Serpent's Kiss

FOURTEEN

Rune hissed like a cat. He looked so feral and malevolent, Carling was jolted. She didn’t understand what was going on with him, but the aggression had flared in him again so hot it seemed to drive him with as much ruthlessness as a slave master’s whip. It finally sank in. He was really dangerous in that moment.

Even though his hands had changed, the fingers lengthening and tipped with killing claws, he gripped her shoulders with the same exquisite care as he always did. She was not at all concerned for herself. She knew she was quite safe with him, but she got a searing mental image of Rune and Khalil engaged in battle. If that happened, they would both sustain serious damage.

She cast around for ways to derail the situation. She didn’t see many options. She leaned her forehead against Rune’s chest and muttered to him in a low voice, “Rune, listen to me. This is not okay, and you’re beginning to alarm me. Don’t make me put a spell on you.”

His chest moved. He had taken a deep breath. His arms came around her. You can put any spell on me you want, he whispered in her head.

Aaaaagh, the idiot. She nearly did throw him out the window at that. She didn’t know how, in one moment, she could feel such a strong sense of connection with him, and then in the next feel like she was looking at some alien creature from one of those monster movies he said he loved. If there was ever a time he should not be flirting, it would be now.

What had he called himself? A stupid, crazy, illogical, senseless, rampantly jealous ass. Damn right, he was a stupid ass. . . .

Wait, that wasn’t the relevant part she should remember.

Rampantly jealous. That was the relevant part.

If she had decided to stay in love with him, she might have felt a little pleased about that. She folded her lips tight and drop-kicked the ridiculous pleasure out of her head.

She said, “Khalil?”

“Yes, my dear Carling,” purred the Djinn in a velvet voice that positively oozed sex and sin. “You know I’ll do anything I can for you. Anywhere. Anytime.”

Rune erupted into growling again.

She threw her arms around Rune’s lean waist and locked on to him by gripping her wrists with both hands. He tried to pry her away, but short of hurting her, he couldn’t break her hold. They engaged in a careful, wholly undignified struggle. Carling hissed in the Djinn’s head, Have you gone insane too?

Wyr are so fun to tease when they get like this, said Khalil.

If you tease him any more, I will hurt you. She said aloud, “I’m done with this nonsense. Khalil, tell him what he wants to know or I will.”

Khalil’s bright, malicious smile faded into a scowl. Then something darker came into the Djinn’s crystalline gaze, a raw haunt of memory. Khalil said, “Many years ago, my daughter Phaedra was kidnapped and tortured. Carling agreed to help me rescue her. It was not easy. Carling earned those three favors.”

Rune stilled as the Djinn’s words sank in, and Carling’s tight-locked grip cautiously loosened. “Your daughter,” he said. Children were rare in the Elder Races, and both prized and protected. The crazed, bucking stallion in Rune’s head calmed enough to let in a sliver of rationality. “Did she survive?”

“She’s alive.” Now the Djinn’s expression was like stone. It was clear he would not be speaking further on the subject.

Rune listened, both to what was said and what was not said. It had been a difficult rescue, and if such a Powerful Djinn required help, it had also been a dangerous one. And even though the kidnapping had occurred many years ago, from Khalil’s terse reply it was clear that his daughter had sustained lasting damage of some sort.

Carling patted Rune’s back impatiently. She asked, “All right now?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, “Yeah.”

She let him go and stepped back, and Khalil focused his attention on her. The Djinn asked, “Why have you summoned me?”

“I have a task for you to complete as quickly as you can,” she told him. Khalil inclined his head. “We need for you to retrieve an object, if it exists.”

If the Djinn thought a go-fetch task was a waste of a valuable favor, he didn’t show it. “What do you wish for me to retrieve?”

“It’s a Swiss Army knife,” Rune said. “Specifically it’s a Wenger New Ranger 70 Handyman knife, black handle, about this long.” He demonstrated by holding his forefingers at the appropriate distance apart. “We need to find out if it is buried under the entrance stones of Djoser’s funeral temple in Saqqara.”

Khalil’s strange diamond eyes dropped to Rune’s hands. He said slowly, “That funerary complex has stood for thousands of years.”

Carling’s smile twisted. “I did not say the task would be easy or would make sense to you. And the knife may not be there. We need to know if it is, and we need to know as quickly as possible. The answer is important, Khalil. Do not make a mistake.”

