"Who can sleep with all that yelling and squeaking going on? It's an incubus, Aisling, not a mouse. It's not going to crawl up your leg."

"That's what you think! Kill it! Or disperse it! Or whatever you did to make the other one go away."

Jim sighed and shambled over to where the incubus was struggling to sit up. "Look, buddy, you might as well leave. She's got a boyfriend already, and given the way they were making the whole house shake the last time they got it on, I'd say you don't stand a chance with her."

"But I am most talented," the blond night spirit protested in a heavy German accent. "I am the stallion extraordinary in bed."

I beat him on the head with one of my pillows. "Go away! And don't come back!"

"You do not want me? You do not crave my body? This is unheard of! This cannot be!"

"Believe it, stallion boy," Jim said. "She's tough when she wants to be, so if I were you, I'd take a hike,"

"A knife!" I yelled, still brandishing my pillow. "Jim, I command you to get me a gelding knife. If this guy wants to be a stallion—"

He dissolved in a flurry of white smoke even before I could finish the sentence.

"Ha! Victorious again!"

"Yeah," Jim drawled while I remade the bed and fluffed up my pillows. "Aisling, two; sexy, naked men who just want to give her the pleasure of a lifetime with no commitment, zero."

"Yeah, but... but... "

Jim cocked an eyebrow. I gave up and plopped down on the bed. "You're right. I'm crazy."

I woke up two hours later to find the third incubus sucking on my earlobe.

"Hello," he said, with a roguish grin. I am Teodore, and I'm here—"

"Right, that's it," I snarled, shoving him aside as I grabbed my silk bathrobe, pulling it on and tying the belt so tightly it almost cut off circulation to my lower half. "Come on, Jim."

"Come on? Come on where?" Jim sat up, shaking itself as it blinked at the incubus, who now rolled around striking seductive poses on my bed. "Another one? Geez, girl, what perfume are you using?"

I snatched up my purse, throwing open the door. "'We're going someplace where I can get some sleep without being molested. Demon, follow me."

Jim trailed me as I marched to the elevator, out to the thankfully empty lobby, across to the night clerk, waited while I asked my question and paid a large bribe to get an employee to break the hotel's rule regarding guest information, padded after me as I went back to the elevator, all without saying a word. I rapped hard on the door to the suite on the fifth floor.

A tousle-headed Pal opened it up, blinking sleepily at me.

"Morning," I said, pushing past him to enter the suite. "Which room is Drake's?"

He blinked a couple more times, then pointed to the left.

"Thanks. Jim, you can sleep out here, on the couch."

"Don't pee on anything. Don't eat anything that isn't offered to you first. Don't hump Istva’s leg. Good night."

I marched over to Drake's bedroom, pausing to look back at Pal, who still stood by the open door. "Uh ... he's alone, isn't he?"

Pal nodded.

"Good." Head high, I swept open the door, entering Drake's room with enough noise to alert him to my presence.

"Hello," I told him when he clicked on the light. I ignored the rush of heat that swept through me at the sight of a sleepy, naked Drake, forcing myself to not stare at his bare chest, more than a little grateful for the blankets covering his lower parts. "I'm sleeping with you tonight. Just sleeping. No sex. No touching. Not even a kiss. My room is infested with incubi."

He watched me silently as I tossed my silk bathrobe onto a tapestry armchair before sliding under the blankets on the bed (his air conditioner, I noticed, was working extremely well). I lay as close to the edge of the bed as I could to avoid touching him, clutching the blankets over my chest as I closed my eyes, trying like mad to ignore his heat.

"Incubi?" he finally said, his voice all but rubbing along my skin.

The mattress dipped. I opened my eyes to find a dark-haired man leering suggestively at me, "I am Jacob."

"Look behind you," I told him.

"Eh?" His head swiveled as he looked back to see Drake propped up on one elbow. "Blet!"

He disappeared without another word. I cocked a questioning eyebrow at Drake.

"Incubi," he agreed, nodding. "do, assuming I pass this ritual that no one wants to talk about, and you like the looks of my application, what happens then? I assume we'd have to live fairly close together? At least in the same country?"

Rose the Guardian nodded. "The traditional method of Guardian training is for the apprentice to live with the mentor, studying the various aspects of the dark powers and assisting with minor jobs until the mentor feels the apprentice is skilled enough to maintain a portal on her own."

"That would be a portal to Hell, right? Not, say, a portal to Cleveland?"

Rose nodded again. She was slight, dark-haired, and hailed from the Virgin Islands. Thus far my Guardian appointments had been with women from Chicago, Marseilles, and Istanbul. Out of the four, the Virgin Islands sounded like an idyllic place to learn to put the lid on the portal between the real world and the dark side of the Otherworld. "Once I evaluate your application, and those of the others who are seeking a mentor, I will let you know if we need to schedule a further interview. I admit that the fact you have the ability to summon and bind to you an unattached demon raises you significantly in my estimation, but I am concerned about the fact that you are also a wyvern's mate."

I waved a negligent hand. "Don't let it worry you. It's not an issue."

"Ah. Good. Well, I have your room number, so if I have any further questions, I will be in contact. Good afternoon."

"Thanks, and same to you."

I waited until Rose left the tiny cafe situated on a wide, shady verandah on the south side of the hotel before dropping my weary head onto my hands.

A cold, moist object pressed against my ankle.

"You may speak, Jim," I answered the unspoken request, my voice muffled against the cool marble tabletop.

"Did you have to command me to shut my yap in front of the Guardian? You couldn't have put it nicer? You couldn't have wrapped it up in that hokey medieval-speak you like to use whenever you're bossing me around? I may be a demon, Aisling, but I do have feelings!"