My chest swelled with a deep breath and before I could change my mind I quickly undid the buttons of my peacoat and slipped it off along with my Jelly shoes. I neatly folded my coat and placed it on a bed of reeds tucked around the base of a willow tree, and set my shoes tidily beside it.

Varen blinked rapidly, seemingly surprised that I was actually going to go through with this, and ripped into motion himself. Tossing the mat down onto the damp grass, along with the torch, he removed his shoes and socks, tugged his tie free, and shrugged out of his expensive suit jacket and shirt, flinging them all into an untidy pile beside mine. He stood before me bare-chested before I'd even reached an arm behind me for the zipper of my dress.

Holy. Holy. Holy. Freaking. Hells.

I tried not to be obvious with my leering, but I couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the distinctive cut of the delicious vee lines angling toward the belt buckle, which he was now undoing. His hair flopped forward and his shoulders rounded as he looked downward. The leather flicked forward as he deftly undid the metal prong, a pop of a button, the zipper whirring down before he quickly shoved his pants off and kicked them away.

He stood before me in only black boxer briefs and they did nothing to hide his masculinity.

I'd never seen a man almost naked before me.

Ever.

Varen was like one of those brutal gladiators, prowling around an arena, the sand splattered with blood. So big and burley and obscenely muscled. Tattoos curled up his jawline and down both arms, the black ink cut around the sides of his rib cage. Holy Zrenyth. Playgirl would make a fortune if Varen were laid across their glossy centerspread.

"Careful, Miss Catt, you're drooling."

Mortified, I touched the sides of my mouth, dabbing a finger here and there, finding nothing before I realized he was messing with me. Because for a long, long moment I was mentally drowning in girl drool. He was so freaking hot. So, so, so hot.

I couldn't look at him when I carefully let my dress slide down my figure to pool at my feet in a ripple of blue. I slowly stepped out of it so I stood before him in just my underwear. My cheeks scorched with a blush as I crouched down to pick up my dress, rolling it up and putting it on top of my peacoat. Rising, I partly laced my fingers together with my arms and hands trying to cover all the important parts of my body I was hesitant to show, even if they were hidden behind a layer of boring beige fabric.

Bending over, he scooped up the car mat and I caught a glimpse of the tattoos gracing his back. "Ready?"

"Yes, I replied, tentatively meeting his gaze beneath the fringes of my long eyelashes. The way he was staring at me, with heavily lidded eyes gone dark, sent a spark crackling down my spine to set my lower belly aflame.

He smiled slowly, biting his lower lip.

I frowned. "What's with the smile?"

He wiggled his eyebrows. "I can see your nipples through the bra."

"You said that this was akin to beachwear!" I squawked, clamping both hands flat across my breasts.

"I'm joking, Miss Catt," he shot back quickly, lifting a hand in surrender. "I see nothing."

But I wasn't so sure he was telling me the truth.

He stepped closer, looming over me with his great height. Once more he offered me his hand and mine looked delicate when I slid it into his. I delighted in the feel of our work-roughened hands folding around one another's, the heart-stuttering zap at the initial touch. He took charge, leading me into the brook and toward the cavern, both of us ducking beneath the draping foliage of ferns hanging over its mouth to get inside.

Waves of frigid water splashed up over my ankles. He kept me steady when my footing stumbled on stones greasy with algae and I almost went down with a yelp. I shivered violently at the chilly air and bitterly cold water. "The water's freaking freezing," I protested weakly because the idea of slipping and sliding down a tunnel was still appealing. He draped one of his big arms around me, enveloping me with his warmth. The contact of his bare body brushing against my skin caused my entire body to clench.

"Trust me, Miss Catt, what's down there will be well worth the shock of cold," he shouted above the raucous, churning water. "We just need to do one more thing!"

He crouched low, encouraging me to do the same thing beside him, and I braced myself against the sudden flood of bone-biting water that surged around my body. We raised the car mat and used our bodies to block the rushing stream. Water built up quickly with the dam, rising higher and higher in icy waves that shoved hard against my drenched body. Despite how miserable the cold water was, the excited anticipation of what was to come had my heart beating faster. It was just like the time my aunt took me to a waterpark years ago. Climbing up the wet spongy steps, mats rolled up in our hands, excitement building with the rowdy shrieks and bellows the closer we got to the top of the tower. Then we watched the mortal kids block the tunnel where water was pumped up from below to wash the riders down, eager to do the same thing too.

