That last thought was precipitated by the fact Anyan’s hot breath was again stroking the back of my neck. I wanted to melt, truth be told. Unfortunately, the barghest wasn’t chasing me to catch me, he was chasing to chase me.

But you could really use a good catching, my libido reminded me, right before Anyan spoke again, tickling the shell of my ear with his breath.

“Use your power, Jane. Use it to run…”

My mind went blank at his words, then started roaring. What if I could do what he said? What if I could use my power to run just like I used it to swim?

Move over, Kenyans, I thought, as I tentatively started applying my powers to running.

It took me a bit to get the hang of it, and it wasn’t anywhere near as effective as what I did in the ocean. In the ocean, I could literally cut through the water like a scythe. On land, I was still five foot one with short legs, and my lungs still ached and my legs still hurt. That said, I was much, much faster than I had been. So fast that while trees weren’t blurring around me Twilight-style, they were definitely passing ever faster and, for a second or two, I pulled away from the barghest.

Laughing wildly, and then nearly passing out from the lack of oxygen, I kept following the trail as it looped back to the little meadow where Anyan and I had originally been practicing. For the first time since I’d learned of my mother’s murder, I felt nearly whole again. There was still an ache, deep in my heart, that I suspected would always be there. But I felt my own life at that moment so deeply that all I could do was revel in my body and blood and breath.

With a shout I pulled up from my run, feeling power reverberate through me with a slightly painful backlash. But it only made my already engorged, sensitized nerve endings tingle even more. Feeling cocky, I did a rather anemic little cartwheel, before attempting a round-off. Keep in mind that I haven’t successfully completed a round-off since I was in the sixth grade, so I was very proud of myself for the neat twist I did mid-cartwheel that had me landing solidly on both feet, facing Anyan. Until I completely lost my balance and, wide eyes latched on to the barghest’s laughing visage, I windmilled, teetering, only to land on my butt with a thud.

“Oof,” I announced, feeling my keister protest the rough handling.

“Indeed.” Anyan laughed, coming forward to help me up. He stretched out a big hand, which I took, marveling at how small my own fingers were in his, before he pulled me to my feet.

Only to spin me about to pin me, my back to his chest, with a heavy arm around my waist, muscular biceps across my breasts, and one huge hand wrapped around my throat.

“Word to the wise, honey,” he said in my ear. “When you’re running away from someone, don’t attempt gymnastics and then fall on your ass.”

I’d stopped breathing when Anyan had grabbed me, my second mistake after falling down. After running all that way, power-driven or not, I was panting like a spaniel when I’d entered the meadow. So when I finally remembered I needed oxygen to live, I drew in a huge, shuddering breath that necessarily lodged the barghest’s rigid arm tighter against my breasts. An act that, equally necessarily, set off a whole other set of reactions in my already heaving bosoms.

If my nipples get any harder, I’m gonna bore a hole into his arm. Even my libido was panicking at that thought.

“You’ve been captured, Jane. Now what do you do?”

The barghest’s voice rumbled from his chest into mine, and I forced myself not to shiver.

This is work to him, Jane. He’s in “training Jane” mode. So get out of “fondling Anyan” mode before you make a tit of yourself.

Not that my breasts weren’t already making a tit of me by practically sitting up and begging for attention…

“C’mon, now. You’d already be dead if this were real. But I’m not letting you go until you free yourself. Think, Jane.”

I stared blindly across the park, toward the hotel we’d just vacated, trying to clear my mind.

Ohmigod, get it together or no more cookies for you, ever, I scolded myself. Then I thought, hard, till I came up with an excellent plan.

And it was an excellent plan. I realized I could do a sort of thin-edge-of-the-wedge thing between us just as I’d done before, with Phaedra’s Alfar net. I could do it with my shields, then force us apart. Maybe stomp on Anyan’s big foot at the same time, my revenge for his unmerited sexual torture.

Unfortunately, that’s not what I did. Oh no. Because I’m Jane, and I like to humiliate myself for fun.

