"Running out on your family and stealing from the Manticores are things he did in the past," Colin answered. "They're nothing compared to what the Patron is up to right now. He's a very, very dangerous man. Dangerous and sick, and ruthless."

Mia was stung, even if she didn't have much respect for Henry Garrison. "Dangerous and sick and ruthless is exactly what I thought aboutyour relatives a couple of days ago. How can you say such things when you don't even know the man?"

"Oh, I know him," he answered. "I've taken a vow to destroy him."

"You what?" Mia jerked away and stared at her bondmate in horror. "I can't let you kill one of my relatives!"

"He's willing to kill mine."

"Yeah, but you're vampires-and he doesn't know any better. He's a traditionalist!"

"He's insane," Colin went on before she could protest further. "He doesn't care about saving the world from vampires. He wants to live forever. He thinks vampires are immortal, the way all hunters used to, and that he can steal the secret of immortality from us. And he has the money and mindset to pursue research into immortality. He uses mercenaries, and funds rogue scientists, kidnaps vampires and mortals, and has his scientists run hideous experiments on them."

She didn't believe she was hearing this. "That's the plot of a B movie. No one could get away with doing stuff like that."

"With enough money, you can get away with anything. The Clans have been funding private scientific research for a long time. In fact, your great-grandfather hired away several of our scientists for his research. I've been at the abandoned military base where the Patron's scientists ran their nasty experiments. I helped blow the place up. I helped rescue his prisoners. I wasthere, Mia. I know exactly how dangerous your relative is. He has to be stopped."

"But-"

He grabbed her shoulders again. For a moment she thought he was going to shake her, but he drew her close and stared intently into her eyes. "You're going to help me."

It was not a plea, nor was it a threat, but it was a cold, hard statement that would brook no argument.

She didn't try to argue, but she did say, "You could say please."

"Please."

Mia took a deep breath, and closed her eyes for a moment. She missed her preconceptions about vampires. It was so much easier to believe the crumbs she'd gleaned from family history, and what little her great-grandfather had told her. Right now, she felt like she was trying to pick her way through a minefield of conflicting realities. Everyone she'd met, every situation, gave her a different view of what it meant to be a vampire. But she had to make some hard choices.

To complicate things much more, now she was linked physically, emotionally, and psychically to a vampire, and to his clan.

Or at least that was what they wanted her to believe.

"My head hurts," she said. "It really does."

"I know." Colin's fingers moved to her temples and began a gentle ma.s.sage. "Me, too."

"I want to go home."

"Me, too."

"And I'm sick of hearing about this Patron." "You'resick of it? Sweetheart, he's been dominating my life for months. When I wasn't thinking about you, I was working on finding him. The closest I'd come to a lead was the night I ran into you at the airport, and-" His hands were suddenly back on her shoulders. "The airport-the same one the Patron's plane used. The same one you used."

Mia's heart slammed hard in her chest, and her stomach flip-flopped. She felt exposed, as if she was about to be accused of a horrible crime. Worse, she felt inexplicably guilty even before being accused.

"You're working with him!" Colin declared. "He found out I was the one hunting him, and he sent you to trap me!"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" she responded without thinking. "Why is it always aboutyou ?"

He laughed harshly. "I suppose it was a coincidence that we met when you were a hostage?"

"Yeah." Of course it was. It had to be. "Don't try to make me paranoid that my great-grandfather set up the worst day of my life so that I'd start dating a vampire! Thenyou followedme to the hospital, remember? And I didn't contact you after you broke up with me, did I?"

Her questions made him thoughtful. He looked away, then back at her. "Meeting me was the worst day of your life?"

He sounded dead serious, but there was a faint spark of teasing in his eyes. Maybe it was her "always about you" comment that had cut through his rising paranoia.

"Meeting you was-interesting. Being taken hostage that day was frightening." She looked around her. "Though I guess it was good practice for being kidnapped by vampires."

"We were both kidnapped by vampires," he reminded her. "What were you doing at that airport?" he went on, relentlessly back on the hunt. "And just how did you find Tony? Why? Youare working for the Patron," he decided.

"Working with him," Mia answered. "Or atleast, I thought I was." Colin gaped at her in surprise, which didn't help her already frayed temper. "You look like you thought I was going to lie to you and say, oh, no, I haven't had anything to do with the Patron.

Come to think of it, I haven't. The man I went to for help, after I was attackedby vampires, is the only living relative I have who has ever had contact with vampires. I went to him for help," she reiterated.

"You could have-"

"Come to you?" Mia shook her head. "How could I? I was trying toprotect you-from vampires."

When Colin started to laugh, Mia couldn't help but join him. Well, at the time she hadn't known how absurd that was.

They were still laughing when Barak appeared on the terrace and said, "Time's up."

Chapter Twenty.

"Tell them," Colin said to Mia when they were once more standing before the Matris and the elders.

The Manticores stood at their back, but Colin had put himself between them and his bondmate. He realized with dread that no one in the room was going to like Mia's explanations, but the Manticores were the only ones that posed any real danger to her.

The problem was, she couldn't really understand that yet.

Mia turned a confused look on him. "Tell them what?"

"Everything you know about the Patron," he clarified. "Everything you've done with him, or for him."

"Oh. Okay." He'd thought she was going to protest. When she didn't he put a hand on her shoulder. It was meant to be rea.s.suring-at least he tried to mean it that way. His head was still whirling from everything that had happened between them, the information overload of the last few hours. He was confused and furious-at Mia, because of Mia, for Mia.

