The sky was already brightening with the advent of dawn when Alek came back. And if she hadn’t already known she was in trouble with him, the way her every female instinct sat up at attention at the sight of him, the prickling of delight running through her veins when he smiled at her sure did the job. Something restless inside her settled as soon as his energy brushed hers.

He walked Grant around the block in record time to avoid the first light of day, then whipped up a delicious omelet, and sat down at the table with Lily.

“Have you slept at all?” he asked while she cleaned her plate.

“Nope. Was too wired.” Although now the lurking exhaustion caught up with her, and she stifled a yawn.

He nodded, his silver-gold eyes trained on her. “I think it’s best if we catch some sleep during the day and then start the search for the pranagraha as soon as the sun sets. I couldn’t get out of working tomorrow night, but that’s not until midnight. We’ll have a couple of hours to look for him, and I’ll be off watch duty the following two nights. That should give us plenty of time to find the fucker.”

She was too tired to argue about going out to track down the demon sooner, so she just shrugged. “All right.”

He put the dishes away. “Before we call it a night, there’s something I’d like to try. Remember how I told you your tvaglakshana chronicles major life events? It might hold a clue about how you were turned into a demon, maybe even tell us exactly what happened. I could check it for you.”

She pursed her lips. “You just want to ogle my goodies, don’t you? You wily prana-gecko.”

He choked on a laugh. “Well,” he replied, molten heat in his eyes, “I’d never pass up a chance to check you out naked, but—whether you believe it or not—that’s not why I asked. I really do think your tvaglakshana may hold some clues. And, since the marking grows from your heart outward, with the newer signs on the fringes, it’s likely that the symbols about your turning will be on your arms, stomach, or lower back.” The wicked grin he shot her caused a happy tingle in her belly. “Very likely not on your breasts.” His gaze lingered on said area and his voice dropped to a level that would be dangerous to the self-control of females everywhere. “Beautiful and tempting though they may be.”

She cleared her throat, trying not to show her disappointment that he wouldn’t have to look at her girls. “Um, these signs. When you read them, they tell you things about me. Important things. Like a psychological profile, right?”

His eyes shot up to meet hers, embers of red glimmering in the silver-gold. “Yeah.”

“So getting naked is a big deal for prana-gizmos. You’ll know all that stuff about each other.” A flicker of anxiety whispered through her. “If you know how to read the signs, that is.”

And she couldn’t. Even if they got to the point where she saw him without his clothes on, she wouldn’t be able to tell what his signs meant. He could read her symbols, her life chronicled before him, the code to who she was, but she wouldn’t be able to claim the same insight into his character and life.

He studied her with too-perceptive eyes, the gold ring seeming to glow around the silver. “Tell you what, we’ll do a trade. I show you mine, and you’ll show me yours.” And before she could reply, he reached up, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and yanked it over his head and off.

The synapses in her brain short-circuited. Her thoughts ground to a halt.

All…those…muscles. Good gawds. Her eyes couldn’t decide which delicious part of him to drink in first, there was just so much yumminess going on in front of her. His demon tattoo sprawled over ridges and bunches of muscles, from his well-defined pecs—strong enough for her fingers to get a good grip while digging in—over his broad shoulders, with trapezius muscles worthy of fawning over, to his bulging deltoids and biceps. And his abs… Scratch six-pack. He boasted an impossible eight-pack. And damn, did she want to lick, trace those demon markings adorning his skin, all the way down to the waistband of his jeans…lower.

Bursts of heat sparked all over her skin, flamed out and to the center, settling with a throbbing need between her thighs. Her fingers tingled, claws slicing out, wanting to mark him.

He stilled and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes when he breathed out again. A tremor went through his aura, and when he opened his eyes, hints of red and black were just vanishing, leaving the normal, controlled silver-gold. Still, a note of lust remained, mirrored in his aura, and it almost did her in.

“This symbol here,” he said, his voice on the good side of rough, his finger tapping a sign on those magnificent abs of his, “depicts the first time I killed to take prana.”

Something in his voice made her look up. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Damn.” A pained whisper.

“I hated it. I threw up right after, losing all the energy I’d just taken, but that wasn’t the worst part. My father was there. He’d taken me to make my first kill, and he laughed at me when I lost it.”

The sharp bite of hurt spiking through her chest mingled with white-hot anger. She bit off a curse, wanted to say something else, but Alek was already moving on to the next sign.

