“Other stuff?” Docia had to ask.

“Oh, you know … warm-weather clothing, holiday decorations, spare furniture …”

“Furniture?” Docia squeaked.

“A Jet Ski. Waterslide. A Bouncy Kingdom, you know, for when the kids visit. Trampoline, also for the kids. A camel. Coupla gondolas. I know, I know. Who needs two gondolas, right? It’s a long story … one was a gift from someone who clearly didn’t know me as well as they thought they did.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, buncha other stuff.” She stood up and yawned again, stretching with a limberness that would make a yogi proud. “I’ll leave the tray, but I’m taking my milk.” She said it warningly, as if they might steal it from her given half a chance.

“Where are … ?”

“The dragonlets? In my hair, silly.” And right on cue, a lizard head popped out from betwixt her blond curls and stuck out a forked tongue, blowing a raspberry at them. “SutSut, be nice!” SingSing warned, putting two fingers on its head and stuffing it back into her hair.

“But there’s not enough room for all four of them to be— ,” she whispered to Vincent.

“Djynn have the power to alter spatial relations. She could fit a whole zoo in her hair if she wanted to.”

SingSing giggled. “Now that would be a little ridiculous.” She yawned again. “Welp. G’day, guys. Stay warm. Help yourself to the fridge. And … uh …” She pointed to Vincent sternly. “Make sure you tell her the part about never waking a Djynn. I won’t be held responsible for my actions.” She pointed back and forth between them, eyeballing each until she was satisfied they were taking her seriously. Then she was off with a flounce toward the loft. For the first time, Docia noticed there was no ladder … no stairs. But apparently that didn’t matter, as the Djynn turned into sparkly blue smoke midstep and rose into the loft area, disappearing into the darkness.

They both sat there, staring after her for a moment.

“Never wake a Djynn?” Docia whispered.

“Yeah. Pisses them off,” Vincent whispered back.

“I gathered.” Docia bit her lip. “So … there is such a thing as rubbing the lamp the wrong way?”

“Really? You had to go there?” he asked.

“I’m just saying.” She giggled.

Vincent was determined to make some headway with this whole “Ram makes me feel things you don’t” business. Well, okay, maybe she hadn’t actually said that, but she’d been on the verge of implying it. How was it different? How was it … less?

Oh hell, no. There was nothing that Ram had that Vincent didn’t have. Literally. And before Ram came raging back into the picture, Vincent was intent on proving that. He knew she was tired. He wanted her to rest, he really did. But time was of the essence in this particular case. He couldn’t exactly wait until dusk to gather empirical evidence that he was just as stimulating as Ram.

Luckily, SingSing had unwittingly provided means and opportunity. One mattress. One quilt. Two pillows. It was really very cozy. Very conducive to the matter at hand.

She was nibbling sleepily on bits from the tray, clearly torn between sleep and starvation. He moved to the kitchen and washed what remained of the chocolate milk from his face and hair, anticipating the stickiness if he did not. He’d been in his dinner dress clothes throughout their whole ordeal, and he shrugged out of his jacket, pulled off his tie, and reached to unbutton his cuffs. The cuff links held a fastener along the inside of his left sleeve. The fastener held the invisible knife he always kept secured there. The knife had been one of Ram’s gifts and his way out of the Suspension bindings. He grabbed hold of the knife, which only he could see and feel, and set it on the countertop. He would hide it under his pillow or sleep some other way with it within reach. This wasn’t the first occasion it had saved his life, and he had no doubt it wouldn’t be the last.

He began unbuttoning his shirt and narrowed his eyes on his target of the moment. It was funny, but somehow he kept forgetting she was injured … half-damaged. Somehow, when he looked at her, he never noticed the fading bruises and the butchered hair, never even saw the stitching that was probably already superfluous. He always seemed to see just the soft pretty contours of her face, the teasing turn of her lips, or the mink-colored depths of her eyes. She had these little lashes surrounding them, the curve of them only adding to the adorableness of her. She was cute. Apparently, he liked cute. He didn’t use to. Not before Ram. He’d liked them tall and leggy and so gorgeous that other men would cry with envy … but quietly, so as not to piss him off. Once upon a time, he’d reeked of badass. He’d been an elite SEAL team member. He’d thought nothing could touch him.

He cleared his throat, kicking back the emotions and self-recrimination that still welled up when he thought about the past and what he had once been. He liked himself better now. He had redefined himself side by side with Ram, who had taught him how to be a far better man. A far better being.

And apparently better beings liked cute.

A lot. And much to Ram’s dismay. Vincent’s sometimes better half had been blindsided by this attraction, and everything about it had gone against his sense of loyalty and purpose, something Vincent had agreed with at the time. Loyalty was everything, after all. But that loyalty was Ram’s, not necessarily his. Perhaps that was splitting hairs, but in the end, his only connection to Menes was through Ram’s knowledge of him, and anyone’s perspective was skewed to some degree when it came to something or someone they felt passionately about. Of course, he had all the faith in the world in Ram. It wasn’t as though he could deceive him outright. But there were a lot of variables to be considered here, first and foremost that both Menes and Docia had been gifted with free will. Menes could decide to put off leaving the Ether as long as he wanted to … two years, twenty … two hundred. Nothing said he was definitively going to show up anytime soon except Ram’s belief in him and Menes’s steady track record thus far.

Oh. And Cleo. Cleo the prophetess who had sent him and Ram to Saugerties N.Y. because she had seen visions of Menes’s and Hatshepsut’s return.

