I realized too late that we were near the blood bank, right next to where the old demon was entombed. In my carelessness, I had taken Hugo right to him. Reedrek had undoubtedly heard the workmen and called out to them, probably hoping he could enthrall 'em into jackhammering him out of his cornerstone. Then Hugo had happened along and it was old home week-only Grandpa had used his psychic skill to block his thoughts from me.

"What did he tell you?"

"Who?"

I tapped his shoulder with the stake. "Don't make me kick your a.s.s."

Hugo cackled. "You could try."

I slammed him up against the nearest tunnel wall so hard that chunks of earth rained down from all sides. Then I pressed the stake into the center of his chest over his unbeating black heart. "Let's start over," I said. "What did he tell you?"

Hugo laughed again. "He wanted out. I told him to rot. Obviously it was a brief conversation."

I went for his throat. He knocked the stake from my hand and kneed me in the midsection. When I hunched over he brought his fist down across my neck. I barely had time to catch my breath before he grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet.

"Jack, my friend, let us not fight. It is not me you should be worried about, but yourself."

"What do you mean?" I wrenched myself out of his grasp.

"At this very moment your sire is feeding his mortal son the blood from his veins. Little Will is now the blood of his blood in every way, as a mortal and as a vampire. They'll both rot and die. Where, my boy, does that leave you?"

This Hugo guy might use a hanky like a girl, but he had a way of cutting you right to the bone. He was right. I was worried about William. Will or no Will, when he found out I'd taken Hugo straight to Reedrek, old Jackie would be under the doghouse. Again.

c.r.a.p.

I picked up the stake and followed Hugo down the tunnel. When we came to Eleanor's bas.e.m.e.nt, he pushed through the metal door. Hugo continued up the concrete steps and to the car with only a pa.s.sing glance at Eleanor, who huddled in the southeast corner of the bas.e.m.e.nt. I paused, curious as to what she was about.

She was swaying and making a noise somewhere between a chant and a sob. Light from a candle she'd placed in a crystal bowl flickered on the floor in front of her. She'd pulled a colorful silk robe across her shaking shoulders.

I wanted to go to her, but I knew I'd be an intruder on her thoughts and prayers. The night of the voodoo lesson Melaphia had given Eleanor to a loa she called the tragic mistress, the G.o.ddess of both love and sorrow. Mel had hit the nail on the head with that one. Poor Eleanor. I might not exactly be Mr. Sensitivity, but I thought I could have handled the triangle with Diana and El a little better than William had.

Strong, feisty, confident Eleanor had been shoved from her place at William's side and reduced to emotions for leftovers-fear, betrayal, and heartbreak. She thrummed like a tuning fork with pain so intense I could feel it from where I stood on the steps. Her feeling of abandonment struck a chord in my own chest. Not only was William's wife-back in his life after five hundred years-a real threat to Eleanor's place in his world, but Will the prodigal son threatened to replace me as well. If any of them survived the night.

A gust of cold wind made its way through the cracks in the unfinished subfloor above Eleanor 's head; she shivered and pulled the edges of the thin robe tighter around her slender frame. I sighed, walked up the steps into the blue-black night, and considered staking myself to save William the trouble of killing me. I was running out of ways to f.u.c.k up.

William Diana faced me from the darkened corner of our son's sickroom. "Who is she?"

Who indeed? The need to explain Eleanor fought with my damaged pride. Why should I explain anything to my faithless wife?

"She's my fledgling, and my lover." There, I'd said it. I watched Diana closely for a reaction.

She looked down for a moment, most probably choosing her words. "Not your mate, then? Even so, she would kill for you. She loves you."

"Yes. I daresay she does." I conjured up the vision of Eleanor facing Diana with the stake in her hand. "As for the killing...she chose to be with me and I suppose intends to protect her investment." Better to speak of ownership than of love.

"And you chose her as well. Yet not as your mate..."

Yes. I had done that. Eleanor was the only woman in several lifetimes who'd convinced me I was not better off alone. I wiped my b.l.o.o.d.y arm and tossed my shirt away. "Yes. I chose her. In many ways we are well suited. She 's bound to me for the foreseeable future."

Diana drew herself up and walked to the opposite side of Will's bed to fuss with the covers. "So you leave me to compete for your attention." She looked toward me, her eyes sparkling with defiance and tears.

"I'm not sure what you mean. You have my complete attention at this moment and until they return. Until Hugo returns. And-" I rested a hand on Will's clammy forehead. "-we have a son between us." I remembered Jack calling Will a monster. I myself had seen Will in action, felt his challenge, but I had not seen him wantonly kill.

