“Not for centuries. It was my mother’s country, long before it was the Soviet Union. I learned to use a and the and rearrange my nouns and verbs in English order some time ago. As well as became fluent in all known languages. Translations spell.” He showed cynical amusement. “But I’ve found the Russian accent to be useful in the human circles I traverse. When I’ve been handling work in those circles, it affects my accent for a while after the job is done.”

He’d been a Russian gunrunner when Ruby had met him, but that had been almost a year before. As if reading her mind on that, Mikhael shrugged. “I could focus and get rid of it, but I suppose it’s a reminder of my origins. My version of a home, within myself.”

“Because you’re never in one place long enough to call it home.”

“Yes.” He studied her expression. “Derek has a pathological need to save, but I didn’t need saving. You’ve been around me a couple days, Raina. Does anything about me suggest I need your pity?”

“No regrets? No thoughts about what might have happened if you chose another path?”

“Yes.” He met her gaze. “But it’s not conjecture. I’ve seen what happens if I don’t do what I do. There are other Guardians who’ve second-guessed themselves or reneged on their oath at a time it was critical they be faithful to it.”

It reminded her of how seriously Derek took his oath as a Light Guardian. She had a feeling neither of them would appreciate the comparison, however.

“What did Isaac take?”

“Are we playing cards or twenty questions?”

She made a face at him, then sobered. “We have privacy here, Mikhael. It might be useful for me to know, to anticipate. I won’t share with the rest of my staff, if that’s a concern.”

“Best not to do so, though the object is useless in the hands of anyone but a highly skilled magic user, like a Guardian. Only a small number of demons could have taken it, and my contacts have eliminated them as possibilities. Which means someone we don’t know.” Mikhael gave her a long look, then relented. “Isaac stole a soulkeeper for her.”

She frowned. “Not sure what that is, but it doesn’t sound good.”

“It looks like a flute,” he said patiently. “With its touch or music, you can tear the soul out of someone’s body, capture its energy. The body will serve your will, while the soul itself provides a powerful magic. You can collect innumerable souls in it, and, with the right skills to channel that energy, you’re invincible to most opponents.”

“Removing a soul is the jurisdiction of the Lady. Or Lucifer.”

“A Guardian can do it, but it’s a different method, because of our connection to Them. However, the magic user who stole it has to break the body down to near death and pull out the soul the moment before the final gasp, before the body dies and the soul moves into the Lord and Lady’s territory.”

“The soulkeeper can detect that moment?”

“No, it can’t. Which is why it has to be an extremely talented magic user. The soulkeeper is just a refined tool and receptacle for use and storage.”

Raina felt a cold twist in her stomach. “Mikhael, a sex demon can detect that moment. We feel it right before it happens. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a talented magic user, just one who has the right receptor.”

His expression sharpened, considering it. “So the demon may be after Isaac as more than a loose end.”

“Yes.” She was about to rise, but he caught her wrist. “He’s in the house, with the others, protected. It doesn’t change anything. Except we might want to put that question point-blank to him to see how he reacts. It will tell us if he knew her plans, but I’m betting he didn’t.”

“Me, too. He’s not the type she’d trust with any element of her strategy.” A pawn. The young incubus was being used, just as Mikhael had said.

As if sensing her change of mood, he pulled her back down to a seated position, put his elbow on the table. She’d pinned her hair back with a barrette, but a shorter piece had come free. As he wrapped it around his fingers, playing with it, he answered her earlier question. “I don’t have a home, but I do visit the Underworld to turn in mission-critical information that has to be communicated face-to-face. If you like, I could take you with me sometime.”

She blinked. “Sorry. I’ve had dates in Hell. I wasn’t impressed.”

He tugged her hair. “There’s one particular place I think you’d like.”

Saying nothing further than that, he picked up the deck and began to shuffle it with dexterous moves that could be used by dealers in Vegas. Only they didn’t have the ability to float the cards from one hand to the other, spinning and cutting them in the air.

“Now you’re just showing off.”

“A little. You were getting too serious. Your turn to answer some questions. About yourself.” He put the deck down between them, the residual energy still sparking off it in a pretty display of purple fire that wafted across the table.

“You’re a Dark Guardian, not a priest,” she said primly. “A woman’s secrets are her treasure to keep.”

