Why did she get a strange foreboding sensation? "Did she leave a name?"

"No. She wanted to interview you about Tilly House."

"You and Daddy stay here and don't invite anyone in."

"Ilida?"

"Please, Leona. Don't invite anyone in."

Ilida?

A woman came to my father's house looking for me.

I'll send guards.

"Vampires, Leona. Bad ones. If that woman comes back don't answer the door. Don't open it. Please!"

Leona shut the door and locked it.

Ilida ran to Daedalus's car. After buckling herself in, she decided it was time to visit Tilly House. .

She arrived at Tilly to find she was correct. It was sealed off by yellow police tape. She smelled the remains of burnt wood and blood before exiting the car.

She got out and walked onto the snowy curb. It wasn't really a curb. It didn't have the cement high level of a curb like in the City. This had been her second home for five years. All those people she didn't know well but ... they'd died in front of her- killed by vampires or what pa.s.sed as vampires. The very thing she was. She had to change her vocabulary quick.

Daedalus knew. He'd figured it out from the last bite he'd given her.

Her father she'd known all these years and didn't say anything. Ca.s.sandra wasn't off the hook. She knew also. What she must have suffered under the hands of Ma.n.u.s. What was worse, she couldn't look Daedalus in the eye after what her grandfather did to him.

Thinking about it now gave her the shakes, and a sour taste invaded her mouth. She swallowed it. Then took deep quick breaths. She didn't want to throw up. This was hollowed ground for her.

She knew that she loved Daedalus. She hoped he felt the same way but they couldn't go back now. Not ever. She started back to the car when she felt her mind tingle again. She whirled around too late. Pain and an intense acidic heat encased her right side. The world faded to black.

Chapter Thirty-four

Check on drug shipments from out of the U. S."

Daedalus leaned over the shoulder of his communications expert. As he stood up his left side seemed to drop in temperature. Cold invaded his limbs. Ilida? "d.a.m.n!"

Ilida fought to hold on. A woman stood over her, laughing. She could hardly see and she felt so cold. Blood oozed out of her neck. The burning spread to the rest of her body.

The woman leaned next to her. She thought she was going to kill her for sure. Instead, she drew something in the snow.

The woman disappeared and Ilida could no longer keep her eyes open.

"Ilida! Hold on."

I read the message Terra left me in the snow. She took the time out to draw the word "DADDY" with Ilida's blood.

Her neck wounds. It wasn't a wound. Terra all but ripped her artery out. It was made out of anger, pain. I finally knew what her motive was. I pulled off my coat and laid it on Ilida.

Ilida's eyes opened, stared at me with death hovering. Her pupils were dilating.

"I won't let you die."

"Don't... help me." Her voice barely a whisper.

I ignored her, bent my head down. My scraggly beard brushed her cold cheek. I sucked on the wound Terra gave her, drawing the blood into my body. My vocal chords slowly burned with fire, then acid. I kept sucking.

Ilida gave herself over to the feeling of her blood being sucked out of her by me. It didn't take long. She was close to exsanguination. The acid refused to leave her system. Acute pain shot through her veins and echoed through me.

"Drink!"

Let me die.

"You'll just have to hate me." She watched me through heavy lidded eyes. I tore my sweater, exposing my chest to the elements. Instinctually my nerves and my brain tingled with the expected joining. As if my body had been waiting for me to do this all along. I cut a line over my heart then lifted her up.

She didn't struggle but looked me in the eye as I held her to me. She drank from my heart. Her feeble sucking was enough to draw shudders from deep with in me.

Chapter Thirty-five

He was going to make her a vampire, the very thing she was afraid of, but Daedalus wasn't bad. He was good. Good.

Her lips touched his chest. She didn't have enough energy to suck from him. Cautiously she stuck her tongue out, licked him.

He shuddered. She licked again and suddenly her tongue gained enough strength to keep licking. Then her mouth closed over the cut. She sucked and sucked until he pulled her head away. Energy filled her veins instead of that sickening, acidic blood of Terra's. So much energy her body tingled from fingertips to toenails.

She felt weightless, moved. From far away, she heard the car door open, the smell of gas... warmth. Heat warmed her cold face.

She awoke and found herself in the room Daedalus had given her. Daedalus stood by her bed looking down at her. Worry lines creased his forehead. Then a formless gnawing pain advanced in her stomach grew until she clutched it and howled.

"You can't be serious?"

I was dead serious. And soon Terra will be dead. Tania knew that she was trying to delay the inevitable. "It's the only way out of this mess. There's no one else left I love for Terra to kill."

"The two of you believe in suicide missions."

Alec had let Radu stab him in the chest with his own sword to keep Tania alive. I could do no less for Ilida. "You and Alec can take care of yourselves. Ilida is just learning how to be a vampire. If I don't come back, you have to help her."

"Did you? Without her permission?"

"I had to change her. Her throat... It was the only way to save her life."

"What should I tell her when she wakes up?'

"Tell her everything will be all right."

"I shouldn't let you do this alone."

"You can't stop me, Tania," I warned her.

"You need backup."

"I'll contact you when the time is right."

"You love her don't you?"

"No matter what, make Ilida stay here."

Book Three

Chapter Thirty-six

I awoke to the ice cold of the steel table, smelling the scent of her previous victims including my daughter. The drug coursed through my body, but my bat self fought hard to counteract it. For once, I was grateful for my shape-shifting abilities.

"Don't you know who I am?"

Terra paced back and forth like your proverbial mad woman. I only knew her as the vampiress who killed my only child. The vampiress I almost took pity on until she went after the woman I love. She had me beaten, shackled... I couldn't believe it. I'm shackled and drugged. She didn't know my well-kept secret. I couldn't hold back the rage in my voice. "I don't know you other than being a merciless b.i.t.c.h!"

She stared at me. Her violet eyes, eerily like my own, measured me then she spun around and paced. She stopped in front of a table. Her shoulders moved then the harsh ceiling light glinted off an evil looking syringe. I hoped my bat self will be able to counteract the next dose. I had to remember to drop my head like one high on drugs. I crossed my eyes, tried to look wild one second and lucid the next.

She turned around and advanced towards me.

"Remember Santorini? The Caldera, where you had your way with countless of unsuspecting women?"

A growl rose from deep within my abdomen. She backed away from me with fear and anger in her eyes. "What about them," I said, remembering to slur my speech.

"The Breeding Circle. My mother was one of those women you raped, you pig!"

Was she serious? I only had s.e.x with one woman and there was no glamour, no coercion involved. We gave to each other freely and then she gave me Juliana. "You investigated this yourself? You're off base."

"You liar! After she had me, you sent me to an orphanage, because I wasn't a boy. I'm worthless to you, is that it? You son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

She held the plunger over my arm, squirting some of that awful drug out. I had to act fast. Kill Terra, rescue Ilida, my brother and his wife, and destroy the last of the drug.

"This is liquefied Red Queen. Once I shoot you up with this you'll die, but I want to give you a chance to redeem yourself, Daddy Dearest." She lifted my chin and I rolled up my eyes to look her in the face. "Tell me you love me."

I saw the hurt and anger in her eyes. Both emotions turned her violet-blue eyes a dark purple. I knew right then I did feel sorry for her. How many more women, not vampire but not totally human, walked around with this much rage?

If I had known how the Breeding Circle would affect these women, I would have killed Ma.n.u.s years before. Terra wiped my child off the face of the earth and her machinations almost killed Ilida, her niece. She had to pay and there was only one way to do it. The thought sickened my stomach. "I hate you!"

I've had enough!

Illy?

The drugs are taking a toll on your body. We have to merge. NOW!

You aren't strong enough yet.