She slid her palms up his chest and then hooked her arms around his neck, mewing softly.

“Do you have a second?” she asked against his lips.

“I always have a second for you.” He ran his hands down her back and cupped her firm butt. “What do you need?”

“You. Inside of me.”

“Of course, milady.” He scooped her up, but rather than bother with the stairs, he crossed into the next room and clicked open the secret entranceway. One of the kittens that refused to be re-homed darted out, nearly as big as a cattle dog.

“Four-month-old cats shouldn’t be that big, should they?” He put Lexi down gently beside the door and leaned into her, pressing his pounding bulge against her.

“Hmm.” She pulled his lips down to hers. “I have no idea. Without the mother or father around, I’ve lost all concept of cat size. I wonder why they won’t let us find them homes.”

Kieran reached over and closed the door. “Light it up with spirit.”

Ultraviolet colors infused the air around them, visible to him only because of the soul link. The Line popped into view: a smear of black pulsing from within a starburst of bruise-like colors.

Her magic wound within him, through him, erotic and glorious. He undid her pants and then pushed her panties down with them, dropping to his knees to take a loving taste. She moaned, moving against his lips.

He sucked in her clit and threaded a finger, then two, into her wetness.

“Hmm, Kieran.” She raked her fingers through his hair, and her hips swirled uncontrollably.

The sight of her like that, so fired up, made it impossible to wait any longer. He stood in a rush, pushing his pants out of the way and letting his cock spring free. He hooked one of her knees over his hip, found purchase, and pushed into her in a single thrust.

“Oh! Hmmm.” She gripped his shoulders and swung her other leg up, wrapping them around his middle.

He let his Selkie magic from his mother’s side accentuate her pleasure as he pulled back and then plunged into her again, sheathing himself completely. Her breathing hitched, and he drew out before shoving in again, losing himself in the sweet slide of her body. In her tight embrace.

He amped up the Selkie magic, dipping into her secret places even as he rammed into her, teasing and hard at the same time. She moaned, her skin feverish against him, her breathing uneven and her lips on his, sharing the same heated air.

“Yes, Kieran. Oh God, yes.” She rolled her hips as he pumped into her, faster now. His Selkie magic tickled her nipples, vibrated her clit with pleasure, while he held her tightly, driving into her with manic desire.

Her legs tightened around him. Her core clenched. He teetered on the edge for one moment, and then an orgasm exploded through his body. He let her name fall from his lips, infused with love and longing and forever. She shook against him, crying out her pleasure, clutching him.

“Amber and Henry are waiting outside,” she said softly, lowering her legs.

“They can keep waiting,” he growled, soaking in her warmth, delighting in her kisses.

“Ask me, already,” she said after a moment, so soft that he thought he had imagined it.

But he wasn’t imagining the soft gleam in her eyes and the love pouring through the soul link.

He tried not to let his excitement show on his face. Or leak through the soul link. He surely failed on both fronts. “We’ll see.”

She laughed before kissing him. Then she sighed. “They’re still waiting. Can’t life just take a break for a while? Leave us alone?”

“It will. We have a hard road ahead of us, but once it levels out, we’ll be able to enjoy things a bit more. You’ll see.”

He pulled up her pants and fixed them before seeing to his own. When they were both ready, he twisted the handle and pushed open the door as Alexis said, “Oh, wait!” revealing Henry and Amber facing away with crossed arms, and Daisy darting through the room.

“Shit,” Kieran whispered as he saw Daisy, about to yank the door shut, but it was too late.

Daisy’s eyes widened and she came to a stop. “What the fuck is that?” She pointed at the secret passageway door.

“Daisy! Language! There goes your phone,” Lexi said, walking out with her head held high.

Other than Jerry and the kids, everyone in the crew knew about the secret hallways. Zorn had wanted Daisy to figure it out for herself. Mordecai hadn’t been told because Daisy could sniff out his lies immediately.

Cat was out of the bag.

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t know she’d be coming this way,” Henry said.

“Well, I wondered what you two were doing coming this way when you usually take the main hallway just so you can see the pinched look on Jeeves’s face when he’s reminded Amber is working for Kieran,” Daisy said, bracing her hands on her hips, a childlike expression of joy on her doll-like face. “Jeeves” was her name for Sodge, the old and wrinkled butler who’d served Kieran’s father for years and years. The man had been one of the few to mourn Valens’s passing, and although he hated that Kieran had moved into the house, he had nowhere else to go. While he did have to tolerate the new owners, his behavior toward Amber sent the message that he did not have to tolerate turncoats.

“Quite the payload I got,” Daisy said. “Imagine, all this talk about loyalty and honesty, and here you were, keeping this from me the whole time.”

“No one was talking about any of that,” Alexis said. “Go. Go up to your room. No free rides for you. You should’ve known about that entrance long before now.”

“You’re saying I should have been snooping more?” A wicked smile crossed Daisy’s face. “Challenge accepted. You brought this on yourself.”

When she’d left the room, Amber said, “Cute kid. She’s got potential. She’s not magical at all?”

“No,” Henry said. “Not even a little.”

“She’ll be better for it, mark my words.” Amber nodded at Henry, who handed the file under his arm to Kieran. “We are ninety percent sure we’ve got him,” she said. “It’s a tiny town in the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia. The town experiences more than normal thunderstorms for the area. They go year-round, but while they are powerful and violent, they have never produced a fatality, unlike in other places with similar storm activity. From what we’ve read, it seems like a Chester town—they hate magic and all it stands for. To live there, you need a solid ID. Which our guy has.”

“What’s the risk factor?” Kieran asked, heading back to the living room. The risk factor was all he cared about right now.

“From what we’ve pulled up of his past, he’s a classic Lightning Rod,” Amber said, coming to stand in her spiked heels in the center of the room. Henry took a seat on the couch. “Immensely powerful and exceptional at his craft. He’s been hiding out for fifteen years, though, basically out of commission. Sure, he probably plays with his magic where he can, and he has explosive discharges once every month or two, but there is no regular practice for him there. He’ll be rusty.”

“He lives in a mountain area in a little cabin, we think,” Henry said, crossing his ankle over his knee. “He’s nestled in the trees. Google Maps doesn’t show much, but it looks like the nearest neighbor is half a mile away on one side and a quarter mile away on the other. Nothing behind him—it’s a national park.”