She knew this place. Somehow.

The most logical thing would be to climb downhill and see who occupied the tents; they might shed some light on what had happened. As Alex thought of doing just that, an invisible icy finger traced a slow path down her spine. Suddenly, acutely aware of the sweat that soaked her and her clothes, Alex sat back on her heels and hugged her knees. The little dragonfly brought a friend, and both buzzed around her face.

Don't move from here, something inside her warned. Not an inch.

She knew she couldn't sit here all night; she had to get some indication of where she was. The tents had been put up in circles around little campfires, most of which had burned down to glowing coals. A temporary corral set off to one side of the encampment held about three hundred horses and twice as many camels.

Camels?

All right, there were camels. Maybe it was one of those wacky wilderness preserves with emus and ostriches and such. Or maybe she was in Iraq. Whatever the case, there weren't enough animals in the corral. If there was one guy in every tent, two- thirds must have come here on foot. Or maybe they drove, and the parking lot was at the other end of the valley.

Three dragonflies flew in lazy circles in front of her, glowing like purple-blue night-lights.

Alex had a feeling that if she hiked through the hills, she wouldn't see any signs of modern life. No RVs, trailers, cars, or motorcycles. Not a single battery-operated radio, lantern, or camp stove. Whoever was here was here, and didn't have much.

If there really was anyone here. Other than the animals and the dragonflies, there were no signs of life, not even guards patrolling the perimeter.

Why would I expect guards? I'm not in the middle of a war zone.

Yet the instant Alex thought that, everything seemed different. During her time in the Peace Corps, she'd seen plenty of tribal and government troops who bivouacked in the rough. They'd kept their encampments just as sparse and tidy as this one so that they could be broken down, packed up, and moved at a moment's notice.

On foot. In a desert. In a place with weird bugs, no electric lights, no parking lots, and stars she didn't recognize.

Alex froze as someone spoke from behind her in a language she didn't understand. She turned her head to see two figures in heavy armor hurrying toward her. One of them was tall, the other blocky, and both were running silent and fast. More dragonflies came, bathing her in their purple-blue light. At the same time, the smell of vanilla pound cake baking filled her head.

Alexandra.

A voice inside her mind. Well, what else? At least it was definitely someone she knew, could almost see in her head, although she couldn't think of his name. Someone had taken an eraser to the name portion of her memory for sure; she barely knew her own. Whoever the speaker was, his scent told her that he wasn't far away. She'd go to him. He'd protect her. Somehow she knew that was his job. Somehow she knew him.

The dragonflies, some twenty of them now, formed a straight line that pointed toward the encampment.

I've been waiting for you.

The words sounded gentle and tender, an invitation, not a threat. Whatever he wanted, it was bound to be nicer than whatever the two coming after her intended. She forced herself to her feet and followed the dragonflies as they flew down the hill, almost falling on her face several times before she skidded to a stop at the bottom. She could smell the animals along with his scent now, and saw that the pumpkins hanging from the tent poles were actually decapitated heads. A few were still dripping blood from the raw ends of their severed necks.

All of the heads belonged to women.

Don't look at them. They're not real. The voice came from the biggest tent at the very center of the encampment, one that glowed purple-blue like the dragonflies' wings. Walk to the light. I am here.

Alex glanced back over her shoulder. The guys in armor had made it over the hill and were sliding down it. The polished metal of the armor matched the glitter of the long broadswords they carried.

Damned if you do, decapitated if you don't?

Weaving between the smaller tents, Alex made her way through the camp. The dragonflies flanked her like an official escort.

The closer she came to the center tent, the brighter it glowed. By the time she reached it the dark light radiating from it had grown so intense that it almost fried her eyes. Then she saw why.

A million dragonflies covered the tent, their wings still but pulsing with the strange light.

She reached for the tent flap, but a big hand reached out and pulled her through without opening it. The tent was not a tent at all, and for a split second her skin screamed as she passed through a thin layer of scalding, sticky fluid. Before it could burn her alive, she was standing on the other side, inside the tent, shaking all over and staring up at a stern-looking, blond-haired man.

She didn't know him, but he was huge-more than twice her size-and he looked upset.

"Hi." Alex nibbed her arms with her hands. "Uh, nice tent. This a bad time for you? I can come back."

"You stay." He tacked a smile onto the end of that, relaxing the harsh lines of his face and showcasing his snow-white teeth. A face, Alex decided, that would make any woman's insides assume the consistency of pudding. "You came."

"Yeah, I did." It would be great if she knew why, and who he was, but she'd start with the immediate problem. "Where are we?"

"Don't you know?"

Alex glanced around. "Far as I know, I'm with you, inside a tent, in a camp in the desert. Hopefully not a desert outside Baghdad. I left all my rocket launchers and hand grenades at home."

"You're dreaming," he told her, taking a step closer.

"Not really." She felt bemused by the fact that he was built like a professional wrestler but spoke with the elegant English accent of a Cambridge professor. "You would not believe what you can buy off eBay these days.""I meant that this is a dream. One which we are sharing." He opened his arms to her, and then seemed taken aback when she didn't accept his invitation to a hug. "Why are you afraid of me?"

