In the dream, Axe was back in Elise’s bedroom. He was in the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d gone up there, and he was sitting where he’d actually parked it at the end of her bed. The double doors into that bath of hers were wide open, and everything was as it had been in terms of furniture and decor—but it was all so hazy, like there was a smoke machine in the corner coughing out wafts of white fog.

He couldn’t see Elise, but he could hear her voice. She was talking to him from her bath, her voice coming and going out of earshot as if somebody was adjusting the volume on the world and had a bad hand tremor.

He was aware of being seriously aroused.

Really. Fucking. Hard.

And that was before she came into the jambs of the arched doorway.

Elise was incredibly, spectacularly naked, not one stitch of clothing keeping his eyes from her skin—and yet the specifics of her body were lost to him, that haze airbrushing out her breasts, the plane of her stomach, her clefted sex.

“Do you want me?” she said in a distorted voice.

“God, yes, fuck yes … I ache.…”

“Tell me you want me.”

Spreading his knees wide, he put his hand on his sex and squeezed. “So bad … I’m dying.…”

“Say the words.”

“I want you …,” he breathed.

Elise came to him like a summer breeze, walking across the fancy rug with a graceful stride that had him moaning in the back of his throat. And then she was in front of him, and he was reaching out to touch her, to caress her warm, vital skin. As he pulled her in between his legs, her scent filled his nose and his cock roared, his fangs descending in his mouth.

“Elise …”

Looking up at her, he moved his hands to her upper arms, urging her to kiss him. But the more he tried to get her to lean down and let him take her lips, the more she slipped from his grasp, her body becoming ether as she disappeared before his very eyes—

The alarm went off next to his head like a gunshot, the shrill electronic beeping goosing him in the ass as he jumped up and panted.

The fire was long dead, not even embers remaining, and the cottage’s living room was cold as the inside of a refrigerator. He’d crashed in the clothes he’d been wearing after he’d left Elise’s, only a leather jacket pulled over his torso holding any of his body heat in.

His joints were stiff.

And what do you know, they weren’t the only thing.

Rearranging himself, because it was either hands down the pants or he was walking like Quasimodo, he went up to the bathroom on the second floor and cranked on the hot water. Backing out, and shutting the door so that shit would warm up in there, he got a change of clothes, remembering everything from the socks to the combat boots—and then only started to strip when he was locked in with the humidity.

The first thing you learned about living in upstate New York during the winter with no heat was that you made sure you had what you needed before you got yourself wet. A dripping trip back to your room for a forgotten whatever was like cozying up to an electrical fence.

As shower stalls went, the one he stepped into naked was approximately the size of a salt shaker, its narrow plastic walls—which were about as structurally reliable as a Barbie playhouse’s—offering shocks of cold if you didn’t watch where you stood. The water was bliss, though, and he lifted his face to the roasty-toasty rush, letting it fall down his shoulders and his chest, his back and his ass.

It didn’t take him long to find the soap.

And where he went with it wasn’t good.

But his erection was killing him and it was getting worse instead of better as the caressing sensation of the spray got magnified and modified in his head, his faulty gray matter translating it into Elise’s hands, lips, tongue.

He was thick and heavy in his own palm, hard and unyielding as he gripped himself, and on the first stroke, he saw Elise’s face clear as day in his mind. And yeah, he told himself he should feel guilty for this, and he did. There was something nasty about jerking off to her when they had both drawn the line the night before.

His need for an orgasm was so strong, though, it wasn’t going to be denied.

Leaning to the side, Axe got a pump going and had to put his head into his bicep, his fangs scoring his own flesh as he went faster and faster. Heat roared through him along with more images of that female from the cigar bar and even her father’s study.

Which was so wrong.

But good luck trying to stop a speeding train with nothing except hand motions.

Hardy-har-har.

The pleasure was razor sharp, nearly unbearable and impossible to deny at the same time—and the release, when it racked through him, bent his spine back so hard, he hit his head on the rear shower wall.

He said her name. Loudly.

And he couldn’t stop after it was through.

Before Axe could even recover, the tide was rising again, his hand continuing to work himself out, the sensations surging until his teeth were gritted, and his neck was straining, and his entire body was clenching up.…

Wonder what Axwelle was doing? Elise thought as she stepped out of her shower and wrapped herself in a towel.

