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She gave me a different sort of smile—one that bordered on a smirk. “You could have simply waited for me to show up at your house to talk, braveAran of The Dagda.”

I nodded before answering. “Yes, and I’ve been expecting ya to do just that. Since I’m currently in a rental, and was in prison for seven years before now, there’s a distinct lack of data about my address online. It might have taken ya a while to find me. Do ya even know my last name? I don’t recall Orlin formally introducing us.”

“If you didn’t turn up in an online search, I would have hired someone to find you. I doubt there are a thousand witches named Aran living in Salem,” she said, laughing a little. “Your mind truly amuses me. And I actually am impressed with your boldness. I don’t get impressed by humans often, not even the magickal ones.”

I chuckled at her compliment and wished I knew her better. Her tone hinted at some secret joke she was having at my expense rather than an obvious one. But I couldn’t say that to her.

“I seem to amuse a great many guardians without meaning to.”

Zara smiled then for real. “When I come to you it will be to take back my wolves. You know I can’t let you keep them. Everything I’ve worked for in this life is manifested in those creatures and their transformation. If you hand them to me over without a fight, I will spare you and your family. If you hand them over without making a pathetic attempt to stop me, we even might grow to be friends. I also find a friendship between us to be a preferable option to resolve our disagreement.”

I lifted my chin as I held her gaze. “They’re notyer wolves, Zara. They’re two young women with families worried about what’s happened to them. Do ya understand that? They have just as much right to live as ya do.”

“They hated their families. They hated their menial, purposeless lives. Why do you think they came to join me? They wanted adventure and I gave them that. They agreed to do what I said in exchange.”

“Ya kept yer recruits in a cage, Zara. Ya took their free will from them. None of them volunteered for that.”

Zara rolled her eyes. “I only kept theliveones in cages. And the wolves weren’t captive. I put them somewhere to protect them until they could serve their intended purpose.”

I looked away and put my gaze on a piece of highly polished furniture. Zara looked perfectly at home among these expensive furnishings. She too was perfectly polished.

Why did human perfection always cause so many problems? Did absolute power truly corrupt every being who possessed it? The gods had been keeping that human tendency in check for years. But they’d also had to do it to each other. I was starting to see why Orlin and his brethren might have taken such extreme measures with Zara.

“Ya can’t have the wolves back. Should I just go home now and wait for ya to bring yer fight to me?”

Zara leaned back against the sofa and waved her hand. “If that’s your decision, Aran of The Dagda. First, though, ask me what you really came here to learn from me. Ifeelyour questions and know no male guardian had been truthful with you. Perhaps I can win you over to my goals with my willingness to illuminate your extraordinary mind.”

I leaned a little forward on the sofa so my toes would touch the floor. “Do ya see yerself as some sort of goddess?”

“Yes—from your perspective. No—from mine. Those like Orlin wanted me to forget what I was, but I never did. Those like you want me to not take advantage of your kind or destroy you as I am completely capable of doing.”

“Don’t ya think being allowed to live freely is a reasonable expectation for all humans?”

Zara chuckled. “If lions didn’t kill antelope for food, lions would die. If I don’t kill a few human women now and again, I will die. I’m a long-lived lion, Aran. I was always a lion and always will be one. All humans, even you, are nothing more than antelope to me. It is not personal but rather a hard fact.”

“I serve a god who treats me as a being of value even though he too is a lion. Why is he different from you? The Dagda’s got similar powers.”

Zara chuckled with happiness. “I can see why your guardian made the ultimate sacrifice for you. You have a lion mindset in an antelope body. It’s an intriguing combination. I feel a temptation to tell you everything and see how long it takes for you to break.”

I frowned at her. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“As you should,” Zara said with a smile.

I dropped my gaze to study the floor at her feet. What could I say to get through to her? When I met her eyes again, I saw no sign of impatience. All I saw in Zara’s gaze was a supreme confidence that she had the right to do as she wished simply because no human possessed enough power to stop her. She thought—maybe rightly so—that there were no real lions among us.

“I have it on good authority that guardians can take any form they want. Ya don’t have to be a lion. You could choose to be a giraffe instead. They’re vegetarian. If ya were a giraffe, ya wouldn’t have a need to kill antelope to survive. Ya have plenty of choices, Zara. Why won’t ya make a different one about this situation?”

The female guardian turned her lithe body and angled her beautiful, long legs away from me. As she talked, Zara stared at the furnishings in the room instead of at me.

“In the beginning, there were two-thousand-six-hundred of us. We were the elite warriors, the dreamers, and the greatest light workers among our original people. Our evolved souls were put into physical forms by beings we call creators. In fact, ‘created’ is what we say to describe our physical existence in any form. Once we adjusted, we were sent to watch over the lesser beings who occupied the universe’s most experimental planets.”

“So Rasmus lied then. Ya’re aliens after all,” I said, grinning at my own cleverness.

“Your terminology is so unimaginative, witch. The guardians are a god-like race who sacrificed their perfected soul existence as beings of light to serve a purpose greater than themselves. You should be worshipping us for our sacrifice.”

I shrugged as casually as I could and pretended not to hear the righteous insistence in her tone. “I worship a few higher beings. Is Goddess Danu one of yer kind?”

“No. Danu’s ancestors were also ascended light beings. Her original form was vastly different from the human one she adopted when it came her time to serve. She created theTuatha de Danannfrom scratch, as well as the other three tribes of Celtic legend. She was allowed a freedom denied to most—as were a few others similar to her.”