Then I lost it. Lost everything. I had no more to give, no more to keep me in the battle.

Everything fell silent. Went black.

Then gray.

Then muted sounds. Heavy breathing. Sobbing. Whimpering. A soothing voice trying to quiet another.

My consciousness slowly returned. I lay on the floor. No. On Tristan's lap. His face came into focus above me, his eyes filled with concern.

"Is it over?" I asked, my voice a hoa.r.s.e whisper. He nodded. The relief lasted only a moment as the memory of Charlotte's warning shot through me. If I allowed my energy to be drained during a conversion, the evil energy would be transferred, not eliminated. And Vanessa had drained me. I bolted upright. "Oh, no! Did you take it? Did you take the dark power?"

He shook his head. "No, my love. I'm good."

"Owen?" My head twisted, my focus shooting across the room until it landed on him, with a very limp Vanessa in his arms.

He shook his head, too. "I'm fine."

I studied Vanessa's face-relaxed, even more beautiful in its serenity.

"But it worked?" I asked.

"I feel no evil energy left within her," Owen said. "Not even a trace."

"Really?" I couldn't believe it. Six months since her conversion, Sonya still had traces of Daemoni power. And she'd only been Daemoni for a few years. Sheree said that was normal, that the residual energy could linger for months or even longer. How could Vanessa be eliminated of it already? I crawled out of Tristan's lap and over to Owen and Vanessa to see for myself. I pressed my hand to Vanessa's chest, over her heart, and a.s.sessed her.

Owen was right. Not a trace. I had done it. I'd converted Vanessa. Freakin' Vanessa!

"You did well," Ca.s.sandra said softly.

Thank you, I told her.

"It was all you, Alexis. You and the power you've been given." With that, her presence disappeared.

To be one-hundred-percent positive the vamp wasn't hiding anything, I tapped into her mind. The voice of the woman from her vision-the one I'd told her to latch onto and remember-floated through her thoughts: "Hidden daughter of enemy and ally will offer strength and valor to the worthy. Yet first, she must unite with son of power and war. Only when together will they anchor victory over foe.

"That's your prophecy, Vanessa. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise."

Vanessa's eyes fluttered open at the sound of my gasp, and she looked at me without focus then up at Owen above her. Her gaze sharpened, and she clawed at her throat.

"So ... thirsty," she croaked, and all three of us-Tristan, Owen, and me-stiffened for a moment. Then Owen stretched out his arm, obviously planning to give her his wrist.

"Wait!" I said. "Do we really want to do that?"

Owen eyed me. "She needs to drink."

"But your blood is too powerful."

Owen glanced at Tristan and back at me. "It's the weakest blood here. We have no other options, do we?"

I grimaced. "Yes, we do. Let's do this right."

"Sheree will notice missing supplies," Tristan said.

"I know, but too bad. She's going to find out sooner or later anyway." I stood, a little too quickly-pinp.r.i.c.ks of light danced across my vision. I, too, was still weak. Tristan caught my wobbly frame and sat me down in the wingback chair.

"I'll get it," he said, and he disappeared.

I didn't know how Sheree would take Vanessa's presence, now that the vampire was nearly converted. Sure, she had much faith-healing to go through, but I was still amazed that she held no trace of Daemoni power. She was less Daemoni now than Sonya. So maybe Sheree would feel that and forgive the vampire for her past. After all, forgiveness was part of being Amadis, and she knew that as well as anyone. It was part of her teachings. And if I could forgive Vanessa, hopefully Sheree could, too.

In less than a minute after he'd flashed, Tristan opened the bedroom door and slid inside, two bottles of animal blood in his hands. Owen lifted Vanessa and carried her to the bed, while I pulled the bedding back. He took the bottles from Tristan, twisted the lid off of one and held it to the vampire's lips. She drank greedily, pulling long draws without even tasting them. At least at first. As she finished off the first bottle, her body lurched, and her hand flew to her mouth, as if to keep the blood from spewing out.

