As he listened, he ran his fingers through her hair. The rhythmic caress soothed her like nothing else ever had. Her muscles went pliable and boneless. You called out a name, he said. I couldn't make it out.

It took her a moment to think back, then she remembered.

Rodrigo, she replied. He's a good friend on the police force. He and I are the only ones who survived. There were five of us-me and a team of four officers. We were going to take out a magic user who'd suffered some kind of psychotic break. We underestimated him. We thought he was relatively harmless. Everyone we talked to who knew him said so. We didn't know he'd been stockpiling guns and ammunition.

Nikolas said quietly, Oh no.

We were talking him down-or so we thought-and then we went in to take him into custody, but he'd been playing with us and only pretending to go along with it. I was part of the team in case he decided to get slaphappy with magic spells, but instead, he opened fire on us the moment we stepped inside and came into range. He knew how to shoot. We were wearing bulletproof vests, and he still killed three of us with headshots. He'd been preparing.

Nikolas ran his hand along her torso, touching the scar high on her shoulder, and the other one in her abdomen. He caught you along the edges of your vest.

She nodded. Rodrigo took him out. He did CPR on me until the ambulances arrived. He saved my life.

As she told the last of her tale, he pressed his lips to her forehead and didn't move again for several moments. He murmured, After what you've gone through, you still fling yourself at danger.

No, she said tiredly. I fling myself at situations that may or may not be dangerous. I help a dog at the side of the road. I give a bunch of homeless guys a roof over their heads.

He brought fingers to her lips, stroking them lightly. You run into a pub to save a screaming woman. You run straight toward thirty attacking Hounds.

It's just a thing, she whispered. It's no big deal. It's who I am. You ran into the pub too.

I ran into the pub because you were there, he said.

She refused to let that divert her. She told him, You would have done the same thing if I hadn't been. When those two Hounds were attacking Cael, you ran toward them, not away. It's the same thing, Nik. We're more alike than not, at least about that.

He rolled her onto her back, came on top of her, and put his elbows on either side of her shoulders, the fingers of his hands laced together at the top of her head. She felt enclosed, surrounded. Instead of feeling trapped, it felt comforting and good. The rightness of it hurt more than almost anything else she had ever experienced.

"I've lost so many people," he breathed against her lips. "So many people, my Sophie. I think of their names and their faces until sometimes I think I've become nothing more than a remembrance hall that bears witness to each of their stories and how they ended. That part of me is threadbare and worn to the bone, and until you showed up, I thought I didn't have it in me to care about anyone else again. But now I do, and yes, I'm struggling, because I don't think I could take losing you too."

Before, in the courtyard, pain had driven her side of the conversation, but now as she listened to him, compa.s.sion moved her to stroke his back. She murmured, "I thought we were taking a time-out."

"I lied," Nikolas said, and he kissed her.

She lost herself in the sensation of his mouth moving on hers, the weight of his body, the warmth radiating off his skin. Desire hit her low and hard. Her body felt empty and aching, and as she bent her knee, sliding her foot along his leg, his c.o.c.k stiffened into a hard, thick length that pressed against her hip.

I'm going to walk away from you after this, she whispered in his head as she slipped her hand around his erection and squeezed him. Hissing against her mouth, he thrust his hips forward, sliding his c.o.c.k against her palm. This is the last time, Nik. I swear it.

We'll walk away from each other, he promised. He slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her with such wild heat, a moan trembled on her lips. He swallowed it down, thrusting deep with his tongue while he ran his fingertips along the edge of her panties. The light touch left a trail of fiery sensation in its wake. As soon as I get you out of my system, I'm gone.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was telling the truth. Furiously she bit his lip, and a gasp shuddered through him. So he was going to leave as soon as he got her out of his system. Fine. Two could play at that game.

At least now she knew what this was, she thought. It was (tremendous, mind-blowing, screaming, utterly fantastic, wildly pleasurable, heartbreaking) s.e.x.

