Harrison followed Mason down the hall to his office. They didn’t talk. It wasn’t safe. He waited while Mason unlocked his office door and followed him in. The lights went on and Mason cursed.

Duncan, James, and Lilith were waiting for them.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that.”

Lilith held out her hand, palm up. “I found this. Thought you’d want to know.”

“Another bug.” He pinched the small device off her palm. “I can’t even tell you who’s doing it.”

She smiled. “If you want to know, I can find out.”

That she could. She and Trina had a direct connection to the Watchers. They could tell them who was doing and saying anything.

Mason nodded as he slumped into his chair behind his desk. “I’d appreciate the help. Won’t be able to do anything about it until I have proof that’ll stand up in court, mind you. But it would be nice to know who my enemies are.”

Harrison sat in one of the free chairs and George hopped onto the back. “Whoever sent that video would be a good guess.”

“The DoD?” Scott scoffed.

“The Department of Defense sent that?”

Scott nodded. “The letter that came with it wasn’t signed.” He shook his head. “I should’ve watched the damned thing first.”

James met his gaze. “What video?”

Harrison explained what happened in their first training.

“Don’t know why you’re bothering to train humans anyway.” Duncan settled back in his seat. “Can’t go out in the field until the Nephilim are destroyed.”

Scott raked his hand through his hair. “I’m not training them for that. I’m training them to work here, in the building. Do the administrative stuff. Hell, most of these guys can’t work in the field. They’re too old, they’re injured, or they’re incompetent. The whole goal of the training was to get them on board with working peacefully with their daemon counterparts.”

Harrison grinned. “He tried to get some of the daemons you sent from Machon to take shifts in the office but . . . hell, they can’t figure out the stapler, much less a phone or computer.”

The daemons who’d been trapped in Machon during the three hundred years when the portals had been closed had lived in a world that had evolved in a different way from Earth. Earth’s technology, even the simplest forms, mystified them.

“You think this will settle down once we turn over Crowley?” James asked.

Scott rocked back in his chair. “Jesus, I hope so.”

Kat walked into the living room with two glasses of ice-cold blood. She handed one to Julius.

He tipped his face up, drawing the glass closer, no doubt inspecting the contents from beneath his bandage. “What the hell is this?”

“Dinner.”

“With ice? We can’t—”

She rolled her eyes. She might be new to vampirism, but she wasn’t dense. “The ice cubes are frozen blood, not water.”

His lips parted.

“What?” She sat on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her. “Makes me feel more human.”

“And here I didn’t think I’d be able to think about anything but what happened upstairs, but you’ve piqued my curiosity. Have you always been so . . . odd?”

She grabbed the closest throw pillow and hurled it at him.

He lifted his glass out of the way and swatted it aside. “Come on, you have to admit you don’t conform.”

“I conform.”

“To what?”

Her mouth opened. Closed. She took a sip of her drink. “I follow the human’s laws and the coven’s rules.”

“Which is, obviously, why you have me hidden away here.”

Okay, so maybe she was currently breaking both the laws and the rules, but this was the first time. She lifted her chin. “I conform to the Hippocratic oath of medicine. . . . I help—”

“You’re sleeping with one of your patients.” He flashed her a grin.

She snapped her mouth closed.

“You dress conservative—long skirts and dresses that cover you up, but then don’t wear panties.”

Her face heated. “Only when I’m at home.”

“Your house is impeccable except for the living room which seems almost purposefully kept a disaster.”

“Mother hated messes.”

“I have the sense that you’re a good witch—someone to give Glinda a run for her money—”

She gasped. He made her sound like some one-dimensional Mary Sue!

“—but you have me hidden away like some dirty little secret.”

“I told you, you’re innocent.” The words strained between her clamped jaw.

He scoffed. “And you’re getting upset with me when I’m pointing out things I like—or at least I find interesting—about you.”

She stared.

“I want to know why you do the weird things you do. That’s all I’m fishing for.”

Her face flushed again. “I’m not weird.”

“Weirder still that you don’t know how weird you are.” He rubbed his chest. He’d been doing that a lot the last few days. “Most people would’ve left me to the sun.” He took a long sip of his drink.

She folded the hem of her skirt into neat little lines. “You’re my mate.”

“And what, that’s important to you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

They always seemed to come back to this one little detail. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Mates, when they’re not ready to bond can be ruthless to each other.”

Was that why he didn’t trust her? Had she been ruthless in a past life? Had she hurt him when she’d known him last? The question simmered on her tongue, she wanted to ask, but she feared the answer. “Mates can be beautiful when they are ready to bond.”

