Note: Please see Prologue for warning, copyright and disclaimer information.

Confessions

I caught a cab and as it drove through the dark streets of Boston, I tried very hard to remember every detail of that night. A lot of things weren't very clear, but others I remembered as if they happened yesterday. There was nothing in my memories that led me to believe Kate had been involved in the raid, but nothing that told me who'd planned it either. And I didn't want to believe that she'd been so cruel as to deliberately take Mac away from me, no matter how much she disliked him.

The driver dropped me off at the plane just before midnight. The pilot was going over the plane, but he hadn't heard from Cormac. When I went inside to wait for him, the long nights of little or no sleep finally caught up with me. I sat down on one of the couches and fought with my fatigue, but I'd been too stressed out for too long. Within minutes, I was asleep.

I pulled on Mac's shirt and started picking up our dinner dishes. I could feel his eyes on me like a light shinning on my heart. As if from a distance, I heard a noise from the spare bedroom of the apartment. When I looked in toward the room, I saw my lover quietly rise to his feet.

I edged toward the fireplace and grabbed the fireplace poker. It wouldn't do me much good against the monster I knew was coming, but it was the best I could do. The only light in the room was from the fireplace, but I was able to see Mac stake the first vamp that came into the room. Then the Nosferatu was tripping and falling to the floor. I shoved the fireplace poker through its abdomen, but it just laid on the floor and laughed at me.

The blood on my hands seemed to take on it's own life, and I backed away. The vamp rolled to its feet and grabbed my shoulders, then threw me across the room. I hit the wall hard enough to drive the breath from my lungs. I lay stunned while it pulled the poker from its body and tossed it aside.

Mac shouted out my name, but I couldn't hear him over the ringing in my ears. I could only whisper his name when I saw that Dougal had him in his grasp.

Then the one I'd impaled was on me again and I barely brought my leg up in time to kick it away from me. It flew across the room with a look of surprise on its face. Then Valerie grabbed me from behind. I felt teeth sink into my neck and tried to fight her, but she grabbed my hair and held me firmly in place.

I looked helplessly across the room to where Dougal stood holding Mac to his chest, his head bent over my lover's neck. Once more I tried to scream his name before—

Something pulled me from sleep and instinctively I struck out, a stake in my hand. At the last moment I pulled back, realizing it had been Cormac's hand that woke me. I had to have been totally out of it not to feel him come on the plane.

"Cormac," I gasped. "Damn, I could have staked you." I ran a shaking hand through my hair and took a deep breath. I put the stake away and leaned back on the couch, rubbing the last of sleep from my eyes.

"You need to sleep," he told me. He was standing in front of me, almost looming over me.

"Not after that dream, thank you very much," I replied, still very much shaken. I wished he would go away until I had a better hold on myself but he didn't look like he was going anywhere.

"What was it?" he asked.

"It-it's just a nightmare," I said softly, not looking at him. "One I have way too often. I saw the bitch that bit me tonight, and it just brought everything back."

"And how is the bitch?"

I glanced up and gave him a grim smile. "It's a shame really, she lost her head and tried to bite me, but not necessarily in that order."

"What was her name?" he asked, still standing over me.

"Valerie." I ran my hand through my hair again and looked around the cabin hoping for something that would clear the last of sleep from my mind. "Is there any coffee on board?"

He shrugged. "Possibly back in the bedroom." He emphasized the last word, hoping I'm sure that I would take the hint and go to bed.

I stood unsteadily and walked around him toward the back of the plane. The dream had really upset me, more than it had in years, more than I cared to admit. Perhaps it had been seeing Valerie again, or knowing that I'd be spending the next few weeks with Cormac, but the nightmare had been particularly vivid tonight.

I splashed water on my face in the kitchen area and made myself some of the instant coffee I found in the refrigerator next to half a dozen blood packs. The sight of the blood made me stop and stare for a minute. That, more than anything, drove home the reality of spending two weeks with a vampire.

He was still standing near the elbow of the couch when I returned. I sat down on the end of the couch, nearest the doorway to the back of the plane, which just happened to be right next to the crossbow. If he meant to hurt me, he could have tried while I was still sleeping, but I'd spent years surviving by trusting only one person: me.

"Do you still not trust me?" Cormac asked.

"What?" It was uncanny how he could still read my mind, almost as if the last twenty years had never happened.

"We are the only ones on board," he told me, gesturing toward the weapon at my feet.

"There is the pilot," I reminded him, avoiding the question.

He glanced toward the cockpit. "He's a ghoul."

"Crossbow kills him just the same," I replied with a shrug.

"And if Jax tried anything I have friend who would be more than willing to deal with him," he commented softly.

The ghoul had told me his name when I'd boarded the plane, but I had spent as little time talking to him as possible. "Would that be the friends in your gun that all run faster than he does?"

