He kissed the corner of her mouth tenderly. "Let me call him, and we'll go right away."

The tattoo parlor just outside the French Quarter resembled an upscale beauty salon more than an ink shop. Lots of soft overhead lighting, chrome, gla.s.s and green ferns in potted planters. Tasteful charcoal sketches of dragons, werewolves and fairies adorned the powder-blue walls.

"All Indigo's art," Damian said, as she looked around. "He's very talented."

The woman behind the gla.s.s-and-chrome desk looked up from her computer. She beamed. "Go in the back, he's expecting you."

Sweat blossomed on her forehead as they entered the room. In the center was a examination table covered with a clean white cloth, arranged so the person could sit upright. A large gooseneck floor lamp and backless stool stood beside it. Metal shelving held bottles of ink, instruments, and the black counters were spotless. A small sink was in one corner, with a soap dispenser and paper towels. Very clean and orderly. She relaxed a little.

Indigo came out from behind a curtain, and smiled. He nodded his head in a gesture of respect.

Damian thrust out a hand, which Indigo shook very briefly as if fearing some offense. "Thanks for doing this, frere. Appreciate the short notice."

Jamie's gaze dropped to the small steel tray holding an a.s.sortment of thimble-size cups with ink, the mechanical needle. Like a dentist's drill. Her heart pounded so loudly it sounded like it would slam out of her chest.

Damian regarded her with his steady gaze. You all right? he spoke gently into her mind. Are you certain?

I have to do this, she told him telepathically.

Indigo sat on the stool. "What would you like, Jamie?"

She went to the big male, reached up on tiptoe even though he sat, and whispered into his ear.

Surprise and pleasure flashed on his face. Indigo nodded. "Definitely," he said in his thick Cajun accent. "I'll do a sketch first. Then draw it on your skin so I have an outline to follow."

While he drew on tracing paper, she sat beside Damian, examining the sample book. The artwork was astounding, playful and leaped off the page.

"Ready over here." Paper rustled.

She drew off her sweater, placed it on a chair. Jamie unb.u.t.toned her jeans, shimmied them and her underwear down past her hips.

Indigo snapped on a pair of sterile gloves, the sound sharp as gunfire. She sat on the table, resting her face against it. A shudder stroked her spine, but she forced herself to lie still.

Damian pulled up a chair to her side, clutched her hand. Sensations flooded her: Damian's delicious scent, the feel of paper against her lower back as Indigo traced his drawing, the iron taste of fear in her mouth. Jamie gritted her teeth as the burning began, as if someone pressed a hot iron against her skin. The needle's whir roared in her ears.

She dimly heard Damian murmuring soothing words. Her eyes closed as she focused on his deep voice. Finally the buzzing stopped.

"He's done, ma pet.i.te."

Jamie's eyes flew open. She sat up, wincing, and stared into the mirror Damian held up, reflecting into the larger one Indigo held at her backside.

"Oh, it's beautiful, so majestic and proud. Thank you!" She beamed at him.

Indigo flashed her a shy smile, nodded at Damian and left the room.

Her lover's jaw dropped as he walked behind her, stared at the tattoo. An exact replica of Damian as wolf, green eyes sharp and intelligent, his gray carriage straight and proud as he gazed into the distance. Like a king surveying his domain.

He came back, squatted down until he was eye level. "Jamie, why me?"

She stroked his cheek with one finger. "I needed something beautiful and n.o.ble to cover the ugliness. Now I bear your mark, and everyone will know I'm one of your family, your pack. I'm yours, always."

Emotion flashed in his eyes. Damian pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. "And I am yours, toujours."

His cell rang. Damian flipped it open. "We'll be there in ten." He thumbed the phone off, looking at her with a wide smile.

"Alexandre found the last clue. He's at Rafe's house, waiting for us."

Chapter 16.

I n the formal living room, Alexandre, Raphael, Gabriel and Etienne waited for them. Seeing their expressions, Jamie clutched Damian's hand. Something was very, very wrong.

The painting of a wolf standing by a cabin in the bayou rested on the c.o.c.ktail table.