"That's disgusting," she said.

"I told you the rules," Owen said.

"I know, but ugh."

"You feel better, though, right?"

She made a face and took the second bottle. After a full-body shudder, she drank that one down, too. Then she finally turned her blue eyes on Tristan and me. And they were as icy as ever.

"Is there a reason you're still here?" she asked.

My eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"Was I not clear? What the h.e.l.l are you still doing here?"

"Vanessa," Owen warned.

"What? I'd just like a little privacy for a while," she said, sticking her bottom lip out in a pout and making her eyes big, as if feigned innocence could excuse her rudeness. "I feel like I've been ripped apart and put back together-oh, wait. I have been, remember? You chopped my body up into pieces. Chopped me up! Do you have any idea what that's like? And then to put myself back together ... And my insides. Gah! All this Amadis power in my body ..." She shuddered again. "I'm so f.u.c.king sorry if I need some time to get used to it."

I swallowed down what I wanted to say and simply nodded. "I could use some rest myself, but one thing. Where's my pendant?"

Vanessa's eyes darted away from mine, and she shrugged. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" I echoed without an ounce of belief. I peeked into her mind, which focused on the fact that she had nothing to her name now, not even clothes on her back, let alone the pendant.

She looked back at me, straight into my eyes. "I. Don't. Know."

Owen? I reached out to the warlock. Did you get it?

He pursed his lips. "I looked for it, but couldn't find it in her stuff. She'll tell us eventually. Give her time and she'll come around, Alexis."

"Weren't you leaving?" Vanessa snapped.

Again, I bit my tongue, holding back a few choice words for both of them, and moved for the door. When Tristan stood to leave with me, Vanessa's eyes watered, and I thought she would beg him to stay. But her gaze flicked away and she stared at the wall for a moment, then looked at Owen. The tears disappeared as a small smile formed on her lips. I didn't want to see anymore. I flashed out of the room, only to go as far as my office, blinking against the late-afternoon daylight flooding through the windows, a shock after the near darkness of Vanessa's room.

"I thought eliminating the Daemoni power was the hard part," I said to Tristan as soon as he appeared. "But she still has a lot of b.i.t.c.h left in her, doesn't she?"

"Faith-healing should help ... but I doubt you'll ever get rid of all of it. That's just who she is."

"Great. And I barely have a clue of what I'm doing with this next phase. I kind of wish I could ask Sheree for help."

"I'm right here," the were-tiger called from the other side of the closed door.

Ugh. Sometimes I still forgot how good everyone's hearing was. I waved my hand, and the door opened. I couldn't help the smile that broke on my face-I often forgot I could move things with my mind, too, and the coolness factor never became old. Sheree grinned back at me.

"So?" she asked. "How did it go?"

"Um ..." I looked at Tristan but he simply looked back at me, no help at all. "Sort of good, I guess. I'll be pretty busy for a while, though ..."

My thought went unfinished when Sheree lifted her nose in the air and sniffed, then made a face mixed with disgust and surprise. She came closer to me and sniffed again. Her eyes widened with alarm. "Vanessa? You found her?"

c.r.a.p. c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p. "You can smell her? Her specifically?"

She wrinkled her nose. "You never forget the stench of someone who almost killed you for fun. At least, this Were doesn't."

Which meant she'd eventually detect the vampire's scent in the safe house. The only reason I could figure that she hadn't smelled Vanessa in the trunks was because of Owen's protection on them. Or maybe chopped up body parts lost their scent since they were no longer an actual being? I fought the shudder that tingled my spine at that thought. I could soak my eyes in bleach and still never rid myself of the image of Vanessa putting herself back together.

"Yes, we found her," Tristan said. "Owen did, anyway, and she's actually-"

I couldn't let him say it, not yet. She'd have some kind of stressful reaction to the news, and I wanted to be there for her completely. I didn't know how Charlotte could do back-to-back conversions, but they drained me, and right now, I was too exhausted to be the friend Sheree deserved.