Varen had the biggest grin on his face I'd ever seen. He looked so boyish as he practically bounced on the balls of his feet with exhilaration. "Ready?!"

Before I'd even finished nodding he'd grabbed hold of me in a whirl of speed and twisted us both around to seat us on the car mat. My back was to his front and I relished his body heat as his arms and legs caged me in. With the release of pressure, the water crashed down like a tidal wave and we were off.

The furious current pushed us along at a great speed. We whooshed down the shadowy, twisting tunnel. Water sprayed everywhere. It splashed against my face and my hair whipped behind me in a saturated tail.

We jolted and bumped along. Slid sideways. Rotated a full-whizzing-circle as the swift and churning water shunted us around with savage force. A shriek tore from my throat as we flew up the side to round a sharp corner, and Varen let out a whoop of joy.

Our raucous laughter chased us down the tunnel as we zoomed along the bends and dips, squinting against the freezing water shredding across our faces.

All of a sudden the darkness lifted and we burst from the waterslide and skimmed across the surface of a pool. White-tipped water sprayed in a furious arc. And as we slowed down we sank below the surface, plunging into its murky depth.

Beneath, it was pitch black and the awful underwater silence was deafening. My hair drifted in the inkiness, and with my silvery limbs, it gave off a spectral illusion. My chest tightened with a terrified spike of fear from not knowing where I was and how far down I'd sunk. Panicked air bubbles floated upward like a popped champagne bottle as oxygen escaped my lungs.

Frightened, I went to blindly kick up when a hand latched onto my upper arm and I was speedily hauled upward.

I burst above the choppy surface, coughing and spluttering out a mouthful of water. Rubbing the water from my stinging eyes, I pushed aside the strands of hair sticking to my face. Treading water and whirling my cupped hands back and forth, I gazed wide-eyed about my surroundings. We'd arrived in a large cavern with craggy black rock. The same luminescent glow from the tunnel we'd erupted from emanated high above and coated everything in a glistening bottle-green. Water poured from the waterslide, while other streams cascaded from crevasses and gouges in the cavern's walls to tumble into the icy pool of water in which I was swimming.

Varen shook his wet hair and water sprayed everywhere, catching me on the side of my face. I shivered uncontrollably and my teeth chattered. "It's f-freezing." Why on earth had I agreed to this? I was going to die from hypothermia before I even got out of the water.

His teeth were stark in the gloom from another one of his boyish grins.

"Come on," Varen urged, lifting an arm into a freestyle stroke, beginning to swim toward the edge of pitted rock enclosing the well of water. He cut through the water like he was an Olympic swimmer while I kicked out in a pathetic breaststroke. With ease, he clambered up the rocky ledge, bent down and took hold of my hand, lifting me out like I weighed nothing.

Frigid water drizzled miserably from my waterlogged hair hanging in ropes like seaweed. The scrunchie was gone, lost somewhere on the waterslide ride. I stamped on the spot, briskly brushing my hands up and down my shivering arms, trying to get warm. I pouted, but Varen hadn't stopped grinning. "This way." With water running down his finely cut body in wide rivulets, he led me over the uneven stone to another tunnel splitting apart the cavern wall. This one was much like a narrow hallway, and warmth whirled outward on whorls of steam that had an iridescent sheen. Heat, glorious heat wrapped around my goose-pricked flesh.

We followed the twists and turns until we stepped out into a smaller cave with a pool at its center, a haze of steam wafting from its bubbling surface. Varen eased into the water with a blissful sigh. He turned back to me, his fingers gripping my waist, and he carefully lifted me down. My rapturous sigh echoed his as I glided forward and sank into the water as if relaxing into a sublime hot bath. Heat seeped inside my body and warmed my bitingly-cold bones. I twisted around to briefly dip my chilled head into the water, savoring the coziness as water dripped down my neck

Varen raked a hand through his wet hair, brushing the locks back from his forehead as he lowered himself down further to sit on, what I realized, was a naturally hewn bench within the pool.

