Sebastian

his arm linked through hers as they walked down the main street.
    "Yes, it is" Glorianna replied. "You're happy here?"
    "I belong here."
    He hadn't realized how tense she was until he felt her relax. Hadn't realized at the time that, while he'd been finding his place, she had lost hers. Hadn't even realized during that first visit that she was the Landscaper who had altered Ephemera to make the Den. And later…
     
    "Why did you do it, Glorianna? Why did you create a place like the Den?"
    She shrugged. "Even demons need a home."
    It had stung that she considered him a demon, but even then, he'd had to admit she was right. The incubi and succubi were the dominant demons in the Den itself, and for the first time they had a place where they could openly be what they were. No more trying to blend in with the humans, no more danger of being hurt or even killed when the nature of their sexuality was discovered. Many who had drifted into the Den during those first months discovered the carnival atmosphere and the lack of danger weren't to their taste. And those who had tried to change the tone of the Den and bring in the kind of danger that would have turned it into a different kind of place…
    The heart had no secrets from Glorianna Belladonna. Those who wanted a dangerous place ended up in a dangerous place. But not the Den. Those who survived the dark desires of their hearts never came back to the Den.
    He'd been seventeen before he'd discovered that the rogue Landscaper called Belladonna was his cousin Glorianna. Might not have discovered it even then if Lee hadn't come stumbling into the Den a few weeks after beginning his formal training at the Bridges' School.
    Fifteen years old and running away from a pain he couldn't bear, Lee had come to the Den. Sebastian had turned away from the woman he'd almost lured into bed, in order to keep his younger cousin from getting into too much trouble. He'd helped Lee get beyond drunk, since the boy seemed set on doing something self-destructive, and he'd held his cousin's head later when Lee puked up the liquor and half his stomach.
    And he'd listened to the troubled, tearful, painful discovery Lee had made that day—a discovery his mother and sister had withheld from him. Lee had known Glorianna had left the Landscapers' School abruptly and was being trained by their mother. But until he'd taken a walk around the school to find the location of his sister's garden, he hadn't known the Instructors and wizards had tried to seal Glorianna into her garden, hadn't known she'd been declared a rogue Landscaper, a danger to Ephemera, someone the wizards would try to destroy on sight.
    Someone now called Belladonna.
    All of that Sebastian had learned from a boy trying to come to grips with a truth that had altered his reality. But never why. None of them—not Nadia or Glorianna or Lee—ever told him what Glorianna had done to be declared rogue. Now, after so many years, it no longer mattered. She was dangerous…
    and feared—and she was still the girl who had understood his troubled heart better than he did.
    A smattering of applause brought Sebastian's attention back to the present. Lynnea was shaking her head and laughing as she stepped away from Teaser. He was grinning, looking carefree and easy—until Lynnea lifted her hair off her neck to cool the heated skin.
    Teaser's grin faded. His body went from carefree to tense in a heartbeat. And the look in his blue eyes…
    Sebastian understood the look. Knew his own eyes revealed the same hunger. He wanted to press his mouth against the back of her neck and taste her skin. He wanted to skim his hands up the front of her, cupping her breasts, rubbing the nipples until they stiffened beneath his touch. He wanted to pull her against him, letting her feel what the sight of her body did to his.
    Teaser stared at him, viciously hungry for this particular feast and just as viciously frustrated.

    Because the feast had no idea what she was doing to either of them. Her eyes were closed, her fingers were threaded through her hair to keep it up, and her hips were still moving slightly to the music. But not for their benefit. Not to lure or entice or even attract attention. If anyone had told him innocence could make him insane with lust, he would have laughed.
    He wasn't laughing now.
    Oddly enough, Teaser regained his balance first. Taking a step toward Lynnea, he made a gesture to indicate the table where Sebastian waited, but as she turned