She was so tight, so hot. The walls of her sheath clung to him, measured him, fought him even as they called for him to go deeper.

“Aisling,” he said, unable to stop himself from leaning over and kissing the delicate line of her spine.

She answered him by thrusting backward, by taking more of his cock and whispering his name. His hips bucked once, twice. It was enough to drive him all the way in, so close to her womb that his seed boiled with the need to escape and flow into her.

Zurael closed his eyes as her internal muscles rippled over his shaft in nearly unbearable ecstasy. His chest heaved with the effort it required to stay still. He wanted to linger in the first moment of being fully inside her. He wanted to capture it and hold on to it forever.

She was exquisite, innocent sensuality and a frailty that hid her strength. She was sweet temptation and deadly fascination.

Except for those moments in the ghostlands when he’d been a shadow in her mind, she was an enigma to him, an unexpected contradiction to long-held beliefs. He shouldn’t want her but he did.

“Please,” she said, moving, drowning his penis in slick arousal, searing him with a heat to rival the molten world that gave birth to the Djinn-flooding him with potent lust and an inescapable need to thrust.

Zurael’s hand slid from her hip to the downy nest of pubic hair. His fingers found her clit.

Her hips jerked with the contact. Her cry matched his as her sheath tightened on him.

“Please,” she said again, and this time he couldn’t resist her plea. He couldn’t fight the desire that ensnared them both.

He pulled his cock almost completely out of her slit and felt a savage pleasure when she cried at its loss, then welcomed it back with a shudder. In and out he thrust, slowly at first, then faster, harder. His reality became the hot, wet fist of her channel. His reason for existence narrowed to pleasing her, to making her scream as orgasm slammed through her, to filling her with his seed in an uncontrollable wash of lust.

When she cried out and her sheath tightened on him, Zurael followed her over the edge. He poured into her, died a little death because of her, and would willingly do it all over again.

Aisling felt sated, protected. Soft waves of pleasure rippled through her. Her cunt continued to spasm and grip Zurael’s still-embedded cock as if it couldn’t bear the emptiness that would come with releasing him.

Her heart warned against getting used to the feel of his strong arms around her and his warm chest at her back. He was temporary-in her life for reasons of his own or because he’d been maneuvered into guarding her. At the moment she was too grateful for his presence, too needy to question it.

The thoughts and memories she’d hoped to keep at bay crowded in. The guilt followed. “Those men died because I was there.”

Zurael’s arms tightened. He shifted position so his cheek touched hers. “They brought death on themselves.”

Aisling shivered when his soft lips found the shell of her ear. His warm breath made her nipples bead. The arm resting under her bent and his palm covered her breast. She whimpered when his other hand stroked her belly before its fingers combed through her pubic down and found her clit.

“You were the only human in the club worth saving,” he whispered.

His hips rocked in a gentle motion, timed to the subtle circle of his palm against her nipple, to the light press and rub of his fingers over her swollen clit, to the decadent hot swirl of his tongue in her ear.

Aisling closed her eyes. She let him chase away her guilt.

She met his thrusts and loved the feel of his hardness filling her, reaching deep inside her. He anchored her in a world where the only thing that mattered was the pleasure they shared, the panting murmured sounds as they climbed, the sharp cries as they found release.

Zurael kissed Aisling’s shoulder as she drifted off to sleep. Tenderness filled him, a deep possessive satisfaction he’d never known before. It lasted until his cheek touched the leather string and his thoughts shifted to the pouch containing the bloodred fetishes and inscribed pentacle.

A cold knot formed in his chest and grew larger when Aisling’s pet climbed onto the bed, its golden eyes boring into his. He worried over how he was going to keep her safe, not only from human and spirit enemies, but from the Djinn.

AISLING woke to find Aziel curled up on her pillow. His eyes opened and held an intelligence far beyond what an ordinary ferret would possess.

He studied her as she studied him. What he read in her face, she could only guess. She thought she saw pleased satisfaction in his, but she couldn’t be sure.

“I wish you would tell me what you know,” she whispered, reaching over to stroke his fur, to scratch behind his ears, knowing even as she made the wish it was in vain. Whatever had brought Aziel into her life and kept him there, it remained a secret she couldn’t unravel even in the ghostlands.

Behind her, Zurael’s even breathing told her he still slept. His arm draped across her waist made her channel spasm and her cunt lips grow flushed and slick as memories crowded in.

She eased over to look at him. His was a beauty found only in the old mythology books, in the art books capturing the works of masters long dead, those whose paintings of angels and ancient gods once hung in fine museums to be viewed by rich and poor alike.

He was otherworldly. Temptation and damnation. A dangerous being tangled in the web of her life. One who might ultimately take her life.

She wanted to touch him, to trace the masculine lips, the firm chin and elegant nose. She wanted to lean in, press her mouth to his, her tongue to his, but didn’t.

Continuing to lie with him might cost Aisling her soul as well as her heart. And though she couldn’t find it in her to regret what had taken place between them the night before, it would be better not to repeat it.

As with Aziel, whatever had brought Zurael into her life remained a secret. But unlike Aziel, whose presence gave her strength, Zurael was a weakness she could ill afford.

Nothing good could come of loving him. She didn’t know whether demons existed before mankind’s evolution or were given life by human belief. But she did know there were dark, terrifying places in the spiritlands that claimed human souls, and she didn’t doubt some of them were ruled by demons-a hell whether it was the one defined by the Church or not.

Reluctantly she eased from the bed and walked softly to the bathroom, needing space, distance, a chance to gain her balance. She wasn’t used to days without the rhythm of chores, without the ebb and flow of voices as the younger children played and quarreled, made up and went about the work necessary to survive.

Her heartbeat stuttered in her chest as she unbraided her hair underneath the showerhead. The images captured in the pool of her blood played out in her mind and threatened her with despair. How was she going to prevent the slaughter of her family?

Aisling lifted her face and let the hot water cascade over her and wash her feelings of horror and fear away. She forced her thoughts to revisit Sinners, to consider a course of action that would lead her to whoever was responsible for Ghost.

I’ll start by talking to the gifted around me, she thought as she lathered and rinsed her hair. The number of cars she’d seen in the short time before the sun set the previous day was an indication that those who were supernaturally touched might be set aside from the rest, but they weren’t shunned by Oakland society. Only the wealthy and powerful would arrive in this part of town in automobiles.

Feeling refreshed, confident, she stepped from the shower and dried herself with a towel. Her nose wrinkled at the sight of her wet hair. A sigh marked her memory of the decadent luxury of using a hair dryer after showering at the church.