Rene...oh, G.o.d, please help me, she thought.

"The Elders aren"t going to give a s.h.i.t if I"m not back by then," Martin said to Monica. "I"ll call Father when we stop for the night and he"ll handle things from there." He paused as Monica jabbered at him, a sharp flurry of garbled sounds m.u.f.fled to Tessa"s ear.

"Yes, I said stop for the night! What, do you think I"m going to drive straight on through clear the h.e.l.l to Lake Tahoe?"

The Elders know he"s left the farm, Tessa thought in surprise. Brandon had left Kentucky without permission, as had she when she"d followed him. Their brother and sister, Caine and Emily, had tailed Tessa to hunt Brandon down, but they, too, had been acting without the Elders" knowledge. Or at least, Allistair Davenant knows. What"s going on?

Martin uttered a bark of humorless laughter and spared Tessa a withering glance. "Don"t worry about that," he said into the phone.

"I have no intention of touching the little b.i.t.c.h."

"Martin...please...!" Tessa gasped, frightened as Martin dragged her by the arm, marching her smartly across the parking lot toward a motel. She"d been sleeping and was now bewildered and disoriented; Martin had driven the entire day through and well past dusk. For more than ten hours now, they"d been on the road, the only occasions to stop coming when she needed to relieve herself-in which case, he"d pull off to the side of the road, force her out of the car and then stand within an arm"s length of her while she squatted."Yeah. Like I"m going to let you duck into a bathroom all by yourself," he"d scoffed when she"d dared to protest. This had been followed by a sharp, painful cuff to the back of her head, and she hadn"t objected anymore.

She was hungry, thirsty, stiff and sore, and she stumbled, falling to her hands and knees when he shoved her unceremoniously across the threshold and into a small motel room.

"Get up." Martin followed behind her, close as a shadow, and she flinched as he slammed the door behind him. He locked the door, then jerked her to her feet. He spun her around to face him, then shoved her backward, sending her sprawling against the bedspread.

"Take off your clothes," he told her, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it against the back of a nearby chair. She watched as he loosened his tie, then the b.u.t.tons at the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. There was no mistaking what he meant or wanted; if she needed any further clue, the grotesque swell of his erection suddenly bulging from the front of his slacks made it clear.

Oh, G.o.d, she thought, scooting back on the bed and shaking her head. Not that, not now. G.o.d, please-not ever again. Not with him.

"You...you told Monica you weren"t going to touch me," she said, because now she understood-Monica had been jealous, angered by the fact that Martin had mentioned stopping for the night with Tessa. The only person who"d ever seemed to wield any control or power over Martin outside of his father had been Monica, and Tessa hoped desperately that mentioning her name would be enough to curb his sudden, unwanted interest.

"I lied," he said. "Now take off your G.o.dd.a.m.n clothes."

The idea of Martin touching her, of his hands falling anyplace against her body where Rene"s had caressed with such welcome pa.s.sion made her feel sick. "No," she said, her voice warbling.

He"d unb.u.t.toned his shirt but paused now, his brow arched as he glared at her, looking momentarily surprised-if not somewhat irritated-by her refusal.

"I said..." He stepped toward her, catching hold of the front of her blouse in his fist. She uttered a quiet, frightened cry as he jerked violently against the thin fabric, sending b.u.t.tons bouncing off the mattress to the floor and ripping seams open wide. "...take off your G.o.dd.a.m.n clothes."

She had never dared to fight back against him even though Brandon had taught her some simple aikido moves, because she"d been trapped in the marriage, trapped in Martin"s house. But she wasn"t anymore-she had escaped Kentucky and him, and in that moment, as she blinked at the torn front of her shirt, she felt outrage boiling in her, four years" worth overriding her reflexive fear.

She felt her grandmother"s spirit well up inside, whatever fire she"d inherited from Eleanor that she"d long believed dormant or dead stoking suddenly, fiercely.

She caught Martin"s hand between her own as he released her shirt. Just as she had with Rene only two nights earlier, she jerked against Martin"s arm, suddenly craning his wrist at an unnatural, painful angle. The shocking, unexpected pain of such a simple gesture had left Rene all but paralyzed in her grasp, and the effect was nothing less with her husband. Martin"s eyes flew wide in surprise, then wider still at the unexpected pain, and he cried out hoa.r.s.ely as she wrenched his wrist all the more, forcing him to crash against the floor, dropping to his knees.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" he gasped, his face flush brightly, his mouth hanging open. "You...you f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h! Let me go!"

