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did not refer to Dmitri’s state but was rather a reprieve pronounced for other listeners.
    The river was dark and still. The wererats, if not gone, were watching silently. Motionless.
    “I suggest you take him home,” Jacqueline continued, the suggestion manifestly one Aurek was expected to follow. “He has no doubt drunk a great deal of filthy water, and those scratches should be cleaned before they infect.” She paused, and Aurek found his gaze drawn to hers. Unable to look away, he felt a dark power caress his heart with unforgiving fingers. When she spoke again, he heard the warning behind the words. “It is important that we take care of our families.”
    Still on his knees beside his brother’s trembling body—a position, he realized that also put him on his knees at Jacqueline’s feet—Aurek inclined his head. Had he not already been certain of who and what she was, this glimpse of a small fraction of her power would have convinced him.
    While she acknowledged his right to take care of his own, she had clearly reminded him that, in turn, she would take care of hers.
    As Aurek helped Dmitri stand, she murmured, “You’ve proven yourself to be a discreet man, and you will, of course, say nothing of what has occurred here.”
    “My brother should be told …”
    “Nothing,” she repeated, and he had the distinct feeling she’d allowed him as much license as he was likely to get. While he doubted he was in any personal danger—he knew his own abilities too well—he was responsible for more lives than merely his own. He had forgotten that once, and the price had been almost more than heart and mind could bear.
    “I will say nothing,” he agreed reluctantly, hoping that the semiconscious young man in his arms had been forced to figure it out for himself.
    Aurek hadn’t intended to return to the party, but the fastest route to the private dock where the canalboats waited passed through the house. With one arm around Dmitri’s waist and the other gripping his right elbow, he half-carried his brother in through the terrace windows, ready to defend him if it became necessary. Fortunately, given Jacqueline Renier’s warning, it didn’t become necessary.
    Dmitri’s new playmates were either gone or lying very low.
    The festivities had degenerated during the short time Aurek had been outside, and the remaining crowd seemed intent on self-abuse and debauchery. The sight of a young man, stinking of river water and bleeding sluggishly from a number of shallow wounds, appeared to attract no interest. Lips pressed thin in disgust, Aurek could only assume it wasn’t that unusual a sight.

    With lips curled inhumanly far off her teeth, Louise watched Jacqueline follow Aurek Nuikin in from the terrace. Her anger blinding her to everything outside its narrow focus of insult andbetrayal, she ignored Dmitri’s presence entirely and saw only that Aurek had declined her company for her sister’s.
    Seeing them together, a mere body-length apart, she suddenly realized what it was about the man that had seemed so familiar. He reminded her of Jacqueline. Not physically, but they shared an arrogance that suggested, rather than considering the rest of the world beneath them, they didn’t consider the rest of the world at all. That apparent similarity with her twin was the last thing Louise needed to fan her rage into white heat.
    When Jacqueline, feeling the blind fury lap against her back, turned and smiled with taunting triumph, it nearly shredded away the last of Louise’s self-control.
    Jacqueline could not be made to pay, so Aurek Nuikin would pay for them both.
    He will beg for death before I’m through!

His Sleep Disturbed by Kaleidoscopic Dreams of a laughing ghost, Aurek lay awake and watched the gray light of dawn touch his window. As the pigeons in the eaves announced to the day that they’d survived another night, he gritted his teeth and threw back the bedclothes. If he couldn’t sleep, he had plenty to