His lips twitched. “The eternal optimist. Come on, tell me.”

The ‘I’m your mate’ he left unsaid, but it still hung between them.

“You were right. I wanted someone to love me. To care.”

His expression sobered. “Listen, I shouldn’t have said—”

“But you were wrong, thinking that anyone would do. I didn’t want anyone, I wanted my mate. I wanted you.”

He stilled. “And now that you’ve met me?”

“You’re a pain in my butt.”

His lips twitched. “At least you’re honest.”

She met his gaze. “I’m glad you didn’t burn in the sunlight.”

He leaned forward and snagged her ankle in his hand. Drew her foot toward him until it rested in his lap. “Are you?” He dug his thumbs into the arch of her foot.

She moaned. Nodded. Pressed her lips together as the urge to tease him back rose. “Mm. I like the way you kiss.”

His hands stilled. All his muscles flexed and he got that same menacing look he’d had in the kitchen yesterday. The same look he got in the bedroom right before he kissed her senseless and made love to her until she was boneless.

“None of that now.” She shook her finger. “You’re resting. You can either sit here and talk to me or I can knock you out and drag you back to bed.”

One tawny brow rose. “You wouldn’t.” He shook his head, his hand closing around her ankle as if to haul her closer. “You wouldn’t do anything that might hurt me.”

“I’d use Magic and make it painless,” she rushed her threat out before he could drag her into his lap. Once there, she’d lose every good intention she had. As soon as his mouth settled over hers, she’d get lost in his kiss.

He pressed his lips together.

“Tell me more about Julian.” She nudged his jean-clad leg with her bare foot.

He kneaded her arch. “He was a sickly little shit when we were young. I was always running a mile a minute, unable to sit still for long which aggravated our parents to no end.”

Attention Deficit Disorder, maybe? Even now, he seemed to have a hard time keeping himself still. He changed subjects often. Constantly wanted to move around. The only time he seemed at peace was when he painted. “Did you get lost in the shuffle while they concentrated on keeping Julian well?”

“No. See, I was the second twin and our parents were a superstitious lot. Our whole village was. So, they took good care of me so Julian could use me when the time came.”

Use him? Her brows drew together. “I don’t understand.”

“When we were born, it was common knowledge that only the first twin had a soul. They were special enough, important enough, that they were born with a second body should the first fail.”

“Shut up. No way is that true.”

He shrugged. “It was what people believed. I could’ve ended up being born into a culture where they killed the second twin. At least in my village, the second twin was cared for.”

For the benefit of the firstborn. “Praise Gaia for that.”

“Whenever he’d get sick . . . which seemed to be every other week—I think he had asthma or some kind of lung infection—they’d tie me down in the bed next to his to make sure his soul could find me should his body die.”

That was awful. To do that to an impressionable child, to raise them believing they were an extra body for someone else. She couldn’t imagine what that might have been like.

He glanced at her. “What? It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. I would’ve hung out with him anyway—though I would’ve preferred not to be tied down. I think they were afraid I’d get bored and wander off.” He shrugged. “Which I probably would’ve done.”

“Didn’t it bother you, thinking you didn’t have a soul?”

He used the palm of his hand to scrub his bicep. “I never much believed in God or souls or heaven—none of it ever made sense to me, so I guess I never had any buy-in to their way of thinking.”

“Did Julian live?”

“Yeah. Eventually, he got stronger. By the time we were in our teens, he rarely got sick enough to take to his bed.”

“What was he like then?”

“A bit entitled, but otherwise, pretty cool. He treated me like a person.” He frowned and rubbed his ribs under his arm. “He didn’t argue when I decided it was time to leave home and move on.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

She straightened. “What?”

He let his head fall back onto the backrest. “Come on, Kat. The life-expectancy back then was like thirty. Nobles got married as soon as they hit double-digits.”

That didn’t make it right. “Fine.” She smoothed her hands down her dress. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I have a hard time imagining that kind of life. So at the ripe-old-age of fourteen what did you do?”

“Both of us could blacksmith like our father. We had grand dreams of setting up shop in another village.” He laughed, shaking his head. “The best we could find was an apprenticeship—the lady of the castle liked us. So our days were spent with an old man who resented the hell out of us and our nights . . . .” His brows waggled above the bandage. “We both got one hell of an education.”

She stared. “At fourteen? That’s . . . that’s . . . .” She couldn’t think of a word vile enough.

“Mid-life?” His jaw flexed.

Yeah, if people only lived to their thirties, that would be mid-life. “Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “How long did you stay?”

He grinned. “Until her husband found out.”

