"That I know." He tangled his hand in her hair. "For if it had been real, I would have done much more than watch you."

She didn't know what to think. He had been with her in her most private moment. He knew.

"In the dream, you said that you thought of me when you pleasure yourself," he murmured, lifting her face. "Did you mean it? Do you think of me?"

He spoke as if he were unsure of her, and then Jayr understood: He didn't know. Not her thoughts or her heart. He would not put faith in a shared dream. He needed her to tell him, to show him.

"How could I not? You made me a woman. You taught me what pleasure is. I have never forgotten that day." On impulse Jayr turned her face into his hand and kissed his palm. "There has been no one else for me but you, Aedan. I am yours."

"There is this matter of the debt between us. I made you my seneschal the last time you saved my life." His hand stroked gently over her shoulder. "How can I repay you?"

"You can make it turn out well for me." With every ounce of courage she possessed, she slid her hand up and cupped his neck. "You can make me your lover."

Byrne brought his mouth down to hers. Before he kissed her he said, "You're sure, lass? If you change your mind, you cannae run away from me down here."

Jayr smiled. "I am through running, my lord."

The world fell away again, silent and unimportant as his mouth touched hers. Such a simple thing, a kiss, but when Jayr opened for him and met his tongue with hers, she felt a thousand different sensations. No dream could have equaled the taste of him, or the liquefying heat that spread from their lips down the length of her body. Distantly she wondered if she could survive just this, for it made every other feeling dwindle to nothingness.

He brought her wounded forearm to his mouth, soothing the healed but still-tender skin with a dozen kisses. His hands turned her, tugging at her shirt, pulling it over her head. As the cool air touched her inadequate breasts, Jayr automatically brought her hands up, and then stopped as she remembered him looking at her in the mirror.

"I am not like the women you choose," she said, aching with regret.

"I never wanted a woman like you," Byrne told her, trailing his fingers from one flat nipple to the other. "I wanted you. I settled for them."

He put his mouth on her, sucking at the areola until her nipple hardened, and then turning his head to kiss and suck at the other.

Jayr shifted under him, cradling his big body with her arms and thighs, shivering as he nipped at the faint curves. He pushed his hips, fitting their sexes together, his key to her lock. The thought of having him opening her, stealing inside her and learning all of the secrets hidden within her body, made her fangs spring out, long and eager.

He knew the hunger was on her before she did. "Yes." He caught the back of her head and pressed her face to his throat. "Taste me again."

Shamelessly she bit him, arching as her teeth punched through and his blood soothed her dry mouth. His hands hooked on the waist of her trousers and ripped them apart, baring her to his fingers. As she sucked, he tugged and shredded, destroying everything keeping their skin apart. She lifted her mouth to look down and see his arm bulging, his erect penis in his fist as he worked it against her. The tip of her clit protruded from her folds, and when he grazed it the sensation proved so intense that all of the breath rushed out of her.

Byrne's eyes glowed, and his tattoos curled as his mouth moved into a slow smile. He repeated the motion, deliberately teasing the small, stiffening protrusion.

"It feels like a faerie's tongue," he told her, slowly rubbing the helmet of his cock all around the rosy tip.

Jayr groaned as her fluids made them both slick, and then felt something close over her clit and tug at it. Not his fingers, but something narrow and tight.

Byrne went still, his face drawn and hard with excitement. "Look, lass," he whispered. "Your jewel is kissing my cock."

Her eyes went wide as she saw that her clit had penetrated the slit in his crown. She was inside him. When she tried to draw back, he held her still.

"Let them have their kiss," he said hoarsely, holding his shaft and gently pumping. His slit worked over her, tightening as the head around it and her clit swelled.

Jayr's head snapped back as the friction and the clasping pull tossed her body into a bonfire of fear and delight, consuming her in its relentless inferno. Byrne caught her scream before it left her mouth and shifted, plunging his cock into her convulsing slit as she exploded.

"Now, my lady," he said, panting into her mouth, "it is my turn to fuck you."

He gathered her hips with his hands and lifted her, pistoning his shaft into her body with deep, soul-shaking power. Jayr's hands anchored onto his arms, her eyes fixed on his as he plowed into her, holding nothing back, forcing the slick tightness to give way to his need. He felt too big; he would surely split her in half. And then another heat began to grow, one devouring both of them, clawing and dragging until it seemed they became one thing, all motion and fire, and the agony of being so near became too much. Byrne rammed himself into her, grunting with the effort of holding her down as she answered, her body molten fire under the hammering, inescapable weight of him.

