Patrick and Jessica kneeled beside me and helped me to stand. "They're just... sh.e.l.ls."

Damian and his security team surrounded the creatures, pointing guns and swords at them. They growled louder, their feet sc.r.a.ping impatiently at the concrete. I heard their thoughts: Kill anyone who gets in your way.

Simultaneously, they whirled, arms extended and claws slashing.

"Stop!" I yelled and thunder reverberated in my voice. The lycans ceased their attack. I felt every pair of eyes on me.

"Eva?" Damian's voice was low, questioning.

I wanted to weep. "Their minds are gone. You must do-" I felt my throat close and I cleared it roughly. "You must do the kindest thing."

He nodded. The guns rattled efficiently and the vamp/lycans fell to the driveway, blood trickling from their wounds to stain the concrete.

"Where's Lorcan?" I asked, my voice raw.

"I am here," he whispered. He appeared behind me and swept me into his arms. I felt a tingling, then POP! we were in my bedroom. He tucked me under the covers, then sat next to me, brushing my hair with his long fingers.

"What did they want with me?"

Lorcan shook his head. "I do not know." His gaze blazed with fury. "But I will find out."

A few days pa.s.sed and I heard nothing more. Either no one knew why I had been kidnapped a second time or they were all trying to protect me.

I'm not sure when I realized that I was dying. Maybe no one wanted to admit it. Everyone had hope. I knew from the number of visitations and the number of blood vials Stan syringed that he was working nonstop on a cure. Jessica and Patrick came every day and talked to me like I would return to my library and to my life with Tamara. I pretended that I believed everything would be all right, but after two weeks my body was so achy, so weary, and my mind so filled with fluttering, gray thoughts, I couldn't believe that I would survive.

I supposed that I had gone through all five stages of grief, but honestly, I hadn't paid attention. Did exhaustion in mind, body, and soul equal acceptance of death? I didn't know. I was scared. In those few hours that I spent alone with no one to talk to and nothing to occupy me, terror filled me until I almost choked. I got out of my bed and walked the room, but doing so just made me more tired and more anxious. If I thought about it too long, I got really weirded out by the idea I was being kept a prisoner by my friends. I didn't know what the taint would do to me, but I knew it would be bad. Really bad.

I decided that I had to plan for my death, even as I continued to embrace the faint hope of a cure. The Consortium would take care of Tamara financially, but she needed a parent. I knew Jessica would take Tamara as her own if I asked, but she already had Bryan, Jenny, and Rich Junior. He was just a toddler, and the son of Jess's husband and his mistress, both of whom were dead. Besides, I couldn't ignore the fact that with me gone, Tamara would have a chance to return to the real world and be, at least for her, a normal kid.

After Lorcan and Bert left for the evening, I used the house phone to buzz Jessica. Using it reminded me that I had never gotten my backpack or my cell phone. I wondered if Lor had found it or if he'd forgotten to even look for it. Oh, well. What did it matter now?

"Hey there!" Jessica said, her smile and her words way too cheery. "How are you feeling?"

"Like somebody hit me with a truck, backed over me, then did an Irish jig on me with spiked cleats."

Chuckling, she sat on the bed and held my hand. "What do you need? More pillows? More satellite channels? A bigger TV?"

"Five pillows are plenty and so are a thousand and three channels." I glanced at the flat-screen TV that took up nearly the whole wall in front of my bed. "I don't think you can get a bigger one in here."

"Point taken." She patted my hand and looked at me, a half smile on her lips. How many times had I sat on my mother's hospital bed doing the very same thing? I had felt helpless and afraid, though I never wanted Mom to know.

"In the library safe is a manila envelope. I need you to bring it to me, Jess, but please don't tell anyone else, okay?"

"Secret mommy stuff. Gotcha. Anything else?"

I nodded toward the mobile phone on the bedside table. "Can I call long distance on that?"

"You bet." Jessica stood up. "You want to let me in on what you're doing?"

"When the time is right." I smiled to deflect my reluctance to confide in her. "Ever figured out what the smell is up on the third floor?"

"Nope. I can't get anyone to go up there and check it out. The stench is worse than Bryan's room."

I laughed. "Now, that's bad."

