Damian glanced down at his parcel with a frown.

"Someone selling art across from Jackson Square painted a wolf in a bayou. But it can't be the right painting, because this one is an antique. Alex confirmed it," he mused aloud. "Then again, it is New Orleans. Bayous and werewolves are common as crayfish."

She said nothing, refusing to talk with him since the fight yesterday. Jamie didn't want his tenderness, the caring or his people. If she joined with them, she'd only end up being hurt again because they'd reject her just as her uncle and brother had when she failed to meet their expectations.

Better to be alone and never know the love and warmth of family than lose something she'd secretly longed for all her life.

"Learn to let go, Damian. Because you can't hold on to me." Jamie pulled away from his loose clasp.

"I told you, chere, you're my mate, pack. Pack sticks together and I will never let you go. You need me, and us."

In minutes, they approached Pirate's Alley. Shrouded by shadows, it looked uncomfortably menacing. Damian went to enter. Jamie balked. Something wasn't right. A very faint foulness polluted the air.

He looked at her. "What is it?"

Don't go down there. Ridiculous. Just an alley.

"Nothing. Let's go."

When they were halfway through, a child stepped out of the shadows. The little girl clutched a stuffed animal marred with a rusty stain. Jamie's stomach gave a sickening twist.

Damian ground to an abrupt halt. Horror etched his face in frozen shock.

"Damian?" The child's voice was sweet. But underneath was a grating ugliness, like teeth gnashing and whirring. Didn't he hear it?

A clatter sounded as the painting fell to the pavement from Damian's loosened grip. The stark anguish shadowing his eyes. .h.i.t her like a baseball bat to the knees. This was someone he knew. Someone he cared about...

"Damian? You left me and they came, they killed Mommy and Daddy and Ritchie and Pierre. They found me. I tried so hard to hide and I was calling for you. Why didn't you hear me? Damian, you promised to protect me, you promised! They dragged me out and they hurt me, and I kept screaming for you and you never came!"

Shocked, Jamie watched Damian step forward. "Annie. Please, I'm so sorry. I ran, I ran hard and fast but I couldn't reach you-"

"I died because of you!"

Steel threaded through that tone. Jamie blinked hard at the little girl. Summoned the darkness still nestling deep inside. She gasped.

Instead of a little girl stood a gnarled figure with yellowed fangs, talons glistening in the moonlight and greasy hair. Morph.

Jamie tugged at his arm. "Damian, it's a Morph tricking you!"

He wrenched free of her grasp.

"Damian, if you truly love me, help me. Come here, I need you," the apparition begged.

He took another step forward. The Morph gave a sickening smile. It raised a hand, and a sharp dagger appeared.

Using their telepathic link, she entered Damian's mind. But the howling pain screaming there lashed her with such violence, she cried out. Jamie tried one attempt to soothe him. Her weak efforts felt like holding back a tsunami using a bucket.

She escaped his mind.

G.o.d, she had to do something now, or he'd walk straight to his death and let the thing stab him, probably welcome it because she knew the pain he faced now, a pain so screeching and agonizing anything to vanquish it would be blessed relief. Even death.

He walked toward the Morph. Damian couldn't see the rows of sharp, pointed yellow teeth, the saliva dripping from its crooked slash of a red mouth.

It was drooling, antic.i.p.ating a Damian meal. A powerful Alpha, whose agonizing death would feed it energy for months.

Jamie planted herself in front of Damian. She took his face into her hands, forcing him to confront her. Her touch seemed to shake him free a little of the spell.

"Look at me, Damian. Me. Not her. Can't you trust me?"

At the word trust, his gaze snapped to hers. The dark torment in his eyes slowly faded.

"Look hard at her, Damian. She's dead, Annie's dead. She loved you, Damian. Annie would never hurt you like this."

He peered around her shoulder. Confusion and doubts twisted his face. Damian hesitated. The Morph twisted the stuffed animal, claws making a dull ripping sound on the fabric. It whimpered.

"Damian, please, I need you. It's so dark, so cold where I am. Come play with me, I'm so lonely. Please, Damian, if you love me, come to me and I'll forgive you."

Those three last words sounded like a thunderclap. It snapped something inside him. Damian wrenched free. Jamie made a grab for him, and failed. G.o.d, the pain he had, what he suffered, the horror...The images circled in her head until everything before her went blurry and the lump clawing up her throat took hold.

