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with seductive mischief. Moving his hands to my back, he let his fingers trace the still-healing scars from where he'd scratched me. "There's no place you can go that I can't find you."

I groaned. I'd forgotten about that. "Those damned things are going to heal one of these days."

"I'll make more."

We leaned into a kiss, and like that, things were solved between us. We didn't need many words to get across how we felt. Maybe that's how it is with someone you really love, someone you're connected to. That wasn't to say we didn't have reams of communication to hash through in the future, not if we were going to attempt some sort of relationship. But for now, the kiss conveyed enough. It was an exchange of heat, an exchange of love, and it felt like coming home.

"I've still got to make amends," he told me, his lips only a fraction of an inch from mine, "no matter how magnanimous you're feeling. You know, the usual. Chocolate. Flowers."

"Whatever. I don't need the covert signs to know you want to have sex with me. There are plenty of more obvious ones."

"Like what?"

"Like your hand on my breast."

"No. This is still subtle." He pulled my body to his, melding us together. "Now, when my mouth is there, then you'll know - "

"You're such a freak. Sex got us into this mess. I don't know that it's healthy to rely on it to fix everything."

"Only one way to find out."

Queenly authority or no, I didn't do a very good job of protesting. And when he pushed me down on the couch, I didn't do a very good job of protesting that we should go to the bedroom. Fortunately, Tim never came home, so I didn't shock his sensibilities again.

Whatever words he'd withheld in our conversation came out as Kiyo made love to me, telling me he wanted me, would love me forever, and would do anything in the world for me. They were the sort of promises all people make when they're falling in love, but that didn't make them any less powerful. I floated on them long after he left that evening, awash in emotion and contentment and residual lust.

I was getting dressed in my bedroom when a voice behind me said: "He's a mistake, you know. So is the Oak King. You're better off without either of them."

I jumped and spun around angrily on Volusian. "Don't sneak up on me like that! Christ. Were you watching me out there? What is it with you Otherworldly types and your fetishes? Exhibitionists and bondage and voyeurism. Good grief."

His red eyes regarded me levelly as I finished pulling on my shirt. "I was not joking, mistress."

"About Dorian and Kiyo? What's the matter with them? Well, Dorian's kind of obvious, but Kiyo's all right."

He shook his head. "Hardly. He is a fox, and part of him thinks like one. He regards you as his mate, and that is a dangerous thing. He and Dorian are both zealots in their way. They sit at different ends of the spectrum, perhaps, but both are fixed in their beliefs. Each will have his own agenda for you - even the kitsune, whose views you tend to agree with. They will each try to dominate you and make you think it was your idea."

For one uneasy moment, I thought about how sex had been with each man. Aggressive. Controlling. I'd had small pieces of control, but in the end, I had always been pushed to submission, a submission I welcomed. There was only the one night with Kiyo - the night I'd woken up in the afterglow of remembered power - that I had truly been the dominant one.

"You would do better to find someone milder and more malleable. Someone less ambitious."

I considered his words. Maybe he was right. Maybe. "Men without ambition are boring."

"And that attitude, mistress, is why the females of your kind continue to struggle for equality. And why they continue to fail."

I sat on the bed and clasped my hands in front of me. "I didn't summon you. Was that all you came to tell me, Dr. Love?"

"No. I came to tell you that you need to visit your kingdom sooner rather than later. The people are nervous and restless. You are their queen, and that means something, no matter how much you loathe it. Your people need to see a strong monarch right away."

"I was hoping to put that off." My people, huh?

"I wouldn't