“Well, people like you, for starters. We couldn’t be all that different if we could breed together and make little Janes. Plus, I’ve seen others do what Carl’s done.” Carl was Capitola’s dad, who’d cut himself off from magic to die with his human wife.

“He’s just like a human, isn’t he?” I said.

“Exactly. Anyway, I had my theories.”

“And they were right,” I said, nuzzling my nose against that beautiful crooked thing protruding from the center of his face.

I left a big streak of black dirt on his flesh.

“I think I need a shower,” I said. Then I yawned.

“And bed,” he replied.

I raised my eyebrows at him.

“For sleep, little minx” he said, smiling at me. But I could see the heat in his eyes.

He stood, still cradling me in his arms, and then headed upstairs. To be honest, I was grateful. As soon as we’d sat down together, and the warmth of his body had started to seep into my bones, I’d become unspeakably tired.

I did make sure my ax would be safe on his chair, and that his chair would be safe from my ax, before I let him whisk me away to his bathroom.

To my disappointment, he left me to my own devices to shower after rustling me up some towels and a toothbrush. I cleaned myself up thoroughly, depositing what appeared to be about ten tons of mud down Anyan’s drain, and then brushed my teeth and dried my hair as best I could before combing it out with my fingers and one of Anyan’s much-too-small combs.

And I was not at all disappointed to find, when I walked out of the shower wrapped in one of Anyan’s huge towels, what appeared to be a deliciously naked barghest waiting for me under the sheets. His room was dark, in a dark house, which held no one else.

No one who will need milk, I thought, shifting nervously on my feet.

I gaped at him for a moment or two, trying to resolidify my knees and make my mouth work.

“If this isn’t what you want, please tell me,” he said, his voice quiet in the dark room.

I took a deep breath, forcing my lungs to breathe. I hoped to say something elegant and sexy. Instead, I said:

“I want.”

Luckily, it worked. He smiled. I nearly swooned.

“Um, I forgot to borrow a shirt,” I said, not moving from the doorway to the bathroom.

“You don’t need a shirt,” he said, his voice low and gentle. “Come here.”

I walked toward him, feeling like my legs were made of wet noodle. When I was standing next to his side of the bed, he reached out a hand and slid it over my knee, up my thigh, to the edge of the towel. Then he tugged, gently.

“Off,” he commanded. I held on for dear life.

“Off,” he repeated, meeting my black eyes with his iron-gray ones. This time I let him tug the towel away from my body so that it pooled around my feet.

“C’mon in,” he said, scootching over to give me space.

I laid down next to him, but he wouldn’t let me pull up the sheet that, unfairly enough, covered the lower half of his body.

“You, my love, are a mess,” he said, as he ran his hand up my rib cage, causing me to wince.

“Huh?” I asked, looking down. Sure enough, he was right. Cleaning all the mud off had revealed a mass of bruises covering my torso, arms, and legs. A particularly livid affair had set up home on the inside of my right thigh. I was so out of it I hadn’t even noticed.

“I always have liked the color purple,” I said, as Anyan’s gaze raked over my body. He looked at me with that wonderful combination of protective and predatory that only the barghest could get away with.

“Now, whose ass did you kick, again?” he asked, meeting my eyes as he lowered his lips—trailing healing warmth—to a large bruise on my shoulder.

“Um, Phaedra’s,” I said. “I think most of these are from the fall.”

“Fall?” he asked, trailing his healing lips down my arm, stopping at every bruise and scrape on the way.

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmured. “Although there was a lot of fighting, too. I beat up the harpies, Graeme, and Phaedra.” Then I realized what I’d said and sat bolt upright. “I wonder if Graeme survived the cave-in?”

Anyan pushed me back down beside him, gently.

“No Graeme. Not now. But what cave-in?”

“There was a cave-in, apparently. I wasn’t there. Blondie had sent me ahead.”

“She sent you ahead, did she?” Anyan asked, disapproval written all over his face as he shifted me around to his other side so he could have at my left arm. When that was all bruise free, he moved his dark head over my mottled belly.

