“I’m no more anxious than you for the world to end. Especially if it means becoming enslaved by the minions of hell.”
Ariyal shook his head. “You really are a terrible liar, poppet.”
She made a sound of impatience. “Look, I’ve offered to give you the time you need to track down your tribesman. What does it matter why?”
“Because I don’t trust you.”
She met him glare for glare. “Believe me, the feeling is entirely mutual.”
“I should return you to Avalon.”
Something that might have been panic flared through her eyes before she was crushing it beneath a layer of ice.
“I’ll only escape again,” she warned in frigid tones. “And the next time I won’t hesitate to haul your ass to the Commission.”
Ariyal silently cursed.
He was an idiot.
His tribe had suffered untold pain and humiliation to be rid of their ties to the Dark Lord. He couldn’t afford to be distracted now that there was a chance the brutal bastard might be returned to this world.
The sensible solution would be to kill the perilously tempting vampire. Or at the very least to return her to Avalon and lock her in the lower harems where nothing could escape.
Instead, he was going to keep her with him.
What choice did he have? There wasn’t any place he could put her, not even in her grave, where she wouldn’t be nagging at his thoughts.
“You swear not to interfere?” he rasped.
“Not unless you try to kill the child.”
“Bloody hell, I know I’m going to regret this,” he muttered, rising to his feet, although he kept the dagger handy.
Jaelyn was upright and angrily tossing back her long braid in less than a heartbeat.
“You and me both.”
Still fully aroused from the feel of her body beneath him and furious with his odd compulsion to have her near, Ariyal grasped her upper arm and jerked her across the road.
“Let’s go.”
“Go?” She scowled, but allowed herself to be led toward the back of the looming townhouses. “Where?”
“If you insist on hanging around then you can at least make yourself useful.”
Her lips parted to offer a scathing comment, only to snap shut as they came to a halt near a servants’ entrance.
“The mage,” she said, her hand instinctively reaching for the shotgun that she usually carried strapped to her side. She glared at him when she came up empty. “And he’s brewing something.”
He nodded, catching the sweet scent drifting through the air.
“Yes.”
“It smells ...” She blinked in surprise. “... good.”
“Fey.”
“What?”