She would cut him off before he did it to her. This was the very last time, so she grew determined to make the most of it. Pushing against his shoulder, she urged him to lie on his back, and he complied, pushing back the covers as he stretched out on the bed.

Rising on one elbow, she did what she had wanted to do ever since the first time they had been together. She ran her lips down his body, learning by feel each muscle and hollow, the whorl of hair around his flat, male nipples, the vein that ran down his bicep. She ran the tip of her tongue around the curve of his belly b.u.t.ton while he tensed his long, flat stomach with a hiss.

By the time she reached the edge of his silk boxers, she didn't have a lot of teasing coyness left. Pulling aside the material, she grasped his p.e.n.i.s at the root and took him into her mouth while his whole body went rigid.

His hands shook as he cupped her head.

They had to be quiet, so quiet. The others were just on the other side of the boxes and crates that made up her bedroom. It was torturously difficult to m.u.f.fle the sound of pleasure she wanted to make as she suckled at the head of his c.o.c.k.

He tasted earthy, delicious. Dizzy with enchantment, she licked down the side of his erection, relishing the velvet skin with the taut, hard flesh underneath. Cupping his sac, she molded and caressed him while she opened her throat to take him in all the way.

By then his whole body flowed like molten fire under her touch. He felt like he was burning up. She worked him, and worked him, drawing him in entirely before pulling back to the tip, while he swore an endless telepathic litany of profanities.

She had nowhere to put the noises she needed to make. It all had to go into his head. She crooned and sometimes laughed at his inventive swearing and told him how wonderful he felt and tasted, and how much she wanted to take him inside.

He reached down to circle her throat with one hand while he pumped, fiercely silent, between her parted lips. Your mouth is like fire and silk. He warned, I don't think I can hold back.

Delighted, hungry for him, she gasped. Do it. I want you to come in my mouth.

G.o.ds d.a.m.n-here. Here it is.

He slammed one fist into the mattress as he convulsed, and his c.o.c.k began to pulse, jetting s.e.m.e.n into her mouth. She milked at him and took all of it while she ran one flattened hand up the tense, shaking muscles of his abdomen. When his climax appeared to ease, she lifted her head and wiped her mouth.

Come here, he growled. I'm not done yet.

It was the Wyr mating urge. He gripped her hips and lifted her over his body until she straddled him. Then he took hold of his erection and rubbed it against her hypersensitive, private flesh, making sure she was ready for him before he pushed upward.

She was so empty she ached with it and shaking so hard she could barely keep herself propped up. He felt bigger and harder than ever as he entered her. As he pushed in, and in, she stretched to accommodate him, twisting at the piercing pleasure of his penetration.

Her breath came in quiet sobs. He put a shaking hand over her mouth. Hush, he said fiercely. This is just ours. Just yours and mine.

Blocking everyone else out. Nothing else mattered. Pride, hurt feelings, expectations, they all burned away until only they were left.

Male. Female.

Nikolas. Sophie.

He thrust into her until he reached a hard, driving rhythm, and she rode him as best she could. Reaching between their bodies, he stroked her gently at the place where they were joined. When he found her c.l.i.toris with the ball of his thumb, she was so primed to come it punched through her like a storm with gale force winds.

Shaking all over, she whimpered into his m.u.f.fling hand as she climaxed until the peak came at such a height, she couldn't take any more of it, and she jerked his thumb away.

They held together, joined at the groin, in the great room's chill silence. The only sound she could hear was the quiet seesaw of their ragged breathing.

Then he sat up, wrapped his arms around her, and flipped their positions so that she lay underneath him again. He clamped tight around her, one arm around her hip, the other at the base of her neck, holding her clenched against the entire length of his body. It was a taut, uncomfortable pose. She could barely move. All she could do was grip him around the hips with her legs and wrap her arms around his torso.

