This was what I had been waiting over twenty long, parched years for. A messenger from my world, an initiator into my real life. This was what had been vitally missing in the few men that I had taken into my body. None that I had been intimate with was of my chemistry, my kind. I hadn't known what was wrong with them, with me, until that moment when I had sensed Gryphon with primitive recognition in that sterile emergency room. Mate. Now he was here, in my apartment, waiting for me in my home.

Some strange malady possessed me. A bold, aggressive spirit that I had not known was within me came to the fore and controlled my next actions, and I succumbed to it because my body wanted him, and my heart desired him, too.

Gryphon stepped back as I approached, a hand held up in strained beseechment. "No." He shook his head as I advanced, retreating until his back was pressed against the wall. "It would not be wise. Mona Sera…"

"You left her."

"But she still thinks of me as hers, to punish, to destroy."

"Bur you are not hers." I stopped, my body a mere whisper away from his. "Don't you want to be mine?" My hot breath wafted over the pale sweep of his neck just above where that slow pulse pounded. "Don't you want me to be yours?"

He shuddered and closed his eyes. "More than I wish to live."

My eyes glittered in triumph.

"But it would not serve you well."

I pushed away from him and he breathed deeply in relief until I pulled loose the elastic band, spilling my black hair to fall in an inky wash down my back, around my shoulders, the front strands teasing over the gentle rise of my breasts.

Gryphon froze in a stillness so deep he seemed like carved marble.

"You told me to seduce the men and make them mine." I kicked off my shoes.

He swallowed, his jaw clenched. "So that they would be bound to you and protect you."