Hands dragged her away from me, but she reached out to me, wanted to keep touching me, like any vampire victim once you mind-fuck them deep enough. Keegan and Hamish held her between them. Her eyes were still unfocused like a sleepwalker's.

"Her eyes," Hamish said, and it took me a second to understand it wasn't Moroven's eyes he was referring to, but mine.

Keegan looked up at me and then at the floor. He wouldn't look me in the eyes while they were glowing. I felt like every inch of my skin should have been glowing with power, not just my eyes. Oh, my God, it felt so good.

The Wicked Bitch, who turned out not to be so wicked after all, took a deep shuddering breath and looked up at me. I'd thought I'd drunk deep of her rage until I looked into her eyes again. Hatred, such burning hatred-it filled her eyes, her face, as if she were formed of it. Something in that one look did what all her power hadn't done before: it scared me. I don't know why, but I couldn't keep my pulse even, couldn't stop that spurt of adrenaline. It's always funny what will scare you and what won't. You never know, not even about yourself.

"That's better," she said in a voice that was icily calm and controlled and didn't match the hatred in her eyes at all.

"Mistress, are you well?" Hamish asked.

"Answer him for us, Keegan," she said.

"The woman is afraid now. We are very well, indeed," the man said, smiling a most unpleasant smile.

"Why would she be afraid now?" Rodina asked, her voice still holding an edge of the fear that Moroven had caused her.

"She sees me now. Don't you, Anita?"

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, my mouth suddenly dry. I couldn't have explained it, but I'd never had anyone look at me with such hatred. I don't know why, but it did frighten me. Damn it.

"I could feed upon your fear now, as you fed upon my anger, but I think I will let your fear grow first. You have so little inside you that it is not a feast for me." She walked closer to me and peered into my face. "Not yet anyway, but it will be, Anita. I promise you that before I kill you and take the power that is rightfully mine, I will create inside you a fear to equal my hatred."

I had to swallow again to say, "I'm not sure there's enough fear to equal your hatred, Moroven."

She smiled and it was a prettier one than Keegan's, but they were still the same smile. It was most unpleasant and promised worse. "See, Anita, I knew you would say my name. In a few hours, you will scream both my names."

I shook my head. "I don't think so." But my heart seemed to be in my throat. Why did the hatred make me more afraid than the anger? Then I realized I had my own anger, but I wasn't sure that I hated anything as much as Moroven hated the world.

"We will leave you to contemplate your fate, Anita, but not alone. No, my Harlequin brought a very special guest to keep you company."

My pulse had been calming down, but now it skyrocketed. Who did she have? Who else had she kidnapped? I tried to think who else had been in the hotel. Nathaniel and Damian had been with the police; they were safe. Who else did that leave? Donnie and Griffin had been in the lobby, but . . . I prayed hard for so many people not to come down those stairs, but Edward wasn't on the list. . . . Somehow the thought of it being Edward didn't seem possible, as if he weren't touchable. I knew that wasn't true, but I was less worried about him than about almost anyone else I loved in Ireland.

She watched my face as she said, "Bring in our other guest."

As if they'd been waiting on the stairs for her order, two men walked into view carrying a third between them. My heart fell all the way to my feet, my knees went weak, and I had to make my hands into fists to keep myself upright and not show more emotion than I already had. It was Nathaniel. I didn't know how they'd gotten him away from the police and all the people who were supposed to keep him safe, but there he was, the absolute last person I wanted to see dragged in here with me. God help me. God help us.

He was shirtless, with his arms fastened behind his back. I couldn't see any injuries on him, which was a relief. The long braid of his hair was piled on top of his body, as if they'd tripped on it at some point and just gotten it out of the way. They'd tied a piece of gray cloth across his mouth for a gag. I stared into his wide lavender eyes and felt unmanned. To keep him safe, I would do anything; we were both so fucked.

He was in manacles, too, but he had them on his wrists and his ankles, with more chain wrapping around his upper body and his legs. They'd carried him down, because he could barely bend his body in the chains, let alone walk.

