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The wraparound porch on the first level matched the balcony on the second and third, with elaborate turned posts and lots of bead- and spindle work The upper corners of the outdoor living space were embellished with brackets and delicate arches A wide front door displayed original colored-block stained glass ith atransom On that small tower balcony, there was a similarly impressive entrance
He suspected the tohere Raina’s personal rooravity made it far easier to disseics over the square footage of the large house fro the only reason the succubi and incubi in residence didn’t fatally drain the clients was theeffect of Raina’s spells, her location in the house was vitally i shui
His lip curled The whole place suggested an escape into lush, unhurried fantasy, with a subtle undercurrent of erotic danger impossible to resist A perfect reflection of the feot here, you worthless piece of shit"
It should have bugged him that he hadn’t sensed her approach fros he was fucked-up about right noas at capacity "Could have been here sooner if someone had told me where the hell she was"
"Doesn’t work that way Unfortunately friend loyalty tru bad sorcerer three years to find one broody little witch Oh, let e that could cut off a man’s balls "The world was in peril half a dozen times and you just couldn’t pull yourself away"
"Prettythat had hi her this dog wasn’t in the mood to have his chain yanked, unless she wanted to see teeth up close and personal
He’d gone over it a hundred times since Ruby had sent him away She’d always kept her soul open to hiy, but the day she’d tossed him out of her life, she’d been cold, locked down The woale The only good thing about that was it had helped his he’d felt when he turned the knob and saw her standing behind the counter Controlling his own reaction had helped hied
Ruby had always lacked the confidence to explore her ical potential on a deeper level In contrast, the wo around her it was like watching Pandora’s box throw off sparks Of course, given what had finally brought hi she’d embraced her potential was a bitter confirmation, not a surprise
He’d never have left her under the circumstances in which he had in fact… left her For three years, it had bugged the hell out of hi Any other tied the truth out of her Instead, he’d convinced hiive her soure it out then
Unfortunately, it had takenup, and she hadn’t answered calls Always the sa service, and he didn’t carry a phone Since their roun, with one vital exception; they’d never been out of contact for ot back to the West Coast, he discovered she’d not only pulled up stakes; she’d locked down her essence,herself virtually invisible An effort that could only be targeted at hi Leave Me the Hell Alone
He’d respected that What the fuck? His need to find her would ebb and flow, and whenever it hit a big-time flow, he’d be interrupted by other inescapable responsibilities Then, a couple o, he’d heard she was involved with someone
Bullshit He knew her, down to blood, heart, soul and the dust of her bones Yeah, he was possessive, but mere male territorialism hadn’t put the hot iron to his blood The uy, it was as if he were in a h-powered fans, clearing everything out of his path The aching need and pain, the loss of her in his life, clamped down on his heart like a bear trap It was as if he’d been doped up all these months, and now he felt in full force the way he should have been feeling all along
He’d taken a good hard look at what had happened and considered the unthinkable A sorcerer guarded hi before McAfee and Norton existed, sorcerers had their own personal virus protection But they had a si And an inside attack was the hardest to predict
When he’d considered the possibility, done a soul sith the new configuration, so had burst inside his unconscious like a stretched chain link finally breaking It had been thehi hiic to drive him away That hy none of it had ever made sense Not his reaction, not hers For fuck’s sake, except for the requirements of the occasional Great Rite he’d had to do, where he channeled the Lord and a priestess channeled the Lady in a physical coupling to raise energy, he hadn’t been able to touch another woman for three years, even after Ruby made it clear she had no hold on him