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Roman’s hand covered Danny’s mouth. Spoilsport.

Now that Danny had started thinking about sex, his demon was taking a real serious interest in the matter.

He still had that buzzing sensation under his skin that he now recognized as a hunger for blood, but now it was hungry for Roman too.

Smart demon. They could definitely both agree on that.

Danny tried to tell Roman all this with his eyes, but Roman just shook his head at him.

“There are things we need to deal with first.”

There was a vampire chained in Danny’s garage. Huh.

It was a strange contrast, seeing someone looking like the captured snitch in a mafia movie right next to Danny’s washer-dryer unit.

Luc had definitely seen better days. His face was a bruised, bloody mess, and Danny couldn’t begin to imagine how bad his initial injuries must have been for them not to have healed with his accelerated vampire healing yet.

Danny stepped closer, mindful of keeping a decent distance between them. He’d asked Roman to stay inside the house. Danny could feel how anxious and upset Roman was to be left out of the room, but he couldn’t imagine holding this conversation with his overprotective mate growling in the corner.

Luc smirked up at him. “Oh, look. It’s the new and improved Daniel.” His voice was hoarse and rusty, like maybe his vocal cords were recovering from being squeezed in a choke hold.

Danny was having a hard time feeling bad about that.

“Why didn’t you run?” he asked the restrained vampire. “I’m sure Roman was sufficiently distracted by my, you know, apparent death to get you a clean getaway.”

“Oh, he was.” Luc looked unrepentant. “You should have seen the poor guy’s face.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Luc looked up at Danny, his smirk gone and his eyes hungry. “I told you: I wanted to know. Well?” he asked, urgency in his voice.

Danny knew what Luc was asking, and he had a choice to make. He could choose cruelty. He could punish Luc, never letting him know for certain whether fated mates really existed, whether there was any hope out there for him.

It was very, very tempting.

Danny sighed. He wasn’t vicious enough for that.

Maybe that made him a fool, and a bad vampire candidate, but he could understand Luc’s pain all too well.

He could understand the loneliness and rage that had driven him to be the way he was.

To do the things he had done. Danny didn’t like any of it, but he could understand it.

“We’ve mated,” he said. “I’m sure of it. I can feel a connection to him now, to his feelings, to his demon.”

Luc took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m glad to know. Even if I never—even if this is it. Thank you for telling me.” He pointed with his chin at the stairs. “You can go tell your mate I’m ready for him to finish the job now, if you like.”

Danny shook his head, not understanding the request. “What?”

A grim smile took over Luc’s face. “You don’t really think he’s going to let me live after all I’ve done to you, do you?”

“I don’t…I mean…” Fuck. Was that really why Roman had kept Luc here? For Danny to gloat over him and then have Roman turn around and kill him?

It would be hard to argue that the world wouldn’t be safer with Luc gone. Except…

“Tell me something,” said Danny. “Why do you kill the people you kill?”

Luc laughed without humor. “Because I’m a monster, obviously.”

Danny shook his head, frustrated. “Why do you kill the specific people that you choose to kill?”

They had a bit of a standoff then, Luc staring at Danny, searching for something in his face.

After a few more moments of this, the vampire gave a defeated sigh.

“After what happened…with Victoria…something in me snapped. I could feel it happen. My monster was taking over, demanding more. More blood, more violence. But I didn’t want to—I wasn’t ready to lose myself completely to damnation.

I found a way to temper the cravings. Finding despicable people, those who hurt others, those who don’t deserve the lives they have.

I thought maybe if I fed my monster’s wants, without giving in completely to chaos, I could put off the inevitable. Keep from turning completely feral.”

Luc was such a strange conundrum. Violent and cruel, vengeful and sadistic. But he hadn’t killed Danny when he’d had the opportunity. Even if it had been for his own selfish reasons, he’d instead given Danny a chance at forever. A chance at eternity with the one he loved.

“You know,” Danny said slowly. “If you hadn’t been chasing Roman these past few decades, he never would have ended up here, in this town, at this time, with me.”

