Naturally, she couldn't trust it.

The desk clerk picked up on the first ring. "How may I help you, Ms. Baum?"

She told him.

"Of course we have Mr. Brennan's suite ready. Should we send someone to meet him there?"

She took the room number, thanked the clerk, and hung up the phone. "I'm guessing we're getting dressed in your room?"

"Lucas arranged for suitable clothing to be delivered there. You will bring your belongings and come with me?" A hint of desperation sounded underneath the calm, even tones of his voice, and when she nodded, grabbing her backpack, she couldn't miss his relief.

"I believe we have a party to attend," he said. He took her suitcase and opened the door, scanning the hallway before gesturing to her to lead the way.

"A party to attend," she repeated. "Can't wait."

She wondered if she was trying to convince him-or herself.

Brennan scanned his new hotel suite, noting the proximity of windows to the bed. Any attack would come from there; any intruders would smash through the glass and attack sleeping guests before they had a chance to wake up.

Well enough. He didn't plan on sleeping in that bed.

Tiernan had spent several minutes scanning the room with a small electronic device before telling him the room was free of electronic surveillance. They must be very sure of his compliance, then. He smiled at the thought.

Tiernan blinked. "So that was a scary smile. What are you thinking about?"

"Scientists who overestimate themselves."

She narrowed her eyes, but didn't pursue it. "Well, you can at least turn your back while I get dressed," Tiernan said, tossing her backpack on the bed. "That surely won't be long enough to set off the curse." She sat down on the edge and pulled off her shoes. "Right?"

His mind suddenly stuttered to a stop at the sight of Tiernan sitting on the very bed he'd just dismissed. "What?"

She dropped her second foot on the floor and shot him an exasperated look. "Dressed. You. Me. Turning our backs. Right?"

"Dressed?"

Tiernan sighed. "Okay. What's going on in that scary Atlantean mind of yours?"

He closed his eyes. There was no help for it. The only way to regain his power of speech was not to see the woman Poseidon himself had declared Brennan's one true mate sitting on a bed.

His bed.

His woman.

He closed his eyes even tighter and started humming.

"You're freaking me out here, but-wait. Is this your plan? Okay, hold that position for two minutes."

He heard rustling noises, and the images his mind conjured of her removing her clothes were too much for him to bear. He dared to open his eyes just a small bit and was rewarded by an expanse of the smooth silky skin of Tiernan's back as she pulled a froth of sparkly fabric the color of crushed rubies over her head. She smoothed the dress into place and turned around, catching him drinking in the sight of her.

"You were supposed to close your eyes," she said accusingly.

He slowly shook his head. "You are beautiful beyond the dreams of the gods. I will never willingly miss any opportunity to see your body, clothed or bare."

He watched, fascinated, as a rosy flush swept up her cheeks. "It bothers you to hear that you are beautiful?"

"No. Thank you for the compliment. But it bothers me that we're supposed to be doing a job and we're talking about bare bodies." She folded her arms under her far-too-exposed breasts, which were barely covered by the silky fabric. "Get dressed or I'm going by myself."

"You will wear that? Into a room filled with men?" Instantly the unfamiliar rage and jealousy burned through him, and he wanted to put his fist through the wall. Or through someone's face. Anyone who would dare to stare at her breasts or her impossibly long legs in that far-too-clinging dress.

She narrowed her eyes. "I will wear whatever I want. And you have two minutes to get ready, or I'm gone."

Rummaging in her bag again, she pulled out a lipstick and then glanced up at him. "Still standing there? One minute, fifty-five seconds. You'd better believe I'm not kidding about this. Move, already."

He believed her. He moved.

Lucas had arranged for the proper clothing, so he quickly changed into the tuxedo hanging in the closet, not daring to look back and see whether or not she was watching him. She had to help him with the unfamiliar tie, and he practiced breathing exercises while her delicate hands touched his neck. It was the only way he could keep from tossing her lovely ass on that inviting bed and spending the rest of the night learning the topography of every lush curve.

"This is going to be a very long night," he said, trying to hold his breath so as not to be further tortured by the delicate floral scent of her hair.

"You think?" She finished the tie and stood back to admire her handiwork. "So far, my day has been all leisure and bonbons. Shall we go to a party? Vampires, evil scientists, and probably enthralled shape-shifters. How bad could it be?"

