A faint familiar feeling started building within me as my body quivered at his touch.

"Still with me?" he asked my neck.

"Right here," I said, breathing erratically as my hands decided to get in on the action. I tugged his shirt out of his pants and slid my hands underneath it, skimming along the very interesting planes of his naked chest.

"Good. If at any time you feel as if you are leaving your body, let me know and I'll do my best to anchor you."

My mind spent a few happy moments contemplating the form an anchoring would take, but there was too much pleasure to be had in exploring the lovely world of Paen's chest to devote too much time to that.

The hair on the back of my neck started to stand on end.

"This is a lovely jumper," he said, pulling back just enough to admire my sweater.

"Thank you. My aunt knitted it for me. She wove good luck wards into it. It's one of my favorites."

A slight smile curled the corners of his mouth. "Would you mind terribly if I removed it?"

"I'd like that a lot." I went limp as a rag as he peeled the sweater off me. No, that's not quite true-my hands were busily unb.u.t.toning his shirt in between him pulling off my sweater. "Fair is fair," I added when he had to stop de-sweatering me for a moment while I tugged his shirt off.

"Absolutely." He stilled for a moment, looking down at where I lay languid before him, my hand sliding ever so slowly down the sleek muscles of his arm.

An abstract sense of detachment bubbled over and washed along my limbs, making me even more relaxed.

"Um... Paen?" My b.r.e.a.s.t.s, normally well behaved, suddenly decided they wanted out of my bra and into his hands. Or mouth.

Or up against his chest. They weren't picky about which, they just wanted his full attention.

"Yes?" he asked, leaning over my belly, his tongue a brand on my flesh.

The room began to spin. "I'm starting to drift again."

His head moved up until his eyes filled my vision. "Focus on me, Samantha. Focus on what I'm doing to you. Feel every little touch I make. Concentrate on the pleasure I can give you."

"I'm... I'm trying..." My consciousness started to detach from my body. Paen's head dipped, his breath hot on my b.r.e.a.s.t.s as his tongue snaked between the mounds of flesh trying so desperately to escape my bra. "Er..."

"Focus, Samantha."

I started rising, lifting from my body.

"Stay with me!" Paen ordered. I floated above him, looking down to where he was peering at my face. My body looked relaxed, like I was daydreaming, a pleasant, if vague, expression on my face.

There was no drifting around the room. One moment I was there watching Paen, the next I was floating along the night, wafting who knew where.

I insist that you come back here! Samantha! Come back to me!

Pain accompanied the words in my brain, a hot burst of pain in my breast that immediately turned to pleasure so intense, it yanked me back. I blinked dumbly, surprised to find myself in my body again, Paen's curls tickling my chin as his teeth sank deep into my breast.

With that contact, my world changed.Holy cow, I gasped into his mind. This is incredible. I can feel everything you feel! I can taste my own blood as you drink!

I can feel pa.s.sion building inside you. It's like we're sharing it somehow, like you're feeding me rather than vice versa.

It's like- My cell phone, located in my purse next to me on the floor, rang at that very moment. Paen lifted his head, the contact between us broken. Likewise the psychic connection between us disappeared, leaving me feeling oddly bereft, as if something that was a part of me, something I needed, had been taken away.

"I'm sorry," I said, apologizing both for my phone and the fact that we had been interrupted.

"We could ignore it," he suggested, his eyes so bright they almost hurt me to look at.

I wriggled uncomfortably as I reached for my purse. "Normally I would, but I told Clare to call if she needed me."

Paen leaned back to allow me to grab my purse. I extracted the cell phone, checked the incoming caller's number, and mouthed, "It's her," at him before answering. "Hey Clare. What's up?"

"Oh, Sam, something terrible has happened. My dress has been shot!"

"You what?" I shrieked, sitting bolt upright, inadvertently slamming my b.r.e.a.s.t.s into Paen's nose. "Oh, man, I'm sorry," I told him, covering the phone for a second. "Are you all right?"

"My dress has been shot!"

"Your dress? Why would someone shoot at your dress?" I asked, confused as h.e.l.l.

"I'm fine," Paen told me, gently feeling his nose. "I don't think it's broken."

