The line between his brows deepened. "Why did you come here tonight?"

To dilute the disgust Omort makes me feel. "To warn you. I'm going to be taking off the gloves for our next encounter." Or, rather, putting them on. "I will show you no mercy the next time I come here." She couldn't, since every day that passed made it more unlikely that she'd conceive.

The Sorceri simply weren't a prolific species like oth­ers in the Lore.

The demon was studying her face, intently, as if try­ing to delve beneath the mask of her illusions. "Sabine, I don't believe you're as bad as you seem."

"With me, nothing is as it seems. It's always much, much worse."

"No. I don't think you truly want to do these things to me, or to my people."

"Do what things? Make a bid for power? Capture a demon?" When he didn't answer, her tone grew cold.

"You think you can change me, don't you? Into some­one who's good? Maybe rehabilitate me?"

"In my circumstances, I have to believe that. You can be made to see things differently. I can teach you-"

As she rose, the room appeared to rock from her fury. Above them, in the illusion of sky, a cascade of shoot­ing stars blazed. "I beheaded the first male that tried to turn me toward good." At the cell doorway, she added, "I was twelve."

10

When Rydstrom caught Sabine's sultry scent, he briefly closed his eyes in pleasure, then cursed himself for his weakness.

What would she do to him tonight? Her attendants had left him unclothed and chained to the bed by his wrists and ankles, a single sheet covering his lower body.

For two days she hadn't returned. Hour after hour had crept by, the dungeon seeming to close in on him, the manacles continually cutting into his skin.