“Yeah.” Gideon focused on the airstrip. The pilot was talking to the controller, signing some paperwork.

Anwyn didn"t see Daegan, though she was sure he"d notice their arrival. He was probably in the terminal. She ran a fingernail along the curve of the steering wheel.

“So how does it work? If you killed me, would you take my purse off my body, see if you could find bank account numbers or credit cards? Or would you go to my home before anyone knew I was gone, take valuables?”

“Anwyn, don"t.” He spoke through stiff lips. “I"ve made money other ways. The occasional protection job. And our parents left us pretty well set up. It was invested for us, divided equally. I just don"t like to draw from that.”

“Not when you can take from the vampires you kill.”

He turned to look at her. “How about you answer a question for me? The last vamp I took murdered a twenty-four-year-old nurse behind the generator station at her hospital. He drained her dry. She had a fiancé, a life. They wanted kids, and she volunteered at a battered women"s shelter. She also liked to go shag dancing on weekends and her favorite drink was a blackberry mojito. She had brown eyes as soft as velvet, and a great smile. What do you think she"d say about me lifting her murderer"s wallet to fund my next kill, so someone else like her doesn"t have to die? Think she"d be sitting there acting so damn self-righteous?” The coldness in his eyes pierced her heart, because it matched the frost that covered his mind. But something else penetrated. Daegan had spoken of Gideon"s last kill. The night he came to you, he killed a vampire who didn’t deserve his brand of justice. Was this vampire Gideon had just described someone different? Someone Daegan didn"t know about?

Gideon"s gaze was still on her. At her thoughts, something flickered in his gaze, a realization that sent a shaft of alarm through his mind. Abruptly, his brain was flooded with the tabloid images from earlier in the day, random commercials, his interest in Gulfstreams, the fact he had an itch behind his knee . . . It was so instantaneous, she knew he"d been practicing it, ways to thwart her ability to read his mind, his own version of the curtain she practiced.

Daegan had said that, once fully marked, a servant couldn"t escape a vampire, not if she was determined to plumb his mind all the way to the soul. She remembered there was a caution involved in that, one of the reasons fledgings didn"t have servants, but her instinctive reaction didn"t care for such caveats. That cold withdrawal sparked something inside her. The woman Anwyn would be nursing hurt, the Mistress some anger, but the vampire reacted in a much more aggressive way. In a heartbeat, she wanted to shove through that debris he was throwing up in front of her, toss it out of the way and rip away any shielding to find whatever it was he was hiding from her. Her blood wanted to prove he had no right to raise his voice to her, show him how vulnerable his mind was to whatever she desired to know.

The force of it frightened her, because this was no seizure, no fit of bloodlust. This was something integrating with what she was, an evolution into something else she seemed powerless to stop. Opening the car door, she shoved out of it, even though she was still in her bare feet. She strode a few feet away, blindly, trying to get a handle on the anger, find her humanity amid that demand. It was a close reflection of her own burning desire, taking her instincts as a Mistress and twisting them, tying her intestines into knots.

Bring him to his knees. Strip his mind, turn him inside out. The pulsing power in her mind told her she could unleash the power to do just that.

He"d gotten out of the car, was coming around toward her. She managed to shriek at him, although it was only in her mind.

Stay back, Gideon. Don’t. I can’t control it. I’ll hurt you. Please . . . stay away. She didn"t know exactly how; she just knew she would. Turning someone"s mind inside out sounded high on the “not good” list. So focused on the physical danger she posed toward others, they really hadn"t paid any attention to this one. But this was the first time Gideon had so decidedly defied her, shown he"d taken measures to wall her off from him, and every instinct as a predator wanted to take him down for it.

She tried to turn her focus elsewhere. When she"d been human, during a stressful day she"d do meditation exercises. Relax her muscles, one group at a time. Her mind laughed with bitter incredulity, daisies thrown on a gas fire.

She was alone on this one. Gideon could help her manage her seizures, but he couldn"t help her manage this, her vampire instincts rising against her, trying to turn her into a monster. Not when those shadow voices were controlling the trigger and aim.

But I can.

Anwyn, he’s here. Gideon"s voice was a quiet echo in her mind as she turned toward that long-awaited voice. She was aware of the tinge of regret and pain in her servant"s thought. A brief overwhelming sadness, laced with that loneliness that tore at her heart. But she couldn"t respond to it right now. That fomenting blood held her attention, making her stay locked where she was. Until a pair of familiar hands closed on her arms, drew her from her kneeling position to her feet, up against his tall, strong body.

