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  Just like that? "Okay, let's back up a little. What's a hodad?"

  "Hands of death and destruction," Octavia explained.

  But...Thane showed off his hodad every danged day. Why blame Bellorie for a single indiscretion?

  Elin still wasn't a fan of violence and had trouble meshing the Bellorie she adored with the Bellorie who'd callously reached inside a man's chest to perform a heart amputation, but that didn't mean she was going to let this banishment thing happen without a fight.

  Years ago, her father gave her sage advice. Sometimes emotional terrain is too mountainous to run, Linnie, my girl. Sometimes you just have to walk it.

  In other words. Baby steps.

  Step one. She would stop avoiding Thane. Step two. She would begin a new round of interaction with him. Step three. She would nag him until he returned Bellorie to the club.

  "I'm going to talk to him," she said, standing and tugging on a fresh set of clothes. A pretty pink tee and a pair of hip-hugger jeans. She didn't bother with shoes.

  "Uh, I wouldn't do that if I were you," Savy said. "You'll end up banished. Or worse. No one questions Thane when an order has been given. Not even his...whatever you are."

  "Pet human," Octavia offered. Helpful, as always.

  Chanel snorted. "I don't know how it happened, the lion and the lamb, but I think she's more than that." Her head tilted to the side as she pondered. "And I think he'll make an exception and do whatever she asks. He did rush to her side when there was nothing effing wrong with her."

  "Excuse me," Elin huffed. "I was screaming, and practically catatonic."

  "Maybe he rushed to her side because he needs her for some type of ransom." Savy spoke over her, drumming her nails against the table. "Or some kind of revenge against the Phoenix. Or, maybe he experienced a moment of insanity. Did you ever think of that? No offense," she said to Elin. "He just isn't the type to chase a woman. No matter how awelicious she is."

  How could Elin take offense when she suddenly had the same suspicion? Why did he want her? Wait. She had to rephrase. Why did he used to want her?

  "Maybe he's just a nicer guy than any of us realized," she muttered.

  Of course, that was when the demon issued another blood-curdling scream.

  Chanel and Octavia giggled like naughty schoolgirls.

  "Care to make another wager?" Chanel asked Savy. "Double or nothing."

  "Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." Elin strode out of the room. Adrian stood sentry just outside the door and quickly swept up beside her.

  "Where are you headed, human?" he asked.

  He made it sound like her humanity was a crime. Well, it wasn't. Just ask Thane. To him, it was the only thing that wasn't, and for once, she was going to use it to her advantage. She was going to stop worrying about being found out, and start taking charge of her life.

  "I want to go to the dungeon. Be a dear and show me the way," she said, blinking her eyes in what she hoped was an innocent, flirtatious manner.

  He tensed. He frowned. He shook his head. "No. Go back to your room."

  She put her hands on her hips. "I heard Xerxes tell you to take me anywhere I asked. And I just asked to go to the dungeon."

  "We both know he didn't actually mean you could go anywhere."

  "No, we both don't know that. He doesn't strike me as the type to say something he doesn't mean."

  Adrian glared at her.

  "So, what are we waiting for?" she insisted.

  His glare darkened. "Perhaps it will do you some good to see the nature of the male you provoke." He led her into an elevator and pressed a series of buttons. Blue lights flashed over a small portion of the wall. The doors closed and the cart shook, carrying them down...down...down, before opening into an underground cavern with gray walls and a cracked stone floor.

  Two vampires guarded an open doorway.

  Unease pricked the back of Elin's neck. The screams were far louder here, and they echoed. Worse, a familiar scent of old pennies clung to her nose and sickened her stomach.

  "Wait here," Adrian told her before motoring on, bypassing the guards.

  The vamps gave her a once-over...no, make that a twice-over...and she pretended not to know they were sharpening mental forks and knives. She stared straight ahead. She could see bars, indicating a hallway of cells. She could even see fingers curled around some of the bars. The Phoenix were here? Xerxes had freed them from their stakes and escorted them inside, but she'd kind of thought it was for medical care or something.

  Only an idiot wouldn't have realized it was for further torture.

