In the darkness he could feel her belly pushing against the lower probe and her breast pressed firmly onto the other. When he didn't argue she writhed a little, rubbing herself against him seductively, as if to show him the benefits of her better side. His sweat from the ordeal made her skin slick. She started nibbling on his ear as she got down to business.

"You've got to be pretty stupid, Bethany, if you think that that fat a.s.s of yours is ever going to get a guy hot for you. You're really making a fool of yourself trying to be s.e.xy, if you want to know the truth of it."

That had the desired effect. She growled in rage and without bothering to sit up pulled the trigger.

She didn't realize that with her flesh touching the steel probes the Taser would give her the same paralyzing shock it gave him.

Through his helpless grunts of pain he could hear her cries of terrified torment. He'd known what to expect, at least. He'd known it was coming. The shock of it was far worse for her because she hadn't been expecting it.

Bethany didn't know what was happening to her. She screamed not just in pain, but in panic.

Alex didn't think she was all that familiar with technology.

In the throes of agony, her arms flailed. Alex heard the Taser hit the floor and bounce a few times. When the five seconds pa.s.sed and the pain ended, she sagged limp atop him.

He decided that whatever her long-range plan was, he wasn't going to go along willingly. She would just have to pick up the Taser gun and pull the trigger all night long if that was what she wanted to do, but he wasn't going to cooperate.

As she regained her wits, she pressed a hand against his chest to push herself upright. With her other hand she swept her hair back off her sweaty face.

She looked down into his eyes. "Where I come from, that's nothing."

"It's nothing here, either," he lied.

A smile stole its way back onto her face. She lay back down against him, her warm breath in his ear again.

"I know what you're doing, Alex," she whispered, "but it isn't going to work. I'm not falling for your little ploy. I'm not going to let you get me angry enough to cut your throat. I came here to accomplish what needs accomplishing and I intend to see it through.

"Be as stubborn as you want, but it won't do you any good. You're going to get me pregnant tonight. There isn't anything you can do about it-it's just the way men are made.

"Afterwards, I'm going to use a knife on you myself and make sure that you regret every word you said."

In the darkness of the room lit only occasionally by flashes of lightning filtered through the sheets of rain, Alex felt the gloom of his situation settle back in on him. He had been momentarily euphoric that he had been able to trick her into getting a jolt from the Taser, but what good did it really do him? He wasn't going to be able to trick her into it again and he wasn't going to be able to free himself from his bonds.

It might have been satisfying to see her take such a jolt for a change, but it didn't stop her. He knew she was going to get even and then some.

He turned his gaze off into the darkness as he gave in to despair.

ALEX THOUGHT OF BEN,and the lessons his grandfather had taught him. Ben had been in terrible, desperate situations. He had faced death. Those were the kinds of situations Alex's grandfather had wanted to prepare him for. Ben had wanted him to be prepared to face death with resolve, should he ever find himself in such a situation, in order to survive.

Ben had framed it in the mantra "Trouble will find you." It was a way of reminding him to always be ready, that trouble of any sort could come at any time. His grandfather had often said that trouble usually came when you were alone. Ben had been right.

Alex reminded himself not to give up. Ben had taught him better than that.

He decided that if all he could do was to make Bethany angry enough to kill him rather than follow through with her plan, if that was the only success he could have, then he was going to take that option. He didn't have only the choices she had given him. He didn't have to abide by her rules.

He knew that above all else he could not let her have what she wanted or in the end more people would die. He didn't know how that would come about, but he was certain of the eventuality.

This was not an absurd battle with a headstrong woman. This wasn't simply a matter of her wanting his child. This was something much bigger, something she and the people with her were willing to kill to get. This was something that he knew he couldn't allow her to win-even if it meant that he had to die to prevent it.

Jax had come to this world because there was something terribly wrong. She had said that to get here she'd risked being lost in eternal darkness. No one would take such a risk without a powerful reason. This was in some way connected with the trouble that had so concerned Jax.

She had been telling him the truth. If only he had believed her at the time.

Bethany impatiently reached down between her legs to grab hold of him. He held his breath.

"You might as well relax, lover boy. I'm going to have my way and you know it."

He didn't answer. He focused on how angry it made him that she thought she could have her way by trying to get him to give in to l.u.s.t.

