Maybe it would be different than it had been with Jean Claude. Maybe...

Cursing, Marguerite hurried to the closet to find something to wear. She dressed quickly, paused to take a shaky breath, and then peered around the room. She needed to get home, but didn't have the energy or any desire to pack. She'd leave her clothes, she decided, they'd just remind her of Julius anyway.

She started to cross to the door, but then paused. The men were in the living room. There was no way she was going to be able to slip downstairs and out the door without their notice.

Sighing, she glanced around. When her eyes landed on the dark curtains on the opposite wall, she crossed to the window and drew open the heavy material. Sunlight immediately splashed into the room and she took a step back, her eyes lifting to the sky. The sunlight was blinding overhead. Her gaze slid to the digital clock on the bedside table to see that it wasn't even one o'clock yet.

No wonder she was exhausted, she'd had hardly any sleep at all, Marguerite thought absently as she peered down at the narrow alley behind the townhouse. It was an easy jump to the ground and would save her running into Julius on her way out and possibly being stopped.

Marguerite glanced back toward the bedroom door as she thought of Tiny, but she was rather hurt that the mortal she'd come to think of as a friend hadn't followed her upstairs to be sure she was all right, and, instead, had stayed with the Nottes. It felt like betrayal to her.

Her attention shifted back to the window. While the building was terribly old, the windows were new, probably installed for energy-saving purposes. Marguerite released the lock and slid the window open. She cast one nervous glance skyward, climbed to sit on the window sill with her legs dangling outside, and then pushed herself off. She landed on the stone below with a small jolt, her knees bending to ease the impact, and then started to stand up straight again.

"You'll explain and do it now! Marguerite deserves that much at least."

The faint words were spoken in Tiny's angry voice and she turned her head, and then ducked to the side as she realized she'd landed in front of the kitchen window and the men were now entering the kitchen.

And Tiny was confronting Julius Notte on her behalf, not conspiring with him, she realized. The fact almost sent her marching back into the house to collect the mortal and take him with her, but Marguerite decided against it. She really didn't want to have to face Julius again. She'd call Tiny on his mobile as soon as she got somewhere with a phone and have him meet her.

The sun was beginning to warm the back of her head. Marguerite moved quickly away from the window to head up the alley.

"Are you going to tell me what the hell's going on?" Tiny asked, following Julius into the kitchen.

"I told you, I can't," Julius snarled, dragging the door of the mini-fridge open and then slamming it closed with a curse when he recalled that the blood was stored in the mini-fridge in the living room.

"The hell you can't!" Tiny snapped. "You'll explain and do it now. Marguerite deserves that much at least."

"So do I," Christian added grimly from the door.

"Perhaps it's time," Marcus said quietly.

Julius glanced at him silently, then sighed and dropped to sit at the table. He spent a moment trying to sort out where to start, then decided the best place to start was the beginning and said, "I met Marguerite here in York in 1490."

"She is my mother," Christian breathed, dropping into one of the other chairs.

"No, she isn't," Tiny told him apologetically. "She can't be."

"She is," Julius corrected quietly and the mortal turned on him.

"If she met you before, why didn't she say so? Why have you both been acting like you didn't know each other? And why the hell would she agree to go hunting for Christian's mother when it was her?" The mortal shook his head with disbelief. "You're lying and you'll have to do better than that. She sure as hell didn't spend the last three weeks going half blind looking through archives for kicks."

Christian's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "That's true."

"I'll explain if you can both sit down and shut up long enough to allow it," Julius said patiently.

Tiny scowled, but moved to take a seat at the table, then raised his eyebrows.

Nodding, Julius started again. "I met Marguerite here in York in 1490. Marcus and I came here to...er..."

"Carouse," Marcus filled in dryly.

"Carouse?" Tiny asked with bewilderment.

"Gamble, lift the skirts of the prettier wenches and feed on the locals," he explained and then shrugged. "We were young...er. Younger."

Julius smiled faintly at the correction, but then continued, "I met Marguerite our second night here and that was the end of the carousing for me."

Marcus shook his head at the memory and commented, "Spoiled all the fun."

"Why doesn't she remember?" Tiny asked, and when Julius turned a scowl on him, sighed and said, "Right. No interruptions. Go ahead. I'll shut up."

Julius nodded, and continued, "Marcus and I were hunting when we spotted her."

"Hunting?"

"Looking for dinner," Marcus explained when Julius sighed in exasperation at yet another interruption.

"You aren't talking deer are you?" Tiny asked dryly.

Marcus shook his head solemnly and when the detective grimaced, reminded him, "There were no blood banks back then."

