Tessa fumed as she watched Rene use his hands to help maneuver his prosthetic leg into the Audi. "Good news," he said. "I talked to Lina on the phone inside. We"re meeting her and your brother tonight for supper in Arizona."

"Good," she said coolly, clicking her seat belt in place. "Because I"ll be riding with them to California after that."

"What?" he asked with a sideways glance.

He thought he was so clever, that the stunt he"d pulled in the restaurant with the waitress was oh-so-charming, and meanwhile, he"d never even bothered to notice that she was infuriated with him, murderously so, in fact.

a.s.shole, she thought, fuming.

"Look, you"ve been a big help to Brandon, and I really appreciate it," she said, struggling to keep her composure, her tone of voice steady and unaffected. "And I know you"re friends with Lina, but this just isn"t going to work anymore."

He c.o.c.ked his eyebrow, an annoying, condescending expression. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? You make it sound like you want to break a date to the prom or something. We aren"t supposed to be in love here, pischouette."

"No, we"re supposed to be riding in a car together. And we can"t even do that without fighting all of the time. You make fun of the way I look, the way I dress-I"m tired of you acting like I"m an idiot or a child or you"re better than me somehow."

At this, he uttered a sharp bark of laughter. "I act like I"m better than you? There"s a crock of s.h.i.t. You know what your problem is, pischouette? You"ve never had someone tell you no before. You"ve gotten used to having everything just the way you want it, exactly when and how you want it at that little pony farm of yours, and you can"t stand it out here in the real world, where that kind of s.h.i.t doesn"t fly. You"re a spoiled rotten little brat."

"And you"re a hypocrite!" she snapped. "After all of the things you said yesterday, all that c.r.a.p about how that man in Louisiana was something to somebody somewhere and then you have the nerve to turn around and do the exact same thing to that waitress."

He jabbed his forefinger at her, his brows narrowed. "Now wait just a G.o.dd.a.m.n minute, pischouette. I didn"t do the "exact same thing to that waitress." I didn"t kill her. h.e.l.l, I didn"t even hurt her. She doesn"t remember-"

"Don"t curse at me." Tessa slapped his hand out of her face. "And you wait a G.o.dd.a.m.n minute. I don"t have the right to kill someone, but you have the right to brainwash them? Strip away their memories? Make them pretty much your personal walking- talking feed sack?"

"That"s not what I-" he began, but she cut him off hotly.

"I"m tired of you talking to me and treating me as if everything I do, think and say is wrong! I don"t know if losing your leg has made you such an a.s.shole or if you were like this before, but I don"t care. I"m not like you, and you sure as h.e.l.l aren"t like me! You don"t know anything about me, or...or my life and I...I just...!" Her voice dissolved into tears. Thanks to her pregnancy and all of the hormonal turmoil that came along with it, she seemed to weep at the drop of a hat, as if her body had forgotten any other physiological response to stress but this. She uttered a frustrated little cry and clapped her hands over her face. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

He didn"t say anything; merely sat there like a big dumb rock while she hiccuped and sobbed in the pa.s.senger seat of his car. After a long moment, she felt his hand drape lightly against the back of her head, and she swatted him away. "Don"t."

"Tessa," he said. "I"m sorry."

He tried to touch her again, this time on her shoulder, and she flapped her arm furiously to shoo him. "I said don"t, Rene. I don"t want your apology." She tried to glower at him through a hazy curtain of tears. "Just...just leave me alone. By tonight, you"ll be rid of me, all right? You can go back to your boozing and playing with your gun and prank calling your hookers, or whatever else const.i.tutes your stupid, sorry, messed up life."

His face clouded with momentary hurt, and she almost felt sorry for what she"d said. But then his brows narrowed and his mouth turned down in that cold, dismissive way he had and he snorted.

"Fine by me." He jerked the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. "Just f.u.c.king fine."

The Audi lurched as he dropped it into gear, and the rear tires squealed against the parking lot asphalt.

As they drove through the open Texas countryside with bright sunlight spilling through the windows, Tessa leaned her head back, closed her eyes and dozed. She hadn"t slept much the night before, between trying to decipher the mysteries of the Tome she"d found and Rene"s little stunt on the sofa. Napping was not only needed, but also a welcome reprieve from the heavy, brooding silence in the car. She and Rene hadn"t said a word to each other in hours.

He can keel over dead for all I"m concerned, she told herself. I should have done myself a favor and let him shoot himself last night.

But she didn"t feel that way. Not really. She was too hard on him and she knew it, but sometimes...

Like whenever he opens his mouth....she felt powerless to stop herself. He could be sarcastic and acerbic, true, but he could then turn around and offer clumsy attempts at gentleness, like trying to comfort her when she"d burst into tears. Secretly, Tessa found that sort of charming and endearing. Nice, even. Not that she"d ever admit this aloud.