She threw another pillow at him and he caught it despite the bandage covering his eyes.

“It was nice while it lasted. Good food. Nice beds . . . when it was my night inside, anyway. The lord, he kept his men trained. I loved to sit up on the battlements and watch the knights. Even made swords for me and Julian while we were there. When we got chased out, we were older. Armed. I had new dreams of becoming a knight.”

The Beacon, the Shadow, and the Knight. “You are a knight.”

“No.” He ran the heel of his hand down his thigh, scrubbing. “There were rules. Lineages. Fees. Equipment requirements. We were low-born, so no one would take us. We ended up becoming mercenaries, instead—knights of the lowest order, Julian used to tell people.”

Maybe he wasn’t the one. What if all of this was for nothing? What if she spent this week with him, falling in love with him, only to find out he didn’t have any connection at all to the Original? “You never became a knight?”

He grinned. “We called ourselves knights—to piss those holier-than-thou silver-plated-bastards off. Even had this code of honor we’d rattle off—completely off-color, of course.”

“What was your code?” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she changed her mind. “No, don’t. I don’t want to know. I’ve run out of pillows, all I have left within reach are books and my glass.”

The low rumble of his laugher rolled over her.

Incorrigible.

“God, I miss him.”

“How did he die?”

He sobered. “We were hired by local authorities in Cornwall to take out a group of what they considered to be brigands. They were halting all traffic in and out of the city and the body count started adding up. We should have asked more questions, but the coin was too good to pass up. We took the job. It ended up being a coven of rogue vampires and that was our last job as humans.”

“That must have come as a shock.”

“You could say that. I dealt with transformation better than Julian. He couldn’t accept it. He became depressed and annoyingly whiny, but we stuck together, learned to exist without sunlight. Found ways to use our mercenary talents to get what we needed to survive. Every night seemed to get a little easier for me—it was weird, all I had to do was ask for what I wanted and people seemed more than happy to accommodate me—but Julian, he kept getting worse.

“I couldn’t stand him anymore. I snapped at him one day, told him if he was so damn unhappy to take himself off a cliff and end it.”

“Oh, no.” He was a mesmerist.

“Oh, yes.”

“I kept walking, expecting him to be right behind me. It never occurred to me that he would . . . .” He shrugged. “But he did. That’s how I discovered our talent.”

“I’m sorry, Jules.”

He shrugged and looked away. She’d almost assume him indifferent to the tale if not for the muddiness in his aura. He seemed to need a minute to collect himself so she pulled her foot away from him and stood. When she paused to take his empty glass, he pulled her down onto his lap.

“Julius Crowley! You’re supposed rest. Relax. Go paint. Or meditate.” He kept rubbing at his skin. First his chest, then his leg. Now he was leaving a red mark on his arm. She couldn’t let it go any longer. Something was obviously bothering him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Oh, stubborn male! “Then you don’t need—”

She got up and he tugged her back down, anchoring her to him. “Would you believe I have an uncontrollable need for contact?”

Her whole body stilled and her colors flickered, changing from greens and pinks to blues and yellows. She set the glasses down on the end table. “From you? Yeah, I’d believe that.”

“Why?” He shook his head. “I’m trying to understand why I feel the way I do. I don’t remember being like this before. Like I want someone to touch me. . . . ” He dragged her hand up to his face and pressed into her palm. “But then it’s overwhelming when they do.”

“I imagine you were alone a lot. Probably almost always.”

Jesus, he guessed he must’ve been on the outs with the Guardians, but it must have been for longer than he thought. “For how long?”

She chewed her lip. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve been trying to be so careful not saying anything that might force back memories, or taint your memories when they come.”

“Then tell me what being alone has to do with what I’m feeling.”

She flattened her palms against his chest. “Studies have been done on prisoners of war who’ve been held in solitary confinement. They have similar experiences. Desperately needing contact, but their nerves aren’t used to touch anymore. Everything feels . . . more to them. It tends to cause . . . well, a variety of psychological disorders, actually.”

“So maybe I am crazy.” That didn’t bode well considering he had to pass the coven’s little sanity test.

“You’re not crazy.” She rubbed her cheek against his. “We’ll get through it. A lot of this will fade with time.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

She pulled back to study him. “Then I guess I’ll have to touch you a lot.”

God, would he like that. She made the spiders go still. “It wouldn’t bother you?”

“Touching you?” A smile laced her question. She stroked her hand over his shoulders and down his arms. “I think I can get used to it.”

“But you’re not used to it, are you? Not now.” She always seemed a tad unsure. A little hesitant at first.

“Mother didn’t do displays of affection, nor did she like witnessing them.”