"Right." He sighed. "So you were hunting and spotted Marguerite."

"She was beautiful," Julius continued with a smile. "She had on a burgundy gown with the lowest decolletage a lady of quality would dare to wear, a matching cape, and this ridiculous little cap perched on her head that looked like a bird in its nest."

While Christian remained silent, Tiny grunted, apparently not seeing the charm.

"She was on the hunt too, though she'd found her quarry and was leading him into a snickleway. I waited until she had finished her meal and then approached."

"And was lost," Marcus said mournfully.

Julius smiled faintly at the words, but his smile faded as he said, "She had been widowed twenty years earlier and had a grown son. She'd just moved into Martine's home to live while Martine moved away for a bit to prevent anyone realizing she did not age."

"Widowed?" Tiny asked with surprise.

"Her son's name was Lucern," Julius continued, ignoring him and the man held back his questions, though his confusion was plain on his face. "Fortunately, he was one hundred years old when she became pregnant with our child and there was no issue with carrying him to term.

"We were both extremely happy. Then, shortly before she was to give birth a messenger arrived. My father had been at the English court arranging a marriage for my sister, Mila, to her true lifemate, Reginald."

"He was an English baron, still is I suppose," Marcus told Tiny. "And Mila is short for Camilla. She and Reginald are Dante and Tommaso's parents."

When Tiny nodded, Julius continued, "Mila was visiting with Marguerite and me, but was now ready to join our father at court. Marcus and I escorted her to him." He shook his head sadly. "I wish now I had left Marcus to accompany her alone."

Tiny opened his mouth, no doubt to ask why, but Julius didn't wait for the question and continued, "While I was gone, Jean Claude Argeneau had returned from the dead. Marguerite-"

"Wait, wait," Tiny protested. "I know you didn't want interruptions, but you have to explain this Jean Claude bit. What do you mean returned from the dead? Was he or wasn't he dead? Can you guys die and come back? I don't understand."

Julius frowned. "Don't you know about our people?"

"Yes, yes," Tiny said impatiently. "Your ancestors are from what is now referred to as Atlantis. They were advanced scientifically, and combined nano technology and bioengineering to create little biters who run through your blood repairing and regenerating everything so you never age and never grow ill. But they use more blood than a body can create, so you need blood. There were blood banks in Atlantis, but when it fell, your people were forced to flee and live among the rest of us more primitive types in squalor. Without blood banks, the nanos altered you to hunt and feed and survive off mortals." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "Right?"

"I meant the healing part, not our history," Julius said dryly. "But never mind, it is easier just to answer your question. Jean Claude was supposed to have died in the Battle of Edgecote in 1469, beheaded in battle," he explained wearily. "And, no, immortals cannot come back from a beheading, we will not re-grow a head. Marguerite, as well as the rest of the immortal community, was led to believe that Jean Claude had died in battle and was gone. She lived as a widow for more than twenty years before we met."

"But Jean Claude wasn't dead?" Tiny asked with a frown.

"No," Julius said. "I returned home to find Marguerite missing and I was raising a search party for her when Magda, her maid, stumbled through the gates with a newborn Christian in her arms. She said Marguerite had given birth to our son earlier that same night and gave the child to her, ordering Magda to kill him and bring his body to me in the home we'd shared...along with the message that she had chosen to return to Jean Claude, a lifemate but also her true love. She regretted ever becoming involved with me and wished never to see me again."

Christian sagged in his seat, pain twisting his face, but Tiny's reaction was the opposite.

"No," he said firmly, leaping to his feet. "There is no way that happened. Jean Claude wasn't Marguerite's true lifemate, she told me that herself. He made her life miserable. Some of the things he did to her..." Tiny shook his head. "And she would never kill a child, especially not her own. She loves her children. You've got the wrong woman."

"It was Marguerite," Julius said quietly, but acknowledged, "I didn't believe it myself at first. I thought the maid must be lying, trying to cause trouble between us for some reason. But both Marcus and I read her and we saw the memory of Marguerite telling her to kill Christian and bring him to me and say those things. We saw."

Tiny sank back into his chair, shaking his head with stunned disbelief. "But she wouldn't do that."

"We weren't convinced either until she murdered the maid," Marcus announced quietly.

"Murdered the maid?" Tiny asked with renewed horror.

Julius merely nodded and continued, "She was pushed down the stairs. After that I took Christian and fled back to Italy to keep him safe. I never set foot in England again until now."

"And then that trouble happened in California and Christian insisted on going over to find out who had killed his cousin." Marcus picked up the story. "We knew it would mean some interaction with the Argeneaus and tried to talk him out of it, but when he refused to be swayed from hunting down Stephano's attacker, Julius asked me to accompany him to keep him safe."