The Djinn’s regal aloof expression had given way to open speculation. He said to Carling, “This will complete the second of the three favors I have owed you for so many years.”

“Yes,” she said.

Khalil inclined his head, all mockery gone. Rune thought he caught a hint of relief in the Djinn’s face before Khalil became the cyclone and disappeared.

Carling looked at Rune, and her mouth pursed. Tap, tap went her foot.

No doubt he should apologize. He knew he wasn’t acting rationally, or normally. His struggle to contain his mating urges was taking its toll, not only on him but on everyone around him. That fine line he was trying not to cross was beginning to cut him, but he could not leave her. Not yet. Even if she had all the help she needed, he wouldn’t be able to leave. He needed however much time they could have together before their separate lives pulled them apart. And he could not confess to his struggle either. He would not place the burden of that on her, not while she had so much else to cope with. He was not Rhoswen, some self-involved unbalanced child.

He cast about for something sane to say. He came up empty.

So he said instead, “That went well, don’t you think?”

She stared then smacked him in the chest, hard, with the back of her hand.

Now that the other male was gone, Rune was able to relax enough to indulge his catlike sense of play. He said, his voice rough and throaty, “I like your penchant for violence.”

A slightly crazed expression came into her eyes. She hit him again, harder.

He knew he deserved it. But it was so much fun, he couldn’t make himself stop. Goddamn, he loved it. He might as well admit it: he loved her. He gave her a sleepy, innocent smile. “What’d I do?”

She pivoted away and appeared to be searching for something. She looked at all the doors. Then she came to some kind of decision, marched to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. He could hear the distinct snick of the lock being turned.

Rune angled his jaw out and rubbed his eyes. Yeah, that went well.

Carling flipped down the toilet seat lid and sat down. She leaned over to put her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. She didn’t try to think. She didn’t want to think. There was too much to think about, too much to feel, and the cacophony in her head was making her demented. She just wanted a little damn privacy.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Slow and even.

Breathing for her might be good for nothing else, but it was a good meditation exercise. It could help one achieve a Zen-like calm. Which Carling needed very much, instead of rampaging around her head and seething about what a jackass somebody was, and what the hell was the matter with Rhoswen, anyway? You would think she was a consumptive eighteen-year-old diva again, treading the boards again in that deplorable, shabby Shakespearean acting company during the California Gold Rush, instead of being a hundred-seventy-year-old woman. . . .

How had she gone so wrong with Rhoswen? What had she done, or not done? What could she have done differently? Had she become so reliant on sensing emotions from living creatures that she never bothered to try to see what lay behind Rhoswen’s smooth facade? She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Stop. Breathe in.

Rhoswen was not a problem Carling had to fix right now. Later—if Carling had a later—she would decide if something needed to be done about the younger Vampyre. Indulging in pettiness and vengeful behavior because her feelings were hurt did not necessarily mean Rhoswen had gone off some kind of deep end. But if it came to it and Rhoswen had, as Rhoswen’s maker, it was Carling’s responsibility to put her down.

And by the way, here was the great big pile of hair Carling had left on the bathroom floor. She nudged the silken pile with a bare toe. Normally she would never walk away for so long from such an abundance of personal matter available that anyone might steal and use to cast a spell on her. Her usual meticulous care was slipping, and that was yet one more vulnerability. She could ill afford acquiring any more of those. . . .

Breathe out, damn it.

“Oh, fuck Zen,” she muttered. “I’ll get enlightened when I die.”

She shoved off the toilet, wrapped the huge pile of hair into a towel, unlocked the bathroom door and strode out.

In the meantime, Rufio personally hand delivered two large Gucci suitcases to the suite. Rune took the luggage from the other man without inviting him in. He kicked the door shut, put the suitcases in the bedroom Carling had chosen and moved on to his next task. While Carling took some alone time, he sat on the couch, dug out his iPod and set it on the coffee table nearby for easy access. Then he turned on his iPhone to go through his messages.

Email? Uh-uh. He didn’t even try to go there. He was just checking his voicemail messages. There were sixty-three. Fifty-four of those messages were from females. He hit delete without listening to those. Eight of the messages were from the other sentinels. They went like this:

Bayne: “So, how’s it going out there working on Team Whack-Job? She got you doing crazy shit yet?”