Byrne's arms locked, and then his big body began to shake as if it might fall apart under the strain. He slowed, almost unmoving, and then stabbed deep, holding himself in the quivering clasp of her body as his semen pumped into her.

"Christ Jesus." He fell on her, pulling her to him as he rolled to his side. "So that's what it's like to fuck your way to heaven and back. I've always wondered."

"Aedan." Jayr realized she had scored both of his arms with her nails and reached up to touch his mouth, her fingers bright with his blood. "I didn't know it would be so…" There weren't words for it. "Unusual."

"Lass," he said, and laughed a little. "Let me say this now, so that there's no confusion later. Anytime you want to feel unusual again"—he kissed her mouth—"you come to me."

Alex hadn't planned on dozing off during the archery contest. But one minute she was sitting with Michael and watching men shooting very long arrows from enormous bows, and the next she was walking through Dundellan.

During her abduction Alex had become very familiar with the layout of the castle, first during her escape attempts and later while trying to find a cure for Richard Tremayne's condition.

Everything looked just as it had when she had been held hostage, Alex thought. Torches burning in iron wall holders, cats wandering all over the place, the smell of dust, leather, and silent despair. She didn't remember the cold stone halls being filled with purple-blue dragonflies, but maybe Gabriel Seran was visiting, too. She certainly remembered the swarms of bugs Gabriel could summon and control with his talent. He'd used them like a weapon when trying to get to Nick, the woman he loved.

Dreaming of Dundellan seemed a little pointless, though. Gabriel and Nick were off somewhere being happy, Richard was undergoing successful therapy that was changing him from cat-man to vampire-man, and all the bad guys were dead or locked up where they couldn't hurt anyone anymore.

Alex stopped and looked around. "Why am I here?"

The dragonflies all flew down the hall and landed on a door marked with a glittering golden apple. If that hadn't been clear enough, a shaft of purple-blue light poured out of the keyhole.

"Gotcha." Alex walked to the door, stepping over a few fat cats sprawled on the floor along the way. It was nice to see that the felines were so healthy. Until she had come up with a treatment, Richard had been living on their blood.

She knocked and politely waited. When no one answered the door, she reached to check the knob and watched her hand move through the wooden door panel. All it took was a breath and a push, and she was on the other side.

"Alex." The blond giant sat holding an oiled rag to the blade of a long broadsword. He dropped both as he rose and came to her. "You came."

"You called me. I heard you." At least, she was pretty sure she had. She looked up the muscled wall of his chest at his face. "I know you." She glanced around them. "You brought me here when I was hurt."

"I did." He went down on one knee. "But I am the one in need of healing now, my lady. Will you come back to me now?"

"I hated Ireland," she said, walking around him to avoid his hands. The walls of the room faded from stone to canvas, and Alex tripped over a pillow as she turned and found herself back in the desert tent. "I'm not too crazy about this place, either."

The blond man, who was now lying on a pile of furs and silks at her feet, reached up and pulled her down to him.

"Stop thinking, love. We have all night." His scent poured over her, bathing her in larkspur as he rolled over her. "I am at your service."

It may have been his words, or the absence of the dragon-flies, or the way he ripped open her blouse. Whatever it was, it brought everything back to her: the attack by Richard, the wounds she had suffered, and waking up alone with the captain of the guard in his room. At first Korvel had tended to her injuries, but then he had used his talent on her to make her imagine being with him, just like this.

"You son of a bitch." Alex grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his mouth from her neck. "What did you do to me? Did Richard put you up to this?"

Korvel's eyes, the irises gone almost entirely purple-blue, darkened. "I did nothing. Richard knows nothing. Kiss me." His head snapped sideways as she clouted him with a fist. "You came here of your own free will."

"The hell I did. Get off. Off." Alex shoved at his chest until he rolled away. She scrambled out of the tangle of furs and pillows and moved until she had half the tent between them. "Where are we? Oh, tell me you did not kidnap me again." He said nothing. "Unless you'd like your head hanging from the nearest pole, Captain, you'd better start talking."

Korvel gestured around him. "It is as you see." He picked up a gauntlet and tossed it at one wall of the tent. It didn't bounce away but slid through it, leaving gentle ripples in its wake. "Nothing but a dream. If you do not care for this place, we can return to the castle. You have only to say."