“And?”

Danny shrugged. “I never gave much thought to fate. Life just seems too cruel sometimes to think there’s any higher purpose. But maybe some things do happen for a reason. And maybe your mate is still out there and everything up until now will bring you closer to finding them.”

The hope that appeared on Luc’s face was painful to witness in its intensity.

Danny took a few steps closer to the bound vampire, bending slightly so they were eye to eye.

“If we let you go, are you going to rampage around, murdering innocents? Will we find out you’ve gone feral a few weeks from now, that you’ve let go of your humanity completely… or will you hold on?”

Luc’s black eyes met Danny’s. “I can hold on.” The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable.

Danny straightened. “Let me see what I can do.”

Danny left the broken vampire behind him, heading back into the house. Roman was waiting on the other side of the garage door, clearly on the verge of heading there himself.

One look at Danny’s face, and Roman was shaking his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

Danny blew out a breath. “We can’t just murder him in cold blood, Roman.”

“What do you even mean, cold blood?” Roman’s voice was harsh. “He is a killer . He hurt your brother. He almost killed you.”

Fair, fair, and fair. But still. “He didn’t though.”

“And what if he comes right back?” Roman drew a hand roughly through his hair, his aggravation clear. “I will not lose you. I refuse to let him loose, knowing you will be at risk the moment he decides vengeance is worth more than a truce.”

“He won’t come back.” Danny didn’t know why, but he was certain of it. “He just proved to himself that mates are real. He has hope again, Roman. He’s not going to jeopardize that just to mess with us for funsies.”

“You think that monster has a mate out there?” Roman was staring at Danny in disbelief.

“People marry serial killers in prison all the time. A lid for every pot, right?”

Roman’s expression hadn’t changed, but Danny could feel his mate’s resolve wavering.

He pushed. “Why didn’t you kill him right away? Just to torture him?” Roman said nothing, and Danny pressed on mercilessly. “I don’t think you really want him dead. Trust me. Please. If he comes back, if he threatens us in any way, I’ll let you put him down. I’ll help you put him down.”

Danny stepped closer to his mate, winding his arms around Roman’s neck, pressing his whole body flush against Roman’s, head to toe. “Please. Let’s get him out of here. The sooner he’s gone, the sooner we can be alone and the sooner you can be inside me.”

It was amazing, feeling the bolt of lust from Roman through their connection. Lust that reflected Danny’s own. He knew he was employing a bit of a cheap trick, but he was also being honest. It felt like it had been years since he’d had his mate inside him, and Danny needed it now.

He needed to be claimed and to claim in turn. He could feel the baby demon inside him yearning, and it only magnified his own want.

Jesus, Danny felt like a teenage boy again. A restless ball of horny hormones. He was already hard, and he couldn’t help thrusting himself against Roman slightly, trying to get some friction. And then, to his astonishment, he could feel his fangs popping out.

Did he just pop the vampire version of a boner?

There was a strange internal shift as, for the first time, Danny could feel his demon coming to the forefront of his consciousness. Danny was still there, still had some control over his body and his thoughts, but it was like letting a different part of his subconscious take the wheel.

“Please, Roman,” he heard himself purr. He actually purred .

Roman’s eyes had gone black, likely mirroring Danny’s own, and his voice took on that huskier growl it did when his demon was starting to take charge. “So you are a new vampire in some ways after all, little king. Are you getting restless in there? Do you need my hands on you? My cock inside you?”

Danny nodded frantically, finding words a little difficult now. Roman bent his head and nuzzled into Danny’s neck, sighing against Danny’s skin. “Fine. We’ll let him go.”

Danny was starting to get a little fuzzy about what they were even talking about, his hunger for his mate overwhelming his senses—why weren’t they in a bed yet?—but he nodded anyway.

“But,” Roman added, lifting his head, “we are having Soren drop him off somewhere. I am done with it all. And you, my little mate, are coming with me.”

With that, he threw Danny over his shoulder, heading toward the stairs up to Danny’s bedroom.