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  This taste is pure saccharine. It floods my senses and goes straight to my head, giving me a warm brain freeze. But the freeze thaws quickly as I swallow the honey down.

  Zahara’s cries continue as her body shivers. For an instant, I’m sure I feel fur and not flesh in my hands. Her moans turn to growls as she crests the height of her pleasure.

  My own hips rock into the mattress as the beast demands its due. It moves of its own accord, but the mattress is all it will get. I’m not sharing her with it.

  I remove my tongue from her entrance and lap up the juices that have overflowed on her pussy’s lips. My tongue latches onto the bud at the apex of her thighs, and I pull on the engorged flesh I find there.

  Zahara cries out, a shuddery sound of pleasure. Her eyes flash that catlike gold at me again. I can see the panther in them, readying to rise. She shuts her eyes, and the image is gone.

  I suckle the bud, and more of that exquisite moisture seeps out of her. Again, she is rocking against my tongue. I cover her mons with my entire mouth, and gulp her down.

  The next time she cries out, there is a note of pain. I lift my head. Her eyes are glazed as the tremors tighten their hold on her. I know this look, too. She is drunk with pleasure. If I give her more, it could turn painful. I have watched women take more and come out sore. As much as it pains me, I back off from my delectable little treasure.

  Bringing Zahara to my chest, I wrap her naked form inside my arms and cradle her. It’s another thing that I have never experienced or have done to another, but I find it easy with her. Her wee body fits against my chest as if I was made for her. I’m coming to believe that I was. For the first time in my life, I feel that I have a sense of purpose.

  She may be right. I do have a destiny. It is to pleasure and protect her. It’s a future that I can say I look forward to.

  Zahara falls asleep in my arms. My wee kitten can throw a punch, but she can’t hold her pleasure. After her orgasms, she’s out like a young buck who’s busted a nut for the first time.

  She curls into me with complete trust as she dozes. I feel strong having this warrior seek comfort in me. I want to give her everything she asks for. Perhaps there is a way for me to do so. There are rumors in the vampire world.

  I hold my treasure close to my heart as I think. But the thinking doesn’t get too far. My brain is far too addled for lack of blood. I’ll have to do something about that sooner rather than later if I am to keep my promise of not biting her.

  With great reluctance, I move Zahara off my chest and onto the cot. After pulling the sheet over her naked torso, I press a kiss to her temple. She doesn’t stir as I move the door aside and walk out of the room. At the end of the path, I take the right turn that will lead me out of the cave.

  Chapter 12

  Zahara

  My dreams are often those of running. Not those dreams where I’m running from zombies, or ducking to hide my nakedness from my classmates. I wish those were my dreams, but I’ve never been in a formal classroom.

  No, my dreams aren’t anything like the human dreams of running away. In my dreams, I run on all fours.

  I’m climbing trees. Jumping in the water. My inner cat loves to play. She is often alone, as is the nature of a jaguar.

  So it shocks me when I’m standing still in this dream. It shocks me even more that I’m standing on two legs instead of four. My face is tilted up as the sun kisses my eyelids, my nose, my mouth.

  Then I feel another kiss. One made of flesh, not sunlight. I turn to find Virius standing in the light of the sun. I am inside the circle of his arms. The heat coming off his flesh rivals that of the sun. The smile on his face completely eclipses the star.

  Damn, the man is beautiful even inside my mind. That wicked grin of his makes me press my thighs together beneath the threadbare sheets. I know what that mouth can do. That mouth is what sent me into dreamland way before my bedtime.

  Like vampires, jaguars are nocturnal. Unlike vampires, we don’t mind the sun. Which is when I finally note that my vampire is standing in the sunlight.

  Something tells me to wake, that there is danger, as the sun moves across the sky. But Virius doesn’t look up at it. He looks down. At my belly. My belly, which is full with a baby; his baby.

  Again, my mind doesn’t comprehend the logic. First a vampire in the sun. Now a baby in my belly after I was fingered and tongued. That’s not how this works. Right?

  The sun passes through clouds, casting a shadow around us. The shadows move across Virius’s face and my belly.

  Then the rays are back. They get closer and closer to him. I smell the acrid scent of burning flesh.

  Virius’s skin catches fire, but he doesn’t appear to notice. His hand is on my belly. He smiles that unpracticed, lopsided grin at me as his skin burns away. The red flames eat at his honey-kissed skin. Black spots are all that is left behind as the sun’s rays consume him.

  And then, he is nothing. He is no one. And I am alone.

  I wake up with a scream in my throat. I choke before the air can rush out of me. I inhale a gasp, trying to inflate my lungs, to call out.

  Virius is not beside me. Before I’d fallen asleep, I remember being wrapped inside his arms. Now I’m alone in the cot, wrapped only in the pitiful excuse of a blanket. And he is gone.

  I look frantically around the room. There is no sunlight from above. Nothing seeps through the cracks.

  I look over to the door. There’s a crack in its opening, as though it had been moved aside. There is only one person who could move that door aside with his bare hands.

  My feet hit the ground before I realize I’m running. I slip through the crack in the door and dash down the narrow passageway. It doesn’t dawn on me until I’m in the alcove that I’m naked.

  I’ve never been shy of nudity. Animals don’t wear clothes, and those that do dream of murdering the humans who dress them up in the shameful outfits. Shifting isn’t like in the movies, where beings shift with their clothes fully intact. The proportions of woman and large cat are entirely different, so the threads will always stretch and break, regardless of how much either creature might diet.

