The moment Marcus' gaze landed on her, his eyes dilated, and she didn't regret Akira's choice of that red dress. It wasn't her taste, but her sister had made the perfect choice. She looked and felt like a princess, and her prince appreciated it.

"We'd better get to that car, or we'd never leave the house," Marcus said, his voice low and sexy as she reached him, unable to tear his eyes away from her, and her succubus responded to the warmth in his eyes.

"Are you ashamed to be seen in public with your mistress?" she needled, and his eyes darkened.

"I would defy fate itself for you. I'd climb the highest mountain if you asked and throw myself off a cliff to save you," he said, fangs peeking between those sensuous lips and his eyes vampire blue.

"Men are hopeless, and the correct phrasing is I love you. No poetry, grand gestures, and false advertising required," Claudia said, coming down the stairs in a blue silk dress.

Marcus glared at her, and her eyes sparked with mirth.

"Does that mean I don't have to waste money on chocolates, expensive restaurants, and wine?" he said, trying to distract himself and not give in to the raging attraction between him and Kay. He was as clear to read as a bell, with the connection between them going both ways and if Claudia had not interrupted them...

"Hercules awaits us, and Rauchford will be very upset if we are late. He doesn't make exceptions for just anyone," Claudia reminded. "Tell her you love her, and let's get in the bloody car before you two ignite and burn down the house."

The shadows in her eyes cooled their ardor. With the bond still intact, she couldn't ignore the possessive side of her nature as successfully as she liked to pretend, and it was like a bucket of ice water to Kay. Because now she understood the power of that emotion. With Claudia so close to Marcus, her succubus responded with a vicious streak of possessive jealousy.

Marcus took her hand, and when their eyes met, she forgot all about Claudia.

"You do realize that I love you, don't you?" he asked, and just the two of them existed in the universe.

"Men, they will do anything not to say the words," Claudia said halfway to the door, but to Kay, her words seemed to come from a long way off.

Marcus briefly glared at the werewolf female as she slipped outside, but he turned his attention back to Kay.

"I love you," he said, and the warmth in her chest wasn't something she could describe. It was as if she had been asleep all of her life and came awake.

The angry blast of a car horn startled them both.

"Bloody hell," Marcus bit out impatiently and, taking her hand, led her outside, but it didn't change what had just happened between them.

"You just ruined the moment I would have told my grandchildren about," Marcus said angrily, getting in the limo with Claudia.

"Good, then you don't have to tell them that you preceded to ruin a perfectly good dress and robbed their godmother of a date."

"Why do you need us to go with you?" he asked.

"Because I can't trust Hercules not to react if someone says something they shouldn't, and I don't imagine I am strong enough to stop him from doing something ill-advised, illegal, and public. Plus, the two of you owe me as much as I owe you. This is for all our good and our future."

The less-than-subtle reminder had the desired effect.

***

"Everyone's staring at us," Kay said, keeping her eyes on her entrée.

"They will get bored eventually," Marcus said, seemingly unperturbed, but for the tiniest suggestion of a frown tugging at his brow.

With her human roots still so close, she could understand both their curiosity and censure.

Even though she explained everything about Claudia and Marcus to her mother the day before, and Eve understood, Kay could tell that it still bothered her.

The tiny gold cross around her mother's neck had caught her attention, and Eve noticed the look.

"Knowing what you know, why do you still wear that?" she asked, and the shock in her mother's eyes made her uncomfortable.

"Did you honestly believe that I would stop believing because a few aliens got shoved through a portal from some other place? They were also created, and before they abandoned their beliefs to pursue science and knowledge, their creation story had much the same basis as ours.

"Despite their origins, they look like us. What are the odds that two species could come into being millions of light years apart from different solar systems and not only look alike but share the same origin stories? Even more incredible, be compatible and have the same internal structure? This whole succubus thing came about through their meddling. They wanted to live longer and altered their DNA, but it made them into something else."

"How do you know this? Did Thane tell you?" she asked, not having given it much thought.

