New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter returns with a sizzling Angels of the Dark tale about a winged warrior renowned for his ruthlessness, and the woman who becomes his obsession….

A tormented past has left Thane with an insatiable need for violence, making him the most dangerous assassin in the skies. He lives by a single code: no mercy. And as he unleashes his fury on his most recent captor, he learns no battle could have prepared him for the slave he rescues from his enemy’s clutches—a beauty who stokes the fires of his darkest desires.

Elin Vale has her own deep-rooted scars, and her attraction to the exquisite warrior who freed her challenges her every boundary. But Thane’s unwavering determination to protect her means she must face her greatest fears—and enter a world in which passion is power, and victory means breathtaking surrender.

Praise for New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
GENA SHOWALTER

‘Showalter’s signature blend of sizzling attraction, breathtaking worlds and lethal stakes rocks me every time!’

—Sylvia Day

‘Another sizzling page-turner … Gena Showalter delivers an utterly spell-binding story!’

—Kresley Cole

‘One of Showalter’s biggest strengths is her ability to create wounded characters who are riveting and intense, but who also hold out the hope of redemption.’

—RT Book Reviews on Beauty Awakened

‘Showalter does her magic with an intricately developed world, complex and intensive character arcs and dark, compelling paranormal themes. She releases that literary punch to the gut with excruciatingly detailed scenes that haunt the senses long after reading the pages.’

—USA TODAY on Wicked Nights

‘Gena Showalter knows how to keep readers glued to the pages and smiling the whole time.’

—Lara Adrian, New York Times bestselling author

Also available from

GENA SHOWALTER

Angels of the Dark series WICKED NIGHTS BEAUTY AWAKENED

Lords of the Underworld series THE DARKEST NIGHT THE DARKEST KISS THE DARKEST PLEASURE THE DARKEST WHISPER DARK BEGINNINGS THE DARKEST PASSION THE DARKEST LIE THE DARKEST SECRET THE DARKEST SURRENDER THE DARKEST SEDUCTION THE DARKEST CRAVING

Atlantis HEART OF THE DRAGON JEWEL OF ATLANTIS THE NYMPH KING THE VAMPIRE’S BRIDE

GENA SHOWALTER is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of the White Rabbit Chronicles, Other-world Assassins, Angels of the Dark and Lords of the Underworld series. She has written over forty novels and novellas. Her books have appeared in Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines and have been translated into multiple languages.

To learn more about Gena and her books, please visit www.genashowalter.com and www.genashowalterblogspot.com.

Burning Dawn

Gena

Showalter

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To Jill Monroe. You’re pretty freaking amazing. You deserve only the best—which is why I hang around you so much. (Yes, I somehow managed to make your awesomeness all about me. I’m THAT good.)

To Emily Ohanjanians. You always go above and beyond the call of duty and I’ll be forever grateful.

To Kathleen Oudit, Tara Scarcello, Glenn Mackay and Alan Davey. You guys gave me the cover of my dreams—my sweet, sexy dreams. Thank you!

To Donna Hayes, Loriana Sacilotto, Craig Swinwood, Brent Lewis, Christina Clifford, Stacy Widdrington, Diana Wong, Ana Luxton, Amy Jones, Melissa Anthony, Erin Craig, Michelle Renaud, Margaret Marbury, Susan Swinwood, Natashya Wilson, Emily Martin, Don Lucey, Lisa Wray, Aideen O’Leary-Chung, Larissa Walker, Arista Guptar, Reka Rubin, Jayne Hoogenberk, Kate Studer and Chris Makimoto (and Emily O, of course—you get it twice!). You guys are an awesome team and I’m blessed to have you in my corner!

To Deidre Knight and Jia Gayles. I think Hard Work and Dedication are your middle names. Thank you!

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Epilogue

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

HE LIVED SEX. Breathed sex. Ate sex.

He was sex.

Maybe that was his name.

No. That wasn’t what she called him. She—his heart. His reason for being.

She would straddle his waist, feed his aching length into her hungry body, and say, “My slave needs me more than air to breathe, doesn’t he?”

My Slave. Yes. That was his name.

My Slave wanted his woman. Craved her like water to drink.

Must have her.

Only she would do. He couldn’t live without her smoke-and-dreams scent...mmm, or her too-close-to-the-sun heat...or her fiery claws. How deeply those little daggers cut into his bare chest. And her peekaboo fangs...how deliciously they nipped at the vein in his neck.

She was perfect, and only when she was with him, her strong body taking and receiving pleasure, was the gnawing hunger within him finally satisfied.

Must. Have. Her. NOW.

But...he looked around. She wasn’t with him. He tried to rise from the bed. Something bound his wrists and ankles again. Not rope. Not this time. Too cold, too hard. Steel? He didn’t care enough to look.

Problem. Solution. My Slave gritted his teeth and jerked with all his considerable might. Skin tore, muscle ripped, and bone snapped. Pain. Freedom. He grinned. His woman was out there. Soon he would find her. He would thrust inside her and slake his need for her. Again and again and again...

Nothing and no one would stop him.

* * *

“HE’S LOOSE AGAIN,” someone grumbled.

At the pond washing clothes and dreaming of salted caramel cupcakes...and frosted brownies...and, oh, oh, oh, peanut butter cookies, Elin Vale lumbered from the over-warm water. Brittle grass covered the small bank provided by the gorgeous desert oasis of Sahel, abrading her bare feet. As the sun glared from the clear morning sky, golden sand dunes undulated on every side; she sought shade under one of the handful of trees. A gentle breeze carried more grit than she was ever able to wash away.

At least there was a silver lining. A free daily body scrub meant her sunburned, freckled skin always glowed.

Yay me.

Now, if only she could accomplish her life goals so easily. 1) Escape the Phoenix warriors holding her captive, 2) make big bank, and 3) open a bakery. She would sell desserts good enough to induce orgasm...except peanut butter cookies because she would single-handedly consume the entire stock.

Life would be over-the-moon crazmazing. She would be doing what she loved and eating what she craved. Except, for one wee problem—she hadn’t yet managed to cross number one off her list. Phoenix were immortals with the ability to flame to ash and rise from the dead, stronger than ever before. They were vicious. And, ironically enough, they were cold-blooded. They enjoyed pillaging and plundering, and killed for grins and giggs.

Elin had seen the worst of their handiwork up close and all too personal, and even now, a year later, the memories were formidable enough to break her down. Memories she couldn’t stop...please, please stop...but there they were, flashing through her mind. Her father’s head rolling across the floor—without his body. Bay’s pain-filled moan echoing in her ears as he sagged to the floor, a sword sticking out of his chest. Silence descending. Such dreaded silence.

Even now her heart rate went full throttle, with enough horsepower to break records. Going to vomit.

“Catch him!”

The frantic shout was a welcome and wonderful distraction, the only life raft in a sea of horror, halting the oncoming breakdown.

Her gaze scanned—there.

Oh, blimey. He’s magnificent.

Because of Elin’s supposedly disrespectful mouth—some people couldn’t tolerate the truth—she had spent the past two weeks stuffed inside a small, dank hole, unable to see the new prisoner “worth toppling an entire empire to possess.”

The quote had come from every female in the village.

For the first time, Elin had to agree with her captors. The princess’s immortal slave was a god among men.

He stomped through the sand, flinging expert soldiers out of his way as if they were stuffed animals. He did this despite the fact that his wrists and ankles looked like raw hamburger meat.

His scowl was dark, frightening, and despite her fascination, she instinctively lowered her gaze.

Oh, wowzer. Hello, massive erection. The beast was in no way concealed by the leather loincloth the slave wore.

The ability to breathe abandoned her. Who knew penises did actually come in size magnum, as romance novels proclaimed? And, sweet fancy, as the scrap of material rose...and rose...and eventually fell to the side, she saw a glint of silver. Was the head of his shaft— It was! It was actually pierced with a long, silver barbell.

Her knees went a bit weak.

Eye-raping the princess’s slave, Vale? Really? Stop!

First, entertaining lustful thoughts for another woman’s man was a crime punishable by death. Second, it was 100 percent skeevy.

That was why she would look away...in a second. A peek at the rest of him, that was all she needed. He was at least six and a half feet of primal male aggression, with the defy-me-at-your-own-peril muscle mass of a dedicated, centuries-old warrior. But what truly snagged her attention—besides the jumbotron, of course—were feathered wings of the most luminous pearl and gold arcing behind wide, bronzed shoulders. Actual, honest-to-goodness wings, fit for the most cherished of angels.

But if the whispers and giggles she’d heard about the male were to be believed, he wasn’t actually an angel, and calling him one would have been an insult, since angels were lower on the totem. He was a Sent One. An adopted son of the Most High, the ruler of the highest realm of the heavens.

Sent Ones were expert trackers and merciless demon slayers. Defenders of the weak and helpless. They were honest to the point of seeming brutality. And, okay, wow, that was like a checklist of awesome. But the things that were supposedly specific to this male’s character: cold, calculated and demented. Not awesome.

Apparently, he laughed when he killed his enemies...and laughed when he killed his friends.

But...that couldn’t be true. Could it? He was too pretty to be so cruel.

Shallow much?

What? She was starved. A mind was mush when a body was hungry.

According to gossip, he was part of the Army of Disgrace, one of the Most High’s seven heavenly defensive forces. Six of those forces were well respected and admired. The AoD, not so much. They were a group of wild, untamable mercenaries in danger of losing their homes, wings and immortality; in other words, permanent time off for wicked behavior.

The twenty or so men and women were on a yearlong probation, their every action scrutinized. One more screwup, and they would be adiosed forever.

The grapevine hadn’t stopped there. The male directly below the Most High was named Germanus, and he was the Sent Ones’ boss. Or rather, had been. Germanus was killed recently by demons. But before his death—obviously—he controlled the Elite Seven, the seven men and women who were the fiercest of the fierce, and the leaders of those seven defensive forces. After his death, the Most High appointed a new second-in-command, Clerici, and this Clerici guy had tweaked some long-standing rules.

Before: do not harm anyone or thing but demons.

After: unless a fellow Sent One is being held against his will.

Then, and only then, the entire race could play a Kill Everyone Card.

Elin’s takeaway: once Sex On Legs’ army buddies found out what had happened to him, everyone in the village would bathe in blood. And—if the expert-tracker thing proved true—bath time would come soon.

Have to be long gone by then.

“Woman!” he bellowed, his voice more smoke than substance. And yet, that one word dripped with command, expectation and raw animal carnality.

She shivered with vibrant anticipation.

Reacting to him, too? Why don’t you just chop off your own head and call it good?

He belonged to Kendra the Merry Widow, Princess of Clan Firebird; she’d addicted him to the poison her body produced, a nonlethal substance worse than any drug, making him desperate for her touch. Then she’d cinched the deal by tricking him into killing her.

With Kendra, everything began and ended with death.

Shortly after drawing her final breath, she flamed to ash, reformed and rose again, the bond between mistress and slave firmly in place.

Apparently, she’d done the same to six of her husbands—and was currently doing it to her seventh, who was away from camp at the moment, the lucky jerk. Because, when she tired of her men, she cut out...and ate...their hearts, ensuring they stayed dead.

A shudder crawled the length of Elin’s spine.

As punishment, the late King Krull, Kendra’s father, had bound her with slave-chains to negate her abilities and sold her on the black market.

Where and when the Sent One had come into play, Elin wasn’t sure. She only knew he’d returned Kendra to camp decades later, dropping her from the sky and flying away. Krull, thinking the time apart had mellowed her, had removed the chains and given her to his third-in-command, Ricker the War Ender.

But with her abilities fully restored, she’d been able to addict Ricker to her poison, and gain his permission to leave the camp to hunt the Sent One.

The princess was sweet like that.

“Woman! Now!”

Elin swallowed a dreamy sigh. Even laced with anger and annoyance, the Sent One’s voice elicited images of strawberries dipped in warm, rich chocolate. Mmm. Chocolate.

Maybe I should help him.

The thought struck her, surprising her. She wasn’t exactly on speaking terms with courage, and to be effective, she’d have to endanger her own life. But if she could free the male from the princess’s bond, she could use him to escape.

Elin pored through every bit of information she’d gleaned during her enslavement but came up with only a few ways to free him. None that were particularly helpful. She could kill him, but that kinda threw a wrench in her plan, because he wouldn’t come back to life. She could kill Kendra (again), but the princess would come back to life, and Elin would have a very determined enemy for the rest of her (probably) short, (definitely) miserable life. Like the Sent One, death was the end for her.

Elin was half Phoenix, half “weak, lowly human,” with zero abilities to show for her dual parentage. And it sucked, because here—or in any immortal colony, really—halflings were an abomination. A stain against the race. A threat to the vigor of the bloodline.

She’d known she was half-immortal, but she’d had no idea she was so despised, living in happy ignorance until a group of Phoenix ambushed her mother, Renlay, a little over a year ago. All because her mother—a full-blooded soldier—had fallen in love with Elin’s father—a human—and had deserted her clan to be with him. As punishment, the group murdered Elin’s father, as well as sweet, innocent Bay.

So much loss... She tried to ignore the knot growing in her throat.

She and Renlay were taken prisoner. Then, four months ago, Renlay experienced the ultimate death. It happened to all Phoenix eventually—even if their hearts weren’t eaten—leaving Elin alone, so alone, suffering in the cruelest of ways, battling loneliness, grief, sorrow. Heartbreak.

Oh, the heartbreak. It was a constant companion. Cruel and merciless, darkening her days and soaking her nights with tears.

To be honest, the beatings and degradation did not compare to the torture of her emotions. Not even when she was treated like a dog, told to eat her meals on her hands and knees, without the use of her hands. Not even when she was made to take care of her bladder’s needs in front of a laughing audience.

Elin blinked away tears.

In a sick, twisted way, she kind of...welcomed the abuse, she supposed. After all, she deserved it. Her parents and Bay had been strong and brave. She was a weak coward.

Why had she lived and not them?

Why did she continue to live?

As if you don’t know.

Her mother’s final words echoed in her mind. Whatever proves necessary, my darling, do it. Survive. Do not allow my sacrifice to be in vain.

“Woman! Need. Now.” The Sent One once again ripped her from the past. He neared the river...neared her....

Soon, he would pass by, and the opportunity would be lost....

Her hand twitched as she debated whether or not to palm the glass shard another prisoner—now gone—had given her. A shard she’d hidden in the fabric of her leather dress, just in case one of the males decided to stop looking at her and start taking. She would have to do something drastic to break through the Sent One’s obsession long enough to capture his attention. Maybe cutting him would do the trick. Maybe not. Maybe it would enrage him, and he would snap her neck with a single flick of his wrist.

Should she risk punishment? Death?

Decision time.

Pro: there was no better time for an escape. Many in the camp were distracted, as King Ardeo—who’d replaced the late Krull—had taken his most trusted men to who-knows-where to hunt Petra, Kendra’s aunt, the Phoenix who had murdered Malta, Krull’s widow and Kendra’s mother and, for a short time, Ardeo’s most beloved concubine.

Ugh! What a mind-maze of names.

Ardeo had waited centuries to claim Malta, only to lose her two days later when a jealous Petra stabbed her in her sleep—and, taking a page from Kendra’s How To Be A Psycho book, ate her heart.

Con: Elin wasn’t in possession of Frost, a new “medication” for immortals, and the only thing capable of diluting Kendra’s poison.

Pro: she might be able to get some.

Krull had purchased a handful of cubes right after Kendra’s marriage to Ricker. Kendra now kept them inside a locket she wore at all times.

If Elin could steal that locket...

Another pro: never again having to worry about Orson.

He was away with Ardeo, but when he returned...

She shuddered as she recalled his parting words to her. “I will have you, halfling, and the way I’ll take you, there’ll be no chance of a babe.”

Hellmongrel!

Con: she could die horribly.

The Sent One was almost in front of her. Any second now...

If her mother were alive, she would tell Elin to go for it, despite the risk.

Well, then. Decision made.

Moving as fast as her reflexes would allow, Elin palmed the shard and swiped the jagged edge across the Sent One’s arm.

As crimson droplets trickled down his skin, she gagged. Dizziness struck her, and a burning tightness bloomed in her chest.

Panic...threatening to consume her...already restricting her airways...

No! Not this time. She focused on her life goals—freedom, money, bakery—breathed in and out with purpose, and the storm passed.

The Sent One ground to a halt.