"f.u.c.k you, Martin," Tessa seethed, jerking his arm again, taking admittedly s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure in seeing pain flash in his eyes. She planted her foot against his chest, the wedge heel of her sandal squarely against his sternum and punted him away.

On her feet in an instant, Tessa scrambled off the bed and bolted for the door. Martin had dropped his keys onto a small table by the air-conditioning unit, and she s.n.a.t.c.hed them as she darted past. Already, a plan had flooded her mind-yank open the door, run across the parking lot, get into the Jaguar and drive like h.e.l.l. Rene was out there somewhere; she hadn"t been able to sense him all day, but she knew he had to be. She clung to this desperate, frantic hope with everything she had. He was out there and he was looking for her.Rene! she screamed in her mind, grabbing the handle to the motel room door. Rene, help me!

She felt a strong, heavy hand suddenly clamp down brutally against her shoulder. Martin whirled her around, shoving her back against the door and she rammed her knee up, catching him squarely in the crotch. His eyes bulged as he uttered a breathless grunt and crashed to his knees.

"b.i.t.c.h!" he gasped as she darted past him, his hands fumbling against her legs. His fingers closed around her ankle and Tessa yelped, floundering and falling face-first to the floor. "You...G.o.dd.a.m.n b.i.t.c.h...!"

She rolled onto her back, scrambling like a crab, driving her heels over and over at his face. "Get away from me!" she screamed, kicking wildly, and in her mind, she cried again: Rene! Rene, help me! Oh, G.o.d, please!

She stumbled to her feet, trying to dance over Martin"s sprawled body and reach the front door. He pawed at her, his hands slapping clumsily for purchase, and she kicked some more, driving him away. She wrenched the door open, but in her blind panic, didn"t realize or remember that he"d fastened the chain. The door snapped open no more than four inches before being caught by this short tether, and for a frantic moment, overcome with terror, Tessa couldn"t do anything except blink at it, jerking desperately, vainly against the chain.

At last she came to her senses enough to close the door and rip the chain away, leaving it to swing against the alabaster door frame.

She moved to open the door, but Martin"s hand shot out over her shoulder, smashing it closed once more. His other hand closed in her hair, jerking her back, and she cried out as he tossed her the length of the room. His eyes had rolled over black like a shark"s, and his fangs had extended in his fury; he threw Tessa with the preternatural strength of one filled with the bloodl.u.s.t, and she crashed brutally into the far wall before crumpling to the floor, knocking over the bedside lamp and telephone as she went.

He was on her, leaping across the breadth of the motel room like he was an extra on wires in one of those Chinese fighting movies.

She barely had time to get her hands beneath her, to struggle and raise her head before his feet slammed into her immediate view, landing with enough force to shiver the floorboards beneath the carpet.

"Don"t!" she gasped, holding out a pleading hand, because he wasn"t thinking rationally now; he was in a blind rage, consumed with the bloodl.u.s.t. He wouldn"t feed from her-to do so from another Brethren was considered an abomination-but he meant to hurt her-badly. "Oh, G.o.d...the baby...!"

"f.u.c.k the baby." He grabbed her hair and jerked her to her feet, sending pain searing through her scalp. She cried out again, then her voice cut off sharply as he caught her by the throat, shoving her back against the wall. She felt the drywall crunch beneath her, splintering at the forceful impact, and then Martin raised her aloft, hoisting her off the ground, leaving her feet to pedal and drum helplessly in the air while she gagged for breath.

"You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h," he seethed, his voice lisping and distorted. His fangs had dropped fully, and his jaw had snapped out of place to accommodate the gruesome lengths. "You could be carrying a G.o.dd.a.m.n litter of sons in your gut and it wouldn"t save you."

Tessa slapped vainly at his hands, her mouth open wide as she gulped for any hint of air. She couldn"t force any past the ma.s.sive, crushing force of his palm against her windpipe and began to see tiny lights flickering in front of her eyes, the room beyond fading into heavy, dusky shadows.

