The tea steeped while he rummaged through the cabinet. He retrieved a can of peaches and placed it on the counter, then removed the tea ball and added honey before taking the mug to Aisling.

There were shadows under her eyes, a frailty to her features that made him want to gather her up in his arms and take care of her. He cupped his hands around hers to steady them as he helped her carry the mug to her lips.

His thoughts visited the House of the Spider and the tea he’d taken with Malahel and Iyar. He pictured Malahel’s crystal altar and the stones he’d tossed, how Aisling’s angelite had been touched by powerful forces as well as humans and angels. He’d assumed the dark stones represented beings in the spiritlands, but they could just as easily have represented powerful Djinn.

Ravens were spirit travelers like Aisling. They flew in the place where Djinn souls waited to be guided back and reborn, while Aisling walked the ghostlands created by human death and belief.

Spiders saw how the past, present and future weaved together. They worked the threads in subtle alterations that could change the entire design.

He wondered if Malahel and Iyar had known how quickly his mind would join his body in wanting her. If they’d sent him here for a reason beyond retrieving the ancient tablet.

Aisling sighed and lowered the mug to rest on her lap. His hands remained cupped around hers, trapping hers between the tea’s heat and his own.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “I’ll be okay as soon as the tea and honey kick in.”

Zurael left her long enough to open the can of peaches and put them in a bowl. He cursed himself for a fool as he knelt in front of her, picking up a peach slice with his fingers and holding it to her lips.

Her eyes opened to find his. A delicate blush of uncertainty washed over her cheeks as she accepted his offering.

His cock jerked in reaction to the touch of her tongue against his fingers. Lust burned through his veins.

She took a second slice, and a third. Her tongue lingered, gliding over his skin in pursuit of the peach juice. Her lips closed on his fingers briefly when he offered her a fourth piece.

He fought against the urge to pick her up and carry her from the room. It was easy to picture her naked, her lips on his cock, sucking it into the wet heat of her mouth.

Slice by slice he fed her the peaches. He watched her eyes grow dark with need and felt his own hunger grow as each piece left his fingers.

When the bowl was empty, he placed it on the floor then took the tea mug from her unresisting fingers and set it aside, too. Her eyes met his. Her lips parted in invitation.

With a low moan, he leaned in, desperate for the taste of her but still in control, still sane enough to keep from ravaging her mouth and sharing his spirit with her.

He pressed kisses along her jawbone before traveling to her ear. Panted when her fingers slipped through the opening of his parted vest and splayed across his bare chest.

She whimpered when he sucked on her lobe. She shuddered against him when his tongue traced the delicate shell of her ear before sliding into the sensitive canal.

“Zurael,” she whispered, her voice stroking over him and making him hungry for the feel of skin against skin.

He jerked when her fingers found his tiny nipples. The muscles of his abdomen rippled as he fought the urge to take her hands in his and move them downward to his erection.

Elena’s cries grew sharper in the next room. Her scream of orgasm cleared Zurael’s mind with the suddenness of a dive into an icy stream.

He stepped back, breathing hard, unable to look away from Aisling’s parted lips and soft, angelite-colored eyes.

The intensity of his need to protect her, to merge his body and soul with hers, was almost beyond bearing. He took another step backward, away from Aisling, though he feared no distance would be far enough to keep him from imagining them naked together and writhing in pleasure.

He glanced across the counter and saw Elena fumbling with her clothing. Her eyes were still closed, but her movements warned she’d returned from the ghostlands.

Zurael held the image of the serpent in his mind. He was glad to shift into its shape and escape the deadly temptation of Aisling.

Aisling picked up the discarded dishes, then rose to her feet. The light-headedness caused by loss of blood was gone, but in its place panicked confusion reigned.

She didn’t recognize herself when Zurael touched her. She had no will to resist him, no desire other than to find pleasure in his arms.

Aisling shivered as she looked at the serpent coiled in her kitchen. His golden eyes followed her movements as she placed the dishes in the sink. His long, forked tongue flicked in and out.

She turned her head as images of him kissing her ear, assaulting it with a human tongue, sent a wave of longing straight to her swollen labia. Her panties were wet with arousal, and in the serpent’s form he’d taste the scent of it.

Was she tempted by him because she was meant to be? Or because he was a demon of hell and demons were said to use temptation in order to lure humans to their doom?

Unconsciously her hand went to the place where her shirt hid the small pouch containing the fetishes and onyx pentacle. He’d come to kill her, but he’d said she was safe from him as long as she didn’t summon him again.

He had no reason to seduce her. Her soul and her life were already in peril.

Zurael’s untouched mug sat on the counter. She fished the tea ball out and poured the tea into a pan. As it warmed on the stove she forced her thoughts away from the demon and onto the task ahead of her.

In the living room Elena rolled to her side. Her eyes fluttered open.

For a few seconds they remained unfocused. When they cleared, she sat up and casually closed her jacket, uncaring and unconcerned about what she’d done, what she’d risked for her pleasure.

Aisling banked her anger. She poured the tea. A lifetime of hiding her thoughts and emotions from anyone outside her family made it easy for her to take her seat on the couch as though the trip to the spiritlands had cost her nothing.

“This will help,” Aisling said, offering the mug of tea after Elena reclaimed the chair she’d been sitting in earlier.

Elena took the mug. She trembled slightly as her attention shifted to the serpent gliding into the room, menace radiating along his patterned length.

This time Zurael didn’t join Aisling on the sofa. He slid up the wooden leg of the coffee table and coiled himself on its surface within easy striking range of Elena.

Aisling used the fear she read in Elena’s eyes to make a point. “It’s dangerous to go into the spiritlands without proper protections.”

Elena’s gaze skittered up to meet hers, then immediately returned to the deadly snake. She licked her lips nervously but ignored the warning. “I was Ghosting. That’s why I don’t remember leaving the club or being at the black mass. I had to be sure you’d understand. I had to know if what I heard about you was true.”

Aisling’s heart jolted. It was her turn to feel a tremor of fear.

Like all the supernaturally touched children left abandoned on Geneva McConaughey’s doorstep, Aisling never talked about her skill as a shamaness. She rarely used her talents openly. Until the guardsmen and Father Ursu arrived, she’d never gone into the spiritlands on behalf of someone she didn’t trust or who hadn’t been vouched for by someone she trusted.

“What have you heard?” Aisling asked, leaning forward, anxious, though some of her worry disappeared when Aziel emerged from the shaman’s workroom and scampered over to settle on her lap.

“I overheard Father Ursu talking with Luther about you being able to guide a Ghost trip,” Elena said.

Relief poured into Aisling. They may have mentioned her by name but they could have been talking about any shaman or shamaness. She had no formal training, no reason to think another gifted with shamanic ability couldn’t do what she’d done.