He’s a slave, like me, and I’m his only hope. Heck, he’s my only hope. I can do this. For my family.

He turned his head, looking at her over the arch of his wing, and she shivered. Curly blond hair innocently framed the face of a born seducer...exquisite, flawless. In contrast, his bedroom eyes were at half-mast, beseeching a female to naughtiness.

Anything for you...

Too bad those eyes were so poison-fogged she couldn’t guess their color. Long, spiky lashes of the deepest jet rimmed his lids, and his soft, full lips practically begged for reckless kisses.

A ring of angry scars circled his neck, and she frowned. Evidence of an injury, no matter how great or small, did not usually remain on an immortal’s flesh. Had someone tried to kill him before he’d been old enough to regenerate?

Even with the imperfection, he was beautiful. A visual feast. A rare eye candy. A delicacy to be savored. And now I’m struggling to breathe again, drowning, seriously drowning in his utter masculinity, and now in guilt...grief... I haven’t lusted for a man since Bay, my sweet, darling Bay, my husband of only three months, dead now, and I should be ashamed...

“Female.”

The smoky voice caught her off guard. What the flip am I doing? Concentrate!

“What’s your name?” she asked, the words scraping against her throat.

Scowling, the warrior faced her fully.

Note to self: gaining his attention is a mistake.

His expression was all kinds of scary: hot and dark, radiating the evilest of intents. She gulped, expecting to be batted aside like everyone else foolish enough to engage him. But maybe she’d be gutted first.

Instead, he reached out to pinch a lock of her hair, the dark color an intriguing contrast against the bronze of his skin. His scowl softened. “Pretty.”

Her rebellious heart hitched into her still-throbbing throat. Another living creature, touching her with no intent to harm...making her tingle...so danged good.

How starved she had been for some kind of affection, she realized.

A distant shout jolted him, and he dropped his arm to his side. She swallowed a humiliating whimper. Like an addict, she already wanted more from him. Nothing sexual. Never that. Bay would be her first and last lover. There would be no second chances for her. But she couldn’t help wanting the Sent One’s big, strong hands on her...rubbing her nape, maybe...or massaging her aching shoulders...no, her feet...as a friend! Just a friend.

A friend with a magnificent body surely chiseled from solid gold.

Whatever!

He turned away to resume his stomping, Elin already forgotten. No! She tried to wrap her fingers around his biceps, but couldn’t. He was so large, his muscles so knotted with purpose. But, oh, his skin was deliciously warm and smooth.

“Please. What’s your name?” she whispered. “Think.”

Again he paused. His head tilted to the side, as if he gave serious consideration to the question. “I am My Slave.”

“Wrong. What’s your real name?” The more he reflected on the answer, the faster he would fight his way through the fog. Without the aid of the medication she may or may not be able to steal.

“My Slave,” he repeated, angry now.

O-kay. Message received. Conversation over.

He moved away as a group of Phoenix soldiers inched closer to him, their determination to subdue him by any means necessary evident with every step.

He threw them aside as easily as he’d thrown the others.

Hunting his prey, he tore several tents apart.

In the fifth, the infamous Kendra sat in front of a vanity mirror, brushing her gold-and-scarlet hair. She rolled her eyes as the Sent One approached.

“You didn’t have permission to leave your bed,” she said, standing and glaring at him. “Therefore, you must be disciplined.” She drummed her fingertips against her chin. “I know. You will spend an entire night away from me.”

Oh, no. Not that. Anything but that, Elin thought drily.

Low growls erupted from him as he snatched Kendra by the waist, turned and tossed her on the mattress. The muscles in his back and thighs rippled with strength. “My Slave wants his woman.”

“Thane!” Kendra scrambled to her knees, excitement now glowing in her eyes. “You didn’t have permission to touch me, either. If you do it again, I’ll have to deny you the luxury of my body for a week.”

Thane. His name was Thane. Seductive, like the man himself.

He moved in front of his mistress, breathing hard and fast, his hands clenched into fists. Elin could guess his dilemma. He wanted to do the princess’s bidding, but he also wanted—needed—what only she could give him.

“Nothing more to say? Oh, how the mighty has fallen,” Kendra cooed, tracing a fingertip down the center of his chest. She must have forgotten about her audience—or she just didn’t care. “I wish the male you were could meet the male you’ve become. You’d realize just how desperately you crave the woman you once abandoned.” She thought for a moment, brightened. “You’re in luck. I can arrange a meeting.” She unsealed the locket hanging from her neck and scraped a few flakes of Frost onto her fingertip.

“Open,” she commanded, and he obeyed.

He groaned with pleasure as she rubbed the flakes against his tongue.

With such a small amount, he would be aware of his predicament, for a little while at least, but unable to deny his body’s needs. Far more would be required to break the bond between master and slave.

Tense, Elin watched him. What would happen when reality hit?

A minute passed. Then another. Then he threw back his head and roared with unfettered rage.

The Frost had worked. Part of him had just realized what had become of him.

Elin covered her mouth to stop a cry of dismay.

“That’s right. You worship a woman you despise.” Grinning, Kendra stretched out on the bed. “I’ve changed my mind. You will take me, my slave. You will take me now, while your mind curses me.”

“No,” he snarled, even as he stroked his erection.

“Oh, yes. Do it.” Her tone hardened. “Now.”

Gritting his teeth, as if he fought a war within himself, he tore at her tank and shorts.

How did he treat a woman when he wasn’t enthralled? Gently? Would he care that others watched him have sex? Or that his lover actually belonged to another man?

“Isn’t this fun?” Kendra purred. Never had a person so emanated evil.

What had caused her to become...this?

Didn’t really matter now. She was what she was.

They all were.

Survival instinct 101. Put your head down. See nothing. Say nothing.

“Hate you,” Thane spat.

Kendra laughed. “Do you really? When you love me so thoroughly?”

Crack. Elin’s gaze jerked up. The warrior had just punched a hole in the headboard.

“Now, now. None of that,” Kendra cooed. “You’ve been given an order. See to it.”

Thane flipped her over and pushed her face into a pillow. Not wanting to look at her, even though he was still desperate for her? He nudged her legs apart with his knee, and Kendra gave another laugh.

“Just the way I like it,” she taunted, glancing back at him to smirk.

He turned his head to the side, and Elin could see the humiliation and disgust contorting his features.

A conflicting blast of emotions raced through her. Pity that he was being driven to this. Anger that he was being treated this way. And raw determination. He was a slave, like her, and needed a savior.

Screw survival instinct.

Elin raced inside the tent. “Stop. Please, Thane. Stop.”

He grabbed the base of his shaft and positioned himself for entrance.

“Thane!” she shouted, trying again. Fight Kendra’s allure. Don’t give her what she wants.

He halted just before the damage was done, his entire body vibrating as he resisted the urges thundering inside him.

“Please,” she repeated, and cupped his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.”

His nostrils flared as he drew in a sharp breath. Then he licked his lips, as if he’d just scented a tastier meal.

Me? she almost squeaked.

“How dare you speak to my slave, human.” Kendra swiped out a claw, intending to rake Elin’s thigh. Only, Thane grabbed the princess by the wrist, saving Elin from a severed artery. “Ow! Let go.”

“No...hurt,” he gritted.

The Phoenix guards snapped to attention, realizing they needed to protect their princess, and attacked Thane in unison, wrenching Elin from his side.

Stomach rolling from the sight of the attack, dizziness swimming in her head, she scrambled from the battle and waded shakily into the pond. She ducked under the surface, submerging herself, and vowed to stay under water as long as her lungs would allow.

Coward!

Yes. Yes, she was. But there was nothing she could do about it. Violence was her kryptonite, and if she didn’t hide, if she saw it happening, she would splinter apart.

Aren’t you already?

At least Thane’s life would be spared. Upon his arrival at camp, he had been clear enough to realize he was in the middle of a crap storm, and had killed Krull, who would not be coming back. Ever.

Kendra had been due a punishment for what she’d done to Ricker, and, to avoid it, she’d reverted to her old ways and eaten the old king’s heart. Ardeo had then taken the throne and as thanks for Thane’s part in the whole deal, granted him life eternal among the Phoenix. As a slave, yes, but life was life.

Lungs...burning...

Elin came up for air, gasping, relieved to see Thane and the warriors were gone. She wiped the water droplets from her lashes and trudged to the shore.

“Human!” Kendra screamed. “We have business.”

Uh-oh. Time for my newest beating.

Her mind whirled with a new plan. Bear whatever happens next, recover and steal the cubes out of the locket. Kendra has to sleep sometime.

Thane would come to his senses and fight his way out. Grateful for her service, he would take Elin with him. Finally, she could start her new life.

CHAPTER TWO

NEW BONDS. SAME PROBLEM.

Same solution.

My Slave yanked his way to freedom, ignoring the pain sweeping through his body. He stomped toward the exit of the tent. He wanted his woman with a desperation that—

He stumbled back a few steps, momentarily distracted. He frowned. Something small, square and cold had just been shoved into his mouth; it was sweet. He liked it. Also, there was a strange weight pulling at his shoulders. Why?

He took stock. A female had her arms locked around him, her small body pressed against him, her legs dangling above the ground.

New problem.

New solution. He grabbed her by the waist with every intention of pitching her over his shoulder. But the sweetness of her curves registered, and he quickly changed his mind. She was delicate, like an exquisite piece of china in need of protection.

He didn’t think he’d ever held anything so fine.

Careful, so careful, he wrapped his arms around her and held her against him, using his body as a shield against the world. He would protect.

She sucked in a breath, as if the embrace surprised her. “Your name is Thane. Remember. Please.”

Her voice—he recognized it. It was unnaturally raspy, as if she’d just had the most intense orgasm of her life and would die without another. And it was an intonation that had invaded his dreams for the past six nights, sparking something inside him to life...something almost tender...driving him, arousing him.

An arousal he didn’t understand. She wasn’t his woman.

“Thane,” she said on a trembling breath. “Your name is Thane. Kendra tripled your dose of poison, so I need you to concentrate on the cold now spilling through you. Do you feel it? Do you feel the cold?”

The cold—yes. A thin layer of ice coated his insides. “Yes.”

“Good. Now concentrate on me,” she said, and he was helpless to do otherwise. “Hear what I say. You are a Sent One. You aren’t here of your own volition. You were drugged. You’re still drugged. The woman you desire has made you a prisoner of the Phoenix. Clan Firebird.”

In some forgotten corner of his mind, the words held his interest. Sent One. Drugged. Prisoner. Phoenix.

The words were accompanied by emotions.

Sent One—longing.

Drugged—confusion.

Prisoner—rage.

Phoenix—hatred.

“—still listening? You can free yourself, Thane. There is a way.”

The cold intensified, until a winter storm raged through every inch of him. All the while the female continued to speak—that voice, so carnally perfect—and he began to feel as if he were floating higher and higher, his head finally peeking above a sheet of dark clouds.

His name was Thane. He was a Sent One.

He was here for a woman. No, he thought a second later. He was here because of one.

Kendra. Yes. That was her name.

He despised Kendra. Didn’t he?

No. He wanted her. Only her.

But...if that were true, why was he clinging to the female in his arms?

The, oh, so tempting female in my arms. He ran his nose along the line of her neck, inhaling deeply.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked on a wispy catch of breath. “Smelling me? I’ve bathed. I swear I have.”

No hint of smoke or flowers, only soap and cherries. She didn’t smell like Kendra, and he was glad.

He rubbed his stubble-covered cheek against her skin. Soft, mildly warm rather than searing hot. She didn’t feel like Kendra. But...better?

Yes, oh, yes.

He flicked his tongue across her fluttering pulse. Melted honey, summer fruit. She didn’t taste like Kendra. So much better.

“Stop.” She moaned, and he liked that, too. Wanted to hear it again...and again. “That’s not going to happen between us, warrior. We’re going to save each other, nothing else.”

What he heard: going to happen between us.

He agreed.

He carried her to the bed and eased her onto the mattress. “Have you,” he said.

“No, Thane,” she replied, wary—and even more breathless.

Floating higher and higher...

Peering down at her, he felt as if he were seeing her for the first time. Maybe he was. Or, maybe his focus was sharper with every second that passed, new portions of his mind clearing, cobwebs falling away.

His friends would have called her “plain,” he thought, but to Thane she was utterly breathtaking.

Long, dark hair spread around her like a midnight curtain. She was human. Petite. Delicately honed, like a cameo. Her pale skin had been burned by the harsh rays of the desert sun and had freckled. He could trace those freckles with his tongue. She was young, perhaps twenty, with big gray eyes that reminded him of smoked-glass mirrors. He could see himself in those eyes...all the way to his battered soul.

Something in her called to something in him—like to like—and a part of him he’d never known, a part once hidden even from that forgotten corner, responded. It was strong, this something. It was alive. Demanding. And it was saying, This one. Take her.

He watched as her gaze dropped to his erection...and quickly shot back up. A blush stained her cheeks. The sight aroused him, lighting a new fire in his veins.

“Uh, if you want to be free of Kendra, you can’t make love to her. Not that that’s what you’ve been doing to her. Barf! I’m just saying you have to kill her.”

He would have to proceed with caution. He could easily hurt so fragile a female.

Her words registered, and he paused. Kill...Kendra?

“There’s no better time. She’s sleeping. That’s how I managed to steal the Frost.”

Higher...

Kendra... His friend Bjorn had found her in the slave market. She’d been bound by gossamer chains—somehow unbreakable—when the warrior presented her to Thane as a gift.

Higher still... Bjorn. A sharp, stinging pang razed Thane’s chest. Bjorn and Xerxes. His boys. His only friends. They had fought demons together, bled together. They had shared lovers and guarded each other’s backs. The boys were as close as brothers. He trusted them with his life. Loved them with all that he was. Needed them more than his heart or lungs.

They felt the same way about him. Bjorn probably blamed himself for what had happened with the princess.

He shouldn’t. Thane had welcomed Kendra into his bed because she hadn’t minded his peculiar sexual tastes...his enjoyment for things that had horrified so many others. In fact, she had begged for the terrible things he’d done to her. For more. But she had also grown possessive and clingy, and he’d decided to let her go.

To punish him for his defection, Kendra had tried to torch his club, the Downfall. He’d stopped her before any permanent damage was done and hauled her back to her people, happy to be rid of her.

Only, her father had freed her from her chains, and she had returned for Thane. With full use of her powers.

Some Phoenix could change their appearance with only a thought, and Kendra was one of them. Again and again she’d come to Thane, never appearing to be the same woman, and each time he’d taken her. All too soon, he’d become dependent on the fiery poison her body produced.

That was when she’d revealed her deception.

Enraged, he’d killed her and, in turn, sealed some kind of bond between them, giving her what she’d wanted most. His slavish devotion.

Sparks of remembered rage scalded him.

She. Had. Enslaved. Him. Had bound his mind as surely as she’d bound his body. Only, the chains on his thoughts had been invisible.

She was the enemy.

She had to die.

* * *

IT’S WORKING. He’s beginning to understand.

Elin’s joy was sweeter than the banana cream pie Bay used to make her.

“If I kill the princess,” Thane gritted, “she’ll become even stronger.”

Elin debated whether or not to risk sitting up. Lying in bed while a superstrong warrior with a massive hard-on loomed over smacked of stupid. She was vulnerable. And shaky. And achy. But one wrong move could send this particular warrior into a tailspin that led straight back to the grunting, psychotic caveman.

Stupid or not, she remained in place.

“Kendra will strengthen, yes, but her tie to you will not. That will be broken with her second death, and won’t reform with her next regeneration. You’ll be free—and then, if you want to, I don’t know, escort me, your new best friend, back to civilization, I would be forever grateful.”

He thought for a moment, more and more fury rolling off him. “You are sure my tie to her will be broken?”

“Yes. But if you feel yourself falling back under her spell, take one of these.” She opened her hand, revealing the remaining two cubes of Frost.

Removing the medicine from Kendra’s locket had been easier than she’d anticipated. The Phoenix had drunk herself into a stupor and hadn’t noticed when Elin tiptoed to the side of the bed and fiddled with the locket.

Thane snatched the cubes and tossed them in his mouth, swallowing.

Or eat them now. Whatevs.

The tent flap lifted, and in stepped a guard on patrol.

Great! Premature rejoiceulation. Thane wasn’t ready for a full-on rebellion.

