Tallah coughed and shook her head. Then she batted Mae’s worry away. “I’m fine. I’m fine . . .” Those eyes swept around. “I don’t know what happened—can you help me up?”

Getting a hold on the female’s thin arm, Mae dragged Tallah back into her chair. Then she went for her own purse.

“I’m going to call the clinic and tell them—”

“No, no . . .” Tallah stopped Mae’s fumbling hands. “Don’t be silly. You’d just be wasting their time—let them take care of people who need it. Honestly, I’m perfectly fine. The sudden darkness frightened me, that’s all.”

Mae stared down at the female, looking for signs of confusion or . . . God, she didn’t know what. She wasn’t a doctor. But as time went on, and Tallah stayed upright and seemed to make sense?

“You know, maybe I was wrong,” the elderly female said with defeat.

“About what?”

“Everything.” She put her head in her hands. “I’m tired.”

“Would you like me to help you back into bed downstairs—”

The knocking on the front door was loud and persistent, and Mae twisted around to see the front of the house.

“Is that the . . .”

Tallah grabbed her arm. “Don’t answer it.”

The pounding went silent. Then resumed.

“Stay here.” Mae pulled away and ducked a hand into her purse. “I’ll be right back—”

“No! Don’t open it!”

Mae marched through to the parlor, and just as she reached the door, she glanced back. Tallah had turned away to the table and was drinking the last of her tea, her head tilted as she seemed to down her cup for strength.

Refocusing, Mae brought up her canister of mace, her body shaking, her instincts screaming with warning.

But surely that summoning spell hadn’t manifested some book that had the power to knock on doors?

Telling herself to get real, Mae ripped open the front door, put her mace out—

And jumped back in alarm.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she barked.

It was a moment before Shawn replied, as if maybe he couldn’t believe where he was, either. But then the fighter from the night before, the one she had saved, the one she had been working so hard to never, ever think about ever frickin’ again, shrugged.

Like they’d just happen to run into each other in the fruit section at Hannaford’s.

“You mind lowering the bear spray,” he said wryly.

She shook her head to clear it. “What?”

He nodded at the mace. “Unless you’re planning on using it on an unarmed, defenseless male? I mean, I’m all for feminism, but that seems a little aggressive, don’t you think.”

“You? Defenseless. Really. Well, then I’m the tooth fairy.”

“You don’t look like a fairy.” His eyes traveled down her body. “Unless you’re hiding your wings somewhere that I probably shouldn’t ask about?”

Mae closed her eyes and prayed for composure. And when it became clear she could wait until next month before anything close to leveling out landed on her proverbial front porch, she forced her lids back open and glared at the fighter. He was exactly as she remembered. Big, mean-looking, and with a set of black marbles that stared out of his harsh face with a combination of boredom and judgment.

Oh, and he was dressed like something out of a Deadpool movie, in all black, body-hugging combat gear.

“What the hell are you doing here,” she repeated. Because really, what else was there to say?

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by.” He leaned forward and sniffed the air. “Hey, you got any coffee in that kitchen of yours? I’m not much of a tea drinker.”

• • •

“Fuck me . . . oh, yeah . . . let me see you . . .”

Balz was on his back in his bed in his room at the Brotherhood’s mansion. But he was not alone. Holy fucking hell, he was so completely and totally not fucking alone.

A dark-haired woman was straddling his naked hips and riding his erection, slow and steady. And like she read his mind, she arched back and planted her palms on the messy bedspread by his knees, spreading her thighs wide, letting him watch as his enormous, glistening cock slid in and out of her sweet, hot core.

“Oh . . . God, damn it . . . fuck . . .”

She was so beautiful, her breasts swaying with her movements, the tight tips pointing to the ceiling as she went even deeper into that arch of hers. Below their perfect weight, her abs undulated under her fine, smooth skin, and all of those luxurious brunette locks cascaded down onto his shins.

“That’s right, fuck me,” he groaned as he squeezed her knees and forced them even farther apart. “Faster.”

As if she had nothing better to do than cater to his every fantasy, she moved more urgently, her blood red lips parting, her pelvis working, the piercing hanging from her belly button winking in the low light. She was so flexible, it was as if she were made of water, her body flowing over him, covering him, even in the places her skin wasn’t on his own.

In the back of his mind, he thought of the Mrs. at the triplex. He had done this kind of shit to that human woman, taken her, controlled her, given her the kind of pleasure that would recalibrate all the lovers she had ever had, and would ever have. That romp had been good fun. A fine way to blow an hour or two.

But this . . . this was game-changer sex—

Shifting her balance, the woman brought one of her hands forward. Her nails were long as talons and painted the same red color as her lips, and as she reached between her legs to her sex, they gleamed in the dimness.

On a rise of her hips, as his cock emerged from her slick hold, she raked them up his super-heated, super-sensitive shaft—

“I’m coming,” he barked. “Fuck, I’m coming—”

Just as he was on the verge of ejaculating, as the pleasure sharpened to a point of anticipatory agony that he wanted to capture and hold inside of his balls forever, at the very moment when the orgasm was starting—she up and disappeared.

There was even a poof! and a little wisp of smoke—

Balz bolted upright.

Throwing his hands out in front of his bare chest and his stick-straight arousal, he waved through the air, searching for the warm flesh, the woman, the heat and the passion.

Nothing.

There was nothing there.

Rubbing his face, he looked around. Yes, this was his bedroom. Or at least he thought it—no, no, he was home. He could see the outlines of the familiar arrangement of antiques, and the pile of his thieving clothes on the floor, and the cracked door that opened into the marble enclave of his bathroom—

From outside in the hall, a series of low gongings started to go off. It was the grandfather clock in the second floor’s sitting room announcing the hour.

He counted the callouts: One, two, three, four, five, six . . . seven.

Nothing else. So it was seven at night.

And it had to be at night, because he’d gone to bed at around eight in the morning. So yes, he was in the right place, at the right time. But as for the woman? Not a clue how she’d come to be in the Brotherhood’s very carefully hidden mansion, in his room—except . . . it must have been a dream.