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“Mouse movies?” I ask.

  “She means Disney,” says another woman. She is the cougar I saw arguing with Itzel days ago.

  The cougar eyes me in the proprietary way of the women Domitia would hire to use me. I have the urge to cover myself as the cougar’s gaze travels lower. Instead, I straighten to my full height in the cramped cave. She might look, but I will only ever touch Zahara.

  “Excuse me.” I snap my fingers. “My eyes are up here.”

  The cougar’s face breaks into a grin. “I like him.”

  “Too bad,” says Itzel. “He’s only good for one purpose.”

  “I’ve come for Zahara,” I say, not wishing to be a part of this conversation any longer. I’ve said all I need to say to these two, and used up all the good manners Gaius taught me.

  “That you certainly will do,” says the cougar.

  “Zahara will be with us in a moment,” says Itzel.

  She circles around to my back. I feel I should keep an eye on her. But she’s a small woman. There’s no physical damage she could do to me. But she could make things difficult between me and Zahara.

  “Come, have a seat.” Itzel points to a raised slab of stone.

  My feet hesitate after I’ve taken the first step towards it. The slab reminds me of the dungeons in one of Domitia’s castles. She liked to chain me up in the basement for the use of her clients. I could easily have broken the chains, but it was the psychological enslavement that Domitia got off on. And the chains made the wealthy women who sought my favor feel that they held all the power.

  “I’ll just go to her room,” I say, taking a step away from the stone altar.

  A sharp pain rakes across the back of my head. I look over to see that the cougar has struck me with a rock. She struck me hard, because I can see blood staining on the rock’s surface.

  The blow dazes me, but it doesn’t bring me down. What does bring me down is the dagger to the chest. Itzel is on me as I fall to the ground. In the space of one moment, I have three thoughts.

  My first thought is not to crush the old woman who is Zahara’s relative.

  My second thought is how unlike Zahara this woman looks and feels.

  “Now you’ll bleed.” Itzel’s voice sounds far away. “And when you’re close to death, you will give us the child, and the gods will be appeased.”

  Bleed? Child? Gods?

  My last thought is: why? I would have given Zahara this. I would have given her my life if it meant she would have the child she wanted. She didn’t need to take it.

  But what had I expected? I was born a slave. As I’m dragged to the altar and my wrists are shackled in chains, I know the answer to my last question: it’s fitting that this is the way I’ll die. It’s exactly as I’ve lived my life. In bondage.

  Chapter 27

  Zahara

  “Wake up, Zahara.”

  Everything aches. My head. My arms. My legs. Even my eyelids. So, naturally, opening my eyes is the last thing I want to do.

  “Zahara, you have to wake up.”

  I slap at the hand shoving my shoulder. My fingers come away wet. When I open my eyes, I see blood on my claw tips.

  I’m halfway through a shift. My panther feels like it’s trying to leash the human part of me that wouldn’t wake.

  Pia stands over me, cradling her forearm. Blood seeps through her fingers. Her mouth is pursed, as though she’s holding in her canines.

  The word sorry doesn’t enter my brain. The last thing I remember about Pia is the blow to the head she dealt me. I growl at her, preparing to give my body over to the panther to exact revenge for that cheap shot.

  “Hey,” she says, holding up her bloody hands. “We can settle that score now. Or, you can deal with the more important matter at hand.”

  The only matter at hand is whooping the ass of this traitor and then getting the hell out of here to find Virius.

  “The ritual has begun.”

  I blink a few times. Ritual? “It can’t start unless…”

  I can’t bring myself to complete the sentence out loud. The ritual can’t start unless Virius is here. Which means he’s here.

  Of course he’s here. I knew he would follow me. In trying to get away from him, in trying to save his life, I led him right into the trap that would kill him.

  “We have to hurry,” says Pia.

  “We?”

  “If I hadn’t taken you out, Itzel would’ve likely chained you to the altar to wait for him. Then you’d be helpless beside him.”

