Bless the Beasts
By
Desiree Acuna

© copyright by Desiree Acuna, Feb. 2008

 Cover Art by Jenny Dixon, Feb. 2008

 ISBN 978-1-60394-130-3

 New Concepts Publishing

 Lake Park, GA 31636

 www.newconceptspublishing.com

 This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.



 Chapter One

It was the time of day Claire liked best. The library was quiet. All of the patrons had departed and she was alone with the books. Her books. That was the way she thought about them anyway, and to a degree they were. She was the librarian. Except for the two young women that helped her out during the afternoons when the library was at its busiest and, of course, their patrons, the library and all its wealth of books were entirely her domain. She was the one who kept up with the books, took care of them, and primarily the one who made certain they were kept orderly. There wasn't a single book in the library, she was certain, that hadn't passed through her hands at least once in the five years since she'd taken over the position of librarian in the tiny library that belonged to the tiny hamlet of Folkston.

 Loading the last of the returned volumes to her cart, she pushed the book trolley from behind the returns desk and headed to the nearest shelf. She was tired, but pleasantly so. The hour or so that it took her to set the library to rights after it had closed was her time to unwind before she went home to her empty house.

 Well, not entirely empty. She had her cats, of course. It was almost a prerequisite, she mused with a touch of self-depreciating humor, for a woman living alone to have a passel of cats. She certainly hadn't set out to. The old tabby had come with the quaint little Victorian she'd bought when she'd moved to Folkston. To his way of thinking, she supposed, it was his house. The realtor had told her he'd belonged to the woman who'd owned the house before her and advised her to get rid of him since he was such an unpleasant and unsociable old man, but she hadn't had the heart.

 He wasn't pretty or cuddly by any stretch of the imagination, but she'd felt that he'd earned the right to live out his days in the house he considered his home. He'd obviously seen more than his fair share of battles. One ear was mangled, as if the tip had been chewed off. A section of his tail was missing and a scar ran across one eyelid that hadn't healed as it should, making it seem as if he was always squinting one baleful, yellow eye at her. He'd never allowed her to touch him or even come closer than three feet of him, but he was always at the back porch demanding to be fed at meal times, watching her suspiciously as she doled out his food, letting out a low, threatening growl if she encroached any closer than the distance he allowed.

 She called him Tom. She thought of him as the old bastard, though—for a number of reasons—mostly because the old bastard had impregnated her prized Abyssinian, damn his hide! She'd had no notion Sugar was even old enough to think about humping. It seemed that one moment she was only a kitten herself and the next, while she was still trying to decide whether to have her fixed or breed her so that she could sell the pure breed kittens for a little extra cash, a mommy with three half Abyssinian half mongrel tabby kittens of her own.

 She still hadn't figured out how the old bastard had managed to get his dick into her darling Sugar—the little slut! But she strongly suspected it was Sugar who'd figured out a way to get out to old Tom, not Tom who'd figured out how to get inside to get hold of her precious. She was a clever girl, very good at opening doors, which was why Claire always made sure the doors were locked when she left for work. She didn't think Sugar could unlock doors, though, just turn the knobs, which meant it was still a mystery as to how the pair had managed to get together for romance.

 Regardless, she now had Sugar, Old Tom, and three kittens—which she hadn't had any luck finding homes for.

 Reaching the first row of bookshelves, Claire dismissed her thoughts and picked up the first book, scanning the shelf until she found the spot where the book belonged. Naturally enough, she found a half a dozen other books that were out of place. As much as everyone seemed to love the books—and the library, as one of the few sources of local entertainment, saw a lot of use—no one wanted to be bothered with putting them where they belonged.

 She'd worked her way almost halfway across the library and emptied the biggest portion of her cart when she spotted the book that didn't belong—totally didn't belong. It was tilted slightly, as if someone had tried to push it into a spot too small for it and only managed to partially wedge the book in, but she would've noticed it immediately anyway. The spine was not only far more worn than the spines of any of the other books, but, aside from being roughened from age and probably handling, it was smooth. The title should have been tooled into the leather at the very least. Beyond that, if it was a library book someone had either removed the label she always very carefully attached to each and every book with the identifying code, or it had never been tagged at all.

 Finding the spot where the book she was holding went, she pushed it into place and then grasped the stray book and pulled it off the shelf. The softness of the leather was her first impression, but even as a pleasant jolt of surprise went through her at the texture against her hand she was distracted by the craftsmanship of the book itself. Regardless of the plainness of the spine, the front of the book was anything but plain. Some intricate, unidentifiable design had been tooled into the leather, framing the title of the book—Bless the Beasts.

 A frown marred her brow.

 Well! It certainly didn't belong in non-fiction! Obviously, it was a work of fiction with a title like that!

 A sudden, prickling awareness of a presence pierced her focus on the book. She glanced up, fully expecting the sensation to be nothing more than imagination. In the shadows at the end of the aisle, there was a man standing not six feet from where she stood, studying her intently. Claire sucked in a sharp, startled breath, dropping the book from suddenly nerveless fingers and clutching at her heart.

 "I didn't mean to frighten you,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice that made the fine hairs on her body prickle as if she'd encountered a field of static electricity.

 The instant impulse to deny having been taken by surprise, or frightened, flickered through her. “The library's closed,” she said a little more sharply than she'd intended, her thoughts fleeing chaotically from one thing to another. She'd been certain she'd locked the doors, equally sure she'd seen the last of the patrons to the door before she'd secured them. Could she have overlooked him? And, if she hadn't, how had he gotten in?

 Most importantly, why was he here?

 Her mouth felt dry as she stared at him, her lips drier. Unconsciously, she licked her lips to moisten them but the moment she did his gaze flickered to her mouth, drawing her attention to the act. A strange lightheadedness wafted over her as he shifted and the motion brought him from the shadows and into the light.

 He was a big man, not just exceptionally tall, but brawny—with the sort of build one might expect on a man who made his living constantly lifting and carrying heavy things. Construction worker? Farmer? Pro football player? Without any conception that her thoughts were bigoted, she dismissed the interest of a man like that in books of any kind except maybe repair manuals.

 He seemed as out of place in her library as the book she'd just found and not just because of his size. The moment her surprise and fear subsided enough to allow her to really look at him, she saw that he was a surprisingly handsome man in a purely rugged, manly sort of way. His harshly angular features bordered on ugly and still managed to miss it entirely, creating a face that made her heart flutter madly with appreciation, made her suddenly breathlessness and lightheaded.

 She licked her lips again. “Were you looking for someone?” she asked shakily, wondering abruptly if that explained his presence, wondering why the thought disappointed her.

 She'd never seen him before, she realized abruptly. As little as she got out, Folkston was a tiny community. She felt sure that, in all the years she'd lived in the small town, she would've seen him if he was a local, and it wasn't likely she would've forgotten if she had. He wasn't the sort of man that passed unnoticed by any woman from eight to eighty, she was certain.

 "No,” he said finally, a faint smile playing about his lips now that drew her attention to that infinitely appealing hard, well defined feature and made her heart rate climb another notch. “I'd been reading the paper. You locked me in."

 Disbelief flickered through her. She found it impossible to accept that she'd overlooked him, but embarrassment quickly replaced the doubt.

 He shrugged those massive shoulders as if he'd seen the suspicion in her gaze, looking vaguely embarrassed himself. “I fell asleep."

 At his embarrassed admission, Claire uttered a chuckle before she could help herself, though she thought it was more from relief to discover so plausible, and unthreatening, an explanation for his presence. “I'm so sorry! I thought everyone had left,” she said shakily, digging in her pocket for her ring of keys as she moved around the cart.

 He didn't yield ground immediately, watching her with that same curiously intent expression as she moved closer until she discovered he hadn't moved and stopped to look up at him. A jolt rippled through her when she looked up at him and discovered him towering over her. Partly, it was the fact that she hadn't fully appreciated the size of the man until she was close enough to feel dwarfed by his sheer mass. Partly, it was the fleeting fear that she'd miscalculated dangerously and he was a threat, but mostly it was his eyes.

 They were a strange color, more yellow gold than brown, which would've been startling enough in and of itself, but as she looked up at him, for just a heartbeat, she thought she detected almost a glow in them—like the nocturnal eyes of a predator. He blinked, stepping back slightly to allow her to pass in the next moment and his eyes looked perfectly normal—except for the color, of course—and she had to dismiss the glow as some trick of the light or excessive imagination.

 "You must be new in town?” she chattered nervously at him over her shoulder as she moved past.

 The questioning lilt to her voice seemed to amuse him.

 Or maybe it was the none too subtle interest in him the question revealed?

 "I am."

 Just that, nothing more. Claire wrestled with the temptation to pump him for more information, wondering if it would seem purely nosey, polite, but disinterested conversation, or if he'd see through it instantly as a keen curiosity to discover if he meant to join the nearly nonexistent ranks of available men the town boasted.

 She hadn't noticed a ring on his finger, but that didn't mean anything in this day and time. Moreover, it seemed doubtful such a prime specimen of manhood had managed to elude interested females. He must be thirty, at least, she thought—a little young for her.

 Not that she was looking, she chided herself.

 Hadn't she told herself she'd had enough of that nonsense?

 It always ended badly.

 She was far better off to eschew male companionship altogether. She had enough bad relationships under her belt by now to need her head examined for even fleetingly regretting the decision to remain single the rest of her days.

 Five years was a long time to go without feeling a man's touch, though, especially when one had known it.

 Unconsciously, she sighed a little wistfully as she unlocked the door, opened it, and turned to look expectantly at the intruder, forming a polite smile on her lips. “Well,” she said uncomfortably, “if you've just moved here, welcome to Folkston."

 He chuckled and the sound twanged along her nerve endings, evoking an uncomfortable warmth. “I'll be around a while ... Claire."

 Claire blinked in surprise, but before she could ask him how he knew her name, he strode through the door and down the steep steps of the library. She stood in the doorway, staring at his broad back, so fascinated just by the way the man moved that he'd paused at the sidewalk and turned back to look at her before she realized she was staring at him like some horny teenager with raging hormones.

 Discovered gaping, Claire compounded her juvenile behavior by leaping back from the door and slamming it hard enough to rattle the glass. Wincing, both at the noise and her behavior, she locked the door, and retreated in complete disorder. A chill skated along her spine as the heat of embarrassment ebbed.

 Shivering, Claire scrubbed her hands along her arms and turned to gaze across the library, struggling to remember what she'd been doing before the odd, ultimately embarrassing, encounter with the stranger. The moment she did so, she remembered the book she'd dropped and headed briskly back to the aisle where she'd been sorting books.

 The thin volume lay where she'd dropped it, but she saw to her consternation that some of the pages were loose. Uncertain if they'd been loose before or if the damage was from dropping the book, she frowned as she squatted to retrieve it, lifting it carefully from the floor and then straightening. Cradling the spine in one hand, she lifted the cover to look inside.

 There was no author listed, only the intro, which was scrawled in pen and ink in an almost illegible hand— Bless the Beasts, for, with this book, they are yours to command, and the demons of the underworld will bring you untold riches and power.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Two

"How are you today, Mrs. Ledbetter?” Claire called to her elderly neighbor as she passed the woman rocking on her front porch.

 Instead of returning her smile or her greeting, the woman's frown deepened, her lips turning more tightly downward. “Your cats have been in my garbage again—chewed holes in the bag and made a mess! I'm gonna call animal control if you don't do something about them cats of yours!"

 Claire halted and stared at the woman in dismay. “Oh! Please don't do that! I'll clean up the mess."

 The woman sniffed. “I've already cleaned it up. Couldn't leave that stinkin’ mess lying around! Second warning, Ms. Dupont!"

 In other words, there wasn't any evidence to prove one way or the other whether it had been her cats or not—or rather the old bastard. Sugar was in the house with her kittens. Resisting the urge to defend her cats and argue with the old battle ax, Claire merely nodded, tightened her hold on the stack of books she'd brought home with her, and hurried along the sidewalk to the walkway that led up to her house.

 For once, she didn't glance up at the house to admire it, although it had become almost a habit she was scarcely aware of any more—stopping to admire the graceful lines of her Victorian.

 It was a disgraceful extravagance for a woman of her means, especially considering she had no family to raise in it and no real ambitions any longer to produce one.

 At least, that was what her aunt had told her forthrightly when she'd finally completed renovations on it and invited her widowed aunt for a visit to admire it.

 Truthfully, she supposed it was, and beyond that it wasn't like her to splurge on something so frivolous when a one bedroom apartment would have done just as well for her. For the most part, she was a practical soul and not given to excesses of any kind. She'd fallen in love with the Victorian the moment she saw it, though, and she'd thought, why not? The old woman who'd owned it before had lived in the house alone for years. Of course, she'd raised a family of five in the house before that and lived another twenty or thirty years in it with her husband before he'd died.

 Still, she could afford it—at least she could as long as her aunt continued to give her an allowance. With her salary alone she would've been hard pressed to pay for it even if it had been a bargain because of its state of disrepair.

 She appreciated the allowance her aunt provided her with, purely out of the goodness of her heart. She really did, and for the most part she tried to live within her own means, saving that windfall for her old age when she wouldn't be able to work and provide for herself.

 She could get along just fine without that monthly check, though, and she'd just as soon her aunt didn't give it to her if she thought to use it for control!

 She hadn't asked for it, though the lord knew it was no hardship for her wealthy aunt, who had no children of her own and far more money than she could spend in her lifetime.

 She hadn't turned it down, either, mostly because her salary only allowed her to get by and she was worried about not having anything put back for emergencies or for her old age when expensive health issues were something one couldn't ignore.

 Shrugging those thoughts off, Claire climbed the steps to the wide, wrap around porch and trod the creaking floor boards to her front door. Pausing to dig her keys from her pocket, she turned to study porch critically, realizing when she did that she was going to have to have someone replace the porch before much longer. Carpentry was beyond her capabilities. She'd scraped and refinished almost every surface of the walls, floors, and even the ceilings of the old house herself, but she'd had to call in an electrician to replace the dangerous old wiring, a mason to fix the crumbling pilings, and a carpenter to remove and replace all of the rotted wood.

 Uttering an unhappy sigh when she gave up on trying to calculate what it was going to cost her to redo the porch, she pulled the screen door open, unlocked the front door, and went inside. Sugar and two of her kittens trotted into the vast hallway to greet her as soon as she came in the door, mewing to be fed.

 "Oh, don't give me that song and dance!” Claire scolded half-heartedly. “Mrs. Ledbetter says you've been into her garbage!"

 Sugar sat down, blinked at her a couple of times, and then began to groom herself nonchalantly. The kittens, now joined by the third, continued to mew and weave in and out between her feet, rubbing themselves on her and each other and nearly tripping her up as she crossed the hall to the narrow hall table and set her stack of books down. Plunking her hands on her hips, she glared down at them accusingly for several moments and finally unbent since it was clear her cats couldn't care less if she was displeased with them or not. Leaving the front door ajar since she hadn't collected her mail yet, she picked her way into the kitchen around the cats, opened the bin where she kept the cat food and scooped enough out to fill the four food bowls near the back door.

 Not that there seemed to be a lot of point in fixing separate bowls for them. They shuffled from one bowl to another, hissing and quarrelling at one another. Ignoring the nightly battle for the ‘perfect’ food bowl, she got another scoop of cat food and opened the back door to leave food for Tom, calling for him fruitlessly for several minutes before she gave up and went back inside. He never came when she called. She didn't know why she bothered.

 Leaving the cats to squabble over the food—as if the food in one bowl was better than the food in the others!—Claire headed back to the front door. Seeing the shadowy form of a man at the screen door when she stepped into the hallway, Claire jumped, jolting to a halt, her heart pounding uncomfortably in her chest.

 "Well ... hello again. I hope I didn't startle you."

 Too late! There was a note of surprise in his voice, but she somehow got the impression that he wasn't. She recognized the voice instantly, the form a fraction of time behind that. After that brief check of shock she moved to the door, struggling against the uneasiness battering at the back of her mind. It was him , she realized as he stepped back from the screen so that his face wasn't in shadow, the same stranger she'd seen in the library.

 "I apologize. I guess I did startle you. I just moved in next door. I didn't know we were neighbors."

 Tentative relief flooded her with the realization that he didn't appear to have followed her from the library, as she'd first feared. “Next door? The Thompson house?” she asked, unable to prevent disbelief from threading her voice.

 He nodded. “Mine now."

 The uncomfortable thumping in her chest eased. She managed a smile. “I didn't realize it had been sold, Mr....?"

 "Sarik."

 The name was as exotic as the man himself. It shouldn't have surprised her, but it did. “How can I help you, Mr. Sarik?” she asked, wondering at the origins of his name even as she tried to infuse some graciousness in the question, though she was so unnerved that was difficult. She'd never heard the name before. She supposed there were a lot of names she wasn't familiar with, but it had a foreign ring to it—which was when she realized there was a faint, unrecognizable accent to his voice she hadn't noticed before. Russian, maybe? He was dark—swarthy complexion, ebony hair. Were Russians dark? Or was he, maybe, middle eastern? He didn't have the look of a middle easterner, though.

 "Just Sarik. I'd wondered if I could borrow a cup of sugar? I haven't had the chance to get supplies yet."

 The question was so cliché it sent fresh ripples of doubt through her. She smiled with an effort. “I'm certain I have sugar. I could let you have a cup."

 He smiled back at her, a wide baring of even, white teeth that took in his entire face and conjured butterflies in her stomach. “It you did that I wouldn't have an excuse to come back tomorrow."

 Claire blinked at him surprise, realized he was teasing her, and finally relaxed, smiling back at him. “Would you like to come in?"

 Briefly, a look of triumph flickered across his features, but it vanished so quickly that she wasn't certain in the next moment that she'd seen it. He pulled the door screen open and stepped into her foyer and doubts fluttered in her mind again as she was struck once more by the sheer massiveness of his size.

 It intimidated her on a purely subconscious level, but the effects weren't so easily ignored. Tension twanged along every nerve ending, leaving her feeling jittery down to her toenails and uncertain whether the feeling was welcome, or unwelcome, whether she felt more threatened or more intrigued.

 He scanned the entire hallway in one sweeping glance, his gaze finally settling on the stack of books she'd brought with her from the library. “Arming yourself against boredom?"

 Claire glanced at the stack of books and chuckled uncomfortably. “I like to have something around to read. I'm not much for TV shows."

 Nodding understanding or maybe agreement, he moved toward the stack, staring down at the book she'd found and brought home with her. She followed him, studying it, as well, for a moment, and then lightly touching the cover, tracing the tooled designs she found so appealing and intriguing.

 "Interesting. What's it about?"

 She glanced at him, realizing they were standing far too close for comfort, that she could feel the heat of his body, detect the faint scent of whatever cologne he was wearing. His nearness, or the delectable scent, or maybe both together, caused her a moment's lightheadedness. Disoriented, she swayed slightly and then blushed faintly as it occurred to her to wonder if he'd noticed. “A mystery, actually—to me, anyway. I brought this one because it doesn't belong in the library. I can't imagine how it got there, but I didn't want to leave it. I'm sure it must be valuable."

 Something flickered in his eyes and she was abruptly sorry she'd said that much. The man was a complete stranger, even if it was true that he'd moved in next door, and she only had his word for it that he had. She hadn't noticed the for sale sign missing, hadn't seen anyone around the place preparing to move in, hadn't seen movers.

 Of course, she was gone most of the day. That wasn't necessarily damning evidence that he was lying. She could easily have missed all sorts of activity next door.

 She still regretted mentioning the possibility that the book was valuable.

 "It just looks like a very old book in very bad condition to me,” he commented, although, to her relief, he made no attempt to pick it up and examine it more closely.

 Claire grimaced guiltily. “I think it might have been in better shape before I dropped it. I'd just found it when I saw you in the library. It appears to be very old, though, leather bound, hand tooled—even the book itself was written by hand. I don't actually know that much about rare books, but it seemed to me this would be unique enough to make it valuable regardless of who wrote it or the subject matter. At the very least, it must have a great sentimental value to someone."

 "What do you plan to do with it?"

 Claire shrugged. “I figured whoever had lost it would come back to look for it. I just wanted to keep it safe until they did."

 A faint frown marred his brows as his gaze moved from the book to her face, flickering over her expression speculatively. “The book belongs to whoever holds it."

 There was something about the way he said, a sense that he was alluding to certain knowledge, that sent a ripple of surprise through her. “What?"

 He met her gaze. “Possession is nine tenths of the law, is that not right?” he asked after a lengthy pause.

 Disapproval moved through her. “That wouldn't be right. It isn't mine. I only found it."

 His gaze turned assessing. “Have you read the book?"

 Abruptly uncomfortable with the focus of their discussion, she shook her head, moving away from the hall table toward the door that led into the kitchen. “I glanced through it, but the handwriting makes it hard to read. I don't know if I ought to even try."

 "Because it is a book of spells?"

 Claire stopped abruptly and turned to look at him. “How did you know that? Is it yours?"

 "No."

 Claire frowned. His denial was emphatic enough to leave no doubts in her mind, but she sensed he knew more than he was telling her. How could he just guess from looking at the cover what the book was about? “But you've seen it before? Or at least something similar?"

 He studied her upturned face, smiling abruptly. “It is a book of spells, then?"

 His expression said he'd guessed and was pleased he'd guessed correctly. Somehow Claire didn't entirely believe it. She frowned uncertainly when she realized she'd only guessed at the contents of the book herself, based on nothing more than the strange comment on the first page—and the fact that it was handwritten. “Actually, I'm not sure. I got the impression it was...."

 His smile became more pronounced. “And so you brought it home to see what magic you could conjure?"

 He said it teasingly, but again some sixth sense told her that nothing he'd said or done regarding the book quite rang true. She couldn't decide why she felt that way, or what sort of motivations she was attributing to him. It almost seemed he was trying to pique her interest in the book, but she couldn't figure out any reason in the world why he'd do that, particularly if he had no personal knowledge of the book.

 He'd spoken provocatively, though, and she decided to respond as if he was teasing. “If I even believed in magic—which I don't—I still wouldn't expect to be able to perform magic. I know my limitations and the last time I looked I didn't have any sort of special gifts. Really, I only brought it because I was worried something might happen to it if I left it at the library."

 She studied his expression for just a moment and finally capitulated with a light chuckle as she turned away and continued into the kitchen. “Alright, so I was also curious about it. I didn't figure it would hurt to read it as long as I'm careful not to damage it ... more. Maybe I can manage that if you don't pop up unexpectedly again, Mr.... uh...."

 His name died on her lips as she stepped into the kitchen and Sugar and all three of her kittens bowed up, fluffed out as if they'd just popped out of the dryer, and began to spit and hiss. Dumbfounded, Claire could do nothing but stare at them in stunned surprise. As suddenly as they'd begun pinging around her kitchen, the cats fled, shooting past her at such a velocity that Sugar nearly knocked her down in her dash to vacate the room.

 "What in the world...?” Following their departure with her gaze, Claire discovered when she glanced around that Sarik had stepped past her and entered the kitchen. He was scanning the room with interest as if he hadn't noticed the odd behavior of her cats. Frowning, wondering what had gotten into her cats, Claire moved to the counter and pulled the sugar canister toward her.

 Sarik moved up behind her as she reached into one of the overhead cabinets for a cup to hold the sugar he'd asked for. She froze as she felt his fingers threading into the hair at the nape of her neck and then the warmth of his heated breath.

 "You should take who ... and what you invite into your home, Claire,” he murmured near her ear.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Three

Claire wasn't aware of turning and yet she found herself facing Sarik, pressed tightly between his body and the counter at her back. Her heart and breath seemed to suspend in her chest for so long darkness encroached before they recommenced, racing as if to make up for lost time. His hand in her hair tugged relentlessly until her head was tipped so far back she felt the strain in the tendons of her neck and then his mouth settled hard over hers and her awareness narrowed to nothing more than that heated connection.

 A drugging lethargy engulfed her almost instantaneously, dulling the fear induced adrenaline spiking through her blood stream. Heat pored through her in a molten tide at the possessive glide of his tongue across hers. A thrill of pleasure shot through her and then ... nothingness.

 The cloak of darkness refused to allow her to lift to full awareness. Vague perceptions filtered through her mind, but drifted sluggishly, seemingly disconnected with true reality.

 A fleeting sense of discomfort filtered through her mind first and she became aware that her back was arched awkwardly, her arms behind her, a flat surface beneath her palms as if she'd leaned back and braced herself on her arms.

 No, she thought, not quite like that because her back was arched uncomfortably and she wouldn't have done that.

 And she couldn't move her arms.

 Hands grasped her ankles. Forcing her knees to bend, they pressed steadily until she felt her heels brush her buttocks—her bare buttocks. The whispering tease of cool air along her cleft as her thighs were pushed so wide the lips of her sex parted removed any lingering doubt of her state.

 Alarm should have gone through her at the sudden realization that she was completely naked. On one level she knew that and yet her senses were too lethargic to respond as she was certain they should have. Even as she felt the hands replaced with something hard, cold, metallic she found she couldn't quite summon the panic beating at the back of her mind.

 The hands that had held her ankles closed around her breasts, squeezing them so that all the blood seemed to rush to the tips and collect there in a hard, almost painful throbbing.

 There was no tease, no slow awakening of her senses. As sluggish as her brain was functioning, she knew only moments had passed between darkness, first awareness, and the touch. She sucked in a harsh breath as the heat of a mouth closed over one nipple tugging and pulling at it in a ravenous, mindless hunger that teetered between the most exquisite pleasure she'd ever felt and pain. She flinched, made an instinctive, abortive attempt to flee and discovered she couldn't move more than that, that she was bound so cannily that she could do no more than twitch and tense at the ferocity of his assault.

 The frenzied feeding on her flesh forced her deeper in the swirling darkness that still cloaked her senses, deeper in the sense of a complete lack of awareness beyond the tugging suction on her nipple as if every other nerve in her body had shut down or all were connected to that one point. Heat surged through her and over her in waves that had her shivering as if fevered, gasping for breath until her mind seemed to spin endlessly.

 The scrape of the sharp edge of his teeth along her descended nipple pitched her briefly from searing pleasure to pain and then back again so quickly she thought she might have completely lost touch with consciousness except that the unceasing stimulus of the bundled nerves in her nipple prevented escape through that means. And there was no physical escape. She tugged harder at her bonds as she seesawed between scalding pleasure and pain, almost sobbing with the effort of straining muscles until the uselessness of it was finally borne in upon her.

 She'd scarcely been aware of the pressure building in her other breast from his tight hold. He brought it to blinding attention as he shifted abruptly from the first breast to the second, his mouth clamping down on it with more feverish hunger than the first, as if his feeding upon her flesh was driving his need higher. She cried out as fire coursed through her veins, scouring her from the inside out, struggling to mentally evade what she couldn't physically accomplish.

 She discovered that was as fruitless as her attempt to shake her bonds. There was no evading it, not mentally, not physically. She could only endure, gasping desperately for breath, drunk with the burning need growing inside her like wildfire.

 The torture seemed endless, dragging her strength from her until she hung limply in her bonds, unable even to hold up her head as he continued to pull and tug and lash at her trapped nipple with his mouth and tongue and teeth, alternately giving pleasure and then pain until she could scarcely tell the difference between the two. Each time he lifted his mouth, she dragged in a harsh breath, trying to brace herself for the next assault and each time she discovered there was no bracing for it. All the time he fed at one breast, he squeezed the other to trap the blood flow and increase sensitivity in the other so that when he switched his attentions the fresh assault was as debilitating as the first.

 She'd begun to weep silently for surcease when he stopped the torment as suddenly as he'd begun. Braced to feel him move to her other breast, it took her a moment to realize he hadn't—one moment to feel relief she had no reason to feel. One moment to think the torment had stopped.

 She almost fainted when his mouth settled over her clit, giving the lie to her certainty that the entire focus of sensation in her body was in her breasts. For, all the while he'd been suckling at her breasts, the blood had been pooling in her clit until it was so swollen and tender the first touch of his mouth knocked the breath from her. She jerked all over as if an electric jolt had run through her as he caught her swollen clit between his lips, tugging on painfully sensitive flesh until he could curl his tongue around it and then sucking until she lost the miniscule amount of air she'd managed to gulp down.

 A quaking rocked through her in a matter of moments, but there was no allowance for her body to peak and drift downward again. He tugged and suckled at the sensitive nub until she was screaming with the force of the relentless spasms, tugging frantically at her bonds to escape. In time, the convulsions ceased of their own accord, leaving her limp and barely conscious—but still aware of the insistent pull of his mouth.

 She groaned weakly as she felt her body rising again, his to command no matter how hard she struggled to close her mind to the sensation, no matter how fiercely she struggled inwardly to close herself off from her senses.

 She shuddered with a mixture of disappoint and relief when he lifted his mouth at last, leaving her teetering on the brink of another climax. As before, she'd barely drawn a breath of relief, however, when she discovered he'd merely turned his focus elsewhere.

 He bit down on one nipple just hard enough to rouse her sufficiently from her stupor to feel the sensation keenly when he closed his mouth over it again, sucked until the blood was throbbing in the tip, and then began to tease it with his tongue, sending wave after wave of heat spearing through her. This time, however, her clit throbbed as loudly as her nipples, pulsed almost painfully for his attention. He ignored it, focusing on driving her to the edge of madness by teasing first one nipple and then the other, over and over until she sank toward unconsciousness.

 The moment she did, he shifted downward to nip at her clit, dragging a stifled cry from her as her belly spasmed painfully in reaction. She whimpered. She couldn't seem to help it. She'd reached a point of stimulus where she felt fevered, delirious, where every inch of her skin seemed to ache.

 "Stop, please,” she whispered, thought she had.

 Either the voice was only in her mind or he ignored it, pulling at her clit until she climaxed again, tugging and teasing it until she was screaming hoarsely with the intense pleasure wracking her.

 Relieve surged through her when he finally stopped. She sucked in a shuddering breath, tried to release her hold completely on the vague consciousness she still held onto.

 The respite was brief. He moved to her breasts again, torturing her with the exquisite suction of his mouth until she felt her body begin to climb again regardless of her wishes. She'd begun to beg him for release before he moved away again. This time, instead of moving to her clit, he lapped her cleft and speared his tongue into her sex.

 A jolt went through her as she felt his tongue moving sinuously inside her, pressing deeper than it would've seemed possible. Her eyelids fluttered with the instinctive urge to open in surprise, but she discovered she could not lift her eyelids any more than she could move her arms, her legs—any part of her body—almost more as if she was paralyzed than bound.

 Except she could feel—everything—with a sharp keenness that defied the semi-stupor that held her in its thrall, could feel the faint roughness of his tongue as it stroked the walls of her sex. He lapped at her hungrily, thrusting his tongue deeply inside of her and then curling it out again so that the tip stroked the walls and, within moments, the convulsions of a hard climax hit her again. She gasped, jerking all over with the force of it. He seemed to feed on it, lapping and sucking at her more frantically until the spasms grew weaker—and then began to build again, more rapidly than before. She climaxed twice more in quick succession, hard convulsions that grew harder still with the next climax and then harder until, at last, she lost awareness of what he was doing to her and sank into blessed oblivion.

 Awareness stole back into her mind as it had the first time she'd found a vague consciousness of herself if not her surroundings. She shivered, becoming aware of cool air on her overheated skin before anything else. The dull throbbing in her back brought her to the sense that she was no longer bound as she had been because it was the ache relief not intensified pain.

 Stirring, she discovered she couldn't move, couldn't open her eyes. Balked of that avenue of discovery, she searched with her senses. She seemed to be lying flat, but she was so disoriented by the darkness she couldn't tell whether she was lying face down or on her back until she finally realized there was pressure on her ribs and shoulders.

 Face down then, but why, then, didn't her breasts feel compressed as her ribs did?

 Unable to answer that question, she pursued the search with her senses again and realized she felt a more intense coldness, and a solidness, beneath the soles of her feet. The tension in her groin told her her legs were splayed wide and the effort to pull her legs together told her they were bound—just as her wrists were.

 A shock wave traveled all the way through her as something hot clamped over the tip of one breast. Before her mind could even assimilate what it was she felt the pull of his mouth, the sting of his teeth. She jerked uselessly at her bindings, trying to evade that touch, knowing now what it meant.

 He'd only allowed her to cool long enough to regain awareness to begin again.

 She didn't get the chance to throw up any defense. Heat blossomed in her belly and grew to a raging fire as he gnawed at her breasts with ravening fervor until her body was beyond ready for him, until she was writhing with the tortuous pleasure.

 She gasped for breath when he ceased to torment her breasts, desperate to pull air into her lungs before he forced her to climax again. A moment later, she felt the fumbling of his fingers in her sex, felt him part the lips and a hard, rounded knob of flesh was pressed into the mouth of her sex, stretching her until she gasping for breath, until she felt the sting of her flesh yielding to a greater force as he plowed ruthlessly along her channel until he hit bottom and pain shot through her. He withdrew the thick bludgeon of his flesh almost as quickly and rammed into her again. This time her moisture eased his path. Her flesh yielded more readily and still she gasped at the thickness of his shaft, at the nearly painful stretching with each hard thrust.

 The pain, slight to begin with, gave way to pleasure as he continued to pound into her in a hard, steady rhythm. More slowly than before, she felt the climb toward release, but when it came, the force of it pitched her toward oblivion—but not into the arms of it. He began to move faster, to pound into her harder and harder. She roused as he came, as she heard the guttural groans of his release, felt him shudder against her.

 He leaned over her, nipping at the sensitive flesh of her back, lathing her skin with his tongue. And then he straightened, heaved a shuddering breath and began to move again, slowly at first and then, almost as if he could feel the coiling tension of a fresh climax growing within her, faster, until he was pounding into her as before. She cried out hoarsely as another climax tore through her. She heard him grinding his teeth as he was caught up in another climax of his own, felt the hot glide of his seed overflow her sex and begin to slide down her thighs.

 He leaned against her, resting, and she drew a shaky breath of relief, certain he couldn't go on when he pulled his cock from her at last.