Crazy shit. Rune snorted. The likes of which you could never have seen coming.

Graydon: “Where are those files you wanted me to look at? I can never figure out the new system on the shared drive, and you promised you’d show me. Call me back when you can.”

No, son. You can figure it out on your own. I have faith in you.

Constantine: “Dude, it’s Friday night, and all the chicks are starting to pile up flowers and teddy bears and candles and shit in front of your door. They’re talking all hushed and tragic, like you might have died, or something. So I’m gonna take a few of them out, you know, just to console them. That set of twins. Thought you’d like to know.”

Rune knew the twins Con was talking about. Take ’em, horn dog.

Graydon: “Just calling back to tell you never mind. I gave up and went to IT, and they showed me how to get the files. Hope you’re having a good weekend.”

And there it is. You figured it out. I knew you could.

Aryal: “You suck.”

Apparently Aryal had just discovered the pile of work he had left on her desk. His grin turned evil. Yeah, I know I do.

Grym: “FYI, I closed the investigation on the incident in Prague. It was an accident, pure and simple, not industrial sabotage. No need to call me back. Just thought you’d like to know.”

Good job, buddy.

Aryal: “You SUCK ASS.”

Rune’s grin turned into a chuckle.

Bayne: “Duuuuuude. You’re listening to these messages and avoiding us, aren’t you? Because with Tiago quitting and now you out of commission, you gotta know how much this hurts.”

Quit your bitching. You’ll live.

The final voicemail message was from Dragos. It was, as Dragos’s messages tended to be, simple and to the point, and devoid of any pleasantries. The dragon growled, “Call me as soon as you can.”

Rune’s smile died away and he sighed. Dragos rarely bothered to pick up the phone, let alone leave a message. It almost never meant anything good. He checked the time stamp on the message, which read Saturday 11:03 a. m. Whatever the issue was, it’d had the chance to ferment for a few days already. At least Dragos hadn’t left a second message, so Rune could hope they hadn’t yet reached Defcon One.

He shook his head and pinched his nose. He just realized he hadn’t heard the news in three days. He located the TV remote and turned the channel with the mute on to CNN. No scenes of a cataclysm sprang immediately to view.

He was just debating whether or not he should return Dragos’s phone call or possibly wait for a less pressured time when Carling stepped out of the bedroom. She hadn’t yet opened her suitcases. She was still wearing the hotel bathrobe and carrying a towel. He watched her walk out onto the balcony. She snapped out the towel and her hair fell. A bright flash filled the air as it caught fire. His hand, still holding the iPhone, lowered to his side. Within an instant, the blaze crumbled to gray dust that blew away on the wind.

Vampyre hair. Huh.

He asked, “Are you speaking to me yet?”

She gave him a grim look. “I haven’t decided.”

Fair enough. Women needed time for these kinds of things. Someone knocked on the suite door again. He answered it.

A stylish brunette woman stood in the hall, along with a pair of bellhops and two clothes racks on wheels. The woman had several packages at her feet. When she caught sight of Rune, her artfully made-up eyes widened, and she smiled.

For the first time in his very long life, Rune was tired of all the relentless female attention. He bit it back and said courteously, “Let me guess. Gia, right?”

“That’s right.”

“You work fast.” He stood back, holding the door wide.

“You did say it was urgent,” Gia said. Her smile widened into a grin. “And prorating the tip according to how fast I got things here turned it into a real emergency.” The brunette stepped across the threshold, gesturing to the bellhops to follow. “Luckily it’s a Monday. I got most of what you wanted, but I’ll have to go pick up a few items, like the jewelry, in person. I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course it is.” Rune pivoted backward on one heel, considering the space in the suite. He noted how Carling’s tight expression had faded into a feminine curiosity, but he thought it best not to smile. He told the shopper, “You’d better put everything in one of the bedrooms.” Since he had already set Carling’s luggage in one bedroom, he pointed to the second one.

“Certainly.” Gia gave Carling a friendly nod as she headed in that direction, bellhops and clothes racks in tow. Rune strolled along behind and stood in the doorway, watching as Gia directed the bellhops to put the racks on opposite sides of the room. Carling joined him, her arms folded. She wore an expression he wasn’t sure he could read. It looked like a combination of lingering anger, curiosity and perhaps the beginning of amusement.

