Hierarchy

The Papillion Prophecy:

Hierarchy By

Madelaine Montague

Hierarchy

Madelaine Montague

© copyright by Madelaine Montague, May 2009 Cover art by Eliza Black, May 2009 ISBN 978-1-60394-311-6 New Concepts Publishing Lake Park, GA 31636 www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

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Chapter One The excitement that had been pumping through his veins since he’d made his discovery turned to uneasiness as Bill Duncan waited for the man at the enormous Louis XIV desk to acknowledge his presence. He’d never stepped inside the High Lord’s mansion before, never been invited to, and he discovered that being surrounded by such opulence unnerved him almost as much as the man sitting at the desk across the study from him. He yielded to the urge to gawk since Caleb Westmoreland seemed unaware of him, scanning the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, filled with leather bound volumes, that lined most of the walls, he tipped his head back to stare at the paintings on the ceiling. Like the walls and ceiling of the main corridor he’d been escorted down when he’d arrived and requested an ‘audience’, ornate moldings formed a pattern overhead that created ‘frames’ for each of the depictions—which seemed to be scenes from mythology if the fantastic creatures were anything to go by—battles. Frowning, he probed his memory for any reference to the scenes and finally gave up on identifying them aside from the fact that, to his admittedly untrained eye, they at least appeared to be the work of a master. They couldn’t be, of course, he told himself, not one of the old masters. The mansion wasn’t that old—not that he knew much about it’s history, but America wasn’t that old so it couldn’t be. Reproductions, he decided, although he couldn’t remember anything like the paintings from his art appreciation classes. He supposed he should’ve made an attempt not to sleep through them. When he finally returned his attention to Caleb Westmoreland, a jolt went through him. Caleb was studying him, his gaze hooded. He’d seemed completely absorbed in the paperwork on the desk before him only moments before. Now, he lounged almost negligently in the matching Louis XIV chair that looked almost more like a throne than a chair, his attitude as still and watchful as a cat studying a mouse and trying to decide whether to eat it or toy with it a while. The uneasiness that had wafted through Bill before returned, intensified by the realization that there was every reason for the impression. After several long, heartstopping moments, Caleb lifted one hand from the arm of his chair, curling his fingers in a summoning motion, a silent command to approach that made Bill’s knees feel suddenly weak and spawned the urge to flee instead. Casting an uneasy glance at the closed door behind him, Bill ordered his feet to move and approached the desk, wondering a little wildly if he should bow or kneel. He discovered he couldn’t do either, which was fortunate since it finally occurred to him that Caleb not only did not demand that sort of abeyance, he forbade it—at any time. It was just the sort of thing that could attract unwelcome attention and Caleb Westmoreland was as ruthless in protecting his privacy as he was in business. After studying him for several unnerving moments, Caleb gestured to the straightbacked chair before his desk. Almost as if mesmerized, Bill followed the gesture, stared

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at the chair blankly for a moment and finally wilted into it, wondering abruptly if it was wise to have approached Westmoreland in his lair. The sunlight spilling into the room through the French doors in the west wall intensified the impression of a great cat, picking up the pale streaks in Caleb’s tawny hair and making his golden eyes, cast in shadow, glow briefly with an unearthly sheen that sent cold fingers of dread creeping along Bill Duncan’s spine. Caleb’s hard mouth curled after a few moments in a cold smile. “Cat got your tongue?” Bill thought for several moments that he would wet himself. He swallowed convulsively, opened and closed his mouth several times, and searched a little frantically for his facility of speech, wondering what idiocy had possessed him to think he might wrangle with Caleb Westmoreland for a reward for his discovery. He’d be lucky if he left the mansion in one piece—if he was wrong! He realized a little sickly that he had almost no proof whatsoever of his tale, none that couldn’t be disputed. “I saw her!” he burst out finally, unable to bear the suspense any longer. If he hadn’t been staring at Westmoreland in pure terror, he wasn’t certain he would’ve noticed the sudden tension in seemingly every muscle. As it was, the sense of a great cat preparing to pounce washed over him in a chilling tidal wave. Westmoreland seemed to force himself to relax. Reaching for the silver letter knife on his desk, he picked up the ornate blade and began to turn it idly in his hands, studying it as if he’d never seen it before. “Her?” he prompted after a few moments. “She had the mark,” Bill said shakily, wondering if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he had Westmoreland’s full attention again. His tawny brows rose toward his hairline, emphasizing the deep widow’s peak on his brow. “The mark?” Bill nodded jerkily. “On her right wrist … just as the prophecy described.” Caleb sat forward, placing the letter knife carefully on his desktop. “Am I to assume you left her waiting in your car?” Bill felt his face heat to the point that it felt like it would go up in flames and then chill so abruptly he felt faint. “Uh … no,” he whispered in a choked voice. Caleb forced himself to relax. Sitting back in his chair once more, he settled his elbows on the arms of his chair, laced his fingers together and propped his chin on the steeple he’d formed, studying the man seated before him and struggling with the urge to leap over the desk and choke the life out of him. The smell of the man’s fear incited his wrath as much as the intrusion and the suspicion that had begun to settle inside of him that the fool had thought to scam him. “Meaning you lost her?” he murmured in a rumbling growl of displeasure. Bill found himself gabbling in his efforts to excuse and explain at the same time. “I only caught a glimpse of her. It was on a crowded city street. I couldn’t … grab her!” Anger surged through Caleb. He tamped it with an effort, narrowing his eyes at the man. “Then I’m at a loss to understand what you’re doing here.” Bill gulped several times. The demands he’d rehearsed on his way over flitted through his mind but he decided not to push his luck. The comment prompted a memory to surface, however, and he dug shakily into his pants pocket and produced his cell phone. “I got a picture,” he said hopefully. “Uh … I think.” Interest flickered in Caleb’s eyes. He extended his hand in demand and Bill shot

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up from his seat and dropped the phone in his palm. Caleb studied it a moment and finally removed the memory chip, plugging it into the port of his laptop on his desk. His long, thin fingers danced over the keypad, scrolled the mouse and then he settled back in his chair, staring at the image he’d pulled up on the screen. His expression was unreadable and Bill felt his discomfort increase. Crane though he might, however, he couldn’t see the scene to ascertain whether he’d actually gotten the photo. Caleb felt his pulse leap as the image popped up on his screen. The image was a three quarter view from the back, however. Apart from the fact that the woman had a very nice ass and a glorious mass of curling brown hair that hung down her back to her narrow waist, he could tell damned little about her. The shot had been snapped as she lifted her hand to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind one ear, turning her head just enough to give him a partial profile. She had a distinctive jut to her chin that seemed indicative of determination, a long, straight nose with just the hint of a roman hump on the bridge, and high cheekbones. Her mouth was narrow, her lips on the thin side, but there was a hint of a laugh line along her cheek that seemed to belie the sternness of her mouth and pugnacious chin. An odd sense, almost of breathlessness, hit him as his gaze settled on her wrist at last. There was no mistaking the symbol, as blurred as the image was with the movement of her hand, and it was precisely where the prophesy had described it. The realization sent his entire being into an unaccustomed flurry of chaos. She was here … now … in his time and his city. The realization was staggering, almost impossible to fully grasp. There was no mistake. The prophesy was unfolding. He would sire the child that would unite the supernaturals. She was to be his. He lifted his head to stare at the man across from him. “Find her. If I discover that this is some sort of scam you hatched to line your pockets, you may live long enough to regret it.” **** Not for the first time, Bronwyn wondered what had possessed her to move to the city as she stared down from her third floor apartment window at the clogged streets below her, but then she knew why she’d come—hopefulness and nagging memories of Nanna. Shaking her head at her thoughts, she moved away from the window and headed over to the miniscule kitchen area of her apartment. She didn’t belong in the city, she thought irritably as she opened her small fridge and stared at the contents with little interest. She was hardly a country girl, and yet the small town where she’d spent the majority of her thirty years barely qualified as a town, much less a city. Truthfully, she hadn’t even fit in there—she’d been borne a square peg in a round peg world—but there’d at least been the comforting familiarity of faces and places she’d known for years. She would never have thought she’d actually miss Greenville when her life there had hardly been pleasant, especially her childhood. Guilt smote her at that disloyal thought. The children had made her childhood a misery, especially after her ‘best friend’ had blabbed about her ‘secret’ and everybody had started calling her a freak, but her grandmother had more than made up for that.

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It was the lack of anything to do, she told herself irritably, unwilling to revisit the incident that had created most the problems she’d had. She’d always been a loner. She wasn’t lonesome. She was just blue because she was bored. She needed a job, but it was beginning to look doubtful that she would find one. She’d spent too many years ‘self employed’, helping Nanna run the boarding house and then running it herself after her grandmother died, and apparently that was a definite turn off to would-be employers. Not that she was desperate in the sense that she would starve if she didn’t land a job soon. The sale of the boarding house she’d inherited from her grandmother, added to the already comfortable liquid assets of her grandmother’s estate and the money she’d put away herself over the years had left her well enough off to afford some down time without feeling a huge pinch. She was hardly rich, or even well to do. She certainly couldn’t afford to simply ‘retire’, but she was alright money-wise and would be for a good spell. It was the time she had on her hands that bothered her. She was too used to working from the time she got up in the morning until she went to bed at night. There were just so many hours a day that she could devote to pounding the pavement in search of a job. Eventually, she had to return to the cramped little apartment she’d leased and stare at the four walls … wondering what the hell had possessed her to leave Greenville and head out on what was almost certainly a wild goose chase. Of course, Nanna had rarely been wrong. She wouldn’t have had such a reputation as a psychic if her predictions didn’t generally come true, but Bronwyn couldn’t help but wonder if the future Nanna had seen for her was more in the nature of hope than fact. Maybe her grandmother had just thought she needed inspiration? That, if she was convinced a move to the city would bring her face to face with her destiny, she would make it happen? On the other hand, the stranger had arrived and offered to buy the boarding house out of the blue just as her grandmother had said would happen. Years too late, in Bronwyn’s opinion to make it likely she was going to find the man she was destined to be with and have that mythological family her grandmother had said she would, but that part had certainly come true. Deciding finally that nothing in her fridge appealed to her, she closed the door and ransacked her cabinets. Nothing in them appealed to her either, and she finally returned to the living room area and flopped on the ragged old couch that had come with the ‘furnished’ apartment. She was hungry and there wasn’t a damned thing in the apartment that appealed to her. Because she was sick of eating alone in the damned apartment, she thought irritably! Getting off the couch, she paced to the window again to stare out. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun had already dropped behind the skyscrapers. It would be dark soon. The traffic only seemed to have picked up, however. It wasn’t really safe to go out, alone, at night in the city, but she was a grown woman! Surely it would be safe enough if she used common sense and steered clear of the worst areas of the city? Her decision made, she left the window, marched purposefully to her small bedroom, and knelt down to scratch through the box that still held most of her clothing. She was going out to eat, she decided, and when she’d eaten, she was going to check out

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the nightlife. She was thirty years old! If she was ever going to sow her damned oats, she was running out of time! Besides, she wasn’t likely to meet the man Nanna had said was her destiny holed up in her cramped little apartment! **** Bronwyn had felt like a country bumpkin when she’d been turned away from two different restaurants because she didn’t have a reservation. After standing on the sidewalk indecisively for a few minutes, wondering if she should just give up and head back to her apartment, she’d finally decided to try one more before she gave up. It was a tiny place, and busy, but the smells coming from the kitchen were divine and the host hadn’t looked down his nose at her as if a roach had approached him and asked for a table. He’d smiled, told her to wait and left. Wondering if he was just trying to snub her a little more subtly than the last two, Bronwyn waited and was rewarded when the man came back and took her to a tiny table in a corner near the kitchen. She supposed it was a very undesirable table, but she didn’t mind being near the kitchen. The brisk traffic in and out of the kitchen made it impossible to feel ‘alone’, occupying her with something of interest while she was waiting for her food. The food, French cuisine, was fabulous and her waiter was friendly. When she asked him if he could recommend any night spots within walking distance, he hovered by her table long enough to name off nearly a half dozen and give her a description of the places from the music to the crowds that generally attended them. Feeling considerably cheered by his friendliness, her full stomach, and the two glasses of wine she’d had, she left the restaurant with a sense of anticipation and excitement she hadn’t felt when she’d left her apartment earlier. A tiny bit of guilt hovered at the fringes of her mind as she set out. It almost seemed ‘wild’ and ‘decadent’ even to consider going to a nightspot—especially alone—when she’d never done anything like that before. It wasn’t as if Greenville had had much of a nightlife! They had a grand total of three watering holes, all of which catered to the country and western crowd—and she’d never been much for country music. Then, too, there’d been her reputation. Not that she’d had the chance to form a bad one on her own, but the rumors from school had followed her and those had been enough to make her a target for wagging tongues and young men bent on counting coup. She shook the thoughts off as she came at last to one of the nightclubs the waiter had mentioned that had piqued her interest. He’d said it was an upscale club that catered to a ‘slightly older’ crowd as opposed, he’d added hurriedly, to those that were predominantly attended by the barely legal. She’d tried to take it philosophically. She thought she looked good for her age, but she didn’t delude herself into thinking she looked like a teenager. There was no sense in getting insulted about the truth, especially when she knew he hadn’t intentionally insulted her. He’d succeeded in depressing her, but she’d managed to set it aside and focus on trying to enjoy her evening. She thought she would’ve been a lot more depressed, in any case, if she’d gone into a club and found that everyone there was barely twenty. The line outside the club made her a little uneasy. True, there seemed to be

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almost as many men and women lined up to go in that appeared to be in their mid-to-late twenties or early thirties, but most of them seemed to be wearing black leather or at least black clothing. Her pink halter-top and blue jeans made her feel almost as out-of-sync as she would’ve felt if she’d discovered the crowd was mostly teens. She stood in line debating whether to stay or leave until she finally reached the front. The bouncers, she saw, were also dressed in black—finely tailored black suits that set off their muscle bound physiques wonderfully. The woman taking the cover charge stared at her for a moment and flicked a questioning look at the two bouncers. Feeling her belly tighten with nerves, Bronwyn glanced questioningly at the two men, as well. She discovered the man who’d been stamping everyone’s hand as they went in was studying her clothing. “I’m not dressed for the club?” she asked uneasily, withdrawing the bill she’d held out to the woman. He tilted his head, scanning her length again. “You haven’t been here before.” Bronwyn felt her face heat. Nothing like sticking out like a sore thumb! “I just moved to the city a few weeks ago,” she said apologetically. “It’s ok. I’ll leave.” He blocked her path. “Did I say you weren’t welcome?” he murmured, a faint smile curling his lips. “I’m just wondering if you know what you’re getting in to here.” Bronwyn blinked at him, blushing harder. “The waiter at Chateau Marseilles suggested I might like it if I liked rock music.” His dark brows lifted. He flicked a glance at the other bouncer. “I’ll tell you what … I’ll let you go in and have a look around since you’re new to town. If you like it and come back, we’ll take your money.” Bronwyn smiled back at him tentatively. “I don’t mind paying,” she assured him. Shaking his head, he took her hand and lifted it, the stamp poised in the air. Instead of stamping the back of her hand, however, he caught sight of the edge of her tattoo and turned her hand over, studying the small design on her inner wrist. Surprised and a little embarrassed, Bronwyn studied his expression, trying to decipher what the frozen look on his face might mean. She couldn’t imagine what there might be about the tattoo itself, however unique it was, that he’d find so fascinating. Everyone else she’d seen in line had had more than one tattoo and all sorts of piercings. For what seemed an eternity, he stared at it and finally seemed to shake himself. Lifting his head, he studied her piercingly. “Cool tat. Where’d you get it?” Discomfort wafted through Bronwyn. She shrugged. “I was born with it, actually—well mostly,” she admitted. “I know. It’s weird. All the kids at school teased me about it. Nanna said I shouldn’t let it bother me. I should be proud of it … because it was so unusual, you know. Anyway, she tattooed the twining vine around it and added the head of the unicorn. She said it was a family symbol from way back when the family had a coat of arms.” He frowned. Almost as if he wasn’t aware of it, he traced the pattern in the center of the twining vines with the tip of his index finger. “You were born with this?” he murmured, his voice sounding strange. Bronwyn shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah—weird, huh? It almost looks like a sun and crescent moon, doesn’t it?” He swallowed audibly, flicked a quick glance at her and finally stamped the back of her hand. She noticed the hand that held hers was shaking ever so faintly. “Yeah. It almost does.” He turned from her and jerked his head at the other bouncer. “Marco—

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why don’t you show our guest around, huh? And tell Clyde and David to get out here. I need to talk to the boss.” “Oh! I wouldn’t want to put anyone out!” Bronwyn exclaimed in dismay, glancing around uneasily at the line behind her and noting with faint alarm that the crowd had grown steadily longer since she’d been holding up the line and that most of the people in line were glaring at her. He released her hand. “Marco would love to show you around. Wouldn’t you, Marco?” Marco, a handsome blond who looked to be in his early twenties, grinned at her. “Hell yeah!” Bronwyn couldn’t help but chuckle when he winked at her audaciously, but she still wasn’t comfortable about anything that had transpired. Since she was even more discomfited to find herself the center of so much unwelcome attention, though, she allowed him to draw her inside and out of view of the crowd that had begun to grumble loudly about the hold up at the front of the line. She found herself in a huge foyer that looked more like the entrance to a grand hotel than a nightclub. She sank into the thick, dark red carpet on the floor with her first step and felt like she was walking through cushy quicksand as she crossed the floor. A huge chandelier and wall sconces lit the room with a soft golden glow. Thick, wine red velvet curtains covered the double doors that obviously led into the main area of the club and explained why the music was muted enough that very little spilled outside the club. Settling a hand lightly on the back of her waist, Marco directed her toward the two men standing on either side of the double doors. “Stephen wants you two outside,” he said to the men when they reached them, jerking his thumb in that direction. They glanced at each other, making it clear that the order came as a surprise, but strode away without question. All the sounds of a wild party—muted by the thick carpet and drapes of the foyer—hit her as Marco opened one of the doors and ushered her inside. She noticed that even the backs of the doors were covered in velvet—upholstered actually to create a sound barrier. The familiar hand Marco had placed at her back slipped upward to her shoulders as they entered. “A drink first. What would you like?” Marco asked, his lips so close to her ear that his warm breath sent a shiver through her. Bronwyn was tempted to decline. She’d already had two glasses of wine and that was more alcohol that she usually drank. With a mental shrug, she dismissed her qualms. There was no getting around the fact that she had a buzz already, but, by her calculations, she’d been walking and waiting in line at least an hour. It wouldn’t hurt, she decided, to have a mixed drink as long as she nursed it. She tipped her head up. “Suggest something,” she said, smiling mischievously at her own daring. The look Marco gave her made her little heart go pitter-patter. His blue eyes seemed to glow with an inner heat. A slow grin curled his lips. He chuckled. “Don’t tempt me,” he muttered, ushering her toward the other side of the room where she discovered there was a long bar. **** Constantine was lounging on the long couch in his office when Stephen arrived. A young woman was curled up on the floor at his feet, stroking his thigh. A second,

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completely naked, was sprawled on the couch beside him, her knees bent, her thighs spread wide. The naked girl was stroking her clit, her eyes closed, her face slack with pleasure. Constantine was watching her from beneath hooded lids, but as Stephen entered, he turned a cool look upon him. “As you can see, I’m busy,” he murmured. Stephen froze in his tracks but resisted the urge to beat a retreat. “You’ll want to hear this,” he said with more confidence than he felt. Constantine lifted one tawny brown. “You sound very certain, day-walker. Convince me.” Stephen swallowed convulsively. “She’s here. She just walked right up to me at the door. I told Marco to look out for her.” Constantine frowned, but he tensed, abruptly sitting upright. “She?” “The lady,” Stephen said shakily. “Your lady!”

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Chapter Two A mixture of disbelief and more excitement than he’d felt in centuries swept over Constantine. Flicking the woman off of his leg, he got to his feet slowly. “It could be nothing more than some vampire wannabe … someone who’s heard of the prophesy and thinks to profit from it,” he muttered to himself, then flicked a piercing look at Stephen. “Show me.” Stephen swallowed a little sickly, but he couldn’t have evaded the hand Constantine stretched out if he’d tried and he knew better than to try. He was one of Constantine’s favorites, but no one who crossed him—or attempted to—remained in favor long. Blinding pain shot through his head as Constantine pilfered his memories, pausing so long to study the incident at the door that Stephen fell to his knees when he was finally released, curling into a tight ball as he struggled with the urge to vomit. Constantine was peripherally aware of it, felt a momentary pang, but no more than that. As fond of Stephen as he was, he’d learned long, long ago not to allow himself to grow too attached to a day-walker. They were pathetically weak, their life spans so fleeting that allowing himself to feel any fondness at all was welcoming pain to himself, and he’d never been particularly fond of pain—especially not when it was avoidable. Striding to the door, he left Stephen to recover and dispose of the women. They would be disappointed that he hadn’t fed on them, but they’d get over it. They always did … and they always came back. As early in the evening as it was, the club had already begun to fill by the time he reached the main salon. Regardless of the half naked bodies gyrating on the floor, however, his height gave him the advantage of being able to scan the room quickly and spot his quarry—or at least Marco. Frowning when he didn’t see the woman, he strode across the dance floor, oblivious of the day-walkers and his brethren alike as they parted before him, clearing a path. Relief flickered through him when he saw that there was a woman standing at Marco’s elbow, and then wry amusement at the touch of panic that had seized him when he hadn’t spotted her at once. She was a tad shy of medium height—maybe a little more than a tad—but he dismissed it along with the brief, wry reflection that he might have known she wouldn’t be just to his taste—call him old fashioned, but he’d always preferred the tall, buxom feminine form. And spotted, he didn’t doubt, if the gleam of red highlights in her woefully common brown was any indication. There’d been nothing in the prophesy to suggest she would be ‘perfect’ … only that she was the one … the first. Actually, the prophesy had no more than suggested that she would be the first. She might very well be the only, although how the prophesy was to unfold if that was the case, he was damned if he knew. He shook his thoughts off as he reached Marco and their mystery lady. At closer range, he saw that she was definitely short, but certainly no midget. The top of her head

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reached his shoulder … almost, which meant he had a fine view of the top of her head. Her hair was certainly a medium brown—but luxuriously thick and full bodied with just the hint of a curl here and there—giving him the urge to burrow his fingers into the healthy mass to see if it felt as silky as it looked. Her plumpness, he saw, was a wellrounded, shapely figure compacted to fit an undersized torso—at least she didn’t seem to be a fan of the waif look. She’d tipped her head back to smile up at Marco as he reached them and he had a moment to examine the face that he’d tried so hard so many times to envision—and to feel an unaccustomed stab of possessiveness. He was pleasantly surprised by her face which, although far from beautiful, was at least passably pretty. He paused to examine her features more thoroughly and decided to revise that to definitely pretty although certainly not in the sense of classic beauty. Her features weren’t symmetrical enough, or precisely balanced enough to earn that distinction. Her mouth was a tad too small for her face, her lips too thin. Her nose was a bit too long and her admittedly beautiful eyes too big for her small face, and the jut of her chin ended in a rounded little upturned ball that somehow made her look vulnerable and pugnacious at the same time. And, although her skin was smooth and blemish free, she had a light sprinkling of the freckles he’d expected. It was an intriguing, pretty face even if she wasn’t beautiful, he decided, relieved that if she wasn’t just as he would’ve liked at least he didn’t anticipate a problem bedding her. “Boss!” Marco exclaimed, such a jolt running through him that he sloshed his drink down the front of his shirt. Constantine studied him in frowning disapproval, both for the term of address— which he’d never particularly cared for—and the fact that he’d soiled his shirt, trousers, and left shoe as the liquid followed the path of least resistance. A fastidious man himself, he couldn’t abide untidiness. His frown deepened as Marco set his glass on the bar and wiped the residue of liquid from his hand to the leg of his pants. “This is Constantine d’Valdmir—the owner of the club. Mr. d’Valdmir, this is Bronwyn ….” He trailed off. Blushing faintly, he added apologetically to Bronwyn, “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your last name.” Bronwyn chuckled huskily and Constantine felt a rush of desire that startled him. She was far more than ‘just’ pretty when she smiled, he decided absently, not entirely certain how that could be when she had a decidedly crooked smile that tipped higher on one side than the other and he’d always found anything asymmetrical … disturbing since it offended his since of balance. And still he found himself responding to her laugh with a smile of his own. “Williams,” she said. “Enchanté, Ms. Williams,” Constantine murmured as he availed himself of her hand, realizing with a touch of surprise that he was enchanted as he leaned low to salute the back of her hand lightly. It was an opportunity to see her mind and he felt no compunction about taking advantage of it. There was neither darkness nor light, but rather a combination of the two in a dizzying kaleidoscope of images that flew past him too swiftly for him to capture any until the image of an old crone abruptly filled his mind. The woman glared angrily. It

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took him a handful of seconds to realize that she was actually glaring at him. She’s protected, you lecherous sod! And not for the likes of you to use your powers to bend to your will! No man—or beast—can simply claim her and take her gift. I’ve seen to that. You must win her heart by giving her yours—if you’ve one to give. Only then will you earn her gift. Constantine released Bronwyn’s hand abruptly, jerking upright. He felt oddly drained and lightheaded from the experience, and supremely disconcerted. There was an odd buzzing in his head. “Are you alright?” Blinking, struggling to dismiss the curious sensations, Constantine stared down at Bronwyn’s concerned face blankly for several moments. “Witch,” he murmured. The look of concern vanished. “What?” Constantine forced his lips into a smile with an effort. “Which drink are you having?” he improvised. She studied him a little curiously—a little suspiciously if it came to that—but finally smiled … at Marco. “I forget. What did you call it?” Marco smiled a little uneasily, flicking a quick, apologetic look at Constantine. “A Golden Cadillac.” “It tastes like a milk shake,” she commented. Constantine flicked a hand in Marco’s direction. “You’ll want to clean yourself up,” he said coolly. “I will entertain our guest.” “Oh!” Bronwyn exclaimed, dismayed, struggling with the uncomfortable sense that she’d somehow gotten Marco in trouble and further discomfited by the attention of the owner no less—as if she was some sort of celebrity—wondering if they’d somehow come to the erroneous conclusion that she was someone of importance. “That’s sweet, but completely unnecessary. I wouldn’t want to put you out. I probably won’t stay much longer anyway. I’ve almost finished my drink.” Constantine took her hand and hooked it on the crook of his arm. “No trouble at all, I assure you. I understand that you’ve just moved to the city?” he asked as he led her away from the bar, headed in the direction of the quiet alcove table set aside for his use. She looked back worriedly at Marco. “I didn’t get him in trouble, did I?” “Do I seem like an ogre to you?” he asked lightly. She thought it over—just a tad too long to for her response to be anything more than a polite lie. “No.” “But?” “I did get him in trouble. He was just being nice and the guy at the door told him to show me around anyway—and he was just being nice and I don’t remember his name.” Constantine helped her into a booth and then slid in beside her. She scooted a little further … all the way around to the opposite side. A mixture of annoyance and amusement flickered through Constantine as he studied the wide-eyed, hunted look she sent him across the table. He lifted a hand. A moment later, a waitress appeared beside the table. “Bring the lady—Bronwyn—another Golden Cadillac. I’ll have a glass of my special blend.” “Oh no …!” Bronwyn broke off in consternation when the waitress disappeared again before she could object. “I really shouldn’t have anymore. I’ve got a definite buzz going already. I may get lost on my way home if I have another,” she added jokingly to

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take the sting out of her rejection. Constantine shrugged. “I’ll see you home.” Bronwyn gaped at him, feeling her face heat. “That’s … uh … very kind of you to offer, but I was just joking. I’m sure I can find my way home.” “And home is …?” Warning bells went off in her head. “Oh, just a couple of blocks,” she said airily. “I love your accent, by the way, and your name is beautiful. Is it Spanish or French?” Constantine smiled thinly. “Neither.” The expressions that flickered across her face made him distinctly uneasy although he couldn’t, at first, fathom why until it occurred to him that he was clueless about her. Beyond that, he’d clearly failed to enthrall her, for he was as certain as he could be that that wasn’t adoration he’d read in her expression. Accustomed to being able to enthrall any woman who caught his interest and to read anyone with no more than a light touch and know exactly what made them tick, he discovered he didn’t like the sense of uncertainty that settled in his gut in a hard knot. He frowned in displeasure but decided to take a different tact. If he couldn’t ‘read’ her—and he still found that highly disturbing—there seemed no alternative but to try to wheedle information out of her the old fashioned—day-walker way—questions and more questions. “What brought you to the city?” Bronwyn’s face turned so red she felt a hot flash all over. She cleared her throat, scrambling for a lie that wouldn’t sound completely unbelievable. “I just … decided I was ready for a change.” Irritation and amusement flickered through Constantine. Amusement won out. “You’re a very poor liar, Bronwyn,” he murmured caressingly, unconsciously reverting to the use of his voice to mesmerize her. “Maybe when you get to know me better, you’ll tell me the truth?” Bronwyn felt her color fluctuate several times while she tried to think of a response to that. Foremost in her mind—beyond her discomfort that he’d immediately realized she was lying—was the implication that he wanted to get to know her better. Disbelief settled in her. He was so amazingly handsome—so sophisticated—he made her feel gauche and tongue-tied—and dizzy and breathless and terrified to open her mouth for fear she’d sound like the country bumpkin she felt like. Why in the world would a man like him have any interest in getting to know her? He certainly couldn’t be laboring under the belief that she was in his class. He was clearly wealthy, well educated, and way, way out of her league. Unless he had a fetish for unsophisticated ugly ducklings? She found even that hard to believe, although it seemed more likely as a possibility than the anything else that came to mind. She could easily envision him with a starlet on his arm—or top model—women of wealth and amazing beauty. Not that she actually was an ugly duckling. She was just average, though, lightyears from beautiful. She’d felt far more comfortable with Marco, she thought miserably, wondering if Constantine would think she was terribly rude if she made an excuse and left before the drink she hadn’t wanted arrived. “It was just … something I promised Nanna,” she said finally, uncomfortably. He lifted his brows with interest, but before she could decide whether to add

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anything to that the waitress returned. Grabbing her wallet from her jeans, Bronwyn tried to pay for the drink. Constantine waved the waitress away. “You’re my guest,” he said almost chidingly. “Do the gentleman back home allow the lady to pay?” Bronwyn grimaced. “For both drinks if she wants to,” she murmured, then dragged in a deep breath and forced herself to look him directly in the eye. “Nanna always said a lady shouldn’t allow a gentleman to buy her drinks, because he might not actually be a gentleman and he might get the idea that he was paying for something else.” Constantine stared at her blankly for a moment and surprised himself by chuckling, although he was already beginning to suspect this ‘Nanna’ was going to be a serious roadblock to attaining what he wanted. “Did she? Who is Nanna?” Bronwyn felt her throat tighten. “My grandmother. She died ….” She trailed off, trying to remember just how long it had been. In some ways, it seemed like forever. In others … it was hard to grasp that so many years had passed. She’d been shy of her eighteenth birthday by three months. She wasn’t certain if she would’ve remembered that, given her grief, except that it had become yet another of life’s trials. Fortunately, it had taken the county people months of arguing to come to a decision and by that time she’d turned eighteen and they couldn’t uproot her and plant in a foster home because she was underage. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Bronwyn looked up at him at that coolly delivered platitude. She didn’t expect him to understand or feel anything for her. She was a stranger after all, but she thought she would’ve preferred it if he hadn’t bothered when he clearly felt no sympathy. She smiled at him brittlely. “You’re not much of a liar yourself.” Anger glittered in his cold blue eyes briefly, then disappeared. “It’s better to put such things from your mind.” “Easier said than done.” He shrugged, looked vaguely uncomfortable. “It gets easier with practice. Although it’s better still to simply avoid it by not getting attached to begin with.” Bronwyn nodded. “It’s the price you pay for love. I’d rather suffer over it the rest of my days than not to have had her in my life. She was … special in so many ways. I can’t imagine, don’t want to imagine, what my life would’ve been like without her.” He looked surprised and disbelieving. “If you could erase the memories and the pain with them, you wouldn’t?” he asked curiously. “Not if it meant having to give up the memories.” He frowned at his glass, turning the stem between two long, elegantly tapered fingers. “Stephen mentioned something about a tattoo your grandmother had given you. Do you mind if I see it?” Bronwyn studied him doubtfully, but finally extended her arm across the table, palm up. Constantine stared down at the tattoo, feeling oddly breathless. He’d wondered if his reading had been clear, mostly because he had never truly believed he would see it. After a moment, he reached to trace the markings on her wrist that were indisputably ‘natural’. It might be nothing more than a strange sort of coincidence that she’d been born with a birthmark that so closely resembled a sunburst and then, just as coincidentally, freckles had formed on her skin in the shape of a crescent moon and stars. Anyone looking for designs in nature could find them if they looked long enough and hard enough—clouds that seemed to be the face of a woman—or dragon. The natural

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swirls and knots in a piece of wood that appeared to be a horse or a bird. He didn’t believe that. In a sense, he supposed he wanted to. He didn’t find the woman seated across from him undesirable—far from it, as surprising as that was to him—and yet she was so far from the woman he’d imagined all these centuries that he almost felt cheated. He’d expected her to be perfect in every way. He’d expected her to be the epitome of beauty in his eyes, he realized wryly—this very ordinary woman who was no more than just pretty, but whose smile made him want to smile back at her and whose laugh made him feel a strange stirring of warmth inside. This woman who could give him the one thing he had never been able to have for himself, no matter how great his powers had become over the centuries. This woman who was meant to give birth to the first vampire since their beginnings when the progenitors of the vampire race had emerged from their mother’s wombs, who would be more powerful than any who’d come before him, who would be a day-walker. **** Bronwyn wasn’t quite sure of how she felt about her evening once she’d returned home, partly because she was more than a little addled with the alcohol she’d consumed and partly because she was a lot addled about the men she’d met. She couldn’t deny that she’d enjoyed herself. She’d never had so much attention from so many good-looking men! The pink halter, she decided happily, was a lot more flattering than she’d thought it would be! Actually, she’d really liked the way it looked right off, but she’d been a little doubtful about it because she thought it might be too ‘young’ for her—and it was a lot more risqué than anything she’d ever worn before. She’d felt ‘wicked’ leaving her breasts unfettered—because the thing was backless and she couldn’t wear a bra—but the odd thing was that she’d liked feeling that way. Maybe she’d caught their interest because she’d appeared to be a bit on the slutty side? Or maybe it had all been in her attitude? Maybe, because she’d felt pretty and sexy, she’d come across as more attractive? Shaking the thoughts, she dressed for bed and crawled in, staring dizzily at the ceiling when she discovered that closing her eyes only made the sense of floating intensify. Marco and Stephen had both been good looking men, although Marco, in her opinion was by far the best looking of the two. Unfortunately, he also seemed to be the youngest. It had been dark inside the club, and there hadn’t been a lot of light outside, but she was pretty sure that Marco was probably barely legal. In any case, she thought he was just trying to be nice. He had seemed to be flirting, but she thought that might just be his personality. She didn’t know what to think about Constantine. Physically, he was pretty close to drop dead gorgeous in a completely classical sense. His facial features were almost too perfect, almost too symmetrical. It made her want to simply gape at him and at the same time more than a little uncomfortable to look at him. She doubted his physique was nearly as perfect as his face. He’d sounded European and they weren’t like Americans about such things. They weren’t constantly on a quest for physical perfection. It was hard to convince herself of that when he’d looked so fabulous in that suit

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he’d worn, but then maybe the suit made the man and not the other way around? Not that it mattered. He was way out of her league and even if he had been remarkably generous as a host she didn’t believe for a moment that he had any particular interest in her. She thought she’d probably looked as good tonight as she ever had in her life, but she knew her limitations and she didn’t doubt that they’d been very apparent to him. Then, too, he didn’t look to be much more than thirty if he was even that. She hadn’t had much opportunity for experiencing interaction with men, but she’d had plenty of opportunities to observe and it seemed to her that all of the men, whatever their age, wanted the women who were eighteen to twenty-five. That had certainly been the case of most of the couples that had passed through the boarding house. Married or not, they almost inevitably went into ‘pointer’ mode when a young girl walked by and everyone else was invisible. The thought prompted memories of her own attempts to date and her spirits took a nosedive. Sighing, she punched her pillow and rolled over. God! One mistake! And she was going to have to live with it forever, it seemed! Looking back, she wondered what had possessed her to confide her ‘deep, dark secret’ to her ‘best friend’. If she’d just kept her mouth shut no one would ever have known what a freak she was! But no, she’d just had to talk it out and Mary Ellen had just had to share that juicy tidbit with her cousin who’d had a mouth the size of Texas! Trying to evade the memories of all the awful things that she’d endured as a consequence, she rolled onto her back again and stared up at the ceiling. The unwelcome specter of times past descended on her in spite of all she could do, however, and Johnny Patterson’s hazy image filled her mind. Oddly enough, she couldn’t really see his face clearly anymore—just that smile that had charmed the sense right out of her and her pants off. She’d thought he was different, that he wasn’t like the boys she’d grown up with that had already been tormenting her for years. He was new to town, and she’d been stupid enough to think he hadn’t heard the rumors about her. She should’ve known better. Nanna had tried to warn her, but she’d been ‘in love’. She hadn’t listened and she’d paid for her stubbornness with pain and humiliation—and not just the pain of losing her virginity to a boy that knew very little more about sex than she did, who’d been rough and careless enough she’d cried. Then he’d topped it off by getting pissed off with her because the rumors weren’t true. She didn’t have two pussies! He was outraged, actually—and then he’d gone back to school and lied through his teeth to the other jocks, telling them she did, and that he’d took her virginity twice! The lying snake. Well, that had just set them all on fire to have a piece of her! She could’ve been the most popular slut in the school if she hadn’t minded being used and discarded, but she’d learned her lesson—a painful one. She was probably the only girl in school who hadn’t had a single date throughout high school! Even she hadn’t realized the ignorant morons had decided she had two pussies! How could she when all they did was leer at her, whisper behind her back, and snicker whenever they saw her? Once she knew, she also knew she wasn’t likely to get a date except some guy that wanted a gander at her ‘tofer’.

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Shit! She should’ve guessed what that damned nickname meant--‘tofer’—two for one Bronwyn! She threw the covers off and got up, heading into the bathroom to take a hot shower to try to relax. She’d been relaxed until the memories had come back to haunt her! Stripping while she waited for the water to heat, she stared down at herself. Outwardly, there wasn’t a sign that she was different. She looked like anyone else. If only she hadn’t been so freaked out about it she’d felt the need confide in her best friend! What girl wouldn’t be freaked out to discover she had two wombs and four ovaries, though? To learn that she was actually two people—with the organs of a twin that had never completely developed inside of her? And she really was two people, because the tests they’d run on her had also revealed the fact that she was a chimera—She had all of her mother’s DNA and all of her father’s. Even her wombs were ‘different’ people! If it hadn’t been for the trouble she’d had with her periods she might never have known—at least not until she’d been grown and might’ve been able to handle it better. Maybe then her entire youth wouldn’t have been blighted. Or if she’d kept her secret to herself. Or if her trust in Mary Ellen hadn’t been completely misplaced. Or if she’d been able to leave Greenville and live somewhere else. That thought gave her pause as she climbed into the shower and allowed the hot water to pelt the tension from her. She was living somewhere else! She finally had the chance to date without running the risk that all the guy wanted was to have sex with her because he thought she had two pussies! Constantine didn’t know she was a freak! And there was no reason that she could think of why he needed to know! Assuming, of course, that he actually had any interest in her.

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Chapter Three It was just as well that the following day was Sunday and the Club Rouge wasn’t open. It ate at Bronwyn half the day that there was no way she could visit the club and see Constantine again but, by the time the afternoon had rolled around, common sense had returned. She didn’t know why Constantine had seemed to single her out, but, try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything he’d said or done to indicate he was actually interested in her. Relief and disappointment filled her when she realized that. She hadn’t made a fool out of herself by dashing back like a lovesick puppy! Thank god! As disappointed as she was, her spirits didn’t plummet completely. Her rambling thoughts the night before had finally settled on something ‘big’—freedom. She’d been liberated from the black cloud that had hung over her almost her entire life—or at least seemed to. She was in the city and absolutely no one knew her! If she did meet someone, she could date without the nagging worry at the back of her mind that the only reason they had any interest in her was because of her plumbing! Of course, she wasn’t naïve enough to think they wouldn’t also be interested in getting laid—it seemed a preoccupation of men in general—but she’d at least have some chance that they were interested in her as a person. She didn’t even mind that part. After all, it was a fact of life, and there weren’t going to be any children if she didn’t have sex! In any case, she wanted to experience that part of life like a ‘normal’ woman. She wanted to know what it was like to be desired—as a woman, not a freak! It was amazing how giddy that made her—and restless. She was thirty years old and she hadn’t had more than a handful of dates in her life! Because she’d discovered even long after school, her reputation still shadowed her. Even the few men she’d tried to date after high school, who’d seemed to be interested in her, weren’t. They were still chasing that dream of a woman with two pussies, were so preoccupied with it that they hardly even looked at her face! She was free! She could do anything she wanted to. She could be as wild as she’d wanted to be when she was a teenager! She was single. She didn’t have a job, but she had money! She could party! Instead of heading out job-hunting first thing Monday morning as had become her habit, she headed out to shop for clothes. The price tags gave her an unpleasant shock and brought her back to Earth. If she went wild in the clothing stores, she’d be penniless before she could spit! She didn’t actually need a lot, she decided. Everyone at Club Rouge had seemed to be wearing leather, but, although she tried on everything she could find that would fit her, she finally had to accept that she just wasn’t ‘built’ for leather. It didn’t just make her look fat—er. It squeezed everything into the wrong places and made her figure look hideously lumpy. Aside from that, it was miserably uncomfortable and she didn’t think she would have much fun if she couldn’t get her mind off of how uncomfortable she was. She decided instead to buy a black dress. The skirt was short enough it didn’t seem to

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make her look shorter and squatter and it flared slightly around the hips, making her waist look nicely trim. The neckline, scooped low in front and even lower in back, wouldn’t allow for a bra, but she’d rather liked going braless. It made her feel more free. The price tag gave her a tension headache and she decided to stop there and look for a pair of shoes that would set it off. The high spike heels really appealed to her— especially since they made her look tall—but she discarded the idea of buying them when she discovered she couldn’t walk in them without being in danger of a twisted ankle— stone cold sober. One drink, and she would bust her ass and then she’d really look sexy! She wasn’t particularly happy with the short heels she finally settled on, but she hoped the focus would be on the dress anyway—particularly considering what she’d paid for it! Although she did splurge a little more on a new hair cut, after her ‘wild’ shopping trip, she decided to spend the rest of the week job hunting and was finally rewarded with a waitress job, mostly because the waitress she replaced had just walked out. It didn’t pay that well, but it was sort of familiar, at least. She’d served the table in her boarding house—and cooked. She was sure she could handle it. The new job required another shopping trip for uniforms and serviceable shoes, and, while she was at it, she bought a couple of pretty tops to add to her growing collection of ‘sexy’ clothes. Her new work schedule didn’t bode well for her aspiration to become a partier. She discovered when she showed up for her first day that she was expected to work through the weekend. It was day work, though. There was no reason why she couldn’t still go out Friday night, she decided. Except that she was more exhausted than she’d been when she’d run the boarding house by herself. Saturday was worse. She arrived for the noon shift and discovered that one of the girls on the evening shift had quit and the boss wanted her to do a ‘double’. The good news was that he gave her Sunday off. The bad news was that, by the time she got off at eight that evening, she wasn’t sure she had enough energy left to drag herself back to her apartment much less consider going out to party. There was a long, glossy black stretch limo parked in front of her apartment building when she finally trudged home. As tired as she was, the sight of a car like that in a neighborhood like hers was unusual enough to catch her attention and she studied it curiously as she headed toward the entrance. A window in the rear was lowered as she came even with the car. “I thought you might like a ride to the club.” Bronwyn jumped all over as the disembodied voice emerged from the dark depths of the car. She’d already tensed to race inside when it abruptly dawned on her that she recognized the voice. Keys in hand, she leaned down to peer cautiously inside the vehicle. Constantine sat forward and opened the door at almost the same instant, and she gaped at him, thrown into a complete state of shock as he unfolded his long, lean form from the rear of the car. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed to ask. He smiled faintly. “Offering you a ride.” Bronwyn frowned, glancing uneasily up and down the sidewalk. “How did you know where I live?” He shrugged easily. Folding his arms over his broad chest, he leaned back against the car. “My driver happened to spot you.”