He was still inside her, still hard and big, and now she was so sensitized every slight movement sent shock waves through her body.

Then he began to move again, hard, quick jabs that rocked her to the core. She really, truly didn't think she could take any more, but then she took it, still in that extreme silence until tears welled and flowed out the corners of her eyes.

She came again two more times before he was finally through. Toward the end, all she could do was hide her face in his neck and cling while the storm of his own making shuddered through them.

The Wyr mating urge might not force him to stay with her. He might still be able to walk away. But no matter how she tried to lie to herself, she was no longer certain she had that ability.

This isn't a cold, she thought. This isn't the flu. This is a soul-destroying illness that will tear me to pieces before it kills me.

Afterward, he gathered her against his chest, turning his head so that his cheek lay against the crown of her head. Resting against his shoulder, she fell into another black pit, only this one was without dreams. He had taken the scorched earth approach and blasted everything else out of her mind, leaving only him.

She slept long and hard, and when she woke up, she was alone in the bed. Her bladder was full and her stomach uncomfortably empty. Filtered sunlight from the iron-framed, antique gla.s.s windows at one end of the great hall cast an indirect, thin light over the top of the crates and boxes and created deep shadows in her tiny bedroom.

Sighing, she curled on her side and hugged a pillow to her chest. He could have stayed long enough to kiss her good-bye in the morning. They both might know what this is, but there were courtesies.

Finally her physical discomfort grew so much she was forced to dress. She dragged on the same jeans and sweater she had put on after the stormy battle last night and tried to fingercomb the tangles out of her hair. The curls sprang out everywhere in a mad, chaotic halo, but she felt too disheartened to dig for her comb and hair bands to force it into more order.

She had a feeling she looked like something a cat might have dragged down an alley before abandoning it, deeming it too pathetic for its attention.

There was an unfortunate metaphor in that.

As she sat on the bed to pull on her Doc Martens, she saw a bottle of nail polish sitting on the bedside table. Nikolas had returned what was left to her. Picking the bottle up, she shook it. As she had feared, very little remained in the bottle.

She still had the spells she had painted on her arms from yesterday afternoon, minus the one confusion spell she had used on the Hound, but those would peel off and degrade. After that, she might be able to cast one more spell, maybe two, and then her little made-up a.r.s.enal would be depleted.

Sighing, she tucked the bottle into the bedside table's shallow drawer, lifted the privacy curtain, and stepped out into the communal area. Several of the men sat at the table, drinking tea and talking. The smell of bacon hung in the air.

As she appeared, they turned to look at her. There was a moment of silence.

Then Rowan said, "I mean this in an entirely platonic way, but that crazy hair of yours has got to be one of the s.e.xiest things I've ever seen."

"Do you have a death wish, mate?" Cael said to him.

Rowan lifted his hands. "I said I meant it platonically!"

Warmth washed over her cheeks. Nikolas stood with Braden and Ashe, over by the windows between the Mini and the Harley, looking out. He didn't turn at the exchange.

She said telepathically to Gawain, I'm about to start tap dancing here. I know you've promised that either you or Nikolas would stay with me at all times, but you're all here in the great hall. I think I'm perfectly safe to go to the bathroom by myself.

He frowned. That will probably do for now.

She told the group, "Privacy alert. I'm going to take a few necessary moments in the courtyard, so I'd appreciate it if everybody stayed here until I got back."

There. Now that she drew attention to it, everybody would be obligated to stay in the great hall.

Gawain told her, "There's soap and a bucket of water on the bench. It'll be cold, but you can have a bit of a wash too, if you like. We have a couple of solar showers-black bags with sprinkler nozzles that heat up in the sunlight-so later in the afternoon there'll be warmer water for showers."

"That sounds amazing," she said with such heartfelt fervency, a couple of the men grinned.

