“No dice,” she told him. “I like a guy with passion. When you finished back there, I couldn’t tell if you’d gotten your nut or muffled a sneeze.”

His eyes narrowed. “I have to keep a rein on myself. I’m half demon/half fey, a dark fey through and through”—he pulled his hair back to reveal his pointed ear—“and if I lose control, I might harm partners.”

Though true, he was in no danger of losing control. There’s nothing within me to bridle. No fire to contain.

In any case, he’d learned to restrain himself for other reasons as well. He’d realized at an early age that the power dynamic shifted between bedmates when one surrendered to the throes.

Power was everything during fucking.

“You really can’t kiss?” she asked. “I heard them say you’re poisonous.”

He shrugged, as if this limitation were trifling. “To all but my own kind.” His first kill had been with a lethal kiss.

Reminded of his past, he gritted his fangs and shoved this female’s hand to his dick. “Anything you think you might miss? I’d make up for it with size.”

She gave him a light squeeze, then withdrew her hand—as if she’d deigned to acknowledge his cock, and only because he’d been gauche enough to put it out there. Her disdain could put the old fey queen’s to shame.

“Some cavemen carry big sticks. Doesn’t mean I want to get clubbed with one.”

Inner shake. “I have other tricks in my bag.” He was good with his hands. Once he retracted his poisonous claws, he could use his fingers to get a purr out of her. “Meet me back in the courtyard at midnight, and I’ll make you see stars.” He cast her his grin, awaiting the reaction he always garnered.

The wench covered a yawn.

His grin faded.

“I might meet you,” she said, “if you agreed to talk with me over coffee.”

As a prelude to sex? What the hells could he discuss with her, a woman he planned to bed? He got tunnel-visioned at that point.

She added, “I’m not a big coffee drinker myself, but isn’t that what people do?”

Her desire to talk must be a ploy of some kind. Otherwise, this would mean a female wanted something of him . . . other than sex? No, that made zero sense. “What would we discuss?” He laid his palm against the wall over her head. “You’ll tell me your truth, and I’ll tell you a lie?”

A shadow crossed her face. “All my truths are lies.”

Curiosity flooded him. Bloody fascinating female. He reached forward to brush her hair over her shoulder. Her little ear was blessedly rounded on top. Two small rings decorated the helix, highlighting the perfect curve.

He bit back a groan. To a male like him, that couldn’t be sexier. He wanted to kiss her ears, nuzzle and nip them. “Look at those piercings. Any hidden ones on your body?”

“Yes.” A single word. Succinct. No additional explanation.

Just enough to send his imagination into overdrive. His claws dug into the brick wall. “If I meet you, I’ll seduce you to do more than talk.”

She exhaled as if she’d reached the end of her patience with him. Which, again, made zero sense. Rune elicited many responses from females: lust, possessiveness, obsession. Never exasperation.

“You’ve gotta be satisfied after four babes.”

“Those nymphs were a warm-up. I’m called Rune the Insatiable for a reason. I’m never satisfied,” he told her honestly, as if this were a good thing. He jested with his compatriots, but in reality, his existence could get exhausting. Always seeking the next conquest, the next secret . . .

He’d considered hibernating after this Accession.

Then he’d remembered he would need at least five hundred years to savor his victories.

He leaned down to rasp at her lovely ear, “Maybe you’ll be the one to sate me at last.” If it hadn’t happened in millennia, he didn’t expect it to now, but tarts ate that line up. He dangled the prospect because Lore females liked challenges.

This one pressed her hot palms to his chest, digging in her black nails. “You wanna know a truth?” She held his gaze. Her eyes were mesmerizing, her hazel irises flecked with brilliant blue and amber.

Finally they were getting somewhere! “I do.”

In a breathy whisper, she said, “Maybe I wouldn’t give a good goddamn if you were sated or not.”

Sexiest voice. Bitchy words. “What are you?”

“You really don’t know?”

He shook his head, but she was already looking past him, her interest turned off in an instant.

“I’m done here.” She patted his chest, then sidled under his arm. “Later, Rune.”

“Wait, I didn’t catch your name.”

She walked backward, flashing him a dazzling smile. “Because I didn’t toss it, sport. Only good boys get rewards.” She pivoted to saunter away from him.

His lips parted in disbelief as she strutted down the street. She turned every head, leaving mortal males agog. Rune’s muscles tensed to pursue her, but he ruthlessly quelled the urge.

He’d become the master of his impulses. For the first hellish centuries of his life, his body and his mind had been commanded by another.

No longer.

But the damage had been done. He’d grown so detached during his early abuse that he’d felt like two separate beings. And one was dead.

Rune had stifled the fire within himself for so long, he’d extinguished it. And yet his heart thundered in his ears as he watched his voyeur melt into the crowd.