“You understand too well why I keep it.”

“I wish there was no reason for you to keep it.” She was silent at that, and he changed tactics. He hummed against her skin, until her shoulders relaxed somewhat. “What is that?” she asked.

“‘Stand by Me,' by Ben E. King. Surely you've heard it.” He told her the words, spoke the opening lyrics. How he'd stand by her when the night came, when all was dark. Her lips curved.

“Actual y, since you're a vampire, it would have to be dark. So I am not overly impressed.” He chuckled, pressed a kiss to her temple. “If the world crumbles, I'l be here, my lady.”

“I know.” She hooked her hands over his forearm.

“Would Keldwyn lie about the time distortion?”

“According to lore, the Fae don't lie. They're master word manipulators. Either way, we're faced with an impossible choice, just as you said.” She sighed. “It begins again, Jacob. We must be queen and servant once more.”

“Yes, my lady. Though you are always my Mistress. That never changes. Only the face of it does.”

He knew something else about her that no one else did, except perhaps Mason. A thousand years gave her great wisdom, great strength. But it was also a long, long time to live. A long, long time to be a queen and endure loss and betrayal, to see death and hate resurrecting in her life, chal enging her over and over again. Thomas, her former servant, believed Jacob had come to her in three different lifetimes, whenever she was in greatest need of him.

There were times Jacob thought the Delilah virus she'd barely survived had only been the catalyst of that rebirth, that the true danger to her was the unbearable weight of time.

Other than the Delilah virus, the Ennui, a wasting and self-destructive apathy, was the only disease that could impact vampires. When they met, she'd dismissed the idea that Ennui would ever affect her.

“I've seen things, Jacob. I've met Chinese dragons whose whiskers feel like feathers when they brush them across your face. I've seen wars begin and end. Seen people do so many things I didn't expect, and many things I did expect, and dreaded.

That is why the Ennui does not affect me . . . Life can be intensely amazing, or quietly desperate, as Thoreau said. If you wake each day with a genuine awareness which allows you to appreciate everything as if you were seeing it for the very first time . . . or the last.”

But he also knew such a mental il ness could hit when a person's defenses were low, and she'd taken so many emotional blows these past few years . . .

You are worrying for me. You know I worry about nothing when you are at my side.

“Yes, my lady.” He smiled against her skin.

“Apparently, you don't need a vampire's ability to be able to read my mind.”

“You rarely close your mind to me. Though you could do that anytime you wished now, as a vampire.”

“But never as your servant.”

“I think we are the most confusing relationship the vampire world has ever experienced. Certainly the most confusing one I've ever experienced.” That made him laugh outright, but he nodded toward two rose bushes. Bran lay between them, a look of sufferance on his face as Whiskers occupied the val ey between the dog's shoulders in a neat bread loaf shape, purring. “There are other, far more confusing relationships, my lady. The world is a mysterious place.”

4

BASED on what Keldwyn had said about the dryad's possible condition when freed, they'd told Ingram that, when they located her, they would be going straight from her tree to the nearest possible Fae portal. However, any hopes that might happen the first night, or even the second, came to naught.

On the third night, after they sent their usual mental greeting to Kane upon his rising, and set out at dark to resume their search, Lyssa had only one comment.

“When we final y find this dryad, I never want to see the underbel y of Atlanta again.” Jacob grunted. He was driving tonight, at the wheel of Lyssa's Mercedes. They'd repeatedly gone through all the photos and information that John and Elijah had gathered, but it had narrowed things down little. “Stil a needle in a haystack,” he said, glancing at the handheld screen his lady was scrol ing through.

“Ye of little faith,” she said. “While you were getting dressed, I was thinking. Keldwyn did give us some clues. A twenty-year-old tree, downtown, but not in a park. Surrounded by asphalt or concrete.”

“Which narrows it down to a few thousand trees. A lot of businesses have trees in their landscaping.”

“Only this tree wouldn't fit the landscaping, not necessarily. She was trapped there, so wherever she froze, for lack of better word, it should stand out.

And the lore says dryads favored certain types of trees. Oaks, hawthorne, rowan. But this is also a female dryad.” She studied the satel ite photo in her hand, but her mind wasn't on it. “Son of a bitch.”

“My lady?”

She smiled, a bit grimly. “I think Keldwyn gave us another, quite significant clue. Have you ever known him to volunteer a story, like he did about the cradle?”

