She let out a cry of the greatest grief. She had come too late, too late. Too late to even offer up a last kiss ...

She held him, sobbing. The dead lay strewn around her. She heard voices in the far distance; the men in Sean's medical party were seeking out his lead to find the wounded. There were so many, it would take the doctors and orderlies a very long time to cross the field.

Exhausted, she was shaking as she looked to where Wynn lay fallen in a pool of blood. The old man had been tainted. She looked further. And there he was. Despite Sean's blow, he was standing again, staring at her in triumph.

Aaron Carter.

He strode to her. To where she held her beloved Sean.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" she raged, and tenderly set Sean aside to rise to her feet.

"I told you that I would have you. We are one and the same. You will come to understand-"

"I despise you and loathe you and I will find a way to rip you to shreds! I told you to leave, and you took that innocent girl. You killed her slowly, and when her father was insane with his grief, you added to his madness by taking just a little of his blood.

You gave him greater strength, and caused him to mete out his justice on men innocent of the murder you committed."

"I seduced an innocent! Dear me! Yes, my sweet, that is the nature of the beast, mademoiselle!"

He was smug, amused.

"I will kill you!" she raged, and she flew at him with tremendous strength. Even he was startled by her power, his smugness gone as he raised his arms to defend himself.

All she could feel was her grief and hatred. She tore into him with such force and power that she ripped flesh from his bones, tearing into his face, his throat, doing real damage.

"b.i.t.c.h!" he roared.

The wind seemed suddenly to roar, to rage between them. She stepped back, spent, acknowledging the higher power that was coming between them. Heedless of all else, she fell to her knees beside her lover once again.

Oh, G.o.d ... oh, G.o.d, she had meant to watch over him! She had hovered too far in the distance, and she hadn't seen what was happening, she hadn't realized that... Carter. Aaron Carter. She 'd thought him gone. He 'd played his game subtly. And taken his revenge.

She eased back against the bullet-riddled trunk of a thick old oak that had somehow survived the battle. She closed her eyes, in agony. She would gladly tear Aaron Carter from limb to limb, and yet she was horrified, wishing that by closing her eyes she could vanish what lay before her- the blood of war, and the blood she had wrought herself. She wished she could make death itself disappear.

Either that. . .

Or know its embrace.

But there was a miasma to death as well. Death had a stench. Even with her eyes closed, she could smell death.

Then she heard the wind again, an angry sound, a rustling against the trees, a thunder in her soul.

Judgment was coming.

She opened her eyes. Lucian was there, standing in the midst of the field of strewn corpses, staring down at the body of Confederate Colonel Elijah Wynn. Looking from her- to Aaron Carter.

"What have we here?" Lucian demanded.

"A traitor to our kind! She has mauled me! She must be made to pay. She doesn't understand that there are rules, that we abide by our own laws. She is dangerous, she must be taught. She will get our kind killed again and again."

"Ah!" Lucian murmured, studying the damage Meg had done to Aaron.

"You are the ruler; you owe me justice. Give her to me. I will mete out the right punishment."

Lucian looked at Meg, arching a brow. Momentarily, he appeared amused. "Well, well, well!" he said, and his eyes had a touch of fire, and his mouth was curved into a smile. "How intriguing. Just what happened here?"

He reached down, plucking up Wynn by the neck. The heavy man might have been weightless. Lucian gazed around at the other bodies, then saw the way she knelt by Sean Canady. His smile faltered for a minute, and his eyes fixed hard upon hers once again. She didn't care.

"Ah ... goodness and evil both have their prices, don't they? Everything in life- and death- has its price. A lesson learned here, I think? Meg, my poor Meg. Well, indeed, you will perhaps learn not to lose your heart to mortal lovers. You forget who you are, Meg Montgomery! What you are. Child of dark forces, daughter of sin." His face hardened, and for a moment she was certain that he was being deliberately cruel, insistent on her believing that she had brought this pain on herself. "For pity's sake!