To divert his mind from Bethany, from the soft warmth of her, from her insistent attempt to engender that l.u.s.t, he thought about the night Ben had died.

His mind drifted to thoughts about his mother locked away for the rest of her life in that awful place. She knew something about this, he was sure of it now.

Dread of what was going to happen to him when Bethany used a knife on him to make him regret his words also lurked in the back of his mind. He could imagine lying there with his arms and legs securely restrained as she started cutting him. He would be helpless. He knew that Bethany had no empathy for pain.

In light of such things, it wasn't hard to ignore her insincere cooing.

"I think I'm actually going to enjoy this," she whispered in his ear. "Make me enjoy it, Alex."

It wasn't at all hard to wish her dead.

In a distant flickering of lightning he saw her back abruptly arch. The movement caught his attention because there was something very odd, very unnatural, even alarming, about the swift, upward curving movement of her naked body and the sudden breath she sucked in.

He was about to hurl an insult at her in an effort to take her off track when another bolt of lightning crashed to ground not far away. As the harsh light coming in through the window fell across Bethany's face, Alex saw her blue eyes go wide. Thunder shook the house.

Before the light died out he thought he caught the glint of a blade.

For an instant he wondered if she had finally had enough of his resistance, if she had become enraged enough that she had decided to slaughter him right then and there in his own bed and be done with it. Visions of her stabbing him as he lay restrained and helpless ran in a sudden panic through his mind. Even though there was nothing he could do to stop her, he reflexively tensed for the expected thrust of a knife slamming down into him.

Instead, Bethany's chin lifted even farther as her neck curved back in line with her arched spine.

As the lightning flashed again Alex was stunned to catch just a glimpse of a fist holding Bethany's hair, pulling her head back. The odd, unnatural arch of Bethany's back and neck suddenly made sense. His immediate thought was that the man had come back in and had decided to take matters into his own hands.

A b.l.o.o.d.y blade swept around in front of Bethany's throat. It sank in deep as it was pulled from ear to ear.

Gouts of blood from severed arteries pumped out through the horrific gash. The fist held Bethany's head back. Her arms flailed weakly as her chest heaved, her breath bubbling out of the gaping wound with a scream unable to be delivered.

Lightning again flared and thunder rumbled. Founts of thick blood running from the yawning cut funneled down between Bethany's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her hands flexed, clutching weakly at the air to her sides. Her mouth worked as she tried to gasp for a breath. b.l.o.o.d.y froth from her severed windpipe sprayed everywhere.

Alex was paralyzed by the sight of this woman in her death throes. The killing was so grisly it didn't seem real.

When light from the storm ignited in a long fit of flashes he could see Bethany blinking in confused desperation as she convulsed.

Her whole body went limp as her last breath of life gurgled from her failing lungs.

The fist holding her by the hair tossed her off the side of the bed. She hit the floor with a bony thud.

In another flash of lightning Alex saw Jax standing before him holding the blood-slicked knife.

She was gazing into his eyes as if there was nothing else in the room, nothing else in existence.

YOU JUST WOULDN'T BELIEVE how long I've wanted to do that," Jax said in a voice that sounded better than he remembered, and he remembered it as mesmerizing.

Alex wondered if she could have hunted Bethany from another world and followed her to his bedroom in order to catch her without all of her protection.

"She mentioned something about that."

In a flicker of lightning he saw a hint of satisfaction curve her mouth.

Alex had wanted Bethany dead, and he grasped that she was involved in something that would result in harm to a great many people. She had promised the thug with her that he could cut Alex up, and then changed her mind and decided to do it herself just because he had insulted her. Still, he had never seen anything as gruesome as her death.

Jax must have read the look on his face because she addressed his unspoken thought. "Alex, it was quick. What she would have done to you with her knife would have lasted hours. In the storm no one would have heard you screaming and crying. She would have enjoyed your suffering."

Alex swallowed and nodded. He was relieved that she had put it in perspective.

"Jax-" He glanced to the rain lashing at the window. He turned a puzzled frown on her. "How come you aren't wet?"

"It wasn't raining where I came from."

He saw wisps of vapor, silhouetted by the flashes of light coming in the window, curling up from her arms and shoulders just as they vanished.

