"it will not be the first high demon mistake," smoke curled from kifirin's nostrils.

"will you punish us for lendevik's shortcomings?" garde asked, raising his eyes to kifirin again.

"you were all punished for lendevik's blunders. had the oracle not come and shown me a path away from your destruction, your planet would have fallen. my mistake was in trusting lendevik and the high demons as a whole. that will not be repeated. i sacrificed my love in order for the high demons to live."

"yes, we now know how she is alive." belen of the nameless ones had called kiarra and griffin to him. "and i admit; neither i nor any of my kind had anything to do with it. an unseen hand has performed this feat. one we do not direct."

"you can't tell us any more than that?" griffin was an emotional wreck.

"no, but it will be revealed in time," belen said gently. "i will tell you that at the present, she is very upset with both you and kifirin. when kifirin found her, acting as a cook and personal servant to gardevik rath on the southern continent, she shouted at him and slapped him. twice, i believe."

"how else did you expect her to react?" kiarra was standing, now, and angry. "none of these choices were hers. i might have done worse than a couple of slaps." kiarra was ready to fold away and belen didn't want her upset, too.

"kiarra, please be patient with us," belen said. "the conditions that have been presented to me by those above my kind are such that she cannot be taken back to the time she left. she must stay in this time and go forward from here. many things depend upon this, and it may be very difficult for her. kiarra, i would like for you and some of the others to do your best to explain things to her."

"what are we explaining? that she can't go back? that we rooted her out of her life for our convenience, and now friends and loved ones are long dead in the past, and we can't do anything about it?" kiarra paced, vibrating with power and anger.

"this is the time she would have been reborn," belen attempted to calm kiarra. "her life was given back to her without going through the rebirth. you will all know why, eventually."

"she would have been reborn this quickly?" griffin was now interested.

"yes. i cannot tell you more than that. you must do your best to make amends with your daughter, and we send our apologies to amara; we know how much she wanted to be a mother. she will have to settle for being a stepmother."

"lissa would have been born to us-to amara and me?" griffin was having difficulty breathing.

"yes. it is better this way." belen smiled. "make things right with her, oracle."

"easier said than done," griffin grumbled.

"trust will never come easy to her again; you must deal with that," belen agreed.

"why couldn't we find lissa by looking?" kiarra asked the question that bothered her most.

"none can find her by looking. none lesser than myself, anyway," belen replied. "go now. you have much work to do."

"i called all of you here because most of you knew lissa," kiarra looked over the gathered saa thalarr and spawn hunters. dragon had come, with karzac. one of his mates, grace, was also there, although she'd never met lissa. she was co-first with dragon, and that position brought her to the meeting. most of the others there had been vampire or werewolf and still retained vampire and werewolf abilities-those enhanced their capabilities as saa thalarr and spawn hunters. wlodek was there. as was radomir, will, russell, brock, stephan, charles, merrill, weldon harper, martin walters and his son, mack. pheligar and adam chessman had also come. they'd both met lissa, although contact had been brief.

"what is going on?" merrill and adam both came to kiarra. they, along with pheligar, were kiarra's mates and had known of her meeting with belen of the nameless ones.

"lissa has been found and she's alive," kiarra sighed. "we don't have an explanation; belen only said that instead of allowing her to be reborn, somebody decided to give her life back to her now. he said we'll all know why in time."

"she's alive?" charles was standing in kiarra's kitchen, and now he grabbed a chair at the island and sat down. he was a spawn hunter for the saa thalarr, but held a seat on the vampire council, and also worked as flavio's chief of staff. flavio was now head of the vampire council; wlodek resigned when the invitation came to join the saa thalarr.

"where is she?" wlodek asked.

"on kifirin. right now, kifirin is attempting to repair their relationship. i'm not holding any hope on that at the moment," kiarra said. "belen says she can't be found by looking-that none lesser than he can know where she is. i have no idea what that means."

"is she going to come back and act as queen again?" merrill asked. wlodek also wanted that question answered. he and merrill were informed of lissa's death three centuries before, and then the memories of her were removed from all of them. it was as if she hadn't existed, and that remained the same until kifirin was attacked. the memories were returned to the saa thalarr and spawn hunters when lissa gave her life to save all of them.