"She's incapacitated," I interrupted. "For now anyway. We had a pretty rough fight."

Sheree nodded. "No wonder you look so bad. Sorry, but you look like you could use some rest and regeneration. You'll tell me what happened later?"

I gave her a weak smile. "Yeah, of course." No matter how badly I don't want to.

Tristan called me out after we arrived home and were in our own bedroom. "You know it's better to tell her before she finds Vanessa on her own."

"I know," I said as I fell backwards on the bed, too tired to hold myself upright any longer. After further thought, I moaned and covered my hands with my face. "I should go back and tell her, shouldn't I? I just wanted a little rest before-"

Tristan leaned over me, moved my hands off my face and placed a finger over my lips. "Rest, my love. I'll take care of it."

"Don't ... tell ..." I drifted off.

I awoke still fully clothed at 12:22 a.m. to Tristan sleeping next to me and a tray on the nightstand. After my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I slowly sat up and placed the tray over my lap, finding a bottle of orange juice sitting in a small bucket of ice, a bunch of grapes, and a roll of Tristan's handmade sushi in a container kept cold with an icepack. Judging by the size of the ice cubes and the chill of the icepack, he hadn't been asleep for long, so I let him be while I quietly ate the dinner he'd prepared for me. My mind remained relaxed and open, finding only Dorian's sleeping signature. Tristan must have relieved Blossom of her babysitting duties.

As I placed the tray back on the nightstand after finishing, Tristan rolled over, throwing the sheet off of his upper body. His arm slung over my lap and his fingers slid under my thigh in an embrace although he still slept. My fingers traced over his muscular forearm and then up, admiring the contour of the mounds and dips of his bicep, tricep, and shoulder. Even in sleep, they were rock-hard. My groin tightened and although I really wanted Tristan to wake up, he'd already done so much for me and deserved to rest. So I carefully slid out of bed and padded to the adjoining bathroom.

Enjoying the peace of the middle of the night, I lit candles around the bathroom rather than flipping on the overhead lights. I turned on the faucet for the separate tub and poured a generous dose of bubble bath into it, but while it filled, I stepped into the shower to wash my hair. I had just rinsed out the conditioner when Tristan joined me, very naked and very hard.

A smile threatened to break across my face as I looked at him with innocent eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you."

His lips danced with his own smile. "I'll never complain about being woken to this."

He pulled me into his arms, pressing our naked bodies together. His love flowed through the skin-to-skin contact, and I pulled on it, needing this for true regeneration. I tilted my face up toward his, and he bent down to deliver an amazing kiss that spread warmth throughout my body. Our tongues flicked and danced together. I pulled on his bottom lip with my teeth, and he returned the gesture, sucking a line of desire from every nerve of my body. On their own accord, my hips ground against him.

Our mouths stayed locked together in a mind-numbing kiss as our hands slid along our wet bodies, exploring and playing and teasing. As the water rained down, I made my way over his chest and abs, licking and sucking the rivulets as they slid down his skin, until I was on my knees. I took him in my hands and then my mouth.

"Ah, Lex," he moaned pleasurably as my tongue and hands caressed him and my mouth sucked.

As much as he obviously enjoyed it, he didn't let me play for long. His hands grasped my waist and lifted me to my feet. After another kiss, he used his power to raise me up until my belly b.u.t.ton was at his eye level. He moved me against the wall, gripped my thighs, and pushed my legs up and open. He looked up at me with a devious smile before his gaze traveled down my body. His eyes smoldered as they took me in, and he licked his lips, igniting a fire within me at the antic.i.p.ation. He kissed and sucked and nibbled the insides of one thigh from hip to knee, making my body quake with need, and when he started at the other knee and worked his way in, I thought I'd die from the torture of waiting one more second for his mouth to reach its final destination. And then it did, and I whimpered with the first lick. His lips and tongue and fingers moved in unimaginable ways, bringing wave after wave of o.r.g.a.s.m crashing over me.

