Behind us the caravan of vehicles stopped. The leading vehicle’s door opened and Jim trotted out and to our car. Curran rolled down the window, letting the earsplitting noise of the enchanted water engine into the vehicle.

“What’s the problem?” Jim yelled over the noise of the motor.

“No problem,” Curran yelled back. “Go ahead without us.”

“What?”

“Go ahead without us!”

“Why?”

“Because I want to spend some time with my wife in peace!” Curran roared.

Jim nodded, gave us a thumbs-up, and went back to his Jeep.

Curran rolled the window up. “It’s like living in a f**king fishbowl.”

The Pack vehicles passed us. Curran turned the Jeep and drove in the opposite direction, southwest.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

The city slid by the window, the dark silhouettes of buildings, some crumbling, some sturdy and new, highlighted by the blue glow of feylanterns. It was my city now. Truly mine. I’d claimed it and now I was responsible for it.

“I claimed the city,” I told Curran.

“Would you like me to build you an office?”

What? I stared at him.

“You could have a little plaque with your name on it. Kate Daniels, City Owner.”

“It’s not funny.”

“We can get you one of those bank line setups with stanchions and velvet rope and a little pillow in the front, so people can form a line and kneel before you in humble supplication . . .”

“Will you stop?”

“We can get Derek one of those dark suits and aviator shades. He can look menacing and give out numbers. ‘You are seventh in line to bow before Kate Daniels.’”

“I’m going to punch you in the arm,” I growled.

“We can get you a throne with snakes. I’ll stand next to you and roar at anybody who fails to grovel. Fear Kate Daniels. She is a mighty and terrible ruler. Grendel can anoint the petitioners with his vomit. It’ll be great . . .”

Oh God. I put my hands over my face.

“Come on, baby,” he said. “I’m just trying to cheer you up.”

“I claimed territory that my father wanted. He’ll lose his shit completely now. Not only that, but every ambitious idiot with a drop of magical power will know that this area is claimed and will look for whoever claimed it. Not to mention that right now the Witch Oracle, the neo-pagans, and the People are all having a fit of apoplexy. I was supposed to prevent the claiming, not take the city. The Pack Council will be having kittens.”

“The Witch Oracle and the neo-pagans can bite me,” Curran said. “They’ll get over it. If anybody comes to challenge you, we’ll kick their ass. We’ll find a way to handle Roland. And if the Pack Council produces any kittens, we’ll give them to Jim to raise. He needs to mellow out anyway.”

I looked at him.

He took his hands off the wheel and held them apart about six inches. “Cute fluffy kittens. Just sitting on Jim’s lap.”

I pictured Jim with his badass-chief-of-security expression covered in small fluffy kittens. It was too much. The numbness inside me broke, like a dam. I giggled and laughed. Curran laughed, too.

“Cute kittens, meow-meow,” I managed. In my head, Jim held up his finger and sternly lectured a pack of kittens. Oh God. “He’d make them all hard-core.”

“He’d take them to the Wood to hunt deer,” Curran said between the bouts of laughter. “They’d . . . pounce.”

I would’ve doubled over if the seat belt had let me.

We were still laughing like two idiots when he pulled into a parking lot before a dark apartment building. The place looked familiar. Oh. This was my old apartment building. I had inherited an apartment from my guardian, Greg Feldman, and made it my own during the time I worked for the Order. But my aunt had gutted it. The last time I saw the place, it was completely destroyed.

“There’s nothing there,” I told him.

“Let’s go see anyway,” he said.

Why not?

I got out of the car. Surprisingly my legs held me. We went up the stairs together. A new door barred the access to my apartment. A mechanical combination door lock secured the door. A column of numbers, one through five, each with a button by it, waited above the lock.

“Four, four, one, two, three,” Curran said.

I pressed the buttons in order. The lock clicked. I swung the door open.