“Is that why you ran away when I reached for you in the kitchen?”

Her colors flickered to a muddy red. “What were you going to do, when you reached for me?”

“Kiss the stubbornness out of you.”

She traced her finger down his Adam’s apple. “You were upset, so you wanted to touch.”

Yeah. He’d damn near been crawling out of his own skin. He knew if he could just get her arms around him, he’d be okay. “And I wanted you to quit asking questions I didn’t know how to answer.” He put the slightest of pressure against her side and she leaned in until they were nose-to-nose.

“I’m sorry I left.” She kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry I scared you.” He sealed his lips to hers and eased his hand up her skirt.

“Jules, I can’t.”

Shit. He froze. Just because she let you make love to her once didn’t mean—

“It’s not you . . . I want to . . . .” She shrugged as her face heated. “I’m a little . . . tender.”

The darkness inside him churned. “I hurt you?”

“Stop that.” She swatted him on his arm. “I already said you didn’t.”

He arched his brow.

“It’s been a while.”

What the hell was she talking about? He didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so he waited.

“Like three years.”

He frowned. No way in hell were they talking about the same thing. Three years without sex? Was that even possible?

“When a woman doesn’t have sex for a while, the first time or two . . . chafes a little. Okay?”

His fingers twitched at her waist as his gaze dropped. Chafes?

“If you lift my skirt to look, I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.”

Shit. Caught again. He cleared his throat. “Is that why you don’t want to sit with me?”

She buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Yes, because when I’m this close to you, I want you inside me again.”

Good God, she was killing him. He wanted nothing more than to be buried in her sweet body. “That’s okay. We’ll talk. Get to know each other.”

“For real?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you rubbing your skin raw?”

“It’s the . . . .” He shook his head. Yeah, this conversation was a one-way ticket out of her bed for life.

“Tell me.” She kissed the spot on his neck he’d been attacking a second ago. Nipped his chin. “You were doing the same thing before you cut yourself.”

“That was different . . . I was remembering something. . . . ” Shit! “Okay, look, don’t freak out and go all mama hen on me, okay?”

She nodded.

“I feel like something’s crawling under my skin. Like tiny spiders pricking my nerves. I know they’re not real.” Please, God, don’t let them be real. “I mean there’s nothing there, right?” He tipped his head to the side and she rubbed her palm over his neck.

“Nope.”

They weren’t real. It was all in his fucking head. He was mental.

“Maybe I can help.” She chewed on her lip. “I read an article once on anxiety—”

“I’m not anxious,” his denial came out harsher than he’d intended. He sighed. “I’m not . . . I’m an assassin. A mercenary before that. I’ve got nerves of steel.” He let his head fall back onto the backrest and caught a glimpse of her lips quirking up at the corners. “You call me anxious and now you’re laughing at me.”

“Come here.” She stood and tugged at his hand until he got up.

“What are we doing?” He followed her into the kitchen and waited while she rummaged in the freezer.

“Lift your arm.”

With a roll of his eyes, he lifted one arm. She shoved something cold at his armpit, pulled his arm down, and hugged him, pinning his arm to his side.

Ice cube. “That’s cold!” He tried to pull away and she held onto him like moss on a stone. “You’re going to hurt me if you keep struggling.”

He stilled. “That’s low.”

She giggled.

“Why do I have an ice cube in my pit?”

“People with . . . .” She sighed. “Some people, big strong, tough people—”

He snorted. The ice was starting to burn.

“—can sometimes benefit from things that draw all the body’s attention to a single point.”

His body was definitely focused. “Sex would’ve been more fun and still focused my attention on one point.”

She nipped his shoulder.

“Of course. Ice. It’s more practical.” The damn thing was melting, dripping cold water down his side. “Wait, that thing is water, right? I don’t have blood ruining my shirt, do I?”

“As if I’d waste one of my blood cubes on you.”

“Right.” They stood there in silence, his back to the counter, her arms holding him tight, and that damned ice was cold as hell. “I’m bored.”

“Bored?”

“And I feel stupid.” He clenched his jaw. “Here I am standing in the middle of the happiest fucking kitchen I’ve ever seen with a beautiful woman wrapped around me . . . and an ice cube in my armpit.”

Another giggle shook her.

“Jesus, don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m . . . ” She shook her head. “I’m not sorry.” She kissed his shoulder.

“You’re a cruel woman with strange, unusual methods of torture.” A shiver shook through him. “I’m all for a bit of kink, but this is weird.”

“How are the spiders?”