 He was no normal man, she knew, when she felt the press of his cock against her rectum, pushing relentlessly as he had into her sex. Aided in his pursuit by the lubrication of his own seed, he thrust into her until she could feel his belly pressing against her buttocks, and then he withdrew, only to thrust into her again and again until he spilled his seed once more and a weak climax rippled through her again.
 * * * *

The sound of morning bird song roused Claire toward consciousness. For a time, she merely listened to the sounds, a faint frown between her brows while she tried to decide whether she wanted to get up or go back to sleep. Finally, she eased one eye open a slit and found the clock. When her vision focused, she saw that it was nearly nine. The surprise that went through her was enough to jolt her more fully awake. In a near panic, she searched her mind for the answer to what day it was and finally relaxed when she realized it was Saturday, her day off.

 She thought it was Saturday.

 Closing her eyes again, she pondered that, wondering why she was so groggy when she'd slept so late, wondering why she couldn't convince herself that it was Saturday.

 Because she couldn't remember Friday night.

 Almost on the thought, a reminder that she generally walked to the diner on Friday nights for the seafood dinner special, her stomach growled. Groaning, she swept the covers off and made several discoveries all at once that effectively banished the lingering effects of sleep.

 She was stark naked.

 Every muscle in her body had protested, loudly, at the simple gesture.

 And, as she stared down blankly at her nakedness, she saw bruises that shouldn't have been there.

 Pushing herself up with an effort, she studied the score of bruises, feeling perfectly blank.

 She'd gone to bed naked? Why would she have done that when she'd never slept naked a day in her life? And how had she gotten the bruises?

 No answer came to her and after a few minutes she climbed out of the bed and made her way to the bathroom, hoping that somewhere in the rounds of her familiar morning ritual her memory would come back.

 She felt better when she'd bathed and brushed her teeth, more alert, and still completely blank about the circumstances of her awakening. And weak. Her inner thighs trembled with the effort to return to her room to get dressed, but that was only part of the weakness. She felt lightheaded with emptiness.

 Deciding a good breakfast would help her feelings all the way around, she made her way to the kitchen, but she could hardly find the strength to cook. By the time she'd managed to fry up a couple of eggs and make toast, she had to lean against the counter to make a cup of instant coffee to go with it and she felt vaguely nauseated about even trying to eat. She forced it down anyway, eating slowly in hopes that she could keep it down and that she'd feel better once she'd eaten.

 She did, but only marginally. She still felt washed out, too tired to consider anything but going back to bed. Finally, despite her determination not to, she gave in to the demand of her body to rest and fell into bed again fully clothed.

 She dreamed, but when she woke she couldn't recall anything about the dreams beyond the fact that there'd been something about them that was both frightening and oddly titillating. She would've dismissed the last if not for the fact that she was still warm and tingling in a purely sexual way when she woke. Baffled, still sluggish, she got up and changed her clothes since what she'd put on earlier was now rumpled from sleep.

 The cats were nearly frantic for food by the time she got to the kitchen the second time. That confused her almost as much as the fogginess that she encountered every time she tried to remember what she'd done the night before.

 "I fed you last night when I came home,” she said irritably as she dutifully scooped food out for them. “I remember that."

 She hadn't fed them that morning, though, she recalled abruptly, worried at once that her dereliction of duty had prompted Tom to hunt food elsewhere. Leery that Mrs. Ledbetter would be laying in wait for her to complain about the cat getting into her garbage again, Claire eased the back door open and stepped out cautiously, peering toward her neighbor's house to see if Tom had transgressed again.

 The tom cat was no where in sight, either in her neighbor's yard or her own, and she didn't know whether to be relieved or not. As she stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether to slip down the steps and peer over Mrs. Ledbetter's fence to look for the cat, a delectable aroma tickled at her nostrils, drawing her attention toward her other neighbor's back yard.

 Smoke was drifting from a grill set up near her neighbor's back porch. Sarik, bare except for a pair of cut off jeans, was sprawled in a lounge chair near the grill, basking in the sun like a supremely satisfied cat.

 Warmth instantly suffused her, but so, too, did a flicker of uneasiness.

 Sarik unfolded his massive frame from the creaking lounge and sauntered over to the fence, his gaze moving over her in a way that made her feel stark naked and as appetizing as the thick steak sizzling on his grill. “I don't suppose I could interest you in sharing a steak with me?” he drawled lazily.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Four

Claire was instantly torn. She felt as cavernously empty, she realized, as she had before she'd eat her ‘big’ breakfast and the smell of the steak was almost sexual in appeal.

 Doubts rose in her mind almost as quickly as the urge to accept, however.

 He was almost as tempting as the steak—maybe more so, but she'd eschewed men, she reminded herself. And, from the look of him, this man was more trouble than all the others she'd been involved with put together.

 She managed a smile. “I appreciate it, but you only have the one. Thanks anyway."

 He shrugged easily, his gaze flickering over her again. “It's big enough for two. I don't imagine you'd eat much."

 She wavered. The temptation of spending time with a man like Sarik and getting a piece of that tantalizing steak was too much for her will power at the moment. “If you're sure you don't mind?"

 "I'm sure."

 "Your place or mine?"

 "Yours,” he responded promptly.

 Claire couldn't prevent a grin. “I'll see what I can gather up for fixings, then."

 Moving back inside, she went to the refrigerator and gathered up the vegetables for a salad and then popped a couple of potatoes into her microwave to cook since she hadn't seen anything on the grill beyond the massive steak. When she'd finished making the salad, she rushed to her room to rake a brush through hair but ignored the urge to primp any further.

 Sarik was tapping at her back door when she got back to the kitchen. Surprised since there wasn't a gate between the two yards, she looked at him questioningly as she opened the door and let him in. “Did you jump the fence?” she asked jokingly since the fence was nearly as tall as she was.

 "Yes,” he responded offhandedly, watching her cats through narrowed eyes as they stampeded out of the kitchen as if their tails were on fire.

 Momentarily distracted, Claire stared after her cats in surprise and finally turned to Sarik again. “You're not serious?"

 He chuckled. “How else do you think I got over it? Flew?"

 "Funny! I just can't believe you jumped the thing! It's every bit of five feet high!” she said, joining him at the kitchen table as he set the platter of steak down and settling across from him.

 He hadn't changed or even put on a shirt, she noticed, feeling her belly do a slow shimmy as she yielded to the impulse to flick a quick glance at him. He was surprising hairless for a dark man, she thought. She would've almost been inclined to think he must shave or wax, like a body builder, except there was a light sprinkling of hair across his upper chest and a narrow trail that led downward to the waistband of his jeans.

 He was built like a body builder—all rippling, bulging muscles droolingly well defined. As massive as he'd seemed to her, she found she was still surprised to see how well built he was. If she'd considered it, which she hadn't, she would've thought the stockiness was a leaning toward overindulgence. She would've expected to see at least a small ‘spare tire’ around his middle, not the wash board abs he was displaying.

 God! Her mother would've flipped to see a half naked man sitting down to a table to eat!

 Not that she was complaining!

 Except her interest in the food paled in comparison!

 "What do you do for a living?” she asked as she focused on scooping salad onto his plate. He didn't answer at once and she flicked a curious glance at him as she handed the plate across to him.

 "This and that,” he responded finally.

 Feeling a little snubbed, Claire got up to retrieve the potatoes from the microwave and then scrounged in the refrigerator for salad dressing and potato toppings. “Sorry,” she muttered without looking at him. “I was just ... curious. I suppose it sounds just plain nosey, though."

 She hadn't really noticed how stiff and sore she was until it was borne in upon her by his interested gaze, but she discovered it took an effort to move fluidly even with such simple tasks. It embarrassed her, made her wonder if he thought she was getting old and decrepit. Not that she was! She couldn't be that much older than him, though she suspected she was at least a few years older.

 She sure as hell wasn't going to ask, not when he'd snubbed her just for asking what he did for a living. Who would've thought he wouldn't want to talk about it, though?

 Too preoccupied, at first, to think beyond the hunger already gnawing at him to have her again, Sarik frowned, feeling a flicker of annoyance when he finally noticed how stiffly she was moving. It almost seemed ... a reproach directed at him, though he was entirely certain she had no memory of the hours he'd fed on her passion. In a general way, mortals didn't—even when they survived a first feeding by an incubus—and, of course, many didn't, depending upon whether the incubus was allowed free reign or constrained for whatever reason from feeding to his heart's content. Those who did, if they remembered anything at all, usually thought that it was dreams—or nightmares depending upon whether he allowed them to see him in his true form or not.

 He had been careful of her, he thought resentfully, as he had been commanded by his bastard of a master. He had curbed his appetite for her, even though it had been difficult for him, for she was by far the most succulent morsel he had fed upon in his memory.

 That had been a surprise, and very little surprised him anymore after all the centuries he had spent in penance for his misdeeds during his mortal life. She had not struck him as a woman of passion when he had first spied her. True, she was far more physically appealing to him than those he was generally sent to dispatch with his particular talents, but, for all her delicate prettiness, she had seemed almost colorless, quiet, almost shy, far more interested in her beloved books than the world, or the people, around her.

 He had had no doubt that he could arouse her to passion. His talents assured that, but he'd expected to have to work far harder to arouse her to her peak, where he could feed upon the energy she expended, and he certainly hadn't expected to be able to do so again and again, so quickly.

 That had almost been his downfall—and hers.

 He had gotten so caught up in feeding off of her that it wasn't until she'd reached a point where he could no longer rouse her that he'd finally realized he'd taken all she could give and still sustain life.

 Maybe, he thought uneasily, he hadn't been as careful with her as he'd thought?

 Had he been a beast so long that he could no longer remember the limitations of mortals? Had the centuries in torment bled even the memory of being mortal from him?

 He hadn't thought so. He'd thought that he had clung hard enough to his memories to retain at least a concept of humanity, but then the mortals he dealt with in general were as evil as he was, he thought wryly, beasts yet in mortal form who would no doubt join him one day in the underworld.

 The irony of his position was not lost upon him. He had been condemned to torment for taking the lives of innocents and now he was the tool of others like himself, forced to do their bidding, forced to kill. He would never find redemption when he could not seek it, he thought with disgust.

 He had long ago accepted that, though. He would be satisfied if he could find a mortal he could manipulate.

 He'd thought Claire would be the perfect one, that she would be malleable enough he could bend her to his will without her actually being aware of it. Irritation flickered through him when he considered the risks he'd taken, the considerable trouble he'd gone to, to place the book in her path. It had taken a great deal of persuasion and cunning to convince the mortal he'd used to steal the book from his master and place it where she might find it. He had taken risks he had not liked in the doing, taken the chance that the mortal he'd used might overcome his terror enough to realize he could become master with that book.

 He had not liked the risk, but there had been no other way when he could not touch the book himself. It had begun to seem unlikely Claire could be brought to use it at all, though, and unless he could convince her that she wanted to, the bastard he called master now would remain his master, with or without the book, because he still commanded it.

 She had the book in her hands, though, and so long as she did, as long as she didn't decide to return the twice damned thing to his master, he had a chance to stay in the realm of man, to escape, at least for a time, from the underworld—possibly forever if he was clever enough and Claire easy enough to guide.

 Unfortunately, her days were numbered. Even if he could contain himself, resist the urge to drink from the vessel that was Claire until he had satisfied his hunger, he had been commanded to destroy her. And he would have to drain her life force from her if he could not convince her to use the book to become his mistress.

 Luckily, his master had determined that it must look unsuspicious, that she must waste slowly away, and that gave him time he would not have had otherwise. He was more inclined to think the sick, evil bastard just wanted to draw out her suffering, but it didn't matter what he thought about it. He had no choice but to obey—unless he could use her to free himself from the bastard who controlled him now.

 The trick would be to use her without her ever realizing the power she held, and he had her measure. Claire was no fool. Soft, yielding, she might be, but she was not stupid. If she read the book, she would know. She might not believe, and that was where his hope lay, that she wouldn't and therefore would not be able to see the power she could wield.

 "The steak is delicious,” Claire commented, bringing Sarik from his reverie.

 He slid a glance at her and then down at his plate, surprised to discover that he had mechanically eaten the majority of the food on his plate while he had been so deep in thought. He had not tasted it. Truth be told, he couldn't. It would not have mattered a great deal if it had been nothing but mud—straw.

 That was one of the things he missed most, he thought—the simple enjoyment mortal senses allowed.

 He could taste Claire, though—not with the senses she was familiar with, or any mortal, but he could taste her passion and that was far better than anything he had tasted before he had been condemned. Just thinking about it, remembering, was enough to make him dizzy.

 He pushed his plate away, abruptly nauseated with the food he'd consumed. “You've barely touched yours,” he said chidingly. “I think you're only being polite."

 She colored faintly. He'd discovered he liked that, the blush of color that tinted her pale cheeks whenever he looked at her with the hunger he felt. He saw the desire in her eyes. She liked this form.

 A flicker of irritation followed the thought, tamping his pleasure in knowing she found him pleasing to her eyes. He was less pleased when it dawned on him that it wasn't the real him she saw, but only the façade he'd adopted to please her. He should've taken satisfaction in merely knowing he'd made a good choice, and he did to a degree, but it was a bit less satisfactory to know she would look at his true form with absolute horror.

 He didn't know why—he shouldn't have cared—but it was.

 "It's a little more rare than I like,” she admitted uncomfortably, “but still, it has a very good flavor and it's so tender!"

 He grinned at her attempt to spare his feelings. “Next time, you should come over and direct me. I'm not much of a cook."

 She looked so pleased that he examined what he'd said, wondering what he'd said to please her. She didn't leave him in doubt long.

 "I'd like that—if you really want to, that is. I'm sure you're very busy with your own affairs, but maybe next weekend?"

 He tilted his head, studying her, and finally realized it was the fact that he'd inadvertently suggested they share a meal again that she'd liked. She verified his guess with her next comment.

 "It's nice to share a meal with someone else ... once in a while, you know. I usually eat alone, and it doesn't really bother me, but company's nice.” Conversation would be even better, Claire thought. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed that, living alone. Sarik, she thought wryly, didn't seem to be much for conversation, though, at least not over the dinner table.

 "Why wait until next weekend? Or do you have other plans? Or do you have to work tomorrow?"

 Claire made a self-depreciating sound of amusement. “I didn't have big plans for the weekend—but I do have tomorrow off. Every weekend, actually. Brenda and Linda, the two girls that help me out at the library, handle things on Saturdays and the library's closed on Sunday so I get two off days in a row—which is nice since it actually gives me time to get a few things done around the house.

 "You must still be settling in, though? Maybe I could give you hand?"

 "No. Thank you,” Sarik said flatly. The last thing he wanted was to bring her into ‘his’ house—at least not in a state to nose around. She was already suspicious of his sudden appearance. It wouldn't do to give her more to speculate about. “I didn't bring much and I've settled it already."

 "Oh. Well, I just thought I'd offer,” she said a little stiffly.

 The waves of dismay wafting off of her was his first clue he'd distressed her. Her expression, however, was eloquent enough he could have seen it even if he had not already formed a link with her that allowed him to ‘taste’ her every emotion. Irritated that he'd offended her sensibilities and now must think of some way to soothe them, he studied her speculatively as she got up from the table abruptly and began to quickly clear away their dishes.

 "Would you like to take a walk?” He wasn't much for walking, actually, but he suspected he'd offended her by appearing reluctant for her company.

 Which he was. He'd already ascertained that he could not have her again right away. He would have to allow her some time to recover—a day at least—and it was going to be difficult enough to contain himself without constantly being near her.

 She smiled at him, though, in a way that almost made it worth it. “That would be nice. I could show you around since you haven't been here long."

 He smiled back at her with an effort. He knew his way around the fucking town, and he was not impressed with anything he'd seen—certainly not enough to want to see it again.

 Pushing away from the table, he crossed the kitchen to lean back against the counter beside her, watching as she filled the sink with soapy water. Her scent sent a wave of hunger through him and he found the urge to touch her was just too much to resist. “You have beautiful hair. Why do always wear it such a tight little ball on your head?"

 A shiver skated through her at his light touch. She looked at him in surprise. “How did you know I always wear it in a bun?"

 Resisting the urge to roll his eyes in irritation, he allowed his hand to drop to his side. “I guessed wrong?"

 "No ... but...."

 Shrugging easily, he pushed away from the counter. “I'll go change."

 She chuckled. “Good idea. I'm not sure the local female population could survive the shorts."

 Her husky chuckle was almost as arousing as her scent, but he found himself grinning at her in response to the pleasurable sound, despite the distraction.

 "If you're going to leap the fence again, I'm coming to watch,” she added playfully as he reached the back door and grasped the knob.

 He turned to look back at her speculatively. “I believe I'll take the front door,” he responded after a moment's thought.

 She grinned at him. “No, really. I want to watch."

 "You're hoping I'll bust my ass,” he retorted, striding from the kitchen and through the hallway without looking back.

 Claire's smile faded as she listened to his departure and it slowly sank into her that she'd wrangled an invitation from him for a walk. Why had she done that?

 Shaking her head in irritation at herself, she turned to the sink and quickly washed the few dishes they'd used along with the dishes she'd abandoned after her early morning breakfast.

 Not early, actually, she reminded herself, frowning. She'd slept late, and then gone back to bed, something she'd never done before that she could remember. The sleeping late—yes—but that should have been enough sleep.

 She probably felt so wrung out and stiff because she'd slept so long, she chided herself.

 Finished with the dishes, she went into her bedroom to check her appearance. She hadn't coiled her hair at the nape of her neck as she generally did when she was working, but she had gathered it to the back of her head in a long pony tail. It was unfashionably long, she thought when she'd pulled the stretchy band off and raked her fingers through the mass that fell somewhere between blond and brown—was actually both, she supposed, since it was a light brown streaked with blond. Almost no one wore their hair long now except religious fanatics—and frumps.

 She should get a stylish cut, she thought.

 "No, you shouldn't!” she told her reflection in the next moment. “What are you thinking, Claire! Or maybe you're just not thinking at all!” Except, maybe with parts of her anatomy that were totally brainless!

 Setting aside her own conviction that man plus Claire equaled bad news, Sarik hadn't encouraged her to think he was interested in her. He'd barely spoken two words to her during the meal and she didn't think it was because he was shy. In fact, he'd been pretty blunt about snubbing her when she'd tried to pump him for information about himself.

 And why would he be interested? She had a decent enough figure, but she hadn't been blessed in the looks department. She was average at best. And Sarik, besides being younger than her, was obviously a lady killer, stunning, way the hell above her grade.

 Who was she kidding anyway? She hadn't met a single man that could see past her aunt's money, which made it painfully clear that they wouldn't have given her the time of day if it hadn't been for that lovely money. They could barely tolerate her with that carrot dangling over her shoulder.

 It was almost worse that it wasn't even her money and wasn't likely ever to be, because at least then she would've had some asset that had huge appeal.

 It was true her aunt had a very narrow list of heirs to leave her wealth to, but as far as she could tell Aunt Elizabeth had never really liked her, had certainly never approved of her, which meant all that glorious money was probably going to some charity.

 It was a thought that comforted her. At the risk of sounding like a fanatic herself, money, to her way of thinking, was the root of all evil. It did unpleasant things to people, or maybe it was just that it brought out the worst in them? Unveiled the ugliness they might've kept hidden if their greed hadn't made it impossible for them to hide it?

 That had certainly been her experience, anyway. And, beyond the fact that she'd been abused, mistreated, and/or ignored in every relationship, the ultimate discovery, each time, that their main interest was in her aunt's money and the thought that they could get to it through her, had taught her a hard lesson.

 No one really wanted Claire.

 She'd thought she'd finally accepted that.

 Chances were Sarik knew who she was and who her aunt was and she'd find out the minute she opened her heart that he was just one more man bent on grinding it beneath his heel as he grabbed for the true prize.

 Even if, for once, she was completely wrong, there was nothing down this road, she knew, that was going to bring her happiness.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Five

The pep talk she'd given herself had steadied Claire enough that she'd defiantly refused to primp. In fact, although she never wore her hair confined except when she was working, she combed it, coiled it, and pinned it to the back of her head specifically because Sarik had commented on a preference that she leave it loose. Maybe she'd already acted like an idiot, but this, at least, would make it clear that she wasn't going to grovel around like a supplicant hoping for his approval!

 The book she'd brought home from work caught her eye as she entered the hallway that bisected the house and dismay shot through her.

 What had she been thinking to just leave a valuable book like that laying on the hall table in plain view of anyone who happened to walk up on her porch?

 Shaking her head at herself, she crossed the hallway briskly, picked the book up and turned, trying to think of the safest place for it. Nothing really secure came to mind since she rarely had need of a place for valuable things, but as she returned to her bedroom and looked around it dawned on her that the old armoire she'd bought a few years before had a drawer with a false bottom. It was one of the things that had enchanted her with the piece enough to fork out an obscene amount of money for the purchase. The craftsmanship was the main reason, the beauty of the piece, but she'd also been intrigued by the secret drawer, which had made it seem almost like a treasure chest.

 Crossing the room, she quickly tucked the book away and then left the house. Sarik was waiting on the porch for her, one shoulder propped against the porch post to one side of the broad steps. He stood away as she stepped out the door and turned to lock it.

 He was frowning at her disapprovingly as she turned back to him. She didn't have to look far for the reason since she'd deliberately confined her hair to snub him. Unaccountably pleased with herself about it, she smiled at him brightly and led the way down the stairs. Mrs. Ledbetter was rocking on her porch as they passed her house. Claire smiled and waved at her as she always did. “Good morning, Mrs. Ledbetter."

 Mrs. Ledbetter's lip curled a little in a disgusted sneer. “It's afternoon, Ms. Dupont. I suppose you were occupied with your new fellow so late last night you slept in or you'd know that."

 Claire halted abruptly, gaping at the woman until the sneer became a smirk that shook her out of her shock. She opened her mouth and closed it several times as she considered and discarded several responses and finally, after sending an embarrassed glance at Sarik, set off again at a brisk pace.

 "Bitch,” Sarik muttered angrily, drawing her startled gaze. He hitched his head in a sharp nod in her neighbor's direction.

 Claire bit her lip to contain the inappropriate inclination to smile. “She's just old."

 "You think being old made her a spiteful bitch? Or that she just doesn't think it's worth while to try to be nice anymore?"

 Surprised at his insight, Claire considered it for a moment and finally shrugged. “I don't know. I don't know her well enough to say. I only moved in a few years ago. I've always gotten the impression, though, that she just doesn't like ‘outsiders'. Or maybe she was friends with the woman who used to own the house and she hates to see an ‘interloper’ in her friend's house?"

 "So you put up with her nosiness and her abuse because you think you deserve it?” he observed. “You won't win her approval that way."

 Irritation flickered through Claire. “I'm not trying to win her approval,” she responded testily. “I'm just not comfortable with being impolite. I was taught to respect my elders."

 "Even when they've done nothing to earn it?"

 That comment silenced her. There was an undeniable truth to it and, as little as she liked to admit it, a good bit of insight in his other comments. She was always trying to gain approval even from people whose opinion of her shouldn't have mattered to her at all. “I think, maybe, she reminds me of my Aunt Elizabeth,” she mumbled after a few moments. “She's never approved of me either."

 He sent her a curious look and she could've bitten her tongue off. Why the hell had she brought up her aunt?

 She didn't know whether to be relieved or sorry when he didn't pursue it. Maybe he just wasn't interested, but the suspicion arose in her, right or wrong, that he hadn't pursued it because he knew about her aunt.

 "It's one thing to be polite and respectful, another matter entirely to allow people to walk all over you,” he said coolly.

 So now he was implying she was a doormat, she thought angrily?

 All right, so maybe he was right about her. She couldn't change what she was. Lord knew she'd tried, but she didn't like getting caught up in unpleasantness. She certainly didn't want to instigate, or promote it, by bowing up and throwing out a counter challenge any time someone decided to be unpleasant. “I'm sorry,” she said when it finally occurred to her that he might be irritated about the old woman's insinuation that there was something going on between them. “I guess I should have set her straight when she made that comment about you. If she mentions it again, I'll make sure I explain that you only dropped by to ask for a cup of sugar."

 He shrugged indifferently. “I've no interest in her opinion."

 Despite the less than satisfactory beginning, their walk turned out to be a reasonably pleasant one. By the time they'd reached the few blocks that constituted the town's economic center, most of the unaccountable soreness Claire had woken with had eased and even some of the tiredness.

 It still puzzled her, and with the haziness of her memories from the evening before disturbed her more than a little, but she didn't care to examine the strange circumstance too closely and Sarik was a welcome distraction in that respect.

 They turned heads, or at least Sarik did. He seemed oblivious to the attention, mostly from the women. She couldn't help but notice it herself, though, especially since even the people they passed who were known to her and ordinarily would've spoken pleasantly hardly seemed to notice her presence for staring at Sarik. Torn between amusement and irritation, she dutifully pointed out the places she thought might be of interest to him. He nodded in all the right places and even commented now and then, but she had the impression that his thoughts were elsewhere.

 Sighing inwardly when they'd returned to their neighborhood and parted company, she tried to dismiss her depression as she entered the house again and then simply stood in the hallway, staring at nothing in particular. She had chores to take care of that she didn't feel like doing. She'd planned a quiet but relatively pleasant weekend, dividing her time between the chores that always had to be done and the books she'd brought home for entertainment and she'd wasted nearly an entire day doing nothing at all ... but chasing after a man who obviously had very little interest in her.

 Irritated with herself, she went to gather her laundry up and headed for the washer on the back porch. The food she'd put out for Tom earlier had vanished and when she'd put a load of clothes on to wash, she replenished it, hoping the fact that Tom had been to eat meant that he hadn't been digging in her nasty neighbor's garbage. It baffled her that he would do such a thing anyway. She supposed he might have developed the habit of scavenging garbage cans for food after the woman who'd owned the house had moved away, but he was a good hunter. She'd seen him in action with the local bird population.

 It seemed far more likely, to her, that it was either some stray dog, since dogs seemed to have a penchant for rifling garbage cans, no matter how well fed they were, or that it was some of the local wild life. She'd caught a ‘possom on her back porch several times, and even a ‘coon once, and both times they were digging in her garbage. She'd pointed that out to Mrs. Ledbetter, though, when she'd first accused old Tom and the woman had dismissed it.

 Sometimes it seemed to her that Mrs. Ledbetter was just determined not to like her. She was at a loss to know why, unless it was because she wasn't a local. It wasn't as if she was a ‘foreigner'. Even though she hadn't grown up in Folkston, she was southern, born and bred, had grown up only a couple of counties away. Southerners could be prickly about such things, though, she knew. Even though she was a ‘city’ girl her parents had owned a place near a small town much like this one when she'd been growing up and they'd always been treated like outsiders when they'd spent time on their ‘farm'.

 Unbidden, her thoughts turned to the peculiar circumstances of the previous night as she went about setting her home in order. She'd dismissed her lack of memory at first because she'd just felt so badly when she'd gotten up she figured that was why she couldn't really remember the night before. It hadn't come back to her, though, even when she'd finally managed to overcome much of the soreness and unaccountable weakness. The last thing she remembered, in fact, was going into the kitchen to get a cup of sugar for her neighbor. Everything after that was completely blank, not just hazy—blank. She didn't even remember going to bed, much less what she'd done between that time and bedtime. She was willing to dismiss not remembering what she'd done up until she'd gone to bed. She rarely did anything significant enough to recall it.

 She should remember the decision to climb in bed naked, though, when she always wore a night shirt. She should remember whatever it was she'd done that had made her so sore and stiff.

 Maybe she'd just done a particularly effective exercise routine? She did that fairly regularly, besides walking whenever possible to keep in shape, but if that was what it was, why didn't she remember doing it?

 And what could she possibly have done to get the bruises?

 That part bothered her almost worse than the rest. True, she often went around in a fog and bumped into things. Mostly, though, even when she was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn't pay it much mind at the time of the accident, she could remember, if she tried hard enough, what incident might have caused the bruises.

 It flickered through her mind, briefly, to wonder if Sarik had slipped her that date rape drug she'd heard about, but she dismissed it almost as quickly. She hadn't drank anything. Her memory was pretty clear up to that point, and he hadn't brought anything, or offered her anything.

 The other thought that occurred to her was almost as unpleasant and unnerving, the possibility that she'd had some sort of spell. She dismissed that after a little searching, though, as well. She should have remembered dizziness, and if she'd fainted, she would've woken up on the floor somewhere, not in bed.

 She was scaring herself for nothing, she decided. Most likely, she'd just been so preoccupied with mooning over her handsome neighbor she hadn't paid any attention to what she'd done after he'd left and that was why she couldn't remember. The memory of thinking she must have dreamed something highly erotic when she'd first awakened seemed to support that theory.

 That wasn't like her either, but on the other hand she hadn't had sex in years, and she hadn't been around a man as sexy as Sarik ever . For a young woman with a relatively healthy libido, it seemed most likely that was the culprit. She'd simply ignored her needs way too long and it had caught up with her the moment she'd found herself around a male that shot her pulse into orbit just looking at him.

 She was going to have to work hard not to make a fool out of herself, she realized in dismay—or rather more of a fool! She had the uncomfortable suspicion she'd already made it way too obvious she found Sarik very attractive.

 The thing to do, she told herself, was to avoid him much as possible—which shouldn't be hard since it seemed painfully obvious he had no real interest in her and had only invited her to share his meal out of politeness and probably invited her out for the walk because she'd looked as stepped on as she'd felt when he'd snubbed her. It was embarrassing to realize he'd probably just taken pity on her because she'd been so obviously desperate for even a morsel of attention.

 Well, she decided as she stalked to the back porch and snatched her laundry from the washer, tossing it into the dryer, she wouldn't do that any more! She was going to behave herself and lay low. She'd planned to work on her yard over the weekend, but if she saw her neighbor outside, she'd just stay in. That way he couldn't get the idea that she was trying to get his attention by finding an excuse to be in her yard.

 Feeling a little better when she'd come to that decision, she collected the books she'd brought home when she'd finished her chores and settled on her couch in the living room, studying them and trying to decide which book she wanted to read first. When she'd shuffled through them for the third time, she realized she felt too restless to read.

 She hadn't gone out the night before, she reminded herself, and she usually treated herself to a dinner she hadn't had to cook for herself on Fridays. Friday was seafood night, though. She wasn't likely to get her favorite meal tonight, it being Saturday, and besides, the place would probably be packed. Of course, that was one of the things she looked forward to—being surrounded by the Friday night crowd bent on enjoying their weekend to the fullest.

 Saturdays were even more hectic, though, since the partygoers could only look forward to a short night out because the bars closed early and they had to be in church the next morning. It wasn't likely the owner would appreciate her taking up a table all by herself when they were so busy.

 Setting her books aside, she got up off the couch resolutely. She paid just like everybody else. Why shouldn't she go and enjoy herself? Why should she worry about them being displeased about her taking a table meant for two to four? It wasn't her fault they hadn't set up anything but counter space for singles. She had as much right to go and expect to be appreciated for her patronage as anyone else, single or not. And it wasn't as if the men worried about that sort of thing. If they wanted a table, they took one.

 Heading into her room, she studied her wardrobe critically and finally selected a dressy pair of slacks and a blouse, then went to take a shower. When she got out, she applied makeup sparingly, although she rarely bothered with it on the weekends and, after a little thought, she combed her hair out and left it loose. By the time she'd dressed, she'd rethought leaving her hair completely free. It bothered her that it flopped in her face every time she tilted her head down. She didn't want to have to wrestle with it while she ate. After searching her meager jewelry box, she selected a couple of hairclips and secured the top and sides of the front.

 Dowdy and old fashioned, she thought derisively when she'd studied the effect but finally dismissed it. It wasn't as if she was trolling for a man.

 The thought gave her pause.

 Why not, she thought?

 Just because she'd made her up mind that she wasn't going to get involved in another relationship it didn't necessarily follow that she had to avoid men as if they had the plague. She was single. There were plenty of women, and certainly plenty of men, who regularly scratched their itch with a one-nighter. Sure it was a small town and everybody gossiped about such things but, as Sarik had pointed out, why should she care? It wasn't as if she had friends who would condemn her or snub her. It wasn't as if she would even notice, much, if her peers disapproved of her behavior. She couldn't become a social pariah when she had no social life at all!

 Could she even get up the gumption to invite a man home with her if the opportunity presented itself, she wondered?

 She doubted it, but she also doubted it would become an issue.

 Grabbing her purse, she locked her door and, after a little thought, decided to take her car instead of walking as she usually did. Folkston was a quiet little town and didn't have a crime rate she ordinarily worried about, but then she didn't usually make herself a target by walking by herself at night either. The drive was a short one, which almost made her feel silly to have taken the car at all, particularly when she discovered the downtown area was busy enough she had to park almost a block from the diner.

 Butterflies churned in her stomach as she walked briskly toward the diner, mostly because of the thoughts that had fluttered around in her head before she'd left home. She didn't have to pick up a man only because she'd considered doing it, she reminded herself, and it wasn't likely she would even get the opportunity. It was ridiculous to scare herself silly only by considering it.

 There was no denying the fact that she'd completely unnerved herself, though, and it only got worse when she reached the diner.

 Sarik was seated in a booth at one end of the diner, a young girl seated across from him, chattering animatedly and gesturing with her hands for emphasis. Her back was to Claire, but the hair looked really familiar.

 Like the complete coward she was, Claire froze in indecision. Go in? Or retreat with her tail tucked between her legs like the yellow bellied coward she was?

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Six

Through narrowed eyes, Sarik watched the young girl across from him with a mixture of irritation and sheer boredom, wondering why he hadn't dismissed her when she'd invited herself to join him.

 He knew why, though. He was hungry, and not for anything the diner was serving up.

 Contrary to what he'd hoped, the need to feed on Claire hadn't diminished with distance. He'd paced the house like a caged beast, trying to contain the urge to go to her until he'd finally realized he wasn't going to be able to simply ignore the hunger. If he couldn't feed on her, he needed to find a substitute before his inclinations drove him to do something truly stupid.

 It wasn't even true need, he realized with disgust. Claire had satisfied his need, more than satisfied it. She simply hadn't quenched his want, in point of fact, the opposite. He should have been able to control the thirst for more, but she'd made him greedy, pleased him so thoroughly he couldn't think of anything but feeding on her again.

