“You aren’t upset about what those men tried to do?”
I stared at him, my brows knitting together. Was he trying to make me upset? Was he trying to manipulate me into feeling I owed him something?
These guys wanted me to come back to the Fae world for some reason. I wasn’t going to trip over myself with gratitude.
“You had nightmares all night,” he added. “Do you remember them?”
“No.”
“I wonder what you dream about.”
I frowned at him. I didn’t like his curiosity, the way he studied me. I wondered what he knew about my past that I didn’t. The thought that he held answers—that he held power over me—made me squeamish.
“Did you find a way to bring my memories back?” I demanded.
“You need to come home,” he said. “Whatever enchantment took your memories, it can only be lifted in the world of magic.”
I shook my head, even though it felt as if it might wobble right off my aching neck. Lord, last night had left me sore all over, and I ran my hand over the back of my neck, teasing my fingers over the tense muscles in my shoulder blades, trying to press out some of the kinks.
“Why are you so stubborn?” he demanded. “You’re royalty, and yet you don’t want to go home?”
“I want to go,” I said, surprised to hear the truth in the words as I said them. I couldn’t say home, though. “But someone took my memories, right? Someone hurt me there. And you want me to go over there with no idea what I’m walking into? I’m just supposed to trust you?”
Something flashed through his eyes, a look of horror that was there and gone before I could make sense of it.
“Yes, Alisa,” he said, reaching toward me, though he didn’t quite touch my hand. “You’re supposed to trust me.”
I cocked my head to one side. “You said you’re my ex-boyfriend. Why did we break up?”
He met my gaze levelly. For the first time, I noticed his eyes were purple, but not exactly. A deep blue around his pupil darkened as it radiated outward, specked with red flecks that bled into purple.
Monster eyes. Magnetic eyes. Either way, I could lose myself in his gaze. I blinked, forcing myself to look away, my chin rising.
“You’re the only one who knows that,” he said, and his voice was bitter. He rose, moving away from the bed. “You didn’t let me know in the kindest of ways.”
I chewed my lower lip at his tone. I couldn’t argue with him, but I doubted what he said. I didn’t think I was an unkind person.
“Were you my first boyfriend?” I asked.
He turned at the door. “Stop saying boyfriend. That’s not a word the Fae use.”
Males are so irrational, no matter the species. “It’s the word you used with me.”
“I was trying to make you feel comfortable.” His gaze drifted over me.
No matter how icy, something about the way he looked at me sent a strange thrill of lust throbbing through my body. He hadn’t touched me except for that staid touch when he knelt to check on me in the shifters’ den, but it was easy for me to imagine what it would be like if he did run his hands up my body. I wondered if his hands would feel cool against my skin or if he ran hot. The thought made me bite my lip.
Nothing about Azrael made me feel comfortable.
“In the Fae world, firsts don’t matter like they do here. We don’t believe in virginity or prize…” He broke off suddenly.
I stared at him, wondering what he was going to say, what he was clearly debating. He seemed so cold and controlled, that I thought he wouldn’t speak at all.
Then he said flatly, “But you were my first. You were my first everything.”
I frowned at him, but he was already striding out of the room. There was the creak of my front door, distantly, and I swung my feet out of bed. What now?
My head ached and the world reeled for a second, but I found my balance as my toes pressed against the cold hardwood floor.
Finding my balance after being drugged into blissful oblivion? Check.
Finding my balance anywhere around Azrael?
No fucking check marks for me there.
Chapter Eleven
Duncan
“What are you doing back here?” Azrael demanded, entering the living room from the narrow hallway just as I walked in the front door.
“Hello to you too,” I grumbled. I ducked under the nonsensical string of flamingo lights hanging across the doorway, slamming the door behind me. “Someone found the bodies. There was much weeping and lamenting.”
“Did you follow them back to where they came from?” Azrael threw himself onto the couch, one arm over the leg of the chair, and reached for the cold, sweating beer on the coffee table. It figured he’d made himself comfortable while I was out trailing smelly shifters.
“I did,” I said. “To some shifter compound. They seem to be keeping some other girls as breeding stock.”
“We have to help them.” Alisa clung to the doorway. She swayed on her feet, her pale face even paler than usual.
She was going to lose her balance. Azrael twisted to look at her, but by the time he rose from the couch, he’d be too late.
“Foolish girl,” I grumbled, even as I dove across the room to catch her.
She grabbed for the doorway, her eyes widening, as if she realized she was going down. But I caught her first, scooping her up against my chest.
She was so light—bird-boned, built for flight—and she twined her arms around my neck automatically. My muscles tensed, going rigid at the feel of her lithe body pressed against mine so intimately.
I hated her.
But she smelled delicious, like a perfect summer day, like fresh-squeezed lemons and spun sugar and clean cut grass.
Azrael sat back on the couch, a grin spreading across his face.
“I’m just a little dizzy,” she protested. “Put me down.”
I scoffed at that. She was always independent to a fault. “I’m not sure you can be trusted to stand. I never trusted you, but that’s a whole new level—”
I broke off as Azrael shook his head at me.
Instead, I sat on the couch opposite him, still holding Alisa in my arms. “Where’s Tiron?”
“I sent him to fetch dinner,” Azrael said. “We should gather some strength before we head back into the Fae world.”
“We need to help those girls first.” Alisa sounded sure of herself, earnest. “I have some friends—”
I snorted at that, even though I’d glimpsed her friends at a distance after her run-in with the vamps. Humans were foolish; it was no surprise Alisa had woven her magic around them, even though she didn’t know how to cast a glamor consciously.
She gave me a confused look, even as she went on, “They’ll help. Then once I know the girls are safe, I’ll go into the Fae world with you.”
“You trust us?” Azrael sounded pleased.
“No.” She struggled against my chest, pushing away, but she still seemed dizzy and weak.
I raised my hands to my shoulders, palms out, making a show of not holding her.
Her ineffective struggle to escape me amused me, as her warm, slender body pressed against mine. Then as she struggled to leave my lap, her ass brushed my cock over and over. My cock hardened, and I didn’t know whether I wanted her off me or wanted her to stay.