"What took you this long?" Damian demanded.

"I actually found the clue yesterday." Alexandre exchanged glances with his brothers, his expression as foreboding as an executioner's. "We met, and decided...it was best to keep the news from you, and not spoil Jamie's party. We wanted her, and you, to enjoy the time together."

Fear unfurled in her heart. This was going to be bad. Damian gave her hand a comforting squeeze, but she couldn't stop trembling.

"When I separated the canvas from the frame, I found this."

Alexandre handed Damian a small piece of wood with a tiny carving of a heart. He dropped her hand, took and sniffed the bark.

"Cypress." Damian's fingers trailed over the wood. "I recognize the scent. He hid the book in the old bayou. My father said the tree represented the heart of the Draicon because it stood so long and so proud, and thrived best in the wild."

He set the bark down quietly. His jaw tightened; his eyes were distant.

Excitement bubbled inside Jamie. It couldn't be that bad. True, a bayou was a large place, but they were Draicon and their excellent sense of scent could track it down. The book was within her grasp. She felt death take a few steps backward, hovering, but no longer an in-your-face reality.

Damian braced his hands on the table, hung his head. Alexandre stared at the wide oak floorboards, refusing to meet her gaze. Despair etched Gabriel's face. Raphael and Etienne both dropped a hand on Damian's shoulder.

A blast of frigid air draped the room, as if death decided to come nosing back again.

"What is it? We're close now, it's in the bayou where your father hunted...So let's go, it's almost nightfall...We can bring lanterns and flashlights...."

Damian lifted his head. Jamie reeled back at the utter desolation in his eyes. It was like glimpsing h.e.l.l.

"That bayou no longer exists. They filled it in and developed houses years ago. The book lies beneath pavement and rock."

Hope snapped on a thin thread. Jamie staggered to the nearest chair and sat, burying her face in her hands. Cold sweat gathered in the waistband of her jeans.

Years of ancient knowledge were lost. She was going to die.

Night descended with a sweep of gold shadows. A wolf caged by a Creole mansion, Damian paced, shoving a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. Jamie was upstairs, resting.

He was alone in his misery.

He'd failed, again. He couldn't save the one most precious to him. The book, gone forever. For all his powers, the battles he'd fought, his skill as a warrior, he was totally useless.

He refused to believe in impossibilities. Who was the stranger who had hidden the clue on the Natchez? Did he have the book, or was he also dead and buried?

Damian went to Jamie's room. He knocked softly. When there was no answer, he opened the door.

"Jamie?" He walked inside. The bed was neatly made, the closet...

Emptied. A note, neatly folded on the nightstand, caught his eye.

Paper crackled as he unfolded it. Sorry, I'm bailing. Gotta find another way. I was only on this ride to grab the bra.s.s life ring.

Betrayal, outrage and misery roared through him. He crushed the paper in his trembling fist. Jamie didn't have faith in him, any more than he had in himself right now.

But d.a.m.n it, she would come back. Even if he sent every last Draicon to find her. Never, ever again would she leave him. Even if he were a worthless, useless fool. He called Rafe.

The search was on.

Damian pocketed the cell, went downstairs to get a vehicle and hunt Jamie down again. But rage and immense grief bellowed through him. He stood in the living room, threw back his head and howled. He shuddered, and shifted. In wolf form he paced back and forth. Then he howled again, shifted.

In human form, he shivered, naked and cold. Tried to clothe himself by magick. Had to go find her, bring her back.

A shoe appeared on one foot. Nothing else.

Oh merde, this was just like the night when he'd lost his family, when he couldn't control his powers and they were all crazy, scattering, forcing him to slow progress back to the mansion. Memories a.s.saulted him like knives. He would not lose Jamie. He could control this.

Damian shifted back into a wolf and paced. Changed back to human. He stared at his chest. Well, at least he got the shirt right.

He kept doing it, again and again. Shifting to wolf, back to human.

