Oh, G.o.d! she thought, as Monica turned loose of her throat, leaving her to stagger clumsily sideways, the strength in her legs abandoning her. She blinked in stunned, aghast horror at the shaft of the poker protruding from her belly, the handle blood-smeared and jutting less than a few inches beneath the edge of her breastbone. Already a bright, scarlet stain had started to spread at the point of impact, seeping through the heavy down filling of her ski coat and soaking the pale pink nylon exterior. Oh, G.o.d...my baby!

"I"ll kill you!" Monica seethed, her lips smeared with b.l.o.o.d.y froth. She wrapped her hands around the handle of the poker and Tessa screamed, her voice ripping shrilly as Monica jerked her off her feet, swinging her by the poker, throwing her the length of the room. Tessa could feel the hooked tip of the implement ripping through flesh as it was wrenched back out of her body; it flew free just as Monica threw her, sending a trail of blood slapping up against the ceiling, spraying Tessa in the face.

Tessa smashed against another bookshelf and collapsed into a shuddering heap against the floor. The pain was too much, too great; she couldn"t move save to press her hand against her belly. The front of her coat was soaked now with blood; she stared down at it in shock, watching as it dribbled down the contours of her knuckles, streamed along her fingers in steady, thickening rivulets. She couldn"t sense the baby; there was nothing but the pain and a terrible, leaden coldness that seemed to have filled her, swallowing that fragile corner of light and warmth where once she"d been able to feel her child growing.

Oh...oh, G.o.d...oh, no, please!

She looked up, her eyes flooded with tears, her mind fading rapidly to shadows and saw Monica leap at her. It was almost like watching something out of a movie; Monica moved as if in slow motion, her footsteps plodding and clumsy. When she sprang forward, hands outstretched, her fingers blood-smeared and hooked into claws, Tessa shrank, cowering.

Oh, G.o.d, no, please not my baby, she thought, and out of the corner of her eye, lying among broken gla.s.s shards, fallen books and splintered wood, she spied the broken end of the shattered decorative dragon beam.

At this, she felt something in her galvanized, some fire she might have once attributed to her grandmother Eleanor but now realized was her own-her own strength and determination-reigniting in full, furious force. She shrieked in agonized protest, and curled her fingers around the shaft of wood.

"Not my baby!" she screamed, swinging her arm up just as Monica began to tackle her, smashing the dragon"s head-gape- mouthed and fork-tongued-directly into Monica"s. The trident of sharp points at its lips, the spear of its tongue punched into the side of Monica"s skull, crushing bone and mashing brain matter, burying clear to the delta of its wooden jaws.

She uttered a startled squawk; Tessa realized she could see the dragon"s bottom jaw bisecting the roof of Monica"s mouth in a grim, gruesome plane and then a thin stream of blood suddenly dripped down from Monica"s right nostril, spattering against her face. Monica blinked in dazed fascination at the glistening droplets as they rolled down Tessa"s cheek, then her gaze cut to Tessa"s.

"You...you can"t..." she began, then her eyes rolled back into her skull, black yielding to white, and she crashed sideways, falling to the rug in a still and sudden heap.

Oh, G.o.d! Tessa kicked Monica"s legs and hips, knocking her away. The shaft of the broken crossbeam jutted skyward at a listing angle from Monica"s head; beneath her, blood pooled against the Oriental rug, spilling from her mouth and nose, the grisly wounds to her face and skull.

Tessa pressed her hands to her stomach and rolled onto her side, curling up into a fetal coil as her tears spilled. She didn"t even hear Brandon come rushing into the room, his footsteps heavy and frantic. When he collapsed to his knees beside her, trying to touch her, she recoiled and screamed, punching at him, trying to punt him away.

Tessa, it"s me! It"s Brandon! he said in her mind. Tessa, I"m sorry! I couldn"t get inside! I had to break a window! I couldn"t find you...I could hear you screaming but I...I couldn"t...

His hands stopped fluttering about her when he caught sight of the blood. Oh, Jesus, you"re bleeding! he cried, his voice shrill and panicked. What happened? Oh...oh, Christ, are you all right? Tessa! Tessa, please, answer me!

"Oh...oh, G.o.d...!" she wept as her twin clutched at her. She clapped her hands over her face and shuddered against the floor.