When I awoke the following evening, I was greeted by the sight of Brigid bent over me. She smiled benevolently as she pa.s.sed her hands above my body, uttering Gaelic in a lyrical voice.

I had seen Brigid in meetings and around Broken Heart. Yet I had never been this close to her. She was tall-at least six feet.

Her hair was very long and red and her skin a creamy pale. She looked gorgeous in the simple green dress that adorned her. On her skin swirled gold patterns, as if they were animated tattoos. Jessica told me that Brigid was a true immortal, the mother to Ruadan and the grandmother to Patrick and Lorcan. She was also a healer with powerful draiocht, or magic. But she hadn't been able to interfere with the progression of the taint. Not even immortals had all the answers.

As her hands went over me once more, I felt a soothing heat flow from my feet to my head. The magic tingled and for once my weariness gave way to clarity.

"It seems you're preparing for a trip to the Other Side," she said in a lyrical Irish voice. "But maybe you shouldn't be packing your bags quite so soon."

"I'm trying to be realistic," I said.

"Is that your way of saying you're giving up?"

Anger spiked, even though Brigid's tone was kind. "I won't put my head in the sand and pretend that the taint isn't harming me."

Brigid waved at a cushioned chair and it glided across the carpeted floor. She sat down, her green eyes a.s.sessing me. "In the days when the Celts were one clan, when their magic hadn't been divided by those who loved the earth and those who loved the sea, I was born to Morrigu.""Lorcan read me the story." I gulped. "The crow queen really is your mother?"

"That's always been the problem with mortals. They rely more on their eyes and their intelligence than they do their hearts and their intuition. Why do you think magic has faded so much from this world?"

"Lack of belief."

"And lack of practice." She smiled sadly. "The day I begged my mother to save Ruadan, grief knotted my soul and impaired my judgment. Maybe it would've been better to let him join his brothers on the Other Side. But I couldn't let him go."

"I'm sorry."

"There are rules, my darlin', for all of us. Even though I am as near to a G.o.ddess as you're likely to get, I can't just part the veil for a visit whenever I please. There is a balance we must maintain, no matter who we are or where we live. I need to focus on my work to be done in this world."

"Which doesn't include ridding vampires of the taint."

"Is there a reprimand in there?"

"I suppose there is."

"Do you believe there is a reason for livin'?"

"Is this a cog-in-the-clock-of-life lecture?" I chuckled. "I heard it from my mother and I've said it to my daughter."

"We are who we are for a grand reason. Not everyone knows their purpose, but they serve it all the same." She leaned forward and touched my shoulder. "You should tell him how you feel and ask him for what you want. Lorcan is a lovely soul, but as stubborn as-well, as you." She winked at me.

Then she faded away and it was as if she'd never been there.

I thought about what Brigid had said and shivered. If I was going to cross to the Other Side, I wanted only two things. One, that Tamara would be cared for and two, that I could make love to Lorcan. Making love to Lor seemed like a very selfish wish. I knew that he had feelings for me. And heavens above, the man could kiss.

Was it wrong to l.u.s.t after a monk?

The phone call wasn't as heinous as I'd dreaded. A woman answered; her voice was cheerful as she called her husband to the phone.

"Evangeline?" Michael sounded both pleased and surprised.

Six months ago, I received a letter from Michael. It was the only secret I had ever kept from Tamara. My reasons for not responding to the letter were mixed, filled with right and wrong justifications. Michael had no parental rights. He'd made his position very clear sixteen years before. Tamara was mine and I couldn't bear the thought of sharing her. Then there was the fact that I was a vampire-how was I supposed to explain that? I sighed.

As much as I believed in the power of forgiveness, I had found precious little to give to Michael.

Now I had no choice. Tamara could live in a world where parents didn't drink blood for dinner.

"I'll be honest," I said. "I wasn't sure I would ever call you.""I know you don't think I deserve a second chance."

Yes, you do. We all do.

"All I can say is that I was young and stupid. My parents-well, they made it easy to walk away from you, Eva."

I knew from Michael's letter that he was a very successful architect married to his college sweetheart. They had two children, a four-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl. He had hired a private detective to find me, and once he had my address in Broken Heart, he'd mailed the letter. He wanted to see Tamara; he wanted to be part of her life. He offered to send child support, including back pay.

