torso were a hinge. Fluidly, she lowered one leg until her foot was flat on the floor, forming her into some erotic bridge. With movements that seemed effortless, she shifted herself, tucking one leg against her hip while the other cocked up behind her. And reaching back, she gripped her foot to bring it to the back of her head.
He considered the fact that he didn’t drool a testament to his massive power of will.
She bent, twisted, flowed, arranged herself into what should have been impossible positions. His willpower wasn’t so massive he didn’t imagine that any woman that flexible would be amazing in bed.
She’d arched back, foot hooked behind her head when a flicker in those deep, dark eyes told him she’d become aware of him.
“Don’t let me interrupt.”
“I won’t. I’m nearly done. Go away.”
Though he regretted missing how she ended such a session, he wandered back to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee. Leaning back on the counter, he noted the morning paper was folded on the little table, the dog bowl Cal left there for Lump was empty, and the water bowl beside it half full. The dog might’ve already had breakfast, but if anyone else had, the dishes had already been stowed away. Since the news didn’t interest him at the moment, he sat and dealt out a hand of solitaire. He was on his fourth game when Cybil strolled in.
“Aren’t you a rise-and-shiner this morning.”
He laid a red eight on a black nine. “Cal still in bed?”
“It seems everyone’s up and about. Quinn hauled him off to the gym.” She poured coffee for herself, then reached in the bread bin. “Bagel?”
“Sure.”
After cutting one neatly in half, she dropped it in the toaster. “Bad dream?” She angled her head when he glanced up at her. “I had one, woke me at first light. So did Cal and Quinn. I haven’t heard, but I imagine Fox and Layla—they’re at his place—got the same wake-up call. Quinn’s remedy, weights and machines. Mine, yoga. Yours . . .” She gestured to the cards.
“Everybody’s got something.”
“We kicked our Big Evil Bastard in the balls a few days ago. We have to expect him to kick back.”
“Nearly got ourselves incinerated for the trouble,” Gage reminded her.
“ Nearly works for me. We put the three pieces of the bloodstone back together, magickally. We performed a blood ritual.” She studied the healing cut across her palm. “And we lived to tell the tale. We have a weapon.”
“Which we don’t know how to use.”
“Does it know?” She busied herself getting out plates, cream cheese for the bagels. “Does our demon know any more about it than we do? Giles Dent infused that stone with power more than three hundred years ago in the clearing, and—theoretically—used it as part of the spell that pulled the demon, in its form as Lazarus Twisse, into some sort of limbo where Dent could hold it for centuries.”
Handily, she sliced an apple, arranged the pieces on a plate while she spoke. “Twisse didn’t know or recognize the power of the bloodstone then, or apparently hundreds of years later when your boyhood ritual released it, and the stone was split into three equal parts. If we follow that logic, it doesn’t know any more about it now, which gives us an advantage. We may not know, yet, how it works, but we know it does.”
Turning, she offered him his plated bagel. “We put the three pieces into one again. The Big Evil Bastard isn’t the only one with power here.”
Just a bit fascinated, Gage watched Cybil cut her half bagel in half before spreading what he could only describe as a film of cream cheese over the two quarters. While he loaded his own half, she sat and took a bite he estimated consisted of about half a dozen crumbs.
“Maybe you should just look at a picture of food instead of going to all the trouble to fix it.” When she only smiled, took another minuscule bite, he said, “I’ve seen Twisse kill my friends. I’ve seen that