hunting and take a humble job to see that her child had a home. He could see that part of her now in the shape of her mouth, the grace of her hands.
The better man inside him had fallen on his knees to that hidden goddess, but the rough-and-tumble adventure of finding her had been everything he’d dreamed. Ashe was not the kind of woman who would ever be dull or predictable. She was the princess and the dragon both.
Just looking at her made his heart speed.
“Yeah, okay.” Ashe grabbed a paper and pencil off the table, pulling them onto the mattress so that she could write. “Go ahead.”
He watched the sleek muscles in her back move as she scribbled notes. The night had changed everything for Reynard. He had been grateful for one night of life and love, but now that wasn’t nearly enough.
He had bedded an army of women in his day, from courtesans to countesses, but he had felt like this only once before.
Elizabeth. Back then, he’d been no more than one and twenty, but the possessive hunger had been the same. This need to keep Ashe beside him wasn’t going to fade. His first love had stayed with him for centuries. This one would burn even hotter, because he wasn’t going to let her slip away.
Somehow.
There had to be an option besides imprisonment or death, because that wasn’t a choice at all. Not when returning to the Castle meant eternal nothingness. No food, no drink, no love—nothing but slaughter. That is why Killion and the rest went mad. They saw their future and could not bear the sorrow.
Long ago, he made a sacrifice for all the right reasons, but hadn’t he paid long enough? There had to be a way of slipping the chains that bound him. Loving and dying or loving and leaving Ashe behind—neither was an acceptable outcome.
The urn’s absence was a hollow in his gut. Before long, he guessed, his strength would start to ebb. Fear niggled at the edges of his mind, but he forced it to stay there.
“Sure,” said Ashe. “I know that place.”
Her gaze traveled to him, her eyes wide-open now. “Thanks. Bye.”
She hung up the phone and fell back to the pillow, pulling the blanket up around her. “That was Lore. He gave me the address where he’ll be this morning. I guess he left a message on my cell phone late last night but called back when he didn’t hear from me.” She sounded sheepish.
“When can we see him?”
“Anytime.” She put a hand over her eyes. “I just had the worst dream.”
He lay back down beside her, resting on his elbow. He put a hand to her cheek, turning her to face him. “What was the dream?”
“The King of the East paid me a visit.” Her eyes said there was more than just a social call involved.
“Then it wasn’t a dream.”
“No. Belenos hired the demon to steal your urn, but his thief double-crossed him.”
“Belenos.” Reynard gave a bitter smile that hid his mounting anger. “A vainglorious Undead monarch. It’s fitting that he was duped. Still, it’s nice to know my life essence is in high demand by the very best people.”
“He wants to use it as part of his plot to sire a child.”
A vampire would use his soul to hurt Ashe? Fury blazed through him, twitching in his muscles. It was a struggle to think, to put the facts together. “I would have guessed as much. The transfer of life essence is very old black magic.”
She sat up, looking down at him. “But why you in particular?”
Reynard thought long and hard about answering that one. “Perhaps because I was the last of the guardsmen. I was the newest and, in some ways, the strongest.”
“How? Why is that true?”
“As the fey would say, I broke the pattern. There were no more guards after me.”
Ashe looked at him for a long time. “Did you mean for that to happen?”
“I shed blood to make sure I was the last,” he answered in a tone meant to end the conversation. “I made sure it wouldn’t happen again.”
He didn’t want to remember that horror. Not with her sitting there like a promise of everything new and clean.
She looked at him long and hard out of those spring-green eyes. “Okay.” She slid out of the bed.
He followed, catching her by the arms and kissing her. Finding the demon and the urn was the first step, but the journey to happiness suddenly felt urgent. He had to hurry before it drained through his fingers like water.
“My name is Julian,” he said, realizing it was a complete non sequitur. “The guardsmen don’t use Christian names because they hold too many memories. It’s easier if we break all our ties to those we love.”
The statement hung in the soft bedroom air like the confession it was.
A shattered look crossed Ashe’s face, and then her expression grew clean and hard as a sword’s edge. “Well, Julian, we’ve got an urn to find. Let’s go see a dog about a demon.”
They took Ashe’s Ducati Superbike 1198S. The bright red motorcycle was her favorite possession. She’d traded up to a bigger bike with dual seats when she discovered Holly loved riding as much as she did. Once Holly could bear to leave Robin for an hour or so, they had begun hitting the open road. Other sisters got mani-pedis. The Carvers went cruising. As sister bonding went, it worked for them.
It worked for Reynard, too.
The technical details of the machine were lost on him, but by the rapt expression on his face, one ride had revealed his inner speed junkie. He got off the bike a little unsteadily, his lips parted with breathless wonder. “I had an Andalusian mare, but even she was not that fast.”
Ashe pulled off her helmet. She’d taken the long route to Lore’s shop, finding a stretch of highway to show off a little. What the heck—it was a beautiful spring morning, and the detour was only a few minutes. She looked fondly at the bike. “I love this baby. But, hey, a horse is probably better company.”
“She nipped.” Reynard straightened, now fully recovered from the ride. “I still miss her, though. She had a strong personality.”
Talking about horses seemed perfectly natural. They were in an old parking lot behind brick buildings that had been warehouses long ago. Age and pollution had blackened the name of the feed company that was painted on the fourth story of the old building directly ahead. The rutted alley that led to that spot could well have been designed for carts instead of cars. Only the telephone poles and a battered Dumpster disturbed the old-time feel of the place.
They started across the lot, the air heavy with the smell of sun-warmed earth and car exhaust. “This area is called Spookytown by the locals,” Ashe said. “Johnson Street runs in front of these buildings. It’s one of the busiest streets in the downtown. Most of the nonhumans in Fairview live right around here.”
Reynard looked from side to side as if expecting an ambush.
“It’s actually pretty peaceful,” she added, recognizing her own first reaction to the place. “The crime rate is lower than average. The nonhumans want equal rights. They’re doing their best to be model citizens.”
Ashe led him to an old door in the side of the building. It had peeling white paint and small, dirty panes of glass at the top. She tried to look through the locked door without success, so knocked instead. She could hear faint music, as if someone had the radio on inside. Was that Def Leppard? She knocked again, louder this time.
The music died. After a few seconds, she heard a bolt draw back and the door opened. It was Lore, the young alpha of the hellhound pack. Like all the hounds, he was tall and lanky, with big bones and shaggy dark hair. He wore coveralls splattered in grease and paint and an expression that gave away nothing.
“I expected you, Ashe Carver,” he said. “I did not expect the captain of the guardsmen to come to my door.” He spoke a little haltingly, although he didn’t have a defined accent. It was the speech of someone translating their thoughts as they went.
“Is that a problem?” Ashe said, putting some steel into the words.
“The hounds are free from the Castle. That was guaranteed to us.”
Reynard held up his hands in the universal not- armed gesture. “I am here only for information. You and
