His fangs had unsheathed in raw, uncontrolled instinct, cutting his lip. Spinning to hide it, he rammed into Saul. The other male caught his shoulders, unconcerned, and propelled him back into the room.

“Calm down, dude. The girls aren’t that scary. Well, unless they get hold of that giant dildo. Then it’s every man for himself.”

Isaac twitched in Saul’s grip, but Saul was a strong male, large for an incubi, his grip gentle but unshakable. Min dabbed a damp handkerchief on Isaac’s lip. “It’s all right, silly kitten,” she chided in her musical voice. “There’s nothing to fear here. Well…” Casting a surreptitious glance toward Mikhael, she dropped to a whisper. “There’s usually nothing to fear here. But Raina won’t let him do anything to you.”

Her staff had the situation well in hand, which was good, because she couldn’t help them right now. The noise and Isaac’s panic had tripped her own to a higher level. Her pulse was pounding beneath that collar and she wanted to claw at it, get it off before it did things to her, made her lose control in five different directions. Images of the past and desires of the present were about to crash like a head-on collision of metal and fire.

She’d shrugged her robe back onto her shoulders, dropped her icy hands back to her lap, but Mikhael’s were gliding up and down her upper arms, knuckles grazing the outsides of her breasts as he put his mouth to her collarbone, sending fireworks through her bloodstream. He slid closer behind her, those powerful thighs pressing into her hips. When he laid his hands over hers, he was so very warm, curled around her flesh that way. He put his chin on her shoulder, watching what was going on before them, in that casually intimate way a lover would.

She saw the startled glances of the others. It wasn’t that men hadn’t acted familiar around her when she took the occasional client. It was that he was a Dark Guardian, and not a client.

He hadn’t disagreed with Min’s statement that Raina would stop him, but she knew why. There was nothing to argue. They both knew she might be able to slow him down, but she couldn’t stop a Dark Guardian. Not with power alone.

“What’s that thing folded in the bottom of the box?” she asked, forcing her tone to be casual. She wasn’t going to freak them out by going to pieces. She could handle this. It was simply a costume piece. It didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t owned by anyone. Not anymore.

“Cocoon suit. Double awesome!” Isaac looked perplexed, so Aiden explained, with enthusiasm. “The guest lays down in it, like a sleeping bag. When you inflate it, they’re completely immobilized. Let’s go test it on Saul, right now.”

Saul took off, and they pursued like a lynch mob. A happy, festive lynch mob, the girls topless, wearing nipple clamps that sparkled with glittering jewels, others in bits of costume finery that had also come in the box. Ana was impressively fleet, in the lead despite the fact she wore a new pair of black stilettos that had a silver skull and crossbones design across the toe. It was a mass exodus of pretty, half-naked bodies, all the appealing parts quivering and bobbing, hair flowing. Isaac was carried along in their midst.

The sudden quiet in the parlor was underscored by the thunder of feet up the hallway staircase, the laughter and shrieks that became more muted.

“If they break any of the Wedgwood pieces on the second landing, I’m going to murder the lot of them,” she said, her voice unsteady.

“Well, you know what they say about putting away your breakables when you have children.”

“Yes. The children should be caged until they learn to behave better.” She put her hands up to her throat but stopped short of touching the collar. She swallowed. “Take this off now.”

Instead, he enclosed those nervous, poised hands in his, molded her palm over her own throat, let her feel the way the stiff fabric and the lacing defined the swanlike line.

“Whoever he was, he collared you to brutalize you,” Mikhael said. “To subjugate you. In true submission, true Mastery, ownership is a protection, a trust, a shelter and a sanctuary. You know this, Raina.”

But she didn’t. She had the practical knowledge of the way it was supposed to be, but she’d never experienced it, internalized it, such that she could use the knowing to compete with the nightmare experiences of her past.

“You’ve been here less than a day. You’ll be gone in the same amount of time.”

“It’s not that kind of sanctuary. When you find that feeling, it stays with you, even if you only have the reality of it for that moment.”

“A clever way of convincing a woman to give you what you want.”

“Hmm.” Turning his hands from her now less cold ones, he cupped her breasts, kneading slow, like making bread. Her nipples tightened under the casual rub of his thumbs. She liked having her breasts touched, and he’d noticed. Or more likely, he enjoyed doing it for his own pleasure.

