Pulitzer.

Save the damn world and earn a Pulitzer.

If she repeated it often enough, like a litany, maybe the truth would be forced out. For Susannah's sake.

As she pulled her single carry-on bag from the backseat, she tried to create a visual focus in her mind. The headline. Front page, above the fold:

SCIENTISTS' EVIL PLOT FOILED: SHAPE-SHIFTERS AND HUMANS SAVED

But the image of her success kept fading. Wavering. Replaced by a pair of ice-green eyes.

Slamming the car door shut, she wondered where in the hell the valet was. Maybe hiding behind the long hedge that bordered the hotel, sneaking a smoke. Maybe grabbing a quick bite to eat. She shot a considering glance at the vampmobile again, and felt the edges of her lips quirk up into a twisted grimace of a smile.

Maybe becoming a quick bite to eat.

She never saw the knife until it was taut against her throat.

"Scream and die," a low voice murmured against her ear, and then suddenly she was flying or leaping, moving with a speed and at a height mere humans couldn't attain, over the hedge and into the inky darkness behind it. The lights from the hotel barely shimmered through the tall thickness of the hedge. When their feet hit the ground and her captor released her, Tiernan stumbled, disoriented, and the edge of the blade cut sharply into the side of her neck. She hissed at the biting pain, and the knife wielder yanked the weapon away, swearing viciously under his breath.

"I am sorry to have hurt you, but speed and discretion were needed."

She put her hand to her wounded neck, felt the wetness, knew she'd see the blood if there were any light. "Great. Sure. What's a little bleeding neck wound between friends?"

Maybe sarcasm wasn't the best idea, considering the guy had superspeed and a very sharp knife. But a dangerous combination of fear and anger boiled out of her as defiance. "I'm guessing you're not the valet. So who the hell are you, and what do you want with me?"

He inhaled deeply, so close to her that she felt the rush of his breath when he exhaled. "What I want at the moment has more to do with that bleeding wound and my desire to lick it clean than my actual objective. Perhaps you would agree to a temporary truce so that your anger and my hunger do not force me into sucking on your lovely little neck until I drain you dry."

It wasn't a question, more of a command, and one she wasn't in the slightest bit interested in defying. Bravado had to give way to intelligent self-preservation sometimes, even for crack investigative reporters. His voice was oddly musical, nearly mesmerizing, but not like he was trying to enthrall her. She'd heard that tone before, in other vamps, but this wasn't that. This was his actual voice: deep, confident, and just the tiniest hint of an accent. She thought she'd recognize it if she heard it again.

"Vampire, then?" Her words came out shakier than she'd hoped.

"Those must be the brilliant journalistic instincts I've heard so much about, Tiernan Butler," he said, amusement and something darker underscoring the words.

Fear snaked through her at the sound of her real name, but she didn't let a hint of it show on her face. "Tiernan who? Look, you've got me confused-"

"Do not insult me," he snapped. "I don't have time to play. You're going to need allies on the inside, but you can trust no one. Expect deception and malice from the least likely sources. Accuse Devon of nothing; he is not yet powerful enough. Those around him will force his hand, and you will die. The greater good outweighs the lives of one unimportant reporter, no matter how lovely she may be."

He fell silent, and Tiernan wondered if she'd just fallen through the rabbit hole. A very dark, confusing rabbit hole, where vampires kidnapped then complimented her.

"Yeah. Malice and deception are my specialties," she snapped. "Um, look, I'm very grateful that you didn't exsanguinate me, but what in the world are you talking about?"

"Redemption must be sought, even if there can never be such for one like me," he said so quietly that she wondered if she'd been meant to hear.

"Redemption." The word tasted bitter in her mouth. "Some acts can never be redeemed."

It was several long seconds before the vampire replied. "Is that aimed at me or at yourself? Either way, does it matter?"

Only a whisper of his breath served to warn her before she felt a strong, cool hand grasp her chin and tilt it to the side, as his mouth settled on her neck. As he licked her neck, then pulled deeply at the wound, she felt an answering pressure low in her body and realized she suddenly knew why the vamp groupies kept going back for more. She raised her fists to shove him away, but he was gone before she could touch him.

