Velvet Haven

but not this kind of Trinity. No, the one he wanted was much more important. One he couldn’t allow to slip into the wrong hands.
    “What I’m looking for,” he whispered as he flicked his tongue along her neck, “are three women. A healer, an Oracle, and a Nephillim.” She pulled back, her eyes glazed. “Have you ever heard of such women? Do they come here?”
    She shook her head. Her eyes were as vacant as her thoughts, consumed with the need for sex. She might be a regular at Velvet Haven, but she was not connected in the way he needed. Unfortunate for her. He might have kept her alive if she had more than her pussy to offer.
    As he swept the club with his gaze, he searched once more through the crowd. He needed that Trine. And he needed it soon if he was going to find the key that unlocked the flame and the amulet.
    Dangling the silver rope between them, she licked her lips. “Ready to play?”
    Mentally he undressed her, imagining his markings imprinted on her body. She was going to be exceedingly amusing.
    This one would be different, he would make certain of that. After he fucked her, branded her— terrorized her—he would make her into a billboard that no one would fail to understand. Not Suriel, and not Cailleach. Both worlds would suffer his wrath for what they’d done to him. Both would know that they were now his enemy. No one was safe from him and his wrath.
    “What’s your name, sugar?” she asked as she raked her nails down the heavy shaft of his cock. He smiled as he bound the rope around her wrists. Her breath rushed out. Apprehension and sexual need perfumed the air, arousing him to the point where he could have come just by thinking of what he was going to do to her.
    He smiled. “Just call me Aaron.”

CHAPTER FOUR

    The gargoyle, with its bulging eyes and grotesque mouth, leered down from the eaves, making a mockery of the neon welcome sign that flashed below it. The creature was the most hideous thing Mairi had ever seen, yet somehow it managed to seem right at home, carved into the gray stone portcullis of the mansion’s elaborate Gothic entrance.
    On the other side of the gargoyle was the carving of an angel, its wings spread wide, its head bent in prayer. The whole angel-and-demon thing was totally appropriate, given the mansion’s history and the mystery surrounding the couple who had lived there for an unnaturally long time.
    The house, it was said, had been built by an eccentric Scots-man, Daegan MacDonald, for his wife, whom he had adored. The mansion had seen many lavish parties over the decades since its construction in the 1870s. There was something dark and otherworldly about the architecture and the stained-glass windows that were covered with Druid mythological symbols Mairi had seen in one of the manuscripts she collected.
    There was no denying that Velvet Haven, as the mansion was now called, held some magical, enthralling quality that sucked you in and held you captive. It lured, even though the feeling of danger was persuasive, seducing even as it frightened. The distant roll of thunder rumbling across the heavens only added to the menacing atmosphere.
    Glancing once more at the statue, Mairi shivered despite the warm spring air, which was growing heavier with the threat of rain. She could have sworn that the eyes of the statue were tracking her as she shifted in line, trying to get beneath the blossomed canopy of an apple tree before the rain came.
    The very idea of a stone statue capable of watching her was completely irrational, not to mention stupid.
    Something strange was happening to her. She wasn’t her logical self. Fatigue . It was exhaustion, that’s all. Swinging back and forth from the night shift to the day shift, not to mention sleepless nights worrying about Rowan’s health. And the dreams, she thought darkly. The dreams kept her up all night.
    Well, at least her wrist had stopped bothering her. She’d gone home and taken an antihistamine and lo and behold it had worked. It must have been an allergic reaction to contact with Lauren, maybe from the thorn-apple.
    As another tremor snaked down her spine, she looked up once more into the taunting face of the gargoyle, unable to deny that despite her rationalizing pep talk, she was still spooked. The past twenty- four hours had been nothing but weirdness. And nothing was stranger than the dream she’d had that afternoon after visiting Rowan.
    She’d fallen right to sleep after taking a Benadryl.