 It angered him that she was so weak he couldn't just feed at will. He'd been toying with the idea for hours, in fact, of taking her into his lair as he had the night before and simply holding her so that he could sup from her at his leisure—only a little here and there.

 It was the realization that he couldn't that had finally driven him from the house in search of another likely candidate, someone to appease the painful gnawing in his gut to take and take until he'd broken his pretty Claire and his master thought up some sick perversion to punish him for his stupidity.

 This one would do, he decided, as well as any other. She was vacuous and annoying, but he wouldn't have to listen to her long. If he could just make it through the meal, he'd take her up on her offer to visit the local watering hole for a few drinks and then he could drive out with her somewhere, assuage the painful gnawing at his vitals and dismiss her.

 Anywhere would do.

 Not to his lair.

 He didn't trust himself to stop before he drained her of her life force if he allowed himself to imagine that it was Claire.

 Besides, he didn't want another woman in his lair after Claire.

 He wasn't certain why he didn't, but the reluctance wasn't something he couldn't ignore.

 Focused on nodding and smiling in the appropriate places while she chattered, and preoccupied with his plans for her, it wasn't until Claire entered the establishment that he actually noted her presence, though he should've, he realized, long before that. Realizing abruptly that it was her nearness that accounted for his growing impatience did nothing to reel in his wavering self-control. Surreptitiously, he watched her hungrily as she moved into the diner and looked around uncertainly for a place to sit in the crowded restaurant.

 He'd thought his interest was carefully hidden, at any rate, until Linda—or was it Julie?—flicked a look behind her to see who he was looking at and then turned a look on him that was a mixture of confusion and anger.

 "Do you know Ms. Dupont?” she asked pointedly.

 Sarik dragged his gaze from Claire, hiding his annoyance with an effort. “She's my neighbor,” he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster.

 "Oh? Maybe we should invite her to sit with us?"

 The pout in her voice was obvious. It irritated him more. He forced a smile. “Now why would I want to do that, Linda?"

 Her lips tightened. “Brenda,” she reminded him tightly.

 He allowed his smile to widen into a feral grin. She looked startled. “I'm not much for names,” he murmured. In fact, he didn't give a fuck what her name was, who she was, what she did for a fucking living, or any of the other information she'd been so intent on supplying him with. Beyond using her to assuage his current needs, he had no interest in her at all.

 A man approached Claire, spoke to her for a moment, and then, after smiling at him a little uncomfortably, Claire allowed the man to cup her elbow and lead her off to a table beyond Sarik's view.

 "I guess I should be going,” Brenda said angrily.

 "Suit yourself,” Sarik responded indifferently. “I'd thought I might take a drive with you out to the local lover's lane and fuck you until you fainted, but I'm sure I can find someone else."

 Satisfied when he saw that he could watch Claire via her reflection in the glass windows that took up most of the front wall of the diner, Sarik flicked at glance at Brenda and noted her shocked expression with a touch of amusement. She looked torn between anger at his suggestion and curiosity. Apparently, the curiosity won out. After a moment, she seemed to swallow her spleen with an effort. “Maybe I'm not interested,” she said coolly.

 He settled back in his seat, shrugging as he draped one arm along the back. “No?"

 She seemed to wrestle with herself. “I thought you going to take me to The Shack to dance?"

 He grinned devilishly. “You and I both know that was only to pay lip service to propriety. I've no interest in dancing, or trying to bellow over music loud enough to wake the dead ... only in fucking. If you're similarly inclined, I don't see any point in going through the motions of pretending either one of us are interested in ‘getting to know’ one another a little better before we fuck. If you're not.... “He shrugged again.

 Brenda reddened. “I've never done anything like that before,” she said peevishly, obviously still irked by the fact that he had no other interest in her, but too intrigued by the idea to bolt.

 He quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at her but let it slide. “There's always a first time for everything."

 She toyed with her flat wear, stirring the congealing food on her plate. “I'll bet you're good at."

 He sent her a sizzling look as the comment sealed their bargain. “Very."

 She sipped her watered down tea nervously and finally set the glass aside in a gesture of resolution. “We should go then. I have a midnight curfew—the downside of still living with my parents. Not that I'm not old enough, mind you,” she added when he flicked a disinterested glance at her face.

 "If you're old enough to want to, you're old enough,” he assured her absently, watching Claire's reflection through narrowed eyes when he saw her laugh at something the man in front of her said.

 Brenda cleared her throat, earning her another annoyed glance. “Are you buying?"

 He stared at her uncomprehendingly until she pointed to the plates on the table. Thus prompted, he pulled a fifty from his wallet and dropped it on the table between them. “Will that cover it?"

 Her eyes rounded. “I guess I'll go pay the bill and meet you outside then?"

 Sarik nodded, but he barely heard her. His anger was steadily building the longer he watched Claire and the more evident it became that she was blatantly flirting with the son-of-a-bitch that had picked her up. Getting up after a moment, he strode purposefully toward the table where she sat.

 The look she sent him when he paused beside the table was guilty enough he would've known what was running through her mind even if he couldn't read it as clearly as he could his own thoughts. “Don't even think it,” he growled.

 Claire blinked at him in surprise. “What?” she asked in a breathless little voice that made him long to pull her out of the bench where she sat, strip her naked, and splay her across the table for his pleasure.

 The man across from her bristled. He narrowed his eyes at the man. Belatedly recalled to his surroundings, he waved a hand through the air that encompassed the entire restaurant, freezing time beyond himself and Claire. “Fucking him,” he growled tightly. “You're mine."

 Claire set her jaw with determination. “I'm not! How ... dare you make such a nasty insinuation, anyway!"

 Yielding to the temptation roaring through his veins, Sarik caught a fistful of hair and jerked her head back. Leaning down until his face was level with hers, he studied her belligerent expression for a long moment. “I'll tear his fucking head off and shove it up his ass if he so much as kisses your fingertip. You don't want his death on your conscience, do you?"

 Horror flickered across her features and then doubt. “You don't mean that! You wouldn't ... couldn't."

 "I can—easily. And I would—with the greatest enjoyment, I assure you.” He caught her surprised mouth beneath his then, exploring her mouth with furious possessiveness until the tension went out of her and she submitted weakly to his domination. It took an effort to break the kiss, to pull himself away from her. He stared down at her white face and bruised lips hungrily for several moments and finally lifted a hand to brush it lightly across her forehead before he released her. “Remember—you're mine. Eat, and go the fuck home or you'll regret it ... deeply. I promise."

 Satisfied when he saw the glazed look of desire in her eyes replaced with confusion, he waved a hand at the restaurant again, baring his teeth in the closest approximation of a smile as he could manage at that moment when the vacant look left both their eyes and he saw they were aware of him once more. “Hello, neighbor. Who's your friend?"

 Claire blushed uncomfortably. “Billy Wentworth—this my new neighbor, Sarik. Billy owns the hardware store."

 Sarik didn't miss her pointed comment to the effect that Billy was considered a ‘catch'. He didn't like it worth a fuck either and he didn't make much of an attempt to conceal that fact. “Is that a fact?"

 The man looked him over speculatively, bristling noticeably at the challenge in Sarik's voice. “Sarik ... that ain't A-rab, is it, partner?"

 Sarik grinned at him wolfishly. “No, it ain't, partner ."

 Brenda sidled up next to him and slipped a possessive arm around his waist. “Hey, Ms. Dupont. How are you doin’ tonight?"

 Claire smiled back at her with obvious effort, pointedly ignoring the way the girl had twined herself around him. “Fine. How did everything go in the library today?"

 "Fine. You ready, Sarik?"

 Peeling her loose, he settled a hand in the middle of her back, bid Claire and the fucking bastard who'd been leering at her tits a frosty good night, and walked Brenda toward the exit. He was still furious when they reached Brenda's car, both about Claire's plans for her evening and about the fact that she'd resisted him.

 And she had. He'd felt the tug of war, brief though it had been. She had more spirit than he'd given her credit for. He wasn't particularly happy to discover that.

 He was still furious that she had even considered giving what was his to the man.

 He was far more tempted to go home, or stay where he was, to watch Claire and make certain his warning had taken root than he was to follow through with his original plans for Brenda. He was almost certain, though, that she wouldn't be able to break the hold he'd placed on her.

 It was the ‘almost’ that bothered him.

 He was so angry he'd lost his appetite for Brenda, which hadn't been particularly acute to begin with, completely.

 Beyond that, he wasn't sure he could control that anger if he allowed himself to feed on Brenda. Control of any kind was always tenuous at best once he gave his appetite free reign.

 The alternative didn't appeal to him. Despite his fury with her, he still wanted Claire with a desperation that was painful. If he didn't slake his hunger, he was not going to be able to resist going after her tonight and he couldn't afford to do that. Pushing Brenda into the passenger seat, he took her keys and climbed beneath the wheel. “Hey! This is my car!"

 "And I'm driving,” he snarled.

 She sent him a wide eyed look of fear. He considered trying to allay her fear and dismissed it, waving a hand to enthrall her instead. He was tired of listening to her fucking chatter. He had no fucking clue where lover's lane was, he realized almost immediately but decided he didn't particularly care. Anywhere would do ... the sooner the better. He pulled into the first darkened alley he came to.

 "I thought we were going some place more private,” Brenda muttered drunkenly as he pulled her into the back seat and began to strip her clothes off.

 He flicked his fingers, placing a cloaking spell around the car. “I've got all the privacy I need."

 Her breasts were huge. That pleased him until he discovered they weren't nearly as sensitive as Claire's breasts. He suckled and tugged at her thick nipples until he discovered she was barely aroused. Furious, he bit her hard enough to draw blood. She whimpered, shuddered. “Yes!” she groaned. “Rough. I like it rough."

 He grinned ferally. “I do rough like you've never experienced,” he murmured. “In fact, it's my specialty."

 Two hours later, having fucked her in every orifice that would accommodate his cock, he wiped the cum from his still semi-erect shaft on her blouse, tossed it over her slack face, and climbed out of the car. He studied her limp form speculatively for a moment as he shoved his cock into his jeans and zipped them, and finally merely placed a hazing on her mind to dim her memory rather than to erase it altogether.

 She'd enjoyed it and he'd enjoyed releasing his pent up rage on her. Otherwise, the experience had been less than satisfying, but he'd taken the edge off his hunger and that was all that was important, and he might need to use her again. It would make things easier for him the next time if she remembered how much she'd enjoyed it without remembering he'd shifted into his beast form.

 She'd tried to scream then, tried to flee, despite the enthrallment. Fortunately, she was as good a fuck unconscious as she was conscious—which was to say mediocre.

 He should've picked a woman, he thought derisively as he strode down the now nearly deserted streets toward his lair. As obvious as it was that her protest of ‘never having done’ anything like this before was a lie, it was equally obvious that she wasn't accustomed to anything but fumbling boys who hardly knew where the hole was and weren't up to anything more challenging than sticking their dick in her, stirring it around a few times, and then coming.

 He hesitated when he reached Claire's house. The windows were dark and her car was in her driveway. Giving in to the impulse to check on her, he strode up to her door, dematerialized and then reformed on the other side without breaking stride. Claire's felines nearly fell all over themselves trying to get out of his way, but he ignored them. Obviously, she was fond of the fucking things. As tempted as he was to squash them out pure annoyance for their hissing and growling, he quelled the temptation.

 She was asleep in her bed—alone. Unaccountably relieved, he stood over her bed for a few moments, listening to the sound of her breath and her heartbeat. Oddly soothed by it, he turned away finally and left her to rest.

 Tomorrow, he promised himself. He'd allow her to recover until tomorrow. Then she would be a little stronger and he could take more. If he was very careful of her, he could feed off her passion almost indefinitely.

 At least until his master commanded him to finish it.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Seven

Claire lay staring up at her ceiling for a long time after she woke, trying to get up enough enthusiasm to get up. The clock beside her bed showed that it was past nine already, the second day in a row she'd slept late, and for the second day, she didn't even feel like getting up.

 It wasn't the same weakness and disorientation she'd felt the day before, though.

 She couldn't blame it on anything but depression.

 Sighing, she threw the covers off and got up to shower. She'd known the impulse to go out the night before had been a bad one. It wasn't that she was so good she never had impure thoughts. She had plenty of them, but she didn't have the backbone to follow up on them, unfortunately.

 She might have if she hadn't run afoul of Sarik and the big tittied twenty-something year old that worked for her, Brenda Giles. That had totally annihilated the little bit of confidence she'd managed to muster.

 Of all the rotten luck!

 It had been pride that had forced her through that door. She would've far rather whirled around and headed home to hide, but Sarik had glanced in her direction and she'd been afraid that he'd seen her frozen outside the diner door. As badly as she'd wanted to run, she couldn't bear the thought that he'd know ... what? That she was interested enough in him that it had shattered her ego to see him with another woman—a much younger woman? That she was stupid enough to think there was any possibility he returned that interest?

 The truth was that right up until she'd seen him with Brenda, she'd convinced herself that she was just plain horny—not particularly interested in Sarik. It stood to reason when she hadn't been within sniffing distance of a dick in years. Beyond that, Sarik was a gorgeous hunk of manhood. He could've brought out the slut in a stone, and she certainly wasn't a stone.

 That had hurt, though, and she was afraid it was more than her ego, which was as fragile as glass anyway from being trampled in the dirt so often. She supposed it would've bothered her even if it hadn't been someone so painfully young that she felt like an old hag by comparison, but pretty, big boobed, and young to boot? If he'd set out to crush her he couldn't have done a better job of it.

 She'd been shaking by the time she'd managed to put one foot in front of the other and walk inside, scared to death she couldn't pull it off even though she'd managed to make herself go inside. She could've kissed Billy Wentworth for inviting her to share his table. She'd just been so damned grateful not to be left standing in the middle of the diner looking like as big a fool as she'd felt—obviously dressed to interest in a man and with her hair down as if she was a ... teenager instead of a woman on the fast track to middle age!

 God! It had been so humiliating to feel everyone staring at her, and unfortunately that hadn't just been overblown imagination. People had been staring, looking at her as if they didn't recognize her—and maybe they hadn't, at least not at first, since she didn't usually dress that way, or wear her hair that way, or go into the diner on Saturday nights.

 Billy had seemed to look at her with approval, though, and that had helped her feelings a lot. She'd actually begun to enjoy his easy banter, even though she didn't particularly care for his brand of flirtation, which was a combination of bragging about his net worth and making such exaggerated compliments that she would've had to be a complete moron to believe half of it.

 And then Sarik had walked right up to her table as bold as brass and thrown her completely off kilter all over again!

 She should've been prepared for it. After all they'd barely just met. It was the polite thing to do, to go out of his way to speak to her when they were neighbors.

 She hadn't been prepared, though, to look up and see him standing over her.

 She couldn't remember what he'd said, or what she'd said. All she could remember was the way Brenda had twined around him and all but baldly announced that they had ‘plans’ for the evening.

 It didn't take a hell of a lot of imagination to figure out what the plans were. Brenda had been embarrassingly obvious—as if she was high on some aphrodisiac.

 Sarik's pheromones, no doubt!

 It didn't make her feel one bit better to discover she wasn't the only one that acted like a cat in heat around the man.

 She was so busy berating herself she burned pretty much everything she tried to cook for breakfast almost beyond edible. She wasn't very hungry anyway. After picking the burned parts off her food, she nibbled at the rest and finally got up and cleaned the kitchen.

 She'd planned to spend a good bit her weekend working on her flowerbeds. She itched to get out and do so, but she didn't think she could handle it if Sarik decided to stop by for a chat.

 Or worse, if she happened to be outside in time to see Brenda leaving his house.

 He would've had to have brought her home if their evening had ended the way she suspected they'd planned. Brenda still lived with her parents and from what Brenda had told her they behaved as if she was still fifteen.

 That was enough to squelch the urge to work in her flowerbeds. Moving into the living room when she'd finished in the kitchen, she settled on the couch and stared at the books she'd brought to read. Realizing she had no interest in them, she got up after a few minutes and went into her bedroom to retrieve the book she'd hid.

 Settling on her couch with it, she carefully opened the cover, studying the paper. It didn't look like any kind of paper she'd ever seen. It was stiff and almost as thick as the leather that had been used to make the backing and spine.

 Bless the Beasts, for, with this book, they are yours to command, and the demons of the underworld will bring you untold riches and power.

 A shiver skated along her spine as she carefully deciphered the preface again, more than half expecting to discover she'd misread it before. It had been penned in ink that was fading with age and the formation of the letters was different from modern handwriting. The letter ‘s’ looked like an ‘f’ where it was used, the ‘u’ almost like a ‘v’ and every letter with a tail had an elaborate curlicue. The penmanship was actually pretty, but hard to read for all that.

 She thought Sarik was probably right, that the book must have something to do with spells, maybe something like a handmade recipe book, except for the black arts.

 Maybe it had a recipe for a love potion in it, she thought wryly?

 Turning to the first page, she started struggling through trying to decipher the handwriting, only to discover that it got much worse. It wasn't just the handwriting that made it hard to follow but the flowery style of writing itself. By the time she'd managed to make it through the first sentence, she had to go back to the beginning of the sentence and read it again to try to make sense of it.

 She had a blinding headache by the time she'd struggled through the first few pages.

 It was about demons alright, but it seemed to be more of a history lesson about demons than anything. There was no mention of conjuring, no spells. The author was just prosing on and on about what the underworld was like and how the denizens of it ended up there, condemned forever to exist in a world of disgusting slime and battle among themselves for the few places of relative comfort the underworld offered and the little they could find to assuage their never ending hunger.

 Shuddering, she set the book aside and went to find something for her headache. It was horrible. She couldn't imagine the sort of mind it took to think up such things. It made her feel ... unclean just to read it, and beyond that, sorry for the demons.

 It was ridiculous, of course. Demons didn't actually exist and if they had, they didn't deserve pity because it was patently clear the author figured this was their damnation for the evil they'd perpetuated in their mortal lives.

 It still seemed unfair. Wasn't death payment enough? Particularly when, according the author again, they had suffered the horrible death their crimes had warranted? Burned at the stake, or tortured to death?

 She didn't consider herself a bleeding heart, but she also didn't believe a person should suffer for eternity without hope of redemption. There was no ... balance in that. Wasn't true justice supposed to be a balance? Evil for evil? A life for a life? Ten lifetimes of torment for ten lives taken, maybe?

 Dismissing the bend of her thoughts when she'd taken a painkiller, she returned to the living room, stared a little doubtfully at the book and finally settled down and began to flip through the pages, carefully, stopping now and then to decipher the writing.

 There were recipes, she discovered, almost delighted at the gruesome ingredients described.

 Who in god's name, she wondered, would make a trip down to the cemetery at night to steal dirt from a fresh grave just to use it for some silly spell?

 She snickered as the image rose in her mind of her creeping around at night, on a full moon, of course, searching for bat dung and the like. It was hard to imagine anyone had ever been superstitious enough to believe such things had any kind of magical power!

 Not that all of the spells required such absurd ingredients. Some of them were just magic words spoken at a certain time and in a certain way, which was almost as ridiculous as the potions.

 Shaking her head, she closed the book and took it into her room to hide it again.

 She discovered she'd been so wrapped up in reading the book that it was mid afternoon. That probably explained the headache, at least in part. She hadn't each much breakfast. Hunger on top of eye strain was likely the culprit.

 She smelled Sarik's grill when she got the kitchen and couldn't resist peering between her curtains. She saw he was installed in the lounge again. No wonder he was so swarthy if he made a habit of laying out in the sun like that!

 Moving away from the curtain when he turned his head and glanced at her house, she searched the refrigerator and finally settled on a sandwich of cold cuts. Since Sarik seemed firmly planted in the backyard, she went to change into old clothes she kept to use when she gardened and went out front to weed the flowerbed around the front porch.

 The church crowd had already departed the churches and hit for the restaurants the town boasted, or home to their Sunday dinners. The street was virtually deserted with no one to look at her disapprovingly for not going to church.

 She wasn't a ‘believer’ and she didn't want the approval of her peers badly enough to pretend that she was. Besides, she wasn't a sinner—she didn't get the chance to sin even if she'd wanted to—and lord she did want to so badly!

 Grinning to herself at the thought, she picked up her trowel and began digging at a particularly stubborn weed.

 "Did you read the book?"

 Letting out a yelp of surprise at Sarik's voice directly behind her when she hadn't even heard his approach, Claire threw her trowel in the air, sending dirt in every direction. Trying to blink the dirt from her eyes, wondering if her face was as caked with it as it felt, she whirled and gaped up at him.

 He crouched beside her. Lifting a hand, he brushed at the dirt on her cheek. Flinching, she recoiled. His lips tightened, but he grasped her chin and held it firmly, carefully dusting the specks of dirt from her face and hair as she squinted at him.

 "You startled me,” she said accusingly.

 "Obviously,” he responded dryly.

 "I have dirt in my eye. I need to go wash it out."

 He helped her to her feet, trailing behind her as she moved waveringly up the steps with one eye closed and opened the screen door. She would've slammed the door in his face except he caught it with one hand as she swung it at him. She tried glaring at him, but it wasn't easy with one eye already shut. “Excuse me,” she said tightly.

 "Certainly,” he responded agreeably. “Although it might be best if I help you since it's obvious you can't see very well."

 "I didn't invite you in,” she said uncomfortably.

 His smile unnerved her. “Yes, you did."

 Frowning at him, she decided not to argue the fact that that invitation had been a one time only offer and turned away, feeling her way along the wall toward her bedroom and the bath beyond it. She was keenly aware of the fact that he followed her without any compunction, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe and watching her as she splashed water over her face.

 "You haven't been out today. I thought you must be reading."

 Ignoring him, Claire tested her eye by batting her eyelid a couple of times and finally grabbed a towel from the bar and patted her face dry. It was somewhat mollifying to know he'd noticed she hadn't been out—but not much. “I've been busy,” she said finally. “I've got to go back to work tomorrow. I had to get my chores done. I never feel like cleaning after work."

 He folded his arms over his chest, obviously displeased with her. “I wouldn't think it would take much to clean up after one person."

 Her lips tightened with annoyance. “It doesn't. That's why I only clean on weekends."

 "And work in your garden ... except you made it a point to work in the front rather than the back."

 "I did not! I have a flowerbed in the front that needed attention, too!"

 "So ... you weren't avoiding me?"

 She felt color creep into her cheeks. “That's ... ridiculous! Why would I avoid you?"

 "That's what I'd like to know. If it's because of Linda...."

 Claire frowned at him. “You were with Linda, too !” she exclaimed in outrage before she could bite back the remark.

 He frowned. “The one you saw me with."

 "Brenda."

 He shrugged. “Brenda, then."

 Claire studied him curiously. “You were with Brenda, but not Linda?"

 "That is why you were avoiding me, isn't it?"

 "Don't be ridiculous!” Claire snapped, slinging the towel down on the floor and stalking past him. She tried, at any rate. He grasped her arm as she moved to pass him, swinging her around to face him.

 "I'm not in the habit of apologizing, woman, particularly when I've no reason to,” he growled.

 He had a point—a very good point. She was behaving like a wronged lover and she'd only met him two days ago! What was wrong with her?

 "I'm sorry. You're right. It was none of my business and I wasn't avoiding you. Really, I wasn't."

 He tilted his head, studying her. “You don't lie very well, Claire."

 Her chin wobbled with hurt. “I'm sorry. I'm just ... not feeling at all myself.” Early onset menopause, she wondered miserably? It made her feel a little better when the thought prompted the realization that she was nearing her time of the month. Vaguely cheered by the thought that her irrational behavior could be put down to hormones, she managed to quell the urge to break down in tears. “Could we, maybe, just do over?"

 He frowned at her in confusion.

 "Start over. Hi neighbor, how are you today?"

 Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “Very well, thank you. And how are you?"

 "Full of piss and vinegar, I guess,” she retorted, and then clapped a hand over her mouth at the crudity. “I don't know where that came from. Honest to god!"

 He chuckled. For a moment, it seemed he might pull her closer. Instead, he released her. “I thought I'd feed you. Would you like to go out to dinner?"

 A mixture of pleasure and doubt instantly assailed her. The prospect of a real date was almost irresistible.

 On the other hand, she'd sat with Billy Wentworth the night before. To be seen with two different men two nights running would have all the tongues in town wagging.

 "I thought I'd take you into the city."

 A thrill of absolute excitement went through her. “Really?” she asked breathlessly.

 He grinned at the excitement in her eyes. “Really."

 "I should dress then?"

 "That would be better, I think, than not. Although, I wouldn't complain if you didn't."

 She knew he was teasing, but warmth flooded her and heat filled her cheeks again. “I meant dress up."

 "Wear whatever you like. I'll let you choose the restaurant."

 "Give me an hour?"

 He shrugged. “If I can watch."

 Claire blinked at him. “Oh! You're teasing."

 "Actually, I wasn't. Since you don't seem comfortable with the idea—yet—I'll go away and come back."

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Eight

Sarik's car scared Claire, or more specially, his driving. He drove with a complete disregard for life or limb, zipping in and out between slower moving cars, and well beyond the speed limit, until Claire was breathless with fright.

 The car was beautiful, a long, sleek, long slung sports car in ebony that looked as if it must have cost more than her house and everything in it ... and possibly her retirement fund, as well.

 She'd admired it with a certain amount of trepidation—foreshadowing, she realized later, that the ride would be anything but pleasurable. “This is a very nice car."

 He frowned at the quaver in her voice. “You don't like it?"

 "No! No! It's beautiful. It's just ... it looks really fast."

 "It is."

 He proved it, she was certain, by breaking the sound barrier. The trip into the city, which would ordinarily have taken at least two hours, was accomplished in about half that. Claire was so wobbly kneed from fright by the time he parked, she wasn't certain she could've gotten out without help. Fortunately, he opened the door and helped her out, slipping an arm possessively along her waist and guiding her to the door of one of the most expensive, and exclusive, restaurants the city boasted.

 "Do you have a reservation, Sir?"

 Sarik stared at the man, hard.

 The man quaked, visibly, then searched his table layout. “Right this way."

 Claire smiled up at Sarik as the maitre'd escorted them to an intimate table in one dark corner. “I'm impressed."

 He looked at her, amused, lifting a hand to brush his knuckles lightly along one cheek merely for the pleasure of touching her. “You're easily impressed ... and easily pleased. I like that.” He realized with surprise the moment he said it that it was true. She made no demands to annoy him, didn't prattle on and on about things that were of no interest to him, or require him to entertain her beyond what he was willing to do. He could not recall the last time he had taken pleasure only in the presence of a mortal.

 Not that it didn't have its drawbacks, he thought wryly. There was a certain amount of pleasure to be derived from the anticipation being around her built inside of him and yet he didn't particularly like having to wait. He wasn't accustomed to having to place restraint upon himself.

 The food served to them was cunningly displayed, which was pleasing in itself and leavened the fact that he could taste little. He contented himself with enjoying vicariously through her, for it was obvious that she did, although she ate far too sparingly for his peace of mind. “You should eat more ... to keep up your strength."

 She glanced up sharply, stared at him for a long moment, and then chuckled huskily—his first indication that she'd discerned at once exactly why he was concerned. He found it a little disconcerting.

 He liked the fact that she didn't find the implication the least bit displeasing.

 But then, he reminded himself, the form he'd taken had been carefully chosen for just that reason—to arouse the female desire. It wasn't him she desired but the façade he'd chosen for her and that wasn't nearly as gratifying. In fact, he found that he disliked that fact in an indefinable way—almost as if she felt desire for another man. It was absurd, of course. Whether she liked it or not was completely immaterial beyond the fact that the form served his purpose.

 How long, he mused, had it been since a woman had looked at him, his true self, and wanted? Not since he had left his mortal form behind, certainly, and that had been so long ago his memories had long dimmed. Had it mattered to him then?

 He had taken it for granted, he realized, considered it his due because he had been favored at birth with a form and face that women desired. It had brought him any woman of even passing interest to him.

 It had brought him the one woman he had loved beyond reason, beyond life, beyond hope of redemption or existence beyond his mortal life.

 It had brought him to the existence that was all he'd known for eons now.

 Love—he'd forgotten that emotion, forgotten the woman who'd once inspired it in him, because he'd chosen to forget the loss that had driven him insane with rage and hate and the need to destroy when she'd been taken from him. It came as something of a surprise to discover the memories still had the power to hurt, even after so long, even with the pain and torture of the existence he'd condemned himself to.

 Mayhap he hadn't been as discerning as he should have been when he had set out to punish everyone who lay in his path, the wicked with the innocent, he thought with wry humor? Apparently the gods took a dim view of sorting them out.

 But then he had never believed much sorting would be necessary and he had found nothing since that time to convince him otherwise. Everyone had the capacity for evil within them. It was only a matter of balance as to whether the good outweighed the evil. Or perhaps their own discernment in whether to yield to the impulse toward evil or not?

 He quashed the thoughts along with the memories, annoyed and impatient that he'd allowed them to surface at all, disgusted with himself that he'd allowed, even briefly, a correlation between the lust he felt now and the love he'd felt then. Claire pleased him, but what she made him feel was a pale shadow of what he'd felt then.

 Because he was no longer mortal?

 He shook that thought off.

 He hated his existence, but he did not miss life. In it's own way, it was as hellish as the existence he had now. At least he could feel very little. At least he wasn't troubled by conscience, greed, love ... lust was simple and easy enough to appease.

 Much of the time, anyway.

 The hunger was always there, gnawing at him—worse now with Claire, but he was certain that was because of the restraint his master had required. He would have enough of her before he was done and move on.

 "You seem ... troubled by your thoughts,” Claire commented tentatively.

 He glanced at her sharply. “I'm never troubled by my thoughts,” he replied coolly. Rising when he saw that she was finished and tossing a couple of hundreds down on the table, he settled a hand in the small of her back and guided her from the restaurant, feeling his anticipation growing by leaps and bounds.

 He'd fed her to see to her strength, allowed her to rest a full day. Now he could feed without concern that he might take more than she could afford to lose and maintain her life force.

 "I can tell you love this car,” Claire said teasingly as the valet parked the car at the curb. “You look at it as if it's a beautiful woman."

 He sent her a startled glance since his thoughts hadn't been on the fucking car at all. “I like it well enough,” he responded coolly as he opened the door and helped her into her seat. “That's why I relieved the previous owner of it."

 She was still gaping at him with a mixture of doubt and tentative amusement when he settled in his own seat and revved the engine, as if she wasn't certain whether the comment was meant as a joke or not. “You say the strangest things. Why would you say you'd taken it?"

 He shrugged. “I always take what I want. It's the nature of the beast."
 * * * *

The ride home was as hair raising as the ride to the city. Sarik, typically, seemed disinclined to talk and Claire wasn't willing to say anything that might distract him. She was grateful when they arrived home in one piece, shaky, but full of anticipation, as well ... and a healthy dose of nerves and doubt. He'd made enough suggestive comments and given her enough ‘I could eat you alive’ looks that she was torn between her fears of inadequacy and her own desires.

 Her cats greeted them at the door with every hair on end, bowed until they were bent nearly double, and hissing and spitting as if she'd come in with a bull mastiff instead of her date. Stunned, Claire merely stared at them as Sugar and her kittens bounced madly around the hallway in blind panic and finally darted away to hide.

 "What is with them?” she muttered to herself, realizing that was the third time they'd gone into a frenzy when she'd walked into the room.

 It dawned on her almost as soon as the thought solidified that it wasn't when she had walked in on them, but when she'd come in with Sarik. She glanced at him with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement. “I don't think my cats like you very much."

 His eyes were narrowed on the doorway they'd disappeared through. At her comment, he met her gaze with a grin that made her faintly uneasy. “No doubt they sense the evil in me."

 Claire uttered a scoffing chuckle, her gaze wandering over his face. “I don't believe there's any evil in you."

 He shifted closer, lifting a hand to spear his fingers through her hair and dragging on it to tilt her face up for his kiss. “Which only goes to show that you're a poorer judge of character than your cats,” he murmured.

 His mouth was hard and demanding, almost hurtful, as he settled it over hers, and yet despite that his touch summoned a wave of indescribably delicious heat from her core. Yielding instantly, enthralled as much by the feel and taste of him as the way he commanded her senses, Claire swayed against him, opening herself fully to savor his heated possession.

 Dizziness swirled through her, a drugging lethargy unlike anything she'd ever experienced.

 Yes, you have, a voice inside her head contradicted before it was silenced by encroaching darkness.

 Sarik had no need to bind her. Even if she'd been inclined to struggle, and she tried, at least at first, he could've prevented it with a snap of his fingers. He found, though, that posing her to feast upon her aroused him more, and he liked the fact that it gave him unrestricted access to her most choice assets.

 Maybe he liked even more the sense of power it gave him over her and the fact that it emphasized that he was taking, because he preferred that to her giving.

 Dismissing the vague prickle of doubt that thought caused him, Sarik stripped her limp form, positioning her arms behind her before he manacled her wrists so that her back was slightly arched, thrusting her breasts forward in offering.

 He caught her legs next, pushing her thighs wide to open her sex for him before he bound them in place. He paused to study her then, enjoying the wantonness of her offering, savoring the hunger for a few moments more of anticipation before he lifted the veil of unconscious enough to allow awareness to filter into her mind.

 He needed the awareness to enjoy the fullness of satisfaction, and yet he was reluctant to allow her full consciousness. His control slipped when he allowed his hunger full reign and he had no desire to feed on her terror if he should lose his hold on his glamour spell where she could see the beast that fed on her.

 A vague sense of familiarity flickered through Claire's sluggish mind as she drifted toward awareness. She couldn't quite grasp it, but she struggled to for several moments before she gave up, drawn by her circumstances to focus on another problem entirely.

 She couldn't move. She wasn't paralyzed. Her skin prickled with awareness of the draft of cool air brushing her bare skin and she knew, despite the inability to completely focus that she wouldn't have felt anything all if she'd been paralyzed. She was stuck, then, somehow. She had to focus on her arms to try to move them, and still failed, the same with her legs.

 She flinched in surprise rather than pain when hands settled on her breasts, squeezing them almost tightly enough to hurt—not quite. A flicker of anxiety went through her, anticipation of pain that didn't come. Instead, she felt the blood fill her breasts as the hands kneaded them, felt her nerve endings come to vibrant life that defied the strange floating sense almost of complete unawareness.