Granted, what happened next wasn’t entirely my fault. Anyan shifted, causing his torso to rub against me, and his arms to move back and forth right over the very places I was most aching.

So I responded instinctually. I was, after all, in the arms of a man I wanted very, very badly to boff. He had his arms around me. I was right where I wanted to be… and then he shifted…

And then I shimmied.

My ass.

Into his crotch.

Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t dry-hump him or start grinding against him like some hoochie dancer in a rap video. But I definitely shimmied my ass into his crotch. Well, I’m so damned short and he’s so damned tall I mostly just rubbed my buttocks on his knees, but whatever. There was my ass, on him, and I thought I would die.

Anyan froze behind me, and all my blood rushed to my head. I knew I was beet-red, and I honestly thought I would keel over from shame (or an aneurysm) when holy hell broke loose.

At first I had no idea what had happened. Suddenly Anyan swore and sprang away from me. Luckily, he pointed almost immediately to the top of the hotel, or I would have died of humiliation thinking he was swearing at my actions.

Instead he was swearing ’cause tonight, much like in the Dropkick Murphys’ song, there was a jailbreak.

Two elegant, winged figures were at the window that had to be our hotel suite. They were far away, and very far up, but I had no doubt who those slenderly androgynous figures were.

Fucking Phaedra’s fucking harpies, I thought.

Anyan had already whipped out his phone and was calling Ryu. Unfortunately, just at that moment, I spotted Ryu strolling casually across the street toward us.

“I just came out to check on you,” the baobhan sith said as he pulled out his ringing phone, first frowning at it, then frowning at Anyan.

Anyan swore, flipped shut his phone, then opened it to dial again.

“Caleb, Kaya and Kaori are at the window…”

I heard a shout from Anyan’s phone, then we were running across the street to underneath where the harpies were busting out our prisoner. Ryu squealed up in his rented SUV just as the harpies took off, another figure dangling between them.

We plunged into Ryu’s car, me in back and Anyan in the passenger-side seat. Soon, however, they’d shoved me up through the sunroof so I could guide them. They might not have thought that was such a good idea had they seen I was holding my hands in front of me to make one L and one backward L, as I sometimes had trouble telling my left from my right.

“Left, hard left, now!” I shouted, holding on to the sides of the sunroof for dear life as Anyan’s arms snaked around my waist to keep me standing.

“Right, they’re turning right! Now keep straight… they’re still going straight… Wait, they’re going sort of… I think left? Yes, go left! Now right! They’re over that building… Haul ass then go right!

“Wait… They’re coming down, I think… they’re lower…”

“Can you squeeze off a shot?” Anyan barked from below me.

“Umm… I think so… if they get a little…”

I raised my hand, mage ball at the ready, not sure if I could throw that far.

It’s not throwing, Jane. Just send the friggin’ thing… Distance shouldn’t matter.

I narrowed my eyes on the dun wings of one of my most hated enemies, not caring if it was Kaya or Kaori. I just wanted them down and our prisoner back… With that thought, my magic pushed through me like a wave as I zeroed in on my target with both my magic and my will.

The flying figures were still far enough away that I couldn’t actually see my mage ball go through the air, but I saw one figure buckle, then weave, then begin to fall out of the sky, dragging the other two with her.

“I think I hit one!” I shouted exultantly, forgetting I wasn’t just the artillery, I was the navigator. “And go left! Left! Shit!” I yelled, pounding on the roof of the car.

Ryu turned on a dime, just as I saw our harpies, with our prisoner, fall into an alley. Unfortunately, the turn was so hard that I, too, was falling, but not before I yelled:

“Right! Into that alley! Right! Oooof.”

The “oof” was due to my whacking my head on the sunroof as I went down to land in a heap, partially on the barghest.

Stop landing on Anyan, I thought wearily. At this point, I myself wasn’t sure if I was truly clumsy or just sexually harassing him. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he must have thought.

We’d peeled into a through-alley just as our prey disappeared out the other end. Ryu gunned the engine as Anyan shoved me, surprisingly gently, back into my seat, both hands firmly on my bottom to do so.