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“Keep them with you.”
    I would deal with Doran on my own, it was better that way. My skin twitched as I walked; I could feel the Daywalker’s eyes on me, feel the desire he had to pierce my skin with his fangs. Fuck, and I still owed him a kiss. I fought the urge to groan. Had he come all this way for a kiss? Shit, I was good, but I wasn’t that good. No, it had to be something else. Something I wouldn’t want to hear. Or something he wanted from me.
    I led him to the library. Seeing as the door was busted, there was no hiding behind it now.
    Doran took a step in, turned and shut the doors. “No lock?” He fingered the clean slice of the deadbolt, and then grabbed a chair and slid it under the doorknobs for extra security. Or an extra precaution to keep me in the room with him? What the fuck was going on with him?
    “No need for us to be interrupted.” His voice was soft, but carried across the room easily. Shit, something was seriously off with the Daywalker. For all his quirks, and the few times we’d spent together, this was not like him.
    Without any hesitation, I pulled the bowie knife out and un-looped the whip from my belt. When Doran turned, his mouth opened and his step toward me stopped in mid-air.
    “I’m not here for that kind of a visit, as much as I wouldn’t mind sparring with you. Though I’d prefer we did it naked.” He gave me a wink, but I didn’t lower my weapons. I was learning that supernaturals with fangs just couldn’t seem to help themselves, no matter what they said, they would always want what they couldn’t have. Blood, sex, power, one or all three of those options, whatever they could get.
    “I think I’m good as I stand now.”
    “Have I not been helpful to you, Rylee?” He stepped toward the big table, ran his fingers along the top of it.
    “Yes, sort of.”
    “Have I not sent you gifts that have aided you?”
    I thought about the pendant he’d sent for Giselle, how it had helped on the last salvage. “Perhaps.”
    He smiled, maybe hearing the hesitation in my voice.
    His eyes flicked up to mine. “Have I not drawn a demon’s poison from you? And in doing so, saved your life?”
    “You all did that, you and the other Shamans.”
    Laughing, he shook his head, the piercings catching the light and flickering against his skin. “I didn’t need them, I could have done it myself.”
    “Then why didn’t you?”
    “Ah, well, I was under orders. Sorry about that.” Again, he winked, but his eyes were strained, like his mask was finally cracking. I had a feeling that whether I liked it or not, I was about to see another side of Doran.
    “Orders?”
    He ran a finger along his lips, a second bead of sweat joining the first. “Can’t tell you anything else.”
    Fuck, this was getting irritating. “Why the hell are you here, Doran?”
    With a hop, he sat on the edge of the table and leaned back, spreading his arms out, fingertips stretched. He let out a heavy sigh.
    This was weird behavior, even for him, and my gut told me I needed to move, get out of there. The thing was, if O’Shea was lost to the wolf he carried now, I would need help to bring him back. And Doran was a powerful Shaman.
    “I am here because … .” His hands waved loosely in the air above him.
    I waited, but never lowered my weapons. He remained silent, so I asked him the question that burned the back of my throat with its intensity.
    “O’Shea is lost to the wolf in him. Can you bring him back?”
    Doran tipped his head up so he could see me and blinked, as if seeing me for the first time. “Bring him back? Maybe. Perhaps. But it won’t be easy, even if it would work. Worse than what you went through with the Hoarfrost demon, I think. Perhaps. Maybe not. Possibly.”
    The knot that had tied itself around my gut when Milly had told me O’Shea was lost loosened. A chance, that was all I asked for, a chance to save him.
    Before I could ask another question, Doran sat up and scrubbed a hand