The Turning Kiss by Eden Bradley Page B

strength.”
    “Thank you.” She sipped, tasting the faint earthiness of the herbs beneath the smooth, rich flavor of the wine.
    “You have questions,” Luka said, drinking from his own glass.
    “Yes. I don’t know where to begin. I have to say, I’m a bit…stunned.”
    “That we would want you to stay with us?”
    “Yes.”
    Luka leaned forward, his body graceful, his metallic gaze mesmerizing. “You forget that we see more than the things you say, what you might do. I felt your great capacity for empathy, Ilana, from the first moment I touched you. I felt how my love for Konstantine, and his for me, affected you. This is a requirement in any we choose for companions.
    “I understand your need to appear so cool on the surface,” he went on. “But I see beyond the surface. Konstantine sees even more. And he understands you perhaps even more than I do. He knows pain, in a way I never will. In a way he will not discuss with anyone. Not even me, which I accept. Konstantine can be difficult, I know. He appears closed on the surface, but he has an enormous capacity to love. He keeps it tightly wrapped, like the precious gift it is. He presents himself as calm, powerful. Distanced from everyone. And he is all of those things. But he is also more than that.”
    “I have that sense of him, Luka. I do. Although he still frightens me a bit. I can feel his age. I can feel…the force of it. Not quite as much as I do with Ever, but still…I can’t help but be in awe of him. Of them both.”
    Luka nodded. “As is their due. Konstantine has lived for five hundred years. Ever’s age is perhaps twice that. Yet they are still feeling creatures, Ilana.”
    “Yes.” She nodded. “I can feel it, when I’m with them. I can sense the pain they’ve been through. The emotion they keep buried so deeply. Yet it’s still there, beneath the surface.”
    “One of the reasons we want you is because you understand these things.”
    “And Calam?” Her heart thundered. She had to ask.
    “A decision has not been made yet. But I believe it would be best that we not take you without him.”
    “Oh…” Her chest went warm and tight, her breath coming out on a long sigh.
    “But we would want him, anyway,” Luka told her. “He is perfect for us. Strong. Willing. With an appetite and a stamina that nearly matches our own. And he also understands pain. And love.”
    “I think he does,” she agreed. “I think he’s one of those rare beings who has been through unimaginable hardship, yet retains this ability to be open to…everything.”
    “Yes, that is exactly it. And it will appeal to Konstantine. You both have this ability, although yours is very recently discovered, I think, yes?”
    She smiled shakily. “Yes.”
    “But you do not have to decide now. Will you stay here with us for a time?”
    “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” she answered with total honesty. She needed some time to figure it all out. Luka and Konstantine. Calam.
    Calam…
    Luka lifted her hand, turned it face up, and kissed her palm. Pleasure sifted through her, a warm, easy flutter. “Excellent. Come to bed with me. There are too many things we have left undone. I want to feel your flesh warm under my hands. To spank you. Perhaps to whip you.”
    She shivered.
    Yes…
    Luka smiled at her, held out his hand. She rose to meet him.
    He stood with her beside the bed, swept the robe from her shoulders and eased her down with his hand. He stripped his clothes off, leaving him naked, dazzling. His body was all perfectly carved muscle. His cock was a long and graceful shaft of rigid flesh. Beautiful. He knelt on the bed, moved to reach past her, touching Calam’s face.
    “Wake up, Calam.”
    She turned to see Calam’s eyes flutter open, that shining silver brilliant beneath his long auburn lashes. He smiled, sat up, ran a hand over his short crop of dark red curls.
    “I want you to hold our magnificent ice queen,” Luka said to him. “Hold her