magnetically attractive, I had no idea, but one look at him, and I swayed on the ladder.
Instead of his fighting leathers, he now wore what appeared to be formal black pants and a tunic-style shirt in midnight blue, embroidered with silver thread at the open collar. The embroidery matched the lightning in his eyes, glinting in the shimmering glow of the lamps in the room—no torches for this precariously inflammable collection of literature.
The tunic stretched over his broad shoulders, the fine fabric and elegant cut a delicious juxtaposition to the barely leashed power whispering around him. As always, he seemed to compress the air in the room with his presence alone, a heavy weight of sheer, brute force dropped into surroundings that seemed too tame for his nature. He’d look totally in his element standing on a battlefield, sword in hand, armor splattered with blood, those impressive wings flaring behind his shoulders.
“There is a painting just like that,” he said in a silken murmur, “in the north wing gallery. I can take you to ogle it to your heart’s content.”
I inhaled sharply and pointed at him. “That. Right there. I’ve had enough of it. Teach me to shield.” I was fed up with being an open book for anyone to read.
“All right.” He crooked a finger. I knew what that finger felt like stroking between my legs. “Come on down.”
Now why did this sound like an erotic threat?
I perched my butt on one of the rungs of the slightly angled ladder. “I think I’m just fine right here.”
If I climbed down, with him standing at the bottom and looking at me like this—as if he wanted to peel me out of my clothes with only his teeth and a whole lot of determination—I’d probably jump him before I reached the last rung. I could just see it unfold. We’d never get to the shielding lesson, too busy testing the sturdiness of every available surface in this room.
“Suit yourself.” The glint in his eyes betrayed his nonchalant answer. He’d been looking forward to my jumping his bones, the ravenous rake.
He leaned a shoulder against the pillar that supported the gallery above us. “Have you ever meditated?”
I grimaced. “Does the one time count when I was too lazy to clean my apartment so I just lay on the couch for an hour and contemplated the exact ingredients of the takeout container that’d been sitting on the table for two days longer than was sanitary?”
Azazel slowly blinked. “Unless you focused on your breathing—”
“I was trying not to inhale too much,” I threw in. “I mean, the container wasn’t empty, if you catch my drift…”
“—or you used visualization,” he continued, ignoring my interjection with admirable grace, “then no.”
“I did visualize.” I pointed my finger at him. “I totally visualized that container dumping itself in the trash.”
He closed his eyes and dipped his head, and I had the niggling suspicion he was trying hard not to laugh.
“Visualization,” he said as he looked back up at me again, a hint of mirth softening the beautifully brutal lines of his face, “is a good start for shielding. In the beginning, you will need to imagine an actual wall around your mind, until the effect of it becomes an instinct you don’t even need to remember.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my nose. “Just a wall? What should it look like?”
“Whatever you want it to look like. Make it your own. Its size or form don’t matter as much as your faith in its protection. It could be a stained glass wall of rainbows and unicorns, but if you believe it to be impenetrable, then it will be.”
Pursing my lips, I nodded. Faith. I could do this. Even with his permission to imagine any kind of flimsy wall, I went for the picture of an impressively sturdy rampart. The kind that spanned several yards, thick and massive like the Great Wall of China, only stretching even higher. Impenetrable, I thought and focused on infusing the word with power.
“Good,” he said. “Now think something very…” He waved a hand. “...loudly. Don’t send it to me as if speaking mind to mind. Stray thoughts are different. Just let them run, but keep them behind the wall.”
Right. I narrowed my eyes and conjured up the memory of him pocketing my vibrator. My cheeks heated.
He smirked. “Ah, the suspense of not knowing what exactly put that look on your face. I rather like it.”
“So it worked?”
“I can make an educated guess about the nature of