“All-powerful vampires or not, I am eating before you do anything else to me. I may not be able to die of starvation, but having your backbone rubbing against your stomach while being fucked is not pleasurable.”

“How will we pass the time, then, while you"re stuffing your face?” Anwyn used her toes to tease his nape. Her servant swatted at her, but then captured her foot, bent his head and touched his mouth to her instep, bringing those midnight blue eyes to her face for an equally pleasurable caress.

“Twenty Questions again?” he murmured. “Though I think you"ve far exceeded twenty. Just ask them to Daegan. I want to eat.”

From his significant glance, she knew there was an ulterior motive to it, but she didn"t disagree with it. As much as Daegan had given them tonight, there was still a reserve to him they both knew was likely to remain in place. According to Gideon"s thoughts, that was how older vampires were. However, Gideon was giving her a sly reminder that they might be able to take advantage of his mellow mood to learn more about the male vampire they both claimed.

However, that reserve would no longer make her doubt the feelings that existed under the dangerously still waters. Or if they did, that doubt would be removed hastily. Even now, as Daegan gazed at them, obviously aware of the drift of thoughts between them, she saw his contentment and devotion to them both, his amused indulgence. There were no doubts tonight.

“Besides, there"s no point to Twenty Questions with me anymore,” Gideon added. “You can both pluck any information right out of my head.”

“And your life is appallingly tedious,” Daegan observed. “For the past ten years, the same thing, day after day. Brood, stalk, eat, sleep, sh—” At Anwyn"s jab, he gave an unrepentant flash of teeth. “Really, was there no time to take in a film festival? A book?”

“I picked up the occasional Penthouse.”

“Or Martha Stewart Living,” Anwyn riposted.

Gideon shot them both a grin, an unusually open gesture that riveted Anwyn. It was the first time she"d ever seen such an expression on his face, and though it was quickly gone, buried in another slice of pizza, she held on to it as another gift of the extraordinary day, seeing how handsome her vampire hunter truly was.

“While I"m still not happy with the two of you risking yourselves to come to my aid,” Daegan noted, giving them both a sharp glance that promised sensual retribution in the future to remind them of that, “I do appreciate your courage and fortitude that night. I"ve had vampires try to ambush me before,” he said thoughtfully. “But this time I was so much more concerned about the two of you, about Anwyn"s safety, and proving something to the Council.

I expect this bond between us gives me a new level of distraction I"ll have to accommodate.”

“It can be that way at first,” Gideon said slowly. “But I think, in time, a family also gives you strength to do the things you know are right. Vampires like Xavier need to answer to someone. You should do what you want to do, but you shouldn"t quit because of us. You know the Council needs all the help it can get, and you don"t let them bully you. They need that.”

“Perhaps your brother and Lady Lyssa will need my services at some point, and we can arrange a visit,” Daegan suggested.

Gideon scoffed at that. “If you know anything about Lyssa, you know what she"d say to that. I can almost hear that sultry, scare-a-man-shitless voice. „Thank you. I prefer to gut the bastard myself. Soon as I put a garden glove over my perfectly manicured nails." ”

“Sultry?”

“In a very non-appealing way,” he assured Anwyn with a smile.

Despite his longing for the pizza, she was warmed when her servant let her drag him up onto the couch between them. She gathered him in so he leaned against her body between her bent thighs. As she pushed his head down onto her shoulder to stroke his hair, the width of his shoulders, he took full advantage of the position to tease her throat with his mouth, nuzzle her sternum so the neckline of the robe was pushed an inch or two farther from her ripe breast.

The position leaned him against Daegan"s leg as well. When the vampire laid a hand on his lower back, giving him an absent caress, he didn"t tense, too sated and loose to think to do so.

It would take time before a man"s touch wasn"t unusual to him, but she saw this unguarded moment pleased Daegan as well.

She suppressed a sigh of contentment. “So tell us something we don"t know about you, Daegan. Something important,” she amended.

“Mmm.” He was quiet for a bit, drinking his wine. Dropping his touch from Gideon, he caressed her foot, curved around Gideon"s hip and pressed against Daegan"s splayed knee.

“My father was an angel.”

“Yeah, I"m sure that"s what your mother said.” Gideon snorted against Anwyn"s throat.

“Until she saw you.”