Mikhael could have told her it was both. Watching her get lost in pleasure drove his arousal. The hold of that collar stimulated her, but he’d seen her fear, her borderline panic. She’d held it together with an iron will, refusing to give in to it. Yet her desire to surrender, to submit, was an intoxicating contrast. So in control of her world, of everything she was, yet he could shatter that control with what he could do to her and what he could offer her. He wanted to turn her fear into something entirely different, under the right type of Mastery.

He’d once crossed blades with a master swordswoman. She’d guarded a statesman, a man whose death was required to precipitate other changes. Her control and precision, her focus, had been outstanding. He could have used magic to beat her, and in the end, he’d had to resort to it, but until then it was a complicated dance of footwork, forward, back, sidestepping, staying light, being ready to spring into an opening, spin away from the cut. At a certain point, when the blades were flashing and they were evenly matched, it was as if their respective purposes—his to get past her to kill the man, hers to stop him—vanished, and they were immersed in that dance, allied somehow in their conflict.

Winning Raina’s submission had the same feel to it. They were locked in a conflict, but it was a conflict that had captured both their interest, enough that they kept circling and engaging, invested in the outcome.

It was time to take the fight down a notch, though. He brought Raina back against his chest, played with the collar’s lacings, stroking and turning fear into something else.

“You told me they were childlike. That wasn’t entirely true.”

“What do you mean?” She glanced up at him. A lot was happening in the depths of those green-gold eyes, such that he paused a moment without answering, touching her mouth with his thumb. Her lips parted, her pulse increasing. When he settled his hand fully over her throat, he curved his other palm over her breast so her nipple pressed into his palm. She barely managed a whisper. “Mikhael.”

“Don’t forget to breathe,” he said quietly. He waited until she took a breath, her cheeks flushing in embarrassment, but he kissed her mouth, her eyelids, taking that away before he continued. “Children can be cruel. The way Isaac’s fangs unsheathed; he was embarrassed, expecting mockery. Yours didn’t do that. They’re exceptionally gentle.”

“Their synergy together has somewhat to do with it, the environment we’ve created here. The sanctuary.” Her lips twisted, apparently recalling his words. “Their appetites are regularly sated. That helps as well.”

He wound a lace around his finger, tightening its hold enough to send a tiny shiver through her. “Or because the spells you’ve woven to keep their meals from being lethal have an unexpected side effect. You’ve created a flock of gentle sheep. No aggressive tendencies.”

She stiffened, but he wasn’t done. “It worries you, how vulnerable they are. Nature intends us to have a certain level of aggression to protect ourselves. Are you working on fixing it?”

She straightened, turned to face him. “If they’re too aggressive, you hunt them. Now you’re complaining they’re too gentle?”

“I’m not complaining about either state.” He shook his head. “You do exceptional spell- and protection work. You’re also very smart. So I expect you’ve known for a while and have been experimenting with adjustments that will keep some aggression intact while still protecting your clients. A good mother protects her children, but she also knows one of her most important jobs is making sure they can eventually take care of themselves.”

“I’m not their mother.”

“No. For which I’m eternally grateful. Otherwise, the thoughts I was having when Gina was in your arms would subject me to some Underworld penance.”

She pressed her lips against a smile. He could tell she hadn’t been quite sure if they were about to have a fight or not. He made it clear now, rising to his feet and bringing her with him. He stroked her hair back over her shoulder and began unlacing the collar.

“I’m taking this off, not because I wouldn’t like to see you wearing it all day for me, but because I don’t want you to claim I beat you soundly at cards because you couldn’t concentrate.”

“I can concentrate just fine with it, on or off.” When his fingers stilled, and she realized she’d put herself neatly in that trap, she cleared her throat. “But you should probably take it off so it won’t be distracting to you.”

“It might at that.” Tenderness wasn’t something he normally felt, yet he felt it now. Sliding his hand to her waist, he pressed her back against him. She teased him with a far too flexible rotation of her hips, sending his mind in another, safer direction.

“Behave, wench.” The collar had left faint red imprints, so he put his mouth on them. When he did, she melted into him. Turning her mouth to his neck, she gave him a touch of her tongue, tasting him, making him want to growl. He settled his hand over where the collar had been, squeezed. It caused a satisfying little breathy sigh from her.