"She wants to make the sacrifice. She's been talking about it for a while ... months, actually ... has been begging for me to bring her to you."

"She wants us to kill her?" Tristan asked.

Oh, dear G.o.d, I thought. A suicidal vampire? Thing was, we couldn't kill her. As much as I'd wanted to on the surface, I knew I couldn't do it unless she was trying to kill me or someone else. Which she hadn't been earlier-she really had been defending herself for the most part, definitely not doing anything to jeopardize my life. There was still hope for Vanessa's soul. I could feel it; I've always felt it every time I was around her.

"No, not that either," Owen said. "She thinks ... she really wants ..."

Why did he have such a hard time voicing what Vanessa wanted? Before he could manage to say it, a squeal came from the other end of the hallway.

"Owen!" Sheree sprinted down the corridor and threw herself at the warlock. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "My savior! I was hoping I'd get to see you soon."

Owen's mind tugged at mine. "She can't know about Vanessa."

Of course not, I agreed.

"Hey, Sheree." Owen returned her embrace and spun her around, acting as though everything was peachy-fine. He pulled back and seemed to drink the Were in with his eyes. "Lookin' good."

She blushed and grinned. "Thank you. I owe it all to you!"

And I knew that tone, the same one she used when talking to Tristan, but huskier with a heavier layer of flirt. She started chattering away about how much her life had changed since he'd saved her from the Daemoni and how appreciative of him she was, until I finally cleared my throat. Sheree looked at me with chagrin and dropped her head, almost in a bow.

"Sorry, Alexis," she said. "I just wanted to let you know that Sonya's begging for more blood, even though it's not really time yet. What do you think?"

"Sonya?" Owen probably recognized the name from when he accompanied me on book tours. Sonya, Norman at the time, hadn't been a real threat, but my publicist had been told Owen was my bodyguard, so she'd notified him of the "stalker."

"Oh, Owen, you have to meet Sonya!" Sheree gushed. "She remembers you and has been dying to meet you. Come on." She tugged on his hand, and Owen willingly followed her down the hall.

"Owen," I said, tossing my hands out in a what-the-h.e.l.l gesture. He looked back at me and shrugged, as though he were completely helpless against Sheree. "We're not done here!"

"He'll only be a minute," Sheree said. "I promise."

I sighed and waved my hand in the air with resignation as I watched them saunter down the hall. As they turned the corner into the main house, I caught Owen's hand move out of hers so his arm could lie over her shoulder instead.

Great. First Vanessa. Now Sheree. Owen was on a roll. But at least I liked Sheree, and her interest in him made perfect sense. She probably hero-worshipped him. After all, he'd saved her from being nearly beaten to death. By the vampire in the room down the hall.

And Owen wanted us to help the vamp with something? He was out of his mind.

Sheree will totally freak if she finds out Vanessa's here, I silently told Tristan.

He agreed as he took my hand and led me into one of the master suites, all the way into the bathroom, the room farthest from the hall, shutting doors along the way. He tapped on his forehead, and I tuned into his thoughts.

"Too many vampires who might be able to hear us," he explained, and I nodded. "Do you have any ideas what Vanessa wants?"

No, but I'm sure you do. At the moment, though, I'm more worried about Owen. Do you think ... The thought felt like a boulder in my throat, blocking my air. Do you think he's left us? The Amadis, I mean? I never would have thought it possible but ...

"He is acting odd, isn't he?"

Definitely not our usual Owen, I agreed.

Tristan shook his head. "I honestly don't know, Lex. I trust him for the moment, but this stunt he's pulled ..."

You can't help but wonder. I nodded, completely understanding.

I wanted to trust Owen. But I struggled to do so, especially when he'd brought Vanessa, of all people, right here to the safe house, of all places. Of course, maybe he thought he was doing us a favor so we could get the stone back. And he had taken precautions to make sure she couldn't really hurt me. Even during our fight, either he or Tristan could have jumped in if I could no longer handle her myself.

But he'd also defended Vanessa. Protected her, not me.

"You'll have to listen to his thoughts to know where his loyalties are," Tristan said.

Ugh. I hated the idea of breaching his privacy, especially when he knew I could and trusted me not to. Of course ... He'd be sure to think the right thoughts while he's around me.

"Then you'll have to do it when he doesn't think you're around. Preferably when he's with Vanessa."

I grimaced, wishing we weren't having this conversation. This was Owen, not Julia or Armand or anyone else I could never trust. I just hoped when he finished flirting with Sheree he'd return and give me good reason to believe in him again. To trust that he remained on our side.

But when he finally returned and found us back in the hallway where he'd left us, I didn't get the warm-and-fuzzies. In fact, what he had to say only convinced me that perhaps Kali the sorceress and her antics had gotten to him. Somehow she'd made him think he wasn't Amadis anymore and put him up to bat for our enemies.

