Surreal jumped in front of him. “Trust me, sugar. You don’t want to do that. Not tonight. Daemon isn’t interested in talking to anyone tonight.”

Lucivar studied the town house door. “Where’s Jaenelle? Aren’t you doing some female thing today?”

“We were. We did. Now . . .” Surreal looked pointedly at the town house. “Jaenelle’s not interested in talking to anyone either.”

“You’re telling me it’ll be worth my balls if I walk in there and interrupt something?”

“At the very least.”

Lucivar grinned. Then he looked at her. “So where are you staying tonight?”

“Jaenelle and I had a suite at the female place, but it looks like I’ll have it to myself tonight.”

“They have any rooms there where you can get something to eat?”

Oh, shit. “They do, but the place is really . . . female.”

“No males there at all?”

Remembering all the looks and whispers she’d endured that day, she gave in to the urge to be pure bitch. “Yeah, there are males. We can get dinner there if you want. And since Jaenelle won’t be using it, you’re welcome to the other bedroom.” She paused. “Besides, we need to talk. There’s some trouble here.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

“We’ll probably have to walk to the corner to find a cab,” Surreal said, walking past him.

His snort of laughter warned her, but before she could react, he clamped one arm around her waist and launched them skyward. Since her back was pressed to his chest, she didn’t have many places to grab while he flew way too close to the treetops, so she settled for swearing as cre atively as possible.

“Shut up,” Lucivar said, “or you’ll end up with bugs in your teeth.”

“What?”

Roaring with laughter, he spun them a few times before gliding down to the sidewalk and backwinging to land lightly in front of the “female place.”

“You son of a whoring bitch,” Surreal snarled. The sidewalk tilted, and she grabbed the arm he offered. “Just for that, I hope being in this place a few hours makes your balls shrivel up.”

He just snorted and escorted her to the registration desk.

“Am I supposed to sign in or something?” he asked.

“You can do whatever you want.” Surreal grabbed the desk. The atrium wasn’t moving, but she still didn’t quite trust her legs. The same little prick who had signed her and Jaenelle in that morning was still on duty—and eyeing Lucivar.

“We do request that any . . . company . . . visiting with our guests sign in,” he said, setting a leather-bound guest book on the desk and offering a pen.

Taking the pen, Lucivar dipped it in the inkwell and signed his name. “I’m not company, I’m family.”

It was the man’s sneer, there and gone in a moment, that pricked Surreal’s temper.