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chairs on top of the tables in preparation for the tribe of lauru she’d hired to clean after hours.
    The two-foot-tall sprites with pointy ears and noses, and toes that curled backward, had an obsession with cleanliness that they’d translated into a lucrative cleaning service for the Fata and Enu , the two magical races of the Etruscans.
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    In her condition, she couldn’t expend the energy to clean the bar with magic. This was the next best thing. Actually, the lauru were better than next-best. Those little suckers made the place sparkle. And since they had an affinity for wood, as did all of the Etruscan magical races, they gave the hundred-year-old walnut bar special attention, which she truly appreciated. It’d been her Pop’s pride and joy.
    Teo reminded her of Pop. Her mother’s father had had that same quiet intensity. A sense of leashed violence that had come from surviving the Purge of 1758.
    But there the similarities ended.
    Where her pop had been short and round, Teo was long and lean. He had a swimmer’s body—broad shoulders, slim hips. Muscled thighs and ass outlined lovingly in the just-tight-enough jeans.
    He was a lot taller than she and that should have been an immediate turn-off. And he was so freaking good-looking, she had to be careful not to stare.
    Then again, since she was planning on having sex with the guy tonight, she might as well lay all her cards on the table. Or she could just drape herself over the bar naked and let him have her.
    The thought had her eyeing the bar. No. Too high. Maybe they should try the pool table.
    Her gaze found Teo again and widened when she realized he was watching her, from the table closest to the bar.
    What was he thinking? His expression revealed nothing but hunger. And again, that should have had her running for the nearest exit. She’d been subjected to the worst sort of male hunger. Ten long years of sexual hell. Simply because she’d been born querciola .
    Dropping her gaze, she walked to the other end of the bar to check on the cooler there. She still had things to do, things she alone was responsible for. But her mind continued to gnaw at her own history.
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    Stephanie Julian
    Several times during the past decade, she’d wondered if her parents had made a conscious decision to have children or if she and her sister had been a mistake. Every Fata knew that if a folletta and a linchetto produced children, that child would be querciola .
    Normal Fata took precautions against producing a child who would become a danger to herself and others. A daughter who would grow into an adult with a sexual appetite that incited men to give in to their most secret desires and use her to slake them—
    “Lacey, are you okay?”
    Teo’s voice startled her and she gasped as she realized he stood next to her behind the bar. She hadn’t seen or heard him move.
    She looked up, way up, into his eyes. Dangerous. He was dangerous. She saw it in the set of his mouth and the darkening of his eyes.
    Teo wanted her. He’d seen through her glamour to the beauty of her true face. A beauty she’d had no control over and one she would gladly give up if only she could lead a normal life.
    But her life would never be normal and Teo wanted her with a hunger that should scare the shit out of her. No one had looked at her like that in the year since she’d escaped from that Malandante hell.
    From the hell her sister hadn’t.
    Those Mal bastards had a lot to answer for. Descended from the Etruscans but born with a bent toward evil, with a taste for power and wealth, the Mal had killed her sister.
    They’d driven Cara to take her own life.
    Grief flared but she couldn’t let it overcome her. She was already seriously close to losing the tight hold she had on her hunger and if that happened, she’d hurt someone.
    And she couldn’t live with that.
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    She didn’t want to hurt Teo but he looked strong enough to take whatever she dished