"My baby," she gasped. "Oh...oh, G.o.d, Brandon...she killed my baby!" Chapter Twenty-six "What are we doing, Rene?" Lina asked as she pulled the Mercedes to a stop across the street from a towering three-story Victorian mansion. Complete with lushly landscaped flower beds and shrubberies, a steeply pitched, slate-tiled mansard roof, ornate stained-gla.s.s windows and granite stairs leading to a stately, sprawling front porch, the house looked like something out of Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Without question, it was one of the crown jewels in the overflowing architectural coffer that was Pacific Heights.

Lina sat behind the wheel, her hand draped against the gearshift as the engine idled and she looked at him expectantly. Her expression grew even more quizzical as he unbuckled his seat belt and opened the pa.s.senger-side door.

"You"re going to sit here for just a moment, ma chere," he told her with a wink as he used his hands to help swing his prosthetic foot from the car to the sidewalk. "And I"m going to get out and stretch my legs a wee bit."

He closed the door, but as he rounded the hood, she rolled down her window, shielding her eyes with the blade of her hand against the bright afternoon sky and squinting at the houses. "No, I mean, what are we doing here?"

She"d gawked almost nonstop since he"d directed her to the neighborhood, having dropped the Jeep off at the airport rental car terminal earlier. "Do you know someone who lives here?"

"Not really, chere," he murmured, crossing the street and mounting the broad, steep risers leading up to the mansion"s front porch.

"Not anymore."

You could take the girl out of the bayou, but you couldn"t take the bayou out of the girl. While any other woman in the neighborhood with a husband whose net worth was roughly the equivalent of a small country"s annual operating budget probably had a slew of household staff on duty to tend to such menial tasks as answering the doorbell, Irene opened the door herself, dressed with a lavender silk robe lashed around her waist and a steaming, oversized cup of coffee in one hand. He didn"t know if she recognized him or not, if something in his face had seemed, at least from initial glance familiar enough to make her unafraid, or if she simply answered her door fearlessly at every knock or ring. But she opened it wide without a moment"s hesitation, and looked at him for a curious moment. "Yes? May I help you?"

The years had touched her, thickening and softening what had once been a reed-slender figure. Age had graced her face with delicately etched lines framing her mouth and eyes. Her hair was short, a youthful spiky cut dyed a lighter shade of blond than he remembered. Her skin was olive-toned and tanned; she smelled lightly of faded perfume, cocoa cappuccino and raspberry lotion.

Mon Dieu, you"re still beautiful, he thought.

Her blue eyes cut down the length of his form as if searching for something, but when they settled again on his face, he watched her expression shift-first perplexed, then startled, then utter disbelief. The coffee cup dropped from her hand, shattering against the stone tile of the front porch.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" she whispered. They were the first words she"d ever said to him and as she offered them again now, a tremor worked its way from her hands to her shoulders, shuddering through her. Her voice sounding strangled for breath, stunned and strained. "Oh, my G.o.d. Rene?"

"h.e.l.lo, chere," he said with a smile, his own voice choked, his eyes burning with the sharp sting of tears.

The last words he"d said to her had been callous and cold, hateful things shouted as she"d fled his mother"s house in Thibodaux. He wouldn"t have blamed her one bit if she still hated him for that, even all of those years later, but instead she stepped toward him, hands outstretched, oblivious to the broken cup, the spilled coffee at her feet. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely, rising onto her tiptoes and gasping against his ear.

"Oh, my G.o.d, it"s you! It"s really you!" She stepped back, cupping his face in her hands, her eyes swimming with tears. Her brows were lifted with visible, dumbstruck wonder. "I can"t believe it. You...you look just the same. You haven"t aged a day! How is that possible?"

"Never mind," Rene whispered, touching her face, brushing his fingertips against her features, still so poignantly familiar to him. "It doesn"t matter."

In that moment, as she looked into his eyes, he opened his mind and reached out to her. Her voice faded even as she began to speak, her gaze growing distant and dreamy, just like with the young couple he"d inadvertently stopped along the New Mexico highway.

"Forgive me, chere." He leaned toward her and kissed her mouth, letting his lips settle softly, briefly. As he closed his eyes, treasuring that fleeting moment of her breath against him, a single tear spilled. "For everything."

He stepped away, letting his hand linger against her cheek for one last moment before pulling back completely. Irene stood motionless on her front porch, a soft breeze fluttering the hem of her robe against her calves as she blinked sleepily at him. She watched him walk away without being aware of it; he"d turned off her mind and she wouldn"t remember that he"d ever been there.

