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“That must make it harder for you to find food, having to focus on shifters.”

He shrugged. “I’m high enough in the hierarchy I can have my choice of the flock and our security team, and it’s possible for me to cloud the mind so they either don’t feel the pain or feel it but don’t remember it.”

“Well then, if you’ll make it so I don’t feel the pain, I’ll owe you another feeding at some point in the future. If I’ve gone monogamous with Will and Davy, it’ll have to just be a feeding, but if we aren’t, it can be a feed-and-fuck.”

“Thank you for the offer, and I might take you up on it, but I may also hold the favor in reserve for tickets to a concert, or a heads up when he or the band will be performing new material in a smaller venue to test it.” He shrugged. “Or a party invite, if it’s a party you feel will interest me.”

I nodded. “The party invite is doable, and the tickets probably are, but I honestly don’t know how the other thing works yet. We’re still pretty new.”

“I appreciate you’ll only make promises you’re sure of. Also, I’ll be happy to report to my Master how much control you have over your bear. I’ve had to use my powers to keep thirty-year-old bears who were born bears fromchangingwhen I bit them, but you controlled your bear without me having to step in. I’m impressed.”

“Born bears? Is that a thing?” I thought shifters didn’t turn for the first time until they hit puberty.

He shook his head. “No, they were born in human form. The term means they had it in their DNA from the start, and were taught control all their lives in preparation for their firstchangewhen puberty hit. If they’re in their thirties then they’ve had around twenty years of shifting, of controlling their inner bear, and they still couldn’t keep their inner beast from trying to burst forth and eat me.”

“You have to know I was nearly made a slave because I couldn’t control her, and Aaron sent me to Bran as a last-ditch effort to try to save me from at least twenty-five years of slavery.”

Under the Concilio it would’ve been a century of slavery, but the Senatus has made it twenty-five years for the short-lived, at which point the shapeshifter can be tested for control in order to win his or her freedom. Most shapeshifters still think it’s a century, though, because most don’t know we’re no longer under the Concilio’s demesne.

Here’s the crazy thing — you can go online and read the Senatus’s rules, all spelled out so anyone, humans included, can read them.

Winston and Kelsey, two geeks in Marco’s coterie, had written an online video game, and the idea was that the vampires had never had a council before, so the game changes as the council makes new rules. It’s a big deal when they meet and add to the rulebook, in the game. It’d turned into a huge cash cow for Marco, and we all assumed Winston and Kelsey were getting a good portion of it.

The kicker was that the old rules weren’t online, so I hadn’t known about the famous-person clause. All one knew of the old rules was that The Secret is paramount to everything.

And yes, there are rumors flying through the supernatural community that the whole Congressus in the game is real and America has a new Concilio, but few actually know about the new Senatus, much less that the end of the word is pronounced liketrucewithout ther.Tuce, I suppose, so it should be Senatuce, but it’s an old Latin word, so the spelling is fucked. In the game, they pronounce it as Congressuce, so I suppose people might figure out the proper way to say Senatus once it becomes widely known.

“When do they meet again?” I asked Venom.

“I’m sorry that I’m not at liberty to say.” He hesitated a moment, thinking, and added, “I assume your boss can give you some insights.”

I nodded. Aaron probably knew, and that was who I should be talking to about this. He’d told me we’d talk about telling Will and Davy in three to six months, but then he’d told me not to make promises about when I’d be able to tell them. Had he been setting me up for never being able to tell them?

“Bran wants to talk to you when I’m finished with you,” Venom said. “And my guess is that since you know about the Senatus, he’ll have to come clean that he isn’t the one who can help you with the Concilio, as you were told by other shapeshifters.”

Right. Horse had told me Bran would be the one to work out a deal with if Aaron didn’t act as quickly as I wanted to get the okay to tell Will my secret. I already knew the bikers weren’t aware of the Senatus, but it didn’t dawn on me that Horse’s advice might be inaccurate.

“I still have fifteen minutes, and I think I’d like your ass again. Out of the tub and go to knees and chest on the rug, young bear.”

He hadn’t made me useMasterfor our conversation, but it felt safest to respond with, “Yes, Master,” as I stood to follow his orders.

Chapter 22

Micca

When Venom finished with me, I was allowed thirty minutes to shower and get dressed before my audience with Bran. When I exited the shower, the clothes I’d removed in the foyer were hanging on a hook with the shoes on the floor below.

I pulled the panties and bra from the hanger, hidden inside the suit, and put them on as soon as I was dry. I blow-dried my hair, applied the provided makeup in neutral shades, and then finally got dressed with a few minutes to spare, but I didn’t wait before heading to Bran’s living room.

Bran motioned me towards the dining room when I stepped into his living room, and he walked with me.

“You didn’t need tochange?”

“More pain than I thought possible from a simple vampire bite, but it was just pain. No injury.”

“That isn’t always the case with Venom. He quite enjoys stripping the skin off with a whip.” Bran shrugged. “Or just stripping it outright, and he has an ulu knife he especially prefers for the task.”

My blood ran cold with the thought. Bran had once removed the skin from my breasts all except for the nipples, then from my genitals, and finally my abs, so he could see the muscles under them. They’d been ripped, at the time, because he hadn’t fed me in a while, testing me to see if I could hold my bear in when I was tortured while hungry.