Chapter One

Tiny had just raised his hand to knock on the door when a shriek rang out from the other side. The sound immediately had him dropping the bags of blood he carried to charge into the room. He’d taken several steps inside, his eyes quickly scanning the situation, before he came to a confused halt. He’d expected to find that one or more of Leonius’s no-fangers had snuck into the church and was attacking someone, or, at the very least, a mouse that had startled someone, but there was neither. The room was filled with women, most of them in white, all peering at him with wide, startled eyes.

“Tiny?” The query was accompanied by a rustle of silk that drew his gaze to Marguerite Argeneau as she disengaged from the small cluster of women to his right. Tiny felt his eyes widen and his mouth drop as he caught sight of the Argeneau matriarch. The woman wore a long gown with a scooped neck, cinched waist, and a full skirt that belled out from her legs thanks to the tulle underneath. It was in every way a gorgeous, traditional wedding gown… except that it was a deep blood red color with black trim that made her look like a queen among her ladies-in-waiting dressed in white and pastel gowns. Tiny simply stared at her as she stood before him, his eyes caught by the full, pale breasts on display in the low-cut gown. It almost looked to him as if the dress was trying to push the round globes out of the neckline, as if their perfect presence somehow offended the rich material.

“Tiny?” Her voice was amused this time, and he forced himself to drag his fascinated gaze away from the escaping flesh to raise apologetic eyes to hers. Tiny offered a wry smile and sent out a silent apology he knew she would read, then cleared his throat and glanced around. “I heard someone scream.”

“And thought the worst,” Marguerite said with an understanding nod. She patted his arm soothingly. “All is well. It was a happy shriek, though with Jeanne Louise, it’s sometimes hard to tell.”

Marguerite’s niece wrinkled her nose at her gentle teasing and excused herself by saying, “I’d just heard Leigh’s good news. It took me completely by surprise.”

As Jeanne Louise turned back to Leigh to give her a congratulatory hug, Tiny glanced questioningly at Marguerite, wondering what the good news was, but her attention was on the doorway behind him. “Is that for us?”

The question drew his gaze back to the open door and the bags that lay scattered on the hall floor. Much to his relief, none of them appeared to have been damaged by the fall.

“Oh, yes. Bastien asked me to bring them to you gals. I dropped them when I heard the scream,” he admitted, turning to head back to the door. Marguerite followed, and when she knelt to help him collect them, he asked quietly, “What’s Leigh’s good news?”

“She’s pregnant again,” Marguerite said with a smile.

Tiny’s eyebrows rose, and he started to smile as well, but the expression died as he recalled how crushed Leigh and Lucian had been when she had miscarried the first time. If she lost this one as well—

“She’s more than three months along. This one should carry to term,” Marguerite said reassuringly, proving she still had the bad habit of reading his mind. “They waited until she was past the dangerous stage to share the news. I think she was afraid that announcing it before then would jinx it.”

Tiny nodded with understanding. From what he’d heard, the first miscarriage had been a terrible blow to the couple. He wasn’t surprised they’d waited to announce this one.

“Tell her congratulations from me,” he said quietly, as they straightened.

“Why don’t you tell her yourself?” Marguerite suggested.

Tiny hesitated and glanced to the women, all gathered now at the far end of the room. Terri, Leigh, and Inez all wore traditional white wedding gowns in various styles. Jackie, Jeanne Louise, Lissianna, and Rachel, who were acting as bridesmaids, wore pastels—pink, aqua, and lavender. They all looked exquisite… which was the problem. They were gorgeous, and they could read his thoughts. Much as he hated to admit it, not all those thoughts were stellar. He was a man after all… and he didn’t want to unintentionally insult any of the women with a stray thought that made its way up from his nether regions.

“Ah,” Marguerite said with understanding, reading his thoughts as always. She patted his shoulder reassuringly. “It’s all right. They are used to mortal men and their stray thoughts.”

“But I’m not used to women being able to read mine,” Tiny said dryly as he set the blood he’d collected on the table inside the door. “Tell Leigh congratulations for me and tell the others they look lovely.”

“Very well,” Marguerite said solemnly, but when he turned to retreat from the room, she followed him out into the hall. Knowing she had something else to say, Tiny paused and glanced back in question. Marguerite hesitated, then murmured, “After the recent trouble, it is nice to have so much to celebrate.”

“Hmm.” Tiny waited, knowing she had more to say.

Finally, she breathed out a little sigh, and simply asked, “You will be careful on this assignment?”

“Geez, Marguerite,” he said with irritation. The woman was always treating him like a child who couldn’t take care of himself. It was sweet but—

“I know you can take care of yourself, Tiny,” she assured him quickly. “And if this were a normal assignment, I probably wouldn’t even worry… much,” she added wryly when his expression turned dubious. She then rushed on, “But this is no-fangers we are dealing with here and—”

“Hang on,” Tiny interrupted suddenly as realization struck. “How do you know about this assignment? Lucian said it was top secret. We—” He snapped his mouth shut and grimaced as he realized she’d probably plucked it out of his thoughts. Which was probably why Lucian hadn’t given him the full details of the assignment until just moments ago. The wedding was only moments away, and he was supposed to stay in the private rooms until it did, then slip to his seat. Lucian was hoping that would minimize the chance of the wrong person reading his thoughts.

“Actually, I didn’t read your mind,” Marguerite assured him quietly. “In fact, I’m the one who suggested you and Mirabeau when Lucian mentioned his plan to me.”

“You suggested Mirabeau and I be given the job,” he said slowly, a frisson of alarm sliding through him. Marguerite was well-known for her matchmaking, and the woman didn’t do anything without a purpose. He suddenly wasn’t feeling so good about this task he’d agreed to do for Lucian Argeneau.

Marguerite rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t look so alarmed.”

“Marguerite,” he said, the name rolling off his tongue in a low growl. “Everyone knows what happens when you put two people together.”

“They find their life mates,” she said with a satisfied smile, then rolled her eyes at his expression. “Please don’t try to claim you wouldn’t like to find a life mate.”

Tiny frowned. He was mortal. Human. Non-vampire. And mortals as a rule didn’t have life mates. At least he didn’t think they did. Certainly the divorce rate among his fellow mortals didn’t suggest such was the case. Only immortals had life mates, or what they called life mates. Perfect partners they couldn’t read or control so they could live out their long lives in peace and passion.

However, mortals could be life mates to immortals. As for whether he’d like to be one… Tiny found his gaze sliding back into the room and to the women clustered inside, still smiling and chattering excitedly over Leigh’s pregnancy. His gaze slid over all those beaming, very happy faces, then settled on Jackie, his boss and partner at the detective agency. She used to be mortal too, but she’d turned out to be Vincent Argeneau’s life mate. Tiny hadn’t seen much of the woman he considered one of his best friends since then. The two rarely came up for air, but he’d met them in Vegas and stood in for her deceased father to give her away at their Elvis-inspired wedding a month ago, and he knew she was deliriously happy. Both she and Vincent fairly glowed with their joy. Spending that time with them… It had been hard not to yearn for that kind of connection and happiness too. Spending time with any of the immortal couples would make it impossible for anyone not to yearn for that kind of connection. Still…

Tiny shifted his gaze back to Marguerite. “So you think this Mirabeau and I… ?”

“Mirabeau La Roche.” Marguerite nodded with a wide smile. “I think you shall suit each other perfectly.”

Tiny arched a doubtful eyebrow at the words as he asked, “Isn’t she the gal with the black-and-pink hair?”

“Normally yes.” Marguerite nodded. “But not today. I told her no one would think anything of her hair here in New York, but she wanted a more traditional hairdo for the wedding. Besides, she didn’t feel her hair went well with the peach gown she is to wear, so I took her to my hairdresser this morning to work her magic for the wedding.”

“Hmm,” Tiny murmured, his gaze sliding to the women in the room, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen a peach gown.

“She’s helping Elvi get dressed,” Marguerite explained, gesturing to a closed door at the opposite side of the room. “You’ll meet her soon enough, and when you do… ” Marguerite hesitated, then sighed, and said, “Our Mirabeau is prickly. She has a lot of defenses. She lost her entire family to the greed and betrayal of a favorite uncle back during the Massacres of St. Bartholomew and finds it hard to trust and love. She’s erected a lot of protective walls. You will need to be patient.”

Tiny stared at Marguerite blankly. She seriously believed he would be a life mate to this Mirabeau. The idea was both exciting and scary as hell. His life would change forever. God. A life mate. It would mean his days as a bachelor were over… and he’d probably have to turn, become an immortal like Jackie had. He’d have to drink blood and…

“Breathe,” Marguerite said softly, soothingly. “Do not panic. I may yet be wrong. Why do you not just wait and see? Meet Mirabeau, take care of the task Lucian has set the two of you, and allow nature to take its course.”

Tiny felt his body inhale deeply, then blow out the air taken in, seeming to breathe out the stress and worry suddenly plaguing him along with it. His eyes narrowed on Marguerite. “You’re controlling me,” he said, his voice an accusing rumble.

“Just enough to calm you down,” she said un-apologetically, then beamed at him. “I have great hopes for you and Mirabeau. And if all works out as I hope, I need never worry about losing you to age and time. You will be a member of my family forever.”

Tiny’s eyebrows rose slightly at the words, and he peered down at the top of her head, his hands automatically rising to pat her back as she suddenly hugged him. He said, “I take it Mirabeau is one of your strays then?”

“She has become like a member of our family over time,” Marguerite corrected solemnly as she stepped back. “Thanks to her uncle, she had none of her own.”

Tiny felt amused affection curve his lips. “So you adopted her into yours as you’re wont to do with strays… ” Marguerite grimaced at his use of the term strays, but before she could comment, he added solemnly, “But I’m not a stray, Marguerite. I have family… And I am very fond of them. I’m not sure I’d be willing to give them up.”

Worry flickered briefly over Marguerite’s face, but then she smiled. “All will work out. It always does.”

“Always?”

“When you live as long as we do, it usually does,” she assured him with a chuckle, and gave him a gentle push. “Go on. Check and see how the men are doing. The ceremony will be starting soon, and I’m sure Bastien is making himself and everyone else crazy trying to ride herd on all the details. He’s had to arrange, cancel, and rearrange this wedding so many times, I don’t think any of us thought it would ever happen.”

Tiny smiled faintly at the words but merely nodded and turned to head up the hall. His smile died, however, once he’d turned the corner and was out of Marguerite’s sight. His mind immediately played back their conversation as he tried to grasp the fact that she thought he would be a life mate to this Mirabeau gal he was supposed to be working with for the next couple of days. The idea both fascinated and scared the hell out of him. It also absorbed his complete attention so that he practically sleepwalked through the multiple wedding of various members of the Argeneau clan. It was almost a shock when Decker Argeneau Pimms suddenly tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Our turn to sign,” as he nodded toward the front of the church and the open door behind it, where Lucian Argeneau stood gesturing them forward.

The registry room behind the podium where they were to sign as witnesses to the unions was tiny, far too small for everyone to have fit in at once, so they’d decided to do the witnessing in shifts. Half the group went in to sign first, then they shuffled them out a side door while the other half entered from the podium door to do their own signing. It was how they were going to cover their disappearance from the celebrations that would follow. If Leonius Livius or any of his people were watching, they wouldn’t immediately realize that anyone was missing from the party, and—hopefully—once they did, it would be too late.

“Ready?” Decker asked as he, his mate Dani, and her sister Stephanie stood up beside him.

Tiny stood at once and ushered the trio ahead of him toward Lucian. It was time to concentrate on the task at hand. His assignment was about to begin, and the chances were about fifty-fifty of its being either a walk in the park, or a dangerous, tension-filled job that ended in a bloodbath. Tiny was hoping for the walk in the park. He had no illusions about his chances against a no-fanger… and he was too young to die.

Chapter Two

“This is just wrong on so many levels,” Mirabeau muttered to herself, instinctively raising the long skirt of her bridesmaid’s gown a little higher in an effort to keep it from trailing in the sludge surrounding her. Only Lucian Argeneau would even consider sending a woman into the sewers as an escape route and not warn her ahead of time so she could arrange for a suitable change of clothes.

A skittering sound alerted her to the fact that she wasn’t alone. Knowing it was probably rats, Mirabeau instinctively jerked her skirts higher to prevent one of the little buggers from climbing the delicate cloth, but then just as quickly started to lower it as she realized the action left her stockinged legs bare for them to try to climb if they were brave enough. She caught herself before the gown dropped into the inch-deep sewage she stood in and stomped her feet instead to warn off her companions in the dark tunnel. There was no sudden skittering sound of the creatures fleeing up the tunnel; instead, the small sounds stopped altogether, and she knew the rats had frozen and were now no doubt staring at her, their beady little eyes wary or curious. This suggested they were used to and unafraid of humans down here.

“Great,” Mirabeau muttered to herself, then stiffened and glanced upward as she heard sounds from the metal trapdoor she’d descended through from the church basement. She listened to the thump of someone dropping onto the cover above, and to the shuffling sound that followed before there was a second thump that was heavy enough to suggest twice or even three times the weight behind it. Mirabeau was frowning over that when a low grinding followed—the sound that of the trapdoor being unlocked.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes as a flashlight beam suddenly shot directly down into her face.

“Sorry.” The word was a deep rumble as the flashlight beam was moved away from her.

Mirabeau was just fretting over the fact that she didn’t recognize the speaker’s voice when it sounded again, this time a quiet murmur that resembled distant thunder. She caught the soft words, “You go first. I’ll pull the door closed and lock it behind us.”

Those words obviously weren’t directed at her and Mirabeau shifted her hand to see who was descending into the sewer to join her. She had only expected one person, her backup for this assignment, who was supposed to be bringing the package they were to deliver. She’d assumed her backup would be a male. There were few female enforcers in the northern states and Canada, and her usual partner, Eshe, wasn’t available, so the fact that it was a female presently climbing carefully down the slick metal ladder to join her was definitely a surprise. Mirabeau watched the slim figure in a knee-length dress step off the ladder onto the concrete beside her, then glanced to the second person as he started down the ladder as well. Mirabeau had assumed the third person was merely there to close and lock the trapdoor behind them, but while the man pulled the door closed behind him, he too quickly scrambled down the ladder to join her.

Mirabeau automatically moved back to make more room for the large man. When he stepped onto the concrete and turned to face her, she found herself examining the two newcomers in the light thrown by the flashlight the man carried. He held it pointed down at the ground to prevent blinding her again, which she appreciated, but between her night vision and the flashlight, she could see them both as well as if they were out in sunlight.

The female definitely wasn’t her backup, Mirabeau decided. She was little more than a girl and couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen—a child to most people but a baby to someone who had passed more than four hundred and fifty years herself. The child was slender and flat-chested, with long blond hair pulled up on top of her head. The look merely emphasized the youthfulness of her features and her slender neck.

Mirabeau wondered briefly who she was and why she was there. She looked familiar, but Mirabeau couldn’t place where she knew her from. She finally turned her attention to the man. The girl was immediately forgotten. Mirabeau had met a lot of men, both mortal and immortal in her life, but she had met very few who could measure up to this one. He was a good head taller than her own five-foot-ten-inch height. He was also handsome, with dark hair and the sort of rugged features she enjoyed. To add to that, the man was extremely wide, with shoulders a linebacker would envy. That wide chest tapered down to a narrower waist and—from the glimpse she’d gotten as he’d descended the ladder in his dress suit—quite the finest behind she’d seen on a man in a long time. The kind a gal could grasp and dig her nails into to urge him on as he—

“Oh, brother. Not you too.”

Mirabeau blinked at the exasperated words from the teenager and turned to peer at her blankly. Not her too what?

“Not you,” the girl said to her on a sigh, then encompassed both her and the male with a gesture. “ Both of you. You’re both standing there thinking about what it would be like to have sex with each other. You’re as bad as my sister and Decker. They’re always lusting after each other… or doing it.” She sighed unhappily, then added, “It’s pathetic… I swear I’m never having sex or finding a life mate if it’s going to turn me into a slavering idiot like the rest of you.”

