His only response was to look out over my head again, muscle in his jaw twitching. Maybe he really would miss me? He wasn’t one for sharing his deeper feelings, but he certainly didn’t seem to be eager to send me on my way. A whisper of doubt crept in. As much as I enjoyed my time with the lord, I had no desire to stay here any longer.

I put my arms around him and gave him a light squeeze. “Don’t worry,” I told him with a smile. “I’ll summon you soon enough. We still have another two and half years or so on our current deal.”

But to my surprise he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back enough to disengage from my embrace. His face hardened briefly before he turned away from me. “There is much more than summoning.”

My doubt increased. “I know. I’ve seen so much.” Surely he wasn’t reconsidering sending me home? “I’ll definitely have new and interesting questions for you next time I summon you.” My smile slipped as he remained facing away, hands clenched into fists at his sides, shoulders rising and falling with quickened breaths. “Rhyzkahl?” I set a hand gently on his back. “You okay?”

He went still at my touch, so still I wasn’t even certain he breathed. I slid my hand up to his shoulder. “Rhyzkahl, please tell me what’s wrong.” I gave a somewhat shaky laugh. “You’re kinda freaking me out a bit.”

He turned and looked down at me, face alive with emotions I’d never seen in him before. Uncertainty. Worry. Something akin to desperation flickered in his eyes as he caught my face in his hands. What the hell was going on with him? More bullshit with other lords? Something with Jesral? That one sure as hell had his own agenda. Definitely time for me to get my ass back home before I got dragged into any of that lord shit.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said softly. “How about a goodbye kiss?”

Rhyzkahl hesitated only a heartbeat before dropping his mouth to mine in an ardent kiss. I relaxed eagerly into it as I skimmed my hands up his chest and around his neck, slid my fingers through the white-blond silk of his hair. I felt the tension in him ease as he wrapped arms around me, clinging to me. I was going to miss him too, I realized, as odd as our relationship was.

I expected him to break the kiss and begin the ritual, but he continued as if he couldn’t get enough of me. He pulled me close to him, one hand sliding down to cup my ass. A shudder ran through me, and I obligingly rocked my hips against the growing evidence that he was possibly wanting more than a simple goodbye kiss. Some hot sex for the road? Yeah, I was okay with that. I quickly worked the buttons of his shirt loose and slipped it from his shoulders. He shook it free of his arms to let it fall to the floor, then brought his hands to my waist, gathering the dress and breaking the kiss to pull it over my head. His eyes flashed with hunger and the hint of desperation again. But it was gone before I could fully register that it was there at all.

He gently lowered me to the floor in the center of the diagram. I flicked a quick glance at the sigils, for a moment paranoid that this “goodbye fuck” was somehow meant to power the diagram, but they remained quiescent. Good. Because that would’ve been weird.

He slipped his breeches off and returned to cover me, hair falling over me in a curtain of silk as he held my face gently between thumb and fingers of one hand. “In this moment, we are right here, right now,” he said, voice resonating with intensity. “Nothing else is of import.”

Smiling, I wrapped my arms around him. “We are here,” I echoed.

He lowered his head to kiss me again, but this time with a tenderness that damn near brought tears to my eyes. He’d never touched me like this before—sweet and gentle, yet with a passion beneath it that spoke of genuine affection. His hands moved over me as if memorizing every inch of my skin, and I eagerly responded, more fired and moved by this display of true ardor than by any of his prior attentions.

He made love to me. There was no other word for it. Not possessive or fierce but with a fervor that brought us together into a perfect joining. And my climax was just as perfect, fantastic and overwhelming, spiraling together with his as we clung to each other and trembled with the fierce joy of it.

Sighing in deep, contented pleasure, I relaxed against him. He cradled me close, idly stroking sweat-damp hair back from my face. I gave him a languid smile before casting my gaze around at the pattern of sigils that surrounded us. “It’s beautiful,” I murmured.

A shudder passed through him. “Yes, it is. Very beautiful,” he said, an odd catch in his voice that I’d never heard from him before. He pulled away and stood, back to me, focusing his attention on the slowly pulsing diagram. A lift of his hand sent the entire pattern into a slow spin and then he was still, silhouetted against the softly shifting light.

I pushed up on my elbows. As goodbyes went, that had been a doozy, but now it was time to get down to business. “How do we ignite it? What do we need to do?”

His head dropped. It was several seconds before he spoke. “More. Much more.”

The obvious tension in his body and the taut undercurrent in his voice sent a chill racing over my skin. I wondered about the implications of those little words.