Marcus grimaced and said, "I was shocked when I first met Marguerite again and she didn't appear to recognize me. I thought it was a ploy and read her mind, but she really had no recall of me," he said with remembered dismay. He shook his head. "Even more amazing was that she had no recall of Julius or anything that tied them together. There was a lot happening in California at the time, but I searched her thoughts when she was distracted and there simply was no memory of her ever being in York, meeting Julius, living with him, or having Christian."

"How is that possible?" Christian asked quietly.

Julius exchanged a glance with Marcus, then sighed and admitted, "Marcus and I discussed that when the two of you returned from California and he told me all he'd learned. We think her memory has been wiped."

"But she's an immortal," Christian protested. "Our memories can't be wiped."

"And yet the memories are gone," he pointed out. "She doesn't recall me, Marcus, or even the period when Jean Claude was missing. Instead, Marcus found some vague memory of a tour of Europe during the twenty-two orthree-year period encompassing his death and our being together."

"How?" Christian asked with bewilderment.

"We don't know," he admitted with a sigh. "It's possible a three-on-one might have done it."

"A three-on-one?" Tiny asked.

"A procedure where three immortals merge together and wipe away memories of a fourth individual," Julius explained.

"A mortal," Christian insisted with a frown. "That only works on mortals. You can't wipe the memories of an immortal."

"But if they're telling the truth then Marguerite's memories have been wiped," Tiny pointed out, and then added, "and I believe it."

Julius nodded, glad at least that he didn't have to convince the detective.

"So," Tiny continued, "the question becomes, why would they wipe her memory of that specific period if she willingly did all you just recounted?"

"That is what we wondered," Julius admitted. "It seemed obvious to us that all was not as it had been presented at the time. We needed to find out what really happened five hundred years ago. If she'd had her memories still intact, Marcus could have read them, but she had no memories to read. So, the best bet seemed to be to get her to York and hope that being here sparked some memory in her that would unravel the rest and we would finally find out what happened."

Tiny snorted disparagingly. "If she did order Christian killed, Jean Claude controlled her and made her do so."

"I agree," Julius murmured.

"You do?" Christian asked and the hope on his face that his mother hadn't wished him dead made Julius's heart ache for him.

"Yes, I do," he said firmly. "The Marguerite I know now is the same woman I fell in love with all those years ago, and she is not a woman who could kill a child, any child, and most definitely not her own."

"Well, then-" Tiny began but Julius interrupted him.

"But that doesn't explain her killing the maid who saved Christian."

"Jean Claude must have controlled her and made her do that as well," Tiny said with a shrug that suggested this was obvious, but Julius shook his head.

"She was alone when she entered the house. Jean Claude was not with her, and he wouldn't have been able to control her from a distance any more than I can control someone out on the street from here."

"I was controlled in California and made to unlock Vincent's door by someone outside," Tiny pointed out.

"Then the immortal must have been looking in the window. They have to be able to see where they are sending you."

Tiny frowned over this news and then said, "So whoever controlled her was in the house today?"

Julius stiffened and stared at the man.

Tiny was frowning. "Did you see anyone? I don't recall seeing anyone in the house, but I could have been controlled. Did you see anyone?"

"Dear God," Julius breathed as he realized he hadn't seen anyone in the house. Someone had controlled her from outside. But how was that possible?

"How can anyone possibly control her like this?" Christian asked with a frown. "She is an immortal. No one should be able to control her so completely."

"What do you mean?" Tiny asked curiously.

"She's seven hundred years old," Christian explained. "Mortals and newly turned or young immortals are easily controlled by all and sundry, but the older we become, the better we become at erecting guards in our mind to protect ourselves. She shouldn't be controlled so easily. In fact, Jean Claude should have lost his ability to control her after the first hundred years or so."

"I wondered about that too," Marcus admitted. "It troubled me that he still controlled her so completely right up until his death."

"You were able to read her, Marcus," Tiny pointed out. "Could you control her as well?"

"No, I tried to control her and make her sit beside Julius on the train when she started to move to the opposite table," he admitted. "But she didn't even hesitate in step."

"But you can read her easily enough?" Tiny asked, trying to understand.

"Reading is different," Julius explained. "Marcus and I are much older. We can read most immortals younger than ourselves if they are distracted, and Marguerite was undoubtedly distracted in California and then again here."

"Can you read her?" Tiny asked Julius, eyes narrowing.

"No. She's my lifemate," he said without hesitation. "We cannot read lifemates, that's what makes them-"