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garment and sent it sailing toward a chair. My eyes traced the hard planes of his chest, down the ridges of his well-muscled stomach, and lower. That same self-satisfied smile that had sparked my earlier courage curved his full mouth as he reached for the button of his breeches. My startled gasp elicited a chuckle as he abandoned his efforts of undressing completely. “Far be it from me to offend your virginal eyes. I suggest you get some rest, my darling. You’ve been through quite a lot, haven’t you?”
    I sensed the question was rhetorical, and besides, I doubted I could summon my voice even if I wanted to. Azriel was too stunning. Too bold. Too magnificent to be real.
    “Here,” he said, tossing me a blanket from the bed. “I doubt you’ll need it, but in case you feel a chill.”
    I caught the blanket and wound it into a ball around my hands. “A gentleman would take the sofa for himself and offer a lady the bed,” I said.
    “Yes.” Azriel snuggled down onto the mattress and gave a contented sigh. “A gentleman would. Good night, Darian.”
    I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at him. It wasn’t until I saw the steady rise and fall of his chest that I tiptoed to the side of the bed. My savior was no gentleman, he had admitted as much. And yet, I admired his unapologetic nature. He did not make excuses for his behavior or pretend to be anything other than what he was. I found his lack of pretense refreshing. “Good night, Azriel,” I whispered as I brushed his hair back from his brow. I couldn’t help but wonder, as I stared down at his perfect countenance, if I hadn’t jumped from the frying pan straight into the fire.
    * * *
    Unforgiving sunlight streamed down upon me, pressing me further into the cushions of the sofa. I felt the weight of daylight as I never had, as if I’d been bound in a strait jacket. Gone was the silky softness of shadow. Instead I recognized the sensation of being confined within my own skin and I wished I could peel the layers away and free myself from the prison of my flesh.
    “You will soon grow accustomed to it,” Azriel said as he drew the curtains shut over the windows and balcony doors.
    I rubbed the dregs of sleep from my eyes, but I was still so tired. I could sleep the entire day away, and I hoped that Azriel would let me. “I feel . . .”
    “Trapped,” Azriel finished my sentence for me.
    “Yes.”
    “Only in the hours of darkness can you become one with the shadows,” Azriel said.
    “I find that very disconcerting,” I grumbled.
    Azriel laughed, and the sound of his mirth brought me closer to wakefulness. “Spoken like a true Shaede,” he said.
    A true Shaede. Is that what I was? “Can I please sleep a little longer?” I asked. “Just until the sun sets.”
    “I have no intention of letting you lay abed all day.” Azriel pulled the blanket off of me and tossed it to the floor. “We have things to do and sights to see. Aren’t you hungry?”
    Hungry? Famished would have been a more accurate description. I hadn’t eaten in . . . “You never told me,” I said as I sat up to greet the day, “how long I was unconscious. It had to have been more than a week for us to travel all the way from California to Washington.”
    “A week,” Azriel said with a carefree air. “Or two. I admit I don’t pay much attention to the passing of time. What does it matter? Are you hungry or not?”
    “I’m very hungry,” I said. “Why don’t you pay much attention to time?”
    I could tell by his constant dramatic sighs that Azriel had little patience for questions. “When you live forever, a week can pass in the blink of an eye.”
    “Forever?” The word clung to my lips. He couldn’t possibly mean what he’d said.
    “You are no longer human, Darian. You must stop thinking like one.”
    “How can this be possible?” I wondered. Immortality was best left to storybooks.
    “How can it be possible that you become one with the darkest