The chasm across the bed may as well have been a continent.

Damn it, she refused to literally lie here and die now that she had a father to get to know…and love. A mate’s ass to kick.

Heart mate? Yeah, right. She couldn’t imagine two people more ill-suited than a Dark Ages immortal warrior and a twenty-first-century American girl.

After another increment of movement, Olivia felt a glimmer of Marrok’s body heat. She twitched, grazing him with her pinkie. Relief poured into her as she touched hot skin, steel under silk and scars, dusted with hair. His forearm.

A spark of energy shot through her veins, followed by a hot wash of unbridled need.

Rolling across the mattress, Olivia couldn’t miss his scent, spicy, clean, complicated. Just like Marrok. A rush of pleasure jolted her, fierce and sizzling.

Don’t feel anything. Do what’s necessary and get away. Don’t fall for him.

Easier said than done.

Marrok wanted her here so she could break his curse. At best, he was using her. At worst, he pitied her.

That made her want to retch.

She was used to being an outcast—the new girl in town, the otherworldly-looking child with midnight hair and violet eyes. Occasionally someone tried to make her their sympathy case. Enduring pity from a man she desired so ferociously infuriated her. Her mother’s unfeeling obligation had been painful enough. To bear the same from Marrok would crush her. Damn, she knew she should have been guarding her heart.

“Olivia?” he murmured sleepily.

She hesitated, wishing that merely touching him would keep her “charged” or whatever term magic had for this little inescapable clause. But kidding herself was pointless. Yes, she had more juice in her veins when she touched Marrok, but enough to leave the bed? No.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she flung off her T-shirt and panties, baring herself completely. Then she slung a leg over Marrok’s thighs and climbed on top of him. Wow, he was like climbing a mountain, so huge in every way.

He came awake with a gasp. She ignored him.

After straddling his hips, she anchored herself, curling her fingers into his pectorals and lowering her chest to his. A blast of body heat nearly melted her.

He sucked in a quick breath. Stomach rippling beneath her, he tensed. His erection went from promising to bring it on in a heartbeat.

Their eyes met in the moonlight sweeping through the bedroom window. He drilled her with his silvery stare.

“Olivia?” He wasn’t asking what she was doing; he was asking if she was sure.

They both knew she didn’t have a choice.

“My energy is waning.”

He nodded. Wordlessly, he curled one hand around her neck, the other anchored on her hip, pressing her against his waiting mouth, his stiff arousal. In seconds, he nearly overwhelmed her with his fevered kiss and the want seeping from his skin. Olivia moaned before she remembered all the reasons she shouldn’t.

In a restless sweep, his hands sought and found her hard nipple. There was no stopping her gasp. Her head fell back as pleasure bloomed. Energy zinged inside her. Every instinct screamed to resume the kiss, to open her mouth and her body wide and let him in.

She refused to be used and pitied again.

Still sitting atop him, she shoved the covers out of her way until nothing hindered skin-on-skin contact.

Olivia grabbed his erection beneath her and stroked him. Thick, smooth, it was almost too hot to touch. Gripping him barraged her with sensations. If there was even a remote chance he could love her, she’d delight in caressing him to the edge of his resistance. She’d love to know the taste of his taut belly under her lips, his arousal swelling on her tongue.

None of that could happen…or she’d lose her self-control.

“Olivia…” he groaned.

She tried to impale herself on his thick staff, wriggling and pushing until she managed to take half of him. She bit her lip against the discomfort of his sudden intrusion. She hadn’t known that being on top would make him feel downright imposing.

“Slow down, love. Let me touch you.”

He pressed a thumb to her clit, which always made her putty in his hands. Unacceptable. She shoved his hand out of the way, gritted her teeth and forced her body to take all of him.

Despite her efforts to hold it in, she whimpered, and he knew it wasn’t in pleasure.

Marrok grabbed her hips, stilling her. “Stop. We have all night. There is no reason—”

“Do it. Now! Just…” She couldn’t say it.

