"And lights and air conditioning, TVs and stereo…" I say, smiling when she runs ahead of me, watching her climb the wide coral steps leading to the veranda, two at a time.

Elizabeth waits for me on the veranda, leaning on the parapet next to the cannon, staring at the ocean. When I join her, she says, "I'm going to love it here! Show me all of it, every room. Please."

I take her to my room first, throw open the double doors and wince at the heat and dampness, the smell of must. I open the windows and the doors to the interior and rush from room to room, opening doors and windows, letting the fresh sea air cleanse and cool the house. Elizabeth follows me, helps me open everything. Along the way she touches the windows and the doors, sits on the beds, turns the light switches on and off, runs her hands over the smooth stone walls of the interior.

"This house is much smaller than Morgan's Hole," she says. "But it's much nicer, I think."

On the third floor, in the great room, she wanders from one side to the other, taking in the panorama from each window, asking me to tell her the names of the islands she sees and point out the mainland in the distance. The sea breeze courses through the room, cooling it and comforting us, making us forget the August heat outside.

"Is it always so comfortable inside?" she asks.

"Mostly," I tell her. "But in the winter we sometimes need the fires to keep us warm."

"It's cold every night at Morgan's Hole," she says.

She walks to the wall, touches the old cutlass that has hung there as long as I can remember.

"My father's," I say. "From his pirate days."

Elizabeth nods, studies the oil paintings hanging on the walls nearby, asks me about them too. "French impressionists," I say, looking at the landscapes and portraits my mother brought with her from France and insisted on displaying throughout the house. One shows a nude young woman posed on a couch.

I point to it. "That's my mother. She lived with an artist in Paris and posed for him before Father found her. Father only told me about it just before he died. He said, after she became his bride, he brought her back to the city and bought her whatever she wished, including all the paintings she wanted. She insisted that, no matter the cost, he had to buy this one."

"And you, Peter," Elizabeth says, her voice turning coquettish as she goes from picture to picture, "can you afford to buy your bride whatever she wants?"

"You'll see," I say.

By the time we walk down the spiral staircase to the bottom floor, Elizabeth's pace has slowed, her lips have settled into a partial smile, a show of polite, if indifferent approval. She gives the cells we pass only a cursory glance and hesitates when I enter the smallest one. "Peter, I've seen cells before…"

Her eyes widen when I pull the cot up and the passageway opens.

"Where are we going?" she asks as we descend into the darkness.

I say nothing, avoid turning on the lights at the bottom until the treasure room's open. Elizabeth allows me to guide her into the small cold room, and I stand behind her and flick the switch once she's in place.

"Oh my," she says, her hands to her face, her emerald-green eyes wide as she glances from chest to chest. "My father would do anything for this."

"As I promised-he'll have some of the gold."

She picks up a handful of jewelry, holds it to the light, then turns to me. "We don't have to be too generous, do we, Peter?"

Outside, to my surprise, the garden thrills her even more than the treasure room. "Dragon's Tear," she says, examining the plants, pulling weeds as she looks. "Death's Rose. Angel Wort. Why didn't you tell me you had all of these?"

I shrug. "It was my mother's garden. Father and I mostly ignored it."

Elizabeth puts her hands on her hips. "With all this and the seeds that Mum gave me, we'll have a proper garden in no time. There's already enough Dragon's Tear here for a good few quarts of wine. I'll have some made within a few weeks."

"And then?" I ask.

She gives me a sly grin. "And then I'll teach you a few things."

I don't even think of the Santos file until late in the day, after we've returned Jeremy Tindall's boat and cruised home in my Grady White.

Tired and weary of maintaining her human form, Elizabeth insists on reverting to her natural shape before she lakes a nap. "I don't know why you like the human form so much, " she says after she changes. "I always feel better like this."

"And I'm used to the other."

She helps me make a bed of hay for her on the far side of my room, lies down and motions for me to join her. I take in the soft green hue of her scales, the gentle curve of her tail, her delicate beige underbody and almost accept her invitation. But I refuse to revert to the thoughtless pattern of life that I've lived the last few weeks. After dark, there will be more than enough time for me to take my bride for her first hunt in the waters near my homeland, ample opportunity to let her taste fresh meat once more. For now I have other things I must do. Setting foot on my island, wandering the halls of my home has reminded me of my responsibilities.

"You're powerful enough to do what you want and take whatever you wish in your life," Father taught me. "But so what? We live to build a future and only die when we have no future left. Each of us has to find something more-a reason to our lives. In the end, the best of it is always about our families."

I lean over and kiss her scaled left cheek-running my hand over her underbody as she adjusts herself, thinking of the child growing within her, feeling the need to protect each of them. "I'll wake you later," I say, then leave the room and climb the spiral staircase to the third floor where Jorge Santos's file remains unread on the oak table in the great room.

Picking up the manila folder, I carry it over toward the windows facing the bay. I glance out at the water-squinting at the last rays the late-afternoon sun gives off as it rides lower in the sky, preparing to set over the mainland. I notice a large, white, cigarette-style speedboat floating just a few hundred yards off my island's shore.

I wonder why it's stopped…

The impact spins me away from the window. Falling, the manila folder flying from my hand, I finally hear the crack of the rifle, the splintering of the middle window's glass, followed by the throaty roar of the speedboat's engines as they come to life, the drone they make as the boat races away. Pain sears through me and, "DAMN!" I yell, realizing a bullet has torn through my chest, just above the right corner of my heart, ripping flesh, muscle, ligaments-shattering a small part of my right shoulder blade.

"Peter?" Elizabeth mindspeaks.

"I've been shot." I breathe deep, turn my mind inward, concentrate on narrowing blood vessels, slowing my heart, limiting blood loss.

Roaring, my dragoness bursts into the room, rushes to the shattered window. "Was it a boat? A white one?"

I grimace. "Later," I say. "Help me move away from all the damned glass."

"But I still can see them!"

"That boat can do at least sixty miles an hour. You'll never catch it."

"I might."

"And then you'll be seen and then we'll both be dead. Help me!"

After Elizabeth carries me to the oak table and lays me on it, she changes to her human shape. She picks glass shards from my hair, my clothes, my skin, while I go through the process of healing, guiding my cells to rebuild, working the bullet to the surface where Elizabeth can pluck it out.

The sun has set by the time I'm able to sit up-the room dark, my bride sitting near me. "Who did it?" she asks.

I shrug. "Who knows we've returned?" I say, getting up, walking to the wall switch, flicking on the lights.

"Arturo does," Elizabeth says.