Next to him Irial shrugged and said, “Which only increases my interest in it. Given the protections around the shop, I suspect it’s still inside, hidden away. Perhaps you can convince the shamaness to steal into the shop and retrieve it for you.”

“No. She’s too important to risk.”

“For the moment.”

Zurael stiffened but held his words. He sensed Irial was baiting him, poking at him with a verbal stick as the truly foolish might do to a snake with a wooden one. But he didn’t make the mistake of labeling the eldest Raven prince a fool.

In the darkness between them, Irial’s teeth flashed white. “I’ll return to my father’s house and leave you to return to the child of mud. The shamaness is beautiful, Zurael, but she’s dangerous. I only had to look once to know she affects you physically. Don’t let her be your downfall. Stop coupling with her before you’re lost to the Kingdom of the Djinn.”

Irial’s form gave way to a swirling breeze. An instant later Zurael’s did the same, and he gained some relief from a cock hardened by the mention of coupling.

He felt the urgent need to return to Aisling, but he pressed forward in the opposite direction, toward the wealthiest area of town so he could provide the promised meal. With no flesh to slow him down, he moved quickly, though not as quickly as if he had simply moved through time and space between two places, leaving and arriving within a fraction of a second, regardless of the distance between the two points.

All Djinn had the ability to travel in such a manner. But doing so anywhere other than their kingdom prison resulted in the equivalent of a sonic boom on the metaphysical plane and left a trail for angels to follow.

He took form again a safe distance beyond where streetlights blazed defiantly against the darkness in an expensive, wasteful use of resources. The rich and powerful flirted with danger here. They walked the street, moved from bars to restaurants to chauffeured limousines, flaunting their wealth and their ability to pay armed bodyguards to insulate them from attack, to die in their place if necessary.

In his search for Aisling, he’d come here first, expecting to find her among the privileged. Now he could never picture her here. She belonged with—

Zurael cut the thought off, but unbidden came the image of her lying naked among pillows on his bed as a desert breeze made the thin curtains enclosing it flutter and part to reveal her waiting for him. Even if he wished it, she couldn’t enter his father’s kingdom. But that didn’t stop liquid hunger from spreading to his cock and testicles so he fought the urge to take himself in hand, to lose himself in the fantasy of coupling with her on silken sheets.

Aisling. She’d made him come to crave her body, the feel of her skin against his and the tight fist of her sheath around his cock. He should burn with the need to destroy her for how thoroughly she’d ensnared him. Instead he felt only the burning desire to get back to her and take her repeatedly, to hear her whimpered cries of pleasure and submission.

A shudder went through him as he once again imagined Aisling on her knees before him, her eyes dark with need, her lips slightly parted, glistening and ready to take him into her mouth. His cock urged him to hurry and his mind echoed the thought, forced him from the night and into the bright lights.

He realized his mistake immediately. The absence of bodyguards drew unwanted attention and aroused suspicion. Guns slid from openly worn holsters. Knives glinted underneath street and restaurant lights.

Zurael continued toward the closest restaurant—one offering Italian food—as if unaware of the alarm his presence caused. There were wards in place; sigils painted on the building warned of their existence. He doubted he’d be allowed inside and was relieved when a pale, frightened waiter was forced through heavy front doors to stand shaking between two armed guards.

The human offered a menu, his eyes never lifting to meet Zurael’s, for fear of being mesmerized. Vampire. It made Zurael chuckle when he realized that’s what they thought he was, and the reason they refrained from attacking. Even the wealthiest and most powerful of the children of mud would be cautious about raising a hand against a vampire who approached them without threat in such a public setting.

A quick glance at the menu and Zurael made his choice. He pulled a small gemstone from his pocket and handed it to the waiter to pay for the meal.

The red stone was a bauble of little value to the Djinn, but the waiter’s eyes widened and he hurried back inside with it. The restaurant owner himself brought out the food when it was ready. He rushed to assure Zurael that no offense was meant and babbled about his inability to change the wards preventing vampires from entering the building.

