My internal clock tells me that the sun is setting. So why isn’t he up?
In the silence of the room, my stomach grumbles. My bladder also calls my attention. I extricate myself from my lover and head back to the bathroom to take care of the necessaries.
Inside the bathroom, I turn on the light. The woman who looks back at me in the mirror isn’t entirely unrecognizable. But she does look different.
Her hair is a rat’s nest of tangles. Her lips are swollen from the long, endless kisses Virius gave after his hand job. I suspect he kept kissing me even after I fell asleep inside his arms.
I have a lover. A strong man who delights in my pleasure. A gentle giant who doesn’t trust his own strength. I vow that, for however much time we have left, I’m going to show Virius nothing but pleasure. I’m going to show him nothing but kindness. I owe him that much.
I wrap myself up in his robe before leaving the bathroom. In the bedroom, I see he still hasn’t stirred. But my belly is now demanding its due.
I slip out of the room, careful not to let any of the sun’s setting light spill inside to harm him. That precaution wasn’t necessary. There are no windows in the hall.
When I make my way back to the kitchen, I see that the sun has nearly set. Only a few rays straggle behind on the horizon, as though they are naughty children who don’t want to be put to bed.
I startle when I see Hadrian Serrano standing to the side of the patio door. His hand reaches out to one of the rays. It burns the tip of his finger.
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
He doesn’t startle at the sound of my voice. Like shifters, vampires have excellent hearing. I’m sure he heard me coming from the hallway. Unless the bedrooms are soundproofed, he likely heard both Virius and me coming last night.
“Yes, it does.” He brings his smoking finger back towards his body and studies it.
“Then why are you doing it?”
He lifts his gaze and regards me. “It reminds me of what I have to live for.”
The fingertip heals instantly. Hadrian gives it a shake as though he just blew out a match. The sun has completely receded down into the horizon, and only the moon’s light remains.
Hadrian crosses to the refrigerator. He pulls the leftovers of a steak from the appliance’s belly, and sets the dish before me, with a knife and fork.
“Thank you,” I say, digging in.
“Once, I only thought about ways to die,” he says, as though picking up on the end of a conversation I wasn’t aware we were having. “That was when I thought I’d lost the love of my life.”
I know he’s talking about his sire, Domitia. I know that sadistic bitch didn’t only whore out Virius. I heard she did atrocious things to Hadrian in the twisted name of love.
“You know Domitia used to rip my heart out. Literally.”
Damn, so those rumors were true. I had assumed they were hyperbole.
“She got her hands around my heart, but she got her hooks in Viri’s head. She’s still in there.” Hadrian knocked on the side of his head. “I need to know if you mean him any harm.”
The piece of steak I’m chewing doesn’t go down right. Hadrian pours me a glass of water and waits for me to clear my throat. Once I have my voice back, I tell him the truth.
“Virius is my destiny. It was foretold that we would be together.”
“And have a child?”
I nod, not willing to say any more. Not willing to give anything else away, including the little time I’ll have with Viri.
“You understand that prophecies are not always what they seem?”
So Virius has said. And I know that the Mayans predicted the end of the world—and that that date came and went a decade ago, and we are all still standing.
“He’s signed over his stake in the vineyard to you,” Hadrian continues. “As a mating present. Gaius and I are prepared to do the same.”
This time I do choke, even though there’s no meat or water in my mouth. Hadrian watches me impassively. His shrewd gaze studies me like a predator waiting to see in which direction its prey will bolt.
I sit still. “Thank you for the gift. But it’s still Virius I need.”
A slow grin spreads across Hadrian’s handsome face. I suppose that’s the answer he wants, the answer that doesn’t make me out to be a gold digger. Little does he know it’s not gold I’m after.
“Take this.” He hands me what looks like a juice pouch, only the fluid inside isn’t filled with color dye and sugar. “Virius will be hungry when he wakes.”
I hold the blood in my hand and frown down at it. The white label at the top of it reads B-negative. Instead of the word Volunteer Donor, there is an emblem with a logo for Club Toxic on the bag. A woman’s name is printed in a cursive font. Layla, it reads, followed by the words: flogged for thirty minutes.
I know vampires need blood to live. I also know that the blood is a delicacy when endorphins are released in a human. One of the best ways to bring about that flood is through sexual pleasure.
“That’s his favorite,” Hadrian says. His lips are curled in a challenge.
I wolf down the last piece of the steak and slide off the counter. With the moon rising in the sky, I head back to the bedroom. Back to my man. Layla is left behind on the counter. Hopefully, her sweet blood will turn rancid and inedible in the room temperature of the kitchen.
Chapter 17
Virius
I’m always up the moment the last ray of the sun sets. It’s a habit from when I was first turned into a