  I know time is of the essence, but I have to ask. “Why are you doing this? You tried to let Virius escape that first day. And now this. Why?”

  “This isn’t the way,” says Pia. “I’m all for preserving our history and ways, but this? The virginal sacrifice and lambs to the slaughter bullshit, that needs to stay buried in the past.”

  “Right!” I agree.

  Pia and I stand there in a moment of new age, feminist solidarity. Instead of doing a fist bump, I grab the handle of the door. I still have to get out there and rescue my man like the modern heroine that I am.

  We turn out of the room and walk on silent feet down the narrow corridor. My palm presses against the cold, hard stone of the walls. My ears strain for any sign of Virius. I don’t hear his deep baritone, but I do smell his unmistakable scent.

  “He’s not looking so good,” says Zuma’s voice.

  Peering into the clearing, I see Zuma standing over the slab. Lying prone on his back is Virius. His eyes are closed. His sun-kissed skin looks pale. His large body looks sunken in.

  “Maybe you should back off a bit there, Itzel. We don’t want him to die.”

  “That is his destiny.” Itzel tips a bucket on the floor towards her.

  I see red. The red of Virius’s blood drips from a wound in his wrists into the bucket. That isn’t his only wound. There’s a stake in his chest. They put a fucking stake into his chest.

  I’m preparing to charge forth, but something holds me back. Pia.

  It takes everything in me not to lash out at her. Looking into her eyes, I see what she’s trying to say. We need a plan. There are twenty shifters watching the events unfold on that dais.

  Some wear stoic, unfeeling faces. Most of the gazes are averted from the scene, as though they can’t stomach the ritual either. But the stoic faces still outnumber the two of us who are ready to spring into action.

  “Um, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve gotten any,” Zuma is saying. “But cocks don’t stand up if the john they’re attached to can’t.”

  “The gods demand a sacrifice,” says Itzel, pressing the wound on Virius’s chest.

  The blood flow from there has stopped. Oh Fates, is he already dead? Am I too late?

  “Yeah, a sacrifice,” says Zuma. “That’s why he’s chained to the altar. But he still needs to perform to get Zahara knocked up. Hell, with what he’s carrying in his pants, he could knock us all up with one blow.”

  Zuma’s fingers lift the waistband of Viri’s pants. That is the last straw for me. Hell no is that bitch eying my man’s package.

  I break free of Pia’s hold, no longer willing to think over my next steps. I am pure rage and aggression. But before I can get to Itzel or Zuma, the entire cave shakes.

  Rocks rain down over everyone gathered inside. Three figures appear at the cave’s entrance. With the shifters’ gazes focused on the newcomers, I make my way to Viri on the altar.

  Chapter 28

  Virius

  The darkness all around is deep, absolute. Not a shard of light is present in this new existence.

  Nor is there any movement. My body is paralyzed, both inside and out.

  I can’t feel my toes or fingers. I can’t part my lips to speak. I can’t peel my eyes open to see. Even my ears seem closed off to any sounds.

  My chest lies still. I have no heartbeat. Fitting, as I am drained dry. There is nothing inside of me that needs to move around.

  Not blood. Not air.

/>   I am dead.

  I don’t like that thought. I don’t want to be dead. Not yet. There is something I must do before I die.

  With that thought, I feel a twitch. Just a tiny stirring down below. Barely a blip on the radar of what’s left of my consciousness. It’s enough to warrant notice.

  I can’t lift my head to see what is touching me. I couldn’t open my eyes even if I were able to. I can’t defend myself if I have to.

  The stirring becomes movement. Still only a slight shifting. But there is definitely something perched on my skin. My upper leg, I think?

  Whatever the creature is, it leaves behind a wet trail on my cool skin as it progresses onward. Perhaps it’s a worm?

  No, not a worm. I’m starting to perceive girth as I differentiate its heat from my balmy flesh. Maybe a snake?

  But no. It’s not a snake. I can’t perceive any scales as it continues to writhe on me.