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Bronwyn’s doubts increased. “But … how would he have recognized me?” “He bought you a drink when you visited the club.” Bronwyn blinked at him, searching her mind. “Marco?” He got out of the vehicle when she called his name, grinning at her over the top of the car and she felt a lessening of tension. “You didn’t answer my question,” Constantine reminded her. “Would you like a ride?” “Oh! Well … I’m already home. I live here. But thank you for offering!” Constantine sent her a wry look, but he chuckled. “I thought you might like to go out.” Bronwyn stared at him, blinking as she tried to assimilate that. “On a date, you mean? With you?” “Not with Marco,” he retorted dryly. “Although, he will be driving.” Bronwyn reddened, but her irritation was brief. “Sorry. You caught me off guard.” “Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” Bronwyn grimaced. “I just got off work and I pulled two shifts. I’d love to go, but … I’m not dressed to go out,” she said instead of simply telling him she was too exhausted even to feel any enthusiasm for a night out—because she suddenly wasn’t nearly as tired as she’d thought she was a few minutes earlier. “I’ll wait.” Bronwyn chewed her lip indecisively. Nanna would never have approved of her inviting a strange man into her apartment, but she couldn’t picture Constantine as a rapist or murderer. He was business owner. Even if it was a nightclub, he seemed unlikely to be dangerous. Surely, he could be trusted? “It might take me a while. Would you like to come up?” The smile he gave her unnerved her. “You’re inviting me into your home?” She grimaced. “Such as it is. You might actually be more comfortable waiting in the car.” He’d already pushed away from the car, however, and strode toward her expectantly. With an inward shrug, she unlocked the door, pausing to glance at Marco and wondering if she should invite him up, as well. He’d already gotten back into the car, though, and Constantine didn’t seem pleased that she’d considered it. Not that she intended to let that bother her! It was just plain bad manners to invite Constantine up and leave poor Marco sitting in the car! “He needs to watch the car,” Constantine said coolly as if he actually had read her mind. “I hadn’t thought about that,” Bronwyn responded, unlocking the door and heading inside. “The elevator doesn’t work.” Constantine paused and turned, but he didn’t comment as he followed her up the stairs. Bronwyn was slightly breathless by the time she’d reached her floor but the climb had little to do with it. She was so keenly aware of Constantine’s presence behind her all the way up that it had taken an effort to focus on the steps to keep from tripping. She threw him an uneasy glance as they reached her floor and she turned down the hall toward her apartment. “This feels really strange,” she muttered when she reached the door and inserted the key in the lock.

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“How so?” Bronwyn frowned, wishing she hadn’t voiced her thoughts aloud. “I don’t know. I just hadn’t expected to run into you, I guess … and I’ve never taken anyone to my apartment before.” Never taken any man into her home, let alone a man like Constantine! He looked so completely out of place in her living area that she felt her face beginning to heat with embarrassment. “It isn’t much,” she mumbled, “but I didn’t need a big place and I didn’t bring anything in the way of furniture with me when I moved.” She could tell by his expression that he wasn’t keen on the idea of sitting on her couch. “I had it cleaned when I moved in. I know it looks awful, but it’s clean.” He smiled faintly. “I apologize if I’ve made you uncomfortable. If it makes you feel better, I’ve been in worse places—lived in worse.” Bronwyn looked at him in surprise. “Really?” “I wasn’t born to wealth. I … acquired it.” It did make her feel better. She smiled at him a little more easily. “Would you like something to drink? Juice? Tea? I don’t keep a bar.” He shook his head. “Don’t concern yourself. I’m perfectly content to wait.” In spite of his comment, Bronwyn was uneasy about making him wait, afraid that he’d grow impatient. Leaving him to his own devices, she went into her room and locked the door behind her—just in case. A quick shower revived her and excitement was already threading her veins as she patted herself dry and headed for her new black dress hung in her bedroom closet. She’d worried that she’d wasted the money, but she was so glad, now, that she had splurged on it! At least she had something to wear that wouldn’t make him ashamed to be seen with her! While her hair was air-drying, she applied a touch of makeup and perfume and then used her blow dryer sparingly until her hair was just barely dry. She was glad, now, that she hadn’t allowed the hairdresser to whack all of her hair off in a ‘stylish’ short cut. Instead, she’d gotten him to layer it and trim the ends. It looked far better than any cut she’d ever had before and was still long enough to make her feel feminine. She hadn’t admitted, even to herself, that she hadn’t wanted to cut it short because she thought Constantine might like it long—it was the only thing about her that anyone had ever complimented her on, her pretty hair—or that she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of having shorter hair than he did. Of course, he wore his smooth against his head and tied back, but she’d noticed it was really long and she thought that must mean he liked long hair. He looked surprised when she came out, which disconcerted her. “Too much?” she asked uneasily. He blinked, meeting her gaze finally. A faint smile curled his lips. “Almost too much for my heart—beautiful.” Embarrassed at his extravagant praise, Bronwyn laughed and blushed at the same time. “The dress is gorgeous,” she said, smoothing a hand over it happily. “I couldn’t resist it.” He closed the distance between them so swiftly that she blinked in surprise when she lifted her head and discovered he was towering over her. “The dress is lovely. You are beautiful.” “Oh!” Bronwyn said, charmed and breathless at his nearness. “That’s so sweet! I

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had my hair done, too! Do you like it?” Something flickered in his cool blue eyes as he studied her. A faint frown appeared between his brows. “You’re sweet. Where ever did you come from, little Bronwyn?” Bronwyn smiled wryly. “Is that a polite way of pointing out that you can tell I’m from the Styx?” “Are they all as sweet as you?” he murmured. A sudden image of the ‘friend’ that had betrayed her so cruelly popped into her mind. She looked away. “I don’t know. I’ve never been interested in girls,” she said jokingly. He chuckled. “How disappointing! No possibility of a kinky threesome?” Bronwyn sent him a sharp look but managed a smile. “None. If you’re ‘in’ to kinky you’re barking up the wrong tree.” He studied her piercingly for a moment and finally took her hand and looped it in his arm. “You shouldn’t issue challenges like that,” he murmured, leading her to the door. “It might tempt me to have my wicked way with you and see just how far I can go.” Bronwyn felt a warm, tingling inside of her that she instantly recognized as arousal. It chased away the sense of alarm his teasing comment had evoked. “It wasn’t a challenge.” “Now, I’m disappointed.” “Better now than later,” Bronwyn quipped as they left her apartment and headed toward the stairs. “I think we should try the elevator,” Constantine said, guiding her away from the stairs. “I’m not sure you can negotiate three flights of stairs in those heels.” “I doubt they’ve fixed it yet,” she cautioned him. To her surprise, however, the light came on immediately. “Ah! Just as I thought. You were merely testing my stamina.” Bronwyn stared at him blankly for a moment and then chuckled. “I was not! It never crossed my mind.” “Then I’m rustier than I thought,” he murmured wryly, ushering her inside the cubicle when it arrived and then walking her purposefully toward the back. “And wounded that it hasn’t crossed your mind. It’s certainly crossed mine.” “It has?” Bronwyn asked breathlessly when he’d pressed her tightly against the rear wall of the elevator. He dipped his head toward hers, brushing his lips lightly across her surprise parted lips. “It has,” he assured her. “In every conceivable position and some fairly impossible ones, I’m sure.” As surprised as Bronwyn was, she didn’t hesitate, didn’t feel any doubts or alarm whistles. She’d spent far more time fantasizing about him, she was sure, than he had her, whatever he claimed and she didn’t think an explosion could’ve distracted her at that moment. His lips were cool and momentary surprise flickered through her, but she lost touch with everything the moment his mouth settled firmly over hers. Pushing upward onto her toes, she grasped the lapels of his jacket to draw herself closer to him as he deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in exploration. Heat flooded her at

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his first intimate touch. She’d almost forgotten, she thought dimly, how very arousing the intimacy of a kiss could be, to feel his body invading her own, to take his taste and scent into herself. Releasing a pent up breath, she sucked on his tongue as he began to withdraw, encouraging him to stay with her, inside of her. The arms he’d settled around her tightened, drawing her closer still until she was plastered full length against him, could feel his hard erection pressed almost bruisingly against her belly. It fired her blood even more than the kiss and for an endless time she focused on memorizing the feel of him surrounding her, inundating her senses with his touch. Disappointment filled her when the elevator chimed and he slowly pulled away. She glanced toward the front of the elevator as the doors opened, stared blankly at it a moment, and felt amusement fill her. “We went up.” Constantine sent her a gleaming look of promise. Releasing her, he moved to the panel and pressed the lobby button. “In that case,” he murmured when he’d scooped her into his arms again, “we’ll have to occupy ourselves a few moments longer.” Bronwyn was ready for step two by the time the elevator reached the ground floor. She was vastly disappointed when Constantine broke the kiss, however reluctant he seemed, and drew away to look down at her. She stared back at him with reproach, or tried. It was all she could do to peel her eyelids up to look at him. His face went taut at her expression. For a moment, he seemed undecided. Finally, though, he smoothed her hair with his hands and led her out of the elevator. “Where are we going?” Bronwyn asked in bemusement when he’d escorted her outside and helped her into the back seat of the limo. He studied her speculatively for a moment. “Have you eaten?” Bronwyn thought it over. “A few French fries,” she admitted. “That’s one of the perks of working at the restaurant—free food, but I didn’t have much time to eat.” His expression turned sardonic. “That … establishment where you work barely qualifies as a restaurant and I can’t imagine why you would consider greasy French fries a perk.” Bronwyn smiled at him wryly. “Because they were very good French fries while they were hot and I was starving.” Constantine lowered the window between the front seat and the back decisively. “Take us to the Fontainebleau.” Bronwyn looked at him curiously when he sat back again and closed the partition. “It’s a restaurant.” He smiled faintly. “We can’t have you wasting away from hunger.” Bronwyn snorted. “Not much danger of that! We don’t need a reservation?” “No. I own it.” Still warm from his kisses, Bronwyn settled back against the plush seat, closing her eyes. “You aren’t going to sleep on me, are you?” Bronwyn grinned. “Not before you’ve fed me,” she murmured. “I’ve heard the food at the Fontainebleau is out of this world.” “Then you must give me your honest opinion once you’ve tried it.” She lifted her eyebrows. “I’m always honest … unless it’s impolite.” When he didn’t comment, she finally opened her eyes. She was surprised to

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discover that he was studying her intently. “What?” He shook his head. “I noticed that about you right off. And, yet, you’re amazing difficult to read.” “Am I?” Bronwyn asked, pleased at the notion that he thought she was mysterious. That was particularly gratifying coming from a man as mysterious as Constantine. “Nanna always said I was an open book.” He grunted. “Not to me.” Bronwyn frowned curiously. “You’re used to being able to read people very easily, then?” “Very easily.” “And you don’t like it that you can’t read me?” He lifted his brows. “Did I say that? As it happens, I find you a fascinating novelty.” “Oh,” Bronwyn said, turning her head to look out the window as the limo climbed an onramp to the freeway. “Uh oh,” Constantine murmured. “What dire thoughts are running through your mind now?” Bronwyn smiled faintly at his tone despite the plummet of her spirits. “I was just wondering if that was why you decided to ask me out.” He leaned toward her, hooking a finger on her chin and forcing her to look at him. “Who hurt you, Bronwyn? Tell me.” Bronwyn reddened, but she found she couldn’t hold his gaze. “What makes you think that?” she asked as lightly as she could manage. He expelled an impatient breath, releasing his hold on her chin. “As divorced as I’ve become from the human race, there are some things that are self evident. I can see the hurt in your eyes even when you try to hide it. I understand if you don’t want to confide in me. You don’t know me well enough … yet. But … can you at least accept that nothing I say to you is intended to wound you?” “Of course! I didn’t think you did. Really!” He flicked a finger lightly across her cheek. “I meant it a good way.” Bronwyn smiled at him more easily, chiding herself for thinking he’d meant it any other way. She was too used to the snide remarks she’d grown up with. She needed to put the past behind her and look for the good in people instead of the bad. “I find you a fascinating novelty, too,” she said teasingly. He chuckled, seemed to think it over, and then laughed outright. “You have no idea,” he murmured at the questioning look she sent him. “Then tell me,” she demanded. “I want to know all about you … where you come from, for instance. You never did tell me.” Constantine sobered. “I’ve lived in many, many places.” Bronwyn frowned curiously. “Really? How old are you anyway?” Constantine stared at her a moment and found himself struggling with the urge to laugh again. “Centuries,” he said, mock solemn. “Fine! If you don’t want to tell me!” “How old do I look?” “Oh no! You’re not dragging me in to that one! If I guess wrong, you’ll be insulted.”

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His eyes gleamed with amusement. “I’m betting you’ll guess wrong.” Bronwyn turned in the seat to study him. There was absolutely no clue in his face. He could be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five. He looked mature, not baby faced, but there were no lines deep enough to point to the possibility that he might be older than he looked. His hair wasn’t a clue either. It was a pale blond—but definitely blond. And yet she was obliged to admit there could be any number of gray hairs hiding there for all she knew. She decided it would be better to err on the side of caution regardless of what he’d said. “Twenty-five?” He gave her a look. “I thought you were serious.” She frowned. “Warm, hot, or cold?” His lifted his brows. “I beg your pardon?” “How close?” “I thought you wanted to guess.” Bronwyn tsked. “Well! I have to have some clues! Twenty-nine?” “No.” “Was that warmer or colder?” “How old would you like for me to be?” “Oh! That isn’t fair! I like you just the way you are.” The amusement in his eyes dimmed. “Do you?” “Yes, I do.” “Then it doesn’t matter, does it?” “Of course not! I just want to know about you.” “I was born long, long ago in a tiny village called Runstadt.” Bronwyn frowned. “Really? That sounds … German,” she decided. “Now you.” She laughed. “I was born in a tiny village called Greenville—long, long ago!” He studied her assessingly. “Twenty-five.” “Oh, you wonderful man! That’s so sweet! I’m not going to tell you! Besides, it’s my turn.”

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Chapter Four Constantine had thought he was prepared. He’d found it surprisingly difficult to contain his impatience to claim Bronwyn, but he’d used the time to his advantage. The protection spell the old hag had woven around her, he’d discovered, was beyond his abilities to break, which had enraged him more than anything he could recall in centuries. Once he’d managed to contain his anger, however, he’d focused on scouring the city, and then the country, for a day-walker with magic comparable to the old witch Bronwyn so fondly referred to as Nanna. The most powerful one he’d found had merely shrugged and informed him that no one but the witch who’d woven the spell could break it. He’d suggested Constantine seek her out. His amazement when he’d been informed that the witch had been dead nigh a decade was only surpassed by his amusement when he realized how infuriated Constantine was at the news. If he hadn’t been protected by a powerful spell himself, Constantine would’ve crushed the life out of him. Damned day-walkers and their dabbling in magic! Who would’ve believed that, in this day and age, there would be mortals still capable of wielding such powerful magic! He’d thought the knowledge had long since been lost to mortals. He’d flown into another rage when the warlock had left with the advisement that he work within the parameters the witch had allowed him if he wanted the woman. “Meaning?” Constantine asked coldly. “Your powers will avail you nothing in this instance. You’ll have to use your wits to attain whatever it is you’re after. If you’d care to explain the situation, I’d be most happy to advise you in whatever way I can.” Constantine narrowed his eyes at the old man but, despite his fury and his frustration, he wasn’t the least bit tempted to confide. Thus far only a handful of his most trusted minions had any notion of what his interest in Bronwyn was and even they had no idea of what the prophesy actually portended. He preferred it that way. She was destined for a progenitor, but there was nothing in the prophesy to say which progenitor. Aside from himself, only one other remained to his certain knowledge—half a world away, true, but still powerful enough to create problems he had no desire to deal with—and he had no intention of allowing Mordecai to know the promised one had been discovered. When the warlock had left, he’d expended his rage in a fit of temper that nearly left his club in shambles and had spent the next several days sulking while he tried to contain his temper enough to consider how to go about taking what he wanted. Marco, whom he’d discovered had taken great pains to make himself scarce, finally came to mind and he sent Stephen to collect him when he’d finally ferreted out his missing servant. He wasn’t particularly pleased when Marco arrived looking the worse for the

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‘summons’, but after glaring at him in distaste for some moments, he finally cleared the room and settled to probing Marco’s mind for the information he needed. He discovered, to his frustration, that he was very little more informed from having pilfered Marco’s mind, however. Settling to wait for Marco to recover from the experience, he pondered the surprisingly few successful encounters Marco had that predated his conversion, uncertain that it would prove to be the least bit useful. “How old are you?” he demanded when Marco had finally regained consciousness. Marco stared at him dully, frowning as he tried to calculate the answer. “Thirty … I think. Wait! Twenty-eight.” Constantine considered that. “How old were you when I made you?” Marco gaped at him. “Twenty-three.” Displeasure flickered through Constantine. “You have been sexually active since you were fifteen. I find it hard to believe you’ve had no more damned experience than I was able to discern!” Marco reddened, shifting uncomfortably. “If you’re suggesting I held anything back … you know very well I couldn’t.” He’d wondered exactly that, but he hadn’t truly believed Marco had gained enough power in the few years since he’d made him to present him with any real challenge. It still confused the hell out of him. “You seemed well on your way to charming Bronwyn when I arrived,” he pointed out dryly. “How did you manage that when you could not have used glamour or enthrallment?” Marco looked surprised briefly. Finally, he frowned. “She was a little tipsy when she arrived. I was only being friendly and entertaining her until you arrived,” he added a little defensively. “I don’t know. I guess we just clicked.” Constantine’s lips tightened. “Define ‘clicked’.” Marco shrugged. “It’s hard to define.” “Try.” “It’s a mortal thing,” Marco said uncomfortably. “You meet someone and you’re attracted to them—because you like the way they look—or not. Then, sometimes, you discover it’s more than that. You like their personality and they like yours and then you ‘click’.” “And that’s being ‘in love’?” Marco gaped at him. “I didn’t say that.” “Then I’ve no interest in this clicking thing,” Constantine said testily. “When does the ‘in love’ thing come in?” Marco blinked at him. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love. I met plenty of women I was in lust with,” he added with a touch of amusement. “So I’ve seen,” Constantine said dryly. “And you even managed to ‘nail’ a few of them. How did you go about that?” He could see Marco was struggling with indignation. “It’s hit or miss,” he said finally. “You try to kiss them and if they let you, and they seem open to the idea, you try to turn them on to the idea of more. If they’re interested in you, they’ll let you. If they aren’t they’ll shove you away and tell you what a low-life bastard you are. I always went by the three-date rule myself. If we got together three times and she still hadn’t let me

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kiss her, much less anything else, then I’d give up and move on. Sometimes they’ll let you take them to bed on the first date, sometimes the second or third, but if you haven’t even gotten to first base by the third date then chances are slim to none that you’ll ever get anywhere at all. “I’m pretty sure Bronwyn would’ve let me kiss her by the end of the evening,” he finished somewhat defiantly. “We clicked. Besides, pussy lube, you know.” Constantine narrowed his eyes. Marco began to sweat. “Alcohol. You work with what you have—and mortals don’t have glamour or the ability to enthrall to get what they want. Alcohol lowers the inhibitions, confuses them, and Bronwyn … well, I could see she’d be an easy mark. For one, she isn’t used to drinking. It wouldn’t take much to put her on her ass. For another … I think she’s lonely, and I think she’s been hurt a lot. Some girls are like that. They’re just too … soft. They’ve been treated like shit so many times they’re desperate for affection.” Constantine eyed him distastefully. “It’s just as well for you that you didn’t try. You are replaceable, Marco. Easily. There are dozens of hopeful converts in the club any night of the week. You’re dismissed.” He’d been more frustrated and angry when Marco had left. He’d been so certain Marco would have the key to unlocking the mating rituals of mortals. It would have to be that or nothing, he realized. The old crone had seen to that, damn her! He didn’t want to become fond of her, damn it all! He had yet to even consider binding himself to a vampiress, and he would be closer to willingness to bind himself to one of his own kind than a mortal! Perhaps the protection spell would be lifted if and when he managed to win her affection and he could convert her, but he had a bad feeling the evil crone who’d manufactured it had intended it as a permanent protection from the likes of him. What if he, horror of horrors, did develop affection for her—a mortal? He might experience pain and distress when she went the way of mortal flesh! Perhaps for decades! He felt an occasional twinge even now when he allowed memories of his mortal mother to enter his mind, and she had been lost to him centuries ago … because she wouldn’t allow him to convert her. She’d thought of him as a monster and refused to even consider becoming what he was. Was it really worth the emotional turmoil just to sire a child? Perhaps he should contact Mordecai after all and allow him the honors? It wasn’t as if he would, himself, enjoy the benefits of becoming a day-walker. The prophesy had hinted at it, though, and he discovered he couldn’t convince himself that that wouldn’t be part of the ‘gift’ even knowing Bronwyn herself had no magic. He was certain of that much. And yet she was a vessel. He was certain of that, too, and he couldn’t probe the magic, couldn’t ‘see’ it to determine the limits of the power. In the end, he’d been forced to accept that, as much as he disliked the limitations that had been imposed upon him, he couldn’t bring himself to simply back away and yield his good fortune to another. Of the handful of progenitors that had come into the world, he had survived the centuries. She had come to him. That could only mean that she was meant for him and him alone. It could not be impossible for him to learn the way of the mortals and win her if

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she was meant for him! And so he’d bided his time and made use of it by studying the ways of the mortals he’d been oblivious to up until that time. He’d been prepared to seduce her into his bed to produce the heir to the kingdom of vampires only to discover, after nigh a week had passed, that she apparently had no intention of presenting herself for the feat! He’d been forced to send his minions out to search for her since the damned crone had seen to it that he couldn’t form a link with her. And he’d had to coax her—with mere words—to come to him! That had been an unpleasant experience in and of itself! Of course, he admitted there’d been a certain amount of excitement, as well. He wasn’t accustomed to dealing with doubts—which he discovered he abhorred—but the reward for success had almost made it worthwhile. She’d invited him into her home! Without any real effort on his part, she’d welcomed him. Of course, she had no notion that he was a vampire or that inviting him in was tantamount to offering herself to his every whim. Which, of course, it bloody well wasn’t in this case because of the bleeding protection spell! It had given him an unpleasant jolt to discover that! Even so, he’d made definite progress. He was almost certain of that. He’d enjoyed the most pleasant evening in his memory that didn’t include fucking her six ways from Sunday or tasting the sweet essence of her that had begun to claw at his vitals the moment he kissed her. He’d managed to convince himself that it was actually his idea, and his preference, to anticipate rather than indulge immediately. He would taste her soon enough, give her more pleasure than she’d ever imagined, and then she would be putty in his hands—his irrevocably—whatever the old crone had thought. And then, after wining and dining her, after putting himself out to entertain her all evening long, waiting patiently for the moment she would yield all to him, she’d fallen asleep on the way back to her apartment! Constantine looked down at the head resting against his shoulder with a mixture of emotions he found difficult to sort. He had never had a woman simply fall asleep in his company! It denoted a measure of trust, he told himself, that he should congratulate himself on, and yet he couldn’t entirely convince himself it wasn’t sheer exhaustion. And that was preferable to the possibility that he’d bored her to sleep, he thought sardonically. She roused when the car pulled up to the curb at her atrocious apartment building, but she was so groggy he sincerely doubted she’d be able to negotiate the stairs or the elevator and make it to her apartment on her own steam. After bracing her against the car while he collected the shoes and purse she’d discarded from the seat of the limo, he dismissed Marco, scooped her into his arms and headed inside … still convinced he was about to collect his reward. Ascertaining that no one else was up and about in the building, Constantine ignored both the stairs and the elevator, levitating swiftly to the third floor landing and settling lightly near her door. “Whoa!” Bronwyn murmured in a sleepy, or maybe drunken, slur, lifting her head

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and looking around owlishly while he fumbled with the keys to her locked door instead of simply opening it now that he’d inadvertently woken her. “That was the fastest the elevator ever moved!” Instead of commenting since he couldn’t think of a response that wouldn’t carry the potential of alarming her, he merely shouldered his way into her apartment when he’d finally gotten the key in the hole and unlocked it, kicking the door to behind him. Bronwyn nuzzled his neck as he strode to her bedroom, and his cock, already hard, sent another hard stab of pain through him. “You carried me!” “It was either that or deposit you in the foyer to crawl up,” he muttered. Bronwyn managed an inelegant snorting laugh that made amusement well up in him despite his near desperate state. “I’m not that drunk,” she murmured as he set her on her feet beside the bed. “No?” he asked sardonically. She blinked at him, surveyed the room and turned away, trying to crawl into the bed. He snapped his fingers to dispose of his own clothing and followed her, wrestling with her briefly before he managed to rid her of the damned dress she’d managed, somehow, to twist around her as she climbed in. She fell back against the pillows when he released her to toss the dress aside, her arms thrown upward in a gesture of surrender. “Don’t you dare go to sleep on me, Bronwyn,” Constantine growled as he dove for her throat, his patience stretched the limit. She uttered a drunken giggle that hitched in her throat and became a moan as he nibbled a path up her throat and over to the side of her neck. His throat went dry as he felt the pulse of her nectar against his lips. It would be sweet, he thought, as sweet and pure as she was. Despite the burning hunger in his belly, however, his fangs didn’t elongate. You cannot use your powers against her. Bloody hell! The temptation burned him to tear at her fragile skin with his teeth anyway to reach the warm, pulsing nectar so temptingly close. He struggled with the knowledge that he would only cause her pain to do so, the certainty that he had no way to inject the soothing drug to sooth the sting and make her malleable to his will. No way to stem the tide once he’d torn the membrane to feast on her. She would die, taking her gift with her. It still took every ounce of self-control he could muster to lift his head. He studied her face, felt his body throb with other needs, felt a wave of fury and frustration as it dawned on him to wonder if he could even assuage those needs. He found he couldn’t resist the attempt. She was open to him, already warm and willing. He settled his mouth over hers, kissing her with all the pent up frustration inside of him. She twined her arms around his neck despite his roughness, kissed him back and an odd sense of protectiveness stole over him. He gentled his kiss, stroked the slick inner surfaces of her mouth caressingly with his tongue, gathering what he could of her essence to himself to feed his hunger. “Con!” She groaned his name pleadingly when he broke the kiss. He would’ve slain anyone else that had dared to utter a diminutive of his name and yet, oddly, it seemed to set his blood on fire. He stroked hands that shook with eagerness over her full breasts, cupped each in a palm and served their cherry ripe tips to

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himself to suckle. “Sweet baby,” he murmured huskily when she spread her thighs willingly, nay eagerly, at the touch of his hand as he glided it over her belly and found her honey pot, allowing him to stroke her nether lips and collect her honey on the tip of his finger. He found he couldn’t wait longer once he’d stroked her inner passage and felt her moist heat, the tightness of her body. He had to feel it around him, needed it to assuage the ache that begun to throb so hard it felt as if his temples would explode. He slid his hips into the cradle of her thighs, pierced her with the head of his cock. The sweet agony of it made him lightheaded. He lowered his weight onto her, burrowed his face into the pillow beside her head while he struggled for control. “Ma sucré mignon! Sweet little morsel! Your heat scalds me so deliciously I think I will spill my seed and give neither of us the satisfaction we crave.” She uttered a grunting gasp, lifting her legs to curl them around his hips. “Don’t leave me! I think I’m going to come!” A shudder traveled through him. Gritting his teeth, he plowed deeper, sawing back and forth along her channel until he could go no deeper—and still he felt the urge to try, had to fight it. He took a moment to find his bearings when he felt Bronwyn stir against him—and discovered the limitations of the physical world. She was a good foot shorter than him and her face was buried against his pecs. He tried twisting, sliding his body down hers to seek her lips and felt his cock sliding from her. He tried summoning his powers to satisfy his need to feel her mouth around his tongue as he plowed into her and discovered he couldn’t command even that much of his powers. Bloody fucking hell! It didn’t occur to you, you evil old hag, that I might want it for myself! He raged inwardly, but he had no true connection to the old woman beyond the protection charm she’d enveloped Bronwyn in. He couldn’t even argue his bloody side of it! Giving up in frustration after a moment, he curled his arms around her, holding her tightly against him as he drove fiercely into her in search of the pleasure he’d begun to doubt he would find. Bronwyn bucked and shuddered against him abruptly, crying out his name. His heart, which rarely made its presence known, abruptly surged almost painfully in his chest. Everything inside of him went taut and then he felt his body convulse, felt his seed scald him as it rushed from his body in nearly painful bursts that knocked the breath from him. He was so wrung out when his body finally ceased to seize that it was many moments before he realized the experience was like nothing that he’d ever felt before. He’d felt heat, well warmth—in his body, not just hers—in his balls and his cock. He felt warm all over, he realized in shock when he managed to regain enough strength to roll off of her. For some time afterward, he lay staring at the ceiling, trying to convince himself that the warmth he felt was hers, that he’d merely absorbed it as he so often did when he fucked a mortal woman. It didn’t feel the same, however, and that was what disturbed him. After grappling with it for a time, he realized he’d lain next to her until he could feel the first feeble rays of the morning sun. In too much turmoil and confusion to register the passing time till then, he flung himself from the bed, gathered his powers to him with a good deal of relief, and rushed to his lair.

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He was still in turmoil when he’d closed himself off from the mortal world and composed himself for sleep. Was it a change in him, he wondered? Or was it only a fleeting thing the old woman’s magic had wrought? He didn’t know and he found it seriously disturbing that he didn’t, almost as disturbing as the possibility itself. He’d spilled his seed into Bronwyn, he realized as he finally began to drift toward slumber, warm, life giving seed. A gift from his mortal mother? Or more magic? The thoughts sent a thread of excitement through him that roused him upward again. Perhaps he’d already fulfilled his destiny? Maybe he wouldn’t have to go through that disturbing experience again? You must win her heart by giving her yours—if you’ve one to give. Only then will you earn her gift. The old witch’s words tumbled through his mind, taunting him. Bloody fucking hell!

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Chapter Five Bronwyn’s eyeballs hurt! Groaning, she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow to block out the light stabbing into her brain. With her first deep breath, though, she inhaled the tantalizing scent of Constantine that lingered on her pillow and memories of the night before flooded through her, bringing warmth with them. Despite the misery of a hangover, she felt a surge of pleasure. She’d had no inkling sex could be so wonderful! Just remembering how Constantine had made her feel sent delicious, warming tingles through her and a sense of anticipation and excitement to face the day that she couldn’t ever recall feeling before. Her headed throbbed worst, though, when she finally decided she’d lain abed long enough and sat up. Wincing, she hovered on the edge, holding her head and trying to remember just what she’d drunk the night before. Wine with the dinner. She couldn’t recall for certain, but she thought she’d had more than one glass while they’d sat talking. He’d taken her to his club afterwards and had coaxed her out onto the dance floor for a slow dance that had sent her mind reeling and her temperature soaring. She frowned. Maybe she shouldn’t be putting it all down to Constantine’s prowess? She knew she’d had at least one mixed drink after she’d arrived at the club and considering she never drank she must have been trashed. Would the alcohol have heightened the experience or dulled her senses, though? Maybe she should’ve tried mixing sex with alcohol before and she wouldn’t have had so many god-awful experiences before? Dismissing the thought, she headed into the bathroom to pull herself together. It wasn’t until she got out that she felt a fleeting sense of panic about the time and her job. Luckily, she remembered the boss had taken her off the schedule—reluctantly—after she’d pulled a double the day before. She had the entire day to herself. What was left of it. She was pretty horrified when she discovered she’d slept most of the day. Granted, it must have really, really late when she’d finally gotten home. She hadn’t gotten off work until eight. Then she’d bathed and dressed … dinner … dancing. She finally faced the one thought she’d been trying to avoid while she brewed coffee. Constantine hadn’t spent the night with her—or what was left of it. He’d brought her up to her place, fucked her brains out—and done a bang-up job of it!—and then left. She sighed. At least he hadn’t tossed bills on the bed when he’d left, she thought glumly. Try though she might to invent a plausible excuse for why he’d played and run, she couldn’t come up with anything except that he’d gotten what he’d come for and was in a rush to leave. She hadn’t enjoyed that particular experience before. She hadn’t dated enough, she supposed, but she’d overheard enough complaints from other women to know it was standard practice with the hit-and-run kind of guy. She hadn’t expected that sort of

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behavior out of Constantine, but then she was obliged to admit that she hadn’t expected him to show up at all and she didn’t really know what to expect. It wasn’t bad enough that she didn’t have that many experiences to go by. He was a foreigner to boot and they probably had a whole different way of looking at such things, especially since she’d put out on their first official date. She probably was lucky he hadn’t tossed out a few bills! What had she been thinking? She’d been too boozy to think—with anything but her pussy, that is! Not that that was an excuse. She’d been hot for Constantine since she’d laid eyes on him. The booze had just hastened her downfall. If she’d been stone cold sober and he’d tried to get her in bed, she probably would’ve raced him there! She decided after a while that the real reason she felt so blue was because she was afraid she’d run him off. Too easy! And Nanna had given her plenty of lectures on that subject! She should’ve known better! She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a grown woman. She couldn’t excuse her bad behavior on rampant hormones even if she did have raging hots for the guy. She should’ve been using her brain! Well, she supposed it was too late to worry about it now. She’d blown it! And maybe she hadn’t really had a chance with him to start with? She’d accepted that he was way out of her league. Most likely the only thing that had convinced him to take her on one date was the possibility that he’d get laid. After wrestling with a hangover, her depression, and her conscience for hours, she finally decided that what she needed was to take a walk to clear her head. She didn’t want to OD on aspirin and what she’d taken had only dulled the pain for a while. She still felt like hell. The sun was setting as she left her building and that gave her pause, particularly when she saw that there didn’t seem to be nearly as many people in the streets as there usually were. Dismissing it after a moment with the reflection that it was Sunday— which no doubt accounted for the thinness of people on the streets—she decided to take a short walk and maybe get a bite to eat since she hadn’t eaten since the night before. She hadn’t actually set out to stroll past the club—not consciously—but she found herself standing on the curb staring at it before she realized she’d headed there on autopilot. After considering simply strolling by for a few moments, she finally decided against it. She didn’t want Constantine to get the idea that she was a stalker if he just happened to be there and happened to look out and see her. A man stepped out of the entrance to the club even as she turned away. Cutting her eyes to catch a glimpse of him, she began walking more briskly when she realized it was Marco, hoping to hell he hadn’t spotted her. **** Luke Gray Wolf had been studying the building across the street for hours waiting for an opportunity to confront Tommy Two Horses regarding the disposition of their territories. The street where he waited was, in actuality, supposed to be neutral since it bordered both his own territory and Two Horses’ but Tommy didn’t seem to see it that way. In point of fact, he’d crossed into his territory one time too many. One time was too many! It was a challenge if there ever was one and although they’d managed to keep

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things fairly civil in the city up until recently, war between their clans now seemed inevitable … unless he could nip it the butt here and now by facing off with his rival. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Tommy knew he was waiting. He hadn’t actually seen Tommy go inside, but he could smell him and he’d seen a number of Tommy’s pack members strolling casually up and down the opposite side of the street over the past several hours. What he couldn’t decide was whether Tommy was playing a waiting game with him, or if the fact that Tommy hadn’t come out to counter his challenge meant that Tommy was acknowledging that he’d erred. Well, he wasn’t taking a no-show as a capitulation, Luke thought angrily. He’d come to teach the bastard a lesson and he had no intention of leaving until he did! A new scent joined the mingling of scents of his own pack and Tommy’s and Luke’s gaze followed his nose to the source. Near the corner of the block he was guarding, he spotted a man—human—crouching beside a car. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have spared the human more than a glance, but there was just something really weird about the dude. He wasn’t changing, or checking, a tire. For one thing, he wasn’t anywhere near the tires. For another, he kept bobbing up and peering through the window glass at something on the other side. Curious now, Luke followed the direction of his gaze. He couldn’t see anything. Whatever it was that held the wormy bastard’s attention was out of his line of sight. Lifting his head, he tasted the air, figuring it was undoubtedly another human, although he couldn’t fathom what sort of game was in play. As long as it didn’t interfere with his game he didn’t give a fuck either, but there was a chance it might seeing as how the asshole had chosen his road to play his game and he was currently awaiting Tommy Two Horses to accept a challenge. He didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary—which didn’t particularly surprise him—and he was about to dismiss the humans, whatever it was they were up to, when he caught an exotic scent unlike anything he’d ever smelled before. Instantly intrigued, he began trying to ‘taste’ more of it to identify it. Whatever it was was coming closer. He dragged in a lungful that nearly sent him reeling. His cock popped to attention and every hackle on him rose as his beast lunged to the forefront, threatening to escape his control. He tasted magic! Laced with psychic! And female! Tensing all over, his hormones abruptly raging for more than the teasing taste he could pull into his lungs, however hard they labored, he narrowed his eyes expectantly on the corner, waiting for his first sight of the owner of the most exquisite perfume he’d ever smelled. She rounded the building at the end of the street just as his gaze settled there and knocked the breath right out of him. For a time, all he could do was stare at her hungrily, every muscle in his body taut, his dick twitching, and his mouth watering. It was just as well he was frozen in appreciation of the vision coming toward him. His beast was threatening to break its leash and hump the fuck out of her and he sure as shit didn’t want to frighten his little angel. A movement closer to hand finally broke the spell and Luke dragged his hungry gaze from her to look for trouble. He found it. The wormy looking bastard that had been

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acting so weird was shadowing her along his side of the street, popping up from time to time to peer at her—his woman—over the hoods of the cars that lined the curb. What the fuck? He was on the point of launching himself at the bastard when a very unpleasant scent smacked him so hard it halted him in his tracks—vamp. He bristled wondering what a vamp was doing so close to his territory. He couldn’t abide the cold-blooded, blood sucking, snots! He didn’t have long to wonder. The vamp reached the same corner where the future mother of his children had appeared, glanced around, spied his woman and followed. There was no doubt in his mind that she was the vamp’s target and Luke abruptly decided to ignore the wormy man as of no consequence. Almost as the woman came even with the building directly across the street, the door opened and Tommy Two Horses stepped out. Well fuck! He might have known the bastard’s timing would suck as bad as everything else about him! It took him two seconds too long to realize that the enticing scent of his angel was probably going to throw Tommy into fuck-fever as fast as it had him. And it did. Tommy’s attention focused on her instantly. For a heartbeat, he merely stared at her with glazed eyes and then he and the two lieutenants that had followed him from the building leapt the string of stairs that led down to the sidewalk, landing directly in front of her. Enough was enough! He didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he’d pegged that woman and no-fucking-body else was going to snatch her out from under him! **** Bronwyn was so focused on her certainty that she was being followed, her mind was sluggish in assimilating what was happening when the three men—dark, with long black hair—landed around her as if they’d fallen from the sky. She gaped at the man in the forefront, who was breathing as heavily as if he’d just run a mile. His eyes were wild, gleaming in a way that sent a shot of adrenaline rushing through her, spawning the instinct to flee. Every muscle in her body froze instead. She sucked in a breath to scream. He bent over and plowed into her like a line-backer, hooking her over one broad shoulder and knocking the air from her lungs. She struggled to catch her breath, to scream, clawing and shoving at his back uselessly. A loud yipping sound distracted her, made goosebumps leap out all over her, and she glanced quickly toward what sounded like an Indian on the warpath—looked like one, too. His face twisted in a feral snarl, his long, black hair flying in the wind as he raced directly toward her and her assailant, the biggest fucking Indian—Native American—she’d ever seen in her life was charging right toward her. She managed no more than a glimpse. The cry he’d emitted snagged her captor’s attention, as well, and he whirled to face the wild man racing toward them. She caught a glimpse of Marco, also racing in her direction, as she was whipped around. Oh god! The poor idiot! He was no match for these brutes!

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A scream tore from her throat of its own accord as the bastard holding her abruptly slung her into the air. Her arms and legs flailing, she struggled to maintain her balance as she flew up and then down toward the pavement. Another man leapt into the air to intercept her—as if the crazy men had decided to play football, with her as the ball! She slammed into him hard enough it stunned her. It didn’t seem to stun him. He launched into a run the moment his feet hit the ground. Another man—where the fuck did all these Indians come from?—dove at him, knocking his legs out from under him. Bronwyn squeezed her eyes closed as she saw the ground flying toward her. She never struck. Someone caught her and tossed her again. “I’ll flay every son-of-a-bitching one of you if they make off with her!” someone bellowed. Bronwyn was grabbed and tossed around so many times that she was completely disoriented, but she realized quickly enough that she was at the center of a mob riot. She was almost too dizzy and battered to feel much fear, however. **** Luke discovered he was having a hell of a time fighting and keeping an eye on the woman at the same time. The urge to shift and go lethal smote him over and over and each time he fought his beast back, partly because he knew the moment he shifted his entire clan would follow suit, and Tommy and his clan. The woman was liable to be torn to shreds if that happened and he was worried enough about her as it was. Beyond that, he was curbed by the realization that she would be terrified—more terrified—if she discovered what they were. The gods only knew what it would do to her mind to find herself surrounded by, and being fought over, by two warring packs of lycans in halfshift. A surge of rage went through him that almost cost him his control when he saw that Tommy’s men were trying to pass her to the back of the melee where they could make off with her and the gods damned vamp was standing there waiting to catch her. Bellowing orders to his men not to allow them to make a run with her, he used the surge of fury to beat Tommy down and then bounded toward his objective—his woman. He managed to wrest her away from the man that had just caught her, slammed his fist into the bastard hard enough he felt the bones in his face shatter, and bounded upward again, kicking the vamp so hard as he soared over him that the bastard flew backwards into a car, caving in the side of it. He landed on the top of the car and sprang forward again, landed in the middle of the street and then launched himself into a run, heading for his own territory. He was hopeful he’d done enough damage to the vamp to discourage him, but he doubted it and he didn’t slow up until he’d reached the walled cemetery that had been his goal. Bounding over the wall, he landed on the other side with a jarring thud that cut off the screeching the woman had been deafening him with, at least temporarily, and raced for the center. As a general rule, vamps weren’t crazy about consecrated ground, but he knew it wasn’t going to stop the bastard if he really wanted the woman. And apparently he did. Luke hadn’t gained the ground he was searching for before the vamp confronted him, landing directly in his path. “Let her go!” “I don’t think so, asshole! She’s mine! I wasn’t about to let Tommy Two Horses claim her and I sure as fuck won’t be handing her to a fucking blood-sucker!” “My master saw her first. Put her down.”

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“Fuck you and your master!” Luke growled. He did set her down, however. He had no choice. He couldn’t hold her and fight and even if he’d thought he could, he didn’t want her in the line of fire. She would sure as hell get hurt in this battle. He was going to have to shift to take on a vamp, however young and inexperienced this one appeared to be. “Take cover, baby. I’ll take care of this asshole.” She wilted to the ground the moment he released her and gaped up at him instead. “I’d like it a hell of a lot better if you’d go hide while I take of this,” Luke murmured coaxingly. “It ain’t gonna be pretty.” “But … that’s Marco,” she said, obviously too stunned and confused to realize the danger she was in. “You know the vamp?” he demanded, feeling a sudden sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “Vamp?” “Vampire, baby, or didn’t he bother to tell you that?” Luke said grimly. She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind and then glanced at the vamp she’d called Marco. Marco’s eyes narrowed. “He wants you to hide because he doesn’t want you to see what he is.” Bronwyn blinked at Marco. All she could think for several moments was that he hadn’t bothered to deny what the stranger had said. Because it was too ludicrous to be believed? “What is he?” she asked numbly. “Lupus—wolf. Or werewolf?” “You had it right the first time, vamp! I’m Luke Gray Wolf. And you’re standing in my territory. You’re outmatched, vamp, and outnumbered. I’m gonna be nice and give you the chance to take your scrawny ass off.” Uneasiness flickered in Marco’s eyes, but he held his ground. “This is Constantine’s territory. Don’t be a fool. You don’t want to tangle with a progenitor.” He flicked a glance at Bronwyn. “Go back to the club, Bronwyn.” “Don’t!” the man who’d called himself Luke Gray Wolf growled. “Why don’t you give your dad old Connie a call? For that matter, if she’s his, why isn’t he here?” Marco’s lips tightened, but he said nothing. Luke grinned at him. “He hasn’t claimed her. If he’d bitten her, he’d know exactly where she was, at all times, and he wouldn’t have his flunkies following her around.” Marco snorted. “Speaking of flunkies ….” Luke snarled. “Your mistake,” he said grimly. “I’m lupus. My people were never slaves to the likes of your kind—never slaves to anyone.” Bronwyn stood up shakily as the two finally stopped trading insults and began to circle one another, searching for an opening to strike. After glancing around the dimly lit cemetery, she began to back away until she came up against a headstone and nearly toppled over it. The near miss sent her heart to racing a little harder. Glancing around for some hope of safety, she saw the winking gleam of dozens of pairs of eyes. Not human eyes. Her heart hammering in her ears almost deafeningly, Bronwyn searched the shadows until she found an avenue of possible escape and began moving slowly in that

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direction as she heard the sounds of battle engaged behind her—the snarl of beasts, the meaty thud of flesh impacting flesh. Abruptly, the possessors of the glowing eyes surged forward but, to her relief, they passed her, racing toward the battle between Marco and the stranger who’d called himself Luke Gray Wolf—lupus. They moment they charged past her, she began to move faster toward the streetlight she could see on the other side of the wall that surrounded the cemetery. In the distance, she could hear sirens as she reached the wall and began to search for a way out. She certainly couldn’t leap over it as the man—wolf—carrying her had. “Come here! I’ll help you!” a man’s voice called from the other side. “Oh thank god!” Bronwyn exclaimed. “I can’t find the gate!” “You’ll have to climb over. I’ve called the police! They’ll be here any minute!” the stranger assured her. With a good deal of grunting, he managed to climb up on the wall and reached down to her. Bronwyn thought for several heart-stopping moments after she’d taken his hand that she was going to pull him over instead of the other way around. He seemed to be of a like mind. He hesitated, staring with terrified eyes at the melee in the distance, and finally jumped down. “Put your foot in my hands and I’ll give you a lift up.” Bronwyn complied and, to her relief, he managed to hoist her high enough to throw herself over the top and scramble down on the other side. She could hear him struggling to climb over the wall again and finally his head and shoulders appeared. He all but fell off, landing on his knees, but he leapt up immediately. “I’ve got a car down the street!” he exclaimed, grabbing her hand and tugging her along behind him at a half run. “I live just a couple blocks from here,” Bronwyn said breathlessly, tugging at her hand to free herself. “You’ll never make it! That’s another three blocks at least. They’ll be finished long before then and they’ll come after you! We need to hurry!” It took several moments before her shocked brain could assimilate what he’d said. Cold fear surged through her when she did finally grasp it. “How do you know where I live?” she demanded in a voice that cracked with fear. “What?” he asked, glancing back at her impatiently when she finally managed to drag him to a stop. “How do you know where I live?” He looked startled. “I don’t. You said a couple of blocks.” “But you said three! Who are you?” He shook his head, surging toward her and grabbing her in a bear hold. “The name’s Bill Duncan. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you even more, but we have to get out of here before they come after you again!” “But you said the police were on the way!” “My god, woman! Do you think the police can do anything about Vampires and Lycans? You won’t be safe at your apartment either! I can take you to someone who can protect you from them … if we hurry.” “You’re not taking me anywhere until I know what’s going on! Who can protect me? How? If it’s true and they’re vampires and werewolves, how can anybody protect me from them?” “Jesus H. Christ, woman! After what you’ve seen you still don’t think there is

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such a thing? Look … my boss … Lord Westmoreland. He sent me to look for you! He can take care of you. You needn’t doubt that. The whole lot of them can’t stand against him, believe me!” “Sent you to find me? Why? I don’t know him. I’ve never heard of him!” “The mark on your arm!” he said impatiently. “It’s the prophesy. That’s all I know. For gods sake, woman! Come on before they come after us!” Bronwyn was about to tell him she wasn’t going anywhere with him when a horrible thing landed on the sidewalk just behind him. She screamed, but it was too late as a warning and the chances were that no warning would’ve saved him. The beast took his head off with one swipe of it’s huge paw. She stared in horror at the startled expression on Bill Duncan’s face as his head rolled and bounced down the sidewalk. A wave of nauseating dizziness washed over her. Ignoring it, she whirled and ran back in the direction she’d come from. The thing grabbed her flying hair, jerking her off her feet. Before she hit the pavement, a hairy arm snaked around her and she was twirled dizzily. She landed so hard on the thing’s shoulder it knocked the breath from her and she discovered when it began bounding down the sidewalk with her that every effort to catch a breath of air was countered by another hard jolt to her solar plexus. The blackness of imminent unconsciousness swirled through her mind, dimmed her sight. She grasped two fistfuls of the beast’s hair and pulled herself close enough to bite down on his back. He let out a yelp and stumbled—more from surprise, she didn’t doubt, than actual pain. She was almost more injured in her attempt to free herself of him than she had been before. She hit the pavement almost at the same moment he did and the two of them tumbled over each other as they rolled down the sloping sidewalk. Before he could get on his feet again, another monster landed heavily beside them. “Get away from her, Tommy Two Horses or I’ll tear your heart out and shove it down your throat!” “Help!” Bronwyn managed to gasp weakly. “Just give me a minute, darlin’ while I rip this bastard’s head off!” The image of the stranger’s head bouncing down the sidewalk instantly popped into her mind and Bronwyn discovered she couldn’t hold the blackness back any longer. Sight abandoned her, but she could hear the sounds of a fight all too clearly. When they stopped, she opened her eyes to discover a dark face hovering just above hers. “Don’t start screaming again, baby,” Luke said coaxingly. “We’re about to have way too much company. I need to get you out of here.” Bronwyn hissed in pain as he scooped her up and he flicked a worried look at her. “Gods you’re banged up, baby! I knew I should’ve killed that son-of-a-bitch. Just hold on. I’ll get somebody to take a look at you.” Bronwyn wanted to argue but, before she could say anything, Luke lifted his head and uttered the ‘war cry’ he’s bellowed before when he’d raced to her rescue, or at least something that sounded very much the same to her. The results were different this time, however. The sound at barely stopped echoing when a dark van turned the corner on two wheels, shot toward them, and then screeched to a rocking halt beside them. The van door slid open and Luke leapt inside with her. It was dark inside the van, but she could tell there were several other people inside. “Is she hurt?”

