“Althea?"™

"Yes?" Her voice was low and throaty. The mere sound made him surge to aching hardness in his jeans. He closed his eyes and fought the instinctive urge to throw her to the floor and take her like an animal.

His mind snorted derisively at him. Any man who tried to force Althea

Carpenter against her will would end up with a bloody stump where his dick used to be.

If he was lucky.

"I'm not sure this is a good idea," he said at last. "Some guys have told me it's a bad idea to have sex before opening night.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, but did not halt her slow, swaying walk. "So how does that work, exactly? ALL your acting skill is stored up in your cum, and you'll suddenly turn into a pumpkin if you get laid?"

"Well," he swallowed through a throat suddenly gone desert-dry. "Not exactly."

“So. What? Exactly?"

He lifted his hands helplessly, then let them fall. "I don't know,

Althea. Actors are all crazy and superstitious. You know that."

“I do. Edwin Booth and I were lovers for a while in the 1870s when he toured Europe. Poor man. One of the greatest actors of his generation, maybe the greatest American stage actor ever, and he lost two wives young and had to deal with the infamy of his brother being an assassin.

"I used to give him a blow job before he had a big performance. It helped him relax, he said."

“So....you're doing this for me?"

“Oh, no. I'm doing it for me. I'm not worried about your performance tonight." She laid a hand on his cheek. "I know you'll be fucking brilliant. I saw it the other day at your rehearsal. Someday, Alex, they are going to talk about you like they talk about Booth and

Barrymore and Olivier. You're that good. All you need is time. And practice." As his jaw dropped in astonishment at her praise, she continued. "But I need a couple of things. First, I need your power.

The come of a virile young man." She closed her eyes, but her body shook in a shiver of desire, and she moved closer until their bodies were all but touching.

“If I am right, Kincaid will be the most powerful demon-spawn I have faced in generations. And warding this house is a drain on my resources. I do not dare face him unless I am at the peak of my powers. Your seed will give me that."

“And second?”

“I'm afraid, Alex. Not for myself," she said hurriedly, as he opened his mouth in protest. "I've Lived a long life. Longer than anyone else on this planet, when you think about it. If I had to, I would change many things. But I would not change how I have spent it. When I look back, I think I have made a difference.

“But I'm afraid of failing. Of failing you and your parents and all the rest. And of failing the Almighty herself. If I don’t succeed tonight, if I challenge Kincaid and he defeats me, he will engage in an orgy of destruction the likes of which this town has never seen."

She took a deep breath, and he was astonished to see tears glimmering in the glorious depths of her green eyes.

“Alex, I want you to make me a promise."

“Anything.”

“If I fail, if I die, and you somehow escape, I want you to call this number." She handed him a small card. A phone number was printed on the white surface in stark black letters. No other information was to be seen.