 Was she dreaming then?

 The thought had barely formed in her mind when it was banished with shocking force. Teeth clamped on one almost painfully swollen nipple, bearing down hard enough to make her gasp with renewed fear of pain and pulling until she was panting with fear. Releasing it abruptly, he moved to her other breast and repeated the process, switching back and forth repeatedly until she was dizzy with the almost electric charges that jolted through her with each touch. Moisture gathered in her sex. The walls fisted and relaxed in sync with his touch.

 Apparently satisfied that he'd aroused the nerve endings to peak sensation, he ceased to merely rake her nipples with the edge of his teeth. Closing his mouth around one achingly sensitive tip, he pulled on it, the heated suction of his mouth hard enough her belly cramped in response. The feverish intensity with which he pulled and suckled at her breast rocketed her upward to a plateau where she wavered, struggling toward the release promised but unable to attain it.

 She couldn't prevent a whimper of protest when he moved to her other breast instead of giving her what she really needed—penetration to complete the cycle. Each time he moved from one breast to the other, she tensed, hopeful, and each time he disappointed her and at the same time pushed her higher until her skin almost seemed to burn with the need, until she was panting for breath.

 He gnawed a trail downward after a time, when she'd reached a point of despair, nipping almost painfully at her oversensitive skin. She climaxed almost the moment his mouth closed over her clit and he tugged at it. The gentle quaking was almost a disappoint, but she relished the little relief it gave her until he began again and she discovered how little the relief was.

 The fever climbed faster than before, took her higher to painful anticipation. Abruptly, he shifted his attentions from her breast to her sex, raking his tongue along her cleft. She groaned when he stopped just shy of her clit, withholding the release she was craving. Instead, he pushed his tongue into the mouth of her sex, driving deeply, stroking the walls as he lapped at her. She climaxed, harder than before, and still he drove into her, lapping at her, drawing the spasms out until she thought she would pass out.

 Instead, she came again, harder.

 He began again before she'd managed to catch her breath, drawing forth need when she'd thought her passion spent.

 The memory that had teased her before surfaced full blown and she nearly groaned, realizing he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd made her come over and over. She shuddered, struggled to resist inside her mind since she couldn't resist any other way, and discovered it was as useless as it had been before. She couldn't prevent herself from responding. She could only slow the process and it seemed by doing so it only made each climax all the harder, last longer, until she was screaming hoarsely with the shockwaves ripping her apart.

 Oblivion gave her peace after a while when her body reached a point of sated bliss where it simply shut down.

 She roused to find herself repositioned for his pleasure not free from torment. She recalled it from before with the first pull of his mouth on her breasts. Instead of groaning in despair, though, she found herself glorying in it, anticipating the feel of his cock stretching her almost beyond her limits, thrilled with the prospect of his fierce possession as he pummeled her until she came.

 Instead, as if he'd read her mind and decided not to withhold what she wanted, he covered her clit with his mouth and teased it until she came, and then began again. By the time he moved to the mouth of her sex and began to tongue fuck again, she was desperate for it, straining for the more deeply gratifying release of penetration.

 She lost her grip on even hazy awareness when he'd brought her off twice more, groaning in misery when she came around again and found that she'd been posed in yet another position—something new to torment her.

 On her knees now, her hands still bound somehow behind her, she had no clue he'd positioned her above his cock until she felt the bulbous nudge of his cock against the mouth of her sex and his hands settled on her waist, pulling her down. She gasped, unprepared. With little lubrication to ease his way, her body strained to take the thickness of his shaft. She gasped, panted for breath as he bore down on her relentlessly.

 He bit down on one nipple, forcing her body to exude the lubrication he needed to achieve full penetration, pulling at her with feverish enthusiasm. Her heart leapt into her throat in fright as he abruptly won the battle to claim her completely and his cock slid almost painfully deep. He gave her no time to adjust to the tightness. Grasping her hips, he began to drive into her almost frenziedly, suckling her breasts as he did so with such greedy enthusiasm that she came within moments.

 He uttered an almost inhuman growl of pleasure as she shook with the force of her release, shuddering as his body yielded a scalding fountain of semen. For a moment, he paused and then began again with as much fevered need as before.

 When next awareness filtered into her exhausted mind, she found herself face down, lying spread eagle upon a soft surface, felt the pressure of his cock against her rectum. Every nerve ending in her body sparked and sizzled like shorted electrical wires as he drove into her with unceasing need, until he'd forced to come again, and then again.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Nine

Claire groaned into the pillow beneath her face before she was even fully awake, excruciatingly aware of the ache in every muscle, joint, and nerve ending. She couldn't gather the strength to move for many minutes, couldn't focus on anything but trying to overcome the pain and gather enough strength to roll over.

 She glanced automatically toward her clock when she'd finally managed it, staring blurrily at the numbers and trying to decide what day it was.

 A jolt of adrenaline went through when her mind finally produced the answer she was seeking.

 Monday! And it was already after nine!

 "Oh god!” she groaned as she shoved herself upright. With the best will in the world, it was all she could do to maneuver herself to a sitting position on the edge of her bed. She sat with her head in her hands for several minutes, trying to figure out why she felt hung over when she was certain she hadn't drank anything at all.

 The answer eluded her, but after a few minutes she managed to force herself to stand and stagger toward the bathroom to bathe. Her morning ritual did little to revive her, but her anxiety about being late for work was enough to push her into getting ready.

 She generally walked to work since it was a pleasant walk, but she was not only running late already, she had some doubts that she could manage the walk.

 Mrs. Ledbetter, already ensconced in her rocking chair, sent her a contemptuous glance as she fumbled to get the keys in her car door.

 "Morning, Mrs. Ledbetter,” Claire called tiredly.

 "Hmmph!” Mrs. Ledbetter snorted. “You're running late."

 "I know,” Claire responded glumly. “I think, maybe, I have a touch of the flu."

 "More likely a touch of age catching up with you, Ms. Dupont. It gets a little harder to romp with a man all night and still have some get up and go the next morning as time goes by."

 Claire stared at the woman open mouthed for a moment and finally decided to ignore the comment. Climbing into her car, she drove the two blocks to the library, climbed out and crept inside. Fortunately, Brenda had already unlocked the doors.

 The younger woman flicked an assessing gaze over her. “You alright, Ms. Dupont?"

 The tone lacked sympathy despite the question. Claire straightened with an effort, ignored her screaming muscles and tried to move more naturally. “Fine. I just overslept."

 Leaving Brenda to handle the front desk, she headed for her office, locked her door, and collapsed in her chair. Her neighbor's remark continued to drum in her mind and she searched her memory for the source of it.

 Sarik had taken her to dine in the city, she finally remembered. She also remembered the way he'd kissed her at the door when he'd brought her home. Beyond that, she couldn't remember anything.

 It disturbed her that it was the second time such a thing had happened. Why was her memory so strangely blank? Why couldn't she even remember telling Sarik good night?

 Despite the old bitty's remarks, she couldn't believe he'd spent any part of the night with her. Surely she would remember that !

 He must have kissed her and then left, she decided.

 Maybe she'd just been mooning over him and disappointed that it hadn't come to more and that was why she didn't remember going to bed?

 What accounted for the weakness and soreness, though? The bruises she'd found when she'd showered?

 Was she sleep walking, she wondered abruptly as phantom images flickered through her mind?

 She couldn't remember ever sleep walking in her life, though, but then again, maybe it wouldn't be something she would remember?

 It would explain the soreness and the bruises, she supposed. She could've done anything in her sleep if she actually had sleep walked.

 The prospect wasn't particularly comforting even if it did explain the hellish way she felt this morning. What could she have been doing? Rearranging her furniture? Running all over town—naked—because she'd awakened like she had the first time, without a stitch of clothes on.

 That was a horrifying thought!

 She wished it had occurred to her as a possibility when she'd woken up. She could've checked the soles of her feet for dirt.

 It took three cups of coffee to get enough caffeine in her system to reach a point even approaching workable. It seemed to her that she felt worse, if possible, than she'd felt the first time it had happened.

 She could dismiss it as some strange illness, she decided. If she was coming down with something, she would've felt steadily worse until she began to get well. She wouldn't feel horrible one day, fine the next, and then awful again.

 The fact that, when it occurred to her to try it, she managed to work much of the soreness off by bending and stretching seemed to support the night time activity theory. When she finally felt like she could manage it without giving away her condition, she fell into her usual routine. It wasn't until late in the day, though, that she recovered enough to be able to find enjoyment in remembering her date with Sarik.

 She was disappointed that the date had ended at the door when she'd been hopeful of more, but she decided she appreciated the fact that Sarik wasn't pushy. It had been a very long time since she'd gone out with a man who behaved as gentlemanly as he did, opening doors for her, agreeable to going where ever she liked, and doing what pleased her, complimenting her in a way that seemed completely sincere.

 It had been years since she'd been to that particular restaurant. Aside from the fact that it was too far to drive since she'd moved to Folkston, she hadn't dated in years—not that her ex, the last one, or even any of the parade before him, would've considered taking her there and actually paying the tab themselves.

 Her aunt had taken her to celebrate her new job.

 Of course, she hadn't been happy at all to discover what the new job was when Claire had announced it. In her opinion it wasn't a ‘real’ job.

 She'd thought she was completely content with the life she'd chosen, satisfied with the things within her reach. She was. It had still been nice to eat at such a fine restaurant and be driven there in such an expensive car. It was easier to appreciate such luxuries when they were special, not an everyday occurrence.

 It flickered through her mind to wonder just what Sarik did for a living to be able to afford such things, but she dismissed it. She was curious, but that was all it was. She wasn't going to let herself be distracted by the appearance of wealth. He might be. He might not be, but it wasn't going to make any difference to her.

 She was going to enjoy the attention while she could and not look down the road. Sooner or later, she was afraid the bubble would burst and she'd discover he was some sort of con man, only interested in the possibility that she was going to inherit her aunt's fortune one day, but she wasn't going to let herself be used—ever again.

 Toward the close of the day, Claire finally managed to emerge from her self-absorption sufficiently to discover that Brenda was behaving with barely veiled hostility toward her. It surprised her at first until it dawned on her that Sarik had taken Brenda out Saturday night and Brenda must have some suspicion of where he had been the night before.

 She tried not to feel smug about it, tried to tell herself that if there was a competition going she was more likely to come out the loser than Brenda and it was only going to sting more if she allowed herself to get too confident, but with indifferent success. She simply couldn't believe that Sarik had been as interested in Brenda as she'd thought, feared, or he wouldn't have asked her out the very next night.

 She'd almost convinced herself of it until Brenda, apparently unable to contain herself any longer, burst her bubble.

 "I had a fabulous time with Sarik Saturday night,” she said almost casually as they worked together sorting the returned books.

 Claire instantly felt a wave of cold wash over her. “Oh?"

 Brenda giggled like a teenager. “I broke curfew, though, and my parents were furious with me for coming in almost at day break. The man's got some moves. I'll say that for him. I've never experienced anything like it!"

 Nausea washed through Claire. It took her a moment to realize it was jealousy.

 She'd been pleased that he'd behaved like a gentleman and not pushed when he'd brought her home!

 Because she was an idiot and it hadn't occurred to her that he'd satisfied his needs the night before!

 "That's ... nice,” she managed to choke out.

 "Oh! It was better than nice. Fabulous might not even be close enough."

 If the smile she managed to form her lips into looked as sickly as it felt, no doubt Brenda was gloating inside. She glanced at the clock. “I'm going to go ahead and start putting the books up while you finish up here."

 The day that started badly ended worse. She discovered she hadn't locked her door when she'd left for work. Her cats didn't greet her with a demand for food as soon as she stepped into the hallway.

 Dismay made her stomach churn. Trying to dismiss it, she went into the kitchen and put food in the bowls and then filled Tom's bowl on the porch outside.

 The cats didn't come stampeding in to eat at the rattle. She began calling Sugar, moving from to room, but she knew the house was empty even before she'd finished her search.

 She always locked the doors, mostly because Sugar was so damned good at opening them.

 The door hadn't been open, though, she reminded herself. Sugar didn't close it behind her.

 Regardless, there was no getting around the fact that the cats weren't inside. Leaving the house again, she stood on the porch, calling, and finally went down the steps and into the yard.

 Mrs. Ledbetter was smiling smugly at her when she reached the side yard.

 "Hi Mrs. Ledbetter. Have you seen my cats?"

 Mrs. Ledbetter's smile broadened. “The catcher took them off this morning right after you left. I did give you fair warning that I was going to call animal control if you didn't keep your cats out of my garbage."

 Claire stared at the woman in disbelief. “You called animal control to pick up my cats?"

 "I just said so, didn't I?” the old woman said testily.

 Rage shot through Claire with the burn of a thunder clap. Clamping her lips together, she whirled abruptly and stalked toward the house. Heading straight for her phone once inside, she grabbed it and the phone book beneath it and looked up the number for the shelter. The phone rang on the other end at least twenty times before it finally dawned on her that the animal shelter was closed for the night.

 She slammed the phone down, staring blankly at the wall while she tried to wrap her mind around the threat to her babies. She had to get them out of that horrible place! The wild thought of breaking in to free them flashed through her mind. She pushed it away, trying to calm herself. They'd be alright just for one night. All she had to do was get the papers showing they'd had all their shots and pay the shelter and she could bring them home again first thing in the morning.

 A knock at her front door distracted her. She was tempted to ignore it, but decided she needed something to distract her before hysteria overwhelmed her.

 It was Sarik at the door. Instantly, Brenda's comments flashed through her mind. Under the circumstances, he was the last person she wanted to see ... next to the old bitch that had had her cats taken away!

 "What's wrong?"

 "My cats are gone!” she burst out, feeling her face contort with grief.

 He frowned. “I heard you calling them. How did they get out?"

 "I don't know! I just know that hateful woman next door called animal control and they came and took them!” she wailed.

 His lips tightened, his face darkening with a rage that might have unnerved her if she'd been in any condition to really notice. “How do you know she had anything to do with it?"

 Claire covered her face with her hands, sobbing. “She told me—gloated about it, actually."

 His hand settled on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly. It was the only invitation she needed. Dropping her hands from her face, Claire launched herself at him, slipping her arms around his waist to cling to him and burrowing her face against his hard chest. He stiffened but after a moment looped his arms around her in return.

 She clung to him until she'd cried herself out and finally pulled away, embarrassed by her behavior once the worst of the tempest had passed. “I need tissue,” she muttered through her stuffy nose and left him at the door to wash her face and blow her nose.

 He was standing at the window of the living room when she returned, staring at the house next door, fury radiating from him that even Claire noticed. He seemed to wrestle with it as turned to look at her and master it. “Where were they taken?"

 Claire's chin wobbled threateningly again. “The animal shelter! Though why they call it that, I certainly don't know! They put them sleep if they aren't claimed within a couple of days."

 He frowned, obviously puzzled. “Sleep?"

 "Kill them,” Claire clarified baldly. “I've got to go get them first thing in the morning.” She covered her face, struggling with the urge to start crying again. “I have this horrible feeling they won't wait for me to come get them, that she told them something and they won't wait."

 "It's just cats, Claire. Animals."

 Claire dropped her hands and stared at him in outrage. “They're not just anything, damn you! I love them. They're all I have!” she said furiously. Turning away from him abruptly, she fled to her bedroom, slammed and locked the door, and flung herself down on her bed.

 She should've known he wouldn't understand! Why would he?

 The second round of crying exhausted her so much she dozed off. When she woke, she felt like she'd been run over. The room was dark, disorienting her. Uneasiness flickered through her, although she couldn't quite grasp the source of it. It eased, though, when she'd climbed stiffly off the bed and made her way to the bathroom. Stripping her clothes off, she dropped them dispiritedly on the floor and climbed into the shower. The hot water eased some of the painful throbbing behind her eyes, but she headed to the medicine cabinet as soon as emerged and grabbed the bottle of painkillers.

 She rarely took more than two, but the way she felt she didn't particularly care if it killed her. She took four.

 The house silent. She didn't know why that didn't seem right until she'd pulled her robe on and left the bedroom. She remembered then that she'd left Sarik standing in her living room. Unable to dredge up even an ounce more of dejection over his departure, she went into the kitchen and stared at the contents of the refrigerator. Finally, discovering she had no interest in anything, she pulled out the chair at her table and sat down to stare at nothing and wait for daylight.

 She was going down to the shelter, she decided, as soon as it was light, even if she had to wait for them to open the doors. She couldn't bear the thought of waiting any longer than she had to because she couldn't dismiss the fear that Mrs. Ledbetter had somehow persuaded the catcher to waive the grace period.

 It might already be too late.
 * * * *

The old woman was sitting up in bed with a book when Sarik entered her room. Sensing his presence, she lifted her head and stared at him, her eyes widening in shock before she let out a scream more of outrage than fear.

 He surged toward her, catching her around the throat with one hand and lifting her off the bed. “What did you do, bitch?” he growled menacingly.

 She clawed at his hands, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “Let go of me! I'll call the law on you!"

 Gritting his teeth, Sarik shook her. “What did you do with Claire's cats?"

 Fear mixed with the anger still contorting her features. “I had them hauled off. I warned her!"

 His eyes narrowed. “They went in her home and took them?"

 "The cats were outside. I told her they'd been getting into my garbage!"

 "How did they manage to get out?"

 She ignored the question, struggling weakly to loosen his hold. “Let go of me, you bastard! How dare you come in my house! They'll put you under the jail for attacking an old lady!"

 "You're trying my patience, old woman,” Sarik growled. “How did they get out? You let them out, didn't you?"

 He saw her eyes shift. “That cat let's himself out any time he wants out."

 "Maybe ... but not this time."

 "You don't scare me! So what if I did? What are you going to do about it? Beat me up, you cowardly son-of-a-bitch, threatening an old lady!"

 "I doubt you were ever a lady,” he snarled, releasing her abruptly. “Don't do it again. I don't like it when my woman's upset."

 "Then you certainly won't like it when she finds out about the cats tomorrow,” she said smugly as he reached the door. “And I doubt you'll like it when I have you locked up for breaking and entering!"

 Sarik halted, turning to look at her again. “What about the cats?"

 "I told the catcher they were strays and to put them down,” she retorted with a satisfied smirk.

 It took no more than that to unleash the rage he'd been struggling to hold on to. “That was a mistake you'll regret, old woman,” he said in a rumbling growl as he felt himself shift abruptly into his demon form.

 She stared at him in horror, clutching at her heart, her face as pale as death as he stalked toward her once more. Abruptly, she went limp, falling back against the headboard, her skull slamming against it hard. She didn't so much as wince, however.

 Sarik stared down at her, listening to her heartbeat grow fainter and fainter until it stopped altogether.

 "Oops,” he muttered in grim satisfaction, turning on his heel and stalking from the room.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Ten

"What are you doing in here?"

 Claire's head came up off the table instinctively at Sarik's harsh demand. She stared at him blankly, unable to focus her eyes or her mind after being dragged so abruptly from sleep.

 "You slept in here,” he snarled, dropping a wriggling bundle in the middle of her kitchen table. “Gods damn it, Claire! You were supposed to rest!"

 Too bemused with lack of sleep to think of a response, Claire's gaze followed the bag that looked a good bit like a pillow case. The moment he released it, hissing, growling cats shot out of the opening in every direction. She gaped at them in disbelief for several moments as the cats scrambled away and darted off to hide.

 "You got my cats!"

 "I got your gods bedamned cats!” he agreed sullenly.

 The disbelief vanished instantly. Surging up from her chair, Claire threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “You rescued my cats!” She pulled away from him after a moment, smiling up at him mistily. “You wonderful man!” Reaching up to catch his face between her palms, she lifted up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth.

 A tremor rippled through him. Grasping her wrists, he set her away from him. “Don't!” he said harshly.

 Claire blinked at him in surprise. Embarrassment and hurt flooded her, heating her cheeks, and she looked away.

 A sharp pain stabbed into his chest as Sarik saw the hurt in her eyes. Confused by it, angry that she'd so quickly gone from happiness to sorrow, he clenched his hands at his sides, battling the urge to pull her back to him, and finally brushed a hand over his face, glaring at it when he saw that he was still shaking. She didn't understand and he couldn't explain. She would be horrified if he did, very likely disgusted, and then she wouldn't look at him the way she had ... ever again.

 It was difficult enough to hold himself in check as it was, though, hard enough to be around her at all and not have her. She couldn't possibly understand the effort it took him to refrain from taking and taking until he'd drained her of life—because of what he was.

 And he realized he didn't want her to know. He didn't want to see the horror on her face when she looked at him.

 "Don't cry again,” he said gruffly.

 She shot him a startled glance and averted her face. “No. I'm fine.” She managed a tremulous smile. “Better than that! I'm so relieved, so happy to have them back. I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you did."

 She frowned as she glanced outside, realizing it was barely dawn. “How did you get them?” she asked curiously.

 "I walked through the walls, placed a holding spell upon them, and then shoved them into the bag,” he muttered, feeling a perverse sense of pleasure in the telling, mostly because he knew she'd never believe it.

 Claire stared at him a moment and finally chuckled. “Alright, don't tell me! Can I fix you some breakfast? Or .. or anything to show my appreciation?"

 He shook his head, then a thought seemed to occur to him. “Try to get some rest. It's early yet. You don't have to work for several hours."

 She nodded, then looked around worriedly. “I need to find the cats and shut them up ... in the bathroom, I guess. I don't want to take a chance that they might get out again."

 "I'll help. I think you might have a problem with Tom."

 Claire blinked at him, pleased that he'd offered. At the same time, she'd already noticed her cats objected strenuously to being around him. Finally, she simply nodded, though, and went off to try to find Sugar and her kittens. It didn't take her long. Sugar and all three of her kittens were hiding under her bed. Dropping to the floor, she began trying to coax them out, certain that as skittish as they were at the moment they'd just run out the other side if she tried going after them.

 Sugar stared at her suspiciously for several minutes. No doubt she could detect Sarik's scent on her, Claire thought wryly, and that didn't help matters. Finally, the cat got up and sidled a little closer—not close enough to grab—just close enough to tease. She came a little closer on the second pass and Claire managed to grab her and drag her out from under the bed. After making several abortive attempts to get loose again, she settled and allowed Claire to pet her and soothe her. The kittens, as she'd hoped, moved cautiously toward her.

 She smiled at them, talking to them in a coaxing voice until they were struggling to climb in her lap, as well. “I need to pick out some names for the babies,” she murmured to Sugar. “I can't just keep calling them the kittens. Come on, babies. You have to go in the bathroom until I can think of what to do to keep that hateful old woman next door from having you carted off."

 When she stood, she saw that Sarik was standing in her bedroom doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame, his arms folded over his chest. She grinned at him. “No luck?"

 He cocked a dark brow. “I shut him up in the other bathroom."

 Claire gaped at him, but before she could comment, Sugar had clawed her way over her shoulder and scrambled under the bed again. “Well shit!” Claire exclaimed, plunking her hands on her hips.

 Sarik stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “I'll handle it. You get ready to shut the bathroom door."

 Claire studied him doubtfully, but the moment he got down and looked under the bed, all four cats shot out the other side, almost knocking her down in their race into the bathroom. She slammed the door closed and moved a chair in front of it, just in case Sugar decided to open it later. She couldn't help but laugh. “I never thought of doing it that way. Is that how you got Tom in the bathroom? You really did manage to corral him?"

 He grinned back at her, his gaze flickering over her face and then down her length. His smile had vanished by the time he met her gaze again. His strangely colored eyes almost seemed to glow as he stared at her. He looked away. “Get some sleep."

 She nodded, but followed him to the door. “I owe you,” she said as he started down the stairs.

 He paused at the foot and turned to look at her enigmatically and finally turned away and strode toward his own house. Closing the door, Claire leaned against it a moment tiredly and finally trudged back to her bed, certain she wouldn't be able to sleep.

 She did, waking again at 9:00 AM. “Damn it!” she snapped and jumped out of the bed, coming up short when she encountered the chair in front of the bathroom door.

 "Oh hell!"

 Glancing at her bedroom door to make sure it was closed, she moved the chair and eased the door open. The cats charged the door the moment she cracked it. She managed to fend them off with one foot and get inside to get ready for work.

 She was going to be in trouble. She didn't hold out any hope at all that Brenda wouldn't go out of her way to report the fact that she'd been late two days in a row.

 Her eyes, she saw when she moved to the mirror to apply a little makeup, were not only bloodshot, she had dark circles beneath them. Covering it the best she could, she battled the cats again and left them in the bathroom as she headed back into her room to dress. Sugar was wiggling the doorknob, trying to get the door open before she'd even gotten her clothes on. Thus reminded of Sugar's favorite little trick, she parked the chair in front of the door again, hurriedly dressed and rushed out of the house.

 She drove again, not that she could see it saved her much time, but she didn't feel up to running the two blocks to work. She actually didn't feel like walking the two blocks.

 She knew she must look like hell when a couple of the library patrons asked her if she was sick. She appreciated their concern but it didn't do much for her ego. She was dead on her feet by the time she closed up for the evening. For once, she didn't even have the strength or the will to put up the last of the returned books.

 Promising herself she'd do it first thing in the morning, she headed home, collapsing tiredly on the couch once she got there and staring glumly at the floor while she tried to get up the energy to find something to eat. She felt hollow. She'd rushed off without breakfast, and she hadn't had anything all day but a pack of crackers from the vending machine in the library.

 All she really wanted to do, though, was sleep. She managed to convince herself after a little while that she'd feel better if she ate something and pushed her shoes off, padding barefoot into the kitchen. Nothing appealed to her, although she stared at the cabinets for a while and then the refrigerator, certainly nothing she would have to cook. Finally, she settled on a sandwich. When she'd fixed it, she poured herself a glass of iced tea and wandered back into the living room with it. She never ate anywhere but in the kitchen, but she felt like she might fall out of her chair if she sat at the table.

 She'd just settled to eat when she heard a knock on the door. The probability that it was Sarik was the only thing, she was sure, that could've got her ass off the couch again. She wandered almost drunkenly to the door and opened it.

 Pleasure flooded her when she saw it was Sarik. She smiled at him. “I was just about to have a sandwich. Would you like one?"

 His dark brows descended immediately in a frown of displeasure. “You're only eating a sandwich?"

 She grimaced. “I really don't have the energy to cook."

 His gaze flickered over her face. “I'll take you out to eat."

 It was almost tempting, but only because Sarik had offered. She shook her head. “I'd love to—really. I just don't feel up to it tonight."

 He looked torn between anger and, oddly, alarm. Inviting himself inside, he caught her arm and led her back into the living room, glaring disapprovingly at the sandwich, missing one bite, that was laying on a small plate on the table beside the couch. Leading her to the couch, he pushed her gently into the seat. “I'll cook. You need your strength."

 Claire looked at him curiously, realizing that was the second time he'd said that to her—that she needed to eat to keep up her strength. It was such an odd thing to say. She'd thought the first time that he had been offering a wild round of sex, but he not only hadn't, he hadn't done any more than kiss her good night.

 It wasn't as if she looked as if she was wasting away!

 "I thought you said you couldn't cook?"

 He shrugged. “Then I'll go get something."

 "This is fine, really. I wouldn't want you to go to all that trouble. I'm really hardly hungry at all. I guess I didn't get much sleep last night."

 Or the night before.He stared at her grimly and then swore, long and hard, earning himself a wide eyed look of dismay. It was a damned good thing the old bitch next door had croaked, he thought viciously. Otherwise he would've been tempted to go back and choke her to death. “Gods damn it! Eat the fucking sandwich then."

 Claire sent him a reproachful look. “You don't have to be so nasty about it. I don't know why you're mad anyway."

 Because he'd gods bedamned expected to feed on her!Tamping his anger with an effort, he plopped down on the couch beside her and pulled her onto his lap. Picking up the sandwich, he held it under her nose imperiously until she took a bite, sending him a resentful glare as she did. “I can feed myself,” she said stiffly.

 "But I'm going to,” he ground out, “because I know gods bedamned well you'll sneak off to bed without eating a gods damned thing!"

 "I fixed it, didn't I?” she snapped, slipping off his lap again and snatching her sandwich from his hand. “I'm not a child! I knew I needed to eat something before I went to bed!"

 "Then eat,” he said more mildly.

 She glared at him. “If you're going to sit there and glare at me the whole time I'm never going to choke it down!"

 He looked away, scrubbing his hand over his face, trying to think. It wasn't easy with her curled up on the couch beside him. Images kept playing in his mind of pushing her down, stripping her bare and.... He resolutely pushed the images from his mind. Clearly, he wasn't going to be able to pacify his hunger for Claire tonight.

 He was fairly certain he couldn't endure another night, though, without it, not knowing she was so close he could almost smell her delectable scent. He would have to find a substitute. Linda—or was it Brenda?—instantly came to mind, not the least because he was feeling particularly violent and she thrived on it. Unfortunately, except for that aspect, he didn't especially want the damned girl.

 It was the fault of that whining bastard of a master, he thought furiously. The stupid son-of-a-bitch had commanded him to take the fucking house next door.

 The bastard had done it to torment him, he realized abruptly. He must have known it was going to be sheer agony trying to pace his hunger for Claire once he'd tasted her! He'd summoned him , after all, an incubus, knowing full well once the fever was upon him it was next to impossible to contain it—and then ordered him to hold back, to make sure it took weeks so that no one would suspect it had been anything but an illness.

 As if any -fucking-body would think for one moment that it had been the work of an incubus! Let alone that he had been summoned to kill her. The bastard was paranoid—besides being a sick fuck!

 And a fucking weakling.

 And he was going back to the underworld—very shortly—because he could see Claire was too fragile to withstand much of the likes of him, no matter how hard he tried to be careful.

 "There! Happy now?” Claire snapped, dusting her hands when she'd stuffed the last bite of her sandwich into her.

 "Infinitely,” he retorted dryly.

 "Good! Now you can go home!"

 He stared at her a long moment and finally smiled faintly. “Unfortunately for you, I'm not yours to command, and I'll do what I fucking well please. And it doesn't please me at all to leave."

 Grabbing her, he dragged her back onto his lap and held her there when she tried to wiggle off. “You have no idea, woman, just how very bad an idea it is to wiggle that bottom of yours on my lap at the moment,” he growled.

 She stilled, looking at him doubtfully—and hopefully.

 He dragged in a pained breath, struggling against his needs, and finally lifted a hand, tracing his index finger lightly across her forehead. “Sleep, Claire."

 Her eyelids closed immediately and she slumped against him. He stared down at her pale face for a moment and finally uttered a sigh filled with both impatience and regret and stood with her. Carrying her into her room, he settled her in the middle of her bed, fought a round with the temptation to undress her and finally left her as she was.

 Tomorrow, he promised himself as he strode from her house and stood at the street for a moment, debating. The city would be better, he decided. He had to appease his hunger or he was going to do something he would come to regret.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Eleven

Despite the battle over the bathroom door with her cats, Claire managed to get up and off to work at her usual time. Feeling more like her old self since she'd rested well the night before, she decided to walk.

 A glance toward Mrs. Ledbetter's house told her the rocking chair was empty. Wondering if the hateful old thing was avoiding a confrontation by hiding inside until she'd passed, Claire dismissed her, striding briskly to improve her circulation since she felt well enough to exercise for a change.

 She was nearly halfway to the library when it dawned on her that she hadn't seen Mrs. Ledbetter since the confrontation over her cats. As much as she would've liked to think the old woman was either regretting her actions and hiding because she was ashamed of herself, or just leery of her temper, she didn't believe that. Mrs. Ledbetter wasn't easily intimidated in the first place, certainly not by her. Beyond that, she'd had almost a vendetta against Claire since she'd moved in, and focused most recently on her cats. It seemed unlikely, after threatening to call the animal control people several times that she would regret that she had. She'd had plenty of time to mull it over before she'd done it.

 Mrs. Ledbetter was always in her rocker on the front porch—because she couldn't see well enough to stick her nose in everybody's business from her parlor window. Yet, she hadn't seen the woman at all the day before, not in the morning or in the afternoon when she'd come home.

 It nagged at her despite her determination to dismiss the circumstance. Twice, she paused, considering whether to go back and check on the woman or keep her nose out of the woman's business. She'd been late for work twice that week already, though, and she soothed her conscience with the reflection that her neighbor had probably just gone somewhere to visit friends, or something of that nature.

 She couldn't dismiss it entirely. Despite every attempt to ignore the sense that something was wrong, it kept coming back throughout the day until she finally caved and asked Brenda if she'd seen anything of the woman.

 Brenda shrugged indifferently. There had been a notable chill between them since the prior weekend and it wasn't showing any signs of letting up any time soon. “Your neighbor? Why would I see your neighbor?” she asked testily. “I haven't been on your street."

 Claire's lips tightened with annoyance since she knew that for a lie. She'd seen Brenda creep slowly past her house at least twice in the past week—unless someone else in Folkston had the same make, color, and model of car. Aside from that, she'd bragged about spending the night with Sarik the past weekend. “You haven't heard anyone mention that she was going out of town?” she persisted.

 Brenda hitched a shoulder. “No. If you want to keep up with the local gossip, you have to be down at the diner for breakfast and I never go there for breakfast."

 "Oh come off it!” Claire snapped irritably. “Everybody in this town gossips. It might start at the diner, but it certainly doesn't end there."

 Brenda narrowed her eyes at her. “Now that you mention it, I did hear something about you and your other neighbor. He's a little young for you, don't you think?"

 She was not going to discuss her relationship with Sarik with Brenda! Not even if there had actually been a relationship! “I don't know what you heard, but whatever it was was probably a lie. And this is getting way off subject."

 "I heard he took you out of town,” Brenda said, her eyes narrowed speculatively. “That car of his is pretty noticeable, so I don't see how that part could be wrong, and Jody Plum said it looked like you in the seat beside him."

 Claire felt her face heat guiltily in spite of all she could do. “Oh! Well, we went into the city to a restaurant.” Why was she telling Brenda? It was none of her business one way or the other.

 Fury flickered in Brenda's eyes. “I guess he's embarrassed to be seen around here with you,” she said spitefully.

