"It's Nic," he said. "Let's get this thing rolling."

Eleven.

Saskia had never expected to set foot in the chambers of the Council of Others. Why would she? No Tiguri sat on the Council, and none of her people had ever accepted the authority of the European Council, let alone their American counterparts. Of course, she also had never expected that she would end up mated and living in New York, or that her father would partic.i.p.ate in a malevolent plot for power.

It just went to show that life had a way of taking a person along for the ride.

The chambers themselves turned out to be a revelation. They appeared to have been designed and decorated by whoever had built the stage sets for the 1931 version of Dracula, the one with Bela Lugosi and the "children of the night." The walls looked like the interior of a medieval castle, specifically the dungeon, all rough-hewn stone with not a window to be found. Since the Council met in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Vircolac club, that wasn't surprising, but the fact that the rooms and pa.s.sages were lit with torches rather than electric lights was. A fire roared in a huge hearth, driving away the damp chill that seemed to seep through the stones and further illuminating the faces of the figures gathered for Dmitri's plan.

The vampire had decreed that they would use the Inner Circle's meeting chamber for that ring of verisimilitude. The large room with its heavy carved door and high vaulted ceiling opened just a few doors down from the main Council chamber but occupied less than half of the s.p.a.ce.

About twenty feet by thirty feet square, the room contained little in the way of furniture. At one end of the room, a huge antique sideboard squatted against the wall, its surface elaborately carved with hunting scenes that Saskia's undergraduate studies dated to the sixteenth century. Only instead of the usual hounds and men on horseback chasing a stag or a wolf, in these scenes the wolves chased the riders and brought them to a b.l.o.o.d.y end on the face of the right-hand cabinet door. As decorative elements went, that one made a statement.

In the center of the room, two enormous rectangular tables had been pushed together to create a roughly square seating area surrounded by thirteen wooden carvers. Each of the huge chairs showcased a tall back topped with fancy finials and skilled carvings along the mahogany frames. The seats and backs had been covered with velvet upholstery the color of fresh blood. The decorator had been either a gothic madman or an Other with a wicked sense of humor.

Someone had pulled in a hard wooden bench from somewhere and shoved it into the shadows to the left of the hearth, but even that appeared to have been made well before the industrial revolution and kept lovingly polished until the wood nearly glowed in the firelight. Her mate had instructed her to sit on it until the show began, but she found herself wishing for a sketch pad so she could capture its rough lines and angular beauty. Not that she would have the time.

The supporting cast in Dmitri's carefully plotted drama had already arrived and begun to take their places at the center table. Not all of the seats would be filled, since not all of the members of the Inner Circle had been trusted to partic.i.p.ate in this well-laid trap, but enough Others had been included to lend an official and serious air to the room.

Saskia recognized no one, but she listened carefully to any greetings and idle chatter and used her training, research, and excellent memory to make the connections.

Adele Berry was the first Circle member she identified and the only one to surprise her. With a reputation that preceded her, the grand dame of New York's Other society turned out to be much smaller than Saskia had expected. The woman made up for it, though, in sheer presence. She wore her gray hair sleeked back in a bun, a la Audrey Hepburn, and made no effort to disguise the lines and wrinkles carving her face; in fact, she wore them like medals of valor. She was dressed elegantly, in the kind of clothing Saskia knew cost the earth but would last until the end of it. She clutched a silver-topped cane in her frail, soft hands, but her eyes sparked with energy and cunning. Saskia had a feeling she did not want to be on the woman's bad side.

Saskia recognized the brownie and the half giant immediately. With the soil-colored skin and diminutive size of the first and the impressive height and wide shoulders of the second, they didn't require much guesswork. The shifter she identified by process of elimination. The roomful of people made picking up the man's scent difficult, but Saskia guessed based on appearance and demeanor that he might belong to one of the small species-ferret, maybe, or rat.