G.o.d, I"d never hear the end of it, she thought as her mind faded and the warm sunshine lulled her to sleep.

She dreamed of her grandmother. Not surprising, Eleanor n.o.ble had been on Tessa"s mind a lot since she"d left Kentucky. To Tessa"s knowledge, Eleanor had been the only woman among the Brethren who had ever traveled beyond the confines of the farm compounds. Tessa had always envied her adventures.

And now here I am, off on one of my own.

Tessa had enjoyed dressing up in Eleanor"s clothes, even into her teen years, up until the time of Eleanor"s death. In her dream, she imagined herself in her grandmother"s bedroom, standing in front of a full-length mirror and admiring a white sundress she wore.

Eleanor sat behind her in a winged-back chair, watching and smiling.

"It looks beautiful, darling," Eleanor said, her voice deep and rich, nearly silken. "It fits you perfectly."

"Do you think, Grandmother?" Tessa asked, beaming. She"d been staring down at the dress, and glanced up to meet Eleanor"s gaze through the mirror. To her shock and horror, she caught sight of a man"s reflection behind her own-her husband.

"Martin!" she gasped, drawing back from the mirror. Martin Davenant was handsome in a haughty, pristine sort of way; the polar opposite of Rene Morin, with his unruly hair and beard scruff. Martin wore his dark hair combed back from his wide, high brow, and his sharp, square jaw seemed perpetually settled at a stern angle. His mouth was small, his lips full but set in an unyielding frown. His eyes were small and wide-s.p.a.ced, his gaze so piercing she"d been able to feel-even from across a crowded room-whenever he"d pin her with it. As he did right now.

She whirled in surprise, and uttered a breathless gulp as Martin"s hand clamped against her throat, seizing her just beneath the chin.

He slammed her backward, crashing against the mirror, and she felt the gla.s.s crunch, splintering at the impact.

"Tell me where you are," he seethed, leaning close enough for spittle to spray from his lips against her own. She could smell him- the awful, familiar combination of spicy cologne, laundry starch and cigarette smoke. He was a chain smoker; sometimes the stink of cigarettes in his hair or on his skin had been enough to gag her when he"d come to have s.e.x. Tessa pawed helplessly at his hand, choked and mewling. "You miserable b.i.t.c.h-tell me where you are!"

Tessa snapped abruptly from sleep, her breath hitched to scream. She realized she was still with Rene, still in the car, and that they"d come to a stop.

"Where...where are we?" she croaked, sitting up, tucking wayward strands of hair behind her ears.

"Rest area," Rene replied, unfastening his seat belt. He opened the door and swung his legs around slowly. "I need to take a p.i.s.s."

"How charming," Tessa murmured as he slammed the car door shut behind him. Even though the back of her blouse was sticking to her spine with perspiration from where the intense Texas heat had permeated the car"s interior, she shivered, the downy hairs along her forearms rising. Her heart was still racing with residual fear from the nightmare about Martin. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his hand shoved against her windpipe, smell him, hear his voice hissing.

Tell me where you are.

When she"d first fled Kentucky, he"d tried to call her, over and over again leaving messages on her cell phone. They"d been benevolent enough at first, his voice soothing and calm, nearly purring...

I"m not angry with you, Tessa. I just want you to come back.

...but with each pa.s.sing day, his tone had grown colder, his words more malicious...

You"re trying my patience, Tessa. It"s time to come home. Right f.u.c.king now.

...until at last, any hint of his customary, cool composure had dissolved, and she"d understood what Brandon had always meant when he"d told her the Brethren were monsters.

You answer this G.o.dd.a.m.n phone! You think this is funny? You think this is a f.u.c.king game? Tell me where you are or so help me G.o.d, I"ll make you sorry! Do you hear me, you stupid b.i.t.c.h? Tell me where you are!

She hadn"t told anyone about the voice mails, and had laughed off Martin"s phone calls so Brandon wouldn"t worry. She"d never told him the truth about her marriage, the nightmarish four years during which she"d lived under the Davenants" roof. During that time, Martin"s attention toward her had careened between nonexistent and s.a.d.i.s.tically violent at the drop of a dime.

She opened the car door and stepped out, pausing long enough to glance around anxiously. They were alone at the rest stop, the parking lot empty, and the highway was vacant of any traffic coming or going, eerily silent in the hot afternoon.

He can"t hurt me anymore, she told herself for at least the millionth time since leaving Kentucky. He can"t find me here. Me or my baby.