 Claire had to bite her tongue to keep from informing Brenda that he'd taken her to a fine restaurant—something Folkston didn't have, but the shaft had struck home, breeding a seed of doubt. He'd offered to take her out to eat the night before, she reminded herself. If she'd agreed, though, would he have suggested they drive to the city again?

 It was ridiculous! It wasn't as if she was that much older than him! And, although she knew she was no beauty, she thought she looked as good as Brenda, who was no damned beauty herself! Just because she had boobs as big as her head and men never actually looked at her face it didn't follow that her face was what attracted them, although she could see Brenda was laboring under that delusion.

 It went against the grain to let her have the last word, but the truth was Brenda had caught her so completely off guard she couldn't think of a defense. After staring at the younger woman for several moments, trying to jog a clever retort from her brain, she finally simply turned and left.

 Brenda snickered nastily behind her.

 Gritting her teeth, Claire ignored the provocation and headed into her office. The disagreement effectively distracted her from her worry about Mrs. Ledbetter for the rest of the day, but it popped back into her head as she started home. She paused indecisively in front of the old woman's house when she discovered the rocking chair was still vacant. Finally, realizing it was going to continue to bother her if she didn't check, she marched up the walkway and onto the porch, rapping her knuckles on the screen door frame before she lost her nerve. After listening intently for several moments and hearing nothing, she tried again.

 Her knuckles were starting to hurt after the third try. Frowning, she moved to the nearest window and peered in. It was the parlor, but she didn't see any sign of the woman. Beginning to be seriously concerned, she moved to the other end of the porch and peered into that window. Without surprise, she discovered it was a dining room—and as empty as the parlor.

 Maybe she was in the backyard?

 Moving back down the steps, she rounded the house to the wooden gate of the privacy fence that surrounded the backyard and stood on her tiptoes to peer over it. She couldn't see a great deal, but there was no sign of the woman.

 She wasn't comfortable about going to the back door. Just as the backyard was walled for privacy, the back door was also considered private and not for snoopy neighbors.

 The woman was old, though. She could've fallen and broken something. Her elderly aunt had broken her hip in a fall and hadn't been able to move. Fortunately, her aunt had a housekeeper and maid. Mrs. Ledbetter didn't.

 As angry as she was about the way she'd behaved, she couldn't see ignoring the possibility that the woman was in need of medical attention. More than half expecting to run afoul of the old woman and get her head bitten off for her trouble, she opened the gate and followed the walkway to the back door.

 The back porch was screened in, but the door wasn't latched. After calling out to the woman a couple of times, Claire pulled the door open and crossed the porch to the kitchen door, knocking as she had at the front door. When that didn't receive a response, she walked down the porch to look in the windows as she had at the front.

 The last window looked into a bedroom.

 Mrs. Ledbetter was sitting up in the bed, but her head was tilted at such an odd angle that Claire knew instantly that she was dead. “Oh god!” she exclaimed, whirling and racing across the porch. She slammed full force into Sarik as she careened out the back gate. He caught her arms to prevent her from bouncing back.

 "She's dead!” she said shakily.

 His gaze flickered over her face speculatively. “Is she?"

 Claire nodded jerkily. “I'm sure. I could see her—and she wasn't moving, and I'd already beat on the front door and the back door. She would've heard me. Besides, she wouldn't be in bed at this time of day!"

 "You're upset."

 Claire's jaw slid to half mast. “Of course I'm upset! Didn't you hear me? She's dead!"

 He shrugged. “There's nothing wrong with my hearing. I just don't know why it would upset you."

 "Why...? Because ... because ... because she's dead!"

 "Then there's no rush,” he said coolly, turning and ushering her around the fence to her own yard.

 "That's ... that's a callous thing to say!” she finally managed to get out when she'd recovered from her shock.

 "Why? Just because she's dead? I didn't like her when she was alive. Need I remind you, she let your cats, that you love, out of the house and then called the shelter to pick them up to put them to death?"

 Claire flicked a quick look at him as they mounted the front steps and nearly missed a step. “She did?"

 He sent her a curious look. “What did you think had happened?"

 Claire considered that in frowning silence. “I knew she'd called the animal shelter,” she said slowly. “She told me that. I thought Sugar had opened the door, though. I felt so bad when I left, and I was running late, and I forgot to lock the door."

 "Was the door open when you got home?"

 Claire shook her head.

 "Does Sugar close the door, too?"

 "No. That was the only part that didn't make sense.” She thought it over. “It could've been the wind, though."

 "Could have, but wasn't. You rushed out and she saw you. She saw the perfect opportunity for malicious mischief and she took it. Do you think that's the only time in her life she ever did anything that malicious? Or does it make more sense to consider she was just a vicious bitch?"

 Discovering Sarik had escorted her to her couch, Claire flopped down on it heavily, her knees still weak from the shock. “She was just a lonely old woman, Sarik. I know she wasn't nice—certainly not to me—but don't you think, maybe, that she was just ... cranky because she didn't feel good and miserable because she was lonesome?"

 Sarik studied her speculatively. “Would you have been as willing to forgive her if she'd killed Sugar and her kittens?” he asked curiously.

 "I don't know,” Claire said honestly after a few moment's thought, and then smiled up at him. “But she didn't. You rescued them for me."

 He looked away uncomfortably, not the least because he wasn't certain why he'd gone to the effort of saving them. It certainly hadn't been for the sake of the cats themselves. They annoyed the hell out of him and, sooner or later, Claire was going to tumble to the fact that their behavior whenever he was around was a strong indication that he wasn't what he appeared to be.

 It would've been far more convenient for him to have ignored Claire's distress and allowed the shelter to take care of the little problem.

 He was surprised that it had taken her so long to notice their reaction to him to begin with and both amused and mystified that, when she finally had, she'd just decided they ‘weren't fond’ of him. They sensed what he was and it terrified them—just as it would Claire, and should, if she ever figured it out.

 He'd been enraged that the incident had interfered with his own plans, but that was only part of it and the other part was what bothered him. He hadn't realized until he'd told the old bitch he wouldn't allow anyone to distress ‘his’ woman that that had been the main source of his rage—possessiveness toward Claire, the sense that an attack on her was an attack on him. And he strongly suspected that it was the reason he'd rescued her cats.

 He'd reasoned that his prime directive required that he protect Claire as much as possible from undue stress that had the potential to further weaken her. He knew it would weaken her spirit and, as fragile as she was physically, a broken spirit would make her fade all the faster.

 It discomfited him to realize his motives had become more complicated and confusing since he'd met her than he'd anticipated.

 They'd begun to interfere with both his original personal motives and his prime directive. It should've been enough that they all boiled down to the same thing, essentially, but it wasn't. He had begun to feel a sense of impending doom, had begun to suspect the time was approaching when his motives were going to come into direct conflict and he was going to have to make a decision that might not be in his own best interests.

 Struggling to dismiss the sense that he was heading for disaster, he focused on her upturned face once more, studying the unhealthy pallor that lingered even now that the worst of her shock had worn off, the dark shadows beneath her eyes that hadn't been there before he'd come into her life. She was fading too fast, depriving him of the time he'd promised himself when he'd been summoned and his directive outlined to him. Beyond that, she had ignored every attempt, so far, that he'd made to interest her in the gods damned book he'd worked so hard to get into her hands.

 She should have been easier to manipulate, he thought angrily. She was a gentle soul. From what he'd learned of her, she'd been manipulated her entire life.

 It occurred to him for the first time, though, that maybe those who'd controlled her hadn't done so in the way they'd thought they had. Maybe she hadn't been unaware that she was being used? Maybe she'd only allowed it because she loved them?

 If she loved him—or at least the man she believed him to be—would she be as malleable?

 It was something to consider, although he wasn't certain how he might bring that about when he had so little time.

 He would think about it, he decided, later when he had time to consider it—when he'd fed and his mind was clearer and not so fogged with need. “You need sustenance to keep up your strength,” he said absently. “Get dressed. I'll take you out and feed you. I don't want you to decide to make do with another gods damned sandwich."

 Claire gaped at him with a mixture of outraged disbelief and amusement, wondering how the man had gotten the idea that she was willing to let him order her around. “I'm a grown woman! I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself—which I have done for years."

 He narrowed his eyes at her. “If you were, you wouldn't be feeling so weak and ill.” Not so soon, not when he knew gods damned well he'd taken care not to take too much from her. Not when he'd had to fucking make do with substitutes twice now that had barely done anything more than wet his appetite for her.

 She looked uncomfortable. “I'm not. I've just had a couple of bad nights lately and didn't rest well."

 Discomfited that she'd pinpointed his feedings so accurately when he'd taken care to make certain she had no memory of it, he moved away from her to stare out the window. Mayhap he hadn't been quite as careful as he'd convinced himself he had been, he thought uncomfortably. It was a possibility that had occurred to him—which he'd tried to dismiss. But then she aroused him to a feeding frenzy with so little effort he knew he could easily have lost all sense of time when he was with her. He would have to be more careful, he told himself. Mayhap it would be better to nibble instead of dining? More often, but less? It was for gods damn certain fasting in between wasn't doing a fucking thing for his self-control.

 "Was that ... a very strange way of asking me out on a date?"

 He turned away from the window to survey the amusement in her eyes. “Was it strange?"

 She chuckled, shaking her head. “Then it was an invitation?"

 "Yes.” If she liked that better than a command.

 She got up decisively. “Then, thank you. I accept. I have to notify the authorities about poor Mrs. Ledbetter first, though, and that might take a while. I'm sure they'll want to question me."

 He didn't see any reason why the old woman's death should interfere with his plans—she wasn't going to get more dead—but he could see she was going to be stubborn about it. Bowing to the inevitable, he left her.

 It was just as well, he decided, when he returned to his lair. It had been a mistake to grab her so early in the evening that first time. For one thing, it had left him far too much time with her and he'd been incautious, taken too much. Moreover, he'd seen how it had disturbed her that she couldn't remember anything after he'd come in to her kitchen in the uneasy looks she'd given him afterward. He'd done better the second time, though not by design, unfortunately. The trip to the city had insured that he'd taken her later, though, and then he had returned her before dawn to maintain the necessary discretion—it certainly wouldn't do to be seen returning her by the nosey inhabitants of this little burg.

 This would work best. She would no doubt be tied up for a while with the local idiots and then he would see to it that she was fed enough nourishment to revitalize her energy. Then, because it would be late in the evening when they returned, he would only have a few hours with her to feed and could not take more than he should.

 And if he saw that that was still too much, then he would try a different strategy, nibbling instead of dining, a morsel here and there to keep his hunger at bay so that he didn't begin to feel desperate.

 It was a good plan. He was certain he could control himself, despite the fact that circumstance had prevented him from feeding two days running. He'd taken the precaution, after all, of going into the city to find a woman to tide him over.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Twelve

Unsettled for no reason she could easily identify once Sarik left, Claire picked up the phone and called the police, explaining the situation with Mrs. Ledbetter. With their promise to send a car around right away, she hung up and went out to wait for their arrival on the porch. Opting to sit on the edge of the porch instead of in one of the wicker chairs she'd placed on the porch and never actually used, Claire settled with her feet on the top step, propped her elbows on her knees and supported her chin with one hand, trying to figure out—beyond the obvious—why she felt uneasy.

 She'd been trying to ignore doubts circulating at the back of her mind about Sarik, she realized finally. He'd demolished her resolve to avoid men in one fell swoop, and she supposed that was reason enough to feel threatened somehow. Her past experiences had taught her some hard lessons. If it had only been one man, she might have more easily dismissed her reluctance, but the fact was she'd blithely fallen into one relationship after another, hoping each time that it would be better, that she wouldn't have cause to regret it. And every time she had, until it had finally been beaten into her, almost literally, that it was a hopeless cause.

 Either she attracted the wrong kind of man, or she was drawn to the wrong kind, because she couldn't seem to find the ‘right’ kind—if they even existed—and she wasn't convinced, anymore, that they did.

 She'd dismissed the feeble attempts of her instincts for self-preservation with barely a qualm, though, when she'd met Sarik, so enthralled with his physical attraction she'd blinded herself to any flaws he might inadvertently display.

 He had them, though, in spades.

 He was cold. She'd made every excuse for him that she could invent, but she couldn't dismiss his completely callous behavior about Mrs. Ledbetter. She hadn't particularly liked the woman herself—in all honesty she hadn't seen the woman had any redeeming qualities. She'd been furious with her over her cats, too. Nevertheless, she accepted that it was inherently saddening when a life passed, even if it didn't happen to be a pleasant person. It saddened her more that she died alone, with no one to give her comfort. She supposed it was something one always did alone, but it still bothered her.

 It also bothered her to realize that she'd ignored the sense that something was wrong. It might not have made any difference, but it distressed her to think it might have, that she might have been able to help if she hadn't just ignored it.

 It occurred to her that her distress wasn't just Sarik's callousness about their neighbor. It pointed to a complete lack of empathy. If he couldn't feel empathy, could he feel anything else? Didn't that suggest that he couldn't care? Couldn't feel love?

 And if he wasn't capable of feeling any of the gentler emotions, any empathy, was he cold blooded enough to kill?

 A shiver skated down her spine because she knew, abruptly, that he could, without any compunction, without remorse, pity, guilt. The only thing that might stop him would be the possibility of getting caught, facing retribution, not a sense of right or wrong, but self-preservation.

 Was there any possibility that she was wrong, she wondered? Was she erring, now, on the other side? Instead of imagining he had good qualities that didn't exist, as she had in her previous experiences, was she now imagining he had bad qualities that weren't there?

 He'd seemed concerned about her. She'd taken it at face value—because she'd wanted to believe the best about him because she was so drawn to him—but was it just lip service? Did he actually feel anything? Or was he, like her former boyfriends, and her ex-husband, pretending he felt something he didn't?

 She couldn't shake the feeling that he was a sociopath, one of those rare individuals that seemed to have been born without the capacity for normal emotions. He seemed extremely successful, and that certainly pointed in that direction. So often, they were. They could do whatever it took to become successful because they weren't bothered by the things that bothered other people. Their conscience never smote them because they believed that whatever was in their own best interest was ‘right'. They weighed the risks and possible penalties for failure and nothing else figured into the equation.

 Idiot that she was, she discovered that, even if it was true, maybe especially if it was true, it did nothing to help her form a resolve to avoid him. It made her feel sorry for him. In a very real sense, it made him defective, far less perfect than he appeared. It was no more ‘curable’ than someone who'd been born blind or deaf or physically defective, but that only made her feel worse. It certainly protected him from the emotional lows of life, but it also deprived him of feeling the heights.

 And, maybe she was just wrong.

 There was something very strange about him, though, and that certainly wasn't something she was just imagining. Her cats went crazy every time he walked into the room. It took hours to coax them out of hiding after he'd left. They sensed something. She couldn't fathom what, but it wasn't something to be lightly dismissed, she was sure.

 There were other things. For instance, his insistence that she needed to keep up her strength. She would've put that down to concern, or even pretended concern, except for the fact that he'd been downright angry about it, as if it affected him somehow.

 And what was with his strange way of cursing? Gods? Plural? And she'd noticed he always said it. It wasn't a slip of the tongue. Gods damn it!

 And, now that she was actually dwelling on it, she also recalled he'd mentioned the book she'd brought home—several times, asked if she'd read it. Why would he care? Why would he be interested, at all, in something like that, let alone interested enough to prod her into reading it? Because that was what he'd been doing, she realized. There was nothing casual about his interest in it. He wanted her to read it.

 What could possibly be in that book that was important? It was nothing but a bunch of nonsense about demons and spells.

 The arrival of the police and an ambulance interrupted her thoughts, but she was glad for the distraction, even if it was a morbid one. Rising from her seat, she went down the stairs to talk to the policeman and explain to him that she'd become concerned when she hadn't seen her neighbor several days in a row and had gone to check. He nodded, took notes, and then dismissed her.

 Drawn by the presence of both an ambulance and a police car, people up and down the street had wandered out to watch the proceedings. Wryly, she admitted she was as guilty of morbid curiosity as any of the rest, but the policeman had dismissed her and she didn't feel right about standing around to gape while they removed the woman's body from her house.

 Sarik had invited her out. She wasn't nearly as heady with excitement as she had been the first time, partly because she was still unsettled about her discovery, and partly because of her earlier thoughts, but she discovered she couldn't completely tamp her enthusiasm for his company. He thrilled her. There was no getting around it. Even his arrogance appealed to something inside of her, in spite of the fact that it often irritated her. Maybe she had a deep-seated need to be dominated?

 She was sick!

 Dismissing it, she went to take a shower. The cats, heartily sick of being confined to the bathroom, made another wild bid for freedom. She let them go. Mrs. Ledbetter wasn't going to be objecting to them anymore. With that thought, she went to the other bathroom and released Tom from his prison.

 Obviously, he'd never been a house cat and he was so wild he was in a panic. She had no idea how Sarik had managed to corral him so quickly and with such apparent ease, but it took her nearly thirty minutes to chase him out the back door and he'd knocked over kick-knacks all over the house and even a smaller table and chair before she managed it. Shaky from the battle, feeling more breathless and weak than she thought she should've, she opened the bathroom door wide to allow the room to air—he'd thoroughly marked his territory and she was going to have to scrub the entire room—and poured herself a glass of iced tea. The caffeine, she thought, might give her a little energy even if it was just a ‘high’ and not an actual cure for the problem.

 The hot shower didn't help. She felt more weak and washed out when she'd finished. It took an effort to select what she wanted to wear, but she was determined to find something that would make her feel attractive and, hopefully, not make Sarik ashamed to be seen with her.

 With Brenda's comment still stinging, she sat down on the bench in front of her dressing table, which she almost never used, and examined her reflection critically.

 With the best will in the world, she couldn't think she looked her best. The dark circles under her eyes before didn't seem quite as pronounced, but she looked as pale and washed out as she felt.

 She doubted make-up was going to help much. She looked hollow-eyed, she realized in dismay, her eyes more deep set than usual. Even her cheeks looked more hollow, as if she'd dropped weight. She didn't see how she could've. She'd been eating. She hadn't been trying to lose weight and she'd certainly never lost weight without a struggle. She maintained her weight fairly well, because she worked at it, but losing weight had never been easy or thoughtless.

 If she looked this bad in the subdued light of her bedroom, she thought wryly, how bad would it be if she'd opted to do her make-up in the brighter, less forgiving, light in the bathroom like she usually did?

 Sighing, she set to work, using blush powder to take the place of the healthy glow she lacked and concealer to try to hide some of the shadows under her eyes. She looked fairly presentable when she'd finished.

 She decided not to check the effect in her bathroom mirror. There was no sense in being depressed and risking the chance of blowing what little confidence she had. She'd chosen ‘sexy’ under-things—just in case. It made her feel a little better when she'd checked the look in the mirror, and the dress, which she'd never worn but once before. It was a clingy black, not so ‘dressy’ she'd feel self-conscious or out of place in the local diner if that was where he was taking her, but still classy and sexy.

 She was brushing her hair, trying to decide what to do with it, when she glanced up with the sense that she was being watched, and discovered Sarik was standing in her bedroom door, studying her, his golden eyes tumultuous. It gave her a start. She couldn't decide whether she was angry about his penchant for just barging into her house whenever he pleased or unnerved by the fact that she never heard him coming.

 How could he possibly move so quietly that she never heard him, she wondered?

 He was a big man. He moved with unusual grace, but he was so muscular she knew he had to be heavier than he looked. Shouldn't the floor boards creak, at the very least?

 "Leave it down,” he said in a husky voice that sent shivers of delight through her, banishing both her irritation and the uneasiness at the same time like morning mist.

 She stared at him for a long moment and then turned to study her reflection. Deciding she didn't look as absurd as she'd thought, she merely clipped the sides back and got up.

 He watched her intently as she took the thigh-high stockings she'd chosen to wear and smoothed them up her legs. His face was taut when she glanced at him again, and she felt warmth blossom in her belly at the blatant need in his expression.

 He didn't move. He remained stock still in the doorway, tensed, as if struggling with the urge to pounce.

 She looked away to locate her heels, wondering if it was purely her imagination. He seemed capable enough of controlling himself around her, she thought wryly.

 "Ready?” he asked when she'd slipped her feet into the heels.

 She nodded, unable to find her voice for the breathlessness his look had inspired.

 He stepped away from the door as she approached, but settled one large hand at her waist as she moved past him, guiding her toward the door. His car was parked at the curb. She stared at it with misgiving. “Were you taking me into the city?"

 He shrugged. “I could, if that's what you want."

 She smiled at him instead of informing him his driving terrified her so badly she didn't think she'd be able to eat once they got there if she had to endure another hair-raising drive. “I'm actually pretty hungry. I'd prefer some place closer."

 He looked pleased. “An appetite is a good sign. The diner? The grill? Or the barbeque shack?"

 "The diner, I think.” Barbeque sounded good, but she didn't want to have to eat with her face. She'd have barbeque sauce in her eyebrows. “It's close. We could walk,” she added tentatively.

 He grinned suddenly, both amusement and carnal hunger in the expression. “The goal is feed you to breed you. I don't want you walking it off."

 Heat spiraled through her. She chuckled at the redneck expression, though she supposed she should've found it insulting. “You've got designs on breeding me, huh?"

 He sobered, a frown marring his brows as he studied her face. “That's not within my powers, beyond the fact that...."

 She wasn't certain what he'd intended to say before he broke off, but she found the first part dismaying enough.

 Not that she'd believed for a moment that he actually intended to breed her. She was years past her prime breeding anyway ... if she could even get pregnant, and she hadn't but once and she'd miscarried. She'd long since accepted that there would be no child for her. She'd tried to convince herself it didn't matter. It did, though. As hard as she'd worked to try to convince herself she didn't care, the lack left her feeling hollow and nothing else that she could think to do made her feel fulfilled. She looked away. “It doesn't matter. Even if you could with anyone else, you couldn't with me. I'm thirty five. If it was ever going to happen for me, it would've. Not that it matters. I doubt I'd make much of a mother. And I'm actually very set in my ways, used to not having any responsibilities except for myself."

 She shut up when she realized the more she chattered, trying to convince him she didn't even actually want a baby, the more obvious it was that it pained her that she couldn't.

 She looked at him uncomfortably when he settled in the car beside her, wishing she'd just kept her mouth shut. The warming sensual haze he'd evoked with the ‘threat’ of what he had planned for the evening had chilled with her rattling on and on in her effort to convince him she was perfectly happy with the prospect of just getting her brains fucked out. “I'd be happy to settle for a practice run,” she said tentatively.

 He sent her a narrow eyed look and focused on starting the car and pulling into the street and she wished she'd tamped that urge, too. It didn't sound nearly as provocative spoken as it had seemed in her head. She should've said something crude and carnal—like ‘fuck my brains out, big boy'.

 Ok, so maybe that was a little much. She couldn't imagine actually saying such a thing besides which it sounded more silly than sexy.

 Timing, she finally decided wryly, was as important as delivery. It was like a joke that was only funny when it was said just right. She should've said something to indicate her interest and willingness when he had instead of the stupid remark she had made.

 She was never going to get laid ... again, she thought glumly when they'd settled in the diner. Picking up her menu, she stared at it unhappily.

 She ordered the special—smother fried steak served on a bed of white rice, with steamed vegetables as an offering to the food gods. The red meat was bound to put a little iron in her blood, though, so she wouldn't feel quite so peaked. If she didn't expire from indigestion, the calories ought to be enough to add back whatever she'd lost.

 She had nothing to do once the waitress was gone except to try to think of some conversation to soothe her nerves. “You never have told me where you're from."

 "No,” he responded, turning to stare out the window at the darkened street beyond the restaurant.

 Disconcerted, mildly irritated that he'd nixed her effort toward conversation, Claire sighed, staring at the window behind him. The light reflected the room behind her and its occupants, but she focused outward for a few moments, searching for something of interest. Seeing there wasn't anything, she switched her focus to the reflections in the glass. The usual supper crowd had already eaten and cleared out. Only a handful of people populated the booths behind them.

 A trick of the light, or maybe the glass, sent her a startling image as her gaze moved from the people behind them to Sarik again. Sucking in a sharp breath, she backtracked to study the image again.

 Sarik glanced at her sharply at the intake of breath. “What?"

 Claire met his gaze. “I thought I saw.... It was nothing, though. I guess a trick of the eyes."

 His gaze was assessing.

 She smiled a little weakly. “I don't suppose you've got horns and wings you're hiding from me?” she asked teasingly.

 His eyes narrowed. A slow, almost predatory smile curled his lips. “You think I'm a demon?"

 The smile set her insides to jittering but the comment dredged up a nervous chuckle. “Of course not!” She thought it over. “Do all demons have wings and horns, then?"

 He lounged more comfortably in his seat, studying her speculatively. “Most. Some don't. It depends on the type of demon.” He reached across the table and took her hand in his, stroking his thumb almost absently over the back. “I've heard it said that only the pure of heart—or the condemned who are just as evil—can see the denizens of the underworld."

 Disconcerted, Claire merely stared at him for several moments, reflecting on the strange turn of the conversation—but then he had a tendency to say some very odd things. Trying to ignore the effect his touch was having on her, she managed a faint smile. “Should I be flattered, then, at the implication that I'm pure of heart?” she asked teasingly. “Or would be if I'd actually seen something."

 "What do you think you saw?"

 She frowned, trying to recapture the image, but she'd only caught a glimpse to start with. “I don't know. It was just ... a pattern of light and shadows, I think, that gave me the impression of wings and horns. Sort of like seeing shapes in the clouds."

 The arrival of their food put an end to the conversation briefly. “You know a lot about demon lore?"

 He didn't look up. “Some."

 That wasn't very encouraging. “I wonder why the pure of heart would be able to see them. I think I could understand the condemned, especially if they were evil. It makes sense in a way, because I suppose they'd be joining them shortly. I don't understand why a good person would, though."

 He looked up, studying her enigmatically. “As a warning of their danger—to give them the chance to protect themselves from evil."

 "Oh. Actually, that does make sense. It's almost creepy."

 He uttered a chuckle, though it seemed to lack real humor. “Almost?"

 She shrugged. “I don't believe in that sort of thing."

 "You don't have to."

 For some reason the way he said it was unnerving. Not that she thought ignorance of anything was protection. Obviously, not believing, or knowing, a serial killer was on the loose in the neighborhood could get a person killed. Demons were evil mythological beings, though. They didn't exist and they didn't have the power to harm.

 It was still rather dampening. The entire conversation, as interesting as it was, seemed to have cast a gloomy pall over their date.

 It certainly hadn't done anything for her libido, she thought wryly.

 She was still determined to pursue physical intimacy, though. Maybe she was a lot more unnerved at the prospect, at the moment, than excited, but there was no getting around the fact that she was needy.

 She didn't wait for him to take the initiative when he walked her to her door.

 Because she was afraid he wouldn't.

 When they stopped at the door, she slipped her arms around his waist and leaned close. “Make love to me, Sarik,” she murmured.

 He stiffened, pulling away to look down at her face.

 She had a feeling, from his stony expression, that she'd said the wrong thing.

 It didn't take long to figure it out and she felt like kicking herself. She'd said make love—next to discussing a relationship, there wasn't much that could dampen a man's enthusiasm quicker. She smiled at him a little tremulously. “Or fucking. I mean, we could just have wild jungle sex. I'm game."

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Thirteen

Embarrassed by the note of desperation in her voice, Claire loosened her hold on his waist, preparing to move away. He caught her face between his palms before she could, tugging her upward to meet the descent of his mouth.

 His kiss was demanding, ravenous, hot—scorching a fiery trail all the way through her, turning her knees to jelly, and frying her brain as if she'd been struck by lightning. She instantly lost all touch with any reality beyond that heated connection, felt as if she was falling.

 She was falling.

 Briefly disoriented when she felt her mattress beneath her back and Sarik's solid weight on top of her, she struggled to figure out how they'd gotten from the front porch into her bedroom but discovered it was too much effort to figure it out. And she was far more interested in the taste of him that poured through her senses like strong drink, burned through her veins to set her pulse racing, and pooled with sizzling heat in her sex.

 Tangled together as they were, it took a struggle to free her arms to grip him but perseverance paid off. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and arms, halting the thrusting glide of his tongue along hers briefly by sucking it.

 A tremor went through him as she did.

 He groaned, breaking away to settle his mouth along the side of her neck, biting and sucking at the tender skin as he dragged at the neck of her dress. A herd of goose-bumps galloped upwards into her hair and down along her side, making her skin prickle with extreme sensation. Her nipples came erect, hardening as the blood pulsed into the tips and pooled there.

 Already struggling to pull enough air into her lungs, she gasped sharply as he succeeded in dragging her dress and bra from one shoulder and bit down on the soft, fleshy upper slope of her breast hard enough to sting before he sucked the hurt away. It sent another rush of pebbling skin across her body until she felt excruciatingly sensitive all over.

 He tugged harder on the dress in his quest to reach the nipple he hadn't quite unearthed and the sound of yielding seams reached Claire's ears. “My dress!"

 He covered her mouth, silencing her, taking her deeper into the swirling darkness of fevered need. She lay panting for breath when he released her lips again and gnawed a path of open mouthed kisses down her throat and over the slope of one breast. A fiery jolt traveled through her from her breast to her womb as he clamped his mouth over her nipple and sucked hard enough her toes curled.

 Bemused briefly by the absence of her clothes, the greedy tug of his mouth blazed it from her thoughts. Mindlessly, she threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him to her, gasping his name, stroking his head and shoulders, clutching at him as the fever rose to a pitch that made her feel as if she burning.

 "I can't wait, Sarik. Come inside me. I want to feel you,” she gasped weakly as finessed first one breast and then the other and then returned for a second taste of the first.

 He lifted his head to stare at her, his eyes blazing, glowing in the semi-darkness of her room. Claire met his gaze through half-closed eyes, saw the reluctance in him to curtail his exploration of her. Her belly clenched in response, in need of him. She reached for him, cupping his face in her hands and lifting her head to kiss him.

 He yielded to her urging and took possession of her mouth again, briefly, before he returned to sample her body with open mouthed kisses and nearly painful bites. In fell shy of actual pain, though, only brought the blood to the surface to make her more sensitive, to make her feel more than she thought she could stand.

 She moaned in despair as he made his way down her belly and pushed her thighs wide. “I'll come,” she gasped, knowing his intention as he nibbled a trail to her cleft.

 "You will,” he growled low in his throat, catching her clit in his mouth and suckling it with the same greed as he'd kissed her breasts.

 She came, arching her back as the force of it rocked her, clutching at his shoulders, whimpering as he continued until she hit her peak and went beyond it to screaming ecstasy.

 She shivered, groaning a complaint as he moved over her excruciatingly sensitive flesh again, his fever still high, his touch deft, demanding a response. Sluggishly at first, her body answered with a will of its own and the heat rose in her again.

 "Sarik ... please,” she murmured desperately when he wove a trail to her clit again. She wanted him inside of her, needed him. She tried to tell him that, but he pushed her over the edge again with the tease of his mouth on her clit. The second climax was harder. Her belly cramped almost painfully at the emptiness longing to be filled, dragging a pained sob from her as the spasms wracked her seemingly endlessly.

 Tears filled her eyes and leaked from her eyelids to run down her cheeks when he began again, arousing her treacherous body despite her exhaustion.

 "Sarik, please!” she gasped plaintively.

 He shifted to cover her mouth, to kiss her into silence, his mouth hard, almost punishing. She wrapped her arms around him, stroking his shoulders and back and after a moment he broke the kiss, lifting his head to stare hard at her for several moments.

 Cursing, he rolled off of her, his breath ragged as he lay beside her, staring up at the ceiling. Shivering with the heat still radiating from her skin, disconcerted that he'd stopped and moved away so abruptly, Claire rolled onto her side after a moment. Faintly embarrassed, she reached toward him tentatively, settling her hand lightly on his chest. “I'm sorry. It was just ... too intense."

 He turned his head to look at her, the faint light filtering into the room glancing off his pupils strangely, making them almost seem to glow. Shifting closer when it didn't seem he was angry with her, she skated her hand up his heaving chest to stroke his hard cheek. “I didn't mean for you to stop. You didn't ... you haven't come. I wouldn't leave you like that."

 He was tense beneath her hand, still, almost as if he was holding his breath to see what she would do. She moved closer, nuzzling her face against his arm and chest and then turning to kiss his hard flesh, nibbling at it teasingly. He lay still until she'd wound her way upward along his throat to his lips. Spearing his fingers through her hair abruptly, he pulled her more fully against him and opened his mouth to take hers. Hunger radiated from him, need held barely in check. She pressed herself against him, moving to stroke his body with her own.

 As suddenly as he'd withdrawn from her, he caught her and rolled until she was beneath him once more. Desperation threaded his kisses, ravening need, and yet his touch was gentled, not as rough and wild as before. It built the heat inside of her as rapidly, evoked the fever.

 She gave him kiss for kiss, touch for touch, and he allowed it as he hadn't before. That yielding, faint though it was, thrilled her in a way she hadn't felt before, and yet she was desperate for his penetration within moments, urging him to enter her. He slipped his hips between her thighs and aligned their bodies, pressing into her.

 A wave of dizziness washed over her as she felt his cock head stretching the mouth of her sex, felt the pressure as her body gave way to his superior strength. He filled her painfully, and yet she gloried in it, wrapping her legs around his waist and urging him to surge deeper.

 He shuddered, losing his tenuous grip on his control when he'd plumbed her depths. Uttering an almost inhuman growl, he began to move, to thrust into her more and more rapidly until the pace he set sent her over the edge again. She tensed, arching against him as the first wave of convulsions hit her. Tightening her arms around him, she bit down lightly on his shoulder, squeezing her eyes closed as her climax pummeled her in rapturous waves. He groaned, jerking as his body responded by pumping his seed into her, and then kept going, driving into her until she came again.

 The third time she came, she hit her limit. As the waves passed over her, they dragged her down into a dark void.

 Awareness beyond pursuit of his needs came slowly to Sarik, borne into his mind finally only by the dimming strength of energy he pulled from Claire. He stopped, heaving for breath, annoyed by the limitations of his form. As the fever subsided, however, and the madness that came with it, an odd sense of ... wrong slithered coldly through him.