"I knew there had to be more fear in you somewhere, Anita, and there it is, and all for this man. Your leopard to call. Your fiance, so I'm told, though you seem to have promised yourself to more men than you can actually wed. How does Mr. Graison feel about your wedding plans with Jean-Claude?"

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't seem to think of anything useful. I tried to think of anything that wouldn't make this worse or give her the emotions she was wanting to feed on, but nothing constructive came to mind. For once in my life, I was frozen and didn't know what to do. I mentally screamed at myself to get my shit together, to think, but all I could do was look into his eyes and be afraid for him. Fuck, I had to do better than this!

"Speechless with fear already, Anita? Do I need to do something to help loosen your tongue?"

That I had an answer for. "No, no." Even the extra no was nerves, and she knew it. Damn it!

She went to Nathaniel and stroked the heavy braid, gathering it up in her hands and letting it fall to the floor. He looked at me, ignoring her as if she wasn't there. I stared into those lavender eyes, that face, and tried to sense him. He wasn't just one of my moitie btes; he was the other third of my own private triumvirate but I couldn't feel him at all, as if he were less present than the other people in the room. Whatever magic was on the chains made Nathaniel almost blank. I couldn't sense his energy at all, but I could sense hers, and Keegan's, and Hamish's, and Rodina's, but not Nathaniel's. The metal didn't keep me from being psychic; it just kept me from being psychic with the people I was metaphysically joined with. That was interesting, maybe even useful. I couldn't think how to use that knowledge yet, but it was something, and I'd take it, because something was better than what I'd had a second ago.

"Such beautiful hair," she said. She stroked down his chest, touching the bare skin between the chains. Nathaniel got touched more than that when he danced onstage at Guilty Pleasures. We were okay. We were okay. I kept repeating that in my head like a mantra. "He's in such good shape, Anita, so much exercise to put all that muscle on his chest and arms. All your men seem to be quite fierce about their gym routines, but then so are you, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said, because she didn't seem to like silence. "Yeah, we work out."

"The tiger that we left wounded in the hotel killed two of my Roanes before he came to help you. My seal folk are not the Harlequin, but they are well trained. The fact that he slew two of them so quickly is testament to the training of your guard."

"Ethan killed two of your men. I wondered what kept him out of the fight in the other room so long."

She motioned at the two men holding Nathaniel, as if close to two hundred pounds of muscle wasn't heavy at all. "They wish that my Harlequin had brought your wounded warrior here so they could revenge their brethren on him."

I looked at the men more closely. One had black hair with dark brown eyes; the other had paler brown hair with gray eyes. They were handsome in that traditional guy way, but with Nathaniel in the room, they just didn't look that good to me. I was biased, but they were broad through the shoulders and looked like there was the promise of muscle under their clothes. They didn't have the black-on-black eyes that Roarke and Riley had had. I'd started thinking I could spot all the Roane, or Selkies, from their eyes, but apparently not. Good to know.

She came to stand in front of me again. "Do you want to know how we came to have your Mr. Graison in our power?"

"Sure," I said, and my voice was almost as uninterested as I was trying for, and I'd almost gotten my pulse under control. The plan hadn't changed: be nice, be polite, don't trip her crazy, and make her think she is the most beautiful thing in the room. The only thing that had changed was that the stakes had been raised for the moment when I stopped being nice again. I kept my thoughts from going any farther down that track. One moment at a time, just this moment, deal with this moment. The next moment can go fuck itself until we get to it.

"You recover yourself very quickly, Anita. It makes you very interesting to me."

"Maybe we can go shopping sometime and have girl talk," I said, and even managed a smile.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No, if you wanted to go out shopping, gossiping, and girl bonding, I'd be totally down with that."

She frowned at me. "I do not understand you."

"Just offering to be friendly," I said.

"You cannot be friends with your food, Anita. You have already fed upon me, and I will return the favor soon."

"I'm engaged to be married to a vampire. I can be very friendly to people who feed off of me."

