The beach house melted into dark water, and the porch began rocking under Sam’s feet. On either side of her the bright lights from the hotels and clubs on the beach receded to the east, while the wooden deck built atop itself an empty cabin with blacked-out windows.

Sam didn’t bother to watch the changes around her anymore; she lunged at Werren. A thin cable wrapped around her neck and burned into her flesh with the hot-acid bite of copper. It shocked her so much she froze.

“Take her weapon,” a rough voice ordered beside her ear.

Werren approached, darting back as Sam lashed out with a vicious kick. “Please. They will hurt you if you resist.”

Sam brought her boot down as hard as she could on the man’s instep, making him howl and shove her away. She dragged the copper garrote from around her neck as she reached for her pistol with her other hand, only to find herself shoved back into the confines of a body-size cage, the door to which was slammed in her face.

“Another illusion? This time I know it’s not real.” She tried to wrench the bars apart. “Goddamn it, let me out of here.”

Werren walked up to the cage, and reached in to take her weapon. When Sam tried to stop her, she found herself manacled by huge metal cuffs attached to the bars of the cage.

“Everything is real, my lady.” She sounded sad as her hair snarled into wads of dirty knots and her pretty outfit sagged into a rotting potato sack. “I am the only illusion.”

* * *

So now he knows.

Chris wouldn’t let herself look at anything but the scenery as Jamys drove them back to the marina. Since they’d left Stryker’s orgy, he’d been very quiet, and all she could think of to say were a bunch of pathetic excuses and inadequate apologies. She’d just shown him what Stryker had made of her, and forced him to have sex in front of a houseful of perverts; even the most sincere “I’m sorry” wouldn’t redeem her behavior.

It’s better that he knows. At least she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore that the years between her mother’s suicide and the day she met Sam didn’t exist. She had to put this behind her and go on as if nothing had happened, something she was becoming an expert at doing.

To give her hands something to do besides twist her fingers into knots, Chris took out her mobile. “I’m going to try to call Sam. If she can meet us somewhere, away from the stronghold, then we can keep Lucan from finding out that you didn’t go home.”

“I have no home,” Jamys said. “I cannot return to my father’s stronghold, and even if he would permit it, I have no desire to serve another Kyn lord.” He gave her a sideways glance. “Once the high lord learns of my situation, he will have me declared a rogue.”

Chris knew a little about rogues, the loner immortals who were considered outcasts among the Kyn. If they did anything to hurt humans or piss off Tremayne, he had them killed. Sometimes he had them killed simply for turning rogue. Sam had told her how often Lucan had been sent to execute them before Cyprien had made him a suzerain.

“Then you go back to North Carolina,” she told him. “You make up with your dad and take an oath to him or whatever you have to do, but you don’t go rogue. You don’t ever go rogue.”

“By leaving my father’s stronghold without permission, and disobeying Lucan’s orders by remaining in his territory, I have already.” He parked the car in the marina’s lot and shut off the engine. “Finding the emeralds is my only hope of redemption now.”

“Oh. So you’ve decided to give them to the high lord.” Although she understood his motives, her heart sank a little. “Okay. Maybe he won’t use them to decimate the mortal world.”

“He would not use them for that specific purpose.” He got out of the car and came around to open her door. “But I believe he cannot be trusted with them, so no, I would not give them to Richard.”

“Immortality might tempt someone on the council to act like an idiot, too.” She climbed out and walked with him toward the slip. “If we can’t give them to either side, then why are we still looking for these rocks?”

“In the summons, Richard said that the guardian of the emeralds is dead.” He stopped and looked down at her. “I think you and I were fated to become the new guardians.”

“Us?” She frowned. “I could see you doing that, but I’m human. I’m only going to be around for maybe another fifty, sixty years, and that’s not . . .” She realized what he meant. “No, Jamys.”

“Think about it.” He cradled her face between his hands. “If you were made immortal, Christian, we could be together forever. I could take you as my sygkenis, and neither of us would ever have to be alone again.”

“You’d make me your life companion.” She tried to wrap her head around that. “What are you talking about?”

