"Yes, I know this," Viregruz agreed. "I'd prefer that it stay that way—the ASD shouldn't hire power wielders. That leaves us with an edge, my warlock friend."

"We should look again for another world—we must relocate soon," Zellar went on. He didn't tell Viregruz that in two months or less he would completely drain the world they stood upon. Its death would come slowly after that, but it would come.

"My friend, I am turning my thoughts to that. Had I known about the world that is called Le-Ath Veronis, I would have taken it before the bitch queen came along. That would have been perfect for us."

Zellar didn't comment. He had some information on that world and he knew Viregruz might not have been able to take it. Le-Ath Veronis had been uninhabited before the queen arrived. Now it grew and thrived. Even Viregruz would have admitted that with no life, he and his other vampires could not survive. They would be forced to search for a world that had plenty of warm-blooded humanoids upon it.

"Shall I call one of the others to bring a meal for you?" Zellar asked politely.

"Of course. I am hungry. We will discuss relocation later."

Zellar dipped his head respectfully and went to find a servant.

* * *

"Lissa, Erland told us where you were," the communication looked fuzzy on board the ship, but the audio was good. Grant and Heathe were both there in the not-so-clear image, with information to share with me.

"What do you have, honey?" I asked.

"Someone who identified herself as Narimalan Cordrifith has asked to visit Le-Ath Veronis," Grant reported. "She said you told her she could come if she wanted to visit with her son."

"That's Norian's mother," I drew a tired breath. Norian, Lendill and I hadn't had any rest since we'd boarded the ship, and it didn't look as if we were going to get any soon. "Arrange for her to come, and for her husband to come with her. I will not allow her first son—his name is Yaredolak by the way—to set foot on Le-Ath Veronis. Arrange for discreet guards, too—Norian doesn't know his family very well and I sure don't want them to hurt him or anyone else on my planet." I'd taken the call inside a private cubicle—Norian and Lendill were doing business on other matters elsewhere.

Heathe went to his communicator while I waited and scheduled a visit with Norian's parents in two days. He asked my palace staff to prepare a guest suite for them as well. They would be given the best treatment while they were visiting.

"Why doesn't Norian know his parents?" Grant asked as he tapped away on his comp-vid.

"Honey, it's a long story," I said. "I'll tell you the whole thing someday. It isn't their fault. Or his fault. We may have to get to the bottom of this sometime soon." I terminated the communication and went looking for Norian to give him the news.

"Honey, your parents are coming to Le-Ath Veronis in two days. I hope you can spare some time," I told him, sitting on the chair next to his as he scrolled through information on his handheld.

Norian gave me a shocked look—his fingers stilling on the microcomputer in his hand. "Did they say why they were coming?" I think he had difficulty swallowing for a moment.

"Honey, I didn't ask my assistants to grill them—I assume they want to see you. We didn't talk much when we were with them the other day."

"I'm not up to more of the same. And I can tell you now; I don't have any desire to see my homicidal, child-selling brother again."

"I told Grant that he wasn't welcome on Le-Ath Veronis," I rubbed Norian's back. Deep down, this hurt him. More than he would ever show anyone, except for me, perhaps. He and I—we both had terrible things in our childhood. "Honey, I have a question," I said as we sat there, shoulder to shoulder while I rubbed his back. Norian seemed lost in thought.

"What is it, breah-mul?" Norian leaned over and breathed on my neck before placing a kiss.

"In your duties as Director of the ASD, have you run across any poisonings of important people? Or people who were bitten by, say, a lion snake?"

If Norian had been thinking amorous thoughts, that stopped him in his tracks and he stilled completely.

"Cheah-mul, lion snakes are common to nearly half the Alliance worlds. They have been used many times over the centuries to bring about changes in leadership or to create chaos. The venom acts too quickly—there is no time to administer an antidote before the victim dies."

"But in the last one hundred years or so?" I was pressing for information. He still didn't see where this was going.

"Let me pull up the records." He was humoring me at the moment. He had several assassinations pulled up for me quickly—all occurring within the past ninety years. One was on Tulgalan. Another on Otheliah. Those were the most important—charismatic leaders on both worlds had been poised to bring about sweeping changes. Both killed before their plans could be brought to fruition. Others had died in the same way, all important but not as far-reaching.

