“You’ve been missing, ma’am. It was wonderful to see you,” the girl cried.
“I don’t believe you.” The words were said with a sibilance thanks to the presence of her fangs, which no matter how hard she tried, weren’t retracting.
Megan gulped.
“Did you know I was attacked? That only the fact that my mate is who he is saved me from certain death?”
Another thick swallow that looked painful. Megan staggered down, like her knees had suddenly given way. The motion had the tray tumbling from her hands and clattering to the ground. The noise jerked the patrons’ attention their way, but it soon returned to their own conversations as they saw the waitress on her knees, obviously believing she was collecting what she’d dropped.
Megan sank back on her heels, the move more because her muscles wouldn’t keep her upright. Her mouth was trembling as she whispered, “Ma’am…”
“I’m listening.” She cut a glance at Jenna who bustled over, her intent to help, so she kept her tone gentle. “Everything’s fine, Jenna. Go back to the counter.”
“But, I can help clear away—”
Lara shook her head. “There’s nothing to help with.”
Jenna bit her lip as she looked down at a quivering Megan and the hold Lara still had on Megan’s wrist. Though the Sanguenna’s fingers weren’t even tensed, the way Megan’s hand was turning a funny color spoke of the firmness of the grip Lara had on her.
Jenna cleared her throat. “Can I get you anything, Sanguenna?”
She was about to dismiss her when that earlier stirring appeared. It was strange. Centered in her stomach.
Before she could ask, Georgios murmured, “You can bring me a panini. The pepperoni and jalapeño one.”
Though the kitchens were closed now, Jenna wasn’t foolish enough to refuse the male her Sanguenna had claimed. She started to scurry off when Lara called out, “Jenna?”
The girl turned back, eyed her nervously. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Make that two.”
Where the request came from, Lara didn’t know. But it stunned her as much as it stunned Erica, Megan, and Georgios.
The weird stirring in the pit of her belly…that could only be hunger, couldn’t it?
She felt empty.
A gnawing ache deep inside that made her feel a little weak.
Was that how humans and daywalkers felt after not having eaten in a while?
She knew it couldn’t be for blood. She’d fed twice from Georgios tonight, and that was more than ample. Plus, his Shifter blood was a little more potent.
The equivalent of drinking a prosecco over a white wine.
The effervescence was still giving her a nice buzz.
Georgios merely cast her a look but remained silent as Megan was still on her knees, watching her Sanguenna with terror written on her face while they ordered paninis.
Jesus.
Talk about timing.
“Talk to me, Megan,” she crooned, watching the girl flinch and close her eyes.
Older Vampires couldn’t beguile humans like the movies made out. But they could do that with young daywalkers. And barely forty, Megan was almost a baby in comparison to Lara.
“My brother,” the girl gasped out. “He…” Another gulp.
“He, what?” Lara demanded, refusing to relent.
“He organized… He heard of how you saved the boy. He told the court. He thought they’d handle your punishment, but when they didn’t, he decided to punish you himself.”
Lara’s eyes narrowed into slits, and then, she reached forward and stared straight into Megan’s. “Did you help him attack me?”
The impulse Lara forced into Megan’s system had her shuddering in reaction, something that almost had Lara jerking back in surprise. Normally, the daywalkers she compelled didn’t react so violently, but the words that spilled from Megan’s lips were nothing but the truth as a result so she couldn’t exactly complain. Even if her ability was so much stronger than the last time she’d used it.
“No! I heard him planning to hurt you, and I wanted to tell you, but he…” She whimpered as Lara increased the beguilement, letting her eyes turn silver with her nightwalker half’s presence so that the trance Megan fell into was even stronger than before. “He rapes me,” Megan confessed on a whisper. “Beats me. No one knows. I’m too scared to tell. When I learned… I wanted to help. To stop him. But I can’t protect myself from him, never mind my Sanguenna.”
No longer worrying about how strong her compulsion was, a long hiss escaped Lara’s mouth at the prospect of Megan suffering and all under the coven’s nose. “How long?” she bit off, the words loaded with her rage.
Megan’s nod was so slow it was almost dreamy. “Since I was a little girl.”
Lara’s nostrils flared, and she stared at Georgios with horror-filled eyes. His sympathy had her growling, but she pushed that aside and turned to the girl. The trance had Megan almost vibrating in place, and Lara winced at the sight. Letting her eyes retract, she dimmed down the compulsion, and murmured, “You will forget this conversation happened. You are well. All is well. When the others ask what occurred, say I was telling you about my new mate.”
Megan nodded again, and then the dreaminess faded when Lara ceased staring her square in the eye. She cleared her throat when she looked down at herself and saw she was on her knees. “What happened?” she asked a little dazedly.
“You dropped the tray.”
The girl’s cheeks flushed. “Damn, I’m so sorry, Sanguenna.”
“We’ve all done it,” Lara told her gently, but the smile she shot her was conspiratorial. “At least you’d already put the cups down. I dropped a tray with six coffees on it once. Nightmare.”
