. ' 'Where are you tak-in' me, Nicodimus?"

"To the keep."

"The keep," she whispered, and her eyes turned to stare off at the fortresslike structure. Her slender arms clung more tightly to my neck, and her head rested upon my shoulder as I strode with her along the craggy path up the hill to the massive stone structure at its top.

"Surely you've been in the keep before, Arianna," I said teasingly. "You've nothing to fear there."

"Aye, I've been inside before. An' I dinna fear it, Ni-codimus. You've misread me entirely. I was born to live in a castle keep, and one far finer than this...." She smiled up at me. "Just as I was born to be with you, Nicodimus."

Chapter 4

Arianna rocked against Nicodimus's broad chest when he scooped her up into his arms and strode toward the keep. His arms were clamped securely around her, like some sort of protective armor. His scent surrounded her, warm and musky and male. And this close to him, she could see the tiny bits of stubble that made his cheeks appear shadowed. Beautiful, he was. She'd never known a man so beautiful. And she knew she'd never felt so safe. She didn't like the idea that she needed a man to make her feel this way. She'd never needed a man for anything, and she'd vowed she never would. But wanting a man, well, she supposed that was a far different matter. Not wanting this one, with his angular face and his wizard's eyes, that would be impossible.

Behind them, she heard Angus groaning. Raising her head to look back over Nicodimus's shoulder, Arianna saw that Angus's face was a mottled mess as he stirred himself to sit up. Nicodimus didn't so much as glance backward at the boy. And she knew, even more surely now than she'd known before, that he felt something very powerful for her. It was there in the hard set of his jaw, in the furrow between his brows. In the way he cradled her against his hard chest

so carefully even while his broad strides ate up the distance to the keep. And in the way he paused ever so briefly, and closed his eyes tight when the wind blew her hair into his face.

Arianna felt a rush of uncertainty when he carried her through the outer gates and into the courtyard. Sounds of clanging metal rang in her ears. Men practiced with their swords, fighting one another in mock battle. Off to the left, there were men who shot arrows at straw stuffed targets fashioned in the shapes of men. Everywhere she looked, curious eyes in sweaty, wary faces seemed to greet her. To a man, they stopped what they were doing when they saw Nicodimus carrying her past. She could almost hear their thoughts as they stared at her. What sort of trouble has the fool girl got into this time?

Laird Lachlan would not be pleased with her. True enough, Angus's attack had not been her fault, but the laird would not likely see it that way. She was the one whose behavior had stirred suspicious minds to wild speculation. She was the one who'd caused the tongues to wag.

She couldn't help but stiffen in nervous anticipation as Nicodimus carried her nearer to the huge, banded doors.

Nicodimus looked down at her as he strode closer. "What is it, Arianna?"

She shrugged, averting her eyes, "I'm hardly dressed proper to be visitin' the keep. Look at me. Barefoot."

"You've been barefoot every time I've seen you." His gaze was indulgent and slightly amused.

"My dress is but poor tartan, an' stained with blood an' loch water at that, Nicodimus. Perhaps I ought simply return to my mam an' let her tend the wound."

When he didn't immediately respond, she peered up at him, only to see his deliciously full lips curving at the corners. "Was it not you I just heard telling your beau that there was more awaiting you in this world than a dirt-floor croft and a life of servitude? Or was that some other barefoot hellion?" He shook his head.

"So you were spyin' on us the whole time, were you?"

"I'd say 'tis a good thing I was." She pressed her lips

shut tight, but he ignored her lack of response. "Joseph will have to know what happened sooner or later, Arianna. I cannot believe a girl of your spirit is afraid of her own chieftain."

"I'm nay afraid of any man!"

Nicodimus lifted one brow. "Good. You've no need to be. And don't worry yourself about your state of dress, Arianna. You shame the sun, and I think you know it. What you might be wearing has little to do with it. And I doubt it would have any bearing on Joseph's mood at any rate."

A thrill of warm liquid pleasure spilled into her belly. "Are you sayin' you think I'm beautiful, then, Nicodimus Lachlan?"

Nicodimus's eyes darkened from a gleaming topaz-blue to the shade of sapphires at midnight. "You're beautiful. But there is more than mere beauty shining from those brown eyes."

"What more?" Her words came out on a breathless whisper.

He seemed to force his lingering gaze away from her face, and with a ragged sigh and a sharp shake of his head, resumed walking. "It is dangerous ground I'm treading. Best we speak of something else."

"Tell me," she whispered. "Tell me what you see when you look into my eyes, Nicodimus."

He looked down at her once more, and it almost seemed as if he could see right to her soul. He held her gaze with his, exerting some unseen force, even when she would have looked away. His eyes probed for a long moment, and what she saw in them... It was so intense, so powerful that it nearly frightened her.

An instant later the large, arching door opened, and he never answered her question. Laird Joseph Lachlan appeared in the doorway, a strikingly beautiful woman at his side. Arianna had seen the dark, exotic woman in Stone-haven before. She seemed to come and go as irregularly as Nicodimus himself did. But she seldom set foot in the village, and seemed to hold herself aloof from the clan in the keep. No one seemed to know from whence she came. That

she was a foreigner was obvious. That she was well liked and welcomed by the clan chieftain, equally so. And if Laird Lachlan trusted her, then that was enough for his clan. Few asked questions.

But from the first moment Arianna had seen her, she'd burned with curiosity over the woman's background. The mysterious woman exchanged a lingering, searching glance with Nicodimus that made Arianna want to leap from his arms and claw out her eyes. 'Twas obvious they knew one another. And well.

Her eyes were ebon, slanted, and lined in black. Jewels dangled from her ears and a single ruby pierced her nose. So many bracelets adorned her wrists that they made music when she moved, and around her neck she wore at least as many pendants on chains. She was willow slender, and very tall—taller than most men, in fact. Her hair hung to her waist, blue-black and shining, and perfectly straight. And her skin was a flawless shade of bronze.

She met Arianna's gaze, and her expression did not change. She was stone-faced, no smile of welcome, no frown of concern. Nothing. Just a gaze that made Arianna feel measured and weighed and judged all at once.

"Come, bring her inside," Laird Lachlan said, stepping aside, holding the door. "I saw you comin' and summoned Nidaba. What's happened to her?"

Arianna stiffened in his arms as Nicodimus swept through the doors and into the great hall. Endless distance loomed above her, to the concave ceiling. She shivered at a chill so deep it seemed to reach out and touch her bones.

"Her devoted husband-to-be cut her," Nicodimus said. "To see whether she would bleed, he claimed."

The sound of conversation abruptly ceased as people in the great hall all turned toward Arianna. A lad with his arms loaded down with wood for the fire, the men who stood 'round the plank table deep in some discussion, the women performing various chores—everyone stared at Arianna so intently she thought their looks were burned into her skin. Nidaba muttered a word Arianna didn't recognize, but from the sound of it, it might have been a curse. She

had no inkling whether it was directed at her or at Angus. The woman looked briefly into Arianna's eyes and then away.

"I will tend the girl," she said, her voice as deep and rich as a vat of spring honey, with an accent too exotic to identify. "Bring her to my chamber."

There was no trace of the highlands in Nidaba. Her dark skin was sun-kissed, her nails long and curving, with tiny stones somehow affixed to them. And her dress was as scandalous as any other Arianna had seen her wearing. Black and tight and anchored only at one shoulder, leaving the other, and both arms, completely bare.

She was frightening, and Arianna did not fear much. She bristled, and told herself she could hold her own against the strange woman, should the need arise.

The chieftain turned and waved a hand to those in the chamber. "Go about your business. The lass is nay in need of your gawkin' at her." His voice lower, as they scurried away, he said, "Angus MacClennan is a foolish lad, if ever there was one." He ran one hand over his bald head and sighed, walking beside Nicodimus as Nidaba led the way through an arching doorway and into one of the many dark stone corridors. Nicodimus carried Arianna past what seemed like endless doors, and his steps echoed like ghosts all around them. While Arianna had often been in the great hall and the kitchens, she had never before been in the private wing or invited into the chambers of those who lived here. And yet, she couldn't stop looking ahead, at Nidaba. The woman's black dress seemed to be made of some magickal fabric that shimmered when she moved and clung to her like skin.

"He could have killed her!" the laird muttered angrily. "How many daughters does he think her poor family can stand to lose?"

"You can see the damage gossip can do, Joseph. The tongue-waggers who started this ought to be horsewhipped," Nicodimus said quickly.

"Aye, indeed. Gossip can be a deadly thing, Nic. A deadly thing."

Arianna cringed a bit, knowing Nicodimus likely believed her own behavior had brought this upon her as much as the gossip of the villagers had done. He had warned her, hadn't he?

Nidaba opened a door, and they stepped into a large chamber. It was far different from the dark, rather barren parts of the keep Arianna was familiar with. The room seemed to be of some other world, filled with the most incredible collection of exotic items Arianna had ever seen. Glittering stones of purple and blue and pink, some colorless, some multihued, lined shelves on the walls. And there were daggers—countless different shapes and sizes, all from different lands, Arianna thought, perhaps even ... different times. They hung on the stone walls, some crossing one another, some forming triangles, some fanning out like the tail feathers of some beautiful, deadly bird.

Nidaba waved a beringed hand toward her fur-covered bed, and Nicodimus lowered Arianna onto it. Then he stepped aside to let Nidaba move closer to her. The woman's black eyes met hers, and the ruby in her nose seemed to glow. Arianna shivered. And then the woman touched Arianna's forearm, clasping it to begin removing the makeshift bandage.

A jolt surged from her hand into Arianna's arm the instant the strange woman touched her. Just the way it had at Nicodimus's touch. Arianna's eyes widened. Nidaba paused, met her gaze, and seemed to will her to keep silent. Aloud, she said, "I have no need of you two men. You may go, take refreshment. I will bring her along to you when we've finished."

Arianna sought Nicodimus's eyes, her own pleading. She didn't know this woman. Nidaba frightened her, when she'd long prided herself on fearing nothing; not man, nor beast nor death itself.

"I'll stay," Nicodimus said, very softly. "She's been through a shock, and you're a stranger to her, Nidaba."

Nidaba's dark, probing gaze never left Arianna. "I am a stranger to most of the clan Lachlan. But few look at me with such wide eyes as these." Her hand clasped Arianna's

chin as she studied her face, and Arianna fought to hide her inexplicable fear of the woman. "You are right to be afraid, young one, of those you do not know. However, I mean you no harm .. .just now." As she unwrapped the wound, she whispered, "I am not one of the Dark Ones."

Arianna only frowned, puzzled.

And when Nidaba saw that she hadn't understood, the woman sent Nicodimus a questioning look, to which he responded with a quick subtle shake of his head. There was another long gaze between them, but it broke off when Nicodimus came to the other side of the bed to watch over her as the dark woman worked. The laird himself, not some servant, fetched water and a cloth, and brought fine whiskey for her to sip, while Nidaba cleansed and then stitched the wound, and Arianna clutched Nicodimus's forearm in pain.

Twice, Arianna saw Nidaba move one hand over the cut in a circular motion; saw her lips moving as she whispered some words too soft to hear. Almost as if... as if she were casting a spell.

But nay. She couldn't be. Could she?

When the laird left the three of them alone in the room, Arianna cleared her throat, gathered her courage, and blurted the question on her mind. "Are you a Witch, Nidaba?"

Nidaba's hands stilled. Then she lifted one forefinger, and taking the needle, pricked it. A ruby-red droplet welled from the tiny puncture, and Nidaba met Arianna's eyes. "I bleed. Therefore, I cannot be, can I?''

Silent for a moment, looking from Nidaba to Nicodimus and back again, Arianna realized it was meant to be a joke. Though the strange woman never smiled.

"I am serious," Arianna insisted. "Is it only when I touch the hand of another Witch that I feel that... that surge of... of whatever it is that I felt when I touched you just now, Nidaba? Or when I touch Nicodimus?''

Nidaba met Nicodimus's eyes, her eyebrows raised.

"But it canna be that," Arianna continued, shaking her head. "I feel nothing when I touch Celia's hand, nor Lean-dra's nor Mary's."

Nidaba tilted her head. "And who are they?"

"The Crones," Nicodimus explained.

"Ahhh," she said. "The mortal village Witches."

Arianna frowned at them both while Nidaba bent to her work once again. " 'Mortal'? What do you mean, Nidaba?" But Nidaba didn't answer. "Nicodimus, what did she mean?"

Nicodimus cleared his throat. "Nidaba is not quite fluent in our language, Arianna. It is not her native tongue."

"Do you think I dinna ken as much?" Arianna said with a toss of her head. "The entire clan kens she's a foreigner." Arianna looked at her. "Where do you come from, Nidaba?"

"I believe you know it as Sumeria," Nidaba answered without looking up. Her hair hung over her face like a black satin curtain.

Arianna blinked. She was uncertain, but she thought Sumeria to be the name of some long ago desert land; a place that no longer existed. She must be mistaken. She certainly didn't want to show the two of them her ignorance by asking.

"And, how do you two know each other?" she went on, bumingly curious about the nature of their relationship.

"Why do you ask?" Nicodimus asked her.

She shrugged. "You seem ... well acquainted."

"We are."

Nidaba's head was still bent over Arianna's wrist, but not so much that Arianna missed the slight smile at Nicodimus's answer. "Nicodimus and I have been ... acquainted ... for a very long time. Longer than you could even begin to guess."

"Then ... you are close. Close ... as friends are close?" Arianna pressed.

The needle jabbed her, and while up to now she hadn't felt a hint of unnecessary pain under the woman's ministrations, this time it hurt. "The curious rabbit who pries into the scorpion's lair," Nidaba said softly, "gets stung."

"You did that apurpose!" Arianna all but shouted.

Nidaba said nothing more as she wrapped Arianna's arm

in a clean, soft cloth. When that was done, she straightened, and began putting her things away. "Finish the whiskey," she told Arianna. "The pain will ease soon."

The door opened and the laird peered inside. "How is she?"

"She will be fine," Nidaba replied. "But it could have been far more serious, had Nicodimus not been nearby."

"Aye, I thought as much. Rest awhile there, lass," the laird bade Arianna. "You'll take dinner here in the keep. An' I'll have no argument about that. Fear not, I'll send word to your mother with the same two men I'm sendin' to bring young Angus back here. A night in the dungeon might give the lad somethin' to think about 'ere next he harms a lassie. We dinna tolerate such behavior in the clan."

"No," Nicodimus said, almost under his breath. "No, we never have." And he exchanged yet another secretive glance with Nidaba.

Arianna forced herself to exercise the manners her mam had taught her. "I'm very grateful to you, Laird, and to you, Nidaba." It galled her to thank a woman she sensed might be closer to Nicodimus than she was. But she had no choice. The strange woman had helped her.

"Then you'll repay us by saying nothing of Nidaba's healing skills to those vicious gossips in the village," the laird responded. And as Arianna frowned at him, he explained, "If they persecute you for your strange ways, child, think what they'd make of her, did they learn she was a gifted practitioner of the healing arts. Nidaba is an old and valued friend, an' I'll nay subject her to such gossip."

Those words, and the truth behind them, made Arianna's chin raise. Women who practiced healing with any degree of success would soon raise the same suspicions in the superstitious members of the clan that Arianna herself had raised among them. "Aye," she said softly. "If 'tis my silence you want, you have my word on it, Laird. But were I you, Mistress Nidaba, I would march among the crofters proudly, and challenge anyone to say an unkind word and

survive my wrath. Those ignorant fools need a lesson. 'Tis high time they had one, in fact, an' I—"

"And you're just the one to deliver it," Nicodimus finished for her. "Have you not learned a thing from all of this, Arianna?"

Nidaba looked from Nicodimus to Arianna, a worried glint in her strange eyes. "I approve of your spirit, child. And, if it is your own destruction you seek, you are going about it very well."

"My own ... ?" Arianna shook her head. "That's not it at all."

' 'If that is true, then perhaps you will listen to someone a great deal older than you, Arianna. Sometimes it is better to wait in silence—to choose one's battles with wisdom rather than to rush headlong into each and every fight because of foolish pride."

Arianna blinked at the soft, poetic cadence of Nidaba's voice. She spoke slowly, deliberately, her tones deep and musical and hypnotic.

"I come here," she went on, "to rest from strife and conflict, Arianna. Lachlan Keep is a haven to me, as it is to Nicodimus. I have no wish to stir up trouble here, among Joseph's clan. There will be enough awaiting me when I leave these walls."

Arianna frowned, tilting her head to one side. ' 'If your life is so filled with trouble, perhaps you ought to stay here for good."

"My troubles would find me soon enough," she said, and there was a sadness in her eyes that made Arianna think perhaps she'd jumped to the wrong conclusions when she'd judged the woman to be her rival and her enemy.

"What sorts of troubles do you—"

"No, child. You know nothing of these things. Not yet."

"Rest until dinner, lass," the laird said again. "Come, Nidaba. I could use some of that wisdom of yours myself as I ponder what to do with the lass. I've spoken to some of the clansmen, and the talk Angus has already spread will no doubt make matters far worse. Decisions will need be made regarding the lassie's safety."

Nidaba nodded as Arianna frowned, and the two left the room, the laird's head gleaming as much as Nidaba's nose ring did in the flickering lamplight. Turning her puzzled gaze on Nicodimus, Arianna asked, "What did the laird mean by that?"

Nicodimus sighed deeply, and sat down upon the edge of the bed. "Arianna ..." He drew a breath and let it out slowly. "It is fairly obvious now that you cannot simply return to the village. Not when the talk about you has reached such a crucial point that people are out to cut your pretty flesh just to see whether you bleed. It is too dangerous."

"But I did bleed. Surely that should prove something to them."

"You said yourself that it meant nothing, and I fear you were right. If Angus is spreading more wild tales already ... You're in danger here, Arianna."

She narrowed her eyes. ' 'Danger,'' she spat. ' 'If my own clan is ignorant enough to come for me, let them. Next time I'll be ready."

"No, child, you're not nearly ready for such as that."

"Why will everyone nay stop callin' me 'child'? I am nay a child!"

His lips crooked as if he battled a grin.

Sitting up in the bed, Arianna frowned at him. ' 'Nor am I ready to allow the laird to decide my fate! Nicodimus, I'll nay stand for it!" She swung her legs to the floor, went to stand, but Nicodimus gripped her arms in his, his touch tender, but firm enough to still her.

"All the laird has done up to now is show you his kindness, care for your wounds and invite you to dine here, Arianna. I'd suggest you try gratitude instead of rebellion, just this once. Wait to see what your chieftain has to say before you decide to flay him alive for it."

She blinked, released all her breath at once, and lowered her head. "You're right. I... I'm sorry. I'll try to behave better. Some things ... just dinna sit well with me, Nicodimus."

"I know. And persecution of those whose ways are dif-

ferent is one of those things. Being told what to do is another. I'm aware of it. You wear your principles wrapped about you the way a knight wears his master's colors. What you don't understand is that Joseph shares those same concerns with you. It is why I come here when I need a rest from the ... from the battles I fight. Why Nidaba has taken refuge here as well. Because he's not like the others out there."

She hung her head, a bit ashamed. "I suppose you think I'm actin' like a child."

"No. Like a warrior in search of a war. But you've no battle to fight here, not with me, nor with Nidaba, nor with Joseph. I promise you that."

She nodded slowly. "I suppose ... you're right." Although she thought she might disagree about Nidaba.

"Of course I'm right."

"So what do you think he'll decide should be done with me?"

"I imagine you'd best wait and see."

' 'If I dinna like it, I will refuse. I... I will leave the clan if I must. I willna be forced into anything, Nicodimus. Not even by my own laird."

"Wild horses couldn't force you into anything, Ar-ianna."

She looked at him, and he smiled. "You may take it as a compliment, if you wish."

She smiled back at him, just a little. She liked the way he made her feel. But she hated his secrets. Still, she supposed it would take him some time to come to trust her, to see her as a friend, the way he did Nidaba. But it would happen. She would see to that.

There was a sound outside the door, and then Nidaba stepped back inside. "I've come to tell you we eat in an hour, and to ask you, Arianna, if you would like to borrow a clean dress to wear."

Glancing down at her attire, Arianna sighed in relief. "I... would like that very much. Though your gowns will likely drag 'round the rushes on me. I thank you, Nidaba."

Nidaba nodded, her face expressionless, then sent Ni-

codimus a look that told him his welcome here was over. As soon as they were alone, she opened an ornately carved chest and pulled out gown upon richly hued gown, none conventional or even fashionable. They were all simply cut, many daringly so, with no sleeves to cover the arms, and only one strap to attach atop one shoulder. Nidaba chose just such a gown, in a shimmering amber-colored material. "This one is shorter. I made it so, for ease in riding."

"It's ... very beautiful."

Nidaba handed it to her, folded her arms across her chest and watched with an unblinking gaze as Arianna undressed, and donned the gown. Arianna felt like a wanton when she put it on, but Nidaba only nodded her approval and reached for a silver comb.

"Sit," she commanded.

Arianna sat upon a stool, staring into a polished silver mirror that must be worth a fortune. And to her surprise, Nidaba began to run the comb through her hair. Arianna stared at her reflection, and that of the dark woman behind her, and she sighed. "My mam used to comb my hair this way."

"Why has she stopped?"

Arianna shrugged. "Nothing is the same since my sister died."

"And why should it be the same?" Nidaba asked. "There is grief now, where there once was joy. You miss her. Your mother misses her. Why do you not comfort one another?"

Arianna lowered her head, not saying what she felt. That it was her fault, and she felt too guilty to look her mother in the eye, much less try to comfort her, or allow herself to be comforted.

"No one knows the hour of their death, Arianna. You could not have known your sister would drown that day. You nearly drowned yourself."

"You know about Raven?" Arianna asked, meeting Nidaba's eyes in the mirror.

She nodded. "Nicodimus ... has spoken of it."

Arianna swallowed hard. "Do ... do you love him, Ni-daba?"

Nidaba held her gaze in the mirror. "I have loved him for all of his life," she said. "And protected him, as well. I sense you are dangerous to him, young one."

Blinking, Arianna shook her head. "I would never hurt Nicodimus!"

Nidaba's gaze met and held Arianna's, and they narrowed very slightly. "Then you have nothing to fear from me. But if you do hurt him ... I warn you, child, my wrath will know no bounds."

A cold chill rushed down Arianna's spine at those words.

Nidaba ran a slender hand over Arianna's hair, then gently pulled the strands back from her face and secured the tresses with a jewelled comb. She nodded. "There now. I believe you are ready for the meal."

Arianna stepped into the great hall feeling as if she were caught in a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare. The gown she wore felt foreign and strange, made of what Nidaba called "silk," spun by special worms in the Orient. Fit for a goddess, it was, dyed an amber hue that reminded Arianna of Nicodimus's golden hair. The gown hung from one shoulder, where it was caught with a brooch of glittering gem-stones, leaving the other shoulder and both arms sinfully bare. One wrist bore the white bandages, but other than that, her arms were fully exposed, and it felt scandalous, but good. While the gown did drag through the rushes on the floor a bit, it was not nearly as long as she had feared it would be. She looked beautiful. And she knew it.

The moment she stepped into the hall, a hush gradually fell across the room as conversation ceased. Soon all eyes were turned to where she stood near the doorway. She seemed to have captured the attention of all those who had gathered in the hall for the evening meal. Even the laird himself stopped his talk to stare at Arianna. Was she so different then? Nidaba had arranged her hair in a most becoming fashion, with soft tendrils curling all around her

face. And her eyes had been touched with some mystical powder to enhance their shade.

The laird stood near the hearth speaking with his two sons, Kenyon, who was just her age, and Lud, two years her senior. But it was not their eyes she sought, as she scanned the huge room. There... Nicodimus sat in an oversized wooden chair with a heavy brass goblet in his hand, but he'd paused with the drink halfway to his mouth and sat motionless, staring at her.

She licked her lips and boldly returned his stare, secretly wondering what to do next. Then the laird cleared his throat and Nicodimus blinked and quickly got to his feet. "Ar-ianna. You look..."

"You look fit to take a man's breath away," Lud cut in, rushing to her side to offer an arm. He was a big lad of twenty years, with a belly that already bulged from too much ale. His face was ruddy, his hair, thick and uncombed.

"Nay, she looks better than that," Kenyon exclaimed. "She looks like an angel." And he came to her other side, also offering an arm. Kenyon was Lud's opposite, small and slight, fair of coloring, and always well groomed.

She glanced back at Nidaba, who only watched, her face expressionless. Not knowing what else to do, Arianna let the lads escort her to the laird's table, which sat on a raised dais at one end of the hall, where pitchers of mead surrounded platters piled high with steaming food. It looked to Arianna as though the laird's cook had been expecting a great many more mouths to feed tonight. There were several other tables on the floor nearby, just as laden with fare.

"Lovely as a sunrise," Laird Lachlan boomed, and headed for the high table. Nicodimus's approach was slower, his gaze enigmatic, as it slid from Lud to Kenyon, and back to Arianna again. Lingering on her. Nidaba watched him with her black almond eyes and expressionless face.

Nidaba and Arianna sat down, and then the men took their places. The others in the room quickly followed suit. Right away, beefy arms began reaching for the joints of

meat and pastries. But Arianna's appetite fled at the thought of what Laird Lachlan might decree for her. Would he send her away? Would she have the spine in her to defy him if he tried?

Nicodimus glanced her way. "Are you not hungry, Ar-ianna? Is it your arm? Is it paining you?"

She shook her head, and took a piece of mutton from the trencher set before her. "I'm nervous, I suppose. Laird, will you tell me what you've decided?"

"Food first, lass," he muttered around a mouthful of pork. "Talk later."

"I'm afraid I'll never be able to eat until I know what it is you're about to ... suggest I do."

The feeding stopped momentarily. Lud glanced at Ken-yon, and then the two grinned. "Never known our father to be one for makin' suggestions,7' Lud said.

"Aye," replied his brother. "Mostly he just gives orders."

"Enough," Nidaba said sharply ... or, sharply, for her. But the lads fell silent. And Nidaba addressed their father. "Surely you can see the girl is frightened of what will befall her next, Joseph," she said softly.

"Nay, not frightened!" Arianna argued. "I dinna fear anything!" Her voice carried to the other tables. They all looked at her for a moment, perhaps surprised at such a declaration from such a small female. She focused her eyes on her food, waiting until they all went back to eating and the conversation grew loud again. Then, more softly, she went on.

"I canna wait endlessly for my fate to be sealed, Laird. I must know what you intend to do with me."

Drawing a deep breath, Joseph wiped the back of one hand across his mouth, then leaned back in his chair. "Very well, then," he said slowly. "The answer is obvious. Lass, what you need is protection. And a bit of taming, I might add. A man's name is like armor to a woman—his guidance, most needed. Especially in a lass as wild as you. You've got to get yourself a man. A husband."

Arianna felt her eyes widen, and she stiffened with ten-

sion. "You'll forgive me, Laird, but a husband is what the fool who cut me meant to be. I canna see that—"

"Now, lass, I said, you need a man. Angus Mac-Clennan's a mere lad with half a brain an' less in the way of ambition. Bein' his wife would be no good for you. A woman with a nose for trouble such as you have needs a man stronger than she, not weaker."

It was too late now for discretion, for every man in the room was looking on in great interest. Blinking, looking around, desperate for any option to the laird's decision, she glanced wildly around the table. Her gaze met first Lud Lachlan's, then his brother's, and the expressions in their eyes as they stared at her made panic flutter in her chest. "Who ... who ... ?" She sounded like an owl. But she couldn't seem to speak. Not the laird's sons. Please, not his sons. She'd never liked them in that manner. Lud was a slightly pompous bully who pushed his younger brother around with his weight and size, while Kenyon fought back with his keen intellect. Lud was too big and brutish, Kenyon too small and effeminate to stir in her the kind of reaction, the hot longing that Nicodimus did. And besides, throughout their childhood, neither of them had often let her forget that they considered themselves her betters. Although they'd changed their attitude toward her since she'd reached adulthood... since she'd grown breasts, at least.

They had even saved her life that day in the loch. But they had failed to save her sister... though they'd tried. They had failed, and she supposed she shouldn't hold that against them, but she couldn't help it. Each time she'd seen them since the day Raven had drown, had only served as a painful reminder of that horrible day.

She turned toward Nicodimus, but he was sitting very still, watching Joseph, waiting for his next words. He looked as if he were holding his breath. Joseph returned his gaze before turning his attention back to Arianna.

"You need the protection of a husband, lass. And I need to see to the well-being of the clan. I can't have this sort of talk dividing us," Joseph said slowly. "An' while I'm

unsure it's wise to do so, my sons have insisted I consider choosing one of them as your husband."

"Aye," said Lud. "You'd be safe wed to the firstborn and heir of the laird." His eyes, friendly before, looked hungry now. And having seen the way Lud devoured the meat on the table, she nearly feared he'd do the same to her.

"Laird... surely there must be some other way to ensure my safety than—"

"Or the second bom, who is far closer to the right age for her!" Kenyon shouted.

"Oh, but I—"

"Or the chieftain himself," said Nidaba, very softly. And when Arianna sent her a surprised look, she thought Nidaba looked smugly satisfied. So she thought Arianna would be out of Nicodimus's reach for good now, did she? "Joseph's wife has been dead this past decade. It is time he remarry," Nidaba went on, ignoring the desperate look in Arianna's eyes. "So, Joseph, which will it be?"

Arianna shoved herself away from the table, springing to her feet. As she did, so did two of the laird's men, one with a shank of meat still in his hand. "Nay!" Arianna cried. "I dinna mean to be rude, Laird, an' I am grateful to you—and fond of your sons, but I could never—''

The laird held up a hand to silence her. With a commanding look, he ordered his men to take their seats again. "Alas, Arianna, there's no other way. I'll leave the choice up to you. One of my sons, one of my men ... But one way or another, lass, there's goin' to be a wedding. An' soon."

She shook her head rapidly, her eyes welling with hot tears. And she could feel the eyes of every man in the place focused on her, speculative and cold. Then she glanced down at Nicodimus, who remained just as still as a statue, and whose face had gone stony. He met her eyes, had to have seen the plea in them, the fear.

"I'll leave here," she said at last. "I'll leave the village an'—"

"An' what lass? Make your way through the highlands

alone?" the laird asked. "How would you eat? Or live? Nay, you'll marry. I promise whoever you choose, I shall see to it you're safe and protected, well cared for an' happy. An', lassie, you must know 'tis a great gift I offer you! My own sons, 'tis a match beyond your dreams."

"My dreams are far bigger than you could possibly know, Laird." Her voice grew quieter, until she had to swallow the lump in her throat in order to go on speaking. "An' I'm well aware of the gift you offer. I'm but a crazy wench with no prospects beyond marry in' a cobbler's son. Yet you offer your own sons. I dinna expect you to ken why I must refuse but—"

"Lass, you've no choice in the matter. I am laird of this clan. You will choose. Tonight. I'll speak to your father, an' I've no doubt he'll agree."

Blinking, turning her wide gaze from one of the men to the next, she felt as trapped as a hunted animal. And suddenly she felt as if she couldn't breathe. She drew in all the air she could, but it wasn't enough. Her chest constricted, and she pressed a palm flat to it, inhaling again and again. A pulse beat in her throat so hard it felt as if she were choking on her own heart.

Nicodimus got to his feet and went to her, searching her face worriedly. "Easy, Arianna," he whispered. "Breathe in slowly. Slower than that." He gathered her up, and took her back to her chair, then lowered her gently into it. "There's no need for all this upset. Joseph is only looking after you."

"I... w-want to go home."

His blue eyes softened. "Arianna, if you return home you'll not be safe. Your father is no fighting man. And with the talk in the clan being what it is ..."

"I canna ... I willna marry ... not unless ..."

"Unless...?"

She got her breathing under control, sat up straighter, and turned to face Joseph Lachlan, while Nicodimus remained standing beside her chair. ' 'If I must choose, then I'll choose right now," she said, her voice no longer shaking, but firm and strong. She turned to Nicodimus. "I

choose you. If I must marry, I choose you, Nicodimus."

His face went as hard as granite, and his eyes turned cold. "I," he stated in a voice that made her tremble, "was not one of your choices."

She lifted her chin, turned her head quickly away so he wouldn't see the sudden, hot tears that sprang to her eyes at his quick, firm rejection. There was a satisfied look in Nidaba's eyes. "Then I'll nay marry at all," Arianna declared.

She got to her feet, walked directly toward the doors.

"Lassie!" the laird cried, getting up as well. "You mustn't go back into the village, 'twould nay be safe."

"If you wish to stop me, Laird Lachlan, you shall have to kill me." She jerked a heavy door open, stepped out, pulled it closed behind her... and then she ran.

Chapter 5

I could only stand there and watch when Arianna rose as proudly and regally as a princess, and left us all behind her without a backward glance.

There had been no mistaking the pain in those brown eyes. Deeply felt, but quickly hidden. I had hurt her. I hadn't meant to. My reaction had been gut deep, the instinctive lashing out at that which caused me pain. I had done wrong, I knew that now. She had felt trapped, and she had reached out to me for help. I should have seen her desperation, should have realized she was only reaching for me the way a drowning man would reach for a sliver of driftwood. I had callously slapped her small hand away. And why? Because of my own need to preserve my solitary existence. Because of my own weakness where Arianna was concerned. I was afraid, I suppose, of a girl as small and slight as a butterfly. Determined that I would feel no more for her than I did already, and causing her pain in my attempts to ensure that. I was afraid, yes, but not of her. I feared being hurt again. The agony of the last time was still with me.

* * *

Anya, fiery haired, soft-spoken Anya, lying on a bed of furs, too hoarse and exhausted to scream anymore, while the clan elderwomen worked around her, grim expressions on their weathered faces. I'd been with Anya fully half my life, by then. For fourteen years, we had been as one. And no matter how often her brothers, Marten and Kohl, mounted raids on our village seeking vengeance, trying to steal her back, she'd remained safely at my side.

Jaymes had only just seen his twelfth year, and he huddled outside our hut, his face tearstained, his entire body shaking. Will paced, trying hard to be a man. To help, to be strong for his mother, his brother, and me. I couldn't even offer my sons any comfort. I was afraid right to my soul as my wife struggled to give birth to our baby girl, but to no avail.

Anya grasped my hand as I leaned over her. She stared up at me with her eyes of pale blue, and very softly, she whispered, "I never thanked you for taking me away from them, Nicodimus. You saved me, you know."

"I'd save you going through this now, if I could." Tears choked me, burned my eyes and my throat. Saved her? How could she say it? I had brought this on her. It was my child she carried, struggled to deliver. I was nearly out of my mind with the frustration of being utterly unable to help her. There was nothing I could do. Nothing, and it ate at my soul.

"Hush," she said. "It is nearly over."

My head came up fast in alarm when she said those words.

"I have had a good life with you. I have grown to love you, husband. And if I had to do it all over, I would change nothing. I promise you that."

"Anya ... you mustn't speak that way...."

"I will speak as I must. Time is short. You know it as well as I."

"No..."

She lifted a trembling finger, touched it to my lips. So brave. She even managed a smile for me. "Take care of the boys, my love. Jaymes is so gentle of spirit. He is not

meant to be a warrior like you. And Will. Will is a bit too much of one. He needs to learn to master his emotions, to temper his anger."

"I know. I know, Anya. But you'll be here to see to that."

She shook her head side to side, just once. "Keep them away from my brothers, Nicodimus," she whispered. "Marten and Kohl must never come near my sons. They are cruel, arrogant men without a hint of conscience or decency. They made my life hell... until you came and took me away."

"They'll never come near our sons," I promised her.

She nodded and was silent for a long moment. Her pain, I knew, was constant now. There was no rest in between. No time to prepare for the next bout. She stiffened as if it were growing still worse. Clenching her teeth, her voice broken and hoarse, she whispered, ' 'I love you, Nicodimus. I love you."

Then Anya closed her eyes. Her entire body relaxed for the first time since it had gone taut with the initial birthing pangs. I cried her name again and again, but to no avail. My sweet Anya was gone. I was moved aside by the el-derwomen, who'd done all they could to help her, as they frantically tried to save the babe. But I knew in my bones it was too late for the little one as well.

Weak, nearly lifeless, I went outside to face my sons. I didn't need to tell them. They saw the emotion in my eyes, and they knew. Young Jaymes rushed into my arms and clung to me, sobbing so hard I feared he'd tear himself in two. Will turned away and walked into the forest alone. I stood still as stone and silently vowed never to love another the way I had loved sweet Anya.

"Nicodimus? Nic?"

Nidaba's voice penetrated my mind, her hand on my shoulder, shaking me. I blinked away the haunting memories that still had the power to tear at my soul, even after seven centuries, and faced the woman who had saved my life more than once.

"You cannot mean to go after Arianna," she said, her voice a harsh whisper. "She's trouble to you, to both of us, you know that." Already, Joseph was speaking with his men, his meal disrupted, along with his appetite, I imagined. He would send them after Arianna, though it would pain him to do so.

"How much trouble can she be, Nidaba? She's only a girl."

"She's an immortal High Witch, same as you and I," Nidaba all but hissed. "One without discipline or a hint of discretion. Reckless and bold—"

I came very close to smiling at that description. "I have to go after her all the same," I told Nidaba. "Joseph, leave your men to finish their meal. I'll fetch the girl back."

Joseph stopped speaking, studying me curiously and finally nodding. "Aye, the lassie would likely react better to you than to a dispatch of soldiers."

Nidaba sighed, shaking her head as if in disgust or exasperation with me. In silence I turned to do what I must to save another girl. Even though there was a part of me that didn't want to try ... for fear I might fail. Again.

Nidaba didn't try to stop me, but I could feel her disapproval following me all the way across the rutted courtyard to the gates.

Arianna had a head start on me. I could not follow her, so I went to the place I thought she would most likely go: her father's cottage. The village was dark this night. Silent. No light emerged from the saddle maker's cottage, but I saw a shadow moving through its plank door. Arianna. I went still as she stepped out again with a small pack slung over her shoulder.

Gods, she intended to leave then.

Pausing outside the doorway, she turned back, and in the glow of the waning moon, I thought I saw a shimmer of tears on her face. "I dinna know where you are this eve," she whispered. "But where e're you be, I hope you ken my love. I'm sorry, Mam. I wish things could've been different."

There was no reply. I'd assumed those inside to be

asleep, oblivious to what was happening without. But from Arianna's choked words, I discerned no one to be within the cottage. She hadn't even been allowed the luxury of saying a proper goodbye to her family. I cursed myself for being so cruel to Arianna and took a single step toward her, but she was already running again, fleeing into the night, heading toward the cemetery.

I sighed and stood still for a moment. Of course, she'd want to say goodbye to her sister as well. She would never leave Stonehaven without doing that. At least I knew where to find her.

I walked slowly, needing to collect my thoughts before I faced Arianna. I didn't know exactly what I was going to say to her when I found her. The wise thing, the sane thing for her to do, would be to obey Joseph and take a husband. Not me. Certainly not me, but one of Joseph's boys. They were both decent young men, and it was obvious either of them would be glad to have her as wife. It would solve all Arianna's problems. She could stay here, close to her family. The talk about her might go on, but not to such a dangerous degree. And certainly no one would dare to act on it.

And yet, some part of me rebelled at the thought of talking her into any of that. I couldn't imagine myself trying to convince her to marry either of the Lachlan lads.

So what options remained for her? Leave here, alone? Perhaps Nidaba would ...

My musings as well as my steps came to a halt as the sounds of distant shouts reached my ears. Frowning, I glanced in the direction from whence the noise seemed to come, and saw an eerie red-orange glow lighting the night. My throat went dry. "Good Gods, is that The Crones' cottage?" It had to be. It was.

I broke into a run, rounding a corner so that the cemetery came into view. Arianna was not there. "No," I whispered. "No, she mustn't...." Cupping my hands to my mouth I called, "Arianna! Arianna, come back!"

There was no reply. She must have seen the flames and headed out there. But she might not have heard the shouts,

as I did. My senses were honed, sharpened, beyond mortal limits. Hers were not. Nor would they be, until after she'd tasted death for the first time, and revived into something new. She wouldn't understand what she might be walking into.

I whispered a spell of protection, and then I ran.

A prickling sensation ran up the back of Arianna's neck as she stood over her sister's grave, whispering her goodbyes. She'd realized, almost as soon as she'd left Lachlan keep, that the laird had been right. She wasn't safe in Stonehaven. It wasn't the gossip and the speculation about her that worried her. It was her father, and Laird Lachlan, and Angus— all of them trying so hard to marry her off as fast as lightning. Well, she wouldn't have it. And if it took running away to ensure her freedom, then that was what she'd have to do.

She could have borne wedlock, she supposed, had it been with Nicodimus. He understood her. No one else ever had, nor, she suspected, ever would. But he'd made it all too clear how he felt about the notion of being burdened with her as his wife. So she had little choice remaining. She didn't know how she would make her way, or even where she would go. She only knew she would survive. She never had any doubt of that.

She had glanced up at the sky as she'd contemplated which direction to take, and had glimpsed the fiery glow in the distance. The Crones! Their cottage must be ablaze!

Fear for the three women clutched at her heart, and she dropped her sack to the ground and raced through the village—the oddly silent village. It occurred to her that it wasn't all that late. Darkness had fallen, but there ought still be people about or some signs of activity. It was strange. Her own family's cottage had been empty, and it looked as if all the others were, as well. But perhaps the villagers, too, had seen the flames, and had rushed off to help douse the fire.

Imagine that—the fearful and narrow-minded villagers rushing off to help the outcasts. Never! Nay, it must be

something else that had drawn everyone away this night.

Arianna's bare feet fell hard on the packed mud path through the village. She clutched a woven shawl around her shoulders to protect against the night's chill as she ran steadily. She could run like the wind. She'd always been proud of the fact, though she'd been told often enough 'twas unladylike to race with the boys ... and unwise to beat them. The long gown Nidaba had loaned her slowed her only until she gathered its skirts up to her knees and held them bunched there with one hand. The night breeze rushed over her face and whipped her hair behind her. Her lungs worked hard, her heart harder, but she pushed on. Perhaps the balefire had got away from The Crones, she thought. Perhaps it was only some brush burning and not the cottage. Perhaps they weren't even home, but out gathering herbs, or...

She rounded a bend, and came to an abrupt halt as The Crones' cottage came into view. It was ablaze, every inch of it, with hungry flames shooting to the heavens. She could feel the heat from where she stood. And... and people. Arianna's own clan, all of them standing around, just watching it burn, some carrying torches. What in the name of...

She moved forward slowly, a frown creasing her brows, her eyes scanning the crowd for some sign of the old women.

She found them, not amid the crowd, but dangling high above it. Her stomach lurched so forcefully she doubled over and fell to her knees, gagging.

Celia, Leandra, and Mary each hung suspended by ropes from the sturdy limb of the giant oak that had shaded their home by summer and protected it through the cold winter months. Their bodies were completely blackened, charred, smoldering still as they turned slowly in the light of the nearby fire.

Overcome by horror and nausea, Arianna could barely understand the people muttering. Something about a lamb being born with two heads, and how it was a sign. Something about Angus MacClennan, and Arianna's refusal to

wed him. Arianna knelt, heaving violently, shaking so hard she could barely remain on her knees.

Someone heard her retching and turned. "Tis Arianna Sinclair herself," a voice yelled. The voice was vaguely familiar, though she was certain she'd never heard it raised in such an ugly tone. "She's been seen with the Witches! Out alone, at all hours, day an' night. An' she dinna drown when her own sister did!"

"A Witch just like 'em, no doubt," shouted another. "Did you see what she did to young Angus's face?"

"Aye, and he said when he cut her she bled only loch water!"

Arianna weakly lifted her head. The crowd turned toward where she knelt, and slowly began to move forward. She knew she was in more danger than she had ever been, and her stomach clenched with icy fear.

"God in heaven, nay!"

It was her mother's voice. Arianna managed to lift her head a bit higher, saw her mother and her father battling their way through the crowd to reach her. Her mother leaned over her, smoothed a hand over her forehead, and threw her arms around Arianna while her father stood at her side.

"My daughter is innocent!" her father cried, dropping to one knee, gripping her shoulder.

"Arianna," her mother whispered. "We tried to stop this. We did, I swear it to you, but they wouldna listen."

"Innocents dinna walk about alone at night, Sinclair," a voice accused. "Perhaps Arianna should join the other Witches in hell!"

Arianna managed to lift her head again, and saw the crowd moving still closer, while her mother hugged her hard, sobbing in terror. "I'll nay let them harm you, my girl! They'll have to hang us all!"

Stunned by the shock of seeing her friends so brutally murdered, and by the fear, her surprise took a moment to register. But then it did. This was her mother, the woman always so concerned with being proper and what the clan thought of her. On her knees, hugging her accused daugh-

ter, and defending her aloud! Tears stung her eyes. To have her mother defend her so fiercely and to show her love so openly! If only it didn't seem as if this would be the last moments they would share together.

Arianna looked up to see her father picking up a large limb from the ground. Lifting it high, he turned to face the threatening villagers. As if he'd fight them for her. But they'd kill him...

"Da, nay, you mustn't—"

And then a large shadow fell between Arianna and her neighbors. A tall, strong man, silhouetted by firelight. But she knew him just as she had always known him. She would know him even if she were blind.

"Nicodimus," she whispered, closing her eyes. "Thank the Fates."

"You can all stop where you are," he commanded. "Arianna Sinclair is under my direct protection, and the protection of your laird, Joseph Lachlan, as well."

His voice was harsh, powerful, and so icy it sent a tremor of reaction through Arianna, even though she knew she had nothing to fear from him.

"Any man who lays a hand on her... or any woman who speaks an ill word against her, will answer to me. And believe me, it will not go easy with them."

There was an angry murmur that grew louder. Nicodimus turned to her, ignoring the crowd. Gripping her shoulders, he helped her to stand. As her mother stood looking confused and afraid, and her father looked on in worry, Nicodimus searched Arianna's face. He pushed her hair away from her eyes, and brushed the twigs away from her borrowed dress. "Did any one of these pigs touch you, Arianna? Hurt you?"

She opened her mouth, but only a sob escaped. "Th-they killed them. They killed them. They—" She turned and pointed, and his gaze followed hers to where her beloved teachers dangled from charred ropes. As she stared, one of the ropes seared through, and gave way, sending one blackened corpse smashing to the ground.

"Celia!" Arianna shrieked.

Nicodimus pulled her close, tucking her head against his chest so she could no longer see. "They'll answer for what was done here tonight," he said, and he said it loudly enough so the crofters could hear. ' 'Joseph will see to that. He won't tolerate murder being done in Stonehaven."

"An' just how is it you're speaking for Laird Lachlan," someone demanded.

"Aye," challenged another. "An' how is it Arianna Sinclair is under your protection?''

Nicodimus turned to face the crowd. "She's under my protection," he said fiercely, "because she is my betrothed. And I will kill any man who dares harm her."

Arianna stiffened in shock, dizzy now from the onslaught of so many emotions, all bombarding her at once. She was dimly aware of her mother's gasp, her father's perplexed frown, the shocked exclamations of the crowd. But all her mind could grasp at the moment were two things. That three innocent women had been murdered tonight because they were different. Women she had loved with everything in her. Women who had risked—and ultimately lost—their lives for her sake. And that Nicodimus had claimed her as his betrothed only to prevent her from being the fourth to die here tonight.

Oh, but his arms were around her now—strong, warm, and fiercely protective. Right now she never wanted to leave the haven they provided. Her heart pounded as if it would burst, and new tears welled to replace the old. He wouldn't go back on his word. He'd said he would marry her, whatever the reasons. And he would. She would be his wife. This man brimming with secrets ... who yet made her feel she knew him as well as she knew her own heart. His wife. She was uncertain she could survive the pain she felt tonight. But if she had any hope at all of facing everything that had happened this night, that hope lay right here in his arms.

Hoofbeats sounded, and she lifted her head from Nicod-imus's sturdy chest to see Laird Lachlan, his sons, and some forty of his men, come thundering into the clearing. The crowd broke apart. Cowards who didn't wish to be

identified quickly melted into the trees. As far as Arianna was concerned they were all guilty. Every one of them had been a part of this evil.

"Joseph will see to this," Nicodimus whispered. "Come, you need to be away from here. This is no place for you."

Shaking her head, she drew slightly away from him. Yet his embrace remained as she stared up into his dark eyes. "Nay. I canna leave them like that." And as she spoke her gaze strayed to where two of her friends hung charred and blackened. And one lay bent and broken on the ground.

Nicodimus's palm cupped her cheek, turned her head gently, so she could only see him. "They'll not be left, Arianna. I promise you that. But remember all they taught you. Those bodies are but empty shells now. The Crones have moved on, and are beyond the touch of pain. They would not want you lingering here." One hand moved to stroke a slow path down her outer arm. "Gods, lass, you're shaking all over."

"He's right."

Arianna turned at the sound of her father's voice. "Come home, lass. I vow I'll let no harm come to you there."

Her lips pulled tight and her tears spilled anew. "Oh, Da..." Sniffling, she nodded. But when she looked down, she saw that her father still clutched the limb he'd snatched up in her defense. His hand held to it so fiercely that his knuckles had gone white. "You truly would have fought them all," she whispered in wonder.

Her father's brows rose in surprise. "You're my own child, Arianna. I'd fight the devil himself did he try to do you harm." His gaze lowered, but then he reached out and closed a hand around hers. ' 'I love you, lass. I dinna always understand you. But I love you."

He hadn't spoken those words to her since her sister had drowned, and hearing them now brought a surge of emotion that left her weak-kneed. "And I love you, Da."

"Come, then. An' you too." He nodded to Nicodimus. "We have much to discuss, you and I."

"Aye, sir. That we do," Nicodimus replied. And without

warning, he scooped Arianna up into his arms.

"I can walk," she said, her protest mild, for she truly wasn't sure she could make it under her own power. She still felt weak and ill. She was afraid she might vomit again before they ever made it back to the cottage.

"You tremble still," Nicodimus informed her. "Besides, let them all look on and know that I meant what I said. I want there to be no doubt among the clan of my intent."

She battled dizziness. "You ... had little choice, but to say what you did, Nicodimus. I'll nay hold you to such a promise..."

He was striding now toward the village, a step behind her father and her mother. She thought his arms tightened just slightly around her. But he didn't look down. "I meant what I said." He said no more as he carried her among the crofts and back to her home.

The Crones, her heart moaned again and again. Gone. Executed like murderers when all they had ever done was try to live in harmony with nature by the old ways. The ways of their ancestors. Gods! It was so unfair! They'd taught her, initiated her into the ways of magick. Aye, they'd wondered at the strength of her power, but perhaps their true fear had not been of her, but for their own safety. Perhaps they'd sensed the disaster building. Perhaps they'd felt it coming. And though she hadn't wanted to believe it, the blame for all of this rested squarely on her own shoulders.

She'd been careless—rebellious. Almost dared the clan to discover her activities—to learn where she went at night, what she learned, and at whose tutelage. They'd suspected for some time. And if Arianna's thoughtless ways hadn't generated so much talk of Witchery in the clan then perhaps The Crones could have continued living here peacefully. Perhaps ...

But not now. They were dead. Murdered.

"And their killers must die...." Arianna whispered, blinking her eyes open, looking through floods of tears back toward the clearing they were leaving behind. "They must die!"

Twisting in Nicodimus's arms, she pushed against his chest so suddenly she broke his hold on her. She stumbled to her feet and snatched the dagger from her side—the dagger The Crones had given her, and had told her never to be without. She'd worn it hidden beneath her clothes. And now the time had come to stain its blade with the cursed blood of killers!

As soon as she had the dagger in her hand, Arianna ran. A feral cry rose from her, and baring her teeth, she lifted the blade high and charged forward, determined to slash to ribbons every man she came upon. "Murderers!" she screamed. "Murderers all, and if it's hell you believe in, then I'll gladly send you there!" She glimpsed movement in the trees, aimed her deadly attack that way ...

... and was snatched up from behind. Nicodimus's strong arm clamped tight 'round her waist, while his free hand closed gently, but firmly, about her wrist. "Let go the blade," he said hoarsely into her ear.

"Nay! I'll kill them all!" She struggled.

He held her, and let her fight him until all her fight was gone. Finally, her hand went limp, the blade fell to the ground, and her body began to tremble anew. Violent, back-bowing spasms that racked her to her soul. She couldn't breathe, and felt as if her throat had closed off. "They killed them. They burned them, Nicodimus. They..."

' 'Shh-shh.'' He turned her weakened body into his arms, held her close. She heard her mother's concerned questions, heard Nicodimus mutter, "It's the shock, Mara. I've seen it before. Come. She needs a warm bed, a cool cloth, and her mother's comfort. She'll be all right."

He carried her cradled in his arms. But not safe. She didn't think she would ever feel safe again. Not now that the enormity of it had finally hit her. The Crones were Witches, and because of that, they'd been brutally tortured and murdered. More than likely, their killers would be pardoned, for killing a Witch was not only legal, but morally acceptable.

And she ... she was a Witch, too.

For the first time, she realized that that fact alone was enough to put her life in constant peril. She'd been in grave danger for some time now, only she'd been too blind to see it. Her mother had tried to warn her, her father. Nicodi-mus...

What about Nicodimus? Was he one, too? A Witch like her? He'd neither admitted nor denied it when she had asked. But sweet Goddess, if he were, then he had put his own life in jeopardy just now. By associating himself even more closely with her, his plan might go completely awry. Rather than restoring her good name, he might simply sully his own!

An image came to her mind. A vision too horrible to bear. Nicodimus, his body blackened and charred, dangling from a tree like The Crones. She released a horrified cry, and buried her face against his chest once more.

Chapter 6

She could hear their voices, deep and hushed. Nicodimus and her father seemed intent on their conversation. A candle's gentle glow painted her mother's face as Arianna lay huddled, trembling still, beneath a mound of covers. How long she had been there, she did not know. She only knew dawn must be close. She must have slept at some point, though she only remembered the startled way she kept coming awake, the horrors of the night glaring in her mind's eye. And Nicodimus, coming to her each time, soothing her.

Nicodimus had carried her here last night, and had laid her gently down. Before he'd turned away, his gaze had touched her face, searched it, and she'd glimpsed genuine worry in the deep blue depths of his eyes. Or... she thought she had. His fingertips had danced over her forehead, brushing a stray wisp of hair aside. "Rest now," he had whispered, and then he'd straightened away.

She could see him now, for their home was small, and only a half wall and a curtain separated this room, and her sleeping pallet, from the rest of the cottage. Still here. He'd stayed all the night through. But why? He sat in a crude wooden chair, dwarfing it and the table and the room itself,

not so much by his size, which was substantial but not unusual. Nay, Nicodimus's force of presence was what made everything around him seem smaller by comparison. He need only walk into a room to have every eye turned upon him. Men looked upon him with respect and not a little fear. The women, with something far different in their eyes.

My Nicodimus, she thought suddenly, and a fierce surge of pride welled up in her throat. Mine, though he knows it not.

There was a fire burning in the hearth, and his hair gleamed with the flame's red-gold shimmer. He listened respectfully to all her father said in careful undertones. Nodding his head in reply, he himself spoke softly and glanced her way, catching her eyes and holding them for a long moment. There was something there, some tension she could not identify. Then her father spoke, drawing his gaze away again.

"Have they been talkin' the night through?" she whispered to her mother.

"Aye, lass. They've much to settle between them."

"Nay, they have nothing to settle. I can settle my own life, Mam."

Aging hands soothed Arianna's brow and placed a cool cloth upon it. "This sudden betrothal o' yours gave your da and me a shock," her mother whispered. "An' there remains much to be decided. Dinna worry your head about it, lass. You've had enough worry to last a lifetime."

Closing her eyes, Arianna lay back and sighed. She knew what they were discussing out there. Her. Her future, her life. When would they realize that she could make her own choices?

"There's something you must understand, Mam," she said slowly, and her mother looked down at her with a certain expectation in her eyes. As if she knew and dreaded what was coming next. But it didn't stop Arianna from going on. "Nicodimus only said what he did to keep them from killin' me," she whispered. And the memory of her dear friends, her teachers, hanging charred and lifeless from

the mighty oak, whispered coldly through her mind. She shivered and closed her eyes, but forced herself to go on, refusing to be distracted. "He canna truly mean to wed me, Mam."

Her mother's hand patted hers. "Aye, perhaps he did speak in order to save your life. But he's a man of his word, is Nicodimus Lachlan, an' if he says he'll make you his bride, you can be certain, he means to do it. You've naught to worry about on that matter, lass."

Arianna sat up a little, but her mother's hands urged her back again. " 'Tis unfair to expect him to marry me, Mam. He saved my life. I canna hold him to the lie he spoke to do it. I'm certain he thought he had no choice but to say what he did."

"Perhaps you canna hold him to his word, Arianna, but your father can.... Not that it's necess—"

"He wouldna!" She sat up in bed so fast the cool wet cloth fell from her forehead. "I'll nay have a husband who needs forcin' to the altar!"

Her voice had risen. The two men in the other room fell silent and turned to stare.

"You'll have the husband your da chooses for you, lassie," her father said.

"I'll have a husband who wants me as wife, or none at all." Flinging the covers aside, she got to her feet. Bare, they touched the dirt floor, and her toes instinctively curled against the dampness and chill.

Her mother's hands came to her shoulders, trying to pull her down again, but she stood strong. "Darlin', how do you know he doesna want you as wife?" she whispered. "You dinna ken, methinks."

"Nay, Mam. 'Tis you who dinna ken. I proposed marriage to him myself only yestereve. An' he made his feel-in's quite clear." She stared at Nicodimus as she spoke.

His lips pulled at one side, as if he battled a smile. So he was amused by her objections, was he? Was that what her pain was to him? Amusing? Did he not know how deeply his rejection had cut her?

"Can a man not change his mind?" Nicodimus stood up

from the table, his tone soft, but firm, his eyes holding here captive whether she wanted to be held or not. "Arianna... I was taken off guard by your... offer. I admit, my reaction was cruel, and thoughtless. But I swear to you, I regretted my words the moment I spoke them."

Her eyes narrowed as she watched him. He was lying to her, she was certain of that. "I would speak with you alone, Nicodimus."

He didn't agree or disagree. He looked to her father, and her admiration of him grew another notch. For he was her father's better in every way, and yet determinedly gave him his due. "With your permission, sir?"

Her father nodded but once and came to take her mother's arm in one hand. He drew her to the door, and took the empty water pail from its wooden peg on the wall beside it. "We'll walk to the well and back," he said. His way of letting them know he wouldn't be far, and would return soon. He sent Arianna a stern look, while her mother's parting glance was only worried. She'd have offered them both a smile of reassurance, if she felt capable of smiling at all. But her stomach was churning, and a large empty pit seemed to have opened up in the center of her chest. What was this feeling? She'd never been nervous around anyone in her life, no man, no laird, no warrior. Yet the moment she was alone with Nicodimus, her hands began to tremble and the odd sensations in her belly intensified.

At the sound of the door closing behind her parents, Arianna's forced mettle deserted her. She let her legs give as they seemed determined to do anyway, and she sat down on her pallet gracelessly. Nicodimus could see through her false calm as if peering through clear water. It was no use pretending, not with him.

"You dinna want to marry me and we both know it, Nicodimus. So let's waste no more time with this foolish pretense."

He walked slowly into the room, stood so tall above her that she wished she'd remained standing. But if she rose

now, she'd be far too close to him, so she remained as she was and tilted her head up at him.

"I don't intend to lie to you, Arianna. I'm going to tell you the simple truth. You are a spoiled, selfish wild thing and it is high time you gave some thought to the well-being of someone else besides Arianna Sinclair."

She sucked in a shocked breath, her chin coming up fast. "How dare you!"

"Like you, hellion, I dare anything. And I think you know it. Now go on, spew your defenses. Tell me how unselfish you are, and then tell me why you'll refuse me."

"I'll refuse you for one reason and one reason alone, Nicodimus! I'll nay have a man who needs be forced to wed me."

"I've never been forced to do anything."

His tone was soft, but impatient. He knelt in front of her, gripping her shoulders and turning her body until she stared right into his blazing eyes. "And this is no longer about what you want."

"And what do you ken of what I want?"

"Oh, I know. I can see it in those cat's eyes of yours, Arianna, just as plain as the sun on the Summer Solstice. What you want are declarations of undying love, and a man on his knees begging for your hand—"

"Nay, not any man. You, Nicodimus. Only you."

That seemed to quiet him for a moment. His face paled and his lips tightened, but he never dropped his gaze. He drew a deep breath that expanded his chest, and blew it out, very slowly, before he spoke again. "You'll never have that from me. I've no love to give, and I have never begged for anything in my life. But I'll wed you, Arianna. And because of our marriage, your father, the man who just proved himself willing to lay down his life for you, will be respected and his wealth will grow. And your mother, who nearly fainted in terror at that clearing last night, will be spared the grief of losing another daughter."

"She wouldna have lost me. I'd have run away, nay let the villagers kill me."

"If you had run away, you'd be just as lost to her. And

your family name would be ruined, your father destroyed and known only as the sire of a fugitive Witch. Is that what you want for them?"

She lowered her head. "It mayn't have happened just that way."

"That's the only way it could happen. And will happen if you continue with this stubborn game you play. At the keep, Arianna, when Joseph bade you choose, you obeyed. You chose me. And if you regret that choice now, well, I'm afraid there's naught to be done. Your recklessness brought you to this. And now you've naught left but to deal with it."

Lifting her head slowly, she stared into his eyes, searching them, seeing a spark there, but so deep, so distant, she didn't see how she could ever reach it. Her voice quiet now, barely above a whisper, she asked him, "And what of us, Nicodimus? What sort of husband will you be to me?"

He rose then, turning slightly away, on the pretense of watching for her father's return. "You'll have my protection. I'll provide for you. And you'll bear my name."

"But nay your children," she whispered.

His head swung around. "Never that."

She lowered her head quickly when she felt the sting of tears burn her eyes. Gods but she did not cry. She never cried. And she blinked the dampness away. ' 'Then ... ours will be a marriage ... in name only?"

Nicodimus came toward her, stepping close to the pallet She got to her feet and turned her back to him, surreptitiously dabbing her eyes with one hand, reaching for a wooden comb with the other. He said nothing as she began drawing it through her hair.

"Is it because you dinna want me, Nicodimus?" she asked, very softly. "Am I nay beautiful enough to stir the desire of a man such as you? Have you nay once thought of tasting my lips, of holding me close with nothing between us save the heat of our own bodies?"

She felt his gaze on her, burning into her back. And boldly she turned to face him. "Tell me."

"My reasons ... are my own. And an unmarried girl of

your tender years—a maiden—shouldn't be asking such questions. You know nothing of these things ... nothing of... wanting."

She lowered her head until her chin touched her chest. "If I know nothing of wanting, then what is this feeling burning inside me, Nicodimus? Why do I so crave your touch, if desire is something I'm too young to feel? Why do I yearn to be in your arms? I want you, Nicodimus. And though you may deny it until the day you die, I think you want me, too."

She saw it clearly, the reaction that lit his eyes for but a moment, quickly concealed, a fire instantly doused. "I will set the terms of our marriage, Arianna. And as my wife, you'll honor them."

She stepped forward, closer to him, but didn't touch him. "Do you think you can live with me as my husband and never touch me? Never know me?" She laid her hand lightly on the front of his shirt, and slid it slowly up his chest.

His hand closed over hers, stopping its progress and moving it away. "We will not be residing together for long."

He could have slapped her and shocked her less. "I... but I..."

"You will reside in the keep, of course. And I will, as well, until I am certain of your safety. The talk in the clan will die down soon enough."

Her lower lip trembled, and she caught it between her teeth. "And then?"

"And then I go my way. I have ... obligations. I come here only to rest in between them, Arianna. You know that."

"I only thought..."

"That I would change my life for you? No, Arianna. My destiny is set. Yours ... has become entwined with it. Irreversibly so, I'm afraid, but not endlessly. There is no need for me to remain here once your safety is assured."

"I... I'll go with you!"

His surprise showed in his eyes. "Your family..."

"As my husband, Nicodimus, you will be my family."

He reached out to stroke her hair, gently, softly. "I cannot take you where I go, Arianna. There is only danger for you there. More, even, than there is here in Stonehaven."

"But where is this horrible place you must go? Why do you return there if 'tis so dangerous?"

"Because I must," was all he said. He took his hand away, and a darkness seemed to settle over him. A finality. There would be no arguing him around to her way of thinking.

"Then... you'll go. You'll leave me. Bound to a man I can never have, free to know no other. Am I to die a maiden, then, Nicodimus?"

"There is,'" he said slowly, "a long, long time before that possibility will arise."

She shook her head. "You are meant for me. This I have known since the day I first set eyes on you. And you do want me, Nicodimus. And you will know me. I vow it on all that I am."

He looked hurt by her words. Just a brief flash of some old pain flitted across his face. And then she saw anger. His jaw went tight, and he opened his mouth. She had the most peculiar feeling he was about to reverse his offer. She only held his gaze, praying he would not.

He did not speak, seeming to change his mind. She nearly sighed with relief, all the while gathering her courage. She wanted to wed him. But she wanted him to want it, too. Either way, it would not matter. She would be bound to him, aye, but he would be bound to her as well, she reminded herself. No other woman would know him. She would kill any woman who tried. It was her he would grow to love—Arianna Lachlan, his wife.

Finally, looking as if he were drawing on his last reserves of patience, he whispered, "So what of it, Arianna? Will you wed me or not?"

"Aye, Nicodimus," she said, before she could lose her hard-won courage. "Aye, I'll be your wife. If you'll give me your word that you'll be true to me. That you'll have no other woman. Including Nidaba."

He frowned at her. ' "That is an easy enough promise to make."

"I mean to see that you keep it," she declared.

"And to accept my terms?" he asked her.

"Terms? That you will never love me? Never touch me?"

He had to look away to answer. "Yes."

She moved to watch his face. And as she did, she knew that he was lying as much to himself as to her. He loved her already. Somewhere deep inside him, he knew it. She was meant for him, hadn't she sensed that from the very first? If The Crones had taught her anything at all, it was to trust her senses, the ideas that popped into her head like stray thoughts, the kind most people ignored. The wisdom of those old women had come from sources so ancient, even they had no longer been able to identify them. Yet they had lived by what they knew to be true.

The door creaked open and her parents stepped hesitantly inside, looking from one of them to the other, questions in their eyes.

All too aware that she had not agreed to Nicodimus's terms, knowing he was aware of it, too, she spoke aloud. "There is to be a wedding, then," she said, lifting her chin, holding his gaze and refusing to look away. ' 'I have agreed to marry Nicodimus."

Nicodimus stared steadily into her eyes, and gave a nearly imperceptible nod of what she took to be approval, though there was more than a bit of wariness or perhaps, suspicion, in his eyes as he did.

"Thank goodness you've come to your right mind!" Her father's face split in a smile, and he clasped Nicodimus's hand in one of his own and shook it hard, slapping his shoulder with the other. "Welcome to my family, Nicodimus Lachlan."

"And glad I am to call myself a son of yours, Edwyn Sinclair," Nicodimus replied, to which her father beamed.

Mara hugged Arianna, and as she did, leaned near, and whispered, "What changed your mind, daughter? I've never known you to give in until you get what you want."

"I'm gettin' exactly what I want, Mam," Arianna said softly, watching Nicodimus and her father as they talked and gestured and planned. "A man who loves me. He doesna ken it yet, of course, but he will. In time."

"Bless me, but I believe you, child. Heaven help Nicodimus Lachlan. He canna ken all he's in for."

The celebration in Arianna's home that dawn was subdued and dulled by the grief so recently brought upon this clan. Dulled, too, I thought, by my own ominous thoughts. Arianna was a willful girl. She had given me fair warning that she would not abide easily by my dictates. The sooner I could get the vows said, and be safely away from her, the better.

It may sound foolish now. Arianna was beautiful, young, and just awakening to her body's yearnings. But she was dangerous to me, too. I knew my own heart too well. She was a girl I could come to care far too much for, far too easily—if I let myself. But I was certain of my fortitude. My lessons had been too hard won for my will to crumble at a look of yearning from a pair of beautiful eyes.

My Gods, I should have known I could never resist her for long. Should have known it that very day, as she looked me squarely in the eye and admitted her own desires: her desire to make love to me, to be my wife in every sense of the word. But foolish pride was my downfall. I told myself that a man who had lived seven centuries could easily win a battle of wills fought against a girl of seven and ten.

I could not have been more wrong.

Mara Sinclair took a bowl and pitcher of water into the small sleeping area with Arianna, and drew the curtain tight. Edwyn and I continued our discussion of the wedding and other arrangements. For his daughter's honor, as wife of the cousin of the laird, I would have a new cottage built for Arianna's parents. It was only fitting that my bride's family live in a dwelling grander than the one they now inhabited. And I would gift the family with food, sheep, and grain. All these things we discussed, as well as

the date, a week hence, for the vows to be spoken. I was for having it done sooner, but Edwyn argued that there would be need of time to stitch a proper gown, and that it would only arouse more talk in the clan to have the wedding in such an unseemly haste. So I agreed.

I had a deep respect for Edwyn Sinclair. Always, I had liked the man, but since bursting into that clearing and seeing him there, standing alone, facing a murderous mob, defending his daughter with his life and a rotting limb, my respect had trebled.

Even as we discussed all these things, though, my senses were sharply attuned to what went on in the next room. I heard clearly the sounds of fabric against soft skin as Ar-ianna removed her clothes. The trickling of the water as she bathed, and her own gentle sighs taunting me now and again. I grew agitated and restless, but tamped those feelings down and warned my foolish mind against them.

When at last she reappeared, freshly scrubbed, hair gleaming, in simple but clean garments, I saw a slight sparkle in her eyes. As if she had been aware of my attention the whole time.

But it dulled slowly, as she became aware of what was happening outside. Noise filtered into the cottage, voices, and Arianna hastened to my side as I opened the door to look without. Joseph sat mounted near the burial ground, three hastily constructed coffins in a wagon, beside him. The Crones. And a crowd had gathered at the cemetery gates. Voices rose in agitation, and Joseph shouted above them all. "They were murdered and shall be buried proper!"

Then the village priest, who stood directly in front of the death wagon, nearly nose to nose with the horse that pulled it, held his Bible high above him. "Not with good Christians, Laird. 'Tis blasphemy and will surely bring the wrath of the Almighty down upon us all!"

Before I could stop her, my timid bride rushed past me, bare feet flying as she raced toward the burial ground. She gripped the halter of the funeral horse, even as I ran forward. Her parents followed on my heels.

"You and your high and mighty notion of good and evil!" Arianna shrieked at the priest. "Where are the gallows, I ask you! Where are the executioners to make your faithful Christians pay for the sin of murder! Where?"

I caught her arm, tugged her back a step, but she jerked it free. ' 'Nay, these fine women willna rest here among the hypocrites, for they were far too good to lie among refuse! 'Tis bad enough my own dear sister rests in such company!"

"Arianna, hold your tongue!" Edwyn shouted.

"I willna hold my tongue, Da. I canna."

Again I gripped her arm, and this time she relaxed at my touch, rather than fighting it. Turning slightly, she faced Joseph upon his horse. "Laird, I beg of you, dinna insist these women be buried here. They were taken from this life against their will an' before their time, tortured an' murdered because their beliefs differ from those accepted by the rest of the clan. Let their rest be as they would have had it."

When she turned, I could see her face. The tearstains on her cheeks. I'd never seen her cry the way she did for those three old women. And my heart seemed to soften.

"Did I know how they would have had it, lass, I'd gladly grant your request." Joseph shook his head sadly. "Alas, I ken nothing of their ways."

Arianna's lips curved into the saddest smile I had ever seen. '"Tis well, then, that I do."

A gasp went up from the crowd. They murmured against Arianna until I put my arm around her shoulders and sent a meaningful look over them all, meeting each pair of eyes, one by one. "You'd do well to heed my bride's words. She bears wisdom far beyond her years."

She glanced up at me in surprise, and I knew why. She'd been expecting me to quiet her. To order her to stop this nonsense, and tug her back inside, off the streets. Not to stand at her side and support her this way. But how could I not? I admired her so much that day. Gods, but I'd never seen the sort of courage this girl displayed. Even now that it had been made clear to her what happened to people

outspoken in their differences, she stood among her enemies, and spoke loud and bravely against them. Even then she bore the heart of a warrior.

"The Crones would wish for a great funeral pyre to be built at the site of their destroyed home," she went on. "They would ask that these coffins be set atop it, an' that those who cared for them carry torches to ignite the flames." Slowly, Arianna turned, and stared off in the direction of the clearing where thin spirals of smoke still danced slowly skyward. The wind lifted her golden hair and sent it snapping, and blew her skirt about her naked ankles. A faraway look came into her eyes. "They would wish us to remember them, the good they did for us in life. I tell you true, I never could have survived the loss of my beloved sister were it not for the tender guidance of Celia, Leandra, an' Mary. They comforted me when no one else could." And then she faced the crowd again. "You, Maddy Hargrove, might think upon the time you nearly died giving birth to young Billy, an' how they came to you to ease your pangs an' save your life as well as that of your babe. An' you, Nathan MacGregor," she said, pointing an accusing finger toward the man and looking like an avenging angel. "You might recall the time they brought liniment for the cut on your leg which had already begun to fester. You might thank them that you still have a leg on which to stand."

Her gaze turned skyward, then. "By dark of night, we shall ignite the pyre. So the flames can dance an' spread their light far, even unto the eyes of the very Gods themselves."

"Blasphemy," someone whispered.

Arianna's gaze pinned the one who'd spoken. "Aye, an' was it blasphemy when Leandra stopped you as you walked, an' bade you hurry home an' tend the fire in your hearth? You obeyed then, an' found coals scattered on the floor, beginnin' to burn already, an' your wee children asleep in their beds, unaware."

Mara came forward then, a hand coming to rest upon Arianna's shoulder. "My daughter's views are not always

my own," she said, her voice, unused to speaking above a meek and obedient whisper, wavered slightly. ' 'But in this, I believe she is right. Or... if she's wrong, then perhaps we should call for the execution of everyone who used The Crones' ways to aid themselves. For if what they did was sin, then we all are as guilty as they."

"Well said, Mara Sinclair," Joseph declared with a firm nod. "Well said. It shall be as my cousin wishes it then." And by addressing Arianna as such, he was reminding them all of her new status in the clan and village. She might be different, but she was above them now. '"Twill be done. This night." He turned to where his sons stood behind him. "Lads, choose several strong men and take them to the clearing. Supervise them as they build this pyre." He glanced at Arianna. "Are there any special instructions you would give them, lady?"

She blinked in surprise, but quickly moved beyond it, falling easily into her new role. And no wonder. Hadn't she always sensed she was different from the rest? "Aye," she said. "The wood for the fire should be of oak, ash, and thorn. An' none of the men are to speak an ill word of The Crones as they stack the wood. This pyre is to be built in their honor, to see them out of this lifetime. 'Twould nay do to have their names besmirched during its building."

Kenyon and Lud glanced at their father, and he nodded once, firmly. ' 'So be it then. The bodies will remain in my care, under guard, until nightfall."

He swung his horse around as if to go, but Arianna called after him. "Laird?"

He turned in the saddle. "Aye, lass?"

"I... Thank you. You are indeed a fine man, and an honorable one. I am more sorry than I can say for my behavior at the keep yestereve."

"Say no more," Joseph said with a gentle smile. '"Tis forgotten." Then he frowned. "You should ken, lass, the men who led the others in this murderous spree last eve are restin' now in my dungeon, and will remain there until they face their punishment."

She nodded. "An' what will that punishment be?" she asked, her throat sounding dry, her voice raspy.

"Much as it pains me, lass, those old women were murdered. As soon as the gallows is built, they shall hang." There was a murmur among the others, but it silenced when Joseph looked to see who would dare question his authority.

A slow, soft sigh escaped Arianna, and she lowered her head. "'Tis as it should be."

"Thank you, Joseph," I said, and in spite of myself, I found I was holding my young bride's hand tight in my own.

Joseph nodded once, kicked his horse's sides, and headed away to the keep, while his sons hastened to obey his orders.

Chapter 7

Only a handful came to see The Crones on their journey. Joseph, Kenyon, and Lud. Nidaba, Arianna and her parents, and Nicodimus. They all stood a few yards, from the pyre, heads lowered respectfully, each thinking their own thoughts, saying their own prayers or whatever it was they believed in saying at times of parting. All of them let Arianna have enough room to grieve in privacy.

She stood apart from everyone, closer to the flames. It seemed to Arianna that she could hear the old women's voices as she stood very close to the funeral pyre and watched the flames dance for the sky. Leandra whispering that true love came but once, and that a person would always know it when it happened. Celia saying that was poppycock, that a woman must choose the man she would love, and set about winning his love in return. And Mary whispering that only the Fates themselves knew the answers.

Arianna thought perhaps they'd each had a part of it right. One could recognize love in themselves, but never know for certain if it would be returned. Doubts crept into her heart as she stood beside the fire. For how could she be so sure Nicodimus would ever love her, when even life itself was such a fragile and uncertain thing? Here a mo-

ment, and then gone. Fleeting as a stray breeze, and just as difficult to cling to. Life, love, joy. All so tentative, so slippery. She'd learned nothing if not that. Too much had been ripped away from her desperate grasp to doubt it.

Nicodimus could be torn from her as well. And it could happen all too easily.

Heat razed the front of her while the night's chill breath fanned her back. Firelight danced on her face, and her cheeks burned a bit, but she didn't step away. She only stared up at the burning coffins and heard the sharp snaps and cracks of the fire's teeth as it devoured them. The hiss of the green wood, the deep throated growl of the flames. Cinders rose like new stars flying heavenward to take their places among the rest in the inky night sky.

"Aye," she whispered. "Go, my sisters. May your souls rest and reflect and find the serenity you sought here among strangers. May you share all you learned with the exalted, and the ancient, and the enlightened. And may you return still closer to the state of perfection toward which we all strive. Live, love, die, and live again, my sisters. Merry meet, and merry part. I will miss you, until merry we meet again."

Hot tears slid down her cheeks, and Arianna opened the cloth in which she kept the flower petals she'd brought with her. These she scattered amid the flames.

A soft brush of warmth at her side made Arianna look down from the fire's brilliant yellow and orange glow. Ni-daba stood beside her, her dark skin alight, her lined eyes shining the flames' reflection. She wore a white tunic, and silver crescents dangled from her ears, while a larger one hung from a chain 'round her neck. The ruby stone she wore in her nose gleamed red in the firelight. In silence, her eyes on the spot where die fire kissed the sky, Nidaba began to mutter in her own tongue. And the words had a music and a beauty to them that was ... holy.

Her hand closed around Arianna's, sending the now familiar jolt through her. Slowly Nidaba lifted both her hands high, one of them still clutching Arianna's. "Farewell, in-

nocent ones. Follow the moonlight into Inanna's embrace," she intoned in her jewel-rich voice.

Nicodimus came to Arianna's other side, clutched her other hand, and lifted his in similar fashion. "Go in peace," he said softly. His voice sent a tremor up Arianna's nape as it always did. Nicodimus's voice was like a physical touch.

Slowly, six hands lowered. Nidaba faced Arianna, bending her head slightly.

"Thank you for that," Arianna whispered.

"The loss of one is a loss to all of us, young one. Mortals seem to have much difficulty grasping the truth of that."

"Mortals? This is the second time you've used that word."

Looking up, meeting Nicodimus's eyes over Arianna's head, Nidaba licked her lips. "It is a lesson best learned on the other side, I think. That is all I meant."

"I see." She didn't. Not really.

"I am sorry for your pain, Arianna. Truly."

Arianna lowered her head. ' 'I thought... you probably hated me."

"I do not hate. Except when my mind slips." She shrugged. "But how long can one live, really, without feeling the icy touch of madness every now and again?"

Arianna frowned and searched her face. "Madness? Nidaba .. . ?"

"What's this talk of madness?" Nicodimus asked, and he looked worried. "You're the most sane woman I know, Nidaba."

Nidaba lowered her head, and laughed very softly. "Speak to me when you've existed as long as I have, love."

When Nidaba's eyes met Nicodimus's once more, Arianna wondered anew at the depth of the link she sensed between the two of them. She experienced an unwelcome and unbidden stab of jealousy.

Nicodimus's strong hands closed on Arianna's shoulders from behind her. "Your garments are beginning to singe, little cat. Come away from the fire."

Turning to face him, Arianna caught her breath anew at the sheer beauty of the man. The way the firelight played on the angles of his face ... the way it gleamed in his eyes. She tilted her head to one side. "What did you call me?"

"Little cat. It is what you remind me of, Arianna. With your curious eyes and volatile nature. Claws that can lash out in the blink of an eye to do a man to death. Your independent nature. In many, many ways, you remind me of the creatures."

Eyes narrowing, she studied him. "Then 'twas not an insult?"

"No, Arianna. 'Twas a compliment."

Her smile was slow, genuine, if tinged by sadness. "Then I thank you."

"You are very welcome." His palm flat at the spot directly between her shoulder blades, he urged her away slightly. A fallen log seemed to have become the gathering place for the others in attendance. This was where Nicod-imus led Arianna. Easing her down to sit upon it, then standing beside her like a servant attending his queen as she rested on the throne.

Joseph approached her first, took her hands in his, and kissed them gently. "'Tis sorry I am that this happened, lass. I should have seen it coming. Should have done more to prevent it."

"Nay, Laird, you—"

"Ah-ah. None o' that. You're my cousin now, same as Nic. You'll address me as Joseph, an' nay by my title. As shall your family."

Lowering her lids to hide her surprise, she simply nodded. "You mustn't blame yourself for this ... Joseph. Even I dinna see this coming, an' more than anyone else, I should have done."

He held her hands firmly for a long moment. ' 'I suppose we all wish we'd have known, but the truth is no one could have. I only wish 'twere under more joyful circumstances I could welcome you into my family, lass. But welcome you I do."

"Thank you, Joseph." Leaning up, she kissed his cheek.

And the laird's smile was broad for a moment.

Less so, his sons, as one by one, they too came to her, kissed her hand, and welcomed her to the fold. Both seemed sad to see her pain, but their pride was far more wounded, she suspected, that she had refused to have either of them for her husband. Their eyes were shadowed, their mouths drawn and petulant, though she could see them trying to school their expressions.

Nidaba only met her eyes, and turned to leave with Joseph and the lads. The whole time Nicodimus stood his post by her side. He'd watched the boys carefully, closely, and had gone just slightly stiffer when they had approached her. Now he relaxed that minute amount she shouldn't have noticed in the first place. But she had noticed. She noticed every detail about him, even a hitch in his breathing.

Her mother and father had moved closer to the fire. Mam to toss flowers of her own upon the flames, simply because it was what Arianna had told her to do when she'd asked how to show her respect. Da simply stood with his head bowed, hands folded low. A moment of prayer and farewell.

She was silent, watching them. Nicodimus seemed more intent, though, on watching her.

When they returned, her mother said, ' 'Come, child. We must get you in out of the night air, afore you take a chill."

Arianna bowed her head. "You spoke up for me, this morning, Mam. Despite what the clan might have thought of you, and despite that your own beliefs more closely mirror theirs than my own."

Her mother's hand stroked a slow path over Arianna's cheek. "I havena been the best mother to you, lass, since ... since Raven ..." Her voice broke.

Arianna knew how difficult it was for her mother to speak her sister's name, and she rose in one fluid movement to wrap her mother in a fierce embrace. "Nay, Mam, you've been the best mother in the world. 'Twas I who closed myself away."

"I was too crippled by my own grief, child," Mara went on. "But I do love you, lass. I never stopped. An' I'd lay

down my life for you to this day, without a moment's hesitation. I love you, Arianna. My firstborn daughter. You're my soul, dinna you know that, lass? My very soul!"

Tears choking her, Arianna clutched her mother tight, and nodded hard. "Aye. Aye, I know. An' I for you, Mam. Even when I seemed distant, that remained true. I love you."

They embraced for a long moment, the emotions so powerful, Arianna couldn't tell which body was trembling, her own or her mother's. Perhaps both. But when they stepped apart, she looked at her father and saw his eyes were unashamedly red and moist. He met her gaze and nodded once, and she understood. I, also, he was telling her. She went to hug him as well.

Then she straightened. "I canna leave just yet," she told them. "I need to stay, to hold vigil by the fire until the flames burn out. 'Tis a tradition older than any of us, an' I wish to carry it through to the end."

"But lass, 'tis dark! An' the night air—" her mother began, but her father touched Mara's shoulder, and she bit her lip.

"She's a grown woman now," he said. "She can decide for herself how best to show respect to her friends who've passed on, so long as 'tis safe." At this he glanced at Ni-codimus, who'd been standing apart, silent, until now.

Arianna met his eyes, saw the fireglow dancing in them. "She'll be perfectly safe," he said. "I'll stay for as long as it takes."

Alone with her, in the darkness, beside a blazing funeral pyre. It was not the wisest decision on my part. But I was learning more about Arianna every moment, and I knew full well she'd have stayed with me or without me. I still had concerns for her safety. While the crofters may have softened slightly toward her, their tongues would still wag were she seen out alone at night. Especially here.

She stood watching in silence as her parents walked back along the path toward the village. Within a few moments, the night swallowed them up, and yet she remained there,

back to the fire, eyes fixed on the distant darkness.

"Are you all right, Arianna?" I asked.

Blinking away her thoughts, she nodded, and met my eyes. "My mam and my da ... They love me again."

I almost smiled. Would have, except I thought it might hurt her to realize how her innocence amused me. She pretended such fierceness, such toughness. When in truth she was as tender as a babe. "They never stopped," I told her.

"I was certain they had."

Tilting my head to one side, curious, I took her arm and led her back to her stately throne—the fallen limb—and sat beside her. "Why?"

Shrugging, she shook her head.

"Because of your sister's death?" I prodded. I found myself wanting to know. Then realized it wasn't just this matter I was curious about. I wanted to know everything about Arianna Sinclair. Her deepest feelings, her darkest secrets. Everything.

'"Twas my fault. She drowned trying to save me. But I've told you this."

"Yes, and I've told you it was no more than an accident. Your family could never have blamed you, Arianna. Likely they were beside themselves with relief that one of you had survived, when for all they knew, the loch could easily have taken you both."

She nodded slowly, deep in thought. "But..." Then biting her lip, she stopped herself.

"Go on," I said.

She shook her head. "Nay, Nicodimus. I dinna speak of this. 'Tis my own demon that haunts me, an' I'll nay share its curse with you."

As she said these words, she turned her gaze away from me, staring instead at the fire. And I felt a shield go up, as if she were protecting herself from me, from the pain of the past, from intrusion.

Cupping her chin, I turned her to face me again. A more beautiful creature I had never seen. Arianna in firelight was something to behold.

"There is no demon you cannot share with me, Ar-

ianna," I told her. "I'll not judge you, nor laugh at anything you say. Perhaps ... perhaps I can help you to exorcize the beast that haunts your eyes."

The eyes of which I spoke narrowed. "And why would you want to do that?"

Her questions, as usual, cut to the bone. "I... It is what a husband does."

"Nay, Nicodimus. Tis what a lover does. Not a husband who is but a name. But a tender, caring man, out of concern for the woman he loves."

I licked my lips, tried to swallow as my throat went dry. "Arianna, you've mistaken my intent completely."

"Have I?"

The wind played in her golden hair as she searched me with her wise eyes. It was more and more difficult to believe the girl had yet to see twenty years of life. "You have," I said. "I cannot be your husband in the way you would have me be, little cat. But I'll be more than a name to you. I'll be your friend."

She frowned a little, a tiny pucker appearing between her delicate brows as she considered this. ' 'My friend?''

I nodded.

' 'Because you care about me?'' she asked, looking again into the flames, but peering at me from the corner of her eye as she awaited my answer.

"I always have," I admitted.

Her lips curved into a smile. "'Tis a start."

The words startled me, as did the smile. ' 'It is the whole of it, Arianna. Do not read more into my friendship than what is there."

She nodded hard, as if in firm agreement, but I knew better. I knew her too well, in fact.

"Will you tell me then? Your feelings about your sister?"

She nodded again. "Aye, I'll tell you. When you love me, Nicodimus. When you love me."

She rose slowly, and pulled her shawl from around her shoulders, to spread it upon the ground. Sitting down upon it she tucked her legs under her, and used her arms upon

the log as her pillow. "I will rest now," she whispered.

I only nodded, and watched her for a time. She hadn't slept much the night before. Her grief had been too raw to allow it. I was glad to see her eyes this heavy, her head this relaxed. When her breathing became deep and steady, I knew she truly slept, and knew how badly she needed it. So when she shivered, I sat down close beside her. I did not wish for the cold to interrupt her rest.

I had not expected her to curl against me, drawn instinctively to the warmth of my body. I had not expected her head to rest upon my lap, nor her arms to curl tight about my waist. And when they did, I had no idea what to do about it.

I sat there a moment, looking down at the vision twined around me, debating inwardly. Finally realizing that this woman was to be my wife. I do not think it had hit me fully until that moment, when she rested against me, a warm weight of softness and beauty. I was to be not only her protector, but her husband. It would take every ounce of will I possessed not to make her my wife in every sense of the word. Every ounce of will.

Yet I was the strong one. I was older, wiser, and far more powerful. She needed my help, not my desire. I could handle my own body and its incessant demands. To prove this to myself, I relaxed there on the ground, and put my arms around her, held her gently against me. Kept her warm.

And died a thousand deaths before I finally fell asleep.

When Arianna stirred awake, she felt his arms pull her closer to him. As Nicodimus came slowly awake, his body went hard and tight, and his eyes when they opened, blazed with something she had never seen in them before.

For just an instant, its intensity frightened her, and she pulled away with a soft gasp.

Nicodimus closed his eyes, and when he opened them that look was gone. He said nothing. She wasn't certain of what to say either. Suddenly arousing this man's passion took on a frightening new prospect. She hadn't realized what a powerful force she might be bringing to life. Could

she deal with his passion? Could she ever satisfy a man such as he?

He wanted to know her innermost feelings about her sister. But she could not yet confide in him her certainty that the Gods had made a mistake that black day. That they must have meant to take her, Arianna, the eldest. The troublemaker. The rebel. Never could they have intended to take the most gentle, tender soul ever to draw breath. She knew inside that it should have been her to surrender to the murky depths of the loch. Not Raven. And that perhaps, had she not fought so hard to survive, the greedy loch would not have taken her precious sister in her stead.

That was the secret she kept, and it was hers alone.

But even now Nicodimus's dark gaze searched her face, probing and seeing far too much. And there was more there. There was a heat blazing behind his gaze. One so intense it was frightening. And yet exciting to her.

"The—the fire has burned out."

"Yes," he said, watching her through narrowed eyes as she rose to brush the dust and twigs from her skirts. Nervous hands fluttered about her hair, smoothing it. She darted quick glances all around. Busying herself by picking up and shaking her shawl, and then arranging it with exaggerated care around her shoulders.

"Arianna," Nicodimus said, very softly.

She went still and looked down at him. He sat, still resting with his back to the log.

"You needn't ever be afraid of me."

She tried a smile, but it was forced. "I'm nay afraid of anything, Nicodimus. Why on earth would I be afraid of you?"

"You know why. I promise, you're safe with me ... and safe from me. All right?"

Looking at the ground, she whispered, "An' that's supposed to make everything all right, is it? But what if I dinna want to be safe from you, Nicodimus?"

When he didn't answer, she brought her head up, met his eyes. "I dinna, you know. Not at all."

"Nonetheless, you shall be." He got to his feet, and it

was his turn to busy himself. He checked the smoldering ash which was all that remained of the fire, making sure no spark had spread. It occurred to her that Nicodimus might be as nervous as she had been. As shocked and shaken by the flare of awareness between them, as well.

But no. Nicodimus would not be shocked nor shaken by anything.

"Walk with me," she asked Softly, deciding to go easier on him, just in case. Perhaps he only needed time to adjust to the idea that he loved her and desired her and would until the end of time. "Tell me of our wedding day. What will it be like?"

He finished what he'd been doing and came to stand beside her, looking relieved. "It will be everything you wish for, Arianna. You need only tell me what you want. The chapel will be decked in wreaths and buds, and the—"

"Chapel? But Nicodimus, I canna marry you in a chapel."

"But—"

"I'm not a Christian. I'm a Witch, and proud to be one."

He took her hand. "You mustn't speak it aloud that way, Arianna. It is unwise, you know that now."

"There is no one to hear me but you, an' I trust you with my life. Nay, I wish to speak our vows beneath the blazing fiery sun, our bare feet caressing Mother Earth's soft greenery and the air kissin' our faces, and the sea as our altar."

Nicodimus lowered his head. ' 'The marriage needs to be recognized by the clan, and by the Church, Arianna. Such a one as that would not be."

"Then ... canna we have both? One for the benefit of the Church and the clan, and another just for the two of us?"

He stared down at her. "We only need the one. The legal one, Arianna. For that's all there will be, that and friendship. No binding of two souls together as one, as you no doubt have in mind."

Closing her eyes to the disappointment, she sighed deeply. "Then 'twill nay feel like a marriage at all."

"Nor is it meant to. Only to look like one."

Her hand fluttered to her chest, very briefly. She fisted it and lowered it to her side again, an act of will. "Perhaps we should speak of something else."

"Perhaps," he said.

Nodding, she lifted her chin, staring straight ahead as they moved, side by side, along the path. "Tell me about Nidaba."

Nicodimus seemed surprised by the question, for it took him a moment to answer. "What do you wish to know?"

"How long have you known her?" She looked at him.

"I... it seems like forever. Surely for most of my life."

A vague answer. She wondered why. "Where did you meet?"

Searching her face, he tilted his head. "You're a curious little cat, aren't you?"

"Do I not have a right to be curious about the other woman in my husband's life?"

He shrugged, perhaps conceding the point. " Tis a tale you may well enjoy, little one. The first time I met Nidaba ... no. I will tell you about the second time. It was—"

"Why?"

He broke off, glancing down at her. "Like you, Arianna, I have some things in my past that are ... too painful to talk about. Do you understand?"

She searched his eyes, saw the old wounds there, and nodded. "Aye. I ken it all too well. Go on, then, an' tell me the tale."

"I was traveling alone through the arid lands far to the east, when I was set upon by a group of desert bandits. Twenty of them, mounted on camels, surrounded me, swords drawn, demanding my horse, my gold, and my food and water. It was a three day journey to help, and that on horseback. On foot I'd have had no chance."

Arianna had stopped walking and stood staring at him, her eyes wide as she listened. "What did you do?"

"Drew my sword and prepared to fight. Actually, they began coming at me, long curving blades of their swords flashing with such skill I could barely follow them with my

eyes, much less dodge the blows. And then there was this ... this sound."

"Sound?"

"Yes. A cry, high-pitched and keening, rather like the shriek of an eagle before it swoops down upon its prey. The attackers whirled, and I turned to look as well. Pounding down upon us was a figure swathed in white robes to the point where only the eyes were visible. Each hand wielded a deadly blade, and they swung like windmills overhead as the white stallion thundered with guidance from neither hand nor rein. The bandits scattered. She didn't even have to kill any of them. They vanished like a distant mirage, and she sheathed her swords by crossing them in front of her and driving the left into the right sheath, and the right into the left. She was amazing to behold."

"She?" Arianna whispered. "Nidaba?"

"Yes. I didn't know it right away, of course. I blurted my thanks, but she only nodded and motioned for me to follow her. Only when we were safely inside her desert home, a veritable fortress, really, did she remove the headdress and reveal herself to me."

Arianna blinked. "She's ... she's a very beautiful woman, I think."

"I have always thought so, too."

"Did you ... did you and she ... ?"

He touched Arianna's hair. "Nidaba and I are friends, Arianna. Only friends."

Her heart soared ... but then began to sink a bit. Because she thought that if Nicodimus had been able to resist the allure of an exotic beauty such as Nidaba, she was in for more of a challenge than she realized. That Nidaba hadn't wanted him never occurred to her. No woman could fail to desire Nicodimus. Not ever. He was perfect in every way.

"You're very deep in thought about something," he observed. She started, unaware he'd been scrutinizing her face for several moments.

"Aye, I sup' I am." She shrugged. "It's occurred to me how very little I know about you, Nicodimus. You

know every detail of my life, no doubt. But of your past, of your history, I know nothing."

His eyes became shuttered, and when her gaze searched them, he looked away. "You will," he said. "In time, I'll tell you all about myself."

"Would you care to begin now?"

He sent her a quick glance, then looked away. "Here, your mother is already awaiting us. Worried for your well-being, no doubt." He waved toward the distant figure, and Arianna saw her mother standing outside the cottage, waving back.

"She knows I'm perfectly safe with you," Arianna said with a sigh. "As your secrets seem to be, as well."

"You needn't be worrying about my secrets, little cat. Tis our wedding you ought be thinking of, planning for."

"Oh, I am," she said softly. "Believe me, Nicodimus, I am planning all the while."

His smile was warm, genuine, but there was a hint of something unreadable in his eyes. "Good."

Oh, but he wouldn't think it so good when she finished. Or perhaps he would, but not right away. She would fashion the most beautiful gown any woman had ever worn. She'd bathe herself in flower petals and smell like heaven to him. Her hair would gleam like gold. When Nicodimus bent to her lips, as he must—aye, he must—she would kiss him as he'd never been kissed before.

How she would manage that, she wasn't certain. She had never been kissed by a man before. But perhaps ... someone could tell her how to best go about it.

If only The Crones ...

Lowering her head, she sighed her regrets. Her teachers were gone. She would have to fumble through this as best she could. But come her wedding night, she intended to lie with her husband. In his bed, in his arms, whether he liked it or not. And she would, or her name was not Arianna Sinclair.

Chapter 8

I watched Arianna change during the next few days, and the change at once relieved and troubled me. The pain that had for so long shadowed her eyes began to fade. The ghosts that haunted her, seemed to have been chased into a dark corner—for the moment, at least. She no longer spent hours each day sitting alone in the cemetery, and even the agony of The Crones' final fate seemed to be easing.

I actually heard her laugh one day, as she and her mother walked arm in arm along the heather-covered moor beyond the keep. Such a rare sound, and so beautiful, that it startled me into stillness. I found myself edging nearer, straining to hear it again, curious as to what had caused it.

"They have repaired the rift between them, have they not?"

I turned abruptly, unaware of Nidaba's silent approach. She moved like a cat and stood beside me now, observing the mother and daughter as I did.

"I believe," I replied, "that they are even closer than before the death of Arianna's sister."

"Good. The girl will not cling quite so tightly to you then."

I frowned, drawing my gaze away from Arianna to focus

on Nidaba. Her gaze held no contempt as she watched Ar-ianna and her mother talking and laughing below. No dislike. It was only narrow and watchful.

"Why do you dislike her so much?" I asked.

Nidaba looked at me sharply. "Does it seem to you that I dislike her? I do not. The girl has spirit."

"Then...?"

"It is the two of you together I do not like, Nic. You're not going to be good for her. Nor she for you. You'll destroy each other before you finish this ruse."

I shook my head at her. "I only want to protect her—"

"By keeping the truth from her? The truth of what you are, Nicodimus? Of what she is?" Nidaba's eyes again narrowed, falling on my young bride once more. "She ought to know, to have time to prepare."

"There is a long time before she will need to prepare for such as that," I told her.

"Only the Gods could know for sure. And you are not a God, my friend."

Her words troubled me. For I had seldom known Nidaba to be wrong about anything.

"Look at her," she went on. "You know full well that her laughter is not entirely due to her newfound closeness with her family, Nic. That kind of joy comes from only one place in a woman's heart. The girl is in love with you, and dreaming of things you have told her will never be. You cannot both come out of this unscathed."

My lips tightened. "I do not wish to hurt her."

Perhaps, I thought, I should tell Arianna again how it was to be with us. But two things kept me from doing that. First, the knowledge that Arianna Sinclair would believe exactly what she wanted to believe no matter what I might say to the contrary. And second, the simple fact that she was so incredibly beautiful when she was happy. Her smile, the sparkle in her eyes, the spring in her step, the confident tilt of her head. I loved seeing her this way. I did not want to be the one to put the shadows back into my lady's eyes.

She and Mara came 'round the bend in the steep path and saw us standing near the outermost wall. Arianna's

smile died slowly as she met my eyes, searching them.

"Nicodimus, whatever is wrong? You look troubled."

I was troubled. For just an instant the thought had occurred to me that perhaps I could learn to love the girl. Could be her husband in the way she dreamed I would be.

And yet, I could not. I was a hunted man. More Dark Ones sought my heart than that of any other immortal, so far as I knew. Nidaba was older and more powerful, yes, but she'd lived so discreetly that few knew of her existence. My heart was the prize many Dark Witches sought. Two in particular, who had made it the mission of their endless lives to put an end to mine. Arianna would be in constant danger at my side.

Beyond that, I knew I was incapable of loving her. My heart was far too wounded to produce the tender emotion in any real quantity. Ironic, I thought, that a heart so damaged could be so prized by so many.

Frowning slightly, Arianna came closer, her small hands touching my cheeks. ' 'My love, you are pale. Are you taking ill?"

My stomach clenched tight as the endearment fell from her lips. I glanced sideways, but Nidaba only stood in silence. "Arianna, you mustn't call me that," I said at last.

"And just why not? 'Tis what you are, and our weddin' day is on the morrow. Aye, sure and you might as well get used to it."

I closed my eyes. Such a stubborn girl. A smile tugged at my lips. "Aye, sure and I might as well," I said softly, imitating her beautiful speech.

"Is it teasin' me you like then?" she asked, stepping back a bit, hands going to her hips, eyes flashing with mischief.

There was, I realized, very little about Arianna that I disliked. "I wasn't teasing, little cat. How goes the sewing, hmm?'' I fell into step beside her, with her mother on the other side of her, and Nidaba walking along at my other side. We moved beside the blackberry briars that lined this side of the keep's outer wall. They blossomed just now, and their scents were heady and sweet.

Arianna shot Nidaba a sidelong glance, and smiled. "Ni-daba has gifted me with the most wondrous material, and the gown is perfect, as you will soon enough see."

Any gown would be perfect if she were wearing it, I thought. We circled the keep, moving past the cobbled well, toward the gates. I paused, as a tiny shiver of warning skittered over my nape. What... ?

"I'll wear flowers in my hair," Arianna was saying. "And there will be such revelry afterward! Joseph has been more than generous, an' he has the cooks hard at work already...."

As she went on, I glanced up, caught Nidaba's eye. She nodded just once, almost imperceptibly.

She felt it, too, then. The truly ancient among us could sense when another was nearby. And I sensed it now. Lifting my head, I scanned the horizon. But saw no one. Nothing.

"There will be barrels an' barrels of heather ale," Arianna was saying, "An' roast boar, venison, beef, an' mutton. Pastries to savor. Wine will flow, and fruits spill over. 'Twill be so ... so ..." She was looking more and more curiously from me, to Nidaba, and back again. "What is wrong with you two? You look as if you've seen a ghost!"

Snapping out of my state, I gripped Arianna's elbow in my hand. "Come, let's get you inside," I said, leading her and her mother through the gates, and across the courtyard toward the keep. I looked about as we moved among the men there, checking each face, but seeing only clansmen.

"But I dinna understand," Arianna protested. "What is it?"

"Do you not feel the rain coming, Arianna?" Nidaba asked, her tone unconvincing. "The air grows damp."

"You'd not wish to take a chill on the day before your wedding, now would you, little cat?" I asked her.

"You both be addled! 'Tis lovely outside!"

"Now, daughter, dinna argue with your bridegroom," her mother chided, but she, too, looked unconvinced.

I simply kept moving until Arianna and her mother were safely inside the keep. It was happening; the one thing I

feared above all else. One of the Dark Ones had finally found me here—traced me to my only haven. Gods forgive me if I had brought disaster upon this peaceful village. Upon my friends. Upon my woman.

My woman.

Gods, why had I allowed myself to think of her that way?

When we entered the keep, Arianna turned to face me, her eyes no longer filled with mischief or joy, but that deep wisdom she was too young to possess. "A word, Nicodi-mus, in private."

Eager to be away, I nodded all the same, and sent a glance to Nidaba. She quickly excused herself, and Mara muttered something and vanished toward the kitchens.

"All right then," Arianna said softly. She came close to me, gripped my hand in both of hers. ' 'I ken something is wrong. An' I can plainly see you're hidin' it. Now, tell me what it is."

Not for anything would I have spoiled the day to come for her with worries such as those plaguing me now. Gently, I stroked her hair with my free hand, as if I could soothe her the way I could soothe Black when he grew agitated or afraid. "Nothing is wrong," I told her. "Truly."

Tilting her head to one side, she searched my face with her velvety eyes. "Why are you lyin' to me, Nicodimus?"

Drawing a deep breath, sighing, I lowered my head. ' 'All right. It's ... sometimes, Arianna, I get... feelings. This, I know you understand."

Her eyes widening with interest, she nodded. ' 'Aye, I do. The Crones taught me to trust those feelings, never to doubt them."

"And good advice it was," I told her. "Out on the path just now, I had the feeling that... that we were being watched."

Arianna frowned, nodding sagely. "Aye, I've had the same feelin' once or twice today, myself." She looked up into my eyes, worry clouding hers. "Who do you suppose it could be?"

She was too young to have such a sense of other im-

mortals, I thought. But then again, she always knew when I was near, didn't she? Amazing.

"I do not know," I said, and it was only partially a lie. True, I didn't know who, but I damned well knew what sort of creature was watching us. "But I intend to find out.''

Her eyes were narrow upon me. "You think this person ... could be a danger to us?"

She saw too much. Read me far too well for me to lie to her easily. "I don't know. Perhaps. I cannot tell you because I'm not even fully certain myself. I am going to ask you trust me in this matter."

Nodding, she lifted her head again. "I do trust you, Ni-codimus."

"Then please, Arianna, stay here tonight. Your family as well."

Blinking in surprise, she nodded. "Aye, Nicodimus. All you had to do was tell me the truth. If you fear there is danger, then I believe you. I will never doubt your word ... so long as you speak the truth."

I very nearly smiled at that. Would have, had I not been nearly sick with worry. "Will you always know, Arianna, when I am not speaking the truth?"

"Only when you are as obvious as you were this time," she said. She smiled at me, and I knew I was forgiven.

"I shall go and fetch my father," she said softly, closing one hand around mine and squeezing. "We'll pack up our things for the wedding tomorrow, and—"

"No, Arianna. Let me go for him. It will be for the best." I started to tug free of her grip.

She held me fast. "You truly do sense danger, dinna you, love?" She searched my face. "Is there danger to you waiting outside these walls as well then?"

I looked her squarely in the eyes. "No, Arianna. I will be perfectly safe." Gently I tugged my hand free, and headed for the door, even as her eyes narrowed on me. And I think she knew, once again, that I had not been honest with her.

* * *

Gnawing at her lip and pacing the great hall did nothing to alleviate Arianna's worry, which seemed to intensify the moment the doors closed on Nicodimus's strong back. She recalled again the wisdom of The Crones. Never mistrust your feelings, lassie. They be the core of your womanhood. The voice of your heart.

Nicodimus was in danger.

Arianna stood a bit straighter, feeling a jolt of protec-tiveness surge through her so powerfully she felt as if she grew inches taller. Her chin thrust outward, she headed for the doors, pausing only once on the way, just long enough to glance behind her. But Nidaba was nowhere in sight, nor was her mother, nor any of the others, save a handful of servants spreading fresh rushes over the floor. She was more grateful than anyone would ever know for the privacy.

She ran a hand over her hip, and felt the reassuring lump there, where her dagger was strapped. Then she drew her shawl closer, and slipped away. Nicodimus was her man. She would be damned if she would stand by and let any harm come to him.

She crept, following on foot, ducking behind trees and bushes and any cover to be had, for she knew too well that Nicodimus would be furious if he saw her.

He did exactly as he had said he would. Rode to her home, fetched her father, and settling both Edwyn and the satchel he'd rapidly packed atop Black, Nicodimus led the stallion back to the keep gates. All this she witnessed from a spot high on the hilltop between the keep itself and the village proper, just at the edge of the woods, hidden amidst the trees.