"Yes. We used to talk about these things for hours at night. Did he tell you that when they created the serum, a prophet warned them that if they conquered death, they would be destroyed? They didn't listen. Then the tremors started, and the meteors began hitting their planet, wiping out millions upon millions. Because Thane's father created the serum, he, his sisters, and all those who worked on it were shoved through the portal as an offer of repentance. The portal closed after them and disappeared."

"They did not create the portal?"

"No. Those who clung to their faith asked what they should do to save their world, and the answer was to offer the bloodline of Thanos, the Desecrator, and his cohorts. Thane told me that among the dead, there wasn't a single one of those who had not taken the injection."

"What does he believe?" Kay had asked.

"Until the day the portal appeared on their holy mountain, he believed as his father did that man's fate lay in his own hands. Angered after landing on this desolate planet, an Eden that tried to kill them around every turn, he was determined to conquer this world and make it his. When he came upon the first humans, he saw them as primitives and unworthy, but they soon became his salvation. It took a long time before one of these humans told him the tale of their God, and it shook him when he realized how much alike this story was to the history of his people."

"But it didn't stop him from doing what he did to create God's work in his image and do here what his father did there," Kay had said with a frown.

"Daughter, despite everything he did, only about fifty thousand of them are on this planet. Those that can be turned are rare, and of those, few survive. Did you know that his family used to live in Pompeii, and nearly all of his people were killed by the volcano erupting? Do you know how many of them died during the rule of the Roman Empire and the First and Second World Wars? He has been kept in check over the years not to do here what his father did there."

"But why bring him here and not just destroy him?"

"There is a purpose for everything. If he had to die, then he would have died."

"Am I cursed because I am of Thanos' line?" Kay asked. "A grandchild of the Desecrator?"

"Did you know that the children of all those who took the serum inherited its properties on their planet but not here? Did you know that it should be medically impossible for the trait not to transfer?" Eve asked.

"But why allow it in the first place? Why allow so many to die?"

"Those born through meddling were not supposed to be alive in the first place. Did you know that four out of ten people have some of their DNA, and those recessive genes have given the human populace immunity from certain diseases that should have decimated us?"

"So those deaths were the price for the rest of humanity surviving. He was brought here with a purpose, but not the one he imagined."

Eve shrugged. "You were conflicted about what to believe after what you went through and learned, were you not?"

"Yes, and I still am. Especially now that I know the truth."

"Maybe there was a purpose with you, too. Did you not change Thane and his people for the better?"

Kay frowned.

"I told you, my boss speaks in my presence."

"Kay? Kay?" Marcus' voice broke through her thoughts, returning her to the present.

"Where did you go?" he asked, curious and concerned.

"I was just lost in a conversation I had with my mother yesterday."

"About?" he asked, accepting his second course.

"Thane, faith, and how he got here," she said, and he frowned at her.

"There have been rumors about Thane and his world, but the truth has been warped in the telling. Something about angry gods and bright lights," he scoffed.

"God, not gods," she corrected, and his fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

"I'll tell you, but not here," ignoring his curiosity. "Isn't this supposed to be a date?"

"You were the one that went off on a quest for the truth without inviting me."

He reached out, and their hands touched, a spark of electricity running from his hand to hers.

"I am only grateful for whatever circumstances brought you and me together," he said, rubbing her knuckles.

"I've never asked whose bloodline you are. Can't marry my cousin or uncle or something," she teased. "Our children may come out cross-eyed or three-headed."

"Arcos, Baccus' best friend, and Nema. Very little is known about her, but she followed Arcos into the light despite not being one of the marked. And no, our bloodlines have never crossed. They were commoners, and Thane doesn't allow inferior DNA to dilute his gene pool."

The touch of bitterness in his voice made her frown.

"Yet he is prepared to marry me to you."

"Only because taking blood from his daughters altered me somehow."

"No, he gave me to you long before that happened," she reminded, and their eyes met.

Something crashed to the floor at the table near theirs, and Claudia surged to her feet with red wine soaking into her blue dress.

"Whore," a slightly middle-aged woman hissed a moment before the werewolf's security guards grabbed her. Cameras flashed in their faces; people surged toward their tables, and Kay's succubus hovered below the surface.

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