She slipped into the courtyard to take care of business and wash up, and she took a few minutes to wrestle her hair into a long, thick braid that fell down her back. When she returned, Cael slipped a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her, along with a cup of black coffee. He said, "The eggs will be good for a few days, so we should enjoy them while we can."

"Thank you so much." She glanced again at Nikolas and the other two men by the window, then turned her attention to the hot meal.

As she ate, Cael slipped a couple of pieces of toast on her plate. At first there was a lull in the conversation, but then, as the men grew used to her presence, the talk resumed.

They had a lot to say to one another after such a long, enforced solitude. From what she could glean, as she listened, they had only gathered at the solstices to raise the energies to contact home. Despite the danger of their situation and her own pessimistic outlook, they were relishing the chance to relax together, which made her smile.

As she finished the last of her breakfast, Nikolas stalked over. He was dressed in black again-she didn't think he wore any other color-and while she couldn't see his sword harness through the cloaking spell, she would bet good money he was wearing it. He looked leaner, darker, and harder than ever, and his dark eyes glittered with an expression she didn't want to try to interpret.

He said, "Ready to get to work?"

Her jaw tightened. "Good morning to you," she said. "How are you today, Sophie? I'm fine, thank you very much. I got a good night's sleep. How are you, Nik? Oh, I'm suffering from a severe case of rudeness this morning, but other than that, I'm okay."

Someone across the table made a strangled noise. She thought it might have been Gareth. Other than that, dead silence washed over the group. n.o.body looked at Nikolas or at her although Rowan suddenly looked several shades redder than usual.

Nikolas gave her a dangerous smile. "Glad we have the pleasantries out of the way," he said in a silken voice. "Are you ready to get to work? I packed supplies for us."

Reaching close to the floor at one end of the table, he picked up two backpacks.

Oh G.o.d. She was going to have to spend the entire day with Mr. Sunshine. She glanced at Gawain for help, but he wasn't looking at her either. With obvious reluctance, she said, "I guess so."

"We've got a lot to do. Let's go."

She would not scowl. She would not give him the satisfaction of letting him know he got to her. Pushing back from the table, she said to Cael, "Thank you for breakfast."

"You're welcome," he told her.

Nikolas said to the group, "We don't know what's going to happen when we encounter shifts. We'll try to keep you posted, but don't get too alarmed if we don't show up in sync with the day as you know it. And set up a schedule of round-the-clock watches, two men for each shift."

She joined him. "Watches?"

He told her grimly, "Morgan's here."

Her stomach clenched. "That's why you were watching out the window?"

"Yes."

She went over to the windows, murmuring, "Pardon me," to Ashe, who moved to let her look out. The thick square windowpanes were small and dirty, and the view through the antique gla.s.s was wavery and distorted, but she could still see the familiar tall, broad-shouldered figure who stood on the lawn, about twenty yards away.

Morgan had his arms crossed, and he studied the house with his chin tucked down. On either side of him, both men and Hounds stretched as far as she could see. She didn't have to see for herself to know they would have surrounded the entire house.

Ashe said, "He's been out there like that since dawn. Trying to figure out a way in, I expect."

Nikolas put a hand on her shoulder. Turning to him, she said, "I'm ready."

He handed her a backpack. "Lead the way. Where do you want to start?"

Immediately she turned to walk down the hall where she had found the first shift. "We know this one is here. And we know of the one in the courtyard. Let's get those marked first, then we'll move on." Telepathically she asked, Why did you set watches?

He said, The house might not be in alignment with the land outside, but once those front doors are open, anybody can pa.s.s through. They can either go in-or out. And anybody from the inside can open the doors. I tested it myself yesterday.

She frowned. You're thinking the traitor might try to open them and let the enemy in-or get out?

I'd say that was a distinct possibility. As soon as that thought occurred to me, I got up and kept watch until the others woke up.

The heaviness that had weighed her down since waking lifted somewhat. I didn't hear you leave.

Good. I didn't want to disturb you. You needed the rest.