Zurael took the meal and retreated to the shadows. Once again he let his form fade into a swirling mass of unseen particles.

He was anxious to return to Aisling, and it showed in the force of the breeze he traveled in. By human standards it didn’t take long. By his own it seemed to take forever.

Fear gripped him when he re-formed in darkness and found Aisling’s pet scratching frantically at the metal door. The scrape of Aziel’s claws was a scream in the stillness of the night.

From the white-gray nothingness, a welcome figure emerged, a beautiful woman wearing a silken, flowing robe made of woven feathers. “The soul you seek has already been claimed. He resides now in a place you can’t visit, or I for that matter.”

Aisling thought of the blood-fed fetish and wondered if the payment already made would gain an answer to another question. She couldn’t quiet the doubts and fears that had plagued her earlier, or dismiss her curiosity. “Does my father reside here? Is he demon?”

The spirit guide lifted her arm and the material gave the illusion of a wing unfolding. She offered a hand and Aisling took it without hesitation.

Warmth flowed into Aisling, as if in this land of gray, the sun still found its way in. With a gentle tug, she was pulled forward. The woman leaned in, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You will know in time. For now I give you something of greater value. Return to your body and find it healed.”

Aisling returned as her front door crashed open. Before she could react, Aziel was there, followed immediately by Zurael.

She hurriedly slipped the bloodred falcon into her fetish pouch. Zurael’s eyes flashed with fury and the same promise of retribution she’d seen when she returned from the ghostlands in the witch’s garden.

“You followed him into the spiritlands,” he hissed, sparing a quick glance at her assailant’s body.

Aisling’s chin lifted though a shiver of erotic fear slid down her spine to stroke between her thighs in response to his expression. Phantom talons scraped across her neck as real ones had done earlier in the day. And in that instant the healing she’d been given by her spirit guide was far more important than answers about her father.

With a confidence that was part bravado, Aisling erased the protective circle. Aziel jumped onto the front of her shirt and scrambled to her shoulder as masculine fingers wrapped around her arms and pulled her to her feet.

Molten eyes narrowed, bored into hers. “Are you hurt?”

“Not now.”

“What happened?” Zurael asked, barely able to contain the guilt-laden fury he felt for not having anticipated their enemies would strike so quickly.

Aisling told him, though he’d guessed much of the story when he saw the dropped owl fetish, the folded bills and the house keys on the floor near the body.

He stripped her assailant with barely contained violence. Other than the tattoos of a lawbreaker, there were no clues to his identity.

Aisling discovered a concealed knife and garrote in the man’s clothing, nothing more. Her hands trembled slightly as she set them aside. “There’s no way of knowing who sent him.”

Zurael stood and pulled her to him so he could bury his face in the silk of her hair. “No one is beyond suspicion.” His lips brushed the delicate shell of her ear. “I’ll dispose of him. Our dinner is next to the front door.”

“I can’t—”

“You will. By your own hand or mine. You will eat.”

He released her and knelt next to the corpse, lifted it in his arms and stood. “Open the window, then close it behind me. Lock the front door. I’ve still got your keys.”

Zurael didn’t wait for her to respond. He let his physical form dissolve, and when she opened the window he joined the night long enough to take her assailant’s remains to a deserted area.

This time when he returned to the house, he found the living room glowing with candlelight and Aisling waiting for him. She’d set the table and transferred the food into serving dishes. He laughed when he found the ferret on a chair busily eating from a saucer of food in front of him.

“Aziel couldn’t wait,” Aisling said, her soft voice winding its way through Zurael’s chest and downward to curl around his cock. In a heartbeat the hunger for food was replaced by a different hunger.

He didn’t yield to the temptation to carry her from the room, but he couldn’t stop himself from going to her. Her assailant’s possessions were on the counter separating the kitchen from the living room. “The keys fit your locks?”

“Yes.”

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Do you know who my father is?”

The question surprised him, made him curious. “No. Why do you ask?”

“I think . . . I thought he might be demon because of something Elena’s brother said in the spiritlands.”

