The Edge

Annie Windsor

Redevence

Prologue

In the time before time, in those last days before mud huts and stone plows, on the dunes where

Ur would rise and give way to Babylonia and Assyria , The Seven stood facing the souls who had
called them.

It was sunset, and more than night was falling.

To the human eye, The Seven seemed naught but shimmers, rising from desert toward waking

stars like pillars, holding up the sky. They touched each other as long-time lovers, and spoke as
freely as eternal mates.

And then a dry wind stirred sand-whispers from the dunes, and the priests of men began their

deadly incantations.

Such hateful sounds to the ears of The Seven!

Crying out, they clung to each other like children. Hurt. Confused. Had they not come to serve?

Why were their former friends causing such pain, such harm? The Seven had no proper names
known to the priests, who simply called them by their animal natures—names later translated into
proper French: Léopard, Python, Éléphant, Hibou, Crocodile, Loup, and Lion.

To the priests of men, The Seven embodied an unspeakable threat. Keepers of true magik,

wielders of the Old Powers, The Seven were strong enough to turn the swelling tide of man.

And so the priests set out to destroy them.

And so the priests succeeded.

Almost.

In a desperate effort to escape mortal binding, The Seven cast a final spell, then released their

life forces to assure reincarnation under ancient spirit-laws, destined to return as full-human in
appearance. Fated not to remember their true identity until the moment of next death—or until
the right blood finally mixed in the right veins.

How the priests howled when The Seven vanished! How they tore their black frocks as the

dunes spit forth the spell’s spawn: seven guardians, in the image of their masters—Léopard,
Python, Éléphant, Hibou, Crocodile, Loup, and Lion.

And so the Montre were born, spell-bred watchers tasked with defending incarnations of The

Seven, those oldest of souls, later called the Redevence. The Montre would be night-walkers,
bound to their spirit-forms by day but fully human—and hungry—beneath the light of the moon.
From the moment of inception, they hated the enemies of their spirit masters. They hated the
priests of men.

As one, the beasts advanced on the priests, slowly shifting from animal to formidable human

shapes as darkness claimed the barren plains.

Terrified, knowing the guardians could not be defeated by any magik known to this Earth, the

priests fell back. They could but borrow a shred of power from the lingering Redevence spell.
Enough to counter the guardians…or so they fervently hoped.

And so the Empêche were born. Mirror-doubles of the Montre, the Empêche were spell-bred to

seek and slay the Redevence. The Empêche would be day-walkers, bound to their spirit-forms by
night but fully human—and hungry—beneath the light of the sun. From the moment of inception,
they, too, hated the enemies of their masters.

As one, the well-muscled men advanced on the Montre, slowly shifting from human to

formidable beasts as moonbeams glinted on the changing sands.

Even the priests knew the skirmish would be a draw before it began.

They soon fled, taking their Empêche guardians with them.

And thus the battle ended.

And thus the battle was joined, forever and across eternity.

Chapter 1

July 15, 1843

If ever you see a spotted cat, baby girl, a cat with no earthly business in this part of the world, run like

the gods bringin’ all they wrath. Don’t look back. Don’t look at nothin’.

And if you see two spotted cats, baby girl…pray. That’s all I can say, but you listen. That’s all I

remember…so it must be the most important thing.

Ruli Danbala

* * * * *

July 15, 1863

Late afternoon sun baked Ezri Danbala’s skin a fine brown as she worked the blunt-edged shovel,

ramming it into dry Arizona Territory earth. She wore nothing but a red cloth skirt. Her cotton shirt
bound her waist, leaving her breasts to feel the sun’s searing touch, like hungry kisses from the sky.

Like a true lover’s touch, with a true lover’s passion.

Ezri’s mound ached below her heavy skirt—strange time for that to happen. But she figured it for the

sun’s fault. All that heat. All those sky kisses. Shame on the sun for giving her dreams about a lover who
would excite her, who would tend to her satisfaction and pleasure, and not be frightened away by her
independence.

One clump at a time, Ezri hollowed a long hole as hot wind stirred dust and rustled through

water-starved pine needles around the edge of the campsite. The barren sound reminded her how little
she had left: a covered buckboard, two horses tugging at meager grass in the distance, and an old blind
dog.

White.

Papa Loa was white. And big and fuzzy, with a pelt as pure as fresh snow. The dog often made her

wonder if a bear-spirit had mistakenly chosen a canine body to inhabit. Papa Loa had traveled the
endless road from Louisiana to these godforsaken high desert woods, trotting all the way. Her husband
Delmont made the dog walk behind the buckboard because the bastard hoped Papa Loa would die.

Delmont tried to kill everything Ezri cared for, probably hoping she’d be left with nothing but him.

Ezri paused in her digging again, this time long enough to cough, rub her baby-swollen belly, and wish

the sun would finish its day’s work. Soon, soon, her precious enfant would join her in this life, such as it
was.

Delmont fucked her, got her pregnant, tried to rule her—but she never loved the man. Mais, non. That

’s why she never married him. She couldn’t love any person so weak, so petty.

Sometimes Ezri thought Delmont fancied killing her, but then he wouldn’t have had a woman to hate

and insult. So he settled for her precious things. Her cats. Her birds. Her bébés, the dogs—especially
Papa Loa. All the creatures drawn to her by that special shine inherited from Ruli Danbala, her
coffee-Creole mother—and even from Aristed LeBron, her eccentric golden-haired and very white
father.

LeBron, one of the richest men in New Orleans , hadn’t hidden the fact he had a mixed race child.

Twenty-five years ago, on the day Ezri was born, the crazy man freed his slaves, sent his white wife back
to her white people in Boston , and moved Ruli and Ezri into his white-columned mansion. He hired the
best tutors for Ezri, and saw to it she was educated in both the European and Creole traditions. Ezri read
Shakespeare alongside the proper ways to construct a Voudon Oum’phor—a temple for what scared
Christians called devil-worship. Hoodoo. Conjuring.

Voodoo.

Oui. Best they can do to say Voudon. From the old words “vo”—instropection, and “du”—into

the unknown.

It had been Ezri’s experience that the bontemps in the big New Orleans mansions had little use for

introspection into the unknown.

“You’re a special girl,” Papa LeBron had told her even then, back in that time when Ezri never lacked

for love or tenderness. “A child of both worlds. You have more inside you than people understand. And
you’ll remember what your mother can’t.”

Remember.

Rappelez.

Remember.

Ezri sighed.

She’d heard that word, along with her mother’s cryptic warning about spotted cats, nearly every day

until her parents were murdered.

In a way, she almost missed the litany.

Ezri’s jaw clenched as she fought the dry heat and dry fatigue from her journey—and her task. Le

bébé cher in her belly lay uncharacteristically still, as if bearing the tiredness for her. Thoughts of her
parents made Ezri ache down deep, like her heart didn’t want to keep beating.

But it had to. And she had to dig.