"Knights in shining armor chased me into a camp of headless chicks. Your tent is made out of acid Jell-O. I don't know any British men who could be headliners on RAW." She lifted her shoulders. "Makes a girl a little careful about getting into full-body contact."

"You were in danger. I felt your terror. Then you summoned me. I came at once. As I always have." He gestured around them.

"This is our sanctuary."

"Uh-huh." Hid friendliness made her want to jump on him and give him a big, sloppy kiss. Alex didn't often kiss people she liked, much less strangers, so she killed that idea immediately. "How could I call you? I don't have a mobile with me. I don't know who you are."

"I understand. Other things have made you not wish to remember. It is the same every time." His hands settled on her shoulders. "I would not rush you, but God curse me, my patience is not endless."

His touch made a lot of the bad feelings take a hike. Alex wondered why she'd want to forget someone like him. He didn't have turquoise eyes, but who cared? "Waiting is no fun."

"Aye, my lady, and I no better than a lovesick squire since you left." He uttered a short, self-deprecating laugh. "I have not rested since you went away. I begin to wonder if I ever will."

"You're saying that we were together. You and me. In the past." Alex inspected him, but she couldn't recall ever being with an erudite wrestler. Surely she wouldn't have forgotten someone with such a lousy neck tattoo, made to resemble a blurry garrote of green thorns. But the only thing that rang any bells was his scent, like velvety-soft warm vanilla pound cake. "You don't have me mixed up with another lady doctor, do you?"

"Alexandra." He smiled a little as he bent his head. "You are the only lady doctor I know."

Alex didn't expect the kiss, but she didn't kick him in the groin in outrage. The first part felt nice. He put his mouth on hers and used his lips to tug at hers, asking her without words to let him in. Not that she would. This was going to be only a friendly, introductory, hello-again sort of kiss. Something to jolt her brain cells into working a little better, nothing more. He'd probably kissed her a million times.

The kiss didn't ring any bells. Several alarms, however, started clanging, and she went stiff.

He noticed and backed off, although not very far. "I should have taken you when you were bespelled. I could feel your trust, your affection." He ran a big hand over her hair, stroking her curls with rough delight. "You are like no woman I've known."

"That's good," she said, wondering if she could jump back through the tent wall without his help, and if the dragonflies would come after her, "because I still don't know you."

"I am glad you do not. I played the honorable fool." The grooves running from his nose to bracket his mouth deepened. "If I had taken you when I had you in my hands, our bond would have been made complete. You would never have departed."

He was starting to sound like a stalker, not a lover. She'd have to take her chances with the tent.

"Sorry that didn't work out." She braced her hands between them. "How about you let me go?"

"No." He caught the back of her hair in his fist. "I accept that he took you from me. But this is our time, our place. He cannot be here between us. If nothing else, I will have this."

Turquoise eyes. He must have taken her away. She didn't know why or when, but she was supposed to be with him. And not here.

"I gotta go." Tears of frustration burned her eyes as she tried desperately to remember the other man, and how she could get back to him. Her body didn't help matters by ignoring her and rubbing itself up against the blond giant. "I'm not doing this. I can't."

A low hum shivered through the walls of the tent, the purple-blue dragonfly light dimming.

"You will not go to him." He wrapped one arm around her and lifted her off her feet. "He cannot have every moment of your existence. You summoned me. You want me." He put her on his eye level. "You chose me."

He took a couple of steps and dropped down with her into a pile of robes and blankets and pillows, stretching his body over hers. He pressed her thighs apart with his hands, propping himself in the space he made, on his knees and elbows.

Alex surged up and then swore as the weight and heat of his body made her body clench and ready itself for him.

"This is how it could have been for us that night." He shifted against her, lining up their hips and covering one of her breasts with his hand. His fingers closed and opened over her, kneading the tight mound, rubbing his hard palm against the pucker of her nipple. "All the while I cared for you like a brother, but I wanted more. So did you. With every breath I took I could taste your desire."

"I have a brother," Alex said, feeling a second surge of panic. "You're not him."

"You're so beautiful," he breathed, not hearing her anymore as he played with her breasts. "I've dreamed it would be like this."

Alex twisted, trying simultaneously to avoid his mouth colliding with hers and the thick, wide column of his penis nesting against her crotch. She lost. The man pushed his tongue in her mouth while he settled himself between her legs, and held her there. As he kissed and sucked at her tongue, he fitted the length of his cock against the long notch of her labia, working it over her with small, insistent nudges, only the few layers of clothing between them keeping it all from getting out of hand.

She tried to scream a no, but the word came in instead of out, a rush of excited breath, then an exhaled moan of longing.

"Yes, my lady." He rested his cool cheek against hers. "I know. You need me inside you. I can smell how hot and wet you are.

Let me have you. Let me feel you on my cock."