"Well, I think he was aiming at me. I was wearing the dress at the time," Clare said thoughtfully. "It was just mean of him to shoot the part of me covered by the dress. I don't know if it's going to recover."

"Clare has been shot. She's delusional, babbling on about a dress," I said aside as I grabbed my sweater and yanked it over my head, my voice m.u.f.fled as I asked into the phone, "Clare? Are you seeing things? Strange, unreal things?"

"Well, I consider my dress with bullet holes in it a strange, unreal thing, so if that's what you mean, yes. It's a mess, Sam, a mess, absolutely destroyed. I've tried for half an hour to get the blood out, and it won't come out! I'm so annoyed I could just scream!"

I stared at Paen in confused horror. He had donned his shirt and was quickly b.u.t.toning it.

"How bad is she? What hospital is she at?" he asked. "I'll take you there."

Clare continued to rant about her dress. I shook my head, trying to figure out just how badly she was hurt.

"Clare? You didn't get shot in the head, did you?" I asked. "Are you lucid?"

"Of course I'm lucid. Haven't you been listening to me? My dress is ruined!" she wailed.

I rubbed my forehead as Paen helped me to my feet, waiting not-so-patiently for me to answer his questions. I was so bemused by the fact that Clare seemed more concerned for a dress than her own bullet-riddled body that I couldn't seem to think straight.

"Yeah, but... Clare, exactly where were you shot?"

"Twice in the chest, once in the stomach."

"Samantha?" Paen said, clearly wanting an update.I covered the mouthpiece. "She's been shot in the chest and stomach, but she doesn't seem to care much about that."

One of Paen's expressive eyebrows rose slightly. "She is a faery. She is immortal. Bullets can't kill her."

"No, but they can hurt her," I snapped, immediately feeling bad. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get irritated, but Clare seems to be more worried about her dress than anything else."

"Sam? Did you hear me? What am I going to do?" Clare's plaintive voice sobbed in my ear.

"Don't worry, we'll be there as quickly as we can. Where are you?"

"On Dunstan Moor."

"Where?"

"Dunstan Moor. It's in the Lammermuir Hills. They're shooting a movie here, and Finn is part of a historical group that's providing extras for the movie, and we decided it would be fun to join in. Since he didn't think it was a good idea me meeting with the fence on my own, we arranged to meet him here."

"On the set of a movie?" I asked, more than a little incredulous.

"It's not as movie-like as you'd think. Evidently the primarily filming was already done, and they're just doing a few more battle scenes-"

I sighed. Only my cousin would think nothing was wrong with meeting a fence in a location where there were plenty of witnesses to watch. "Dunstan Moor. Got it."

"You're coming? You'll bring help?" she asked, her voice plaintive.

"Police, paramedics, or both?" I asked.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. "Neither, silly! I need an emergency dry cleaner!"

I lost my patience then. "Honest to G.o.d, Clare, you act like the dress is more important than you being shot!"

"Of course it is! It's a Versace, you idiot! Bring help! I'm going to save this dress at all costs."

Chapter 5.

"Can anyone tell me why..." I asked half an hour later as Paen and I stopped in front of Clare. She stood with a familiar dark- haired, dark-eyed man, both of them leaning over a small, portable plastic table spread with a wispy, gauzy bit of fabric in green, blue, and gold that I a.s.sumed was the all-so-important dress in question. We were a good fifteen yards away from a brightly lit area around a cl.u.s.ter of trailers. Beyond, half hidden by a couple of scrawny trees, blinding arc lights cut through the night as someone yelled instructions via a bullhorn for people to charge and retreat at specific cues. I paused, trying to see into the darkness. Something tugged at my consciousness, as if it was trying to get my attention. I scanned the area, slowly turning to locate whatever it was that called to me, then decided it was the location itself. Like my office, this land was founded.

"Can anyone tell you why what?" Clare asked.

"Hmm? Oh, why were you wearing a Versace gown to meet with a fence? On a movie set, yet?"

"They're having a ceilidh here after the battle shooting."

"Ceilidh? Oh, a party?"

"Yes. They've been making some sort of a Scottish historical movie, and since it's almost over, the movie people are letting the extras use the area for ceilidhs for the next couple of nights before they leave," Clare answered, waving toward the man next to her. "But I can't let anyone see the dress like this! Just look at it! Even if I could pretend the bullet holes were meant to be there, the blood has stained the fabric!"