A clean, furnished apartment looked back at me. The floor in the hallway was wood. I could see a little bit of the kitchen through the doorway, backlit by feylanterns. New oak cabinets had replaced the broken wrecks of the old ones. I stepped inside. On the left, the living room, which I had used as a bedroom, stood perfectly intact. The walls had been repaired and painted in soothing blue-green. A queen-sized bed with a dark, soft comforter stood against the wall. Another feylantern hung above it. A plush beige rug lay on the floor. Across the room, by the window, a flat TV set was mounted on the wall, next to bookcases filled with books. Gray curtains matching the comforter framed the window. Outside the glass windows, steel and silver bars glowed weakly, reacting with magic and the light of the rising moon.

I moved through the living room and glanced into the small room that Greg had used as his bedroom and I had turned into a library. Bookcases lined the walls, waiting for books to be put in them.

“I know it’s not an exact duplicate,” Curran said, turning the valve on the radiator. He’d had a radiator installed. Wow. The super must’ve finally caved and fixed the damn boiler. “But I thought you might want to come back here one day.”

It wasn’t an exact duplicate. It looked like a brand-new apartment and that was so much better. Too many memories had been tied to the old one.

Curran strode through the room, coming closer. He moved with a kind of smooth contained power. His gray eyes focused on me. He looked at me as if I wore nothing.

We were alone. In an apartment. The door was locked.

I unbuckled the belt that kept Sarrat’s sheath on my back, slipped out of it, and put it on the night table.

He closed the distance between us. His arms closed around me, one across my back, the other pressing in on the curve just above my butt. He pulled me to him. My br**sts brushed against his muscular chest, my legs bumped against his hard thighs, and the rigid length of him pressed against my stomach. I was caught in his arms. He had collected me and trapped me. His body caged me. I could barely move.

My survival instinct kicked in, screaming at me to escape. My eyes widened. My breath quickened, each rise of my chest pushing my ni**les against him. My body tightened, as if before a fight, the muscles gathering themselves in anticipation. I breathed in his scent, familiar and tempting. It said Curran. Male. Sex. Lust flared inside me like a well-laid-out fire.

He stroked my ass, pressing me closer against him. A narrow predatory smile lit his face. He caught me. I was his and he was determined to enjoy every second. A tiny spark of instinctual alarm flared in me and mixed with an overwhelming need to have him, like spice adding a punch of heat to a dish. A needy warmth spread through me, turning into liquid heat between my legs.

“Mmm,” he said. “Kate Daniels, the great and powerful.”

I raised my chin. My voice was a challenge. “What can I do for you, Your Majesty?”

He grinned a crazy feral smile and kissed me. His mouth sealed on mine, his lips hot, capturing my breath. We connected and the pure exhilaration of that contact resonated through me in an electrifying rush. The dread of the claiming’s consequences and the memories of Mishmar that hung around me like a dark tattered shroud vanished, annihilated in a rush of lust, need, and love.

He buried his hand in my hair, pulling me closer. My body snapped to attention as if I had been asleep for ages and suddenly woke up. I loved the way he kissed me. I loved how he tasted. His tongue thrust into my mouth, possessing, seducing, enticing, pulling me in, deeper and deeper. I loved him so much. I loved him more than I could say. I locked my arms around him and kissed him back. I love you. I want you.

We broke apart. He made a low masculine noise, halfway between the happy half-growl of a predator catching his prey and the deep chuckle of a man confident he was about to get laid.

“I’ll tell you what you can do for me,” he growled. “Better, I’ll show you.”

My breath was coming in ragged gasps. My ni**les tightened. I wanted him in me now. “Decided to do some claiming of your own?”

“Yes.” His eyes shone with gold. “Mine.”

He pounced on me, trapping me again, and kissed me. His hands roamed my body, caressing my back and my butt. It wasn’t a kiss; it was an assault. If I had put up any defenses, he would’ve demolished them, but I offered none. I just let him ravage my mouth and I reveled in it. He tasted male, hot, and eager. He tasted like Curran, my Curran. If someone threw a mountain between us now, he would rip right through it just to get to me and I loved it.

I slid my hand into his sweatpants, found the hard length of his cock, and ran my hand up and down its shaft.

