Sure he used a bit of trickery, summoning all of his immortal charms and putting them to good use.

Always managing to show up at just the right time, in just the right place. Always managing to impress me in some big and showy spectacular way. But still, it’s not like any of that was really necessary, because the truth, the truth that I couldn’t see clearly until now, is that it wasn’t the magick that enabled him to capture my heart—magick had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Damen won me over from the very first moment. From our very first glance.

Damen won me over long before I even knew who he was or just exactly what he was capable of.

His powers of attraction, the reason I fell for him so quickly wasn’t because of the magick—it was because Damen was just simply being, well,Damen .

After watching our entire courtship together—scenes we’ve relived in Summerland, and those we have not—including my horrible death at Drina’s hands—I move on to my next life. Back when I was a Puritan with a strict father, a long-dead mother, a wardrobe consisting of three drab dresses, and an even drabber existence. The only bright spot on the entire horizon of my boring life being a fellow parishioner with dark shaggy hair, a generous smile, and kind eyes I instantly recognize as belonging to Jude—a parishioner my father approves of, pushes me toward, until the day I spot Damen sitting in a pew and my whole world, my entire future, is turned upside down. And it’s not long after meeting him, not long after getting to know him, when I promise to abandon my life of humble obedience for his far more glamorous one. Until, of course, Drina brings it to an untimely end.

Drina always brought it to an untimely end.

Leaving my father devastated, Jude shell-shocked, and Damen to scour the earth plane in a prolonged state of grief, waiting for my soul to recycle so we can reunite once again.

I watch my other lives as well, watch as my soul merges into the body of a well-coddled and extremely pampered baby who will grow up to be a frivolous, spoiled daughter of a wealthy land baron. Carelessly casting aside Jude, a British earl everyone assumes I’ll marry, in favor of a tall, dark stranger who arrived seemingly out of nowhere. Though once again, thanks to Drina, my life ends tragically before I have a chance to make the choice public, but my heart knows the score.

Then on to Amsterdam where I lived as the beautiful, sultry, alluring artist’s muse with the amazing mane of long titian hair. Flirting with Jude, just like I’ve done with so many who came and went before him, until Damen arrives and steals my attention.

Not by resorting to any sort of trickery, no overt magick acts were used. He won me simply by being who he is. No more, no less. From the moment I first laid eyes upon him, no one else stood a chance.

But the life I’m most interested in is the life that’s revealed last.

My Southern life.

Back when I lived and worked as a slave.

Back when Damen freed me at the expense of my happiness.

Watching that whole miserable lifetime unfold, from a childhood that never really was, to the only bright spot in that entire existence—a brief kiss from Jude.

The two of us slinking off to meet behind the barn just as the sun begins to fall. Unsure what’s causing my heart to flutter more—the excitement of what I hope will be my first kiss or the fear of being caught sneaking off the job. Knowing the penalty for such an act will be a severe beating—or worse.

But still, determined to keep my promise to meet him, I’m overcome with a rare feeling of joy, an unexpected surge of happiness, when I see that he’s already there.

He smiles awkwardly, and I nod in return, suddenly overcome by an extreme bout of shyness, a fear of appearing overeager. Though it’s not long before I notice the way his hands shake, the way his eyes dart, and I know I’m not the only one feeling this way.

We exchange a few pleasantries, the kind of automatic words neither of us pays any real attention to.

Then just when I’m thinking I’ve been gone for too long, that I’ll have no choice but to head back before my absence is noticed, he does it.

He leans toward me, his large brown eyes peering at me with such love and kindness it robs me of breath. Then he closes them softly, leaving me with a view of curly dark lashes resting against glossy dark skin, and a pair of enticing lips moving toward mine. The cool sweet press of his mouth so soft and familiar, it causes a wonderful wave of calm to flow through my body.

Even after it’s over, even after I push him away, turn on my heel, lift my skirts, and run back toward the house—the kiss lingers.

The taste and feel of it continuing to play, as I silently repeat the whispered promise we made to meet up the very next day, same time and place.

But just a few hours before that’s scheduled to happen, Damen appears.

Seemingly arriving out of nowhere, just like he has in all of my previous lives, only this time he spares no time for a prolonged courtship, or even a few pleasantries of any kind, his intentions are far too urgent for that.

He’s determined to buy me. Tofree me from a painfully harsh life of brutality and servitude, in exchange for one so opulent, and so privileged, and so opposite of everything that I’m used to, I’m convinced that he’s lying, that it’s a trick, that there’s no way it could possibly be true.

So sure that my life has just taken such a major turn for the worse that I cry out for my mother, my father, strain my fingers toward Jude’s—wanting him to hold me, protect me, not let me go to wherever it is I’m about to. Convinced I’m being ripped away from the only form of happiness I ever could know for something far worse, I’m terrified, caught in a state of overwhelming turmoil and fear. Deeply suspicious of this new, soft-spoken master who whispers to me gently, who treats me respectfully, and who gazes upon me with the kind of reverence I’ve never known before, that I’m sure isn’t real.