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“Of course she’s hurt, numbskull! Don’t she look hurt? Let’s get her to the clinic and have Clancy take a look at her.” “I’m not hurt,” Bronwyn disputed him feebly. “Really. I just want to go home.” His arms tightened around her briefly and he shifted her more comfortably on his lap. “It’s ok, baby. You don’t need to be afraid. Nobody here is going to hurt you.” Bronwyn wondered if her brains had been rattled because, oddly enough, she felt completely reassured. Uttering a sigh of relief, she settled her cheek against the hard pec beside her face and relaxed, trying to empty her mind of the terror of the past half hour. She was successful enough, or traumatized enough, that she dozed off. She woke when she felt the cessation of movement as the van stopped. She discovered when Luke climbed out with her that they were behind a small, single story building. Several dark figures emerged from the van with them, but they halted at the door as Luke went in with her. The sound of barking dogs assailed her as the light inside blinded her and the smell of a kennel assaulted her nostrils. “Where are we?” “The clinic.” Bronwyn roused enough to look around. “What kind of clinic?” Luke grimaced wryly when she looked at him. “The closest. Sorry, I’m not dressed for anything else. But Clancy knows what he’s doing. He can patch you up if you need it, set bones if anything’s broken.” Bronwyn was still too bemused to object, but she felt totally thrown to discover he’d taken her to an animal clinic. She was slightly reassured by the man that met them at the front and escorted them into an examination room where Luke finally set her down on an examination table that looked as sterile as anything in a hospital. When he stepped away, she saw what he meant about not being ‘dressed’ for anything else. He wasn’t dressed at all! And, my god, what a beautiful everything he had! He bore the marks of his fight—deep, ugly scratches, welts and bruises, but even so she’d never seen a more perfect human body. He was so wonderfully sculpted his nakedness didn’t seem the least obscene although she was vaguely aware that she should’ve thought so. His dark eyes were gleaming when she finally managed to drag her gaze from his beautiful ‘everything’ and look at his face. That was beautiful, too. And pure Native American if she wasn’t mistaken. The purest she’d ever seen anyway. Except, if what he’d said was true—he was pure wolf. And if she could believe her eyes, he could turn into a monster and then back into this wondrous form effortlessly. “What happened?” the doctor asked briskly, capturing her attention. Luke looked a little disconcerted. He shrugged. “She got caught up in the middle of a battle,” he said uncomfortably. “So I see,” Clancy retorted wryly. “It would be easier to examine her without the clothes.” Bronwyn stared at him and then glanced at Luke. Luke frowned irritably, but finally shrugged and left. “You aren’t a people doctor, are you?” Bronwyn said the moment Luke closed the door behind him. “Not ordinarily, no,” Clancy agreed cheerfully. “You want me to leave, too?”

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“I don’t really think I’ve got anything but bruises,” Bronwyn responded instead of answering his question. “Well, let me have a look anyway, huh? You’ve had a shock or two, I imagine. Sometimes a shot of adrenaline can make it hard to feel pain.” Nanna had said the same thing. Feeling her resistance melt, Bronwyn nodded and sat up with an effort. The doctor helped her off the table and turned around while she undressed. When she’d discarded her clothes, he handed her a sheet and helped her get on the table again. Despite the fact that he was a veterinarian, he seemed completely competent—and gentle as he carefully examined her bones for breaks. “Nothing broken that I can find. Any pain anywhere in particular?” Everywhere. She felt so battered she couldn’t localize any kind of pain as being worse than anything else except for the burning lacerations she’d gotten from skidding across pavement. “Just the scrapes on my hands and knees from hitting the sidewalk.” “Ouch! Well, I’ll clean them up, make sure there’s nothing there to get infected and then put some ointment on them to take care of the sting. Any goose eggs?” he added, examining her scalp. “I think I bumped my head.” “Yep. Found one. How many fingers am I holding up?” “Two.” “Day of the week?” “Sunday.” He nodded. “I think Luke should keep an eye on you, but I don’t see anything to worry about.” Bronwyn chewed her lip, wondering if she could trust him. Luke had brought her to him after all. “You’re … friends with Luke?” He glanced at her sharply. “He’s alpha. I’m one of his pack brothers—and, yes, I consider him a friend.” He frowned. “That doesn’t mean I’m not here for you. You wanna talk?” Bronwyn shivered. “I don’t really know what was happening, but everyone was grabbing me—they almost seemed to be fighting over me—except I can’t imagine why they would. And then Luke ….” She swallowed with an effort. “He was … he looked different and he grabbed me and brought me here.” Clancy lifted his brows. “Well, I have to suppose that scared you, but I know Luke. If he grabbed you, he had a damned good reason. You’re lucky he was there.” Bronwyn sent in an indignant look. “I was just walking along the sidewalk, minding my own business! Next thing I know, it was like they’d decided to play football with me … Wait a minute! Did you say you were his pack brother?” “Ah! You got the short, sweet initiation, huh? Didn’t think there was any such thing as monsters before tonight?” Bronwyn reddened. “He isn’t … crazy?” Clancy burst out laughing. “Not unless we all are,” he said cheerfully. “You can sit up now and I’ll take care of those nasty abrasions.” Gathering the sheet, Bronwyn sat up and turned, allowing her legs to dangle from the table. There was a tap on the door as Clancy finished cleaning her wounds. He flicked a questioning glance at her. “You ok with me letting him in? Or should I bar the door?”

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Bronwyn studied him a moment and finally nodded. “She says you can come in if you behave yourself. We’re just finishing up.” Luke was wearing a pair of jeans when he entered the room, but his beautifully sculpted chest was still bare. To her surprise, the ugly claw marks she’d seen on him only a few minutes before were nothing more than angry red marks now. He looked a question at the doctor. “I think she’ll be fine. You should keep an eye on her for a little while—she’s got a nasty bump on the head—but I don’t think we’ve anything to worry about. Mind you, if she begins to show any sort of symptoms, I’ll expect you to get her to the nearest hospital but I think she’d already be displaying symptoms if there was any bleeding.” Luke relaxed. Looking at her, he grinned abruptly and held out his hand. “I’m Luke Gray Wolf.” Shrugging inwardly, Bronwyn offered him her hand. “Bronwyn Williams.” The smile froze on his face as he took her hand and looked down at it. It took Bronwyn a moment to realize he wasn’t looking at her hand at all. He was staring at the mark on her inner wrist. His head jerked upward abruptly. For several moments, he merely stared at her. “By the gods! You’ve got the mark!”

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Chapter Six Bronwyn tugged at her hand. Luke’s hand tightened on hers almost reflexively before he released it. The most bizarre sense of déjà`vu washed over her. Almost as if it had only been yesterday instead of nearly a decade ago, she heard her grandmother’s prophesy. One day a man will come who will offer to buy the boarding house. When he does, you must sell it and move to the big city. I know you won’t want to, but this isn’t your destiny. You’ll meet it there. He’ll know you by this mark you were born with. He will be looking for you, too. He’s very special. He will have gifts unlike anything you’ve ever imagined, be unlike the ordinary folk who have no gifts at all. You aren’t to settle for just any man, however suitable you might think he is. You must wait for your destiny to unfold. You’re meant for something very special. Wait for your destiny, the man whose children you will bear. You mustn’t be afraid when you meet him. Regardless of what he is or how frightening he might seem because he’s ‘different’, he’ll never harm you, never allow anyone to harm you. Special in what way, she’d asked? And why would I be afraid of him? Will he be … marred in some way? Nanna had chuckled. You will think he is the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. Bronwyn swallowed with an effort, looking away. She’d never known her grandmother to be wrong when she saw the future, and yet she felt doubt she’d never expected to feel. Because she’d thought, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Constantine was that special someone she was destined for. Or maybe she’d just hoped he was? And if what she’d heard at the cemetery was true, he wasn’t actually a man at all—no more than this man was. “You know about the mark.” Bronwyn chewed her lip, refusing to look at him. “Of course I do,” she said testily, “I was born with it.” “That isn’t what I meant. There’s a prophesy about this mark.” That got her attention. “There is?” Luke studied her for a long moment, his gaze piercing. “So you didn’t know?” Bronwyn frowned. “I only know what Nanna said about it.” “What did Nanna say about it?” Bronwyn felt her face heat. She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “She said a stranger would come and offer to buy the boarding house and I was to sell it and move to the city. It was where my destiny lay.” It was true even if that wasn’t all of it. She wasn’t about to inform him that she was supposed to be the mother of his children,

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though! Anyway, how could she tell if he was the one? It seemed to her that all sorts of people were interested in the mark. Stephen had stared at it when she’d gone to the club and then Constantine had wanted to see it. The man, Bill Duncan, had even suggested that he’d been looking for someone with the mark, that he’d been to search for his boss—whoever this Lord Westmoreland was. Luke studied her hard for several moments and finally glanced at the doctor before he returned his attention to her. “I’ll wait outside while you get dressed.” Clancy finished bandaging her scrapes and went out behind him. For several moments, Bronwyn merely stared at the door, considering her options. Finally, realizing she had no idea of where she was or how to get back to her apartment or even if it was safe to go back, she slipped off the table and began to dress. She didn’t entirely trust Luke Gray Wolf or his motives, but he’d at least seemed to be concerned about her and there was no getting around the fact that he’d rescued her at great risk to himself. She had to consider that a mark in his favor. **** Luke’s mind was reeling. It didn’t help that he’d been in an almost constant state of arousal from the moment he’d first caught Bronwyn’s scent, that hunger slithered like poison through him, burning, dividing his mind. Questions further divided it. He knew why Tommy had gone after her. Her scent was enough to drive any red-blooded lycan half crazy. What he wanted to know was why there’d been a Vamp on her tail, why Constantine wanted her. And he wanted to know who the fuck the headless corpse on the sidewalk was and why he’d been tailing her. Most prominent, however, was the jolt it had given him when he’d looked down at her arm and seen the mark. Even the ramifications of stumbling upon the woman promised so long ago, only to discover that the Vamps were after her, were overshadowed by the magical talisman that protected her, though. My magic trumps your powers, Lycan, so don’t be thinking you can just bend her to your will and take what you want. She’s protected. I’ve seen to that. You must win her heart by giving her yours if you want the gift she has to offer. The image of the old woman that had filled his mind when he’d taken Bronwyn’s hand. The words she’d spoken in his mind as if she was speaking directly to him, had stunned him to say the least. She was the source of the magic he’d tasted, he didn’t doubt, but that very fact aroused his suspicions. Clearly the witch had known all about the prophesy and that meant, with her powers, she could have set out to use it to her advantage in some way. Bronwyn didn’t appear to know the legends, but that also didn’t rule out the possibility that she was a willing participant. The witch had to have known that the magic she planted would make Bronwyn nearly irresistible to Lycans. As drawn as they were to the ‘taste’ of psychics, that was multiplied many times over by magic. So—the question was, was Bronwyn the woman of prophesy? Or was she the dupe of some evil old witch? He shook his head. Did it matter? He wanted her so badly he could taste it. Sure it would be grand if she was the promised one and he found than the gift of power she

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gave to his pups would mean that one among them would be King, but did he really give a shit about the gods damned prophesy? He found that the possibility of it tantalized him, but he hadn’t known anything about it when he’d decided she was the woman he wanted. Or had he? Was that what had drawn him to start with and he just hadn’t been conscious of it? Was that the way the prophesy worked? And what the fuck were the damned Vamps after her for? Power play, he decided. Somehow the Vamps had discovered their prophesy and decided to grab her and make certain it couldn’t come to pass. That had to be it. He couldn’t think of any other reason the vampire lord himself, Constantine, would want her. Actually, he supposed he could. She was a beauty! He was pretty sure he would’ve been lusting after her if she hadn’t had magic or paranormal abilities. There was just something about her …. He frowned. She didn’t actually seem to be Constantine’s ‘type’, though. Not that he’d had a lot of opportunity, or interest, in hanging around the vamps enough to really know the bastard, but he’d certainly seen him a time or two and he usually had at least two women hanging on him worshipfully. And they were usually as blond as he was, tall, buxom women—no surprise since that was considered the epitome of beauty in Constantine’s salad days a few centuries ago. Not that Bronwyn wasn’t shapely enough in all the right places to please any man with any sense, but she sure as hell wasn’t a blond, a bimbo, or nearly as tall and buxom as the women that Constantine seemed to prefer to keep on his leash. Well, he’d have to do some investigating to get to the bottom of it, he decided. In the meanwhile, he was going to have his hands full trying to keep her safe—and keep his hands off of her. That might be the easiest part, he thought wryly. Between the protection spell the gods damned witch had put on her and her discovery that he wasn’t actually human, he was afraid he was going to have a hell of a time getting her into his bed or plowing those lovely rows of hers. He meant to give it a hell of a try, though! He wasn’t going to be able to resist giving it a try. He just hoped the fucking witch hadn’t planted a spell on her that was going to wither his cock the minute he tried it! **** Caleb Westmoreland wasn’t pleased when the police came to call. He sent a chilling look at his butler as the man escorted them into his office. White faced, the butler babbled an introduction of the two detectives and hastily withdrew. After studying the two detectives for several moments while they studied his office and, no doubt, tabulated the price of everything in it, he finally curled his lips into the semblance of a welcoming smile. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked sardonically. The one the butler had introduced as Detective Reilly, looked at him sharply. “I believe you have a man by the name of Bill Duncan in your employ?” Caleb lifted his brows. “I do?” Reilly frowned, glanced at his partner, Detective Brown, and then looked Caleb over suspiciously. “I understood that you did,” he responded coolly. Irritation flickered through Caleb. “Well, if you understood that he did, then

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you’re probably right.” “That name doesn’t ring a bell?” Caleb smiled at him thinly. “No bells ringing. You must know I have somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand employees.” “We clocked it at closer to two thousand.” “Is that a fact?” “It is a fact. And it’s also a fact that Bill Duncan worked for you, was an officer of the company, in point of fact!” “Hmm,” Caleb purred curiously. “Which company?” “We didn’t come here to play at cat and mouse with you!” Brown snapped. “Do you know the man or not?” Caleb’s lips curled in genuine amusement. “And here I thought playing cat and mouse was your forte!” he drawled. His smile vanished. “I believe I already informed you that the name wasn’t familiar, but then again, you must realize that I don’t personally handle the hiring and firing. It would be impossible to micro-manage my holdings— which I’m sure you’re aware are fairly extensive—and still turn a profit. Would you like to take a seat? Or do you prefer to stand?” The two men exchanged a look. “We won’t take up any more of your time.” Caleb nodded. “Good day, gentlemen.” Reilly paused at the door, as Caleb had known he would. “You might be interested to know that he was murdered last night. We found his headless corpse on a sidewalk downtown.” Caleb lifted his brows. “The evil that walk our streets,” he murmured commiseratingly, then added on a sardonic note, “Thank the gods we have the police to protect us.” **** “What do you think?” Brown asked his partner as they climbed in their car again. “You think he knows something about the murder he ain’t tellin’?” “I think he’s a fucking weirdo and I think he gives me the creeps. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man that was colder or less sympathetic to his fellow man.” He considered his partner’s question as he started the car. “I think he knows a lot more about it that we’ll ever pry out of him, but I doubt he was personally involved. Did you see that place? See him? Not a hair out of place, not a speck of lint on that thousand dollar suit he was wearing and the whole fucking place just as pristine. If he’d had anything to do with the murder, even to ordering it for some reason, there ain’t no way we’d’ve found the body … especially not lying on the damned sidewalk for anybody to trip over. Messy, that. I don’t know which murder was more gruesome, but I almost lost my breakfast!” Brown nodded. “I was thinkin’ the same thing. You think the coroner’s managed to figure out what was used to take his head off yet? Maybe it’ll give us a lead? This is obviously a dead end.” “What I’d like to know is who that other stiff is! Poor kid!” He turned to back down the drive. “Let’s head over to Westmoreland Media and interview some of that poor slob, Duncan’s, co-workers. We can talk to the coroner before we head back to the station.” ****

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Curiosity slithered through Caleb as he stood at the window listening. Satisfy it? Or let it go? He turned from the window as the detectives disappeared down the drive and pinned his butler with a cool look. “Tell Moore to bring a car around—the sedan, I think,” he said coolly. “My lord,” Yancy said meekly after a moment. “Are you certain that’s wise?” He paled visibly when Caleb turned to him again. “What I mean to say is, don’t you think it’ll make the cops suspicious if you leave directly after they’ve been here?” Caleb considered it and shrugged. “I hadn’t thought of that. This could be … interesting. You’re right. Tell Moore to bring the red sporty one.” There was yellow crime tape all over everywhere. The crime scene was hard to miss even if he hadn’t already had a general idea of the location from the piece in the newspaper. Parking his sports car, he ignored the two detectives who’d been tailing him since he’d whipped around them and strode casually down the sidewalk, stopping to examine the first cordoned section of sidewalk. “Head,” he murmured to himself, studying the brown, dried blood for a moment before he stepped into the street and strolled down to the main site of the crime scene. “Body.” He sniffed. “Ah. Wolf. Nasty, low class creatures.” He waved a hand to bring the fading scent to his nose. “Lycan—not wolf,” he corrected himself. “True bloods—most of them, anyway.” Now why in the world would that fool, Duncan, decide to tangle with a pack of Lycans, he wondered? He almost missed the scent that answered the question. He excused himself on the grounds that the overpowering scent of beast and piss—Duncan’s—were enough to taint such a lovely, delicate scent. His mate, if he didn’t miss his guess. The flavor of magic and the paranormal were a surprise. He lingered for a few moments, trying to decide if they mingled with her scent because they belonged to her or if there’d been a magic user in the midst of the wild battle that had evidently been waged in the street the night before. Finally, he dismissed it as unanswerable at the moment. Following the scents, he made his way to the cemetery and to the site of the final crime scene. The scent of Lycan was much stronger here—no doubt most if not all of the pack. The taint of vampire hung about the area, though. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured. Realizing once he’d surveyed the area that neither the churned up earth, the overturned grave stones, or the mingling of scents was going to take him any closer to unraveling the mystery, he left the cemetery, lifted his head to catch the multitude of scents and sort them, and finally crossed the street. The scents of more Lycan—different scents and some of the same from the cemetery—lingered there. He paced back and forth in front of the building for a few moments and finally caught a single scent leading up to the melee—hers. She’d either walked into a trap set for her—poor darling—or inadvertently stumbled into the midst of a turf war between the two groups of Lycan he’d detected. He followed her delightful scent to the corner and rounded it, discovering that the vamp had been trailing her. Frowning, he made his way to the next corner and stood for a few moments studying the Club Rouge—Constantine’s lair.

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He would sleeping now, Caleb thought, lifting his head to study the sun. The question was, did he know? Or care? It certainly wasn’t Constantine who’d followed her, but that didn’t rule out the possibility that the vamp who had had been under orders to keep an eye on her. On the hunt again after a few moments, he picked up her scent once more and followed it until he found himself standing in front of a run down apartment building. He followed her scent from there—much fainter—to a ‘greasy spoon’ and then back again. She lived here. She worked there. She went for a walk, picked up a vampire along the way and then landed in the middle of a turf war. Alternatively, she’d already caught the interest of the vamp, or his master, and possibly the Lycans, as well. He considered and finally decided to wait to explore her apartment. He’d had his fun with the city’s finest. He didn’t want them pawing her things. “Where are you, my little papillion?” he murmured musingly once he’d gotten in his car again. Butterfly, he mused and then felt a touch of amusement. “How appropriate. Chaos. Is that your true role in this, I wonder? To spread chaos where ever you roam, my butterfly? I suppose we shall see.” Ignoring the speed limit signs, he headed for his estate once more. He was mildly annoyed that Duncan had proven to be so inexcusably useless when he’d shown such promise to begin with by finding the woman, but then it occurred to him that Duncan hadn’t been completely incompetent. He’d had the grace to die nearby. If not for that he wouldn’t even have her scent—wouldn’t have anything more than the admittedly lovely view of her bottom in a pair of snug jeans, the color of her beautiful hair, and the sight of the mark on her arm to tease him. He was less pleased that someone had snatched her, but he had her scent now. One way or another, he would find her. **** “We oughta arrest the bastard!” Brown growled as the two detectives watched Westmoreland fly past them for the second time that day. The bastard even had the audacity to wave at them as he went by—ten miles above the speed limit and climbing! “For what?” Reilly grunted. Brown sent him a wide-eyed look of disbelief. “You kidding me? We just talked to the guy about the murder. Here he’s claiming he don’t have a clue and heads right to the crime scene!” Reilly rolled his eyes. “He had today’s newspaper right there on his desk—with directions to the crime scene. Anybody could’ve put that together.” “Yeah? But he ain’t just anybody. He’s the guy the dead guy worked for.” “Maybe so, but we ain’t got nothin’ to touch him. That ain’t what bothers me about this whole thing anyway.” “Well, it pisses me off! What part bothers you?” Reilly sent him a wry look. “I got the feelin’ that, by the time he’d walked the crime scene and took that stroll down the block, he knew exactly what happened here last night. And we don’t know dick, yet. That’s the part that really pisses me off!” **** “I don’t know, Pater. It looked like the mark to me, but don’t it seem weird to you that the promised one would be a white woman?”

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Luke grunted absently. “There’s nothing in the prophesy that says she’ll hail from any of the tribes.” “I’d fuck in her a heartbeat.” Luke narrowed his eyes at the speaker. “You so much as look at her crossways, Ronin, and I’ll cut your pecker off and feed it to you,” he growled. Ronin gaped at him. “But … If she belongs to the pack ….” “She don’t belong to the pack!” Luke said pointedly. “There ain’t nuthin’ in the prophesy about that neither.” “I say we need to call the elders together and see what they have to say about it. I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember the damned prophesy—not word for word anyway. D’you?” Luke shook his head. “There’s been talk about that prophesy for two or three hundred years—maybe more. I never expected to run across her. I wasn’t really paying attention when they were passing it down. I think you’re right. I think we’re going to have to consult with the elders—but it’ll have to wait. She’s in trouble. We need to find out why the vamps are after her and who else was keeping tabs on her and why. And while we’re at it, we’re going to have to make sure they don’t manage to snatch her.” Not that he particularly cared about the prophesy one way or the other in so far as the pups went. He’d be happy enough with whatever he had. The problem, as far as he could see, was the damned crone’s protection spell. He hadn’t adequately considered that, he thought wryly. But that gods damned spell meant he wasn’t going to be able to mark her and if he couldn’t then he also couldn’t bind her. He might be able to get her into his bed without his powers—but even he doubted that. The only thing Lycans had over the men of her kind was their pheromones and if she was immune to those because of the fucking talisman, he was in trouble. He might be able to work out his lust on her—maybe. But he wanted her and he might not get her, no matter how hard he worked at it, if he couldn’t mark her and bind her to him. And it got worse from there. Assuming he could get her in his bed and he did manage to drop a pup on her, he wasn’t going to have any way to hold her to him. She might just decide to light out with his pup in her belly and where would he then? His first born in the wind and him with no way to track him down! It pissed him off all over again every time he remembered the old hag’s warning—or whatever she called it. Love! How was he supposed to win the love of a woman like that—especially now that she knew what he was? If things had gone down differently, if he’d had the chance catch her interest and maybe win her affection before she’d discovered he was a monster as far as her kind was concerned …. Who was he kidding? He was about as rough around the edges as they came even in human form. Beyond that, she was a white woman. It wasn’t easy overcoming the racial barrier at the best of times and in the best circumstances. Not that that was anything he should be worrying about when he suspected the whole thing was some sort of scam cooked up by the witch. Bronwyn didn’t seem to know, but that didn’t mean she didn’t or even that she was the genuine article. A witch powerful enough to plant a spell that was still so potent with her in the grave was damned sure powerful enough to put that mark on Bronwyn and make it look as natural as

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everything else about her. The object of his thoughts peered into the room where he and his highest ranking officers were having their powwow. His cock sprang to attention. He was getting better at controlling himself, he thought wryly. He’d only been semi-erect until she came to the door. He smiled at her wide-eyed look as she glanced around the room and her gaze finally settled on him. “How’re you doin’, darlin’? Better?”

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Chapter Seven Bronwyn felt her face warm, partly from discomfort at intruding and partly from pleasure. There was no getting around the fact that Luke Gray Wolf was handsome and he had a lady killer smile besides. Just being the recipient of it was enough to make her feel weak all over. Of course, she was as certain as she could be that any female in his vicinity was going to be the lucky recipient of his smiles and that addressing females as ‘darlin’ was nothing more than a habit—regardless of how thrilling it was to be called darling by a man like him. She smiled wryly in return, trying hard to ignore the fact that he was half-naked, which seemed to be his preference. He rarely wore more than a pair of jeans—no shirt, no shoes—and, as often as not, his jeans weren’t even fastened and gave her a fascinating view of his lower belly. “I still feel like I was in a cement mixer, but definitely better than I did yesterday.” Luke nudged his chin at her in summons. “Come here. I can fix that.” She didn’t move from the doorway. “I’m fine, really. I just need to walk the soreness off.” Luke glanced at the man next to him. He got up abruptly, nodded pleasantly to her and left. His departure caused a general exodus and in a few moments Bronwyn found herself completely alone with Luke. He patted the couch beside him. “Come on. I won’t bite—promise!” Bronwyn couldn’t help but chuckle at his quip even though it also sent a little shiver through her. She still wasn’t certain of what he had in mind or if it was anything she would be comfortable with, but she crossed the room and sat down beside him. He promptly caught her shoulders and urged her to turn so that her back was to him. “Tell me if it’s too hard.” Bronwyn slid a look at him, lifting her brows, and he chuckled. “My hands, darlin’. I guarantee that’s too hard—or hard enough—whichever way you want to look at it. I could drive nails with it.” Bronwyn sent him a horrified look, but she had to struggle to keep from laughing. “You think that’s funny?” he muttered, amusement threading his voice. “Well I can tell you right now I don’t find it too fucking amusin’.” She hissed in pain as he started massaging her back and he eased his touch immediately. “I guess hissing will do for directions. How’s that?” Bronwyn grunted. “Better.” “You aren’t just tryin’ to be polite?” “Maybe not quite that hard.” He leaned down until his lips were near her ear. “It won’t do you no good, darlin’ if it ain’t hard.” His breath against her ear sent another shiver through her and raised a tribe of

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goosebumps along her neck and shoulder, but she found herself struggling not to encourage him by laughing. He’d aroused her, though—that quickly and easily—his suggestive, ribald teasing, his touch, the heat of his breath against her ear, the scent of him. Her breasts tightened, her nipples standing erect, and her kegels began to clap. She squirmed, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “You’re tense,” he murmured, his voice husky. “Relax, baby. I won’t hurt you.” Bronwyn cleared her throat with an effort. “I’m not sure I can,” she said a little breathlessly. “Why?” She swallowed with an effort. “I think you know why.” He said nothing for several moments, just continued to work the sore muscles along her back until they felt warm, relaxed, and far less sore than they had before. “Lie down and let me do your feet and legs.” Bronwyn didn’t even bother trying to offer a protest. She leaned forward and stretched out her legs as Luke got onto his knees beside the couch. He started with her feet. She would never have imagined such a thing could feel so good—or so erotic. She was half-unconscious by the time he’d worked his way up her calves but not so lethargic that she didn’t tense with anticipation when he moved to her thighs. Warmth flooded her feminine passage when he began working the magic of his hands along her thighs and her kegels went crazy. By the time he’d reached her upper thighs she wanted him to slide his hand along her cleft so badly her throat was dry with want. She thought for a moment he would, but he moved his hands to her buttocks and massaged them and then worked his way up her back again to her neck and shoulders. She was quivering with need by the time he’d worked his way down again. He hesitated at her buttocks and when he settled his hands on her thighs, he slipped one upward into her heated cleft. She could feel his hand even through the thick fabric of her jeans. It teased her mercilessly, until she was certain even her jeans were wet with the need that had begun to pulse through her. “Turn over.” Swallowing a little convulsively, she complied, meeting his gaze with an effort. “If you want to say no, baby, now’s the time.” Bronwyn studied his taut face. “Yes.” Some of the tension seemed to go out of him. He scooped her up and carried her back into the room she’d occupied since they’d arrived at his place two days earlier and climbed into the bed with her. For a handful of moments, he merely lay beside her, his gaze burning her with its intensity. He lifted a hand finally, speared his fingers into the hair at the base of her skull and dragged her close, meeting her halfway and settling his mouth hungrily over hers. Sensation exploded through her the moment she parted her lips for him and he thrust his tongue inside. She sought and found his shoulders, gripping them to balance herself, to ground herself before she floated away on the heated tide of pleasure inflating her. He tasted … heavenly, and that wasn’t even the best part. His tongue dueled with hers so cunningly, she almost felt like she was having sex with him, could almost feel his thick member gliding into her nether mouth as his tongue glided into her mouth. He ripped half the buttons off her shirt trying to get her out of it, but she couldn’t

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find the will to care, certainly not after his hands settled over her tender breasts. Breaking from her lips, he rooted at her breasts with his face until she was nearly mindless with anticipation and finally covered one peak with his mouth and caught the other between his fingers, pinching lightly even as he suckled her. Twin surges of fire went through her. Her back bowed of its own accord. She grabbed two fistfuls of his hair, clinging to him desperately. “Now, Luke! Now!” she gasped frantically. He left her breasts to cover her mouth again, but she felt him tugging at the closure of her jeans. Instead of pulling them off once he’d parted the fly, however, he slid his hand over her belly and cupped her sex, pushing a thick digit inside of her. Her body quaked threateningly. She groaned, digging her fingers into his shoulders and arching her hips, riding his finger for a moment before he withdrew it. “Baby, you’re so wet!” he growled. “I’m dying here!” she gasped testily, pulling at him a little frantically. “Easy, baby.” She felt like weeping when he moved to her breasts and began to tug and pluck at her sensitive nipples again. She was so close! If he kept that up she was going to come and wanted him there when she did, damn it! He finally seemed to grasp her desperation. Levering himself upward, he caught her jeans and tugged at her jeans and panties until he’d dragged them from her. She reached for him, throwing her legs around his hips the moment he turned back to her and he fell over her, grinding his erection against her mound. He was still wearing his damned jeans! What was he thinking! He reached between them after a moment, struggling with the zipper while he sucked on her throat, neck, and ears, sending her into frantic, mindless spasms. She grunted when he finally unveiled his cock and rammed her with it, trying to tighten her legs around him enough to engulf it while he shoved and grunted to insert it. Sweat popped from his pores, making his skin slick. Their skin slid when it was least convenient and then clung as if they’d been glued together when sliding would’ve helped the situation, but determination on both sides paid off. He drove in to her with a last, desperate lunge that nearly shoved her womb into her stomach and moved her up the bed nearly a foot. She gasped at the twinge of pain and then shuddered as he withdrew and repositioned himself. He caught her wrists, prying the talons she’d dug into him loose from his back and manacling them to the bed on either side of her head. Before she could complain, however, he set a pace that completely distracted her, brought all of her focus to the one point of contact between them that was her pleasure center. She had to clench her teeth to keep from biting her tongue at the jarring pace he set, but it drove her upwards toward culmination so swiftly that she saw stars when her body exploded in ultimate release. Her entire being shifted focus to the rapturous waves that followed each convulsion so that she wasn’t even aware that he’d come until he settled heavily against her, huffing in her ear and sending shivers all over her. “Gods, baby!” Luke muttered gustily. “I came so hard I think I damned near had a heart attack.” Bronwyn’s lips curled dreamily, but she couldn’t pry her eyes open. “Me too,”

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she murmured a little drunkenly. He chuckled huskily and finally rolled off of her. Bronwyn lay basking in the afterglow, allowing her thoughts to drift as her body slowly cooled. “Well, that took the edge off,” Luke said after few minutes had passed, rolling toward her again and nuzzling his face against her neck. His warm breath sent a shiver through her. His comment aroused a mixture of irritation and amusement. “Speak for yourself. I’m done.” “You’re breakin’ my heart, baby. I was just warmin’ up.” Bronwyn managed to crack one eye open enough to peer at him. “You aren’t serious?” He studied her for a long moment and finally sighed gustily. “Guess not.” Dragging her closer, he coiled one leg across her hips and one arm around her waist, dropping his head to the pillow next to hers. Surprise flickered through Bronwyn, but she decided it actually felt really nice to be cuddled after sex. Shifting until she was comfortable, she released a sigh of contentment and allowed herself to drift off. **** Constantine stared down at Marco’s body in fury. “Get up,” he commanded. Marco opened his eyes and stared up at his master without recognition for a moment and finally struggled to get up as commanded. “You’re lucky I happened to think of the morgue before they got around to finishing the job the Lycans started,” Constantine said testily. “Well, actually it was Stephen who thought of it, but that’s of no consequence now. Gather up your things and let’s go before anyone comes back.” Marco looked around a little dazedly and finally picked up his arm and one ear. There didn’t seem much point in worrying with the chunk of flesh from his upper thigh but, with an inward shrug, he picked that up, too. Constantine cloaked them as they left the morgue and made their way down the corridor to the exit, passing the coroner along the way. “Shit! The place will be crawling with cops any time now,” he muttered, striding more quickly toward the exit. Marco shuffled a little faster, as well, and they managed to reach the exit before all hell broke loose when the coroner discovered the missing ‘body’ and hit the security alarm. Constantine looked Marco over with disfavor once they were outside. “I don’t suppose you can drive like that.” “I can try.” Constantine shook his head decisively. “Get in the back. Stephen drove me down. He can manage the drive back. I want a report on what happened.” Marco struggled to gather his wits and his memories once they’d settled in the back of the limo, but he was weak from lack sustenance and his thoughts were hazy. “Bronwyn took a walk,” he said finally. The day-walker you’d set to keep an eye on her had just returned to report that she was up and about. Since the sun had set, I decided to tail her myself. I didn’t expect trouble.” “Which goes to show you’ve a lot to learn,” Constantine retorted. “One should always expect trouble, particularly when one the elements is a female and the other is

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mortal.” Marco blinked at him. “But … Bronwyn’s both.” “Precisely. Let’s skip to the part regarding who took her.” Marco paled. “The Lycans … I think.” Constantine’s face hardened. “You think? Or you know?” Marco swallowed with an effort. “They overpowered me. I didn’t see who grabbed her, but it was Luke Gray Wolf that I fought. He seemed pretty dead set on having her.” Fury flickered in Constantine’s eyes. “Put yourself together. We’ll do a walk through and see what we can determine.” Marco nodded instead of pointing out that he was too weakened to manage it. Constantine’s obvious battle to retain control of his temper was enough of an incentive, however, to force him to find the strength, but he was so weak once he’d managed it that it was all he could do to drag himself from the limo once Stephen had parked it. “I need sustenance,” he complained dizzily once he’d gained his feet. “And you’ll get it once I have what I need,” Constantine said coldly. Nodding, Marco tried to focus. “I’d just stepped out of the club when I spotted her there at the corner. She’d turned to walk down the street, but I had the impression that she’d been heading toward the club.” Constantine took his arm and strode briskly down the street in the direction Marco had indicated, halting at the corner. “Which way?” Frowning, Marco wavered. “There was a man across the street when I reached the corner. He was following her.” “Mortal?” “Yes … I think … No, I’m sure of it.” Constantine frowned thoughtfully. “No doubt that was the headless corpse they found. A pity. I would’ve liked to speak with him. What happened next?” “Lycans came out of the building about halfway down the block. I’d spotted one across the street, though—Luke Gray Wolf—and was watching him. When he suddenly tensed, I glanced back toward Bronwyn and discovered she was surrounded by Lycans. I’m sure they came from the building. I had no inkling they were anywhere about until they abruptly appeared to encircle her. I raced toward them as they grabbed her, but Gray Wolf reached them before me. And then there were Lycans everywhere, fighting. I tried to plow through them to get to her, but they were so intent on fighting each other for her that they kept tossing her from one to another. “Finally, I saw that they seemed intent on passing her to the Lycans on the fringes of the battle. Apparently, Gray Wolf also noticed. He broke off his fight and leapt the group, grabbing her moments before I arrived. He caught me off guard. When I’d picked myself up, I saw him bounding down the sidewalk with her. I gave chase and we ended there—in the church yard.” Constantine surveyed the cemetery with distaste. “I see no reason to go in … unless there is something there I should see?” Marco shook his head. “I confronted the Lycan there. He was intent on tossing insults and trying to convince Bronwyn to hide. I told her to go back to the club.” He hesitated. “She knows we’re vampires. The Lycan made sure of that.” Marco wasn’t sure what expressions flickered across Constantine’s face, but he

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was certain that absolute rage was one of them. “Which explains, I must suppose, why she decided not to return to the club,” he said finally. “I didn’t see where she went,” Marco confessed. “I’d thought to stay only long enough to scatter them and then go after her, but I underestimated the Lycan.” “No great surprise,” Constantine said absently, glancing up and down the sidewalk. Marco slumped wearily against the wall as Constantine strode off, looking around as if he was searching for something. “Cat,” he said abruptly. If Marco had been more in possession of his facilities, he would’ve had the sense to keep his mouth shut, particularly when he could see Constantine was talking to himself. The comment surprised him, however. “Cat?” Constantine whipped around to pin him with a hard gaze. “The Raja.” He paced back to where Marco stood, staring at him for so long that Marco had begun to fear for his existence. Finally, he dismissed him. “Return to the club.” Relieved, Marco gathered what strength he could and began to make his way back, struggling to remain conscious until he could reach the club and the possibility of sustenance to regain his strength. Constantine turned away from his servant as soon as he’d dismissed him, surveying the building across the street. Finally, he crossed the street and settled to wait with what patience he could muster. He was fortunate. He had only been waiting a little over an hour when a likely looking Lycan approached the building. He stepped out of the shadows as the Lycan reached the long row of steps leading up the building. “You should invite me in.” The Lycan stared at him for a long moment and finally shook his head. “Get out of my head, Vamp!” he growled. “When you’ve invited me in. I have a burning desire to converse with your alpha, Lycan. Is he, perchance, inside?” The Lycan stared at him dully and finally nodded. “You should come in and speak to Tommy.” Constantine smiled at him thinly. “Thank you. I believe I will. Lead the way.” Nodding, the Lycan marched up the stairs and opened the door, stepping back to allow Constantine to precede him. Constantine surveyed the building with a touch of distaste once he was inside and finally turned to the Lycan again. “Where will I find him?” “The penthouse.” Constantine glanced from the stairs to the elevator and finally decided upon the stairs, racing up them so swiftly the Lycans he passed along the way saw nothing but a brief blur of motion. He reached the penthouse level by the time they’d begun to search for the source of his scent. Throwing up his arms, he sent the double doors at the entrance flying backward to shatter against the wall. The Lycan was pumping into a woman sprawled on the bed beneath him, but at Constantine’s entrance, he leapt from the bed, landing with his feet firmly planted, tensed all over to meet the threat. “You have something I want,” Constantine said coldly. “Give her to me and I’ll allow you to die a swift death, Lycan.” Fear flickered briefly through the Lycan’s eyes, but he went into half-shift in the

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next instant and charged directly toward Constantine. Constantine waited until the Lycan was almost upon him, extended his talons and cut four deep furrows across the Lycan’s belly as he stepped to one side. Roaring in pain and frustration, the Lycan, unable to halt his charge, slammed full tilt into the wall near the door, crumbling plaster and wood upon impact. Shoving away almost at once, he whirled to face his adversary again, holding an arm across his belly. “What do you want, vamp?” the Lycan growled, stalling for time while he struggled to mend the flesh of his belly enough to hold his entrails inside. Having examined the terrified woman on the bed and assured himself it wasn’t Bronwyn, Constantine enthralled her, suggesting she sleep for a while. “Bronwyn. Where is she?” he demanded coldly when he turned his attention to the Lycan again. The Lycan stared at him blankly. “I don’t know a Bronwyn.” “The woman you seized last eve,” Constantine said tightly. Enlightenment dawned. “I don’t have her,” he snarled, charging the vamp again. Constantine barely evaded him that time. He chided himself for his clumsiness, wondering if his age was finally catching up to him or if it was his rage that had distracted him. “Stand and fight, damn you!” the Lycan snarled. Constantine allowed himself a cold smile. “Where is she?” “In hell … where you will be when I get my hands on you, vamp!” the Lycan snarled, leaping at him a third time. Constantine made no attempt to evade him that time. Bracing himself, he took the brunt of the blow, curling his taloned fingers into the Lycan’s throat. “Tell me you didn’t do anything that stupid, Lycan,” he snarled. “Your ability to heal swiftly only means that I can torture you endlessly before I finish you.” The Lycan coughed, spitting up blood, clawing at the hands that tightened around his throat until his eyes began to feel as if they were bulging from his head. “I don’t have her, gods damn you!” Constantine eased his hold a fraction. “Who has her?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Luke Gray Wolf!” “Where will I find Luke Gray Wolf?” “Can’t help you with that.” “That’s a pity.” He released the Lycan and flicked at the blood on his clothing with an expression of distaste. “I’ve never much cared for Lycan blood. Too rancid.” Tommy uttered a snarl of rage and leapt at him, but Constantine was prepared for it. He leapt aside as he had before but targeted the Lycan’s throat, severing his jugular. Blood spouted from it in a red fountain. Grasping his throat, the Lycan dropped weakly to his knees. “What does he want with her?” Constantine asked coldly. Tommy managed to lift his head and leered at him. “Give you two guesses … last one don’t count. Probably fucked her six ways from Sunday by now.” “Crude,” Constantine said chillingly. “I’ve always detested that about Lycans.” “Thought you was gonna make me die slow,” Tommy grunted. “That’s the problem with thinking when it’s something you’re unaccustomed to, beast. To be truthful, I don’t really care … as long you die.” Turning toward the door, he studied the Lycans massed on the other side, held by

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the force he’d erected. “I believe there’s about to be an opening at the top,” he said coolly, then strode to the window and went out and down the side. He was still in a rage when he reached the club. Stephen fell back at his expression. “The Lycans have her. Send everyone out to scour the city and discover where Luke Gray Wolf is holding her.” He paused when he reached the stairs that led to his lair and turned back to survey his minions. “Be certain heads will roll if I don’t have that information in short order.” He stripped his clothing off with unaccustomed violence once he’d entered his chamber, flinging the pieces away from himself as he strode toward his bath. The images dogging his steps weren’t banished by the pounding water. Opened or closed, he saw Tommy’s hips as he pumped into the woman sprawled across his bed—except it wasn’t Tommy and it wasn’t the faceless woman. It was Luke Gray Wolf and his Bronwyn. Balling his hands into fists, he slammed them into the wall of the shower hard enough to crack the thick slabs of marble. “She’s mine! I’ll take him apart limb by limb bloody limb if he’s touched her!” he roared. The expenditure dulled his rage, but not by much. Shutting the water off, he snatched his robe from the hook by the door and shrugged into it without bothering to dry himself, returning to his sleeping chamber to pace and think. It occurred to him after a time that he might well have started a war between the vampires and lycans by killing Tommy Two Horses, but he couldn’t find it within himself to care. He’d touched her! He deserved to die! She was his! He didn’t give a bloody flying fuck what that old hag had said!

