A fiery rage consumed me, burning away my temperate exterior to reveal the beast deep inside. I stepped in and threw one of them across the alley, drawing their attention, then I told the girl to run. Six humans are no match for a Dark Fae, so I was guaranteed to come out on top without much effort. But what I became in that moment could have taken down a small army.

Within seconds, I dispatched the entire lot of them. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t even fully register what I did until I saw their lifeless bodies crumpled on the ground, their heads twisted at unnatural angles. Shame that I’d lost control and taken lives filled my mouth with bile. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Seamus who helped me “clean the situation.”

To this day, he’s the only one who knows what I’m capable of, and since then I managed to put the beast into a coma by practicing meditation and heightened self-awareness. But I know that under the right circumstances, I’d wake him myself and let him loose.

“Come on, Cinnabon, tell me I’m wrong,” she says.

I just smile down at her. She’s been so focused on getting free and calling me a pastry, she doesn’t realize where we’re standing. Her spell parted the crowd, allowing me to stroll up front and center. “I plead the fifth. Now, turn around and watch the show.”

Her lavender eyes light up and she spins around just as “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga starts playing in the background and the first few sprays of water shoot high into the air. I know the show is magnificent—we own the hotel; we hired the company who designs the shows and maintains the fountains—but I’m not watching it. My gaze is trained on her.

Taryn Emory is a beautiful enigma. The childlike wonderment on her face makes me smile. She’s been around for over half a millennium, lived in two different realms, and is one of the most powerful magical beings ever created. Yet she’s still able to view something as simple as backlit sprays of water moving to music like it’s the most awe-inspiring thing she’s ever seen.

I imagine the whole of what makes her her is as deep as the ocean floor. One could spend a fae lifetime exploring her depths and never get to the bottom, so I certainly have no hope of diving much past her surface in the limited time we’ll have together. But for whatever parts of her I do get to see, I’m going to enjoy discovering every new thing I can find.

The final notes of the song play to a spectacular finale of water shooting over 400 feet in the air. Then the lights dim and the lake becomes still again. The crowd cheers and claps and begins to disperse as the tourists move on to the next attraction on their lists.

Taryn turns around and beams up at me. “That was so much better than watching it on TV. I mean, seriously magnificent. After we solve G-ma’s riddle, let’s watch the next⁠—”

Her body suddenly goes rigid and her gaze locks onto something behind me. Black spills into her irises, erasing all traces of the soft purple, and her lips twist into a snarl that bares her fangs as she hisses a single word. “Edevane.”

Like a shot, she takes off.

“Fuck. Taryn, wait!” I run after her but her extra years and smaller frame make her faster than me, and I can’t catch up. She’s giving chase to something I don’t see, but if it is Edevane, there’s a good chance it’s a fucking trap. Even if it’s not, I don’t want her facing him alone.

Either the avoidance spell is no longer working or we’re moving too fast for it to have any effect because the people we’re darting around at preternatural speeds are shouting in surprise and cussing out the blurs they can’t make out.

“Taryn, godsdamn it, hold on!”

Finally, she stops. I catch up to her as she’s spinning in a slow circle, searching for whatever she’s lost. “I swear I saw him,” she says through short, choppy breaths. “He was standing right here, Finn. Edevane was right here.”

I look back at how far we came. We’re a good half-mile away from the fountains. That’s a stretch to make out much detail even for us. It’s possible it was someone who looks like him and it triggered her, but I’m not taking any chances.

Taryn frowns and rubs her temple like she has a headache. “Come on, let’s get back home and relax. I know you feel a ton better than when you were in the facility, but you’re still not a hundred percent. We can riddle hunt tomorrow.”

She nods and lets me lead her to the nearest cab. We ride the ten minutes back to the building in silence. We’re not going to discuss anything in front of the human driver, and the energy vibrating off Taryn tells me she probably wouldn’t be talking even if we could. Still, I offered her support by holding my hand out, palm up, which she’d accepted, our fingers entwined on the seat between us.

The second we walk in the door to the penthouse, I set the alarm and place the gun I had tucked into my waistband back into the kitchen safe. By the time I join her in the living room, she’s already sitting on the couch with a whiskey for me and a glass of red wine for her. Her shoulders are so tense, they’re practically up around the delicate points of her ears.