Carling murmured, “This seems excessive. I was expecting one or two outfits.”

He gave her a sidelong smile. “I wanted you to have plenty of choices to try out.”

The shopper said, “It’s very simple: men’s clothing is on the rack to the right, women’s on the left. When you’ve had a chance to go through everything, if there’s anything you need returned, just give me a call. In the meantime, I’ll go out and pick up the jewelry and other things.”

“Jewelry is not necessary,” Carling said.

Gia’s smooth stride hitched. Rune said to the shopper, “Pay no attention to anything this woman says. You are shopping for me, not her. She has no fashion sense or any normal feminine instincts. Jewelry is always necessary.”

Gia gave him a wide-eyed smile over her shoulder.

“Excuse me?” Carling said ominously.

He wasn’t altogether sure, but he thought her real anger might have dissipated. There was a glint lurking in the back of her eyes. How could he have ever thought she had no sense of humor? She was brimming with a kind of guerilla warfare humor that slid along the shadows of a conversation and took aim at the unwary. It delighted him so much he had to swoop in to kiss her sour, puckered mouth. “Don’t sulk,” he told her. “It doesn’t become someone of your age.”

She rolled her eyes even as, he was delighted to note, she kissed him back. “Oh, the age thing? You just had to go there, didn’t you?”

“Just teasing, darling,” Rune said. “I’ve seen you at those inter-demesne functions. You wear classic black Chanel with frightening aplomb. When you’re not wearing those catastrophic muumuus.”

“Catastrophic muumuus?” She began to tap her bare foot again. God, he loved that slender arched, imperious foot. It was so pretty, so tempestuous. He looked at her bare toenails.

“I forgot something,” Rune murmured to Gia. “Pick up half a dozen shades of nail polish when you go out, will you?”

Gia gave him a sidelong, conspiratorial smile. “I took the liberty of ordering a few bottles in different shades when I placed your Guerlain order.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Did you get some Christian Louboutin boots?”

“Did I get some boots,” Gia said. She held up a Saks package that she placed on the bed.

“Outstanding,” said Rune.

“Let me take a wild guess,” Carling said. “You brought boots, jeans and a T-shirt.”

Gia gave her a wide-eyed look. “Well . . . yes, that’s one of the outfits I brought.”

Carling strode into the room. “Fine,” said Carling. “I said I would try something new, and I will. Hand it all over.”

Rune watched in fascination as suddenly Gia and the bellhops revolved around Carling. She redefined every social space she walked into. Goddamn, he thought, I don’t love you a little. I might actually love you a lot.

Gia searched through the rack of women’s clothes, pulled out a pair of jeans and handed them to Carling along with the Saks package containing the boots. “7 For All Mankind skinny jeans, ankle-cut to show off the boots,” Gia explained. “And here’s an asymmetrical silk crepe de chine flared tank top by Behnaz Sarafpour that I thought would go really well with the outfit.”

“Outstanding,” Carling said crisply. She muttered in Rune’s head, Whatever the hell any of that meant. You know I’m only doing this to humor you, don’t you? He covered his mouth to muffle a laugh as she continued aloud, “Lingerie?”

Gia handed her an assortment of silken underwear. Carling swept out of the room with her arms full. She gave Rune a look from under lowered brows as she passed. Then she disappeared into the bedroom she had claimed. A moment later he heard the bathroom door close.

Rune stood aside as Gia and the bellhops came out of the bedroom, and he signed the invoice the shopper gave him, then dug his wallet out of the duffle to tip all of them. Gia tore off his copy of the invoice and scribbled on it. “I’ll go out now to pick up the rest of the things,” the shopper said. “Here’s my cell number. Call me any time, if you need anything.” He took the paper she offered. Gia held on to it for a moment, and met his eyes. “Anything at all.”

“Got it,” said Rune, with a dry smile. “But I am quite sure after you run your errands, you will have gotten us everything we need.”

“Yeah, I figured,” said Gia. “But you can’t blame a girl for trying.”

Carling could blame a girl for trying. She was paying attention, and of course she could hear the conversation in the living room perfectly from the bathroom. She might have been tempted to go out and kick a girl’s ass for hitting on a man who was, to all appearances, with another woman, except she had already shrugged out of the bathrobe, and she was tired of being other people’s karma. That girl didn’t need Carling’s involvement. She would crash someday on a rocky shore of her own making, because that’s what people did, Carling included.

