Norian was quite impressed with Rigo and his story, and I had a feeling Norian would be studying up on his Hraedan history just as soon as possible. Rigo was Rigovarnus I. Six other Rigovarnuses ruled Hraede, but none were good enough for the turn, according to Rigo. I bumped his shoulder and teased him about it—he doesn't like the formal version of his name much. He leaned in to kiss me, which caused our server to raise eyebrows.

We had to take Rigo to a nearby ASD office later so Norian could make the turn and Rigo, after he recovered from the initial shock, asked Norian if he could have poison to work with. Norian carries the poison glands all the time; they're just well hidden while he's humanoid. He showed Rigo the sacs, located on the sides of his neck.

"I can extract some for you, but I have to release it," Norian explained. Rigo nodded—he had extensive knowledge and a healthy respect for all poisons. Rigo and Norian were well on their way to a strong friendship when we got back to the others. The information regarding Black Mist's attempted takeover had already been distributed to the media across the Alliance, so we were watching the news reports as they were broadcast.

* * *

"Do you see this?" Viregruz wanted to smash the vid screen with his fists, but he needed the information and another vid screen might be hard to come by at that time of night. Viregruz looked sixteen of his thirty-six hundred years, and anyone who failed to respect him when they were looking to join Black Mist, died in the most painful way possible.

Viregruz's two Blood Captains nodded deferentially to Viregruz. They were talented as vampires—both could turn to mist, but neither held the complement of talents that Viregruz held. He not only had misting ability; he could mindspeak and shapeshift. Viregruz became a falcon when he shifted, and while falcons were day flyers, Viregruz's alter ego could see as well as any vampire in darkness. He could take that shape in an instant, rather than waiting lengthy minutes to become mist. Many were the times when he'd gotten into a closed room as mist to commit murder and then shifted to falcon and sat in the rafters or some other out-of-the-way place while everyone went looking for a humanoid perpetrator.

"The Alliance is behind this—only they would notify the authorities and spread this across the Alliance worlds," Viregruz cursed again.

"The ASD," one of his Blood Captains ventured to speak.

"Of course the bloody ASD," Viregruz growled. "If it were that Queen bitch Vampire, she'd have killed my operatives and kept it quiet."

"Do you want us to switch the vendetta?" Viregruz's second Blood Captain asked. Viregruz had pulled back the reward on the Queen Vampire's head, announcing a vendetta against her instead. Viregruz's war with the queen had become personal when she'd managed to kill his brothers, who were his six best operatives. Black Mist would be eliminating her itself, and if Viregruz could do it single-handedly, so much the better.

"No, I want you to add that fucking director of the ASD to the list. Get them both. I demand satisfaction in this."

"Are we going to attempt a rescue?"

"And risk losing others? Besides, our operatives were my turns. No important information will be given out." Viregruz at least had that satisfaction. "The humans were merely slaves. They knew nothing; they were only there to be watchful during the days."

What irritated Viregruz most, even if he held it back from his captains, was that the Alliance now knew that Black Mist had vampires working for them. Perhaps they didn't realize yet that it was also run by vampires, but that supposition had to be there. Too bad they didn't know about Viregruz's stable of rogue wizards and warlocks. That trump card was still well hidden and remained up Viregruz's sleeve. If anyone might be able to track the director of the ASD and the Queen Vampire when she was away from her world, his power-wielding members would.

"Bring Zellar to me, I have an assignment for him," Viregruz smiled grimly.

* * *

"Have you been to bed with her?"

Shadow was offended at his grandfather's question. "No! And I bloody well don't intend to get in bed with her. She's rude to the servants, expects them to wait on her hand and foot and hasn't lifted a finger to do anything. You wanted Calebert to assess her talent—I suggest you ask him how that went!" Shadow wanted to throw something, there just wasn't anything on Glendes' usually cluttered desk to throw.

"Son, settle down." Raffian had come and was now sitting at a corner of Glendes' desk. Shadow had already seen the demands from Kenderlin of Cloudsong when Glendes called him to his study and handed over the package. Glendes had already opened it and read the messages before giving it to Shadow. Shadow was more than angry—his father and grandfather had not only destroyed his relationship with Lissa, they'd brought trouble to Grey House in the form of Melida of Belancour.