With Dmitri and Graham rounding out their numbers, six of the members of the Inner Circle had agreed to a.s.sist with the plan. Rafe, of course, was present as well, but concealed behind a service door in the corner. For the plan to work, he could not be present at the start of the meeting. Mac also remained absent, waiting patiently in the chamber next door.

Everyone was in place for a rousing drama. Now they only needed to wait for the main characters.

Dmitri had arranged for cars to pick up Stefan and the Arcoses at their homes on behalf of the Council. No one wanted to take chances on the guests of honor not showing, and Rafe had argued that since the Council had sent an escort for Stefan the last time, the move would not appear out of the ordinary. According to the slim watch clasped around Saskia's wrist, they should arrive any minute.

The chamber grew quiet and thick with antic.i.p.ation. The crackle of burning logs and occasional low murmurs from one of the Council members sounded almost m.u.f.fled by the atmosphere. Tension crept up Saskia's spine until she thought she would go mad.

Before a scream of frustration could build up in her throat, she picked up the sound of footsteps in the stone corridor and stood, stepping close to her mate's side. According to her role, she kept slightly behind him as if subservient, like a traditional Tiguri mate, but she needed to feel his steady presence calming and supporting her. It reminded her that he possessed the strength to get through this and so did she.

The footsteps halted outside the door before the heavy panel swung inward and three figures stepped forward. A fourth, a club employee, hung back.

"Thank you, Thomas," Dmitri said, nodding at the servant. "You can go. And please make certain we're not disturbed."

"Nicolas. I see you've been subjected to this ridiculous exercise once again," Stefan Preda said as he glanced around the room. When he caught sight of Saskia standing just behind his son, the muscles in Stefan's jaw tightened visibly. "Was it necessary to bring your fiancee? I'm certain the stress of something like this won't help her to conceive."

Saskia felt the ripple of anger move through her mate, but he betrayed not a flicker of emotion.

"She asked to accompany me, and given the nature of the questions I was asked here the last time, I thought it might speed things along to have her verify certain details of my schedule."

Stefan looked less than pleased with the answer, but he said nothing. To protest further would seem odd given Victoria Arcos also stood behind her mate.

Saskia's father looked around the chamber and frowned. "Where is De Santos? I was promised this wouldn't take up my whole evening. Don't tell me we're going to have to wait for him?"

Surrept.i.tiously Saskia watched both her father and her soi-disant father-in-law's expressions. The confusion on Gregor's face appeared genuine, but she could read nothing behind Stefan's irritated mask.

Dmitri waved the Tiguri to five empty chairs arranged along one side of the table. "I'm afraid Rafael has met with an unfortunate accident. I will be overseeing these proceedings and serving as interim head of the Council."

Nic carefully placed Saskia in a chair at one end of the table, ensuring she sat closest to the door. He claimed the spot beside her for himself, placing his body between her and his father. Stefan automatically chose the middle seat as the position of power, and the Arcoses settled into the two remaining s.p.a.ces.

"How long will this interim be?" Stefan asked, the question just bad tempered enough to seem idle, but it made Saskia's skin crawl.

"That has yet to be determined."

Gregor flexed his shoulders and stretched his arms out along the arms of his chair, a gesture Saskia recognized from childhood. He always did that when sitting down to a business meeting or for an important discussion. He called it settling into his s.p.a.ce.

"Eh, he's a shifter, isn't he?" her father dismissed. "Whatever's got him under the weather won't take long to clear up. Me, I almost sliced my own finger off in the kitchen once. Managed to leave a thread holding it on, but that was enough for my body to set it back to rights. A week later, I could barely find the scar."

"I'm afraid Rafael was not quite so lucky," Dmitri said gravely. "There was another attack on him two nights ago. This time, he appears to have been completely unprepared. His attacker got the better of him. It was not a pretty sight."

Gregor blanched. "Are you saying De Santos was killed?"

Nicolas swore explosively and played his part to perfection. He shoved away from the table with a show of furious disgust, looking for all the world like a man convinced he was about to be blamed for a murder. He began to prowl the room restlessly, all the while making himself mobile in case something unexpected happened.