She"d wanted this homecoming to be perfect, not flavored by this, but Daegan didn"t soothe or treat her as if she were broken. His mouth came down on hers, hot, firm and demanding, and that lethal demand pivoted away from destructive instinct, leaped for what she"d missed so intensely for nearly a month.

His scent, his strength, the feel of him. He let her hands go so she could stretch up against him, slide them through his short hair, lean full into him, enveloped by that familiar duster.

The soft stuff of his slacks and linen shirt teased her skin with the hard muscles beneath, the steel of the weapons he carried. She moaned in his mouth as he pressed his firm cock against her abdomen, one hand lowering to cup her ass and the other curved around her neck under her hair, holding her to him, chest to thighs. He delved even deeper into her mouth, his tongue teasing her to mindless lust. His mind was in hers, giving her images of all the things he"d visualized doing with her, would do to her, driving everything else away.

Then, a gift like a bouquet of roses amid all the carnal images, she saw other things he"d been remembering about her, snapshots he"d pulled up to keep him company while in Europe.

The tilt of her head, the way her mouth quirked when she was verbally sparring with him. How she brushed her hair at night, the way her nightgown lay against her breast and hip, the soft silk folding and straightening along those curves as her brush moved through the shining waves.

Handling club business at her computer, her legs tucked up underneath her, chin in hand, her mug of tea at her elbow, her hair falling over one shoulder.

I’ve missed you so much, cher .

The volatile energy she"d been holding back from Gideon had become something else entirely. She"d been right. She needed them both, to feel this balance, this sense of being . . .

home. It was a dangerous feeling, with so many things uncertain and unresolved, for all of them, but she didn"t care. She"d take it for now.

Recognizing a fragrant scent, she realized then why the image of roses had come into her mind. When Daegan lifted his head, she looked down and saw he"d laid a full two dozen lush red roses on the ground before bringing her to her feet for the welcoming kiss. He retrieved them now, still holding her close with one arm, and gave them to her, so they were cradled between them.

“They are perhaps old-fashioned or cliché, but you are red roses to me. Exotic, classic, full of overwhelming passionate color and beauty.”

“Charmer,” she managed, stroking the petals, then looked up into his face. Now that the voices in her head had gone silent, she could really see him. The dark eyes and sculpted jaw, never a five-o"clock shadow, since vampires didn"t have facial hair. That overwhelming presence, completely in control and in command of his surroundings . . . and of her heart.

He was a vampire, just as she was. She had no apologies to make to him, because he understood who and what she was, what she was becoming. In his eyes there was acceptance, anticipation. Pleasure.

She laid her head on his chest, hearing his heart beat. Then she closed her eyes to feel the strength of his arm, the brush of his coat against her side as Daegan shifted toward Gideon.

“Vampire hunter.” The short greeting was warm, one man glad to see another, their typically minimalist-style communication.

Gideon grunted, noncommittal. “According to Brian, we should be calling you Lord Daegan.”

“If you use that title, I"ll be forced to remove your internal organs.”

“I wouldn"t dream of contributing to your already overinflated mythology.” Anwyn looked up to see Daegan"s lips curve, a show of fang. “I"ve missed you as well, vampire hunter.” He glanced down at Anwyn. “Though I believe I interrupted a disagreement.” She gave a harsh half chuckle. Yeah, a disagreement. She"d about peeled his brain like a grape.

But you didn’t. It’s all right, Mistress.

She turned to look at Gideon then. His eyes no longer held that terrible cold distance, but there was a careful reserve, as if something fragile hung in the air between them. Too concerned that the rage might return and take her over, she decided not to press it. Right now, she wanted to focus on Daegan, even though she was sure all three of them were aware that a pall had been cast over the homecoming, a pall she hadn"t wanted there. But with a transition like hers, she"d better start assuming the best-laid plans might always have a wrench thrown in the works. It didn"t make her feel any better about it, but it made her ready to move forward, leave it behind.

As if reading her mind—and she guessed he could—Gideon opened the driver"s door. “I"ll drive, so you two can talk in the back, if you"d like.”

She took a step in that direction, then thought about the night she"d realized she couldn"t allow Brian to use Debra to talk to her, relegate her to that level. She wasn"t a coward. And she didn"t let any man who served her, who submitted to her, get away with what Gideon had just done. She"d let it aggravate the vampire instincts, but Daegan had steadied and balanced her such that she could pull the Mistress to the forefront.