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"Oh, thank God you&039;re there," Selena said in Sunshine&039;s ear as soon as Sunshine answered the phone "Where have you been? I&039;ve been ringing the phone off the hook all day long trying to reach you I know you can never find the dairl I&039;ve been so worried that I was about to head over there and see if you were okay or if this unknown guy had murdered you in your loft" Selena finally took a breath in the midst of her tirade "Please telloff her paint-stained hands while she cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, Sunshine smiled at Selena&039;s concerned voice and her one He had to go meet some friends"

"Well, what tio"

"Sunshine!"

"What?" she asked in feigned innocence

"Oh, honey," Selena gasped, "don&039;t tellParcheesi or so"

Sunshine bit her lip as she re It et to the Parcheesi, but we did it on the backgammon table a couple of times And on the couch, the kitchen counter, the floor, the coffee table, and-"

"Oh, my God, TMI-way tooabout this"

"Nope, not a bit I&039;uy had it all"

Selena groaned "What were you thinking? You justco so so stupid "It&039;s so not like me, but I couldn&039;t help rabspast the Frostbyte Cafe and et a triple scoop of Ben and Jerry&039;s Chunky Monkey"

That was her one major vice Sunshine had never been able pass up Chunky Monkey

"The power of temptation was just too much, Selena I couldn&039;t resist it He was a Chunky Monkey container and all I could think was, &039;Sorief," Selena said

"Yeah It eird I was here, he was here, and then he said, &039;Let&039;s do it,&039; and the next thing I knew, the spoon was in usted noise "Please tella spoon"

Sunshine smiled devilishly "No, no spoon, but there was a whole lot of licking going on"

"Oh, oh, oh! You&039;re killing hed "I can&039;t stop myself He was so hot that I feel this deep need to share his spectacular hotness with you"

Selena snorted at her "Are you at least going to see hiet his last name"

"Sunshine! Girl, you are nuts"

"Yeah, I know It was just a once-in-a-lifetih? He didn&039;t hurt you or anything?"

"Oh no, not at all It was the best day of my life Freaky, ain&039;t it?"

"Ah jeez, Sunny I can&039;t believe you did this You&039;ve been hanging around all those weird friends of yours soho you know, you&039;ll be dancing naked on tabletops Oh wait, that was hed "Don&039;t worry It&039;ll never happen again You know me, I do date occasionally, but I usually spend at least a few noruy before we rock the house down Of course, no one ever rocked uy did He leveled the mother to its foundations"

Selena shrieked "I can&039;t believe you keep telling st in Selena&039;s voice as she continued to tease her "I can&039;t believe I spent the day in bed with this guy, but I&039;d do it again in a heartbeat I&039;hteen hours of my life"

"Jeez, you didn&039;t even know him a whole day?"

"Well, I know him now Every last yummy inch of him By the way, he had a lot of inches"

"Stop it, Sunny," Selena begged, her voice cracking with laughter "I can&039;t take any more I don&039;t need to know the sexual athlete of all ti around New Orleans and I&039;hed again "Well, Bill is nice, in a very Bill sort of way"

"Oh gee, thanks, now you&039;re ripping on uy was really, really great" Sunshine, dragging the heavy, psychedelic phone in her wake, crossed the kitchen toward her fridge to get soh there was a part of her that was extremely sad Talon had left

He really had been a lot of fun and not just in the bed, or on the floor, or on the other five thousand places where they&039;d had sex He&039;d been fun to talk to too

Best of all, he hadn&039;t lost his patience with her

She opened the fridge, then laughed again

"What?" Selena asked

Sunshine saw Talon&039;s prized Snoopy Pez dispenser standing up, looking straight at her She couldn&039;t believe it

So that hat he&039;d been doing in the fridge while she was in the shower No wonder he had looked uncoht him

How adorable

"A, he left me his Snoopy Pez dispenser on top of the soy cheese"

"What?" Selena asked

"Nothing," Sunshine said, taking the cold plastic toy into her hand "It&039;s an inside joke"

"Oh, don&039;t tellwith the cheese"

"No, we just ate it Jeez, Selena, get yourhas to do with sex"

"Well, with the two of you it does The basis of your whole entire relationship seehteen hours since you met him Does that qualify as a relationship?"

"Believe me, the way he does sex, it counts Besides, he did leave me his Pez dispenser"

"Ooo," Selena teased, "he&039;s bodacious and generous What a guy"

"Hey now, be fair to my bodacious biker It&039;s a valuable Pez dispenser A 1960-so collector&039;s item"

"Yeah, but did he leave you his phone number?"

"Well no, but he did put Snoopy on the top shelf so I would find it"

"Enough said Case closed You&039;re still riding the loser train when Snoopy beco valuable"

"Okay, fine, Selena, you&039;re bringing low It&039;s been ten uy and it&039;ll probably be forever and a day before another one who&039;s not gay darkens o back to here I can bask in the after-greatness of my afternoon"

"Okay, sweetie I&039;ll call you later I was just concerned You go back to work and I&039;ll see you to up the phone and looked down at the Snoopy in her hand She laughed

Talon ht even occasionally screw up and get run down by a Mardi Gras float, but he had been a great guy, and great guys were hard to coe

It was a pity she&039;d never see hiain But then, she wasn&039;t the kind of woman to ood career that she had worked very hard for

A serious relationship with soht now

She liked living alone Loved having the freedoo whenever and wherever she wanted to Her brief e in her early twenties had schooled her well on what a man expected fro that fiasco

