"He's alive," she said lightly. "Of course, you only have my word for it, as I have yours that you'd hand that one to me, like a pretty present all wrapped in shiny paper. Let's play a game."

She held her skirts out, twirled. "Kill him, and I give you the human. Kill your brother, but not with the knives. Kill him as you're meant to kill. Take his blood, drink him, and the human is yours."

"Bring me the human first." She pouted, brushed fussily at her skirts.

"Oh, very well." She lifted one arm high, then the other. Cian eased the knives from Hoyt's throat as they began to drag King forward.

They dropped him, and with a vicious kick sent him over the edge.

"Oops!" Lilith eyes's danced with merriment as she pressed a hand to her lips.

"b.u.t.terfingers. I guess you'll have to pay me back now and kill that one."

With a wild roar, Cian charged forward.

And she rose up, spreading her robe like wings.

"Take them!" she shouted. "Bring them to me."

And was gone.

Cian switched grips on the knives as Hoyt sprang up, yanking free the stakes shoved into the back of his belt.

Arrows flew, slicing through air and hearts. Before Cian could strike the first blow, a half dozen vampires were dust, blown out to sea by the wind.

"More are coming!" Moira shouted from the cover of trees. "We need to go. We need to go now. This way. Hurry!"

Retreat was bitter, a vile taste burning the back of the throat. But the choice was to swallow death. So they turned from battle. When they reached the car, Hoyt reached for his brother's hand. "Cian-"

"Don't." He slammed in, watched the others leap into the van. "Just don't."

The long drive home was full of silence, of grief and of fury.

Glenna didn't weep. It went too deep for tears. She drove in a kind of trance, her body throbbing with pain and shock, her mind numb with it. And knowing it was cowardice, huddled there.

"It wasn't your fault."

She heard Moira's voice, but couldn't respond to it. She felt Larkin touch her shoulder, she supposed in comfort. But was too numb to react. And when Moira climbed in the back with Larkin to give her solitude, she knew only vague relief.

She turned into the woods, carefully maneuvered the narrow lane. In front of the house where the lights burned, she shut off the engine, the lights. Reached for the door.

It flew open, and she was wrenched out, held inches above the ground. Even then, she felt nothing, not even fear as she saw the thirst in Cian's eyes. "Tell me why I shouldn't break your neck and be done with it."

"I can't."

Hoyt reached them first, and was flicked away with a careless backward swipe.

"Don't. He's not to blame. Don't," she said now to Hoyt before he could charge again.

"Please don't." And to Larkin.

"Do you think that moves me?"

She looked into Cian's eyes again. "No.

Why should it? He was yours. I killed him."

"It wasn't her doing." Moira shoved Cian's arm, but didn't budge him an inch. "She isn't to blame for this."

"Let her speak for herself."

"She can't. Can't you see how badly she's hurt? She wouldn't let me tend her before we followed you. We need to get inside. If we're attacked now, we all die."

"If you harm her," Hoyt said quietly, "I'll kill you myself."

"Is that all there is?" Glenna's words were a weary whisper. "Just death? Is that all there'll ever be again?" "Give her to me." Hoyt cupped his arms, drew her out of Cian's grasp. He murmured to her in Gaelic as he carried her into the house.

"You'll come, and you'll listen." Moira closed a hand around Cian's arm. "He deserves that."

"Don't tell me what he deserves." He wrenched free of her with a force that knocked her back two steps. "You know nothing of it."

"I know more than you think." She left him to follow Hoyt into the house.

"I couldn't catch them." Larkin stared at the ground. "I wasn't fast enough, and I couldn't catch them." He yanked open the cargo doors, unloaded weapons. "I can't turn into one of these." He slammed the doors again. "It has to be alive, what I become. Even the cougar couldn't catch them."

Cian said nothing, and went inside.

They had Glenna on the sofa in the main parlor. Her eyes were closed, her face pale, her skin clammy. Against the pallor, the bruising along her jaw and cheek was livid. Blood had dried at the corner of her mouth.

Hoyt gently tested her arm. Not broken, he thought with relief. Badly wrenched, but not broken. Trying not to jar her, he removed her shirt to discover more bruising over her shoulder, her torso, running down to her hip. "I know what to get," Moira said and dashed off.

