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PROLOGUE

It was fingertips folowing the curve of her spine that woke Vashti from sluht, a s her lips as she floated up to total awareness

"Neshama," her mate murmured

My soul Just as he was hers

With her eyes stil closed, she rol ed to her back and stretched, pushing her naked breasts up to Charron in deliberate provocation

The velvet lash of his tongue across her nipple startled her, eliciting a gasp that dropped her back onto the mattress Her eyes opened in time to see his beautiful y etched lips surround the hardened point and his cheeks hol ow on a deep, long suckle She groaned, her body eagerly responding to the attentions of the man for whoolden head to her breast, but he straightened,her aware that he stood beside the bed rather than lay upon it

The sight of his ful y dressed body told her why he’d woken her

Towering over her sprawled, bared body, he stared down at her with heated eyes The fangs peeping through his wicked smile betrayed that he, too, had become aroused by the way he’d woken her

Her heart raced at that smile Her chest ached from the surfeit of e; at tis that had been severed from her back, but Char had fil ed the subsequent hole inside her Noas everything to her, the reason she rose every day

"Save that thought," he said in his richly resonant voice "I’l sate your hunger when I return"

Vash pushed up onto her elbows "Where are you going?"

He finished strapping on the twin katana scabbards that crisscrossed his back "We have a patrol that didn’t check in"

"Ice’s?"

"Don’t start"

She sighed, knowing how , but the kid couldn’t seeun holster to his thigh "I know you think he hasn’t des off the side of the mattress, she said, "I don’t just think it He’s proven it Over and over again"

"He wants to please you, Vashti He’s ambitious Ice doesn’t leave his posts to play He leaves because he thinks he can be more valuable elsewhere If an opportunity to impress you presents itself, he’lto eavesdrop on lycans"

"I’d be impressed if he fol owed co, Vash stretched, then sighed as her ant hands down the sides of her torso "And he’s pul ing you out of our bed Again"

"Neshama, someone has to pul me from it Otherwise, I would never leave it"

She wrapped her arms around hied his lean chest Breathing hi for If she could relive s and her love for Charron, she would have no doubts or hesitation about repeating her "mistake" The curse of va with you"

Tilting his head, he pressed his cheek to her crown "Torque says no"

"Not his cal to make" She pul ed back, her eyes narrowed Torque was Syre’s son, but she was the Fal en leader’s lieutenant When it came to the Fal en and their ainsay her Even Char had to take orders froraceful y for a man who commanded others by nature

"He has a demon problem"

"Da the demons who preyed on vampires was her job No one was better at it than she was, but she couldn’t be everywhere al the time

"She’s another one of Asmodeus’s"

"Of course she is Da with us" That changed things up Taking down a de of hel was a bita wild card; she’d take the heat without casting aswould And now she was pissed off enough to want to deal with it herself They ets

Char pressed a kiss to her forehead, then released her "I’l be back before dark"

"Before dark…?" A quick glance at the bedroomand she understood "It’s dawn"