The ladies" room was on the far side of the building, next to a freestanding kiosk that housed an a.s.sortment of snack and soda machines. Tessa stood, hands on hips, and perused the selections, eyeing a Snickers bar with melancholy, sentimental interest. That had been one of her grandmother"s favorite candies. With her long, chocolate-colored hair, bee-stung lips and catlike eyes, Eleanor had been a stunning woman. Tessa had inherited Eleanor"s beauty, her long, slim frame and fiery spirit; the same light that had always flashed in Eleanor"s sharp eyes still sparkled in her granddaughter"s. Eleanor had been Augustus n.o.ble"s first and favorite wife, the only woman Tessa imagined that he had ever found the heart enough to love. No one knew the cause of Eleanor"s death. All that Tessa had been told was that the Grandfather had found her lying cold and lifeless on her bedroom floor.

Tessa felt a funny little fluttering from somewhere deep in her belly and blinked, startled out of her distant thoughts. Smiling, she pressed her hands lightly against the waistband of her capris; she was far enough along in her pregnancy that she"d begun to feel the baby stirring now and again. She opened her mind just enough to enjoy a momentary sense of the growing life within her.

This was why Martin was so determined to get her back, not any real affection or sense of possession. My baby.

Tessa had been Martin"s sixth wife and yet, despite this, he had only twelve children who had survived beyond infancy. She"d often heard him arguing about this, most often with his father. As big a son of a b.i.t.c.h as Martin was, he was eclipsed by Allistair Davenant, from whom he"d apparently inherited his brutal disposition.

"Can you do nothing right?" Tessa had heard Allistair shouting at Martin one night from the foyer. "Do you want to live like this- pushing papers and licking G.o.dd.a.m.n boot heels for the next G.o.dd.a.m.n century?" His voice had echoed with resounding, sharp emphasis throughout the entire house, loud enough to wake both Tessa and her cousin Alexandra from sound sleeps. When they"d crept from their room to peek over the bal.u.s.trade, they"d watched in wide-eyed disbelief as Allistair had thrust his hand between Martin"s legs, grabbing him by the crotch with enough force to double Martin over, whoofing for sudden breath.

"You have b.a.l.l.s, at least," Allistair had growled as Martin had crumpled to the floor, retching. He"d wiped his hand on his slacks as if his hand was soiled. "Use them for once. Give me some G.o.dd.a.m.n heirs."

Childbearing had become a real issue among the Brethren over the last few generations. Pregnancies among Brethren women were on a sharp and alarming decline, while the mortality rate for babies and Brethren children under the age of three was on the increase. No one seemed to know why, but it was enough of a growing concern to make someone like Tessa-with proven fertility and still youthful enough to have many more children in her lifetime-a precious commodity.

She fished a couple of dollars out of her purse and fed them into the snack machine. After she"d grabbed a Snickers, she sh.e.l.led out another two bucks for a plastic bottle of Diet c.o.ke. As she walked toward the restroom door, snack in hand, she heard the distinctive sound of a car engine and glanced over her shoulder, her heart momentarily pounding beneath her breast.

It"s not him. She t.i.ttered slightly in audible relief to see an old, gray sedan pulling into the parking lot. Not Martin, not in a piece of s.h.i.t like that.

She closed her eyes and sighed as she ducked into the restroom. He can"t hurt me anymore, she reminded herself again. He can"t find me here. Me or my baby.

Chapter Five.

Rene squinted as he walked out of the rest stop men"s room. It was G.o.dd.a.m.n bright outside and he wished he hadn"t left his sungla.s.ses in the center console of his car. He forked his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his brow, then shoved his hand into his hip pocket, fishing for change as he limped toward some snack machines. He hadn"t seen an exit off the interstate in more than two hours, and from what he could tell by checking out the map mounted on a bulletin board in front of the building, there was nothing ahead of them for at least another fifty miles.

Looks like it"s Cheetos for lunch, he thought, frowning as he studied the snack machine. He glanced down at his palm and began to poke through the a.s.sorted loose change he"d dug up. Have to grab something for la pischouette, too, he figured. She was awake now and with the baby, she needed to eat.

No matter how much Tessa infuriated him, how much she grated on his last f.u.c.king nerve like fingernails sc.r.a.ping across the surface of a chalkboard, something in him always softened when he thought about her pregnancy. Probably because he hadn"t been able to enjoy much of Irene"s. She"d left him, though he could hardly blame her. He"d suffered what was now known as post-traumatic stress disorder when he"d returned from Vietnam; between his h.e.l.lish tour of duty, the catastrophic wound he"d suffered and the subsequent, horrifying realization of what he was-a vampire-he"d been a wreck by the time he returned stateside.

h.e.l.l, I"m still a wreck.

Irene had been about as far along as Tessa when she"d left him. She"d lost the baby shortly thereafter, a miscarriage he hadn"t learned about until later. He"d been heartbroken, and remained so even now. Not much had given him hope back then, or a reason to live, but the promise of his child had. That had slipped through his fingers, as had any happiness he might have known with Irene.

Seldom a day went by that he didn"t wish he could take it back somehow, that he could have made things right for all of them.

