Her soft snort was caustic. "No. You never did. I was the trusted nanny, the trusted friend. Never in line to be the trusted lover."
What could he say? She spoke a truth he could not deny. She was a friend they'd shared their life with, but never their hearts.
"Your silence says it all." Her tone was bitter, eyes hard.
He shrugged. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, right." She shifted the cannon slightly. The laser hummed briefly to life then faded again as the pressure on the trigger eased. "The worst of it was watching Stephan fall for Lyssa, knowing all the while that my chances with you were also slipping away. Then, finally, you met her."
Her? Her who? "There's no woman in my life."
"So I can just jump right in and fill the void of loneliness, huh?" She laughed bitterly. "I saw you with her. You don't fool me."
The only woman she'd seen him with was Sam. Why in hell would Mary presume them to be lovers? Unless she was so consumed by jealousy that any female in his life — colleague or friend — would fuel her insane anger. Maybe that was the reason behind her attempt to kill them all at the mansion.
"So when did you decide to betray all that we believe in?"
She shrugged. "Three years ago."
Which would have been about six months after Stephan had married Lyssa. And about the time Mary had gone on an extended cruise — a ruse, obviously, as it was undoubtedly the time she'd been turned. "Why join Sethanon?"
"I didn't join Sethanon. I joined Kazdan. I realized that if love was out, I wanted power. Kazdan offered it to me."
She was a fool if she believed Kazdan would share a piece of the humanity pie. "You were one of our inner circle, Mary. One of the two we trusted."
"And yet, how much did I ever really know? You and Stephan play your cards very close to your chests. I was your runner, not your lieutenant." She paused, anger touching her expression. "You never even told me that Stephan was Hanrahan. Odd, considering how much you supposedly trusted me."
Yet, knowing them as she did, she should surely realize that that was the exact type of information they would keep close. "So who did tell you?"
She grimaced. "Who do you think?"
"Kazdan." And if Kazdan knew, did Sethanon? Or was that the sort of information a man intent on claiming a throne might keep to himself? He had to hope so, because otherwise, the Stephan who ran Federation was going to have to go the way of Hanrahan. "Not even Martyn knew about Hanrahan, Mary. You're not alone there."
"Martyn didn't grow up with you. I did. You never fully trusted me. You never told me all I needed to know. That hurts, Gabriel."
She knew enough to get Lyssa kidnapped and to train the replacement so impeccably that no one had picked it up until Sam came along. No wonder so many of their missions had gone sour — Mary, who'd been in on most planning sessions, had obviously passed the information on to Kazdan, who'd promptly arranged a neat little ambush.
"Is that why you decided to blow us all up at the mansion?"
She grimaced. "You made me angry, defending that woman, touching her and looking at her all the time. Someone like her had no right to what you refused me."
And that made about as much sense as nearly everything else she'd said so far. "So you decided to set off the bomb that had been placed there to take out Stephan later in the month." It was a guess, but it was a pretty safe one, since Kazdan had said both he and Stephan were due for termination. It would have been very easy for Mary to time the explosion with his and Stephan's biweekly meetings.
She nodded. "As I said, I was angry."
What she was was insane. "How did you ever hope to live through the force of that blast?"
"No one told me it was that big."
He shook his head, unable to believe she could be so stupid after all she'd seen in her time with the Federation. "So, Kazdan offered you eternal afterlife and great wealth, and you jumped at the opportunity."
"Look at me, Gabriel. I didn't want to be some old hag you looked after out of pity. I didn't want to die living in some poorly heated nursing home, surrounded by dozens of old geezers who can't even hold their own water."
Neither did he, but he doubted he'd ever abandon all he believed in just to gain life everlasting. Besides, in the end, even vampires died, many by their own hand. Few were able to face the weight of the years, the weight of watching life come and go while they remained eternal. Sooner or later even they had to face the choices they'd made in their long life.
And if the haunted, almost hunted, light in Mary's eyes was anything to go by, she was only now realizing that herself.
"We paid you well. And we would have looked after you."