"Forgive me," he said, his rough voice nearly a growl. "It has been a long time. Beyond mere hunger, I have reason to believe I will need to be able to find you."

Tiernan blinked, her fury at his attack fizzling in the wake of utter confusion. "Forgive you? Did you just apologize to me?"

"Even monsters can apologize," he said dryly.

"I didn't-"

"You did. And I deserved it, but again, no time for pretty speeches. Be warned and be prepared. I will send you an ally if I can, but even if not, these experiments need to stop. You and the Atlanteans may have to work alone, but know that I'll be working toward you from the other side of this. Remember that not all of the shape-shifters who wear the faces of friends are true."

Tiernan had had just about enough of his cryptic riddles. "Who are you? I've had confidential sources before and never yet revealed a single one. You can trust me, if you really are on my side." Everything in her was telling her that he wasn't lying, but her senses didn't always work with vampires. Truth and falsehood had different meaning to the undead, apparently, so vampire lies didn't always resonate in her soul. Didn't cause her highly calibrated senses to jangle with the discordant sound of dishonesty.

He laughed, but the sound was wrong, somehow, as if he hadn't used his voice for laughter for more years than she'd been alive. "I've trusted human women before. Twice. The first died, and the second paid a terrible price and despises me. Never, ever again."

"But-"

"I have to leave you now. Don't forget," her captor whispered, his voice merely a darker shadow in the night.

"Wait! How do I get out of here?" Tiernan pointed to the impenetrable greenery, but before she could say another word, his hand shot out and wrenched a handful of leaves and branches, and a gaping hole appeared in the hedge.

She whistled. "Well, if you give up the mysterious kidnapper thing, you could try gardener, I suppose."

When he didn't respond, she glanced over her shoulder and wasn't really surprised to see him gone. "Bond, James Vampire Bond," she murmured, before she leaned down and moved sideways through the gap in the hedge, toward the light.

"Miss?" The long-missing valet rushed down the sidewalk toward her. "What happened to you? Are you all right?"

He took her arm and she stood up, scanning the area to see how many people had seen her climbing out of the hedge. But luckily the driveway was momentarily clear. Or maybe it wasn't "luckily" at all. Maybe the vamp had waited for privacy before he let her go. Vampires did have better than average hearing, or so the rumor went.

"Miss? Talk to me. Are you okay? Your neck is bleeding," the man said, pulling her toward the hotel in a fast walk, almost as if he were afraid to be out after dark.

She clapped her hand over the bite mark and managed a smile. "Oh, if you only knew me. Just clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. I fell through those bushes in these terrible shoes. Can you grab my bag for me, please?"

He started to protest, but she narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin. He recognized defeat and moved to lift her case from the sidewalk, where she'd dropped it when she'd been snatched by Captain Mysterious. She took advantage of the moment and grabbed a tissue from the front pocket of her backpack and wiped her neck with it, wincing at the sight of the fresh blood. She wadded it up and stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans as the valet turned around.

"Ready to get checked in and get a good night's sleep?" he asked, pasting a strained smile on his face. "Meetings start tomorrow morning at eight A.M. It looks like it will be an interesting conference."

She handed him her keys and indicated her car, then took a slow, deep breath as she stared at the empty space where the Lamborghini had been parked. "You know, somehow I don't doubt that at all."

Chapter 3.

Yellowstone National Park, southeast section, official wolf shifter Pack territory Brennan stepped through the portal from Atlantis and took a deep breath of the crisp air. He had always appreciated the scents of the park, so different from those of the more delicate and flowered trees of Atlantis. The spruce and pine trees scented the air with an aroma that smelled exotic to him, even after so many visits over the centuries. He wished he could fully savor the experience, but there was nothing left to him of pleasure or appreciation. Nothing of joy.

He wondered again, as he had so often before, when he would surrender to the bleakness of his destiny-and end it. Soon, perhaps. But not today. Not until his curiosity about the woman Tiernan had been satisfied.

