"No. I was here at the hotel."

"But you didn't answer the first time I called. What-?"

"It doesn't matter now," Thomas interrupted grimly. "Just tell me what happened."

Herb explained about the Escape club and then sending Inez to the next spot in the park, ending with, "I checked the location again while she was on the way there, thinking that if your aunt had moved on again, we should call it a night and try at sunrise when she should stay in one spot, but it came back as the same location. However, when I tried to call you back on Inez's phone to tell you that, she didn't answer. So, I tried your phone again, and then I thought to try the hotel."

Thomas was silent for a moment, and then asked, "Is this your second try calling the hotel or your first?"

"First," Herb answered, sounding curious.

"The other call must have been Bastien, then," Thomas muttered.

"Inez didn't find Marguerite at the park, did she?" Herb asked.

"No, I don't think so," Thomas said, though he wasn't sure at this point that she hadn't.

"Do you want me to check her location again and-?"

"No," Thomas said quickly. He had no intention of leaving Inez alone to go looking for his aunt. At least, not until he was sure she was all right. It seemed obvious to him that someone had taken control of Inez. But why?

"No," he repeated. "We'll try again in the morning, at sunrise if that's all right with you?"

"That's fine," Herb assured him.

"Good. Thanks, Herb. I'll talk to you in the morning, then."

Thomas hung up quickly, eager to return to Inez to be sure she was all right, but he'd barely taken a step away from the phone before it began to ring again. Knowing it would be Bastien, and that he'd have to tell him what happened, Thomas grimaced as he picked up the phone and said hello.

"Thomas." Bastien sounded relieved and Thomas supposed he'd tried both cell phones before resorting to the hotel phone and-like Herb-had worried when he wasn't able to reach them. "Was she there at the last spot?"

Thomas hesitated, and then admitted, "I don't know if she was or not."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Bastien asked with confusion. "Either she was or she wasn't."

"I don't know," Thomas repeated and then explained the night's events to his cousin, ending with, "Inez was blank-faced when she came in and all she said was she was very tired and had to go to bed now, and then she started to strip right there in front of me, her expression still blank."

"Someone took control of her," Bastien said sounding grim.

"That would be my guess," Thomas agreed.

"You don't think Mother would have...?" He didn't finish the question.

"I don't know, Bastien. I don't know what the hell is going on. Why isn't Aunt Marguerite answering her phone? She obviously has it on her. It isn't walking around Amsterdam on its own."

His older cousin was silent for a minute and then said, "I don't know, I'm too tired to even think right now."

"You should go to bed and get some rest," Thomas said quietly. "You haven't slept since I left Canada, have you?"

"No, but-"

"I don't want to leave Inez alone right now. Not until I'm sure that coming in and going right to bed is the only order whoever controlled her put in her mind."

"I wish you could read her memory to see what happened," Bastien muttered.

"If she has any memory of what happened," Thomas said quietly. "It may have been tampered with too. In fact, it probably was."

"Yes," Bastien agreed on a sigh. "Okay, I guess I'll go to bed, then, but call me as soon as you find out anything."

"I will," Thomas assured him and the two men said good night and both hung up.

Thomas finally slapped the fourth bag of blood to his teeth, and then a fifth. The bad news was he'd lost a lot of blood from the wound to his back. The good news was he'd lost a lot of blood from the wound to his back. Thomas was pretty sure the worst of the S.E.C. was out of his system. He certainly wasn't feeling horny right now, or if he was feeling a little, it was easily overcome by his worry for Inez.

Pulling the last bag from his teeth, he closed the cooler, and then quickly cleaned up the mess in the room, removing the knife and bloody towels. He'd have to toss the towels to prevent upsetting housekeeping, Thomas supposed. He retrieved the small clear garbage bag from the garbage can in his bathroom, put the towels and empty blood bags in, and then put his cooler on the upper shelf in his closet. Once assured that there was nothing left lying around to upset housekeeping, he went through the suite, locking all three doors leading out into the hall, the one in his room, the living room door, and finally hers.

