you dealing with this guy on your own.”
“Thanks, Alex. And don’t worry. I’ll talk to Dad. He’s good at helping me get my thoughts organized. I need to take a shower, wake myself up a little more.” She glanced at the clock. It was already after seven. She had a meeting at nine. “I do miss you.”
“I miss you, too, sweetheart. Just be careful, okay? Whoever this guy is, whether it’s Sebastian or someone else, he’s dangerous, and his kills are coming more often.”
She stared at the bed, at the indentation of Sebastian’s head in the pillow beside hers, and sighed. He couldn’t be the killer. She had to believe that. He’d been too open, too concerned. Too perfect.
“I know. I’ll be careful.”
“You’d better be. You know how much I love you, Lily. If anything ever happens to you, I swear I’ll haunt you forever. And I’m not kidding, because Eve’ll be right there beside me.”
She laughed as the image of Alex and their goddess hovering overhead popped into her mind. “Just try it. Eve always liked me better.”
They ended the call on uneasy laughter, but Lily sat there a moment, staring at the phone. Why hadn’t she thought of Eve? Goddess she might be, but she was also Lily’s closest friend and confident. It had been much too long since she’d walked the astral and visited Eve in her own perfect world.
A bit of astral perfection sounded really good, because her own world was obviously way too fucked up.
She inhaled and caught Sebastian’s scent, and her body reacted immediately. Her nipples ached. Her breasts felt heavy, and she was suddenly wet and aching between her legs. Damn. Her wolf should have better sense than this—how could it let her be turned on by a guy who might be a rapist and a murderer?
She took another deep breath, remembering. His scent was not what she’d picked up at the last murder scene, but damn it all, she figured she really needed to check out this newest one.
After she took a shower. And after she talked to her father. Lily felt the dull ache in her head and recognized it for what it was. Well, dear old Dad was just going to have to wait until she washed away Sebastian Xenakis’s seductive scent.
No matter how much she wanted to carry it with her the rest of the day.
6
Sebastian sat in the kitchen, sipping bad coffee and staring out the window. Fog lay low over the ocean, turning the water the same dark pewter as the sky.
The monochromatic view fit his mood.
He should have stayed in Lily’s bed. He could be enjoying fresh ground coffee in her beautiful, sunlit kitchen right now, watching her make that promised omelet for his breakfast, just soaking up the pure joy of being in her presence.
Instead, he was drinking instant coffee because he’d been too pissed off to make a fresh pot, waiting for a showdown with his father that was sure to be unpleasant.
He rubbed his finger across the bridge of his nose. The scratch where Lily nipped him had completely healed. He almost wished it had lasted longer, proof of a most amazing yet frustrating night.
A reminder he needed answers. Lots of answers.
He sensed his father before he saw him. Felt his presence with the sense of something unclean entering his consciousness. He’d never noticed it before Lily, but Aldo Xenakis carried an almost oily feel about him.
Where Lily was fresh and clean, a shining ray of magical energy and life, his father left the psychic taint of a sewage spill. Why hadn’t he sensed this before?
“Ah. So the social butterfly has flown home.”
Sebastian turned slowly, frowning. “Excuse me?”
His father was practically chortling. “How was it? Sex with the princess?” Before Sebastian could respond, Aldo slapped both hands on the table and leaned close, until they were eye to eye. “I know you nailed the bitch. How’d it go?”
Rage flashed. Sharp, burning rage, striking hard and hot as lightning. He reacted. His hand clamped around his father’s throat before the man finished speaking.
Aldo’s eyes went wide. He gasped unintelligible words, but they were enough to call the power to throw Sebastian across the room. He slammed up against a wall of cabinets and slid to the floor, stunned. Remnants of mage energy sparked and danced over his skin, but he shook it off and shoved himself to his feet, shaking from anger, not fear. He spoke his own words of power, and the remnants