A wire coil inside the machine rotated slowly, dropping a foil bag of Cheetos, and Rene leaned over to retrieve it. He didn"t see anything in the machine that resembled the sticks and twigs healthy c.r.a.p that Tessa seemed to favor, so he hoped that dehydrated cheese powder would const.i.tute nutritious enough to satisfy her. And a snack might make for a sort of peace offering on his part, a way to smooth things over from earlier that morning.

He"d made her cry and even though she"d provoked him-par for the course-he still felt like s.h.i.t about it. He"d been too hard on her-yet again par for the course-and he knew it, but sometimes...

Like whenever she opens her mouth....he felt powerless to stop himself. She was a smart girl, high-strung but also wide-eyed and innocently oblivious to a lot of the world"s more unsavory aspects, thanks to the privileged, sheltered life she"d known in Kentucky. He"d known too many people-himself included-who had been beaten down by reality"s harshness, made jaded and cynical because of it, and he secretly found that naivete sort of charming and endearing about Tessa. Nice, even. Not that he"d ever admit this aloud.

G.o.d, I"d never hear the end of it, he thought.

"Hey, you got a light?"

Rene looked up to find a young man in his early twenties standing between him and the restroom building. The kid had long, dirty- blond hair caught back beneath a red bandana tied over the cap of his skull. He wore an old AC/DC T-shirt, grease-spotted, ratty blue jeans and a pair of faded black Chuck Taylor sneakers.

Rene had been a police officer long enough to recognize the nervous, darting light in the kid"s eyes. Strung out on something, he thought, wishing all of a sudden that he hadn"t left his Sig Sauer in the glove compartment of the car. "Sorry, pal. I don"t smoke."

The kid nodded, cutting his eyes to the snack machines. Rene decided to hedge his bets and get the f.u.c.k away from him. Just as he turned, presenting his back to the younger man, he heard the distinctive snict! of a gun hammer being drawn back.

s.h.i.t.

"I guess I"ll just take your wallet then, pal," said the kid, with pointed, sarcastic emphasis. "And your car keys, too. Hand them over."

Rene pivoted, stepping in a slow semicircle toward the kid and found himself facing the business end of what appeared to be a .45- caliber Smith and Wesson revolver.

s.h.i.t.

"Your wallet," the kid said again, giving the gun a little demonstrative waggle in emphasis. "And your car keys, too. Come on."

Rene could see beads of perspiration beading along his brow line below the edge of his bandana. He could smell the kid, a mix of sweat and adrenaline, and could sense the mounting, anxious rhythm of his heartbeat.

Christ, he"s wired. What"s he on? "Take it easy," Rene said, keeping his gaze steady on the kid as he reached slowly for his pocket. Unbeknownst to the young man, he opened his mind.

Tessa, where are you?

"You sure you want to do this?" he asked aloud, because he had no f.u.c.king intention of handing over his car keys if she was still sitting in the front seat. The gun would be a problem he"d then have to deal with somehow, but he figured he"d cross that bridge if and when he came to it.

The kid glanced beyond Rene"s shoulder at the sleek Audi sports car, then back to Rene, his brow arched slightly. "Oh, yeah. I"m sure."

Tessa? Rene thought again.

I"m using the bathroom! she snapped back, sounding irritable. Jesus, I"ll be right out!

No, that"s okay. Rene slipped his hand into the hip pocket of his jeans and hooked the ring to his car keys with his fingertip. Just stay there for a few minutes. Take your time.

Don"t tell me what to do, she groused in his mind. I"m sick and tired of you doing that-bossing me around.

G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I"m not bossing you around, he thought, bristling as he held up his hand, the key ring around his middle finger. The key dangled against his palm for the kid to see. I"m just asking you to stay put for a bit.

"And your wallet," the kid said, jabbing again with the gun. "Give me your wallet, too."

Don"t you curse at me, Tessa said. I"m tired of you doing that, too, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Asking means you phrase something as a question. It means you say "would you mind to do this, please, Tessa?" Not just "do this" or "do that." That"s telling, Rene.

You were telling me what to do. Again.

The kid"s eyes cut about uncertainly, wide-eyed with startled fright as a semi roared by on the interstate. "Hurry the f.u.c.k up, man.

Give me your G.o.dd.a.m.n wallet."

"Take it easy," Rene said again, moving his free hand for his back pocket. "I"m getting it for you."

He didn"t give a s.h.i.t about the car or his wallet. What mattered was Tessa; getting the kid, his pistol and his hyped-up, itchy trigger finger the h.e.l.l out of there before she came out of the ladies" room, even though she was picking the absolute worst time to pull one of her Miss High-and-f.u.c.king-Mighty routines on him, and if she had been standing in front of him, he might have been momentarily tempted to shoot her himself. He pulled out his wallet and held it up with the keys. "Take them. They"re yours."