But her husband-to-be did not go into the keep with his future father-in-law. Instead, he saw Edwyn through the gates, then remounted his noble Black and turned. He came toward Arianna, riding slowly, eyes narrow and scanning the horizon, peering into every clump of shrubbery in search of the watcher.

Arianna cringed backward farther, unable to believe she could hide from so piercing a gaze. But even as he rode

slowly nearer, she forgot to fear discovery. For another shape rose up behind him. Another man, mounted upon a horse as pale as death.

Her eyes widening, she stepped out of her hiding place, and shouted a warning. But instead of heeding her, Nicod-imus continued toward her, obviously surprised and displeased to see her there, and unaware of the danger coming upon him from behind. The white horse began to run, its rider a fearsome brute of a man, all swathed in a black cloak that covered his colors, did he wear them. His face was hidden behind a beaked black helm that completely covered his head. The reddish-brown tail of some unfortunate animal flew from the spiked top of the helm, like a banner. He thundered on, swinging a spiked mace in deadly circles. Arianna lunged forward, drawing her blade, even knowing she could never reach the man before he reached Nicodimus.

The mace flew directly at Nicodimus's head. But nothing happened. Eyes widening in shock, biting her knuckles to silence the cry that leapt to her lips, Arianna shook her head in confusion. Nicodimus had dropped low, over the side of his mount, just as the weapon came at him. Gods, he must have known all along.

Leaning low, he continued riding toward her, and when he swooped down upon her, he snatched her right off her feet, and settled her safely in front of him. One arm held her tightly to his chest, and he whirled his mount around, even as the other man thundered closer. Nicodimus continued to cradle her protectively with one arm as with his other hand he jerked a leather covered shield from the saddle, holding it before her.

The black-helmed stranger drew his pale horse to a stop, but the animal danced and pawed impatiently. Black tossed his head, shook his mane, and blew his angry retort.

"Who are you?" Nicodimus demanded. "What do you want of me?"

"You know what I want," was the answer, spoken so softly and yet so chillingly it sent shivers up Arianna's spine.

"I've no quarrel with you."

"The Dark and the Light live in constant conflict. Ni-codimus. It is the way of things, with our kind."

Arianna turned to stare up at Nicodimus's face, but she saw no fear there.

"Then you know my name. You have me at a disadvantage."

There was a nod. Then the mask's beakish point seemed to aim her way. ' 'Is this the latest leman, then? Or is she to be a replacement for the wife you stole away from her family and murdered?"

Arianna's breath caught in her throat. "W-wife?"

"Do not dare to speak of my wife," Nicodimus said, and he sounded even more dangerous than the other. "Or I'll kill you here and now."

"If you think you can."

"Oh, I know I can." He reached to his hip, hand closing on a weapon there, a dagger or blade. "And do not be so certain that the helm you wear hides your face from me. When your words tell me who you must be." He started to lift his weapon, but then he went still, looking down into Arianna's eyes, and she knew her tears showed. "I'll not do this. Not here. Not now. This woman and her clan are no part of our conflict."

"Perhaps you're right. About the village," he said. "As to the woman ... Well, once I've cut out your heart, Nicodimus, she'll be mine to do with as I please. To the victor go the spoils, or so I was once told."

Nicodimus narrowed his eyes. "Show me your face, coward, that I might know which of my two oldest enemies I am going to have to kill."

"Not just yet I think. We'll meet again, Nicodimus. We'll meet again." He nodded toward Arianna. "As will you and I, pretty one."

She cringed closer to Nicodimus's chest, even as the man whirled his mount and thundered away. Pale hooves sent tufts of sod in their wake and left deep scars in the ground. Then Arianna turned into Nicodimus's arms as the full brunt of shock and fear finally hit her.

He clutched her shoulders, shook her gently as he stared into her eyes. "Why must you disobey? You could have been killed, Arianna! For the love of—"

"I'm sorry," she said, voice firm, even if her eyes were damp. ' 'I should never have come out here armed only with my dagger. My Goddess, what help could I have been to you with only that for a weapon? I ought to have found swords, a mace like the masked man carried, a lance...."

Nicodimus stared at her, opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again and shook his head. "I believe, Arianna, you're missing the meaning."

But she wasn't. "What did he mean, Nicodimus? About a wife you stole, an' murdered? What was he talkin' about?"

He dropped his gaze and looked away. "Come, let's get you back to the castle where you'll be safe."

"I'll go nowhere until you tell me. I know you have secrets you will not share, Nicodimus. But surely even a man as secretive as you would see a previous marriage as something he should discuss with his bride."

He held on tight to her waist, and nudged the horse into a trot. "It was a long time ago, Arianna."

"And you stole her from her family?"

"I rescued her from a den of brutes who beat her and treated her as their slave."

"He said you murdered her."

He looked down at her sharply. "No doubt he sees it that way." Then his throat moved convulsively as he wrenched his eyes away. "Sometimes, I do as well. It is true enough. Anya died trying to give birth to my daughter. So I suppose it could be said she died at my hand, yes."

"Nicodimus, nay!" Arianna pressed her hands to his face, forcing him to look into her eyes. "Nay, my love, you must never say such a thing. Never." Frowning at the pain that he tried so hard to keep hidden behind his eyes, Arianna forced away her own. "My Goddess, you loved her, dinna you?"

The skin drawn taut over his cheekbones, he gave a curt nod. "Yes. I loved her."

"And that is why, then. That is why you canna love me. Your heart belongs to another. Gone she may be, but alive within your soul." Lowering her head, she relaxed against him, eyes falling closed. "I understand now. I'm sorry for you, Nicodimus. So sorry. For I know your pain all too well."

"Arianna..."

She lifted a hand, pressed a forefinger to his lips. "Say nothing, love. There is nothing to say. You canna deny what you felt for her, no more than I would ask you to. I understand, now. I do, I vow it."

One large hand stroked down along her outer arm. "I know you do, little cat. I know you do." He touched her face, then drew his hand away quickly. "Tears, Arianna? I never saw you cry in your life until these last few days."

"'Tis only the shock, Nicodimus. The fellow frightened me well and clear to my bones. Next time he'll nay catch me so unprepared. Let him threaten you again, and he'll find himself skewered on my blade."

She dared peer up at him. Saw his lips curve a little. "You must promise never to disobey me this way again, Arianna. That man is a trained warrior."

"Aye. You know who he is."

He nodded. "One of Anya's two brothers, Marten or Kohl. I cannot be sure which of them. But either is as deadly as the other, and each is a danger to you, Arianna."

"I can learn to fight."

"He would kill you without a second thought." He looked deeply into her eyes. ' 'He would kill you, Arianna. And I would not be able to live with that. So promise me you'll stay out of my battles. Let me fight them on my own. I'm very capable, you know."

She looked at him steadily. "That man will come back. He wants to kill you."

"I'm npt going to let him do that, Arianna. But it's my battle. His and mine, and you are no part of it."

"He made me a part of it when he said what he did."

"Listen to me." He held her closer, harder, and a certain fierceness came into his eyes. "I will never let him touch

you. I swear it to you, Arianna. You are safe with me." Smiling slightly, she stroked a hand over his cheek.

"Aye," she whispered. "You do care just a little." Averting his eyes, he dropped a very chaste kiss upon

her forehead. "More than is wise," he muttered, and kicked

the horse into a gallop.

Her wedding day dawned clear and bright, like a new promise, and Arianna welcomed it. Her mother frowned at her when she refused to break her fast but didn't argue. For once, it seemed, she understood. Arianna seemed no more capable of eating than of coherent thought. She paced the spacious chamber assigned to her, until her mother went down to break her own fast and Nidaba came in her place.

' 'You sent for me?'' Nidaba asked, closing the chamber door, turning to face Arianna.

"Aye." Arianna stopped pacing and gathered her courage. "I need to ask something of you, Nidaba. An' I fear you'll turn me down, for I know you disapprove of my wedding Nicodimus."

Nidaba averted her eyes. ' 'It is not my place to approve or disapprove of your marriage, child."

Arianna lowered her head. "But you do, all the same. I hope you will change your mind one day, Nidaba, for I have come to admire you above any female I have known." Arianna looked up again to see the normally unreadable eyes wide with surprise, the lips slightly parted. ' 'Does that surprise you? You're a strong woman, Nidaba. Independent. Getting along in this world somehow all on your own. And Nicodimus has told me of your skills in battle."

Nidaba schooled her features. "What is it you want of me, child?"

Arianna titled her head. ' 'What do you know of this dark enemy Nicodimus encountered yesterday?"

Nidaba's eyes shifted away, toward the window. "Likely less than you do. Why?"

Arianna shrugged. ' 'I dinna suppose it matters. Only that my husband could have been killed. An' if it had come to that, I'd have been of no help to him."

Meeting Arianna's eyes this time. Nidaba smiled. "You think Nicodimus needs your help, little one?"

"I only know that if he ever should need it, I want to be able to give it." Arianna squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. '"I want you to teach me to fight, Nidaba. An' I dinna want you tellin' Nicodimus about it, for I know he would likely object."

Blinking several times and tilting her head to the side, Nidaba studied her for a long moment. And then, without an argument or a question, she simply said, "Yes."

Arianna gasped. "Yes?" She couldn't believe the woman had agreed so easily.

"Yes. It is a skill you'll need to master sooner or later anyway. So, yes. I'll teach you. In secret."

Smiling broadly, Arianna clasped Nidaba's hand. "Thank you, Nidaba."

Nidaba only nodded, and turned toward the door. She paused with her back to Arianna. "I... could stay, if you like. Assist you in preparing yourself for the wedding."

Arianna felt as if she might finally have gained a measure of acceptance from the strange, powerful woman. "I would like that very much. You could shadow my eyes again, aye?"

Turning, Nidaba nodded, and offered Arianna a tentative, and very slight smile, for the first time.

She came to me on the steps of the keep's small chapel, and I caught my breath. For the first time I saw the full extent of the danger represented by this one small woman. For the first time, I realized, I would never be able to withstand a full-scale assault on my senses such as the one she seemed determined to launch. Oh, I had thought I could. I had told myself so. But now I knew what a fool I had been to believe it, even for a moment.

Arianna wore silk as white as snow, which had been cleverly shaped to cup and lift her breasts, and hug tight 'round her small waist. Snugly covering—but not really covering—her arms were sleeves of delicate lace, which allowed incredibly seductive glimpses of creamy skin. Her

hair had been rinsed in henna, so it gleamed like sunshine, and spilled about her shoulders, threaded through with tiny flowers—heather, forget-me-nots, and baby's breath. Her eyes—lined by the unmistakable hand of Nidaba—seemed somehow older, wiser, and a hundred times more sensual than before. And they shone with nervous excitement. Her lips were full and rosy and shining.

She came to me, and I could not take my eyes from her. Not to look toward the village priest as he spoke his words over us, nor even to spare him a glance when I repeated my vows. I could not stop staring at Arianna. The little cat who had somehow been transformed into a regal bride. Maiden bride. My bride.

Before my eyes she promised to love me, to obey me, to remain loyal only to me. In her small face was such solemn sincerity that I knew they were not just words. Not to her. She meant every vow she spoke. She would honor them. Her promises were real, and she would expect mine to be as well.

Honoring my vows to her... would not be difficult, I realized slowly. Keeping them would be no chore at all.

A tear slipped from her doe-brown eyes and glistened upon her satin cheek when I put my ring upon her finger. I leaned forward, brushed my lips across her face, and kissed the tear away. "It will be all right," I promised softly. Surprise and what looked very much like hope lit her eyes as she stared at me. Then at the priest's word, she let them fall closed and swayed very gently toward me. I caught her up in my arms, and pressed my lips to hers. It was to have been tender, our wedding kiss. It was to have been sweet, and reassuring.

It became something far different. Because her soft lips trembled ever so slightly when mine pressed against them. And her hands, featherlight and hesitant, fluttered and then pressed against my back. Then her body seemed to melt into mine. My hands had rested gently at her waist, until that soft sigh and tiny tremor that went through her. Shyly, she dared use her tongue to trace the shape of my lips. Then I forgot exactly why I had been determined to kiss her so

gently. I forgot everything: who I was, who she was... and what we both were. My arms locked 'round her, and pulled her roughly to me. My mouth opened over hers, and my tongue pushed between her lips, stroking deep. I pressed her hips to mine, shamelessly rubbing against her as I drank my fill from her mouth. And even as I plundered her, I felt her response. Shock, yes, but arousal, too. She arched against me, arms twining 'round my neck, fingers digging their way into my hair. She tilted her head to grant my mouth greater access, and parted her lips willingly to my invasion. Her beasts squeezed so tightly to my chest that I could feel the pebbling of her nipples even through our clothes, and I imagined the feel of them between my fingertips ... my lips.

The priest cleared his throat... loudly.

Slowly, I raised my head, parting my lips from those of my responsive little bride. But I didn't take my arms from 'round her. It took only a glance into her stunned and confused eyes to know that I could not. She would likely collapse if I let her go now. Her hands were trembling, her knees quivered. Her eyes were glazed and shining and wide. Her lips swollen and wet and hungry. She was breathing in quick, shallow little puffs. And she pressed one hand to her belly as if to calm the riot going on within. Desire was what she felt, I knew that. Though I was unsure she could correctly identify it. I knew no one else in the chapel would have any trouble. Particularly if they noticed the bulge beneath my kilt.

What had I done?

She held my gaze, and the stunned expression in her trusting brown eyes gradually gave way to a tentative smile. She slipped her small hand into my large one and we turned to receive our blessings from the clan crowding the chapel, filling all the pews and spilling out the door. Everyone in Stonehaven had come to see us joined.

Almost everyone.

The intruder was not here. For that I was grateful.

Chapter 9

I could not frown upon the revelry Joseph had planned for the bridal feast. The doors to the keep had been thrown wide, and huge platters mounded with roasted meats, fish, and savory pastries were set upon all the tables lining the great hall. The entire clan was here to partake of the festivities. Jugs of heather ale, mead, and even precious wine were passed around freely, and mugs overflowed as all imbibed generously. Torches were lit in the courtyard as the celebration grew and spilled out beyond the confines of the hall. There was even a minstrel who moved hither and yon, strumming his lute and singing of love everlasting.

It was sad to hear of such things as those of which the mistrel sang, when I knew full well nothing was truly forever. I'd seen too much come and pass to believe otherwise.

But the wine and ale flowed like the twin rivers of Ni-daba's homeland, and the food never seemed to run low. Feasting, dancing, singing, all of it ran together. Arianna was tugged away from me early on, pulled into the embrace of her family, and false-faced villagers (who, I reminded myself grimly, had been all too ready to see her hanged and burned only days ago) with well wishes.

I found myself torn. One side of me wanting to go, to

enjoy the festivities and let Arianna find her own way back to me. The other side, unable to do so. Unable to stop craning my neck to find her through the crowd. To make certain she was well, and safe, and not afraid nor tormented in any way.

Spotting her, I shook my head. Since when did Arianna Sinclair—Arianna Lachlan—allow anyone to torment her? It was a silly thought. And yet, she'd seemed so vulnerable today. So utterly open and vulnerable... to me. Only to me.

I gave up trying not to, and made my way through the crowd to her. I found her in deep conversation with the whelp who had cut her to see if she would bleed. My ire rose, my hand clenched into a fist, and my teeth, in all likelihood, bared.

"But that's when I realized what a fool I had been," the whelp was saying. "An' I'll never be able to apologize enough for hurtin' you. Never in all my days."

"Not if you live to be a hundred and ten," I put in, stepping close to Arianna, and in spite of myself, slipping a possessive arm around her shoulders.

"Oh nonsense, Nicodimus," Arianna said with a soft laugh. One that was off in some way, one that spoke of mischief. She was up to something. I looked down and saw that gleam in her eyes, and knew I should quiet her, and fast. I eyed the near-empty mug in her hand and wondered how many times it had been filled with wine. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes more sparkling than usual, and we had yet to sit down to the feast.

"I can forgive you. Angus. If you can forgive yourself. After all, you must feel a terrible fool for what you did. Far worse than the pain you inflicted on me, was the use-lessness of the entire endeavor."

' 'Arianna ..." I warned.

"Uselessness?" Angus echoed.

' 'Aye, that foolish old superstition that says a true Witch willna bleed if you cut her."

"S-superstition?"

"Aye, indeed. You saw for yourself the murder of The

Crones. You ... were there, were you not?"

Angus lowered his head. "Aye, I was there. An' ashamed I am to admit I did nothin' to prevent it. I know you were fond of them."

"Yes, well, many of us were," I said, tugging at her arm.

"If you were there," Arianna rushed on. "Then you must have seen their blood flow."

His head coming up fast, Angus looked at her, wide-eyed. "What's this now?"

"Aye, the ladies didna go to the noose without a struggle. They fought, and were cut, and when they were, Angus, they bled." She lifted her brows high. "Just. Like. Me."

"Damnation, Arianna..."

Angus interrupted me. ' 'Then ... then they were nay Witches at all?" he asked, eyes bulging.

"Oh, but they were. They were true Witches, through and through." Arianna tossed her hair behind her shoulder, and finally allowed me to pull her away, leaving Angus gaping and pale faced behind us.

I tugged her behind a tapestry, my hand firm on her arm, and made her face me. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

Her smile didn't so much as waver. "Putting the fear of the Goddess into him. Dinna fear, Nicodimus, I admitted to nothing."

"No, just planted the seed in his fertile mind. He'll be convinced you're a Witch before nightfall."

"And what's wrong with that? I am a Witch."

"What's wrong with that? You saw what befell your mentors, Arianna, and yet you ask me what's wrong with that?"

She glanced down at my hand on her arm. "You are hurting me."

I eased my grip instantly, but didn't let go. "I ought to be shaking you! Arianna, you're so reckless! So impulsive, so—"

"So perfectly safe," she interrupted. "As your wife, I'm

safe. They wouldna dare harm me now, an' well you know it. So why do you care if I exact a bit of revenge for the wrongs done me an' mine? Hmm? What harm is there in letting young Angus spend the next several nights in a cold sweat, fearing my Witchly retribution? 'Twill do him no harm!"

I sighed, exasperated with her to no end. " 'Twill do you harm, woman. Especially if he talks to others about the thoughts you've put into his head. This whole episode could turn itself back upon you, Arianna."

' 'Nay, it canna. For I have never felt safer than I do with you, my husband. An' I plan to spend the next several nights wrapped up tight in your arms." She snuggled close, twining her arms 'round my waist and resting her head on my chest. "Surely no harm can befall me there."

I stared down at her. My throat went utterly dry. Her eyes, heavy-lidded and gleaming from beneath thickly curling lashes, were filled with promise ... and desire. Clearing my throat, I managed to force words through my lips, though they emerged rather hoarse. "You know that is not the way it will be. I have told you this."

"Aye, you have. But that was before our wedding kiss. An' I thought perhaps you'd changed your mind."

"I gave you no reason to think that," I said firmly, clasping her shoulders to move her slightly away from me.

' 'Nay? I rather thought near mating with me in front of the priest an' the entire clan was reason to think so, Ni-codimus. Forgive me, though, if I misread you." Anger flashed in her eyes now.

I closed my eyes as painful memories reared up. I couldn't live it again. Didn't want to know her in that way, to come to cherish her any more than I already did, only to lose her. It would hurt too much. I would not love again, not ever. I had vowed it and I would keep that vow, for sanity's sake.

"I'm sorry. What you're thinking of can never be."

Her gaze fell, but not before I'd seen disappointment and pain cloud her expression. "Then let Angus rouse the suspicions of this clan. Let them come for me. If I canna be

with you, I'd just as soon be dangling from a limb."

She whirled 'round as she said it, and stomped off toward

the high table.

She was angry. Well, let her be angry then. It would be

for the best.

I strode after her and joined my bride at the high table.

As I sat down, she tore a leg from a roasted capon, and bit

into it with a fierceness that was completely unladylike.

Arianna donned a nightshift so bold she could not believe she had the nerve to look at it, much less wear it. A wedding gift, presented to her by Nidaba during one of the more quiet moments of the celebration.

Sheer, made of a fabric she'd never seen before. Black, it hung to her ankles, but hid nothing. Every part of her was visible through the soft fabric. Arianna peered at a polished silver mirror, biting her lip. Even looking at herself dressed this way brought color to her cheeks. What would seeing Nicodimus looking at her do?

She snatched a blanket from the bed, and hastily tossed it around her shoulders. For now. Surely the courage to let it fall to the floor would come when she needed it. When Nicodimus ... her husband ... came through the chamber doors.

Her husband. Gods, to think of that man as her own. It was nearly too much for her mind to comprehend, and yet it was true. Or nearly true. She had yet to be his wife in the most important way. She had yet to lie in his arms, with less even than this scrap of cloth between them. She had yet to feel him inside her, filling her. Closing her eyes, she released a shuddering breath. It would be magick. True magick.

He would come to her. He would come to her soon.

Putting down the mirror, Arianna examined the room in which she and her husband were to spend their wedding night. Joseph had wisely assigned them to a chamber far from those used by the others. They would have complete privacy. Stone walls rose on all sides, with but a single window looking out and down to the outer walls, and the

loch and woods beyond. She could not see the village from here. On one wall, a hearth stretched broadly, and a fire laid ready for the touch of a spark. Much like the fire inside her laid ready for the touch of her true love's hand.

His lips.

His body.

She closed her eyes against the roiling in the pit of her stomach... and lower. She was dizzy. Too much wine, surely.

When would he come? He should surely be here by now ... if he intended to come to her at all tonight.

She whirled and stepped toward the door, even opened it a crack and peered out into the flickering, torchlit halls. But no sign of Nicodimus did she see.

He would come to her... wouldn't he? He'd said he would not. He'd said her dreams of being with him could never be. But she'd been certain he would at least come in long enough to wish her good night... on their wedding night. And when he did... and when she let the blanket fall away and he saw her in this scandalous shift, he would be unable to leave her to her lonely bed. He would take her, making her his woman in every way.

But no footsteps echoed in the halls. No sound at all came to her.

Nicodimus, please," she whispered. "You wouldna leave me alone tonight. Not tonight, of all nights ..." A tear burned in Arianna's eye as slowly she realized that was exactly what he intended to do.

The sound of hoofbeats accompanied a chill night breeze, through the window, and she hurried there. Hands braced on the stone sill, she leaned out, staring down into the darkness, to see the rider galloping away. Horse and rider both ... unmistakable to her longing eyes. Nicodimus. Leaving his wife behind.

Her tears burned away under the blazing heat of her anger. Arianna let her blanket fall away, and snatched a dark, hooded cloak from her chest. Throwing it around her, she yanked the door open and strode out into the cool corridor.

He would not leave his bride behind on their wedding night. She would not allow him to.

I felt like a brute for the first time in my life, that night. Arianna... She was more than I could hope to resist, and I dared not face her. I knew too well what would happen between us if I went to her in the chamber where she waited. If I looked into those brown eyes and saw the raw yearning there as I had seen it earlier today when I had spoken my vows to her. If I touched her and felt the innocent trembling reaction of her body to mine. I knew she wanted ... craved ... what I could never give her. Not just coupling. I could provide that easily enough, and likely would have, had there been any way to keep her heart un-involved. But it would not be possible with Arianna. It would mean more to her than the satisfaction of a physical hunger. It would mean I owned her, heart and soul. And that was a responsibility I did not want.

If I were to be utterly honest, I might admit that I feared for my heart and soul's well-being as well. Perhaps even more so than for hers. She intrigued me, enticed me, tempted me, in a way no woman ever had. No, not even my precious Anya. Arianna was so unlike my first love as to be a different breed altogether. Anya had been tame and timid. Arianna was wild and untamable. Anya had endured my touch, enjoyed it even, out of her desire to please me and her love for me. But Arianna was a bundle of passion awaiting release.

No. I could not go to her. I feared her, it was true. I felt as if she could easily destroy me, and lay to waste the solid stone wall I'd spent centuries building around my heart.

I knew now what I had done. I almost smiled when I realized that I had had a hand in destroying my own defenses by having put myself into this predicament. Her husband. By the Gods, I was the girl's husband now.

I rode Black hard, far away from the keep walls, into the forest beyond, and still farther, picking up the timeworn, but still familiar trail that led to my place. The sacred place of my people, and of those who came before them.

The Stone Circle.

When the towering pillars rose before me, I felt the first hint of peace beckoning me nearer. Tying Black's reins to a tree limb, I unlaced and removed my boots, out of reverence for the sacred site. My head bowed low, I stepped between the stones and entered the sanctuary.

Power pulsed here—from the stones, perhaps, or maybe from the ground itself. No one knew if the construction of the circle gave it the power, or if the power had been what had made the Ancient Ones choose this site. Perhaps neither was true, and it had been the constant use of this place for worship and ritual that had imbued it with magickal energies. I only knew the power here was real. A force I could feel thrumming like heady wine through my veins the moment my bared feet touched the soil within.

Moving to the center of the circle, I sat cross-legged and willed myself calm. Consciously, I slowed my breathing, deepened it, and one by one, relaxed every tense muscle in my body. I lowered my chin, closed my eyes, and opened my senses.

Gradually, the peace of the place worked into me. The sounds of the forest—for it was alive around me—made their way to me. The gentle breeze whispering amid the trees, and the stones themselves. The songs of nightbirds and crickets chirping. I could think clearly here. I would see the way I must proceed with Arianna. I had no wish to hurt her, and I knew I had that power. I had no wish to be hurt by her ... and yet I suspected that power could belong to her all too easily. In silence, I sat. Until the silence was broken by a voice, deep and loud, calling my name from without.

"Nicodimus!"

My head came up fast, eyes wide, but sharp in the darkness. He stood outside the sacred place, a dagger already gleaming by the pale light of a crescent moon in his hand.

"The time has come."

Slowly, I got to my feet, my hand inching toward my own dagger, the one I never dared to be without. For this was my life. I never knew when a challenge would come.

He took a step forward. I held up a hand. "Not within the circle," I said, my voice low. "This is sacred ground."

He shrugged, his face invisible behind the beaked helm. "I've no care where I kill you, Nicodimus, so long as it gets done."

"Are you so certain you're ready to die, Marten?" I asked him, moving forward, coming out from amid the stones ten paces before him. "Or is it Kohl, behind the mask?"

"I am not certain at all that I wish to die," he said, his voice tinny and hollow. ' 'But then I have no intent of dying, so what does it matter?"

He sprang then, and though I'd no wish to take a life here in this place, nor on the night of my wedding, I had no choice but to try my best to kill the man. For unless I did, he would surely kill me.

He plowed into me like a maddened bull before I could react. The pointed cone of his helm rammed my midsection and sent me stumbling backward, doubled over. Instinctively, I drew my knee sharply upward to pummel his face. An ill-planned move, since it only resulted in the beakish helm piercing my knee clean to the bone, by the feel of it.

I went down to the ground, and still he kept coming, roaring like an animal as he brought his blade down hard and fast. I rolled away, and his blade found dirt instead of flesh. Scrambling to my feet, even as he yanked his dagger free of the earth and began to straighten, I plunged my own blade deep into his back. My head clear now, I sought the spot where the bottom of his helm met the top of the breastplate he wore. My aim was true. The blade sank deep into the place between neck and back, and the force with which I drove it sent it clean through my enemy's spine.

He cried out but once, a cry that seemed cut off almost before it began. Then he went still. Motionless. Not a breath whispered from him. Not a sound. And yet he lived. Paralyzed and unable to breathe, but alive still. I sensed it.

I drew my blade from him and straightened, rolled him over with my foot, and crouching low, removed the helm. Blood poured from the thing, dampening the ground be-

neath him. And for a moment, it held my attention, and the familiar surge of regret swamped me. Spilling blood, taking lives, it had never set well with me. I did not like to be the instrument of death. Not even to one as evil as he.

But then my gaze went to his face. The bulging, unblinking eyes. The mouth, agape as he suffocated. And I stilled, as recognition flooded me. Kohl. One of Anya's two brutish brothers, as I had suspected. One less to torment me all my days.

Gripping his shoulders, I searched his immobile face, frozen in its dying grimace. ' 'You were no immortal when I first knew you," I said to him. "And well I know how you gained your immortality, Kohl. By murder. What I wish to know is, how did you learn of this? Who taught you the way to steal unending life? Who?" But my voice trailed off, as I realized he could not answer me. And besides, what answer did I need?

It was obvious what had occurred, and it had been for a very long time now. Somehow Kohl and his brother had learned the secrets of the immortal High Witches. Somehow they had learned that to become one, they need only take the heart of another. And they had done so, long ago. A short time after Anya's death, as near as I could guess it. They had made themselves into a deadly pair of Dark High Witches, and likely I had been their reason for doing so. They had yearned to avenge their father's death, and then their sister's. On me. What did it matter who had taught them?

I lowered my head, closed my eyes, and thought of Anya. Lifting my head again, I saw the life slowly fading from Kohl's face. "I'll not take your heart until you die, Kohl," I said slowly. Knowing full well that had our positions been reversed, he'd delight in carving my own immortal heart from my chest while I still lived. "I'll do it before you have time to revive. You'll feel no pain. Make your peace, Kohl. You'll not be waking from death this time. Your life is over."

He blinked once and I sensed he would have spoken had he been able. To curse me? To thank me? How could I

know? But taking his heart was the only way to ensure he stay dead. For immortals, be they Dark or Light, would revive from any death, so long as their hearts remained within them. And the hearts themselves would beat long into the future, even when removed. Imprisoned in small boxes, they were the stolen sources of the Dark Ones' power. My own immortality was earned in another way, for I was of the Light. My power came from the Source of all power, not from doing murder. I had no need of Kohl's heart nor the power it held. But I must take it all the same. And burn it, for that was the only way to release his soul. The light in Kohl's eyes finally died. And still I waited, just to be sure. When his body began to grow cool, I removed his breastplate, and carved into his chest.

Arianna borrowed a horse from the stables Joseph kept within the keep walls. She headed out in the direction she had seen Nicodimus take, and then followed the deeply embedded tracks of his horse's pounding hooves. Once she had picked up the trail by the light of the moon, it was easy enough to guess where he was headed. To the Stone Circle. The Crones had shown her the place once. They had spoken of it with great reverence, but seemed afraid of the power they said the place held.

It was not difficult to find the place again. And when she neared it, she knew Nicodimus was nearby. She need only come within a short distance of him to feel his presence. And she felt him now. That tingling awareness that seemed to brush over her flesh. The dark sense of him filling her. Gods, how she loved him. Wanted him. Craved him the way some men craved their whiskey. Strong, he was, but so tender. His touch would be gentle and powerful all at once. He would teach her what this yearning in her belly meant. And how to quench it. He was the only man who could.

"Gods, how I love you, Nicodimus," she whispered. "Never has any man touched my soul as you have done." And now, oh, now, if only he would touch her body in the same way. Her fantasies of him had carried her this far, but

they were no longer enough. She needed him ... not in her mind, but in her arms, in her bed, inside her.

She closed her eyes, and the now familiar feeling of moisture gathered between her legs. It had been happening frequently of late, this new sensation, the dampness. The empty feeling, yearning to be filled. Maiden she may be, but learned as well. The Crones had spoken of such things, taught her what her mother would not. According to them, the pleasure to be had in mating was intense and wonderful and not at all sinful. A woman, they said, would experience as much pleasure as a man, and it was natural that it be so. Not shameful, not immoral, but good and right, and as our Creator intended. For did not the entire Universe come about by the mating of Goddess and God? Was not our Source truly the union of the two? As above, so below. All is but a reflection of itself.

She wanted to feel that magick with Nicodimus. She wanted to be one with him. It was meant to happen. She knew it was. He was the missing part of herself. She was his. He would realize it one day. He had to.

Shaking herself out of the deep contemplation into which she had fallen, she dismounted from the dun mare she'd taken, and moved forward, bare feet brushing the ferns and woodland grasses and mossy stones. And slowly, bit by bit, she emerged into the clearing.

Then she went still, and caught her breath. At first she saw only the Stone Circle, the sight of which filled her with as much awe and reverence now as it had the only other time she'd glimpsed it. It seemed to have been created by a race of giants, for she could think of no other creature capable of standing such massive structures upright, much less securing them deep enough within the earth to remain that way.

But then the scene taking place within the circle caught her attention, and her blood congealed at the horror of it.

Two men, within the sacred circle. One lying still atop a pile of brush, like a miniature funeral pyre about to be lit. He was obviously dead. His chest had been laid open, and his clothing was soaked in blood. The other man stood

above him, his hands held high, and in those hands rested a bloody mass that nearly made Arianna retch to see it.

She whirled away, clinging to a tree with one hand, moving behind it as if to shield herself from the gruesome sight. Head bowed low, eyes closed tightly, she fought to catch her breath as her stomach churned. But something compelled her to look again. Something forced her to see ... to know ...

Slowly, she forced her eyes open, and lifted her head. Peering around the tree, she made herself look. Really look and see what was happening. And when she did, a soft sound rose in her throat entirely against her will.

The man standing was Nicodimus. And the thing in his hands ... was a human heart.

A heart that was still quivering ... beating....

The sound she made was half gasp, half cry. And when she uttered it, she clasped a hand to her lips. But too late. Nicodimus's head turned sharply, his keen eyes scanning the woods, and landing unerringly upon her. His lips parted, as if he would speak, and he reached toward her with a hand stained scarlet.

Arianna backed away, shaking her head, unable to speak or even to cry. Good Gods, what was this? What sort of Witch was he? And what kind of evil drove him to ...

She did not want to know. Suddenly she feared the man she had always loved. His secrets were far too many and too deep ... and darker than she had ever imagined.

Even as he took a step toward her, Arianna whirled and raced away, frantically untying the reins before leaping onto the mare's back and wheeling her about. Kicking the mare's sides, she galloped into the forest.

She must run, she told herself. She must! For the hands that held a ghastly still-beating heart skyward in some sick offering to whatever Gods lived in Nicodimus's soul, must never touch her. Never!

Chapter 10

Hastily, I built a pyre within the circle. Hastily, for I'd no wish to have Kohl revive before I did what must be done. His wounds would heal, and I would be bound to kill or be killed all over again. Already I felt my own torn flesh begin to tingle, mending itself as it always would—no matter the injury—unless my own heart were taken from me.

Slinging his lifeless body over my shoulder, I laid Kohl upon the pyre, and there I took his heart. Flint ready in my pocket, kindling laid, I held the heart high above my head, and whispered the words I had long used for such grim occasions as this.

"By the powers of the Ancient Ones, by the force of my Creator, and by my will, I commend this body to the fire, and this heart to the flame, and this soul to its Source. Go forth, Kohl, and ponder the lessons of this lifetime. And return, one day, to live again, enlightened by all you have learned. Go in peace, my brother. As I will it, and with harm to none, so mote it be."

For a long moment, I held the heart high, pushing my will into it, feeling it begin to slow, to release its life force bit by bit. But even before I could place it upon the pyre, a soft sound startled me out of my state of intense concen-

tration. A sound so pained, so hurting, that it cut right to my soul. I snapped my head 'round in search of the source of that cry, knowing even before I saw her there, that Ar-ianna had found me, had seen this wretched deed I did. And the knowledge brought with it a fierce surge of regret.

I spotted her there, clinging to a large oak, staring at me from beyond it. Her eyes were wide with surprise and shock and something I had hoped never to see in them. Fear. Fear of me. I tried to speak, not knowing what to say, even lifted a hand toward her, but she turned and fled as if she'd seen some monster instead of her husband.

And indeed, she likely believed she had.

With a heavy heart, I returned to my grim task. For to leave it unfinished would make me the exact monster my wife seemed to believe I was. It must be done. I would deal with Arianna later, though I had no idea how or what I could say. I should, perhaps, have told her what I was long before now. But I had not. Now I had no choice.

Calming my frantic heart, I placed Kohl's atop the pyre, near his feet. Then kneeling, I struck the flint until it produced a spark and ignited the kindling. There I waited until the flames danced high, and the body was too far consumed for there to be any hope of someone coming along and snatching it out in time. The heart, too, sizzled and oozed as the flames roasted it, burned it, then reduced it to smoldering ash.

Only when all was complete, did I dare leave and go off in search of my runaway bride, to try to explain what she had witnessed. And I must hurry, before her emotions made her do something foolish. For her to learn the truth was inevitable. For her to learn it like this, unforgivable.

Even now, I was uncertain just how much I should tell her. She was so young, and so incredibly vulnerable to me. To tell her what I was, how I must live, was going to be shocking enough to rock her right to her soul. But to tell her that she was the same ... I was not sure I could bring myself to do that. Not yet. I resolved to wait, to see her reactions to the first of my frightening revelations before deciding if she were ready for the rest. The truth. The

frightening, shocking truth, of what she was. An immortal High Witch, who would one day be forced to commit the same violence she'd just seen me do. Or have it performed upon her by one of the Dark Ones.

The knowledge could easily destroy my fragile little cat. And for the first time I realized that if it did, it might well destroy me, too.

I returned to the keep only to be told that Arianna had left with a small pouch of her belongings. Joseph's sons had already set out to search for her along the roads leading away from the village. But I didn't think she would leave Stonehaven. Not yet. I knew Arianna, or thought I did, better than anyone. So I went to the places where I knew she would go for solace. Her parents' home in the village, the cemetery where her beloved sister lay buried, the shores of the loch.

And finally, to the site of The Crones' cottage. That was where I found her. Alone, sitting on a small boulder with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped tight around them. Her face lowered, her dress absorbing her tears. Trembling and frightened, I found her. More kitten than cat just then. Vulnerable and afraid. I knew I would have to treat her gently, or see her bolt.

It twisted my heart into a knot to see her hurting, to know that her pain belonged to me.

The night wind whispered her name as I stepped slowly closer, and then I repeated its loving refrain.

"Arianna."

Her head came up fast, brown eyes wide, unblinking. Cheeks red with tear tracks, full lips trembling. "Leave me alone, Nicodimus." Her voice shook with emotion, with fear. Of me.

"I can't do that. I... I need to explain. What you saw, it wasn't..."

Her eyes narrowed on me, seeming to pierce right through my skin. "Wasn't what? Murder?"

Sighing deeply, I turned and sat beside her on the boulder. My elbows resting on my knees, bent forward at the

waist, not looking at her, I said, "It was not murder. Kohl was trying his best to kill me, and I had no choice but to defend myself."

"By cuttin' out his heart?" Her voice broke on those words, and when I turned my head to look at her, I saw the grimace on her face, the horror of the memory in her eyes.

"It was ... necessary."

"What sorts of Gods do you serve, Nicodimus, that would require such a gruesome sacrifice?"

I closed my eyes slowly. "I'll tell you, Arianna. If you'll listen, I'll tell you my secrets. Things you likely won't believe. But true, all of them, utterly true."

She said nothing, so I lifted my gaze to hers again, searched her face. And she said, ' 'Goddess help me, for I am a hopeless fool. I want you to explain it all away, Nicodimus. I want to believe in you again. So I'm listenin'."

I nodded, drew a breath, nodded again. "All right. All right, then. But first. . . first, Arianna, know this. I would never hurt you. Never. Do you believe that?''

Again her eyes met mine, probed, searched. A little less fear, and more of her natural curiosity lighting them. " 'Tis difficult to believe in the tenderness of a man I just saw holdin' a bloodied heart in his hands ... a heart that..." She closed her eyes, gave her head a quick shake. "But that's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible," I said softly. "Nothing." It was going to be difficult to explain all of this to her. "What did you see, Arianna, that you believe impossible?"

She tilted her head to one side, remembering, and a little shiver worked through her. "It appeared that the heart was . . . was still beatin', Nicodimus. But 'twas only my shocked mind playin' tricks on me."

"You've no idea how I wish that were the case."

She blinked. "What are you sayin'?"

Drawing a breath, I said, "Let me begin at the beginning, Arianna. I only ask that you not run from me ... at least, not until I've finished. The things I'm going to tell you will shock and upset you. But they are things you need to know

and understand. Things I... likely should have told you a long time ago."

She thought a moment, then nodded once. "All right. I suppose 'tis little enough to ask. You've saved my life on more than one occasion. I owe you as much."

"You owe me nothing."

"I differ with you on that point. But let's nay argue. Just tell me these secrets of which you speak, an' make me understand why you butchered that man so brutally. For I trusted you, Nicodimus, an' what I saw frightened that trust away. I only want to understand, an' find it again."

"You want me to restore your faith in me," I said slowly, clarifying it in my own mind. Wondering if she'd be better off if I stopped here and now. But no. She had to know. We shared a fate, she and I.

"i was born into a tiny clan that once made its home here, at the site of this very village. And the year was seven hundred and fifty."

She smiled then. Smiled broadly, and punched me lightly on my arm. ' 'Be serious, now, Nicodimus. An' stop jesting with me. 'Twould make you o'er seven hundred years old."

"Seven hundred and fifty, Arianna."

She stared at me. Her smile faltered and died.

I said no more, and gave her a moment to digest that bit of information. She clearly didn't believe me. It was evident in everything from the sudden worry clouding her magnificent brown eyes to the slight stiffening of her muscles. No doubt the question of my sanity was even now occurring to my lovely bride. And I disliked seeing it there.

"You mean," she began, slowly, cautiously, "you feel that old. But of course, you are not."

' 'Do you remember, Arianna, the way I looked when you first set eyes on me?"

She nodded at once. "Every detail," she whispered, then quickly turned her head away and I saw her cheeks color prettily, despite the darkness.

"And have I changed in all that time?" I asked her. "Aged at all?"

She frowned, pondering. "I... have often wondered how you hide your age so well."

"I hide my age so well because I do not age. My body hasn't aged since I was twenty and eight, Arianna, and it never will." I paused, turned to face her and took both of her hands in mine. Warm, they were. Soft as satin, with nimble, slender fingers that were quick and clever. I loved the way her hands looked—small and strong, yet willing to nestle into the grip of my larger ones. I liked closing mine around them, holding her. And I didn't give it any more thought than that. Though I recall very clearly the word that whispered insistently and in an unfamiliar tone, a possessive commanding tone, through my mind. The word was Mine.

"Arianna," I said. "I am ... I am immortal."

Her head dipped slightly, eyes seeming to plumb mine even as they narrowed to mere slits. "Immortal?" she whispered. And now her hands turned, her beautiful fingers lacing with mine, and she squeezed. "Nicodimus ... love, you know that canna be." Then one hand broke free, and her fingers gently probed and rubbed over my head, through my hair, searching every inch. ' 'You may have been injured in the battle,'' she said quickly. ' 'With that man ... Kohl, you called him. Oh, Nicodimus, I know you didna do murder back there. I was only shocked to see such violence, an' afraid, an' still very upset with you for leaving me alone on the night of our wedding, an' so my emotions got away from me, I suppose, an' I—"

"Cease."

She did. Biting her lip, she stopped the stream of nervous words that had been spilling out of her without censure. I think she knew even then that there was some truth to what I said. How much, she could not know. But she needed to speak, and fast, to keep me from saying any more.

"I am not injured. I was, but 'tis healed now."

The worry in her brown eyes deepened. ' 'No one heals so quickly," she said softly. "Where were you hurt, Nicodimus? Show me, and let me tend the wounds."

I nodded. "Yes. Yes, I must show you. 'Tis the only

way to get past your disbelief. There is much you need to know, my little cat, but we cannot proceed until we rid you of your skepticism."

"Aye," she said slowly, humoring me. "Aye, just show me. I am your wife, and tendin' your wounds is my duty. Let me help you, love."

I nodded, and turned away from her, so my back blocked her view. Then, moving very quickly, I drew my dagger with its jeweled hilt, and pushing back my sleeve, I drew its blade across my forearm.

"Nicodimus, nay!" Arianna leapt to her feet, seeing what I had done, but not in time to prevent it. Weeping aloud, she reached for the deep gash in my flesh, as if she would grip it tight and try to stop the bleeding. But I drew my arm out of her reach, held up a hand.

"Just wait, Arianna. Just wait." With one hand I smoothed her hair, my eyes on the gash, watching it. But when I heard her sobs I looked up, saw the distress, the twin rivulets of tears. She was shaking all over. And I was suddenly full of regret. I reached for her. "Arianna ..."

But her eyes were widening, and focused unblinkingly on the cut. And when I looked down again, I realized the blood flow was slowing visibly. Arianna took a stuttering breath as it stopped entirely, then stepped backward with a soft gasp as the skin 'round the edges of the wound began slowly, bit by bit, regenerating.

"Please," I asked her, when she took another halting step backward. "Please, do not be afraid. It is what I am, Arianna. This is what I am."

She searched my face, stared deeply into my eyes, her own growing less fearful by slight degrees. Her feet moved, but this time to bring her closer, and she reached out a tentative hand, to touch, drew away, and touched again. "Oh ... oh, my ..." she whispered, and sank to her knees at my feet, drawing my arm with her, clutching it in hers. She lifted the hem of her robe, and before I knew what she was about to do, wiped the blood away from my arm. Then she watched, trembling on her knees as the cut slowly healed. Her fingers trailed over the new skin, soft, erotic,

sending a bolt of awareness straight to my soul, like lightning searing hot and shattering.

"Good Gods, 'tis true...." She lifted her huge, innocent eyes to mine. "But how? How can this be?"

"For a very long while, I did not know. I still do not know all of it. The why of it, or how it all works. I only know that long ago, in my village, I believed myself to be an ordinary man. I hunted, I fought. I was a warrior, skilled and proud, and would have been chieftain of my clan one day. I had a wife and two strong sons."

At this point, Arianna's head snapped up. "Not just a wife then. But a family," she whispered. Slowly rising until standing, she faced me. ' 'Tell me of them, Nicodimus. Tell me of your family. And of the woman who captured your love."

Nodding, I lowered my head. "Her name was ... was Anya."

Arianna's small hand came to my face, cupping it, fingers tracing my cheeks. "You loved her," she whispered. "Nay, dinna look as if you regret it, husband. You've told me of your love for Anya before, an 'tis a relief to know you loved once. I'd begun to fear you were incapable of it."

I shook my head, considered telling her she had the right of it. That I was incapable of loving ... now. But then decided I had hurt her enough, and my revelations would soon do so even more. Enough of causing her pain.

"How long were you together?" she asked, taking my hand now, leading me back to sit on the boulder as if she were the experienced sage, and I the innocent. She urged me downward, then curled her legs beneath her and sat on the ground at my feet, close to me. Her body leaning against my thighs.

"I was but four and ten when I found her. She was the daughter of an enemy chieftain. Our men took her father's life in battle, and I found her in her village, being beaten by her two brothers, Marten and Kohl. She'd been mistreated all her life. So I took her."

"As prisoner?" she asked. No judgment in her tone, just curiosity.

"The choice was hers. I took her, yes, but I may have left her behind, had she asked it of me." I shrugged. "Or perhaps not. At any rate, she did not object, so I took her. And back in my village, I made her my wife, and gave her my promise that no man would ever raise a hand to harm her again. 'Twas a promise I kept."

Arianna's hand touched my thigh, and she dipped her head, as if she were studying her fingers with great interest. "Was she ... very beautiful?"

"She was comely. Small and frail. With the temperament of a mouse, Arianna. Wary and afraid, but eventually she came to trust me, and to love me. We had a good life together. She cared for my needs and I for hers. She gave me my sons, the most precious things in the world to me."

Arianna blinked and lifted her eyes to mine. "She sounds like my opposite. She couldna have been more unlike me."

"Tis true enough," I told her.

And she quickly looked away, hiding her eyes from my scrutiny. "Tell me of the children."

"Jaymes was the younger. Timid and tall for his age. Sickly. But bright, beyond measure. He was constantly working figures, numbers and such. He could draw any likeness, and play the pipes like Pan Himself. Will was the elder. Strong, a warrior, a strapping lad with a temper to match. It was all I could do to keep that one in line. Had he lived much longer, he'd have been fully capable of besting his sire in a fair fight."

Darkening with understanding and sympathy, her eyes turned up toward mine again. "Oh, Nicodimus. You lost them."

I closed my eyes. ' 'I lost them all. Anya died struggling to give birth to our third child, a wee girl who never lived to draw her first breath. After four and ten years with her, I didn't think I could live without her, but somehow I did. My lads needed me, then. I had no choice."

"You are very strong," Arianna whispered. "I've always known that about you." Her arms had somehow

twisted 'round my waist, and her head rested on my thigh. "An' a fine father you must have been to those lads."

"I tried. By the Gods, Arianna, I tried. But Jaymes died when the Black Death swept through our village later that same year. And a year later, Will and I were cut down side by side, in battle with the same clan from whence I'd taken his mother."

"Oh, Nicodimus ..." she whispered, head rising, hands stroking along my back. "Oh, my love, I am so very sorry. I know this grief that lives in you. I know it well."

"I know you do," I told her, studying her eyes seeing the tears pooling there. "You've felt it, too."

"So you and Will were wounded ... in this battle?" she asked.

"No," I said. "No, Arianna, we were... we were killed."

She sat up straighter. "No, my love ..."

"Yes. I'd a blade thrust straight through my heart, Arianna. There was no question. I died beside my son on the field of battle. But moments later, I lived again. Consciousness returned, and with it a blinding flash of pain and light. My body arched until I thought my spine would snap, and I dragged in a desperate gasp that failed to satisfy my starving lungs. I opened my eyes and stared, first at the blade which skewered me still, and then at my beloved son, lying lifeless at my side. And a rage filled me such as none I had ever known. I gripped the hilt of the sword, and pulled it from my chest. I howled in rage that Will should be dead, and I alive, with no one left, no one at all. Even before my grief abated, I felt a tingling sensation, saw the bleeding stop, and watched in awe as the mortal wound in my chest healed itself.

"Someone saw me then, and shouted that I'd been dead, my body already cooling, only moments before. I was confused and maddened with grief, and so I ran. I ran away."

Soft, cooling palms skimmed my face, and big brown eyes, brimming with tears, traced my features with healing tenderness. "Aye, Nicodimus. An' you've been runnin' ever since. From love. From carin' of any kind. Because it

hurts to love and lose, you've decided nay to love at all."

I nodded, amazed, and not for the first time, by her insights. "You are very wise for one so young."

'"Tis nay my age which makes me know your heart. Nicodimus. 'Tis my own grief. I, too, wished never to suffer loss again. I believe 'tis why I drew away from those closest to me. Even my own dear mother." As she spoke, she lay her head down once again.

I looked down at her, blond hair spread over my legs as her head rested gently there. "Then perhaps you do understand."

"To have lost my sister nearly destroyed me," she went on, lifting her head now, and stroking my cheek with one hand. "I canna imagine the pain of losing a child ... much less two of them, an' your newborn ... an' your wife."

I closed my hand over hers on my face, and gently moved it away, for her touch was eliciting more emotion from within me than I had realized was hidden inside. '"Tis the way of things, for me ... for my kind."

Her hand stilled in midair, eyes widening. "You mean you're nay the only one? There ... there are others?"

I felt my lips pull into a smile at her innocence and wonder. "Hundreds," I told her. "And all of us cursed to outlive all of those we love."

Blinking rapidly, she finally averted her face. "I could never exist that way," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Never!"

And my throat went dry, because I knew she must. But I couldn't tell her that. Not yet.

Eventually, she looked back at me. ' 'T ken now why you canna love me, Nicodimus. I'll never ask it of you again."

I looked into her eyes, as dark and fathomless as the night itself, and I felt an odd tug in the center of my chest. It felt like ... regret. But that made no sense, whatsoever.

But she gave me no time to examine the feeling.

"Where did you go?"

I only looked at her blankly, still pondering my own heart. "Where did I—"

"When you ran away," she clarified, staring up at me, wide-eyed and rapt with attention.

"Of course." I focused my mind back on my tale. "I wandered for a time, stopping at crofts and working for a meal and a place to lay my head before moving on again. Eventually, I decided to make my way back to my village, my people. I'd been searching for answers, but I'd found none. I'd been traveling aimlessly over the whole of Scotland for well over two years. And I was still no closer to understanding why I lived. But I had noticed things, changes in me. Though these things only served to puzzle me more."

"What sorts of changes?" she asked, nearly breathless now with anticipation.

"They were gradual," I explained. "There was a certain sharpening of my senses. My eyesight grew keener, and I began to see in darkness as well as I did in bright light. My hearing became ... acute. My sense of smell became as honed as that of the wolf, and I seemed able to taste things more thoroughly, even things on the air. Physical feeling intensified, and with it, physical strength and stamina beyond that of any ordinary man. And then there was the healing ... any wound I had would heal within a short while, just as I have shown you here this night. And while I suspected I could not easily die, I had no idea that I was immortal."

"How could you?" she asked. "Who would ever imagine such a thing?" She shook her head slowly, her gaze turning inward. "Even though you've shown me this miraculous healing power, I still canna quite grasp the fact that you canna die."

"I can die, Arianna. Just not easily, nor in the usual way."

She perused my features, her brown eyes narrow. "Go on, tell me what happened, how you found the answers you sought."

I rose from the stone to pace away from her. Apparently in thought, but truly because her embrace affected me far more than it should. Far more than I could bear.

"When I returned, it was to find my village destroyed. The crofts of my people burned, the crops lying exposed to the burning sun, withered and ruined, the livestock butchered, their carcasses stinking and bloated. And their owners, for the most part, alongside them in the same or worse condition."

"Oh, Nicodimus," she breathed. "Gods, I'd have collapsed in devastation."

I turned. She'd risen, but stayed near the rock, looking as if she'd like to run to me, to offer comfort, but perhaps, knowing better. "That is very close to what I did. Later, when I managed to move again, I erected a huge pyre, placing upon it the bodies of my clan—my friends and neighbors, my elderly father and my cousins." I lowered my head, shuddering at the memory. "I think I knew even then that the men responsible were Anya's brothers, Marten and Kohl. They'd vowed vengeance on me since the day I took their sister, and only the births of our sons had prevented them leading their clan against us sooner. Evil, they may have been, but even they had enough decency to refrain from embarking on a battle that might wound their own kin."

She nodded slowly. "But once your precious Will was gone, their restraint went with it."

I nodded, my lips tight, my stomach roiling with the memory. ' 'After the fires burned low, I went to the ancient Stone Circle, where the holy men of my clan would go to commune with the spiritual realm, and find peace and wisdom. Common men such as I rarely ventured into the sacred space, but I still had no answers to the questions burning in my soul. And somehow, I thought I would find them nowhere else."

Eyes widening, Arianna tipped her head to one side. "The same Stone Circle where I saw you tonight?"

"Yes, little cat. I vowed I would remain there until the Gods themselves spoke to me, or I would die slowly within its embrace. And there I sat upon the ground, day and night, with neither food nor water. I sat there through rain and storm, through the chill of night and the heat of midday,

until my mind became dulled with hunger, and my body parched with thirst. Until I became too weak to sit up, and so lay down instead, my knees curled to my chest, my body trembling. And still I waited, demanding the Gods either speak to me or take my life."

Arianna did come to me then. She stood very close, one hand sliding up my arm. "Obviously, they did not take your life."

"No. They gave me the answers I sought, in the form of a group of men whose roots went back in time, to unknown beginnings. The Druids. Holy men. As it happened, my vigil fell near their springtime rites, the one the Pagans call Beltane. And so they came from their secluded havens, to summon forth the spirits of the trees, and to dance in celebration of the spring."

"And they found you there?"

My hands had found their way to her waist, tiny in the span of my palms. I think I put them there to keep her at a safe distance, but it almost transformed into an embrace. It felt incredibly intimate, standing this way, holding her waist, her hands on my outer arms, her little face turned up to mine.

"One of the hooded, aged men carried me to the edge of the circle, and poured water down me, fed me, wrapped me in a blanket. Then left me there to witness their peculiar rites." I closed my eyes, remembering. "The fiddler played, and they danced and chanted. It was something of rare beauty and power."

I could see her face twist in confusion. No doubt she wondered why I would later sully such a sacred, mystical site with the blood of my enemy. But I would come to that.

"When they left again at dawn, they carried me with them. And at their temples, hidden deep within the forests, they patiently taught me what I was."

"What, Nicodimus? What are you?"

So much eagerness in her eyes. The fear was less now, than it had been before.

"I'm a Witch. An immortal High Witch, Arianna. Far different from village Witches such as The Crones were.

Most don't even know of the existence of the High Ones, the immortals."

She took my hand, and led me beside her along a path deeper into the woods. ' 'How did you become this way?''

Her small hand was not cold, nor trembling, but strong, and firm. As if she could somehow comfort me. And amazingly, she was doing just that. "There are two ways," I told her. "It is said that when one dies while attempting to save the life of a Witch, that person will return to his next lifetime with the gift of immortality. He is born, and grows older as any mortal would do, until he experiences physical death for the first time. When that happens, he doesn't remain dead ... but instead revives to life once more. And from that moment on, he will not age. His senses will sharpen, and his strength will grow. The older he becomes, the stronger he will be."

She nodded, listening intently. "You said there is one way you could experience true death, Nicodimus."

"Yes. Only should someone remove my heart from my chest, will my death be permanent. And even then, it isn't true death, for the body, though lifeless, will never rot away, and the heart, though bodiless, will beat on ... perhaps forever."

She stopped walking, and with a soft gasp lifted her hand to her breast. "'Tis a nightmare!" Then she blinked... and slowly looked up at me. "Then... that man in the circle, whose heart you cut out..."

"Yes," I told her. "He was immortal. But not like me, Arianna. He was one of the Dark Ones, made immortal by far different means. For as I told you, there are two ways to obtain this endless life, and the second is far less pretty than the first."

She released my hand, and wandered toward the banks of a swift running stream, there to sit down on the soft moss, spreading her skirts beneath her. "Come," she said, patting a spot beside her. "Tell me."

I stood where I was, staring at her, so small and delicate to my eyes. "Perhaps I've shocked you enough for one night, Arianna."

"I'll nay rest until I know all of it," she promised. And again, patted the moss.

Sighing, I went to her, settled down beside her. "All right. Since I know your stubbornness to be legendary, I will go on. But if it becomes more than you can bear—"

"I am far stronger than you know, Nicodimus. Far stronger."

Looking into her eyes, I sighed and relented. "Where there is good there is also evil. You know this."

"Aye," she said. "There can be no light without darkness. 'Tis the way of things. Of nature itself."

I nodded my agreement. ' 'Thus with Witches. There are evil ones among us, those without conscience, without love in their souls. When they find out the secrets of High Witches, they cannot resist seeking out immortality for themselves."

"And how can they gain it, Nicodimus?"

' 'By killing one of us. By taking the heart from our chest, and holding it captive in a small box. So long as they possess the heart, they possess the immortality, and the power of its rightful owner. In time, the heart will weaken, and the Dark Witch with it. So they are compelled to take another, and another. It is the only way they can live on."

"I see." She said it slowly, thoughtfully. Then, drawing a deep breath, met my gaze straight on. ' 'You say you are one of the Light Ones, Nicodimus. And yet I just saw you take a living heart."

I stiffened. That she could, even for a moment, believe me to be one of the Dark Ones.... I nearly spoke without thinking, nearly told her of the birthmarks we all bear, the Light upon the right flank, the Dark upon the left, in order to prove to her my innocence. But I bit the words back in the barest instant before I would have spoken them. For if she knew of the birthmark's significance she would have to know that she was as I am. Immortal, just like me. And I was convinced my tender cat was not ready for that information. Not yet. Hadn't she already told me she'd rather die than to outlive all those she loved?

"I took his heart because it was the only way to ensure

he stay dead. And I did not keep it, Arianna. I burned it on a pyre, the heart as well as the body. For that was the one way to free Kohl's immortal soul."

She inhaled deeply, lowering her pretty chin, but then her head came up again, eyes wide. "Kohl? Nicodimus, this man was the one who attacked you before... he was..."

"My brother-in-law," I said, nodding slowly. "I have no idea how he learned the secret, but he and his brother did so. They both managed to take living hearts and capture immortality for themselves. And it makes sense to me that they did so. If they had learned I was immortal, they would have gone to any lengths to become the same. Their only wish was to live long enough to kill me, the man who killed their father, humiliated them before their own clan, stole away their sister. They blamed me for Anya's death as well. And they always vowed they would have vengeance on me one day."

"What of the other one, Nicodimus?"

I shook my head. ' 'If they had been together they would no doubt have attacked me as one. Unfair, but they have never been men of ethics or honor. And Marten is a far more accomplished Witch than Kohl. He's even mastered the art of setting fires with but his will over the centuries. I'd have had much more trouble defeating Marten. No, Arianna, if Kohl attacked me alone, then his brother must be far away."

Her hand came up to stroke my face. "I'm sorry for you, Nicodimus. It must be truly horrible to know you have been hated so much for so long." Then she shook her head slowly. "And to live being hunted by the Dark Ones. For that is how you must live, is it not?"

"Yes. It is. Coming here, to this place, has always been my escape from that life. But one of them found me, even here."

"Aye," she said. "But that one is no more."

"I never meant to bring the darkness to this place.... To you..."

Her smile was gentle, and small. "I dinna doubt that, Nicodimus."

"But where one can find me, others may well follow."

She sat a little straighter. "They will have me to contend with, do they wish to harm my husband," she declared.

And that made me smile. But then she hugged me quite fiercely, her arms tight around my waist, her head pressing to my chest. "Dinna laugh at me, Nicodimus. I mean what I say."

My arms went 'round her, seemingly of their own volition. Such a strong, stubborn woman. She touched something deep within me. The scent of her hair seemed to tangle itself 'round my senses, and tug me gently closer.

"Take me to the Stone Circle, next full moon," she said softly. "The Crones were afraid to perform magickal rites there. But I wish to feel the power you spoke of, to know it for myself."

It was not in my power to deny her. I thought then, that anything she asked of me, I would gladly do.

Anything ... except love her. I must never do that.

Never...

Chapter 11

Arianna understood. Now so much more than before. Perhaps Nicodimus would love her... if only he could. But he could not. Oh, she did not believe for a moment that his heart had died with his family. No, his heart was strong in him, and filled with tender emotions. She had seen the pain in his eyes as he'd spoken of his lost family. One could not hurt if one were incapable of loving. Indeed, she had begun to think her husband had more love inside him than anyone she had ever known. But not for her. Nay, not for her. He could not risk loving her, nor would she ask it of him. For he knew—and now she did as well—the consequences loving her would bring. He would be forced to watch her grow old, while he remained young and strong. He would have to watch her die, leaving him behind. Immortal and utterly alone.

She thought on these things as she rode before him on his fiery black stallion, her back pressed to his chest, his hand at her waist. She thought on these things and more. And she realized that she had to give up her dreams of making him love her. For his sake. She loved him too much to ask him to suffer such unspeakable anguish because of her. She would not ask it of him again.

He glanced down at her, concern etched on his face. "The things I've told you tonight... they've shocked you."

She thought on that for a moment. "Shocked, aye. But enlightened, as well. I ken your heart more now than ever I have. Nicodimus. An' 'tis glad I am you finally shared your secrets with me."

His steady gaze made her wish for more than could ever be as he replied, "I always intended to tell you all of this. I only ... thought to wait until I judged you ready to hear it. I thought..."

"You thought a girl so young and flighty too immature to deal with these truths. You thought I would run in fear of you, or give myself nightmares."

He frowned, a hint of guilt appearing on his face. "I only thought to protect your tender heart and mind from such dark truths as these."

At that, Arianna smiled. "My heart is far from tender, Nicodimus. I am strong. Far stronger than you know."

"And far more vulnerable than you know, little cat."

"Nay. 'Tis not so. In time, you'll see."

He returned her smile, but his was doubtful, tentative. And slowly a more serious expression replaced it. "I've trusted you with these secrets, Arianna. And secrets, they must remain. Understand that."

"Aye," she replied. "Nicodimus, I ken full well the need for secrecy in this. An' I would die of torture before revealin' a word of what you've told me this eve. I swear it to you on the name of my sister."

He blinked as if in surprise at the vehemence in her voice. But she meant what she said, and used the only words she could think of to convince him of that. He believed her, she thought. For he nodded firmly, and turned his attention back to the path ahead.

The keep rose dark and towering before them, and only as they drew near did she think of something she had not asked. "What of Nidaba? Is she ... is she a High Witch as well?"

He glanced her way. "Nidaba's secrets are not mine to

share. But if you ask her, Arianna, I believe she will be as honest with you as I have been. She does not show it, but I sense that deep down she is fond of you, for some reason."

She lifted a hand to her breast as if wounded. ' 'Am I so onerous that this surprises you?"

He met her eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. "Naught you might do could surprise me," he said. "And you know full well you're the farthest thing from onerous. It is simply that Nidaba tends to... shy away from intimacies, bonds of any kind where caring is involved."

"Aye," she said, smiling back at him now. "Except with you." He conceded the point with a nod, and Arianna told herself she'd no right to feel jealous.

Side by side they rode through the gates, and dismounted. Nicodimus took the reins, and led his horse into the stables. And he didn't object when Arianna walked with him into the dark, hay-scented outbuilding. He removed the saddle, the bridle, reached for a rag and began rubbing his stallion briskly.

She felt a bit guilty for not having taken proper care of the mare she'd borrowed earlier. And while Nicodimus worked on Black, she went to where the dun mare stood, and brushed her coat. When Nicodimus gave Black some grain, she gave some to the mare as well, and thought she saw approval in her husband's eyes.

Arianna tilted her head when he faced her once more. "I suppose your aversion to closeness must not extend to animals. For I believe you think more highly of your horse than your wife."

She was teasing. But Nicodimus didn't jest with her in return. Instead he took both her hands in his, and stared into her eyes. "You must never think that, Arianna. I do care for you. More than is probably wise."

Her hands wanned where he held them, and her heart seemed to quicken its beat. But she closed her eyes and reminded herself she must be strong. Must not give in to the yearning of her body ... nor to that of her heart. ' 'You needn't spew lies to comfort me, Nicodimus. I've told you,

I am the strongest person I know. An' now that you've explained your past to me, I'll be content to be your wife in name only. I ken why 'tis necessary, an' I willna go back on my word." He parted his lips to say more, but she shook her head firmly. "Nay, no more. Save your carin' for your horse, husband. I've no need of it. Truly. You saved my life by weddin' me, an' 'tis enough. More than enough."

He frowned at her, studying her there in the darkness as if unable to comprehend her words.

"Dinna you ken, Nicodimus? I'm only agreein' to the terms you laid down afore our marriage. I'll nay try to make you love me, only to watch me age an' die while you remain alone. Is this nay the very thing you wanted of me?"

As they walked together out of the stable and began crossing the courtyard, which was, for once, void of any clansmen, his frown deepened and he nodded. "Yes, I... I suppose it is."

"Then you have it." She lowered her head, bit her lower lip. "However, I would ask one concession of you."

"One concession?" He crooked a single dark brow. "Now you have me curious. Go on, what is it?"

Lifting her chin, she cleared her throat and met his eyes. "I believe the laird and Nidaba would exercise discretion, but as for Kenyon an' Lud, I have doubts. Besides, servants are known for gossip, an' there are servants aplenty in this household. An' the rest of the clan, coming an' going all the while."

"Indeed," he said. "There are. And they do gossip."

She nodded firmly. "Aye. Were it known my husband preferred sleepin' in the hall or the stables to sharin' my bed, I'd be shamed, Nicodimus. Ridiculed an' a cause for amusement to the entire clan."

Nicodimus kept his gaze trained on the ground rather than on her, no doubt displeased with the direction her thoughts had taken. But she forced herself to go on.

' 'I would ask, Nicodimus, that you at least make a pretense of feelin' ... affection for me ... of our marriage bein' a real one, rather than a lie designed to protect me

from my own rebellious ways. Allow me to salvage my pride, an' walk without shame among my clan." Still he said nothing. Her voice softer, she rushed on. "After all, 'twill only be for a short while. Only until you leave me again, as you said you would."

He brought his head up sharply, his eyes intense now.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I've angered you. If you find the idea so distasteful, Nicodimus, then please, put it from your mind. I'll deal with the ridicule. The Gods know I have before." She turned away, striding toward the keep, a short distance away.

Nicodimus's hand on her shoulder brought her to a stop. "No, Arianna. 'Tis I who am sorry. My anger was with myself for not thinking of this sooner. Already, I've given the clan reason to talk, by riding off alone on our wedding night the way I did. I'll not give them any more."

She didn't turn around, for if she did, he would see the tears that burned inexplicably in her eyes. "Thank you, husband."

"I will say I went riding to give you time to prepare for me," he said, softly. "And as for your own jaunt tonight, the tale will be ..." He thought for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was different. Quieter than before, and slightly coarse. "The tale will be that my passion for my chaste young bride was such that it frightened her. That she ran away, and that I fetched her back home only to ravage her still more."

As he spoke, his hand on her shoulder moved in what might have been an unintended caress. Soft, his touch. Calloused, his palm on her tender skin, she felt it even through the robe that covered her. The words he spoke brought a foreign longing alive in the pit of her stomach, and made her feel breathless and warm.

'"Tis ... a good tale," she whispered. "I... I am feel-in' a mite ill, Nicodimus. My stomach is behavin' quite badly just now. Flutterin' an' ... odd."

When he said nothing, she chanced a look over her shoulder at him. He offered a strained smile, and swept her

hair away from her forehead with a featherlight touch. "You'll be fine," he told her gently. "The feeling ... will pass."

He didn't sound certain of that. Nonetheless, he turned her 'round, and gripping her elbow, walked her to the doors. But when they strode through the great hall, they were greeted by worried questions from a half dozen people. Joseph, Nidaba, and Kenyon and Lud, all while a handful of Joseph's men looked on with speculative expressions.

Nicodimus met her eyes once, and she saw the silent message in them. His pretense would begin now. Ignoring them all, he scooped Arianna up into his arms, and strode with her to the far end of the room and the stone stairway there. And as he did he spoke, his tone intimate, but loud enough so they could hear. "I'll be gentler this time, my love. I promise." And before mounting the first step, he bent and pressed his mouth to hers.

Arianna's heart nearly beat a hole through her chest. And yet that great emptiness remained. Oh, if only this were real. If only it could someday be ... real.

I only wanted to protect her. No, that wasn't entirely true. I wanted her. I knew that. My body craved hers the way any healthy man's body would crave that of a beautiful woman ... especially knowing that woman wanted him, too. Before, I had been half convinced Arianna would seduce me into her arms ... into her bed ... before we'd been married a week. I had told myself I would resist her, but I had already known I could never withstand her charms for very long.

But tonight... tonight everything had changed. She had changed. Suddenly so willing to agree to my terms. Vowing to leave me alone, and to have me play the part of the passionate husband only in front of the others. And I had realized then that not having her, not taking her, was again a possibility. Attainable, perhaps with ease.

That knowledge made me want her more than ever, however foolish such a thing may seem. So that when I spoke the tale I would spread among the clan, I saw the images

of it in my mind. Fetching my runaway bride home, and carrying her up to our chamber to savor every inch of her, to exercise all of my husbandly rights. I had grown aroused beyond endurance at the thought, and more so when I realized she had as well. Stomach ailment, indeed. My innocent bride did not even recognize raw desire for what it was.

When I scooped her up, held her against me, promised to be gentle, and then tasted her succulent mouth, my desire for her burned still hotter, and for just an instant on that darkened stairway, I allowed myself to savor the fantasy ... then became lost in it.

Hands tangling in her hair, I pressed her mouth open wide, and licked inside with my tongue. My hands began to caress the parts of her I held, one in perfect reach of a firm, rounded breast, and the other stroking her outer thigh. I felt her nipple harden against my palm, and nearly groaned with the force of the need that rocked through me. And all the while my feet carried her faster to the top of the stairway, then down the corridors. I kicked the chamber door open when I reached it, and strode through to lay her down upon the waiting bed.

It was her hands on my chest that finally made me realize what I was doing to her. My little cat lay breathless, her face flushed, eyes wide and staring up at me. I straightened slowly, pushing a hand through my hair as I turned away. Averting my gaze in shame, I walked to the door, pushed it closed. "I... I apologize, Arianna."

On a breathless sigh, she whispered, "I... I'd no idea you could be so... convincing. For a moment I thought you meant to ... to ..."

I looked back at her, but she clamped her lips tight and said no more. How was I to do this? Spend the night at her side and not touch her? It would surely take a saint to accomplish such a feat. I was no saint.

She tried a smile, though it was confused and tremulous. "Surely every person in the place was convinced as well," she suggested. Then slowly, she got to her feet. "Tis so

very warm here, dinna you think? I vow, 'twas not so when I left earlier."

She pulled at the ties that held her robe in place, and tossed it aside without a care.

What I saw then ...

I could only stare for a long moment. "Arianna," I whispered. I sank to my knees to keep myself from moving any nearer. But I was unable to take my eyes from her body, for it was utterly revealed to me, every part of it, by the sheer fabric she wore. "By the Gods, woman, what do you think I'm made of?"

Blinking, she glanced down at herself, and then went so red the blush was like fire. "Damnation!" she cried, and she spun around, and snatched the coverlet from the bed to hold over her.

But it was too late, for the image of her was burned into my mind. And I knew it would haunt me. Breasts, high and proud, with full, sweet curves, and nipples elongated and dusky rose in color. The pendant she wore resting in between. A belly, flat and tight, and the silken triangle of hair between her slender thighs. Her perfectly rounded buttocks, and the tempting darkness in between. When she'd turned away, she'd aroused me even more.

"Where," I whispered, my voice barely more than a tormented croak, "did you get that... that shift?"

Holding the coverlet tight to her, refusing to face me, she answered, and her voice trembled. "Nidaba. I...I thought 'twould make you want me as I do... did you. I... 'twas before I knew, Nicodimus. 'Twas before I agreed to ... I dinna mean to ... I simply forgot what I was wearin', you see." She lowered her head. "Sweet heaven, but I've never been more ashamed."

Somehow, though shaking with desire, I managed to get to my feet. Still. I kept my distance. "You've nothing to be ashamed of, Arianna."

" 'Twas an underhanded trick I'd planned to play on you. Indeed, you must think I've no shame at all. I dinna intend—"

"I know. It is all right." But the knowledge was there ...

what she'd been planning. To seduce me in her innocent way. By the Gods, had I come to this chamber tonight instead of racing away on my horse like a fool... I closed my eyes against the desire that raged in me like fire in my blood. And still it came. Against my will, I heard myself say the words I all but bit my tongue to prevent.

"Let go the coverlet, Arianna."

She stiffened, her back to me. "What?"

"Let go the coverlet."

"But... but Nicodimus, you said you dinna want..."

"I am your husband, am I not?" I whispered. And I knew better, Gods, I knew better than to go on with this. "You wanted me to see you in this gown, and I find... I want to see you."

"I... I dinna ken you."

"I saved your life. Twice now. Do this for me. Release it, Arianna. Show yourself to me."

Her head tipping up slightly, she unfolded the coverlet in front and opened her arms, paused for just a heartbeat, and let it fall to the floor. I heard her breath catch in her throat when I whispered, "Good. Now turn 'round."

Slowly, she turned. Her chin high, and her eyes alight with too many emotions to name. Pride was there. Desire, too, and perhaps anger at my tone of command. And yet she had obeyed. I knew her too well to think she would have if she had not wanted to.

She stood still as I perused her, more thoroughly this time, slowly, feasting with my eyes on every part of her until her face was red and her breaths shallow and quick. Quicker now, as I moved foward. I was driven by sheer, base desire. My honor, along with any sense of self-preservation, and perhaps any hint of sanity, had fled me now. I only felt need. Hunger. Heat.

"How is your stomach now?" I asked her, when I stood so close I could feel every breath as she exhaled.

"It feels as if a flock of sparrows were set loose inside," she whispered.

Lifting my hands, I ran the backs of my fingers over her breasts, over her nipples. She sucked in a breath. So I

turned my hands, and used my fingers, caught the distended peaks between them, and squeezed lightly.

"Nicodimus!"

I increased the pressure until I could feel the thrum of the blood pulsing where I pinched her. Until her every breath was a whimper of longing. And then I eased it, pressed once again, eased, pinched hard, and released her.

She was breathing in short, quick little gasps. "I-I-I dinna understand ..."

"Shh-shh. You will." I slid my hands down her body, over the whisper-soft nightshift, caressing her belly, her hips, her outer thighs, then slid around to the insides of her legs, and ran my palms slowly upward again. "Part your legs for me, Arianna."

With a gasp that was half sob, she did as I said. I trailed my fingertips upward, and then over the soft mound of hair between her legs. A light touch that made her tremble. Then I parted her folds, and dragged my fingertips over the moist center of her. She released a sigh that stuttered out of her, and a soft "Oooh ..." I repeated the stroking, a little harder each time, and then I found the tiny nub, the key to her pleasure, and rubbed it hard beneath my fingertips.

Arianna shuddered, her juices wet my hand. I moved my fingers inside her, dipping and stroking, rolling and pinching that pulsing nub harder and harder between my fingers. And she threw her head back, and clutched my shoulders with her hands, and cried my name aloud. I closed my arm tight 'round her waist and held her to me when her knees would have buckled. Working her with my fingers while she shuddered in sweet release. I held her longer still, close in my arms while her body trembled, and relaxed, and her breathing eased.

"What did you do to me, husband?" she asked in a whisper.

"Lie down on the bed," I croaked, my hands on her shoulders, pushing her gently backward as I spoke, for I could not wait. I could not wait to have her. No longer.

She didn't move. Her feet planted, she lifted her head, narrowed her eyes on me. "Nay, I canna."

"You...?"

"I'll nay lie down on the bed for you, Nicodimus. For though you tell me 'tis what you want, I ken you far better than before. An' you dinna want this."

Looking down at her fiery eyes, her moist, succulent lips, I shook my head. "I want it," I told her. "And so do you."

"Nay, you're mistaken there, husband. What you did to me ... felt like heaven. But if you think mating without any love is what I want, you're sadly mistaken indeed." And firmly she closed her hands over mine, where they rested round her tiny waist, and took them away. She turned from me, snatching up the dark robe she'd discarded before, and pulling it around her like armor. Hiding herself from me.

"I cannot love you, Arianna," I told her, lowering my head. "I know you deserve more—"

"Aye, on that you are correct. I do deserve more. But the fact remains, Nicodimus, that though you vow you canna love me, I could quite easily love you. Even more madly than I already do. An' this," she said, waving a hand toward the bed. "This will only make me more likely to do just that. An' perhaps already has." She dropped her gaze as she spoke the last words on a hoarse whisper.

Pushing my hands through my hair, I turned and paced away. I couldn't look at her, look at the bed, without feeling aroused beyond what was sane. I was awash in shame for losing myself to passion and forgetting to protect my fragile little cat's tender heart. "You've the right of it."

"Aye, I do. Just as you wish to protect your heart from being broken again, Nicodimus, I must look out for my own. I'll nay surrender it to you knowin' already that you'll crush it beneath your boot heel. A fool I would be, did I do such a thing."

"And I would be a cruel bastard to ask it of you," I told her softly. "I... Arianna, I didn't mean to be ..."

"You dinna mean to be cruel, Nicodimus, but 'tis cruel you were. First you told me you dinna want me, though it cut me to the quick to hear you say it. An' now, when at last you've convinced me 'tis true, an' best for us both to

accept it, you change entirely. Just when I promise to be your wife in name only, just when I steel myself against feelin' anything for you, you go an' . .. an' ..."

She turned quickly away, but not before I'd seen her squeeze her eyes tight to prevent the tears spilling over. I touched her shoulders, turned her back 'round to face me again. "I lost myself. You . . . you are a most beautiful woman, Arianna. And if you thought I didn't desire you, if that was what my words made you believe, you were wrong. It was more that I didn't want to desire you. But ... but one look at you ... in that... that scrap, and I simply lost all reason ... and control. I apologize."

Her eyes widened, and color crept into her cheeks. She dashed at the drying tears, and smiled tremulously. "Then ... you're saying you couldna help yourself."

"A moment of madness," I told her. "I have few weaknesses, Arianna. Did you ask me what they were, I'd be hard-pressed to name them. But I'm finding I do have one. And that weakness is you. I'm sorry if my desire confused or frightened you, little cat."

"Dinna be sorry for that, Nicodimus. That you find me ... desirable ... makes my heart swell. An' my head, as well, I fear."

"You've every reason to be proud. You're a remarkable woman, in so many ways."

"Aye." She lifted her head, met my gaze head on. "That I am."

Her ready agreement made me smile. I must have been insane. Any other man would have been worshipping at her feet by now, promising her the moon if she'd only love him forever. I, on the other hand, was wishing I could erect barriers to keep her away from my heart, for she seemed to sling arrows at it with every glance, every smile, every word. I knew I had good reason to put up defenses. She was young, far too young to know her own mind, her own heart. Far too young to commit to me in any real way, or be expected to honor that commitment... for eternity. Far too young and too beautiful and full of fire to be satisfied by a tired old man such as myself for very long. She'd

destroy me if I let myself love her. I would lose her. There was no doubt in my mind of that. It frightened me, right to my bones. Never had I been afraid of any foe. Of any beast or any danger. Never had I doubted my ability to survive.

But I would never survive a war of hearts with Arianna Sinclair. Arianna ... Lachlan. My bride.

She cleared her throat, and drew my gaze. Innocence personified, with spun gold hair, velvet brown eyes, and satin skin kissed by the sun. She did not look like my potential executioner. A man unafraid to face down a rampaging lion, I thought. Ironic that he trembles in fear of a mere kitten.

"Perhaps 'twould be best if we dinna share the same chamber after all," she whispered.

Her words startled me out of my thoughts. "No, little cat. You're constantly proving yourself the wiser of the two of us, and you were right about the gossips and the damage they could do. I'll stay here, and I promise, lady, I'll not ravish you while you slumber."

"I never thought you would," she said softly, but kept her eyes carefully averted.

She should have, I thought. Because it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. Sighing deeply, I snatched a tapestry from the wall. Then, drawing my blade, I sliced two lengths of thong from my boot laces, and bound one to each corner. Soon, the tapestry hung suspended in the midst of the room, dividing the portion where she would lie in the bed from the place where I would rest, alone and miserable, upon the floor.

Chapter 12

I treated Arianna like a princess after that, more careful than I had ever been with anyone, so eager was I to protect her tender heart. I regretted letting my passion grow almost beyond my control, and was determined to offer amends. I was only making matters more difficult for myself, of that I was keenly aware. And yet I could not seem to stop my feet from treading eagerly upon the path to my own destruction.

She ... mesmerized me. I took such pleasure in her company. Her wit, her laughter, seemed to fill the keep with a spirit which had never lived there before. Or, perhaps, not in a long while. Since the death of Joseph's own wife. But there was more than just this. Before my eyes, Arianna grew from the frightened, wild and rebellious child still mourning her sister, to a young woman filled with life and confidence. Part of what influenced her was, I believe, the companionship Nidaba and I offered. Two who shared her beliefs and practiced her faith. No longer did she question the legitimacy or even the sanity of it.

And more than that, too. Arianna was now a lady, my wife, and everyone in the household treated her as such. There was some resistance at first, but as I had already

learned, no one could remain indifferent to Arianna for long.

It wasn't just me, I knew, who was slowly being drawn into the enchantment she spun. Within a fortnight she'd endeared herself to every servant, and many in the clan had gone from whispering suspicions about her to singing her praises, while others had at least grudgingly accepted her. Even the laird's men soon looked upon Arianna with fondness and affection.

Mara was so proud of her daughter. This was another part of Arianna that seemed to be flourishing here—the loving daughter, devoted and attentive to her parents. She had dresses made for her mother, and personally oversaw the early stages of construction for the home Joseph and I were having built for her family. Each day, without fail, she rode into the village to visit her parents. Often she would bring them back with her to dine at the keep, and sometimes she would take me along with her to eat at the humble cottage with them. She even attended morning mass at the village church with them on occasion. I knew how she detested it, so it moved me even more that she should do this just to please them.

The love in that tiny family grew steadily, day by day. And I was somehow included in that love. Arianna's father and I spent a great deal of time together in the stables discussing Joseph's horses as Edwyn repaired saddles, and even hunting together now and again. The man seemed to look upon me as a son, and an old scarred place in my heart seemed to soften and become tender all over again.

But it was not the strengthening bond between Arianna and her family, nor between her family and me, that unnerved me. No, more than anything else, it was my own unwilling fascination with her. I grew more and more reluctant to be away from her, and found myself seeking out her company at every opportunity. When she visited her family, I went along more often than not. Even to mass at the village church. I knew she was spending time with Ni-daba every day in secret lessons of combat. I often hid myself to watch. The way she moved, the way she learned

so quickly, her grace, her strength... all of it entranced me. When I exercised Black, I took her along, and our rides became more for sheer enjoyment than for the good of our mounts. Seeing her beside me upon a galloping mare, her hair flying in the wind, sent such sensations through me that I barely knew how to contain them. Or to understand them. And while these feelings frightened me, even while the warnings whispered through my mind, my heart rejoiced in them.

I told myself it was only friendship I felt for my young bride, a fondness like that of a brother for a sister. And yet I knew, deep down, these were lies. For I wanted her. More with every breath I drew, I wanted her. And each night as I lay in my nest of cushions upon the floor my discomfort and frustration grew. My young, beautiful bride only an arm's length from me, asleep in the bed we were meant to share, seemed to beckon me even from within the realms of her dreams. And often, I would part the makeshift curtain between us, just to look on her as she slept. When she rolled toward me, a soft sigh escaping her slightly parted lips, her hair spread over her pillows, I ached inside. When moonbeams streamed through our window to bathe her in silvery light, I held my breath as I watched her sleeping.

The moon waxed toward full, and with each night, I grew more and more uneasy. For I had promised her we would observe the full moon together, at the Stone Circle, and I felt a certain anxiety growing stronger and stronger within me. What I feared, I did not know. But there was a sense I had always possessed that warned me when danger was near. And I felt it now, looming larger with each night.

Until finally, the moon was full, and I knew the time was at hand.

Arianna was ... remarkable that Esbat night. She wore a white tunic gown of the style I'd seen worn in Greece on my travels there, no doubt given to her by Nidaba. Silver clasps held the gathered fabric at her shoulders, a silver belt hugged 'round her slender waist. Her long, graceful arms were bare, save the bracelets she wore. And her pendant was fastened, as always, about her slender neck. For the

first time I examined the pendant more closely, and the detail of it, the Moon Goddess reclining in the curve of a cradle moon, made me catch my breath. For it was the sort only worn by High Witches . . . but she did not know she was one.

She looked up at me as I entered our chamber, eyes wide, smile uncertain. Then she rose slowly as my eyes remained riveted. Her hair caught up with a silver clasp, then spilling free 'round it. A black cloak I'd given her for tonight was draped over her arm.

"Am I dressed suitably?" she asked me, her voice soft, hesitant.

"You ... chose very well, Arianna." I'd seen an artist's conception of the Moon Goddess Diana once, and it had looked very much the way Arianna looked now. Silver adorning her, dressed all in white. As for myself, I wore my finest kilt, beneath a dark hooded cloak, and this night, I had donned my own pendant, so similar to Arianna's.

My gaze returned once again to the pendant she wore, I wondered what she knew of its significance. ' 'Arianna ... that necklace. It is ... very unusual."

She fingered the piece, her touch reverent, fingers dancing over the circle, and the star in its center, and the cradle moon and reclining goddess that adorned its outer curve. "'Twas one of three gifts The Crones gave to me when I'd studied with them for a year and a day," she said. " 'Twas at our last ritual together. I will cherish it always."

I nodded, not telling her I was wearing one very much like it, tucked beneath my cloak. Nor did I tell her that most of the High Witches I had known did as well. I did not usually wear mine when I was here at Stonehaven. I had no wish to advertise what I was to those few who might, somehow, know what the pendant symbolized. It was becoming painfully obvious that more knowledge existed out there than I had ever suspected. The Crones ... could they have known of our existence? They had given her a High Witch's dagger as well that night as I'd watched in silence.

But how? And if they suspected what Arianna truly was, why had they not told her?

Then again, I thought, why hadn't I?

Perhaps they, too, had believed her too young, and not yet ready to know the truth.

"Come," I said softly, banishing the other thoughts. "It nears midnight." Taking the dark cloak she held, I draped it about her shoulders. It was silken, large, and loose, and had a hood. I had one like it.

"What is the meaning of the cloak, Nicodimus?" she asked as we moved into the corridors and through them, and finally out into the night.

Reaching behind her, I tugged the hood up to cover her golden hair. "It is practical. We blend with the night and are less likely to be seen. The Druids wore white ones much like these during ritual, and I followed their custom. However, with the advent of Christianity and Witch-hunters, I thought it wise to change it to black, at least for the journey to and from the sacred site."

She glanced up at me as we moved side by side over the meadows and into the woods beyond. "Ah. But what of your own people?" she asked as we picked our way along the old path. "Did they wear cloaks for their rites?"

"No. My clan were of the barbaric sort. We spoke to our Gods in solitude, and wore nothing at all, save the colors with which we painted sacred symbols over our bodies."

She blinked as if surprised, then smiled to herself. ' 'I can see why you thought the Druid method might be preferable tonight, then."

I glanced down at the hint of laughter in her voice. But as I did, an image crept into my mind. One of my beautiful Arianna, naked and proud, unashamed, raising her arms and turning her face up to drink in the moonlight. And the image grew. Until I saw myself kneeling before her, dipping my fingers into pots of color, and drawing the ancient sacred symbols upon her pale, soft skin.

I shivered, and she looked up quickly. But when I said nothing, she faced forward again.

Soon the stones of the circle towered before us, and without being told, Arianna stopped and bent to remove her slippers before stepping inside. I nodded my approval and removed my own boots. Then I entered, and tugging the pack from my shoulder, I emptied it, setting its contents upon a large flat stone table in the northernmost quadrant. Wine, and two cups, four candles, and a staff.

"What magick will we work this night, Nicodimus?" Arianna asked me, her voice childlike with excitement.

I smiled down at her in the moonlight. "What do you wish for?"

She lowered her head at once. And I knew I had spoken too quickly. I knew what she wished for. And she knew it was impossible. Yet she spoke it all the same.

"I wish for your love, Nicodimus, but I ken that can never be. I wish for your touch ... but nay for the consequences of knowing it. For those would only be pain for us both. An' I'd nay use magick to gain either of those things, for were they not given freely, they'd be worse than useless to me."

I did not speak. I could not, for I knew not what to say.

She lifted her head again, eyes meeting mine. "So instead I'll wish for something far simpler an' more mundane. A cooling North wind, to ease the dreary autumn heat."

Relief that she could smile in spite of the pain I'd caused her—was still causing her—made me breathe again. "Then a cooling wind it shall be. A wise choice, for the heat is wearing on the clan, making their tempers short. You've called forth the winds before?"

"Aye," she said. "With The Crones to guide me. Thrice we did so, an' each time the gentle breezes came within a fortnight of our casting." She tilted her head. "An' you, Nicodimus?"

I nodded once. "Usually the winds come within a day of my conjuring." I bent to make the preparations, building a small fire in the center of the circle, and lighting it. Then I placed a candle in each of the four directions, just at the edges of the circle. Returning to the center, I sat for a time, gazing into the flames. Arianna did likewise, and I knew

she was letting her mind go quiet, gathering the energies around her. It seemed we both felt ready to proceed at the same moment, for we looked up simultaneously. And in silence, I took a flaming limb from the fire. I walked to the North candle, focused on the energies of Earth, and lit the candle's wick. Arianna met me in the center, taking the limb from my hand. She moved to the East candle, closed her eyes for a moment, and lit it. I could almost feel the Air move as she summoned its elemental energies to join us here. I repeated this process in the South, for the element of Fire, and she in the West, for Water.

Meeting at the stone table again, we locked gazes, and I saw something in her eyes ... the swirling reflections of moonlight and fire. A shiver worked up the back of my neck. I took a breath, poured the wine, handed Arianna her cup. She held it up, as if to capture the light of the moon in the glistening scarlet liquid, as she chanted.

I am one with the light from above.

An' one with the force from below.

One with the beasts of the wild

One with the green things that grow.

One with the moon, one with the sun

One with the Earth and the Sky

One with All since afore I was born,

An' will be long after I die.

Then closing her eyes, lowering the goblet, she drank its contents. I downed mine as well, and walked her back to the fire. Dipping a hand into the deep pocket of the hooded cloak I wore, I drew out a palmful of herbs, and tossed them into the flames. They hissed and heated, burned fragrantly.

Smiling, Arianna reached her small hand into my pocket, and repeated what I had done. Then I faced North, palms up in front of me, and chanted in a long forgotten tongue the words to call the North wind.

Her eyes as she watched me were huge and luminous. And before I knew what she intended, she faced me, and

pressed her palms flat to mine. The tingling contact rocked through me, right to my core, and the warmth remained long after that initial shock faded.

I felt it then. A power like I'd never known surging from below and above at the same time. And the place where it gathered until it nearly burned, was the very place where Arianna's palms pressed flat to mine. For just a moment, I swore an amber glow emanated from our joined hands.

There was a deep humming sound, as the wind picked up force, blowing through the trees, whistling over twigs, and groaning past limbs. Then it grew to a roar. The mighty oaks 'round us seemed to bow beneath its force. Arianna's hair blew and danced and her white gown seemed alive. Leaves and twigs swirled 'round us like miniature cyclones, and the air cooled so rapidly my skin shivered. My gaze swung 'round, seeking shelter. But before I could think on that further, the air filled with snow. Snow! In the midst of a highland autumn!

It coated my garments and melted there, wetting me to the skin in a matter of seconds. Amazed, I faced Arianna.

But my little cat stood with her face turned up to the snow, and her arms outspread as it fell on her. Turning in a slow circle, she faced me again, a look of wonder in her eyes as her hair grew damp, and crystalline flakes sparkled on her cheeks like tears. Smiling, then laughing aloud, she flung her arms 'round my neck.

"Do you see what we've done!" she cried. "Nicodimus, this is powerful, this magick we work together!"

Her body close to mine, my arms tight 'round her waist, I nodded against her snow-damp hair. "I've never seen the like."

She drew back just a little. Enough so she could look up at me, her face only inches from mine. "The Crones said 'twould be so. They said the power of magick is strongest when there is balance ... between feminine and masculine energies, such as those of a man an' a woman."

"Yes." I nodded my agreement. "I've been taught much the same ... and yet it has never been quite this ... startling."

"Ah, Nicodimus, do you nay ken, even now? 'Tis nay just any combination of man an' woman who could bring about such a force as this. But of you an' me, husband. Two who ... belong to each other."

"Arianna ... I—"

She held up a hand. "I know, dinna speak it. I know you canna love me," she whispered. "An' I've no wish to hurt you. But I know you want me as I do you, Nicodimus. An' I'm tired of protectin' myself from future hurt by re-fusin' to live life. I'm tired of fightin' against feelin's over which I've no control. 'Tis like fightin' against nature."

I stared down at her. She stepped back another pace, and drew the cloak from her shoulders, tossing it to the ground. "I know you canna love me, husband. But I can love you." Her hands went to the shoulders of the tunic, freeing the clasps there, and the dress fell down to her feet as if washed away by the snow. "Let me love you," she whispered. "Just this once..."

I stood staring at her. Perfect, her skin glistening with the snowflakes that drifted down on her. Breasts round and soft, nipples growing stiffer with each icy flake that touched them. She stepped over the discarded dress, closer to me.

And what was I to do? How could I... or any man, resist such an offering? Before I could even consider my answer, my hands were on her, palms skimming over the wet skin of her belly, cupping her breasts, caressing her. I drew her tight to me, and bent my head to capture her mouth. I tasted the snow on her lips, and the warmth beyond them when I pushed my tongue inside. I fed at her mouth as her yearning body pressed against mine, and I dreamed of drinking every melting droplet from her skin. I slid my lips to her cheek and down slowly over her neck. She tipped her head back and moaned softly as I nipped and suckled the tender skin there.

Lower. I licked the beaded moisture from her shoulder. And all the way down her arm to the inner bend of her elbow, and she cried out when my tongue darted over that sensitive flesh. I moved to her hand, sucking the moisture

from each finger, and then kissed a hot path across her belly and began again at her other arm.

She was trembling, clinging to me in order to stay upright when I moved at last to one tender breast. I took my time, circling the peak slowly with my tongue before finally closing my lips on the crest. I drew on her there, and she shivered. I suckled harder, and her fingers curled in my hair. I bit lightly, and she pressed herself closer.

"Nicodimus," she whispered. '"Oh, but you give me such pleasure. An' I... I dinna ken how ..."

I bit again, and this time she tugged against my teeth, whimpering in rapture at the sweet touch of pain. My hand slipped between her legs, and I touched her inner lips, tracing them, feeling the moisture there for me. I drew a forefinger higher, circling the tiny nub that was the key to her pleasure, and then touching it, rubbing it, pinching it so that her knees began to buckle, all the while still feeding at her breast.

My other arm 'round her waist anchored her to me, else she'd have surely fallen to her knees.

"Nay," she whispered, and it was a plea. I pinched her harder, and her voice grew hoarse. "You must tell me what to do, Nicodimus. Tell me how to please you."

I closed my eyes in sweet anguish. "You please me, Arianna, with every breathless whisper, and every sigh and every touch." I slipped my fingers inside her, gently, carefully. "And to see you in the height of pleasure will please me even more."

"Make love to me, Nicodimus," she whispered.

I lifted her then, and carried her to the stone table. My cloak I flung down beneath her, then I lay her upon it. Quickly I took off my clothes until I stood naked in the falling snow. And gently I parted her legs and watched as the snowflakes kissed her secret places. Then I bent to kiss and lick every droplet away until she squirmed and cried out and opened wider to my questing tongue.

I moved upward until I lay atop her, and carefully, I entered her slick, tight passage. The wind swirled icy cold 'round us, and the wet snowflakes fell upon my back. I

moved deeper into her, and still deeper. I felt her pain, brief and sweet as I tore through the barrier of her maidenhood, and I held her still beneath me, waiting, giving her time.

Timidly, hesitantly, she moved her hips against mine, taking me deeper. And again, drawing away and moving once more. Fire licked at my loins, and I took her then. Deep and hard and fast, I took her, and she lifted her hips to meet my every thrust. I kissed her fiercely, swallowing each breathless whisper, each sigh, each moan. And finally, her entire body tensed around me, squeezing and drawing on me, convulsing around me until I felt myself shatter inside her. I pumped my seed into her, and with it, it seemed, my very soul. And then I eased my body down beside hers, and held her, and wondered how I could ever let her go again.

Oh, Gods, she'd done it. She'd made her way into my heart. I knew, with everything in me, she would break it before she was done.

Chapter 13

" 'Twas wonderful, Nicodimus. I... thank you."

He sat up slightly, blinking at her in surprise. But then his face changed even as Arianna lay in his arms, feeling more alive than she ever had. He frowned, tilting his head to one side. "What... what is that sound?"

Arianna listened, but heard nothing. "I canna hear—"

"Shh-shh." He held up a hand, sat a bit straighten "Horses. Oh, Gods, battle!" He surged to his feet as Arianna's heart leapt into her throat.

"But Nicodimus, I hear nothing!" Even as she said it, she rushed to retrieve her garments.

"It is yet another part of being immortal, Arianna. The sharpening of the senses ..." He struggled into his own clothing and drew his dagger, then came to stand over her, his eyes alert and scanning the trees around them as she finished dressing. As if he'd protect her should any threat appear.

And that gave her to know he truly believed there was trouble afoot. "Nicodimus ... what is happening?"

He closed his hands around hers and stared intently into her eyes. "I want you to stay here. Right here, Arianna, wrapped in the cloak and concealed amongst the shadows

of these stones. The clouds have covered the moon. If you are still, no one will see you, even should they look, and you will be safe—"

"Nay! I'll nay stay safe while you rush into danger!"

He shook his head firmly. "I must go, little cat, and there's no time to argue with you. The village ... I believe the village is under attack. Joseph and the boys ... Ni-daba—"

"Mam!" she cried. Suddenly it seemed her stomach turned in on itself. For now the sounds were reaching her ears as well, and in the distance, an eerie glow began to reach into the dark sky, despite the falling snow. She screamed aloud, hands pressed to either side of her head as panic took hold of her heart.

"I'll see to your family, I vow it, Arianna. Please, please, remain here, safe."

Trembling from head to toe, she nodded, knowing even as she did so that she lied to her husband. She lied blatantly. For no force on earth could have kept her from her family.

He studied her face for one lingering moment, then drew her dark cloak tight about her, and led her to a shadowy niche between two of the standing stones, where one had toppled slightly and leaned against another. "In here. You'll be all but invisible, in here."

She nodded, eyeing the cavelike space. Then Nicodimus gripped her shoulders and pulled her against him. He kissed her long and hard. "Stay safe," he said, and his tone was one of command. "I'll come back for you."

"Aye, Nicodimus. Go, now. Go do what you must."

With a quick nod, he turned to leave her. But she rushed after him, a sudden knot of cold fear hitting her fiercely in the chest. Flinging her arms around him, she fought to control her sobs. "Oh, my love, please take care. Stay alive, for though I've fought against it I—"

"I know," he said softly, stroking her hair. "I know. Go now, hide and await my return."

She nodded hard, pressed her lips once to his warm neck, then fled to the spot where he had told her to hide. He watched until she had crawled into the darkness between

the stones, and only then did he hurry away.

But the instant Nicodimus was out of her sight, Arianna crept out of her hiding place, and picked her way quickly and silently through the woods, taking the shortest route to the village. And as she went the sounds of battle grew louder. Shouts, screams, thundering hoofbeats. The snap and hiss of fire. The snow fell and fell, and as she finally drew nearer the village, she realized the shouts and cries were coming less and less frequently with each step she ran. Until, only the hoofbeats, and the crackling of flames remained.

What she found when she emerged from the trees made her heart turn to stone.

Cottages burning, flames licking at their thatched roofs, and hissing against the snow; fueled by something that burned despite the wetness from above, but burned more slowly because of it. And as she raced closer, she saw torches born by men on horseback who thundered through the village. Swords and clubs smote the few crofters who ran like frightened animals through the muddy pathways. And when the clouds skittered away from the face of the moon, she saw the bodies, battered and bloodied. Everywhere.

"Mam? Da?" she whispered. Her own family's cottage stood in the distance. Arianna paused to bend down and scoop up a discarded blade as she moved urgently toward it. Her dagger was at her hip, aye, but she wanted something bigger. The sword hung heavy in her hand, too long for her, its tip dragging through the mud when she stumbled. She expected to be struck down before she reached her parents, and quickened her pace at the thought. But the darkness and her cloak must have been her aids, for none of the rampaging beasts seemed to notice her. Most were far too busy, looting the homes, murdering the few who remained alive, and putting the torch to every building in sight.

She heard a cry from within her parents' house. Her mother's cry ... a cry that was cut off before it ended. With

a growl of absolute fury, she lifted the sword high, raced forward, and burst through the door.

Her mother lay upon the floor, limp, her head bloodied, while a soldier bent over her, tearing at her dress. Without hesitation, Arianna brought the blade flashing down with all her might, aiming for the man's neck.

He cried out only once as his blood shot from his veins, and then he crumbled at her feet, his head tipped at an impossible angle. Arianna stepped over him, giving him not a second look. She rushed to her mother, knelt over her, gripped her shoulders.

"Mam! Mam, 'tis all right. I'm here now an' ... an' ... Mam?" She shook her mother, but saw now what she'd failed to see before. Or refused to. The once bright eyes were already filmed over by the glaze of death. Staring sightlessly, their light forever extinguished. "Nay!" Arianna cried. "Nay, this canna be!"

Rising to her feet, she backed away, turning her gaze from the sight of her mother there on the floor, only to see her father lying still in a corner, a dagger in his belly, a pool of blood around him.

Arianna's head began to spin. She did not want to believe any of this, for it could not be real. She had barely survived losing her sister, but to lose her parents, too, and just when they'd begun to mend the rift between them? Nay, 'twas too much to bear.

She lifted her head to gaze into the dark, snow-damp night, and saw the herd of swine who had brought this destruction upon her people, her family, her clan. Looking down once again at the sword in her hand, she muttered, "I will kill them. Aye, I'll kill them all!"

In a fury she raced into the wet snow, bare feet slapping through the mud, as she attacked one man after another. Her rage drove her, gave her strength. She killed more than she could count. Until at last, when she lifted the blade high above her head about to bring it down on another of them, she felt her body pierced from behind, and went still, her mouth agape, eyes bulging. Looking down, she saw the point of a blade protruding from her belly, blood flowing

to soak the white tunic dress she'd worn to please Nicod-imus.

Nicodimus. Gods, where was he? Where on earth was he?

She dropped to her knees, and knew death would come soon to claim her. So be it, then. 'Twas preferable to going on, dealing with such a crippling loss. No one left to her but a husband who could never love her. A husband who would leave her in the end just as Raven, her sister had done. Just as her beloved teachers and her parents had each done in turn. She would lose him. She had lost them all.

Better than living, was dying just now. Better than living ...

Arianna fell, facedown in the mud—never having glimpsed the face of the man who had killed her.

I never should have left her alone. It was a mistake that led to my destruction, and for it I take full blame. Things may well have ended differently had I kept my promise to protect her family. But those promises were words I never should have spoken, wrenched from me without forethought, and my judgment was poor. I wanted only to comfort her, to take away the pain I saw in her soft brown eyes. To take away the fear. To be her hero, I suppose. Foolish. Foolish to make promises I could not keep simply because I loved the girl.

Yes, it was true. I loved her. In spite of my best efforts not to. Arianna had conquered me. I hated the feeling, the vulnerability it created in me. And yet it was that feeling that drove me to protect her and all those she cared about. A feeling that made me willing to face battle—to face anything at all—for her.

So I spied the flames, heard the thundering beats of hooves, and knew the village and clan were under attack by a large number of soldiers, whose motives I could not imagine. But I simply knew that this was no ordinary raid. I raced to the keep for weapons, and to stir Joseph and his sons in case they remained asleep and unaware. Every man

in the household would be needed to defend the village. Every last one.

I broke from the woods, and raced across the moor, up the hill to the front gates, my lungs burning, my body alive with immortal power.

It was only when I found the gates flung open that I slowed, and took more careful stock of things.

The huge wooden door leading into the great hall was not open, but lying flat—a battering ram made of half a tree trunk dropped upon it. And from the gaping, dark windows, thin spirals of smoke whispered forth.

"Nidaba," I whispered. "Joseph ..."

Forcing myself to pause, to take care, I slipped inside, keeping to the shadows. The intruders were long gone, now. But everywhere I looked were signs of their carnage: broken bodies were strewn on the rushes, slaughtered like sheep. I found Joseph at the base of the stone stairs, still in his nightclothes. His neck broken. His sons had never even made it out of their chambers. Both of them lay dead within. And of Nidaba ... of Nidaba there was no sign.

My heart clenched and my blood boiled. Damn these bastards, whosver they were! Attacking a peace-loving clan, murdering Joseph, a man who had shown nothing but kindness and understanding to all who'd known him. My friend. He had been my friend, and one of the few I still possessed.

But I had no time to mourn, nor even to bury him. Kicking open the bolted door of the weapons room, wondering why the invaders had not bothered to loot it to the bare walls, I snatched a sword and scabbard and belted them in place. Ignoring the rest, for I'd no need of maces nor shields nor crossbows, I strode quickly outside again, needing the air to cleanse the stench of spilled blood from my lungs.

Glancing toward the stables, I saw the tongues of flame beginning to lick up the sides. No doubt the straw and hay inside had been smoldering even before I had arrived. The doors stood closed up tight, as if the bastards had not even bothered to steal the horses, but simply wanted to destroy them. Destroy everything associated with this clan.

Gods, who could have cause to hate the clan so much?

I ran. yanking the stable doors open, and in only seconds, managed to send several horses galloping to safety with no more than a slap of my hand. The last few were panicked by the flames, and I had no time to lead them free one by one. Not when Mara and Edwyn were in their cottage at the mercy of the attackers. I gripped Black and leapt upon him without benefit of saddle or rein. He obeyed as easily as he always had, and leapt free of the burning building with barely a flick of his eye. He'd seen fire before, Black had. The stallion knew no fear.