Anyway, Docia had as much say in whom she liked or disliked as her Bodywalker did. Free will. The same free will Odjit had been trying to exploit, unfortunately. But, he told himself, this was hardly the same thing. This was just … this was just here and now. Not some anticipated future that they were all just guessing at.

Vincent shrugged out of his shirt, snapping the tails free of his pants and drawing her attention with the sound. He pretended not to notice, leaned over the sink a little, and splashed water over his neck and chest. To remove the remaining chocolate, he thought firmly, definitely not to use the water to accentuate the na**d musculature of said chest.

Nope. Not one bit.

He felt awkward inside for a moment. He hadn’t gone after a woman without his internal wingman in such a long time. For some reason, he found himself afraid of f**king it up. Maybe it was better to just leave it be. He should. Ram was going to pitch a fit when he came back and realized Vincent had been toying with his precious untouchable queen.

But she wasn’t the precious untouchable queen. Not right then. No more than he was Ram right then … for the most part. Rounded vowels or otherwise, he knew what Ram felt like, and if he really was there, he’d be kicking up a superior fuss. Wouldn’t he?

Docia looked up when Vincent made some kind of noise— and instantly regretted doing so. Or not. Or … yes. Well … the man was built like a freaking god, and he’d gone and taken off his shirt. She understood why: he was covered in milk and spit. Her fault, as usual. She decided to let herself stare at his shining pectorals and remarkably delineated abs for a moment in the hope that she wouldn’t fall back into the growing feeling that all of this was her fault. From the bridge incident until now, she’d been stepping in shit again and again, and she had been dragging him into it as well. Sure, Ram seemed content to follow her into doom time and again, but she got the feeling that Vincent was not so eager. She wondered if the only reason he was still there was that he knew Ram would be back very soon and there would be no escaping his wrath if he let her escape his protection.

She moved toward the fireplace and the mattress that lay in front of it. It wasn’t cheap, that was for sure. It was just what she thought a genie might conjure up. Thick, soft, covered in a royal-purple velvet fabric with blankets and pillows just as full and fluffy and just as bold in color. There were even little golden tassels hanging off the corners of each pillow.

It looked so luscious and she was so tired that she just wanted to crawl inside and sleep her life away. But there were two problems. Apparently it was not her life alone any longer, and it was sobering to realize that everything she did no longer affected her alone.

And along that train of thought was the second problem. She was about to get in bed with Mr. I’m Sexy and I Know It, where she’d have to make certain she refrained from gratuitous snuggling against him. There was the distinct danger of her doing just that, because, honestly … the more time she spent with him, the more times he came to her rescue, the more he insisted on touching her with those strong, confident hands … the more she felt herself being drawn to any and all of the sensations he inspired.

The best thing for her to do, she told herself sternly, was get in bed, roll over, and go to sleep. That’s it. End of story. There. That ought to do it. She had a plan and she was sticking to it. She crawled into the bed, moving to the side closest to the fire because she still felt as though she were shivering and cold at her core. She might end up feeling too warm in the long run, but she would worry about that when the time came.

The time came about two seconds later when he slid into bed next to her. Okay, really? Was the guy a walking furnace or something? Had he even gotten cold out there in the forest when she’d been freezing her tatas off?

“Warm enough?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her torso and drawing her back snugly into the cup of his body. She wondered when it was going to stop surprising her that Vincent wasn’t the type to ask permission to do certain things. She also wondered why it didn’t piss her off. She ought to be hitting him over the head with her purse, screeching, “Masher! Masher!” like the little old ladies in Bugs Bunny cartoons. Only she didn’t have a purse and she kind of enjoyed being mashed at the moment. Not that she’d cop to it under interrogation.

Besides, hadn’t the Ram half of his equation decided she was off-limits? No touchy, no feely.

“How is it,” he said suddenly, his voice very low and his breath incredibly hot against the back of her neck, “that you’ve just been through hell and you can still manage to smell so good?”

She could literally feel him inhale, a deep, long breath as he pushed his face a little closer to her skin. The arm around her tightened, his hand so far in a neutral position fitted against her ribs beneath her left breast, but there was something very not neutral to the entire situation. She could feel a powerful, dominant male overshadowing the whole setup.

She squeaked, wriggled out of his hold, and stumbled out of bed … nearly burning herself in the fireplace. He sat up immediately.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

“With me? You turn into a freaking octopus and all with the sexy ‘Mmm, you smell good’ business, and I’m the one who’s wrong? Let’s give it an hour and you can ask Ram that question, okay?”

His entire face darkened with a stormy irritation. Well, fine. She didn’t care if she pissed him off.

“First of all, keep your voice down,” he warned her, glancing up at the loft to make his point. Oh. Right. Wake genie up equals very bad things. “Secondly, what is your problem with me?” He stood up, whipping the blanket down onto the bed as though he might be wishing it were her instead … in a not good way. He stalked in her direction and she immediately began to back away, holding out her hands to ward him off, as if that were going to do any good. The man was a storm of muscle and testosterone and a buttload of attitude.

“You’re supposed to be protecting me, not man-handling me!” she whispered fiercely.

“Oh, but you’ll let Ram manhandle you until the cows come home,” he growled as he closed in on her.

“Do you even hear what you’re saying? You’re the same person, you space cadet!”

The phrase gave them both pause. Yeah, she had to admit, that was a fairly decrepit choice, even for her.

“Not according to you,” he said through his teeth, just as she backed herself into an inescapable corner of the living room. His hands slammed against the wood walls on either side of her shoulders, and then there was the rapid follow-up of his strong body leaning along hers, blocking her from moving. “According to you, there’s all kinds of different.”