Spiders? He quit fidgeting, searching for the sensation of tiny legs pricking under his skin. His lips parted. “Gone.” He hadn’t had to rub himself raw. Didn’t need to cut himself. Forget how silly this seemed, it worked! He brought his free hand up, ran the edge of his thumb down her cheek in a gentle caress. “What do you want?”

“Not this again.” She stepped away from him. “Nothing, I told you.”

“No. I mean . . . I want to do something for you. Anything. Right now.”

A wave of bright pink flashed through her aura. “I want a handsome man to dance with me.”

That was it? He’d offered to do anything for her and that’s what she wanted? “Would you settle for a scarred male?”

She smacked his chest. “Quit fishing for compliments. You are handsome. I don’t even see the scars when I look at you.”

No, she wouldn’t. She was too damn sweet to be bothered by imperfections, even the big glaring ones. “How about some music?”

“Of course.” She headed into the living room.

Dancing. Did he know how to dance? He remembered parties. Raves. Night clubs. Yeah, he knew how to dance. He started after her and then paused. Why did he have so many memories of parties, but not one memory of being at a party? It was like the movies. He remembered seeing them, but not going to a theater or sprawled out on a couch watching them. That didn’t seem right.

“I think I found something.”

“Better be something suitable, butterfly. Nothing foo-foo.”

She arched her brow. “Why do you assume I listen to foo-foo music?” When he did nothing but smirk, she glanced back down at her play list. She was pretty sure he’d think all this was foo-foo music. She picked something that at least had a male singer and some bass.

He nodded. “I like that. Kinda has a dirty beat.”

Dirty. That was a good way to describe it—the song had always made her want to find something warm and hard to rub against.

“Shoes off. I’m messed up enough, can’t have you stomping on my toes.”

She would’ve gasped if he hadn’t come up behind her and nuzzled her ear while he spewed that bit of rubbish. “I think you’re trying to get me to strip.” She slipped out of her sandals and he pulled her back into the shelter of his body.

“Not at all. What you need is a dancing dress.”

“Don’t have one.”

“Sure you do.” He took hold of the elastic waist of her skirt and pulled it up over her breasts, under her sweater.

“Jules!” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to smack his hands or pull down the skirt. Her legs were bare from mid-thigh down.

“Now we need to get this off.” He pulled her sweater over her head. “And wah-la—the perfect clubbing dress.”

Her breasts kept the skirt from sliding back down, but her arms were bare. Her legs. She grabbed for her sweater.

He held it out of reach. “I can’t see you, so you’re wasting that pretty blush.”

She narrowed her gaze. “How do you know I’m blushing?”

“Your colors changed.”

“I feel silly.”

He reached around her and turned up the music. “What? Couldn’t hear you.”

Blasted man. He had her sweater behind his back and wasn’t budging an inch. She could either run upstairs to change, or dance with him as is. “Fine.”

“Fine.” He grinned, tossing her sweater on the couch.

Kat slipped her hand into his and he spun her into his arms, making her skirt twirl out. Her cheeks flamed as she came up against his chest. “I think I’d get charged with indecent exposure if I went out like this.”

“Yeah, you would.” He pressed her up against him, urging her to put her arms around his neck. She didn’t know why she assumed they’d be doing the junior-high-shuffle, but there wasn’t anything childish or plodding about their dancing. His thigh had ended up between hers, their bodies so close every move seemed to graze something sensitive. His cock was hard against her thigh. Her nipples stiff. Gaia, was it hot in here? She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Or get close enough. The bass of the music thrummed through her body making her light-headed, their dance just fast enough that she was losing her breath. Sexy enough that she didn’t want to dance anymore—she’d rather go to bed.

He wasn’t helping matters, stroking up her arms one minute, cupping her ass the next. The skirt was short enough—or maybe he’d hiked it up more—so that his fingertips kept brushing her skin where she should be covered by clothing. He manipulated her position with ease as they moved, keeping her right where he wanted her. Ensuring what they were doing remained closer to dry sex than any kind of dancing a couple could legally do in public.

She flattened her hand on his chest, wanting every part of her touching him and he covered her hand with his, pressing it close, dragging it up to his neck. He kissed her wrist and while he shouldn’t be able to see her through that bandage, he was holding her gaze through it. She knew damned well he was. She felt his gaze same as she felt his hands stroking over her skin.

With every beat, her need grew. Her pussy clenched and tingled. Her thighs were quivering. He bent to kiss her neck. Chills raced over her skin.

“Jules?” The music was too loud, covering her question. Or maybe not. He pulled her closer, his thigh tight against the juncture of her legs. He forced her head back with his hand twisted in her hair and when her lips parted he took advantage.