Bree nodded. "Whoever has the stone ... that's what he's feeling. At least, anything towards himself or those he's around."

More silence as we continued to think about it. Tristan spoke up first.

"It makes sense." His eyes turned on me, no longer full of murder, but not exactly full of love, either. "What do you think kept me going while they had me all that time? We talked about a connection between us. And if you think about it, this unexplained anger goes back to when you first lost the stone-when Vanessa grabbed it."

I understood. We'd fought a lot ever since then, and at one point, he'd even stopped believing that I loved him at all. "You felt what she did."

He nodded, and then his chains clanged again as his body writhed in frustration, and he let out a string of profanities.

"Why is it so bad now, though?" I asked. "I mean, last time we went to South Beach ..."

I trailed off when everyone but Tristan stared at me without comprehension. Right. They weren't aware of the full story of our trip. Well, maybe Tristan had told Owen, but Bree and Sheree didn't know. Rather than telling the whole story for them, I opened my mind and shared the memory.

"Was that Vanessa in control then?" Sheree asked afterward.

"The question is who has it now," Owen said, deflecting Sheree's accusation.

"Your trip must have created the link with a mage. Someone with powerful magic," Bree said, and Tristan nodded in agreement.

My breath caught. "Kali?"

"No," Tristan grunted. "Not that strong."

That was a bit of a relief.

"But as long as this mage has it," I said, "Tristan will always feel what she's feeling, rather than the truth around him or within him."

"It will likely become stronger, too, the longer one person possesses the stone. The connection will strengthen," Bree added.

"Well, that's just fabulous. Until we find the stone, my husband will hate me."

"You're forgetting the worst part," Tristan snarled. We all turned our eyes on him. "If they figure this out, they'll use it to their advantage. I'll become their personal killing machine right in the heart of the Amadis. Exactly what they've always wanted." He locked his gaze on mine and a jolt ran up my spine with the intense look in his hazel eyes. "And guess where they'll want me to start?"

I gulped. With me, of course. He gave me a nod of confirmation. Instead of fear, though, anger welled inside me. Would he ever be free of their control? I inhaled a slow breath, then let it out even slower.

"Okay, then," I said, lifting my chin and squaring my shoulders, "we find the stone, and we get it back. Fortunately, we have a new friend who probably knows who has it now and ought to be quite helpful."

I strode out of Tristan's room, turned right and crossed the five yards to Vanessa's door. Owen suddenly stood in front of it. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"I doubt she'll cooperate," he muttered.

My eyebrows shot even higher. "Before I agreed to convert her, you said-"

"I said she had something you wanted. A weapon. Another soldier for your army."

I didn't miss how he said "your army," not "our army." I told myself it only meant that he acknowledged my leadership position. I hoped that was all he meant.

"And as part of my army, she will do her duty and tell us what she knows."

"Listen. She's pretty sensitive about the pendant. She felt some kind of, well, connection to you and Tristan through it."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course, she did. Isn't that what Bree just said?"

But then the deeper meaning of what he said came to me. A connection not only to Tristan, but to me, too.

"She'd felt the love, Alexis. Projected it to herself, I guess."

I tilted my head as I studied his face. "That's what made her decide, isn't it? How she knew for sure that she wanted to convert?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. But that's what she told me when she came to me."

"Came to you where?"

He pressed his lips together and looked away. Closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them again, but still stared at the wall behind me. "It's a long story I don't feel like reliving. But yeah, she knew where to find me."

A current of pain flowed under his words, and I had the feeling Vanessa had rescued him from something before he rescued her. And whatever she'd brought him out of, it hadn't been pleasant.

"Owen ...?" I placed my hand on his arm. "Are you okay?"

I tried to move into his line of sight to catch his eyes, but his gaze dropped from the wall behind me to the floor, which he scowled at. Eventually he looked at me with a smile. As fake as can be. "Just peachy. No need to worry-"

"You're lying," I blurted. "I see it on your face. You've always been there for me, Owen. It can go both ways, you know."

His left eye twitched as he brightened his smile. "I'm fine, Alexis. The best thing you can do for me is take care of her."

"Owen-"

His voice came out in a near growl. "Drop it, Alexis. Worry about Vanessa, about Tristan, but not about me."

"Then at least tell me, you and Vanessa ...?" Did he feel the same way about her as she did him? He shrugged noncommittally. I tapped my finger against my temple. Understanding my message, he leaned closer to me, and his voice came out very softly.

