Page 71 of Bite The Terror That Feeds

He should feel insulted, but for whatever reason, he smiled. “I think we have pretty great chemistry.”

“I was trying to kill you.”

“And I was trying to spare you.”

I looked away. “If I fuck you, will you let me go?”

He hesitated. “No.”

I turned back to him. “So then, you’ll force me instead?” I’d heard of all the horrible atrocities vampires committed. They were evil in its purest form.

The dagger went still. His teasing mood evaporated. “That’s not the kind of men we are.”

“But you aren’t men. You’re bloodsucking nightwalkers. I don’t believe a word you say.”

“Yes, I feast on others to live forever, but none of us has ever forced a woman or prisoner in that context. I admit to all my crimes freely, but that is not a crime of mine. Don’t believe the lies the Ethereal spread.”

He seemed to be speaking the truth, but I still didn’t trust a word he said. “If I tell you everything, will you let me go?”

“No.”

“You aren’t giving me an incentive—”

“You wouldn’t betray your people to be free, so you would only share lies.”

Maybe I’d underestimated this vampire.

“How can you accuse us of being evil when you’re the ones who released the sickness that killed off so many humans?”

“We did no such thing.”

His eyebrow cocked. “You really believe that?”

“We would do no such thing—”

“So it’s just a coincidence that our food source has been compromised by an illness that has no cure?”

I held his stare as my stomach tightened. “We would never attack those who serve us—”

“Then you aren’t privy to the truth. You’re simply dispatched to kill others without reason.”

I knew he was trying to manipulate me, and unfortunately, it was working.

“We would have coexisted with the Ethereal if that had been an option. But your kind has been determined to wipe our kind from the face of the earth—for false propriety. True immortals? That’s bullshit. They just want to be the only ones to have that power.”

“It’s not power. It’s our birthright—”

“I don’t believe that. If we have to feast on human blood to maintain our existence, then you must do something as well. And if that’s true, then neither one of us are true immortals.”

“The gods have granted this gift upon us—”

He rolled his eyes.

“If our conversation is so unpleasant, you can leave.”

“So you can stick that dagger in your neck? I’m not leaving until you hand it to me.”

So he did know.