 He pushed himself upwards, staring down at Claire's limp form blankly for several moments before the unfamiliar sense of wrong was joined by something equally unpleasant and alien to him—fear.

 He withdrew abruptly, rolling off of her, using his senses to delve within her in search of the life spark. It was there, dim, but still strong enough, he assured himself, thrusting the unfamiliar anxiety away from him.

 Anger flowed in to fill the void it left within him, fury with himself, with her.

 "Gods damn it, Claire!” he snarled, rolling off the bed and pacing to the other side of the room to stare at her.

 She was exhausted, he told himself—and small wonder. She'd stirred the beast, tempted him beyond his ability to control it. It had been better when he had bound her, he thought angrily. Then it had only been because he had wanted to feel that he was taking what he wanted, that she wasn't giving, or he had believed that. Now he knew that he had been afraid that she would give and that he would lose control if she did.

 And he had. Gods damn it to the underworld and back again! He moved back to her after a moment, settling on the bed to study her in baffled anger, fighting the certainty that he'd gone too far, taken too much.

 "Sleeping,” he muttered. “She's only sleeping."

 He lifted a hand to her face, hovering there a moment and then drew back. Let her remember, he thought furiously. Mayhap she'd think twice before tempting him again.

 Very likely.

 He didn't know why he hadn't enthralled her before he'd taken her. He should have. He should have bound her as before so that she couldn't touch him, so that she couldn't drive him into madness with her caresses.

 Whyhad she touched him? Why had she wanted to? He knew the beast had been near the surface. She must have seen!

 Shaking his head in an effort to push the thoughts away, he left her sleeping and returned to his lair.
 * * * *

The faint smile curling Claire's lips as she woke vanished the moment she discovered she was in her bed alone. Disappointed, she closed eyes again, seeking sleep as images of the night before teased her mind with a vague sense of worry.

 He hadn't come, she thought abruptly, her eyes popping open at the thought.

 Had he?

 He'd still been pumping into her when she'd passed out ... or dropped off to sleep. She didn't know what had happened. “Shit!” she muttered and then groaned in dismay, rolling over and burying her face in her pillow. The action was enough to bring out pain in muscles she'd hadn't even known she had and she groaned from that, as well.

 She'd thought he had come somewhere between the second or third time she had ... during penetration, she reminded herself. She'd come twice before that.

 She hadn't even known she could come that many times!

 Which said a lot for him, but not a hell of a lot for her! She must have been wrong. He couldn't have kept going if he'd come, surely?

 Somewhere out there was a thoroughly pissed off, and completely unsatisfied man, she thought unhappily.

 Lifting her head, she stared at the clock. Almost as she did, the alarm sounded and she heaved a tired sigh. It was a struggle to push herself upright and when she'd managed it, she merely wavered for a few moments and fell back again, squeezing her eyes closed as a wave of nausea washed over her.

 She was so tired! She didn't think she could get up to save her life.

 She lay with her eyes closed for a while, considering calling into work and begging off for the day. She could tell Brenda she was sick—something not too drastic, she decided. It was Friday. It had to be something she could recover from in three days.

 She'd already reached for the phone when it abruptly dawned her that she'd gone out with Sarik the night before. She'd been seen. It wasn't going to take much for the gossips to put two and two together if she laid out of work. They'd know why she wasn't feeling well—because she'd been up most of the night fucking!

 Did she really care if they knew, though? Badly enough to drag herself out of bed and go to work?

 She did if it meant she was going to get fired. Calling in sick after being late for work twice already didn't seem like a very good idea.

 Groaning, she forced herself out of the bed and headed into the bathroom, hoping a shower would revive her, at least a little. It did. A little. Breakfast and coffee also helped a little, but only a little.

 She wasn't going to make it, she thought glumly when she'd reached the porch steps and turned to stare down the street. Gathering herself, she moved stiffly down the steps and headed to her car.

 She wasn't certain if she felt worse the closer she got to work, or if it was only her imagination supporting her reluctance to go to work at all, but she did her best to ignore it, hoping that, like the occasional headache, it would go away if she just put it from her mind. She felt heavier and heavier as she walked up the steps into the library and by the time she pulled the door open and entered she knew she wasn't going to make it go away just by wishing it. Ignoring Brenda, who called a greeting to her, she headed for her office. The heaviness became so profound before she was halfway across the library that she realized she wasn't going to make it even before the darkness that had been slowly narrowing her vision to a tunnel closed around her. Halting when she could no longer see, she lifted a hand to search blindly for support. She didn't find anything, but she realized as she felt herself drifting toward the floor that it probably wouldn't have mattered if she had. Her last thought as she felt herself wilting toward the floor was that at least nobody could doubt she really was sick.
 * * * *

The pain, fear, anger, and mental anguish that permeated the hospital was as close as Sarik had felt to the underworld since he'd been summoned from it. His flesh crawled as he stood in the hallway, searching for her with his senses. The simmering anger deepened and the fear clawing at the back of his mind gained ground as it settled in him that he couldn't detect her.

 She was here, he thought furiously. Why couldn't he feel her life force?

 Because there wasn't one a singsong voice in the back of his mind taunted.

 No!he growled back at it. That wasn't possible. It wasn't!

 He'd weakened her. He knew he had, but he'd seen her get up and go off to work as she did every day. She wouldn't have done that if she was too weak to sustain her life force, couldn't have.

 He'd been relieved when he'd seen her go, regretted the impulse to leave her memory in tact when he'd seen how cautiously she moved, known it was the pain and weakness he'd inflicted on her that had caused her to move so stiffly and carefully.

 It had been eons since he'd felt either, but he'd recognized them ... only because he couldn't dismiss the thoughts that had supported those emotions, or the baffled anger that wove through them that he'd felt those things, and more, when he shouldn't have.

 He was more furious that she'd made him feel those things, especially when it was her fault that he had reason to feel them at all. She'd torn his tenuous control away from him. She deserved to suffer the consequences, he told himself.

 He couldn't make himself believe it, but he had told himself that over and over and thought if he continued perhaps eventually he would believe it. Shaking those thoughts off, he searched for her again, focusing harder to detect her.

 Brenda had said she was here. When she hadn't come home as he'd anticipated, he'd gone in search of her and found the library empty and locked up tight. Brenda had been all too happy to give him all the details when he'd found her—that Claire had simply collapsed and couldn't be roused, the call for an ambulance.

 She'd been far too gleeful about it.

 She was fortunate he was too anxious to get to Claire to feel like wasting his time punishing her for that, but her continued good fortune in that respect rested entirely upon whether he found Claire still clinging to her life force or not. If she wasn't, there would be mayhem, because the rage boiling inside of him needed an outlet and she was going to be his first target.

 Detecting a faint scent of Claire's life force at last, he dismissed his extraneous thoughts and followed it, pausing at last before the door where she lay. Reluctance moved through him to look upon the results of his handiwork. Ignoring it, he pushed the door open and went inside.

 The machines beeping and whirring around her made his guts churn, made his skin crawl. He halted again, staring at her for many moments before he could bring himself to move closer.

 He was so absorbed in watching the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest that he didn't noticed the woman who pushed through the door and joined him until she moved to one of the machines he'd been staring at and checked it, scribbling something on the clipboard she carried. His eyes narrowed on the woman as she went about checking the machines with a cool detachment that annoyed him. She didn't acknowledge his presence until she'd finished.

 A look of sympathy scrunched her features as she did. “Are you family?"

 His throat had closed as if a hand had fisted around it. The sympathy, although not deeply felt, was real. The question carried undertones that made the fear at the back of his mind slither forward a little more. He shook his head. “How is she?” he asked, his voice sounding strange to his ears as it emerged.

 The sympathy on the woman's face deepened. “Stable—for now. We've run tests, but we haven't gotten the results yet. She's comatose, but there doesn't seem to be any outward indication of why."

 "When will she wake up?"

 The woman stared at him a long moment. “We don't know that she will. Her family's been summoned. That's all I can tell you. You'll have to see if the doctor can answer your questions. Would you like for me to tell him you're here, Mr....?"

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 Chapter Fourteen

Sarik dismissed the nurse. In truth, he didn't even hear what she said after she'd told him they didn't know if Claire would wake up. He found himself standing over her, staring down at her face with no idea that he'd even moved. He was vaguely aware that the woman had left as he leaned down to lay his palm along Claire's cold cheek.

 The chill of her flesh sent an unpleasant jolt through him, and then a churning wave of emotions rushed through him. Fury dominated, but he couldn't untangle the rest and had no interest in trying at the moment. “Claire!” he said, his voice still the strange croak it had been before. “Not yet, gods damn it! Come back to me. Wake up!"

 He stared hard at her, detecting a faint upsurge within her, as if she was struggling to respond to his voice. It was enough to set his heart to hammering in his chest in hopefulness. He leaned closer, framing her face between his palms. Inhaling deeply, he discharged a slow, steady stream of his energy into her.

 Her skin warmed beneath his palms, slowly, so slowly he wasn't certain at first if it was his own warmth or if it came from within her. A few moments more, and he saw movement behind her eyelids. She shuddered, jerked several times.

 An alarm went off on one of the machines.

 He pulled away from her as someone burst into the door to investigate.

 It was the same woman. She threw a suspicious glance in his direction as she rushed to the machine and turned off the alarm.

 Claire was jerking all over now. Her eyelids had flown open and her eyes were wide with panic.

 Another woman rushed into the room, moving to the other side of the bed.

 "It's alright, Claire,” the first woman said. “It's just the breathing tube. Settle down. I'm going to pull it out."

 "She's awake,” the other woman observed unnecessarily.

 "And panicked about the tube. Hold her still while I get it out."

 She gagged as they removed it and then began coughing.

 Feeling strangely weak, Sarik glanced around and finally settled heavily in the chair he found, leaning forward to cover his face with hands that shook. From weakness, he wondered? It didn't make sense to him. He'd given her some of his own energy, but not so much it should have left him weak.

 "You should go. I've given her something to calm her down. She'll sleep now."

 Sarik dropped his hands and looked up at the woman standing over him blankly a moment before rage surged through him. “You gave her something to make her sleep?” he growled in infuriated disbelief.

 The woman took a step back. “Something to calm her,” she corrected shakily. “She'll probably sleep—should. But she's come out of the coma."

 A man dressed as a doctor strode briskly into the room. “There's been a change in her condition?” he demanded curtly. “Why wasn't I informed?"

 "I hadn't had the chance,” the nurse stammered. “She panicked when she woke up with the tube. She was breathing on her own. I removed it as quickly as I could...."

 Sarik rose. Pulling a cloaking spell around himself, he moved to the far side of the room to watch, still puzzling over the strange weakness that had come over him. It receded after a while, which was almost as confusing as the abrupt onset had been, but he felt no great need to feed and he knew he couldn't have expended much energy pulling her back from the brink of death.

 Relief, he thought after a long while of examining it. It had been a sense of profound relief. It still didn't make any sense to him that it had felt as if he'd been suddenly drained of strength, felt too weak to even support the weight of his form. He'd thought, in point of fact, that he couldn't maintain the mortal form he'd taken, which was why he'd cloaked himself.

 It would certainly be of no benefit to Claire to see his true form.

 Nor to frighten her caretakers to death, he thought wryly.

 The would've ordered him out, though, and he had no intention of going and no desire to engage in a battle of wills with them, even though he knew he would win and they would lose. It was ... better, he decided, all the way around to remain cloaked where he could observe and not be observed in return.

 He didn't like that she slept. He could feel that she was stronger, but he still didn't like it because it made him uneasy and also because he wanted to see her eyes, see recognition in them.

 It dawned on him after a time that that was probably for the best, too. He hadn't removed her memory. She would know the moment she looked at him that he'd done this to her and he would see condemnation in her eyes, not the welcome he wanted to see.

 The temptation arose in him to remedy his error in judgment and remove the memory. He didn't, partly because of his uneasiness that it might upset the delicate balance where she now lay between life and death, growing almost imperceptibly stronger as the hours passed, and partly because he realized he richly deserved her condemnation.

 He should have tried harder to control the raging beast. As much as he preferred to blame her for tipping the balance, he alone was responsible. He had never tried to control it, had never been required to before, but that didn't mean he couldn't. It only meant he'd not practiced it before.

 Truthfully, once he began to consider it, he wasn't certain of just how she'd managed to peel his control from his grip. He was almost willing to gift her with supernatural abilities, except he was certain he would've detected any such abilities in her before. It wasn't the supernatural. It was the force of the natural world, a strength she'd hidden from him.

 She'd asked him to make love to her. Had she summoned that almost forgotten part of himself that he'd thought long lost? His humanity?

 He shook that whimsy off. She couldn't summon something long dead.

 She'd aroused him by her touch, nothing more, pulled a response from the physical form he'd taken that he hadn't realized the body capable of. He'd felt things he couldn't recall feeling before and that was what had made his restraint buckle, allowed his precarious self-control to slip through his fingers.

 The problem wasn't just that she had. The true problem was that he'd enjoyed it so much he now had to struggle against the temptation to taste that again. He wanted it more , he realized, even than the satisfaction he derived from the feeding itself.

 It made no sense to him, but he had to acknowledge it as fact because he couldn't dismiss it. The more he replayed the memory in his mind, the more focused he became on that particular thing, the way she'd kissed him and caressed him and urged him to connect his body to hers and take his pleasure. It wasn't the feeding on her life force itself. It wasn't the prelude of rising lust to quench his hunger.

 It was the fact that she'd given, wanted to give.

 He should have enthralled her, he thought with disgust for the umpteenth time. She wouldn't have had her mind about her to consider giving. He could've taken and he wouldn't have experienced any of the confusion of tormenting thoughts that had come since.

 He wouldn't make that mistake again. He would enthrall her, bind her, and sup as he required, as much as it was safe to suck from her, leaving her enough strength to renew.

 He wouldn't have to deal with the displeasure of his whining master, then, he realized for the first time, appalled that it hadn't crossed his mind before that he'd so nearly demolished not only his own plans for Claire, but ignored his master's bidding. A cold sweat popped from his pores as that finally dawned on him. He'd been expressly forbidden to end her life so soon.

 How had he lost sight of that? Or his own plans?

 Neither of those things had so much as crossed his mind, though, when he rushed to find her and discovered her so near death he could feel the pall of it hovering over her, greedy to snap her up and pull her away from him. He hadn't thought of anything beyond the need to hold it at bay, beyond the fear his powers would fail him and she would slip through his fingers, slip beyond his reach.

 The darkness of night gave way to morning while he struggled with his confused thoughts, trying to make sense of something that made no sense to him. He was scarcely aware of the passing time, though it was a long time enemy—time—for it was the one element that ensured his torment as nothing else.

 It was only the change in her breathing that finally drew Sarik from his thoughts, a deeper inhalation than he'd noticed before. Doubt shook him instantly with the realization that she awakening. Go? Or stay? Materialize and face what he would have to eventually? Or remain cloaked as he was.

 It was a short battle. The need to see recognition in her eyes, the hope that it would be soft and welcoming, not filled with loathing, brought him to her side before he was even aware of making a decision.

 Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at him blankly for a split second, sending searing pain through him. He was on the point of moving away when the glazed look left her eyes. Her lips curled upward tentatively. “Sarik."

 Her voice was a hoarse croak, barely audible, but the welcome he'd hoped for, known he didn't deserve, was there.

 She lifted a hand. On impulse, another of those confusing urges he didn't care to examine too closely, he caught it before it could fall weakly to the bed again and lifted it to his lips, the need to feel the warmth of her life and the smoothness of her skin overwhelming any other consideration. A blush brought welcome color to her cheeks when he brushed his lips lightly along her skin. Her gaze flickered away, scanned the room. Confusion, then recognition and fear flickered across her face. “Where am I? How did I get here?"

 "You don't remember?” he asked cautiously, his voice feeling, and sounding, strangely rusty.

 She frowned thoughtfully and he tensed, waiting with a sense of indefinable terror from the memories to surface.

 He knew the moment they did. The color in her face deepened. “Oh!” She closed her eyes, but her hand tightened on his when he would've released it. “I'm sorry,” she said uncomfortably.

 Confusion rattled through him. “For what?"

 She couldn't look at him. “For ... you know."

 His brows knit more tightly. “I don't know."

 She pulled her hand from his. “I left you hanging, didn't I?"

 "Hanging?” he echoed, more deeply confused than ever.

 "When I fell asleep ... last night?"

 He studied her face while it slowly sank in that she was apologizing to him because she thought he hadn't taken what he wanted from her. Disbelief, followed, but, turn it though he might, no other answer presented itself.

 "I know I disappointed you."

 His lips tightened. “You didn't. I took more than you could afford to give,” he confessed harshly. “Don't apologize for something you're not guilty of."

 She smiled up at him tentatively. “You're not mad at me?"

 The inexplicable tightness fisted in his throat again. “No.” It came out more harshly than he'd intended. She flinched. Before he could say more, the door to her room opened.

 Sarik stared unwelcomingly at the elderly woman who stepped inside, bristling with anger at the intrusion. She gave him a cold look and dismissed him, which only brought the level of anger higher.

 "Aunt Elizabeth?” Claire gasped, surprise in her voice.

 The woman's cold eyes zeroed in on her and softened slightly. “You look better than I expected.” She moved further into the room, a thin, almost effeminate younger man with thinning black hair at her heels.

 The pair paused on the opposite side of the bed from where Sarik stood, staring down at Claire with more curiosity than empathy.

 "Andrew! I haven't seen you in forever!” Claire glanced at him. “Sarik—this is my aunt, Elizabeth O'Brien, and my cousin, Andrew Smith. What are you two doing here?” she asked with obvious pleasure.

 Andrew simpered. “Thought you were on your death bed. They told us you were in a coma."

 The old lady elbowed him in the ribs. “Shut up, Andrew! Don't you see you've upset her!"

 Andrew's lips tightened at the rebuke, but he wiped the expression from his face as his aunt sent him a sharp look and replaced it with an expression of false contrition. “Sorry, Clairdy,” he muttered, using the nickname he'd coined for her when they were children.

 Claire divided a glance between her aunt and her cousin, then turned to look at Sarik questioningly. “Was I?” she asked uneasily, frowning as she searched her memory. “I don't really remember much ... except fainting."

 Her aunt patted her hand. “It doesn't matter now. I think I'll arrange to have you moved to the city, though, so I can have some specialists have a look at you."

 Reluctance instantly settled over Claire's features. “I'm fine now. You don't need to do that."

 "Of course I do!” Elizabeth said testily. “ Somethingcaused it and I'm not going to feel easy in my mind until I know what."

 Interfering bitch, Sarik thought viciously, instantly bristling again at the threat that the old woman would remove her, not that the distance would make that much difference, but he had no intention of allowing her to interfere with his own plans.

 "I don't think it was anything but exhaustion,” Claire countered, turning red faced at the admission and refusing to glance in Sarik's direction.

 "What in the world could you possibly have done to so exhaust yourself?” Elizabeth demanded.

 Claire's blush deepened. “Just not resting like I should and ... not taking care of myself like I ought to,” she stammered.

 Elizabeth glanced from Claire to Sarik speculatively, but before she could pursue her interrogation, a new target arrived for her—the doctor. She pounced on him immediately, demanding to know what his tests had revealed.

 Sarik left as soon as he could see the doctor was going to win the battle to keep Claire where she was, informing the aunt that she could send all the specialists down that she wanted—he welcomed the help in determining the cause behind Claire's collapse—but they could come to her. He wasn't authorizing, or recommending, that Claire be moved until they were more certain her condition would continue to improve or at least remain stable.

 He'd barely settled in his lair when he felt the pull of his master. Furious, he fought the summons as long as he could but the chains that bound him were unbreakable and the draw inescapable.

 That didn't mean he made any attempt to hide his displeasure at being summoned.

 He dispensed with his mortal form the moment he reached his master, enjoying the look of horror on the man's face.

 "You know I hate it when you come to me in that form!” his master muttered petulantly.

 He did know and he took a perverse delight in it since it was the only rebellion allowed him. “Why did you summon me?” he growled. “I've done what you commanded."

 His master studied him suspiciously. “Have you?"

 "You know I have. She collapsed. Isn't that evidence enough for you?"

 His master snickered. “I suppose so.” He studied Sarik thoughtfully. “You can't lie to me, right? You can lie to anyone else but not to me."

 Sarik ground his teeth in impotence, knowing instantly what it was his master wanted to know. He'd discovered the book was missing, and he was right. He couldn't lie. If his master asked him point blank, he would have to tell him the truth. Fortunately, he could see his master was reluctant to admit that he no longer had the book in his possession, fearful he would lose his hold, and Sarik would turn on him and tear him to pieces—which he would, given the chance. He despised being at the mercy of such a vile, weakling of a mortal.

 "You haven't taken ... anything that belongs to me?"

 "I've no use for anything of this world,” he spat.

 His barely restrained fury had the desired effect even if the response had left a niggling doubt in the man's mind. His master recoiled visibly at the rage emanating from him.

 "Fine,” he responded shakily. “I'm pleased with you."

 Sarik curled his lips at the man. He could take his fucking compliments and shove them up his ass. He didn't give a gods damn if the bastard was pleased or not.

 "I don't like her being in the hospital, though. I suppose I should've expected it, but I hadn't thought about it and it makes me nervous."

 Sarik studied him speculatively. “You want me to remove her?"

 The man gaped at him. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he raged. “There's to be no question when she dies, damn it! No suspicion that it was anything but a natural death, for god sake! No, I don't want you to take her from the damned hospital! I just don't like it, don't like the tests they'll be running."

 "They won't find anything,” Sarik said dryly. “This isn't like poisoning. There's nothing to find."

 His master looked unconvinced. “Maybe it was mistake to summon you,” he said thoughtfully. “A demon of chaos might have worked better."

 "Except you said you couldn't afford another accident,” Sarik pointed out, feeling his emotions shift abruptly from rage to uneasiness as the threat loomed that he would be dismissed. “You said she was charmed."

 His master frowned at him. “That was just a figure of speech,” he said irritably, “but you have a point. Or rather, I did, since it was my idea to start with. I still like the poetic justice of it."

 Sarik saw no justice in what his master had planned for Claire, poetic or otherwise, but he kept his mouth shut.

 "She always was a tight-assed cunt,” his master muttered. “I can't tell you the number of times I tried to get into her pants."

 "Don't,” Sarik growled, feeling his belly churn with disgust and fury even at the thought of the bastard touching her.

 His master glanced at him sharply and then snickered. “You've a taste for her now, don't you my beast?"

 Sarik curled his lips in a sneer. “I'm an incubus.” You fucking moron!

 His master's eyes narrowed. “But you have a thing for her, don't you?"

 Sarik gritted his teeth. He couldn't lie, but that didn't mean he had to answer.

 The battle of wills was brief. His master shrugged as if it was a matter of indifference to him. “That's going to make it rough when I send you back, I expect,” he murmured gleefully. “No Claire to feed on."

 Sarik clenched and unclenched his fists, struggling against the spell that held him, that kept him from wrapping his fingers around his master's scrawny neck and squeezing until his eyeballs popped out.

 His master uttered a titter of malicious amusement that didn't completely hide the fear crawling up his back. “Just remember who controls you!"

 Sarik sent him a look of disgust. “The spell holds me and you control the spell,” he said pointedly.

 "And I always will."

 Sarik kept his own council, deciding it was wiser to do so.

 The man paced in deep thought for a while. Finally, he turned to Sarik again. “I'll give you a few more weeks with her—out of the goodness of my heart. She's bound to be in the hospital for a week anyway.

 "On the other hand, I don't suppose it could possibly look any less suspicious if she died there,” he added, sending Sarik a thoughtful look.

 He knew the bastard was toying with him, trying to get a rise out of him. The slimy bastard was in no great hurry to end her suffering and, more over, obviously enjoyed the thought that he could torment Sarik, as well.

 He waved a hand dismissively after a moment. “Never mind. I'll give you the two weeks after she gets out. Kiss her once for me and tell her I sent my love before she's too far gone to understand it was me. Tell her I'll see her in hell."

 Sarik narrowed his eyes at his master. It took an effort to refrain from telling him he'd never see Claire in the underworld, but he would be there and no spell would protect the son-of-a-bitch then.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Fifteen

The weakness continued to plague her but since neither the local doctor nor the specialists her aunt had brought in were able to find the cause and she seemed to be recovering, however slowly, they finally ran out of excuses to hold her. Her aunt surprised her by taking care of her cats.

 "Really, Claire!” she said testily. “Did you think I wouldn't? I am fond of you, you know. I guess I'm not very good at showing it, but it's there nevertheless. I had some people in the house checking it for any kind toxins anyway."

 As much as Claire appreciated it, and the affection that had inspired it, she wasn't very happy to think strangers had been tramping all over her house in her absence. “Did they find anything?"

 "No,” Elizabeth responded in disgust. “I'm not relieved! I suspect incompetence, I don't mind telling you. There has to be a reason. A person doesn't just fall into a coma without a reason!"

 "Actually, I thought it was very heartening that they didn't find anything wrong with me."

 Elizabeth bent a disgusted look at her. “That's because you lack a healthy dose of reality, my girl!” she snapped. “If you didn't live in those damn books of yours, where there's always a happy ending, you'd realize this isn't something to just dismiss!"

 More than a little insulted, Claire still managed a smile, mostly because she could see her aunt really was worried about her and she wanted to soothe her. “They don't all end with a happily ever after, Aunt Elizabeth. I read nonfiction, too."

 "Humph!” her aunt snorted, getting to her feet. “I wish you'd at least reconsider about having a nurse here with you. I don't like leaving you alone in this old house when you haven't completely recovered yet."

 "The doctors said they didn't think it was necessary and that I'd be better off getting up and around myself. You have to expend energy to make more. I'm not going to get better laying around while somebody else takes care of me."

 Elizabeth looked like she wanted to argue the situation more, but finally dismissed it, shaking her head. “I've never completely figured out how it is that you never appear stubborn when you're more hard headed than anybody I know,” she said with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “You're one of those steel magnolias."

 Claire chuckled. “I'm about the color of one right now, anyway,” she said wryly.

 Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. “I suspect that hunky neighbor of yours will put a little color in you when he decides to drop by."

 Claire felt her cheeks heat. The comment drew a chuckle from her, though. “Hunky?"

 Elizabeth snorted. “I ain't dead, yet!” she retorted. “I suspect that man could get a rise out of a corpse!"

 Claire laughed at that until she was breathless. It popped into her mind again instantly when she looked up later to discover Sarik watching her from the door, alerted to his presence by the fact that Sugar, who'd been nuzzling her and purring, abruptly stiffened and leapt from her arms, darting under the couch to hide since Sarik was blocking her only avenue of retreat.

 She smiled at him, holding out a hand in welcome. He studied it frowningly a moment and finally moved further into the room, though he pointedly ignored the invitation. Stung, Claire allowed her hand to drop. “I didn't get the chance to thank you for visiting me in the hospital,” she said uncomfortably. Because he hadn't come back.

 He flicked a glance at her, but moved to stand at one of the windows, staring out at the street. The feelings churning inside of him were unsettling enough, though, when he wasn't looking at her, he thought grimly.

 The rage was always there, an integral part of what he was, and Claire certainly had a knack for bringing it to the surface, but she brought so many other things out in him, emotions he hardly recognized much less understood how to deal with, that it tore him in so many directions at once it almost seemed to create a chaotic sort balance. He turned to look at her after a few moments when he thought he'd come to grips with the slow churn of chaos.

 The anger surged to precedence, however, as his gaze flickered over her and he saw how pale and frail she still looked. Gods damn it, Claire! I gave you the means to save yourself, both from him and from me , he thought angrily. Why didn't you take it, Claire?

 He couldn't tell her. He could only lead her, try to manipulate her into choosing the path he'd given her and the impotence of not being able to do more ate at him. He no longer cared whether he could convince her to free him or to simply use the spell to hold him and take the power from his master. He no longer cared if she sent him back. That would be preferable to being the instrument of her death.

 The realization almost stunned him, but there was doubt in his mind what he most wanted. He wanted to be freed from the task that had become so loathsome to him, however she managed it.

 She wasn't going to manage it, though, he thought angrily. She didn't believe. Even if he could somehow get her to read the fucking book, she wouldn't use the spells.

 He'd come to realize that she probably wouldn't even if she did believe.

 He was in the presence of true goodness, a being that was sweet and clean and his diametric opposite—a woman unlike any he'd known but once before—the woman he'd loved long ago when he had lived and walked among mortals, loved, tasted life—something that had been lost to him far longer than the brief time he'd known it. He supposed that was what drew him to her, the light.

 "My aunt thinks you're a hunk,” she murmured with amusement, distracting him from his thoughts.

 He stared at her blankly. “What?"

 She laughed and the sound strummed through him like a caress. He closed his eyes, relishing it and at the same time struggling with the stirring of his beast.

 "She says you're a hunk. She seems to think you're good for me."

 Then she's a fucking idiot!he thought viciously. “She's wrong,” he said tightly.

 Claire sent him a look of dismay. “That's not true! You are good for me. You're always feeding me,” she added teasingly.

 And draining you!The thought gave him pause. He hadn't considered, before, that neither the spell his master held over him or his direct command prevented him from giving, but it didn't or he wouldn't have been able to give to her in the hospital.

 He examined that realization hopefully for a handful of moments before it dawned on him that he'd been given two weeks. The command was specific, not open to interpretation. He couldn't ignore it and it did limit what he could give her, however indirectly. Beyond that, if he gave her too much she would not appear to sicken and die, which he had also been expressly ordered.

 The book was her only hope.

 "Could I get you anything?” The book?

 She sent him a look he had no trouble interpreting, not that his mind could keep up with the heat that roared through him.

 "A little of you would be nice."

 He swallowed against the knot of hunger that clogged his throat. “Don't tempt me!” he snarled.

 Her eyes widened. She looked both startled and hurt and both stabbed through him like a keen bladed knife, knocking the breath from him. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You're not ... well,” he said lamely.

 The hurt in her eyes eased. “I'm well enough to be interested."

 "Gods damn it, Claire!” he growled. “Stop looking at me like that or you'll find yourself flat of your back with my cock in you."

 She reddened. Unfortunately, the idea seemed to appeal to her too much for his comfort. “I'm already flat of my back,” she said tentatively.

 She was at that, and wearing nothing more than a t-shirt that barely covered her sex and panties. Not that that would protect her more than the split second it would take him to remove both. “I'll go get you something to eat,” he said hoarsely, staring at the juncture of her thighs. “What would you like?"

 She sent him an impish look. “A piece of meat about that long."

 He stared at her hands, flicked a look at her face, and strode toward the door.

 "Sarik?"

 Against his better judgment, he halted in his retreat and turned to look at her.

 "It's because I didn't satisfy you, isn't it?"

 "Fuck!” he exploded. Whirling on his heel, he stalked from the house, slamming the door with a less than satisfactory bang ... which left it in tact, barely.

 He found Brenda sitting in Claire's office chair in the library, her feet propped on Claire's desk, chatting cozily on the phone. Rage suffused him that she was already counting what was Claire's as her own.

 She gaped at him in horror as he appeared. Snatching the phone from her hand, he threw it across the room hard enough to shatter it, yanked her from the chair and shoved her face down on the desk. She screamed when he penetrated her and kept on screaming as he plowed into her ruthlessly, remorselessly, but the tenor of the fucking racket she was making changed from fear and pain to pleasure.

 Someone began pounding on the door. He ignored it. It seemed to excite her even more, though. She came, screaming like cat that was being tortured to death. He sucked up the energy she expended, toyed with the idea, briefly, of taking more and finally left as he'd come.

 Claire was red eyed and sniffing when he made it back to her place with the food he'd promised her. Dismay filled him. He shoved the box at her, pacing across the room to put some distance between them as soon as she took his offering.

 Her watery chuckle drew his attention.

 She was biting her lip, holding up the thick link of sausage he'd brought her. A reluctant grin threatened in response although he'd intended it more as rebuke than for her amusement.

 "Sarik!"

 He sent her a mildly questioning look.

 She shook her head at him, but he discovered the vixen had the last laugh. He left her sucking on it and retreated to his lair.

 Sighing, Claire dropped the sausage back into her plate when Sarik had left, losing interest in it when she couldn't torment him any more by gliding it in and out of her mouth suggestively. She couldn't quite figure him out. Why would he look at her as if she was the only drop of water in the desert and him dying of thirst, and then take off when she offered it as if he couldn't get far enough away from her fast enough?

 He hadn't said she didn't satisfy him, despite the fact that she'd asked him point blank. He didn't seem angry with her about it, but there was no doubt that something wasn't right.

 After staring at the food without interest for a few minutes, she finally focused on eating what she could. He'd gone to the trouble to get it for her. The least she could do was try to appreciate it.

 She would've appreciated some sign that he wanted her a lot more—some sign beyond the obviously misinterpreted one she'd gotten. It had looked like desire. What could it be if it wasn't?

 Maybe it was, but she'd unnerved him so much when she'd passed out on him he was too uneasy about the possibility of it happening again to consider trying it again? She supposed, wryly, that it wasn't much of a turn on to think a woman might die on you while you were having sex with her.

 She felt fine, though, a little weak, but she figured if she felt well enough to consider having sex with him, she was well enough. Maybe she was still a little weak to consider anything very strenuous, but they could take it easy. She could at least make it up to him, give him the release it seemed obvious to her he needed.

 She'd far rather chance it than to leave him ripe for some other woman's pickings, damn it!

 Somehow, for her own peace of mind, she had to convince him it would be alright, that she could handle it.

 He didn't give her the chance, though. He didn't come back. Bored, she dozed much of the day, but finally decided to find something to entertain herself with. She picked up one of the novels she'd never gotten around to reading and read a few chapters, but her mind kept straying to the book she'd hidden in her armoire and finally she went to retrieve it.

 Her cats wandered in to keep her company after a while. She set the book aside to cuddle and stroke them until they'd had enough and hopped off the couch to play. Satisfied that they'd stay close by, she picked up the book and returned to her reading, glancing at the cats now and then since they were radars of Sarik's imminent arrival and she never heard him coming.

 The moment the cats stiffened to an alert stance, she sat up on the couch, slipping the book carefully beneath it. She'd bathed and washed her hair, even put on a tiny bit of makeup and then dressed in the sexiest nightgown she possessed.