"Is that why we've been dragged here again?" Stefan demanded, scoffing. "For more ridiculous questions? Obviously, whoever failed to kill De Santos the first time went back to do a proper job, and since you know we all had alibis for the night of the first attack, it makes absolutely no sense that you would think we were behind the second one. You people wouldn't know how to investigate a disturbance if it came with a map and a crime scene a.n.a.lyst."

He shoved to his feet with a great show of indignation. "Let me tell you something, vampire, I've had enough of this sideshow you're running. I will not stand by and listen to you throw more accusations at my son's head, nor will I listen while you try to pin it on any other Tiguri. Every one of us here has provided you with an account of our whereabouts the night of the first attack, and I won't be insulted by being asked to provide another one for another night just because you can't figure out who's after the jungle cat. My people have faced nothing but ridicule and insults, hostility and slander, since we arrived in this city, and I-"

Dmitri cut off the tirade with nothing more than a raised eyebrow. "To be frank, Mr. Preda, it has come to our attention after further review that not all of your alibis for the night of the first attack are necessarily ... adequate."

"What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that all of you either show gaps of time during which your whereabouts were not fully accounted for or have provided us with nothing more than the word of a family member as verification of those whereabouts. I'm afraid that means we have more questions to ask you."

With impeccable timing, a brisk knock sounded at the door. Dmitri wore a ferocious scowl as he turned to face the entry. Thomas, the servant who had escorted the Tiguri in earlier, hurried to apologize.

"I'm so sorry, sir. I know you said you didn't want to be disturbed, but-"

"You need to hear this." Mac shouldered his way past Thomas and into the chamber, a piece of folded paper held in his hand. "My contact at the DNA lab just got the results. He faxed them to me a few minutes ago. We got it."

"Got what? What are you talking about?" Stefan bl.u.s.tered. "Vidme, who the h.e.l.l is this and what is he blathering about? I will not stand by for this sort of interruption, especially not when it's an insult for me to be here in the first place."

Dmitri took the folded paper from Mac but didn't glance at it. His gaze remained locked on Stefan's face. "Mr. Preda, meet McIntyre Callahan. Mac is a private investigator often retained by the Council to look into matters we deem important. He is here because of the very matter I was about to discuss with you. After the Council realized there were gaps in the alibis you all gave us for Friday night, the night of the first attack on Mr. De Santos, we asked Mac to go back to the scene of the attack to see if there might have been any evidence left at the scene that might have been overlooked earlier."

He nodded to Mac, who picked up the thread of the script.

"I interviewed a witness to the attack, but it turned out she was human and didn't get a very good look at the attack in the first place, so she wasn't much help. But she did point me to the exact spot where she witnessed the two figures struggling. I examined the area very carefully and was able to find a few strands of hair caught in the brickwork of the building outside of which Mr. De Santos was attacked. The color told me they didn't belong to him, so I took the chance and sent them to a friend of mine at a DNA lab. Like me, he's a changeling. Half sphinx. Frighteningly brilliant, and familiar with DNA processing on both human and Other samples. He was able to determine not only the species of the person who left that hair at the scene of the attack-definitely Tiguri, by the way-but also that person's s.e.x, race, and ethnic makeup. All we need to do is provide a reference sample and he can match it to the exact individual." He paused to grin. "Science is just so cool."

The rush of movement came from a completely unexpected quarter. In a desperate rush, Victoria Arcos leapt across the table and s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from Dmitri's hand, flinging it into the fire. Then she stood before the hearth, panting, to watch it burn.

Nic, grim faced and silent, stalked toward her. Clearly, he hadn't expected this, either, but he kept with their plan and paced himself close in case the guilty party tried to run.

"Mother?" Saskia choked on the question.

Of all the scenarios they had discussed while planning the dummy "DNA report" they would use to flush out the attacker, none of them had considered this.

She pushed out of her chair and began to cross behind the other Tiguri to join Victoria near the fire. "That's impossible. You're not big enough or powerful enough to have attacked Rafe the second time. I saw his wounds. He was torn apart."