  The movements are definitely snake-like. Not a garden variety snake. Much more like…

  Like an anaconda.

  Awareness flashes at me in the darkness. A tiny pinpoint of light.

  “Frankie?”

  My words are not spoken out loud. They’re said in my head. They’re spoken in her voice.

  Zahara called my cock Frankie on more than one occasion. I remember now. She thought I would put Frankie into another woman. Her wee claws had come out at the possibility. Fire had flashed in her cat eyes.

  That light flashes in my mind now. I can’t make out her features. But I know she is that light.

  Down below, Frankie pulses again, as though he knows the light in my mind is the only woman he has ever craved. The only woman who has ever brought us both any pleasure. The woman who brought me and my dick together in the same body.

  I wasn’t able to get it up for two centuries. Not until Zahara came close and shone her bright light upon me.

  But if Frankie is getting hard, maybe she is around?

  As if in answer, my cock pulses again. It’s only a light pulse, likely because there’s barely a drop of blood in me. And anything I have is being diverted down south.

  I’m going to need some of that blood diverted back up top. I need to think. If she is nearby, I need to get to her. I need a plan.

  If only Gaius were here. He is the thinker in the family.

  “If my brother is dead, I’m going to have myself a new jaguar coat.”

  The threat is said in Gaius’s cultured voice, though it’s gruffer than I’ve heard in decades. It harkens back to his street thug days.

  “Gaius, that is really culturally insensitive; threatening to take the—well, fur—of a Native American shape-shifter. Or, wait? Is it Amerindian ? Or maybe American Natives? I don’t think we learned about indigenous people further south than Mexico in school?”

  That’s Cari’s voice. For the short time that she’s been in our family, she’s been trying to help me with my clothing. Apparently, sometimes the way I dress is offensive to others.

  “My apologies if I was offensive in threatening to do bodily harm to the elderly female jaguar shifter who staked and bled my brother to a painful, gruesome, and bloody death. Is that polite enough for you?”

  “Well,” says Cari in the patient voice she uses with me when I’ve gotten something wrong, “you didn’t need to bring up her age.”

  “Shut it, both of you! I don’t have time to deal with your colonizer-guilt.”

  Zahara’s voice washes over me like sunlight. She sounds closer than the others. She sounds like she is a star just over my head. I want to reach out and touch her.

  “Not a colonist,” huffs Gaius, his cultured Italian firmly back in place.

  “Second-generation French-American,” mumbles Cari, with a soft lilt to her words.

  There’s a part of me that wants to point a finger at their flubs. Usually, I’m the one saying the wrong thing and causing discomfort to others. Unfortunately, I still can’t lift a hand or open my mouth.

  “Viri, can you hear me?” says Zahara.

  Words bubble in my throat with no way to escape.

  I try to part my lips. They don’t budge.

  I try to open my eyes. The lids are heavier than boulders.

  I try to lift my hands towards her, but even if I could move, I’m not sure where to reach. The darkness cloaks me. Its cold tendrils snake under me. They close around me, like a mighty anaconda readying to suck the life out of me.

  “Viri, I need you to open your eyes.”

  I want to. Fates, do I want to see her face again. I want the bright light of her gaze to warm me from this bitter cold.

  “I need you to come back to me, Viri.”

  I want to tell her that I’ll never leave her. Even if I must leave this world, my ghost will haunt her. I am the moth. She is the flame. If I die, it will be because her light burned me up.

  “Viri, I love you.”

  My brothers had tried to explain how powerful those three words were. They had only ever been letters to me, and I was never good with my letters. The statement is made up of vowels, giving them a soft sound.

  Those three syllables land heavily on my ears. They sink into my heart with a thud. They fill my lungs with a whisper of air. They move the dark clouds from behind my eyelids. I know my eyes are still closed, but on the other side of my lids, I begin to see the light.

  The hardest part is lifting my eyelashes from their resting place on my cheekbones. It takes all my might to raise them just a fraction. But it’s enough. Through the hairline bars of my jail cell, I see the light dawning.

