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shook him, knocking his head against the floor. "I should kill you too! Do you know what you've done to all these people? To the band? Doug's in the hospital right now because of you."

His eyes went wide. "I didn't know that. Honest. I didn't want to hurt him...I-I just couldn't get the stuff on time. Not until I delivered you."

He spoke of me and the other victims like we were commodities. I wanted to pick him up and throw him out the window. I could do it too. Humans were indeed fragile things, and while my succubus shape-shifting didn't have the power to maintain this ьber-strong shape all night, I could hold it long enough to do some major damage.

Despite my normal abhorrence of violence, I have to admit that throwing people around a room is actually more satisfying than you'd think. After Dominique had died, I tracked down the corrupt doctor who had botched her abortion. I had changed from Josephine and wore the shape of an apish, seven-foot-tall man with bulging muscles. Storming into the doctor's small, sinister office, I didn't waste any time. I grabbed him as if he weighed nothing and tossed him against the wall, knocking down shelves of curiosities and so-called medical implements. It felt fantastic.

Striding over, I picked him up by the front of his shirt and punched him hard in the side of the head, ten times harder than I'd hit Alec. The doctor staggered and fell but still had enough life to scramble backwards, crab-style, in an effort to get away.

"Who are you?" he cried.

"You killed a girl tonight," I told him, moving menacingly. "A blond dancer."

His eyes bulged. "It happens. I told her. She knew the risks."

I knelt down so that we were at eye level. "You cut her open and took her money. You didn't care what happened to her."

"Look, if you want the money back - "

"I want her back. Can you do that?"

He only stared, shaking with fear. I stared back at him, shaking with my own power. I had the ability to kill him. To throw him again or snap his neck or choke the breath from him. It was terrible and wrong, but seized by my own rage, I couldn't control myself. Honestly, it's fortunate in the long run that most incubi and succubi have mild personalities more bent on pleasure than on pain. With the ability to take on any shape, we can be pretty deadly to mortals if we're pissed off enough. They can't really stand against us. This doctor sure as hell couldn't.

But another immortal could.

"Josephine," murmured Bastien's voice behind me. Then:" Fleur ."

When I still didn't respond or loosen my grip, Bastien said, "Letha."

My birth name penetrated the bloodlust pulsing through me.

"Let him go. He isn't worth your time."

"And Dominique isn't worth avenging?" I demanded, my eyes never leaving the wretched human before me.

"Dominique is dead. Her soul is in the next world. Killing this man won't change that."

"It'll make me feel better."

"Maybe," conceded Bastien. "But it isn't your place to mete out punishment to mortals. That's reserved for higher powers."

"I am a higher power."

The incubus rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. I flinched. "We play a different role. We don't kill mortals."

"You and I have both killed before, Bas."

"In defense. Protecting a village from raiders isn't the same as cold-blooded murder. You may be damned, but you aren't this far gone."

I released my hold on the doctor and leaned back on my knees. He stayed frozen. "I loved Dominique," I whispered.

"I know. That's the problem with mortals. They're easy to love and quick to perish. Better for all of us to keep our distance."

I didn't touch the doctor, but I didn't move either. Bastien gave me a gentle tug, still quietly reasonable.

"Come on, let's go. Leave him. You don't have the right to end his life."

I let Bastien lead me out. Once in the dark alley flanking the doctor's office, I shape-shifted back to my more natural-feeling Josephine form.

"I want to leave Paris," I told him bleakly. "I want to go somewhere where there is no death."

He put an arm around me, and I leaned into his soothing presence. "No such place exists, Fleur."

In Sol's house, I still bore down on Alec, again empowered with the ability to crush his life if I chose. But Bastien's words echoed within me, and I realized with an ache how much I regretted my current hostility with the incubus. Regardless, he