“Magnus?” Allie asked impatiently when he was silent too long. “Will it heal?”

“I do not know,” he admitted apologetically. “I have never taken a virgin to my bed before.”

“What?” she asked with disbelief. “You’re like a bazillion years old and have probably bedded a gazillion women, yet you’ve never slept with a virgin before?”

He ignored the insult about his age, and said, “Not an immortal virgin. Besides, I have not bedded a gazillion women. In fact, I have not indulged in sexual activities since just before the Battle of Maldon in 991.”

Allie stared at him blankly for a moment, and then asked, “Are you kidding?”

“No,” Magnus assured her quietly. “Immortals often tire of food and sex at some time between the ages of one hundred and two hundred. I lost my interest in food twenty or thirty years before, but held on to my interest in sex until I was 212 . . . although it had waned quite a bit before it died out altogether,” he admitted.

She narrowed her eyes, and said, “But I’ve seen you eat. And what was this, then? Because you seemed pretty interested when—”

“Life mates change all that,” he explained patiently. “They reawaken an immortal’s passions, both for food and for lovemaking. They reawaken interest in everything. It is another reason why they are so valued and cherished.” He paused briefly, and then added, “The shared pleasure simply adds to it.”

“Shared pleasure?” she asked uncertainly.

Magnus hesitated, but then asked, “When you were sitting on the side of the bed and touched me, did you not experience my pleasure as your own?” He already knew the answer, but was still a little relieved when she nodded.

Realization and amazement growing on her face, she asked, “So when you were touching me . . . ?”

“I felt your pleasure,” he said quietly, his previously flagging passion reawakening and stretching within him at the memory. He’d begun to lose his erection the moment the pain had struck, but now he was hardening inside her again.

“Something’s happening,” she said uncertainly. “Are you moving?”

“No,” he said at once, but didn’t explain, and instead said, “Allie, we cannot remain like this indefinitely. And I cannot answer your question about the healing. Do you wish me to go fetch Katricia or Drina so that you may ask one of them?”

“God, no!” she gasped at once, and then bit her lip briefly before saying, “Maybe if we just stay like this for a little bit the nanos will heal me around you and not completely rebuild my hymen.”

He thought that was a ridiculous idea, and was becoming uncomfortable lying there, chatting as if at tea, so teased, “Or maybe they will heal you to my member.”

“What?” she squawked with horror.

Magnus was immediately sorry he’d said that and tried to reassure her. “I am sure that will not happen. I was just—”

“Oh!”