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reason I chose to do this to myself.” She rested her hands on his chest. “I also have the chance to stay with you and, if it works out as I hope it will, we won’t have to worry about me aging. And since we’re not trapped here, I can take you out and show you firsthand all that’s happened in a hundred years. I promised you many more nights, and I make good on my promises.”
    He cocked his head and ran his fingertips down her throat, warming her entire body with the lightest of touches. “Why do you want to stay with me?”
    “So we can get coffee. Have dinner. Go for walks together.” She arched an eyebrow. “Make love every night—”
    He crushed his mouth to hers and pressed her against the wall. “That,” he said between fevered kisses, “sounds like life.”

Acknowledgments
    Tremendous thanks go out to all the editors and staff at Entangled Publishing who made this book possible, especially Marie Loggia-Kee and Liz Pelletier.

    Thank you so much, Jeanne Haskin, for providing your always spot-on opinion and a second set of eyes, even in a pinch.

About the Author
    Sarah Gilman writes paranormal romance. Her fascination with all things winged extends back to childhood, when images of the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis captured her imagination and never let go. She lives in Vermont with her supportive husband and two spoiled cats.

Fall in love with others from Sarah Gilman…

    Deep in Crimson
    Read an excerpt from the sequel to Out in Blue (A Return to Sanctuary novel)

    “What are you doing?”
    At the raw shock in his voice, she paused, the cooling cloth pressed against the wound. “Has no one taken care of you before?”
    He pulled away, but she gripped his arm.
    “Hold still.”
    “It’ll heal soon,” he said, his tone full of typical macho dismissal. “You don’t need to—”
    “I want to. It’ll leave less of a scar this way.” She rinsed the cloth. So many scars covered him already, his back marred from what had to have been whippings. Many whippings. One more tiny mark would make no difference, but maybe a little tenderness would.
    She applied cream and an adhesive bandage to the cut, then began to unravel the strips of cotton from his shoulder.
    “Lexine—”
    “Jett.” Leaving no room for argument in her tone, she held his gaze in the mirror.
    He shook his head, but she ignored him and kept going, cleaning and medicating the gash across the front of his shoulder. She applied a real bandage. Instead of setting the tense male free, she soaked the washcloth again.
    She pressed the cloth between his shoulders. He shuddered. Tending to the older wounds, she treated them with gentle care, as if the whip had sliced his skin only yesterday. His hands trembled a second before he curled his fingers around the edge of the sink.
    Biting her lower lip, she moved to his sides and stomach, where the marks were thinner and strategically located. Surgical scars. An inner fire filled her. She would have ripped out Lawrence’s throat herself had the miserable excuse for a man been in the room.
    Clusters of faint scars marked the back of his hand and inside of his wrists. She ran a fingertip over them. “What caused this?”
    He answered in an even, controlled tone. “Needles and IVs.”
    She swallowed against a rush of nausea.
    Pulling his hand away, he sighed. He lifted his fingers to his face. She noticed for the first time a line of tiny needle scars on his cheeks, right over the venom glands. A whimper escaped her lips—heavens, considering the nerves associated with the venom system, needles must have caused him so much pain, comparable even to the whippings.
    His eyes widened and he dropped his hand, as if just realizing he was touching his face. He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice thick and haunted. “There was a lab assistant who tried to be more humane about it, once. Against Lawrence’s instructions, she tried to take venom directly from my fangs, using a film-covered cup,