“John is not someone to be trusted.” And because Zurael wanted to give her something more, he said, “If it eases your mind, I know your pet is something other than what he appears, but I don’t know what.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted. “The names you wrote in the dirt—”

“Are the names of my enemies,” he said, unable to keep centuries of rage out of his voice.

Wariness flickered in her eyes. She stepped away from him, but he caught her arm before she could retreat further. A small tremor passed through her, and he again fought the urge to carry her to the bedroom, to whisper that she had nothing to fear from him as he coupled with her.

“The food will be cold if we don’t eat it soon.” He brushed his knuckles across her lips, then stepped away before the temptation she presented became too great.

She settled onto a chair across from him and he hated the distance. But she ate, and as she did, the candlelight caressed her features, made the angelite blue of her eyes become violet and the gold of her hair darken to rich honey.

Zurael found it impossible to take his eyes off her. He ached to free the coil of her braid and unbind her hair, to comb his fingers through it in a rare intimacy.

Desire filled the space between them. It grew and pulsed in the air as wax-fed flames undulated in a sensuous dance of heat and light. His breath escaped in a rush when she lowered her eyelashes to shield her expression in an effort to hide from the lust.

The fantasies that had tortured him throughout the day rushed in along with new ones. Protective, possessive urges filled and overwhelmed him. She was delicate vulnerability hiding strength of character, a female created for a man’s pleasure, for his pleasure.

Zurael waited until they’d finished eating. As she cleared the table, he went into the bathroom and turned the faucets on so water began filling the large, claw-foot bathtub. From a shirt pocket he pulled several of the substance-filled beads the Djinn used for bathing and during sensual play. He set them at the edge of the tub and didn’t allow himself to wonder why he’d brought them with him when he left his father’s kingdom, professing a desire only to kill the one who’d summoned him.

Aisling stood in front of the sink, preparing to wash dishes. Zurael stopped in the doorway as he had on the first day, only instead of watching her with suspicion and fighting the desire raging through him, he said, “Disrobe, Aisling.”

Color rose to her cheeks, and a tremor in her hands served as acknowledgment she’d heard him. He read her intent to deny him in the curl of her body before she whispered, “We shouldn’t.”

The truth only inflamed him further, filled his head with the roar of lust and his cock with aching need. He pushed away from the doorway and went to her, trapped her between the sink and his hard body.

“I could take you here, now, as I did earlier today in front of the mirror. Do you remember how you begged me to fill you, Aisling? How you cried out in release when I did?”

“Yes,” she said, shivering against him, exhaling on a shaky sigh when his hands traveled up her sides and around to take possession of her breasts.

Zurael pulled her back more tightly to his front. He needed to feel her against him, wanted to feel the instant she softened and surrendered, gave herself over to him completely. He traced the shell of her ear with his tongue. “Obey me tonight, Aisling.”

Aisling closed her eyes against the desire pulsing through her, burning her from the inside out and making her cunt lips slicken and part. He was dangerous to her, more so now that she knew the depth of his rage toward her most powerful protector, the one whose sigil he’d drawn in the dirt. Yet still she was a moth to his flame, helpless against the needs of her body and the security she found in his arms.

She felt bereft, lost, when his hands dropped away from her breasts and his heat left her back. Lust swirled in her belly when he once again said, “Disrobe, Aisling.”

She didn’t understand herself when she was with him. Didn’t understand the dark cravings, the need to submit that blossomed inside her. He was beyond anything she’d thought to experience with a lover, anything she’d done previously, though the farm’s remote location and Aziel’s presence as guide and guardian hadn’t allowed for much beyond fumbling, hurried experiments with passion.

The need to obey and please him turned her nipples into hard knots and her clit into a stiffened, erect knob. Her fingers trembled as they worked to unbutton her shirt, slowing the process of disrobing as he’d ordered, but intensifying the desire burning between them.

Zurael’s sharp inhale as her shirt fell away made her heart flutter with satisfaction. His command to turn around made her cunt clench.

