Before she left New York, fleeing for her life, she had slept with Pat. In some ways, it had been too soon in their relationship for sex. But Jean-Marc himself had explained that for magic users like themselves—known in their world as the Gifted—sex magic was the strongest type of spell they could employ. He had gone so far as to suggest that she go to bed with Pat, to protect him from harm.
Death was all around them, people she cared about going down; Izzy had done it…and making love with Pat had rocked her to her foundations. Never in her life had she experienced such transforming pleasure, felt such joy and completion. She had seduced Pat to protect him, but her Texas cowboy had claimed her as surely as if he had roped and branded her. Pat was in her heart now.
And yet, when she gazed at the unconscious man on the operating table, she knew that if Jean-Marc woke up, she would have to face a decision. Pat was Ungifted—not a magic user—and he was back in New York, watched over by Captain Clancy herself, who knew the score. Izzy had no idea what was going to happen to her old life—could she go back? If so, when? Would Pat wait? When he found out who and what she was, would he want to?
Or did her heart’s destiny end in the path that led to Jean-Marc? He was her mentor, her guardian. She thought she felt his heart beating inside her own chest. Closing her eyes, she smelled the roses and oranges that signaled his working a spell of protection and comfort around her. She half-suspected that if he did die—and she could hardly bear to even think of it—their link would survive the grave.
Jean-Marc , she sent out to him, I still need you here. You can’t go. You can’t die .
She felt a tiny flutter against her mind. She gasped and shut her eyes, waiting for words, for thoughts, for heartbeats.
It came:
Isabelle .
Her throat closed up with emotion as she replied, N’as pas de peur. Je suis ici . Don’t be afraid. I am here.
She waited hungrily for more, listening to the shorthand of the surgical team, watching as they combined traditional medicine with strange magical incantations, powders and objects—crystals, a ritual knife called an athame and candles. Unmoving, the fully veiled Femmes Blanches held his hands through it all.
Then the surgeon sighed heavily, and the women bowed their heads.
“Oh, my God, what’s happening?” Izzy asked, half rising from her chair.
The doctor looked at her over his shoulder. “Please, madame, stay where you are. We’re doing the best we can.”
Retaining her seat, she pursed her lips and fists together. The best had not saved her mother. Marianne had flatlined, and nothing they had tried had restored her brain activity. She remained technically alive, but only technically.
Izzy kept vigil, willing a better outcome for Jean-Marc.
Michel de Bouvard, Izzy’s liaison to the House of the Flames, poked his head in, saw Izzy and entered. He was still wearing his tux from the dinner. Coming up beside her, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched the medical team for a few moments before he asked, “How’s he doing?”
She wiped fresh tears from her cheeks. She’d been crying without knowing it. As steadily as she could, she replied, “He’s still alive.”
Michel wore a poker face as he took that in. Then he looked—really looked—at her and said, “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. Let’s debrief,” she said tersely.
He held up his fingers as if to enumerate the facts of their situation. “Le Fils got away.”
“Right.”
“Andre is still missing.”
Aside from Jean-Marc, the werewolf was her strongest ally in this strange new world of passion and deceit. “Could he have survived that jump off the verandah?” she asked hopefully.
Cocking his head, he raised a brow. “A leap off the third story? I don’t know. Maybe. He gave you his gris-gris, so he didn’t have that protection with him when he jumped. I assume Jean-Marc made talismans for him, so they would help. And werewolves are uncommonly strong and quick to heal,” he added. “Like us.”
She filed that away, wondering if “us” meant all Gifted individuals or just Bouvards. She wanted Jean-Marc to be quick to heal. She wanted him healed now .
“What about Alain?” That was Jean-Marc’s cousin. He had been MIA since before Izzy’s private jet had landed. Jean-Marc had been terribly worried, sending two security details to search for him.
“Still missing.” His voice was flat, as if he was attempting to sound neutral. She knew Michel detested Jean-Marc; she had to assume he had no love for Alain de Devereaux as well. Was Michel involved in his disappearance?
“What are you doing to locate him?” she asked.
“We’re scouring the battlefield for residue,” he said. “And I sent out an additional search party. We’ve got one in the swamp and two in the city—one in the Garden District and one in the French Quarter.”
“Residue,” she said.
“Emanations,” he explained. “We may be able to read them for clues.”
She still didn’t fully understand, but she said, “Maybe I could help.”
“Madame, please leave these things to us. You need to meet with Gelineau, Broussard and Jackson.” They were the de Bouvards’ Ungifted allies: the mayor of New Orleans, the superintendent of police, and the governor of the state of Louisiana. “You should include Sange as well.” She was the elegant vampire with whom the House of the Flames had forged an alliance.
He took a breath and reached into his left pants pocket. “And you should put this on.”
He opened his hand, revealing the gold signet ring that was the symbol of authority for the House of the Flames. According to Jean-Marc, it was nearly seven hundred years old.
“Where did you get that?” she demanded, flushing with anger. Jean-Marc had been wearing it the last time she had seen it.
“I took it when they stripped him for surgery,” he replied guilelessly. “A reasonable precaution, given its value.”
Did she dare accept it from his hand? According to both Jean-Marc and Michel, innumerable factions sought to place their own woman—or man—on the throne. Jean-Marc spoke of assassination attempts on his own life, and the regent before him might have been murdered. For all Izzy knew, putting on that ring might be signing her own death warrant.
Where would it leave Jean-Marc? If she wore the ring, did that signify the end of his term of service? So many Bouvards hated him for ruling in her mother’s name. He was a Devereaux, an outsider, and though the Grand Covenate, the supreme governing body of the Gifted world, had arranged for his service as regent, the Bouvards had resented his presence from the start.
I don’t know what I’m doing, Izzy thought. She shut her eyes tightly and prayed to St. Joan, the patronesse of the House of the Flames, known to the Bouvards by her French name, Jehanne.
Jehanne, aidez-moi. Je vous en prie. Jehanne, help me. I petition you.
She heard no answer, felt no guiding intuition. She didn’t hear the voice that often counseled and directed her, which had sounded so clear and real in her dream.
“You must take it,” Michel insisted, extending his hand palm up. “I can’t wear it.”
With trembling fingers, Izzy closed her fist around it. It was much heavier than she had anticipated. She turned over her hand and opened her fingers, tracing the