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again without a word.
    She let the heavy door snap closed at her back and walked toward the desk, her shoes clicking across the king’s seal as she crossed the marble floor. Calm. Clear. Completely professional. That’s how she’d play it with him, no matter how much she wanted to throw something. If he was going to act like they were complete strangers, two could play that game.
    “Strip,” she said as she cleared the ancient mahogany desk of its lone lamp so she could use it as her exam table. “Everything off.”
    Stormy blue-gray eyes shifted her way. And oh, yeah, that was definitely not happiness reflected there at the prospect of being alone with her. Like she cared.
    “I’m not getting naked for you.”
    She ignored the little thump in her heart at the sound of his deep voice and narrowed her eyes. “Then you’re going to have a hard time binding yourself to the princess.” She glanced at his hips. Smirked. Wanted to gouge out a wound in his chest big enough to dump a truckload of salt into. “Or soft, as the case may be. Rumor has it you can only perform with human women. Whether you like it or not, the king wants to make sure you’re…up to par, you might say, before he lets you marry his daughter.”
    She knew she was antagonizing him, but just couldn’t stop herself. It had been building for a long time. Since the moment he’d turned his back on her all those years before. She wanted to make him hurt the way he’d hurt her. To feel…something…instead of being the stone-cold bastard he really was. And since this was the first time they’d spoken in ten years, was it really a shocker their conversation was about to be a doozy?
    She focused on his darkening eyes, saw the temper flare there and felt marginally better over the fact he was finally exhibiting some kind of emotion, even if it was contempt. “Of course,” she went on, “you can save yourself the burden of this little exam by simply admitting you’re impotent.”
    “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
    “No.” What little humor she had faded. “What I’d like is to get this over with so I can be on my way. Contrary to what you might believe, Zander, my world stopped revolving around you a long time ago. Now either strip, or I’ll tell the king to choose someone else.”

Chapter Four
    There were times when the bitter cold was something you reveled in. When the shiver running down your back was a stark and blessed reminder that you were alive. For Max, this was not one of those times.
    He stared up at the seething seven-foot monster in front of him. Blood and sweat and other disgusting things he didn’t want to think about dripped down its ugly face. The shiver that ran through Max was a mixture of the near-zero temperatures this far north in mid-October, and the fear that lanced through every cell in his small body.
    “You. Will. Pay!” The daemon lunged, his sword slicing through air, coming dangerously close, but one thing Mr. Ugly didn’t count on was how quick someone only four and a half feet tall could be.
    As if fueled by some outside source, Max darted between the daemon’s legs, whipped back and sliced out with his own blade, cutting deep into the daemon’s thigh. The monster howled, dropped his sword and went down to one knee. Blood spurted from what could only be his femoral artery, spraying over Max and the ground. Bile welled in Max’s throat, but he lifted his sword again, ready to strike. To finish this. The need to annihilate stronger than anything he’d felt before.
    “Good. Good, Maximus.” Atalanta’s voice echoed in his ear. “Let your hatred guide you. Finish him. Plunge your blade deep into his chest. Then send his soul to Hades for all eternity by decapitating the beast.”
    He wanted to. His muscles ached to kill. But the pride he heard in Atalanta’s voice stopped his forward momentum.
    The monster lifted its face, his glowing green eyes now level with Max. There was fear there, true fear