Desperation clawed at him as he tried to align his powers so he could find Jamie. Eventually the pain of hunger from drained energy gnawed his insides. He closed his eyes, shifted again into wolf form. Physical pain was good. Better than the rawness eating his heart.

He continued the pacing and shape-shifting.

Jamie stepped off the streetcar and shuffled toward City Park. She shifted the backpack's weight, clutched her suitcase and headed for the museum. Just beneath a sheltering oak, she sagged to the ground.

What the h.e.l.l was she doing?

Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, to escape. Nothing would stop this. Death was charging toward her like a hurricane, only this one she couldn't escape.

She dropped her face into her hands. In the maelstrom swirling about her, there remained a steady image of calm. Flashing over and over like a neon sign.

Damian. Always he'd cared for her, protected her, cherished her. He'd opened his heart to her and shared his pain. He trusted her, even though she'd given him no reason to do so. He was the anchor in her crazy, whirling world. And she was running from him.

Dummy.

The same old pattern, running away, always fleeing a bad scene, escaping instead of standing up to her problems. Acting on impulse, judging, just as she had that night Damian killed the Morph replicating her brother. Maybe if she'd stopped, thought and asked questions instead of a.s.suming, she wouldn't be in this mess.

Her hair-trigger reactions caused all this. Wasn't it about time to stop? If she had little time left, how did she want to spend it?

"With you, Damian," she whispered. "Every last second."

Standing, she adjusted the backpack over her opened jacket. The streetcar back to the Ursuline Street Station had already left. She'd walk, even if it took her all d.a.m.n night.

As she picked up her suitcase and started out of the park, a thunderclap of motorcycle engines roared into view. Dismay filled her.

Twenty bikers, all clad in leather, heading right for her. Raphael leading the way. Jamie twisted her backpack's strap as they stopped, swung off the bikes, all but Raphael, who remained seated, the engine humming.

The bikers, including Adam and Ricky, advanced. They enclosed her, a living, breathing Draicon cage, a werewolf army in leather. Their expressions grim, they marched her to Raphael. Adam took her suitcase, lifted her and placed her on the back of Raphael's motorcycle.

Raphael turned, grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. His gaze was fierce, dark and cold. "Listen to me carefully, my brother's draicara. As his mate, you're under my protection. But don't you ever try hurting him again."

He gave a soft growl. "You tipped him over the edge when you left. He's very angry."

She swallowed fear as he gunned the engine. She'd been right all along. Damian's family would turn against her. Oh G.o.d, she should have kept walking, running away. At least she'd be safe and unhurt.

The werewolves escorted her back to the house like a prisoner to an execution. As they herded her into the pristine living room, Jamie shrugged out of her backpack and jacket, let them drop on the floor. She bit back a startled gasp.

A large gray wolf paced back and forth. The wolf lifted its head, sniffed the air. Looked directly at her, fangs flashing white as it growled.

She tried to shrink back, but Raphael's hand held her steady.

Fast as an eyeblink, the wolf vanished, replaced by a six-foot male. Fully clothed in trousers and a shirt. Looking at him was a bad idea. Jamie dropped her gaze.

His feet were bare.

Damian advanced. Fury boiled from him like a pressure cooker about to explode. His eyes were wild, his wide shoulders rigid as rock.

"Leave us," he ordered.

Raphael and his pack cleared the room as if someone had lit the fuse to a shoe box stuffed with C-4. Jamie hid her shaking hands. Never had she seen him this agitated.

Hands fisted, breath whistled out of his clenched teeth. Muscles locked in tension as he fought for control. It was like facing a muscled, two-hundred-pound time bomb.

"You," he grated out, "will never, ever do that again."

Twisting her hands behind her back, she dragged the words out of a mouth drier than sawdust. "I was on my way back when they found me. It wasn't you, Damian. It was me, and this habit I have, always running off without thinking. And when I stopped running, I realized I had nowhere to go. But back to the only one who's never, ever forsaken me."

He went still, nostrils flaring.

"And I don't think he ever will. Even though I've given him good reason to, time and again. But I'm scared. I don't have much time left, Damian."

"You doubt my ability to save you." He gave her a level look.