lithe and young and beautiful. Now she was old, and he still looked at her, touched her, like she were twenty.
“Let’s go swimming,” he said as another howl echoed in the distance. He reached up to push her loose robes off her body.
She let him, and a moment later he was naked as well, and they ran into the surf, holding hands, diving under the cold salt water as the bright moon shone down. She swam out, secure in the knowledge that he could get to her at a moment’s notice, and once past the breaking swells she rolled over to float on her back, letting her hair drift around her. Ophelia, she thought. He had to be able to let her go.
He came up beside her, and she kissed his mouth, cold and wet and salty, and wrapped her body around his, floating, peaceful. There weren’t many moments like this left to them, and she was greedy, she wanted everything she could get.
He smiled against her mouth. “Shall we go back to our rooms? Or is Raziel’s soap opera going to demand your services again tonight?”
“You’re the only one who gets my services tonight,” she murmured, letting him pull her in toward the distant shore.
They were back in their bedroom, the doors open to the night air, when she heard the screams of the Nephilim once more.
“Close the windows, love,” she said softly, sliding between the cool sheets.
He did as she asked, not questioning, and then came to bed.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” I stared at the woman with horror. I’d been having a hard time not thinking about taking her to bed, but her blithe announcement had driven that straight out of my mind.
“I knew what you were thinking,” she said smugly. “Is that because we had sex? Earlier I knew you were coming here long before you showed up. I realized that was odd because of Sarah’s reaction, and now I can sort of pick up your thoughts.”
“Can you indeed?” I said calmly, wondering if I could get away with throwing her off the balcony and telling everyone she’d slipped. No, I couldn’t, but it was a nice thought.
One she didn’t pick up on, fortunately. So her ability to read me wasn’t that well developed. Yet.
Shit. Under normal circumstances, there was only one reason a woman would be able to read me—because she was my bonded mate. But for me there would be no bonded mates ever again. This was just an anomaly.
“Not now, of course,” she said, frowning. “Just the occasional thought sort of drifting through my brain. Are you doing that?”
“Letting you read my thoughts? No,” I said, controlling my instinctive shudder. I couldn’t let her know how she affected me. “This is a fluke—by tomorrow, it should have passed. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried about it. I like it. It gives me something to fight back with,” she said.
Interesting. “Why do you need to fight me?” I asked her.
That stumped her for a moment, and I tried to touch her mind. A mistake. She wanted me, I could feel it quite clearly. It was almost a physical touch, even though she was trying hard to suppress it. That was what she needed to fight.
“I feel powerless here,” she said finally.
“You
“To welcome me into the fold of Sheol sex slaves.”
She was trying to annoy me, as usual, and succeeding, as usual. “No one is a sex slave around here.”
“The women don’t seem to have much else to do. Fuck and let you drink their blood. I’m assuming that only goes one way.”
I tried to keep my face blank. “Of course.”
“Then why don’t you take my blood?”
I turned away from her. She’d have a harder time reading the truth if she couldn’t see my face. “I took enough to make certain you were innocent. That was all I needed or wanted. The Fallen can feed only from a bonded mate or the Source, and you’re neither.”
“Then what am I? Besides a nuisance,” she added, immediately reading my mind.
It unnerved me, but I was determined not to show any reaction. “I don’t know.”
She rose, saying nothing, and the dress swirled around her bare ankles as she moved past me into the kitchen. Her skirts brushed against my legs like the caress of a warm breeze, and without thinking I reached for her.
But she had already moved past, and she didn’t even notice, thank God. She turned, as if aware she’d missed something, but by then I was leaning negligently against the counter, concentrating on the almost imperceptible pattern of the white Carrara marble.
She’d pulled out a glass bottle of milk when a louder scream split the night, and she dropped it. If I hadn’t been so attuned to her, I wouldn’t have been able to catch it in time and set it on the counter.
“What the hell was that?” she asked in a harsh voice.
