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Chapter Twenty-One

“She’s a Strega,” Manod says. “Their blood increases our strength. But they are born to kill as many of us as they can…” He leans down to talk in her face. “Until they die shredded by our teeth and impaled on our cocks.”

She spits in his face. He doesn’t back up.

I am an animal. I am a predator. But even a monster can honor a woman such as her.

My veins are on fire with her scent. Is that all there is? Draining her and forgetting her? I am a baby fledgling. Stupid and weak. But she was never nothing to me. Why should she be now?

“Master,” I say, “what if we keep her?”

“What?” He looks up at me, surprised. His shit-stained dick rests between her tits.

Of everything that has happened to me, the fact that Paolina is no longer a friend confuses me the most. Everything has changed, but part of me is still living my old life, and I know I have to get over it. I will move on. But not now. I have to give Paolina a chance to live.

“We can take her blood,” I plead. “But keep her alive to take again and again.”

He chuckles derisively. “Child. She’ll be a nuisance to me, and she’ll kill you ten different ways.”

Manod can be persuaded by laying out the benefits of the transaction, but there’s no use convincing him if she won’t first consent to the deal. I would rather she die than be my prisoner.

“Paolina.” I kneel next to her head, almost too close to resist the scent. I have to shake off the dizziness of bloodlust. “Tell him, if we get you out, treat you as one of us, nurse you after we’ve drunk from you?—”

“Go to hell, Carmine.”

So now she needs to be convinced as well as Manod.

“You’re wasting your time, beautiful one.”

“We won’t just keep a roof over your head.” I caress her face, resisting every urge to break her like an egg and spill the yolk down my throat. “You will have everything. You’ll be a queen.”

“Never.”

If she won’t, she’s going to die. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want Manod to kill her, but more than that, I don’t want to be the one to do it. And I will. I know I will.

“Please.” I drop my voice to a wet whisper. “I don’t want to.”

She tightens her lips and softens her eyes, and I think maybe she’ll agree—not to save her own life—but to save my soul.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says with compassion. Her eyes glaze with tears. “You aren’t a man anymore. You can’t want the same things. You’re a monster now.”

“Paolina. Please.”

“You will always want what a monster wants.”

“No.” I start to get up, but I can’t.

“I’m getting bored.” Manod has me by the hair on the back of my head. “I am bored of this nonsense. I am bored of training you. You will take her power so we can move on.”

“I don’t want to.”

He pushes my head to her throat. The sweetness overwhelms my starving mind.

I feel the throb of her artery against my upper lip.

I have to get away, but he’s pushing me down into her.

She fights, but he’s stronger than the both of us, holding her down and pushing me forward.

My lips part on the artery. Teeth press against it, throbbing against gums. In a world where honey tastes of nothing, this throat is so sweet.

I cannot.

Do this.

My tongue escapes. Who does it taste? Whose life beats under it? Whose skin bends under my teeth? What does it call itself when it breaks, splits, bleeds into my mouth?

Prey exists to sustain the predator, to give its blood, and this flow—it is like no other. It is power. It is heat, and spark, and force. I feel as if it’s going to throw me back ten feet, and Master isn’t holding me anymore. I have to bite harder to stay attached.

I am a monster, but I am no longer ravenous. I am driven by something besides desperation.

I do not have to fuck my kill, but my cock rages to penetrate this power…

and like a boy with ten hairs on his chin, I’m already pumping against her as I drain the life from this groaning, hitching body.

When I suck her blood, I feel her attaching to me, and I embrace it.

I make her mine. I take ownership of her will, her heart, her body, but I am a man.

I am in charge. I do not enter her. One violation is enough.

“Carmine,” my prey moans. “You smell different.”

I don’t speak. My mouth is busy tasting her pomegranate blood, a deeper reflection of the scent she brought to our bed.

This blood reminds me of nights spent laughing, fucking, eating. Nights we forgot about constant war, and panic, and pain. I lived as a willing servant to my body’s needs, and this scent permeated all of it.

I pull back.

We are in that gray life-death space Master brought me to, and I have brought her here. Under me, she is as pale as death, slicked with tears, and streaked with sprayed blood, but still alive.

“Paolina?” Why am I asking when I know whose blood is lighting my veins on fire? Did I not know those lips, even in a fugue? Was her taste so different?

“Finish her off.” Manod’s voice is clear as a church bell in this death-space, sitting in the brothel’s chair with his heels on the footboard. “Or I will.”

“Do it,” she whispers. I can barely hear her.

“No,” I say to her softly, then get up on my knees. “No,” I say to him. I feel drunk, but wide awake—as alive as a newborn baby. “No.” Somehow, I manage to stand. “I will not, and you will not.”

“How so?” Manod tips his chair backward, crossing his arms and spreading his legs as if my refusal is no more than a curiosity.

“Because you need me to continue your line.”

“I can do that myself.”

“But then you’d have too many who are too strong. You’re of the First Five. Your power decreases with every generation. You said so yourself. That means the first generation is closest to you in strength. How many of us will it take to overthrow you?”

He lets his chair fall back on its front feet. “Be smart, beautiful one.”

“I’d put money on it taking a handful. That’s risky. Too many from your blood, and you’d have to watch us constantly. But vampires two, three, maybe four generations down? Those you can control.”

He stands, arms crossed. He is taller, bigger, crueler than I will ever be, but I stand between him and Paolina.

“Get out of my way,” he says.

“No.”

“You think you can kill me?” He sighs. “We can talk about this on the way to Neapolis.”

“Only if she lives.”

I expect him to laugh. He does not.

“I should have sired the other one.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s been a long time since I sired by my own teeth. I forgot. Once a fledgling tastes Strega blood… you all get too big for your britches.” He drops his arms to his sides and flexes his fists.

He’s going to hit me. He’s going to hurt me. Even with this sweet Strega blood powering me, I sense that he is still too strong. I won’t be able to save my own life, but I can try, for her.

Behind me, Paolina groans.

I will not give her up without a fight.

“She is leaving here alive,” I say. “Or I am leaving here dead.”

“As the goddess wishes.” He flexes his hands again.

There’s a thup and rumble on the floor. Something hits my big foot.

Master looks down, so I follow his gaze.

The black ring leans against my toe.