"So back to Vanessa's sacrifice, as you put it," Tristan said, picking up where we'd left off before Sheree's interruption. "What does Vanessa want that doesn't include killing her? What were you thinking, bringing her here?

Owen's eyes squinted as he scrubbed his hand through his hair, then he heaved out a breath.

"Why else do you bring the enemy to a safe house?" he finally asked. "What do they want when they come here?"

I stared at him for a long moment as his words sunk in. Then I waited for him to clarify a different meaning or even to laugh and say, "Kidding." But he just looked back at me with an even sapphire gaze.

I snorted. "Oh, please. You've seriously fallen for that?"

Tristan didn't take it with such good humor. In a heartbeat, he had Owen by the collar and pinned against the wall. "You may have been right about Sheree, but Vanessa? You honestly expect us to believe her?"

"Yeah, I do," Owen said. "I believe her."

"Then you're an idiot." Tristan gave Owen a shove before letting go and turning to pace the hall. His hands clenched into fists and the muscles of his forearms bulged against his rolled-up sleeves. "It's a set-up. There's absolutely no way that b.i.t.c.h would ever want-"

"Then you can believe me," Owen cut in.

Tristan spun back toward Owen and roared, "Can we? Because you haven't done a d.a.m.n thing to prove it, Scarecrow. In fact, you're doing a d.a.m.n good job proving that you've changed sides. Because that-" His hand flicked in the general direction of Vanessa's room. "That's bulls.h.i.t and you know it!"

"It's not!" Owen yelled back, bowing up and leaning toward Tristan, his own hands in fists. I'd only ever seen him stand up to Tristan once and that was about me. This ... this was unbelievable.

I stepped in front of Owen and put my hands on his chest, trying to get him to back down.

"Seriously, Owen," I said, "I don't know where this came from, what you've been doing all this time and what you've gotten yourself into, but this ... You can't get anymore Daemoni than her. I mean, we're talking Vanessa, the biggest b.i.t.c.h of all Daemoni b.i.t.c.hes."

A growling sound came from Owen's throat as his eyes shot daggers at me. "You have no idea, princess. No idea about any of it. But I can tell you that I never would have asked for your help if I had a choice. I need you. Vanessa needs you and you can't, as an Amadis daughter, turn her down. Vanessa truly wants to be Amadis."

Chapter 14.

My head spun. Nothing made sense, and everything was so overwhelming. Owen's sudden reappearance after being gone for so long. The arrival of the trunks containing body parts. Watching a vampire put herself back together from chunks. And then to see it was Vanessa ... and, most astonishing of all, to hear she wanted to be converted? Never in a million years would I have expected this.

I mean, when I envisioned the Daemoni, Vanessa took front and center in my mind, overshadowing the rest of them. Although I logically knew Lucas led the army, I had never met him, and Kali-slash-Martin had only represented the enemy for the short time in the trial room and had become a faceless ent.i.ty since then. So to me, Vanessa was the face of the Daemoni. Because she'd always been in the lead, at least where Tristan and I were concerned. Always on the prowl, always on the attack.

Except ... the last couple of times I'd seen her, she didn't attack. Others had, but not her personally. And besides those sightings, she'd been in hiding, pretty much the whole time since Owen had been gone.

"You and Vanessa ... you've been together all this time?" I asked Owen.

We'd gone through several rounds of Tristan saying the vamp tried to fool us all to get in close for the kill, and Owen swearing up one side and down the other that she was sincere. They'd get so loud in their arguing, I was surprised Sheree didn't come running, but realized Owen must have m.u.f.fled us, just as he had Vanessa. But the arguments took us nowhere. None of us had even said a word for the last ten minutes. We needed to get off the stupid merry-go-round and uncover the truth.

"Not the whole time, but ... yeah, for a while," Owen said.

"And what? You think she's so in love with you, she'd really give up the only life she knows?" Tristan asked, sarcasm dripping off each word.

"Well," I said, with a thought, "that could actually be her motivator. She does go to any lengths to get what she wants."

Tristan shook his head. "She lives for the Daemoni. She'd die for them."

"You don't know her like you think you do," Owen said quietly, and once again, the one-eighty of his allegiance felt like a slap in the face.

Tristan's expression turned to stone, and I worried he'd get in Owen's face again. But he simply narrowed his eyes and rocked back on his heels. "I knew her for over two centuries."

"You didn't know her," Owen countered. "You never took the time to. You ignored her as much as possible, treating her like nothing more than a pesky wasp."

"So now you've been around her for a few months and think you know her so well? What about the past decades witnessing the carnage she left? What about what she did to Sheree, who would have died if you hadn't rescued her? What she's done to Alexis? Have you forgotten all that so quickly?"