Leaning low, I kicked him into motion, and we sailed through the night, pounding ever nearer the village, but my heart sank as I saw the yellow glow battling the snow-drenched darkness, and I whispered the names of my wife's parents as I raced closer. I drew my sword, rounded a bend in the road, and then tugged Black to a halt as I saw the destruction. The death all 'round me. The ruin. There was nothing left. Nothing.

And the soldiers were gone. They had rained terror and destruction down upon an unsuspecting, peaceful clan, and then left just as quickly as possible. Tears burned in my eyes as I moved closer to the saddle maker's cottage. Because there was no hint of life from within. No one moved or breathed. I heard no tears, no cries for help, though the thatched roof was already alight with flame. No moans of pain. I knew death, and this was it. I felt it in the very night, heightening my awareness with every wet snowy droplet that struck my skin. I was the only man alive here.

Black halted in front of Arianna's former home, and I dismounted slowly. My boots sticking in the blood-soaked mud, I stepped inside. And then I felt the pain rip through roe as I saw them. Mara, her head caved in. Edwyn with a mortal blade wound to the gut. And in the corner... who was that?

A soldier, one of the attackers, his head nearly severed. Someone had fought back then. Tried to help. But too late, too late.

My eyes burned with unshed tears as I thought of telling

Arianna that her beloved parents had been brutally killed. I had been unable to tell her the truth about her own nature, to spare her the pain of knowing she would one day outlive all those she loved. But now that day had come all the same, and there was no way I could spare her this. No way.

And I'd promised her. I had promised her that I would protect them.

"I'm sorry, Arianna," I whispered. "Damnation, if I had only come here sooner. If I had only ..." But I shook my head, for my words and my regrets could not change what had befallen her family tonight.

Edwyn... he had been as kind to me as if I were his own son. And Mara ... I recalled her smiling face, the reborn joy in her eyes as she and her firstborn had found each other again.

Gone, now, both of them. Their precious lives snuffed out without a care, without a cause.

My every instinct told me to go after the vermin who had wreaked such tragedy on Stonehaven. They had headed north, and their trail—the hoofmarks of so many horses— would be easily followed. But I needed to return to the Stone Circle, to Arianna. Thank the Fates, I thought, that I had left her there. The soldiers had headed in the opposite direction. She was safe. They would pass nowhere near her.

Stepping outside, I reached for Black's mane to pull myself up, but as I did, I glanced down, and a gleam caught my eye. Not a blade, but something silver, stomped into the mud. Instinct caused my stomach to quake, and I dreaded what I would find. I bent, and picked it up.

A silver pendant with a cradle moon adorning one curve. Exactly like the one Arianna had been wearing. And it had been lying here, right outside this house of death—her parents' home.

"No," I whispered. "No, it cannot be hers. She wouldn't have come here, she couldn't have...." Terrified, I scanned the bodies crumpled hither and yon, but I did not see the ethereal white tunic she had worn, nor the gleam of her spun gold hair. Not at all. Still, my gut was telling me what my mind already knew. It was hers. She had been

here ... and something terrible had befallen her.

I draped her pendant 'round my neck to join my own there. Then, leaping upon Black, I whirled him around, kicked his flanks hard with my heels, and headed at breakneck speed back toward the Stone Circle. But the emptiness in the pit of my stomach told me even before I reached the sacred place, that I would not find my bride there, either.

A jolt bent Arianna's body backward so suddenly and so acutely she felt as if her spine would snap and her lungs burst from the force of her gasp.

Then slowly, her body eased again, and she opened her eyes. But even as she did, memory came flooding back, and she squeezed them tight against the onslaught. The attack. The bodies. Her parents lying dead ...

"Nay, it canna be," she muttered, and turned instinctively into the shoulder upon which her head rested. The arms around her tightened, and a deep voice whispered, "There, lass, it will be all right now, I promise you that."

And that voice, she realized, head coming up fast, eyes widening, was not Nicodimus's.

He held her to him, seated behind her on a horse; a large man, and strong from the feel of him. She found herself staring into pale blue eyes that reminded her of a wolf in winter, and ashen hair that gleamed nearly white in the moonlight. Not with age, but with the fairness of its hue. His face was soft, with a gently rounded chin and cheekbones, and a bulbous nose. No harsh angles, no cragginess like her Nicodimus. But softness. He seemed a gentle soul, this man who held her in his arms.

And yet she stiffened, pressing her hands to his shoulders to hold herself away.

"Aye, lass, 'tis natural you'd be confused now. But you've naught to fear from me, I promise you." He studied her face. '"Twas your first death, was it not?"

Her brows bunched together, she whispered, ' 'First... death?'' And then she recalled the sensation of being run through, the horror of looking down to see a blade thrusting out of her own belly, and of falling dead into the mud.

Dead.

"Nay," she whispered very softly. "Nay, 'tis nay possible. I... I died. I..." Lowering her chin she saw the bloodstains all over the front of her tunic, and even the slit in the cloth where the blade had torn through. Hooking her fingers in that tear, she ripped it wider, and then searched her skin, her belly, for some mark or cut or flaw. But only found the stains of drying blood. She pressed her fingers to the spot where it seemed she could still feel the phantom pain of the wound . . . but there was nothing there. No injury. Not so much as a nick nor a scratch.

Wide-eyed, she lifted her head once more.

"You canna mean to tell me you dinna know, lassie! You're immortal. A High Witch, just like me. Nicodimus must have told you. . . . Damnation, he dinna tell you at all, did he, child?"

She blinked rapidly, searching her mind, hearing the warnings it whispered. "Immortal? Nay ... nay, it canna be... ."

"You're the living proof that it is, lass. It is. You're alive, and unmarred by the blade. I found you lifeless in the mud, but knew you for what you were, and vowed to take you away from all the carnage. And from the reach of Nicodimus."

Nay. She would never be beyond the reach of Nicodimus. He would find her. He would come for her. But this man ... this man knew his name. ' 'You ... you know my husband?'' she asked.

"Aye. He's been my arch enemy for centuries, lass. One of the Darkest of the Dark, he is—''

"Nay!" Arianna felt her anger rise to drown out her confusion and grief. "My Nicodimus is good and pure, and I'll kill any man who says otherwise!"

He studied her for a long moment, drinking in, it seemed, the anger flashing from her eyes. "I can see you believe it to be true. I vow, lady, at least now I understand why a woman like you would bind herself to a man such as he. You simply dinna ken the truth."

She narrowed her eyes on him. "I'll never believe a

word spoken against my husband," she all but hissed at him. "Who are you that I should take heed of a word you utter?" Then she tilted her head. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of those who attacked my village!"

He nodded slowly. "Aye, lass, though it pains me to have to tell you. I am their chieftain."

"Bastard!" Arianna clenched her hands into fists and pounded his chest. But he easily caught her wrists and held her still, though she struggled. His horse came to a halt.

"I dinna fault you, lass. Indeed, I canna. But if you'll only hear me out. I tried to get to the village in time to halt the bloodshed. I tried, I vow it on the name of my own father. But I was too late. And my men had already done that poor defenseless village to death."

Grief made her weak, and she stopped her fighting. "Aye, and they'd done my mam to death, as well, and my da along with her. An' I vow I'll see every one of them die before I rest."

His eyes, soft with sorrow, moved gently over her face, and releasing her wrists, he stroked her hair. "Gods, but I'm sorry. More sorry than you can know. The men ... they were crazed. Their chieftain—my older brother, Kohl— was murdered... by your husband, lass. By our lifelong enemy, Nicodimus, that Dark Witch of old."

' Twas nay murder! Nicodimus had to kill him in order to stay alive!"

He shook his head. "An' I suppose he gave you some reason why he had to take my brother's heart as well, did he not? But pretty one, only the Dark take the hearts of their victims. Only they and no others."

She shook her head, confused. Nicodimus had told her that... but then he'd said he'd had to take Kohl's heart to set his spirit free.

"The men adored Kohl," this fellow went on. "And they ... took vengeance on the village. One lad knew what was about to occur, and raced off to find me. But I dinna arrive in time, and the men, without a leader... acted in anger and unleashed a mighty fury upon Stonehaven." Again, he shook his head slowly. "It pains me more than

I can say that your family perished in the attack, lass."

She studied his face. "You're naught but a liar," she whispered, but his words made her wonder. Not about Ni-codimus—nay, never that, he was good and true, and she loved him—but about the rest. Perhaps this man had tried to stop what had happened.

Then more things clicked into place in her mind. "Your name is Marten. Nicodimus told me about you ... the brother of Kohl, and of Nicodimus's wife of so long ago. Anya."

"Aye, I imagine he told you much. I only hope you'll nay believe the worst of me too easily. Nicodimus ... he hates me. It has always been so."

"An' you hate him in return," she whispered. "Nonetheless, he dinna tell me that he was one of the Dark Ones, nor that you were one of the Light."

"Nay, lass. Nor did he tell you that you yourself were an immortal High Witch just as we are."

She blinked. "He ... he knew?"

"Of course he knew."

Shaking her head slowly, she knew it couldn't be true. "Nay, he'd have told me if he knew. He ... he trusted me with all the other secrets. Why would he keep this one from me? Nay, he'd have told me. He would!"

"Perhaps," Marten said slowly. "I suppose 'tis possible he dinna know of your nature. Tell me, did he ever see the mark of the crescent moon upon your flank, child? The one that marks all immortals as who and what they are?"

She felt the arrows of his words piercing her soul. The crescent birthmark. Nicodimus bore one. So did Nidaba, and so did she. He knew that. So if it was the mark of immortality...

"And has he ever touched you, lass?"

Frowning harder, she said, "I dinna ken your meanin'. What are you—?"

"Take your hands from my shoulders, pretty one. Just for a moment, an' you'll understand."

Still confused, she did, sitting away from him slightly, taking her hands from his shoulders.

"Now, put them back again."

With a nod, she lay her palms lightly upon his shoulders once more. Immediately, a jolt of something passed through her. The same sort of jolt she felt when she touched Ni-codimus, or Nidaba.

"The initial contact you make with any other immortal will give you just such a sensation, child," Marten explained slowly, patiently. "So even if Nic had never seen your birthmark, he'd have felt what you were the first time he touched you. Do you ken?"

She nodded, very slowly. So it was true. Nicodimus had known what she was. He had to have known. And yet, she defended him. ' 'If he did keep the truth from me, then he likely had reasons for doin' so."

' 'Aye. No doubt he and that she-wolf of his planned to take your young heart, once it grew powerful enough to sustain one or the other of them."

"Dinna be foolish!" she shouted. "Nicodimus is my husband, and Nidaba my friend!"

"Aye. And the two of them sharing a bed for nigh' on eight centuries now, lass. Can you not see what is before your face?''

She felt as if he'd punched her in the belly with a fist made of cold iron. Blinking with reaction, battling tears, she whispered, "Nicodimus ... and Nidaba?"

"Lovers, child. Lovers all along, even right under the nose of my sweet-natured sister, who died more of heartache than childbirth all those years ago. For she knew."

She shook her head slowly. ' 'Nicodimus ... he loved Anya."

' 'Loved her? Nay, child, he took her. Destroyed her village and her family and took her as his captive. By force, he took her."

She lifted her gaze. "Just the way your men destroyed my village, Marten? An' just the way you've now taken me?"

"Aye, lady. I'm afraid so. I'm sorry your life is being turned 'round because of it, but justice is justice, and for Nicodimus, 'tis long overdue."

Dropping her chin, releasing a sigh, she whispered, "You're so wrong about him."

"An' if I'm wrong about him, then where is he? Hmm? He was nay among the dead, I can tell you as much. Neither he, nor the dark woman who owns his heart and soul. Nay, lady, he dinna come looking for you, nor so much as try to protect your family. He vanished, he and his Nidaba. Vanished, without givin' you a second thought. He lied to you, little one. He lied to you about what he truly is, and kept the truth of your own nature a secret from you. And then he abandoned you. He's not worthy of a woman so fine as you are. Oh, sweet lady, I dinna even know your name."

Blinking, eyes burning, she whispered, "My name is Ar-ianna. Arianna Sinclair ... Lachlan."

"Arianna," he said slowly. "Dinna cry, Arianna. He's nay worthy of a single tear from such as you."

But the tears fell all the same.

Her captor pulled her gently closer, his touch exquisitely gentle, his body warm and soft. "I'll make it all up to you, lady. I vow I will. You'll know nothing but joy whilst you reside in my keep. Nothing but joy."

Chapter 14

I stood in the center of the Stone Circle, hands clenched, arms taut and quivering as I howled my rage. My cry echoed through the forest and the surrounding moors, bounding from the silent monoliths that surrounded me. And yet no one heard. There was no reply.

Arianna was gone. Gone.

"I'll find you," I promised hoarsely when the echoes of my fury finally died away. "I swear to you, Arianna, I'll find you, no matter where they've taken you. And when I do I'll kill the bastards. I vow, if they've harmed a hair on your head, I'll..." My voice dropped to an anguished whisper. "Gods, don't let them harm her."

I lowered my head, staring through pools of tears at the pendent I clutched in my hands. Tears. How long had it been since I'd shed them? A century, perhaps? Longer?

Dammit to hell, why was I still pretending? ' 'I love you, lass," I finally admitted in a whisper, wishing for all the world that I could just hear her voice, that joyful lilt, one last time. "I love you. I should have told you. But I will, I vow it, I will. And I'll make it right again, make all of this up to you—somehow."

My hand fisted 'round the pendant, and then I brought

it to my lips, and kissed it to seal my vow. Silently, I fastened it 'round my own neck. Then I mounted Black, drew the horse about, and kicked his sides. Black lunged into a gallop, and I headed north, as I knew the attackers had done. Their trail was well laid and easily followed. I would catch the blackguards before this night was through.

"Stop looking for him, Arianna," her captor said, his voice soft, his eyes gentle. "Nicodimus will nay come for you. The sooner you accept that harsh truth, the better 'twill be."

She shook her head slowly. "He will. He'll come for me, you'll see." But would he? Maybe the more important question was, could he? Oh, but she was no fool. She knew well enough what was happening here. This Marten and she were alone, no one within sight nor earshot around them. Yet there had been dozens upon dozens of warhorses and soldiers in the village. So many men. Obviously, they had all ridden off in another direction, perhaps to plunder some other village, perhaps to battle some other clan. But wherever they had gone, it was obvious Marten's goal lay elsewhere. His horse's hooves, she noted, were wrapped in thick layers of cloth. And he guided the beast over the hardest terrain, where leaving a sign of their passing would be all but impossible. Marten pushed onward at a terrible pace. The miles seemed to fall away between Arianna and her home, along with all she had known there. All she had ever held dear, all she had loved. Perhaps Nicodimus would be unable to find her, even if he tried.

//he tried.

And what if he didn't? What if all the things Marten had told her...

But, nay. That could not be. She knew Nicodimus. Knew him ... and loved him. She believed in him. Aye, he had kept things from her—vital things she should have been told. She was immortal.

By the Gods, she was immortal. And unsure now, what that meant to her. How it would change her life. She only knew that even the girl she had been only hours before was now lost to her. As lost as her mother and father. As lost

as her dear sister. She no longer knew who Arianna Sinclair Lachlan might be, who she would become.

Gods, why had Nicodimus not told her?

She sighed, closing her eyes. If Nicodimus had kept so vital a truth from her, then he must have had some reason. He must have!

He would come for her. And when he did, she realized slowly, through the haze of grief and shock that clouded her mind ... when he did, she could be with him ... forever.

Aye, forever. He would not have to watch her grow old and die, as she had believed, for she was immortal, just as he was. And could be with him!

If... if he wanted her.

Doubts assailed Arianna then, new ones that had not occurred to her before. For Nicodimus had known these things all along, hadn't he? So maybe he did not want her after all.

I followed the horde of men for three nights before I finally caught up to them. I had not expected them to be moving so quickly. They had left no survivors behind, and had no reason to assume they were being pursued. Why, then? The question dogged me. Why such haste?

If they knew, somehow, that I was following, if they were ready and waiting when I finally arrived at their camp...

But, no, it didn't matter. Whether they expected my attack or not, my course would not change. I had to rescue Arianna. I had to find her. Hold her in my arms again, and know that she was all right.

It was full night, the fourth one of my journey, when at last I heard the sounds in the distance that told me they were near. Keeping to the thickest patches of forest, I moved Black slowly, quietly nearer, until I could see by the pale glow of distant fires that they had set up camp for the night. Good. Good.

Tying Black in a grove of pines, I crept closer, walking softly, using the skills I had learned as a warrior long ago,

and wondering as I neared what I would find awaiting me in Arianna's eyes. I had promised to protect her family, but I had failed. And more than just that ate at my soul. For those butchers had killed every clansman they saw. No one was spared, no prisoners taken. The lifeless corpses of beautiful young women had littered the muddy village road alongside those of their families. So why, then, had they taken Arianna alive?

And what if they had not? What if she, too, had been cut down, only to revive again? What if they had only taken her captive when they'd realized that they could not kill her?

What if she knew now, what she was? What I, in my arrogance, had kept from her?

I paused to lean against a tree, swamped with a sudden weakness brought on by regret. "I should have told her," I murmured hoarsely. "By the Gods, I should have explained it all to her, whilst I still had the chance ..."

But it was too late for regrets now, and when I lifted my head again, I could see the camp of my enemies. No less than fifty men in this troop, I judged. Four separate fires burned, and men surrounded each. Some eating, some drinking. Some still as stone, contemplating the flames. Some already lying down. And at the center of them all, a ragged tent had been erected, with men standing guard at each of its four corners.

"Arianna," I whispered, and my heart tugged as if trying to leap from my chest. She must be alive! That well-guarded tent had to be where they were keeping her. Every inch of my body seemed to stretch forward. My feet itched to run to her. And only by a supreme act of will did I manage to hold myself back. To draw a breath, and crouch down beside the large tree, and wait.

The hours crept by. Too slowly, too damned slowly. It seemed ages before the men in the camp truly slept. All except for those standing guard outside the tent. I could not hope to outfight fifty armed soldiers. Four, on the other hand, should pose no problem. But I would have to move

quickly, carefully, and in utter silence. They must not be given the chance to sound the alarm.

I crept closer, then moved silently among the sleeping men, picking my way with great care. Still concealed in shadows, so the men guarding the tent could not see me. Not yet. But I could see them, for my vision in the night was excellent, honed by the kiss of immortality.

I took another step, then went still as I saw one of the men turn toward the tent flap, as if in response to some sound from inside. I strained to hear, and finally did, even from this distance. The voice was a whisper, barely more than a breath.

"Please. Only for a short while. I am so cold and afraid, and alone..."

No, I thought in silence. By the Gods, what did she think she was doing?

Even as I willed him not to, the man to whom she spoke gave a nod, and ducked inside. While the other three exchanged lewd grins, and muttered their speculation. Fury built in my blood, a hot, pulsing thing. The bastard was alone in that tent with my wife. My woman. My Arianna. He would not live to see another sunrise.

In a moment, he poked his head back out, and I could see that his chest was bare now. My jaw clenched, teeth grated, hands fisted.

"Why dinna the three of you go an' fetch a bite to eat?" the man asked softly of his companions. "A mite o' privacy is called for at the moment."

One of the men frowned. "We were told nay to leave our posts," he argued, keeping his voice low.

"Aye, so you were. But if you do this for me I'll return the favor... in just a while when your own turn comes 'round."

The other man's brows rose high. "The lady's willin' to take each of us?"

And the man inside the tent gave a shrug. "The lady's a prisoner. Who cares if she's willin'?" He grinned broadly, his meaning plain.

The other three exchanged glances. "I dinna think it

wise," said one. "The chieftain, and Master Dearborne as well, warned us against that one. They say she's evil, same as the outlaw Nicodimus."

Another man nodded. ' 'Aye, and the lad Nedmond himself witnessed the demon, cuttin' the heart from the very chest of Master Kohl."

"Ah, she's but a woman. You can well imagine Laird Marten is takin' what pleasure he wishes from his own captive wench! An' I intend to do the same."

Nicodimus stiffened. Marten ... Gods, he should have known Marten would come to avenge his brother.

But there was no time to think, for the other men sighed, and nodded their agreement. "Dinna be too long," said one who hadn't spoken before now. "An' dinna untie the wench, either."

The bare chested one grinned again. "Nay, my friend, I willna. I prefer them bound, I do." Then he ducked back inside the tent, likely to ravage my wife.

I drew my dagger as the three men wandered away from the tent, heading toward me. I saw the fire they'd chosen, one with a barrel of ale standing nearby, and a pot half full of stew near enough the flames so it would still be warm.

I got closer, crouched down, and waited, though it nearly killed me to do so.

Two of them dipped out a cup of the stew, and sat down, while the third went straight for the ale, a short distance away. Even as he drew the foaming brew from the spigot, I crept up behind the other two. A silent slice, and the first one's throat was cut along with his windpipe. The second never knew a thing was wrong until his mate's legs began thrashing and the stew he'd held tipped to the ground. He glanced sideways, his eyes widened, and my hand covered his mouth even as my blade drove into the base of his neck, cleanly severing his spine. He did not move or breathe again.

His cup full of ale, froth spilling over his hand, the third man turned with a smile and started toward them, frowning when he glimpsed his comrades lying still on their backs. As he paused, squinting at them through the darkness, and

then moving closer, I crept 'round until I could come up behind him. I knew the instant he saw the blood, the second he realized death had visited his camp this night. For his body went taut and his head turned as if to shout to the others. But the sound never emerged, for my arm clamped tight 'round his neck from behind, and my hands gripped his head and twisted hard. He went limp when his neck snapped. I lowered him to the ground, and he looked for all the world as if he were sleeping.

Then I turned toward that tent again, and the blood thundered in my temples as I moved quickly, quietly forward. If the bastard had touched Arianna, if his hands were upon my woman, his death would be slow.

Wrenching the tent flap open, I leapt inside, dagger drawn.

The woman before me was standing, naked except for the shift she was pulling on, over her head. The guard lay at her feet, his face frozen in a surprised grimace. He wore nothing except the dagger that protruded from his chest, and the blood that slicked his skin.

"Arianna," I whispered, reaching for her.

Her head and arms poked through, and she straightened the shift around her legs, turning to face me. Not Arianna. Not her at all.

"Nidaba? But... but I thought—"

"Exactly what the bastards intended you think, no doubt," she whispered. She gripped my hand. "Come, we must go before we're found out."

"But Arianna ..." I began.

"She is not here, Nicodimus. Come. Now. I'll explain as we go." And she drew me from the tent.

In silence we made our way from the camp. Nidaba led me to where the soldiers' horses were picketed, helping herself to one as I quieted the others. I loosed the remaining mounts, and led them into the forest, before slapping their rumps and letting them run free. We raced quickly to where Black was tied, and were far away before we heard the shouts of alarm. Far enough away so I knew they would have no chance of catching us.

"Where is she?" I asked Nidaba.

She lowered her head. "Their leader took her, Nicodi-mus. His home is to the south, from what I was able to overhear. A keep called Kenwick. Do you know it?"

I did not. But it would not stop me. "Their leader," I said with distaste. "Marten. The bastard has hounded me for the last time. I do not know this Kenwick, but I will find it," I vowed. "And when I do, Marten will die."

"He knew you would follow the others," Nidaba said slowly. "So he sent them in the opposite direction, with me as their prize."

I glanced at her quickly, for once forgetting my own anguish. "Nidaba ... did they harm you?" . She averted her gaze. "They were ordered not to touch me until I was safely in the dungeons of this ... Kenwick Keep. I was to be delivered unharmed to a man called Dear-borne, for what, I do not know."

"They were ordered not to touch you," I repeated, watching her face closely. "Was it an order they obeyed, Nidaba?"

For a moment, she was silent. Then she only whispered, "Most of them did." She met my gaze and said no more. And I knew she would not. "This is far from the matter at hand, Nicodimus. There is something you must know. Ar-ianna..."

I closed my eyes as she paused, drawing a breath, sensing what was to come.

"She was run through," Nidaba told me. "She experienced death for the first time, my friend. And likely revived to realize the truth."

I closed my eyes against the pain that flooded my soul. "I feared as much. I should have told her."

"There is naught to be done about it now. She knows. And likely knows you did as well, and kept it from her. You should be aware of it before you face her again."

"Why did he take her, Nidaba? Why, when I'm the one he wants?"

"I do not know, I only know he took her and rode south.

If it were Arianna's heart he wanted, surely he'd have simply taken it and been done with her."

' 'A heart so young would be of little use to a Dark Witch as old as Marten," I protested.

She nodded. ' 'I have thought of that. And realized, Ni-codimus, even before I knew who he was, that perhaps it is your heart he is after. Now I am even more certain. Ar-ianna is simply serving as his bait. If you go after her at Kenwick, you will be walking directly into Marten's trap. Just the way he wants you to do."

I looked up sharply. "I've thought of that, as well. But if he wanted me to follow him to Kenwick, then why the ruse to lead me away?"

Nidaba shrugged. ' 'To give him time to prepare? To set this trap of his in such a way that there will be no chance for you to escape?"

I knew she was trying to warn me, to prepare me. To dissuade me from rushing headlong into disaster, perhaps even death. But it did not matter. Nothing would keep me from Arianna. Nothing.

"I have no choice in this. She is my wife, you know this, Nidaba. I must go after her."

"Even if it costs your life?" she asked, softly, for she already knew the answer. "Even... if it costs you your immortal heart?"

"I love her," I whispered, the confession draining me. Saying it aloud to Nidaba solidified the feelings in my heart. With the confirmation came the fear, more intense, more vividly real than before. Certain disaster awaited me, I knew it in my gut. Yet I was powerless to divert it. ' 'Gods help me, Nidaba, but I love her."

Closing her eyes, she nodded. ' 'I feared as much. I... can only hope she's worthy of that love," she whispered.

"I only hope," I said, my voice hoarse, "I didn't wait too long to realize it. For though she loved me once, Nidaba, she could very well hate me by now."

His keep would have held Lachlan Keep twice within its solid walls. Huge blocks of chiseled rock towered high

above the tall sturdy outer wall. Kenwick was a dark, dreary place. Large, but made of dark stone, with few ornaments and only a small number of torches for light. The gate itself seemed to have been built of entire tree trunks. Surely not even an army of men could gain access to such a fortress.

But could Nicodimus? Would he even attempt such an impossible feat?

Upon her arrival she was given into the hands of serving girls, not one, but two of them. A few men lingered about the great hall. One who wore a dark robe with its cowl pulled over his head stood silent and watchful. He made her shiver, that hooded man.

"You are a lady, Arianna of Stonehaven, and as a lady you shall be treated," Marten said, as he waved the serving girls closer.

"I am a prisoner," she replied.

Marten lowered his head, and his eyes seemed saddened. ""Tis my hope that will one day change. That you will grow to be happy here, Arianna. And that you will wish to stay. But until that day comes, aye, lassie, you are my prisoner."

She shook her head firmly, tears burning in her eyes. ' 'I will never wish to stay with you. My only wish is to be back with my husband again."

One of the serving girls, the younger one, by the looks, caught her breath. Marten glanced up at her, a sharp reproach appearing, then vanishing in his eyes. He cleared his throat. "These are your servants, Arianna. They will attend to your every need. Lydia and Kathleen." He indicated each of them with a wave of his hand. Lydia was younger, with dark hair and eyes, and she reminded Arianna of the sister she had lost. Her beloved Raven. The thought gave her heart a painful twist. The other one was of her own dear mother's age, she guessed.

Looking again at the hooded man, she asked, ' 'And who is this?"

Marten said nothing, but the man moved closer, lowering his cowl to reveal a thin, aged face. "I am Nathanial Dear-borne. I am Marten's ... spiritual counselor."

Marten cleared his throat, and the old man moved away.

"Your lady is in need of a bath," Marten addressed the servants. ' 'And garments suitable to her station. I leave her in your care."

Lydia came forward and curtsied before me. ' 'Come, my lady. You look weary and worn. Let us tend you."

Arianna glanced up quickly, and saw her first chance for escape. Surely the two women could not hold her by force. Not against her will.

Marten looked into her eyes, and seemed to read them. Without looking away, he lifted a hand behind him, crooked a finger. At once a burly man came forward, standing at the ready, weapons at his sides.

"You will attend the lady as well, Gorden. And dinna allow her out of sight even for an instant, for she has yet to realize that this is her new home. Until she does, I fear she will bolt at the first opportunity. And does she escape, Gorden, I'll have your head. Do you ken?"

Gorden nodded, his eyes flicking over Arianna briefly. She shivered at his cold glance. As if she were a possession to be guarded, or an animal in need of tending.

"I regret this is necessary, Arianna," Marten told her softly, and he lifted her hand and brushed his lips across the back of it. She shuddered in revulsion. "Perhaps the day will come when it no longer is."

She knew her disappointment showed in her eyes. Her hopes for escape crushed, at least for now. But she would not stop trying, nor stop seeking an opportunity. If she were patient, and cunning, one would surely come.

"It willna matter how many guards you place upon me, Marten. Nicodimus will come for me. Nothin' will stop him."

Marten spared her a pitying glance and stroked her hair, but she shied away from his touch. "Poor Arianna, clingin' to false hope. But you'll see soon enough that your husband will nay come for you. Because he doesna care. But I do, lass. I do."

Turning away, she hurried off, unsure where she was going, only needing to be away from this man who spoke

so horribly of her beloved Nicodimus. Lydia caught up, gripping her elbow gently and steering her in the right direction. "Come, my lady. This way." And then leaning close, she whispered very softly, for Arianna's ears alone. "Take heart. My dear mother used to say that true love always prevails. Dinna give up hope, no matter what Laird Marten says,"

Arianna glanced sideways at the girl, and sensed she might have found an ally here, in this strange, impenetrable prison. And perhaps, in time, a friend. Having one might make the short time she would be forced to spend here a bit more bearable. But there would not be much time, either way. For Nicodimus would come. She clung to that hope.

But when a full week had passed, with no sign of her husband, hope began to fade.

Each day she was dressed in fine, costly gowns, her hair styled in ringlets, and glittering jewels and gold adorned her fingers, her wrists, and even her earlobes. Gifts, all of them, from her captor. They felt to her like chains more than jewels, but Marten insisted she wear them. She dined in the style of royalty, seated at the high table, Marten's table. Unlike Joseph Lachlan, this laird seemed to hold no fondness for eating among his clansmen, and his table stood far apart from theirs, all the way on the opposite side of the gray and somber great hall.

Marten's table was near a hearth, where a fire always burned. No one else dined at the high table except for Dear-borne. The man seemed to be considered of great importance to Marten. She was not certain why. The others sat away from that warmth, and if the evening were cold, and the men uncomfortable, it seemed not to disturb Laird Marten at all.

The chambers she had been given were large, but just as gloomy and dark as the rest of the hideous place. And always, wherever she went, her guard, Gorden, stood to one side of her, watching. Always watching.

His dark eyes watched her as she dressed, or undressed, or bathed. Lingering where they would, for as long as he wished. It seemed he had his master's consent to ogle her.

Each evening, Marten came to her, and spoke for long hours of Nicodimus's past deeds, all of them evil. And of Nicodimus's longtime lover Nidaba, and the way he would touch her, and likely was spending every night in her arms. He would talk on and on, while she was forced to sit and listen to the details of the things her husband was likely doing with his lover, even now.

A dark cloud settled over Arianna as the days passed by, slowly, so slowly. Her hopes faded with each night that Nicodimus did not burst through the gates, sword in hand, to rescue her. She cried often. It seemed each time she did, Marten appeared there. As if someone were reporting her every whisper to the man. He would speak soft words, words of comfort, and make promises that he would one day end her terrible pain, mend her poor, broken heart.

At last... at long last, she realized the truth. Nicodimus was not coming for her, for if he were, he would have been here by now. But she could not stir a tender feeling for Marten, nor did she wish to do so. She could never love another as she did her Nicodimus, nor would she even want to. And she would not live her life as Marten's possession, no matter how richly she would be kept.

Without hope, her mind seemed to sharpen. And at last, she was able to think clearly once more. Without Nicodimus to depend upon, a bit of the rebellious girl she had been stirred back to life in her soul. Stirred from beyond the depths of grief and shock that had, for a time, silenced her. And Arianna came to understand that she had no one to depend upon but herself.

Silently, she vowed never to forget that lesson again, nay, not for as long as she lived.

Secretly, Arianna began to plan.

She need only pretend. She need only convince Marten that her feelings had changed, and that she was willing to stay with him, to be his woman. And once he believed the lie, his defenses would relax. Gorden's constant watchful eye would turn away from her. And that would be the time when she would make good her escape.

But she would need to be convincing. Marten was no fool, and would not believe easily. So she began slowly, offering him a slight smile when he spoke to her at mealtime. Forcing herself not to draw away when he took her hand, or touched her face. Even seeking him out once or twice in the castle, and claiming she had been lonely and wished his company. She asked him to tell her about her new nature as an immortal, and to explain to her the tingling jolt that rocked through her each time he touched her.

And finally, one day when they were alone in the great hall. Marten kissed her without warning. Arianna knew she would never have a better opportunity. She swallowed her revulsion, and linked her arms 'round his neck, letting her body go soft, and parting her lips in invitation. She felt his reaction. His body hardened, and his heart hammered in his chest as he held her tighter, plundering her mouth in a way that made her want to retch. But she held her ground, refusing to let him see the truth. She pressed herself against him, closed her eyes, and told herself it was necessary. Necessary. She would do anything to get free of him.

Anything.

When at last, he lifted his head away, she breathed heavily and deeply, and stared deep into his eyes. "I have missed being held in a man's arms," she whispered.

His eyes filled with fire, he slid a hand up the front of her to cup her breast. And when she gasped in surprise and disgust, he took it to be a gasp of sheer pleasure. "Give yourself to me, Arianna. And I promise, you'll nay miss a man's touch ever again. For I will touch you often, and thorough, and well."

She released all her breath. "Aye, Marten. Aye. Touch me. Touch me everywhere."

His smile was one of victory, one of possession and ownership and pride. But also, one of doubt. "I am nay so certain I believe you, lass."

Her confidence wavered, but she stiffened her resolve. "How shall I prove myself to you?"

He looked at her, his hot gaze roaming from head to toe. Then slowly, he reached out, and began unlacing the front

of her gown. Panic made her heart race, but she only stood still, eyes closed. Whatever was necessary, she reminded herself. For her freedom.

His hands worked steadily, but slowly, so she had ample time to object. When the laces were loosed, he spread the bodice open still wider, and then clenching the fabric in his fists and giving a brutal tug, he tore the dress wider still. Her breasts spilled free, bared to his hungry stare.

He touched them, his hands cupping and squeezing them, his fingers closing on her nipples, and tugging at them. "I want you very badly, Arianna," he said, his voice thoughtful as his hands worked, pinching her, kneading her. "Do you want me, too?"

"Aye," she whispered.

' 'Then tell me. Make me believe you, Arianna. Convince me of this desire you claim."

With everything in her, she resisted, and yet forced herself to speak the lies to him. "I want you, Marten. More than I've ever wanted any man."

He smiled again, and bent his head and nursed at her breasts, first one and then the other. Arianna placed her hands at his head fast, instinctively, her intent to push him away. But she fought her heart and won. Instead she held him to her, tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed loudly. Marten's hand caught her skirts and pulled them up high on her thigh, and higher, baring her down below, and plunging his hand between her legs. He worked her there with his hand, rubbed her hard and fast with roughened, cold fingers, as his mouth tugged and his teeth nipped at her breast. And she whispered, "Please, Marten ... please ..."

A sound, a broken gasp, gave her to know someone else had entered the great hall. Mortified, she looked up quickly. And then her soul seemed to shatter, for Nicodimus stood in the open doorway, sword in hand, eyes ... so tortured she couldn't bear it. He only stood there, staring in anguish as Marten laved her breasts and drove his hand ever deeper.

"Nicodimus, nay!" she cried. "It isna—"

Marten bit down hard, and she uttered a sound that was

a cry of pain, but she knew it would not seem so to Ni-codimus. To her husband. And even as she pulled against Marten's hands and his mouth, she saw another form—a dark, hooded form—enter behind Nicodimus. Nathanial Dearborne! She cried a warning, but too late. The Dark One moved fast, lifting a blade, and plunging it into Nicodimus's back.

He sank to his knees. With a sudden desperate push, Arianna finally jerked free of Marten's embrace, and ran to Nicodimus, falling down beside him. His eyes were already beginning to glaze over....

"Nicodimus, 'twas an act, all you saw! I vow, 'twas only a trick!"

"And a fine trick it was, Arianna," Marten called, his voice tinged with glee. ' 'Our plan to lure him here worked perfectly, wouldn't you say? You did it so perfectly. You shall be well rewarded."

Nicodimus shook his head very slightly, his fading eyes holding hers. "How ... why, Arianna ... ?" he whispered. And then the light in his eyes died out.

"Nicodimus, nay! Nay! I love you, I vow to the Gods, I do. No one else. Only you!"

But he didn't hear her. He was beyond her words now. Marten was laughing as he came forward. He said, "Your plan worked perfectly, old man. And I thank you. Now, at last, I shall have the most powerful heart in existence. And I will have vengeance on my dear brother-in-law as well."

He yanked Arianna by her hair up from where she knelt on the floor. "And for you, my little liar... Gods, you know you almost had me believing you." His fist smashed into her face, and she crumbled to the floor atop Nicodimus. Consciousness fled in a sudden rush of blackness. Gods, if only she would never have to wake again.

Chapter 15

I could not believe my eyes when I saw her in the arms of another. Not after she'd sworn to me that she would never give herself to any man but me. Not after she had spoken of her love for me so many times. And when I glanced to the side and saw that the man who held her was none other than Marten, I drew my blade. He must die! My mind screamed the command. He had stolen the hearts of innocents and fed on their power for seven long centuries. He and his brother, both determined to kill me, to have their vengeance, had murdered Joseph Lachlan, his entire family and clan. There was nothing they would not do to destroy me.

And nothing they could have done to torment me more than what Marten was doing now. Ravishing Arianna—my wife—right in front of me. My mind exploded in a blinding rage, so white hot I ignored the senses I should have been heeding. And the attack came from behind.

As I lay dying, Marten congratulated my wife on her plan having worked perfectly. I looked up into her eyes, which were wide and afraid. Her entire body trembled as she held together the gaping front of her dress and shook her head slowly from side to side.

It did not fit. The way she looked, simply did not fit with what she had done. But there was no time to ponder that, indeed, no time for anything at all. My time was over. I died as the blood drained from my body, and knew as the light faded that this would be my final death. For the bastard would have my heart this time.

Marten would have my heart... or as much of it as Ar-ianna had left for him. For truly, she had the bulk of it. I could feel it bleeding in her small, slender hands.

When Arianna regained consciousness, it was to see Marten lying dead upon the floor. And farther away, near the door, Dearborne, that frightening old man, was just straightening away from Nicodimus, a bloody, still-beating heart cradled in his palms.

She screamed her husband's name and raced forward. But the old man only backed away as she hurled herself down upon Nicodimus's bloody form. The gaping wound in his chest, the scarlet wetness staining his clothes, the utter lifelessness of his body, all of it too terrible to look upon. And there was his dagger, still clutched in his fisted hand.

"Do not be so upset, child. You're young. You'll find another," Nathanial Dearborne rasped.

Rage welled up in her. Rage and violence, and a burning lust for the killer's heart. "You tricked him," she whispered. "You and Marten. This entire scheme was created just so you could kill Nicodimus."

"How very astute of you, Arianna. Yes, indeed, I've been planning this for a very long time. I was there, you see, when the brothers learned of their sister's death, and heard the tales of their brother-in-law, whom they detested, having apparently risen from the dead on a field of battle. It was I who told them the way to gain immortality for themselves. I who showed them how they might live long enough to have their vengeance. Of course, Marten believed Nicodimus's heart would be his." He glanced at the dead man. "He had no idea I was only allowing him to do my work for me, nor that I would collect the prize for myself.

And his own heart will be my bonus in just a moment. I win," he said. "I always win."

Arianna's fingers inched forward, and she eased the blade from Nicodimus's dead hand. Then she turned her head slowly. Dearborne had placed her husband's heart in a small box, and this he dropped into a drawstring sac that hung at his waist. Then he pulled out his blade, already stained with Nicodimus's blood, and started toward the dead Marten.

"You're mistaken," Arianna whispered, straightening to her feet. "You dinna always win. You willna win today."

Dearborne stopped where he was, facing her, his silver-gray brows lifted high. Then he smiled. ' 'Child, you cannot mean to challenge me. You're barely a newborn."

"You'll nay leave this castle alive, Nathanial Dearborne," she whispered. And then she charged him.

Nathanial's eyes narrowed, but he drew his dagger to defend himself. However, he had obviously not expected so furious an attack. Arianna was driven by rage, a fury more powerful than his need for a living heart had ever been. He fought, yes. To preserve his life. She fought for the loss of her love, and there was no power stronger. Her anger seemed to surge from her in waves that sent him staggering. She had no care for her own life, and was so numb that she did not feel the blows he returned. There was nothing, nothing but rage, all of it directed at the old man.

"He died thinkin' I betrayed him," she said, panting, slashing with her blade. Tearing through the old man's robes, and his flesh more than once. "I'll ne'er have the chance to tell him the truth. An' all because of you!" She slashed again, slicing his chest clear to the bone.

Gasping, staggering backward, the old man shook his head. For the first time, Arianna saw fear in his eyes. He continued backing away until he reached a heavy chair, then he spun, snatched it up, and threw it at her.

The piece was far heavier than a man of his age should have been able to so much as lift, much less use as a weapon. She hadn't been expecting it, but should have re-

called what Nicodimus had told her about the increased strength and honed senses of immortals. The chair hit her hard, and drove her backward, smashing her into the wall. She shook herself, shoving it away and surging to her feet again, only to find Dearborne gone. He'd fled from her, leaving the door wide open on the carnage he'd left behind.

Gone. And Nicodimus's heart gone with him. So final. It was so final. Her husband was dead, and the enormity of that was more than she could bear.

A sob was wrenched from her breast as Arianna once again went to her husband. Her fault, she realized. Her fault, all of this. If only she had obeyed him, if only she had stayed safe in the Stone Circle as he'd bade her do. Oh, if only ...

But he was gone now. He had explained enough to her so that she knew this. He would not revive. His heart had been taken from him and he was lost to her now. Just as Raven, her sister was lost to her. And just as her dear parents were, as well. Arianna was alone. More alone than she had ever been.

A low moan made her turn fast. Marten! His heart had not been taken, and he moved slightly now. Slowly, he opened his mouth as if to draw a breath—and she recalled that stunning, painful first gasp she herself had drawn, upon waking from the dead.

She lunged toward him, flipping the dagger in her hand so she held the blade end, and brought the jeweled hilt crashing down on his head.

He did not move again.

He would, though. Unless ...

Biting her lower lip, she bent over Marten, and with her dead husband's blade, she sliced through the fabric he wore, baring his chest. She positioned the blade, point down, above his heart, closing both fists 'round the hilt. Grating her teeth, she closed her eyes tight, and drove the blade deep into his chest.

The body went rigid, and when her eyes flew open wide she saw the blood bubbling forth from around the embedded blade. She saw his eyes bulging, pain burning in them.

Shaking her head slowly, grimacing and trembling, she jerked the blade free of him, and rose, backing away. "I canna," she whispered. "Gods forgive me, but I canna cut a livin' heart from a man's chest!"

Marten slumped back into temporary death, as Arianna fought not to choke or faint. She couldn't do either of those things. She was immortal. A High Witch, alone in the world. She would need to be strong to survive. She would need to eliminate her weak stomach as well as her soft heart. She would make herself hard and powerful, and no foe would ever take her. No man would ever use her.

But first...

She looked at her husband once more. His face still and relaxed as if he were only sleeping. First she would see he had a proper burial. And it would be in the place he loved best.

The servants had fled. She would have to work on her own. She fetched a silken coverlet, tucked it beneath her arm and went outside to seek a horse and wagon.

She'd traveled only an hour, Nicodimus's lifeless body in the back of the wagon she drove. When she came to a stream, she stopped, and carefully, lovingly, she stripped away his torn, bloodied clothes. Then she bathed him, as much she thought, with her tears as with the cold water. As she did, her gaze fell upon the twin pendants he wore.

With trembling fingers, she lifted one of them, fingering it with sobs all but choking her. He must have found it. He'd had one like it, all along. It must be ... it must be something worn by High Witches. And he'd donned hers ... almost as if he'd cared for her after all...

Aye, and he must have, or he wouldn't have come for her. Died trying to save her from Marten. But she'd made him hate her in the end.

Swallowing her tears, she lifted one of the two pendants from his neck—the one that seemed older, more dulled with age, for it was his—and lowered its chain over her own head. She pressed a kiss to it, and then to her own pendant, which she left upon the body of her beloved.

"Remember me, Nicodimus, wherever you are. And perhaps ... someday ... forgive what I did here this day. For I love you. I love you still."

Tears rolling fresh down her face, she continued bathing her husband's violated body.

When he lay clean and glistening with droplets, she wrapped his body in the silken coverlet she'd taken. It was a deep blue. A fitting shade, she thought vaguely. A sad color.

When all was finished, she reached for the wagon to pull herself once again into the seat.

"Arianna!"

She turned fast, finally realizing she was not alone, and saw Nidaba thundering toward her on a horse.

"I've just come from Kenwick!" she shouted as the mount slid to a hasty stop and Nidaba leapt to the ground. "There was blood everywhere, and no more than a quivering servant to be found. Gods, what happened there?''

Arianna opened her mouth to speak, but found the words would not come. Nidaba gripped her shoulders, shook her. ' 'We were coming for you, Nic and I. He kept ordering me to stay behind, but I refused. Then he slipped away last night while I slept. Damn him for being so protective! He knows full well that I—" She stopped there as her gaze fell upon the silk-wrapped body in the back of the wagon. She fell silent, searching Arianna's face. "Oh, Gods no. Tell me it is not him," she begged.

When Arianna still said nothing, Nidaba rushed to the wagon, and pulled the silk away from Nicodimus's face. "Oh, no," Nidaba whispered, her voice gone soft and coarse. "Oh, please, no ..."

"I am sorry, Nidaba. 'Twas my fault, truly. Marten... and this other immortal, Dearborne, they set a trap for Nicodimus. An' it worked, just the way they both intended it would. I... I..."

"You cost him his life! Damn you, Arianna!"

Arianna lowered her head, unable to deny the charge. "If I could exchange my life for his, I would gladly do it," she whispered.

Nidaba stepped away from the wagon, and stood facing Arianna. "I ought to kill you myself," she whispered. Her entire body quivered with rage, her face was snow white and her dark eyes gleamed.

"If you wish," Arianna said softly. "I'll nay fight for my life. I ask only that you finish what I've begun. Bury him, Nidaba, at the Stone Circle he so loved. An' if you've a hint of mercy in you for me, you'll lay me to rest beside him there. For I loved him. I love him still."

"You loved him so much you let him die for you," she seethed. "The one servant I found blubbered that Nic had burst through the doors to find you in Marten's arms. Marten, the man who hated Nicodimus above all others! What were you doing with him if you loved your husband so, Arianna?''

Her shoulders slumped, Arianna whispered, "I was bargaining for my freedom. Like any common whore." Hands trembling, she took the blade she now carried at her side, and held it out to Nidaba. "Use Nicodimus's dagger," she said softly. "'Twill be fittin', dinna you think?"

Snatching the blade away, Nidaba growled fiercely, and finally lifted it high above her head, and drove it downward, toward Arianna's chest. Arianna stood motionless, awaiting the blow. But it never came. The blade sank instead, into the wooden side of the wagon just behind her. ' 'Stay clear of me, Arianna Sinclair," she whispered. "Stay clear of me, for if I see you again, I will kill you!"

Spinning away from her, Nidaba took a step toward her horse, only to fall to her knees. For a long time she remained there, sobbing so hard she scarcely breathed except to mutter "Nicodimus" over and over again, brokenly. She shook all over, and her cries grew louder all the while. Until finally, they abated, and she went utterly silent. It was as if there were nothing left inside her.

"The man who killed my Nic," she said at last, "You said his name was Dearborne?"

"Aye, Nathanial Dearborne."

Nidaba nodded. ' 'The same who wanted me brought here as his captive for some sick reason. Well he shall have me

then. He shall have me and rue the day he harmed my beloved Nicodimus!"

She lunged to her feet, mounted her horse and rode away at a murderous gallop.

Arianna felt no relief that Nidaba had left her still alive. It would have been easier had the woman simply ended it. Her limbs heavy, like lead weights, she tugged Nicodimus's dagger from the wood. Then dragged herself into the seat to continue the journey.

She buried Nicodimus in the center of the ancient Stone Circle near the place that had once been her home. She covered his beloved, silk-wrapped body with earth. Then she sat upon his grave, drew his dagger, and grasping a handful of her long, golden hair, began sawing. Lock upon lock fell to the ground around her. And tears upon tears fell with them.

Eventually, she left that place. Left Scotland. Left all she'd known, and began her new life as an immortal High Witch. For the first time, she understood the pain Nicodimus had known so long ago, when he, too, had lost all those he'd loved, only to find that he must live on. No wonder he had been unable to love her. Unwilling to risk his heart that way. She understood now. She knew that she would never love again, either. But for far different reasons.

Oh, she feared the pain, the loss, just as Nicodimus had. She feared it. But it wouldn't matter if she feared it or not. She was incapable of loving another as she had loved her Nicodimus ... as she still loved him.

One day, she vowed, she would find Nathanial Dear-borne again, and make him pay for what he had done. And one day, perhaps, if her long ago spell had worked, she would find her beloved sister again, as well. That dim hope was the one thing that gave her the strength to keep going.

Until then, she had nothing to do, except prepare. She would learn. To fight, to kill... to survive.

Part Two

Chapter 16

Arianna spent almost two hundred years alone. More utterly alone, she thought, than the last star to fade in the morning. And in that time, she nursed a hatred for Nathanial Dear-borne and for Marten, that rivaled the sun for its blazing fury. She didn't see Nidaba in all that time, and didn't search for her. The woman hated her with good reason. Besides, seeing her would only be a painful reminder of Nicodimus and the brief, sweet time Arianna had spent with him. In his arms. Loving him, even though he couldn't return her feelings.

But that was history. She was no longer a seventeen-year-old girl in love. She was different now. She didn't look the same; she'd kept her hair short and liked it that way. Though perhaps if she looked very deeply, she would find somewhere inside, buried in the deepest part of her being, the notion that she left her hair short in memory of Nicodimus. In some kind of meaningless penance for the long ago mistakes that had cost him his heart.

She didn't sound the same. The lilt of the highlands had long since faded from her voice. She was hard, solitary, and she spent every moment she could honing her skills with a blade. She fought. She killed. She survived, with

one thought foremost in her mind. Someday she would cross paths with Dearborne and Marten again. And when that day came, she would kill them for what they had done.

But almost two centuries after Nicodimus's brutal murder, something happened that softened Arianna's rocklike soul, and restored a sense of joy to her existence; in the summer of 1691, she found her sister. Raven at long last, lived again. Arianna's long ago spell had been true. Raven looked the same, bore the same name, and Arianna recognized her at once. And even though Raven didn't know who Arianna was at first, there had been an immediate connection, and a slow rebuilding of the bond they'd once shared. For over three centuries, they remained together almost continuously.

And then, a year ago, in 1998, another figure from the distant past had reappeared in Arianna's life. Nathanial Dearborne. He'd been determined to kill Raven, to take her heart for his own. He'd hated her for capturing the love of the man he'd thought of as his son. He blamed Raven for turning Duncan against him, and sought vengeance. But he hadn't counted on Arianna's presence, nor her intervention. Deaborne's attempt on Raven thwarted, he had run back to his rooms to gather his belongings and flee Arianna's wrath.... At last, her chance to avenge Nicodimus had come....

Arianna walked into the room while Nathanial Dearborne gathered up the tiny wooden boxes, all of them filled with stolen, still beating hearts. The sources of his strength, his very life. For a moment she only stood in the doorway, watching him as he packed the hearts in a case, and began reaching for the volumes of journals that lined the shelves. It amazed her that her hatred for him could still be so strong, after four hundred eighty-seven years ... for that was precisely how long it had been since she'd seen the bastard plunge his blade into Nicodimus's back.

Arianna drew a breath, and stilling her emotions, began to speak."You took the man I loved," she all but growled. "And I'll kill you for it."

Dearborne froze, then turned slowly to face her. And Arianna knew he feared her. She'd nearly bested him when she'd been but a fledgling immortal, after all. He had to know she could kill him easily now. He'd always known. It was why he'd been so carefully avoiding her for so very long. She could see it in his eyes.

"Don't be so certain, Arianna," he said to her slowly. "I was unprepared for you before. But never again will I underestimate the power of hatred."

"It wasn't the power of hatred, Nathanial. It was the power of love." He took a step forward, but she moved to block the door fully. She stood there with her legs shoulder width apart, knuckles on her hips, chin high. "Hatred has no power. The power that nearly killed you then was the power of love. My love for one of the many you murdered. And it's that same power that will destroy you now."

He took a step backward, setting his packed case on the floor to free his hands. She watched his every move, ready to react. "Which one was he, this victim of mine? It's been so long... I can scarcely remember them all. Was he the barbaric Celtic warlord? The Mayan Shaman?" He shrugged. ' 'Not that it matters. They all died on their knees, begging for mercy."

"I can hardly wait to see how you do," she said, and drew her dagger, held it lightly, tossed it from one hand to the other. "But to remind you, his name was Nicodimus, and he died with the blade of a coward in his back. And you remember him perfectly well. I know you do."

His Adam's apple moved as he swallowed his fear—or tried to. "Will you kill me unarmed, Arianna, or give me a chance to draw my blade?'' His hand inched toward the leather pocket at his side.

She narrowed her eyes. "I'll kill you in a fair fight or not at all," she told him. "Go on."

He drew the weapon from its sheath. Not his dagger, but she didn't see in time. Dearborne pulled out a handgun, and even as Arianna gasped and tried to dart out of its line of fire, he leveled the barrel and pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit Arianna in the chest like a freight train,

driving her backward through the open doorway, and into the hall. The pain exploded even as the floor fell away, and she realized she was tumbling head over heels down the stairs. Her body crashed and pounded, twisted and turned, and when she came to a stop at last, her limbs were bent beneath her, broken, and she knew the healing wouldn't have time to take place, because Dearborne wouldn't let it.

It was over. She had failed ... failed Nicodimus. Again.

She opened her eyes and saw the evil bastard standing over her. "It's a shame you prefer a fair fight," he said. He crouched low, tore open her blouse and she could do nothing to prevent it. "I prefer a sure win, myself." And then she felt the fiery tip of his blade slicing her flesh.

"Raven ... will kill you for this ..." The thought of her sister's grief was nearly as painful as the rest.

"Oh, I'm sure she will try." Dearborne tilted his head thoughtfully. "Do you ever wonder about the bodies of slain immortals, Arianna? They die, but don't really. They remain ever new, ever young. Do you suppose their minds are still alive, as well? Do you suppose they know they've been buried alive?"

She did wonder, had wondered endlessly, ever since Nicodimus had been taken from her. But she had no more time to wonder, because Dearborne chose that moment to drive his blade into her chest to the hilt. Arianna's mind exploded in a screaming blast of agony... and then she descended into blackness.

But it was a blackness that faded.

The next thing Arianna felt was the jolt that seemed so much like electrocution. Her back arched sharply as she sucked new breath into her lungs. And as she relaxed and blinked her eyes open, it was to see her beloved sister staring down into her eyes. Fear and shock raged inside, and Arianna clutched at her chest, which throbbed and tingled. "How ... how did you ... what... ?"

Raven stroked her hair. "It's over, Arianna. You're all right." She smiled through her tears. "You're really all right."

Raven hugged her close, but Arianna couldn't stop her

own violent trembling. "B-but... he took my heart."

"I know, I know, darling. But now I've taken his. And yours . . . yours beats still, back inside you where it belongs."

"But—"

She was interrupted then, by Duncan, her sister's lover, the man who'd once thought of Dearborne as a father. "It was Nathanial," he said. "He seemed to want to clear his conscience before he died. So he told me how to bring you back."

"But how could he know that?" Arianna asked, amazed. "I didn't even know that such a thing was possible, and..." She blinked then, as the magnitude of what this meant hit her fully. "He has other hearts here."

"Well, yes," Raven said. "Weak ones, nearly lifeless, some of them, but—"

"Don't you see?" Arianna sat up slightly, grasping her sister's shoulders. "My Goddess, Raven, don't you see what this means?"

Raven hadn't seen. Not fully. Not then. But Arianna had. She'd taken all those captive hearts, knowing that one of them, one precious heart, belonged to Nicodimus. And if there was a chance in creation that she could return it to him, restore him as she had been restored ... she had to try.

She'd taken Dearborne's journals as well, pored over them. And what she found in them horrified her. The man had considered himself some kind of scientist. He'd taken other immortals captive, kept them and experimented on them to find their strengths, their weaknesses, all with the intent of becoming the strongest of them all. He had killed and revived his victims time and again, observing the effects, making notes. He had taken hearts, and returned them, just to see what the results would be. His notes made mention of one "subject" in particular. One he called only "the dark woman," whom he'd tormented longer than any other, before she had finally escaped him. Dearborne had written that this woman had been the oldest High Witch

he'd ever known, and that even her strong mind had begun to flirt with madness, in time. He had intended to kill her once and for all when he'd finished with her, but she'd managed to break free before he'd done so. As she read those words, Arianna thought of Nidaba. The last time Ar-ianna had seen the woman, she had been going after Dear-borne.

Gods, could this victim have been Nidaba? That strong, proud immortal Arianna had admired—and envied—so greatly?

Arianna, Duncan and Raven, had bumed Dearborne's body. But before incinerating his heart, she'd performed an incantation over it, willing all its stolen power to return to the captive hearts where it belonged.

Once that was done, Arianna left her sister behind to begin the longest journey of her life. Armed with the six captive hearts, all beating strongly now in their little boxes, and the reams of information recorded in the journals of a madman, she set out to locate the bodies of Dearborne's victims, and to try to restore them to life.

But the first one... the very first heart she returned to its rightful home ... would be that of Nicodimus. The man she had loved and lost. The man who believed she had betrayed him. The man ... who had been her husband.

Chapter 17

Stonehaven, Scotland Autumnal Equinox, 1999

Arianna stood upon the hill overlooking Stonehaven. It was rebuilt, isolated—backward by modern standards, space-aged in comparison to the way she remembered it. The ship had seemed to take forever to cross the Atlantic, and though she'd been impatient, there had been no other way. She certainly couldn't have boarded an airliner with six human hearts beating in her carry-on bag.

In her hands she held the small wooden box that contained the heart of Nicodimus Lachlan. Its beat had been weak, barely there, until she'd cast the spell to return all Dearbome's stolen power to its rightful owners. Now it beat strong and steady. And now she would try what her onetime husband had told her no Witch could do.

She would try to raise the dead.

The wind blew, riffling her short hair, brushing her cheeks with the scent of heather and the sea. Midnight now. The Witching Hour children spoke of in whispers on All Hallows' Eves. She walked slowly into the woods, leaving her vehicle, a small Jeep, parked nearby. A heavy backpack hung from her shoulders, and the jugs of rainwater sus-

pended from either side of it bounced against her hips, and made it even heavier. But she had grown strong in four centuries of immortality. The weight was no burden to a High Witch as old as she. Deeper and deeper into the woods she trekked, until she located the site where the sacred Stone Circle had once towered.

Those monoliths were tumbled down now. A few remained upright, leaning drunkenly inward. Some lay flat and broken, large chunks missing, ruined by time or over-zealous tourists who stumbled upon the circle and thought to take some of its magic home with them. Sacred souvenirs. The place was overgrown by vines and brambles. Few even knew it existed.

Arianna paused at the very center of the circle, where she had buried Nicodimus. Closing her eyes, she remembered him as he had been, and in turn, herself as she had been. She was not the same anymore. There was, she mused, a large difference between a girl of seventeen and a woman who had existed for centuries. But one thing remained the same. Her guilt. She blamed herself for Nicodimus's death just as surely as he had blamed her for it while the life drained away from him. And what she did now, she did to right the wrong she had done him. And for no other reason.

"You likely won't even know me now, Nicodimus," she murmured. According to Dearborne's hideous journals, others had been revived. Some right away, some more slowly, but all to varying degrees of confusion. And they had been relatively recent kills of his. The madman had noted that the longer he allowed an immortal to remain in death, the more disoriented they were upon their resurrections. Arianna herself had been dead only moments when she'd been revivified.

But Nicodimus ...

Nicodimus had been lying in this dark mockery of death for centuries.

Even without that, he might not recognize her. Her once long golden hair was cropped short now. Her voice no

longer carried the lilt of Scotland, and every shred of innocence had been burned from her eyes.

She no longer vomited at the thought of taking a heart. Indeed, she'd taken many. Quickly, coldly, and without remorse. For it was the way of things. She had come to learn that very early on in her new life.

Above all else in Arianna's mind, was the knowledge that if Nicodimus did somehow know her, and remember her, he would likely hate her for what she had done. His last glimpse of her had been in the arms of his darkest enemy. The man who'd hunted him all his life, and from whom he had come to rescue her. And he had died because of it.

"It doesn't matter," she told herself again. She had been telling herself the same things over and over all night as she'd made her preparations. "It doesn't matter. I'm righting a wrong. It isn't as if I still love him. It's been centuries. And that love belonged to an innocent girl—a girl who died along with her family back in that tiny cottage on that darkest of days. A girl... who no longer exists."

With a sigh of resignation, refusing to acknowledge the slight trill of anticipation singing through her veins and making her hands tremble, she set the box with its precious contents down, and shrugged off the large backpack. She set the water jugs aside, quickly loosing the knots that held them. Then, unzipping the pack, she took out the foldable shovel, the flashlight, the four white candles, and the soft, down-filled sleeping bag.

The moon sailed high, and the night breeze made the trees 'round her seem to whisper. Trees sacred to long ago Druids. Oaks, tall and mighty, so old they'd seen entire races come and go. These very trees had been in attendance at Nicodimus's burial. It was fitting they look on now, at this, his restoration.

Her hands still shaking, Arianna began to dig.

She hadn't buried him deeply. Her preternatural strength had only begun to manifest then, and besides, she'd been emotionally and physically drained. So firmly entrenched in her misery, she'd barely been able to hold her head up,

much less dig a proper grave. But she had made it deep enough so that Nicodimus would be safe. No animals would have reached his perfectly preserved body.

She pushed the blade in with a foot, scooped out mounds of soil and flung it behind her. Over and over she did this, never tiring in the least. As the hole deepened and widened, she dug more carefully, inserting the shovel with great care, feeling for his body lying helpless, lifeless beneath the black earth. Her heart pounded harder with every bit of dirt she removed—but not from the exertion.

Finally she glimpsed a rotted scrap of deep blue satin. Her breath caught in her throat, and she fell to her knees, picking it up carefully, shaking the dirt away and then running her fingers over the fabric. "Nicodimus," she whispered.

Using her hands, now, she clawed more soil away, and finally saw one large hand, icy cold and so ... so very still. Coated in dirt, damp with it. A sob escaped her as she brushed the dirt away. She dug faster, frantically now, scraping the dirt away from his forearm, then upper arm, and shoulder ... until at last, she uncovered his face.

Earth was caked upon his skin, but she whisked it away. Soil had crumbled into the creases around his closed eyes... Gods, how she wanted to see them open again! She continued working, refusing to give in to the foolish urge to just sit and stare at him. She could not be discovered here. How would she ever explain herself? No, she must work quickly, and put her emotions aside. Close them off. Refuse to feel. It was easier than it might have been once. She had been practicing this very thing for a long time, after all.

When his body was free of its earthen tomb, she paused briefly, brushing the soil from her hands and staring down at him. He lay motionless, in some kind of suspended state. Neither alive, nor fully dead. Bathed in moonlight at the bottom of an uncovered grave, caked in earth. Naked, except for the few scraps of satin that remained. And the pendant—her pendant.

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of it lying

there, and it was as if the centuries, the very ages, melted away. The pain of losing him was as fresh and new in her heart as it had been on that day.

And yet, it had been so long. It had been so long since she'd looked at this man. Since she'd touched him.

Stop it!

Closing her eyes briefly, Arianna put a mental stronghold on her heart, and listened only to her mind. The practical voice telling her, step by step, what must be done. She had planned this all carefully. She knew what to do, how to proceed.

She went to the sleeping bag, unzipping it and laying it open, just to the left of the grave. Then she moved around to stand near Nicodimus's head, her feet in the grave on either side of it. Bending low, she gripped him underneath the arms, and tugged him out of the hole, onto the damp, mossy ground. The wound in his chest lay open, gaping, and filled with soil and stones, but no insects, thankfully. Evidently the insects had sensed this was no ordinary body to be feasted upon, and had stayed away. As she scooped the dirt and stones away, she wondered what Nicodimus felt, if anything, what he thought—if thoughts were still something of which he was capable. What he remembered ... or would remember when he revived.

If he revived.

Over four hundred years. Gods, even Dearbome had never attempted to raise an immortal this long dead.

"It will work," she whispered, squaring her shoulders. "It has to work."

Arianna set the white candles around him, and lit them, one by one. Then she dug into the very bottom of the backpack for the large bowl and the clean cloths she'd brought along. Kneeling beside Nicodimus, she poured water from one of the jugs into the bowl, dipped a cloth, and held it, dripping, above his face. She squeezed gently, and the water trickled over him. Soil streamed away in dirty rivulets. Bending closer, she began to wash him.

Like history repeating itself, she thought, and the memories came vividly. Memories of the last time she'd washed

his lifeless body this way ... at a stream as she'd carried him back here to be buried.

Just like last time, tears mingled with the water. When the first one dropped from her face to his, it startled her. She stopped what she was doing, sat up straight, and touched her own cheek, only to find it damp. "You're a fool, Arianna. A hopeless fool," she told herself.

She bathed Nicodimus's face, and his neck. She washed his hands, gently working the soil away from each strong finger and from the creases in between. His arms and his chest, she cleansed. No movement came from him. No life. She spent a great deal of time on the wound in his chest, the place where his heart would rest once again, when she had finished. One entire jug of the fresh rainwater she had brought went to this purpose. She rinsed the gaping place again and again, and shone the flashlight upon the open wound, to be sure it was perfectly clean.

Then she moved lower, washing his strong thighs, and the place in between. His calves, and his feet. She rolled him over, and cleansed the ages of soil from his back and buttocks. And with the remaining water, she rinsed his hair, running her fingers through it to scrub the dirt away.

Finally, all was ready. All that remained was to replace his mighty heart. Arianna paused to brush a lock of gold and russet hair from his forehead. ' 'Come back to me, Ni-codimus. Fight your way back, if you must... but come back."

Closing her eyes, drawing a deep, steadying breath, she reached for the box with trembling hands. It was small, intricately etched with symbols and designs. Engraved upon the lid of each of Dearborne's tiny prisons was a single letter. She could only guess, only hope, that the N on this one stood for the initial of its rightful owner. Nicodimus.

Carefully, she lifted the lid, and gathered the heart in her hands. Lifting it high, tipping her face up to the moonlight, she held it, and it seemed to Arianna that its beat grew stronger as she spoke. "By the powers of the Ancient Ones, by every force of the Universe, I restore this heart. I revive

this body. I resurrect this man. Nicodimus, I call you forth. Return to life. Live, Nicodimus. Live. Live!!''

Slowly, she lowered the heart into his body, positioned it carefully, and took her hands away. "As I will it, so mote it be," she whispered.

She sat back on her heels and waited, watching. She stared until her eyes watered, willing his chest to heal, his body to accept and embrace its heart. But nothing happened.

Tears once again stood in her eyes, but she angrily blinked them away. "It might take time," she reminded herself. "That's all. Just time." Nodding hard in affirmation of that belief, she gently eased Nicodimus's body onto the waiting sleeping bag, and folding it over him, zipped it up. One by one she snuffed the candles, and packed them away. She attached the empty jugs to the sides of the backpack. She scraped the earth back into the empty grave, and the bits of rotted silk along with it. Then she folded the shovel and put that in the pack, as well. She packed the basin, the soiled cloths, the flashlight. All that remained was a length of rope. This she tied to the sleeping bag at either side of Nicodimus's head, then looped the rope around her waist, and set off.

The journey back to her Jeep seemed endless. His weight behind her seemed to increase with every step, and even with her tremendous immortal strength, she grew tired. Not physically so much as mentally. She wanted the journey over. She wanted him safe inside, out of sight. At last her vehicle came into view, just as the first blush of purplish predawn light painted the horizon.

Nicodimus was heavy, even for one with her power and strength. But not too heavy. She wrested his body into the car, closed the rear door, and leaned against it for a moment, sighing in relief. It was done. Or all but done.

But would it work? Would he awaken?

And if he did ... what then?

With a sigh of resolution, she vowed to deal with that when the time came. Climbing behind the wheel, she started the engine, and drove over the rutted track and down

into the village of Stonehaven; to the cottage that sat on the site of her onetime home. The place where she'd been born. Where she'd lived. Where she'd found her parents brutally murdered.

She had returned here several times over the centuries. Drawn back like a moth to the candle's flame. She had come back to the memories; the pain, the hurt, the loss. As if testing her resolve to feel none of it anymore. She had purchased the lot on one of those many visits, and had a modest home built there. She rarely visited it anymore— simply paid a local resident to see that the place was cared for, kept up. But somehow, she couldn't seem to let it go. It was as if that place were her one remaining connection to the mortal, headstrong girl she had been, and the happiness she had once known. It was as if selling it would be cutting herself off at the very root.

The house was a simple, two-story structure, with clapboard siding painted white, and black shutters at the windows. Closed now, those shutters. All of them. It wouldn't do to have anyone peering in just now. The house had two bedrooms and a bath upstairs, and one below, in the back. That would be Nicodimus's home ... for now.

She peered again at the paling horizon as she shut off the engine. She'd best hurry and get him inside before the villagers began to wake. Quickly, she moved to the rear of the Jeep, opened it, and tugged him out. She paused only long enough to shut the doors, then dragged him quickly over the flagstone walk to the house. His body bumped up the three front steps to the door, and she opened it and pulled him through. With a surge of relief, she closed the front door, and turned the lock.

"Almost done," she whispered. "Perhaps it's good you're taking your time about waking, Nicodimus. I doubt you'd like being dragged around by a female."

She peered down at his pale face, but saw no change. Trying hard to keep disappointment from consuming her, she dragged his body across the living room floor, and through the door at the back, into the bedroom there.

She let him lay on the floor alongside the bed, while she

hurried back to close and lock the bedroom door, just in case. And finally, she tugged back the covers, opened the sleeping bag, and with no small effort, maneuvered his limp form into the bed. Only then did she look again at the wound in his chest, eager to make sure his mighty heart hadn't been jostled out of place. It hadn't. It remained precisely as she had placed it. Was there more color to the pale, steadily beating heart than before? Was the tissue around it pinker? Or was it only wishful thinking?

No way to tell. Patience, she must have patience.

Drawing the covers over him, tucking them gently around him, Arianna finally slumped into the chair beside his bed, where she would wait... for as long as it took. Much like a funereal vigil, she thought. Only ... in reverse. hi times of old the bereaved would sit up the night through with the recently deceased corpse, the idea being to remain until the soul had surely left the body.

Arianna's strange vigil... was the wait for Nicodimus's soul to return. If indeed, it had ever been gone.

The silence of the room seemed to expand as she sat there. Until she could hear the beating of her own heart, and his, and no other sound.

Arianna drew Nicodimus's hand into her own and held it. The hours passed slowly, endlessly, and after more of them than she cared to count, she lost her battle with exhaustion and closed her eyes as sleep crept in to pull her under.

I emerged from a state of nothing, to a state of everything. Every part of my body burned. Every bit of my skin sizzled. My head felt as if a spike had been driven through my skull, and my chest, as if it were about to burst. The gasp I dragged in was noisy and painful. And then, just as suddenly, I went limp. Weak. Terrifyingly weak.

I opened my eyes.

A woman rose to her feet from where she'd been sitting in a chair beside the odd bed in which I lay. A beautiful woman. Her hair was cut oddly short, but golden in hue, and her eyes were as wide as all the world, and brown as

a doe's. She clutched my hand in hers. And I felt it. I... I felt hi

"Nicodimus," she whispered. And one trembling, very warm hand touched my face. I thought I glimpsed teardrops dampening her eyes, but she blinked those away quickly enough, and leaned closer. "Nicodimus," she said again. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes." My lips formed the word, but the only sound that emerged was a rasp of air. I closed my eyes in frustration. The name she called me by—Nicodimus—yes, it was familiar to me. But my mind seemed lost in a fog I could not explain, and that my own name would seem so strange startled me. Who was I?

A coolness touched my lips, whilst a soft, strong hand lifted my head. A drinking vessel, made of glass and filled with water. I sipped from it, then drank deeply, closing my eyes once more. The liquid felt good on my parched throat. So good.

When the water was gone, the woman lowered my head again to the softness that pillowed me, and set the vessel aside. "How do you feel?" she asked me.

I had to think on that for a moment, for so many feelings were coursing through my body that it was an effort to identify any one in particular. "Weak," I finally answered. "Heavy. My head ..." I tried to lift a hand to press to my temple, where a dull throbbing sensation lived, but found my hand barely moved. It rose slightly only to fall again, limp and useless at my side. I believe my eyes widened in alarm.

"It's all right, Nicodimus." She took my hand again in hers, and lifted my arm, bending it at the elbow, then lowering it again, bending, then lowering. Over and over. Then she began moving my fingers one by one. Her touch as gentle as a caress. And slowly, more sensation returned to the arm, the hand, though the rush of it was tingling and intense to such an extreme that it made me grimace. She then moved to the other side, manipulating that arm, that hand. By the time she finished, I found I could indeed

move. Slowly, weakly, but my limbs were at least functioning now.

She moved lower, to my legs, tugging the covers aside, and as I lifted my head with great effort to glance down at her as she worked them, I saw that I was naked.

"Lady," I whispered, in a voice so choked and raw it was unfamiliar to me. "You might at least leave me covered."

She met my gaze and smiled very slightly. "I've never known you to be shy before, Nicodimus." But she tugged the covers over me from the lower part of my waist to the upper part of my thighs.

She knew me, this woman. That smile had triggered a reaction in my mind, but it was a reaction so fleeting I could not identify it.

"Who are you?" I whispered. "What has happened to me that I am so weak?"

She'd been massaging my feet, wriggling my toes, drawing the feeling back into me as if by magick. But she paused at my question, looking up slowly this time, her smile gone. "You don't remember me then? Or anything that has happened to you?"

Staring into the huge velvety wells of her eyes, I searched my mind, but found nothing. I shook my head slowly.

"Try, Nicodimus. Try to remember."

I closed my eyes, strained to find the information in my brain, but to no avail. "I am sorry. I cannot."

She nodded slowly, returning to her station at my side. "Would you like to try sitting up?" she asked.

I nodded, and her warm hands slid underneath me. She eased me upward, into a sitting position, but dizziness spun my brain in circles, and this time I did press my hands to my head.

"It will pass," she whispered, still holding me. "Easy. Take it easy."

I clung to her voice as if to a lifeline. And knew I would have tilted right off the bed had her hands not been my support. But in a few moments, the rush of dizziness

passed. I lowered my hands, lifted my head tentatively, and opened my eyes. Yes. It was gone now.

But her hands remained at my shoulders.

"I... It is better now. Gods, what ails me?"

She drew a breath, and I sought her face. Small, with an elfin, turned up nose, and wide full lips. Eyes wide set and almond shaped, cheekbones high and sculpted. And yet she did not answer me. And it occurred to me then that she was very oddly dressed.

"It would be better," she said softly, "if you could remember on your own."

I frowned at her. "Then you'll tell me nothing?"

"I'll help you to remember, Nicodimus."

"Then do so, woman! I did not even recall my own name until you spoke it to me!"

"Calm down." Her hands on my shoulders moved higher, to the tops of them, and began a smooth, rhythmic motion of pressing and easing and moving in circles. It sent the breath rushing out of me, made me to bend my head forward. Her touch ... it felt good. Soothing.

"Look at your right flank," she told me, still rubbing. Her hands slid behind me now, her thumbs pressing against the base of my neck, then lower as she rubbed the unbearable aching from my back.

I looked where she told me and saw the birthmark I bore. The berry-colored mark of the crescent moon. Something sparked like a near-dead ember in my mind.

"We all bear a similar mark, Nicodimus. I bear one just like yours. Now, look at the pentacle you wear around your neck."

Lowering my chin, I did. A pendant, with a quarter moon on one curve of the circle that surrounded it, and a woman—a Goddess—reclining there.

I lifted my head, and eyed the strange woman's neck. She wore a pendant just like mine.

"What are you, Nicodimus?" she asked me very gently, those eyes probing mine.

"I... I am a Witch." The words rolled off my tongue without forethought. "I am an immortal High Witch."

She nodded. "Yes. As am I. You see? It's coming back to you." Her voice was so soft, so encouraging to me. "Now, tell me, if you're immortal, how can you die?"

I frowned, searching the murky, blackwater depths of my mind. "I... my heart. I can only die if a Dark One takes my ..." Alarm flashed in my mind then, and I found myself instinctively reaching to my side, for what, I did not know. A weapon. Yes, a dagger.

"It's all right. I am not a Dark Witch, but a Light One. Do you know how to tell the difference?"

Eyeing her warily, I nodded. "The crescent appears on the right flank in the Light, the left in the Dark."

Nodding slowly, she reached down to the odd fastening of the breeches she wore. Blue, they were, and of sturdy make. Yet they hugged her body obscenely close. The fastener slid lower, an ingenious device with teeth of metal, and she pushed the breeches down, revealing a scrap of shiny, flimsy material underneath. A minuscule pantlet that covered her perfectly rounded backside, and concealed her woman's charms from me, though not by any great degree. Turning, she showed me the mark on her right flank. Then turning again, she revealed the left, as smooth and flawless as satin.

"You see?"

I blinked, but could not take my gaze from her body. "Yes. I see."

She pulled the breeches up again, fastening them. No modesty, I thought. Not in this female.

"Someone took your precious heart, Nicodimus," she told me slowly. "A Dark Witch. I found him. He's dead now. And in his home were countless journals filled with secrets of our kind, which he spent centuries compiling. From him, I learned that it is possible to restore the life to one who has been killed in this way. By retrieving the heart, restoring its power, and replacing it in the body of its owner."

As she spoke, she pressed her palm to my chest.

"I.. .I was dead?"

"As good as dead, yes," she whispered. "But now you are alive."

I was not certain I believed this far-fetched tale she told. And yet, were it true, I owed her a great debt. Far greater than I would ever be able to repay. "I... Thank you." I shook my head. "You are a stranger to me. I do not even know your name, and yet you did this for me?"

Her smile wavered. "I'm not a stranger to you, Nicodimus. We knew each other once. But you'll remember, in time. My name is Arianna."

"Arianna," I whispered. "Arianna." There was something about the name, but my mind refused to tell me what. I gave my head a shake, frustration eating at my gut. ' 'Tell me, Arianna. Have you performed this feat before, on others? This raising of slain immortals from their graves?"

She held my gaze, shook her head. "You are the first. But that other one, he had done it many times."

"And were those he restored this confused, this weak and dizzy, when they awakened?"

She averted her gaze from mine as she spoke. "All awoke confused and weakened. Some to greater degrees than others. But it passed, Nicodimus, in each of them. And I'm confident it will in you as well."

"Yes, but when?"

Her hand, trembling slightly, stroked my hair. ' 'I cannot say when. Be patient, Nicodimus." She offered me a smile that was meant to comfort and reassure. "Come, try to stand. See if you can walk at all."

I was hesitant, but I turned obediently when she pulled me to the side, and my legs dangled over the edge of the bed. Then she came to stand in front of me, wedging her thighs between mine to get closer to me. Her arms slid beneath mine, and around to my back. "Now slide toward me," she instructed.

I did so, wondering at her lack of shyness in pressing her body against that of a near-naked man. I felt a stirring of awareness in my loins, but my body did not respond in any physical way. No hardening took place. And what I felt was, I sensed, but a faint shadow of true desire. Not because she was less than desirable. She was very desirable.

My mind knew that. My body simply seemed slow in acknowledging or reacting to the information.

My feet touched the cool floor beside hers, and my body straightened slowly upright. She held my chest tight against her, waiting, as I tried to get my balance and test my legs to see if they would support my weight.

I was shocked at how much effort this cost me. How weak-kneed I felt. Yet I managed to stand. She moved to stand beside me, rather than in front of me, all without letting go, but the change in her position caused the cover she'd placed over my body to fall away.

She ignored that. And I decided if she were not offended, I would not worry over something so insignificant as modesty. It was, I knew, the least of my troubles just now.

She slipped an arm around my waist, holding me hard against her, and then she began to move, very slowly. "Just once around the room, for now," she said. "Then you can rest until your strength returns."

My feet did not move from the floor, but rather slid along it with each step she took. The floor covering was odd. Thicker than any tapestry or floor covering I'd ever seen, and soft, but not like any fur I'd known. It was no more than ten paces to the doorway at the end of the room, and yet by the time we reached it, I was drained and struggling to remain upright. To my shame, I was leaning upon the slight woman far more heavily than she should be able to bear.

But immortals grow stronger, their senses more acute, with each passing year.

The voice of my mind whispered this information to me. I realized it was true, and that the knowledge I had once possessed was still within me, awaiting recovery. It reassured me a great deal.

Arianna paused at the closed door, turned me carefully, and then waited, giving me time to rest before starting back to the bed.

It gave me a moment to examine the room. I saw the bed. A large affair finer than any I had ever seen. The wood seemed like oak, but it gleamed with a luster unknown to

me. A shine so bright it reflected the light of the oil lamp on the table beside it. The table, too, shone like glass, though it again was wood. There was a window at one end, but its curtains were drawn tight, affording not one glimpse of the world without.

We walked back to the bed, and Arianna used one hand to pull the covers back out of the way. Soft quilts, but different from those I'd known. And crisp white linens underneath, spotlessly clean. She eased me onto the bed, and I lay back gratefully. But was shocked anew at the plush-ness of the plump pillows, and the way the mattress seemed to cradle me like a cloud. Surely these were not stuffed with straw. No, they definitely smelled different. Their scent was one that seemed new and clean, and yet foreign to me all the same. She must be, I mused, a very wealthy woman, to afford such luxury. And yet, this place did not appear to be a castle. The room was small, its ceilings low. Still, it was far finer than any cottage I had seen. Far finer.

Arianna tugged the covers over me. "I'll bring food," she said. "You need to eat and drink a great deal in these first hours. It will help get rid of the lingering weakness."

I nodded, wondering if I could stay awake long enough to sample her fare. Surely I ought to have had enough of sleep, if I'd been dead, even for the short while it must have taken for her to find the secret in my murderer's journals and restore my heart to my body.

"I am hungry," I said.

"Of course you are. Now, I'll only be a short while. Please, Nicodimus, promise me you won't try to get up while I'm away. Just lie here and rest, all right?"

I stared at her, fussing over me like a mother over a sickly child. I dared not admit to her that I was afraid of falling asleep. Afraid I would not awaken again.

"I give you my word, Arianna," I said.

She squeezed my hand and turned to go, but I found myself gripping her hand stubbornly. Tilting her head, she gazed down at me.

"Do not be long," I said softly, hating that she might realize how confused and afraid I was.

At first I glimpsed pity in her eyes. But then she chased it away with a smile. "You really are hungry, aren't you? I promise, I'll be so fast you'll barely have time to miss me."

I returned her smile. I liked the woman. Odd, she was— as were many of her words and phrases, her clothing, her hair, and many, many other things about her—but direct, too. And seemingly very concerned with my well-being.

She glanced down at my hand on hers, and bit her lower lip. "You'll be all right," she told me. "I promise." Then she tugged her hand gently from mine, and hurried from the room.

Arianna pulled the door closed behind her, leaned back against it, and quickly blinked her eyes dry.

He was alive! Nicodimus was alive! Gods, the magnitude of it stunned her to the soul. Every emotion she'd ever felt for him had flooded back into her being as soon as she'd looked into his deep blue eyes again. For a moment, she'd forgotten that so many years had passed.

And that he'd died hating her.

She knew she mustn't let herself forget those things again. Eventually, he would remember. And there could be no doubt in her mind that he would hate her all over again.

Or would he?

Worry gnawed at her as she hurried through the small house and into the kitchen, yanking a platter and glass from the cupboard, and utensils from the drawer. He was in far worse shape than any of those written about in Dearborne's journals had been. Oh, they too had been weak at first, but according to the notes, their memories had returned within moments, and their strength to a far greater degree as well. Nicodimus had lain in the grip of death for far longer than any of them had, though. Surely it was only a matter of time before he recovered fully.

She closed her eyes, and willed it to be so—even as she feared the opposite would prove true. Dammit, maybe she should have kept the journals rather than boxing them all up and shipping them back to Raven in the States, for safekeeping.

But no. She'd read them so thoroughly, and so often, that she had practically memorized their contents. They'd be no help to her now.

Arianna filled the platter with food. She had guessed Ni-codimus would awaken ravenous, and she'd planned for it. She piled slices of ham and roast beef on the platter, added soft rolls, potatoes, and vegetables, then slathered die lot of it in gravy. She popped the feast into the microwave, and pressed a button.

Watching the modern wonder heat die food in record time, she mentally reviewed the precautions she had taken. She hadn't wanted Nicodimus to be shocked upon awakening. He had no idea how much time had truly passed, and Arianna thought it best he not learn the truth until he'd had time to adjust to simply being alive again. So she'd covered the bedroom's light fixture with a pretty scarf, and draped another over the wall switch. She'd placed furniture in front of every outlet, to prevent him seeing them and growing curious. She'd closed the shutters and drawn the drapes on the room's single window. It was a rear room, not near the road that passed by in front of the house. And it was solid. With the door closed he shouldn't detect the traffic passing by—what little of it there was here.

Not at first, anyway. Gradually, though, his immortal senses would regain their former acuity. He would hear the passing cars then. She closed her eyes and drew a breath. The timer pinged. She would just deal with that when the time came. One problem at a time was more than enough to handle.

She filled the glass with milk, took the platter from the microwave, and headed back into the bedroom.

Nicodimus blinked at her in surprise, his gaze going from the heaping, steaming platter to her eyes again. "Surely you did not have time to prepare such a meal as that?"

"I had it ready and waiting, Nicodimus. I knew you'd need sustenance." She moved closer as he slowly, painstakingly, sat up in the bed. The covers fell away from his chest, and her heart tripped over itself in response to the sight of him. Glorious, as he'd always been. A flare of

desire sparked to life deep in her belly. Gods, how pathetic was she? That she could want him still, just as she always had. And yet, why had she thought that would be different now? Why had she been foolish enough to believe the years would have changed that?

She hadn't prepared herself for this. She wasn't even certain she could have.

She set the platter on his lap. He frowned at it for a moment, then gripped the stainless steel fork in his fisted hand and turned it slowly. "What sort of tool is this?"

She could have kicked herself. Her first mistake. Gods knew there would be more. "It's a fork," she said. "It's to eat with."

He eyed the fork, turning it this way and that. "I have seen one before ... in ... Greece, I believe. But they were not the custom in my country. I never saw the need." Shrugging, he speared a hunk of meat with the fork, and drew it whole, to his lips. He bit off a chunk, while gravy dripped from the rest back onto the plate.

Arianna settled into a chair beside the bed, grateful that he seemed more interested in the food than in the fork. He ate with gusto, cleaning the plate, and using the remains of a roll to swipe the last droplets of gravy away. Then he chugged the milk and set the glass aside, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and sighing in content.

"My praise to your cook," he said, nodding at her.

"I don't have any cook," she replied automatically.

He seemed surprised by that. "Then you are truly a woman of many talents."

Not as many as he thought, she mused, but she couldn't very well tell him the food had been purchased already made, and needed only heating up. "Would you like some more?" she asked.

He pressed a hand to his belly. "No, I am sated. Thank you. It seems I am growing more deeply indebted to you all the while."

She shook her head quickly. "No, you mustn't think of it that way. You were ... You are my friend, Nicodimus. I would do as much for any friend."

"Then you are an exceptionally generous soul," he told her, but as he spoke his eyes seemed heavy.

"Lie back now," she whispered, leaning over him to take the dishes away, pulling the covers over him once again. "Rest."

"But there is so much I still do not know." His protest was mild, and spoken even as he settled himself into the nest of pillows.

"You have time, now. I promise you. So much time. It's safe to go to sleep Nicodimus. You'll wake again feeling stronger and more like yourself than you do now."

"That would be more reassuring," he muttered, "if I knew who 'myself might be."

She smiled as his eyes drifted closed. "Oh, I can tell you that much, at least. Who you are, Nicodimus, is the finest man I've ever known."

His eyes opened, and he stared deeply into hers. "I fear I shall never equal such high praise."

"You already do," she told him. "You're strong and brave, honorable and honest. Intelligent and loyal."

"You ... sound as if you know me very well."

"I did... once." Closing her eyes, she shook the lingering sadness away. Sadness for what she'd lost so long ago, when she had lost him. "Go to sleep now. I'll stay with you. I'll be right here when you wake."

His breath escaped on a drawn out sigh, and his eyes fell closed once more.

Chapter 18

Memories came to me slowly as I slept. Dreams came to me. Dreams of a woman... a beautiful, fragile woman called Anya—my wife—and of two sons, Jaymes and Will. The images fluttered in my mind like a breeze through the branches of a leafy tree. None solid, just brief glimpses. A small village, the hut where we lived, Will and Jaymes hunting at my side. The happiness we'd shared.

I sought for some memory of Arianna—something to tell me who she was, and what she had been to me. For I sensed that there had been something ... more than friendship between us. But what came was a feeling of foreboding. A certainty that the woman was not to be trusted—the feeling of pain ... deep, intense pain, that I sensed she had caused. It was vivid, this feeling. So real that I woke to the grim certainty that she was no friend of mine, but perhaps an enemy of the most dangerous sort. That all of this caring was but a ruse, a trick of some kind.

Yet, as I opened my eyes, it was to see her there, asleep in a softly stuffed chair. She did not look like a dangerous enemy. Nor had she acted like one, thus far.

I was confused. More now than I had been before. The images creeping into my mind were disjointed and made

no sense. All but one ... a single piece of knowledge that lay there, bright as the glaring sun at midday, and just as undeniable.

Arianna stirred and opened her eyes, her gaze meeting mine, and the words tumbled from my lips without forethought. "I remember you now," I said. "You're the woman who killed me."

Her brown eyes widened as she rose from the chair. But behind the shock in her expression, I saw the guilt. Obvious guilt. It was true then.

"Nicodimus, no. I know it seemed that way to you at the time, but—"

"Where is my wife?" I demanded of her. "Where are my sons? Tell me where they are."

Closing her eyes slowly, standing motionless, she shook her head. "You ... you remember them then."

"I love them," I whispered. "It should be my Anya, my heart, tending me now, not my betrayer."

She lowered her head as if in great pain. "She would be here if she could. But it's not possible just now, Nicodimus. I'm afraid you're stuck with me."

"The hell I am," I muttered. I flung back the covers, swung my legs to the side, and made as if to stand, but my knees buckled quickly, and I collapsed in an ungainly heap upon the floor.

She was beside me in an instant, gripping my arms, but I shoved her hands away. As she stood back, looking down on me helplessly, I gripped the edge of the bed and managed to drag myself back into it. Weak as a kitten! And completely at her mercy. It infuriated me.

"You mustn't try to get up," she told me, standing by the bed, hands clutched in front of her. Her knuckles were white, her arms trembling.

"I'll not lie here at your mercy, woman," I replied harshly. "I'll not become dependent for my very life upon my enemy."

Her expression grew hard and cold. ' 'Right now, Nicodimus, you have no choice in the matter. You're too weak

to leave here. And until your strength returns, here is where you'll stay."

I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached. Frustration burned in my belly. This weakness... I was a warrior, damn it. A fierce fighter, a skilled hunter. I was not this weakling who required a mere woman to tend to my every need.

"Don't look so devastated, Nicodimus. You're healing fast. Your body will be well again, soon, and I hope your mind along with it. The answers you demand will come. And when they do, and your strength has returned, you'll be free to leave here."

"I've no wish to wait that long," I muttered.

"No doubt tolerating my presence will be a great burden to you until then, but as I said, you have no choice." She dropped her gaze, turning away. "I'll get you some breakfast."

"Where is Anya!" I demanded in desperation as she started for the door.

She froze, her back to me. "I cannot tell you that. When you're ready to remember, you will."

She left, giving me no time to issue the threats hovering on my lips. I wanted to leap from my sickbed and close my hands around her tender throat, to choke the answers from her if need be. She knew the answers to the questions burning in my mind. I could see plainly that she did. I wanted to make her tell me of my wife and my sons. But I was unable. Weaker than a woman, when I had once been the strongest man in my clan. I could have howled in frustration.

The tale she'd told, of having brought me back to life by replacing the heart in my chest... it was untrue. It was no more than a well-spun web of lies. She was responsible for my downfall, she'd all but admitted as much. Why would my enemy wish to help me now?

No, she had reasons for what she did now. Reasons for keeping me here, keeping me from my family, and from knowing the truth. Some plot, some scheme I couldn't begin to fathom. Else why would I feel this certainty of her

past treachery burning so strongly in my gut?

I would find the truth behind the lies she told. I would!

Arianna sank down at the kitchen table, burying her head in her hands. Her back ached from the night spent in a chair, and her heart ached from Nicodimus's rejection of her. His mistrust. When she ought to have been prepared for it. She had told herself that she was, that she would be able to handle it when his memories of her began to return.

"He has every right to hate me," she muttered. "I knew that before he ever awoke."

And yet she'd hoped ... foolishly, perhaps, that it would be different now. Stupid. She was stupid and her heart was behaving like the heart of the young girl he'd known. It would only get worse when he remembered all of it. The true extent of her betrayal, as he had perceived it. He would hate her even more when he remembered seeing her in the arms of his worst enemy. And Marten's words as Nicodi-mus lay dying. She ought to prepare herself for that. Until this very moment, she'd thought she knew what to expect and how to cope with it. But now... Gods, she hadn't expected it to hurt this much!

At least she knew now the true reason he'd never been able to love her. It went beyond his past pain. The truth was, he'd never stopped loving his wife. His Anya. He loved her still. Remembered her, even when he'd forgotten everything else.

It was going to devastate him all over again when he remembered Anya's death, and his sons' as well. And he would refuse to let her offer any comfort at all.

A knock came at the front door, and Arianna lifted her head slowly. Brushing the tears from her eyes, giving a quick glance toward the back of the house to be sure Ni-codimus hadn't dragged himself into sight, she rose and went to answer it.

Her beautiful sister stood there, brows instantly furrowing as she searched Arianna's face. And then Raven was hugging her close. "What's happened? You look terrible, Arianna, what's happened?"

Arianna hugged her sister in return, looking over Raven's shoulder to Duncan, who stood just behind her. Sighing, she stepped back. "Come in. How on earth did you find me?"

"Not easily," Duncan said, ushering Raven through the door. "We've been trying to catch up to you since you left Sanctuary, but you've been difficult to catch up to, Arianna."

"I might not have been, if I'd known you were looking," she said, raising a brow in question.

"We finally gave up and went back home," Raven explained. "Then the package arrived, containing Dear-borne's journals ... with this address on the return label."

Arianna sighed resignedly. She should have known her sister would follow her here. "The journals, yes. Did you ... did you read them?''

Raven closed her eyes and nodded, no doubt recalling the horrific tales those journals held. Then she faced Arianna again. "Did you find him?" Raven asked. "Did you find this man you were so determined to resurrect?"

Arianna nodded tiredly, and led them into the kitchen, and to the table. Raven and Duncan sat down, and she put a pot of coffee on to brew, and a kettle for tea, which Duncan still preferred. "I found him."

"And?" Raven leaned forward in her chair.

"He's weak, confused. His memory is sketchy. But on one thing, he's very clear. Nicodimus hates me, blames me for his death, just as he did then. But... I'd expected as much."

"Oh, Arianna." Raven got up quickly and came to take the kettle from her hands. "Sit, darling. Rest. Let me do this."

She ushered Arianna into a chair and took over.

"Why don't you just tell him the truth?" Duncan asked softly.

Arianna lifted her head and looked at him. "You don't even know what the truth is, Duncan. How can you be so sure it would do any good?"

He offered her a gentle smile. "I know you well enough to know you didn't betray him the way he seems to think you did. You couldn't. Not a man you love."

"Loved," she corrected quickly.

Duncan sent Raven a swift glance, a silent message. "Okay. If you say so."

Arianna leaned back in her chair, shoulders slumping. "He doesn't even remember that his first wife and his sons are dead, Duncan. He keeps asking for them, and I just can't..."

As her voice trailed off, Duncan covered her hand with one of his. "Don't you think you ought to tell him, Arianna? Wouldn't it be for the best? I know it might seem a cruel thing to do, but it seems to me it's more cruel to let him go on not knowing."

Arianna shook her head. "His memories are coming back slowly. He'll realize soon enough." She shrugged. "Besides, I doubt he'd believe a word I said at this point."

"But Arianna, you saved his life!" Raven protested, turning from the small range and coming back-to the table.

"I don't think he believes that, either. He'd be out of here if he had the strength to leave."

"Well then, thank goodness he doesn't! Arianna, he remembers the world as it was centuries ago. He has no clue how to get by in it today."

Arianna nodded slowly. "I had planned to help him, to teach him ... but..."

"No matter. What do you say I pay the fellow a visit, hmm?" Duncan asked. "Perhaps he'd feel a bit better talking to another man."

"You're welcome to try," Arianna whispered.

With a nod, Duncan got to his feet, but Arianna gripped his hand. "Be very careful what you say, Duncan. Nicod-imus has no idea how much time has passed, and I'd prefer he not know just yet. He has so much to deal with already."

"I won't give anything away, I promise, though I disagree with you on the wisdom of that." He squeezed her hand.

"Tell him I'll bring his breakfast soon."

Duncan nodded and left the room, following the directions Arianna gave for finding her houseguest. Arianna rose to begin preparing a meal for the lot of them, and Raven got up as well. "Don't cook. Let's walk to that lovely little bakery in town and get bread and pastries for breakfast, instead."

Arianna smiled at her sister. The sunshine on her face would feel good today. But then she sent a worried frown toward the back of the house.

"It'll only take us a few minutes," Raven insisted. "I'm sure Duncan can hold his own against a man who can barely stand upright for that long." She looked deeply into Arianna's eyes, her onyx ones filled with reassurances. "You're not on your own anymore, big sister. Duncan and I are here to help, and we'll stay for as long as you need us."

Blinking away the unexpected rise of tears, Arianna finally nodded. "All right. Let me just put on some fresh clothes."

When the door opened, I looked up, expecting to see the wounded eyes of my captor again—-and they had been wounded. As if my suspicion of her caused her inexplicable pain. If she truly were my enemy, then why would she react that way to my accusations? It made no sense. And yet the certainty that I had indeed hurt her remained.

But it was not Arianna who entered my prison. Instead, it was a man I did not know. Tall he was, dark of hair, with a well-muscled frame that bespoke strength. As I had possessed once. His clothing was as strange as Arianna's was to me. I stiffened, instantly suspicious of him.

"Easy, big guy. I'm a friend."

I did not relax, though his eyes were indeed friendly as he perused me. "If you are a friend, you will take me out of this place," I suggested.

He smiled. "As soon as you're strong enough, I'll do just that—if you still want to go. You have my word on it."

I narrowed my eyes on him. "Who are you? If I know you, I have no memory of it."

He came closer, extending a hand. "Duncan Wallace," he said. I took the hand he offered. His grip was cool and firm, and the jolt that passed between us gave me to know he was an immortal, like me. "And this is the first time we've met."

"Then you are a friend of Arianna's?" I asked him.

He hesitated. "She has been a friend to me, yes."

"Trust her at your peril, Duncan Wallace," I told him grimly.

He sighed deeply, drew up a chair and took it with ease. "I do trust her," he said. "But she seems to think you don't."

"I do not. And with good reason."

"Wronged you once, did she?"

I nodded. "No doubt you disbelieve it."

"No," he said. "I believe it. Arianna is impulsive and wild and often reckless. But her heart is good. And if she did wrong you, Nicodimus, then I believe she regrets it with everything in her. And she's trying very hard to make it up to you now."

Those words gave me pause. I lifted my brows, searching his face for a sign he was lying to me, but saw only openness and honesty in his eyes. "Has she told you the details of how she betrayed me?"

Duncan shook his head. "No. Do you remember them?"

"No," I said. "Only small bits of certainty that she did, and that it cost me dearly."

Duncan drew a deep breath and sighed. "Perhaps it would be best to reserve final judgment until you remember what truly happened. Maybe ... maybe there's some explanation for what she did."

"It is so infuriating to not remember!" I closed my eyes tightly.

"I know. I've been in a very similar situation myself, you know. And not so long ago."

This caught my attention and I eyed him again. "Truly?" I asked.

He nodded hard. "That's why I thought I might be of some help to you now. I know how maddening it is to have bits of memory that tease at the edges of your mind, only to vanish again before you can grasp them. I know how difficult it is to put those bits together in some way that makes sense. But it will come together, in time. I promise you."

I believed him. And for the first time since I had "awakened," I felt some semblance of hope come to life in my chest. I was unwilling to believe fully in a man who was a friend of my enemy, and yet I felt instinctively that he could be trusted. That he wished to aid me in this, just as he said he did.

"How long?" I asked him.

His lips thinned. "I wish I could tell you. In my case, it was only a matter of a couple of weeks. It might very well be less with you."

"Or it might be a good deal more," I said softly.

"It's only time, my friend. You're immortal. Time is something you have in abundance."

I nodded. "Patience, however, is not," I said.

He grinned at me. "We must be related then. Distant cousins, perhaps?"

A reluctant smile tugged at my lips. I could easily come to like this strange man. "What land are we in, Duncan, that the natives dress so strangely?" I nodded at his clothes. The sturdy blue that covered his legs, much like those Arianna had worn. And the garment on top that buttoned up the front and tucked into them.

He seemed taken aback by my question, and relief filled his eyes when the door opened again and Arianna entered, carrying heaping platters of fragrant baked goods. Another woman, taller, and very dark of hair and eyes, entered behind her, carrying a tray laden with drinking vessels and containers of brew that steamed.

"Breakfast has arrived," the dark one announced cheerfully. The two women lowered the feast to a nearby table, as I eyed the newcomer. A woman of rare beauty, she was. And her coloring reminded me of someone else. Another

woman, very dark and tall. Slender as a reed, I thought, as a brief, flickering image of her crept into my mind. She'd loved me very dearly ... and I her, but...

The image vanished as quickly as it had come, and I blinked away my frustration.

"Who are you?" I asked the woman.

Arianna parted her lips, but before she could utter a word, the woman said, "My name is Raven," she said. "I'm Arianna's sister."

My brows lowered, and my mind whirled. ' 'But... but Arianna's sister is dead ..."

Three pairs of eyes widened, and Raven clapped a hand to her mouth. But already, more memories were returning.

Marten had watched Arianna and her female companion as they walked the short distance to the bakery, and again as they returned to the small house, their arms loaded down with food. He'd always hoped to come across the beautiful Arianna again, someday. The few times he'd had word that she'd been seen in any given place, however, he'd arrived only to find her gone. Or, if he did glimpse her, she would be in the company of this other woman. He supposed he could have found her, if he'd put his mind to it. And yet he hadn't. He didn't like to think too deeply about why that was. But he knew, and the knowledge was a bitter pill indeed. She'd been very convincing that day so long ago. And in the time he'd held her captive ... he'd come to care for her in a way that was completely foreign to him. When she had come to him, when she had returned his ardent kisses ... there had been a few brief moments when he'd allowed himself to believe she cared for him as well.

The truth of her motives had cut him deeply. Her rejection ... it had shamed him. So much that he still felt pain when he recalled it.

Part of him feared that when he saw her again, he would see pure hatred in her eyes as he had seen that day. It was an experience he had no desire to relive. So while he had fantasized about seeing her again, he'd done nothing to make it come about.

Now, however, events had taken a strange turn. Perhaps he would take this chance to have her, at last. He'd always wanted her. She, he reminded himself, had rejected him, tricked him, used him. Now that she was here, and he was so close to her, he found he had an urge to extract his revenge. Perhaps he would at that, when he finished with his other business.

Every year on the anniversary of Nicodimus's death, Marten visited his burial site to dance on his grave and gloat over his victory. It had been easy enough to find the burial site of his oldest enemy. For a beautiful young woman driving a wagon alone, with a satin-wrapped body bouncing in the back had been a remarkable sight in those days. So the few people who'd seen Arianna pass by had remembered her.

It ate at him that he'd never had the chance to take Nicodimus's heart himself, to drain it of its very life. Dear-borne had stolen that from him.

He'd heard old Dearborne had finally met his match. He was nearly as glad to see that old immortal dead as he had been Nicodimus. He'd hidden from that old man for centuries, in fear Dearborne would find him and kill him for no more reason than the sport of it.

At any rate, this year, Marten's annual visit to the grave of Nicodimus had been different. This time he'd found the grave empty, barren, though refilled with freshly turned earth. And thoughts began to pound at his brain.

Dearborne, the treacherous cur who'd used him and would have likely killed him had the opportunity not been wrested from his grip, had hinted that the second death was not necessarily the final one for immortals. That there was a way even it could be reversed. And if anyone would know, it would have been that old man. For he'd captured and toyed with countless immortals in the time Marten had known him. He'd made use of Marten's own dungeons for his gruesome experiments on Light High Witches, before killing them in the end. He reminded Marten of a cruel cat, the way it will torture and tease a mouse until there is so

little life left in the creature that the sport is gone. Then the cat will devour it.

Yes, Dearborne had hinted, but he'd refused to tell Marten what he knew. And he'd kept his precious journals under lock and key. But now ... now the thought Dearborne had planted in Marten's mind returned. Was resurrection from the second death possible? Could an immortal whose heart had been taken, be revived? The possiblity tormented him, especially when he saw that open grave, and learned that Arianna was right here in this town. Had Arianna somehow learned of Dearborne's secrets, and used them to revive his blood enemy? Was that bastard Nicodimus once again alive and breathing?

If he was, Marten vowed, he would not be for long. And there was only one way to find out. Watch Arianna. If Nicodimus were alive somewhere, he would come to her, sooner or later. The beautiful Arianna would serve as bait for Marten's trap.

Just as she had done before.

Arianna could have choked her sister for the slip. But it was an honest mistake. Raven had known Nicodimus as a child, in another lifetime, one that had ended centuries ago. Naturally she would have no memory of that. And Arianna had only given her sister the" sketchiest of details about her own brief time with Nicodimus. No, this was her own fault, not her sister's.

"I'm so sorry," Raven whispered, backing away, eyes wide.

"No. Don't be." Arianna moved closer to the bed where Nicodimus sat, as still as stone. "You know, Nicodimus is going to need clothes. Why don't you two go into the village and see what you can find? My purse is in the kitchen."

Raven nodded, understanding. Duncan gave Arianna's shoulder a squeeze before they both turned and left. Alone with Nicodimus, Arianna wondered how much to tell him, how much he already might know.

"I... assumed I had only been in the grave a short

while," Nicodimus said softly, slowly. His gaze seemed turned inward as he searched his mind. "But if she is your dead sister... grown now ..." He lifted his gaze. "Did you revive her in the same way? I... I thought you said I was the first?"

Arianna sighed, pushing a hand through her hair. "No. No, Nicodimus. My sister drowned when she was but a child. That memory will likely return to you soon. She wasn't immortal then. She didn't die because some Dark One had taken her heart as you did. She died ... trying to save my life."

Nicodimus closed his eyes, nodding slowly. "And so returned to her next lifetime as an immortal."

Arianna nodded. "Yes. And I had to wait until she was reborn into that new lifetime to find her again."

