Julius was in hell.

That had to be what this was.

He tried to stay focused on finishing his work. He ignored the running water that Kat was drawing for her bath downstairs. Ignored the happy little song she hummed.

Julius paced the floor of the art studio, trying not to listen to the splashing water. Knowing she was below, naked and wet was bad enough, but he’d discovered that he could see her though the vent in the floor, which was about to drive him mad. He’d found the vent when steam began curling up through the slats in the floor. He paused to glare at the offending grid, before turning on his heel and pacing away.

He’d been having a hard enough time keeping his hands to himself and Kat wasn’t helping matters. He must’ve had another . . . “attack” at dawn. He didn’t remember going to bed but this evening, when he’d woken he’d been snuggled between her sweet, soft thighs, his head pillowed on her belly with her hands combing through his hair.

Jesus, if he were smart, he’d stay the hell away from her. He had no doubt one of these mornings when he woke he’d be planted balls-deep inside her. That wouldn’t be something she’d likely allow. Not from a dirty bastard like him.

A soft moan floated up and he froze. The sound went straight to his cock.

He ripped the bandage off his head and knelt by the vent feeling like ten types of shit for spying.

Below, her head tipped back against the back edge of the tub. Her eyes closed. Lips parted. He adjusted his angle and the rest of her lush body came into view. One pert breast was visible, the other hidden by her hand. She kneaded the pale mound, rolled and tweaked her coral nipple and he had to stifle his own groan. His gaze roamed lower, over the curve of her belly and the swell of her hips. Her thighs spread as wide as the sides of the tub allowed, and her other hand dipped below the surface of the water sliding between her curls.

Jesus, he shouldn’t watch. It was rude. An invasion of privacy.

It was absolute torture.

Her breathing quickened as her fingers set a gliding rhythm against her clit and the little flexes and releases of her hips mesmerized him. Her nipples tightened even more, her other hand kneading, tugging.

The water rose and fell with each thrust of her hips, gliding over her body in sensual waves, no doubt adding to her pleasure.

Her head tipped back farther, her mouth opening in a silent scream and he couldn’t look away as her body convulsed, the water swelling around her as she shook with little tremors.

“Ah, Jules.”

He jerked away from the vent. Her eyes had been closed. She hadn’t seen him. Nor had he made any sound to alert her to his presence. But why else . . .?

Jesus, had she fantasized about him while she stroked herself off? Did she imagine his hands on her skin?

No, he wouldn’t think about it.

He picked up a canvas and squeezed out some paint onto his pallet, pausing briefly as a shudder raced through him. If he could get lost in a new painting, he’d be able to block out what he’d seen. He’d forget.

Oh, Christ. He had to forget.

Julius was sound asleep. He’d slouched back in the curved-back armchair in the art room and had passed out.

Kat bent and retrieved the paintbrush from where it had fallen from his lax fingertips. How many times had she done the same? She’d get consumed by an idea and work tirelessly until, at last, the painting was finished and exhaustion took over.

She’d gotten quite a lot done. Had spent time with her patients. Bathed. Done laundry. She was almost starting to feel kind of normal.

From the look of things, he’d spent the time hard at work. She tilted her head as she came around his side. The newest painting wasn’t poorly rendered, but wasn’t what she’d grown to expect either. His art was dark and raw. This piece was bright—a landscape at sunset.

From the bottom edge, pale, smooth cliffs rose up on either side of a river. The water ended in a shadowy spot below the surface where two outcroppings of rocks dipped down into it. The cliffs rose high above the waterline before dropping into a smooth valley. There were mountains in the distance that went almost to the top of the canvas. On either side were calm seas under a brilliant sunset rendered in reds and oranges and yellows. The light reflected in lively waves below the line of the sea. The whole piece was quite striking, almost ethereal.

She was missing something. This painting was unlike anything else he’d done—not that she’d known him or his work long—but this was completely out of his ordinary.

“What do you think?”

His sleep-roughened voice startled her. Her gaze snapped to where he lay sprawled in the armchair. He hadn’t moved, his eyes remained closed, the discarded bandage clutched in one hand. “Thought I’d try a different perspective.”