"You really don't want to see what's in here. Trust me."

We stared at each other for a long moment, and I felt as though he tried to tell me something I wasn't grasping. The temptation to actually read his mind nearly overwhelmed me, but I wouldn't do that to him. Not about this. It was his business, and if he wanted to tell me, he would. He must have seen this in my eyes, because he straightened.

"So," he said, as if the last few minutes hadn't happened. "Vanessa. The pendant. I'm just sayin' that she might get a little ... anxious ... over the whole thing."

"Too late to worry about me, warlock," Vanessa's voice called from inside her room. As Owen opened the door and we both stepped inside, I wondered how much of our conversation she'd heard. Probably all of it. The vampire gave us an annoyed look from the chair she sat in next to the bed. "How can you so easily forget about vampire hearing? But thanks for looking out for my oh-so-precious feelings."

Owen glanced sideways at me, and I knew immediately he remembered her keen hearing. He wanted her to hear us. Well, not my probing questions, which is probably why he'd avoided answering them, but the part about showing that he still protected her. I shook my head at him before turning to the vampire.

"So the pendant?" I demanded, cutting to the chase. Her att.i.tude-and Owen's behavior-had already raised my hackles. "Do you know where it is?"

"Nope," she said without a tinge of the anxiety Owen was so worried about. But she didn't expound, so I peeked into her mind, catching a glimpse of a memory of someone ripping the necklace away from her. I gasped, and she narrowed her eyes at me, realizing I'd entered her head. "They took it from you? When?"

She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. "Before you came to South Beach last time. I ... I was going to warn you then, but the local nest surrounded us, and I had to get out of there."

"And you couldn't have mentioned this all the time since you've been here?"

She shrugged. "What was the point? When I told you I didn't know where it was, I was telling you the truth. That's all you needed to know, for your own good."

"For my own good? Are you freakin' kidding me? Owen and Tristan risked their lives to go get it! Now all of our lives are at risk. You knew it wasn't at your place, and after everything we've done for you, you let them go anyway."

"n.o.body asked me now did they?"

My muscles bunched to fly at her and choke the living c.r.a.p out of the b.i.t.c.h, but Owen grabbed me around the waist.

"Where was your vampire hearing then?" I spat at her. "Surely you heard plans, and now Tristan's like this for no reason."

She held her hand out in front of her face and studied her nails. "I thought there's a reason for everything. Isn't that what you and the tiger are always preaching?"

I inhaled deeply, trying to control my anger, and shrugged Owen off of me.

"Are you going to help us or not?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"Not. Just forget the idea of getting your hands on that stone."

"I can't forget it! We need it. Our lives-including yours-are at stake." I stared at her, waiting for her to do the right thing, but she simply stared back at me. I rocked back on my heels. "I think you're bluffing. You know where it is."

"No, I don't. A warlock took it from me to deliver to more powerful hands, not the mage coven in South Beach."

"But if it's not there, then how did they affect Tristan so badly?"

Vanessa narrowed her icy eyes, finally showing at least some interest. She spoke slowly, deliberately. "Very powerful, very dark magic. The mages in South Beach only needed to be energized by a source of extreme power. A sorcerer or sorceress, who could be anywhere in the world."

Well, at least now we were getting somewhere.

"Kali," I said. "Is that who they took it to?"

"No, that wasn't the plan, at the time anyway. And you better hope it doesn't get to her or she to it. After Lucas and the Ancients-" she practically spit the words as if they tasted bad on her tongue "-Kali's the most powerful, most dangerous, most formidable Daemoni."

My turn to shrug. "We beat her once. She can't be all that bad."

With vampire speed, Vanessa suddenly stood right in my face, so close her breath fluttered my hair as she spoke. "In your house, surrounded by your people. And now she's pretty f.u.c.king p.i.s.sed off after what you did to her. Don't underestimate her."

I took a step back and threw my hands in the air. "Okay. Whatever. At the moment, I don't care about her. I care about the stone, and you said she doesn't have it."

"Yet. She doesn't have it yet or you'd know it. But you'll never be able to retrieve the stone now, so you may as well kiss it goodbye."

"Yeah, well, there's a bit of a problem with that idea," I said. "We don't have a choice. I'm sure you heard, with those vampire ears of yours, what's going to happen if we don't get it back."

Vanessa nodded. "Yeah, I did. Killing machine and all that."

