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CHAPTER ONE

I awoke slowly, languorously,surprise when my nose smooshed into soft leather rather than sheets For a second I nearly panicked, before I realized I was nestled into a hugely over-stuffed cushion that was part of a leather sofa The sofa and the shabby, hohan in which I was cocooned smelled deliciously of le more masculine I knew, then, where I was Not least because I was soon brushing a few stray dark dog hairs off my face as I rolled over and stretched

And where is theup to peer around Anyan’s dawn-infused living rooht that we’d rolled into town from the Alfar Compound For almost the past month, Anyan and I had been on a desperate hunt to find my mother’s killers and shut down their pseudo-laboratories of torture, cul Jarl as the menace he truly was As tended to happen when I visited the Alfar Co, Orin, had been an Turns out the queen had been tupping her husband’s second and brother, the even nastier than previously assuan escaped So not only were the bad guys on the laested theyI knew, my former lover, Ryu, and his favorite nemesis, Nyx, found themselves tied as interiht, I also discovered that Anyan did not want to stay in the Compound Instead, he wanted to return to Rockabill With roused, sighing as I stretched out legs tight froht’s ride back to Eastport on Anyan’s"hide the Milk-Bone" had been scuppered when, on the way ho my life quite a few tians We didn’t knoho she was, or what she wanted, but last night she’d let us know she was an Original: powerful, ancient, and supposedly a rumbled tooff to digforward to having Anyan alone, finally, and I’d nearly done a backflip when he suggested I spend the night at his place His excuse was that it , as I had all of Rockabill’s supernatural co down in my house for safety after Iris had been kidnapped I kneever, it was really because he wanted so But then Blondie showed up, all nekkid and pierced and tattooed and totally foxy After which, the conversation between Dog-Boy and hly) as follows:

DB: "OMG! Whatever could that woo to your place! NOW"DB: "No! I ating!"JANE: "Um, why don’t you be valorous and protect those under your care AFTER we mambo horizontally Then vertically Then "

So Anyan had tosseddoor, re to make myself at hoain, and Anyan had de"

So not only had we not had sex, but I’d also spent the night on the sofa, as I didn’t feel co Anyan’s man space without express permission Not to mention, s to ht, supernatural-Sutra headboard ever

Still gruo potty and cleaninto my own eyes in the mirror as I brushed my teeth, I reminded hest, at least I was alive There’d beenthe past weeks when uaranteed Not to --had died before we’d stopped Jarl and his crazy experi as I remembered what I had to do today My dad needed to know that the woman he still loved and still waited for, after all these years, was never going to come home She’d been murdered by Jarl, her body one of the first to be discovered in an abandoned laboratory

You didn’t die for nothing, Mo hly My ation that led to stopping Jarl It wasn’t

It’d be even better if Jarl were dead, I thought grimly, as I dried my face and hands But at least he was on the run, his operations and people disbanded For now

Visibly shaking ure out what to do right then Anyan inals, and it was barely six o’clock in the h no one will be awake Or I could go for a swi up froether

I’m in Anyan’s cabin

Anyan isn’t here

And Anyan did say toI’d been so curious about Anyan’s life for so long now, and now I had his cabin all tobetween me and his kitchen

Like a flash I was out of the bathroom, all traces of sadness eradicated by my excitement I peered around one last time to make sure I was alone, and then I darted tohat I kneaiting for me Every time I’d been here, it had taken pretty o and hu Anyan’s kitchen I don’t normally hump kitchen appliances, but this was no ordinarythat transcended beauty, forel weep

It was a Wolf Challenger Restaurant Range And I loved it

I skidded to a stop before lea a hand over its hard, proud, stainless-steel fra one up just to see how unabashedly it opened itself to et on it, and how each one would si open the oven door I could practically crawl inside I wouldn’t, because I’d (aloblin body--but I could if I wanted to And if I can get in here, I thought as I peered inside greedily, just think what else will fit…

"Jane?" asked a voice It was curiously nonchalant, considering I was half in, half out of an open oven door But it still scaredthe top of hed as he dropped down to haul hest had a tendency to treat me like a sack of flour, and today was no exception Without batting an eyelash, he lifted me up and set me on the counter, in order to look at the top ofthe little birdies fly in front of my eyes, so it took me a second to re-coers overuntil I winced, and then I felt a pulse of healing warh h voice grumbled, "I would cos sprouting froave him the stink eye

"You are a disaster," Anyan clarified, in case I didn’t catch his drift "And are you all right?" he aentle prod, followed by another rush of healing nored hiood once-over Now that I could finally enjoy being around the barghest without all the stress of the investigation--not towhether or not he had any feelings forat the top, I noticed that he clearly needed a haircut His thick curls were extra poufy, sticking out in barghestian afro-puffs shot through with grass and twigs froht’s Blondie hunt Thennose and al the perfectly sensual imperfection of his features His nose twitched at aze, and I feltfarther down, over clothes ru left to lie under a shrubbery so form, I noticed he had a hole in his jeans, which rode low and sweet on his hips

There’s bones under that there denim, my libido reminded me, unhelpfully Bones for nibblin’…