“This is the sign for my twin, Dimitri. Or Dima, as we call him.” He tapped a symbol close to his heart. “And these here are for my other brothers, Kolya and Yuri.” He indicated two other signs, distributed across his chest.

“You’ve got three brothers?”

“Yeah. Nikolai—Kolya for short—is the middle kid, and Yuri is the youngest. He moved out a couple of months ago.” Before she could ask more questions, he pointed at another symbol. “This states that family is the most important thing in my life.”

The fingers of his left hand found an elaborate sign on his right arm, circled it with care. “The symbol for my parents’ death.”

She held her breath, released it on a sound of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded, still looking at the sign. “These symbols tell how they died when I was eighteen.”

Shock vibrated through her. So young. “How…” She shook her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t pry.”

“Arawn killed them.” He kept looking at the symbols, a muscle flexing in his jaw. “Well, he killed my father, and since pranagraha mates are tied to each other in life and death, my mom died as well.”

She stepped back and gasped, rendered speechless by the implication of what he was saying.

“If you’re wondering how I ended up in his service after that,” he said quietly, his aura a violent storm, “this part of my tvaglakshana tells you.” He tapped the elegant, flowing lines, their beauty in such stark contrast to what they stood for. “Arawn came to me after my parents died and offered to provide for me and my brothers. Apparently, he hadn’t intended to kill my mom as well. Said he was unaware that her life was bound to my father’s. Hell knows whether he felt the need to make amends or whatever, but he offered to pay for our livelihood until we came of age.” His nostrils flared as he clenched his jaw and breathed out through his nose. “I threw his fucking charity offer back in his face and spit on it.”

Lily swallowed, her heart aching for him… To have lost his parents so young and then to have their murderer insult him with an offer like that. “What happened then?” Based on what she knew of the Demon Lord, he wouldn’t have reacted kindly to anyone spitting anywhere close to him.

“Arawn gets what Arawn wants,” he said, the bitterness in his voice cutting her like a knife. “He threatened me until I agreed to enter his service for the duration of ten years. Incidentally, he timed it to end when Yuri would come of age, and my salary was the exact amount he’d offered to pay for our living expenses.”

What must it have been like to be forced to work for his parents’ killer? No wonder he hated Arawn. “You’ll soon be free of him, right?”

He simply nodded, a grim smile twisting his mouth.

The urge to reach out to him was so strong it made her hands shake. So she just gave in, laid her hand on the symbol that stood for a kind of heartache she couldn’t imagine. A shudder went through him at her touch, the streaks of hurt in his aura quieting, dissolving like mist clearing from a field in the morning.

He laid his hand on hers, squeezed, and then moved it down his arm, onto another sign. “This one stands for the birth of my oldest nephew, Luka. He’s almost ten now. He kills me with his charm, you know.”

The warmth in his eyes almost killed her.

“And this sign…” He led her hand up to his shoulder. “This is when I bested Dima in kickboxing. He was always better, had won the local tournament several years in a row. But not that night. It gave me the confidence to know I could accomplish anything if I put my mind to it.” A small grin tugged on his lips, lips she wanted to explore so much it hurt. “To this day, Dima claims I put something in his food to make him lose that time.”

“Did you?”

“No.” He tapped the symbol, his eyes dancing. “The sign proves it. Not that he’ll admit it.”

She bit her lip, fighting a smile. “Of course not.”

He went on to point out signs and explain their meaning, twisting to show the ones on his sides, his shoulders, his back. He kept guiding her to the symbols, and—for the life of her—she couldn’t withdraw her hand. Not because he held onto it. She was sure he would have let her go if she tugged it away.

But she simply couldn’t. It was as if he were a magnet and she the metal that was drawn to him, as if her next breath depended on her being able to feel the satiny heat of his skin beneath her palm. She followed his lead, reveling in the sensation of his muscles bunching at her touch, relishing the way his aura trembled when she moved her hand.

When he finally turned to face her again, after what felt like an eternity and only a minute all wrapped into one, she could have written a comprehensive essay on his life with the information he’d given her. But it felt so much more personal. It seemed as if he’d let her share the experiences through her touch, a connection forged by tactile sensation and more, as if she’d soaked up a part of him.

Her hand came to rest on his chest when he turned back to her, over his heartbeat. A steady, reassuring drum against her palm, reverberating all the way through her body, into those places already grown hot and hungry. For more touch. More heat. More him.

“Well,” he said, his voice a rumble she felt through her hand, “I showed you mine.”

