It was my panties.

I snatched them up and performed a hasty inventory of myself.

Skirt, check. Shirt, check. Bra on, good. Thank you, God. Apart from the draft on my bare bottom, and the excruciatingly painful state of arousal I was in, I seemed to be okay. Apparently I’d gone straight to the panties, reached beneath my skirt, slipped them off, and continuing walking without even noticing. If I weren’t so enamored of pink, if I weren’t so into fashion, I might have continued blithely disrobing, thinking all kinds of happy, horny thoughts, until I’d have been strolling the museum naked. As it was, I’d been sidetracked by the vision of my own good taste lying there on the floor. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or appalled by how shallow I was.

“Where are you?” I snapped, stepping back into my panties and smoothing my skirt down over my hips. Though I stood in the middle of a large room full of people exclaiming over various treasures, not one person was paying me the slightest bit of attention. There was no doubt in my mind what had just brought me to such an intense, base state of sexual arousal that I’d begun subconsciously stripping.

A Fae was here somewhere, glamouring things up, and it was one of the death-by-sex ones. I assumed it was V’lane, mostly because the thought that there might be multiple, terrifyingly beautiful, mind-bending, libido-distorting Fae in my world was more than I could handle.

From somewhere behind me, laughter rolled like smooth, round, cool pearls sliding slowly over my clitoris, and I was suddenly a great, bottomless abyss of excruciating sexual need. My legs were shaking, my panties were gone again, my inner thighs were soaking wet, and I was so hungry for sex that I knew for a fact I was going to die if I didn’t get it right here and now.

A clatter drew my gaze to the floor. Next to my panties was my pearl bracelet. I wasn’t sure if I’d done what I’d just felt between my legs, or if it had. “V’lane,” I whispered, through lips swollen and plumped, just like my breasts were swelling and plumping. My body was changing, making itself ready for its Master, growing softer and wetter and riper and fuller.

“Lie down, human,” it said.

“Over my dead body, Fae,” I snarled.

It laughed again and my nipples were on fire. “Not yet, sidhe-seer, but one day you might beg for death.”

Anger. That was it. Anger had worked before. Anger and another A-word. But what was it, that word? What had saved me before? What was that unhappy thought, that miserable thought that could make me go cold inside and feel like Death myself?

“Apple,” I muttered. No, that wasn’t it. Artifact? Adam? Alleged? Allowed? Wasn’t I? Allowed to have sex right here and now? Hadn’t it said, “Lie down, human?” Who was I to disobey?

I knelt on the cool marble floor of the museum and slipped my skirt up over my hips, baring, presenting. Here I am. Take me.

“On all fours,” it said behind me, laughing again, and again I felt the cool slip of pearls being dragged slowly between my thighs, over my taut bud, between my swollen, slick lips. I dropped forward on my hands and knees. My spine arched, my bottom lifted, and I made a sound that wasn’t at all human.

My mind was going. I could feel it and I still didn’t even know if it was V’lane behind me or some other Fae that was going to nail me to the floor and slowly screw me to death. Then its hands were on my bottom and it was positioning me, and if I was a Null, I’d forgotten I had hands, and if there was a spear nearby, I’d forgotten I had a purse, and if I’d once had a sister who’d been killed somewhere in Dublin—

“Alina!” The word exploded from me with such vehemence and desperation that spittle sprayed from my lips.

I wrenched myself free, reared around, and slammed both palms into V’lane’s chest. “You pig!” I scuttled sideways, a bare-bottomed crab, desperate to reach the purse I’d dropped several yards away, along with my shirt and shoes.

By the time I reached my small pile of abandoned possessions, the Fae was already unfrozen again. Barrons had been right, the higher the caste, the more powerful the Fae. Apparently I could only freeze royalty for mere moments. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

“We are not pigs,” it said coldly, rising. “It is humans who are the animals.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not the one that almost just raped me!”

“You wanted it and you still do,” it said flatly. “Your body burns for me, human. You want to worship me. You want to be on your knees.”

The horror of it was—it was right. I did. Even now, my back was still arched with sensual invitation, my bottom was questing up like a cat in heat, and my every move was supple, sinuous. I was one great big come-hither. There was a mindless nymphomaniac inside me and it didn’t care how many orgasms it took to die. With trembling hands, I grabbed my purse. “Stay away from me,” I warned.