The low, guttural demands almost sent Alex over the edge. She could hear the soft, yearning sounds coming from her throat, and the gnawing ache his erection had created between her legs shrieked to be filled and stroked and sated. If he didn't fuck her, right this second, Alex felt sure she'd go insane.

If she hadn't already.

Hunger, screaming need, and impending psychotic break aside, on some deeper level Alex knew how wrong this was. She loved another man, and that one meant everything to her.

Something else had taken hold of her funhouse and was operating the equipment. She tried to take control, but her body went into full mutiny. She couldn't stop answering the stroke of his hips, the pressure of his sex. She did want him, and she could handle that, but the fact that she didn't love him, didn't know him- ... I cared for you like a brother...

Naked, facedown on an uncomfortable pallet. A wet cloth wielded by a gentle hand smoothing over her back. Blood and herbs, warmth, safety.

The wanting and the fear slowly drained out of her, leaving behind a limp, distant feeling of deja vu."Water boiled with willow bark and valerian," Alex muttered under his mouth. "Left to cool."

He moved to nuzzle her neck, and then went still. Alex looked down and saw four deep, ugly slashes rip across his chest. "No."

He covered the wounds with his hand. "Do not do this, Alexandra. Not again."

Alex studied his face. The light changed from purple-blue to a reddish orange, and created grim shadows around his eyes, nose, and mouth. "Your talent. You wouldn't tell me what it was."

He didn't answer, but rolled away from her, throwing an arm over his face.

She felt grateful rather than relieved. Whoever he was, she liked him. He was a decent guy.

"I can read the minds of killers," she said, turning toward him and propping herself on her elbow. "What can you do?"

"'Kyn do not trade tales about talent. Damn you." He swore as he got to his feet and strode around the tent. "I will not relive what has been." He stopped and glared at her. "We can have more than repetitions of what was. We can make a whole new world for ourselves; can't you see that?"

She stared at the top of the tent. "So your talent is worse than mine." Under that very hot, ready-to-do-the-nasty-all-night facade was, Alex suspected, a very nice man. Why else would he be...

She sat up. "You helped me. You took care of me. I remember." The memories went as quickly as they'd come to her, and she tilted her head. "You know, when you get pissed off or upset, you smell like vanilla pound cake."

"Larkspur." He came over and knelt before her. "You are not ready for me."

She bit her lip. "That's nice."

"Alexandra." He bent forward and pressed his mouth to her forehead. "Come back. I will be waiting."

Alex nodded, although she was more interested in staring at his mouth. "I have to get out of here now, right?"

"Yes." He kissed her hard on the mouth, and then raised his head and listened. "They will wake you soon. You will be as you were with them."

"I will," she promised. She looked down at herself. "I need some clothes."

He brought a light robe to her and went to stand by the tent flap. He had done the exact same thing before, Alex thought, but this time he watched her dress.

She joined him, startled by how sore she was and how slowly she was moving. "Thank you."

"I am at your service, my lady."

She touched his cheek, took a deep breath, and then pushed herself through the tent wall.

Leaving Cyprien to attend to Alexandra, Jayr went to the men's quarters. Knocking on Rainer's locked chamber door produced no response, so she used her master key to let herself in. The warrior's rooms, which he had painted with stripes of red, orange, and purple, reflected his passion for collecting things. At the moment Rainer was obsessed with traveling shows, and the playbills, costumes, and props he arranged in various artful displays made it seem as if a circus had exploded in his rooms. His lamps stood unlit, and the place seemed unoccupied, but Rainer's scent, like strawberries warmed by the sun, colored the shadows."Hiding is pointless," Jayr said. "I can smell you."

"Go away," a muffled voice said from nowhere she could pinpoint. "I am resting."

"You are sulking." Like all Kyn, Jayr could see well in the dark, but the wounded man's bed lay empty, and none of his furnishings were large enough to hide him. "Where are you?"

A polite cough made her look up.

Rainer hung upside down, his bearlike body suspended from a snare rope bound around his ankles. More rope bound his arms to his sides and secured the end of a black sack, which covered his face.

From beneath the hood he said, "It's not as bad as it looks."

"Christ knows, it never is." Jayr went to the rope where it was anchored, untied it, and lowered the man down until she could grab him with one arm. She stripped off the rope and hood. Dried blood stained Rainer's sea blue tunic and vivid green trousers in patches, but it appeared that his wounds had healed. "Who did you enrage this time?"

"I cannot say. Perhaps God again." He found his feet and turned away from her. "My thanks. You should go, attend to things more important than my misfortunes."

"Your misfortunes are more amusing." Jayr lit one of his lamps and looked around the room, which had been rifled through and left in complete disarray. "Tell me who did this to you."

"Would that I could oblige you. But I went to sleep at dawn, and opened my eyes this evening to find myself in the dark and at the end of my rope." He grinned at his own pun and hobbled over to an armchair draped with a trapeze artist's glittering cape.

"I suppose it was Beaumaris," he said as he slowly sat down. "He considered the entire accidental-stabbing incident most humiliating. I don't know why. It wasn't as if it landed in his cods."