Page 57 of Trapped for Her Blood

“As a vampire, you’re immortal.”

“Not immortal.” I tense up. “Did Zuben claim to be immortal?” First the sunlight and now this. The lies from that fiend continue.

“No,” she says quickly. “In fact, I haven’t asked Zuben how old he is yet, but he did mention searching for me for centuries, so there’s that.”

I nod, my urge to kill Zuben subsiding—slightly. I will never let that Zuben fiend coerce her into becoming a night walker, a blood sucker. I will never let him trick her into taking this cursed life.

“Vampires aren’t invincible.” I clear my throat to cover my growl. “There are ways to take them down.”

“And you?” she asks softly. “How old are you?”

“I was born in 1916.”

She inhales sharply through her nose. “When did you become a—a vampire?” she asks hesitantly, as if knowing that memory is painful for me.

“1949.”

“And when did you end up down here?”

“A fucking day later.”

She gasps and her body tightens. That reaction and her silence tell me I’ve shocked her. Plus, I realize my voice rose, and I hate that I scared her.

But she shifts against me, and then her legs rub together as her back and shoulders stroke over my chest. The scent of her arousal fills my head.

“We don’t need to talk about that if you don’t want to,” she says gently. “Tell me more about your life before? You said you were the alpha? What does that mean?”

“It means I was our clan’s leader,” I say, pride creeping in. “The strongest. The one responsible for protecting the others.” Shame and sadness displace my pride, and grief shakes my body. I pull back from her in the hope she won’t notice.

“Can I turn around?” she asks softly. “I want to see your eyes.”

Loosening my arms from their tight circle around her, I lean back, letting her shift so she’s sitting between my legs and facing me again.

Glancing down, I gasp at the sight of her. Earlier, I thought it was a trick of my mind, an illusion brought on by my desire, but she…

“Are you a vampire?” I ask, even knowing she’s not. Her blood was delicious, intoxicating, but it was the blood of a human.

“No.” She shakes her head. “But…”

“But what?” I look into her eyes, reflecting with violet light, even though she’s facing away from the fire.

“The day I drank Zuben’s blood, he thought it changed my appearance. He said I could be mistaken for a vampire.”

I’m about to accuse Zuben of lying to her again, but it seems as if the well-dressed, serious vampire only made the same observation I’m making now.

I tip my head to the side. “So, your blood lets vampires walk in the light, and ours makes you appear as a vampire?” There must be magic involved in this, and yet I sense no such evil inside her.

She shrugs. “I honestly don’t know. Zuben knows more, I think.” With a worried look, she glances toward the cave’s entrance.

Ember is so beautiful and pure, and while all her connections to magic should raise my guard, when I look into her eyes, I see no hint of either deception or evil. But perhaps that is an illusion created by magic too?

My desire for her, my admiration and affection for this woman, all that feels real. I detect none of the icy chill I felt around the magic that trapped me, that ruined my life.

“Can I ask you something else?” Her gaze casts down. “Something personal?”

“Anything.”

At the sound of my voice, her shoulders lift and so do her eyes, hinting fear, and once again I realize my voice came out with more growl than I intended.