“I—” Her voice was more a croak than anything and she cleared her throat before trying again, “I think you’re talented. It’s different than what you usually paint, though.”

His brow furrowed. “Really?”

“Well, yeah.” She motioned to some of his other works. “Most of what you paint is almost Gothic. Dark and foreboding with a touch of hope in your recurring sprite.” She pointed to the small, colorful blotch that was the focal point in all his art. “This is the opposite. It’s . . . bright.”

He shrugged. Though he still hadn’t opened his eyes, a small smile tugged at his lips. “Or, maybe it’s the same.” He pulled his bandage back over his head. “A different point of view.”

She stared at him. The same? Her gaze shifted to the paintings, searching for any similarity.

Julius walked up behind her, his voice close to her ear. “What do you feel when you look at this painting, butterfly?” He pointed to the first piece he’d done.

The painting depicted a swirling black vortex winding down to a single pristine white pinpoint. To the side of that dot was the tiny, colorful sprite she’d come to think of as his signature. “It feels chaotic, bleak and hopeless. But . . . .”

He put his arm around her from behind. “But?”

“The little sprite offers hope, like it’s leading me out of the darkness back into the light.”

His cheek brushed hers as he nodded.

He pointed to his latest piece. “And this one?”

She swallowed. “It . . . . It makes me . . . .” This painting made her belly quiver and her nipples tighten. She gave a tiny shake of her head, unable to voice what that painting did to her.

“Do you feel it here?” He pressed his hand against her belly and a thousand butterflies took flight in there.

She nodded.

“Here?” His other rested over her heart.

“Mm-hm. What about you?”

“It makes me feel optimistic. It gives me hope and a sense of peace and at the same time . . . excitement.”

She drew in a shaky breath as she studied the painting. The edges of the painting drew her gaze, where bits of black crowded the landscape. “But darkness is closing in.”

“No, the darkness is receding.” He stepped away. “I need to wash the paint off my hands.”

She studied the picture. Then, remembering what bothered her about this latest piece, raced into the hall. “There’s no sprite in the last painting.”

He paused on the stairs but didn’t turn around. “It’s not a sprite, butterfly, but she’s in all my paintings.”

She went back and studied the paintings again. Sure enough in the three other pictures, she could easily find the tiny not-a-sprite. It was this last piece that didn’t have one, perhaps because the painting was so colorful already. Kat backed away to get a broader view of the thing.

It was the cliffs. That’s what didn’t sit right with her—they were too smooth. Too pale. There were no jagged edges or texture and the land was too smooth—each line of the mountains were graceful arcs. Her eyes fell to the shadowy area beneath the water. Two long, thin outcrops of rock came down to dip into . . . .

With a gasp she stepped back. This time she followed the line of one cliff rising out of the water and for the first time noticed its reflection wasn’t mirrored in the river below—it was a different shape. That wasn’t a cliff, but a leg. The rounded plane wasn’t meant to be rock, but the flesh of her belly, the mountains her breast on one side and her hand cupping her breast on the other. Now that she knew what she was looking at she could even make one out: a pink nipple poking through fingers—the other laid bare for all to see and beyond, her head was tipped back in ecstasy—lips parted, eyes squeezed shut, nostrils flaring. The sunset wasn’t the sky, but her hair spread out, tendrils sinking beneath the clear surface of her bath water. Her gaze dropped back to that shadowy place below the waterline, to where those rocks—her fingers—found her pleasure.

She let herself slide down the wall to the floor, her palms covering the steaming flesh on her cheeks. This was by far the most erotic painting she’d ever laid eyes on, made more so for the fact that at first she’d thought it a view of an innocent landscape. That it was her, she had no doubt. He’d even captured the little white scar on the back of her hand near her thumb.

This was not the art of a man unaffected. In this painting, she was gorgeous. No, that wasn’t right. He’d painted her as she was—plump, voluptuous, with her pale skin covered in freckles—but he’d painted the qualities she despised in herself as if they were . . . sexy. It was the feeling of the painting. While erotic, the scene also appeared to be done with a sense of respect. By disguising it as a landscape, it was almost as if he’d tried to cover her from anyone’s eyes but his. There was an air of protectiveness . . . and possessiveness about it.

