"What'cha doin' there, Brigit?" Gravenham-Bail smiled softly.

She was caught, and she knew it. But even that knowledge didn't stop her from noticing the way he was dressed. Black pants, a black turtleneck, black leather gloves, black tennis shoes. Black socks, even. What the hell?

"You're spying for the vamps? Aren't you?" he went on.

"Spying? Hell no. I'm just your loyal, belly dancing secret agent. I just was looking for a computer to...check my FaceSpace messages."

Her eyes darted to the screen, fingers inching forward. She jabbed the mouse button, closing out the mapmaker and search tabs, leaving only the FaceSpace page up, then quickly lifting her hands palms up, and stepping back from the computer. "See for yourself."

She wasn't feeling the least bit confident as she met his eyes, but she tried to look as if she were telling the truth.

He shook his head. "What are you really doing here, Brigit?"

She took an involuntary step backward but stopped herself, knowing it was a sign of weakness he would not be likely to miss. "You know that's not my name, Nash. You hired me personally." She echoed her words with her thoughts, pumping them into his brain with all the force she could muster.

"Honey, that wasn't even working at the beginning. Did you really think they'd put me in charge of eliminating the Undead if I was that easy to manipulate? Besides, we've butted heads once before, you and I."

She nodded, giving up the lies. "Okay, okay. So you know I'm not who I say I am. I was working for the resistance. I'm a human being, as you well know, having seen me in daylight, who happens to believe vampires ought to have civil rights just like everyone else, and-"

"Enough with the lies." Nash nodded to his cohorts. "She's one of the most sought-after research subjects in the history of the DPI. It's like we got ourselves a free bonus. Take her."

The other men surged into the room, flanking her. Brigit flipped up her hand, as if to blast them with her power, fingers lightly resting on her thumb. She even imagined she could feel it rising up in her, but then she stopped herself. Her power was gone, and she was defenseless.

They gripped her upper arms and tugged her through the open door, into the atrium. She resisted enough to give them a hard time, but not enough to give away the only powers she had left. Might as well save that knowledge and take them by surprise with it when the time was right. They were making her furious, though, and it was hard to control the urge to vamp up and rip their throats out.

But that would get her executed for certain. These men wanted to wipe out her kind. To use Utana to-Utana. Could he help her? Would he even bother to try?

She closed her eyes. I'm caught, Utana. I'm caught. They know who I am. They're taking me-somewhere- I don't know where and I can't-

There was a crash from above, which she recognized as his bedroom door flying open, and the men went still, all eyes turning upward to see Utana standing at the railing, naked and magnificent. He was holding his door guard by the neck in one outstretched arm, dangling him slightly above floor level.

"You dare put your hands on my woman?"

"Not now, Utana. The woman isn't who she claims to be. She's a spy." Then Scarface tilted his head to one side. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Utana's eyebrows went up. "A spy, a slave, a dancer. It makes no difference. She is my property while she is here, and therefore she poses no threat. Release her."

"Take her out of here," Nash muttered to his men. Then he looked up at Utana. "I'm afraid this isn't up for discussion, my king. She is a criminal my government has been seeking for years, and you are far too weak to be-"

Utana shifted his eyes, and in a flash of laser beam light, the palace's front door was blasted to smithereens. He dropped the man he'd been holding. The guard released one brief shout as he plummeted to the floor, where he landed hard, and fell silent.

The other men released Brigit instantly, turning their guns on Utana, taking aim, firing at him over the sound of her screaming "No!" while she lunged at her nearest captor. His shot blasted the hardwood railing, sending splinters flying in all directions, and then she was shoving his barrel toward the floor and simultaneously kicking the other man squarely in the cojones.

"I said hold your fire!" Scarface barked, and paused to eye his henchmen. One was doubled over in pain, while the other one's weapon lay on the floor neatly pinned there by the woman's foot. Brigit quickly flipped the gun up into the air with her toes, then neatly caught it, worked the action and aimed it at Nash.

He narrowed his eyes on her. "You just revealed more about yourself, half-breed."

"Quarter-breed, actually." She dared a quick look up at the second-floor railing. "Utana!"

He wasn't there.

"Dammit, if you assholes killed him, I'll-"

"I am here."

He was halfway down the stairs, wearing only a burgundy satin kimono, knotted at the waist, and carrying a bulging pillowcase by its neck. "I thank you for your assistance, Nashmun. But I believe my time here has come to an end."

There were others now, a half dozen or so, coming from everywhere all at once, all in suits, all bearing handguns, all closing in warily around them.

"If they try to stop me leaving with my woman, you, Nashmun, will find yourself in more pieces than your front door. We go now. Goodbye."

Nash bowed his head, backing away slowly. "If I could just have a word with you, before you go, my king. If you would just allow me to tell you how very close we are to achieving our mutual goal-"

"I do not require your assistance to do that which is demanded of me by the gods." He paused, frowning. "I did survive the Great Flood without your help, after all."

Nash lowered his head. "All right. Go, then."

Too easy. Brigit sent the words to Utana. Watch our backs on the way out.

Then, together, they walked to the front door, picking their way through the splinters of wood and stepping out into the covered walkway.

The men followed, muttering to themselves. With her back to them, Brigit called up her vampire side, lowering her head to hide her face-the glowing eyes, the pale, tight skin and the fangs-but she opened her senses to hear the words they spoke in whispers and feel their mortal thoughts.

"Should we follow them, boss?"

"No." There's no need. "Back inside, everyone. Beckwith, get a contractor on the phone to see about this door."

"Yes, sir."

She felt them retreating, felt no further blasts of thought from them and let her fangs retract, her eyes go dull and mortal, losing their vampiric glow. They'd reached the end of the sidewalk, and she crossed the street, instinctively wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and that houseful of gun-wielding DPI men. Then she turned right, following the shoulder of the road and wondering if her car would still be where she'd left it, two miles up.

