It's very likely the doorway won't open for you, even if we manage to free this dryad and bring her along.”

“Is that what Keldwyn told you when you had your private conversation?”

Not exactly.

When Jacob rejoined Mason, Lyssa hadn't watched him go, though she usual y took great pleasure in the attractive flex of muscle in all the right places, the warrior's grace and power enhanced by the vampire blood.

Keldwyn lifted a shoulder. “You counsel your servant wisely, Lady Lyssa.”

“Don't flatter yourself overmuch, my lord. Cal it a chal enge to Fae superiority all you wish. I know male posturing, regardless of the species.” He lifted a brow. “What is it you wish to say to me that required this private audience?”

“It wasn't Fae all ure or any power of mine that convinced Jacob we were meant to be together. He convinced me.”

“Then you are as much a fool as he is. Many things change, but not someone's fundamental nature. It matters not what species they are.”

“That is my point, exactly. And Jacob's.” He studied her for another moment, then inclined his head. “I wish you well , Lady Lyssa. As always.” When he disappeared from view in a blink of time, she didn't bother to try and track him as she had when he'd first started visiting them. Unlike vampires, it wasn't speed that gave him that ability, but a Fae's capacity to blend. He could be within a stride of her, cloaked not only in the colors of the forest, but its scents and life energy, a perfect chameleon. So, anticipating he was stil close enough to hear her, she spoke, taking the final word.

“Better a fool in his arms, my lord, than a lonely Fae who haunts the forests and doesn't know how to smile. I wish you well. Also as always.” 2

RETURNING to the present, she knew she wouldn't be able to convince Jacob the Fae world was closed to him, mainly because she didn't know that for certain herself. He'd had exceptional intuition long before he had the ability to delve into her mind.

Demonstrating it now, he closed his hands over hers on his chest, with enough pressure that her blood stirred at the chal enge. “Even before I became a vampire, lying to me usual y didn't work out so well for you, my lady.”

“Take care that you don't overestimate what you know of me, Sir Vagabond.” But her mouth softened.

“Jacob, there's Kane to consider. Would you abandon him?”

Letting out an oath, he set her aside, getting to his feet. “That's unfair, and you know it.”

“I never said I was fair. If Keldwyn is not tel ing the truth about the time distortion, or if I don't survive this, or can't get back for any reason, Kane needs one parent in his life. We both know how critical it is to have at least one blood parent watching over a vampire infant. As great as our feelings are for each other, he is the summation of those feelings. He comes first.”

Jacob strode a few paces away, his fists clenched. After a long moment, they eased and she heard his dry chuckle. “You almost had me, my lady.” He glanced over his shoulder, those blue eyes shrewd. “What would Kane think of me if I didn't do everything to protect his mother? We both know Mason is just as capable as I am of protecting Kane.

More so perhaps, though I'l deny it if you feed his overinflated ego. Plus, Kane has an uncle who will defend him to the death. An uncle who—by some unprecedented miracle or freakish aberration in the universe—is the bonded servant of one of the most powerful vampires either of us know. This has nothing to do with Kane, and everything to do with you protecting me. I thought we were past that.”

“As much as we are past you always trying to protect me?” She rose. From the stubborn set of his jaw, she knew her eyes were flashing fire. “Set aside your damned code of chivalry, Jacob. It's far more likely you could be kil ed in the Fae world. What if we step through that doorway at night, and it's bright daylight on their side, with no cover in sight? That's the capricious type of cruelty the Fae excel at.”

“Then they'l have barbecued vampire fumigating their pretty, sparkly world.”

Now it was her turn to curse. He looked impressed by the sound of it, the number of syl ables. “What was that?”

“A particularly virulent oath Mason taught me, years ago. I just insulted twelve generations of your obstinate Irish heritage.”

That made him smile. The handsome charm of it never failed to make her heart trip a little faster, but now her reaction made her frown, at herself as much as at him. “Earlier, when you chal enged Keldwyn, you said, ‘Lady Lyssa's son.' Not ‘our son' or ‘my son.' Why did you say it that way?”

He sobered, eyes becoming flint. “It's the lesson a human servant learns early, my lady. Keldwyn doesn't view me as an equal, no more than the Council did when I was human. However, I can chal enge him—or them—on your behalf. It suits my purpose to do just that, in every instance where you suffer insult.”

