“Really?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Could I have done this?” He turned, ripping off his shirt to expose his back. His back was raked with claw marks. I reached out to touch one and he winced.

“You weren’t at the meeting today,” I said.

“How could I go with these marks on me?” he asked, turning to face me. He was close, his bare chest radiating heat across the few inches that separated us. I felt a tug, like static electricity or centripetal force, pulling me toward him. My heart, newly bound to the door, beat erratically. Were heart palpitations part of the warning I hadn’t read?

“Ann Chase told me you asked her to recommend you as my tutor. She thinks you’re the incubus.”

“Is that who you think I am?” he asked, lifting his hand to my cheek and gently tracing the scratches over my eye with his fingertips. I shivered at his touch, suddenly aware of how cold and wet I was. “Is that who you want me to be?”

“I … I don’t know,” I said, my voice trembling. “I thought I might love him. I thought if I saw him once more … as he really is … then I’d know.”

There was a flicker in Duncan azure eyes, a shadow that swam in and out of vision as Duncan lowered his head and pressed his mouth against my mouth. The instant I felt his lips on mine the shadow resolved into the shadow moving through the trees and I felt a jolt of fear course through my body. I tried to pull away but he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, his lips locked on mine, his tongue probing my mouth, his bare chest pressing me up against the porch railing. But now instead of warmth rising off him, I felt cold. Pure ice-water cold. I wasn’t sure if Duncan was the incubus or not but I was sure of one thing. He felt wrong. I summoned the fizzle of energy I’d felt last night when I released my wards, wriggled my hands between our bodies, and pushed.

Duncan flew across the porch and hit the front door so hard the doorbell chimed and the glass fanlight shook in its frame and cracked. A sliver of green glass plummeted straight down onto Duncan’s bare chest and lodged there like a miniature dart. Duncan winced and brushed it away, streaking blood across his chest. He wiped the blood on his pants and got to his feet, his eyes locked on mine.

“I’m getting a little tired,” he said, biting off each word as he moved toward me, “of these mixed signals.”

“I don’t think there was anything mixed in that last signal the lady sent you.”

The voice, low and ominous, came from behind me. I turned around and found Bill, hands clenched into fists, glaring at Duncan.