At the vampire"s silence, Anwyn lifted her head from where she"d dropped it back to give Gideon"s lips better access. She studied Daegan"s face. “You"re serious.” Gideon straightened then as well, turning in her arm span to look at Daegan. The vampire lifted a shoulder. “It is what she told me. He was an angel. Wings and everything.” He cleared his throat. “It explains my speed. One time, when they were together, he took her on a flight that circled the globe in only an hour. He said he"d gone slower than usual, so as not to overwhelm her.”

Gideon grunted. “Who"d have thought it? Angels try to impress girls just like other guys.” She didn"t have Gideon"s gift for smartass quips to cover her nonplussed reaction. Daegan gave them both a wry smile, though. “You see why I wouldn"t tell many about this. You would doubt my sanity. I don"t doubt my mother was telling me the truth. It was before she got the Ennui, when she still served the Council.”

“Are there other things you have . . . like the speed?”

“I can exercise compulsion on humans not blood-linked to me, as I did with Sarah. And I"m not entirely sure a stake can kill me. The sun doesn"t harm me as much as other vampires, though it does give me pain and significant discomfort.”

“How do you know a stake can"t—”

“It"s not something I"ve tested. Just a theory I have.”

“Well, I"m glad that Gideon was there that night at the Coffin so you didn"t have to test it,” Anwyn said firmly. “Though I would have rather you both been unharmed.” Daegan gave her an absent smile. “Nothing makes permanent scars on me, either. Even my own blood.” He tapped his inner thigh, and though he was wearing the jeans, she recalled with a start she hadn"t noted the “X” Xavier had tried to cut into his flesh, not since the rescue. At Gideon"s blink of surprise, she realized he"d missed that as well. Of course, given how much had happened that night and since, it made sense that both of them, usually so detail-oriented, had forgotten about it. Particularly since there was no evidence of it left.

Setting the wine aside, Daegan focused his gaze on Gideon now. “I also can see the quality of a soul. When I have been dispatched after vampires and others, I know if there is good there, making him or her worth salvaging.” His expression tightened. “Or if I am an instrument of justice. Karma coming home to roost.”

“Which was why you always reserved the right to turn down an assignment,” Anwyn recalled.

“Yes. Fortunately, while my mother was alive, she convinced the Council to heed my judgment, and seek other ways to change a vampire"s path, if I said that execution was not the proper method.”

It all made sense, Anwyn realized, but it was somewhat of a large idea to put her head around. Gideon was the same. She sensed the turmoil in his mind, possibly greater than her own. He"d decided a long time ago there was no higher power. However, perhaps he would rediscover faith in love. After all, everyone knew love was the largest proof of Divinity there was.

Daegan gave a half chuckle, as if bemused by his own reluctance to speak his feelings. He met Gideon"s eyes again. “When I began tracking you, it was why I began to feel . . . how I feel for you. Your heart and soul . . . No matter the damage that has been inflicted on it, I felt a kinship with it, a bonding with you that began as a sense of brotherhood, and then became more, particularly when Anwyn brought us together.”

He extended his hand, a curious gesture with Gideon sitting there, not a stitch on, but the vampire hunter—or former vampire hunter, Anwyn was pleased to correct herself—met it, the two clasping forearms. “You have my respect, Gideon. I will always watch your back as well.” A light smile touched his mouth as he gave Gideon back his part threat, part promise. “And Anwyn"s.”

She saw Gideon"s face tighten in unexpected reaction. His battered soul was barely able to absorb it, all of this emotion and feeling. It overwhelmed him, in a good way, but she knew they needed to help him. Daegan gave her a slight nod, acknowledging her desire to change the subject before Gideon"s nakedness wasn"t the only thing that would embarrass him again.

“I do have one more question for you, Gideon,” she said. “You won"t think of it without being asked. Therefore, it"s not something I can just pluck out of your head.” He cleared his throat, managed to speak in a steady voice. “So I need to concentrate really hard and make sure I don"t think about all those other women I"ve had?”

“Neanderthal.” She pinched his ass, hard enough to make him jump, though she curved her leg over his hip, holding him to her. Daegan"s fingers slipped along her calf, teasing the back of her knee, making her increase her grip, pressing her still-damp sex against Gideon"s lower abdomen. But since she wanted an answer to her question, she pushed away the silky swirl of lust, in her mind and theirs. There was time for all of it. That was what made it so worth the wait.

“You"ve been doing what you do for a long time, with no rest. Is there one thing, something you haven"t done in a long time, maybe, that you"d like to do?” As she expected, it came into his head, a bright fruit on a tree of memory, the first thing that flashed. It startled him, she could tell, because it came so easily. He"d never entertained such a question, though he"d apparently revisited it in his subsconscious a thousand times.