“You refused to fall in love with anyone else, Dmitri.” A whisper with the impact of a gun-shot. “So I had to come back for you . . . husband.”

“I can smell blood, Elena,” Dmitri drawled, walking back into the room. “Are you trying to flirt?”

“After they were both done, the pile of knives and guns on the coffee table looked like they’d cleaned out an armory. “I think we have a problem, Dmitri.”

“While Dmitri, as the leader of Raphael’s Seven, could not accept such a weakness, the mortal he’d once been, the one who had loved a woman with a wide mouth and eyes of slanted brown . . . that man understood what it was to love so deeply it was a kind of beautiful madness.”

“Ever had a woman say no to you, Dmitri?”“Once.” He turned the corner with a smile that made her want to cup his face, trace those beautiful lips with her own. “I married her.”

“In my time,” he said, “they believed in witches. Are you a witch, Honor, that you make me say these things to you?” Causing him to rip open wounds that had stayed safely scabbed over for so long that, most of the time, he managed to forget they existed. Her hands, so very, very gentle, continued to hold his face as she tugged him down until their foreheads touched. “I’m no witch, Dmitri. If I was, I’d know how to fix you.”

“Bluebell,” she said, remembering from Erotique. “Pretty name.” “I call Dmitri Dark Overlord.”“Shae,” Dmitri said and the female vampire rose at once to walk quickly into the house. “Now, pretty Bluebell”—another languid stroke across her skin—“tell the Overlord what you discovered.”