Mirabeau simply stared at the girl, several thoughts striking her one after the other. First, she now knew who the girl was. The reference to a sister and Decker meant this was Stephanie McGill whose sister was Dani McGill, Decker Argeneau Pimms’s life mate. The girl was a new turn, having been mortal until this last summer, when she’d been kidnapped by a rogue vampire. Every rogue hunter close enough to be of help had been called in to search for the girl, including Mirabeau and her partner Eshe. The kid had been found eventually, but not before the rogue, a no-fanger, had turned her. Fortunately, Stephanie had turned out Edentate rather than a no-fanger. While Edentates had the slight impediment of being unable to grow the fangs most immortals enjoyed, it wasn’t a serious problem now that blood came bagged. No-fangers, however, had that impediment plus a distressing insanity that led them to perform horrible atrocities on the mortals they all depended on to survive. It was for that reason that no-fangers were always hunted down and killed.

Her second thought was that the kid had managed to read their thoughts. It wasn’t surprising to her that Stephanie had read the man’s thoughts since Mirabeau had already picked up on the fact that he was mortal. She couldn’t have explained how. She’d simply sensed it. But it was rather startling that she’d been able to read Mirabeau, herself. She was the girl’s elder by more than four centuries. Stephanie shouldn’t have been able to read her thoughts, at least not if she’d been guarding them which, Mirabeau acknowledged, she might not have been doing. She would have to take care to do so, Mirabeau decided, her mind already moving on to the third thought.

While she’d stood pondering the mortal and noting his physical attributes, she’d been vaguely aware that he was doing the same in return. However, from what Stephanie had said, he had been standing there contemplating having sex with her, or lusting after her as the teenager had so charmingly put it. The thought made Mirabeau smile as she peered back at the man again.

After four and a half centuries, she’d been sexually active for a long time, but she’d found the urge to communicate on such a base level waning this last century. It was good to know she could still lust after a man, and it was always nice to know he lusted back. Perhaps after this assignment she could convince him to—

“Tiny McGraw.”

Mirabeau’s eyebrows rose at the name. It was one she’d heard a lot from Marguerite Argeneau. The woman had mentioned Tiny at least once every time Mirabeau had visited with her since the woman’s return from California, where she’d first met the private detective. Frankly, Mirabeau had grown tired of hearing the name. That thought slid away as a hand suddenly appeared before her at waist level. She automatically placed her own in it, but her eyes widened when her much smaller hand disappeared inside the catcher’s mitt-sized hand that closed warm and strong over her fingers. The man had huge hands, she noted silently, and instinctively glanced down to his feet to note that they too were extremely large.

Jesus, she thought faintly, the man must have a mammoth—

“Oh God! Stop before you make me puke,” Stephanie gasped, then started making gagging sounds to the left of them.

Mirabeau closed her eyes, embarrassment briefly struggling with anger. Anger won out, and she snapped, “Then stay the hell out of my head.”

“I’m not in your head. You’re practically shrieking your thoughts at me,” the girl shot back.

“Er… I’m guessing you’re Mirabeau La Roche, and you two know each other. Or should I make introductions?” Tiny asked uncertainly.

Mirabeau sighed with disappointment at the sense of loss when he released her hand, but then forced herself to straighten and act like the enforcer she was. “Yes, I’m Mirabeau. But no, Stephanie and I have never met. I do know who she is, though. I’ve seen her around the enforcer house,” Mirabeau explained. She then raised her eyebrows. “I gather you’re my backup to deliver the package?”

“Yes, yes, he’s your backup,” Stephanie interrupted impatiently, then added, “And I’m the package. So can we get moving now? It really stinks down here.”

Mirabeau turned narrowed eyes on the girl. She supposed she should have realized what the assignment was the moment she’d recognized the girl. However, she hadn’t. Now she stared at her as the true horror of this situation sank in. She was to deliver Stephanie to Port Henry, which meant at least ten hours trapped in a vehicle with this rude, mouthy teenybopper. She should have cottoned onto that sooner. She’d overheard Lucian, Dani, and Decker talking about the girl’s future at the enforcer house a couple of times. Lucian had insisted that the girl wouldn’t be safe anywhere but at the house with the enforcers around to watch out for her. Dani had insisted that Stephanie be moved, that the girl was miserable there with nothing to do but think of all she’d lost. She needed to have friends, finish high school, and have as normal a life as possible.

Port Henry was obviously the solution they’d come up with. A small town in southern Ontario, it was relatively vampire friendly, with some of the townfolk knowing of their existence and a small group of immortals living there who could help look out for Stephanie. Mirabeau supposed it was the kid’s best chance of a normal life. She just didn’t understand why she and Tiny had been chosen to deliver her. Where were Decker and Dani? Were they not going to live there with her as well?

“Dani and Decker are going on a honeymoon,” Stephanie informed her with a sigh, obviously still reading her thoughts.

“When did they get married?” Mirabeau asked with surprise. Decker was an enforcer, and—having to depend on each other for survival as they did—all the enforcers were a pretty tight group. If Decker had gotten married, she not only should have known about it, but she definitely should have been invited to the wedding and was insulted at the possibility that she hadn’t been.

“No, they aren’t married. This is a prewedding honeymoon. Once they get the worst of the ‘new-mate hormones’—as Dani calls them—out of their systems, they’ll plan the wedding and join me in Port Henry. Until then, that Elvi woman and Lucian’s brother, Victor, are going to put me up and keep me safe.”

Mirabeau peered at the girl, judging her expression. She didn’t seem upset by this turn of events. Rather, there was an almost excited gleam in her eyes, and Mirabeau dipped briefly into the girl’s mind to see that, to her way of thinking, she would be like a border in Elvi’s bed-and-breakfast, and for all intents and purposes she would be free to do as she wished. The thought was heady stuff for a teenager, her first taste of freedom. Mirabeau decided it wasn’t her place to disabuse the kid. She knew Elvi Black, now Argeneau, had lost a daughter of her own sometime ago and suspected the woman would mother the girl and get all in her business. She also knew without a doubt that Victor Argeneau was not going to leave the kid unsupervised. However, she didn’t want a sulky Stephanie for the rest of this assignment so kept her mouth shut.

She also didn’t believe for a moment that Dani McGill had abandoned her sister to travel around working off “new-mate hormones” with Decker. Mirabeau knew that Leonius Livius, the rogue no-fanger who had turned them, was interested in recapturing both sisters. That being the case, she suspected the “new-mate hormones” story had just been a cover to keep Stephanie from worrying about her sister. Mirabeau suspected Lucian had convinced Dani to be bait in a trap to try to catch the no-fanger, and Dani, desperate to see her sister safe, had agreed so long as the girl was somewhere safe and out of the way.

Recalling that Stephanie could read her mind, Mirabeau killed that thought as soon as it occurred, just as she had the thought that Elvi would be more a guardian than a landlady in Port Henry. While she pushed both thoughts aside quickly, Mirabeau did decide she would have to check into the possibility of a trap once this assignment was done and see if they needed help with it. Leo was a tricky bastard who had gotten away from them twice already. If she could help keep it from being three times, she was in.

The rustle of paper drew her attention to Tiny, to see he had pulled a notepad from his pocket and was now leafing through the pages. When he paused with a satisfied murmur, she moved closer and peered at the page he was shining the flashlight beam on. It was a hand-drawn map of the sewers, she saw, noting the church marked clearly on the page as the starting point and the veinlike blue lines running away from it. A path had been marked in red, and it looked pretty convoluted. It seemed Lucian was determined to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to follow them without being noticed. Some of the turns appeared to be close together, and others seemed to bend back the way they’d come. Anyone attempting to follow them would have to stick pretty close to keep from losing them.

She didn’t know why Lucian had gone to all that trouble when he and the others were in the church registry office, where the secret passage leading to the basement and the entrance to the sewers was. But then it occurred to her that the wedding party couldn’t linger in the registry office too long without drawing attention. If Leonius or one of his people had dared to sneak into the church for the ceremony, they might become suspicious at the long delay. They might start reading minds, or notice that Stephanie hadn’t come out of the registry room.

While Lucian was unreadable to most, the entire wedding party had been in the room when Mirabeau entered to sign as a witness to the ceremony for Marguerite and Julius. The others had watched silently as Lucian had taken her arm once she’d finished signing and ushered her to the secret panel, explaining that her partner was in the second group of witnesses and would soon join her with the package. While some of the others in the wedding party were older and harder to read, an equal number were new turns, easily read whether they wished it or not. It wouldn’t take long for someone to figure out where Stephanie McGill had disappeared to, she realized, and decided they had wasted enough time. They needed to get moving.

Tiny appeared to be thinking along the same lines, for he was already closing the notepad and slipping it back into his pocket. He shined his flashlight up the tunnel, saying, “We’d better get moving. We go this way past three offshoots and turn right at the fourth.”

Mirabeau lifted her skirts a bit and nodded as she turned in the direction they were to head. “I’ll lead. Stephanie, you’re in the middle. Tiny will bring up the rear.”

“Do you need the flashlight?” Tiny asked, then smiled wryly when she turned back to him. She guessed her eyes were glowing bronze in the darkness as they caught and reflected what light there was down there because he muttered, “Right. Of course not. Lead the way.”

Deciding he was smart for a mortal, Mirabeau turned away and started up the tunnel, careful to keep her skirts out of the sewage surrounding them.

They walked in silence, Mirabeau leading them through two of the turns into offshoot tunnels before it occurred to her that if there was trouble, it was likely to come from behind and that perhaps leaving Tiny, who was mortal, to guard their back wasn’t the smartest move. Aside from the fact that she thought it would be a shame for such a fine-looking mortal male to die, she figured Marguerite would be upset if she let it happen. Unfortunately, Mirabeau suspected Marguerite would be upset if she insulted the guy too. The woman was pretty fond of him. The problem was that mortal males could be so touchy about their manhood and appearing strong and capable. She was going to have to come up with a lie to get him to trade places with her.

When they had reached the third offshoot, Mirabeau paused and turned back.

Chapter Three

Tiny was considering Marguerite’s suggestion that he might be a life mate to Mirabeau. Now that he’d met the woman in question, he found the possibility a fascinating one. He was trying to recall all the reasons he shouldn’t feel that way when Stephanie suddenly stopped in front of him. His nerves immediately on the alert for a possible threat, he glanced to Mirabeau to find she’d stopped and was walking back toward him. Tiny relaxed when he saw her expression. She looked neither grim nor urgent with warning. In fact, Mirabeau’s expression was almost pained, and her words stilted as she said, “I was thinking… perhaps it would be better if you lead the way after all. It is very dark in here, and you have the flashlight.”

Tiny glanced down at the flashlight in his hand, then back to Mirabeau. He had no doubt she was lying about the reason for wanting him in the front. He had spent enough time around immortals to know his weak little beam wasn’t needed by them to see. Hell, he thought, it was probably as bright as daylight in there to the two females. He just didn’t understand why she suddenly wanted him in the lead.

“She’s worried you’ll get yourself killed at the back of the pack, and Marguerite would never forgive her. She’s spooked herself with visions of you being attacked from behind and beheaded or something,” Stephanie said with a teenager’s amusement, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “She’s just crap at coming up with a lie to get you at the front of the group.”

Mirabeau scowled at the girl, then glanced to Tiny. “It did occur to me that I would have a better chance of hearing if we were approached from behind, and since that’s where the trouble is most likely to come from—”

“Enough said,” Tiny interrupted, managing not to visibly wince at the reality behind her words. Despite her efforts to ease the blow, his ego had taken a hit. At six-seven and two hundred eighty pounds of pure muscle, he wasn’t used to being considered the weak member of the herd. In fact, it was only recently that he’d been forced to face the fact that he was… at least among immortals. For ten years, Tiny’s partner had been a female who was mortal like him. Jackie had been a tiny little thing, and while he’d always known and respected that she could handle herself, he’d still been the brawn in the partnership. But when Jackie had met Vincent and gone off to be his life mate, Tiny had found himself partnered with Marguerite Argeneau for a European case, and his vision of himself had been altered with a vengeance. That little lady, nearly a foot shorter and less than half his weight was beautiful, sweet, and could tuck him under her arm and run down the road as if he weighed no more than a child. And Tiny didn’t doubt for a minute that either of the two delicate flowers of womanhood before him could do the same thing.

He was still big and brawny, but Tiny was the fragile one who needed looking after. How depressing was that? Tiny pondered the question as he started to ease around Stephanie to get to Mirabeau’s side, but quickly forgot it when Mirabeau suddenly gave a choked cry of surprise.

He instinctively jerked his flashlight upward at the sound, flashing the beam in her face and blinding her briefly. Tiny saw her eyes squeeze shut against the light and instinctively started to lower the beam but paused as he glimpsed the figure behind her. It was a man, shorter than Mirabeau, just the top of his head and squinting eyes showing over her shoulder. They were not an immortal’s eyes. The man was a mortal like Tiny, but much dirtier, he noted, taking in the scruffy, unwashed hair and dirt smudged across the man’s forehead. A homeless guy, then, he deduced, probably someone who lived in and wandered the sewers, not much of a threat to Mirabeau. Or at least, he shouldn’t have been, but the guy was presently holding Mirabeau by the hair that had been swept up on the back of her head in a bun and tugging her head back at what looked to be an uncomfortable angle.

Tiny hesitated, expecting Mirabeau simply to take control of the man’s mind and make him release her, but instead, she reacted in what he suspected was a purely instinctive move and raised her knee to shoot her foot back at the man in a blow that probably would have taken out his kneecap if she’d finished it. Unfortunately, Mirabeau’s long gown got in the way, caught her up, and made her lose her balance and her footing. Her eyes and mouth shot open with surprise as she began to fall. Tiny tried to get around Stephanie to save her, but arrived just in time almost to be knocked to the ground by her flailing legs as she crashed to her bottom in the tunnel.

Tiny managed to save himself by grabbing at the wall beside him. Then he started to reach for Mirabeau, but paused and raised the flashlight beam at a groan from the mouth of the tunnel. The circle of light lit up the man, revealing his dirty clothes and matted hair, as well as the fact that he now held what appeared to be half of Mirabeau’s hair in his hand. For one moment, Tiny thought the fellow had scalped her, but then recalled Marguerite saying they had done something to cover the fuchsia tints in Mirabeau’s hair and realized this was what it had been. They must have put extensions or something on, he thought, as he quickly flashed the beam toward Mirabeau to see that while the sides, freed from the bun, now hung down over her shoulders in a pure, dark color, there were pink tips sticking out in every direction on the back of her head.

Her attacker didn’t seem to realize he’d merely removed some of her extensions. The man was gaping at the clump of hair he held with horror, but the moment the flashlight beam hit him, the fellow squinted and turned his attention from the hair he held to the source of the beam. When he did, Tiny shifted the flashlight so that the circle of light included his large frame and simply murmured, “Boo.”

That was all it took. As usual—at least among mortals—his size alone made an impact and persuaded the man that he didn’t want to mess with him after all. Releasing a startled squeak of alarm, the fellow dropped the hair, quickly shuffled backward, and turned to hurry away, almost immediately disappearing into the darkness.

Tiny waited until the sounds of the man’s departure grew faint, then moved to help Mirabeau. She was floundering around in the water, trying to regain her feet, but was hampered by her gown, which was thoroughly soaked. It kept tripping her up and unceremoniously sending her back to sit in the sludge. Stephanie, he noted, was simply watching it all, her mouth agape and eyes full of horror. He supposed it was what Mirabeau was floundering around in that had caused the reaction. He tried hard not to think of that himself as he murmured, “Here,” and handed Stephanie the flashlight.

The girl managed to gather herself enough to take it from him, and the moment she had, he shifted carefully around Mirabeau, managing to avoid her flailing legs, and get behind her. Tiny then simply hooked his hands under her arms and hefted her quickly to her feet.

“Thank you,” Mirabeau muttered, the sound a sort of breathless growl as she got her feet under her. Tiny waited to be sure she had her footing, but then let his hands drop and took a quick step away from her. He didn’t mean to offend, but couldn’t help himself. The smell down here was bad enough when just walking through it, but Mirabeau had stirred it up with her struggle, and the odor seemed to have intensified and attached itself to her at a concentrated level. The woman he had spent a good portion of the walk lusting after smelled like a backed-up toilet. It tended to dampen his ardor a bit. Probably a good thing, he decided. After all, they had a job to do.