"What kind of being is Will?" I'd almost said man, as any mortal father might have. But our kind had overlong years either to mature in mind and deed or forever stay frozen in time and in temperament. I remembered Will as a headstrong young boy, but that boy had never been vengeful or disrespectful. "Is he a monster like Reedrek?"

"No! Never," she answered with venom, but she couldn't hold on to her fury. It collapsed as one tear fell. "You must understand-before I could protect him, Hugo-"

At the sound of the name, Will feebly thrashed one arm as though he might fight off a ghost.

"As you are well aware, we are bound to our sires for our apprenticeship. Since Hugo made Will and, technically, me as well although Reedrek had bled me, neither of us could challenge his behavior in any way. Nor could we kill him."

Will began to cough, spitting up mucus. Diana put an arm behind his back and lifted him into a sitting position. That's when I saw the web of scars marring his bare back.

"Hugo did this?" The scars had been cut into his skin by a whip; they had to have occurred before Will had been made. I felt a rush of hate. I should have killed Hugo the first moment I'd set eyes on him. "Why?"

"He said he had to teach Will to obey...before he would offer immortality. So that he would understand his place in our-"

Diana's gaze slid away. "-our new family." She looked at me again. "He said he would kill Will if I interfered."

"And this?" I touched the livid scar in the shape of a cross on Will's upper chest. "This surely occurred after he was made."

"Yes. The first time Will ran away, he was punished." She pulled the sheet up to cover the evidence of Hugo's cruelty.

I took Diana's arm and steered her from the room. She continued the story. "When Will's apprenticeship ended, he ran away.

He left us and settled in Moscow."

So Olivia's spy had been close to the mark. They'd been in Russia or Eastern Europe.

"He wrote me hundreds of letters, many of them begging me to come to the city where we could get lost in the crowds and we might live our own lives. But by that time I'd-"

"Fallen in love?" I finished, and dropped my hand away from her arm. She had obviously chosen to stay with Hugo.

"No. By that time I'd gained power. I was a better match for his lordship. As you witnessed earlier, I can rival his violence. You needn't worry: I punished Hugo for touching my son."

She was right-she didn't need to convince me of her ferocity. I'd seen it firsthand. She might not be able to kill her sire, but she could certainly make him wish for death.

"Why did you never come back to England?"

She looked surprised by the question and answered with one of her own. "What was left in England but horrible memories?"

She seemed to understand what I wanted. "By the time Reedrek came to us again, bringing news of your successes, I had Will. He returned to our home in the country when Napoleon burned Moscow in the 1812 wars."

In 1812, almost three hundred years after our making, I'd been in Savannah, setting up my New World home. Defying my own sire. Reedrek no doubt had fed Diana those lies to keep us apart forever.

"Did you ever wonder why Reedrek chose us?" I asked. "Why he took such pleasure in destroying every shred of love and connection between you and me...and Will?"

Diana shrugged philosophically. "He told me once that he'd given us a great gift, and it was up to us to use it well."

"His idea of use and mine have clashed from the beginning," I answered. "I've done my best to be his most ill-favored son." Diana smiled and cupped my cheek with her hand. "I would have expected no less from you," she breathed.

Suddenly the air between us felt charged with s.e.xual power. But instead of touching her with my hands, I reached for her with my mind, letting her feel the coiled need inside me and the emptiness I 'd carried since we were ripped apart. In life and in undeath, I've wanted you, wished for you, missed you. When my soul took its leave, part of it went in search of you.

Her lips were moist and soft as she pressed them to mine. A shiver of recognition ran through me, and I shut my eyes on the present and searched for the past.

"My heart, we must be careful," I whispered into a mortal kiss. "Even though it's full light, we might wake the babe."

Diana pressed her overfull bodice against my chest in a wanton display of her new bounty. "He should be used to our rocking by this time. If it were not so, he wouldn't have been made."

"But I-"

"Shhh-" She unfastened the front of her blouse and ran her teasing hand over her own nipples. Just a touch caused them to pucker and weep milk. She moaned in what sounded like pain. "I swear I feel like I might burst."

The sight nearly caused me to moan as well; I was in danger of bursting the laces of my breeches. I couldn't take my gaze away from her.

"Won't you help a lady in distress?" She sighed and tugged my head forward. "I'm sure Will won't miss a taste, or two..."

Her wantoness took my breath away. She wanted me to suckle on her like our babe.

"I-" I wanted that too, I realized, and set about making us both happy. She stiffened in my arms as I drew a taste onto my tongue.

