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“Alright,” I say, settling in against him, blissfully uncaring about the chill creeping in with the evening.

For a little while, we lay there in silence. Then, slowly, a laugh bubbles low in my belly. “I can’t believe I let you stick a finger up my butt,” I finally say.

I’m such a smooth pillow talker.

I sense rather than see him smirk. “Says the girl who once got me to come in my pants.”

Now it’s my turn to smirk. Then my thoughts circle back. “I can’t believe Ilikedit.”

“My saucy little siren? I can. I have the feeling that by the time the sun sets on our lives, you’ll be the naughty one to my virginal, saintly soul.”

I outright guffaw at that. “Asif.”

A grin spreads across his face. “You’re probably right.” His hand smooths down my spine, making my skin pucker. “I have more tricks in my bag. All you have to do is say the word. Or challenge me again. I rather enjoyed pitting my magic against yours.”

I can’t contain the excited shiver that courses through me. I don’t think I’d realized just what being mated to Des means. He rules oversex; everything that we’ve done together so far—that’s all just the tip of a very large iceberg.

And I probably still won’t fully understand what being mated to him means until I’ve seen and savored every last one of his perversions and witnessed every last one of his horrors. Only then will I fully be able to grasp this force of nature I’m mated to.

We’re quiet for a time.

“It’s not enough,” Des eventually says, his hand rubbing up and down my arm. “Having you. I always assumed that once you warmed my bed, it would be.” He cups my pussy as he speaks, and I swear to God, I amthis closeto jumping him all over again.

“But I’m a greedy bastard, and I want more. Always more.”

My fingers glide over his arm; his tattoos seem to leap and dance in the firelight. I lift my head and rest it on his chest.

“Tell me a secret,” I whisper.

He traces the curve of my cheek. “Secrets are meant for one soul to keep.”

I feel myself tense at his words.

“My mother used to say that all the time,” he explains. “It’s one of those formative lessons of hers I’ve carried with me since childhood.”

My brows furrow. Some of my sex-induced haze is slipping away. “And now the sleeping soldiers say it.”

“Up until now, I hadn’t been able to figure out how exactly they knew it.” Des’s finger traces my lips. “And then I fought my father, who is in league with the Thief of Souls.”

His finger drops from my mouth. “You wanted to know a secret, here’s one, Callie: some time, long ago, my mother whispered those same words to Galleghar Nyx. She, a spy set on escaping him, said them as a taunt. And now he’s taunting us both with them.

“I need to understand the nature of his undeath to understand the rest of this mystery.”

Undeath. There should be simply life and then death, but in the land of supernaturals, both earthly and Otherworldly, there are a whole range of beings that somehow fall outside this dichotomy.

“Perhaps then I can understand how he learned that phrase. And so we wait.”

Des pulls me to him and kisses me deeply, tasting like salt and sex and the night in all its secretive goodness—and then our clothes peel themselves off the ground and slide back onto us.

The two of us break apart, and whatever moment we were having, it’s over.

I sit up and gather my legs to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

“Tell me about him,” I say softly.

Des has already told me the short version of Daddy Dearest’s life, but there’s so much I still don’t know.

Those silvery eyes are on me in an instant.