Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,55

to his species was enough to garner him notoriety. But there was one more thing. In addition, Sterling was a seer. Visions came to him of their own accord, when and how they chose, but he made the best use of them when they did. It had made him a very wealthy man, and Anna had to admit he’d saved countless lives.

An evil man would not have done that.

So, that honestly might have been enough for her to sleep with him. He was supernaturally attractive and good in bed, and when he took her power from her he used it to save someone. But… well….

When all was done and said, she couldn’t help but feel a little used by Jarrod. She knew he desperately didn’t want her to feel that way and tried his damnedest to keep her doing so. He stayed with her afterward or asked her to stay with him, and he took care of her. He cooked for her, took her out, spoiled her. Once, she’d found out surreptitiously that he’d even purchased the company she worked for so she wouldn’t have to go into work the next day. Or any day if she didn’t want to.

It was like that with some of these non-mortal guys; they were magic and they were ancient, so they had money to throw around. And incubi knew how to impress women. Sterling had asked her to go globe trotting with him. He’d even asked her if she would consider staying with him for longer than a few days. Say, for instance, a few decades.

She had declined. All of it. The offers were unexpected and they had thrown her; he was good at doing that to her, but in the end, she still just felt that it was all about the sex. Trading sex to anyone for anything was the oldest profession in the book, and it quite simply made her feel cheap. Granted, housewives across the globe did it on a regular basis, and deep down Annaleia felt they all knew it. But that didn’t make it okay… did it? Not for the women anyway, right? Damn it, there was so much more to Anna than just her magical power! She wanted Sterling to notice that! She wanted everyone to!

It was like people focusing on her scars and nothing else. It was only skin deep.

Annaleia halted her progress down the street and ran a hand through her long hair. When she did, she caught the scent of rain. It was something she should have been accustomed to by now, after all these years. Ever since her transformation, she literally smelled like rain.

For her it was a poignant twist of fate. “Raindrop” was what he’d called her.

Not Sterling.

Ares.

Antares Mace, her high school best friend and first secret love had nicknamed her “Raindrop” because of the shampoo she had always used, White Rain. The cheap and admittedly harsh cleanser had not smelled anything like rain, instead giving off the chronic, decidedly clean scent of extra-clarifying soap. But given the bohemian nature of the times, she’d found she liked the nickname, and it stuck.

Her scent was different now. She no longer wafted discount shampoo. Instead, she carried the scent of freshly fallen rain: wet earth and clean air.

She continued walking.

When Sterling caught the scent after her initial transformation, he’d told her she was lucky. Apparently the males of her kind often smelled like death or decay after their transitions and had to use spells to cover it. He’d then told her that she was the only female “Withered” he’d ever met, and in fact the only one he’d ever heard of, so it was possible all females smelled like rain. And then he’d laughed and said, “It would figure. In an ironically unfair fashion, women manage to be the fairer sex even in death.”

“I see it as women finally winning in something,” she’d countered, “Mister I-pee-standing-up.”

Anna was grateful she didn’t smell like a corpse, but she was willing to bet Sterling was even more grateful, especially since he’d then slept with her.

And that was what this was all about once again. That was why Sterling was here in Austin, Texas just before Christmas. He wanted to take her to bed. If he did, he would absorb her power. It was temporary; he could only use the borrowed ability once. But it was always all he needed.

When Annaleia died in 1967, she came back from the dead as what’s known as a Withered, but unlike