“He’s not dead,” Mencheres said a trifle grimly. “Like me, Gregor has visions of the future. He intended to alter the future based on one of these visions. When I found out about it, I imprisoned him as punishment.”

“And what does he want with my wife?”

Bones emphasized the words while arching a brow at me, as if daring me to argue. I didn’t.

“He saw Cat in one of his visions and decided he had to have her,” Mencheres stated in a flat tone. “Then he discovered she’d be blood-bound to you. Around the time of Cat’s sixteenth birthday, Gregor intended to find her and take her away. His plan was very simple—if Cat had never met you, then she’d be his, not yours.”

“Bloody sneaking bastard,” Bones ground out, even as my jaw dropped. “I’ll congratulate him on his cleverness—while I’m ripping silver through his heart.”

“Don’t underestimate Gregor,” Mencheres said. “He managed to escape my prison a month ago, and I still don’t know how. Gregor seems to be more interested in Cat than in getting revenge against me. She’s the only person I know whom Gregor’s contacted through dreams since he’s been out.”

Why do these crazy vampires keep trying to collect me? My being one of the only known half-breeds had been more of a pain than it was worth. Gregor wasn’t the first vampire who thought it would be neat to keep me as some sort of exotic toy, but he did win points for cooking up the most original plan to do it.

“And you locked Gregor up for a dozen years just to keep him from altering my future with Bones?” I asked, my skepticism plain. “Why? You didn’t do much to stop Bones’s sire, Ian, when he tried the same thing.”

Mencheres’s steel-colored eyes flicked from me to Bones. “There was more at stake,” he said at last. “If you’d never met Bones, he might have stayed under Ian’s rule longer, not taking Mastership of his own line, and then not being co-Master of mine when I needed him. I couldn’t risk that.”