"I, too, feed upon my servants," she said, and motioned at Keegan, "but would never allow them to feed upon me, even were they capable of it." It was really good to know that he was her human servant. I'd thought probably, but it was nice to have it confirmed. If I got a chance to try to kill anyone, other than her, he'd go to the top of the list, because now I knew that killing him might kill her, too. Yippee.

"Most servants of vampires can't feed on their masters," I said.

"Not just most, Anita, all, or all save for Jean-Claude and his new bloodline. There seems much confusion in his newfound power on who is master and who is slave."

"We understand who wears the pants in the family," I said. I could be calm as long as I didn't look at Nathaniel, but just focused on the white bitch in front of me. I was doing my best to sort of pretend he wasn't here. It helped me think better.

"You may find that the pants have changed owners," she said, then called out, "Roarke, bring our other guest."

And just like that my heart was racing, and I looked at Nathaniel. His eyes widened as if to tell me something with a look, but for once I couldn't read his expression. Without our ties open between us, I was head blind and just had to watch as Roarke, King of the Roane, walked down the steps. His dark eyes stared at me as if he'd never begged me to kill him or been anything but tall, imposing, and hers. He came into the room radiating energy much more than he had at the church. He was leading another man by the hand. It took me a second to realize it was Damian. My fear spiked again until I realized Damian wasn't chained or restrained in any way that I could see. He just walked down the stairs with Roarke like they were buddies. What the fuck was going on?

80.

MOROVEN WENT TO Roarke and greeted him with a kiss. If he didn't want to kiss her back, it didn't show. Had he lied in the church, or was her control of him just that good outside of the church? If we all survived long enough, I'd ask.

Damian stood beside them, his face almost blank. His eyes were open, but it was as if he didn't see anything in the room. I realized that Roarke wasn't leading him by the hand; he was holding Damian's wrist. It seemed odd, but then Damian just standing there while the two of them kissed was odd.

"Damian!" I called his name, and he jumped as if I'd startled him. "Damian!" He blinked and looked at me then; for a second he was in there looking at me. He said, "Anita!"

Moroven laid her hand beside Roarke's so they were both touching him at the same time, and his eyes went blank again.

"What have you done to him?" I asked.

She looked at me and smiled that unpleasant smile that Keegan shared with her. I wondered if it had started out as his or hers. "Once I separated you from your servants, Damian was mine again, as he has always been. He gave himself and Mr. Graison over to me once your powers were not clouding his mind."

"I don't believe that."

"He betrayed your Nathaniel, as soon as I called to him. He came back to me, because you are not vampire enough to hold him."

There was no way that Edward would have let them just walk out of the police station. It made me want to ask if anyone besides Nathaniel had been betrayed. But there was nothing for me in that line of questioning. Once we got out of here, then I'd ask Damian and Nathaniel all sorts of questions, but not in front of her, not with her making his eyes go dead. I had to believe we would get out of here, because I had too much at stake to think anything else.

Moroven leaned in against Damian's body, raising her face up toward him for a kiss. His eyes were alive again, his again, and he actually flinched away from her. She said, "Kiss me, Damian!" She made it an order, and he bent toward her, but his eyes stayed aware. He did not want to kiss her, and that was enough to bring him partially out of her control, even with her and her animal to call touching him.

"Damian, don't kiss her," I said.

He stood back up straight and tall, too tall for her to reach him. She turned to me with a hiss; her eyes glowed blue. "He is mine!"

"You sent him to Jean-Claude. You were done with him once, Moroven. Why do you want him so badly now?"

"Because he is mine!" She screamed it, the glow fading from her eyes.

"If all you wanted was your lover back, you could have sent a letter," I said.

She moved away from Roarke and Damian, and I expected his eyes to go back to being blank, but they didn't. Something about the interchange between us all was helping him fight it. If I could only figure out what had helped and keep doing it.

"A letter would not have brought me you, Anita, and that is what I wanted. That you brought Damian back to me is a wonderful gift, and I will never give him up again."

"Why did you give him up to Jean-Claude in the first place?" I asked; more information could only help, right?