Sand flung from the guard’s boots as he stomped toward her. “Hey,” he barked. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

Fear drove her to the other side of the bed. Head down. See nothing. Say nothing. The guard followed her, unconcerned by Thane, assuming he was on another lust-induced rampage to reach Kendra.

“Looks like someone’s due another reminder about her place.” Strong hands wrapped around Elin’s upper arm, surely bruising her. A whimper escaped her. She was jerked to her feet. “I’ll be happy to— Hmph.”

Thane grabbed the guard by the neck and snapped his spine.

The hold on Elin’s arm broke, and the male fell to the ground.

There was no crimson pool to stir her panic, and she released a sigh of relief.

Maybe Thane was ready for a full-on rebellion after all.

“Thank you,” she panted.

He was breathing too heavily to respond, his attention focused solely on the bed. Elin backed away. Just in time. Perhaps he was remembering all the horrible things Kendra had made him do there, perhaps not, but the tether to his control shattered. With a roar, he punched and clawed at the iron railings, until only shards of metal remained. He ripped the mattress into eight different pieces before turning his attention to the walls, tearing through the fabric, shredding the entire structure.

Without the barrier, bright sunlight glared overhead, spotlighting him. Dust motes performed a wild ballet around him, as if to celebrate the birth of vengeance.

I’ve partnered up with a crazypants.

Uh-oh. She must have said the words aloud. He focused on her, the fog gone from his eyes...eyes a bright electric blue, beautiful beyond compare and so charged and turbulent she could feel the crackle of them all the way to the bone.

“Stay here, and you’ll stay safe,” he said through clenched teeth. “Do not run. I’ll catch you, and I don’t think you’ll like the results.”

Oh, no. What had she gotten herself into? “D-don’t threaten me.”

“Don’t run,” he reiterated.

Shouts sounded, drawing his attention. He marched into the heart of the camp. Elin watched, wide-eyed, heart thumping, as he worked his way through the masses, breaking the neck of anyone foolish enough to step into his path.

Was this really happening?

When he reached Kendra’s tent, he removed the blockade with a single brutal yank.

Yes. This was happening.

The princess had awakened. She stood in front of a full-length mirror, admiring her reflection, unaware her locket was empty. Seeing Thane, she smirked. “Someone enjoys his punishments a little too much, doesn’t he?”

He wrapped a hand around her neck, lifting her, causing her legs to dangle in the air. He squeezed so tightly her eyes bugged out, and her skin quickly turned blue.

She tugged at his wrist—he held firm.

She clawed at his face—he held firm.

“You’re going to die, and you’re going to come back, and then we’re going to have some fun.” There was absolute, utter command in his voice. “Do you hear me? Don’t you dare try to deny me my retribution by staying dead. You do, and I’ll track your spirit into hell and drag you back.”

Blood leaked from her eyes and nose and then...then her head flopped to the side. Her motions ceased, and Thane dropped her.

Elin fought a hot rise of panic. Blood...blood...not much, but enough. Stay calm. Find a happy place. Somewhere. Anywhere but here.

Thane threw his head back and released a war-hungry roar.

Anyone unaware of what was going on suddenly understood. Warriors noticed their fallen comrades on the ground and charged toward Thane. His back was to them. He didn’t know he was about to be tackled.

Elin cried out, distressed. Then Thane squared his shoulders, flared his wings—so long, so glorious, art in motion—and spun, a sword of fire appearing in one hand, a short sword in the other.

The Phoenix moved too quickly to backpedal and avoid impact.

He was calculated, methodical and lethal as he sliced through their ranks. Appendages fell. Bodies followed. Blood splattered and gushed.

Dizziness. Nausea. More heat.

Don’t scream. Please, don’t scream.

She’d witnessed this much devastation before, the day her father and husband were killed by the very men being dismembered. The only reason Elin had been spared was her mother. The beautiful Renlay had agreed to return to camp as a breeder, sleeping with whomever the king desired, so that she would give birth to full-blooded warriors for the rest of her miserable life.

Elin had been her insurance policy.

Renlay had become pregnant right away. But then, four months ago, both she and the child died. Neither regenerated.

The agony of Elin’s loss was still so terribly fresh. A wound that had yet to heal.

A wound that might not ever heal.

Finally, a reckoning had come. She should enjoy it.

Tears tracked down her cheeks, a scorching deluge.

An arm went flying through the air—without a body attached. A foot soon joined it. What little calm she’d managed to retain left her in a puff of smoke, and she hunched over to vomit.

In a desperate bid to end Thane, the final soldier threw a ball of fire at him. A very foolish move. Creating the ball zapped the rest of the male’s strength.

Thane easily dodged, his wings snapping together. Then he stepped forward—only to disappear from view. He must have entered the spirit realm, becoming unseen to the ungifted eye. A few seconds later, as if he’d flown the distance, he reappeared directly in front of the culprit.

Head—severed. Blood jetted from the open artery.

Elin vomited again, saying goodbye to the rest of her measly breakfast...and maybe even parts of her stomach. At least the battle was over. Violently. Brutally. But over and done.

Across the way, a tent erupted with flames. Crap. The fireball had not extinguished. Smoke curled through the air, thick and dark, drifting toward her, stinging her eyes and nose. Still, she remained where she was, just as she’d been told. Thane’s rage and bloodlust would soon fade—please, fade—and he would remember her. He—

Pivoted on his heel to look back at her, his expression dark with manic satisfaction. Icy fingers of dread crept through her. This is the man I’m going to trust to escort me back to civilization?

She stepped backward, the decimated remains of the bed stopping her.

“Female. Come here.”

Before she could take a step forward—was she really going to move closer?—two other Sent Ones appeared in the camp, claiming Thane’s attention.

Expert trackers...cold-blooded killers. The males were just as tall as Thane, just as muscled...just as intimidating. Maybe more so. They looked to be worked into frothing tempers.

They reminded her of rabid wolves.

She had a choice to make: fight or flight?

Did she really need to think about it? Flight! Surviving the desert and surrounding safari on her own would be difficult, but difficult beat insane any day.

As quietly as possible, she inched to the side, away from the males. If she drew their notice...

Careful...

Another inch...

She froze when Thane squeezed the shoulder of the guy on his left. The one with bronzed skin veined in gold and multicolored eyes glistening with violent determination.

The one on the right nodded, as if answering an unspoken question. His white hair was slicked back from his face, revealing the palest skin she’d ever seen, with tiny scars etched over every inch. Not exactly model-attractive...unless he was doing a spread for Hell on Earth Magazine. His freaky, neon-red eyes were straight out of a nightmare.

She gathered what little courage she possessed...and gained another inch.

The three warriors angled toward each other, forming a private circle smoldering with emotion—a sweet emotion that astonished her. Joy. Relief. Sorrow. Love. So much love. Despite everything that had happened, the worst of her fears were assuaged.

Without a word, the three males branched apart and vanished.

Elin spun, searching for any sign of the trio’s presence, finding none. Perfect. She swept through the surrounding area, gathering the things she needed: a canteen of water, a blanket and a bag to carry food.

Neon returned, seeming to step through thin air, and she jolted, a scream brewing in the back of her throat. He lifted two motionless bodies from the ground, unaware or unconcerned by Elin’s presence, and threw them in her direction. They landed at her feet, blood leaking from the bodies, pooling, winding around her. She began to tremble.

Rainbow came back next, then Thane, and the three continued to add bodies to the pile. The death...the destruction.

Do not vomit. Do you hear me? Do. Not. Vomit.

She must have made a noise. Neon’s gaze hit her with laserlike intensity. Gasping, she dropped her bundle and backed away. He stomped toward her, moving around the wall of death. The scream finally fought its way free...and just...never...stopped. Sharp pains ravaged her throat as her already damaged larynx protested further abuse.

Strong hands cupped her cheeks. “Female.”

Thane’s midnight-fantasies voice penetrated the haze of panic.

She blinked into focus. Piercing blue eyes watched her, diamond hard and determined. He was all that she saw. All that she wanted to see.

“You’re safe from my wrath. I told you this.”

Safe.

Yes. Deep breath in...out... Yes, she was safe. He’d said so, and Sent Ones couldn’t lie.

“Th-thank you,” she managed.

He traced his thumbs over the rise of her cheekbones—more contact, even better than before—every cell in her body coming to unexpected, dreaded life, snagged by the magnetic pull of him...reaching for him, desperate, hungry....

Vulnerable already, she was no match for his dark, wicked allure... It was as unattainable as a whisper, as heady as a caress. Undeniable. Inexorable. So powerful it nearly dropped her to her knees.

I’m so sorry, Bay. I promised you forever, and now I’m reacting to another male. I’m slime. No, I’m worse than slime. Though all she wanted to do was burrow closer, she forced herself to tug from Thane’s hold.

“You have two choices, female,” he said with a frown. “Return to the humans and chance being hunted and tortured by the Phoenix. Or come with me to the third level of the skies and work at my club, where you will be guarded.”

Work for him? Stay with him?

Determination pushed her shock to the curb.

“You’ll pay me?” Life goal one: escape. Life goal two: make bank. He could be offering both.

“Yes.”

“How much?” She may be tempting fate, but in the past few seconds, a mini-war had waged in her brain, and shrewdness had won.

His frown deepened. “We’ll figure it out.”

A nonanswer. “I...I...” Didn’t know what to do.

His gaze sharpened. “Never mind. I’ve decided for you. You’re coming with me, and that’s final.”

What! “Now hold on a second, angel boy.”

“I’m not an angel.” He clasped her by the waist—holding on—and passed her on to Neon. “See that she gets there.” Then he vanished, ending the conversation.

Well, well. Next stop: the skies.

CHAPTER THREE

ENDLESS RIVERS OF EMOTION cut different paths through Thane, though they each intersected with his heart, one bleeding into another, until he could no longer tell them apart.

Last night, thirty-eight Phoenix prisoners regenerated, the oldest and strongest first. Two had yet to reform, and might have reached their final death.

Kendra had been the fourth to reform.

One by one, Thane had hauled every single warrior to the courtyard in front of his club—and staked them to the ground. Hands, shoulders, pelvis, knees and ankles. He’d ensured every head was propped up with a rock...so that every warrior could witness the suffering of his friends.

Kendra was at the head of the line.

The Phoenix wouldn’t die quickly. As children of the Greeks, they were immortal. For weeks, perhaps months, they would starve, the sun blistering their exposed flesh, crows constantly pecking at their eyes and, later, their organs. And when the warriors finally succumbed to the sweet oblivion of death, they would regenerate, and Thane would be right there to repeat the entire process.

Merciless, yes. He didn’t care. Now enemies would think twice before challenging him.

The problem was, this would upset Zacharel, the leader of the Army of Disgrace. Thane’s leader. This would anger Clerici, the new king of the Sent Ones, Zacharel’s boss, for Thane was abusing the spirit of the amended law—do not kill, unless captured—not acting in an effort to protect others from the same fate, but to exact revenge. This would also disappoint the Most High, the commander of them all.

This would jeopardize Thane’s future.

He already stood at the corner of Last Chance and Doomed, and with one wrong move, he could lose the only thing he loved.

His boys.

Can’t be parted from them.

But he couldn’t let the Phoenix go, either. Not until their suffering blotted out the hated memories they’d given him.

Thane sat at the back end of his tub, boiling water pouring from the overhead spout, raining over his naked body. His hands clenched the edge of the porcelain so tightly it was already cracked. His legs were bent to his chest, his forehead resting against his knees. It was a position of shame. One he knew well.

He should have already rebounded. He was no stranger to sex and bondage. For almost a century, he’d found a delicious sort of comfort in the way pale, feminine flesh reddened under his ministrations. He’d adored watching wrists and ankles strain against bonds. Delighted in seeing the first gleam of fear in his lover’s eyes...knowing tears would soon follow.

Messed up? Yes. But then, he’d also enjoyed being on the receiving end of such treatment.

He was probably worse than messed up, and it didn’t take a lot of digging to figure out why. The months he’d spent inside a demon prison— Stop. No. Every muscle in his body tensed as his mind fought the abhorrent direction it was traveling, but he forced himself to continue on. Remembering kept his darker emotions at a razor’s edge, each ready to cut him, make him bleed.

He liked to bleed.

He remembered the way clawed hands clutched at him as they dragged him into a dank cell, stripped him, and strapped him to an altar. He remembered Bjorn, a stranger then, being strung up above him—and skinned. He remembered the copper scent of fresh blood, the warmth of it as it dripped onto Thane’s face, chest and legs. He remembered Xerxes, also a stranger, being chained to the wall across from him and raped repeatedly.

A roar of denial clogged his throat. Thane punched the side of the tub, leaving a gaping hole in the porcelain. What do you know. There was a limit to what even he could bear.

The pain of his friends.

As the days passed inside that terrible prison, Thane was never touched. He hurtled threats and insults, but the demons laughed rather than feared. He begged, desperate to remove focus from the other men, but the demons ignored him.

His frustration...

His hatred...

His rage...

Each had slunk to the back of his mind, and just never left him. Eventually, after his escape, his sexual gratification became tied irrevocably to the very things he’d been denied, creating a hell of a lot of crazy.

“I put your human with the barmaids.”

Xerxes’s gentle voice came from inside the bathroom, a comfort to him.

“Thank you.” Thane had questions for his lovely, unlikely savior. How had she, a human, come to live with the Phoenix? What was her name? How old was she? Did she smell as clean and sweet as he remembered?

Did she belong to one of the warriors staked outside, or perhaps to one of the soldiers out hunting with the new king?

How had she helped Thane? His memories were clouded. Why had she helped him?

The moment the urge to touch her faded, Thane would approach her and ask.

Right now, he was too aware of her. Too...absorbed in her. She made him feel soft, protective and tender, something he didn’t just not like; something he despised. And yet, his sexual desires had never been so intense. The urge to throw her down and ravage her was almost blinding.

Why the unlikely juxtaposition?

She wasn’t the type of woman he usually pursued. Line up his last hundred conquests, and each would be tall, leanly muscled and stalwart. This girl was delicate in every way.

It made no sense.

A growl rose from deep in his chest. Instinct demanded he destroy whatever he didn’t understand. What he didn’t understand, he couldn’t control.

Control was more important to him than water.

But he wouldn’t destroy the girl—he didn’t want to destroy her. Not after everything she’d done for him.

He could send her away, he supposed. But she would have zero protection.

Pass.

He could frighten her and—

No. Pass. She would scream.

Once, a screaming female would have aroused him. Now? When the slave girl did it? He experienced only rage.

At least he understood why her voice was so raspy. At some point in her life, she had screamed to such a degree, she had permanently damaged her vocal cords.

“I’ve placed guards around the courtyard.” Bjorn’s statement drew him from his thoughts. The warrior entered the bathroom behind Xerxes. “They will alert us when someone dies.”

Always these men supported him, loved him. Never did they judge him or push him for details he wasn’t yet ready to share. No man had ever had better friends.

Little wonder Thane was willing to die for them.

“Thank you for coming for me,” he said quietly.

“We will always come for you.” Xerxes walked over and shut off the water. “We heard about a Sent One who wreaked havoc in a Phoenix camp weeks before, and so we were in the area, looking for you. But they hid you well. If you hadn’t told us where you were...”

All Sent Ones could direct their thoughts into the minds of their brethren, so, the moment Thane had come to his senses and realized his location, he’d used the mental connection to shout for aid.

“Time to dry off,” Bjorn said. “You’re already waterlogged.”

As Thane stood, Xerxes offered him a towel.

He draped the cloth around his waist, a lance of anger cutting through him. Kendra had dressed him in a loincloth and forced him to parade around her people, a target for any wayward caress.

And her people had caressed him.

“Have Kendra’s robe removed,” he demanded. “Put her in a bra and panties.” Tit for tat. No mercy.

Xerxes nodded. “As soon as I leave you, I’ll see that it’s done.”

To distract himself from his black mood, Thane studied the opulent en suite adjoined to his bedroom. Steam coated the air, curling to the domed ceiling, with its elaborate chandelier hanging in the center, glistening with a unicorn’s petrified teardrops. The walls and floors were made of the same gold-veined marble. Towering archways framed large, alabaster lions and led into a closet—the one storing his...toys. A gilded mirror hung over a sink carved from a melding of rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

He’d designed the space for the women he bedded. And yet, he had never allowed a single woman inside it. Not even Kendra.

