her.

The Invidia-with their wild antler headdresses, whips on their belts, and star patterns over their nipples- laughed at her. The Undines, evil nymphs with paint dusted bodies, openly scorned Lanthe.

The Libitinae, four raven-winged bringers of death, frowned at her with tilted heads. For fun, they forced men to self-castrate or die. They simply couldn't com-prehend Lanthe's need for male companionship.

Lanthe supposed she hadn't helped her respect quo­tient by doing ninety-four-point-seven percent of all the males present, excluding the revenants that lined the walls, of course. Mathematically, this meant that Lanthe was the equivalent of the high school slut.

She'd never been to high school, but she'd watched movies like Grease, The Craft, and Varsity Blues-and they all dealt with school sluttitude. I'm your girl.

She'd liked none of her ex-lovers, but she loved sex, I lots of it, and well, call her crazy but once a male stole her sorcery when she was in the throes, she didn't let him hit it again.

Sabine had begged her not to sleep with Sorceri, but vampires only wanted her blood, and demons and cen­taurs were considered animals. The rest of the breeds here? Creeeeeepy.

She passed the enigmatic vampire Lothaire, who served as a general in their army, commanding a regi-ment of vicious fallen vampires. Known as the Enemy of

Old, he was a chilling sight, from his white-blond hair to his eyes that were more pink than red to his impas­sive face.

He was one of the few vampires she'd encountered who might actually be interested in sex in addition to blood. But he could scarcely be arsed to give her the time of day.

There'd only been one male in her entire long life who'd ever looked at her with affection and perfect acceptance. Lanthe feared-and her precious self-help books indicated-that she bedded one male after another because she ached to see that look once more.