When he spoke like this, he reminded her of a medieval courtier. After he'd stopped working for his brother as a vampire hunter, he'd traveled with a Ren Faire, but the Faire hadn't taught him the principles of chivalry and honor. Those things were magnets already lodged in his soul, elements of a past life drawing him to the circuit. She remembered the knight who had moved over her in the dim light of a desert tent centuries ago, making her feel his strength and fragility at once— and her own. She'd never forgotten that knight's eyes, the soul they revealed. A few hundred years later, that soul had stared at her out of Jacob's blue eyes. As a result, she'd embraced the unlikely idea of taking a former vampire hunter, drifter and Ren Faire player as her next ful servant. And the fact he was easy on a woman's eyes had only helped the decision.

His hair had once possessed copper highlights from the sun, but as a vampire, the reddish brown had become a deeper bronze color. Loose, it fel to his shoulders. When she met him, he'd also had a trimmed moustache and short beard, so like the medieval knight's she'd shivered, remembering the feel of them and his firm lips against her skin.

Jacob's nose had been broken at least once and retained that interesting shape even after she turned him, but of course it was his eyes that arrested. Fine, reddish-blond lashes framing the vivid blue color. A stubborn, vivid blue.

When he spoke like he did now, she could do nothing to change his mind. It overwhelmed her with anger, despair and love for him, all at once. As he moved back in her direction, recognizing it, she wouldn't let the last take precedence, not when she had a point to prove.

She backed away from him. The stil ness that entered his gaze warned he could leap forward, use vampire speed to catch her. But he didn't. Not yet.

He slowed his steps, matching her pace. It was a deliberate tracking maneuver, guaranteed to bring another element into their shared tension. She had no problem using the irresistible attraction between them to make her case, though she didn't deny there was far more to it. Just as his determination to fol ow her no matter where she went could go hand in hand with the sexual predator taking him over now.

Moving out of the low hedge garden in which they'd been arguing, she stepped into a sculpted maze that had been created out of lattice wal s tal er than Jacob. Along the edges of the winding gravel paths were a variety of whimsical ground flowers.

Occasional y an oval window opening all owed her to get a better view of the other paths. Otherwise, the wal s were solidly covered by lush vines coated with dark, shiny leaves and white trumpet-shaped blooms as wide as her hand.

As she turned a corner and moved out of view, he fol owed her with those unhurried steps, his booted feet crunching the gravel.

For many years, she'd been able to transform into the winged gargoyle creature that proved her Fae blood. Each time she did that, the Fae magic had stirred within her soul, but she hadn't recognized its potential. It had been like starlight she could see, but too far out of her reach to comprehend its true essence, the heat and power signified by that glimmering light.

That had been fine. Dormant Fae power meant that it had never attracted the attention of the purist-minded Vampire Council.

Then things had changed. Jacob had been human, her third-marked servant. She'd il egal y turned him to save his life. In doing so, she'd dumped most of her considerable vampire powers into him by accident. The thirty-year-old male, who should have had only a fledgling's grasp of a vampire's strength and speed, had instead acquired the skills of a thousand-year-old one. And Lady Lyssa's Fae powers had started to wake, with wild and unpredictable results.

Such energy had a mind of its own, and a way of pul ing the soul into its purpose. As she stayed one turn ahead of him, glimpsing him for a breath each time, that primitive desire kept growing.

At the center of the maze, she found a carved trel is of heavy oak. The archway piece looked like a pair of muscular stal ions leaping in opposite directions. The four posts had been driven deep into the ground to stand fast against the pressure of the thick root stalks that twined around them. As the foliage reached the top of the trel is, the vines twisted along wood pieces that created a starburst of symmetrical spokes connecting to the closest set of maze wal s. This was the anchor point and birthplace of all the foliage that covered the maze.

When she stopped on the other side of the trel is, she could feel the energy of such a place, a tangle of nature and symbols, the circle, the wheel, the deep rooting into the earth. It unfurled a craving inside of her, and she opened herself to it. It was a part of her, a set of new magical limbs and senses, and she could do remarkable things with them. Her loss of vampire abilities had left her reeling, but she'd been propel ed up close and personal into this new galaxy, so much power at her fingertips.

Though she got tired of moving so careful y, when she'd turned the invading vampires into a new arbor for Mason's garden, she'd contacted Keldwyn. While she obviously had a great deal of raw power ready to cal , her use of it at this point was far more intuitive than learned. She understood power enough not to be irresponsible about it. But this moment wasn't about being responsible.