The wraparound porch on the first level matched the balcony on the second and third, with elaborate turned posts and lots of bead- and spindle work. The upper corners of the outdoor living space were embellished with brackets and delicate arches. A wide front door displayed original colored-block stained glass windows with a matching transom. On that small tower balcony, there was a similarly impressive entrance.

He suspected the tower was where Raina’s personal rooms were. The laws of gravity made it far easier to disseminate protection spells and other magics over the square footage of the large house from a higher point. And considering the only reason the succubi and incubi in residence didn’t fatally drain the clients was the moderating effect of Raina’s spells, her location in the house was vitally important to its feng shui.

His lip curled. The whole place suggested an escape into lush, unhurried fantasy, with a subtle undercurrent of erotic danger impossible to resist. A perfect reflection of the female who owned it.

“It’s about time you got here, you worthless piece of shit.”

It should have bugged him that he hadn’t sensed her approach from the side porch, but the list of things he was fucked-up about right now was at capacity. “Could have been here sooner if someone had told me where the hell she was.”

“Doesn’t work that way. Unfortunately friend loyalty trumps friend stupidity. Plus, I didn’t expect it to take a big bad sorcerer three years to find one broody little witch. Oh, let me guess.” Her sultry laugh had a sharp edge that could cut off a man’s balls. “The world was in peril half a dozen times and you just couldn’t pull yourself away.”

“Pretty much.” It was that, but something more as well, something that had him lifting his gaze and locking with Raina’s, showing her this dog wasn’t in the mood to have his chain yanked, unless she wanted to see teeth up close and personal.

He’d gone over it a hundred times since Ruby had sent him away. She’d always kept her soul open to him, so they could increase their intimacy, feed that energy, but the day she’d tossed him out of her life, she’d been cold, locked down. The woman he’d seen today was still battened like a ship in a gale. The only good thing about that was it had helped him rein in the million things he’d felt when he turned the knob and saw her standing behind the counter. Controlling his own reaction had helped him notice the big thing that had changed.

Ruby had always lacked the confidence to explore her magical potential on a deeper level. In contrast, the woman he’d seen today had enough energy hovering around her it was like watching Pandora’s box throw off sparks. Of course, given what had finally brought him back to her side, finding she’d embraced her potential was a bitter confirmation, not a surprise.

He’d never have left her under the circumstances in which he had in fact…. left her. For three years, it had bugged the hell out of him. He’d known something was terribly wrong. Any other time, he would have hung around, dragged the truth out of her. Instead, he’d convinced himself it was best to give her some space. He’d come back later when she’d settled down, figure it out then.

Unfortunately, it had taken months to get back, one thing or another cropping up, and she hadn’t answered calls. Always the same damn answering service, and he didn’t carry a phone. Since their romantic relationship had begun, with one vital exception; they’d never been out of contact for more than a few weeks at a time. When he finally got back to the West Coast, he discovered she’d not only pulled up stakes; she’d locked down her essence, making herself virtually invisible. An effort that could only be targeted at him. A big Leave Me the Hell Alone.

He’d respected that. What the fuck? His need to find her would ebb and flow, and whenever it hit a big-time flow, he’d be interrupted by other inescapable responsibilities. Then, a couple months ago, he’d heard she was involved with someone.

Bullshit. He knew her, down to blood, heart, soul and the dust of her bones. Yeah, he was possessive, but mere male territorialism hadn’t put the hot iron to his blood. The moment he heard the rumor about another guy, it was as if he were in a movie where the fake fog got sucked up by one of those high-powered fans, clearing everything out of his path. The aching need and pain, the loss of her in his life, clamped down on his heart like a bear trap. It was as if he’d been doped up all these months, and now he felt in full force the way he should have been feeling all along.

He’d taken a good hard look at what had happened and considered the unthinkable. A sorcerer guarded himself against spells cast by enemies. Long before McAfee and Norton existed, sorcerers had their own personal virus protection. But they had a similar limitation— they couldn’t anticipate everything. And an inside attack was the hardest to predict.

When he’d considered the possibility, done a soul sweep with the new configuration, something had burst inside his unconscious like a stretched chain link finally breaking. It had been the mother of all sucker punches, chilling him to the bone and pissing him off at once.

