"What? How?"

He stopped again. "You really don't remember me, do you? I was so certain you did."

She frowned, staring at him. His profile, then his back as he continued his circle.

"Daniel, I have no idea what you are talking about."

He turned back to her, a smile splitting his face, as creepy as his eyes. Again she did feel she should

know him, but she couldn't quite place from where.

"No, you don't, do you?" He smiled smugly.

Suddenly, whether it was something in that smile, or it was the fact that she could now sense him in a

way she hadn't been able to before-not until Sebastian had helped her focus her vampire senses-she

knew why this vampire made her so uneasy. So scared. Yet, what she was realizing couldn't be possible. His smile slowly faded as he became aware of the change in Mina. She tried to block her emotions, her thoughts, using the techniques Sebastian had showed her. Focusing outside of herself. On Sebastian.

"But it will be great fun getting reacquainted," he said and began walking again, his back to her once more. She took another backward step toward the closed door. And another, but she stopped as he spoke again.

"Let me refresh your memory, cara mia."

Daniel turned back toward her, but this time it wasn't that cadaverlike face that greeted her. It was a wide, charming smile. Dimples. Dark eyes and curly hair.

Mina stumbled back, fear seizing her, strangling her.

"Oh my God," she cried, scrambling backward not even aware of where the door was, where she was.

She just needed to get away.

He slowly walked toward her.

"Now is that any way to greet your first love?"

Chapter 28.

"Earlier I discovered Mina with one of the members of the Society," Sebastian admitted to his brothers. "She was telling him that the sabotage was working. She had me under control, and it was only a matter of time before she convinced me to close this place."

Both Rhys and Christian looked surprised by his words. Not nearly as surprised as Sebastian had been to hear them. "Mina said that?" Rhys said.

Sebastian nodded. "She told this guy that she was doing whatever she had to do to control me." Again Sebastian thought of her offer to let him bite her. An offer that he'd seen as the moment when they'd truly be committed to each other. Sure, he'd bitten many women, but this was going to be the first time he'd bitten, not solely for sustenance, not solely for pleasure, but to make them one. He'd believed that was what she was offering.

What a fool.

"Did you confront her?" Christian asked.

"Yes."

"What did she say?" Rhys asked.

"She denied it all. She claimed that she'd said those things to protect me."

Both brothers stared at him for a moment.

"And why didn't you believe that?" Rhys finally asked.

"I don't need protecting from those idiots."

"But maybe Mina didn't believe that. Maybe she thinks they are a bigger threat than you do. And she

should know. She was a member, after all," Rhys said reasonably.

"Apparently she's still a member," Sebastian said bitterly. "A very active member."

"Sebastian, why is it so impossible that she was honestly just trying to protect you?" Rhys asked.

"I don't need her protection," he said again. "I'm very capable of protecting myself. She should have

defended me. She should have told that guy that she knew I wasn't a threat to anyone. And that Carfax Abbey wasn't a threat. And that she was in love with me. Period."

Understanding lit both his brothers' eyes, and Sebastian wished he'd just remained silent.

"Sebastian, you are a friggin' bonehead, you know that," Christian said with a shake of his head. "That's exactly what she was saying by trying to protect you."

Sebastian opened his mouth to argue, but he saw his brothers' expressions. They believed Mina. And

his brothers were not quick to believe in anyone. Lilah, the evil vampiress who'd crossed them over, had seen to that. Yet, they trusted Mina.

Suddenly, Sebastian knew they were right. Mina had been trying to protect him. But he'd refused to listen. He'd been too worried that she was going to hurt him. That he'd finally fallen in love, and she'd just been pretending. But that wasn't Mina. And he should have known that. He should have trusted her, as she'd trusted him.

Rhys clapped Sebastian on the back. "Don't worry about it. The Young Brothers are notoriously slow on the uptake when it comes to love. Just go find her and apologize."

Sebastian nodded, praying that his mistrust and, he cringed, his threatening behavior hadn't ruined his chance with her, with the woman he did want to spend eternity with.

He waited for that idea to scare him senseless, but now he was far more scared that she wouldn't want him back.

He started to slide from the booth, when he suddenly heard Mina in his head. Her voice clear-and terrified. He fell back against the seat, overwhelmed by the intensity of the echo in his head.