The shovel made a loud thwack as she plunged it into the dirt again.

The locals back in New Orleans , white and black, got a little nervous with LeBron and especially

Ruli. If truth be told, Ezri had thought her parents were strange, too. Sometimes. The rest of the time, she
just loved them.

Folks said LeBron had taken an old-souled witch into his home—a mam’bo—an empress of voudon.

More than one person whispered that LeBron himself had taken up dark arts. But to Ezri, nothing about

her life or her father or her mother had been dark—except for Ruli’s skin, of course.

As for Ezri, she had ebony hair and the inner shine from her mother’s side, sapphire blue eyes and

stubbornness from her father’s, and golden skin and a mixed patois accent from the blending. The only
time she turned dark was when she tanned.

Like now.

Out here in nowhere, Arizona , digging a half-ass grave for a worthless bastard who made her last dog

walk too many miles.

Damn that man.

And damn me for taking up with him. In my right mind, I never would have put up with

Delmont.

Twenty-five years old. Homeless. Stuck in the middle of nowhere. Broke. Pregnant. And a murderer.

This was not what Ezri had planned for herself, and certainly not what her parents tried to give her. But

as tensions worsened and Civil War circled the south like a dark bird of prey, her parents had been
slaughtered for their open disregard of social custom.

Ezri’s childhood home had been burned. She’d been flogged, nearly hung, and finally thrown into the

streets to wander, dazed, until she ended up on the wrong side of Lake Pontchartrain .

That’s when Delmont “rescued” her. Made her his “high yalla” girl, and showed her off to all his kin.

Until he started beating her so badly she didn’t look pretty anymore. Until the war came South for real.

They left New Orleans then, trekking west like so many others. Meant to go to California , but true to

form, Delmont changed his mind just yesterday. They had stopped here, a hundred miles from anywhere,
on the brink of the high desert.

Delmont wanted to stay. He wanted Ezri to live on a dust farm carved into the side of a mountain,

overlooking a steep drop with a panoramic vista—mais, non. Thank you, no.

But in truth, Ezri knew it would have been fitting. She would have lived where she’d always lived.

Where she figured she’d stay for the rest of her life.

On the edge.

Right on the relentless, unforgiving edge.

She shoveled out more dirt, and a little more, then glanced at Papa, who sat close by on her right,

keeping his sightless eyes fixed on her every move.

Delmont had tried his hardest to kill that poor dog.

Papa Loa had ignored the jackass, though. The dog never lost his pace following behind their wagon.

A bad skunk attack ruined his eyes, left him blind—and sharp root cut off one of his toes. Still, Papa didn
’t slow down. He didn’t even limp.

Ezri made a kissing sound at the dog, who thumped his tail softly in the lengthening shadow of the

wagon.

Papa knew. Oh, yes. He did.

Mama finally took good care of a bad situation.

“Sweet dog.” Ezri tossed another shovel full of dirt from the pit. She could stand in the hole now. It

came near to six by six. “You be my only beau now, oui?”

The dog didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Ezri could sense his consent.

And the hole she dug—it was good enough for Delmont now, since she didn’t plan to give the son of a

bitch a proper coffin. She looked to her left and spit on his corpse. Her mouth ached from the effort, still
bruised at the corner from Delmont’s last punch.

By all the gods and rites of Voudon (and there were too many to name), she would never suffer

another bruise at a man’s hands. She rubbed the back of her shovel. The shovel that had killed le
bâtard and now helped her dig his grave.

“I told you you’d only hit me one more time,” she said to dead-as-dirt Delmont. “Guess you know

now I meant it.”

Chapter 2

Right about the time Ezri dragged Delmont’s carcass into the makeshift grave, she smelled something

unusual. Something like iron, hot from a smithy’s forge. She wrinkled her nose and glanced down at
Delmont.

Was he stinking already? Because it smelled a little like dead things, all sulfury and bitter and…wrong.

A blood-stilling howl rose from behind her, from somewhere back in the dry, dusky pines.

Papa Loa stiffened. His hackles bristled, and he growled, low-like.

Ezri raised her hand to shield her eyes from the setting sun—and caught a flash of movement. Like

butter, drizzling across the nearest tree trunk.

Was it a cougar? Some kind of wildcat?

If ever you see a spotted cat, baby girl, a cat with no earthly business in this part of the world…

Her mother’s warning washed Ezri like an unwelcome tide.

Raaaaooooowwwrr!

Gooseflesh broke across her arms and shoulders. Almost on cue, pain lanced her quickened belly.

“Not now,” she murmured, stroking the round dome of flesh still holding her offspring—but apparently

not for long. “Damn. Be still, child. Please.”

And then another cry—from in front! And another flash of white-yellow butter through the pines.

Ezri kicked dirt on Delmont’s body, just in case his dead-smell was drawing predators.

The sun hung on the edge of setting, snagged on a single line of clouds.

Shadows played tricks on Ezri’s mind, her senses.

A rustling noise made her spin around, and a shirtless man stepped out of the trees and into the

clearing.

Lightning couldn’t have struck Ezri faster than her body-shocking fear. She thought about putting on

her shirt, but there was no point. The man had already seen what there was to see.

He was golden, this man, from his long, waving hair to his skin. And he had a shine, a shimmer, like a

piece of sun. His eyes—bluer than hers. This was no Delmont-boy. This fellow towered like a tree,
muscle-heavy, square-jawed, and a damn near perfect example of manhood. A mark blazed on his right
shoulder. Ezri thought it might be some sort of star. Seven-pointed, drawn deep, deep in the man’s
golden flesh. A silver ring glinted on the third finger of his right hand, and he was dressed in white

breeches tied at the waist by yellow cord.

Below that cord…Oh, lord. The size of that pénis…mmmm, hmmm. Ezri’s nipples turned hard as

the stones she’d battled to dig Delmont’s grave.

She felt stupid and dizzy, and wet between the legs.

Hand on her baby-basket, she swayed, staring at the god-like stranger.

Papa Loa raised up, barking fiercely, but the man waved a hand and the dog fell silent and lay down,

as if suddenly sleepy.

Ezri’s thoughts cleared in an instant. “Monsieur, you might be a god. A true Loa. You might be Legba

himself.” She tightened her grip on the bloody shovel. “But if you hurt my dog with your magic, I put you
in this grave, yeah. Right alongside the first bastard.”

At this, the man laughed.

The sound—Ezri felt herself swoon into it. So sweet. Like an angel’s harp, but low and rumbling. So

completely male.

“There, there petite chou.” The formal French endearment rolled off the man’s tongue. His accent was

flawless, cultured—upper-class New Orleans or Paris itself, Ezri would near bet her life. “I’ll not damage
your brave companion.”

His gaze traveled to the grave, then to Ezri’s bare breasts, then back to her eyes.

Ezri felt touched. Fondled. Aroused.

She wasn’t sure if she liked the sensation—didn’t know if she wanted it—but she didn’t dislike it

either.

