“Bull,” I cut him off. “When you were kneeling on the beach in Faery, and touched me, you felt like a man and only a man.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it had been better than this. He could tone himself way down if he chose. “I know you can do it. If you want my help finding the Sin—er, the Book, turn it off, and turn it all off. Now. And keep it off in the future.” I’d picked up a superstition from Dani, the young sidheseer I’d met recently who’d warned me about casting certain words on the wind I didn’t want traced back to me, so now, whenever I spoke of the Sinsar Dubh aloud, out in the streets, especially at night, I tried to remember to call it simply “the Book.”

V’lane shimmered, flashed brilliant white, then faded and resolidified. I tried not to gawk. Gone were the iridescent robes, the eyes that burned with a thousand stars, the body that radiated the fire of Eros. A man stood before me in faded jeans, a biker jacket, and boots; the sexiest man I’d ever seen. A golden, horny angel stripped of wings. This V’lane I could deal with. This Fae prince I could keep my clothes on around.

“Walk with me.” He offered his hand.

Sidhe-seer walk with Fae? My every instinct screamed no. “I’ll Null you if I touch you.”

He considered me a moment, as if debating whether to speak. Then he shrugged, but not well. The human gesture only made him look more alien. “Only if you wish, MacKayla. The desire to Null or the instinct to defend yourself must be present. If you do not desire it, you may touch me.” He paused. “I know of no other Fae who would permit such intimacy and risk. You speak to me of trust. I am giving it to you. Once you touch me, you could alter your intent and I would be at your mercy.”

I liked that: him at my mercy. I took his hand. It was a man’s hand, warm, strong, nothing more. He laced his fingers with mine. I hadn’t held hands with anyone in a long time. It felt good.

“You spent time in my world,” he said, “now I will spend time in yours. Show me what it is you care for so deeply that you would die for it. Teach me of human ways, MacKayla. Show me why I should care, too.”

Teach this ancient creature who, in his most recent incarnation, was over one hundred and forty-two thousand years old? Show him why he should care about us? Right. And I was born yesterday. “You never stop, do you?”

“Never stop what?” he said innocently.