“This is incomprehensible.” Her lips were shaking too. “It changes everything.”

“For the better, yes?”

“Holy shit, yes.” It took her several tries to tuck the check back into the envelope, but she managed it at last. “I can’t believe they gave so much.”

“It is fitting,” Khalil said in a quiet voice. “Carling and Rune remember the old days, when emperors and kings would lay treasure at the Oracle’s feet. As Rune said, they owe you everything. I was very angry with them when I pieced all of it together and realized that they had not fulfilled their end of the contract.”

She remembered the tense scene in the clearing, as Rune and Carling faced off against the Elder tribunal. She felt compelled to point out, “They were fighting for their lives.”

His face hardened. He said in a cold voice, “That is no excuse.”

“Well,” she said, rather inadequately. Khalil was Djinn, after all.

She looked at the note, written in a bold, feminine hand. It was a simple missive. Carling offered an apology and said she would be in touch soon. Overcome again, Grace slipped the note back in the envelope, along with that precious, mind-numbing check, and tucked the whole thing securely into the bottom of her purse.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said from the back of her throat. “I just don’t know what to say. This is one of the most important things anyone has ever done for me. For the kids.”

“Hush,” he said gently in that renegade angel’s voice, and he leaned forward and kissed her.

She didn’t even think to hesitate or pull away; that’s how much things had changed between them. Instead she wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him back. His lips were warm and firm yet moved on hers with exquisite sensitivity. She felt again that ache of arousal, only this time it was a gentle blossoming, like a garden coming to life after the long, bitter season of a killing winter.

He brushed her lips lightly, back and forth, as if learning their softness and contours for the first time, and he groaned. He sounded shaken. Then he pulled back and stared at her as he stroked her face. His hands were shaking too, and his regal, elegant features were stricken and marveling.

It was such a beautiful expression she had the impulse to look around to make sure it was meant for her. “It was good?” she asked.

He whispered, “Holy shit, yes.”

A nearby raucous laugh jolted her. Khalil put a hand on her shoulder protectively as he looked around. She looked too. Six young men, around twenty or twenty-one years old, were walking leisurely in their direction, talking and joking. Khalil’s eyes narrowed. He said between his teeth, “I want them to go away.”

She started to laugh. “It’s a public street. They’re not doing anything wrong.”

“I have no interest in that,” he said.

She took an unsteady breath. She had been worried about going from friends, to kissing, to possibly other things with Khalil, but somehow she had slid headfirst into a foreign landscape she couldn’t have foreseen. That slippery slope was a treacherous thing.

“We’re here,” she managed to say. “And as you said, we might as well go in.”

He gave her a glowering look. He said, “I have no interest in doing that, either.”

The problem was, neither did she.

Which was all the more reason, she thought, why they should.

…

Djinn didn’t get drunk. Alcohol had no effect on them.

But other things could, and Khalil was reeling from a bombardment of physical sensations. Djinn were highly sensitive, but in their original state, what they were most sensitive to was the ebb and flow of Power and energy.

The full range of physical sensation was an entirely different spectrum of experience from anything he had ever known.

The slight friction of the aged denim jeans on his thighs. The stretchy give of the cotton T-shirt across his chest and shoulders. The insubstantial lick of the summer breeze against his cheek.

He was euphoric, disturbed. He thought this must be what intoxication felt like. He wasn’t altogether sure he liked it.

And then Grace came carefully down the stairs, and she was such a feast of color, all he could do was stare. Her skin looked burnished, and her outfit made him think of a bouquet of flowers. Her short, damp hair glinted with red-gold highlights, and when she neared him, her multicolored eyes rounded with wonder. Then her scent wafted over him, a clean, light fragrance that he thought must be unique in all the world.

And then she touched him.

Just that one thing, just that simple touch on his arm, and he went into shock. Her flesh, touching his. When she did it again, her gentle hand slid along the contours of his arm to his palm, and he felt all of it.

Intensely. Ecstatically. Intimately.

Hungrily.

He followed her out of the house in a daze, where he encountered so many more new sensations: the texture of the screen door’s wooden frame, the scents of a summer night, the rough rhythm of chirruping insects. He climbed into her car. His fingertips learned the smooth, hard metal of the car doors, and the soft, worn passenger seat. When he turned to look at Grace, he caught the shadowed gleam of her smile.

Would he ever see another smile as gorgeous as hers?

And the deadly seductive thing was, he could sense how the physical evidence of her pleasure spread throughout her psyche. He could feel her smile as well as see it. It lightened the crackle of her spitfire personality.

Then came more sensations. The blast of air swirling through open car windows, the feeling of movement through space as they drove into the city, the pressure of his seat belt against his collarbone and torso.

When she cried at the check she had received from Carling and Rune, he felt the wetness of her tears on the softness of her cheek as he wiped them away.

Then he kissed her.

And it was the first kiss, the only kiss.

The only one in the entire world.

She embraced him, and there was more friction, this time from her warm arm sliding along the back of his neck. She molded her soft lips to his, and the kiss became a sensitive and searching dance as they shifted and caressed in response to each other’s movements.

They parted, and he discovered more colors: the darkened rose of her lips and the blush in her cheeks. Her eyes shone with a lustrous sparkle, and her energy flared with brilliance.

He had once believed he knew desire, from the things he had witnessed and the lovers he had taken. Desire, he had thought, was an artifice, an educated exchange in pleasure.

The roar of agonized hunger he now felt seared him. There was nothing of artifice in this. It was raw and edged, and he barely held it in control.

He had existed for so long he had never bothered to count the years. The numbers and the accounting had no meaning for him. But he remembered living them all. He measured the span of his life by events, and he had never experienced desire like this, as a complete desperation.

