You can call the boy to you, there’s still time, Aziel told her, words in her mind rather than a voice. They can’t keep him from answering if you do. But Aisling shook her head. She’d been young enough then to fantasize about being reunited with her mother and father, as if she’d somehow been lost instead of abandoned.

He’s happy to be with his parents.

Is that what you want to tell his uncle and aunt?

Yes.

And that’s what she’d done, only realizing later-after the happy images from the ghostland were replaced by the stricken, haunted expressions of the boy’s aunt and uncle-that by her choice she’d left them to finish what the water had been kept from doing.

The mattress shifted beneath Aisling. She opened her eyes to find Ryker lying down. Draven knelt beside him, the knife still in his hand. Both of them were looking at her, waiting for her.

There’d be no circle, not with a death required. She crawled to Ryker’s opposite side and took his hand in hers, wove her fingers through his.

“When Ryker returns, he’ll be in the grip of bloodlust,” Draven said, radiating complete confidence, as if there were no doubt about the outcome. “Leave the room immediately. There’s an escort waiting outside the door to take you to your quarters. Remain there until Thaddeus’s servant arrives before dawn to take you home. You’re ready?”

The tightness in Aisling’s throat made speech impossible. She barely had time to nod before there was a flash of silver and a sharp cry of pain as Draven drove the knife through Ryker’s chest and pierced his heart.

She was jerked into the spiritlands with the same abruptness as when Elena forced the Ghost trip on her. Only the gray fog immediately parted to reveal a dock, a sailboat swarming with partially dressed men and women.

“Ryker!” they yelled, in unison and apart. “You’re here! Come on!”

Ryker’s laugh poured over Aisling, carefree and happy. He seemed unaware of their interlocked hands as he hurried toward the boat, dragging her with him.

For an instant she wavered, let him draw closer to his friends. He was almost to the dock before a sense of urgency made her dig her heels in and say his name.

Ryker faltered. She called him again and he started to turn away from his friends.

A woman on the boat shed her wrap to reveal tanned skin and a model’s body. An equally gorgeous man moved to her side and slid his arm around her bare waist. “Come on, Ryker! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what it’s like. Sail with us.”

This time Ryker’s laugh was masculine and appreciative. “How can I say no?”

He jerked Aisling forward with renewed determination to reach the boat. “What about Draven?” Aisling said, desperate to get his attention as they reached the wood of the dock. “Draven’s waiting for you. He’s expecting you to come back to him.”

Ryker faltered again. He turned toward her. His eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. The voices from the boat grew more demanding.

Aisling wished the fog of the ghostlands would block the sailboat and silence the voices-and as if hearing her call, the spirit winds came in a breeze that sent Ryker’s hair and her own dancing until a shroud of gray was wrapped around them.

The confusion slowly faded from Ryker’s eyes. As it did, Aisling said, “You wanted me to take you back to Draven.”

Ryker’s hand went to his chest, where the knife’s blade had left only a small deadly wound. He glanced down and took in his nakedness, then hers. The infectious smile returned. “Another first. Draven will be sorry he wasn’t included. He has a decided preference for blondes. Shall we return?”

“Yes,” Aisling said, and the ghostland cocoon expelled them.

Aisling scrambled from the bed and ran to the bedroom door. Behind her came the sound of thrashing, curses.

She opened the door and was immediately grabbed and pulled through it by one of the vampires stationed in the hallway. Even if she’d been tempted, there was no chance to look back.

The door shut. A second vampire moved to stand guard.

“This way,” the one who’d pulled her from the room said.

Aisling followed him to a suite like something out of a magazine depicting the lives of the rich. A large-screen television took up a great part of one wall, in an area with a couch and chairs. In the next room a huge canopied bed was placed in the center, amid plants and flowers of all descriptions.

Beyond the bedroom was a bathroom with a sunken tub. She touched the sparkling faucets and couldn’t resist the idea of submerging herself in heated, bubble bath-infused waters.

Aisling stripped as the tub filled. When her fingers brushed over the fetish pouch, her thoughts went to the woman who might have given birth to her before becoming a vampire. She opened the pouch and removed a single fetish-the one representing her most powerful protector, the being she was beginning to think was demon-her father.

Unlike the others, most of which were made of bone, the one she examined was clear crystal, with no shape other than the one she’d found it in on the day Aziel led her to it. The being it represented was the only entity she could call upon who wasn’t bound by the spiritlands-though Aziel had warned her more than once that the cost of saying the name and summoning her guardian was beyond any she could imagine paying.

Ice slid through Aisling’s veins. Was he so frightening? Was the place he called home so terrifying that becoming vampire was preferable? Or was the woman Draven and Ryker spoke of an unknown sister, a cousin or aunt?

Aisling returned the crystal to the pouch and got into the tub. She let the heated water and luxurious bubbles turn her mind away from answers she might never have, questions that might cost too much to ask.

Zurael’s image rose in her thoughts. With it came memories of what they’d done together when they shared a bath.

Aisling closed her eyes and glided bubble-slick hands over her breasts. Her nipples firmed as she imagined that her palms and fingers were Zurael’s, stroking, admiring, bringing pleasure.

Desire made her cunt clench in reaction. In her mind’s eye she saw the two of them standing in front of the bathroom mirror, saw his wings unfold behind them as he pierced her with his cock.

Demon. And she was helpless against the need he inspired in her.

She abandoned a breast, smoothed downward to swollen cunt lips and an erect clit. Hidden by bubbles, her toes curled as sweet sensation spiked through her when she rubbed the tiny bared head, slipped her fingers into her slit.

A moan escaped as she forged in and out of her channel, slowly at first, savoring the fantasy that it was Zurael’s tongue, Zurael’s penis. Then faster, even though she knew the ecstasy would never rival what his touch did to her.

IT was nearing dawn when Zurael finally tired of pacing the confines of Aisling’s house. Hours had passed since he got back from The Barrens. It felt like a lifetime.

He’d thought spending the darkness in the owl’s form, searching as he’d done before, would ease his worries for Aisling and make her absence more palatable. It did neither.

Once again he picked up the note she’d written, examined it for clues as to who’d come to claim the debt she owed. It didn’t escape him that only her physical safety was guaranteed.

A shudder passed through him when he considered what might happen to her in the spiritlands. When she got back-

His cock answered for him with a sharp pulse.

Zurael shed his clothing and escaped to the shower. He couldn’t afford to lose control when she returned.

Water cascaded over heated flesh. A moan escaped when he took himself in hand.

When he’d returned the first time to find the note, he’d known only misery waited for him between the sheets of Aisling’s bed without her there. And so he’d flown. He’d hunted through the night and tried desperately to avoid the truth of his misery.