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The expression on the narrow face hovered somewhere between wonder and incredulity. The twin flames in Dominique’s eyes mirrored in Aubrey’s obsidian stare. “And…if I submit to you?”

“The dark hunger will leave you.” And if he didn’t…

“Then I submit.” The words were a mere breath in the wind. Slowly, he tilted his head to one side, exposing his jugular in an invitation he may well never have issued before. More than an offer of blood and submission, it was the offer of his mind, his memories, his very life, a surrender of his body and his soul. It was not an offer made lightly, and Dominique took care to accept with all the respect due his new subject. As though welcoming a beloved friend, he embraced him and pierced the artery.

Aubrey’s blood was vibrant with the sweetness of spring, full of warm grass and dewy blossoms. When the serum in Dominique’s bite found Aubrey’s brain, he dropped into a mind resonant with a century and a half of memories. A man of the Victorian age emerged, a gentleman and a trained barrister in his queen’s service. Renowned for his diplomatic skill, Aubrey had been sent on missions around the world. It was in Rome where a vampire found him and invited him into the night without fully explaining what that would entail. Aubrey had sought to wield his new powers of persuasion in service to his queen. Instead, he wielded it to appease a hunger that horrified him. After a century of guilt and torment and the resulting ridicule from his sire and other blood-drinkers, he had turned his back on them all. Now he maintained a solitary existence, convinced that he was fit for no company but his own.

You are fit for me, Dominique spoke into his mind, compassion swelling his heart.

Aubrey’s arms shook as they came around him, and his hands fisted into the leather jacket.

Long after he had stopped feeding on the blood, Dominique still held him, feeding on Aubrey’s roiling uncertainty and hope, his own thoughts in turmoil. How many like Aubrey were out there? How many skulking in the shadows, fighting to live by a moral code opposed to everything they craved?

“I have a gift for you,” Dominique murmured when Aubrey at last loosened his grip. Baring his left wrist, he ran the nail of his right thumb deep into his flesh. Blood welled, dark and glistening as he held the wound out to Aubrey. This was where the magic happened. Or at least he hoped it would. He had re-sired only one other, Serge.

Aubrey gripped Dominique’s hand and ran his tongue over the injury just before it sealed again. The blood was only a few drops and nowhere near as volatile as Kambyses’s had been, but it was enough. It found the serum in Aubrey’s veins and ignited, tuning him into the new Lord of Night.

He gasped at the sensation of fire flashing through his flesh, and held on to Dominique’s hand, eyes screwed shut, swaying. A long moan slipped past the bloodstained lips, and Dominique knew that Aubrey Wainwright would never again be part of an amorphous gathering of ghosts. The Victorian gentleman blood-drinker was becoming a distinct entity of light in Dominique’s awareness.

“I feel it leaving,” Aubrey said, awed. “The darkness. It’s leaving.” When he opened his eyes, small flames of gold flickered in their depths. Moment to moment they grew until they blazed in the night.

Dominique didn’t trust his own voice. So he only grinned and planted a kiss on Aubrey’s forehead. Welcome, mon ami. Welcome to my kingdom.

2- The Gift

Present day…

The house’s landline rang so rarely that Cassidy Chandler associated the sound with nothing good. Mrs. Havashand, she guessed, sitting back in her leather executive chair and stretching stiff shoulders. No doubt Brinkley had left more corpses in her backyard. It was tempting to let the call go to voicemail, but a glance at the caller ID made her grab the extension.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” said the brisk male voice on the other end. “This is the front gate. There’s a Jackson Striker here to see you, but we don’t have him on our list.”

Her thoughts skittering to a startled halt. She stared out the second-floor window, which overlooked an expansive backyard sloping down to the Intracoastal. Hard to decide if it was being called “ma’am” that threw her off or just the fact she even lived in a neighborhood that had a security gate staffed with round-the-clock armed guards. The maintenance crew and maid service had permanent passes. So few others visited during the day, she tended to forget. And at night…well, at night, none of that mattered.

“Ma’am?”

She sucked in a breath. “Yes, I’m here.”

“Shall we let him through?”

Cassidy swiveled the chair toward the storm bunker tucked away downstairs at the center of the house. Windowless, made of steel-reinforced, poured concrete, and secured with a door worthy of a bank vault, nothing short of dynamite would dent it.

“Is he alone?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay. Let him through.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

She returned the handset to its charging station. The clock on the monitor had the time an hour before sunset. If Jackson had reverted to his nefarious ways, he was cutting it damn close. That his asshole uncle wasn’t with him, however, ruled out the possibility of dynamite, not to mention random bullets to her head.

Also, this was as good an excuse as any to log off the V-zette’s Discord server. Four hours of moderating and organizing the hyper-fast postings of a chatty international vampire community was about all she could take for one day anyway.

After changing out of her frumpy yoga pants and sweatshirt into something more suitable for company, she headed for the foyer. Her low heels clacked and echoed in the vast space as she moved down the stairs. Enormous glass walls bracketed the two-story space at both ends, one side overlooking the infinity pool and dock out back, the other surrounding the massive double-door entry which had been hammered in a starburst design. The sun was low enough to pour through the front windows and flood the entire area in a warm glow. In the beams, dust motes danced on the breeze swirling in through the open sliders.

At the foot of the stairs, she paused to absorb the peaceful moment and mentally record it for later when she would share it with the love of her life. This was her favorite room in the house at her favorite time of day and year. Not long now, and Florida’s sticky summer would seize hold again, relegating open doors and fresh air to distant memories.

A polite bing-bong drew her to the door.