  But when I get to the alcove, the two women there look up and smirk at my nudity. Well, Zuma smirks as she looks me over. Pia purses her lips as she takes in my state of undress.

  It takes me a second to realize why. Their ears are likely still ringing from what Virius was doing to me just a couple of hours ago.

  “Where is he?” I demand.

  “He left,” they both say in unison.

  My heart is pounding loudly in my ears, but not so loud that I miss the difference in inflection in their voices. Zuma’s voice asks a question, as though she can’t believe Virius would leave. Pia’s tone of voice is more of a statement, like a confirmation of something she was waiting for.

  I turn and focus on Pia. “You let him go?”

  “He didn’t come this way,” she says.

  But I can hear that there are words unsaid. Pia doesn’t agree with how Itzel and the other elders are going about this matter. She has no love for vampires, but she believes that Virius should have a choice in how we proceed. Otherwise, it makes him a sacrifice.

  “It sounded like you got what you needed from him,” says Zuma.

  My cheeks heat. Not because of what she heard, but because she’s wrong about what she heard. I did not get what I needed from Virius. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do with him to make a baby. But I don’t want to explain that.

  “Come and eat,” says Zuma. “You must be famished after taking all of him on.”

  She winks a knowing eye at me. The trouble is, I don’t know. I have no idea.

  “I’ll call the others,” Zuma continues. “It’s time to celebrate. The gods will be appeased.”

  “Don’t,” I say while turning towards the exit.

  “Where are you going?” Pia calls after me.

  “I’m going to find him.”

  “I don’t blame
you, sweetie,” Zuma singsongs. “I’d tap that a couple more times if I were you, before his expiration date.”

  I have to force my panther to ignore her remarks. Zuma won’t be tapping anything on Virius. He is mine. I just have to find my captive, and recapture him.

  Stepping outside, I catch his scent. He hasn’t gone far. I crouch down on two feet and let the panther take my body. With my nose to the ground, I find his trail. He won’t escape me.

  I’ll catch him. And then what? Have my way with him, and set in motion his untimely death?

  I have to. I don’t have a choice. Neither of us do. Destiny is a bitch like that.

  Chapter 13

  Virius

  I peer down at the blood bag in my hand. It’s my favorite type: B-negative. It’s not from a typical blood bank, either. It’s stock from Club Toxic. The label on the back of the bag says it was donated by a little sub named Layla, whose veins were tapped while she was being flogged.

  Layla most definitely enjoyed her beating. The sweet aroma of the endorphins in the blood tickles my nose. But still, my mouth doesn’t water at the thought of downing this sweet blood. My fangs feel limp at the thought of puncturing the plastic to get the life-giving blood into my sluggish veins.

  There’s only one vein I want to tap. Only one source I want to gorge myself on. But that spicket is resoundingly set to the No position.

  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 streaked with mud up and down her calves. There are scratches from vines on her forearms. But her breasts are untouched, the nipples erect and begging for a taste.

  My thirst increases at the sight of them. I also feel dizzy with the low blood count I’m working with. I ignore my organs’ needs in favor of my desire for her.

  I need to get my hands on her. But when I reach for her, the claws come out. She smacks my hand away, leaving four bloody marks.

  “You left me,” she says as she stomps inside.

  Her muddy feet leave tracks on the floor. I know Gaius will be pissed. But he stays silent behind me. The s
ilence gives me a second to replay Zahara’s words.

  “I would never leave you.”

  “I woke up. You were gone. Meaning: you left me.”

  “I got hungry.” I point to the bag of blood on the counter.

  Zahara doesn’t spare my evidence a glance. She jabs the claw of her index finger into my bare chest, drawing out another stream of blood.

  “You. Are. My. Captive.” She enunciates every word with a puncturing poke.

  I should feel pain. But with each poke, I feel like she’s breaking through a dense fog. Each fissure in my chest feels like a ray of sunlight brightening me from the inside out. Is this love?

  “Your captive?” I capture her hand and press it into my bloody chest, right over my heartbeat. “Right. I forgot. I didn’t want to wake you. I thought that last orgasm you had would’ve put you out for longer.”

  A flush spreads across Zahara’s cheeks and her eyes dart over my shoulder at the crowd behind us. She stands naked before them, but it’s the mention of her orgasms that makes her blush.

  “I figured I’d be back before you woke up,” I say in my defense.

  “That’s not how imprisonment works.”

  “I’ll tell you the next time before I leave, okay?”

  “Fine.” The word is said in exasperation, like there is no fight left in her. She looks exhausted.

  I gather her body into my arms. She doesn’t fight me. She rests her head under my chin as I walk her out of the kitchen and head to my bedroom.

  “You’re dirty. Let me clean you up.”

  Chapter 14

  Zahara

  The water is cool on my toes. A stream of current rushes towards my ankles, rising up to massage my calf muscles. I sigh as I sink down into the depths, then yelp when I feel the jets.

  Back home, I often bathed in the hot springs surrounding an active volcano. But the lava had nothing on the powered steam in this tub. For one, there are no craggy rocks at my back. This tub is cushioned. My feet don’t sink into silt but instead rest on cool porcelain. When I look up, I see another familiar sight: a tall, dark mountain. This peak is capped with sandy blond hair instead of angry red fire.