His brows rose, but other than that, there was no reaction. "Your sister is grown," he murmured. "Born again, and a woman grown." It was as if he were clarifying this in his own mind. "Immortal, this time."

She nodded. "Yes. She's one of us now."

"And her age?"

He wanted to know how much time had passed. He wanted her to tell him. Gods, it would be so hard for him. She didn't answer him. She couldn't.

"I remember my Anya," he said slowly. "Young and fair. Hair like fire. My sons, just lads ... but they must be grown now. And Anya ... older.. .'Tis more than my mind can grasp. She ... she was pregnant with our third child when last I recall seeing her. A girl." Then his brows bunched in concentration. "But how could I know the child was a girl unless ..."

"Nicodimus, don't push yourself," Arianna pled, but it was too late. His head came up suddenly, eyes wide and anguished as the memory hit him. She saw it come, saw the utter pain that made his face into a mask of torment.

"Oh, Gods, she died! Anya died and our babe with her!" He pressed his hands to either side of his head as his eyes moved rapidly from side to side, seeing nothing but the memory, she knew. His breaths came fast and short. "She

died, she died in childbirth. Oh, Anya, sweet Anya..." Tears brimmed in his eyes, and he lowered his head, covering his face with his hands.

Unable to bear seeing him in so much agony, Arianna went to the bed, sank onto its edge, and put her arms around him. She hugged him close, stroked his hair. "I'm sorry, Ni-codimus. I'm so sorry, more than I can tell you. I wish ... I wish I could take this pain away."

He straightened slowly, staring hard into her eyes. "What of the boys, Arianna? What of my sons?"

She blinked, and shook her head. "I... in time you'll remember...."

His hands clutched her shoulders hard, more strength in his grip than she had realized he possessed, and his eyes stabbed into hers like daggers. "Tell me!"

Closing her eyes, Arianna took a deep breath. "There was a plague... it claimed the youngest. And your firstborn died at your side during a battle."

He released her all at once, tipped his head back, his hands like claws clutching at his face. His cry was one of such intense despair she felt tears streaming down her own cheeks. And she could only sit there, crying, watching him fight the pain, for a long time.

When at last his body stopped trembling, and his breaths came more evenly, he faced her again, eyes red-rimmed and dull with grief. "Why did you do this to me?" he asked her. "Why did you bring me back to this grief? This heartache?"

"I...I thought—"

' 'My family is gone. I belong with them, but instead I live on, alone and too weak to do more than lie in this cursed bed! Damn you for this!"

"You were not with them, Nicodimus!" Arianna got to her feet, determined to make him understand. ' 'And you'd lived for a long time without them when my foolishness got you killed. But even then, you were not with them. You were lying in a shallow grave in some state of limbo. Not dead, but not alive. Trapped there, in some in-between

place ... forever. I... I only wanted to free you from that."

"There was another way!" he shouted, glaring at her in undisguised fury. "You could have freed me by burning my heart and my body. You could have returned me to my family!"

She lowered her head. "Yes, I could have. But I didn't. I foolishly believed you would prefer life to death, Nicod-imus."

He shook his head slowly, his back bent, shoulders slumped. "At least... there was no pain there," he whispered.

"No, there wasn't. No pain. No joy. No pleasure. No life at all."

He sighed, a deep, wounded sound. "Why did you bring me back?"

She closed her eyes. "Because I owed you. I wronged you, and it was the only way I could see to make it right."

Grating his teeth, stiffening his spine as if making ready to receive a blow, he asked, "What is the year in which I now live, Arianna? Just how much time did I lie mostly dead in the grave?"

She felt her eyes widen. "I..."

"Tell me. And speak the truth. I must know sooner or later, you realize that. Simply tell me, for the love of the Gods!"

Nodding, she bit her lower lip.

"Tell me," he went on when she didn't speak right away. "I am not a fool, Arianna. I see that the window is blocked from without. I see what care you and the others take when speaking to me. It is obvious now that time has passed. The way you speak, the clothes you wear.... It is all very different. Has it been a decade?" He stared hard at her. "A century?"

He waited for her to give him the answer. Waited, and silently demanded she tell him what he needed to know. "It has been," she whispered at last, "nearly five centuries."

'Five?"

Lifting her gaze to meet his, she nodded slowly. "The year is nineteen hundred ninety-nine," she told him. "We are at the dawn of the third millennium."

He sat there, still and silent, searching inside himself for understanding.

"You'll be all right, I promise you, Nicodimus. I'll help you to adjust, and to learn, and you'll be fine. You're a strong man, an intelligent man, and—''

"A man who cannot walk across a room without help from a woman. A man held captive by his own betrayer."

"I am not your captor, Nicodimus," she whispered. "And I didn't betray you. Not the way you think—"

He shook his head slowly. "Take a dagger to my chest, woman. End it here. Undo what you've done. I've no wish to linger in this place."

She swallowed hard. "Now you're feeling sorry for yourself. I won't let you do that. It's not like you."

"And what do you know of me?"

She leaned close to him, touched his cheek with her palm and turned his face so she could stare into his eyes. "I know you well enough to know that this pain will ease. Never end altogether, but ease. I know your strength, Nicodimus. It's unlike that of any other man I have ever known. And I know, too, that even now, somewhere beneath this crippling grief, you're curious to see what the world is like, how it has changed after all this time."

He pulled from her touch, averting his eyes. "You know nothing."

She shrugged. "Maybe not. But I do know you won't get strong again unless you eat. And the food is here, waiting, untouched. I don't imagine your appetite is very good just now, after all these shocks. But force yourself, Nicodimus. If for no other reason than to hasten the time when you'll be able to walk out of my house, and never have to see me again."

He sent her a narrow-eyed glare. "That is all the reason I need," he muttered, and reached out to snatch a pastry from the tray. "Leave me in peace," he said. "Give me that much, at least."

She nodded, heaved a sigh, and headed out of the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

And as she stood there with her back to the living room, she knew she was no longer alone in the house. Someone else was here ... and not Raven or Duncan. There hadn't been time for them to return from their errands in town.

She turned, a shiver of foreboding working up her spine. A woman stood facing her. A woman she hadn't seen in a very long time. Dark and exotic as ever, but no longer beautiful. Nidaba's hair hung in tangles, dirty, its sheen faded. Her eyes were sunken and hollow. Dark circles surrounded them, and she wore a dress that seemed to be rotting with age before Arianna's eyes. Even her jewelry— and she wore as much as she always had, right to the ruby stud in her nose—was dulled by the touch of time.

"You," Nidaba whispered. "I told you once I would kill you if I saw you again."

"Nidaba. Gods, where have you been? What's happened to—"

"Where is he? What have you done with Nicodimus's body?" She shot forward on unsteady legs, her hands clutching Arianna's shoulders. "I went to visit his grave and he's gone! I should have known it was you! I should have known! Tell me, wench, where is he?"

Arianna pulled free, only to stagger to one side, banging into a small stand. A vase tumbled to the floor and shattered with a loud crash. And still Nidaba came at her.

"My Gods, Nidaba, what's happened to you?" The darkness of insanity seemed to glow from within Nidaba's once flawless eyes. "Calm down. Nicodimus is fine. He's fine, Nidaba."

"Fine? He's dead, and it's all because of you! You!" She made a growling sound in her throat, teeth drawing back from her lips in an ugly snarl, and she came at Arianna with her hands bent clawlike.

Arianna reacted instinctively. Years of fighting for survival had given her reflexes too strong to override. She reached to her side for the dagger that hung there, concealed by her blouse, but then her hand froze. She couldn't

harm Nidaba. Not the woman who had been some kind of heroic figure to her once. Something horrible had happened to put Nidaba in this maddened state.

Suddenly the haunting words written in Dearborne's journal came floating back to her mind. "No," she whispered. "Gods, it was you, wasn't it?"

Nidaba brought her clawed hand flashing down as if to strip the skin from Arianna's face. Arianna lifted her hands to cover her eyes in self-defense.

But Nidaba stopped suddenly, one hand still gripping Arianna's shoulder, and she stared wide-eyed at something beyond Arianna. Slowly, Arianna realized Nicodimus stood behind her. She felt his presence, as she always had.

"Nicodimus?" Nidaba whispered. "How ... ?"

"Release her, Nidaba."

Arianna turned, sighing in relief when Nidaba's hand fell away. Nicodimus stood near the open bedroom door. He wore a blanket tied around his middle, and one hand was braced on the door frame to hold him upright.

Arianna took a step toward him, but Nidaba shot past her, and Nicodimus enfolded the trembling woman in his arms and held her close. "There," he whispered. "It will be all right, Nidaba. It will be all right now."

Arianna stood watching them, and remembered all the poisonous things Marten had told her... that the two were lovers, that they had been for centuries, and that there was no room for anyone else in Nicodimus's heart. She hadn't believed it then ... not completely. But now ... now she wondered.

Nidaba sobbed in Nicodimus's arms, sobbed as if she would never stop. And gently, Nicodimus stroked her tangled hair and murmured words of comfort to her. His eyes met Arianna's over Nidaba's head. Some unspoken questions in them. What has happened to her? Are you responsible for this, as well?

Arianna only shook her head slowly. She didn't know. She didn't know what hell had befallen Nidaba. Not for certain. But she had suspicions. Dark, nightmarish suspicions that made her sick to her stomach.

Had Nidaba been one of Dearbome's captives? The dark woman he spoke of, who had escaped him after months, perhaps years, of torment?

The front door opened, and Duncan and Raven stepped inside with packages and bags in their arms. Arianna met their puzzled glances, and held a finger to her lips for silence, as Nicodimus slowly drew Nidaba back through the door and into his bedroom.

Chapter 19

Nidaba. The memory of her came rushing back to me all at once. I knew her. She had been closer to me than anyone in my life. My friend. My one and only friend at many times during my long, lonely life. My best friend, always.

She clung to me, crying softly for a time as I eased her into the bed I'd been occupying myself. And then she clung to me still as I sat down beside her. She didn't speak a coherent sentence in all the time I held her. Only sobbed, and kept repeating my name. Other words, phrases, made no sense to me. And I knew her mind was more than simply troubled. I feared for Nidaba, my heart ached with it.

She calmed, gradually, begged me not to leave her alone, and finally, she cried herself to sleep in my arms.

She had been the strongest woman I had ever known. To see her reduced to this quivering, childlike state of hysteria frightened me right to the core.

Arianna entered the room. I could have snapped at her for intruding, but I knew it had been some time since I'd drawn Nidaba in here. She had been patient, I supposed. Considering this was her home, and this strange woman had attacked her on sight. No doubt she'd have Nidaba

thrown into the streets now. Or try to. I would not let that happen without a fight.

Arianna didn't speak, just stood quietly near the door, apparently ready to leave the room, should I order it. I looked up at her. Her gaze seemed very vulnerable, and slightly wounded as it lingered on Nidaba's sleeping form, her head all but in my lap, her arms locked 'round my waist.

"She was the one who found me with the Druids, where I'd gone to nurse my grief. It was she who convinced me to live again, when I only wished to die. I had lost my wife, my sons, my unborn daughter, and then my entire clan had been destroyed. I had revived to a life I did not understand," I said, very softly, for I did not wish to wake Ni-daba. Still, she shuddered now and again with residual sobs.

"She was the one to take me from that temple, when my studies with the holy men had ended. She was the one who taught me the many things they could not."

Arianna walked farther into the room, and her eyes seemed to well with sadness, not the anger I had expected, as she gazed at Nidaba. "What things didn't they teach you?" she asked softly.

"To fight, to kill. To stay alive," I told her. "I laughed at first. I, a warrior, being taught to fight by a mere woman. I remember the narrow-eyed look she gave me when I said those words. The haughty indignation. But indulgent." Reaching down, I stroked Nidaba's hair, and gently moved her arms from around me, easing her into a more comfortable position upon the pillows. "She has always been indulgent with me. And so we fought our mock battles and I realized that fighting the most skilled mortal warrior was not even close to battling an immortal. But I learned fast."

"I imagine you did," Arianna said.

"We have parted many times, gone our separate ways, but always, we find each other again. I love her," I stated emphatically, as I slid from the bed, keeping my blanket anchored like a kilt around my hips. "I love her the way I imagine you must love your sister."

Arianna stared at me, then eyed the sleeping woman

again. "She does not cling to you in a way that seems exactly sisterly to me, Nicodimus."

I blinked as her meaning came clear to me. "What you are thinking is incorrect, Arianna. Though why this concerns you I cannot know. My memories are broken, but of this, I am certain. Nidaba and I have never been lovers." I tilted my head, studying the color in Arianna's cheeks, and the glint of jealousy in her eyes. Unmistakable. "But I wonder now, what of you and I?"

Her gaze flew from Nidaba's sleeping form to my face, eyes going wider. "What do you mean?"

"What were you to me, Arianna?"

She shook her head vehemently. "Far less than Nidaba was," she whispered. "Or Anya or your sons. That much should be obvious."

"Why?" I asked, moving still closer to her. "Because I remembered them before you? Tell me, Arianna, did I know you before them, or after?"

She looked up slowly. "After. A long while after."

I shrugged. "Then it could very well be that my mind is pulling the past to me in order of chronology, rather than of import. Could it not?"

She bit her lip, looked away. "I think not. And besides, it's unimportant. What is important is Nidaba." She looked again at the sleeping woman. "Poor thing. She was so strong when last I saw her. So fierce. To see her like this ..." She lowered her head, shaking it slowly.

I nodded, seeing the sincere worry in her eyes. Could this woman truly be evil if she cared deeply for Nidaba? Even after Nidaba had attacked her, in her own home?

"When was it... that you saw her last," I asked, as eager for answers as Arianna seemed to be.

She hesitated and looked up at me. ' 'It was right after ... after you had been killed by a Dark One named Nathanial Dearborne. I tried to kill him, but he fled, taking your ..."— her eyes focused on my chest—"your heart with him."

I felt my own eyes widen with surprise. "You fought him?"

"I was out of my mind with rage." She shook her head. I wondered that a girl as small and delicate as she would try to avenge my death on an immortal strong enough to have defeated me in battle, but I said no more.

"I took your body back to the ancient Stone Circle to bury you. It was a place you loved very much," she said. "On the way, I stopped near a stream to bathe you and wrap you in a satin coverlet. That was when Nidaba came along. And I... I had to tell her you'd been taken from us."

I nodded slowly. "She would have been devastated by the news."

"She was. She screamed to the heavens, blamed me, told me she'd kill me if we crossed paths again, very nearly decided to do it right then and there."

"You didn't fight her?" I asked suddenly, certain I had known no immortal who could outfight Nidaba.

"No."

She did not elaborate, leaving me to wonder what, exactly, had transpired between the two.

"When she left," Arianna went on, "she demanded the name of the man who had killed you. I was certain she would go after him herself. And if she found him, Nicod-imus, she didn't kill him. I know that, because I saw him again only recently. Duncan was the one who finally ended his cursed existence."

I nodded thoughtfully.

"You must find out if Nidaba spent any time with this Dearborne," Arianna said softly. "When she wakes, if you feel she is ready, ask her, Nicodimus. But ask her very gently. And if she reacts strongly, then let the matter rest. Don't press her."

I narrowed my gaze on her. "Why? What do you know of this man?"

She focused on Nidaba again. "He kept journals. He was obsessed with becoming the strongest immortal alive, and to do that, he felt he must learn of our every weakness. It was through his studies and notes that I learned how to replace a heart, to bring a victim back, as I did with you."

I nodded. "But there is more."

' 'Yes, there is more. He ... kept captives at times. Immortals he would weaken through many methods. Pain, torture, starvation. He would kill them by mortal means, and make detailed notes on how long it took them to revive, and whether multiple deaths and resurrections seemed to weaken their hearts. Sometimes, he took hearts, only to wait a time and replace them." She closed her eyes and shuddered. "He used them to experiment on, Nicodimus. The notes of these experiments read like the transcriptions of nightmares. And I fear... I fear Nidaba might have been in his hands, for a time."

I felt my blood boil in my veins. "Where are these notes?"

"They're at my sister's home. I can have them sent here, if you wish. You're free to read them, Nicodimus, but I can tell you already you will not find what you're looking for. Dearborne didn't name the captives he kept. Nidaba's name was never mentioned. There is no way we can know for certain ... unless she tells us."

I closed my eyes in pain. Gods, the thought of Nidaba going through such torment! ' 'If the man lived still, I would kill him myself."

"He deserves a thousand deaths for what he did, Nicodimus, but he had only one. I burned his heart to release his spirit. Had I known then, what crimes he'd committed, I might not have had the generosity to do so."

I paced toward the bed, vaguely surprised that my legs seemed to be functioning more readily than they had until now. "What will become of Nidaba now?" I asked softly.

"What do you mean?" Arianna asked. "She'll stay here, with us, of course. We can care for her. Perhaps in time ... her mind will heal."

I turned toward Arianna, searching her face for the vil-lainess I had believed her to be. But found no sign of it in her deep brown eyes. "She attacked you," I said. "She threatened to kill you. Might have done so, had I not come out in time."

"She loves you," Arianna returned, her voice gentle. "And she needs our help."

I nodded slowly, watching her face. "You ... did not fight back, when she attacked you."

"You love her, as well, Nicodimus. I couldn't take away another person you love. I could never do that."

She confused me, this woman, who admitted betraying me, admitted costing me my life, and yet seemed to be nothing but goodness to her core. And beauty. Pure beauty such as I could scarcely bear to look upon.

"She should sleep for a while," she said quietly. "You're getting stronger. Perhaps you'd like to bathe, and put on something besides that blanket while she rests."

I glanced down at myself and nodded. "If she wakes ..."

"I can lock the door in case she bolts. And station Duncan outside in case she needs anything. But truly, I think she'll sleep for a long time. Look at her. She's exhausted."

I nodded my agreement. "I think ... perhaps the door should be left ajar. If she's been held captive in the past..."

Arianna nodded. "You're right. We'll leave it unlocked and open a bit."

"Good. Then ... I shall bathe."

She smiled gently, and took my hand. And at her touch, the familiar jolt rocked through me, but something else accompanied it. Another jolt. A physical awareness so very powerful it left my knees weaker than they had been before. Her skin ... her scent... her touch ... all were familiar, and tickling to life some distant memories from deep beneath the surface of my mind. A flash, and no more. A sudden recollection of my own feeling of intense arousal, of longing. Her mouth beneath mine as I tasted and probed its recesses. Her breath near my ear, promising things, whispering secrets my mind still struggled to keep from me. You will love me one day, Nicodimus. You will love me just as I love you. You 'II see.

* * *

She watched his expressions as she led him through the house to the stairs. She wanted him to use the upstairs bathroom. There was a bath below, of course, but they'd be less likely to disturb Nidaba with the noise if they used this one.

His gaze danced around each room they passed through, fixing on light fixtures, the refrigerator, the switches and plugs in the walls, the stereo system, and other things he couldn't possibly identify. The television set was, thankfully turned off just then.

"What's up?" Raven asked as they started up the stairs.

Nicodimus leaned heavily on the bannister, so Arianna paused to let him rest a moment. "Nicodimus is ready to be out of bed. So we're going to try a bath and a shave."

"Here, you'll need these." Duncan quickly snatched up a pair of shopping bags. ' 'Meanwhile, what about our... other guest?"

Arianna felt a rush of pain. ' 'Nidaba is a friend ... or was once. When I last saw her, she was going after Dear-borne. And from the state of her now ..."

"Oh no," Raven whispered. "Gods, no, tell me you're not thinking ... what we read in those journals ..."

Arianna nodded at her sister. "It's possible. I can't be sure, but my senses are telling me it's true. I thought of Nidaba when I first read Dearborne's account of the prisoner he called 'the dark woman.' " Sighing, Arianna pushed the gruesome memory from her mind. "She's resting now. But the bedroom door is unlocked. Just keep an eye on her, will you?"

Raven nodded.

Nicodimus turned to Duncan. "Nidaba is dangerous in this state," he warned. "Take care."

"I'll be careful. Don't worry," Duncan said. "Go on, enjoy your pampering. We'll yell if we need you."

Nodding, Nicodimus began moving up the stairs again, slowly. At the top, Arianna led him into the small bathroom and eased him onto a chair at the vanity.

"It is," he murmured, "as if I've entered an entirely new world. I see everything, yet recognize ... almost nothing."

"It must be very upsetting to you. It will get easier, I promise."

He nodded, but looked doubtful.

"I guess we'd better start at the beginning. We use a power called electricity for just about everything now. It's the same kind of energy that creates lightning. Mankind has learned to generate the power, and it is connected by wires to most homes. With this power, we no longer have to use candles or oil lamps for light." She moved the light switch on the wall, and the lights came on in the dim bathroom. "See?"

Nicodimus stared up at the lights overhead, and the rounded bulbs lining the top of the mirror. "No," he said. "I do not see at all."

"I'll show you the wires later, and try to explain in more detail how it works. The same electricity powers the pumps, so we can have water pumped in as we want it. It also heats the water, if we like." She leaned over the tub, closed the plunger, and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature and letting the tub fill.

Nicodimus watched it with awe. "It is amazing. Truly amazing."

He turned to the sink, seeing the spigots there similar to the ones in the tub, and reached up to turn a knob. Then he jumped backward when water shot out.

"It's all right," Arianna soothed. "Go ahead, play around with it a bit. Get a feel for how to work it."

"I have seen such things before. The bathhouses in Rome. But the water there was heated by the earth.... Hot springs fed the baths." Nodding, he turned the knob further, increasing the flow, then cranked it in the opposite direction to turn it off again. He tried the other knob, getting hot water this time, and nodded in understanding as he shut it off. Then he pointed toward the toilet. "And what is this?"

"Um ... that's a toilet. You um ..." She opened the lid. "You sit on it, to uh ... answer nature's call."

He tilted his head, then his brows rose as he understood. "In the house?"

Smiling, she nodded. "Look." She flushed the thing, and he watched the water swirl and vanish, only to refill again.

"Where does it go?" he asked her.

"A tank buried underground outside." She pointed to the roll of paper. "You use this to ... uh ... clean up afterward. It goes down, too."

He shook his head in wonder. Arianna liked not seeing open hostility and suspicion in his eyes for a change. She went on, showing him the razors and shaving cream, the hair dryer, the soap and shampoo. The toothbrushes and how to use them. When finally the tub was filled, she turned to the door.

"You are leaving me?" he asked. He didn't sound worried, just surprised.

"I... thought you'd want some privacy."

He studied her face. "You have bathed me before, Arianna. Twice now, I believe. Surely you are not embarrassed by this now?''

As he spoke, he dropped his blanket, and stepped into the steaming water. He lowered his glorious body slowly into the tub, and leaned back with a sigh. Arianna tried, but she couldn't take her eyes off him.

"You uh ... you were dead then, Nicodimus. Both times."

"And those were the only times you ever saw me in a state of... undress?" There was speculation in his eyes as he studied her face.

"No," she admitted.

"Then we—"

"We aren't going to talk about that, Nicodimus."

"Why not, Arianna?"

She looked down at his body beneath the rippling water. "For many reasons. The main one being that you'll remember everything on your own, and I think it's better for you if you do."

"And the other reasons?"

She swallowed hard. "It was a painful time for me, Nicodimus."

"Because you wanted me, and I did not return the feeling?"

She met his gaze suddenly. "Because I loved you, and you did not return the feeling. Wanting me was never a question." She turned again, gripped the doorknob.

"I think, Arianna, it still is not a question," he said softly to her back.

Arianna felt her eyes widen. Swallowing hard, she stepped out of the room and into the hall, and closed the door firmly behind her.

So that was why she had resurrected me from the very bowels of death. She had loved me. Had loved me. Once. A very, very long time ago. How she felt about me now, I did not know. How could I know? Certainly all she had done for me thus far, from bringing me back to life, to taking me into her home and caring for me, seemed to indicate that she still cared for me. But caring and loving were quite different matters.

I was getting stronger at a rapid pace now. By the hour, it seemed, I felt the life force moving more powerfully through my body. And she had told me that once I was able to do so, I would be free to leave here.

To leave her.

Never to have to look upon her face again, as she had so eloquently put it.

But I had a new interest in staying. I did not want to leave until I had unlocked all the secrets of Arianna. Of our past together, of what she had been to me, how and why she had betrayed me and cost me my life, and what... if anything ... she felt toward me now.

And Nidaba. What horrors had befallen my beloved companion, Nidaba?

I bathed thoroughly, washed my hair in the water, using the sweet smelling stuff she had called "shampoo." I likely used more than was needed, for the suds the stuff created nearly suffocated me, and I had to turn the water flow on once again and thrust my head beneath it to rinse it all away. Huge white mounds of froth floated upon the water

in which I soaked, rendering it useless for rinsing. But quite fragrant for all that.

Finished, I dried myself with the thick, soft "towels" she had left for me, and performed the shaving ritual with some difficulty. The little razor seemed too small for my large hand, and I longed for the honed edge of my dagger instead.

Briefly I wondered what had become of my dagger. Stolen, no doubt, by the bastard who'd killed me. I would have to acquire another, for as my memory came clearer, battles of the past emerged in rapid succession in my mind. And I knew that for an immortal to go about unarmed was foolish beyond words.

Next, my chin bleeding from several small wounds, I approached the clothing Arianna had left for me. One by one, I examined the items in the neatly folded stack beside the water basin. A shirt of soft fabric, with little round discs sewn at the sleeves and along the edges up the front, much like the one Duncan wore. It was fairly obvious how to don that, so I did. There were no laces for closure, and after studying the garment more closely I realized that there were tiny openings in the cloth that the little discs could be pushed through to hold the edges of the garment together. Next was a small white scrap of cloth with three openings. Two of which seemed to be for the legs, and one which was hidden by a flap. It must be ...

I nearly laughed aloud as I realized its intended use, and tossed the small garment to the floor. The day had not dawned when I would need to maneuver my rod through a minuscule portal when I required use of it! Ludicrous!

The final item was of the sort Arianna wore. "Jeans," she had called them. Sturdy and well made, with a metal fastener at the front, and a little round metal disc atop it. I stepped into these easily and tugged them up to my waist, drawing them closed and feeling how tightly they hugged me. I was unused to clothing of such close fit, but I assumed this was the mode of the day, and I must adjust. I toyed with the odd fastener, but found no way to make it work. Finally my fingers stumbled over the tiny handle at

its base, and I deduced that I needed to pull this upward. I did so.

Tiny metal teeth bit into the flesh of my manhood and I howled! Hopping in agony, I tried to grasp the minuscule handle again, to tug it downward this time, but I could not seem to find it.

The door burst open, and Arianna stood staring wide-eyed at me. Then she lowered her gaze, and her hands flew to her lips—to hide her amusement, I was certain.

"Get this thing off me, woman, before it cuts clean through my—"

"All right, all right, just stand still." She dropped to her knees at once, and the moment I stilled, her nimble fingers gripped the evil little implement of torture and gave a tug.

Sharp pain screamed through me, but the device let go its teeth. My hands went instantly to cup my groin, my face contorted in residual pain.

Arianna looked up at me. "How bad is it?"

"It damned well feels as if I've been cleaved half through," I muttered, sucking air through my teeth and stomping one foot twice as if that could somehow ease my pain.

She looked at the floor, eyeing the white undergarment I had tossed there. "No wonder. That's what underwear is for, Nicodimus. Well, one of the things it's for, at least."

' 'I might suggest you tell me things of such import a bit sooner, in the future, lady."

Again her full lips pulled into a smile she quickly hid. Still kneeling, she touched my hands. "Move them aside and let me see."

I went still, my jaw dropping.

"Oh, come on. Now don't try to tell me you're shy, Nicodimus. I know better. Let me see if you've been completely emasculated."I grunted in derision, but moved my hands aside. She examined me for a moment. She touched me, and I caught my breath at the surge of energy that sizzled from her hands when she did. But it was brief, all too brief. Then she stood and nodded. "It's just a tiny scratch. You'll be fine." Was she slightly breathless?

"Of course I will. The healing will take place in moments." I disliked that she had seen me howling in pain over such a seemingly minor injury. However, it truly had hurt incredibly. Already, though, the pain was easing, and my flesh tingled as the skin began to regenerate itself. Or was that simply the tingling sensation remaining from her touch?

"Take them off," she told me, "put on the underwear, and be careful when you use the zipper. Okay?"

"Zipper. So that's what that vicious contraption is called."

She nodded. "You need any help?"

"I believe I can manage to dress myself, Arianna."

"You could have fooled me," she said, eyeing the shirt. I looked down, and realized it hung crookedly. I had misaligned the little discs. I sighed, and shook my head, feeling doubts as to whether I would be able to adjust to this new world. I hadn't even left her house yet, and already I was floundering.

Her hand came to my cheek, soft, warm. "You're going to be fine," she told me as if she had sensed my misgivings. "You're smart, and you're strong, Nicodimus. More so than any of the other men I've met in this century. You'll put them all to shame, I promise."

That soft-spoken faith in me did wonders for my spirits. I had already recalled the years I had spent grieving my wife and sons. And while it made me sad, it gave me some peace, too. It took the edge of newness from my sorrow, and helped the shock to ease away as well. I had been without them for centuries. I had learned to go on. And I would have to do so again, now.

A knock sounded at the door. Then Duncan's voice followed. "Is Nic okay in there?"

"Fine," Arianna called. "Cut himself shaving."

"Shoot, I do that everyday," Duncan returned. "I say we go on strike, grow long beards and never shave again."

I felt myself smile. Arianna had chosen not to embarrass me by revealing the truth; and Duncan, it seemed, thought nothing of the explanation she had given him. So com-

monplace, this shaving accident, that he had made a jest of it.

"I believe I shall join you in that movement," I called to him.

Arianna's palm skimmed over my cheek, and meeting my eyes, she shook her head side to side. "That would be a shame, Nicodimus. Covering up this face ... it would be a crime."

Instinctively, I caught her palm in my hand, and drew it around to my lips. I kissed her there. Her eyes grew dark and smoky before she lowered them and quickly drew her hand away. "I'll leave you to change," she told me, and stepped out of the room again.

I sighed after she'd gone. Truly, there were feelings surfacing within me that I did not understand. If this woman had been my enemy, if she had betrayed me, if she had caused my death—none of which she denied—then why would my body react to hers the way it did? Why would I now feel myself wanting her ever more strongly each time I looked into her eyes? Why would these tender, aching feelings keep welling up inside? It made no sense.

I shook my head. The memories would come. Soon, they would come. Perhaps I would understand my emotions better then. One thing was certain. I would not leave this place until I did.

Marten grew more and more frustrated as he watched the small house at the edge of Stonehaven, awaiting his opportunity.

Nicodimus was alive! There inside that small house. Marten had followed Arianna, and he'd been watching ever since. He had even crept close enough to peer through the cracks between the shuttered windows—and he'd glimpsed his enemy inside.

Alive. Fully, completely, alive.

It seemed impossible, but he could not deny what he'd seen with his own eyes. So he watched, and he waited.

So many people around! Yes, he'd like to wreak his vengeance on Arianna for trying her best to make a fool of

him. But she wasn't his main quarry. Nicodimus was. The thief who'd stolen his sister so long ago, and left his father mortally wounded and dying, and he and his brother without a woman to tend to their needs. It had been Anya's place, her duty to care for them.

Nicodimus was old and his heart was powerful—or had been once. As he peered through the windows, Marten thought it was again, and growing more so all the time. Marten wanted that power, craved it for his own. But the two strangers, immortals both of them he sensed, stacked the odds strongly against his success. And then the Dark One had shown up—insane or nearly so. Nidaba. He'd heard tell of her before. Dearborne had once claimed she was the eldest immortal he'd known of. He'd wanted her for his experiments. Whether he'd ever had her, Marten did not know. But he had no wish to lock daggers with her now.

Too many. Too many for him to take on alone. He would likely be killed himself before he managed to get to Nicodimus, if he stormed the house the way his instincts told him to do. No, he needed a plan. A way to get them outside, to scatter them, leaving his quarry alone and vulnerable.

Nicodimus was still weak. Though healing, his body was still weak. And Marten wanted to spring on the ancient immortal before he grew strong again.

At first, Marten had thought to wait, that the others would leave eventually. But when days had passed and they still hadn't done so, he knew the time had come to make his move.

Every Witch had some innate skill that stood out in him, and that skill grew stronger when the Witch in question was an immortal High Witch.

Marten had such a skill. One he had honed down through the ages, until he'd achieved near perfection. It was that skill, he realized at last, that would bring this standoff to a head. He could drive them from the house most easily.

His skill was the art of telepathic combustion.

Marten could make things burn.

Chapter 20

Nicodimus held the remote control in his hands, and thumbed buttons as his eyes remained riveted to the television screen. "Amazing," he kept muttering. "No matter how often you explain this, I still do not understand."

He looked, Arianna thought, like a man out of time. Big, and finely developed, but from work rather than workouts. A balanced, muscular power that emanated from him even when you couldn't see what lay beneath his clothes. But Arianna had seen. And she wished she could again.

Lying beneath him as he moved on top of her, around her, inside her, had been like riding the untamed fury of the elements. He was the physical perfection and strength of earth. He was the life and breath of air. The sizzling heat of fire, and the depth and silken caress of water. Gods, no wonder she'd loved him from the moment she'd laid eyes on him.

He stood now, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, which had become his uniform, though he admitted to missing his kilt. She'd promised to get him one. Frankly, she couldn't wait to see Nicodimus in a kilt again.

Nidaba rested in a large beanbag chair in the rearmost

corner of the room. She had refused to don modern clothes. Arianna had tried to convince Nidaba to bathe and wash her hair, but the woman had only finally given in when Nicodimus had begun telling her about the wonders to be found in the bathroom.

If she were familiar with indoor plumbing, she didn't say so. In fact, she refused to say anything at all about where she had been, how she'd managed to get by for all the centuries since Arianna had last seen her. When asked, she retreated behind a wall of silence, and her eyes went blank.

Sensing it might be too much for her to bear talking about, Arianna stopped asking.

Arianna had found a black dress of similar cut to the one Nidaba had been wearing, and she'd replaced the tattered one with it while Nidaba had been in the bath. Nidaba wore that now. Her own had been so old it had fallen to bits when Arianna had tried to wash it. Nidaba gave no indication whether she had noticed the change or not.

She brooded, Nidaba did. Her gaze was always hostile. Her reactions were nervous and startled all the time. She simply sat, watching. Silent and watching.

Arianna went to her with a plate of food now, holding on tight to the sides of the dish in case Nidaba tried to knock it to the floor with a swipe of her hand, as she had done no less than three times in the past week. "Are you hungry, Nidaba? Would you like to eat?"

Nidaba gave the plate a thorough looking over. Fried chicken tonight, with french fries. Nicodimus had fallen in love with greasy modern cooking.

"I detest it," she said, "all of it!" but she took the plate out of Arianna's hands and ripped into a chicken leg like a lion ripping into a rabbit. "Why do you not roast your meat as is proper?" she mumbled around the food. "Why must you try to kill us with this horrible fare? It is unfit to eat!" Within seconds she'd stripped the meat to the bone, and was yanking up the second piece. She paused, and glared up at Arianna. "Do not think I am fooled by your make-believe kindness, wench. You may have taken Nicodimus in with your wiles, but not me! I'll not let you

destroy him again. Not again!" Then she went stiff and her eyes widened.

"What is it, Nidaba?"

At Arianna's question, Nicodimus turned from the television set to look at Nidaba's frightened face.

"The window! Someone is watching from the window!" she shrieked. The food flew from her lap as she leapt to her feet. The plate shattered, French fries and chicken bones scattering over the floor, and Nidaba ran into the bedroom. The door slammed hard behind her.

Arianna sighed. Duncan and Raven had hurried in from the kitchen at the noise. "She throw another tantrum?" Raven asked softly.

Nodding at the mess on the floor, Arianna bent to begin picking it up.

"Let me," Duncan said. "You'll cut yourself." He moved her aside and tended to the mess himself.

Nicodimus met Arianna's gaze as she sighed and sank into a chair. "I just wish I knew how to get through to her," she whispered.

"I mentioned Dearborne's name to her," Nicodimus said softly, glancing at the door as if afraid Nidaba might overhear. "Just as you suggested I should. But she became like stone. As if she could neither hear nor see me. Just went still, barely breathing, it seemed." As he spoke, he moved to the window to stare through the glass, looking around in wonder at the town outside. "I see no one."

"I doubt anyone was there," Arianna replied, but she too, looked when Nicodimus moved away. "She's so frightened. I feel sorry for her."

"Oh, Arianna, for goodness sake, how can you?"

Raven's exclamation drew all three sets of eyes. But she only rushed on. "She's mean, and she hates you, and she threatens you at least ten times a day. It's obvious she wants Nicodimus all to herself and sees you as her only obstacle. My Goddess, Arianna, I can barely sleep nights for fear that creature is going to sneak into your room and murder you to get you out of her way."

"That is not going to happen," Nicodimus said quietly.

Arianna tore her gaze from her sister's to stare at him. But he said no more. So she turned back to Raven again. "It's not like you to be so cruel. The woman is ill, Raven."

"The woman is insane, Arianna. And if I had my way, she'd be out of this house before she starts acting on these delusions she has that you are to blame for what happened to Nic almost five hundred years ago. She wants you dead. I can see it in her eyes."

Arianna lowered her head. "Maybe she does. But they are not delusions, Raven. As much as you love me, you cannot admit that I am less than perfect. But I am, and my mistakes did cost Nieodimus his life."

"And you haven't punished yourself enough for that all these years? Is that it? Do you feel you have to let her punish you now, too, just so you can feel you've suffered thoroughly enough?"

Arianna sighed heavily, but said nothing.

Nieodimus moved closer to her, and took her arm gently in his big hand. "Is that true, Arianna? Is that why you allow Nidaba to stay? Due to some sense that you must pay for whatever you did to me in the past?"

She looked up slowly and met his gaze. "No, Nieodimus. It's nothing to do with that, I just—"

Nieodimus held up a hand for silence, and without taking his eyes from Arianna, he said, "Duncan, Raven, if you would not mind..."

"We'll give you some privacy," Duncan said quickly, and taking Raven's arm, he led her up the stairs to the bedroom they shared.

"Come," Nieodimus said when they had gone. "Sit with me for a time."

With a sigh, Arianna did as he asked. She sat down on the small sofa. Nieodimus took a seat beside her, his body turned toward her, and gathered her hands in both of his. "It is long past time we had this talk, do you not agree?"

Not meeting his eyes, she nodded. "I suppose so."

"I have not told you this, Arianna, but I have had... memories. Of you. Of us."

She looked up quickly, drew in a short breath.

"I remember only small glimpses into the past. Riding together, this one is clear. You had long, golden hair. It flew behind you in the wind and captured the sunlight. I could barely keep my attention focused on guiding my mount because it was so beautiful."

She blinked in surprise, a lump coming into her throat so suddenly she nearly choked.

"And there are other things, too. I remember how I loved listening to you talk. I remember your voice, and the song of the highlands in your speech. And your quick temper, and your impulsive nature and how often I feared it would get you into trouble."

She smiled a bit, nodding at him. ' 'It often did get me into trouble. But you were usually nearby to get me out again."

"I remember holding you as you cried at your sister's grave. I remember when some lad cut you to see if you would bleed, and the fear and horror I felt as I tended the wound." He shook the remembered fear away. "You were furious at him."

"You punched him in the nose," she said softly.

He smiled. "I should have done more." He met her eyes, and his smile died slowly. "I remember making love to you, in a sacred place surrounded by stones, Arianna. In the midst of the falling snow. And I remember what I felt for you then—"

"Don't." She got to her feet quickly, putting her back to him. "Stop now, Nicodimus. Your thoughts are confused. You didn't feel anything for me then."

"But I did." He got up, and came behind her, his hands sliding over her shoulders as he turned her gently. "I still do."

She closed her eyes as tears threatened. "You will change your mind when you remember the rest."

"It will come soon enough," he said. "But it will not change my mind. I was suspicious of you at first—"

"With good reason! You came to hate me before you died, Nicodimus."

"But you've shown nothing but kindness to me, and to

Nidaba as well. No, Arianna, I could never have hated you. If anyone has cause to hate, it is you who have cause to hate me. For you loved me, freely and generously, you loved me. This I remember very well. Yet I, in my stubbornness, continued to deny feeling anything for you in return, even when I-—"

"Please don't," she whispered. "If you say it now only to take it back later... Nicodimus, I don't mink I'll ever get past it."

"Perhaps I don't want you to 'get past it'. But I will not say the words if they frighten you so. I will hope instead that my heart can speak for itself."

He drew her closer then, and bent to press his lips to hers. For the life of her, Arianna could not pull away. He kissed her so tenderly, so gently. And when she parted her lips on a shuddering sigh, and wound her arms around his neck, he kissed her harder. Deeper. He pulled her hips tight to his own, and drove his tongue into her mouth, tasting all within his reach, plundering her until her head was spinning and her heart, pounding.

And then he lifted his head away, and his eyes sparkled down into hers. "I would like very much to hold you in my arms tonight, Arianna. I want to take you to my bed. Will you let me?"

She couldn't speak. So she only nodded, then panicked and the words spilled out before she could stop them. "I will never love you again, Nicodimus. I won't let you break me that way. Not again."

He stared at her, and finally sighed and shook his head, "I hurt you very badly, then, didn't I?"

She nodded in jerky motions. "I gave you all of me, all I had to give. But it was never enough for you. And you only threw it back in my face."

' "Then I was a fool. And whatever you did to me in the end, was likely well deserved, Arianna."

Lowering her head, she shook it slowly. "No. You warned me after all. You told me you could never feel anything for me. I just couldn't accept it."

"Nor should I have asked you to." He searched her eyes,

saw the way she trembled, she was certain of it. "I want you very badly, Arianna."

"I... I..." She stared up at him, incapable of refusing him. She was his, tonight and every night, if he wanted her. She hated feeling powerless, craving him this much when she ought to know better than to fall into the same old trap. Loving a man who could not love her back. It was self-destructive. And painful. And she deserved better, dammit.

"No, Arianna," he said softly, his eyes roaming her face. "Not tonight. Not now, with this unsettled between us. You'd give still more of yourself if I asked you now, wouldn't you? No, don't answer. I will not ask any more of you. Not now, not like this."

"Nicodimus?"

He shook his head. "Go on, little cat. Go up to your bed. And do not worry about Nidaba. I will hear her if she moves from her rooms. I will keep you safe, I vow it."

Little cat. He did remember. Arianna drew a deep breath, hating the weakness only he could bring to life in her. Damn him. She was strong. She didn't need him to love her, didn't even need him to forgive her. Much less to protect her.

She didn't!

And she didn't love him, either.

Only a fool would love a man who'd rejected her as many times as Nicodimus had rejected Arianna.

Only a totally hopeless fool. And Arianna was nobody's fool.

Marten focused his intent on the small house. His eyes bored into it as he drew the heat up from the core of him, holding it and letting it build. Hotter. Stronger. Sweat broke out on his face and arms. His breaths came short and fast, and his body shuddered with the effort of containing the energy. And yet he held it inside him as it grew. His body heated, and he knew his skin was turning bloodred. A white-hot haze filled his vision, brighter, blinding, but still he did not blink, did not close his eyes.

Finally, with a shout, he released the energy. It shot

forth, a ball of spectral flame that penetrated the house at its base, near the back. As it flooded out of him, Marten went weak. Nothing remained inside him, no strength, no energy, and his body sank limply to the ground. He lay there, still, waiting. His strength would return in a few moments. It always did.

While he waited, he watched the house as his vision slowly cleared and returned to normal. He saw the soft glow from within. Saw it build. Watched it spread.

Marten smiled.

Arianna lay awake in her bed, restless and troubled. So Nicodimus wanted her again. It was no surprise, or at least, it shouldn't be. He'd wanted her before. He just hadn't loved her. And although he might think that had changed, she knew better. She had spent too much time convincing herself he could never love her to believe so easily now. Once he remembered, it would all change.

And why would he bother with her anyway, when it was obvious his feelings for Nidaba ran far deeper, and were far older than anything he could ever feel for Arianna? He spent countless hours with Nidaba. Whenever she ventured out of the room she'd claimed as her own, he would be at her side, talking to her about the amazing things he'd seen or learned about in this new world. Or reminiscing about the past, recounting various adventures they'd shared together. Asking gently if she remembered.

She always did.

He spent time with Nidaba in her room as well. Less now that she was venturing out more often, but still, a lot of time passed with the two of them holed up back there. Arianna didn't like to think about what they were doing. She'd barely restrained the urge to walk in on them and find out. At least Nicodimus didn't sleep in there with Nidaba. He'd taken to spending his nights on the sofa. Insisted on it, in fact, though Arianna had offered her own room to him. Maybe because it was closer to Nidaba. Maybe because he could get up and slip into the bedroom with Nidaba in the night, and no one would know. Maybe...

Maybe it was none of her business. She had no claims on Nicodimus.

Well, one claim, but it hardly deserved consideration. Still, technically at least, she was his wife.

He didn't know that yet. Hadn't remembered that far. But he would, in time. And she wondered what he would make of it when he finally did remember.

The scream from below ripped through Arianna's psyche so deeply that she was on her feet before she was aware of moving at all. She yanked the bedroom door open, smelled the smoke, and felt her heart leap within her chest. Racing into the hall, she peered down over the railing into the living room, and saw Nidaba tugging with all her might on Nicodimus's arm.

"Fire! There's fire! Come with me!" Nidaba shrieked.

Nicodimus only pried her hands away, and pointed to the front door. "Go, get outside, now! I have to get Arianna!"

"Damn Arianna! She'll only get you killed again, Nicodimus! Come with me now!" She gripped him again, clung to him.

Again he freed himself, shoving Nidaba forcefully toward the door, and turning he started up the stairs.

"I won't leave you," Nidaba was screaming.

Nicodimus ignored her, stopping halfway up when he glanced up and into Arianna's eyes. "Go," Arianna told him. "Get Nidaba outside. I'll get Duncan and Raven and join you."

He shook his head firmly, just once, and a cloud of smoke wafted up between them. Nicodimus took the stairs rapidly, even as Arianna turned to race through the hall and pound on her sister's bedroom door.

Nicodimus came up behind her as she pounded and screamed, but there was no answer, and it was hot here. Hotter by the minute. From below she could hear the roar and crackle of flames now, accompanying Nidaba's panicked shrieks, and a glow hovered beyond the smoke like some evil eye.

Nicodimus moved her aside and swiftly kicked the bedroom door in. Smoke billowed out of the room, and he held

one arm before his face as he charged inside.

Numbly, Arianna realized the fire must have started in Nidaba's room, just below this one. The crazy woman must have set her house on fire! But Raven ... Duncan ...

They were not in the bed, and only when Nicodimus bent to the floor did she see them lying there. They had apparently been overcome by the smoke as they made their way toward the door.

"Raven!" Arianna rushed forward, even as Nicodimus hauled Duncan up, and flung the unconscious man over his shoulder.

Arianna gripped her sister under the arms and lifted her. Thank the Gods for preternatural strength. Though slender, Raven was both taller and bigger than Arianna. Were she mortal, she'd never have been able to manage it. Even now, Arianna struggled, but she held her sister close to her, and dragged her feet over the floor, through the door into the hallway, following Nicodimus's lead.

"Stay close," he called, and she could hear the rawness of his voice. Her own eyes burned and watered, and her lungs seemed starved for air. Nicodimus reached the top of the stairs, but looking down, Arianna saw only a pool of fire.

"My Gods, Nidaba!" she cried, wondering if the woman had gone outside, or if she still cringed by the door allowing the fire to devour her.

"This way," Nicodimus said, turning around. He headed back to Arianna's bedroom, and straight through it to the window. Without hesitation, he opened the window and thrust Duncan's upper body through. "Were you not immortal, my friend, I would not attempt this. And I fear it shall be painful, all the same." Then with a shove, he launched Duncan into the night.

Arianna heard sirens wailing. The village's volunteer fire department, no doubt. Another spectacle of modern life for Nicodimus to wonder at.

Her bare feet began to blister, and as she looked beneath her she saw tongues of fire licking up through the floorboards. Her sister's weight was taken from her arms, as

Nicodimus pulled Raven into his own. Carefully, he maneuvered Raven's body through the open window, dropping her just as he had dropped Duncan.

"Come," he rasped, gripping Arianna's arm. "Hurry."

The flames licked higher, and she heard the floorboards cracking beneath her blistering feet.

"Now!" he commanded, jerking her forward. She hooked one leg over the sill, gazing back at him. She held his arm. The floor wouldn't hold long. She didn't want to leave him. He wouldn't make it in time.

"Nicodimus—"

He gave Arianna a mighty shove, and she sailed through the night, hitting the ground with a bone-shattering impact that rattled her teeth and sent pain searing through her body. But even as she managed to draw a pain-racked breath and stared back up, she realized he hadn't followed. The window was a dark hole, now, and Nicodimus no longer stood there. Beyond the darkness, she could see only the dancing flames.

"Nicodimus!" Nidaba screamed.

Arianna whirled to see the woman standing nearby, staring up with anguished eyes at the spot where Nicodimus had been. Near her feet, Duncan was slowly stirring awake, as Raven shook him and spoke to him. The both of them were all right. And Nidaba, too. But Nicodimus ...

"You've done it again, haven't you, Arianna? You've killled my son all over again!"

Arianna blinked, stunned by the words, confused, but unable to devote even a moment's thought to the crazy ramblings of a madwoman. "The floor must have given way," she muttered, calculating in her mind, where he would have landed if it had. The kitchen, he would be near the kitchen. She raced round to that side of the house while Nidaba shouted in some unknown language after her. Curses, no doubt. Hurled in the tongue of the desert lands from whence she came. Arianna gave one brief thought to hoping the woman was too crazy to cast a decent spell, then put Nidaba from her mind and kept on running.

The town's only fire engine came to a squeaky stop, and

men piled out. But she had no time for them. Arianna found the hatch door in the ground and jerked it open, racing down into the pitch darkness of the basement, and then up its inside stairs to the door that opened into the kitchen. Smoke here, but not as much. Heat, too, but maybe...

She pressed her palms flat to the door. Hot, yes, but not blistering. Bracing herself for a blast, she opened the door. A wall of fire danced before her eyes. It coated the kitchen walls like living paint, and licked out across the floor in pools. She eyed the gas powered range, thought of the propane tanks just outside, and dropped to her knees to avoid the smoke. "Nicodimus!" she cried. "Nicodimus, where are you?"

She couldn't see. Perfect night vision was worthless when smoke burned her eyes like acid. So confusing was being in the heart of this fiery beast, that she no longer knew which way she was moving, just kept crawling along on all fours, choking out his name before drawing in more smoke-laden air.

Then she felt him. Warm, soft, his arm, yes it was his arm! She gripped it, and slid her knees backward over the floor, dragging his weight. Carefully, she moved, trying to retrace her path exactly. She moved a few feet, then she tugged, dragging his body over the floor, then moved a few more feet and tugged again, mightily, pouring all her strength into moving him. She shouldn't be this weak. It shouldn't be this difficult. But she knew it was the smoke, the heat. She was dizzy. She knew damn well she could die from smoke inhalation just as she could die by any other mortal cause. She'd revive again ... unless the fire consumed her body—and her heart with it. If that happened, she'd be truly dead. Permanently dead.

And Nicodimus with her.

Blackness threatened, but she battled it. Dragging him still farther, she called on her Witchly senses to guide her to the basement door. She moved back farther, and pulled him along, and finally she ran out of floor.

It seemed to vanish from beneath her knees, and she fell,

her body banging hard all the way to the bottom, her hand wrenched free of Nicodimus's arm.

No!

She pulled herself upright when the tumbling ended, realizing she'd fallen down the very stairway she'd sought. But without Nicodimus. She gasped, inhaling in a huge amount of the relatively clean air there, and lunged back up the stairs again. Gripping both of Nicodimus's arms, she pulled him back down the stairs with her. There she collapsed, finally unable to fight the darkness any longer. It closed in and she knew nothing for a time.

"What did you mean by that?" Duncan asked Nidaba after she'd stopped screaming.

"Never mind her, Duncan, we have to find Arianna!" Raven cried, her head pressed between her palms as she searched in vain for her sister. "My Goddess, I think she's gone back inside after Nic!"

The firefighters manned hoses now, aiming them at the flames and soaking the poor little house in an effort to save it. But Raven thought it was going to be a total loss. She didn't care, she just wanted her sister.

"That way," Raven screamed. "She went that way!" She started forward, only to be pulled firmly back by Duncan's strong hands.

"Look, there," he said, pointing to the open hatchway door. "I'll go. Stay here. I mean it, Raven."

She met his eyes, nodded hard, and watched in terror as he raced away. "Be careful!" she cried.

Duncan ducked into the basement, out of sight. Trembling, Raven glanced behind her, only to see Nidaba curled into a small trembling mass on the ground. She had come to hate the woman. It was unlike her to hate anyone, but Nidaba had been heartlessly cruel to Arianna ever since she'd arrived here. And Raven didn't take kindly to anyone who mistreated her beloved sister.

But now, seeing Nidaba in this much pain, Raven was touched in spite of herself. She moved forward, bending close.

"My son, my Nic," Nidaba was muttering, and Raven felt her own eyes widen as understanding dawned, almost blinding in its brightness.

"By the Gods," she whispered. Was this just more insane rambling from a lunatic driven beyond reason? Or could it possibly be true?

"They'll be all right," Raven whispered. "Duncan will get them out..."

"Don't touch me!" Nidaba jerked violently away from Raven's hand on her shoulder. "I hate you, I hate you all!"

Raven knelt beside her, and Nidaba lifted her head, her wet, red-rimmed eyes fixing on Raven's, the ruby in her nose glinting the fire's reflection.

"No, you don't," Raven said. "You just love Nicodi-mus. But we all do, too, don't you see that?" Raven fought a sob. "The man I love is in there, too, and my sister..."

Then, without warning, Nidaba collapsed against Raven's chest, shuddering with sobs that seemed too powerful to contain. Unsure how to react, Raven put her arms around the woman's shoulders and just held her while she cried. "I cannot lose him again," Nidaba sobbed. "I lost him twice ... and I cannot lose him again."

"You won't, I promise, you won't."

Nidaba shivered, lifting her head, looking at Raven, and for the first time since she'd met the woman, Raven saw some fleeting kind of lucidity in her eyes.

"He died for the first time when he was but nine years old," she whispered. "I didn't even know what I was then.... He ... was all I had."

Raven frowned, puzzled, and gently brushed the hair away from Nidaba's eyes. "When was this?" she asked softly.

"So long ago ... so very long ... millennia passed before he was reborn as an immortal High Witch. But I knew he would be.... I knew, for he died stepping between a soldier's sword and his mother's heart. He died to save my life. So did I, but I revived, and my son ... my precious Nic, did not."

"My God," Raven whispered. "My God, you really are ... You're his mother?"

"Nicodimus!" Nidaba cried, rising to her feet and staring through rivulets of tears at the inferno. "Don't leave me, Nicodimus, not again!"

Raven turned to gaze back at the blazing house. And then Duncan emerged, Arianna hanging limply over his shoulder. And as he came up the last steps, Raven saw that he was dragging Nic behind him.

Nidaba collapsed on the ground then, retreating, perhaps, to insanity. And for once, Raven thought she understood why. Millenia, she'd said. Gods, could anyone live that long and remain sane? She left the woman alone with her ghosts, and ran forward to help Duncan carry Nic and Arianna to safety.

"They'll be all right," Duncan assured her as she eased her sister's body from his arms into hers. He bent to scoop Nicodimus up. But Duncan had taken in a lot of smoke. It coated his mouth and nose in black soot, and he moved slowly, awkwardly, choking often, pausing to catch his breath. Eventually, the two managed to carry Nicodimus and Arianna back to where Nidaba had been waiting.

Raven lowered Arianna to the ground, and Duncan dropped Nicodimus beside her. "The fire didn't get to them," Duncan said. "They'll revive."

"Thank the Gods," Raven muttered. She bent over her sister, stroking her soot-streaked face. "You see Nidaba? I told you they'd be okay."

As she spoke, Raven looked up. Nidaba was no longer where she had been before. Turning her head, Raven scanned the area, but still, there was no sign of the strange woman.

Instead, she spied a jeweled dagger, thrust into the earth, and a small scrap of paper pinned there by its blade. She frowned at Duncan, who quickly went to pull the dagger up. Duncan scanned the note, then met Raven's eyes. "Nidaba has been taken by someone named Marten, who says he'll release her only to Nicodimus. 'Come alone,' it says. 'You know where to find me.' "

Duncan frowned, his face tight with concern. "Do you have any clue what this is about, Raven?"

Raven shook her head slowly, but her eyes burned with tears of worry for the woman she sensed she had never really met until tonight.

Chapter 21

"Nic, come on, wake up."

I heard Duncan's voice just before my body went rigid, and the life force flooded back into me. Then I went limp, lying still on the damp ground, opening my eyes slowly.

Before me were a massive machine with flashing lights, and men wielding lengths of soft tubing that spouted water at the house. The house ... Arianna's home was a sodden, charred mass now. A ruin. Tongues of flame shot forth still, but the fire was nearly extinguished. The sight of it stirred some memory. A brief glimpse of a similar scene from the distant past. A flicker, then gone, leaving me with a sickening feeling in my stomach. I turned my head, not wishing to look on that sight any longer, only to see Arianna lying beside me on the ground. Still.

"Arianna?" I sat up immediately, moving closer, bending over her. Her face was dusted with soot, her hair dulled with it. I touched her face, lifting n.y gaze to her sister's. "I do not understand. I pushed her from the window."

"But you were still inside," Raven said softly. "She went back in after you. We couldn't stop her."

Something twisted in my heart. "She could have burned," I whispered. I gathered her limp body gently into

my arms, pulling her upright, so she rested against my chest. One hand at the small of her back, one cupping her head and holding it to my shoulder, I rocked her back and forth. "You're such a fool, little cat. Risking death for a man you say you do not love. I think you lie."

As I held her, she went stiff, sucking in a great gasp, then relaxing in my arms once more as she came awake. "Nicodimus?" she whispered, her voice hoarse.

"Right here. It is all right. Everyone is safe." As I said it, I realized I had not seen Nidaba, and sent a questioning glance over Raven's shoulder to Duncan.

The man nodded. "Yes, everyone got out of the house."

Good. Nidaba was likely frightened by the noise and lights and people. She was probably hiding somewhere nearby.

One of the men who'd been fighting the fire came toward us with a stack of blankets. "The house is lost," he said, and his voice was thickly laced with a Scottish lilt. "But there be rooms for you at the inn. No charge. An' by the time you get there, you'll find a change o' clothes a'waitin'. Some o' the local ladies keep such things on hand for emergencies such as this."

"That's very kind. Thank you," Raven said.

In my arms, Arianna was still shaking. Still, I thought, trying to sort through the confusion in her mind. I'd been here with this woman for several days now. And with each one that had passed, my feelings for her had grown. All the suspicions, all the instinctive sense that I must not trust her, and even the knowledge that she had indeed been somehow involved with my death, did nothing to dampen the feelings growing wild within me. There was something about her. Her keen mind and quick wit. Her boldness and intelligence. Her kindness and generosity. Her temper—even that drew me to her. She was small and quick and, I sensed, passionate. I had made love to this woman once, though the memory of it was vague and sketchy now. Knowing it only served to make me want her more, a desire that burned hot within my soul, and seemed to grow daily. But it was

more than lust I felt for this woman. A great deal more ... perhaps more than she wanted me to feel.

I felt it all the same, and sensed she did as well. And I would tell her so, if only she would let me.

It was, however, something she did not wish to hear. And I would respect her wishes. For now. Only for now. She loved me, though she might deny it. I knew that. She had risked her life to save mine tonight. She loved me. She simply needed time to accept the idea.

I took one of the blankets from the stack the man had left with us, and wrapped it around her shoulders, brushing ash from her hair.

"Nic, we um... we need to talk. Something has happened," Duncan said.

Arianna's head came up, her eyes alert now, and searching the area around us. "Where is Nidaba?" she asked.

Raven averted her eyes. "Nidaba ... told me some things a few moments ago. Things you both need to know ... especially you, Nic''

I frowned, wishing Nidaba would show herself and ease this sudden kernel of worry that seemed to be gnawing at my belly. "What did she tell you?" I asked.

Licking her lips, Raven lifted her gaze to meet mine. "She... she's always been very close to you, hasn't she? Very protective of you."

I nodded. "Yes. Sometimes to the extreme."

"But she's never told you why, has she?"

"No."

Raven bit her lip, nodded slowly. "I didn't think so. Do you know why you were born into this lifetime as an immortal High Witch, Nic?"

I nodded. "Of course. I must have died trying to save the life of another, in the lifetime before."

"Right. Well, Nidaba ... she was the one whose life you saved."

I blinked in surprise, glancing quickly at Arianna. She said, "It doesn't surprise me. I always knew there was an incredible bond between you two."

"More than you could even guess," Duncan said.

I glanced his way. Raven cleared her throat. "Nic ... When you died to save her life, Nidaba was ..."

"Was...?" I prompted, when she stopped mid-sentence.

"She was your mother."

I heard Arianna's soft gasp, even as Raven's words made their way to my ears. It felt as if my heart jumped into my throat. I parted my lips, but could not speak, could not even breathe for a moment.

"Sweet Goddess," Arianna whispered. "Your mother... Oh, it all makes so much sense now."

The large vehicles began to rumble away. My gaze seemed to search the darkness around us as if I were seeking some sense, some explanation that could be found there. There was none, of course. There was the house, reduced to smoking, sodden ash and charred beams that dripped and hissed away the last of their heat. There was Arianna's driving machine sitting out of harm's way, and apparently untouched by the flames. There were three people watching me as everything I had believed in my life simply melted away beneath a revelation too shocking to comprehend.

And there was Arianna, still in my arms. I suddenly held her more tightly. "My mother," I whispered, staring at Raven in disbelief. "She said this?"

"Yes. She was your mother, an immortal High Witch, but she didn't even know that at the time. You were nine years old, she said, when she was attacked by some soldier. ... She didn't say why. Just that you leapt in front of her, and were killed by a blow from his sword. And that it was a very long time before you were finally reborn in Scotland."

My head low, I shook it slowly. Arianna sat up slightly, and ran one palm gently over my cheek. "Why?" I asked of no one in particular. "Why would she not have told me these things ... ?" Arianna only shook her head, her big brown eyes wide with concern for me.

"I don't know why, Nic," Raven said. "But I think it's

true. "I... I know Nidaba is not in the best of mental health right now, but I saw her eyes when she was speaking, and ..." She drew a breath, then nodded hard. "She was speaking from the heart, I know that much."

"No wonder she hated me so much," Arianna said. I looked into Arianna's eyes, saw the pain there, the reflection of my pain, and perhaps Nidaba's as well. So caring, this woman. The most caring I'd ever known. "I understand everything now," she said.

"I do not," I told her. Reluctantly I released Arianna's small, warm body, and got to my feet. "I must speak to Nidaba. Where is she now?"

Raven and Duncan exchanged a worried glance. Then Duncan extracted a small scrap of paper from somewhere beneath the blanket wrapped around him, and handed it to me. I frowned down at the words ... English, I thought but unfamiliar to me. I could not read what was written there.

"We only left her alone for a minute... just long enough to pull you two out of that basement,'' Duncan said. "I guess that's when he got to her."

My head came up fast, and just as quickly, Arianna jumped to her feet beside me, and snatched the note from my hands.

"Marten," she whispered.

"Marten?" The name brought his image clearly back to my mind. My nemesis. My onetime brother-in-law, and lifelong enemy. "That bastard is still alive? Damn him. Are you saying ... Gods, are you saying he has taken Nidaba?''

"It looks that way," Duncan said. "Read him the note, Arianna. Maybe he can make some sense of it."

Arianna met my gaze, and I saw her reluctance. But she nodded, and read aloud. " 'Nicodimus, I have taken your precious Nidaba. I will kill her if I must, but I fear taking the heart of a lunatic might well infect me with her madness. Still, I will risk that, if you force me. I am willing, however, to make a trade. Nidaba, unharmed, for you, Nicodimus. Come alone, old friend. You know where to find me. Marten.' "

I stopped my pacing and lifted my head. "But.. .I do not know where to find him. What..." Then I let my question die on my lips and gazed at Arianna. She looked quickly away, shielding her eyes from my probing stare.

"Arianna, if you know what this means, tell me."

She only shook her head, still not meeting my eyes. "I don't know."

"You must know!" I went to her, gripped her shoulders, and stared into her eyes. "Arianna, please."

"I don't know, Nicodimus. It must be something from the past, something you still haven't remembered. But if it is, it's something I didn't know about."

I saw something in her eyes. A shadow that seemed to hide her soul from me. I did not know if she were telling me the truth, or why she would want to lie. I did not feel as if I knew anything just then. Everything I'd ever believed seemed to have been shaken to the core by Raven's revelations. "I must find her," I whispered.

"We'll find her," Duncan said, his voice firm and strong. "He can't have taken her far. Arianna, maybe you can at least give us a physical description of this Marten character to go on."

Arianna nodded, but I saw the way her jaw was set, and the determination in her eyes. I also saw the suspicion with which Raven was eyeing her. She, too, thought Arianna knew more than she was saying.

But why? Gods, could she be jealous of my affection for Nidaba still? Even knowing the woman had been my mother?

My mother. Gods, I could not get over it. Nidaba, my own mother.

"So what is it, exactly, that you're keeping from Nic?" Raven asked.

Arianna looked up fast. Nicodimus and Duncan had gone off into the woods beyond the town in a hopeless attempt to track Marten and Nidaba. "I don't know what you mean...."

"You damned well do, and I won't let you deceive me,

Arianna. Not me, of all people. I know you better than anyone. I love you better than anyone, and I'm not going to let you get away with this any more than you would if our situations were reversed. Now what is it?"

Arianna dropped her gaze, unable to withstand the impact of her sister's accusing eyes. She was shaken, right to the core. All this time she'd been half convinced that Ni-daba wanted Nicodimus for herself. .. when she'd been his mother all along. Protecting him just as any mother would do for her son.

"You know where Marten took her, don't you?"

Arianna shrugged. "I have an idea."

"And you don't plan to let that poor woman die in Nic's place. I know you better than to think that. You're going to go after her yourself, aren't you? Aren't you, Arianna!"

Arianna sighed deeply, knowing better than to try to fool her sister on this point. "What choice do I have? She's his mother, Raven. He loves her, and he needs her, especially now."

"He loves you, Arianna."

"No. He thinks he does, but that will change once he remembers...."

"Oh, for the love of heaven, you're so blind! The man adores you! That's not going to change because of something that happened centuries ago."

Arianna shook her head. "If he goes after her himself, Marten will kill him. It's that simple. Hell, that snake would probably kill them both."

"And if you go after her, he'll kill you instead."

"No. I can beat him. Nidaba is unbalanced, and Nicodimus is still weak. But I can beat him, Raven. And I will— for Nicodimus. Just as you would do for Duncan. You know you would. Don't even try to deny it."

Raven lowered her gaze, unable to argue with that simple truth. "Yes. I would. Because I love him. And you love Nic the same way, don't you?"

A stabbing pain pierced Arianna's chest as she nodded. "Yes. I love him. But I can't have him, I can't make him love me, and I'm not going to try. I've made that mistake

before, but I learned from it. Yes, I love him.... I love him enough to let him go, Raven."

"And enough to die for him?"

Arianna didn't answer that. Instead, she just looked away.

"Fine, go after Marten in Nic's place if you must. But not alone. I'll go with you. And Duncan will, too. With three we'd have Marten outnumbered."

Keeping her gaze carefully averted, Arianna nodded. "You must promise not to tell Nicodimus. We'll have to slip away, without his knowledge. He's still not strong enough to do battle."

Raven eyed her warily. "All right. Agreed."

"Good then."

"Why do I get the feeling that was far too easy?"

Arianna shook her head and plastered a false smile on her face, hoping against hope her sister would believe her lies. "We'll go tomorrow. We both need rest after this night's mayhem."

"Yes. All right." Raven paced away, then back again.

"Let's get to the inn then. The fireman said they would have rooms for us."

"One room," Raven said. "One large room. I don't plan to let you out of my sight tonight, Arianna.''

Meeting her sister's gaze, Arianna murmured, "You're going to have to, love. I plan to spend this night in the arms of my husband. Just in case my plan goes wrong. It might be the last chance I ever have."

"Your... ?" Raven's eyes widened as she searched her sister's face.

Arianna simply nodded. "Nicodimus and I were married once, a long time ago. He doesn't remember it yet, but I do. I'll never forget." She lowered her head, to hide the color she felt staining her cheeks. "So give me this night with him. And tomorrow, we'll do what needs doing."

"Oh, Arianna." Raven enfolded her sister in her arms, and held her tight. ' 'Why is it you feel you have to try so hard not to love him?"

"Because he can never love me back. I thought... I

thought if there were no love, there could be no pain. No hurting and longing for what I could never have. But it was never a choice, really. I've always loved him."

Raven stroked her hair. "Things will work out. Have faith, sweetheart."

Arianna lowered her head to Raven's shoulder. But she was out of faith, and determined, at last, to right a very old wrong. She couldn't have Nicodimus's love, she knew that, had accepted it. But she could save his life, and she could give him back his mother. She could make up for the mistakes she'd made in the past. And she would. Even knowing full well that it might be the last thing she ever did.

Marten had left no sign. Duncan and I searched for hours, to no avail. We found no track, no path, no clue. I thought of Nidaba, of the horrors she must have suffered in the past, likely at Dearborne's hand, and of how she must be feeling right now ... a captive once more. Anxiety for her, and a deep fury against Marten, boiled in my belly.

"We might as well go back," Duncan said, a hand on my shoulder. "Maybe Arianna has remembered something more about all this by now."

"Arianna will not tell us any more than she wants us to know," I said wearily. "She's always been the most stubborn girl I..." I stopped speaking for a moment, and Duncan looked at me, waiting. ' 'I remember her stubbornness. The way she would sneak away from her mother's home by night to study the ways of magick with The Crones. Even knowing the danger such actions brought with them."

Tilting his head, Duncan studied my face. "The Crones?"

I nodded, Arianna's face clear in my mind now. The way she had looked then. I had followed her, spied on her to be sure she was safe. I'd seen her with the old women, her cheeks bathed in the glow of their balefire. "She looked the same ... but different somehow. Physically, she hasn't changed, except that she has cut off her hair. But there was an innocence in her eyes then. She seems ... hard now."

"Not so hard as you might think," Duncan offered. "With her sister, she's as soft as a breeze."

I nodded in agreement. "Her hardness is selective then. She dons it to protect her heart from the likes of me."

Duncan couldn't seem to think of a response to that. Instead he said, "Tell me about these old women who taught her their ways."

I nodded, searching for the memories, finding them where before there had been but shadows. "They were Witches, mortal ones. Even before she knew of her own nature, Arianna sensed her power. She was determined to learn about it, about what it meant, and why she possessed it when others did not. She sought out the knowledge in the only place she could find it. The Crones were outcasts, feared by the clan, but left alone for the most part."

"Still," Duncan mused, "it must have been risky for Arianna to spend time with them. Especially in those days."

A darkness settled in my brain, and a chill shivered up my spine. "It nearly got her killed," I said. Then I blinked and searched my mind some more.

"This is a new memory, isn't it, Nic?"

I nodded. ' 'It was the fire, I think, that brought all of this back to me. I recall... I was searching for Arianna, and could not find her. And... there was smoke, and noise coming from the edge of the woods where The Crones lived. I went there and..." I pressed my fingers to my forehead, as if to force the memory clear, and then I lifted my head, felt my eyes widen. "The clan murdered them. Hanged The Crones and burned their bodies. It was like a nightmare. Charred remains dangling from the limb of a mighty oak. The house in ruins. The entire clan, milling about, some bearing torches ..."

Duncan grimaced. "You're right. Seeing Arianna's little house burn tonight likely jarred some of this loose for you."

I didn't care what had caused the memory to return. I only needed to follow it, for I sensed its import. "Arianna was there. Gods, she was devastated, and furious. The

crowd turned its attention on her as she shouted accusations at them. Someone cried out that she had been seen with The Crones, that she was likely a Witch as well, and should suffer the same fate." I lowered my head as the breath rushed out of me, and felt again the sick-to-my-stomach fear that had assailed me then. "I remember her father, standing in front of her, ready to defend her against that murderous mob with no more than a fallen limb as a weapon. He'd have had no chance against them all. But I stepped in to protect her as well."

"How?" Duncan asked. His gaze riveted to mine, he seemed fascinated by the tale. "Two men against an entire clan? How did you defend her against that?"

I closed my eyes as the past rushed over me. "I was known as close kin to their chieftain. They wouldn't have dared defy me. But I knew Arianna would be in grave danger again the moment I was gone. I had to link her to me in a way so permanent and so real that she would be safe, even without me at her side."

Opening my eyes, I stared up at the stars, and saw the past unfolding in my mind. The dress she'd worn, the flowers in her hair. The excited uncertainty in her eyes. ' 'I married her," I whispered. "By the Gods, I married her. Arianna ... Arianna is my wife.'"

I felt as if my legs would buckle beneath me, and suddenly Duncan was there, gripping my shoulders, and easing me downward until I sat on a partially rotted stump. The fragrance of the moist, decomposing wood and moss rose up to wrap around my senses, but my mind refused to stop whirling.

"Your wife? For the love of heaven. She never told us any of this." He shook his head in wonder. Then he eyed me again. "It's all just a bit too much to deal with in one night, isn't it, Nic? Discovering a mother and a wife, all at once? Are you okay?"

"I... Gods, why didn't she tell me?"

Duncan hunkered on the ground beside the stump. "I could hazard a guess. If you want me to?''

I looked at him and nodded hard.

"Arianna is... a proud woman. No, that's an understatement. It's more than pride. At any rate, if you only married her to keep the clan from murdering her, then she must have known it. Right? I mean, frankly, knowing her as I do, I'm surprised she even agreed to it."

I frowned fiercely, searching my mind. "She did not agree... not at first. But in the end she realized she had no choice. Her mother and father urged her to accept, and I pushed her as well. Her only other option would have been to run away. To leave all she knew and loved behind, and to try to exist on her own. In the world as it was then, she would have been in just as much danger that way as she had been that night at The Crones' execution."

Duncan nodded. "So she agreed ... knowing you didn't love her."

I blinked and met Duncan's eyes. "I was a fool. So determined to protect my heart from the touch of hers and the pain I believed that touch would bring. Gods, I set terms. Can you believe that? I laid out terms, expecting Arianna to agree to them."

' 'Might as well set terms for the wind as to how it should blow," Duncan remarked, shaking his head and smiling slightly at the very idea. "Arianna sets her own terms."

I nodded wryly. "Yes. She did then. She agreed to wed me, but informed me she would never be content with the rules I laid out: that she would be my wife in name only, that I would never be capable of loving her, or being her husband in the truest sense of the word. She said... she said she would make me love her. That my defenses would crumble beneath her slightest touch. That it was I who would surrender to her terms, and that I should be aware of it from the start."

Duncan smiled fully now. "You should have run for the hills, Nic. You never stood a chance, did you?"

"If I ever thought I did, I was fooling no one but myself," I admitted. "My pride ... it wasn't pride really. It was fear. My old wounds ran deep. I had lost my wife, my sons, my family. I had no wish to let her reopen those wounds, and I knew that she could. That she would if I let

her. But I could never admit that I was afraid of a young girl like Arianna."

"Don't feel too bad, Nic. I was scared to death of her sister." Duncan got to his feet again. "But I have a feeling you should be telling Arianna all of this, instead of spilling your guts to me. Don't you?"

"I suppose I should." I rose slowly, brushed the dust from my jeans. But there were more images making their way back to me as we walked toward the village. No clear memories, but a sense. A sense that Arianna had indeed conquered my heart, and that once she had held it in her small hands, she'd crushed it mercilessly. The old fear of her crept over me once more. The feeling that I must protect myself from her this time, or suffer complete destruction at her hand.

And yet, I had no desire to obey my mind's warnings. No desire at all. Let her trample my heart if she would. I would not resist her. Not this time.

I was shivering when we arrived back at the site of her burned house. A chill of foreboding ran all the way to my soul.

Arianna and Raven were waiting there, but looking far better than they had when we'd left them. They were clean and dressed in fresh clothing.

"Any luck?" Raven asked.

"No, none at all." Duncan touched the blouse she wore. "Very pretty."

"Some of the locals donated some fresh clothes to us. And Arianna and I have rooms waiting at a local inn for the night. There are clean clothes waiting for you both there, as well."

"And a hot shower, I hope," Duncan said.

Arianna had a hold on my eyes that wouldn't let go. I could not look away, and found I did not want to. She took my hand, and saying nothing, led me along the streets and through the town to the inn.

Chapter 22

The inn was a large building, likely once a farmhouse, with brown slabwood siding, and a railed stairway leading up to solid doors, painted red. When we went inside, Raven led Duncan directly up the stairs, leaving Arianna and I alone below.

Arianna seemed nervous. Naturally, she would be, I reminded myself. She'd just lost her house to fire, and likely the sight of the flames had elicited the same memories in her mind as they had in mine.

Licking her lips, she led me to the foot of the stairs, then paused and looked up at me. The nervousness fled however, and her full lips quirked upward into a teasing smile. "You're still covered in soot," she said. "And your hair is practically gray with ash.''

I returned the smile, though still sick with worry for Ni-daba, and reeling with shock from the night's revelations. "You can see then what I would look like as an old man."

"You already are an old man."

I lifted my brows. "True enough. But you are an old woman, as well. I suppose I can no longer argue that you are too young for me, can I?"

Her smile faded, and she broke her gaze. "You remember that?"

"I have remembered a great deal tonight, Arianna." I reached out to stroke her hair, then paused, noting the dark smears of soot that coated my hand. "I will bathe first, and then ... we will talk."

"All right." She seemed to lift her chin a bit as she started up the stairs, and not meeting my eyes, she said, "Our room is this way."

Our room? My mind leapt on those words. Did she mean ... could she want... but...

She was moving quickly away from me, and I hurried to catch up. Turning at the top of the stairs, she moved along a corridor, paused at a door, and inserted a key. Then she opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was a simple one. There was a large bed, a pair of overstuffed chairs, and a television like the wondrous one that had been in Arianna's house. She was already moving through, opening an adjoining door, calling over her shoulder, "The bathroom is right here." But I was focused again on the bed: one bed. Only one.

Shaking myself, I went to join her in the bathroom.

"No tub," she said. "Just a shower stall, but I showed you how to work that at home."

I nodded mutely.

"Your clothes are here." She patted the top of a folded stack of garments. "Towel is on the rack." With that she quickly backed out of the small bathroom, leaving me with a head full of questions, and not a single answer.

Sighing, I reached into the stall to turn on the water and adjust its temperature. I hurried through the process of bathing, though I did a thorough job of it. I was eager to speak with Arianna... with my wife. To find out just what she intended to do about tonight's sleeping arrangements. Perhaps there had been only the one room available, I thought as I scrubbed the soot from my body, and watched the dark water swirl down the drain. But surely if that were the case, she'd have spent the night with her sister, and sent Duncan to share this room with me. Unless Raven objected to that.

Then again, I did not think Raven the kind of woman who would deny her sister anything she asked.

I shampooed my hair, ridding it of the ashy residue, and was rinsing the lather away when there came a tap on the bathroom door.

"Are you almost done?" Arianna called.

"Yes."

"Can I come in?"

I went still, standing motionless beneath the spray. Soap bubbles trickled down my face, into my eyes, and still I could not move. "Yes," I finally managed.

The curtain of the shower was pulled closed, but I heard the bathroom door open, heard her small, soft footsteps as she came inside. And then closer. "I... got some more soot on me when we were back at the house," she said, her voice very soft now. Almost timid, which was so unlike her it made a shiver dance over my spine.

Bracing myself for her rejection—for it would certainly come—I spoke softly. My voice seemed incapable of anything louder just then. ' 'I would like nothing better than to wash it away for you, Arianna."

She did not answer. Reaching up to the curtain, I curled my hand around it, and drew it slowly open.

She stood there before me, not a stitch of clothing covering her beauty. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes wide and shining. My eyes devoured her, from her blush-stained face to her slender neck, and lower. Her breasts, round and peaked, and perfect. Her waist, narrow and tempting. The shadowy hollow of her navel, and the silken curls between her legs. Beautiful legs, slender and strong, and small bare feet, toes curling and relaxing over and over.

"I see no soot," I whispered.

She licked her lips. "I lied. There isn't any."

I clasped her waist in my hands and pulled her into the shower with me, turning her so that she stood directly beneath the spray. The water coursed over her, drenching her hair and running down her face. Her arms curled around my neck, and every part of my body seemed to tingle with new life, as she stood on tiptoe, and pressed her lips to

mine. Her mouth tasted sweet, her tongue, warm and moist as I stroked it with mine. Wet flesh pressed to the front of me, her breasts warm, nipples taut against my chest.

I slid my mouth from hers to drink the moisture from her jaw, and her neck. "My beautiful Arianna," I muttered. "My beautiful wife."

I heard her soft gasp, felt her body stiffen. "Then you remember that, as well."

"I remember that. How I ever forgot it, I will never know." I bent over her, capturing a breast in my mouth, tasting it, teasing its hard crest with my tongue while I held her tight to me. Her taste ... yes, I remembered this as well. And more. I fell to my knees before her, and as the water rained down upon us, I kissed the droplets away from her skin. Licked it away from her belly, her hips, her thighs. Then I pressed my mouth to her center, darting my tongue inside to sample die salty moisture there.

Moaning softly, she clenched her hands in my hair, and parted her thighs, opening to my gentle invasion. Inviting me to take more of her. I swelled and ached for her, wanted to devour every bit of her, and I drove my tongue deeper. The taste of her was maddening to me as I stroked her, sucked at her, used my lips and even my teeth to make her tremble and shake. She whispered my name, then cried it out loud when her pleasure reached its peak, and when she would have backed away I caught her buttocks in my hands and held her still, pressing my face tight to her and licking deep. Refusing to let her go, flushing her with my tongue until she was shaking so hard her knees buckled beneath her, and she would have collapsed had I not been holding her so tightly.

Gathering my shuddering lady into my arms, I carried her from the shower, reaching back to shut off the water. I took her to the bed, and lowered her to the mattress. Then I eased myself atop her, parting her thighs with my hands, pressing them wide for me. I slid inside her. She was warm, and wet, yes, but tight. Very tight, and still convulsing with the echoes of her climax. Slowly, I began to move deeper, and when I had filled her, I pulled back again. Very slowly.

In a moment, she was moving, too, her hips arching up as I thrust into her, pulling away as I drew back. Her legs wrapped themselves around me. Her arms imprisoned me. I bent to feed again at her mouth as I moved faster, drove harder. She reached the pinnacle again even as I felt my seed spilling into her, drawn from the depths of my soul, it seemed. Draining me dry.

I lay there inside her for several long moments, during which neither of us spoke. The very blood in my veins seemed to sing with joy, and my soul itself sighed in sweet release. Sweet union.

I moved to lie down beside her, and she curled into my arms, her head nestled upon my shoulder.

"Arianna," I whispered. "Sweet little cat, does this mean that you—"

Her fingertips came then to press softly to my lips. "No talk now, Nicodimus. Not now. I want to fall asleep in your arms. Let's save the talking for tomorrow."

I frowned, but agreed. There was nothing, nothing, I would not do for her. So if she wished to sleep in my arms, that was what she would do. And in the morning, I would convince her somehow that my love for her was true, and abiding, and too strong for any ghosts of the past to threaten.

Arianna slipped away before dawn. Doing so was far easier than she had expected it to be. She stood for a long moment beside the bed, in the darkness, just looking at him. Nicodimus lying there with his eyes gently closed, his magnificent chest rising and falling in the rhythm of slumber. That was the way she left him, and the image she would carry with her of him, in her mind. She found she didn't want to face Nicodimus when he woke, didn't want to see what might be in his eyes when he opened them. Not the misguided notion he had that he had ever cared for her... loved her. And not the memory that might very well have returned by then, and the hatred that would come with it. To see either of those things would hurt too much to bear. Both would tear at her heart and leave it bleeding. So when

she slipped away it was with a sense of relief.

And longing. Bittersweet longing for something that could never be. Something that had never been. She'd been foolish enough to hope for it once. But she was harder now, and wiser, and she knew the difference between fantasy and reality. And yes, it hurt, but the pain would be far worse if she let herself fall into that bottomless pit of hoping again. Her feet were firmly on the ground. She knew exactly where she stood with Nicodimus.

She also knew where to find Marten and Nidaba. The keep where Marten had taken her all those years ago—the place it had taken days to reach on horseback. Now it was only a couple of hours away by car. She could locate Ken-wick again, she was certain of that, although she had never tried to do so in the years since.

She exited the inn by a rear door, and stepped out into the dead silent, still streets of the sleeping village. A soft purple hue colored the sky, and the only sounds were the occasional cry of a nightbird, and the fluttering wings of insects swooping by. Morning was still a couple of hours off. It would give her all the time she needed.

She walked briskly back to the remains of her house, and thanked her stars that she never worried about such things as taking the keys from her car in this peaceful little place. Within a short while, she was heading south, along a road that hadn't even existed the last time she'd traveled this way. But the direction was right. Easy enough to keep the coast in view. Easy enough to recall the odd shape of the hills that surrounded that place.

And easy enough to wile away the time the journey took, reliving every moment of the night she had spent in Nicodimus' s arms. It had been so good. So beautiful. She had no regrets, not one. It had been right to make love to him. Right, and perfect, and wonderful.

By the time she reached her destination, the sun was up, brilliant and orange and fiery in the sky. It spilled like liquid fire over the rugged hilltops, and painted the lush grasses in shades of crimson and gold.

Arianna stopped the Jeep along the roadside and got out.

Shielding her eyes, she stared at the spot amid those craggy hills where centuries before, the dark, hulking form of Ken-wick had risen like a brooding giant pointing at the sky. Now there was nothing.

"Gods, what if I was wrong?" she whispered, squinting, straining to see. "What if this isn't what Marten meant at all? It doesn't look as if the keep is even standing after all this time."

Doubts crept in. If she had been wrong, it could cost Nidaba's life, and as much as the woman seemed to hate her, Arianna couldn't return the feelings. She remembered too well the woman Nidaba had been. The strength of her tempered by wisdom—strength a young rebel had admired to no end. Nidaba ... she'd been unaware of it, but Arianna had idolized her for a time. She'd tried to emulate her, wanted to be like her.

Nidaba was a broken woman now. Wounded so deeply she'd curled up inside herself and seemed unable to find her way out again. But she would. In time, and with Ni-codimus's help, she would. Arianna would at least make sure she had the chance to do just that.

She couldn't turn back now. Not until she made sure nothing remained of Kenwick.

Stiffening her spine, she struck out on foot across the land, plotting her course mentally as she went and aiming for the spot dead center of the surrounding hills, where that keep had once stood.

The terrain was rough and rocky as she climbed higher and the grass thinned. The chill morning breeze battled with the fiery sun, so she was alternately hot and cold as she pushed on. It took no real effort for Arianna though. In fact, she took it with ease, enjoying the stretch and flex of her muscles, and the increased flow of her blood. She had been cooped up too long in that cottage in Stonehaven. She had been inactive, playing nursemaid and housemother to her guests, and reining in her natural tendency to run wild.

She guessed she had been reining in a bit more than that, too. Her emotions had been imprisoned inside her since Nicodimus's return from the grave. Even now, they beat at

their prison bars in protest, straining to break free. But she knew better than to let them out. Not now. She needed all her focus now, all her attention for the battle ahead.

If she let her feelings reach the surface, she feared she would be useless in a fight. She would be kneeling on the stony ground, aching for a man she could never have. Moon-eyed with a love she had sentenced to death long ago. She'd been so blind. Her feelings for Nicodimus were just as alive as he was. They had been all along. Merely dormant, waiting. She had resurrected her own weakness, her only vulnerability, when she'd resurrected Nicodimus.

Arianna topped a rise, and peered downward into the basinlike clearing. Crumbling stone walls staggered below, some towering to a height of fifty feet, while others barely held themselves upright at three. Stone masonry littered the ground. What remained of the place seemed almost ready to crumble. Yet she spied the arching entryway, its wooden doors long gone. Dust by now. Beyond that opening, a yawning darkness seemed to beckon.

She crept closer, glancing at the ground, seeing a rusted iron hinge lying there. Then drawing herself up, she stepped through, and ventured into the cavelike depths of the keep's ruin.

Her eyes adjusted quickly, as always. She stepped over broken stones and a broad beam that lay across her path. Her very breaths seemed to echo here. The sound of every step she took seemed magnified a thousand times. Deeper she trod, and deeper, following the only path possible, a twisting, writhing, ever-narrowing path that seemed to have been cleared deliberately. For no structure could crumble in just this way. And as she moved forward, she realized she was also moving downward. The angle sharpened, leading her into the bowels of the very earth.

"The dungeons," she whispered, startled at the loudness of even that slight sound here. This silence must be like death itself. But she soon saw that her prediction was an accurate one. The tunnel opened out wider, and the dirt floor leveled off.

She paused at the edge of this wider place, sensing dan-

ger. A man stepped out of the shadows to stand in front of her.

Marten.

"Well, now," he said. "This is pleasant, but not what I expected. Where is Nicodimus?"

Arianna drew her dagger. "He is not coming. You'll have to face me, Marten."

"Will I?" He stepped away, vanishing, it seemed. But she knew he'd only ducked into the shadowy recesses of the crumbling dungeon.

Arianna followed slowly, stepping with care, scanning the darkness, then blinking in the sudden light as she rounded a corner. Torches flickered from where they'd been thrust into chinks in the stone walls. Before her, Arianna saw a nightmare.

Nidaba lay still, strapped down to an ancient table. The pendulum high above her was drawn back and seemingly suspended in the blackness. But its blade hung low. And though it was rusted and pocked with corrosion, its edge gleamed in the dancing torchlight, as if recently honed. Yes, honed by the hand of Nidaba's heartless captor, no doubt.

Nidaba's eyes met Arianna's and held them. "Kill him," she said, and her voice was level, and for once, seemed perfectly sane.

"That would be a very bad idea."

Arianna's gaze shifted to where Marten stood beside the table, his hand wrapped around a tall lever.

"One tug," he said, unnecessarily, for it was already obvious. "One tug, and the blade will swing. I've adjusted it carefully, Arianna. It will slice her tender belly on the first pass. On the second, it will sever the organs, and by the third pass it will neatly cut her in half." He shrugged, a slight smile toying with his thin lips. "Well, maybe not so neatly I suppose. In any case, it would be difficult even for an immortal to revive after being cleaved in two." He lifted an eyebrow. "Then again, it might be rather amusing if she did. I might enjoy seeing that before I finally take her heart."

Arianna's grip tightened on the dagger she held. "Are

you so afraid to face a woman that you'd resort to this? Release her, Marten, and fight me, if you dare."

He simply shook his head. "It is not you I want," he said. "It is my dear brother-in-law. Nicodimus. I've waited centuries to kill him."

"You'll have to wait longer, because he's not coming. I told you—"

"Oh, he'll come. He'll come when he realizes I now have both his women in my ... tender care. Put the dagger down, Arianna. Now."

Nidaba shook her head. "Don't listen to him! Kill him, Arianna, or he will kill Nicodimus! Do it!"

"I'll pull the lever. Take one step toward me, and Nidaba suffers unbearable pain while you watch. Drop the weapon, Arianna." His hand twitched on the lever.

"Marten, listen to me," Arianna said, trying to keep her voice calm, but shivering at the way it echoed in this place. It was as if a dozen ghosts mocked her, repeating her every word in deathly whispers. "Nicodimus won't come. He can't. He doesn't remember this place. He doesn't even know I've come here. The centuries of death did something to his mind, and his memory is not—"

"You are an accomplished liar, Arianna. Do you really think I would believe you again? No, you fooled me once. Pretending to want me. Throwing yourself into my arms the way you did, all just so that you could win my trust and try to escape. I had truly begun to care for you, did you realize that?"

"You don't know how to care for anyone but yourself, Marten. You murdered my family! How could you think I would have ever forgiven that?"

He shrugged, averting his eyes. "No matter. Put the weapon down, Arianna."

She swallowed hard, darted a glance at Nidaba.

"Let him do as he will with me," Nidaba whispered. "I beg of you, do not trade my son's life for mine!"

Marten glared at Nidaba. "Shut up, woman!"

"I will not shut up! My son died to save my life once,

and I cannot bear to let it happen again! Kill him, Arianna! Forget about me, and kill this cur! Now!"

Arianna clutched her dagger and lunged toward Marten. He jerked the lever instantly, and the blade lurched forward with a terrible groan, only to come to a creaking, shuddering stop again, mere inches from Nidaba's belly. Nidaba's eyes were shut tight, her jaw clenched in readiness.

Arianna froze where she was.

"It's up to you," Marten said. "But I feel I must warn you, Arianna, I am running low on patience. Dangerously low. Put it down."

Nidaba's eyes opened, damp with unshed tears. She turned her head toward Arianna. "No," she whispered. "You mustn't. No, no, no ..."

"I'm sorry. I have to. Forgive me, Nidaba. I can't watch you suffer such an agonizing death." Arianna faced Marten again. "All right. You win." She dropped her dagger to the dirt floor. Its tip sank into the rancid, packed earth.

Marten smiled, bat his hand remained on the lever. "Very good. Now, come here. We have plans to make, you and I." She remained rooted to the spot, and he held up a hand. "Come here, Arianna. Or I'll kill her all the same."

Chin lifting slightly, Arianna went to him. The dank place was filled then with the soft sound of Nidaba's sobs, echoing endlessly.

I woke with a feeling of dread. Something horrible had happened in my dream, but though I tried, I could not remember what. It had to do with Arianna ... and with death.

My death.

I strained to recall the details, but they eluded me like thieves in the night. Sighing in frustration, I opened my eyes, reaching for her, needing to hold her close to me and feel her there and know that it wasn't real. That it was only one more taunting memory of a past that was long dead.

But Arianna was not there.

"Arianna?"

No answer.

I got up slowly, looking around the room, eyeing the

door of the adjoining bathroom, which stood open. I saw no movement inside. A slow fear spread through my veins and I moved faster, hurrying to the bathroom to look for her. "Arianna?" I called again.

The bathroom was empty. Her clothes, I realized as I turned to scan the bedroom in search of them ... gone. I snatched up the clothing I'd never donned the night before, threw them on haphazardly, and ran back into the bedroom. I yanked open the door, stepping into the hall just as Duncan and Raven came 'round a corner from their own room, smiling, hands joined.

"Where is Arianna?" I all but shouted.

Their smiles died. Duncan looked puzzled. Raven, terrified. "I assumed she was still with you," Duncan said, his frown deepening as he looked past me into the empty room my wife and I had shared the night before. "You mean she's not—"

"Gods, I was afraid she'd do something like this," Raven said, interrupting him. "I knew it! I never should have believed her!"

I rushed forward, gripping Raven's hands gently in my own and striving for patience. "Tell me."

Bowing her head, Raven closed her eyes. "She knew where Marten had taken Nidaba ... or ... she thought she knew. But she wouldn't tell me. Nicodimus, she felt you were still not strong enough to fight Marten and win."

"So she went to fight him in my place?" I asked, my stomach clenching. "And you let her?"

Raven's head came up fast. "Of course I didn't let her! She promised we'd go together, this morning. She said we'd stand a greater chance that way."

"And you believed her? Believed she'd allow you to risk your life in a battle with an immortal as old as I am! She's your sister, Raven, and you didn't see through so obvious a lie as that?"

"Come on, Nic, this isn't Raven's fault," Duncan said, his hand on my arm. "When Arianna sets her mind to something, she's as stubborn as they come. If you know her at all, you ought to know that."

I sighed and closed my eyes. "I know that. I am sorry, Raven. But Gods, she can't fight Marten alone. He's older than she, more experienced in battle. The last time he took her, he held her for..." Then I blinked, and looked up slowly. "The last time he took her ... yes. Yes, I remember now! His men attacked our village ... murdered her parents, and everyone else in their path. And he took Arianna. He took my wife the same way I had taken his sister so many years before. It was vengeance, in his twisted, perverse mind." *

I paced the hall, pressing one hand to my forehead as I sought the memory.

"Where, Nic?" Duncan asked urgently.

"I'm trying.... I remember following the trail of his soldiers. But it was a trick. The soldiers headed north, leaving an obvious path for me to follow. But Marten struck out alone with Arianna. He went south.... Yes, two days' ride—south. There was a keep ... on the coast...."

Duncan gripped my arm. "Can you find it again?"

I looked up and met his eyes. "I must find it again. And I will."

We had no choice but to travel by car ... that amazing vehicle I had only observed from the windows of Arianna's house until now. Duncan quickly procured one from a local man, explaining that it was an emergency.

Raven and Duncan eased me into the rear seat of the machine, and I held on and battled nausea as Duncan manned the controls, setting the beast into motion. Such speeds! It was dizzying, sickening, and yet I paid little heed to the protests of my head and stomach as we bounded over the rutted dirt roads of the new Scottish countryside. I was glad of the contraption that could, by some miracle, reduce a two day journey to one of mere hours. It would get me to Arianna sooner.

It would carry me to my wife ... sooner.

As we traveled, I directed Duncan as best I could, my memory still hazy. But more and more came back to me. I recalled this same feeling of rage and dread and helplessness filling me in the past. The thought of that vermin

having Arianna. The love I felt for her, burning inside me. It had been there before. I knew that now. I may have told Arianna I could not love her, but love her I had, and still did.

I'd done too thorough a job convincing her of my lie, then, hadn't I? For even now, she believed it. Even now, she thought my love an illusion. But it beat in me strong and sure, and old. Very old. She had changed me. I'd been a bitter, lonely man, living to fight, fighting to live, existing in a world that held no joy for me. She had given me joy again. Such joy. Gods, just looking at her face, seeing her smile had filled me with it. Touching her, holding her delicate form in my arms ... I had been born again, it seemed. Brought back to life long before she resurrected my body in this strange, new century. For I had been dead then, before I'd known her.

As I would be now, did I have to live on without her.

"I am coming for you, Arianna," I whispered. "Hold on, my love. I will be with you soon."

Raven turned in her seat, and clasped my hand in hers. "She'll be all right," she said, teary eyes at odds with the confidence in her voice.

"She has to be."

"Do you understand what you are to do?" Marten asked softly, eyeing Arianna, suspicion in his gaze.

"I keep telling you, it won't matter. Nicodimus is not coming here."

"And I keep telling you, he will. It is fate, I believe. Things must come full circle. It's the way of the Universe. This will end just as it began. He will come for you, Arianna. And when he does, he will find you in the arms of your lover. He will be beaten, utterly, long before I take his heart. I want him to suffer the ultimate defeat at my hands, and you will perform your part exactly as I have told you. You will recite the lines precisely, and convincingly, Arianna, or Nidaba will pay the price. Now again, do you understand?"

Arianna stared at him, hatred blazing from her soul. Ni-

daba remained strapped to the table, gagged now so that she could not cry out. No longer in sight, though. Marten had brought Arianna back to that place where she'd first spotted him. The place where the tunnel widened, lit now, with a torch of its own, leaving Nidaba helpless and silent, in the dim, flickering light of a single, dying torch. The frayed length of rope tied to Marten's wrist led back around the corner to that deadly lever. He need only pull to cause Nidaba excrutiating pain before ultimately ending her life. And he would, unless Arianna did exactly as he said.

But it wouldn't matter. Arianna wouldn't be forced to play out this gruesome act, for there would be no audience. Nicodimus did not remember.

He must not remember!

Marten pushed her to the floor, then took a seat beside her. "Now we wait," he told her, "for your hero to arrive. And when he does, Arianna ..." Marten smiled grimly in the dancing light, and she could see the evil emanating from his small, piglike eyes. "He will die. And this time, he won't be coming back."

Chapter 23

We stopped the vehicle each time I thought I saw a familiar place and got out to explore. But I was so disoriented. Things had changed. Not just by the appearance of villages where none had been, and the utter absence of some that had existed long ago, but by the building of roads, the disappearance of forests, the leveling of hills. Meadows thrived where barren moors had rolled before. Pastures that had once been dotted with grazing flocks, now grew up to woodlands. I could only follow the coast, wondering if even its shape had changed. If the constant barrage of the sea had eroded it away to the point where I would not recognize even its familiar form.

But at last, I spied the odd-shaped hills poking into the sky like a circlet of spikes, and I knew this was familiar. Within them, a keep nestled, protected from attack by its natural fortress.

And then, Raven pointed and sat up straight in her seat. "Look! Arianna's Jeep!"

I saw it. But no sign of Arianna anywhere near it, nor from within. I got out at once, racing to the machine to check for her presence all the same. Knowing I would not find her there. My heart fell, and my hands clenched into

trembling fists at my sides. Without a word, I turned and began walking toward where I thought the keep had been. In silence, Duncan and Raven followed. I knew that they, too, were wondering what we would find here. Arianna's lifeless corpse, sentenced to death without her heart?

Her heart. Gods the thought of Marten draining the life force of the most vital woman I had ever known. But I could not allow myself to think that way, for the pain of it was nearly crippling. I would get her back. I would find her again and restore her to life just as she had done for me. I would, no matter what.

"Nic, hold up," Duncan said, his voice a harsh whisper, his hand on my shoulder. I stopped walking, and he pointed past me. "Look."

I saw it then, the ruins of the keep. It struck me anew how very long it had been that I'd been away ... from life. From Arianna. To my mind it had been only days ago that I had come here, stood in this very spot, quivering with rage just as I was now.

"That looks like the way in," Duncan said.

I took only a single step before he gripped my arm. "Wait, Nic. It could be a trap. God knows the bastard will be expecting us. It's why he took Nidaba in the first place. He'll be in there, waiting for you."

"Then I will not disappoint him," I said, starting off again.

"Nic, will you use your head?" Raven cried.

Again I stopped, turning this time to face the two who had become more than just my allies in the past several days. They had become my friends. I knew their concern for me was genuine and heartfelt. And likely wise. But wisdom did not concern me. Getting to Arianna was my only thought.

"Look, we'll go 'round this thing, see if there's another way inside," Duncan suggested. "That way we can approach from two directions at once, maybe catch this Marten character off guard."

I nodded. It was a good plan. One that made perfect

sense. "Go then. I'll wait here. Signal me when you are ready to go inside."

Duncan eyed me, and finally nodded once. "Be careful," he warned me.

"I intend to."

With that, Duncan and Raven raced off around the crumbling remains of broken stone. The moment they were out of sight, I started inside. I could not wait. Not while visions of what Marten might be doing to Arianna played havoc with my mind. I would kill him.

Kill him!

The tunnel I entered was long and winding, littered with debris. Silence was impossible, and I knew that if Marten were listening—as he surely must be—he would hear my approach. Dagger in hand, I moved on all the same. I peered around each corner, fully expecting ambush.

At last, I emerged into a spot where the tunnel widened, and there I saw the last thing I had expected.

Arianna, in Marten's arms. Not fighting him. Not kicking or pulling away. Her arms were twined 'round his neck, and he was kissing her. And she was kissing him. A red haze of fury colored my vision when at last he lifted his head. And he stared at her, never looking my way, though he had to know full well I was there.

But then, so must she.

"I am so glad you came away with me at last, Arianna," Marten said.

Arianna said nothing. She turned her head toward me, and I saw in her eyes a message, words she could not speak, feelings spilling with the tears. "It has always been you," she said softly, her voice breaking. "I've never loved any one else the way I love you."

The words, apparently spoken to Marten, yet her eyes were on me. That was when the final memory returned to me. I saw it all unfold in my mind in the mere space of an instant. I had crashed through the doors of Kenwick, surprised to find them unbarred, and I found my wife in Marten's arms. I had seen the same message in her eyes then—just before I was leapt upon and killed.

As I had lain dying, Marten had gloated, "Our plan worked perfectly, Arianna." And for one brief instant, I had believed it. I had believed it.

Just as I was no doubt meant to believe it now.

I let my body sag, let my head lower, and my hand and my weapon with it, fell to my side. "So this is the way of it," I muttered.

"Nicodimus, no—" Arianna began. I saw Marten grip her arm painfully and nod toward his hand. Glancing downward, I noticed what I hadn't before: a length of hemp tied 'round his wrist.

"Tell him, Arianna," Marten said.

She closed her eyes to prevent the tears spilling over. "I... I never loved you," she whispered, her words hoarse and broken.

I had to wait until Martin let her go, before doing anything at all. He was hurting her, I could see that. And the implications of that rope on his arm ...

I dropped my dagger to the floor. "Then I have no reason to fight, Arianna. No reason ... at all."

"That will make this much easier," Marten all but crowed, his face alight with the anticipation of his triumph.

"Come then," I said. "Take me if you will." I opened my arms out to my sides and waited. He would have to release Arianna to come to where I stood. And that rope, whatever it was, as well.

He paused, glancing down at the rope with a hint of alarm in his eyes. "No, Nicodimus. You come to me. You must at least wish to say goodbye to... to your faithless wife."

But I wouldn't. For it was what he wished me to do. Instead I sank to my knees, hoping my act would be a convincing one. I lowered my head and made my shoulders shake as if with the force of sobs too violent to contain.

"So be it then," Marten said. "I never intended to let the Dark Woman live anyway."

Even as I lifted my head to see what he meant, Marten removed the rope from his wrist with a flick of his hand, clenched it in his fist, and gave it a brutal tug.

Arianna screamed in utter horror, and another scream came from the depths of this place. A faint one that was terror-filled, and very brief. Arianna leapt on Marten, even as he charged at me. He carried her on his back as she pummeled and clawed at his face and eyes. My hand closed 'round the dagger I had dropped. Marten flung Arianna from his back, lifted his dagger high, and brought it down at me. I drove mine upward. It pierced him just beneath the rib cage, at a sharp upward angle, and I buried it to the hilt, and gave it a twist for good measure.

He froze where he stood, eyes bulging, blood surging over my hand. Then he staggered backward two steps. I yanked the blade free as he did. He fell to the dirt floor. Beyond him, Arianna knelt with her head bowed. Getting to my feet, I went to Marten, bent over him, and quickly cut the heart from his chest. I flung it into the dirt at my feet, and left it there, to be disposed of later.

Arianna needed me now.

I wiped my hands as best I could, and went to her where she knelt, sobbing. Gripping her shoulders I pulled her up and into my arms. "Arianna, it's over. He's dead, my love. You're safe now."

But she was limp in my arms, and trembling violently, uncontrollably.

I eased her away from me just enough to stare down into her haunted eyes. "He made me say those things, Nicodi-mus ... I never meant..."

"I know that."

She frowned hard at me. "You ... you know?"

"Just as I knew the last time, Arianna. Even as my life slipped away from me, I knew you could not have betrayed me with him. I believed in you. With my very last breath, I believed in you, Arianna ..."

She shook her head, eyes wide. "You knew? Even then, you knew ... ?"

"I knew."

But then her face crumpled, and she sank against my chest. "Oh, Nicodimus. Nidaba! Gods, what Marten has done to poor Nidaba!"

She continued sobbing, crying, but I could no longer understand her words. Something about the rope, something about a pendulum. All but carrying her, I followed the trail of that hemp, 'round the corner. And as we moved onward, she pulled away from me, turned her back, covered her eyes. "I can't look! I can't see her that way! Oh, Gods, Nidaba, I'm so sorry! I tried, truly, I tried...." Again her words degenerated into unintelligible gasps and sobs. She bent nearly double, arms folded 'round her middle as if she were in pain. Choking on her tears, she seemed lost to me.

I could not comfort her, so I turned instead, to see the fate of Nidaba. The mother I must have known as such once, but could only remember as my friend. My dearest friend. My most cherished companion.

A table, straps dangling from its sides, stood empty before me. A blade, suspended from far above, swung in ever decreasing arcs, back and forth above it.