He"d erased her memories of that horrific last day in Louisiana, and all of the painful, terrible days that had preceded it. In less time than it took to bat an eye, he had rewritten history for Irene, giving her something kinder and more gentle to look back upon-a boy named Rene LaCroix whom she had loved in the folly of her youth, a boy she might have once married, but who had been killed in Vietnam; a boy she could think of in fond recall, and maybe weep for every once in a while; a boy who had never broken her heart or let her down. The boy he"d once been, and the man he always wished he could have been for her.

"Good-bye, Irene," Rene whispered, and turned, walking away.

Lina met him halfway across the street, her pace brisk, her cell phone in her hand, her expression as anxious as a toddler in need of the toilet. "We have to go."

"Je sais," he replied. I know. She hadn"t felt comfortable leaving Tessa and especially Brandon alone in Tahoe to begin with, and figured she"d found his detour an aggravation. "I"ll make it up to you, chere. I"ll buy you lunch on the way back east. Any place you"d-"

"No, Rene." She caught his arm as he started to walk past her, her fingers closing fiercely enough to give him pause. For the first time, he realized she didn"t just seem anxious. She looked stricken. "Brandon just sent me a text message. We have to go now. He said something"s happened to Tessa and the baby."

"He said Monica and Martin Davenant must have been in Anthony, New Mexico, together," Lina said once they"d returned to the motel. It took a lot to position his prosthetic so that he could use it to work a clutch pedal, which is why Rene seldom did it, but there had been no way in h.e.l.l he"d have sat riding shotgun in his own G.o.dd.a.m.n sports car when Tessa needed him. He"d made the little Mercedes scream as he"d thrown it in gear and turned its V-6 engine wide open and loose on the highway.

I"m coming, Tessa, he"d thought, gripping the steering wheel so tightly, he"d caused the gunshot wound to his left palm to seep blood again. There was no way she could have heard him, not from such a distance, but he hadn"t given a s.h.i.t. He"d opened his mind to her anyway, straining desperately, searching for her. I"m coming home to you, pischouette. I"m on my way.

Rene wasn"t a praying man. His grandmother Odette had forced him as a child to accompany her to church each Sunday, dressing him up in suffocating b.u.t.ton-down shirts and hand-me-down dress pants and wetting his hair to comb it into some semblance of order. When she"d been diagnosed with stomach cancer one year after Arnaud Morin"s suicide, Rene had flirted with the idea of religion again for the first time in ages. The cancer had been caught too late and the best they might have hoped for was that Odette would die without suffering too badly. At least that"s what Rene had prayed for. It hadn"t turned out that way, despite the best efforts of prayer, hospice and all of the morphine Rene"s newfound and considerable wealth had been able to afford. Odette had died incoherent from pain, without knowing Rene or anyone else around her, crying out in garbled French for family members and friends who had long ago preceded her.He hadn"t prayed ever since, but he did on the long drive back from San Francisco, pleading with G.o.d or whoever the h.e.l.l was out there, all-knowing and omnipotent. Please let them be all right, he"d thought. Tessa and the baby-I"m begging you. Take whatever you want from me-my other G.o.dd.a.m.n leg, my life. Whatever you want, anything, but not Tessa. Not the baby.

Brandon had met them in the parking lot as soon as Rene had pulled the silver Mercedes into a vacant parking slot. By then, the afternoon had begun to wane into evening, and dusky shadows drooped down from the mountains.

"Tessa remembers Martin calling her in the car, telling her to stay put," Lina said, as Brandon"s fingers flew and darted in the air in front of him. She was translating for Brandon, who was still frantic and had forgotten himself, lapsing into sign language rather than psi-speech, just as Rene himself was sometimes apt to slip into French without thinking about it.

"She"d thought he meant at the farm in Kentucky, but he must have meant stay put there in Anthony, only she didn"t listen," Lina said. "Martin told Monica where they were going-to Tahoe to find Brandon. She had a credit card to access the money he"s been stealing from Bloodhorse all of these years. She must have used it to rent a car and follow."

Rene didn"t give a s.h.i.t how Monica Davenant had found them. All he cared about was Tessa. He strode briskly toward the motel room, leaving Brandon and Lina behind. He threw open the door and stood on the threshold for a long, anguished moment, his heart, breath and voice all caught in a choking, strangling knot in his throat.