Thomas then moved to the side of the bed to peer down at Inez. She was sleeping peacefully and he peered at her for the longest time, his eyes just drifting over her face; from her closed eyes, to her sweet nose, to her full lips, and back, and then he eased onto the bed beside her, settling himself on top of the blankets next to where she slept under them. Thomas really wasn't comfortable leaving her alone knowing that someone had taken control of her mind. He wanted to stay near to make sure it didn't happen again, and also to be close by in case she needed him.

Turning sideways on the bed, he watched her sleep, awed by the fact that he was lying there peering at the face of his very own lifemate. Despite the fact that Lissianna was four years younger than he and had found her own lifemate some years back, Thomas had expected to have to wait another century or so before finding his own lifemate. His male cousins had all been older when they'd finally found theirs. In fact, he was the youngest male Argeneau to find his lifemate that he knew of. And yet there she was. Inez Urso.

Thomas smiled faintly at the name. Urso was the one word he did know in Portuguese. It meant bear. He knew that because he'd had a friend with the same surname almost two centuries ago. A mortal friend, the only mortal friend he'd ever allowed himself. It was too hard to watch them age and die when you knew you yourself wouldn't. Thomas had grieved the man's passing, but now wondered if he might be an ancestor of Inez's. Whether he was or not, the name Urso suited her. She was like a little she-bear when in a temper. He actually liked that. He'd found it adorable when she was babbling away at him in Portuguese, her little finger waving. Mind you, he doubted he'd have found her quite as adorable if he'd understood what she was saying.

Reaching out, Thomas brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek thinking she reminded him of an old painting he'd once seen, and that he'd be happy to wake up to that face every morning for the rest of his life. Thomas actually liked everything about Inez so far. He liked her feistiness and her intelligence. He even found her shyness adorable, and she was shy. He hadn't realized that during their first meeting in New York. Inez had been the very personification of efficiency and command then, and she'd seemed to be pretty much in command and confident with him as well since he'd arrived in London, but he'd been coming out of the last bar when those three Brits had sat themselves at her table that night and her reaction hadn't been what he'd expected.

Thomas supposed any woman might have felt a little leery of having three drunks pester her, but Inez had been more than leery. At first, she'd seemed completely shocked that they'd chosen to bother her, as if she had no confidence in her attractiveness. And then she'd shrunk back in her seat as if trying to make herself disappear from view. He hadn't liked seeing her so obviously scared and uncomfortable, and that had been part of the reason he'd reacted as he had, that and the fact that she was his.

Of course, the S.E.C. probably hadn't helped, it certainly hadn't left him clearheaded enough to control himself and handle the situation as he should have. Or maybe he was fooling himself. Maybe his rage had been purely and simply because she was his lifemate. He had waited two hundred years for her and hadn't liked seeing any other man trying to chat her up.

Grimacing, Thomas ran a finger lightly over her cheek, smiling when Inez shifted sleepily and instinctively turned her cheek into the caress. It was something else he liked about her, her response to him. He liked the passion she'd revealed both times he'd kissed her; when he'd kissed her the first time in London and when he'd pretty much attacked her here in Amsterdam. Inez had more than met his passion. It boded well for their future...as long as he didn't screw it up and scare her off with he-man outbursts at bars or attacking her in alleys. So far, Thomas didn't think he was doing a very good job of wooing the woman. That was something he'd have to work on. She obviously had some issues when it came to her attractiveness and he'd work on that as well, he decided as his eyes slipped closed.

Inez shifted in her sleep and murmured a grumpy protest as she bumped against something, and then sighed and snuggled into the warmth offered as that something wrapped around her. It was the scent tantalizing her nose that finally forced her out from under those last veils of sleep. She blinked her eyes open and peered at the black before her with confusion until she realized it was a black T-shirt, and then glanced up to find herself peering at Thomas's sleeping face.

Inez sucked in a startled breath, her body stiffening with surprise, but not alarm. Alarm was curiously absent considering the circumstances, and the circumstances were that she had no idea how he had got there. In fact, she had no idea how she had got there either.

