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Marceline, we are headed your way.

‘We?’ Are the leaders coming? A tone of trepidation rolled in from her side, atypical for Marceline.

My mate and I.

Do you not trust my words, Sire? As any Vampire would be, Marceline was territorial about her space, even more regarding her mate.

It was the reason Amaros had her meet him in the cave of the ancients, not too far from the cellars, over the last couple of weeks: to respect what his Vice needed to do.

Yes . As I have for years. However, I want to see the new Vampire with my own eyes.

There was a heavy pause, but smartly, Marcelina complied. We will be expecting you.

The mental dialogue ended, the pathway detached.

“Are you sure we should go, Amaros? Perhaps you should visit alone.” They left their room and headed down the stairs. Her words were hesitant, but she kept walking beside him.

Since they were claimed, he often allowed Michaela access to his conversations with others. She was his lifemate, which meant they would live together for centuries, and he didn’t believe claimed mates should keep secrets. Yes, their thoughts, but everything else was laid bare.

It was how his parents were, before they lay down side by side as ancients, and it was what he wanted.

He halted at the bottom of the steps and faced her. “You are my mate, Michaela, we will rule together. Understand?”

She placed one of her hands flat on his chest over his heart. “I love you, Amaros.”

Hell, he didn’t need to hear anything else. Now, he wanted to contact his Vice and tell Marceline, ‘Never mind; they’d see them tomorrow.’

What was one more day?

It took all his strength not to press Michaela back against the wall and take her, let everyone in the mansion hear her screaming his name, and that she loved him.

Instead, he leaned forward and brushed a light kiss over her lips.

“You are my heart. I am glad to walk into forever with you. I love you, little angel.”

She sighed and aligned her tall, lithe body perfectly against his. She shivered at the intimate contact.

He inhaled her intoxicating scent and felt his cock stiffen. He stepped back. “Come, love. I only have so much strength.”

Michaela whimpered.

His cock got harder.

With her hand in his, he led the way through the mansion's main room and corridors until he went down a passageway to the stairs to reach the entrance of the caverns where the ancients rested. This wasn’t the first time he’d brought Michaela this way.

Last week, he’d shown her how he travelled to the cave where they met, then brought her to the crypts where his parents rested.

When they reached the caverns, they arrived at the cellars. Some of them held vats of wine, another, which some of the leaders had constructed into a sex dungeon, and two others housed food supplies.

He touched Michaela’s back as they moved to the heavy steel door where Marceline had been with her mate.

A single, firm pound was all he gave the door.

“It’s open,” Marceline called out.

The door groaned when they opened it. The room was clean and set up like a studio, complete with a large bed, a two-person table, a small shelf with books, rugs on the floor, and a spare mat.

They didn’t have to look far when they stepped in to locate Marceline and Kairos because they were on the wide mat in hand-to-hand combat. Marceline was winning, and had better technique from centuries of practice, but Kairos was putting up a good fight with a few quick strikes.

Amaros could tell the newly turned Vampire was pulling his punches because he didn’t want to injure the woman who’d turned him.

Kairos would have to let that go. Vampires didn’t play fight. They went all the way out.

He looks...different.

You can say ‘handsome,’ love. I’m secure in whose cock you ride.

Michaela bumped his shoulder. Behave. I meant, Kairos looks nothing like the thing half-alive on the tarp.

It was true. His transformation to Vampire, which had taken over a week and a half, had done wonders to aid in the man’s healing, but their serum in his blood snuffed out the foreign serums the scientists forced into his body.

Kairos could have been an African King, with his rich, ebony complexion and smooth, bald head.

He had two inches on Amaros, with broad shoulders and a wide chest. The only oddity were the scales down one of his arms from shoulder to wrist. They were hard, dragon-like scales, not the markings Aodh and Liekki had in human form.

Once Kairos learned to control the dark, bloodlust beast that now resided in him, Kairos would be a force to be reckoned with at Marceline’s side.

They could almost thank the human government for delivering him to her. Almost, but never.

I had my doubts for more than a few days, Amaros admitted.

Sire .

Amaros hadn’t expected to hear from his Prime. Yes, Sherman.

I have one of the territory leaders on the radio for you. He stated it was urgent.

Amaros frowned, wondering why one of the council members would be calling. They had set up designated times weekly to tune into the same channel to discuss and update. They’d spoken only three days prior.