He laughed, but it came out sounding grim. "How bad, indeed?"

Her smile faded. "You know, by now I should know better than to say things like that. It's tempting fate."

Brennan just nodded. He knew far more than most about tempting fate, and none of it was good.

A very, very long night.

Chapter 9.

Devon smoothed the lapels of his tuxedo jacket as he gazed around the hotel conference room, his expression giving away nothing of the distaste he felt for these self-interested scum. His eyes were covered by the wraparound dark glasses he preferred, which further hid his disgust. Many considered the oversized glasses to be merely affectation. He was glad to let them think it; better that than the truth. A disguise was less effective when known to be one.

The five vampires who had fought for so long and argued so bitterly against any type of collaboration were the very same here to take full advantage now that the consortium was in effect.

Schemers and users. Power-mad and weak both, a most unpleasant combination. Quick to change sides to grovel and flatter the more powerful; quicker to stake you in the back if you fell.

The door opened and the worst of the bunch walked in. Litton. The human. The man might actually be clinically insane. A man who would betray his own kind to the monsters who wanted to enslave them-he was indeed a valuable ally.

And he was also a traitor to be continually watched-and immediately destroyed-at the first hint that he'd turned his traitorous ways against the vampires funding his research.

The obsequious cockroach scuttled up to him, bobbing his head, a grimace of fear mixed with triumph plastered all over his face. Devon clenched his teeth just a little to keep the sneer off his face. "Dr. Litton."

"Mr. Devon, I'm thrilled to be able to inform you that Mr. Brennan is here. Our generous benefactor himself," Litton said, all but rubbing his hands together in a caricature of a mad scientist from a film.

"Brennan. Yes, I know that name." Devon said, remembering the last time he'd seen the man, but keeping his own counsel. "What do we have to show him for his half million?"

"We've got the model lab all set up," Litton said, not quite daring to meet Devon's eyes. "Just as you said."

One of the oldest vampires in the room, in fact one of the oldest vampires still roaming the earth, slammed a fist down on the conference table. This one called himself Mr. Jones, although Devon supposed that when you were that old and that powerful, you could call yourself anything you liked.

"I don't like it," Jones said, his voice a tangle of dark and nasty things.

Humans had been rumored to have gone mad just from the sound of Jones's voice. Litton was unaffected, but for more bowing and scraping, thus strengthening Devon's assumption that the man was already insane.

"Why would we possibly waste time and effort with a human? We are near to our final goal of permanent enthrallment of the sheep and the shifters alike," Jones continued, "thanks to this one and his colleagues. We have no need to perform like trained monkeys."

"I-I'm not a fan of the way you call humans 'sheep,'" Litton dared to say, his voice shaking with either outrage or terror.

"Of course you aren't," Devon said, suddenly tired of the entire game. But he had chosen this path long ago, and one of the disadvantages of his choice was the necessity of working with fools. "Are we ready?"

"We're ready to go forward with the next stage of human trials," Litton protested. "We need more money for that. Lots more money. And Mr. Brennan has ten million dollars earmarked for us. He just wanted to be sure he was getting his money's worth."

"A wise businessman," Devon drawled. "Smarter than your average human, then."

Another of the eldest vampires spoke up. This one controlled much of the Pacific Northwest, now that Barabbas was gone. He styled himself Mr. Smith, either in homage to, or mockery of, Mr. Jones. "Why not just kill him and take his money? I have no taste for the job of humoring humans, and this century brings far too much of it."

"We brought that on ourselves, when we came out and let the sheep know we existed. Far better to have stayed in the shadows, as we have for thousands of years," Jones snarled, his fangs down and glistening with spittle.

Devon looked around the room, at each of them in turn, but skated his gaze past the far corner. Other than Smith and Jones, none of the vampires was willing to speak up and commit themselves to one plan of action or the other.

"We're ready to go forward," Litton repeated. "Can we bring him to the lab tonight?"

Before Devon could reply, a knock sounded at the door, which then opened to show Litton's nervous assistant. "Excuse me, Dr. Litton? Um, sorry to bother you, sir, but we have a little problem."

"I told you not to interrupt me," Litton snapped, gesturing frantically for the man to leave.

Devon thought not. "Come in, please, Mr.-?"

"Wesley, sir. Er, Your Lordship, um, sir," the man babbled, sweat dotting his forehead and the sour smell of fear reeking from his every pore. "It's Wesley."

