Ansgar thrust heavily into Adsulata, groaning at the slick, satin pleasure of her grip. She writhed beneath him, gasping, her long calves riding his ass. He could feel her fighting for that last bit of sensation she needed to spill over into orgasm.
He didn’t wait for her. Throwing his head back, he roared his pleasure at the ceiling as he spilled.
After the last spasms poured his seed, he rolled onto his back with a groan. Adsulata lay still. He could practically feel the waves of her frustration. He ignored them.
She’d become a problem.
He contemplated his magical reserves. Her healing spell had done its work; he thought he had enough for what he needed.
“Effective spies, my sweet, don’t drop in unannounced at will.”
She reared up onto her elbows, her eyes going round and wide. He basked in the fear in them. “I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I just needed you so.”
Ansgar smiled easily and rolled out of bed. “I understand. But I’m afraid our time is up. I have much to do.”
Adsulata scrambled hastily off the mattress, watching him like a mouse cornered by a tiger. “I’ll go, then. And I’ll…wait for your summons.”
It would be a long wait. “Do. But before you go, a kiss.”
Her expression lightened with relief as she stepped into his arms. “Of course.”
Ansgar caught her slim body against his, savoring how small and delicate she felt. It was an erotic sensation. Then he took her lips.
And began to take still more.
The spy stiffened as she felt the spell slice into her, but she couldn’t break his hold. His mouth muffled her scream as he drank in her life force. It was hot, delicious, filling the void left when he’d given Susan so much of his power.
Drinking, he ignored her desperate fists as she pounded at him, feet drumming at his shins. Drank until her struggles weakened. Drank until she was all gone.
Ansgar opened his arms, and she fell to the floor. Her huge eyes stared up at him in shocked bewilderment.
Crouching beside her, he told her corpse, “You betrayed your husband, your king, and your people, my sweet. I didn’t care to be the next one you betrayed.”
Then he rose and walked away, leaving her empty eyes fixed on the spot where he’d stood.
There was a great deal to do.
Llyr’s deep voice spoke in her ear. “It’s time, Diana. We must rise.” Strong hands caught her shoulders and gently lifted her from the broad, warm chest she lay across.
Diana moaned in protest. “God, already? I did not get enough sleep.” She pried open her eyes and was rewarded by the sight of Llyr’s mouthwatering backside as he walked away from the bed. Her Burning Moon hunger stirred. “Mmm. I’m feeling better already. Wanna play, Your Majesty?”
“Much as it pains me to remind you, we do have a killer to catch.” He gestured, and was instantly attired in a magnificent black velvet doublet trimmed in gold and set with sapphires. At least his black tights and codpiece made the most of his magnificent legs.
She eyed his gleaming boots. “Oh, come on, just a quickie. Have I mentioned I’ve got a thing for leather?”
His handsome face chilled. “I do not take my duty lightly, Diana.”
She frowned at the dig, but her belly chose that moment for a ferocious growl. “Oh, God, I’m starving. Turning into a wolf is murder on the blood sugar. Is there any way I could get my paws on something to eat? Eggs, sausage—hell, point me at the royal deer and I’ll get my own.”
She’d hoped her joke would warm his cool expression, but he only gave her a regal nod. Llyr flicked his wrist. A table appeared by the bed, groaning with food. Rolling naked off the mattress, Diana looked it over. Not only was there a plate of eggs and a big round loaf of dark bread, but he’d included an entire ham, neatly sliced, along with a jug of something that smelled alcoholic. “Cool! Let’s eat.” Grinning happily, she snatched a piece of ham and looked up. His expression was so distantly polite, the smile froze on her face.
“I’m afraid I can’t join you,” Llyr said, turning toward the door. “I have too much to do. Enjoy your meal.”
“What—? Wait!” But he had already opened the door and stepped outside. “Where are my clothes!” Magic rushed over her skin, and she looked down to see her uniform had reappeared.
Llyr glanced over his shoulder. “When you’re ready to leave, let me know. I’ll be in the next room meeting with my advisors.” The door clicked closed behind him.