Above her, the sun finally dropped below its cloud barrier. Darkness crept into the clearing.

The golden man glanced at the sky.

“It be getting’ dark, Alain,” came a bass whisper from behind Ezri. “You Empéche âne.”

She turned so fast she almost toppled into the grave—then covered her mouth to kill a scream.

A spotted cat had entered the clearing, so soft on his feet that Ezri hadn’t heard even the snap of a

twig.

A spotted cat who talked…and then that spotted cat…changed.

Slowly, torturously. Growing in stature, and growing—until it became a man. A near double to the first

intruder into Ezri’s clearing.

This man had golden skin like the first, like her—but his hair was black. His eyes, like glittering chips of

obsidian. He was just as tall, just as muscled, just as handsome and showy in his form-tight red breeches.
An ebony seven-pointed star covered his left shoulder, and a silver ring glimmered on the third finger of
his left hand.

There was no heavenly glow around this man. Hypnotic shadows followed his supple movements as he

crouched, glaring past Ezri to the man he called Alain. And his voice, what little she had heard—no
cultured accent, that. Mais, non .

Raw, bayou Cajun. So humid she could almost feel the swelter slide across her lips…her neck…her

bare, puckered nipples.

The first man, he had made her horny. This second man made her pussy ache. Ezri had never known

such desire in all of her life.

How could she want anything or anyone like she was—coated in Arizona dust, worn from weeks on

the trail, heavy with child, stained with blood?

But she did. By all the gods, she did.

If the absurdity and potential danger of the situation hadn’t held her in firm grip, she might have

masturbated on the spot.

“Typical Montre slackard.” Alain’s previously warm voice dripped with ice. “You’re late as usual,

Méchant.”

The dark man laughed. The low, spine-tremoring rumble stroked Ezri’s clit as surely as a blazing

tongue. “Seems to me I be right on time, yeah.”

Ezri eased away from the grave, toward Papa Loa and the wagon, where she could see both of the

giants. She kept a hard grasp on the shovel, ready to use it if necessary. As if it would do any good
against these mirror-image—what?

Gods? Voudon Loas? Demons?

Because whatever they were, they weren’t normal men. That much, Ezri knew for certain.

If ever you see a spotted cat, baby girl…and if you see two spotted cats…

But these weren’t cats. Not really. Were they?

Another sharp pain dug at Ezri’s belly, and both men snapped their gazes back to her.

They know , she thought with a flare of desperation. The labor—they sense my pain!

Had they come for the child, then? Her innocent unborn? Her one reason for living?

Rage stormed in Ezri’s mind, blending with the pain in her loins. She hoisted the shovel on reflex.

“You’ll have to kill me,” she shouted, sounding twice as brave as she felt.

Both men parted their full, tempting lips, flashing bone-white fangs, top and bottom.

Deadly, hooked fangs—and they were growing.

Chapter 3

Méchant, or Chant to the few souls who knew him, kept the woman in the corner of his vision as he

loosed a powerful roar.

This incarnation of Ezruli, one of The Seven, the Redevence soul he had been watching off and on

since her charmed childhood.

It had been years, though. And now, she was…more beautiful than he expected. As if she had

gathered more of her ancient Nubian blood and the Old Powers known only to the Redevence. And she
smelled…better than he expected. Like anthemis—sweet apple or chamomile—beneath the dirt and
sweat and blood and murder. By Anu, even those earthy scents made her more attractive.

More alive.

He gnashed his fangs once. Twice. The age-old spell compelling him to protect the Redevence

bloodline mingled with something more personal. Something rarely known to Chant despite his seemingly
endless years.

A wicked, possessive desire.

Somewhere in the chill depths of his dark defender’s heart, he wanted this Ezruli to live—though she

was but minutes or hours from death, or the Old Powers wouldn’t have summoned him.

Across the clearing, Alain narrowed his glittering eyes at Chant. The Empêche’s bellow of challenge

pummeled the dry air.

Chant’s instincts bristled. He tried to force his thoughts from the woman, but he could not. Her golden

skin, those cold-crystal eyes, the dark hair in disarray about the perfect curves of her shoulders—and her
full, taut nipples. Wine-colored. Blood-colored.

His travel-parched throat burned at such a forbidden thought.

Protect. Preserve. These were the duties of the Montre. Never, ever feed on the Redevence. Never

on the Redevence.

Alain shifted to the left, quiet in his movement.

Chant eased to the right.

A slow, deadly dance, this. A stalking, with one of the seven oldest souls alive as the prize.

With this Ezruli as the prize , Chant added to himself, feeling that possessive desire again. And then

most of his attention turned to Alain, his hated sun-twin.

Given half a chance, Alain would attack the woman and the babe she carried—and Alain was

dead-fast.

Mais, oui. But not fast enough. Chant clenched his fangs. His strength grew as the sun sank lower.

Alain’s physical power as a human would be diminishing. Any second, the Empêche would be forced to
desperate action.

Without warning, Alain leaped toward the woman, arms outstretched, fingers turning to animal claws

as he flew.

The stench of melting iron blocked all other scents from Chant’s nose. He sprang like the leopard he

became each day, feeling the power of sinew and bone fueling his great pounce.

He slammed into Alain mid-air, before the Empéche bastard laid a single claw on his prey. Pain

pounded Chant’s body like a hundred hammers as he tumbled to the ground with Alain. Fur scattered.
Alain was half-beast now, but still holding stubborn to human form. Great hooked nails tore rents in
Chant’s chest, his sides.

Like fire, burning. Knives, slashing.

Chant roared, but refused to surrender his advantage.

Alain roared back just as Chant gripped the back of the Empêche’s furry neck.

The woman didn’t scream. For this, and for the ancient spirit restive in her soul, Chant respected her.

Alain struggled hard in Chant’s relentless grasp. Chant’s lip curled at the sun-warmed flesh he held.

“Damn you to the last circle of hell!” Alain growled as the changing took his shoulders, his neck. He

tried to rise, but could not best Chant’s strength. The Empêche’s mind filled with images of slaughtering
the woman. Ezri, she was called, in this time, this place.

Alain wanted to murder Ezri, kill her babe, and thus eliminate one of the Redevence Chant had been

created to protect.

Chant’s wounds felt like nails drilling his flesh, but still he held the bastard, roaring and shouting at the

same time. He fought to get his fangs close to Alain’s throat. Tearing the flesh and blood from an

Empêche, especially this one, would give him great pleasure—though it would not kill Alain. Only a
proper mam’bo could take life’s spark from the spell-born.

Vous ne lui nuirez pas , Chant told his double mind-to-mind, as he could do only in those few twilight

moments each day, when they could choose the same form and thus not be blind to each other’s
thoughts. You will not harm her.

I see you haven’t forgotten formal French despite your slumming. Alain thrust a claw dangerously

close to Chant’s eye. You seem to like this incarnation overmuch. What is it, brother? Do you want
to fuck her?

