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points for style.”
    â€œHe’s a slimy, slippery, altogether putrid excuse for a semi-sentient living being. He ran the Manticore sex slave operation. He breaks women and turns them out. He’s been a pimp for centuries.”
    â€œIs that how he built up the fortune stolen by Garrison?”
    â€œIt would have to be. You do know that he started a war between the Manticores and local clans, including yours, back in the 1880s? In fact, it was over his stealing a female from the Wolf Clan, wasn’t it? We hunters don’t know many of the details, even though we helped run the tribes out of town. Did you ever get her back?”
    He had gone very still. He was staring out the windshield, his expression blank. “No.”
    For all that his answer was brusque and cold, it made her aware that in some way he was hurting and vulnerable. It occurred to Eden that Sid Wolf was likely related to the kidnapped Wolf female. What was somebody else’s ancienthistory for her might be a recent tragedy for the long-lived Clan.
    â€œDid you know her?”
    He gave her a look that made her wish she’d kept her mouth shut.
    â€œDo you know that you’re hurting me?” she asked.

Chapter Eight
    L aurent hadn’t realized his claws were out. Or that he had such a tight grip on the mortal’s leg. He wished he could get some pleasure from hurting her, but it didn’t ease his own pain at all. So he let her go.
    He even said, “Sorry.”
    Her words echoed around in his head.
    Did you ever get her back?
    â€œI never saw her again.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Laurent realized that he must have spoken aloud, because the woman beside him was no telepath. She did have a talent, though. She was cursed with the ability to make him remember things he’d deliberately buried—things best
left
buried.
    Not that he wasn’t to blame as well. He’d been the one who’d given in to sudden curiosity about his sire. His
possible
sire. Justinian had teased him about the connection all the years Laurent spent under the pack leader’s thumb. Laurent had even let the old bastard use the promise of truth at last to get under his skin again a few weeks ago. It was one of the reasons he’d gone along with the scheme to retrieve the Manticore fortune from the Patron.
    Justinian used knowledge as punishment, reward, and torture. Laurent had seen Justinian break the women he trained with words as much as with beatings. The pack leader wasn’t any kinder to the vampires he ruled.
    Laurent fell for it, briefly. Then he learned that Justinian wanted revenge against the Garrison family even more than he wanted the money, while Laurent was strictly in it for the money.
    Laurent shook his head. He had to get away from the pack. He had to get on with his life. Nostalgia was stupid. Curiosity was stupid. How had he allowed himself to be so self-indulgent?
    â€œAre you all right?”
    Her hand was on his shoulder. It was warm—and comforting.
    He pushed it away as though it burned.
    He didn’t need a human’s touch for anything but pleasure. Justinian was right—break them, use them, make them pay for their life in the light, and—!
    Then Laurent calmed down as he suddenly recalled that he
was
using Eden. She was his ticket to all the wealth he’d ever dreamed of.
    â€œI don’t mean to be scary,” he murmured in his most soothing tone.
    She eyed him warily. He suspected she was holding a weapon in the hand he couldn’t see, and he didn’t blame her. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.
    He told her the truth, all the while reveling in the irony of how the truth could be twisted. “Hearing about Justinian’s past had a strong effect on me.”
    â€œGave you a longing to rescue all those maidens in distress, did it?”
    He heard the longing that the Clan boy beside her really was a hero, and it twisted something