Page 68 of Ruthlessly Mated

“Free her? Absolutely not. This entire process has been about capturing her. I’ve decided to keep the entire set this time though. You. Your dapper friend, and the girl.”

He doesn’t know Damon is part of the pack. He never met him. Maybe he didn’t realize that Damon was shot at the port. That’s more evidence it wasn’t vampires at the port. Just run of the mill opportunistic looters.

“What do you want from me?”

“She’s going to get my maker’s heart back, and then she’s going to have some adorable little pups, all of whom will be born into silver captivity. It is for the best. I like wolves. You should survive, but in your original role, as servants. You should never have been let out of your kennels.”

“Again. What do you want from me?”

“Fuck her. Mate her. Breed her.”

“Why?”

“I want to see her bred.”

“You’re sick.”

“I might be, yes.”

“I’m not going to fuck her on command.”

“Well, wait until you hear my proposal. If you can show me that she is well and truly under control, I might consider releasing you all into a sort of tentative freedom. A broader captivity.”

“Why?”

“I confess, I have some affection for her. Having kept her alive for so long, I feel a certain obligation to her. But I cannot have her going about stealing relics. I want her bred. I want her contained. I want her…”

“Don’t believe him!”

Kita shouts down the hall. “He’s going to try to steal our babies. That’s what he does! He’s a baby stealer!”

“Baby thief,” Alexander corrects her. “And it is quite common for humans to keep pets of the lesser species. I do not see why I cannot do the same. Your kind, as I have already explained, has always been subservient to ours.”

This vampire has an ego, and that’s hardly surprising. He’s lived forever. Individuals like me don’t count to him. We’re all pawns. Things to play with. He wants to toy with us like little kids like to toy with insects in jars.

That also means he has a vulnerability. “Vampires are a dying breed. Routed out. Hunted. Staked. Unable to reproduce except for when they bite and bleed a human and even then most of the time the human dies. Meanwhile, our kind is on the rise. Eclipse City contains lines of royal lineage. You? You’re a relic of a…”

I am thrown against the wall, having gotten the ire of the vampire up. Alexander looms over me, hissing furiously down at me.

“You are the stupidest creature I have ever encountered,” he says, his fangs flashing. “I should drain you. If you will not do what I want, I will drain you.”

“Leave him alone!” Kita shouts again from down the hall. “Come and fight me, stupid!”

She’s being incendiary. Trying to draw the predator away from me. I see the flash of irritation in the vampire’s red eyes.

“Your maker smells like garlic!”

I groan inwardly.

“She wants attention,” Alexander says. “She always wanted attention. Irritating little thing.”

There’s a note of very reluctant affection in his tone. He likes her. Not like a lover, but she has clearly gotten under his skin in some way. The liking does not seem to be returned.

“Is this about your maker’s heart? Or is this about Kita?”

“It is about both,” he says. “The heart must be returned, and that stunted little wolf belongs to me.”

“Why are you so obsessed with her? She’s just another animal, isn’t she? She’s nothing to you. Or she shouldn’t be. She’sanother pointless little animal who won’t live as long as you breathe or blink. So why are you doing all of this? Why haven’t you killed all of us?”