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Chapter Eight However pleasant it was, Bronwyn reflected, captivity was still imprisonment. She’d lost her job because of it, she didn’t doubt, not that it had been such a wonderful job, but she’d worked damned hard to get it. It had taken her nearly a month of searching before she’d found any sort of work at all. She wasn’t blaming Luke for the fact that she’d lost her job. She hadn’t been in any state to really take in what had happened to her when she’d first arrived. She’d been so battered, shocked, and confused, she’d slept through most of the first few days and if she’d felt anything beyond scared to death, it was gratitude just to be alive. She’d hadn’t been afraid of Luke and his pack brothers by comparison or thought they were a threat to her. But then again, she’d actually believed at that time that the situation she’d found herself in was only temporary. She’d been hurt, maybe nearly killed, and Luke had swept her off to rescue her. Of course, he knew about the mark, and the prophesy, but that hadn’t seemed like his motive for helping—not at the time—and she certainly hadn’t expected at any time that the mark might make her any sort of target. Nanna, surely, would’ve warned her if she’d foreseen such a thing. Now—well, she was just more confused. She didn’t think she’d really accepted that there were such things as vampires and lycans even though she’d had nightmares about the night in the cemetery ever since it had happened. And maybe that was why she’d begun to feel like a captive rather than a guest? The sense of threat had shifted? Maybe she just didn’t want to believe? She’d seen enough, she supposed, that she should’ve been convinced. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t grown up believing in some very strange things—things most people didn’t believe or thought of as ignorance and superstition. But then few people who’d actually met her grandmother went away disbelieving. So, if that was a fact that she accepted—her own grandmother’s abilities—she supposed she should be able to accept what she’d seen with her own eyes and heard through first hand experience. Maybe she did accept but she just didn’t feel threatened by it? She realized that that was actually the heart of her restlessness. She missed Constantine, and she didn’t believe he was a threat to her. Even if it was true and he was a vampire, she’d been completely vulnerable. He’d had every opportunity to do whatever he’d wanted to. Wouldn’t he have bitten her and sucked her blood if that was why he’d been interested in her? Or converted her to one of his slaves? In a sense, she supposed she might’ve been close to being just that, but only in the sense that she’d been extremely attracted to him and she’d enjoyed his company—a lot. She’d fallen under his spell, but only in the ‘natural’ way of a woman who’s met a man they desire. It would’ve been all too easy to fall completely, totally, madly in love with him if she hadn’t been snatched away. She supposed she’d been well on her way, was still ripe

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for him, because she already cared. Was Luke right? Was Constantine dangerous to her? Or was he just using that as an excuse to hold her because of the mark? She wasn’t sorry that she’d yielded to the need she sensed in Luke—far from it. She’d found him very attractive from the start and his desire for her had fed her own deep attraction. He was smart and sweet, handsome, very charming in his own way, and sexy as hell. He was a wonderful lover, surprisingly gentle. Well, not exactly gentle. Truthfully, he was a little on the rough side at times, but she liked it. And she liked the fact that he always wanted to cuddle afterwards even better. It had been all too easy to get used to sharing a bed with him. It was a complication she hadn’t anticipated. She’d actually thought he just wanted sex. Now she wasn’t sure what it was that he wanted from her. He thought he was protecting her. She was pretty sure of that, but she was equally certain that he didn’t believe she was the ‘promised one’ from his own prophesy—she didn’t, if it came to that—which made her wonder why he was determined to keep her. She suspected, though, that it was ‘keep away’, the male territory thing. He’d decided that Constantine knew about the prophesy and was trying to keep him from having the ‘promised one’ so he’d decided to keep her. She’d caught enough of the conversations between him and his men to grasp that much. It was annoying, actually, not just weird, to discover that her birthmark had significance to other people. She resented it. She’d been stuck with it her entire life and the only positive side of having it was the promise Nanna had made that it would eventually lead her to a man she would fall in love with, who would love her, and that she would bear his children. That was what had brought her to the scary city to start with, even though she was a small town girl who’d been more comfortable in her own familiar settings, regardless of how everyone viewed her back home. There was always a positive and a negative side to everything, as Nanna had pointed out—balance. The people in her hometown weren’t very pleasant, especially the men, and she hated the gossip that was so much a part of their lives, but she’d enjoyed running the boarding house. She’d enjoyed being her own boss and deciding when and how to do the chores that needed to be done. She liked her boarders, mostly, and she’d enjoyed meeting the occasional visitor who passed through and stopped at her place to spend the night, or a few nights, before they moved on. Even after her grandmother had died, she’d almost felt as if she had family in the boarders. At least once a day, every day, she fixed a family meal and sat down with people that were familiar and conversed. Sure the conversations were frequently boring and hardly ever really interesting, but that was beside the point. She shared a meal and conversation. She wasn’t alone. She’d not only lost all that was familiar to her once she’d sold the boarding house and moved to the city, she’d lost any sense of belonging. She’d felt completely alone in the world since she’d arrived in the city when she hadn’t even felt like that after her grandmother’s death. She didn’t think her grandmother’s prediction had been wrong … per se, but she was beginning to think that it might be impossible to fulfill since it seemed to conflict

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with other predictions. Or maybe she’d just picked the wrong city? She’d assumed her grandmother had meant the closest city to her hometown, but maybe she hadn’t? Why hadn’t Nanna at least given her a hint of where to go, she thought glumly? She didn’t think either Luke or Constantine were the man her grandmother had foreseen, although she was sorry that she didn’t. Nanna had said he would be ‘special’ and he would be ‘different’, but she couldn’t believe Nanna wouldn’t have seen that these men weren’t just ‘special and different’, they weren’t even men! If she’d been destined to fall for a vampire or a lycan, surely her grandmother would’ve seen that and mentioned it? To say nothing of the fact that she couldn’t envision either of them as being marriage minded! Of course, Nanna hadn’t actually mentioned marriage as part of her destiny. She’d just assumed because Nanna had said she would have his baby …. She’d assumed her grandmother meant she was going to have a happily-ever-after, she realized, but she hadn’t suggested that either. What was she supposed to do? Climb in bed with every man that she thought was wonderfully handsome and special and see which ‘took’? Was it just the baby that was supposed to be her destiny? Was she supposed to have her mother’s destiny? Fall desperately in love with some man that didn’t care two cents about her, got her pregnant, and then vanished from her life? And then die from delivery complications? She shivered at the thought, but it began to make a sickening kind of sense. As badly as she hated to admit it there was nothing about the prediction of her future that contradicted that possibility. Maybe that was why Nanna had been so vague? She could be pregnant now, might already have fulfilled her destiny, she realized, horrified. Could vampires have babies, though? She didn’t think so—at least not if they were actually like the legends. She’d never been particularly interested in such things but even so it was hard not to pick up ‘information’ when there’d been so many stories and movies about them. As far as that went, she was pretty sure she’d never seen anything to indicate that a werewolf, or lycan, which seemed to be pretty much the same thing, might get a human woman pregnant. So, was she safe, at least for now? Or did that have something to do with her not being around to raise her baby? She shook that thought off. Just because she’d suddenly begun to wonder if history would repeat itself that didn’t make it a part of her grandmother’s prediction. Of course, Nanna didn’t tell that to anyone. No one, she’d said, should know the day and hour of their death beforehand. Even if she had seen it, she wouldn’t have mentioned it. Bronwyn pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind as best she could. She was scaring herself with her own imaginings and it made it impossible to address the issues that needed to be considered. Like what she was going to do about Luke’s ideas of protection. She couldn’t just accept captivity. As ‘gilded’ as her cage was, it was still a cage and as sweet as Luke was, he was still her jailor.

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And she was growing way too fond of him for her peace of mind. Maybe he was right and she should stay away from Constantine, even though she didn’t really want to, but as far as she could see everything that went for Constantine also went for Luke Gray Wolf. She had no more business being with him than she did a vampire. She was supposed to be pursuing her destiny. That was the main reason, she supposed, that she hadn’t worried about having sex with either one of them, the absolute certainty that her path was already plotted and nothing was going to happen unless it was supposed to. But there was still a place for free will, even in fate. One made the choices and took the roads that led to it. And if she made other choices, or rather the wrong ones, her destiny would be changed and possibly not for the better—very likely not considering she was playing with fire. Maybe, she thought, she should just go to another city? One that wasn’t crawling with vampires, lycans, and god only knew what else? Of course, to do that she’d have to escape Luke first and she didn’t know how she was going to do that when he had a small army guarding her night and day—and he moved her every day or every other day to a new place. Reasoning with him hadn’t gotten her anywhere, although god knew she’d tried! “What,” she’d asked him after the third move, “is going on, Luke? What are you doing?” He’d looked irritated that she’d even asked. “I’m tryin’ to keep you safe, darlin’ … or didn’t you get that part?” “I believe that’s what you think,” she said cautiously. “But that I’m looney, right?” “I can’t live like this.” That, at least, had given him pause. He’d pulled her onto his lap and cuddled her. She’d tried to resist at first, but it just felt so right when he held her, made her feel safe, and she’d ended by relaxing and snuggling more comfortably against him. “I know, baby. But that vamp wasn’t just blowing smoke. Constantine is looking for you. He killed Tommy Two Horses because he thought he had you.” Bronwyn’s heart seemed to jerk to a halt in her chest and then began to run away with her. She pulled away to study his face, searching for the truth and realized that Luke was telling her the truth—at least as far as he knew. “He wouldn’t do that,” she said doubtfully. His face hardened. “Baby, you’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about vampires!” he growled. “They wouldn’t think twice about doing just that—and Constantine certainly wouldn’t. He’s a progenitor. You know what that means?” Bronwyn shook her head. “He was never human, baby. That’s what that means. The others at least have some memory, and some empathy, with the human race because they were human once. He’s a pure blood—meaning he was born what he is—and as far as I know one of the last of his kind if not the last. He wouldn’t think anymore about killing a human than you would about squashing a bug.” Bronwyn felt a little sick to her stomach. “I wouldn’t just squash a bug and not think twice about it,” she said indignantly. “All right, well maybe a spider—because they’re scary and some of them are poisonous.”

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Amusement danced in his dark eyes. “Mental note—Bronwyn’s afraid of spiders,” he said teasingly, although he sobered almost at once. “You’re listening, but you aren’t hearing me, baby. I’ll be honest. I don’t know why he wants you. All I do know is that he’s tearing the city apart to find you. Tommy Two Horses was alpha of one of the biggest packs in the city—and he didn’t give a fuck that killing him could mean starting a war between the vampires and the lycans—and it just might.” Bronwyn suddenly felt cold, bone deep cold. “He killed a lycan?” she asked hoarsely. Luke shrugged. “We’re tough, but we aren’t invincible,” he said wryly. “And vampires know our weak points. Yeah, he killed him. From what I heard it didn’t take him more than ten minutes and it wouldn’t have taken that long if he hadn’t toyed with him first to get the information he wanted. And that’s saying something. Tommy Two Horses was as tough as they come.” Bronwyn thought for a few minutes that she’d burst into tears. “If …if all that’s true, he’ll come after you, Luke!” Luke snorted. “He’s already looking for me. Tommy didn’t hold back. He told Constantine I was the one who’d snatched you.” Bronwyn tried to get out of his lap, but his arms tightened around her. “I have to go! I can’t stay here if it means I’m endangering … everyone!” “Worried about me?” Luke asked with that cocky grin she found so appealing. “Of course I’m worried about you!” she said angrily. “I don’t want anything to happen to you! And I especially don’t want it to be my fault.” “Nothing’s gonna happen to me and it wouldn’t be your fault it anything did. This is between me and Constantine.” “But it’s because of me!” He shook his head, but he didn’t exactly deny it, and she realized after a moment that it wasn’t because of her—per se. It was because of the prophesy and the fact that Constantine, she supposed, believed she was the ‘promised one’ the lycans had been looking for or at least that that was what Luke believed. And maybe he was right. Maybe that was the only reason Constantine had been interested in her and the only reason he was trying to get her back. She didn’t think she’d honestly believed any of the time that a man like him— vampire—would have any real interest in her as a person. She was way too ordinary. It must have been something else he was interested in all the time. Regardless, if she wasn’t in the picture, then they wouldn’t have anything to fight about. She didn’t want anything to happen to Luke. It made her sick to think it might, made her feel like crying, but she didn’t want Luke to hurt Constantine either. She didn’t know how likely that was, but it must at least be a possibility. It was clear as bell, though, that Luke wasn’t going to listen. He wasn’t going to back down. He wanted the fight—the insane man—lycan! Well, if they wanted to fight she didn’t suppose she could stop them, but she had no intention of being in the middle of it. They could just find another excuse to try to kill each other! She was leaving! She didn’t know how, and she didn’t know where she could go, but she hadn’t come to the city for this! She didn’t know how everything had become so … complicated and so dangerous, but it was obvious that it wasn’t something she should

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be mixed up in, not when she’d only come looking for love—and a baby! Maybe that was all the prophesy had ever been about—finding a man who would give her someone to love who would love her? And maybe it had been more, or as much, wishful thinking on her grandmother’s part? She’d said often enough that she regretted that it seemed her line was dying out. She’d had only one child herself, and lost her at a very young age—when she was born! And it had seemed even to her that she would never get married and have children of her own after everyone in Greenville had begun to think of her as freak and she hadn’t trusted anyone enough to date them more than once, much less consider settling with them and having a family. What if her grandmother had only told her a story to inspire her to go out and find someone? She honestly didn’t know. Nanna had been ‘big’ on stories to fit every situation when she’d been growing up, using them to encourage her, or discourage from doing things she didn’t approve of. It was possible, she concluded. She wished, now, that she’d paid more attention when her grandmother had given her the ‘prophesy’, but she’d been too wrapped up in grief then, too scared about being alone, about losing the only person she’d ever loved that cared about her. It was even possible that she’d garbled the prediction herself since nothing about her grandmother’s last days was really clear in her mind. She’d never know for certain now. Nanna was gone. She couldn’t ask her. Maybe, if she could find someone with a true gift like her grandmother had had, she could speak to her from the other side, but there were very few people who had a true gift and a lot who only pretended they did to get money out of people. **** Luke had known a showdown was inevitable, and yet it still sent a jolt through him when he stepped out of the safe house with Bronwyn and saw Constantine was waiting for them. Then again, he had to admit that, maybe, in the back of his mind, he’d wanted to end it. He’d taken care from the first always to move Bronwyn during the day when he knew Constantine wouldn’t be about to present a problem. Not that the silly legends about them were true, at least not entirely. Vamps didn’t burn up and turn to ash if the sunlight hit them. It was sheer torture for them, however, since they were acutely photosensitive—a few minutes were enough to give them severe burns and blisters and even vamps weren’t fond of that kind of pain—aside from the fact that they were vain as general rule and hated any sign of weakness in themselves. He’d been chafing for a fight, though, ever since he’d discovered just how determined Constantine was to get Bronwyn back. He’d hated Tommy Two Horse’s guts, but he was a lycan—brethren—even so and it chapped his ass that Constantine had caught him with his pants down, literally, and cut him down before he could even get his wits about him. Not that Tommy had had a lot of wit to gather up! He’d always been a little shy on brains—not to call him an idiot—but then he hadn’t really needed a lot to get where he was. Any contest between lycans was more a matter of skill and brute strength than brains. Once they shifted, they were more beast than anything else and even he had problems thinking instead of acting on his instincts. Vampires were cold blooded bastards, though. They didn’t loose their cool

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because they didn’t get pissed off—not like lycans—so they always had their wits about them and that gave them a definite edge in a contest when they had speed and strength to match any lycan. Beyond that, Bronwyn was right. She couldn’t live the way she’d had to since he’d rescued her. She deserved better … and as long as she was on the run and he had to keep her hidden, he wasn’t going to be making a lot of progress toward figuring out how he was going to claim her as a mate. And he had every intention of doing so, prophesy be damned. If she wasn’t the promised one, so be it. Somebody else could have the honors. He’d never expected to be the one to claim the ‘promised one’ so he wasn’t going to be disappointed if she wasn’t it. He was going to be severely pissed off if he found out she and or her Nanna had hatched a plot to pull a fast one on them, but he figured he’d get over it. **** Feeling almost as if the breath had been punched from her lungs, Bronwyn struggled to catch her breath at the sight of Constantine. She’d forgotten how handsome he was. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed him. Because she’d been trying to convince herself that she didn’t matter to him and it was better to get over it than to pine for someone who didn’t care about her and never would. He’d come after her, though. Didn’t that mean he had to care? At least a little? His gaze skimmed over her almost hungrily and she felt a rush of desire, of excitement. “You have something that belongs to me,” he said coldly when he met Luke’s gaze again. Luke flicked a look from her to Constantine and folded his arms over his chest almost casually. “Is that a fact?” Constantine’s expression hardened. “It is.” “Well—you know what they say—finders keepers, losers ….” He shrugged. “Mine now.” Bronwyn didn’t know whether she was more horrified that Luke seemed determined to provoke a fight or angry and hurt because they were talking about her as if she was just … a thing. Something they’d decided they both wanted to claim. If she hadn’t been both hurt and angry, she didn’t think she would’ve had the nerve to do what she did but, with high emotion riding her, she pulled free of the lycan that had grasped her arm and marched out to stand between the lycans and the vampires who’d gathered. “Now wait just a damned minute! I don’t belong to either damned one of you! I’m not a thing you can own! So if you two just want to have a pissing contest you can count me out! I want nothing to do with it and obviously it has nothing to do with me!” A gleam of humor entered Constantine’s eyes, although she could see he was torn between amusement and anger. “This pissing contest as you so eloquently put it has everything to do with you, my dear. Are you trying to tell me, in a delicate, roundabout way, that you’ve chosen him? I hesitate to distress you, but if that is case, he’ll be a very dead lycan before I’m done with him.” “Yeah, now that you mention it, Connie, I’d like to hear that answer myself!” Constantine’s eyes narrowed on Luke at that. Bronwyn was almost surprised

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steam didn’t shoot out of his ears. He dragged his gaze from Luke after a moment, however, and pinned her with his penetrating stare. “Enlighten us. Luky Lycan wants to know as well as I.” Luke chuckled but there was no humor in it. “Good one, Connie! Luky Lycan! That’s funny as hell. Did you think that up all by yourself, or did you have help?” Now they were getting downright juvenile. The problem was, they were still managing to thoroughly piss one another off and they were scaring the hell out of her. “How about neither?” she said unhappily, feeling her chin wobble. “I don’t have to, you know! Go ahead! Kill each other if you’re determined to, but don’t use me as an excuse!” She would’ve stalked off and made a grand exit then except two of Luke’s goons grabbed her and hauled her back into the circle of lycans waiting to watch the battle. The vampires took exception to that—especially Constantine. He almost seemed to surge forward before he stopped himself and bent a deadly look on Luke. “If we’re done with the breast beating, I suppose we may begin now?” he said coolly, peeling off his dark jacket and tossing it toward his minions. Luke skimmed out of his jeans—which was all he was wearing—shifting to beast form as he peeled them off. He flexed his muscles and assumed a fighter’s stance, displaying knife like talons. Constantine gave him a cool look and unsheathed his own talons. Bronwyn couldn’t contain a whimper of distress. It drew both men’s attention. Luke jerked his head. “Take her inside. She doesn’t need to see this,” he said in a growly voice she barely recognized. “If you hurt her, you’ll be the next to die,” Constantine called after the two lycans that had begun pulling her toward the building they’d just left. “They didn’t hurt me, Constantine!” Bronwyn said a little desperately. “They were only trying to protect me! Please don’t hurt anybody! Please?” She didn’t know if he heard her or not. He didn’t respond and, what was worse, she could see by the expressions on the lycans’ faces that she’d insulted them. Well! Better that than dead! They released her as soon as they’d pushed her inside and moved back to the door, either to guard it or to watch. Bronwyn didn’t know which, but the sounds of battle from outside caught her attention and for many moments all she could do was strain to see what was going on and hear when she discovered she couldn’t see. The crowd shifted restlessly a few moments later, however, and she was sorry she’d gotten a view of what was happening. Both Luke and Constantine were bloody all over from slashing at each other with their razor sharp talons. She turned away at the ghastly sight. Struggling with the urge to cry, she covered her ears and rushed away, hoping to distance herself. It was that thought that finally penetrated her mind enough for her to realize that no one was actually watching her. All of the vampires and all of the lycans were completely focused on the fight between their leaders, champing at the bit to take part in it, she didn’t doubt. After glancing back at the lycans who were supposed to be guarding her and seeing that they really were completely focused on the fight, she dried her eyes with her hands and headed to the nearest exit. The door, she discovered, was in their line of sight, but the windows weren’t. Holding her breath for fear the window would screech and

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give her away, she pushed the first one she came to open and scrambled out. There were vehicles everywhere—it looked like a party was in progress at the back of the house. Right! Sniffing, she headed toward the street, checking the cars for keys as she passed them and finally hit pay dirt. Wrenching the door open, she climbed in and started it. She had to resist the temptation to peel out. It was tempting since it did occur to her that it might actually distract Luke and Constantine from trying to kill each other, but she didn’t know that it would do anything more than postpone the inevitable, especially if they caught her. She managed to keep her foot light on the gas pedal until she’d reached the corner, but her flight instincts took control then. The car tires squealed as she took the corner and floored it. She felt better as soon as she’d put some distance between herself and the fight, began trying to convince herself they really hadn’t intended to fight to the death any of the time. It was just … testosterone! They were both going to be seriously pissed off to discover she hadn’t waited around to see who’d won! She couldn’t think about that now, though! She was free! What the hell was she going to do with her freedom when she didn’t have any idea of where she was?

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Chapter Nine The first rational thought—sort of—that ran through Bronwyn’s mind was home. She hadn’t even begun to think of her apartment as home, however. Home was Greenville and the boarding house she’d grown up in and then run herself after her grandmother’s death—and sold. She didn’t care! She needed to retreat to a place that made her feel safe and that was home. First, she had to find her way back to her apartment, though, and grab her things. She considered simply abandoning them, but she’d brought the few mementoes that meant anything to her with her when she’d left Greenville. Most of the things didn’t matter at all. She could replace them. But she had Nanna’s embroidery and sewing box at her apartment! The charm bracelet her grandmother had given her on her tenth birthday was in it, her grandmother’s embroidery scissors—the few pictures she had of herself when she was growing up and her grandmother and mother …. She couldn’t leave those things! She didn’t have a clue of where she was, though. She hadn’t really learned the city except for the few blocks around her apartment and nothing looked familiar— especially since it was night! Trying not to panic, she slowed to read street signs, but she discovered that didn’t help. The names weren’t familiar. After turning corner after corner and growing more frightened by the moment, she finally spotted the freeway in the distance. She almost felt like bursting into tears. If she could just get to it …! Unfortunately, even though she could see it, she couldn’t see the streets that might lead up to it and it was while she was trying to find a street that didn’t look like it was nothing more than another residential street, that she discovered there were several cars behind her. Her heart leapt into her throat. She tried to convince herself that it was nobody— just other cars—but every time she looked back, she could see the cars—more cars. Three became five and then seven. “Oh my god! Omigod!” She floored the gas pedal when she saw a traffic light ahead of her that was about to change, stomped the break halfway across, and whipped the wheel into a hairpin turn because she’d realized just as she was about to shoot through it that it was the thoroughfare she’d been looking for. Behind her, the seven cars she’d been trying to convince herself weren’t following her, shot through the light, as well. She was so busy looking behind her in the rearview mirror, she almost missed the poorly marked onramp. At the last second, she veered onto it and shot onto the freeway … only to discover that it was the east/west corridor. She felt like weeping. Sniffing, she wove in and out of traffic until she finally saw an off ramp ahead. Whipping across traffic from the far left to the right, she went down the next exit ramp. Where were the damned cops when a person needed them, she thought with a

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touch of anger! If she’d been driving like a normal person instead of a maniac, they would’ve been all over her already! Maybe she should just leave town and find a place to stay for the night and then sneak back into town when she could find her way to her apartment? The thought perked her spirits up. Her rent was paid up in advance! She could afford to wait even a week or two! The new plan sounded much better than her first even though she disliked the idea of returning to her apartment at all. She discovered when she checked the rearview mirror again that she’d lost at least half the string of cars behind her. Either that, or her imagination was running wild and there never had been anyone chasing her at all. She wanted to believe that. She almost made herself believe it until she caught a glimpse of the lead car beneath a streetlight. “Oh fuck!” It was the black van that had picked her and Luke up that first night, and directly behind it was a long, black limo. She giggled a little hysterically. If that was Constantine’s idea of keeping a low profile it wasn’t working! The giggle ended in a choked sob. So maybe it was a little more than a slightly hysterical giggle. She slammed on the breaks and jerked the wheel to turn into the next cut off she saw and discovered to her absolute dismay that it looked rural. Not that she hadn’t wanted to leave town! But she certainly hadn’t planned on leaving town with Luke and Constantine right behind her. A long, dark, deserted road seemed like the wrong place to be at a time like this. And what was worse, there were only a sprinkling of street lights for a few miles and then nothing. Seeing that she was coming up on no man’s land, she slammed on the breaks and made another turn, deciding to head back toward town and try to shake them in a less deserted looking area. The road she found herself on seemed to meander through a heavily wooded area, though. There weren’t the short, neat blocks of a residential area. She’d driven at least two miles before she saw another turn. She’d left the lights behind, but saw the first— actually four headlights as if the limo was trying to pass the van—as she made the turn. Hoping against hope that they hadn’t seen her headlights when she turned, she immediately began looking for another turn—anyplace where she could turn off and shut her headlights off. Instead, she discovered she was heading straight for a huge gate that seemed to take up the entire road. Dead end! It couldn’t be a dead end! Why would there be a road to one house! To her relief, she realized after a moment that it had just been an optical illusion. The road curved away from the gates. She must be in the ritzy-rich area of town, she realized unhappily, and that meant only a house here and there and probably no through streets, certainly not many if what she’d seen so far was anything to go by. She had to break to make the curve and she damned near missed it. The car skidded and fishtailed as she rounded it, but she didn’t see any sign of the cars following her. Another set of gates loomed in her headlights. She stared at them, wondering

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what to do and abruptly realized she recognized the symbol wrought in iron on the gates. She wasn’t certain where she recognized it from, but it was certainly familiar. Oddly enough, the gates began to open as she approached them. She stared at them, wondering if she dared, but she’d run out of options. She’d planned to pull into someone’s drive anyway, she told herself. Why not? She wavered indecisively when she saw that, as with the first one, the road curved away. Go in? Keep going? She angled the car and headed through the gates, slowing as she nearly skidded off into the grass. To her relief, she saw it was a curving drive that looped around to the gates again. Better than that, there were manicured hedges along it that were almost as high as the roof of the car she’d stolen! And best of all, there didn’t seem to be anyone on the drive. She must have lucked out, she decided and come in just as the owner was heading out! Which meant the gates were going to close again! Shaking the thought with the reflection that she’d consider that problem when and if it arose, she pulled the car to a stop and quickly shut off the headlights and then the engine for good measure. Snatching her seatbelt off, she lay down in the seat and closed her eyes, hoping the cars following—if it really was Luke and Constantine—would keep going, thinking she’d rounded the curve. Trying to steady her breath so that she could hear over her thundering heart, she strained to listen for the sound of cars passing on the road behind her. Instead, someone tapped on the glass. She nearly leapt out of her skin. When she jerked upright, however, she discovered that there was a complete stranger leaning down to peer into her window. She stared at him in dismay, but she couldn’t tell anything about him, not even his expression since the only exterior lights were behind him. Reluctantly, she found the window knob and rolled the window down. “Can I help you?” That was the politest way anyone had ever demanded to know why she was trespassing! His deep, almost rumbling voice sent shivers along her spine. “I’m sorry,” she said apologetically. “I … uh … I’m lost.” He braced his hands on the side of the car and leaned lower. “I see. I suppose you were searching the glove box for a map?” Bronwyn felt her face heat. “Uh … I didn’t find one. I’m so sorry for trespassing. Really, I am! If you could just tell me how to find the freeway from here?” she asked, glancing toward the road to see if she could see any sign of the cars. “Actually, I never drive myself. If you’d care to come inside, though, I’ll summon my driver. I’m certain he could give you directions.” “Oh! I couldn’t do that! I don’t want to impose!” she said hurriedly as she saw the first set of headlights and slid down in the seat. “No trouble at all, I assure you,” he murmured, unlocking the door and opening it. Relieved when she saw the headlights pass the gate, she hesitated, waiting for the next set of headlights. Four more cars passed the gate in quick succession. “Oh shit!” “Pardon?” Bronwyn managed a facsimile of a smile. “Thank you! I really appreciate the help. Uh … maybe you could send him out and then I wouldn’t have to intrude?”

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“I insist. The road dead ends just past my gate, by the way.” “Oh god! Really? Oh that’s bad! That’s really bad!” He took her hand and practically dragged her from the car. “Thoughtless of me, I suppose. But I saw no reason to make it any longer.” The first of the vehicles made it back to the gate even as she tumbled out of the car. She sent the man a wide-eyed look. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” He made a tsking noise. “Don’t worry, sweety. I closed the gates.” Bronwyn sent him a frightened look. “It won’t do any good.” “No?” She bit her lip. “I know this is going to sound crazy but … they’re not … ordinary people.” He drew her cold hand through the crook of his arm and patted it reassuringly. “I’ve never cared for their sort myself, but you mustn’t be frightened of the bad old lycans and vamps. You’re perfectly safe.” Bronwyn gaped up at him, trying to pierce the shadows. His eyes caught a gleam of light from the vehicles pulling up at his front gate and glowed eerily. Her heart skipped several beats. “You’re … one?” His brows rose. “Certainly not! I’m Raja—they are merely vamps and lycans!” Bronwyn felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. “I don’t understand.” “Poor baby!” he purred. “I should’ve had more faith in the prophesy, and so should you. I’ll have to admit I didn’t expect you to drive right up to my door, but it’s a delightful surprise. Maybe a little disappointing, but only in the sense that I found the search highly invigorating.” They’d ascended a row of stairs and reached a rounded porch by that time and Bronwyn looked back toward the gate. To her horror, she saw nearly a dozen cars at the gates and lycans and vamps leaping the eight-foot wall that surrounded the property. “Oh my god!” “Yes. I think we should wait for them,” the man said calmly and then tsked. “I’ve forgotten my manners. I’m Caleb Westmoreland. And—aside from being the future mother of my children—you are?” Bronwyn blinked at him, catching her breath as she finally got a look at him in the lights from the torch-like sconces on either side of the front door. Luke and Constantine were handsome, but Caleb Westmoreland was still in a class by himself and yet, as crazy as it seemed, there was an almost cat-like air about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Bronwyn,” she managed to stammer. “Williams.” He smiled. “Lovely.” Lifting a hand, he stroked her cheek lightly. “Very lovely. I’m quite pleased with you.” Bronwyn swallowed convulsively, but the spell he’d woven around her shattered when he glanced away and she followed the direction of his gaze. Luke and about a dozen of his pack members, and Constantine with nearly half that many of his own people, had nearly reached the porch where they stood. Oddly enough, though, they’d stopped as if they’d hit a block wall. Caleb smiled coldly. “As you see, she has arrived safely. You may take yourselves off now.” Luke lifted his hands and almost seemed to brace them against something— except she couldn’t see anything at all. “What the fuck?”

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“Magic,” Constantine said tightly. “Step away from him, Bronwyn. Come to me.” Bronwyn stared at him blankly and finally glanced at the stranger who’d introduced himself as Caleb Westmoreland. “You have magic?” she asked a little hoarsely. “It won’t hold you!” Constantine said, his voice sounding strained. “You have protection. Just come to me, baby. I didn’t kill the bastard …won’t.” Luke snorted. “It wasn’t for lack of trying!” He turned to look at her. “But I didn’t kill him, either. We’ll talk it out. Just come to me.” Caleb’s lips curled with amusement. “This is interesting! Such violence! Is that what sent you scurrying to me? It’s just as well. You saved me the trouble of killing both of them. Although … I certainly can if you like?” Bronwyn gaped at him in horror. He sighed. “I take it that’s a no? Very well ….” His expression was taut when he focused on Luke and Constantine again. “You’ve given her a nasty fright and I don’t take kindly to it, I don’t mind telling you. Leave—or, if you’d prefer to camp out on my doorstep, I suppose I could tolerate it for a little while if it’ll please my little Bronwyn. Just be sure to clean up after yourselves before you go.” He turned then and tugged at Bronwyn’s arm. She hesitated, looking back at Luke and Constantine unhappily, but she knew that going to either one of them would only result in another contest to determine which of them got to ‘keep’ her. Caleb unnerved her, however. To her surprise, when she looked at him again, she saw understanding in his eyes. He lifted her right arm and very lightly brushed his lips along the marking there. “You were created just for me,” he murmured. “I’ve been waiting.” Bronwyn swallowed convulsively. “You’re …?” He grinned—a cat-like grin. “Your mate, precious.” Bronwyn blinked at him, feeling more unnerved instead of reassured. She saw no alternative but to follow him, however, hoping she wasn’t, as it seemed to her, walking into yet another pitfall. **** “Bloody fucking magic user!” Constantine snarled as Bronwyn followed the Raja inside without protest. “This is what comes of that evil old hag’s magic!” Luke, he saw when he finally turned away, was staring at him in baffled rage. “Bronwyn would cut your heart out with a spoon if she heard you talkin’ about her granny like that. What is that … thing, anyway?” Constantine was in such a rage himself, he was tempted to ignore the question. He finally dismissed his pique with the lycan, however. “A Raja.” “Smelled like cat,” one of the lycans with Luke muttered. “Because he is,” Constantine said testily. “You said he was Raja!” Luke said suspiciously. Constantine rolled his eyes. “King,” he said tightly. “He’s a cat lord—the cat lord. High King.” “Oh yeah?” Luke snarled. “Well, why haven’t I ever heard of them?” “Because you’re a mere lycan?” Constantine retorted sardonically. Luke narrowed his eyes. “Well, I don’t give a fuck what he is! Bronwyn is the

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‘promised one’ and she was meant for us lowly lycans—specifically me! And what I’d like to know is why the son-of-a-bitch thinks she was intended for him! Actually, I’d like to know what the fuck you meant by snatching her!” “I did not snatch her,” Constantine said coldly. “You snatched her. She bears the mark. She was intended for me. She’s the bloody princess … destined to bear the first vampire who will be a day-walker!” Luke stared at him. “Let me get this straight … You have some fucked up notion that she’s supposed to be a vamp princess? Because of the mark on her arm?” “The prophesy foretold her coming,” Constantine snapped, losing patience. “She was intended only for a true blood and I happen to be a true blood.” “Our prophesy says she’s intended for a true blood, alright—and I happen to be one—a lycan true blood! She’s to bear the first lycan to become king over all of the tribes. He will unite them and they will find their place among the supernaturals.” Constantine stared at him blankly a moment. “You’ve confused the prophesy,” he said coolly. “No surprise, considering ….” “Considering what?” Luke growled belligerently. “That you’re a lycan.” The other lycans began to mutter angrily at that. Constantine studied them a moment and finally turned away, striding briskly toward his vehicle. His minions fell in behind him. Luke caught up with them before they reached the wall. “You’re just gonna walk off? Just like that?” Constantine threw him an irritated glance. “You have magic?” Luke lifted his brows. “No.” Constantine stopped. “He’s Raja ….” “You keep saying that!” Constantine gritted his teeth. “The Raja are older than vampires—and lycan. They have all the speed, all the strength of the strongest among either tribe. Beyond that, they are extremely intelligent and extremely cunning … and they have magic. I can’t get near him with his magic. You can’t get near him. By all means, if you want to batter yourself against the protection spell he’s erected until you’re bloody, help yourself. I may even stay a while and watch, just for the amusement.” “So you’re saying there isn’t a gods damned thing either one of us can do about getting Bronwyn?” “I didn’t say that.” “Well what the fuck are you beating around the bush about?” “We—I need a magic user—a powerful one.” “I know one,” one of Luke’s pack members piped up. Luke swiveled his head around to fix the man with a threatening glare and he ducked and scurried into the background. Constantine looked amused. “Unless you’re planning on throwing your shaman at him wielding magic spears, I doubt you’ll have any more success with one than without.” Luke glared at him resentfully, but he kept his tongue between his teeth. Fucking vamps and their superiority complexes! He’d bet his shaman against any dozen magic users he was likely to dig up! ****

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Bronwyn’s teeth were chattering with reaction by the time Caleb Westmoreland had escorted her inside. He studied her frowningly for a moment. “A hot bath!” he said abruptly. “Yancy! You’ll play lady’s maid. Draw my princess a bath—the pink room.” He looked at Bronwyn questioningly. “Do you like pink, my dear?” Bronwyn stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’ll take that as a yes—never seen a woman with red hair yet that didn’t have a fixation with pink and red—clashes atrociously.” “My hair is brown,” Bronwyn said trough her teeth, mostly because they were chattering, but also because she found his observation insulting. He looked her over in surprise. “Hmm. You’re right. Curious. It looked red in the picture. I suppose it was the angle of the light.” “What picture?” “The headless corpse?” he prompted. Bronwyn’s eyes widened. “Yes, I see that rings a bell. Dugan or Dillon, or something like that—a former employee. Run along with Yancy, now, sweetheart. He’ll fix you a nice hot bath to warm you up.” His highhandedness set her back up, but Bronwyn had never been one to bite off her nose to spite her face. She was cold and the bath sounded wonderful. She wasn’t going to refuse it just to assert her own will. Nodding a little jerkily, relieved when she realized it would give her a little time alone to try to sort through things, she followed the butler as he climbed a wide, winding staircase to the upper floor. The ‘house’ was palatial. She discovered the upper corridor was as wide as the stairs—six to eight feet. Ornately decorated doors opened off the corridor. The butler marched past four before pausing and opening the fifth and standing back to allow Bronwyn to enter first. She threw him an uncomfortable smile. “Thank you. I can run my own bath.” The man smiled thinly—it looked like it took an effort. “No problem, my lady. I’ll be delighted to run the bath for you. I’ll show you about if you’ll give me a moment to start the bath.” Wondering if it was a politely worded order not to touch anything, Bronwyn moved slowly into the monstrous room and discovered it was a bedroom. Contrary to her expectations, it wasn’t painted pink. The walls were covered in wallpaper that looked like watered silk. Tiny, delicate pink rosebuds twined along pale, grayish-green vines from the wide floor molding all the way up to what looked like a ten foot ceiling delineated by wide, beautifully ornate ceiling molding. The ceiling itself had molding on it that created pleasing patterns. In the center of the ceiling, surrounded by an oval molding like a picture frame was a painting of two cherubs wrapped in a wide pale pink ribbon that curled around both. The bed looked far larger than any bed she’d ever seen in her life despite the size of the room. The coverlet on it matched the paper on the walls. Beyond that, the room contained a large carpet, also dappled with pink, over a gleaming hardwood floor. The furniture was painted white and, beyond the bed, consisted of a tall armoire, a secretary and matching chair, an upholstered chaise and several occasional chairs. Small tables sat at the arms of each chair and on either side of the bed. Near what looked like French doors sat a larger table with four chairs that looked like a small dining table.

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The butler, Yancy, emerged from an open door opposite the bed and nodded at her. Striding to another door, he opened it and gestured inside. Curious, Bronwyn followed him and peered in. It was a closet, she discovered, that was almost as big as the living room of her apartment—and filled with clothing. “I believe you’ll be able to find a change of clothing in here.” He looked at Bronwyn, studying her expression. “Feel free to chose whatever you like. It was purchased for you.” Bronwyn felt the blood leave her face. “For me?” “Certainly, my lady. Lord Westmoreland wanted everything ready for you when you arrived. We weren’t entirely certain when to expect you, but we did our best on such short notice.” He closed the door and moved to the armoire, opening it wide so that she could see the huge TV inside. “We weren’t certain if you would like to watch TV in bed—the remotes are on the bedside table.” He moved from there to the French doors and opened them wide. “A touch cool this evening … perhaps you’d prefer to explore the balcony in the morning … or take breakfast there?” Bronwyn, unable to think of anything at all to say, merely stared at him. Nodding, he closed the doors again. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll check the bath.” He disappeared again. Bronwyn looked around uneasily and finally wilted onto the edge of one of the chairs. She shot up from it guiltily when he returned. “If you’d care to test the water, my lady?” “I’m sure it’s fine,” Bronwyn managed. He favored her with the tight smile again. “Shall I have a light repast brought up for you?” “What?” “Are you hungry?” She hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t certain she could. “That would be nice, thank you!” He bowed and, thankfully, left. Bronwyn simply stood staring at the door for several moments, trying to find her equilibrium. She had the bizarre feeling that she was caught up in some sort of waking dream—or nightmare. She wasn’t certain which, but the uncomfortable thump of her heart with anxiety was very real. After a moment, she moved to the French doors and tested the handle. Discovering it wasn’t locked, she poked her head out and looked around. It was deserted, she discovered, except for the outdoor furnishings scattered about, and, after glancing back at the bedroom door, she rushed from the room to the balcony railing to look over it. The drop to the ground was daunting. She was only on the second floor, she reminded herself. How high could it be? It must be the shadows that made it seem high! It still took a good deal of nerve to throw her leg over the railing and she hovered nervously on the outside for several moments, feeling around the wall below in the hope of finding a toehold. Giving up after a moment, she gripped the railing as tightly as she could and lowered herself until she was hanging by her arms and tilted her head down to see how far the ground was from her feet.

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“Exercising, sweetheart?” Bronwyn let out a squawk of surprise and whipped her head around to discover Caleb peering down at her from the other side of the railing. After gaping at him a split second, she released her hold, flailing her arms as she dropped. Caleb leapt the railing and passed her on the way down. She landed with a jolt in his outstretched arms. “That would’ve been a nasty fall!” he cheerfully. Bending his knees, he sprang upward, soared over the balcony rail and landed solidly on the balcony. “Had your bath already?” he asked pleasantly. Bronwyn gaped at him. “I was just going to,” she said shakily. His lips curled. “But you decided to take a little exercise to unwind first?” Bronwyn smiled at him uneasily. “I needed to stretch.” He draped an arm across her shoulders and walked her back inside. “Morning will be better, sweetheart. We’ll take a run in the park together. Promise. I told the butler to bring dinner for two. I hope you don’t mind. I so rarely have company for dining.” “That will be … nice,” she said, slipping from beneath his arm and heading for the bathroom. She breathed a sigh of relief when she closed the door but discovered, to her dismay, that there was no lock that she could see. No window either, she saw when she’d scanned the room, except for the huge stained glass window above the tub, and she doubted that would open. “Shall I join you?” Caleb asked from the other side of the door. “Uh … I’d rather you didn’t.” He opened the door and studied her expression for a moment. “Is that a definite no? A maybe? Or an undecided?” Bronwyn gaped at him in dismay. He sighed. “No, I think. You have such an expressive little face, my angel. May I watch?” Bronwyn blinked at him, feeling her face redden. “I don’t even know you!” she gasped. “But, darling, how are you going to get to know me if you won’t make a push to do so?” he murmured reasonably. “Fine! You should know my heart is broken, but I will contain my curiosity … for now. We’ll get to know one another after dinner.” Bronwyn frowned at the door after Caleb had disappeared and finally turned to look at the steaming tub longingly. Did she dare go for it? He seemed determined for her to bathe. She found that insulting by implication, but she was still chilled from so many shocks. Shaking her uneasiness the best she could, she undressed and climbed the two stairs up to the tub. She’d just managed to plant both feet inside when the voice that she was already beginning to dread startled her. “Absolutely stunning!” Uttering a yelp, Bronwyn whirled. Her feet shot out from under her and she hit the bottom of the tub, strangling on the water she’d inhaled on the way down. She came up spluttering and coughing. A large hand settled on her back, pounding it lightly until she shoved it away and glared at the owner, who was grinning at her unrepentantly. “You look like a half drowned kitten,” he murmured with a chuckle and then amended the comment somewhat ruefully. “A very angry little kitten.”

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“You said you’d wait outside!” “I don’t like to contradict you, sweeting, but I never said any such thing,” he said easily, stepping back to prop his hip on the long vanity across from the tub and folding his arms over his broad chest. Bronwyn frowned, thinking it over, and realized he hadn’t. “You suggested you would.” “Ah, but that was just a ruse to get you to take your clothes off so that I could have a better look at you. Is it my fault you’re so adorably naïve that you didn’t catch that?” Bronwyn glared at him sullenly and finally turned to stare down at the water. He sighed. “I can take a hint. Be quick, sweeting—I smell dinner.” He paused at the door and turned back, the humor absent from his eyes now. “But do take care to wash the nasty scent of dog off. I’ve never particularly relished the scent, and I especially don’t care for it on you.” Bronwyn gaped at the door when he’d left, struggling with her anger and the temptation to hurl an insult after him. How dare he refer to Luke as dog! She sniffed her arm curiously, but she couldn’t detect any scent at all beyond her own, and she damned well didn’t stink! “He isn’t a dog!” she muttered under her breath. “Lycan if you want to be precise,” Caleb called to her from the depths of the room beyond. “Same thing.” His voice hadn’t come from the directly beyond the door, she was certain. She just didn’t know how he could’ve heard her. A shiver skated through her. Constantine had said he was a magic user.

