For my fans and friends who have kept me going through thick and thin, and especially the RBL ladies and those of you who take the time to visit the Dark-Hunter. com bbs. Your support means more to me than any of you will ever know.

To Kim and Nancy for all the hard work you do on my behalf, thank you. I can honestly never say that enough.

To my husband and sons who put up with all my wild imaginings and most importantly to my mother who indulged me when I was young. I miss you, Mom, and I always will. Love and hugs to all of you.

"Happy birthday, Agrippina," Valerius said as he laid a single red rose at the feet of the marble statue that held a sacred place in his home.

It was nothing compared to the sacred place that the woman herself had held within his heart while she had lived. A place she still occupied-even after two thousand years.

Closing his eyes, he felt crippled by the pain of her loss. Crippled by the guilt that the last sounds he had heard as a mortal man had been her wrenching sobs as she called out for his help.

Unable to breathe, he reached up and touched her marble hand. The stone was hard. Cold. Unyielding. Things Agrippina had never been. In a life that was measured by brutal formality and harshness, she had been his only refuge.

And he loved her still for the quiet kindness she had given him.

He clasped her delicate hand in both of his, then laid his cheek against the cold stone palm.

If he could have one wish, it would be to remember the exact sound of her voice.

To feel the warmth of her fingers on his lips.

But time had robbed him of everything except the agony he had caused her. He would die ten thousand more deaths if only he could have saved her the pain of that one night.