At a safe distance, I sat down across from him. Varen looked upward, shadows and sparkling light contoured the sweeping lines of his face and the tendons in his neck. I tilted my head back to follow his line of sight.

I gasped in surprise.

Colorful clouds hovered below the roof of the cave as if the sky had been transported inside and dipped onto an artist's palette. Raspberry red bumped against smokey orange, and bumblebee yellow mixed with lime, their merging colors much like the swirls of a lollipop. Wherever the clouds touched or mingled, their cotton edges crackled and fizzed as if lightning scored through them.

"It's beautiful," I breathed, mesmerized.

Varen got comfortable, raising an arm to rest casually on the pool's edge. The water lapped gently at his torso with the movement. "It was a lot of fun coming here as kids. Sometimes I still do," he said in his gruff voice.

"Really?" It was hard to imagine that this grown man who favored suits, came here to barrel down the waterslide like a kid. However I knew from first-hand experience, racing down the tunnel was fun, a lot of fun, so I suppose I saw the temptation of returning to a place like this.

"I knew you'd appreciate it," he added quietly.

"You were that confident you'd get me to come down here?"

His eyelids lowered and his voice grew husky. "I think beneath that prim Between Maid uniform you like being a little wild."

I couldn't stop the blush, nor could hold his gaze. Acute awareness crept up on me that we were sitting in a pool in only our underwear and suddenly I didn't know what to do with the awkwardness invading my limbs. I finally settled on lowering the back of my head on the edge of the pool and lifting my legs so I could semi-float and stare upward.

The heart of the clouds was richer in color and seethed with sparkling pops of gold. Their beauty reminded me of celestial beings.

Stiffening, I realized what they were, what this place was. My shocked gaze sliced to Varen. "They're willwips..."

"Mating." Varen finished for me with a delicious smile that curled my toes.

Hellsgate. He'd brought me down here, on purpose, to be in the midst of otherworldly creatures mating. Willwips in the throes of freaking sex.

Only Varen could be so bold.

I glared at him, forcibly denying the pinch that instantly strummed between my legs, refusing to allow it to bloom into an exquisite ache.

He only wagged his thick eyebrows back at me, his grin widening.

My gaze darted back up to the willwips in their third life cycle, expanding into cotton-candy clouds, teasing each other, much like Varen was doing with me.

We sat in silence that became comfortable after a time, and when I next stole a glance at Varen he was still watching the willwips. My gaze slipped like a thief over his chest. Beads of water lazily ran down his gloriously golden skin. The whorls of tattoos flickering across the swell of muscle were much like flames, and there were lines of script in a language I couldn't read but knew of because Florin had shown me some of it in one of his priceless books—Ukkenskrit. It was then that I noticed something on his chest that caught my eye. It looked like ruined skin in a distinctive serpentine shape. Someone had branded him right across his pectoral and left behind white scarring. Varen noticed me staring and glanced downward. He answered my silent question. "It's a wyrm."

An excited tingle spread down my arms to flow to my fingertips.

Indeed it was. The beast was roughly scarified onto his chest, its sleek wings extended from a scaled body, its graceful horns sweeping back from its head, and the coiled tail tipped with a stinger.

"A long, long time ago, my family tamed wyrms."

That got my full attention.

His family tamed wyrms.

Wyrms.

"The tamers in my family line are born with black eyes. Mine are so dark they're almost black, and my mother likes to think I was on the verge of being a wyrm tamer myself. Dad agrees."

I'd noticed before how his purple irises appeared black on occasion. Much like right now as he stared back at me with desire deepening their midnight depth.

"We have the remains of a wyrm at my home and I can feel the faintest of vibrations against my skin when I run my hands across its scales. Dad says it's because I have the barest trace of wyrmblood running through my veins."

My heart stopped beating.

Wyrmblood.

Wyrmblood running through his veins.

I grew dizzy with the onslaught of thoughts crashing through my head.

This was exactly what I needed to save my aunt.

Varen Crowther had unwittingly saved me.