And beside it, on the floor, I saw Duncan, getting to his feet, brushing himself off, and reaching down to help Raven to her feet as well. And then the two of them bent down, and I saw a slender hand reach up, and then another, to clasp theirs. They pulled, and Nidaba rose to her feet with the regal grace of a desert queen.

"I tried, Nidaba. Oh, Gods, I'm so sorry!" Arianna was still whispering brokenly.

"You not only tried, child, you succeeded," Nidaba said softly.

Arianna went still and stiffened. Nidaba came closer, moving with the grace and dignity I remembered so well, and hadn't seen in so long. She settled a hand on Arianna's shoulder. "I'm all right. Alive ... at least. And I owe you my thanks, Arianna," she said.

"Nidaba?" Slowly, Arianna turned around, and then she flung herself into Nidaba's arms, and held her so hard I thought both women might well break.

After a time, they stood apart again. Arianna, stroking Nidaba's hair away from her face, searched the older woman's eyes again and again as if to be sure she was truly

real and not some vision. "How did you escape that horrible blade?"

"Duncan and Raven came in through some other way. They freed me just in time."

"Well, not quite in time," Duncan said, glancing down at his arm.

I saw that it was cut and bleeding. He'd risked his very life to save Nidaba. To save ... my mother. "I am in your debt, Duncan," I told him.

He only nodded. Nidaba took Arianna's hand in hers and stared into her eyes. "My ... my mind ... is not as strong as it once was, Arianna. It was becoming less so even before my time as Nathanial Dearborne's captive, and I fear the things I experienced then have broken it beyond repair. But there are some... lucid moments. More so, since I found my Nicodimus again." Here she paused to look at me with tear-filled eyes and a trembling smile.

"You'll heal, Nidaba.. .Mother," I said gently. "I'll see to it. You'll be well again."

Her gaze lowered. "Perhaps," she whispered. "But I fear the life span of a High Witch's mind does not equal that of her body. How long can one live on and remain truly sane, do you suppose?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "How long have you lived?"

She sighed wearily, bowing her head. "Four thousand years, my son."

I could only stare at her, dumbfounded. By the Gods, she must be the oldest of us all. Was she? Or were there others, even more ancient than she?

Nidaba faced Arianna again while I stood there, trying to digest the magnitude of a life span so long.

"There is something I should have told you long ago, Arianna, when I met you on the road to Stonehaven, taking my son's body to the Stone Circle. But I was too distraught to think clearly, and I... I blamed you for his death."

Arianna lowered her head. "As you should have. I blamed myself."

"But it was not your fault. And the one thing you didn't

know, Arianna, the one thing you deserved to know, was that he loved you then."

Arianna lifted her gaze to mine, then quickly looked at Nidaba again, her eyes wide.

"He told me so many times as we searched for you. He told me that he loved you, and that he had never admitted it to you. It was driving him mad that he had never told you the truth of his feelings, and his greatest fear was that he would never have the chance."

Arianna shook her head in wonder. But Nidaba simply pulled her closer to me and placed her hand in mine. ' 'Tell her, my son. You love her still, do you not?"

I nodded once, my eyes on Arianna's. "I do. I always have." Arianna parted her lips, but I hurried on before she could speak. "No, let me finish. I remember it all now, Arianna. Everything. Everything about you. I was like a dead man already before I returned to Stonehaven that last time. But you wouldn't allow me to remain that way. You made me feel again, for the first time since I lost my wife and my sons. You brought joy back into my life. You made me whole, Arianna. And I realized it on the night I lost you. You are my heart, little cat. You are my love, and I will spend the rest of my days making up for the pain I caused you in the past. I swear I will... if you will let me."

Her tears spilled over, and Arianna spoke through a watery smile. ' 'I swore I would never love you again, Nicod-imus. But the problem is, I never stopped. Not ever. I couldn't. I never will."

I smiled down at her, and then I swept her into my arms. My woman, my wife, my very soul. My Arianna. I kissed her, and I knew that at long last, I truly was alive.

--3 Destiny (2001)--

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

DESTINY

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove edition / February 2001

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2001 by Margaret Benson.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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This book could not have happened without the help of some special people: My friends. They didn’t help me with the research, or the plotting or the character development. They did something far more important than that. They came through for me when I was in trouble. They were there for me when I needed them. With kindness and wisdom they reached out when I was drowning and pulled me onto the shore.

It shouldn’t surprise me. They always do. So here’s to you, dear ones: RomEx Rules!

Special thanks to Justine Davis, Anne Stuart, and Gayle Callen

It also couldn’t have happened without the support of my personal hero, who put up with my whining, tears, and hysterics over this project, and stepped in as he always does to take care of everything in the known universe so I could do what needed to be done. (And who dragged me off into the wilderness for a mental health weekend afterward.) Thank you, hon. You’re my rock.

Author’s Note

Research on the civilization known as Sumer has been a hobby of mine for almost a decade now. I knew that one of these days I’d find the right time to use it in a book, and now I have. The culture, the customs, and the religion of the time are accurately portrayed here, right down to the manner of greeting a respected friend, the clothing, the names, and even the description of the queen’s headdress.

However, as happens in fiction, sometimes the author has to take a few liberties, and I want to be clear about those. First of all, two of the characters you meet in this novel, King Eannatum and Queen Puabi, were real Sumerian rulers. She was the Queen of a city-state called Ur, and he was the King of Lagash, and later all of Sumer. They both ruled around the same time—2500 bce, and Eannatum truly was credited with unifying Sumer and ending threats from the nearby land of Umma. However, there is no historical record of Eannatum and Puabi ever meeting, much less having the relationship depicted here.

The other bit of poetic license I took was in stating that a priestess of the temple had to remain unmarried and chaste until and unless she was chosen to perform the Sacred Marriage Rite with the king. I have no way of knowing if that was the case. No source yet has said one way or the other, and indications are that the Sumerians saw sex as normal, healthy, and even sacred, so they may not have forbidden their holy women to engage in it, married or otherwise. However, the Sacred Marriage Rite itself was very real, and was common practice in Sumer.

The observations I’ve made in this book about the changing roles of women during this pivotal time in history are absolutely true. Women are still struggling to regain the status and power they had prior to 2500 bce.

I’ve sprinkled a few Sumerian phrases through this book. These are guesswork at best, as pronunciations and meanings change with every new research book that comes out. Translating the old cuneiform tablets is one thing—trying to figure out how the language sounded is a great deal more difficult. Even the name “Nidaba” has been given as “Nisaba” in some sources. So nothing is certain.

All that said, I will add that any mistakes you may find in the research were obviously put there by evil typesetters intent on ruining my credibility.

Maggie Shayne

Prologue

When she opened her eyes, there was a sheet over her face.

She sucked in her next breath, her first breath, the breath of life itself, and it rushed into her lungs with a force powerful enough to burst an ordinary set. The power jolted through her, arching her back, electrifying her every cell for just an instant. Then she went limp again and released the air in a slow, shuddering sigh. Slowly, awareness returned.

She was in a vehicle that moved wildly and wailed like a hyena. An ambulance, she realized dully. Disoriented still, she tried to clear her mind, to recall what had preceded this latest death and revival, and found only vague memories; a struggle on a rooftop, a gun, the sense of plummeting downward, and the shattering impact at the bottom. She lifted a hand, to push the sheet away from her face. But her hand moved mere inches, and no more. She was strapped down.

Strapped down!

The emotional dam she had so carefully built broke open wide to let ice-water panic flood her veins. A pulse beat in her temple and repeated itself, magnified, against her chest. Memories she had long ago buried clawed their way out of their graves, deep inside her mind, and a few gnarled fingers emerged to scratch at her hard-won sanity until they drew blood.

She had been strapped to a contraption like this one before. No details came just then, thank the Gods. Her control had been too hard won for that. Only sensations, feelings and emotions. Pain. Rage. Despair. Pain. Rage. And a tormentor who had savored her suffering.

“Release me.”

The voice she heard was her own. It was deep, and low, and bore a tone of command, even though it shook with the force of the emotion it sought to conceal.

“What the hell...” someone said. And her mind heard: Young. Male. Confused. Afraid.

“Release me,” she said again, louder this time, more firmly.

The sheet was yanked away from her face, and the wide brown eyes of a young man blinked down at her. “My God, she’s alive!” he called, apparently to whoever was driving the screaming vehicle. He wore a uniform, a badge like a policeman might wear. Lights flashed from without, but the vehicle never slowed. “For the love of Christ, she’s ...”

“Loose the straps!” She commanded, twisting and tugging at the bindings that held her down.

“Easy, now,” he said, hands to her shoulders, voice lowering to a soothing tone. “Take it easy. The straps are just to keep you from falling off. You need to lie still. You’ve been—”

She tugged harder, and one of the restraints snapped in two, lashing backward like a whip and slapping the young man’s face even as he jumped away. He pressed a hand to his cheek, and his eyes widened. She could taste his fear but cared nothing about it. Reaching to the strap at her other arm, she ripped it free as well. Then the young paramedic found his courage and leaned over her again, grabbed her shoulders, pressed her body down.

“Calm down!” he ordered. “You’ll hurt yourself!”

She shoved him away from her with so much force that he flew off his feet, and his back smashed into the paraphernalia lining one side of the vehicle. He was shouting now. The ambulance skidded to a stop even as she tore at the one remaining strap at her waist, snapped it easily, and surged to her feet. She couldn’t stand upright in the vehicle. Bent over, she lunged toward the back of the ambulance, wanting only escape. Freedom.

All her life, it seemed, she had been made to fight for her freedom. She valued it above all else, in a way she imagined few others ever had.

The second man clambered in from the front and came rushing at her even as she reached for the doors. Escape was so close! He grabbed her shoulders. Turning on him like a cyclone, she flung him away. Items crashed and broke and spilled. Both men swore and grappled for her.

She lunged toward the doors again, but the younger one was right behind her now, having recovered himself. He jabbed her hard with something before she could fling him away, and the stab of the needle’s fang pierced her flesh. She felt her eyes widen as she looked down at the hypodermic in her arm.

Drugs, her memory whispered.

Experiments.

Living death, mired in inky blackness with no hope of escape.

She would not go back to that place! She must not!

Yet she felt it creeping up on her even now. Reaching for her. Coming to pull her back into its cold embrace. “No .. .” she whispered.

She whirled on the young man, but dizziness made her sway. The man caught her in his arms. “Easy.”

“Gods, what have you done to me?” She pressed a hand to her head as if she could slow the dizziness, the weakness, push it away somehow. “The drugs ... you mustn’t... give me drugs ...” Her knees bent against her will. Her legs turned to water.

“It’s just a sedative,” he said, bearing her weight now, cradling her carefully. He was cut, bleeding in several places. The other one behind him held his arm oddly. Vaguely, she realized it was broken. He shouldn’t have tried to stop her. He should have just let her go.

“You’re going to be fine, I promise you,” said the one who held her. “Come on, now.” He eased her down onto the stretcher and she tried to push his hands off her, to resist, but she had no strength. Darkness closed in around the edges of her vision. Her body was slowly going numb. “Lie down, now,” he said. “Relax.”

“I... cannot...”

She moved her mouth, but no further words emerged. Hazy outlines now, the two men leaned over her, shaking their heads. One ran his hands over her legs, her arms. “I don’t understand it,” he was saying. “She was as bent and broken as—”

“Broken, hell,” said the other, still clutching his arm to his chest. “She was dead. We were going through the motions, but we both knew we’d lost her.”

“It was a mistake. We messed up—”

“She was dead, Jerry. You know it and I know it.”

“That’s not possible.”

Her vision faded even as she saw the man shaking his head. He said, “Damn, I think she broke my freaking arm.”

“Can you drive one-handed?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can manage it. Can you handle her?”

“I can now.”

She heard the driver move away while the other man remained beside her, checking her for injuries. She felt the vehicle lurch into motion again, heard the siren begin to wail once more ... but then it, too, faded into nothingness. She felt herself slipping away as well, and she fought to cling to her soul.

“I cannot let go,” she whispered, sensing that if she did, she might never find her way out of the darkness again.

She needed something ... something to cling to. Something to keep her anchored.

It came to her slowly, like a gentle, loving hand curling around her own. Her memories. Not the horrible memories she had buried so deeply, but the better ones. The real ones ... of the life before.

“Yes,” she said, though she never knew if she had spoken the word or only thought it. Four thousand, five hundred years and more had come and gone ... but though the ages in between faded like morning mists, that before-time was as clear to her as if she were living it still. It was her time. She had known nothing of what she truly was then. She was a child, innocent, young, with so much ahead ...

More than she ever could have guessed.

2501 B.CE.

City-State of Lagash, Kingdom of Sumer

Her little kaunake dress was white and made of fine linen, just like the ones the grown-up priestesses wore.

It reached to mid-calf. Her feet were bare, at the moment. She wore the fringed shawl that was reserved for sacred occasions, and in her tiny hands she carried a large pottery bowl brimming with lush ripe fruits. The priestess beside her was dressed in the same manner, except that she also wore a golden band about her head, in deference to her station. Her arms were bare, save for the gleaming gold and silver bands wrapped around her coppery skin like vipers. Her hair was dark as night, and long and gleaming. The little girl thought the priestess Lia was the most beautiful woman in all the world.

Soberly, the two entered the cella, the room at the very top of the ziggurat tower. The little girl tried to concentrate on being serious and appropriately solemn as they crossed the dim room that was lined with stone statues, all winking their lapis lazuli eyes in the flickering torchlight. But the entire never-ending rite seemed so silly to her that she battled a smile, and finally a giggle emerged despite her best efforts.

The priestess looked down at her, a frown etched in her dark brows. “Hush, Nidaba! This is the most sacred room in the temple, the home of the Gods themselves! Show some respect.”

Biting her lip, Nidaba stopped giggling. Instead she spoke. “The home of the Gods is in the heavens, is it not, Lia?”

“You know it is.”

“Then how can they also live here, in these figures?”

“The Gods are everywhere, child. Now, come, we must attend them.”

Nidaba sighed, but obeyed. The two walked forward, side by side, their feet whispering through the dried rushes that lined the floor and filled the cella with their green fragrance. They passed by all the smaller stone figures, which represented worshippers, for the Ancient Ones must never be left unattended. At the front of the room were statues created to house the essence of several deities. Enlil Lord of Air, Enki Lord of the Fresh Waters and the Abzu, Nidaba, Goddess of the Sacred Script, for whom the little girl had been named. And standing in the center, larger and more beautiful than any, was the Queen of Heaven, Inanna.

Bowing deeply, the priestess Lia held her bowl of fruit before the Great Goddess, and chanted, “Inanna me en, Inanna me en. Inanna duna agruna ka me en.” She placed the bowl of fruit at the feet of the statue.

“She won’t eat it, you know,” Nidaba said, eyeing the statue. “She never eats it.”

“The offering is only symbolic,” Lia said, obviously struggling now to keep the impatience from her tone. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Nidaba sniffed. “The High Priest will eat what he wants of it, and we will get his scraps.”

“That’s enough, child. Now, go. Place your offering.”

With a sigh, Nidaba walked to the statue depicting her namesake, held up her bowl of sweet-smelling fruits, and heard her stomach growl as she chanted the sacred words. Then she set the bowl at the feet of the Goddess, licked her lips, and snatched a plum, taking a big, juicy bite before Lia could stop her.

“Nidaba, you mustn’t!” Lia pressed her hands to her mouth as Nidaba chewed and swallowed, smiling all the while. The priestess’s wide-eyed gaze darted into every corner of the room around them, as if fearing witnesses to such blasphemy.

Nidaba only shrugged and took another bite, then wiped the luscious juice from her chin with one hand. “Why mustn’t I? There is more of the Goddess in me than in this statue. And I am named for her, am I not? I will learn the sacred script one day soon. And then I will fill a thousand tablets with the reasons why it is wasteful and silly to feed delicious fruit to stone statues.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she nodded once for emphasis. Her long, dark hair fell into her eyes, ruining her powerful declaration, she thought, but she simply stuck out her lower lip and blew the hair aside.

The priestess Lia seemed to stifle a smile, but it was a sad one. Kneeling, she gripped the little girl’s shoulders. “You know that only boys are allowed to attend the edubba school and learn the sacred script.”

“It’s not fair, and you know it,” Nidaba said, her chin coming up higher. “The Goddess never made that rule! I’ll bet some ... some boy did!”

Lia lowered her head a bit, conceding the point, but not aloud. Never aloud. “It is the way of things,” she said. “It was not always so ... but... well, it is today, and there is nothing to be done. I’m sorry, Nidaba.”

“It was the Goddess Nidaba who gave us the script,” the girl said slowly. “And she is not a boy.”

“No, she is not.”

“And it was Nidaba who gave me to you, as well, and gave me her name,” the child went on.

The priestess nodded. “That is what some believe. You were found in a basket on the doorstep of the temple, with only your pendant, and the Goddess’s name was etched in its face.”

Remembering the tale she loved best, Nidaba softened her stance and her tone. “And you were the one who found me there,” she said.

“Yes. There was a terrible storm that night. I found you howling with rage, your little face just red with fury. I brought you inside, and all the priestesses gathered round to see you. We wrapped you in dry clothes, fed you warm goat’s milk sweetened with honey, sang to you until your wrath seemed to ease. And as it did, so did the storm. With your first smile, the clouds skittered away and the full moon beamed down on the city of Lagash. And that is why some believe you to be the daughter of the Goddess herself.”

Nodding slowly, Nidaba smiled. But then she recalled the beginning of the conversation, and her smile became a frown. “Then ... who would dare forbid me from attending the edubba school?” she asked.

Lia sighed. “It is as it is, Nidaba. We can only accept and be content.”

“I will not be content. I want to go! I want to learn! I want to go to edubba?” Nidaba made fists of her hands, stomped her foot, and grated her teeth as a flood of rage washed through her. Her face heated and her heart pounded.

The floor beneath her bare feet began to tremble as she ranted and raged. The shaking intensified; the entire room, perched high atop the ziggurat tower quaked and shuddered violently. The stone images themselves rocked back and forth, some of the smaller ones tumbling onto their frozen faces.

Screaming in fear, Lia fell to her knees, prostrating herself before the image of the Goddess Nidaba, even as the tremors faded. “Forgive me!” she cried. “The child will learn the sacred script! I vow I will make it so!”

The rumbling stopped. There remained only silence as the little girl stared at the bowed form of her beloved priestess and felt sorry for her outburst. Quietly, Nidaba went to where Lia still knelt trembling, her face damp with tears. The child touched the priestess’s shoulder. “Don’t be afraid,” she said softly.

“I have angered the Goddess!”

“But... you didn’t,” Nidaba whispered. Moving in front of Lia, she cupped the priestess’s cheeks in her small palms and looked right into her dark eyes. “The Goddess didn’t make all that fuss, Lia. I did.”

Lia sat up slowly, looking at the child with eyes as wide as the sky over all of Sumer. “You ... you did?”

Nidaba gnawed her lip. “Sometimes ... when I get very angry, things ... happen.” She sighed and bent her head. “I’ll try not to do it again.”

Chapter 1

Of all the men he’d ever been, he thought he liked Nathan Ian King best.

He sat on the veranda, sipping strong Nepalese tea as the sun rose. Orange with a pink hue, its upper curve licked at the sky over the Atlantic. This veranda, on the back of his house, looked out over the sea from on high. It was the view that had made him choose this place ... had made him want to stay. All that water ...

It still seemed incomprehensible to him.

Nathan King was a collector and dealer in antiquities. He was an expert in his field, though few would venture to guess how he had come by his expertise. Even fewer would believe he had acquired most of the pieces in his personal collection long before they’d been considered old.

Nathan was at ease and content with his life. And why shouldn’t he be? He had established his gallery in a “historic”—the term made him smile—two-story brick building on the narrow, cobbled streets of old Boston. Then he had purchased this estate, an hour’s drive from the city. The house was a sprawling one, built of red brick in the Victorian style: flat roof, tall, narrow windows, endless rooms lining long hallways, all of it set on fifty acres of lush meadows and secluded woods against the backdrop of the mighty sea.

He had created Nathan King, and his kingdom, some ten years ago. He’d been tired, then, of caution, tired of living in anonymity, of keeping to himself, of moving around so frequently. Enter Nathan, who in a very short time had become known and loved by hundreds. Nathan, who contributed yearly to homeless shelters and scholarship funds. Nathan, who had even been known to speak to local students about various historical periods, at the requests of their teachers.

Nathan Ian King was a model citizen. He never so much as ran a red light. His life was so perfectly ordinary that it was almost boring.

Almost.

Too good to last, this persona. Already he knew his time as Nathan King would eventually come to an end. In ten years he hadn’t aged a day. In ten more people would begin to wonder about that. And while he had cut off all contact with others of his kind, they were bound to find him out as soon as tales of a man who did not age began to surface.

Then again, he thought, lifting the porcelain cup to his smiling lips, there was always makeup. A drastic measure, perhaps, but possible. He was really going to hate to give up his mundane life as Nathan King. It had been peaceful, tranquil... and not a single immortal Witch, Dark or Light, had tracked him down in all the time he’d been living it. The past decade had healed some of his oldest wounds, he thought. Like an overworked laborer after a long vacation, he felt renewed. Almost... reborn. Which was a miracle in itself.

“Got the mornin‘ paper for you, Nathan.”

Nathan inclined his head without taking his eyes off the spectacular sunrise in progress over the ocean. So much water. The abundance of so precious an element still amazed him, even after so much time. You could take the man out of the desert, he mused ...

“Come, George. Watch this with me. It’s incredible.”

“Aw, you say that every mornin‘,” George said, obviously unimpressed but with a touch of humor in his childlike voice. He closed the French doors behind him and lumbered onto the veranda to take a seat at the round glass-topped table. He tossed the newspaper down in front of Nathan, but Nathan didn’t so much as glance at it. Not yet.

The sun rose still higher, its neon-orange glow spreading now over the face of the water, reflected in a million glowing ripples. And higher still, beaming warmth onto Nathan’s face, spilling light and heat over his body. “It’s glorious,” Nathan whispered.

A deep, booming laugh escaped George. “You say that every mornin‘, too.”

“I do, don’t I?” Nathan finally dragged his gaze away to look at George. As always, his right-hand man was dressed ... interestingly. Today he wore a stylish brown suit from the Big and Tall Shop over a pink tie-dyed T-shirt that he must have picked up at a garage sale. Glancing down, Nathan saw the ever-present Air Jordans on George’s size 12 feet. He managed not to smile. He wouldn’t hurt the big man’s feelings for the world.

“So tell me what’s on the schedule for you today, George,” Nathan began.

But before George could answer, there was a thump on the French doors. Nathan looked up to see Sheila, her pudgy arms weighed down by a cluttered tray, standing on the other side of them. Nathan jumped up and flung the doors open.

“About time, too!” Sheila huffed, handing him the tray. “A lady could die of old age by the time you two gentlemen got around to opening a door for her.”

Nathan smiled at her. He knew full well her name wasn’t Sheila. Not really. She used to wait tables at a diner where he liked the tea. Until they caught her stealing leftovers to feed the pigeons outside and fired her. Just an excuse, really. She was getting on in years, and maybe someone had learned, as well, that she hadn’t given them her real name and that her green card was a fake.

If you asked her who she was, where she was from, her reply was always the same. “Just a sheila from Down Under. Born in the bush and raised with the joeys.”

She sank into a chair at the table and fanned her face with one hand for dramatic effect. “I swear, you two will work me to death one of these days.”

She was kidding. It was a running joke how hard the two men of the house tried to keep her from overdoing. When Nathan thought about the way she had been living when he’d met her—the condition she had been in... ah, but that was over now. She was part of his own, odd little family. She kept pigeons of her own up on the flat roof of Nathan’s house.

“Breakfast smells fantastic,” he told her, carrying the laden tray to the table and scrutinizing her weathered face, as he did every morning. She would never say a word if she was feeling poorly. She couldn’t know it, of course, but Nathan would pick up on it anyway. His gift was empathy. He tended to pick up on and oftentimes internalize the pain—physical or otherwise—of others. He’d had to learn to shield himself, block it out, for the most part, or live in misery. But he often lowered his guard to experience the feelings of those closest to him. It was probably why, when he loved at all, he loved so much.

Today Sheila was well. Her cheeks were pink and plump and freckled, eyes bright and blue. Her carrot hair, just starting to line itself with silver strands, was pulled into a 1950s-style ponytail high atop her head.

“My breakfasts always smell fantastic!” she declared with a wink. She reached for his newspaper, moving it out of the way as Nathan deposited the tray in the middle of the table. Then she said, “Oh, my, now, is this a sorry-looking beauty!” She turned the paper toward him, and Nathan glanced down with feigned interest as he took his own seat.

Then he went still, staring at the small photo in the sidebar on the front page. The caption read, “Do You Know This Woman? (Story on page 10)”

Nathan’s throat went dry. His eyes seemed to burn and his vision blurred. Even as he stared, trying to make sense of something he knew to be impossible, George and Sheila were taking their plates from the tray, removing the shiny stainless-steel lids, and digging in.

“Today we’ll get those new bulbs planted in the front garden, won’t we, Georgie?” Sheila was saying. “It’s gonna be turnin‘ cold before we know it. We’ll soon be fresh out of time for fall gardening.”

“I like to plant things,” George said with a smile.

“Will you have time to pick us up some more mulch on your way home from the shop tonight, Nathan?” Sheila asked.

Nathan didn’t reply. He was lifting the newspaper now, staring down at the photo, unable to look away, even to read the story that went with the hauntingly familiar face in the photograph.

“Nathan?” Sheila asked.

He finally tore his gaze away from the photo and turned to Sheila. “I... Sorry, I...”

“Say, now! Is it the unknown beauty who’s got you so dumbstruck?” She was using her motherly tone. From time to time she tended to do so. More often with George than with Nathan, however.

She leaned closer, looking over his shoulder, and Nathan smelled the ever present scent of Ben-Gay on her shoulders. “She’s a looker, she is. All that long, dark hair. Do you know her, then?”

“I... No, I don’t believe so.”

“Couldn’t tell from the look on your face, love. Crimey, you’ve gone chalk white.”

He shook his head in denial, because, of course, it was not possible. “She resembles someone I knew once.”

It was George’s turn to become curious. He got to his feet and limped around the table to lean over and stare as well. “I know who she is,” he announced, as if it should be obvious to them all.

His words made both Nathan and Sheila stare up at him.

George smiled. “She’s the lady in the picture,” he said, looking toward the French doors with a nod. “The one in the front parlor, over the fireplace.”

Nathan closed his eyes. Neither of them could know he’d painted the piece himself. Neither of them ever would, if he had his way. His secrets were his own. And knowing them ... could be dangerous. Fatal.

“Well, now, you know, George, you’re right. She does look a good deal like the woman in that painting! Isn’t that curious?” Sheila asked, and her eyes narrowed on Nathan. “Turn the pages, Nathan, love. Don’t keep us in suspense.”

He pried his numb fingers loose and managed to turn the pages. He found the article beneath the headline.

MIRACLE IN MANHATTAN.

Yanking her bifocals out of her apron pocket, Sheila perched them on her nose and read aloud in her Aussie accent. “ ‘An unidentified woman survived an apparent suicide attempt in Manhattan last week.’ ” She clucked her tongue. “Oh my, such foolishness! ‘Witnesses claim the woman jumped from the rooftop gardens of the Hotel Tremayne on Wednesday night and fell four hundred feet to the street below. Paramedics at the scene were astounded. The woman, who they said appeared to have been near death, regained consciousness en route to the hospital. She became disoriented, and even violent, breaking the arm of one paramedic in her panic’ ”

Tilting her head, Sheila frowned. “My, now, but she don’t look strong enough to break a twig, does she?”

Nathan gently took the newspaper from Sheila’s hands, and she let him, looking at him with worry in her eyes.

Nathan read on, silently. The woman had been sedated and taken to a nearby hospital. Despite what should have been a lethal plunge, the article reported, she was unharmed but catatonic, and had been moved to a mental hospital in New Jersey.

“ ‘No identification was found among her personal effects,’ ” Sheila read, the sound of her voice startling Nathan by coming from so close. She had run out of patience and was now reading over his shoulder. “ ‘Police are asking for help in establishing her identity and locating her family. She is approximately five feet nine inches tall, of slender build, with black hair and eyes, and an olive complexion, perhaps indicative of MiddleEastern descent. The only other possible identifying features, police said, are a pierced left nostril, in which she was wearing a ruby stone—’ ”

“A ruby stone,” Nathan echoed.

“ ‘—and an unusual birthmark,’ ” Sheila read on. “Odd, they don’t say what the birthmark might be.”

Nathan swallowed the lump of sandstone that seemed to have lodged in his throat. “They’ll keep that quiet. A genuine relative would know. That way they can filter out crackpots.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “Lord knows, this sorry world has enough of those.”

Nathan stared at the story, willing it to tell him more, but the final line was nothing but the number to call should anyone have knowledge of the woman’s identity.

He folded the paper closed, staring again at the fuzzy black-and-white photo on the front page—the one that looked so much like a woman who had been dead for well over four thousand years.

She couldn’t possibly be the same person.

And he couldn’t possibly rest until he knew that for sure.

He gave his head a shake, closed his eyes. Gods, it had been so long. He told himself it was an illusion, a trick of a faulty memory. But he knew better. He could never forget her... could never forget the woman she had been, the woman he had loved.

Or the girl he had known first...

The young prince removed the royal cloak with its fiery crimson fabric and gold-threaded edging the moment he got beyond the palace doors. It was cool within, but far too hot outside beneath the blazing sun to wear such heavy garments. Besides, the cloak set him apart. When he went to the edubba school for his daily lessons in the art of the scribe—as his father insisted he must—he preferred to look more like the other boys.

Not that it did much good. They all knew who he was. And they avoided him as if he were an outcast. No twelve-year-old boy would wish to befriend the son of his king.

And now, Eannatum thought glumly, his father had decided that he needed still more lessons to prepare him for ruling Lagash of Sumer one day. Lessons in religion, of all things.

And he had no choice but to obey.

He walked the hot paths from the edubba through the center of the city. Grasses grew lush on either side of the well-worn paths of Lagash. Palms and hashur trees shaded his way, growing between and around the frond-covered roofs and sun-bleached mudbrick stalls of merchants and tradesmen. He passed countless people, many with bundles on their backs, farmers come to trade and craftspeople of all kinds, some with so many crops or wares that they came with donkeys or oxen pulling laden carts along behind them. Others displayed sculptures and jewelry, pottery vessels and new clay tablets, wrapped in wet leaves to keep them moist. And even more vendors hawked fruits and vegetables and grains, costly fabrics and more. Anything you might desire could be found in his father’s kingdom. The city was a thriving one, gleaming like a jewel on the banks of the Euphrates. A lush oasis in the midst of the wild desert. It made young Eannatum lift his chin a bit higher and straighten his spine as he walked.

The path wound further and then, towering before him, was the mighty ziggurat. A huge structure, a man-made mountain, bleached white by the sun and reaching into the very heavens. It was built with a massive square base. Each succeeding level was a smaller square, all the way to the sacred cella at the very top. It resembled a giant stairway on all sides, one that might seem to lead to heaven itself.

This was his destination, and he mounted the steps with some trepidation. Learning the ways of the temple priests and priestesses—the ways of magick, divination, healing—was a frightening prospect. Far more difficult, he suspected, than learning to make the symbols of the written language on the moist clay tablets at school. But more than the lessons themselves, Eannatum feared he might disappoint his father. And above all, he did not wish to do that. He often felt burdened by the weight of his father’s expectations. He disliked being set apart from the other boys his age. He disliked being held above them, and often wished he could put on a disguise and run away to live the life of a normal boy.

Much as he might fantasize about that, though, he knew his duty. And he took honor seriously. He would do what he should ... what he must.

He opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out of the blazing sun into the cool, dim corridors of the tower’s lower levels. The door groaned as it slowly swung closed behind him.

Eannatum swallowed hard, looking around.

Then the flickering of a torch appeared in the distance, and a female voice said, “This way, my prince.”

With a nod, he followed that dancing torchlight, barely glimpsing she who carried it. Brief flashes of her white robes, and the gold bracelets adorning her arms were all he was allowed. He was led to a small room, where baked stone tablets lined the shelves on the walls. In the center was a table of wood, with three chairs around it and a rack of unlit candles in its center.

“Sit. Light the candles and wait,” the woman said. She then anchored the torch she carried in a chink in the wall and vanished like a shadow.

Eannatum sighed, wondering what would become of him were he to wander off into the depths of this massive structure. He’d been inside before, of course. During ceremonies and on the High Holy Days. But then he’d been in the company of his father and a dozen servants. The halls had been alive with people and chanting and alight with candles and torches.

It was different now. Dark. Lonely. So dim and hollow that every step, every breath, echoed a thousand times. Haunted, he thought. His footsteps in the corridors had bounced from the walls over and over again, and it had sounded as if he were surrounded by netherworld ghosts.

He took the candlestick to the torch in the wall, lifted the wicks to the dancing flames, and lit them one by one. Then he carried the softer candlelight to the table and replaced it in the center. Waiting had never been his favorite thing to do. As the son of the king, he rarely had to tolerate it. But today he must. So to pass the time, he removed the moist clay tablet from the sack he carried, and took out the stylus reeds as well. He might as well work on his lessons as sit here wasting time.

He was still bent over the tablet, pressing symbols into clay with the reed, when the priestess stepped into the room. At her side was a girl, younger than Eannatum by two years, at least.

The priestess was beautiful, as was every priestess Eannatum had ever seen, be she young or old, plump or poor. There was a kind of emanation from women who served the Goddess. A glow that seemed to come from within, making them beautiful to any eye that beheld them. What they might actually look like seemed to Eannatum to have very little to do with that beauty.

But the girl... the girl was different. Stunning. Her eyes were large and round, thickly fringed with extravagantly long, curling lashes and gleaming black in the candlelight with an intensity that took his breath away. Her brows were thick and dark, her lips, lush and red. And there was something else about her ... something invisible, yet real all the same. It was something that went beyond that inner light that all priestesses possessed. He didn’t know what it was, but he was certain it was real. She made his stomach clench tight and his skin heat and tingle. The feelings confused him.

The priestess bowed slightly. “Welcome, my prince,” she said. Then she nudged the little girl beside her.

The girl looked startled. “Prince?” she asked. “Are you Prince Eannatum?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling slightly when her eyes went wider.

Again the priestess nudged the girl, and this time the girl bowed, but only halfway. She never took her eyes from Eannatum’s. And when she straightened, she looked up at the priestess, a question in her eyes. “Lia, what is the prince doing here?”

The priestess smiled at the girl. It was obvious to Eannatum that the woman loved the child very much. He wished yet again that his own mother had lived beyond the day of his birth, that he might have known such love. But regrets were a waste of his thoughts.

To distract himself, he answered the girl’s question himself. “My father feels that if I am to be fit to rule one day, I need more education than just that of the edubba. He wishes that I learn all the tales of the Gods and of creation. All the rites and divinations mastered by priests and priestesses. And all the secrets of magick.”

“Yes,” the priestess said. “All the very same things you are learning here with us, Nidaba,” she told the girl.

“The king is very wise,” the girl whispered.

Her name was that of a goddess, and Eannatum remembered hearing talk about her, but just then he was too busy watching her to recall it. He had placed all his stylus reeds into a pottery vessel on the table, and the girl’s eyes kept darting to them. He saw eagerness and longing unmistakably gleaming from their ebon depths.

“This is my charge,” Lia said to him. “Her name is Nidaba.”

He nodded, noticing for the first time the onyx pendant the girl wore around her neck. As shiny and black as her eyes. And it came to him what he’d heard of her before.

“You are the one they say is born of a goddess,” he said.

“That is what some say, yes.” She moved forward without being asked and sat down at the table, her eyes still flicking over the stylus reeds every few seconds and over the clay tablet on which he’d been doing his assignment.

“I was hoping you might allow Nidaba to join us in your lessons, my prince,” the priestess Lia said. “She is truly the most gifted student we’ve ever had here at the temple. She will be a powerful priestess one day.”

At the praise the girl smiled, bowing her head slightly but beaming with pride all the same.

“I thought you two might become friends,” Lia continued. “Learning is always easier with a friend at your side.”

Eannatum looked warily at the girl. “Are you not afraid to be my friend?” he asked.

Her chin came up. “I am not afraid of anything. Why should I be?”

Such a spirited reply surprised him. He tried not to smile, because he thought it would offend her. But he found her truly amusing. So small, so pretty ... and yet obviously not the least bit intimidated to be in the presence of her future king. “Not afraid of anything?” he repeated, lifting his brows.

“No.”

“I don’t believe you. What about a lion? Surely you would be afraid of a lion?”

“What could a lion do to me?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“Kill you and eat you, of course!”

Nidaba looked very thoughtful. “Then perhaps I should finally be able to know my mother and my father.”

Eannatum fell silent for a moment. He could see the sadness in her eyes, hear it in her voice. His own voice was softer when he said, “They are dead, your parents?”

Nidaba shrugged. “They must be dead. Or else why would they not have kept me to raise for their own?” She looked down at the table. “Unless they simply did not want me.”

“No,” Eannatum said quickly. “It couldn’t have been that.” And he meant it, though he barely knew her.

“Why couldn’t it?”

He smiled at her, seeing a slight moisture now glistening in her downcast eyes. “You are wise, your priestess says. It’s plain that you are brave as well. And you are quite the prettiest girl in all of Lagash. Only a fool would give such a child away.”

The girl’s head came up quickly, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks. They grew pinker, and she smiled. Eannatum saw the moisture in her eyes vanish and felt extremely pleased with himself.

“Why would you think I might be afraid to be your friend, Prince Eannatum?” she asked at length.

“If we are to be friends, you must call me Natum. I like it far better.”

“All right—Natum, then. Surely the other boys at the edubba school are your friends. Aren’t they?”

“My friends?” he asked, lifting his brows. “They are afraid even to sit too close to me, in case they might make some mistake and offend me, thus incurring my father’s wrath.”

Nidaba smiled at him. “More likely they’re afraid you’ll tell your father of the mischief they make.” Then she leaned closer over the table. “But I do know how it feels, Natum. Girls give me a wide berth when I pass them in the streets.”

“And why do you suppose that is?” he asked, fascinated by her even though he was not entirely certain just why.

She shrugged. “I think they fear that I really am part deity, and that I can incinerate them with my divine glare.” As she said it she narrowed her eyes to slits, demonstrating what she perceived to be a frightening look. It only made him smile wider.

“And can you?”

Her smile was swift and brilliant, and so stunning he had to gasp for his next breath. She crossed her arms over her chest, and settled back into her chair again. “I have never tried. But I promise not to try it on you, so long as you promise not to report my mischief to your father.”

“It’s a bargain, then.”

Reaching across the table, he clasped Nidaba’s hand in his, and the feeling that went through him was like none he had known before. A tingling, jolting sensation that made no sense. Her eyes widened and leapt to his, and she drew her hand back quickly, staring down at her palm. So she had felt it too, then. How very odd. It had to be a sign. An omen.

“You will be my first real friend,” he said, already sensing that it was true. And he reached out again to take her hand.

Warily she slid her hand into his, and again there was that jolt, but only briefly. It passed in an instant, and he closed his hand around hers, cradling it, and liking the feeling.

“And you will be mine,” she told him in return, her hand warming beneath his as their fingers laced and their eyes seemed to lock.

Lia cleared her throat. Eannatum released Nidaba’s hand quickly, and they both looked up at the priestess. “Nidaba can be a great help to you in your lessons,” she told Eannatum. “She is already far more talented at divination and certain healing rites than many of the priestesses in the temple.”

“Than all of them, she means,” Nidaba whispered behind her hand, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

Lia sent her a quelling look. But the remark only made Natum like the girl more. “I’ll be grateful for the help,” he said. “My work at the edubba takes up most of my time, and for these added studies I will take any help offered. But... but I would wish to repay your kindness in some way, Nidaba. Is there anything you would like in return?”

Nidaba’s gaze fell again upon the clay tablet, covered with wedge-shaped figures. Then she looked up at Lia. The priestess nodded once. Licking her lips, facing Eannatum once more, Nidaba said, “Yes. There is something. Something I wish for more than anything in all of Sumer.” She reached out and gently took the reed stylus from the pottery cup. Staring at it, she whispered, “I wish to learn the script.”

For some reason, the declaration seemed perfectly logical. It didn’t surprise him in the least. Though he supposed it should have, since girls were no longer allowed to learn the script. It had always seemed an odd law to him, but it had been that way for his entire lifetime. His father said it had not always been so. “Then I will teach you,” he said.

Her eyes widened as she looked from the pen to his face. “You will? Honestly, you truly will?”

Smiling, he bent down, reached into his pack on the floor, and pulled out a new tablet, still wrapped in moist leaves. Unwrapping it, he placed it on the table, took a fresh reed from the cup, and carefully inscribed the symbols that stood for Nidaba’s name into the clay.

Fascinated, the girl came around the table to stand beside him, leaning over him to see what he had done. “That... that’s my name,” she whispered. “Just like on my pendant.”

“Yes.” He pushed the tablet sideways so it was in front of her. “Now you make the symbols. Just the way I did.”

She stared at him, blinking, looking doubtful, but he nodded at her. She bent over the tablet, clutched the stylus awkwardly, and began. Eannatum watched, occasionally covering her hand with his own to help her guide the stylus reed. The result was clumsy, sloppy, but legible.

And her eyes were brighter than any two stars in the Sumerian night sky. “I did it,” she whispered, awestruck.

It amazed him that such a small thing could mean so much to her. And it amazed him even more that seeing that light in her eyes, and knowing he was the one who put it there, could make him feel the way it did.

“Thank you, Natum,” she whispered. “You have given me a gift more precious than anyone ever has. And I will not forget. Not even if I live forever.”

“Don’t be silly,” Eannatum said with a grin. “No one lives forever.”

Folding the newspaper and setting it carefully aside, Nathan looked up at his two dearest friends. He had been living the life of a mortal for a long time. He’d had no contact at all with others like him. He loved this life of his. And he knew—dammit, he knew full well—that he would be risking all he had built if he did what he felt compelled to do.

And yet he had no choice.

“I can’t explain this to you ... but I need to go there.”

“Go where, Nathan?” Sheila asked.

He cleared his throat. “To New Jersey. To ... to this hospital. I need to see her.” Lowering his head, fixing his gaze on that fuzzy photo once more, he muttered, “I need to be sure.”

Chapter 2

Masses of raven hair, uncombed, unwashed and tangled, spilled over the shoulders and down the front of her straitjacket. She sat on the floor in the darkest corner of her locked room. Knees drawn up to her chest, eyes focused on nothing and utterly vacant. Onyx eyes. Thick, dark lashes. She never blinked, seemed totally unaware of Nathan, peering at her through the tiny square of double-paned, mesh-lined safety glass in the door.

“So?” Dr. June Sterling asked. “Do you know her?”

There was a tight knot in Nathan’s chest. This couldn’t be ... it couldn’t be Nidaba. “Can I go inside?” he managed, though his voice came out hoarse and barely audible.

“It’s your neck.” The short, slender woman with her bobbed auburn hair and gold-rimmed glasses took a jangling key ring from her pocket and unlocked the door. “Just don’t get too close.”

“I don’t imagine she could hurt me if she wanted to,” he said, staring at the heavy-lidded eyes veiled by locks of matted hair. “It looks as if she’s drugged to the point where she’s not even lucid.”

“Mild tranquilizers don’t make people catatonic, Mr. Smith.” Pushing the heavy door open, the doctor stood back to let him pass.

“Not most people, no.” He walked into the room, saying nothing more. What could he say? That in immortals, certain drugs could have exaggerated effects? No, of course he couldn’t. Not without ending up in the padded room next to this one. So he said nothing at all.

He stood there for a moment, just staring at the woman, torn between hoping she was Nidaba and hoping to the Gods she wasn’t. Because he’d known Nidaba. Fiercely proud, stubbornly independent. She would hate the way he’d been living his life, he thought vaguely. She had been the opposite of this boring man he had created. Free. Unashamedly proud to be who and what she was and refusing to tone it down or hide her truest self for anyone. And let those who had a problem with that be damned.

No, the Nidaba he had known wouldn’t like Nathan Ian King very much. Not the way she had liked King Eannatum.

And she would rather have been dead than reduced to this ... this ... shell of a woman. If she was aware of her surroundings, the confinement alone would have been enough to drive her mad. She had always been a free spirit. The freest he had ever known.

This woman could not be that fierce priestess he had known. She could not be his Nidaba.

His throat painfully tight, Nathan spoke without turning, his eyes on the pathetic piece of humanity curled into the fetal position on the floor in front of him. “Leave me alone with her, will you?”

“I don’t think—”

“Just go out and close the door. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Mr. Smith, that isn’t—”

“For the love of God, do it.” If he put some small portion of his power into the command, he couldn’t help it. Manipulative it may be, but, dammit, he needed privacy. He needed to see her. To touch her.

To know . . .

Dr. Sterling said no more. She backed out, her steps echoing as she left. The door groaned as it closed again. Good. Nathan braced himself, took a deep breath, told himself this woman wasn’t Nidaba. She couldn’t be Nidaba. He crossed the room to where she sat on the floor, moving slowly so he wouldn’t startle her. “Hello,” he whispered, keeping his voice low, filling it with tranquility and calm. Whoever she was, the last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. “I’ve come to visit you. Is that all right?”

The woman didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just sat there, her knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, head tipped down against them, hair curtaining her face. Her hospital gown had bunched around her hips, and her underpants were showing. He couldn’t see her hip. If she were immortal—and Nidaba or not, he suspected she must be immortal—the mark would be there. She was still rocking slightly back and forth, forehead to her knees. Her tangled hair was wild, and the room smelled of disinfectant and vaguely, urine.

Nathan moved closer, crouched before her, and very slowly lifted a hand to her hair. For more than a week she had been confined here. And he had to wonder if she had been bathed or properly cared for once in all that time. Her hair was matted, knotted, and dull. He touched that hair, pushed it aside and tried to see her face. But she tipped her head downward even more sharply, and she hunched her shoulders against him.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “I just want to see you.”

Her rocking had stopped. She sat rigid, tense. Trembling.

She was afraid of him. And while he was sorry for that, it made him even more certain that she could not be Nidaba, despite the resemblance. Nidaba had never been afraid of anything.

He lifted his hand again. She flinched.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Sighing, Nathan lowered his hand, and his gaze with it. And then he saw the edge of a berry-colored birthmark, just peering out from the bottom of the hospital gown, on her right hip. His mouth went dry as he moved his hand to the gown, touching only the fabric, not the woman, watching her the whole time and seeing not a flicker of interest in her unfocused, unblinking eyes. He lifted the edge of the gown. And he saw it—the crescent moon emblazoned on her right hip. His stomach heaved, and his back bowed with the force of it. Nathan bit his lip to keep the shock from taking over, tried to reason with his own mind.

Immortal. Yes, whoever she was, she was that. But he had already suspected that might be the case. For her to have survived the fall from the top of that building, to have revived in the ambulance, to have had the strength to fracture the arm of an attendant—she would have had to be an immortal High Witch. She was one of the Light Ones, obviously—if she were a Dark Witch, the mark of the crescent would be on her left flank rather than the right. But that didn’t mean she was his Nidaba. It couldn’t mean that.

It mustn’t...

“Nidaba?” he whispered.

He touched her chin, to tip it up. The jolt sizzled through him at the contact, as happened whenever one immortal High Witch touched another. Like a static charge, only magnified.

She jerked away so fast that her head slammed into the wall behind her. Had the wall not been padded, he was certain she would have split her skull.

“Easy, easy,” he said, his voice low, soft, coaxing. “I need to look at you ... please ...” Softly, very gently, he cupped her chin again. She flinched, but not so violently this time. And, finally, he managed to turn her face up so he could see her. Her tangled hair fell away, revealing her fully to him.

Sunken eyes, haloed in gray. Hollow cheeks, jaw too sharply delineated. Despite all of that, he knew this face—knew it well. His eyes drank in every bit of it, but only for a moment. Because his vision became clouded ... with tears he thought he’d finished shedding long ago. Seeing her hurt— physically hurt—like a blow too powerful to withstand. It was a moment before he could even manage words.

“By the Gods, it is you,” he whispered. “Nidaba... what’s happened? What’s happened to you?” Instinctively, he put his arms around her shoulders, pulled her to his chest, rocked her slowly—but it was like embracing a corpse. There was no response. No reaction. Barely any warmth at all. Nothing even to indicate that she was alive. And yet he held her against him, held her close as he hadn’t done in too long ... and realized he was trembling fiercely.

Finally he withdrew his arms from around her, settling his hands on her shoulders instead. He stared into her expressionless face. “Where are you, Nidaba?” he whispered. “Where have you gone? Can you hear me at all? Do you even know I’m here?”

She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. Just curled there limply, eyelids at half mast, head heavy on a boneless neck. He had believed her dead. He had mourned her to the point of madness. He had existed in living anguish for years before he had even begun to recover from her loss. And he never had recovered from it—not fully. Now, his head was spinning—he was reeling with the realization that she had been alive all this time. And he had never known. Never... but then again, he hadn’t known there were such beings as immortal High Witches when he’d known Nidaba. He hadn’t learned any of that until much, much later. And by then she had been dead ... her body burned to ash.

Or so he had been led to believe.

He didn’t think Nidaba had known what she was back then, either. But she had learned all the secrets, in time. And when she had, she would have realized that he was immortal as well. Why hadn’t she come back to him, then? Why hadn’t she sought him out, found him, told him she was alive? Why would she have hidden from him all this time?

The door opened. He felt a cold draft but dismissed it quickly. “Well?” Dr. Sterling asked from the doorway. “Is she the woman you thought she was?”

Slowly, Nathan gathered his wits. He couldn’t take his eyes off Nidaba. Sitting there, vacant eyes staring at nothing, mouth slightly agape and wet. If he took her from here now, openly, the papers would run the story. Nidaba had already become fodder for human-interest stories. The tale of the woman who had survived a fatal fall would be told, and they would track her down, track him down, despite his use of a false name. His haven, his perfect, anonymous life, would be ruined. And he would have gladly allowed it to be, for her sake. But it wouldn’t end there. If her whereabouts were known, Nidaba would be in danger. She wouldn’t be able to defend herself in this state. He needed to take her away from here, in secret. Protect her. Try to... try to reach her again, through that darkness into which she’d fallen.

“Mr. Smith?” Dr. Sterling asked.

“No,” he said. “No, she’s not the woman I knew. I’m sorry I wasted your time.” But with his back to the doctor, he leaned close to Nidaba and whispered into her ear, “I’ll be back for you. I promise. I’ll take you out of here, Nidaba. I’ll make you well again. It won’t be long.”

He thought there was a hitch in her shallow breathing. Perhaps a flicker in her eyes. But nothing more. From her, at least. The reaction in Nathan was nothing short of catastrophic. He was trembling even harder than before, from somewhere down deep. He felt it right to his bones. He brushed his lips over her cheek and got to his feet, but his knees seemed almost too weak to carry him. His steps were as uneven as a drunkard’s when he started toward the door. Everything in him rebelled at the notion of leaving her behind, even for a little while.

“Thank you,” he said to Dr. Sterling as she held the door for him.

She closed it, the locks clicked into place, and he thought he was going to vomit.

“It was no trouble at all,” Dr. Sterling said. “The exit is that way, just down the stairs and—”

“I know where the exit is.”

He walked away in a daze. He didn’t know what had happened to Nidaba to bring her to this point. How she had survived this long, or why she had never sought him out. He only knew that when he took her from this place—and he would—he must leave no clue as to where she had gone. He wouldn’t risk drawing hordes of reporters to his door. Because they would be followed, and in very short order, by hordes of immortals.

Dark Ones. And his quiet existence would come to a violent end. As would Nidaba’s life.

He hadn’t recognized her!

Dr. Sterling stood in the hall, watching the man who called himself John Smith as he walked away. She waited. He rounded the corner, out of sight, and she heard his feet tapping down the stairs, then the closing of the doors to this wing. She let a few more minutes tick by, ensuring that he’d had time to leave the hospital, get into his car, and drive away. Then, finally, she pressed her palms lightly to the front of her face, heels of her hands curving just beneath her chin, and slid them slowly upward, over the top of her head, through her hair, and down to her nape, wiping out the glamour she had cast.

When she took her hands away, she once again appeared as she truly was. Dark. Small. Ever young.

She almost smiled as she thought that perhaps her most well-honed magickal skill might not even have been necessary. If John Smith—or rather Nathan King, as he called himself these days—hadn’t recognized his precious Nidaba, then it wasn’t likely he would remember her.

Ahh, but then again, Eannatum was a wise man. His name had gone down in history as one of the greatest leaders Sumer had ever known, and not without reason. His intelligence was legend—as was his cunning. It would not do to underestimate him.

She had been afforded precious little time to plan for this. Always she’d had to keep herself hidden from Eannatum, knowing he would have killed her with his bare hands if he had crossed her path again— if he had ever put it all together, realized the truth of what she had done.

Yet she had managed to see him from time to time. Sometimes from a distance. Other times, using her favorite spell—the glamourie. It had become something of a game, seeing just how close she could get without his seeing through the illusion. It was an occasional lark, a way for her to pass the time, all the while laughing at him from behind her borrowed countenance. She’d had conversations with him in one guise or another. She’d shared tea with the man. She’d even toyed with the idea of seducing him. Though if she had acted on the idea, he’d have known her as an immortal at her first touch.

But in all that time, she had never seen the priestess Nidaba. Until recently, the name of Nidaba had been unspoken among immortals. And she had become convinced that the harlot truly had died in that long-ago fire, her body burned to ashes.

She should have known that was a tale too perfect to be true.

Nidaba had been alive. All the while, alive. She had certainly kept her existence a secret. Until a year ago, when that detestable name began being whispered among the Dark Ones. She was old—one of the oldest, they speculated, their tones awed, almost reverent. Her heart would be a prize worth seeking. And many had begun doing just that. Hunting her. For a time, Puabi had convinced herself that was enough. That she could just sit back and wait for one of the other Dark Witches to destroy Nidaba forever.

But it hadn’t happened. So Puabi had to take matters into her own hands. If you wanted a task done properly, she had mused, you must see to it yourself. And why should she allow some other Dark Witch to claim a heart with nearly four thousand years of power pounding within its chambers? Why not make it her own?

After hunting Nidaba for months, Puabi had finally found her in the city. And she’d thought that her lust for vengeance would finally be sated. She’d altered her appearance and followed Nidaba to the rooftop gardens of a hotel, and there, Puabi had attacked. Nidaba was strong—more skilled in battle than Puabi had expected. The bitch nearly defeated her! But the Dark Witch had been prepared for that eventuality. She pulled the gun she had brought along, just in case. She could easily carve out Nidaba’s heart before the woman had time to revive from a gunshot wound.

Nidaba saw the weapon, and in the split second before the shot rang out—she jumped.

Jumped.

There had been a crowd. Police. Paramedics. And Puabi thought her chance at ice cold revenge was gone— that Nidaba had outsmarted her yet again It wasn’t until she had seen the article in the newspaper that she’d realized her chance was not lost after all. Her oldest enemy was imprisoned, drugged, helpless ... all but gift-wrapped. Just waiting for Puabi to come and claim her heart, as she should have done a long, long time ago.

Puabi had arrived here only minutes before Nathan had. She hadn’t expected to see him here. She’d planned to slip in, murder the bitch, and leave with her bloody prize beating endlessly in her hands. But Nathan’s unexpected appearance had ruined her plans, and she’d had to act quickly.

Just as she would act quickly now—to take the beating heart from her enemy, and claim the wealth of power from the mindless shell where it awaited her blade. It would be easy, like taking a fledgling.

She slipped her hand beneath the draped fabric of the blouse she wore, closed her fingers around the hilt of the dagger at her side, and turned toward the door of Nidaba’s padded cell.

“Excuse me?” a voice said.

Puabi let go of the blade, and looked up quickly— only to see the real Dr. June Sterling staring at her, her identification badge pinned neatly to her lab coat. “What are you doing here? This is a restricted area.”

Too late now to cast a glamour and alter her appearance to the good doctor’s myopic mortal eyes. The woman had already seen her. “I... seem to have got lost,” she said, concocting a smile she hoped looked sincere.

Dr. Sterling peered through the glass at her patient, worry in her eyes, before looking back at her again.

“The doors to this wing are kept locked.”

“I guess someone forgot that rule.”

“No one forgot,” Dr. Sterling said, her eyes narrowing. She lifted a hand toward her side. There was a small electronic box there, clipped to a pocket of the white lab coat. She knew Dr. Sterling would summon help by pressing the button on that box. She knew in an instant, and acted just as quickly. Her blade hissed from its sheath and slid cleanly between the psychiatrist’s ribs. Blood bubbled when she drew the razor-edged steel out again, and Dr. Sterling, her mouth working soundlessly, slumped to the floor. Her eyes were wide, wet, but fading.

She started to smile ... but then she saw the stubborn woman’s fingers twitch on that little box in one final effort. Damn her!

Some sort of alarm went off, and the formerly silent hallways seemed to come alive with slamming doors, pounding feet. No time now to do what she had come to do.

Puabi, once the most revered queen of all Sumer, leapt over the fallen doctor, and ran. Nidaba’s heart—the trophy she had come here to collect—would have to wait for another time.

The woman sitting on the other side of the mesh lined, locked door, frowned at what was happening inside her mind.

For a moment there had been a ripple in the sky, and the young priestess-in-training looked up, tilting her head to one side.

“What is it?” Natum asked.

Nidaba frowned. “A voice,” she said softly. “Did you hear it?”

“No. Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?”

She shrugged. “A man’s, I think.”

“And what did he say?” Natum asked.

“That he was coming to take me out of this place.” Nidaba frowned and tipped her head to one side. “But I don’t want to go.”

“Don’t you?”

“No. There is only pain out there. And loss.”

Natum tilted his head to one side at that. He was such a beautiful boy. His almond-shaped eyes were fringed with thick lashes. He had such a strong jawline, for a boy, and the nose of a king. Thirteen now, and she’d known him for a year and a day. “How do you know of this pain?” He asked her.

“I’ve lived it. We both have, Natum. Don’t you remember? It is our future.”

“How can 1 remember what hasn’t happened yet?”

That question caused more ripples in the fabric of the world around her. She stared harder down into the waters of the Euphrates from where she and Natum sat on its grassy bank, their robes pulled up to their knees and their feet dangling in the muddy water. She searched the blue sky and examined blazing red sun. Then she focused on the palm trees, their fronds swaying slowly in the gentle, searing breeze. Part of the sky seemed to fold away, and beyond it Nidaba saw a door, with a glass window that had wire crisscrossing it and a wall lined with some kind of cushioning.

Don’t look there. Don’t!

“This isn’t right,” Nidaba said, averting her eyes from that tear in the world. “We never had this conversation.”

“No, we didn’t.”

She concentrated, and the rippling stopped. The world around her solidified once again. The tear was gone, the sky sealed itself in place again. “That’s better,” she said. “I know what this is. It’s our first rite together. You’ve been studying for a year and a day, so to celebrate. Natum, we shall conjure a boon from the Gods.”

“I was afraid you’d forgotten.”

Nidaba lowered her head. “I would never forget. I... I even made a gift for you.”

Natum smiled broadly, his white teeth gleaming in his copper-skinned face. “You did?”

Nodding, Nidaba shyly opened her pouch and extracted a tiny piece of a clay tablet, already baked hard by the sun. She handed it to him.

Natum held it in his palm, and drew it closer. He looked down at it and read aloud the symbols she had inscribed. “ ‘Nidaba. Eannatum. Forever Friends.’ ” He pressed his lips together and closed his hand around the small piece of clay. “Thank you, Nidaba. I will treasure this always.”

She tipped her chin up. “Even when you are a great king and your people shower you with gifts of gold and lapis?”

“This bit of clay is more precious than any of that could ever be.” He opened his palm and looked at it again. “And no mistakes!”

“I had a good teacher.”

“As did I... I hope.” He looked a bit nervously toward the area Nidaba had set up. Candles stood in a circle, and a libation of honeyed wine lay at the ready, beside a dish of salt.

“We’ll soon find out. Have you decided what your request shall be?”

He licked his lips. “Does the priestess Lia know we are doing this, Nidaba?”

Nidaba shook her head. “The priests and priestesses of the temple are planning a stuffy initiation rite for you, to be held in the temple cella, as befits a future king of Lagash,” she told him. “It will be very boring, and I assure you nothing of note will happen.” She smiled. “I’ve learned many secrets, the greatest one being that magick works best when practiced outside, beneath the sky, bare feet in the grass. But if I told them I thought so, I would be condemned for heresy.”

“So might I, if we’re caught,” he said.

“Are you afraid?”

Holding her gaze with his, he shook his head slowly.

“Come, then.” She took his hand, and again the tingling bolt rushed into her, and into him. This they had taken note of, discussed, but neither could explain it. Nor could they explain what happened next.

“My petition to the Gods should be one made for the good of all the people of Lagash, rather than for my personal good.”

“Kingly already, are you?” she teased.

“I am trying to be.”

What a wonderful leader he is going to become, Nidaba thought, but she did not say it aloud. She wouldn’t wish to fill his head with too much arrogance or pride.

“The fishermen have been complaining of dwindling catches,” Natum said. “So I will petition Enki to send an abundance of fish into the waters of the Euphrates.”

Nidaba lifted her brows. “It is a good request,” she told him.

They walked together to the circle, and while Natum sat down in the center, preparing himself for the rite, Nidaba walked ‘round, lighting the candles one by one. Then she moved to the center and sat down, facing Natum. He lifted his palms, and she hers, and the two pressed their hands together. And together they began to chant the incantation.

“Enki me en. Uta am i i ki Enki... I am of Enki. I conjure thee, Enki.”

And the sky darkened, and thunder rumbled in the distance. The waters of the Euphrates began to lap against the shoreline.

“Ana-am ersetam nara-am! By Heaven, by Earth, by the river!”

The winds increased, and Nidaba felt a rush of power coursing through her body. She knew Natum felt it too when his fingers laced with hers, clenching tight.

“Amesh ikiba ul ishu-u! Water without taboo!”

Lightning flashed, striking so close by that she felt the jolt sizzle up into her body from the ground, and her eyes flew open. They met Natum’s, and she nodded once. Together they stood, facing the now roiling black waters. They lifted their joined hands, extended their forefingers side by side to point to the waters, and shouted, “Fill the Euphrates with Fish. Enki! Akalu!”

Lightning flashed again, this time striking the water itself and causing a huge spout to arise in its midst. The force made the hairs on Nidaba’s nape stand erect, and her skin tingled. Then, slowly, the odd wind died, and the sky cleared. And when it did, she stared, wide-eyed, as fish leapt and jumped amid the now calm waters in numbers she had never seen before.

Nidaba turned to Natum and said, “You must tell no one of our rite, Natum.”

“But why?” He was breathless, his brows arched in wonder as he watched the fish bounding and diving about, where before the waters had appeared barren. “We—look what we did, Nidaba! We caused this. We must tell!”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “What do you suppose the High Priest of the temple would say of a child who could command such powers as we have just done? More powers than anyone in the temple? More powers than the High Priest himself can command?”

“The High Priest is my father’s most trusted adviser!”

Nidaba swallowed hard and looked at him intently. “I know more of the man than you, Natum. Please, if you are my friend, you will not speak of this.”

He stared hard into her eyes. “Is it so unusual, what we’ve done here today?”

“Unheard of, Natum. We are a powerful force, you and I.”

He nodded once, smiled gently. “Yes. We are that... and more. Because you ask it, Nidaba, I will tell no one.”

“Thank you, Natum.”

Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek very gently. “We are friends,” he said. “There are no thanks needed.”

When he left her there, alone, she wondered which was the greater miracle. The fish splashing about in the water... or the warmth his kiss had left on her cheek.

Chapter 3

“Now, do you understand what to do?”

George was frowning at Nathan in absolute concentration. “I can do it. Just the way you said.”

“I know you can,” Nathan told him, patting him hard on the shoulder.

They were sitting in a parked car in a rural part of New Jersey, across the street from a century-old building that still had the words “Brooker Asylum” chiseled into its stony face. It was dark outside. Midnight, and neither the moon nor so much as a single star managed to pierce the gloom. A steady drizzle misted the windshield. And it felt damn cold outside.

In his pocket Nathan had a small bottle of ether and a gauze pad. He hoped he didn’t have to use it, but if he did, he figured it was far better than the alternative.

George opened the back door with a gloved hand and got out of the car, bowing his wide back against that cold, misty rain. Nathan glanced beside him at Sheila, who sat behind the wheel. “And you, Sheila? Are sure you want to go through with this?”

She pursed her lips. “If you’re determined to do this, then so am I. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I don’t, you know. I don’t like it a bit. This is completely unlike you, Nathan.”

“It’s more like me than you know.” Like the man he’d once been, he thought vaguely. Not the one he’d become. Not the one Sheila thought she knew.

“Ah, you’re talkin‘ in circles again. If you knew the woman in the photograph, Nathan, why didn’t you just say so? The authorities would have let you take her— unless she’s totally insane.” Sheila widened her eyes. “Is that it, Nathan? Are you bringin’ a lunatic into the house?”

Nathan took a breath to bolster his waning patience. “It wouldn’t be safe for this woman if anyone were to know where she was. I can’t explain any more than that, Sheila, and I’d appreciate it if you would stop asking me. Just... trust me on this.”

“Oh, sure, and suppose you’re caught? What then, I ask you? Is this crazy woman worth getting yourself thrown into the pen?”

He stared at the building in the distance, with its barred windows and safety glass, and he thought of the woman he’d seen yesterday, sitting inside, a captive of this place and, perhaps, of her own mind. And he nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact, she is. She’s worth ... anything.”

“They likely have security cameras,” Sheila said, continuing the argument she’d waged all the way out here. “I don’t suppose you’ve thought of that.”

“As a matter of fact, I have. It’s been ... taken care of.” He couldn’t tell her that he’d called up a bit of the magick he’d learned from the very woman he was about to rescue. But he had. His magickal skills were rusty, but not forgotten. Some things, once learned, were never truly forgotten. He only wished he’d thought to disable the cameras when he’d visited here yesterday. Perhaps no one would make the connection.

Sheila tipped her head to one side. “I swear, I’ve never seen you like this, Nathan.”

“I haven’t been like this. Not—not in a long time.”

“Maybe you’ll explain that remark to me one of these days.”

He turned toward her, touched her cheek. “It means a lot to me, you and George standing by me like this. Insisting on coming along when I would have done it alone.”

“You couldn’t get by without us, and you know it. Go on with you, now. Fetch your woman and let’s be away with her.” She glanced toward the hospital and shivered. “This place gives me chills.”

Nathan nodded, pulled on his gloves, and got out of the car. “Keep it running, Sheila.” Then he closed the car door and gave his lapels a tug. Hunching his shoulders against the frigid autumn wind and slashing droplets, he crossed the narrow drive and walked along the winding path up to the old brick building. It was grim, this place. Dead leaves skittered across its lawns and sidewalks. The bricks were uneven, chipped in places, and the bars installed when the structure had been built in the 1890s remained in the arching windows. They had never replaced them with the modern mesh equivalent. The place looked like a prison. Dirty and cold. A Gothic nightmare. No night sounds reached him beyond the rustling of the dead leaves and the whisper of the cold rain. No crickets chirping. No night birds singing. But he could hear, on another level. A deeper level, even though he tried to block his own empathic tendencies. Ghosts of this building’s past lingered, howling and shrieking in their madness, their torment too powerful to filter out.

No such sounds pervaded the nights around the building anymore, he supposed. Today, the terror of insanity was drugged into slumberous submission. Just as Nidaba had been when he’d seen her here the day before.

The front doors opened easily, and he walked through a foyer that looked shockingly modern—so much so that he’d been startled by it when he’d first seen it the day before. There were padded chairs and magazine racks, and a reception desk with no one in attendance, since visiting hours were long since over. The main doors stood before him, and they too were unlocked. They led only to an admitting area, a nurses’ desk, and a row of administrative offices. The patients were housed on the second through fifth floors, with every stairway and elevator inaccessible without a key. His patient, Nathan mused, was in room 419. For a bit longer, anyway.

He nodded toward the fire alarm on the wall in the dim reception area, and George followed his gaze and nodded back. They’d planned this. Rehearsed it. Gone over it. Nathan was as prepared for tonight’s adventure as he used to be when leading his army into battle. He’d bought clothes, prepared a room for Nidaba, and researched this building. He’d even studied blueprints. He was ready.

Something stirred inside him. Deep down. Adrenaline, excitement even, surged in his veins, and he thought for a moment that he felt more alive than he had in years.

George backed into a shadowy corner to count silently to one hundred, just the way they’d planned, and Nathan went through the second set of doors. A nurse looked up from a folder at the desk and said, “Visiting hours ended at seven.”

“Yes, I know. I wanted to see one of your doctors,” he lied. “Dr. Sterling. Is there any chance she’s still here?”

“You a friend of hers?”

“A... colleague, actually. I was hoping to discuss a case with her.”

The woman’s expression eased a bit. She had a pinched look about her, even then. Narrow nose, skin a hint too pale. She didn’t get a lot of sun. “I guess you didn’t hear, did you?”

“Hear?” Nathan’s senses went on alert.

“Dr. Sterling’s in the hospital—she’s critical. One of the patients upstairs attacked her yesterday.”

“What?”

Nodding hard, the nurse rose from her chair, smoothed her dress. “Stabbed her,” she said. “It’s a miracle she didn’t bleed to death on the spot.”

“I can’t believe this.” Nathan’s mind raced. He pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the certainty that there was more to this than he was just now hearing. “I just saw her yesterday afternoon. When did this happen?”

The nurse shrugged. “The alarm went off just after four. We found Dr. Sterling outside our Jane Doe’s room on the fourth floor, but Jane was still trussed up nice and neat. All the patients were accounted for, in fact. I still can’t figure it out.” She rubbed her arms, gave a little shiver. “No one saw anything unusual. It’s as if a ghost did it. I’ll tell you, it makes you want off the night shift in this mausoleum.”

The woman had been stabbed—right outside Nidaba’s room. By someone who had managed to go undetected. And only minutes after Nathan’s own visit. Could all that be coincidence?

“Did they... did they find a weapon?” he asked slowly.

“No, actually, they didn’t. Whoever it was took it with them. But we searched all the patients’ rooms and—I suppose whoever did it probably hid the weapon somewhere before running back to their room. You know, some of these psychos are sharper than we give them credit for. Obviously.” She shook her head. “Poor Dr. Sterling.”

Nathan was so shocked to hear all of this that he nearly forgot his plan. But his nerves were bristling, and he didn’t like the feeling of static dancing up and down his nape and forearms. Like a storm in the air. Something was very wrong here.

He vowed to get to the bottom of it all later, but now he steered himself back to the subject at hand. He glanced at his watch, then pretended to sniff the air. “My God ... is that smoke I smell?” he asked.

The nurse sniffed, frowning and tipping her head to one side. “I don’t smell anything.”

Right on cue, George hit the fire alarm in the waiting room. A bell went off, and the nurse flew out from behind the desk, her key ring in hand. Others came running. She raced to the stairway doors, to the control panel there. Inserting her key, she turned it and hit a button to release the main locks. According to the building’s plans and renovations, the individual rooms would still be locked, and the elevators would go to the bottom floor and shut down. But now the stairways and all the exits were unlocked. They would not be that way for very long.

The nurse ran to the first landing. Nathan headed up, too, only a few steps behind her. He could hear others coming behind them, but he knew the staff would be thin at this time of night. Still, that wouldn’t stop them from questioning his presence, if George didn’t hurry up and...

Before he completed the thought, the lights went out. “Good man,” Nathan muttered under his breath. He shrugged off his overcoat, revealing the white lab coat he wore underneath it, folded his overcoat over one arm, and continued up the stairs. At each landing the head nurse shoved open a stair door and shouted behind her, sending a handful of her staff onto that floor in search of the fire. The emergency lighting finally kicked in, but it was dim.

“Do we evacuate the patients?” someone asked at the first landing.

“Not yet. Let’s just make sure this isn’t another false alarm first.”

Nathan bit back his instinctive response to that. He wanted to chastise the fools. If the fire had been real, their hesitation could have cost lives. But it wasn’t real. And he was concerned only about getting one patient safely out of here.

At the fourth floor, he simply went in with the rest as they spread out to check the rooms. His eyes were sharp, even in low light. Years of immortality tended to hone all of the senses to new levels. He chose one nurse, a small blond woman who blinked like a mole at him in the darkness when he said, “I think it’s coming from in here” and led her straight to Nidaba’s door.

The nurse didn’t even hesitate, and the others were racing down the halls, running from room to room, getting further and further away. She unlocked the door, and Nathan gripped her hand, tugged her inside, and closed the door behind them. “Don’t you smell it?” he said. “Over there, by the window.”

The nurse hurried forward, and he quickly moistened a gauze pad with the chloroform in his pocket, recapped the bottle, and moved up beside her.

A second later, his hand was covering her face, and she was slumping in his arms. He laid her down gently, carefully. “Sorry about this,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice.” Mentally, he willed her to forget this incident, but he had to hurry. He had no idea if the command would take.

But there was just no more time. He hurried to the bed where Nidaba lay still, eyes closed, totally oblivious to the alarm sounding throughout the halls.

At least she wore no straitjacket now. They must put it on her only when forced to be in the room with her. He scooped her into his arms and headed to the door. He looked up and down the hall, but the searchers had moved past this point and the path to the open stair door was clear. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and he ran. He reached the stairway, raced down it, and emerged at the bottom after three flights.

A burly attendant appeared as Nathan crossed toward the reception area. He hadn’t seen Nathan yet, but he would at any second, unless ...

Even as the attendant started to turn toward Nathan, George’s shadow fell over the man. Sensing it, the attendant whirled, but not in time. George picked the man up by the front of his shirt and tossed him aside like yesterday’s garbage. Then, even as the man struggled to his feet, stumbling toward the control panel to re-engage the locks, and even as the stampeding of a dozen pairs of feet thundered down the stairs, George ran ahead, opening the doors, and holding them as Nathan carried Nidaba through. Nathan heard the locks engage as he passed. They’d only just made it out in time.

Outside, they sprinted across the lawn for the car. George said, “Let me carry her, Nathan! I’m bigger than you are.”

Nathan shook his head. “Can’t do that, George,” he panted. Nidaba’s weight was a warm burden in his arms, and her body pressed to his, even limp like this, was something he had long thought he would never feel again. Silently, he heard a little voice telling him not ever to let anyone take this woman from his arms. Not ever. But he knew better than to think that way. She had changed—even if he could reach her and bring her back to him, she would still have changed. And so had he. Lifetimes had come and gone, for both of them.

George opened the back door, and Nathan cradled Nidaba closer to his chest and folded himself into the car. The single attendant stepped outside the madhouse doors, rubbing his head and looking around. He had probably mistaken George for a patient and wondered where he’d gone. But no one had seen Nathan taking Nidaba away. And Nathan hadn’t been stupid enough to leave the car in plain sight. He’d had Sheila park it in a well chosen spot, away from any streetlights and with a line of shrubbery between the car and the front door of the hospital. Between those precautions, the moonless night, and the steady drizzling rain, the car was all but invisible to mortal eyes.

Still, he had no doubt that the police were on the way, or would be shortly. George went still, crouching beside the car until the attendant walked back inside, shaking his head. Then George ran around and got into the front seat, and Sheila shouted, “Hold on!” and hit the gas.

The tires spun a little, caught, and the car lurched into motion.

The irony of it all was far from lost on Nathan. Particularly when he could hear the sirens in the distance and when Sheila took a corner too fast and the car rocked up dangerously, flirting with a two-wheeled stunt before gripping the pavement with all fours again.

“It’s all right, Sheila,” he told her. “They’re not chasing us. At least I hope not.”

She slowed down, but not by much.

For a decade, Nathan thought, he had cultivated the most mundane, most placid, staid, uneventful existence any man had ever known. And now he was breaking into a mental hospital to kidnap a patient and then speeding through the night in a getaway car. All because of a single glimpse of Nidaba’s face.

She had always had this effect on his life. Always.

He held her now. Her upper body lay across his lap, her shoulder against his belly, her head resting just above his heart. The car swayed and shuddered, even now that he’d told Sheila it would be all right to slow down a bit. Streetlights fought with shadows for the right to bathe Nidaba’s pale face. He pushed her hair away.

“I’ve got you now, Nidaba,” he whispered. “Can you hear me?” With one hand he stroked her cheek. “I know you can. If you want to, you can. And I’m going to keep talking to you until you do. You’re coming back from wherever it is you’ve gone, Nidaba. Whether you want to or not. I’ll bring you back.”

The car slowed a bit, Sheila finally getting the idea that the police had been left far behind them, if they’d ever been after them in the first place, which was doubtful. Or perhaps she was only distracted by listening to Nathan’s soft-spoken words.

“How are you goin‘ to care for her, love?” she asked him.

He glanced up, met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Take her home, clean her up, put her to bed ...”

“She needs nourishment, Nathan. She can’t eat in that state. She ought to have an IV. She could dehydrate in short order without one. She can’t go to the bathroom on her own. She needs a nurse, Nathan, and how you’re goin‘ to hire one without answerin’ a lot of uncomfortable questions is beyond me.”

He swallowed hard. “I’m not going to hire a nurse. Whatever care she needs ... I’ll do it myself.”

“And I can help,” George announced, looking anxiously at the woman lying so still in Nathan’s arms.

“You’ve got no clue what you’re saying—neither of you.”

“Yes, I do.” Nathan looked down at Nidaba, at her long lashes, blackest velvet lying against her cheeks. She had always had the thickest, longest lashes ...

“Besides,” he said, forcing the words past the lump in his throat. “It will only be until the drugs have a chance to clear out of her system.”

Sheila sighed. “They don’t drug mental patients into a state of catatonia, Nathan. She’s ill.”

“No. No, you don’t understand. Nidaba... she has a ... reaction to certain drugs. Most tranquilizers have a magnified effect on her. As if she’d been given ten times the normal dose.”

Sheila’s silence made him look up again to see her frowning ferociously into the mirror. “How do you know all this, Nathan?” Then she blinked. “And didn’t I once hear you say something similar about yourself?”

He nodded very slightly, averting his eyes as he did so. “We have the same ... sensitivity to chemicals,” he explained quietly. “For all we know, without all the drugs in her system, Nidaba could be perfectly sane.”

“Or completely insane!” Sheila said.

There was silence in the car for a long moment. Then George asked. “Didn’t the newspaper say she jumped off a building?”

“They can’t know she jumped,” Nathan answered quickly. “She certainly didn’t tell them so. She could have fallen... or been pushed.” To his own ears his voice sounded defensive and childish.

“But... but, Nathan, didn’t she break somebody’s arm in the ambulance?” George pressed on.

Sheila caught Nathan’s eyes again. And he could see that she was once again suspicious of him. She was not a foolish woman. She knew he was keeping secrets— that there was something about him that wasn’t quite . . . normal. He’d seen this look in her eyes before. But she was also a woman with her own secrets to keep. So she had never pressed him to reveal his.

This time, though, he might have pushed her too far.

“We’re just going to have to wait and see,” Nathan said softly.

George turned around, one big arm anchored on the back of the front seat as he stared back at Nathan. “I hope she doesn’t break my arm, Nathan. That would hurt.”

“I won’t let her hurt you, George. You’re my friend. I don’t let anyone hurt my friends.” He lifted a hand, gave George’s shoulder a squeeze. “You trust me, don’t you?”

Nodding hard, George looked a bit more at ease. “My arms are pretty big, anyway. It would be awfully hard for her to break them, I think.”

“I’ll bet it would.”

The remainder of the long ride back passed in relative silence. George fell asleep, his gentle snoring keeping an odd rhythm. Sheila stopped asking questions, but Nathan caught her eyes on him every now and then, wide with worry, and on Nidaba, narrowed in distrust. The next several days were not going to be easy.

Then again, nothing with Nidaba had ever been easy. Or calm, or boring. He sometimes thought the Gods had decided to give turmoil a physical body, and his Nidaba had been the result.

She feared nothing. She dared anything. Consequences be damned.

It had always been that way. Nidaba was ... chaos.

* * *

She learned fast, the littlest novice priestess in the temple of Inanna at Lagash. At first, Prince Eannatum had simply thought her to be unusually brilliant. At first... but soon, he, like everyone else in the city-state, began to wonder about her origins. Particularly after witnessing her powers firsthand.

For more than a year after that secret rite they had performed together, fishermen had been hauling more bounty from the Euphrates than they ever had. So many fish that the excess had to be salted, packed in barrels, and shipped upriver to Nippur and Kish and downriver to Ur and Eridu. And Natum wasn’t vain enough to believe he was responsible for the magick they had wrought that day. No. It had been her doing.

There was something more to Nidaba. A power that surged through her. Made her somehow ... more than anyone he’d known before. More alive. More beautiful. More passionate, more inquisitive. Just more. As if she truly were the child of a Goddess.

Though she would have likely punched him in the belly if he said so aloud.

Yes, she would. Despite that he was a prince. That was one of the things he loved about her. She dared anything.

They had been studying together for more than three years, and she had become a far more talented scribe than he would ever be, when he one day set aside his tablet and stylus and stared at her across the table. “I am tired of lessons,” he said.

“Then what shall we do?” She had seen thirteen seasons by then. He had seen fifteen, but she had already grown nearly as tall as he.

He shrugged. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he was restless. His father said it was natural for a boy of his age. That did nothing to ease the feeling, however.

“Shall we attempt some divinations? Or visit the cella! We could drop pebbles from the uppermost windows onto the people as they pass below!” Her smile was as bright as her eyes. And her eyes were brighter than any he’d ever seen. But even their excited gleam failed to reach him today.

“We do those things all the time. I want to go outside. I want to swim in the river and roll in the dirt!”

Her beautiful smile faded, and she tilted her head to one side. “Perhaps if you ask the guards ...”

“Pah, they would only tell me I must behave with dignity at all times!” He shook his head. “Everywhere I go, they follow. They watch. Soon I will be finished with the edubba, and my father says my lessons here will end soon as well. It is time for me to move on, now. To learn the skills of battle, and of war.” He heaved a sigh. “My life is nothing but lessons and responsibilities. I would give it all to be free, like you.”

Nidaba got up from her chair and came round to where he stood. “I know it is difficult for you, Natum, but don’t assume it is any easier for me. I too have duties, responsibilities—”

“Oh, come! The priestesses let you do just as you please! They are too afraid of you to do otherwise!”

She took a step back as if he’d struck her, and he instantly regretted his words. He reached out for her, parted his lips to speak the apology he knew he should give, but she held up a hand to stop him. “So that is what you think, is it? Let me set your mind to rights, my prince. They let me do nothing, here. I do what I please because I dare do what I please. I am free because I insist on my freedom. It is too valuable to me to give it away without a fight. So I do what I want, and I break their silly rules. When I am caught, I am punished for it, believe me. But the punishment is the price of my freedom, so I take it without complaint.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, certain that a slip of a girl such as she would not know punishment if she saw it. “Do you, now?”

“You doubt me?” she asked, eyes going wider.

“I doubt you know what real punishment is,”‘ he said. “I would be beaten were I to defy my father. Don’t you doubt it. And if you faced such consequences as I, you would understand my frustration far better.”

She lifted her brows. Then she turned her back to him, and before he could guess what she was about to do, she pushed the white gown from her shoulders, letting it fall, baring her skin to him and catching the garment again only just above her hips. Her arms, her back, were unclothed, and for an instant he felt an unknown pull in his groin, and a tightening in his belly. But only for an instant. For though her flesh was bared... it was also marred.

Natum leaned closer, eyes widening at the strips he saw crisscrossing her slender back. He lifted the candle-rack from the table, and the golden glow fell across her coppery skin, illuminating the angry red welts, and the darker places where the skin had been ripped and the blood had encrusted.

“By the Gods, Nidaba ...” he said on a breath. Tears stung at his eyes, and his throat went taut, even as an unfamiliar rage rose like fire in his chest. Gently, he reached out, lifted her dress up, and righted it for her. Then, placing his trembling hands on her shoulders, he turned her around. “Who did this to you?” he demanded, surprised at the depth of emotion in his voice, and the churning in his belly. “Tell me and I will have his head on a pike by dawn!”

She smiled at him, very slowly. “Listen to you, already sounding like some mighty king.”

He didn’t like what he was feeling. The churning in his gut, the pounding in his chest.

“I am but an orphan child, and I belong to the temple—as much as I am capable of belonging to anything or anyone. The priestesses are kind and loving. But you know how stern the old High Priest can be.”

“Lathor did this to you?”

“Yes. Your father’s most trusted adviser, the High Priest of the temple, has a fondness for the scourge that goes, I believe, beyond what is holy.” She shrugged. “He enjoys it, I think. But for the most part, I am able to avoid him.”

“And what grave offense brought about such a punishment?” Natum asked, his anger still seething.

She shrugged. “I took a date from the offering plate set before the stone image of a deity in the cella. I have done so for years, whenever I please. This time he saw me. And when he asked for an explanation, I replied that the goddess lives in me, and therefore I have every right to eat her dates.”

“You said that?” He was amazed.

“Lathor called it blasphemy and took the scourge to me.” Again, that slight shrug. “He is very lucky that I have learned to control my anger,” she said softly. “I wanted to bring the entire tower crashing down upon his hairless head.”

And for some reason, as she said it, Eannatum had the feeling she could have done exactly that.

“I still believe I am right and he is wrong,” Nidaba went on. “And I told him so, when he finished whipping me.”

Lowering his head, shaking it slowly, Natum tried to quell the nausea in his belly. “Gods, Nidaba, do you fear nothing?”

“What is there to fear?” She shook her head. “I wanted the date. I knew the consequences of taking it— if I were to be caught. I usually am not, you know.” She shrugged as if it mattered not in the least. “You want to go outside without your guards, and you know the consequences of doing so— if you’re caught. So tell me, is it worth the risk to you, Natum?”

“How can you even speak of this when your back bears the marks of Lathor’s scourge? He must be made to pay!”

She rolled her eyes. “You do tend to change the subject, Natum. I am used to Lathor’s scourge. It doesn’t hurt so much after the first day or so. And if he deserves to be punished for what he does to me, the Goddess will see to that. Or, I will, when I am grown and no longer under his care.”

“You will not have to. And this will not happen again. Mark my words, Nidaba.”

She smiled very slowly. “Do you want to go out without your guards, my prince, or don’t you?”

Looking into her eyes, he managed to put his anger aside. They glowed, her eyes, with a gleam of excitement, and somehow, despite his fury at the High Priest, he felt an answering excitement well up within him. One that only she seemed able to provoke. “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

“And do you dare to do as you please, despite the consequences?”

“I do,” he repeated.

“Then come with me.” She offered her hand. He took it, felt the tingling sensation he always felt when they touched, and let her lead him through the ever-darkening hallways of the ziggurat tower, down sloping passages and hidden stairways, into the very bowels of the place, and lower. He grabbed a torch as they passed. Otherwise, he thought she’d have gone in utter darkness and been content.

Truly, she feared nothing.

“Here,” she said at length, pushing hard on a block of stone that was easily larger than she was. It moved a bit in the wall, and Natum joined her, shoving hard at it. To his surprise it gave, moving inward, sliding on its own once they got it started. It revealed a passage to the left and one to the right.

“This way,” she said, grabbing his hand once again.

He followed her into the darkness, and the huge stone slid back into place behind them by means of some hidden mechanism. He’d seen similar passages in the palace, but he’d never explored them. She would have, he thought. Nidaba would leave no mystery unexplored.

They walked for a time and soon emerged from what appeared to be a cave, half covered in sandy soil and reeds, into a grove of trees and grasses on the far side of the river. Blinking in the light, Natum looked across the water and saw the pristine white tower and the palace with its jeweled roof gleaming in the sun.

“We crossed beneath the Euphrates!” he said in amazement.

“Yes, and none of your guards are in sight. And look how far away the temple is! They cannot even see what we do here.”

No one could see them there, it was true. And that place, that grove of untended lushness on the far banks of the Euphrates, became their hideaway. Where they could run and romp, climb trees and splash in the water, behave as normal children instead of as a future king and a future priestess.

That was, he had thought much later, where he had first fallen in love with her.

They hadn’t been caught... not that time at least. But he’d decided then and there that it would be worth the consequences even if they were. To him, anyway. As for the so-called punishments Nidaba had suffered.... he vowed to see to that as well.

The opportunity came later that same night, in his father’s palace. Natum saw the High Priest Lathor exiting his father’s throne room, resplendent in robes threaded with gold.

“Ea Lathor,” Natum said, “might I have a private word?”

Turning, Lathor cupped his right fist in his left palm and bowed slightly, a greeting of deepest respect among Sumerian men. “Of course, my prince,” he said. But for all his show of respect, there was none in the man’s patronizing eyes. His eyes looked at Natum as a boy, not a man.

But the prince did not feel like a boy just then.

He nodded toward a smaller room, and the priest walked into it, taking a chair only after the prince had closed the door and waved a hand toward one. Eannatum himself remained standing.

“What is it, young prince? Do you require counsel of a spiritual nature?”

“No, Lathor. I require an explanation.”

Lathor’s brows rose. “An explanation? Whatever for, my prince?”

“For the marks of the scourge I saw today, cut into the back of a girl in your care.”

Lathor frowned, then gasped, making his eyes wide. “Do you mean Nidaba? But how could you have seen ... Prince Eannatum! Have you ... known the girl?”

Natum had not realized he was capable of delivering his father’s very well-known glare, but he did it then, and saw the priest pale in reaction. “I owe you no answer to such a question, Lathor. I am your prince, and that you would dare ask a question like that one leaves me to doubt your judgment even more than I already did. But for the sake of the young priestess—”

“Nidaba is no priestess, but a foundling and a student,” Lathor interrupted. “And an unruly one, at that.”

“Nidaba is more priestess than any woman in the temple,” Eannatum shot back. And again, the High Priest fell silent. Good. “For the sake of her good name, I will deign to answer your impertinent question, Lathor. No. I have not known the girl. But I have seen the marks of your scourge on her tender skin.”

The priest seemed relieved. He smoothed his robes. “Punishment well deserved, I assure you. Her upbringing is in my hands, Eannatum. I must see to it as I deem appropriate.”

“Just as I will see to running Lagash as I deem appropriate when I take my father’s place on the throne one day,” Eannatum replied. He walked closer, leaned over the chair in which the High Priest sat, and braced his hands on either arm, framing the man. “And I promise you, Lathor, that should I ever see a mark on Nidaba’s flesh again, my first command as king shall be the one I give to your executioner, and I shall word it thusly: ‘Use a dull blade, and take all the time you wish.’ ” He said the words slowly, drawing them out.

Lathor gasped audibly. “You ... you dare speak to me in such ...”

“It is only a matter of time, Lathor. My father is not a young man. I warn you, when I am king you will pay dearly for every welt on Nidaba’s body. Do not forget.”

The door to the room opened, and Lathor looked past Eannatum, his face easing in relief. Natum looked behind him to see his father standing there. And from the look on the king’s face, his son deduced he had been listening for some time. Eannatum straightened up away from Lathor and, turning, pressed his right fist into his left palm and inclined his head. Lathor scrambled to his feet to do likewise.

No one said anything for a long moment, as the king looked his son right in the eye. Natum returned the steady gaze, not blinking or looking away. Then finally the king met the eyes of his adviser instead, and he spoke. “Lathor, it seems your prince has issued his first royal command. I would advise you to heed it.”

Lathor’s eyes widened. He sputtered once or twice, then bit his lip, bowed low, and scurried away. Only when they were alone again did Natum’s father turn to him. “She will one day be a High Priestess, my son.”

“She’s not even an initiated priestess yet,” he said.

“No. But if the talk of her talents has even a grain of truth to it, she will excel in her studies and grow into a woman of great power in the temple. And as for you, you will one day be a king. Not just of Lagash, but of all of Sumer.”

“Your dreams are bigger than the ziggurat tower, Father,” Natum said.

“They are more than dreams. They are strategies, plans that are already unfolding, Eannatum. But you do not need to know of them now. What you do need to know is this: Nidaba must serve her Goddess and you your kingdom. Do you understand this, Eannatum?” he asked.

Natum lowered his head. “She is my only friend, Father.”

The king nodded. “She is only your friend, Natum. You would do well to remember that it is all she can ever be. With . .. perhaps, the exception of one night—the night of your coronation, when you must perform the sacred rite with the High Priestess of your temple. If my plans to install you to the throne of all Sumer come to fruition, and if she advances to the rank of High Priestess in time. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Natum felt the blood rush to his face, hotter with every word his father uttered. “I have never thought of Nidaba in ... in such a way!”

His father smiled, came closer, and tousled his son’s hair in an almost playful manner. “Then we’ll save this talk for another time, when you have. For you will, Eannatum. You surely will. Already you are becoming a man.” He smiled. “A good man. You will be a great leader one day. And you will think of this priestess in exactly such a way.”

At the time Eannatum had thought his father could not have been more wrong.

But later... oh, later ... he knew that it had been all but inevitable that he would think of Nidaba in the terms to which his father had alluded. Soon, all too soon, in fact, he found he was able to think of little else.

Chapter 4

Nathan cradled her in his arms in the back seat of the car as it sped through the rain-glistened night, and he remembered the day everything had changed between them.

She was fifteen. They had been in their secret place, swimming in the waters of the sacred river. The sun blazed in all its fury, baking the city. So they’d slipped away together, to cool themselves in the life-giving waters. They’d been laughing, splashing each other, ducking underneath the waves. And then, breathless and giddy, they got out and stretched themselves out on their backs among the tall, lush grasses along the riverbank, to let the sun dry their skin and their clothes.

“So what did you learn today, little priestess?” he asked her. “Have they taught you any new rites?”

He glanced sideways at her, grinning. It was a running joke between them how the magick they could work together would shock those who claimed to be far more learned about such things. Ironic, he thought, that she spent each day learning about religion and deities and powers when she ought, perhaps, to be teaching her teachers.

She didn’t smile back, however. Instead, a frown puckered her brow. “Today I was taught about the Sacred Marriage Rite of the king.”

“Oh.” He turned his gaze skyward. It was a subject he thought unwise to discuss with her.

“You know of it, don’t you?” she asked.

“Well... yes, I... I know ... enough.”

Her brows rising, she turned on her side to face him, elbow to the earth, her head resting in her palm. “You’re embarrassed to talk to me about this, aren’t you, Natum?”

“No!”

“You are so.”

“Am not.” And to prove it, he too turned on his side, facing her, just as she faced him. “I’ll be king one day. Why should I be embarrassed about the sacred rite conferring my rulership?”

“Because you have to copulate with the High Priestess of the temple. That’s why.” She grinned. “I hope it’s soon. The current High Priestess is already an old woman. If she gets any older—”

“Maybe you’ll be High Priestess by then.”

He blurted the words in self-defense. But the moment they were out of his mouth, her eyes shot to his, widened, and remained there. And he couldn’t look away. “Maybe I will,” she answered, her voice barely a whisper.

His throat was suddenly dry, tight. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he managed to say. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know why. I’ve thought of it many times.” She closed her eyes, perhaps to find the courage to go on. “Wondered ... what it would be like to be ... more than your friend.”

His stomach tightened into a knot, and he felt another place tightening, stirring, and pulling as well. His gaze drifted downward while she lay there, eyes closed, awaiting his reply. Soaking wet, her white gown was all but transparent, and plastered to her breasts, so their full, soft shape was clear to him, even to the tiny nubs at their tips. The gown clung to her belly, so he could trace the well of her navel. Sex was normal and healthy, and not something whispered about or forbidden—except if a girl wished to advance to the rank of High Priestess. She must save herself then, for the time when a king would need her. Untouched, she must draw the spirit of the Goddess into her own body. And then offer herself to the new ruler, who could be anointed king only by knowing her. By having her.

And suddenly, he felt as if he were on fire.

“Natum?”

He jerked his gaze upward again, meeting her eyes, which were open now.

“Am I pleasing to you? As ... as a woman?”

He swallowed hard. “You’re the most beautiful woman in all of Sumer. You know you are.”

“Then you would not mind so much, if it were me? I mean ... in the role of High Priestess ... when the time comes.”

He couldn’t answer her. His voice fled him. So instead of speaking, he obeyed his body’s demands. He leaned a breath closer and pressed his lips to hers. He kissed her slowly, tenderly, and he tasted lips he had dreamed of tasting for many nights. “I pray it will be you,” he whispered, and kissed her again.

It was raining. It had been raining a little harder with every mile they had driven, and by the time they got back to Nathan’s haven, it was pouring. It didn’t look as if it was going to let up anytime soon. The headlights gleamed on wet gravel and shiny fallen leaves, slick with water. Everything bore that unnatural sheen that comes only on rainy, moonless autumn nights. It rained on Nathan when he carried Nidaba up the flagstone path to the house. George raced along beside him, holding an umbrella that did little good, while Sheila ran ahead to open the front doors.

So Nidaba got wet, and maybe chilled too, on such a brisk night as this. If she became ill...

“One step at a time,” he muttered.

“What, Nathan? I didn’t hear you.” George started to close the door behind them, then paused. “Nathan! Nathan, look.”

“Close the door, George. It’s freezing,” Sheila chided.

“No!” George darted back outside, and a moment later he returned with a sopping-wet dog slogging in beside him. It stopped halfway through the door, and Nathan tensed with Nidaba in his arms.

“George, that’s a Rottweiler. They can be dangerous, you know.”

“C’mon, that’s a good dog. C’mon, now,” George crooned, and the beast, easily weighing 90 pounds on a dry day, slunk inside. George closed the door, and the dog shook, sending a spray of dog-scented droplets throughout the entire foyer.

“Dammit, George!”

“Nathan,” Sheila said, her tone firm. And Nathan stopped himself, knowing better than to scold the sensitive and childlike George. “We’ll deal with the dog later. Let’s see to your new charge now.”

Nathan nodded, knowing she was right. “Get some towels and dry that beast off, George. And be careful. If it starts growling at you ...” He glanced back at the pair. George was on his knees now, his arms around the soaked canine, his cheek resting on its wet fur. It didn’t look as if he was in any danger of being bitten.

Nathan carried Nidaba forward, leaving wet footprints on the marble floor of the foyer, and on the plush carpeting of the front parlor, and on every step of the staircase as he carried her up. It was wide, this staircase, but steep. At the second floor, Sheila again ran ahead to open Nathan’s bedroom door.

He carried Nidaba through it, and into the adjoining room, as Sheila flicked on lights. Technically a part of the master suite, this smaller room would serve as Nidaba’s bedroom. Nathan wanted her close to him. He wanted to be able to watch over her every moment until she was well again.

If...

No. She would be well again.

Sheila pulled back the covers of the bed they had made ready. Nathan peeled off the now damp blanket he had wrapped around Nidaba in the car. She wore only a thin hospital gown beneath it. But at least it was dry. Gently, Nathan lowered her into the bed and pulled the covers over her, tucking them tight. Swallowing hard, he straightened, staring down at her, pushing a hand through his damp hair.

“Now what?” Sheila asked, sounding skeptical. “You’ve got her here, Nathan. But just what you intend to do with her is beyond me.”

He drew a breath, sighed, and turned to the fireplace. Logs and kindling lay ready, and Nathan drew a long, slender match from the holder, struck it against the brick, and knelt to touch the dancing flames to the tinder. As the tongues of fire licked and spread, he dropped the match but remained kneeling there, watching the fire dance. Fire.

Fire was the hungry beast that had devoured his only love .. . and her only child, or that was what he had been led to believe lifetimes upon lifetimes ago. But Nidaba lived.

What of the child?

“Nathan?”

“Go on to bed, Sheila,” he said, and his voice came out harsh, raspy. “Get warm and dry and get some rest. See to it that George does the same.”

“You might follow your own advice, Nathan,” Sheila said. “But I know full well you won’t do it, so at least change your clothes. They’re damp, and you’re chilled through.”

He felt his lips pull into an affectionate smile. “It’s a wonder I ever survived before you came along with your mothering, Sheila.” His tone was teasing.

“It’s more than a wonder,” she replied, in all seriousness. “It’s a bloody miracle.”

He glanced behind him to see her shrugging and turning to walk away, back through Nathan’s bedroom, and toward the hall beyond its door. “Thank you, Sheila,” he called. “Good night.”

“Good night, Nathan,” she called back. “Try and get at least a couple of hours’ sleep, will you?”

“I will.”

Shaking her head, she stepped into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her, and Nathan heard her mutter, “Liar.”

She knew him a little bit too well.

Straightening up from the fire, Nathan went to the windows and parted the curtains to stare out at the falling rain. It beaded like liquid diamonds on the glass, melting and sliding downward in slow motion. Beyond the rain was only blackness. The pattering sound of the droplets on the glass and the low, distant moan of the wind were lulling. Soothing, somehow.

“What will you do to me this time, Nidaba?” he asked softly, letting the curtains fall back into place. He went to the chair beside the bed and sank into it. Hooking a forefinger under his chin, he studied her. “Sleeping Beauty,” he murmured. “So peaceful, so tranquil, even if you do look a bit tousled and tangled right now. But you’re not those things, Nidaba. You’ve never been peace or tranquility. You come into my life like a sandstorm in the desert. You rain chaos on my head, and everything inside me responds by joining in the madness. And then you leave me again.”

His throat tightened on the final words. Leaning forward, he closed his hand around hers. “My life was turmoil for so long. I raged, Nidaba. For centuries I raged, and I’m not even sure I knew that you were the cause. Not then. But I fought with every Dark challenger I could find. I killed with a vengeance and a taste for blood that chills me now when I think back on it. I loved like a wanton, taking my pleasure wherever and whenever I wished and never letting it mean a thing to me.”

He shook his head slowly. “But how long can a man live like that? I was a hurricane, Nidaba, and eventually all that anger, all that grief, blew itself out and left me ... empty. Drained. It took a long time. A long time to reach that point. And it only heralded a new kind of existence for me. One in which I didn’t care, didn’t feel... anything at all. I killed if I had to. Felt nothing. If sex were offered to me, I would take it, and barely feel the pleasure of release. I was a shell. I closed myself off from every emotion, blocked my mind from the touch of any feelings not my own. But eventually, that too passed.”

He ran his thumb over the back of her hand, slowly, in circles, wondering if she could hear him at all—or if she would give a damn about any of this even if she could.

“Finally I settled into this life. Calm. Placid. I learned how to care for people again. To connect. Even to open myself up a little. With George, and with Sheila. They’re my family. I love them, but I’ve never—not in all this time—felt for anyone the way I felt for you. I made a conscious decision not to. Because I couldn’t have survived that sandstorm again. The angst. The loss that crippled me for so long. I settled for a life without that kind of passion, that kind of need. And it’s been ... a good life.”

He reached out, touched her cheek, smoothed her tangled hair away from her face. “And now you’re back. And I have to tell you the truth, Nidaba. I’m scared to death of what’s going to happen next. I don’t even know if you’ll recognize me after all this time. Or if you’ll even remember the same things I do ... like that night... the first time I told you I loved you. The first time you broke my heart...”

There was a voice.

His voice.

The words were not clear, but she recognized the tone even though he spoke English rather than the ancient Sumerian language he’d used when she had known him. And there was, just once, a touch. A warmth, surrounding her hand.

But her memories called, and they were so warm and good—so much more so than the reality that tried to encroach on her dreamworld—that she willed herself to ignore the interruption and returned to the bliss of her mind.

“I love you, Nidaba.”

She had been sixteen when Natum had first said those words to her. They had been in their favorite place, the lush oasis on the far banks of the river. And she had been secretly dreaming that he would one day say those three sweet words to her. So fervently had she wished for it that she almost thought she must have imagined it.

But he took her hands firmly in his, and he said it again. “Do you hear me? I love you.”

Her lips pulled into a tremulous smile, and her eyes grew moist as she stared up into his.

Natum frowned at her. “Have you no reply?”

“I... I...” She simply could not form words. So she didn’t. Instead, she leaned closer to him, tipping her head back, pressing her lips to his.

Natum’s arms closed around her at once. He held her close, and he kissed her for a long time. He tangled his fingers in her long hair, pulled her body tight to his, moved against her, and tasted her mouth in ways she had only imagined. And everything inside her seemed to come alive for the very first time.

When he finally lifted his head he said, “Do not attend the initiation rite, Nidaba. Do not take the final step in becoming a true priestess of Inanna. For when you do, marriage between us will be forbidden.”

“Marriage?” She whispered the word, shocked to her core.

“Of course! Nidaba, there can be no other woman for me. Don’t you know that?”

Blinking, she took two backward steps. “But... but Natum, your father has already chosen your bride! You’re to marry the princess of Ur.”

“A girl I’ve never so much as set eyes upon,” he said, grimacing.

Nidaba’s throat tightened. “I have heard tales of her beauty, Natum. If that is what you fear, then you need not.”

“By the wings of Enlil, woman, are you even listening to me? Princess Puabi could be as beautiful as Inanna herself, and it would make no difference. It is you I love, and I will wed no other.”

Staring at him in wonder, she felt tears brimming in her eyes. “Oh, Natum. If only it could be—”

“It can be. It will. I will be king of Lagash one day, Nidaba. And when I am, you will be my queen. None other.” Then his face clouded slightly, and he searched hers. “That is ... if you wish it.”

“Natum, you know I do!” she cried, flinging herself into his arms, relishing the feel of them tightening around her. “I have loved you for always!”

She felt some of the tension leave him as he held her. He was so precious to her. Reed thin, tall and gangly now. He’d shot up in height so that he stood a hand’s length taller than she. And he’d begun to sprout fine, dark hairs upon his face, which he seemed reluctant to scrape away. As if he were proud of the ever thickening whiskers. How she loved him!

“If you only knew,” she confessed to him, “the tears I have shed lying alone at night and thinking that you would be married to some other girl one day.”

“And yet you said nothing?”

“How could I?” Then she frowned. “How can I now, when wedding Puabi would be better for you, and for the kingdom itself?”

He leaned close, resting his forehead against hers. “It will never be, Nidaba. I vow to you, it will never be. And I will never give you cause to shed a single tear, ever again.”

She sighed, and smiled at him as her doubts fled.

“I will speak with my father tonight,” Eannatum said. “He will understand, I know he will.”

Nidaba’s lovely memory faded, and darkness began to creep in around the edges of her vision. She knew, sensed, that she was leaving now, the safe haven of her most precious memories ... sailing into storm-tossed seas, where things she would rather not think about lurked beneath the surface, like sea monsters, with great snapping jaws and razor-edged teeth. She wished then for that voice from without to come for her, to call to her, so that she could cling to it and escape the darkness.

But the voice had fallen silent, and the dream she’d been relishing became the nightmare she had not wished to recall.

The High Priest came to her chamber that night, with Lia, her beloved Lia, at his side. The priestess who had been like a mother to her. Lia’s gentle hand woke her, and Nidaba instantly saw the turmoil in the priestess’s eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, instantly alarmed.

“You must wake, child. You’ve been summoned by the king himself.”

Blinking in shock, Nidaba tried to quell her fears. But they rose up all the same. The king. What could he want of her? Only one answer came to mind. If Natum had spoken to his father as he had promised he would, then that must be what had instigated this midnight summons.

“Quickly, now,” Lia said, handing Nidaba her finest white kaunake dress, and her fringed shawl. The High Priest turned his back while Nidaba donned the garments, but he never left the room, which was so odd that Nidaba wondered at it. Did he fear she would run away? Or was it that he did not wish Lia to have a private moment with her?

Her senses prickled. Something was wrong here.

Lia dragged a silver comb through Nidaba‘ s hair and all too soon took her hand and led her down from the level where all the bedchambers were located, to the first level, and into the grand room that was used only for the visits of foreign dignitaries or religious officials. It was very much like a throne room, she thought. Two giant stone lions stood guard at either side of a dais, and golden animals and goblets rested at intervals atop marble stands. A goddess sculpture stood in the room’s center, cradling a pottery vase, from which water flowed endlessly into a golden chalice.