“What the hell was that?” She sank down on the edge of the bed, staring at the closed door. “Not even an ‘I’ll call you sometime.’ Damn.”
Hurt bloomed in her chest. She turned her gaze to the table and mechanically picked up another piece of ham. Her appetite had disappeared, but she knew perfectly well her werewolf metabolism would be clamoring again in another ten minutes. She bit into the meat and chewed.
It was delicious. Didn’t it figure?
Just beyond the closed door, Llyr put his head down and cursed himself at the memory of her wounded eyes. But it was better to break this off now than wait until they had begun to fall in love.
Brooding, he walked to his throne and dropped into it, hooking a knee over the armrest. The dream hadn’t exaggerated. Every relationship he’d ever had with a woman had ended in pain and violence, starting with his mother—killed by a Morven rebel fighting his father—and continuing through all four of his wives. Even his children had been slain, one by one, leaving gaping wounds in his spirit that never ceased to ache. Janieda had only been the latest victim of what he’d begun to think of as his personal curse.
And with every loss, the weight of his guilt and grief had grown heavier, his isolation deeper.
True, Diana was tougher than any of them, but she was also mortal. Even if she could handle any of the assassins his brother would send after her, she could not defeat time. In a couple of decades at most, she’d begin to slow down, and then she’d be easy prey.
He didn’t want to see that happen to her.
Suddenly he huffed out a breath, impatient with his own self-deception. Be honest, Llyr. You don’t want to risk falling in love.
He didn’t think his heart could survive breaking again.
The door opened and one of his advisors stuck his head in. “Your Majesty, I have an issue I’d like to discuss.”
Llyr thrust aside his personal concerns and nodded. “Come in. I need to brief you all anyway. It seems I will be away from the palace for the next several days.”
Llyr was listening for Diana when she walked into his audience chamber half an hour later. Even in her police uniform, she looked as cool and distant in her disapproval as any queen he’d ever had. “I’m ready to leave now.”
He fought to keep the regret off his face. “Where do you want to go?”
“Back to my car.” She hesitated. “If you can make sure nobody sees the gate.”
Llyr nodded. “I can arrange that. Visualize your vehicle for me.” With the ease of long practice, he picked the image out of her thoughts and opened the gate.
Diana walked over and studied the dimensional gateway cautiously, satisfying herself that none of her townspeople waited on the other side. Over her shoulder, she said, “If you need me to arrange additional accommodations for your men, let me know.”
“I will. Until we meet…”
She stepped through the gate before he could get the rest of the sentence out of his mouth. He hid a wince.
“It was for the best, Majesty.”
Llyr glanced around and met Naois’s sympathetic gaze. He wasn’t surprised his guard captain knew what he was thinking. The man had been with him for centuries, much of it as Kerwyn’s second-in-command.
Llyr gave him a long, assessing look, wondering if that was a flicker of satisfaction he saw in the guard’s eyes. After all, Diana had threatened Naois with her claws in retaliation for his joke about leashing her. For a man as proud as the captain, that would grate. “Ind
eed?”
Another man would have retreated in the face of his frosty disapproval, but Naois was made of steadier stuff. He shrugged. “It will go easier for us all now that she knows her place.”
“And what place is that?”
The captain’s eyes flickered at Llyr’s tone, but he didn’t back down. “She’s mortal, Majesty, she knows nothing of the court, and she has the manners of a barbarian. As intriguing a bedmate as I’m sure she is, that’s all she can ever be.” He bowed slightly. “As you are wise enough to see.”
It was exactly what Llyr had been thinking. Why, then, did it sound so distasteful aloud? Uncomfortable, he glanced away from the captain, his gaze falling on Egan. The bodyguard stood frowning, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”
Egan started and lifted his head, blue hair swinging. “It’s my wife, Majesty. She wasn’t home when I awoke this morning. She does not usually get up so early. I tried to touch her thoughts, but I could not make contact.”