"Sebastian?"

He could hear Rhys, although it sounded as if Rhys was far, far away. Sebastian blinked, trying to clear his mind, to calm her voice in his head.

He turned to his brothers, trying to tell them what was happening, but before he could speak, he heard her again. Scared, desperate. And this time he could see an image. A room. A face. A face he didn't know, but that had been described to him.

"It's Mina," he managed to tell them. "She's in danger."

He was barely aware of Rhys and Christian helping him from the booth and leading him to the club's exit. All he could do was center on Mina, calling to him.

"D-Donatello," Mina heard herself say as if her voice was very far away from her.

"In the flesh." He smiled, strolling toward her.

She backed away, bumping into one of the lined-up chairs, stumbling.

"Really, Wilhelmina, you were ungainly when you were alive, didn't undeath help at all?"

She didn't answer, she just kept moving away. Terror making her movements jerky.

"Have you been following me all this time?"

He laughed at that, his dark eyes dancing. "Hardly."

"But-but you disguised yourself as Daniel. Went to the Society meetings. Always spoke to me."

"Actually," he stopped stalking her, "this is my disguise. Much more effective with the ladies, as you can attest to. As for seeing you again at the Society meeting, that was sheer coincidence. But I did enjoy speaking to you, making you uncomfortable even though you didn't understand why. Until now. Sadly for you."

"Why did you ask me here tonight?" Mina asked. She glanced at the door, realizing that in her fear she'd backed away from it, rather than toward it.

Donatello, or rather Daniel, followed her gaze, then smiled complacently. "Well to finally finish you off, of course. After all, I left you to die the first time, but somehow you didn't."

Her fear threatened to overwhelm her, render her unconscious, but she knew she couldn't allow that to happen. If she did, she was as good as dead. Truly dead.

"Why now? Why after all this time?" she managed to ask.

"Because you have ruined a very good thing for me. I was using the Society as my cover, you see. It was perfect. I'd kill lowly humans and see that those deaths were blamed on the Society's most dangerous preternaturals. It allowed me easy access to humans, such as Franny Millhouse's escort service, and the perfect scapegoat when I was done."

Mina frowned. "But you don't need a scapegoat since you can change your looks, no one would know it was you to begin with. You'd never get caught."

"True," he agreed. "But it's not nearly as much fun. I like killing a human, and then walking into a Society meeting and being heralded as-what is that silly name again? Oh yes, a Society's Savior. It's deliciously ironic, isn't it?"

Mina stared at this monster that could hide behind the mask of an archangel. He was like a serial killer who liked to stay at the crime scene, watching the police struggle for clues. Pure evil.

"How-how did I ruin things for you? I didn't know any of this."

"No," he agreed. "But you did start to ask questions. Enough questions that Jude began to watch me. Jackson Hallowell, of course, never would have put it together, but Jude, he has a dark soul. And your questions about the escort service got him thinking. Of course, he doesn't realize yet that I'm on to him. But I know it's only a matter of time now before I'm added to the most dangerous list. But of course, unlike the case of your lover, Iam very dangerous."

"Why did you attack that woman outside of Sebastian's club?" Mina asked at the mention of Sebastian.

Daniel shrugged. "For fun. To scare you. To make sure Sebastian stays firmly planted on that most dangerous list until he and his club are destroyed." He smiled sweetly. "Just to be mean."

"Is that why you chose to attack me from the beginning? To be mean?"

"Oh no," he said sincerely. "I needed you."

"Why?"

"You were a virgin, and I need virgin blood to survive. That's what sustains a creature like me."

"What are you?" she asked.

"I am a vampire, but I'm a variant of the undead. An incubus-far more powerful than an average

vampire. But to maintain that power, I must survive on the blood of virgins."

She stared at him, even surrounded by all the preternaturals that she was, this seemed almost unreal.

"But why did you cross me over if you intended me to die?" she asked.

"Because the blood is so much sweeter if I cross the victim over. And until you, I don't believe any of

my other victims did survive. I left them, just like you, and they burned in the sun. Or starved. Or were

killed because they'd become little more than raving lunatics." Mina stared at him, realizing she could have easily suffered any of those fates. She'd been lucky-an odd thought given the horror she had survived.