You must learn to finish your meals!" he exclaimed.

With that, he took Elijah Wynn as if he were a doll, twisted his hand, and broke Wynn's head from his body with one powerful, clean movement. He let the man fall to the ground.

"He was not my meal!" she protested. "He was Aaron Carter's game, his experiment in cruelty! He killed the man's daughter, then tainted him. He bled him, but neither killed nor gifted him. He simply destroyed human lives for the fun of it, he is the one who is dangerous, who will expose us all with his carelessness and cruelty. No hunger drove him to this! That creature," she spat, indicating Aaron, "is a true abomination even among us!"

Lucian shook his head, eyes narrowed. "That creature- as you refer to Mr.

Carter- is not my doing, my dear sweet. But I'm afraid that he is one of us, and we are beasts of a like nature. And you know the rules, that you are not to kill your own kind."

"I didn't try to kill him. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d-"

"The gallant old colonel had a very beautiful and luscious daughter, so I've heard."

"Quite luscious," Aaron Carter said, grinning with lascivious pleasure.

"I believe she now walks among us," Lucian said.

"Indeed! And you allowed it-" Meg accused.

"My love, you forget yourself! It is his right, as it is yours, to choose to whom he will bestow the gift of this life."

"He seduced the man's only child, and turned a mortal into a madman who went wild killing injured soldiers on a battlefield-"

"And the madman killed your precious mortal. I'm afraid there is no crime against our kind in that. The rules by which we live are for our survival, not that of mortals.

We must survive, my love, and you must understand that. Ours is a harsh and brutal world. We must survive. We are all alike, we are of a kind. Do you think you can change what you are by dining only upon evil men? Thank the Lord- or the devil- that the world is peopled with score upon score of vicious mortals- and that you can indeed grow fat upon them! You defy what you are, and choose not to accept the companionship that is offered you, or to make a companion of a man. My dear moral beauty, alas, just think on this! There lies your just and good Captain Canady- a man you would not taint- in mortal death. You had the power to save him."

"Perhaps I don't believe that being 'gifted' with this life is being saved!" she choked out.

Lucian hunkered down at her side, shaking his head sadly. "What an amusing pair you might have made. You who believe so deeply in the soul! You and your ethical young man! They tell me you attend church services!" He shivered at the very concept, then smiled, an attempt at humor and even empathy, she thought. "Imagine the two of you- the newspaper headlines rising above those of battles won and lost- Heroic Sp.a.w.n of Satan Join the Temperance League! Welcome our latest members to the Salvation Army effort!"

Then Lucian's smile faded. He reached out a hand to her. "Come, Meg, with me."

Aaron was enraged. "No! You will not forgive her and comfort her. Give her to me!

She has wounded me, she must care for me, she must be mine, she owes me-"

"No! He had no right! No right! He knew that- that-" Meg choked out.

"That you loved your mortal?" Lucian voiced.

"Give her to me! It's justice, I demand it!" Aaron persisted.

"No," Lucian said quietly, standing, still watching Meg. "This is her place, Carter.

You were wrong to come here."

"She has maimed me. You stand up for her because she- because she entertains you!"

"You are maimed because you coveted her yourself. Go. Time will heal your wounds."

"I'll not!"

"You will."

"You think that you can claim her because you are king; you can do what you will-"

"Yes," Lucian interrupted impatiently, "I can do what I wish because I am king, because I have the power, and the strength, and if I choose to find you in the wrong, I have the power to destroy you. Unless you can best me. Which you cannot do. So you will go. I have commanded it."

Aaron Carter stared at Meg. "Lucian will not always be with you. I am powerful. I will be stronger. You have not heard the last of me. I am what I am, and I have my rights, and even our mighty king admits those rights! My beauty, you will pay in time!"

"Aaron, go to Europe," Lucian advised. "There's a season of tremendous debauchery on the Cote d'Azur, so I've heard. Go- before I forget that I must defend all that we are and maim you myself."