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Chapter Ten Caleb was back in a few minutes, this time bearing an armload of clothing. “I couldn’t decide. I thought this would look good on you. I particularly like the color, but it is a little formal for an evening together. What do you think?” Bronwyn felt like informing him that she thought he was as mad as a hatter and he could shove the dress where the sun didn’t shine, but she tamped the impulse. If he really was mad, it probably wouldn’t be the best of ideas to point it out. “Could you hand me a towel?” “Certainly, sweeting,” he murmured, obviously pleased. He set the clothing down on the vanity and moved to the stack of towels beside the tub—that she hadn’t noticed— and lifted one, holding it up expectantly. Bronwyn studied the towel, studied his face, and finally got up. He wrapped the towel around her and lifted her from the tub. Settling her on her feet on the floor, he began to pat her dry. She was tempted to wrestle him for the towel but fairly certain of who the victor would be in that contest. He was surprisingly thorough, she thought wryly, when he’d knelt to dry her feet and legs and then stepped behind her. He slipped arm around her waist, pulling her back against his length and burying his nose in her hair. “Mmm. You smell good enough to eat. Shall we forego the food and get right down to the business of breeding?” he purred near her ear, gliding a hand down her belly and cupping her mound to pull her back against the hard rod he’d pressed between her buttocks. Bronwyn shivered. She would’ve liked to tell herself it was with revulsion or at the very least, nerves, but she felt her belly quiver at his touch, felt warmth flood her. She cleared her throat. “I’m hungry.” He chuckled, releasing her so readily she began to suspect that he’d only done it to test her reaction. “Then I should feed you. Wear what you like … except those,” he said firmly, removing her jeans from her hands when she picked them up. Carrying her discarded clothing pinched between two fingers and held out at arm’s length before him, he left the bathroom. She glared at his back but moved to the stack of clothing he’d left when he glanced back at her. There was nothing wrong with the clothes, she discovered. Truthfully, they were beautiful and clearly very well made. It unnerved her when she discovered that they were her size, though. There was a fluffy robe, she discovered, at the bottom of the stack. She didn’t particularly care for the idea of sitting down at the table with him in nothing but a robe, but the rest looked more like evening gowns—and there were no underclothes! She slipped the robe on, tied it at the waist, and left the bathroom. Caleb was standing next to the small table. He looked at her approvingly as she entered the room and pulled out a chair, holding it for her. She moved to the chair and settled as he slid it in for her.

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To her relief, he settled across the table from her. He removed the domes from the servers on the table and examined the offerings. “What will you have, kitten?” His reference to his comment when he’d startled her into nearly drowning herself irritated her, but she didn’t suppose it was any more irritating than being called darling, sweetheart, or sweeting. She smiled at him tightly. “Bronwyn.” “I know, kitten. Fowl or beef?” Despite everything, Bronwyn discovered she was starving. Her stomach growled as she studied the wonderful looking food. His lips twitched. “A taste of everything?” “Yes, please.” He served her plate and handed it to her. Bronwyn waited politely, if somewhat impatiently, until he’d fixed his own plate. “I detect a lovely, local accent, kitten, but I’m guessing you’ve not lived in the city long?” he said conversationally. “No. I moved here from Greenville a few weeks ago.” She frowned. “I guess it’s been a little over a month. It seems longer,” she muttered. He looked thoughtful and then chuckled. “Not even seventy miles as the crow flies. And you grew up there, I suppose?” Surprised, Bronwyn merely nodded. “My grandmother ran a boarding house. I helped her with it.” “Quaint.” Bronwyn flicked a quick look at him then focused on her food. “I never thought of it like that.” “And did you inherit your magic from your mother’s side or your father? Or perhaps both?” Bronwyn glanced at him sharply. “I don’t have magic.” “Of course you do, kitten. A great deal of magic … which leads me to suppose it came from both sides.” Bronwyn shifted uncomfortably. “My grandmother had the ‘sight’.” He nodded. “A powerful witch, your grandmother. Left me a nasty surprise … but then I suppose I can see her point. You are far too special to leave anything to chance.” Bronwyn felt her throat close with emotion. “Nanna wasn’t a witch!” she snapped angrily. “People called her one, but she wasn’t!” Caleb studied her in surprise for a moment. “Eat your dinner, Bronwyn,” he said gently. “That wasn’t intended as an insult to your grandmother. In point of fact, although you might not believe me, it was meant as a compliment.” Bronwyn swallowed with an effort. “It sounded like an insult,” she said finally. “You look like her.” She sent him a sharp look. “My grandmother?” She thought it over for a moment. “You’ve been through my things!” she said accusingly. He sighed. “I was searching for you.” “Why?” He reached across the table and took her hand, coasting his thumb lightly along the mark on her wrist. “Because I knew you were here.” His touch was mesmerizing … and both oddly calming and arousing at the same time. “Constantine said you were a user of magic—You did something before, when they came.”

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“A protection—nothing more—just as this is,” he murmured, lightly tracing the tattoo her grandmother had drawn on her wrist. “If you’re implying that this is magic … It’s only magic of the physical world.” She tugged on her hand and he released her. After studying it a moment, she finally turned her attention to her food and they finished the meal in silence. He helped her from her chair when they finished and guided her toward the chaise lounge, urging her to sit. When she’d settled against the back, he sat at the foot, pulling her feet into his lap. “You’re not curious about me?” he murmured, massaging her feet. “Very.” He sent her amused look. “Too timid to ask?” She blushed. “I’m not timid,” she said, a faint edge to her voice. His gaze flickered over her face. “No, you aren’t.” He was thoughtful. “Not timid—not disinterested. Hmm. Wary? Suspicious?” “Both,” she responded slowly. “I don’t know how to ask politely.” He grinned abruptly, showing even, perfect white teeth. “I’m Raja.” Her eyes widened. “Is that … like a … warlock?” “Nothing nearly so tame,” he murmured in a deep, purring voice. She frowned. “You aren’t going to tell me.” “But … darling, I just did,” he said with a quizzical lift of his tawny brows, his golden eyes gleaming with wicked amusement. Lifting the foot he’d been massaging, he held her gaze as he brought it to his mouth. Her eyes widened. She jerked at her leg but to no avail. She didn’t even manage to jolt him with her efforts. He opened his mouth wide enough to scrape the ball of her foot with his lower teeth up to the joint of her toes. The sensitive nerves screamed, sending a shockwave all the way up her leg to her belly, which shimmied as the tidal wave of sensation crashed there like a breaker. She hadn’t recovered from that when he began to suck her toes. The urge to laugh warred with the waves of heat that rushed up her leg to her sex. She fought both, gritting her teeth and curling her fingers into the upholstery of the chaise like claws. She felt weak with relief when he finally lowered her foot. He studied her a long moment and lifted the other. Giving up the effort to pretend it didn’t bother her a bit, she planted her free foot against his shoulder and shoved at him when he began to torture the other foot, but that had no more effect than her attempt to jerk her leg free. When he’d tortured it until she thought she’d loose her mind, he finally lowered it, set her feet off of his lap and rose. “You’ve had a difficult day, my darling. I’ll leave you to rest,” he said coolly, turning and striding from the room before she could gather her wits enough to react. Disbelief filled her. He’d toyed with her almost from the moment she’d arrived, teased her until he’d fully aroused her … and then left? Why? Just to torment her? Or to prove, either to himself or to her, that he could? Anger supplanted the disbelief for a while but as her body finally cooled to a more comfortable level her anger cooled, as well. She was left with the discomfort of incompletion but she ignored it, telling herself she was relieved he’d decided against the ‘breeding’ he’d promised when she was in the bath. He wasn’t mad, she decided, which should have been a relief, but since she

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wasn’t certain of just what he was she didn’t feel much lessening of anxiety. She didn’t believe for a moment that he was the destiny her grandmother had foretold. He was undeniably the handsomest man she’d ever met. He was ‘different’ all right, and she couldn’t deny that he was ‘special’ given the gifts he’d allowed her to see, but he was just plain strange! He’d thrown her off kilter from the moment he tapped on her window and kept her teetering ever since so that she hardly knew how she felt, but she was pretty sure ‘in love’ wasn’t it. Nanna hadn’t promised that it would be love at first sight, she reminded herself, but she’d implied it. In any case, he was strange! She couldn’t imagine living around someone she could never be comfortable around. Of course Nanna hadn’t promised that either and she’d already come to the conclusion that she couldn’t expect a happily ever after from the deal, couldn’t expect the marriage, family, and white picket fence most everyone thought of as the ultimate life goal—her included. Still … she’d come closer to imagining herself with Constantine, or Luke, and she hadn’t actually been able to make that ‘fit’ in her mind. Clearly he knew about the mark and the prophesy, and he’d known about them for some time, but she couldn’t see anything in his behavior to convince her that he believed in it anymore than she’d seen with either Luke or Constantine. If none of them actually believed, though, but all of them seemed aware of it, what was she to make of that? And how had they become aware? As insulted as she’d been when Caleb had made the remarks about her grandmother, she reluctantly pondered it. The small town gossips had whispered it behind her grandmother’s back as far back as she could remember—never to her grandmother’s face—they didn’t dare—or even hers. They loved to gossip, however, and the more lurid the gossip the better they liked it. She’d figured it had arisen from the ‘sight’, though. Just about everyone in the county knew she had the sight and most people were firmly convinced her predictions were completely reliable. She wasn’t convinced she could believe a single word out of Caleb Westmoreland’s mouth, but what if he knew what he was talking about? What if her grandmother had been a magic wielder? What if she’d, somehow, arranged all this? What would be the purpose? She frowned, setting that aside for the moment and trying to recall anything her grandmother had ever said or done that might indicate she was a witch. It wasn’t actually a lengthy search, although, at the time, she hadn’t thought much about it. After her date with Johnny Patterson, though, she’d been too devastated to hide how upset she was. She’d tried. She’d felt so guilty about having sex with him when her grandmother had warned her against such things that she’d tried to hide it for fear of getting in trouble. She’d felt awful shame, too. She hadn’t succeeded in hiding it from her grandmother’s eagle eyes, although, to her relief, her grandmother had seemed far more empathetic and understanding than she’d expected. She hadn’t scolded or punished her. She’d gathered her up as she had when she’d been a very small child and rocked her until she’d stopped crying. And then she’d asked her if she wanted her to make his dick fall off. She’d burst out laughing. She’d thought Nanna had only said it to make her feel better. “That would be funny!” she’d said, giggling. “But then where would he be

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without it? He’s all dick! Anyway, I wouldn’t wish that on him.” Nanna shrugged. “I could make it turn purple and black and make him think it was going to fall off.” She’d frowned thoughtfully then. “I suppose that would be a good lesson for him—and good enough for him! It wouldn’t have been so bad, Nanna, if he hadn’t made me think he really liked me. If I’d known he was just … trying to get in my pants, I wouldn’t have been so … hurt! I was so crazy about him! I thought he liked me, too.” Nanna had patted her and kissed her temple. “You’re too soft hearted, honey, but I wouldn’t have you any other way. He deserves a lesson, at the very least. Any boy who treats any girl with so little respect for her feelings as a human being deserves a lesson in manners. How else are they to learn to curb their beastly instincts?” She hadn’t thought any more about it—not that. Her grandmother had comforted her, been supportive, and that had been all she’d really needed to take the worst of the pain away. She recalled now, though, that he’d been absent from school for several days the following week and he’d been pale and withdrawn when he’d come back. He hadn’t looked at her or spoken to her again, but then she hadn’t expected him to or wanted him to. He’d moved away with his family at the end of the year. Now she wondered if her grandmother actually had made his dick turn purple and black. Something had knocked the wind out of him. He’d been an arrogant jerk before— even directly after their ‘date’—not that she’d been able to see past his good looks and charm when she’d fallen for him to notice or particularly care about that less pleasant side of his personality. In point of fact, she’d, mostly, seen it as ‘manliness’, admired it even though some of the things he’d said and done bothered her. There’d been a hint of a cruel streak she’d willfully ignored. Was that evidence that her grandmother had had some magical abilities? Or had it been just what she thought at the time? Nothing more than an attempt to draw her out of her despair and distract her? She struggled to think if there was anything else that even suggested her grandmother used magic, but aside from the fact that everyone talked about her green thumb, she couldn’t think of anything at all and, as impressive as her grandmother’s gardens were, that wasn’t magic. It was just hard work and good gardening skills. She supposed it was possible her grandmother had magic skills and she hadn’t known. Nanna had told her there was a secret side to everyone that no one else knew because people guarded that side very carefully and rarely allowed anyone to glimpse it. Did it really matter now anyway? It didn’t change the way she felt about her grandmother in any way, but it did make her wonder what her grandmother had intended for her—if she’d intended anything at all. She’d always said that the ‘sight’ was merely a window into the future that she had the gift of being able to look through. She couldn’t control it. She couldn’t even say, absolutely, that it would come to pass because the future could be changed. The big question, she supposed, was if what was happening to her, had been happening almost since she’d gotten to the city, was the future her grandmother had seen for her and urged her to seek? Were any of the three the ‘special someone’ her grandmother had foreseen as the father of her children? And if so, was that all she’d seen? Tiring of her thoughts after a while, she got up and searched for something

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besides the robe to wear and finally found a gown to sleep in. There wasn’t a sign of panties or bras! That couldn’t be an oversight considering the ungodly amount of clothes in that damned closet! Clearly, Caleb had no intention of allowing her two much in the way of ‘armor’. It was disconcerting that she could feel so naked without them. Worse, the glide of the satin over her skin with every movement she made, even breathing, seemed to sensitize her skin preventing her from actually coming down completely from the buzz of arousal Caleb had left her with. Between that, the strangeness of being in such a place, and her uneasiness about Caleb’s motives, she didn’t think she could sleep, but even though she slept fitfully, she did sleep. It was early morning when she woke. She stumbled out of the bed as soon as she’d roused up, heading for the bathroom. Her morning ritual roused her to enough alertness to figure out what had produced the sense of urgency she’d felt the moment she woke and she rushed a little drunkenly into the closet. Tossing off the gown she’d slept in, she grabbed the short T and jogging shorts she’d discovered in her search the night before. She’d found a pair of tennis shoes, too, but, thankfully, Caleb hadn’t stolen her own shoes and those were well broken-in. When she was dressed, she dashed out of the French doors and across the balcony. The land, she saw, dropped away from the back of the house, which was why it seemed so unnervingly steep a drop, or least part of it. She still didn’t think it was enough of a fall to hurt her. She hoped it wasn’t. Girded by her determination and lulled by the dregs of sleep she hadn’t been able to completely throw off, she went over the balcony railing without pausing to consider it, lowered herself as far as she could with her arms and let go before anxiety over it had time to overcome her. The soles of her feet stung when she landed and she felt a twinge of pain in her knees and ankles, but she picked herself up, brushed the debris from the flowerbed from herself and darted toward the closest line of trees. Whatever he was, the glow she’d seen in Caleb’s eyes the night before indicated that he was a creature of the night—just as Constantine was, and Luke. Luke wasn’t confined to the night like Constantine seemed to be and she had no way of knowing whether Caleb was or not. It seemed the safest bet, though, that the daylight would be her best chance of escape. She discovered a path through the woods when she’d reached the trees. Stopping for a moment to catch her breath, she peered around the huge tree that blocked her view of the mansion, searching for any sign of pursuit. As relieved as she was that she didn’t see any, she wasn’t convinced she hadn’t been spotted. As soon as she caught her breath, she began to jog along the path, glancing into the woods from time to time for any sign of a road, or a building that would indicate a road. It would’ve made things a lot easier if she could’ve gotten to the car she’d arrived in, but she hadn’t thought that it was likely she would escape that way. She just needed to find a public road, she assured herself. Once on it, she should be able to catch a ride with someone either into the city to collect her belongings or out of the city to lay low for a while. She didn’t particularly care which. She’d been jogging almost fifteen minutes before it abruptly dawned on her that Caleb had said he’d take her on a run to get some exercise. She didn’t think she would’ve remembered it then, since she’d been convinced at the time that he was just

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toying with her, except that she heard a steady pounding sound behind her and that abruptly clicked with the memory and the fact that she’d been following a well worn trail. “Shit!” she exclaimed under her breath, glancing around a little wildly. There wasn’t a lot of underbrush beneath the trees. She thought she could get through without any problem, but could she manage it without making a lot of noise? The pounding behind her was growing steadily louder while she wavered and she finally plunged off the path and moved as quickly and quietly as she could from the trail, thinking it might be best to simply hide. Once he’d passed her, she could get back on the track, she reasoned, and then she wouldn’t run the risk of getting lost in the woods. She’d barely found a likely hiding spot and crouched behind it, however, when she heard a thundering crash in the underbrush. Something BIG was heading straight for her.

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Chapter Eleven Bronwyn’s heart leapt into her throat at the first crash and nearly choked her. For several moments she was too frozen to react at all, but her instincts kicked in abruptly with a surge of adrenaline and she leapt up and ran as fast as she could. She had no idea—no thought—of where she was going. She lost sight of the trail in a matter of minutes. No matter how fast she ran or how much she wove in and out of trees and veered in first one direction and then another, the crashing sounds of pursuit stayed with her. Eventually, when she was so winded it was only sheer determination and terror picking her feet up and planting them again, she burst through the trees and into a small clearing lush with wild flowers. It didn’t occur to her to dash back into the cover of the trees. She bounded across it, trying to leap over the thigh high wildflowers. A sudden roar cut through the stillness, turning her knees to water. Unable to help herself, Bronwyn whipped her head around to see what it was that had roared. She nearly swallowed her tongue when she saw it—a huge monster of a lion—an African lion! Babbling with terror, she looked wildly around and tried to dart toward the trees, a vague idea of climbing one having sprouted in her mind. The lion cut her off, herding her toward the other side of the field. Something heavy butted her in the back before she reached the other side and she lost her balance and sprawled out. It was on her, hot, heavy, panting before she could get her knees under her. She tried anyway, shoving at the weight and drawing her legs up. It nudged her in the side with its great head, toppling her onto her side and rolling her to her back. She lay where she fell, her eyes bulging until they felt as if they would pop from her head, panting for breath, expecting any second to feel its teeth ripping into her as the mighty lion moved over her. His lion lips curled upward almost in a lion smile as he stared down at her. Several moments passed before her terror subsided enough for her to actually see the face above hers and realize that he was staring her straight in the eyes. A golden, hooded gaze met hers that was suddenly so eerily familiar Bronwyn thought fear had unhinged her mind. After holding her gaze for many moments, he released a heavy sigh and dropped to his belly, nuzzling his face against her belly and breasts. She wanted to scream, to grab two handfuls of his tawny mane and shove him away. She was paralyzed, however. All she could manage to do was stare at the beast and fight for breath. Goosebumps leapt up on her skin as his breath brushed her bare belly and goosebumps leapt on top of those when he … licked her, dragging his hot, rough tongue from her belly up to her neck and pushing her short top with it. She sucked in a sharp breath and held it. He lifted his head, met her gaze for a long moment, and then returned his attention to licking her. She couldn’t decide if he was trying to bathe her with his tongue or if he was trying to decide whether he liked the taste of her enough to eat her. The moment she

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tried to inch away from him, though, he planted a huge paw on her shoulder and pinned her to the dirt. Play dead! her mind screamed, the first semi-rational thought she’d managed since he’d tackled her. She squeezed her eyes closed. He licked her breasts and belly, lifting goosebumps, stimulating her nerve endings until she felt like she was being eaten alive by fire ants. She tried not to think about it, but it seemed the harder she tried to close her mind to that hot, rough tongue, the more her mind focused on the feel of it as he lapped her as if he was lapping up a dish of cream—with loving determination not to miss a single drop. Her nipples, mindless bits of erectile tissue that they were, stood erect and blood flushed them, making them so exquisitely sensitive it took all she could do to lay still while he licked them over and over until she was a mindless mass of nerve endings, in such a fever that she’d completely lost touch with fear. She flinched instinctively when she felt him nuzzling at the waist of her shorts. Insane or not, bad move or not, she rolled onto her belly and tried to crawl away. It turned out to be a bad move. He’d snagged her shorts with one of his claws. He had them down to her thighs before she felt the warning breeze, then the heat of his breath. She sucked in a sharp breath as he plowed his nose into the crack of her ass. He could have the damned shorts! She shot forward as his nose touched her sex, leaving the shorts behind, and tried to get to her knees again. He bumped her with his head as he had before and toppled her. That time, however, he shoved his head between her legs the minute she hit the ground. The first slice of his rough tongue along her cleft brought her upright. Without even looking at her, he placed a huge paw in the center of her chest and shoved her flat. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed again when she discovered she couldn’t get away from him, but she couldn’t even begin to try to play dead. He’d clearly discovered a taste that appealed to him—a lot. He nudged her thighs apart and lapped at her clit with such dedicated industry and plowed his tongue into her sex, lapping at her passage, until her body exploded in ecstasy in spite of every effort to fight it off, despite the absolute certainty that it was wrong on too many levels to count. She tried to muffle her cries out of sheer self-preservation and shame, but he kept lapping at her and she continued to convulse until she couldn’t contain the scream clawing at her throat any more. He stopped when she screamed, nudging her limp form with his head until she rolled over. The minute she did, he caught her around the waist, dragged her up until her knees were under her and mounted her. She grunted as he plowed into her, but she was still too weak from her orgasm to do more than rest her head and shoulders limply against the ground while he pumped into her. She came again, harder, and was barely conscious when he finally dismounted. She didn’t even have the energy to get her butt out of the air. He settled beside her, dragged her over until she fell against him and released a contented sigh. “That was … delightful,” he murmured in the lazy, rumbling drawl that had become too familiar. Bronwyn managed to crack one eye open enough to look at him. He was in human form again, completely naked and completely unconcerned about it. “That was you chasing me!” she managed to get out in an accusing tone. “Mmm,” he murmured complacently. “Did you enjoy the morning run as much

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as I? I did promise!” “You scared me half to death! I thought you were going to eat me!” He chuckled. “I did. It was delicious, by the way. The tastiest cream I’ve ever sampled.” A shudder went through at the reminder. She would’ve liked to inform him that she hadn’t enjoyed it, but she thought he might know it for a lie. “Why did you do it?” He looked at her in surprise. “Because I wanted to. What other reason might I have?” “But … Constantine said you couldn’t use your magic against me!” His lips flattened. “If I could I would make certain I didn’t hear that name again,” he said dryly. “As it happens, it appears that I can’t … at the moment.” “But … you were in the form of a lion!” He studied her for a moment in bemusement and began to laugh. Bronwyn sat up and glared down at him indignantly, which only seemed to make him laugh harder. He grabbed her, though, when she tired to leap up and stalk off, dragging her beneath him. He caught her arms when she planted her palms on his chest and tried to shove him off, manacling them to the ground on either side of her head. “I told you I was Raja.” That comment deflated some of her anger. “A Raja is a lion?” His eyelids slid half closed. “The king of beasts,” he murmured in a rumbling growl. “So … you’re saying that form is your natural form?” “Hmm,” he murmured disinterestedly, nuzzling his face along her neck. “So this form isn’t?” He grunted again instead of responding, biting down on the side of her neck and sucking at it. “So you’re using magic.” “No,” he contradicted her, shoving downward to capture the tip on one breast, plucking at with his lips. “The ability to shift forms is apart from that … just as it is for the lycan … and the others. Do you really want to waste time discussing this now?” “Luke’s natural form isn’t human either?” she asked with a touch dismay. “I don’t know Luke. I don’t want to know Luke and I certainly don’t want to discuss Luke while I’m making love to my mate.” “I’m not your mate.” “Of course you are. I just mounted you in true form.” He hesitated. “If he’s a true blood, the human form is not his true form. Satisfied?” “You think I’m your mate because you mounted me in your true form?” “No. I know you’re my mate because you are.” “Why?” “Because I said so.” Bronwyn didn’t know whether she was more irritated or amused. She chuckled wryly. “You are an arrogant ass!” “If you say so, dearest,” he drawled without concern. “But a handsome, virile arrogant ass, you’ll agree.” Bronwyn couldn’t help it. She knew he was dead serious and that was what was so funny about it. She laughed. He lifted his head and fixed her with a chiding look. “I’m in the middle of

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something here. Pay attention.” She looked at him with mock contrition. “Yes, dearest,” she murmured dutifully. He tilted his head, studying her for a long moment. “That has a nice ring to it.” He shifted upward to match his face to hers. “Try darling.” Her lips curled. “Yes, darling.” He dipped closer and nipped at her lips before lifting his head to study her again. “If you meant it, what would you call me?” He seemed serious for once. She studied his face, considering it, trying to imagine what sort of love words would come to her mind if she loved him. “Honey.” He looked a little startled. “Really? Why honey?” “I don’t know—because Nanna loved me and she called me honey. It means love to me, I guess.” “Then that is what I should call you. You’ll have to think of something more appropriate for me.” “How about love? Yes, my love?” “That’ll do. Remember, that’s what you’ll call me when you fall in love with me,” he murmured, covering her lips and ending the conversation. Crazy man, Bronwyn thought absently as she felt his heated kiss send her senses reeling. His tongue wasn’t nearly as delightfully rough in human form, but it felt good stroking hers in mock intercourse, roused languid heat from the ashes of her previous climaxes. His hands felt wonderful as they glided over her. She wasn’t certain it wasn’t magic he wielded against her. He managed to awaken her senses to clamoring need again with no more than a few languid kisses, the stroke of his hands, and the restless brush of his body along hers. She gasped with pleasure as he found the mouth of her sex with the head of his cock and impaled her with his massive shaft, expelled a tight breath as he drove deeper and began to stroke the sensitive walls of her passage. He seemed in no hurry, seemed to enjoy slipping in a leisurely cadence along her channel, building the warmth slowly to an inferno. She held still, relishing it to begin with and then began to move with him when she felt her body temperature rise, felt the tension begin to grow rapidly tighter and tighter. He increased his pace. Shifting a hand beneath her, he tilted her hips forward to receive him, and she went off like a roman candle, gasping and shuddering her ecstasy. When he’d ridden out his own passion, he shifted away from her to study her face. “I’m sure I look like hell,” she murmured without opening her eyes. “You look like a woman well and truly fucked, sweeting, and I find the look infinitely appealing,” he murmured, laughter in his voice. She felt her lips curl in response. He planted a kiss on her smiling lips and surged to his feet. Bending, he scooped her limp form up to cradle her against his chest. “Breakfast will be cold. We’ll have to order another while we get cleaned up.” The comment made Bronwyn abruptly aware that she wasn’t wearing anything but the short T. “My pants!” she exclaimed, trying to struggle out of his arms. “You don’t need them. We’ll have to have a bath after rolling around all over the ground.” “But … I’m naked! I don’t want to be dragged into the house naked! What if somebody sees me?”

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“I’m not dragging you and Yancy won’t look.” “Caleb!” Bronwyn said, glaring at him. “I want my damned pants!” His brows lifted in surprise but after studying her for a moment, he returned and found her shorts. “Thank you,” she said, somewhat ungraciously when she’d stepped into them, then muttered in an under voice, “I’ve got come dripping down my leg.” Caleb grabbed her, tossing her over his shoulder and allowing her to slip until she was dangling by her ankles. She screamed, grabbing at him. “What are you doing, you crazy man?” “I don’t want you to lose the seed, my love. I worked too hard to plant it,” he said, his voice shaking with laughter. She bit him on the cheek of his ass. “Mmm,” he purred, his voice more shaky than before. “Now the other side.” She popped his ass instead. “The blood’s rushing to my head! I’ll have an aneurism!” He was laughing when he dragged her back over his shoulder and bent down to set her on the ground. She swayed dizzily, lifting a hand to her head and he swept her into his arms again. “You’re dripping come, my love. I’ll have to find something to plug the hole.” “Oh, you’re so very humorous!” “But, it’s golden seed, sweetheart! The seed of a Raja. It can’t be squandered!” “I’m surprised you were willing to share it,” Bronwyn said dryly. “Oh, I don’t mind sharing it with you. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to re-seed it once we get back to the room.” She hadn’t thought he could possibly be serious, but he proved her wrong. As soon as they entered the room, he strode to the bed, tossed her onto it and proceeded to ‘fill her up again’. She was so wobbly kneed by the time he’d finished, she had to brace her legs to hold herself up while she bathed. “Shall I massage you, my little butterfly?” Caleb murmured in a rumbling growl. “Sustenance!” Bronwyn begged weakly. He sighed regretfully, but he allowed her to dry off and dress and joined her for breakfast—which was hot since Yancy had undoubtedly been in to replace the cold food while Caleb was ‘helping’ her bathe. He kissed the top of her head cheerfully when they’d finished and strode from the room. She didn’t see him again for the rest of the day or even that night. She’d begun to think he’d completely forgotten she was there. She suspected he had. The following morning when she decided to make another bid for freedom, however, he abruptly appeared in lion form once more and chased her all over creation, tumbling her to the ground when she’d exhausted herself and nearly fucking her unconscious—after licking her until she was screaming. “Ahh! Isn’t this fun?” he murmured lazily when he’d curled around her and settled to rest in the dappled sun. “Oh! The best!” Bronwyn agreed weakly, too tired to muster the energy for sarcasm. “If I’d known I could have this much enjoyment of a mate I might have considered it before,” he said thoughtfully. She looked at him surprise. “You haven’t mated before?”

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He frowned thoughtfully. “Oh yes! I’d forgotten. Once or twice, I’m sure.” She sent him a sour look. “I thought you said you hadn’t done it before.” He grunted, bending his arm to prop his head in his hand. “It’s a bit different with the Raja, dearest. We’re somewhat … territorial in nature.” “No!” Bronwyn exclaimed sarcastically. “Really?” He sent her a glittering look. “Yes, actually,” he murmured. “We tend to be solitary creatures and I must say I prefer it, but then I haven’t had any … uh … one to play with in a while.” And he needed to tell her that he was playing with her? She’d felt like a mouse caught in a trap with a cat almost from the moment she’d arrived. Not that it hadn’t had its highlights! It scared the pure piss out of her when he decided to play chase, though. She couldn’t help it. Even knowing, now, that it was him in lion form, seeing anything that big and ferocious bounding after her made her instincts for self-preservation kick in. Fortunately, he seemed to enjoy it so hugely, he didn’t take it badly that she actually was trying to escape. Or maybe he just didn’t realize she was? She discarded that. He was too intelligent not to realize it and, contrary to what she’d first thought, he wasn’t crazy either. He just had a cat-like sense of humor, which meant he thoroughly enjoyed toying with her whatever the situation. “So … usually you mate and move on?” “Actually, the females mate and move on. When they’re ready, they look for a male, stay long enough to make certain the seed has taken, and then return to their own territory.” Bronwyn frowned. “So you don’t know if you have children?” “I’m quite certain I must. As I said, I’ve bred once or twice—mayhap three or four times. I forget.” “You don’t … ever get lonely?” He looked surprised, but he thought it over. “I don’t think so.” Bronwyn nodded and sat up, brushing at the grass and leaves clinging to her. “So,” she muttered, digging in the dirt with her toes, “when you’re sure that you’ve bred me, I’ll be free to go?” He sighed heavily. “It slips my mind that you aren’t Raja.” She glanced around at him. “It does?” “Actually, no, but it slips my mind that humans are so different—mostly because I’ve never paid a great deal of attention to them. You came to breed, did you not?” Bronwyn sent him a startled look and felt her face reddening. “I suppose.” She considered elaborating and finally took the plunge. “I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be you, though. Nanna said I’d find a man to love me. And it would be his children I’d bear.” Caleb sat up. “The prophesy of the Raja states that a woman will come who will bear fruit of the Raja and bring into the world a Raja more powerful than any before.” Bronwyn frowned. “It’s says ‘woman’? Not another Raja?” “Rajaeem—no,” he corrected her. “It clearly says a woman—a man-child, as you are, who will bear this mark, the sun and moon, symbolizing the joining of the sun-child, you, and the child of the night, me. At least, it doesn’t say me, precisely. Only that she will come to a Raja and he will sire the cub.”

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Her chest felt strangely tight and an odd sort sadness had descended on her. “It’s odd how similar it is to the destiny Nanna foretold for me, and yet so different.” Caleb cupped her face in his hand and tilted it up so that he could study her. “What is this I see in your eyes, sweeting? Troubled thoughts?” Bronwyn lifted her face from his grasp and turned away. “Must be my time of the month,” she mumbled. He looked puzzled for a moment before enlightenment dawned. He smiled faintly. “It wouldn’t be much of a prophesy if it wasn’t that time, dear heart! Of course it is. I could smell the sweet perfume of it above even the foul scent of that lycan when you arrived. Why else do you think I’ve bred you so assiduously?” Bronwyn made an effort to smile. “I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, why else? Do you suppose it’s ‘taken’ yet?” He looked surprised. “You don’t know? I assumed you would.” “Humans don’t,” she said dryly. “If you could get me a pregnancy test kit, I can check.” He shrugged. “I have a far better idea,” he murmured, amusement threading his voice. “Let us pretend we haven’t a notion and just keep working at it. Sooner or later, it’s bound to take.” The problem with that, Bronwyn reflected, was that she was looking at heartbreak if she stayed with him very long. It was crazy, of course, but then she’d long since realized that her freaky physiology made her just plain weird. She’d already fallen for two completely inappropriate men—or males, at least. She shouldn’t be in any danger at all of falling for Caleb, especially when he was weirder than she was, but there was no getting around the fact that she felt horribly depressed that he really didn’t have any interest in her beyond breeding her. Truthfully, she couldn’t see that she’d fared any better at all by sampling the ‘other’ side. Their objective might be different than the assholes back in Greenville, but the results were the same—except it came with a higher price tag and more baggage if they’d been successful—any of them. If she wasn’t pregnant, she’d sure as hell missed her chance! It didn’t particularly bother her that, if that was the case, she was going to have a hell of a time figuring out which one of them had been successful since she’d slept with all three in such quick succession. It would be hers. That was all that mattered, and, moreover, she couldn’t be in any doubt that she cared for the father when she was crazy about all three. It wasn’t possible to fail in that objective unless she just couldn’t get pregnant at all, which would be the ultimate irony! She hadn’t found even one who loved her, though! All she’d managed to do was to find three who were perfectly willing to fight each other to the death to be the one to get her pregnant! She’d actually considered that to be two until Constantine and Luke decided to rain on Caleb’s parade and brought out all of his territorialism.

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Chapter Twelve It looked like an army advancing on Caleb’s ‘castle’ from the rear—because it was an army even if it was a small one. A half dozen of Constantine’s followers were trailing him as he rounded from the front of the manor. At least twice that many lycans emerged from the darkened forest the manor backed up to. Standing on the balcony, Bronwyn watched their advance in trepidation. There was no relief that Constantine and Luke didn’t seem to have any interest in each other at the moment. She knew if they succeeded in defeating Caleb, they would turn on each other. She hadn’t understood why Caleb had decided to dine on the balcony since they hadn’t done so before. Now she knew why. He’d known they were coming and he’d wanted to be certain that they saw her dining with him when they did. She sent him a reproachful look. “I don’t understand you, Caleb. Why would you want to provoke them when you don’t care anything about me?” He studied her from beneath hooded lids. “Don’t be absurd. Of course I do, my love. You’re my mate.” “You bred me,” she said tightly. “Most species at least mate long enough to rear their young!” She stopped abruptly when she saw his lips tighten with anger. “I am Raja.” She sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I know. You explained it and I understand. I even understand the urge to guard your territory until you’re sure you’ve succeeded, but you have … if it was at all possible. I’m sure I’m beyond my fertile period, or pregnant already. You don’t need to do this … whatever it is you have in mind. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” He shrugged. “They’ve trespassed into my territory,” he said flatly. “I forgave it once and allowed them to leave unharmed—for you.” She moved toward him on impulse. “I know you don’t understand, but I care about them. Just let me leave and there won’t be any need for any sort of fight.” His expression, if possible, grew harder. “If you wanted me to spare them, my love, you would’ve been far better off to convince me you didn’t care about them.” She looked up at him distress. “I don’t want anyone to be hurt, and I especially don’t want the father of my child hurt.” Something flickered in his eyes that time and, for a moment, she thought he’d see reason. “You should go inside, then, my love. In fact, I insist. The cub will be fragile now. You must protect it by protecting yourself.” The urge to weep assailed her abruptly. It was so easy for him to throw out love words that didn’t mean anything at all—not to him. Ordinarily, she forgave him for it, knowing it was just his flamboyant personality, and perhaps a bit of wry humor that prompted it. “Don’t! Don’t call me your love when you don’t care anything about me!” she said stabbing a finger at her chest. She whirled to look at Constantine and Luke. “I’m a person, damn it! No one

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seems to see me as a person! I’m nothing but the prophesy to all of you! The vessel you’re supposed to deposit your seed in! Well! You’ve done that! Go away and leave me alone!” she shouted at them. She dashed inside then, slamming the French doors so hard the windows shattered. Guilt slashed at her briefly, but she didn’t stop. She rushed into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, sliding down with her back against the door. For several moments, there was dead silence and then the world seemed to explode. Beyond the stained glass window she could see light—balls of fire. Thunder ripped through the sky and the window shattered and then, as abruptly as it had begun, the energy released through magic ceased and snarls and growls and meaty thuds of physical battle took the place of the magic. Bronwyn covered her ears. She couldn’t bear to think what might be happening outside and yet her imagination was her worst enemy. Blood filled her mind’s eye when she closed her eyes to try to shut herself away from the violence. The battle between the lycans the night Luke had taken her had never left her mind and the horrors she’d seen as they tore and slashed at each other rose instantly to fill her mind. The urge to leap up and rush outside to try to stop them clashed with an equal need to get as far away from it as she possibly could. “Oh Nanna!” she sobbed. “Why did you send me here? Why?” She dropped her arms into her lap, staring at the marking that had set it all in motion and wished for perhaps the hundredth time that she’d cut it away. She’d always hated it. She’d tried to pretend she was more content to have it when her grandmother had ‘prettied’ it up with the tattoo, but she hadn’t been. She just hadn’t wanted to make Nanna feel unappreciated. Sobbing now, she covered it with her left hand, wishing Nanna had just made it go away like she’d begged her to. “I found love, Nanna,” she said, a hitch in her voice, “and now they’re trying to kill each other. Tell me what to do. Please?” A strange prickling sensation washed over her. Almost the moment it passed, an image of her grandmother’s face formed in her mind. She looked sad, so sad. I misled you, honey. I hope, in time, you’ll forgive me for it, but it was the only way. You’d been hurt so badly by the bastards around here that pass for men, I knew you’d never do what you had to do unless you believed your little girl’s dreams would come true. You couldn’t attain your gifts, though, unless you chose this path and you have too much potential to throw that away. These men who were your destiny—these beings of the paranormal world—they aren’t the sort to settle down with a woman and raise children. It isn’t in them to be chained that way, but you may be certain that only he who cares for you will have begotten a child on you. I made sure of that—that the child would be conceived in love—or not at all. That was necessary for him to achieve his destiny. It’s time to go home—where you belong. You may be hurt, but you know in your heart that you weren’t meant for those girlish fantasies. You’re a loner, just as I was, just as the men you’ve come to love are. She smiled. That doesn’t mean you must always be alone. Trust me, they may roam, but you have their love just as you do the child. They’ll always come back to you. I couldn’t have wished for better lovers for you! Go home, honey. As the babes grow, so will your powers. The time has come for you to come into them. You’ll find my book of spells in the garden. You know where to

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look. I just wish I’d lived long enough to see the day. Bronwyn squeezed her eyes tightly, trying to hold on to the fading memory. “Don’t go, Nanna! Not yet. There’s so much you never told me. So much I don’t understand.” She wept harder when she couldn’t summon the image or the words back to her, realizing finally that her grandmother hadn’t visited her at all. She’d placed all of it in the spell she’d woven so long ago. Sniffing, Bronwyn got up and washed her face and blew her nose. It was quiet outside when she left the bedroom—deadly quiet. She paused in the middle of the room. She didn’t want to know, she decided, and yet she couldn’t prevent herself from crossing the room to the balcony and looking out at the hell the men she loved had wrought. Her heart leapt with gladness that she had. They’d beaten one another to a bloody mess—and stopped to rest—no doubt with the intention of starting over as soon as they caught their second wind. She released an irritated breath. “I have what I came for!” she announced loudly enough to make certain they heard. “Fight if you want to, but I’m going home.” All three of them tipped their heads back and stared up at her as if she’d grown another head. Turning her back on them, she marched across the balcony and left the room. The car she’d stolen had vanished, but she discovered more cars at the gate. When she’d climbed the fence, she checked them until she found one with keys and took it. She was almost surprised that no one tried to stop her, but she was too relieved to worry about it. She’d fulfilled her destiny, she realized when she’d finally found her way back to her apartment, feeling almost dizzy with excitement when that finally occurred to her. She didn’t have to check to see if she was pregnant. Nanna’s last words had clearly been intended to come to her when the time was right. And she’d said babies—not baby! That did make her feel faint, but deliriously happy at the same time. Babies! Conceived in love! She only packed the important things. Truthfully, there was very little that needed to be packed at all. She’d never really unpacked and it didn’t take long to load everything into her car. Unfortunately, she was in such a rush to escape before the guys recovered enough to come after her, she left the one she’d ‘borrowed’ at the curb in front of the apartment building. Three dark sedans had surrounded her car and the one she’d ‘borrowed’ by the time she made it downstairs with the last of her treasures. Men in dark suits piled out of them as she reached the sidewalk and converged on her. They had FBI written all over them—not literally but in every other sense—but her first thought/fear was that she’d stumbled on yet another group of paranormals that had the idea that she was their ‘promised one’. She was almost relieved to discover they weren’t, that they actually were FBI. Until they took her to jail—well, downtown. She’d chewed all of her fingernails down to the quick by the time integrators

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joined her in the small room they deposited her in upon her arrival. “Am I under arrest?” she asked weakly as soon as the four stony faced men settled in chairs around table in the center of the room. “Why do you ask? Have you done something?” one of the men asked sharply. Bronwyn blinked at him, trying to remember his name—Reilly! Detective Reilly and the guy in the crumpled suit with a mustard stain on the lapel of his jacket was his partner, Brown. The two in the expensive suits were FBI, but she couldn’t remember their names. “I’m guessing you must at least think you have some reason to bring me here. If you don’t know, I certainly don’t, and I’d just as soon not stay.” One of the FBI agents spoke. “We’re investigating a gang.” Bronwyn stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. “More specifically, we’re investigating murders we think might be gang related,” the other FBI agent said. As luck would have it, Bronwyn’s mind instantly leapt to the poor man that had lost his head. She could feel her face turn white and she didn’t hold out much hope that they hadn’t noticed. “Murder?” she gasped weakly. “Somebody was murdered?” Brown consulted a file—as if he couldn’t remember the poor guy’s name without looking it up. How was that for caring? “Bill Duncan. His decapitated body was found near the cemetery. There was another male, unidentified, whose body was stolen from the morgue that was killed in the same gang … uh … killing.” The first man who’d spoken glared at him but Bronwyn was only vaguely aware of the exchange. Her imagination had gone wild the moment they’d brought up the battle near, and in, the cemetery the night Luke had snatched her. There’d been a body in the cemetery? Whose, she wondered? It occurred to her after a few moments that they might be talking about Marco. She hadn’t seen what happened after she’d left them preparing for battle, but she had seen Marco with Constantine later. He was the only possibility that came to mind, though. Luke certainly hadn’t been the body and since the fight seemed to have been between him and Marco, that only left Marco. Besides, he was the only one she knew who’d been there who might be mistaken for a corpse who would’ve been able to get up and leave. She didn’t believe any of them had stolen an actual corpse from the morgue. What would be the point of that? Well, she could see the point since they were paranormal, but she was still sure it must have been Marco. Luke’s ‘gang’ had been with him. If any of them had been killed they would’ve taken the body with them and she was sure she would’ve overheard them talking about it anyway. Poor man! It must have traumatic to wake up in the morgue. “What do you know about it?” one of the FBI agents asked. “Why would I know about it?” she hedged. “You don’t read the papers?” “It was in the newspaper?” she gasped, horrified. “We have reason to suspect that you may have gang ties.” She blinked at the FBI agent several times, trying to change tracks. “Why?” “The car parked in front of your apartment building belongs to one of the

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members of the gang we’re investigating.” “Which car?” The four men looked at one another. “Do you or do you not know Luke Gray Wolf?” Bronwyn felt her color fluctuate several times in quick succession. “That sounds like an Indian name—I mean Native American.” “That wasn’t the question.” “What was the question?” “Do you know him?” Bronwyn considered it. In the biblical sense, definitely, but she didn’t think they had any idea she and Luke had been playing hide the salami for nearly a week and, really, she couldn’t say she knew him. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “What about Caleb Westmoreland?” “That name rings a bell,” she said cautiously, wondering if they’d seen her leave his place. “Why do you ask?” “There might be a tie.” “With the Indian … I mean Native American gang?” “Who said it was a Native American gang?” “You mean it isn’t?” The four men exchanged another long look and apparently decided to try another tact. “We believe you may be in danger.” Bronwyn blinked at them. “Why would I be in danger?” “Because of your ties to the Native American gang!” Brown bellowed impatiently, slamming his palm on the table in front of him. Bronwyn jumped. “I thought you said it wasn’t a Native American gang?” “He was at your apartment. Why would he have gone there if he didn’t know you?” “Luke Gray Wolf was at my apartment?” “Westmoreland.” “What was he doing at my apartment?” she asked curiously before she suddenly recalled he’d told her he’d been to her apartment looking for her. “We don’t know. We were hoping you could answer that question.” Bronwyn stared at the man. “But, you’re the police! If you don’t know how do you expect me to know?” The four men stared at her for a few minutes and finally got up and filed out of the room. Bronwyn settled to trying find more nail she could bite off. That time they left her waiting over an hour. The two FBI agents returned without the detectives and settled in the chairs. “Let’s try this again, shall we?” “Let’s not. If I’m not under arrest, you can’t hold me!” “We’d appreciate your cooperation, Ms. Williams.” “I would appreciate being released!” “So … you’re refusing to cooperate?” Bronwyn stared at him indignantly. “Exactly how do you consider that I’m not cooperating? I’ve been sitting here for nearly two hours! I could’ve been home by now!”