I wouldn't be human (figuratively) if I didn't admit to a little nyah-nyah-nyahing. And, yes, I realized I had the upper hand.

Michael would be my puppet and I would pull the strings. But these thoughts were unworthy and they didn't occupy my mind for too long. The truth was that I was scared. Scared of losing my daughter. I had been a single mother for too long. Like I said, I plain didn't want to share her.

"Evangeline?"

"I'm sorry." My throat knotted and my eyes ached with the need for tears. "I haven't talked to Tamara. I didn't tell her about your letter."

"I see." He paused.

"I'm dying, Michael. I need... would you... s.h.i.t."

"How can I help? What do you need?"

"I need you to be her father. After I... when I... go... I need you to take her and raise her and love her." I cleared my throat, clutching the receiver so hard it cracked. "Are you willing to do that?"

"Yes." He didn't hesitate. I blessed him silently for making this difficult conversation easier on me. "When will you talk to her?"

"Soon. I didn't want to get her hopes up."

"I know this is difficult for you, Eva. But I want you to know how sorry I am about everything. I hope Tamara can forgive me.

And I hope you can, too." He sighed and in that sound I heard his pain, his loss, his worry. Michael wasn't evil incarnate, not a two-dimensional creep. He was a man who'd made mistakes and choices, just like every other human being. At least he was trying to make things right. If he was reaching out his hand, then by golly, I would take it.

But I didn't know if Tamara would join the forgiveness train. As a teenager, she angsted about everything-from a pimple to a Cure song-but knowing that your father left you and your mother to fend for yourselves-yikes. Mending that wound would take a lot of work on Michael's part.

And I wouldn't be there to help.

"Evangeline?"

"I'm sorry. My mind keeps wandering. Let me talk to Tamara. I'll call you back." I hesitated. "What's your wife's name?"

"Susan."

"Is she... I mean, what's she like?"

"She's smart, kind, and funny. She reminds me of you."It was the perfect thing to say. I pressed a hand against my aching, dry eyes.

"She's the one who said I should find you and Tamara and try to mend things. If you're worried about how she'll treat our daughter, believe me when I say she will love her."

Our daughter. Oh, my G.o.d. Never had a plural p.r.o.noun been applied to Tamara. I wasn't alone anymore. And neither was she.

"Thank you." I cleared my throat, but the knot tightening it wouldn't release. "I'll call you soon. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Eva."

Lorcan came into my room and found me dry-crying. I heaved and whimpered, without shedding a tear, and I couldn't stop. He crawled into the bed with me and held me, cooing nonsense and stroking my hair.

I felt such pain-such horrible, wrenching pain-and I was drowning in it. The loose ends of my life were tying up. Tamara would have a father. The Consortium would have my library and my house. And Lorcan ... I stopped blubbering and looked at him. He was the only loose end left, I supposed. How neatly the things in my life were weaving together-and it was a tapestry nearly finished. I should be grateful for such blessings. But fear blew through me like an Arctic wind. I didn't want to die.

Oh, G.o.d.

I cradled Lor's face between my hands and kissed him. When I pulled back, his silver eyes were mercurial. He took my hands and kissed each wrist. Pleasure zinged through me.

I gazed at him, words tumbling around in my mind. I wanted to tell him everything I felt, everything I wanted, but it wasn't fair. I would certainly feel better-the tapestry weaving its final threads-but I doubted Lorcan would appreciate my sentiments.

"If things were different," I said, "we could... date, I guess." I laughed at the idea of vampire dating. "I like being around you, talking to you, holding your hand. I wish we could-"

"Eva." He pressed a finger against my lips. Then he smiled-such a lovely smile he had and so rarely did he show it. My heart turned over in my chest. Oh, heavens, he was beautiful, right down to his soul. "There's something you should know, a stoirin."

"What?"

"I love you."

Chapter 21

"I love you, too." I hugged Lorcan tightly. Finally, someone loved me. I was worthy of love. Yes! All I'd ever, ever, ever wanted was someone to love me. Oh, please... please love me.

The Arctic wind blew again, chilling me to the bone. I shivered. Lorcan tucked me under the covers. "You are so lovely, Eva.