Aaron let out a hissing, snakelike sound of fury. But he was gone.

And Lucian, oddly quiet, hunkered down by Meg again. He reached out a hand once more. "I'm sorry, Meg. Honestly. Come. I command that you come."

"No."

He arched a brow. She wondered why she so stubbornly fought him, except that she was in such terrible pain. She had been existing in a sad delusion. She had told Aaron to leave; she had thought he had done so. She had so foolishly believed in her own power.

But Lucian was the king of their kind. She could fight Aaron and win. She could only hope to fight Lucian. She had learned strength from him. But he was older, stronger, still.

"My dear ..."

When he touched her that time, she allowed him, for a moment, to comfort her.

There was something about Lucian. In his strength and power there was ego and a sense of absolute right, but he was not like Aaron. She clung to him, and shook with a long flow of heaving sobs.

Then she pulled away.

Lucian could force her, take her, bring her to him at his will. And she didn't hate Lucian. He didn't expect their kind to be moralistic or ethical any more than he would expect a tiger to refuse meat. But, no, he was not like Aaron Carter. He had the wisdom of the ancients. He knew there must be rules. He had known about Sean, and he had allowed her the dilemma of loving a man she refused to turn into their kind, and so now, had lost. No, she despised Aaron, but she didn't hate Lucian.

Still, she defied him. Because drawing from him, she saw the mortal remains of Sean, and she didn't give a d.a.m.n. Allshe wanted to do was cry. And hold Sean Canady while his life's warmth remained, and dream of what might have been.

"Come," Lucian persisted.

"No, I will not leave him now-"

"He's dead!" "I will not leave him."

"Fine, foolish girl. Mourn your weak, pathetic, human remains. You'll come back to me." Lucian lifted her chin. She stared into his eyes, and her own came alive with a stubborn fire. "You'll come back to me," he continued, "because I have the power, I am the power. I am the G.o.d of your world. And you'll come back to me, whether you admit it or not, because you're a sensual little beast, and you need me."

She was angry and she jerked from his touch. "You don't begin to understand love!"

He arched a brow, but allowed her the freedom. "You speak of love, but you play with fire," he warned. "I repeat, ma cherie, I am your G.o.d, king within our world. I know the rules, and I see that they are kept. By right, you acted against one of our kind. I should have given you to Carter. Remember our rules. Break too many of them, and you will suffer the consequences."

"Because I refuse you when I want to die!" she whispered.

Curiously enough, she realized that Lucian was hurt as well as angry. "Maybe," he told her quietly. "Careful, my love, don't push me too far! I will d.a.m.n you and do my best to see to it that you have a life so long you will beg for my forgiveness."

She leaned back against the tree, real tears raining down her cheeks.

There was another whisper in the air.

Another rustle of sound.

The smell of the b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield rose all around her. She was alone with her dead human lover.

Aaron Carter was gone. He would not have her.

And Lucian was gone. He had defended her, but now, he might not forgive her. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Because Sean was gone.

CHAPTER 7.

The third body wasn't found until Thursday.

Pierre estimated that the poor creature had been dead nearly a week, which seemed to mean that their killer had spent last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday on a spree.

"Nights of the almost-full and full moon," Pierre noted glumly, which caused Sean to nod reflectively. Nights when the moon had glowed strangely red over river and bayou alike.

This time, the victim had been found in the bayou. Water and animals alike had done damage to her ravaged body.

Her torso had been found in the morning. Her head in the early afternoon.

Parts of her would probably remain missing forever, consumed by wild beasts, the muck of the swamp-or even her killer. The savagery with which this killer was mutilating bodies was growing disturbingly more reminiscent of Jack the Ripper.

The good thing about standing with Pierre over the gurney as he pointed out his findings was that the victim's grotesquely ruined face was so grossly swollen and gnawed that it was hardly recognizable as human.