Owen broke his gaze from Tristan and looked at the wall. His lips pursed together and his brows drew down, creating three lines between them.

"No, I haven't forgotten that," he said in a near whisper. But then his eyes hardened as he turned them back to Tristan. "But I also haven't forgotten how you used to be, either. She can change. Like you did."

"You're so gullible," Tristan snapped.

"And you're so arrogant! What makes you think you're the only one who can change?" Owen demanded. "We get new converts all the time. You're not some unique specimen. Not in that way anyway."

"I already admitted I was wrong about Sheree. I'd been suspicious then because of everything going on at the time. But Vanessa? She's the poster girl for the Daemoni!"

"Just as you were once the poster boy!"

With that, the merry-go-round wound up again as they went in circles about Vanessa pulling the same scheme Lucas and Tristan had with my mom, back when he'd been Seth, and Owen defending Vanessa and her desire to change. Although I couldn't help but agree with Tristan, I stayed off the ride. But finally I could take no more.

"All right, all right!" I nearly yelled to be heard over their debate. They both shut up. "This is stupid and it's getting us nowhere. She has to proclaim her desire to change as part of the process, and I'll be able to read her mind to know if she's telling the truth. If not, we'll have plenty of protection to overcome whatever scheme she has in mind. So you two ... please stop. I don't want us to argue anymore. Okay?"

Neither of them responded, too proud to give in.

"Okay?" I insisted.

Finally, Tristan barely lifted his chin to me in subtle agreement.

"I don't like it, you being that close to her," he growled, "but I'll be there if you need me. And so will your protector. Right, Owen?" He b.u.mped Owen's shoulder with his own as he came to stand by me. "Right, Owen?"

Owen gave us both a hard glare before heading for the door. "You won't need me," he muttered.

My jaw dropped and tears p.r.i.c.ked my eyes. He may as well have stabbed a knife in my heart and left me for dead. What's happened to him?

Tristan shook his head slowly. "He's right. We don't need him. Charlotte will be here if we need a warlock."

Owen stopped in mid-stride and spun around. "No! Mum can't be here."

"But she'll be so pleased to see you," I said, my tone burning with acid, "especially like this." I flipped my hand at him and all his un-Owen-ness.

"She can't be here," Owen repeated, nearly pleading. "None of the council. Not Sophia or Rina, either. n.o.body can know Vanessa is here. Not even Sheree or Sonya or anyone else."

I c.o.c.ked my head. "Owen, I can't convert her by myself."

"You have to, Alexis. She's too high-profile for anyone to know what she's doing. No one can find out until it's done, after it's too late. Why do you think I brought her here? To you?"

"What? You think someone's going to tattle off to the Daemoni that Vanessa's converting?" I asked.

"That's exactly what someone might do and guess what happens next? Guess who shows up here to get her back?"

I shook my head. "Owen, I can't ... I mean, I don't have enough experience with the first phase, and I've never even done the second part."

"But you know what to do, right? What better way to learn than trial by fire?"

My breath went out in a huff of exasperation. Owen had always enjoyed pressing me to my limits to see what I was capable of, but he really had no idea what he asked of me now. And if he did, then he didn't care what happened to Vanessa or me. So much for being my protector.

"Look," I said, "I vowed to your mother I wouldn't do anything without her. There's a reason she made me make the promise. Owen, seriously, you can't trust your own mom?"

"Well, let's see," he said, his voice regaining that hard edge, "I trusted my own dad and look what happened there."

I opened my mouth to argue-as if Charlotte was anything like Martin or Kali-but decided not to. Part of me couldn't blame him.

"It's a moot point," Tristan said. "Alexis is not doing this on her own. The little bit of experience she has is with young ones. Vanessa is a whole different game-out of her league right now."

My hackles raised. "Her? Out of my league? Ha! You think I can't handle the old hag? Well, I'm pretty sure I can take her on if she tried anything. In fact, I already have, just a little while ago, remember?"

Tristan gave me a look. "That's not what I mean. This is different and you know it."

"But she has taken on you," Owen said to Tristan. "And you were a lot worse than Vanessa ever was."

Tristan pursed his lips together. He wouldn't argue this point because he credited me with saving him when he'd first returned to me with the Daemoni's dark magic implanted in his soul. I kept my mouth shut. Mom had originally converted him, so what Owen referred to wasn't really my doing. But what could be worse than what Tristan had fought then? Than what I had helped him beat? Surely, if I could handle him and all his power, I could handle the vampire-b.i.t.c.h who'd still managed to keep her soul for more than two centuries.

I straightened my back and stuck out my chin. "Owen's right. If I could do what I did with you, especially right after going through the Ang'dora, I can do this."