"Well, Mr. Wesley, what do you have to tell us?"

The man's face contorted as he tried to keep all of the vampires and his employer in sight at the same time. "Uh, well, it's about Mr. Brennan."

"What about Brennan?" Litton said, his voice shrill. "He's here, you told me he was here. Did you give him his welcome packet?"

"Yes, of course, but he wasn't there." Wesley twisted his hands together, his gaze darting nervously around the conference table. "I mean, he was in a room, but it wasn't his room."

Litton rolled his eyes. "Then you take him to his room. What's so urgent about that?"

"We did, I mean, the front desk got him to his room, but it's more who he was with than where he was, if you know what I mean."

Devon sighed. Wesley's nervous grin was beginning to make him want to rip the man's throat out. Not that he was particularly hungry or that Wesley was particularly appealing. It might make the babbling stop, though, and there was great merit in that.

"Who, Wesley?" he said, to forestall any further images of dealing immediate death. "What companion has you so addled?"

"The reporter, sir," Wesley said. "Mr. Brennan was with that reporter, Tracy Baum, and she seemed awfully cozy with him, if you know what I mean."

The rodent-faced man beamed around the room, a leering let's-be-men grin that failed to find its audience among the impatient vampires, who either ignored him or looked at him as one might a particularly aromatic pile of garbage.

"This could be a problem," Jones said. "Why is our reclusive billionaire having dealings with a reporter? Are you sure your research on this man was accurate, Devon?"

Devon leaned back against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. "I am always accurate, Jones. This is why I have achieved all that I have. You would do well to remember that."

"Maybe she's just his girlfriend," Wesley said, his voice cracking mid-sentence. "You know, just a piece of ass for the-"

"That will be enough, Wesley," Devon interrupted. "Unless you want to have drinks with any of my friends?" He waved an arm at the vampires ringing the table and they leaned forward.

"Or be a drink?" Smith said slyly.

Wesley almost knocked Litton down in his haste to escape the room, and Devon allowed himself a grim smile.

"Powerful men can control their women," he said, knowing he would regret the remark later. She would be sure of that. "If there were any problem at all, Brennan's previous activities and funding would have been front-page news. He knew full well that his first half million was earmarked for research into enthrallment; that's why he gave it in the first place. So the woman is either his companion or simply a diversion. Either way, I cannot believe she will be a problem."

"I don't like it," Smith said.

"You don't like anything," Devon countered. "I will have them followed at all times. If they step so much as a foot out of line, we will capture them and have them killed. This is a no-lose scenario for us. We have an eccentric human billionaire who wants to fund our research in hope that we will give him the gift of eternal life so that he will continue to be part of the ruling class after we take over. Either he will work with us, or we will enthrall him and he will be our puppet."

"I plan to kill him, eventually, either way," Jones said, stabbing one long fingernail into the polished conference table and carving the letter J into the expensive wood. "I have no liking for these upstart humans."

Devon noticed Litton starting to back toward the door. "Do you concur, Doctor?"

"What? Oh, yes. Completely. We need his money. Must get to the party. See you there." With that, Litton all but ran out of the room after his assistant. When the door closed behind him, Devon sighed.

"Perhaps we could refrain from the 'let's kill the upstart humans' talk around the doctor who controls the research," he said, biting off each word.

"Why do we need Brennan, anyway? We have money," whined one of the younger vamps who hadn't spoken yet.

"Good. You can pay for the damage to that table," Devon said.

Jones sneered.

"More to the point, none of you wanted to risk your own money on these trials," Devon pointed out. "And why should we, when we have willing sheep with money, standing ready to betray their own kind?"

"You should be the next Primator," Smith said. "I have no liking for politics, but you're a natural at the game. If we're going to be in it, we should be in it with someone who can manipulate the rules to our advantage. When the Americans changed their constitution to allow for a third house of Congress controlled entirely by our kind, they opened the door for total domination."

"They all but laid down and bared their necks," Jones spat out, his lips peeled back from his teeth. "It's our duty to accept their sacrifices."

"Perhaps, but one does not become leader of the Primus by murdering humans," Devon said. "The next Primator must be seen as one who can work with them, or he will suffer the same fate as the last two have."

"Or she," came a husky voice from the shadows of the far corner. "Perhaps a woman will become Primator this time."