Retrieving the flashlight from Stephanie, Tiny flashed it over Mirabeau and winced at the state of her dress. If he hadn’t seen her in the wedding party back at the church, he would have thought it was a peach top paired with a long brownish black skirt rather than a peach dress. The gown was definitely ruined. He wasn’t the only one to notice. Mirabeau was gaping down at herself with a horror that surpassed Stephanie’s. She glanced around furiously, and growled, “Where is he?”

“He’s gone,” Tiny said, thinking it was probably lucky for the guy that he was. “It was just some homeless guy. He took off when he got a look at me.”

He wasn’t surprised when, rather than look relieved, Mirabeau appeared disappointed by this news. He suspected she’d wanted to throttle the man for grabbing her and causing the state she now found herself in. He simply waited patiently as she stared at him with impotent fury, wondering if she would take out her rage and frustration on him… and if he would let her. In the end, she merely cursed and looked at her mud-covered hands with disgust. Tiny was about to offer to sacrifice his suit jacket for her to wipe her hands on when she managed to find a small patch on the front of her skirt that had escaped the soaking. He watched in silence as she wiped her hands on it, then forced an encouraging smile when she again glanced his way.

The sight of it made her sigh, and say, “I guess we should get moving.”

“Yes, I guess,” he agreed quietly.

Mirabeau nodded, then moved toward the tunnel entrance on his left, only to pause as the skirt of the gown wrapped itself around her legs. She nearly lost her balance again, and Tiny immediately reached to steady her, but she waved him off and managed to keep her balance on her own. She then glanced down at the gown with distaste.

“You might as well,” Stephanie said quietly. “It’s ruined anyway.”

Tiny knew the kid was reading Mirabeau’s mind again, but wasn’t sure what she was suggesting until Mirabeau suddenly bent, grabbed up the hem of her dress, found one side seam and began to rip it apart. She split it all the way up, well past her knees, then quickly tore sideways, ripping away the bottom three-quarters of the skirt all the way around. Once finished, Mirabeau was wearing a dress that only covered her to midthigh.

“It’s a little short,” she judged as she straightened and tossed the detached material aside. She then added wryly, “But I can move more easily, and I won’t be restricted if I need to fight.”

“Yes,” Tiny agreed absently, barely aware of growling the word as he took in her stockinged legs. The skirt now started where the tops of her stocking seams ended. Every time she shifted, it flashed a tantalizing hint of flesh. The stockings themselves were black net and covered what appeared to him at that moment to be nearly a mile of leg.

Jesus, the woman is all leg, he thought. And fine legs they were too, muscular, but still slender and feminine, tapering down to tiny little ankles.

“It’s my own fault,” Mirabeau commented with self-disgust as she peered down at herself. “I should have checked that the offshoot was empty before turning my back to it.”

“Didn’t you hear him approach?”

Stephanie asked the question in an innocent voice, but Tiny suspected she was taunting Mirabeau. It made him frown at the teenager. The girl obviously had a chip on her shoulder, but then he supposed she had earned it. She’d been through a great deal this last year. Fortunately, Mirabeau didn’t seem to suspect the question was a jab at her. She merely frowned toward the offshoot and shook her head.

“Come to think of it, no I didn’t.” She moved to the mouth of the tunnel on his right and peered into the darkness. “He must have already been standing here just inside the entrance to the tunnel and simply waited when he saw us approaching. He would have seen the flashlight from a good distance.”

“Waited for what purpose?” Stephanie asked curiously. “What did he want? Besides your hair?”

The last was added on a burble of amusement, but Mirabeau just shrugged and swung back toward them. “Who knows? He wasn’t right in the head… which is why I couldn’t control him when he grabbed me, but I caught enough of his chaotic thoughts to know that he thought we were rats.”

“Rats?” Tiny asked with amazement, finally managing to tear his eyes from her legs.

Mirabeau nodded silently in the beam of light he lifted to her face.

“Talking, human-sized rats?” Stephanie asked doubtfully.

“He couldn’t see us in the dark, just the flashlight beam,” Mirabeau pointed out, then added, “And from what I got from his thoughts, he’s always suspected there were mutant human-sized rats down here. In his mind even the little rats talk to him.”

“Oh,” Stephanie murmured, and Tiny echoed her comment in his head, as his gaze shifted past Mirabeau to the tunnel the little madman had disappeared down. He kind of felt bad now for scaring the poor bastard. The guy needed help.

“Well… I guess we should keep going,” Mirabeau murmured suddenly, but she didn’t move except to glance the way they’d come, then back down the tunnel she stood in front of. Knowing she was no longer sure where he would be safest, at the front of the party or the back, Tiny made up her mind for her and slid past her. He shined the flashlight down the tunnel and followed the beam, moving slowly at first until he was sure Stephanie and Mirabeau were following him.

Mirabeau might be concerned about someone’s following them, but so far there had been no sign of that. He was more concerned about running into more underground crazies wandering the sewers. While Tiny felt bad for them, he didn’t feel so bad that he was willing to risk one of the girls getting hurt.

Chapter Four

Mirabeau paused when Stephanie did and glanced expectantly toward Tiny. He had the map out again and was peering at it, running his flashlight around the area, then peering at the map again, his eyebrows drawing together in a way that made her uneasy. Eager to keep moving and get the hell out of the endless tunnels, she shifted impatiently, then grimaced as her skirt shifted with her. The damned thing was drying and attaching itself to her as it did. So were her panties… and it was damned uncomfortable.

“What is it?” she asked finally, as Tiny repeated the map-checking and area-scanning deal again. She moved around Stephanie to his side to peer at the map.

“I think we took a wrong turn.”

“What?” she gasped with disbelief, her eyes scanning the map. Much to her relief there was a tunnel offshoot on the map just as there was here in the tunnel. Relieved, she said, “No. It was two offshoots after the last turn, then this one we take. We passed two offshoots since the last turn, so we take this one.”

“Yes,” Tiny agreed patiently, then pointed out, “But according to the map there should be another offshoot across from this one and—” He raised the flashlight to shine it over the wall opposite. “No offshoot.”

Mirabeau stared blankly at the solid wall, then at the map, but it didn’t suddenly change. Cursing, she took the map from him and, using her finger, silently backtracked on it, counting off the offshoots they’d passed between each one they’d taken, trying to see where they had made a wrong turn. She retraced their steps all the way back to where she’d been grabbed and fallen.

“Crap,” she breathed unhappily as she stared at the map.

“What?” Tiny asked, leaning close to peer at the map as well.

“Everything seems fine,” she said quietly. “From what I can tell, we took the right turns according to the map. The only thing I can think is… ” Mirabeau fell silent and simply pointed to the two tunnels side by side.

“That was back near the beginning, the third turn,” Tiny murmured thoughtfully, looking at where she pointed, then he straightened slightly. “That’s where that guy—”

“Yes,” Mirabeau interrupted on a sigh. “I’m thinking we may have taken the wrong tunnel. If they’re right next to each other, we might have gotten a bit turned around after the attack.”

Tiny cursed and glanced back the way they’d come. Then he sighed, and said, “We’ll have to backtrack. See if that’s where we—”

“But that was hours ago,” Stephanie protested, moving up beside them to peer at the map as well. “Look, it’s practically all the way back at the beginning. I am not slogging back through these tunnels just to start over again. Besides, what if you’re wrong, and we just counted off wrong at one of the other turns?”

“We didn’t count off wrong,” Mirabeau said quietly. “We’ve both been counting. It has to be that we took the wrong tunnel at that stop.”

“Well, then, maybe the map is wrong,” Stephanie argued desperately. “People make mistakes, even Lucian must make mistakes once in a while.” Her desperation turning to rebellion, she crossed her arms, and snapped, “I am so not backtracking. You’ll have to knock me out and carry me because I am not walking back all that way only to start again. I’m tired and hungry and sick to death of this stink. I want a shower and a bed and blood. I just want out of here,” she ended with frustration.

Silence filled the tunnel as Stephanie snapped her mouth closed. She was sulking. Mirabeau didn’t much care so long as she did it silently. Her mind was taken up with the words “shower and a bed and blood” all of which she rather wanted herself. They hadn’t been in the tunnels for hours, maybe an hour and a half, and she suspected that had they taken the right tunnel, they would have been out of the sewers long ago.

“A bed?” Tiny asked quietly. “It’s only a little after midnight, Stephanie. That’s the middle of the day for you now, isn’t it?”

The teenager clucked with disgust. “We aren’t vampires, Tiny. Heck, I don’t even have fangs, and I don’t stay up all night and sleep all day. As long as I avoid the sun, I can stay up during the day. Besides, there’s nothing on television at night, just old movies and crappy shows selling crappy gizmos.” She sighed. “I usually go to bed by midnight or so.”

When Tiny glanced her way and raised an eyebrow, Mirabeau merely shrugged. She herself usually stayed up nights and slept days. However, she hadn’t had much sleep today. There had been too much to do to get ready for the wedding. She wouldn’t mind a nap herself. Blood sounded pretty good too. As for a shower, Mirabeau thought she’d kill for one just then… and a change of clothes. Dear God, she wanted out of those sewers as well, and she was not riding ten hours in an SUV in sewage-soaked clothes.

That thought at the forefront of her mind, Mirabeau handed the map to Tiny and turned back the way they’d come.

“Where are you going?” Stephanie snapped with dismay, hurrying after her. “I told you, I’m not walking back through the tunnels.”

“And yet you’re following me,” she pointed out dryly and wasn’t surprised when the teenager stopped abruptly.

“Only to tell you I’m not going,” she said shrilly, as Mirabeau continued up the dark tunnel.

“Fine. You stay here and sulk. But we passed a manhole to the surface a few minutes back, and I’m using it to get the hell out of the sewers,” Mirabeau said calmly.

“Really?” The excited and surprised squeal was followed by the tapping of the girl’s shoes on the concrete as she hurried to catch up to her. Mirabeau had expected as much.

Tiny followed more quietly so that she nearly missed the sounds of his approach before she heard him murmur, “What’s the plan here?”

Mirabeau sighed to herself and paused. They were supposed to be partners, but she wasn’t used to having mortal partners, or even male ones for that matter. Eshe usually thought pretty much along the same lines as she did, so that they rarely disagreed or even needed to discuss matters. The other woman would have been leading the way to get out of the sewers, but she suspected Tiny was going to have a problem with it. He was probably one of those by-the-book guys.

“The plan,” she said quietly, “is to get out of here, check into a hotel, shower this crap off, get us all a change of clothes and food, catch a nap, then find the SUV before dawn to head out of the city.”

“Yay!” Stephanie squealed happily and did a little dance on the concrete.

Mirabeau felt her mouth twitch but managed to keep from smiling, and said solemnly to Tiny, “Lucian provided the name of the parking garage on the map. It should be easy to find topside. If it’s as far away as I suspect it is, we can take a taxi and wipe the driver’s mind when he drops us off.”

Tiny stared at her silently through the gloom for so long, she was positive that he was going to balk and insist they stick to the plan Lucian had given them; but, much to her surprise, he nodded, and simply said, “There doesn’t appear to be anyone following us, and it beats driving ten hours in these clothes.”

Mirabeau relaxed and allowed a smile to curve her lips, until he added, “Now we just have to worry about there being a hotel within walking distance.”

She frowned over the words briefly, then shook her head. “You can’t walk a block without tripping over a hotel in this town. There has to be one close by.”

Despite the brave words, Mirabeau was worried that the offshoot they’d wrongly taken had led them to a part of New York City that didn’t have any hotels. With that worry on her mind, she led the way back to the ladder to the surface that they’d passed sometime ago. Tiny offered to go up first and see if he could open the manhole at the top, but Mirabeau merely shook her head and began to climb. She suspected they had special locks or something on manhole covers to prevent people from messing with them and a little muscle might be needed to get it open. Tiny had a lot of muscle… for a mortal, but she had more.

“Can you tell where we are?” Tiny asked, as she got the cover open and eased it upward to look out.

Mirabeau took a moment to peer around as much as she could. They were near a corner, but a parked van blocked the street signs from her view.

“Where are we?” Stephanie said impatiently.

“I’m not sure, but there’s a hotel across the street,” Mirabeau answered. She noted that the driver of the van was off-loading trays of what appeared to be food and fresh vegetables. She supposed it was easier to make deliveries at night when the streets weren’t so congested. Turning, she peered at the duo at the foot of the ladder. “Come on. We’ll check into the hotel, then sort out where we are.”

Stephanie was halfway up the ladder behind her before the last word had left Mirabeau’s mouth. Smiling wryly, Mirabeau shifted the manhole out of the way and quickly climbed out to crouch on the street before Stephanie trampled over her to get out. Tiny was right behind the girl and helped Mirabeau shift the manhole back into place before they straightened and moved to the side of the road. Traffic was slower at night in New York, but it wasn’t nonexistent, and they had been fortunate to climb out when they had. They’d no sooner stepped up onto the curb than a taxi came flying past.

“Maybe you girls should wait here and let me go in and rent the room,” Tiny said quietly, ushering them away from the curb.

Mirabeau shook her head at once. “I’ll get the rooms. If anyone has realized that you’re missing too, they might figure out that you’re with Stephanie and try to track your credit cards.”

“The same is true of you,” Tiny argued with a frown.

“Yes, but I don’t need to use a credit card,” Mirabeau pointed out dryly, and started up the sidewalk toward the front of the hotel.

“Just a minute,” Tiny said, catching her arm. “Maybe this is a bad idea after all. You two are pretty memorable in the state you’re in. If anyone comes around asking questions—”

“They won’t find any trace of us in the memories of the people we encounter,” she finished quietly.

Tiny met her gaze briefly, then nodded. Mirabeau actually felt the relieved breath Stephanie exhaled. The girl needn’t have worried. Though they were out of the sewers, their stink was still all Mirabeau could smell. They’d brought the stench with them, and she was determined to get rid of the stink if it was the last thing she did. She wasn’t going to change her mind about a stop at the hotel.

Turning, she led the way to the hotel entrance, slipping quickly into the doorman’s mind as he approached—no doubt to stop them entering. She watched his face go blank and his eyes shift away as they passed, then turned her attention to the people in the lobby. Much to her relief, it was late enough that there were few people around. A gentleman sat reading a newspaper on one of the sofas. He started to raise his head to glance their way but simply lowered it again once she touched on his thoughts. He would not look up again until they had left the lobby. A young, overly made-up blond clerk stood at the desk. Her eyes went from sleepy to horrified and back to sleepy as Mirabeau approached and slipped into her thoughts. Then the woman began to tap on her keyboard, took two keycards out of a drawer full of them, ran them through a machine, tucked them in a small cardboard holder, and scribbled a room number on it before handing it to Mirabeau, all without lifting her eyes from the keyboard.

Mirabeau took the packet and turned to lead the way to the elevators, her eyes sweeping the lobby one more time to be sure she hadn’t missed anyone. That was when she spotted the small store in one corner of the lobby.

“What is it?” Tiny asked, when she paused.

Mirabeau hesitated, her eyes slipping to the girl at the counter once more. A quick read of the clerk’s mind made her frown and sigh. Continuing forward, she murmured, “Nothing. Let’s go.”

The elevator doors opened the moment Mirabeau pushed the button. She stepped on board and hit the button for their floor, then glanced to Tiny as he followed Stephanie on board. She noted the way he glanced worriedly back at the lobby as if suspecting she had sensed trouble. Not wanting him to worry about nothing, she admitted, “I just noticed the little store in the lobby. It had clothes and other things in there, and I thought maybe I could get a change of clothes for all of us, but the girl at reception didn’t have a key. Only the hotel manager and the store owner do, and neither of them is around the hotel at this hour.”

“Oh.” Tiny relaxed. He then cleared his throat, and asked carefully, “So, we aren’t paying for the hotel room?”