The king sat in a thronelike chair upon the dais. Two soldiers stood on his left and two on his right.

Nidaba bowed deeply before the king and remained that way until he said, “You may rise.”

She straightened. “Long life and health to you, my king,” she said in greeting, and she fisted her hand in her opposite palm, inclining her head.

“And to you,” he replied. “Sit down, Nidaba. The matter about which I must speak to you is of grave import to this kingdom. And to my son.”

She blinked in surprise, but took the seat the king indicated.

The king looked at her steadily for a long moment. His gaze was powerful, his very visage spoke of authority not to be questioned. “I understand the prince spoke to you today ... of marriage.”

Nidaba lowered her head to hide the heat that rushed into her cheeks. “Y-yes.”

“When my son spoke, Nidaba, he was not fully aware of the situation facing our kingdom. Nor of the threats to his rule.”

“Threats, my king?” Nidaba’s head came up, and her eyes searched the king’s face. He was dark, like his son. Thick, dark hair and bushy brows. But his jaw was not so well defined, soft where Natum’s was hard. His cheekbones were not as sculpted, and they hid beneath fleshy skin.

“Do you know that Ur and Lagash have long been enemies, vying for rule of all of Sumer?”

“Yes, of course I know this.”

“Of course,” he said, nodding. “But perhaps you do not know that an allegiance between the two would create the most powerful force in our land. Perhaps you did not know that he who rules over Lagash and Ur would be in a position to declare himself King of Kish, Ruler of all Sumer.”

Nidaba said nothing. She knew suddenly why the king had come here. He meant to prevent her from marrying his son. Her throat burned, and her eyes grew hot with tears she refused to shed.

“I have been setting a plan in motion since before my son’s birth, Nidaba. We are being threatened by enemies from all sides—particularly by the Ummamites. United under my son’s rule, we would be at peace, a land too powerful for even the king of Umma to think of challenging, and Lagash would prosper as never before. When he weds Puabi, princess of Ur, Eannatum’s kingship will be sealed. He will be king not just of Lagash, as I am, but of all Sumer.”

The lump that rose in her throat was almost too large to speak around. “But he does not wish to wed Puabi,” she said very softly, in a voice unlike her own.

“Perhaps he did not. But now that I have informed my son of what is at stake, he knows where his responsibility lies. And he is eager to accept the title King of Kish and to wear the crown of Sumer. Only one thing stands in his way, Nidaba.”

Blinking away tears, she lifted her chin and looked the king squarely in the eye. “And what is that, my king?”

“Oh, I think you know.”

Her voice reduced to little more than a dry rasp, she said, “Me?”

The king nodded. “You. He cannot bring himself to cause you pain. He cannot retract his proposal of marriage, Nidaba. His honor will not allow it. Though it is what he wishes, he will not betray his vow to you.”

She nodded slowly, and the first of many tears finally spilled over and rolled down her cheek. “So you have come to me, to ask me to betray my vow to him instead,” she murmured, understanding at last.

“Not to ask it,” he said, his voice firm. “I am your king. My duty is to my country. As is my son’s. Your duty is to obey. You will refuse my son’s offer of marriage. It is the only way to free him of this promise.”

Licking her dry lips, she battled a soul-deep tremor. “Respectfully, my king, how can I believe this is what Natum truly wants?”

“What he wants is of little consequence. His duty is to Lagash.” He slanted a quick glance toward Lia, who stood behind Nidaba. “And what you believe matters very little. But your teacher knows the truth of this. Lia?” the king said. And he lifted a hand toward the priestess.

Nidaba turned and saw her, very pale, and trembling, one of the king’s guards at her side, with a hand firmly around her forearm. Her heart raced as Lia, eyes cast downward, said, “The king speaks the truth, Nidaba. I heard it from the prince’s own lips. He wishes to wed Puabi... for the sake of Lagash, if not for his own.”

Every part of Nidaba’s body began to quiver. “It’s a lie!” She shot to her feet and ran toward the door. But Lathor, the High Priest, stepped into her path and blocked her flight. “You have not been dismissed, Nidaba. This is not finished.”

She stood there, trembling, battling the sobs that were tearing at her breast. She squared her shoulders and stared defiantly at Lathor. “I believe none of this! Natum wants me, not some spoiled princess. You force my own priestess to lie to me, and you expect me to believe it?”

“As your king told you, woman, it is of no concern to us what you believe. You will do as we command.”

A cry was wrenched from Lia, and when Nidaba spun toward her, it was to see Lia forced to her knees, the king’s soldier gripping her shoulder.

“If you don’t,” Lathor went on, “then it’s painfully obvious that you’ve been taught poorly. A priestess who can’t even manage to teach obedience to one orphan girl is not one we would reward.”

Nidaba understood suddenly, vividly, clearly. If she did not obey, it would be Lia who would suffer the wrath of the king. Of Lathor. Oh, if the punishment were hers alone, Nidaba would gladly bear it. But she knew too well how cruel Lathor could be. And she couldn’t bear the thought of him taking the scourge to Lia. Goddess, if he’d beaten Nidaba bloody so often over the minor offenses she had committed, what would he do to Lia over something this significant?

He might even kill her.

Lia’s eyes met Nidaba’s. And Nidaba saw the plea in them. The priestess was afraid. Bowing her head in despair, Nidaba sighed. “What must I do?”

“Ahh, much better. Perhaps you’ve learned something from us here in the temple after all,” Lathor said. “It is very simple, really. Since you have been so eager to break the law and learn the script, you must compose a message to the prince. Tell him you have decided that your promise to the Goddess is more sacred than your promise to him, and that you intend to take your initiation as her priestess.”

Nidaba lifted her head slowly. “He will never believe it.”

“His belief will be my concern, Nidaba,” the king said, his voice deep and none too steady. “Yours is only to compose the message.”

A guard took Nidaba’s arm, led her to a waiting chair, and drew a small table before her. Upon it was a moist clay tablet and a selection of stylus reeds. Apparently there had never been any doubt that she would comply with the king’s wishes.

“Have I no other choice?” Nidaba asked, looking around the room as tears began to pool in her eyes again.

“None,” the king told her. “But you will have compensation, Nidaba. You will be richly rewarded for your loyalty to my son.”

“Your rewards don’t interest me in the least. Nor does compensation from a king who would threaten a priestess to bring about his own ends.”

“Be very careful with your words, girl.”

Nidaba held his gaze for one long moment, then sat down and took up the stylus with a trembling hand. Then she put it down again. “No,” she said. “I will do what you wish, but I will say my piece first. I may not yet be a priestess, but I have studied and learned, and I know the Goddess would not approve of these events. Conspiracies and threats, deceptions and cruelty. You are king. You rule by her favor. There was a time in this land when no one was more revered than a priestess of the Goddess. Now, we are treated as servants to the kings, rather than as his most valued advisers. Worse yet, we’ve become servants to the priests! Kings and soldiers talk of war and invasions and battles and conquests. Their concerns are of earthly power and might, rather than spiritual enlightenment and wisdom. I have studied our kingdom’s history. I have seen the way these things have changed over the past century. It is wrong. And one day soon, mark my words, Inanna will have her vengeance!”

With every word she spoke, the king grew more pale, until he was on his feet and trembling with rage. He lifted a hand, pointed a finger at her. “Silence!”

“I will never be silenced.”

He was quiet, staring at her, his lips thin. Then he sat down again, with a sigh as if of surrender. “So be it,” he said. Then he glanced at the soldier who stood holding Lia’s shoulder. “Kill the priestess.”

The soldier’s sword flashed in the torchlight as he yanked it free, lifted it high. Lia cried out.

“No!” Nidaba shouted. “No, no, please!”

The king held up a hand, and the soldier paused with his sword in the air. Looking at Nidaba, the sovereign of Lagash lifted his brows. “Well?”

Blinking in shock at the heights of cruelty she had never before perceived in the man, Nidaba sat down at the small table and finally picked up the stylus again. “I’ll do as you wish,” she said. But she told herself that this would not be all there was. She would speak to Natum herself. Privately, away from these authoritarian eyes. She would go to him just the moment she was out of their sight. She would explain to him that she had done this only to save the life of her priestess. She would give him one last chance to tell her that it was all a lie. That it was she he wanted. Not Puabi. No matter what his father said.

She had to do that much.

Bending over the clay, Nidaba pressed the symbols into its face, writing exactly what the king had told her to write, rather than risk any further trauma to poor Lia, who was shaking so hard now she could not even get up from her kneeling position on the floor. There was wetness spreading on the stone floor beneath the terrified priestess’s knees and staining her robes, Nidaba realized, her heart wrenching in her chest.

Swallowing hard, she finished the message. Lastly, she removed the pendant from her neck—the small bit of onyx with the name “Nidaba” inscribed on its face. She rolled it gently over the clay, impressing the symbols there.

Then sitting up, she replaced the pendant at her throat. “It is done,” she whispered. But she felt empty inside.

“Lathor,” the king said.

At his word, the High Priest came to the table, turned the tablet around, and perused the symbols Nidaba had made upon it. When he finished, he nodded. “It is good,” he said to the king.

Nidaba got to her feet, though her legs were shaking so hard with tightly leashed rage she could barely walk upright. Her back straight, furious tears leaking through despite the battle she waged against them, she wished only to flee to the haven of her chamber and let loose the torrent while she gave them time to go their way. And then she would slip out and find a way to see Ean-natum—even if it meant scaling the palace wall to his chamber window. Unsteadily, she moved toward the doors.

But suddenly the king’s soldiers were at her sides, gripping her arms and stopping her progress. She bit back a cry, and looked up with narrowed eyes from one to the other of them, then glared at the king. “What more do you wish of me?” she asked, as he rose and came forward. “I have done as you commanded! Why do your men treat me as if I am a criminal now?”

“Silence, Nidaba. You have served your king, your prince, and your kingdom well this day, despite your insolence. And you will be rewarded, for I am a man of my word. But you’ve shown me clearly that you are every bit as headstrong and stubborn as Lathor warned me you were. I need to do what is best for my kingdom.”

“I don’t under—” But even before she finished speaking, one of the soldiers was pulling her hands behind her back and binding them tightly while another wrapped a strip of cotton around her mouth so that she could not speak or cry out.

Nidaba struggled, casting her panicked eyes at the others in the room. The king kept his head lowered, his hand on his forehead, covering his eyes. The High Priest Lathor stood tall, watching, his lips pulling at the corners as though he battled a smile. Lia remained on her knees sobbing as she cried out, “Forgive me, Nidaba! Please, forgive me!”

Denial raced through Nidaba as the soldiers tugged her toward the back of the room, where another armed guard waited to open a small rear door. Beyond it she saw the camels waiting, packs dangling from their sides as if in preparation for a long journey. And she knew then that they were having her taken far away.

Fury welled up in her, and she felt the floor beneath her feet begin to vibrate, to tremble. The golden chalices and goblets teetered, and the king lifted his head to stare at her, his eyes wide, his face paling visibly.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

Lia sent a desperate glance at Nidaba, and Nidaba saw and read it clearly. If she revealed the powers she had never understood, she would be more than banished. She would be killed. And so might Lia.

She fought to control the violence rising within her. The tremors eased and finally died.

“Perhaps, my king,” Lia said, her voice choked and hoarse, “the girl was correct. Perhaps the Goddess is angered by this night’s work.”

The king looked toward the heavens, his face twisted in fear, and then Nidaba was hauled through the door, pushed and lifted onto the back of a camel. A soldier mounted right behind her, and held her in a cruel grasp as he urged the animal forward.

It began to run, its long legs and bouncing, bone-jarring gait soon putting miles between Nidaba and the lush city-state of Lagash, carrying her deeper and deeper into the desert night. Farther and farther away from her prince. Her Eannatum.

She vowed in silence that she would never love another the way she had loved him. And she would find him again—somehow she would tell him the truth of all of this.

She would!

Chapter 5

Nathan forced his tired eyes open, stirred to awareness by some sound or movement. He started when he realized he had fallen asleep.

And he knew something was wrong.

Nidaba’s head twisted from side to side on the pillows, her face contorted, her breaths coming in short, sharp little bursts while her hands curled into fists and clutched at the covers.

Nathan shot to his feet and leaned over her, pressing a hand to her cheek. “It’s all right,” he said, and he tried to make his voice soothing and low, but feared that it came out hoarse with worry. “It’s all right, Nidaba. I’m right here. You’re safe. No one can hart you here.”

She only thrashed harder, and small sounds of anguish seemed torn from her chest now as she became more and more agitated. He put his hands on her shoulders, tried to still her frantic movements. “Nidaba, it’s all right. Calm down now, it’s all right. You’re safe, do you hear me?”

Her legs began to twitch, her hands to swing in the air, and it was all he could do to hold her. She was strong, even in this state.

“Dammit, Nidaba, it’s me! It’s Eannatum!”

It was, he realized, the wrong thing to say.

Her thrashing ceased all at once. And her eyes flew open. Wide, wider than any eyes had a right to be, with tiny pinprick pupils drawn tight and irises like blue-black ice. Anger seethed in those eyes, so potent it hit him like a physical blow. The bed began to shake, to tremble and rock, as did the lamp on the nightstand and the floor under his feet. It shocked him so much that he drew back from her. His second big mistake of the night.

She swung her arms forward, her upper body rising from the bed even as she closed her hands around his throat. The force of the attack sent him reeling. He fell backward into the chair where he’d been sleeping, and Nidaba came with him, landing half sprawled atop him, her hands still clutching his throat with crushing force. The lamp on the bedside table crashed to the floor. He couldn’t breathe.

But only for a moment. He quickly grabbed her hands to try to pry them away. But then Nidaba’s death grip eased suddenly, and her body relaxed atop his. The violent shaking around him stopped. Her face fell to his chest, tangled hair veiling it from him.

He drew a ragged breath, then another as he carefully moved her limp hands away from his neck. Then he pushed her hair aside, cupped her face between his hands, and tipped it up to see that those fiery eyes had fallen closed once more.

“What the hell was that about?” he whispered to her unresponsive face. “By the Gods, Nidaba, was that hatred really directed at me? Or was it just mindless fury?”

No reply came. No clue whether he’d just been given a glimpse of the drug-induced madness possessing her or of the cold, harsh reality that lurked beneath it. He sighed and leaned forward to press his lips to her cool forehead. She couldn’t possibly harbor that kind of hatred for him, could she? And why, for the love of the Gods? Then again, he thought slowly, she had attacked only when she’d heard him say his name. As if.... as if just hearing it was enough to reach past the drugs still polluting her blood to the rage those drugs were supposed to suppress.

Rage against him.

But why?

The door flew open, and Sheila rushed into the room, then stopped and stared. And no wonder. He must have made quite the picture, lying across the chair with an unconscious woman draped over him. Behind Sheila that stray dog lingered in the hall like a shadow. Gorgeous beast it was, now that it was dry and clean. Its mouth wasn’t drawn into a threatening snarl, but relaxed, almost smiling. If a dog could smile. Its hair wasn’t bristled in warning, but instead, its tail wagged briskly. Nathan almost smiled at his earlier warning to George. This dog was anything but vicious. It almost bounced with friendliness.

“Nathan, what in the name of—”

He held up one hand, shook his head. “It’s all right, Sheila. Nidaba just... it was some kind of a reflex.” He gently closed his arms around Nidaba’s waist, lifting her so he could get himself upright, and then scooped her up more carefully. “Get the covers, will you?”

Sheila came forward, straightened the mess of tangled covers, and pulled them back. “What in the world was that rumbling I felt, Nathan?” she asked, her voice tight. “Like an earthquake, it was.”

“Must have been that thunder clap, just now. It... rattled the windows.”

Sheila frowned, tilting her head sideways. “I didn’t hear any thunder clap.”

“No?”

Sheila’s sharp eyes were raking the room, taking in the broken lamp, and then Nathan himself as he bent to lay Nidaba down.

“She attacked you,” Sheila said. “And don’t bother lying to me. She tried to throttle you, didn’t she?”

He glanced sideways at her as she spoke, saw the way her gaze was riveted to his neck, and reached up to touch the sorest places. His fingertips came away bloody.

Clucking her tongue, Sheila hurried into the adjoining bathroom, and he heard water running. He tucked Nidaba in, shaking his head as the dog came padding into the room and stretched itself out near the foot of the bed, as if intent on staying. “The drugs are starting to wear off,” he said. “Enough to let her break through momentarily, at least.”

“Oh, yes, enough so she can try to kill you, Nathan. No doubt you think it’s a good sign.” Sheila came out of the bathroom with a wet cloth and handed it to him.

“I do think it’s a good sign, actually,” he insisted. He thought he did, at least. “It didn’t mean anything, Sheila. It was just some kind of... misfiring in her mind as the chemicals wear off. It was like a spasm—a reflex.” He paced away from the bed, pressing the cool cloth to the scratches on his neck. It soothed away some of the sting.

“You can’t be sure of that, and you know it,” Sheila said.

“I’m as sure as I need to be.”

“She was in that hospital for a reason, you know,” she pressed on. “She jumped off a roof, for God’s sake!”

“Or fell, or was pushed.” He couldn’t tell Sheila that even if she had jumped, it hadn’t been an attempt at suicide. A forty-story plunge wouldn’t leave so much as a lasting bruise on an immortal as old as Nidaba.

“She attacked a paramedic.”

“Yes,” he said, suddenly feeling a bit better about things. “Yes, she did, didn’t she?” He even smiled a little. “That proves it was only a reflex, doesn’t it? It wasn’t me. She would probably attack anyone right now.” He turned, taking the cloth away from his neck, and gazed at Nidaba, who had returned to a deep sleep.

“You sound glad about that,” Sheila said. “She’s violent, Nathan. This is not a reason for celebration.”

He disagreed, but didn’t say so.

“She needs a nurse here, someone familiar with mental illness, who would know what to do for her. You’re doing her no favors by refusing to hire qualified caretakers for her, you know.”

“If anyone finds out she’s here—” he began.

“Listen to me. I’m your friend, Nathan. So for once, just listen to me.”

Sighing, he turned to face Sheila, and forced himself to at least look as if he were listening.

“I know people,” she said. “People . .. who can keep a secret.” She came closer and put a hand on Nathan’s arm. “Trust me, Nathan. I won’t put you or your lady at risk.”

He met Sheila’s eyes steadily. “Exactly what are you suggesting, Sheila?”

“I have a friend. She was a mental health nurse Down Under. We came here on the same ticket, Nathan. She’s the only friend I have from back home, and she can be trusted. I swear it. I’ve known her all my life. She wouldn’t betray her best friend.” She shrugged. “And even if I wasn’t her best friend, she wouldn’t betray me. I know enough of her secrets that she wouldn’t dare tell one of my own. Let me call her. Let me ask her to come here and help us out for a few days. Please, Nathan?”

He glanced down at Nidaba, then up at Sheila again. Nidaba needed constant care. Sheila was right about that. She needed food, liquids—she was thin as a rail, pale, weak. “All right,” he finally agreed. “All right, we can get her here. But be careful, Sheila. Please, don’t take any chances.”

“I won’t.” She reached out and gave him a hug. “It’ll be all right now, you’ll see.”

Sheila left the room, but paused in the hallway when Nathan called to her, saying, “You’d better take the dog with you. I don’t want anything around that might startle Nidaba if... when she finally comes around again.”

The dog looked up at him, big eyes narrowing on Nathan’s face as if in some intelligent contemplation of his words.

“You heard the man. Come along, Queenie.”

“Queenie?”

Sheila shrugged, holding the door as the big Rottweiler trotted happily through. “George has already named her, love. I’m afraid you’re not the only one with a penchant for bringin‘ home strays.”

Nathan rolled his eyes, muttering, “That’s all we need.”

Choosing to ignore him, Sheila closed the door. Nathan returned to his vigil beside Nidaba’s bed.

The dog padded down the stairs behind Sheila, curled up by the fireplace, and lay there relaxing and soaking up the heat as Sheila telephoned a friend she called Lisette.

The conversation was exceedingly dull, until Lisette, it seemed, tried to refuse Sheila’s request for assistance.

“Don’t you forget, girl, what you owe me,” Sheila said, her voice lowering. “You’d be rottin‘ in a cell in Queensland if not for my help. I’m callin’ in the favor, and you’d do well to honor the debt.”

It was obvious by the way Sheila’s face eased that the woman had become more agreeable. “Right away, and not for more than a week. She may be well by then, or she may not, but a week is all I’ll ask of you, either way. You’ll be well paid, Lisette. Well paid. Nathan is a generous man.” There was a pause. “That’s fine. I can come pick you up, then. Noon tomorrow. No later. Good. Good. Thank you, Lisette.”

Sheila hung up the phone. She sat back in the easy chair, looked at the telephone for a long moment, and then, pursing her lips, nodded. “It will be for the best,” she told herself. “No better nurse on the planet than Lisette. Never was. Never will be.” Nodding firmly as if to affirm that it was true, Sheila rose and walked back up the stairs.

The dog sighed and settled into sleep.

Morning came. And with it, another change. As the sun rose and slanted in through the bedroom windows, painting Nidaba’s face with soft golden light, Nathan saw that her eyes were wide open. Dazed-looking, extremely unfocused, but wide open.

He got out of his chair and went to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. Taking her hand in his, he felt the jolting awareness shooting through his hand at the contact. “Nidaba? Can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t blink.

“Can you hear me at all, Nidaba?” He patted her hand gently. Still, no response or reaction ... until her fingers moved just a little.

“You’re coming back to us, aren’t you? Bit by bit, the drugs are wearing off and you’re coming back to us.”

The bedroom door opened, and Nathan smelled the mingled scents of ham and eggs, and his favorite morning tea, ginseng and peppermint. “Mmm, that smells wonderful, Sheila,” he said, not taking his eyes off Nidaba. Had her nostrils flared just now? Or had he imagined it?

“It’s not Sheila,” a voice said. Nathan turned his head as George came into the room with a tray in his hand. “She asked me to bring this up to you,” he explained. “And to tell you that she would be back early this afternoon. By two, she said.”

“Where did she go?” Nathan got up, took the tray from George, and put it on a table beside the bed. The dog at George’s side kept looking from Nathan, to Nidaba, to George, almost as if it was taking in the conversation, and maybe hoping for a scrap.

“She has a friend who’s coming to help us take care of the lady,” George explained. “She’s gone to get her.”

Nathan felt his lips thin, his gut tighten. Nidaba’s stomach growled noisily, and the dog’s ears perked up at the noise.

“George, that dog probably shouldn’t be in the bedroom,” Nathan said.

“She’s a nice dog, she really is.” As he spoke, George stroked the dog’s head. The dog sent George an adoring look and wagged her tail.

George grinned from ear to ear.

Nathan sighed. “There’s a fenced-in area off the garage,” he said. “If you truly want to keep the dog, she’s going to have to stay there. We’ll rig up some kind of dog door so she can get in and out of the garage. It’s heated, so she’ll be warm and dry.‘”

“But she likes to be in the house,” George said. “With me.”

Nathan shook his head. “She’s too big, and too new to us just now, George. Give us some time to get used to her, and her to us, and then... well, we’ll see.”

George’s lower lip thrust out, but he would obey. He turned and moped slowly out of the room, the dog going with him only after he called her several times.

Nathan adjusted the bedside table, pulling it closer to the bed. Then he sat down on the bed again, reaching for the stainless-steel cover on the plate of food, but paused when he saw the morning paper there. Picking it up, he flipped through it and finally found what he was looking for. A small story about the escape of an unidentified mental patient during the confusion of a brief power outage and false fire alarm at Brooker Hospital.

Escape. Not abduction.

Good.

He put the paper down and lifted the cover from the plate, eyeing the food. The ham would never do. But the eggs were scrambled, soft and fluffy. There was oatmeal, made extra thin. And the juice—well, that would be the test, wouldn’t it? If she couldn’t swallow liquids all bets were off. He took the small glass of orange juice from the tray and lifted Nidaba’s head with the other hand. Those wide black eyes stared unblinkingly into space. But her nostrils flared at the scent of the juice, he saw it clearly this time.

“That’s right, Nidaba. It’s juice. I’m going to tip the glass up now. Try to sip. Just a little. All right?”

No reaction. He hoped to God he wasn’t about to choke her to death. He tipped the glass up, just until the juice moistened her parched lips. Then a bit more, so some of the liquid slid between them, into her mouth. A small amount trickled down her chin.

And it happened. She swallowed.

Nathan lowered the glass and grabbed a napkin to dab her mouth clean again. “That was very good. Very good. Do you want to try something a little more solid?”

Nothing. He dipped up a spoonful of the oatmeal and carried it to her lips. Her mouth worked, accepting the food, moving convulsively to take it, grind it, swallow it. Oatmeal dribbled down her chin. It didn’t matter. She needed nourishment.

This was not lucidity. Swallowing was a reflexive action. Her body was hungry, and her brain knew how to accept food. But it was progress. She was reacting, in physical ways, if not mental ones. It was progress.

By the time the bowl was empty, Nathan thought there was as much oatmeal on the outside of Nidaba as on the inside. It stuck in the long tangles of her hair, and coated the front of the hospital gown.

It was high time he get her out of that thing anyway. He’d done some shopping in preparation for her visit. The closet was well stocked. He set the rest of the food aside and hurried into the bathroom to insert the stopper and turn on the faucets of the claw-footed bathtub. The water flowed, covering the bottom and slowly climbing up the sides.

There was no one here to help him with this, he thought, knowing full well that Sheila would probably disapprove. George certainly couldn’t deal with the task. No matter, though. It wouldn’t be the first time he had bathed Nidaba. Only the first time in ... forty-some-odd centuries.

Besides, maybe it would help pull her back to reality. Something had to. Because he damned well wasn’t going to lose her again. Even now, the memory of the first time he suffered such a loss brought him close to despair.

Chapter 6

The message had been brought to his chamber early in the day by a temple servant. Eannatum had read the still moist clay tablet inscribed in Nidaba’s unmistakable hand, signed by her own seal, which she wore around her neck. But he didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. She loved him. She’d told him so, and by the heavens, he would make her tell him so again.

He threw his robes on haphazardly and ran through the halls of the palace to the rear doors, and through those to the worn roadways of the city. He didn’t stop, not until he stood outside the temple doors, hands braced on his knees, panting for breath, his heart pounding like a lilis drum.

He caught his breath and stiffened his spine. She would see reason. He would only need to kiss her once to make her admit the truth. Tugging the doors open, he strode inside, only to be met in the entry corridor by the priestess Lia. She was as pale as a demoness, dark circles beneath her eyes, her skin drawn and taut. She rose from the chair in which she had been sitting, and said, “I have been expecting you, my prince.”

“Where is Nidaba?” he demanded.

Lia’s head lowered and her eyes never met his. “I am sorry. She is gone, Eannatum.”

“Where?” She said nothing, until he gripped her arms and held them hard. “Tell me where she is, by the Gods!”

“I cannot. She refused to tell us where she would go, only that she would serve the Goddess as priestess in another temple, far from here. She took with her a tablet, with the mark of the High Priest Lathor, attesting to her rights to take the final initiation as a priestess of Inanna. And that is what she intends to do, my prince.”

“No.” He let go of the woman’s frail arms and turned slowly away from her. “This is wrong. How could she leave Lagash on her own? I don’t believe it. She couldn’t have struck out on foot, into the desert, alone!”

“There was a caravan passing last night, my prince. She took a mule and rode out to join them.”

He had not wanted the explanation to be so simple. Drawing a breath, closing his eyes, he asked, “Which way was this caravan moving?” His voice was softer now.

“East,” Lia said, after a slight hesitation.

He looked over his shoulder at the woman and wondered if she was lying. And if so, why? “She will not leave me,” he stated. “I will find her, and it matters not how far she has gone. I will have her with me again. And I vow, I will marry none other.”

“I fear it is too late for that, my prince. I only wish it could be as you say.”

“It can be,” he said. “It must be.”

But it wasn’t. Oh, he tried. He ordered soldiers and messengers to every corner of Sumer in search of Nidaba. But to no avail.

He could barely tolerate food. Refused to take part in any revelry of any kind. Rarely slept. All he truly did was train for battle, and that simply because it was his only means of exhausting himself to the point where he was too tired to feel the pain. He trained with a sword until he could best every man in his father’s army. He trained until his body looked like that of the mighty one of old, Gilgamesh, who some claimed was half god. And still the pain of losing Nidaba ate at his gut.

One day a trusted soldier, just back from yet another fruitless search, saluted Eannatum with his fist to his palm, bowed his head, and said, “I am sorry, my prince, but this journey, as all the others, has yielded no word of the woman you seek.”

Natum frowned as suspicion tickled at the back of his mind. It had been weeks. Weeks. “How is it,” he asked slowly, “that the most powerful army in all of Sumer can expend so much time and energy in such an extensive search . .. only to find nothing?”

“Prince Eannatum, I—”

“No, no. Look up at me, face me as you speak,” Natum commanded.

The soldier, Garon, was his own age. They’d attended edubba school together. Garon had been one of the few boys who’d tried to be Eannatum’s friend when the others had shunned him. He knew this man well.

“I do not know how to answer your question,” Garon replied. But when he said it, he looked away, just a quick flicker of his eyes toward the expanse of room behind him, and the doorway at its end.

He feared someone was listening! Eannatum realized it with sudden, startling clarity. And he would fear only one man above his prince.

His king. Eannatum’s own father.

Realizing the danger to Garon should he press him here and now, Eannatum nodded slowly. “I am only frustrated at being thwarted. I know you and your men are doing your best. Go, Garon. Go on home to your pretty wife and your children.”

Garon’s lips pressed together tightly, and he couldn’t seem to look Eannatum directly in the eye as he nodded, saluted again, and turned to leave.

An hour later, when Garon stepped out of his small white house with a water pail in hand, Eannatum was waiting. He stepped out of the shadows near the well, directly into Garon’s path.

The soldier’s head came up fast, and he sucked in a breath.

Eannatum held up a hand. “It’s all right. We are alone now, my friend. No one listening at any doors, or lurking in secret palace passageways. You may speak freely.”

Slowly Garon closed his eyes. “I am sworn to your father, Eannatum. I cannot betray him.”

Eannatum shook his head. “I believe it is my father who has betrayed me,” he said softly. “I believe he conspired to have Nidaba sent away, so that he could more easily convince me to play along with his ambitious plans. All of this is clear to me, Garon. The only thing unclear is where he has sent her.”

Garon licked his lips, glancing from side to side nervously.

“If I were to lead a troop myself, Garon, which way would I lead them?”

Nothing. Silence.

Eannatum impaled the man with his eyes. “I have trusted you above others, Garon. I’ll be king soon. And I’ll need to know who of my men I can trust so fully. I believe you are one of the few. Prove to me that my faith has not been misplaced.”

The soldier bowed his head, expelled his breath in a rush. And finally he spoke. “I have always heard tell that the city of Mari, far to the north, is a sight to behold, my prince. If I were to travel, I believe that would be my destination.”

Nodding heavily, Eannatum closed his eyes. Mari. The temple of Mari was’ one of the most heavily guarded in all of Sumer. It housed great treasures, riches beyond compare. And it was a favored target of Sumer’s enemies.

“Thank you, Garon.” He clapped a hand to the man’s shoulder. “No one will ever know of this meeting. You have my word.”

“They may very well know already, my friend. For I’ve no doubt you were followed from the palace.”

“You give me too little credit. I wouldn’t risk you that way.”

“Not even for her?” Garon asked, looking up. But then he smiled bitterly and lowered his head again. “By Enlil’s wings, Natum, I can’t even blame you. I’d have done the same.”

That he’d slid into the old habit of addressing Eannatum by his casual name seemed to signal a shift in the conversation. A dropping of the pretenses and formalities of soldier and sovereign, a return to the conventions of two young friends.

“I promise that you’ll be rewarded Garon, for your loyalty to me,” Natum told him. “Tell me what you wish, and I’ll see that it’s granted.”

Garon sighed as he looked Natum in the eye. “Fool that I am, I’ve but one wish, my friend. Take me with you on this journey north. Let me bring my regiment. You’ll need us if you hope to return alive.”

Eannatum tipped his head to one side. “Things are that bad in the north?”

“That bad and worse. Ummamite hordes have been gathering for months, just beyond the borders. They prepare for something momentous, Natum. And in the meantime, they amuse themselves with midnight raids on defenseless villages. Mari has had to become a veritable fortress to keep them at bay. The outlying areas have not been as fortunate.”

Eannatum frowned. “Nidaba is not safe there.”

“For a prince, your vision is narrow, Eannatum. No one in Sumer is safe just now.”

Was this soldier chastising his future king? No, Eannatum thought slowly. No. This old friend was advising his comrade. And he was right. “My father has told me these things, but I thought he exaggerated the danger... better to persuade me to fall in with his plans.”

Garon nodded. “I can see why you would mistrust him after all he’s done, Natum. But while he’s guilty of a great deal, on this score at least he gave you the truth. The situation is dire.”

“We’ll find a way to eliminate the threat of the Ummamites. Just as soon as I’ve found Nidaba and brought her back to Lagash.”

Garon pursed his lips, as if he had more to say, but refused to say it. “As you wish, my prince.”

Eannatum turned and left him there, his thoughts on his woman, not his country. Not invading hordes and not the security of his people. He was glad Garon had held his tongue, because he didn’t want to hear what the man had to say. Deep down, he knew it full well.

The regiment, some fifty soldiers strong, marched northward with the dawn, much to the consternation of the king. For days they journeyed, marching on foot, a few mounted on the domesticated camels that were becoming an increasingly valuable mode of transportation, though they were still extremely rare in Sumer. Eannatum rode a camel. Garon rode beside him.

The journey was dusty, dry, hot. They crossed vast expanses of barren desert, too far from the shores of the blessed twin rivers to enjoy the life-giving kiss of their waters. By the time they neared Mari, Eannatum’s dark skin had burned, even through the robes he wore. His lips were as parched as dried dates, and each time he blinked he felt sand scratch his eyes. And even then, he smiled when he saw the gleaming walls of Mari rise up in the distance.

“It is late, Eannatum,” Garon said. “The men are tired, and the city gates will not open until dawn. Let us make camp here. There is a small village nearby. That means water, and perhaps even a meal of something besides hard bread and dried meat.”

He stared at the walls ahead. So close. He wanted to ride to that city, to climb those walls and go to her. And yet fear gnawed at his belly. What if she really had left of her own volition? What if she really didn’t want him?

He swallowed hard, refusing to believe it. Gods, it had been so long since he’d tasted her lips. He could almost taste them now.

“Eannatum?” Garon said.

Natum licked his parched lips. “We’ll do as you suggest. It’s a good plan.”

Garon angled his camel toward a stand of hashur trees, where a spring bubbled with life. Then he held up a hand and shouted an order. The parade of men came to a halt, and the weary soldiers began to make camp.

It was near midnight, and the men’s bellies were full, their thirsts sated, their tired limbs resting at last, when Eannatum felt something. He wasn’t certain at first just what it was. Not a sound. The only sounds were those of the desert night. A jackal, yipping incessantly. A night bird’s cry. The all but silent flapping of a pair of giant wings. The squeal of a bat. The bubbling of the spring. It wasn’t a sound that woke him, made him sit bolt upright, frowning. It was something else.

A sense.

Then a vague vibration of the ground. As if a great thundering herd of cattle were pounding over it some distance away. He nudged Garon with his foot, and the soldier was on his feet instantly.

Only then did the sounds come. Shouts, battle cries, screams. Flickering torches took form in the distance, some arching through the night as they were flung.

“The village!” Natum shouted. “It’s under attack!”

Garon’s men came awake at once, as Garon shouted orders, and as one they rushed to defend the village. Of that battle, Eannatum remembered very little. He armed himself with a massive spear, a heavy shield, a club, and he surged into the fray. He recalled darkness, dust, smoke, fire. He recalled a wall of men, Ummamites, too many of them to number. And he recalled the blow to his head that rendered him useless.

He woke to the dawn.

Blinking his vision into focus, he managed to take stock. He was on his back on the ground, with the desert sunrise searing his eyes in their sockets. He was assailed by the scent of blood, of death. He looked around, and saw them, villagers, soldiers, women, children—bodies were scattered in every direction. The village was gone, except for smoldering remnants of what had been serene homes.

He heard sobbing, wailing, saw an old woman holding the lifeless body of a child to her breast.

“Eannatum, you’re alive!”

He turned toward the sound of Garon’s choked voice.

The man limped toward him, his face black with soot and smeared with blood. “I seem to be,” Natum said, as Garon grasped his hand and pulled him to his feet. “And I’m glad to see you are as well. But this ...” He looked around again at the horror surrounding them. The anguish of the few survivors was heavy—a sodden blanket weighing him down, thickening the very air. They were his people, and their pain, his pain.

“This is happening daily up and down the northeastern borders of Sumer,” Garon said, his voice grim.

More voices reached him now, and Eannatum saw a group of people approaching from Mari. Men, women, priests and priestesses. They fanned out among the dead and wounded to help the survivors. And at last, he saw the face he’d dreamed of nightly for so long—the beautiful, sculpted features of Nidaba, as she broke away from the others and ran toward the old woman who cradled the dead child. He heard her cry out. Heard the pain in her voice clearly, and felt it even more vividly in his heart.

His eyes burned as he watched her embrace the old woman and gently take the child from her arms. “See to your wounded, Garon,” Natum said softly. And he moved forward until he stood behind Nidaba.

She lay the child down on the ground, her back to him, and she gently reached up to smooth a lock of dark hair away from the girl’s still elfin face. “She did no wrong, this child! She did no wrong.” Kneeling, Nidaba tipped her face skyward and opened her arms to the heavens. “Go in peace, child. Go into the bosom of Inanna, and there find healing and love. Go now. Linger in this pit of death no longer.”

He couldn’t remain silent. He put his hands on her shoulders and felt the tingling jolt of that contact. Nidaba lowered her arms. “Natum?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She rose slowly, turned to face him, and then suddenly, desperately, she flung herself into his arms and sobbed as if her heart had been smashed to bits. He held her hard, kissed her face, her neck, her hair. The ice encasing his heart seemed to melt at her very touch. “Gods, Nidaba, how I’ve longed to hold you again.”

“And I, you,” she told him.

He found her mouth, kissed her with everything in him, tasted the salt of her tears on his lips, and finally stared into her eyes. “Cry no more, my love. I’ve come to take you back with me. We won’t be kept apart any longer. I promise you that.”

Her expression changed. Her eyes widened just a bit, and her grip on him eased. Slowly she unwrapped her arms from around him and took a single step backward, out of his fierce embrace. “Eannatum, though I love you, surely you see now why we can never be.”

He frowned. “I see nothing but an enemy to be defeated. I’ll send my armies, and it will be done. It has nothing to do with us, Nidaba.”

“It has everything to do with us!” She closed her eyes, bit her lip. When she opened them again, she seemed calmer. She took his arm. “Come with me.”

They walked. Away from the scene of the battle, and all that carnage, far away, and up a hillside outside the city of Mari. Higher and higher they climbed, and though he plied her with questions, she never spoke a word until they reached the summit. Then, turning toward Umma, she pointed. “There.”

He looked. And his heart seemed to freeze in his chest. Beyond the borders, just inside the land of Umma, he saw hordes—more soldiers than he had ever seen in one place before. Thousands of them, camp after camp, as far as the eye could see.

“Your armies cannot hope to stand against those masses. Within months, Eannatum, Sumer will fall to the Ummamites. And more innocent children will die at their hands. More young women will be enslaved by their soldiers.”

“I’ll find a way,” he said, gripping her shoulders, staring into her eyes.

“Your father has already found a way.” She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t want to believe it either, but since coming here, I’ve begun to see the way things really are. Eannatum, Sumer will fall unless you can unite its cities. And you can do that only by marrying the princess of Ur and assuming the kingship of all Sumer. Then, and only then, will you have a chance to drive the Ummamites back and defeat them so soundly that they will not dare take up arms against Sumer again.”

He shook his head in denial, even knowing her words were true. “It’s you I love, Nidaba. How can I marry another when it’s you I love?”

“You have no choice,” she whispered, her voice growing hoarse. “I realized that after the third of these midnight raids that I witnessed. That’s why I took the initiation. I am a priestess now, Eannatum. And you are a prince. We could not be together even if you were free. I serve the temple. You, your kingdom.”

He swallowed hard. “We cannot wed. But we could be together. As king, it’s my right to have any woman I desire. It’s the law.”

“An arcane law. No king enforces it anymore, Eannatum.”

“This king will.”

She closed her eyes, shook her head. “You love your people,” she said softly. “I know you, Eannatum. I know you’ll do the right thing. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be the Natum I love so very much.”

He closed his eyes. In a moment he felt her lips on his, light as a breeze. “Good-bye, Natum. Do not forget me.”

And then she was gone. When he opened his eyes again, he saw her, running away down the hill, her white robes flowing behind her. It was a blade straight through his heart. But he knew she was right. He had his duty, and she had hers, and if they failed to play their parts, the blood of thousands would stain their hands.

Damn fate and all its cruel twists. Damn him, for falling so deeply in love with a woman he could never have. Damn the world, and everyone in it.

Chapter 7

The tub was full, and Nathan turned the water off, went back to the bedroom, and slowly peeled the blankets away from Nidaba. She lay still, unresponsive, her face sticky. She didn’t look like a holy woman or a High Priestess, much less an immortal High Witch, just now. She didn’t look like the queen she should have been. She looked like a messy little girl trapped inside a woman’s body.

He knew better, though. He’d watched her grow from a child into a young woman right before his eyes. And what a woman she had become. He had seen her again, after she had left him on that bitter hillside. He had seen her on the day of his coronation.

He would never forget...

Nathan closed his eyes against the memories that burned in his mind and told himself to focus on the present, not the distant past. When he opened his eyes again, he forced himself to see not the sensual priestess he remembered, but the helpless, frail-looking woman lying on the bed, staring at nothing with eyes that seemed afraid.

“Forgive me, Nidaba. Even now, the memory of you burns in me as if it were fresh and new.” He ran a hand across his forehead, reconsidered what he was about to do, then laughed at himself. There was no shyness in Nidaba. No humble, blushing virgin in her. There never had been.

He rolled her up onto her side, untied the hospital gown in the back, then laid her flat again. His hands at the sleeves, he pulled the garment off her.

Gods, she was so thin. The drugs in her system must be slowing everything down, including the restorative powers of their kind. He could see her ribs, and her belly was concave. The bones of her hips and her collarbones jutted sharply against skin that seemed to have thinned. He peeled away the white underpants, tossed them aside, and slid his arms beneath her.

His palms slid over soft skin, and his body came alive, not just with the jolt of immortal touching immortal, but with longing. A hunger that should have died long ago. And the craving wasn’t in his body alone, but in his heart.

She was helpless right now. But she wouldn’t be for long. Not Nidaba. When she was herself again, she would be fully capable of destroying him utterly. And if he didn’t get his feelings under control, he would end up letting her.

He drew away from her, tugged the covers back over her, and contented himself with bringing a warm cloth from the bathroom and washing her face. Sheila would return with help. For once he was glad of her bossy ways and take-charge attitude. Sometimes, he admitted with a sigh, he needed to be protected from himself.

* * *

“Nathan! Nathan! Oh, Nathan, she’s gone!”

George’s frantic cries accompanied his feet clomping up the stairs at top speed several hours later. Nathan had been sitting with Nidaba, watching over her, reading aloud, talking to her about times long past, about his life today. Anything to pass the time. He’d made use of her bath himself, leaving the door open wide in case she should cry out or become afraid. It had been a quick bath. Exhaustion, mental as well as physical, had tempted him to linger in the hot water, to relax into its soothing embrace. His back and shoulders ached from the hours spent in the chair beside her bed. But he didn’t dare linger He bathed, dried himself, put on fresh clothes. He didn’t even take time to shave, because there was no line of sight from the sink to the bed where Nidaba lay, and he was sure something would happen if he took his eyes off her for too long.

There had been no significant change in her condition all morning, however.

It was after two when the door opened and George stood there, breathless and wide-eyed wearing a bright green pullover with a white tab collar and a chartreuse clip-on bow tie attached. “Nathan, she’s gone!” he said again.

“Who’s gone?” George was in pain. Nathan’s empathic tendencies brought that pain and worry to him as sharply as if it were his own.

“My dog! My Queenie, she’s gone! I took her to the fenced-in place, just like you said. And I put food and water out there, and I stayed with her for a long time. Then I thought she was getting bored. So I went up to my room to get her a ball to play with, and when I came back, she was just gone! Where could she be, Nathan?” As he spoke, George battled tears without much success.

Nathan was out of his chair and across the room before George finished speaking. He held George’s big shoulders, felt like hugging the man, who was more childlike right now than he’d ever been. “She’s all right, I’m sure of it, George. She’s all right, wherever she is.”

“But... but...” George’s eyes filled with shimmering pools that would flood at any moment.

“Come on, sit down.” Nathan led George to a chair near the window, settled him into it, pushed the heavy damask drapes open and looped the gold braided tie-backs around them. “Look outside, George. It’s a beautiful day. That dog is probably running around, chasing rabbits, having fun. There’s nothing out there that could hurt her. Is there?”

George looked out the window, his gaze intent. “Well... I don’t see anything that could hurt her.”

Nathan felt the big guy’s worry easing just a little, and he pressed on. “There isn’t anything. She’s a big dog, George, a strong animal. Besides, I know you may not want to think about this, but you have to consider for a minute that she might have belonged to someone else. Maybe she went back to her home.”

Innocent eyes searched Nathan’s. “Do you think so?”

“Well, she was a purebred Rottweiler, George. A beautiful animal. It’s hard to believe a dog like that didn’t belong to someone.”

Blinking, George pondered that for a moment. “She wasn’t wearing any collar. No tags.”

“No. Some dogs are pretty clever about wriggling out of their collars, though.”

“They are?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve seen them do it. Listen, you take my advice and don’t worry about her. Later on, when Sheila gets back with her friend, I’ll ask her to drive you around looking for Queenie. And we can put an ad in the local newspaper if you want.”

“We can?”

“Sure we can! Someone will have seen her. And even if she does belong to someone else, at least you’ll know. And maybe you can visit her. And if she doesn’t have a home, then we’ll find her and bring her back here. Either way, there’s no cause for you to be so upset. She’s a smart, strong, healthy dog, romping around somewhere having the time of her life. I promise. She’s fine.”

George sighed, his shoulders slumping in obvious relief. “Thanks, Nathan. I feel better.” He looked at the floor. “You always make me feel better.”

“I’m glad.” Nathan’s throat felt inexplicably tight.

“I think I’ll walk around outside for a while, see if I can find her.”

“Just don’t go too far, George. And stay out of the woods.”

“I will,” he promised. He got to his feet, glanced at the bed, then at Nathan again. “How is the lady doing?”

“Not much different than this morning, I’m afraid.”

“She’ll get better, Nathan,” George said, and he patted Nathan’s shoulder. “You’ll see.”

“Thank you, George. I’m sure she will.”

George smiled. “Did I make you feel better?”

Looking up, Nathan saw the hope in his big, innocent eyes, and he forced a smile. “Yes, you did, George. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Nathan.”

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway made them both turn to the window again. Nathan said, “There’s Sheila now, with her friend.” He almost sighed in relief. Gods knew, he needed the help. Just enough time to slip away for a shave and a bite to eat, knowing that someone was there with Nidaba, would be a blessed relief. Something moved in the woods alongside the driveway, and it caught Nathan’s eye. His first thought was that he’d spotted George’s precious stray running through the underbrush. But the shadowy form vanished. He watched, eyes narrow and searching, and caught one more glimpse of... something. But this time it looked like a person moving amid the trees, and then there was nothing at all.

A little shiver raced up Nathan’s spine. He gave his head a shake, told himself he was overtired, his eyes were playing tricks on him. Still, he couldn’t quite shake the ominous feeling.

“I swear, I don’t know what’s keeping Lisette,” Sheila said, pacing the room once more. She’d spent the past hour telling Nathan about her friend Lisette’s qualifications. She was an RN with experience in caring for the mentally ill, and she owed Sheila a favor. Apparently a very big favor, because Sheila was convinced she could trust the woman to keep quiet about Nidaba’s presence here.

“Give her some time to get her bearings,” Nathan advised. “She’s probably unpacking, getting settled in. Besides, your word is good enough for me, Sheila. If she’s willing to do the job, and you trust her, then she’s hired. I’ll pay her whatever she wants. Just so long as she does a good job.” He glanced into the bathroom, where he’d started running another bath for Nidaba. “Tub’s full.” Walking in, he shut the water off.

“She’s not the kind to dawdle, Nathan. I promise you that.” Sheila frowned. “I’d best go and check on her,”

“No need,” a woman’s harsh, raspy voice said as the bedroom door swung inward. “I’m right here.”

Sheila’s startled frown made Nathan wonder what was going on. He studied the woman standing in the doorway. She was small, slender, with silver hair in a sweptup style, and incredible skin for a woman of her age. Her eyes were vivid blue, and penetrating.

“Whatever has happened to your voice?” Sheila asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she whispered. “It got this way only minutes after I arrived. I suppose I’m allergic to something in this house.”

“Until this morning we had a dog running around the place. Could it have been that?” Nathan asked.

“Ahh ... that’s it,” she rasped. “Dogs’ll get me every time.” Nathan smiled as the woman held out her hand. “You must be Nathan King.” He had to strain to hear her. “Sheila has told me so much about you.”

He reached for her hand, but she drew it back, looked at it, and shook her head. “Best not. If it’s not from the dog, then this thing could be catching,” she said, pointing at her throat.

“It’s very good to meet you, Ms ... ?”

She smiled and said, “Call me Lisette.”

“Lisette, then. I want to thank you for coming on such short notice. You’re doing me a great favor by taking this on.”

She shrugged, and he frowned. “But if you think you might be contagious, perhaps—”

“No worries,” she whispered. “I’ll use antibacterial soap and gloves with the patient. She’ll be in no danger.”

Nathan nodded, glancing again at Sheila only to see her still frowning at her friend in what looked like confusion. He wondered at that, but the woman was already moving forward, looking at Nidaba in the bed, glancing into the adjoining bathroom.

“I see you’ve got a bath run for her.”

“Yes, she’s in need of it. That is, if you don’t mind getting started right away.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” That sandpapery rasp scraped his nerve endings.

“I realize we haven’t discussed terms yet. I’ll pay you triple the going rate. All I ask is that you treat this patient with extreme kindness, be gentle with her, and see to it she has whatever she needs.”

The nurse’s eyes narrowed on Nidaba. “You care for the woman a great deal, then?”

For some reason, the question bothered him. “She’s ... an old friend. A very dear old friend.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. King. I’ll take very good care of her.”

He nodded as Lisette went to the bed, tugged at the covers, and then looked at him sharply. “Who undressed her?” she asked.

“She ... dribbled oatmeal all over herself this morning,” he replied.

The woman frowned. “Highly inappropriate, Mr. King,” she said, and pulled the covers back around Nidaba. She rushed into the bathroom and returned with a large towel, then she yanked the covers down again, and proceeded to wrap it around Nidaba, rolling her up onto her side to do so. When Lisette touched her, Nidaba jerked, and her eyes widened.

Nathan jumped, but Lisette held up a hand. “It’s all right. She’ll need to get used to me if I’m to help her. Now she’s ready. Carry her into the bathroom, Mr. King, and put her in the tub, towel and all. I’ll see to the rest myself.”

Sheila cocked her head to one side as Nathan scooped Nidaba up from the bed. She walked beside Lisette as they followed him into the bathroom. “I vow, Lisette,” she said, “you’re like a different woman when you’re working. If I didn’t know your face so well I don’t think I’d recognize you at all.”

From the corner of his eye, Nathan saw Lisette send her friend a smile. “I care very deeply about my work ... but you know that, now, don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, that I do. But...”

“Hush, my friend. We’ll talk later on, when the work is done. Save your worries, won’t you?”

“Sure. Later on. And I’ll brew you up something soothin‘ for that throat.”

Lisette squeezed Sheila’s hand and sent her a warm smile.

Nathan stopped beside the bathtub, staring down at Nidaba’s wide, unfocused eyes. “Now, I’m going to put you into the bathtub, Nidaba. There’s water. Warm, but not too warm. It’s going to feel good to you, do you understand? There is no reason to be afraid, to be startled by this. No reason at all. This is good for you.”

He continued speaking softly, telling her how good the water would feel, as he lowered her carefully into the tub. She started, just once, when the warm water touched her skin, but then she returned to oblivion again and lay back in the water.

Nathan knelt beside the tub, one hand always on her, to keep her from slipping. He had everything ready and within reach so Lisette wouldn’t have to leave her alone for an instant and risk her drowning herself.

Where he touched Nidaba’s shoulders he could feel the sharpness of her bones beneath her skin. And her thighs looked so thin, so slight, below the towel. Had they even fed her in that place?

Anger stirred in his gut.

“Go on now,” Lisette said in that odd voice. “I’ll take care of her from here.”

He looked at the woman. Then he sought out Sheila’s eyes.

“She’s right, Nathan. Go on, have a shave, get some lunch. I saw the breakfast I made for you this morning, sitting cold and untouched on the plate. You need to keep yourself well or you’ll never be able to care for this one. You know that.”

“I...” He couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to insult Lisette or hurt Sheila, but he just couldn’t bring himself to leave Nidaba alone with this strange woman. He barely knew her, after all.

“I’ll stay,” Sheila said, reading him so clearly it almost made him dizzy. “I’ll be right here. I’ll not let her out of my sight, Nathan, and if she needs you for anything, I’ll call for you. All right?”

Meeting Sheila’s eyes, seeing she wasn’t angry with him for mistrusting her friend, he nodded. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sheila.”

“Oh, curl up in a corner and die, no doubt. Now go on. Out with you. This is woman’s work.”

Feeling slightly better, he left the room. But he didn’t go far. He went into his own bedroom, just off Nidaba’s, where his bed remained untouched, unslept in. He dug out a shaving kit he kept in the top drawer and stepped into the hallway to head to the guest bathroom, since his own was currently being used by the women.

He got only about ten steps when he heard the ear-splitting shriek and the crash. Choking on his own heart, he spun and raced back along the hall, through his bedroom, tossing his kit onto the bed on the way to Nidaba’s room, and finally to the bathroom beyond.

Sheila was dripping wet, standing back and looking surprised, while Lisette gripped Nidaba’s frail shoulders, attempting to hold her still while she thrashed and splashed and fought.

Nathan ran forward. “Let go—let go of her!”

Lisette did, and Nidaba instantly stilled. She sat stiffly in the tub, eyes wide, breaths rushing in and out of her parted lips in short panicky bursts. She was shaking. Visibly trembling.

Nathan knelt in the puddle beside the tub, but didn’t touch her. “It’s all right. I’m here, Nidaba. It’s all right.” He watched her, wishing to the Gods he knew what sort of nightmares went on inside her mind where she was trapped. “What happened in here?” He asked without taking his eyes from her. Her collarbones poked up so sharply it seemed they’d pierce the thin layer of skin that covered them. Her small breasts rose and fell in time with her breaths.

“I’m not sure,” Lisette said.

“Not sure, eh? Well, I am,” Sheila cut in. “She started to get antsy as soon as you left the room, Nathan. Stiff, and jittery-like. Let me take the towel off, all right, and even wash her up a bit. But as soon as Lisette poured a bit of water on that hair of hers she went crazy on us. Thrashed about like a wild woman, she did.”

Nathan nodded, his gaze slipping only briefly away from Nidaba. “I heard a scream.”

“That was her, all right,” Sheila said with a sharp nod.

“So you can speak after all, hmm?” He looked hard into those black eyes and they stared back, wide, but clearer than they had been before, he thought. Then he told himself that might be an illusion. Wishful thinking.

“I’m sure it was only the water on her head that set her off.” Lisette was on her feet and beside the tub now. “Some mentally ill patients go into a panic when water touches their faces.”

“And I think it was the fact that Nathan left the room,” Sheila said.

“That’s nonsense.”

“Is it now, do you think?”

“I’m the one who’s experienced with mental patients, Sheila,” Lisette said in a harsh mutter that was closer to speaking in a normal tone than anything Nathan had heard her say thus far.

“Lisette’s right,” Nathan put in. “Besides, she didn’t react right away, when I left her. You said yourself she let you wash her up a bit, didn’t you, Sheila?”

Sheila’s gaze narrowed. “That’s right. Maybe it’s you she dislikes, Lisette.” She said it teasingly, the way a friend would to another friend, with a nudge of the elbow or a wink. But Lisette’s scowl led Nathan to think she didn’t take the comment in the same manner.

He hated to see tension brewing between Sheila and her long-time friend, so he stepped in. “Let’s put it to the test, then, okay?” He looked around, not getting up from his knees, and spotted the small plastic pitcher Sheila had been using. Then he filled it and touched Nidaba’s hair.

“Your hair is all tangled and dirty,” he said slowly. “I’m going to wash it for you. All right?”

She didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead. Nathan tipped her head back a little, to keep the water out of her eyes, and slowly poured. She didn’t fight, didn’t panic at all. So he dipped another pitcher full and poured that as well, and she tipped her head back farther. Her eyes fell closed.

He almost smiled. She liked this. He continued dipping and pouring until her long hair was thoroughly soaked. Then he applied a generous amount of baby shampoo and worked up a lather. He massaged her scalp with his fingertips, scrubbed gently and thoroughly, for a long time. Her hair, masses of it, tangled around his fingers as she lay back, relaxing more as he rubbed, eyes remaining closed. Her breaths came deep and slowly. He watched her chest rise and fall with it. And finally he began rinsing, pitcher by pitcher.

“You’re very good at this,” Sheila whispered, leaning close. “You must have the touch.” She pressed another bottle into Nathan’s hand. Conditioner. Guaranteed to remove all the tangles, so combing wouldn’t be such a chore. He poured a quarter of the bottle over her head, and worked it in, rubbing it down to her scalp and out to the ends of her hair.

His patient was almost limp, she was so relaxed now. So he kept it up a little longer. She liked this. He hadn’t thought Nidaba was capable of feeling anything ... particularly pleasure. But she was doing precisely that, and he would keep it up just as long as it pleased her.

“I imagine the water is getting cold by now, Mr. King,” Lisette said. And her tone, raspy, but louder still, made her disapproval very clear.

Too bad.

“It is beginning to cool down a bit.” Nathan reached up and cranked on the hot water tap, then sent Lisette an innocent smile. “Easily remedied.” And then he went back to massaging Nidaba’s scalp while she reclined like a queen, relishing it, he thought. He made small circles with his fingertips, massaged her temples, and her neck just behind her ears, and then her nape, at the base of her skull. She let her head fall forward when he did that. And all her breath rushed out of her. When he eased her back again, he thought her face looked more placid than he had seen it in centuries.

Eventually, he rinsed the conditioner away. But she didn’t sit up or move when he finished. A soft sound came from her throat, and if it meant anything at all, he thought, it meant that she wanted more of this. Fine, then. He would continue.

He reached for the sponge Sheila had put in here for him, the one he’d never bothered to use, and the scented body wash that he’d borrowed from the guest bathroom when preparing for Nidaba’s arrival. Vanilla. Very slowly, he lathered one long, slender arm, lifted it, and rinsed it clean. Slow, soothing strokes up her outer arm, and then around to the more sensitive inner part. The well opposite her elbow. The hollow underneath. Her hand, her palm, and one by one each and every finger. When he finished with both arms, he washed her chest. He lathered and rubbed her small breasts, and her sunken belly.

Her eyes opened. Fixed on his hands. Darkened.

No. That couldn’t be what it looked like.

Nathan rinsed the lather away, and pulled her forward just a bit, to soap and scrub her back and shoulders. And she seemed to like that so much that he continued far longer than was necessary. She acted as if the muscles of her back ached though he could barely see how they could. There seemed to be no muscle there to ache. There was nothing to her but skin and bone.

Sighing her displeasure, Lisette paced back and forth on the side of the room nearest the door. Sheila kept herself busy—she was wielding a mop over the spilled water right now. She seemed perfectly content to let Nathan perform this entire bathing duty.

When Nidaba finally leaned back again, Nathan moved along to the bottom of the tub, clasped one of her tiny ankles in his hand, and lifted it. Then he ran his hand and the soapy sponge over her leg, beginning at her foot, and moving slowly up over her calf, and down her shin. And then higher. He began to soap her thigh. And he watched her face, watched it intently. Her gaze seemed to heat as his hand neared the crux of her legs. And it was not his imagination. He was sure of it this time.

“You’re in there, aren’t you?” he murmured. “You’re alive and kicking in there. Why won’t you speak to me? Hmm?”

His hand edged closer to her center, but he moved past it and began working the other leg. Down the thigh, over the calf, to the foot. “Talk to me, Nidaba,” he urged, massaging the small of her foot briskly. “Talk to me. Fight the grip of this darkness that holds you.”

She didn’t. But she was, in a way, responding to him more than she had since he’d found her in that hospital. Responding, Nathan realized, to his touch. He sponged a path back up the thigh, intending to bathe every inch of her ... to touch every inch of her, if that was what it would take to draw a real response.

Dammit, he wished he’d gone with his initial instinct and bathed her himself when he could have been completely alone with her. But he hadn’t expected this.

“Sheila, why don’t you and Lisette go and get some clean clothes out of the closet for our guest?” His hand inched higher on Nidaba’s thigh. He watched her eyes heat, felt her legs move just the slightest bit farther apart. That part of her hadn’t shut down, then, had it? The sexual part. The hungry part. It was there he could reach her.

“Whatever you say, Nathan,” Sheila chirped, merrily turning away. “I can see you’ve got things under control here.” She walked past Lisette on her way, and Nathan hoped the woman would have the good sense to follow her out of the room.

“I’m not leaving this room,” the nurse said. “It’s inappropriate.”

“You think I’m going to pull her out of the tub and rape her?” Nathan asked, his voice quiet, his eyes on Nidaba’s. Hers, alive, feeling, wanting ... but still staring off into the distance.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a man had taken advantage of a mentally ill woman, Mr. King. But you can bet it’s not going to happen on my watch. I’d be shirking my duty if I left you alone with her.”

Nathan sighed, but his hand was still on Nidaba’s inner thigh, and she was still sitting there, head tipped back, eyes burning. And Lisette was standing halfway across the room, too far to see what Nathan might be doing with his hands beneath the soapy water.

“I’ll remind you who’s paying your salary, Lisette,” he said. “If you doubt my integrity so much, maybe I should look for someone else to—”

“I didn’t mean to insult you, Mr. King.”

He nodded. “If you insist on staying, fine. But could you at least get me some dry towels? They’re in the small linen closet just down the hall.”

With a muttered agreement, Lisette turned her back.

Watching Nidaba’s eyes—her remarkably clear eyes— Nathan moved the soapy sponge higher, brushed it gently between her legs. Her lips parted and a breath sighed out of her. He rubbed again, up and down, soaping her, caressing her with the loofah. “Look at me,” he whispered. “Look at me, Nidaba.”

Her gaze faltered, shifted slightly, and her thighs parted further. She pressed against the sponge, and he rubbed a little harder.

“Look at me.”

Suddenly, her gaze snapped to his, and locked on. Fire. Heat. Fury. Rage. So many passions boiled in that gaze. But it was clear, and it was focused on him.

Was this wrong, what he was doing? Probably. But suppose he could reach her, pull her out of the grip of her mind? Then wasn’t it to her benefit that he do so, any way he could?

She arched her hips against the sponge he held, and he pressed, and moved it over her. Lisette would return soon, damn her to hell. Nathan dropped the sponge, moved his hand away.

Quick as lightning, Nidaba’s hand closed over his and pulled it to her, pressed it against her, rocking her hips. Her eyes flared wider and held his with a fierce gaze.

Nathan swallowed hard against something that felt a lot like fear. But it couldn’t be that. It made no sense to be afraid of her, despite the ferocity and the feral hunger in that gaze. And yet it made all the sense in the world. He was so close, so close to reaching her, yet not knowing what he would find when he did. But he was near, he could feel it.

Lisette’s footsteps were coming back down the hall. Only seconds and his chance would be missed. All right, then, right or wrong ...

Nathan moved his fingers against the woman, parted her folds, stroked her just a little. “Talk to me, Nidaba. Come on. Tell me your name,” he whispered. He flicked his fingers over the core of her need. “Tell me.”

Lisette’s steps got louder, coming through the bedroom now.

“Come on, say it. Say your name.” He rubbed her harder, faster.

She parted her lips, closed her eyes and whispered “Nidaba” on a trembling sigh.

Lisette went still just beyond the doorway.

Nathan smiled, and stroked her once more, pressed her between his thumb and forefinger, and she gasped in pleasure. He rolled that tiny nub of need, pinched and pressed and kneaded it. Lisette was coming into the room now. Three more steps and she would be through the door, and able to see where his hand was, what he was doing. He pinched her harder, rubbing the swollen kernel faster between his thumb and forefinger, and he leaned low, and whispered very close to her ear, “Let it go, Nidaba. Let it go for me.”

Her body arched, and she cried out loud, going stiff in the water for a moment suspended in time. Lisette stopped walking, her frown dark and probing. Then Nidaba relaxed her shuddering body back into the bathwater, squeezed her thighs together around his hand, as if to keep it there.

He drew in a quaking breath, shivering with a desire that burned deep in his gut. “Good girl,” he whispered, before he took his hand away. “That’s my good girl.”

He stopped touching her, and she stopped responding. Slowly, the veil he’d seen before took its place over her eyes. Her focus faded. She’d retreated again.

Chapter 8

“You’d best come down a moment, Nathan,” Sheila said, as he sat his lonely vigil beside the bed once again, waiting for Nidaba to give some sign of being ready to come out of this catatonia. Her eyes remained open. He supposed that was a good sign.

Lisette lingered about the bedroom almost constantly. And while he had expected to be relieved at having some assistance, he wasn’t. The woman made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He felt uneasy, but for no apparent reason.

“What is it, Sheila?” he asked as she stood in the doorway.

“There’s a lady at the door.” Sheila hesitated, shifting her stance uneasily. “Says she’s looking for a relative of hers who spent some time recently at a New Jersey psychiatric hospital.”

Nathan’s head came around swiftly and he saw the nervousness in Sheila’s face, and her stance. He glanced at Lisette, who was listening with apparent interest, and schooled his features to reveal nothing. “Odd that she’d think we would know anything about it. What did you tell her?”

“That we knew nothing about it, of course. But she refuses to leave until she’s spoken to you directly.” She pressed her lips together tightly. “I tried my best, Nathan.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He rose, started for the door, then glanced back at Nidaba uneasily. “Stay here, Sheila. If she wakes, she could be more than Lisette can handle, and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“All right, then.” Sheila took the seat Nathan had been using.

He left the three women alone, hating to do it, but knowing he could not remain at Nidaba’s side constantly. He just wished he could shake the constant feeling of impending disaster. His senses were too well honed to be mistaken—something was wrong. Nidaba was not safe, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source of the threat. His disquiet about every stranger to enter the house, right down to that poor dog of George’s, were irrational. He needed to find a focus for the feelings, isolate the danger, pinpoint its true source. Until he did, he couldn’t banish this mistrust of every newcomer.

He walked down the stairs into the front parlor, and found a very slight woman perched uneasily on the edge of the settee. Her hair was cropped short, golden blond, and her eyes were huge and lustrous.

“I’m Nathan King,” he said, and she was on her feet before he finished speaking, her big gaze turned on him, one hand flexing near her side.

She eyed him somewhat warily. “My name is Arianna Sinclair-Lachlan,” she said. She didn’t offer her hand, so he didn’t offer his. But the fact that she didn’t touch him put him on guard. Immortals rarely offered a hand to strangers—for fear of giving themselves away should the stranger turn out to be an immortal as well. Was she the threat he’d been sensing?

“I’m sorry to intrude, but this is a matter of some urgency. I’m looking for a dear friend.”

“A relative—or so Sheila told me.” He watched her, testing her.

“She’s family to me.” Her reply was not really any kind of answer at all.

“I’m afraid I’m not going to be of any help to you, either way.” He sighed as if he truly regretted it and hoped he was convincing. “I sincerely wish I could.”

“Mr. King, I know you went to see Nidaba at the Brooker Hospital the day before her disappearance.”

He kept his eyes hooded, his tone flat. “And how do you know that?”

“Every car that enters the parking lot is caught on videotape, Mr. King. I got the tapes from that day, got your plate number, and had a friend trace your name through the department of motor vehicles.”

He lifted his brows. “Are you some kind of detective?” he asked.

She didn’t answer that question. “Your car came in only minutes before a male visitor signed in to see Nidaba. And while he signed himself in as John Smith,” she said with a smirk, “the nurse on duty gave an excellent description, which you fit to a tee. And, as it turns out, you may very well have been the last person to see her before she was taken.”

“Taken?” He tipped his head to one side. “The newspapers called it an escape.”

Her slender brows rose. “Then you’ve been following the story?”

“Is that so surprising?”

“If she had simply escaped, I’d have heard from her by now,” she said, her eyes narrowing on him. “I believe she was taken.”

Nathan shook his head as if the woman made no sense to him. “Suppose she simply wanted to be alone? Honestly, I see no reason to jump to conclusions here, Miss...”

“Ms.,” she said. “Sinclair-Lachlan.”

“Yes, of course. Look, I’ll explain myself to you if it will help ease your mind. I went to see your.. .friend because of the photo in the paper. She looked familiar to me. But when I actually saw her, face to face, I realized she was not who I thought she was, and I came home. End of story,” he finished. He opened his mind, tried to reach out with the rusty tendrils of his empathy to see if she was swallowing a word of his story. But he was so out of practice. For too long he’d blocked out everyone. Other than Sheila and George, he had trouble picking up on anyone these days.

The woman paced across the room slowly. Nathan looked past her, and felt his heart leap in his chest. In the living room, just beyond the arching doorway at her back, the fireplace was clearly visible—along with the portrait above the mantel. The portrait he’d painted of Nidaba, in the flowing white robes of a Sumerian High Priestess, with the golden circlet and its crescent bow upon her head. All the woman need do was turn and look...

“Come, let’s go sit in the library. I’ll pour you a drink and—”

“Are you aware that a doctor was killed that day, right outside Nidaba’s room, shortly after your visit?”

He shook his head. “No. No I wasn’t,” he lied. But it wasn’t lost on him that she’d said “killed.” Not “attacked.” So Dr. Sterling hadn’t made it after all.

“I have reason to believe the person who killed her was after Nidaba,” the woman said.

Right. And she probably knew that because she was that person.

“Another man was seen in the hospital the night Nidaba disappeared,” the woman went on. “And according to the nurse who saw him, he also matches your description.”

“So do several million other men in the world, I would imagine.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she said.

He blinked, unsure whether he’d just been insulted or paid a compliment.

“Why did you go to see her?” she barked out without warning.

She was good. Sharp and quick. What she suspected him of, he could only wonder. What she wanted of Nidaba—well he had only two guesses for that. Either she was a friend, as she claimed, or she was a hunter, in search of an immortal heart more powerful than nearly any still beating. With the exception, perhaps, of his own.

If she were to succeed, this Arianna would have power beyond compare, because she would have to take his if she hoped to take Nidaba’s. And with both, she would be nearly invincible.

“I’m trying to be patient with you, Miss, but you’re pushing my limits here. I’ve told you already. I saw the photo in the newspaper, and it reminded me of someone I used to know. I went to see her. And once I did, I realized she wasn’t the person I had thought she might be, and I left. I came back here that afternoon, and have remained here ever since. There are several people who can verify that for you, if you insist on it.”

She watched him as he spoke. Watched him the way a critic watches a film. Narrow-eyed and probing, constantly searching for flaws in the storyline, or the acting.

It made him uneasy, that probing gaze of hers. He broke the lengthening silence. “Tell me, what was she doing in the mental hospital, this friend of yours?”

It had the desired effect. The woman blinked and looked away from him. “Nidaba has had... a lot of trauma in her life. I think it finally got to be too much for her.”

“What kind of trauma?” he asked, far too quickly.

Arianna stiffened, that sharp gaze shooting right back to him. “Why do you want to know? Why are you so interested, anyway?”

Shrugging in a careless manner, he shifted his eyes away from her. “Just curious, I suppose. I did visit her, and I couldn’t help but feel pity. I am human, after all.”

“Are you?”

He snapped his gaze to hers. She looked away.

“Believe me, Mr. King,” she said, “if we had known where she was, we would never have left her there.” She sounded slightly defensive now. “But by the time that article was brought to our attention, she was gone.”

“Our attention? There are more than one of you?” He strode to the front door and looked outside.

“The others don’t know I’ve come,” she said. “They aren’t as ... reasonable as I am.”

“You call this reasonable? You come to my home and practically accuse me of kidnapping a mental patient, and that’s reasonable?”

“For me?” She seemed to battle a smile for just a moment. “A year ago I’d have kicked the door in, beat you senseless, and searched the place for myself, Mr. King. Some of my friends still would. You wouldn’t believe how lucky you are that I’ve grown ... calmer than I used to be. But I’m warning you, the others will follow the same trail I did, and it will lead them to your door. If they find out you’ve harmed Nidaba—”

“Harmed her?” He feigned deep offense. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

She just stared at him. So he went on with the righteous indignation routine. “I think maybe you’d better leave now, Ms. Lachlan-Sinclair.” She felt guilty. He picked up on it, and thought his rusty skills might be freeing themselves up at last.

“Sinclair-Lachlan,” she corrected, but her voice was softer now. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come here and offend you. Especially if you really are ... innocent in all this.” Then her eyes narrowed. “But if you’re not, I’ll find out. And may God help you then.”

Either she was sincerely worried about Nidaba, or she was a very good actress, he thought. And from everything he could sense in her, it was the former, not the latter.

Then she drew a breath, swallowed. “What... what condition was she in ... when you saw her?”

He mulled that one over. How much to reveal? In the end, just to see her reaction, he said, “Catatonic.”

Moisture sprang into the woman’s eyes. A flash of her pain hit him—so much so that his resolve started to waver. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Even at her worst, she was never quite that far gone.”

“Then, she’s had these sorts of episodes before?”

“I thought she was over it. I thought...” She clamped her mouth closed, looking up at him sharply. “I’ve already said too much. You’ve made it quite clear that this is no concern of yours.”

“The suffering of another human being is always of concern to me,” he countered.

“That’s a very pretty speech.”

“But not a convincing one?” He shook his head, walked through the foyer, and yanked open the front door, praying she wouldn’t look through the doorway and glimpse that portrait. “I wish you luck in finding your friend,” he said. “But I have things to do.”

“Don’t think I won’t be back,” she warned. “If I get even an inkling you’ve been lying to me—”

“I haven’t been. Good-bye.”

“Hmmph.” She stepped through the door, but before he could close it she said, “Wait.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a card and a pen. “This is my hotel... and the room number is on the back.” She scrawled it as she spoke. “If you remember anything, or... whatever ... call me.”

Nodding slowly, he said, “All right. I will.” He reached for the card. She didn’t give it to him. Instead she set it down on the stand just inside the door, then turned and walked away.

Nathan picked the card up, looked it over as he closed the door, then carried it idly with him back into the living room, and put it into a drawer for safekeeping.

He stood still for a moment, wondering who in hell this Arianna really was and what she truly wanted from Nidaba. Immortal, she had to be. She had deliberately avoided touching him. She said Nidaba had suffered trauma. What trauma? Could this woman have known about his past with her? Or had there been something more?

And what kind of fool question was that, anyway? Of course there had been more. Centuries had passed since the anguish he’d rained down on Nidaba’s head and she on his. Surely there had been more.

Footsteps on the stairs alerted him, and he turned to see Sheila coming down. His senses jumped. “Sheila, what are you doing down here?”

She looked at him with a frown. “Lisette asked that I bring up some broth for the patient,” she said. “Whatever is the matter with—Nathan?”

But he was sprinting past her, taking the stairs two at a time. He raced down the hall, threw the door open, and saw the nurse leaning over Nidaba, her back to him so he couldn’t see what she was doing.

“Lisette!”

She went stiff and still for just a moment. Then she straightened and turned slowly. The only thing in her hand, he saw, was a hairbrush. Even as Nathan blew a relieved sigh and called himself an idiot, Lisette pressed a palm to her chest, as if to calm her racing heart.

“My goodness, but you scared me half to death! What’s wrong?” she asked him.

Swallowing his nervousness and feeling like a fool, Nathan said, “Sorry. Nothing. Nothing at all.” He was going to have to stop being so irrational. The woman was a nurse, for God’s sake.

Lisette sighed and resumed brushing Nidaba’s hair. Nidaba lay stiff, jerking her head with each stroke.

“Why don’t you let me do that?” Nathan asked.

“Oh, now, what did you hire me for, if you’re going to do everything yourself?”

He didn’t take no for an answer, though. “It’s not you,” he said. “I just like taking care of her.” He stepped forward, took the brush away from the nurse, and waited for her to step aside. When she did he said, “Go now. Take a break. Get some dinner and rest. I’ll handle her myself for a while.”

“But—”

“Go.”

With a sigh, she finally did.

Nathan watched her until she closed the door behind her. Then he turned to Nidaba, smoothed her hair with his hand, and whispered, “I’m here. It’s okay, she’s gone.” He pulled his chair up and began running the brush through her ebony hair in long, slow strokes. And he thought she relaxed just a little bit. “You don’t like Lisette at all, do you, Nidaba?”

Naturally, there was no reply.

“You’re as bad as I am, then. I don’t like her either. But I wonder why,” he murmured softly. “I honestly do wonder why.”

The woman who called herself Lisette lingered in the hall, pacing nervously and wringing her hands as she hoped to the Gods that Nathan King would not discover the drug-filled hypodermic needle she had shoved underneath the mattress when he’d burst in on her.

Dammit, she’d barely hidden the weapon in time.

Then she slowed her pace, calmed herself. A slow, knowing smile spread across her face. So what if he did find it? It wouldn’t change anything. She would simply have to find another way to do what she had to do— what she should have finished centuries ago!

And she would.

She always found a way to do what must be done. And this time there would be no question, no deception, no mistakes. This time Nidaba would die by Puabi’s own hand. As it should have been on that hotel rooftop. As it should have been over four thousand years ago.

Chapter 9

He fell asleep brushing Nidaba’s hair, and he dreamed. Memories he’d locked deep inside long ago resurfaced now, to torment him again, as fresh as if they were new.

Eannatum sat at his father’s bedside, clasping the old king’s withered hand in his own younger, stronger one. “I am here, Father,” he whispered.

The king lay still, swathed in coverings of the finest fabrics. Sacred incense burned, and tendrils of its smoke lingered in the air, like spectral dancers. The powerful smell of the smouldering herbs laced each labored breath his father took, but Eannatum knew the herbs would not save his father. Nor would the incessant chanting of the priest who sat on the chamber floor. Nor the prayers and supplications of the entire kingdom. Death hovered, waiting to take the once mighty king away. Natum could almost hear the Dark Goddess’s raspy voice, whispering from the dim corners, from the hidden realms, from the underworld...

I am the Darkness behind and beneath the shadows . ..

I am the absence of air that awaits at the bottom of every breath ...

“Silence!”

Eannatum’s shout caused the priest to stop his chanting. “No, I... didn’t mean you,” Eannatum said, but it didn’t matter. The young man got to his feet, bowed deeply, and left the room.

But Eannatum sensed he was not alone with his father, even then. The Dark Goddess was there, lurking, waiting. He could feel her cold breath on his nape, and smell her foul stench in the air. Ereshkigal.

I am the decay that fertilizes the living . .. the bottomless pit. . .

“Shut up, Crone. Let him live!”

“My son.” The voice, weak but real, came from his father. And Eannatum bowed over the old man, tightening his grip on his father’s hand. “Do not speak so to the Dark Goddess. For it is into her embrace I go, and she alone will see me to the other side.”

“Father, you mustn’t say such things. You’ll be well. I’ve sent for more herbs, more priests—”

Sadly, the old man shook his head. “It is over, my son. I am dying. My time in this world is done. It is as it should be.”

“But—”

“Be still, Eannatum.” The voice strengthened just a bit. “A dying old man I may be, but I am still your king and your sire.”

“Speaking will only tire you.”

“There are things that must be said.”

Swallowing his objections, Eannatum nodded. He reached for a drinking vessel and held it to his father’s lips, lifting the old man’s head. When the king finished drinking, he lay back and stared at his son.

“Upon my death, you will receive my crown, Eannatum. The kingship of Lagash will be yours. But because of your impending marriage to Puabi, daughter of Ur, you will be called King of Kish, Ruler of all Sumer. You will take your throne on the first New Year’s Day after your marriage, by sacred tradition.”

“I do not wish—”

“I have no care for what you may or may not wish. I am your king. I am your father, and you will do as I command. For the good of your country, Eannatum. For the sake of peace. Already you have seen the power of Ur and Lagash joined as one. From the day word went forth that you intended to make Puabi your queen, the Ummamites began to cower. When our armies, united, began to patrol the borders, those raiders scurried like scarab beetles in full sunlight. If you don’t go through with your promise now, they will fall on Sumer and rip it apart. Tell me you will keep your word. Tell me you will marry Puabi upon my death.”

Inclining his head, Natum sighed. It was as close as he could come to showing his consent.

“Puabi will remain in her father’s palace in Ur until after your coronation. This is wise, and best for her sake as well as your own. But as soon as you are crowned king, she will join you here in Lagash, and you will take her as your wife and your queen.”

“Yes.” The word was wrenched from him against his will.

“Good. It is good.” For a moment, the king rested, caught his breath, before he gathered his waning strength and continued. “On New Year’s Day, Inanna herself will anoint you as her chosen ruler, through the ritual we call the Sacred Marriage Rite. You know what this entails.”

He nodded. He knew.

His father went on as if he did not. “The High Priestess of the temple will be cleansed and purified. She will call the Goddess to come to her, to inhabit her body. And then she will mate with you, so that you will become part God yourself. Her servant always. Her consort in human form, ruling her people of Sumer by divine right. You understand?”

He nodded slowly. “It shall be as you wish it.” The High Priestess ... Lia had been elevated to that station right after Nidaba’s abandonment five years ago. It would seem sinful to copulate with the woman who had been his teacher, and Nidaba’s. Almost a mother to her, in fact. It would seem wrong.

“There is no time to waste, my son. Your power must be established at once. The new year is but a quarter moon from today.”

A frown bent Eannatum’s brow. “I assumed you referred to the next new year, my father.”

Weakly, the old man smiled. “Optimist. I’ve not a year left in me. No, it must be now.”

“But... Father, you yet live. I can’t very well claim the crown while you ...” He frowned, a heaviness forming in his stomach.

Closing his eyes wearily, the king said, “This night is my last.”

“No ...” Eannatum leaned closer, touched his father’s face, and the old eyes opened again. “Father, how can you know this? You might live for many weeks, months, even.”

“My time ends tonight, my son. Your time is come.”

“You cannot know that!”

“I know. Give your solemn vow to me that all shall be as I have told you, that I might go in peace to the underworld.”

“Father—”

“Give it to me!” his father demanded, his eyes flaring wider as he came off his pillows.

“I vow it. I shall do all you ask of me. But Father—”

“Good,” his father said. “Good. Now, give to me the rest of my wine, and I will sleep.”

Eannatum took the chalice, held his father’s head up, and put the rim to the dry, parched lips. His father drank and drank, and when Eannatum tried to take the cup away, the king pressed a hand to it to keep it there, tipping it higher, draining it.

He breathed when he finished, then lay back on the pillows, and muttered, “It is done. For the good of Sumer, it is done.”

Blinking, Eannatum looked from his father’s face to the cup he still held, and realization flashed blindingly through his mind. He sniffed at the contents, then tasted the remaining droplets, only to draw back and grimace at its bitterness. “No!” he cried, hurling the baked clay goblet away from him. The cup hit the wall and shattered to bits. “Father, what have you done?” He bent over his father, whose face had gone lax now. Gripping the front of his robes, Eannatum shook him. “Wake! Wake, curse you! Why have you done this? How dare you do such a thing! Father! Father!”

The door was flung open, and then someone was pulling at his shoulders. That young priest, Eannatum saw when he whirled on the offender.

“You gave it to him! Didn’t you, priest? Didn’t you?” he demanded, shaking the pale, frightened man until his teeth rattled.

“ I gave it to him,” a deep voice said.

Natum released the priest, who fell into a quivering heap on the floor, and looked up to see Lathor, the detestable High Priest who was unworthy of the title, standing in the doorway. “You?”

“Yes. I. It was his final wish, and as his most trusted friend, and spiritual counsel, I had no choice but to obey.”

“You murdered your king! Traitor!”

“If you go shouting that about the palace, my prince, it will be you who will be called traitor. For you will destroy what your father gave his life to protect. This kingdom. And your throne.”

Eannatum stopped halfway to throttling the bastard. He was right. Damn him, he was right. But grief and fury raged in him, and he shuddered with the very effort of restraining himself. The need for vengeance warred with the knowledge of what was best for his kingdom.

His kingdom.

Turning to the bed, he dropped to his knees and folded himself over his father’s prone form. He lay his head on the silent chest, and allowed the tears to come....

Time passed. Hours perhaps. The two priests had left him, for how long, he did not know. His father was dead. He was to rule. To take the throne and then to marry Puabi. He lifted his head, rubbed at his eyes, and stared at his father’s still, white face with blurred vision.

“Have you had enough of mourning, then?”

He turned slowly, and saw the High Priestess, Lia, standing just behind him. Swallowing hard, he let his chin fall. “I will never have enough of mourning, it seems.”

“I am sorry for your loss, my prince,” she said softly. “But I have come to offer words that may be of some comfort.”

“What words could comfort me now?”

“Only these. I will not serve as your lukur, the vessel of the Goddess, for the Sacred Marriage Rite.”

“How can you ... ?”

“I have charge of the temple. And of the spiritual guidance of Lagash now that Lathor has fled.”

“Fled?” Eannatum shook his head. “But he was here...”

“Two days ago, my prince. You have been closeted with your father’s body for two full days.”

Eannatum could only blink, looking around the room in confusion. He ran a hand over his chin, felt the growth of whiskers that proved the priestess’s words to be true.

“Therefore, I am the highest-ranking official of Inanna’s temple in all of Lagash. And I have decreed that I am unable to fulfill this role and have also set forth the solution.”

Frowning, Eannatum looked at the priestess, searching her face, unable to make much sense of her words.

“The High Priestess of every temple in all of Sumer will journey here in time for the New Year’s celebration. And they will dance for you, their king. They will dance the sacred Dance of the Seven Veils, in remembrance of Inanna’s descent to the underworld. And when they finish dancing, my prince, you will choose the one you wish to serve as your lukur.”

If her words were meant to offer comfort, they fell far short. “Fine,” he said. “So be it.”

She nodded, some secret hiding behind her eyes. But her hands on his shoulders were soft. “Come, my prince. You need to be attended. You are tired, hungry, and grieving. Let me care for you.”

He turned back toward the bed. “But my father...”

“I have twenty priestesses waiting to attend your father, Eannatum. With tenderness, love, and deep respect. They will take care of him, I vow it to you on my honor.”

He nodded slowly, knowing it needed doing, and he let the gentle High Priestess lead him from the room.

The burial passed in a blur of grief. All Eannatum wished for was Nidaba, to feel the comfort of her arms around him. And yet if she had remained here, as a priestess serving in the temple, she might have been compelled to join in the most grim portion of the burial rites. And then he would have lost not only his father, but Nidaba as well.

Bitter irony that he had already lost her, and yet still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the concept, much less accept it as final. Nidaba lived. So long as she did, he would never accept it as final.

He drank too much of the barley brew and paid little heed to the events of the next several days. And yet, as the only son of the king, it was required that he be there, overseeing it all. A great pit was dug, some thirty feet deep, outside the city. A two-room stone crypt was erected in the bottom, but only one of the rooms was given a ceiling. That was the room where his father’s body was interred. Eannatum had to choose his father’s finest robes, his favorite sword and shield. Only a few of the king’s belongings could be placed with him in the small burial chamber. It was a dire task, and one Natum could perform only when he’d nearly numbed himself with brew.

A priest took his father’s most precious possessions and placed them into the burial chamber beside the king. The wall dividing that room from the other was then sealed off with baked bricks as Natum stood nearby, battling his grief and a newfound sense of his own mortality.

And not only his own, but the mortality of those around him. His father had told him that death was an accepted part of life, more a change in form than an ending. But his father was a stiff corpse now, and many of the warm bodies surrounding him soon would be. He wanted to rage against the foolishness of it all. The uselessness of it. And yet it was the way of things. It had been for many generations and would be for many more.

The second room, the one beside the burial vault, was larger, and a stone ramp had been built from the sandy surface of the ground down into it. Its only ceiling was the sky, and its only contents a large pottery urn filled with poison-laced wine and fifty unadorned golden chalices that stood in a gleaming sunlit circle on the dirt floor. As soon as the burial vault’s wall was sealed, the closest advisers of the king, his friends and courtiers, and several of his most devoted young priests and priestesses marched down that tiny ramp. They strummed stringed instruments, lyres and harps, they beat drums and shook rattles in rhythm with their singing. They wore their finest garments, and one by one, smiling, they walked into the pit, picked up a chalice, and dipped wine from the urn. When they all stood with glasses filled, the singing and music grew louder, faster, the drums and rattles beat an urgent tattoo, and then all at once it stopped. Silence. And every last one of them drained the golden goblets.

Then, still smiling, they lay themselves down in perfect symmetry, all save one or two who picked up their harp and lyre and began again to play music of unearthly beauty.

A shadow crossed the wall. Eannatum swore he saw her—the Dark Goddess, dancing her dance of death, sweeping her cloak of night around Her willing children. Their chalices beside them, the poison still wet on their lips, they lay there with their eyes closed, and one by one they died. The harpist fell sideways, her fingers plucking one last lingering note. The lyre fell from limp hands to the ground. And it was done.

Lathor should have been among them, Natum thought grimly. But like a coward, he’d fled. Natum doubted that any of the innocents in the pit had deserved death as much as Lathor did. Though, perhaps, Inanna’s dark sister had a less honorable method in mind for that one’s demise.

As Natum turned to walk away and the sun began to sink low on the horizon, eunuchs came forward and began to cover the bodies with a layer of earth. Tomorrow another room would be built atop the corpses and packed full of the king’s most prized possessions. His weapons, his armor, his favorite robes, and jewels. Then that, too, would be sealed and buried, and a single marker placed atop it all.

More than fifty people followed Natum’s father to the netherworld.

It was supposed to be a great honor to his father that so many wished to serve him even beyond this lifetime. But it left Eannatum with a dull feeling of sadness, and a sense of waste. Such a great, great waste.

When he died, he hoped he would have time to plan as his father had. He hoped he would sense the Dark Goddess coming for him. Because if he did, he would strip himself of his royal robes and any clue as to his identity. He would wander into the desert, alone, and lie down in a private place where no one would find him for many days. His flesh he would give, as a welcome feast for the jackals and for the crows. And by the time a mortal man set eyes upon his corpse, he hoped there would be nothing left but bones, bleached white by the sun.

He would journey alone to Ereshkigal’s underworld realm.

Better than this madness, he thought. Far better.

Wakefulness crept closer, inexorably closer to Nidaba, but she fought it. It was not easy. She became more and more aware of her body. The way it ached, its stiffness.

Her hunger. The pounding in her head and the dryness in her throat. The bed beneath her. The warmth surrounding her. The voice constantly speaking in her ear.

Eannatum’s voice.

But it couldn’t be that, for he was long dead.

Fighting still harder, knowing she could not do so for much longer, she clung to her dreams .. . her memories.

She’d been serving as High Priestess in the temple of Man, far away in the lush and verdant northlands. But she had been summoned by the king, and his own soldiers—acting, they said, under orders of his spiritual counsel—had arrived to escort her back to Lagash.

She had never intended to set eyes on Eannatum again. They had made their painful choices long ago. The security of an entire kingdom obviously had to come before the foolish yearnings of a young prince and a young priestess in love. He had agreed to wed the spoiled and beautiful princess of Ur. And as soon as word of that impending union spread, the nighttime raids of the Ummamites came less and less frequently. When the joined armies of Lagash and Ur began patrolling the borders, those raids ceased entirely. Peace reigned in Sumer. But it was a fragile peace. The entire world, it seemed, held its breath—waiting to see if the prince would honor his word to his kingdom.

She had no idea now why she was being summoned back to Sumer. Peace had hung precariously for two years, and during that time, she had been elevated to the rank of High Priestess. But the Ummamites were growing restless. Soon they would test Sumer’s unity and the king’s resolve. Times were volatile. Danger and tension were everywhere.

Nidaba’s journey southward was long, and never once was she told why she had been summoned. Upon her arrival in Lagash, she peered at her beloved city from the windows of the ornate sand sled in which she rode. But there was barely time to notice all the changes. She was taken quickly to the ziggurat tower, led up the outer stairs by the king’s own guards, and placed in a small chamber.

For a time she paced, furious, unable to so much as look outside in this enclosed, windowless room. But finally a tap sounded at the door, and then it opened, and she saw her onetime friend Lia standing there, wearing the golden headband of a High Priestess herself.

“Lia ...” Tears sprang into Nidaba‘ s eyes at the sight of her beloved teacher, and she hurried forward, embraced the woman warmly, and kissed her face. She bore no ill will toward Lia. She knew the woman had done only what she had to. She’d done the same herself, so how could she blame the woman? “Lia, what is happening? Why have I been brought here?”

Lia stood back, brushed a lock of hair from Nidaba’s forehead, and smiled weakly. “To serve your king, of course. Eannatum is in need of—”

“Eannatum?” Nidaba asked quickly.

“Oh, yes. Had you not heard? His father has passed, Nidaba. Eannatum is king of Lagash now, and before this New Year’s Day ends, he will be crowned Ruler of all Sumer.”

Nidaba lowered her gaze. “So ... he has married her, then? Puabi?”

“No, child. He will wed her only after he takes the throne. But he cannot take the throne at all without the sacred rite.”

Very, very slowly, Nidaba raised her head. “With you as his lukur? The vessel of the Goddess? You, Lia?”

“No, child. You will be your king’s lukur, not I.”

Eyes widening, Nidaba pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Never!”

“Nonsense. I have gone to great trouble to arrange this. I am convinced it is as the Queen of Heaven wishes it. You and the other High Priestesses I have summoned here will be properly prepared, and will dance before the king. The Dance of the Seven Veils, in remembrance of Inanna’s descent to the underworld. King Eannatum alone will choose the one to serve as his lukur. And he will choose you, Nidaba.”

Nidaba shook her head, backing away from her once trusted friend. “I will leave here,” she whispered. “I will leave Sumer.”

“You will do your duty as a High Priestess of the Queen of Heaven.” Lia clapped her hands twice, and a dozen young men, eunuchs all, surged into the room. They came to Nidaba, even as she turned first one way, then another in sudden panic. But before she had a chance to flee, as every part of her was screaming to do, they were gripping her, holding her still, urging her with their soft voices to be quiet, to be calm, even as they began stripping away her robes and her gown.

“You will be gentle with her,” Lia ordered, her voice deeper, firmer than Nidaba could remember it ever having been before. “But you will see to it that she complies. She is to be prepared in the manner I have told you. And time is of the essence. See to it.”

“Wait!” Nidaba cried.

Lia was turning to go, but she paused at the doorway, stepping aside to let four more eunuchs enter, carrying a huge tub that brimmed with steaming, scented water.

“I have warned them, Nidaba, that you have a way of... making the earth appear to tremble when you are angered. They are not going to flee in terror if you do so. But they will likely carry tales of such an event beyond these walls. Simply let them carry out their orders. This is to your benefit.” Her face and her voice softened. “And my way of righting an old wrong.”

“I know you were forced to do what you did, Lia. Just as I was.”

Lia nodded. “They’d have done far worse to you, I fear, had I not obeyed.”

“I know. And I knew they would harm you if I fought them as well.”

With a deep sigh, Lia said, “There was a time when a priestess wielded more power than any man, even the king himself. But that time is long past, Nidaba. Men think of battles and wealth ahead of procreation and peace these days. And the might of woman wanes.”

“Like the moon, Lia, it will wax again.”

“Someday, perhaps. For now, we do what we must.” She nodded at the men. “Go on, do your duties.”

Nidaba shook her head. “I do not want this, Lia.”

But it didn’t matter. Within a few moments she stood naked, her arms and legs gripped by soft hands. She was lifted off her feet, and lowered into the tub of water. Some of the men held her gently, while others ran soft brushes over her body, up and down her legs, and between them. Over her back, and her arms and her breasts. She didn’t fight the attendants. It wasn’t their fault, after all, and it was her duty as a priestess to comply with the request of her king. But it was Natum. It wouldn’t be an act of duty—not with him.

A hand cupped her chin, lifted her face, and Nidaba blinked back her impatience to see Lia staring down at her. “I am doing this for you, Nidaba,” she whispered. “Don’t you see? It is the only way you will ever be able to know him.”

“I do not want to know him,” Nidaba said softly.

“Oh, but you do,” Lia said. “You want it with everything in you. You know you do. You always have.”

“We said good-bye,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to go through it all over again.”

Shaking her head slowly, Lia said no more. She only backed out of the room and left Nidaba to the ministrations of the eunuchs.

They finished washing her, and she was lifted from the tub and stood on her feet, dripping. Then yet another eunuch came in, bringing a tray filled with elaborate containers of sacred oils and perfumes and pots of body paint. She tugged at the hands that still gripped her arms.

“Please, Holy Lady,” the newcomer asked softly in a voice that had never deepened with maturity. “This is no fault of ours. We do only as we have been ordered to do. If we fail, it will be our heads.”

Nidaba stopped struggling and eyed the young man. He was slender as a shushima reed, his hair long and pale, for a Sumerian. A golden-brown color that marked him as a foreigner. His eyes, too, were tawny gold, and gentle.

“All right,” she finally told him. “Do what you must.”

“Thank you, Nin-Nidaba.” She saw genuine relief in his eyes, and he quickly backed away, setting the tray upon the floor, and turned to fetch a robe of purest white from a peg in the wall. “Release her,” he told the others, and when they did, backing away warily, he came to her and draped the robe around her. Then he gestured toward a stack of silken pillows, nodded for her to sit upon them, and she did.

“What is your name?” she asked him.

“I am called Aahron.”

Lifting her hand, she said, “Thank you for your kindness to me, Aahron.” And as she spoke she lowered her hand to his shoulder.

A jolt of awareness sizzled through her hand and up into her arm. It was much like the way she felt when she touched Eannatum. She had thought it to be a reaction that could occur only with him.

Aahron’s eyes widened. “By the wings of the Gods,” he whispered, so softly that she was certain only she could hear him, and his gaze fell to her legs. He clasped the robe where it came together, tugging it to the side and baring her left flank.

She yanked it back again. “What is it you seek, eunuch?” And if her voice suggested she ran short of patience, then it was good he know it now, in time to save himself from her wrath.

“I... was told you bore a mark of some ... uniqueness ... upon your left hip,” he stammered.

She shook her head slowly. “You were told incorrectly,” she said, and she saw him sigh—whether in relief or disappointment, she could not guess. “The mark I bear is on the right.” Nidaba quickly flipped the robe the other way, giving him the merest glimpse of the berry-colored crescent moon.

He was still for a long moment. Then suddenly, he turned to the others in the room. “The rest of you may go,” he said with a tone of command. “Nin-Nidaba wishes that I alone attend her.”

There was muttering, a shaking of heads, until Nidaba herself spoke. “I am a High Priestess, and a powerful one,” she told them. “Do not make me demonstrate the proper method of calling down a curse!”

Within seconds, they scurried toward the door, and an instant later she and the golden-haired young man were alone. Facing her, he said, “I, too, bear the mark of the crescent upon my right hip.”

Nidaba stared at him in shock. “But... what does it mean?”

“You do not know?”

She shook her head slowly. Closing his eyes, he sighed. “A great deal, Nidaba. A great deal. But above all, it means that you are a sister of mine. Not of the flesh, but of the soul. If you wish to escape this place ... I will help you.”

Facing Aahron, she saw courage and determination— amazing in one so young—he couldn’t have seen more than 17 years. Despite her desire to escape, she felt a certain protectiveness toward him. She liked him. “They would kill you,” she said.

“Not an easy task, I assure you.”

“You are brave ... but foolish. No. Perhaps it is good that I see Eannatum one more time. I have... I have words for him.”

“He hurt you once, did he not?” Aahron asked.

“He hurt me. Yes. But through no fault of his own. We ... we hurt each other.”

“He was a fool to choose Puabi when he could have had you.”

She felt her face heat, and cast it downward. “Perhaps tonight he will know just once, how it could have been, had the fates smiled on the two of us.” Then, lifting her chin, she glanced at the tray of pots and vessels still sitting on the floor. “Make me beautiful, Aahron. That is the task with which you’ve been charged, is it not?”

Aahron smiled gently. “The Gods completed that task long before I came to be in this temple, Lady.” But he did fetch the tray, and bringing it back, he sat down and placed it on the floor in between them. “But I will do my best to gild an already perfect lily.”

“Then do so.”

Aahron brushed her hair and pinned it up in intricate loops and twists. He anointed her with holy oils that smelled of exotic fruits and herbs. He lined her eyes in kohl that extended outward from the outer corners, and painted their lids and then added a series of dots just above her brows that followed their curve. He darkened her lashes and painted her lips, and drew sacred symbols upon her breasts and her belly. Then he reached for the final pot, and she knew what it held before he said, “The honeyed wine.”

Swallowing hard, she nodded. “Apply it.”

Aahron knelt before her, taking the soft brush from the jar. A thick, glistening mixture of wine and honey dripped from the end of the brush. Carefully, Aahron painted her breasts with it, coating them lightly, more heavily at the tips. Then he sat back on his heels. “If you wish to do the rest yourself...”

“It is the custom that this be applied by a eunuch,” she whispered, her voice nearly gone now. She forced her legs to part. Aahron closed his eyes respectfully as he dipped the brush again and brought it out, dripping, to stroke a path in her most private places. Three times he dipped the brush and painted her with it. And finally he said, “It is done.”

Nidaba opened her eyes, felt her face burning, and was glad to see that Aahron had turned away from her. Good of him to think of doing so. He fussed with the jars on the tray, capping and righting them. And then he went to the corner, where a wooden chest sat alone, and he drew it closer, opened its lid, and said, “The costume of the sacred dance of Inanna.”

She nodded, knowing the contents. She had studied the tale of Inanna’s descent. She had learned the dance. As a priestess it was a part of her duties to know these things. He pawed through the box’s contents as the honeyed wine that coated her slowly dried to shining hardness.

Finally, Aahron held out a hand. “Come.”

She took the hand he offered and let him draw her to her feet. And when she was standing he took the items out of the chest one at a time. The crown of the Goddess, a ring of gold with elaborate stones affixed to its face, he placed upon her head. A necklace of lapis lazuli stones he tied around her throat. He encircled her waist with the girdle of purity, which was little more than a golden belt with chains of precious stones dangling from it, shorter at the outside, longer at the center—just long enough to hide her honeyed woman’s charms from view. And finally, the twin nunuz stones. These were small oval stones, luminous and multicolored, each suspended from a tiny chain, at the end of which was a small, spring-controlled metal clasp.

Aahron looked at her wide eyes, and she saw sympathy in his. He squeezed the clasp so that it opened its tiny teeth, then placed it on his own fingertip and released it, letting it bite down. Holding his finger up, the clasp attached, the chain and nunuz stone dangling from it, he said, “It pinches only a little, and the weight of the stone is not so very much.”

She nodded and closing her eyes held her arms out to her sides. “Affix them as you must, Aahron.”

He cleared his throat and stood very close to her. She could feel him there. And then the teem of the tiny clasp closed on her breast, right at the nipple. They bit into her enough to make her gasp, though not in real pain. But when he took his hand away, the weight of the stone tugged at her nipple, and she could only bite her lip in bittersweet anguish as he affixed the second stone in the same manner.

As she tried to accustom herself to the sudden throbbing awareness and constant tugging at the tips of her breasts, there was a voice at the door. “Time is short!” Lia called. “The others are at the palace already.”

“We are nearly finished,” Aahron called. “Only a moment more.”

Nidaba trembled, and every movement set the stones to dancing and pulling at her. But Aahron’s gentle smile soothed her. He reached into the chest to begin pulling out the multicolored veils, all silken, which he began to drape artfully about her body. “There is much I need to tell you, Nidaba. Much you do not know about yourself. What and who you truly are.”

“What can you know of me that I do not know of myself?”

He arranged the first veil about her face, covering her nose and mouth. The next two he draped ‘round her shoulders, to cover her breasts. “I know that you are immortal, my lady.”

She blinked down at him as he bent to suspend two more veils from the girdle of purity in the back to shield her buttocks, and another in front. The final veil was knotted at her wrist and hanging freely from it. Its use would come later, should the king desire to bind her as the Goddess had been bound during her time in the Underworld.

“Immortal? There is no such thing! What foolishness.”

“It’s true,” he whispered. “You cannot die—well, not easily, at least.”

Nidaba shivered even though she laughed at his farfetched tales. There was something about his words that touched a chord in her, and reverberated deeply. But then the door opened, and Lia stepped into the room. “It is time,” the priestess said.

Nidaba hesitated, glancing at Aahron.

“It will be all right,” he told her. “And we will talk again ... later.”

Chapter 10

“Nidaba. Come on, now, it’s all right. Calm down.” Nathan watched her thrash in the bed, her head twisting from side to side on the pillows as her fists clenched the blanket and sheets and her feet kicked at the covers.

He leaned close to her and put his hand on her cheek to keep her head still, but he was careful, remembering what had happened the last time she’d become this agitated. He could see the rapid movement behind her closed eyelids, and he sensed her need to escape from the dreams that plagued her.

“Nidaba. Come on, stop fighting it. It’s time to wake up.”

The restless movements stilled all at once.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered. “Come on, Nidaba. Open them.”

The long lashes shielding her eyes fluttered, then fluttered again, and finally, slowly, they lifted. Her eyes were blank. She stared past him at some invisible spot in space.

“Look at me.”

She didn’t so much as blink.

“Nidaba, look at me.” He held up his finger, trying to put it in the spot at which she stared so intently. Then slowly he brought his hand to his face, and amazingly, Nidaba’s huge blue-black eyes followed it. She stared at him, and the dazed, unfocused quality faded as that gaze sharpened. Her brows drew together, and her lips moved, but barely a sound came out.

“It’s all right,” he said, and quickly filled a glass with water from the pitcher on the nightstand. He held it to her lips as he lifted her head from the pillows. She drank. And drank some more. When he took the glass away, she came off the pillows, placing a hand over his to pull the water back to her, and drank still more. Water dribbled down her chin, wet the front of her nightdress, and still she drank. She drained the glass, and only then did she release his hand, staring down at it as she did, no doubt aware of the tingle of energy that had jumped and crackled between them when they had touched.

He reached for a tissue to dry her face. But she was already wiping it dry with the sleeve of her nightgown. She sat up in the bed, looking around the room, examining every corner, every piece of furniture, every lamp and drapery and square foot of carpet, all in dead silence.

The tension stretched tighter, and finally he could take it no more. “Do you know who you are?” he asked her softly.

Her head turned, her dark gaze coming back to him. “Yes,” she said at last.

“Good, good. Tell me your name.”

Those eyes narrowed. “You know my name,” she said in a voice so deep he thought it sounded like an echo from beyond the grave. She looked away once more, scanning the room.

“Yes, that’s right. I do. I just want to be certain you do. So ... please, tell me, who are you?”

Her head snapped back again, eyes narrow and fierce. “I am the woman you lied to. The woman you betrayed. The woman you tried to murder, Eannatum. I am the woman who will make you pay for your past sins if it is the last thing I ever do.”

He recoiled instinctively, backing away as if she’d struck him. Then he stood still, not believing the power of the hatred he saw blazing from her eyes. “Then you do remember—my name, at least. Nidaba, I don’t know what you think I did to you, but—”

“Think? What I think?” She flung back the covers, swung her legs out of the bed, and surged to her feet, only to sink floorward fast.