Megan chuckled and got to her feet. She was still shaky, and as she picked up the tray, she flinched. “Ouch. My wrist. No wonder I dropped the tray,” she mumbled, eying her forearm like it didn’t belong to her.
“Wrap it up. There are Ace bandages in the First Aid box,” Lara instructed and watched as Megan nodded her thanks and scurried back to the counter.
She watched as the girls circled her, and though she could hear their conversation, knew her compunction held as Megan said her wrist had given out.
Not that that happened often with Vampires, but daywalkers were the weaker of the two races, after all. Hardly infallible.
Jenna shot her a look, though, and Lara knew that was because she’d witnessed the hold Lara had on Megan’s arm. She merely cocked a brow at her until the girl flushed and went about her duties.
Georgios dragged his attention back to her by leaning forward. “A panini?” he demanded.
She blinked at him, surprised that was the center of his focus after that conversation. “I’m hungry.”
He sat back again. “This makes no sense.” Ah. He was scared. For her.
“Nothing does. I know her brother, Georgios. I thought he was a friend. Benjamin is popular in my coven. He works in the office at my distribution center. He’s never had a problem with me before. And the rape?” Her jaw worked. “If I didn’t want to kill him before, I do now.”
Georgios looked torn. She could tell he wanted to discuss this new development—her hunger, but that he also sensed she wanted to explore news of the man behind her attack.
Taking pity on him, she murmured, “The mate bond will manifest how it manifests, Georgios. We can’t alter what will happen. We didn’t start the claiming in the regular way, so things are bound to be different.”
It didn’t really resonate how different until the panini arrived, however. Still churning from Megan’s revelations, her reaction stunned the hell out of her.
Her fangs dropped, and saliva formed and pooled in her mouth. As that had never happened before, outside of those singular moments when she was about to bite and feed, the liquid gathered in her mouth with discomforting speed.
“What do I do with it?” she garbled as it carried on being produced. The scent of the warm
pepperoni teased her nostrils, made her mouth water harder, and her stomach ache more fiercely.
“Do with what? The sandwich?” Georgios asked, a little confused.
“My mouth. It’s wet.”
He frowned then it cleared, and he snickered. “I’d heard of that, but thought it was a joke. You just swallow. Like you would blood.”
“But there’s so much of it,” she whimpered, feeling it flood the base of her tongue.
“Just swallow. It goes down to whatever you have inside you.” He pursed his lips. “Do you even have a stomach?”
Her throat worked as she tried to pretend she was swallowing green tea, but the liquid had no taste at all. It was bizarre.
“Of course we have stomachs,” she said a moment later. “Mine is aching with need for this.”
She knew the daywalkers were watching her as she picked up the panini. Their attention was discomforting, but she knew they were confused.
Nightwalkers simply didn’t eat.
She was about to break that particular myth.
The cheese melted on her tongue in a way that had her moaning. The pepperoni was spicy and fatty, and the jalapeño added an astonishing heat that had her mouth exploding with pleasure.
“Mother have mercy,” Georgios groaned, his panini uneaten, still halfway to his mouth as he watched her eat. “The noises you make, make me want to rut on you.”
She flushed, but she didn’t stop eating. She kept shoving the bread, cheese, and meat concoction into her mouth until her cheeks were full like a hamster storing food for the next hour.
He chuckled at her bulging cheeks and said, “There we go. Erection dealt with.”
She glowered at him but chewed through the mounds in her mouth.
When she finished, her stomach ceased aching. She patted her belly. “That feels better,” she told him, not too ashamed at being so relieved that had worked.
“You enjoyed it, I take it?” he asked, taking the first bite of his own sandwich. He then chuckled hard when she nodded her head so quickly, her ponytail whooshed from side to side, whipping the back of her head as she did. “I had no idea food tasted so good.”
“Why would you?” he asked. “It’s not like you’ve ever needed it before, is it?”
“True. I wonder why I need it now?”
“We can add it to the hundreds of questions we have about our mate bond,” he said gruffly, and she could sense his concern once more. Though she was touched by it, she didn’t try to appease him.
There was no point.
He would worry until their mating followed a similar pattern as all the countless others who had passed before them.
Somehow, however, she knew that would never happen.
He’d explained to her what had happened with the lemans of Dragons attending court that night he’d taken her there for help. Whatever it was, that, as well as the delay in his claiming her, on top of the daywalker venom, had changed the way the mating claim was supposed to manifest.
She knew it in her bones.
Though she was no seer, it made sense to her, but her strong, determined, and fierce mate was frightened for her.
She could understand that. Was touched by it.
And though he wouldn’t appreciate knowing it, she decided it was easier to protect him than to add to his worries.
Eight
“Where the hell have you been, Sanguenna?” a stranger asked, striding toward the table at the head of the room where Lara was sitting.
It was hard for Georgios not to tense up at the accusation in the male’s voice, but Lara didn’t react, so he decided that was the best option for him too.
They were in the council chambers of her coven. A novel concept to him.
Though covens answered to the Emperor and his court, individual covens didn’t usually allow their members to question their leaders.
Lara’s diplomacy shouldn’t have come as a surprise, not after watching her interact with her staff at the coffee shop for all this time, but it did.