"Your lord and master wrote to me, said that he had dreamed of Damian's pale flesh for centuries and that he would force Damian to be his catamite. It was something that our crimson-haired vampire had a near . . . mortal terror of," and she laughed at her own wordplay. Most of the people in the room who belonged to her laughed. Rodina and Hamish were the exceptions. Maybe their white bitch of a queen wasn't all she was cracked up to be for them.

"You had men here," I said. "You didn't have to send Damian all the way to America for a little sodomy."

She made an unhappy face. "What good to me is a man who prefers men? I do not collect such men. I gave him up to be tormented by Belle Morte's prize pupil, only to find that when Damian returns home, he has a taste for men now. Jean-Claude must possess some witchery that I did not envision."

I fought to keep my face blank, because I knew it wasn't Jean-Claude's witchery, at all. Nathaniel was two for two, being the only male lover of two heterosexual men. I was pretty sure Jean-Claude and Asher had more to their credit, but no one that I knew.

She tried to walk all the way around Nathaniel and the two Roane, but Rodina was in the way of her skirts. "Oh for Goddess' sake, girl, rise and go stand with Hamish."

Rodina didn't make Moroven order twice, just got to her feet and moved over to stand with her fellow Harlequin. They might not like each other a lot, but neither of them liked Moroven at all. I wasn't sure how I was so positive of that, but I was, and somehow I knew I was right.

"Jean-Claude is one of the most beautiful men on the planet," I said. "I mean, I may be prejudiced in his favor, but he is the king of seduction."

"I know how seductive he can be, Anita, or did he neglect to mention that he was my lover?"

"He told me that Belle Morte and you traded Damian and him for a while."

"I tried to keep him, but Belle would not give up one of her favorite poppets."

"I heard that, too," I said.

"Did they tell you what one of my passions is, Anita?"

"I'm not sure," I said because I wasn't.

"Ruined beauty," she said.

"No," Damian said loud and clear. He actually stepped forward with Roarke still gripping his arm.

She turned and looked at him. "How are you fighting free without her power to bolster you?"

"I am here. I'll stay with you. Just let Anita and Nathaniel go unharmed."

"Tempting but I did not create a near army of vampires in Dublin for fun and frolic, Damian. I was beginning to wonder what horrors I would have to unleash on Dublin before the great vampire expert would finally come to Ireland." She looked at me and smiled.

"Are you saying that you did all that just to get me here?"

"The only power you possess that is more attractive to the Mother of All Darkness is your necromancy. It is also what allows you to control vampires, so I lured you to the only country in the world where your personal magic will not work. Now, when I kill you and take the rest of the Mother's power into myself, it won't linger over your necromancy. The magic will simply come to me, as it was destined to."

"If you kill Anita, I may die with her," Damian said.

Moroven looked back at him. "I do hope not, but even the joy of tormenting you with your new face is not enough to make me forgo collecting all the power that is due me." She came to stand in front of me again. "How ever did you change his face? I thought only Belle Morte could do that."

I tried for the truth. "I'm not really sure."

"Come now, Anita, eventually you will tell me all your truths, so do not bother lying."

I glanced at Hamish and Rodina, because any wereanimal or vampire powerful enough should have been able to tell that I'd just told the truth. Hamish gave a blank face, but Rodina smirked just a little. They knew that their new queen couldn't tell if someone was lying. The only other master vampires that I'd ever met that couldn't act like undead lie detectors had been ones that were so self-delusional that it compromised their ability to tell what was real.

"Since I didn't know that it was possible to make a vampire servant out of anyone, it was all a little accidental."

"Lies, but I know how to get the truth." She motioned for the men with Nathaniel to move over in front of me.

Keegan went just behind the opening to the stairs, but on the opposite side that people seemed to walk down. I saw his arms move, as if he pressed or pulled something in the walls, and a thick chain snaked down from the ceiling. It wasn't a pair of them like the ones on my wrists, but just a single thick line of chain with a large hook on the end of it.

"No!" Damian said. He started to push past Roarke, and then I saw the Roane's eyes glow like black diamonds. Damian's eyes unfocused and he stopped moving forward.