“Thanks,” I say, accepting the glass and taking the seat next to her. “You okay?”

Her only answer is to nod and take another sip of wine. And then another. Then she downs the rest of it in two gulps. “Guess I’m thirsty.” She reaches for the bottle on the end table, but her hurried movement knocks it over, spilling its contents on the cream carpet. “Shit, I’m sorry,” she rushes out as she rights the bottle and stares in horror at the red puddle.

“Taryn, don’t worry about it, it’s fine.”

“It isn’t fine, Finn. It looks like a damn crime scene! I need towels you don’t care about and club soda.”

She starts to get up, but I stop her. “Leave it. I don’t give a fuck about the carpet. I’ll replace it five times over before I let you stress out over an innocent little spill.”

“But—”

I silence her protest by grasping her face and crushing my mouth to hers. If she needs a distraction, I’m happy to give her one. It only takes her a second to melt against me making me respond with a low growl of contentment. Slipping my fingers into the curls at her nape, I hold her firmly as my lips stake a claim I have no right to.

I’m so tempted to let this run its course. To rip each other’s clothes off and fuck on every surface we land on. But she’s in a volatile state right now. Seeing her tormentor for the first time—whether real or imagined—has her anxiety through the roof, and I won’t take advantage of her need to hold the demons at bay by taking my own pleasure like that.

Breaking the kiss, I use a different distraction tactic. “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

She blinks a few times, then furrows her brow. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s my next question in our get-to-know-you game.”

A small smile curves her kiss-swollen lips. “Chocolate. Classic, creamy, and just fucking good. What’s yours?”

“Vanilla.”

Her mouth falls open. “A Dom specializing in Japanese rope bondage prefers vanilla. Do your friends know? Have you been shunned from all the dungeons on principle?”

I arch my brow. “Is that your next question?”

She shakes her head but doesn’t get much movement since my hands are still lightly fisting the hair at her nape. Telling myself to let go isn’t working, and she isn’t making the demand either, so there they stay. “Then what is?”

The tip of her pink tongue darts out to lick her lips and I barely hold back a groan. She doesn’t have to think long before asking, “When you’re rigging a bottom and you have them all trussed up into whatever design you’ve created with them, do you leave them be for a while to enjoy the calming sensation you mentioned?”

“Each scene is different depending on who it’s with, but sometimes yes. Sometimes all they want is to be in that state for a period of time. They often enter subspace while being tied or suspended, so it becomes meditative for them.”

“Sometimes. What happens the other times?”

“My turn.” This is my chance to steer the conversation back into safe territory, like the ice cream question. “What’s your favorite sex toy?” So much for safe territory.

“Clitoral air pulse. Rips the orgasms right out of me. Best. Invention. Ever.”

Fucking hell, the images flashing through my mind of her holding one of those toys to her clit and writhing as wave after wave of pleasure crashes over her has my dick hardening in my pants. Not trusting my voice, I force out a single gruff word. “Noted.”

Taryn’s eyes widen before she composes herself. “What happens the majority of the time when you are the rigger and you’re done tying and/or suspending them?”

I could’ve guessed this would be her question. She’s not one to drop a bone once she gets her teeth around it. Holding her gaze, I answer as simply as I can. “I give them pleasure and orgasms.”

“So, sex.”

“No, I don’t have sex with anyone when they’re extensively tied like that, it’s not safe. However, I can still give them plenty of orgasms through other means, and I do. I control when they come, how often, and how intense they are. It’s almost more enjoyable to me than fucking is. And obviously they don’t complain either.”

Taryn doesn’t speak, her eyes just bounce back and forth between mine like they’re trying to keep up with whatever’s going on behind them. What I wouldn’t give for a peek inside that beautiful mind of hers.

“My turn.” I tighten my hands in her hair and pull her head back farther. “Are you picturing me doing those things to you, solnyshko?” She swallows hard, her gaze dipping to my mouth and back up. “Are you imagining me binding you with my ropes and coaxing orgasm after sweet orgasm from you?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “I am.”

“Then lets give you a taste of what it feels like to fly.”