 Her hopes were high that she'd baited her trap well.

 The look on his face as he entered the room seemed to confirm it. He halted for a moment at the door, scanned her from the top of her head to her bare toes and then strode purposefully toward her. Instead of joining her on the couch, though, he stopped abruptly when he was still several feet away from her, halted almost as if he'd hit an invisible field. She looked at him with surprise and disappointment until it dawned on her that he looked ... almost ill.

 She scrambled off the couch in alarm and threw her arms around his waist, pressing herself against him. “Sarik! Are you alright?"

 When he looked down at her upturned face, he studied her with a mixture of uneasiness and relief that baffled her as much because the two seemed to conflict as the fact that he would feel either. He pulled away, bending to scoop her into his arms and then turned toward her bedroom. She looped her arms around his neck, relieved that he seemed to be alright and suspicious that the ‘incident’ was only a play to trick her into just the reaction she'd had.

 "That was a dirty trick,” she said chidingly as he settled her on the bed and followed her down.

 He looked confused.

 "It scared me. I thought something was wrong ... that you were hurt or sick."

 Comprehension hit him. “And that ... frightened you?” he asked, surprised.

 "Of course it did! Why would you think it wouldn't bother me if you were hurt or sick?” she said testily, lifting a hand to caress his hard cheek.

 A tremor went through him when she touched him. Instead of answering, he settled his own hand over hers, grasping it was if he meant to push her away. He hesitated and finally turned his face into her palm, brushing his lips across the center. He swallowed audibly. “I don't want to hurt you."

 Fascinated by the caress, feeling warmth tingle all the way from her palm down her arm to her breasts, Claire sucked in a shaky breath and met his gaze when he looked at her again. “You won't,” she whispered.

 His face hardened. “You don't know me, don't know what I'm capable of,” he said harshly.

 "Yes, I do,” she contradicted him. “You're capable of thrilling me like no man ever has, giving me more satisfaction. You're capable of thoughtfulness, and gentleness, and concern for me."

 Angry frustration creased his features. “I'm capable of none of those things. I'm not capable of doing anything beyond satisfying my own needs."

 Claire shifted closer, close enough to brush her lips along his throat. “Then satisfy your own needs,” she murmured. “That's what I want you to do. I won't break."

 He slipped the hand he'd settled on her waist upward to cup the base of her skull. Releasing her hand, he caught her jaw and tipped her face up to meet his lips. A thrill went through her as his mouth covered hers with feverish need, his tongue thrusting into her mouth to rake possessively along hers. Clutching at him to hold herself tightly to him, she kissed him back, curling her tongue along his, sucking at his tongue as greedily as he tasted and explored her mouth.

 He bore her backwards onto the mattress, settling heavily against her, his weight as welcome as the heat of his mouth and the caress of his tongue. Want threaded her veins, cinched the air in her lungs. Headiness followed, but it was a pleasurable confusion of her senses.

 It took an effort to lift her heavy eyelids to look up at him when he withdrew to stare down at her. “I don't know how to be gentle, Claire,” he said hoarsely. “I don't know if I can."

 She speared her fingers in his dark hair, drawing him down to her. “Make love to me like you did before. I loved every minute of it."

 He resisted, swallowing thickly. “You wept."

 She smiled faintly. “Because it felt so good."

 Doubt still shadowed his eyes. “Tell me to stop if I hurt you."

 "You won't."

 "Swear it to me, Claire!” he growled, desperation threading his voice.

 "Yes,” she murmured, nuzzling her forehead against his cheek when he refused to allow her closer.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Sixteen

He pulled away. Climbing from the bed he pulled his clothes off in awkward jerky movements as if it wasn't something he did every day, tearing them when they defied his dexterity. Claire lay back against the pillows once she saw why he'd left her, admiring him through narrowed eyes. There wasn't one part of him that wasn't beautiful, she mused, caressing his beautifully sculpted chest and belly, his arms, his legs, his cock with her gaze. She reached for his cock as he climbed on the bed again, curling her fingers around it.

 He uttered a sound that was more like a hiss of pain than pleasure at her touch, but he made no attempt to interfere with her exploration. A heady excitement filled her as she shifted closer to appease her fascination with his body, exploring him with her hands and lips, stroking the thick, silken shaft of his manhood and finally taking it into her mouth. Heat spiraled through her as she tasted him on her tongue. Excited, she began to suck at the head, teasing the slit with her tongue and the sensitive ridge between his cock head and shaft.

 He grabbed her hips, dragging her closer so that he could burrow his face against her cleft. A jolt of molten desire ran through her as he opened his mouth over her clit and began to tease it as she teased his cock. She caressed him more and more frantically as he built the fever of her own need, alternately stroking and sucking at his flesh until her climax hit her. Groaning around his cock as the waves swept over her, she pulled at him more desperately. He tensed abruptly, his hips jerking upward of their own accord as his body began to convulse with his own release. She swallowed as his semen hit the back of her throat, cupping his balls and kneading them gently until she'd drained him of his seed.

 Triumphant, weak with her own release, she sprawled limply when he rolled her off of him, turned on the bed and fell over her, fastening his mouth to hers with a feverish craving that defied his recent release. Sated as she was, she found herself responding, felt the heat rise again.

 He worked his way downward from her mouth to her breasts, biting and sucking and licking at her as if he meant to consume her. Her back came off the bed in an arch as he closed his mouth on one excruciatingly sensitive nipple and tugged at it greedily. Her sex quaked, filling with heated moisture. Dizziness assailed her as she gasped desperately for breath.

 It felt so good she wasn't certain she could stand it, began to wonder if she would pass out as the dizziness was joined by encroaching darkness.

 He released her nipple abruptly and moved to its twin, allowing her a moment to suck in a sustaining breath and fight off the encroach of darkness. She began to sob for him to take her and end her delicious torment. She needed him inside of her, needed him.

 He shifted to align their bodies and enter her, driving against her reluctantly yielding flesh until he'd wedged himself so deeply inside of her she gasped for breath. Gathering her tightly, almost crushingly, in his arms, he began to pump into her with wild abandon, driving deeply each time he entered her as if he wanted to climb inside of her, pulling away, and then swiftly returning.

 Her body tensed at the splendid friction as he sawed along her channel and then she exploded in a rapturous release that dragged sharp cries from her. He shuddered. His cock jerked inside of her as her muscles clenched around him, milking him, and then he sucked in a harsh breath and continued to pound into her until the climax peaked, dropped, and then began to climb again.

 She dug her nails into him as she felt herself racing toward a second climax. The force of it knocked the breath out of her briefly. She dragged in a desperate breath and cried out as the next quake rolled through her, and then more keenly with the next until she couldn't catch her breath at all and felt herself falling toward the darkness.

 Sarik shuddered, spilling his seed as he felt her growing limp within his embrace, and then, grinding his teeth, forced himself to stop.

 Relief filled him when he heard her harsh pants of breath. With great reluctance, he withdrew, shifting to settle beside her on the bed. Her hand tightened on him as he pulled her with him, fitting her body snugly against his own and he pulled away enough to look down at her face. As if she sensed it, she smiled faintly and her eyelids fluttered open. “See, I didn't break,” she whispered almost drunkenly.

 He dragged in a shaky breath, commanding the fever to leave him, almost surprised when it did, more relieved. The temptation assailed him to stay as he was, to hold her while she slept, but he knew his hard won control wouldn't last. If he stayed, he would not be able to resist rousing her again and he couldn't be certain he would be able to stop himself.

 He pulled away to study her sleeping face. After a long moment, he leaned close, settled his palm along one cheek and breathed his essence into her until he felt her life force burn a little brighter.

 It wasn't until he'd returned to his liar that he cooled enough to recall the debilitating wave of sickness what had slammed into him when he'd approached her on the couch.

 She'd had the book. There was nothing else that effected him that way and there could be no other answer. The question was, had she been reading it? Or had she read enough before to realize it acted as a shield against him?

 The latter seemed unlikely given the way she'd behaved. She couldn't know. It had been inadvertent.

 It occurred to him that it was protection for her that he hadn't considered before ... because it had never been used against him only as a shield. It would serve her, though, if he could somehow convince her to keep it close.
 * * * *

It took Claire almost a week to struggle through the book. Even once she'd grown accustomed enough to the handwriting to read it with more ease, the rambling sentences, and the flowery, almost poetic way the author had written the book was confusing. She had to read most sentences at least twice and sometimes still wasn't completely certain she'd grasped what the author was trying to tell.

 She avoided the incantations altogether. She didn't actually believe in them, but it gave her unpleasant vibes even to glance at them as she scanned down over them to reach the next block of text.

 She wasn't certain, if she hadn't had so much unaccustomed time on her hands, that she would even have considered tackling the thing.

 But even though it was boredom that had driven her to try it, by the time she'd finished she wasn't nearly as skeptical as she had been when she'd begun.

 There was a list of names on the very last page. The handwriting varied, making it obvious that each owner had signed in his own hand, and the book had been passed down through at least a dozen owners.

 The last signature in the book belonged to her aunt's late husband, Thomas O'Brien.

 The discovery stunned her to say the very least. Quite aside from the fact that the book seemed to have been in the O'Brien family for several hundred years and now belonged to her aunt, she couldn't think of any reasonable explanation for the appearance of the book in her library.

 Before she'd gotten sick she hadn't seen her aunt in almost a year. She couldn't picture her aunt sneaking down and slipping the book onto her cart for her to find and she certainly couldn't think of any reason for her to sneak at all. Why not just give it to her if she wanted her to have it? That was more in character with Elizabeth O'Brien than sneakiness of any kind.

 That seemed a strong indication, beyond the fact that her aunt hadn't even mentioned it, that her aunt had had nothing to do with the appearance of the book.

 Why would anyone want her to have it, for that matter? What purpose could it serve for her to have it?

 She couldn't think of one and finally set the puzzle aside in favor of another mystery that had been teasing her—Sarik.

 Was it significant that he'd appeared in her life at the same exact time as the book?

 Setting aside the unlikelihood of such a coincidence, what motive would Sarik have had to make sure she found the book? And how could he have gotten it?

 Her aunt didn't know him. She was sure of that. Elizabeth O'Brien had her fair share of faults, but she was as straight as an arrow. She didn't beat around the bush when being blunt served her better. She didn't think her aunt could have carried off such an act even if she'd been able to think of a reason for her to.

 She didn't believe Sarik had had anything to do with the book's appearance, but if he had, why?

 She didn't know what he did for a living, but he didn't seem to have much need to do anything. He appeared to be very well to do financially. She had supposed he must work from home as more and more people were doing these days. But what if he didn't? What if he was ... a thief? What if he'd stolen the book from her aunt and decided to get it back to her by leaving it where her niece could find it?

 That was just too absurd! If he was a thief, he would've sold the book, not returned it. And if he'd had some Robin Hood moment and decided to give it back, it wouldn't make more sense for him to leave it where her aunt could find it, or mail it to her?

 Feeling no closer to the answer than she had when she'd begun, she cleared her mind of those questions and settled to studying the book itself. The book was central to the mystery—whatever the mystery was.

 It was a book of demonology and spells. It hadn't been written by someone who'd merely wanted to jot down an entertaining story. Whoever had originally written it, and there was no indication of who that someone was, had been deadly serious about it if any of the spells were anything to go by.

 And the O'Brien family had obviously guarded and cared for the book assiduously or it wouldn't have survived several hundred years.

 They could've kept it because of its value, except she doubted it was valuable beyond its antiquity. Now , it must be valuable. When the first O'Brien had gotten it, by whatever means, it could only have been valued for its contents. It made sense, even though she found it creepy to think her uncle's ancestors had believed in such things, let alone tried to conjure demons.

 Why would anyone want to bring forth something that evil?

 To do evil.

 The answer popped into her mind without hesitation and it was one answer she'd come up with that left her no room for doubt.

 Was that how the O'Brien family had grown so wealthy and maintained it generation after generation?

 Bless the Beasts, for, with this book, they are yours to command, and the demons of the underworld will bring you untold riches and power.

 A shiver trickled along her backbone as she recalled the passage.

 Feeling a little desperate to dismiss it, she cast her mind back, trying to remember her uncle Thomas, but she'd been young when he'd been killed—not long after her own parents had died in that horrible car accident. She couldn't remember much about him except that he'd been kind to her. He'd seemed like a good man. He'd arranged for her to go off to boarding school, which had made her very unhappy to begin with, but where she'd finally made some friends and found a little happiness.

 She certainly couldn't picture him chanting black magic to conjure a demon.

 She didn't believe in demons or any of the mythological beings that had been worshipped or feared through the ages by people too ignorant to know better, people who felt a need to explain the unexplainable by simply putting it down to magic.

 Sarik had told her it didn't matter if she didn't believe.

 She shivered at that memory. She'd had the sense, then, that he was warning her that disbelief was no protection. He'd also said that the image she'd thought she'd seen was a warning. There'd been almost a mocking quality to his voice that had made her think he was joking. What if he hadn't actually been joking, though? What if he'd merely been amusing himself at her expense?

 She hadn't told him that she'd seen the demonic image instead of his for just a split second. She'd only mentioned the glimpse of wings and horns.

 A coldness swept over her, but she didn't believe Sarik was some evil demon. He was not a bad man. He was temperamental, often to an unnerving degree, but as often as he lost his temper or struggled with it, he'd never once hurt her or even offered to hurt her. He was hard, curt to the point of rudeness quite often, but he'd saved her cats! He'd taken care of her—ordering her around—but still with her best interests at heart.

 He made love to her as if she was the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world and he couldn't get enough of her.

 Even if she could believe in demons, she couldn't accept the possibility that Sarik was some vile thing from the ‘underworld’ so often mentioned in the book—a place roughly the equivalent of hell from what she could tell.

 There were some things that bothered about Sarik, though, she admitted reluctantly. Her cats had never behaved toward any person the way they acted around him—dogs, yes, but not around anybody.

 She never heard him enter or leave a room. He just seemed to appear and disappear.

 He wasn't just reluctant to tell her about himself, he refused to tell her anything at all about the life he'd had before he'd come to Folkston, or even to tell her anything about what he did now when he wasn't with her.

 He wouldn't come near her whenever she had the book. He looked downright ill if he tried to come close, and it wasn't as if he could possibly know she had it. She always tucked it way before he came in.

 Because she'd felt uncomfortable with him knowing she was reading it after he'd prodded her to do so so many times.

 There was a passage in the book that explained the phenomena. The book was protected. The book wasn't just used to summon and control the demons, the book itself was bespelled to prevent the demons from seizing it and destroying it.

 She'd seen that image in the glass, she thought a little sickly. It hadn't just been a trick of light and shadow as she'd tried to convince herself it was.

 If she accepted what it seemed her experiences were indicating, why had Sarik come?

 Because he'd been summoned by someone to kill her.

 Pain, not fear, twisted inside of her. Images flickered behind her closed lids of all the things they'd done together, of all the times he'd been with her. How could he do all those things for her, give her such passion, if his only reason for being with her was to take her life?

 She couldn't believe it—wouldn't. He wasn't a monster, some horrible evil mythological being that had been summoned by magic to destroy her. It was too fantastic to believe even if she hadn't felt that she knew him.

 He'd had so many chances to kill her if that was his reason for coming, and yet she was still alive. He hadn't ever done anything to cause her harm.

 But she had been harmed, she realized, feeling nauseated. She'd been in a coma. She'd spent nearly a weak recovering from some unidentifiable aliment that had defied all efforts to pin it down.

 The first morning after she'd met him, she'd awakened feeling as if she'd been tortured—looking as if she had been—and with no memory of anything past that one point in time when Sarik had followed her into her kitchen for a cup of sugar.

 She didn't understand that. He'd taken her memory? Did he have that sort of power?

 She realized she still thought of him as a man and, if she was right, he wasn't. He could have any sort of power if he was what she'd begun to suspect he was, including the power to take her memory.

 Why do that, though? What would be the purpose of it?

 Pushing the book beneath the couch, she curled on her side facing the back of the couch, trying to reason away the thoughts she couldn't bear to accept. In her heart, she knew she had accepted, though, she just didn't want to face the possibility that she'd fallen in love with Sarik when he wasn't even a man—but a demon sent to destroy her.

 She felt his presence before he spoke.

 "What's wrong?"

 A shiver of fear ran through her. When she turned and looked at him, saw his expression, she knew at once that none of the thoughts that had run through her mind were the product of a mind weakened by illness. Her heart felt as if it would break in two. Sniffing, she brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Nothing,” she managed to say around the knot of misery that clogged her throat. “I just.... “She bit her lip, trying to still the wobble in her chin. “I'm feeling low because I've been sick, I guess."

 He knew she was lying. She could see it in his eyes. She wanted to rage at him and at the same time rush to him and beg him to tell her she was wrong.

 He wouldn't, though, and even if he would tell her the lies she wanted to hear, she would know them for lies.

 "Sit with me."

 His gaze flickered over her face. He clenched his jaw. “You know I can not."

 It was the answer she hadn't wanted. Pain speared through her. She didn't know why he'd toyed with her emotions! Why hadn't he just killed her outright if that was what he'd been summoned to do?

 She got up from the couch. She had no clear idea why, but she went to him, even knowing she would've been safe if she'd only stayed where she was. Slipping her arms around his waist, she pressed her cheek against his chest. He stiffened at her embrace but, after a moment, he settled his arms around her, lightly at first, and then so tightly she could scarcely breathe. Twisting his hand in her hair, he dragged her head back and lowered his mouth to her throat.

 Fright fluttered in her heart, but as she felt the passion of his touch, the desire that rose in him, she closed her mind to anything else. Lifting her, he carried her into her room and fell into the bed with her, saluting every patch of skin he unveiled with the caress of his lips as he stripped her. She clung to him, gave him fevered kiss for desperate kiss.

 She loved him. She didn't think she could live and bear it if what she believed was true. She didn't think she wanted to.

 He drugged her with his touch, his kisses. Over and over again, he carried her to the heights of passion and then began again, as if he was as hungry each time as the first. She lost count of the number of times he took her to the summit and finally lost touch with reality. “Am I dying?” she whispered weakly, falling over the edge into darkness before he could respond.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Seventeen

Sarik was gone when Claire awoke, surprised to discover she was still alive, almost disappointed.

 Anger surged through her on the thought, but not at the tool, not at Sarik, at the person behind him. Sarik hadn't arbitrarily chosen her to destroy her. He'd been summoned and set upon her. How he felt about it was something she wanted to know, but she knew from what she'd read it didn't matter how reluctant he might be. He couldn't break the spell. He was compelled to do what he had been summoned to do.

 Hewasn't in control. Someone else was.

 The question was, who wanted her dead?

 It wasn't hard to figure out why they'd summoned a demon to do their dirty work. They didn't want to get caught and what better way than to have someone else do it? Summoning Sarik was far better than hiring someone. That always carried a risk even though it allowed the person to kill at a distance that gave them an alibi. Money changed hands and money could be traced.

 No one would ever believe a demon had been summoned to do the job.

 The method seemed clear to her as she forced herself out of the bed and went about her morning ritual. She was exhausted with the effort by the time she was done and couldn't manage much more than to wobble to the couch and collapse again.

 Sarik was draining her of life by inches.

 Was that because his master wanted to draw it out for some sick reason of his own? Or because it would look less suspicious if she seemed to die from an unexplained illness?

 Either motive was possible and neither answered her question. Who?

 Mrs. Ledbetter was the only person that came readily to mind who disliked her, but in the first place, she was dead and it seemed unlikely she could control Sarik from beyond the grave. In the second, dislike didn't seem a strong enough motive and she couldn't believe Mrs. Ledbetter had actually hated her enough to want her dead.

 Brenda also didn't like her because she'd wanted Sarik for herself and was jealous of the time he spent with her.

 But was she possessive enough to want to kill to have what she wanted?

 Maybe, but since it dawned on her that she'd gotten along fine with Brenda before Sarik had appeared, that was obviously a total wash out.

 She'd never made friends easily, but she wasn't prone to collecting enemies either. She couldn't think of anyone in Folkston who might hate her enough to want her dead.

 Truthfully, she didn't think she inspired enough passion in anyone for them to hate her.

 So, if it wasn't someone who hated her, then she was in someone's way.

 She felt like an idiot when it finally occurred to her that she stood to inherit quite a bit of money from her aunt's estate, but then she'd never counted on the money, never expected it, besides the fact that she loved her aunt and she couldn't look forward to something she would only have when her aunt was dead.

 Her family hadn't been particularly fortunate. Her aunt had never had children or she wouldn't even have been a consideration. Her parents were dead, had been killed along with her younger sister in an automobile accident before she was even twelve. Andrew's parents and his two brothers had perished at sea. The only reason poor Andrew hadn't died with them was because he'd been away at college at the time.

 So, beyond the charities her aunt would probably leave a good portion of her money to, there was only two potential heirs—her and her cousin Andrew.

 She'd never particularly liked Andrew, but she couldn't see him as a killer. He'd always seemed fond of her, when they were younger—a little too fond for her comfort, actually. In any case, it wasn't as if she was going to cut him out. If her aunt didn't just decide to leave everything to charity, she would most likely divide her estate between the only two blood relatives she still had.

 Her uncle hadn't been an only child, though, she remembered abruptly. It seemed to her that he'd had two nieces and a nephew by his brother.

 She decided she had to widen the potential heirs, and thus the potential killers, to include her uncle's relatives, possibly even their spouses.

 She rubbed her temples as she felt the onset of a headache. Her aunt's fortune had always been the bane of her existence. It seemed that now it was going to be the death of her.

 It was so unfair! She didn't have it herself. She had never wanted it, and yet it had ruined any chance she'd ever had for a decent relationship and now someone wanted her dead only because she might get a little of it!

 And it had ruined what she'd hoped to have with Sarik.

 That was the worst of all.

 She would never have met Sarik if not for the plot, though.

 She would never have fallen in love with a demon.

 Therewas a relationship doomed to failure even if she somehow survived!

 Feeling mildly hysterical, she thrust her thoughts aside and went into the kitchen to find something to eat. She supposed it was a waste of time to try to keep up her strength, or build it up, under the circumstances, but she was hungry.

 Reminded of the many times Sarik had bullied her into eating or dragged her off to feed her ‘to keep up her strength', she paused in the act of making herself a bowl of cold cereal. Why would he do that, she wondered, if his prime directive was to see to it that she wasted away?

 To keep her from sinking too fast so it could be prolonged?

 Or because, in spite of everything, he really had tried to take care of her because he felt ... something?

 Angry with herself, she dismissed it. Even before she'd come to believe Sarik wasn't human, she'd realized he didn't feel things the way normal people did. He had no conscience. How could he feel anything else? Love was in direct conflict with that lack. He had to be able to feel empathy to feel love.

 The headache eased when she'd eaten but didn't disappear. Reflecting that she at least didn't have to worry about being poisoned, she went into the bathroom and popped a couple painkillers. After staring at her bed longingly for several moments, she finally went back into the living room and curled up on the couch for a nap, too apathetic even to want to try to solve the riddle of who wanted Claire dead.

 The rest cleared her head. When Claire woke, she realized that she had a means of protecting herself, whether she could find out who wanted her dead or not—the book. Sarik couldn't come near her as long as she was near the book.

 She'd been too upset the night before to consider it. She'd wanted reassurance from Sarik that he cared about her even after she'd realized the very fact that he didn't approach her was evidence that she was right about him.

 Realistically, she couldn't imagine toting the book around with her forever. She had to find out who was behind the plot and stop it or her life would be in danger forever more.

 It gave her time, though, time she might not have without it.

 Had whoever had arranged for her to find it done it to protect her, she wondered abruptly?

 Or was there some other reason?

 She discovered she wanted to believe it had been Sarik. Unfortunately, as quickly as the hope blossomed, it died. He couldn't touch the book. He couldn't even come very close to it. There was no way he could've brought the book to her. Beyond that, he'd had no reason at all to care about what happened to her before he'd met her. She didn't think he cared even now, didn't think he was capable of it.

 Her aunt, maybe?

 She was the only person that came to mind who might care enough to do so, but then there would've been no reason to sneak the book into her hands.

 Unless she was afraid.

 It was an angle she hadn't considered, that her aunt might be aware of what was going on and had arranged for Claire to find the book to protect herself because she couldn't do it directly without tipping off the killer.

 Maybe. It seemed somewhat plausible, particularly since her aunt's life might also be in danger. She was safe enough as long as Claire was alive and might be a potential heir, but once she was dead, would whoever it was be content for her aunt to live out her life? Or would they decide to help her along?

 That distressed her more even than the thought of her own death, she supposed because it just didn't seem real to her. Even now, even with all the things she'd put together in her mind, somewhere in her subconscious, doubts still plagued her. Had she taken all sorts of random incidents and put them together when they didn't even go together? Created a pattern based on nothing more than paranoia?

 She couldn't dismiss it completely. She had to have answers, and since the only thing available to her was the book, she dragged it out and began to go over it again. She looked up when the room began to grow dark and reached for the lamp beside the couch.

 Sarik was standing in the doorway when the light came on.

 She jumped, sucking in a sharp gasp at the sight of him.

 His face hardened, his gaze moving to the book she held in her hands. Folding his arms over his chest, he leaned against the doorframe. “I wondered if you might feel up to going out to eat tonight?"

 She tilted her head at him, struggling to ignore the frantic fluttering of her heart which she knew was more from gladness and excitement at seeing him than the fear it should have been. “Did you have reason to think I might?” she asked finally.

 Something flickered in his eyes. She saw the question had thrown him despite the fact that she was holding the book of spells. Closing it, she left it balanced on her lap instead of putting it away. “I'd hoped you might,” he said finally.

 Anger flickered to life. “Do you feel hope, Sarik?"

 The anger that abruptly blazed in his eyes put hers to shame. Pushing away from the door he paced across the room. “If you have something to say, something to ask, ask,” he growled.

 Claire felt her throat close. She needed to know. She didn't want to. “What kind of demon are you?"

 He slid a sharp glance at her and bared his teeth in that predatory grin of his that had always unnerved her. “Can't you guess?"

 She didn't say anything. She couldn't find her voice.

 "Shall I show you?"

 She scanned his face, looking for any sign of emotion beyond the rage that glowed in his eyes. “Why would you want to?” she asked finally.

 His lips tightened, but he only shrugged. “How would I know want if I can't feel hope?"

 "What can you feel?” she asked quietly.

 "Rage!” he snarled, pacing back toward the door.

 She thought he might leave, but he didn't. Instead, he turned at the door and paced in front of her again and she realized abruptly that he was moving closer each time, that he was testing the limits of the spell. Maybe he even thought he could frighten her into throwing it down to run? “What kind of demon are you?” she asked again.

 He slid her a mocking look. “Do you think you can banish me with the answer to that question?"

 The question threw Claire completely off guard, brought such terrible pain that she couldn't breathe for several moments.

 Banishment. It was only way to rid oneself of a demon, to use the spell that banished them back to their own plain of existence.

 She didn't want him on another plain! She wanted him with her! She looked down at the book. “I didn't think I could use it against you. I just wanted to know how you mean to kill me."

 If she hadn't known he couldn't feel anything, she would've thought the look he sent her then was filled with anguish, but then it vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. He looked away. “I'm an incubus,” he growled. “I feed on your passion. I assume this form to arouse your desires and then I take what I hunger for."

 "Oh,” Claire said in a suffocated voice. “Then you don't actually desire me, you only feel an insatiable hunger, and any female will do. That's what I thought."

 He flew into a rage then. One moment he was the Sarik she knew and the next a beast, almost more frightening because she could still see the remnants of the man in his harsh features and glowing eyes. Horns sprouted from his head, dark wings like bat wings from his shoulder blades. His teeth grew sharp, like the teeth of a predator. His skin burst and peeled, leaving bloody red muscle and sinew visible, and yet in size and shape he changed little. He was no taller, no more formidably massive. His face, denuded of skin, was still composed of the same sharp features—gruesomely corrupted.

 Pity was stronger inside her than horror, though she felt that, too, in the same way she would've felt to see a loved one battered almost beyond recognition in some accident or attack. She wondered if it hurt as much as it looked like it must. It was no wonder, she reflected, that he was nothing but a beast, so filled with rage, when his entire existence had been one of pain and torture for so long that she doubted he could remember his humanity.

 What mistake or decision had he made to bring him to this, she wondered? What could he possibly have done to justify such unrelenting misery?

 Uttering a howl of rage at her expression, he sent everything in her living room flying from one wall to another to smash into fragments—everything except the couch where she sat as if trapped in the eye of a hurricane. Terror filled her until she realized that and then a strange sort of calm came over her.

 By the time he'd spent his rage, her living room had been demolished.

 "Put it back!” she said when he'd finally stopped, his chest still heaving with the remnants of his fury.

 He slid her a narrow eyed glare. “ Youdon't command me!” he snarled.

 She gave him a steady look. “Put it back, please."

 His expression turned sullen. After glaring at her for several moments, however, he waved his hands and the room was just as it had been before.

 Claire relaxed fractionally. “Who is your master?"

 "I can not tell you."

 "Can't? Or won't?"

 "I can not!” he bellowed.

 She frowned at him for yelling at her, releasing a huff of irritation. “I knew it couldn't be that easy. Can you at least tell me how long I have?"

 His gaze flickered over her and that time she was more certain she saw misery in his eyes. “What good would it do you to know even if I could tell you?"

 "I need to know how long I have before he comes to check his handiwork."

 His gaze slid away. “Not long. I can tell you no more. A handful of days.” He seemed to dismiss that after a moment, his expression one of baffled fury as he studied her. “You're not afraid of me."

 "No, because you can't touch the book and I'm holding it in my lap."

 He looked disconcerted. “This form...?"

 "...Is no more repugnant to me than your other form, though it hurts me to see you like this."

 He looked indignant. “This is my true form."

 "No, it isn't."

 "It is, woman!” he roared.

 "It isn't. Your true form is the man you were before you were condemned to the underworld, the one you've always shown me."

 He looked startled and then suspicious. “You used a spell...."

 She shook her head. “This is a vile book, written by an evil man, to do horrible things for nothing more than greed. I'd feel tainted by it's evil to consider using one of the spells. I know because I can look at you and still see the man you showed me.” The man she'd fallen in love with. She might be blinded by that, probably was, but she believed there was more of the man he'd once been inside of him than just the corrupted physical appearance.

 Her flat denial of any intention of using the book disturbed him. She could see that in the anger that blossomed forth anew and the way he paced the room as if he was struggling to think of some way to change her mind. She could be wrong about that, too, but she still suspected he'd somehow had a hand in getting the book to her and, if she was right, he'd had a reason. It was certainly debatable whether he cared for her, even a little, even now, but since he couldn't possibly have cared, then, whether she lived or died, that reason had to lie in the spells.

 "What do you mean to do?” he asked finally.

 "What do you mean to do?” she asked him.

 He shook his head angrily. “You've guessed why I was summoned. I can not break the spell that binds me."

 "Have you ever tried?"

 "Many times ... in the beginning."

 "Then I suppose that answers my question."

 "But not mine,” he growled furiously.

 Claire felt a touch of amusement for the first time. “No, I don't guess it does."

 He stared at her in fuming silence for several moments and then, as suddenly as he'd appeared, he vanished.

 Releasing a shaky breath, Claire gathered the book against her chest and leaned back against the couch weakly.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Eighteen

Days. Sarik had said she had only a matter of days.

 Hehad only a matter of days. He hadn't said that, hadn't had to point out to her what his failure would mean to him. His master would punish him for failing—assuming he did.

 She certainly meant for him to fail, but she didn't mean for Sarik to suffer for it. She just didn't know how she was going to prevent it.

 Maybe she was a fool—she supposed she was, but she'd forgiven others that she loved for things they'd done to her that were nearly as bad and they didn't have the excuse that he did. They'd chosen to do her harm or just made the decision to put themselves first regardless of what it might do to her. Sarik hadn't chosen to harm her and, right or wrong, she was convinced he'd done what little he could to protect her from himself and the evil his master had planned.

 If he'd tried to convince her she would've known it hadn't been for her benefit but rather somehow for his own, and she wouldn't have been able to forgive him. He hadn't made excuses, though. She appreciated that, could admire the fact that he'd taken responsibility like a man, regardless of the circumstances.

 And she knew, in part at least, that his motives hadn't been entirely for her protection but for plans of his own. She could accept that as long as some of it had been purely for her.

 She was fairly certain she knew why he'd wanted her to have the book—if it was him that had arranged it. She just needed to know that she was right about her supposition that it was him that had arranged it.

 It took a great deal of thought before she arrived at a possibility that might assure her of that and, at the same time, might bring the real culprit to light. It was risky, but then she was living on borrowed time. Whatever she did was risky. Trying to expose a murderer couldn't be more dangerous than allowing him to stalk her in the dark.

 She decided she felt well enough the following day to take a short excursion to the library to do a little research. She didn't bother to go to a great deal of trouble with her appearance. Any expenditure of energy was exhausting and she didn't want to have to rest before she could go on. Besides, she was out of work on sick leave. If she looked too hearty everyone would just decide she was sandbagging.

 She needn't have worried about that aspect she decided wryly when she arrived at the library. Shock rippled across every face she met. Ignoring the sincere concern along with the false, she went directly to one of the computers and searched the web for information on her list of suspects. She hadn't really expected to find out much but by the time she'd finished she had a fairly clear idea of who her would be murderer was.

 She didn't have to prove it. She didn't think she actually could, but she was certain once he was exposed and forced to realize he couldn't get away with it, she didn't have worry about him anymore, and she thought she'd be satisfied with that. She supposed she'd have to be. Going to the police to describe a plot about someone wanting to murder her for money she didn't have using a spell book to conjure a demon to do the dirty work was only going to land her in the loony bin.

 The trip exhausted her and depressed her despite her findings, or maybe because of what she'd discovered. She gave in to the need for a nap and woke to find Sarik studying her without any real surprise. His time was short. He must be getting desperate.

 The hunger in his gaze wasn't feigned, but then, given what he was, that wasn't a surprise either.

 "Have you eaten?” he asked gruffly.