Talon had been a fun afternoon diversion, but that was all he was Her life would now go on just as it always had

Her heart lighter at the thought of hihtstand by the bed

Sunshine smiled She&039;d never had a memento before But that&039;s what Snoopy was to her A token reminder of a wonderful day

"Have a nice life, Talon," she said, turning off the light by the bed before she headed back to her work "Maybe soain"

It was just after one awolf&039;s on Canal Street He&039;d tried to tell hiing in and around clubs where drunken hus

He&039;d tried to tell hi his job

But as he looked up at the dark s above the club and wondered if Sunshine was up there in her bed or if she was at her easel painting, he knew better

He was here because of her

Talon cursed under his breath Acheron was right She was inside him in a way no one had been inside of hiet her out of his mind

Over and over, he could feel her Feel her body under his, her breath on his skin Hear the sound of her soft Southern drahispering in his ear

And when she had touched hi from heaven

The physical coiven him this afternoon had touched him profoundly

He&039;d felt welcomed in a way that wasn&039;t sexual

What had she done to him? Why after all these centuries had a wohts?

Even , he knew if he were human, he&039;d be with her now

You&039;re not human

He didn&039;t need the reminder All too well, he knehat he was He liked what he was There was a special kind of satisfaction that ca?"

He tensed at Ceara&039;s voice coht hi"

She appeared beside hiusted breath Why did he bother trying to hide anything frohts?

"Yeah, okay," he admitted reluctantly, "so I wanted to check up on her and see how she&039;s doing"

"She&039;s fine"

"And that really irritates hed at that "You were expecting her to be sad?"

"Of course She should at least have had a "

Ceara clucked her tongue "Poor Speirr You found the only wo the moon and the stars"

He rolled his eyes at her "So ant" She arched a brow and he corrected hiant, but dahts How can she feel nothing?"

"I didn&039;t say she felt nothing, I only said she&039;s not sad"

"So she did feel so"

"Nae," Talon said quickly The last thing he wanted was for Ceara to find out what he and Sunshine had been doing all afternoon

Ceara was naive and he wanted to keep her that way

His sister walked a small circle around his body For soirl, she&039;das she went

Even though she was a young woman before him now, in his heart he always saw her as that chubby little toddler who used to sit on his lap for hours, playing with his braids as she gibbered her baby speech at him

Just like Dere

His stomach clenched at the memory

Ceara hadn&039;t been his only sister Three more had been born between thee five when she perished of the same illness that had claie four

She&039;d gone out at sunrise, wanting to see the fey folk Talon had teased her with He&039;d told her how he often saw them out theat daybreak while she slept

Only five years old himself, he had heard soht it was his father But as he snuggled back down to sleep, he&039;d realized Dere wasn&039;t in their bed

He&039;d gotten up immediately and rushed out to find her

She had slipped on the rocks along the edge of the cliff that looked out onto the sea where he&039;d told her the fey frolicked in the early dawn&039;s light

He heard her scream and had run as fast as he could

By the ti arot there

She lay below on the rocks with the waves rushing over her

Even now, he could see her lying there Could see the looks on his parents&039; faces when he had awakened them with the news

Worst of all, he could see the accusation in his father&039;s eyes

Neither of his parents had ever uttered the words aloud, but in his heart he knew they had blamed him for it

Not that it mattered He blamed himself He always had

It hy he had been so protective of Ceara and Tress Why he had been so deterest sister

Tonight, he saw a hesitancy in Ceara&039;s steps

"So, what&039;s the news from the Daimon world?" he asked her

Ceara paused "How did you know?"

"You&039;ve been strangely quiet tonight It&039;s not like you to stay hidden while I hunt unless you&039;re conferring with the others"

Her eyes gloarmly "I never could hide from you" She wrapped her arms around herself "There was talk There is a force here One not Daihoul, demonic? What?"

"No one see the source of it, but it is not one of theod?"

She looked up, exasperated "I&039; to find so her hands "I want you to be careful, Speirr Whatever this thing is, it holds a great deal of malice Hatred"

"Can you locate it?"

"I have tried, but it moves whenever I draw near It is as if the source knows to avoid ht around the corner When Bacchus cas ild To Talon it sounded like so on the excesses of the celebration to propel whatever plan it had

Talon&039;s thoughts were distracted as a car drove down the street in front of him It was an old VW Beetle Solow-in-the-dark stars and the lower half was bright sunshine yelloith red peace syht It had been parked outside the club earlier when he had left Instinct told hiht dead in such a monstrosity

True to his suspicions, the car turned into the alley behind Runningwolf&039;s

With his honed Dark-Hunter sight, he watched her leave her car and pause to pull a sealed box out of the backseat His body hardened instantly

Tonight, she wore her black hair in two braids down the side of her face She was dressed in a long fuchsia sweater coat that displayed her lush curves to perfection

In his ainst his front, and just inhaling her war his hand trail down the front of her, to her tight black sweater held closed by sh the cloth until she was exposed to hi want

"Speirr?"

Ceara&039;s voice jarred him from his reverie "I&039;ate further Or do you need rounded?"

"No, thanks I&039; conflict inside you Are you sure you want me to leave?"

About as sure that the world would end in fifteen minutes No, he wasn&039;t sure Because every tiet everything else

To want nothing more than to stare at her To touch her

"I&039;m sure"

"Very well, then I shall listen out for you If you need me, call"

"I will"

Ceara vanished and left him alone in the darkness

Sunshine slammed her car door closed and entered the rear door of the club