Oh, G.o.d, she thought. Rene...oh, G.o.d, help me...my baby...!

"You"re a G.o.dd.a.m.n lying, stealing n.o.ble wh.o.r.e," Martin said, spraying her face with spittle, leaning close enough so that she could see herself reflected against the glistening, black planes of his corneas, her face twisted as she strangled. "Just like your s.l.u.t grandmother. So I guess that makes it only fitting that you f.u.c.king die like Eleanor."

She didn"t even have time to consider this; the shadows closed in on her, a dark and heavy shroud, and her eyes rolled back into her skull. When she heard a sharp report, the sound of the motel room door flying wide open and smashing into the wall; when Martin"s hand fell away from her neck and she collapsed to the floor in a shuddering, gagging heap, she thought she was only dreaming. When she heard a screeching, squawking, fluttering din and realized the tiny confines of the room were suddenly filled with a swarm of birds-dozens, if not hundreds of them-she knew. Oh, G.o.d, I"m dead...dreaming all of this...my G.o.d, Martin killed me...and the baby...

She heard Martin shrieking, his heavy footfalls as he staggered about, his hands thrown up toward his face as the birds attacked.

Shielding her head feebly with her hand, still panting and choked, she looked up blearily and watched him flounder around the room, swinging his fists, trying to ward them off. They tangled their talons in his hair, tore into his face with their beaks, snapping at his eyes, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y streaks and pockmarks in their wake. There were too many and he couldn"t fend them off; he danced in broad, clumsy circles, his voice ripping up shrill octaves as he screamed.

Then, impossibly, she felt a tingling sensation in her mind, like a light caress along the back of her neck, a soft voice whispering near her ear and her eyes flew wide in realization.

"Martin Davenant, I presume?" Rene said, materializing into view like a ghost from behind the swirling cloud of birds. Martin whirled, as startled by his approach as Tessa. She caught a quick wink of light flashing off something metal-a pistol in Rene"s hand-and then he smashed the b.u.t.t of the gun into the side of Martin"s head, knocking him out cold and sending him sprawling to the carpet. "Yeah. That"s what I f.u.c.king thought."

Tessa blinked at Rene, dazed and disbelieving as the birds settled down, either flying out the open door or landing against his shoulders. His hair was swept about his face in disarray and he needed a shave even worse than usual. His shirttails were untucked, his shirt rumpled and wrinkled, and to judge by the scarlet stain on the bandages, his wounded hand had bled again at some point.

Like Martin, his fangs were extended, his eyes glossy, featureless and black. He looked a sad, sorry, p.i.s.sed-off and disheveled mess, like some disgruntled cat that had fallen in the toilet during a flush.

"G.o.d, I love you..." she murmured, then fainted.

Chapter Sixteen.

"Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

Rene winced, drawing the cell phone back from his ear slightly as the sharp, angry voice cut loudly through his skull. "Lina, chere,"

he said with a forced smile and even more forced nonchalant cheer in his voice. "Hey, how are you? I was just-"

"Don"t give me that "Lina, chere" c.r.a.p, Rene. You were supposed to meet us in Rillito. I"ve been trying to call you all G.o.dd.a.m.n day."

d.a.m.n. She sounded really p.i.s.sed off.

He"d taken a room for the night at a small but charming mom-and-pop motel in Banning, California. By day, the view from just outside the room would probably be spectacular-the slopes of Mount San Gorgonio and Mount San Jacinto were visible in the distance. By night, there wasn"t much to see at all but a large, pale moon suspended overhead, draping the valley in dim illumination.

He sat on the side of a full-sized bed-the largest the motel had to offer-and glanced down at Tessa, who lay beside him. She was curled up on her side with her hands near her face like a small child. He reached down and brushed the cuff of his knuckles gently against her cheek, where a large, dark bruise had developed, marring her pale, porcelain skin. She had similar bruises around her neck, a violent splay of purple and black where Martin Davenant had tried to throttle her and more contusions around her right eye. She hadn"t roused from consciousness long enough to tell him what had happened, but he didn"t really need her to.

Christ Almighty, pischouette, he thought, momentarily choked.