“Rhyzkahl. What’s wrong? Please tell me.”

He crouched and picked up his breeches, tugged them on in silence. “Too much is in motion,” he finally said with something akin to regret in his voice. He picked up his shirt, slipped it on and began to button it. “I cannot stop it now. I can only move forward.”

I wanted to ask him if he could be any vaguer, but this was freaking me out a little so I opted for a more direct question. “What are you talking about?”

He turned fully to me, beautiful and terrible, like I’d imagine a fallen angel to be if there were such things. The words fell heavily in measured slowness. “Potency. Plans. Agreements. Oaths. Treachery.”

The last word issued with a slight hiss and baring of teeth. As it all pretty much summed up what I’d seen of the bullshit that went on between lords in the past few days, I figured one of the rat bastards had fucked him over. “Anything I can do to help?”

In response he stepped forward, extended a hand to me, pulled me up when I took it. He laid his hands against the sides of my face and tenderly traced the line of my cheekbones with his thumbs. His eyes held mine, deep, enigmatic and…tormented? I’d never seen that in him before, not like this. He lowered his head to kiss me, body pressing against mine as he tangled his hands in my hair, claiming my mouth as passionately as if he feared he would never kiss me again.

The chill of the moment before slid away as I opened to the kiss, willing it to ease whatever troubled him so. I gave a soft moan when he finally broke it but smiled as I met his eyes again. “Better?”

His hands slid down to my shoulders, and he shook his head, the haunted flicker in his eyes sending a shiver of doubt through me. He bent and picked up my dress, eyes on me as he held it up in his right hand.

“Right. Time to get dressed,” I said, relieved. Things were getting weird again. “Would raise some eyebrows if I showed up back home in the buff.” Then I chuckled. “Did that once already.”

He inhaled deeply as I reached for the dress. Potency flashed from him, incinerating it to ash right before I touched it.

Shock coursed through me. I yelped and took a step back. “Rhyzkahl, what the fuck?” My confusion rose higher as the diagram abruptly flared.

Rhyzkahl lifted his hand, and I felt an oscillating wall of potency behind me as I backed near the inner ring of sigils. “You will not need it,” he said with a shake of his head.

Apprehensive, my gaze went from him to the diagram and back. “What’s going on?” I asked as the diagram continued to pulse. “Rhyzkahl, why won’t I need clothing? Are you sending me home or not?”

“Home,” he said, as though tasting the word for the first time. “A new home, yes.” His eyes flicked to the sigils as they flared once again, echoing the spike of fear that went through me.

“New home?” I shook my head as my anxiety climbed. “I don’t want a new home. I want my home. What the hell’s going on?”

“That which must be done,” he replied, disquiet ghosting across his face. To my horror he flicked a lasso of potency around my right wrist and pulled me toward the center. “You will know it as home and feel no loss.”

My fear rose, then climbed higher as the diagram flared. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this ritual was somehow keyed to strong emotion, and not the good kind either, since it had remained quiet during our lovemaking.

“Rhyzkahl, I don’t want to forget my home,” I said, heart pounding. I tried to remain as calm as possible, fought the urge to twist and struggle against the lasso. Whatever was going on, he didn’t seem fully committed to it. Maybe there was still a chance to talk my way out of it. “Please.” I kept my voice quiet and intense. “Let me go.”

Rhyzkahl went demonic-lord still, closing his eyes. He kept the tension on the lasso, but didn’t pull me closer with it. The diagram dimmed, and I allowed a whisper of hope to creep in. I’d talked people down from high-stress situations before. I didn’t know what the hell was going on with Rhyzkahl, but the best thing I could do right then was to stay calm and talk my ass out of this chamber.

“Too much is in motion,” he murmured, eyes still closed.

The diagram dimmed a bit more. My eyes flicked from the sigils and back to him. “It’s okay,” I said, keeping my voice low and calm. “Everything’s okay. Just let me go…and we’ll start over.”

“Start over.” He opened his eyes, and to my dismay the ritual brightened again. “Yes, that is what this is. Starting over.” He tightened the pull on the lasso and lifted his right hand.

My cop vibe went code red. “No, Rhyzkahl. Wait!” I didn’t know what was coming. I only knew it was bad.

The palm of his hand shimmered blue, and the haunted look faded from his eyes. “I have no choice.” He drew a deep breath, face sliding into an icy mask. As he opened his hand, a blade began to coalesce within it, bristling with thorny protrusions along its hilt, blue gem in the pommel dark and shadowed. A vile whisper slid through my mind. You are mine.