  I see the bright beam of light that is Zahara. I reach for the light.

  Chapter 29

  Zahara

  He’s still. He’s so very, very still.

  I watched Virius in his daytime coma-like sleep more than once. His chest always rose and fell—eventually. His nostrils always flared with the intake of breath—eventually. His arms would come around me and pull me close to him—always.

  Looking down at him, I see he is pale, lifeless. His chest is sunken in. His proud nose looks as though it has collapsed. His arms are inanimate objects at his sides that do not rise to take hold of me.

  “Viri, can you hear me?”

  I wrap my arms around him. He is cold to the touch. Not like ice. More like that flabby cold when a limb goes numb. I rub his skin vigorously, trying to get warmth back into him.

  “Viri, I need you to open your eyes.”

  There is a flutter of movement. Not in his eyes. I turn my gaze away from his face and look southward.

  Yes, there it is again. Movement in his pants. The front of his pants writhes and coils slowly, like a snake.

  It’s Frankie. Frankie is alive and well. That has to mean Viri is, too.

  “I need you to come back to me, Viri.” I place my hand on his groin. It pulses under my touch. But only once. Still, it’s enough to let me know he’s there.

  A gasp goes through the gathered shifters and vampires. I don’t care what they think. I only care about him, and if this will stir him enough to bring him back to me, then so be it.

  “Viri, I love you.”

  “He needs blood,” says Gaius. “We need to get him home and get him a blood bag.”

  A growl rips through the cave. The sound is so terrible and fearsome that every shifter—including Itzel, who is in Hadrian’s grasp—drops lower and shows their neck. I look around for the source of the monster, only to realize the roar came from me.

  “He drinks no one but me,” I say before tearing a fang into my wrist.

  Another gasp goes through the gathered shifters as my blood drips onto Virius’s lips. I pull his lips apart to get more of my life-giving essence inside of him. Hell, I’ll rip open my heart if it will bring him back to me.

  His lips wrap around my wrist. The tip of his tongue slides across the slit of my wrist. Its velvety smoothness against the flesh of my veins is just as erotic as when he suckled on my intimate flesh. It’s more sati
sfying because it’s a sign of life.

  And then, finally, he pulls.

  His chest rises. His nostrils flare. His hand rises, and he presses my wrist to his mouth.

  His eyes do not open. However, he continues to pull from me.

  “Viri, that’s enough,” says Gaius.

  He doesn’t hear, or he doesn’t listen. He pulls again.

  “That’s not what’s supposed to happen,” says Itzel. “That bloodsucker is going to kill her. They both need to live, for the child.”

  I want to laugh at her protests. If I do decide to have a child, it will not be born with a job. It will not be born shackled to a fate it has no control over, like both its parents.

  That’s only if we both live. Because if Virius doesn’t come back into the light, I will live the rest of my life in complete darkness. How could I not, when he was my source of warmth?

  But it would seem that will not be my fate. It will not be our fate.

  Virius will not die. I feel that as he pulls at me again. I feel my life going into him, bringing him back to life. In return, I feel myself dimming ever so slightly.

  One more pull, and I’m sure I will faint. I don’t try to tug my hand away. I don’t try to stop him.

  I had planned to take his life from this man. But in the short days that I’ve known him, he’s given me a reason to truly live. If this is the cost, I’ll pay it. I’ll give him my life.

  I take a deep breath, likely the last one I’ll ever take, and wait for the next pull.

  Viri’s eyes flash open. They are no longer dark. They flash back at me, like a cat’s.

  His smile is bloody. “There you are.”

  “There you are,” I whisper as I press my forehead against his.

  “Everything went dark all around me. But then there was a tiny spark of light. It was you. You are my sun. You’ve set me free.”

  I cup his cheek in my hand. The warmth is returning to him now that my blood is in his veins. He is alive. Like, truly alive. That metallic note of vampire is fading from his skin. Not entirely, but mostly.