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"What exactly does thatand short - I'll provide food for you, I'll protect you, and you'll do whatever I tell you" As she sputtered, he said, "I think once you've experienced what it's like to haveyou about, you'll do whatever's necessary to get rid of et rid of you!" she cried "I'd take a freaking incubus over you, and I'd take him with a cheery s," he said, sounding not the least wounded

"Even had I done what you're accusing me of, I don't kno to reverse it You've seen firsthand how little control I have over et sick enough ofout Or you can simply deny that you've done this"

"Mari, just tell him you didn't do it," Tera said

She couldn't! "I don't believe I did But I I can't make a vow to that"

"Then you've only two other options Decide" To Rydstrouard her - if you do no' interfere when I treat her as mine"

Mari glanced around the cave They're considering it! All but Cade, who had a calculating, unsettling look in his eyes "You people have all gone mad I despise him" She met MacRieve's eyes and snapped, "If you think I'll sleep with you, you're cracked, deranged"

"I have no need to co "That is no' part of this deal"

"I will never agree to this Never - "

"Before you decide," MacRieve interrupted, "know that if you were my mate, I'd make sure you had whatever you needed to be co froh it "Like your toothbrush" He held up her pink toothbrush

He'd retrieved her things froh her personal possessions

She'd seen MacRieve's ferocity, and now she was getting a good glimpse of his sly side, his tricksy side She could see what Rydstro about MacRieve seemed wolfish

Then she rereat Hekate Dread settled in the pit of her stos in there - rocket of the pocket-type private things Like a tube of lipstick that wasn't really one

"Or this" He carelessly flicked her birth control patch "Doona knohat it does, but I ken that people who use patches for whatever reason er for a new one" He displayed her iPod next "It'swithout listening to music or they beco's it been for you, then?" He drew out a blue-labeled bottle and shook it "You had several bottles of Orangina in your Jeep Must like it, do you no'?"

Not the Orangina! Her old that you're probably keen to hold on to" He held up the weighty headdress Stunning

She hazily re it in the severed hand of an incubus, as if in offer, but she'd thought the piece had been lost into that crater If MacRieve gave the incubi's headdress to her, it would be her first payment as a mystical mercenary