The saliva on her tongue dried instantly and her body went stiff. Demon and hunts you didn’t go well in the same sentence.

“He would not take kindly to you sleeping with any aeamon. ”

“Why?” Her voice came out pinched. “What are you talking about?”

Stefan reclined in his chair, placing his hands behind his head, looking fat and happy as a cat who’d just consumed a juicy mouse. “Come back to us and I can provide you a measure of protection against him, my petal. Having you roam free is . . . upsetting him.”

Sarafina took a couple deep, measured breaths and willed her imminent panic attack away. “How did he even get Earthside?”

“Let’s just say I have my ways.”

“Are there more? More daaeman than Bai?”

Stefan spread his hands. “Isn’t Bai enough? Really, Sarafina, I’m not the man most likely to spill Duskoff secrets into the lap of someone who has been contaminated by the heroic leader of the Coven and all his do-gooder minions.”

“I want no part of them.” She studied her hands clasped in her lap and channeled Meryl Streep. “You kidnapped me, but so did they. They assumed I was a warlock because you were meeting with me personally. They yanked me from that house with the use of an earth witch so brutal he dragged me through a cornfield.”

“Mmmm, yes, Theodosius Winters. He’s quite the cold bastard, that sorcière. Like they all are. He has a particularly large grudge against the Duskoff, however. Some of the warlocks saw him dragging you from the house that day.”

Oh, good. That was very good, indeed.

She nodded. “He locked me in Gribben and abused me until it was verified I was an abductee and not a member of the Duskoff.”

Stefan nodded sympathically. “I know too well how vicious they can be. I have experienced Gribben firsthand. It’s the only thing in this world I have encountered that has the power to break me.” He leaned forward. “To lose your magick that way, it’s hellish, is it not? So painful. I would rather die than go through that again.”

“Even only having recently discovered my magick, it was . . . awful.” She was bluffing big-time here, since she’d never once stepped foot in Gribben. Apparently, the place had had quite an effect on Stefan, however.

Stefan’s cleanly shaven jaw locked and a muscle twitched near his eye. “I would like to give them a taste of the torture they put those prisoners through, wouldn’t you?”

She looked up, holding his gaze steadily. “I’ve fantasized about it.”

His gaze warmed. “A woman after my own heart.”