"does gavin remember her, now? or any of the others?" radomir's voice was quiet and thoughtful, his dark eyes searching kiarra's face for answers. he'd cared more for lissa than any of them realized.

"they don't remember," kiarra sighed. "belen did give me these, though." she held lissa's engagement and wedding rings in her hand. "i have no idea what to do with them."

"i will hold them for now," wlodek came forward and took the rings.

"so, not only are some of her friends dead and gone; the others don't remember her? what kind of blow do you think that will be?" russell observed. he'd leaned a hip against kiarra's kitchen island, arms crossed over his wide chest.

"perhaps it is an opportunity for her to start fresh with them and only accept the ones she wants without any past history," adam suggested. "after all, wasn't gavin forced on her as a mate? isn't that what happened?" he offered wlodek a pointed glance.

"yes," wlodek nodded. "but she did love him, i think. i will check with flavio and perhaps arrange a meeting-will lissa be brought to us? when will we see her? gavin and anthony are still employed by the council as assassins; if she wishes to see them, i will convince flavio to bring them in."

"i'd ask her, first," merrill muttered dryly.

"perhaps pheligar knows if lissa will be brought to us," kiarra said, turning to merrill. he pulled her against him and kissed her forehead.

gavin knocked the attacking vampire away with a vicious blow. anthony was backing him up, but they'd found four rogue vampires instead of two and now they were in a real fight. gavin already had one down and turning to ash, now another of their adversaries was attacking. these four that he and anthony had tracked were killing in the seattle area, and the murders hadn't come to light until one of them had slipped, killing a relief worker among the indigent, homeless population instead of one of the homeless. until that time, not many had noted the indigent were disappearing upon occasion.

tony sliced the head from one of his opponents, slipping in under his guard. now, the odds were better. gavin snarled and went after his target again.

"i wish we could go to a bar and get a beer," tony grumbled as he and gavin loaded into their hover rental afterward.

"you may go to a bar and get a beer. it will not have any effect unless you drink from a drunken patron," gavin pointed out.

"thanks for the reminder." tony slumped in his seat. he was now three hundred thirty-seven years old, and gavin was nearing two thousand. something seemed to be missing from both their lives, however, and tony couldn't put a finger on it. wlodek offered tony a position as assassin for the council when he'd been barely six months old as a vampire. tony continued his training with gavin as time allowed through the required five years, but he'd been sent on many assignments alone, long before that time was up. he and gavin only went out together now if they were hunting a pod of rogues. rene's wealth was also his-tony inherited when rene died. he remembered little of rene's death, and that troubled him. the memory was hazy in his mind.

"maybe it's because it was so soon after i was turned," tony said aloud without meaning to.

"what was so soon after your turning?" gavin turned to tony, curious now.

"rene's death," tony said. "i only have vague memories of it."

"it is the same for me; that time is quite blurry in my memory, while all other memories are very clear," gavin agreed. "it was an emotional time for both of us."

"do you ever feel as if something is missing from your life, gavin? something important?" tony asked, looking out his window. rain was falling in seattle, as it so often did. gavin directed the hovercraft between buildings, turning toward their hotel.

"yes. i feel an emptiness at times. perhaps it is because rene is missing from both our lives."

"maybe." tony wasn't sure that was all of it, though. "what do you think about the new blood substitute?" he changed the subject.

"tasteless, just as the others were, but it does feed us. that is all that is required, i suppose." vampire scientists developed the substitute more than one hundred fifty years before and the vampire community was dependent on it for sustenance. improvements had been made, but it still came no closer to actual blood. seldom did they get real blood, and getting blood directly from donors was no longer acceptable unless it was an emergency. gavin snorted. gavin was one of the oldest now; he'd been turned in an era when taking from donors was the only option. "call charles and let him know our hunt was successful," gavin ordered. tony pulled out his tiny communicator.

"recording the information," charles informed tony from the other end, tapping the button on his personal communicator to insert the information into flavio's computer. "anthony, does the name lissa mean anything to you?" charles asked while he and tony waited for the transmission.