Nathan lunged forward, gathering her to him before she could hit the floor. He held her close, and she leaned into him, hands pressed to the front of his shoulders, face lying weakly on his chest.

“What have you done to me, Natum? Why am I so weak? My knees feel like water, my head... swimming.”

His throat went dry. “You think I did this to you?”

Her head lifted, eyes meeting his, searching them, mistrusting him. “Is it poison?”

His hands tightened around hers. “For the love of the Gods! Of course it isn’t poison. Nidaba, I found you in a hospital. You’d been drugged, your doctor attacked. Killed. Perhaps by someone who was after you. I broke the law to take you away from that place, and I brought you here to protect you and to try to make you well again.”

In silence she contemplated all he had said before replying at last. “You’re a liar.”

She said it flatly, no expression on her face, no inflection in her tone. As if it were a simple fact, and one that caused no reaction at all in her. As if it were something she had accepted long ago.

He sighed in disgust and eased her into the chair where he had been sitting only moments before. “Fine. Believe what you will. Whether you like it or not, Nidaba, you’re stuck here with me for the moment. Once you get your strength back, you can do what you want. But until then, you’re dependent on me.”

She raised her chin, her eyes narrowed to mere slits and shifted rapidly as they scanned his face. “I always do what I want, Natum. And I’ve never been dependent on anyone. Nor will I.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to argue with you. You’re in no shape to fight with me right now.” And besides, he thought, fights with Nidaba were seldom won. He turned away from her, tugged back the covers of the bed and looked at the damp sheets. Damp with her sweat and her tears. His jaw tight, he began peeling them off the bed.

She watched him the way a cat watches a mouse as he tossed the sheets aside. They landed in a white heap near the door. Then he walked into the bathroom, feeling her eyes on his back all the way. He took a clean set of linens from the closet and brought them back into the bedroom. Still her gaze burned into him. Ignoring it, he began remaking the bed.

“Do you think,” she asked very slowly, “that all of this will absolve you of your guilt? Nothing can do that.”

“You have no clue about the state of my conscience, Nidaba, so don’t pretend to.”

“Are you saying you feel no guilt? That what you did to me was not a crime worthy of hell’s hottest fires?”

He looked up from the smoothly tucked sheets. “I don’t believe in hell. You know that. Neither do you.”

He jerked the blankets roughly back into place.

“Oh, I believe in hell, Eannatum. I’ve been there.”

Her froze at her words, then slowly, he turned to face her, searching her eyes. “What... happened to you, Nidaba?”

Her eyes were cold. Colder than he had ever seen them. “It has been over four millennia, Natum. A great deal has happened to me. But none of it more terrible than the crimes you yourself perpetrated.”

“You are wrong. Whatever you think I did to you, Nidaba, you’re misinformed ... or confused.”

She skewered him with her gaze. “I know what I know, Your Highness. I am not insane.”

“I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “Do you realize that? All this time, I thought you were dead.”

“And I hoped you were. But you live.” She lowered her eyes. “I had heard you were murdered in your bed, but of course, not whether the killer had taken your heart.”

“She tried.”

“She?” Nidaba asked, looking up at him again. Then slowly, a smile spread across her face. “Do not tell me your bitch-queen was a Dark High Witch all along?”

“No. She only aspired to be.” He stared at her in silence for a long moment, seeing a surprised expression cross her face. “Nidaba... the Gods know we have a great deal to talk about, you and I. Four thousand years have passed, but even before, there were things you didn’t know. Many, many things. Give me the benefit of the doubt, will you?”

She snapped her head away. “Never.”

“You loved me once,” he said, his voice soft. “And I... Look, I only brought you here to protect you. If I had wanted to harm you, I would have done it by now. God, when I saw you in that place where they had you locked up, I—”

She held up both her hands, and he went silent. “You are right, Natum. The past is dead. What has been done cannot be undone by telling a revised version of the tale. So let us discuss it no more. I am dizzy with hunger. I need food. This penance you seem so determined to pay, does it extend to feeding me?”

“It’s not a penance,” he said. “But of course I’ll feed you. I’ll get you something right away. But first, Nidaba, I want to know what has happened to you.”

She blinked rapidly at him, brows up, a sarcastic mannerism of hers he had always found enchanting. “I will starve to death in the time it would take to tell you what has happened to me in the past four millennia.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. “They said you jumped from a rooftop in Manhattan, Nidaba. You revived in an ambulance, broke an attendant’s arm. They sedated you, and you, naturally, became catatonic, so they transferred you to a mental hospital and kept you there, tranquilized into a state of nothingness.”

Her sarcasm vanished. Her face paled. “Drugs... have an exaggerated effect on our kind.”

“I know.”

“They had me ... imprisoned, you say?”

He bent lower to try to see her face, which was turned downward. “You were in a locked room and a strait-jacket.”

Her jaw tensed, and she raised her eyes. “Then I am glad I was drugged. Being held captive for the amusement of my captors has never been my favorite pastime.”

“You say that as if you speak from experience.”

She only stared at him, and an icy rage shivered through him as he thought of who might have held her, harmed her. He was going to have to find out exactly what had happened to her, and who was responsible. And then he was going to have to kill them. Slowly.

It felt odd, the rise of that murderous taste for blood. It was totally at odds with the man he thought he had become. Or was that simply the man he had been pretending to be? Because truly, his time without this woman in his life seemed less than genuine somehow. Like one long act, a way to kill time until she reappeared to turn his world inside out again.

Her stomach growled.

“I’ll get that food,” he said, and when he left the room, she didn’t say a thing to stop him.

He felt as if he were escaping some new, cruel form of torture as he stepped into the hall. To see her alive, awake, alert—and to see the hatred in her eyes, and hear her accusations—it was almost more than he could bear. And there was still the question of her mental state. She seemed perfectly lucid now. Perfectly sane, despite her wild accusations. But the young blonde woman who had come looking for her had mentioned insanity. Was Nidaba truly sane? Did she really believe the things she’d accused him of or was it part of some delusion?

“You look like the very living dead, Mr. King. Has there been some change in the patient?”

He sighed wearily as Lisette walked toward him through the hall. “She’s awake, and alert,” he said slowly. “I’m going to find Sheila and see about getting her something to eat, and—”

His words were cut off by an ear splitting shriek from somewhere far below. Nathan’s head came up fast and his heart jumped. “Gods, that was Sheila!”

He told himself as he raced down the stairs that Sheila had in all likelihood spotted a mouse in the basement. But he knew better. Sheila didn’t panic at the sight of mice. And he could feel something emanating from her. Something horrible and dark.

He ran down the stairs, hit the bottom and raced through the house toward the back. The kitchen was back there, along with the nearest entrance to the basement, from whence Sheila’s cry seemed to have come. There was only one other, a hatchway door outside.

He reached the kitchen, and his blood went cold because Sheila screamed again, and he felt the horror, the despair in that sound, felt it down deep in his bones. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

And every cell in his body told him that whatever it was ... it was only the beginning.

Chapter 11

Eannatum was alive. And here, in this house—so close and so real and so vibrant that the very sight of him had caused her heart to pound and ache and yearn. It had been all she could do to keep from crying—from flinging herself into his arms and kissing his face. She had touched him, felt his heat. She had heard his voice, and seen the light of life in his eyes. Felt his breath on her hair, and his arms around her ... again.

Why was it so difficult to despise him? And why had her feelings for him not died a thousand deaths by now? All this time! By the Gods, seeing him again, even now, even knowing what she knew of him ... it was as if the years in between had never even been.

She was just as torn now as she had been before. Torn between surrender to an all-consuming, insanely passionate hunger for him and surrender to the equally insane need to crush his corded neck between her slender hands.

Nidaba sat in the chair beside her sickbed, barely able to hold her head up. Strength in an immortal never waned this low, except as a result of some foreign substance flowing through the veins. Eannatum had told the truth about one thing, at least. She had been drugged.

So she’d been drugged. But by whom? That remained to be seen. She tried to recall what had happened to her, how she had come to be here, or in some hospital, if he were indeed telling the truth about that as well. But for the life of her, she couldn’t remember anything other than ... than returning to Scotland on the four hundred eighty-eighth anniversary of her son’s death—his second death— and finding his burial site defiled, his body gone. Taken.

But that had been a full year ago. How she knew that was unclear, but she did know it. Was certain of it. And yet the time in between remained fogged, and fragmented into hazy bits that made no sense.

It hurt to see Eannatum again. It stirred to life old memories of innocent love, freely given. Of burning passion, eagerly sated. Of dark betrayal too vile to believe. He had taken everything from her once. Her love, her life, her soul...

Her son . . .

Yes, her son. Nicky’s first death, when he’d been a small, sloe-eyed boy—that rested squarely on Eannatum’s broad shoulders. And for that, she would never forgive him.

The bedroom door opened, and Nidaba had no more time to contemplate these things. A woman stood there in the doorway.

The woman was small, her smooth skin at odds with her silver hair. Her eyes seemed too sharp and clear to need the glasses she wore. And Nidaba frowned as she stared into those eyes. Because there was something about them—something familiar. They did not belong in that face, those eyes.

The woman smiled, but it was false. She carried a stack of towels in her hands and came further into the room.

Nidaba got to her feet slowly, in a smooth motion she hoped did not betray the swamping dizziness and weakness she felt. “I prefer to be left alone for now,” she said in the strongest, firmest tone she could manage.

The woman halted in mid-stride, brows arching in surprise. “Have your strength back, do you?”

“Every bit of it,” Nidaba lied. Every one of her nerve endings quivered with warning, and the hairs on her nape bristled. She did not like this strange woman.

“Well, now, I’m the expert, you know. Perhaps you ought to let me be the judge of that, hmm?” The woman came closer, and Nidaba suddenly knew that her smile was false, but the hatred in her eyes ... that was real.

And deadly.

Nathan ran through the large kitchen, nearly colliding with George as he rounded a corner.

Pale and wide-eyed, George stood staring through the open cellar door and down the stairs, obviously torn between his longtime fear of the dark and his love for the woman he’d heard crying out. “It’s Sheila,” George said, fists clenched, almost bouncing on his feet in his agitation. “Somethin’s wrong with Sheila!”

Nathan flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs. Nothing happened. “It’s all right, George,” Nathan said, pushing past him and starting down the stairs. “Stay right where you are. I’ll take care of this.” He took the stairs two at a time, reached the bottom, tried the light switch there. Again, nothing happened.

“Sheila?” he called.

Then he listened. Soft sounds reached him through the damp darkness—ragged broken breaths, as if she were crying. “Sheila, love, what is it? What’s wrong?” Stepping forward, Nathan fumbled in his pocket for a match, a lighter, anything. But he found nothing. Then he saw the small beam of a flashlight, lying cockeyed on the cellar floor, illuminating only a few bricks in the wall. Sheila must have dropped it.

Nathan picked up the pace, bent to snatch up the light, and began moving its beam around. “Sheila, sweetheart, talk to me. Where are you? Are you hurt?”

Then the beam of light found her, and Nathan halted. He thought his heart stopped beating. Sheila sat on the basement floor, cradling a body—an obviously dead body, already stiff with rigor mortis. It was a woman, clad only in her underclothes. Nathan swore and moved closer, kneeling down near Sheila, aiming the beam of light on the woman’s face.

And then his head spun, and his chest contracted. “My God, that’s ... Lisette!”

“I don’t understand it, Nathan!” Sheila was sobbing, rocking the body in her arms. “I was only just talking to her... but she’s dead. She’s dead, Nathan, my best friend, my mate Lisette, she’s dead!”

The woman in Nidaba’s room flung her stack of towels aside. In her hand a dagger gleamed. A dagger with a jewel-bedecked hilt.

Nidaba’s hand shot to her thigh automatically, but her own blade was not there. And the woman who she knew must be a Dark Witch, lifted hers and charged. Nidaba reacted with the instincts of a seasoned warrior. She ducked the blade and grabbed up the nearest weapon she could get her hands on. A water pitcher. Damn! Nearly useless. The blade hissed past as Nidaba lunged to the side. Then she swung the half-filled pitcher as hard as she could, and it slammed into the woman’s head. Water sloshed and splashed everywhere. But neither it nor the force of the blow seemed to faze her attacker, and within seconds Nidaba found her back pressed to the mattress by the weight of the Dark Witch.

Nidaba held the woman’s wrists, fighting to keep the blade away from her own flesh. But she was so weak, and this other—an old immortal, obviously—so strong. Nidaba let go of the woman’s left hand, using both of hers to grip the right one, the one that wielded the blade. The only result was that the evil one’s left hand was free now, to pound and punish. It clawed, it struck, it bruised. And yet Nidaba bore it, focused only on holding the knife’s razor edge away from her body. Her heart!

Her face split and bleeding, her body racked with pain, Nidaba broke out in a cold sweat as she lay there, locked in an endless standoff with the woman. The muscles in her arms quivered and burned with exhaustion as she held fast. Her elbows gave, and she shot them straight again. They weakened, and she forced them firm. They fell... and the blade came down ...

“Noooooooo!”

The sound was a long, drawn-out bellow, like the blast of an infuriated, charging bull. And the next thing Nidaba knew, her attacker was knocked off of her by another body.

Eannatum’s body.

The impact launched the Dark Witch through a nearby window. Glass shattered, and Nidaba jerked her head around. But all she saw was the demolished window. Then her view was blocked by Eannatum’s strong back as he looked outside, down at the ground far below.

“Is she... ?”

He turned, breathless, staring at her. “Gone. Dammit, she’s long gone, whoever she was!”

Nidaba lay still, her entire body shaking with shock, adrenaline, pain, and this damned debilitating weakness.

“Is this how you plan to hasten my recovery, Natum? By placing me in the care of Dark Witches intent on carving out my heart?”

He came to her, and she could see the damage of her own face reflected clearly in the grimace of his. “You’re bleeding.” He hurried into the bathroom and returned seconds later with a basin of water and a cloth. Settling himself on the bed beside her, he gently cleansed each cut, bathed each bruise.

He did not seem at all like the man she knew him to be. The man who had tried to have her killed. Who had ordered the execution of his own son in order to protect his precious throne, his precious kingdom.

Even then she’d doubted he was capable of such an atrocity. Even then. And those doubts had plagued her all this time. The murderers had been his soldiers, his men—men who wouldn’t dare to go against his orders. And yet those doubts lingered.

She turned her head to the side to avoid his ministrations. “It will heal soon enough. Don’t forget what I am.”

“I know full well what you are, Nidaba,” he said, dropping the cloth into the basin and setting both aside. “But the regeneration process has been slowed in you. Probably because of the tranquilizers you were given, and your weakened state.”

“All of which would pass quite quickly if you would stop fussing and simply feed me.”

He thinned his lips. “Come downstairs, then. I don’t dare leave you alone again ... and I have a ... situation to deal with.”

“With a Dark Witch in your house, I would imagine you do.”

He held out a hand, and she merely stared at it.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Nidaba, someone is trying to kill you. Now until you’re back in fighting condition, you’re going to have to trust someone.”

“Someone, perhaps. But you?”

“I just saved your life,” he pointed out. He was still holding out his hand, staring into her eyes.

With a sigh, she took it and let him help her to her feet. “Don’t think that saving my life just now even begins to make things right between us, Eannatum.”

“I am called Nathan King now,” he said, pulling her to her feet.

“Why?”

He lifted his brows. “It’s more in keeping with the times. No one here knows what I am, Nidaba. I would like to keep it that way.”

She sniffed. “No doubt. I would be ashamed too, in your place.” She started toward the door, but when she would have pulled her hand free of his, he tightened his grasp.

“I am not ashamed.”

She glanced back at him, at his blazing eyes as proud as if he were still a mighty king. “You should be.” Then she tossed her head, even though the act made her dizzy. “As for me, I am a Witch. My name is Nidaba. I will not change it, nor will I pretend to be something else, as you do. I am no ordinary mortal, Eannatum. Don’t dare expect me to act like one.”

“Why would I expect that, Nidaba? You didn’t act like one when you were one.”

She looked at him quickly, in search of the smile she heard in his tone. But it was evident only in the slight sparkle of his eyes.

“Do you mock me, Natum?”

He shook his head slowly. “No, Nidaba. I’m just glad to see you haven’t changed all that much.”

“Haven’t I?”

He shrugged. “You still seem to believe you’re as much goddess as woman.” Reaching out, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It was always one of the things I loved best about you.”

She averted her eyes abruptly, and her voice became choked and hoarse. “Please ... don’t use that word when referring to me.”

“What word?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead she moved carefully into the hallway. Her legs buckled, though, causing her to sway and grip the doorjamb. Eannatum slid his arms around her, beneath her, and swept her up off her feet.

“I can walk,” she protested.

“Not unless you’re strong enough to make me put you down,” he said.

She knew she wasn’t, so she let him carry her through the hall and down the stairs, and she tried not to notice how very protective his strong arms felt around her, or how warm and solid his chest was beneath her, or how deep his eyes were when she looked into them from this close.

But she noticed all of that anyway.

He set her down gently in a rocking chair in what seemed to be a library, and called out to someone. Soon enough a giant of a man, wearing a bright orange necktie over a yellow knit sweater came thumping into the room.

“George, this is Nidaba,” Natum said.

George looked at her and his eyes widened. “You’re the lady!”

She felt her brows go up.

“You got better! I knew you would. I told you she would, didn’t I, Nathan? And she did! See?”

“Yes, George, you were right.”

George eyed her steadily. “I’m a nice person,” he said.

“My name is George. Nathan is my friend. Are you going to break my arm?”

Nidaba blinked, tilting her head to one side, and studying him with a hint of amusement. “Of course I’m not going to break your arm,” she said. “Are you going to break mine?”

George shook his head emphatically from side to side. “No way. I promise.”

“Well, then, I suppose we should get along.”

“George,” Nathan said, “did you take Sheila up to her room as I told you?”

“Yeah, I did. But she’s not right, Nathan. She’s all curled up on her bed, and she’s crying something awful. I tried to make her stop, but nothing I said made her feel any better. I never seen Sheila cry before.”

“Neither have I.” Natum pinched the bridge of his nose as if to pinch away some nagging worry.

“I don’t like it, Nathan. I want you to make her stop. What happened in the cellar that would make Sheila cry like that?”

Natum clasped George’s arm, squeezed, and Nidaba saw that the big man was quite like a child. She also saw clearly Natum’s affection for him. “I’m going to explain all of that later, George. For right now, I want you to stay here with Nidaba. I don’t want you to let anyone come near her. You understand?”

“Not even Lisette?” George asked.

“Especially not Lisette.”

“Okay, Nathan.”

Nidaba sighed, about to argue that she needed no protection, but then decided it would carry no weight, since she couldn’t even get down the stairs under her own power. And Natum sent her a glance that was almost ... kind. Warm. “I won’t be long.”

She simply nodded and watched him go.

“So,” she said to George, who had taken a seat beside her, and was staring at her oddly, “who is this... Sheila?”

George smiled. “She’s Nathan’s friend, just like me. She lives here, does the cooking, and takes care of the flowers, and things like that. She’s an awfully good cook, you know.”

“Is she?” So some woman lived here with Natum. Nidaba wondered what that signified, and then wondered why she cared. “I am starving nearly to death. I would love to sample some of her cooking.”

George looked at the floor. “We could... go to the kitchen and get some ... but the cellar door is still open, and I don’t know what happened down there.”

Nidaba frowned. “Something happened in the cellar?”

Nodding, George cast a nervous glance toward the closed library door. “Sheila was down there screaming. And the lights wouldn’t work. And then Nathan went down to see what was wrong. And then he came running back up, pulling Sheila behind him, and he told me to get her to her room, and then he ran up the stairs again. I don’t know what happened. But something sure scared Sheila pretty bad.”

“It scared you too, didn’t it, George?”

He bit his lip and picked at his sweater.

“Maybe we don’t need to go to the kitchen,” Nidaba said, feeling sorry for him. Feeling almost... protective of him, if that wasn’t the strangest thing in the world. It wasn’t like her to go soft over mortals. But this one ... well, he’d touched something inside her. “Isn’t there any food any where else in this house?”

George’s looked up and smiled. “There’s a fruit bowl in the living room!”

“Then let’s go to the living room,” she suggested.

Still grinning, George swooped down on her like the world’s clumsiest hawk, awkwardly lifting her up into the air. When she protested, he said, “Nathan said for you to stay off your feet.” Then he carried her right out of the library, through a formal dining room, and into a wide parlor with a fireplace on one side and exquisite antique furnishings all around.

None of that caught her eye, though. What caught her attention was the painting—larger than life—above the mantel. An image of a woman in the unmistakable white gown and headpiece of a Sumerian High Priestess of Inanna. She stood in the desert, amid ruins of once great towers, with her arms extended up toward the giant moon. Crescent-shaped moonbeams reflected from her black eyes, and a nimbus of light surrounded her. As if she truly were some sort of divine being. “It’s ... me,” she whispered.

“Yeah. I thought so too, but Nathan wouldn’t admit it,” George said, plunking her down into an armchair. He reached out for a bowl of fruit and set it in her lap.

Narrowing her eyes, Nidaba tried to make out the signature that was barely visible in the left corner, hidden within the swirling strands of long black hair. Eventually she saw it. But it was made up of lines in the shape of the old cuneiform script, rather than any modern alphabet, and appeared to the casual observer to be no more than swirls in the blowing sand. But she was no casual observer. The symbols stood for his name: Eannatum.

A scratching sound drew her head around. George leapt to his feet, his face lighting up as he lumbered unevenly toward the closed door.

“George, don’t—” Nidaba began, but even before she could finish the sentence, George was opening the door.

Nidaba tensed ... then relaxed as a beautiful, sleek-coated dog dove through the door, leaping on George, and licking his hands. George fell to his knees, hugging and petting the animal. “Oh, Queenie, I’m so glad you came home!” he said, laughing.

Nidaba couldn’t help but smile at the two of them as she bit into a gleaming red apple. “You mean she’s been missing?”

“I was so afraid she wouldn’t come back!” George said in between laughter, hugging the animal, rolling on the floor with the dog.

Like a little boy and his long lost pup, she thought as she watched them.

Nathan watched her eat.

And he thought that a few days ago he had been leading a placid, calm, even respectable mortal life and had been perfectly content with it. And then, with no more than a glimpse of that face in a blurry newspaper photo, everything had changed. He had broken-and-entered, kidnapped a mental patient, fled the police, and at this moment there was a dead body lying in his basement.

He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do about poor Lisette. Right now, Sheila was upstairs resting, with the help of a double dose of sleeping pills. And George was confused, frightened by all the turmoil, but thankfully distracted from it by the reappearance of his stray. The dog lay underneath the dining table at George’s feet, eagerly but delicately devouring the bits of food George offered.

Nidaba, in stark contrast, wolfed her own meal as if she hadn’t been fed in a month. She didn’t even seem to notice that it consisted of prepackaged frozen foods he’d dug out of the freezer and heated in the microwave, with dehydrated side dishes. The stuff must have been buried in there since his pre-Sheila days. Pseudo fried chicken, instant mashed potatoes, heat-and-serve gravy. He was not untalented in the culinary arts, but he’d been in a hurry. The meal had all the flavor of cardboard, but flavor wasn’t what Nidaba needed. Protein and carbohydrates were. Calories, for energy and the strength to restore her. There were plenty in the food he served her.

As she ate, he could already see the changes taking place: the color, slowly creeping more deeply into her skin; her hair, losing that limp dullness, and coming alive, thickening, shining. The changes were so gradual mortal eyes would likely never notice—not until later, when they might well look twice and wonder when she’d improved so drastically. But his eyes were not mortal. And they saw everything. The way her cheeks began to plump and fill out, the slow fading of the dark circles beneath her eyes, and of the bruises that had just begun to form on her face. The mending of her split lip and the cut in her cheek.

George, thankfully, was oblivious to all of it.

Finally Nidaba seemed to have sated her hunger. She drank two full glasses of water, leaned back in her chair, and looked at him, looking at her. Her arms no longer resembled twigs beneath the white nightgown. Her collarbones no longer protruded so sharply. He let his gaze slide lower, to where her breasts pushed at the buttons on the soft white cotton nightgown as they had not done before, making the fabric pull tight and gape slightly in between. He knew she was aware of his gaze, because of the way those breasts reacted to it—peaks stiffening as if his stare were a physical touch. And he could not help remembering the first time he’d seen them full and healthy, and aroused. For just a moment, he allowed himself the pleasure of exploring that memory. He couldn’t have resisted it even had he wanted to.

Eannatum sat upon the satin pillows in the throne room, which was filled with honored guests come to attend his coronation. Platters of food were heaped on every table. Chalices were filled to overflowing, and the pleasant, excited hum of conversation filled the room. But he was hearing none of it. He had only one thing on his mind.

Nidaba. He had finally made sense of the priestess Lia’s words to him just after his father’s death. She had arranged it so that every High Priestess in the kingdom would come here—so that he would be allowed to choose from among them which one would serve as his lukur. And Nidaba, according to Natum’s dying father, had been elevated to High Priestess status in the faraway land of Mari. By royal command, she had to be here.

She had left him long ago, chosen to serve her Goddess, made him realize he must serve his country. She had broken his heart, and he knew he had broken hers. But he was not the same heartsick boy now. Two years of training with his father’s armies, battling in skirmishes with the Ummamites to prove the new united Sumer equal to the task, had changed him. And now ... now he was her king. And tonight she would serve him, as custom and the law decreed. He could not but help come alive at the prospect. He wouldn’t have been human to do otherwise. He was burning inside. Tomorrow he would marry another, but tonight... tonight he would know the woman he’d wanted for what seemed like his entire life. Tonight, Nidaba would be his.

He had waited as long as he could. All propriety had been observed. He clapped his hands twice, and the din turned to silence. “Begin the dance,” he commanded.

Immediately the musicians began to play. The algar and harp players plucked at their strings in a harmonious and sensual melody while the others kept time with the jangling cadence of the ala and the beat of the drums. One by one, the High Priestesses entered the chamber, cloaked by veils of colorful silk that floated and swirled as they moved. Eannatum’s eyes searched for Nidaba’s among the women who twirled before him. But they were covered well. . . and they kept their eyes respectfully lowered.

Lia retold the tale as the woman danced and twirled.

“Long ago the Queen of Heaven turned her eyes to the Great Below. The Queen of the Great Above did turn her eyes to the Great Below. And so she journeyed there. Inanna, unafraid, peered into the darkness that so frightens us all. Bravely, she journeyed there. And at each of the seven gates, she was stopped by the guardians of the netherworld. Seven times she was stopped by the netherworld gatekeepers. And at each gate, as was the custom, she had to give over one of her garments before she was allowed to pass. For no one carries earthly costumes, nor masks, nor jewels, nor riches, nor titles with them into the land of the dead. The darkness must be entered into naked. With no pretense, no pride. Only the true self. This is what makes visiting there so frightening.”

At Lia’s nod, Natum clapped his hands once, and the first of the seven veils fell away from each woman. The one that had covered their hair. Narrowing his eyes, Natum got to his feet and moved among the dancers, eyeing each one closely. There were twenty women dancing for him. Twenty dropping a second veil, and a third. Twenty hoping to be chosen as the king’s sacred lukur. But only one he wanted.

“Naked, Inanna was brought before her Dark Sister, Ereshkigal. Naked, she had to face her own Dark Sister. Her own dark side. Just as we must each face the darkness within us. But Inanna emerged from the darkness— proving that we can do the same. Meet, embrace, accept, understand, and in the end gain mastery over our own shadow side.”

Natum clapped his hands again, and the fourth veil fell away. Twenty beautiful copper-skinned bodies gyrated for his pleasure. Round, delectable buttocks swung from side to side as he passed. Golden breasts bounced for him, nunuz stones weighing down their swollen tips. Soft bellies, dark eyes ...

Nidaba’s dark eyes.

He stilled when he saw her, and kept his gaze locked only to hers. She didn’t look away, but held his eyes. Her hips rolled toward him, and away, and only three veils remained on her. The one that covered her nose and mouth from his view, the one knotted at her wrist, and the one that hung from the chain of gold at her waist, draping down to cover her center. He didn’t clap his hands. Instead he reached out, and took that veil away from the chain at her waist. Then he held up his hand, and the music and dancing stopped.

The chains of precious stone that dangled from her waist concealed very little of her. Her small waist and large breasts pleased him immensely, as did the unusual length and grace of her arms, and her endless legs. He’d never seen her unclothed before. But he’d known she would be exquisite, and he was not disappointed. And with a flick of his wrist, he tugged the delicate scarf away from her face so he could watch her every expression.

“Turn around,” he told her.

Her eyes widened ever so slightly. But she knew she had no choice here, and she did as her king commanded. She turned.

And he took his time. He let his eyes feast on the long curve of her spine, and the swell of her rounded buttocks, and the slight crease at the base where they met her thighs. He would press his lips to that crease tonight. He saw with some surprise the birthmark she bore. The crescent moon blazed on her thigh. Perhaps it was a sign of divine approval, for he bore the same mark himself.

“Face me,” he told her.

Again, she did as he told her, her eyes defiant but full of fire. And he knew beyond any doubt she was as aroused right now as he was. Though she might have denied it, he could see it there in her eyes. Her chin was high, her stance proud. But her eyes blazed with secret longings, denied desires. He reached up to touch the nunuz stone that dangled from her breast, fingered the stone slowly. Each time it moved he saw the reaction in her eyes, until finally he gave the stone the slightest tug, and heard her suck her breath through her teeth. “This one,” he said at last, catching the veil that was tied to her wrist and pulling her out of the group of priestesses. “This is the priestess who shall be my lukur. Take her to the sacred bedchamber to await the arrival of her king.”

At his nod, his men-at-arms came forward and flanked Nidaba, ready to lead her away. How times had changed, he thought vaguely. Only a generation ago, it would have been the High Priestess doing the choosing. She would have had final say over whether the son of a king was worthy of the throne, and if he fell short of her standards, she would have chosen his replacement.

Now, the reality of the old ways was rapidly fading into symbolic acts with far less meaning, played out to reinforce the image of the king as supreme commander of all within his reach—even the High Priestesses of Inanna.

“Do not forget, my king,” Nidaba said softly, shocking everyone in the throne room by speaking to him without permission at such a formal event. “It will be the Goddess you embrace this night. Not me. Inanna will use my body as her sacred vessel. I myself will have no part to play. But if you displease her, she may very well strike you down.”

He leaned in close, and whispered in her ear, “Do you really believe that is the way it will be, Nidaba?” His cheek brushed over hers. “I do not. But we shall see. Either way, I have no intention of displeasing... the woman I will be with tonight.”

Straightening, he commanded his men. “Go. And remember this is the body of the Goddess you have in your charge. Treat her as such. She is to have anything she desires.”

She turned away from him and marched toward the door like a martyr to the pyre.

“Inanna is an impatient Goddess,” someone said. “Already she lives in this priestess! See how proudly she moves!”

“Fool, don’t you recognize her? She’s the priestess who is half goddess already!”

“They say she has strange powers....”

“Left on the doorstep of the temple by the Goddess Herself...”

The murmuring spread. Nidaba stopped walking and turned to watch, as several bowed their heads in respect when she passed. A look of confusion crossed her features as she met Eannatum’s eyes once more. He placed his right fist in the palm of his left hand and bowed his head. A gesture of deep respect, which he gave willingly, and meant sincerely.

Then everyone in the room followed his example, saluting her, bowing their heads. A frown creased her brow as she turned to go.

“You are staring,” Nidaba said in her deep, rich voice, like honey on his senses.

Nathan blinked and shook himself out of the past. “I was ... remembering. The coronation.” He glanced sideways at George, expecting to see the man there, looking puzzled, but George had gone into the front parlor with his dog, and the two were relaxing near the fire. “When you danced for me,” he said, finally.

Nidaba’s thick lashes came down to veil her gaze. “I was confused when they all began to treat me as if I were the Goddess herself. As if she had already descended into my body.”

He smiled very slowly. “But she had, Nidaba.”

“No. She never did. She turned her face away from me that night. Abandoned me because I did not serve her well.”

“You’re wrong. How have you managed to live so long, and not yet come to understand your own nature? A woman like you, Nidaba, is the Goddess personified. She didn’t need to take over your body. She already lived in you, from the day you were born.”

That same tiny frown he’d seen in the past, marred her brow. He would have said more, but Sheila’s voice, groggy and thick, interrupted him.

“Nathan, what are we goin‘ to do about poor Lisette?”

He stalled for a response even as he hurried to help her to the table. “Come, Sheila. Sit. Are you all right?”

“I slept some,” she said, sniffling, and shuffled her feet as he led her to a chair. Then she sank into it as if boneless.

“Nidaba, this is Sheila. She’s my most trusted friend.”

Nidaba studied the woman, and Nathan thought she looked first relieved at the sight of Sheila and then concerned as she perused Sheila’s wet, red eyes and puffy face. Nidaba glanced at Nathan then, a question in her eyes. “Is she one of—?”

“No.” He said it quickly, not giving her time complete the question.

Nidaba looked doubtful. “That’s what you thought about the other one, you’ll recall.”

“Sheila’s been with me for years. The other one... only a day or two.”

Nidaba sniffed, but eyeing the woman again, seemed to accept his word that Sheila was not a Dark Witch on the hunt.

“It’s good to see you up and around, miss,” Sheila said. “I only wish it had been under better circumstances. Not with death itself breathing down our very necks.” And she shivered as she said it.

“Death?” Nidaba looked from Nathan to Sheila and back again.

“Sheila’s best friend, Lisette, was a nurse,” Nathan explained. “We hired her to come here, to help us care for you.”

Nidaba lifted one brow in regal sarcasm. “Oh? Was she the one who tried to murder me a short while ago?”

“Tried to murder you? I’d like to know how she managed it when she’s been lyin‘ dead in the basement all the afternoon!” Sheila cried, her voice breaking near the end.

“Please,” Nathan said, before Nidaba could respond yet again. “If the two of you will let me speak.” They both fell silent. “Good. Sheila ... Dammit, I don’t know how to say this gently.”

“Say it straight, Nathan. I’m no frail flower, as you know very well by now. Or ought to.”

Drawing a breath, Nathan sighed. “Your friend Lisette has been lying in that basement far longer than you realize. In fact, I suspect she was put there within a few hours of her arrival here.”

“Well, now, don’t be daft, Nathan! She’s been right up here with us, helping to care for your ladyfriend. We’ve both seen her, spoken to her...” Sheila stopped herself when he held up a hand.

“The woman who’s been walking around here with us was an impostor. Someone who killed Lisette and then made herself look just like her in order to fool us.”

“Impossible!” Sheila said. Nidaba, though, remained silent.

“Remember how she lost her voice right after she got here?” Nathan asked. “So she wouldn’t speak above that odd, hoarse whisper? That was because she couldn’t change her voice. Only her appearance, Sheila. If you had heard her speak at full volume, you would have known it wasn’t your friend’s voice.”

Sheila blinked. “But... but... how? She looked—it was no disguise, Nathan. She looked exactly like Lisette. Even a makeup artist couldn’t have done such a convincing job of disguising herself.”

“A glamourie,” Nidaba murmured. “By the Gods, she must be good.”

“A glam ... what?” Sheila rubbed her forehead with two fingers. “I don’t understand any of this! Even if someone could make themselves look that much like Lisette, why would they bother? Why would anyone want to murder her and then impersonate her? It just makes no sense!”

“To try to get to me,” Nidaba said very quietly. “I’m very sorry your friend got caught up in all of this, Sheila. It seems I’ve brought this upon you, and for that... I am deeply sorry.”

Sheila, though, was still shaking her head. “It makes no sense,” she said again. “She looked... she looked exactly ... How could anyone be that convincing?”

Nidaba’s eyes met Nathan’s. Only an immortal High Witch, and a very old one at that, would be likely to have mastered such an art, and Nidaba knew that as well as Nathan did himself. He could see the knowledge there. This enemy they faced could be more powerful than they had first believed.

“What are we going to do with her, Nathan? I... I just... if we call the police ...”

“If we call the police, I’ll be arrested for kidnapping Nidaba, she’ll probably end up back in the mental ward, a sitting duck for this killer, and you’ll in all likelihood get yourself deported. We could both easily end up as suspects in Lisette’s murder, as well. I don’t think that’s what she would want. Do you, Sheila?”

“Well... well, no. I think she would want the person who did this to her caught, and ... and punished.”

“I’ll see to it that they are. I give you my word on that,” he said. “But not if we get the police involved.” Nathan got to his feet, came around the table, and took Sheila’s hands in his. “Did she have any family, Sheila?”

Sheila shook her head. “She was alone. Oh, there may have been a cousin or two, back in Queensland, but aside from that... no. No one.” She met his eyes, and he could see that she understood. Slowly, she nodded. “I want her buried proper, Nathan. Not tossed into a swamp somewhere. She deserves respect. Words said over her. A decent resting place.”

“I’ll see to it,” he promised, lowering his head as a heavy ache settled in his chest. “Trust me.”

Chapter 12

Nidaba stood on the cliffs above the sea, with George on her right and Sheila on her left. The ever present Rottweiler, Queenie, sat at George’s feet, her gaze focused on the tiny boat, just as everyone else’s was. The small craft bobbed and bounded on the waves as Natum rowed further and further out into the sea. The sky beyond him settled to a darker shade of gray, and moments later the little boat was barely visible.

“I can’t see him anymore,” George said, sounding scared to death. And no wonder, with the wind, the darkness, and the knowledge that a killer lurked somewhere near.

Nidaba had realized almost from the first words she had exchanged with the big man that he was a child in a man’s body. Part of him—that innocent part—reminded her painfully of the son she’d had once, long ago. Her Nicodimus.

She automatically closed her hand around George’s larger one and squeezed. “Don’t be afraid, George. He’ll light the lamp in a moment, you’ll see.”

“And we should light ours, as well.” At Nidaba’s other side, Sheila bent down to do just that, then stood, lifting the kerosene lantern so its soft golden glow spilled all around them.

The wind blew in off the sea, and Nidaba’s hair snapped and danced in time with the lantern’s flame. She wore a long black dress she had found in the closet. Eannatum had, Sheila told her, stocked it himself, choosing each item for her personally. This gown, a simple one of some clingy modern fabric, had a scooped neckline and long sleeves that fit her arms snugly. It hugged her body the same way, all the way to her hips. From there it flowed freely to puddle around her feet. A braided cord of silver, gold, and black served as a sash, tied loosely about her waist, the knot dipping lower in front, forming a vee. It was very much like the clothing she had worn of old, except in color. And she felt the tug, the calling of the High Priestess she had been and still was, deep inside. One of her duties had been to comfort the bereaved on occasions such as this one. She had, she realized dully, fallen into her old role with barely a pause.

Finally, in the distance, an answering light appeared on the sea. It rose, ghostlike, then moved slowly from side to side in wide arcs.

“It’s time,” Nidaba said.

Sheila lowered her head in silent prayer, her free hand closing around Nidaba’s, though she may not even have been aware of it. She was not an immortal. Natum had assured her of as much, but Nidaba knew it for certain by her touch. And by her trembling, she knew the woman was in pain.

“Good-bye, dear friend,” Sheila whispered at last.

“Not good-bye,” Nidaba said softly. “She goes into the arms of the Goddess, where she will find comfort and perfect love as she adjusts to her new form. No longer physical as we are, but every bit as alive, every bit as real. Your friend is still with you, Sheila. She lives on. And she’s all right. She truly is.”

Blinking, Sheila turned to Nidaba. “You really believe that?”

“I do. Speak to her, if you need evidence of it. Ask her for a sign.”

Sheila’s face puckered with her frown. But she didn’t speak. She only turned to stare out at the sea as the wind made the lamp flicker.

Nidaba closed her eyes, focused her energies, silently called on the departed soul to send comfort to her friend. As she opened her eyes again, the clouds parted, and the lopsided gibbous moon shone down on the waves for just a moment. Something arched up out of the water, moving gracefully, its skin slick and shining in the moonlight. Then it splashed down again, vanishing beneath the waves.

“Was that... ?” Sheila began.

The creature jumped again, and with a final slap of its tail, submerged.

“It was ... a dolphin,” Sheila said. “But it shouldn’t have been. Not this far north, this late in the season.”

She looked at Nidaba. “What does it mean?”

Nidaba smiled. “You tell me.”

Blinking, Sheila bit her lip, but it didn’t stop the tears. “When we were girls together, in Townsville, in Queensland, we used to go to Halifax Bay and spend hours just watching the dolphins.” She dashed away tears. “When we were sixteen, we bought matchin‘ pendants.” She touched the necklace at her throat, lifting it. And in the glow of the lantern, Nidaba saw the pendant, a tiny silver dolphin with a gleaming topaz eye.

“You’ve had your sign,” Nidaba murmured. “Speak to her, if you wish. She’ll hear you.”

Swallowing hard, Sheila closed her hand around the pendant, and shut her eyes. “I loved you, Lisette, my friend. Like my own sister you were, and are. I’ll cherish your memory always, love.”

“Go in peace,” Nidaba intoned.

She could not see Nathan sliding the lifeless, lovingly wrapped body into the sea. But she sensed it happening. Nathan knew the ocean here. Knew the tides. He hadn’t weighted the dead woman’s body, but instead had placed her into the loving embrace of an outgoing current that would sweep her quickly out into the sea’s forgiving depths.

Sheila sniffled. Nidaba felt a true tug at her heart. These two people who flanked her were, she sensed, very dear to Nathan. It was not difficult to see why. Looking sideways at the woman’s tear-filled eyes, she was moved to speak. No longer in the role of comforting High Priestess, however, but in that of avenging angel. “I promise you, Sheila, the person who killed your friend will pay. I will see to it.”

Looking back at her, Sheila studied her for a long moment, then nodded once. “I do believe you will,” she whispered.

Glancing out to sea, Nidaba saw the tiny golden light of Nathan’s lantern moving slowly, steadily, back toward shore. It was done.

Still holding their hands, Nidaba led the other two away from the shore and back to the house. It would take time for Natum to make his way back to them. Sheila was exhausted, emotionally drained. And George had dealt with far more excitement today than he was used to. They entered the house through the rear door, which led into the kitchen. Nidaba released their hands and went to the stove, rummaging around in search of a pot, and teabags.

“You needn’t do that, now,” Sheila was saying. “You’re the one who’s been so ... so ill. I ought to be fixin‘ tea for you.”

Nidaba offered a smile. “Nonsense. You’ve been waiting on me hand and foot while I’ve been lying like a lump in that bedroom upstairs. But I’m fine now. Better every moment, in fact.”

She saw the doubt in Sheila’s eyes, even as the woman slumped into a kitchen chair. “It truly is amazin‘, how fast you seem to be recovering,” she said.

Nidaba knew she was likely making conversation only to keep from thinking too much about her loss. It was natural, and she was glad to play along. “It was a reaction to the drug they gave me that made me so ill,” Nidaba explained, knowing the woman might still have some lingering doubts about her mental state.

Sheila frowned. “Like ... an allergy, Nathan said.”

“Exactly like that.” Locating the kettle, Nidaba filled it and set it on the burner to heat. “I was given a tranquilizer, and when I reacted the way I did, it was mistaken for a mental breakdown of some kind, and treated with more drugs, which only worsened the reaction.”

Nodding, Sheila sighed. “And that’s why they had you locked up in that hospital. I vow, it must have been horrible for you.”

Nidaba found cups, lined three of them up on the counter, and began opening cupboards in search of tea-bags. “I don’t remember much about it, to be honest. I wasn’t even certain I believed Ean ... er... Nathan when he told me that part.”

“Oh, I can vouch for him on that. I was with him when he first glimpsed your picture in the paper. I thought he was goin‘ to faint dead away, by the look on his face. And I was with him again, the night he took you out of there.”

“You were?”

Sheila rose and came across the room to open yet another cupboard, from which she took a sugar bowl and a canister brimming with assorted teas. “Yes. I was driving the car. I could scarcely believe it was our dear Nathan committing a crime like that in the dead of night, running from the police.”

“I helped too!” George said from the table where he sat.

Cocking her head to one side, Nidaba studied them both. “It seems I am more deeply indebted to you two than I even suspected.”

“Oh, no,” Sheila said quickly, setting the sugar and the tea canister onto a silver tray. “We’d do anything for Nathan. And by the looks of it, he’d do anything for you.”

“Do you really think so?”

Sheila shrugged, turned to the refrigerator and took out the cream. “Well, isn’t it obvious? He’s never had so much as a parking ticket, missy. Not in all the time I’ve known him. He takes great pains not to draw attention to himself and keeps his life so quiet and mundane that it—well, it’s almost tedious. And yet, along you come. Out of the blue. And he turns everything upside down. For the love of heaven, Nidaba, have you not even noticed what he’s out there doin this night? Disposin‘ of a body, of all things!”

Nidaba paused in placing the cups on the tray. “I suppose that’s true. He’s putting himself and his... his mundane lifestyle at great risk by all of this, isn’t he?”

“Ah, now, I didn’t mean to make you feel badly for it.” Sheila patted Nidaba’s hand in a motherly fashion. “It’s what he wants to do. There’s no talkin‘ to Nathan when he sets his mind to something he wants. And I, for one, think he’s doin’ the right thing. It’s you I’m concerned about.”

“Why?” Nidaba picked up the whistling teapot and poured the three cups full of steaming water. Then she lifted the tray and carried it to the table. Sheila followed, taking a seat and helping herself to a cup.

“Well, now, do you remember what happened to cause them to give you the tranquilizer in the first place?”

Nidaba thought back, but only fuzzy bits came. “No. I guess—I think there was an ambulance, but...” She shrugged. “Nathan said something about a fall from a building.”

“They claimed you’d jumped from a rooftop,” Sheila said, dipping her teabag slowly. “Called it a suicide attempt.”

“Um-hmm,” George said, taking a cup himself and adding massive amounts of cream and sugar. “I remember that. Your picture was in the newspaper, and as soon as Nathan saw it, he got all quiet... sad, like.” George stirred his tea rapidly, whipping it with the spoon as if it were pudding, then lifting the spoon out to lick the clinging bits of sugar from it. When he finished he had a wide-eyed look on his face as he said, “Hey, you won’t go jumping off our roof, will you? ‘Cause that might upset the birds.”

“The birds?” Nidaba asked, looking from one of them to the other.

“I keep pigeons up there.” Sheila explained.

“You should go up and see them, Nidaba,” George began, but then he bit his lip. “But not if you think you might want to jump again.”

“Don’t worry, George,” Nidaba said. “I promise you, I won’t do that. I didn’t try to commit suicide before either.”

“You didn’t?” George asked.

“No. I don’t remember what did happen, but I know better than to think that.”

“I’ll wager you had some help off that rooftop, missy,” Sheila exclaimed, her voice deep and angry. “This evil visitor we’ve had—some black-hearted murderess who wants to harm you badly enough to kill my Lisette in order to do it—who’s to say this was the first time she’s tried?”

“Indeed,” Nidaba said. “I only wish I knew for sure.” Small pieces of memory came back to her. A confrontation. Yes. A battle. Her dagger had been in her hand. There had certainly been another immortal on that rooftop with her.

“Bah. How many people have more than one enemy out to do them in?” Sheila asked. “It’s rare enough to have one in a lifetime. Much less two.”

Nidaba sipped her tea. Sheila couldn’t know how far off base she was. Nidaba had lived far more than one lifetime, and she’d crossed blades with countless Dark Witches whose only goal had been to do her in. No matter how many she killed, she knew there were always more to come.

Always.

She sighed, truly tired of the violence of her existence. And for a moment she almost understood why Natum had chosen to live a lie, pretending to be an ordinary mortal. Perhaps the endless violence had been too much for him.

Oh, but what he’d given up to be rid of it. His identity. His nature. His freedom.

“You and Nathan ... you’ve known each other before. In the past. Haven’t you, Nidaba?” Sheila asked.

Meeting her eyes, Nidaba nodded. “Yes. A long time ago.”

“I could tell. It’s a rare kind of thing I see when he looks at you. I’ve seen it in him only once before. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I got up and came wanderin‘ down the stairs. He stood there, all alone in the dark, nothin’ but the moonlight flooding through the windows. He stood there, just staring up at the portrait that hangs above the hearth, and the way the moon lit it from above. And I vow, there were tears on his cheeks.”

Nidaba opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.

“I thought that might be something you ought to know,” Sheila said with a sigh. “I’m goin‘ on up to bed now, love. Thank you for helpin’ me through this difficult night.” She patted Nidaba’s hand. “And you truly did help, you know. You truly did.”

“It was true, what I told you out there at the cliffs,” she assured the older woman. “Your friend is still alive, just in a different way.”

She nodded. “I believe it. I do.”

“Take a sleeping pill,” Nidaba advised, but her voice was choked and barely audible. “The rest will do you good.”

Sheila nodded, leaving the room, and Nidaba turned to George. “You may as well go to bed too,” she said. “You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“I’ll wait for Nathan,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you alone. What if that bad lady comes back?”

Nidaba looked around, spotted the dog lying at George’s feet. “You can leave your dog—what do you call her?”

“Queenie,” George said proudly.

“Well, you can leave Queenie here to protect me. She certainly looks up to the job.”

“Oh, she is! She’s the best,” George said. He got out of his chair and crouched near the dog’s head, stroking her muzzle. “You hear that, Queenie? You have to stay here and watch out for Miss Nidaba. Okay?”

The dog didn’t quite nod, but it was close.

“Good girl,” George praised. Then he drank the last of his tea, which was, Nidaba guessed, two-thirds cream and sugar. He set the cup down again. “Good night, Nidaba.”

“Good night, George,” she said. She watched him go, sipping her tea and trying hard not to hear Sheila’s words about Natum echoing in her mind. But they echoed anyway.

To distract herself, Nidaba stared at the dog, who stared right back at her. It really was a beautiful creature, with broad shoulders, and a wide powerful chest. Feet like a bear, and a wide, untapered muzzle. She weighed close to a hundred pounds, or a bit less, and Nidaba imagined that if she turned on an intruder, she’d tear him to shreds in minutes. If she were so inclined.

The dog rose and walked toward Nidaba, her eyes piercing. The hair on the back of her neck bristled upward, and a low, menacing growl came from deep in the beast’s massive chest.

Nidaba blinked, and got to her feet, taking a step backward. “What is it, Queenie? What’s wrong with you?”

The growl got louder as the dog crept closer, half crouching now as if she would spring.

“There, now,” Nidaba said, backing further away, edging toward the door behind her. “Don’t you remember me? I thought we were going to be friends ...”

The door opened before she ever reached it. The growling ceased, and the dog eased her stance instantly. She looked up even as Nidaba turned around. And when the dog saw Nathan standing there, she seemed to relax.

Then she turned and trotted away in the direction George had gone.

Nidaba still had one hand pressed to her chest. “By the Gods, I thought the beast was going to eat me alive.”

Frowning, Nathan came forward, shrugging off his peacoat on the way. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She sighed, feeling a bit sheepish. “George told the dog to guard me. I guess the beast understands far more than I realized. She must have heard you coming before I did. She got all wrought up.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised, staring after the dog. “She’s never acted at all menacing before.”

“Well, she certainly did just now.” Nidaba shrugged. “Maybe she senses the danger in the air. That’s the only explanation I can think of. Once she saw it was only you at the door, she was fine again.”

Nathan rubbed a hand over his chin. “Might not be such a bad idea to have a dog like that around the place.”

“No, I suppose not.”

He came closer and placed his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching her face. “It frightened you, though. You’ve had a hellish day, haven’t you?”

Lowering her gaze from the probing power of his, she said, “I’ve had worse.”

“I know you have.”

Drawing a breath, he released her. He fetched down another cup and poured himself some tea. “I think it’s time we talked, you and I. Don’t you?”

“I suppose it’s inevitable that we do so sooner or later.”

“Come on. We’ll go out onto the veranda where no prying ears will hear too much.” He took her arm and led her back through the dining room, into the front parlor, toward the library off to one side. But she stopped him and turning, stared up at the portrait above the mantel.

“Do you like it?” he asked her.

She couldn’t quite manage to look at him as she asked, “Why did you paint it, Natum?”

He stood motionless. “I was afraid I might... forget you. Your face. Your eyes. I was wrong, of course, but. ..”

She finally turned to him, but he shrugged and looked away.

The veranda was through a set of French doors in the library. It was simply a cement pad, rounded and extending from the edge of the house. A railing surrounded it, and it sported a glass-topped umbrella-shaded table at its center and benches on its sides. Natum walked past the table, stopping beside the bench farthest from the house. He stood until she sat. Then he sat down beside her.

He stared at her for a long moment, and finally said, “I hardly know where to begin. At the beginning?”

“Begin at the end,” she said. “The beginning is too long ago to be important to us now.”

“Not for me, Nidaba. The beginning was long ago, yes. And it’s painful as hell to revisit. But to me, it’s very important. Maybe ... the most important part of my life.”

She turned her head away.

“Nidaba, we have to talk about what happened between us back then,” he said, touching her face, turning her to face him again. “Please.”

Her eyes burned with unshed tears. “If you pound a nail into the heart of a sapling tree, it bleeds. It hurts, and it bleeds, but it survives. It lives and it grows. Layer upon layer, year upon year, until that nail is so deeply buried that it’s invisible. Oh, the tree knows it’s there. It’s still piercing the heart, after all. It’s still painful. But to remove it after so much time—don’t you see? It’s not possible. Not without cutting the tree down. Not without killing it.”

“No. You’re wrong—”

“You put this nail in my heart long ago, Eannatum. It has healed over. Don’t try to pull it out, because you’ll only start the bleeding anew. Leave it. Just leave it.”

“You are the one who left me.”

“You are the one who married her.”

He clenched his jaw. “I had no choice. You were the one who made me realize that.”

“I know,” she said, about to argue that he did have a choice. He could have chosen her over his throne. A secret part of her had wanted him to do just that. To throw it all away just to be with her. Foolish, foolish notion. But why rake over these old ashes again? She sighed, met his eyes. “It would never have worked between us, at any rate, Natum. You obviously see things far differently from the way I do. I cherish my freedom, relish my immortality, and live fully within it. While you confine yourself, hide what you are, live as mortal.”

“I’m as free as any man. I live this way because I choose to.”

She shook her head. “You’re a prisoner, Natum. And this house is your prison, and this persona you’ve created, this Nathan King, is your jailer. It’s the same as before, don’t you see? Only then the prison cell was a gilded palace, a royal throne. Duty was your jailer then.”

“I don’t see it that way, Nidaba.”

“No, of course you don’t.”

“If you’d let me explain ...”

“I do not care. It doesn’t matter now, Eannatum. In fact, all that matters just now is the enemy who has found me here. The one who is trying to kill me.”

Nathan drew a deep breath. “I think I know who it is,” he said at length.

“Do you?”

“Yes. There was a woman here, looking for you. An immortal—I never touched her, but I sensed it. She claimed to be a friend.”

“I have no friends.”

“I thought as much. She said her name was Arianna. Arianna Sinclair-Lachlan.”

Nidaba’s head came up quickly. In her mind’s eye, she saw her son. Nicodimus ... and the young woman Nidaba had long blamed for his death. Her memory of the past year seemed to clarify all at once, flashing into place so brightly it was nearly blinding. Suddenly everything made perfect sense.

She had lost her son—twice—but a year ago, she had found him again. Alive, immortal, wonderful...

“Nicodimus,” she whispered, her heart quaking at his name, tears brimming. How could she have forgotten? He wasn’t dead. He lived!

“Nidaba? Is something wrong?”

She looked up at him quickly, confusion making her hesitate. Nicodimus was this man’s son. Eannatum’s son. And yet... did she dare tell Natum that he lived? He’d had the boy killed once before ...

He couldn ‘t have!

But what if he did? And even if he didn’t, she couldn’t risk Nicky’s being dragged into this situation with her. Not now. Not yet. She could end up losing him yet again, to the blade of this Dark Witch, whoever the hell she might be.

If Natum knew his son was alive, he might not be willing to wait to contact him. And if he knew Arianna was a friend—Nidaba’s daughter-in-law, in fact—he might contact her as well. No. She must wait. Bide her time. Make very, very sure it was the right thing to do before she confessed any of this to Natum.

Her heart doubted he had ever done anything to deliberately harm his own child. But her mind wasn’t as certain. Not even for Natum would she place Nicodimus in harm’s way.

A hand brushed her face. “Are you all right?”

Staring into his eyes, she nodded. “Yes. Please, go on.”

“All right. Nidaba... for any Dark Witch to be this gifted at casting a glamour, she must be very old. Very powerful.”

Nidaba lifted her chin, shaking off the remnants of her overwhelming emotions. She felt stronger now that she had remembered finding her beloved son again. “So am I,” she said.

“But you’re in a weakened state.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “A good night’s sleep, another solid meal, and I’ll be back to one hundred percent. I’m nearly there now.”

“Still...”

“Eannatum, I need a dagger. They must have taken mine from me at that hospital. And I do not wish to face this bitch alone unarmed again.”

For the first time in their entire conversation, Natum smiled slightly. “Changing the subject, Nidaba?”

“No.” Sitting straighter, lifting her chin, she said, “I do want to talk to you about the past. About... all of it.” More than that, she wanted him to tell her he was totally innocent in the attack on her and her son. And she wanted to believe him when he did. “But don’t you think we need to focus first on keeping our hearts in our chests where they belong? We’ll talk, Natum. Soon. And I will listen to what you have to say to me. I promise you that. But right now, I need ...”

“Some time?” he asked.

She frowned at him. “A blade,” she told him.

He blew a sigh, shook his head. “You always have had a one-track mind.”

“A blade, dammit.”

“All right, all right. Come on, come with me.” He held out his hand, and Nidaba took it. Then Natum looked down, and she did too, at his large, strong hand enveloping her smaller one. He closed his eyes briefly, as if touching her were almost painfully sweet.

There were so many things he wanted to ask her. He knew she’d borne a child—but he had never been sure if that child had been his, or what had truly become of the boy. And he never knew exactly what had happened the night Nidaba and her son had allegedly perished in a terrible fire.

Not in all these years.

But the pain that came into her eyes at the merest mention of that time was too much for him to bear. So he told himself he could wait to learn all of those things. He could wait. Until she was ready to speak of them.

He put her into his car and drove into Boston, to his gallery, which he hadn’t opened since she’d returned to his life.

“What is this place?” she asked when he unlocked the door and took her inside.

“It’s my business, Nidaba. I buy and sell antiquities. And, um ... my most private collection is here. Though I never display it. I keep it here because the security is far superior to that at home. Come.” He led her through the gallery, with its swords and shields from various eras displayed on the walls. Pottery and statues lined every shelf. Tapestries and cloaks were arranged on the walls.

Glass cases held chalices and spears and golden coins from civilizations long dead.

In the private display area, the small alcove he’d created for his eyes alone, were cylinder seals from the land of Sumer—one of them the very seal of the once great king, Eannatum.

His eyes stung a bit each time he visited this area, and more so this time, for Nidaba pulled him to a stop. “By the Gods, Natum,” she whispered. Her fingers dragged across the face of the glass case, where slabs of cuneiform tablets stood on display stands, where headdresses and jewelry from days long forgotten decorated lifeless mannequin heads.

“It’s .. .just memories. That’s all,” he whispered.

“But... but Eannatum, the lilis drum. It’s one that was played in your own palace! And the headdress ...”

He watched her eyes widen. “Is the one you wore when you danced for me. And the lapis lazuli necklace as well. Yours, Nidaba. I preserved them as perfectly as I could. And if you ... when you leave here, you may take them with you.”

Were those tears brimming in her eyes?

“You kept them—all this time...”

“They were all I had left of you. They and... and this.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the small bit of stone, worn with age, into which she’d carved his name, and hers, and the symbol for eternity.

Nidaba looked at it. Then at him. “This is the piece I made for you, to celebrate your initiation.”

He nodded. “You gave it to me when we did the rite by the river, and filled the Euphrates with fish. My first act of magick, Nidaba. A time—and a friend—I could never forget.”

Blinking, she averted her eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve kept it all this time.”

“Come.” He replaced the stone in his pocket, closed his hand around hers, and led her to his office in the back, unlocking the door, and flicking on a light. Then he turned yet another key. This lock was hidden within the woodwork of a wall-sized bookcase. Only it wasn’t really a bookcase at all. It was a sliding door that concealed another glass case, this one with his collection of daggers mounted inside. Dozens of them. It covered one entire wall of his office.

“Where did you get them all?” Nidaba breathed.

“Immortals. Light Witches who were murdered. Dark Witches I had to kill. I suppose ”immortal“ isn’t exactly the word we ought to use to describe ourselves, is it? Not when every dagger in this case represents one who has died.”

“Not died,” she muttered. “Only moved on. Even mortals are immortal, Natum.” She walked along in front of the case, examining the blades. Double-edged, single-edged, serrated and curved. Long and short. Handles of wood, bone, iron. All decorated with jewels. Sapphires, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, every stone imaginable in every possible combination and arrangement.

“Take whichever one pleases you. Hell, take several if you want them.”

“I couldn’t—”

“You know perfectly well you could. And you will.” He watched her face as she tried very hard to conceal her delight. “You don’t fool me, you know,” he said. “You’ve always loved beautiful things. Jewels. Baubles. Enjoy this. Let me enjoy giving you pleasure, just this once.”

She met his eyes, and hers were smoky and dark. “Giving me pleasure would take far more than a glittery gift, Eannatum.”

His blood heated at the double meaning of her remark, the teasing warmth in her eyes. She was a heartless tease, just as she had always been. “We’ll get to that,” he promised her, leaning close. And when she didn’t push him away, he brushed his mouth lightly over hers, lips apart, his breath fanning her.

Her breath stuttered, stopped, and her eyes fell closed expectantly. So he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her to him, and closed his mouth more completely over hers. He felt her lips part in invitation, and he slid his tongue between them in reply. He tasted her. Gods, he hadn’t tasted her in so long!

Fire blazed between them, as it always had. The physical response when they touched, when they kissed had always been explosive, and that hadn’t changed. His blood rushed and his heart pounded. Her hips arched against him, rubbing his erection to a state of painful need. His hands closed on her buttocks, tugging her harder to him, and he thrust his tongue deeper, drinking from her mouth the way he wanted to drink from every part of her.

Finally, he lifted his head, and stared down into her sparkling eyes.

And she blinked, then closed them, and turned away. “What in the names of the Gods am I doing?”

“Nidaba?”

“How could I?” She faced him again, tears brimming in her eyes. “I will not love you, Eannatum. I swear I will not love you again.”

Gods, that she could still hate him this much simply because he had married another. “What I did, I did for my country, Nidaba. For Lagash. For all of Sumer.”

Her face went stony and cold. “Then you admit it?”

“What is there to admit? I did it. You know I did it. And it was a sin against my own heart, Nidaba, and against you—one I have paid for ever since.” Frustrated, Nathan sighed and paced away. “Choose a dagger,” he told her. “You need to be armed.”

“If you gift me with one of these blades, Eannatum, I’ll likely use it to cut out your heart.”

Spinning to face her again, he said, “All of this venom! All of this hatred, simply because I wed another woman to avoid a war that would have destroyed us all?”

She frowned fiercely. “No! For the love of the Gods, Eannatum, marrying Puabi has nothing to do with my anger at you! Are you so blind you do not realize that?”

“Well, what, then? What, tell me, am I guilty of doing to so wrong you that you would continue to hate me after four millennia?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Eannatum, your soldiers hunted me down. Under your orders, they hounded me for years, until they finally caught up to me.”

“I sent them after you because I couldn’t bear to live without you, Nidaba! I wanted them to bring you back to me.”

She shook her head very slowly. “And I was gullible enough and deeply enough in love to believe that, Natum. Until they finally caught up to me. Attacked me. They tried to murder me, Eanntuam. And they did murder my son.”

She lifted her head, met his eyes. “Our son.”

Chapter 13

He stood there staring at her, struck motionless by what she had said. “Our son?”

Swallowing hard, she nodded.

“And for this, you held me responsible?”

She turned away from him.

He caught her shoulders and turned her back. “Tell me. Tell me you honestly believe I could have ordered such a thing.”

She couldn’t even seem to look him in the eye. “I don’t know what I believed. You chose Puabi over me. Your kingdom over me. Even when the threat had ended, you remained with her. I thought I knew the power of your love for me, Natum. I thought it was more powerful than anything in the world. And I knew that if you would give me up for the sake of your kingdom, there could not be many other things you wouldn’t do for its sake as well.”

Stunned, he released her, cut to the bone.

“An illegitimate son with a claim to the throne would have been a far greater threat to the well-being of Sumer than an affair with a temple priestess ever could have been,” she said, driving the blade of her words straight through his heart.

He couldn’t speak to her. He was so angry he was trembling with it.

She looked into his eyes, and when she did, she went pale.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, almost too furious to think. “I don’t even know what to say to you.”

Her face changed, regret swimming in her eyes, but he held up a hand, saying nothing. Instead, he reached into the glass case, drew out a gold-handled Sumerian dagger and its leather sheath. He handed it to her, closed and locked the case, and strode back through the building, out the front to his car, vaguely aware that she followed. He drove her back to the house, all without uttering a word.

He didn’t dare speak. He’d have cursed her, he’d have lashed out and cut her to the quick the way she had cut him. Only when they returned to the house and he’d battled his fury into some semblance of submission did he dare to speak at all. He stopped her on the way inside. “Wait. We need to finish this.”

But then the front door was flung open, and George stood there, waving his hands. “Nathan! Nathan, come, please! Sheila’s crying in her sleep and I can’t make her wake up!”

“Dammit, George, not now.” Nathan gripped Nidaba’s shoulders, but she shook her head, and her face remained stony.

“Go. See to Sheila.” She strode into the house ahead of him.

He followed on her heels, having to push past George to do so. “The hell I will! Damn you, Nidaba. I’m angry as hell at you right now. You’ve got no right to accuse me of something that vile. All I ever did was love you, and I think you know that. Whatever you think happened—no, by the Gods no. You can’t believe any of that. You can’t. You don’t.”

A crash came from upstairs, causing them both to look up sharply. Nathan sighed. Sheila was no doubt thrashing in the grip of some nightmare. She’d stopped having them six months after coming to live with him and George, but apparently they’d come back full force. No wonder, considering recent events in this house.

“Go,” Nidaba said, her voice deep, her tone firm. “This discussion has waited a long time. It can wait a bit longer.”

“Not a hell of a lot longer, it can’t. And it won’t.” He had to go. But dammit, he didn’t want to. “Come along, then,” he said to Nidaba. “I’m not leaving you down here alone with this maniac on the loose.”

“I won’t argue with you.” She preceded him and George and the lumbering, ever attentive dog through the house and up the stairs. But she stopped at the master suite’s door and said, “I need to get some rest if I’m to be fully recovered any time soon. If there is anything I can do for Sheila, don’t hesitate to come for me. Otherwise, though, I... would prefer not to be disturbed tonight.”

She didn’t wait for his argument, though she had to know it was coming. Instead she just went inside and closed the door on the dog that tried to follow.

Nathan grated his teeth and stalked along the hall to Sheila’s room.

Nidaba closed the bedroom door behind her, leaned back against it, and covered her face with her hands. She knew, deep down in her heart, what the truth was. She had always known. But Gods, the pain had been so much easier to bear when she’d had someone to hate. Someone to blame.

He’d scorned her, chosen another woman and his royal duty over her. She had no one to blame for that but herself—she knew that. She was the one who’d convinced Natum what his duty was. But she couldn’t accept that, and so she had punished him by pretending to believe him capable of the most vile crime imaginable. She may even have fooled herself into thinking she truly did believe that of him. But she knew now that she never had. She never had.

Natum had seemed truly shocked by her revelation, that her child, her Nicodimus, had been his own son. Perhaps he hadn’t even known that much for certain. And yet his soldiers had hunted her endlessly, tirelessly, for years on end. And when they had finally found her...

She didn’t want to go back to believing Eannatum’s love had been real. Not when it had hurt her so to trust him with her heart, only to have it broken time and time again!

She heaved a sigh, swiped angrily at her eyes. She was too tired to contemplate it right now. Her body, still weakened, needed sleep to heal. Nidaba couldn’t have fought it had she tried.

No more than she could fight the dream ... the memory, so vivid and fresh.

She waited in the sacred bedchamber—a special room on the uppermost level of the palace. Small it was, but lined with silk pillows and spreads in rich jewel tones. Deep green and scarlet and midnight blue. Censers burned with sacred herbs, and a hundred candle flames danced, lighting the room with a soft illumination that was alive and ever-changing. As she picked her way between the pillows and spreads, it seemed she walked among a dozen living shadows that danced around her in celebration. She breathed the incense smoke, and tasted the other fragrances. Fruit and flowers. The table on the far of end of the room had no room for anything more. The most prized fruits in all of Sumer filled golden bowls to overflowing. Wine jugs and jeweled chalices stood at the ready. And blossoms littered every bit of space in between.

At the very center of the table stood a small stone image of the Goddess Inanna. She who would come to inhabit Nidaba’s body this night. It was good, Nidaba thought. She would likely not even remember what transpired. She would likely not even feel it, or be aware of his touch ... his kiss ...

Something clenched tight in her belly.

She had no one to ask. The previous king’s lukur was an elderwoman, an honored crone, living in a palace all her own in the mountains to the north. There had been no time to travel there, to consult with her. And no other woman alive had experienced this rite.

Kneeling before the image of the Goddess, Nidaba breathed deeply, slowly, filling her lungs with the sacred smoke and emptying her mind. Softly, she began to chant. “Inanna me en, Inanna me en, Inanna me en. Uta am i i ki. ”

Over and over she spoke the words until they became a litany in her mind, running together, and making no sense. She lifted her arms to her sides, and upward, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes. She waited for the Goddess to fill her.

“Nidaba,” Eannatum said softly.

Her eyes opened. Slowly she lowered her arms and turned her head to see him standing there. The door was closed tightly behind him. His dark eyes gleamed in the candlelight. He came closer, and she wanted to tell him to stop. To warn him that she was not yet ready, that she was still Nidaba—not miraculously transformed into the Queen of Heaven. And yet to do that would be to admit that she had failed.

And even had she been willing to confess it to him, she couldn’t. She couldn’t form a word to save her life. His gaze moved freely over her barely clothed body, and she burned with wanting him as she had wanted him for most of her life.

She loved this man.

He came to her, standing while she knelt, and slowly stroked his hands over her hair. “So long, Nidaba. So long I have waited for this.”

She shut her eyes at his touch, wondered why if he wanted her so badly, he had not come for her, even though it would have spelled disaster for everyone else in Sumer.

But it didn’t matter. Suddenly none of that mattered. He was hers tonight, not Puabi’s. He was hers. And she was utterly his. She leaned forward, and pressed her lips to the hard bulge between his legs, with only the royal robes between his flesh and hers. “My king,” she whispered.

His fingers clenched in her hair, and he closed his eyes.

Nidaba rose slowly to her feet and stood before him. “The dance,” she said softly. “Was it pleasing to you?”

“You were pleasing to me. I saw no others.” His eyes opened, skimming her from head to toe. “This ...” He lifted a hand, ran his fingers over her belly and the chain wrapped around her waist, with its dangling curtain of precious stones. “Is it heavy? Uncomfortable?”

“The metal is cold... or perhaps it is my flesh that is warm.”

He lifted his gaze to lock with hers. His hands, though, remained at her waist, and he fumbled with the clasp, found its release, opened it. Then he slowly took the girdle of stones away, letting it fall with a jangling sound into the nest of pillows on the floor. “Better?”

“Yes. Better.”

His eyes roamed down her body, all but naked to his hungry gaze. Everywhere he let that gaze linger, her skin seemed to heat, and tingle. “Yes,” he said. “Much better.” He reached out to the nunuz stones that dangled from the tips of her breasts, stroked them slowly, then set them to swinging with a flick of his fingers. “And these? Are they unpleasant?”

The tiny clamps bit into her nipples with minimal pressure... but the weight of the stones tugged with every swing, every touch. “They pinch only a little. And their weight pulls somewhat. Though it is not... unpleasant, exactly.”

“No. Not exactly.” His smile was slight. He reached up and gently removed the stones from her breasts, but he didn’t toss them aside as he had done with the girdle. Instead he tucked the clamps into some hidden place within his royal robes.

Sensation rushed into her nipples, where before the flow of blood had been pinched off. They throbbed and burned. He kept his eyes focused on her there, and she saw the blatant desire in them. Lifting his hands again, he cupped her breasts, running his calloused thumbs over her nipples repeatedly. The flicking motion over those sensitized peaks made her bite her lip to keep from crying out loud.

Frowning, Eannatum took his hands away. “You feel... sticky.”

“It was part of the preparation,” she said. “I was painted with honeyed wine for you.”

His gaze snapped to hers, widening, blazing. “Well, now...”

Hands closing on her waist he lifted her, setting her on the edge of the table, knocking bowls of fruit aside. Flower petals were her cushion. Standing back, examining her at his leisure, Eannatum lowered his head, and she knew what he would do even before his tongue snaked out to taste her breast. “Mmm,” he said, and then licked again. He caught the peak in his lips and suckled her. He took her nipple into his mouth and drew hard on it, flicking his tongue over the very tip as he sucked hungrily at her. He licked her breast clean, and continued even then, nipping with his teeth and pulling at her as if he would devour her whole.

Nidaba felt sensations she had never felt before. A sharp pleasure such as she had never imagined tingled through her. It bordered on pain and intensified unbearably when he bit down. Then he moved to the other breast, and devoured it even more frantically. And while he fed at it, he caught the other in his hand, drew his fingers together at the tip and pinched her deliciously. She braced her hands on the table behind her, let her head fall backward as her body clenched and tightened and liquified low in her belly. She arched her back and whimpered and he responded by exerting still more pressure with his fingers and his teeth.

Eannatum drew his head away then, looking into her eyes. He leaned down, kissed her long and deeply, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and lapping it as if it tasted as sweet to him as her honeyed nipples had done. She could taste the honey and wine on his tongue.

Then he straightened away and his hands crept up to her breasts again. She sucked in a breath of surprise when she felt the bite of the clamps closing once more on her nipples. The teeth felt sharper than before, their grip tighter now that those tender crests were stiff and throbbing. A cry was wrung from her.

And Eannatum whispered, “Trust me, Nidaba.” Then he knelt, his hands pressing to her thighs, shoving them wide, and exposing her very center to his probing eyes. With his fingers, he parted her folds. Then he touched her, fondled her there in her most private places. He even thrust his long finger inside her, then drew it slowly out again. He brought it to his lips, tasted it. “Mmm, just as I thought. More honey.”

Before she could know what he intended, he pressed her thighs wider, and buried his face between her legs. His lips, then his tongue, swept over her, flicking, licking, stroking. He licked up inside her, seeking every drop of the honeyed wine with which she’d been coated. And he laved her in places where the eunuch’s brush had never dared touch.

Nidaba fell backward on the table, tipping fruit bowls over and sending their contents helter-skelter. She twisted and writhed while he fed at her. And then he found the tiny kernel of her most frenzied need and sucked at it, stabbed at it with his tongue, bit at it with his teeth. And she felt as if her body would shake itself to pieces. His hands came up then, caught the nunuz stones, and as his mouth worked her even more hungrily, he tugged on them. The clamps pulled painfully at her nipples, stretching them, biting deeply, and his teeth closed on that pulsing nub at her center. And her body shattered in screaming, trembling release. She cried his name, shuddered uncontrollably, and finally pushed him away from her, panting and sweating.

Natum gathered her into his arms, though, and carried her to the cushions on the floor. He lowered her into them and again took the stones from her breasts, tossing them aside this time. As she lay there, shaking, breathless, shattered, he removed his robes.

And she saw him, looking more God than man, and more king then he had in his crown and royal vestments. “Eannatum,” she whispered, “what is this magic between us?”

“This is what is meant to be,” he told her. “What will be, from now on. I’ll not let you leave me again, Nidaba. Not ever. Not now.” He knelt over her, cupping her face in his hands. “I love you.”

“I am a High Priestess,” she whispered.

“And I am a king. But I love you, Nidaba.” He lowered himself atop her, and she opened to him in an instinct born of nature. When he nudged himself inside her, he did so slowly, gently, kissing her face, and her neck and shoulders, whispering love words to her the entire time. She felt stretched as her body accepted his, then pain flared through her when he pressed past her maiden’s barrier. She bit her lip, but it was brief, that stab of pain. And then he was moving gently, slowly, in a rhythm that made her body respond. That made her hips begin to move in answer to his call. That made the fire in her belly flare up anew. And soon she was clutching him to her while he fed at her mouth. She moved to a faster pace, and he followed. His hands slid beneath her then, closing on her buttocks and holding her to him as he thrust deeper inside her than before. And finally, his powerful movements sent her again into spasms of ecstasy. Only this time, she did not go alone. This time she felt the answering tremors racking his muscled frame. She heard that pained pleasure in his low moaning of her name. He filled her ... and she embraced him. And then he relaxed bit by bit, slowly rolling to the side and folding her into his strong arms.

He held her for a long time, and finally, his voice still hoarse, he asked her, “Nidaba, why did you leave me in the dead of night the way you did?”

She frowned, lifting her head from his chest, and staring into his black, moist eyes. “Why does it matter? It was what was necessary. We both came to realize it, didn’t we?”

He didn’t reply to that. Perhaps he’d changed his mind, then? Hope flared in her breast, but she went on. “They told me you wished to marry Puabi, and do your duty as king. They told me you regretted your promise to me, but were too noble to break your vow. That you would wed me, only because you could not hurt me by refusing to do so, but that it was not what you wanted. And they made it clear I had no choice but to leave Lagash, to give you a way out. They even implied that Lia would pay the price should I disobey.”

As she spoke he sat up, staring down at her in horror. “Who told you these things?”

She lowered her eyes. “Your father, Eannatum. The king told me. And Lathor. And even Lia.” She felt her heart break again, and tears surged into her eyes. “I’d have doubted the others, but Lia—I knew she would not lie to me—or not unless her very life depended on it.”

“By the eyes of the Gods,” he said softly. “They did lie to you, Nidaba. And to me as well. I knew nothing of any of it. I told my father I would wed you and none other. And the next day you were gone, and I had only a stone tablet, its markings in your hand, telling me you had decided to serve your Goddess rather than your heart.”

She blinked up at him. “You mean ... you didn’t want me to go?”

“I wanted you to be my queen.” He pulled her to him, cradled her in his powerful arms as if he would never let her go. “And by the time I found you, you’d already taken your initiation as a priestess. Sworn to remain unwed. To break such a vow ...”

“It would be death, Eannatum,” she told him. “I would be stoned for such an offense.” She kissed his strong neck, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “But it doesn’t matter. We did what we did for the good of Sumer. Even if we were tricked into it, at first, we soon saw that it was the only way. And now, you ... you are about to wed another. You have your queen.”

“A woman I barely know!” he snapped.

“Oh, come now, Eannatum. You journeyed to Ur, you met the woman. The arrangements have been made. I have heard of the passionate Princess Puabi. Do not tell me her embrace left you cold.”

“Her embrace only left me wishing it were yours,” he told her fiercely, his voice coarse with passion.

“On the morrow,” Nidaba whispered, “your queen will arrive at her new home. You will speak your vows to her. It will be her bed you share. Her face you see in the morning.... There is no place for me in your life now, Eannatum.”

“I won’t let you go,” he said. “Nidaba, please, please don’t do this. Don’t leave me again. I cannot live if you do.”

Sitting back from him, she searched his face. “What would you have me do?”

“Stay. I’ll make you High Priestess of the temple here. And send Lia to take your place in the temple at Mari.”

Shaking her head sadly, she sighed. “I would have to see you with your new bride every day if I stayed here, Natum. It would surely kill me.”

“No. No, it will not kill you, Nidaba, because you are strong and fierce. And you will know it’s you I love, not Puabi. You will know that every moment I spend with her, I wish for you. And you will know that every night, under the cover of darkness, I will come to your arms, not hers. In our secret places, we will be together. I know it is not enough. I know you deserve a great deal more. But it is all we have.”

She closed her eyes. “And what of Puabi? Would her heart not be wounded by this?”

“Puabi knows I’ll never love her. Our marriage is a treaty. A pact between city-states and every bit as cold as one.”

Nidaba said, “You’ll need to produce an heir with her.”

“Perhaps. In time.” He caught her face between his palms. “The king of Sumer may have any woman he desires. By law and divine right! It has always been so. Puabi knows this, and she knows too that I love another. She agreed to this arrangement with the truth presented to her. Fidelity was not a part of our agreement. And you know full well it is not forbidden for a priestess to love, only to marry. Nidaba, I thought I could live without you for the good of Sumer. I’ve found that I cannot. It’s not possible. Please, stay with me.”

She bit her lip, searching his eyes. “I may not be as strong as you think I am, Eannatum. But I do love you. More than my own heart, or my own soul.”

“Then .. . then you’ll stay?”

“I will try. That’s all I can promise. To try. And we must be discreet. Legal or not, acceptable or not, nature is nature, Natum. I’ll not be the cause of another woman’s pain.”

He pulled her securely against him, kissed her gently. “We’ll find our happiness, Nidaba. I promise you we will.”

But she knew even then that she would find only misery in being his mistress. His concubine. Only misery.

She couldn’t have guessed, though, just how much.

* * *

It was no less than an hour before Sheila talked herself out, took another pill, and fell back into a troubled, restless sleep. After tucking her in, Nathan finally dragged himself back to the master suite, walked into his bedroom, and saw the door to the adjoining room closed tightly. He knew before he even tried the knob that the door would be locked. And he was right. Sighing, he rested his forehead on the cool wooden door. Dammit, he needed to talk to Nidaba, to get all of this out in the open once and for all.

She was lashing out at him. Hurting him, or trying to, because of the way she had been hurt by him. He didn’t understand fully just why, but he knew one thing. She did not believe he had killed his own son. Nidaba knew him far better than that.

Or at least... he hoped she did.

Without bothering to turn on the light, he tugged at the buttons of his shirt and moved toward the bed, feet dragging. There was no denying it, he was exhausted. Unused to so much excitement and intrigue, he was wearing himself down emotionally, mentally ... perhaps even spiritually. Dammit, he’d just dumped a body into the sea. How much lower would he have to sink before all of this played itself out?

Maybe this was just the price he had to pay for all these years of solitude and relative contentment. Living like an ordinary mortal man when he was anything but. He was a pretender. And now the world was extracting payment for his make believe existence.

He peeled the shirt from his body, dropped it onto the floor, heeled off his shoes and kicked them aside. His hands went to the snap and button of his jeans, freeing them, sliding the zipper down. Finally, naked, he crawled into his bed and sank almost at once into blessed sleep.

He didn’t know how long he slumbered. A breath on the nape of his neck woke him, though, from the very depths of sleep.

He rolled over, groggy and puzzled, blinking in the darkness.

Nidaba lay in his bed, naked except for the sheet that came up only to the narrowest part of her waist. Her breasts swelled full and inviting, round silhouettes in the darkness.

“Nidaba,” he murmured, “what are you ...”

“Ssssssh.” She held a finger to her lips and, reaching out, caught his head and tugged him forward. He started with surprise when she kissed him voraciously. And he responded at once, kissing her back. He felt himself growing hard with arousal, hungry with need ... and yet something tickled up his nape and coiled in his belly.

“We need to talk, Nidaba,” he said, breaking off the kiss, but it came out gruff. She dragged her nails over his nipples, and he lost the ability to speak at all. Then she leaned down, and replaced her nails with her lips, and her tongue. Her hand stroked a sensuous path down his abdomen. “God, Nidaba,” he moaned, thoughts of discussion fleeing.

The bedroom door burst open, and Nidaba stood there, wide-eyed, staring at him and at the woman feeding on him like some succubus.

Like a dash of cold water, it hit him all at once.

He shoved the impostor away from him, and she landed on the floor. Her face rippled for a moment as the glamour she’d cast faltered, but she rolled and lunged out of the bedroom almost on all fours.

“Stand and fight if you want me, bitch!” Nidaba surged after her, and Nathan saw the glint of the dagger in her fist. He shot to his feet, tripping on his jeans, and pausing to tug them on again. Then he ran into the hall behind her, terrified that she’d be killed.

But in the hallway he saw no one other than Nidaba. Nothing. Still, she charged from room to room, flinging open doors. “Where are you? You damnable coward, face me if you dare!”

“Nidaba, stop!” He caught her from behind, closed his hands on her shoulders. “It’s no use. Dammit, she could be anywhere. She could be anyone, for that matter.”

Nidaba lowered her head, her shoulders shaking. “Oh, she’s not anyone, Natum. Don’t you know who she is? Don’t you?”

He frowned, shaking his head. “I—no, I—”

“How could you?” she asked, her voice laced with bitterness. “How could you do it to me yet again, Natum?”

“Nidaba, I thought it was you.”

Chin lifting, her eyes locked with his. “You thought it was me? Did you not recognize her? Her voice? The feel of her lips on you? Her scent, Natum? Because I did. I did. I saw through her glamourie when it faltered for just an instant, even if you were too blinded by lust to see anything. She was your precious bride, the one you chose over me so long ago. Your queen. The bitch was Puabi.”

The truth hit him like a mallet between the eyes. “Puabi,” he whispered. “She lives!”

“You must have known she was immortal!” Nidaba accused.

Nathan lowered his head and, sighing, took Nidaba’s arm and led her along the hall to George’s room. Peering inside, seeing George sound asleep, and no one else except the dog in sight, he turned the lock from the inside and pulled the door closed. He did the same at Sheila’s room, to be certain they would both be safe for the night. Then finally he led Nidaba back down the hall toward his room. “She was no immortal when I knew her,” he told her. “But...”

“But?”

A muscle clenched in his jaw. “She knew about immortality. She sought to gain it.”

“And you never warned me?”

“Hell, Nidaba, how could I? You forget, you fled Sumer long before either you or I knew what we were, or that such beings even existed at all!” He pushed a hand through his hair, shook his head in frustration. “Come. Just come with me, dammit. We’re far too vulnerable to attack standing out here in the dark like this.”

She stopped fighting him and let him lead her back to the bedroom, where he closed the door, locked it, and then finished fastening his jeans. The jeans had a belt in them, and a sheath hung from that belt, with his dagger inside.

Lifting the skirt of her nightgown, Nidaba sheathed her own blade, which she’d been carrying at the ready the entire time. The sheath Nathan had given her was fastened around her thigh with a red garter she must have found among the things he’d bought for her.

“It’s not safe for me here,” Nidaba said. “Short of killing anyone who comes close to me, I have no way to defend myself.”

“You’re right.”

She looked up at him sharply. “I didn’t expect you to agree.”

“Well, I do.” He looked at the bed where he’d so recently been lying naked with Puabi, and he almost gagged in revulsion. An icy chill worked its way into his bones. He turned away and went into the adjoining bedroom, holding the door open until Nidaba joined him there, and then closing it, turning the locks. “I’m sorry ... about what you saw.”

She said nothing, simply crossed the room with her nightgown flowing like ghostly tails and poured a glass of water from the pitcher beside the bed. Then she paused, glancing down at the water. “Sheila,” she said softly. “Even with all that’s happened, she came in here and replaced the water pitcher.” She shook her head slowly. “And the broken glass ... ?”

“I cleaned it up earlier.”

She nodded, and then drank the water down before she faced him again.

“When did you find out what Puabi was?”

Pacing the room, Nathan parted the curtain and looked out the window. Seeing nothing there, he checked the closet, the bathroom, and looked underneath the bed. “Just now,” he said. “I told you, I didn’t know. I know she once sought it, but I had no reason to believe she’d been successful, Nidaba. Heaven knows, if she had, I’d have expected to have crossed paths with her before now.”

“Perhaps you have,” Nidaba replied. “Perhaps once she perfected the glamourie, she crossed your path as often as she liked, with you never the wiser.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “That could very well be. Much as I hate to admit it. But I didn’t know. She wasn’t immortal when she came to Lagash to live in the palace as my queen,” he said, speaking slowly. “But you already know that part.”

“Tell me anyway. Perhaps, Natum, it’s time for us to relive the hell of our past together and come at last to the truth.”

He settled into a chair. “You’re right. It’s long past time we do that, in fact. And the way I see it...” he glanced at the clock, then at the darkness beyond the glassless window. He’d had to put the removable screen in to keep the insects out. The night breeze was light, but filled with the pungence of autumn. “The way I see it, we’re better off staying right here until dawn. So what better time? But mark me well, Nidaba, you’re going to hear the truth this time. All of it. And so am I.”

Chapter 14

As he spoke, Nathan saw the past unfurling in his memory, clearly, vividly.

He could almost feel the heat of the desert sun beating mercilessly down on the lush oasis city. He could nearly smell the fishy aroma of the nearby Euphrates and feel the roughness of the bleached white stone that made waist-high walls on either side of the broad palace steps.

His bride of a little over a week, Puabi, stepped down from the litter that bore her, aided by two men-at-arms. Eannatum had known she would arrive in style, but he had not expected quite so much pomp. They’d wed in a formal ceremony only a day before, but tonight would be their first one living together as man and wife. She’d had affairs to get in order, belongings to pack and bring along to Lagash. As he stood at the bottom of the palace steps to greet her, massive stone lions on either side of him, he battled a grimace of distaste at her antics. She stepped from the litter onto a silken pillow, hastily placed beneath her feet by a young slave girl who seemed afraid to get too close. Two others, looking equally cowed, raced ahead, unrolling a carpet between them that lined the walk, then up the steps, all the way to the palace doors at the top. Eannatum had to step aside to get out of their way.

Two soldiers walked two steps behind Puabi as she started forward. The slave girls knelt and bowed. The woman—his queen—certainly looked the part. Her headdress was the most elaborate he had ever seen, made of enough gold and lapis to please a Goddess. Tiny bits of round hammered gold, like coins, layered around and around the piece, and they moved, shimmering, each time she took a step. Her gown, too, was golden, gleaming as brightly as the sun. It was made of some fabric that shimmered and shone almost as if it were metallic. Great amounts of paint enhanced her eyes—kohl lined them, and colored powders had been applied in a rainbow of stripes that covered the entire area below the brow, while tiny jewels dangled above it from the headpiece.

Behind her no less than twenty men and women awaited her word. They had all walked, while she rode upon the litter, borne by four of her strongest slaves. Across the desert they had borne her. She had refused to come by boat, as she claimed she suffered illness upon the waves. Water had to be hauled along on the journey, and she had portioned it by cruelly small amounts. Eannatum had reports that three of her slaves had not survived the journey. And he liked his new queen less than he ever had.

She reached Eannatum on the steps, inclined her head toward him, the husband she barely knew. And he bowed respectfully to her in return.

“Welcome to Lagash, Queen Puabi,” he said.

“I am glad to finally be here.” Smiling very slightly, she turned to face her entourage, and they all genuflected so automatically it was like a wave moving over them. “These are my people. My soldiers, slaves, and advisers. I trust accommodations can be found for all of them?”

“Of course. Had I known you would be bringing so many, I’d have had rooms prepared. They’ll need rest, and a solid meal after such an arduous journey.” He nodded to one of his own generals, his old friend Galor, who had been told in advance to see to it that the travelers were taken into the coolness of a nearby storage building and given plenty of fresh water to drink, beds of reeds upon which to rest, a solid meal when they were ready, and anything else they needed. Galor immediately stepped into the crowd and began speaking quietly to the exhausted men and women.

Puabi shrugged. “The soldiers are to serve alongside your own, and they will keep their rank. Except for these two—” she indicated the large men flanking her—“who are my personal guards. I want them housed in the palace.”

“As you wish,” Eannatum said, already disliking the thought of soldiers he did not know serving alongside his own trusted troops, much less taking up residence under his own roof.

“My astrologers, diviners, and soothsayers must be housed near the palace. I need them close to me, and they are to be given free access to my quarters as well.”

Eannatum lifted a brow. “And what use have you of magicians, my queen?”

She shot him a narrow glance. “I am Queen of all of Sumer,” she said. “They are my advisers.”

It did not truly answer his question, but he didn’t press it just then. “And the others?”

She looked down quickly, dismissively. “The slaves, you mean? Put them where you will. I’ve no care where, except that they be able to come quickly when I send for them.”

He drew a breath, exhaled deeply. “During his reign, my father outlawed slavery within Lagash,” he told her.

Her nostrils flared just a bit. “I do not come from Lagash.”

“But you’re here now.”

Her gaze clashed with his, and Eannatum decided to let the matter rest. He would not embarrass her publicly, but her slaves would be freed, either to remain as paid servants or to return to their homeland with whatever compensation he could give them. He would make that clear to his arrogant new bride—later—in private.

“Let me introduce you to my closest advisers,” he said at length. “My general, who is even now seeing to the comfort of your people, is Galor. The man on my right hand is my first soldier, Ris. And the woman on my left is the High Priestess of the temple, Nidaba.”

Puabi nodded politely at Ris, the large soldier who was already sizing up her own men-at-arms. But when her gaze touched Nidaba’s, Eannatum could almost feel the tension that crackled between them. The two women stared at each other for a long moment.

“I’ve heard of you,” Puabi said, her face almost a sneer. “Part woman, part goddess, they claim.” She blew air through her nostrils. “You look less goddess-like than my lowest slave girl.” Then Puabi looked at Eannatum again, having exchanged not one further word with Nidaba. “I would go inside now,” she said in a very low voice. And without waiting for him, she moved forward, up the steps to the palace doors. As he turned to follow, he saw her leaning close to one of her soldiers, speaking near his ear, even as she slanted a backward glance at Nidaba. A cold feeling crept through Eannatum when he saw that look, and when he quickly glanced Nidaba’s way, he knew she had felt it too.

A full moon cycle later, as Eannatum lay in the darkness of the desert, wrapped in blankets and in his beautiful priestess’s arms, Nidaba whispered, “She knows about us, Natum.”

“No. I’ve taken care, Nidaba. I never slip away until she is asleep. I’ve not once been followed. I don’t have to do these things. I have every right to be with you, as king. I take these precautions only because you ask it of me. But I do take them. She does not know.”

The stars sparkled overhead in a canopy wider than any in the world. And they sparkled in Nidaba’s dark eyes. Gods, how he loved her. He hated that she insisted they see each other only in the dead of night, that they hide their love from everyone in the kingdom. She deserved so much more.

“You have not been followed,” she whispered, leaning on his chest, staring into his eyes. “But I have.”

His frown was swift and deep, and he quickly looked around them, scanning the dunes for prying eyes but seeing only swirls of sand, nothing more.

“Not here, love,” Nidaba assured him quickly. “No one has managed to stay on my heels through the secret passages of the temple. But those men of hers ... they appear wherever I go. I look up from a table of cloths in the market square, or after blessing a boat before it journeys on with its load of fruits or sacred herbs, and they are there. Always. Just... watching me. Following me. Listening to my every word, and often talking to the people with whom I have had conversations.”

He searched her face, knowing her too well to think she would imagine such things as these. “Then she must suspect something. But she cannot know about us, Nidaba.”

Nidaba rolled off him, sitting up and drawing her knees to her chest, pulling the blanket more closely around her shoulders. “Those necromancers of hers, they frighten me more than her guards, Natum.”

He sat up beside her, startled. “What have they done to you?”

“Done? Nothing. But they—there is a darkness about them. They’ve been speaking to every priestess in the temple, asking questions about me. And to the villagers as well. It’s as if your queen has set out to learn all there is to know of me ... of us. Our past. What we have been to each other, and what we are to each other now.”

Eannatum felt his jaw go tight. “I’ll put a stop to it. Puabi has no right—”

“No, Natum. You are wrong. As your bride, your queen, she has every right.”

He looked at her sharply.

“She is your wife.”

“A political alliance and nothing more. She knew that from the start.”

“Nonetheless, you wed her.”

“I do not lie with her, Nidaba. Or kiss those cold lips of hers. I feel nothing for her. It’s you I love.”

Lifting her hands to his cheeks and pressing her palms there, she stared into his eyes in the desert night. “I know, Natum. And I love you as well. But. . . but it’s wrong, what we are doing.”

He frowned in utter confusion. “It is my right as king! It is the way of our very culture, Nidaba. It is only you who sees a need to keep it secret.”

“It’s wrong because it is hurtful. I serve the Goddess, Natum, I know what I feel, and that is what I feel. I fear the price we pay will be higher than either of us can bear.”

“I won’t give you up, Nidaba.”

She nodded slowly, then challenged him with her eyes. “Then give up the throne. Come away with me. We’ll run away to some foreign land. The lost paradise of Dilmun, perhaps. Where the rivers run with honey.”

“That’s not real.”

“It could be, for us. If you were with me, free to be with me... any place we were would be paradise, Natum.”

He gently pulled free of her hands, stared upward at the starry sky. “Are you saying I have to choose? Is that what this is, Nidaba? Are you forcing me to choose between the woman I love and the kingdom I rule? Between you and thousands of my subjects? Between you and the promise I made to my dying father, to my Goddess, to myself?”

She lowered her head, licked her lips. “Yes.”

“Even when it was you who made me see that I had to make this sacrifice for the good of Sumer?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Even so. Circumstances have ... changed. The Ummamites have backed down.”

“They’ll begin again the moment they sense weakness!”

She lifted her gaze to his. “If it were only for me, I would never ask it, Eannatum. But it has become necessary now that I think of more than just myself. I must consider the greater good. And for me to remain here, playing the part of royal harlot, is no longer acceptable.”

“You know that is not how I think of you!” He shot to his feet, pacing away from her as his bare feet sank in the sand.

“It is how all of Lagash is coming to think of me, Eannatum.” She got to her feet as well and came to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Or do you still insist that no one knows about us? Because they do, you know. It’s obvious to any who care to wonder. When you look at me, Eannatum, there is fire in your eyes. When you speak to me, your voice deepens, softens. When you touch me ...”

He spun around to face her. “I cannot choose. Do not ask me to do this, Nidaba. I cannot.”

Her lashes lowered, and he thought they were damp. “All right, then, my love. I will not ask it of you again.”

He sighed in profound relief, pulling her close to him. “She will tire of Lagash soon enough,” he promised. “You’ll see. She’ll return home to Ur to take up residence there in her homeland, in her palace. And I’ll remain here. It will be better then.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I believe you.”

Tears threatened as she listened to Natum retelling the tale of their last night together, but she blinked them away when she realized he was staring hard into her eyes.

“But you didn’t believe me, did you, Nidaba? Instead, you ran away. That very night.”

Nidaba sniffled. “There were ... things you didn’t know, Eannatum. Things . .. that made it impossible for me to stay.”

He looked so pained, so hurt, even after all this time. “What things?” he asked gently.

“Puabi, for one.” Her face grew hard at the memory. “She had come to me earlier that evening. In the temple. Dressed in her full royal splendor, right to the headdress, she came to me. I was in the cella, burning incense and praying for guidance, for I was very troubled, about so many things. There was a young eunuch, a servant of the temple, an immortal, like me. He kept trying to tell me about the nature of what I was, but I thought him insane. And yet his words troubled me on some level I could not understand. I finally sent him away to serve at the palace to be rid of his constant far-fetched tales. And I felt horribly guilty about that. I sensed I had done something very wrong.

“So that was one of the things that troubled me. But there was another, an even greater worry on my mind that evening. So I went to the cella to pray. When I heard footsteps in the rushes, I turned and saw her there. Queen Puabi, her gold baubles gleaming in the torchlight. It was just after sundown. The room was alive with shadows that danced over her face, over the walls. The way the torchlight gleamed in the lapis eyes of the stone gods, I almost felt they had all come to life—and had gathered there to judge me for my sins.

“ ‘I know what you are,’ she told me. ‘My necromancers, my occultists, they have told me your vile secret.’

“I caught my breath, and felt my heart pounding in my chest. I was certain she meant that she knew about us, about our secret meetings, our lovemaking. But that wasn’t it at all.

“ ‘Daughter of the Goddess, indeed,’ Puabi all but spat, striding closer to me, kicking the fresh rushes aside without a care. ‘Daughter of demons, more likely. You’re no more divine than I am, Nidaba. You are a sorceress. A Witch!’

“When I heard the accusation, I nearly laughed, such was my relief.

“ ‘Do you deny it?’ the queen demanded. She stood very close to me now, and I rose, for I had still been kneeling. Standing upright, I was a good deal taller than she, and for a moment it gave me confidence.

“ ‘Of course I deny it! I am a High Priestess of the Goddess!’

“ ‘You are a priestess of darkness, born of demons. No human parents ever claimed you. No. You were left on the steps of the temple by the forces of evil, who placed you there knowing you would take over one day. Taking the name of a Goddess! Learning the sacred script when it was forbidden to women! Can you deny any of those things?’

“I stared in shock, stunned that she could know so much about me. ‘No one knows who left me on the temple steps. But I can assure you, they were perfectly human.’

“ ‘Were they? And what of your powers? Hmm? Do you deny them, as well?’

“ ‘What powers?’ Shaking my head, I took a step backward.

“ ‘I know about them!’ she cried. ‘How you can make the earth seem to tremble and quake when you grow angry. How your rites and charms cause far greater effects than those of any other priestess in all of Sumer! And this!’ She reached out, striking with the speed of a viper, her clawlike hand clutching at my white ritual gown and tearing it down the right side.

“Gasping, jumping back, I fought my anger. If it got the best of me, if I lost control, I would reveal the powers she accused me of possessing. And that was something that Lia—and later the eunuch with all his wild tales—had warned me never to do.

“But Puabi pointed now, at my right flank. ‘There,’ she said. ‘It is just as my spiritualists said. You bear the mark on your thigh—the crescent moon! Demon! Asakku!’

“ ‘No! I’m not!’ I cried, backing away from her. But it shook me to the core, because Aahron, the eunuch, had told me of the mark’s significance, and I had not believed him.

“ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You are, and the mark is proof. If I choose to reveal your secret it will mean certain death, Nidaba.’

“I stood a little straighter, sure of myself. For I knew that my king, her own husband, bore the same mark I did. Yet something warned me not to mention that. If she had not learned of it on her own ... I had no wish to imply that you, too, were the demon she believed me to be. ‘You would not be believed!’ I told her instead. ‘You are a foreigner, and I, a High Priestess!’

“ ‘I am a queen, and you an enchantress. One who has bewitched the king, stolen his seed, and even now carries her demon spawn who could well lay claim to the throne of all Sumer!’

“I fell silent, my blood rushing from my head so quickly I grew dizzy with it. ‘How.... how could you know such a thing?’

“ ‘My diviners, I have told you. They are not pretenders like you, Nidaba. They see the truth in the bowels of birds and the livers of beasts. And even were there doubts about my claims in the minds of the people, do you truly think they would risk it? A child is not something you can hide, Nidaba. Not for long, that is. They would never risk Eannatum’s leaving the throne of Sumer to the son of the Asakku demon.’

“I had never believed in the divinatory powers of self-proclaimed occultists ... but I had no choice but to believe then, for it was the truth. I was carrying your child.”

Natum had sat in silence, listening to her speak until that point. But now, Nidaba stopped speaking, and looked at his face—the face she had so loved, once.

“You were pregnant. And you knew it. You were pregnant with my child.”

“Yes, Natum. Your son.”

He closed his eyes, and she could see his pain growing ever deeper. “I... I guess I knew, deep down. I just...”

“Puabi said she would see to it that my child was murdered at birth, unless I agreed to her terms.”

Natum knelt at her feet, gathering her hands in his, his head bowed. “What did she demand of you?”

“That I see you only once more—to tell you goodbye. To end what was between us firmly, and finally. That I go into hiding, in a place of her choosing, and remain there, under her guard, until the day I gave birth. And that I then surrender the child to her.”

Natum lifted his head slowly, staring into Nidaba’s eyes.

“She wanted, I believe, to claim our son as her own.”

“Damn her!” he spat. “I had only been with her once up to that point—to consummate the vows.”

“Once ... up to that point?” Nidaba asked, wondering if that meant he had been with the woman again later.

But Natum ignored her question and rose to pace away from her. “She likely felt that if she hadn’t conceived my child that night, she might never do so.” He pounded a fist onto a table. “But why? Why would she want to pretend to have borne my child?”

“She wanted a son. She wanted your love,” Nidaba said, deciding that perhaps she did not want to know the rest. “And perhaps more than either of those things, she wanted to secure her hold on the throne of Sumer. With her son as heir, her own power would have been irreversible.”

He nodded. “She craved power more than anything else. I knew that about her from the start.” He returned to where Nidaba sat. Lifting his hands, he stroked her hair, her cheek. “So that was why you asked me to run away with you that night? To choose between you and my throne?”

“Yes.”

“And when I couldn’t choose ...”

“I fled, by dead of night. I knew Puabi meant to kill me in the end, and I knew I wanted no child of mine being raised by that cold, evil woman. So I fled, to raise my son alone. You issued a proclamation far and wide that I was to be found and returned to Lagash. You sent your armies to pursue me into the wilderness.”

“Because I loved you. I didn’t think I could go on without you, and even if I could, I didn’t want to.”

“That was what I believed at first. That you sought me out of love. They hounded my every step, your soldiers. For years, my child and I knew no peace, settled in no home. And still I believed in you, in your honor, your love for me. Until they caught up to us at last.”

Natum stood perfectly still. “What happened that night, Nidaba?”

Rising to her feet, she strode to the window, and gazed out. unable to face him and recall the most horrible moments of her entire existence. “They placed us under house arrest, surrounded the small hut where we had been living, far in the northlands. They stood guard all the night through, telling us not to fear. That we would be escorted back to Lagash, but were in no danger of harm. That they were under strict orders to care for us as they would for the king himself.” She smiled a little bitterly as she let the curtain fall back in place. “And we believed them, my Nicky and I.”

“It was the truth. Those were the orders I issued to my men.”

She turned, facing him squarely. His hand was braced on the chair where she had been before. ‘Three of your soldiers crept into the house in the night, Eannatum. Assassins. Trained to kill and sent to do murder. Nothing less. Your son ... oh. you’d have been proud if you could have seen him. So brave. He stepped in front of me, tried to protect me. And they ran him through.“

Eannatum made a strangled sound, half cry, half shout, and dropped to his knees in front of that empty chair.

“And when I fell to the floor to cradle my dying child in my arms, they ran me through as well.”

Natum’s head fell forward, his eyes closed and yet a tear escaped to roll slowly down his cheek. “You ... were immortal, though you couldn’t have known it then.”

She nodded. “Yes. I still didn’t believe in the tales the eunuch Aahron had told me. But I would soon have all the proof I could ever need that they were true. I was immortal. But my boy was not.”

“Gods, Nidaba—” Natum got to his feet, came toward her, but she held up a hand to stop him.

“You said you wished to hear all of it. There is more.”

He stiffened. “Go on.”

“When I revived, the hut was engulfed in flames. I knew nothing about immortality, about High Witches, Dark or Light. I could not understand why my son lay dead, his precious body already cooling, while I lived. My wound miraculously, it seemed, had healed. But his remained. Somehow I managed to escape the flames. And all the while the eunuch’s tales were echoing in my mind. He had told me that the only way I could die, other than having my heart cut still beating from my chest, was by fire. And he had told me it was the most horrible death imaginable for an immortal—that the heart itself would burst into flames and burn within the body, blistering and searing the flesh from within. And even then, it was not by any sane method of calculation that I escaped. I merely stumbled out, blind and numb with grief, and half mad, I suppose. But not so mad that I was not aware that an illegitimate son would have been a threat to the throne of Sumer. Or that you finally had made that choice I had asked of you a decade before. Between me and your throne. And that you had chosen the throne.”

He did come to her then, striding forward and gripping her shoulders. “My men were under orders to care for you as they would a Goddess and to bring you back to me. Nothing more.” He shook her slightly. “Nidaba, by the Gods, you must believe me!”

Her own tears flowed now, slowly, like old, deep rivers. Not a ripple of a sob or a sound accompanied them. “I don’t want to believe you, can’t you see that? It nearly killed me, losing my precious Nicky. And when I finally made my way through the hell of that, there was another waiting. The knowledge of your betrayal. Because I believed in you so deeply. But I survived, Eannatum. I survived. It would be very foolish of me, don’t you think, to believe in you again? To give you the same weapon that I gave you before? One that would surely kill me this time, should you turn it on me once again?”