He smiled grimly. "If those don't get him, Brenda will."

"Brenda?" I asked, knowing I shouldn't have been surprised. "She knows Jax?"

"Yes," he drawled. "Brenda dislikes Jax, very much so."

"Hmm," I murmured, "I'm liking the boy all ready."

I sipped at the coffee and waited for the caffeine to reach my brain. Cormac sat down on other end of couch and took out a book to read. We sat in uncomfortable silence until after plane was in the air.

"So," Cormac asked, his eyes still on the page in front of him, "did Kate ever call you back?"

"I'm not sure how she would have gotten a hold of me," I said with a frown. "Why, did she call you?"

"First thing this evening," he replied coolly.

I winced, pretty sure I knew what their conversation had been like. "Well, I'm sorry about that."

"She threatened me, yet again," he said.

I gave him a small smile. "That's only fair, I threatened her."

"So I hear."

"How did you hear?" I asked with a frown. "Did she tell you?"

"No," he murmured still looking at the book in his hands. "I have contacts."

Contacts that would have known about the message I'd left for her? Then it hit me and I shook my head. "Corrine didn't move far enough away, did she? I mean, when I called and left the message on Kate's voice mail."

"She called your machine and got my number," he told me.

"I meant to tell you about that," I apologized.

"And speaking of Corrine," he said, finally looking up at me, "I believe she knows."

"Knows what?"

"What we are," he replied vaguely, but I knew what he meant.

I stiffened. "And how would she find this out?"

"Apparently you planted the seeds of the information."

My eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?" I had spent years hiding her parentage from Corrine; I didn't see how my actions could have given anything away.

"Telling her that you had certain abilities and that I did as well," he explained. "And that mine have changed and now I'm the same as your mother, etc."

"I'm not sure how that leads to the conclusion that we're her parents," I told him.

"Do you remember Jared?" he asked.

"Jared?" The name was familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Think back two decades," Cormac prompted.

"Jared." From Baltimore, of course. He'd lived at the brownstone with Mac and the others. "Yeah, I remember him. You used to hang out with him quite a bit, actually."

"I asked a friend of mine to look in on Corrine and possibly mentor her, since she has Awakened," he told me.

"You know Dreamspeakers in Salem?" I asked, surprised.

"Apparently I did," he murmured. "I know several people in Salem. I'm related to three or four of them, it turns out."

"I wasn't aware you had any family in States," I said softly. As far as I knew, Mac's entire family lived in Ireland.

"Extended family."

"Okay," I muttered under my breath, "if I knew what you were talking about."

"My friend sent Jared," he continued.

"Jared Smith is in Salem?" I asked, wondering just who this friend of his was. I tried to force down the jealousy I felt, telling myself again that it had been a long time since Baltimore, and Cormac had only just remembered me.

"Yes, he has been for about ten years."

"I didn't know that," I said, looking away. "I haven't talked to him since that… night." I couldn't help the way my voice broke, the dream was still too vivid in my mind.

"He asked about you," Cormac told me. "He thought you were dead. He thought I was as well."

"A lot of people thought I was dead," I replied dryly. I'd walked away from my old life like a duck shedding water. No one but Kate had known where I was.

"And my contact," he stated in an irritated tone, "in her becoming more apparent bad timing sent Jared to Corrine's apartment as we were finishing supper."

"I knew she was going to call you," I said, taking note that Cormac's friend was female. "She wanted us all to have lunch."

"That would have been interesting," he drawled with the beginnings of a smile.

"Yeah, I told her it wasn't a good idea." I sipped at the coffee again, hoping for some kind of mental clarity to kick in sometime soon.

"Anyway, Jared recognized me."

"Really?" It had been twenty years, but then Cormac did look exactly the same. Exactly.

"Extremely," he added, telling me that Jared had also realized what Cormac was.

"I guess you'll have to explain a little more," I told him. "He recognized you, but how does that lead to Corrine finding out that we're her parents?"

"He asked how you were," Cormac replied, "then immediately looked at Corrine and said, 'Oh is this your daughter? She looks just like Eliza.'"

I stared at him in amazement. All the work I'd done to hide my relationship to Corrine, and some bastard from the past walks in and blows it all away? "First the bitch that bit me," I muttered angrily, "then the nightmare, now this shit."

"It is not shit, Eliza," he told me in a matching tone, "it is our child."

I stared at him coldly. "I am well aware of that," I told him, my voice low and dangerous. "I've had to take care of her for some time now."

"I was not questioning your parenting abilities," he said softly, "or the decisions you have made concerning Corrine."

"What exactly were you doing?" I asked, still angry with him.

"I was not questioning anything," he replied. "I was merely informing you so that if she contacts you about such subject matters you can be prepared."

"Oh, like I can prepare for that," I shot back. "It's been almost twenty years and I still don't know what I'd say. It's not exactly an easy thing to explain."

