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Amaros released her. He was off the platform and halfway across the room before she realized he had let her go. Only the wisp of black smoke danced around her in his wake, sending chills of desire along the areas of her skin it brushed.

“It’s time for you to introduce food to your system and finally meet the leaders of the Coven; they have been waiting expectantly.” He walked toward the bathroom. “If you behave during breakfast, I will make sure a Prime is waiting for you after.”

“‘A Prime?’” She got up, snatched up her discarded robe on the end of the bed then slid it on. After, she took the stairs fast but continued languidly across the floor as she followed him.

“Our familiars. In human terms, they would serve in multiple ways; higher than a servant, primarily a confidant, guard, or soldier, if you will.” He entered the bathroom.

Trying to understand, Michaela brushed her hair back from her eyes, even though her bangs were too short to go further than the side of her face. “But if Prime are human, how can they be fighters?”

It didn’t make sense to her unless they were only fighting other humans because she was beginning to comprehend her level of strength and speed as a Vampire, and when she was a human, there wasn’t a way she could have battled herself and won.

Amaros rested against the long vanity when she entered the bathroom, his palms pressed on the edge and his feet crossed at the ankle. He appeared relaxed and not in a rush to end their conversation.

Michaela liked that he was patient and seemed to give her time to adjust to her new normal, new life.

“They run faster, are stronger, and can heal relatively quickly compared to other humans. The longer they are Prime, the fiercer they become, and they can hold their own quite well under certain circumstances with some Were. They have a small amount of venom in their blood. A little more than what would have been mixed within the mark on the inside of your thigh. In small doses, our venom can make the Prime superhuman. However, they can’t take too much, or it will kill them.

So, we have to be very careful with them. ”

Standing in the doorway, she folded her arms under her breasts and didn’t miss the heat that flared in Amaros’s eyes when he lowered his gaze to the gap between the lapels that revealed quite a bit of the inside curve of both her small breasts.

Usually, the caress of his gaze caused her desire to spike, but her mind was distracted by the two things she remembered he’d mentioned.

“If a human can’t take but so much venom without dying, how am I alive?

” Michaela recalled the sting of Amaros’s bite in the cave and the feel of her life being drawn out of her veins, but just before she lost consciousness from the lack of blood, the icy burn of something entering her body, and streaming into her veins brought on a perplexing sense of peace.

“Some would say you aren’t, little angel.”

The wicked smile on his perfectly-sculpted mouth made her want to kiss him, but she stayed where she stood, framed by the doorway.

She frowned, so confused. “Am I?”

“Yes. And no.” He waved her over, even as he balanced his tall, lean-muscled frame with his hips on the marble counter.

Michaela didn’t hesitate, this time, to cross to him.

Amaros reached up to caress down the side of her face. At her chin, he gently turned her face away from him. “What do you see?”

Slightly arching her brow, she stared at him from the corner of her eyes. “You.”

“I know I am hard to resist, but not me, little angel. What else?”

Cocky-ass vamp. But he wasn’t lying. When Amaros was in the room with her, she could not look at anything else but him.

Not even the beautiful landscape of the forest or the breathtaking mountains with their high peaks designing the sky around them held her attention.

But following his instructions, she forced her gaze from the striking male before her and stared beyond his shoulder.

She gasped.

Staring at the mirror behind him, she was shocked to see the back of Amaros’s thick, sleek, ebony hair and the shirt stretching over the broad expanse of his shoulders and down his back to his narrow waist and hips covered by dark slacks.

Even last night, with all the lascivious things he’d done to her, the man had remained dressed. It had grated on her because she wanted to see all of him, touch his skin, and have it against hers.

Now, Amaros wasn’t all she saw. Her reflection stared back at her.

Besides the wildness of her short, bleached-out blonde pixie cut that made her appear as if she’d been passionately pleasured last night within an inch of her life, she looked the same.

But different. Her pale, golden-brown skin had a healthy, vibrant glow, and her light-brown eyes appeared exotic.

Looking closely, she could see the finest trace of a blood-red ruby ring around them.