The heated marble floor turned the sparkling-white bath mat into a toasty foot pad, and she took her time drying off, wrapping her hair up, and drawing on her thick terry-cloth robe. Aware of an excitement bubbling under her skin, she put on leggings and a different cashmere sweater that was blue as the ocean; then not only hit the blow-dryer, but also the curling iron.

She even threw a little eyeliner and mascara on at her vanity.

About a half hour later, she was wearing her coat and backpack and heading out of her room, spring-in-her-stepping it down the corridor—

When she came up to her cousin’s closed door, she hesitated. And wondered whether or not a bodyguard would have helped Allishon. Would being guarded by a soldier have kept her alive?

The answer to that would be easier if Elise knew what had killed the female.

There was no time to get into a cognitive lock about all that, though. She hurried down to the first floor and all but tiptoed past the open door to her father’s study in case he decided to recant the whole with-my-blessing thing. But then she remembered. It was Wednesday night. He had his long-standing bridge tournament.

Just as well.

Outside, the night was unseasonably warm, the kind of thing that made her think that the humans with their climate-change theories might be onto something.

And Axe was right where he’d texted he would be, standing just outside the circle of illumination of the second lantern down the walkway.

She went toward him.

“Hi,” she said softly. “I’m glad you came for me.”

He coughed a couple of times and shifted his weight in his boots. “Yeah. I said I would.”

“Let’s do this. Right to the library. I sent your phone the link to the address?”

“I know where we’re going.”

It took a little longer than usual for her to dematerialize … because he had clearly just showered and he’d come with his hair wet, the soap he’d used tinting the night air with something spicy and delicious.

God, he smelled amazing.

With an inner curse, she forced herself to focus and was off, re-forming miles from her house, in the shadows next to the library’s main entrance. Axe traveled right with her, his massive body materializing next to hers a split second later.

“We’re going in over here,” she said needlessly.

“I’ll be staying back, but not out of range.”

“Okay—wait, why are you here?” She waved her hand around. “I mean, what should I tell my professor?”

“Why do you have to tell the old guy anything? It’s no one else’s business.”

“Like people aren’t going to notice you?” She laughed a little. “You’re about as invisible as a semi.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to explain anything.”

As she looked up at his intractable face, she respected how unconcerned he was with what others thought. It was a nice change from all the glymera group-think she lived with. “You know, growing up in my family, everything had to be proper, and anything that wasn’t—”

He walked by her, cutting her off. “Come on, let’s do this.”

With a frown, she caught up with him. “You don’t have to be rude.”

“I don’t have to be your friend, either. I’ve got a job to do, and that’s keep you alive. I’m not here to socialize.”

So much for starting off on the right foot, she thought, as she pushed open one side of the glass double doors and strode into the library’s lobby.

In spite of the fact that she had been using the facility for years, she looked around with fresh eyes, noting that the place was the color of oatmeal, everything from the short-napped, wear-like-iron rug, to the washed-out color of the reception desk, to the anemic drapes by the card catalogues like something you’d find in a breakfast bowl.

“We usually meet down here.”

Leading the way, she took her bodyguard past the banks of computers over on the left and then down a distance of stacks to the third open area of tables and chairs.

Troy was back again where she had left him with those two female students the night before, facing away from her, piles of finals papers fanned out everywhere, his scarf and parka shoved into the chair beside him.

Kicking her chin up, she strode in his direction, and when she came up to the table, she put on her widest smile. “Hi.”

Tory did a double take as he glanced up. “Ah … hello …”

For the first time, he shoved his chair back and made like he was going to stand up to greet her—but she motioned him to stay where he was.

“So I’m happy to report that I’m back in business,” she announced as she put her things down across from him and took a seat. “You’re not getting rid of me after all.”

“I don’t …” He shook his head as if he were clearing it. “I don’t want to get rid of you.”

She flushed as he didn’t look away from her. “Yes, my father has seen the light. So what do you need me to help with tonight?”

“I … um …”

Elise made a show of fishing into her backpack for her red pens and notepad. “I think we were close to your being done? If that’s true, maybe we can talk about my concluding chapter? And then I think I’m ready for a final review of—”

When Troy continued to stammer, she glanced up to see what was wrong.

Oh.

He was wide-eyed and pale as he looked up at Axe.

Who was standing over the human like he was measuring her professor for a death shroud.