The last time he'd seen her she had basically told him that he was on his own and that she was going to go tend to her own business. She had warned him that trouble would find him.

He wondered why she'd had a change of heart. "What are you doing here?"

Her gaze was still locked on his. "We happened across some of what they had planned. I got here as fast as I could."

"I'm really glad to see you. I mean, really, really glad."

"Well, since you're finished with your sick little part in this coupling, pull up your pants and let's go. We need to get out of here."

"I didn't take any part in it, and don't you think that if I could pull my pants up I would?" When she didn't answer he signaled with his eyes toward his wrists. "Cut me free. Please?"

The thought of what Bethany had told him about Jax crossed his mind. Watching Bethany die in such a brutal fashion left him shaky and sick to his stomach. In his whole life he'd never seen anything so horrific. He was covered with splatters of her blood. Only moments before, her living, breathing body had been pressed up against him. Now she lay on the floor dead and he was covered only in her blood.

With the way Jax was staring at him, he wondered if he might be next.

At last withdrawing her gaze from his, she glanced up at his wrists. In flashes of lightning she could see that he was tied to the bed and finally grasped the reality of the situation. She looked back at him and at last smiled just a little.

"Sure."

As she bent close to him to cut the zip ties, distant flickers of lightning lit her growing smile. By the nature of it he thought that it revealed how happy she was about his helpless condition-not because he was helpless, but because it told her that he was telling her the truth that he hadn't been a willing part of it.

As she leaned across him to cut the tie on the far side, he caught a hint of her fragrance. It complemented everything else about her.

Alex would have given just about anything not to have been this close to Bethany. He would have given just about anything to stay this close to Jax.

"Thanks for coming, Jax," he said softly. "I guess I owe you one-in addition to an apology."

She paused to look down into his eyes from only inches away. She was pressed lightly against his chest. He could feel her steady heartbeat.

"I'm sorry I couldn't have gotten here sooner, Alex. I really am."

"You got here in time."

She slowly shook her head. "Not in time to save your grandfather." Her words. .h.i.t him like a blow. "You mean that Bethany had something to do with that?"

Jax stretched farther to finish cutting his wrist free, then straightened. "I wasn't there, but I was able to catch a glimpse through the mirror in his workshop. I saw Queen Bethany and I saw fire."

Alex sank back against the bed. He'd buried his grief, but hearing that Ben had likely been murdered not only resurrected the anguish, it also awakened a smoldering fury.

Ben hadn't died from natural causes. He would still be alive if not for Bethany. Maybe Ben would still be alive were Alex not somehow involved. But how could he have avoided being born a Rahl?

As Jax cut his ankles free, Alex yanked out the barbs and pulled up his pants. It was a great relief. She had the grace not to make a point of his embarra.s.sing situation.

"Queen Bethany? What do you mean, 'Queen'?"

"In our world she was a queen. A very troublesome queen. She hurt anyone she didn't like, and she didn't like a lot of people. I had to come to this world to get close to her."

Her words caught him by surprise and reignited his sense of caution. He wondered if he had been part of some grand scheme after all-a scheme to a.s.sa.s.sinate a troublesome queen. He wondered if he had been nothing more than human bait.

"What's a queen from your world doing in my world?"

Jax considered him for a moment. "She apparently had some use for the House of Rahl."

"What use?"

Jax arched an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you didn't understand what she was intent on doing here tonight in this bed."

"I get that much of it."

Alex reminded himself to cool the heat in his voice. It wasn't her fault that Bethany had tied him to the bed and intended to kill him after she finished getting what she wanted. It wasn't Jax's fault that Bethany had murdered Ben.

He buckled his belt as he collected his thoughts. This woman had, after all, just saved his life. She could have just as easily let him spend the last few hours of his life being cut up by Bethany.

Somehow Alex couldn't think of Bethany as a queen. He could barely think of her as an adult.

"What I mean is that I don't know why she had a use for the 'House of Rahl,' as you put it. I don't know what's going on."

"We have that in common," Jax said under her breath as she glanced down at Bethany's corpse lying in a spreading pool of blood.

ALEX PULLED THE PHONE out of his pocket. "I'd better call the police."