The bloodlust of her beast was never far away. It was the conductor of the symphony of her being.

“I can see us. But I thought storybooks reported that Vampires were walking dead, so they didn’t have reflections.”

Amaros chuckled. “Human bullshit. What they don’t understand or know, they fabricate a tale to cover their ignorance.”

He stroked the side of her neck but didn’t go any further.

Her heart rate picked up at her need for more of his touch, and she saw the flash of the finest blood-red, ruby ring around her irises before it disappeared.

She pushed her lust away.

“It’s easy to believe what you say, especially since I’ve been the victim of some of my government's lies that they fed to me and the other women in the lab. Yeah, easily makeup shit that fits their narrative.”

“It is easier to think of us as living in the in-between. We still have flesh and bone, but as we age, we learn to manipulate it.”

One moment, he was before her, and then she stared at herself draped in ribbons of black smoke.

Only to have him appear behind her, his hands on her slim hips, his lips whispering along the juncture between her neck and shoulders. “I can’t wait to taste you here again.”

Her heart pounded as she met his piercing gray gaze in the mirror. Do it.

Amaros smiled as she drew away from her flesh. Not yet.

A roar of frustration burned in the back of her throat. She swallowed it and reached out, trying to capture the fading airy tendrils. “When can I transport from one place to another and make smoke rings?”

“Centuries.”

“Fine.” She pursed her lips but understood that she didn’t know everything about the Vampire world and some things would take time. And she had plenty of it now. “Mark? You said I had a mark.”

“Yes.” His hands flexed on her hips as his ash-gray gaze held hers.

“Where?”

He took one of her hands in his and slid it down her side over her hip, then slipped it toward the center of her thigh.

She allowed him to guide her, resisting where he led her never crossed her mind. After the intimate night they had shared, she probably would not bat a lash if he placed her hand over her sex. The night before, he’d systematically peeled away any shyness she would exhibit with him.

Once her hand was inside her robe, he laced their fingers together and pressed them against the top of her thigh. He continued until they brushed the side of her sex. Below her fingertips, her skin was only soft and smooth.

Her breath caught at their touch, and she thought of the scientist touching her skin in such a way. All she could do was hope that Amaros moved their fingers somewhere else.

“Keep your hand there.” When she remained still, he moved his hand to the outside of her leg, then lowered it to grasp her behind the knee. He began to lift her leg. “Bend your knee and set your heel against the counter edge.”

Michaela did as she was instructed.

Once she was in position, he flipped one side of the robe away, revealing the full extension of her pale-brown skin.

Her heart was racing. She feared what she would see. Now, there was no doubt where the mark had been placed.

“Open,” he commanded. His body behind her helped steady her. Not because her balance was off; as a Vampire, she’d discovered situational awareness of everything around her, even the air movement as it passed her.

She leaned her knee out just a little, nervous of what she would see. Perhaps one of the heinous scientists had defamed her body and written his name into her flesh as if she belonged to them. And she’d always see it and never truly rid herself of them.

“Wider,” he demanded. Even though his hand remained behind her knee, he allowed her to move her body.

Fortifying herself, she let her leg drop wide and bared not only the slick folds of her sex but the white etching beside it. It was not black like the ink most used in dispatch to design their skin with pictures or names of lost loved ones, but white ink.

Ghostly-white.

Her gaze locked on it. It appeared stark and haunting against her brown skin, making her tone seem darker than it was in contrast to the white pattern marring it.

She didn’t understand what she saw: two lines unevenly sliced two halves of a whole circle.

A shorter line that didn’t extend beyond the circle, while the other was longer and spear-like.

She knew the interpretation of the design and had seen it all her life.

Now, seeing it engraved into her skin, the only thing she saw was the vulgarity of her government’s declaration of how unequal things were between the Dispatch and the Consumers and how the shorter line was the barrier that kept those in the district away from the providence area and held back from any way of succeeding.

The longer line, a spear, brought thoughts of war; it seemed violent and excessive.

“They are rejoicing in our failure.” Her body began to tremble, and she couldn’t ignore what she saw. The back of her eyes burned, but no tears came.