The first time she’d danced for him, he’d felt as if she’d gifted him with her soul. It was a gift he treasured with ferocious protectiveness.

“Look,” she whispered, pointing to the happily exhausted form of their new chocolate-colored mutt of a puppy. “He’s adorable, but what’s even more adorable is when you try to teach him to do tricks and he just wants to lick and love you to death.”

“I am not giving up,” Janvier vowed. “He will fetch something for me eventually.” They’d adopted the scraggly furball after someone abandoned him as a newborn at Dr. Shamar’s veterinary clinic, and right now, he was dreaming doggy dreams on the verandah, dark against the white of the walls.

Ash and Janvier—with help from Guild and Tower friends—had stripped the old paint a month earlier and put on a fresh coat of creamy white. It suited the house with its delicate cornices and wraparound verandah. Inside, his Ash indulged her liking for color, turning each room into a warm, welcoming haven.

It was the pieces she’d restored and saved that he most loved.

She was the one who’d figured out how to polish up the double swing with an iron frame that he’d found in a junk shop, the two of them working together to create the large flat cushions for the seat and the back. The rejuvenated swing sat on the back part of the verandah, facing their small but breathtaking view of Manhattan.

Taking a seat on the swing, the puppy curled up underneath in his favorite spot, the two of them unlaced and took off their boots and socks. “Yesterday,” Ash said, eyes sparkling, “when Bluebell dropped by, I asked him to take off his boots before he came inside and he accused me of having an unnatural relationship with our wooden floor.”

“Does he not know it is a most decadent ménage à trois?” Janvier slapped a hand over his heart. “My dear, honeyed floor, let me count the ways I love thee.”

Ashwini laughed at the languid seduction of his voice. “She is a divine other woman.” It was in the two months directly after she woke as a near-immortal that she and Janvier had worked on the floor. She’d been painfully weak then and the repetitive motions needed to strip and polish the wood had acted as low-impact physical therapy.

Four months on, every time she looked at that floor, she remembered lying in the then-empty room with Janvier, the sun’s kiss on their bodies and their hands linked as they discussed their plans for the house . . . and for the future. There was, of course, no way to see the malformation in her brain, but six months on and she felt no different from prior to her Making.

“The countdown is now frozen in amber,” Keir had told her, his hands gentle on her face, “or as close to it as matters not. Live without fear.”

The echo of Arvi’s words had made her eyes burn, her breath stuck in her chest. The hole in her heart that was the space where Arvi and Tanu had lived would always hurt, but she would honor the gift they had given her. For the first time in her life, she no longer knew when she would cease to exist, and that was a wonderful gift.

“How was your meeting with Dmitri?” Janvier asked as they walked inside.

“Good.” Hitching herself onto the counter, she said, “I was able to give him a heads-up on that creepazoid vamp Carys mentioned.” Ashwini was currently working for the Tower in the role of liaison with the people who lived in the gray that had been Giorgio’s hunting ground, though she’d also received dispensation to work for the Guild in her off time.

“It would be idiotic of us to deprive the Guild of one of its best hunters when the hunters do a task that makes our job easier,” Dmitri had said point-blank. “You and Janvier, however, will also work as a team directly under my authority to hunt down older vampires wanted for crimes beyond the purview of the Guild.”

That was a job she could sink her teeth into, with the best partner she could imagine. That partner’s eyes widened slightly when she added, “Ellie grabbed me as I was leaving and made us an offer. Turns out she needs a Guard. Founding member is Izzy, with Vivek having just come onboard.”

Janvier handed her a bottle of blood from the fridge. “Both of us?”

“We’re a pair.” It was an irrefutable truth. “She told Raphael she was planning to steal you and he said she’d made an excellent choice.”

Janvier’s smile was slow. “I see no downside, cher. We will be expected to undergo intensive training over time, and to come in if Elena needs us—”

“We’d do that anyway.” Ellie was family.

“Exactly. Otherwise, we’ll be kept busy with any number of tasks, much like the Seven.” He came to stand between her knees. “I say yes.”

