I dropped to one knee. "Of course. I beg your forgiveness, goddess."

"As I was saying," she continued, "I created you to feed on humans so that you would have a vested interest in protecting them, as a shepherd protects his flock."

As a shepherd protects his flock. I'd heard that analogy before, almost to the word. Devlin had told me that that was how the High King viewed the symbiotic relationship between vampires and humans. Did Morrigan appear to the High King as well? If we were her creation, and he was our king, then I supposed it would be a logical assumption. It would also explain how one man had come out of nowhere, as legend had it, and challenged all comers in hand-to-hand combat until no one stood between him and control of all of our kind. It would be an easy enough thing to accomplish with a war goddess by your side.

"I created you to be virtually immortal, so you would have the power to fight what I need you to fight, and when I need you to fight it. I made you physically stronger and faster, so you would have the skills to wage the battles to come." She walked over to Michael and reached out with one pale, slender hand, running a long, shiny black fingernail down the edge of his cheek. "I created you with the capacity to love the same person for centuries, so that your long lives would not be lonely, and so that you would have something worth fighting for."

The words came softly, almost like a caress. She turned to me.

"He is beautiful. I put him in Devlin's way, you know, all those years ago. I chose him for you. He is my gift, to make up for the life you had to leave behind."

How was it that she had chosen him for me when he had been made a vampire half a century before I was even born?

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't," she said, and nothing more.

I waited for an explanation, but apparently that was all I was going to get. I knew better than to question her further. Instead, I begged for her mercy.

"Please, Morrigan, save my friends. I will give my life for theirs."

She walked over to where I knelt and reached out a hand, cupping my chin and turning my face to the dark emptiness that was her own.

"You really don't understand. As I told you before, you don't need me to save them. You are special, Cin." She leaned close. "You are my greatest weapon."

"Me? I can't even break the ward to get to Gage. I'm worthless as a witch."

She laughed and brushed past me. I watched her weave in and out of the ward, walking in circles around me.

"Tell me, Cin, do you eat as a human does?"

She already knew the answer to that, but she was a goddess and so I played along. "I can eat. I still enjoy the taste of human food and drink, though it gives me no sustenance."

"And can you walk in the sun? Take a morning stroll or an afternoon carriage ride through the park?"

Only if I wanted to burst into flames, I thought. "You know I cannot," I answered.

"Oh good, so you do realize that you are no longer human?" she said with more than a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

"Of course."

"Then why do you insist on believing that your magic must be practiced as humans practice their magic?"

"What other way is there? I practice my craft as my aunt has been teaching me, and my mother before her."

"Fine witches, the both of them, but they are not you. No vampire ever created has had the magic you have, Cin. I have given you a great deal of power, not only your own magic but the accumulated magic of all those Macgregor women who came before you. I chose you because you understand the responsibility that comes with power, it's been bred into your family for centuries, and you have the strength of character to shoulder such a burden. You are my chosen one, and it's time you ceased weeping like a child and used your power."

I opened my mouth and the closed it again, unsure of what to say to that. Before I could come up with a suitable reply, she simply vanished. A heartbeat later I felt her behind me.

"If I cannot make you understand with words," she said, and grasped my head in her hands, "then I'll try different means."

There was a nearly blinding flash of light, and then it was as if I was floating above the room, watching myself below. Gage turned and smiled at the me that was still down there, locked behind the ward. I saw myself walk through that ward, and I knew before I touched it that it wouldn't stop me. I watched my hand raise, and the knife fly from Gage's hand to mine. I felt a rush of power, as though I were in my body and yet out of it at the same time. The power wasn't Gage's or Morrigan's. It was mine. I felt it. I felt everything and, finally, I understood.

I knew why my magic had been so wild in those early days, and why it was so difficult for me to harness now. It wasn't that I had no control of it; it was that I didn't understand how to control it. I was raised to think of magic as a tool, something that could only be performed with the proper rituals and spells. Perhaps that's the way it worked for my human relatives, but this magic, my magic, was different. I had thought of it as something that lived inside me. I now realized that the magic was me. It didn't answer to herbs and potions and spells. It answered only to the force of my will. My magic had been fettered and chained all these years—by tradition, by my teachers, by my aunt Maggie—but it was free now.

I was free. I finally saw exactly who and what I was meant to be.

"There's my girl," Morrigan whispered. She took her hands from my head, and I was back in my own body again. "Now, end this," she said, and snapped her fingers. I felt her disappear an instant before time began to move again.

Gage turned to me, that arrogant smile still on his face. I called my magic and felt it rise up, filling and completing me, and for the first time it wasn't something I was trying to harness or fight.

I smiled back at Gage. I was the Devil's Witch. I was blessed by a goddess and no human wizard, no matter how powerful, could ever hope to stand against me.

I walked through the ward just as I had done in Morrigan's vision. There was no burning this time, no pain. The ward fell before me like a thin veil of cobwebs, not because of any spell or incantation, but because I willed it so. I put my hand up, and the knife flew from Gage's grasp. I caught it and felt a stirring of victory when I saw the first flicker of fear in his eyes.

"How—?"

"I warned you what would happen if you laid a hand on him, Gage," I said. "One drop of his blood is more important to me than your wretched life."

The coven stirred behind me and finally that infernal chanting stopped.

I ignored them and kept walking toward Gage.

"Keep the spells going!" Gage yelled. "She's sworn to protect humans. She won't kill me."

I cocked a brow at him. "Want to wager your life on that?"

The chanting resumed, but somewhat raggedly. When I was about five feet from Gage he conjured a ball of magic in his hand. I expected him to throw it at me, but instead he held it over Michael.

"Come no closer," he warned.

With a flick of my wrist, I snuffed the dark orb as easily as a candle. Gage roared in frustration and rushed me. I sent the knife flying into his shoulder with such force that it knocked him back against the altar. I was on him with my hand around his throat before he knew what had hit him.

"Please," he begged.

"I told you that you'd die begging for my mercy," I said, and squeezed just a bit harder.

"Cin," Michael whispered. "Don't. He's human."

I looked at my consort. I knew that look. I had once asked him to spare a life that he wanted to take. Now he was asking the same of me. Perhaps I could break the spells that held them without Gage's death. I relaxed my grip on Gage's throat… and felt a searing pain in my chest.