Aisling turned to face him. She looked at him from beneath lowered eyelashes and wanted to go to her knees like a supplicant in front of an ancient deity. In the candles’ glow he was a being made of golden light, a predator with no equal. He was raw power and invincible strength, masculine perfection almost too painful to behold.

“The rest of it, Aisling,” he said with a purring, sensual menace that made her shake with need.

His gaze scorched her when the cloth binding her breasts joined her shirt on the floor. She trembled at the hungry look in his eyes but knew instinctively that while he might demand her obedience, he was just as much a slave to desire as she was.

Embarrassed, vulnerable heat added color to her cheeks as she removed her short boots and socks then slid her pants and underwear to her ankles before stepping out of them. He’d seen her naked before, already knew her body intimately, and yet it was different stripping at his command. It was both arousing and erotically frightening to stand in front of him while his eyes traveled over her bare flesh as if she belonged completely to him and was his to do with as he pleased.

He stepped in to her, hard heated flesh and leather, desert wind and exotic spice. His hands went to the coil of her braid and unwound it, freed the locks so they fell in honeyed waves to her buttocks as they did each time she entered the spiritlands.

He cupped her breasts, rubbed his thumbs over nipples that ached for his touch, his mouth. Golden eyes darkened and became molten.

“Do not touch me,” he ordered, his harsh voice revealing what the command cost him as his hands trailed down her sides and he knelt in front of her.

She widened her stance without being told, though her hands curled into fists in an effort to keep from freeing his braid, from tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling him to her parted slit and wet channel.

Her clit hardened further, so the soft, delicate hood no longer concealed the tiny, sensitive head. “Please,” she whispered.

He cupped her buttocks and kept her from pressing against him in sultry invitation. He leaned forward, slid his tongue through her wet folds and over her hardened knob, sent nearly unbearable ecstasy through her, before abruptly standing and lifting her with casual strength then carrying her into the bathroom.

Zurael placed her in the nearly filled tub. He turned off the faucets before stripping out of his clothing, his eyes never leaving her.

He was heavily aroused, his cock hard and thick. The testicles hanging beneath it made Aisling think of a stallion, a bull. He was elemental man and primordial force.

Despite his command that she not touch him, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to rise to her knees when he stepped into the tub, to grasp his hips and press her mouth to his hardened flesh. Satisfaction roared through her when he groaned her name and tangled his fingers in her hair, held her against his rigid cock.

He shuddered as she measured his length in kisses, in the wet trail of her tongue. He panted when she nuzzled the heavy sacs containing his seed, heated them with her breath.

“Take me in your mouth, Aisling,” he said, buttocks flexing, hands clenching and unclenching in her hair.

She ignored his command, and the shift in dynamics was intoxicating, thrilling, too heady to resist. She’d never felt so feminine, so powerful.

One hand left his hip to cup his testicles, to weigh them. He was silky smooth, hot in the palm of her hand. She traced the ridges and veins on his shaft with her tongue, sucked on them until his fingers tightened painfully on her hair and his breath came in ragged pants.

“Obey me, Aisling. Now.”

His voice promised retribution, punishment, complete domination if she didn’t yield. And her cunt clenched, her body hungered for it. She was beyond reason, beyond denial.

She curled a hand around his cock, defied him by pressing her mouth against the velvety soft tip of him, parting her lips only enough for a shallow kiss, for the dart of her tongue to explore the tiny slit.

When he thrust, she tightened her grip on him, warned with the press of teeth, the increase of pressure around his testicles, that she wouldn’t be rushed.

Zurael raked his fingers through her hair. He rubbed golden strands of it against his belly and thighs as he fought to regain control of himself and the situation.

Lust, desire, brutal need whipped through him in a heated maelstrom. He would punish her later, make her scream and beg for release.

She would learn the cost of disobedience. She would experience true submission.

He leaned over, scraped his nails against her back, her buttocks. Felt her jerk when he traced the tight pucker of her back entrance. He would have her there, too. He would have her in every way a man could claim a woman.

