Thorn Queen. Richelle Mead

Pepper Bistro?”

      “Okay. Now you’re in the zone.”

      “Followed by a long massage in the sauna.”

      “That’s pretty good too.”

      “And then indecent things in the sauna.”

      “I hope you mean you’ll be doing the indecent things—because I more than did my share last night.”

      Kiyo glanced over at me with a mischievous grin. “Who says I’m talking about you?”

      I would have swatted him if he’d been in reach. Instead, I grinned back, my mood happy and light. Bantering with him like this was just like the old days, back before Maiwenn and this baby business was an issue. I felt like his girlfriend again. And despite just having had sex last night, I couldn’t deny the truth. Thinking about having sex with him in the sauna was doing uncomfortable—pleasantly uncomfortable—things to my body, particularly with my legs spread like they were. Our gazes met, and I felt an answering heat in his eyes. I remembered how fierce he’d been while throwing himself in front of me last night and could perfectly envision that same fierceness translated into passion in bed. The lines and muscles of his body suddenly seemed that much stronger, and I could imagine his hands all over me….

      Rurik trotted up beside me and interrupted my pornographic thoughts. “We need to go on foot now. We’re getting close.”

      We stopped on the edge of a “forest” comprised of saguaro cactuses and scraggly trees. They spread on ahead of us, up toward some sharp rises in the land that turned into sandy red cliffs studded with rocks. While tethering the horses, Kiyo decided he’d go ahead and scout in fox form.

      “If you can’t change back, that’s going to seriously interfere with our date,” I told him.

      He ran a hand along my bare arm, making every part of me tingle. “Nah, nothing’s interfering with that. I’ll go in small fox form—they’ll never see me.”

      He slowly shape-shifted, his large, muscled frame growing smaller, then elongating into a red fox about as big as a medium-sized dog. He brushed against my leg and then disappeared into the vegetation ahead. I watched him go. Some part of me would always worry about those I loved, but overall, I had confidence in Kiyo when it came to dangerous situations.

      The rest of us milled about in the midday heat, passing water around. About twenty minutes later, Kiyo returned. With each approaching step, he transformed from a cuddly furry critter into the man I loved. Not that I didn’t love him as a fox too.

      “They’re over there, just like we thought,” Kiyo said. There was kind of a lope as he walked, a leftover from the fox form. It was both cute and sexy at the same time. “Looks like they’re camped out and resting for the day.”

      “Any lookouts?” asked Rurik.

      Kiyo grinned. “Not anymore.”

      I rolled my eyes. “Did you see any girls?”

      His smile faded. “No. Just the bandits. They’ve got a few less people than we do.”

      “Well, that’s good,” I said, frowning. No girls. What did that mean? Had the couple in the village been wrong? Maybe their daughter really had run off with her boyfriend. Still, if this group was harassing people, getting rid of them would certainly be a good deed.

      Kiyo and Rurik plotted strategy on how to sneak up on the camp, and our group set off, planning to fan out around the brigands. With no lookouts, the gang had no one to warn them of our approach and seemed totally unaware when we got our first glimpse of them. They were mostly men, with a few women. The women clearly weren’t captured girls, though. They were older and hardened from harsh living. The whole group looked like it had seen hard times, actually. There was a toughness about them that suggested they’d fight tooth and nail.

      Based on an earlier discussion, I’d thought our whole group would just swoop down at once. Instead, one of my guards suddenly stepped out and shouted, “Surrender in the name of the queen!”

      Oh God, I thought. He did not just say that.

      There was no time to ponder it further as my party charged forward. “Remember,” I hissed to Volusian. “Subdue. Don’t kill.”

      He didn’t look happy about this. Of course, he never looked happy. The rest of my guards had orders to avoid killing if they could but not to hesitate if it was their life or a bandit’s. I wanted prisoners we could question later and didn’t really like the idea of furthering my tyrannical image if I could help it.

      As I’d expected, the bandits fought back. No surrender here. They had conventional gentry weapons, as well as some weak fighting magic. It became clear early on that taking prisoners was a little harder than killing. Killing was fast. Taking someone down and tying them up was a little more complicated. It exposed you to attacks from others. Nonetheless, I saw my guards handily bind two of the bandits right away. A couple other bandits got killed shortly thereafter, but they’d had knives at my men’s throats and left us no alternative. Kiyo and I were working together to tie a flailing man up when I suddenly felt a surge of magic in the air.

      I stopped what I was doing. It wasn’t gentry magic. In fact, none of the others noticed it right away. As a shaman, I’d developed a sensitivity to creatures and powers from the different worlds. This power made my skin prickle and had a slimy, oily feel to it. It wasn’t from the human world or even the Otherworld. There were Underworld creatures here.

      “Demons,” I said, just as they materialized within the camp. “There are fucking demons here.”