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“Don’t knock anexchange of culminationsuntil you’ve tried it, sweet.”

“And I suppose you’ve tried lovemaking? If not, don’t knock it.”

“What doyouknow of it, then?” he countered. “Explain to me, young and impressionable female, what the difference is between sex and lovemaking. Be sure to include examples since you’ve experienced neither.”

“I saw both during my mission to observe the New Orleans nymphs.”

“Your mission was to observe the goings-on at the Tree of Delight?” Even Sorceri raised their brows at that notorious covey.

She nodded. “On my last night there, I came across a couple who were in love, and what they shared was unlike everyone else.”

His curiosity demanded to know more, but his instinct cautioned him that this territory was best left unexplored.Don’t even dip a toe in this nonsense.“How was it different?”The hell, Silt?

“Before, each act I’d witnessed had been about one aim—pleasure for pleasure’s sake. With this couple, the aim was to demonstrate love, with ecstasy to follow. Two people in lovemade love. I knew I was in the presence of something transcendent, and it humbled me so utterly that I . . . I lost track of myself. Sorcerer, I beheld divinity, and I was forever changed. There’s no going back for me.”

Silt stared down at her as if she’d uttered an unknown language. For some reason, when he turned her words over in his mind, apprehension hit him.

Did she know something that he wasn’t able to grasp, a mystery withheld from him? Did this romantic love she spoke of—an emotion he had ridiculed—hold power?

Mysteries usually did.

And she was privy to it.Right now she seemed like some preternatural, alien being—a creature so far removed from a man like him that they would never connect.

The princess and the befouler.

And he resented her for that.

The ground rumbled as if in league with his ire.

Twenty-One

“Divinity is a strong word,” Silt finally said, but he didn’t appear as confident—or scoffing—as before.

On unfamiliar footing, sorcerer?“And yet it’s not strong enough to do it justice.”

Lothaire had been right; Mina’s mission had tempered her feelings for the Gravewalker. But then Silt’s kiss had obliterated them. And the sorcerer was even less of a possibility for her!

“Wait a second . . . the Enemy of Old dispatched you—an innocent—on a ‘mission’ to observe the most raucous nymphs in the Lore?” Silt gave a laugh. “At least that vampire has a sense of humor.”

“You think he intended it as a joke?”

“Not a doubt in my mind. Immortals of a certain age find diversion where they can. I would know.”

Initially she’d feared the same. No longer. “Joke or not, I learned much.” Preconceptions about the nymphs had been overturned. Those females didn’t live for revelry and the indiscriminate taking of bedmates; they lived for their coven and bedded only the most skilled lovers.

Males who brought no pleasure to a nymph took no pleasure from one. Mina didn’t precisely know what “porn” was, butshe’d heard more than one nymph telling a potential partner, “Don’t return until you cut out the porn and read some romance novels.” Those females knew what they wanted and set parameters.

They were also gifted spies, able to meld with many elements. They had an unmatched network for intelligence, and their wild fests harvested more.

From her observations, Mina had learned to value herself and the sharing of her body, and to never underestimate an unknown. She inwardly sighed. As everyone continued to do to her.

Was she underestimating this male? After all, what magic must he be using on her to affect her so deeply? She’d made a promise to herself to search for love and to honor it; at the earliest opportunity Mina had welcomed this rough sorcerer’s attentions.

If they hadn’t been interrupted, would she have surrendered everything to him? “I witnessed enough to discover that I want love from my future partner.”

“Love?” He all but spat the word. “Love can end. It can get twisted.”

“Then it wasn’t true to begin with.” She paused on the path. “Who hurt you, sorcerer? Who wounded you so badly that you never recovered from it?”