His hands dug into her shoulders, and the expression in his eyes was fierce. “You know I’m telling you the truth, Nidaba. Deny it all you want, but you already do believe me. You know me. You know I couldn’t harm my own son.”

She averted her face from his probing black eyes. One finger came up to her chin and lifted it, though, so she couldn’t look away and he stared deeply into her soul. “I should hate you for even pretending to believe such a thing of me. But... I can’t hate you, Nidaba. I never could.”

Then he kissed her. Long, and tenderly ... so tenderly that her tears flowed anew. And when he lifted his head away, she knew she wanted to believe in him again more than she had ever wanted anything. And even more certainly, she knew that she already did. And always had.

But she didn’t say so. Instead, she looked past him, through her veil of tears, to the orange glow painting the sky beyond the window screen, and she murmured, “It is dawn.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do. You care about your friends. And you know as well as I do that they are not safe in this house. We need to get Sheila and George and Queenie away from here. Someplace safe, Eannatum. And we need to do it now.”

Chapter 15

Reluctantly, Nathan agreed. “This conversation is far from over.”

She only looked at him sadly as she got to her feet. “It’s beyond over, Natum. It’s long dead.”

“You know that’s a lie.” Taking her hand, he led her through the bedroom, into the hallway, and down it to Sheila’s room. Unlocking the door, he led Nidaba into the room where Sheila lay sleeping, but as he stared at her, relieved that she remained where he’d left her, Nidaba nudged him with her elbow.

“Don’t be a fool, Natum. The real Sheila could be lying dead in the basement right now for all you know. Go over there ... touch her. Make sure she isn’t...”

He hated to admit that she could be right, but there was no denying it. Slowly, he moved to the bedside, reached out a hand, and touched Sheila’s where it lay atop the sheets.

The older woman started and opened her eyes. Then she smiled at him. “Whatever are you doin‘ in my bedroom, Nathan?” But her smile died slowly, as memories of the day before, the night before, returned to her eyes. “What’s wrong? Has something else happened?”

“No. Everything’s fine. Nidaba and I simply feel it would be far safer if we took you and George ... away for a time.”

“Away? To where?”

“I’d rather not say just now.”

“Rather not say what?” George said from the hallway. When Nathan turned he saw George standing there in his big checkered bathrobe, his hair tousled and feathery, sticking up in places.

“Where you and Sheila are going to go and stay for a few days.”

“Oh,” George said. Then he frowned. “Oh! But what about Queenie? I mean, can she come too?” As he spoke he lowered a hand as if to scratch the dog’s head. But she wasn’t at his side as usual, and he glanced back down the hall with a frown.

“I thought about that, but no. It won’t work. You’re going to be traveling, George. The dog’s going to have to stay here, but I promise, I won’t let anything happen to her,” Nathan said.

“But... but...”

“It will only be for a couple of days, George. You know I’ll take very good care of her while you’re gone. Don’t you?”

“Well, I... I guess.”

“This will be like a vacation,” Nathan put in. “You’re going to have fun. I promise. All right?”

George smiled uncertainly. “All right.”

“Good. Now the only catch is, we have to stay together, all four of us, every minute, until we get out of this house. Okay?”

George’s smile died. “You think the killer’s gonna get us. Don’t you, Nathan?”

“I’m not going to let the killer get you,” Nathan said firmly. He slanted a glance toward Nidaba, who stood silently beside him. “Not any of you. And that’s why we’re going to stay together while we pack and get ready to leave. Understand?”

“I guess,” George said.

“It’s not necessary for all four of us to remain together,” Nidaba offered. “Remaining in pairs would do just as well, Natum, and speed may very well be of the essence here.”

He held her gaze, nodded slowly, and knew she must be feeling the same shivers up her spine that he was. A foreboding. A threat, lingering, looming. Clapping his hands together and forcing a smile he was far from feeling, Nathan said, “Great idea. Nidaba, you can help Sheila get her things together, and I’ll go with George and help him get packed. All right?”

George clapped his hands in exactly the same way. “All right. Let’s go, then!”

The bags packed, Nidaba and Sheila waited in the driveway for George and Natum to go and pull the car around. It gave Nidaba time to think. To wonder. This ability of Puabi’s, this astounding talent she had, just how advanced was it? What if, for example, Puabi tried to take on Natum’s form? How would Nidaba know?

And yet, she thought, she would know. She was certain of it, in fact. Surely Puabi couldn’t be that clever.

The question lingered though, what if she could?

Never. 1 know Eannatum far better than his so-called wife ever did, Nidaba thought coldly. She couldn ‘t fool me. Not for a moment.

Which begged another question—how had the clever Puabi managed to fool Natum last night into believing she was Nidaba? Surely he knew Nidaba far better than Puabi ever had.

Then again, he likely hadn’t been thinking with his mind just then.

It angered her. Infuriated her.

It shouldn’t.

Gods, she still loved the man.

He pulled the car around and got out, opened the trunk and came to take the suitcases that sat at Sheila’s feet.

“Do you suppose it’s safe now, to discuss where we’ll be going?” Sheila asked at length.

Already, Nidaba could feel the easing of the tension that had settled over them back inside the house. The gloom. The pall of death, holding them all in its grip. The tension between her and Natum, however, was still as powerful as ever. She didn’t want him to know what she felt for him. It made her far too vulnerable to him to feel this way. Gods forbid he should realize it.

“There’s nothing to discuss. Just get in the car and go. Don’t tell me where. Don’t even decide where, until you’re out of here,” Nathan ordered. “When you get somewhere safe, call me at home. Let me know you’re all right. I won’t ask you where you are, or a number where you can be reached. If I do, don’t give it to me. You understand?”

“But... how will you know how to reach us, Nathan?” Sheila asked.

“Jot a phone number on a postcard and send it to the gallery address. Don’t sign it, don’t put a return address on it, and mail it from some other place or send it to someone else and have them forward it for you. I’ll know what it is, and I’ll call you as soon as it’s safe to come home. Understand?”

“My heavens, Nathan, do you really think all this is necessary?” Sheila asked, her eyes widening.

It was Nidaba who answered the question. “You of all people, Sheila, should know that it is. This woman, this murderer, is smart. She’ll use anything she can to get to Nathan and me. Including you.”

Shutting her eyes, Sheila nodded. Then she opened them again and glanced at George. Nidaba did too. He looked so frightened, so pitiful. Smiling brokenly, Sheila stood on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear. His face split in an instant smile. “Can we? Can we really go there?” he asked, all but bouncing.

“Yes. Just remember, it’s a secret.” To Nathan she said, “We’ll call you by six this evening. No later. I don’t want you hanging about this house any longer than necessary waiting for us to call.”

It seemed very odd to Nidaba that she should feel like hugging the two of them before they got into the car. Even more odd to feel tears threatening at the thought of them leaving.

And yet that was exactly what happened. She hugged Sheila tight, and the woman patted her back and squeezed her in return. “Please be careful,” Sheila told her. “And don’t forget...” Then leaning closer, she whispered into Nidaba’s ear, “He loves you.”

Nidaba had to fight back tears as she kissed the woman’s cheek. Then she found herself wrapped in a powerful bear hug and picked up right off her feet. George swung her from side to side, squeezing her tight. Then he put her down and grinned at her. “Don’t cry, Nidaba. We’ll be back soon. Won’t we, Sheila?”

“Yes, we will,” she told him.

“You’ll take extra good care of my dog, won’t you, Nidaba?”

“You know I will,” she promised, sniffling, wondering vaguely where the lumbering beast had wandered this time.

It was worse yet when she had to watch George’s eyes tear up as he hugged Natum. “Please don’t make us stay away too long,” he said.

“I couldn’t get along without you for very long, my friend,” Natum replied, his voice tight.

Then Sheila hugged him, and Nidaba saw, even through her misty eyes, that she whispered something in Natum’s ear, too. She wondered if it was the same thing the woman had whispered to her.

Natum looked up, caught Nidaba’s eye, and said to Sheila, “Once, maybe that was true.”

“Once true, always true. Some things don’t die, Nathan. You remember that.” Sheila kissed Nathan’s cheek, and then she took George’s hand and led him to the passenger side.

Nathan turned away from the car as they got in and pulled away. He lowered his head and pressed his forefingers to his temples, rubbing small circles there as if his head ached.

“You’ll miss them terribly,” Nidaba murmured.

“They’re my family.”

“I know.” She lifted a hand, tentative, hesitant, and finally touched him. She stroked his hair, caressed the back of his neck in an effort to rub his pain away. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll make it safe for them, and then they’ll come back.”

He met her eyes, nodded twice, but didn’t look convinced that what she said was the truth. “Let’s go. We’ve got to pack our own things, close up the house, and collect that damned dog.”

“If we can find her,” Nidaba said, glancing to the left and right. “She’s nowhere around at the moment.”

“We’d better find her,” Natum said grimly. “George will never forgive us if we don’t.”

* * *

When Nidaba came down the stairs with her few possessions packed in the carpetbag Nathan had given her, he was sitting in a claw-legged armchair, staring into the burgeoning flames of a newly built fire. In one hand he held a crystal tumbler half filled with amber liquid that turned red in the firelight.

“I thought we were leaving.”

He didn’t look up. “I know.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

Drawing a breath, he seemed to gather himself. He turned his head slowly, faced her. The firelight painted one side of his face in orange and yellow, leaving the other side in dark shadow, so he looked like some demon prince sitting there. “I’ve been thinking.”

She sighed, set her bag on the floor, and came closer. “Thinking about what, Eannatum?”

His gave her a thoughtful, penetrating look. “It’s been so long since anyone has called me that. It almost feels like someone else’s name now.”

“I apologize if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s who you are to me. Who you’ll always be. To me, ‘Nathan’ is a stranger.”

“Nathan is the man I wanted to be. The man I’ve been pretending to be for years now. I’m comfortable being him. It’s safe. Peaceful. Predictable.”

“And fraudulent. You’re a ruler, a warrior, and an immortal High Witch, Eannatum. Not a gallery owner or an antique dealer. You’re no quaint New Englander, but a Sumerian king.” She drew a deep breath, sighed. “But you know all of that. Natum, you said we would stay here only long enough to gather a few things and George’s precious stray, and then we’d be off again. Go someplace safe.”

“I haven’t found the dog yet,” he said.

“Nor do you seem to be looking for her. Natum, you told me—”

“I know what I told you. It was a lie. What I told you was not what I intended to do. And it’s not what you intended either. Is it, Nidaba?”

He stared at her, brows raised, eyes so piercing that she finally had to look away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. You were going to go along with my plan, and slip away from me at the first opportunity, to come back here and wait for Puabi. To take her on by yourself.”

She made a face. “You think you know me so well, do you?”

He shrugged. “It’s what I was planning to do. We’ve always had certain things in common, Nidaba. Bull-headedness being one of them.”

Slowly she lifted her eyes to his. “You were planning to come back here without me?”

He nodded.

“Why? She could as easily kill you as the other way around.”

He smiled, very slightly, just one side of his mouth pulling upward. “Why were you going to do it?”

Nidaba narrowed her eyes. “I owe the bitch. Besides, I’m a warrior. It’s what I do.”

“I owe her as well, you know,” he said softly.

“Ahh, but you’re an ordinary antique dealer. Mild-mannered, model citizen. Boring as milk toast and content to remain that way.”

His eyes seared hers with a flash of anger before he banked it again and drew a calming breath. “Sit down, Nidaba. I think it’s time we finished our talk.”

“I’ve no wish to discuss the past any further.”

“You don’t need to do anything but listen. Sit down.”

Blinking in surprise, for he sounded just then more like the king she remembered than he had since she had seen him again, Nidaba met his eyes, searched them. “All right.” She took the rocking chair and pushed it closer to the fire, closer to him, then stepped around it and sat down. “I’m listening.”

He nodded, his face tight. “It pains me to think that you believe what you do of me.”

“And what is that?”

He looked at her. Just looked at her. His eyes, as dark as ever they had been, and so, so intense. She could see all the way into his soul, she thought, in the power of that look. And it was obvious that he could see clear to the core of her own. She couldn’t look away. Her heart seemed to shudder beneath the force of that gaze. To crack and split apart.

“You tell me,” he said, his tone deep, commanding, uncompromising.

“No.”

“Tell me, Nidaba. Say it.”

“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered.

“The hell I won’t. Nidaba, you know. You’ve always known. I need to hear you say it.”

She jumped to her feet, turning away, but he was up in a heartbeat, gripping her shoulders, forcing her to face him. “I didn’t know you were pregnant when you left Lagash, Nidaba. I didn’t know you’d had my son.”

“Stop.”

“But even so, I turned over every rock in Sumer, and beyond, searching for you. Trying to find you.”

Tears flowed down her face now. “To have me killed. To protect your throne,” she whispered, her throat so tight she could barely force the lies through it.

“To bring you back to me. Because I didn’t want to live without you. Because I loved you, Nidaba.”

“No!” She pulled free, turned her back, and fought not to break down in front of him. But the racking sobs tore at her, straining to escape.

“Is it easier to believe it was me, Nidaba? Is it easier somehow if you can blame me, hate me? Did that make all those years of loneliness go by any faster? Did it?”

“You ordered the death of my son,” she rasped. “It was your soldiers who killed him.”

“No. It was Puabi who did that. I’ve only now come to realize that. It’s the only way it could have happened, and I think you know it.”

Nidaba went stiff. It was not with surprise, because he was only telling her what she’d finally begun to surmise—but refused to admit, even to herself.

“It all fits,” he said. “She brought soldiers with her when she came to live in the palace. She had loyal men placed in the ranks with mine. And no doubt she ordered them to kill you both on sight. To burn your bodies in order to cover up the crime. No doubt she knew what you were, even though I did not. She knew the heat of a fire would cause your heart to explode in flames within you, destroying you utterly.”

“No,” Nidaba denied. “If Puabi had known what I was, she’d have wished to take my heart for herself. It’s obvious now—that was her goal all along. To make herself immortal, a Dark High Witch. She needed to take the heart of a Light One to do it. So why not mine?”

“You were too far away. You’d have revived before she could have got to you.”

“Then she’d have had me bound and brought to her as a captive.” She’d been over all of this in her mind already. She knew all the arguments. She’d waged them with herself.

“I had dozens of soldiers there under orders to protect you with their very lives if need be,” Natum said. And then he tossed in an argument she’d never thought of in all the times she had imagined this discussion. “I told my men they would pay with their lives if any harm came to you while under their care. They knew I meant it, Nidaba. So much so that over half the troop fled Sumer after that fire that supposedly killed you, rather than returning to Lagash to face my wrath. Puabi had only two or three of her own men among the troop that finally found you. It would have been impossible for them to bring you back to Puabi as a captive when my men so outnumbered them. Don’t you see, Nidaba? It was Puabi, not me. I could never harm you ... much less my own son. Never.”

His hands curled around her upper arms, warming them. “Please, Nidaba, if you ever cared for me at all, tell me you know I didn’t do this thing.” His voice broke on the final two words.

The shield of stone she had constructed around her heart crumbled and fell to bits. And she whispered, “I know.”

“Do you?”

Turning slowly, she stared up into his eyes. “I’ve always known, Natum. I never truly believed ...” Fresh, hot tears flooded her eyes. “I’m so sorry. No matter what pain we’ve caused each other, I had no right to say what I did. I knew in my heart it wasn’t you. I...”

He closed his eyes, pulled her close, held her to his chest and stroked her hair.

Sobs wracked her body as so much anguish finally spilled free. Her hatred released at last, there remained only pain. And her words tumbled from her lips without pause or forethought. She wasn’t even sure they made sense. “I had to hate you. Because if I stopped there was nothing left but to love you, to miss you, to accept that you loved your country more than you did me. And all of that... was just too painful. It was easier to hate you, Natum. So I tried to do that. But I never did. Not really.”

He sighed his relief, and she felt his body quiver with it. He cupped the back of her head with his hand, and she rested her head on his shoulder, her body shuddering with the emotions she’d kept pent up for so long.

“I needed you,” she whispered. “Gods, I needed you so desperately. But you were with her. You were with her, and I...”

“I’m here now, Nidaba.” His palm cradling her cheek, he turned her face until her mouth slid over his, and clung to his lips. He kissed her. Fully, deeply, passionately, he kissed her. And she kissed him back, with every bit of heartache and anguish, every bit of grief and agony she had felt for centuries spilling out and into the kiss.

His hips moved against hers, his hands curling over her buttocks to hold her tight to him. She didn’t think, not now. She only felt. And what she felt was fire, the same white-hot fire that had always raged and burned between them. She tugged his shirt free of his trousers, pushed her hands up underneath it to the skin of his back, and higher, to his shoulders. His skin was warm to the touch, firm beneath her palms. She’d always loved running her hands over his hard body. He tugged at the skirt she wore, and she heard the fabric rip, but she didn’t care.

Still feeding at her mouth, he pushed the skirt off her, and it fell to the floor. He shoved one hand inside her panties now, touching her, burning her, invading her the way only he would dare to do. When she moved her feet apart, they tangled in the fabric, and she stumbled backward. Her hip hit a table, and a lamp crashed to the floor. And then Eannatum was tearing her panties away, lifting her off her feet, anchoring her legs around his waist. She locked her ankles behind his back and felt his hot erection forced inside her, all the way. Her back pressed to a wall, he thrust hard against her. She clung to his shoulders as he rocked into her, over and over.

He took his mouth from hers, and muttered, “the blouse...”

His hands were busy, holding her backside captive, keeping her pinioned tight to him to accept every one of his powerful thrusts. With her hands, she gripped her blouse in front, and pulled it open, tearing buttons free. It didn’t matter. He mattered. He wanted the blouse gone, spoke a command, and she obeyed because he sounded for once like the king she had known. Her king, for whom she would do anything. And she, his Goddess incarnate, for whom he would gladly die.

It was a powerful illusion. Even if it was only temporary.

Her breasts spilled free, and he jammed himself deep inside her and said, “Feed me, woman.” Her hands rose, cupping her own breasts, lifting them to his mouth, holding them for him to suckle and bite and torment.

Then his hands closed on her waist, and he lifted and lowered her in time with his thrusts, lifted and lowered her, forced her down harder, bit down on her sensitive nipple with his sharp white teeth.

When she came, it was a searing explosion that blinded her, deafened her, so she couldn’t even hear the sound of his name on her own tortured cry.

He held her close, and she felt the pulsing heat of his seed spilling into her. And then he sank slowly to his knees, cradling her in his arms as if she were a small child.

Tears. She felt them, wet on her face, but surely they couldn’t be hers. She never wept. What had just happened between them meant nothing, she knew that. It was comfort, and an outpouring of long-held emotions. It was needed. It was cleansing. It was blessed release.

“Why, Natum? Why did she have to kill my Nicky, when it was me she hated?”

Eannatum stroked her hair. Gently he righted her blouse, fastening what buttons remained until she was decently covered. He reached out for her skirt, on the floor, drew it around her. When he finished, she looked as if she’d been through a battle. But she was dressed. He set her gently into an easy chair near the fire. Then he righted his own trousers and rebuttoned his own shirt.

“She was mad with jealousy, Nidaba. After you fled Lagash, your name took on the same mystique as that of Gilgamesh. You were spoken of in awed tones—as half goddess, half mortal. Rumors grew, and many spoke of the love between you and me, as well. Puabi wanted your fame, your mystery. And she wanted my love. I just couldn’t give it to her.”

She heard something in his voice, and swiping at her eyes, she looked up at him. “There is more,” she said, her tone flat, her eyes moving rapidly over his face. “What aren’t you telling me, Natum?”

He shifted away from her. “You always see the truth in my eyes, don’t you? How do you do that, Nidaba?”

“Tell me,” she whispered.

Sighing, he forced his gaze level with hers. “There was... a child.”

Nidaba’s heart lurched. “Yours? With .. . with her?”

“Though I couldn’t love her, Nidaba, I was human. A man. And a king. I didn’t know you’d borne my son, and I needed to provide my country with an heir.”

In a pained whisper, Nidaba said, “You made a child with her?”

He nodded. “You had been gone for five years. I had little hope of ever finding you again, and I had finally come to believe that you honestly did not want to be with me anymore. It crushed me, Nidaba. But it infuriated me as well. I turned to my duty, because I had nothing else. And part of my duty was to know my queen and to produce an heir.”

He pushed a hand through his tousled hair. “And maybe it was a way of... striking back at you for running away from me the way you did. Maybe, deep down, I wanted to hurt you back.”

“You certainly succeeded, Natum. In a thousand ways you hurt me. And had I known of this, it would have hurt me still more. But I never knew.”

“That’s because the infant was stillborn,” he said and sighed deeply. “Puabi... she lost whatever sanity she had at that point. Ordered the servants out of her chambers, bolted the doors and decreed that anyone coming inside would pay with his life. She locked herself in her room with that dead child for days.”

“Days?”

He nodded. “I was away.” He looked at her steadily. “Out looking for you, actually. On one of my endless quests, following yet another fantastical report that you’d been seen in some remote and unlikely locale. But I returned the moment word of the tragedy reached me. I had the doors broken down, the child taken from her, had it buried.” He shook his head slowly. “I thought it would kill her. I honestly did. She hated me for it, and I knew she always would.” He drew a breath. “It was only a short while later we began to hear rumors that you had been seen far in the north, and that you had with you a fine and healthy son some five summers old. I think that must have been what pushed her completely over the edge. She had to know your child was mine, even though when I heard the rumors I was unsure. Mostly I believed they were fantasies—so many had already been spun around your disappearance ...” He shook his head slowly. “But Puabi believed it. And I think it was more than her grief-crippled mind could bear.”

Nidaba lifted her gaze, speared him with her eyes. “I hope you’re not trying to excuse what she did, Natum. A mother who knows the pain of losing a child should be damned to eternal torment for inflicting the same pain on another!”

He stared down at her. “I wasn’t trying to excuse her. Your child... he was my son, too, you know. And I didn’t even get the chance to know him.”

Nidaba rose slowly, lifted a trembling hand, touched Natum’s cheek. “No. You didn’t.” Her own words, those she had just spoken, played again through her mind. A mother who knows the pain of losing a child should be damned to eternal torment for inflicting the same pain on another. Wasn’t that exactly what she was doing by not telling Eannatum the truth about their son?

“I made the wrong choice when I chose my kingdom over you, Nidaba. And I made the wrong choice when I married a woman I didn’t love, much less slept with her while you yet lived—it was a sin against our love. One I know you can probably never forgive. And it was my own army that tracked you down, enabling Puabi’s assassins to kill our son. For that—for that I can’t even ask your forgiveness. Just know, Nidaba, that I have suffered too. At least you got to know him, to be with him, for a little while. But I never did. And while our feelings for each other have ... have changed after all this time, the love a parent feels for a child never can.”

She blinked as a sudden pain struck her in the chest. His feelings for her had changed? Well. Of course they had. It had been four millennia. They couldn’t have done otherwise, could they? But. . . they had made love, and it seemed as if they’d never been apart.

And yet she knew that meant very little. Physically, there would always be this explosive passion between them. But emotionally—

Besides, even if their feelings were the same, it could never be good between them. They were too different.

“I wish to Gods I had known him,” he said, not even noticing her pain in the face of his own, she was certain.

“You will,” she whispered.

Startled, he lifted his head, searched her face.

“For those ... bad choices of yours, Natum, I will try to forgive you. I cannot yet say that I have, but I know that I should. What difference do they make now, anyway? As you said ...” She swallowed, unable to repeat his words back to him. “But as for your son... our son...” She raised her chin, met his eyes. “He died trying to protect his mother from the blade, Eannatum. You do know what that means.”

Slowly, Eannatum turned in a circle, searching his mind, it seemed. “It means he would come into his next incarnation with the gift of immortality. But Nidaba, we’d have no way of knowing him. Of finding him.”

She let her lips pull into a very sad, very slight smile. “I am a High Priestess of Inanna. I was legend in my own time, as much Goddess as woman. I am a Witch, Eannatum. Do you really think that I would not know my own son?”

He stopped turning, and stood facing her, his hands closing on her shoulders. “Do not torment me, Nidaba. Tell me straight out. My son ... he lives? Now, today?”

As if on cue, the dog they had been searching for all afternoon, came wandering into the room, along with a cool draft, as if somewhere a door or window had been left ajar. The dog stopped walking when she stood beside them. Her head came up, ears perking as if she sensed the importance of the conversation.

“He lives,” Nidaba said. “His name is Nicodimus, and he does indeed live. He’s magnificent, Natum. You will be so proud.”

“By the wings of angels!” Natum cried. He enfolded her in a fierce embrace, and she could feel the emotions surging in him. His entire body trembled with feeling. “Why didn’t you tell me before now, Nidaba? For the love of Inanna, why?”

Sniffling, she clung to his shoulders, stared up into his face, and saw the wetness, damp and gleaming on his cheeks. “I don’t know. At first my memory was so skewed that even I didn’t realize I had found him again. And when I did ... I told myself I was protecting him— from you, from this situation, from Puabi. But I knew you wouldn’t risk his life any more than I would, Natum. I hope you can forgive me for waiting until now to tell you the truth.”

“Of course I can forgive you. Just... Gods, just tell me, where is he? Is he near?”

She pulled free of him, turning away. It was too painful to have him hold her so fiercely now, when he’d only moments ago admitted that his feelings for her were no longer what they had been once. “I don’t know for sure. But. . . that woman, Arianna, who came here looking for me, she is his wife. So if she is near, he must be as well. When you first mentioned her name, I was still disoriented. Confused by the drugs that were still polluting my blood and my mind. It was only much later, when I was clear headed that I remembered the rest. I didn’t tell you and I should have, Natum. I just—I don’t want them brought into this situation. I don’t want that bitch Puabi to have another chance to take my son from me.”

“She’d have to kill me first,” he muttered.

Nidaba stared up at him, and a flutter of doubt skittered through her mind. What if she was wrong? No. She wasn’t wrong. Eannatum would not let her down again. He would not harm her, or harm his son. Not deliberately, at any rate.

But he could still manage to break her heart. Because it was completely in his power to do so, all over again. She had been a fool then, hadn’t she? She had done such a thorough job of convincing herself that she hated him, that she had forgotten to stop loving him. And now that the hatred she’d tried to make real had fallen away—as any false notion had to do in time—all that remained was the love. The desperate, hopeless love of a woman who had vowed never to feel its power again.

The problem was, she had never stopped. Not really. She had become a woman of stone. Granite-hearted and cold. Fierce and frightening. She had nearly killed poor Arianna when she perceived the woman as a threat to her son. Because her Nicodimus was the only person Nidaba had allowed herself to love. And the only part of Eannatum she had left.

But Eannatum was here, alive and within her reach. She loved him in spite of her determination not to, and in spite of her certainty that they could never make it work. Her, with her love of freedom and her need to relish her immortality to the hilt. Him, with his need to hide what he was and live a make believe life as a make believe mortal.

She had never been more afraid in her life.

The dog stretched slowly, pushing her forepaws out in front and arching her back in a luxuriant manner. Then she turned and padded almost happily out of the room.

Sighing, Nathan looked at the portrait that hung above the mantel. “Four thousand years’ worth of secrets and revelations,” he said. “All in the space of the past few days. Gods, but I think it’s a bit much even for a once great king to deal with.”

“I feel we’ve been weathering a storm, Natum. A fury. And this is only the eye. I fear there’s far worse ahead.”

“This time,” he promised, “whatever comes, we’ll face it together. Openly and honestly. If nothing else, Nidaba, we owe each other that. Agreed?”

She nodded. “Agreed.”

“Good.” Then he glanced down at his watch and frowned. “Sheila should have called by now.”

Chapter 16

“How did the dog get in here?” Natum asked a few minutes later.

Lifting her brows and her shoulders at once, Nidaba shivered. “She just... walked in before.” She smiled at the great beast, who had bounded back into the room and was dozing now near the hearth. She looked none the worse for wear.

“Or someone let her in.” Bending down to the animal, Natum scratched her head. “Who was it, girl? Hmm? Was someone here?” The dog opened her eyes, and appeared to arch the brown spots above them quizzically.

“Natum, really. If there had been anyone around, this beast would have torn out their throat. I didn’t hear so much as a growl.”

“Do you feel that?”

Blinking, Nidaba lifted her head, forced herself to be mindful of her senses, instead of just her emotions. “There’s... a draft.”

“Dammit,” Natum said, shooting to his feet. “Someone’s been here!” He grabbed Nidaba’s arm with one hand, drew his dagger with the other.

Nidaba yanked her torn skirt aside, and pulled her own dagger from its sheath with a deadly hiss.

“Stay behind me,” Natum said softly.

Together, they moved through the ground floor of the large house. It seemed utterly empty. Utterly silent. More empty and silent than it ever had, Nidaba thought. It was a heavy silence, a living one. Like a shroud, invisible, but weighty and covering the entire place.

They walked through the dining room, stepping lightly, searching every corner, every shadow as they moved into the kitchen beyond. Nidaba sent a nervous glance toward the cellar door, recalling what had happened there so recently. But it was closed tight. Not gaping wide as it had been before.

As she turned and started forward again, though, she saw that the back door, which led outside, stood wide open. The cool autumn breeze blew in, bringing scents of the ocean, of decaying leaves on its crisp biting air.

Pulling her behind him, Natum stepped into that open doorway and looked outside. And then he went still.

“Please,” he whispered. “Not this . . .”

His words jolted her, and she peered past him ... and saw Sheila, lying on the walkway just beyond the door, a spiderweb of blood on her forehead.

“Sheila!” Nidaba shouldered past Natum, racing forward, falling to her knees beside the woman. Gently, she lifted Sheila’s head and stared down at her face.

“Damn you, Puabi!” Natum roared behind her. “Damn you to hell! First my son, now my friends! What the hell do you want from me!” He was shouting at the sky, fists clenched until his knuckles were white. “I’ll kill you for this, by the Gods, you know I will!” The wind picked up, and gnarled, dark cloud fingers reached in to claw at the face of the moon.

“Natum—”

“How could she have found them, Nidaba?” he shouted, slamming one of his fists into the side of his house so hard that the brick he hit crumbled with the force of the blow. “How could she have found them?”

“Natum.”

“And George! Jesus, Nidaba, where the hell is George?”

“Natum! ”

He looked down at her, his face tortured.

“She’s alive, Natum. We need to get her to a hospital. The rest—we can figure the rest out on the way.”

Natum scrambled down the steps, leaned over Sheila, and pressed his fingers to her throat, sighing in relief first at the warmth of her skin and then at the thrumming beat he felt beneath it.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Sheila,” Natum whispered, his voice tight and hoarse. “Sheila? Can you hear me?”

“She ... she ... she ...”

“All right, all right.” He held her shoulders gently as Sheila struggled to sit up. “Be still now. Just relax and take a breath. Where are you hurt? Can you tell me that?”

Blinking him into focus, Sheila stared up at him. “Nathan?”

“Yes. It’s me. You’re safe now. Just tell me—”

“Put me... into the sea, Nathan,” she whispered, a tear squeezing from the corner of her eye, “with Lisette.”

“Sheila, no. Don’t talk like that. Come on, you’re going to be fine, I promise you,” Natum said desperately. “Just tell me where you’re hurt. And... and where is George?”

Sheila’s eyes widened, and she sucked in a sharp, painful breath. “George! Oh, God, George!”

“Calm down. It’s all right. Just—”

Sheila’s hand closed tight around Natum’s, and she pulled herself up a few inches from the concrete walk. “She ... went after ... George!” She managed to force the words out, each one seeming to cost her dearly. Then she let go, fell back again, exhausted.

Nidaba pressed her palm to her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Gods, not that! Not George in the hands of that horrible, cruel woman! A child. He was only a little boy, no matter what he looked like. A mere child.

And Nidaba knew how little regard Puabi had for the innocence of a child.

“Save him.” Sheila’s words came on a long, slow breath. Her eyes fell closed, and she didn’t draw another.

“Sheila? Sheila?” Natum’s voice broke. He felt for her pulse again, searched her neck, then her wrist, then lowered his head to her chest to listen there, but the look on his face told Nidaba he heard no answering beat. “Sheila, dammit, no!” Lifting her, he held her gently to his chest, bowing over her, rocking her in his arms.

Nidaba closed her hand on his shoulder. “There’s no time for this now, Natum.” Her own voice was thick with tears. “She’s gone. She’s gone now. Let her go.”

Sheila’s hand had fallen open, and a slip of paper lay within it. Nidaba picked it up, and read the line written there.

“Everything you love,” was all it said.

But she understood.

She crumpled the note in her fist, imagining it was Puabi’s heart she was crushing.

Running back up the steps and into the house, Nidaba searched the kitchen and finally spied Sheila’s old raincoat hanging from a peg near the back door. She took it, and walked outside. Natum was just as he had been before. Sitting on the walkway, holding Sheila in his arms, rocking her.

“Lay her down, Natum. We must take care of her. We don’t want George to come upon her here, like this.”

Nodding, Natum got to his feet, lifting Sheila’s body up with him. Nidaba gently covered her with the raincoat. And side by side, they began walking, each of them knowing instinctively where they were going.

Sheila was an illegal alien with no family. Questions would be asked. It would be best for all concerned if they simply honored her final request. And that was what they did.

Her body between them in the small boat, they rowed out among the gentle swells of the sea. “Just a sheila from Down Under,” Natum muttered, leaning down, kissing her cheek. “Born in the bush, and raised with the joeys.”

Nidaba pressed her knuckle to her lips, but the sob escaped all the same. “You were so good, Sheila. Such a rare, and precious person. Go now, to the light. Find your peace, your friend, your purpose.”

Each of them at one end, they lifted the woman’s body, and lowered it gently into the water. They let go, and Sheila sank slowly out of sight.

Natum reached out, wrapped his arms tightly around Nidaba, and held her hard. She cried unashamedly, silent tears that fell softly for the sake of his pain, and for the loss of a woman she’d cared for in spite of herself. She felt Eannatum’s shoulders shuddering with emotion. He held her so hard she thought if she were an ordinary woman, he would have crushed her bones.

Then he let her go, all at once, and turning, rowed rapidly back to shore. She’d never seen him look so angry. No tears. He was too furious to shed them, she thought. Perhaps they would come later. But now there was only rage. And she pitied Puabi if Natum could get his hands on her now. Because he wasn’t the quaint mortal New Englander Nathan King anymore. He was King Eannatum at his most dangerous.

He held her hand as they climbed out of the boat, and even as they started toward the house, he began calling for George.

Nidaba raced along beside him, determined not to leave his side even for an instant. She wouldn’t give Puabi the chance to murder him as well.

“Everything you love,” the note had said.

It could have been directed at Natum. But Nidaba didn’t think so. Puabi must have been watching them, somehow, when they put George and Sheila into the car, and then she followed them, just waiting for her chance. She must have seen the affection between Nidaba and Sheila when they’d exchanged that emotional good-bye. And she wanted to destroy everything Nidaba cared about.

Everything.

She intended to take away everything Nidaba loved. And she had only begun.

Something brushed Nidaba’s skirt as she tramped through the woods beside Natum, and she looked down to see the big dog, loping along and looking almost concerned, if a dog could manage such a thing. Nidaba bent down and rubbed her head. The dog whined softly and nudged Nidaba’s hand.

“Find George,” Nidaba whispered. “I know you can do it. You find him, Queenie. Go on. Find George!”

With a soft woof the dog ran ahead.

Midnight.

Nathan was exhausted, filthy, damp with sweat, and chilled to the bone. His legs were scratched and bleeding, and Nidaba was in worse shape than he was. And yet they’d found no sign of George.

The dog paced the house, inconsolable, it seemed. She kept wandering from room to room as if looking for her beloved friend but unable to find him. Whining in a deep, plaintive tone, she would look from Nathan to Nidaba, as if asking what they planned to do about this. It was heartbreaking. The Rottweiler finally lay down near the fire, likely as exhausted as Nidaba and Nathan were.

“There’s nothing more we can do,” Nidaba told him for the tenth time. “Nothing mundane, at least. By the Gods, Natum, have you nothing in this house that we can use for divining? No cards, no board, no crystal balls?”

“No.” He said it softly. “I never was much for scrying or... divination.”

“Sorry excuse for a Witch then, aren’t you?” She tried to make her tone teasing, light, he knew, but there was no lightening his mood. He sat in a chair by the fire, slumped and miserable. “If she had intended to kill him, Natum, we would have stumbled upon his body by now. Or found it awaiting us at the door. She is attacking us, trying to cause us as much pain as she possibly can. She would have made sure we knew it if George were dead.”

He nodded slowly. “Exactly. And she knows that hurting him, making him suffer, will cause us even more pain.”

“No. She’s using him, Natum. She wants something. And all we can do is wait for her to tell us what it is.”

“I dislike waiting.”

“You always did.”

He looked at her and realized he was being an ass. She had come to love George too, in the short time she’d known him. And Sheila as well. He stretched out a hand to touch her cheek where a long, curving scratch marred its perfection. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, Natum. This is not your fault. It’s me she wants.”

But it was his fault, and he knew that with sudden clarity. Nidaba was right, and had been all along. He couldn’t live a lie, pretend to be a mortal to escape the violence of his existence. It didn’t work that way. What he was ... followed him. And brought its violence to those he loved.

“We should shower,” Nidaba said. “Clean up. Eat a solid meal. We can’t sleep. It wouldn’t be safe, not even one at a time. But we need to be strong. To be ready. And we need to keep busy if we’re to stay awake.”

“I agree.”

“Then?”

He nodded and got to his feet. Taking her hand, he led her up the stairs.

There was no time for passion, nor could he think of pleasure when George was out there somewhere. Alone and probably terrified. He stood watch while Nidaba washed the briars and thistles from her hair. Then she got dressed while he took his turn in the shower. The door remained open the entire time, neither of them willing to risk the other being out of sight for a moment.

By the time they finished, their many scrapes and wounds were nearly all healed. The natural regenerative processes that were a part of their immortality had done their work. Nathan looked at the fading scratches on his arm, the one on Nidaba’s cheek, now only a pale pink streak, and shook his head. “It never stops amazing me, though I should be long used to it by now.”

“Being used to it doesn’t make it any less amazing,” she said softly as he toweled off and began to dress. “You never told me, though. How did you first discover the truth ... of what we are?”

He hesitated for a moment. He’d pulled on a clean pair of jeans and was in the process of sliding his belt, with the dagger and sheath attached, through the loops. Nidaba had curled catlike on the foot of his bed, and a distant sadness shadowed her eyes.

“It was Puabi.”

“Of course it was.”

“You must understand, she was not an immortal. But she had learned about our existence.” He finished lacing the belt and reached for a shirt.

“Even when we ourselves didn’t know what we were,” Nidaba muttered, shaking her head.

“Yes, even then. It all came out a year after your... your death—” He closed his eyes briefly, experiencing a stab of pain even now at the memory. “After your death was reported to me,” he said, completing the sentence this time. “I had been angry at you for leaving me. I’d thrown myself into my rule, my duty, almost lashing out at you in the process. But this was different. Believing you dead was a far, far different thing.”

She nodded. “You hated me for a time, or tried to. Just as I tried to hate you.”

“Yes, I guess I did. But when they told me you’d burned in that fire ... I fell into a deep melancholia. Instead of eating the meals that were served me I stared at them and felt ill. Instead of sleeping, I haunted the palace halls at night. Sometimes I would even slip away from the palace, without guards or escorts, and go to our secret oasis on the far side of the river and just sit in silence for hours.”

He tucked his shirt in, fastened his jeans, buckled his belt.

She turned halfway, her face in profile, moonlit on one side and shadowed on the other. “I’m sorry you suffered because of me.”

“I didn’t suffer a tenth what you did, Nidaba. But I did suffer. I knew you’d had a boy with you, that he had been killed as well. And though I couldn’t be certain, I suspected he was my own son. I... I wanted him to be. And I spent all my waking hours dreaming of how things might have been had I married you instead of Puabi. How the palace’s grim halls would have been filled with the laughter of my son and my beautiful wife.”

She lowered her face. To hide a rush of tears, he thought.

Reaching for her hand, he pulled her to her feet. She’d put on the black dress again. She liked the old ways, he thought. Maybe he did too. Maybe he wished he could go back in time and live it all again. Gods, but he would do things so differently this time.

Side by side, they walked into the hall and down the stairs. “When Puabi lost her child, years before, part of me ...” He lowered his head, shaking it slowly. “Part of me was riddled with guilt—because I hadn’t fully wanted the child. I wanted a son with you, not with Puabi.”

She nodded slowly, her cheek brushing against his shoulder because she walked so closely beside him. If he thought for a moment that there was a chance she could ever forgive him for all his mistakes—mistakes that had cost her everything—But no. That was foolish thinking.

They stopped in the kitchen, both of them avoiding the back door. The memory of what they’d found out there, too fresh and too recent.

“It’s an honest emotion, Natum,” Nidaba said. “Your being less than thrilled about Puabi’s child had nothing to do with its death.”

“I know that. But knowing it did nothing to ease the guilt I felt.” Sighing, he went on, even as he pulled out a chair, and guided Nidaba into it. “Later, when they told me you were dead, I didn’t even want to live. I was glad I didn’t have a child to look after, to be responsible for. I was devastated when I learned that you’d had a son, and that he had died so young, and I tormented myself with wondering if he had been my own. And even then, I didn’t know it was murder. I was told it was an accidental fire.”

“It is good, perhaps, that you didn’t know the truth, then,” Nidaba said, staring into space now, her face grim.

Turning his head, he kept his eyes fixed on Nidaba’s face. “I’d have killed her if I had known. I swear to you, Nidaba, she would have paid with her life.”

She cast her eyes downward, neither accepting his words nor arguing with them.

“Puabi knew how I mourned you. She couldn’t help but know it. And she knew I mourned your son in a way I had never mourned hers. She thought, I suppose, that once you were gone, I would stop searching for you, stop longing for you. Perhaps turn to her, in your place. But losing you only made me realize the gravity of my mistakes. And I regretted having married her more than I ever had before. She tried to come to me, to make me love her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. And she hated me for that.”

“Being rejected by her own husband would not have set well with that one,” Nidaba said.

“No. No, it didn’t. But she struck back.” He reached into the refrigerator, and pulled out a covered dish, swallowing hard. “Chicken stew,” he said. “Left over from the last meal Sheila cooked us.”

“She’s at peace, Natum.”

“I know.” He turned to the counter, filled two dishes with the stew, then popped them into the microwave and pressed a button.

“You said Puabi struck back at you,” Nidaba said. “How did she do that?”

He watched the bowls revolve. “She began to speculate that I was cursed, under an enchantment. She whispered suggestions of black magick. Said these things even beyond the walls of the palace, and whispered accusations of all kinds against me. She thought to discredit me. But her plan reversed upon itself. The people began to talk, as people will do. But rather than condemning me, they compared my state to the madness of Gilgamesh, the legendary hero, after his best friend Enkidu was killed. I was loved more than ever before. The people said I ruled by the blessing of a real and true goddess who had for a time walked among them. They said that the mysterious High Priestess Nidaba wasn’t just named for a goddess, but actually had been one. One who blessed and favored their king. But that she had died horribly, and they feared that I would soon follow, wasting away in mourning for her, unless I could be shaken free of my heartache. Gifts were piled upon the palace steps, public prayers for me uttered in the city square, musicians played outside my chamber windows. And a statue was erected in the temple in your likeness, Nidaba ... in an effort to comfort me.”

“I did not know.”

“You were a true legend,” he said. “And when rumors persisted that you had been seen in foreign lands, long after your supposed ‘death,’ the people became even more convinced of your divinity.”

A look crossed her face, as if this tale pained her somehow. “Please, continue.”

He closed his eyes, shook his head, took the two steaming bowls of stew from the microwave and placed them on the table, along with utensils, bread and butter, and salt. Then, sitting down, he let himself fall into the memory as he told the tale of the night his queen had killed him.

Chapter 17

Eannatum paced in his royal bedchamber. Just beyond the window, several of his most longtime advisers stood watching while a band of musicians played the lyre and harp and drums, and sang songs of the greatness of their king and the glory of the High Priestess Nidaba, who had rejoined her mother, the Goddess, and even now reigned from a heavenly throne and smiled down upon the people of Sumer.

It did nothing except etch the pain ever more deeply on his soul. Bad enough to have believed she had left him, bad enough to live without her... but this ... this was surely more punishment than any man deserved to bear. Knowing he would never see her again, never touch her, knowing she had a son who might have been his own—dead, just as she was. Dead.

He threw a goblet at the wall, and the sound rang in the hollowness of the room. It was followed by another sound. That of the large oak door creaking open, of the footfalls of small slippered feet. And then of the voice of the woman he’d been forced, by circumstances and vicious fate, to wed.

“It has been over a year, Eannatum.” Puabi said, her tone impatient and tinged by disgust. “Can you not let go of this mourning even now?”

He turned to look at her. She was beautiful, truly. Small and slight, with delicate features, a tiny waist, and round eyes of vivid lapis blue. Those eyes looked weary now. Nearly as weary as he felt. And yet they remained haughty, proud, and cruel.

“My mourning is no concern of yours.”

“To think I hoped you might turn to me, now that your whore is finally gone,” she said, bitterness overshadowing her beauty—making her seem ugly instead. “To think I had any hope at all you might do the honorable thing. The right thing for your country.”

He grated his teeth and clenched his hands into fists at his sides. “You are a political ally, Puabi. You knew that from the start. It is not my fault if it pains you, now, to see me mourning another woman.”

“Pains me? You think you have the power to hurt me, Puabi, Queen of all Sumer?” She tossed her head, stalking away from him in quick, angry strides. “It is not pain I feel, Eannatum, but humiliation. You may as well strip me naked, roll me in camel dung, and parade me through the streets. You’re making a fool of me before the entire kingdom! And a bigger fool of yourself. All over some nothing little priestess who’s dead and gone.”

He spun on her. “That little priestess was twice the woman you’ll ever be, Puabi. Speak ill of her again, and you’ll regret it, I vow.”

She sniffed indignantly. “Act like the king you are,” she cried. “Stop wallowing in your sorrow before all the world.”

He glared at her. “Perhaps you should consider returning to Ur, ruling from your palace there.”

“I am queen of Sumer, not merely of Ur. Lagash is the chief city of Sumer—thanks to our marriage. It is my right to sit on its throne, and you will not move me from it!”

They locked gazes, hatred flashing in her eyes more brightly than he’d yet seen it. A tap came at the chamber door, and she banked the emotion, turned and flung the door open. A servant stood there, bearing a tray with wine and chalices. Puabi took the tray and then turned back again.

“What’s this?” Eannatum asked, his tone sarcastic.

“Ah, but don’t you see it, your highness? This is your devoted wife, playing the role you asked her to play. Ordering up wine to soothe her husband’s misery.” She slammed the tray down onto a nearby stand, poured wine from the jug so clumsily that it slopped over her hand, then spun and held the chalice out to him. “Take it,” she snapped. “Accept a bit of comfort from the wife you never wanted. And choke on it, you bastard.”

He snatched the chalice from her, sneering at her as he did, and slugged back its contents in one long draft. Then he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and let the chalice fall from his hand to the floor. “Happy?”

Her expression changed. It darkened. She smiled very slowly. “Yes. More than I have been since I agreed to this loathsome arrangement.”

No sooner did she say the words than dizziness struck Eannatum. He pressed a hand to his head. But the dizziness only grew worse. He blinked as her face swam before his eyes. “What is this, Puabi? What have you ... ?” He tried to lunge toward the door, but stumbled instead, and found himself sitting on his own bed.

Suddenly Puabi shoved him backward, so he was lying down, and she straddled him. She tore open his robe. And he stared up at her, shivering, ill, too weak to even ask what she was doing. He couldn’t fight her. The room seemed to spin around him. His hands, his arms, refused to obey his mind’s commands to move, to push her off. He couldn’t convince his voice to shout for help.

“I know what you are,” Puabi said, her voice almost a growl. “My sages and sorcerers have told me about your kind. But you don’t deserve immortality, Eannatum. You waste it, grieving over what you’ve lost instead of relishing what you have!” She drew a dagger from a sheath. “You don’t deserve eternal life,” she said. “But I do! I do!”

Eannatum blinked in shock, realizing she meant to kill him. He forced himself to move, lifted his arms weakly to fend off her attack, but his struggles were useless. “You ... what are you ... No!”

Puabi lifted the blade high, and drove it into his chest. It was like fire and ice all at once, splitting him. He felt the searing pain of his flesh being sliced wide, felt the blood bubbling forth like a hot scarlet geyser, and a cry was forced at last from his lips.

A cry that was heard, for even as he lay there, pain screaming through his mind, blood bubbling out of his body, the chamber door burst open, and two of Eannatum’s men lunged into the room. Galor was one of them, and it was he who tore Puabi off him, disarmed her, dragged her away. But it was too late, Natum thought as he lay there. He could feel the life ebbing from his body. He was dying.

“Take her to the dungeons,” Galor shouted.

“No!” Puabi cried. “He’s a demon, your king. Cursed by that demoness who pretended to be a priestess. He’s not human, I tell you! Mark me, you’ll see! You’ll see!”

Her voice faded. There was nothing more. Eannatum lay there, in a pool of his own royal blood ... and he died.

It took a long time for him to revive. And later, much later, when he would learn about such things, he would wonder why that was. Perhaps because of the damage Puabi’s blade had done to his body, his heart, or perhaps because of the sleeping powder she had put into his wine. But he truly thought that it was more likely because he had no will to live at that point. He’d been like a walking corpse ever since he’d been told of Nidaba’s death. So there was no vitality in him, no life. And he suspected that was the reason he remained in the throes of death for so many hours.

When he felt that first rush of breath splitting his lungs, arching his body, jolting him wide awake, he thought he was feeling Puabi’s blade driving into his heart all over again. But the pain, the shock, faded fast, and he blinked his vision clear and looked around him.

At first he saw only the earthen walls rising high on three sides, and the solid brick one at the fourth, completely finished. But he took little notice of the odd room, thinking instead of the mortal wound in his chest. He pressed his hand there, quickly, and sat up, looking down.

But there was no wound, no blood. He was dressed in his finest robes, his crown, his sword, and his dagger lying all around him. Quickly he tugged at the collar of his garment and looked inside at his chest. It was dark in this small room, but he could see, and he found that odd, disorienting. And even odder, there was no mark on his skin. No wound.

Had it been some kind of dream? A nightmare?

An aroma wafted toward his nose. He sniffed and realized it was the familiar smell of censers filled with burning herbs. Then he heard muffled chanting coming from beyond the solid brick wall.

All at once it hit him where he was, what had happened to him.

He was sealed in his own tomb, and even as he sat there, trying to understand, to make sense of what seemed impossible, he realized what was going on in the outer chamber.

Someone played a lyre. Others hummed or chanted or sang. Drummers beat a slow rhythm, a death beat. “Gods, no!”

He raced to the brick wall as the drumbeat and the chanting grew faster, louder, more and more frantic. He pounded on the bricks, clawed and kicked at them, cried out over and over, but it was all lost in the pounding beat. And when that drumming reached its crescendo, only to go silent all at once, he knew they were all out there, his advisers, his courtiers, priests and priestesses, and loyal followers ... all of them, lifting the golden chalices to their lips, and sipping the sacred Elixir of the Dead.

“The poisoned wine,” he whispered. “No! Stop, I’m not dead!”

He pounded and kicked at the wall even harder. Then he snatched the dagger from where it lay, and began attacking the mortar with its blade, fighting to loosen just one brick. Anything to get to them, to stop them in time.

Finally, he scraped and pried enough to loosen a brick. Freeing it, he managed to kick several others loose until there was a hole big enough for him to crawl through. But the moment his head emerged on the other side, he knew he was too late.

He dragged his body through the opening, but his pace was no longer rushed or frantic. Then he stood in the midst of them all, and death surrounded him. His friends, and soldiers, his priests and priestesses, and the very musicians who’d been playing outside his chamber windows such a short time ago. They lay there, all of them. Dead. Dying. Reclining on the dirt floor, looking peaceful, beautiful, serene. Some were still breathing, barely. Silver ribbons were twined in the hair of the young women. One priestess still clutched the lyre. Those golden goblets lay beside them. Toppled and empty.

God, one of the dead men was Galor!

He wanted to scream, to cry out loud and rail against the meaninglessness of it all. His attendants, his first soldier, Ris ... all of them had died, believing they were journeying with their king, to serve him in the other-world. Never had he known such a heavy silence. Such a weight of sadness.

But it would not last. At any moment, he knew, the procession would arrive from the temple, and they would begin throwing the first layer of earth into the pit, to cover the bodies. He had to force himself to move.

Weakly, he ran up the sloping earthen ramp that his loved ones had so recently used to walk into their own mass grave, and when he reached the surface, some thirty feet above, he ran through the night, away from the city. He vowed he would never look back.

Eannatum got to his feet, pacing the kitchen. His bowl of stew was barely touched. He filled a glass with water and sipped it slowly. “I heard what happened next only by rumor. But it seems that one of the priests, when he returned to begin covering the grave, noticed the missing bricks. And upon checking further, he realized that my body was gone. He declared that Puabi had been telling the truth when she claimed I was some kind of netherworld demon. She was restored to the throne at once.”

“What became of your bitch-queen then, Natum?”

He looked down at her bowl. “Eat your stew.”

“I have no appetite.”

“Eat. Be strong. Better to kill her when she comes, Nidaba.”

With a fierce look, Nidaba spooned some of the stew into her mouth.

Natum did as well. When he had swallowed it, he went on with his tale.

“I was confused. I did not know what it could mean, that I had somehow revived from death. I thought of going after her—had I known then that she was responsible for the attack on you and our son, I would have. But for my own personal vengeance ... it just wasn’t worth the effort. I’d had my fill of ruling as a king. I was still in mourning for you. I went away. Far, far away, to try to find the answers to what I was, what my existence meant. Shortly afterward, Puabi returned to Ur. And that was where she ruled for many years to come. She had our marriage record stricken, had every mention of any alliance between the two of us erased. Stone tablets were crushed and new ones engraved. History was changed. I was remembered as a king of Lagash and onetime ruler of all Sumer, she as the mystical Queen Puabi of Ur. But never was there mention of the two of us having so much as met. And there never will be. No tablet with our true history will ever be found.”

He paused, sipped his water.

“She took the heart of another immortal, made herself immortal for as long as its power lasted,” Nidaba said slowly. Then she gasped, and widened her eyes. “By the Gods, Natum, there was only one other High Witch in Lagash—Aahron! That sweet young man who tried to tell me what I was. But I wouldn’t believe him. I sent him to serve in the palace.” She drew a trembling hand to her lips. “I sent him to his death.”

He could feel the grief that rose up in her at the thought. He couldn’t bear to see her hurting so deeply. “You can’t know it was Aahron’s heart she took, Nidaba.”

“But he was the only—”

Nathan caught her hand in his, drew it toward him, and brushed his lips over her knuckles. “He was the only High Witch you knew of, in Lagash. There could’ve been others. How would you have known, then? You knew nothing of our kind.”

She lowered her head. “I pray it wasn’t Aahron.” Nathan squeezed her hand and wished he could assure her it hadn’t been her young friend who’d fallen victim to Puabi’s blade. But he feared that if he did, he’d be lying. “Regardless of whose heart she stole,” Nidaba went on, “she killed in order to preserve her own life. And when the heart of her victim weakened, she took another, and another, and another. Do you know how many innocents she must have murdered to keep her evil alive for over four thousand years, Natum?”

“I can only imagine,” he said. “But it will end. Because she will come here, in search of us. And I will kill her.”

“Unless she kills you.”

“That won’t happen, Nidaba.”

“She is clever. She even made you believe she was me.”

He winced, remembering what had happened, regretting it to his very soul. There was pain in her voice when she spoke of it. Pain he’d caused, this time. “It hurt you deeply, when you saw me with her.”

She shrugged, averting her eyes. “I only wonder how a man who claims to have loved me so completely could be so easily fooled.”

“Because when one sees something he wants so badly to see, he tends to overlook minor details, Nidaba.”

Blinking her eyes, she examined his face. “What you wanted to see ... ?”

“Nidaba... when I looked at her, I saw only you. I saw your hands on me, felt your lips on me. I was helpless to resist.”

“Why?” she whispered.

He smiled just a little. “Why? Because I crave you still, Nidaba. You must know that, after what happened between us earlier tonight. Neither of us can deny it, now, can we? Between us, Nidaba, the fire still burns.”

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “Even if the love does not. That’s what you mean to say, isn’t it?”

He drew his brows together. So she wanted to make sure he understood that this was no more than physical? The knowledge dug deep,. confirming what he had already known. Hell, how could he have thought her love for him would survive so many lifetimes? So much pain?

“Nidaba, it’s all right. Don’t feel badly over that.”

She returned her attention to her stew, cleaning the bowl and dropping the spoon inside. “What makes you think I feel badly? What happened between us earlier was only an explosion. An outburst of feelings held in check for far too long. And not just feelings of desire, Natum. But feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal... all of them.”

He almost got angry. Almost. Would have, if not for the hurt he saw in her eyes and the slightest trembling of her lower lip, that suggested maybe she was being less than honest here. By the Gods, could it be? Might she still harbor some kernel of love for him? Was he a fool to even imagine such a thing were possible?

He moved back to the table, turned her chair around, then leaned over it, and braced one hand on the table on either side of her. “Then . . . what about now?”

“What do you mean?” She looked nervous. Why, he wondered.

“We’ve released all those pent up feelings, Nidaba. If that’s all it was, between us, that must mean it’s over— that you no longer feel desire for me at all.”

She closed her eyes. “I burn for you, Natum. You know I do,” she whispered.

He nearly closed his eyes, such was his rapture. Oh, it wasn’t a confession of love. But it was a start. “Thank the Gods for that, woman, because I need to feel you tonight.” He leaned closer, kissed her deeply, hungrily. She responded without reserve, her lips parting eagerly to welcome his invasion. When he finally lifted his head away, he said, “Sex without love, Nidaba? Is that all this will be?”

“Sex has many more facets to it than those of the heart, Eannatum.”

She looked at him as if meeting his challenge, answering his dare. When, dammit, she was the one who had just denied having feelings for him. Other than desire, at least. But he wanted her. He was hard already, just from kissing her. And in his mind’s eye, he remembered the night she had danced for him.

So many things had hit them both tonight. They’d been under attack, and the only shelter they had from the horror, the anguish, the pain ... was each other. Maybe, for right now, that was enough.

“She may have looked like me,” Nidaba whispered, “But you must admit Puabi could never give you the same pleasure I can, Eannatum.”

“In four thousand years, no woman ever has.”

“I would hate to think you couldn’t tell the difference between her touch and mine.”

“Remind me of the difference then. For just a little while, Nidaba, take me away from this nightmare we’ve fallen into. And I’ll take you away from it too. Just for a little while ...”

She closed her hands in his hair, and pulled his face her for a blatantly carnal kiss. She nipped his bottom lip in her teeth before she drew away slightly to soothe the sting with her tongue. “Oh, I will,” she promised in a husky voice. Rising slowly from the chair, she pressed her hands to his chest, and licked his lips, pushing him backward until he was against the wall. Then she flattened her body against his, continuing to sample his mouth, and she slid her hands along his arms, from his shoulders, upward, until her fingers laced with his, and his arms stretched above his head.

One of her hands darted downward, and her dagger appeared in it. She stabbed it through his shirt sleeve, and into the wall beyond. He gave an experimental tug to test his delicious restraints, and the dagger held. Anticipation made his blood pulse hotly. His erection hardened painfully, and he bit back a groan.

Smiling wickedly she sank to her knees in front of him, and opened his jeans. She freed his erection, her very touch making him shudder. Looking up at him, staring straight into his eyes, she licked her lips, and moved them closer to him. When that succulent mouth finally touched him, it was only lightly, teasingly as she rubbed her wet lips back and forth over the swollen head. Nathan arched his hips toward her, an unspoken plea. But still she tormented him, flicking her tongue over him until he was panting with need.

Finally, she took him into her mouth. Nathan shuddered as her lips slid over him, moved up and down the length of him, and her tongue swirled and lapped at him. She used her teeth on him, making him gasp and moan. He arched his hips toward her as she suckled and teased. He wanted to tangle his hands into her hair and hold her captive, so he could thrust into her mouth, but he didn’t do that. He could have torn his arms free and done just that. But he didn’t. He let her play just to see how long he could bear the succulent torture. She tormented him and pleasured him with her mouth and her tongue for a long while, never letting him find release, working him into a frenzy, only to deny him the ultimate goal, over and over, until his mind spun out of control. He was quivering, sweating, moaning her name.

And finally, when he could bear no more of it, he gave a deep growl and tore his arms free, ripping the fabric of the shirt in the process. He grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her to her feet, and ravaged her mouth, thrusting his tongue into her almost viciously. He tasted her and tangled with her tongue, licking the inside of her mouth. Savagely, he peeled her dress up her body and tossed it aside. Then, lowering her to the kitchen floor, he spread her thighs wide, and knelt between them.

She moved in supplication, arching her hips off the floor, but he didn’t take her. Not yet. Instead he gathered her wrists in one hand, pinning them to the floor above her head. “My turn,” he whispered, determined to give as good as he got.

Using his free hand, he touched her. He slid his fingertips slowly over her chin, her neck, down her sternum. He dragged them lightly over her breasts, pausing to press her nipples just a little. A tiny pinch, only enough so she whimpered for more. Then he moved on. His finger made spirals over her belly, slid downward, over her abdomen, and then teased her center so softly she rocked her hips in search of a firmer touch. He flicked lightly, over and over until he saw the sweat break out on her forehead.

Smiling, he touched her more firmly, and then still more, sliding his fingers into her slick passage, and moving them slowly while she squirmed.

“Damn you, Natum,” she whispered. “Take me now.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Not just yet.” He hooked his arms under her legs, lifting them, anchoring them over his shoulders. And then he bent his head, and licked a hot path over her juicy center. Using his fingers to spread her open wide, he lapped at her there. He loved her taste. He thrust his tongue inside, drew it out again, stabbed at her, sucked at her until she was writhing and screaming in ecstasy. And then he held her down, and licked some more.

“Please, Natum, please ...”

He rose and looked down at her. Her body was flushed, her nipples hard, her face, rapturous. God he loved seeing her like this.

He caught her hands, and rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, so she was atop him. She sat up slowly, her eyes glistening, hooded, fiery. Bracing her hands on his chest, she positioned her legs outside his, and lowered her body. He felt her shudder as he slid inside her like a dagger into its sheath, and Nidaba closed her eyes and moved. She rode him, slowly at first, then faster and harder, her head tipping back, her eyes falling closed. He caught her breasts in his hands, and tormented her nipples, holding them captive in a sweet, firm pinch so that when she moved, they pulled against his fingers. She rocked even more fiercely, took him even more deeply, until his mind and body exploded in wave upon wave of unimaginable pleasure. She ground her hips against him, her body squeezing him, milking dry as she climaxed with him, murmuring his name and raking her fingernails across his chest.

Then she went limp, slumping down atop him in a boneless sprawl. He wrapped his arms tight around her waist, she nuzzled his neck with her lips. “Sated yet, Priestess?” he teased her gently.

He felt her lips smile against his skin. “I’ve not been with a king in over four thousand years.”

“I’ve not been with a goddess in just that long.”

“Then we’ve much time to make up for.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He sat up, gathered her into his arms, then snatched up her dress and her dagger. He carried her up the stairs to the bedroom, wryly amazed that he was ready for her again so soon. But it had always been this way with her. The more he had Nidaba, the more he needed her, craved her. And he knew it wasn’t just sex with her, no matter what she might think or want to believe or be willing to admit. For him, it was more. Far more.

He laid her on the bed and made love to her again— Gently, this time. Leisurely. Tenderly. He kissed her, caressed her, spoke to her in soft whispers that emerged in the old tongue, as if they’d gone back in time. He tried to memorize every part of her, the way she felt against his hands, the way she tasted, the way she smelled, the way she sounded and moved and breathed in his arms. And for that short span of time, he found heaven.

Afterward, they lay sated and exhausted. Natum had opened the window to let the sea breeze in. It smelled like the ocean, like autumn, and like a looming rainstorm. Every once in a while distant thunder rumbled ominously.

Beyond the window, the ocean danced in the fall wind’s touch. The scents of the sea and the fall leaves and the impending storm lingering on the air were intoxicating. And the dog, which had wandered into the room to lie down on the floor beside the window, seemed to fit the scene perfectly. “You really do love this life you’ve built here, don’t you, Eannatum?”

He glanced at Nidaba’s face and smiled. “It’s been ... a haven.”

“It is a beautiful home.”

“It’s not just the house. Or the gallery in Boston. Or George and Sheila.” He paused there, swallowing hard at the mention of Sheila’s name. “It’s ... it’s more than that.”

“I know,” she said softly. “It’s a mortal’s life you’re living, Natum. The Dark Ones ... they don’t even seem to know you exist.”

“Except for one,” he said. “And who knows how many others Puabi has told about me by now? No, Nidaba, my peaceful little life has ended.” He sat up in the bed, began slowly to put his clothes back on.

Nidaba shook her head, sitting up as well, and the breeze caught her hair, mussing it more than Natum had done. “I know the way that woman thinks,” she told him. “She hasn’t told any others. She wouldn’t. She always wanted you all to herself—even now that she apparently wants you dead.”

He lifted a brow. He’d pulled on his jeans, but nothing else, and he propped his shoulder against the window as he watched her with interest.

“Chances are, once we rid ourselves of her forever— you’ll be able to continue on with your life just the way you have been,” she said, sitting up in the bed, allowing the sheet to fall to her waist.

Even now, he wanted her. “And what about you?” he asked, his gaze taking full advantage of her nakedness.

She shook her head, got to her feet, wrapping the sheet around her sarong-style, and moved until she was beside him at the window. Turning her face into the wind, she gazed out at the whitecaps dancing on the sea. “My notoriety now is almost as widespread as it was in Lagash,” she said.

“A legend yet again?”

“Among the dark ones, yes. Although it’s not the kind of fame one would wish for.”

“They hunt you.” He caressed her jaw with a fingertip. “What has it been like for you, Nidaba?”

“Not so bad.”

“No. Tell me the truth now. There’s no more reason for lies between us. Not after all this.” He reached for her nightgown, hanging over the chair’s back, and she stood still while he pulled her sheet away, and gently dressed her in it. Then he put his own shirt back on. “Let’s walk outside. You can talk to me.”

Nidaba let him pull her with him into the hall, down the stairs, right at the bottom, rather than left into the living room. He took her through the library and out through the French doors onto the veranda.

She noticed the walkway, lined on both sides with late blooming flowers, that led around the house. “What’s back there?”

He followed her gaze. “More flower beds, garden plots, and the stairs up to the roof.” The dog got up and trotted happily at their side. “But you’re changing the subject. I asked what it’s been like for you.”

“What is it you want to know?” She pretended great interest in the cobblestone lined flower beds that surrounded his great old house above the sea.

“You ... said once that you had been held captive. And that woman, your—our—daughter-in-law ... she seemed concerned about your mental state.”

She shrugged as if none of it mattered. “What’s on the roof?” she asked.

“Pigeons. Sheila keeps—kept—them up there. Listen, you can probably hear them.”

Nidaba remembered George mentioning that there were pigeons on the roof, and she could indeed hear their gentle cooing sounds if she listened closely. “It’s not natural to keep them caged. That doesn’t seem like something Sheila would do.”

“You’re right about that. They were never caged, not really,” he explained. “Sheila always left the pens open by day. They just always come back at night.”

Frowning, Nidaba tilted her head to one side. “I guess they’re like you. They don’t mind living in captivity. Even ... like it.”

“I don’t live in captivity,” he insisted. He sat down on the stone wall that encircled the veranda. “What makes it seem that way to you?”

She shrugged again, and pacing to the veranda’s edge, stood there with the sea wind whipping her nightgown around her legs, and blowing her hair behind her like a flag. “You aren’t free to be what you are. You keep it secret, afraid to let it show. You pretend to be just another mortal. You live like one. It seems like captivity to me.”

“And you ... how do you live?”

Tipping her face up to the kiss of the wind, she closed her eyes. “Wild. Free. I travel the world. I amass fortunes and spend them at will. I live. I relish it.” Taking a deep breath, she continued. “A long time ago, there was a man by the name of Nathanial Dearborne. He was a Dark High Witch and something of a scientist. He made a habit of taking Light Ones alive when he could and keeping them captive. Killing them in one way or another, and then watching them revive. Studying which manner of death would last longer. He even began taking their hearts ... and then returning them to see if they would revivify.”

Natum’s next breath came from very close, and warmth rushed over her nape. His hands curled around her shoulders as he stood behind her. “I had heard such a thing was possible, but I never believed it.”

“Believe it. It’s true. I suppose that in a way I owe Dearborne a debt of gratitude. His experiments, the notes he left in his journals—they were what enabled Arianna to restore life to our son after his heart was taken.” She turned and looked at Natum’s startled eyes. “He laid in a grave for three hundred years. She found his heart, returned it to him, brought him back. So perhaps the torture was ... in some twisted way ... worth bearing.”

“You were one of this Dearborne’s captives?” His face seemed to pale.

She nodded. “You said you wanted to know.”

“By the Gods ...”

“Don’t. It’s in the past. Over. Dearborne is long dead. Nicodimus has been restored. And I... well, I learned how very much I value my freedom, and my life.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Immortality is a gift, Eannatum. Why would anyone wish to ignore it—to live as if they were just like everyone else?”

“They hunt you,” he said flatly. “You’re forced to kill or be killed, over and over again. I lived like that, Nidaba, and I hated it.”

She lowered her head. “Freedom comes with risk.” She glanced up toward the roof. “I guess for some the security of domestication is worth the sacrifice.” Then she stared out at the sea, spotted a gull swooping and diving. “And for others, freedom is far more important. I’d rather fight and die free, Natum, than live forever in a cage.”

He looked back at his house. “This is hardly a cage.”

“Yes, it is. No matter how gilded, it still has its bars.”

He nodded. “We’ve grown very different in all this time, haven’t we, Nidaba?”

“More than I ever would have guessed,” she said. And she understood now why he couldn’t love her anymore. He wouldn’t give up the kingdom he’d built to run away with her now any more than he had been able to that night in the desert so long ago. And if he brought her into it with him—assuming that she could bring herself to live that way—she would bring battle, strife, chaos with her. And his kingdom would fall. Crumble into the sea.

It was impossible, then, wasn’t it?

She met his eyes, and saw that he knew it too. And a new despair settled over her. “I used to think that a person could only live so long and remain sane. That eventually the body of an immortal would outlive the mind.”

“And why did you think that?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I saw my own mind as the best example. I went a bit insane after I lost my son for the second time, in the sixteenth century when a Dark Witch took his heart. But I survived. Eventually I returned to myself. I sought vengeance on the Dark Witch who had murdered my son, but it was I who was trapped, captured, tortured. I only escaped three years ago—both my mind, and my body were broken for a long time.”

“But again, you recovered.” He stroked her hair, fingertips gentle on her temples. “Perhaps the mind of an immortal heals itself just the way the body does.”

“Perhaps. I recovered slowly, and only when I found my son again.”

“Loss ... has a profound effect on us, Nidaba.”

Then how, she wondered, was she going to bear losing her Eannatum when this was over?

“This is a pointless discussion.”

“No. I needed to know these things,” he said softly.

“I can’t imagine why. They have no relevance to the threat facing us now.”

“Everything about you has relevance for me, Nidaba.” He paused. “What happened on that hotel rooftop?”

She stared into his eyes, so filled with concern, for her. “It wasn’t another bout with insanity, if that’s what you’ve been thinking. No. It was far simpler, Natum. A simple attack by one of the Dark Ones. Something that has become routine in my life, I’m afraid. However this Dark Witch had hedged her bets. When it looked as if I would defeat her in a fair fight, she pulled a weapon—a gun. I had to either let her shoot me and carve out my heart while I waited to revive—or jump and hope to revive before the ambulance arrived. I happen to think I made the sane decision.” She pursed her lips in thought. “Though had I known what would follow, I think I’d have taken my chances with the gun.”

“Gods, when I think what you’ve been through . . .” He leaned closer, kissed her cheek. “You’re getting cold. We should go back inside.” One arm around her, he urged her through the French doors.

She shivered, realizing only now how chilled she was, and started toward the living room, moving ahead of him. She was eager for the warmth of the fire. Natum followed her, then headed back into the library. “I’ll be out in a moment,” he called.

Nidaba kept walking, rubbing her chilled arms and thinking about how differently they saw things now. She touched the long, thin nightgown she wore, and it reminded her vaguely of the sacred white gown she used to wear in the temple. She wasn’t wearing anything else, except, of course for the dagger at her thigh.

It hurt, very deeply, to know that he felt only desire for her. That the love he had professed of old had not been as immortal as they both were. But he had made love to her as if nothing had changed. And for now she would have to be content simply to pretend. It was painfully obvious they could never go back to the way things had once been.

Nidaba stopped short when she stepped into the living room and saw the dagger that pinned a scrap of parchment to the wall beside the mantel like a butterfly’s wing.

“Eannatum!” she cried.

He appeared a moment later, a blanket in his hands, which he draped over her shoulders. “Right here,” he said. “I just wanted to grab this throw out of the library for you to ... Nidaba? What’s wrong?”

Lifting a finger, she pointed.

Natum followed her gaze. She heard the hiss of his dagger sliding free of its sheath. “Stay close to me,” he whispered, moving around her, clasping her hand behind him.

Nidaba drew her own dagger, its golden hilt cool in her palm. Slowly they moved across the room, looking all around them, listening, every sense alert. Even the dog looked uneasy as she lifted her head and looked around.

Natum reached up, yanked the note from the dagger’s blade, leaving the blade where it was. And then he read it aloud.

“A trade,” he read. “George for your son.”

Chapter 18

“How could she know? How?” Nidaba sank into a chair, the blanket around her shoulders, her head in her hands. The skin around her eyes was already stinging from the drying salt of so many tears. But she was angry now. Frightened for George and furious for his suffering, and for Sheila. But this was more. This was her son.

Natum’s face was cold and grim. “She ... must have overheard us talking when you told me he was still alive, that you knew where he was,” he said. “I just don’t understand how. There was no one here, but us, and the dog and—wait a minute. Wait a minute, that’s it! The dog.”

Nidaba shook her head even as Natum started looking for the dog. “No, it’s not her, Natum. I’ve touched her. I would have known.”

“Wait, here she comes,” he warned. “Come on, Queenie. Here, girl.”

The big Rottweiler trotted up to him, and when he reached out to stroke her head, she turned it and licked his hand. No sparks. Damn.

The dog went to the door then and scratched it with a forepaw.

Absently, Natum opened it and let her out. “I was so sure.”

“She can’t take my son from me again, Natum. I won’t allow it.”

“Of course you won’t. Nor will I!”

“But George—she has George,” Nidaba muttered.

Natum stopped pacing, looked slowly from the note to Nidaba. “What if she doesn’t?”

“What do you mean? Her note says—”

“Never mind what her note says. She’s evil, Nidaba, she’d certainly have no compunction about lying to get what she wants. All we have is her word that she has George.”

“And Sheila’s,” Nidaba reminded him.

“No. No, Sheila said, ‘She went after George.’ ” He turned to the windows, pushing the curtains back, staring out into the ever thickening darkness. The storm was rolling closer now. The thunder was closer, louder, and Nidaba could feel the static in the air.

“What if George saw her attack Sheila and ran away?” Natum said.

Nidaba sat up straighter in her chair. “Then Puabi would have gone after him.”

“She’d never have found him. Not if he made it to the woods before she caught up.”

Sighing softly, Nidaba got to her feet. She went to where he stood and put a hand on his shoulder. The familiar tingling jolted through her hand at the contact, then faded to warmth. “Natum, I know you love him, and you want to believe he’s all right. But Puabi is a High Witch over four thousand years old. George is just a simple mortal. Besides, we searched the woods. There was no sign of him anywhere.”

He nodded slowly. “I know. George loves those woods. He used to vanish for days at a time. And damned if I know where he hid, but wherever it was, he got there by way of the woods.” He let the curtain fall, turned to face her. “I used to search—hell, the neighbors and the volunteer fire department even got involved one summer. We turned those woods inside out. But we never found him. He showed up safe and sound when he was ready. I got so worried I had to ask him not to go out there anymore. And when he saw how upset I was, he promised he wouldn’t.”

Nidaba blinked. “Do you really think there is a chance George could be so well hidden that even Puabi cannot find him?”

“I think there’s a chance, yes.” He closed his eyes. “Gods, please let there be a chance,” he whispered, and she knew it was a prayer, heartfelt and potent.

“I don’t think we should count on it, Natum.”

Drawing a long breath, he expelled it quickly. “Maybe ... it’s time we call Nicodimus.”

Nidaba’s head came up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“We have the name of the hotel, the number. The woman, Arianna, left it with me. We should let our son know what’s going on.”

“Why?” Her brows bent deeply as she searched Natum’s face in horror. “He would only come rushing out here to help us, Natum!”

“Which would force Puabi to show herself.”

“You want to use my son as bait?” Nidaba’s eyes narrowed on him, and she looked more closely. At his skin, its texture, his eyes, their color.

He held up a hand. “Just hear me out. You said yourself Nicodimus is a powerful immortal. A strong warrior. We’d never let him out of our sight, Nidaba, and when Puabi came for him, she would have all three of us to contend with.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You would risk him that way? Your own son?” She backed a few steps away from him.

Natum frowned. “No. No, Nidaba, you’re misunderstanding me. There would be no risk to it. Puabi would have to go through me to harm him, and that’s not going to happen.” He took a step toward Nidaba.

She took a step back.

Natum stared at her, his eyes widening. “Nidaba, don’t look at me that way. If Nicodimus is half the man I think he is—I know he is—then he would want to make this decision for himself. He would want to be here to help me protect you from Puabi.”

“My son died protecting me once. It will not happen again. And if you can even suggest what you just have, then you are not worthy of calling yourself his father.”

The dog came wandering in from the kitchen then, halted halfway across the room, stared at Natum, and suddenly began to growl deep in her throat.

Nidaba shot a panicked look at the animal, then back at Eannatum again. “Oh Gods, no,” she murmured.

He held up a hand. “No, Nidaba. Don’t... don’t think what you’re thinking. It’s not—”

“Stay away!” She took a step backward for every one he took forward and yanked her dagger from her thigh, holding it up between them.

“Don’t do this, Nidaba.”

“The dog knows you’re not Eannatum,” she whispered. Her breaths came faster, shorter. She told herself to lunge at him, to drive her blade into his chest, but for the life of her she couldn’t do it. Even though she knew he must be Puabi. Otherwise, why would the dog behave that way? Growling at him, hairs bristling. He’d been out of her sight when he got the blanket for her from the library. Only for a moment, but still...

He just kept shaking his head, staring at her and shaking his head. “It’s me, Nidaba. I only want to keep you alive, protect you. I only want...” Then he reached out for her, and in her panic she jabbed her dagger at him. He swung one powerful arm, delivering a blow that sent the dagger flying out of her hand. Left with no other choice, Nidaba turned and ran from the house. And even as she lunged into the night, and fled at top speed, he gave chase.

“Stop! Dammit, Nidaba, wait!”

Thunder clapped loudy, and Nidaba turned to look behind her as she raced around the house. She saw the dog launch itself at Natum—or at the person who looked like Natum—and send him face first to the ground. His head connected with a rock. She saw blood, and he went still, not moving again. Good. Then the dog raced onward, as afraid, Nidaba thought, as she was.

What the hell had that bitch done with the real Ean-natum?

He couldn’t be in the house. He’d have cried out. And now that the stormclouds had rolled in, it was too dark to see outside as well as she would have liked. Still, her night vision was far better than that of a mortal. Dammit, the storm was going to break any moment. Again thunder clapped, and this time the wind whipped with it.

She rounded the corner to the rear of the house and saw the stairway there, hugging the back wall, angling sharply upward to the flat roof. The dog raced ahead, pausing on the bottom step. Even as the wind whipped harder and the first few fat raindrops smacked her in the face, Nidaba nodded. “Yes, the roof. I can see all around from up there.”

Mounting the steps, she started up them. The wind whipped her hair, and her white gown snapped around her ankles. Bowing into it, she gripped the slender rail and made her way to the top, the dog right behind her.

Finally, she reached the flat, tar-coated rooftop and looked around in the darkness. The moon was blotted out now by dark clouds, and the sea in the distance roiled with whitecaps and froth. The wind was treacherous up so high, and getting worse by the minute. She staggered forward against it, squinting in the darkness to see the large square structure in the center. Cooing and scratching sounds told her what this was. The pigeons. Sheila’s precious pigeons.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the night, and two things became visible, and invisible again, in that one blinding moment. The form of a large man, curled up, shivering and lying on his side next to the giant coop, and the body of the huge Rottweiler lying close beside him.

“George?” Nidaba cried out, and she started to move forward, but stopped in her tracks when the deep-throated growl came from behind her.

“Nidaba? Is that you?” George asked in a frightened voice.

Going utterly still, she swallowed hard and her mind raced. But the dog was in front of me, lying beside George . . . so how is it behind me, snarling at me? Oh, Gods— two dogs. Two dogs. One, George’s best friend .. . and the other. . .

The beast behind her growled more loudly. Nidaba turned to face it, and she saw its eyes come alive, glowing with an unnatural yellow light.

“I always said you were a bitch, Puabi,” Nidaba said. “But I didn’t expect it to be literally true.” Her hand touched the sheath at her thigh, but the blade was not in it, and her heart sank as she recalled that Natum had knocked it out of her hand. Natum—lying down there with his head split open, bleeding. The sky burst open with an explosion of thunder. Icy rain fell in sheets as the beast crouched and attacked. Teeth tore through flesh, giant paws knocked her flat. George cried out, and she heard the other dog—the real dog—snarling. The dog-Puabi leapt onto her chest, and even as she clasped its big head to hold the beast off, she knew she couldn’t win.

When the powerful jaws locked on her throat, and the incisors ripped into her jugular, Nidaba knew it was over.

But even as her blood pulsed out of her, and her life force weakened, the lightning flashed. The killer beast rose away from her. She saw the other dog, the real dog, lunge at it, only to stop short and cower in fear. The beast was changing, morphing, right before Nidaba’s eyes. And the shape it took this time was her own. A Nidaba look-alike, white gown intact, throat unmarred, Puabi knelt over her. And she lifted a blade, held it poised above Nidaba’s chest.

“Know before you die that I will take Natum and your son next. Know it. Feel that pain. I want you to suffer the way I have.”

And then there was a deep menacing growl. Nidaba turned her head weakly, and saw George’s dog flying forward, having overcome her fear in order to protect Nidaba. Queenie’s powerful paws hit Puabi squarely in the chest, and the Dark Witch sailed right over the edge of the roof.

Squinting through her fading vision, Nidaba turned her head toward the place where George crouched with his knees to his chest, rocking in abject terror. She tried to call out to him, but her throat had been too torn apart to allow speech.

The dog—the real dog—leaned over her, licking her face, as death swept her into its cold prison once more. She could only pray that the healing would take place in time to save Natum. And then there was darkness.

“Nathan? Oh, Nathan, are you all right?”

Nidaba had not once called him by his modern alias. Until now.

Nathan blinked the dizziness away, tried to shake off the pounding in his head, and managed to sit up. Nidaba leaned over him, cradling his head, speaking in an unnaturally hoarse voice.

“That dog—that damned dog—” Nathan began.

“It was no dog, Nathan. It was Puabi,” Nidaba whispered, her voice far too soft. “I’m so sorry I doubted you, my love.” She rubbed her throat and Nathan saw bruises there in the shape of hands.

“Are you all right?” he asked her. “What happened to you?”

“She attacked me. Choked me, and my vocal cords are slow in repairing themselves. But... it’s all right, Nathan. I—I killed her. She’s dead.”

Nathan sighed and closed his eyes. Reaching out, he wrapped his arms around Nidaba, held her tight. “Thank the Gods. It’s over. Finally, over. God, if only we could find George.”

She nodded, sniffling and snuggling her head into the crook of his shoulder. “Well... for that we can get some more help. If... if you’re up to it, Nathan, I think it’s about time we made that call. You’ve waited far too long already ... to meet your son. Don’t you think?”

He brushed her hair away from her face, smiling at her. “Yes. Yes, I have. Go ahead, and call him, Nidaba. The number is in the drawer of that small table beside the fireplace,” he told her softly. She looked toward the house. “Go ahead,” he told her. “I’ll be along in a minute. My head is already on the mend.” He lifted a hand to rub at the spot on his skull and sent her a sheepish grin. She returned the smile, and ran into the house to search for the phone number.

Nathan managed to get to his feet, though his head throbbed and dizziness swamped him. He drew his dagger and steeled himself against the gut-churning fear. He didn’t know where the hell Nidaba was ... what the bitch had done to her, or to George, but he knew one thing without a doubt. That hadn’t been Nidaba. Nidaba had not once called him Nathan. And her touch had never been cold, her voice soft, her demeanor hesitant.

He made his way to the front door, his dagger behind his back. He walked quietly inside, step by step, closer and closer to the woman who leaned over the small table rummaging through the drawer. He brought the dagger around, lifting it above his head.

Behind him someone screamed.

He whirled in time to see the blond woman, Arianna, in the doorway, pointing at him and yelling, “I knew it! I knew he was lying!”

And then a handsome, powerfully built man, with russet hair and midnight eyes surged past her, landed a blow that slammed Eannatum into the wall. His already injured head cracked against the plaster, and exploded in new pain.

“Nidaba! Gods, are you all right?” Arianna Sinclair-Lachlan asked, rushing forward to spin the impostor around and embrace her.

Eannatum fought to stay conscious, to keep from sliding to the floor, as the man strode up to him, gripped the front of his shirt, and held him upright.

“Are you Nicodimus?” he managed to ask, before the man could pummel him again.

The man nodded once and bared his teeth. “Yes, I am. And might I ask who the hell you are, before I put you into the ground for good?”

Nathan nodded weakly. Blood was running from his nose, and this man knew by now that he was an immortal from the shock at contact. Probably didn’t know if Eannatum was Dark or Light, and even more probably didn’t care.

“I’m Eannatum,” he said. “I’m your father.”

Nidaba dragged in her next breath, her first breath, the breath of life itself. It jolted through her, arching her back and filling her lungs to near bursting with storm laden air and rainwater. Someone leaned over her, patting her face.

She opened her eyes.

“George. Oh, George, you’re really okay!”

“So are you,” he said. Beside him his dog wagged her tail, and for a moment she went stiff with fear as memory surged.

The roof.

The pigeons.

Eannatum . . . the dog . ..

“Natum...” Her voice was raspy. She wondered why. And then she knew, even as she struggled to sit up, to stand. Still weak, not yet healed, she staggered to the edge of the rooftop, looked down over. The car in the driveway hadn’t been there before. But it was a familiar model.

“Nicodimus! Oh, Gods, he’s here.”

Her hands went to her throat, and she felt the gaping wound. At least it was no longer bleeding as it slowly healed itself. But the damage within still made every breath a tortured wheeze. It hurt to breathe. Hurt more to call out. Yet she tried all the same. But the sound that resulted was barely as loud as the contented chuckling of the pigeons.

“It’s okay, Nidaba. Come on, I’ll help you down.”

George pulled one of her arms around his shoulder and held her as she made her way toward the stairs. Stumbling, she fell to her knees once, but he pulled her right back up. He was not, she realized, in much better shape than she was—he was dripping wet, freezing, probably suffering from exposure, as well. He was cut and bruised and scared to death. “What happened after you and Sheila left here, George?” she asked as he slowly helped her down the stairs.

“The bad lady ... she must have followed us. She ran us off the road and made us get into her car and come right back here. We never even got to go to the beach like Sheila said we could. And then ... oh, it was bad. It was so bad, Nidaba. That lady, she said she was gonna take us into the house, so you and Nathan would know she meant business, and Sheila, she tried to get away.”

“And Puabi killed her,” Nidaba said. They had paused in the middle of the stairway.

“No. Sheila tripped, and she hit her head.” His face contorted. “And then she just didn’t get up anymore. Did she ... did she ... die?”

Nidaba pressed a hand to his cheek. “I’m so sorry, George. She did. She went to be with Lisette.”

“I wanted her to stay with us,” he said.

Beside him the dog whined softly, as if she too were mourning Sheila’s death.

“I was scared,” George said. “So I ran. I went and hid in the woods, and then I sneaked back here. Because I knew Sheila wouldn’t be able to take care of her pigeons.”

“So you came to take care of them for her.”

He nodded and went back to helping her down the stairs. “Then I was too scared to come down. But I thought the bad lady would never find me on the roof.”

They finally reached the ground, and the doorway. She peered inside, and saw someone holding Natum against the wall by his shirt and pounding on his face. “George, the bad lady’s in there, and she has made herself look just like me. You stay away from her.”

“How will I know which one of you is which?”

“Code word,” she told him. “I’ll know our secret code word.”

“What is our code word?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“Sheila. It’s Sheila.”

He smiled, nodded, and Nidaba threw open the door and rushed inside, pouring every bit of strength she had left into her attack. She reached out, grabbed Nicodimus by the back of his shirt, and yanked him off Eannatum with so much force that he lost his balance and fell on his backside. She looked down at her son and said, “Hello, Nicky. I see you’ve met your father.”

He stared up at her in shock, then turned his head to look across the room. When she followed his gaze, she saw the impostor, looking just like her, with her arms around Arianna.

Chapter 19

Nidaba stared at Nicodimus. Then at Natum, who was fighting to remain conscious as blood ran from his nose and split lip. He’d sunk to the floor, where he kept blinking, shaking his head.

But there was no time to help either of them, because Puabi was already in motion.

“Arianna, look out!” Nidaba shouted, but it was too late. Even as Arianna sent a confused look her way, the false Nidaba swung her clasped fists as one, clubbing Arianna on the head so hard she went down at once.

“What the hell!” Nicodimus leapt to his feet and lunged toward her, but Puabi was faster. She snatched up a paperweight and hurled it at him with deadly precision, and then he was on the floor too.

And it was down to the two of them. Nidaba and Puabi. Nidaba focused, knowing she could not match this woman alone, in her weakened state. She was still not fully recovered from Puabi’s most recent attack. She needed help. And as a High Priestess of the Goddess, she knew where to get it. Nidaba focused her energy, drawing it up from the earth below and down from the sky above. Feeling the power pulsing in her body, she mentally contained it, directed it, forced it upward, to her eyes, and to the spot above them in the center of her forehead. “First sight, second sight, third eye, never lie.”

She opened her eyes, and saw the vision, the glamour, begin to ripple. Like heat waves shimmering over the false face Puabi wore.

“You’ll never make it work, Nidaba. I’m far more powerful than you will ever be,” Puabi taunted.

“It’s my face, you foolish sow,” Nidaba whispered. “You might have been able to sustain any other form but this one. I know myself too well not to see the truth beyond the glamour.”

“Then why are you still squinting so hard?”

Beyond the ripple, Puabi’s hand swam higher, lifting a dagger. Nidaba was still unarmed. Her own dagger lay on the floor ten feet to her left. She took a step toward it, but Puabi moved into her path.

Nidaba eyed the woman coolly. “You cannot hope to defeat me, Puabi. Dagger or no. I am a High Priestess of Inanna!”

“Your Goddess turned her back on you long ago, when you betrayed her by falling in love with her chosen king, Nidaba. And you know that as well as I.”

For a moment Nidaba’s will weakened. And Puabi’s glamour solidified again before her eyes. But then she glanced sideways at Eannatum, and his eyes met hers, though they were slitted with pain and he was barely conscious. She saw the love in his eyes, and she knew. She finally understood what he had been trying to tell her before. Her Goddess had never abandoned her. And neither had her Natum. Nidaba, had never done anything wrong. She and Eannatum were simply meant to be.

Nidaba lifted her hands and her head, closed her eyes, trusting utterly. She heard Puabi rushing forward and yet she didn’t move. She only chanted the sacred words she’d learned at Lia’s feet so many years ago. “Inanna me en, Inanna me en, Inanna me en! I am of Inanna, I am of the Goddess, and she is of me. We are one, and you cannot stand against us.”

The blade came down. Nidaba heard it slicing the air close to her body. Calmly, guided by a force beyond her, she brought her hands down, palms outward, and opened her eyes to see the blade stop in mid-air. As if it had hit a brick wall. She saw Puabi as she truly was. Small, slight. Short dark hair framing her pixie-like face. Her round lapis blue eyes gleamed with hatred as she tried to force her blade to move, and looked stunned and confused when it wouldn’t. Her fisted hand gripped the dagger more tightly, and her face contorted as she drew back and swung the blade again. But it was blocked by an invisible shield.

“Be gone!” Nidaba commanded, guided by a force that was beyond her. A bolt of pure energy burst from her palms, slamming into Puabi. She flew backward, airborne, her blade sailing harmlessly across the room. Her body crashed into the wall and she slid to the floor. But she scrambled to her feet almost immediately. Nidaba was so stunned by the power she had just channeled, that she was not ready for the second attack. She stood looking in awe at her hands, half expecting to see burn marks in her palms from the searing force that had burst from them.

Puabi bent low and charged, driving into Nidaba headfirst like a rampaging bull. The two rolled in a tangle of arms and hands and clothes. Furniture crashed to the floor, knickknacks shattered. Queenie raced around them, barking and growling.

They pounded, kicked, clawed, beat one another, until finally, Nidaba landed a roundhouse blow that sent Puabi reeling. In the split second before she attacked again, Nidaba scrambled to grab a dagger from the floor, and sprang to her feet again, crouched and ready. She glanced down at the weapon in her hand. Puabi’s jewel encrusted dagger.

Puabi, too, had used the opportunity to arm herself. She squared off, facing Nidaba, and in her hand, she held the gold-handled dagger that Eannatum had given to Nidaba.

The two faced each other, panting, breathless, daggers at the ready. A flash of movement caught Nidaba’s eye, and she glimpsed Nicodimus, Arianna, and Eannatum standing together, staring at them. George cowered in a corner, apparently too afraid to watch. Nidaba realized that to their eyes, she and Puabi still looked exactly the same.

“My Goddess, what’s going on here?” Arianna asked. She drew her dagger, eyeing the two women who circled each other amid the rubble of the room.

“Her name is Puabi,” Eannatum explained slowly. “She was responsible for your first death, Nicodimus, some four thousand years ago. And she’s come back now to try to kill you again.”

“I can’t imagine why she would want to,” Nicodimus murmured, his gaze darting from one of the women to the other. “I don’t even know her.”

“Mostly, she just wants to hurt your mother,” Natum told him grimly. “But she’s also a Dark High Witch, so I suppose your heart would be an added bonus.”

“So which one is she?” Arianna asked, looking from one woman to the other in bewilderment.

Eannatum frowned, his eyes sliding to the Nidaba on the left, as she sent him a pleading look, brimming with love, begging him to recognize her. He then turned to look at the Nidaba on the right. Her eyes met his only briefly, and if looks could kill, he figured he would be breathing his last about now.

Eannatum nodded toward her with a slight smile. “That one’s your mother. She’s mad as hell because she thinks I don’t know which is which.”

“Be gone,” Nidaba said in an intense, resonant tone that filled the entire room with an unnatural reverberation. She held her palm out toward her enemy, her dagger clasped in her other hand. “Be gone, Puabi.”

Puabi shrieked and drove forward with her blade, but again, it hit that unseen resistance. Eannatum blinked and looked again, because for a moment it seemed there was another woman in the room, larger than life, her form like an aura around and above Nidaba’s. Her eyes were like winking bits of lapis, and the rest of her as faint as a breeze. Her hand seemed to meld with Nidaba’s as she held it out, palm facing her attacker.

There was a blinding flash of light that seemed to emanate from Nidaba’s palm, and Puabi flew backward as if hit by a wrecking ball. Her blade flew from her hand, and landed in the fireplace, burying itself amid the coals. Puabi slammed into the wall with such force the plaster crumbled as she sank into a broken heap on the floor.

As her hold on the spell weakened, the glamour faltered, and Nathan saw Puabi for the first time in well over four thousand years. Ever young, beautiful, selfish and utterly ruthless.

Her dazed eyes met his for an instant. “I only wanted your love,” she whispered. “That’s all... that’s all...” And then those vivid blue eyes fell closed.

Nathan turned away from her and sought Nidaba. She was standing on the other side of the room, her body nearly limp with exhaustion, bruised and bleeding. He rushed to her, caught her up in his arms, and held her tenderly against him when it seemed she could barely stand on her own.

“You were right,” she muttered. “About the dog. There were two—part of the time, at least. George was on the roof, and I went up there. One dog attacked me ... and the other ... she saved me.”

She sagged against him, stunned, he thought, at the events that had just transpired. Finally, though, she steeled herself, stood straighter, and looked up at him. “Tell me you knew which was really me?”

“I knew, Nidaba. From the very start. If you doubt me, you can ask your... our son.” He offered a small smile, which died at Arianna’s cry.

“Nicodimus!”

Nathan turned and for an endless moment, could only watch in horror. Puabi had roused unnoticed, and retrieved her blade from the coals of the hearth, where it had landed. Its blade glowed red-hot as she rose slowly, drew back her arm, and flung it at Nicodimus. It seemed to happen in slow motion, and yet too suddenly to prevent. Nic, hearing Arianna’s cry, turned as the fire red blade whirled end over end toward him, and Nathan knew it would set his son’s heart aflame if it pierced his chest—destroying him utterly.

Reaching out for his son, Nathan shoved Nicodimus away, stepping right into the path of that blade to do so.

It sank deeply into Nathan’s chest, burning, searing him. He dropped to his knees as a cry of undiluted agony burst from his lungs. Flames leapt from the fabric of his shirt, from his skin. From inside him! Puabi’s eyes widened. “No! No, not you, Eannatum! Not you!”

Arianna backhanded the woman, and her head connected with the hearthstone. Then she slumped into silence.

Nidaba jerked the knife from Nathan’s chest, and tossed it aside. It hit the floor near the window, still glowing red. Ignoring it, Nidaba pressed her hands to the blazing wound, but the flames kept coming. And then a large, hulking form lifted Nathan away from her. She looked up. “George! No, George, you mustn’t— George, wait!”

But George was hearing none of it. It looked bad, Nathan thought, as he clung to consciousness despite the screaming pain in his chest. His skin blistered and bubbled and he could smell the stench of his own burning flesh. George was scratched, bruised, his clothing torn, and soaked through. And he was limping even more badly than usual. But he shrugged off all the hands trying to hold him back, and loped toward the open door, and through it.

Nathan heard the others rushing out right behind them. George stood in the pouring rain, and lifted Nathan in his arms like an offering to the heavens, as the deluge came down.

Blessedly cool rainwater pummeled him, soothing the burning in his chest. Cooling the pain. Nathan opened his mouth to cry out in mingled anguish and relief. And the tongues of flame on his body hissed out their final breaths, and died. Nathan closed his eyes, certain he was about to do the same.

Nidaba raced forward, gasping at the sight of the thin spirals of smoke rising from her beloved Eannatum’s chest. She stared aghast at his scorched shirt, the blistered skin and gaping wound with its blackened edges. “Put him down, George. Right here in the rain.”

“Did I... did I help him?” the big man asked, dropping to his knees to lay Natum down on the wet grass. He leaned over his friend, his face contorted with worry. Beside him the dog, Queenie, looked nearly as worried as George did.

“Yes. You helped him more than any of us could,” Nidaba said. She knelt on Natum’s other side and framed his face with her hands. “Live, Eannatum,” she whispered. “Live. Damn you, you must. Do you hear me?”

“Nidaba ... Mother ... ?” Nicodimus knelt beside her, encircled her shoulders with his arm. “He saved my life.”

“He only wanted a chance to know you. He’s your father, Nicodimus. Or he was ... in the lifetime before.”

“I know. He ... he told me.”

“Live, Natum. Please, please, live. I can’t bear this to be the end, do you understand me? I can’t.”

She pressed her hands to his chest, wishing with everything in her that she would feel his heart beating strong and steady. There was silence, utter stillness, but Nidaba then felt something else. That sensation of another person embracing her. Another hand, surrounding hers. Another force moving though her.

Her hand grew hot, and a soft white light came from her palm, suffusing the entire area of Nathan’s wound in its glow. The heat intensified, grew, nearly scorched her, but she didn’t move. She just let it happen.

And then the light faded, and her palm cooled ... and she felt the beating of Natum’s heart against her hand.

“Oh, my Goddess,” she whispered as tears streamed down her face.

Exactly. The word echoed in her mind.

Eannatum’s eyes opened. He stared up at her, lifted a hand, curled it around her nape and drew her face down to his. He kissed her, gently, softly.

“Oh, no, the house!” Arianna cried.

They all turned to look. The living room was fully engulfed in flames, and the fire was spreading rapidly, licking its way toward the roof.

“Puabi?” Natum asked.

“She was still inside.” Nidaba spoke the words with a hint of regret, even though she knew Puabi probably deserved no sympathy, given all the harm she had done in her lifetime. She also knew that she and Eannatum were partly to blame for what the woman had ultimately become.

Natum closed his eyes, bowed his head. “I wish ...”

“I know,” Nidaba said softly. “I know.” Drawing a breath, she looked up at her son. “Nicky, we need to get some help. The fire department. This is Natum’s home, he loves this place. We have to—”

“No.” Eannatum sat up slowly and reached up for a hand. Nicodimus closed his hand around his father’s and helped him to his feet. For a moment, the two remained that way, standing there, face-to-face, hands clasped. Natum looked into Nicodimus’s eyes, and his became moist. “Good to meet you ... Nicodimus. At long last. You make a hell of a first impression, you know.” As he said it, he rubbed his nose, which was already healing.

“So do you,” Nicodimus said with a grin. “Saving my life, I mean.”

“Natum... your house!” Nidaba tugged him around to face her, trying to get him to pay attention to his home. But he only looked at George, and smiled broadly.

“You okay, my friend?”

“I’ll be okay, Nathan. I’m just glad I left the pigeon coop open.” He looked up and pointed. The pigeons were already fleeing into the night, vanishing instantly, swallowed up by the darkness.

Natum turned to Nidaba. “We need to talk.”

“But Natum, your house!”

He glanced toward Nicodimus. His son gave him a nod. “Hey, George, what do you say you come with Arianna and me? We’ll fix up your scratches, get you something to eat, some dry clothes, okay?”

George looked down at the Rottweiler by his side. “Can Queenie come with us, too?”

“Sure.”

“Just a minute,” Nidaba said, and she moved forward, put a hand on the dog’s head. No tingling jolt rushed through her. She nodded, satisfied this one was the real dog, and gave her a loving scratch between the ears. Then she nodded her assent. “It’s okay. She’s the real Queenie, not the impostor.”

The imposter ...

Nidaba glanced toward the flames and felt a heavy sadness for Puabi, in spite of herself. They’d had a lot in common, the two of them. Both willing to fight and die for the love of one man.

Natum gave George a nod and George walked with Nicodimus and Arianna toward the car the two had arrived in. Queenie ran along beside him. Nic called back, “There’s an inn nearby. The Hampton. You know it?”

Natum nodded. “We’ll be along. Later.”

“Natum?” Nidaba whispered.

“I know, I know. My house. Come on, love. We still have not finished our conversation. I had no idea I had so much more to say to you, but I find that I do. Besides, we have a proper farewell to say. To Sheila.”

“But the house ...”

“Let the damned house burn. I don’t need it anymore. What I need, Nidaba— all I need—is for you to come with me. Let me say what I need to say to you before you walk away from me again. I’m not going to let you go this time until you’ve heard everything I have to tell you. Everything I’m thinking and feeling. And until you’ve told me everything you are thinking and feeling in return. You understand?”

She nodded, looking into his eyes, and seeing a familiar gleam there. He radiated a familiar power. He was himself again, she thought. At last. She had located her long missing king.

As the dawn broke over the waves, Eannatum and Nidaba sat in the small boat, staring down at the still water. It was the same spot where they’d lowered Sheila’s body, and while the currents had long since carried her away, they returned to this spot to honor her. Nidaba had chanted long prayers in Sumerian, and Eannatum had joined her. There hadn’t been time before for more than a hurried farewell. So now they said their goodbyes, wished her soul well on its journey, shed their tears. Looking back at the shore, all Eannatum saw was a pile of smoldering wreckage, charred beams, refuse where his house, his haven, his make-believe world, had once stood.

“You were right, you know,” he said very softly.

“Was I?”

He nodded. “I’ve been living a lie, Nidaba. I’m not an ordinary man. I’m not a quiet antique dealer from New England. I am Eannatum. Immortal High Witch. King of the greatest nation of its time.”

She smiled. “You’re more than that, you know. More than even I realized. We both are.” She clasped his hands in hers and stared into his eyes. “We’ve been given this gift for a reason, Eannatum. Not just so we can live forever, grow more powerful, battle the Dark Ones. There’s more to it. There has to be.”

He hesitated for a moment. “I saw ... something back there at the house. A being... surrounding you like a nimbus.”

“It was ... something greater than any of us,” she whispered. “A force beyond what I understood before. Beyond any God or Goddess I know by name ... more like ... All. Like All that ever was or ever will be, combined into one being that is you and is me and is... everything. Even Puabi.”

He stared into her eyes. “And what does this being want from us?” he asked, his voice touched with wonder.

“I don’t know. I only know ... there’s more to this than I have understood. We need to find out what, and set about the business of doing what we were put here to do.”

“It has taken me four thousand years to understand one of the most important things I was put here to do, Nidaba. But I know it now. So perhaps we can start with that.”

She nodded slightly. “Yes. Of course we can. What is it, Natum, that you believe you should be doing?”

He lifted a hand, cupped her cheek. “Loving you. Endlessly, deeply, passionately loving you, my beautiful priestess.”

A joyful smile spread across her face and her eyes gleamed. “Eternity is a long time to love one woman.”

“You are more like ... like a collage of all womankind. Far beyond one woman. And I have already loved you for an eternity. If I couldn’t stop in four thousand, five hundred years, even when I tried, why should I expect it to change from now until forever?”

“I cannot live as a mortal, Natum.”

“And I cannot live without you, Nidaba.” He smiled very slowly. “We should marry. The way we should have long ago. In fact, we should marry a hundred times, in every form of wedding rite that exists. We’ll have a Christian ceremony, and a Buddhist one, a Wiccan hand-fasting, a Sumerian marriage rite, and everything else we can think of. Just... just tell me you still love me, Nidaba. Even if it’s only a little bit. I know I’ve hurt you deeply, but I swear—”

“Shh.” She pressed her lips to his and kissed him tenderly. When their lips finally parted, he was stunned to see tears in her eyes. “I have loved you for all my lifetimes, Eannatum. And for all those yet to come, I will love you still.”

He looked at her beloved face, into her beautiful, dark eyes, and he knew she meant it. They were meant to be together, had been from the very first day they had met, a young prince and a precocious little priestess who wanted to learn to write her name. Chosen and placed on this planet for some purpose, yes, but one they could find, and understand, and ultimately accomplish only if they were together. This was their destiny.

“Gods, but we’ve wasted so much time,” he said, pulling her close, savoring the miracle that was Nidaba.

“Yes, we have, my love. But we aren’t going to waste any more.”

Other Books by Maggie Shayne

Silhouette Intrigue

Forgotten Vows 1994

Twilight Phantasies 1993

Twilight Memories 1994

Twilight Illusions 1994

Born in Twilight 1997

Twilight Hunger 2002

Two By Twilight 2003

Embrace the Twilight 2003

Edge of Twilight 2004

Blue Twilight 2005

"Beyond Twilight'

Strangers in the Night 1995

Eternity 1998

Infinity 1999

Destiny 2001

Forever, Dad 1996

Gingerbread Man 2001

Reckless Angel 1993

Thicker Than Water 2003

Colder Than Ice 2004

The Brand Family Series

The Littlest Cowboy 1996

The Baddest Virgin in Texas 1997

Badlands Bad Boy 1997

The Husband She Couldn't Remember 1998

The Baddest Bride in Texas 1999

Fortune's Children

A Husband in Time 1996