  "My lord," she heard Adrian say. "The human wishes to speak with you."

  "The human has a name," she muttered.

  "Tell her I'll summon her when I'm finished here."

  She heard pleasure in Thane's voice. For her...or the job he was doing? Either way, the low cadence of his tone made her shiver.

  "Very well," Adrian said. Footsteps resounded.

  Oh, no. The last time she'd been forced to wait for Thane, nothing had been settled. "Thane Downfall," she called.

  Tension crackled in the air. The footsteps retreated.

  "She's here? You actually brought her down here?" Thane demanded, even as Kendra cried, "Help me, girl. You have to help me."

  "Sure," Elin responded. "Here's a tip. Be nice to people, no matter how low their station. You never know when they'll be in charge of yours." Not that she was in any way in charge. Still. Truth was truth.

  "You should have known better," Thane growled, and she figured he was talking to Adrian.

  Was Thane going to punish him, too? She tried to step forward, intending to go in, but the vampires moved in her path.

  "He did nothing wrong," she said, speaking past the shoulders of the vampires now watching her with unabashed awe. "Your dearest friend Xerxes told him to take me wherever I asked to go. So, here we are. Now, listen. I want Bellorie brought back immediately. We need her for the Multiple Scorgasms." And heck, as long as she was making demands... "And I want the screaming to stop. It's screwing with my nerves."

  Like you have any right to make demands.

  "Please," she added, and slapped her hands together in the center of her chest in a classic begging stance, even though he couldn't see her. "With an extra sweet cherry on top."

  Another pause.

  "Bellorie shall return before the next shift," Thane said tightly, "and screams will not be heard again."

  "Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you, Thane! Seriously!"

  "Help," Kendra shouted.

  A rustle of clothing. A grunt. A gurgle. Then muttering voices, too hushed to decipher.

  A cold sweat broke out over Elin's skin, and she trembled. What had just happened?

  Adrian stalked past the guards. His facial features were expressionless and cold. He didn't glance in her direction as he spat a single word at the vampires. A word she didn't understand.

  She made to follow him, but one of the guards grabbed her by the wrist, halting her.

  She tried to jerk away, but he held steady.

  "Release her, or lose the hand," a harsh voice whipped out, and the vise grip instantly fell away.

  Elin's gaze returned to the cells--and collided with Thane's.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THANE STRUGGLED TO rein in his temper. At any moment, Elin could race around a corner and witness the horror of his actions. If she saw that side of him...if she screamed...

  He burned the demon and all of its severed parts, destroying the evidence. He'd gotten the answers he'd sought anyway. He now knew the prince was a fallen angel named Malice, once a soldier in the Most High's army. Unlike demons--spirits that inhabited the earth long before humans--the prince had a corporal body, and therefore couldn't possess someone else's.

  When Sent Ones fell, they lost all power. The same held true for the angels, but they could gain power through acts of evil and spiritual theft, basically siphoning it from others
.

  Like any living being, the prince had weaknesses. However, Thane had yet to learn what they were.

  Pride?

  Hatred?

  Malice's endgame? The destruction of mankind. Both to punish the Most High for banishing the fallen angels from the highest level of heaven, and to try to steal all the power he felt he'd been denied.

  To start, Malice and his five cohorts had struck at Germanus--ripping out the root--but there would be others.

  Malice's next move? Unknown.

  When Kendra continued her pleas for help, Thane took a page from Jamilla's book of attack and removed the girl's tongue. There was no way he would let her receive aid from the very girl she'd beaten and scarred, and as soft as Elin's heart was, she might very well ask him to release her.

  He might very well say yes.

  Now, guilt was heavy on his shoulders. "I'm willing to look past the surface to the reasons, and fully accept my share of the blame for the horrors of our relationship, but I will not tolerate bad behavior."

  Her narrowed gaze sizzled at him, even as blood leaked from the corners of her mouth.

  "Do not speak to my human again," he told her.

  After sending Adrian to find Bellorie, Thane stepped out to see Elin. Only to watch a guard grip her fragile wrist.