"Hi, Finn," I said, smiling at Paen's brother. I'd only met him briefly before, just a quick introduction before we had set off for the castle, but now I had a chance to study him covertly. I could see a physical resemblance between him and Paen-they both had the same forehead, and similar dark, curly hair, but the fundamental difference was something not quite so obvious.

Finn had a soul.

Why does your brother have a soul? I thought Dark Ones didn't have them?

Paen shot me a glance, but didn't answer. I wanted to ask him again what the problem was with mind-talking, but since it made him so uncomfortable, I let it pa.s.s.

"h.e.l.lo, Sam. What did you think of Castle de Ath?"

"It's big. And old. But nice. I liked it. Clare, what exactly happened?"

Clare wrung her hands in a delicately helpless manner that had Finn murmuring soft little plat.i.tudes in her ear. "Oh, it was awful, Sam, just awful! I arranged to meet Raul the fence, and he turned up with another man, a very evil man."

"The evil man shot you?" I asked, eyeing her. She had obviously borrowed a spare costume from an extra, since she was clad in a plain-spun ankle-length skirt and green bodice.

"He shot my dress, yes." Clare nodded. "Oh, stop making that face. Yes, I realize he meant to shoot me and not the dress, but you know how I am with wounds-I heal so quickly that the bullets did more damage to the dress than me."

"It's because you're a faery, Clare. Immortal. It's not that you heal fast-you just don't get injured."

Clare glanced quickly at Finn. "You'll have to excuse my cousin. She's normally very nice, but there are times when she's absolutely unreasonable."

"Ah?" Finn asked, looking at me.

I rolled my eyes and turned to Paen. "Is Clare a faery?"

"Yes," Paen said, poking a finger through a hole in the dress.

"Oh!" Clare gasped, her silvery eyebrows pulling together in a frown as she glared at Paen. "Do you think I'm going to listen to the opinion of a vampire?"

"Moving on," I said, not bothering to argue the obvious with her. "Who was the man who shot you? And why exactly did he try to kill you?"

"I don't know who he was, but I wrote up a report for you while Finn was sweet-talking the wardrobe mistress in order to get some club soda to remove the bloodstains. I know how you like reports," Clare said, pulling from her purse a small notepad. "Hmm," I said, quickly scanning the pages. Paen moved to stand behind my shoulder so he could read it as well. I was momentarily distracted by the feeling of him so warm and solid behind me, but I firmly squelched the desire to turn around and run my hands over his chest again. "Finn was called away by some friends, so you met with Raul alone... He said he'd brought someone who wanted to talk to you... The other man had a monkey on his shoulder? A spider monkey?"

"I didn't ask him what sort it was," Clare answered, tsking over some new atrocity to the dress. "But it was small, so I guess it could be. It had on the cutest little sailor suit."

"Huh." If it was Beppo, then that would explain why the shopkeeper thought I was insane when I mentioned his monkey. But what was the man who was in Paen's castle doing shooting Clare? I read further in the report. "You chatted, he asked you about a statue-"

"Statue?" Paen asked, his voice rumbling close to my ear. Goose b.u.mps ran down my arms at the nearness of it.

"A bird statue," Clare said, dabbing at the dress with a grubby bit of paper towel. "It's all there in the report. He asked me where the statue of the golden bird was."

"Are you sure he said a bird statue?" Paen asked.

"I thought the same thing," Finn said quickly. "Clare said she was sure-it was a golden bird."

"A falcon." Clare nodded. "I told him I didn't know anything about any falcon statue, gold or otherwise. He snarled something rude that I won't repeat, and told me I was lying, and that he would kill me if he had to in order to get it. I told him that wouldn't do any good because I didn't know where the statue was, but he shot me anyway, then both he and Raul ran away. I knew I was better off here than anywhere else, so even though Finn wanted to take me to the hospital, I called you instead."

"What do you mean you're better off here?" I asked, confused why she would think a movie set out in the middle of the wilderness was the location of choice after a shooting.

"It's nice here," Clare said with a shrug. "It's pretty country. I like the way it makes me feel."