Using his greater weight to hold down his sun-twin, Chant turned his gaze to Ezri, who still stood by

the buckboard. She held her swollen belly, and her nostrils flared with the force of her breath. The ends
of her breasts seemed huge. In need of relief. The sheen of sweat on her golden skin made Chant want to
run his tongue over every inch of her flesh.

By the old gods, yes. He wanted to fuck her now, ripe and fertile as she was. But he would wait to

fuck her until after she had delivered her precious cargo. He would likely want to fuck her a century from
now, when she was long dust and Chant had been left to guard her heirs.

A fine madness seized his heart even as he caught the undertone of chamomile and fresh blood

radiating from the woman. He opened his fanged mouth to tell her his feelings, but instead barked, “Bring
me a rope, Ezri. You have one in the wagon, oui?”

The woman stared at him, and then at Alain, who was almost fully in his night-shape. Her furious

expression communicated two things.

Firstly, she didn’t like to be ordered about by any man. And second, she didn’t know which

man-beast to trust—the one who had been human and became cat, or the one who had been cat and
turned to human.

“Choose well—and soon,” Chant rasped, using all of his strength to force the writhing Alain harder into

the ground. “You must trust one of us. And me, I just saved you.”

Ezri seemed to consider this, then whistled to her chien, her dog—perhaps her familiar—and

disappeared around the far side of the wagon. In seconds, a coil of rope sailed over the top of the
buckboard and landed at Chant’s side.

He grabbed it with one hand, murmured a quick spell to reinforce the twists, then used it to truss Alain’

s legs.

The Empêche was reduced to howling and hissing, since it was now full dark, and all human vestiges

abandoned him. He could have spoken if he chose to, but his fit of temper brought out more and more of
the leopard within.

Working quickly, and without oozing blood since he hadn’t fed in more than a day, Chant backed

away from the huge, struggling leopard, located a stick, and began to draw a seven-pointed star around
the beast.

Alain flailed and growled. If his leopard-eyes could have killed, Chant would have fallen dead with

each step.

But Chant kept up his etchings, falling into the gentle patois of the city he had called home since its

founding. “No roaming tonight, mon ami. Mais, non. You be stayin’ right here.”

For it would be morning before Alain had the strength—and the full-human voice—to break the star’s

magik. Chant had the night to get Ezri to safety. Only a few short hours to hide her, to help her deliver
her babe, then spirit them both to better protection.

And then she will live. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll be the one. The first of the Redevence to

remember.

And what happens then…to her…to me…to the world?

There would be time enough for such deep questions when he’d finished his work. Chant turned

quickly to the wagon, already beginning his voluntary transformation back to leopard, this time
flight-ready.

But Ezri had fled.

He cursed and nearly bit himself in fury.

You must trust one of us , he had told her.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

Chapter 4

Ezri ran like her mother told her to run if she ever saw a spotted cat, like the gods were bringing all

their wrath. Her feet fairly flew, Papa Loa matching speed beside her, and neither of them looked back.
Ezri’s breath caught hard in her chest as her swollen breasts bounced.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. In all her childhood nightmares, she had a fair chance.

Half-starved, dying of thirst, covered with a dead man’s blood, nine months pregnant, in labor—now,
she had no chance at all. Dread tore at her like her birthing pains.

From behind her, unearthly cries rose from the clearing.

“One of those cats, killing the other.” Her heart pounded harder.

And then she smelled that smell again. Sulfur. Melting iron.

“No. No!” She clutched her belly as the pains made her stumble.

Something whipped the night air above her, stirring the parched pines.

Ezri stumbled again, looked up—and talons fastened on her shoulders. Firm, yet gentle.

She screamed as something dark and massive swept her and Papa Loa from the ground like they

weighed no more than rabbits.

The dog whined.

“Let us alone!” Ezri pounded on the claws, but to no avail. Before she could accept what was

happening, the pressure on her shoulders eased. The talons gathered them higher, and higher, until she
and her dog rested in a neat cage of bird toes. Like a princess and hound in a carriage.

Warm wind swirled across Ezri’s half-naked body.

Her mind spun and another labor pain drilled her back against the leathery bars. Moonlight played

against the creature carrying her, and Ezri thought it looked like a bird with a cat’s head and a body
covered with fur.

Papa Loa barked, and Ezri started to scream again, part from fear, part from pain and abject

frustration—but a soothing voice washed across her thoughts.

Be at ease, ma boo.

Ma boo . A Cajun way of saying, “my sweetheart,” or “my love.”

Boo. Ezri hadn’t heard that term in years. Not since her father last spoke it to her mother, before all

the bad things happened. It brought an image of the bayou, wet with heat and full of secrets. The good
kind of secrets. The kind you seek like treasures. The kind that don’t break your heart.

Ezri felt calm descend, as if sent by magic.

In fact, it probably was. Her eyelids fluttered and her hands once more cupped her belly.

No panic remained in her heart. She believed, at least for this minute, that her babe would be safe.

A labor pain seized her once again—but the sensation felt distant. Almost like experiencing someone

else’s hurt. Ezri supposed she might have passed into dream-time, or died.

“Are you a god?” she whispered to the cat-bird who held her prisoner.

A sultry laugh answered, running pleasant chills along Ezri’s entire body.

Mais, non, Boo. That would be you.

Chant flew like he had never flown before, tearing through the star-laden sky. A trail of sulfurous

clouds marked his wake, the exhausting consequence of his flight. His magik wouldn’t hold long. The
babe would come and Ezri might die before he landed.

No!

Helpless rage left him in a screeching roar.

He sensed prey beneath him—human and animal alike—freezing where they stood, paralyzed by the

sound.

By Anu, if he didn’t feed soon, he would lose his own consciousness and lie dormant until one of his

kind found and restored him. Or until an Empêche fetched a mam’bo to spell his death.

Ezri’s pounding blood beat a rhythm into his head and heart. Hunger blazed, burning away all other

sensation, but he fought the bloodfever with every ounce of his self-control.

Chant wanted this woman to live, and yet his instinct, his very nature drove him to feast on her warmth,

her life. He wanted to break every taboo, fight the very magik that made him, and bite her, deep and
hard. Drain her well and make love to her as she changed.

It was all he could do to hold the simple healing charm and stay in the air.

He had to get Ezri to the Atachaflaya basin, to the safety of Maison de Lune. His manor, out near

infamous Cane Island .

My lair.

If he got her that far, perhaps he could save her and the child.

But, then, who will save them from me?

* * * * *

The next Ezri knew, Papa let off a soft whine, and she heard the wet padding of his feet.

Then, she realized powerful arms pressed her tight against a chest with muscles like carved stone. She

was still moving fast, a prisoner, but this time tenderly carried by the dark Loa who fought the cat in
Arizona .

And yet, was this god-like man not a spotted cat himself?

A cat who could take human form.

