"She's going to start poking around in the magick today. I think she'll know more soon."

"Call us whenever you have more information, or e-mail. There's a computer in the study." Thomas spoke low to someone near him, hand covering the mouthpiece. "Isabelle wants to know what she's like."

Adam's gaze strayed to Claire. She stood in the kitchen, sipping her very first cup of coffee with cream and sugar. Her eyes were closed and her facial muscles slack. Her dark hair, mussed from sleep, curled lazily around her shoulders and her lashes shadowed perfect, alabaster skin that had never known makeup and didn't need it.

"Gorgeous." Mentally, he slapped himself. "I mean—"

"Adam." Thomas's voice held a hint of warning.

He blew a frustrated breath and whispered into the mouthpiece, "You'd have to be dead not to notice. I'm not a total pig. I noticed she's intelligent, too. To go along with it, I noticed her magick, whatever it is, is mad wicked strong. Once she gets it all under control, she's going to be a force to be reckoned with. She's any witch's dream girl."

"Okay. How's she doing emotionally?"

"Emotionally?" He reflected. "She seems a little cold. It's hard to tell. It's not like she's opened up a lot. I know she's confused by the fact she misses Eudae and feels like a foreigner here. That's all I really know, though."

"Consider where she's grown up. The Ytrayi aren't known for displays of feeling."

"Exactly. I think she's had to learn to repress a lot of that. Anyway, she's warming up slowly. I think it's just going to take some time. Other than that she's feeling a little out of place, but she's eager to experience all the earthy things she's missed out on."

Silence. "Don't show her too many earthy things, Adam."

"I mean like food, boss." Now he was irritated. "Like TV. Like driving fast. Like just having fun." Fuck, and sex, too, maybe. Claire was a grown woman and could make those decisions for herself. "I'm not going to take advantage of her. Shit. Who do you think I am?"

"I think you're Adam Tyrell, who never met a woman he didn't want."

Mark him down for wanting this one, too. Guilty as charged. Still, he was annoyed. "Gotta go, boss. Things to do, demons to fight."

"Stay in touch, Adam."

They hung up and he walked into the kitchen. Claire still sat at the breakfast bar sipping the steaming cup of coffee, her eyelids heavy with pleasure. She noted his approach, gaze flicking over his chest, down his legs, then back to her coffee. Interest there, then gone.

Theo stood at the stove, wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms, black tribal tats inked all over his dark skin. The delicious aroma of eggs and bacon wafted from his efforts. Adam's stomach rumbled.

"Micah has started working on Claire's problem and if we know him, he'll be up twenty-four/seven until he makes progress. Otherwise, it's the usual. Head down, eyes open. He told us to hunker down here for a while."