“You mean when he was being an ass, tel ing us in a not-so-roundabout way that we don't belong together?”

“That was the distraction. Males think with their cocks far too often.” She teased his knee with her long fingernails. “I looked up the story. The tree was a will ow.”

Capturing her hand, he kissed it. “I defer to your estrogen-driven logic, my lady. And please tel me that narrows things down so we won't be forced to endure Atlanta traffic one more night. Otherwise, tomorrow night we're having Ingram drive and we'l put John in a sleeping bag in the limo. We'l cal it camping in style.”

She consulted the handheld again. “There are about seven businesses and four medians we've not yet visited that might have trees that fit the description. I also have about thirty other possibilities, but those eleven are my first choices.”

“Well, read them out then, and we'l see what we can find.”

None of the locations held the tree. Though they found several will ows, when Lyssa laid her hand upon them, nothing happened other than the disruption of some ant trails along the trunk. They discussed the possibility that she might not have the power Keldwyn had intimated was necessary to release the spirit, but Jacob thought it more likely that they hadn't found the tree. Something didn't feel quite right about the ones they approached. His intuition, or what Lyssa cal ed his psychic sense or his precognition, was attuned to certain situations, and this was one of them. It was like radar, and he could tel practical y before they got out of their car each time that the targeted tree wasn't the right one.

However, since they'd never freed a dryad before, he didn't dissuade Lyssa from touching each one, just to be sure.

By three-thirty in the morning, they were running out of night, and trees that fit the parameters. “Now I've really seen far more of this section of the city than I ever wanted to see,” Lyssa commented, sitting on the car hood.

Jacob handed her a coffee he'd bought from a convenience store and propped his hips next to her.

The convenience store had a locked entrance and a pickup window, heavy bars on it and the doors.

Graffiti was scrawled on the wal s of the buildings along the side street where they'd parked. Since their search had been limited to the lower-income area of downtown Atlanta, each night they'd gotten their share of sidelong, calculating looks from human predators, but direct stares from both male vampire and queen had made those gazes avert fairly quickly, the petty criminals recognizing far bigger threats.

“I've got an idea,” Jacob said abruptly. “Hel , it's worth a shot.”

Straightening, he studied their surroundings, then turned, listening. His nostrils flared, taking in a scent.

Lyssa watched that extraordinary stil ness settle over him, something that happened when a vampire was focusing all his senses, reaching out far beyond mortal abilities. It not only underscored the fact he was no longer fully human, but how dangerous a predator he could be. She supposed it was one of those vagaries of female nature, that such a thing could stir her loins as well as her blood. Picking up on it instantly, he gave her a sidelong glance. “A fine time to distract me, my lady,” he murmured. “And such an image. Right here on the hood?”

“I trust you can enjoy the fantasy and exercise some self-control,” she returned evenly. “What are you about?”

“When computers and garden clubs fail, there's a better source of information, the kind that only a former drifter and vampire hunter would know.” He held out a hand. “Care to take a little walk with me?

A female presence might be useful, even one as intimidating as yours.”

“As long as I can bring my coffee.”

“I wouldn't be brave enough to pry it from you, my lady.”

She gave him a narrow look, but slipped her fingers in the crook of his arm, letting him escort her down the side street. Despite his teasing, he liked seeing her enjoy the coffee. Since becoming more Fae than vampire, she'd been able to actual y eat, versus frugal sampling. Though his reserved lady would never be accused of gluttony, she had discovered some things were more addictive than others.

One night, on an earlier trip to Atlanta, she'd made herself sick on a one-pound box of buttercream chocolates she'd polished off herself. She'd been curled up in her favorite chair, reading. With Kane sleeping in a nest of pil ows nearby, he'd stretched out on his stomach on the floor with his latest batch of comics, featuring new episodes of The Losers and Iron Man. He'd been close enough that she could rest her dainty feet on his backside, her preferred footstool so she could knead him with her toes like a satisfied feline. Whiskers had curled up in the smal of his back, Bran lying to the left of his lady's chair.

Jacob had been vaguely aware of the crinkle of the box liner as she reached for each chocolate, but neither of them had tracked how many she was eating until her fingers felt their way over the foil of an empty box. Later that evening, he'd held her hair back from her face as she threw up. He'd found it a tender experience, no matter how annoyed she'd been with him for feeling that way. After her stomach had settled down, for the next few nights her blood had possessed a delightful y sweet taste.