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The man frowned. “Now that you mention it, it’s an odd time of the night to decide to move. May I ask why you decided to move?” “I don’t see how that’s any of your business or what the time of day, or night, has to do with anything,” Bronwyn said crossly. “Most people don’t load up their car in the middle of the night to move.” “Well, obviously, some people do and I happened to feel like moving.” “Why did you feel like moving in the middle of the night?” “Why do you keep mentioning that it’s the middle of the night—as if a person can’t move at night! It isn’t against the law that I ever heard.” “You must have had a powerful reason to move at night.” “How did you arrive at that, Sherlock? I’m free, single … and pregnant! I can move any damned time of the day or night I want to and I was in the mood to move!” The man studied her. “Who’s the father?” The question sent a jolt through her. She felt her face redden. “Actually, I’m not sure … uh … what that has to do with you.” “Is it a secret?” She glared at him. “No! It’s a damned mystery! It’s called, ‘I screwed several guys’ and I thought I’d go home and see if I could figure out which one knocked me up!” The FBI agent reddened that time. “One of them wouldn’t have happened be named Luke Gray Wolf?” She frowned uneasily. “Now that you mention it, he was a little dark skinned.” The man studied her for several unnerving moments. “If you feel like your life might be in danger, Ms. Williams, we can put you in protective custody.” “If that’s a synonym for jail, no thank you, but thank you for offering!” “You wouldn’t be in jail. We could move you to a safe house and you’d have around the clock protection.” “That actually sounds a lot like jail. Anyway, I’m not in danger. I’m tired and I have to pee.” Both men reddened that time. One nodded to the other and he got up and moved to the door. She was escorted to the damned bathroom by a female cop. “More comfortable now?” the FBI agent asked when she was escorted back. “Oh! Wonderfully! Thank you for asking. Can I go now?” “Just a few more questions.” Three hours later Bronwyn stopped even trying to volley questions. She got up, looked the floor over, found a spot near one wall, and lay down. The female cop came in and made her get up. “I want a lawyer!” “Why? You aren’t under arrest,” the FBI asshole said. “Then I’m leaving! Get the fuck out of my way!” They stopped her at the door. “Bronwyn Williams, we’re taking you into protective custody.” “Fuck you very much! I’m going to call a lawyer as soon as I find a phone and I’m going to file charges and talk to the newspaper and raise all manner of hell!” She was so tired when they escorted her out of the police station all she wanted to do was curl up somewhere, anywhere, and sleep. As she was being shoved—‘helped’— into the black sedan, though, she caught a glimpse of a man near the corner that looked

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vaguely familiar. It wasn’t until the FBI drove past him that she remembered she’d seen him somewhere before. He was one of Luke’s pack members—she thought. Or maybe she’d seen him in at the club? **** The safe house Bronwyn woke in wasn’t a huge step above the apartment she’d rented. In fact, in a few ways it was worse. Hers didn’t have people walking around it carrying guns. She supposed she either wasn’t very important or the FBI weren’t as convinced that she was connected to the ‘gang’ they were after as they’d made out like they were. All she had was a female FBI agent inside and a male on the outside. They couldn’t have been doing much investigating into Luke’s business partners or they wouldn’t have thought a skinny teenage girl and wormy guy would be much help to her. Then again, maybe she was their bait and the grown-up FBI agents were hidden on the rooftops nearby? She still couldn’t figure out how they’d gotten the impression Luke was in some sort of organized crime gang and she certainly couldn’t understand how they’d pulled Caleb in to him. Boy was he going to be pissed off! He didn’t like attention, not that kind of attention. If there was one thing she’d learned about Caleb, he was extremely particular about his privacy. Of course the entire thing was ridiculous! She didn’t believe for one minute that either of them were mixed up in anything illegal! The cops had to have jumped to the conclusion that Caleb was involved for no other reason than the fact that he’d been around her apartment right after she’d been ‘rescued’. They’d put that together with his wealth and power and decided he couldn’t possibly have gotten so wealthy in an honest way. It wasn’t even Luke’s pack that had killed the poor man! It had been Tommy Two Something. She distinctly recalled overhearing Luke and the others talking about it. Unless they’d known she was listening, and she supposed they might have, why would they say it was the alpha of another pack? She supposed Luke might not have wanted her to know that the beast man that had attacked her and Duncan had been one of his pack members, but then again, if he had been Luke wouldn’t have fought him for her, would he? If he’d been one of Luke’s pack brothers he would have been grabbing her for Luke. She discovered when she finally unbent sufficiently to ask the female agent where her belongings were that the damned cops had them. That made her so angry that she didn’t speak to the woman at all after that. Instead, she shut herself into the bedroom and spent the day staring out the window and trying to figure out how she could scrape the cops and FBI loose and go home. Not that they had anything they could charge her with! She hadn’t done anything criminal and neither Luke nor Caleb had, so they couldn’t even charge her with associating with criminals. She knew damned well that taking her into protective custody hadn’t been anything but a ruse to hold her while they looked for something they could use as evidence against one of them.

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She wasn’t particularly worried about it. It did worry her, though, that they might be using her to bait a trap. She had a bad feeling that if any of the guys, including Constantine, knew where she was that they’d be all over the ‘safe house’. As the hours ticked by, though, she began to think that was less and less likely. She realized she’d been waiting and hoping that they would rescue her because she had no idea how to extricate herself from the mess she’d found herself in. The FBI and the cops had completely ignored her when she’d demanded her right to see a lawyer and when she’d demanded to be released. She couldn’t overpower them and she hadn’t discovered any way to sneak out of the apartment. If it hadn’t been on the third floor she might’ve considered trying to climb out a window, but one look at the view was enough to convince her that that wasn’t a possibility. Besides, simply escaping probably wouldn’t fix the problem. They knew who she was. They’d probably just track her down if she headed home, particularly since she’d told them that was where she meant to go. She was picking at the food they’d brought her around dark when she heard a sound outside her window that caught her attention. Moving to the window, she opened the blinds. Constantine was hovering in the air directly outside and a surge of excitement and relief went through her. She almost called out to him before she realized that the agent in the other room would probably hear her. Instead, she very carefully and quietly raised the blinds and then looked for a way to open the window. She discovered after struggling with it for several moments that it had been painted shut. “I can’t open it,” she said on a breath of sound, her ears pricked for any indication that the agent in the other room might’ve heard her. “Invite me in.” Bronwyn blinked at him. “But it isn’t my house …. Please come in.” He motioned her away from the window. She studied him doubtfully. “There’s an FBI agent in the next room,” she mouthed at him then put her finger to her lips to caution him to be quiet. She’d barely stepped away from the window when it shattered inward with the most ungodly racket she’d ever heard. Glass shards and pieces of the window hit the wall on the other side of the room. Screaming, she bounced up and down on the bed in shocked horror, wringing her hands. “My god, Constantine …!” She didn’t get anymore out. The door to her room burst open just as Constantine levitated through the window. The agent’s eyes rounded. “Halt right there or I’ll shoot!”

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Chapter Thirteen Constantine held out his arms in a gesture of surrender. The agent eased her stance, looked him up and down and discovered his feet weren’t on the floor, and snapped her gaze back to him. He fixed her with an intense look. Before he’d had time to fully mesmerize her, however, there was an explosion of sound from the other room and she whirled instinctively toward the threat behind her. When she did, Constantine rushed her, binding her with his arms from behind. Bronwyn let out a squeak in response to the sudden noise and chaos of activity and bounded off the bed. Luke and three other lycans bounded through the open door of the bedroom and Bronwyn stared at them in stunned disbelief, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Constantine and Luke seemed to be working together. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Luke growled, glaring at Constantine. “I might ask you the same question,” Constantine retorted dryly, “except I’m fairly certain I know.” He flung the agent bodily toward Luke then and leapt toward Bronwyn. One of Luke’s pack brothers beat him to her and was in the process of slinging her over his shoulder when Constantine plucked her away and sent the lycan sprawling. Luke grabbed Constantine’s shoulder and dragged him around to meet the fist of his other hand. Constantine went flying backward at the blow but Luke made a grab for her even as Constantine reacted to the blow, managed to snag her arm and jerked from Constantine’s grasp. Bronwyn’s head spun dizzily as he whirled and raced for the door with her over his shoulder, but she managed to lift her head to search for Constantine. He’d recovered and was struggling with the two lycans who’d entered the room with Luke. His face a mask of pure fury, he slung one of them off and lifted his hand toward her and Luke, but he caught her gaze just then and froze. It wasn’t until she heard him utter a howl frustration that it dawned on her how close he’d come to slamming both her and Luke with a burst of his powerful energy. She didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that the fear of hurting her had stopped him. Luke burst from the apartment with her. The agent who’d been standing guard outside was lying in the hallway. She caught a dizzying glimpse of him as Luke raced past him and saw to her relief that he seemed to still be breathing. Up and down the corridor, alerted by all the noise, several residents who’s nosiness had overcome their sense of self-preservation, opened their doors and peered out. They promptly slammed the doors again when they saw the gang of lycans charging along the corridor. Luke had made it to the elevator with her, where several of his men were holding the doors open, when the elevator beside it arrived. The moment the doors began to open, men wearing FBI vests burst out. Luke went into half-shift at the first sign of threat. The moment he did, his pack

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brothers also shifted. Several of the agents actually screamed. Either the shock of suddenly being confronted by beast men made their fingers jerk in reaction or they simply yielded to the instinct for self-preservation. They began firing. Luke whirled with her and ran the other way as his pack brothers closed ranks behind him. Slamming his free arm and shoulder into the door of the first apartment he came to, he took the door clean off its hinges. The occupants screamed and ran to hide but, with barely a glance at them, Luke charged to the nearest window. Covering Bronwyn with both hands, he leapt through it. Bronwyn screamed as the glass shattered around them and her stomach went weightless in flight. Luke’s hard landing on the fire escape across the alley cut her off with a grunt. He paused, staring down at the alley below them and finally charged up the fire escape with her when he saw police cars below. Bronwyn stared down at the ground bug-eyed as Luke charged up the metal stairs with her, wishing she could faint. Constantine met them on the roof. Tightening his already bruising grip on her, Luke uttered a snarling bellow and charged straight at him like a football player running the ball. At the last second, Constantine stepped out of the way. Caught of guard, Luke stumbled but managed to maintain his footing and kept going. Bronwyn caught a glimpse of Constantine right behind them as Luke ran across the roof, paused to check the distance to the next building and leapt, barreling through the window across from them. Constantine reached the window just as Luke plowed through the door barring his path on the other side. As abruptly as he’d appeared, he disappeared, almost as if he’d been snatched backwards through the window. Bronwyn gaped at the empty window blankly, trying to wrap her mind around it, but she was too shocked for her brain to produce any sort of explanation. Without any regard for the fact that he was leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Luke raced down the corridor on the other side of the door and then barreled through the door leading to the stairs. Expecting him to go down, Bronwyn felt a wave of disorientation wash over her as he charged up the flight of stairs instead. She’d just managed to regain some sense of balance when he flattened the door at the top and bounded out onto the roof. Caleb was waiting for them. “I see you’ve retrieved my property,” he drawled. “Hand her over and I won’t be forced to kill you.” “That didn’t work out too well for you last time, did it?” Luke retorted, darting quick looks around in search of an escape. “I tell you what. Why don’t I just set Bronwyn down so she’ll be safe and then you and I can settle this?” Caleb studied him suspiciously but finally nodded. “Agreed. I will also concede the use of any magic to make things a little more interesting.” “You’re so gracious!” Luke growled sarcastically, carrying Bronwyn to the edge of the roof. He met her gaze almost apologetically when he’d set her on her feet. “Sorry, baby,” he murmured. “I’ll collect you in a bit.” Fear for both him and Caleb abruptly assailed her in spite of the fact that she was so shaken up already she could barely put two thoughts together. Before she could say

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anything, however, Luke scooped her up and dropped her over the side. She screamed, flailing her arms and legs. The hard jolt when she landed on something made her bite her tongue, but the short drop and hard halt was brief. She began to slide almost the instant she touched down. She clawed uselessly at the slick sides of the nearly tube like thing she’d landed on, her mind scrambling to identify it and the threat. It was a trash chute for construction, she realized as dust and dirt flew at her, choking her. There was some relief in that, but not much when she knew she was several stories up. Flailing her arms and legs, she finally managed to orient herself and wedge her shoes against the sides of the chute. She thought for several moments that the friction was going to set her shoes on fire, but she began to slow her descent. She slowed a lot more when she began to bump over the debris cluttered here and there near the bottom, collecting bruises and scratches, but she managed to stop herself before she landed in the back of the truck where the chute ended. Thoroughly shaken by her experience, she lay panting for breath for several moments, trying to keep from having a heart attack, struggling to gather some strength into her jellified limbs. When she decided she might have enough strength to climb up, she stood up shakily and peered around the area. She could see the flashing lights of police cars down the block. When she lifted her head, she could hear noises indicating Caleb and Luke’s fight was in full force. Anger washed through her abruptly. Crazy damned paranormals! She wasn’t a damned immortal! But did they think about that? No! They were too busy trying to kill each other over their territory—her pussy!—to consider they might break their play-pretty fighting over it! Alright, so she was obliged to admit that they’d actually been amazingly careful with her considering they didn’t have to worry about broken bones and such. Constantine could’ve grabbed her from Luke if he’d been willing to unleash the full brunt of his powers, but he’d held back, she knew, because of her. She hoped he was alright. She had a bad feeling Caleb had something to do with him abruptly vanishing from the melee. Shaking her thoughts off, she peered through the shadows for a way down and after a struggle managed to climb out of the chute and down the side of the truck. Brushing at herself and her clothing to try to get rid of as much of the dirt and grime she’d collected from the ride down as she could, she looked around and finally started walking away from the scene. She’d lost her purse, she discovered in dismay, when she finally managed to hail a cab, but she discovered a roll of bills in the pocket of her jeans. She didn’t even remember putting it there, but it turned out to be what she needed to pay the cab fare and buy a ticket home. She was halfway back to Greenville before it occurred to her that she had nowhere to go. She’d sold the boarding house! She shook the unnerving thought off. Nanna had told her to. She had to trust that Nanna had had a plan that would be revealed to her when she got there. It was around two in the morning when the bus finally dropped her at the deserted bus stop in Greenville. The idea of spending the rest of the night on one of the hard benches didn’t appeal to her, so she walked to her boarding house. It was no surprise to find it dark, but

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it was a surprise to discover that the door opened as soon as she turned the knob. Shrugging, feeling almost as if the house was welcoming her back, she went in. The owner, she figured, had taken up residence in her and her grandmother’s apartment, so she crept down the hall to one of the rooms they leased to short term or over night guests and, finding it, too, was unlocked went in and showered, then climbed in the bed and dropped to sleep. She slept half the following day, but she felt better when she woke up than she had in ages, excited, filled with anticipation. She discovered there was a for sale sign in front of the boarding house when she’d checked the house from top to bottom and discovered it was completely vacant. Chuckling with delight, she examined the sign for the name of the realtor and then headed back into town to buy her boarding house back, stopping first at the bank. It was one of the few times she had reason to be glad she lived in such a small town that everyone knew everyone. Despite the fact that she’d lost all of her identification, she didn’t have a problem. They didn’t even ask for her ID. When she’d checked her account balance, ordered new checks, and gotten a little cash and a few counter checks, she left to walk to the realtor. She was in luck. The guy who’d bought the boarding house from her had been trying to sell it ever since and hadn’t found a buyer. She bought it back for less than he’d pay her for it and still had a tidy nest egg. The realtor, Carol, a woman she’d gone to school with, filled her in on all the local gossip while she typed up the sale papers and alternated with trying to pump her for information as to why she’d returned. She smiled at Carol brightly. “Oh, I’m not a city girl. I just wasn’t happy there. I only went to get knocked up, anyway.” The realtor nearly fell out of her chair. Bronwyn thought for several moments that she might swallow her tongue. She waited in horrified expectation but, to her disappointment, Carol recovered. “You’re pregnant?” She patted her flat stomach proudly. “Yes, I am!” “Well … uh …You got married?” Bronwyn grinned. “No, I didn’t! I mean, as Nanna used to say, why buy the pig if you can get the sausage whenever you like?” Carol nearly passed out in horror at that. Bronwyn was actually surprised she didn’t cross herself and try warding her off with a crucifix. She finished the paperwork in record time, her hands shaking so badly with the need to rush off and tell everyone that she could hardly finish. It was like a drug to these people, Bronwyn thought with disgust as she left the office and headed home. She supposed she shouldn’t have been quite so blunt, but it wasn’t as if it would be her little secret long. In point of fact, she had no intention of behaving as if she had a dirty little secret to hide! The neighbors could have apoplexy over it as far as she was concerned. The boarding house had a musty closed up smell she hadn’t noticed the night before—small wonder when she’d been so exhausted. She wasn’t surprised, though, given what Carol had told her. Apparently the man who’d bought it had turned out her long term tenants as soon as the ink was dry on the paper—the lying bastard—expecting to make a go of it was a bed and breakfast. Hoping some of her previous tenants might come back, she took the sign stating that she had rooms for rent and planted it near the

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curb in place of the for sale sign. Wondering if the jerk had also thrown out the furniture and belongings he’d offered to store for her in the shed out back, she went around the house to check to see if she had anything left to her name and discovered with an uplifting of her spirits that everything was just as she’d left it. At least she wouldn’t be naked! It was disheartening that she’d lost her favorite things, especially the few mementoes she’d taken with her, but she tried to put it from her mind for the time being with the reflection that she might still be able to get them back. And she might not. She didn’t know what the damned police had done with her car and her belongings, but she wasn’t keen to contact them and find out after the war that had been waged the night before. More than half expecting the police and the FBI to show up at her door any time, she decided to dismiss that, too, deciding to deal with it when and if she had to. By rights, she shouldn’t have a problem but they hadn’t worried about trampling her rights when they’d taken her into custody! When she’d carried her boxes in, she left them in her own apartment and focused on tidying up the rental rooms. Fortunately, the place had been thoroughly cleaned when it had gone up for sale. The man who’d bought it had even had everything freshly painted! All she really had to do was air the rooms and do a little dusting and mopping. Even so, it was a very large old house and it was full dark by the time she’d finished and trudged downstairs again. She hadn’t stopped to buy any food. Since her cupboards were bare, she headed into town to eat at the diner. Everyone was chattering ninety miles an hour when she arrived. There was a pointed, very noticeable silence when she entered and then everyone began to talk about someone else that wasn’t there. Ignoring it, Bronwyn took a booth and settled to studying the menu. She was still studying it, pretending she had no idea the waitress was deliberately snubbing her when she heard the roar of a motorcycle engine outside. It was an unusual enough event to attract even Bronwyn’s attention. She lowered her menu to stare. Her heart flipped over when she saw the tall, dark skinned man that climbed off the bike and removed his helmet, allowing his long, black, loose flowing hair to settle around his broad shoulders. There was a collective gasp inside the diner since everyone was staring at him, and then mutterings about the Indian, which cut off instantly when the bell over the door chimed as he entered. He glanced around the diner, caught her gaze, and strode purposefully to her table, sliding in opposite her. His expression was hard with anger. “That was a hell of a goodbye,” he said tightly. Bronwyn blinked at him, trying to decide what to say. A touch of indignation flickered through her considering he’d dumped her down a trash chute, but it was hard to maintain her own righteous indignation in the face of his anger. The waitress finally remembered she had that table to wait and zoomed in, smiling at Luke brightly. “What can I get you folks?” Luke glanced at her irritably and grabbed a menu. “What’re you having, baby?” Bronwyn reddened at the look the woman sent her. “I thought I’d have the roast beef special.” “Make that two.” “And to drink?”

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“Sweet tea,” they both replied in unison. Settling back in his seat when the waitress left, Luke draped an arm across the back and studied her broodingly. “Did you have a nice drive?” Bronwyn asked politely when she gave up on trying to think of anything else to say. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Gods damn it, baby! I don’t want to talk about the fucking drive down!” She gave him a reproving look. “Well we aren’t going to discuss anything else where every gossip in town can twitter over it!” she said quietly. Luke sat up and turned to survey the diner. Everyone who’d been staring at him immediately gazed off in to the distance as if they’d discovered something fascinating outside that they hadn’t seen a hundred times a day. To her horror, when Bronwyn glanced out to see what had caught everyone’s attention, she saw Constantine’s limo pull up and park in two parking places. Marco got out of the driver’s door, walked around and opened the rear door and Constantine stepped out—as immaculate as ever. Luke was scowling fiercely when she glanced at him. “What the fuck is he doing here!” Bronwyn closed her eyes, trying to brace herself for an embarrassing and possibly violent scene as Constantine strode purposefully toward the diner and stepped inside. He was standing by the table looking down at her when she opened her eyes. “May I?” Oh! That was such a bad idea! She scooted over anyway and Constantine, after examining the seat of the booth critically, settled in the spot she’d vacated. He stared at Luke coldly for a long moment. “You’re looking as cheerful as ever, I see.” Luke made a rude noise. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. What the fuck are you doing here anyway?” “Bronwyn’s here,” he said coolly. “Why are you here?” “You know damned well why I’m here!” Luke growled. “I have unfinished business.” “Curious. So have I.” Bronwyn sighed. The waitress returned, smiling at Constantine. “What can I get you?” “Sanitizer?” She stared at him blankly. He glanced at Bronwyn when she kicked him under the table. “I don’t suppose you have wine?” “We’ve got beer.” Constantine’s nostrils quivered. “Steak?” “Yes, sir.” “Rare—very rare.” “And to drink?” “Whatever they’re having.” The waitress left again. “I wonder if we should wait to see if the Raja arrives,” he said dryly when the waitress had left.

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“Don’t fucking tell me he’s coming, too?” Luke growled irritably. Constantine merely shrugged. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I haven’t a clue.” “Look! I was here first. Why don’t you just take your ass back to the city and try another weekend?” “I don’t think so,” Constantine said coolly. “I would’ve been here first if someone hadn’t flattened all four of my tires. I don’t suppose you have any notion who might have vandalized my vehicle?” Luke grinned at him provokingly. “Not a clue.” “That’s what I thought.” Bronwyn discovered she was developing a headache. As thrilled as she might otherwise have been to see both of them—after all, she reasoned, didn’t it have to mean something that they’d both came so far to see her?—she wasn’t at all happy that they’d both arrived at the same time, and directly after she’d left. Clearly, they were both still battle ready and pissed off with her besides. She was relieved when their dinner arrived and hopeful it would distract them enough, and maybe appease them enough, that they could get out of the diner without incident. That hope faded when the revving of a sports car engine caught her attention and she glanced outside to see Caleb pulling into the parking lot. “Uh oh.” Constantine’s expression hardened as Caleb pushed the door open, glanced around the diner, and then strolled toward them. After studying the seating arrangements for a moment, he looked around, grabbed a chair from a nearby table and settled at the end. “I would’ve been her sooner, my love,” he murmured, addressing Bronwyn as if she was alone, “but I business to attend.” “Well, I’m damned if I know why you’re here at all!” Luke snarled. “I never like to agree with him, but he has a point. This is a good deal outside of your territory, Raja.” Caleb glanced from one to the other and shrugged. “My territory moved south.” Bronwyn reddened with irritation. The waitress was back, smiling at Caleb broadly. “Would you like to order something?” Caleb looked her over, scanned the diner, and bared his teeth at her. “Anything but ptomaine.” The waitress frowned. “We don’t have any of that, sir. The special tonight is roast beef.” Bronwyn strangled on her tea. “The roast beef special’s good,” she said in a choked voice. “As long you recommend it, my love—I’ll have that.” He dismissed the waitress, flicking a glance at Constantine and then Luke. “Speaking of territory ….” “What are you having to drink?” “Tea!” Bronwyn volunteered for him when Caleb sent her a narrow eyed look. The waitress left. Bronwyn set her fork down and massaged her temples. Constantine draped an arm across her shoulders. “You’re not feeling unwell, my dear?” “Why would I feel unwell,” Bronwyn asked irritably, “just because I was dragged

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all over hell and creation? That seemed to go right over their heads. “Morning sickness?” Luke prompted. She sent him a sour look. “It’s night time!” He flushed. “You know what I mean!” “Yes, and so does every-damned-body else within hearing distance!” she hissed at him. Luke shifted uncomfortably and glanced around the restaurant. “It’s not like it would be a secret long around this kind of place,” he muttered. “What the hell were you thinking to come back here anyway?” Bronwyn sighed, struggling with the food she’d ordered even though her stomach was now tied in knots. “It’s my hometown. Anyway, Nanna said it was time for me to come back.” “I might’ve known that old …,” Constantine said tightly and then stumbled to a halt at the look Bronwyn sent him, “uh … darling had something to do with this!” “Just like that?” Luke demanded indignantly. Bronwyn set her silverware down. “I’m not going to discuss this here!” she said determinedly. “If you three are just determined to discuss it, you can come to my place—and we’ll talk.”

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Chapter Fourteen Bronwyn was a nervous wreck by the time she reached her house. She’d walked, refusing to get on the back of Luke’s bike or into the limo or the sports car. Truthfully, she would’ve preferred having a tooth pulled to having to try to discuss anything with them, but she saw no way to avoid it when they’d all driven down from the city. The forlorn hope she’d entertained that any or all of them would just decide to head back was dashed when all three vehicles followed her as she stalked home. She waited until they’d parked and gotten out and then marched up the stairs to the porch and unlocked the door. Leaving it ajar, she headed down the hallway to her private apartment and unlocked that door. She didn’t hear them follow her in, but then they were supernatural beings. They could move with unnerving speed and silence. She discovered they hadn’t followed her. Wondering if they’d decided not to come in after all, she went back out and discovered that the three of them were standing at the foot of the steps. “I thought y’all were going to come in?” The three men exchanged a look she found hard to decipher. “There’s a protection spell on the house,” Constantine said dryly. “We can’t enter.” Bronwyn gaped at him blankly and then looked at Caleb. For once he didn’t look amused. “Don’t look at me, sweety. I’ve got nothing to do with it. I thought you had placed it.” Bronwyn blinked at him. “Me? I can’t wield magic!” The three exchanged another look. “You can’t remove it then?” Luke demanded. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know how.” “You’ll have to come out to talk then,” Constantine said, an edge to his voice. Bronwyn took a step toward the edge of the porch and halted. “Uh … you really can’t come in? Any of you?” A gleam entered Caleb’s eyes, but she didn’t think it was amusement. She knew neither Luke or Constantine were amused. “Don’t even think about it, baby!” Luke growled, then added in a slightly more placating tone. “You said you were willing to talk.” “Well … I am. I guess we need to, but we can talk here. Right?” She settled on the porch and set her feet on the step below her. “It’s really nice out tonight.” Luke glared at her for a long moment and stalked toward his motorcycle. Bronwyn watched him leave in dismay, swallowing against a hard knot of emotion that rose in her throat. The impulse to go after him was so strong she almost stood up and did just that. Fortunately, the moment she did, she noticed Caleb tense. She sat down again. “She isn’t going for it,” Constantine said dryly. Bronwyn glared at both of them, Luke for trying to lure her out and Caleb for getting ready to pounce. She released a deep breath, shaking her head. “You know I’m crazy about you—all of you. I could’ve fallen madly in love with any one of you if you’d given me half a chance. But not one of you have ever had my interests at heart.

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Not one of you have considered me in all of this. In your own way, you’re just as bad as the guys I grew up with who never cared anything about me at all. They just wanted to find out if the … uh … rumors about me were true. And you three—you were just interested in the prophesy.” Luke stared angrily into the distance for several moments and finally got off his bike and returned to stand with the others. “You went to the city because of the prophesy,” he said pointedly. She nodded. Lacing her fingers together, she placed them on her lap. “I’m a human,” she said earnestly, meeting each man’s gaze briefly. “All any of us really want in life—or at least most of us—is to have someone to love who’ll love us in return. It was what I wanted anyway, especially after Nanna died and I was alone. I don’t even have friends or close associates like you guys have.” She thought that over and looked at Caleb. “Well, you don’t really, but you don’t want them either. You don’t need companionship like I do. You don’t need anyone.” She stared down at her hands. “Nanna said I was a loner—like she was—like all of you are. I guess she was right in a sense. I’m very comfortable with being alone most of the time, but I still want and need some companionship and I really believe if things had turned out the way I’d expected that I would’ve gotten used to it and been happier with a companion than alone. That’s why I went. Nanna told me I’d know when the time was right because a stranger come and offer to buy the boarding house, and that I would find a man who loved me when I went to the city, a man I would love. He would know me by the markings I’d been born with—and this was the man who’s children I would bear. He would never hurt me or allow anyone else to hurt me. “So … I really didn’t go for the same reasons at all. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted children. I’ve always wanted them, but I thought I would find a companion to love who would love me. That’s why I went. The babies—they were just going to be an extension of my love. They weren’t the goal.” She frowned. “At least they weren’t my goal. Nanna said that was why she’d sent me, though, and it was time for me to come back home.” “Through the charm she’d placed on your wrist?” Constantine asked. She nodded. “The other night when you were all fighting over which prophesy I was supposed to fulfill and who was supposed to ‘own’ me. I was so upset, so afraid you’d end up killing each other. I guess she saw that, too. “I’m sorry. I know you all think that we have unfinished business, but the truth is that we don’t. None of us were ever anything but … players. The baby is the true prophesy. He will fulfill it when the time is right and then, I guess, we’ll all find out which of the prophesies will unfold. You’ve done your part. I’ve done mine, at least up to this point.” “Just like that?” Luke growled. “We mated, baby.” Bronwyn reddened. “You bred me, and he did, and he did—or at least you all had the chance to.” She wanted to think it had been more than that. She hoped to find out that they actually did care about her, at least a little, but in her heart she didn’t really believe it. “You were supposed to breed a child on me. Each of you had the chance to fulfill the prophesy of your own people.” “And now we are dismissed?” Caleb asked in a purring growl. Bronwyn sent him a startled look. “But … Caleb! You told me yourself that that

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was the way things worked with the Raja! The women … uh … Rajaeem came when they were ready to mate and then left again. I don’t see why you’d feel so insulted that I did the same.” “You aren’t Rajaeem,” he said coolly. She shrugged. “All the more reason, really. Nanna said it was time. She wouldn’t have done that after she’d planned everything out so carefully if I wasn’t already pregnant. I realized that. And now that I’ve had time to calculate everything, I know I’m pregnant.” “But we don’t know,” Constantine said tightly. She smiled at him in spite the chilly look he gave her. “Well, I never said that you aren’t perfectly welcome to check on the baby! You all know where I live. I’m not trying to be difficult or to shut any of you out. If you’re interested in the baby and want to visit, you’re welcome any time. I think it would be wonderful if you did. I always wished I’d had a father … or at least had gotten the chance to know him a little.” Constantine studied her thoughtfully. “There is nothing in the prophesy to say that we only get one chance to breed the one promised. If you’re pregnant now, it could be mine or belong to either of the others.” Bronwyn’s eyes widened. “You know you’re right! I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, that’s what it seems to say,” she added thoughtfully, but then she brightened, smiling at him. “I think you’re right! You wouldn’t each have a prophesy if it wasn’t supposed to happen, I don’t think.” Constantine closed his eyes as if pained. “I’m not all certain that I could … live with the solution you seem to be suggesting,” he said after a moment. “Ditto! I’m damned sure I’m going to have a problem with it,” Luke growled. “Make that three,” Caleb said coolly. Bronwyn sighed. “Well, it’s the best I can come up with!” she snapped crossly. “You know, it’s possible I’m not even the one you were all expecting. Maybe there’s someone else out there for you, that each of you can piss on and mark as your personal territory?” She got up and stalked into the house. “Good night,” she threw over her shoulder as she slammed the door and locked it decisively. She stood stock still until she heard the vehicles start up and then leave. Her shoulders slumped. They were basically demanding that she choose. She couldn’t blame them—in a way. Everyone wanted someone that was focused only on them—or at least thought they did. In their case, though, they weren’t promising her the same consideration they were demanding. Caleb’s people didn’t even mate for an entire season—well, she supposed they did since they stayed with one another until they’d bred—but it was a damned short season and obviously they never bred the same female twice or Caleb wouldn’t have had so much trouble remembering the females he’d bred! Luke’s, from what she’d discovered when she’d stayed with him, were pretty much the same—except they were perfectly willing to breed the same bitch over and over in the season—share her with their pack members and even mate again for several seasons in a row unless another female caught their eye. And Constantine—well, they were as cold as Caleb’s kind. She hadn’t been with them long, but they didn’t actually seem to make any sort of commitment to one another beyond sharing a blood bond. They didn’t breed so they

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didn’t even have that to hold them together. There wasn’t a one of them, in point of fact, who would consider themselves obliged to cleave only to her. They only wanted to mark her and stake their claim so that she would do the cleaving! She thought she would’ve been willing to with any one of them if she’d felt that they loved her—at least as much as they were capable of, but love was really a human condition and they weren’t human—any of them. The only result of yielding to their demands that she could see would be that she would end up heartbroken. Well, her heart was already battered enough. She was crazy enough about them as it was. She wasn’t going to allow them to take more of her heart, not when they couldn’t give her even a little piece of theirs! Of course Nanna had said the babes were conceived in love, but she wasn’t placing a lot of faith in that after Nanna had pulled such a dirty trick on her! Very likely Nanna had realized she would be ripe for their plucking, more needy even for affection than she had been for the sex, and that was her idea of them having been conceived in love! It occurred to her to wonder if she’d been even more manipulated than that. She supposed it was fairly commonplace for women to be ‘hotter’ during their fertile period. She knew she’d always had times when she was more susceptible—horny—and that had made her an easier target. If not for that, she didn’t think she would ever have had sex after what Johnny had done to her. Hopefulness that the guys she’d dated might actually be interested in her had been part of it, but her own needs had worked against her, too. Nevertheless, she wondered if there’d there been some kind of magic working against her when she’d met them that had contributed, not only to her falling for them so quickly and heavily, but that had made the sexual experience seem so fabulous. What better way, after all, to make her so very eager for them than to ensure that the experience blew her mind and left her raring for another round? Caleb was the only one who’d seemed to notice that she had any magic of her own. Even she didn’t know until her grandmother had told her. Maybe the prophesies hadn’t just been predictions? Maybe they were the result of some sort of enchantment from long ago? And maybe she was just looking for excuses? Maybe the sex with them had been fabulous because they were just that good? And/or because she was crazy about them? She couldn’t think of any possible motive for an enchantment like that. Meaning, it wasn’t likely to be something that was going to vanish like dust now that she’d done what she was intended to do. She’d put on a good show for them, though, she thought morosely. She’d managed to convince them that she was fine. Maybe, given time, she could convince herself. The babies would no doubt take up all of her time when they arrived, but she had months and months before that. What was she going to do with herself in the mean time? Puke her guts out, evidently. Morning sickness hit her with a vengeance when she woke the following day. After spending a miserable night tossing and turning and dreaming one awful dream after another where she wept and begged Constantine, and then Luke, and finally Caleb not to leave her and watched them turn their back on her and walk off, she woke feeling horrible and it only got worse. Already feeling vaguely ill, she gagged herself while she

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was brushing her teeth and spent the next half hour hovering over the toilet bowl. She felt so weak when she finally stopped retching, it was all she could do to drag herself back to the bed. She thought food might help her feelings, but she didn’t have anything in the house and she didn’t feel up to going shopping. She dozed off again. When she woke the second time, she felt a little better—still weak, but not as nauseated. Deciding she’d best make a dash to town for food while she still had the strength, she locked up and headed out. Luke leapt from the hedges that formed a privacy fence between her yard and the one next door before she could whirl around and race to the house again. Not she’d had the presence of mind to consider it. Nausea washed over her when he grabbed her roughly against his length. “Oh Luke!” she murmured in warning. “Don’t shake me! I’ll puke all over you!” His gaze was suspicious when he eased her away from him, but that disappeared and was replaced by concern when he saw her face. After glancing around, he helped her to sit down on the curb and then crouched in front of her, studying her face with concern. “That’s a really bad spot,” Bronwyn said warningly. “I’m fast. If you hurl, I can leap out of the way,” he said with a touch of amusement. “Baby, you look like shit!” “Thanks,” she said wryly, although her chin wobbled threateningly. “It needed only that.” “Hell! I didn’t mean it like that. You should be in bed. You look like you’re about to faint.” She sighed. “I feel like I’m about to faint. I was so sick this morning and I don’t have anything to eat in the house. I have to go grocery shopping.” He looked thoughtful. “Why don’t you go back in and lie down. I’ll do the shopping.” It was tempting. “You couldn’t bring them in.” “Fuck! I forgot. I can still get them and bring them here.” He studied it over and fixed her with a hard look. “You haven’t eaten today, have you?” She shook her head. “Nothing in the house—and I mean nothing.” “Why don’t I go get something for you that’s already cooked? Then you can eat a little something right away and I’ll go get groceries so that you’re stocked up for a little while?” She was so grateful for the suggestion she felt like crying. “I think if I just had something on my stomach I could manage to do the shopping,” she said tentatively. “We’ll worry about that later. What do you want me to get?” She was suddenly ravenous … and nauseated at the same time. “I don’t know what I could eat that would stay down,” she said plaintively. “Come on. We’ll take my wheels.” She didn’t even consider objecting. Thankfully, she discovered once he’d led her around the hedge that he’d driven a black van rather than the bike he’d come on before. She settled in the passenger seat when he’d helped her in and closed the door, curling up and laying her head against the window. He slid in beside her, grabbed her seatbelt and fastened it. When he’d backed out of the driveway, he glanced over at her. “Why don’t you use my shoulder to prop your head? It can’t be harder than that door.” “But the window’s here.”

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“So puke in my lap. I ain’t wearin’ nuthin’ that can’t be washed,” he said with a mixture of amusement and irritation. She decided to take him up on the offer after jouncing down the road for a little bit. There were enough potholes to make using the door as a headrest hazardous. He began to name off various foods. “We only have the diner and one fast-food joint.” “Greasy and worse. Which?” “I could get soup at the diner.” “Alright then.” He told the waitress to bring her a glass of water and crackers to nibble on while she was waiting for the soup. She began to feel a lot better just from munching on the crackers. By the time she’d eaten half the bowl of soup, she almost felt like a normal person. She decided not to push her luck, however. Luke eyed the bowl disapprovingly when she pushed it away. “You didn’t eat much.” “I don’t want to give my stomach too much ammunition.” “Good point.” When he’d paid the tab, he took her to the grocery store and pushed the buggy around for her. She was a little uncomfortable about it, especially since the few people they passed stared at both of them speculatively, but she was glad he’d been determined to take her. By the time they’d finished, she was feeling weak again. She grabbed a box of crackers and nibbled on them on the way back to her place. Luke carried the bags as close as the protection spell would allow him. He looked angry when he couldn’t go further, but he seemed to tamp his temper. “Thanks,” Bronwyn said when she’d gathered up one of the bags, smiling her appreciation. “I don’t know how I would’ve managed without you.” He nodded. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.” She was on the point of telling him she was sure she’d be alright, but she tamped the urge. “Ok.” His eyes sharpened on her face. “I’d kiss you if I could get my hands on you,” he muttered. She studied him for a moment and finally set the bag down and met him on the sidewalk. Triumph gleamed in his eyes, but he merely gathered her close, nuzzling his face against her neck and finally kissed her until she was so dizzy she had to brace her knees to stand when he let her go. “Go on in and lie down,” he said gruffly. He smacked her on the ass with the palm of his hand when she leaned over to pick up the bag. She jackknifed upright and whirled to look at him wide-eyed. Chuckling, he turned and headed back across her yard to the van he’d left parked in her drive. Shaking her head in bemusement, Bronwyn carried her groceries inside. She was a little disappointed when he didn’t redeem that promise, but she felt ill enough that was pretty much the focus of her attention and it didn’t allow a lot of room for worrying about anything else. Crackers and water were the mainstay of her diet. They seemed to calm the waters. Being too empty or too full resulted in disaster and she quickly developed the habit of nibbling. Luke, looking excruciatingly uncomfortable, arrived the next time she headed out for groceries. She didn’t reproach him—what would be the point?

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“I was … tied up or I’ve would’ve been here,” he growled after they’d driven to the grocery store in uncomfortable silence. “I’m not angry,” Bronwyn said tentatively. “I was disappointed, but I didn’t really expect it.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, looked like he wanted to say more and finally dismissed it. “I found a doctor,” he announced instead. Bronwyn was a little taken aback. “I don’t need a doctor.” He sucked in an irritated breath. “You do if you’re pregnant, and I’m guessing you are.” “Oh.” She thought it over. She really hated to mention it when he was already in a pissy mood, but …. “It isn’t a … veterinarian, is it?” His face darkened. “Gods damn it!” He stopped, wrestled with his temper a moment and started over. “That was different … never mind! I just figured you’d want to know for sure and if it happens to be mine, you know … well, a human doctor might not be such a great idea.” “Oh. Oh! I hadn’t thought of that!” Her stomach seemed to go weightless as it settled over her. “Oh my! I really hadn’t considered ….” She looked at him a little conscience stricken. “Don’t be angry with me. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just that I hadn’t considered it would only be half …. It’s so sweet and thoughtful of you!” “Then you’ll go?” She studied him unhappily as it dawned on her that, if it was his, there really wouldn’t be any reason for him to hang around anymore. He seemed to read her thoughts. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said gruffly, then grinned at her. “I’m gonna be harder to scrape loose than a tick.” Bronwyn uttered a snorting laugh that embarrassed her.

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Chapter Fifteen Bronwyn wouldn’t have seen him if she hadn’t glanced out her window on the way back from one her many trips to the bathroom. Her heart skipped several beats in fright before recognition dawned and then executed a little leap of excitement. She didn’t think twice. She rushed from her apartment and across the back porch. For a moment, she thought he’d either left or she’d simply imagined he was there, but he stepped from the shadows near her little potting shed as she opened the screen door. She hadn’t thought she would see him again and she battled her wayward emotions until she’d conquered the urge to cry before she went down the steps. He waited for her near the shed and she wondered if that was the limit of the protection spell and that was why he’d didn’t move to meet her. “Hello, ma belle,” he murmured when she neared him, his voice sounding strange. “Constantine?” she said a little uneasily. He stepped away from the shed and into the moonlight so that the beams gleamed in his pale hair. “You weren’t expecting me,” he said wryly. Bronwyn swallowed with an effort. “I thought it was you, but I hadn’t seen you since right after ….” He made a sound of disgust. “I’m not a day-walker,” he said bitterly. She stared at him in dismay as the implications settled in her. “You came before.” “Once or twice,” he said dryly. “I’d begun to think I’d have to resort to throwing pebbles at your window.” Her relief was so profound she had to cover her mouth with her fingertips to stifle the urge to giggle. “I’m so sorry! I never thought about …. I just thought ….” He grimaced. “The worse, no doubt encouraged by that hell spawned lycan.” Bronwyn tried to hide a smile. “He hasn’t said anything, really. And I wouldn’t believe him if he did.” “I would be amazed by his restraint … if he had any. I have to suppose he’s content enough to sabotage my limo at every turn.” “He didn’t! Oh! The tires.” “Among other things,” he said dryly. “Then again, what goes around comes around.” Bronwyn stared at him blankly. “He said he was tied up …?” Constantine grinned abruptly. “Did he?” “What did you do?” He tried for a look of innocence. “Me? I wouldn’t stoop so low as to attempt any of the juvenile pranks he seems so fond of. You should be forewarned that any get from that direction is bound to a troublemaker.” “And yours wouldn’t be, of course,” she said teasingly.

