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“You don’t have to live here,” Rowan shouted over the noise. “You don’t need him. You’ve got me. ”
The girl glanced at her. “You don’t even know my name. ”
Rowan struggled to her feet, staggering toward her with her hand outstretched. “I know who you are. I was just like you. He did the same thing to me. ”
The girl shook her head. “You ran away. I never wanted to leave. ”
“Didn’t you?” Rowan got to her, and rested her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “He only loved Alana. We were just substitutes for her. He’s a sick man, honey. He shouldn’t have done those things to us. ”
The girl looked up at her. “You don’t understand. You don’t know how it was. How hard I tried to make him happy. ” Her voice broke. “You don’t know anything. ”
“I know who you are,” Rowan insisted. “You’re my sister. My little sister. ” Going with her instincts, she wrapped her arms around the girl and hugged her tightly.
The rumbling gradually died away, and the mansion stopped shaking. And then the only sound came from the girl as she clung to Rowan and wept.
“Shhh. ” She stroked the tangled curls. “It’ll be okay, kiddo. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. ”
A gun fired, and her little sister jerked. She looked up at Rowan and tried to smile before her eyes closed and she crumpled against her.
“You son of a bitch. ” That came from Sean, who was struggling to his feet.
Rowan eased her down to the floor and looked into the dying eyes of Gerald King, who held the gun leveled at Sean’s head now. “No. ”
She didn’t have to touch her father to shift; her body still remembered the sick, obsessive love he had felt for his wife, and drew on it to change back into the image of her one last time.
As Rowan had hoped, it completely distracted him. “Alana,” he whispered, his mouth wet.
“You’re a monster, Gerald,” she said calmly. “Just as I was. Now you’re going to die. ”
The old man bared his teeth. “Not without you, Alana,” he rasped.
“Put down the gun. ” Sean stepped in front of her, shielding her and the girl. “It’s over. ”
“No. ” Gerald tried to get up, and looked down at his useless body. He struck a fist against his motionless legs. “I’m not ready. I’m not . . . ” He glared up at Sean. “You can’t have her. She’s mine. ”
Sean bared his teeth. “She’s not a fucking possession. ”
Rowan heard the change in his voice, and saw her lover’s back make a strange ripple. The smell of jacqueminot flooded the dusty air, and it seemed to be coming from him.
“Sean?” Her eyes widened as his body began to change, his shoulders lifting, his torso narrowing. The close-cropped blond hair on his skull erupted into a curtain of black that hung down to his shoulders. When he looked back at her, the chiseled angles of his tough face began to soften and flow, changing into more refined, elegant planes and hollows. The midnight black of his eyes gradually lightened until they were the light blue of heaven.
“Forgive me, ma mûre,” Sean said with Dansant’s mouth, in Dansant’s voice. And then he was Dansant, Sean’s clothes hanging like curtains from his leaner frame, and when he moved over to Gerald King the old man fired directly at him.
“No!” Rowan ran to him, but skidded to a stop as she saw a smashed bullet fall at his feet. She reached out and touched the hole in his shirt, and then tore it aside to look at his unmarked chest.
She touched the place where there should have been a ragged, bloody hole, and then looked up into his angel eyes. “What are you?”
“We have never been sure,” he said gently. “But I cannot be killed by bullets. ” He looked down at King, who had fallen unconscious, and bent to take the gun from his hand. “Or madmen. ”
A very tall, broad man struggled his way into the room. He had a full head of silver-blond hair and a full beard of the same. His eyes were narrow and flat black, with a distinct Asian slant to them, and his skin was neither Caucasian nor African-American but something in between. He used a cane to pick his way across the floor.
“Paracelsus,” Rowan breathed.
“I see I’ve arrived late. Hello, Rowan. It’s lovely to meet you at last. ” He nodded politely to Dansant as he knelt beside the girl and checked her pulse. “This child is still alive. My car is waiting downstairs, and I know a surgeon in the city who can help us. ”
“I will carry her,” Dansant said, bending down to carefully lift the girl into his arms.
Although debris littered the floors, and the elevator had locked down, they were able to make their way to the first floor by way of the emergency stairs. Paracelsus’s limo was parked just outside, and when the driver came around to help them in, Rowan did a double take.
