fragile. So in need of someone strong to take care of her.
Kasdeya gave his head a sharp shake at his turn of thought. She may indeed need taking care of, but that wasn’t his job. At any rate, she seemed fine now. He eyed her coltish legs as she gathered them beneath her and stood swaying dizzily from side to side. Yes, she was very fine.
Alexandra cleared her throat several times. “What the hell are you doing in the mirror? It’s daylight out.”
Kasdeya leaned casually against the barrier that separated their planes. “We have a deeper connection now that you have summoned me once.”
Indeed they did, and their timelines seemed to have synced; every minute he’d watched her, so pale and motionless, had passed with the same excruciating slowness in both worlds. A natural side-effect of her power, he assumed. How convenient. He’d be able to monitor her continuously from now on, which would give him ample time to wear her down.
Not to mention that it would have distressed him to see her age past the beauty she currently possessed in just a matter of hours and to weaken and die in a few days. Yes, it would have distressed him greatly. But perhaps “distress” wasn’t the right word. The thought of her infinitesimal mortal life and its inevitable end made his heart race with an emotion he was unfamiliar with and so could not name. However, it mattered not. He would never have to witness such an event.
Kasdeya pushed the strange thoughts he was struggling with aside and concentrated on his goal. If Alexandra would just call him into her own plane, he could ravish her to within an inch of her life—not because it would be necessary at that point, having already won his freedom, but because he really wanted to. And then he would be on his merry way. One thousand years on Earth was a much more satisfying prospect than one thousand years in this depressing gray limbo and, with luck, the Prince would never know the difference.
* * * *
His smile was indolent as he traced a figure on the glass—a figure that corresponded to her own body’s curves. Alex sucked in a surprised breath at the feathery feel of his spirit hand gliding along the side of her breast.
“Summon me but once more, Alexandra, and I’ll make you gasp in earnest.”
Alex backed away until the door handle declared its presence to her right hip. She fumbled for the knob behind her. “Oh, I don’t think so, dark man. What kind of person would I be if I let loose a demon into the world?” Why wouldn’t the damn door open? She glanced down to twist the key that had somehow managed to turn itself in the old-fashioned lock.
“We prefer the name ‘Fallen.’”
She finally tugged the door open. “Yeah, well, a thorn by any other name…”
Alex beat a hasty retreat.
Chapter 4
“You look like shit.”
“Gee, Rosie, you always know just what to say to make a girl feel special.” Alex looked up from the computer screen as Rose strode into the tiny room Alex considered her home away from home. Alex’s glance took in Rose’s floor-length floral skirt—in the most putrid shade of chartreuse—and the threadbare purple sweater—which clashed outrageously with her friend’s curly red hair—and she shook her head in fond amusement. Rose’s comment was a little like the pot and the kettle, but it wouldn’t do her any good to say so.
She’d tried to get Rose to take some care with her appearance. After all, Rose was really quite attractive and only a few years older than Alex. She’d tried to set her up on dates—to no avail. Rose mothered everyone but was, sadly, a mother to no one. She seemed perfectly happy directing all her maternal instincts into her friends. “Plenty of time for that later,” she’d say whenever Alex tried to introduce her to a new beau. “I’m busy enough as it is without having to worry about keeping a man happy too.” But Alex saw the wistful shine in Rose’s eyes when the children ran through the house and the small, sad smile she’d tried to hide when a toddler had grinned at her from his perch atop Daddy’s shoulder while they’d waited in line at the bank, so Alex kept trying to set her friend up, no matter how many times she was rebuffed.
Rose snorted and threaded her way through the disaster Alex called an office to deposit her burden of papers onto an already precariously balanced stack. She turned back to her boss—a title that Rose said held little meaning for her considering the pittance she was paid. But Alex knew that Rose was really here because she believed in the work, and because she had become almost like a big sister to Alex. Rose had been wooed by bigger charities for more money and more prestige. Her organizational skills were renowned in certain circles. But she seemed quite happy at Dovescot.
Right now, however, Rose was wearing an expression of such obvious concern that Alex made an effort to wipe the exhaustion off her face and straightened the sleep-deprived slump of her shoulders. She didn’t want to worry her friend, and she knew she was doing just that; Rose’s “You look like shit,” was just her way of saying so. Alex’s effort proved too much. With a tired sigh, she leaned back in her cracked vinyl chair. Her palms came over her closed eyes to massage her aching eyeballs. She’d been staring at the grant request forms for about three hours, occasionally typing in one or two desultory words only to delete them a few seconds later. She was furious with herself that she couldn’t seem to pull it together. Her work was important. They needed the grant to keep the doors open for another year.
“Well, you know what, babe?” Alex said. “I feel like shit.”
“Spill.” Rose skirted her bum up on the edge of Alex’s desk, accidentally knocking a ream of paper to the floor. Both women made a grab for the paper, but neither was fast enough.
“Just leave it!” Alex snapped. Instantly, a flush of shame heated her cheeks. “God, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been Bitch Queen of the Universe lately.”
“Yeah, you have.” Rose crossed her arms over her ample chest. “So what’s bunched your panties?”
Alex eyed her speculatively. How could she tell her stalwart, down-to-earth friend that she was being haunted by a demon? A gorgeous demon that mocked her from every reflective surface she came across, at that. His growling voice spoke to her from the silver sides of her toaster. His beautiful face mirrored hers in the glass of darkened windows. Hell, this morning he’d grinned at her from the newly spotless paint on her car. That’d teach her to clean anything.
It had been going on for a little less than two weeks now. She’d covered every shiny surface in her house that she could. Too bad she couldn’t make the rest of the world as safe.
Just then, her laptop went into hibernate mode. Because Alex had never bothered to choose a screen saver, Kasdeya’s handsome features immediately formed in the hazy, anti-glared blackness. He pursed a kiss at her. With an impatient curse, Alex slammed the laptop’s lid down. If his constant attention during the day wasn’t bad enough, he visited her dreams every night. She had no idea if it was really him infiltrating her mind or only her own fevered, erotic imaginings, but she wasn’t getting much rest either way.
“Well? C’mon, tell old Rose,” her friend prodded.
Alex realized she’d been just sitting there staring into space as she daydreamed about Kasdeya’s wings, hands and…other things. “I’m not getting much sleep.”
“How come?”
She looked past the redhead out the