Ruby had used Dark soul magic to drive him away. That was why none of it had ever made sense. Not his reaction, not hers. For fuck’s sake, except for the requirements of the occasional Great Rite he’d had to do, where he channeled the Lord and a priestess channeled the Lady in a physical coupling to raise energy, he hadn’t been able to touch another woman for three years, even after Ruby made it clear she had no hold on him.

If anyone could confirm what Ruby had done, it would be the black soul in front of him now. Which was why he was here. He wanted answers.

“She should have fallen for a plumber,” Raina remarked. She fastened those exotic green-and-gold feline eyes on him. “Living with someone who gets called out to unstop someone’s toilet at two in the morning is a lot less lonely than being with a man who has to unstop the cosmic crapper all the time.”

“Lovely language. Quite the Southern belle.”

“Oh, I can talk dirty when it suits, Derek. You have no idea.” She propped a hip on the front porch rail, which undulated her body into a sinuous S of curves designed to make a man’s blood drain straight to his cock. Most men.

A long time ago, he’d made Ruby laugh when he suggested Raina sat around in flannels when nobody was around, eating ice cream and watching white-trash reality TV. The truth was she probably lounged on a divan in some dim room scented with money candles, her eyes glowing in the half darkness. Incense would curl around her as she meditated and spun webs to entrap men in her wiles, like a spider plotting against flies.

When she wasn’t doing that, she’d be busily tapping keys with her wicked long nails, figuring up her profits. If Hell ever needed a business manager, she was probably on Satan’s A-list. If he could handle her, which Derek doubted any male could.

Her hair was blue-black and fell to her hips in curls and waves, with a few select streaks of red ochre at the temples. Since right now she wore a silk gold robe that clung to her curves, it was easy for a man to imagine that hair tangled in his fingers as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, allowing him to bury himself in that wet dream body. Her fingernails trailed along the rail like a man’s arm, drawing his gaze despite himself.

He’d tell her to tone it down, but he knew this was just Raina. Daughter of a witch and an incubus, she could no more turn it off than he could turn off how he felt about Ruby.

“You’re still a bitch, you know that?” he grumbled.

“Good thing we both love the same person. Else we might be tempted to maim one another beyond repair.”

Goddamn it. He was frustrated, hurting, pissed off, and he had nowhere to go with it. He couldn’t change the past three years. In Ruby’s shop, he’d picked up on the well of pain trapped behind that smart mouth and hazel eyes. Something unbearably fragile was behind the brick wall she’d constructed against him. So fragile, it might destroy her if he blasted that wall the way he wanted. He had to convince her to open the door, and that wasn’t usually the way it worked between them.

She had teased him about his cowboy side, but she liked the way he could rope her down, body, heart and soul, and get her to surrender it all to him. She didn’t realize, when he held such gifts in his hands, how their power overwhelmed and humbled him.

He’d seen her potential for a long time, what she could become. Thank God that harpy of a mother of hers was dead, may the Powers that Be forgive him. With Mary Night Divine gone, Derek had been sure Ruby would embrace that side of herself at last. He’d even arrogantly assumed the love he could give her would help fill in that foundation, make it solid.

Well, she’d built herself a foundation, all right. It worried him to the bone what kinds of things were in that concrete. While he didn’t know what the hell had happened, he should have been here to help. Even if he had to let the world fall to darkness.

For every day he’d ever spent with her, he’d had to spend a hundred times that away from her. He had no right to feel this way. Fuck that— he had every right. He knew a lot of things about time, and one of them was that in things like this, it didn’t mean shit.

“Where are you staying tonight? You are staying.”

He looked up to see Raina studying him with narrowed, kohl-rimmed eyes. Though her tone warned him against the wrong answer, the set of her mouth wasn’t completely fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on. “I’ll find a dive to catch a few hours; then I’ll hit the road.” Before she could retort to that, he added in a curt tone, “I have some things to set up. I’ve asked Ruby’s help on a job in Florida teaching a coven to contain a fault break. Think she’s going to do it.”

Raina tapped one of those inch-long nails on the railing. Interestingly, it was painted a delicate frosted pink. “Isn’t that like throwing molasses against glue? Taking a woman playing with Dark forces to fight Dark forces?”

Derek set his jaw. So she’d decided to take the bull by the horns. Good. Suited him fine. “What is she playing with, Raina?” At the woman’s closed expression, he restrained the urge to come up the stairs and throttle her. Instead he simply braced his stance, hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and took a gamble on one sure thing. “I know you love her. Else you wouldn’t still be here. You could make ten times more in Manhattan with this little gig of yours.”