My eyes bugged at her nonchalant att.i.tude. "Yeah, all that. We have to do something, Vanessa. Just tell me where the stone is, and I'll get it myself."

She let out a dry chuckle.

"Don't you get it? You're supposed to be so smart." She shook her head in mock disappointment, then she stepped back into my s.p.a.ce. "What Mr.-Not-in-Control-of-Himself so conveniently forgot to mention is that even if they don't figure out the value of the stone right away, they do know two things: you need it and you'll come after it."

I pulled up straight at this. c.r.a.p. c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p on a c.r.a.p-flavored biscuit.

"They're using it as bait," I said.

Vanessa nodded as she looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. "So, princess, you can spread 'em wide or bend over. Either way, you're f.u.c.ked."

Chapter 20.

Vanessa's cra.s.s words clenched my gut and twisted until I felt sick, not because of their vulgarity, but because of their truth. What are we going to do? Although Tristan had calmed down, he wouldn't let me release him from the shackles. He proved why any time someone came too close to him-he'd work himself into a frenzy, bucking and writhing against his chains and lashing out, even snapping with his teeth. I couldn't leave him like that forever, though, and if the Daemoni really gained control and he lost it completely, the chains may as well have been made of straw. He'd break right through them and have at us all he wanted. And for that to happen was only a matter of time.

But going after the pendant myself was likely suicide or worse-being captured and held by the Daemoni. Which would leave Tristan still vulnerable anyway, Dorian lost forever, and Mom and Rina to deal with the consequences. Even if I did decide to take the risk, I had no idea where to look for the stone. Vanessa refused to cooperate and share anything she might know, always telling me that keeping her secrets to herself was for my own good. But I really thought she did it to keep Owen right where she wanted him-my anger flared every time she refused, causing Owen to stand by her side, rather than mine.

My cell phone rang as I lay in the bed in Tristan's room two days later, trying to catch up on a little sleep. His head jerked up at the sound, which had apparently woken him. I groaned as I blindly reached for the phone. He was peaceful when he slept. For the most part, anyway. Unfortunately, whoever had the stone didn't let him sleep much. I glanced at the number and knew I had to take the call, so I quietly slipped out of the room, feeling his glare on me the whole time.

"Hi, Mom," I answered. "Please tell me you have good news."

With simply too much going on here, I finally confessed everything to her and Rina the other night -Vanessa, Tristan, the stone, Bree's theory, the Daemoni's scheme. They praised my ability to handle things so well, but to say they were concerned was an understatement. We'd left off our previous conversation with their plans to find out if we could do anything about Tristan without actually sending out a search party for the stone.

"I'm not sure if you'd call it 'good,'" she said. "but there might be a way to sever the connection between Tristan and the stone."

I contained a whoop of joy, only because of her tone. "Sounds like good news to me, so what's the problem?"

"Well, it's possible for a mage to shield Tristan's heart and disconnect it from the stone, but it means dulling all of his emotions. Everything he feels for you and from you-"

I sucked in a breath. "Forever?"

"n.o.body's sure. The shield is only temporary, but the effects can be permanent."

But he needed to know I loved him. That knowledge kept him strong, especially during times such as right now. If he didn't feel love forever, what would happen to him?

"I don't think that's an option, Mom," I said.

"It might have to be. Unless we're able to get the stone back, we might not have a choice."

"So you're forming a search party?"

Mom sighed. "Not yet. Rina has ordered me to, but I don't have anyone to spare at the moment. Char would be willing to lead a team if I asked her, especially if it brought her to Kali, but I'm afraid her emotions will override her logic. Her team would probably be okay, but I'd never forgive myself if she sacrificed herself for revenge. Besides, we need her where she is. And I don't have anyone else I feel confident about facing a possible sorcerer."

I ended the call feeling worse than I had before. Not wanting to disturb Tristan again, I looked for Sheree, but couldn't find her, so I told Bree I was going for a walk and to call if they needed me. I headed straight for the beach, kicking my shoes off and relishing the feel of the sand between my toes. The Gulf's low waves lapped lazily at the sh.o.r.e, the sound almost immediately soothing my nerves. The caress of the late winter sun also tried its best to relax me. Unfortunately, I found no answers written in the wet sand, no messages in a bottle to tell me what to do. And the beach wasn't enough of a distraction. But I knew who would be.

"Dorian?" I called out as I entered the backdoor of our house.