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He didn’t say anything for several moments. “I couldn’t begin to guess,” he said finally. “It isn’t likely that we’ll discover, though, is it?” “Why would you say that? I might have been more than a little drunk, but I distinctly remember the night we were together.” He grimaced. He seemed to wrestle with something and finally shook his head. “I’d actually hoped your memory wasn’t too clear on that. I was promised it wouldn’t be. I’m as certain as I want to be that it was the next thing to disastrous. I suppose it will sound like the lamest of excuses, but I’d never actually … performed without any use of my powers. I liken it to a mortal trying to jack-off with his hands tied behind his back.” Bronwyn blinked at him. “It was … the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me,” she said sincerely. Up until that point, she mentally amended, but then he certainly didn’t need to hear that! In any case, it was just as wonderful, in a completely different way, being with him as it had been with Luke or Caleb. His gaze flickered over her face assessingly. “You are wonderfully kind,” he said dryly. Bronwyn frowned doubtfully, wondering abruptly if it was his own prowess he was worried about at all or if he’d just thought it went badly because it hadn’t been that great for him. “It wasn’t good for you?” He released an impatient breath. “I’d almost forgotten that disconcerting habit you have of turning everything about and detecting insult when none was intended. I am only trying to discover if it was because I was so hopelessly inadequate as a lover that you didn’t come back to me. I researched, mind you, when I discovered that I was tied by your Nanna’s rules, but one cannot overcome such a handicap with only research. I am a true blood. I was never mortal and I have never experienced anything as a mortal.” “You researched?” she echoed blankly. “Certainly—although it maybe not have seemed like it.” He grimaced. “Marco, oddly enough, was virtually useless—the others not a great deal better. But, overall, they seemed to favor the intoxication method you obviously disapproved of.” Bronwyn thought it over, trying to decide how she felt about his admission. “Is that why you got me drunk? To seduce me?” He shrugged. “As I said. Marco in particular recommended it. He referred to it, rudely, as … uh … pussy lube.” Horrified, Bronwyn uttered a choked, horrified laugh, then bit her lip. “It isn’t a very ethical way to seduce a woman and you didn’t need it.” His brows lifted nearly to his hairline. “I didn’t?” He frowned. “I couldn’t enthrall you. You aren’t just saying that to be kind again?” Bronwyn shook her head at him. Stepping closer, she lifted a hand to his cheek. “You enthralled me without any supernatural means at all. That had nothing to do with my refusal to go back, Constantine. It had everything to do with how I feel about you, but not in the way you’re thinking. I just … know that it was better for me not to allow myself to get any more attached than I was already.” He frowned. She could see he was having a hard time believing she would’ve left because she cared about him rather than because she didn’t. He was never going to understand because, as he’d said, he’d never been mortal. She didn’t know if he was simply incapable of feeling the things mortals did or if it was sort of a protection for

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himself that he distanced himself from others, but it didn’t matter which it was, whether he’d conditioned himself to feel nothing or he just didn’t. Either way she knew he would never be able to understand something he didn’t feel. “I’m completely sober now,” she murmured, tipping her head back and lifting up on her tiptoes to nibble a row of kisses along his neck. His hands went to her waist, tightened, and then he slid one upwards along her back and the other down to cup her buttocks and lift her higher as he tilted his head and found her lips. His mouth was cool, but the gentle suction of it on hers drew heat from her—not warmth—heat, a dizzying spiral of need she hadn’t even been aware of until the moment their mouths met and mated. She made a sound of pleasure in her throat when he thrust his tongue into her mouth and stroked it along hers, sucking on the taut muscle in a way that made erotic images spring into her mind of sucking his cock into her mouth. Her belly clenched in response, flooded with moisture. She wanted to do that to him with sudden desperation, to wrap herself up in him completely, to feel his naked body against her own and explore him all over with her hands and her lips as she hadn’t been able to before. Constantine’s grip on her tightened. His kiss became more fevered. He rocked his erection against her as he pulled her lower body more tightly to his. In a few moments, he broke from her lips, gasping for breath as he glanced around a little desperately. No comfortable bed magically appeared. Finally, he hauled her against the wall of her shed, bracing her between it and his body as he stroked shaking hands over her, exploring her through her thin nightgown. She shoved her hands beneath his jacket, searching for the opening of his shirt as he massaged her breasts and feathered open mouthed kisses along her cheek and jaw and neck. Bending, he suckled her unfettered breasts through the gown she wore, driving her need higher even while she chafed at the fabric that prevented her from feeling his touch as fully as she wanted. Her nipples, ultrasensitive since she’d become pregnant, ached from the fullness and a twinge of pain went through her when he lightly bit at them with the edge of his teeth, but it was good ache, a marvelous ache that produced a matching itch low in her belly. He lifted his head when she groaned, meeting her mouth once more, kissing her with a desperate sort of longing as he rhythmically pressed against her with his engorged shaft. She lifted a leg to curl it around his narrow hips, trying to lift herself to feel him where she needed him most. Constantine slipped his hands beneath her gown, cupping her buttocks and abruptly lifting her upward along the wall, bracing her. Bronwyn grabbed his shoulders for balance and wrapped her legs around his hips, opening herself to him, arching to meet his rhythmic thrusts. His thick member pressed almost bruisingly against the tender lips of her sex and it still wasn’t enough. She wanted to envelop him with her body, wanted to feel his flesh pressing against the walls of her channel. He seemed to catch her impatience for penetration. Reaching between them, he unfastened his trousers, caught his cock in his hand and sought her opening. Pushing the leg of her panties aside, he found the mouth of her sex and thrust into her. She caught her breath as she felt him, tilted her head to fasten her mouth along the side of his neck. A shudder went through him as she sucked at his flesh. His hands tightened on her, holding her for his thrusts as he fought the resistance of her flesh and finally impaled her root

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deep. A dizzying rush went through Bronwyn. She tightened her grip on him, urging him to set the pace she needed to find completion. He released a pained grunt of a breath, withdrew slowly and then entered her again. Abruptly, he reached between them and tore her panties at the crotch, removing the impediment. When he had, he began to drive into her faster. She clung to him, her eyes tightly closed to better enjoy the friction of his flesh along her passage. She cried out when the bubble of tension inside of her reached its maximum capacity and exploded in an upheaval of mind-blowing proportions. A tremor traveled through him. Driving deeply, he held himself there as he pumped his seed into her. They leaned together shuddering with the aftershocks, struggling to catch their breath. “Next time,” Constantine muttered thickly, “we’ll find a bed.” Bronwyn uttered a husky chuckle and bit his neck. It sent another shudder through him. She lifted her head and met his slumberous gaze. “Was it good for you?” He bent his head to press his nose to hers. “I should be the one asking.” She tilted her head to nibble at his lips. “You shouldn’t … unless you were too busy enjoying yourself to notice.” “I might have been,” he hedged. He smiled a crooked smile when she leaned back to study him and carefully removed his flaccid member from her, then lowered her until her feet touched the ground. “There might be something to be said for doing it your way,” he murmured. She chuckled. “You think?” He sighed. “If I could use my powers with you, you might never want it another way.” She touched his lean cheek. “I liked being aware of every touch, every kiss, and the feel of you inside of me. Nothing could be better than that—only different.” He looked unconvinced, but he pulled her close for a light kiss. She murmured a sound of contentment, smiling at him wickedly when he pulled away to look down at her again. “This was so romantic! Just you and me in my moonlit garden … and all the neighbors with their noses pressed against the glass to watch.” He uttered a snort of contemptuous amusement and glanced around. “They missed the show tonight. Go inside. I’ve kept you out in the damp night long enough.” She smiled up at him. “Next time you come, just throw pebbles at my window. I have to warn you, though, I sleep like the dead when I’m really tired.” To her surprise, he chuckled. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read in books about vampires, my love.” “No?” “No. I might never have been mortal, but I was born of one.” **** Despite Luke’s reassurance, Bronwyn was in no great hurry to visit the doctor. Part of it was the morning sickness. She didn’t feel like going anywhere. She certainly didn’t feel like going somewhere where she’d have to sit for an hour or more waiting, and then would have to face being poked and prodded. Her prior experience with a gynecologist/obstetrician was the main reason she

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wasn’t anxious to go, however. She knew it was unreasonable. It wasn’t the doctor’s fault she’d blabbed about it and become the local pariah, but she still associated the misery that had followed with that visit. She didn’t see any sense of rushing to a doctor anyway. She was either pregnant or she wasn’t. Aside from the morning sickness, she was fine. Luke finally managed to browbeat her into going when, by her calculations, she was a couple of months along—at least six weeks. The doctor took one look at her already blossoming belly and told her she was either off on her calculations or baby had company. After a thankfully brief physical examination he confirmed that she was definitely pregnant and told her he wanted her back in a couple of weeks so that he could run some more tests, check the heart beat, and do her first ultrasound to have a look at the baby. She didn’t know what other tests he wanted to run, she thought crossly when she left. They’d already taken nearly a pint of blood and made her piss in a cup. She shuddered to think what was next on his agenda, but the ultrasound and the heartbeat— those sounded like they might be worth being poked and prodded. She managed to get along with Luke almost all the way back to her place. She’d even begun plotting some way she could get into his pants since, for once, he’d managed to arrive when she didn’t feel like she was going to puke. All she had to do, though, was mention that she should call Constantine and Caleb and let them know about the next appointment—in case they were interested—and it was downhill from there. She was sorry she’d mentioned it then, particularly regretful that she’d mentioned it before she had time to reacquaint herself with that lovely piece of flesh of his that she was so fond of. He left without even offering her any tail, damn it! And if there was one thing she was having a problem with besides having to piss every five seconds and barfing up at least half of everything she ate, it was horniness. It was either feast or famine! First, she’d gotten all she handle—almost more than she could handle—and now she had to plot to get any at all! And she already had a pooch and almost no waist! She was going to blossom right out of any possibility of getting any before she could turn around! As annoyed and disappointed as she was, though, she knew there hadn’t really been any way to avoid the complication. Luke knew she’d been with Constantine when he’d grabbed her and hauled her off! And she didn’t believe he was naïve enough to believe she’d been playing tiddlywinks with Caleb! They had just much at stake as he did, maybe more! It wouldn’t be any more right to exclude them than to exclude him. Besides, she’d told them she wouldn’t exclude them—any of them. She couldn’t go back on her word just because Luke didn’t like it and would punish her by not coming around. It wasn’t right and she wouldn’t do it! She called the club and left a message on the answering machine and then called Caleb’s house and left a message with the butler. That was almost as depressing as Luke stalking off furiously. He surprised her by showing up to take her to her appointment. The other didn’t surprise her by not showing at all. She hadn’t really expected Constantine to when he couldn’t go out in the daylight. And, truthfully, she really hadn’t expected Caleb to be

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interested enough to come. Luke relaxed when the other two didn’t show, even unbent enough to speak several words to her on the trip to the doctor’s office. By the time they arrived, he was almost cheerful, which lasted right up until he spied Constantine’s limo in the parking lot. Bronwyn’s heart leapt, but even as she was trying to convince herself it couldn’t possibly be him, he—or someone—emerged from the car in something that looked like a cross between a hazmat suit and the Black Avenger and followed them inside. She tried not to stare, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t been very successful in hiding her shock over the suit. “As you see, I’m here,” he said, his voice altered strangely by the respirator on the suit. She felt so badly for him she couldn’t think of anything to say for several moments. Unfortunately, Luke didn’t have any problem thinking of plenty of wisecracks to break the ice. “I’m so glad you were able to come,” she said finally. She just hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed when he’d gone to so much trouble. She couldn’t believe he wasn’t miserably uncomfortable in the stiff, unwieldy thing and beyond that it had to be a terrible blow to his dignity to have to appear in a public place in such a thing. He was always so particular about his appearance! She couldn’t shut Luke up, however, although she tried several times to head him off. All she could do was glare at him and wish to hell she’d come alone. It wasn’t quite as bad, she supposed, as it would’ve been if not for the fact that the doctor and his staff catered to folk of the paranormal persuasion—actually lycan—but it was still a miserable wait for her and she was surprised Constantine didn’t tire of Luke’s glib tongue and punch him in the face or walk out. Caleb stunned her by strolling in just as the nurse called her back. She went reluctantly, more than a little fearful that she’d hear a fight break out in the waiting room. The really embarrassing moment came when the nurse said the father could join her once the doctor had finished his preliminary checkup. That way he could listen to the baby’s heartbeat, too, and then stay and watch the sonogram. “Actually, I wasn’t sure which one was the father, so I invited all three,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. The nurse nodded, scribbling on her board. “So, you’re the alpha female?” “Uh … I’m not sure. The guys don’t belong to the same … uh … pack. In fact, I’m pretty sure the Raja don’t really have packs and I know the vampires don’t.” The woman lifted her head and stared blankly for a pregnant moment. “Well, we certainly aren’t going to be able to determine fathers at this point!” “Oh, but—I don’t want the father to miss out! What if I pick the wrong one and he gets the first look at the baby and the actual father doesn’t?” The nurse studied her sourly. “I see your point. Well! It’s up to the doctor. I don’t think there will room for everybody.” “Maybe one at the time?” Bronwyn asked hopefully. “I’d feel really badly to invite them if they weren’t even allowed in, especially poor Constantine! He took such a terrible risk to come out in the daylight.” The nurse seemed to unbend a little. “It’s the doctor’s call. Get undressed and get on the table. I’ll talk to him.”

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The doctor was annoyed to say the least, but he finally agreed to allow all of them to come in as long as they stayed out of the way. He didn’t wait for them to file in. He proceeded to unveil her belly and move the stethoscope from one spot to another, listening for a moment and then moving it again. She couldn’t decide from his expression and the way he kept moving the thing whether he couldn’t find the heartbeat or the baby was swimming all over the place trying to evade it. He nodded when Luke, Constantine, and Caleb came in, but he was clearly more focused on what he was doing. Apparently satisfied finally, he took the instrument out of his ears and left it hanging around his neck. “Did you find it?” Bronwyn asked anxiously. “Oh yeah!” He glanced at the men, did a double take when he saw Constantine, and then tried to pretend he wasn’t horrified. “Let’s get this on the loud speaker so everyone can hear.” Squeezing some sort of lubricant onto the devise, he settled it on her belly. Immediately, Bronwyn heard something that sounded like ocean noises. Whale cry, she thought disgustedly. “Is that the heartbeat?” she asked doubtfully. He shook his head. “That’s yours.” After the doctor had moved the devise around for a few moments, she heard a much fainter whooshing noise. “That’s the baby.” He held it there for spell and then moved it again. Bronwyn didn’t know about the guys, but she was damned disappointed. The noises inside her belly were so loud, she could barely discern the baby’s heartbeat even though the doctor chased the poor little thing around and around for nearly ten minutes. Finally, he turned it off and moved to another piece of equipment. “Let’s just have a look in there, shall we?” Why not, Bronwyn thought sarcastically? They’d all ‘shared’ her stomach noises! They might as well have a look at her beautiful innards while they were at it! Tilting the screen to an angle that allowed the spectators a view, he put more of the lubricant on the new instrument and began the same process. This time, however, she could see a blurry, grainy image on a screen about the size of a postage stamp. “Here we go! Head, torso, leg, arm.” Bronwyn stared hard at the screen but she was damned if she could tell the difference. “He’s kicking.” “I can’t feel anything.” “It’ll be a while before you can. He’s about the size of a peanut right now.” He moved the thing around her stomach and stopped again. “Head. That’s an arm there. Torso. You can see his heart right there.” “It’s a he?” Luke asked sharply. “Can’t tell yet. We’ll have to wait a couple of months.” He moved the thing around her stomach again. “And here we have baby number three. There’s his heart ….” “Whoa! Back up!” Bronwyn exclaimed. “Baby three? There are three?” “That’s what I’m trying to figure out here. Nope. No sign of another one. Just three.” “Just three?”

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“I’m pretty sure,” the doctor said cheerfully. “They’re really small right now. It’s possible there’s a fourth hiding in there, but I only caught three heart beats, so we’re going to go with three right now.” “Somebody hit the jackpot!” Luke commented, his voice shaky. The doctor frowned. “Ordinarily, I’d agree,” he said finally and then grinned abruptly at Bronwyn. “This little lady is one special little lady, though! Two wombs and ovaries to match.” She felt so special! “She’s human. Ordinarily, I’d say the chances were astronomical that we were talking about more than one father, that being the case, but … well, depending upon when she conceived and whether or not she was ovulating from one or more ovary …. Then, too, she’s a chimera. Each one is—womb—in essence, a different person due to her rather unusual physiology. At this point, it’s really too early to tell, but from my preliminary examination the babies don’t all look to be at the same stage of development. Of course there are three and usually, when that’s the case, one gets the lion’s share of nutrients and the others get leftovers. It’s just too early to say anything for sure beyond the fact that she’s definitely pregnant and I can definitely see three—which is another point of interest and one of the things that lead me to suspect more than one father. Cells divide evenly. There are two babies in one womb and the third in the other. The two could be fraternal twins—meaning she produced two ovum, which both got nailed—or it could have been one that divided after fertilization. The little fellow who’s off to himself might have begun to be a twin and might not. “Ms. Williams is a twin herself, which would make her more likely to have twins.” Luke frowned, flicking an assessing gaze at Bronwyn. It popped into her head that he suspected she’d been hiding her twin sister. Well, she was, just not the way he thought. “How can you tell she’s a twin? She never said anything about being a twin.” “She didn’t just happen to have an extra set of reproductive organs,” the doctor said dryly. “It’s unusual, but on very rare occasions it happens that a cell begins to divide and then, for some reason, doesn’t complete the process. When that happens, the result is usually Siamese twins—or conjoined twins. In her case, the twin only partially developed and her twin is inside of her—an even more rare occurrence than conjoined twins, but she isn’t completely unique. Other cases like hers have been reported—not just like hers, but they will usually have extra organs and quite often they will be functioning organs, although not always.” “You’re saying that it’s possible that each of us fathered one of the babies?” Constantine asked in disbelief. The doctor shrugged, looked uncomfortable, but finally took the plunge. “She would’ve had to be … exposed … within a relatively short period of time for that to happen. I don’t know how likely it is, but it’s certainly possible. If it’s extremely important to identify the father … or fathers … and that appears to be the case here since I’ve been informed that she is suspected to be carrying the promised one of the prophesy—then we might consider doing amniocentesis at some later date. That can be risky, though, and I don’t recommend it when the paternity can be determined after birth and we’re already at high risk, all things considered.”

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Bronwyn had been wavering between embarrassment and indignation that the doctor had taken it upon himself to explain it in so much detail—although she had considered that it might not be impossible to keep her secret under the circumstances. The last remark sent alarm through her, though. “High risk?” she echoed in dismay. “Multiple births can be risky—and you’re not an ideal candidate given your age—but we’ll keep a close watch and take the best of care of you and the babies.” Bronwyn was indignant all over again. He talked like she was a grandma! She was barely thirty, damn it! So she was a late bloomer!

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Chapter Sixteen Needless to say, neither she nor Luke were in a mood to talk on the way back to her house. Luke was clearly torn between the certainty that all three were his and the nagging worry that none of them were—or that only one was and Constantine and Caleb had managed to horn in on his party. Bronwyn was torn between her discomfort that the damned doctor had told the guys just how weird she was, anxiety at his suggestion that she might have problems, and rushes of excitement alternating with dismay at the discovery that she was carrying triplets. She had been thinking twins. Nanna had said ‘babes’ and she had firmly fixated on the possibility of twins. Actually, she’d been trying to dismiss that part. She had sort of accepted the possibility, though—but three? What the hell was that? Damn it! Nobody had said she was going to get her entire family in one lick! Nobody had warned her! What was she going to do with three—at once? She wasn’t even sure that she could handle one baby. She’d figured she could get a little practice in with one and then, maybe, she’d consider having one more. Try though she might, she couldn’t dismiss the thought that she’d been the center of four different prophesies and had ended up fulfilling all of them when she’d been sure two had to be some kind of mistake, that she must be intended for one of them—or none. It was the freak-thing. If she hadn’t been born so weird, she wouldn’t have been the ‘promised one’. Which meant she wouldn’t have met Constantine, Luke, or Caleb. That was a more unhappy thought than the ordeal she had in front of her— carrying three, delivering three, and then having to figure out how to deal with three babies all the same age who might or might not just happen to be part witch, and part vampire, lycan, and Raja. She was abruptly certain that she was having one for each of them, in that way fulfilling the prophesy, or least her part of it, for each of them. She didn’t know exactly how she felt about that, but she felt a tentative lifting of the shock, maybe even an odd little thrill. She was still bone deep scared that her first was going to be, or at least could be, a complicated pregnancy. She tried not to think about the fact that her mother had died from complications, but it wasn’t something she could put completely from her mind. Her grandmother had never actually gone into the details and it wasn’t something she’d wanted to know. She’d always felt guilty about it. Nanna had never blamed her, but how else could she feel about it knowing her mother had died because she had her? She wished now, though, that she’d demanded to know everything. So she could be a lot more scared! She shook the thoughts off. As that nasty doctor had pointed out, she wasn’t young. It had been thirty years since she’d been born. A lot of things had changed for

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the better. The doctor hadn’t seemed particularly worried. Of course, that was because he wasn’t the one that was thirty and facing a triple delivery! She wondered what was going through the guys’ minds. None of them had actually talked to her about it. They hadn’t actually talked to her at all. She supposed they’d been shocked, too, although she was sure part of Constantine’s swift disappearing act had had to do with that awful suit he’d had to wear just to go outside in the daylight. No wonder he’d been so anxious about the prophesy! It must be awful never to be able to walk in the sun! And, of course, he never would, but his son would—if she was having his son. It flickered through her mind, briefly, that Nanna had said she’d ensured that the baby was conceived in love, but she wasn’t quite as trusting of her grandmother as she’d been before she’d discovered her deception. How could she know that comment wasn’t also a tall tale? Or possibly a white lie. After all, if she loved them then the baby was conceived in love whether they cared about her at all! She wasn’t going to find answers in the prophesy—any of the versions. The hard fact of the matter was that she was on her own now. She didn’t have her grandmother’s guidance to fall back on and the damned prophesy had never actually been much in the way of guidance. She could comfort herself that it seemed to insure that the babies would survive. Unfortunately, there was nothing to say she would, but she decided that she simply couldn’t allow that to rule her. She needed to focus on taking care of herself, which would in turn take care of them, and then she had some hope of a happy conclusion in that, as least. The rest—well, she was still going to have to work it out. Maybe, as her grandmother had suggested, she was going to give birth to a baby for each of them and fulfill their desire to sire the great leaders they all expected. And maybe, since it was important to them, she could at least look forward to having them in her life, for the sake of the babies if for no reason. But maybe the babies would create at least a semblance of the bond she wanted with their fathers? **** Constantine apparently decided it would be less of a blow to his dignity to call rather than throwing pebbles at her window to get her attention. He suggested he drive down and pick her up, then drive her to the city for dinner. It occurred to her that it might be another bid to capture her and play keep away, but he hadn’t tried before when she’d met him in the garden. Besides, it seemed now that she’d settled in the boarding house and none of them could get to her unless she permitted it—or they managed to waylay her beyond the protection of the house—that they were satisfied enough just knowing that the others couldn’t get to her either. She agreed to the date only if he promised to ply her with wine and seduce her. He chuckled a little uncomfortably at her joke and she realized with a mixture of amusement and warmth that that was exactly what he’d had in mind. “You’ll have to manage without the wine. The doctor said to stay away from alcoholic beverages.” She heard him sigh.

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“Maybe I should just be … hogtied!” he said bitterly. The suggestion sent Bronwyn’s imagination into overdrive. “Can I do it? That sounds like fun, actually. I could have my wicked way with you and you couldn’t do anything about it.” There was dead silence on the other end of the line for several moments. “I think I just came,” Constantine murmured ruefully. Bronwyn chuckled huskily. “Just wait until you see what I have in mind,” she promised. She was pretty sure that she was as thrilled as she had been the first time he’d asked her out. It didn’t outlast a view of herself in the mirror. Her belly had mounded just enough to be an unsightly blob nothing could disguise. It was just as well the damned cops had her pretty black dress. It would’ve looked like hell on her. Of course, she’d worn that the time before anyway, she comforted herself. There wasn’t time to rush out and buy anything even if there’d been a store in Greenville that had anything she would want. And the cops had all of her favorite things so she was stuck with the clothing she hadn’t really wanted to take with her. Depression quickly overtook her initial excitement, but she determinedly beat it back and searched until she found a blouse loose enough it didn’t hug every unsightly bulge and a pair jeans that were almost new from her last ‘fat’ period. It was more depressing that they actually fit but she tried to look on the bright side. At least they didn’t have the well worn look of most of her clothes. Maybe she’d suggest they grab take out and head his place? Bracing herself when she heard a vehicle pull into her driveway, she ignored the temptation for a last look in the mirror and headed out to meet him. The vehicle parked in her drive definitely wasn’t Constantine’s limo. It looked an awful lot like the black van Luke had been driving. He grinned at her lazily when she reached the van. “You look good enough to eat. How about dinner and little of you, baby?” This was awkward! “I’d really love to … but I can’t.” He looked her over speculatively. “You look like you’re ready for a night out to me.” Bronwyn released an irritated huff when she realized there was no avoiding an argument with him. “Constantine asked me out to dinner.” He got out of the van. Leaning back against the door, he folded his arms over his broad chest. “Did he, now?” He didn’t sound angry. He actually didn’t even sound surprised and she didn’t quite like the tone of his voice. “Yes, he did. He called.” “Mmm. Well, he isn’t here. You might as well go with me.” Bronwyn frowned. “I already told him I’d go to dinner with him.” He nodded. “The thing is—I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to make it.” The nagging suspicion that had been flickering in the back of her mind became full blown. “Why would you say that?” “He had a nasty encounter with garlic … from what I heard. And he has this really gods awful reaction to it. Makes him break out in boils. Nothing to worry about,

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I’m sure, but I imagine he’ll have to take a rain check on dinner.” Bronwyn gaped at him. “Luke! You didn’t!” He touched his hand with his chest. “Moi? Hell no!” He held out his arms. “Take a whiff if you don’t believe me. I don’t have a smidgeon of garlic on me and, believe you me, whoever dusted the inside of his limo with garlic powder is bound to smell like it.” Glaring at him, she stalked back into the house and phoned the club. Stephen answered, gave Constantine’s apologies in a tight voice, and informed her that he was indisposed at the moment. She was fuming mad when she hung up. She was tempted to park her butt in the house and ignore Luke but too pissed off to refrain from venting. He had the rear door of the van open when she stalked back outside. “That was a dirty trick, Luke Gray Wolf!” she snapped. He turned to look at her. “You think?” he growled. “Well, paybacks are hell is all I can say, baby! Somebody put a skunk in my place last week and he ‘scented’ me and half my pack brothers before we could get the little bastard out.” Bronwyn stared at him, aghast, trying to decide if she was more horrified or more amused. She didn’t dare laugh, however, considering the look on Luke’s face. “Where in the world would Constantine get a skunk? And how would he get him into your place without anyone noticing?” “He’s a vampire. He can go anywhere he damned well pleases without being seen just by cloaking himself—and somebody stole a skunk from the city zoo, so I’m guessing that’s where he got it from.” Bronwyn shook her head. “I just can’t imagine Constantine doing such a thing— maybe one of the others.” “You think any of them make a move that he doesn’t know about and approve before hand? You think any of the others might have a motive to make damned sure I didn’t go anywhere around you for a while?” She might’ve suspected Luke had only made the tale up to head off her anger over his prank—which must be painful for Constantine if it was true—but he seemed angry enough to be completely believable and that experience couldn’t have been pleasant for him either. She could see he was just as angry with her for defending Constantine. The depression from before descended on her again, except despair prompted it this time. This wasn’t going to work, she realized. All of them were alpha males and they couldn’t handle not having full possession. She didn’t delude herself into thinking it had anything to do with love for her. She didn’t think they’d actually been more than peripherally aware that she was a person with a mind of her own to begin with and she was pretty sure, despite the wakeup call she’d given them, that they still didn’t think of her as anything but the prize they were all determined to have. They were still more focused on outdoing each other. For all she knew, they fought regularly. Even if they didn’t, Constantine and Luke clearly were working up to another huge life or death battle by provoking one another. She was pretty sure each of them were thoroughly enjoying the battle of wills whenever they got one over on their opponent. Even she thought some of it was funny. But it was still a deadly battle of wills between them.

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Luke decided to assert himself while she was distracted with her thoughts. Grabbing her, he hauled her inside the van and she discovered he’d re-outfitted it for seduction. All of the backseats had been removed and replaced with a mattress that took up the entire rear area. He’d dragged her inside and pinned her beneath his weight before she had the chance to wiggle loose from him. She stared up at his shadowy face in the dim light from the overhead. She wasn’t going to lose them, she thought unhappily. She’d never had them to start with! “I can’t do this, Luke.” He tilted his head to study her. “You’re pissed off about Constantine. I told you it wasn’t me.” She didn’t bother to point out that sending one of his pack brothers to do the dirty deed was the same thing. He wouldn’t know about it if he wasn’t involved. She sighed. “That either. That isn’t what I was talking about, though. If I didn’t care about of you, I could do it. I wish I didn’t. I’ve never been sorrier about anything. It would be so much easier for me if I just enjoyed the sex and none of the rest mattered.” His expression hardened. “If this was just about sex, gods damn it, baby, I could get what I wanted a hell of a lot easier some-damned-where else!” “You think I don’t know that?” she said angrily, feeling her chin wobble with hurt despite her anger. “It was always about that damned prophesy and I think now it’s just because the three of you are enjoying the battle of wills between you!” “I never believed in the damned prophesy,” he growled. “I don’t give a flying fuck about it, if you want the truth, and never did.” She stared at him. She wanted to believe him. She really did, and that was why she knew she couldn’t trust her feelings. “I don’t want to fight with you.” “Then don’t,” he growled, leaning down to nuzzle his face against her neck. She closed her eyes, struggling with the insidious warmth that began to invade her and wreaked havoc with her mind. “I wish I hadn’t agreed to see any of you anymore. I should’ve stuck to my guns and just refused. You’re all enjoying your little war games and I’m the only casualty here. I wish I hadn’t even come outside tonight! I wish I was tucked in my bed, sound asleep, and I didn’t have to deal with trying to figure out how to keep you guys off of each others’ throat!” The tingling rush that swept over her felt oddly unlike a sexual rush. It felt downright peculiar in point of fact. Luke released her abruptly. When she opened her eyes, disorientation swept over her. She found herself staring up at the ceiling of her room instead of the overhead of Luke’s van. Shocked, certain she was hallucinating, she blinked her eyes several times and finally looked around. It looked like her bedroom, but how in the world had she gotten in her bedroom? Wondering if she’d dreamed everything that had happened before, she finally sat up and climbed from the bed. Just as she reached her living room window and peered out to see if she had imagined the whole thing, she heard a car engine turn over. Headlights flooded the side yard and then Luke backed his van from the drive way, shifted the gear to drive and peeled off, leaving a trail of rubber and ‘pissed off’ in his wake. Now she felt better! Her nose stung with the urge to cry, but she sniffed and dismissed it. If he was

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angry, all the better, she told herself. Maybe he wouldn’t come back at all, and that would be better for her in the long run. She should’ve known she couldn’t keep them as lovers whatever her grandmother had said. She shouldn’t even have tried. It was insane! She didn’t know what she’d been thinking to believe she could juggle three such … powerful, virile, hardheaded, arrogant … alpha men! Well! It was a damned good thing whatever had just happened had happened! She would’ve fallen right under Luke’s spell and that wouldn’t have been right when she’d promised Constantine the night. And she’d didn’t doubt he’d have heard it. Luke would’ve made damned sure Constantine knew she’d fallen right into his bed after telling him she’d go out with him. He’d have every reason in the world to believe she was no better than they were, that she was only into the sex and she didn’t particularly care where she got it. She sighed. Maybe it would be just as well if that was what they thought? At least for her. She shook the thought off. The only way it would be good for her was if she actually felt that way. Leaving the living room after a few minutes, she went back into her room, changed into a comfortable gown and washed her face. She headed to the kitchen after that to look for something to eat since she hadn’t eaten, nibbling disinterestedly on first one thing and then another as she ran across it. She wasn’t really hungry, she realized, mostly because she was upset, but she knew better than to just skip a meal. She’d be barfing her head off in the morning if she woke too empty. She settled in the living room with an apple finally and turned the TV on so that she’d have something for background noise and then proceeded to ignore it, trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened. Magic, she decided, but whose magic? Nanna had said that she would come into her own with the birth of the babies, suggested that it was a process that had already begun with conception. She hadn’t been aware of summoning any kind of magic, though. Could she do it that easily? Or was some other force at work? Her heart fluttered a little with excitement when it occurred to her that Caleb might have had something to do with it, but she reluctantly dismissed it. She hadn’t seen him since the doctor visit—only a couple of times before that. It didn’t necessarily follow that he hadn’t been around. She hadn’t known that Constantine had until he’d told her. She decided it probably wasn’t him, but then she didn’t think it was her. Nanna was gone. Nanna had reached her through the spell she’d woven before her death, but there hadn’t been anything to indicate that she was still nearby, watching over her, beyond that spell. She lifted her head on a sudden thought and glanced around at the room. The house? Was that just too absurd? **** Hopefulness surged through Bronwyn when she heard a car slow in front of her house and then turn in. Drying her hands on a dishtowel, she rushed to the front of her apartment and peered out of her window. She hoped it was either Luke or one of her

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former boarders returning. She was so shocked to see that it was her own car parked in her driveway that moments passed before she could drag her gaze from the stranger in the driver’s seat to the dark sedan that had parked behind her car. Uneasiness flickered through her the moment it dawned on her that they were either cops or FBI, which amounted to the same thing. She’d hoped she’d seen the last of them, but she hadn’t really believed that she had. There didn’t seem to be much point in hiding in the house and hoping they’d go away. Releasing a huff of breath, she dropped the towel and went out onto the front porch to head them off. Oddly enough, the two agents—a tall, dark haired man and a tall brown haired woman—stopped in almost the same spot that Luke, Constantine, and Caleb had halted the night they’d discovered the house was enveloped in a protection spell. A look of shock washed over them. They turned to look at one another questioningly. Frowning uneasily, Bronwyn moved to the edge of the porch and sat down. “Can I help you?” she asked ungraciously. The agents turned to study her speculatively. It was the man who spoke. “I’m Special Agent Carl Monks and this is my partner, Special Agent Killian Smith.” Bronwyn nodded, waiting. Monks gestured toward her car. “We came to return your property.” “I see that.” He shifted uncomfortably. “And to apologize on behalf of the agency for what happened.” Bronwyn unbent slightly, but she didn’t believe it for a moment. “And?” Monks and Smith exchanged another look. “If we could come in and speak with you for a few minutes?” In spite of everything, Bronwyn felt a touch of amusement. “I don’t know, can you?” Frustration flickered over Monks’ face. “Apparently not,” he said wryly. “If you’d invite us in …?” Bronwyn lifted her brows, studying them curiously. “You certainly aren’t vampires or you wouldn’t be out in the daylight. Are you two some kind of paranormals I haven’t heard about?” Excitement flickered through Monks’ eyes. Smith’s merely hardened with suspicion. “Funny you should ask that ….” “You don’t look amused.” He looked disconcerted. “I was hoping bringing the car would be sort of a peace offering and you’d agree to talk.” Bronwyn gave him a sour look. “You thought bringing me my own property, which your people stole, was going to make me feel friendly?” “Actually, it was the PD that impounded it—as evidence.” “Evidence that I don’t have a lot of money?” Bronwyn asked dryly. “Because that’s the only thing they could’ve determined from rifling through my belongings.” “You aren’t going to let us through this … whatever it is, are you?” Relief filled her that he’d finally confirmed her suspicions. “Oh, I’ve got nothing

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to do with it. I think it’s the house. It doesn’t seem to trust that you aren’t a threat to me.” He seemed to consider the situation for several moments. Bronwyn was actually surprised that he hadn’t even questioned her statement, let alone scoffed at it. “What if we leave the guns in the car?” Bronwyn shrugged. “I suppose you could try it, but I don’t really think it’s the guns. You two don’t have any paranormal abilities?” “Just our wits,” Smith said dryly when she finally spoke up. Bronwyn smiled at her. “You aren’t armed very well, then, are you?” Smith looked thoroughly pissed off when that sank in. She turned to her partner. “This is a waste of time.” He shrugged when she stalked off and got into the black sedan. “I’d just like to tie up a few loose ends if you’re willing to talk.” “What do you want to know?” “What sort of paranormal activity are we dealing with in the city?” “What makes you think you’re dealing with any sort of paranormal activity at all? Or that it’s confined to one city, for that matter?” “So it isn’t just localized?” “I wouldn’t know.” “What happened to you in the city? I know you were in protective custody,” he continued before she could counter his question with another question. “I also know that something happened that was about as far from ‘normal’ gang activity as it could get.” “Really? What do you think happened then?” “Witnesses claimed to have seen some sort of monsters leaping from rooftop to roof. And I have to tell you that I don’t believe for a minute it was just gang members that wreaked the destruction I saw.” “Well, I didn’t see anything like that,” she said firmly. “So what happened?” She shrugged. “I don’t really know. It was dark. I don’t see well at night. The agents left and I left.” “The female inside with you said she remembered a man. She didn’t actually remember anything else, but she remembered his eyes—and she saw something else that scared the wits out of her.” “Poor thing! She wasn’t actually hurt, though?” “Not unless you consider that she had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized for it being hurt.” “That’s awful! But she’ll be alright?” His eyes narrowed. “I’m thinking the ‘man’ she saw wasn’t a man at all. He was a vampire and he mesmerized her—and that’s why she doesn’t remember anything but his ‘intense’ gaze. I also believe that the ‘monsters’ that managed to live through a hail of bullets and still overcome nearly a dozen agents were werewolves. And the one that made off with you, jumping such unbelievable distances was also a werewolf.” Bronwyn managed a scoffing laugh. “Really? You don’t actually believe in werewolves and vampires?” “I actually do,” he said coolly. “And I’m not the only one. We’re actually considering forming a special team to deal with these ‘creatures’ that seem to consider

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that our laws don’t apply to them and do pretty much whatever they please when they please.” Bronwyn shook her head and rose. “Men! They always want to be in control of everything!”

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Chapter Seventeen It was really unfortunate that she didn’t know how to weave spells, Bronwyn thought irritably. Between Luke, Constantine, and the snooping FBI agent, she had to stay holed up in her boarding house for nearly a week to avoid them. She supposed she should’ve been happy that she at least didn’t have to hide from Caleb, but she was almost as unhappy about that as she was that she couldn’t leave her house without running the risk of being waylaid by the others. Despite the fact that she’d made sure her house was well stocked, she’d begun to think the siege would last until she ran out of food. After a few days, though, they were more conspicuous by their absence than their presence. She decided to wait a few more days before venturing out—just in case. She couldn’t stay in the house forever, though. Constantine was actually the easiest to avoid. She was usually inside at night anyway and he couldn’t go outside during the day without risking painful burns. Of course, she thought ruefully, that wouldn’t stop him from sending some of his minions to grab her. There were plenty of them, vampire hopefuls, willing to do just about anything if there was a chance they would be rewarded by being converted. She hadn’t considered that possibility, though, until she came out of the grocery store burdened with two grocery bags. She was grabbed and tossed into the back of a van before she could manage more than a yelp of surprise. True panic didn’t set in, however, until they bound her, gagged her, and pulled a bag over her head. She was pretty sure that Luke wouldn’t have gone to such lengths, even if he did think she was beginning to wield magic. It seemed a little extreme for the cops or the FBI. She’d begun to fear that some really bad people had kidnapped her for purposes she just didn’t want to consider long before the ride ended and the two men who’d grabbed her hauled her from the van and carried her inside. She thought she heard them pass other people, but she didn’t hear any music to indicate that she’d been taken to the club. Finally, she felt herself lowered and felt the yield of a mattress beneath her. Relief flooded her, at least momentarily, when she heard Constantine’s voice. “What the bloody hell?” The bag was snatched off her head, taking several stray hairs with it. She squinted her eyes, both from the sudden light and the sting of pulled hair. “You … morons!” Constantine roared. “If you’ve hurt her, you will be begging me for death long before I allow it!” He settled beside her on the bed, removed her binding and the gag with such a minimum of effort that she knew he’d used his powers, and then he searched her carefully with his hands. “I’m not hurt,” she managed to say. “Don’t kill them. Let me!”

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Amusement flickered in Constantine’s eyes briefly but vanished almost as quickly. He turned to survey the two men now cowering near the door and trying to get up the nerve to attempt an escape. “Out! I’ll deal with you two later!” Bronwyn sat up, rubbing her wrists. “You sent them to kidnap me?” she demanded, outraged. His anger was defensive. “I wouldn’t have had to if you were the least bit reasonable,” he said coolly, “though why I should expect you to be, I can’t imagine. You never have been!” Bronwyn glared at him. “I’m completely reasonable!” “Yes! I saw that in the way you’ve been holed up in that bloody enchanted boarding house of yours for weeks on end, refusing to even speak to me!” Bronwyn sniffed. “There is no point in talking to you. Besides, the damned FBI were snooping around … and Luke.” “I notice you didn’t mention the Raja,” he said dryly. “Or were you just hiding out from the rest of us?” “I wasn’t hiding out, damn it!” “Exactly what would you call it, then?” She considered it sulkily. “Weariness of the fight,” she said finally, her shoulders slumping. He studied her for several moments in silence and finally grasped her shoulders, carrying her down onto the mattress and settling his chest against hers. “You could always surrender,” he murmured, dipping his head to suck tiny bites along her throat. A shiver skated through her. “I want to ….” “But?” She studied his gaze earnestly when he lifted his head. “Do you care about me at all?” she asked a little wistfully. His gaze flickered over her face. “I hope you don’t think that I would tolerate Luky Lycans’ antics for five minutes if I didn’t,” he said wryly, adding in a gentler tone, “I adore you. You’re going to be the mother of my child.” Bronwyn rolled her eyes and uttered a disgusted huff, but a lump of misery had collected in her throat and made it hard to swallow. “Why am I not surprised?” he muttered. “You’ve never believed any compliment I ever gave you. Why should I expect you to believe anything I say? I’m damned if I can understand why you don’t, though. What motive would I have to lie?” Bronwyn looked at him doubtfully. “Seduction?” He frowned thoughtfully for a moment. “Ah. I see your point. It would be something you were used to, or at least had encountered,” he said dryly. “I have always relied upon my powers to enthrall, however, on the rare occasion when … ah … inventiveness was necessary to achieve my goal. I never found lying essential for seduction. You might consider that.” He rolled off of her. Capturing her gaze as he stood beside the bed, he removed his clothes, dropping each article without regard for where they fell. When he was naked, he climbed in beside her again and settled on his back, tucking his arms behind his head. “Behold me—totally at your mercy,” he murmured. Bronwyn stared at him blankly for a moment before she recalled their last conversation.

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She allowed her gaze to wander his length. She had promised. Sitting up decisively, she removed her clothing. When she’d pushed her shoes off and skimmed out of her jeans, she straddled his thighs, holding his gaze as she peeled her shirt and bra off. Her belly went weightless as she gazed up his length. As slender as he was, he wasn’t skinny by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, he was lean muscle all over. She stroked his washboard abs lightly, studying his cock as it rose at her first touch and strained toward her. As cocks went, she thought his was quite possibly the most beautiful one she’d ever seen—not that she’d seen many—but it was definitely pleasing to behold, a thick, smooth shaft topped by a rounded head in perfect proportion to the shaft. She curled the fingers of both hands around his member, stroking slowly up and down for several moments before she removed one hand to lightly massage his scrotum. When she looked up at his face, his eyes were half closed, glittering with rising desire. Releasing his cock, she leaned over him, propping herself on her hands while she explored his throat and chest with her lips, her tongue and light nips of her teeth. She didn’t linger long anywhere, but worked a steady path downward, inching her hips along his thighs, until she reached her goal again. His cock lifted, nudging her chin, as if begging for attention. She smiled inwardly and teased him a little longer by nibbling his belly before she took him into her mouth. His hips rose from the bed when her mouth closed over the head of his cock. She sucked only the tip for several moments, holding the shaft with one hand to guide it, teasing him by tracing the ridge where the head met the shaft with her tongue. His hands settled on her head, his fingers tangling momentarily in her hair before he seemed to recall he’d offered to give himself up to her mercy. He dropped his hands to the bed on either side of his hips. She took him deeply into her mouth then, sucking hard as she withdrew. His fingers curled into claws and dug into the mattress. An involuntary grunt escaped him. Shivers of excitement tingled through her. Her belly clenched, warm moisture flowing into her passage. Warming to her task, Bronwyn settled lower, balancing on her belly so that she could use both hands and her mouth, using her mouth to add heat and moisture while she stroked his cock rhythmically from root to tip with her hands, making certain she applied enough pressure all the way around to stimulate every nerve ending. He began to shift restlessly beneath her, pumping his hips in counter several times before he recalled his promise, clawing at the sheets while he tried to remain still for her. His rising fever fed hers. Her focus shifted abruptly from pleasing him to pleasing herself and she worked his flesh more feverishly, trying to pull him toward release. Abruptly, he released a pent up growl and jackknifed upright. Grabbing her, he bore her down on the bed and surged into her in one desperate motion. She gasped as their bodies connected, lifting her hips to meet his next thrust. His cock glided through her hot, wet passage to her core, setting off tremors of pleasure within her that made her gasp and clutch at him a little frantically. He either caught the desperation of her touch or he was so nearly mindless with his own pursuit he

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couldn’t prevent himself from setting a desperate pace. It was immaterial. She came within moments, and he followed her before her climax had hit its peak and begun to subside. He was still panting for breath when he pushed himself away from her to study her face. Apparently satisfied, he moved to the bed beside her, dragging her against his length. “That was a bloody near thing,” he muttered wryly. Bronwyn smiled against his chest. “Damned straight! I thought I was going to come before you could get inside of me.” He froze for a moment and finally chuckled. “You are an atrocious liar, Bronwyn Williams! If my performance had been any worse, you would’ve been well within your rights to boot me out of your bed.” “It isn’t my bed,” she murmured. “Splitting hairs.” She lifted her head, folding her hands on his chest and propping her chin on them. “You might give me a little credit, you know.” His lifted his brows at her. “I’ll give you a lot of credit for nearly bringing us to disaster. A few moments more and I would’ve been done and you would’ve been outdone.” “What makes you think I would’ve been outdone?” she murmured, smiling at him. He sent her a curious look. Lifting a hand, he smoothed her hair and then stroked a strand behind her ear. “I would’ve been outdone. You have no idea how badly I want to make love to you with everything I have, everything that I am. I love the look of ecstasy on your face when I’m making love to you, and yet it’s so fleeting. If I could, I would make love to you all night long, hold you at the very peak of rapture endlessly, give you more ecstasy than you can imagine.” Bronwyn felt a shiver rake through her. “It can’t be better than what I feel with you now.” He shrugged. “Perhaps not—but not as fleeting either.” She shook her head at him, but leaned forward to kiss his shoulder. “That’s what seconds are for.” He rolled to face her, nudging her off of his chest and onto her side. Bending his arm, he propped his head in his hand and studied her for a long moment. “Seconds?” She smiled. “Mmmhmm.” “This holds promise,” he murmured, settling his free hand at her waist and coasting it over her hip. He made love to her more leisurely, bringing them both to culmination once more only after they’d teased and caressed each other endlessly. When they’d finally caught their breath, he asked with a trace of amusement. “Is there any such thing as thirds?” Bronwyn groaned. Constantine chuckled, popping her ass playfully. “Maybe I should feed you?” She perked up a little at that, and then gasped in dismay. “My groceries! I’d just come out of the grocery store when they grabbed me.” Constantine’s good humor vanished. “Not to worry. They won’t make that mistake again—in fact any.” “You aren’t really going to … do anything awful to them, are you?” she asked,

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her expression troubled. He looked at her in surprise and displeasure and finally rolled from the bed to get dressed. “You should get dressed. I want to feed you before I take you home and it’s getting close to dawn.” Bronwyn found the bathroom to clean up before she dressed. By the time she’d emerged Constantine was dressed and waiting. He gathered her close for a moment before he led her from the room. “What do you think I should do to them?” he asked with the air of someone running out of patience. “Fire them for incompetence,” she said promptly. He sent her a strange look and finally shrugged. He chuckled as he escorted her upstairs, however, and she felt a little uneasy about that. She discovered to her surprise they’d been in the basement of the restaurant he’d taken her to before. That explained why she hadn’t heard anything indicating it to be the club, since it wasn’t, and she was still surprised that she hadn’t heard the guests he must have had when she’d been brought in. “They brought you in the back way,” he responded at her questioning look. Guiding her to a table, he helped her into a chair and excused himself. He disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes and then returned. “I’ve been thinking in terms of names,” he said when he’d settled across from her. “Names?” she echoed blankly. He nodded. “I think Basil has a nice ring to it. Basil d’Valdmir. What do you think, my dear?” Bronwyn studied him in surprise, trying to sort through the emotions abruptly tumbling through her. The one thing that stood out in her mind, though, was the fact that Constantine had undoubtedly spent a good deal of time thinking about the son she was carrying for him. She smiled at him. “I think I love you, Constantine d’Valdmir,” she murmured. His complexion warmed. To her surprise, a mixture of both pleasure and pain flickered in his eyes before he looked away. “I take it you approve the name?” he said a little uncomfortably. “I think it’s perfect.” **** There was wariness in Luke’s eyes when Bronwyn left the house and crossed the yard to the van he was leaning against, his arms folded over his chest. “Still pissed off at me?” he asked when she stopped in front of him and looked up at him questioningly. She shook her head. “I wasn’t really angry at the time.” He frowned. “Why the disappearing act then?” “I didn’t actually do that—I don’t think.” He studied her skeptically, but finally seemed to shrug it off. “I brought a peace offering. Actually, a couple.” Bronwyn smiled at him, more because he seemed willing to put it behind them than because of the suggestion that he’d come bearing gifts. He pulled something out of his jeans pocket and dangled it front of her. It looked like a Native American necklace make of a thin strip of leather with beads and small feathers. “It’s pretty.” He smiled, but there was a glitter in his eyes that suddenly made her wary.

