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When I openeda bowl of thawed, sliced peaches The stone downstairs and risingdistinctly uncomfortable, which was ridiculous There had to be a way to control it, to put a lid on heat, or Enclave would becoy every time a seraph fleithin a hundred s and explanations in the front of the book and discovered so but had forgotten Only in warfare should I use scripture in incantations That explained why none of my conjures worked exactly as planned Clearly, I should have studied the book as Lolo demanded There was some neat stuff in it I could alh when the cop arrived Even a story up, even with snow blanketing every stone for miles around, I knew the moment Thaddeus Bartholomealked onto the pre hineed, resonating through ale of lavender light raked through lared and ripped ies lashed me

All I wanted in life was below - the kylen and the ahtened as the lavender powerit Oh, sweet seraph Gasping, I dropped to the floor and forced , knees bent, spine alht My hands clenched the amulets tied beneath , da the aht to blend with the creation power I was drawing on, attey currents established and stored in my amulets I had never heard of this, yet instinctively, I understood as happening As if with intelligence of its own, the a each amulet&039;s incantation I had handled the anized its power As a result, the a to bond my blood to itself My a the effect of the kylen De that I utilize the power or h I was only half trained, I knew that using a new source of poould come with a price Probably a price I wouldn&039;t want to pay, especially if the cost was tied to sex But it would be really, really, really great sex I broke contact with ation, as if they burned But I was the one who burned For the kylen For the aainst the tile, laze Desperate, I chanted a child&039;s e children, almost the first words we learned in the Enclave version of nursery school "Stone and fire, water and air, blood and kin prevail Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prevail"

I said the phrases over and over, breathing deeply with each repetition The incantation drew on the oldest, es, the defense offered by the High Host when they set y resided deep in the earth below the Enclave where I was born, and I drew on it in tiure of an arctic seal carved froers found the seal and held it, a lifeline

Minutes dripped, slowed, frozen, as I fought the tides of need and heat Finally, I could breathe easily again, could feel the muscles as h it ached, could see reality, rather than a haze of energy and desire "Wrath of angels," I swore underes and our reactions to certain bloodlines Never really believed that a female in the presence of a seraph or a kylen went into heat like ato be ht and toweakness I fought that too Little by little, I won

When I could stand, I considered the food on the table, ripe, succulent fruit In the wake of the sensual mistrial, the peaches in the stoneware bowl lost all enticeerator and closed it up in the dark, drinking a quart of icy spring water before applying lipstick Again, I didn&039;t look too closely at why I used cosed, muted by the protection of the childhood incantation and by the stored power of the arctic seal I stuck huge gold and silver hoops in my ears, and a wide cuff on one wrist

The nature Mokume Gane Before I left the apartment to join my friends, I plucked up an ar the curvy shortsword on Lipstick and a blade I was in trouble Oh, yeah

Thaddeus Bartholomeas not beautiful like Lucas Where Lucas was lissoht, Thaddeus was kylen tall, broad shouldered, and lint of outside light He race of the kylen, and when he extended an ars move beneath his jacket

I was drunk with the a, and if I was perfectly honest, horny as a bunny rabbit, I walked past the it in one long s On ht train, and the attraction for the kylen dulled Great I&039;d have to stay drunk to keep fro hter atin heat - with a cop - bubbled up, and I returned to the group carrying bottles of Black Bear Brew and wearing a grin thatat each other, one of those significant looks passed by people who have recently been talking about you A lot In the central sitting area of the shop, I set drinks on a table and toasted them before I sat down

There had been conversation while I was gone to the back, and it had left eddies of e in the room I didn&039;t knohat had been said, but Audric was tense and watchful; Jacey, quiet Rupert was tight-lipped with restrained wrath His hostility helped stabilize my unsteady emotions and further dull back with velvet upholstery, my left knee bent up to holdattacked was still rolling

"Why do you think they knehat he was carrying?" Audric asked Thaddeus, folding hislike an African prince

"SNN agreed not to show it, but one of the men came back for the knapsack exactly seven ed Lucas off At seven minutes and twenty seconds, the ca that ti the search for Lucas" The kylen, his tone curt, spread a cityfire, bent, and pointed "The theory isn&039;t bad If the subjects were on foot, then the assue is accurate If they had horses, they could have reached the second circle"

Mineral City was a divided town, the religious and commercial half on the north bank of the Toe River, the residential and civic half on the south A suspension footbridge connected the two halves Thethe north half, a radius fro foot traffic The second circle,the radius the attackers could have reached if they had horses, was blue, enclosing areas both south and north of the Toe There was no third circle for mechanical transport, El-cars, or trucks

"Cars?" I asked

"No vehicle tracks" Thaddeus turned those odd blue-green eyes on me, and my belly did a little dip and curl that I felt all the way down to ed not towhether I would see speculation there or hu "And you discovered shattered rocks at the scene?" Audric asked, his tone asking for clarification

I sat up straighter "Rocks? What kind?"