Mirabeau’s eyebrows rose at the question. His careful tone suggested he wasn’t too comfortable with the idea, and she frowned over the matter, then shrugged and said, “When we get to Port Henry, I’ll call Bastien, and he can send someone to take care of it.”

Tiny nodded, his shoulders easing even farther in his suit jacket, and Mirabeau found herself staring at him curiously. Most people wouldn’t have troubled themselves about borrowing a hotel room for a couple hours without paying for it, but she already knew from the countless tales Marguerite Argeneau had told her about this man that he had a thread of honor as strong as steel running through him. She found it somewhat refreshing.

“More like stupid,” Stephanie muttered. “It’s not like they’d notice. Obviously, no one’s using the room she gave us.”

“Rooms. I got us a suite,” Mirabeau murmured, scowling at the girl. It was bad enough she kept reading her thoughts, but insulting Tiny just wasn’t on in her books. The mortal was putting his life at risk to see the girl safely to Port Henry. A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.

“Whatever,” Stephanie mumbled, obviously still caught up in her own thoughts, but she also looked a bit chagrined, so she obviously got the silent reprimand in Mirabeau’s thoughts.

“Am I missing something?” Tiny asked quietly, drawing her gaze again.

“Nothing important,” Mirabeau assured him, as the elevator doors opened.

Chapter Five

The suite was two normal hotel rooms connected by a living/dining area, with a dining table and chairs at one end and a couch, chair, and television at the other. It wasn’t very grand, but then the hotel wasn’t exactly one of the grand ones either.

It would do for their needs, Mirabeau decided as she glanced over their accommodations.

“I get this room,” Stephanie announced peering into the bedroom on the right. She then turned and arched an eyebrow as she asked, “Which one of you gets the other and which one takes the couch?”

“Nice try,” Mirabeau growled, tossing the packet of room keys on the dining table. “You and I get that room. Tiny gets the other.”

“No way. I’m not sleeping with you,” she protested at once. “You probably snore.”

Mirabeau scowled, her patience snapping, but before she could blast her, Tiny said lightly, “I wouldn’t be so hasty. Your options are Mirabeau in the second bed in your room, or me… And I do snore.” When Stephanie opened her mouth, probably to protest further, he added, “It’s that or we go find the SUV right now and head out as we are. You can’t be left alone until we get you safely to Port Henry. There’s still a chance Leonius or one of his men could find us.”

Stephanie snapped her mouth closed, then huffed, “Fine. Mirabeau then. But I’m telling Lucian how awful you two are as bodyguards.” She whirled away, adding, “I’m taking a bath. A long one. You both stink, and I can’t stand it anymore.” On that charming note, she stomped into the bathroom of the room she was to share with Mirabeau and slammed the door behind her.

Mirabeau growled and started forward, murder on her mind, but Tiny caught her arm. When she turned furiously on him, he said soothingly, “You can use my bathroom.”

“She—” Mirabeau began, but he interrupted.

“Is a teenager who was kidnapped, subjected to who knows what horrors, and turned against her will. In the process, she lost her whole family except her sister and she’s now losing her, at least temporarily, while she’s hidden away in some podunk town in southern Ontario.”

Mirabeau found a smile tugging at her lips at his words. “Podunk?”

“Her word,” he said wryly.

Mirabeau nodded. She hadn’t paid attention to what they were discussing but had been aware that Tiny and Stephanie had chatted quietly as they’d traveled through the tunnels. It seemed that the girl had been airing her grievances, and she did have more than her fair share. Stephanie had been through a lot, Mirabeau acknowledged, and forced herself to relax. She took a deep, cleansing breath, then murmured, “You’re very patient with her.”

“I’m a patient guy.” He grinned, and Mirabeau found herself relaxing completely and grinning back. The moment she did, Tiny patted the arm he’d grabbed, then stepped away. “Go on. Take a bath in my room. Take as long as you want. I’m going to go out and see if I can scrounge up some food for us.”

Mirabeau bit her lip as she watched him walk to the door, suddenly worried about his being on his own. She didn’t think anyone had followed them, but there was a slight possibility they had, and she didn’t like the idea of his being alone if that were the case. She also knew saying so probably wasn’t the smart thing to do. The guy wouldn’t appreciate her fretting over him as if he couldn’t take care of himself, so instead she said, “Don’t you want to at least shower or something first?”

“And get back into these stinky clothes?” Tiny asked dryly, pausing at the door. He glanced back to peer at her and smiled faintly. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Take a bath, then maybe talk to Stephanie.”

“Talk to her?” Mirabeau asked with dismay, forgetting her worry for him. “What about?”

“About what she’s been through,” he said quietly. “Other than her sister, you can probably help her more than anyone.”

“Me?” Mirabeau squeaked with disbelief. “What makes you think I—?”

“Because you lost your entire family at a young age too, didn’t you?” he said quietly. “Of anyone, you should understand at least part of what she’s going through.”

Mirabeau felt herself closing up. It was as if something was squeezing tight around her. The slaughter of her family was a subject she never allowed herself to think of. She supposed Marguerite had told him about it for some reason or other, but she didn’t appreciate it and didn’t know how to respond other than to say almost resentfully, “Her family is still alive.”

“But she can never see them again. She can never enjoy their love and support again,” he pointed out quietly.

“She has Dani,” Mirabeau insisted grimly.

“Not at the moment, she doesn’t,” Tiny said, then added quietly, “Talk to her. She’s as alone and lonely as you.”

This time Mirabeau didn’t stop him from leaving but simply watched the door close behind him while a small storm of emotion rolled through her. Alone and lonely? Where the hell had he gotten that idea? And there was a vast difference between Stephanie and her. While the girl couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, approach her family now that she’d been turned, she at least knew they lived, could check on them from time to time and reassure herself of their happiness. However, Mirabeau’s entire family—mother, father, and three brothers—were all dead, along with the once-favored uncle who had killed them. She had no one, she thought, turning to enter the room Tiny was to use.

She had entered the bathroom before acknowledging that that wasn’t really true. She had the Argeneaus. Mirabeau had been seventeen when her family had been killed, and Lucian had taken her to stay with his sister-in-law, Marguerite, afterward. That fine lady had taken her under her wing. As if sensing that treating her like a daughter would be too painful and would simply remind her of what she’d lost, Marguerite had offered her a combination of love and friendship that an aunt might offer a niece. She had opened her home and made her welcome in her family, and Mirabeau had eventually come to be treated by the whole clan as a dear family friend and offered all the love and support she could wish… but lovely as that was, it could never replace the family she had lost and simply made Mirabeau uncomfortable. While she was always included in special celebrations like Christmas or weddings, those events always reminded Mirabeau of her own lack of family… and she supposed that was something Stephanie would have to go through as well.

Sighing, she turned on the shower and quickly stripped off her ruined clothes to step under the hot spray. She turned under the showerhead, rinsing away the worst of the muck coating her, then grabbed the hotel soap, her mind on what she could possibly say to Stephanie to help her through this. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything anyone could really say to make it better for the girl. Even Mirabeau herself could only let her know she understood and perhaps take her under her wing as Marguerite Argeneau had done for her.

The problem was, Mirabeau wasn’t sure she was any good at that kind of thing. She hadn’t had a lot of practice. Other than Eshe and the Argeneaus, she hadn’t really opened herself up to anyone since the deaths of her family, and her opening up to the Argeneaus was wholly Marguerite’s doing. The woman was like some irresistible force. If she decided you were family, you were family, and that was that. It was futile to resist. As for Eshe, it had taken a good couple of decades of working together for her to open up and allow herself to be true friends with her. Mirabeau just didn’t like to care about people; it meant pain should you ever lose them.

She stepped out from under the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, but then simply stood there frowning, both at her own thoughts and the fact that while she had soaped and scrubbed every inch of her skin, she still didn’t feel clean. She also didn’t know how she could possibly help Stephanie. The girl was angry and resentful and hurting… much as Mirabeau had been after the loss of her family… and still probably was if she was honest with herself. She had never really healed from her loss but simply refused to acknowledge it. That being the case, she hadn’t a clue how she was supposed to draw the girl out and help her.

Tiny was giving her way too much credit in thinking she could, Mirabeau decided as she stared at the empty tub. She decided that perhaps a soak in a steaming hot bubble bath would make her feel clean. It might also relax her enough that she could come up with something to say that might help Stephanie.

Glancing around, she spotted the small hotel-sized bubble bath on the counter and grabbed it up. Mirabeau dumped almost the entire contents of the small bottle into the tub and began to run a bath. She would soak and think.

Chapter Six

Tiny returned from his hunt for food with several bags in hand. One held sandwiches, chips, and various soft drinks, the others held loads of tourist wear. There were T-shirts, tank tops, joggers, and jackets all in various sizes and all saying INEW YORK or something else about the city. It wasn’t ideal, but he thought what he’d found was better than the clothes they were wearing and hoped the women would agree.

In one of the clothing bags, there was also a selection of temporary tattoos. They were for Stephanie. As they’d walked through the sewers, the girl had been complaining about all the things she couldn’t do now that she had been turned, and tattoos had been high on the list. It seemed she’d planned to get one as soon as she turned eighteen. Her parents had refused even to consider her getting one until then. He was hoping these would cheer her slightly.

“Ooh, is that food I smell?”

Tiny turned from closing the hotel-room door as Stephanie hurried to his side. Much to his surprise, she was wrapped in a hotel robe. Few hotels had robes in the rooms anymore.

“I called down to the desk for the robe. Most hotels have them to purchase. They’ll put it on the room bill,” Stephanie explained absently as she began plucking at the bags he held. “What is this? You found clothes too?”

“I found a twenty-four-hour market. It’s amazing what they carry in those places,” he murmured, as she urged him toward the table. The moment he set the bags on it, she started poking through the contents. While she’d at first been interested in the food, she now ignored that bag and began dumping out the contents of the others to sort through them.

“Nice.” She held up a black tank top with NYC on it across the breasts. Tiny had picked it up thinking of Mirabeau. It had seemed her style, and he hoped it was her size. He could actually imagine her in it. Apparently Stephanie read the thought in his mind and dropped it on the table. “It would look better on her anyway. I don’t have the boobs for it.”

Tiny sighed to himself, thinking it might be nice to be an immortal if he could then guard his thoughts from others. It was bad enough having every adult immortal he encountered in his head, but even worse to have Stephanie in their sifting through his sometimes less than PG-13 thoughts. He would definitely need to start editing his own thinking around the girl.

“Hey! What are these?”

Tiny glanced to the girl to see that she’d found the tattoos. Clearing his throat, he said, “I thought you might have fun with them. I know they aren’t the same as getting a real tattoo, but that just means you can change them as you like and won’t be stuck with one you might get tired of.”

“That’s true, I guess,” she murmured, leafing through the sheets of tattoos. “How come they’re all hearts and lovey-dovey stuff?”

“It’s Valentine’s today, kiddo,” he pointed out, then realized that wasn’t true. While the wedding ceremony had taken place on Valentine’s Day—an effort he suspected to be sure the men never forgot their anniversary—it was now past midnight and February fifteenth. Shrugging, he added, “That’s all they had besides INEW YORK tattoos, and I didn’t think you’d be interested in them.”

“No,” she agreed with a grimace, then brightened. “I’m going to show Mirabeau. Where is she?”

“My bathroom,” Tiny guessed, and when she quickly headed in that direction, warned, “She’s probably in the tub.”

But he was too late. Like all immortals, the kid could move fast. By the time he even started the warning Stephanie had already passed through his room, and burst into the bathroom. He winced and moved into his bedroom as he heard Mirabeau squawk, curse, and ask something about the girl’s having any boundaries.

“Sorry.” Stephanie’s voice sounded deflated, and there was misery on her face as she turned toward the door, muttering, “I used to talk to my mom all the time while she was in the tub. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

He caught a glimpse of Mirabeau as Stephanie shifted to leave the room and saw that she was now biting her lip, regret on her face. He smiled to himself when she suddenly said, “So did I.”

He’d known she could handle the kid and wasn’t at all surprised when Stephanie paused and turned back uncertainly to ask, “Really?”

He saw Mirabeau nod solemnly and was just thinking it would be all right when Stephanie said, “They had baths in your day?”

That had definitely been the wrong thing to say. The kid didn’t seem to be able to say anything to Mirabeau that wasn’t insulting, and he wasn’t surprised to see Mirabeau’s eyes narrow, though he was surprised that he was managing to keep his eyes on her face. Fortunately, only her head and upper shoulders were sticking out of the sea of foamy bubbles in his bathtub.

“Can you say anything that isn’t insulting?” Mirabeau asked grimly. “Did the turn somehow eradicate your manners? Or maybe your mother never taught you any.”

“She did too,” Stephanie said at once, her voice high and harsh. “She was a good mom.”

“So what’s your problem?” Mirabeau asked.

“What’s your problem?” Stephanie countered, and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Tiny stepped out of her way as she passed and watched her go with a sigh. His head came back around to the bathroom door, however, when he heard sloshing water in the bathroom. Mirabeau was getting out of the tub, he realized. Not wanting to get caught eyeing the door, he busied himself emptying his pockets in preparation for stripping to take his own bath. When he finished, he moved out to retrieve the 3X T-shirt and joggers he’d bought for himself as well as the black tank top, a medium-sized T-shirt, and the medium-sized joggers he’d bought for Mirabeau.

He was carrying them into the bedroom when the bathroom door opened and Mirabeau appeared, wrapped in a towel. The sight brought him to a dead halt. It wasn’t that she wasn’t covered at all the important points, but he couldn’t help but be aware that she was completely naked beneath the towel.

She paused on spotting him and her shoulders sagged as she said wryly, “I guess I didn’t handle her as well as you’d hoped.”

Tiny couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from their inventory of the naked flesh visible above and below the towel, but did manage to murmur, “Well, she was kind of rude.”

“I was probably ruder at her age,” Mirabeau admitted wearily, then noticed the clothes he held and started forward, her expression brightening. “You found clothes?”

She said it in a tone of voice he would have only expected from an offering of a designer original, but he completely understood her happiness. He’d been pretty thrilled himself when he’d spotted the clothes in the store.

Tossing the clothes for him on the bed, he offered the others to her. “I guessed you were a medium, but wasn’t sure which you’d prefer. I thought probably the tank top, but it is winter, so—”

“Cold doesn’t bother me,” Mirabeau assured him, choosing the tank top as he’d hoped.

Her words made him wish he’d brought the short shorts as well. She probably wouldn’t have worn them, but he could fantasize.

“These are great,” Mirabeau said happily as she took the joggers as well. When she caught his wry expression she laughed, and pointed out, “They don’t stink and cover more than a towel.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he admitted, his eyes dropping to run over the back of her legs as she spun away and headed for her own room.

“I rinsed the bath, it’s ready if you want to take your turn at it,” she said, then slipped through the door and out of sight. Tiny sighed as the door closed behind her. He supposed it had been too much to hope that the towel might slip or something. Ah well… He would shower to wash the stink away, then eat some of those sandwiches he’d brought back. While he was hungry, the thought of eating in his present state just made him want to gag.

Chapter Seven

Stephanie was sitting cross-legged on the far bed when Mirabeau entered the room they were to share. She supposed that meant the nearer bed was hers and dropped the clothes on it, then whipped off her towel and grabbed up the joggers to pull them on, aware that Stephanie was watching her. She wasn’t self-conscious about her body. The nanos her kind had in their bodies had been programmed to fight illness, repair injuries, and keep them at their peak condition. Peak meant young and healthy, and she knew she looked her best. Or perhaps it was just that after so many years she’d been naked in front of so many people for one reason or another that it didn’t bother her any more. Mirabeau didn’t know or care why it didn’t bother her. She didn’t even really think about the fact that she was naked until Stephanie spoke.

“You don’t shave your legs,” the girl said with surprise. And then her eyes widened with sudden alarm, and she asked, “We can shave and wax our legs, can’t we? The nanos don’t just make it grow back within minutes or anything, do they?”