"Tessa," he breathed.

She lay facing the door, curled onto her side atop the bed, with her knees drawn to her chest like a small child. The room was dark, save for the slight circ.u.mference of orange-yellow light offered by the bedside lamp, but he could still see tears glistening in her large eyes. There were new bruises marring her pale skin; dozens of sc.r.a.pes and cuts on her face. She looked small and frail, vulnerable and hurting and it broke his heart.

"It hurts..." she whispered as he leaned over her, stricken.

"I know," he whispered back. He hooked the sheet with his hand and drew it carefully away from her. Brandon had tried to help with her wound, the gruesome point in which a fireplace poker had apparently run her through, but the younger man obviously didn"t know s.h.i.t for triage. He"d managed to do little more than get Tessa"s blood-soaked clothes off her and try to cover the wound with one of the motel"s white terry cloth towels. Tessa held that towel in place now with one hand, but it was stained bright red, as was the bedspread beneath her.

"Let me see, pischouette," he said quietly, easing the towel away from her grasp. He sucked in an aghast breath when he saw her stomach, the b.l.o.o.d.y, ragged hole torn just slightly below the vertex of her rib cage. "Merde."

He crossed the room to his duffel bag and dug out the first-aid supplies they"d bought to tend to his hand. Grabbing a handful of fresh linens, some hand towels and washcloths from the nearby sink vanity, he returned to the bedside.

"I can"t feel the baby, Rene," Tessa whimpered, watching as he upturned the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, soaking one of the washcloths. "Not like before...not like..."

"Hush now," he said, shaking his head. "That baby is going to be just fine."

When he pressed the washcloth to her stomach, he tried to be as gentle as possible, but she still cried out softly, jerking against the bed. "Je suis desole, Tessa," he said softly. I"m sorry.

"It hurts, Rene," she gasped again, tears spilling. She began to shudder, hiccuping for breath. "It hurts...so bad!"

"I know." His eyes flooded with tears, his throat felt strangled with them and stroked her hair back from her brow. "Je suis desole." I"m sorry.

She kept her eyes closed as he dressed her wounds, using fabric tape to secure matching squares of thick gauze over the points of impact. Had the poker caught her low enough to pierce her womb? He didn"t know enough about anatomy to be able to tell. She needed a hospital; that much he did know, because it sure as h.e.l.l didn"t take a genius. But he also knew they couldn"t take that risk. Not now.

"I...I can"t feel the baby," Tessa told him again, trembling as he finished binding her wounds. "Not now. Not like before. It comes and goes, like someone turning a light switch on and off. Only...it"s not bright anymore. It"s not bright at all."

Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks and he enfolded her in his arms. She huddled against him, clinging to him fiercely. "It"s dying, Rene!" she cried, hoa.r.s.e and pained. "Oh, G.o.d, my baby is dying and there"s nothing I can do!"

"You"re wrong," he said softly. He tucked his fingertips beneath her chin, lifting her tearful gaze to him. "There is something you can do, pischouette. Something we both can do. Something that will save your baby."

She shook her head, confused. "What? I...no, Rene, I don"t..."

"Tessa," he said. "Feed from me."

Her body stiffened against him and she drew back, her eyes widening. "No." She shook her head. "No, don"t say that, Rene.

Don"t ask me to do that. Not now. I just...I couldn"t...I...I can"t!"

"Tessa..." He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away. She tried to sit up, but the effort hurt her, and she grimaced, gritting her teeth.

"That...that"s not fair to make me choose," she gasped. When she looked up at him, her brows were furrowed, but her eyes were frightened. "How can you ask that of me? You"ve seen me feed! You know what happens-you know what happens to me! I...I become a monster! I can"t control myself, and I can"t lose you! Not now, not you, too!" She pressed her hands against her belly and stared at him, wide-eyed and anguished. "Don"t you understand? I can"t lose you, too!"

Even as she tried to shrug him off, he caressed her face, drawing the pad of his thumb lightly against her tear-dampened cheek.

"You"re not going to lose me, pischouette. Not now, not ever."

She tried to shake her head, to pull away, but he wouldn"t let her. "I can"t!"

"Yes, you can," he said, and she blinked at him as new tears spilled.

"Please, Rene," she whimpered. "I don"t want to hurt you."

