In her long white robe, she was more like a jasmine-scented shadow than anything made of flesh and bone.

The shameful truth of it was, though, he was okay with the way things were. He’d thought he’d been fully aware of the sexual commitment he was making when he took Vishous’s place as the Primale, but the reality was far more daunting than the concept had been. Forty females. Forty.

Four-oh.

He must have lost his damn mind when he stepped in for V. God knew, his one shot at trying to lose his virginity hadn’t been a party-and that had even been with a professional. Although maybe trying things out with a whore had been part of the problem.

But who the hell else did he have to go to? He was a two-hundred -year-old clueless celibate. How was he supposed to climb on top of lovely, fragile Cormia, pound into her until he came, and then hightail it to the Chosen’s Sanctuary and make like Bill Paxton in Big Love?

What the hell had he been thinking?

Phury put his blunt between his lips and jacked up the window. As the summer night’s thick perfume rolled into his room, he refocused on the roses. He’d caught Cormia with one the other day, one she’d evidently taken from the bouquet Fritz kept in the second-floor sitting room. She’d been poised next to the vase, the pale lavender rose between two of her long fingers, her head bent down to the bud, her nose hovering over the fat bloom. Her blond hair, which was as always up in a twist on her head, had let loose delicate wisps that fell forward and curved in a natural curl. Just like the rose’s petals.

She’d jumped when she caught him staring at her, put the rose back, and quickly gone to her room, the door shutting without a sound.