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He brought a thin white roll to his lips and inhaled. As he spoke, smoke came out of his mouth. “Told you. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”

Through a tight throat, she rasped, “Chosen.”

“That’s what you are,” he snapped. “I want your name. I want to know your name.”

Was he allowed to ask her that? Was he—What was she thinking? He could do anything he wanted. He was the Primale. “C-C-Cormia.”

“Cormia.” He inhaled on the white thing again, the orange tip flaring up brightly. “Listen to me. Don’t be scared, Cormia, okay?”

“Are you—” Her voice cracked. She wasn’t sure whether she could question him, but she had to know. “Are you a god?”

His black eyebrows came down low over his white eyes. “Hell, no.”

“But then how did you—”

“Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

She tried to make her voice stronger. “How then did you intercede with the Scribe Virgin?” As he glowered, she rushed to apologize. “Please, I mean not to offend—”

“Whatever. Look, Cormia, you’re not into this mating thing with me, are you?” When she said nothing, his mouth compressed with impatience. “Come on, talk to me.”

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

“Oh, for the love of God.” He pushed a gloved hand through his dark hair and started pacing.

Surely he was a deity of some kind. He looked so fierce she wouldn’t have been surprised if he called lightning from the sky.

He stopped and loomed over her. “I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. Goddamn, what do you think I am? A monster?”

“I have never seen a male before,” she blurted. “I know not what you are.”

That stopped him cold.

Jane woke up only because she heard a garage door squeaking, the high-pitched whine coming from the condo to the left of hers. Rolling over, she looked at the clock. Five in the afternoon. She’d slept most of the day.

Well, kind of slept. For the most part, she’d been trapped in a bizarre dreamscape, one in which images that were half-formed and hazy tormented her. A man was involved somehow, a big man who felt at once a part of her and yet utterly alien. She’d been unable to see his face, but she knew his smell: dark spices, up close, in her nose, all around her, all over her—

That bone crusher of a headache flared up, and she dropped what she was thinking of like it was a hot poker and she was holding the wrong end. Fortunately, the pain behind her eyes eased off.

At the sound of a car engine, she lifted her head off the pillow. Through the window next to the bed she saw a minivan back down the driveway beside hers. Someone had moved in next door, and God, she hoped it wasn’t a family. The walls between units were not as thin as an apartment building’s, but they weren’t bank-safe solid by a long shot. And screaming kids she could do without.

Sitting up, she felt beyond wretched and into a whole new category of dreck. Her chest was aching something fierce, and she didn’t think it was muscular. Shifting around from side to side, she had some inclination that she’d felt like this once before, but she couldn’t place when or where.

Showering was an ordeal. Hell, just making it into the bathroom was a chore. The good news was that the soap-and-rinse routine revived her a little, and her stomach seemed open to the idea of some food. Leaving her hair to air-dry, she went downstairs and fired up some coffee. The plan was to get her head into first gear, then return some phone calls. Come hell or high water she was going to work tomorrow, so she wanted to clear the decks as best she could before she went into the hospital.

With mug in hand, she headed into the living room and sat down on the couch, cradling her coffee between her palms, hoping Captain Caffeine would come to her rescue and help her feel human. As she glanced down at the silk cushions, she winced. These were the ones her mother had smoothed out so often, the ones that had served as a barometric meter of whether All Was Well or not, and Jane wondered when she’d sat on the damn things last. God, she supposed that would be never. For all she knew, the last butt that had taken a load off here might