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living room, there was a crackling wood fire. I was sitting— reclining, actually—on the world’s softest leather couch, my bare feet propped on a matching ottoman, facing the fire. Without raising my head from the back of the couch, I turned to face Lugh, who was sitting just close enough to invade my personal space. I’d given up on trying to get him to respect my boundaries, so I didn’t bother scooching away.
    Just like the living room, Lugh’s body was an illusion—a construct created specifically to appeal to me. But let me tell you, he sure knows how to appeal. Tall and golden-skinned, with long black hair, warm amber eyes, and a body to die for—hopefully, not literally—he pushed every one of my buttons. Hard. If it weren’t for the fact that I was in love with Brian, I don’t know that I could have kept myself from jumping Lugh’s bones.
    To make matters worse, Lugh didn’t think Brian should be any impediment to my enjoyment of his… charms. As far as he was concerned, since I could only be with him when I was asleep, and I could only be with Brian when I was awake, there was no competition between them—and therefore, no reason for me to choose one over the other. But we were never going to see eye-to-eye on that issue. And while tonight Lugh looked as yummy as ever, he didn’t seem to be putting the moves on me. Yet.
    “I gathered you wished to speak to me?” he asked with an elegant arch of his brows.
    Gathered
my ass. He lived in my body, and in my mind. He knew all my thoughts and feelings, even theones I kept under lock and key. Even the ones I didn’t want to acknowledge. If I allowed myself to think about it, I could bring on a panic attack, so I stopped thinking and answered him instead.
    “Care to give me your version of the Raphael and Delilah story? I’m not sure Saul’s version is reliable.”
    “My version won’t be completely unbiased, either,” he warned with a self-deprecating smile. But behind that smile, there was something else in his expression, something … angry? Bitter? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that it wasn’t a happy emotion.
    “I’m not expecting it to be,” I assured him. Though I must admit, I was expecting it to be less biased than Saul’s. Lugh had the enviable ability to regard people and events with a certain degree of distance. It wasn’t a lack of emotion, it was…
    “An ability to temporarily set those emotions aside.”
    I scowled at Lugh. Not that I didn’t know he could “hear” my internal conversations, but sometimes it would be nice if he would just pretend he couldn’t.
    He smiled apologetically. “Saul’s description of the actual events was basically accurate. His assessment of my brother’s motivation was not.”
    “So Raphael didn’t do it just to piss you off?”
    A muscle ticked in Lugh’s jaw. “Oh, I’m sure he considered that one of the fringe benefits. And it wasn’t until very recently that I realized how much more there was to it than that. At the time, I took it at face value. I believed he was striking out at me through the woman I loved, and that was when I formally severed our relationship.”
    The woman he loved?
Somehow, that idea took me by surprise, though of course it was silly in the extreme. Demons may be very different from humans,but I’d seen plenty of evidence that they were capable of love. And, while I didn’t know exactly how old Lugh was, I knew he was ancient. The chances of him living that long a life without having loved a woman …
    Of course, I wasn’t about to question him about his love life, though the subtle twitching of his lips reminded me he knew what I was thinking.
    “What do you mean you formally severed your relationship?”
    The hint of a smile disappeared as if it had never existed. “I mean from that day until I ascended to the throne, I refused to see or speak to him. And the only reason I spoke to him when I ascended was to try to get him to give me his True