  No one touched her but Thane. Anyone tried...they died.

  When did you become so possessive of a female?

  When I encountered this one, apparently.

  He met her smoked-glass gaze and remembered Orson's use of the word halfling. Please, don't be Phoenix.

  He closed the distance. Perhaps he should send her away for a few hours. He was always seething with intensity after battle or torture, and he'd just come from both. If he went about this next encounter the wrong way, he would scare her. But she lifted her chin with brave determination, surprising him, and a deep sexual awareness cut through his fury and fear.

  He couldn't send her away.

  For a moment, he saw her as she'd been in the tub. Naked. Flushed with heat and arousal, nipples turgid, stomach quivering, legs parted for his fingers. Even now his shaft readied for her, growing long, thick and hard.

  Not yet.

  A tremor rocked her, as if her body reacted to his of its own accord.

  "Are you cold?" he asked, just in case. "I will have a robe fetched for you--"

  "I'm not cold."

  Did she hunger for his touch? His taste? He would give anything to know.

  "I'm, uh, sorry I interrupted your murder session." She reached for him but balled her hand just before contact and dropped her arm to her side. "You, uh, seem to really be enjoying it." Her gaze landed on the bulge between his legs, before darting away.

  He clenched his jaw. "I didn't enjoy it the way you're thinking."

  "Hey, no judgment," she said, palms out in a gesture of innocence.

  "Elin. I'm aroused, yes, but it's for you."

  Her eyes widened, some of the smoke replaced by crackling flames. "Oh."

  That was all he got?

  "Yes. Well." She cleared her throat. "Do you have to torture the Phoenix? Can't you let them go?"

  "I wasn't torturing a Phoenix," he said. "But I will. Soon. An eye for an eye--"

  "Puts you in a never-ending cycle of violence, yes," she interjected. "They'll retaliate, then you'll retaliate again, and so on and so forth." She sighed. "Look, I know I didn't have any right--"

  "You have every right," he said, and knew he'd just shocked the listening vampires. But it was true. Why deny it? Things were different with Elin. Things had always been different. He liked that she'd sought him out, expecting him to fix her problems. He even liked the scolding she'd just given him--maybe because she was right.

  She nibbled on her bottom lip, as though unsure. Of his reaction? As if he would harm her? "Really?"

  He nodded. Then, with his eyes still locked on Elin, he snapped, "Leave us" at the vampires.

  The pair rushed to the elevator without delay, disappearing behind the doors. He wouldn't take Elin to his suite until she felt safe with him. Because, when he got her alone--anywhere other than here--he would pounce on her. He knew it.

  "I don't know if I'll ever get used to this world," she remarked.

  As if he would allow her to leave it. "You will." A command he expected to be obeyed.

  She shrugged. "Does it affect you emotionally, to torture others?"

  No one had ever asked him such a question, and he wasn't quite sure how to respond. He'd been a young lad of three when the gold striations had appeared in his wings, informing him and everyone who looked at him of his warrior status. At the age of five, he'd left the only home he'd ever known to begin his training.

  At ten, he'd made his first demon kill.

  Elin reached out and twined her fingers with his. Her skin was warm and soft, though calloused. The freely offered contact--the comfort of it--stunned him.

  "Never mind," she said. "You don't have to answer."

  He did anyway, desperate to prolong the connection. "Demons are evil, with nothing good in them. With them, and the centuries of our battles, I regret nothing."

  Her head tilted to the side as she studied him. "How old are you?"

  "Old."

  "Over two hundred?"

  "Yes."

  A gasp. "Over three hundred?"

  "Yes. Let me save you some time. I am a little over a thousand."

  "Wow. That's, like, really old."

  "Just as I said."

  "No, Grandpa. You left out the really."

  His lips twitched at the corners. She'd teased him; she wasn't afraid of him. "Come. We have much more to discuss."

  He ushered her into the elevator. When the doors closed, sealing them inside, the scent of her filled the confined space and enveloped him; he could almost taste the cherry flavor he knew was embedded in her skin. His body ached.

  He didn't want to wait to pounce.

