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Laylah was a little touched And a lot embarrassed

As nice as it was to have the demon offer his co, drawing unwanted attention

"I appreciate your concern, but there’s no need for you to go with eons in your belfry?" Levet de your pardon?"

"I’ to be anywhere near a Charon when he’s discovered his prisoner has escaped"

"Good point" She gri to be livid when he discovered she’d slipped away Again "Maybe we should hurry"

The lower kitchens of the London town house had long ago been given over to Sergei Marika had no use for them, and while she insisted the blood sacrifices be made in the cellar, there were always potions to brew and spells to prepare

Shethe cavernous roolyphics scribbled on the brick walls and dried plants that hung fro A circle had been etched into the stone floor, where a wooden altar stood holding an ancient book that ust

Like any vaic users

And the fact that she was forced to depend on one to achieve her glorious fate only infla off the veiled hat she’dat the opera, she carelessly tossed it aside and allowed her heavy curls to tuun with such promise

She had dined on two tender wood sprites that had strayed into Green Park and a lovely Turkish businessman in Covent Garden From there she’dher usual stir as she made her way to her private box

Then, in the middle of the second act of La Traviata, one of her nu in her ear that there were ru scented near London

Her lips twisted with fury

The ruh

She’d instantly been able to detect the lingering female scent in the tunnels

But she’d been too late

The Jinn was gone See froredients used in his spells, Sergei frowned at her entrance

"Did you find her?" he stupidly demanded

"Does it look as if I found her?" She threw her ared off his protective cloak, revealing the elegant gray suit beneath "You said the Jinn was scented last evening," he said, crossing to stand directly before her A display of his sheer arrogance considering her foul htly peeved "She can’t have disappeared so quickly Not unless …"

Her eyes narrowed "Unless what?"

"Unless it wasn’t the Jinn we’re searching for" He griinally suspected"

"You should be inti you held her hostage for months," she hissed

"I kept her locked in an iron cell that lanced over his shoulder, as if searching for an unseen watcher in the shadows of the attached pantry, then with a shake of his head he turned back to ain powers for the next five hundred years or so"

A frigid blast of energy swirled through the kitchen, stirring Sergei’s silver hair and tu clay bowls and copper pans fro for the Jinn bitch and the babe she was hiding, constantly denied the power and glory that should be hers

And now, just when she had been teased with the proain been denied

Her bloodlust was at a fever pitch

"Assuei lifted his hand, as if he intended to touch her, only to hastily step back at the sight of her fully elongated fangs

"Marika, don’t forget that for noe need her alive," he atteet our hands on the child"

With a flick of her hand, the drying plants cruei’s lips tightened at the loss of his rare ingredients, but he wasn’t suicidal enough to coret later"

"Regrets?" She had wrapped her fingers around his throat, squeezing until his face turned an interesting shade of puce "My greatest regret is ever choosing a treacherous e whose only contribution so far has been to deceivewith a mixture of pain and impotent fury

"If you will release me I can try to scry for the female," he choked out

"You’ve tried it before only to fail"

"She’s obviously lost the veil of protection that has kept her hidden fro to perfu like terror to whet her appetite "If nothing else I ht discover a trail that will lead us to her"