She kissed him passionately, then pulled back. "What have you done to me?" she asked hoarsely, her words surprising him.

"It's not exactly me," he said honestly. "It's something I can't help."

She moaned and writhed against him, making his body burn even more. "I need you inside me, Sebastian. Please."

He wasted no time obliging her. Rolling her over, he curled his body around hers as they lay with her back to his front. He draped her leg over his waist.

He tucked her head beneath his chin and held her close as he drove himself deep inside her sleek wetness. He growled at the warm, wet feel of her while she leaned her head back into his shoulder and cried out.

Channon had never felt anything like this. No man had

ever made love to her in such a manner. Her right hip was braced against his inner thigh while he used his left knee to hold her left leg up so that he had access to her body from behind her. She didn't know how he managed it, but his strokes were deep and even, and they tore through her with the most intense pleasure she had ever known. He was so hard inside her, so thick and warm.

And she wanted more of his touch. More of his power.

He slid his hand down over her stomach, then lower until he touched her between her legs. She hissed and writhed as pleasure tore through her while his fingers rubbed her in time to his strokes. And still it felt as if a thousand hands caressed her, as if she were being bathed all over by his touch, his scent.

Out of her mind with ecstasy, she met him lush stroke for lush stroke. Her body felt as if it held a life of its own, as if the pleasure of her was its own entity. She needed even more of him.

Sebastian was awed by her response to him. No human woman had ever been like this. If he didn't know better, he'd swear she was part Drakos. She dug her nails into the flesh of the arms he had wrapped around her, and when she came again she screamed out so loudly, he had to quickly put a dampening spell around them to keep others from hearing her.

His powers surging, he smiled wickedly at that. He loved satisfying his partner, and with Channon he took even more delight than normal.

She rolled slightly in his arms, capturing his lips in a frenzied kiss.

Sebastian cupped her face as he quickened his strokes and buried himself even deeper in her body. She felt so incredibly good to him. So warm and welcoming. So per­fect.

He held her close against him as his heart pounded and his groin tightened even more. The feel of her, the taste of her, cascaded through his senses, making him reel,

making him ache, yet at the same time soothing him.

The beast in him roared and snapped in satisfaction while the man buried himself deep in her and shook from the force of his orgasm. With the two parts of him sated and united, it was the most incredible moment of his en­tire life.

Channon groaned as she felt his release inside her. Still wrapped around her, he pulled her even closer to his chest. She heard his ragged breathing and felt his heart pounding against her shoulder blade. The manly scent of him filled her head and her heart, making her want to stay cocooned by his body forever.

Slowly, the throbbing pleasure faded from her and left her weak and drained from the intensity of their love-making.

When he withdrew from her, she felt a tremendous sense of loss.

"What did you do to me?" she asked, turning onto her back to look at him.

He kissed his way across her collarbone to her lips. "I did nothing, ma petite. It was all you."

'Trust me, I've never done that before."

He laughed softly in her ear.

She smiled at him and dropped her gaze to the small gold medallion he wore around his neck. Odd, she hadn't noticed it before.

She traced the chain with her fingers, then took it into her hand. It was obviously quite old. Ancient Greek if she didn't miss her guess. The gold held a relief of a dragon coiled around a shield. "This is beautiful," she breathed.

Sebastian looked down at her hand and covered her fingers with his. "It belonged to my mother," he said, wondering why he spoke of it. It was something he'd never shared with anyone else. "I don't really remember her, but my brother said she told him to give it to me so that I would know how much she loved me."

"She died?"

He nodded. "I was barely six when..." His voice trailed off as his memories of that night scorched him. Inside his head he could still hear the screams of the dying and smell the fires. He remembered the terror and the arms of his brother, Theren, pulling him to safety.

He'd always lived with the horrors of that night close to his heart. Tonight, with Channon, it didn't seem to hurt quite so much.

She ran her hand over the markings on his face. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and inside his heart, he could feel her sincerity. "I was nine when my mother died of cancer. And there's always this little piece of me that wishes I could hear the sound of her voice just one more time."

"You're without family?"

She nodded. "I grew up with my aunt, who died two years ago."

He felt her ache inside his own heart and it surprised him. He hated that she was alone in the world. Like him. It was a hard way to be.

Tightening his arms, he let his body comfort her.

Channon closed her eyes as he ran his tongue around and into her ear, sending chills over her. She leaned into his arms and pulled him close for another scorching kiss. A tiny part of her wanted to beg him not to leave her in the morning. But she refused to embarrass herself.

She'd known going into this that tonight would be all they would ever have. Yet the thought of not seeing him again hurt her more than she could fathom. She literally felt that losing him would be like losing a vital part of herself.

Sebastian knew he should leave now, but something inside him rebelled.

It wasn't much longer until dawn. He still had to re­trieve the tapestry and return home.

But right now, all he wanted was to spend a little more time holding this woman, keeping her in the warm shelter of his arms.

"Sleep, Channon," he whispered as he sent a small sleeping spell to her. If she were awake and looking at him, he would never be able to let her go.

Immediately, she went limp in his arms.

Sebastian ran his fingers over the delicate curve of her cheek as he watched her. She was so beautiful by his side.