Shame washed over her. Not because of how he rendered her—he’d shown her as a beauty—but because of how she’d expected him to view her. She was so bent on him turning out to be like Mother . . . to be the villain everyone else thought he was . . . She’d expected him to find her ugly. Fat.

Mother had.

Still, she didn’t see the not-a-sprite anywhere. For several moments, she searched to no avail, seeing nothing beyond her body sprawled out across the canvas. Where was the . . .?

The sound of running water caught her attention. He had turned on the sink to wash his hands. She turned around and walked halfway across the room to the vent in the floor. She couldn’t see him from here, but the tub was in full view. He’d watched her bathe. Seen her masturbate. She had no idea what to say, whether she wanted to confront him directly or sink right into the floorboards. Instead of tackling the problem head on she yelled, “There’s no not-a-sprite!”

His voice drifted up. “She’s there, butterfly.”

Butterfly. She turned back to the paintings. She was the butterfly. Her gaze slid to the other paintings and tears filled her eyes. They were all paintings of her—of how he saw her.

Of his optimism that she would lead him out of the darkness.

When Harrison walked into the office, Scott didn’t even glance up from where he sat at his desk, half-hidden by a mountain of paperwork. “What do you need?”

“You asked me to sit on a meeting with some woman.”

“I’d forgotten.” Scott closed his eyes and pressed his finger and thumb to either side of his nose.

Harrison picked up a briefcase off one of the high-backed armchairs facing the desk, sat, and propped the case against the side of the chair. “Who is she?”

“Angie Radcliff.” Scott’s lips thinned. “She’s been a thorn in my side since she got here three days ago.”

“Ah. This is a disciplinary meeting?”

“This is a ‘I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on’ meeting. Three days she’s been here and I’ve had the same number of sexual harassment claims filed.”

“She overly-sensitive?”

“Not by her, they’ve been filed against her.” He shook his head and signed at the bottom of the document he’d been working on. “Don’t know what to think. She’s beautiful. Young.”

“You think they’re false claims by unwanted suitors?”

“Maybe.” He threw the pen down on the desk. “She’s on parole. State pulled her out of prison to work for us, as a matter of fact. I guess she did some work for the church as a kid . . . .” He shook his head. “You know, before she lost her shit and stabbed her future step-mother twenty-six times.”

Harrison cursed. “How long was she in?”

“Six years—since she was seventeen.” He glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. “We’ve got another fifteen minutes before she gets here. I’m gonna run this down to personnel—it’s the authorization for the adjustment in payroll to go out tonight.”

“No secretarial staff yet, huh?”

Scott snorted as he collected his papers. “That may be a blessing. I’m almost afraid of who’d they’d send.” He put on his suit jacket and left.

This was bullshit. The last thing they needed to be worrying about right now was the mound of paperwork that seemed to be multiplying on Scott’s desk. Every time he walked into the office the pile had doubled.

He’d expected the administration part of the DDC to have already been set up. He’d expected the pressing need to eradicate the Nephilim to be his biggest hurdle in using DDC assets to search for Adia. But no, the coven was still more focused on the Nephilim than they were.

Someone was setting them up for failure on a grand scale. They had major staffing issues. The first payroll to go out had been delayed and when payment finally went out, the amounts were half of what they should’ve been. The housing promised for daemon staff hadn’t happened yet—on-duty daemons were sleeping on the floor of their offices. They’d had a surprise fire inspection which they, of course, failed, due to the number of bodies lining the floors. And while they were stuck here dealing with staffing issues, paperwork, sub-par equipment, and red-tape, humans were dying and being transformed into Nephilim on an alarming scale. And Adia…God only knew what she was up to.

He was used to being able to see the bad guy and fight him directly, but in this situation, hell, he’d probably never even meet whoever was making their lives miserable. This was likely the result of some higher-up at the Department of Defense or Homeland Security not liking the idea of an alliance with daemon kind and sabotaging them from behind the scenes.