Or a human who can take cat form…

It was then that Ezri felt the damp heat of the night air. It washed her dry skin like a welcome bath.

Frogs croaked a virtual symphony, and crickets—dear god, the crickets!

Only one place sounded so noisy at night. Only one place felt so stiflingly, wonderfully hot.

Eyes wide, Ezri took in the sights offered by the burgeoning moon.

Trees reached skeletal fingers across the stars. Spanish moss hung in curtains from branch upon

branch. Thin vines twisted through thick vines, strangling saplings without mercy. Moonlight glinted on
black swamp water, broken only by massive cypress trunks and root tips most folks called “knees.”
Snakes slithered here and there through the deadly ink, or coiled and dangled from low-slung boughs.
Owls hooted over frogs and crickets, and other sounds—shrieks and grating cries Ezri couldn’t and didn
’t want to identify—filled her ears. The hunters and the hunted, playing night’s endless games on…

“The bayou,” she whispered, holding tight to the man’s smooth, hard neck and shoulders. “Down in

the basin. You brought me home to die.”

At this, the man slowed his step long enough to growl, “You will not die, and neither will the child. I

give you my word.”

The man’s bass whisper blended with the song of the swamp, and his touch melded with the sultry

heat.

Ezri felt caressed—body, mind, and soul. She flinched from the intimacy, yet found herself hugging the

man tighter. Her extra senses nudged her. Told her she should know him, that she had known him in
some before-time. Another place, another life. His embrace felt powerful, comforting, and more than
anything, right.

“Who are you?” she managed as another pain gripped her belly. Dizziness took her before the man

could answer—but suddenly, Ezri remembered. Even as she sank into depths as treacherous as the
bayou’s ebony water, Ezri remembered.

Méchant. You are called Méchant, and you are…you have…always been…mine.

Desperation seized Chant by the time he kicked open the darkened oak doors of Maison de Lune.

Ignoring the dog that followed him, ignoring the candles that exploded into flame as he passed, he strode
across hand-crafted red marble and mounted the broad staircase commanding the foyer.

The master suite lay at the end of a long hallway on the third floor. Chant’s canopied four-poster with

black silk sheets and drapes was a holdover from his time in France . He found mementos comforting—
and sometimes handy.

With infinite care, he placed Ezri on the bed and propped her against an abundance of pillows.

Her lids fluttered. For the briefest of moments, she opened her crystalline eyes. “The baby. She’s

coming.”

“I know.” Chant’s starved-to-faint pulse accelerated.

Once more, Ezri drifted out of consciousness.

Gazing at the fine lines of her face, Chant lifted her hips and eased a pillow beneath her backside.

Everything about this woman drove him to new heights of protectiveness, from her strength and courage
to the ancient soul ensconced in her being.

Ezri didn’t struggle as he slowly removed her soiled skirts and cleared the field for birth—a birth well

underway and going poorly, from what he could tell.

Breach.

Already hemorrhaging.

Bloodfever pounded Chant’s senses. He bit his tongue in an effort to bridle the urge to settle this

emergency the easy way. Already, he could feel his fangs sinking into Ezri’s sweet neck. How it would
feel to take her, blood, body, and spirit…

No!

He bowed his head and stood. He could not feed on the Redevence. He would not.

And then Ezri grabbed him by the shoulders.

The action and her strength startled Chant so badly he snarled and almost bit out of instinct—and then

he clamped his mouth shut.

Ezri was…floating.

Her bruised, earth-covered body drifted even with his gaze, and she kept her iron fingers clamped near

his throat. Her eyes, once piercing and direct, now bored through him like diamond-tipped heat.

“We’re passing,” she whispered, but the resonance of her voice shook the air like approaching

thunder.

Chant couldn’t speak. As he stared at Ezri, he saw the shifting, the blending, of all she was and all she

could be. He saw the fully human woman, and he saw her fearsome spirit-rider.

“Don’t let us die,” Ezri commanded. “Don’t let us die,” her more human voice echoed.

The spirit-rider faded, and Ezri released her hold on Chant. She sank back to the pillows, trailing her

long fingers down his chest. With her eyes, with her hopeful half-smile, she begged for her life.

For the life of her baby.

Bloodfever and confusion wracked Chant, along with an overwhelming desire to surrender to his

instincts, to the orders of his spirit-master.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he managed, his words no more than rasping sand in the wind.

But part of Ezri did know. The ageless part of her had spoken, and her human incarnation agreed.

Don’t let us die…

Her eyes began to flutter, and with it, her life’s energy—and that of the babe. The future of Ezri’s line,

and perhaps the future of the world rode on Chant’s decision.

“Please,” Ezri murmured as she began to pass into oblivion.

So helpless. So earnest.

Her humble plea drew a roar of denial from Chant’s depths.

He swooped down, wrapped his arms around Ezri, and nudged her head to the side. Her vulnerable

neck and throat colored his vision red.

Like a desert breeze, her mind-voice burned his thoughts. You have always been mine.

“And you have always been mine,” he growled, then plunged his fangs into the sweet river of Ezri ’s

waning life.

Chapter 5

Ezri returned to herself slowly, as if sailing to ground from a great height.

Eyes still closed, she thought first of her babe.

Is she alive?

Yes, a mind-voice whispered, so gently Ezri didn’t think to react. She is sleeping, as do all of the

Redevence bloodline for the first day of life. She will not wake ‘til morning—and you will know,
for your milk will come. Fear not. She is safer now, even, than in your womb.

Where is she? Ezri fretted.

Reach out with your thoughts, chére. The deep voice stroked Ezri’s nerves, calming her. She

stretched out her senses—and then she sensed her bébé, her precious daughter. Alive, well, and sleeping
a few rooms above. Ezri could hear her daughter’s soft infant-sighs, mingled with the dog-snores of Papa
Loa as he kept watch over the child—all nearly masked by the cacophony of the swamp outside.

I can hear them. But…that’s impossible.

The next thing Ezri understood was that she was naked.

The bayou swelter licked her skin like a heated tongue, making her nipples bead and pucker. She felt

no pain from childbirth, no aches from her scratches and bruises—and in seconds, Ezri grasped a third
fact. She had been healed. Brought back to her original state, as if she had never been beaten, never
gone West, never delivered a child, never been bitten by—

Her eyes flew open.

She tried to move, but realized metal bracelets and ankle cuffs held her fast against fur-covered stone,

and her feet rested on the same soft coolness. She was spread-eagle in some sort of basement with a
single window. Outside, she could see a half-moon, almost as bright as the sun, blazing through fingers of
cypress and endless moss and vines.

And he was there, pacing beneath the window, still dressed in nothing but tight red breeches.

The shadow man. The dark beast who changed to leopard then cat-bird and brought her here, and—

“What have you done to me?” Ezri strained against her confinement, but movement touched off a quick

rush of fire through every vein, every sinew.