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Nevertheless, she turned and allowed him to tie it around her neck. She was smoothing it with her fingers when she turned back to him, trying to study the effect. He opened the rear door of the van and reached in to flip the switch on the ceiling light. “I brought dinner,” he said with a grin when she looked at him warily after examining the rear of the van and discovering that the mattress he’d fitted into the back before was still there. In the center, however, were two medium sized coolers. Seduction was in the air, she thought with wry amusement as he helped her climb inside and closed the door firmly behind him. One of the coolers, she discovered, was actually a warming box. Heavenly scents wafted from inside when he opened it, distracting her—at least somewhat—from the nervous anticipation that had seized her the moment he helped her inside. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to enjoy a meal, but there was a sort of decadence to it that stirred her blood with anticipation and she had to admit the food was wonderful. Luke leaned toward her when she took her first bite of the succulent lamb chop and felt the juices run down her chin, dragging his tongue along her chin and neck. Her nipples hardened in reaction, but she sent a look that was equal parts amusement and irritation when he drew back. “I didn’t dribble food that far down my neck!” His eyes gleamed. “Of course you did. Why else would I have licked your throat?” It was actually a delicious game, she discovered—a little sloppy, but definitely thrilling, particularly when he began to search for crumbs between her breasts and lower. She lost interest in the food altogether when he insisted on suckling a few drops from her shirt above one nipple, digging her fingers into his thick hair as he carried her down onto the mattress. She studied him with a slumberous gaze as began to peel her clothing off, lathing every inch of her flesh with his tongue, suckling tiny bites of flesh and when he finally rose above her, staring down at her face, she pulled him down to her, eager to feel his lips on hers. He wouldn’t be rushed. He kissed her lingeringly, firing her blood, stirring a caldron of impatience. The slow awakening of her senses built the inferno higher and higher until she was drunk with it, fevered. As much as she wanted to enjoy it forever, the fever built until she was so feverish with need that she began to plead with Luke wordlessly to enter her and ease her ache. When he ignored it and continued to tease her, she added breathless, vocal pleas. He rose above her finally, teasing her with the tip of his cock. “Tell me what I want to hear, baby,” he murmured raggedly. She looked up at him without comprehension for a handful of seconds, and then she knew. She reached for him, tugging until he lowered himself heavily against her. “I’ve been telling you, Luke. You haven’t been listening.” “Say it!” he growled. She brushed her lips lightly across his. “I love you, Luke Gray Wolf.” Triumph glittered in his eyes, but it was more than that. Lifting away from her, he thrust himself deeply inside of her, began the rhythm that would take them both to glory, and when they came together, he gave the words she’d never thought to hear. “I love you, White Witch.”

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**** It wasn’t until Bronwyn’s morning sickness began to subside somewhat that she remembered what her grandmother had said about her book of spells. It might have been a while longer except that the protection spell over her house had begun to irritate her as much as it seemed to annoy Luke and Constantine. Caleb had been conspicuous by his absence, but then she’d been truly stunned that he’d shown up at all. She really didn’t expect to see him again even once she’d had the baby—babies. It grieved her. Even though it seemed that Constantine and Luke hadn’t abandoned her altogether—at least not yet—she missed Caleb’s rather bizarre form of playfulness—a sure sign that she was nuts about him. It had driven her to distraction when she was with him. She knew he was playing at love rather than feeling it, but it had charmed the socks of her just the same and she missed his banter dreadfully. She felt guilty when she finally remembered the book—not that she thought it would be the least use to her—but Nanna had wanted her to have it. Leaving the house while it was on her mind, she headed out the back and went into the shed for a shovel. Nanna had said she would ‘know’ where to find it, she thought as she surveyed the overgrown backyard garden. She didn’t and she wondered if she was going to be digging for the rest of her life in search of it. Sighing, she began to wander around, trying to think where her grandmother might have decided to bury it and finally came to a halt beside the old sundial that stood in the center of the garden. After staring at it blankly for some time, it finally dawned on her that the decorative symbols around the outer edge of the face of the sundial were the same as the symbol she’d seen in Caleb’s gate—Celtic in origin, she thought. Strange! Somehow, she didn’t think Caleb’s origins, or at least his people’s, were Celtic, but then again she really didn’t know anything about the Raja. She’d found Caleb because of the symbol, though. She studied the sundial and then began digging at the foot of it at the point that marked mid-day—or mid-night. The witching hour. She’d only dug a few shovelfuls when she struck something beneath the dirt. Throwing the shovel aside, she got down on her knees and used her hands to clear away the last of the dirt. The metal box she found was rusted, small wonder when her grandmother had to have to have buried it more than a decade before—before she’d gotten too sick and frail to tend her garden. Lifting it, she sat back on her heels and brushed the dirt off, feeling her heart tighten with both pain and excitement. The latch was as rusted as the box itself and resisted her efforts to open it, but she finally managed to pry it up. When she opened the lid, the first thing her eyes lit upon was a sheaf of yellowed pages. Beneath them was a slender, leather bound volume, but she set the container and the book aside and unfolded the yellowed pages. My dearest granddaughter, I’m certain this looks to be a poor legacy, but its grander than you can possibly imagine at this moment. The book I’ve left to you came to me from my mother, and to her from her mother, going back beyond anyone’s memory, to the early Celtics as I

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understand it. It was to have passed to your mother as it has always been passed from mother to daughter, generation after generation, but she didn’t live to inherit her legacy and so I pass it to you, knowing that soon, at long last, you’ll have the power to use it. Even now, as your babes grow in your belly, you’re maturing into the powerful witch you were born to be, awaiting only the birth of your first born to fully blossom. You’ll be far more powerful than I ever was, for only those gentle souls of good heart are allowed to wield the strongest magic. Its the balance of nature and I was far too hardhearted to be given such power. I didn’t make little Johnny’s dick fall off, though! I would’ve if you hadn’t intervened on his behalf, mind you, but I always looked to you to guide my conscience— or to be my conscience. The house, as you may have noticed, has taken on a life of its own from the generations of witches who’ve lived here and woven their spells, but you are its mistress now. The first spell will open the door to your lovers when you’re ready to allow them in, but if you find that your trust has been misplaced you need only reverse it to oust them once more. I trust your wisdom. I trust your heart. Enjoy your life to the fullest and never let anyone convince you that you don’t have that right! With all my love, Nanna The words blurred before her eyes when she’d read to the end, more because it hadn’t occurred to her that her grandmother might’ve written her something before she died than from the contents, although that brought her a sense of peace. All this time it had lain there while she’d wished for just a few words from her grandmother! Some guidance! She pressed it to her breast, closing her eyes, trying to feel her grandmother’s touch from the yellowed piece of paper. She couldn’t, and it made the urge to cry stronger for many moments. Lifting it away finally, she read the last few lines again and uttered a watery chuckle. Nanna had left her the key to opening the door for her lovers and gently warned her at the same time not to let her heart overrule her common sense. When she lifted her head, she stared at Caleb’s blurry image. He was standing beside the shed as Constantine had only a few nights before, studying her with a quizzical expression. She blinked to clear her vision, feeling her heart soar. She had a legacy to pass to her daughter and three of the most wonderful lovers! She should never have doubted her grandmother! “Hello, my love,” she murmured. He tilted his head curiously and then his gaze sharpened and he lifted his arms to

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beckon her to come to him. “Hello, my love.”

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Chapter Seventeen The high pitched yelp that followed on the heels of several sharp yips finally penetrated Bronwyn’s sated haze. She sat up abruptly. Caleb caught her hand when she started to rise and she glanced back at him a little irritably. “They’re fine.” “That didn’t sound like ‘fine’ to me. I need to check on them.” Climbing from the bed, she slipped into a robe and tied it, then strode briskly from the bedroom. Chandler was yipping and growling by the time she reached the playroom. She saw immediately what had prompted the high pitched yelp. He had three furrows along his snout that had drawn blood. Gasping with concern, she dashed to Chandler and picked him up to examine the damage. He began wiggling excitedly the moment she cuddled him and surged toward her face, licking her all over before she could stop him. She held him away, tamping the urge to chuckle and giving him a stern look instead. “Naughty! Naughty! Boy! Change back, Chandler! Right now! You, too, Simon,” she added without looking at the cub watching the two of them through narrowed eyes. Chandler gave her a sad puppy look, drawing his brows together and Bronwyn felt her heart melt. She wasn’t about to let him see it, though. “I mean it! This instant.” Sniffing, Chandler obeyed and she studied the scratches on his face critically. As relieved as she was to see that it wasn’t anything that he’d have trouble healing, she was still angry with both culprits. “No more of that!” she said firmly, softening the blow by kissing her son on the tip of his nose before she sat him down to play again. She turned to look at Simon. He gazed back at her with wide, innocent eyes and she felt her lips twitch in spite of her determination to give them both a good scold. Moving toward him, she crouched down to examine him for any injuries and discovered without much surprise that he was completely untouched. “Have you been playing with mommy’s spell again?” she demanded. His look solemn, he shook his head slowly, but she noticed he put his hands behind his back to protect his rump. “That is very, very bad! Mommy put the holding spell on you to make sure you didn’t get into any trouble and what did you do?” He blinked at her. Caleb, who’d followed her into the room she saw disapprovingly without a stitch of clothing on, popped him lightly on the top of the head. “Evil child!” he said firmly. “He is not evil!” Bronwyn snapped. He thought it over, studied Chandler speculatively a moment and smiled down at his son. “Good boy!” “Don’t help, Caleb!” Shrugging, he turned and strolled out of the playroom. “I’ll be in our playroom,” he murmured in a lazy drawl. Simon grinned abruptly when she returned her attention to him, surging forward to wrap his arms tightly around her neck. “I wub you, mommy.”

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She hugged him tightly. “Mommy loves you, too, but I’m going to spank you if you do that again. Understand?” she said firmly when she’d pulled away from him and given him a stern look. “No more messing with my spells. No more shifting and above all no more fighting with your brother.” He studied her solemnly. “He scaawed me. He baawked at me.” She didn’t believe it for a moment, although she had no trouble believing Chandler had wanted to antagonize his brother. Shaking her head, she kissed him on the forehead and set him away from her. “Your daddy won’t be here long and I want to spend a little time with him. Play nice now and I’ll let you all play together in the backyard in a little bit. Ok?” She encompassed all of them in that offer of a treat for good behavior. Chandler nodded happily, bouncing up and down in excitement. Simon gave her a cat-like smile that made her immediately suspicious and Basil, she discovered, was very busy trying to pretend he was an angel. Deciding they’d just grown bored with the toys she’d given them, she gathered up the toys and put them back and then found ‘new’ toys for them. When they’d settled to play, she wove a new holding spell around each that would give them plenty of room to move around but prevent them from getting to each other or into anything she thought might hurt them. Upon consideration, she wove a second one around Simon. His father was sprawled across her bed in lion form when she got back to the bedroom, flicking his tail impatiently. She gave him a look, but she couldn’t help but chuckle. “The house isn’t big enough for a chase and it’s daylight outside. We can’t terrorize the neighbors!” He studied her from beneath hooded lids for a long moment and finally yawned hugely and settled his head on his front legs, closing his eyes. Shrugging, Bronwyn removed her robe and climbed in with him, snuggling close to nap with him. The moment she settled, however, he was on her. Rolling her onto her back, he planted his front legs on her arms to pin her to the bed and began licking her. Bronwyn struggled for a few moments and finally gave up, yielding herself to the delightful abrasion of his hot tongue as he methodically ‘bathed’ her from her neck all the way to her toes and then nudged her thighs apart and licked her cleft until she had to grab a pillow to muffle her screams. He looked infinitely pleased with himself when he’d pumped into her until he’d spilled his seed and then sprawled beside her in human form once more. Bronwyn smiled inwardly. “What’s that satisfied smile all about?” she murmured lazily. “I’m convinced I’ve gotten another son on you, my love,” he purred, stroking her rounded belly. Bronwyn studied him a little doubtfully. “It’ll be daughters this time.” “Three,” he agreed pleasantly. “And another son for me.” Dismay flickered through her. “Caleb! You didn’t!” “But I so enjoyed watching you suckle three infants, sweeting! You need four to even things out.” He studied the expression on her face with interest and finally relented, chuckling. “No, my love, I didn’t.” He leaned down to nuzzle his face against her neck. “You can have another son for me next time.” She popped his shoulder playfully. “No next time,” she said firmly.

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He lifted his head to study her face speculatively. “But, my love, I do so enjoy breeding you.” She chuckled. “And you can breed me as often and thoroughly as you like, my love … as long you know you aren’t actually breeding me.” He considered it. “We’ll see.” The End

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Read an excerpt from Madelaine Montague’s upcoming August 2009 release.

Wolf By

Madelaine Montage

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Chapter One Cole surveyed the jungle below them through his night-vision glasses, searching the terrain for any sign that they might have company. He wasn’t completely satisfied when he saw nothing. His gut was telling him that it had been way too easy and that was always a bad sign. Particularly when he knew from their first fly over that there was an encampment of guerrillas less than ten clicks from the site where the spy sat had gone down. It had to have sounded like a 747 coming down considering the amount of jungle the damned thing had cleared. It bothered the shit out of him that they hadn’t seen any sign that the racket had stirred up the guerrillas. Shaking his uneasiness, he patted the pilot on the back and signaled for him to drop the stealth chopper lower. They had a hell of a job ahead of them. The quicker they could clean up and hump it to the coast with the debris, the better. Signaling his best men— Corporal Gabriel ‘Hawk’ Hawkins, Lance Corporal Maurice ‘Beau’ Beauregard, and PFC Remy Cavanaugh to take point—he killed the light and checked his harness one last time as they bailed from the chopper and repelled to the ground. The minute they passed the halfway mark, the next wave bailed from the chopper. Staff Sergeant Cole MacIntyre, Mac to his men, surveyed the perimeter one last time before he hooked up and leapt from the chopper, noting that the other chopper had already dropped its load on the other side of the clearing and begun to peel away. “See ya when ya get back to base,” the co-pilot said. Nodding, Mac gave him a thumbs up and leapt out. As many times as he’d repelled from a chopper, it still gave him a rush. He welcomed it, scanning the jungle with his heightened senses as he dropped. The men had already begun laying out a grid when he hit the ground. Issuing a low, warbling whistle, he signaled to the men designated to keep watch to take their positions and then moved to the other men, urging them to form small groups and begin scouring the broken brush for pieces. It wasn’t his job to question his orders, but he sure as shit couldn’t figure out why the hell it made any difference if they left a little debris as long as they made sure they got everything important. That was the order, though, and he had the men search each grid in pairs for the tiniest scraps of what was left of the spy satellite that had mysteriously dropped from orbit and crashed in the jungle. They started at all four sides of the grid, worked their way to the center and then crossed, working outward again. Mac checked his watch when they reached the halfway point, cursed under his breath, and surveyed the jungle around them, listening intently. He doubted there was a fucking piece of the son-of-a-bitch more than an inch square. It had still been smoldering when it hit the ground and churned up the jungle floor and he knew most of it had to have burned on re-entry. Orders were orders, though. Not a centimeter was to be left that might be identified. The bigwigs didn’t want to have

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to apologize for dropping roughly a half-ton of spy equipment in their neighbors’ backyard when they weren’t on the best of terms with them to start with. Twenty minutes passed. The men finally reached the outer edge across from where they’d begun. He strode to check their discoveries. Garbage! Shit! He couldn’t tell from looking at it whether it looked like it might’ve once been an entire satellite or not. Just to be on the safe side, he had the men fan out and walk a line on either side of the grid that had been laid out. A half dozen of the men returned carrying bits of the satellite that had been thrown from the main impact site into the jungle. It didn’t make him feel any better, but they’d already spent nearly an hour searching. If the guerrillas weren’t dead or stone deaf and blind besides, they could be breathing down their necks any minute. He uttered another warble, the signal to recall the men, and checked his map and compass heading as they formed up. Disgust settled in his gut when he saw the awkward bundles that had been gathered up. Trust command to overlook the fact that they were going to be slogging through heavy jungle! He hesitated, but they were going to have problems lugging such awkward bundles at best. At worst, they were going to be sitting ducks if they got into a firefight. Striding to the two squads that had formed up, he told the men to remove anything non-essential from their packs and divide the debris between them. The men gaped at him, no surprise since they hadn’t actually brought anything non-essential with them, but they fell to emptying their packs when he set his own down, tossed out his emergency supplies—everything but his weapons and ammunition—and began stuffing as much of the debris as he could into his pack. His pack was heavy as a son-of-bitch when he slung on his back again, but he still felt better for having divided the load. He signaled for the men to move out, designating Rider, Mullins, and Mercer to take point and ordering Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh to guard their rear. They hadn’t been humping it to the coast more than ten or fifteen minutes where their pick up awaited them, he hoped, when the men guarding the rear passed the word up that they had company moving in from the east. He didn’t have to encourage the men to move faster. Nobody wanted to tangle with guerrillas in such an indefensible position. Waiting until most of the two squads had passed, he tapped the last three on the shoulder. They dropped back, joining him, Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh. “Want me to get around them and get a head count, Sarg?” Hawk volunteered. Mac considered it and dismissed it. “The orders are to get this shit out of here— no matter what—and that means every scrap of it. We stick together. No shooting unless they get too close. We’re still a good ten clicks from the pickup.” Nodding, the men paced themselves, trailing the rest of the two squads. Sweat, from the humidity, the rough terrain, and nerves began to trickle between Mac’s shoulder blades, from his brow and into his eyes, and down his belly and into his crotch, adding to the misery of biting insects. The itch and sting was maddening. He felt as if fire ants were crawling over him, but he was so tense with expectation of a barrage of bullets that it wasn’t nearly as hard keeping his focus, despite the irritants, as it would have been otherwise. By his reckoning, they were still five clicks from the pickup when a shot cracked through the jungle like thunder. He hit the dirt and scrambled on his belly across the ground and over a fallen tree.

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The other men with him rolled over it in a tide, searching the jungle around them. “Anybody catch the direction that came from?” Beau pointed. “I caught a flash just to the left of that palm.” There was another flash and bark splintered from the tree beside the group. They raised their rifles, peppering the site and directly to either side of it. A cry pinpointed at least one hit even as a barrage of bullets zinged back in their direction. It was no part of Mac’s plan to get surrounded or pinned down and left. They traded gunfire with the guerrillas for a few more minutes and then he signaled half the men to fall back and take a new position. They rotated. When the first group found positions and began returning fire, he and the remaining men fell back, passing the first group and finding positions to their rear. Mac lost track of the time and that worried him. Their pickup could wait just so long without endangering the entire mission. As valuable as what they carrying was, they were still liable to arrive at the beach and discover their ride was gone and they were trapped. They began moving a little faster, picking off as many of the enemy as they could before dropping back each time but with the best will in the world Mac couldn’t convince himself that the numbers were dwindling as fast as reinforcements were coming from the rear. He finally ordered a full retreat when he thought they must be within a click of their pickup point. He could hear the crash of the surf on the shoreline. Reloading, they switched from sporadic fire to fully automatic, cutting a swath through the jungle growth and then ducking and running at a half crouch before the guerrillas had a chance to return fire. They burst from the jungle and onto the beach, whipped a quick look around for the boat and charged toward it. Bullets kicked up sand all over them before they’d covered half the distance and he, Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh hit the beach while the others made a run for it, laying down a heavy fire to hold the guerrillas back. Mac felt as if he’d taken cover in an ant bed. Something was sure as fuck crawling all over him and stinging the shit out of him! The moment he heard friendly fire behind him, he rolled and began crawling frantically for the boat, which had already been shoved from the beach. The gunfire from both directions was nearly deafening when he and the other men scrambled into the water to swim for it and the night air was filled with unholy screams of pain and fear—and roars of fury that had lost any semblance of humanity. Rage surged through him. The weariness that had been dragging at him vanished. He had to fight the urge to turn and attack. Struggling against it, he plowed through the water toward the boat, almost surprised when he actually managed to catch up with it and grab a handhold on the side. Instead of the helping hand he’d expected, a hand clamped onto his arm, nearly wrenching it out of the socket as he was jerked from the water like a ragdoll. The breath was punched from him as he hit the deck. Before he could recover, something slammed into him bodily. The rage that had gripped him before exploded. He heaved the man off of him, tearing at him with teeth and nails. In some distant corner of his mind, he was aware of horror at his own actions, but he had no control. It was as if someone else, or some thing,

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had invaded his body and taken control. The pickup craft had become a seething mass of heaving, struggling bodies. Animalistic growls, grunts, and roars filled the air in a cacophony of deafening sound that made his blood surge in his veins. “Mayday! Mayday! We’re under attack! The men! Oh my god! Things! Things! Mayday!” The voice of the man screaming for help over the radio cut off abruptly. Mac flared his nostrils as the smell of fresh blood filled his lungs. Sucking in a deep breath, he launched a final blow at his opponent and looked around for another. His ears pricked at the sound of a chopper overhead, swooping low, and he tipped his head back, uttering a bellowed challenge at the men he could smell on it, the fear he could smell. Crouching low, maddened by the smells, he sprang upward, launching himself into the air. He managed to catch a hold on a runner and lifted his head to glare at the white-faced man staring down at him. Even as he heaved his body up to launch himself inside, however, the man shook his paralysis and fired. He grunted as the slugs slammed into his chest and shoulder, trying to ignore the fire running through him and grasp the runner with his other hand. The man fired again. The bullet slamming into him broke Mac’s hold and he felt himself falling. He blacked out when he hit the water below him. **** Sylvie’s stomach was cramping with nerves and she had to focus to keep from hyperventilating. She’d told herself that she could play it cool. She thought she’d done well considering she’d never done anything illegal in her life and certainly nothing of this magnitude—which might be construed as treason. Although why the government might view it that way was beyond her! So they had a longstanding grudge against Cuba! She didn’t see why that had to apply to everybody, especially when the Cuban government had offered medical treatment to the people her friends had brought down. She completely agreed with the views of the group she’d joined. It had actually sounded like a very noble cause, potentially exciting and daring, especially to someone like her who’d never taken any kind of risks before in her life. Talk was cheap. It was the people who took a stand and took action that made a difference and she’d wanted to be one of those people. She’d been flattered when they’d approached her about borrowing her stepfather’s boat and making the pickup—gung ho to do her part. It wasn’t as if she had to take any real risks like the others were doing. All she had to do was anchor the boat outside Cuban waters and wait. She’d waited all day. She’d slathered enough suntan lotion on her skin to float the boat to keep from turning into crispy critters Sylvie while she pretended to sunbathe … and waited, and waited some more until the sun had dipped toward the horizon and she’d realized she was going to be moon bathing before much longer. She could still play it cool. She was just going to have to think of another reason for her prolonged stay at anchor so close to Cuba. She’d almost convinced herself she was going to carry this off … until she heard the blare of the klaxons. Cold terror swept over her like a rogue wave the moment the damned thing cut loose and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

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She settled back on the towel she’d spread on the forward deck of her stepfather’s tiny yacht, squeezing her eyes closed and willing herself to relax. “Keep your head, Sylvie! And keep your cool! You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re just down in the Caribbean with some friends who are down below scuba diving! “And why the fuck they aren’t back yet when the damned sun is already setting is a mystery to me!” The music she’d been playing, partly as a ‘prop’ and partly in the hope that it would help her focus on anything except what she was actually doing anchored less than a mile beyond Cuban waters wasn’t loud enough to completely drown out the sounds of mad activity that accompanied the alarm, unfortunately. After lying for several moments with her ears pricked to pick up the escalating sounds around her, she finally decided to try for a casual roll onto her belly. She nearly swallowed her tongue when she saw what was coming toward her. Military boats, bristling with guns and soldiers from Guantanamo! “Oh shit! Oh fuck! Ohmigod! Breathe, Sylvie! Deep breath in, slowly release.” She was so paralyzed with sheer terror that her brain was sluggish but eventually it occurred to her that there was nothing ‘natural’ about continuing to sunbathe when it looked like half the base was coming straight toward her. She sat up then and glanced around her at the sea, hoping against hope that she’d see another ship or ships that was the focus of the military vessels steaming toward her. She didn’t see a ship but as she completed the circuit of her search, she saw what looked like dozens of men plowing through the water—swimming and trying to outrun the boats! She leapt to her feet in a blind panic when her shocked brain finally connected three little words—Claxton—Escapees—Military. She forgot all about trying to play the cool, unconcerned vacationer minding her own business. Leaping from the deck, she charged toward the pilot deck, slammed her hand down on the anchor retractor button, and started the engine. The wet smack of bodies tumbling on the deck made her hair stand on end. She threw a panicked glance behind her and saw that she hadn’t imagined it, men, mostly naked and with the setting sun gleaming on their water slickened skin, were pouring over her bows. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream that rose in her throat. Despite her efforts, though, the men who’d bounded onto her deck swiveled their heads in her direction instantly like pointers. Throwing her hands out, she screamed in earnest, looking wildly around for a weapon or some place to run. There was no place and the urge to hide, she realized dimly, was probably useless. Just as it finally dawned on her that her only option was to bail out of the boat and let them have it, the men, who’d seemed almost as frozen with indecision as she was, charged toward her. There was only one way on or off the pilot deck. She had to charge straight toward the men coming at her. The hope that she could outrun them, reach the side of the boat, and leap off was dashed when the man in the lead, a wild-eyed black haired devil built like a tank, slammed into her, manacling his hands around her arms like titanium cuffs. Gunfire exploded around them in almost the same instant. Splinters of wood flew from the deck in every direction. The man who’d grabbed her hit the deck in response, on top of her.

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Shock prevented her from feeling any pain at all for several seconds but nothing shielded her from the collapse of her lungs beneath his weight. A grunt was forced from her. “Get us the fuck out of here, Hawk!” the man on top of her bellowed, deafening her. They rolled over as the boat shot forward in a wide arc. The man who’d tackled her leapt to his feet anyway, scanned the deck in an all encompassing glance, and scooped her up, running at a half crouch across the deck and leaping through the open hatch. Dangling from one of his arms like a ragdoll, Sylvie grunted again when they landed, still too stunned to focus on anything but trying to catch her breath. After quickly scanning the tiny main cabin, he released her. She promptly landed with a thump on the floor. “You hurt?” Sylvie looked up at his face owl-eyed. “Are you hurt?” he demanded impatiently. She was beginning to feel like every bone in her body had been crushed or mangled. Before she could summon speech, though, he ran his hands over her. Apparently satisfied when he didn’t see any blood or find any holes, he surged upright. “Stay put if you don’t want your head blown off.” Sylvie managed a shaky nod, but he didn’t even wait to see it. He threw the warning at her as turned away and bounded up the ladder to the deck. Sylvie managed a squeak of terror as another barrage of bullets cut through the side of the boat. A shiver skated through her. Within a few moments, she was shaking so badly her teeth were chattering. She drew up into a tight ball, trying to conserve what little warmth she had, but it wasn’t nearly enough when she wasn’t wearing anything but a bikini that wasn’t much more than a couple of postage stamps joined together with strings. She’d figured it might be a good distraction if anyone happened to get nosey enough to investigate what she was doing. There were at least two dozen hard faced, mostly naked men—soldiers—prison escapees—on the boat with her at the moment, though, and drawing their attention was the last thing she wanted. Easing up cautiously, she glanced around to get her bearings in the darkening cabin. Spare bedding was stored beneath the benches that formed a dining booth during the day and made up into a queen-sized bed at night. She slithered across the floor on her belly, her ears pricked for any sound that might indicate they could hear her. When she reached the bench, she eased the seat up and levered herself up high enough to peer inside. It was too dark by now to really see anything, but she remembered that the bedding only took up a little over half the space. After darting a quick glance toward the stairs, she climbed in, burrowed as deeply under the folded covers and linens as she could and slowly lowered the seat again. It was a snug fit with her body mass added to the contents, but it wouldn’t make much of a hiding place if she dumped the covers on the floor. In any case, she was freezing. Thankfully, she began to warm up by degrees until the shivering finally stopped. Her mind seemed completely detached from everything, however. Disconnected thoughts drifted through her mind between a mental inventory that catalogued everything on her that hurt. All things considered, though, the pain was minimal. She felt bruised all over, ached from being body slammed on the deck, but nothing hurt enough to suggest

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she was actually injured—as in, in need of medical attention. The gunfire continued sporadically for a while and finally died altogether. Since the boat was still moving through the water at its top speed, bucking like a wild bronco, she decided that didn’t mean everybody up top was dead. In any case, she could hear them moving around, could hear snatches of conversation. They were speaking English—with American accents. That didn’t make any sense to her at all, but she couldn’t decide whether it really didn’t or if the terror she’d experienced had totally screwed her mind up. It didn’t seem to matter much. As frightened as she still was, as unreliable as her thought processes were, there were facts about her situation that were unavoidable and indisputable. The men had to be escaped prisoners from Guantanamo. The alarm had sounded and not only had boats been dispatched to recapture them, but they’d wanted the men back dead or alive and clearly hadn’t cared which. **** Hawk settled heavily on the deck beside Mac, trying to ignore the burn of the wound in his left arm. “We’ve managed to put some distance between us and them, Sarg, but we’re pretty much out of ammo. What’s the plan?” Mac snorted with disgust. “Aside from trying to stay alive? No clue.” Hawk nodded. He hadn’t really expected Mac to have a plan, but he’d hoped he did. “Guess it’ll be a short ride.” “How’s the fuel holding up?” Hawk shrugged. “This thing’s built for speed. The good side is that it was fast enough to outrun ‘em—what they had to throw at us so far, anyway. The bad news is, fast equals fuel guzzler at this speed. It’s anybody’s guess how far we can get in it.” Mac frowned. Coming to a decision, he got to his feet wearily. “I think I’ll go have a chat with our ‘guest’ and see what she knows.” Hawk looked at him surprise. “You think she’d know anything about the fuel consumption?” “She’ll know where she came from. I’m guessing whoever the boat belongs to, they were expecting to get back.” “Duh,” Hawk muttered, irritated with himself. “You think, whatever this thing is we’ve got, it’s gonna turn us into mindless beasts permanently?” Mac flicked a sharp look at him. He swallowed a little sickly. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Hawk. You lost a lot of blood.” A flicker of relief went through Hawk. “Hadn’t thought about that.” Mac glanced around at the men on the deck. “Get some rest while you can. Everybody needs to be sharp. No telling what we’ve got ahead of us.” “It’s a fuckin’ shame it didn’t occur to those bastards that we might need to be fresh when we escaped their fuckin’ torture chambers,” Hawk said dryly. “I ain’t slept in … shit! I can’t remember. Not since ‘it’ happened, I don’t think.” Mac sent him an irritated look when he followed him down into the main cabin. He didn’t say anything, though, and Hawk decided it was a warning to cut the chitchat rather than irritation that he’d followed him. It was dark as shit down in the main cabin, but that was one of the few benefits they’d discovered about the parasites they’d picked up in the jungle. Their vision was a

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hell of a lot better than it had been before, better than the ‘perfect’ required just to get into Special Forces—because it was better than human—which they weren’t anymore. Not that any of them wanted to admit it, but they all knew it. Mac glanced around and finally moved to a light switch. It controlled a wall sconce by the couch. After studying it a moment, he decided not to worry about it. No doubt they were still on radar anyway and the bastards from Guantanamo knew exactly where they were. It was no surprise to see that their guest wasn’t where he’d left her. He scanned the room, sniffing the air. Whatever it was she had all over her—suntan lotion if he didn’t miss his guess—was strong enough to seem omnipresent, though, making it pretty well impossible to pinpoint her exact location. It was too small a craft to have many places to hide, though. Shrugging, he took a few moments to check out what they had and discovered the craft boasted a fairly luxurious captain’s cabin at the bow, two smaller guest cabins barely big enough for the beds in them, and two ‘heads’. The head, or bathroom, for the guests was barely big enough to turn around in and the one for the main cabin not much bigger. He had the impression, though, that the boat had never been intended for any sort of prolonged voyage and had probably never been used for one. It hadn’t completely lost the ‘new’ smell. The question was, what was the woman doing on the boat alone? He found a couple of canvas bags when he did a more thorough search of the cabins, but those only seemed to present him with more questions. There was clothing for two or three different people in each bag—a curious packing arrangement. Shrugging, he emptied the bags and tossed them to Hawk. “These will work for supplies. Check out the mess and see what kind of stores they brought with them.” “Any sign of the woman?” “Not yet, but she didn’t go far,” Mac said dryly.

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Chapter Two Mac was disconcerted when he found the woman. For a handful of seconds, it hit him that she was dead and he felt his heart contract painfully in his chest. Then he realized she was asleep and amusement and irritation vied for dominance. Poor kid! he thought. They’d scared the ever-loving shit out of her. Which might’ve made him wonder how she could be sleeping so peacefully now except that he was familiar enough with nervous exhaustion to know it when he saw it. There were dried tears on her cheeks. She wasn’t sleeping like a baby because she was too stupid to live, to know what danger she was in. She’d just reached the point of shut down from overload. He hated like hell to wake her, not the least because he knew she was liable to go berserk on them since they had her cornered. Not that he was particularly worried about his own skin, but she was liable to hurt herself. His hesitation redirected his mind down a road it shouldn’t have gone, allowed memories to surface of things his mind had recorded that he hadn’t even realized he’d noticed—the way she’d felt beneath him, the way she’d looked in her bikini. The terrified doe eyes she’d trained on him when he’d cornered her. Shrugging inwardly, he carefully lifted the blanket she was huddled under to see if his imagination had gone wild or if she really was as fine a specimen of female anatomy as he’d ever laid eyes on. He excused his curiosity on the grounds that it had been a hell of a while since he’d gotten the chance even to look at a woman and it was bound to be a while more before he got another chance—if ever. He swallowed a little thickly when he’d looked, struggling to keep his cock from bursting through his fatigues. If anything, he decided his imagination hadn’t done her justice. She was soft and round in all the right places, alright, her muscles toned enough to show she regularly worked out—maybe jogged to stay in shape? Or maybe she was a dancer? She had the body to rake in some kind of dough if she was a stripper. Maybe that was how she’d acquired the boat? Some rich old bastard that was drooling after her bought it for her? Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze from her body to examine her face again and decided she didn’t look young enough to be a dancer—unless she was retired? Not that she was old, but it was usually the barely legal girls that danced and there was a mature look about her face that made him think she was probably closer to thirty than twenty. Not that that mattered one way or another, he thought, feeling anger begin to build in him. He couldn’t touch her—didn’t dare. Jesus he would like to, though! All over, several times. He was struggling to banish the image of burying himself hilt deep in her, watching her face go slack in the throes of ecstasy, when Hawk, who’d been standing over him, released a ragged breath that made her stir. Her eyes opened slowly. For several moments, she stared up at the two of them without comprehension and then her eyes grew so wide he could see the whites all the

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way around the irises—hazel, he mentally noted, not brown as he’d first thought. She sat up abruptly, but to his surprise and relief, she didn’t start screaming. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you, baby,” Hawk murmured in a voice that might have been soothing if it wasn’t so rough with desire. Mac flicked an annoyed look at him but finally decided she might not have noticed that the two of them were hanging over her with raging hard-ons, drooling. “Who are you?” she asked shakily. “I’m Staff Sergeant Cole MacIntyre, US Marines, special forces,” he replied, nudging his head at Hawk. “He’s Corporal Gabriel Hawkins.” Sylvie studied both men, trying to assimilate what they’d told her and make sense of it. “I don’t understand,” she said finally. “Is this … some sort of military exercise?” The two men exchanged a speaking glance. “Yeah,” Hawk responded. “No,” Mac said at almost the same instant and then glared at Hawk. Hawk glared back at him. “You tryin’ the scare the shit out of her?” Mac met Sylvie’s gaze. “That what you thought that was all about?” Sylvie swallowed with an effort. “It seemed like it might be a possibility,” she hedged. “But that isn’t what you thought.” It wasn’t, but she didn’t think she wanted to bring up what she’d thought. Maybe if she pretended they weren’t convicts they wouldn’t feel any need to do anything to her? “I won’t tell anybody anything—because I can’t, you know? I didn’t really see anything and I have a very bad memory for names and … uh … faces,” she said a little hopefully. Mac studied her sardonically. “Where do you suggest we drop you? We’re miles from the coast … any coast.” “Where are you taking me?” She held up her hand before either man could answer. “No! Don’t tell me. I don’t really want to know.” Mac studied her thoughtfully. “You want to get out of there?” Sylvie smiled at him a little weakly. “Not really,” she said, her chin wobbling noticeably. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you,” Hawk said again. She sent him a wide-eyed, disbelieving look. “We just want the boat and whatever supplies you’ve got.” She seemed to relax fractionally. “Take whatever you want. You can just drop me anywhere.” Mac scanned her length, lingering a lot longer than he’d intended. She was pale when he met her gaze again. “Lady, I think that’s just about the worst idea I’ve ever heard. We drop you off anywhere dressed like that and you’ll be damned lucky to get two feet without ….” She looked for several moments as if she was going to burst into tears. To Mac’s relief, she sucked it up. He felt like pure shit, though, seeing her eyes swimming with unshed tears—like he’d been pulling the wings off a butterfly. The look Hawk bent on him pissed him off. “You should get dressed,” he said gruffly. “I’m not trying to scare you, but we’ve got two squads on board and none of them have been within sniffing distance of a woman

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in six months—let alone one like you.” Sylvie nodded jerkily, all too happy to oblige. Gripping the blanket she’d been covered with, she surged to her feet. Unable to resist the opportunity to see if she felt anything like she looked, Hawk grasped her waist and lifted her from the box where she’d been hiding. It wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. He didn’t want to let go of her once he’d set her on her feet. His hands tightened reflexively on her tiny waist. Mac punched him in his wounded arm. Rage surged through him at the sudden burning pain, but he managed to tamp the urge to punch his superior back. It still took an effort to peel his fingers off of her when he had visions of throwing her down on the deck and fucking her until he was exhausted dancing in his head. “Let go of her, Hawk!” Mac growled warningly. Swallowing a little convulsively, he ordered his fingers to loosen their grip. Flicking a frightened look at his face, the woman raced toward the cabins, struggling to cover herself with the blanket she was dragging. “I didn’t catch your name, baby.” Sending him a terrified look, she slammed the door. They heard the distinctive click of a lock. Mac sent him a look of disgust. “Jesus, Hawk! Get a fucking grip!” Hawk glared at him, but after a moment he managed to force himself to relax. He ran a shaking hand over his face. “Sorry, Mac. I don’t know what came over me.” “I do,” Mac retorted grimly. Hawk frowned, seemed to wrestle with himself. “It ain’t the parasites,” he growled. “Man, that is one beautiful woman. Don’t tell me you don’t want her so bad yourself you can taste it.” “Like hell! I’ve known you a lot of years, Hawk. Don’t tell me you don’t know you aren’t the same man you were six months ago.” Hawk swallowed a little sickly. “You think it’s starting to affect us all the time? Even when we aren’t … you know?” “I think it has been from the beginning.” Hawk glanced around and finally flung himself down on the couch. “Maybe it would’ve been better if they’d just killed us,” he muttered. “I’m not sure I want to live like this.” “Suck it up, soldier!” Mac growled. “We can deal with it.” Hawk shook his head, but he didn’t argue. He grimaced after a moment. “It ain’t safe to touch her, is it?” Mac frowned. Instead of answering immediately, he began to pace restlessly. “I don’t know. Nobody at the fucking ‘medical center’ got infected that I know anything about.” Hawk snorted. “Now who’s living in a fantasy land? We infected our pick-up, remember? Everybody in the lab was wearing hazmat suits.” Mac frowned and finally shrugged. “We didn’t infect the backup team they sent in to pick us up,” he pointed out. “Yeah, but we were dead—or close to it after they strafed the pick up boat. Maybe the parasites were too busy fixin’ us up to change hosts?” “Maybe. Maybe they just had better timing? Maybe the parasites were satisfied

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with the hosts they already had? Maybe, maybe … that’s all we’ve fucking got, a whole hell of a lot of maybes. Maybe she won’t catch whatever the fuck we have as long as we keep our hands off of her? I don’t know, but as much as I’d like to fuck her until I’m too exhausted to think anymore, we don’t have time for it. We need to keep our minds on escape if we want to stay alive—and I do.” A sudden thought occurred to Hawk that made him feel distinctly ill. “Shit! What if we’ve already … contaminated her? What if she passes it to everybody she meets up with?” Mac chewed his lip thoughtfully and finally shook his head. “They said it was parasites—they seemed pretty sure of that, anyway. If it was that easy to ‘catch’ it, somebody else sure as hell would’ve when they were stacking us in the morgue.” Hawk considered it and relaxed fractionally. “Well, that’s a relief, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I hate those fuckin’ bastards, but I wouldn’t like to think we were a threat to everybody we run across.” “That might not come up. We aren’t out of the woods, yet,” Mac said dryly. He glanced toward the door of the cabin then, trying to decide whether the woman had had time to dress yet and finally decided she had. Striding to the door, he tapped on it. “You dressed?” He heard a grunt of exertion from inside the room. “Not yet! Just a minute!” Shaking his head, he stepped back and kicked the door in. As he’d suspected, her ass was framed in the porthole in the bow of the boat above the bed. Crossing the cabin in two strides, he caught her by the waistband of the shorts she was wearing and dragged her back in. She surprised him by putting up a fight. The moment he’d dragged her upper body back inside, she whirled on him. He caught both wrists as she swung at him and pitched both of them back onto the bed, pinning her beneath him and manacling her wrists on either side of her head. “Don’t piss me off, woman!” he growled. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m mad.” Sylvie stopped struggling to buck him off of her abruptly—not because of the warning in his voice or even because she’d run out of steam. She was frightened enough adrenaline was pumping through her at about ninety miles an hour. It was the change in his expression and the hard ridge rising against her mound that finally filtered into her frantic mind and set off warning bells. Gasping for breath, she went perfectly still. He studied her face for a long, long moment, breathing raggedly, but she didn’t think for a moment that it was from overexerting himself in trying to subdue her. His weight alone was enough to do that when he seemed to be solid muscle from the neck down. Almost as if he couldn’t control it, he curled his hips into hers. A faint tremor went through him.