She felt it too; he knew she did. She ached with just as much hunger as he did. The raw burn of it was spiced with the complexity of her thoughts and feelings.

And she still preferred to go into that establishment.

He could come to only one conclusion. Clearly she had not found the kiss as compelling as he had.

That meant he would have to work harder the next time he kissed her, so that she did.

Frowning fiercely, he climbed out of the car when Grace did. As she locked the doors, he gave the six approaching, noisy youths a hard glance, warning them silently to keep their distance, and he made sure at least a few of them saw it.

One of the youths gave him an amiable grin. The young man said, “Hey, dude…”

He decided right then and there, he hated that word.

“Where did you get those contacts?” The young man strolled over, peering at Khalil in fascination, and a few of his associates followed. “Your eyes are wicked awesome.”

“Do not call me ‘dude,’” he said coldly. The entire group was human. He attributed their extreme foolishness in approaching him to that. Any young Djinn would have taken the hint at his first glare and would have disappeared by now.

“Anything you say, du—uh, mister,” said the young man. One of his friends sniggered quietly behind a hand. “How did you do that thing with your eyes?”

“What thing?” Khalil asked impatiently. “Tell me then go away.”

The male gave him a loose smile. “They kinda glow in the dark. Do you have special contacts that reflect the light?”

“That is none of your business. Now do as I told you. Go away.”

One of the male’s associates scratched his chin. “I’ve heard some drugs can make your eyes look funny, but I thought that mostly meant they just dilated or something.”

Khalil grew angry and his Power bristled. Behind him, Grace said, “Khalil, they don’t mean any harm. They’re probably just college kids, and they’re a little drunk.”

He glanced behind him. Grace stood on the other side of her car. Her eyes were dancing, her face alight with amusement. “Very well,” he muttered. He would not have minded taking his frustration out on a foolish someone. Or a few foolish someones.

“I’m not drunk,” one of them said. “I only had four or five beers. I just can’t drive.”

“Dude, you’re totally making that up,” his neighbor said. “You had more like seven or eight.”

Khalil considered that one’s use of “dude.” Since it had not been directed at him, he decided to let it pass.

“Well, I had nine, and y’all kept up with me,” said a third. “That’s why none of us are driving.”

“What are we doing, again?” said a fourth.

“You are getting out of my way,” Khalil said. He pushed through them as they started talking over each other.

Then the original youth made a mistake. He laid a hand on Khalil’s arm.

“Hey, about those contacts—”

The physical sensation of being touched without his permission was a thousand times worse than when another Djinn male came too close. Hissing, he whirled on the youth, whose somewhat silly face rounded in an O of surprise.

Suddenly Grace shouldered into the midst of all of them, pushing the young men away, and inserting herself between them and Khalil.

“Go on, guys,” she said with cheerful firmness. “You’re interrupting my date.”

One of them grinned at her. “Sorr-ee.”

Khalil watched malevolently as the one who had dared to touch him edged away to the other side of his group. “Didn’t mean anything by it,” the young man grumbled. “All I wanted was to know what he did to his eyes. Thought I might go to his ophtha…ophtha…Is it ophthalmologist or optometrist?”

One of his friends exclaimed impatiently, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, numbskull. Eye doctor.”

Arguing now and shooting wary glances at Khalil over their shoulders, the group edged down the street. Khalil watched them until they had gone half a block away, and he was sure they wouldn’t be back. Then he turned back to Grace. Her arms were crossed, and her eyes were narrowed. The sparkling expression of pleasure had disappeared from her face. He sensed storm clouds gathering in her energy.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

His face stony, Khalil said, “He touched me.”

She took a deep breath, and the storm clouds dissipated somewhat. “You must make allowances, Khalil. Peoples’ decision-making skills are impaired when they’re drunk. They didn’t mean any harm.”

He still didn’t have to like it or allow it. But as he walked over to put his arm around her, he took her point to heart.

Intoxication could make one do foolish things, even intoxication of the senses. He would do well to remember that.

Grace sighed and slipped her arm around his waist. Together they crossed the street, and he opened the door. A blast of chaotic light and noise assaulted all of his senses as they stepped into Strange Brew.

Fifteen

Grace had been in Strange Brew perhaps a half-dozen times since she had turned twenty-one. The interior of the pub was the same throughout, bare brick walls and lots of wood—wooden bars, floors, stools, tables and chairs. There were three bars: one at the front of the building, one toward the back and the third in the basement. They all had a patina of age that darkened their surface. They were scarred from years of use and glossed from countless polishing.

The basic decor was original and bright, with colorful posters and prints hung on the walls, gathered, Grace had heard, throughout the years from the owner’s travels. There was also a thoroughly modern sound system installed, which was currently blasting the Rolling Stones over the speakers.

The pub was packed, of course, with people shouting to be heard over each other and the pounding music. Grace paused to get acclimated.

Sparks of Power blinked throughout the crowd like fireflies. Several human witches were in the room. She could sense them by the feel of their Power, although she didn’t recognize anyone. Through the brick archway that led to another section, she saw a couple of Dark Fae standing close in conversation. A dwarf headed toward the back rooms shoved her way aggressively through the crowd. Grace caught a glimpse of the dwarf’s craggy face. Her beard hung to her short waist in several braids and was threaded with colorful beads.

Grace didn’t see any Light Fae. Perhaps the owner was in another room, or he might be at the other location. Grace couldn’t remember what his name was, but she would bet he was wealthy enough that he didn’t have to work on a Saturday night if he didn’t want to.

Further down the bar, she noticed a male Vampyre. Like most Vampyres, he was attractive, although somewhat di-sheveled. He leaned against the bar as two humans, one male and one female, hung off his shoulders. All three were flushed and looked inebriated.