“I’m the champion. So, yes,” I said, resisting the urge to follow that single affirmation up with Molly Bloom’s exultant “Yes! Yes! Yes!” shouted to the cosmos. It’s just that he was using his teeth, on my ribs, making my hurts zing even as he healed them.

Wicked barghest, my virtue swooned.

And he’s not even used his thumbs, yet, my libido marveled, clearly in awe.

“Those aren’t bruises,” I panted, as he latched onto a nipple.

“Hush,” came his muffled reply.

The feel of him against me was surreal. I was so tired, and we’d been running around like lunatics for what felt like weeks, and the last time I’d seen Anyan he’d been a dog and slurping away at his own anus. It was hard to believe that now, here we were, all human (really human! I remembered), naked, and in each other’s arms.

Now I can do the slurping! my libido crowed, causing me to blush. I hated when I blushed at my own sex drive.

And I’m assuming he’s brushed his teeth, my virtue butted in, all finicky.

He shifted, gently nudging my knees apart so he could move his body between my thighs. His mouth found mine, a soft kiss that quickly deepened into something much hotter. When he pulled away we were both panting.

“Minx,” he murmured, as he kissed his way down my torso. Then, lying between my legs, he shifted onto his right side so he could run his palms up my left calf and over my thigh, spreading healing warmth as he did so.

I didn’t know whether to moan or sigh, torn as I was between sexual excitement and relaxation.

But when he changed sides to run his fingers up my right calf, switching to his lips to trace up my bruised right thigh, I made up my mind.

“Mmm,” I moaned, throatily, as his lips and magic found my aching flesh and healed me. And then those lips kept tracing upward, biting and licking till he paused above my undoubtedly dripping wet sex.

And then he used his thumbs.

Sweet jeebus, I thought, as he spread my lips apart gently to lick up the entire length of my slit.

I cried out, letting pleasure course through me even as I tamped down on any stray thoughts about how Anyan had become such a proficient licker.

All snark waves ceased, however, when he licked upward again, so slowly, before finding my clit with his teeth and tongue.

I was soon writhing, as he quickly stopped teasing. Instead, he worked my clit with his mouth as I felt two wide fingers slide into me.

“Oh, puppy,” I moaned, as he stretched me deliciously. When he added a third finger, curling them slightly to rub against my walls in a way that made me feel so very full, I swore again.

“So wet,” he murmured against me. “I love how wet you are.”

I gabbled something incoherent at him, which I think translated roughly as “You are the lord of my vagina!” before I came, nearly screaming my pleasure and collapsing in a sweating, sated heap. Anyan extracted his clever fingers, although his tongue was still busy lapping at me.

Whimpering, the sensation too much, I shoved weakly at his head. He let me push him aside, before kissing his way back up my body.

The smell and taste of myself on his lips as he kissed my mouth pushed one last, tired moan out of me. Then I flopped back on the bed, peering up at him through half-lidded eyes.

“Ravish me?” I said, stifling a yawn.

Anyan chuckled. “I want you wet, begging, and—most important—awake when I ravish you, sweet minx.” He settled beside me, drawing me close.

“Sleep now,” he murmured, nuzzling my ear with that nose. “In the morning you’re mine…”

He may have gone into more detail, but I wouldn’t know. I was already fast asleep.

I awoke to gentle snores in my ear and a police baton pressed into the small of my back.

That’s not a police baton! my libido sang gleefully, way too awake, according to the rest of me.

I waited till my brain and body could catch up to my libido, and then I snuggled back in Anyan’s arms.

That really isn’t a police baton, I thought, wonderingly. Which might be a problem… I was, after all, part seal. And we had a long and sordid history with things the size and shape of clubs.

The hand that suddenly found my breasts, pinching gently at my nipples, effectively stopped my train of thought and I snuggled back again against the barghest.

“Morning,” he rumbled, kissing sleepily at the nape of my neck.

“Morning,” I purred, happy as a cat lounging in a patch of sun.