He turned to face the portal. A cluster of soaring lodge-pole pines stood sentinel on a nearby ridge, casting shadows over the portal as Alexios and Grace crossed through. Grace had one hand on the hilt of the dagger sheathed at her hip and her other hand on her ever-present bow.

"You weren't kidding about wilderness," she said, looking around. "And what the heck is that?" In a single, smooth motion, she pulled her bow off her shoulder and had an arrow ready to let fly at a group of large shadows moving at the base of the trees.

Alexios smiled and, with one finger, gently pushed her arrow down. "That's a bunch of bison, city girl."

Grace lowered her bow and stood staring, her mouth falling open a little. "Bison? I'm standing in the wilderness, surrounded by buffalo?"

"'Surrounded' is not accurate," Brennan pointed out. "They are in a single group, more than thirty feet away from us. If they were behind us, as well, perhaps, but-"

A calm voice cut him off. "Surrounded by wolves is a little more to the point."

The first word had Brennan whirling around, daggers drawn, but as soon as he saw Lucas's familiar face, he relaxed and slid the blades back into their sheaths. The alpha wolf shifter stood a good ten paces away, surrounded by a half dozen of his Pack in their wolf shapes.

Alexios strode forward to meet his old friend, and the two clasped arms. "Well met, Lucas."

"Welcome to my home," Lucas replied, inclining his head. Then his gaze arrowed in on Grace, and a slow smile spread across his face. "This is a surprise. How did you get a woman that lovely to have anything to do with you?"

The honey-colored wolf sitting at Lucas's right side bared her teeth and snapped at his leg. Lucas threw back his head and laughed.

"Perhaps your mate does not care for your compliments to another man's woman," Alexios said, bowing deeply to the wolf.

A shimmering glow surrounded the animal for several seconds, and then a woman stood where the wolf had been. Her long wavy hair was the same shade of gold as the wolf's fur. She wore simple clothes-an unremarkable dark shirt over blue jeans-but her beauty glowed like a fine Atlantean gemstone in the moonlit night.

Grace stepped forward, next to Alexios, and elbowed him in the side. From the "oof" noise he made, Brennan assumed the gesture had not been gentle.

"Remember, we talked about this 'my woman' stuff?" she muttered. Then she looked at Lucas and his mate and inclined her head. "Thank you for the welcome. I'm Grace, and he's still learning."

The female shifter laughed. "I'm Honey, and good luck with that. Starting the day he found out I was pregnant, Lucas tried to treat me like I was a fragile, delicate little thing. Now that the babies are here, he still hasn't let up." She started to take a step forward, but Lucas stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"Maybe we should be sure that this really is Alexios and Brennan before we go any further," Lucas said, his dark brows drawing together.

A wave of understanding washed over Brennan. "The chameleon shifters. Yes, we have heard of that phenomenon. Perhaps you might ask us something that only we would know?"

Lucas was obviously ready for the prompt, because he spoke with no hesitation. "What kind of dance did Christophe tell us he hated?"

Brennan simply stared at the alpha, having absolutely no idea to what he was referring, but Alexios started laughing. "He's no fan of line dancing, if I remember rightly."

The memory of another meeting with Lucas, that one marred by a vicious attack from enthralled wolves, flashed into Brennan's mind, and he curved his lips in a perfunctory smile. Though he could not feel pleasure or amusement, he'd long since learned that it made others more comfortable around him if he at least made an attempt to mimic the appearance of emotion. "I mentioned my fondness for a good waltz, I believe."

Lucas grinned. "Only you, Brennan. Only you would go all nostalgic for a waltz. I bet you and Johann Strauss were buddies."

"I never had the privilege of meeting Johann, the elder. But I did, on occasion, take a meal with the younger, and offered my sincere admiration at his progress on 'An der schonen blauen Donau.'"

Honey smiled. "'The Blue Danube'? We played that at our wedding reception for our first waltz."

Brennan glanced at Lucas. "You, too, waltz?"

Lucas put a proprietary arm around his mate and shrugged. "Honey wanted me to waltz, I waltzed. You just wait, Brennan. Someday a woman will bulldoze right over that walled-off heart of yours, and you'll be doing the tango, the waltz, or the freaking Macarena if she asks you."