“And a man’s to discover.”

“They’re none of your business.”

“They are, because of the things I plan to do to you tonight.” He gave her a heavy-lidded look.

“You’re just trying to disrupt my game focus.”

“Yeah, and you’re already thinking about what I’ll do to you.” He sobered then, tapped her knuckle where she clasped the cards. “Raina, it will help if I know what happened to you. I won’t use the information against you. You know I won’t.”

“Yes, you will. In ways that I’ll want.”

She wasn’t going to explain why that was bad. It was a woman’s prerogative to be this perverse. That cold trepidation was pushing forward. He was doing what he’d been doing all along, drawing forth things she didn’t share. If he did break that open in her, let the battle play out once and for all, she might be bonded to him in a way that would mean far more to her than to him. Of course, that would be her little problem, because he wasn’t staying, was he?

He put his hand over hers, drawing her eyes up. “Tell me.”

She understood why her body wanted to capitulate, but her soul’s desire to open to him was more complicated, and probably why she was balking. She hadn’t really told anyone, ever. Ramona and Ruby knew some of it, but not the level he was seeking.

Goddess help her, she was going to tell him. Maybe because of what he was, but more likely because of what he’d done to her last night. No one had ever called that from her before.

He wasn’t soft, wouldn’t reassure her like a child, and that comforted. In fact, she’d be pleased if he was a jerk and simply fucked her brains out afterward, using her and driving her over that cliff edge of pleasure. That way, it wouldn’t mean anything. Just a bunch of words, the same way his story about becoming a Dark Guardian was just words. Words about the moment when his life changed irrevocably, making him the mysterious, brooding stranger she saw now. The one who never smiled.

“Incubi and succubi aren’t born needing to feed on sexual energy. Thank Goddess. That would be quite disturbing.” She gave a grim chuckle. “The transition happens in your teens. Up until then, you’re like a normal human child. We have a lot of kinship with the born vampires in that respect. In fact, it’s been suggested our blood might be a vampire-demon cross, instead of Fae-demon. Or some of all three. There’s no scientific funding for studying the ancestral tree of the energy-sucking genus.”

Her short laugh sounded too forced. Rising, she moved to the open doors, focused on the whimsical statue of a frog out by the meditation bench. She’d found it at a junk slash vintage slash antique shop, her favorite type of store. Crossing her arms across her chest, she rubbed her temple. She needed Gina to redo her nails. She’d chipped one, probably when she’d dug her nails into Mikhael’s hard body the night before. “I’m not sure I can do this. Or rather, I’m not sure I should do this. You’re not a kind man, Mikhael.”

“Are you seeking compassion from me?”

“No.” The word was synonymous with pity in her mind. “I don’t need it.” Recalling his distasteful attitude toward her reaction to his lack of a home gave her a tight feeling. They really were similar, in an off-kilter way. Like two billiards on the same table. Different tracks, different pockets, but same green.

When she heard the scrape of his chair, she tensed. “I really can’t handle being touched while I talk about this.”

He said nothing, and she turned to find him pushed back in the chair, in that panther-predator sprawl of his, dark eyes intent upon her. “Oh. Forgot. Not a kind man.”

“Short memory.” But there was something in his voice that wasn’t…unkind. “You know my nature, my tastes, Raina. You called them the very first night. You want to give me something, I want to take it. I’m not a priest, but when it comes to the information we’re given, a sexual Dominant has some very similar qualities.”

“Not celibacy, for certain.”

“I don’t expect either one of us can claim that.”

“No.” She turned back to the garden.

“I was kidnapped when I was ten years old. It was a demon who wanted a succubus as his assassin and personal slave. Taking me at that age, he could groom me before, during and after transition. Since I was half human, he’d calculated, correctly, that the maturation process would not result in a mindless energy lust, but would simply hone the weapon. He wanted a feral nature, but not so much it would impede my intelligence. The night he took me, he killed my mother. She was a powerful witch but didn’t see him coming.”

He’d killed her in front of Raina. It was the most potent mistake he’d made. Not ever having known love himself, not believing a succubus to be truly capable of it except as a fleeting fancy, he didn’t know how long revenge could be nursed in a broken heart.