"I want you ... inside me," I finally panted, the need for him to fill me overwhelming. But he didn't obey until I came once more.

Then he released my thighs and his power over me, and I skimmed down the wall until I reached the right place, then slid onto him. We both moaned as his inches filled me. Then we were all animal, savage, thrusting and bucking and slamming against the shower walls. Twisting and flipping and clawing at the tiles until our minds shattered and the raw pa.s.sion consumed us, leaving us trembling against each other on the shower floor.

Not until we turned the shower faucet off and still heard water flowing did I remember the tub. Bubbles spilled over the side, but the damage wasn't too bad. Good thing it was an extra large tub. After draining a few inches and mopping up the floor with a couple of towels, we sank into the water together. Tristan leaned against the back of the tub, and I sat between his legs and leaned against him. We lay there peacefully, candlelight dancing around us, until the last bubble disappeared, my energy replenishing with his undying love.

Yet it still wasn't as strong as it should have been.

When we arrived at the safe house the next day, we found Owen sitting in Sonya's room, visiting with the vamp and Sheree. Sheree practically sat on his lap, while Sonya's expression exposed her own hunger for Owen. Maybe it was only his blood she desired-she didn't exactly love the animal blood any more than Vanessa did-but I didn't think so. What was I going to do with him? With all of them?

Withholding a few names I felt like calling Owen, I shook my head and told Sheree I needed to meet with her in an hour.

"What does he think he's doing?" I muttered to Tristan as we headed for Vanessa's wing. I needed to take care of the vamp before I could do anything else, such as spill the news to Sheree. "He just leaves his charge all alone to go flirt with those other two?"

"Scarecrow's got his mojo back," Tristan said. A grunt of annoyance escaped my throat. "I thought you wanted him to find a girlfriend."

"One, Tristan. One. Not three. And two of them are spiritually unstable and when the other sees who she's competing against, she might become mentally unstable." I groaned with frustration. "He shouldn't be playing with their minds and hearts like this! Especially since he's the one who brought Vanessa here. He should be focused on her. She isn't exactly pleasant when she's jealous."

"No. And if she has second thoughts-"

"She won't have second thoughts," I said automatically. "Not about converting."

"You're sure?"

I thought about why that reply had come to me so easily, why I was convinced she really wanted this and didn't do it only to make Owen happy. Well, obviously, converting didn't lock Owen down into any kind of commitment, and I still wasn't sure which side he was on. He seemed to care enough about Vanessa's desire to change to make it happen for her, but for her, not for him. Which made me question his motives even more.

But Vanessa's motives? They'd come clear to me through her memories. She'd lived lies all of her long, miserable life, including the biggest lie of who she really was-under all the evil and innate b.i.t.c.hiness, she really just wanted love and acceptance. I hoped, once she felt those two things through the Amadis, she'd open up and tell me more about her life. I had so many questions about what I'd seen, and I knew she'd barely scratched the surface of what dwelt within her.

"I'm positive," I said to Tristan as we reached Vanessa's door with two more bottles of blood in hand. We stopped to listen, but the room on the other side remained silent. I whispered, "Maybe we shouldn't bother her yet."

"You already have," she said from inside, her normally musical voice marred with annoyance. "May as well come in, especially if you have blood for me. I'm parched."

I drew in a deep breath, made a here-goes-nothing face at Tristan and turned the k.n.o.b on the door. From her seat at the top of the bed, she appraised Tristan with her eyes, obviously still liking what she saw even if she'd finally given up on the idea of the two of them together. Her little smile turned into a smirk when she looked at me, but when Tristan held up the bottles of blood, her face twisted with disgust.

"Ick. Not again. When do I get real blood? Owen said I'd get mage donor blood."

"First, we rebuild your strength gradually to make sure you're ready for that much power," I said.

She smirked at me again. "Still afraid of me?"

I crossed my arms over my chest. "I haven't been afraid of you for years."