The shadow man—Méchant, or Chant as he called himself—kept up his pacing. She could see him as

if the basement were as bright as day. The curve of his muscles, the blaze of his eyes when he stopped to
gaze at her—all of her, from her head to her toes, and back up again. Every few seconds, he growled
like the leopard he had been when she first encountered him. His cock swelled against the fabric of his
pants even as he blended in and out of the room’s gloomy spots.

Despite her fear and confusion, Ezri’s body began to ache. She wanted him to rub against her, to share

the bayou heat. She wanted that pénis hard and fast inside her, pumping until she screamed.

“It’s the change,” Chant murmured. “Your senses, your emotions—even your flesh becomes more

alive during first bloodfever.”

Ezri gnashed her teeth. No. Fangs. She had fangs.

Chant’s scent of man’s musk and fresh earth drew her, along with the flush of red in his cheeks.

Blood.

Her blood.

In her mind, she saw herself mounting his rigid cock and ravaging his neck. They would share her

blood like elixir. A shade of old power grasped her, and Ezri had a flash of everything, past, present,
future. Her mind expanded and contracted like the universe, spawning stars and comets and endless
black depths. She knew exactly who she was and who she had been—and she knew what she was
now.

A hybrid. Montre and Redevence. A nightwalker, and one of Earth’s eternal guardians. A human might

call her vampyr, but that would be a simplification. Yet, one thing would be true. She had the thirst of a
regular vampyr. If five necks were bared before her, she would drink each dry without a second
consideration.

Ezri shivered, and the shade of omniscience turned loose. It left her as quickly as it came, and Ezri

came back to herself again, but enhanced. Naked, excited, and chained to a wall near the most
handsome man—creature—she had ever known.

“Come here,” she demanded. “I want you.”

Chant stopped his pacing. “It’s the bloodfever. The urge to feed and the urge to mate can’t be

separated between Maker and Made.”

Ezri gnashed her fangs again. Jealousy thrummed through her veins like Voudon drumming. “How

many have you made?” She bucked in her restraints. “Tell me, or when I’m free, I’ll kill you!”

The shadow man approached her, flowing through the moonlight like quicksilver. He didn’t touch her,

no. He stopped short, so close to her flesh she could feel his skin humming to hers. Ezri’s nipples were so
hard they ached. Her mound throbbed in hopes Chant would lose control and take her against the wall,
hard and fast and without mercy.

“Do not threaten me, chére.” His timbre dropped so low it made her shiver and ache all the more. A

delicious copper odor made her see red—literally—and she wanted to bite him and fuck him all at once.

Now. Now. Now!

“No.” Chant was breathing hard. “If I take you, it will be when I choose. As Maker, I must be the

master here. We go no further—and god or no, you stay chained—until you understand that.”

“I am no god.” Ezri lunged against her bracelets, but still failed to touch flesh. She wanted Chant more

than she had ever wanted a man.

Chant’s dark eyebrows arched. He moved a fraction closer, and Ezri felt fireflies wink in her mind. His

thoughts against hers. For a moment, she understood his struggle, the need to balance his powers against
hers, to protect them all.

“She is there, yet not,” he said more to himself than to her, but Ezri knew what he meant. “Some of her

essence has migrated.”

It was true.

The old soul who had been a part of Ezri was partially gone—and yet, more present than ever before.

Ezri could remember the bits of the past and pieces of the future she had seen. She retained the
knowledge of Chant’s origins, and what she had become.

As for Chant, Ezri could feel him fighting his own physical urges.

Bloodfever , he called it.

She strained forward once more, working to rub her body against his, but he eluded her. Moved just a

fraction. Still so close not a finger would pass between them, but still so far.

“Take me,” she pleaded, more excited than ever.

A kiss, a nudge. If he didn’t touch her soon, she would die from desire.

In the silvery moonlight, Chant’s lips curved. His fangs gleamed, thrilling and terrifying Ezri. “If you

want relief so desperately, what will you give in return?”

Ezri pulled against her shackles hard enough to break bones. “Anything.”

“Anything, Master.”

Chant casually tweaked her nipples before she could tell him to go to the devil. Ezri screamed. Her

body shook. She moaned from the force of her soul-level want, and the fire in her mound became
unbearable.

Wet. Sweet gods. I could take two men inside and fuck them both. But I submit to no one. No

one!

“You have been abused, chére. Victim of a man who controlled himself no better than a hog at

wallow.” Once more, Chance stroked her nipples, and once more, Ezri screamed. His caresses felt like
branding irons, marking her as his property. “I am not such a man. Mais, non. Do you believe me?”

Fighting an urge to draw upon barely remembered Voudon curses, Ezri glared into Chant’s fathomless

eyes. Her body stretched like catgut, strung to breaking point. Her nipples, pulsing from the heat of his
touch, thrust out like divining rods. And between her legs, the burning…the longing. Her throat was
parched, and yet she sensed only one man could slake her thirst.

This man.

Always mine. And me, always his. Do it. Say what he wants. Anything to bring him closer.

“I believe you,” she whispered.

Chant laughed and pinched her nipples hard.

“No, you don’t,” he challenged as she bucked and cried out. “But you will, ma boo. That I promise,

yeah. That I guarantee.”

“Go to hell.” Ezri snapped at Chant’s face, but bit only air.

Once more, his laughter filled the space around them. Then, his expression shifted to one of red-eyed

lust. He pressed forward and stretched out his arms, joining their bodies from shoulder to toe, and kissed
her, slowly, deeply, probing her very soul with his demanding tongue.

Moaning, Ezri met his kiss, felt the sweet sting of his fangs against her lips.

Everything felt so different, but so right.

She had to have this man, and soon. Maybe more than once. Maybe always.

Chapter 6

Crazed by bloodfever, Chant barely managed to pull back from the kiss and stare at his prize. Heat

flared between the two of them, burning him inside and out. His cock felt like molten rock, and he
wanted nothing more than to taste Ezri again. Her essence—so sweet, so different than any he had ever
known. Ancient wine, perfectly preserved. He was still drunk from saving her—and savoring her.

And yet, he could not be foolish. That piece of old soul within her was more powerful than anything

known on Earth. She could kill him with a word, and yet she had become one of his Made.

He was Maker. He was Master. That couldn’t be disputed, for her safety and his own. For the safety

of the world.

Was I mad, to join my power with hers? Have I created a monster beyond reckoning?

He studied Ezri through his blood-filtered gaze, felt her throbbing warmth along his exposed skin.

No.

This woman was no monster. She was a classic beauty in the throws of first bloodfever, wanting,

needing exchange with her Maker to survive.

“Ezri, the bloodfever brings your desire,” he began, but she cut him off with a growl.

“I wanted you before you bit me.” She lunged against her restraints, managing to brush her hard

nipples across his waiting chest. The contact made Chant’s cock pulse. “Before. Before, damn it! Damn
you!”

