“I’m not as young as you think,” he said instead. Fuck it, he’d aged about a billion years in the last four months.

“And you are not as old as you believe. But that is another conversation for a different time.”

“I’m not looking for a therapist.”

“Which is a shame. I’m rather good at getting into the heads of others.”

Yeah, Lash could see that. “This target of yours. Is it a male or a female.”

“Would it matter?”

“Not in the slightest.”

The symphath positively beamed. “It is a male. And as I said, there are unusual circumstances.”

“How so?”

“He will be difficult to get to. His private guard is rather fierce.” The king floated over to a window and looked out. After a moment, his head turned as an owl’s would, rotating on the spine until it was nearly facing backward, and then his white eyes flared red for a moment. “Do you think you can handle such a penetration?”

“Are you a homo?” Lash blurted.

The king laughed. “You mean, do I prefer lovers of my same sex?”

“Yeah.”

“Would that make you uncomfortable?”

“No.” Yes, because it would mean that he kinda sorta had the hots for a guy who swung that way.

“You don’t lie very well,” the king murmured. “But it will come with age.”

Fuck that. “And I don’t think you’re as powerful as you think you are.”

When the sexual speculation disappeared Lash knew he’d hit a sore spot. “Beware the waters of confrontation-”

“Spare me the two-bit, fortune-cookie bullshit, Your Highness. If you were filling out that robe with a good set of balls, you’d get rid of this guy yourself.”

Serenity returned to the king’s face, as if Lash had just proven his inferiority with the outburst. “Yet instead I’m having someone else take care of it for me. Far more sophisticated, although I don’t expect you to understand that.”

Lash dematerialized right in front of the guy and locked his palms around that slender throat. With a single, brutal thrust, he forced the king up against the wall.

Their eyes locked, and as Lash felt a probe into his mind, he instinctively shut the entryway through his frontal lobe.

“You’re not unlocking my trunk there, asshole. Sorry.”

The king’s stare grew red as blood. “No.”

“No what?”

“I do not prefer lovers of my own sex.”

It was the perfect shoe to drop, of course: the implication being that Lash was staying close because he was the one who liked cock out of the pair of them. He let go and stalked around.

The king’s voice was now less snakelike and more factual. “You and I are rather well matched. I believe we shall both get what we want from this alliance.”

Lash turned and faced the guy. “This male, the one you want dead, where do I find him.”

“The timing must be correct. Timing…is everything.”

Rehvenge watched Ehlena put her clothes back on, and though getting her back into that uniform wasn’t exactly what he wanted, the show of her bending over and slowly smoothing her stockings up her leg wasn’t half-bad.

Not. At. All.

She laughed as she picked her bra up and twirled it around her finger. “Can I put this on now?”

“Absolutely.”

“You going to make me take my time again?”

“I just figured there was no rush on the hose.” He smiled like the wolf he was feeling like. “I mean, those things run, don’t they-Oh, fuck me…”

Ehlena didn’t wait for him to finish talking, but arched her back and pulled the bra around her torso. The little shimmy she worked as she reclasped it in the front made him pant…and that was before she drew the straps over her shoulders, leaving the cups wedged under her breasts.

She came over to him. “I’ve forgotten how to work it. Can you help?”

Rehv growled and pulled her in close, sucking one nipple into his mouth and working the other with his thumb. Just as she gasped, he flipped the cups into place.

“I’m glad to be your lingerie engineer, but, you know, it looked better off you.” As he jogged his eyebrows at her, her laugh was so free and easy his heart stopped. “I like that sound.”

“And I like making it.”

She stepped into her uniform and pulled it up and then fastened its buttons.

“Pity,” he said.

“You want to know something silly? I wore this even though I don’t have to go to work tonight.”

“Did you? Why?”

“I wanted to keep things professional, and yet here I am, thrilled that it didn’t work out that way.”

He stood up and took her into his arms, not worried at all about being totally naked now. “Count me in on the thrilled part.”

He kissed her softly, and as they parted, she said, “Thank you for a lovely evening.”

Rehv tucked her hair behind her ears. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Working.”

“When do you get off?”

“Four.”

“Be here?”

She didn’t pause. “Yes.”

As they walked out of the bedroom and through the library, he said, “I’m going to see my mother now.”

“You are?”

“Yeah, she called me and asked to see me. She never does that.” It felt so right to be sharing details of his life. Well, some of them, at any rate. “She’s been trying to make me more spiritual, and I’m hoping this isn’t a bid to get me on some kind of retreat.”

“What do you do, by the way? For work?” Ehlena laughed. “I know so little about you.”

Rehv fixated on the view of the city over her shoulder. “Oh, a lot of different things. Mostly in the human world. I have only my mother to take care of, now that my sister is mated.”

“Where’s your father?”

In the cold grave, where the fucker belonged. “He’s passed.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ehlena’s warm eyes made a shot of what sure as shit felt like guilt go through his chest. He didn’t regret killing his old man; he was sorry that he was obscuring so much from her.

“Thanks,” he said stiffly.

“I don’t mean to pry. About your life or your family. I’m just curious, but if you’d prefer-”

“No, it’s just…I don’t talk about myself much.” Wasn’t that the truth. “Is that…is that a cell phone ringing?”

Ehlena frowned and broke away. “Mine. In my coat.”

She loped off into the dining room, and the tension in her voice as she answered was apparent. “Yes? Oh, hi! Yeah, no, I-Now? Of course. And the funny thing is I won’t need to go change into my uniform because-Oh. Yes. Uh-huh. Okay.”

He heard the phone clip shut as he got to the dining room’s archway. “Everything all right?”

“Ah, yeah. Just work.” Ehlena came over while pulling her coat on. “It’s nothing. Probably just staffing stuff.”

“You want me to drive you over?” God, he would love to take her to work, and not just because they could be together a little longer. A male wanted to do things for his female. Protect her. See to her-

Okay, what the fuck? It wasn’t that he didn’t like the thoughts he was having about her, but it was as if someone had switched his CD. And no, it wasn’t to Barry fucking Manilow.

Although there was definitely some Maroon 5 on the bitch now.

Bleh.

“Oh, I’ll just go, but thank you.” Ehlena paused in front of one of the sliding doors. “Tonight has been such…a revelation.”

Rehv stalked up to her, took her face in his hands, and kissed her hard. When he pulled back, he said darkly, “Only because of you.”

She beamed then, glowing from within, and abruptly he wanted her naked again just so he could come inside of her: The marking instinct was screaming in him, and the only way he could placate it was by telling himself he’d left enough of his scent on her skin.

“Text me when you get to the clinic so I know you’re safe,” he said.

“I will.”

One last kiss and she was through the door and off into the night.

As she left Rehvenge’s, Ehlena was flying, and not just because she was dematerializing across the river to the clinic. To her, the night wasn’t cold; it was fresh. Her uniform wasn’t wrinkled from having been tossed on a bed and rolled around upon; it was artfully disheveled. Her hair wasn’t a mess; it was casual.