Carling had something much better to do. She looked at the pile of things she had brought in with her and prepared to be entertained.

First, the lingerie.

Oh. Oh my.

Black silk, French-cut knickers that slid over her thighs as light as a lover’s whisper. A matching silk camisole that framed her breasts and emphasized her narrow waist.

Carling swallowed, staring at the beautiful feminine body in the mirror. The lingerie gave her a sexy look in an entirely classy way. She turned away from the sight and picked up the jeans. Here’s where she could start to chuckle.

But as she slid her legs into the jeans, the denim felt butter-soft and pliable. As she secured the fastening at her waist, they molded to her like a custom-made leather sheath molding to a hand-forged Spanish steel blade. She twisted, squatted, and lifted each leg sideways, and the butter-soft jeans moved with her easily, like a second skin.

Damn. She might actually love these jeans.

She turned to the black T-shirt with an entirely new respect. She slipped it on, and it flowed over her body, loose yet feminine, with a simple flared shape, a lacy scooped neck, and cut-out shoulder straps.

By the time Carling opened the box containing the boots, she had turned quite thoughtful. And the boots did not disappoint. They were Italian-made, calf-length black suede with wraparound straps and buckles at ankles and the arches. The heels were nearly four inches in height, and the soles were fire-engine red.

She stood straight and stared down her legs at the boots. She felt very tall, with every curve on her body exposed. She looked in the mirror. A flirtatious, fashionable, feminine, young-looking, big-eyed stranger looked back.

The woman in the mirror looked . . . Fun?

That couldn’t be right. Carling had never been fun in her life.

She shook her head. “I don’t know who the hell you are,” she told the woman in the mirror. “But you look mighty cute.”

Rune called out, “What did you say?”

“I’m not sure about this,” she said as she walked out of the bathroom. “It’s been very amusing, but—”

Rune was already in the bedroom, clad in black.

Carling jerked to a stop so abruptly she nearly fell off her boots.

He was standing in profile by the bed, in the process of buttoning up what looked to be a hand-stitched shirt that molded to his powerful, lean muscled torso. Clothes hangers and tags littered the top of the nearby dresser. The black highlighted his bronzed skin, and the rich coppery and gold highlights in his hair. The chic cut to the linen trousers emphasized his long, graceful legs. A matching suit jacket hung off the bedroom doorknob. No matter how deplorably he dressed, nothing could disguise the fact that he was already elegantly made and handsome, but these clothes lent him an air of sophisticated severity that came so far out of left field she felt sucker punched all over again.

Her mouth worked. It might be time to say something again. Was it her turn in the conversation? She couldn’t remember.

“Uh,” she said.

“What’s wrong, darling? Are the boots not comfortable?” Rune asked. He turned toward her, frowning, and his eyes widened. “Well, I knew it had to be good,” he murmured. “The reality is so much better than I imagined.”

“You, um,” she said.

“I, what?” He bent to pick up something at his feet. It was another shopping bag.

“You didn’t dress the way you usually do.”

“I wanted to look nice for you.” He walked toward her, his big swordsman’s body flowing like a panther’s.

He had thrown away his T-shirt and dressed up for her. Her voice came out all husky and wrong, as she accused, “You said you were going to buy yourself new jeans.”

“I did that too,” Rune said. He stopped in front of her and let his gaze travel down the length of her body. A quiet smile touched the corners of his well-cut mouth.

Before she knew it, she heard herself ask, “What do you think?”

“I love it,” he said. “But the important question is, what do you think? Do the boots fit? Is the outfit comfortable?”

“It is, actually.” She scratched her fingers through her strange, short hair. “I’m just surprised. This isn’t what I was expecting.”

His gaze searched hers. “Do you like it?”

She looked down at herself as well. “I do. I’m not sure it’s me though.”

“It can be you if you want it to be,” said the tempter from the Garden of Eden. “Sometimes, you know, as a mood thing.” He held up a finger. “Wait, don’t make up your mind yet. We’re not done.”

She pursed her lips. “What do you mean, we’re not done?”

His eyes smiled into hers. “Humor me for a while longer. Please? It won’t hurt. It’s just for fun. And this time it’s not even wicked or bad,” said the voice of original sin. “And you might even like it as well.”

