branch, and meant to follow, but he heard the woman’s sighing voice and he stopped, turning
to find her only an arm’s length away.
"I will speak with you, Conar McGregor," she whispered, her gaze going down his body in a full sweep
of dark, thick lashes. A slight smile touched her sensuous lips. She flicked out her tongue to moisten her
lips and a trill of laughter came from her beautiful mouth when she heard him suck in his breath at her
open invitation.
"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"
"You," she stated, her eyes flaring. "And I will have you."
Conar gaped at her. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You are all I knew you would be, McGregor. A man worthy of my affections."
Conar felt a tightening in his breeches and backed away from her. Never had he felt such a strong urge
to throw himself on a woman and ravish her. Never had he known the intense desire to rend and tear and
hurt. To conquer. It was a feeling he didn’t like and one he wasn’t sure he could control. He took
another step back, away from the threat she posed and the growing urge within him to mate with her on
the cold, frigid ground.
"Who are you?" he whispered with fear in his voice.
She looked at him with eyes as ancient as evil itself. Her body moved slowly, gently, to the keening
moan of winter wind. He felt his pulse quicken, his breath catch in his throat, as she smiled. Her smile
was predatory, an invitation to things dark and unnatural, to barbaric practices that had long ago been
outlawed, to pain and pleasure all rolled into one. Her smile was like nothing he had ever seen, and it tore
him apart inside, for it was—alive with a soul—dark as it probably was.
"Who are you?" repeated, his voice low and fearful. "What do you want?"
Her lilting laugh was evil, filled with promise and threat and challenge. She turned her head to one side
and her lips formed a petulant pout.
"Who do you wish for me to be, Conar McGregor?" she asked in her throaty whisper. "What would you
have me want from you? I can be whatever you desire, Sweeting."
He backed still further away and shook his head. "I don’t know you and I don’t want to."
Her lips stretched wide and again she laughed. "How can you be sure?"
"How did you get in here?" he asked, his heart thundering in his chest. He looked around, more for a
route of escape than anything else. There was a need inside him to get away from this woman, if, indeed,
that was what she was. By the look of her, by the looks she was giving him, he wasn’t sure the exquisite
being before him was human.
"I was called. I came."
Her answer riveted him to where he stood on the frozen flagstones. "By whom?"
"By the one you call love ." The mysterious stranger lifted her hand and slowly clenched her fist, smiling
evilly at him the whole time.
"God!" Conar gasped as his groin tightened to a painful throb. He could actually feel her fingers on him,
although she was a good ten feet away. His eyes opened wide. "What are you?" He groaned, feeling that
alien hand caressing him as intimately as his wife had done only a few hours before.
A laugh as gentle as the tinkle of crystal bells chimed over the garden. She looked hard at his full lips.
Again, her tongue licked her lips and she smiled as his attention locked on the wet flesh of her mouth. "I
have told you. Whatever you want me to be."
"I want nothing from you!" He sucked in his breath as spectral nails raked gently over his testicles. He
stumbled as he took another step back, his hands going down to protect himself from her supernatural
touch.
Her lips puckered in a pout. "Oh, but you do, sweet one." She put up her hand and traced the outline of
her lips with one finger, circling the red flesh.
He felt soft flesh encompassing his rigid manhood, a sweet, velvet tongue circling the swollen head.
"Leave me alone!" he gasped, edging away from her. "Please!"
"And leave you to suffer, Milord? I would never do that." Her