What would the human think of the decor—

He cut off that line of thought before it could tempt him. Her opinion didn’t matter.

In the living room, he eased onto the couch and, after collecting a tray of cookies and breads, Bjorn settled at his left. Xerxes poured him a glass of whiskey laced with ambrosia before claiming the spot at his right.

Thane accepted an offering from both men with a nod of thanks. He devoured the shortbread and drained the contents of the glass in a lone gulp.

“You have questions, I’m sure,” Xerxes said, settling back with a cookie of his own.

Grown men with a dessert fetish, he thought with the first stirring of amusement in his chest. Domesticated manimals in their natural habitat. Nice.

“Many questions,” he said, but he would start with the one that tortured him most. “How are you here, Bjorn?” Thane wasn’t the only one to suffer tragedy lately. “Before I ended up in the Phoenix camp, I watched you disappear in a dirty alley.”

A fateful night. Just before Kendra had died and risen from her ashes, effectively enslaving Thane, he and his friends had fought a new breed of demon. Shadows that slunk along stained, cracked concrete, hungry for more than human suffering...hungry for flesh.

Bjorn had been injured, the wound oozing some kind of black goo. Then he’d vanished.

Thane and Xerxes had been frantic, but before they could search for the warrior—the other piece of their hearts—Kendra had opened her eyes and commanded Thane to journey to the Phoenix camp.

He’d obeyed unquestioningly.

Oh, Kendra. The things I’m going to do to you...

With a new slave band hooked around her waist, negating her powers, she was as helpless as he had been.

“I can’t tell you what happened, or explain what will happen to me in the coming months,” Bjorn finally said, and Thane heard the torment in his voice. “I’m avowed to secrecy.”

He swallowed a curse. Sent Ones never broke their vows. Physically, they couldn’t. Not even degenerates like them. Thane knew Bjorn, and knew his friend never would have offered one unless those he loved were being threatened.

This was another crime to place at Kendra’s door. Had Thane been around, he might have found a way to save his friend from his current fate. “If ever I can help you...”

“I know,” Bjorn said, sad now. “I always know.”

I must do something. Anything that affected his friend’s happiness affected his.

“Have the demons responsible for Germanus’s death been found?” he asked, voicing the second most pressing subject. Before Kendra, hunting the six fiends who’d ambushed and decapitated the former king of the Sent Ones had been his only duty and his greatest privilege.

“Unfortunately, no,” Xerxes replied.

So much to do. Seek answers for Bjorn. Find the demons. Punish the Phoenix. Talk to the slave girl.

He looked forward to the latter most of all, and that irritated him. Looking forward to an interaction with a specific female was the same as looking forward to a specific meal. He’d eat, and it would taste good, but then he would be done.

He did not need a clinger situation.

Maybe it’d be best to avoid her now and always, his questions forever unanswered.

A sharp lance of...something...shot through him—it wasn’t regret, couldn’t possibly be regret—but he forced himself to nod. He would avoid her. And it would be easy. Within the hour, he would have forgotten she was even here.

Motions clipped, he leaned over and grabbed another cookie. To lighten the mood, he said, “I don’t have to ask what you were doing during my absence, Xerxes. Clearly, you were lost without me.”

“Clearly,” Xerxes said, his lips quirking at the corners. “Oh, but before you adjourn to your room, I’ll need a few minutes to move my things. I used the opportunity—I mean tragedy—of your absence to my advantage.”

Ha! “Did you turn it into the knitting room of your dreams?”

Bjorn wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “If you’re into knitting now, I want a sweater for Christmas.”

“Well, too bad,” Xerxes said. “You’re getting a muzzle.”

“A sweater muzzle? That’s effective,” Thane quipped. “I want socks.”

“To hide your hooves?” Bjorn asked casually.

Funny man. “I’ll have you know I have beautiful feet.”

“If you wax poetic about the great beauty of your toes, I’ll heave.” Xerxes clutched his stomach in mock disgust.

“Oh, little piggies,” Thane said, his voice soft yet dramatic. “Such sweet treats. How you send so many women...into heat.”

Bjorn burst into laughter.

Xerxes shook his head, clearly fighting a grin. “How did we get on this subject, anyway? The day I learn to knit is the day I want you both to put a dagger through my heart.”

This. This was why Thane loved these boys. The easy camaraderie. The teasing. The acceptance. “Deal,” he said with a full-blown smile. “But what should we do if you take up basket weaving?”

* * *

“CAN YOU BELIEVE...? It’s just so... Wow... I’ve never seen anything quite so magnificent. Do I have tears in my eyes? I think I have tears.”

Elin studied the four women pressed against the only window in the spacious and weirdly decorated bedroom they were to share. Octavia the vampire, Chanel the Fae, Bellorie the Harpy, and Savanna Rose—Savy—the Siren.

As a child, Elin’s mother had taught her the Who’s Who of the Different Immortal Races.

Phoenix and Fae were natural-born enemies, because Fae were descendants of the Titans—current rulers of the lowest level of the skies, this level—and Phoenix were descendants of the Greeks—former rulers of the lowest level of the skies.

Harpies were country cousins to the vampires, with a splash of demon ancestry, and lived for bloodshed rather than blood taps. However, they did need to drink blood to heal from mortal wounds.

Vampires were a blend of both Greek and Titan DNA, and despite human opinion, they didn’t burst into flames—or glitter—when out in the sun. And unlike other races, they didn’t choose to live in secrecy. They were the glory hounds of Mythtopia.

Mythtopia: Elin’s second choice name for the world of immortals. Her first? Suckville.

Sirens were secretive, usually only emerging from their oceanfront caves once a year to seduce and kill unsuspecting humans.

From the moment Neon—aka Xerxes—had pushed Elin into the room, saying, “She’s human, and will help you around the bar—do not harm her,” all four beauties had been nice to her, telling her all about their lives.

It shocked the crap out of her, the uncomplicated reception, and she was still reeling.

“Elin, come take a looksie,” Chanel said, motioning her over. “Prepare to be blown the eff away.” She smiled sheepishly. “And please forgive my lack of potty mouth. Savy has put me in a curse-word recovery program—even though only losers go to rehab.”

The girls snickered.

Bjorn, aka Rainbow, had found the pale-haired, blue-eyed Fae as a child, after her parents had kicked her out of her realm, Séduire, for reasons Chanel refused to state.

Steps hesitant—was this a trick?—Elin closed the distance. The girls made room for her, and suddenly she was peering out at the most gorgeous setting sun. Pink and purple spilled across an endless expanse of gold and blue. Clouds were in the process of thinning and breaking apart, wisps of white forming an intricate game of connect the dots.

“Beyond lovely.” She’d never seen the sky so up close and personal.

“I don’t think we’re looking at the same thing,” Octavia said. Thane had rescued the brunette bombshell from humans determined to hammer a giant nail through her beating heart. “As a plasmaterian, I think it’s lovely. And magically delicious. But I doubt we share the same tastes. Glance down, petal.”

Petal? It was better than “Servant Girl.” She glanced down—and screamed. Phoenix after Phoenix lined the courtyard in front of the club, each body held in place by multiple stakes. Blood dripped from each of the victims, creating infinite pools of red.

Elin pressed a fist into her mouth to stop another scream from escaping. As her stomach churned with sickness, she backed away from the window.

Most of the immortal races are vicious, her mother once told her. They are predators whose instincts have been honed by a single blade—survival of the fittest. Remember that. And if ever I’m not around to protect you, trust no one and use everyone. Do you understand? It’s the only way you’ll survive.

Elin’s chin trembled. Thoughts of her mother’s life always came with thoughts of her death. Annnd, there they were. Renlay’s image flashed. She was sprawled across the floor of her tent, drenched in sweat and blood, clutching her dead baby in her arms, crying as her life drained away.

Heart...breaking all over again...

“One thing is clear, girls,” Bellorie said, tugging Elin away from the dark place she’d been racing toward. “We need to wear rain boots the next time we leave the club.”

That was what was clear?

“Baking soda and vinegar might work on bloodstains,” the girl continued blithely, “but they do not work on blood soaks.”

Xerxes had purchased the redheaded stunner from the slave market and set her free. But like Elin, her family was dead and she was alone; she’d chosen to come here.

“Do you think Thane will greet all fire whores with a stake from now on?” Savy was the youngest of the group, and the most exquisite, with her blue-black hair, golden eyes, and toffee-colored skin. She’d once aided Thane, “the darling man,” during a mission, and he’d rewarded her with a home and a job.

The darling man? It was hard for Elin to reconcile the magnanimous Thane these girls had described with the cold, withdrawn Thane who had shoved her at his friend, disappeared, forgotten about her, and then, oh, yeah, decorated his walkway with living beings.

Who was the real Thane?

Actions mattered more than words. So. This one, she thought, was the truest reflection of him. No question. She shuddered, horrified. Thane might do this to her, if ever she crossed him.

Might? Ha! He was just like lightning. Pretty to look at, but dangerous and deadly. At the first sign of a storm, he would strike at her.

“Yeah. Probably,” Bellorie finally said. “Revenge goggles will paint targets on all their backs.”

Well, that settled it: Thane could not know of Elin’s mixed heritage.

Thane must not ever know.

Use the girls for information.

“Has, uh, he ever done anything like this before?”

One by one, they turned to face her. Their expressions ranged from pity to resignation.

“He’s always been brutal when it comes to his enemies. I mean, we’ve heard the results of some of his torture sessions with demons,” Savy replied. “Trust me, that Sent One knows how to work a blade.”

“And a hammer.”

“And a hacksaw.”

“And a bow and arrow.”

“But he’s never done anything this violent to so many at once,” Savy finished. “At least, not to my knowledge.”

“Don’t worry, petal,” Octavia added. “He’s very good to his employees. As long as you don’t steal from him, you’ll be fine.”

“Or lie to him.”

“Or betray him.”

“Or insult one of his friends.”

“Or try to physically harm him,” Octavia said with a shrug.

Elin gulped a mouthful of acid. I once cut him with glass.

Would he remember and retaliate?

She decided then and there to be such a good employee, he would never have any reason to punish her...or talk to her...or notice her in any way.

If ever I decide to write my biography, I’m calling it Head Plus Sand Equals Buried. Like the rest of me might be, if I’m not careful.

“Oh, a word of advice.” Wagging a finger in her face, Bellorie said, “Don’t try to lure Thane into your bed.”

“Or a closet.”

“Or onto a kitchen table.”

“Or the floor.”

Bellorie nodded in wholehearted agreement.

“Uh, don’t worry,” Elin said. Bay’s life hadn’t just been cut short. Bay’s life had been cut short because of her. Her! Because she’d surrendered to her feelings for him, dragging him into the crosshairs of the Phoenix.

If he couldn’t live to the fullest, she wouldn’t live to the fullest, either. Fair was fair.

And, yes, it was a self-inflicted punishment; a therapist could probably excavate a gold mine of neuroses out of her. But she’d made up her mind, and she was sticking to it.

So, that wasn’t you panting after Thane and his massive hard-on?

Whatever. A woman would have to be comatose to miss Thane and his hard-on.

“Anyway, Thane doesn’t sleep with his staff,” Bellorie continued. “Don’t get me wrong. I could totally seduce him if I wanted. I’m that good. But I choose to dial down my sexual appeal while I’m here. FYI, that’s why you haven’t jumped me, Elin. You’re welcome.”

Savy rolled her eyes. “You are beyond mistaken, Rocket.”

Interesting nickname. “How dare you!” Bellorie stomped her foot. “Elin would totally jump me if I unleashed my full prowess!”

The siren pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why do I even bother? I wasn’t talking about your sexual prowess, moron.”

Instantly appeased, Bellorie waved her hand through the air. “Then you may continue.”

“He does sleep with his staff,” Chanel tossed Elin’s way, “but only very rarely. And once the deed is done, the girl is gone. She never works here again. Never even comes back for an effing drink—because she’s forever barred from the effing premises.”

Got it. Thane was a serial bang and bailer.

According to her friends at college, it took a pretty hard-core personality to be a repeat offender. The shame of the broken hearts left behind and all that.

After a while, Elin had developed an unhealthy dread of being used. Not because she didn’t think she could handle the emotional baggage, but because her mother would have found out—Renlay always found out—and would have gone hunting for vengeance.

Renlay wouldn’t have been able to beat a second assault and battery charge.

Yeah. Try being that girl. The one whose mother broke a girl’s nose for giving her precious daughter a case of the sniffles.

Renlay might have lived among the humans, but she’d never been fully tamed.

A vise squeezed at Elin’s heart. Her eyes misted over.

When Elin had realized things with Baylor Vale were serious, she’d suggested marriage, despite how young they were. He loved her more than anything, he’d said, and happily whisked her off to Vegas. Three months later, he was dead and she was enslaved.

Had she known what was coming, she would have avoided him.

Oh, Bay. You’ll never know how sorry I am.

“I don’t want Thane in that way,” Elin reiterated. Really. “And I won’t. Not ever.” Determination could defeat tsunami-like lust, right?

Savy and Bellorie smiled at her, all sure-sure. Chanel shook her head and sighed, her disbelief obvious.

Octavia gently chucked her under the chin. “Everyone in this room is nursing a serious lady boner for him.”

Nice.

The girl continued, “Night after night you’ll watch him enter the club, select his female for the evening, and charm her into his special bedroom. You’ll be charmed, too, petal, I guarantee it. You won’t care what he likes to do in there. Hint: chains are involved. You’ll start to crave an invitation you know you’ll never get.”

Wait. “What does he do with chains?”

Smiling, Chanel wagged her finger at her. “Gossiping is another thing Thane abhors. So, you’ll just have to find out for yourself. And you will. Some mornings, you’ll have to go in there to clean the room and the effing woman.”

No way. Just no way. Love nest mop-up wasn’t what Elin had signed up for. It wouldn’t even look good on her résumé.

“Okay, enough chitchat.” Bellorie anchored her hair into a bun at the crown of her head. “Let’s get our girl into a uniform. The club opens in a few hours, and I have a feeling she’s not even close to being prepared. No offense,” she said with a grin. “But you look about as ferocious as a newborn bunny.”

“None taken.” Elin wasn’t prepared, and she couldn’t deny she was unaggressive and ready for a cuddle.

“Questions? Comments?” Savy asked. “No? Good.”

“Yes!” she rushed out. “I have questions.” But she would throw only the first thousand at them. The next thousand could wait.

“No?” Savy said again. “Good. Tonight you’ll simply shadow us, learning how to take orders and how to deal with unruly customers. Of course, that means we get to keep all your tips. The money, the gold.” She sighed with dreamy pleasure. “And the jewels.”

Gold? Jewels? Forget the questions. “Tell me more.”

Bellorie pulled down the collar of her shirt, revealing a sapphire skull-and-crossbones pendant. “Last night, a bear-shifter gave me this little beauty just for adding honey to his beer.”

Sweet juicy sparkles! How much would a handful of baubles like that go for? Enough to finance Elin’s bakery?

“Oh, before we forget,” Bellorie said, clapping her hands. “At the end of your shift, you may bed the male of your choice, but you can’t bring him to this room. Patrons aren’t allowed back here and are killed on sight. You can leave with him, and go anywhere you wish. Just make sure you know how to get back. Since you aren’t immortal, we don’t want you to accidentally walk over the edge of a cloud.”

Note to self: stay inside the building forever.

“I’m not looking for a relationship,” she assured them, “so I won’t be leaving with anyone.”

Octavia arched a brow. “Backtrack, petal. No one said anything about a relationship.”

Good point.

Chanel put her hands on her hips and studied Elin more intently. “If I know men, and I do, like, seriously effing well—good?—you’ll appeal to the protector types. You’re not a great beauty, but there’s something about you...a vulnerability, maybe. They’re going to want to save you.”

She wasn’t offended by the “not a great beauty” comment. She’d come to grips with her plain-Jane status a long time ago and made up for it with one heck of a personality. Or so she liked to think. “I don’t need saving.”

All four girls burst into laughter.

“What?” she demanded, a little peeved. “I don’t.” Not anymore. Thane had already checked that off her Life Goals list.

Savy shrugged her delicate shoulders. “If you have any problems, go to Adrian, the head of security. If you can’t reach him, go to Bjorn. He’s in charge of the club’s employees. If you can’t reach him, either, go to Xerxes. Whatever you do, don’t go to Thane. Especially now.” She glanced out the window and smiled proudly. “I have a feeling this isn’t the last dispute he’s going to end with major bloodshed.”