Mirabeau paused and glanced down at her legs, which were sporting a soft feathering of hair that, until Stephanie had spoken, hadn’t bothered her. Now she worried about it and thought she would have to pick up a razor or something on the way to Port Henry. She would need to shave before seducing Tiny, and Mirabeau was growing more and more determined to do that once this assignment was over. Aside from being attractive physically, she was starting to find him very attractive in personality as well. She’d known he was a good man from the stories Marguerite had told her, but his empathy and patience with Stephanie were really making an impression on her. She wasn’t the patient sort herself. Never had been. Perhaps that was why the trait in him was so attractive to her.

Pushing that thought aside, she glanced at Stephanie, and said, “Of course we can shave. It doesn’t grow right back. Hairs are strands of dead cells or whatever, nanos don’t bother with them.”

“Oh.” Stephanie looked relieved, and asked, “So why don’t you shave?”

“I do, I just haven’t bothered in a while,” she muttered. Mirabeau had started shaving along with every other woman in the world when it had become popular. But it had been so long since she’d been interested in dating or anything of that nature that she’d stopped bothering.

“What’s it like?” Stephanie asked, as Mirabeau finished donning the joggers and reached for the black tank top.

“What?” she asked absently as she pulled the top on over her head.

“Being so old?”

Mirabeau turned on the girl with exasperation as she tugged the tank into place. Before she could snap at her, however, Stephanie said quickly, “I’m not trying to insult you, I just mean, you know… what’s it like to live so long?”

Mirabeau forced herself to relax and shrugged. “I don’t know. It just is. I guess you’ll find out in time.”

“Yeah, in a century or so,” Stephanie said dryly, then fell silent and watched as Mirabeau moved to the mirror over the dresser to run her fingers through her damp hair, trying to bring some order to the tangled strands.

It was an impossible task without any sort of brush, Mirabeau decided, scowling at her reflection and wondering if she could remove the remaining extensions or if had to be done by a hairdresser. It had hurt like the devil when the fellow in the sewers had ripped out that clump of extensions, but she’d checked and didn’t appear to have been snatched bald back there. Perhaps she could just yank out the remaining extensions as well.

“Does it ever get better?”

“What?” Mirabeau asked with distraction.

“The pain of losing them?” Stephanie said quietly, and Mirabeau was just wondering if she meant her hair extensions, when the girl added, “Tiny told me you lost your family too, and I… It hurts so much sometimes, and I can tell you still hurt, and I… ”

Mirabeau stopped messing with her hair and turned to peer at the girl. There was real agony on her face, which made panic well up inside Mirabeau. She wasn’t good with emotional stuff. In fact, she generally avoided situations that involved it like the plague. However, Stephanie was hurting, and there was no one else there to help her. Swallowing thickly, she moved to the side of Stephanie’s bed to sit on the edge… and stared at her briefly before reluctantly raising a hand to set on the girl’s leg in what she hoped was a comforting touch. Clearing her throat, she said, “It does hurt, and I am hurting right now because your situation reminds me of my own, and it hurts me at holidays and special occasions too, but it eases a bit, gets easier to bear… and you do have Dani for those holidays.”

Stephanie swallowed and nodded solemnly. “You don’t even have that, do you?”

Mirabeau felt her throat close up. She grimly swallowed away the lump and tried desperately to change the subject by asking, “Do you want me to put one of your tattoos on for you?”

Stephanie hesitated, eyeing her silently, and Mirabeau knew the little brat was wading through her thoughts. It made her wonder how the hell the kid kept doing that. She was a new turn. New turns couldn’t read even mortals as a rule. It was a skill they had to learn. She shouldn’t be able to read at all yet, let alone someone as old as Mirabeau.

“Really?” Stephanie asked, sitting up a little straighter and pleasure twitching the corners of her mouth. “I know Dani can’t read minds yet, but I thought that was just her.”

“No, it’s not just her,” Mirabeau assured her quietly, relieved to have the subject changed and the kid looking less weepy. She didn’t know what she would have done if the girl had turned on the waterworks. Seeing that she was pleased by her unusual ability, Mirabeau added, “You seem to be a special case. A natural reader. It’s rare.”

Stephanie grinned and held up the sheet of tattoos she had been clutching. “Which one do you want?”

Mirabeau blinked. “I didn’t mean I’d put a tattoo on me. I meant I’d put one on you for you.”

“Oh I know,” Stephanie said with a grin. “But I don’t want you to mess it up. We’ll do you first. That way we can figure out what we’re doing.”

Mirabeau gave a small, disbelieving laugh at the words. “So we experiment on me so that we don’t mess up when we put on yours?”

“Exactly,” she said, her grin widening farther.

Despite herself, Mirabeau chuckled, but then sighed and shook her head as she glanced over the tattoos Stephanie held. “Fine. Give me Cupid then.”

Stephanie’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Why Cupid?”

“Because he’s an archer, and so am I,” she said simply.

“Really?” Stephanie asked curiously as she began to prepare the tattoo.

“Yes. My mother trained me as a child, and I’ve kept it up over the centuries. I actually prefer the bow and arrow to a gun—much quieter and easy to see if you’ve hit your mark. Besides, our bodies can push out bullets given a little time, but they can’t force out the larger, heavier arrow. So if you hit a bad guy with an arrow, he isn’t likely to get up again unless you remove the arrow for him.”

Stephanie seemed impressed. “Can you teach me archery?”

“We’ll see,” Mirabeau murmured, unwilling to make a promise unless she was sure she could keep it.

“That’s a good policy,” Stephanie said solemnly, then raised the tattoo and asked, “Where do you want it?”

“My arm,” Mirabeau answered at once. She sat silent and still as Stephanie set to work transferring the temporary tattoo to her upper arm, her concentration on watching what she was doing. She was taken by surprise when Stephanie suddenly said, “I do have Dani, but she’s kind of wrapped up in Decker right now. Sometimes it feels like I lost her too.”

Mirabeau frowned. The entire situation was rather difficult. She knew Dani was doing her best by the girl, but with Leonius out there needing to be caught and having just met her life mate in Decker, Mirabeau didn’t doubt the woman would have trouble fulfilling Stephanie’s probably exaggerated need for attention. Anyone would.

Finally, she cleared her throat, and said, “It’s true she’s wrapped up in her own life at the moment. Dani also has to deal with all this stuff, you know. She’s going through every single thing you are.”

“But she has Decker,” Stephanie said unhappily. “And if they get married and have kids, she’ll have her own family. She won’t need me anymore.”

Mirabeau sighed. “She will always love you and need you in her life, Stephanie. If she’s preoccupied now, it’s just temporary. Besides, you too will someday meet your life mate and start a family of your own.”

“So will you,” Stephanie said quietly. “Do you think the loss will ease a bit then?”

“I don’t know, it might,” she said quietly, though the truth was she didn’t think she’d ever have a life mate and children, and the very thought that she might almost made her nauseous though she couldn’t have said why.

Stephanie was silent as she finished with the tattoo, but then sat back, saying, “There. It’s done. Look at it in the mirror.”

Mirabeau stood and moved to the mirror to examine her new temporary tattoo. It didn’t look too bad. It was just the black silhouette of Cupid on her arm. She could live with it.

“It kind of matches my outfit, doesn’t it?” she muttered, peering at herself in the black joggers and tank.

Stephanie choked out a laugh. “You hate it.”

“No,” she said at once, but then smiled wryly, and admitted, “I’ve just never been much into body art. It’s fine though. Nice.”

Stephanie laughed with open disbelief, then looked her over and sighed. “I hope I have a figure like yours someday so a nice man like Tiny follows me around with his tongue hanging out.”

“He isn’t following me around with his tongue hanging out,” Mirabeau said, amused.

“No, but if you could hear his thoughts… ” She rolled her eyes, fanned herself, and added, “Oooh la la.”

Mirabeau laughed at her hamming, but was pleased at the thought that Tiny might find her attractive. She hadn’t taken the time to read his thoughts herself but thought perhaps she should. If he was as interested as she was, it boded well for her intention to seduce him. She would just have to be careful not to accidentally control his mind in bed if she got too excited. Marguerite would probably be upset if she did.

“So, am I going to continue to grow, or am I going to be stuck looking fourteen forever?” Stephanie asked suddenly, still peering enviously over Mirabeau’s figure.

Mirabeau’s eyebrows rose, surprise sliding through her. The girl had been turned about six months ago. She would have expected her to know the answer to those kinds of questions already.

“Well, Dani doesn’t know much about it,” Stephanie pointed out, reading her mind without apology. “Every time I ask her a question, she has to go ask Decker, then they get distracted and its hours or sometimes even the next day before I get my answer, so I just stopped asking her.”

“Hmm.” Mirabeau almost asked why she didn’t ask someone else, but then realized the only other female usually at the enforcer house was Sam, who was also a newly turned life mate likely to get distracted when she went in search of the answer. Mirabeau herself was probably the first unmated female immortal Stephanie had been around long enough to ask the questions.

“Right,” she said calmly, moving back to sit on the bed again, determined to answer any questions she could. “You’ll grow so long as you continue to feed regularly. Once you reach your peak adult condition, you’ll stop aging and look somewhere between twenty-five and thirty forever.”

Stephanie considered that. “How often is regularly?”

Mirabeau hesitated, then said, “It’s best to feed in small bouts about every three hours until you’re about twenty-five.”

“Like a baby,” she said with disgust.

“Basically, yes,” Mirabeau said with amusement, then noted the girl’s pallor, and asked, “When did you last eat?”

Stephanie grimaced, but reluctantly admitted, “Before we left for the wedding.”

Mirabeau glanced at the clock. It was almost two o’clock now. Well past time the girl fed again.

“Lucian said there was blood in the SUV,” Stephanie said helpfully. “We can feed before we leave in the morning.”

Mirabeau was silent. Lucian had told her that as well as he’d ushered her to the secret panel in the church. The SUV would be the easiest source of blood at the moment, especially since Stephanie had no fangs. The simplest thing would be to head out as soon as Tiny had finished his shower, retrieve the SUV, feed, and head out of the city. It was probably the safest thing to do as well.

“No,” Stephanie protested at once, reading her thoughts. “You said we could nap. Surely I can wait a couple of hours? I’ll have twice my usual dosage when we get to the SUV.” The wheedling tone of voice and the fact that she called it dosage suggested the girl usually had trouble feeding. Mirabeau supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Raised as a mortal, the girl was no doubt having trouble getting past the fact that she was having to drink blood at all. She probably resisted it and had to be urged to drink the stuff. Mirabeau suspected she would resist less now that she knew it was necessary for her body to mature properly. No girl wanted to be flat-chested forever.

“Okay, I did say you could nap before we left,” she said soothingly. “I’ll run over and pick up the SUV while Tiny showers. You can have some blood, we’ll all nap, and head out in the morning as planned.”

Mirabeau started for the door, but paused before she reached it as she recalled where she’d put the keys Lucian had given her. Without a purse on hand or a pocket in the bridesmaid’s dress, she’d merely tucked them into her bra. It was a handy-dandy little naturally made pocket she occasionally utilized in a pinch. However, the bra was now on the floor in the bathroom where Tiny was showering.

“So wait until he’s done with his shower,” Stephanie suggested, then held up the package in her hand. “You can give me my tattoo while we wait.”

Mirabeau returned to the bed and sat down. “So which one do you want?”

“The heart,” Stephanie said, handing her the tattoos.

Mirabeau took them from her, frowning when she saw the jagged line across it where some of the tattoo had been scratched away.

“I altered it a little,” Stephanie said quietly. “It seemed more suitable.”

Mirabeau stared at the heart, realizing that once applied it would look broken, just as the girl’s heart was at the moment, and as her own had been since she was seventeen. She just hoped Dani’s presence and the fact that her family hadn’t died might help Stephanie heal faster than she had… or hadn’t, as the case may be, she acknowledged unhappily.

Chapter Eight

Tiny shut off the water and stepped out of the shower with a pleased sigh. It was extremely nice to feel clean again. While he hadn’t taken a tumble in the sewer as Mirabeau had, his clothes and even his skin had carried the stink of those tunnels by the time they’d gotten out of them. It had been a relief to strip off the clothes and even more of a relief to be able to wash away whatever stench had clung to him. He was looking forward to pulling on clean clothes, even if they were tourist wear. Clean tourist wear beat a smelly Armani suit any day, though he’d enjoyed the designer suit before his stint in the sewers and regretted the loss of the expensive item.

The thought of those clean clothes on his mind, Tiny quickly toweled off, wrapped the wet towel around his waist, and headed out of the bathroom. He stepped into the bedroom on a cloud of steam, but stopped abruptly when he spotted Mirabeau pacing its length. She whirled midpace at his arrival, relief covering her face.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she muttered, hurrying forward and pushing past him to get inside the room he’d just exited.

Eyebrows rising, Tiny turned to watch her snatch up her discarded gown and lacy underthings to rifle through them quickly.

“What is it?” he asked, when she cursed and dropped the destroyed clothes with disgust.

Sighing, she glanced over, and admitted, “I was going to go get some blood from the SUV for Stephanie. The keys were tucked into my bra when we started out through the sewers, but they aren’t here.” She scowled unhappily. “They must have fallen out when I took that tumble in the sewers.”

“Hmm,” Tiny murmured, his eyes sliding over her in the new clothes. The black joggers had NYC down the side seams, they were a bit large and riding low on her hips, while the black tank with NYC across the breasts was hugging her curves lovingly. I did good, Tiny decided. She looked sexier in the outfit than he’d thought possible… and the keys had been lucky to be nestled between her breasts for even a few minutes.

A disgusted cluck from Mirabeau made him force his eyes away from her body to her face as she sighed unhappily, and said, “I guess I’ll have to call Lucian and tell him. He’ll have to send out someone with keys or send a new SUV altogether.” She gave an exasperated huff. “God, he’s going to be so pissed. It completely defeats our having snuck out of the church the way we did and sloshing through the sewers. Leonius or one of his men could follow whoever delivers the keys and—”

“We don’t have to call Lucian,” Tiny said quietly, and Mirabeau turned startled eyes his way.

“We don’t?” she asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “I can get us into the SUV and get it started without keys.”

“You can?”

She was peering at him now as if he were a god. It made him smile wryly. While he liked that she was looking at him like that, it would have been nice if it were for a different reason than that he could help her avoid calling Lucian, he thought, then admitted, “It’s one of many more dubious skills I possess. I had something of a shady past before Jackie’s father took me under his wing and taught me to be a PI. If not for him, I think I probably would have become a criminal. Fortunately, he caught me while I was still young.”

Much to his surprise, the words made Mirabeau’s mouth widen into a full-fledged smile. Moving toward him across the bathroom, she chuckled, and admitted, “That touch of shadiness just makes you even more attractive.”

Tiny felt his eyebrows rise and smiled. He was certainly attracted to her and had hoped it was returned, but while Marguerite was hoping they were life mates, and Stephanie had made a comment or two about their lusting after each other, he hadn’t really seen any evidence of it from Mirabeau before then. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, but she had been all business up until that moment, so he said, “More attractive? You do find me attractive then?”

“Oh, yeah,” she assured him huskily, glancing down and running one finger lightly along the bare skin just above the towel around his waist.

Tiny sucked in a breath, his stomach jumping and his body along with it. He wasn’t at all surprised to see his towel tenting outward as little Tiny came to roaring life. Neither was he surprised that Mirabeau’s smile had widened even farther and now had a satisfied edge.

Her eyes were beginning to glow with what he knew was evidence of her own desire when she lifted her face to his again, and her voice was a soft growl as she said, “After this assignment is done, we’ll have to do something about that.”

Tiny was already reaching for her, and her words didn’t stop him from drawing her forward to press against his chest and other less flat parts.

“Why wait?” he growled, then covered her mouth with his. He kissed her with all the desire he’d been experiencing since joining her in the tunnels. His mouth was demanding, and even though he was getting a response, he knew she was holding back, that her sense of duty was struggling with her own desire, and she wasn’t giving him all of herself.

Breaking the kiss, he began to nibble his way across her cheek to her ear, and whispered, “We’re on a break right now. Stephanie’s safe and probably sleeping, and we have a couple hours before dawn… consider this a dinner break.”