Something wet trickled down her cheeks. Jamie reached out, grasped his jacket sleeve like a lifeline. Miracle of miracles, he turned and saw her face.

"Oh, Damian, what did they do to you? My wonderful, brave warrior, it's not your fault. Annie's dead. Please, listen to me because I'm so scared right now and I need you to see this thing for what it is. It's a killer. I need you to trust me now."

"Jamie," he said hoa.r.s.ely. He reached up, touched a tear hovering on her chin. "Oh, Jamie. You're crying."

"For you," she whispered.

Then he turned, pushing her behind him in a protective stance. Damian waved his hands. Two steel daggers materialized in his palms.

"I see Annie only, but I trust Jamie. You're not my sister. Want to play? I play rough."

The Morph roared. It raced forward, dagger outstretched. Damian snarled and charged. An outraged howl split the air as his dagger sank into the creature's chest. It collapsed, dissolved into gray ash.

Trembling, she hugged herself as the daggers vanished and he ran back to her. He cupped her face and gently kissed away her tears.

Damian crushed her against him, tunneling his fingers through her hair. Fat raindrops fell, running in rivulets down their faces. "She's dead, buried and never coming back. Ever," he said brokenly.

Jamie stroked his head. They clung to each other. Then Damian lifted his face, the familiar, watchful look back.

"Allons. Let's go to your house. It's closer."

Soaked and shivering, they arrived at her house. Damian put the painting on the kitchen table, then joined her in the bedroom as they stripped off their wet clothing. Jamie shrugged into a sweatshirt and sweatpants. She fetched a terry-cloth robe that had been Mark's, and returned to the bedroom.

He stood there, head hanging down, his muscled body quaking. Gently she draped the robe over his shoulders. Damian belted it on and sat.

"Jamie, I need to tell you something."

She waited.

Damian's mouth went dry. Jamie deserved the truth, but memories lashed at him like a barbed whip. Big powerful Draicon. No, coward. Weak. Outcast. He summoned all his strength to force the words out.

"When I was twelve and experienced my first change to wolf, Morphs attacked my father's mansion. This house. I was hunting in the bayou, against my father's wishes, instead of staying home to help protect my family. Annie died because of me."

Jamie made a murmur of protest. He ignored it, dragged a hand through his damp hair.

"My pack, my father's people, rejected me after. They'd just lost their Alpha, and were terrified."

"They were all you had left and they kicked you out?"

Five feet, five inches of spitfire stared at him. Jamie's lips curled into a snarl. She looked as if she wanted to claw his former pack to ribbons.

"Sit." He patted a s.p.a.ce. She sat, swinging her legs, her feet kicking in the embroidered bedspread.

"My pack was French, proud of their undiluted blood. They thought Rafe's family, the Cajuns, were trash. When they came to Vieux Carre to buy supplies, we used to call them names. Mock them, calling them...dogs. Everyone did but my father. I did, too, until my father found out. He whupped my a.s.s good, told me the Cajuns were as n.o.ble as our blood was."

"I would have liked your father."

He ran a thumb over the delicate bones beneath her soft skin. "He would have liked you, as well. He was a brave, honorable male admired and deeply respected by many. Like me, he was the firstborn son of a pureblood Alpha, with powers greater than most Draicon."

"Then why didn't your pack want you, Damian?"

"I was too young to rule, too green...And a target for Morphs."

He fell silent, feeling the shame creep over him. The powerful pack Alpha proven weak. A small squeeze of her hand startled him. Damian glanced at her.

"Please, tell me. I understand more than you think. I know, Damian."

Jamie's quiet sincerity fed him courage. "They said shame covered me because I failed to protect my family. I begged to stay, but they kicked me until I ran and then they chased me...like a stray they were driving out of their territory. All the way to the bayou. Until I couldn't stand. So I crawled away. I was so d.a.m.n hungry and weak. When Rafe and his brothers found me, I was nearly naked and cold. But most of all, ashamed. The Alpha Draicon, the blueblood who mocked them, was an outcast. I almost wished they'd let me die."

He didn't dare look at her. Silence hovered between them for a minute.

"They took you in instead," she said softly.