A glance around showed they were in her bedroom in the suite in Amsterdam, a glance down showed her that while Thomas was still completely dressed and sleeping on top of the covers, she was naked under the sheet and blankets covering her. However, she didn't recall going to bed. The last thing she remembered was heading out to search for Marguerite after...

Inez's gaze shifted to Thomas, looking him over with new concern as she recalled his being stabbed and her removing the knife from his back. He didn't look pale anymore, and obviously he must have recovered enough to get up and walk in here because there was no way she could have carried him. Still, she wanted to see the wound to be sure.

Easing away out from under the arm he had wrapped around her at some point in the night, Inez pressed the sheet and blankets to her chest and rose up slightly to bend over him and try to peer at his lower back where the knife had protruded. Thomas's T-shirt covered the spot. Biting her lip, she glanced to his behind and legs, noting the large blood stain darkening them, then reached out and gently tried to lift and move the bottom of his shirt. Unfortunately, it was stiff with blood and stuck to his skin and she glanced toward his face nervously as she lifted it away, afraid she'd wake him.

When Inez saw that his eyes were still closed, she finished shifting the material out of the way and peered at the spot where he'd been wounded the night before, her eyes widening as she saw that there was absolutely no sign of the injury anymore. Not even a tiny scar. The skin was completely unmarred, as smooth and unblemished as a newborn baby's behind.

"It's healed."

Inez jerked her head to the side to see that Thomas's eyes were now open, they were alert and it made her wonder if he'd been playing possum and been awake the whole time. Letting the T-shirt drop back into place, she eased away and then hesitated. Her first instinct was to get out of the bed, but she was naked and rather trapped there unless she wanted to flash Thomas. Inez was pretty sure she didn't want to do that. They may be lifemates and all that, but that didn't mean he'd see her through rose-colored glasses that would show him a long, leggy figure rather than her own imperfect one. At least, she didn't think it would.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice having a slightly gravelly quality first thing in the morning.

"Me?" Inez asked with surprise. "I'm fine."

"Are you?" Thomas asked solemnly, his hand sliding soothingly up and down her upper arm.

Inez swallowed as she noted the sudden increase of silver in his eyes. Her body responded to it like a flower opening to the sun. She could feel her nipples hardening and a slow, warm liquid pooling in her lower body. Her eyes also reacted, taking on a sudden laziness that left them at a sleepy half-mast. Inez knew she wasn't the only one to notice the changes taking place when a slow satisfied, male smile curved his lips.

"I love the way you respond to me," Thomas said quietly. "I love your scent as you do."

Inez fought off the sudden urge to sniff her underarms and simply stared at him, unsure how to respond, and then his fingers slid from the outside of her upper arm to the inside, gliding perilously close to her breast. Her skin tingled as his fingers brushed lightly over it, and despite his not touching it, her breast did as well in a sort of anticipation.

"Your heart is racing," he whispered, his fingers gliding over the inside of her elbow and Inez knew he was right, it had sped up along with her breathing which was now shallow and rapid. "You want me."

Her eyes dilated at the simple words and embarrassment almost made her deny it, but instead she managed one short, slight nod. Thomas's smile widened with approval at her honesty as his fingers slid up her arm, but this time when they slid down, one finger shifted to tug at the top of the sheet and blankets she held to her chest. Unprepared for the move, she lost her hold on the material and it slipped out from under her fingers, pooling around her waist. Her breasts were suddenly bare and then his hand was there in place of the cloth, closing warm and firm around one.

Inez bit her lip and closed her eyes as Thomas caressed her and then opened her eyes in surprise when he suddenly sat up and replaced his hand with his mouth, his tongue hot and wet as it swirled around the nipple. He laved and teased her, alternating between sucking, licking, and nipping and sending little arcs of electricity shooting through her until she moaned aloud, and then let it slip from his mouth and raised his head to kiss her instead.

Inez kissed him back, her mouth opening to welcome him, her body leaning instinctively forward to press against his chest and then he was easing her back onto the bed, his mouth becoming more demanding before pulling away to slide to her cheek, and then her neck. Thomas followed her vein down to her collarbone, nipping teasingly as he went, and then lifted his head.