It pissed him off to no end they were dealing with this shit. Even now, Adia could be making plans. She could be looking for his family, hunting them.

Someone knocked on the door and before he could get up, they pushed it open. “Knock knock?”

He stood. “Mason will be back in a few minutes.”

The woman entered the office, a wide smile on her face. She looked to be about twenty-three and easy on the eyes with her thick black hair and pale, flawless skin. “I’m Angie. I’m meeting with—”

“Have a seat.” He motioned to the chair next to him. “He’s expecting you.”

Her gaze shifted to George and her eyes widened. “Oh, my God, what is that?” She came around the chair and reached out.

George swatted her.

Yeah, he already didn’t like her. “He’s not a pet.”

“Well, he sure is a cutie.” Her eyes were the same aqua-blue of a glacier. “So who’re you?”

“Harrison Sinclair.”

“I’ve heard your name.” She put her hand on his arm and leaned closer. “Hear you’re a real badass.”

He retook his seat to put himself out of reach. Based on what he’d already seen, he didn’t think those harassment claims were false. Hell, he may as well see how much of a flirt she was while they waited for Scott. “Mason said you used to do some work for the church?”

“Mm.” Instead of sitting in the vacant chair, she leaned her hip against Scott’s desk. “I’m a Scenter. When the church had claims of demonic possession, they’d bring me in to determine if the person was truly possessed and if so, by what kind of demon.”

He quirked his lips. He’d never heard of anything like that before. Sounded like bullshit. “Oh? What do they smell like?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “The kind of demons who possess humans smell of hot ash. It’s unmistakable.” She shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, some of them smell of sulfur like they say in the Bible, but not all. The rest of you, those of you who spell their race with an ‘ae’ instead of just an ‘e,’ most of you don’t have that scent.”

“I suppose that’s a good thing.”

“You wear Calvin Klein.” She put her hands on the arms of his chair and leaned over him, bringing her face close to his neck. “But your true scent is closer to a bergamot.” She sniffed his skin. “Earthy. A little rugged.” She lifted her face until they were nose to nose. “A lot sexy. And all daemon.”

She was a beautiful woman, if a bit forward. All things considered, he should be enjoying this. Instead, his chest tightened. “That’s quite a talent.”

“Why don’t I show you some of my other talents.” She cupped his crotch in her hand. Squeezed.

His throat constricted. “Don’t,” he strangled out the one word before grabbing her wrist and pushing her back as he stood. Probably more forcefully than necessary. His throat was closing up. He had to get out of there before he lost his shit.

“Oh, come on.” She laughed. “Why is everyone so damn uptight around this place?”

He didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure he could as fast as his breath was coming. He was sucking air hard and still felt like he was suffocating. Cold sweat broke out over his forehead. He opened the door and damned near plowed into Scott.

“Hey, sorry that took so—”

Harrison kept walking.

“Sinclair, you all right?”

He lifted his hand and waved, but he didn’t stop. His office was at the end of the hallway. The keys were in his hand. George ran alongside him to keep up. Everything in him urged him to pull his clothing away from his throat.

Once in his office, he shut the door, leaned against it, and slid to the floor. Closed his eyes. Exhale, dumb ass. This happened every time he had a fucking panic attack. He could suck air in just fine. Getting it out was an altogether different matter.

Slow down. She’s gone.

George butted his head against his chin, gurgling and growling, not understanding what was happening. Harrison reached up and patted the minion, trying to soothe him.

Bit by bit, his breathing slowed, allowing him to exhale before the next burst of air filled him up.

He opened his eyes. Well, this was an unwelcome development. Maybe Kat not calling was a good thing. Adia had always triggered him but they had a history. He’d never considered the possibility other women might put him in the same state.

This was just fucking great. He laughed. He’d had the body of a man for a whopping six days and he was no better off than when he’d been stuck in the body of a youth.

Except Kat didn’t make him panic. She was comfortable. Easy to be around. Hell, maybe next time he saw her he should try again.

“Let’s go, George.” He wiped the sweat from his brow, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We can’t leave Scott to deal with that woman alone."