Great! Now Elin was thinking about being staked again.

Did I make a terrible mistake coming here? Should I have taken my chances out in the wild, a target for Ardeo and his men?

Octavia’s flawless emerald eyes twinkled as she came to stand at Elin’s side. Smacking her on the butt, she said, “Come on, human. Let’s get you a uniform. And while you’re being fitted, we can tell you the best part about your new life. As of now, you’re a member of our dodge-boulder team, the Multiple Scorgasms!”

CHAPTER FOUR

A BELLOW WOKE HIM. It was ragged. It was raw.

It came from him.

Thane jolted to awareness. He was in his room, in his bed, and it was dark. He was drenched in sweat, his lungs desperate for air. His muscles sore...from thrashing.

Bjorn and Xerxes were beside him, pinning him to the mattress.

He’d had another nightmare, harkening back to his time inside the demon dungeon. To captivity. Humiliation. Frustration. Pity. Sorrow. Rage. Helplessness. His eyes adjusted, and he glanced down, saw the bloody marks on his chest. As usual, he’d attempted to rip out his own heart.

Anything to end the torment he was so good at hiding, even from himself. Until his guard lowered...

Well, enough. He would take a lover today, he decided. He hadn’t done so since returning from the Phoenix camp, and he was feeling the effects of abstinence. He would exhaust himself so thoroughly, he wouldn’t have the strength to move when the next nightmare came.

And it would. They always did.

Bjorn and Xerxes sensed his change of mood and released him; he sagged, boneless, atop the bed.

“Thank you,” he managed.

“Defeating nightmares happens to be one of my many specialties.” Xerxes switched on the side lamp, a soft golden glow chasing away the shadows.

“What about the times you are the nightmare?” Bjorn quipped.

“I’m never the nightmare. I’m always the fantasy.”

Bjorn snorted.

A second later, the pair piled onto the bed, unwilling to leave. Thane knew why. They were willing to forgo much-needed rest in the hope of distracting him.

A man could not ask for better friends.

“Anyone else feel like girls at a slumber party?” Xerxes asked drily.

Thane’s heart calmed. Grinning, he sat up and leaned against the headboard. “If you start talking about cute boys and prom dresses, I might shoot you both in the face.”

“Wait. We’re having a prom?” Bjorn asked. He gave a fist pump. “Finally, a chance to be king.”

“If anyone’s going to be prom king,” Thane said, voice stern, “it’s me. Look at this face. It’s a moneymaker.”

Propping his hands behind his head, Bjorn said, “Hate to break it to you, angel boy, but even circus sideshows have moneymaking mugs.”

Thane kicked him off the side of the bed. Thud. Xerxes laughed as Bjorn came up sputtering.

Bjorn crossed his arms over his chest, and narrowed his eyes on Thane. “About that prom...shall we guess who you’ll crown as your queen?”

Thane stiffened. “Well played, my friend. Well played.”

Bjorn grinned. “That’s the only way I play.”

* * *

LIFE AS A BARMAID both rocked and sucked.

The plus: tips. Not that Elin had earned any of her own yet. Having shadowed the girls for the past four nights, she had seen the potential of her paydays, and was practically foaming at the mouth.

The minus: the uniform. A bra was trying to pass itself off as a shirt, and a piece of tulle was trying to pass itself off as a skirt. Elin was pretty sure she would cover more skin at a nude beach.

But, okay. Fine. Whatever. When in Rome...or, in her case, the clouds.

The clouds. Ugh. Even though Elin now resented the word splat, and fall was practically a curse word, she’d convinced herself to explore the backyard. There, she’d found a garden in need of major TLC and had spent hours pulling weeds, a chore she used to do with her mother in Harrogate, before her family had moved to Arizona.

It had been nice, but... How long should she stay here? A few months? A year?

No. A few weeks at most. The longer she stayed, the more likely Thane was to learn of her origins.

I would rather die than face his wrath.

But, there was a plus to waiting. If she were on her own, the Phoenix king would surely hunt her, then torture her for information, willing to do anything to learn what Thane had done with his people.

She sighed, hating the thought of living in limbo, her goals once again on hold. But at least she was safe for the moment. She wasn’t beaten for speaking the truth...or at all...and she wasn’t locked in a cage for some imagined crime, or buried in the sand, fire ants allowed to bite the only exposed part of her body, which always happened to be her face. She wasn’t treated like an animal because of her human blood.

She was fed regularly, had access to a television, a game station, and a computer—with surprisingly good internet connection, considering her distant locale—and she was getting to spend time with four of the most endearing women in the skies, each reminding her of her beloved mother in some way.

Elin smiled as she replayed a conversation the girls had last night.

Bellorie: So, get this. A gorgeous were-shifter stumbled into the bar. He was already drunk, and paused to stare at me like he’d never seen anything more beautiful. Because, of course, he hadn’t.

Savy: Until I walked in.

Octavia: I must have had the day off.

Chanel: I’m pretty effing sure I was hanging out with Octavia.

Bellorie: Wow. Could you guys be any more narcissistic?

Chanel: I’m not narcissistic. I’m perfect.

Bellorie: Anyway. He kissed me, only to pull back and mutter an apology. He said he thought I was his wife, ’cause I look just like her. I kneed him in the balls, and called him a lying, cheating son of a troll. He then said I sounded just like his wife.

Octavia: I bet you told him to bring the female with him the next time he visited the club, because she had to be the wittiest, smartest person ever.

Bellorie, blinking innocently: So you were there?

Immortal divas were fun.

But the girls were more than beautiful—and more than aware of that beauty. They were kind, uninhibited danger junkies, and quite competitive. They were serious about their dodge-boulder league, which was exactly what it sounded like. Dodgeball with boulders.

If only they were members of a jazz club instead.

They practiced every day. Hard-core practicing, at that. Running for endurance. Throwing their bodies against slabs of concrete to increase pain threshold. Navigating complicated obstacle courses while dodging the weapons the other girls pitched at them. Things like knives, metal stars and hammers.

They were determined to become national champs.

Elin barely survived the practices—even though, for the time being, she was only allowed to watch.

A clatter of dishes snapped her out of her musings.

Mind in the game. Right. Tonight, a live band would be playing. The group of five Sent Ones—Shame Spiral—were in the process of setting up. Elin found her gaze constantly returning to the lead singer.

Sexy did not even begin to describe. He had a slow, sensual smile loaded with all kinds of naughty suggestions.

Mind in the work game, Vale.

She would soon be toiling at the tables, on her own for the first time. And she could do it. She knew she could. She’d learned a lot. The most important lesson? Find a niche and stick to it. Each of the girls had one.

Bellorie flirted outrageously.

Savy was a stern taskmaster.

Octavia acted shy.

Chanel pretended to be an airhead.

Elin thought she might go for plucky best friend.

The girls never seemed to mind when their butts were pinched, or when they were tugged onto laps, or when masculine hands traveled somewhere they shouldn’t. While Elin craved contact, she didn’t crave a mauling, and she wouldn’t be able to pretend otherwise. She would cry or freak out, and the patrons would be offended. She would lose her (probably substantial) tip and anger Thane. Therefore, it would be best for everyone if she stopped all potential groping attempts.

She drummed her fingernails against the mahogany counter meant to separate the employees from the clientele. The area had recently undergone repairs and now sparkled like new despite the dimness of the atmosphere. Alabaster walls were carved with intricate symbols. The marble floors were polished, and scattered throughout was all-new furniture.

Apparently, Kendra had tried to torch the entire building before Thane returned her to camp, but Adrian, Thane’s very fierce head of security, had managed to contain the damage.

Customers would arrive at any moment. Paying customers! The myriad of Phoenix-kebabs outside had drawn more and more gawkers every night. A few had even asked to have their picture taken in “the little yard of horrors.”

Don’t think I’ll ever get used to this world.

“Nervous?”

The gravelly voice shocked a gasp out of her, and she whipped around to face the intruder.

Adrian. A big mountain of a man she kinda sorta considered Neanderthal chic. He had a wide forehead and slightly overarching brows. A sharp, prominent nose. Stunningly lush lips. And a stubborn chin. He wasn’t classically handsome by any means, but he was somehow all the more beautiful for it. Maybe because every inch of him screamed male.

He was immortal. He radiated too much power to be human, the waves of it stroking across her skin every time he neared, startling her. But she wasn’t exactly sure what he was.

Should she try to use him for protection?

“Very,” she finally replied. As strong as he was, he might belittle her for requesting aid. Or, like the Phoenix, he might turn her fears and weaknesses against her.

“No reason to be. Thane doesn’t allow those under his care to be hurt without severe consequences. Which means, neither do I. Only a fool would strike at you.”

“That’s the problem. Alcohol creates fools. And I’m not like the other girls, able to defend myself against a roomful of sadistic man-sluts. Not that everyone here is sadistic,” she rushed to add. “Or a slut.” Crap! Her shift hadn’t even begun, and she was already spewing verbal vomit. “They aren’t. Really.” And besides, how would Thane know what anyone did to her? There’d been no sign of him, or his two besties.

Not that she’d looked—around every corner.

Not that she’d waited, eager. Not that she’d gone to bed disappointed every single night, feeling as if she’d been abandoned by him. Which was silly! She barely knew him.

“People never forget my consequences, drunk or not,” he said. “I’ve been told to take good care of you, and I will.”

“Thank you. But who told you to take good care of me?” Had the absent Thane been thinking about her, sending orders on her behalf?

“Xerxes.”

Oh. Won’t give in to any more disappointment. Especially since there was no reason for the emotion! Xerxes and now Adrian were looking out for her. For a former slave, that was a dream come true.

“I have to warn you,” she said. “I’m going to say the wrong thing tonight. Guys are going to assume my butt is part of their order, and I won’t be able to help myself. Fights will break out, and the moment they do, I’m going to curl into a ball and suck my thumb.”

His lips quirked at the corners. “I’ll handle it.”

Amusement? Really? “Won’t my behavior drive customers away?” And get me fired? Perhaps literally.

Did Thane practice burning at the stake, too?

Adrian reached out, as if he meant to pat the top of her head, but he stopped himself just before contact. “Silly human. I recommend thinking before you speak.”

Hey! Her questions were well thought out, thank you very much. “Insulting beast,” she muttered.

A rusty laugh barked from him. “Or don’t. I like your spirit.”

From the corner of her eye, she spotted three Fae males entering the club, each with the pale hair and blue eyes quintessential to their race, dressed in colorful feathered tops and skintight pants.

As they selected a table in back, Adrian faded into the background, and Elin’s nervousness returned, now jacked up several notches. Her insides were practically showering in acid-coated ice.

At last the band eased into their first song. A love song. Actually, a sex song, and sweet fancy, goose bumps broke out over every inch of her. The lead singer—what was his name?—had the voice of a born seducer.

“Son of a troll,” Bellorie muttered, suddenly at her side. “The craptastic trio has arrived.”

Savy appeared at her other side. “Don’t be a hater. They’re only craptastic to you—and everyone else. But there’s no need for either of us to be subjected to that tonight. We have to throw our little E in headfirst, and this is the best way.” Her gaze settled on Elin. “The Fae are regulars. They’re also pretentious and infuriating. The most any of us has ever gotten out of them tip-wise is ten measly bucks. If you can get a penny more, I’ll give you every jewel I earn tonight.”

“Me, too,” Bellorie said, clapping. “Oh, this is going to be fun. I love winning, and this is a sure thing. Like Chanel after a few drinks.”

Elin rubbed mental hands together. Take their jewels? Yes, please. Her nest egg would start off with a bang.

“What do you want if I lose?” she asked. “Remember. I came here only with the dirty clothes on my back.”

Savy’s grin was evil. “If you lose, you have to serve those Fae for the rest of your stay. No exceptions.”

“They’re seriously that bad?”

“Yes,” the girls said in unison.

“The tall one called me ugly,” Bellorie said, her nose going in the air.

Jerkbag! “You’re gorgeous. You’re also on,” Elin announced. Gathering her courage, she shuffled her way to the table. “Hey, ya’ll.” She offered her biggest and brightest plucky-best-friend smile. “I’m Elin, and I’m here to serve you tonight.”

None of the males looked at her. They continued on with their conversation.

“The new king and queen want to do what? No, they must be stopped.”

“Who can stop them? Kane is a Lord of the Underworld and Josephina is a drainer.”

“Three words. Long. Distance. Rifle.”

Please. Pretend I’m not even here. It’ll be fun.

“I’d love to get you something to drink,” she said.

Again, she was ignored.

Frustrated, she glanced over at the bar and caught Bellorie grinning like a loon. Elin stuck out her tongue.

Bellorie played show-and-tell with her middle finger.

Coughing to cover a laugh, Elin considered her next move. Put her head between the males closest to her, and risk becoming the night’s entertainment? Or walk away, come back later, and risk losing her tip because of “slow service”? Finally, she placed her hand on the shoulder of the guy on her right.

He stiffened, then flicked her arm away with so much force she stumbled backward. “Touch and die, bar wench.”

“Noted,” she managed to squeak past the lump growing in her throat. Run. Now.

Victory. Jewels. Bakery.

She remained in place. A stroke of power against the back of her neck had her spinning—and facing Adrian’s chest. She gulped, waiting for the end to come. When he didn’t lash out at her for daring to touch a patron without permission, she turned back to the Fae and breathed a sigh of relief.

They were staring at Adrian with terror in their crystalline eyes.

“So, um, yeah. What can I get you to drink?” she asked.

The guy closest to her seemed to blink a thousand times before saying, “Ambrosia-laced whiskey.”

She lifted her hand to write it down, only to recall pen and paper weren’t allowed. They were “too human.” She was to memorize every order and refill accordingly without being asked. “And you?”

“Ambrosia-laced vodka.”

She remembered the stern warning Bellorie had given her only this morning. Don’t sample the ambrosia. It’s immortal brew and you’ll die. “You?”

“Surprise me. And it had better be a good surprise.”

Wonderful. “Of course. I wouldn’t know how to do a bad surprise.” She stepped back, expecting to bump into Adrian—except he was no longer behind her. Frowning, she returned to the bar. Bummer. Bellorie had wandered off.

She told the bartender what she needed. “Whatever you make for the third drink, put a rainbow-colored umbrella in it.” That was a “good” surprise, right?

The tattooed hottie with pink hair glowered at her before filling three glasses. He did not add an umbrella.

O-kay. Note to self: bartender is not one for idle chitchat...or suggestions.

Chanel had mentioned his name was “effing McCadden,” and he was a fallen Sent-One-slash-cold-blooded-murderer. Oh, and that he had a serious case of love ebola for the minor goddess of Death, whoever that was. He was also Xerxes’s prisoner—and strangely enough, his friend—and he was not to be messed with.

She loaded up her tray. “How am I supposed to know which glass has which liquid?” Everything was black.

McCadden strode to the end of the bar, snubbing her.

Wonderful. Just great! She turned, her gaze automatically dusting over the stage. A crowd had arrived, seemingly between one blink and another. Women now crowded the edge of the stage, throwing their panties at the band and begging for one night in “Merrick’s” arms.

“The singer is Merrick, I take it,” she said as Bellorie came up beside her to fill an order.

“Yes, indeed. He collects female hearts just so he can break them.”

“That’s sad.”

“That’s life.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be my life.” Elin carefully returned to the Fae, threading her way through the crowd without spilling a drop. Murmurs rose and blended, adding to the already chaotic kaleidoscope of noise.

“What took so long?” Whiskey demanded. Guess he’d gotten over his fear of Adrian.

A few minutes was “so long”? “The goodest surprises—” No way. No way she’d just said that. “I mean, the best surprises take time.” She once again donned her biggest and brightest smile as she set the glasses in the center of the table. Let the males pick their own. “Is there anything else I can get you? A bowl of nuts?” Your own knocked into your throats?

Violence without bloodshed. She could deal.

Her wrist was grabbed, and thrust under the nose of Vodka. “You smell especially sweet. What race are you?”

Shut your big, fat mouth hole! she almost screamed as she searched for Adrian. Had he overheard? When she saw that he was across the room, oblivious, she yanked free of the Fae’s hold. He was stronger than her, obviously, and could have held on, and she wouldn’t have been able to do a thing about it, but he let her go.

“I’m, like, totally human.” Just drop it. Please, just drop it.