A hand on her shoulder was a physical reminder of the hulk walking along at her side, not that she'd forgotten his presence for even a single second.

"You are...uninjured?" he asked.

"They didn't hurt me." She lifted her eyes to his. "I wasn't sure you'd help me. Thank you."

"You are my-"

He stopped himself there, but she knew exactly where he'd been going with the thought. He finished lamely with the word friend. But he'd been about to say "woman." No doubt about it.

She could not hold his gaze. "I'm not your friend, Utana. You need to stop thinking that way. I'm not your friend. I'm going to have to kill you, sooner or later."

"You are not going to kill me."

She shrugged. "Well, I'm sure as hell going to try."

"I do not believe you will."

She rolled her eyes, then glanced behind her.

"They will follow us?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so. I heard Nash thinking it wasn't necessary. I just wish I knew why the hell he thinks that."

"I do not know."

They walked on in silence for a time, and then, because she was curious, she asked, "Why are you so sure I won't try to kill you?"

He looked at her. His eyes were so dark and deep, that melted dark chocolate-bar color, with black velvet lashes that made him look almost like a little boy-unless you widened your scope to see the rest of him. The wide jaw, the muscular body. God, that body. But his eyes were the essence of innocence, and even love.

So deceiving, those eyes.

"You stopped them from killing me just now," he said. "You knocked their weapons down and kicked them, and screamed at them like a woman gone wild. You risked your very life to save mine. Why would you do such a thing?"

She lowered her head, watching her sock-covered feet move, one in front of the other, over the dusty gravel along the road's shoulder. The hems of the too-big jeans dragged in the dust.

"Brigit?" he asked.

"I needed your help to get out of there."

He shook his head. "It was more than that, and you know it. Do not lie to me, Brigit. Tell me-why did you help me?"

"I've been asking myself the same question, Utana. And the only answer I can come up with is that...I acted on instinct. On pure instinct. I mean, for crying out loud, we had sex last night. It's normal that I would feel...something."

"I also feel...something."

"I didn't mean it like that. Like-like you're saying it. It's not that I feel something for you, it's that I felt compelled to protect you. And I suppose that's natural, too, given that I...took a little sip from your..." She made the mistake of looking at his shoulder and then his neck as she spoke to him. "Your great big, corded, hard, salty neck."

He shot her a look.

She averted her eyes, cleared her throat. "I imagine it's a lot like the way the vampires feel about the Chosen-you know, humans with the Belladonna Antigen? I've explained to you about the connection between them, the bond?"

"Yes. And how the vahmpeers are compelled to protect and watch over such humans. I understand."

She nodded, and then she paused. "That's it. That's exactly it."

"It?"

She stopped walking, gripping his forearm. "Utana, I heard Lillian and Nash talking outside your room earlier. Nash said they were setting a trap for the vahmpeers-er, vampires." God, she was spending way too much time in his kingness's company. "I went into that office off the atrium to see what I could find out. And I found a list, names and addresses-"

"Wait. You are speaking too fastly. I do not know 'addresses.'"

"An address is...the place where you live. Each street has a name, each house has a number."

"I see. All right. Go on."

"These names were all the names of humans who possess the Belladonna Antigen. They were the names of the Chosen. And beside each one was a symbol to tell whether or not that person was 'in custody.'"

Utana blinked, his magnificent intelligence processing her words rapidly. "Nashmun is taking all of these Chosens captive. Just as he thought to keep me captive. And you, as well."

"Yes. That has to be the way they're baiting this trap of theirs. They're going to use the Chosen to lure the vampires out of hiding."

He frowned at her. "If they are afraid, the Chosen humans, they can call out to the vahmpeers?"

"No. Most of them don't even know of their connection to the Undead."

"Then how will the vahmpeers know they are in danger?"

"Just as you would know, if I were in danger. Or in pain. You would feel it, wouldn't you, Utana?"

He nodded slowly. "Even before I had met you, when I was with your brother, James, on the boat and you were crying out for his help, I felt you-even then." He stared into her eyes. "I would feel your call even if I were across the sea, Brigit. Your soul and mine-"

"Stop it. Just stop it right now."

He stopped talking. She was tingling, all warm and gooey inside, and hating herself for it.

"The vahmpeers," he said, returning to the safer topic, "will feel the call of the Chosens if they are in fear or in pain."

"Yes," she said. She sought his eyes, found them, locked on. "Utana, I have a very bad feeling that Nash and his men are going to do something terrible to those innocent people. Something so bad that their cries of fear and pain will be powerful enough to summon every vampire still alive."

"And then the vahmpeers will all arrive to attend to them. At the same place, at the same time."

"And Nash can wipe them out."

"Or order me to do so for him." Utana said it slowly, thoughtfully.

"I'm sure that was his plan. Now he'll have to do it on his own."

Utana nodded slowly. "Do you know where is this place, where the Chosens have been takened?"

She had to lower her head to keep from smiling at his childlike use of modern English. "Yes, I do. But I cannot tell you where it is."

"You must tell me, Brigit. Otherwise, how will I help you to set free them?"

"You want to help me free the Chosen?"

He nodded, holding her gaze. "I am not a king who ever allowed innocents to suffer, nor to be used as pawns in kingly games of war. Such a practice is disgraceful, and worthy of beheading."

"And if all the vampires arrive at the same place, at the same time? Will you use the opportunity to finish what you've set out to do, Utana? Will you kill them all?"

He lowered his head. "I promise I will not kill any of the vahmpeers until all of the Chosens are safe."

"Not good enough." She faced front and began walking again.

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