“The Nephilim. They’re getting closer.”
She turned pale. “They can’t get in, can they?”
“Presumably not. There are all sorts of wards and guards placed on the borders. The only way they could get inside is if someone let them in, and whoever did that would die as well.”
“What if someone would rather die than spend eternity trapped here?” she demanded, rattled.
“You won’t be here an eternity. I’ll find some way to get you out.”
“God, I hope so. I don’t want to live to be one hundred and twenty without falling in love,” she said, and I winced. “But I wasn’t talking about me. What if someone else has a death wish?” She shivered, and I wanted to warm her, calm her. I stayed right where I was.
“There is no one else. The Fallen chose this life. Their mates have chosen the Fallen. No one’s going to sneak out to the walls and let the monsters in.” I could lie about my reaction to her. Lying about the danger we were in was beyond me. “The truth is, I don’t know,” I said. “They’re beating against the walls, frustrated because they can’t break in. There’s no way they can break through the walls that guard this place, no way that anyone can. It’s inviolate.”
She didn’t believe me. I didn’t need to pick up specific words to know that she was filled with distrust. If I knew how to reassure her, I would have. I didn’t even know how to reassure myself.
“I don’t think the milk’s going to do it,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I thought some warm milk was going to calm my nerves, but I don’t think it’ll work as long as that caterwauling is going on. I don’t suppose this place comes equipped with whiskey? No, I forgot—whiskey isn’t white.”
“There’s vodka,” I said.
“Of course there is.” She opened the refrigerator to put the milk back, then emerged with a chilled bottle of Stoli. “You really need to let a little color into your life, Raziel.”
I looked at her in the brightly hued dress I’d given her. Everything about her was vibrant, colorful, disrupting the calm emptiness of my world. She poured two glasses, neat, and pushed one toward me across the marble counter.
It wasn’t a good idea. Keeping my hands off her was requiring every ounce of concentration I had. Even half an ounce of alcohol might be enough to weaken my resolve.
Then again, getting her drunk would be an excellent idea. I found drunken women completely unappealing. And if she passed out, I wouldn’t be tempted to put my hands on either side of her head and draw her face up to mine, to kiss her. . . .
She’d already picked up her glass and drained it, giving a delicate little shudder. “I don’t really like vodka,” she said in a small voice. She looked pointedly at my untouched glass. “Clearly, neither do you.”
I said nothing. She wanted me to put my arms around her. I knew it, and wished I didn’t. The noise of the Nephilim was growing louder, the howls and screams, the roars and grunts deeply disturbing. I knew the horror that lay beneath that sound. I thought I could smell them on the night air, the foul stench of old blood and rotting flesh, but it had to be my imagination. I tried to concentrate on them, but her thoughts pushed them away. She wanted my arms around her; she wanted to press her head against my chest. She wanted my mouth, she wanted my body, and she wasn’t going to tell me.
She didn’t need to tell me. There was a crash outside, followed by a louder roar, and she jumped nervously. “If you don’t like vodka, why do you even have it?” she said, clearly trying to distract herself.
“I like vodka. I just think it might be better if I didn’t let alcohol impair my judgment in case something happens.”
If anything her face turned whiter. “You think they’re going to break through?”
I had to laugh. “No. Worse than that.”
“Worse than flesh-devouring cannibals?”
“Is there any other kind of cannibal?” I pointed out.
“What’s worse than the Nephilim?” she said irritably, some of her panic fading.
“Sleeping with you.”
Shit. And I meant to not even mention it. She stared at me for a long moment, then tried to push past me. “Enough is enough,” she snapped. “If you prefer the Nephilim to me, you can damned well go climb over the fence and fuck them.”
I caught her, of course. My arm snaked around her waist and I spun her around, pushing her back against the wall, trapping her there with my body pressed against hers. “I didn’t say I preferred them,” I whispered in her ear, closing my eyes to inhale the addictive scent of her. “As far as I’m concerned,