“I am in love with you.” He drew his knuckles down along the side of her cheek. “I have been these three years.”

She walked away from him and went to the boat, where she turned on the navcom and pulled up the course that would take them back to Fort Lauderdale. She felt him the moment he stepped onto the boat, but kept her back to him.

“Why are you so angry with me?”

“Three years.” She hammered the coordinates into the keypad. “The last three years, do you know how I spent them? Training.”

“I know—”

“You’re Kyn. You don’t know.” She saw the faint reflection of her face on the navcom’s small monitor, and her features were so drawn they resembled a too-tight mask. “Every single day for the last three years, I’ve been training. I learned how to fight with my fists, my feet, my elbows and knees. I practiced how to use knives, clubs, swords, Tasers, and anything else Burke handed me. I spent fourteen months going to the firing range every day to master every pistol, every rifle, every assault weapon in the stronghold armory, until Turner qualified me as expert on all of them. I can outshoot a SWAT team, Jamys, and I don’t even like guns.”

She switched the computer screen to the maritime report, but she couldn’t focus on the readout.

“What has this to do with us?” he asked at last.

“It has nothing to do with us. See, there was no us. There was just me, and what I had to do. I’ve never been book smart, so the French lessons almost made me quit.” She sounded bitter, and realized she didn’t care. “Your language has too many damn irregular verbs in it, and why can’t you pronounce the ends of words? What’s wrong with the ends of words? We say them in English.”

“I know,” he admitted. “It took me a long time to remember to say them.”

“Well, you’re immortal; you have the time to spare,” she reasoned. “Oh, and then there was tolerance training. For that, I got tapped for blood every hour until I passed out cold. Then Burke would wake me up, make me drink a barrel of juice, and then give me work to do and evaluate my performance on the job. I’m actually pretty good at that; it only took me eight months to work up to losing three pints without compromising my ability to think straight and observe proper protocol.”

He turned her around to face him. “Christian, why are you telling me this?”

“I’m telling you I did all of that,” she assured him, “and a lot more, because that’s what tresori do for the Kyn. We serve every need you have, and I thought if I could do that for you . . . if I could be the perfect tresora that you’d . . . and you’re telling me that all this time, you’ve been in love with me? With that girl I used to be, the homeless loser with the funny hair, the pierced eyebrow, the checkered sex-trade past?”

“It matters not how you appear, or what you have done,” he said, running a hand over her hair. “That is not who you were to me.”

She went to the starboard side of the boat and sat down on the edge of the hull to stare down at the murky water in the slip. “I can’t believe this.”

Chris tried to hold it in, but her shoulders began to shake, and then the rest of her body joined in.

Jamys came to sit beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Please, Christian, don’t cry.”

That did it. The first laugh rolled out of her, followed by another, and then she really let go.

Jamys frowned. “You are not crying.”

“I know. I should be,” she gasped between eruptions of giggles. “But it’s just so funny. I was so sure it was the only way we could be together. Three years, trying to be so perfect, so ladylike, so boring . . .” Overwhelmed again, she shook her head and just let it out.

“I should probably tell you,” Jamys said, “what I have been doing all this time.”

“Sure.” Chris heaved in a breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You had to listen to my stuff.”

“I have been training as well. I have been learning how to fight. First with my father, and then by myself.” His mouth hitched. “I was never a Templar, you see, so I had never taken up the sword. One cannot rule warriors unless one can prevail over them, but I had a more personal motive. Thus I set myself to study and learn the techniques of Kyn warriors, and practice until I was ready to challenge the warriors of my father’s garrison.”

Chris sobered. “How long did you have to train?”

“Every night, from dusk until near dawn, for three years.” He smiled. “I did it for you, Christian.”

“Why on earth would you want to turn yourself into a warrior for me?” As he gave her an ironic look, she understood. “Oh, my God. So you’d have the right to take a tresora.”

He nodded. “I convinced myself that it was the only way you and I could be together.”

It was a good thing she’d exhausted her supply of laughter for the time being, because what they’d done for each other was almost hilarious. Sad, too, because they could have avoided all of it.