“Take me in your mouth,” he said, straightening, finding her breasts, her nipples, his fingers ruthless, making her whimper, shudder, surrender.

He nearly came when she sucked his cock head into the wet heat of her mouth and assaulted it with her sinful tongue. His hips jerked, thrust. But the tight fist of her hand kept him from forging deeper, from knowing the ecstasy of fucking all the way in and out of her mouth.

Zurael panted, groaned, fought against the restraint she imposed on him. He rubbed and tormented her breasts and nipples, whispered what he intended to do to her later. He dared her to continue defying him, but she didn’t yield. She drew it out until their skin was slick with sweat and the sounds of pleasure echoed continuously against the bathroom walls.

“Aisling.” Command had gone to plea, to naked supplication. And finally she relented.

He threw his head back and closed his eyes. His hips jerked, pis-toned, the frantic thrust and retreat beyond his control as she took him deeper, let him take her as he’d fantasized.

The pleasure was nearly unbearable, and yet he fought against release, tried to draw it out. He forced his eyes open, wanted to memorize the sight of her kneeling before him, his cock sliding between her lips, her eyelashes lowered in submission, in the pleasure she found in the primitive, carnal act they shared.

She made his heart and soul sing, made him feel masculine, powerful, complete. “Aisling,” he whispered, wanting her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his centuries of existence, knowing all he’d ever have were what precious memories he made with her.

Eyelashes lifted to reveal eyes filled with unfathomable emotion, and he lost what little control remained. He thrust, panted, shuddered in ecstasy as he came—and nearly cried when the heated release only left him craving her more intensely.

Zurael sank into the water and pulled Aisling against his chest. His mouth pressed against her ear, his tongue traced the delicate shell then fucked into the sensitive canal as his fingers found her clit.

“Please,” she said, clinging to him, rubbing her mound against his hand, wanting release from the tight coil of need.

He should draw it out, reduce her to helplessness as she’d reduced him, but the danger was too great. A tilt of her head and their lips would be close, nearly touching, and the temptation to do the forbidden too great to resist.

He found her plump folds and shoved his fingers into her slit. Retreated. Repeated it over and over again, his palm striking the naked head of her clit until the water was sloshing violently and she was keening, slumping, limp with the pleasure he’d given her.

Zurael turned her in his arms, kissed her neck, her shoulders. He murmured words of satisfaction as he stroked her breasts, her belly, cuddled her until both of them recovered from the first rush of passion. Then he picked up a translucent bead of soap and crushed it between his fingers, worked the lather in his hands before applying it to her silky skin.

The way she melted against him, went boneless as he bathed her, was deeply satisfying. He lingered, saved her hair for last. And the intimacy of washing it, combing through it with his fingers, was nearly his undoing, even though he knew it didn’t mean the same thing to humans as it did to the Djinn.

After the soap had dissolved as if it were never present, Aisling turned and rose to her knees. “My turn.”

Zurael’s cock hardened at the sight of her breasts, the nipples begging for his touch. Memories of the pleasure she’d given him, when he stepped into the tub and she knelt before him, left him struggling against the urge to stand.

She reached behind him and slowly freed his braid. Waves of incredible sensation rippled through him as she combed through his hair with her fingers.

When she started to pick up a light blue bead, he nudged her hand to a translucent one. She crushed it between her fingers and he gave himself over to her care, moaned as she stroked his chest and teased the small nipples before grasping his cock.

Zurael allowed her to bathe him as thoroughly as he’d bathed her. He willingly turned his back to her and tilted his head so she could wash his hair, touch him in ways he’d never allowed a female to.

It gentled him for a while, chased away thoughts of dominance, of punishing her for her earlier disobedience—even as it filled him with the need to possess her completely, in every way. His cock throbbed, leaked, was more than ready to provide the lubricant necessary to work its way into the virgin orifice he’d traced earlier.

Zurael turned and captured her hands in one of his, saw need in her eyes, a vulnerable tenderness that made his heart and soul weep. “Aisling,” he whispered, pulling her to him, enjoying the press of her breasts against his chest, the way she trembled in reaction to the desire between them.