He smiled at her gently and kissed her lips. "You"re not going to hurt me, pischouette. I promise."

Chapter Twenty-seven.

Tessa felt trapped, torn between her unborn child and Rene, both of whom she loved and neither of whom she wanted to lose.

Before Rene had arrived, she had closed her eyes, lying on the bed with her arms wrapped around her midriff, as if she could somehow cradle her baby that way, hold it and comfort it deep inside her womb. She"d kept her mind open as the fluttering glow of its fragile life force had grown weaker by the moment. Her entire body hurt, but nowhere more so than within her heart, where it felt like a piece of her was fading along with her child, crumbling in upon some great and terrible darkness, a cold and hollow chasm that would eventually engulf her, swallow her whole.

My baby.

She"d closed her eyes, ignoring her brother"s attempts to comfort her. She hadn"t wanted Brandon; for once, not even her twin could make things better. She"d wanted Rene, and in his absence, she"d turned inward for solace. She imagined her baby. In her mind, she held the child-a plump, pink and beautiful cherub with bright, dark eyes, round cheeks and downy fuzz for hair. She imagined the smell of the baby-baby oil and powder and lotion, something warm and wondrous and impossibly sweet; she dreamed of its voice, a soft, melodic babble of happy, gurgling sounds.She imagined her child, at one moment a little girl, in another, a little boy, each around four years old, like her brother Daniel, holding her hand and walking alongside her in Kentucky, back at the farm. It was the same dream she"d had at least a million times since she"d found out she was pregnant, one that she knew by heart.

She imagined the sensation of miniscule fingers intertwined with hers, of looking down into a pair of chocolate-colored eyes that were the mirror image of her own. "Do you know how much I love you?" she dreamed of asking her child.

"To the moon and back again," the little son in her mind would reply.

"More than all of the fishes in the sea," the little daughter would chirp.

Oh, G.o.d, please, she"d prayed, holding herself tightly, tears squeezing out from between her lashes. Please don"t take my baby.

She didn"t want to lose the child, but she didn"t want this, either-the prospect of hurting Rene, of bleeding him dry in the throes of the bloodl.u.s.t, in her desperation to save the life of her baby. How can I choose? she thought, clutching at Rene, tucking her cheek against his shoulder. Oh, G.o.d, what can I do? If I don"t feed, then I"ll lose my baby, but if I do...

An image flashed in her mind-Rene lying sprawled on the bed, his throat torn open, his shirt soaked in blood, and her grandmother"s words, Eleanor"s voice echoing in her mind: Fresh meat for the celebration of slaughter.

Oh, G.o.d, how can I choose?

I can help you, Tessa, Brandon said in her mind, drawing her gaze to where he had come to stand beside Lina in the doorway. I can help you feed from Rene. I can show you when to stop, just like he did for me when I fed from Lina.

"No, pet.i.t," Rene said aloud, shaking his head, drawing a surprised glance from Brandon. "You and Lina leave us alone for a while. Me and Tessa, we"re going to be fine."

He met her eyes as he said this, offering a wink and a gentle smile. When neither Brandon nor Lina immediately moved, he turned to them again. "Go on now," he said with a nod toward the door. "Il est bien." It"s all right.

"Rene..." Lina said, her face drawn, her eyes round with worry. She cut a glance at Tessa, then back again. Clearly, she, too, thought it was a lousy idea. "Are you sure about this?"

He smiled at Tessa again, brushing the cuff of his fingers against her cheek. "I"m positive, chere."

When Brandon and Lina were gone and they were alone, he stood and locked the deadbolt on the door. As he turned and walked back to the bed, Tessa shied against the headboard, wincing as the movement sent pain spearing through her.

"I can"t do this, Rene."

"Yes, you can." He unb.u.t.toned the front of his shirt, tugging the tails loose from his jeans. He shrugged his way out of the sleeves and dropped the shirt onto the foot of the bed. The amber lamplight played against the contours of his chest as he walked toward her and there was no place for her to go, nowhere else she could hide.

He sat against the edge of the bed, cradled her face between both hands and leaned toward her, letting the tip of his nose brush hers. "I love you, Tessa," he whispered. "Mon Dieu, woman, don"t you know that? Let me help you. Let me help your baby."

He lifted his hand between them, his left hand, the one in which he"d been shot. As she watched, he began to peel back the bandages covering the wound. "What are you doing?" she asked.