“Fuck you? Is that what you desire?”

He sounded pissed off, and she didn’t care.

“Yes!” She swiveled her hips until he could go no deeper.

With a gasp, Marrok tossed his head back. So that lit his fire. Smiling, she did it again. He groaned long and loud.

He stared at her in the shadowed moonlight, eyes unmistakably intent and pleasure-filled.

She reached behind her and stroked his testicles. Beneath her, he bucked deeper into her and growled. A thrill thrummed through Olivia’s veins as she lay across his chest. Desire tightened her nipples and flashed straight to her sex. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Damn, this was about getting what she needed from him, not what she wanted.

Marrok clasped strong arms around her, pumping up as he drew her down. The sensations burst between her legs and forced a high-pitched gasp from her. The man was good.

She had to be better.

Diverting to a new tactic, she nuzzled her face in his neck, dotting kisses and nipping her teeth on the tendons and veins bulging with effort. And all the while, she continued a hard, steady rhythm of her hips—and brought out the big guns.

“The feel of you deep inside me…” Olivia purred in his ear. “You fill me up. Every glide down.” She demonstrated, lowering herself over him. “The pleasure is amazing.” She moaned, wishing it were fake.

With a thrust up, Marrok glided over a sensitive spot that sent her reeling. Too much more of that and…No! Time to finish this.

She sat up and felt instant relief. Being near him, their faces so close, it was too…intimate. Now, they only joined in one place.

Wearing a kittenish smile, she toyed with her nipples. Instantly, he hissed in a breath.

“You like to watch me touch myself?”

“Aye. The sight of you…”

She did it again, thrust herself down on him harder and felt him swell, press tight against her slick, swollen walls. Time to turn up the heat—before this backfired on her.

Bracing herself on his shoulders, she propelled her hips faster, faster. Marrok was grabbing the sheets and gritting his teeth, his body taut beneath her.

“Olivia,” he panted. “Come…with…me.”

Not on your life. Unlike before, sex would be on her terms. Since, until her transition, she derived her vitality from the power of his pleasure and orgasm, that’s all she would take from him.

She was tempted. The sensations were there. Only sheer willpower kept her from focusing on the tingles racing and blood burning. He was going to beat her to the finish line…but not by much.

“Now!” she shouted. It had to be or she would go over the cliff with him.

Marrok grabbed her hips and impaled her on his length in rapid-fire strokes. Clawing her thighs with her fingernails, she managed to focus on the pinpoints of pain, not the incredible feel of him as he powered into her.

With a massive roar, he let go. She did her best to block out the quivering of her womb as he splashed it with hot seed, ignore the heavy ache of unfulfilled desire in her weeping body.

Suddenly, one of his thumbs brushed across her clit. Fire streaked right between her legs. He did it again, and the fire grew hotter, flames licking at her self-control.

“Marrok, stop.” Olivia tried to climb off his body.

He held her firmly impaled on him. What the…? How was it possible he was still hard?

“I have no notion what game you play, but you will cease. Now.”

Instead of feathering the pad of his thumb across her clit, this time he held her down on his cock and pressed in.

Pleasure burned her thighs, merging with the tingles in her belly and the swollen ache of her sex. Ecstasy poured across her, and there was no escape. Marrok was deep inside her, his scent all over her, his hands controlling her. Dimly, she wondered how the hunter had become the hunted. Then the thought was gone.

She was too busy screaming in pleasure.

Winter decided to roar with all its might and spit snow on everyone in and around London. Including Lucan.

He’d give anything to be at home with Anka. He’d left her deliciously naked and had not been able to spare the time for seconds. Duty called, damn it. Or rather, Bram had.

Lucan cursed the bloody blazes that Shock hadn’t seen fit to stand the guard duty for which he’d volunteered. Instead, Lucan sat deep in shadows, watching Marrok’s little cottage in what Bram had aptly named the Creepified Forest. Alone, silent, the place seethed with something disquieting. Pain. Haunting loneliness.