Mine. The word echoed through her pleasure-hazed brain as she surveyed the rippling expanse of male gorgeousness she’d just explored. Mine.

She blinked, shook her head to clear it. Careful.

Wrestling her thoughts halfway in order, she slowly stepped back, grasped the hem of her tank top…

…and pulled it off over her head.

* * *

Alek sucked in a breath. His body tightened, his vision sharpened, going demon at the sight in front of him. Lily in nothing but jeans and bra, the fabric thin enough to showcase her hardened nipples.

Which of course made him harden.

Slow. He needed to go slow with her if he wanted to do this right. She hadn’t quite agreed to his proposition to have a casual fling, so he needed to tread carefully.

Clearing his throat, he indicated the signs visible on her shoulders, arms, and beneath her collarbone, down to the sweet upper curve of her breast, a curve he ached to follow with his lips. “I’ll check those symbols first.”

As if in a daze, she nodded. “Check. Symbols. Right.”

His fingers itched to trace those signs, the elegant, delicate swirls, the curved lines and dots. He shoved his hands into his pockets instead, resisting all that temptation. He let his eyes rove over the smooth cream of her skin, studied the symbols on the exposed areas, looking for a clue. In vain.

“There’s nothing on here about your transformation.” Damn, his voice had dropped gravelly low. “I’ll check your stomach.”

A tremor ran through her, body and aura alike. The black of her pupils widened, the red around it blazing up. “Okay.”

When he sank to his knees in front of her, she uttered a barely audible gasp, the muscles in her abdomen flexing as if expecting—craving—his touch. He’d gotten down on a level with her stomach just to see the signs better, he told himself. Not to bring his face that much closer to the one part of her body he wanted to lick above all others. Nope. Not at all.

The faint outline of abs underneath her skin tempted him to run his fingers over the muscles, make them flex under his caress. She was athletic, beautifully so, the strength she’d gained through rigorous martial arts training drawing him to her all the more. Some males didn’t like their females kick-ass capable, wanted them soft and sweet and vulnerable. Alek had bedded some women like that, and every damn second of being with them, he’d been afraid he’d break something. He much preferred a female who could hold her own, with the strength to keep up with him and take all he had to give, from rough play to passionate power.

And damn, now his cock was rock-hard, and at such an uncomfortable angle in his jeans that he shifted, trying to relieve the strain. The fact that the musky scent of her arousal wrapped around him, so much stronger, more enticing from where he crouched only inches from its source, didn’t exactly help his predicament.

“So?” Lily’s husky voice startled him.

“Huh?”

“The sign? Is it there?”

“Oh.” He harrumphed, shot a glance up at her. “Right. The sign.”

She pressed her lips together, obviously trying to stifle a grin, but the glint of amusement in her eyes was unmistakable. Humor, though, wasn’t the only emotion gleaming there. The fiery red in her demon gaze flared up, glowing embers of lust.

Damn, he could bask in that stare forever, would upend the world to keep her looking at him like that. With an effort, he dragged his focus away from her stunning eyes, and examined the markings on her abdomen. Nothing about her turning into a demon here, either. Shaking his head, he stood, catching her eye again. “Your back. Sometimes the newest signs emerge down the line of the spine and spread from there.” She hesitated only a second, then nodded and turned.

A quick glance and—there. To the left of her spine, a symbol combination that spoke of change, one so massive it would disrupt fabric, biology, instincts, mind, body, heart, and soul. He swallowed hard. This had to be it. He leaned in closer, studied the intricacies of the combination, the way the signs flowed into each other, creating new meaning.

Without thinking, he reached out to graze his fingers over the signs. Lily gasped and looked at him over her shoulder.

“You found it?”

He nodded, his focus not on her words or the sign, but on the silken heat of her skin.

“What does it say?”

He ran his fingertips along the lines of the symbol combination, enjoying the way her aura spiked with pleasure at his touch. “If I’m reading this right,” he said, his eyes flicking up to meet hers, “it says that what turned you was more than just demon magic.”

Her brow furrowed.

“I honestly have no idea how it could have been demon magic at all,” he muttered, “because neither pranagrahas nor any other species I know of possesses the kind of power necessary to trigger this transformation.”

She nibbled on her lower lip, her mind almost visibly working in overdrive. “There’s always power we don’t know of,” she murmured, as if stating a side note. “You said ‘more than just demon magic.’ Does it say what that ‘more’ is?”

He inhaled deeply and nodded. “Yeah. But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Spill it.”

“Lilichka…the signs speak of witch magic.”