How could I possibly explain it to her? Rose was a Queen. She would be the Queen soon enough. I was her only bridge to her past, and she didn’t truly understand me. She didn’t understand that everywhere I went, people expected me to feed on them. They begged me to feed on them. What was a little power that would come back in a few days in exchange for a night they would never forget?
“I can’t, Cara. Not while Rose is here. Not while I’m caring for Rose.” I could feel her eyes on me. Eyes that held the last memories of a forgotten forest in them. Eyes that had seen her entire people eliminated for resisting an invasion by other elves so that some city could mine something unimportant there.
“You care for the girl?” she asked.
“Yes, Cara. I do. And not just because she is powerful.” There. I said it. The one thing that I hadn’t even admitted to myself.
The door swung open again, and I sat up, hand outstretched and ready to summon my dagger.
Rose stood just outside the door with a massive tray of food blinking in surprise. “I’m sorry, Sebastian. Enivyn said that he’d tell everyone to leave you alone. I should have stayed by the door to keep people out.”
“It’s fine, Rose.” My hand fell back to my side as I slowly adjusted in the bed. “Cara was just leaving. Is that venison I smell?”
Cara interrupted. “No Sebastian, I was not about to leave. If you care about her as you say you do, then she needs to understand what you require to maintain your strength. Do not refuse for her. Give her the choice. If she does refuse you, then seek me out and I will give you what you require to maintain your strength.”
She turned away from me and smiled at Rose. “You have beautiful wings, dear. They suit your power.” Her smile widened. “They remind me of your father.” She glanced at me again and said, “You weave quite the knot to untangle between the two of you.”
Then she walked out as Rose’s eyes went wide at the mention of her father. When the door closed behind Cara, Rose whispered, “How does she know my father?”
“Cara is a seer. She sees multiple timelines in both Realms. I don’t really understand how it works. No one but seers really understand, but it explains some of her eccentricities.”
Rose nodded, looking at the door for a few more seconds before she shook her head slightly. She turned to me and brought the tray of food to the bed. It was loaded down with things that smelled delicious.
Nothing smelled as delicious as Rose, though. I had a difficult time keeping my eyes on the food as the scenes from my fantasy ran through my mind unbidden. The hunger inside me made me want to do things that I would regret more than anything I’d ever done before.
I picked up a piece of venison, not worrying with a fork or knife, and put it in my mouth. It was good. Andryn’s food was always good. One of the only people from the Court of Light that had been invited to the village.
“What was she talking about, Sebastian,” Rose asked as she sat down next to me in the bed.
I sighed and ate another piece of venison, giving myself some time to think of how to put this. Rose just kept watching me, patiently waiting for her explanation.
I finished chewing and decided to be blunt. “I’m on the verge of starvation. My power reserves are drained to nothing. Between the chase with Nyx and then the fight, I’m out of power.”
“I do not constantly refill my internal power reserves like fairies. If I don’t feed, my body consumes itself to refill the power supplies, and I slowly die. A full-blooded incubus must consume sexual energy, or they’ll starve. I’m not quite that bad, and it’s why I’ve survived longer than most full-bloods. I can eat food and very slowly recover my power reserves if I eat enough.”
I looked Rose directly in the eye as I said the next part, “But it will take weeks before I’ll be able to jump into a warren with you and possibly a year before I’m back to the level I was before Nyx caught up with us.”
“Then what do you need, Sebastian? What is it that Cara was suggesting that I provide? Do you need to make me dream again?” She seemed to shiver, and I wasn’t even sure what it meant. I couldn’t feel her emotions at all.
“I can’t feed like that right now, Rose. I can’t pull you into the dreamscape. I’m too weak for even that. The only way I can feed right now is physically.”
A blush fell over Rose’s cheeks. “Why didn’t you feed on Cara, Sebastian? I need to know. She’s pretty. Probably prettier than me. I guess that you’ve done that with her lots of times.” I could see that she’d just realized the one thing that I’d never wanted her to find out. I had been with more women than all the men she’d ever met combined.
I had known it would come up, though. I just hadn’t ever found a way to talk about it. Honesty was my only option here. I couldn’t dance around it. It was too important.
“Yes. I’ve fed on Cara many times. Most times that I’ve been in this village. I’ve fed on thousands of women, Rose. And that’s exactly what it was. Feeding on them. Not for sexual gratification. In all the thousands of years that I’ve been alive, I’ve never found anyone who could make me feel anything more than a hunger for their life force. A hunger for power. For survival.”
“But for some reason, I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want to feed for power. I’d rather eat