Laugher met the pronouncement, and she nearly had a heart attack. These Grade A jerkwads could ruin her.

“Thane would never force his valued clientele to slum it with a lowly human,” Whiskey said.

Going for calm and confident rather than scared and sickly, she arched a brow. “You know him so well, then? You chat with him regularly?”

He flinched, clearly embarrassed to be called out in front of his friends. Douchey Fae: 0. Elin: 1. And now, Subject Death Trap was closed.

Yeah, but the jewels...the bakery.

She’d lost the bet, no question, but she wasn’t sorry. A dead girl couldn’t live her dreams. “So...no nuts?” she asked, flashing another grin.

“I can’t imagine Thane has plans to bed you.” Surprise Me stroked his chin with long, lean fingers. “But that’s the only reason someone like you would dare to speak to us in such a fashion.”

His condescending tone annoyed her, but she managed to maintain her grin. If there was one lesson that had been hammered home while living with the Phoenix, it was to act as if she was too stupid to realize when she’d been insulted, even while she was dying inside.

“No, really, how well do you know him? Because I’ve been here less than a week, and I’d love to learn more about him.”

Sadly, it was true.

Vodka rolled his eyes. “If you survive the entire week, I’ll pledge my life to my new king and queen without a single qualm.”

The three returned to their conversation.

Crisis averted.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned away with every intention of finding one of the girls and asking for a different table. Throwing in the towel? Waving the white flag? Pathetic!

All at once, the entire club went quiet, even the music seeming to fade into the background.

The reason why strode through the bar as if he owned it. Because he did.

Thane had arrived.

It was her first sighting since MOP, the Massacre of the Phoenix, and it utterly stole her breath. He wore a long robe made of brilliant white fabric that should have hidden his strength but somehow only accentuated every luscious swell of muscle he possessed. Innocent blond curls framed the wicked beauty of his face, the savage contrast enough to intrigue the deadest of hearts.

I’m not intrigued and I’m not affected. I’m not, dang it.

His electric blues scanned the sea of customers, only to stop abruptly on Elin. As if lit by a match, his expression heated.

For a moment, she wondered if he’d finally learned the truth about her. If he was going to arrest her in front of all these people and escort her to the Courtyard of Horrors. Tremors struck her like bolts of lightning. Then his gaze stroked over her scantily clad curves leisurely, as if he’d found something worth further study, and she shivered.

Um...was that arousal she’d seen?

Just like that, the world around her vanished. There was only Thane and mutual animal attraction. The air seemed to charge with molten electricity, and her neglected body cried out. One touch. Just one.

“Thane,” she whispered, and his gaze jerked up to her face. The heat she’d seen before? Nothing compared to this. Fire that scorched, even from this distance.

She licked her suddenly tingling lips. A low growl sprang from him. He took a step toward her. She didn’t mean to, but she took a step toward him. One touch. Just one. Then he stilled, not even seeming to breathe. His expression hardened, and his hands fisted at his sides.

He turned away, effectively dismissing her.

A heavy breath deflated her lungs. She was dismissed. And so freaking easily.

The sting of rejection jolted her back to awareness. She was in a club. A club filled with immortals—his club. People were watching her with avid curiosity now. People who had seen him seduce hundreds...perhaps thousands...of other women.

Elin raised her chin. I didn’t want him anyway. One touch? Never.

“Gorgeous,” a dragon-shifter gasped. He reached out and ghosted his fingertips along the curve of Thane’s wing.

No fair, she thought with a longing she couldn’t deny, even now.

Thane reacted immediately, snatching the guy’s wrist and breaking it with a single squeeze. A pained howl scraped at her ears, making her cringe. Adrian appeared at the injured man’s side, taking him by the scruff and hauling him out of the club.

The entire scene played out in three seconds, tops.

O-kay, then. Wings: off-limits.

And there was no reason to make a mental note of that, since she’d already decided not to touch Thane, or to let him touch her, ever.

He resumed his walk through the club, stopping to address a table of Harpies. Elin couldn’t make out the words that were spoken, but whatever he said after the introductions caused each of the females to gape. Had he issued a death threat? His expression was harsh, determined.

Then he held out his hand to the tallest and strongest at the table. A striking blonde.

Blondie willingly placed her fingers in his, and, ever the gentleman, he helped her stand.

Not a death threat, but a seduction. A lance of something hot branded the center of Elin’s chest. Anger? Jealousy? A measure of both? Yeah. Nailed it.

Thane led the woman out of the bar.

To his special room?

That quickly? That easily?

Elin gripped her tray with so much force the board cracked down the center.

Startled, she peered down at the two jagged halves. She was that jealous? No, impossible. She didn’t know the man, and certainly didn’t want him for her own.

He didn’t matter to her.

Honestly, he was nothing more than a means to an end. A scary means to an end, at that. Stupid Thane was welcome to his stupid Harpy and his stupid love life and his stupid room and his stupid pleasure.

She would forget him just as easily as he’d picked up that skanky Harpy.

Name-calling? Who are you? The blonde was probably as sweet as candy, a stay-at-home divorced mom just looking for a night of fun to give her self-esteem the boost it needed after her husband cheated on her with their next-door neighbor.

Buck up, Vale. You have Fae snobs to charm and jewels to win.

Charm. Right. Except, she’d already failed in that endeavor.

So...what else could she try?

What would your mother do?

Easy. Renlay would kill everyone.

Well, that wasn’t going to work for Elin. There had to be another way.

As she thought it over, her eyes widened. There was another way. It might land her in serious trouble with Thane, but at the moment, she didn’t exactly care.

Victory, here I come.

CHAPTER FIVE

THANE TUGGED ON his robe, his motions steady despite the aggravation attempting to choke him. The Harpy was asleep and unaware of his mood, thank the Most High. She would have panicked—or asked for round two. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with either.

What was her name?

Not that he cared. It wasn’t as if he would ever speak to her again.

He’d used her. She’d used him. Pleasure was had. The problem was, he wasn’t satisfied.

Have you ever been?

He worked his jaw. Yes, of course. At least a little. For years, he’d brought his women here, to the bedroom across from his. It was where he’d kept Kendra.

She was the first, the only, woman ever to move in for longer than a few hours, and he’d allowed it only because she’d experienced no remorse after his depraved desires had been slaked. No matter how badly he’d frightened...and marred...her. No matter what horrible things he’d asked her to do to him.

A perfect union, at least on the surface. And yet, they had never actually fit, or balanced each other.

Same with the Harpy. While she possessed a measure of dark yearning, proved every time she’d run the tip of a blade over his skin, as demanded, and smiled as his blood welled, she hadn’t satiated him. Not when he’d chained her, and she had struggled, her wrists and ankles chafing, her eyes tearing up—not just with fear, but with uncertain anticipation. Not when he’d shown her an array of weapons and told her slowly and quietly what he was going to do with them, and the tears had streamed down her cheeks in earnest. Not even when he’d put his words into action, and she had begged for mercy...and for more.

Her whimpers hadn’t been sweet, sweet music, as he’d expected. Her fear hadn’t fanned the flames of his passion, and her pain hadn’t soothed the savage beast inside.

She hadn’t given him anything he’d needed.

What did he need?

He thought he’d known.

He could take her again, harder, harsher, and finally, hopefully, exhaust himself, but he refused to bed the same woman twice. Never again would he risk enslavement.

Oh, he knew there were only a handful of females like Kendra, capable of enchaining through sex, and none that were not Phoenix. But what if the Harpy had Phoenix blood in her ancestry? How was a man to know?

Besides, why take the Harpy a second time when his body craved another woman?

The...don’t say it...ignore the desire, and it will go away...human.

He had to bite back an aggravated snarl. He couldn’t ignore—and he couldn’t forget. Somehow, she had branded her image in his mind. Her name, he was suddenly desperate to know. He wished he’d confronted her, today, yesterday, every day, and drank in every word about her.

What was it about this female?

At the camp, she had looked at him with wild panic and even fear, and he’d hated every moment. He should have enjoyed that, as he did with other women, but no. He hadn’t. Therefore, he shouldn’t desire her. But earlier in the club he’d taken one look at her and hungered as if he had never eaten.

She was prettier than he remembered, and he’d somehow scented her from across the room. He’d had to fight the compulsion to close the distance between them, sweep her into his arms and carry her away to ravage her.

She had been dressed provocatively, yes, but that shouldn’t have had any bearing on the situation. Since the opening of the club, his female employees had worn that barely-there uniform. It was like white noise to him—there, but hardly noticeable. And yet, on the human, he’d noticed.

Despite her fragile build, she had lush, ripe breasts made for a man’s hands and dangerous curves made to cradle the hardest part of him. Her legs would fit perfectly around his hips, anchoring him as he plunged into her—

No!

Tomorrow, he would force her to wear a robe.

He no longer screwed the staff. He could always find a lover, but he couldn’t always find a dedicated, trustworthy worker. And if he took the delicate human the way he liked, the only way he could, he would do more than panic and frighten her. He would harm her irrevocably. In body...and in mind.

He didn’t like the thought of her alabaster skin blighted...or fear in her smoked-glass eyes.

How odd.

You could be gentle with her. You could—

No. He couldn’t. He had tried that before, but it hadn’t worked. He hadn’t even been able to finish. Pain, he’d realized, wasn’t just a desire; it was a need.

Although, he thought he might actually like seeing the human lost in the throes of passion. She would writhe underneath him, soft and warm and wet. He would spread her legs, and she wouldn’t fight him, because she would want him just as desperately as he wanted her. He would relish the sight of her body, pliant and eager. He would kiss each of her freckles, then move over her, push inside her, going slowly at first, savoring every sensation, before increasing his tempo.

His shaft throbbed.

And what happens when your control slips, and you revert to habit?

He pushed the upsetting thought from his mind and focused his attention on the things around him. Though this room was smaller than his, it was far more luxurious. Overhead hung a chandelier boasting a bouquet of rose-shaped diamonds. The walls were sheets of the purest gold, so clear rainbow flecks appeared to be trapped inside. The bed was formed from intricately twisted metals, fit only for a queen...of the night. At both the headboard and footboard were rings for different types of shackles. Whatever he preferred to use during any given encounter.

The Harpy’s breathy sigh sent him striding to the door. The chance for a cold, clean getaway grew slimmer by the moment.

“Don’t want to...sleep with me?” she asked, her voice slurred by fatigue.

Too late.

He looked back. She was still naked and bound to the bed.

Thoughts he’d previously ignored rose. Why had she agreed to be here? He hadn’t used charm, like he once had. He’d simply said, “For a few hours, I’ll do things that will make you cry and demand you do the same to me. Only I won’t cry. I’ll curse you, and take you harder than you’ll think you can bear. Are you in or out?” She’d agreed faster than any other woman ever had. Had needed no other prompting. With only the slightest encouragement, her friends would have agreed, too. They’d moaned, “Lucky,” while she’d stood.

Perhaps he shouldn’t try to analyze why. The answer would probably sadden him.

“Sleeping together wasn’t part of our arrangement.” He’d never spent an entire night with a woman, and he never would. Sleep left you vulnerable. And to have someone within striking distance? No. His dreams were far too violent, his reactions far too telling. He could kill his partner without realizing it.

“Mmm-kay. Chains?”

He returned to her and unfastened her ankle cuffs first, then her wrists, careful not to brush against her. She reached for him, her arm shaking. He backed up before contact could be made. How could he offer solace to someone else when he couldn’t even offer it to himself?

With a sigh, she sagged on the mattress.

He pulled a diamond choker from the air pocket he always carried with him. A shelf of space that hovered between the spiritual and natural realm, opened and sustained by his energy, invisible to the rest of the world. He placed the bauble on the nightstand. “I thank you for your time.”

“Matching earrings?” she asked, before her head lolled to the side and sleep once again claimed her.

He placed a pair of earrings beside the choker and left the room without another word. Bjorn and Xerxes waited for him in the antechamber they shared. The two were on the couch, sipping perfectly aged scotch.

“Thane, my friend, you look far from satisfied,” Bjorn said. “In fact, you look like me.”

The male only ever tolerated sex, using it to forget the past, but never quite succeeding.

“What he means is, you look like a savage,” Xerxes reported.

To Xerxes, sex was a quest for comfort he’d never actually found. He vomited after every encounter, shaking from the effects of the intimacy.

“For once, looks are not deceiving.” His head should be clear. His body should be relaxed. A certain dark-haired, gray-eyed barmaid should be exorcised from his mind.

Zero out of three wasn’t acceptable.

“So...did anyone else notice the way our new barmaid stared at Merrick?” Xerxes asked, his tone sly.

Thane stiffened. The lead singer of Shame Spiral was a known heartbreaker. “Did she leave with him?”

“No,” Bjorn said. Voice just as sly as Xerxes’s, he added, “Why? Would you be upset if she had?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Thane remained silent.

Clearly trying not to smile, Xerxes said, “What’s next on the agenda?” taking mercy on him.

“The meeting with Zacharel.” Their leader had sent a mental-o-gram this morning. My cloud. Ten. Do not be late.

It was time for Thane to be punished for his most recent sins...or kicked out of the skies. A cold sweat broke out over his skin, and he fought to level his breathing. Can’t be kicked out.

“I must speak with Adrian before we go.” And tell the male to never again invite Shame Spiral back. Their music had lost its appeal.

He tasted something bitter on his tongue and frowned.

“Will you be speaking to Adrian about the human girl?” Bjorn chuckled for the first time in weeks. “I saw the way you looked at her earlier.”

Xerxes snickered. “Everyone saw.”

“Do we need to settle this the old-fashioned way, boys?” Thane asked, one brow arched as he shook a fist in the air.

“You mean break-dance fighting?” Bjorn asked.

He nodded. “Exactly.”

Both males laughed, easing his dark mood.

He moved into the private hallway guarded by three vampires he’d saved from human slayers centuries ago. Each nodded in acknowledgment as he stepped into an elevator built for large men with even larger wings.

The doors shut, and the box descended with a slight shake. A few seconds later, he was striding across the lowest level of the club, snaking a corner, entering the bar. All customers were gone. The lights were no longer dimmed but shining brightly, illuminating the gilded mirrors on every wall, the dark leather chairs scattered about, and the high-gloss tables.

Adrian the Frenzied, a berserker booted from his tribe for being too ferocious—as if there was truly such a thing—stood in the far corner, watching.... Thane followed the line of his fascinated gaze, and gritted his teeth. Watching the reflection of the new barmaid, who was in the process of wrapping a ruby choker around her neck and preening sweetly in a mirror. Multiple gold and silver bracelets clacked on her wrists, and diamonds winked from each of her fingers; she clearly liked the look of them.

Like a little girl playing dress-up for the first time.

Too adorable for words. An unfamiliar ache bloomed in his chest. Did Adrian feel something similar?

He scowled. Perhaps there was such a thing as too ferocious. Because just then, Thane would have ripped the male’s face off—with his bare hands.

Who had given her such expensive pieces? An admirer? Merrick?

He stalked in front of Adrian, blocking his view. “You will take Savy and Chanel to my suite to help the Harpy dress and find her way out,” Thane snapped. Be calm. He’s done nothing wrong. “But first tell me about the human’s jewels.”

In a heartbeat of time, Adrian’s expression changed from soft and amused to cold and hard. He found Thane’s way of life deplorable, had never made a secret of it, and didn’t like that the girl was on his radar.

Well, Thane didn’t want her on Adrian’s radar. The berserker possessed unnatural strength and had to be careful with everyone he encountered. From him, even immortals had trouble surviving something as simple as a pat on the back.

“The jewels,” Thane prompted. If he mentioned Merrick...

“Bellorie and Savy made a bet with the human,” Adrian said. “If she could get more than ten dollars from a trio of Fae, she would win their tips for the evening. In only an hour, she got far more.”

She’d won a bet against two fierce competitors? Pride joined the ache in his chest, baffling him.

Pride? Why pride?

“She’s wearing three months’ worth of tips,” he pointed out.

Adrian lifted his wide shoulders in a shrug. “Patrons were extremely generous tonight.”

Why? Were males already trying to win the human’s favors?

The ache intensified.

Adrian walked away.

“The girls are in the opposite direction,” Thane informed him.

“I know. I must speak with Xerxes first.”

“About?”

Adrian stopped, sighed. “He told me to inform him of any inappropriate advances made toward the human.”

Thane’s blood flashed ice-cold in less than a second. “Inappropriate advances were made?”