"Not broken." Hoyt's hands hovered over her ribs. "It's good there's nothing broken."

"She's fortunate her head's still on her shoulders." Cian went directly to a cabinet, took out whiskey. He drank straight from the bottle.

"Some of the injuries are inside her. She's badly injured."

"No less than she deserves for going out of the house."

"She didn't." Moira hurried back in, carrying Glenna's case. "Not the way you're meaning."

"You don't expect me to believe King went out, and she leaped to his defense?"

"He came out for me." Glenna opened eyes gla.s.sy from the pain. "And they took him."

"Quiet," Hoyt ordered. "Moira, I need you here."

"We'll use this." She selected a bottle.

"Pour it on the bruising." After handing him the bottle, she knelt, rested her hands lightly on Glenna's torso.

"What power I can claim I call now to ease your pain. Warmth to heal and harm none, to take away the damage done." She looked entreatingly at Glenna. "Help me. I'm not very good."

Glenna laid her hand over Moira's, closed her eyes. When Hoyt laid his on top for a triad, Glenna sucked in a breath, let it out on a moan.

But when Moira would have yanked her hand away, Glenna gripped it tight.

"Sometimes healing hurts," she managed.

"Sometimes it has to. Say the chant again. Three times."

As Moira obeyed, sweat sprang onto Glenna's skin, but the bruising faded a little, going the sickly tones of healing.

"Yes, that's better. Thanks."

"We'll have some of that whiskey here,"

Moira snapped.

"No. I'd better not." Trying for steady breaths, Glenna pushed up. "Help me sit. I need to see how bad it is now."

"Let's see about this." Hoyt skimmed his fingers over her face. And she grabbed his hand.

The tears came now, couldn't be stopped.

"I'm so sorry."

"You can't blame yourself, Glenna." "Who else?" Cian countered, and Moira shoved up to her feet.

"He wasn't wearing the cross." She dug in her pocket, held it up. "He took it off upstairs and left it behind."

"He was showing me some moves.

Wrestling," Larkin explained. "And it got in his way, he said. He must have forgotten about it."

"He never meant to go outside, did he?

And wouldn't have but for her."

"He was mistaken." Moira laid the cross on the table. "Glenna, he needs to know the truth. The truth is less painful."

"He thought, he must have thought I was going to let her in, or step out. I wasn't. But I was being c.o.c.ky, so what's the difference?

Smug. He's dead because of it."

Cian took another drink. "Tell me why he's dead."

"She knocked on the door. I shouldn't have answered, but I saw it was a woman. A young woman with a map. I wasn't going out, or asking her in, I swear that to you. She said she was lost. She spoke with an accent, French.

Charming, really, but I knew... I felt. And I couldn't resist toying with her. G.o.d, oh G.o.d,"

she said as more tears spilled. "How stupid.

How vain." She took a deep breath. "She said her name was Lora."

"Lora." Cian lowered the bottle. "Young, attractive, French accent?"

"Yes. You know her."

"I do." He drank again. "I do, yes."

"I could see what she was. I don't know how, but I knew. I should have just shut the door on her. But on the chance I was wrong, I thought I should give her directions and get her moving.

I'd just started to when King shouted, and he came running down the hall. I turned around. I was startled, I was careless. She got some of my hair. She pulled me outside by it."

"It was so fast," Moira continued. "I was behind King. I barely saw her move-the vampyre. He went out after them, and there were more. Four, five more. It was like lightning strikes."

Moira poured herself a shot of whiskey, downed it to smooth the raw edge of her nerves.

"They were on him, all of them, and he shouted for Glenna to get inside. But she got up instead, she got up and ran to help him. It knocked her back, the female of them, like she was a stone in a sling. She tried to help him, even though she was hurt. Maybe she was careless, but so was he." Moira picked up the cross again. "And it's a terrible price he paid for it. A terrible price he paid for defending a friend."

With Hoyt's help, Glenna got to her feet.

"I'm sorry isn't enough. I know what he meant to you."

"You couldn't possibly."

"I think I do, and I know what he meant to the rest of us. I know he's dead because of me.

I'll live with that all of my life."

"So will I. And it's my bad luck that I'll live a great deal longer than you."

He took the whiskey bottle when he walked out.

Chapter 16