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wn eyes, held her arm as if in pain.
He’d hurt her.
Sweet Goddess! Not again.
“Miriam, I’m so sorry.” Still on his knees, he shifted away from the side of the chair in which she sat. His ass hit the stone tiles of his living room and he held his head in his hands. He was in a painfully aroused state and dammit, he’d become an animal.
He’d promised Miriam he’d keep himself under tight control.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“I’m so sorry, Mastyr Malik, but I can’t serve you anymore. My husband was adamant that if this happened again, he wouldn’t allow me to come back. I have to resign.”
He glanced at her arm, horrified all over again. She’d be black and blue for days unless he did something for her. “Let me call you a healer.”
Miriam drew in a deep breath. “That would be best.”
Not ready to stand up yet, he shifted to dip his hand into the pocket of his jeans. Pulling out his realm cellphone, he called Alexandra the Bad, who had ruled the Guild in his realm for longer than he’d taken his first breath.
She growled over the phone, somehow knowing exactly what had happened, then stated harshly that she was on her way. Malik knew that when she arrived, she’d deliver a weighty lecture, and one he damn-well deserved.
He then summoned his housekeeper, requesting dewberry tea for Miriam.
His doneuse wiped at her eyes.
He was so fucking ashamed. “I’m sorry. Dear sweet Goddess, a thousand apologies.”
Miriam huffed a ragged sigh. “Mastyr, if there was any other way.”
He lifted a hand. “You don’t have to say anything. I was out of control and this is all my fault.” He wanted to explain, but what could he say? That he had the hots for a woman who swam naked and disappeared into vines?
But Miriam shook her head. “Please listen to me. I may not be as powerful as the fae in the Ashleaf Guild, but I know that you’re suffering in a way you didn’t even two years ago. You seem incredibly sad, Mastyr, yet I have this sense that something very realm is upon you, and that whatever possessed your mind just now has a realm source. You shouldn’t ignore it.”
Malik stared at Miriam for a long moment. Was she right? Was it possible that his obsession with Willow had meaning beyond the deep lust that he experienced? “I’ll think on what you’ve said. I promise.”
A few minutes later, Alexandra the Bad assaulted his house.
She was a stout fae with an additional two hundred years on Malik’s three centuries. She took one look at Miriam’s arm and cast him her deepest scowl, the kind that brought her bushy, porcupine brows into a single, disapproving line. “What the hell have you done, vampire? This is an abomination. Have I not warned you sufficiently?”
“You have, and I have no excuse.”
She pinched her lips together. “We will have words, but after.”
“Of course.”
She turned and focused all her attention on his doneuse.
When Alexandra had made all the bruising disappear, she sent Miriam away, then turned the full force of her displeasure on Malik. Compressing her lips, she glared at him. “This is the third time in three weeks. You need to get hold of yourself and don’t even think about pulling your ‘I’m-the-Mastyr-of-Ashleaf’ gremlin shit with me. I dandled you on my knee, Malik, and don’t be forgetting that! Stop hurting your doneuses or the next time I will report you to the Sidhe Council for abuse. You can count on that.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“You said that last time.”
“I vow to you it will not happen again. I know what I need to do.” He’d been avoiding it from the time he first gave Willow chase; he needed to confront the woman who had captured his mind and end this thing between them. It was possible that she’d created some kind of chemistry between them, a charm perhaps. She was, after all, extremely powerful.
But whatever this was, Willow was the cause. And this time, if he had to hunt her down all through the night until she fell exhausted at his feet, he’d force her to explain herself.
“And are you making a vow to the Goddess?” Alexandra asked.