After several moments of awkward silence, he said, "She is well on her way to becoming a mage as well."

I nodded, some of my anger draining away. "Hopefully she'll have support in that and someone she can talk to about it."

"I believe Jared will suit the purpose well for now," he replied.

"That's good." The coffee was cold, but I drank it anyway. I was fully awake by then but even so Cormac's next words took me by surprise.

"And providing we keep you happy, healthy and breathing," he drawled, "or two out of the three, we won't have to worry about her becoming what I have become."

I looked at him with narrowed eyes. There was only one thing he could be referring to. Someone had to have told him about the contract. "Who have you been talking to?" I asked sharply.

He pulled out an envelope from his pocket and removed a sheet of paper from it. I would have recognized the document anywhere; it was a copy of the blood contract. "Ford William Radek, Duke of Wales," he read, looking at the bottom of the page, "your guarantor." He put the contract back in the envelope, and the envelope back in his pocket.

I sat down the mug on the floor next to the crossbow very slowly, very carefully. "How did you get a copy of that?" I asked him softly, fighting the rage that swept through me. How dare he interfere in my life this way?

"I asked for it," he told me calmly.

"It was that simple," I said, anger still coloring my voice.

"For me, yes."

"You know," I mumbled, "I had asked myself how this night could get worse."

"I merely wished to have all the information I can going into this mission," he told me.

"Like you need that information." My hand pulled a stake out as if it had a mind of its own. Until last night it had been years since I'd handled stakes in agitation; something about being with Cormac again brought the nervous gesture back. More than anything I wanted to throw the stake at him, to pierce his heart and shut him up, at least for a while.

He took the contract back out and read it over while I watched, stewing. "There are a few things in here I was not aware of," he commented. "You realize by signing on with me for this little adventure you are considered—"

"Off contract," I muttered.

"—other than in direct performance of the contract," he finished.

"I know that," I growled.

"I believe Ford and Alden have plans for Corrine should you… perish," he told me. Alden Monroe was the Tremere primogen of Salem.

My hands tightened on the stake as rage rose within me. I would never allow them to embrace my daughter; I would see each and every one of them dead before I let that happen. Just because they ruled the night did not mean they could make that kind of decision for her, steal her life like Dougal had stolen Mac's.

"Interesting name your mother chose there," he commented, "as well as 'Prudence Gentry.'"

"Yes," I murmured, barely containing my fury. "I found that a little unusual myself. Perhaps it was a joke on her part."

"Is that her true name?" he asked me.

"Her true name is on the contract," I told him coldly.

"Then where did the 'Prudence Gentry' of your name come from?" He folded the contract and replaced it in the envelope.

I looked away for the first time since he had pulled out the contract. "I never asked her why she named me what she did," I said in a low voice. "Although I believe Gentry was my father's name."

"So how did you come in contact with Valerie again?" he asked, putting the envelope back in his pocket.

"Well," I replied slowly, "I called an old friend."

"And that old friend is?"

There was no reason not to tell him, Cormac would never find the mage if he didn't want to be found. "Glenn Johnson. He told me that one of the vamps from the raid was in Boston, conveniently," I said coolly. "Turns out it was the one that bit me, almost killed me. If I wasn't what I am I would have died." I shook my head and looked down at the stake in my hands. "Anyway, he helped me look her up."

"Did you perchance talk to her before you summarily executed her?" he asked, almost amused.

"Oh, yeah," I drawled wryly. "We had quite a bit of a conversation, actually. I didn't mean to kill her, really. It just kind of happened when she tried to bite me."

"Ah yes," he replied. "She fell on your stake."

I smiled, remembering the satisfaction I'd felt at her death. "No, actually I believe it was my knife. It went across her throat."

He blinked at the venom in my voice. "Did you ascertain any interesting information?"

I shook my head regretfully. "She didn't really have any, she was a petty leech, low in your clan," I told him. "I was trying to find out if she knew who had planned the whole thing. She told me that Dougal had talked to the primogen and that no one really knew the details but the two of them. She didn't know if Kate was in on it or not."

"I believe my embrace and your planned embrace was to be a deterrent," he told me, stunning me with the casualness of his words, "an alternative to our death. I have reason to believe they had planned on embracing both of us, however left you for dead when they had thought they had killed you."

"Well, more like Kate got me out of the chantry and told them I was dead." Despite the calmness of my voice, I was still very upset. I wanted so badly to throw the stake that I forced my hands to still on the slim piece of wood and concentrated on calming down.

I came out of my daze when Cormac took the stake from my hand. He replaced it with a daisy and I stared down at it in amazement, caught for a moment in the past.

"The daisy will not do as much damage to the plane if you throw it at me," he said as he walked back to his seat.