He pulled my shirt off me, tore off my bra, and sucked at my nipple, grazing it with his teeth. An electric burst of pleasure radiated from my breast all through me. I shivered. I sank my fingers into his hair. He pulled my jeans open and slid his hand inside, sliding it against the short curls of hair, over the sensitive folds, and dipped his fingers into me. I gasped. He dragged the slick liquid warmth up and stroked my clitoris. Bursts of pleasure rocked me, sliding through my body, turning it pliant, flexible, and hot. I ground against his fingers, lost in chasing the ecstasy, wanting more. More . . .

He tripped me onto the bed. I fell onto the comforter. My boots went flying. He pulled off my jeans. I was na**d, gloriously unashamedly na**d. I raised my arms, inviting him in. He pulled off his shirt and paused for a tiny moment, nude, powerful, muscular, long, and mine. All mine. His eyes glowed, drowned with gold. His muscles tightened on his frame, like steel under the heated silk of skin. I knew every harsh edge of that body and the sheer overwhelming strength of it. Curran’s body made me drunk from lust, his eyes seduced me, but the stubborn unbending will that drove it made me love him.

He knelt on the bed, slid his hands under my butt, and lifted me up. His tongue licked the sensitive bundle of nerves.

Oh my God. The wave of pleasure hit me and dragged me under. I cried out.

Each strumming of his tongue stoked the tension inside me. I was burning up and I was moaning his name over and over. My body tightened in anticipation, each caress winding me a little more, until I could no longer stand it.

“I want to come with you inside me.”

“That can be arranged.”

He mounted me and thrust himself inside me. The hard length of his shaft filled me. He pulled back and thrust inside me again, and I arched my back, grinding against him, faster and faster. I kissed his neck, my tongue sliding over sharp stubble. I opened my eyes and saw him, above me. Sweat slicked me.

“Harder!” I whispered.

He sped up, his pace frenetic, rocking me with every thrust. I gripped his back, desperate, wanting to be one, and matching his pace. It felt so right. This was what heaven had to be like . . . My body clamped around him. The tension was too much, almost a pain. Suddenly it crested and broke in quick contractions full of pure bliss. I cried out. Curran’s body shook, tense, muscles taut.

It felt like I was flying . . .

He growled and emptied himself inside me.

We floated through the world, spent and happy. One.

• • •

METAL RATTLED. AGAIN.

Curran raised his head and swore.

I raised my head. Once the afterglow wore off, we both realized that the apartment could be a lot warmer. We had pulled the comforter and sheets over us. Curran held me and I had just begun to slip into soft comfortable sleep.

Another rattling. It came from the window.

God, what was it now? Could we not have a few minutes of peace?

“I’m going to twist someone’s head off.” Curran rolled out of the bed and strode to the window. He was still nude. Well, at least I got a little thrill out of it.

I sat up with the sheet around me.

He pulled the drapes aside and swore again.

“What?”

He stepped aside. A vampire sat outside our window, banging on the bars with his fist. How the hell was he doing this with the wards active? Oh wait, my aunt had broken all my wards. If we kept this place, I’d have to redo them. That would be a pain.

Curran looked at the vampire. “What do you want?”

The vampire’s mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear it.

“No,” Curran said.

The vampire said something.

Curran’s eyebrows came together. “Ghastek, if you don’t go away, I’ll rip that thing’s head off and shove it up its ass.”

The vampire launched into a long tirade.

I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to sleep. But Ghastek was now in charge of the People. I so didn’t want to go back to being the Consort. Just for one night, I wanted to be Kate.

Ghastek kept talking. He wouldn’t go away. He would keep on and on. I surrendered to my fate. “Let him in. The sooner he gets it off his chest, the faster we can go back to sleep.”

Curran slid the window up and unlocked the metal grate. The vampire slipped in and strode toward me on its hind legs. “His daughter!”

“Was that a question?”

“His daughter! The lost child. The Sharrim!” The vampire scuttled forward and pointed a finger at me. “You didn’t tell me! We were dying and you didn’t tell me!”

I shrugged. “I can’t help it if you’re the last person to figure it out.”