Victoria lifted her face, ashen pale, and her gaze darted toward her daughter. Only she didn't meet Saskia's eyes and it took the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat for Saskia to realize her mother wasn't looking at her but at the man in front of her.

The man responsible for the second attack.

Stefan Preda.

Saskia had just pa.s.sed behind the chair of the would-be killer.

With a roar of rage, the elder Preda spun and s.n.a.t.c.hed at his son's fiancee, wrapping one arm around her neck and hauling her in front of him like a shield.

"You stupid b.i.t.c.h!" he spat in Saskia's ear, and it took her a moment to realize he was talking to her mother. Or rather, screaming at her. "All you had to do was sit down and shut up, but could you do it? Of course not! You're a woman! A stupid, worthless, useless woman! You've ruined everything!"

Saskia tore at the arm imprisoning her, but for all his advanced age, Stefan Preda was frighteningly strong. His forearm felt like a steel band pressed against her throat and he was beginning to compromise her ability to breathe.

"Let. Her. Go," something snarled, something huge and feral and enraged, and Saskia shifted her gaze to see her mate half-crouched near the fire eyeing his father through the cold, hard eyes of a predator.

"Why? She's just as useless as her b.i.t.c.h of a mother. She was supposed to serve two purposes: to keep you distracted while I set my plan in motion and to breed your cub to unite the streaks and provide a future for all the Tiguri to rally behind. But she's failed at both. She's worth nothing now."

"Let. Her. Go."

"Stefan, this has gone far enough," Gregor said, rising to his feet to face the man who held his daughter's life in his hands. "I agreed with you that we needed the old families to come together and put down those upstart newcomers, but I never agreed to murder. At least Victoria didn't actually hurt De Santos, but you went ahead and killed him? That's too much. That's crazy. This stops now."

"This stops when I say it stops," Stefan hissed. Saskia had to struggle for air, but she could smell the bitter, cloying scents of rage and madness pouring off him in waves. He truly believed even now that he could make everything come out the way he had planned, and she wasn't certain he wouldn't kill her to accomplish it.

In front of the fire, Nicolas roared a final warning, and Saskia knew she couldn't live with being responsible for her mate killing his own father. She had to get free.

Mustering a surge of strength, she forced the power through her limbs and shifted just one part of her body, the hardest trick a shifter could perform. It took intense concentration and ma.s.sive amounts of power, but in the s.p.a.ce of a couple of heartbeats her hand became a paw adorned with sharp, curving claws and reached back to swipe hard against her captor's face.

He shrieked and struck out even as he released her. The blow caught her on the side of the head, stunning her, and Saskia collapsed to the floor like a bag of bones.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

She heard her mate roar until it felt as if the very stones of the floor and walls vibrated with his fury. Several people shouted. Chairs crashed to the floor. Doors slammed against walls as security forces from the Silverback Clan rushed into the room from the hall outside and Rafe sprang out of concealment from his hiding spot in the service hall.

A woman screamed, and Saskia recognized the voice as her mother's. Saskia tried to raise her head, but her muscles wouldn't cooperate. She was still stunned.

Large hands grasped Saskia under the arms and dragged her across the floor away from the melee. She was aware of a large presence crouched beside her and her senses told her it wasn't her mate, but her brain couldn't quite function well enough to identify who it was. She lay in a daze for several more moments before the world began to fall back into place and she tried to sit up. The same hands that had dragged her to safety helped her up and then propped her back against the wall.

Graham Winters frowned down at her and held up a hand. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

She blinked. "Two."

He grunted and shifted, placing himself slightly in front of her so that anyone approaching would have to go through him. No one approached.

The fighting was over.

Saskia tried to make out what had happened, but overturned furniture blocked her view of some of the room. The Council members had all been rushed outside by the Lupine guards, though she could see the brownie and the shifter craning their necks to look inside.

