Late into the evening, almost everybody was drunk except for Julian when he went looking for a quiet spot. Bored and contemplating leaving, he stepped into the family room.

That night, the French doors were propped open, letting in the cool breeze. A masked woman stood alone beside the drawn, cream-colored curtains, looking out at the revelry.

He knew who she was immediately, of course, but still he had to pause to admire the spectacle she made. Her white, floor-length halter dress accentuated every spectacular inch of her golden, curvy body. Her long, thick hair had been crimped into tight curls that swept off her forehead and cascaded about her shapely shoulders and down her hourglass back like a lion’s mane.

When she looked at him, her eyes gleamed behind a golden cat mask.

“Let me guess,” he said, as he strolled toward her. In an effort to hide how the sight of her affected him, he strove to sound lazy, disinterested. “You’re the goddess of love, Inanna.”

One corner of her full lips lifted. Gods, she had a sexy mouth, made perfectly for fitting around a man’s erection.

“Well, duh,” Melly said cheerfully. “I am a very drunken goddess of love. Hello, Julian. Such a shame you Vampyres can’t fully appreciate champagne. Mommy spent a fortune on the good stuff for tonight.”

“We can fully appreciate many wonderful things about champagne,” Julian told her as he stopped by her side. “The scent, the taste. How intoxicating the effects of champagne can be as it courses through the blood of a beautiful woman.” Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips. At the last moment, he turned it so that he could press his lips to the velvet skin at her inner wrist.

“Mmmn.” The throaty sound she made shot straight to his cock. “You’re a sexy beast, your majesty.”

“I’m a bastard, and you know it.” Parting his lips as they pressed against her skin, he licked her lightly. “I’ve never made any pretense about being anything else.”

When he lifted his head, he found her smiling at him. “Yes, I do know. It’s one of the things that makes you sexy and a beast.” She lifted her wrist to him again. “Here, have a sip of champagne on me.”

Carefully, he wrapped his fingers around her slender hand, while he met and held her gaze. “Your mother wouldn’t approve,” he said. By then he had dropped all attempts at indifference, and his lowered voice turned gravelly and soft.

She lowered one eyelid in a wink. “What Mommy doesn’t know won’t hurt her, will it? Besides, isn’t it half the fun when you do something you know you shouldn’t?”

He came closer, until the tips of her breasts brushed against the jacket of his black tux. “Indeed, it is,” he said. “Very well, just a nip.”

The heat that came off of her body was exhilarating. She grinned at him, and he gave her a lazy, crooked smile in return.

As he lowered his head again, he noticed that her nipples had come erect underneath the expensive white silk halter. He lost his smile as his cock hardened further and his fangs sprang out.

Gods, he just knew she was going to taste so damn good…

A noise from out in the hall broke the hold those vivid memories had over him and hurtled him back to the present.

Jerking away from the spot where he had first tasted Melly, he swallowed hard as he struggled to get himself under control.

Any hint of her scent had vanished from the room. Now it smelled of beeswax and lemon furniture polish. How long had it been since Melly was here? Did she ever think of him when she stood in this place?

As he roamed the spacious, elegantly decorated room, his mind filled with other images. This time, instead of memories from the past, his imagination created one nightmare scenario after another. Most of the scenarios focused on images of Melly badly injured, or worse, dead.

One part of him knew he was being irrational. When he forced himself to think logically, he knew Tatiana would not have asked for his help if Melly were already dead. He doubted that he would have warranted even a phone call from her. The only way he would have heard about Melly’s death would have been through official channels.

In fact, it was entirely possible that Tatiana had asked for his help for any number of urgent reasons that had nothing to do with Melly. Yet he had never heard Tatiana sound quite so emotional, so… needy as she had when she had called him.

Something had struck her hard in the gut, and he knew of only one thing that could cause her to respond in such a way, and that was if one of her beloved daughters were in some kind of peril.

From the front of the house came the sounds of conversation and approaching footsteps. Moments later, the same Light Fae guard that had escorted him into the room ushered in two males.

Julian stopped in his pacing to stare at the new arrivals. He knew the other men well, if not deeply, for both of them were fixtures in the inter-demesne political landscape, and Julian often conversed with them at political functions.

The first male was Soren, a first-generation Djinn and the head of the Elder tribunal. While Djinn were beings of spirit and almost unimaginable Power, they often took physical form when interacting with other creatures. From what Julian understood, they could assume any physical form they chose. A Djinn could appear to be male or female, human or animal, or any creature of the Elder Races, but most often they chose to manifest as a single figure, as if that particular form was the clearest expression of their identity.

Soren’s physical form was that of a tall, broad-shouldered man, with craggy features, white hair, and the piercing, diamond-like gaze that all Djinn shared. He held such concentrated Power that it took an effort for Julian to look directly at him.

The second male was from the Wyr demesne in New York. Dragos Cuelebre, Lord of the Wyr, had sent his First sentinel, Graydon. A gryphon in his Wyr form, Graydon was a massive figure, easily the largest of all seven of the Wyr sentinels, who were famous throughout the world for their superlative fighting skills.

Graydon was also one of the first generation of the Elder Races. Born at the beginning of the world, he carried an intense aura of Power just as Soren did, but whereas Soren’s Power felt sharp and clear, like a piercing white light, Graydon’s felt warmer and golden, like a hot summer evening.

Normally Graydon’s rough, weather-beaten features wore a mild, good-humored expression, but now, his gray eyes held a sober, sharp look.

Julian’s sense of dread increased. He had thought he was being irrational, but the arrival of the other two males escalated the unknown issue to something more extreme than he had been capable of imagining.

Graydon crossed the room to shake hands. “Julian,” the other man said. “I caught your press conference yesterday about the attacks. How has the search been going?”

“It’s early in the investigation,” replied Julian. “But we’ve got a search protocol laid out. We’ll catch who’s responsible.”

With a keen gaze, Graydon searched his expression. “You said you had over a hundred dead, and most of the casualties were human?”

“Yes.” Unwilling to talk details, he braced himself to field off more questions.

But Graydon surprised him, as the other man shook his head. “That’s unacceptable. I’m sure you have plenty of resources at your disposal for the search, but I want you to know Dragos is prepared to send you Wyr trackers, if you think you’ll need them.”

Julian had been in battle mode and coping with adversarial issues for so long, the simple offer of help caught him off guard. Surprised, he said slowly, “Thank you. I don’t have an answer for you right now, but I appreciate the offer very much.”

“Just say the word, and I’ll send a team.” Graydon paused. “I guess you being here is too much for coincidence. Did Tatiana ask you for help too?”