Velvet Haven

like you’ve gotten some energy.” She tried to keep the jealousy from her voice, but she couldn’t. Bran was gorgeous. He oozed sex. There were a number of women, both guests and staff, wandering about the club, even at this early hour of the evening. He could have any or all of them.
    “I can harness the elements to make magic as well. It’s windy tonight. It’s helped shore up my flagging stores.”
    “Oh.” She felt small and petty. Especially after she’d thrown him off her and accused him of using her. Why shouldn’t he go find someone who would do him right? She’d given up that chance when she’d stormed out of the room, her Scotch temper getting the better of her.
    “Did you keep the rain away that night?”
    “Yes.”
    “And the wind?” she asked, stepping closer. “Did you quiet it so I could hear the waves?”
    He nodded. “You needed solace. After . . .” He turned his head and looked down onto the beach below. “After you had that initial meeting with Suriel, you needed to calm your thoughts.”
    “Thank you.”
    His shoulders stiffened and his voice turned to one of indifference. “It’s cold. You should go inside.”
    Mairi pulled the shawl tighter around her. “I’m okay.”
    “No, you’re not.” He shot her a glare, then turned his palms upward toward the sky and closed his eyes. The wind immediately calmed.
    “No guy has ever stopped the wind for me.”
    “Don’t get used to it,” he muttered.
    In silence they stood, looking out over the water. It was unnerving standing there, wanting to reach out to him, but knowing he was cold and closed off. An invisible perimeter surrounded him and she didn’t know how to breach it.
    How did one get a conversation started with a Sidhe king? She hadn’t a clue, so she used what most people did—the scenery.
    “This gargoyle is rather fearsome,” she said, touching the frightening head of the demon that overlooked the stone railing.
    Bran grunted and nodded to the other side of the stone wall. “That one is uglier, if you ask me.”
    Mairi glanced at the demonic face with the serpent’s tongue sticking out of its mouth. With bulging eyes and fanged teeth it was indeed the stuff of nightmares. “Well, he’s definitely not stuffed animal material, but he’s kind of cute, in a demonesque way.”
    “Damn thing is eerie as hell. Always makes me feel like it’s watching me,” he muttered as he glanced once more at the statue. With a shake of his head, he said, “I’ve looked at it many times, wondering if he’s Carden.”
    “Carden?”
    “My brother.”
    Mairi felt her eyes bug out. “Your brother is a gargoyle?”
    “He is a shape-shifter, like me.”
    “This is going to take some getting used to,” she muttered beneath her breath. He grinned, but looked away, hiding it from her.
    “He’s been missing for nearly two hundred years, cursed by Morgan to stay in his gargoyle form.”
    “Why?”
    Bran turned and faced her, his beautiful eyes shadowed. “It’s my fault. I was supposed to marry the bitch. I despised her, but Carden adored her. He went in my place, hoping to seduce her. She figured it out and cursed him to stay in his gargoyle form. She cursed me as well.”
    “How?”
    He looked at her in surprise. “You don’t know?”
    “How would I?”
    “Your dreams.”
    She blushed. “My dreams of you are sexual.”
    “Nothing else?”
    “No.” She thought of the dagger that she had been drawn to in her dreams. Wondered if it represented anything. “Bran?”
    He closed his eyes, and Mairi marveled at the length of his lashes. She reached out to stroke the crease of his eyelid with her fingertip. He flinched and stepped back, but she whispered softly, staying him.
    “Talk to me. I want to understand. Tell me everything.”
    “Mairi, don’t—”
    The hum from his body intensified, warming her fingertips. “Just talk to me.”
    “You can’t touch me,” he growled, pushing away from her.
    “Why? Don’t you feel it anymore? This thing between us?”
    “I feel you too much,” he whispered, and Mairi thought she had never heard a voice sound so anguished. “I feel your touch all over my body. I feel it go straight to my heart, my soul.”
    “Then let me touch you.”
    Deftly he moved to the right, avoiding any contact with her. “No. What we have—had,” he corrected, “cannot last. As you said, we are from different worlds. Worlds that don’t mix.”
    It killed her to hear him repeat what