"This doesn't include all the minor deaths—people in industrial circles or things of that nature, who all died from lion snake poison. It seems to be a favorite among killers." Norian took his minicomputer back.

"Honey, how many perpetrators did you catch on those deaths?" He'd only been director for seventy-six years, so he might not be able to say for sure on any assassinations before that.

"None. All anyone had to do was release a lion snake inside a bedroom or an office. Those snakes are aggressive, especially if they are in a strange place. They'll attack anything that shows up."

"Think about this for a moment," I said. "You assume that someone wanted to add a lion snake shapeshifter to their menagerie. You thought you'd be put in a cage for the rest of your life. What if that isn't true? What if someone came looking for you and the others to get a killing machine? Did you ever find the snakes in these cases, Norian? Did you look?"

Norian's face turned gray as he stared at me. This had never occurred to him. He assumed the other two children had been shut away inside a cage. Perhaps they had, but then someone might have raised them—given them bits of warmth or affection here or there, just to get them to kill. They would be indoctrinated, now, and I had a good guess who'd done this, if things had happened that way.

"You think Black Mist not only has vampires but shapeshifters, too." Norian's voice was flat. "We never found those snakes. Just turned the hunt for those over to the local authorities, who were never able to find them, either."

"They wouldn't be looking for humanoids. They were looking for the snakes and the ones who'd set the snakes loose. Not an easy thing to do, huh? Nobody would have any records of anything like that being shipped in—even as illegal contraband. They'd have come in like tourists, I imagine, and left the same way."

"And the snakes, being sentient, could have placed themselves in the proper location. They wouldn't have been taken there by someone and then turned loose. They could have changed long before they arrived." Norian didn't like it, but he was now going in the same direction I was.

"I'll know a lion snake if I smell one now," I said.

"You know my scent, deah-mul?" Norian wrapped his arms around me and laid his forehead against my shoulder.

"Honey, I'd know you from a long way off," I said, running my hand through his hair.

"Breah-mul, you frighten me terribly at times."

"Oh, and you're not terror-inspiring?" I was teasing him now. Norian looked at me for a few moments before turning to lion snake. His tongue tickled when he flicked it beneath my chin. I folded us to Le-Ath Veronis. "Honey, I can carry you, but you have to help me out, here," I said, trying to gather him up. That's not easy with a twelve-foot snake that weighs two hundred pounds—it wasn't the weight, it was the length. Part of him was coiled around my waist and the rest hung around my neck as we made our way to my suite.

Nori's head in snake form is more than twice the size of my fist, and he can beg with his eyes, too. "Honey, if this is what you want, then that's okay." He was going to curl up beside me as a snake, instead of turning back to human and taking advantage of the situation. "But if I roll over on you in the night, don't say I didn't warn you," I said. He gave me a look of pure skepticism and closed his eyes.

* * *

Why do men always want to make love in the morning, when your breath is certainly not at its best? I'll never figure this out, and if mother nature actually exists, she and I may have a conversation, someday. Norian didn't seem to care that I was rumpled and not feeling minty-fresh. Somewhere along the road he'd learned a little about pleasing a woman, because he did a mighty fine job.

"Why were you worried about rolling over on me? You don't weigh anything," Norian was back to nuzzling my neck before wandering down to more important features.

"Are you insulting me?" I asked. Norian's eyes turned back to my face. I found it amusing—he held my nipple between his teeth. He gave it a gentle bite before letting go to answer.

"Lissa Beth, you aren't one of those women who finds fault with every compliment, are you?"

"Was that what that was? A compliment? Drake and Drew think that calling me itty-bitty pants is a compliment."

"All right, give me a compliment, then." He scooted up beside me, and then pulled me against him.

"I like your eyes, in both forms," I said. "Your scale pattern is very nice. Is it the same in all your kind, or is it a little different in each one?"

"The scale pattern varies in individuals," he replied.

"And I like this part. Very much." I stroked the part in question.

"I was hoping you'd say that," he murmured against my mouth.

* * *

"I couldn't get vid images on anything other than the last two assassinations," Norian showed up in my study later while I was trying to take care of a few things that in Grant's words "wouldn't wait," when Norian placed his comp-vid on my desk. I didn't tell him that he'd just covered up papers on important Council business. To Norian, everything else took a back seat to what the ASD was doing.