He frowned. “Do you believe something has happened to her, then? Do you wish to search for her?”
Egan hesitated. “No,” he said at last. “I’m sure she simply did not want to speak to me.” Reading the question in Llyr’s gaze, he shrugged. “Our union has hit rough waters of late.”
Bevyn sneered. Llyr knew he’d never liked his brother’s wife, largely because the two fought incessantly. “Most like she’s off with a lover.”
Egan forced a smile. “Mayhap you’re right. Perhaps she’ll be more tolerant of my lapses, then.”
“I doubt it,” Bevyn grumbled.
Llyr lifted a hand, cutting off the conversation. “In the interim, we have another mystery to solve. I would like to find this killer and eliminate her before she does any more damage to Diana’s people.” He’d already made arrangements for his council to assume the reins of the kingdom until his return.
Llyr aimed a thought at his doublet and hose, and it obligingly became one of the suits the mortals were so fond of. As his men made similar transformations, he opened a gate into their hotel room and led the way through.
Diana contemplated the row of budget figures and rubbed the throbbing spot between her eyebrows. South Carolina law required local governments to pass budgets by June thirtieth of each year. She needed to have a proposal put together by next month’s council meeting, but between the murders and amorous fairies, she hadn’t looked at the package all week.
At the moment, something was bugging her about the fire chief’s budget request, but she was damned if she could put her finger on it.
Probably because her thoughts kept wandering to Llyr—the way those drugging kisses had made her head spin, the heat of his thick cock forcing its way into her sex.
And the chill in his eyes when he’d cut her off at the knees this morning.
With a growl of disgust, Diana tossed her pencil down on her legal pad of scribbled figures. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to make some embarrassing mathematical error that would end up in the paper in forty-point type: City Manager’s Figures Don’t Add Up. Implication being that the city manager couldn’t add. Just what she needed on her résumé.
Restlessly, she rose from her desk and walked to the window. Looking out across the parking lot, she could see the city park basketball court where Gerald Bryce had met his murderer.
This morning Diana had yielded to the inevitable and drafted a press release about the killings. The mayor hadn’t been happy about it, but Thompson had known as well as she did that trying to cover up serial killings was the equivalent of holding an orgy in city hall. People were bound to find out, and when they did, they’d be pissed.
Even now, the fax machine was working its way through its programmed list of newspapers and television and radio stations. Any minute, her phone would start ringing like a bookie’s during the Super Bowl.
What the hell was Llyr’s problem?
The thought that had been chugging along in her mental background for hours now suddenly burst to the surface. He’d been so warm and passionate last night, but this morning, he’d practically given her frostbite. Diana would have wondered if he was married if she hadn’t known for a fact he wasn’t.
Okay, she told herself firmly. So he’s a jerk with really good protective coloration. You don’t see him coming until he’s already gone. Who cares? It’s the Burning Moon, you’re horny, you banged him, it’s over. It’s not like you were expecting to live happily ever after with the King of the Fairies. You’re a werewolf, for God’s sake, not Snow friggin’ White.
She rested her forehead against the glass and blinked her stinging eyes. I just expected better of him. Damn him.
Behind her, her desk phone rang. She sighed, lifted her head, and went to deal with the media.
When Llyr moved himself and his ten guards into the hotel, he took no chances. He stationed seven of them in and around the hotel’s lobby and entrances, all in mortal garb.
Meanwhile, he and his core team pushed what passed for the motel room’s furniture out of the way so he could create a magical map of Verdaville in the center of the room. They were discussing the best way to lay a warding spell over it when someone started pounding on the door.
Llyr looked up, frowning as his men instantly went on alert.
“Egan!” a female voice called. “Egan, I must talk to you! Now!”
Bevyn frowned at his brother. “Is that Adsulata? What in the Dragon’s name is she doing here?”
Impatient, Llyr scowled at the lieutenant. “Deal with her, Egan. This is a complicated bit of spell casting. I don’t need hysterical wives distracting me in the middle of it. I’d hate to accidentally turn Diana’s fief into a crater.”