Mirabeau pushed him away so swiftly, he thought at first he’d somehow offended her, but then she kept pushing, urging him away from the bathroom door and backward across the bedroom to the king-sized bed. Tiny felt it bump up against the back of his legs, then Mirabeau was pushing him back onto it and climbing on top of him to straddle his toweled hips.

“Dessert, not dinner,” she whispered, and bent forward to kiss him. This time she unleashed all the passion he’d suspected she was holding back… and more. She was like molten fire, pouring over him, her mouth melting into his, and her body plastering itself to him like warm wax. Her hands caught and pinned his to the bed, and she slid her tongue into his mouth and did things that had him groaning and thrusting his hips upward against her.

Mirabeau’s own hips were not still. She was shifting and rotating on his groin, her breasts pressing against and rubbing across his chest as she did, the combination sending his excitement through the roof, so that it seemed to vibrate through him in waves, growing stronger with each reverberation. Growling low in his throat, Tiny tugged at his hands, managing to catch Mirabeau by surprise and pull free of her hold. They were immediately everywhere, trying to touch all of her at the same time, first sliding up her sides, then covering her breasts through the cloth of the thin cotton tank top she wore then shifting to slide beneath it to touch her bare skin.

Christ, I’ve never experienced this kind of passion before, Tiny thought faintly, as his fingers slid over the hot skin of her stomach. It felt like they were both burning up; she was almost feverishly warm to the touch, and he was burning up from the inside out. He wanted to feel all of her against him. He wanted her naked flesh pressing down on his everywhere, and he wanted to thrust his body into hers and bury himself in her moist heat. But that would bring an end to it, and he wanted this never to end.

Mirabeau moaned when Tiny’s hands found her breasts under her tank top. She was immediately hit by wave after wave of almost unbearable pleasure. Wanting more of it, she broke their kiss to rise up on him and cover his hands through the cloth and squeezed his hands encouragingly. She then opened her eyes and met his gaze as she let her hands drop to the hem of the top he’d bought her. Tiny licked his lips and watched as she slowly tugged it up and off over her head, revealing a perfect, porcelain torso. His own darker, suntanned skin stood out where he covered and caressed her breasts, and Tiny didn’t think he’d ever seen anything quite so lovely.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, letting his hands drift away from her breasts to clasp her by the sides and enjoy the full view of her from the waist up.

The words brought a smile to her lips, and she let the scrap of black cloth drop to the bed beside them, then reached down to run one finger down his chest toward the top of the towel. She shifted her hips over him then, closing her eyes and groaning as a shaft of pleasure shivered back and forth between them.

Tiny couldn’t resist anymore and returned his hands to cover her breasts. When he did, Mirabeau opened her eyes to peer at him. Her smile becoming a grin, she bent forward, pressing into his caress until her mouth was just above his. Her tongue slid out and she licked his lower lip, then caught and sucked it between her own lips. She tugged and sucked at it gently, letting it slip from her mouth, and murmured, “Mmm, delicious. I’ll have to thank Lucian for assigning you to be my backup when I next see him.”

“Marguerite,” he corrected automatically and tried to claim her lips again, but she pulled back slightly, her expression frozen.

“What?” she asked carefully.

Tiny hesitated, suspecting he maybe should have kept his mouth shut. Wishing he had, he reluctantly admitted, “Marguerite is the one who suggested we work together on this assignment.”

As he’d feared, that announcement definitely ruined the mood. A pail of cold water couldn’t have had more of a shocking effect on Mirabeau. Horror immediately covered her face, and she jerked upright, all signs of passion gone as she asked sharply, “Marguerite suggested you be my backup?”

He nodded slowly.

“But Marguerite only interferes when she thinks—” Her words died, and she stared at him, the horror on her expression growing exponentially. It seemed she wasn’t pleased at what it meant, that Marguerite thought they might be life mates.

He met her gaze for a moment, then asked huskily, “Can you read me?”

Mirabeau sat back slightly on his hips, rocking back a bit as if he’d hit her, but after a moment her shoulders straightened, and her gaze shifted from his eyes to his forehead and concentrated there. He knew without a doubt that she was trying to read him and simply lay still, waiting. When he spotted the flash of fear shoot across her expression, Tiny knew instinctively that she couldn’t read him, and that, rather than being pleased, the knowledge terrified her.

Even having seen her expression, Tiny wasn’t prepared when she suddenly slid off him and climbed off the bed. She was at the door before he could even think to speak.

“What about the SUV?” he asked desperately as she started out of the room. The minute the words were out of his mouth, he felt shame claim him that he’d allowed himself to forget her intention to get blood for the girl. Judging by the way Mirabeau halted and her shoulders bowed, she felt much the same way as she was reminded of the reason she’d been pacing his room in the first place.

She stood silent and still in the doorway for a moment, but then released a long sigh. Mirabeau didn’t even glance back when she finally said, “It won’t hurt Stephanie to wait a couple of hours this one time. She’s probably asleep anyway. We can leave at dawn and feed her when we get to the SUV as planned. I’ll wake you.”

Tiny sighed as she left the room and closed the door. While he’d been reluctant at the idea of being a life mate when he’d realized what Marguerite was up to in suggesting he accompany Mirabeau for this assignment, he’d gotten over that in a hurry once he’d met her. But it seemed Mirabeau would need more time to adjust to the idea. While she wanted him, it seemed it wasn’t enough to get past whatever fears she had regarding finding a life mate.

Marguerite was right, Tiny realized as he peered down at the aching tent pole his erection had become. He was definitely going to have to be patient with Mirabeau if he wanted her. On that thought, he lay back on the bed with a sigh to wait for his towel tent to fold.

Stephanie seemed to be asleep when Mirabeau returned to the room they shared, so it startled her when the girl suddenly whispered, “I know you’re afraid of letting people in again because it hurts to lose them as we have, but surely it’s worth it? You don’t wish you’d never known or loved your family, do you?”

Mirabeau stilled, shocked by her words, and to hear them from a girl who was so young. Such insight and wisdom from a kid was rather unusual, but then Stephanie was proving to be an unusual kid.

“Dani said that to me a while ago,” Stephanie admitted quietly. “And she’s right. I have to not be afraid to care for people again. I would miss out on a lot of good stuff. We both would.”

Mirabeau heard Stephanie moving and glanced over in time to see her finish turning onto her side away from her. It seemed it was all the girl had to say, which should have left Mirabeau to crawl into bed and go to sleep for the few hours she had until dawn. However, while she crawled into bed, she didn’t sleep. She lay there thinking about the fact that Marguerite had set her up, that she couldn’t read Tiny but wanted him with a desperation she hadn’t experienced for anyone else in all her more than four hundred and fifty some years, and that meant he was probably her life mate. She also thought about what Stephanie had said. While the idea of caring for anyone again was terrifying, did she really want to miss out on what they could share just to avoid hurting later?

All those thoughts ran around and around inside her head as the night crept past. It was all so scary and confusing that Mirabeau was actually relieved when she saw predawn light through the crack in the curtains. She still didn’t know what she was going to do about Tiny, but it was a relief to get moving and have something to do besides lie there fretting over things.

Chapter Nine

“Want a bite?”

Mirabeau jerked her head back a little with surprise as Tiny raised what he’d called a chili cheese dog in front of her face. Frowning, she murmured, “I don’t eat foo—” The last word died on a gasp of surprise as Tiny suddenly pushed the food forward, catching her on the upper lip and the bottom of her nose.

“Nice one, Tiny,” Stephanie laughed between bites of her cheeseburger.

Scowling at the pair of them, Mirabeau pushed away the dog Tiny was still holding out to her and wiped the warm chili from her nose. However, her scowl was replaced with surprise when she licked her lip to clean it and a savory, spicy taste exploded on her tongue. Mirabeau couldn’t contain the murmured “Mmm” as she swallowed the bit of flavorful food.

“Good thing I got you one too despite your claim not to want anything, huh?” Tiny teased, lifting a second plate with a chili dog off the tray he’d brought to the table and setting it before her.

Mirabeau hesitated, she really didn’t eat much anymore. She indulged on occasion to keep Jeanne Louise company, but she rarely bothered otherwise, food had become boring over time. This chili stuff, however, was not boring at all, she thought as she watched how Tiny carefully picked up his own hot dog smothered with the thick chili and bit into it. Perhaps she’d simply been eating the wrong foods, she thought as she emulated his actions.

“Or maybe Tiny’s your life mate and your taste buds, along with your libido, have come back to life like Decker’s did,” Stephanie said dryly.

Mirabeau paused midbite to scowl at the girl, but she couldn’t hold the expression. Her mouth was alive with the wonderful combination of flavors she’d bitten into. Her eyes involuntarily closed as she savored the explosions taking place in her mouth. Chili dogs definitely rocked, she decided, and wondered how it was she’d never had one before.

“Try an onion ring,” Tiny urged, holding a round breaded object out to her.

Mirabeau accepted the odd item, turned it curiously in her hand, sniffed it, and then took a careful bite. Her eyes widened with surprised pleasure as an entirely different flavor filled her senses. Damn, that’s good too, she acknowledged, and smiled when he slid a smaller plate with a mound of rings in front of her. He’d bought two of those as well, she noted.

“How about a chocolate shake?” he said next, and a thick-looking, creamy drink was set before her as well.

This time Mirabeau didn’t hesitate to try the offering and as the cold, creamy, chocolate slid across her tongue and down her throat, she understood what he was doing.

“You’re trying to kill me with pleasure,” she said on a sigh.

“If that were the case, you’d be naked, and I’d be eating this off your supine body,” Tiny growled. He then leaned toward her and licked away a drop of chili that rested on her upper lip.

Mirabeau swallowed thickly, her eyes finding and locking on his until Stephanie groaned, and muttered, “Oh, gross. Get a room.”

Mirabeau saw the chagrin flicker in Tiny’s expression and knew he’d forgotten the girl was there, just as she had for those few seconds. She shared a wry smile with him, then, as if by agreement, they both turned their attention to their food and began to eat, trying to pretend that the moment hadn’t happened.

Unfortunately, Stephanie wouldn’t let it rest, and asked, “Are you two going to get together after you get me to Port Henry, or what?”

Mirabeau gave her a quelling look, but the girl wasn’t willing to be quelled.

“Oh, come on, he’s your life mate, right?” she said, waving a french fry around as she spoke.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Stephanie,” Mirabeau said sharply. “Eat your food. We have to get going.”

“Oh please, even if I couldn’t read your thoughts, anyone could see you two are hot for each other.”

“Enough Stephanie,” Tiny said quietly. “Now eat your food. We’re already very late getting you to Port Henry. We really shouldn’t have stopped here.”

And they shouldn’t have, Mirabeau acknowledged. By now the people in Port Henry had probably called Lucian in a panic that they hadn’t arrived… and there wasn’t a darned thing they could do to reassure them that everything was all right. Mirabeau hadn’t had a cell phone when she’d left the church, and Tiny’s phone had gone missing. He suspected it had been lifted while he was shopping for clothes and food. He’d told her as much as they’d made their way to the SUV in the predawn light.

Mirabeau had considered stopping to use a pay phone to call in, but one of Lucian’s last instructions had been not to make contact in any way but through Tiny’s cell phone unless it was an emergency. He’d said Tiny’s cell was set up specially to be untraceable, while calls from any other phone wouldn’t be. He was determined no one was going to figure out where Stephanie was, and he was the boss, so there was nothing she could do to soothe any worries anyone might be having.

And they would be worried, she thought unhappily. By her guess, between getting lost in the tunnels and their stop at the hotel to clean up and rest, they were probably at least five or six hours behind schedule, which meant they should have arrived in Port Henry about three or four hours ago. Instead, they were half an hour southwest of Toronto, eating quite the most delicious food she’d ever enjoyed in one of the ugliest, dreariest-looking diners she’d ever seen. Tiny had picked it after several hours of Stephanie’s whining that she was hungry. He’d called it a truck stop and said they always had the best food.

Mirabeau had to admit the food was indeed good. They just really shouldn’t have stopped to get it, and had Tiny not been so obviously exhausted from driving all the way up from New York, she would have said so. However, the man had been yawning and wiping his weary eyes for the last hour they’d been on the road, and she’d decided a break was probably smart. She planned to offer to take over driving when they returned to the SUV he’d managed to get them into and get started that morning, all with nothing more than a hanger they’d taken from their room and a screwdriver they’d gotten from the handyman at the hotel. It had been rather impressive to watch him in action. But then he was impressive just to look at, she acknowledged.

“All done? Shall we go?” Tiny asked, and Mirabeau glanced down at her empty plates wryly. So much for not eating. She’d pretty much inhaled the offerings he’d brought her.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Stephanie announced, slurping the last of her own shake, a pink one that smelled of strawberries.

“You take her to the bathroom, and I’ll get the SUV started,” Tiny suggested, getting to his feet.

“Hey, I’m not a kid. I can take myself to the bathroom,” Stephanie protested, scowling at him.

Rather than point out that Mirabeau was to be with her to ensure she remained safe, Tiny grinned, and teased, “I thought you girls always went to the bathroom in packs?”

“Sexist,” Stephanie muttered, but amusement was tugging at her lips as she got to her feet.

They were pretty quick in the bathroom, but Tiny was quicker. He’d started the SUV and pulled it up to the door to collect them when they stepped outside.

“I was going to offer to drive,” Mirabeau murmured as she climbed into the front passenger seat after closing the back door behind Stephanie.

“That’s okay. I’m good. The break refreshed me,” he assured her.

Shrugging, Mirabeau settled in the seat and did up her seat belt as he started out of the parking lot. They were back on the highway when Stephanie suddenly leaned forward between the two front seats to ask, “What’s your real name, Tiny?”

Mirabeau glanced at him, curious about the answer to that herself, and caught the amusement tugging at his lips as he asked, “What makes you think it isn’t Tiny?”

“Because no one but a pair of spazzes would name their kid Tiny,” the teenager assured him dryly.

“Spazzes, huh?” Tiny chuckled, and then said, “Well as it would happen, my given name is Tinh.” He spelled it out, then added, “Tiny is just what everyone has always called me, like Billy instead of Bill.”

“Tinh?” Stephanie said with amazement. “What kind of name is that?”

“Vietnamese.”

“You aren’t Vietnamese,” she said, then asked uncertainly, “Are you?”

“No,” he said with a smile.

“Then why did your parents name you that?”

“My father was a soldier in Vietnam,” he answered patiently. “He was injured while on recon. He’s pretty sure he would have died where he fell had he not been rescued, and nursed back to health by a friendly named Tinh. Dad was never sure if that was his last name or first, but when he married mom and they had me, he named me after the man who had saved his life.”

“Oh,” Stephanie murmured. “I guess that was cool.”

“I always thought so,” Tiny agreed.

“I guess it’s a good thing you didn’t end up a little guy though,” Stephanie commented. “They would have been dooming you to a life of teasing and bullying, naming you that if you were little.”

“My being little was never very likely,” Tiny assured her. “My mother is five-ten, and my father is my size.”

“Hmm.” Stephanie grunted, then sat back in her seat. “I’m going to watch the end of the movie I started before we stopped to eat.”

Mirabeau glanced over her shoulder to see the girl putting earplugs into her ears and hitting the play button on the DVD player in the back of Tiny’s seat. She then turned back to face front, but found herself unable to keep from glancing at the man driving. Finally, she asked softly, “They’re still alive then? Your parents?”

“Oh yeah,” Tiny assured her. “Both retired and spoiling the grandbabies my little sister has given them… and cursing me for not giving them more yet,” he added with a wry smile.

“You’re close to them,” she realized, the thought troubling her.

“Yes,” he admitted, then glanced sideways at her, and added, “they’ll like you.”

Mirabeau held his gaze for a minute, then turned away to look out the window as she tried to settle the sudden quandary in her mind. She had only been considering her own point of view when it came to their being life mates. The risk it would be to open her heart up to him and possibly lose him at some later date as she had her family. She hadn’t considered what he might have to give up to be her life mate. That perhaps he wouldn’t be willing to give it up for her.

“Tell me about your family,” Tiny said suddenly.

Mirabeau glanced at him sharply, then away, muttering, “What do you want to know? They’re dead.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Marguerite said that your uncle killed them. Tell me how… and why?”