"What makes you think I'd be throwing stakes at you, Cormac?" I asked slowly, still stunned.

"You've done it before," he reminded me. "Last night, as I remember."

"I take it you've been getting some of your memories back." It wasn't a question. I stared down at the flower, wondering if he had remembered just what daisies once meant to us.

"Actually," Cormac admitted, "quite a bit."

"Nothing like twisting the knife," I murmured closing my eyes to hide the pain that remembering our lovemaking had caused me.

"Thank you." He sounded pleased he had hurt me.

I laid the flower down very gently beside me on the couch and pulled out another stake. If Cormac were remembering very much about me, he'd know that I never carried just one weapon. I also had a knife at my side and another stake at my ankle. I had a few other tricks up my sleeve that weren't so useful in dealing with vamps, but worked well against other supernaturals. 'Be Prepared' is not just the Boy Scout's motto, it's mine.

"I'm all out of daisies," he told me, "but please put that away."

Was he worried? "You want I should not throw this?" I said with dark mischief in my voice.

"I want you should not throw this," he agreed, his face very serious.

"I'll set it right here, next to the daisy," I told him mockingly. I wanted it in easy reach. He'd been right before, a part of me still didn't trust him and maybe never would.

"So tell me of this nightmare," he encouraged.

I forced my hand to move away from the items beside me. "I just—" I bit my lip and tried again. "It was about that night, the night you died," I said slowly.

"I don't believe I died for a few nights after," he replied.

"The night I thought you died," I corrected. "I—that night."

I glanced up to see that he was fondling the stake in his hands. It made my hand itch to hold it again, to strike out against something, anything, and bring the pain and grief inside of me to an end.

"What did happen that night?" he asked finally.

I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands. I really didn't want to talk about the nightmare or that night, but I had agreed to help him regain his memories and that meant telling him exactly what had happened.

I didn't look at him as I began to speak in a carefully controlled voice. "There's not a lot to tell," I began. "We celebrated our first week in the new place with dinner and wine in front of the fireplace." I made a meaningless gesture with my hand and glanced over at him. "The whole sappy music and dancing thing."

"Barefoot and half clothed," he added.

I couldn't help the blush that came over my face. I quickly looked away and continued as best I could. "Later I got up to take care of everything and we heard them come in. We fought them, but it didn't do any good. You staked one, and I gutted an ugly one with the fireplace poker, but he just laughed at me." I looked at my hands as if I could still see blood on them.

It took a lot, but I was able to strip all emotions from my voice. "I didn't see how Dougal got a hold of you, but he did. Then this vamp, Valerie, grabbed me from behind. She bit me." Unconsciously I rubbed the scars on my neck. My hair covered the spot most of the time, and I didn't think Cormac had seen them when he was stitching my shoulder.

I glanced at him again, but his face was unreadable. I could feel the tears filling my eyes, but by sheer will I kept them from falling. "In my dreams I hear you calling my name. I try to scream for you, but I can't make a sound," I told him, looking away. "I watch him kill you over and over and a part of me dies every time."

Despite my best efforts, I felt a tear fall down my cheek. I looked down at my hands and let the sadness I felt fill my voice as I confessed, "I told you that it took me a long time to get over loosing you, Mac, but the truth is I never did. And now I find that I can't bring myself to kill you no matter what we once promised each other. Since I can't kill you and I can't forget—" how much I loved you, I'd almost said. "—everything that happened, I figure I might as well help you."

I wiped away the tear from my cheek and stood up. "Excuse me," I whispered, turning toward the back of the plane. I went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water. I rested my forearms on the sink and buried my face in my hands. How could I bear to do this for two weeks? How could I be with him and dredge up all these memories of our life together and not fall in love with him all over again?

Yeah, he was different now. Hell, he was a damn vampire, but more than that had changed. He was harder now, not that he'd ever been exactly carefree to begin with. And the ease in which he'd killed his own kind at Mother Abigail's…. Ah, but he'd had a point about that. If he hadn't been so quick to pull the trigger, Corrine would now be a blood-sucking fiend, and with her sire dead, Elvira would have seen me dead too, not it would have mattered.

And it wasn't like I was the same girl he'd once loved either. I dreaded his memories returning because I knew he'd hate me when they did. We'd lived by the same code once, the two of us. Destroy the vampires any way possible to make the world safe for the children of the world. Now look at me, a Kindred mole.

I worked for and protected the vamps for a selfish purpose, to protect my child. If I'd had any kind of scruples, I would have let her die ten years ago and kept hunting the damned leeches. But you never know what you'll do until fate throws you into the worst possible circumstances. That's when you find out exactly where you stand, what you're really made of. It had been the ultimate test, and one I'd ultimately failed.

I washed my face and dried it, careful to remove all traces of my tears. I left the bathroom and made myself another cup of coffee before rejoining Cormac in the main cabin.