“Me, too.” Ashwini had the feeling Ellie had no idea what to actually do with a Guard—it’d be fun to figure it out with her, hold on tight to that friendship into eternity.

“Speaking of Vivek,” Janvier said, “did you hear he regained the use of his right hand last night?”

Having put the bottle on the counter, Ash pumped her fists in the air . . . then frowned. “Wait a minute. Everyone said it might take over a year for him to regain any voluntary movement below the neck and he has an entire hand already?”

Janvier’s eyes glinted. “Something is afoot, but I do not know what.” Palms braced on the counter on either side of her after he put his bottle down, too, he said, “Aodhan was responsible for Vivek’s Making, but there are rumors Keir was in the room at the time. He must’ve done something.”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter if we ever figure out what,” Ashwini said, though her curiosity was a sharp, nibbling creature inside her. “I’m happy for V.”

“Yes.” He picked up her bottle of blood. “You have to drink, sugar.”

Running her fingernails over his scalp, to his shiver, she leaned in to nuzzle at his throat. “I don’t like cold blood.”

Janvier wove his hand into her hair, unraveling her braid and holding her to his neck. “Then it is a good thing I am addicted to your bite.” He jerked slightly when she sank her fangs into him, his pulse thudding as the taste of him—hot, dark, sinful—filled her mouth.

Unlike Janvier, she couldn’t give pleasure with her bite, but that wasn’t a problem. Not when the two of them always ended up na**d after she fed from him, the erotic connection so powerful that they were helpless to fight it. It was why she could never, ever feed from him in public. Her own pulse a racing train, she fumbled with his pants as he tore down the sweats she’d worn for their session, taking her panties with it.

He thrust his hand between her thighs, drove two fingers into her before she could push his own pants down. Crying out, she clung to his shoulders. Her brain was hazy, her balance off. They went to the floor in a tangle of limbs the next second, Janvier twisting to take the brunt of the impact—without ever stopping in his caresses.

Tugging desperately at his workout pants and underwear, she managed to free his c*ck and realized to her frustration that her sweats were caught at her knees, leaving her unable to straddle him. Janvier gave her no time to sit up to finish the task; he flipped them . . . and then he flipped her. Tugging her up onto her knees, he thrust into her from behind, his entry shockingly, searingly tight because of the way her legs were held together.

Sweat, heat . . . his fangs sinking into her shoulder . . . and boom.

•   •   •

“We really need to get a handle on that,” she said some time later, her legs finally free of clothing.

She was on top of Janvier, licking up the two thin trails of blood that had escaped her bite because she hadn’t had the presence of mind to seal the wound before he blew her brains out. That wound was now healing, but he’d carry the bruise for a few days. She kinda liked that, which was why she kept biting him on the neck.

“Why?” He ran his hand down her back and over her butt, luxuriating in her body with an earthy sensuality that made her boneless. “I’m not complaining about quickies straight out of a p**n movie.”

She snorted with laughter. “Porn? Seriously?”

His slow, wicked smile caught her heart, made her glad all over again that she’d taken the jump into the unknown. “Didn’t we do it on the bathroom floor last night?” he said. “Today, I have you sans pants in the kitchen. Seems pornish to me.”

Bursting out laughing again, she kissed his gorgeous, playful mouth. “Is this normal? The insane sexual connection?”

“Not that I’ve heard. It is our little gift.” He squeezed her butt. “One that I hope will continue for a long, long, long time.”

Sitting up on him, the T-shirt she’d worn to work out in doing its best to preserve her modesty—and failing spectacularly, if the glint in his eye was any indication—she pushed back her hair and spread her hands over his chest. “I’m happy, Janvier.” A whispered confession. “I’m so happy to be here, to be with you. It hurts my heart, the happiness.”

His amusement faded, his expression na**d with emotion. “Your heart bruise is a perfect match to mine.” Tugging her down, he cupped the sides of her face, spoke words low and rough that made her feel whole in parts she hadn’t even known were broken.

“Marry me,” she whispered. “I’ll show you things that’ll make you laugh in delight, scream in passion, cry for the sheer joy of it.”

The light in his eyes, it was her whole world. “Done.”