He"d tried his best to clean her up once he"d carried her from the car into the room. Using a cool, wet rag, he"d bathed her face gently, dabbing at the blood smeared and crusted. Her shirt had been torn nearly to shreds, and he"d eased her carefully into one of his, slipping the old T-shirt over her head and drawing each of her long, slender arms through the sleeves.

There had been nothing arousing in this act of redressing her. She had seemed frail to him, and he"d handled her gingerly, with all of the deliberate and delicate care he might have a fragile, priceless piece of gla.s.s. She"d whimpered in her sleep as he"d moved her, even though he"d tried his best to disturb or hurt her as little as possible and he"d spoken softly to her all the while, murmuring nonsensical things to her in French; comforting words and phrases his grandmother had offered him in his youth whenever he had been hurt, sick or scared.

"Rene?" Lina snapped hotly in his ear. "Are you there?"

"Yeah," he said, and he had to tear his eyes away from Tessa and clear the sudden, hoa.r.s.e strain from his voice. "I"m here, chere.

I"m sorry. My cell phone hasn"t been able to get any service all day. This is the first time I"ve been able to get it to work."

"What about Rillito? We waited for d.a.m.n near two hours for you guys. We"ve been worried sick."

"Why?" Again, he feigned a bright tone. "We"re fine. Tessa forgot to stop, that"s all. She was driving and I was sleeping, so we stopped when I woke up and grabbed some tamales at this little roadside Tex-Mex stand. I tried to call and tell you, but like I said, my phone"s been out."

Lina sputtered for a minute. Clearly she still wanted to be angry with him, but he wasn"t giving her much of a reason. "Besides, la pischouette and I have made a nice day of things," he said, glancing at the bedside table and grabbing a handful of glossy, trifold brochures someone had left out promoting local attractions. "You know, doing the whole tourist thing. We stopped to see the dinosaurs in Cabazon."

"The dinosaurs?"

"Uh, yeah," Rene said, balancing the phone between his shoulder and ear and thumbing open the pamphlet. "Two big concrete dinosaurs. You can see them from the highway. You guys missed them? There"s some kind of brontosaurus or something, one of those big a.s.s things from Jura.s.sic Park. I don"t know." He skimmed through the literature. "There"s a creationist museum inside its belly."

Lina was quiet for a moment. "A creationist museum."

"Yeah. You know, that whole Garden of Edenible thing. Man and dinosaurs hanging out together. Don"t eat the apples. That kind of s.h.i.t." He threw the brochures on the floor, grimacing. Christ, shut up, Rene.

Another long silence. Lina could smell bulls.h.i.t a mile away and apparently that keen nose of hers worked over the telephone, too.

"I"ll see you tomorrow in Tahoe," she said, her voice flat.

"What? Come on, chere. Don"t-" he began, but she hung up abruptly on him, leaving him sputtering into dead air.

Terrific. He flipped the phone closed. I can look forward to hearing more about that, I bet.

Tessa moaned softly from the bed. "Il est bien," he murmured, turning and stroking his hand against her face again. It"s all right.

She jerked at his touch this time, her eyes flying wide, her breath tangling in a sharp, frightened breath.

"My baby!" she gasped, her hands darting reflexively for her belly.

"It"s all right, pischouette," he said again. "You"re safe now."

She still looked wild-eyed and panicked for a moment, as if it took her sleep-dazed mind a few seconds to fully take in where she was, and who she was with. At last, realization dawned on her, and her eyes flooded with tears. "Rene!" she whimpered, pushing herself to a sitting position. She reached for him, hands outstretched and he drew her into his arms, holding her fiercely. "Oh, G.o.d!"

She shuddered against him. "You came for me! You...you came...!"

"I"ll always come for you, pischouette," he whispered, and as she drew back from him, sniffling and struggling visibly against tears, he cradled her face between his hands. "Always," he promised. "No matter what you do or how much you p.i.s.s me off, I will come for you." She tried to laugh, but wound up crying instead, and he hugged her again, closing his eyes and drawing her near. He held her while she wept, her narrow frame racked with tears, and when at last, she"d quieted, he rose to his feet to get her a cup of water. As he brought it back to the bed, he saw her press her hands against her stomach again, her expression twisted with worry.

"The baby is fine," he said, and she glanced anxiously up at him. "I felt for it while you were sleeping. I could sense it inside of you, bright like before."