"Easy, love. I'm so tender-ahh-"

Belying her words, she pulled me closer as though only I could scratch the itch she endured. Her nipples stiffened further against my lips and I fed from one to the other. The sweetness of her mother's milk filling my senses.

She struggled to pull up her skirts. "Please, Cuy, now-"

I knew what she wanted, what we both wanted, and I set about freeing myself from my breeches. Then I pumped into her with such ferocity that Will indeed began to cry at the disturbance. Ah, yes, dinner had to wait until the sweets had been devoured.

Stepping from the past into the present, I answered Diana's mouth with my own, stroking her tongue with mine, finding fangs instead of softness. The contrast shook me to the core. She would never again be the loving innocent I 'd married. And I would never have what I wanted the most- "Well, now isn't this cozy." Hugo's voice vibrated through the erotic air around us. Somehow he had sneaked up on us; I hadn't heard Jack's car, or any vehicle for that matter. Of course, my ears were roaring with the hot blood of my libido; I 'd intentionally shut out the world.

I pulled back only far enough to capture Diana's gaze. I wanted to see her reaction before I dealt with her lover. Her eyes were soft with surrender, but defiant. In that moment, she truly wanted me and no other and didn't mind broadcasting the fact.

"Go away," I said, without releasing my wife.

"No," he answered.

Reluctantly I pulled away from Diana, turning my back to her so I could face the violence of her sire and mate. "You strain my thin supply of civility," I informed him.

"And you try my patience," he answered, shifting his attention from me to Diana as though he spoke to her and not me. She stood next to me.

"By the way, how is Will?" he asked. The question scrambled my anger and awoke suspicion. What was Hugo up to?

"He's better," Diana said. "But not cured. No thanks to you."

"Ah, so your hero has not saved him."

"At least I'm doing something," I said.

"Yes, well, why don't you give him the cure?"

Diana looked as if she was losing patience herself. "What are you talking about? There is no cure-"

My reaction was instantaneous. I crossed the distance between Hugo and myself in a trice. Face-to-face, I took my next breath from air he exhaled. I shoved him up against the newel post of the porch. "There is no cure," I ground out.

Hugo looked amused. "That's not what our sire, Reedrek, told me."

"Tell me what you're talking about, right now," Diana ordered. Then there was silence. They were communicating as sire and offspring, leaving me out of the conversation.

Diana's next words were for me. "What is the voodoo blood?"

So, he truly had spoken to Reedrek-but how had he found him? I never should have allowed Hugo out of my sight but I 'd been so preoccupied with Will and Diana..."It runs in my veins. It helps but isn't a cure," I lied.

"Why don't you ask your hero why he won't use the blood to save your son?" Hugo sneered.

"Cuy?" Diana said, sounding confused. "I can feel that Hugo is telling the truth about this. Why didn't you tell me?"

"There is no cure," I repeated, practically hissing the words into Hugo's face.

He smiled. "Liar." Then he twisted away from me. "You also lied about killing Reedrek."

Diana remained silent as Hugo went to her and rested an arm about her shoulders. It was a direct challenge to every connection I'd been building with Diana. Reedrek had armed him with the means to destroy us again, not to mention my New World family.

But no matter who was doomed, I could not give away the secret of Melaphia and Renee.

"Why do you doubt me? I've risked my life to save Will. We are working on a cure. Gerard is-"

"Tell us about Renee," Hugo said.

Seventeen.

Jack I felt like a coward letting a sullen and silent Hugo out at the plantation and taking off like a scalded dog. I should have gone into the house, faced William, and owned up to what I 'd done. Taking Hugo near enough to Reedrek's tomb that he could communicate with his sire was one of the more boneheaded moves I'd made lately. Well, that and accidentally raising a zombie.

And getting tangled up with a Mayan G.o.ddess whose touch nearly electrocuted my sorry bloodsucking a.s.s. I guess it was my week for boneheaded moves.

William would know about my little mistake soon enough. I wracked my brain trying to think of what Reedrek could tell Hugo that would hurt us most.

The voodoo blood, of course.

My head throbbed with the implications while I headed for the house on Isle of Hope to check on Iban and Lucius. I wanted to see for myself if Iban continued to get well and to a.s.sess his state of mind, and I needed to check up on Lucius to see what kind of mischief he might be setting in motion. I still thought Lucius was the kind of guy who'd let a little whiff of power go to his head.

I was almost to the driveway of William's place on the Isle when I saw one of his fleet of vehicles pulling out and coming toward me. Rennie and I maintain William's wheels, and I know them all like the back of my fangs. I screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, blocking them.