  He pushed a button and stopped the elevator before it reached the upper floor.

  He turned to her and leaned against the railing. Whatever she saw in his expression made her gulp. She backed away from him, trying to move out of reach, but he caught her by the wrist and tugged her close, between his spread legs.

  "Whatever you're thinking," she said, breathless, "take another route."

  "But I like these thoughts." He leaned down to run his hands up the backs of her thighs, cup her bottom and squeeze, making her gasp. Then he pinned her against the railing and braced his palms beside her temples. He wanted so badly to rub the hardest part of him against the softest part of her and barely managed to hold himself still. "Tell me. Are you ashamed of what we did in the tub?"

  "Ashamed? No." Her gaze held his, unflinching, letting him see the fire banked in those smoked-glass eyes. "But..."

  "But?" he insisted, suddenly hating the word. "Why did you run?"

  "A lot of reasons," she hedged.

  "Start with one. We'll work from there."

  "Okay, fine. Number one, guilt. I'd just betrayed my husband."

  As he'd suspected. Confirmation was sweet. "Was the male--"

  "Bay."

  "Was he cruel? Would he want you to remain alone?"

  "Noooo," she admitted, drawing out the word. "But that doesn't change anything."

  The tenderness in her expression roused his jealous side. A side he hadn't known he possessed until he'd met her. "So...you would honor his memory...but not his wishes?"

  Her lashes practically fused as she glared up at him.

  He didn't want her angry; he wanted her pliant. So let's try this another way. "You attended parties as a couple?"

  "Yes."

  "You had fun. Laughed."

  "Yes," she repeated, her head tilting with confusion.

  "I bet he adored your laughter." I do.

  "Ah, okay. I see where you're going with this. I should live my life the way he'd like. Carefree."

  "Weedless."

  She pu
rsed her lips. "What about you?" She waved her hand to indicate the club behind the elevator doors. "I know you're some bigwig billionaire sky mogul, but what do you do for fun?"

  He thought for a moment. "I don't. As one of the strongest fighters of my race, I fight. I've always fought."

  Her fingers abandoned his robe to twirl the curls at his nape. Even better. "Poor Thane. You've never had time to play?"

  Every muscle in his body clenched. "I seem to remember playing earlier today."

  She sucked in a breath. Apprehension--and desire--danced through her eyes.

  "That was a lot of fun," he whispered. "I'd like to do it again."

  She gulped. "All right," she finally said, her voice going low and husky. "Let's play."

  A sense of triumph flared. "Yes. Let's." He arched his hips, grinding his erection between her legs, and she moaned. "We'll play Elin, May I."

  Her breaths came more heavily as she nodded.

  "Elin, may I kiss you?"

  She nodded again, her eyes wide, and he lowered his head. But he didn't press his mouth against hers. Not yet. He hovered above her, breathing her in, drinking in her mounting arousal--and letting her drink in his.

  She braced her hands on his shoulders, waiting. "Thane. I'm ready. I'm not even going to make you beg for it."

  "You want me to beg for it?" He knew how temptation worked. Knew it was better to chip away at resistance a bit at a time. A taste here. A nibble there. Until the first true craving hit...and it was too late to stop. "Because I will."

  A tremor rocked her.

  "May I cup your breasts? Please."

  "Y-yes," she agreed softly.

  "May I spread your legs and stroke myself against you?" Her mind might want to stay true to her dead husband, but her body did not. "May I bring you to climax?"

  Her next exhalation came fast and shallow. "Please."

  Such a sweet capitulation. But still he didn't rush into action. He grazed the tip of his nose against hers, and gave her the barest of kisses.

  She tensed, eager for more, only to deflate a moment thereafter. "Are you having fun?" she gritted.

  "Yes." At last he traced his tongue around the seam of her lips. "Do you like my game?"

  She fisted his hair so tightly, several strands pulled free. "No. You've asked, you've received permission, but you haven't taken."

  He nuzzled her cheek. "And you want me to take?"

  "Yes!"

  "Me. Only me?"

  "Yes!"

  "When?"

  "Now!"

  Such vehemence. He couldn't resist.