Which means he doesn’t snore. Which I guess is a plus. I have a lover who satisfied my body enough to knock me out, and is silent enough in sleep that I won’t be rudely awakened in the afterglow. Instead of luxuriating in dreamland, I’m wide awake and watching for signs of life.
Intellectually, I know that he is a vampire and breathing is wholly unnecessary. It’s his heartbeat that I’m watching. The organ keeps a slow and steady rhythm now that Virius’s body is flush with my blood.
He is alive, though undead. He is strong, because of the life essence that I gave him. But he will die because of the life essence he’s destined to give to me.
I brush a blond curl from his forehead. Some of the eyelashes that touch his high cheekbones are the same pale shade—a forest of light and shadows that cover eyes that hide nothing.
For the few days that I’ve known him, Virius has hidden nothing from me. He has shared everything that he has to give. Even the one thing he feared would hurt me.
Frankie rests fitfully under the blanket that covers us. Even in its flaccid state, Virius’s manhood is longer and thicker than the average man’s. It still baffles me that all of him fits inside me. The soreness between my thighs reminds me that he did.
That soreness is a beautiful ache that I want to feel again. And then again. For the rest of my life.
An average-sized cock won’t do. I’m not a size queen, as Virius called the women who abused him. It’s not the size I care about. The old adage is true; size doesn’t matter. It’s how Virius uses his body that has me addicted.
Virius Serrano used his body to please me. To protect me. To love me.
I know that he found pleasure in me. Now I just need to find a way to protect him. Because my heart is telling me that I love this man.
His heartbeat speeds up, as though it just heard my silent declaration. I snatch my hand away from his chest.
He doesn’t stir. He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t reach for me—all of which makes it no easier for me to move away from him.
I climb out of the bed, but I can’t tear my gaze away from him. His big body appears small in the bed. Vulnerable. He is the larger predator, but he’s let a cat with claws into his home.
My fingers ball into fists. I feel sharp pricks against my palms as my nails dig into my own flesh. It takes everything in me to turn away from Virius, but I do.
I need to get out of here, but I’m naked. I could shift, but I feel too weary to make the transition. My panther has curled into a ball, as though she’s mourning the loss of a mate. Panthers don’t mate for life, but she doesn’t seem to hear that. She sees Viri as hers.
Since I won’t get out of here on four legs, I walk into Viri’s closet on two. The clothing I find inside the walk-in curls my lip. It is a cosplayer’s dream. Everything from breeches and waistcoats, to kaftans, to kilts, to a Zoot suit, to Armani.
I pull on a sari made of fine Indian silk, and pad out of the room.
It’s late in the afternoon, by the position of the sun in the sky. A glance over at the clock in a sitting room confirms it. Outside a set of glass doors, the Serrano vineyards stretch as far as the eye can see.
This was once the land of my father’s people: a small group of humans within the Tohono O’odham tribe who developed the ability to shift their shapes. But with a flourish of pen on parchment, the land was taken from them. Now, with a digital print out of documents, the land will be mine again.
That should thrill me. But it doesn’t. Ownership of the land is only one aspect of the prophecy. The Serranos’ signature on a deed can’t stop what is coming.
Stepping outside, I take in a deep breath of the fresh air—and wince. There’s a sickly sweet smell to the air. Like rotted fruit.
That is the other part of the prophecy. Long ago, my father’s people angered the shifter god. He made it so that nothing would grow atop the soil until his anger was appeased. That would only happen when the Night Sun greeted the dawn. That night is tonight.
At the edge of the vineyard, I see movement. I go instantly into panic mode, thinking that it’s someone from my tribe. But there are no red-headed jaguar shifters.
Marechal Durand is bent over a cluster of lush vines. I frown at the sight of my former employer, and the grapevine. The vineyard shouldn’t be producing anything.
Marechal looks up with a grin when she sees me. “I think I’ve figured it out.”
She holds one of the diseased vines in her hands. The white splotches along the roots and leaves cause me to wrinkle my sensitive nose. As a human, Marechal likely can’t smell the decay that’s killing the vines before they can bear fruit.
“I thought it was just root rot,” she says, as though she’s presenting findings to a committee. “But it goes deeper.”
I want to say, duh. It does go deeper. It goes centuries deep, into a curse on my ancestors. Science won’t cure this prophecy. Only a child born of a shifter and a vampire would break it. But I’m not going to bother to argue mystics with a degreed white woman.
To illustrate her scientific find, Marechal digs her hands into the soil. She places her sample in some kind of container and then holds it up to me as her evidence.
“Do you see?” she asks.
I don’t.
“Too much fertilizer.”
I might not know how to read the chemical