Fun. There was that word again, that incomprehensible, three-letter word. His eyes were so warm and inviting, as warm as his body, and more compelling than any fire. It was so easy to indulge him when he coaxed, she found herself smiling back. “Whatever. Just, fine.”

“Thank you, Carling,” he murmured. He kissed her lightly and took her by the hand, and she found herself going back into the bathroom with him. He coaxed her into sitting on the counter. Then he dumped the contents of the shopping bag onto the counter beside her. She looked down at a pile of Guerlain cosmetics and burst out laughing.

Rune opened up a palette of eye color and held it up to her face, considering. He nodded and set it aside.

“You’ve got to be joking,” she said.

Next he opened a blusher compact, held it up to her face, and considered again. He squinted an eye, shrugged then set the blusher aside.

“Rune,” Carling said, staring at him. She had no words to describe the incredulity she felt.

“What?” He gave her that sleepy, dangerous smile. “You said you’d humor me,” he said. “So humor me.”

Carling said, “But I have phone calls to make.”

“Seremela is on her way, the Djinn is working on his task, and any phone calls that need to be made can wait fifteen minutes.” As she struggled to find some argument, Rune raised an eyebrow. “Am I right?”

She heaved a put-upon sigh, because really, sometimes there was just no other way to communicate something.

“I know,” he soothed as he opened a packet containing a sable brush. “High-heeled boots, jeans and now this. It’s all so very hard to take.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered.

“Hush. Now close your eyes.”

Then, because humoring him for fifteen minutes would be much faster than arguing with him, she did just that. After all, it wasn’t as if she had never worn makeup before. She had worn makeup countless times. During the Roman Empire, she’d had a cosmetae just for the purpose of putting on her cosmetics. She had worn her face and hair powdered in the Rococo style, in mid-eighteenth-century France. She had grown to find the canvass of her own face so utterly boring she had walked away from all of it long ago.

But for Rune to take such a ludicrous notion into his head, to do this here, now. It turned something that had become old, cynical and eventually tedious into something utterly strange, erotic and somehow touching.

She gripped the edge of the counter with both hands in the effort to hold still as he made love to her face. He stroked brushes over her sensitive skin. He prompted her to tilt her head with a featherlight touch of fingers and barely audible murmur. She felt the heat of his body burn against the outside of her knee as he leaned his hip against her leg. She smelled the scent of his arousal as she listened to the sound of his unhurried breathing and the light shift of cloth against skin when he moved.

It was clear that he had no agenda of seducing her into sex, and none of it felt like objectification. He merely enjoyed her, and it was such a new experience it threw her back to that first new experience, that terrifying time when she was made up with kohl, green malachite and red ochre so that she could seduce a god. How strange, that something that happened so long ago could still have the power to fill her eyes with tears.

Or maybe that was just Rune, reawakening her soul.

And she let him.

“Purse your lips,” Rune murmured.

She did, and he kissed her mouth with soft lipstick. She opened her eyes the merest sliver to look at his quiet, intent face. The light from over the bathroom mirror shone in his eyes and filled them with light. He put a forefinger under her chin to hold her in place as he studied her.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m done.”

She opened her eyes. They stared at each other. His gaze dilated, fixed totally on her. He wiped the edge of her lower lip with the corner of his thumb, and breathed, “‘She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that’s best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes.’ Darling, you have always been gorgeous but now you are now officially the shit.”

One corner of her mouth trembled, and lifted. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” he said, and his voice was lower, rougher than it had been before. He pulled her off the counter and turned her to face the mirror, and once again, she stared at herself. She ignored her own features to concentrate on the deft delicacy with which he had enlarged her eyes, emphasized the high cheekbones, and brightened her full mouth. He had not put a single brush stroke wrong. She looked bright and beautiful, and she glowed like a cherished woman.

Cherished.

She leaned back against his chest. He put his arms around her. Their eyes met again in the mirror, that elegant dangerous Rune and the strange new woman, and the impact of the connection was as raw as when Paris and Helen first looked into each others’ eyes and brought a world of gods and men to war.

Or maybe that was just the cyclone that roared into the bathroom to coalesce into the tall figure of a haughty prince.

Carling and Rune both turned as one to look at Khalil.

The Djinn held out his hand. On the broad white palm lay a black, half-crushed length. Time had corroded it so badly it was barely recognizable as a knife.