"Brought me home, cleaned me up, fed me. And taught me how to survive. They were honorable, like my father said. And braver than my pack." A heartbeat of silence fell, then he spoke again. "Braver than me."

"No, Damian." She shook her head, making her hair fly back and forth. "Not braver than you, as brave as you. You blame yourself for your family's deaths. How, Damian? How could you have saved them? If you were there, you'd have been killed, as well. And your father's pack...they were the weak ones. Not you."

Tension eased as he considered her words. "I found out later the Morphs found them, killed them all."

"What happened to the Morphs who killed your family?"

"Rafe and his family destroyed most. One may have escaped."

Jamie squeezed his palm. The compa.s.sionate gesture comforted more than words. Sometimes words weren't needed. For a moment he simply relished the comfort she freely offered. Damian closed his eyes, basking in the consolation of her touch. Intimacy wasn't something he'd ever craved. h.e.l.l, he'd kept a small distance even from his adopted family. But he found himself longing for it now with Jamie.

This was what having a mate meant. Not merely a physical closeness, but someone with you to share your most painful secrets, who didn't condemn you for them.

She drew him into her arms, giving herself as she kissed him. He took, gladly. Their lovemaking was slow and tender. Afterward, he held her close, his hand running up and down her smooth skin, savoring the feel of her. Running his fingers through her hair...

Her hair, sweet mercy...Damian fingered a lock. "Mon Dieu, it's black again."

Jamie bolted out of bed, ran to the mirror and stared. "Is it your magick, when we make love?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"But I still have dark magick inside me. That's what enabled me to see the Morph disguised as your sister." She sat on the bed, twisting a lock of hair around her index finger.

"How did the Morph find us in the alley? It's like they know where you are at all times."

"They're forming a battle plan, to test my strengths and weaknesses. Annie is a weakness." He looked away, his firm jaw clenching. "So is anyone else I lo...care for."

Anguish twisted Jamie's heart as she studied her lover. She sensed exactly how much it cost this proud Draicon to admit what had happened. Damian saw his role as leader to protect his people, but had lost many. They had more in common than she'd thought. They were separate, alone. But combining their strengths, they might defeat the enemy. Opening herself up to him, she shared the thoughts telepathically.

Awareness dawned in his eyes. "We can, Jamie. You have technological skills I lack. I know the enemy, but there's some tool they're using that's evading me. Tell me what you think."

Buoyed by his confidence in her, Jamie thought hard. "It's like a game, like World of Warcraft. You build strength with your tasks, and you go on quests. They're finding a way past your barriers, so when they do come at you with all their forces, they'll know exactly how to hit you. And they know where you are, when you'll be there...But how? It's like a tracking system, a GPS...."

"Rafe has a tracking system," he said slowly.

Jamie raced for her laptop. "Oh my G.o.d! That MyPlace page I found, the one with the encrypted text that is a secret message? I've been trying to crack the code to decipher the words. Your brother Rafe, he's the only immortal Draicon. That must be the keyword to breaking the code!"

She powered up. "I have a new software program designed to help me break the code," Jamie explained as she typed some commands. She typed the word immortal. Damian blinked in confusion as her fingers flew over the keyboard, pulling up the MyPlace page. She typed some more.

"I got it! The encrypted text is a command to get to a locked Web page accessible only to those who have the keyword. Look."

Jamie typed in another command, pulling up a Web page. It was a page detailing an exact reverse of Raphael's tracking map. Only on this page, every move Damian had made, every place he had gone was registered. Every move since he'd bitten her, giving her his magick.

Horror-struck, she stared at the screen. "It's my fault. When you bit me to give me your magick, the Morph blood inside me spilled into you, so now they can track you just like they can track me. It's like a d.a.m.n GPS chip in you."

Damian cupped her face. "I can handle them. I worry about you, ma pet.i.te. You're so pale-you've been through so much."

Her hands curled about his wrists. "I can handle myself."

He kissed her mouth gently. "I'm proud of you for cracking their code. You are extraordinary. And I want my entire adopted family to meet you."

Her smile slipped.

"There's not too many-only about fifty." His thumb lingered over her mouth.

Old fears raced through her. Would his family turn out to be the vicious killers she'd dreaded in the past?

Chapter 15.