That was impossible, of course, given the curse, but something dark and dangerous in Brennan's soul twisted at the idea. Tiernan. If she were the one, if only she could break through . . . But if and when she did, his returning emotions were cursed to destroy him, or-worse, far worse-her.

Only when she is dead-her heart stopped and her soul flown . . .

The hated words of the curse echoed through his mind, yet again, and the image of Tiernan's face in that newspaper photograph appeared in his memory. If only he could remember the way she'd looked as he'd held her in his arms. He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it. When he opened his eyes again, an awkward silence had fallen.

"Lucas's feet are really way too big to go in his mouth so often," Honey said gently, stepping forward to put a hand on Brennan's arm.

Brennan found it took quite a great deal of forbearance to refrain from jerking away from her. "I have taken no offense," he said, again forcing that artificial smile. "But perhaps we could adjourn to your home and discuss our strategy for infiltrating the IAPN conference?"

"Right," Lucas said, clearly relieved to be moving on. "We've heard from our contacts. Tracy Baum should be arriving at the hotel soon."

"I thought we were meeting Tiernan?" Grace said, glancing back over her shoulder at the buffalo and then at the wolves surrounding Lucas and Honey. "Also, no offense, but is there a reason your Pack members are staying in wolf form?"

Lucas's eyes narrowed, but his voice remained calm. "Tiernan is operating under an alias. And it is very close to the full moon, so many of my Pack brothers and sisters prefer to run as wolf during this time. Is there a problem?"

Alexios almost casually moved so that he was standing partially between Grace and Lucas. "No problem. She's a city girl, that's all. All this wildlife is making her twitchy for a cappuccino or something."

Grace bristled, but Alexios grinned at her and she laughed, her usual good nature surfacing. "I'm sorry, I certainly didn't mean any offense," she told Lucas and Honey. "But maybe we could go someplace with four walls and electricity or at least a fire? I may be a descendant of Diana, but I'm one with a healthy regard for modern conveniences, and it's much colder than I'd expected."

Honey whistled. "Descendant of Diana, huh? Been a long time since we saw one of those."

Lucas bowed deeply, and Brennan noticed a strange thing. The wolves arrayed around their alpha and his mate all bowed as well, their elegant heads dipping low. The motion was a study in grace in each of them, far more the action of a predator giving honor than that of an animal performing a trick.

Grace bowed to them all in return, but Brennan heard Alexios muttering, "Here we freaking go again."

"The wolf is not Diana's animal," Alexios said, biting off the words. "The panther is. So I don't want to hear any blather about consorts, honorary or otherwise, or I'm so going to kick your ass."

Honey's smile was suddenly sharp and full of teeth. "Trust me, you'd not be the only one doing the ass kicking."

Lucas threw up his hands in protest, shaking his head. "Hey, I don't know what you're talking about. What consort? Also, who even says 'consort' these days?"

"Yeah, you're the one who's going to be getting your ass kicked if you don't stop that," Grace said, poking Alexios in the side, her embarrassment tangible. "It's a long story and certainly one we don't need to bring up again now. Or, you know, ever."

Brennan decided the moment had come to rescue Grace, and perhaps they could dispense with the small talk and move on to the focus of this mission. He stepped forward to state that very premise, but before he could open his mouth to speak, a searing, slashing pain cut through the side of his throat, dropping him to his knees where he stood. "Pain," he managed, gasping out the words. "Fear. Darkness."

A tidal wave of fire and pain raged through his body, twisting him into an impossible contortion until his head slammed down onto the ground so hard it bounced. "He's hurting her. Hurting her. Biting . . . blood . . . no. No!"

Alexios crouched into a squat beside him, grabbing his shoulders and lifting him. "Brennan, what is it? What in the nine hells is going on with you? Hurting who? Who's doing the hurting?"

Brennan tried to answer, but a snarling roar was all he managed as the rage ripped at his insides until he was sure his ribs would explode out through his skin. Lust. He could feel the echoes of the vampire's lust as his bite caught at the woman, threatening to pull her under. He caught Alexios by the arm and stared up into his fellow warrior's shocked face.