“In a sense. She was grabbed.”

His budding rage fed off the ache, both growing exponentially. “Where? How?”

Adrian told him of the three Fae regulars who’d clasped her arm and sniffed her, then pushed her away.

It was something the other barmaids endured every day. Something he had always overlooked and the girls had handled. Just then, he wanted to commit murder. “You will toss the trio over the edge of the cloud the next time they enter the bar.”

Surprise darkened Adrian’s navy eyes. “You risk war with their families.”

“I have more stakes.”

“I don’t think—”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Adrian. You have your orders.”

The berserker gave a stiff nod.

No other employee would have dared to speak out of turn—or to delay the completion of his orders—but Adrian had more liberties than most, and they both knew it.

After Thane and his boys had physically recovered from the worst horrors of their imprisonment, they’d returned to the demon dungeon and freed the other prisoners trapped inside. Adrian had been among them, captured soon after his family had cut him off.

Thane stalked around the corner and came up behind the human. Her gaze met his in the glass, and she gasped, spinning to face him. She was prettier than he remembered. Prettier than a few hours ago, even. How was that possible?

From her silky fall of dark hair, perfect for fisting, to her wide, gray eyes that held a mixture of awe and fear, to the Cupid’s-bow lips he would have given anything to have wrapped around his shaft, to the freckles dotting her skin.

How did she draw him in a way no one else ever had?

Differing shades of pink infused her cheeks, each one lovely, utterly captivating.

Would she look this way after climax?

He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Calm. Control.

“What’s your name?” he barked more harshly than he’d intended.

Panic flared in eyes that seemed to shadow with a thicker waft of smoke before she stared down at her feet, blocking her emotions. Her fear and panic actually doused his desire.

“I’m Elin.”

E-lynn. Lovely. Delicate. Fitting. “And your last name,” he said, consciously using a much gentler tone.

She shifted several inches away. “Uh, well, it’s Vale.”

Why the hesitation? Because she didn’t want him to do any digging, find her family, and send her away?

An excellent idea. Finally the madness would stop.

Except, fury was like gasoline being poured over him, and dread was the match. Put her in the line of danger? No. Here, he could protect her. Here, he could watch over her the way she had watched over him at the Phoenix camp.

He owed her. Yes, that was the reason he sought to protect her, when he’d never done the same for another.

“Why did you help me?” he asked. “How did you help me?”

She blinked, seemingly surprised at his questions. “You were trapped, like me, and I didn’t like it. I thought we could save each other.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I stole Frost from Kendra.”

“Frost?”

“A new medication that combats the effects of poison like hers.”

He would have a supply of Frost delivered by the end of the day. “How did you manage to steal it?”

“I snuck into Kendra’s tent while she was sleeping. And just so you know, it was a one-time thing. I won’t steal anything from you, promise!”

Was that what her unease was about? “I’m not worried.”

“Oh. Okay.” Her shoulders sagged with relief.

“You have nothing to fear from me. I’m grateful to you, Elin,” he said. “What you did for me...”

Her jaw dropped. “Uh, no sweat. Really. We’re even.”

He wished she had asked for a boon. He wanted to give her something, anything. “How did you get the Fae to tip you so well?” he asked, changing the subject. He dusted a fingertip along the edge of the ruby choker.

The flush returned to her cheeks, tantalizing him. My human is sensitive to touch.

No. Not my human.

“Not because I did to them what you supposedly did to the Harpy,” she muttered.

The bravery was welcome. The attitude, not so much. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Someone told her of his sexual preferences.

That someone would die.

Who was he kidding? Everyone had probably talked.

The fact that she knows doesn’t matter. You weren’t going to seduce her. Her disgust is meaningless.

True. But still it bothered him. “No one is allowed to question my choice of partners—or my actions.”

She met his gaze, unflinching. Her lids narrowed, her lashes almost fusing. “Gotcha. Won’t happen again, sir.” She gave him a jaunty salute.

Was she...mocking him? “Besides, what do you know of such things, hmm?”

“I know quite a bit about getting it on, thank you,” she said, her tone prim. “But you’re right. Who you do isn’t any of my business.”

Who, she’d said. Not what. She didn’t know the particulars. His relief was palpable.

Living here, however, she would find out. And soon. Any ease she had with him would cease.

But what did she mean, she knew quite a bit about “getting it on”?

“Why did the Fae tip so well?” he repeated.

Clearly uneasy, she shifted from one foot to the other. “Well...you see...it’s like this. I told them that you...well, that you had a few extra stakes and the stingiest people at the bar were going to be extended an invitation to join the Phoenix on the lawn.”

He suddenly wanted to...grin? “You lied?”

“Never!” She crossed her arms, now defiant. “After everything I’ve witnessed, there’s a good chance I’m right.”

And now she won’t back down. Fascinating.

“The girls made more money than ever,” Adrian called. He hadn’t yet moved from his perch. “But I’m not sure we’ll have customers tomorrow.”

Had Adrian taken Elin under his protection? Was he hoping to shield her? Even from Thane? Or did the male desire her, the way a normal man desired a woman?

The thought settled Thane, even as it angered him. Another defender would ensure she remained safe. But another admirer would try to tempt her into bed...and that, Thane would not allow. She needed to be focused on her job.

Yes. That was why.

He would deal with Adrian in a minute.

“Besides the Fae, has anyone given you any trouble?” Thane asked her.

Silence reigned as she again nibbled on her plump bottom lip.

Want to do that for myself. Want to nibble on other parts of her, too. No! He squared his shoulders, the feathers in his wings ruffling. “Elin?”

She...was staring at his wings, he realized. Curious about them? Wondering how soft they were? Everyone did. He curbed the urge to proudly flare them, to show her just how long and strong they were. To preen and impress her. Instead, he drew one forward, closer to her.

“Uh, you asked a question, I think,” she said, watching the motion with wide eyes. “Yes. Yes, you did. And it was... Oh, yeah. For the most part, everyone has been really nice.” As she spoke, she reached toward a patch of golden down. Just before contact, she swung both arms behind her back and kept them there.

He frowned, not liking such a reaction from her. It was as if she’d suddenly found the thought of touching him repugnant. “Feel the wing.”

She vehemently shook her head. “No way.”

“This isn’t a debate.” He never debated. He ordered. And expected. Using the muscles in his back, he caused the end of a wing to shake ever closer to her. “Feel.” A command.

A command she did not heed. “Is this a trick?”

Why would— Ah. Realization dawned. She’d seen him break the dragon warrior’s hand, and could only assume he would do the same to her.

“No trick. You have my permission; the shifter did not. But you are not ever to touch another Sent One this way. Or any way. Not even Bjorn and Xerxes. Understand?”

“Yep. Copy that.” Still she didn’t touch him.

“I won’t harm you, female. Feel,” he demanded. “Now.”

“Why?” she insisted.

Continuing to defy him. What a strange mix of bravery and fear she was.

“Well,” she prompted.

Because he would discover his reaction to her was the same as his reaction to the Harpy in his bed—not that he’d allowed the Harpy to come into contact with his wings. As her skin had rubbed against his, he had remained distanced. Bored.

“Do it,” he replied, ignoring Elin’s question.

At long last, she obeyed.

Not the same, he realized immediately.

Trembling fingers stroked over his feathers in a single, innocent moment of communion, flooding him with sensations he’d never before experienced. Sultry heat arced through his wings, spread through his body. His blood crackled and fizzed with something akin to contentment. An impossible contentment. His shaft was filling, threatening to burst.

This was pleasure, he realized, dazed. Pleasure without a hint of pain.

His first true taste. Another impossibility. Yes? And yet, everything he’d felt before had been a weak dilution.

No. Surely not. He had this wrong.

He had to have this wrong.

No woman would affect him so powerfully with so little.

“Elin, you are human, yes?”

The color he’d so admired in her cheeks drained, and she smoothed several errant strands of hair behind her ear with a shaky hand. “Yes. Of course.”

He tasted no lie.

“Why?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he grumbled. It was just her, then. She affected him.

His gaze homed in on her hands. Six jagged scars crisscrossed over the tops, the raised flesh red and angry, clearly from recent wounds. They must have come courtesy of one of the Phoenix.

Before he realized he’d moved, he took her by the wrists to bring her hands to the light. Not six scars, but eleven. Each was long and thick.

Hands were sensitive, layered with nerves. Oh, how she must have suffered.

“Who did this?” he demanded quietly.

She tugged from his grip and once again snaked her arms behind her back. Embarrassed?

He...mourned the loss of her warmth and softness.

It was irritating. Confusing.

And not to be tolerated.

“Who?” he insisted, determined to mete out punishment. And he didn’t miss the irony. He, of all people, had no right to condemn another for causing a female pain.

She thought for a moment, shrugged. “It’s not like I have any loyalty toward her. It was Kendra. After you brought her back to camp, but before she snuck out and returned with you.”

Vile witch. Tonight, he would administer like for like to the princess. “Why did she do it?”

“I mouthed off.”

Well, then, after Thane sliced up Kendra’s hands, he would cut off her ears. Perhaps growing a new pair would help her appreciate the gift of listening to others.

It’s almost time. Xerxes’s voice drifted through his mind.

“I must go,” he said, “but when I return we will speak.” And he would force—allow Elin to touch his wing again. He would realize she affected him as little as everyone else, that the first contact had been a deviation.

She gazed up at him with dawning horror. “Speak about what?”

He wasn’t used to being questioned but opted to indulge her. Just because. “You.”

She backed away from him until her thighs hit the edge of the table. “Are you going to stake me?”

He frowned. “No. I have more questions for you.”

“What kind of questions?”

“The kind that will help me get to know you better. You are my employee, after all.”

“Oh.” She released a heavy breath. “Okay, then.”

What, she’d expected him to attack her? “I have told you before, kulta, I’m not going to harm you. I’m going to take care of you.”

The admission startled her as much as it did him.

Him? Take care of a female? Something that went far beyond mere protection.

But even as it surprised him, it felt as natural as breathing.

“What does kulta mean?” she asked.

Honey. Baby. Darling. Precious. Any of those things. All of them. Take your pick.

Little wonder he’d never used the endearment before. He wasn’t sure why he’d used it now.

He was the one to back away this time. Only, he didn’t stop. As he strode from the room, he snapped, “Adrian, I don’t recall telling you to wait before overseeing my orders. Go. Now.”

CHAPTER SIX

FINALLY, ELIN COULD BREATHE.

Thane’s presence somehow sucked the oxygen out of her lungs. He was just so much...man. Big and hard, undeniably dangerous, he soaked the atmosphere with the fiercest testosterone, making every woman in his vicinity downright giddy with an intoxicating rush of hormones, endorphins and chemicals.

Seriously. She’d wanted to have him for dinner. No crumb left behind.

She imagined him spread out on a buffet table. If he were a food, he would be a Grade A fillet, marinated in a rich sweet-and-tangy sauce—and sprinkled with enough cayenne pepper to burn just right.

No. No! Bad Elin. But...he’d looked at her with dark intent, only to touch her with tender kindness. He’d broken a man’s wrist for grazing his wing, only to demand Elin caress it.

He was a bundle of contradictions. But then, so was she, both frightened of him and attracted to him. An attraction that would only get her in trouble. He held her future in his strong, snap-her-neck-with-a-single-flick-of-his-wrist hands.

Even still, there was no controlling her body’s reactions to him. In his presence, wanton heat liquefied her bones. And her brain! She forgot who she was, who he was, saying “screw you” to the vast gulf between them and the danger he represented to her, focusing only on the things they could be doing to each other. Kissing, tasting. Licking. Touching. Stroking.

Devouring.

She shivered at the thought. Then she cursed.

These reckless desires meant nothing, changed nothing. Thane was her boss, and therefore off-limits. He was also a borderline sociopath with extra stakes, and he would hurt her the moment he learned of her origins. But the nail in the I-wanna-slice-of-that coffin, besides her vow to Bay? He was a blatant womanizer.

He and Blondie had clearly gone nuclear between the sheets. His hair had been tousled, the strands sticking out in spikes. There had been claw marks in his cheek and bite marks on his neck.

Elin ignored the pang in her chest.

He wasn’t worth the mental anguish he would surely inflict on her. So, pursue him? Break her vow? Become one in a line of thousands? Lose her cash cow of a job, not to mention her new, blooming friendship with the other barmaids? No, thanks.

So, moving on. Elin donned the rest of the trinkets she’d won and headed to her room. She desperately needed a nap.

Bellorie was sprawled on her bed, wearing adorable flannel pj’s and reading a book—Decapitation For Idiots—looking so normal Elin momentarily flashed back to college.

She’d attended the University of Arizona what seemed a lifetime ago, getting married when she was only six credits shy of a business-management degree, and deciding to take time off and finish later. After all, her best years were ahead of her.

Yeah. Right. If “best years ahead” is the answer, then “things stupid people say” is the question.

She’d moved out of the dorm, and into an apartment with Bay, but oh, how she’d missed the way her roommate used to stack pizza boxes in the corner. She’d enjoyed making art out of empty beer cans. There’d been a message board on the door and borrowed clothes from six different people on the floor. The clash of diverse styles and tastes should have been overwhelming, but they had been comforting. There’d been nothing to worry about but midterms and which party to crash.

This new bedroom provided the same whimsical variety. One of the beds seemed to be made from LEGO. Another had a huge stuffed panda as the headboard. The only side table had wooden human legs as the, well, legs, with fake vomit spilled on top. The reading chair was normal, but the ottoman in front of it was shaped like a turtle, with the head, arms and legs peeking out at the bottom.

“Hey,” Elin said, noting the other girls hadn’t yet arrived.

Dark eyes flipped up and landed on her. “Hey, yourself. You little hooker,” the Harpy added with a sunny laugh. “Look at you, flaunting your prize so blatantly. I’m impressed.”

“I know, right.” She performed a twirl, knowing the diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies sparkled in the light. “You jelly?”

“Beyond.” A smiling Bellorie threw the book at her. Despite how fast and strong the girl was, Elin managed to jump out of the way in time. And it was a good thing she succeeded, because the corner of the hardback lodged into the wall. Had that been her head...

Instant goner.

“Oops.” Bellorie made a my-bad face. “For a minute there, I forget you’re only human. But you’re getting good at dodging. You might be a halfway decent member of Multiple Scorgasms after all.”

Highly doubtful. Elin wasn’t strong enough to lift the boulders, so she couldn’t throw them. And if someone actually hit her with one of those death missiles, her internal organs would burst. Right now, she wasn’t exactly sure what position she would play. Other than...bait? What she did know—she did not like the sport. It was far too violent and a trigger to the worst of her emotions.

“Oh, and just FYI,” Bellorie added. “We play the Spinal Tappers this weekend, and the Rockzillas after that.”

“Yay.” Elin managed to pull off a convincing fist pump. “But are you sure I’m ready? Maybe I should ride the pine for those. You know, continue to learn through observation.”

“Nah. You need to experience a true scorgasm of your own.”

“I suppose.” Renlay would have wanted her to play so bad. Her dad, a major adrenaline junkie, would have cheered like a madman. Bay would have had to drink a case of beer to calm his nerves. But all three of them would have been proud of her.

And...something was wrong, she thought with a frown.

What?

She’d thought of her family and—

Hadn’t immediately remembered the deaths they’d faced. Hadn’t cried.

Something wasn’t wrong. Something was different. Why?

Before she could ponder the answer, a knock sounded at the door.

“Enter at your own peril,” Bellorie called.

Adrian stepped inside, his size startling Elin all over again. “Where are Chanel and Savy?”

He must have followed directly behind her, and yet she hadn’t heard him. Gotta work on my awareness.

“Chanel’s on a blind date,” Bellorie replied. “The guy had his eyes removed by his brother, or something like that. And Savy took off right after her shift. Don’t know where. Octavia is out buying ice cream—not that you asked.”

Dude! Why hadn’t Octavia offered to bring Elin a scoop of double dark chocolate?

Adrian sighed. “Very well. I need you and Elin to come with me to help remove Thane’s newest plaything.”

No! First instinct—curiosity that did not need to be assuaged.

Yes! Second—physical preservation.

Mentally and emotionally, no good could come of seeing the kind of girl Thane preferred, up close and personal, after he’d had his big hands and sinful mouth all over her. Elin would not be jealous—not anymore, dang it!—but because of her silly attraction to him, she might begin to wonder what it would feel like to have the man’s hands and mouth all over her. It would be better just to avoid all things Thane until her lustful feelings faded.