In the corner between the sideboard and the hearth, her mother crouched on the floor weeping while her husband gazed dully into the flames. Dmitri and a member of the Lupine pack stood in front of them, clearly on guard.

The sight that shook Saskia, though, played out in the middle of the floor in front of the fire, where the Council tables had been shoved away and chairs flung to the walls.

Stefan Preda lay on his back on the cold stone, b.l.o.o.d.y but defiant. The old man's face bore three sharp grooves where Saskia's claws had caught his flesh, but already the blood had slowed to a trickle and the wounds had begun to draw together. Shifters were hard to kill. Stefan stared up at the shape above him and hissed and spat in furious madness.

Nic crouched over his father in full tiger form, over seven hundred pounds of muscle and teeth and claws. His green eyes looked hard and vicious, and he had one huge paw pressed against the older man's chest, his claws flexing rhythmically as if testing the resilience of the flesh beneath them.

Saskia gave a mewl of distress and tried to rise, to go to Nic, but Graham stopped her with a growl and a firm shove. That was all it took to send her slumping back to the floor. Her eyes remained on the scene before the fire, though, and fear and pain warred in her belly. Fear of what might happen and pain for the decision her mate tried to make.

Graham shifted, giving Saskia a more complete view of the hearth, and she saw that Rafe crouched there, too, facing Nic over his father's body. The head of the Council had retained his human form, but he watched the Tiguri with the golden eyes of a predator.

"Think before you act, my friend," Rafe spoke, his quiet voice seeming loud in the calm that followed the storm. "Actions are not like words; they can never be taken back."

Nicolas snarled.

"I understand your fury," the Felix continued. "Believe me, I feel the burn of it, too. Your father tried to take my life. The beast in me says that can only be avenged by taking his. And the man in me is furious that I was nearly bested by an old cat twice my age. But I can decide not to be controlled by my beast. I can make the decision to let him live and continue to suffer the consequences of his actions."

A half roar, muted but angry, filled the air. The tiger looked at his sire, then lifted his head and looked across the room to his mate. Saskia stared back, trying to pour love and comfort and rea.s.surance across the room.

The tiger snarled again and bared his fangs at the man under his paw.

"I know," Rafe spoke again. He didn't move, but he kept talking to the tiger, searching for a connection with the man within. "This man harmed your mate. I would want to kill him, too, if he'd laid a hand on mine. It doubles the weight of his betrayal, that he tried to use you for his own ends and that when his plans began to crumble he raised a hand against your woman even as he hid behind her. But that doesn't make him worthy of your fury. It makes him worthy of your contempt."

Saskia silently urged the Felix to keep talking. He seemed to understand the thoughts going through Nic's only partially human mind, but he kept forcing the Tiguri to cling to that human reason. She prayed Rafe's strategy would work, because she didn't know if her mate could live with himself if he killed his own father.

"Nicolas, look at your mate," Rafe urged, nodding his head at where Saskia sat, leaning against the rough stone wall. "She is here and she is healthy. She doesn't need to be avenged; she needs you."

G.o.d, yes. The man was absolutely right.

Slowly, Nic lifted his paw from his father's chest. Shifting his weight, he sat back on his haunches and stared down at the seething old man. At a nod from Rafe, three more Lupines stepped into the room to surround Stefan and ensure he made no further attempts to escape.

With fluid grace, the tiger pushed to his feet and wove between the legs of the werewolves to pad across the floor to his mate. Graham stepped aside as he approached, giving the couple room.

Saskia held her breath as Nicolas stopped just a few inches away and watched her with those fathomless green eyes. Hesitant, she waited until he lowered his head and chuffed, leaning forward to nuzzle her chest.

Crying softly, she wrapped her arms around his ma.s.sive head, buried her face in his thick fur, and wept. After a second, she felt human arms slip around her and the fur beneath her cheek became smooth, bare skin. She only held on tighter.

"G.o.d, I love you, Nicolas. I love you so much," she gasped against his skin, and felt his embrace tighten.

"I love you, too, Sa.s.sy girl," he murmured against her hair. "I love you, too."