Mirabeau stared out the window silently for a moment, but she didn’t see the vehicles or landscaping they were passing. Her mind took her back to France in 1572, a mad time in the country.

“My father and uncle were turned in the thirteenth century by a rogue,” she said finally. “Fortunately, they were new turns and had committed no crimes so were spared when the rogue was hunted down and killed.”

“Like Leigh’s friend Danny?” Tiny asked.

Mirabeau nodded silently, then cleared her throat and continued. “They were very close before the turn and for a while afterward, but then my father met my mother. She was his life mate, and they became wrapped up in each other as life mates tend to do. My uncle and father drifted apart while my parents had my three brothers and me in quick succession.”

“In quick succession?” Tiny asked with surprise. “I thought you had to wait a hundred years between children?”

“Well, yes, but I mean they had my eldest brother right away in 1255, and then as soon as the hundred years were up, had my second brother and so on. They didn’t leave extra time between each. I was born in 1555, almost a hundred years to the day after the youngest of my brothers was born.”

“Ah,” Tiny murmured.

“Anyway, they were happy. We all were, but apparently my uncle was not. He hadn’t yet found his life mate and was jealous of my father, who had my mother and us children, as well as wealth and a title. He wanted all of it… including my mother. I guess he thought the St. Bartholomew Massacres would be a good cover for his getting it all.”

“I’m sorry,” Tiny interrupted gently. “Marguerite mentioned the St. Bartholomew Massacres to me, but I’m not sure what it was exactly.”

Mirabeau frowned, wondering how something that had always figured so large in her own life was unknown to most of today’s mortals. It was such a turning point in her life that it was difficult to accept that it meant nothing to others. Shrugging that aside, she explained, “St. Bartholomew Massacres were basically a mess. There was some history behind what happened, but the final straw that appeared to light the fury was when the Catholic Marguerite of Valois, the sister of the King of France, was married to Henry of Navarre, a Protestant. The population of Paris was very Roman Catholic, and equally anti-Huguenot. French Protestant,” Mirabeau explained before he could ask what a Huguenot was. She then continued, “Over the next six days after the wedding, several events conspired to stir things up, but the end result was that on August twenty-third, the gates to the city were closed, and a Roman Catholic mob began to hunt down and slaughter Protestants in the streets. Thousands were killed, including women and children.”

“And your family was in Paris?” Tiny asked with a frown.

“No. And they were Catholic, not Protestant, and they died in late September not August. However, even up to October of that year, there were similar outbreaks of such attacks in cities and towns all over France. Even the hint of Protestantism was enough to mark a family for death.

“I don’t know if my uncle planned what he did ahead of time and the St. Bartholomew Massacres simply offered a convenient cover, or if their eruption spurred him to action, but he planned to claim we had been suspected of Protestantism, had been chained in the barn, and burned alive.”

“Nasty bastard,” Tiny said grimly. “His plan went awry, obviously.” And when she glanced at him in question, he pointed out, “You’re still alive.”

“Oh, yes.” She frowned and peered out the window again, then admitted, “But I’m only alive because I was a rebellious seventeen-year-old who snuck out of the castle to drink wine in the stables with a very handsome stableboy named Fredrique.”

She glanced over in time to see Tiny’s mouth twitch with amusement and wished she could smile too, but even all this time later she didn’t see the humor in it. “My uncle had arrived for dinner. After dinner, he and my father and brothers went out to view a new horse my father had purchased. My uncle’s men must have been waiting and taken them by surprise, slaughtering them the moment they entered the stable. By the time I snuck away to meet Fredrique, there was no one around in the stables, and I thought they’d already returned to the castle.” She pursed her lips and added bitterly, “And my uncle had returned to the castle… to get my mother.

She closed her eyes briefly, then continued, “We were in the loft drinking; Fredrique was trying to steal a kiss when my uncle dragged my mother into the stables to show her what he’d done. The headless bodies of my father and brothers had been lying in the stall beneath us, covered with a thin layer of straw the entire time Fredrique and I had been drinking above. He showed them to her and demanded she be his life mate.”

“Hang on,” Tiny said with amazement. “Be his life mate? How could she be his life mate? She was your father’s life mate. And where were his men?”

“He must have sent his men away, intending to deal with my mother and me himself.” Mirabeau said, then grimaced, and explained, “As for her being his life mate, my uncle could not read or control my mother either. She could have been a life mate to either brother, but chose my father.”

“Smart lady,” Tiny muttered.

Mirabeau sighed. “Perhaps, but I think that is what really drove him mad. That had she but chosen him, he would have had all that my father did.”

“I see.” Tiny nodded solemnly. “Yes, that must have been hard for him to bear. I’m sorry. Go on.”

Mirabeau took a breath herself and swallowed down the pain that always rose in her when she thought on these events. She hadn’t told the tale to anyone since Lucian had come upon her that night, and she’d sobbed the story to him. She found, though, that this time it hurt much less and wondered if it was the passage of time, or because it was Tiny she was finally telling it to. It did still hurt, and tears were crowding her eyes, but she was nowhere near sobbing with the agony of loss she’d suffered.

Mirabeau glanced down, noticed his large hand covering her own on her leg, and wondered when Tiny had put it there, but then she cleared her throat and continued, “My uncle told my mother that if she agreed to be his life mate and backed him up in the story that a roaming group of Roman Catholic vigilantes had killed my father and brothers, he would let me live.”

“Bastard,” Tiny muttered again.

Much to Mirabeau’s amazement, she actually felt a smile twitch at her lips at the angry word and the support behind it. But the desire to smile died quickly as she continued, “I thought my mother would agree. I was silently begging her to, thinking we would find a way to escape later and tell the truth… and I really think she would have had she not spotted me peeking out from the hayloft. She straightened then, her expression determined as she said, ‘No.’

“My uncle was furious. “Not even to save your daughter?” he raged with disbelief, and she suddenly looked serene and stared right at me as she said, “My daughter can save herself. You will not be able to kill Mirabeau. She is strong and brave. She will escape you and carry word of what you have done to the people who can do something about it.”

“She was telling you what to do,” Tiny murmured quietly.

“Yes,” Mirabeau agreed.

“What did your uncle do?” he prompted, when she didn’t immediately continue.

“He roared, ‘I will slaughter her in her bed where she even now lies sleeping,’ and pressed his sword to her throat, but my mother just smiled at me reassuringly over his shoulder, and said, ‘You may try. But I vow you will not succeed, and much as I love my daughter, I will not spend one moment even pretending to be your life mate. I shall never let you touch or think of me in that way.’”

When Mirabeau fell silent as she recalled that moment, Tiny squeezed her hand and asked in a hushed whisper, “And so he killed her?”

Mirabeau shook her head and used her free hand to wipe away the tear that had escaped her. “No. She killed herself.”

“What?” he asked with amazement. “But how? Why?”

Mirabeau shrugged. “The why is because while he couldn’t control her, and they were both immortals, he was still male and stronger. He would have raped and tormented her first, and I would have tried to save her, endangering myself. She knew all this, and so… ” Mirabeau took a deep breath. “The moment the last word had left her lips, she caught his hand holding the sword and jerked it toward herself while throwing her head forward, beheading herself on the steel edge.”

“Jesus,” Tiny breathed, then shook his head faintly. “I wouldn’t even have thought that possible. The strength needed to do it, both physically and just in fortitude… ”

“We are strong,” Mirabeau said simply, though she had found it all rather shocking at the time. She had never imagined anyone doing that either, but her mother had been like Marguerite, a strong woman capable of doing whatever she put her mind to. And, Mirabeau supposed, her mother had probably seen little to live for with her life mate lying dead at her feet. Finding a life mate was a rare thing, and life could be so lonely when you moved through it without one.

Pushing that thought aside, Mirabeau admitted quietly, “I started to scream when she did it. Fortunately, Fredrique covered my mouth, and my uncle didn’t hear what little sound escaped over his own frustrated roar. We stayed where we were while he ranted madly, but when he left to go find me, we slipped out of the loft. I told Fredrique to make himself scarce and mounted a horse and fled. My uncle’s men were camped in the woods outside the castle walls. They mounted and gave chase when I raced through their camp. I think they might have caught me had Lucian not suddenly appeared. He and my father were both horse enthusiasts and had become good friends. He’d been heading to La Roche to see the new horse. He arrived just as my uncle’s men were about to overtake me.”

“And he took care of them,” Tiny said quietly.

“Yes,” Mirabeau agreed quietly. “As well as my uncle.”

Tiny nodded and allowed several minutes to pass in silence, then asked, “What are we going to do about being life mates, Mirabeau La Roche?”

Chapter Ten

Mirabeau glanced at Tiny as panic and shock coursed through her. She hadn’t expected the blunt question, and responded harshly. “What do you mean? I never said we were life mates. What makes you think—”

“It was obvious you couldn’t read me in my room when you tried,” Tiny interrupted quietly, then added, “You’re eating too, which is another sign. And I’m pretty darned sure I was enjoying some of that shared pleasure in my bed this morning or last night or whatever it was.”

“You two did it last night?” Stephanie squawked.

Mirabeau turned sharply to see the girl still wore her earplugs. Her confusion as to how she could have heard their conversation must have shown because Stephanie rolled her eyes.

“I don’t need my ears to hear your thoughts,” she said overloudly thanks to the movie sound track playing in her ears.

“Yes, but we were speaking what you heard,” Tiny muttered.

“And you’re thinking as you speak,” she pointed out dryly, then shook her head. “Honestly, this life-mate business makes complete idiots out of adults. I mean, Dani’s a doctor, for God’s sake, and she’s been pretty brainless since meeting Decker. Now you two.” She shook her head again and turned her concentration to changing movies as she muttered, “Never gonna let myself get into that state. No sir.”

Mirabeau flopped back in her seat with a sigh. Honestly, teenagers were a pain. She was amazed her parents had been willing to have more than one, let alone not take very long breaks between them… like maybe a millennium or something. Certainly her time so far in this kid’s company was making her think a person had to be insane to want children. Sure, they were all cute and cuddly when they were someone else’s baby, but that was when you could send them home. Spend twenty-four hours with them, and there were messy diapers, burping up on you, and the endless crying… then they grew up into smart-ass teenagers.

“I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, Mirabeau,” Stephanie said with amusement. “I can read your mind, remember. I know you like me.”

Mirabeau grimaced but didn’t argue the point. Despite all the smart-ass comments, she did like the kid. Stephanie reminded her of herself when she was young. She’d bite her tongue off before saying that out loud though, she realized, and grimaced again as Stephanie began to chuckle in the backseat, positive she’d heard it anyway.

“So?” Tiny prompted after a moment.

It figured he wasn’t going to let the subject go, Mirabeau thought unhappily. The problem was she didn’t know what they were going to do about it. In truth, she knew that what Stephanie had said last night was right. While losing her parents and brothers had hurt horribly, she would never have dreamed of missing out on the years she’d had with them to save herself that loss. So, did she really want to walk away from what she could have with Tiny just to be sure she never suffered the pain of possibly losing him? Something that may never happen, she reminded herself. After all, she could die first, or they might die together.

However, while she thought she might be willing to go forward with it and be his life mate, there was more than just herself to consider here. Tiny too had a choice to make, and he was the one who still had family to lose. Not that he would have to give them up at once, but eventually, he would have to break away from them to prevent their noticing that he wasn’t aging.

“What do you want to do about it?” she asked finally, rather than answer.

“I really don’t know, Mirabeau,” Tiny admitted with a wry smile. “A little more than twenty-four hours ago I stood in that church in New York and told Marguerite that I had a family, one I wasn’t willing to lose even for the bliss of a life mate, but now… ” He shook his head, and said with bewilderment, “They seem so far away when I’m with you. I love them, but… ” He turned to peer at her briefly, then returned his gaze to the road, and said, “Twenty-four hours ago, to me you were just the gal with the black-and-pink hair. How could you become so important so quickly?”

Mirabeau had no idea. She had no idea how this life-mate business worked, just that it did, that she was showing all the symptoms of it, and that the longer she spent with him, the more she wanted to take that risk.

The sign warning of the approach of the off-ramp that led to Port Henry appeared ahead, and Mirabeau stared at it, rather surprised. She hadn’t thought that much time had passed since they’d left the restaurant, but then she supposed she’d been a bit distracted with their conversation.

“I guess we’ll have to leave this talk for later,” Tiny murmured, putting on his blinker to take the off-ramp. “After we leave Port Henry, we’ll stop somewhere and discuss it.”

Mirabeau nodded at the suggestion but suspected that if they stopped anywhere the least bit private, they wouldn’t get much talking done. Even somewhere very public wasn’t likely to stop them from consummating their relationship if they were inside the SUV. Once the assignment was over, there would be nothing to stop them except themselves, and life mates weren’t known for having a lot of restraint. She’d heard it said that new life mates were like drug addicts, constantly jonesing for a life-mate fix, and she finally understood the comment. She was jonesing for Tiny, very aware of his scent and the heat coming off his body, wishing she could sit closer, run her hands over his chest and legs, nibble at his ear… She didn’t much care that he was driving. The only thing really preventing her doing all of that was Stephanie’s presence and the fact that they had been charged with getting her safely to Port Henry. But once that was out of the way…

Mirabeau squirmed in her seat and licked her lips in anticipation.

“What are they doing here? I would have thought they’d be on their honeymoon now,” Tiny murmured as he parked the SUV behind the Victorian house. Elvi and Victor Argeneau, one of the couples whose wedding she had stood up for, had just come out of the back door and were crossing the deck toward the driveway. Apparently the couple had flown back and beat them to Port Henry.

“They probably wanted to be here to welcome Stephanie,” Mirabeau murmured, undoing her seat belt and opening her door.

“Are we glad to see you,” Elvi announced, rushing forward to clasp Mirabeau’s hands as she stepped out of the SUV. “We were really starting to worry. We expected you hours ago.”

“We got a little turned around in the tunnels, then had a couple of unscheduled stops,” Mirabeau muttered apologetically.

“Well, at least you’re here now,” Elvi said with a smile, her gaze shooting to Stephanie as the girl climbed out of the back of the SUV. Releasing Mirabeau, she moved to clasp the girl’s hands, and said, “And you must be Stephanie. I saw you at the wedding, but we didn’t really get to meet. I only found out afterward that you were the special guest Lucian had asked about staying with us.”

“He probably didn’t want anyone to read your mind and figure out where Stephanie was,” Tiny said as he came around the vehicle to join them.

“That’s what he said,” Elvi acknowledged, her gaze still on Stephanie who—much to Mirabeau’s surprise—had shifted rather close to her, like a shy child attaching herself to a parent’s or older sibling’s side on meeting strangers.

“Well… ” Mirabeau hesitated, but then glanced back toward the SUV, wondering if they were to head out right away to report to Lucian in Toronto. She doubted they were to risk calling from the house, and the sooner she got it done, the better. The minute she’d made her report, she would be free to do what she wanted… or whom she wanted, she thought, her eyes sliding to Tiny. At least she could until another assignment came up.

“You aren’t leaving already, are you?” Stephanie asked, sounding alarmed.

“Of course, she isn’t, dear,” Elvi said at once, slipping between them to put an arm around each female and urge them toward the house, leaving Tiny to follow with Victor. “Mirabeau and Tiny need to check in with Lucian. And then we’ll have a nice meal, and they can rest after the long journey before deciding what they’ll do next.”

Mirabeau felt her eyebrows rise at the words “deciding what they’ll do next.” It seemed such an odd thing to say considering the woman didn’t know them or the situation they were presently in.

“Lucian said not to call using anything but Tiny’s cell phone, and we lost that in New York,” she explained quietly, as they crossed the deck to the back door. “It’s why we couldn’t call ahead to explain that we’d be late.”

“We have a safe phone,” Victor assured her, pulling the door open and holding it for all of them to troop inside.

Mirabeau followed Elvi through an open kitchen with a breakfast counter, then into a large dining area with a beautiful fireplace.