"We'll attempt to get a writ of detachment," Glendes sighed. "Your father and I suspect that Marid and Melida both knew of this before shopping Melida around so quickly after Findal's death." He lifted a pile of papers from a desk drawer and pushed them toward Shadow. "If we can't get the writ of detachment, things will go very badly for Grey House."

Shadow now wore a look of concern as he drew the papers toward him and began to read.

* * *

"Lissa, this worries me. You are considering taking a shapeshifter who becomes a lion snake as a mate?" Roff was pacing at the foot of my bed and rustling his wings.

"Honey, I don't get any bad vibes off him. Rigo and his Hraedan Order of the Night Flower concoct poisons all the time, yet you don't have any problem with him." I watched Roff pace. If he had a problem with Norian, what were the others going to say?

"But Rigo is a vampire and only wishes to protect you. How can we know about Norian Keef?"

"If Norian wanted me dead, I'd be dead already," I muttered. In the physical sense, anyway.

"Then give this some time. Surely, you can wait a few months before offering a ring. Do you love him, Lissa? Do you love him already?"

"Honey, I don't know what I feel," I told him honestly. "But there's a part of Norian that is vulnerable, and terrified of rejection. I'm worried about him."

"Then he can court you, as the others have. If you do not love him after six months, then you should reject him, no matter what the effect will be. You are taking in strays, my love. Do not allow the Grey House betrayal to affect your judgment in this."

"But you don't care if Rigo comes on board."

"No. In fact, the others have wondered why you have dithered so long over this."

"You've talked about this behind my back." I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"Love, this affects all of us, so of course we have discussed it. If you are happy, then we are happy. Things have been off for a while, Lissa. You have not invited Karzac to your bed since Kevis was born. He loves you, and you are both upset. Do not make him feel guilt over having a child."

"Roff, what do you expect? Toff was stolen away after the worst kind of betrayal, and Kevis needs to know who his father is. I don't want Karzac to be forced to divide his attention—his child deserves as much of that as he can get."

"Lissa, a night or two during each month is not stealing time away from Kevis. That child gets more than enough attention from Radomir, Justin, Mack, Lisster and the others to smother any normal baby. You did not turn me out of your bed because you were worried that Toff wouldn't know who I was."

"No, but it was accomplished by other means," I sighed and fell back on my bed. "Roff, what are we going to do? I want that baby back so bad I can taste it, and now Erland and Garde have children on the way. Black Mist is out there, seething because I killed those six pet Ra'Ak of theirs, I'm not speaking to my father and he's refused to apologize. And Shadow hasn't even tried to talk to me."

"You sent his ring back; perhaps he doesn't feel welcome."

"What would you have done, Roff? Say okay, fine, go right ahead and rub it in a little more that I can't have babies?"

"Lissa," Roff sat beside me and stroked hair away from my forehead. "That wasn't Shadow talking. That was his father and grandfather talking, and they had no right to carry such news to you—not at any time and especially at the moment they did. You were ill, and while that would have been a blow at the best of times, it was particularly heavy then. My concern is that they have not approached you since then and tried to set things right."

"Roff, they were glad to get rid of me. I'm just a barren Vampire Queen who has nothing to offer Grey House. Admit it—they're happy I gave Shadow's ring back."

"My love, they cannot be anything of the kind. They have made Shadow miserable and they know this. I have spoken with your Falchani twins—they know Shadow well. Things are not going so well for Grey House at the moment." Roff leaned down to kiss me, preventing me from asking questions. After a while, the questions didn't matter anyway.

* * *

"Are you both well? Do you need anything?" Connegar and Reemagar had shown up after my unplanned nap with Roff and folded me to my beach house where Poradina and Evaline were. The two surrogates were smiling at me.

"She's worse than any new mother," Poradina laughed. "We're only a month along, stop fretting. We haven't even felt sick yet, and this beach house is amazing. The comesuli bring us anything we want and if we don't gain forty pounds, then it will be the biggest surprise."

"You're handling this much better than I would," I said. Yeah, I was completely amazed.

"Because these are your children and not ours. You get to rise in the night to feed them and chase after them and listen to them whine over something they can't have," Evaline teased.

"I'm looking forward to it," I said.

"We know; that's why we're teasing you about it. Don't worry about us. We're living in luxury."