 Claire couldn't help but smile. “I'm not going to waste away if you persist in stuffing me with food all the time."

 He uttered a sound of impatience and paced across the room to stare out a window, but it was obvious he was too restless to be still for long. Within moments he was pacing back and forth across her living room like a caged beast. “You should eat...."

 "To keep up my strength. I know. I'm not going to let you drain me anymore, though."

 He stopped abruptly and whirled to look at her, wrestling, she saw, with a mixture of fury and disappointment. “I wouldn't."

 "Yes, you would. You're an incubus."

 He swallowed convulsively. “I could give you pleasure,” he said hoarsely.

 "You always did.” She sighed. “I never thought I'd like it rough, but you are so very, very good at what you do."

 Desire and uncertainty flickered back and forth across his expression, as if he suspected sarcasm. “I was gentle the last two times. I would be this time if you'd let me."

 She stared at him pityingly. He'd been gentler than before, not gentle, but she could see he didn't realize that, because, as he'd told her, he didn't know how and even if he had he couldn't really control the beast side of himself. “I want to trust you. I would if you weren't bespelled—even knowing what you are—but you are still under your master's spell."

 His eyes narrowed with cunning and speculation. “I am, but he did not forbid me to give you my own strength. He only compelled me to take yours. I could do that. I would do that!"

 She studied him curiously. “Is that what you've been doing?"

 He looked away, began pacing furiously again. “Not at first,” he admitted finally. “But you were fading too fast. I saw I was going to lose you and I had to something or I would not have the time promised to me."

 "If you got rid of me too quickly, you'd be banished before you were ready to return?"

 "I will never be ready!” he snarled, then looked briefly stricken. “I was not ready to give you up."

 Claire held up a hand. “Spare me! You should've said that first if you wanted me to believe it."

 "Fuck!” he bellowed. “Gods damn it, Claire! It's the truth!"

 "Bellowing at me isn't going to convince me!” she retorted.

 He halted his pacing and stared at her speculatively, then walked directly toward her, stopping only when he could come no closer. “What would?"

 She considered the question. “Nothing at this point, I don't suppose."

 He balled his hands into fists, a look of wild desperation entering his eyes. “There must be something!” he roared. “Give me, Claire! I need. I hunger. I burn. I can not stand it! It has been two days!"

 She gave him a look. “Then go get what you need somewhere else!"

 "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he bellowed. “It does no good, gods damn it! Do you think I have not tried that? It doesn't appease the hunger for more than a few moments! And then it is worse than before!"

 "You fucked another woman?” Claire demanded indignantly.

 "I could not think of any other way to control it, gods damn it!” he snarled furiously before a look cunning came to his eyes. “I will not do it again! I swear. Give yourself to me. That's all I want."

 "Right! That's why you were off fucking other women."

 "I am an incubus, gods damn it!"

 "Good excuse!” Claire sniffed indignantly.

 He raked his fingers through his long black hair, tugging at the tangles he'd created as if he was considering pulling it out. His golden eyes glowed, flickered with tumultuous thoughts. “I will give you a child,” he said finally.

 A jolt went through Claire. “What makes you think that would appeal to me?"

 "You want one. I know you do."

 She'd suspected she'd given too much away, she thought in disgust, recalling the conversation. “You said you couldn't."

 He blinked, caught in his own lie. “There is a way. I can not give you a child of mine, but I can gather the seed on another and give it to you."

 "I could do that myself!” Claire snapped indignantly.

 "But you will not, gods damn it! You are my woman!"

 She rather liked that although she wasn't about to let him know it. “I don't see the difference. You said you'd give me another man's seed."

 "But you would not fuck him to get it, gods damn it! Only me!"

 "But it wouldn't be your seed!” she pointed out angrily. “Why would I want some other man's child?"

 Disconcerted, he stared at her for a long moment. “I can not give you mine,” he said finally.

 "Then I don't want it!” she snapped.

 He tilted his head curiously. “You would want it if it was mine?"

 "Of course.... “She broke off, irritated that he'd gotten her so distracted she'd admitted it. “...not,” she finished belatedly. “I'm just saying I don't see the point, especially when I won't be around long enough to carry it or enjoy it if your master has anything to do with it."

 That diverted him, but she didn't hold out any hope that he'd forgotten her little slip, or that she'd managed to convince him that she hadn't meant it the way it had come out.

 He dropped to his knees. “A taste, Claire? I will go insane. I can not stand it anymore. Only a little to soothe the pain, please?"

 There was far more demand in his voice than supplication, but she could see the desperation in his eyes even if she couldn't hear it in his voice. She didn't particularly want him appeasing his need on anybody else, if it came to that, but she knew she couldn't trust him. “I can't trust you to stop. I know that and you know that."

 "I will give back a full measure of what I take. I swear it!"

 "I can't trust that either,” she said sadly.

 His gaze flickered over her speculatively. “You will not need to. You have the book for protection. You can use it to thrust me away."

 She was the one that was insane! “How?"

 "You need only keep it within reach. You have only to touch it and it will repel me."

 It would be almost as good as binding him—if he wasn't lying. She was pretty certain he wasn't, but sure enough to trust her life to it?

 She knew she'd already made her decision, though. She wanted him, too. She also didn't want to send him off to another woman for what he needed. He backed off as she sat up and retrieved the book, watching her with a mixture of hunger and doubt as she gathered it against her chest and got up, heading toward her room.

 He followed her hopefully, standing in the doorway to watch her while she removed her panties, which was all she could manage one handed, and she wasn't letting go of the book. After staring at the bed speculatively for several moments, she finally merely leaned over the edge of it, placing the book on the bed within easy reach as she settled her upper torso against the bed.

 She didn't have to invite him twice. She felt his hand slide along her leg even as she looked around to find him and discovered he'd knelt behind her. His hands shook with eagerness as he grasped her thighs and pushed her legs wider. She shifted obligingly, feeling heart begin to hammer with excitement and anticipation ... and a healthy dose of fear. He bit into one buttock, hard enough to sting, and then sucked the sting away before he moved to the other. Her skin stippled all over. Her nipples hardened with want, begging for attention they weren't going to get since the spell shielded her upper body.

 Her disappointment was brief. He went right for the goal since he wasn't allowed anything else, stroking her cleft with his tongue. She moved her legs wider apart. The position still limited his access to her, had to be awkward and uncomfortable, but she was ready to see what he could do with what he was allowed.

 A lot. He managed to fasten his mouth tightly over her clit, sucking at it so greedily that he brought her off within moments since she hadn't made any attempt to hold her response in check or delay the rise to completion. She shuddered with delight as the waves of pleasure moved through her, the spasms heightened by his insistent feeding until she was gasping hoarsely. He shifted to tongue fucking her when he couldn't sustain her orgasm any longer, lapping at her until she felt another climax building and then pushing her with his feverish caresses until she came.

 Her knees buckled with weakness in the aftermath, but he didn't seem to mind that she'd landed on his face. He gripped her legs to support her, nibbling at her, if possible, more feverishly. She panted, struggling to drag in enough air to keep the darkness at bay. She'd had enough, she thought sluggishly, and yet she could sense his appetite was barely piqued. He needed more, demanded it.

 She sought the strength to endure more, to give him more. Her body responded to him. “I want to feel your cock in me when I come again, Sarik,” she gasped.

 She thought he would ignore the plea, but he stopped after a moment and stood up, pressing the head of his cock into her opening. Catching her hips when she slipped forward, he held her tightly so that he could drive inside of her. The desperate, pounding pace he set once he'd managed to embed himself fully inside of her nearly buckled her spine but it also drove her toward another climax. He came the moment the walls of her sex began to clench around his cock, kneading his flesh, uttering a guttural growl of satisfaction that rippled through her and carried her higher.

 He slowed to savor the rapturous convulsions rocking him and then began to move more swiftly again, bringing them both to another, harder, climax only a few minutes later.

 "Enough,” Claire gasped weakly, inching her fingers toward the book.

 He stopped before she had grasped it, shuddering, gasping hoarsely. “I want more."

 She shook her head tiredly. “I can't."

 She could feel the reluctance in him to leave her in the slowness with which he withdrew, but he did pull out, stepping away from her.

 It took all she could do to climb up on the bed and collapse, curling the book to her chest. He paced around the bed, staring at her hungrily, struggling with the hunger that made his eyes blaze. Slowly the beast receded. “I can't touch you."

 "I know."

 "I can't give to you if I can't touch you."

 "It's alright. I didn't expect you to."

 He stilled, swallowing audibly. “You gave to me when you didn't think I would give back to you?” he demanded, both confusion and anger in his voice. “Why would you do that, Claire?"

 She uttered a gusty sigh as her breathing returned to normal. “Because I wanted to,” she tiredly.

 That silenced him for several moments. He paced around her restlessly. “Let me in, Claire!” he growled finally, frustration and anger in his voice.

 She shook her head. “I need to rest."

 "I took too much, gods damn it! Let me give you what you need."

 "I don't trust you enough,” she said sadly.

 "You don't trust me at all!” he bellowed.

 "No,” she agreed, “but you can't help what you are."

 He raged at her, but she was too tired to waste her strength on conversation, too weary to feel any fear about his raging. Finally, he stopped pacing and lifted his hands. She didn't realize he was searching the limits of the shielding until she saw his face contort with pain. He held his stance regardless, pushing at it.

 And then she felt a tingling of warmth, as reviving as a breath of fresh air after being deprived of it until one felt the lack.

 He stumbled back, swayed weakly a moment, and then vanished.

 She smiled faintly as she drifted off.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Nineteen

"Aunt Elizabeth!” Claire greeted her aunt at the door with pleased surprise. “I didn't expect you to come back for a visit so soon!"

 Her aunt gave her an irritated look. “I don't how to take that,” she said waspishly. “You didn't think I'd come back to check on your progress?"

 Smiling, Claire leaned forward to kiss the woman's withered cheek. “I'm glad you came."

 Elizabeth smiled thinly. “I can see you're ecstatic,” she said dryly. “Andrew came with me. He's still screwing around at the car.” Turning, she looked impatiently for him and finally followed Claire into the house, settling in a chair across from her when Claire took the couch, half reclining on it.

 "You look like hell,” Elizabeth observed forthrightly after studying Claire searchingly for a few minutes.

 "I feel like hell,” Claire responded with a faint smile, wondering suddenly why she'd never realized that as grating as her aunt so often was, she genuinely cared. She'd never been one for ‘icing'. She said exactly what she thought, and how she felt.

 "Not getting better?” Andrew asked as he came into living room, looked around, and finally settled in the chair beside Elizabeth's.

 Claire transferred her attention from her aunt to her cousin, feeling her heart clench uncomfortably in her chest as she studied him. The hopefulness in his voice was answer enough, though, she realized. She'd known as soon as she done her research it couldn't be anyone else, even though she'd struggled with acceptance. Creep! “Oh, I have good days and bad,” she finally managed to say in a fairly steady voice.

 His lips tightened. She could see very easily that the comment didn't please him and wondered how he could ever have fooled anyone when he was such a poor actor. “I'd hoped you'd be up around by now."

 No you weren't, you slimy prick! You were hoping I'd be worm food!

 Dispensing with idle chitchat with a wave of her hand in Andrew's direction, Elizabeth demanded a full report on her progress and Claire obliged, hoping to calm her nerves and prepare herself for what she was about to do. Long before they'd thoroughly exhausted the subject, Andrew had begun to fidget.

 "Nervous, Andrew?” Claire asked coolly.

 He sent her a startled look and then a tight smile. “A little distracted. Work ... you know how that is."

 "Not going well?” Claire asked with false sympathy.

 He paled a little, sending a quick glance at their aunt before he focused on Claire again, his eyes narrowed now with anger, no doubt because the comment had drawn a piercing look from their aunt. “Why would you say that?” he asked, forcing a patently chuckle in an attempt to hide his discomfort.

 She shrugged. “You said you were preoccupied."

 "With things that need to be done,” he testily. “Everything is fine."

 Elizabeth favored him with a narrow eyed look of suspicion. “I hope so for you sake, Andrew. I already told you I wasn't going to finance another business venture for you."

 He reddened, his temper slipping another notch. “Everything's fine,” he repeated through gritted teeth.

 Feeling her pulse jump, Claire decided it was time to make her play before she lost her nerve entirely. Watching both her aunt and Andrew carefully, she pulled the book from its hiding place beneath her robe. Andrew stilled, his eyes widening with recognition. The color washed from his face. “I found this a few weeks ago,” Claire said shakily. “I believe it's yours, Aunt Elizabeth."

 Elizabeth looked taken aback. She frowned. “Mine?” she asked, obviously surprised. She looked the book over without making any attempt to reach for it. “I don't recognize it. How would you find a book that belonged to me? You haven't even been to the house in well over a year."

 Claire opened the book to the last page, tipping it to show her aunt the signatures in the back. “Actually, I think it belonged to Uncle Thomas, but whatever was his is yours now."

 Elizabeth squinted, trying to make out the writing and finally got up and moved closer. Claire shifted to allow her aunt to sit down beside her. Elizabeth sat down, grasping the edge of the book and pulling on it so that it was between them. “I'm sure I've never seen it,” she said after a moment. “How did you say you got it?"

 "I found it in the library."

 "Oh,” Elizabeth said dismissively. “Thomas must have donated it."

 "He didn't!” Andrew said quickly, obviously unable to contain himself any longer. “It's mine!"

 Elizabeth lifted her head and glared at him in rebuke for his rudeness. “Why would Thomas give you the book? Claire's always been the bookish one.” She dismissed Andrew and turned to smile thinly at Claire. “You're welcome to it, dear, if you want it, although.... “She leaned down to study one of the pages more closely. “Good god! Is that a mole?"

 A jolt went through Claire at the comment. Glancing down, Claire stared at the blemish her aunt had pointed out, feeling suddenly queasy when she realized why the ‘paper’ the book had been made from had seemed so strange.

 Shuddering, Elizabeth vacated the couch abruptly and returned to her seat. “Ghastly! I don't why you'd want that disgusting thing, but you're certainly welcome to it—keep it, or burn it."

 "But it's mine!” Andrew burst out.

 "Its made out of skin , Andrew!” Elizabeth snapped. “Besides being a book and you've never been interested in books that I ever knew! If you had been, maybe you could've managed to get at least one of the degrees you went after in all the years I paid for you to go to college! I can't think of any earthly reason why Thomas would've given it to you. Actually,” she added thoughtfully, “I don't understand Thomas having a book like that around, but maybe he didn't notice it was made out of human skin?"

 Claire did wish she'd quit harping on that! She felt like she was going to throw up and it was all she could do to keep a grip on the book. She wanted to throw it as far from her as she could send it.

 "Give me book, Claire!” Andrew growled. “It's mine."

 "Because you stole from Aunt Elizabeth's house."

 Andrew gaped at her, stunned to silence for a handful of seconds. “I didn't steal it! I borrowed it!” he said angrily.

 Claire shrugged, clutching the book more tightly. “Then it isn't yours."

 He bounded out of his chair, although he made no attempt to approach her, as if he couldn't quite decide the best way to get the book from her. “Give me the god damn book, bitch, or I'll break your fucking neck! You've got no idea what that thing is!"

 Elizabeth gaped at Andrew in shock. “Andrew!"

 "Shut up!” he snarled at her. “That thing's dangerous!"

 Elizabeth glared at him. “Well! I should think so! Considering what it's made out of its probably crawling with all sorts of bacteria! Give the nasty thing to him, Claire! I expect that's what's made you sick."

 Claire didn't look at her aunt or loosen her hold on the book. “It did, but not without Andrew's help. Isn't that right, Andrew?"

 She could tell he was in a blind panic to get his hands on the book. If he hadn't been he would've thought better than to show his hand in front of their aunt. She'd been counting on the shock of his discovery throwing him off, though. If he'd been calmer he would've realized he needn't do anything but keep his mouth shut and wait for the opportunity to steal it from her as he had from her aunt.

 It was Sarik, she realized, abruptly. He'd summoned Sarik and he was terrified that he would lose control of the demon if he didn't get the book back into his possession, too frightened to realize he'd already given too much away.

 Apparently he did realize it was too late to cover up his involvement, either that or he was too scared to think straight. He sprang at her abruptly in an attempt to wrest the book from her. Claire tightened her grip with grim determination, kicking him and launching him backwards. Stunned, Elizabeth reacted slowly, but she reacted, leaping from her own chair and pounding on him with her pocketbook as he fell back into his chair. “Behave yourself, Andrew Thomas Smith!” she yelled at him. “Are you out of your mind! She hasn't been out of the hospital more than a few weeks!"

 Instead of lashing out at her, he ducked, throwing his arms up to ward her off. “Sarik!” he bellowed, desperation threading his voice.

 Elizabeth sucked in a sharp breath as Sarik materialized in front of them. Effectively distracted from pounding on Andrew with her pocketbook, she froze mid-swing and blinked at Sarik in stunned amazement.

 "Kill her! Kill her now and take the book from her or I'll banish you!” Andrew screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Claire.

 Sarik narrowed his eyes at Andrew but he made no attempt to do his bidding. “She's holding the book. I can't touch her,” he growled. “You know that."

 "I command you!” Andrew bellowed.

 Uttering a roar of rage, Sarik leapt at her, slamming against the barrier so hard it threw Claire back against the couch, but his impetus worked against him. The recoil sent him flying across the room to smash into the wall hard enough to knock all the pictures off of it.

 Elizabeth screamed, clutching at her chest.

 Gripping the book in white knuckled fists when she saw that Andrew meant to make another attempt to tear the book from her, Claire squeezed her eyes closed and began the chant that finished binding the book to her. Andrew froze halfway between his chair and the couch, and then launched himself at her in desperation. It was too late. The book repelled him as it had Sarik.

 She'd hoped she could manage this without binding the book to her, but, contrary to what her aunt thought, she was a realist, too. She'd known the chances weren't good that she could do it without the help of the book itself. Truthfully, she wasn't certain she'd actually believed in the power of the book until that moment.

 Andrew pushed himself upright and looked around stupidly.

 Uttering a howl of rage, the moment Claire finished weaving her spell Sarik leapt at him, yanking him up from the floor and shaking him like a rag doll.

 "Stop it, Sarik! Drop him!” Claire snapped.

 He did, roaring furiously that he'd been denied.

 Elizabeth sank weakly into her chair, looking bewildered. “I don't understand what's going on here."

 "Tell her, Andrew,” Claire said tightly.

 He glared at her sullenly. “Nothing!"

 "Tell her, Andrew, or I'll let Sarik have you."

 Sarik grinned down at him.

 Andrew's eyes nearly popped from his head. “You wouldn't! He'll kill me!"

 Claire shrugged. “I wouldn't let him kill you, but I would let him take out some of his frustrations on you, Andrew, and I don't think you'd enjoy that. Tell her."

 "What is going on?” Elizabeth demanded. “What have done now , Andrew?"

 "I was just going to sell it!” he said hastily. “I needed the money. I wouldn't have been pushed to that if you hadn't been so damn tight fisted!"

 Elizabeth glared at him. “I was more than generous with, you ungrateful brat! Plenty of people in this world get by on a hell of a less than I gave you! Claire gets along just fine and I don't even give her half as much as I give you!"

 "But you're rich! It's piddling beside what you have!"

 "But it's mine !” she snapped. “And I by-damned earned it! I spent thirty miserable years with Thomas for that money and he was a total bastard! I managed his businesses for him, dealt with everything by myself because he didn't want to be bothered with it. He didn't even let me have a tenth of what I give you! He wouldn't let me have children! I paid the price in slave labor and misery for the life I have. You haven't done anything to deserve more, to deserve even what I give you!"

 "I got rid of him for you!” he burst out.

 The confession rocked both Elizabeth and Claire back on their heels.

 "You did what?” Elizabeth asked faintly.

 "I summoned a demon and sent him to arrange the accident,” he said arrogantly. “The old bastard was never going to die! And you're right, he treated you like shit. I did for you!"

 Elizabeth looked ill but her lips tightened in anger. “You did it for yourself! I didn't ask you. I loved the old bastard, hateful as he was."

 A horrible suspicion entered Claire's mind at his admission. “You killed them all!” Claire gasped. “My family ... even your own family? You used the book to summon demons to kill everyone!"

 For several moments, Andrew looked horrified, but the moment he spoke it was clear that it had nothing to do with guilt but rather the fear of being caught and punished. “You can't prove anything. It was accidents. Even if they investigated it again, they wouldn't find anything."

 "Is that why you sent Sarik to make it look as if I'd died of an illness?” Claire asked tightly. “Because you'd already arranged too many accidents and was afraid that one more, that left the road clear for you, would be one too many? I checked. Uncle Thomas’ nieces and nephew died in tragic accidents, too."

 He glanced from his aunt's horrified face to Claire and folded his lips, refusing to say more. It didn't matter. She knew what he'd tried to do and her aunt knew. She was suddenly sorry she couldn't let Sarik have his way with the bastard. He deserved to get the living hell beat out of him if nothing else. But that wouldn't change what he was or what he'd done.

 She wondered if he had any idea that he was destined to discover just how horrible the underworld was. “Get out of my house!"

 "And don't you even think about getting in my car, you bastard!” Elizabeth snapped.

 When he'd slammed out of the house Claire and her aunt exchanged a look. Elizabeth's chin wobbled, but she clamped a tight rein on her emotions. “I don't think I've taken all this in,” she murmured weakly, staring at Sarik in horrified fascination. “He's a demon? Andrew actually summoned a demon to kill you?"

 Claire glanced at Sarik, who'd moved to the window to stare out at Andrew, his expression, even in profile, a mask of frustrated fury.

 "Would you like to lay down on my bed and rest a little while?” Claire asked her aunt sympathetically, fully expecting a refusal. It disturbed her when Elizabeth merely nodded, looking so old and fragile now that Claire felt a pang of guilt that she'd forced Andrew to reveal so much to the old woman.

 Sarik was still waiting for her when she returned to living room after helping her aunt get comfortable. She'd given her aunt one of the sleeping pills from her aunt's purse to help her rest.

 Sarik eyed her warily when she entered the room and moved to drop weakly onto the couch. “What is your bidding, mistress?” he growled, his voice fierce, intimidating.

 Claire studied his face, keeping her thoughts to herself with an effort. “What do you think I should send you to do?"

 "Kill him,” he growled.

 "Why would I want to do that? He's a weakling. He's lost the power to hurt me and I can't punish him for what he wanted to do."

 He sent her a look of baffled fury. “I would make it quick."

 Claire bit her lip. “I imagine you would, but I've decided to forgive him."

 "He wanted you dead!” Sarik snarled.

 "And he summoned you and sent you to take care of it. I know.” It was the only reason she was willing to forgive Andrew. He'd sent Sarik to her. Without his sick, twisted determination to destroy her, and everybody else that stood between him and all of their aunt's money, she would never have met Sarik at all. That had earned him one good mark against the column against him. “I don't need revenge. He failed. The question is, what do I do with you?"

 He swallowed convulsively, uneasiness flickering in his eyes briefly. “You are my mistress,” he growled finally. “This is something you must decide."

 Claire turned and set the book very carefully and deliberately away from her. “Actually, I'm not your mistress. I didn't bind you to me. I bound the book to me by writing my name in blood beneath the previous owners and chanting the spell. I released you from Andrew. I didn't bind you to me. I still could, of course. Or I could banish you to your own plain."

 Sarik's gaze slid toward the book speculatively and then returned to her face. He didn't make any attempt to approach her, although he had to see that she'd put the book far enough away he had a better than even chance of reaching her before she could grab it. Fear skittered through her despite the calm façade she'd assumed. She knew she was taking a dangerous chance, but she had to know and it was only way she ever would.

 Did he want her? Or was it only the freedom he'd hoped to have when he'd put the book in her path?

 "What will you do when you've banished me?” he asked after a long pause.

 "Destroy it."

 He paled, looking vaguely ill. “You couldn't summon me back if did that. You might have need of me."

 "I'm not like Andrew. I couldn't kill, even if I didn't have to soil my own hands with their blood."

 There was no surprise in his eyes. It made her feel better to know he hadn't actually believed that of her even when he suggested it.

 "You can't destroy the book,” he growled finally. “You don't have the power to do that."

 She sighed. “Then I'll put it where no one else will find it. I can't leave it where just anyone might discover it and use the vile thing to bring forth demons."

 He nodded, stiffening as she reached for the book again. She paused, waiting to see if he would pounce. His hands clenched and unclenched but he forced the tension from his body, swallowing thickly. “I don't want to go back,” he said gruffly. “Enslave me, Claire. I will stay and give you pleasure."

 Claire picked up the book and turned to look at him lovingly. Her heart felt as if it was being crushed in her chest. The fact that he hadn't made any attempt to stop her told her what she'd needed to know. He cared—as much as he capable of caring. He had to care something for her if he was willing to allow her to send him back when he could've stopped her, could easily have killed her to stop her. “I need more than that. You can't give me what I need. You have no heart, no capacity for love."

 His eyes glowed for a moment with fury, but then the light went out of them. He nodded, looking away from her. “Banish me then and be done with it!” he snarled.

 She studied his face, wanting to memorize it. It took an effort to swallow past the lump of misery in her throat. “I want you to know, if those goes badly, I love you. I forgive you, Sarik."

 His head jerked upwards. He stared at her, seemed to struggle for words.

 She closed her eyes and began the chant she'd memorized, the one spell from the book that she felt in heart was the right one to evoke, even though it broke her heart to think what it might do to him. She had to try, for his sake.

 [Back to Table of Contents]



 Chapter Twenty

"Leave this man, demon! I cast you out! Be gone! Go back to the underworld from whence ye came and leave this mortal ... unfettered by the underworld. Free him!"

 Sarik screamed in agony. The sound cut through her like a knife, weakening her resolve. Falling to his knees, he pitched forward onto the floor, writhing in torment.

 Tears flooded Claire's eyes and flowed down her cheeks. His agony tormented her and for several moments she wavered, struggling against the decision she'd made—to free him, even if it he wouldn't be hers. “Leave this man, demon! I cast you out! Be gone! Go back to the underworld from whence ye came and a leave this mortal! Free him from the world that binds you!"

 He changed into demon form and back again briefly before he took his demon form again, screaming, growling, howling as she continued the chant to free him. Shaking all over, she closed her eyes, tried to close her mind to the pain she was inflicting on him. For hours, it seemed, she chanted until finally Sarik merely lay twitching on the floor.

 Exhausted from the effort, she dropped to her knees beside him, weeping quietly, sniffing.

 "Are you done?” he snarled after a long while, when she'd begun to wonder if she'd killed the man she loved instead of freeing him from torment.

 Claire nodded wearily.

 "Good! Because that hurt like fucking hell, woman!” Sarik growled, grabbing her and dragging down on the floor with him, and then rolling until she was beneath him.

 She blinked up at him, smiling tremulously. “It worked?"

 "Of course it didn't fucking work, you stupid little twit!” Sarik growled fondly. “I was born half demon. You can't cast the demon out without pitching all of me back. I'd begun to be seriously worried that you might succeed, though."

 Disconcerted, Claire stared at him suspiciously. “You're just saying that."

 "Because its fucking true,” Sarik said dryly, nuzzling his face against her throat and then opening his mouth to bite her throat. “I need sustenance after that."

 Getting up, he pulled her from the floor and carried into her room. Stopping short when he saw her aunt sleeping peacefully in the middle of the bed, he reversed directions and headed for the couch.

 Searching his face hopefully for some sign that the incantation had helped him, Claire stared up at him uneasily as he pulled her clothes off, tossing them behind him. “It didn't do anything?"

 He paused, staring back at her for a long moment, his gaze flickering over her face before he met her gaze. “I was born a demi-demon, a half demon, Claire. I am now what I once was. The incantation freed me from the chains of the underworld. It didn't make me something I never was—completely human. It bound the beast, for now, but don't be surprised if he doesn't stay chained.” He struggled for a moment with his shirt and finally tore it off when it seemed determined to defeat him. Shucking his pants, he sprawled on top of her.

 "Tell me you love me, woman,” he muttered, nipping and sucking at the tender skin of her throat greedily.

 She was almost surprised when she felt relieved, felt her heart soar as if she'd been set free herself, but then she supposed she shouldn't have been. She'd fallen in love with a demon in the form a man. It was part of what he was and therefore part of what she loved about him. If the incantation had worked any other way, she realized, she would have lost a part of the man she loved. She supposed that was what she'd been most afraid of—beyond the possibility that she would free him and discover he didn't care for her at all—never had. She curled her arms around him. “I love you, Sarik."

 A growl of pleasure rumbled from his throat. “Mine,” he murmured against her skin. “My woman.” He moved lower, familiarizing himself with her breasts once more, tugging and suckling at her nipples until she couldn't catch her breath and was groaning incessantly.

 He drew back abruptly when he'd made his way all the way down her body to her lower belly. “Get the book, Claire!” he said gruffly.

 Her mind already a swirl of confusion with the heated passion threading her veins, Claire merely dragged her heavy eyelids open with an effort and stared at him without comprehension. He pushed her onto one hip and slapped her ass hard enough with his palm to bring the sting of tears to her eyes. “Get it!"

 "Why?"

 "Because you're going to need it to beat me off when you've had enough!” he growled.

 Stumbling to her feet, she looked around in confusion and finally located it. Sarik pointed to the table beside the couch when she returned with it and simply stared at him. Nodding, she set the book where he'd told her to. He pulled her down onto the couch, shoving her face down. He grasped her hips then, lifting until she was on her knees and parting the cheeks of her ass to lick her. She groaned into the seat cushions when he brought her to her first climax, savoring it as he pushed her to her limits and then began to build the tension inside of her again.

 He penetrated her when she'd begun to writhe and groan with imminent release a second time, driving into her slowly but with obvious impatience until he'd filled her completely. “Give me your hands!"

 Obediently, she put her hands behind her back. Grasping her wrists, he pulled on her arms, drawing her back onto his shaft and then easing his hold and pulling her back again. A thrill of excitement went through her at the erotic feel of him pulling her onto his shaft. Doubt flickered through her, though. “Sarik,” she said in a breathless whisper.

 "Yes, baby?” Sarik groaned.

 "I can't reach the book."

 "Do you need it?” he ground out, pounding into her harder and faster.

 "Not yet! Oh god! I'm coming!"
 * * * *

Nine months later

 "Push baby,” Sarik growled, studying her straining face uneasily.

 "I am pushing, damn it!” Claire gasped angrily.

 It relieved him to see she still had enough strength to summon anger at him. “Do you want to bite me?” he asked, grinning, baiting her. “This was your idea, but if it'll make you feel better...."

 "Shut up!” Claire snarled, pulling herself up as she strained to push. “Bastard!"

 Sarik glanced at the midwife and attending nurse and shrugged at their horrified expressions.

 "One more push, Claire. Come on now! One more push!” the midwife encouraged her.

 "You keep saying that!” Claire whimpered.

 "I see his head,” Sarik said abruptly.

 "Liar!"

 "No! I really see his head."

 "He's crowning. Just a little more, Claire,” the midwife said soothingly.

 Claire squinted at the mirror above her bed and felt her heart leap when she saw the dark head, matted with blood, protruding from her body. Rejuvenated by the realization that she would have him to hold any minute now, she struggled harder to push her son into the world and was rewarded a few moments later with a loud, indignant wail.

 Weak with the relief when the pain finally subsided, she fell back against the pillows, gasping for breath. “Is he alright?” she demanded when a profound silence descended from both the nurse and midwife, the silence punctuated only by the baby's bellows of rage.

 "Oh god!” the midwife gasped involuntarily.

 "What is it?” Claire asked in a panicked voice.

 Glaring at the midwife indignantly, Sarik froze the woman in place and took his son from her. Waving a hand at the nurse, he returned to Claire and settled the squalling infant on her chest. “He fine."

 Claire looked down at his red face, studying him carefully. There were two tiny nubs on either side of his forehead and tiny, flattened wings on his back, she saw when Sarik turned him over for her to examine him.

 She looked up at Sarik, smiling faintly. “I guess he took after his father."

 He studied her a little uncertainly. “You said you wanted me to father the baby,” he said indignantly, apparently certain he saw doubt in her expression.

 "You said you couldn't,” she reminded him.

 He frowned, abruptly angry that she didn't seem to appreciate his efforts to please her. “I couldn't while I was chained to the underworld. I had no true form on this plain, only the illusions of form I conjured, but you released me into this world."

 "So ... if I reverse the spell I won't need birth control, right?"

 Sarik gaped at her in dismay.

 "Just kidding,” she said, smiling at him sweetly.

 He seemed to wrestle with something a moment and finally cleared his throat uncomfortably and grinned at her a little sheepishly. “The spell book doesn't actually work on me anymore, baby. It only works on the demons of the underworld, and I'm not one of them since you freed me."

 Claire gaped at him as he had her only moments before. “But ... You said.... “She frowned at him suspiciously. “Why do you insist I keep it handy, then?"

 He shrugged. “I thought it would make you feel safer with me. Anyway, you could still use it to rap me on the head to get my attention."

 She studied him for a long moment. “You're still an incubus, though, right?"

 He looked uncomfortable. “Not actually."

 Claire frowned at him. “Not actually? Meaning, you aren't?"

 He shrugged and then grinned at her, leaning down to nuzzle his nose along her ear. “I still can't get enough of you. That's close enough, isn't it?” he murmured.

 She stared at him for a long moment when he straightened and finally chuckled. “I never know whether to take you seriously or not."

 "I seriously love you,” he said gruffly.

 She smiled up at him lovingly and finally returned her attention to the baby. “You'll need to put a glamour on him before you wake them up, but let me look at my little darling before you hide his cute little baby wings and horns."

 "He's a demon,” Sarik growled, mock serious. “He's not cute."

 "Yes, he is. Just like his daddy,” Claire cooed at the baby, too happy with her baby to point out to his father that he hadn't done it all alone, even if the baby did look just like him, and that, technically speaking, he was only part demon—not even half.

 Sarik scowled at her indignantly.

 "Now daddy's mad,” Claire chuckled, cuddling the baby to her breast. “Oh, he has a nasty temper, yes he does. I don't know why I love him so much!"

 Sarik seemed to struggle with himself. “Maybe because I love you?” he said gruffly.
 The End


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