But he was there for Mia. Whether she wanted him or not.

Mia took a deep breath, and focused on Serisa. "Henry Garrison is my great-grandfather. Until they attacked me"-she jerked a thumb over her shoulder-"I never had any contact with him. After the first attack, I knew I needed help fighting vampires. I didn't know how to contact the local vampire hunters. In fact, it didn't even occur to me at that time that I should try going that route. So I contacted Garrison."

"How?" Justinian demanded.

"With difficulty," she answered, without bothering to look at the Manticore Prime.

"And after you contacted him?" Serisa asked. "What then?"

"Then he asked me to bring him a vampire. For experimentation."

She said it without any hesitation, without any show of fear. Colin wasn't the only one in the room who gasped.

"You're working for the Patron?" Domini asked. "You're helping him with his sick research?"

"I didn't know it was sick at the time, did I?" Mia asked in turn. "He told me he wanted to learn more about vampires, that he wanted one to study. He didn't say anything to me about research into immortality."

"What about our money?" the blond Manticore asked. "Did he mention anything about where he keeps large sums of stolen cash?"

"There are more important things than money," Serisa declared.

The blond gave a derisive snort of laughter.

"What about our claim?" the leader of the Manticores spoke up. "The Garrison woman can lead us to what is ours, what was stolen by a mortal. Is it not our right to question her, under the agreements established to protect our kind from vampire hunters?"

"The Patron posses a threat to all our kind," Barak said. "You have the right to a.s.sist in the hunt for him."

"What if the female won't help you?" Justinian persisted. "If you deem finding Garrison important for all vampires, but the woman won't cooperate, what then? We have a claim on her information; you must allow us what is ours by right."

Colin spun around to bare his fangs at the Manticore Primes. "Do you know how much I will enjoy killing all of you, if you try to touch what ismine ?"

"Well, excuseme for having a free will and the ability to make my own decisions."

Colin whirled back around to find Mia standing with her arms crossed and a look of complete disgust on her face.

She turned slowly, aiming her annoyance at everyone in the room, and didn't speak until she was looking at him again. "Perhaps it would be nice if someone would kindlyask me to help," she suggested.

"Good point," Domini spoke up.

Silence loomed with a tense crackle, like the still air before the explosion of a thunderstorm.Finally, Anjelica asked, "Will you help us, Caramia?"

Mia sighed, and her shoulders slumped, but she put her hand out to stop him when Colin move to come toward her. The weariness and worry that emanated from her disturbed him, no matter how infuriating she was. She faced the women of the Clans.

"Let me think about it," she answered them. "Just give me some s.p.a.ce to think."

"No!" Justinian protested.

Serisa studied Mia for a few moments, her expression was both worried and calculating. Finally she said, "Very well."

"Wait, wait, wait, just like the Matri wants."

Colin glanced at the newcomer and reluctantly answered. "If you don't like it, leave."

"My master has chosen to remain. I live to serve, and all that. How about you? Do you always do what you're told?"

Colin had been sitting alone on a bench at the back of the garden when the blond Manticore Prime came strolling down the path.

He'd been out here for a couple of hours, long enough to watch the sky go through a fine pastel sunset and to watch stars and moon come out. He hadn't exactly been enjoying the solitude, but this was one of the last people he wanted interrupting his thoughts.

"Do you always hang out where you're not wanted?" Colin answered. He'd been told the pest was named Laurent. "It's after sunset. Why don't you people leave?"

"Justinian won't go until he has what he wants." Laurent took an uninvited seat on the bench. "Think of me as his interpreter of the modern world. You wouldn't like Justinian without me around."

"I don't like Justinian anyway."

"Ah, but he's on his best behavior at the moment. He's much worse than you imagine-which makes us quite proud of him. But since you boys don't seem to have a handle on decadence, perversion, and guile, you need my help pointing it out to you. He needs me to keep reminding him how upright, upstanding, and honest you folks really are. Frankly, I don't know how you good guys manage to have any fun."

"n.o.bility has its boring side," Colin conceded. "But the dragon slaying"-he bared his teeth in a smile-"a manticore's a type of dragon, isn't it? and rescuing the fair maiden has its rewards."

Laurent stretched his long legs out in front of him. "If I read the signs aright, there's no more maiden-rescuing in your future. Not that your woman isn't lively enough in bed, I suppose, but to be stuck with only one..."

"I could happily kill you, you know."

"It'd give you something to do. This place is nice, but dull."

"You've got that right."

Maybe he was tired and wired, or maybe he missed the mocking camaraderie of his SWAT unit, but Colin almost found the Tribe vampire's att.i.tude amusing. He didn't forget the guy was everything mortal legends thought vampires were, though, or that he was at the Citadel because of an agenda that could threaten Mia.

"But while our attempting to kill each other would be diverting, that would be breaking the truce, as I am speaking in friendship,"

Laurent went on."And how is that?"

"I was only offering my condolences on your bonded state, one Prime to another-as we of the Tribes don't believe that monogamy is the natural condition for a Prime. Do you know how we avoid the bonding state?"

"No."

"Do you care?"

"Does it involve violence toward women?" Colin asked, quietly and dangerously serious. His fists were clenched to fight the urge to strike.

Laurent studied him carefully for a moment. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought up the subject."

"I guess not." He forced himself to relax a little.

"She's a dangerous woman, you know."

Colin smiled. "I know."

Laurent shook his head. "Can you control her?"

"That's none of your business."