He kissed each eyelid with such gentleness she found her eyes stinging with unshed tears.

“You make me vulnerable.” She didn’t know how to be. Not emotionally vulnerable anyway. She could deal with physical vulnerability. It came with her job. She could work on being less of that. But emotional stuff?

He tipped her chin so he could look in her eyes. Alarm raced over his features when he saw the tears. “Of course I do. If there weren’t this enormity of feeling and connection between us, you’d easily evade feeling deeply for me. I would never hurt you. Not on purpose. Your heart is safe with me. Don’t you know that?”

She swallowed back the panic and the sob that wanted to escape. Oh gods, she was jealous of a woman who’d died more than two centuries before. What was wrong with her?

“What is it? How can I make it better?”

“The box. The one you just put in your pocket. It was hers, wasn’t it?”

She didn’t need to use a name and he was too grown up to evade or deny.

“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s been part of my home for so long I didn’t think. Are you bothered by it? She’s long gone, Helena.”

“I’ve never really been jealous before. Especially not of a centuries-dead woman. I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed to be so petty. I know you loved her. I don’t expect you to have been a monk before I was even born. I’m just . . .”

He drew the pad of his thumb down her cheek. “Shh. It’s not petty. It’s all right to feel that way. I loved her. She meant something to me and she always will. I can’t deny that or it would shame not only what I had with her, but myself as well. And what I have with you.”

“I don’t expect you to. Honestly, it’s not that you loved her. I understand that. I accept that. I’m just . . .”

“Just what?”

“Not that. Not gentle born. I have weapons calluses. I say bad words and I often come home covered in bruises, cuts and sometimes in a sling. I don’t know how to keep a genteel home for my husband and, well, that’s not me. I can’t be her. I can’t be like her. I’ve never ridden a horse!”

He smiled and kissed her quickly. “You’re you. My amazing female. Brave and strong. Smart. Angry and righteous. Full of love and passion. Protective. I love that. All of it. Lydia was part of my life then. But you’re my life now and forever. The difference is vast. I’d never want you to be anyone or anything but what you are. Because that’s what I love about you. And you don’t need to ride horses. We don’t have the time anyway.”

He brushed the hair back from her face and slid his palm around to cup the back of her neck. It was dominant and tender all at once.

“From the moment I first met you I knew you’d be important to me. We have so much time to build a future. A long, beautiful future. You are brilliant. Magnificent. My match in every way. Do you know what it means to a male like me that you have weapons calluses?” His grin told her all sorts of things and made her tingly.

“I feel like a baby next to you.”

“In some ways I suppose you are. I’m four centuries old. But you’re no naïve baby. You’ve learned powerful and painful lessons. You’re struggling to protect people in a time that most people, even those my age, haven’t had to deal with. You have, to be clichéd for a moment, an old soul.

“It’s not about high-born manners or horses or keeping a house, and I’m sorry if anything I’ve ever done has led you to that conclusion. You stand up for what is just and you do it at great threat and danger. But you do it because it’s who you are. That’s . . . it’s irresistible.”

“You’re so sure of yourself.”

“Not always. But I came up hard. Yes, I am a prince, but all my brothers and I had to serve in battles. Had to come up on our own through the ranks and find our way. Simon came here to escape that destiny. I suppose when I volunteered to come here to help Owen, it was to forge a new path for myself, and there you were. It was meant to be. You and I were meant to be. I can be absolutely sure about that, even as I am just as confused and sent reeling by many other things that happen daily in this new reality Others face.”

“I hate it when things are out of my control.”

“I know. We can get through it together.”

“I’m still difficult and you still can’t borrow my pens, even though you’re exemplary in bed.”

“All right. I can live with that.” He kissed her long and slow until the stress melted away and she felt a lot better. He was way better than her mother’s tea.

“And, by the way, I picked up DVDs of the movies you mentioned. Thunderdome and Mad Max.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Really. Want to watch them in bed?”

“I’ll make popcorn.”

Chapter 18

“YOU need to get out. It’s one night. A few hours. Helena, it’s been how long since you’ve done something that didn’t involve shooting, getting shot at or blown up?” Marian, one of Helena’s right-hand people and a good friend, poked at her.

Helena couldn’t help smiling as she thought about some of her recent recreational activities with Faine. “I do okay.”

“Okay, but you can do that when you get home. You’ll be sweaty and relaxed. Plus, well, it’s good for the Others community to see us out and about. We get to have a damned life too.”

Wild Darkness was a fun club. Or it used to be. Helena hadn’t gone in at least a year and a half. Part of it been that she and the ex had gone out there on a regular basis. The rest had been her life getting so busy that going out and shaking her ass had fallen to the bottom of her to-do list.

“Hell, ask Faine to come along.”

“Ask me to come along where?” Faine wandered into the room looking good enough to lick. She figured having more access to him now that they lived together would ease her need of him at least a little. But that wasn’t the case. The more time she spent with him, the more she wanted.

“I was just trying to talk Helena into coming out tonight with me and some of the others from the Hunter squad. There’s a dance club, it’s run by Others.” Marian shrugged. “It would be a good sign if people saw her out.”

Faine searched her face for a signal, but she could tell, given his posture change, that he thought it was a good idea. It probably was.

She smiled at him and he nodded. “I’m in. I mean, if I don’t have to manage some new crisis between now and tonight.”

Marian beamed his way. “I’ll see you both in a few hours. Don’t let her wear something frumpy. She’s got great legs.”

Faine raised a brow. “Oh, I’m very aware of Helena’s legs.”

“I don’t own anything frumpy!”

“Okay, so don’t wear anything elegant but so long I can’t even see your knees.”

“I’ve been dressing myself appropriately in social situations for a little while now. I think I can manage.”

Marian just laughed as she left Helena’s office.

Once they were alone she sighed. “Good gods. We don’t have to go for a long time or anything.”

He crowded her and she secretly loved it. “Oh, beautiful witch, I’m going to watch you move all night long. And then I’m going to strip you naked and show you how much it makes me want to love every inch of you.”

He was so good at that. All that sexy talk that turned her knees rubbery.

“You do have really great legs. I’m undecided, though, if I want anyone else to see that. Maybe you can go dancing in a long dress instead.”

She laughed. “I’d get caught up in all the material around my legs. I need to move. Plus, well, she threw down the gauntlet with that frumpy comment. I have to wear something totally fabulous.” Which, knowing Marian, was what she intended from the start.

Because they were alone, he dipped down, brushing his mouth over hers. “If you dance like you fuck, I’m going to be hard all night long.”

“I don’t know if I do or not. You’ll have to tell me afterward.”