She must have simultaneously sensed the growing child, too, as he spoke, because her face softened, and she closed her eyes, heaving a long sigh. "He slammed me into the wall," she whispered. "Threw me across the room. I was so afraid. I thought he would kill my baby." She looked at him, the fear and anxiety suddenly flashing in her eyes once more. "What happened to Martin?"

"He"s in the trunk of his car," Rene replied, and when she blinked at him, startled, he added, "Don"t worry. I put a bullet hole in it so he could breathe." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a car key hooked to a remote entry pad. "I couldn"t just leave that Jag sitting around for the Elders to track down and find, so I figured I"d upgrade our ride. They"re not going to think twice if they come across my Audi."

"He...he"s here?" Tessa"s posture grew stiff, her eyes wide like a deer pinned by oncoming high beams. "He"s outside in the parking lot?"

"It"s all right."

She shook her head. "You don"t understand. When the bloodl.u.s.t comes on him, he"s really strong. He..."

Rene smiled crookedly, and her voice faltered, fading. "Trust me, pischouette," he told her. "Your husband isn"t going to be bothering anyone again for awhile yet to come. Least of all you and that baby."

He"d dug out the bottle of Percodan that Brandon had given back to him and crushed a handful of the pills into a fine powder he"d then dissolved in a gla.s.s of tap water. The blow to the head from where he"d pistol-whipped Martin hadn"t kept the other man out long, but by the time Martin had started stirring again, Rene had already used the electrical cord from a lamp in the other motel room to hog-tie his hands and feet.

"Good morning, sunshine," Rene had muttered, wrenching Martin"s head back by the hair and forcing him to drink the cup of drugged water. Martin had sputtered and tried to cough it up, but Rene had clapped a hand over his mouth and forced him to choke down nearly every d.a.m.n drop. Even with Martin"s accelerated Brethren metabolism, Rene figured he had put enough narcotics in to dope a baby elephant. And he had plenty more where that came from. Martin Davenant wasn"t going to enjoy the business end of conscious awareness for quite a while.

"What are we going to do with him?" Tessa asked. Obviously the idea that her abusive husband was alive and well and still within close proximity left her uneasy, despite his rea.s.surances.

Rene shrugged. "For starters, I thought we might let Brandon have a few minutes alone with him. I thought your frere might appreciate first dibs on the son of a b.i.t.c.h who knocked his sister around like-"

"No!" Tessa grabbed hold of his arm, stricken. "No, Rene, no, you can"t tell Brandon!" She looked frantic, nearly desperate, her fingers hooked deeply into the meat of his elbow. "Please, Rene. Please don"t."

As he watched, she rose slowly to her feet, her brows twisted, her breath caught between her teeth with pain. When he tried to help her, slipping his arm around the narrow margin of her waist, she shook her head, limping away from him. She went to the bathroom and turned on the lights, flooding the tiny room with stark illumination. He could see her as she leaned over the sink, staring aghast at her reflection in the overhanging mirror.

"Oh..." she whispered, round-eyed and trembling, as her hands fluttered toward her face, her fingertips lighting hesitantly against the bruises on her cheeks and throat. "Oh, my G.o.d."

She pressed her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes as tears spilled, and Rene went to her, drawing her into his arms again. "Pischouette," he whispered, because it killed him to see her like this, to know how much pain she had to be in and to imagine how horribly she must have suffered.

It had taken all that he had not to kill Martin Davenant. There had been a long, uncertain moment in the other motel room in which he"d stood over Davenant"s fallen form, the barrel of the pistol pressed against the other man"s temple. Tessa had fainted, and he"d knocked Martin out; there was no one and nothing to stop him from flexing his finger against the Sig Sauer"s light trigger and sending a nine-millimeter round through the son of a b.i.t.c.h"s corpus callosum and into the floorboards beneath him.

He"d told her that he"d kept Martin alive so that Brandon could have the first crack at him, but that was only partially true. He imagined that the younger man would indeed have appreciated some quality time alone, just Martin Davenant and Brandon"s decidedly impressive aikido skills. But there had been another reason.

As he"d stood there, staring down the barrel of the Sig Sauer at Davenant"s face in chiseled profile, that little voice inside of his head spoke up.

You might need him alive.

Yeah? he thought in reply. What the f.u.c.k for?