Silence.

“I never forget my loyalties. You’ve forgotten your faith. Keep her parents alive. Follow my orders. It’ll be over soon.”

I fisted my hands. What exactly was going to be over?

“That’s where you’re wrong. One world isn’t just as good as any other. Some worlds are better. We’ve known she’s a wild card since the beginning. After what I learned about her the other night, I have to let this hand play out. Have you located Tellie yet? I need to question the woman. Assuming she’s still alive. No? Get more people on it.”

What did he mean by after what he’d learned about me? That I’d teamed up with Darroc? That according to him I’d been willing to betray him? Or was there something else? Who was Tellie and what did he need to question her about?

“Darroc is dead. She’ll tell V’lane she made it up. No one will believe the kid.” Another long pause. “Of course she’ll do what I say. I’ll take V’lane out myself if I have to.” He paused. “The fuck you could.”

The silence stretched so long that I realized he must have terminated the call.

Hand on the door frame, I stood, eyeing the stairs.

“Get your ass in here, Ms. Lane. Now.”

“I heard—” I began.

“I let you hear,” he cut me off.

I shut my mouth, closed the door, and leaned back against it. The corners of his lips turned up as if at some private amusement, and for a moment I thought we were having one of those silent conversations.

You think it’s safe to close yourself in with the Beast?

If you think I’m afraid of you, you’re wrong.

You should be afraid.

Maybe you should be afraid of me. Go ahead, piss me off, Barrons. See what happens.

Little girl thinks she’s all grown up now.

His mouth moved into a smile that I’ve grown familiar with over the past few months, shaped of competing tensions: part mockery, part pissed off, and part turned on. Men are so complicated.

“Now you know what they think of you. I’m all that stands between you and my men,” he said.

That and a very deep glassy lake. I’d dive to the bottom if I had to. Even though he was alive again, even though I now understood I never would have destroyed this world to resurrect him, I was no longer the woman I’d been before I’d helped kill him and never would be again.

The transformation I’d undergone had done permanent damage. The emotions I’d felt, believing he was dead, had cut deep, leaving my heart battle-scarred, my soul changed. The grief might be over, but the memory of those days, the choices I’d made, the things I’d almost done, would be a part of me forever. I suspected some part of me was still slightly numb and might be for a long time.

My gaze strayed to his neck. It was as if histhroat had never been cut. There was no wound, no scar. He was completely healed. I’d seen him naked last night and knew there were no scars on his torso, either. His body bore no evidence of the violent death he’d endured.

I glanced back at his face. He was staring at my newly dyed hair. I pushed it back, tucked it behind my ears. From the hostility in his gaze, I knew if I opened my mouth again, he’d just cut me off, so I waited, enjoying the view.

One of the things I realized when I’d been grieving him was how attractive I find him. Barrons is … addictive. He grows on you until you can’t begin to imagine anyone you’d like to look at more. He wears his dark hair slicked back from his face, sometimes cut, sometimes long, as if he can’t be bothered to regularly get it trimmed. I now know why, at well over six feet of long, hard muscle, he moves with such animal grace.

He’s an animal.

His forehead, nose, mouth, and jaw bear the stamp of a gene pool that died out long ago, blended with whatever it is that makes him the beast. Though symmetrical, with strong planes and angles, his face is too primitive to be handsome. Barrons might have evolved enough to walk upright, but he never relinquished the purity and unapologetic drives of a born predator. The aggressive ruthlessness and bloodlust of my demon guardian is his inherent nature.

When I first arrived in Dublin, he terrified me.

I inhale deeply, inflating my lungs with a long, slow breath. Though ten feet and a wide desk separate us, I can smell him. The scent of his skin is one I will never forget, no matter how long I live. I know the taste of him in my mouth. I know the smell we make together. Sex is a perfumery that creates its own fragrance, takes two people and makes them smell like a third. It’s a scent neither person can make alone. I wonder if that third smell can become a drug of blended pheromones that can be generated only by the mixture of those two people’s sweat, saliva, and semen. I’d like to shove him back on the desk. Straddle him. Dump a storm of emotion across his body with mine.

I realize he’s staring at me, hard, and that my thoughts might have been a bit transparent. Desire’s a hard thing not to telegraph. It changes the way we breathe and subtly rearranges our limbs. If you’re attuned to someone, it’s impossible not to notice.

“Is there something you want from me, Ms. Lane?” he says very softly. Lust stirs in his ancient eyes. I remember the first time I glimpsed it there. I’d wanted to run, screaming. Savage Mac had wanted to play.

The answer to his question was a resounding yes. I wanted to launch myself across his desk and expel something violent from my system. I wanted to beat him, punish him for the pain I’d suffered. I wanted to kiss him, slam myself down on him, reassure myself that he was alive in the most elemental way I could.