“Considering the fact that I’m planning to beard the vampires in their den tomorrow, I think a little nervous pacing is warranted.” But I forced myself to stop, plopping down on the corner of the bed instead. “They have to play by Porter rules in the real world, but once we enter the nest, the rules change. It’s like a reservation, with its own sovereign law. If they believe the Porters are working against them . . .”

“So we take precautions,” she said.

“We’ll need to stop at a bookstore. Even if they don’t kill us, convincing them to listen could be a problem.” Particularly since the one vampire who might have proved my point had immolated himself.

Lena rose easily to her feet and strode toward the bathroom. “Do you mind if I grab a quick shower?”

I shook my head, mentally cataloging possible titles to buy tomorrow.

“You’re pretty filthy yourself, you know.”

I blinked and looked up. “What?”

She leaned against the bathroom doorframe, arms folded, watching me with a mischievous smile “You really need to work off some tension. And so do I.” Her grin grew. “With or without you.”

And just like that, I was no longer thinking about vampires. “Um.”

“It’s your choice, Isaac.” She slipped into the bathroom, but left the door open a crack. I heard the rustle of cloth, and my imagination filled in the details. The faint scratching of a zipper, the sound of jeans tossed carelessly to the floor. The elastic snap of a bra strap as she undid the hooks.

I took a deep breath and lay back on the bed, trying to clear my head. The spray started up in the shower, followed by the metal scrape of the shower curtain rings.

Back in the nineties, a Porter by the name of Ken Cassidy had used a bit of magic from a Piers Anthony novel to make women fall in love with him. To fall in lust, rather. Deb DeGeorge had been called in to deal with him, slipping some of his own potion into his drink so that he fell in love with the next creature he saw.

The last I heard, Ken had abandoned magic and devoted his life to caring for his Amazon parrot, Annabelle.

If I took advantage of Lena’s nature, was I any different from Ken Cassidy? Regardless of whether or not I was the one casting the spell, Lena was forced by magic to seek out a partner and mate, no different than any of Ken’s victims had been.

So what was the alternative? Do the “noble” thing and wait for her to find someone else?

Oh, hell. Now she was singing. A Madonna tune, from the sound of it. I could see her in my imagination, her thick black hair slicked down between her shoulder blades, the light gleaming on her wet skin.