Come in.

“Excuse the intrusion, Marceline.” This was his Vice's space to deal with the situation surrounding Kairos.

So, even though the mansion belonged to him, and he was the leader, Amaros never forgot that those Vampires under him had been leaders of their continents before things changed, and he respected that fact and them.

“Is there something wrong?” Marceline shoved Kairos away and walked off the mat as if heading toward them.

Instead, she darted towards a side table where weapons lay.

She picked up a blade from the table and threw it at Kairos’s head, whose bulky size amazingly did not stop him from being agile and quick.

The blade came close to severing his ear, but still missed without a mark.

Kairos winked at Marceline.

Amaros watched his Vice continue sashaying toward him, as she shook her head and blushed.

He kept his opinions to himself. But rarely was he stunned. Seeing his fierce, violent Vice almost appear like a teenage girl in the throes of her first crush stunned him.

Thankfully, the cellar door squeaked open as Sherman entered, and Amaros pushed aside his bewilderment.

Sherman walked toward him, holding out the radio.

Amaros took the device. He didn’t miss the brightening of Kairos's eyes as he tracked the assistant.

Sherman may be Prime, but he was still human, and full of sweet, delicious blood that Kairos smelled from across the room.

Amaros hoped his Vice had instructed her mate on Vampire protocols and politics, as feeding from another’s Prime was disastrous.

If not, the thrashing Amaros would give Kairos if he went for Sherman, would drill it into his memory.

“No!” Marceline snapped the order to Kairos when he stepped forward.

Swallowing, Kairos gave a slight nod of his obsidian-dark head, before he moved back against the wall, the shadows there cloaking half of him.

Amaros could see that Marceline’s words were true; her mate had changed a lot, but still needed more time. It was Amaros’s choice to decide if that meant Kairos would join them in the coming war.

“Amaros. Over.” He released the button.

“Chanin.” The Lupine’s tone on the radio was just as clipped as his. “I just received communication from Aodh’s second, Liekki. Gather your leaders and change your plans; we will meet tomorrow night. Over.”

“Why the alteration of time, when we’ve spent weeks on the current strategies to ready our people?

” Amaros had wanted to hit the human the moment he discovered they had implanted embryos into his mate’s womb without her consent, and he’d been more than ready once he’d seen the major horrors the human government was capable of.

He glanced at the male leaning against the wall, in the shadows by the practice mat, waiting to continue sparring with Marceline.

“They’ve unleashed more unnatural beasts into our territories. My Fang Warriors dismembered one. There was another within the Drahks’.” Chanin paused. “It attacked Aodh’s mate. Over.”

Michaela gasped at his side.

Amaros slid an arm around his mate and pulled her in close. He clearly understood Aodh’s urgency to attack. He’d have teleported behind the Wall and left a trail of carcasses by the time Marceline could radio the Fae Queen to send out an alert.

Marceline folded her arms over her chest as she arched a brow. The sun sets soon. Why not tonight?

“Why the day delay? Over.”

“The attack sent the Drahk’s spouse into labor. Over.”

“Then we’ll be ready. Out.” Amaros tossed the radio back to Sherman and told his Prime. “Assemble the leaders.”

“Yes, Sire.” Sherman exited through the thick door.

“Amaros, do I need to stay at the mansion or arrange another leader to stay with Kairos?” Marceline gestured back towards the man. Amaros knew his Vice considered her deliverance.

“Oh, no, Marceline.” Amaros released Michaela, then crossed the cellar toward him, smiling at the man’s snarl and bloodlust gaze. “We need Kairos just as feral as he wants to be. He’ll wreak havoc, and that’s exactly what we need on our side.”

“Okay. Maybe tomorrow, if you agree, he can spar against Michaela. That way, I can observe his technique better.”

“Michaela can speak for herself. As long as she is agreeable.” Amaros glanced over at his mate.

“I understand a lot of what Kairos is going through, I don’t mind,” Michaela confirmed.

“Thanks.” Marceline nodded at Michaela.

Amaros linked his hand with his mate’s before heading out. Stopping, he glanced over his shoulder first to the ebony-skinned man who now stalked like a panther slowly across the room behind Marceline, then looked at his Vice. “One last thing.”

“Yes.”

“Mate him,” he ordered. There was no damn way, he was taking in an unmated feral Vampire into battle.