I couldn't help myself. The malevolence gleaming from her eyes set me to a tremble where I stood.

My glance ran down the lean length of her blond good looks pausing where her stomach ran flat sans baby. I flicked a startled glance up at Lucian standing sure and certain besides me. His expression was stoic. Still I could tell he was not happy to see her.

"Did you kill this one too, Vanessa?"

The shock of what that single question implied ran through me the same time it flickered through Nicky. His gaze met mine and as one we turned to look at Lucian in dawning horror. Lucian's babies.

"No, daddy took him as soon as you left," said the cold hearted demon that was Lucian's wife, with an indifferent shrug. "He had me induced."

A boy. Lucian's child was a boy. I couldn't help the glean of happiness at that thought.

But the disgust and anger I felt at this woman overrode it. I stared back at her feeling more than a little horrified. How many had there been? Why had she killed her own babies? Lucian's babies.

" Why are you here?" Lucian's expression was inscrutable. Were it not for the fact I have known him for as long as I did, I wouldn't have been able to discern the slightest shift in his intonation. He hated her.

Once again my eyes shot to his face. Never have I ever heard such a depth of hatred for anyone from Lucian. And to think he has spent five years of his life with someone so evil to have provoked such strong emotions from him.

I reached out inadvertently slipping my hand into his to offer him what comfort I could. But he did not tighten his own finger about mine as he was wont to do. Instead he left me clinging to him. His attention wholly absorbed by his wife. Not because of the pleasure he presence invoked but an unbridled fear. A fear that I sensed ran deep.

It wasn't a fear for himself. It was a fear for me.

I turned back to look at the sharp blue gaze trained on me.

Vanessa said without an infliction in her voice, " I want you back. I will go through her if I have to. I would really go through her regardless but I am willing to spare her if you return to me on your own. Now."