She shrugged, her dress artfully falling open. She was recovering her composure, slipping back into character. “We’re connected, intimately, and you signed that contract at least a dozen times, in something better than blood. I can find you anywhere, and when I couldn’t go to you, I pulled you back to me.”

Her lips curled in a faint sneer as she continued. “Your little princesses never gave it up, did they? That’s why you left them behind. You’re my hero, and I’m going to make you forget them right now.”

She stood up; her clothes stayed in the chair. She was a wet dream walking, making promises that I knew she’d deliver on, again and again, as long as I served her needs. I thought of Angel, Ariel, and our hard life in that empty world, holding them up against the soft sweetness that was swaying toward me, and then I hit that. Hard.

In the face. With my fist. Bitch.