Thaddeus shrugged Hea curl of shoulder blades rather than a lift of collarbone and ball and socket When seraphs are uncertain, and their wings are folded out of the way, they raise theether It&039;s a strangely une uncertain doesn&039;t bother thehts away froht look like naked if he lifted a bale of hay overhead In su about for ato my question Jacey looked back and forth fro reat I drank the rest of the beer and took another before speaking "Because if it&039;s purple stone, we h to Rupert before he was attacked Rough frohtened to his full height, flipped open a se "What&039;s rough?"

"Was it purple?" I bargained

Thaddeus&039; attention settled on"Yes"

"It&039;s stone before it&039;s cut, shaped, and polished," Jacey said, as she watched the cop watch me And watched h for al pal She had a definite "well, well, well," look on her face "And the stone he sent Rupert is probably gem quality, which he claimed to have found on around here somewhere"

She ahtening of Rupert&039;s face I had a feeling Thaddeus caught the exchange He didn&039;t rin On the heels of her words, questions rose, like, why Rupert didn&039;t want him to knohere the stone had been found And what caused the ani between my friends and the cop? Rupert hadn&039;t said a word since I came down the stairs, and there was a part of him that thrived on conflict A quiet Rupert was very unusual

"How h did he send? When, from where, and by what post? And is it valuable?" the kylen asked

Speaking slowly, taking cues froe in my peripheral vision, I said, "A lot, a week before he was kidnapped, postramma lives, sent by uess" Pretty valuable, all right - the ends

"So someone found the stone around here," Thaddeus placed a faint eht the previous hesitation, "carted it off to Linville, only to have Lucas ship it back here And Grandma knew all about this"

"Oh," I said Put that way, it didn&039;tsurly "Not Grandma And Thaddeus knows about Gramma" Rupert&039;s eyes were on the cop, his tone rancorous "All about her And he&039;s decided that if I&039;m not behind Lucas&039; disappearance, you are"

"We discussed his &039;woht I&039;m on his list of suspects So is every other woht?" I asked the cop "And how does he know about your gralected tolost and all, found by the investigators Lucas hired for probate Gra there was nothing worse than a busybody

The malice in the roorand the Linville River, in the same house where the Stanhope patriarch had died last fall She was a sour woer and unfulfilled hopes that had turned her soul bitter She also kept secrets Forbidden knowledge floated in her eyes Being a keeper of secrets myself, I had spotted it On top of all that, she was a snoop, aher own fa

"Mrs Stanhope sent you up here? Not the state police?" I asked

Bartholoh a fast series of e with uncertainty "I had just discovered the Stanhope branch ofwith local law enforce the opportunity towith Graue, as if he&039;d never said it before "Then Lucas was attacked, and because I&039;m on the scene, I accepted a temporary liaison position with the local cops" He looked back and forth between us

"Which you didn&039;t bother to explain when you were questioning itive from some hellhole," Rupert accused, both fists on his hips, head thrown back "Thanks It&039;s great to hed, flipped the little notebook closed, and sat down, choosing a ss Each h to his posture after he sat, was calculated to bring down the level of ani, just-one-of-the-guys good cop in a heartbeat "I can see I handled this all wrong I&039;ainst ment

"I should have just come to see you and introduced myself Should have told you who I was up front Get acquainted the usual way" He dropped his elbows to his knees and laced his hands together I pulled ers, Stanhope hands, I realized, set off by the ie was honest and sincere, but I didn&039;t quite buy it Neither did Jacey or Rupert, but Audric seemed complacent Odd

"Gramrandsons were quarreling, fighting about the inheritance She clairubbing interloper - her words, not ured being a cop et otherwise"

"The old bat set hihter

"She set us up too," Jacey said "Why?"

"It&039;s her nature Like scorpions sting and lions eat their prey," Audric said, lifting a brow at Rupert