Visibly irritated, the guardsman started for the door. “Adsulata knows better than to interrupt me when I’m on your business, Majesty. I’ll send her back to the palace.”
Llyr, returning his attention to the spell, barely noticed when he walked out.
“All right, what is it?” Egan demanded as he stepped out into the narrow hallway. “And it had best be important.”
Instead of answering, his wife whirled and strode off down the corridor, silken skirts twitching. “Not here. I do not want them to hear what I have to say to you.”
“Cachamwri give me patience,” Egan muttered under his breath. Adsulata’s taste for drama could be tiring. He hurried after her. “My wife, I am on duty! We can discuss whatever is bothering you when I return to the palace.”
“Not this time,” she snapped, throwing open a door and clattering down the cement stairs beyond it.
He gritted his teeth and followed. “Where were you this morning, anyway? When I woke, you were gone.” Egan hit the landing just as she stopped and turned toward him. For the first time, he caught her scent.
And realized the woman before him was not his wife.
Her hand shot toward his ribs. He automatically tried to knock it aside, but even with his guardsman’s reflexes, he was an instant too late for her blurring speed. Something thumped into his ribs.
His eyes widened as he looked down. A jeweled hilt protruded from his chest. Even as he realized he’d been stabbed, the pain hit, a dagger of ice in his heart. Grabbing her wrist, Egan tried to jerk out the stiletto and throw up a healing spell.
Too late. A wave of death magic rolled up the blade, freezing the bellow of warning in his throat even as it ripped his magic from him. Frantically, he tried to send a mental shout to the king, but his power was gone.
As blackness crashed in, the last thing he saw was his killer’s smile. “Your wife died this morning,” she purred, “betraying you.”
Susan watched in satisfaction as Llyr’s guardsman fell dead at her feet, spilling the energy of his life into her mind. It had been much easier than she’d expected.
Ansgar’s power had her consciousness humming like a high-voltage electric line. He’d appeared to her the minute she woke up this evening to suggest the plan and feed
her the image of the guardsman’s wife. She’d been skeptical at first, but the gambit had worked just as he’d promised. Using Adsulata’s guise, she’d been able to approach each of the Sidhe bodyguard patrolling the grounds and lobby. One by one, she’d killed all seven.
There’d been one bad moment when she’d looked around to see the hotel clerk reaching for the phone, no doubt to call 911. A quick fireball had incinerated him before the handset left the cradle.
Now speed was key. She had to kill the Sidhe king before a horde of local law enforcement showed up. Not that they could stop her, but they could certainly complicate her life.
Llyr, however, was a much more serious problem. He was said to be as powerful as his brother. And he did have those remaining guards.
She would need to improve the odds a bit more before she could afford to strike.
Llyr did not look around when the door opened behind him. The architecture for the spell was not cooperating.
“Bevyn? I need your help,” Egan said from the door.
“For Cachamwri’s sake, Egan, just send the bitch home! We do not have time to deal with her histrionics!”
“She won’t leave until she talks to you.”
“Since when does she want anything to do with me?”
“Bevyn, please!”
“Bevyn!” Llyr growled. He’d have the spell if they’d leave him alone for five more minutes. “Tell her whatever she wants, just get rid of her!”
“Aye, Majesty!” The guardsman stalked out to meet his brother. The door snapped shut behind him.
At Llyr’s elbow, Naois said suddenly, “Why didn’t she just gate into the room?”
He glanced up to meet his guard captain’s suspicious gaze. Chill horror slid over him. “Dragon’s Breath!”
But even as the two Sidhe whirled toward the door, they heard a choked scream.
Bevyn.
“Bloody fuck!” Naois cursed as he drew his blade and threw a barrier spell over the door. Even as his magic took hold, something slammed hard into the barrier. He grunted and threw out a hand, sending another spell to reinforce the first. “She’s trying to get through—and she’s strong enough to do it. Gate back to the palace, Majesty!”
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