He clenched his hand against her silken curls and took a deep breath in her hair. Her floral scent reminded him of warm summer days of shared laughter and friendship. Her bare hips were nestled perfectly against his groin, her lower back against his stomach. Her smooth legs were entwined with his masculine ones. Gods, how he ached to keep her here like this.

He felt himself stirring again. He felt the need within him to take her one more time before he upheld his ob­ligation.

You must go.

As much as he hated to, he knew he had no choice.

Sighing in regret, he withdrew from the warmth of her and crept from the bed, still amazed by the night they had shared. He would never forget her. And for the first time in his life, he actually considered coming back here for a while.

But that was impossible.

His kind didn't do well in the modern world, where they were easily hunted and found. He needed wide-open spaces and a simpler world where he could have the free­dom and solitude he needed.

Clenching his teeth against the pain of necessity, he dressed silently in the dark.

Sebastian stepped away from the bed, then paused.

He couldn't leave like this, as if the night had meant nothing to him.

Pulling his mother's medallion from his neck, he placed it around Channon's and kissed her parted lips.

"Sleep, little one," he whispered. "May the Fates be kind to you. Always."

Then, he shimmered from her room and out into the dark night. Alone. He was always alone.

He'd long ago accepted that fact. It was what had to be.

But tonight he felt that loneliness more profoundly than he had ever felt it before.

As he rounded the hotel's building and headed toward his car, he collided with a middle-aged woman who was walking, huddled from the cold, in a worn jacket. She wore the faded uniform of a waitress and the old shoes of a woman who had no choice but to be practical.

"Hey," he said as she started past him. "Do you have a car?"

She shook her head no.

"You do now." He handed her the keys to his Lexus and pointed it out to her. "You'll find the registration in the glove box. Just fill it out and it's yours."

She blinked at him. "Yeah, right."

Sebastian offered her a genuine smile. He'd only bought the car to use while he'd been trapped in this time period. Where he was going, there was no need for it.

"I'm serious," he said, nudging her toward it. "No strings attached. I took a vow of poverty about fifteen minutes ago, and it's all yours."

She laughed incredulously. "I have no idea who you are, but thank you."

Sebastian inclined his head and waited until the woman had driven off.

Cautiously, he stepped into the alley and looked around to make sure there were no witnesses. He called forth the powers of Night to shield him from anyone who might happen by, then he shifted into his alternate form. The power of the Drakos rushed through him like fire as the ions in the air around him were charged with electrical energy—electrical energy that allowed him to shed one form and shift into another.

In his case, his alternate form was that of a dragon.

Spreading his bloodred wings out to their full forty-foot span, he launched himself from his hind legs and flew into the sky, careful to stay below radar level this time.

Sebastian had one last thing to do before he could re­turn to his time. Yet even as he headed back to the mu­seum, he couldn't shake the image of Channon from his mind.

He could still see her asleep in the bed, her hair spread out around her shoulders. He could still feel the texture of the honey-laced strands in his palm.

His dragon form burned with need, and he yearned to return to her.

Not that he could. One-night stands with humans were all he dared. The risk of exposure was too great.

Sebastian crossed town in a matter of minutes and landed on the roof of the museum. He summoned the electrical field that allowed the molecules of his body to transform from animal to human and flashed back into his man form.

With a flick of his hand, he dressed himself all in black, then shimmered from the roof into the room that held the tapestry.

"There you are," he said as he saw Antiphone's work again. Sadness, guilt, and grief tore through him as he recalled his baby sister's gentle face.

After he'd sold this tapestry, he had never wanted to see it again.

But now he had to have it. It was the only way to save his brother's life. Not that he should care. Damos had never given a damn about him.

After all the things Damos had done to break him, Se­bastian still couldn't turn his back on his brother and let the man die. Not when he could help it.

"I'm a bloody fool," he said disgustedly.

He willed the tapestry from the museum case into his hand. Then he folded and tucked it carefully into a black leather bag to protect it.

As he began to shimmer from the room back to the roof, an odd burning started in the palm of his left hand.

"What the... ?"

Hissing from the pain, he dropped the case and pulled off his glove. Sebastian blew cool air across his hot skin and frowned as a round geometric design appeared in his palm.

"No," he breathed in disbelief as he stared at it.

This wasn't possible, yet there was no denying what he saw and felt. Worse, there was a presence inside him, a tickling in the depth of his heart that made him curse even louder.

Against his will, he was mated.

This was a nightmare. The absolute worst kind of night­mare.

It was wrong. It had to be.

Sebastian left the museum immediately, all the while debating his next step. On the building's roof, he paused. He needed to take the tapestry back to Britain of a thou­sand years earlier. He was sworn to it. He'd destroyed Antiphone's future, and now the fate of his brother was in his hands.

But the mark ...

He couldn't leave his mate here while he went home. Nor could he stay in this time period where the danger of being inadvertently struck by an electrical charge was so strong—that was his one Achilles' heel.

Because he relied on electrical impulses to change forms, any kind of outside electrical jolt could involun­tarily transform him. It was why his kind avoided any

time period after Benjamin Franklin, the so-called Satan of his people.

But Arcadian law demanded he protect his mate.

At any cost.

Centuries of war had left the Drakos branch of the Ar­cadians virtually extinct. And since Sebastian hunted down and executed the evil animal Drakos, their kind would make it a point to track and kill his mate should they ever learn of Channon's existence.