The very things Lucan had seen in Marrok’s eyes, until the immortal looked at Olivia. Even without their blended signatures, he would have known she was his mate. Idly, Lucan wondered if Marrok himself knew how besotted he was. His guess? The man had no clue.

Watching branches sway with the chilly night wind was dull. But after Olivia all but shouted that Marrok had the Book of Doomsday, they needed protecting. Marrok was mad if he thought that old magic circle would keep true evil out forever.

The mental tap on his shoulder made him smile. Apparently Duke, stationed somewhere on the other side of the house, was bored, too.

A whoosh a mere handful of feet away made Lucan pause. It wasn’t Duke coming by to bitch about monotony.

Five figures materialized on the path to the front door. Gray capes and masks with the emblem he—and virtually all of magickind—dreaded. Those explosive bursts around the upside down M only meant one thing: the Anarki.

Bloody hell! With his mind, he sent a silent message to let Duke know they had uninvited guests.

Five was a small squad, and none of the signatures was powerful. Then again, why would Mathias imagine he’d need more muscle to capture a human and an untransitioned witch with no protection? The better question was, how had Mathias learned about the diary’s location in barely five hours? Lucan had his suspicions, and he couldn’t wait to beat the bloody hell out of the culprit.

In his head, he heard Duke’s silent countdown to action.

Heart revving, Lucan leapt from the black shadows on three and, with a wave of his hand, stunned the nearest unsuspecting Anarki. With a silent spell, he tied the nearest fiend with invisible bonds and moved to the next.

He glanced up to find that Duke had already dispensed with one berobed freak and was doing his best to stun another.

The other two peered frantically into the treeline, their wands at the ready, indicating that playtime was over. Lucan dashed behind a sycamore and, for the heavy fighting to come, he drew his own wand. They wanted to play rough, did they? He’d indulge them.

Lucan waved his wand, making an Anarki’s nose bleed before he slipped into unconsciousness. As the goon fell, he hit his head on the tree with a thud. Lucan checked quickly. The bastard was still alive. Not his first choice, but Bram would approve.

Death seemed a more fitting punishment for these Anarki dogs, since Lucan was certain they had a similar fate in mind for Marrok and Olivia. But Bram wanted at least one Anarki captured alive. Good sources of information, he’d said. Lucan thought they would make better sources of fertilizer.

A quick glance across the grounds revealed Duke wrapping up Anarki number four. The last looked ready to teleport away. Clearly, they hadn’t expected resistance.

With a quick spell, Lucan whipped invisible bonds around the man’s ankles and wrists. His wand fell to the ground, and his eyes grew wide. He searched around, trying to find his attackers, steeped in fear so cloying, Lucan could smell it.

Once Duke had the other Anarki out of commission, Lucan strolled from the shadows and to the attackers who were all bound or passed out—or both. They were all wizards gone bad, not soulless humans converted against their will.

“Good evening, gentlemen. What a shame you’re wandering where you aren’t welcome. Do I have to ask who sent you?”

The goon captured last glared at Lucan with gritted teeth and mutiny on his face. He wasn’t saying a damn thing.

Lucan tucked his wand away and lifted off the man’s mask, revealing a craggy face with bronzed skin, inky hair, jet eyes. Stupid sap.

Lucan pointed his finger down at the man’s balls, made a wrapping motion, then yanked. The Anarki grunted, choked, reached down with his bound hands, but Lucan stopped him.

Perfect. Now that Mr. Silent’s testicles were in a noose, he might prove more cooperative. If not…Lucan had no trouble pulling tighter.

“I take it you’re not here for an evening stroll.”

The Anarki tensed. “Fuck. You.”

Lucan pulled tighter on the invisible rope, and the man made a satisfying gurgling sound. “England is home to some of the most accomplished poets and playwrights in history. Apparently none of their eloquence rubbed off on you.”