And they would.

They had to.

When she dated, she wanted nice. Normal.

Wait. No. She didn’t want to date. She didn’t want a man. Not even a so-called “normal” one. She wanted to be alone.

Right?

“I’m too tired,” she said, risking castigation. She didn’t have to force a yawn. It came on its own. “You two go on, have fun. Live it up. Send me a postcard, and all that jazz.”

Bellorie rolled her eyes. “You’re going, you little hussy, and that’s final. This is a twofer job, and Adrian’s not allowed to touch the opposite sex.”

He wasn’t? Why?

Elin glanced over at him, hoping he would offer an answer. He turned and stalked away, forcing her and Bellorie to follow. Asking Bellorie directly behind his back? Not cool. She would wait. Surely she would overhear someone talking about it.

Accidental eavesdropping? Very cool. All the kids were doing it nowadays.

The trek took longer than she anticipated, each new hallway more luxurious than the last, each set of stairs more elaborate and winding, until they reached a heavily guarded corridor leading to a pair of arching double doors. On the left side, iron was twisted in the shape of a tree. The branches bowed all the way to the right side, forming a canopy.

Those doors were pushed open for Adrian, splitting the tree, then held open for her and Bellorie. By strong, beautiful vamps. Or, as she’d started thinking of the race, bloodbarians.

As Elin bypassed the males, she tried not to care when they eyed her as if she would make a very tasty liquid snack, and all her neck lacked was a straw. Once inside the room—suite—she stopped and gaped. This was Thane’s private wing? Because wow. The man certainly knew how to pamper himself. There were plush couches and chairs in jewel tones, with feathered pillows, a coffee table with the legs of a lion, and a dark wood floor draped by a snow-white rug. Plants and flowers decorated every corner.

“Don’t you just want to rub up against everything and purr like a kitty?” Bellorie asked with a good-natured grin. “Although, I don’t recommend you actually do it. Thane will know, and he’ll be tee-icked.”

“Listen to her. She came across the knowledge the hard way,” Adrian said.

Bellorie nodded. “True story.”

Even still, Elin couldn’t stop herself from ghosting her fingertips along the softness of one of the couch pillows. Mistake! Her skin tingled and heated, desperate for more. A blush stained her cheeks. It wasn’t a good sign that her attraction encompassed Thane’s belongings.

“What did Thane do to you?” she asked. Over such a minor offense. “And how did he find out?” So I can be doubly careful with my own secrets.

“Aura, maybe? He keeps the hows to himself, so we can’t circumvent his methods. And I was lucky. I only got an hour-long lecture. ‘In some cultures, Harpy,’” the girl said, doing her best impression of Thane, “‘they chop off hands for a crime such as yours, blah, blah, blah, this isn’t a debate, blah, blah.’”

Elin laughed and cringed at the same time, and she was sure it looked as grotesque as it sounded.

“Since then,” the girl continued, “I always blame a man for my crimes. I’ve been quite satisfied with the results.”

They reached the first doorway down the longest hall. Bellorie let herself into the room, and Elin trailed behind reluctantly. Adrian waited outside. To avoid temptation?

The air smelled strongly of sex, and Elin’s nose wrinkled. Her chest began to ache. She hadn’t been prepared for this. Thane had smelled as luscious as always.

Forget him. More luxury greeted her. The kind she wouldn’t have thought possible. Gemstones glittered on the walls, and silks and velvets covered the massive bed.

A bed currently in shambles, as if a massive earthquake had hit. Blondie occupied the center, her bruised and battered body coiled into a ball. Elin’s breath caught as her hands curled into fists.

“Come on,” Bellorie said, dragging her the rest of the way inside.

What, exactly, had Thane done to the girl? “Did he hurt...? Why would he...? What could he possibly...?” A full sentence refused to form. Whatever he’d done? Not sexy! Not bad-boy delish! Just wrong.

Dude. She understood the desire for fierce, wild passion. But this? This was beyond her realm of experience.

“They love it,” Bellorie said, taking a tube of ointment from the top drawer of the nightstand and slathering the girl’s chafed wrists and ankles. “He does nothing they don’t beg for, I promise you.”

How could she know for sure? Had she ever—

No, Elin thought, as little sparks of jealousy—couldn’t be jealousy—were immediately doused. He would have banned the barmaid from the club. Right?

Bellorie gave her a little push toward the closet. “Be a dear and grab a robe for our dearly departing guest.”

Elin obeyed, amazed to find rack after rack of robes, all in different sizes, though each was smaller than anything Thane would be able to fit over his bulging wings and muscles. Which meant he bought these specifically for his women.

A bang-and-bail memento for the ladies to take home.

Her attraction to him took another major hit.

But...he couldn’t be the same man who’d taken Elin’s damaged hands in his and looked at them as if they were still somehow beautiful. As if he would like to burn to death the person responsible.

Possibility: I saw only what I wanted to see.

Disgusted with him, with herself, she handed the garment to Bellorie. The girl dressed the rousing Harpy and helped her stand, and Elin rushed to act as a second crutch.

“Wait. My jewelry,” the Harpy rasped.

Bellorie swiped a diamond choker and a pair of earrings from the surface of the nightstand and stuffed them in a pocket of the robe. “All set.”

He paid his lovers? To make what he did more palatable?

Attraction, almost completely gone.

Together they were able to haul the Harpy out of the room, down the hall, down an elevator, and through the club.

At the exit, the Harpy wavered on her feet. “Tell Thane...more...must have...”

“Sure, sure,” Bellorie replied. “You want more of him, will die if you don’t have him. Got it. Problem is, sugar bear, and please know I’m saying this to be kind, he’s already forgotten all about you.”

As the doors closed, sealing the dazed Harpy outside, Bellorie pinned Elin with a regretful stare. “Told you. They love it. Every freaking time. It’s only later that they start to hate him and lash out, but I suspect that’s because they still want him.”

Not me. Never me.

And yet, part of Elin mourned the loss of the Thane she’d hoped he was, the man she must have invented in her mind. The white knight. The charmer. The...hero.

Lesson learned: always look beyond the surface.

Slight problem, however. Her body still craved him. It didn’t know the difference between good-for-Elin/bad-for-Elin. It operated solely on sensation.

Well, it would have to be controlled.

And there was one sure way to satisfy the worst of the cravings...with another male.

The thought hit her, and she shook her head. No. Definitely not.

Definitely yes, said a beguiling voice, a temptation that had brewed for days, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Your entire being is waking up and remembering what it’s like to be kissed and touched. Remembering...and hungering. You need a man.

Elin flattened her hands over her now-rolling stomach. She hated this thought path. It was like forgiving herself for her part in Bay’s death. Worse, it was like saying she’d suffered enough.

She hadn’t, on either count.

Taking a lover doesn’t have to mean anything more than scratching an itch.

No.

Maybe sex can be another type of self-inflicted punishment. Thane certainly seems to think so.

Okay, now temptation was hitting her where it hurt. I deserve punishment.

She gulped, imagining what would happen if she continued to do nothing. The tension in her body would build...and build...and build. She would cave and throw herself at someone—probably Thane.

No matter what, she was going to cave, wasn’t she?

It would be better to take a lover now, while she had some sort of control...and could make herself hate it.

Yeah.

She drew in a deep breath, then slowly released it, the guilt winding cold, clammy arms around her, embracing her like an old friend...or the lover she was soon to take. Whom should she pick?

Someone like Bay? Gentle. Happy. Fun. But then, she would be giving this nameless, faceless guy what she was unable to give her dead husband. Affection and attention.

No. That wouldn’t do.

She would have to pick someone hard and harsh.

Like...Thane?

No! He wasn’t an option. He was the reason she was in this bind, yes, but he wasn’t an option. She would have to pick someone like Thane. A patron of the bar, maybe.

Like Merrick, the heartbreaker, maybe.

Yes. Him.

He would do.

He would be perfect, actually.

So...the next time his band came to the bar...

She closed her eyes to ward off the oncoming flood of remorse. She was really going to do this. She was really going to climb in bed with another man.

I’m sorry, Bay. I love you, and I miss you so much. Once I’ve done it, once it’s over, I’ll never want to do it again. I can go back to the way things were.

* * *

THANE PEERED AT ZACHAREL, incredulous. “Let’s make sure I understand you correctly. You aren’t going to kick me from the heavens, and you aren’t going to force me to free the Phoenix clan under my...care?”

“That’s right.”

Again, astonishment roared through him.

His leader stood at the edge of his home in the sky—a large cloud—his piercing green eyes scrutinizing the human world below. Wind whipped black locks of hair against his cheeks and around his shoulders. Gloriously golden wings arched proudly, a testament to his exalted place in their world.

In the heavens, there was a very clear hierarchy. The Most High. Clerici. The Elite Seven, Zacharel among them. Then everyone else.

To disobey Zacharel’s edicts was to court ruin. Thane had known that. But he’d done it anyway. And he was to be...forgiven?

Now, he looked to Bjorn and Xerxes. Both were as baffled as he was.

“I know Clerici allows for vengeance,” Zacharel said stiffly. “I also know it violates the Most High’s code of ethics, and will have spiritual consequences for us all.”

Yes. But the Most High wouldn’t stop Clerici from doing what Clerici wanted to do—they all had free will. Even still, every act against his rules edged a Sent One out from under his umbrella of protection.

“The Phoenix enslaved you,” Zacharel continued, “and so you are now allowed to mete out death.”

“I am.” And he would. Over and over again.

His leader wasn’t done. “And I am allowed to punish you.”

Forgiven, yes, but not forgotten. “What will you do?”

Zacharel sighed. “Koldo was whipped when he enslaved his mother. What kind of leader would I be if I allowed another of my warriors—even if he is my second-in-command—to forgo the same?” He met Thane’s gaze dead-on. “Therefore, you will receive a lash of the whip for every warrior being tortured on your front lawn.”

That was to be a punishment? “Very well.” He wouldn’t let Zacharel know how much he enjoyed it. He would control his body’s reaction. Somehow.

“You won’t release them of your own volition?”

“No.”

“Even though you rush headlong into disaster?”

Even though. One day, the king of the Firebirds would return to camp, find it deserted, hear of Thane’s macabre courtyard, and come gunning for him. There would be a gruesome battle, for Ardeo’s decree that Thane be spared from a deathblow would give way to vengeance. But Thane would not relinquish his captives, even then.

And everyone around you will be placed in the line of fire.

He didn’t want to care. Wanted to glory in the same casual disregard he’d harbored before.

But...what if Bjorn or Xerxes were hurt? It would be his fault.

They are strong. They can protect themselves.

And what of Elin? The fragile human was now his responsibility. Unlike his friends, she would not recover if the Phoenix burned her alive. Their preferred method for eliminating someone of another race.

He worked two fingers over his jaw, the action so fierce he left welts behind. She is nothing. Means nothing.

A foul taste coated his tongue, and this time he knew what it was. An indication of a lie. Despite the fact that he hadn’t spoken a word. Irritated, confused, he ground his molars. She. Means. Nothing.

The foul taste intensified.

“I will take the lash,” he announced.

Zacharel’s nod was grave. “Very well.”

Leave us, he projected to Bjorn and Xerxes. He didn’t want the two to see this. They’d witnessed enough of each other’s torture.

Both shook their heads no. They would stay. They would watch. And they would support him.

“I played a part in this,” Xerxes said. “I will take the lash, as well.”

“As will I,” Bjorn said.

“No.”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

Guilt rose. They weren’t like him. They found no solace in pain, and had suffered too much already, when Thane had been unable to help them. Now, he couldn’t let them take his deserved punishment—especially since they were utterly undeserving.

Don’t do this, he pleaded. Go.

It’s already done, Xerxes said with a determined shake of his wings.

Together until the end, Bjorn said, his rainbow eyes fierce.

In unison, his friends removed the top half of their robes, gave Zacharel their backs, and sank to their knees. Ready.

Thane closed his eyes. He should let the Phoenix go. He—

Couldn’t.

Very well.

Hating himself, Thane followed suit. He spread his wings and wound them forward, around his arms and out of the way. He was lashed first, the leather biting into his wings, and then, when they were shredded, into his skin.

Any pleasure he felt was negated during Xerxes’s turn, then Bjorn’s. Neither displayed any type of reaction, but Thane couldn’t help but cringe with every blow.

“Now. Business,” Zacharel said after they had dressed. As if nothing had happened. He motioned to the cars driving along winding roads. Nothing more than ants on a hill beneath them. “A few days ago, William the Ever Randy’s daughter, White, was killed by the same Phoenix responsible for slaying King Ardeo’s beloved concubine.”

Thane focused. William. An immortal of questionable origins. A male without allegiance or conscience. A man with unequaled power. Thane had always admired him. He lived his life the way Thane wished to live his. Without regrets.

“The killer’s name was Petra,” Zacharel continued. “I say was, because William and his three sons ensured she would not regenerate.”

“How?”

“I’m not yet certain.”

Still, an interesting bit of knowledge Thane stored away. When he finished with Kendra, he wanted to ensure she was unable to regenerate, as well.

“William’s daughter, White...” Zacharel sighed.

She was the embodiment of subjection, and upon her death her spirit broke into millions of pieces, each like a bug, spreading throughout New York, infecting the humans unfortunate enough to be in the way. Their leader pushed the words inside their heads, perhaps not wanting the information floating away on the breeze to panic those who didn’t yet know. Demons used that subjection to their advantage and more easily possessed human bodies. Crime is now at an all-time high, and I have since learned from the Most High that one of the demons responsible for killing Germanus is using the violence as a cover, attempting to shield his whereabouts.

What do you want us to do? Bjorn asked.

All members of an army could communicate this way. Meaning, all members of an army were bonded through mental highways. Thane had never liked it, had only ever wanted such a connection with Bjorn and Xerxes. Because if voice could travel those roadways, so could thoughts. Memories. No one had a right to his secrets.

Go to New York and hunt the demon, Zacharel said.

And we’re, what? Xerxes replied. Supposed to bust into random homes and businesses, and hope we get lucky?

Thane scrubbed a hand down his face. Did the Most High offer any specifics?

A shake of Zacharel’s dark head. “I can tell you that evil always leaves a trail. Find the start of it, follow it, and then you will find the end of it.”

He made it sound easy. Thane knew it wouldn’t be. It never was. But he and his boys would persevere. They always did.

“Koldo, Axel, Malcolm, Magnus and Jamilla are already there, waiting for you.”

Thane arched a brow. “Waiting?” The most impatient warriors of all time? “Rather than hunting?”

“I realized I made a mistake, sending my people to different locations. It thinned our efforts. So, from this moment forward, we will work together. We will concentrate on catching only one of the six demons responsible for killing Germanus. Once that’s done, we will turn our efforts to a second, and so on.”

The snowball effect. One victory would prime everyone for the next.

Wise.

Frowning, Zacharel tilted his head to the side. “Go. Go now. The others have been ambushed, and a battle is in progress.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

METAL WHISTLED THROUGH the night-damp air. Determined footsteps from one, two...five different individuals echoed. Warrior footsteps, not the clacking of demon hooves. A hiss of pain sounded, followed by a grunt of satisfaction.

Thane dive-bombed the dark alley, straightening at the last moment to land on his feet in the middle of the violent battle. As he palmed a sword of fire, he snapped his wings into his sides, making room for Bjorn and Xerxes.

A quick glance revealed writhing shadows that cringed from the swords of fire the Sent Ones brandished. But the moment the Sent Ones became preoccupied with another opponent, those shadows struck, swiping out blackened claws.

Koldo fought with the cold calculation of a robot.

Axel fought as if he had no concern for his own life, leaving himself wide-open to counterattack, just to make a single kill.

Twins Magnus and Malcolm stood back-to-back. After Magnus injured the prey, Malcolm finished it off.

Jamilla was the wild card, unpredictable in her strikes, as if she strove to kill everything in her path.

Rage set a collision course with Thane. Detonation imminent. He’d encountered the shadows once before, a different sort of demon than the mundane type they usually battled—it had happened the night Kendra died with his dagger in her gut, which had strengthened the slave bond...the night Bjorn vanished. A single scratch could have devastating consequences.

Thane stepped forward, intending to help. His back burned; the wounds hadn’t had time to heal.

Do not join the fray, and do not move from this point, Bjorn said inside his head.

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