Damn, the man is beautiful even inside my mind. That wicked grin of his makes me press my thighs together beneath the threadbare sheets. I know what that mouth can do. That mouth is what sent me into dreamland way before my bedtime.
Like vampires, jaguars are nocturnal. Unlike vampires, we don’t mind the sun. Which is when I finally note that my vampire is standing in the sunlight.
Something tells me to wake, that there is danger, as the sun moves across the sky. But Virius doesn’t look up at it. He looks down. At my belly. My belly, which is full with a baby; his baby.
Again, my mind doesn’t comprehend the logic. First a vampire in the sun. Now a baby in my belly after I was fingered and tongued. That’s not how this works. Right?
The sun passes through clouds, casting a shadow around us. The shadows move across Virius’s face and my belly.
Then the rays are back. They get closer and closer to him. I smell the acrid scent of burning flesh.
Virius’s skin catches fire, but he doesn’t appear to notice. His hand is on my belly. He smiles that unpracticed, lopsided grin at me as his skin burns away. The red flames eat at his honey-kissed skin. Black spots are all that is left behind as the sun’s rays consume him.
And then, he is nothing. He is no one. And I am alone.
I wake up with a scream in my throat. I choke before the air can rush out of me. I inhale a gasp, trying to inflate my lungs, to call out.
Virius is not beside me. Before I’d fallen asleep, I remember being wrapped inside his arms. Now I’m alone in the cot, wrapped only in the pitiful excuse of a blanket. And he is gone.
I look frantically around the room. There is no sunlight from above. Nothing seeps through the cracks.
I look over to the door. There’s a crack in its opening, as though it had been moved aside. There is only one person who could move that door aside with his bare hands.
My feet hit the ground before I realize I’m running. I slip through the crack in the door and dash down the narrow passageway. It doesn’t dawn on me until I’m in the alcove that I’m naked.
I’ve never been shy of nudity. Animals don’t wear clothes, and those that do dream of murdering the humans who dress them up in the shameful outfits. Shifting isn’t like in the movies, where beings shift with their clothes fully intact. The proportions of woman and large cat are entirely different, so the threads will always stretch and break, regardless of how much either creature might diet.
But when I get to the alcove, the two women there look up and smirk at my nudity. Well, Zuma smirks as she looks me over. Pia purses her lips as she takes in my state of undress.
It takes me a second to realize why. Their ears are likely still ringing from what Virius was doing to me just a couple of hours ago.
“Where is he?” I demand.
“He left,” they both say in unison.
My heart is pounding loudly in my ears, but not so loud that I miss the difference in inflection in their voices. Zuma’s voice asks a question, as though she can’t believe Virius would leave. Pia’s tone of voice is more of a statement, like a confirmation of something she was waiting for.
I turn and focus on Pia. “You let him go?”
“He didn’t come this way,” she says.
But I can hear that there are words unsaid. Pia doesn’t agree with how Itzel and the other elders are going about this matter. She has no love for vampires, but she believes that Virius should have a choice in how we proceed. Otherwise, it makes him a sacrifice.
“It sounded like you got what you needed from him,” says Zuma.
My cheeks heat. Not because of what she heard, but because she’s wrong about what she heard. I did not get what I needed from Virius. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do with him to make a baby. But I don’t want to explain that.
“Come and eat,” says Zuma. “You must be famished after taking all of him on.”
She winks a knowing eye at me. The trouble is, I don’t know. I have no idea.
“I’ll call the others,” Zuma continues. “It’s time to celebrate. The gods will be appeased.”
“Don’t,” I say while turning towards the exit.
“Where are you going?” Pia calls after me.
“I’m going to find him.”
“I don’t blame you, sweetie,” Zuma singsongs. “I’d tap that a couple more times if I were you, before his expiration date.”
I have to force my panther to ignore her remarks. Zuma won’t be tapping anything on Virius. He is mine. I just have to find my captive, and recapture him.
Stepping outside, I catch his scent. He hasn’t gone far. I crouch down on two feet and let the panther take my body. With my nose to the ground, I find his trail. He won’t escape me.
I’ll catch him. And then what? Have my way with him, and set in motion his untimely death?
I have to. I don’t have a choice. Neither of us do. Destiny is a bitch like that.
Chapter 13
Virius
I peer down at the blood bag in my hand. It’s my favorite type: B-negative. It’s not from a typical blood bank, either. It’s stock from Club Toxic. The label on the back of the bag says it was donated by a little sub named Layla, whose veins were tapped while she was being flogged.
Layla most definitely enjoyed her beating. The sweet aroma of the endorphins in the blood tickles my nose. But still, my mouth doesn’t water at the thought of downing this sweet blood. My fangs feel limp at the thought of puncturing the plastic to get the life-giving blood into my sluggish veins.
There’s only one vein I want to tap. Only one source