“Do I know. . . . ” She studied his face for a moment and then slowly smiled. “I’ll be damned. Jimmy Findley. ”
Findley tipped his hat and grinned. “Happy to help bust you out of here again, miss. ”
Paracelsus’s surgeon friend arranged to admit Taire to the hospital under an assumed name and personally operated on her to remove the bullet lodged in her back. The surgery took several hours, which Rowan spent pacing the breadth and length of the waiting room a hundred times. Dansant disappeared with Paracelsus, while Findley brought her snacks and coffee from the vending machines and kept her company.
Eventually she ran out of steam and nerves and sat down beside him. “Jimmy Findley. ” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it, after all these years. ”
“It’s been a long time. ” He smiled at her. “I took your advice and showed my mother those bruises, and she never let me go back there. She also wouldn’t let my dad see me again until he quit working for Mr. King. ”
“I never would have gotten out of there without your help,” she said seriously. “Not now, and certainly not when I was a kid. ”
He shrugged. “You’d have found your way. You were always strong. My employer is going to have a few words with you later about your reckless and foolhardy actions, by the way. ”
“Yeah, I imagine he is. ” She stared at the door. “I’ve got to have a little talk with someone myself. ”
Rowan was working on her fourth coffee and seventh package of peanut butter crackers when the surgeon came in to talk to her.
“She came through the procedure just fine,” he told her. “She lost a lot of blood, of course, but fortunately the bullet just missed her kidney. She’ll be in recovery for a while, and then we’re going to move her to the pediatric surgical ward. Because of her unusual . . . condition, I’m going to keep her sedated for twenty-four hours. You should go home, get some rest. ”
Rowan thanked him, and went with Findley to find Paracelsus and Dansant. The two men stood deep in conversation at the other end of the hall, but as soon as Dansant saw Rowan he broke off and came to her.
“She’s going to be okay. ” She related what the doctor had told her to both men, and added, “I want to be back here tomorrow when she wakes up. ”
“Findley and I will go back to the hotel to make some additional arrangements,” Paracelsus said. “I have the entire floor, so you’re welcome to join us. ”
“Rowan will be staying with me,” Dansant said, and took her arm. “You have my contact information, Samuel. Call if you need anything. ”
When Paracelsus and Findley left, Rowan turned to Dansant. “Samuel?”
He led her to the elevator. “That is his name. ”
She waited until they were inside the elevator before she asked, “What’s yours?”
“Mine was lost to me,” Dansant admitted, “and Sean does not remember his birth name. ”
“Speaking of Sean,” she said, folding her arms, “does he know you’re a shape-shifter, and you’ve been pretending to be him?”
“I am Sean, Rowan. ” “You do a flawless impression of
him,” she conceded, “but you forget, I’ve watched you change. ”
“I did not change myself into Sean Meriden’s form. ” The elevator opened. “Sean Meriden and I are the same man. Or, rather, we share the same body. ”
“Oh, no, you don’t. ” She folded her arms. “I’m a shifter, Dansant. I know how it works. You’re good, maybe as good as I am, but there is no way in hell both of you share one body. It doesn’t even look like the same body. ”
He muttered something in French and waved for a cab. “I will tell you after we go to my apartment. It is a long story. ”
“Honey, it always is. ” She climbed in the cab.
Dansant’s apartment was like something out of an architect’s wet dream, all clean lines and avant-garde style, and would have seemed almost sterile if not for the paintings on the walls.
“Friends of yours?” she asked as she eyed one portrait of a blond fallen-angel with vivid green eyes.
“I don’t know. I dream of their faces, and I paint what I remember. ” He brought her a glass of wine and gestured for her to sit on the squiggle of cushions that served as his couch. “I don’t remember my life before Sean, Rowan, so I probably have as many questions as you do. ”
She hmphed. “I doubt that. ”
He glanced at the windows. “I have only an hour left before I change places with him. We have no memory of each other’s activities, so it would be best if you stayed close, so you could reassure him. ” At her blank look, he added, “The last thing Sean will remember is being in King’s suite and your father pointing a gun at him. ”
“Oh. Yeah. ” She took a swallow of her wine before she felt ridiculous again. “How can you be two different men?”
Dansant tugged back her sleeve to reveal part of the dragon tattoo on her forearm. “I do not know for sure, but I think in much the same way you can be any woman. ” He pulled back his left sleeve, and revealed on the inside of his forearm a mirror image of the S-shaped dragon tat Sean had. The only difference was that Dansant’s dragon was inked in blue with red eyes.