He held her, ran his hands over her as he kissed her neck, her shoulders, her ears. He built the fire between them until she was clinging to him, then turned her, put her on her knees and urged her to lean over, to grasp the edge of the tub.

She spread her thighs willingly, and the sight of her parted folds nearly distracted him from his purpose. Thoughts of pushing through wet lower lips, of being gripped by the tight muscles of her sheath, made him take himself in hand to stop from moving closer and impaling her with his cock.

He tightened his fingers, let a hint of pain clear the lust so he could concentrate on preparing the way to even greater pleasure. She pressed backward when he palmed her buttock, but when he grazed the rosette of her back entrance she tried to escape his touch, whispered, “no,” as she’d done other times, the word lacking resolve.

“Yes,” he said, moving closer, sliding his penis between her thighs, coating it with the arousal he found there as he rubbed over her swollen labia and clit.

She whimpered in response, tried to cant her hips so he’d find her hot opening. His hands on her buttocks kept her from doing it; his thumbs exploring the crevice between the silky cheeks reinforced his intention to take her there.

When she was shivering with need, he reached for the light blue bead he’d kept her from selecting earlier. It crushed easily between his fingers. The lubricating oil warmed immediately, tingled briefly as it penetrated skin in search of nerve endings.

Aisling jerked when he applied it to the tight pucker of her anus. She tensed, but within seconds she was panting lightly, responding to his commands as he stretched and prepared her, tempted her with the press of his cock head against her opening.

Lust flooded Aisling. Colors exploded on the insides of her eyelids.

Her cunt clenched and her skin slickened with sweat as she pressed backward, and took him into her forbidden entrance as slowly as she’d taken him into her mouth.

His tortured breathing echoed her own. His words of praise and husky pleas filled her with the desire to please him.

She moaned when he was all the way in, felt as though every nerve ending called his name, demanded she move, pull away from him—but not so far he would escape.

Pain and pleasure blended into indescribable ecstasy as she yielded to dark cravings. And he rewarded her with guttural cries and the hot wash of seed, with shuddering release.

They bathed again, sharing the soap generated by the last of the beads. And as he’d done once before, he used demon heat to speed the drying process as he brushed her hair and then his own before they left the bathroom.

Aisling pulled the sheet back, prepared to slide beneath it. He stilled her with a hand to her wrist, a carnal reminder. “You disobeyed me earlier. I told you not to touch me.”

Dark lust and erotic fear chased away the deep contentedness, the desire to cuddle and sleep.

She licked her lips. It was a provocative reminder of just how she’d disobeyed him, by taking him in her mouth. It was a subtle challenge for him to deliver the punishment he’d promised.

Molten eyes darkened, narrowed. Before she could do more than gasp, razor-sharp talons slashed the sheet she was holding, left only a long strip of fabric between fingers that shook slightly.

He released her wrist and took the cloth from her hand. “Get on the bed, Aisling.”

The command in his voice, the knowledge of what he intended, made her shiver and ache, gave birth to a hidden fantasy as she did as he ordered. His face tightened as he read her desire, scented the arousal rushing to coat her inner thighs, her flushed folds.

Aisling was acutely aware of the cool sheet against her heated skin as he bound her wrists and secured them to the bedpost. It was a symbolic admission of how helpless she was against him. A gesture forcing her to admit how much she liked having him above her, straddling her so his rigid cock and heavy testicles rubbed against her abdomen as he looked down at her with possessiveness in his eyes.

“Zurael,” she whispered, unable to think past his name, past the masculine satisfaction edged with desire she saw in his face.

She cried out when he lowered his head and took a nipple between his lips, tortured her as she’d tortured him—with teasing swirls and licks, light touches when she craved the fierce suction of his mouth.

He tormented her until she writhed and thrashed and pleaded. And then he kissed downward, pinned her splayed thighs to the bed with ruthless hands, pleasured her with his mouth and tongue—taking her to the edge of release over and over again—but didn’t let her come until he thrust his cock into her channel and made her scream.