Still, a man has to eat.
With my fangs uninterested, I grab a blade from the knife block. Using the pointy end of the steak knife, I punch a hole in the bag. When the trickle of blood hits my tongue, it’s not as I expected.
Instead of the salty sweetness of the B-negative variety I’ve grown to love, the blood tastes like a mixture of sawdust and copper. I bend over the sink and spit it out. Turning on the faucet, I drown out the taste with hot water.
“What have I told you about leaving the refrigerator open?”
Peering through the running faucet water, I see Gaius standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He is dressed immaculately, as always. His suit is tailored to his body, not a thread or hair out of place. The elegance he cloaks himself in belies his birth, which was just as low as mine.
“For Fate’s sake, Virius, it’s the twenty-first century. Didn’t we agree on modern clothing and not loincloths?”
“You escaped?” The feminine voice coming from behind Gaius belongs to his mate, Marechal. She is also covered in elegance. Her gown is a deep purple that matches her grape-colored eyes.
Marechal takes a step towards me. But before she reaches me, a shorter version of her flings herself into my arms.
“Viri, you escaped,” says Cari as she crushes me to her.
Cari is a newly turned vampire. There is still a lot of strength in her untried limbs, enough that I cough and wheeze under her affectionate assault.
“Cari, let him go,” says Hadrian. “Either you’ll kill him with your strength, or I’ll kill him because he has a hard-on while holding my wife.”
All eyes go down to my crotch. Sure enough, the beast below stirs inside the loincloth. Cari jumps back as though the snake were preparing to strike. Marechal takes a step back as well.
“I thought you said you couldn’t get it up anymore,” says Hadrian as Cari returns to his side.
“I couldn’t,” I say. “Until her.”
“Me?” asks Cari, pointing a finger at her chest.
“No, Zahara. It wants her. It wants her badly. I’ve been hard all day. My balls have actually turned bl—”
“Virius!” Both Hadrian and Gaius hold up their hands as they shout.
I move my hand away from the knot of the toga where I had intended to untie the fabric to show them my agony and shame.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say.
Marechal’s brows rise as she dips her mouth to Gaius’s ear. “Have you two had The Talk?”
Her voice is a whisper. She has only been in the vampire world for a few days. She doesn’t seem to realize that our hearing is exceptional.
“Trust me,” Cari says to me, “you don’t want Mare to give you The Talk.”
“I give a great talk,” Marechal harrumphs. “I did fine with you and Arneis.”
“Sure,” says Cari. “And now look at us. All mated to vampires—”
“Virius,” Gaius cuts his wife and sister-in-law off. “What happened with you and the shifter?”
“She wants a child.”
“Can…” Cari stops and starts. “Can vampires have children?”
“No, minou.” Hadrian presses a kiss to her temple. Regret is heavy on his brow.
“That’s not entirely true,” says Gaius. “It has happened before.”
“You mean Dom?” says Hadrian.
Gaius nods. I note that his brows are heavy as well. But not with regret, with concern. His lips are set in a firm line. It’s the look he gives when he wants to keep something from me.
“Who’s Dom?” I ask. “A vampire? He has a child? Do you know how he did it?”
Gaius holds up his hands as though that motion could stop my questions. “All I know is that he has a child with a human woman, and that the birth came at a cost.”
“So, it is possible?”
“We don’t know what the costs are.” Gaius sighs.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll pay whatever to give my mate what she wants.”
“You’re mated?” says Gaius. “It’s barely been twenty-four hours.”
“And how soon did you know Marechal was yours?”
Gaius purses his lips. Then his features relax as he turns to the woman he handed over the keys to his private sex dungeon in Club Toxic for.
“And you with Cari,” I say to Hadrian.
Hadrian pulls Cari to him. His arms wrap around the woman who fell from the sky and into his arms. He hasn’t let the little daredevil go since that skydiving accident, which turned out to be his good fortune.
“You love her?” asks Gaius.
“I don’t know what that is,” I say.
I thought I’d loved my mother, but she sold me into a life of sexual slavery without a backward glance. True, it was always going to be my fate to be a whore. But under any other lena of my time, it would have been for only one lifetime. Belonging to Domitia put my body in servitude for many lifetimes.
I know what it means to survive. I know what it means to serve. But to love?
“You love Marechal,” I say to Gaius. “What does it feel like?”
“It feels like…” He looks down at Marechal. She smiles up at him, waiting patiently for his response. “It feels like what I remember sunshine to be. When she’s in a room, it feels like the sun is shining on my face.”
Tears sparkle at the corners of Marechal’s eyes. Gaius dips his head to capture the drops before they fall.
I can’t remember what sunshine feels like. So, I have no idea what he means. I look out through the glass patio door and into the dark night.
A shadow moves out of the foliage. Eyes flash at me, like lightning streaking across a stormy sky. A large black cat comes up to the glass. Its eyes are intent on me. Its fangs glisten in the moonlight.
“I think it’s for you,” says Gaius.
I walk up to the door and pull the latch. Once the door is open, the jaguar transforms into a woman.
Zahara stands naked on the other side of the door. She is