She howled, too high pitched and too piercing, and he barely contained the sound in a kiss before she

woke the sleeping dog upstairs and set him to barking. Part of Chant’s consciousness monitored the
babe at all times, with the help of a now transformed, sighted, and willing Papa Loa.

A Made dog was a formidable guardian indeed.

Ezri’s lips, pliable and eager, sizzled against his mouth. Her fangs, new and knife-sharp, scraped his

tongue, then his cheek. She wanted his neck, and he wanted to give it to her—but first things first.

Binding his own desires by force of will, Chant once more pulled back and used his enhanced and

practiced quickness to pin Ezri hard against the wall, touching only her wrists. He lifted his knee and
caressed her vulnerable folds, slowly, gently—and then he applied pressure up, up, grinding into her slit
until she moaned and begged for mercy.

“I am in control here, Ezri. For the good of all involved, you must accept my instructions without

question, at least through your first bloodfever, or this ends.”

“You would kill me, after saving me?” She rode his knee as best she could with ankles clamped and

wrists so firmly pinned.

Chant hesitated. Any other Made and yes, he would do just that. But this one…kill her? Could he ever

so much as put her at risk?

“I cannot kill you, chére. But I would turn you and the child over to Manman Rubie, a mam’bo down

the basin. Manman, she know what to do with you, yeah.”

Once more, he moved his knee against her wet lower lips. “But I would rather keep you with me. Give

you the attention you deserve.”

Ezri groaned as he kept up his slow thrusts, moving his thigh up and down the length of her well-spread

center.

“Tell me what you want, Ezri.” Chant pressed harder against her wrists and nipped her bottom lip with

his fangs. “Will I be your master, or will you go to Manman before sunrise?”

“That’s no fair choice. Ah, god! I want you.” She shuddered against his leg, her juices spilling onto the

tight fabric of his breeches.

The smell of her woman’s musk mingled with the thumping of changed blood in her sweet veins. Chant

’s dizziness threatened, but he kept hold of himself and her.

“What do you want?” he asked again. “And how much do you want it?”

Ezri snapped her fangs together, nearly capturing his neck. He used his knee and leverage to control

her, pressing against her yet holding back. Part of him wanted to make love to her slowly, until she had
no choice but to submit. The wiser part of him knew she had to surrender voluntarily, totally, or he would
have to make good on his threat.

“I won’t be asking again,” he warned, his voice no more than a rasp in the hot bayou air.

“Ah, damn!” Ezri slid herself down his leg as far as she could. “I want you to take me in these chains.

Fill me up. Fuck me now!”

“Fuck me now, Master.” Chant glared into his Made’s defiant eyes. “Submit, Ezri. Trust me.”

For a long moment, he feared he would lose her, that he would never have what he so desperately

desired.

And then Ezri closed her eyes.

“Fuck me, Master,” she whispered. “Please.”

Chant released a sigh that turned into a groan as he kept his hands against her wrists, bent and took

her wine-colored nipple in his mouth, and sucked hard.

So soft, yet rough like a heated stone. With his tongue, he teased the pebbled end, and with his fangs,

he gently stroked first one side, and then the other.

Ezri bucked and shouted.

Only his grip and the iron bracelets kept her in place.

Carefully, he pierced a small hole near her nipple and allowed himself a taste as he pleasured her. The

tang of blood on his tongue turned his vision deeper red, and Ezri sensed their enhanced connection
instantly.

“Take a bigger bite,” she pleaded. “Drink more deeply.”

No, Chant told her mind-to-mind. When I say, and not before. Keep your place, Ezri, and learn

before I’m forced to teach you.

Shivers racked Ezri’s body at his words. Her thoughts were defiant, but aloud she said, “Yes,

Master.”

By all the gods, he wanted to thrust into her so deeply she split in two. He wanted all of her, and more.

And still he made himself take his time.

Slowly, gently, he trailed his fangs and tongue to her other breast and nipped and sucked until Ezri

nearly ripped her hands free of both iron bracelets and his firm grasp. He could tell she was sinking
deeper into the change, surrendering more and more to first bloodfever.

The perfect moment approached, satisfying Chant. He knew he couldn’t wait much longer, either.

Chapter 7

Ezri hung on the edge of mind-collapse, of explosion or unconsciousness. The silk of Chant’s breath,

the steel of his fangs, the way he held her firmly, possessively against the wall, taking what was rightfully

his—none of her fantasies had ever been so perfect.

Sweet gods. I’m vampyr , part of her mind gibbered. A tiny part. The rest simply gloried in the

newness of this particular edge, the sensory awareness, and her Maker. She knew so much more now,
about her own endless past, about the Montre. As if Chant’s first bite had unlocked her slumbering
brain.

As for her Maker, her Master, Chant tasted her like a feast, first one nipple, then the other. Then her

shoulder, with the sting of penetration, the sweet flow of blood. Just enough. Not too much. And now,
moving his hands away from her shackled wrists, lowering his mouth to her belly…and now…

As Chant moved his tongue and fangs to her completely opened and exposed swollen mound, Ezri

shuddered, out of control. Tiny pricks, top and bottom—and then he licked her clit as if he might take the
night to complete the motion. All the while, she had a sense of tiny amounts of blood flowing into his
fangs, down his throat, mingling with her juices.

He’s drinking me totally. Completely.

Ezri came instantly at that thought, shouting out louder than she knew she could.

She was still flush against the wall, spread as far as her legs and arms would go, and he could lick,

suck, and taste as long as he chose.

And he chose a long, long amount of time.

Come for me again, he mind-whispered, flicking his tongue against her throbbing clit.

“I-I can’t,” she gasped, but this only made Chant increase his efforts.

Still sucking, still drinking, he slid three fingers deep into her slit, burying them knuckle deep.

“Yes!” Ezri lurched against her restraints, wishing she could sink down, down on his hand until she

took him up to his elbow.

Chant’s rumbling growl of pleasure gave her more chills. He pumped his fingers in and out of her

mound, thrusting, exploring, driving her to the brink of insanity before she indeed came again, just as her
Master demanded.

Master, for now. Master, always? Have I lost my sanity?

He kept at it, fucking her with his fingers, harder, then softer. Faster, then slower. Ezri felt helpless to

stop him. Her nipples throbbed and stung in the most perfect way, and when she came again, she sagged
in the metal bracelets.

It was then Chant stood, apparently satisfied with her submission, and stripped off his breeches.

Ezri’s eyes widened. His cock—it looked huge. And so, so good. A pulsing golden rod, silk but hard

as iron.

Give me that, Master, she pleaded mind-to-mind before she thought better of it. Ram it in me like a

bull.

“Not a bull, chére.” Chant stepped forward and teased her clit with the tip of his powerful weapon. “

Panthera. I am—we are—léopard in spirit and in day form.”

“Damn, yes.” Ezri rocked as much as she could, coaxing the hard flesh down toward her aching

entrance. Then remembering, she added, “Master.”