The room was huge. Large enough for the eight-hundred strong coven to congregate in and with comfort. The coven’s chambers were, ironically enough, in an old Presbyterian church. Lara was currently seated at a table beside the pulpit, while the members of her coven were in the pews.
He had to hide a smirk at what humans from Lara’s time would make of this. Vampires in a church.
Considering they’d believed holy water and sacred grounds to be sacrosanct, weapons against Vampires even, this was proof positive that wasn’t the case. He wondered if that was why she’d chosen this place for their meeting grounds… Thumbing her nose with the cosmic joke.
Knowing her, probably. His lips twisted ruefully at the thought.
The church was Methodist plain. As in, there was little comfort, barely any decoration. Color came from a rather plain stained glass window behind Lara, but in the dark of night, none of the hues came through obviously. The prayer cushions for people to lean on were embroidered with religious scenery, but the pews weren’t carved or embellished at all, and the pulpit wasn’t either.
All in all, he decided that Catholics knew best when it came to the interior decoration of a holy temple.
Not that it mattered, of course.
Especially not for a Vampire’s purposes. They didn’t even believe in a deity, unlike his kind who believed in the Mother of All.
Using this place as a meeting ground was definitely a thumb at the nose at humans.
Though the man had accused his leman, Lara just flicked a glance at him, and he stuttered in his tracks, plunking down in the pew nearest him.
From what had happened to Megan and Lara’s own surprise at how well she’d forced the compulsion on the girl, he could sense this was a new gift. For certain, she’d been able to compel daywalkers before, all supes knew about that talent, and throw in the daywalker’s venom that he’d only learned of recently, it was all starting to fit why they’d need such a thing to even the balance between the two walkers. But Lara’s ability to compel had been incredibly strong tonight. To the point where he, even with his many years, had never seen the like.
Did this new gift come from all the blood of the ancient Sanguenna she’d supped?
What with that and her immediate desire for hot chocolate and a panini, he thought Lara was far more powerful than she’d ever been.
Maybe more than any other Sanguenna had ever been too.
After all, nightwalkers drank from daywalkers. Never from their own kind.
What had happened with her was unparalleled. Especially with Sanguennas as ancient as those from his world. Like Lara’s grandmother, who had decided it was time to walk into the sun, many Vampires did not live to ripe old ages. The women in his world were rare. They lived with and for their mates, their years extended thanks to the longevity of a Dragon’s lifespan. Their power was condensed, coming from another time. What Lara had ingested was something no other had ever been granted.
So, no, Lara’s case was truly unprecedented, which only added to his concern, for unique was never a great thing to be when it came to such matters. It meant there was no one else to compare to, which put them both out in the cold.
His leman remained silent as the hordes finally stopped trickling in. She cast a glance around the congregation, looking for something—he couldn’t say what—but she seemed to find it because she finally got to her feet.
She’d called the meeting in the late hours of a nightwalker’s hours of wakefulness. After she’d spoken with Megan, they’d returned to her home, where she’d changed into clothes that, according to her, didn’t make her feel like a character in an Emily Brontë novel. Having no idea who Emily Brontë was, he wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, but spying her in tight jeans was very satisfying so he decided not to complain.
Though she’d looked beautiful in the simple empire lines of her dress, her ass was too delicious to confine in swathes of fabric. At least, that was his opinion, and
his was the only opinion that mattered when it came down to the question of her butt.
His lips twitched because he knew she’d argue with that sweeping statement, but she could. He’d just kiss her to keep her quiet.
She seemed to sense his amusement because her eyes caught his at that precise moment. Maybe she saw the banked fire in his gaze, because her eyelids swept low, and when they opened, revealed the quicksilver that said her nightwalker was very much in the building.
The congregation saw her eyes, and immediate whispers and mutterings began to buzz around the church. The acoustics only increased the sound, making it seem like two thousand voices were chuntering away instead of less than a thousand.
“Marcus asked where I’d been.” Her words, not shouted, her voice barely above normal volume, had the church plunging into silence. “It would surprise most of you to know that I was in the other realm. Those of you who were curious as to my whereabouts will be stunned further to know that there are some amongst you who would be surprised I was even standing here at all.”
Marcus, the man who’d approached her before, jumped to his feet. “What are you talking about, Sanguenna?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Sit down, Marcus. You might be my right hand man, but you’re getting on my nerves.”
He glared at her, but begrudgingly took a seat again. When he folded his arms, she nodded at him. “Thank you.” Turning back to the rest of the coven, she murmured, “Five nights ago, I was attacked. A small horde of daywalkers set upon me. They bit me. I almost died.”
If the whispers and mutterings of before had been loud, that was nothing to the chaos that fell now. She seemed content for the raucous noise to take precedence, however, allowing her people to discuss and dissect this gossip.
All the while, her gaze flittered here and there among the crowd.
Georgios watched her, uninterested in her coven. He was at the head of the church, but at the side. No one had really spotted him, because they didn’t think to look for him, but he’d make his presence known if the time came for it to be a necessity.
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