There were three people seated at the table—a very pretty blond woman, and two men, one dark and one blond. All three rose at once to greet them as Elvi said, “This is my best friend Mabel, her life mate DJ and a dear friend of ours, Harper.” She gestured to each in turn as their group came to a halt and spread out a bit in the dining area. “And this lovely young lady is Stephanie, who will be staying with us for a while.” She beamed a smile at the girl, then added, “And Mirabeau and Tiny, who were kind enough to see her safely here and miss out on the wedding party after the ceremony.”

“You didn’t miss much,” DJ, the darker male, assured them as he moved forward to shake hands. “There was no drunkenness or bawdy jokes, just a bunch of dressed-up people wishing they could go home and get naked.”

“DJ!” Mabel shook her head, but she was smiling at the man, obviously not really upset by his words.

“Well it’s true,” DJ said, unrepentant. “What’s the first thing we did when we could finally leave and go back to our hotel room?”

“Dear God, they’re everywhere,” Stephanie muttered.

Knowing she was talking about new life mates who couldn’t seem to do anything but “lust after each other or do it” as she’d put it earlier, Mirabeau turned her back to the group to give a warning look to the girl and heard a horrified gasp behind her.

“Child, what happened to your hair?”

Mirabeau turned back around, a hand going self-consciously to the back of her head at that exclamation from Mabel, but the woman hurried forward and immediately turned her around to get a better look at it.

“What on earth,” Elvi’s friend breathed, and Mirabeau felt her plucking at the hair left on the back of her head.

“A homeless guy ripped some of her extensions out,” Stephanie said helpfully, and Mirabeau didn’t miss the amusement in her voice as Elvi and Mabel crowded around to examine the damage.

“Well, we’ll have to fix that for you,” Mabel decided firmly.

“Yes,” Elvi agreed, and began to urge both Mirabeau and Stephanie out of the dining room and toward a winding staircase in the front foyer. “Come along. Tiny can call Lucian while we fix your hair.”

“Yes, you can’t go around looking like that. I thought you’d been scalped when I first saw it,” Mabel said from somewhere behind her, then asked, “Are there supposed to be pink patches in your hair, or is that a result of the extensions?”

“She had fuchsia tips before Marguerite took her to the hairdresser,” Elvi explained in a hushed tone.

“Oh, my, well… that’s… interesting, child,” Mabel responded weakly, and Mirabeau felt a bubble of laughter at the back of her throat. It was obvious the woman wasn’t sure what to make of it, but then despite her youthful looks, Mabel was somewhere in her early sixties and probably not into the new styles. Of course, Mirabeau was even older still, but had been born immortal and had never looked or even really felt old. These two ladies were new turns who had been gray-haired and grandmotherly before their turn. Which was probably why Mabel had called her child when Mirabeau was actually her elder. The woman hadn’t gotten used to the idea that, at least physically, she was now a young woman.

“Here we are,” Elvi said cheerfully, steering them into a large room with a king-sized bed and sitting area. “This will be your and Tiny’s room while you’re here.”

Mirabeau was blinking at the announcement, when Mabel explained, “Marguerite told us she felt sure the two of you were life mates when she had Lucian put the two of you together to bring Stephanie here. And it’s obvious she was right.”

“It is?” Mirabeau asked with dismay, sure she hadn’t said or done anything that might give away her feelings for the mortal.

“You don’t have to say anything, dear,” Elvi said gently. “Your thoughts are pretty loud. They must be. Mabel and I haven’t quite got the hang of reading thoughts yet. We can barely read mortals, and only then with a lot of effort, but you and Tiny are like a pair of radios playing at top volume.”

“And you’re broadcasting a porno station,” Mabel announced with a grin. “Every time you glance his way, your mind is undressing and doing delicious things to him, and he’s no better.”

“I told you you were screaming your thoughts,” Stephanie said with vindication.

Mirabeau merely closed her eyes and wished she were dead.

“You can hear her thoughts then too?” Elvi asked with surprise, and Mirabeau opened her eyes to see Stephanie nod.

“I can hear you too, and everyone downstairs,” she admitted.

“Even Harper?” Mabel asked with a frown.

“Yes.”

“Well, aren’t you clever?” Elvi said, rubbing the girl’s shoulder. “That must be a special talent then, because Harper is apparently quite hard to read.”

“Really?” Stephanie asked, standing a little straighter under the praise.

“Yes indeed. Even Victor has trouble reading him since he lost his mate.” She sighed unhappily, and explained, “He and the other boys found life mates while here the summer before last. But Harper’s didn’t survive the turn.”

“Hmm,” Mabel muttered, urging Mirabeau to sit on the bed so that she could fuss with her hair. “And that was a shock, I can tell you. We were all worried about Alessandro’s mate because she is in her eighties, but she came through with flying colors. Instead, Harper’s life mate, who was young and seemingly in good health, was the one to have trouble. It seems she had a bad ticker no one knew about. She died before the nanos could get to her heart to repair and strengthen it.”

Silence filled the room for a moment, then Mabel announced, “I think I can get these out, but we’re going to have to move to the bathroom to do it.”

Mirabeau immediately found herself ushered to the bathroom.

Chapter Eleven

“Would you like a drink?” Victor asked, as the women disappeared upstairs.

Tiny nodded. The chili dog had been delicious but a bit salty, and he’d been parched for the last half hour of the drive. “Thank you, that would be nice.”

“Alcohol or coffee?” Victor asked, moving around the counter toward the kitchen half of the room. When Tiny hesitated, he added, “You’re off duty now. Alcohol is all right.”

“Alcohol it is then,” Tiny murmured, thinking a beer would hit the spot.

“I’ll get us a couple beers,” DJ offered, reading his mind.

As the other man got to his feet, Victor nodded. “Grab me one too, please. I’ll get glasses.”

DJ opened a door off the kitchen and headed downstairs to where the beer was apparently kept, and Victor busied himself in the kitchen, leaving Tiny alone with the man they’d introduced as Harper.

“You’re Mirabeau’s life mate,” the other man said quietly.

Tiny nodded slowly. “It would seem so.”

“Congratulations,” Harper said quietly. Then he asked, “How’s your health?”

“Good,” Tiny answered, a little bewildered by the question.

“Your heart?” he asked.

Tiny felt his eyebrows rise, but said, “Strong as a bull according to my doctor after my stress test last month.”

Harper’s lips twisted into a bittersweet smile. “Then don’t let your fears of the future hold you back. Being a life mate is a rare and wondrous thing. Grab on to it, and don’t let go. You won’t regret it.”

He then stood and left the room with a nod, leaving Tiny staring after him with bewilderment.

“Harper lost his life mate and is having a rough time of it,” Victor murmured, coming back into the dining area. “He’s right though. Don’t let fear prevent you from accepting the happiness you and Mirabeau could have.”

“I won’t,” Tiny murmured, and knew it was true. While he did have concerns about what it would mean in regard to his family, he just couldn’t resist the pull of his attraction for Mirabeau. Accepting the empty glass Victor held out, he murmured a polite, “Thanks,” and thought that, while he preferred beer straight from the bottle, he’d drink from the glass to be polite.

“Actually, I prefer the bottle too,” Victor said wryly, obviously having read his mind again.

Tiny smiled faintly, but once again thought it might be nice to be immortal and be able to guard his thoughts from others.

“I was trying to be a good host, but”—Victor took back the glass he’d just given Tiny, and said wryly—“this way there are no glasses to clean up.” He swung away to return the glasses, adding, “The phone’s there on the counter. The handset is cordless, so if you want privacy, take it out on the deck.”

“Thanks,” Tiny said again, and moved to collect the phone.

“It looks like you have two Marguerites,” Mirabeau murmured, as Mabel and Elvi moved away to examine the various shampoos and conditioners they had between them, trying to decide which one would be best for Mirabeau’s “stressed” hair now that the extensions were out. They were a delightful pair—amusing, caring, and loving, and had both been fussing over Stephanie as they’d worked, asking her questions and drawing her into the conversation.

The girl rolled her eyes at Mirabeau’s words, but she suspected it was for show. She sensed that the girl was secretly pleased.

“Here we are. We’ve decided this one is the best bet,” Elvi announced, holding out a matching set of bottles, one holding shampoo, the other conditioner. “Do you want to wash it in the shower or just at the sink?”

“The sink is fine,” Mirabeau murmured, and immediately found herself with a woman on each side, determined to help her do it at the bathroom sink. Unused to the fussing herself, she was relieved when the chore was done and she could dry her hair and use some gel to return it to its usual spiky state.

“My,” Mabel murmured, as Mirabeau finished and presented herself for inspection. “That style is really quite attractive on you, dear. The fuchsia tips are really quite striking. I like it.”

“Yes, it’s quite nice,” Elvi agreed. And then her eyes shifted past Mirabeau, and she smiled, and asked, “What do you think, Tiny?”

Mirabeau glanced over her shoulder with surprise. Her own eyes widened as she saw Tiny standing in the doorway.

“I think Mirabeau always looks beautiful,” Tiny said solemnly. “But I like this style best. It suits her.”

Elvi beamed at the man, and said, “I knew you were an intelligent man the moment I met you in New York, Tiny McGraw.”

Much to Mirabeau’s amazement, he actually blushed at the compliment, which just seemed to please Elvi more. Chuckling softly, the woman caught Mabel and Stephanie each by an arm and began to usher them out of the bathroom. “Well, our work here is done, girls. Why don’t we leave these two alone for a bit and go have tea? Stephanie, do you like white chocolate strawberry cookies?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had them,” Stephanie murmured, as Tiny stepped out of the way to allow them to exit the bathroom.

“Oh, well then, you’re in for a real treat. They’re divine,” she said, as they headed through the bedroom. “We stopped and picked up a bunch on our way home from the airport.”

“She got cheesecake too,” Mabel announced dryly, then told Stephanie in conspiratorial tones, “You’ll find that Elvi has something of a sweet tooth.”

“So do I,” Stephanie said with a grin.

“Oh, brilliant,” Elvi crooned happily. “We shall get on like gangbusters!”

Mirabeau glanced to Tiny and shook her head wryly as the door closed behind the trio. “They are going to spoil her rotten before Dani can get here to collect her.”

“She’s been through a lot and deserves a little spoiling,” Tiny said mildly, then added, “And so do you.”

Mirabeau found her breath hitching in surprise and her heart melting a little at the words. It had been the exactly right thing to say. Mirabeau started across the room with every intention of kissing him for saying it, when he suddenly held up a phone.

“Lucian wants to talk to you.”

“Lucian?” She stared at the phone with amazement. “You’ve been on the phone with him all this time?”

He grimaced and shook his head. “I tried calling, got a busy signal, had a beer with the boys, and tried again.”

It had obviously been a long beer, Mirabeau thought, and wondered if “the boys” had been gently prodding him about her just like the women had been prodding her about him. Shaking her head, she sighed and took the phone. “Hello?”

“So Tiny’s your life mate,” were the first words growled in her ear.

Mirabeau stiffened, then scowled at the phone before saying pleasantly, “Would this be a business call, or pleasure, Lucian?”

“Business,” he barked. “Is he or isn’t he your life mate?”

Mirabeau grimaced, but snapped, “Yes.”

There was a hiss as if he was sucking in air, then Lucian cursed. “Goddamn that Marguerite. She’s going to make my life miserable. I was already shorthanded when it came to enforcers, and now I’ll be one shorter.”

“Well, you’re the one who let her convince you to put us together,” she pointed out with exasperation. “You could have said no.”

“And stop you from meeting a possible life mate?” he asked with outrage. “Not likely, little girl.”

Mirabeau found her lips reluctantly curling into a smile. He hadn’t called her little girl since the death of her family.

“I’m walking you down the aisle,” he announced firmly. “Your father would have wanted it.”

“There’s no walking yet,” she gasped, glancing worriedly at Tiny. Dear God, they hardly knew each other, and Lucian had them marrying. “And you haven’t lost another hunter. I’ll stay the night and tomorrow, then head back as soon as the sun sets, ready for work.”

“The hell you will,” Lucian snapped.

“I will,” she insisted.

“Don’t bother. You’d be useless to me anyway. Stay in Port Henry for a while and work Tiny out of your system. That’s an order,” he added firmly. “And tell Tiny it’s an order for him too. Jackie has already agreed and—” He paused abruptly, and Mirabeau heard the murmur of a woman’s voice in the background. She only realized it must be Tiny’s boss, Jackie, when Lucian’s muffled voice said, “All right, all right,” before growing louder again as he told her, “Jackie says to tell Tiny she’s very happy for him and to take as much time as he needs.”

Mirabeau hesitated, her eyes sliding to Tiny and back to the phone, then she asked uncertainly, “What if he doesn’t want to?”

“Oh, he wants to, little girl. I already asked him. Enjoy.” The last word was followed by a click as he hung up.

“Good-bye to you too,” Mirabeau muttered, hitting the button to kill her end of the call. Sighing, she peered at Tiny, cleared her throat, and murmured, “He said we should stay here for a while.”

“I heard,” he admitted, then asked quietly, “is that all right with you?”

She smiled crookedly. “It doesn’t seem like I have much choice. He’s my boss, and it’s an order.”

“That’s a cop-out,” Tiny said quietly. “Do you want to or not?”

Mirabeau swallowed and avoided his eyes. “I… I can’t read you… and I want you.”

“I already knew that, Mirabeau,” he pointed out gently. “The question is, are you ready to have a life mate?”

For one minute, she struggled with the question, reluctant to admit that she was, but that was young Mirabeau briefly raising her head and all her fears with it. She wasn’t that poor, broken girl anymore. She was an immortal woman, and he was her life mate, and it didn’t matter what she knew or didn’t know about him, or anything else. The fact was the nanos knew they would be good together, and as all immortals knew, the nanos were never wrong. He was her future. Mirabeau realized suddenly that all the fears she’d been experiencing were just leftover gifts from her uncle’s actions. He’d definitely taken enough already. She wasn’t letting him take Tiny from her too.

“Yes,” she said finally, her voice firm and her chin rising defiantly. “I’m ready.”

Tiny started to reach for her, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. “What about you? Are you ready to be my life mate Tiny McGraw?”

“I shouldn’t be,” he said solemnly. Sliding his arms around her waist, he drew her closer, managing to press their hips together despite the hand she had between them, as he whispered, “We hardly know each other.”

“That’s true,” Mirabeau murmured, as he bent and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I don’t know what you like and don’t like, what your beliefs are, religiously or politically, or even if you want children.” He punctuated each point with another kiss, one to the side of her eye, one to her cheek, and one to her ear.

Mirabeau murmured something of an agreement, although it sounded more like a moan to her as her body began to respond to his nearness and touch.

“We should really talk,” he murmured, running his lips across her cheek to press a kiss to the side of her mouth. “Get to know each other.”

“Yes,” she breathed, forgetting to hold him away and slipping her arms around his shoulders instead. The moment she did, Tiny cupped the back of her head and met her gaze solemnly.

“We’ll talk later,” he promised.

“Later,” Mirabeau agreed, just before his mouth covered hers. His kiss was hot and demanding, and Mirabeau moaned as her body came to roaring life. She then gasped as he caught her by the behind and lifted her up before shifting his hold to her thighs so that her legs shifted around his waist. Mirabeau instinctively hooked her ankles around his back, then gasped and bit his lip as he began to walk across the bedroom, and their bodies rubbed together, bringing on an almost painful need.

When he reached the bed, Tiny set her down on her feet, then quickly and methodically stripped off the tank top she wore. Just as she was reaching to remove his own top, he gave her a push that sent her dropping back onto the bed. He then immediately bent and caught the waistband of her joggers to tug them off quickly. Once he had her naked, Tiny paused to look her over, one hand sliding gently along her heated skin, making her eyes droop to half-mast and her body shiver with pleasure. Mirabeau reached for him then, wanting to feel him on top of her, but he withdrew with a chuckle and straightened, leaving her to watch as he stripped off his own clothes.

As she watched first his T-shirt, then his own joggers hit the floor, Mirabeau traced the outline of his body with hungry eyes and knew it would be a long time before they had that talk… a very long time. Perhaps after their first child… or the second, she thought, as he came down on top of her, his body firm and hard. And then his mouth covered hers and his hands began to move over her and she stopped thinking altogether and put her trust in the nanos.