“When I take you, I’ll have no mercy—and neither will you. The bloodfever will claim us both. Do you

understand?”

Ezri’s whole body shook with anticipation. “Yes, Master.”

For a few long seconds, they stood locked together, gaze to gaze. He held her wrists again, and the tip

of his cock rested between her swollen labia.

“You are mine,” Chant said. “Now and always.”

“I have always been yours,” Ezri answered, from the past and the present.

Before she had a chance to think about it, Chant stepped closer, gripped her hips, and entered her

with a thrust so hard it slammed her back against the fur-lined rock walls.

Ezri’s own scream nearly deafened her. She realized it had a decidedly feline edge, more a howl than a

fully human sound.

Chant felt like smooth burning stone inside her, stretching her as wide as she would stretch and filling

her core as deep as she went.

She couldn’t move. The bracelets held her fast, and she knew she was completely at his mercy.

Rage mingled with joy mingled with excitement bordering on insanity.

Bloodfever.

Ezri’s red-tinted vision deepened, and Chant’s veins seemed to glow beneath his skin as he pumped

into her once, then twice.

She leaned her head against the wall and howled again. This was perfect. He was perfect.

“Fuck me!” she shouted in a nearly otherworldly voice. “Please, Master!”

And Chant complied, plunging yet deeper and harder.

Ezri felt torn in half and put back together again. She had never known such pleasure. Never dreamed

of such heat.

Thirsty. Damn. So thirsty!

Her shoulders and arms and ass scrubbed the wall as Chant’s cock sank in and out of her, anchoring

her to the floor with his iron-firm grip. The bracelets held her tighter, it seemed, keeping her slit wide
open to him, for him. And she wished she could open further. His chest rubbed hard on her sore nipples,
ripping new gasps from her throat with each thrust.

Climax built in her depths, body and soul, and as it did, she couldn’t break her focus off Chant’s neck.

She wanted to bite him, eat him whole.

“Do it,” he commanded, turning his head and offering her the best vein. He hammered her with his

cock, insisting, drawing her head forward as orgasm shook Ezri’s body. Her fresh, untried fangs sank
deep into Chant’s living force, and his rich essence flowed down her waiting throat.

Chant growled and doubled the speed and force of his strokes.

Ezri didn’t think she could stand the exquisite blend of pleasure and pain, but she couldn’t stop

drinking. Metal ground on rock, and suddenly, her hands and feet were free. She wrapped her arms
around her lover’s shoulders, wrapped her legs around his thighs, and leaned into him as he thrust to her
very center and spilled his burning seed.

On instinct, Ezri released her bite and bared her own neck.

Chant’s feral leopard roar filled her ears, just before he took her gift with savage, welcome power.

Blood…flowing…mingling…changed…

Dizziness claimed Ezri’s forward consciousness, and her world shook even as Chant grew hard anew

in her slit.

All night, ma boo, he whispered as he greedily swallowed her offering and began his slow, maddening

thrusts again. I will fuck you all night, and the next, and the next. You are mine, forever. Made by
me.

Yes, Master. Ezri’s body submitted even as she handed over her love, her control, her trust. And you

are mine, made by me.

Epilogue

July 17, 1863

14 Rue de Soleil

Paris, France

Sun at last crested over the French horizon.

Alain did a quick mental check for stray passersby and, finding none, eased from the shadowed

courtyard corner to the private cobblestone walkway near his door. Fully bathed in light, he shifted to
human form. Already his hunger surged beyond reckoning, as did his temper.

If that Montre bastard Méchant thinks he can keep me off the Redevence bitch forever, then—

“Well, well,” came a silky feminine voice from behind him, “I dreamed it, but could not believe it.”

Teasing. Intriguing.

Turning fast, Alain beheld the most exotic woman he had ever seen. Hair darker than the nights he

hated, eyes just as dark and infinitely deep, and her lips. Redder than blood. Alain’s cock hardened, and
his thirst escalated. He clenched his fists to keep from grabbing this impudent intruder and biting her
slowly, just for the sheer pleasure of the act.

She wasn’t French, no. Egyptian, perhaps. Or maybe—

“A mixture,” she offered in her light, mysterious accent. “Rom, actually. Ah, sorry. Romani. But you

would call me Bohémien. My name is Sashi, and I am not afraid of you, or your many powers.”

Alain stiffened. A telepath.

Damnation. And she had heard everything. Seen everything.

“What does a gypsy want with me?” he growled, still more leopard than he chose to be at this early

hour. The scent of her inner rivers, of her light perfume of honey and spice, drove him near to
bloodfever.

“That might surprise you.” Sashi’s eyes flashed, and in a movement too quick for even Alain to realize,

she stepped forward and took hold of his throbbing erection. “Two days ago, the world changed in ways
deeper than you yet understand.” She stroked his cock slowly through his breeches as she brought her
delicate lips only a whisper from his. “We have a common purpose, you and I.”

* * * * *

July 17, 1863

Atchafalya Basin, Louisiana

Somewhere near Cane Island

Chant’s heart pounded as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Ezri in their leopard forms, staring at the

impossible.

Ruli … Ezri’s mind-whisper of her daughter’s name conveyed her shock.

Exhausted and sore from a night’s rough mating, they had come to this room with but one concern as

day broke over the bayou.

Protect the child. Save the legacy of the Redevence. But, how could two beings relegated to leopard

form during daylight hours care for a human infant? Let alone a human child, a human teenager…but,
apparently, that would not be a problem after all.

“How did this happen?” Ezri asked, gazing down at the beautiful leopard cub in Chant’s makeshift

bassinette of blankets, sheets, and pillows.

Chant dropped his head and nuzzled the sleeping cub. She stirred, then batted at his nose, turned over,

and went straightaway back to sleep. “I have no idea,” he murmured at last. “Except that she was still
attached to you, tissue and blood, when I was forced to save you.”

“And now she is hybrid, like me. Part Montre, part Redevence.” Ezri sounded conflicted, yet excited.

“At least…at least it will be easier this way.”

She, too, nosed the tiny cub.

This time, Ruli woke with some annoyance. When she opened her eyes, they had a glow Chant

instantly recognized.

“Step back, Boo,” he ordered, but too late.

The cub switched her tail and let out a tiny roar.

The ground shook violently, and the walls of Maison de Lune rattled. In a noise louder than thunder,

the great house heaved around them, then fell apart into so many piles of rocks and splinters.

Not a piece of the debris touched Chant or Ezri. They were left standing on the edge of a single patch

of intact flooring, which thank the fates had not been located over the secret basement.

Right on the edge.

“The old soul, the part that left you—” Chant began, but Ezri cut him off with a nod.

“How will we—” he began again, but it was then Chant saw the answering glow in Ezri’s eyes. She

growled softly, bent low over the cub, and went nose to nose with her daughter.

“You have some manners to learn, little one,” she said in the firm, confident voice of a woman

accustomed to living on the edge. “And much to remember, mais oui.”